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

a further responsibility on the only man to whose interest it was to blot out Randall Clayton's blameless life."

There was a joint exclamation as the three gazed inquiringly at each other.

"Arthur Ferris!"

"Yes," solemnly said the dark-eyed doctor. "He was luring Clayton to his grave! He may have tried other plans, and, perhaps foiled by Clayton's suspicions or by mere accident, have used the real murderer here as his tool."

Alice Worthington's golden hair gleamed out, as her head fell upon her hands. Her face was ashen-pale, as she faltered out, "Have you found any papers?"

The girl bride's heart beat wildly. There was the imperilled honor of her father, guilty in intent in her mind now, as she whispered, "Is any one implicated?"

"Listen!" said the young physician, rising and pacing the room. "We have a trap set for a humble tool of the real murderer, whom we believe to be hiding in Europe. We must act somewhat outside of the law. Witherspoon must go to the Secretary of State at Washington and get an alias extradition, so that we can later hold the real criminal. We must use force, fear, even innocent fraud. We need your money aid, your authority, and your secrecy." Miss Worthington's face lit up grandly.

"There's my hand," firmly said Alice Worthington, springing up. "I have made arrangements with the executors for money. Spare nothing! Let us all act together. You shall be my brothers if you bring the cruel wretch to bay!" The young doctor bent over the girl's trembling hand and kissed it in reverence. Turning to Witherspoon, he simply said, "Call in McNerney."

A flickering rosy red dyed the young heiress' cheeks as she gazed upon Atwater's nervous, elegant figure pacing to and fro in the dusky library. "Miss Alice," said the physician, "When I dismiss Witherspoon and the officer, it will be only to send them to take two persons into custody. From them we shall be able to find our secrets which will lead us to the murderer.

"And to-morrow I will come alone, here, and tell you that Randall Clayton feared treachery; that he made a will, and left his little savings to one whom you will respect and honor.

"Of all this, not a single word, even to Witherspoon, until the two suspected ones are secretly arrested. Not a human being must know of the arrest, as we will use either one of the arrested to guide me to the hiding place of the murderer.

"I hope by to-morow night that you will know all but the fact of the chief criminal's arrest! To effect his arrest, I myself must risk life and even my reputation. Witherspoon and I have toiled in secret since the disappearance of Clayton.

"With you, we will win; without you, the murderer may escape. One hint of danger, and he would take flight and be lost in Europe's uncounted millions, perhaps in Asia."

Alice Worthington's beaming eyes told of her new pledge of secrecy, as she stood, a beautiful Peri, finger on lip, while Witherspoon brought the stalwart McNerney into the library.

The young officer, in plain, dark clothes, with severely shaven lip, was the ideal of a resolute young Irish priest, saving his Roman collar.

But his steady eye kindled as Witherspoon tersely recounted to the astonished heiress the discovery of the pocketbook, the picture label, the secret visits to the deserted mansion, No. 192 Layte Street, and the results of all his private researches.

The policeman sprang to his feet as the lawyer logically recounted his casual visits to the Newport Art Gallery, on finding a similar Danube picture in the window.

"In my opinion," sharply concluded Jack, "this Adolph Lilienthal knows something. His glib lie that there was no duplicate of the artist proof in America fell flat when I reminded him that I had recently seen one in New York. After looking over his memorandums, he admitted that he had sold one to Mr. Randall Clayton some weeks before his unfortunate death.

"Now," the lawyer cried, with positive deduction, "that picture had been addressed to Fräulein Irma Gluyas, No. 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn. I have the very label. Her name was found pencilled on the card in poor Randall's pocketbook. Who can find the missing thread to follow on this darkened path?"

"I can," stoutly said McNerney. "Somebody who was anxious to get Clayton out of the way used some pretty face as a lure! She was thrown across his path, God knows how! The vilest crimes here are concocted often in gilded luxury. He was undoubtedly killed in Brooklyn. This woman helped to get him there! Two people must be let alone, absolutely undisturbed. One is Lilienthal, and the other, Ferris! And you must all use a thousand precautions when we act. I'll have half the truth by to-morrow night. My chum, Jim Condon, is hammering shoes as cobbler James Lennon opposite the room where one of the suspects lives. And if Lilienthal or Ferris should miss either of the parties who will be arrested, they may warn the real criminal." The plainly-spoken words carried conviction to each listener.

The three friends were breathlessly hanging on the officer's frank words as he now described the departure of the fated Clayton from the street corner in the carriage with a woman, and decoyed there by the boy.

"Why did you hide all this?" was Alice Worthington's astounded query.

"Because the time was not ripe; because it meant the escape of the real criminal; and because I want the honor of the arrests, and the double reward. It means a life of ease and promotion, as well as the glory of bringing the brute who killed Clayton to bay! Now, Jim Condon is on watch. The woman is packing to slip away to Europe; she must meet the boy again! I will shadow him; Condon will watch the woman. Within three days they will meet, probably to-night, as the German steamers sail in two days. We will soon have them both!

