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

/> "Why, sir. Dunham turned the market for a half million on that! It appears the daughter telegraphed the first news of the accident to Ferris, at the old man's dying request. And Ferris cunningly held it back, so that the Associated Press did not get it for a day. Then came the panicky drop in our stock. Dunham sold huge blocks short and filled later at the lowest notch, forty points below!"

"I thought," slowly remarked Witherspoon, "that Ferris would perhaps try to blackmail the estate!"

"So he did," drily answered Stillwell. "He gets one hundred thousand dollars in clear settlement of all his claims for legal services for the past five years, as rendered to the Worthington Estate."

"Oh! I see," bitterly remarked Witherspoon. "Each side puts up a hundred thousand dollars as the price of his silence!"

"And," curtly said Stillwell, "we now hold Dunham responsible that Ferris does not return to America for four years. By that time Dunham's senatorial term will be out. He will retire from politics, and so, his record and our interests are secure! I always feared that Ferris would turn up darkly in this sad murder business," gloomily added the old lawyer. "But the whole secret inquest so far proves to me the correctness of Boardman and Warner's judgment. Ferris feared Clayton's natural influence over the old man, and his own final game was the daughter's hand, and then the control of the old man's fortune. He spied on Clayton, lied about him, and at last brought about the estrangement of the old man and his only loyal servant in the whole circle.

"Poor Clayton! After his death he fell into a useless fortune! Miss Worthington has already made arrangements for a magnificent monument to him in the family plot at Detroit, and Randall Clayton will be there beside his stern old master. But for Ferris' wiles Clayton would surely have married that noble girl, and been alive to-day, a happy man, in Detroit.

"Ferris played a bold game and lost at last. It was the sale of the Senator's influence for the hand of the heiress. And she now hates him with an undying bitterness. But you can drop Ferris out as a suspected murderer. No; Clayton was evidently killed for the vast funds he carried. And we see, too late, that no less than three men should ever be trusted to make regular trips with such great amounts of money. But it's the old story of life. We are all wise, a day after the fair!"

Ten days after the stout "Rambler" shook out her snowy sails and flitted away to Bermuda, there was nothing left to ruffle the still waters of oblivion which had closed over Randall Clayton. Only upon the face of Robert Wade, Esq., lingered now an anxious expression of vague unrest.

For the Newport Art Gallery knew the oily beauty of Mr. Adolph Lilienthal no longer. There was a new face behind the proprietor's desk, and the "private view" gallery was permanently closed.

The furtive visitors came trooping in and went disconsolately away, for the private hall entrance was sternly shut and the electric bell removed. Night after night police, customs, and post-office officials sat in secret conference over the mysterious threads of the Baltic smuggling conspiracy now being gathered up while Mr. Adolph Lilienthal languished in a private cell in Ludlow Street jail.

He divided his ignorance of what he was "in for" with the frightened "Ben Timmins," who was safely locked up in a lower tier of the same human safe deposit bureau, charged with "complicity in smuggling."

The affairs of Magdal's Pharmacy were being conducted by a new clerk, nominated by the police, all unknown to the Tenderloin habitues, and a service-paid detective occupied the private office where the secret connection between Lilienthal and the absent Mr. Fritz Braun was being daily traced out.

The summer flowers were nodding over poor Randall Clayton's lonely grave, in the lonely cemetery of Woodlawn, on the September day when a queerly-assorted party of tourists descended from the train in the little Silesian village of Schebitz. Doctor William Atwater was tenderly cautious of the comfort of a veiled invalid woman, at whose side a sturdy nurse aided the watchful medical attendant. And none of the gaping yokels of the town obtained even a glimpse of the sick woman's pale face, as she was conducted to the covered carriage in waiting for the train.

With some show of state, a resplendent courier and a hard-featured military-looking stranger drove in advance of the carriage, half hidden in a hooded country droschky. The slanting summer showers glittered in the half-veiled sunbeams as the party hastily drove away toward the summer resort, two leagues away, where jaded fashionables rejoiced in the healing waters of the Louisen Quelle.

But no one of the gaping throng following the "fremden" guessed at the errand of this motley throng. In silence the cortege proceeded until a little by-lane covered with overhanging branches was reached, leading down into a dell where a natural vista showed an old gray mansion upon a rocky knoll.

An untrimmed forest around still gave its shelter to bird and hare, starting out from their coverts as the carriages rolled over the grass-grown, deserted road. "It is a 'Bleak House,'" murmured Atwater, gazing out of his carriage at the dreary crags of the Katzen Gebirge towering up, overhanging the neglected demesne. The young doctor leaned over and then whispered a few words in the ear of the apparently invalid woman, who was now trembling like a leaf.

"Remember, Leah," he sternly said, "your boy's life hangs on your faith now." Atwater moved a heavy pistol holster around under his loose top-coat, as the droschky in front of them halted. He sprang lightly out and walked to where the two other men were busied in an earnest colloquy.

