The Midnight Passenger : A Novel

by Richard Savage

CHAPTER IV.

UNDER THE SHADOWS OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

When the "Fuerst Bismarck" moved grandly away from her wharf and glided down the stream, Jack Witherspoon paced the deck with clouded brows. The acute Detroit lawyer had rightly estimated the crushing effect of his disclosure of Hugh Worthington's treachery.

The two college mates were now banded together, however, by a secret compact, and both of them realized the craft of the foe whom they were fighting. "Not a letter, not a cable, not a single scrap of paper," said the wary Jack. "And you must keep away from me and be sure to dissemble all your wrath."

Clayton appreciated the prudence which had separated them in the last three days of his friend's stay, and minutely followed Witherspoon's final descriptions of the hidden plans of the great syndicate. "You must be ever on your guard," said the new champion, "and remember the annual election and this strange wedding must be allowed to take place without suspicion.

"On my return I shall frankly mingle with the 'upper ten' of the Trust. You are never to be seen alone in my company. But you can meet me over in Jersey City; there we can arrange a simple cipher for future use, and, when the blow falls, you are then to demand a month's leave of absence. So no word to any one of your destination.

"If Hugh Worthington lurks on the Pacific Coast until he has made the coup, I will find him out there. You can be in hiding near, ready to appear, and then boldly claim your rights. Arthur Ferris will probably be back in New York City in charge, and Worthington will yield rather than have the world, his beloved daughter, and all society know of his inward baseness. I shall delve further into the old records, under pretense of following up the title to our purchase. Perhaps we may even now unearth other unconveyed property."

Randall Clayton, brave as he was, shuddered when Witherspoon solemnly said: "Remember! Your life is in your own hands. For God's sake, be prudent! One little self-betrayal in sudden anger, and then either Worthington or Ferris would surely compass your death for this tempting million. You will fight for your birthright, and I for the future happiness of darling Francine Delacroix."

When they wrung each other's hands in the last good-bye, "each heart recalled a different name."

For, burning on the altars of that lonely heart of Clayton's was the fierce fire which bound him now as the worshipper of the velvet-voiced Magyar witch. He, too, had some one to fight for now, and his ardent fancy painted her in every glowing color of the passion of young manhood.

Left alone to his daily affairs, Randall Clayton now lived behind an impenetrable mask. He knew not which of the higher employees was charged with that secret espionage so necessary to the final success of the Worthington, Durham and Ferris conspiracy.

Was it the pale-faced Somers, the smooth old accountant, his pompous chief, Mr. Robert Wade, or some one of those who had broken his bread and drank his wine in the occasional friendship of the business coterie. And now Clayton hated the old money-lover who was foisting a husband on his only child merely to chain a Senator to the wheels of the money chariot.

Seated alone, in the evening, watching the treasured picture, and waiting for the day of the diva's breakfast, a fierce desire for stern reprisals took possession of Clayton. "I have it!" he murmured. The pathway seemed clear at last. And the next day, following out his self-protective scheme, he directed the bright-faced office boy Einstein to report at his rooms on the ensuing evening.

There was a broad grin on the young rascal's face when he finally left his master. He darted away with a ten-dollar bill in his purse, the earnest of a secret monthly stipend. "Some strange fellows are following me, spying upon me, my boy," said the man who now doubted all men but one, on earth, and who was fast falling under the spell of his dreamy adoration of an utterly unknown siren.

"It matters not who they are or what they want. I wish you to follow me up, with a good deal of care, in my evening wanderings, and shadow these spotters.

"There is a new hundred-dollar bill ready for you when you find who they are, and where they come from, and who they report to. You can keep hovering around at a safe distance, and never address or notice me. Spend what money you like in following my evening rounds. I'll repay it all. I am going to lead them a merry dance. Every day, before I leave the office, I will give you a different rendezvous, up to midnight. You are simply to hover around, ignore me, and then skilfully shadow my pursuers."

The service of the Western Trading Company now galled Randall Clayton like the galley slave's chain. And yet Jack Witherspoon's counsel had been most wise. For Clayton knew not who had replaced the treacherous Ferris in that secret espionage, so necessary to Worthington until the great "deal" had been consummated.

"Lies, lies, all lies," muttered Clayton, as he read the friendly, almost fatherly, letters of Hugh Worthington announcing his intended tour around the world. "The old fox," sneered Clayton, as he read the "rider" to the capitalist's letter.

