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Midnight Passenger

<h2 id="id01122" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IX.</h2> <h5 id="id01123">THE LIGHTNING STROKE OF FATE.</h5> While the "Mesopotamia" skimmed along over the crisp, curling seas upon this sunlit Tuesday morning, she bore onward a man whose breast was now filled with a vague unrest. The robust passenger known as "Mr. August Meyer" was unusually jovial at breakfast, when he informed the bluff Captain that Mrs. Meyer was rapidly recovering and would soon be able "to grace the deck," in the language of the society journals. The absconding murderer was delighted that Irma and himself were the only first-class passengers, although accommodations for fifty had been retained in making a "freighter" of the one-time "record liner." Leaving Irma, at her wish, to dream of a future meeting with Clayton, Fritz Braun was left free to retire to his own capacious cabin. "Take the whole twenty staterooms," cried the jolly old skipper, highly propitiated with Braun's wine-opening and the druggist's superb cigars. And this Tuesday afternoon Braun proposed to devote to a careful examination of his rich plunder. As yet he had not verified the whole stolen treasure. When all his own luggage was arranged in his own double room, he carefully threw overboard all of the murdered cashier's private articles. The hat and shoes, which he had feared to burn, were cast into the foaming wake of the vessel, and even the veriest trifle of the contents of the deceived lover's pockets. Braun, greedy at heart, shut his eyes as he tossed the watch-chain and locket overboard, and even the scarf-pin, links and studs of the victim. It was an hour after he had locked himself in when he threw over the last shred of paper and the emptied pocketbook and purse. Braun smiled grimly as he carefully transferred to his wallet the double-month's pay which had been handed to the cashier by accountant Somers when he hastened away on his furlough. "Nearly seven hundred dollars," laughed Braun. "My dead friend pays my way over." There was, moreover, a few dollars in change in the purse, which was tossed away to follow the other tell-tale objects, after Braun had extracted Somers' test slip of the deposits. It brought a frenzy of joy to the murderer's heart to read the lines, "Currency, $150,000; cheques, $98,975." He smiled grimly. "The last thing which could betray me is overboard. I'm safe now! No fool to be caught, even by a tell-tale ring!" He had hurled poor Clayton's college pin and seal ring far out into the sapphire blue, and then resolutely screwed up the porthole. "Now to see if my cashier's tag lies!" Braun stopped, with his hand on the straps of his valise, a glooming foreboding seized him. "I must watch this devilish woman! She was far too placid. She has not swallowed all my story. If she should try to cable, or to communicate." He paused, and the cold sweat gathered upon his brow. "I'll closely watch her. I'll rush her through Stettin. I'll hide her in some little hole on the Polish frontier. If she tries to follow up her mad love for this fellow, I'll finish her." Already he looked forward with longing to the time when he could safely call Leah Einstein to his side. "She will be true as a dog to me, poor wretch! And I must get Irma out of the way. Perhaps in some Polish marsh; they would not find her bones. There's the wolves, too. "But, my lady, you are only sleeping with one eye shut. Your first false movement means"—He gloomily ceased, and then feasted his eyes on the green bundles in the common-looking valise. "I am a prince for life," he murmured, "if I can realize on these cheques." He opened a bundle; they were all flat endorsements. "About half of these are good anywhere," he mused. "Our gang can handle them; and for the others, we may get a reward to return them later," he grimly smiled. But as he busied himself, the inscrutable face of Irma Gluyas returned to madden him. "She does suspect!" he growled. "She only plays policy because she is in my power. Never mind, my lady; you are knitting up your own shroud." Seven hundred and fifty miles away, the streets of New York City were filled with the refluent crowd of holiday absentees. The great Babel had again taken up its round of toil and pleasure, its burden of care and crime, its chase for the bubble "reputation," its hunting away of the urban wolf from the door. In inverse order of importance, the shutters had come down, the toiler had been out, dinner-pail in hand, for hours, when Milady