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

was in an agony of spirit that he awaited the appearance of his unacknowledged wife.

The "private agency" which he had secretly employed brought a new discovery to his heart, when, ten days after Hugh Worthington's death, Ferris was awakened before his breakfast by a sudden report. The spy handed, in silence, to the astounded man a sealed envelope, which was the tidings of an impending Waterloo.

"Miss Worthington arrived night before last, with Boardman and Warner. They came on in a special car via the Pennsylvania road. She is at A. C. Stillwell's town house on Central Park West. The lawyers are both at the University Club. She has not left the house, and there have been many business-looking callers at the Stillwell house. Boardman or Warner is there on duty all the while, in alternation. Watch them."

Shame, rage, and fear struggled for the mastery on Ferris' pale cheeks as he dismissed the paid spy. "Tell your chief I'll call in and give him my final directions to-day," he curtly said.

In two hours Arthur Ferris had made the formal toilet for a professional duel of wits. He was the first caller when the silver-haired counselor had dispatched his morning mail.

Mr. Stillwell's frosty blue eyes gleamed with an Arctic light as Arthur Ferris opened his masked batteries. In all that long ride down Broadway, Ferris had arranged the "subject matter" evidently to his own satisfaction. But he floundered under the mute inquiry of those frosty eyes, and the floundering finally ceased.

"Do I understand that you ask or demand an interview with Miss Worthington?" icily said the old lawyer. "If you will put your wishes in writing, I will convey them to her. That is all I can say. I admit that she is my guest, and I also desire to say that she shuns all intrusion."

"Messrs. Boardman and Warner," - began Ferris. "With them I have nothing to do," coldly replied Stillwell. "You will hear of them and from them in due time."

With trembling fingers, Arthur Ferris wrote a few lines, sealed them, and handed them to the lawyer, whose formal bow froze the words trembling upon his lips.

Two long days of mental agony passed before Ferris, seated at his desk in the Trading Company's executive offices, received a formal letter from the men whom now he most feared on earth. "Not much to speculate on here," growled Ferris, as he pondered over the curt permission.

"Our client, Miss Alice Worthington, will receive you, on business, at No. 248 Central Park West, at 2 P.M. to-day. "BOARDMAN AND WARNER, "Executors, Hugh Worthington Estate."

The signature seemed to be a fluttering banner of hostile hosts.

And yet, summoning all his trained calm, Arthur Ferris, with unmoved gravity, bowed as he was ushered into the drawing-room of the great New York pleader. He knew the flag of no surrender was flying. He saluted, in silence, the two gentlemen who advanced to meet him.

And then an angry flush stole over his pale face. It was not the chilly greeting of the massive Lemuel Boardman, not the sharp, attentive nod of Mr. Ezra Warner, which sent the blood leaping to his heart; it was the slight inclination of the head of Mr. John Witherspoon, his secret antagonist. For he scented danger when the young Detroit lawyer appeared here in the stronghold of his rebellious wife in name.

"Miss Worthington will join us in a few moments," said Mr. Boardman.

There was the rustling of heavy, trailing robes, and Arthur Ferris scarcely dared raise his eyes as the figure of his girl bride darkened the door.

And he knew his fate at the first glance! He knew that he had lost her forever, the bride of a crime.

There was a majesty in that slight figure, clad in its sombre mourning drapery, which awed him. There was a set, marble pallor upon the beautiful face, and Arthur Ferris could not see the sapphire blue eyes veiled with their fringing lashes. He had started forward, had stretched out appealing hands, and murmured "Alice," but the youthful heiress merely glided past him in a stern silence. He could see her now, her face buried in her thin, white hands, the coronal of golden hair gleaming out over the black gown.

There was the faint sound of a sob as Ferris turned angrily to the senior, while Warner bent pityingly over the young girl.

"I demand a private interview with Miss Worthington," the husband quickly said, as he indicated the unwelcome presence of Witherspoon.

"We are here, Mr. Ferris," said Boardman, in a steady voice, "to allow you to communicate, properly, with Miss Worthington. As her legal representatives and the executors of her father's estate, we are requested to remain by her. You may proceed."

"I insist that Mr. Witherspoon shall, at once, retire. He is an interloper here," hotly replied Ferris.

"So much so," icily answered Boardman, "that he has been selected by us as the general managing director of the Western Trading Company to succeed the late Mr. Hugh Worthington."

The clock, ticking on noisily, seemed to sound the knell of Ferris' last hopes. But his affections were now only a mirage of the past. "That gives him no power over me here," stubbornly said the defeated husband.

"True; but THIS does," quietly said Boardman, handing him a paper.

With a sickening feeling at heart, Ferris read a formal appointment, signed by Miss Worthington, and countersigned by Boardman and Warner, appointing John Witherspoon as resident attorney, in law and fact, for Miss Alice Worthington.

