IRMA GLUYAS.
It was four days after the sailing of the secret mission of
justice when Witherspoon said adieu to Miss Alice Worthington at
the Forty-second Street station. With a wise forethought, the young
lawyer had succeeded in his innocent ruse to distract attention.
Mr. Lemuel Boardman not only called the young heiress back to
Detroit, for the probate of her father's will, but sent on his wife
as a courteous convoy to make sure of the girl wife's acquiescence.
It was none too soon. For a haggard anxiety now drew lines upon the
heiress' fair brow. News from the pursuers could only be expected
in a fortnight, and Witherspoon feared the strain of a momentous
secret upon the young beauty's nerves. Her soul longed for Randall
Clayton's complete vindication. "One hint, and Ferris would take
flight," mused Jack. "And if there were accomplices, they are surely
watching her every movement."
And yet it was an ordeal, this parting. For the hundredth time,
Witherspoon promised to come by the first train to Detroit with the
tidings of the secret quest, and a score of times he was forced
to deny Alice Worthington's tearful pleading. "Let me know to
whom I can make restitution," she cried. "This will--who has it?
The beneficiary may sorely need poor Randall's strangely withheld
fortune!"
"Only when justice is done will that claimant appear," firmly
answered Witherspoon. "You trust me now with the handling of your
fortune! Trust me yet a little longer with that secret. I will
telegraph you of the success or failure of our expedition.
"And then all will be made plain to you when Atwater returns. There
must be no failure of justice. We will repay the villains to the
uttermost farthing."
And, in his turn, Witherspoon was sorely baffled, for the sudden
appointment of Mr. Arthur Ferris of New York as Consul of the United
States at Amoy, China, had been duly gazetted. Only to Stillwell did
the eager Witherspoon confide his fears that one of the unpunished
criminals was escaping in honorable guise.
"You are in error, my boy," confidently answered the legal Solon.
"We have had Ferris shadowed on behalf of the executors ever since
the death of Hugh Worthington. The fact is," he said, lowering his
voice confidentially, "Senator Dunham is at the helm in this thing.
You well know that old Hugh and the Senator were closely allied.
Now, Hugh blindly trusted Ferris, as the statesman's nephew, and,
in fact, Ferris is, to a certain extent, a very dangerous customer
for all of us. He had papers and secrets which might ruin his uncle,
and a discovery of the hidden relations with Hugh would gravely
affect our company's commanding position. Old Boardman has had a
week of private conference with Senator Dunham.
"Boardman knew every secret of poor old Hugh's heart. Dunham and
Boardman have gone over all the documents and matters surrendered
by Ferris, and the Senator vouches for Ferris' future silence.
"He has himself set off a hundred thousand dollars of our stock,
in Ferris' name (in escrow) as a guarantee of the young man's
silence. This is a present to Ferris, who let Dunham have the first
privately telegraphed news of Hugh's death.
"Why, sir. Dunham turned the market for a half million on that! It
appears the daughter telegraphed the first news of the accident to
Ferris, at the old man's dying request. And Ferris cunningly held
it back, so that the Associated Press did not get it for a day.
Then came the panicky drop in our stock. Dunham sold huge blocks
short and filled later at the lowest notch, forty points below!"
"I thought," slowly remarked Witherspoon, "that Ferris would perhaps
try to blackmail the estate!"
"So he did," drily answered Stillwell. "He gets one hundred thousand
dollars in clear settlement of all his claims for legal services
for the past five years, as rendered to the Worthington Estate."
"Oh! I see," bitterly remarked Witherspoon. "Each side puts up a
hundred thousand dollars as the price of his silence!"
"And," curtly said Stillwell, "we now hold Dunham responsible that
Ferris does not return to America for four years. By that time
Dunham's senatorial term will be out. He will retire from politics,
and so, his record and our interests are secure! I always feared
that Ferris would turn up darkly in this sad murder business,"
gloomily added the old lawyer. "But the whole secret inquest so far
proves to me the correctness of Boardman and Warner's judgment.
Ferris feared Clayton's natural influence over the old man, and
his own final game was the daughter's hand, and then the control
of the old man's fortune. He spied on Clayton, lied about him, and
at last brought about the estrangement of the old man and his only
loyal servant in the whole circle.
"Poor Clayton! After his death he fell into a useless fortune!