yawned over her morning coffee and the magnates of finance appeared in their triumphal procession down Broadway to Wall Street. There was a careworn look on Arthur Ferris' brow as he sprang out of a coupe at Randall Clayton's deserted apartments at nine-thirty. He had sullenly enjoyed Mr. Robert Wade's Fourth of July cheer, his mind haunted with Randall Clayton's strange breach of social faith. In vain he reassured himself. "He could not know where to reach me with a 'phone or a wire," and his agitation increased when the house janitor gravely said, "Mr. Clayton has not been here since Saturday morning, sir. It's very strange. He took no travel bag with him. I just took a peep at the room. The bed's not been slept in, and here's a lot of mail. He's most regular. "May be sick somewhere, sir. He looked very strange when he went out Saturday. He'd been up in the night. I heard him moving around very late." "Let no one open the room till I return," sharply ordered Ferris, and he then started his coupe off on the run for the Western Trading Company's office. Bidding the man wait below, Arthur Ferris took the elevator and, darting along the hall, smartly rapped at Randall Clayton's door. It was locked, but the agile Einstein was at once at his beck and call. "Mr. Clayton's not down yet. I fear he's ill, sir," respectfully said the lad. "Here's all his office mail in the ante-room." Arthur Ferris sharply ordered the lad to watch over the closed rooms. "Let no one open those rooms," he said. "You'll find me in Mr. Wade's private office. Let me know the very instant Mr. Clayton arrives." Ferris at once rang on Mr. Robert Wade's private telephone, and was relieved when he learned that the manager had just left his Fifth Avenue home for the office. There was a crowd of the senior employees waiting around the door to congratulate the new vice-president, when old Edward Somers tottered in, his face ashen with fright. Ferris dropped the telephone ear-cup and sprang forward. "Speak! What's gone wrong?" he cried. He feared to learn that within that locked office the moody Clayton lay cold in death—a suicide. But the old accountant only raised his head and babbled, "There's something gone wrong with Mr. Clayton. The bank has just sent me a messenger." "Our Saturday deposit never reached the bank! He's in there now. Oh! My God!" Rapidly turning on the District call for the police, Ferris darted into Secretary Edson's room. "Wallace," he cried, "take two of your best men; get pistols. Shut the offices! Let no one leave! There's been a gigantic robbery here; perhaps a murder!" Wallace Edson sprang up, brave and resolute, as Ferris dashed back to the broken old man. "How much?" he sharply demanded. "Nearly a quarter of a million!" the old accountant faltered. "Where's the bank-book?" cried Ferris, his presence of mind returning. "Clayton has it," the bookkeeper sadly said. Opening a door, Arthur Ferris called in the treasurer. Frank Bell, jolly and debonnair, had just returned from "no end of a good time." "Look out for Somers, here," he ordered. "There's been a great disaster. Let no one speak to him." And then the young vice-president went out to meet the arriving police. Mr. Robert Wade, slowly pacing along Fourteenth Street, had stopped to whisper a few words in Lilienthal's attentive ear. There was a delectable "private view" which was arranged for two o'clock on this happy afternoon. As the smug "dealer" bowed, his mind reverted to Mr. Wade's handsome employee, Randall Clayton, and then the picture episode, and the entrancing Magyar witch. "I wonder, now," mused Lilienthal, "if young Clayton stole that pretty devil away from Fritz Braun! Braun was really crazy over her, it seems, and he, the black-hearted wretch, has gone over to Europe to hunt for her. The pretty minx may be in hiding somewhere up on the West Side, with Clayton. And yet I never saw or heard of them together again. It may be he only wanted the picture, not the woman!" Mr. Lilienthal's laughter at his own joke was cut short by the racing past of four policemen and two detectives. He was still standing gaping in wonder when Robert Wade forced his way into his own office and found all in an uproar. Only Arthur Ferris was cool and collected, as he stationed the police and called two stenographers into the room where old Somers and Emil Einstein awaited the opening of an inquisition. "There's been a robbery of a quarter of a million of our company's funds, Wade," sharply cried Ferris. "We want to find out where Clayton is. Take hold now and get these men's