"If that is not satisfactory, sir," gravely concluded the lawyer, "we have named Mr. Witherspoon as special New York counsel for the executors, and he will hold the proxy to cast the vote of the estate in the ensuing special election. I suggest that you now proceed with the matters in hand."

"One word!" cried Ferris, leaping to his wife's side, and seizing her wrists. "Do you confirm this outrage?"

"I do," suddenly cried the weeping girl, springing up and facing him with a defiant brow.

"What have you done with my brother? Where is the man whom you falsely accused of leading a vile life? You poisoned my father's mind against Randall. He has been led away and killed among you."

"Before God, I know nothing of his fate!" stammered Arthur Ferris, in despair.

"Then prove your innocence!" cried Alice Worthington, her lovely face lit with the anger of an avenging angel. "There is a gulf between us which will never be crossed, so help me, God!"

The girl fell back, weeping, in the arms of Warner, while Boardman sternly seized the trembling Ferris. "Another such outbreak and you can say adieu forever to the woman whose life you have wrecked," whispered Boardman. "Now, sir," he continued, raising his voice, "proceed! For, after to-day all your communications will be in writing, and only through us!"

"I demand your authority for all these high-handed actions," snarled the deposed autocrat of the Trading Company. His heart hardened as he reflected that, after all, he was the legal marital master of the slim girl there, hidden in her shrouding black robes.

"Nothing easier," calmly answered Boardman. "Here is a certified copy of the will of Hugh Worthington, which leaves his entire estate, real and personal, to his only child.

"As Miss Worthington has passed the age of eighteen, she needs no guardian of the person.

"We have obtained a special sanction of the Michigan courts for the appointment of Mr. Witherspoon to represent the estate here. I will leave you this copy, and Mr. Witherspoon will now deliver to you our written order to cease all functions in connection with the Trading Company except in so far as you represent your own stock.

"And, as you were not a qualified stockholder (a bona fide one) at the last election manipulated by you, your office as vice-president will be vacated at this special meeting."

Arthur Ferris' eyes flashed fire as Witherspoon, without a word, handed him the second document.

He essayed vainly to speak, but his parched tongue was powerless, his lips were fever-glued. Finally, the man who now feared a further stroke of malevolent fortune, said, in a low voice, "I desire a few words in private with Miss Worthington."

To the astonishment of the three men, Alice Worthington arose and glided into the rear drawing-room, where Ferris sprang to her side.

In low whispers he essayed to recall his lost bride to her perfunctory duties of wife. The men in the great front hall gazed at Fashion's throng sweeping by on the avenue as Ferris led his last trumps and endeavored to develop the hidden enemy's line of reserve.

His last hope failed when his legal wife quietly whispered, "Our union was brought about by treachery, duress, and fraud. Do you wish to proclaim your own share publicly? I know all now. I have all my father's dispatches, his cipher book, his telegrams from you, and the last, from Randall Clayton."

"You are my wife," fiercely whispered Ferris.

"In name only," defiantly replied Alice Worthington. "You will learn my father's last wishes later, and to your sorrow. You lied when you said that Clayton led a vile life. You poisoned my father's mind. Thank God! I am my own mistress now.

"I have friends who will protect me and punish you. I dare you ever to claim me as your wife. Beyond that mere civil ceremony, the sale of a soul for Senator Dunham's influence, you have never laid your hand in mine."

"You cannot frighten me, Madame," bitterly retorted Ferris. "I hold your father's good name in my power."

"Stop!" coldly rejoined the angered woman. "I have the whole history of the past. My father repaired the wrong done with his own hand, before his death.

"You betrayed Clayton, as your life comrade; you stole upon me, a lonely child, with your wily flatteries. I believed you to be true, and Clayton false. You murdered his good name, you estranged him from us. You have branded his memory as a fugitive thief! And you have failed, with your police, detectives, and lawyers, to find a clue! One word of charity from you and the dead man's memory would have been cleared of the stain of theft.

"And, the prison door yawns for you! You opened Clayton's desk, stole his telegraph-book and papers, and have secreted them."

"It is false," snarled Ferris. "Too late," cried Alice Worthington. "We have the office boy's evidence who saw you rifle his desk. Touch that boy if you dare! He is under our protection! We obtained copies from the Western Union of all the last telegrams sent and received by my poor brother."

"He plotted this robbery months ago, and sent all those as a mere decoy," faltered Ferris. "I was merely holding them back to assist the police." Alice Worthington's lip curled in scorn.

"Why did you not search the roads to Cheyenne? Why did you not send detectives over to Bay Ridge? Why did you not reveal your secret find to the chief of police?"

Suddenly Ferris saw the jaws of the trap closing upon him.

"He has been murdered!" sobbed Alice. "The money may have been hidden, the bank-book destroyed."

"By some of the bank's people," hesitatingly said Ferris.

"You alone knew all of these details! You came here and secreted yourself at the time of the election," sternly answered the avenging Little Sister. "You did not even sleep