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The Midnight Passenger

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In the dark shadows of the involved angular corners, thug and ghoul
lurked until midnight should bring them their prey, the careless
roysterer, or the belated prosperous citizen. Out on Layte Street
the flashy throng was still pouring toward the Fulton Ferry.

"I wonder if I dare," mused the lad, as he walked around the corner
and paused before No. 192 Layte Street. The sober splendor of the
richly decorated old five-story brownstone told of the vanished
glories of the ante-bellum days.

A stately mansion in whose halls there had been royal cheer in the
departed days when Brooklyn had its proud burghers and New York its
simple citizens of worth. But the pressure of commerce, the havoc
of the bridge construction, the onrush of warehouse, shop, and the
pressure of the street railway octopus had left the sedate mansion
a relic of better days in an incongruous medley of little shops,
doubtful lodging-houses, vile man-traps, and clustering saloons.

Here the Juggernaut car of King Alcohol was rolling on remorselessly,
crushing out all life save the frenzied dream of the dipsomaniac.

But the lad paused and shook his head as he noted the windows of
the old English basement tightly barred. The parlor floor, bearing
the gilded sign, "Parisian Millinery Repository," was darkened, and,
above, the three upper floors presented only an array of undraped
windows solidly shut off by white-enamelled inside folding blinds.
The decorous-looking main entrance bore but one card, in script,
"Raffoni, Musical Director."

For years the neighborhood had forgotten its curiosity over the
foreign-looking men and women who passed the vigilant Cerberus at
the stately oaken door. No daring book-agent, no pedlar of indurated
cheek, no outside barbarian had ever crossed that guarded portal,
for a brass chain of impregnable strength prevented any intrusion,
and only a glimpse of the old tesselated marble floor rewarded the
frightened interloper.

It was "No Thoroughfare" to the multitude, and the quaint visitors
were either personally conducted or used latch-keys.

The over-fed policeman sucking his club in front of 192 Layte only
smiled in answer to vague inquiry, "Private house, belongs to old
family estate, people in Europe," and then with a leer would drop
into the "Valkyrie" for a fistful of good cigars and a flask of
the very best.

The timid young scoundrel lingering before 192 on this fresh,
starry night was the only "outsider" who knew what deadly master
mind controlled the mysteries of the "Valkyrie" saloon and 192
Layte Street, its sedate neighbor.

The particular use of the "fake" millinery repository, the hidden
life of the upper floors of the old mansion, were only known to
the man whom Emil Einstein feared to meet in anger.

But in the Devil's auction of the corner building, man, woman and
child were knocked down to the highest bidder, for the hell-minted
price of human souls.

Gambler, crook and thief; wanton, decoy and badger; racing tout,
fugitive, smuggler, and counterfeiter; lottery sharp and green-goods
man, all welcomed the white, red and blue lights gleaming over the
"Valkyrie" saloon as the harbor-lights of their safe port in any
storm.

"I have it," muttered Einstein, as he boldly threw open the swinging
half door of the "Valkyrie." Shading his eyes in the flood of
garish light, he gazed around at the twenty round tables. Six alert
barkeepers lurked in front of the superb mirrors behind the rich
walnut counters gleaming with crystal and silver.

The music of the Orchestrion bore away on its flood of Strauss
waltzes the shrill chatter of women's laughter in the inside hell
of the private rooms.

Opening doors admitted fragments of poker gabble as the white-aproned
waiters rushed around with their trays of drinks.

With artful geography of arrangement, gaudy women from the side
street, at tables, were parading their too evident charms before
the crowd of clerks, men about town, warrant officers, railroad
employees, old roués, sporting men and belated "slummers" who leered
at every arrival of "fresh fish."

Young Einstein, scribbling the single word "Emil" on a card, approached
the parchment-faced German lad who sat in state, manipulating the
bewildering keys of the "Cash Register."

"Send this to the boss at once," said Einstein in a low voice.

"You can't see him," contemptuously announced the insolent
Jack-in-office, tossing back the card. He scented a possible
successor in this vulpine-looking young stranger. But Einstein
resolutely came back to the charge. "It's his business, and he'll
jerk you out of your job if you throw me down. I will not stir a
step till I see him. Send it up."

And Emil made a significant gesture with a defiant thumb.

Audacity carried the day! Young Einstein, coolly purchasing
a Regalia and seating himself at a table, grinned a last defiance
as a "Kellner" finally touched his arm and led him into a vacant
card-room.

Down a stairway came the sounding tread of a heavy man, and Einstein
was in the presence of Mr. Fritz Braun.