statements. I'll bring in the bank messenger, and then try and hold Hugh Worthington on the telegraph. The Chief should be even now nearing Cheyenne." Ferris grasped Einstein's arm and drew him out of the room, as Wade pompously began his Jupiter-like procedure. "I'll send for the detective captain, and the Fidelity Company's people," said Ferris; but he dragged Einstein into a vacant room. "You can open his office, you young devil?" he whispered. "Yes; side door key," said Einstein, conscious now of a protecting friend. "Get me in there, quick!" said Ferris, his eyes aflame. In a few moments they stood in the vacant room. Ferris pointed to the desk. "Remember what you told me!" he sternly murmured. And as the lad drew out his stolen key, Ferris watched the roll-top desk slide open. He grasped the bundle of telegrams and lone papers on the pad, and motioned for the trembling boy to lock it. Then, darting back into the ante-room, he dashed off two telegrams, the first addressed to his secret partner at Cheyenne, and the other to his wife in fact, but not name, "Miss Alice Worthington, Palace Hotel, Tacoma." "Not a word of this to any one; I'll pay you," said Ferris, as he stuffed the papers in his pocket and rang for a telegraph boy. "Come in, now, and tell your story—all but this!" Holding the shivering lad while he sent a brace of messengers for the detective chief and the Fidelity Company's expert, Arthur Ferris muttered, "Is it murder or a daring robbery? Is it flight? Has he discovered his rights and robbed Peter to pay Paul? Old Hugh must come, and until then, silence!" When the noonday sun burned down upon Manhattan Island, a thousand offices had received the message: "Look out for Randall Clayton, absconding cashier of the Western Trading Company. Age 28, height 5 feet 11 inches; gray eyes, brown hair, well built, weight about 170; speaks French and some German; born Detroit; slight Western accent. Missing since Saturday noon, July 2, with $150,000 currency and $100,000 endorsed cheques. Watch all trains and steamers. Photographs by mail to-morrow. Presumably alive; no woman in the case." And in the spacious rooms of the Western Trading Company the usual business was now moving on, while a detective sat on guard in Clayton's office, and another in his deserted rooms, where the Danube picture smiled down upon the callous stranger, who murmured, "The old story, 'Cards, women, the Tenderloin, Wall Street, and fast life!' Another man gone to hell with his eyes open." But in the mob of reporters now filling the affable treasurer's room there was the ball of angry contention tossed vigorously too and fro. Reporter Snooks of the Earth coldly bluffed Sears of the Ledger with a bet, "Two to one on his skipping out; even money on a murder; even money on a bunco." And so "lightly they spoke" of the man who had yielded up his unstained honor in a mad chivalry for the sake of a woman whose love had innocently led him to a horrible taking off! Within the manager's room, the preliminary inquisition was rapidly moving on. Arthur Ferris, with burning eyes gazing intently as each word fell from the lips of the frightened witnesses. It was while this drama was being played that the "Fuerst Bismarck" swept grandly up the North River, and the returning lawyer tourist, Jack Witherspoon, hastened up town, eager to meet his client. "I will prospect a little," mused the cautious Witherspoon, as he registered at the Hoffman House. "Somebody may know me; and no human being must see Clayton and I together in New York! One chance spy and Hugh Worthington would be on his defense, and I would then lose my place in a jiffy and all power to make him disgorge." He was pondering over the best way to reach Clayton, and had just decided to wait after dark at the rooms for his old class-mate, when he remembered the annual election. "By Jove!" mused Witherspoon, now burning to with Francine Delacroix's dowry from the enemy. "Ferris will surely be nosing around here. I must not show myself at Clayton's rooms. There are two ways: one to call him by telephone, and the other is to telegraph to the Detroit Club and have the Secretary then telegraph to Clayton to call at once at Room 586, Hoffman, on 'Alpha Delta Phi' business. They might have a clerk on at the telephone over at the office, and if I was asked who wants Mr. Clayton, I might be trapped." He suddenly remembered his last agreement with his prospective client, that if anything unforeseen occurred, Clayton would write or telegraph to his comrade at the Detroit Club, and so, Witherspoon