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Midnight Passenger

<h2 id="id00987" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> <h5 id="id00988">THE STRANGE TUG'S VOYAGE.</h5> "Dead, dead, my darling!" almost shrieked Randall Clayton as he cast himself down on his knees at the side of the woman whose faintly fluttering eyelids alone told of the vital spark of life. The dark eyes of Madame Raffoni gleamed pityingly as she drew the young man, almost by force, away. With an agony of sudden terror she pointed to the hallway, and laid her finger upon her lip. And then, in a hoarse whisper, the woman told, in her patois, broken with sobs, of the alternate spells of fainting and exhaustion which had brought Irma Gluyas nigh to Death's door. The darkened rooms were closed, and the air redolent of the pungent narcotic drugs of the sickroom. Utterly unmanned, Randolph Clayton stole back to the old drawing-room, whose rich gilding and frescoed beauties mocked the pale, silent face lying there below. Forgetting all prudence, he covered the limp, helpless hand with burning kisses, gazing into the drooping eyes where he would fain call back a glance of life and love. In this supreme moment she belonged only to him, by right of his loyal love. In the arched doorway of the library stood the timid woman messenger with her hands pressed to her panting bosom. Suddenly Irma Gluyas opened her eyes and a faint murmur broke the silence. "Go, go; for God's sake. They must not find you here. Go! FOR YOUR LIFE!" Her head fell back, but her fingers were closed upon his hand in a despairing clutch. Then Randall Clayton staggered to the library window for breath of air. His heart was beating wildly. Was this the end of all. Life seemed to have fled those beloved eyes; he could see Irma's motionless form lying there, the very apotheosis of Love. He threw himself in a chair, and his pent-up nature gave way at last. Mechanically he swallowed the glass of wine handed him by the watchful Leah, and yet before she had stolen behind a curtained alcove the room seemed to whirl around him. He made a last desperate effort to rise, but reeled around unsteadily and then fell prone upon the tufted carpet. A danger signal had aroused him at last, the sliding of heavy doors which cut off the room where the Magyar witch lay now helpless in the stupor of the criminal's deadliest narcotic. And the frightened Leah Einstein fled away upstairs. She only divined Fritz Braun's purpose as an intended robbery, or some audacious blackmail. Murder had never entered her mind! The strong man lying there upon the floor, with glazing eyes, saw in his last gasps a wolfish face lit up with the fires of hate bending over him. Clayton struggled to draw the pistol which had been his faithful guardian of years. One last flush of expiring reason showed him his life, honor, and a future betrayed into the hands of nameless thugs. But there were sinews of iron in the arm of his unknown assailant now throttling him. A hand of steel grasped his relaxing wrist and the weapon was hurled far away. Standing there, a triumphant Moloch, the unmasked Hugo Landor watched the last struggles of the man relapsed into a helpless insensibility. "Fool, the powder in those cartridges was drawn weeks ago," muttered "August Meyer," as he growled, "This first!" He seized upon the bank portmanteau and then disappeared for a moment. Darting back, he dragged the prostrate form of Randall Clayton out from the corner where it lay. With one mighty effort he raised the heavy body and stealthily descended the stairway into the long-unused basement. Alone, in the darkened horrors of that grewsome cellar, the triumphant criminal hastened to strip the body of the man whom he had lured to a horrible death. The deadly poison in the drugged wine had killed the unfortunate lover almost instantly. Braun hastened up the stairway with the plunder of the corpse, and yet he paused a moment as three light taps resounded upon the closed folding doors. "She is sound asleep; I cannot waken her now," whispered Leah Einstein. "Then help me to carry her upstairs. You must not leave her for an instant till I am done." Meyer sprang into the room, and in five minutes returned with a grin upon his hardened face. "Leah is safely locked in the second story. Fear will keep her mouth shut, and she can quiet the other light-headed fool." The temporary eclipse of the gambling-rooms gave the disguised criminal an opportunity to work in perfect safety. With