Miss Worthington has already made arrangements for a magnificent
monument to him in the family plot at Detroit, and Randall Clayton
will be there beside his stern old master. But for Ferris' wiles
Clayton would surely have married that noble girl, and been alive
to-day, a happy man, in Detroit.
"Ferris played a bold game and lost at last. It was the sale of
the Senator's influence for the hand of the heiress. And she now
hates him with an undying bitterness. But you can drop Ferris out
as a suspected murderer. No; Clayton was evidently killed for the
vast funds he carried. And we see, too late, that no less than
three men should ever be trusted to make regular trips with such
great amounts of money. But it's the old story of life. We are all
wise, a day after the fair!"
Ten days after the stout "Rambler" shook out her snowy sails and
flitted away to Bermuda, there was nothing left to ruffle the still
waters of oblivion which had closed over Randall Clayton. Only upon
the face of Robert Wade, Esq., lingered now an anxious expression
of vague unrest.
For the Newport Art Gallery knew the oily beauty of Mr. Adolph
Lilienthal no longer. There was a new face behind the proprietor's
desk, and the "private view" gallery was permanently closed.
The furtive visitors came trooping in and went disconsolately away,
for the private hall entrance was sternly shut and the electric
bell removed. Night after night police, customs, and post-office
officials sat in secret conference over the mysterious threads of
the Baltic smuggling conspiracy now being gathered up while Mr.
Adolph Lilienthal languished in a private cell in Ludlow Street
jail.
He divided his ignorance of what he was "in for" with the frightened
"Ben Timmins," who was safely locked up in a lower tier of the same
human safe deposit bureau, charged with "complicity in smuggling."
The affairs of Magdal's Pharmacy were being conducted by a new
clerk, nominated by the police, all unknown to the Tenderloin
habitues, and a service-paid detective occupied the private office
where the secret connection between Lilienthal and the absent Mr.
Fritz Braun was being daily traced out.
The summer flowers were nodding over poor Randall Clayton's lonely
grave, in the lonely cemetery of Woodlawn, on the September day when
a queerly-assorted party of tourists descended from the train in
the little Silesian village of Schebitz. Doctor William Atwater
was tenderly cautious of the comfort of a veiled invalid woman,
at whose side a sturdy nurse aided the watchful medical attendant.
And none of the gaping yokels of the town obtained even a glimpse
of the sick woman's pale face, as she was conducted to the covered
carriage in waiting for the train.
With some show of state, a resplendent courier and a hard-featured
military-looking stranger drove in advance of the carriage, half
hidden in a hooded country droschky. The slanting summer showers
glittered in the half-veiled sunbeams as the party hastily drove
away toward the summer resort, two leagues away, where jaded
fashionables rejoiced in the healing waters of the Louisen Quelle.
But no one of the gaping throng following the "fremden" guessed at
the errand of this motley throng. In silence the cortege proceeded
until a little by-lane covered with overhanging branches was reached,
leading down into a dell where a natural vista showed an old gray
mansion upon a rocky knoll.
An untrimmed forest around still gave its shelter to bird and hare,
starting out from their coverts as the carriages rolled over the
grass-grown, deserted road. "It is a 'Bleak House,'" murmured
Atwater, gazing out of his carriage at the dreary crags of the
Katzen Gebirge towering up, overhanging the neglected demesne. The
young doctor leaned over and then whispered a few words in the
ear of the apparently invalid woman, who was now trembling like a
leaf.
"Remember, Leah," he sternly said, "your boy's life hangs on your
faith now." Atwater moved a heavy pistol holster around under his
loose top-coat, as the droschky in front of them halted. He sprang
lightly out and walked to where the two other men were busied in
an earnest colloquy.
McNerney, pistol in hand, was gloomily gazing at the turrets of
the gray house. "He may escape us," fiercely said the man who had
traveled from New York, eager to clasp the cold steel on "Mr. August
Meyer's" blood-stained hands.
"Not so," calmly answered the disguised Breslau police sergeant, a
sturdy war veteran. "I have hunted here all over the Adler's Horst.
I know every crag and open spot. My soldiers are now hidden in a
circle all around the old house. The moment that our carriage drives
out into the open, they will close in and arrest every living soul.
Do you see that little white flag flying on a pole on that pile of
rocks? That is my signal that all is ready. Come on, now. We may
not be in at the death."