"I've arranged for their safe handling."

"And what do you propose to do?" anxiously cried the heiress.

"Why," simply said McNerney, "the doctor and I will take the woman, go over to Europe, and catch 'Mr. August Meyer,' who forgot that the name of the sender of a valuable package is put on the envelope by the German government. That has betrayed him."

"And Mr. Witherspoon?" the excited woman said. "Stays here and secretly holds the boy hidden, even against the law, until we have the other. Then we can trap Ferris or Lilienthal, or both."

"Is this plan your joint work?" asked Alice. The three men bowed.

"And it's the only one, Miss," stoutly said the policeman. "One word dropped to any one, and we lose the game forever! I go out of my duty. I risk my place! But I've got three-months' leave of absence. Condon has two."

"I will guarantee your future," said the heiress to McNerney. "Go ahead, and God speed you. These gentlemen will furnish all the money you need."

"Then it's a go!" bluntly answered the officer. "I feel it in my bones we'll get them to-night."

After a whispered colloquy with the two friends, McNerney offered his hand to the agitated woman. "I'll risk my life for you, Miss," he said. "There's a desperate man behind this deed. And it was no ordinary woman who drew him into danger. Don't blame poor Clayton. He may have met her as a mere fashion-plat on the Avenue. Who knows?"

An hour after the officer had departed, Alice Worthington saw the two friends disappear, walking away unconcernedly, arm in arm. She turned away from the drawing-room window, in a stormy burst of sorrow.

"My father!" she gasped. And then, seeking the refuge of her own room, she hid her tell-tale face. "Even if it leads up to the guilty past, I can defend his memory. He was guiltless of this crime; and Randall Clayton's name shall be cleared of all stain!"

Over her virgin heart came the memory of the cold bargain which had linked her name to the crafty Ferris.

"Never, never, so help me, God! shall he lay his hand again in mine!"

For the first time in her life she felt the delicious power of wealth. Only the silver-haired Lemuel Boardman knew of the armed neutrality now secretly arranged, which was to buy a legal separation after six months from her nominal husband in that obscure Western State.

"Thank God!" she cried. "The sale of his honor, his manhood, for one hundred thousand dollars will seal his lips. He will keep his bargain; but, if he should be found guilty?"

All that night the heiress tossed upon uneasy pillows, waiting for the tidings which might in time parade her name as the innocent wife of a desperate felon.

The motley crowd pouring along the Bowery at ten o'clock swept past the Cooper Union on either side in search of the garish delights of the oblong oasis of pleasure. Down Fourth Avenue from the Square, down along Third Avenue, they swarmed.

Eager, hard-faced men; painted, hopeless-eyed women, the vacuous visitor from "Wayback," drunken soldiers, stray sailors, lost marines, all were kaleidoscopically mingled.

The strident voices of street peddlers mingled with the hoarse seductions of pullers-in.

Hebraic venders beamed alluringly from their open doors, gin palaces, shooting galleries, mock auctions, second-hand stores and brilliantly-lit "dives" awaited the unwary. "Coffee parlors," museums, cheap theaters, and music halls, as well as the "side rooms," were thronged with those pitiless-eyed Devil's children, the women of the night side of New York!

Roar of elevated train, clang of street cars, hurrying dash of the ambulance, wild onward career of the fire engine, punctuated this human maelstrom sweeping toward its duplex outlets of the morgue or Sing Sing's gloomy prison cells.

No one noted Witherspoon and Doctor Atwater seated in two different carriages drawn up under the shades of lonely buildings on the side street near the Dry Dock Bank.

The window-curtains were down in each of these waiting vehicles, and the drivers nodded upon their boxes.

In all the guilty bosoms on the bedlam-like street no hearts beat as wildly as those in the breasts of McNerney and Condon.

"It's the one chance of our lives, Jim," said McNerney, as he crouched in a dark doorway before posting his comrade. Both were now in uniform, ready for a dash, and McNerney's upper lip wore a movable prototype of his cherished mustache. "The boy comes down Fourteenth Street always and by Fourth Avenue," whispered Dennis.

"You watch the corner from this side. I'll nab the woman from the other. Remember, not till they have met and finished their talk. Then you can take the boy along with Atwater. I'll rush the woman away with Mr. Witherspoon."

It was twenty minutes past ten when McNerney saw the dark-clad form of Leah Einstein swiftly gliding along in the shade from Third Avenue. Onward she sped, never turning her veiled face to the right or left, until she slackened her pace under the gloomy cornices of the Dry Dock Bank.

The policeman sprang into a dark hallway as she passed, holding his breath lest the shy bird should take alarm.

In a few moments Emil Einstein sauntered across the Bowery and circling around the deserted bank corner, then settled down into a slow, searching pace, threading the lonely south side