lightning rapidity he had examined all the spoil of his victim's pockets. A horrid silence had settled down over the deserted old mansion. In his stocking feet the scoundrel stole down-stairs, and there toiled alone, with the inanimate thing, once a stalwart man, lying there helpless and prone in death before him. "The chloroform finished him!" muttered Meyer, as he sought fresh air from an open grating leading into a sunken window opening. It was in the old unused laundry-room that "Braun, the specialist," hastily burned all Clayton's clothing in a long-idle furnace. "His hat and shoes can go in with my trash; the pistol I can drop overboard," murmured the cowardly wretch. He cast a callous glance now and then at the body of his victim, cut off in the flower of life and hope. "No body marks, no tell-tale finger rings; that's good," the crafty villain mused. "He is stone dead now; he will need no watching," was the brute's final verdict. And then he stole cat-like up the stairs to gloat over the contents of the bank portmanteau. He hastily transferred the ill-gotten fortune to a heavy black valise and, cutting the rifled portmanteau in pieces, he sought the furnace-room once more. There was no sound in the rooms above as the villain toiled on, but Leah Einstein, closeted there with the drugged woman who had been used as a fatal decoy, could hear the sound of hammering below. She fancied that Braun was preparing to escape, having removed the dazed victim of the knock-out drops by the help of confederates from the saloon. It was nearing sunset when Fritz Braun himself brought food and wine to his frightened accomplice. He cast a searching glance upon the sleeping beauty and then said roughly: "Eat and drink. You can surely trust me. The job's done. The poor fool is miles away now, in a safe place." But Leah Einstein's pallid lips were silent. She was awed into a stupor by the haunting presence of an unknown majesty. For the King of Terrors ruled in the sickening atmosphere of the deserted mansion house, and Leah feared only for herself now! Braun saw the woman's helpless terror and so left her alone with her helpless charge. "I won't need the useless fool to help me," he mused as he stole away. A horrible suggestion seized upon him. "Why don't I make sure of her?" In a few moments his nerve returned. "She saw nothing. She knows nothing. She thinks I only robbed him, and she has a neck to save. She shall come to me—over there. But Irma—she follows her lover, by and by." It was nine o'clock, the streets were dark and dismal, and a heavy rain was falling, when a carriage drew up before No. 192 Layte Street. The driver was huddled up in his oilskins and scarcely glanced toward the muffled form of the woman who was tenderly assisted into the vehicle by the sturdy Leah and her male companion. As the door closed, Fritz Braun sharply gave the driver his last injunction. "Follow the express wagon down to Atlantic Basin. I will ride on it." Standing on the steps, Braun saw the hackman drive a few doors away into the shadows of the neighboring houses and halt awaiting the baggage team. He tightly locked the door on the inside. "Lucky the front shop was closed for the holidays," he mused as he made a last examination of the rooms above and below. There was nothing left to betray him. "Leah is a cunning one," he gleefully said, as he slipped on the well-remembered brown top coat of the "pharmacist," and adjusted anew his false beard and goggles. He felt for Clayton's useless pistol and placed it in his outside pocket. "Overboard you go, my friend, as soon as I reach the dock." Then seizing his black valise, he passed out of the cellar entrance in the rear and clambered upon the high seat of the great luggage van. "Where to?" gruffly demanded the waiting driver, who, with his burly mate, was drenched with rain. "To the Atlantic Basin," sharply said Braun. "I've an extra ten dollars in my pocket for you. It's a wild night." His only task now was to rid himself of the stripped body of his victim, and he had acted with a devilish ingenuity of forethought. Then, turning the corner of the "Valkyrie," Fritz Braun led the way along to where a snub-nosed tug lay with her hissing steam escaping, as she tossed up and down on the frothy waves of the yacht mooring. The ringing of bells in the engine-room, the heavy trampling of feet, aroused the helpless, half-dazed Irma Gluyas, as Fritz Braun tenderly ordered the men to bear her into the little cabin. "Give her