"It's about him, Clayton," faltered the boy, awed at his employer's
lowering face.

"Come with me," harshly said Braun, as he led the lad up to the
third floor. When they had entered a rear sleeping-room, Braun
locked the door. "Tell me all," he anxiously cried. "Out with it.
If you lie you'll never leave this house, remember!"

With chattering teeth, the lad delivered himself of his discovery.
It was only after half an hour of cross questioning that Braun was
satisfied with the details of Robert Wade's espionage of Randall
Clayton. "You've done well, for yourself," said Braun, at last,
handing the boy a roll of bills. "But never come here again. I'll
give you an address to-morrow where you can call, telephone or
telegraph, and a name. Post me on all. Keep this from your mother.
I'll handle her myself. Now, by day you can slip over to the store,
by night use the new address. Get home now. Go over the ferry."
He filled the boy's hand with loose silver. "I'll stay here. Speak
to no one. Get out quickly by the side door."

Emil Einstein was safely across the Fulton Ferry before he had
realized the startling change in Fritz Braun's appearance. The flowing
golden beard, the blue glasses, the padded clothes of middle-age
cut were gone. Fritz Braun, lithe, sharp-faced, with piercing eyes,
a dashing cavalry mustache, and dapper Wall Street tailoring, was
twenty years younger, and another man.

His diamond jewels, rakish air and "loose fish" manner bespoke the
flush book-maker or the flashy "boss."

"Here's for a night on the Bowery," gleefully cried Einstein,
counting his Judas gains, while he tried to forget Fritz Braun's
lightning change.

That dapper gentleman, stepping into a closet, passed swiftly
through the door from the Valkyrie into 192 Layte Street. His
hidden pool-room, gambling den and exchange for soul and body was
temporarily forgotten by "Mr. August Meyer," owner of the peerless
"Valkyrie Saloon."

"I'll get a carriage and drive over to Irma," he growled. "She must
never cross the river again. We must lead him over here; but how?
Perhaps the pretty devil can help me. I must throw Wade off the
track. Irma can fool this young greenhorn. The job must be done
over there. For a fortune, for his life or mine; and he must be
teased along till the July holidays."

Then Mr. August Meyer of Brooklyn proceeded to leisurely array
himself as a clubman of fashion.






CHAPTER V.

BREAKERS AHEAD! CHECKMATE! MR. ARTHUR FERRIS WORKS IN THE DARK.





Randall Clayton was an enigma in his altered personal bearing
to his old confrères when he entered the manager's office at his
summons on a balmy afternoon of the dying days of June.

The two months since Jack Witherspoon's departure had changed the
frank young fellow into a taciturn man of feline secretiveness. The
discovery of Worthington's treachery, the knowledge of the dogging
spies at his heels, had been a suddenly transforming influence. He
now ardently burned for the return of his one confidant, for the
annual election was but a few days distant.

The ripening summer was coming on fast. On Fifth Avenue the delicate,
haughty-faced young Princesses of Mammon now bore the June blush
roses in their slender pitiless hands. The annual hegira pleasureward
was beginning.

And as yet only Randall Clayton's burning eyes marked the conflict
raging in his soul. But he longed to leap into the open, and boldly
defy Worthington. For a new purpose had stolen upon him in these
weeks--the sudden desire for wealth.

He craved money for but one object--to cast it at the feet of
Irma Gluyas and then to bear her away from a world of lies to the
storied Danube, where woman's rosy lip rests in clinging transports
upon lips speaking the wild love of the gallant Magyar land. He
now knew the power of wealth. Clayton had become as secretive as
the young Pawnee on his first warpath. He was now watching the
enemy's camp and awaiting the moves of both the guilty employer
and false friend.

Through the still subsidized Einstein he knew that the bootless
espionage upon his leisure hours had been given up at last. He had
baffled his enemies.

It had not been done by fear of the clumsy artifices of Robert
Wade, but a desire born of his overmastering love for Irma, to
guard her every footstep. His heart melted in its memories of that
crowning hour of the avowal of his love, when she had whispered,
"I dare not take you to my home! Wait, Randall, wait, and trust
all to me."

Two months past had seen him plunging deeper into the mad love,
more blindly, every day, sinking into the hungry passion, waxing
into a fond delirium, under the artful orders of a veiled Mokanna.
"You must lead him on, far as you can; make him forget everything
in the world but yourself; promise him all, and grant him nothing."

A thousand plans had been revolved by Clayton for the future, but
the delicious thralldom of his love drew him to Irma Gluyas as the
moon draws the sea.

