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

not take a man with you to-day?"

"I have a carriage below," quietly said Clayton, "so I'm all right. No one will know what's in my bag. I will drive back and put the book in my own safe. It may be late when I do, as there'll be a hundred heavy depositors at the Astor to-day. No one wants to keep funds locked up three days."

Sweeping the bundled bills into the portmanteau, and then locking up the great wallet of cheques, Randall Clayton absently shook hands with the fidgety old accountant, now eager for his leave. "Must catch my train. Take care of yourself," was Somers' hearty adieu, as he vanished with his ten-year-old umbrella in hand.

Clayton walked across the hall, with the concealed fortune locked in the travelling bag, and then remembered his pistol thrown into his desk drawer.

He had just slipped it in his pocket when Emil Einstein glided into the room.

"Come down," he eagerly whispered, "She's there, - and - there's some bad news, I fear."

Never waiting for the elevator, Clayton grasped his hat, hastily donning his top-coat, and snatching the bag, cried, "Lock up my desk and keep my keys till I come back. Don't leave; remember!"

Everything but Irma Gluyas faded from the excited lover's mind as he saw the portly form of Madam Raffoni lingering in the darkened hallway of the ground-floor entrance.

There were tears in the woman's eyes as she sobbed, "She is dying! Kommen sie schnell!"

The golden daylight turned to darkness before Clayton's eyes, as he reeled and staggered.

Then, a mental flash of hope allured him.

"Where?" he hoarsely cried. The woman's jargon made plain that the beautiful singer still lay in the darkened rooms whither his loving arms had borne her.

"The carriage, yes; my God, we must hurry!" was Clayton's first returning thought; and then, motioning to the woman to follow, the cashier darted along Fourteenth Street.

He was already within the vehicle when Leah Einstein timidly entered.

"To the Fulton Ferry. Hurry!" called out the excited Clayton, as the burly policeman drove away a knot of "extra"-peddling urchins.

"I can easily reach the bank by two o'clock; they never shut the side doors till three," murmured Clayton, as his eyes rested upon the Russia-leather portmanteau. He instinctively gripped his revolver. It was all right.

And then, with a sinking heart, he essayed to gain some connected story of the Magyar songbird's grave peril.

But, the woman sobbing there was all too overcome for a connected story.

There was only death in the air - there was the open grave yawning for the woman he loved, and the brightness had gone out of Randall Clayton's life forever when, with white lips, he asked himself, "Will we be in time? Irma! My God! Irma, my own darling!"

He had only time to dismiss the carriage and drag Madame Raffoni on the ferry-boat when the chains barred out a score of the rushing crowd.

Twenty minutes later, his heart beating a funeral knell, Randall Clayton, portmanteau in hand, passed within the portals of the old brownstone mansion. As the woman softly closed the door, which she had opened with a pass-key, she laid her finger on her lip.

Then Clayton, on tip-toe, stole softly after her into the darkened chamber where a white-robed form lay motionless on the great canopied bed.


CHAPTER VIII.

THE STRANGE TUG'S VOYAGE.


"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