Atwater had marvelled at the rapid work of the officials in their
three-hours' stay at Breslau, and now he admired the skirmishing
tactics of the veteran as the three men dodged from side to side
while the empty carriage slowly drove down into the open.
The German sergeant threw up his hand and darted forward on the
run as lithe forms in rifle green were seen quickly swarming out
of the woods encircling the old mansion. There was no sign of life
in the low, irregular hunting-lodge, save a pillar of smoke lazily
ascending from the offices in rear.
McNerney was racing along at the German officer's side, his pistol
drawn, and Atwater hardly turned his head as a squad of soldiers
darted out of the encircling thickets.
"He is in there!" shouted a corporal to the Breslau policeman, now
eager to make the capture and share McNerney's promised reward.
The screams of the frightened servants could be heard as the
assailants neared the house. Was it fancy, or did McNerney see a
grim, human face glaring out of the window of a round tower at the
angle of the facade?
"Here; this way!" cried McNerney, as he stumbled into a little
garden where trellised grapevines in olden days made a shaded walk
for the Lady of Adler's Horst.
The group of men stopped aghast as a woman dashed wildly out of
a door opening into a long conservatory. Her voice rang out in a
last, appealing cry for help. She was sorely pressed!
Not three paces behind her trailing white robes, his face convulsed
with passion, Fritz Braun leaped along, in a murderous rage, like
a tiger in pursuit. In his right hand gleamed a flashing knife, and
as the frantic woman tripped and fell, the brute's arm was raised.
But, throwing himself back into the "gallery position," McNerney
tossed his revolver at the point blank. The heavy crack of the
pistol was followed by a yell of rage as the American sprang forward,
planting his foot firmly on Fritz Braun's chest.
Atwater had kicked the knife a score of yards away, when Sergeant
Breyman thrust his burly form in front of the fallen woman.
But, McNerney was sternly covering the fallen form of Braun with
his cocked pistol. "Move, you dog, and I'll blow your brains out!"
he shouted. "Here, Atwater, get the handcuffs out of my left coat
pocket and clap them on this wretch!" There were a half-dozen men
now holding down the defiant murderer, whose right arm lay limply
at his side.
The second carriage had boldly driven across the lawn, and Leah
Einstein leaped lightly to the ground. She was all unveiled now,
and Irma Gluyas uttered a faint cry as the handsome Jewess stood
spellbound before the astounded prisoner.
Sergeant Breyman had already knotted a handkerchief around the
prisoner's bleeding arm, when Dennis McNerney, in a ringing voice,
cried, "August Meyer, alias Fritz Braun, I arrest you for the murder
of Randall Clayton!"
With one shuddering sigh, Irma Gluyas fell prostrate upon the
grassy sward. "Take her into the house, men," cried the sergeant,
as a score of hardy soldiers now closed around the excited group.
"Go with them, Leah," said Atwater. "I'll just glance at this
scoundrel's arm, and then come in to you."
When the riflemen bore the now fainting prisoner into the dreary
granite-walled lodge, McNerney whispered to Atwater, "Look out
for him! I must take the nurse and Leah, and try to locate Braun's
plunder. These Germans must never know of that."
With all the formality of a martinet, Sergeant Breyman now posted
his guard, leaving a corporal and two men with the young surgeon,
for Atwater only lived now to see Braun dragged back to his punishment.
There was no mistake, for McNerney had whispered, "It's the Sixth
Avenue druggist, sure enough! I am a made man for life!"
The few household servants were being paraded and questioned by the
German official, while Dennis McNerney, followed by Leah, glided
through the rooms of the second story. A glance told the practical
officer where Braun had made his own headquarters.
"The southwest bedroom and second-story turret gave a view of all
of the approaches to the Adler's Horst."
Guns and sharpened hunting implements easily showed Braun's
preparations for defense, and his presumed relaxation.
When McNerney had glanced at Irma Gluyas' own retreat, he hastily
locked the door of Braun's separate retreat. The policeman's quick
eye had caught sight of the inner bolts and chains! "The stuff
is surely hidden near here! I must make my play upon his pretty
companion." When McNerney rejoined Doctor Atwater, the physician
had already left Braun to the formal questioning of the methodical
sergeant.
Irma Gluyas was now sobbing wildly, her head resting on the bosom
of the woman who had been Braun's dupe as well as slave; the woman
who had feebly enacted the role of Madame Raffoni.