added a few words of direction to the secretary, to his request that Clayton be bidden to an "Alpha Delta Phi" secret reunion at Room 586, Hoffman. Witherspoon had already purchased a week's file of the New York journals in order to follow up the financial columns, and was moving toward the elevator from the telegraph stand, when a boy thrust an extra into his hand. "Heavy Robbery by Absconding Cashier! Randall Clayton Lets the Western Trading Company in for a Quarter of a Million. Another Case of a Double Life!" With a supreme effort the Detroit lawyer mastered himself and sought the seclusion of his room. In ten minutes he had recovered his legal acumen. The two columns of the extra gave a list of the new officers of the company, and the statement that Mr. Hugh Worthington was at Tacoma with his invalid daughter, was supplemented by the statement that Arthur Ferris of Heath & Ferris, 105 Broad Street (the recently elected vice-president), was in charge of the whole situation. When Jack Witherspoon had cooled his heated brows, he swore a deep and mighty oath of vengeance. "I don't believe a word of this whole rot," he stoutly said to himself. "Either Clayton has been frightened off, and is waiting for me near Detroit, or they have trapped him in some way. Something has brought things to a crisis. And yet, I must handle Mr. Arthur Ferris with velvet gloves!" He reflected now upon the imprudence of his registration at the Hoffman. The railroad attorneyship had brought him in close contact with Ferris. "I must go around there and show up at once! They would surely see my arrival in the papers!" He had just finished his professional toilet when a telegram was brought to his door. He tore it open with a wild anxiety. "No news of friend here. Have sent dispatch as agreed. There is sealed box of valuables here for you, deposited a month ago by your friend; sent by special express commission. Telegraph your directions." He sought the telegraph office and wired orders to have the deposit instantly expressed to him, at Adams & Co.'s general office. "Take receipt in my name for twenty-five thousand dollars' value," was his last prudent order. And then, jumping into a coupé, he departed for the Western Trading Company's office. "They will have the telegram," thought Witherspoon. "Thank God! Ferris is a Columbia College man, and no member of our 'frat.' I can tell him that some of our New York chapter proposed to celebrate my return, unknown to me. There's Doctor Billy Atwater. I must look him up to-night. I can leave him here on guard while I go and face Hugh Worthington. Either Hugh or Ferris has put up this job!" Suddenly an awful thought came to him. "My God! Have they made away with him?" He saw his course plainly now. The untiring pursuit of the wolf, the silence of the crouching panther! "Never!" he proudly declared in his heart. "Randall Clayton a thief! Never! I will be the second shadow of Mr. Arthur Ferris. If any one has the key of this mystery, he has. Clayton never went away willingly. It would be his ruin for life to let his name be blackened. And, the money! Who has it?" The prominence of Mr. John Witherspoon as the Detroit counsel of the Trading Company's great syndicate carrying agents insured his instant admission to the general manager's room. There was a sober gathering of a dozen magnates, and Arthur Ferris sprang up, somewhat disconcerted, when he saw Witherspoon's anxious face. The young vice-president left the detective captain, Manager Wade, the haggard old Somers, and two great lawyers, and drew Witherspoon away into Randall Clayton's deserted rooms. "Where did you drop from?" curtly demanded Ferris. "I've been some months in Europe," simply said Witherspoon, now wearing the oily mask of his profession. "I arrived on the 'Fuerst Bismarck' to-day, and was going to take to-night's train West. But some fellows of my college 'frat' had fixed up a 'surprise banquet' for me at the Hoffman. "So, after all they had to tell me to hold me over, I was just opening my accumulated mail, when by accident I picked up an extra. I thought poor Clayton was away on a summer vacation." "He's away on a devilish long one!" snarled Ferris. "Took French leave with a quarter of a million. Who, in God's name, would have taken him for a thief!" The mournful ring of Ferris' voice almost deceived his secret adversary; but Ferris was, in secret, pondering over the Detroit dispatch to the absent Clayton, which he had opened and secreted. "This man knows nothing," decided the wary Ferris, for Witherspoon's face