a spoonful of this mixture," significantly said Braun, "I must look out for the luggage." With a delighted grin, the two expressmen received Fritz Braun's liberal donation. "Happy voyage, boss," they screamed, as the stout little vessel twisted around on her hawser and moved out on the blackened waters, throwing the yeasty spray high up with the saucy thrusts of her blunt bows. "Never mind that old trunk," cried Braun, as the sailors busied themselves with throwing tarpaulins over the traveller's half dozen boxes. It was a heavy package left dangerously near the gunwale of the boat. Mr. Fritz Braun was in a fever of good humor. He had dropped overboard something which glittered a moment as it disappeared under the black surges of the freshening waves. The faithless pistol of the dead cashier now lay twenty fathoms under the dark tide. While the tug's crew busied themselves with their duties and hastily cast off the lines, the two women were crouching in the dingy cabin. Fritz Braun, his cigar gleaming out a red defiance, watched the light of the Battery glide by him. He had taken a deep draught of brandy as a final libation to Fortune. "What fools those brewery fellows are," chuckled Braun. "They imagined that I was only dodging a few unwelcome legal papers." "By Heavens! I have turned over a gold mine to them, and they won't kick. If it had not been for my damned gambling craze I would have had a cool hundred thousand more. "And they will surely keep the secret of 192 Layte Street, for they wish to run their own 'joint' there. All they want is silence, to change it a little, and no police interference. They are bound to play my game to save themselves from police interference." The villain laughed aloud in his glee. "And Emil and Lilienthal, even Timmins, know nothing. It has been a great stroke of nigger luck. This fortune is safe. Now for the last touch." He groped his way aft to where the cheap heavy-looking package lay with one side balanced upon the rail. It was a huge coarse packing trunk. The crew were busied in watching the light of the South Ferry and avoiding the floats and tugs groaning along in front of Governor's Island. There was no one aft as the muscular scoundrel seized a handspike and tilted the rough-looking packing trunk overboard. It sank instantly, though Braun started as he fancied he heard a crash. "If the propeller struck it, no matter," he growled. "There's a hundred pounds of broken stairway irons lashed on him. And I will soon be thousands of miles away." He shook the rain off like a burly water dog as he glanced in at the cabin window of the tug. There was Irma Gluyas, lying sleeping peacefully, with her head upon Leah Einstein's lap. "Safe enough," he muttered, as he sheltered himself under the overhanging deck roof. But as the murderer's eye fell on the black valise, he smiled with an infernal glee. "There it is landed—this prize—after months! "And they will think that the fool cleared out with it. Thank God! Steward Heinrichs is on the 'Mesopotamia.' He will look out for us; but if he knew what was in that valise I'd have to fight for my life." The tug now swung around into the North River, and the driving spray forced the absconding scoundrel into the Captain's little stateroom. "How long now?" shouted Braun, in the whistling tempest. "I'll have you alongside the 'Mesopotamia' in twenty minutes," answered the skipper. "The 'Falcon' is the fastest tug on the Brooklyn front." He pushed out a black bottle, which Braun, in his character of "jovial tourist," liberally sampled. "You take an expensive way of getting to Hoboken," smilingly said Captain Jake Ashcroft. "Ah! My wife has been very ill since the loss of our child," was Braun's ready response. "So feeble that I did not dare to drag her across New York. At least, she has some comfort in this way. Poor thing! She is fast asleep! We have to give her sedatives; her nerves are simply wrecked. I hope that a couple of years abroad will restore her." Braun handed the Captain fifty dollars. "I have a five for your crew," he said, good humoredly, "if we make a neat landing alongside." It was eleven o'clock when the stout tug ran alongside the 'Mesopotamia.' The old ex-liner was an "occasional" now, and all ready to depart for Stettin. On Braun's hail, a burly chief steward descended the companionway, with a half dozen assistants. In the pelting rain, Irma Gluyas, an unresisting bundle, was safely borne by willing arms to the bridal stateroom of the huge steamer, once