"Ferris will have my power of attorney, and he alone will communicate with me. If Alice's health demands it, I may vary my route and look around in the Sierras, or take the summer run to Alaska. I fear the heat of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. But all will depend upon the doctors and their advice.

"Report only to Ferris as to any thing you wish to reach me. He will have my private cipher. All the rest is mere routine."

But the words of the old money-grabber angered Clayton less than
Ferris' effusive friendly epistles from Detroit.

"I can excuse Worthington," growled Clayton, as he paced his private room like a caged tiger. "He has his old crime to cover up, his only daughter to shield, his vast plans to further. I am only a poor pawn in his fevered game of life; but Ferris, 'mine own familiar friend,' he is a traitor, a needless traitor, to his black heart's core.

"For it is the sale of a soul, his dirty traffic in my heart's secrets, a Benedict Arnold of the heart, for mere dirty gain. And his cold ensnaring of this innocent girl is an outrage; it is a crime to make her the hostage of Senator Durham's corrupt friendship."

And yet, mindful of Jack Witherspoon's counsel, he took up the trade of an honest Iago, and hid his raging hatred behind the mask of an olden gratitude to the one, a loyal friendship to the other.

The searchlight of his mind was turned only on the Western conspirators, and he feared no villainy in the world save the Detroit schemer who had robbed him of his birthright. "By Heavens! I'll give up trade, the service of this greedy octopus. I will go abroad and so escape Worthington's vengeance, and Ferris' duplicity."

He began to secretly watch every one of the leading New York officials of the company in order to detect Ferris' successor in the hidden watch upon his movements.

It was with a secret longing for the coming Monday of the breakfast that Clayton passed Lilienthal's window, three days after Jack's sailing, in company with the grave-featured Robert Wade. His runaway heart was all unsuspicious now.

Thank Heaven! There was no longer the graceful woman lingering there fascinated by the picture whose sunset glories lit up in gold and purple the lonely man's rooms. But the suave dealer, waiting at his door, salaamed with effusion as the manager passed. His salute distantly included Clayton, and the action was not lost upon Robert Wade.

"Do you know Lilienthal?" somewhat sharply asked Wade.

"Not at all," carelessly answered the younger man. "I happened to drop in and buy a bit of a landscape from him the other day. He mentioned when I gave him my cheque that you occasionally patronized him."

"He is a rare art connoisseur," musingly said Wade, "and I've picked up a few pretty bits of etching now and then at his shop. You must come up and see my collection some day."

Clayton, busied with his day dreams, did not notice the sudden paleness of the pompous manager. In his own ignorance of the mysteries of the "private room" and its secret "facilities for patrons," he never dreamed that the man at his side was "light of foot, fierce at heart" as the tiger when he stole to the rendezvous arranged by Lilienthal, who had indeed offered many "choice bits" to the astute manager. Clayton had stumbled along in New York, blinded to its dual existence, its gilded shams.

"I will never set foot in that place again," remarked Clayton, as he strode alone down University Place to the bank. "Lilienthal must never know of my further acquaintance with the Fräulein."

And so, each keeping his own secret hugged closely to an anxious heart, the two men went along on their different paths, each drawn along by the invisible threads of life—the one dragged on by a sudden romantic, resistless passion, the other by the glowing links of the iron chains of habit, the ruling appetite of a remorseless lust. And yet both of them were only blinded fools of passion.

The dragging days until the trysting time for the breakfast were filled up with business cares, but Randall Clayton had roamed the streets of New York at night, restlessly, since Witherspoon's sailing. In a feverish unrest, he had visited concert halls, theaters, and searched the now deserted club-rooms for a familiar face.

A Sunday drive in the Park, and late excursions among the kaleidoscopic crowds of midnight New York filled up his time until he should again meet Irma Gluyas.

He had always turned away in disgust from the painted faces of the leering sirens of the Tenderloin, and now he sat gloomily eying the vacuous stare of the rabbit-faced stage beauties capering in their mock diamonds. For a higher womanly ideal reigned in his lonely bosom.

Back, back to the speaking silence of his lonely rooms he wandered, to gaze through the smoke wreaths upon that picture which had so strangely brought Irma Gluyas into his life. Gloomily recalling the past, he went over all the brief memories of his boyhood, and tried to recall his stern father's few confidences, or picture to himself the mother whom he had never known. All was a gray blank of toiling days and carking cares. And Worthington had robbed him and made him eat the bread of dependence.