It had been his own jealous lover heart which bade her meet him in
all distant places, but to always shun the city with Wade's baffled
spies still on the watch.

For once, the orders of the double traitor Einstein were identical,
as neither the artful Braun nor the anxious lover cared to risk
the dangers of Irma's face meeting the gaze of the watchful Wade.

In a guarded silence the young cashier awaited Mr. Robert Wade's
official action on this June afternoon. He was only vaguely
aware by rumor that Hugh Worthington and Miss Alice still lingered
somewhere on the Pacific Coast.

There had been no further word from Arthur Ferris, and the
all-important election was but a week distant now. Clayton keenly
watched the solemn-faced manager as he drew out some papers from
a bulky envelope. There was but one phase in his now double life
of which Clayton naturally feared the exposure.

Warned by Witherspoon, Clayton had watched the steady rise of the
Western Trading Company's stock, week by week, during the absence
of the arbiter of its destinies. His veins were filled with the
tide of a new-born passion.

Clayton had boldly risked all his savings in the margining of
large blocks of the stock, dealing constantly through a Wall Street
friend.

Three times he had fortunately turned over his capital since
Witherspoon had unveiled the scheme to draw in a majority of the
shares, and he was now sixteen thousand dollars to the good. Even
after lavishing a goodly part of his gains upon the mysterious
diva, in every fantastic way possible, in their stealthy meetings,
Clayton still had pyramided his capital and now was sure of another
harvest. And he only wondered at the reluctance with which the
lovely Hungarian accepted the jewels thrust upon her.

"I will sell out the day before the election," mused Clayton, as
he awaited the manager's slow mental processes. "Then I can even
stand a discharge," he defiantly thought.

The young man's face paled suddenly as Wade handed him a telegram
addressed in the care of the manager. "When you have carefully read
this," said Wade, "I will give you Mr. Worthington's own ideas,
from his confidential instructions to me."

Conscious that he was now environed in the house of his enemies,
Randall Clayton sat for some time there, silently pondering the
suddenness of a proposal which affected his whole future career.

"You are wanted as general superintendent of all of our Western
ranches. Headquarters at Cheyenne. Please telegraph acceptance,
and meet Ferris at Cheyenne in four days. He leaves to-day. Answer.
Wade has my full instructions."

The blood surged back to Randall Clayton's heart in a defiant flood.
"They know nothing; but I'll hear him out."

It was twenty minutes before the manager had finished the explanation
of the measure proposed and had dilated upon the advance of salary,
the future prospects, and all the ultimate benefits of the parties
to this autocratically suggested change. "He has been secretly
coached up by Ferris," thought the suspicious Clayton. But he gave
no sign of his secret distrust.

"Of course," purringly remarked Robert Wade, "it is a little sudden;
but I am authorized to make you a half year's salary allowance for
first expenses and outfit, and so you can easily get away to-morrow
night. That will bring you out to Cheyenne in time to meet Ferris,
and then get your instructions. He is coming on to look at the annual
accounts and give Mr. Worthington's views as to your successor."

Wade pushed over a telegraph blank. "Just write out your telegram,
and I will send it on at once. You will accept, of course."

Randall Clayton had schooled himself since Jack Witherspoon's
departure in every defensive measure against the secret plotters.
And so his voice was suave and measured as he simply said, "I think,
Mr. Wade, that I shall have to regretfully decline this promotion.
I am perfectly well satisfied as I am. I know nothing of the details
of our great Western business. I have forgotten the frontier now."

The lines in Wade's face hardened. "Is that your only reason? You
will soon pick up the technique!"

Clayton stood the fire of the vulpine gray eyes without a quiver.
Jack Witherspoon's warning injunctions returned to his mind. "Look
out, my boy, that they don't get you sidetracked in some lonely
place. They would kill you like a rat if our design to uncover
the past was ever discovered."

Clayton but too well knew how easily a man could be lost forever out
in the Black Hills, or along the lonely Platte. "It is their grand
final move before bringing out Ferris as the new-made capitalist.
My life would not be worth a pin-head. And Witherspoon would be
far away out of reach. Irma lost to me forever!"

The jealous lover could almost see the crowded opera-house and
hear that now familiar witching voice. He knew that men would
bow before her beauty; that flowers, jewels, flattery and fortune
would be showered upon her. The hungry "upper ten" pine for new
victims with unsatisfied maw. He had already dedicated his coming
fortune to her; she should be his heart-queen, and together they
would go back and buy the old family castle, whose legends had
fallen from her lips in the stolen hours of the long love trysts
of the last two months.