was frankness itself. Jack looked around at two men vigorously working away at a huge safe standing in the corner. "They're now opening Clayton's safe," bitterly said Ferris. "Of course, there will be nothing found there. No! It's either a case of secret gambling, mad Wall Street plunging, or a crazy woman intrigue." "What do the detectives say?" soberly queried the Detroit lawyer. "Case of sharp thief, got three days' start of us by clearing out Saturday at eleven. I've suspended that old fool, Somers, for trusting such a deposit to one man alone! It's a crushing disgrace to the New York management. I shall sweep it all away as soon as I can get Hugh's orders. I'll take charge myself, now! "I suppose you go on to Detroit at once. We are readjusting our whole freight schedules!" "Yes," gravely said Witherspoon, "unless I can help you here. I'll telegraph my people at once. Will you telegraph Hugh and see if he might need me here? I suppose he will come on at once." "I can hardly say," replied Ferris, caught off his guard. "He was to have met Clayton to-day, in Cheyenne!" In an instant Ferris regretted the lapse, and hastily added, "Of course, you might wait a couple of days. Worthington can give you his ideas, and then you can save time in closing the railroad deal. Old Hugh has a clear majority of our stock now." Though Witherspoon had instantly grasped the significance of Ferris' dropped hint, he stilled his beating heart. "What have you done with Clayton's rooms?" he quietly said. "You had an apartment with him. You should search it." Ferris started. "By Jove! Yes! I forgot all about that. I've two men watching them now." After a short pause, Witherspoon said calmly, "There may be some sudden sickness, some accident in the country, some mysterious happening. His rooms should be carefully examined." "You are right," answered Ferris, "and I have my duplicate keys. Let us drive up there, you and I; we will take a look and then seal them up till the detectives examine them. We are getting at facts here; we are awaiting now to hear from Hugh. As you knew Clayton at college, I'd like to have you represent the fair thing at the searching of the rooms, particularly as I lived with him. But he has not been there since Saturday morning, and the money is gone. That tells the whole story. It's impossible to keep it quiet now, and I wash my hands of the whole thing. It occurred three days before I took charge." The two young men silently made their way to the street. As they seated themselves in the first carriage they saw idle, Witherspoon calmly remarked, "If I know Worthington's mind, he will make very radical changes here now. Do you suspect any collusion?" Ferris shook his head. "Poor old Somers has Clayton's tag receipts for the currency and cheques as usual. I'm sorry for the old man. We'll retire him, at any rate, pension or no pension. It was Wade's silly system, to trace all our money down with two sets of custodians, and then send it to bank by ONE man!" "You don't think Clayton can have been made away with? Followed by those who have accidentally dropped on his secrets, or some one informed by some member of your office staff?" "No; that's all far-fetched and speculative," gruffly said Ferris. "But the whole damned lot, from old Wade down, are under secret espionage now. I ordered that on at once. Besides, the Fidelity Company have their own people at work." "Ah! There was a bond?" questioned Witherspoon. "Fifty thousand, only," growled Ferris, "and they probably will only pay a half. They'll make us prove our loss in open court, and you know we don't care to haul out our books. But the recovery goes really to old Hugh; he paid all the dues on Clayton's bond." They halted in a watchful silence at the fashionable apartment-house, and Ferris, calling the janitor as a witness, using his own keys, opened the vacant rooms. At the door he paused to give a few sharp directions to the watchers, and so Jack Witherspoon stepped into the room first. By a mere accident he felt a small object under his foot, and then quickly secured it in his hand, having carelessly dropped his hat. He felt a little card-case in the hand which remained thrust idly in his pocket. Together the two young men searched every corner of the double apartment. The careful housewife's summer shroudings of Ferris' rooms were still undisturbed. As for Clayton's apartment, it was left in the careless disorder of a young man about town. "I will touch nothing," said Ferris, awed into a dismal silence. Jack Witherspoon keenly followed Ferris' every