He lived now only to wreak a vengeance upon the man who had shared his father's early speculations and deserted him in his time of need. The ruin of Everett Clayton was now explained. And but one gracious memory lingered with him to lighten the gloom of his dependent boyhood.

Golden-haired Alice Worthington, the child-angel of the house, the frank girlish little playmate, the slim, shy school girl, the "Little Sister" of his striving college days. And now she was doomed to be the deluded prey of a vulgar money conspiracy—sold, body and soul.

He groaned as he thought of the deliberate sacrifice of the girl's glorious young womanhood to the vicious ambitions of her father's mad race for wealth and power.

"Shall I warn her?" he bitterly mused. And then all his manhood rose up against discovering a father's shame. "Never!" he cried. "I have eaten his bread and salt. My quarrel is with him alone! Ferris is to be the coming bridegroom. He is like all the rest—greedy of money and power. He will surely make her a "good husband" of the plutocratic code. Her money, his uncle's influence, bartered off for each other, will tie them firmly together. She shall never know from me. But I will fight Hugh Worthington a silent battle to the death. It will be a life and death struggle under the Black Flag."

It was this oath which made Clayton resolve to now hide his own private life slyly from all his colleagues. And it was a most needful precaution. For one single imprudence would give to his enemies the secret of his devotion to the dark-eyed woman whose eyes seemed to shine through all the clouds around him.

And, strange to say, the watchful Einstein had as yet made no report, though each night during the week Clayton had seen the youth hovering afar, at varied times, and in strangely incongruous changes of external adornment.

It was while Clayton was hastily packing up his bank deposits, upon the Monday morning, which had at last arrived, young Einstein glided into the room and drew Clayton to the door, left slightly ajar.

"There, quick," he whispered. "Those two fellows at the elevator, now. They have just come out from reporting to old Wade. I was in the office, waiting for Mr. Somers to give me the last mail deposits.

"Get out and follow them," whispered Clayton. "Come to my rooms at eight to-night. Your hundred dollars await you." The agile lad nodded and stole out, springing down the stairs to await the slowly-descending elevator.

"Now," growled Clayton, as he viciously snapped the lock of his portmanteau. "I will hide my every movement from you, my marble-faced old sleuth. You are the heir of Ferris' infamy."

And yet, as Clayton descended in the elevator, he realized that he had no claim whatever upon Robert Wade's friendship. "He has not betrayed me," murmured the now defiant cashier. "He is only the human 'transmitter' in Hugh Worthington's 'long-distance telephone' of villainy."

But, deep down in his angered heart, Clayton swore an oath to lead them all a merry dance. "No man among them shall ever have my confidence, and I will find a way to hide my every movement."

He would have made a total change of residence at once but for Jack Witherspoon's friendly caution. And so he sadly dismissed a plan to follow Irma Gluyas, to find out her real residence, and to be near her in the hours which she could make a paradise.

He smiled as he thought of the magnificent corbeille of flowers which he had already sent over to the Restaurant Bavaria to be placed in the breakfast-room. He had stolen away for a quarter of an hour to give his own directions to the grave-faced "Oberkellner," who was all discretion, as he pocketed Clayton's ten-dollar bill and said, "I perfectly understand. Madame already ordered the breakfast on Saturday. The same apartment. And you can trust to me." The suave politeness of the well-greased palm.

There was a mild-eyed wonder in the eyes of the dashing attaches of the Astor Place Bank as Randall Clayton entered on this fateful Monday morning. For, with that unconscious desire to please of the lover, Clayton's attire bespoke an unaccustomed elegance.

And yet a discreet silence was observed as the sixty thousand dollars was transferred, and the flying fingers of the lynx-eyed clerks filled up the dozen drafts which Clayton impatiently awaited.

In his haste Clayton hailed a passing coupe, dashed away to the office, and quickly snapping his door after delivering over his trust, glided down the stairs. "To the Irving Place Theater," ordered the impatient lover, and then the minutes seemed hours till he had paid off his man, and then, by Fourteenth Street, hastily entered the darkened hallway of the Restaurant Bavaria.

