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

San Francisco, under an assumed name.

The men on watch were all ignorant of German, and so did not detect the last wishes of the intending suicide.

"But I knew nothing," protested the boy. "I was always freely allowed to serve him, and so I brought him a scissors and needle and thread to repair his clothing, which had been cut to accommodate his arm.

"I thought that his little bottle was only medicine; for he hid it in his hand, after opening the breast of his coat."

"And so there was one last touch of feeling left in the murderer's heart," mused the stout policeman. "He wished his poor old mother to believe that he died decently. Let it be so! She shall not carry this last shame to her grave.

"And now, to polish off all the underlings of the smuggling conspiracy. There is both honor and profit in bringing them to book.

"Timmins and Lilienthal may be useful as State's evidence, for this last fellow saves his neck, perhaps, by Fritz Braun's death. It can never be known if he was only Braun's tool or the real inspirer of the crime. He must have found out about the money!" And so the careful lying of mother and son hid forever the reason of Braun's plot. The boy was saved.

When the stars of night shone down upon the great ship at her dock, all signs of the gloomy happening had been carefully hidden. Doctor Atwater had removed the two women, under guard of the well-rewarded matron and a skilled detective, to his own apartments, where the crafty Emil Einstein was brought to meet his poor, doting mother.

The detective captain took charge of the unravelling of the whole story of Mr. "August Meyer's" Brooklyn career, as well as the secrets of the crafty druggist, Fritz Braun.

There was a great symposium at Counselor Stillwell's residence by the leafy borders of the park. The great advocate rejoiced at the removal of every stain from Clayton's memory, and marvelled greatly at the deeply-laid snares of the man whose body now lay uuhonored at the morgue.

"You will have to run the company's affairs alone for a month," cheerfully said Jack Witherspoon; "for Atwater and I are to accompany Miss Worthington out to Detroit. Only I bid you all now to my wedding, which will occur in six months, and Miss Worthington honors my Francine with throwing her home open for that quiet ceremony. Atwater is to be the best man!"

"Where is your reward?" softly said Miss Worthington to the faithful young physician, as they looked out on the evening stars together.

"I can wait!" simply said the young man, and their eyes dropped in a strange confusion.

But Alice Worthington was in her mind already wondering when the weary weeks would pass away and free her from the tie binding her to the man secretly banished to Amoy.


CHAPTER XV.

MISS WORTHINGTON SHARES HER SECRET.


The time of roses had come and gone once more. The woodland was turning to gold again around the beautiful country home of that successful capitalist, Mr. John Witherspoon, at Fordham.

All the world knew of the stately glories of that recent wedding festivity at Detroit, whereat, under the wedding bell of white blossoms, Miss Francine Delacroix had given her hand to the man whom all envied as he stood before them, the active intellectual champion of Miss Alice Worthington.

The serene countenance of the young millionairess was placid, bearing a dignity far beyond her years, when she marshalled the friends of her youth to witness the marriage of the man whose skilful hand now guided the vast eastern interests of the Worthington Estate.

It was only after the bewildering honeymoon days had passed that Witherspoon, under the advice of Counselor Stillwell and the astute executors, began to gather up all the loose ends of the Clayton affair.

The permanent residence of Witherspoon in New York City was exacted by the growing cares of the vast company's interests.

And so the young bridegroom had selected a temporary country house until his vivacious helpmeet could be pleased in a choice of their permanent city residence. Unchanged by the possession of his dead friend's fortune, so romantically passed down to him, Witherspoon ceased to try to unravel the dark complications of Hugh Worthington's past.

There seemed to be some peculiar restraining influence which sealed the lips of Messrs. Boardman and Warner, and even the great Stillwell but briefly referred to the strange compact with Ferris which had seemed to buy the crafty schemer's silence for one hundred thousand dollars.

To the astonishment of proud old Detroit, Miss Worthington seemed to show no desire to open her superb palace home to society, and the great world slowly crystallized to the conclusion that she had found a new field in the affairs of the vast estate now absolutely under her own control.

The beautiful girl seemed to have passed, with a bound, into a mature womanhood, as if some malign influence had swept away all the flowers from her path. And, in her daily walks, she avoided the scores of gallants who now sought that richly dowered hand.

"This is not as it should be," finally decided Witherspoon, whose firm hand had cleared up all the aftermath of complications arising from Clayton's murder.

Busied with his own affairs, Witherspoon left the fate of Irma Gluyas, the friendless Leah, and the corrupted boy to Doctor William Atwater, whose frequent visits to Detroit were explained by some vague plan of philanthropic deeds now occupying the mind of Miss Worthington.

The meaner subordinates of Fritz Braun's crime were all easily disposed of, for both Lilienthal and Timmins were now serving long sentences for defrauding the United States customs laws.