And now the whole frightful truth had dawned upon the beautiful
Magyar. She gazed despairingly at McNerney when he quickly said:
"You can purchase your own safety; you can aid us now. Tell me, where
did he hide the quarter of a million he stole? For this scoundrel
only did murder to reach the fortune carried by poor Clayton!"
"Kill me! Do what you will; I care not," sobbed the singer. "I knew
nothing of these crimes, of either one. Hasten, though. Search well
the second floor of the turret. This fiend spent all his evenings
there alone. He always locked his rooms, and the door into the
tower. Even the servants were not allowed to enter his den! What
you seek must be there! May the curse of God reach him! And now
is my hour of vengeance. He betrayed this poor victim, the man who
died through a noble love for me!"
Only Leah Einstein and the resolute Atwater remained at Irma's
side as McNerney ran upstairs alone. The police matron who had
been Leah Einstein's secret jailer on the voyage was now listening
to Braun's stubborn negations of all Sergeant Breyman's formal
questions.
Atwater, with a touched heart, listened to Irma Gluyas in her
passionate ravings. "The lying fiend! I will tell all! I will go
on my knees to pray God to strike him dead!"
For, at last, the duped woman knew that Randall Clayton was already
cold in death when Braun had forged the lying telegram which bade
her hope for deliverance.
"He watched me, night and day, lest I should try to escape! He
plotted to kill me, but he feared the servants. I always kept a
little peasant child here in my rooms, night and day.
"Our old forester, Hermann, who guards the estate for the young
Count von Kinsky, who is travelling over the world for four years,
is good and true. He is Frida's uncle. And I told him all my fears.
I had only a few jewels, my own. Braun feared to give me money.
But Hermann was arranging to help me away to Poland, when you came.
Once there I would have been safe from Braun. He would not have
dared to claim me. And Hermann, the forester, is known to all the
officials. He has charge of the estate.
"Braun feared him. He dared not take me away, for I would not go.
It has been the slavery of hell itself. But I baffled him! Four
times a day Hermann came for my orders, and I always left a little
light burning in one window of my rooms. Every night one of the
men watched. My food was prepared by little Frida alone, and she
never left my side. Braun dared not poison me! I waited, and he
waited. What did he wait for?"
"HE WAITED FOR ME," cried Leah Einstein, in a fit of remorseful
tears, now anxious to save her boy.
She seized Atwater's arm with trembling hands. "Your police
detective did not get Braun's first letter to me. He begged me to
come to him. He was to get rid of this poor girl, and I was to live
like a lady."
The two guilty women were weeping together when McNerney stole into
the room. He drew the young doctor aside.
"Our main work is done here," he whispered. "Now get these two
women in trim so they will not tell anything to our German friends.
You and I can handle this quest alone. I've found out his hiding
place!"
While the matron delayed Sergeant Breyman below, Atwater and McNerney
ascended to the murderer's lair.
"I at once saw that the flagstones of the fireplace in the turret
had been lifted," hoarsely whispered the overjoyed Dennis. "With
this old boar spear I pried up the slabs. It's all down in there.
A valise full of notes! Here! Help me drag this couch over the
stones, and move the furniture. The German police must not see
this. To-night you and I will gather up the harvest!"
The athletic young men worked with a will. In five minutes the
panting McNerney said, "Safe enough now from the ox-eyed German
detective! Let us go down. How badly is he hurt?"
"His right arm is merely disabled! It's a very severe flesh wound,"
complacently answered the doctor. "Just enough loss of blood and
following inflammation to leave him as helpless as a lamb in our
hands."
"I want to take the wolf home," growled McNerney, "and to see him
sit in the chair of death. I'll give him no chance to play tricks!"
There was little sleep in the old schloss of Adler's Horst on this
eventful night. The regular pacing of sentinels reechoed upon the
porticos, and a squad of hearty German soldiers made merry in the
servants' hall with the released domestics.
Stout Ober-forster Hermann listened, with mouth agape, to Sergeant
Breyman's loud denunciation of the wounded prisoner as the two
men exchanged confidences, in the dining hall, where antlers and
wolves' heads, grinning bears' skulls, and eagles' wings told the
tale of many a wild jagd.
In the library, where Braun lay under guard, the two Americans
were as powerless as Sergeant Breyman to break down Fritz Braun's
dogged reserve. The only growl which escaped his bearded lips was
a muttered curse. "Damn you both! In five minutes I would have
silenced that lying jade's tongue forever."