He was but vaguely aware of the presence of Madame Raffoni, as he bowed low before his hostess. The incognito diva was a dream of beauty in her ravishing Viennese morning dress. Randall Clayton drew a new courage from Fräulein Irma's murmured remark, "Madame Raffoni, unfortunately, speaks no English," and the young enthusiast only noted that the ex-professional still possessed splendid eyes, and showed the remains of a considerable personal beauty.

His whole cares fell away from him as Clayton joined in the merry mood of his beautiful enchantress. The little dejeuner was a perfect rapprochement, in the light-hearted happiness of the hour.

Clayton had cast aside all suspicion when he left the doors of the Western Trading Company, and over the Liebfrauenmilch and Tokayer he found a new eloquence. His Western stories, his European experiences vastly interested the dark-eyed enchantress, and, led on by the spell of those wistful eyes—Othello-like—he told her the whole story of his life. For he stood before her, all unarmed in his sudden love fever.

Two hours sped by in a lingering day dream, until, yielding to his murmured entreaties, Irma Gluyas sat down at the piano, and in thrilling half voice, sang him the songs of the far off Magyar land.

As Merlin forgot his wisdom before the wily white-bosomed Vivien, so did the stormy-hearted American yield to the charm of the woman who sat there, with the choicest flowers of his offering clustered over her sculptured breast. Love's old, old story of a total surrender.

And then, as the last melody died away, the Hungarian witch softly sighed, "The shadows are already stealing in! We have stolen a few happy moments, mon ami. Ships that meet, and speak, and pass. I will not say Adieu! I will only say that I hope to meet you again. But your world and mine are so different. I have my career to make, and you must go on and be a money prince. There are no other princes in your workaday America!" Madame Raffoni was nodding in an alcove when the enraptured Randall Clayton caught the diva's hand. For he could not bear to lose her now; his heart clamored for her love.

His kisses warmed its veined marble as he whispered, "I must see you again. We two are alone in the world. I owe you a return of your gallant hospitality."

Her bosom was heaving in a tumult of vague emotion as she whispered, "I am fenced off from the whole world. My career depends upon my fidelity to those who trust me. I am absolutely incognito. I live apart from the world, and I dare not take you to my home. There is no way. The artist has no home life, no heart life. The world claims us; all our youth, beauty, talent, even our last energies are given up to the insatiate public.

"You must call me back when you look at our Danube picture, and, when the ban is lifted, if I succeed, you will hear of me. If I fail," she brokenly murmured, "then, forget me—think of me as only one who, a stranger in a strange land, has shared Life's cup with you, in a gleam of passing sunshine." There were bright tears trembling upon her down-dropped lashes.

"And I shall have nothing of you! Not even a picture," hoarsely murmured Clayton. "I will not be denied. I shall see you again. I will follow you!"

He was startled by the ashen pallor of her face.

"You must not! You dare not!" she cried, in a sudden agitation. "It would mean our eternal parting! For I will not have my plighted honor forfeit. Promise me, if you ever hope to see me again, that you will not follow me!"

There was the ring of truth in her words, and even the accent of fear in her appeal.

Catching at a last straw, Clayton pleaded before the word of dismissal should fall from her trembling lips.

"I must see you again," he begged. "I leave all to you, and I swear to obey you in all things."

The beautiful woman bowed her head in her hands.

"See how I trust you," she brightly said, meeting his glance frankly at last. "Be at the arch in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, next Sunday at two.

"If you have a closed carriage we can drive an hour in the park. If we must say farewell, we can say it then. For even when I met you first, in that crowded street, I felt that in some strange freemasonry of Life, we were to be friends."

A single frightened, warning gesture recalled him to his senses, as Irma pointed to her nodding companion. "You do not know how jealous artists are.

"One single imprudence would be my professional ruin; my career would be blasted. Trust to me! Obey me; swear that you will not follow me, and we shall meet again, for I would not lose you from my life." He took the roses from her bosom and kissed them.

"Go, now," she whispered, "but only that we may meet again! I have your promise."

"Loyal to the death," swore Clayton, as he kissed her trembling hands and then stole away, leaving her there alone with pallid lips and a wildly beating heart.

Clayton had taken up the burden of his unfinished day's business before the carriage left the "Bavaria," and swiftly traversing Fourth Avenue, passed along to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry.

There was but one occupant, however, for Madame Raffoni had silently disappeared before the diva, heavily veiled, entered the vehicle.