the pride of the German merchant navy. The luggage was hastily hoisted on board, and Mr. August Meyer heartily shook the Captain's hand. "Here's the men's beer money. It has been a famous voyage," said the happy villain, as he personally examined the tug's cabin. "Nothing left! So good-bye to you!" And away churned the tug, dashing out into the midnight darkness, the red light gleaming like the eye of some angry sea monster. In a couple of hours the creaking donkey-engines ceased their rattle, and Mr. August Meyer bounded up the gang-plank of the "Mesopotamia." A burly Hoboken hotel-keeper stood waving the solitary adieu to the victorious murderer. They had seen Leah Einstein depart for New York City, her velvety eyes glistening with joy, for Braun had, in the seclusion of the Hoboken Hotel, handed her three five-hundred-dollar bills. A handful of small change was tossed to her as a last offering. "Remember, Leah," whispered Braun. "The driver is paid, drink money and all. Let him set you down on Fourth Avenue. Get home, dream of me and of our happy meeting next spring. You have the address. Never forget it. Don't even give it to the boy. And never trust it to paper." "I'll not forget," cried the frightened woman, as she clung to him in her frenzied "Good bye. You'll take care of me!" "For your whole life," answered Braun. "You need me, and I need you. I'll soon get rid of this baby-faced fool! She actually loved that fellow, damn him! But she will remember nothing. She was too well doped. The knock-out drops muddled her; but he went down like a log. And he is disposed of! All you have to do is to keep your mouth shut forever. I will make you rich." As Leah clung to her partner in crime, Fritz Braun gave her a handful of gold—his last peace offering. "Never go back again to Brooklyn," he hoarsely whispered. "Remember, and keep ready to come to me." Braun stood alone on the deck of the "Mesopotamia" as the huge bulk slowly swung around and gathered headway. The yellow lights of Hoboken gleamed out faintly to the right, and to the left New York's irregular skyline was lit up with a lurid reflected glow. But he shuddered as he saw the airy line of the arch of Brooklyn Bridge and the gleaming beacons below, where vice and virtue, craft and candor, stupid drudge and lazy child of luxury had all forgotten the cares of the weary day. He started in alarm as the hoarse siren of the "Mesopotamia" screamed out its bellowing note of departure. A spasm of rage shook his trembling frame. He challenged some dark spectre seemingly floating on the midnight winds. "Down, down," he growled. "You are gone forever, under the black waters. Never to rise, and there's not a weak joint in my armor. I defy the very devil himself! With Heinrich's help I can evade all customs' search at Stettin; a few thalers will fix that. The whole New York lot are powerless; and as for Leah, poor devil, love will keep her faithful, fear will lock her tongue, even if she wished to speak." Stealing down the stairs, he went into Irma Gluyas' superb room. A jaded stewardess sat watching faithfully over the sleeping woman. He touched her arm. "I will fill your purse for you," he kindly said. "See that my wife wants nothing. You must watch her like a child. "She is sadly broken in health. Don't mind her babblings!" He touched his forehead significantly. He had already carefully bestowed his valise of treasure under the cosy lounge berth by the great portholes, and his rugs and wraps covered it. Leaving the ox-eyed woman there on watch, Fritz Braun hastened to join the steward, an old friend of the days of the pharmacy and its secret international smuggling trade. He had tossed his false beard overboard and tied a sea-cap with ear-flaps upon his head. "Just as well to drop 'Fritz Braun' forever now," he laughed. "'Mr. August Meyer' has his passports in his pockets! So, here's for a new life. I am born to a new name and safe, even in Germany." It was only when Sandy Hook light was far astern that August Meyer gave up the wild potations which even astounded Heinrichs. "One doesn't go away on a vacation every day," joyfully cried August Meyer. "One more bottle of the Frenchman's sparkling wine, and then to turn in and wake far out on blue water!" The fool, safe in his own conceit, forgot the curse of Cain branded upon him now. But the vengeance of God was following him out on the dark waters! The lonely gulls, screaming and soaring at daybreak, skimming the waters of New York Bay, dipping