It was four days after the surprise of Adler's Horst when the strangers
left the estate to the care of rugged old Forster Hermann. Far and
near, the simple country folk came to gaze upon the "Amerikanische"
desperado, as the cortege of three carriages and two wagons drew
slowly away from the schloss.
The soldiery had now all departed, save a corporal and three men,
and peace reigned over the woods given up again to the elk and
roebuck.
Atwater and McNerney were astonished at Fritz Braun's stolid
indifference. The whole drama was now laid bare up to the fatal
moment when the entrapped Clayton was left helpless under Braun's
strangling fingers.
The news of the capture, cabled over to New York City, had sent Jack
Witherspoon whirling away to Detroit to give to Alice Worthington
the news of the successful capture, and a proximate vengeance for
Clayton's murder.
Braun's defiant mood still continued. The only request he had made
of the two friends was that he might have the necessary clothing
for his homeward voyage.
With keen eyes, McNerney and Atwater searched all the articles
reserved for the use of the sullen wretch, whose inflamed wound
now rendered him almost helpless.
The whole crime seemed to be now cleared up from the frank confessions
of Leah Einstein and the unknown Magyar beauty.
"It has been a great campaign," said McNerney, as he saw Braun,
guarded by four soldiers, start slowly toward the village under the
convoy of Sergeant Breyman. "He spent but little of the plunder!
Here we have recovered nearly two hundred and fifty-five thousand
dollars in bills and good cheques! He evidently feared to attract
attention by any undue luxury."
They had removed every scrap of the belongings of both the fugitives.
"I can understand this wretched Leah, now," said Atwater. "She would
have been Braun's willing tool in hiding his final murder of Irma
Gluyas. Braun needed her aid, and would have given her the slave's
dole of comfort. But this beautiful wanderer! She hails with delight
her return to America! Is it her frantic desire for vengeance? She
had learned to love poor Clayton! And her whole soul is fixed on
Braun expiating the murder. Prison she fears not."
Neither man knew of the singer's fear lest an Austrian dungeon
might open its iron cells to her, should Braun be discovered to be
the fugitive Hugo Landor.
"No one can read a woman's heart!" mused McNerney. "Judges and
juries, the journals and the public, fancy these poor wretches,
hunted down for their beauty, are different from their more
fortunate sisters. I've not found it so. There's some womanhood
left in every one of them, and there are manifold temptations and
weaknesses in the lives of many who walk serenely in honor. At the
last, all men and women are much the same; only, once started on
the downward path, not one in a thousand ever is checked!
"This Irma is not such a bad woman; with a better chance she might
have been some one's heart darling for all time. The only thing I
cannot see is how Braun killed this man so quietly."
Both of the friends had discerned no more than the final trap. The
fatal lure of Irma Gluyas' beauty!
Braun, at last becoming distrustful of the woman whose heart was
rebaptized in love, had acted on the moment, and his crafty advantage
was taken of Clayton's headlong passion.
"It is clear poor Leah was only used as a stool-pigeon; she is far
too cowardly to harm the meanest creature," said Atwater. "In some
way, Braun must have given Clayton a stupefying poison, and then
strangled him.
"In that lonely place, he undoubtedly hid the body and had it
thrown overboard later. Of course, it was probably hidden in some
case or box, perhaps a great trunk, and then cast into the bay by
others. One thing is sure, we will never know from this brute's
confession. He will die mute."
"You are right," said McNerney; "for he will go grimly silent to
the chair, a thug and a murderer, in heart and soul.
"This fellow could have prospered in any decent line of life! He
is only one more to make the bitter discovery THAT CRIME DOES NOT
PAY! It is both stupid and useless. But the criminal only finds
this hard truth out too late. He will never get away from me, alive
or dead; back he goes to New York." And yet McNerney forgot his
keenest daily precautions, deceived by the apparent helplessness
of the wounded murderer.
The strangely-assorted party were hurried through Breslau by the
authorities, and Sergeant Breyman proudly wore Doctor Atwater's
gold repeater as a parting present, when the train rushed away,
bearing the secretly raging criminal back to a shameful death.
"I shall not sleep till I get that fellow safely in an iron tank
stateroom on the Hamburg steamer," said the stern-eyed McNerney,
preparing to lock Braun's wrist to his own. "After we sail, we can
have him watched, night and day; then, you and I can rest!"