Clayton wondered at the protracted absence of his office boy, ignorant that the young double spy was standing before the Restaurant Bavaria watching Leah Einstein's furtive disappearance.

And neither the lad, astounded as his mother's unaccustomed finery, nor the love-blinded Randall Clayton ever knew that "Madame Raffoni" hastened to Magdal's Pharmacy to whisper to Mr. Fritz Braun tidings which brought a surging swell of triumph into that arch plotter's heart.

"Leah! You are a wonder, after all," was the comment of her old lover. "Keep this whole matter quiet. Hoodwink them all! And that pair of diamond ear-rings you dreamed of may fall your way at last!" The poor cast-off woman swore a blind obedience to her lover once, her tyrant still.

The adroit Timmins laughed in his heart when his employer, deliberately closing his cabinet, left the shop an hour earlier than usual on this particularly auspicious afternoon.

Fritz Braun's eyes gleamed viciously behind the blue glass screens as he sedately boarded his car. "Things are coming my way at last," he said. "I must not hurry, I must make no mistake, and I must let that Magyar devil fancy that she is playing this game herself, for one false step would ruin all." And he vowed to deceive the daring woman whom he feared to curb. "She shall work my will and not know the finale in the third act."

The office doors of the Western Trading Company closing, one by one, with a resounding clang, awoke Randall Clayton from day dreams which he dared not break off.

The office boy had not returned when Clayton, now on guard against every one in the employ of the Western robber baron, went out into the crowds pressing homewards.

He had given up, in a mad impulse, the whole faith of his unspent life to the woman who had whispered, "Go now, that we may meet again."

The thrilling accents of her voice, sweet and low, seemed to vibrate in his soul, and so, hugging his darling secret to his heart, he vowed to baffle Worthington's spies. "For her," he murmured, "I will outwit them all."

No shade of suspicion rested upon the lovely image dwelling now on the throne of his heart. For in the matchless beauty of her delicate face he saw only the royal mint stamp of a noble soul. He had called her to his side out of all New York's thronging thousands, by the mute appeal of his lonely, longing eyes. It was Nature's mesmerism.

And as that grand hailing sign had been answered by Fate's decree, he was blind to the pathway leading on. For, in his fond conceit, he only knew Worthington and Ferris as enemies.

With a restless impatience, he awaited the coming of his office boy after he had trifled the time away over his dinner at the Imperial. Leaning back in his chair, he keenly watched the voluble lad, in a growing wonder, as Einstein triumphantly recalled every detail of his master's evening movements of the past week.

"I didn't get on to them well, sir," concluded Emil, "but the last two nights one or the other of them has kept you in sight all the while.

"Daly's, the Imperial, Hammerstein's, the Waldorf, up where you bought your outing goods, down to Proctor's, up the Boulevard to the Colonial Club, they piped you off. You see I only got familiar with them after a few nights. But now I have them dead to rights."

"And where did they go from there?" growled Clayton. "After they reported to the old man," irreverently answered Einstein, "they went together down to the Fidelity Company. I followed them in and brought away a card. That's all, sir!"

Randall Clayton paced the floor in silence a few moments. Then, taking out his pocketbook, he handed the eager youth a hundred-dollar bill. "Keep this matter all to yourself, Emil," he gravely said. "I will let you off now for a couple of weeks. Then I will take you on again and will see if these 'spotters' are still on duty. I will look out for you, and see you promoted."

When the boy had departed, Randall Clayton sank back in his chair. "Whatever happens," he musingly decided, "I will never expose Irma to the dangers of this espionage. They may have other agents by day, who knows! And, if I wish to safely meet her, it must be over there."

His thought were wandering far away across the black, flowing tide of the East River, where the Brooklyn Bridge was now traced in line of living light against the darkness of night.

Over there, beyond the gloomy river warehouses, with their forests of masts, across the swiftly rushing tide seeking the unknown sea, the graceful Queen of his awakened heart was hidden from him. "I shall find her out; nothing shall part us; she shall hear me yet; she shall learn to look for my coming, and she shall open the gates of her home to me. Her heart shall beat against my own."

For, in all the sweep of a lover's imagination, he only saw her, at the end of the veiled pathway, with love lighting her softly shining eyes, and her beloved hand waving him on.