and struggling over each bit of flotsam, rested upon the fragments of a broken trunk floating idly along upon the sunlit waters. There was nothing to indicate the previous contents of the package which had been shattered by the screw of a passing vessel; there was neither mark nor token of its past history. And so it floated idly up and down, borne hither and thither by the veering tides, while far below, on the ooze, the heavy irons still weighted down the corpse of the man who had been lured to his death by the noblest impulses of the human heart. And the sun came gaily up, upon the day of repose, God's own appointed day of rest, the glittering beams played upon the closed windows of the stately old mansion, where nothing remained to tell of a "deed without a name" save a heap of dead ashes in the blackened grate of the laundry furnace. The pathway of the criminal seemed covered to all mortal eyes. The cautious patrons of the "Valkyrie," stealing in by the side entrances, talked in whispers of the re-opening of the pool-room, and the sleeping "blind tiger." "Come around any evening next week, after the Fourth," was the message given to the "safe" patrons, "and we will be happy to accommodate you." There was no human being in the offices of the Western Trading Company save the janitor, busy at his semi-annual clean-up, and the Monday holiday approached with no suspicion of Randall Clayton's disappearance. "All New York" had hied "out of town" with its usual unpatriotic snobbishness, and only the attendants of Mr. Randall Clayton's rooms noted his absence. "Singular young fellow," said the janitor to his sturdy wife. "Comes and goes like a ghost; no friends, and has no life of his own. Good-looking young fellow, too. Ought to have a wife and family around him. "It's the old story: hotel and flat life are crowding out the American family. Men and women live on the single, and prey on each other. One half are sharks, and the other half are their victims!" But there were two persons in New York City who now feared to approach each other. Emil Einstein, after a whispered conference with his pale-faced mother in her shabby den on the East Side, hastily called a wagon and transported all his slender effects to the little room in rear of Magdal's Pharmacy, where the bogus doctor had had his Sunday conferences with his bibulous patrons—the regular "sick people"—sick of a thirst, beginning officially with Saturday midnight and ending, providentially, on Monday morning. Bob Timmins and Emil Einstein were already secret allies and the Don Juans of a coterie of haphazard Sixth Avenue beauties. There was a usefulness to both in the new alliance, and Einstein was already the destined secret patron of the degraded Timmins. "It's a good shelter for me," mused the adroit Hebrew, "but I'll never tell him a word of the old man." The parting between Leah and her hopeful son had been a wild access of maternal tenderness. "You see, I've got to," growled the boy. "You don't want to go to the chair, or get into Sing Sing, if this fellow Clayton turns up a stiff. I don't know what the 'old man' was up to. "You do! And I don't ever want to! The only way we can meet is once a week in the crowd around the Germania Theater on Astor Place. "I'll come there afternoon or evening each Saturday, and hang around till I see you. You can take a seat in the theater. I'll go up in the gallery, and nobody will drop on us. If any one asks for me, say I've gone away by myself to room. That I'm going to be married." "And at the business?" timidly sobbed Leah. "Oh! I've got to stay on there," the boy stoutly answered. "I know nothing; just keep a shut mouth. There'll be hell to pay now. Remember, don't you ever dare to look me up. If you should be sick, send word to Ben Timmins at the Magdal Pharmacy. He will give me the message, and then I'll find a safe way to see you. It's a life and death matter, remember." The boy was eager to get away, for he feared his mother's plaint for money. He knew nothing of the three five-hundred-dollar bills now sewed up in the buxom Leah's corset. "If they've buncoed him or done him up, there'll be a great run! Holy Moses! The papers!" Emil Einstein fled away from the wrath to come, and, even in his high-rolling evening hours with Timmins that night he trembled. For he had slyly gone to Mr. Randall Clayton's apartments. The old janitor of the apartment-house met him with an anxious face. "Here's Mr. Ferris, back from the West, hunting Mr. Clayton