The Midnight Passenger, Richard Henry Savage [best reads of all time txt] 📗

/> He would have made a total change of residence at once but for Jack Witherspoon's friendly caution. And so he sadly dismissed a plan to follow Irma Gluyas, to find out her real residence, and to be near her in the hours which she could make a paradise.

He smiled as he thought of the magnificent corbeille of flowers which he had already sent over to the Restaurant Bavaria to be placed in the breakfast-room. He had stolen away for a quarter of an hour to give his own directions to the grave-faced "Oberkellner," who was all discretion, as he pocketed Clayton's ten-dollar bill and said, "I perfectly understand. Madame already ordered the breakfast on Saturday. The same apartment. And you can trust to me." The suave politeness of the well-greased palm.

There was a mild-eyed wonder in the eyes of the dashing attaches of the Astor Place Bank as Randall Clayton entered on this fateful Monday morning. For, with that unconscious desire to please of the lover, Clayton's attire bespoke an unaccustomed elegance.

And yzt a discreet silence was observed as the sixty thousand dollars was transferred, and the flying fingers of the lynx-eyed clerks filled up the dozen drafts which Clayton impatiently awaited.

In his haste Clayton hailed a passing coupe, dashed away to the office, and quickly snapping his door after delivering over his trust, glided down the stairs. "To the Irving Place Theater," ordered the impatient lover, and then the minutes seemed hours till he had paid off his man, and then, by Fourteenth Street, hastily entered the darkened hallway of the Restaurant Bavaria.

He was but vaguely aware of the presence of Madame Raffoni, as he bowed low before his hostess. The incognito diva was a dream of beauty in her ravishing Viennese morning dress. Randall Clayton drew a new courage from Fräulein Irma's murmured remark, "Madame Raffoni, unfortunately, speaks no English," and the young enthusiast only noted that the ex-professional still possessed splendid eyes, and showed the remains of a considerable personal beauty.

His whole cares fell away from him as Clayton joined in the merry mood of his beautiful enchantress. The little dejeuner was a perfect rapprochement, in the light-hearted happiness of the hour.

Clayton had cast aside all suspicion when he left the doors of the Western Trading Company, and over the Liebfrauenmilch and Tokayer he found a new eloquence. His Western stories, his European experiences vastly interested the dark-eyed enchantress, and, led on by the spell of those wistful eyes - Othello-like - he told her the whole story of his life. For he stood before her, all unarmed in his sudden love fever.

Two hours sped by in a lingering day dream, until, yielding to his murmured entreaties, Irma Gluyas sat down at the piano, and in thrilling half voice, sang him the songs of the far off Magyar land.

As Merlin forgot his wisdom before the wily white-bosomed Vivien, so did the stormy-hearted American yield to the charm of the woman who sat there, with the choicest flowers of his offering clustered over her sculptured breast. Love's old, old story of a total surrender.

And then, as the last melody died away, the Hungarian witch softly sighed, "The shadows are already stealing in! We have stolen a few happy moments, mon ami. Ships that meet, and speak, and pass. I will not say Adieu! I will only say that I hope to meet you again. But your world and mine are so different. I have my career to make, and you must go on and be a money prince. There are no other princes in your workaday America!" Madame Raffoni was nodding in an alcove when the enraptured Randall Clayton caught the diva's hand. For he could not bear to lose her now; his heart clamored for her love.

His kisses warmed its veined marble as he whispered, "I must see you again. We two are alone in the world. I owe you a return of your gallant hospitality."

Her bosom was heaving in a tumult of vague emotion as she whispered, "I am fenced off from the whole world. My career depends upon my fidelity to those who trust me. I am absolutely incognito. I live apart from the world, and I dare not take you to my home. There is no way. The artist has no home life, no heart life. The world claims us; all our youth, beauty, talent, even our last energies are given up to the insatiate public.

"You must call me back when you look at our Danube picture, and, when the ban is lifted, if I succeed, you will hear of me. If I fail," she brokenly murmured, "then, forget me - think of me as only one who, a stranger in a strange land, has shared Life's cup with you, in a gleam of passing sunshine." There were bright tears trembling upon her down-dropped lashes.

"And I shall have nothing of you! Not even a picture," hoarsely murmured Clayton. "I will not be denied. I shall see you again. I will follow you!"

He was startled by the ashen pallor of her face.

"You must not! You dare not!" she cried, in a sudden agitation. "It would mean our eternal parting! For I will not have my plighted honor forfeit. Promise me, if you ever hope to see me again, that you will not follow me!"

There was the ring of truth in her words, and even the accent of fear in her appeal.

Catching at a last straw, Clayton pleaded before the word of dismissal should fall from her trembling lips.

"I must see you again," he begged. "I leave all to you, and I swear to obey you in all things."