While he still wandered in a Fool's Paradise, the crafty office boy was hastening across the great span which hangs its curving arch from Manhattan to Long Island.

Einstein was driven on by his gnawing greed of money. "Fritz must know this at once," he muttered. These business detective fellows are dangerous, and could easily break up his little game.

"For if Clayton gets into any trouble, out he goes! There's no money in him then, and he's no good to Fritz Braun, no more to me. This news ought to fetch me a couple of twenties if well played."

It was ten o'clock when Emil Einstein sprang down the stairway of the eastern terminus of the Brooklyn Bridge. The lad was blithe at heart as he turned to the left and, passing through the seething press of the crowds congested under the electric lights of Sands and Fulton Streets, carefully reconnoitered a gorgeous saloon on the corner of Layte and Dale Streets.

Einstein peered in through the two swinging doors of the front, and then betook himself to the side entrance on Dale Street, where the "Family Entrance," the private corridor, and one or two halls admitted him to the restaurant, card rooms and private rooms of the ground floor of the five-story corner brick building. The youth recoiled, after a peep through a ground glass door left ajar, at the glories of the main hall of the famous "Valkyrie" saloon.

"What am I to do?" he mused, as he lit his cigarette in a dark doorway outside, parrying the coarse advances of two fleeting Cyprians with a retort which brought the blood to their cheeks, leaping up under the plastered rouge. "I've been forbidden to call him out of 192; he and my mother are both now fooling the Duchess; I am playing a double game with Clayton, and, by Hokey, old Wade's watchful men may drop on to me. I may lose the best job in New York if these people get all tangled up. What the devil is going on, anyway?"

He crossed the street and gazed up at the glaring red pressed-brick walls of the Valkyrie corner. All the two score of windows on Dale Street, and the score on Layte Street were closely guarded with solid shutters of a green hue.

"God knows what deviltry is going on here," muttered the lad, a coward at heart. There were fleeting figures of veiled women gliding past him through the dim entrances, the refluent stream of the Devil's daughters.

Down the gloomy side street the blue gleam of the pitiless river showed light against the somber night, the yellow blinking lights of the tugs flitting about like corpse candles.

In the dark shadows of the involved angular corners, thug and ghoul lurked until midnight should bring them their prey, the careless roysterer, or the belated prosperous citizen. Out on Layte Street the flashy throng was still pouring toward the Fulton Ferry.

"I wonder if I dare," mused the lad, as he walked around the corner and paused before No. 192 Layte Street. The sober splendor of the richly decorated old five-story brownstone told of the vanished glories of the ante-bellum days.

A stately mansion in whose halls there had been royal cheer in the departed days when Brooklyn had its proud burghers and New York its simple citizens of worth. But the pressure of commerce, the havoc of the bridge construction, the onrush of warehouse, shop, and the pressure of the street railway octopus had left the sedate mansion a relic of better days in an incongruous medley of little shops, doubtful lodging-houses, vile man-traps, and clustering saloons.

Here the Juggernaut car of King Alcohol was rolling on remorselessly, crushing out all life save the frenzied dream of the dipsomaniac.

But the lad paused and shook his head as he noted the windows of the old English basement tightly barred. The parlor floor, bearing the gilded sign, "Parisian Millinery Repository," was darkened, and, above, the three upper floors presented only an array of undraped windows solidly shut off by white-enamelled inside folding blinds. The decorous-looking main entrance bore but one card, in script, "Raffoni, Musical Director."

For years the neighborhood had forgotten its curiosity over the foreign-looking men and women who passed the vigilant Cerberus at the stately oaken door. No daring book-agent, no pedlar of indurated cheek, no outside barbarian had ever crossed that guarded portal, for a brass chain of impregnable strength prevented any intrusion, and only a glimpse of the old tesselated marble floor rewarded the frightened interloper.

It was "No Thoroughfare" to the multitude, and the quaint visitors were either personally conducted or used latch-keys.

The over-fed policeman sucking his club in front of 192 Layte only smiled in answer to vague inquiry, "Private house, belongs to old family estate, people in Europe," and then with a leer would drop into the "Valkyrie" for a fistful of good cigars and a flask of the very best.

The timid young scoundrel lingering before 192 on this fresh, starry night was the only "outsider" who knew what deadly master mind controlled the mysteries of the "Valkyrie" saloon and 192 Layte Street, its sedate neighbor.