all over town. They were to dine together. Where is he?" The startled boy lied glibly, after the fashion of New York office boys. "I don't know. Gone off on some trip, I suppose. He sent me away on an errand yesterday, and I didn't get my week's salary. I suppose that he has it. The pay clerk always gives it to him. That's what I came for." And then, whistling a rakish air, but with a nameless terror in his heart, Emil Einstein hied himself off to Magdal's as a safe haven. There was not a human being in all Manhattan who had seen Mr. Randall Clayton on his hasty departure, save the smart-faced policeman, Dennis McNerney, who had noted Clayton put the hesitating Leah Einstein into the carriage on University Place. "Something new for him," smilingly thought the policeman. "But he's not beauty hunting; that's no charmer. Looks more like somebody's housekeeper." And yet, shake it off as he would, the guardian of the peace recalled that night that he had seen the woman lingering in conversation with one of the Western Trading Company's office boys, as he made his circuit of the block. "It is a little singular, this new departure." With a smile he dismissed the suspense, murmuring "Young men all have their little 'side issues.' Half New York would go crazy if it knew what the other half does, and how they dodge each other, God alone knows." It was merry enough in Magdal's Pharmacy that Fourth of July night, while Arthur Ferris, rage in his heart, at last descended at Robert Wade's mansion and spent the evening with that sly old financier. He dared not bring up Clayton's name, for Mr. Robert Wade was now his inferior, and all ignorant of the dark bond between Worthington and his unacknowledged son-in-law. But in the pharmacy Einstein hazarded a test question. "Where's the old man, Ben?" "Took one of the cheap Saturday afternoon boats from Hoboken for the other side," said Ben, handing Miss Daisy Vivian a "slight refreshment." "Go alone?" said the curious Emil. "Certainly," smartly said Timmins. "He is too mean to pay a woman's passage over the ferry, much less to the Old Country!" Whereat, in the general laugh, the frightened Emil gladly observed that Timmins really knew nothing. They were both, however, on their guard when the oily face of Adolph Lilienthal suddenly appeared at the soda fountain. The picture-dealer's crafty face shone with a benevolent smile as he said to Timmins, "I've mislaid Mr. Braun's address, the last one he gave me!" The two young men exchanged startled glances, but Timmins resolutely answered, "You must find it out for yourself. The boss didn't even tell me what steamer he sailed on. I was to see you about all." And finally Adolph Lilienthal retired crestfallen. He dared not admit to the clerk the quarrel which had left him in Braun's power. "You'll have a letter surely, from him in a week or so," smoothly answered the cockney, finally. And then the owner of the Newport Art Gallery sadly departed. "I am in his power," he musingly said. "He knows all about me; and I nothing of him. He is a fiend, that fellow; and he will perhaps keep clear of my friends on the other side. He is too smart to commit himself." The only clue possible lay in watching the doltish London clerk. And on his way home the picture-dealer gave that up as hopeless. "Braun would never trust that fool. He's only a human sponge, a confirmed soak." Far out on the waters the "Mesopotamia" was plowing along, the blue water curling merrily away from her bows. Mr. August Meyer, blithe and light-hearted, gaily waved his cigar in answer to the lights of a passing steamer bound homeward. "My compliments to Mr. Randall Clayton!" he laughed, as he strode along the quarter deck, the only cabin passenger. "We have given Fate a clean pair of heels. I defy the Devil to touch me now. It was simply to hold the bag open. That fool ran his head into it. The stroke of a lifetime! "God! What a row there'll be; but it will take a month to find out that he has not skipped. I will be in hiding; but to-morrow I must face this Magyar fool. What shall I tell her?" Mr. August Meyer tramped the deck alone until he hit upon a plausible explanation of the awakening which would arouse the Magyar songbird's gravest suspicions. "When she awakes and finds herself far out at sea, there will be a devil of a racket, unless I can find a way to control her. Should she denounce me, I might be detained by the Captain, subject to an examination. And the money; it would have to go overboard or else