movement. There was nothing to indicate any idea of departure. Even Clayton's trunk-keys were in the scattered packages in the ante-rooms. The closets, dressers, and wardrobes showed no gap, as the young men explored. "That's the only new thing I see—that picture," casually said Ferris, pointing to the Danube view. "I never saw that before, and he was not much of an art collector." A sharp knock on the door drew Ferris to the door, where an office clerk awaited him with a telegram. Witherspoon still stood eying the picture, when Ferris said, "Look out for things here. I've got to answer a telegram. Hugh is not at Cheyenne. I must call him at Tacoma. Alice can forward the dispatch." Left alone in the room, Jack Witherspoon redoubled his energies, knowing that he might never see the interior again. Ferris' remark about the picture had strangely attracted his attention. "That means something," mused the excited Jack. His hand was on a closet door, and by a strange impulse he opened it quickly. A picture-case of heavy pasteboard stood there, upright in a corner, and a half-detached label caught his eye. The Detroit lawyer tore it off and hastily secreted it. He was seated at a table in the room when Ferris reentered. "Now," said he, bolting the doors between the two apartments, "I wish to have you see these rooms sealed up! I must get back to the office. You would do me a great favor if you would be here and represent me as well as Clayton's interests when the detectives search to-morrow. For nothing more can be done till I hook on to Worthington, or the police may have a report from the outside. "Twenty tramp steamers and fifty sea-going boats have left since Saturday noon. I am afraid Clayton has shown us a clean pair of heels. What do you think?" But Jack Witherspoon only clutched the objects in his pocket, and slowly shook his head. "I think nothing! It is a sad business, and I will help you all I can! I will wait here until you hear from Hugh, at any rate. You can drop me at the Hoffman." At the hotel Ferris said, on parting, "Come over at ten o'clock to-morrow. I'll give you a stenographer and one of our assistant cashiers. Then you can verify the whole contents of Clayton's rooms with the detectives. The lawyers and head police will look through his safe and office papers under my eye." At the parting, Ferris, worn out by the day's excitements, murmured, as if seeking a confirmation of his theory, "Clayton has been acting very strangely of late. Old Hugh wanted me to give him a talking to!" "There'll be a reward offered, of course," said Jack, anxious to lead Ferris out. "Certainly," was the rejoinder. "I think fifteen thousand for him, and ten more for the money or cheques. But all depends on Hugh!" "I'll meet you at ten," gravely answered the stranger lawyer. "This will break up our dinner, I am sick at heart." Once in his room, Witherspoon drew out the two articles which he had concealed. The first was a little red morocco card-case, evidently dropped as the supposed fugitive had left his room! Jack's fingers trembled as he drew out the few visiting cards. With a wildly beating heart he examined them. He sprang excitedly to his feet as he read the faintly pencilled lines traced on the back of one, "Irma Gluyas, No. 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn." It was the work of an instant only to glance at the label torn from the picture-case. The printed words, "Newport Art Gallery," were visible above the words, "Fräulein Irma Gluyas, 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn," and the adjuration, "Handle with care," completed the marks upon the tell-tale paper. The anxious lawyer saw the magnificent castle in the air which he had builded crumbled at his feet. "This is for me alone," he swore in his heart, and it was only after an hour's cogitation that he resolved upon his course. "I must hunt up Doctor Atwater; but, first, wait for the wishes of Worthington. The package from Detroit may tell me something. And I must examine that picture and see that no tell-tale inscription is on the back. Here is the key of the mystery." Seated alone, with his nerves strained to the utmost, a sudden inspiration came to the loyal friend of the missing man. "I am too late. They have killed him!" He cursed the evil hour when he left for Europe without placing Randall Clayton in a place of safety. "I should have taken him with me, or else gone West with him and braved old Hugh. Yes; they have lured him away! Killed him, and hidden this money. It will all come out of the stockholders. It