The secret of the vast money recovery had been faithfully kept, and
even when the "Fuerst Bismarck" turned the Lizard and sped out on
the Atlantic, few of the passengers suspected that a daring criminal
was imprisoned below.
While Doctor Atwater keenly watched the bewitching Irma Gluyas
and the now happy Leah, the returning tourists supposed them to
be only a lady of rank and her waiting women.
McNerney, sure of his princely reward, now never left his prisoner,
and the recovered funds were duly locked in the liner's great steel
steamer safe.
So it was left to William Atwater to draw out, bit by bit, the
whole story of Irma Gluyas' wasted life.
A pale-faced, stately beauty, steadfast and silent, was the wretched
woman who had innocently lured Clayton to the murder chamber.
It was easy for Atwater, in his professional experience, to
discover from the final unbosoming of both the women, that Braun
had artfully drugged and stupefied his beautiful decoy, so that she
was incapable of warning Clayton, or interrupting the leisurely
disposition of the murdered man's body.
"He must have changed his first plans," mused Atwater, "only guided
by his desire to have the money so imprudently trusted to one man."
There was life in Leah Einstein's heart once more, for she now knew
that her graceless son was probably safe from prison.
Sly, secretive, and slavishly devoted to the young reprobate, the
sin-soiled woman had successfully hidden all which could in any
way implicate the dishonest office boy.
When the great ship neared Sandy Hook, William Atwater frankly
answered Irma Gluyas' wailing cry, "Why do I not throw myself over
there, in search of peace?"
For the gnawing of conscience had made the Magyar girl's life a
torment. "It is not for me to judge you; it is only for me to help
you!" sadly said the young physician.
"You have aided to bring many sorrows and sufferings on others!
Work out your own salvation! You were born a Catholic.
"Your religion has orders where repentant women can toil among the
suffering in schools or in the hospitals. It has its great work
among the helpless. Hide your dangerous beauty there, among those
who give their lives up to good works.
"And you will find peace and hope stealing to your side. God gave
you a life; you have no right to throw it away." The poor, repentant,
soiled one seized his hand and kissed it, while bitter tears rained
from her eyes. "I will work; I will go where I cannot be hunted
into a deeper hell than my accusing conscience brings up!"
There was a grim vigilance in every movement of Dennis McNerney as
he watched the now haggard-eyed Braun in the tank cell far below
the decks, where Fashion's children gaily chattered.
Only a few gruff sentences had ever escaped the murderer on the long
voyage, and only a horrible curse had answered the proposition of
Atwater and McNerney that a full confession might, in some way,
soften the brute's impending doom.
The room where Braun was confined was bare of all lethal implements
with which he might effect a suicide, and two stalwart men were
his room-mates.
When the quartermasters, at midnight, peered out for the first
glimpse of Fire Island light, Dennis McNerney, pacing the deserted
deck, almost alone, revolved his plan of inspecting the sullen
prisoner at intervals of every three hours during the night. "It
is a desperate human brute, that one," muttered the sturdy policeman;
"but, I've brought him safely home."
While a wild coast storm raged, and the screaming gulls circled
around the plunging ship; while shrill winds moaned in the steel
rigging, McNerney crept down for the last time before sighting
land, at four o'clock, to peer through the grated door and see
Fritz Braun lying prone--a confused heap--his coat rolled up as a
pillow under his head.
The wounded arm alone was free; the other, shackled to a broad
belt, was locked around the prisoner's waist.
"He is sleeping like a child," mused the officer. "In a few hours
he will be safely in the Tombs, and my long watch will be over!"
The great liner was grandly sweeping up to Quarantine, when Dennis
McNerney leaped from his berth and followed the startled cabin-boy,
who shook him roughly.
"Come down, sir! THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG!" the boy babbled. "Get
Doctor Atwater, instantly!" cried McNerney, as he rushed down into
the ship's hold.
One glance at the guarded door was sufficient.
One of the careless keepers was clamoring for admittance, while
the other bent over a rigid form lying there, prone and ghastly,
in the gray morning light stealing in at the little porthole.
"It happened while I was out at breakfast," pleaded the unfaithful
watcher, whom McNerney roughly cast aside.
Atwater was at McNerney's elbow when the frightened inmate had
unlocked the door of the strong room. One shake of the recumbent
form told the story. "He has cheated the executioner," solemnly
said Atwater, letting the lifeless hand fall heavily from his grasp.