The beautiful woman bowed her head in her hands.

"See how I trust you," she brightly said, meeting his glance frankly at last. "Be at the arch in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, next Sunday at two.

"If you have a closed carriage we can drive an hour in the park. If we must say farewell, we can say it then. For even when I met you first, in that crowded street, I felt that in some strange freemasonry of Life, we were to be friends."

A single frightened, warning gesture recalled him to his senses, as Irma pointed to her nodding companion. "You do not know how jealous artists are.

"One single imprudence would be my professional ruin; my career would be blasted. Trust to me! Obey me; swear that you will not follow me, and we shall meet again, for I would not lose you from my life." He took the roses from her bosom and kissed them.

"Go, now," she whispered, "but only that we may meet again! I have your promise."

"Loyal to the death," swore Clayton, as he kissed her trembling hands and then stole away, leaving her there alone with pallid lips and a wildly beating heart.

Clayton had taken up the burden of his unfinished day's business before the carriage left the "Bavaria," and swiftly traversing Fourth Avenue, passed along to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry.

There was but one occupant, however, for Madame Raffoni had silently disappeared before the diva, heavily veiled, entered the vehicle.

Clayton wondered at the protracted absence of his office boy, ignorant that the young double spy was standing before the Restaurant Bavaria watching Leah Einstein's furtive disappearance.

And neither the lad, astounded as his mother's unaccustomed finery, nor the love-blinded Randall Clayton ever knew that "Madame Raffoni" hastened to Magdal's Pharmacy to whisper to Mr. Fritz Braun tidings which brought a surging swell of triumph into that arch plotter's heart.

"Leah! You are a wonder, after all," was the comment of her old lover. "Keep this whole matter quiet. Hoodwink them all! And that pair of diamond ear-rings you dreamed of may fall your way at last!" The poor cast-off woman swore a blind obedience to her lover once, her tyrant still.

The adroit Timmins laughed in his heart when his employer, deliberately closing his cabinet, left the shop an hour earlier than usual on this particularly auspicious afternoon.

Fritz Braun's eyes gleamed viciously behind the blue glass screens as he sedately boarded his car. "Things are coming my way at last," he said. "I must not hurry, I must make no mistake, and I must let that Magyar devil fancy that she is playing this game herself, for one false step would ruin all." And he vowed to deceive the daring woman whom he feared to curb. "She shall work my will and not know the finale in the third act."

The office doors of the Western Trading Company closing, one by one, with a resounding clang, awoke Randall Clayton from day dreams which he dared not break off.

The office boy had not returned when Clayton, now on guard against every one in the employ of the Western robber baron, went out into the crowds pressing homewards.

He had given up, in a mad impulse, the whole faith of his unspent life to the woman who had whispered, "Go now, that we may meet again."

The thrilling accents of her voice, sweet and low, seemed to vibrate in his soul, and so, hugging his darling secret to his heart, he vowed to baffle Worthington's spies. "For her," he murmured, "I will outwit them all."

No shade of suspicion rested upon the lovely image dwelling now on the throne of his heart. For in the matchless beauty of her delicate face he saw only the royal mint stamp of a noble soul. He had called her to his side out of all New York's thronging thousands, by the mute appeal of his lonely, longing eyes. It was Nature's mesmerism.

And as that grand hailing sign had been answered by Fate's decree, he was blind to the pathway leading on. For, in his fond conceit, he only knew Worthington and Ferris as enemies.

With a restless impatience, he awaited the coming of his office boy after he had trifled the time away over his dinner at the Imperial. Leaning back in his chair, he keenly watched the voluble lad, in a growing wonder, as Einstein triumphantly recalled every detail of his master's evening movements of the past week.

"I didn't get on to them well, sir," concluded Emil, "but the last two nights one or the other of them has kept you in sight all the while.

"Daly's, the Imperial, Hammerstein's, the Waldorf, up where you bought your outing goods, down to Proctor's, up the Boulevard to the Colonial Club, they piped you off. You see I only got familiar with them after a few nights. But now I have them dead to rights."

"And where did they go from there?" growled Clayton. "After they reported to the old man," irreverently answered Einstein, "they went together down to the Fidelity Company. I followed them in and brought away a card. That's all, sir!"

Randall Clayton paced the floor in silence a few moments. Then, taking out his pocketbook, he handed the eager youth a hundred-dollar bill. "Keep this matter all to yourself, Emil," he gravely said. "I will let you off now for a couple of weeks. Then I will take you on again and will see if these 'spotters' are still on duty. I will look out for you, and see you promoted."

When the boy had departed, Randall Clayton sank back in his chair. "Whatever happens," he musingly decided, "I will never expose Irma to the dangers of this espionage. They may have other agents by day, who knows! And, if