goes back into old Hugh's own pocket. He has made his title safe! "In some way poor Clayton has babbled, and they have swept him from the face of the earth. But for some fatal imprudence, he would have come into his stolen fortune. And, after my settlement, Hugh Worthington would have feared to attack Clayton." In half an hour Mr. John Witherspoon was on his way to Brooklyn. He had already deposited the two precious articles in the massive safes of the Hoffman, and he began his weary quest with a glance at the "Newport Art Gallery," whose Fourteenth Street address was printed upon the label. "This remains for a future examination," was Jack's rapid conclusion. "The picture was procured here within three months, and the shop looks like a permanent one." A glance at a Directory, in a drug-store, proved that the Emporium had been there for a year, certainly. It was four o'clock when the lawyer resolutely rang, the bell at No. 192 Layte Street. He had consumed an hour in scanning the quiet exterior of the stately old mansion. The ignoble use of the parlor frontage as a modiste's shop, attracted him as he vainly waited for a reply to his repeated ringing. All that he could gain from a pert shop-girl was the news that the house was shut up, and that no one lived there. The judicious use of a two-dollar bill brought as a harvest the news that it had been used as a private club for men and that it had been recently closed. "Ask in the saloon—the "Valkyrie"—next door. They are the landlords," said the girl as she returned to her ribbons. The acute lawyer, whose years of active practice had opened his eyes to many of the mysteries of the inside life of New York, Detroit and Chicago, was not deceived by the decorous white enamel shutters. "I have done enough for one day," he mused. "I have kept my temper, and Ferris suspects nothing. Poor Clayton never betrayed me; he only betrayed himself. And he has been trapped; BUT BY WHOM? God alone knows!" Once safely back in the Hoffman, Jack Witherspoon leisurely dined. His self-commune had taught him the need of a perfect control of every faculty. "I will not linger here to embarrass Ferris; but the Newport Art Gallery, the mysterious woman of 192 Layte Street, and the picture's secret history shall be my property alone. I will not betray myself. Arthur Ferris may, perhaps, unbosom himself!" As the lonely night hours advanced, Witherspoon sat in his room, vainly striving to reconcile the dozen theories of the flaring editions of the evening papers. There was not a single suggestion of foul play; not a word to point the direction of the supposed fugitive's evasion; not a clue from the baffled police. It was the old story of a double life, the wreckage of a promising career. "Just a plain, ordinary thief was Mr. Randall Clayton," said one acute observer; "his case is only extraordinary from the amount taken. And it seems that he robbed for the lucre itself, as the most careful inquiry divulges no stain upon his private life. Another case of the 'model young man' gone wrong." Witherspoon had thrown the journals into his trunk as a precaution, and was smothering his disgust at their heartlessness, when Arthur Ferris, white-faced, dashed into his room. "What has happened? Have you found his body?" cried the Detroit man, springing up. "I may have to leave you here to represent me privately," gasped Ferris, as with a shaking hand he extended a telegram. "Read that!" Witherspoon gasped, in a sudden dismay, as he read the crushing news. The dispatch was simply signed "Alice," and the young men were speechless as Witherspoon falteringly read the words: "Ellensburg, Washington, July 5, 1897. Father lying dying at Pasco. Railroad accident. Join me there. I arrive six o'clock morning." "I have ordered all the Tacoma dispatches repeated to her," muttered Ferris. "He did not get this news about Clayton." Ferris' eyes were averted. In his craven heart there was but one burning question, "My God! Did he remake his will after our marriage? I may be left a pauper on Alice's bounty." And Ferris, with a mighty effort, controlled his knowledge of the secret wedding. "This is horrible!" he cried, as he sank into a chair. And while they were mute, a ghastly, gleaming corpse was whirled hither and thither, under the blackened waters rushing inward from the sea, under the arch of Brooklyn Bridge, a mute witness of the curse of Cain, waiting God's awful mandate for the sea to give up its dead. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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