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

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,