"I cannot accept this flattering offer, Mr. Wade," resolutely said
the young man, who now saw a steely anger in the manager's eyes.
"I have given the flower of my youth to Mr. Worthington's service;
but this is a total change, a sudden break-up of all my private
plans. I beg that you will at once telegraph him my respectful
declination."

Clayton rose with a look on his face which completed Wade's thorough
annoyance. "Stop, sir; stop! Think before you throw away all your
chances in life! You can have a whole day to think this over. Would
you forfeit Mr. Worthington's regard and so lose your place?"

There was a strident anger in the manager's harsh voice. But Clayton,
realizing that he had even till now not been able to gain Irma's
pictured face, looked forward to the heart-wreck of this enforced
absence. "If I am to be cast out like a dog after my faithful
service, then you must do it, sir," gravely said Clayton, Witherspoon's
warnings returning to stiffen his resolution. "Why not await Mr.
Ferris' arrival? I may be able to reach Mr. Worthington's second
thoughts through him." The agent of the two far off conspirators
lost his self-control at last.

"I'll await nothing," roared Robert Wade. "That will do, sir!" And
as the defiant Clayton retired, the manager rang for a telegraph
boy.

"I have given them checkmate," mused Clayton, as he snapped his
door behind him. "Their plans probably included making away with
me, out West, after Ferris has done his work and returns to openly
claim Alice's hand. It is a fight for my life now. I must reach
Irma at once. I must tell her all."

Suddenly he thought of the future. His heart sickened. "Wade will
undoubtedly recommend my discharge. If Jack fails me, I am then
to be cast out in the streets, and the influence of the Trust will
surely keep me from holding any other position longer than they
can find out where to reach me."

He absently broke the seals of a couple of letters dropped on his
desk in his brief absence.

He sprang up, a new man, as he read Jack Witherspoon's few words.
The missive was dated from Paris. It bore in its light-hearted
chatter a few words which sealed his fate in life.

"Am coming home at once. Will be with you in ten days. Let nothing
prevent our meeting in New York. Will act instantly in your matter.
Have had private news. They were secretly married a month ago at
Tacoma. Be on your guard!"

Seizing his hat, Randall Clayton hurried away to the nearest
telegraph office, where he felt safe from Robert Wade's spies.

"Thank God for Irma's wit," he said, in his heart, as he sent the
veiled words which would bring her to that quiet hotel on Staten
Island, where, among Richmond's leafy bowers, they now defied all
possible detection. It had been her own plan. The long weeks of
Clayton's complete self-surrender had brought about no forward step
in Irma Gluyas' intimacy.

The still silent Madame Raffoni was the careful guardian of the
veiled beauty, and Clayton, loyal to a frenzy of romantic faith,
had never broken his promise.

For he lived only now in Irma's whispered promise, "Wait, and trust
to me. You shall come to me as soon as I can break my bonds. It
shall be then you and I, for the rest of our days, if Love still
holds the helm."

It was long after midnight when the defiant lover returned to his
apartment. The Magyar witch had finally learned the last secret
of his honest heart, and with clinging arms had whispered through
her kisses, "If you leave me, Randall, it is the death of our love."
And, trusting blindly to his honest love, Clayton wagered his life
upon a woman's faith.

Under the door of his room lay a yellow envelope, and as the now
resolute man read it he smiled grimly. "Victory!" he cried, for
Ferris' words assured him of a coming triumph, a crown of life and
love. It seemed that Irma's love had conquered after all.

"Await me in New York. I think that we can arrange all for your
remaining as you are." The signature was that of the artful Ferris.
"And I think that Jack and I can handle you, my false friend!"
sneered Clayton.

While the young lover read the words which gave him a new hope, far
across the Brooklyn Bridge, Mr. Fritz Braun, in his own private
lair, was pondering over the words of Madame Raffoni, who had just
left the man who was the iron tyrant of her soiled life.

"I must give him a little more line! And I must either land the
fish now or lose him forever."

There was a steely gleam in the sleepless eyes of him who pondered
upon his clouded pathway. "It must be done! And she must help in
some way. She holds the winning cards now. Nothing else will draw
him!"

The masquerading criminal was almost desperate. It had been his
by-play for years to p|ay at hide and seek with humanity, using his
duplex characters at first to throw off any pursuit of the Vienna
police; and, later, to hide his nefarious operations on the New
York side.

Greedy for money, before Irma Gluyas had been driven to his arms by
adverse fortunes, Fritz Braun had at first made his refuge at the
"Valkyrie," then owned by Ludwig Sohmer, whose passion for "playing
the races" had at last dragged him down.