And the Newport Art Gallery and the Magdal's Pharmacy were now both matters of "ancient history."

A mock auction allured the crowd, where the drugstore had long gathered the degenerates, and a gaudy "Bargain Bazar" flourished where once Lilienthal's inviting smile had wooed the unwary.

And, as the pernicious smuggling gang had been routed, "smitten hip and thigh," Witherspoon ceased to pry into the still partly veiled past. It was only after Sergeant Dennis McNerney had dropped the very last clue, that Witherspoon finally abandoned his settled purpose of tracing down Arthur Ferris' supposed connection with the crime which swept Randall Clayton out of the world. "It's no use, sir!" muttered the sergeant, "He was capable of anything, but he stands clear of the whole thing!"

The prosperous sergeant had sifted to the very dregs the fullest confessions of the passionate-hearted Hungarian beauty, and the defenceless Leah.

The complete history of "August Meyer" in Brooklyn had been traced out, and McNerney triumphantly demonstrated the uselessness of further search in No. 192 Layte Street.

The old mansion had been in every way changed, and the basement was now the abode of swarming Celestials, who had tinkered its space up to suit themselves. There were no traces of the crime left!

And so, reluctantly, Manager Witherspoon ceased to pry into the private life of Arthur Ferris. McNerney stoutly maintained the thesis to the last, that Ferris and Fritz Braun were strangers.

"The women both prove it," urged the officer.

"And yet some still unfathomed game of Ferris made him Clayton's secret enemy. Ferris wanted that beautiful heiress; he wanted to completely estrange and supplant Clayton, and so to reach old Worthington's millions. For that, he clung to the unsuspecting comrade of his bachelor life. Look to the West for light in this! Believe me, if any one knows, it is Miss Worthington! She is one woman in a million, a woman who does not talk!"

"What do you mean, Dennis?" sharply said the young lawyer.

The simple policeman stoutly answered, "I observed that Miss Alice seemed to have gained a great mastery over Counselor Stillwell and her Detroit lawyers.

"She was with her father for hours before he died, and I'm of the opinion that he told her many things that none of the lawyers even dream of, secrets that perhaps even you do not suspect! I'm only a plain policeman, yet strange schemes are in these millionaires' heads often.

"The great man had his own private uses for Ferris, and for the Senator uncle, who knows what great designs ended with his death.

"Believe me, she is following out her father's last advice; and if she lets Ferris off easy, you must do the same!

"As for Fritz Braun, he at first only intended, evidently, to lure poor Clayton into the Art Gallery or his own drug-store, through this pretty Hungarian, and, from a study of Clayton's habits, change the valises and so rob him by the old trick! The bunco game!

"But fortune willed otherwise, and Braun took the chance of Clayton's faith in the girl. He did not know that Clayton was so fondly devoted to the woman.

"The murder was a sudden inspiration, arising from Clayton's headlong imprudence.

"And Braun knew nothing of old Worthington's designs, nor Clayton's past history. What more Miss Worthington may know, you will never know, much as she esteems you, unless she wills. For she is a very resolute character, and I believe that she is quietly managing Stillwell and the other lawyers in her own way.

"It's clear to me that both Ferris and Braun used this poor office boy as a spy on Clayton; only, for different purposes.

"As for the two women, they were both mere puppets! Fritz Braun was tempted by the unprotected situation of that vast sum of money going daily to the bank. He easily learned that from the boy's braggadocio talk, and then used the whole circle as a means to entrap Clayton. As for the women, they are both merely what temptation, misery, and surroundings have made them. I'm glad to hear Doctor Atwater say Miss Worthington has some plans for their future.

"As for the boy, your own design is a wise one. Transport him out West, give him a fair start in some Pacific State in a decent business, and then if he goes wrong, after his severe lesson, let him run up against a smart punishment."

Reluctantly convinced, John Witherspoon dropped all his final investigations as to Arthur Ferris' secret career in New York City. As the months rolled along he saw the justice of the blunt police officer's judgment, for Miss Alice Worthington seemed to be an administering talent of the highest order.

"She would make a Secretary of the Treasury, sir," said the admiring Stillwell. "She is old beyond her years - a rare woman!"

By some vague influence, the personal future designs of Miss Worthington seemed to be a subject tabooed between Witherspoon, his wife, and Doctor Atwater, at the regular weekly dinner at Beechwood, where the young physician was always a stated guest.

Miss Worthington, already a Lady Bountiful, in Detroit, conducted a separate correspondence with the young wife, the husband, and the physician, the last her only confidant in the still unmatured plans of a practical philanthropy.

It was in the early autumn of the year following Randall Clayton's death that Witherspoon sprang up in astonishment, when he unfolded the New York Herald over his morning coffee at Beechwood.

The cabled announcement of the death of the Honorable Arthur Ferris, United States Consul