I would go to the electric chair." He gave up his surest way of stopping the unruly woman's mouth. "No!" he mused. "That would never do here—on shipboard. The steward, old Heinrichs, is too smart for all that. I must get her away into some lonely place abroad. For only in that way can I hide Clayton's fate from her. They never reprint American news in Poland or Eastern Prussia and Silesia. Perhaps Russia will hide me. First, to quiet her; next, to make the money safe; lastly, to get rid of her." But friendly devils aided him with adroit whispers. His brow was unruffled as he bade his carousing chum, the steward, adieu at midnight. The good ship dashed merrily on breasting the Atlantic waves. It was long after eight bells the next morning when Irma Gluyas slowly opened her eyes and wonderingly gazed at her tyrant master watching her with steadfast eyes. Neither spoke until the pale-faced woman realized the onward motion of the sturdy old liner, and her deep-set eyes had wandered over the nautical surroundings. Then she buried her face in her hands and a flood of stormy sorrow shook her frame. The acute-minded Fritz Braun knew that he had her at his mercy, for the regulated doses of the narcotic had brought about a profound reaction. Helplessness, coma, stupor, hallucination, dejection; she had passed through every phase. Turning her wan face toward him at last, the singer, in a hollow voice, curtly said, "Explain all this!" There was a glance in her recklessly brave eyes which made the soi disant August Meyer relapse into a whining tenderness. "The high hand won't do here," he quickly resolved. "You have been ill, my poor comrade," he tenderly said. "It's all right now. That thunder-storm drove you frantic; you had a heart seizure, and I had all I could do to get you away from New York in secret." The woman eyed him doubtfully. "Whither are we going?" she resolutely asked. "To any safe retreat in north eastern Europe you choose," coaxingly replied Braun. "Why?" demanded Irma, raising herself on one arm and pointing an accusing finger. "If you have broken your oath, God forgive you! It's your life or mine, then!" "She does love him," was Braun's inward comment. "Stop your high dramatic play-acting," soberly said Braun, holding a glass of Tokayer to her lips. "Lilienthal was pounced down upon for smuggling phenacetine. My own drug-store was searched. Thank God! none was found there. He gave bail, the honest fellow managed to telegraph me the agreed-on tip. I was watching over you in Brooklyn. "I bundled you in a carriage, as you were so ill, caught a tug, ran around to Hoboken, reached this ship just as it sailed! He knows not who betrayed him, but the staunch old boy got five thousand dollars to me, and the 'brotherhood' over here will take care of me. "I will lie by in hiding for a season, and I can send the usual goods in by Norwegian tramp steamers. I have a square friend on board here, the head steward, one of the Baltic smuggling gang's best men. So, my dear girl, look your prettiest when we land in Stettin." It was only by a grand effort of will that he faced her coldly searching gaze. "And Clayton; what was your hidden purpose with him, you devil?" she boldly said, but half convinced by his smooth story. "I may as well let the cat out of the bag," laughed Braun, taking a deep draught of the golden wine. "I wanted to lure him over to Brooklyn and let him fool his time away with you from Saturday to Tuesday morning. I intended you to lead him a will-o'-the-wisp dance out on Long Island. For Lilienthal and I had learned from the office boy that a quarter of a million would be locked up in the Trading Company's vaults, only guarded by the janitor and the special policeman. The janitor was with us, that devil of a boy got us the combination, bit by bit; but you went out of your head after the storm, and Lilienthal was half betrayed by a drunken underling in our smuggling company. I had to clear out. I could not leave you to starve. It's the fifth of July, and we sailed the third. I lost the chance of my life!" "You swear this is true!" murmured Irma. Braun bowed his head. "I will only believe it," she said, "when I have a letter from Clayton. I love him. I would die for him. God help him; he would marry me!" She was astounded when Braun said, kindly, "All in due time. You shall have your letter through Emil. The boy is one of our gang!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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