The particular use of the "fake" millinery repository, the hidden life of the upper floors of the old mansion, were only known to the man whom Emil Einstein feared to meet in anger.

But in the Devil's auction of the corner building, man, woman and child were knocked down to the highest bidder, for the hell-minted price of human souls.

Gambler, crook and thief; wanton, decoy and badger; racing tout, fugitive, smuggler, and counterfeiter; lottery sharp and green-goods man, all welcomed the white, red and blue lights gleaming over the "Valkyrie" saloon as the harbor-lights of their safe port in any storm.

"I have it," muttered Einstein, as he boldly threw open the swinging half door of the "Valkyrie." Shading his eyes in the flood of garish light, he gazed around at the twenty round tables. Six alert barkeepers lurked in front of the superb mirrors behind the rich walnut counters gleaming with crystal and silver.

The music of the Orchestrion bore away on its flood of Strauss waltzes the shrill chatter of women's laughter in the inside hell of the private rooms.

Opening doors admitted fragments of poker gabble as the white-aproned waiters rushed around with their trays of drinks.

With artful geography of arrangement, gaudy women from the side street, at tables, were parading their too evident charms before the crowd of clerks, men about town, warrant officers, railroad employees, old roués, sporting men and belated "slummers" who leered at every arrival of "fresh fish."

Young Einstein, scribbling the single word "Emil" on a card, approached the parchment-faced German lad who sat in state, manipulating the bewildering keys of the "Cash Register."

"Send this to the boss at once," said Einstein in a low voice.

"You can't see him," contemptuously announced the insolent Jack-in-office, tossing back the card. He scented a possible successor in this vulpine-looking young stranger. But Einstein resolutely came back to the charge. "It's his business, and he'll jerk you out of your job if you throw me down. I will not stir a step till I see him. Send it up."

And Emil made a significant gesture with a defiant thumb.

Audacity carried the day! Young Einstein, coolly purchasing a Regalia and seating himself at a table, grinned a last defiance as a "Kellner" finally touched his arm and led him into a vacant card-room.

Down a stairway came the sounding tread of a heavy man, and Einstein was in the presence of Mr. Fritz Braun.

"It's about him, Clayton," faltered the boy, awed at his employer's lowering face.

"Come with me," harshly said Braun, as he led the lad up to the third floor. When they had entered a rear sleeping-room, Braun locked the door. "Tell me all," he anxiously cried. "Out with it. If you lie you'll never leave this house, remember!"

With chattering teeth, the lad delivered himself of his discovery. It was only after half an hour of cross questioning that Braun was satisfied with the details of Robert Wade's espionage of Randall Clayton. "You've done well, for yourself," said Braun, at last, handing the boy a roll of bills. "But never come here again. I'll give you an address to-morrow where you can call, telephone or telegraph, and a name. Post me on all. Keep this from your mother. I'll handle her myself. Now, by day you can slip over to the store, by night use the new address. Get home now. Go over the ferry." He filled the boy's hand with loose silver. "I'll stay here. Speak to no one. Get out quickly by the side door."

Emil Einstein was safely across the Fulton Ferry before he had realized the startling change in Fritz Braun's appearance. The flowing golden beard, the blue glasses, the padded clothes of middle-age cut were gone. Fritz Braun, lithe, sharp-faced, with piercing eyes, a dashing cavalry mustache, and dapper Wall Street tailoring, was twenty years younger, and another man.

His diamond jewels, rakish air and "loose fish" manner bespoke the flush book-maker or the flashy "boss."

"Here's for a night on the Bowery," gleefully cried Einstein, counting his Judas gains, while he tried to forget Fritz Braun's lightning change.

That dapper gentleman, stepping into a closet, passed swiftly through the door from the Valkyrie into 192 Layte Street. His hidden pool-room, gambling den and exchange for soul and body was temporarily forgotten by "Mr. August Meyer," owner of the peerless "Valkyrie Saloon."

"I'll get a carriage and drive over to Irma," he growled. "She must never cross the river again. We must lead him over here; but how? Perhaps the pretty devil can help me. I must throw Wade off the track. Irma can fool this young greenhorn. The job must be done over there. For a fortune, for his life or mine; and he must be teased along till the July holidays."

Then Mr. August Meyer of Brooklyn proceeded to leisurely array himself as a clubman of fashion.