McNerney, pistol in hand, was gloomily gazing at the turrets of the gray house. "He may escape us," fiercely said the man who had traveled from New York, eager to clasp the cold steel on "Mr. August Meyer's" blood-stained hands.

"Not so," calmly answered the disguised Breslau police sergeant, a sturdy war veteran. "I have hunted here all over the Adler's Horst. I know every crag and open spot. My soldiers are now hidden in a circle all around the old house. The moment that our carriage drives out into the open, they will close in and arrest every living soul. Do you see that little white flag flying on a pole on that pile of rocks? That is my signal that all is ready. Come on, now. We may not be in at the death."

Atwater had marvelled at the rapid work of the officials in their three-hours' stay at Breslau, and now he admired the skirmishing tactics of the veteran as the three men dodged from side to side while the empty carriage slowly drove down into the open.

The German sergeant threw up his hand and darted forward on the run as lithe forms in rifle green were seen quickly swarming out of the woods encircling the old mansion. There was no sign of life in the low, irregular hunting-lodge, save a pillar of smoke lazily ascending from the offices in rear.

McNerney was racing along at the German officer's side, his pistol drawn, and Atwater hardly turned his head as a squad of soldiers darted out of the encircling thickets.

"He is in there!" shouted a corporal to the Breslau policeman, now eager to make the capture and share McNerney's promised reward.

The screams of the frightened servants could be heard as the assailants neared the house. Was it fancy, or did McNerney see a grim, human face glaring out of the window of a round tower at the angle of the facade?

"Here; this way!" cried McNerney, as he stumbled into a little garden where trellised grapevines in olden days made a shaded walk for the Lady of Adler's Horst.

The group of men stopped aghast as a woman dashed wildly out of a door opening into a long conservatory. Her voice rang out in a last, appealing cry for help. She was sorely pressed!

Not three paces behind her trailing white robes, his face convulsed with passion, Fritz Braun leaped along, in a murderous rage, like a tiger in pursuit. In his right hand gleamed a flashing knife, and as the frantic woman tripped and fell, the brute's arm was raised.

But, throwing himself back into the "gallery position," McNerney tossed his revolver at the point blank. The heavy crack of the pistol was followed by a yell of rage as the American sprang forward, planting his foot firmly on Fritz Braun's chest.

Atwater had kicked the knife a score of yards away, when Sergeant Breyman thrust his burly form in front of the fallen woman.

But, McNerney was sternly covering the fallen form of Braun with his cocked pistol. "Move, you dog, and I'll blow your brains out!" he shouted. "Here, Atwater, get the handcuffs out of my left coat pocket and clap them on this wretch!" There were a half-dozen men now holding down the defiant murderer, whose right arm lay limply at his side.

The second carriage had boldly driven across the lawn, and Leah Einstein leaped lightly to the ground. She was all unveiled now, and Irma Gluyas uttered a faint cry as the handsome Jewess stood spellbound before the astounded prisoner.

Sergeant Breyman had already knotted a handkerchief around the prisoner's bleeding arm, when Dennis McNerney, in a ringing voice, cried, "August Meyer, alias Fritz Braun, I arrest you for the murder of Randall Clayton!"

With one shuddering sigh, Irma Gluyas fell prostrate upon the grassy sward. "Take her into the house, men," cried the sergeant, as a score of hardy soldiers now closed around the excited group. "Go with them, Leah," said Atwater. "I'll just glance at this scoundrel's arm, and then come in to you."

When the riflemen bore the now fainting prisoner into the dreary granite-walled lodge, McNerney whispered to Atwater, "Look out for him! I must take the nurse and Leah, and try to locate Braun's plunder. These Germans must never know of that."

With all the formality of a martinet, Sergeant Breyman now posted his guard, leaving a corporal and two men with the young surgeon, for Atwater only lived now to see Braun dragged back to his punishment. There was no mistake, for McNerney had whispered, "It's the Sixth Avenue druggist, sure enough! I am a made man for life!"

The few household servants were being paraded and questioned by the German official, while Dennis McNerney, followed by Leah, glided through the rooms of the second story. A glance told the practical officer where Braun had made his own headquarters.

"The southwest bedroom and second-story turret gave a view of all of the approaches to the Adler's Horst."

Guns and sharpened hunting implements easily showed Braun's preparations for defense, and his presumed relaxation.

When McNerney had glanced at Irma Gluyas' own retreat, he hastily locked the door of Braun's separate retreat. The policeman's quick eye had caught sight of the inner bolts and chains! "The stuff is surely hidden near here! I must make my play upon his pretty companion." When McNerney rejoined Doctor Atwater, the physician had already left Braun to the formal questioning of the methodical sergeant.

Irma Gluyas was now sobbing wildly, her head resting on the bosom of the woman who had been Braun's