The Viennese fugitive diligently plied his erstwhile patron with
drink and smilingly enmeshed the brutish peasant-bred Sohmer in a
series of compounded loans.

It was not long until all the employees recognized in the alert
"August Meyer" the mainstay of the decaying fortunes of the half
bankrupt Sohmer.

Every evening, without fail, the sharp commands of Fritz Braun
were now conveyed to the responsible underlings! Sohmer, staggering
homeward with his greedy Aspasias from the Waterloo conflicts of
the race-track, sullenly assented at last to the chattel mortgages
and bills of sale which placed the "Valkyrie" and the whole building
under August Meyer's name. Then, taking the downward road, Sohmer
tried to drown himself in drink, and succeeded.

When Sohmer was found dead in his bed, the millionaire brewer who
backed the "Valkyrie," and the owner of the ground on which the
building erected by Sohmer stood, gladly took on the active August
Meyer in loco the departed Sohmer.

The solidity of the new tenant's finances was vouched for by the
agents of the old estate from whom Fritz Braun had already leased
192 Layte Street, in his Brooklyn name of "August Meyer."

Strange to say, the keen-eyed officials of the German Consulate-General
had issued to the acute pharmacist a regular passport, upon the
military and family papers of Braun's poor soldier drudge at the
Magdal Pharmacy.

It had been an exchange acceptable to both parties: an ocean
of drink, a weekly pittance of food and raiment, for the valuable
attested documents which gave the disguised Viennese fugitive the
right to boldly claim the Kaiser's official protection as "August
Meyer." It was the very citadel of Braun's rising fortunes!

And so, with Sohmer soundly sleeping, whether well or illy, "after
life's fitful fever," the foxy Viennese rejoiced in his assigned
ground-lease, Sohmer's business, and the gold mine of the hidden
pool-room, gambling den and disguised harem of No. 192 Layte Street.

Fritz Braun had allowed a few months to pass before he secretly
opened the party walls between the two buildings to allow his
choicest patrons to enter No. 192 Layte Street all unobserved; but,
for reasons of his own, he had made one or two private alterations
in the two buildings which enabled him to enter the different floors
by his own judiciously veiled private entrances.

The cellar of No. 192 Layte Street had been piped for cold-storage
of the wines and beer of the "Valkyrie" under Fritz Braun's own
supervision when he gave up the basement of the "Valkyrie" to the
kitchens of the restaurant, which drew the attractive women of the
quarter into the safest possible association with their victims
crowding the "Valkyrie" saloon.

A vigilant business man, August Meyer came each evening to settle
the days' affairs and personally watch the money mill next door,
which ran noiselessly on golden wheels from nine o'clock till
midnight.

No one had Meyer's confidence; he left no tell-tale papers to connect
him with the gruff pharmacist of Sixth Avenue, and at midnight he
always vanished to his own private home, a diligently guarded terra
incognita to all men.

A sphinx-like "Oberkellner" received the orders of the proprietor
each evening; a steward of equal taciturnity "ran" the restaurant,
and August Meyer himself, with autocratic power, directed the
villainous operations of No. 192 Layte Street.

Popular with the police, exact in his monthly settlements with the
ground landlords and the despotic brewery king, Fritz Braun avoided
both the failings which had wrecked the golden fortunes of the dead
Sohmer.

But, alas! no man is equally strong against all temptations. Deaf
to woman's wail; brutal and heartless; too fearful of his past
record to give himself up to the bowl, Fritz Braun, blasé and tired
of every side of human life, had drifted easily into the desperate
craze of the insatiate gambler.

It was months after he had found No. 192 Layte Street to be
a never-failing mint, when Braun became fascinated with the whirr
of the roulette ball, the varying chances of the faro box, and, at
last, the fine peculiarities of "unlimited poker" swept away his
once callous prudence.

Night after night, in the grim quartette of a ruinously high game,
August Meyer "held his hand" recklessly, while a street railroad
magnate, a millionaire importer, and a reigning politician swept
away the revenues of the "Valkyrie." He was rolling the stone of
Sysiphus up hill now. He had forged his own ruin.

Alone in the world, a desperate Ishmael, Fritz Braun needed the
secret protection of these powerful plutocrats. Silently he had
suffered his huge losses, waiting for the luck to turn, and now, on
the eve of his great coup of criminal sagacity, he awoke at last
to his own imperiled fortunes, and yet he feared to own that he
dared not cease gambling, that he could not "throw up his hand."

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