"He lay that way all the while since your last visit," said the
sullen derelict keeper.
A hasty search of the cell showed an empty vial. "Chloral! Here is
the key to the mystery!" cried Atwater, examining the coat, flung
aside when the body was lifted. "See this torn sleeve! The murderer
had hidden the bottle of poison here in the thick breast-wadding
of the coat under the coat-sleeve. He waited coolly for the deed
till the last night before our landing."
Atwater again inhaled the odor of the narcotic. "Chloral, sure
enough!" he slowly said. "A two-ounce vial, and probably mingled
with some more deadly poison! Probably the 'knock-out drops' the
wretch used formerly to peddle to convicts!"
An hour later a circle of astonished police officials stood around
the corpse of the crafty criminal who had passed beyond man's
jurisdiction. "A desperate wretch," said the chief of detectives.
"Fritz Braun, the mysterious druggist. He was prepared for the
worst!"
With a quick sagacity, Doctor Atwater had concealed the press
news of the desperate wretch's suicide, having in mind the final
punishment of Lilienthal and Timmins. It was decided by the
police officials to keep the news of the recovery of the fortune an
official secret until all the crafty Baltic smuggling gang should
all be apprehended.
In Irma Gluyas' cabin, Leah Einstein had divulged the whole details
of the cowardly crime, as she had worked them out. It was to Doctor
Atwater alone that Leah freely unbosomed herself.
In return for the Doctor's pledge, now given, to save the precocious
Emil, the timorous Leah gave out the vital keynotes of the Baltic
smugglers' syndicate.
For, at last, the ban of fear was lifted, and the frightened woman
made haste to avail herself of the official clemency offered by
the authorities.
A half-dozen policemen sped away to concert with the United States
deputy marshals for the arrest of a clan of steamship clerks,
stewards, Hoboken hotel-keepers, wharf officials, and others who
had been the tools of the robust-minded Fritz Braun.
There was a happy meeting with Miss Alice Worthington, who was
now seated in Atwater's stateroom, under the care of the triumphant
Jack Witherspoon. The cable had called her from her princely
Detroit home to be the first to hear the whole story of the capture
of Braun from the lips of Atwater and the jubilant Dennis McNerney.
McNerney's triumph had been sadly dashed by the successful suicide
of the great criminal.
"Never mind," kindly said the chief of police. "It was not your
fault! This makes you a Sergeant, Dennis." The happy officer's
eyes glistened as he saluted.
And ten minutes later he knew from the rosy lips of the great heiress
that the full reward of twenty-five thousand dollars given by the
company, and the same by Miss Worthington was now payable to him
on the deposit of the recovered funds and cheques with the Western
Trading Company.
"Five thousand of this is yours, Jim," cordially cried Dennis to
Officer Condon, who had reported on board to announce the well-being
of the office boy prisoner on the yacht "Rambler."
"I'll take another job of cobbler work like that, any time,"
joyously answered Condon, "and, mind you, I'm to be your best man
at the wedding!"
For Dennis McNerney's new rank and fortune were to be the immediate
cause of his precipitating a hitherto delayed matrimony.
The craft with which Fritz Braun had hidden away the poison in the
padded coat-lining suggested to all the insiders the manner which
he intended to use to rid himself of the repentant and defiant
Irma.
While the chief of police arranged for the secret removal of Fritz
Braun's body at night, there was an earnest conference in Atwater's
stateroom.
"I leave it to you, my brothers," she said, with a pretty blush,
"to arrange for the complete rehabilitation of Randall Clayton's
memory.
"The whole business world must know that he was led to his grave
by an honorable affection, and that the momentary imprudence which
caused him to fall into Braun's trap was the only indiscretion of
his whole career.
"And now, I have a right to demand of you both the name of my dead
foster-brother's heir. The million dollars paid for the poor boy's
half of the Detroit lands is on deposit in the Railway Company's
safes, awaiting the probate of his will."
"HE STANDS BEFORE YOU," gravely said Doctor Atwater, taking her
hand.
"Poor Randall! Some premonition of his doom haunted him. He had
saved some money, and by investments accumulated a little purse
of twenty thousand dollars or so. And this, and all his estate,
he willed to Mr. Witherspoon, as a wedding present for Francine
Delacroix!"
"Why did you not tell me sooner?" reproachfully demanded the heiress,
turning her lovely eyes upon Witherspoon.
"Because I wished to freely aid in running down his murderers; to
clear his memory, and because the great world would have misinterpreted
my zeal. I know the nobility of heart with which your father set
aside this property for Clayton, as soon as he found out the old
title! Had they met at Cheyenne, all would have been well!"
And then Alice Worthington thanked God in her anxious heart that
her dangerous secret was safe. She smiled through her happy tears
as she placed her hand in Witherspoon's. "We will both cherish his
memory, for life! And I now only exact one condition: that is,
that Francine's wedding shall be from my home. We were schoolmates,
and sisters of the heart, though our home was a very quiet one.
My father was averse to all family intimacies. The executors are
ready to make the transfer of the money whenever you prove up poor
Randall's will."
"And I," said Witherspoon, "exact one thing in return. I demand
the right, in honor, to refund to the Trading Company all the money
used by the murderer, the whole search expenses, and the double
rewards. There will be a princely fortune left for me after all,
and this money so used will vindicate poor Clayton's memory from
all blame for his chivalric folly." Alice Worthington bowed her
head in assent, as the spirited young man proceeded.
"When you see Irma Gluyas, you will know what a strange fate overtook
him. For she has been made another woman by the manly love of the
poor fellow who believed in her." The Detroit lawyer was deceived
by the heiress' calmness. "She knew nothing," he mused. "It is
well."
While Atwater busied himself in the removal of the two women who
had been Fritz Braun's dupes, and arranged for young Einstein's
meeting with his mother, and recording the joint confessions of
the two, a surprise awaited Officer Dennis McNerney.
The cabin boy who had been allowed to bring meals to the wounded
prisoner, in fear and trembling, confessed to the baffled policeman
that Braun had given him a hundred-dollar bill which he had managed
to secrete in his trousers waistband, for the promised duty of
writing to Mrs. August Landor, No. 195 Ringstrasse, Vienna, that
her fugitive son, Hugo Landor, had died of fever in a Catholic
hospital at San Francisco, under an assumed name.
The men on watch were all ignorant of German, and so did not detect
the last wishes of the intending suicide.
"But I knew nothing," protested the boy. "I was always freely
allowed to serve him, and so I brought him a scissors and needle
and thread to repair his clothing, which had been cut to accommodate
his arm.
"I thought that his little bottle was only medicine; for he hid it
in his hand, after opening the breast of his coat."
"And so there was one last touch of feeling left in the murderer's
heart," mused the stout policeman. "He wished his poor old mother
to believe that he died decently. Let it be so! She shall not carry
this last shame to her grave.
"And now, to polish off all the underlings of the smuggling conspiracy.
There is both honor and profit in bringing them to book.
"Timmins and Lilienthal may be useful as State's evidence, for
this last fellow saves his neck, perhaps, by Fritz Braun's death.
It can never be known if he was only Braun's tool or the real
inspirer of the crime. He must have found out about the money!"
And so the careful lying of mother and son hid forever the reason
of Braun's plot. The boy was saved.
When the stars of night shone down upon the great ship at her dock,
all signs of the gloomy happening had been carefully hidden. Doctor
Atwater had removed the two women, under guard of the well-rewarded
matron and a skilled detective, to his own apartments, where the
crafty Emil Einstein was brought to meet his poor, doting mother.
The detective captain took charge of the unravelling of the whole
story of Mr. "August Meyer's" Brooklyn career, as well as the
secrets of the crafty druggist, Fritz Braun.
There was a great symposium at Counselor Stillwell's residence by
the leafy borders of the park. The great advocate rejoiced at the
removal of every stain from Clayton's memory, and marvelled greatly
at the deeply-laid snares of the man whose body now lay unhonored
at the morgue.
"You will have to run the company's affairs alone for a month,"
cheerfully said Jack Witherspoon; "for Atwater and I are to
accompany Miss Worthington out to Detroit. Only I bid you all now
to my wedding, which will occur in six months, and Miss Worthington
honors my Francine with throwing her home open for that quiet
ceremony. Atwater is to be the best man!"
"Where is your reward?" softly said Miss Worthington to the faithful
young physician, as they looked out on the evening stars together.
"I can wait!" simply said the young man, and their eyes dropped in
a strange confusion.
But Alice Worthington was in her mind already wondering when the
weary weeks would pass away and free her from the tie binding her
to the man secretly banished to Amoy.