Mechanically he swallowed the glass of wine handed him by the watchful Leah, and yet before she had stolen behind a curtained alcove the room seemed to whirl around him.
He made a last desperate effort to rise, but reeled around unsteadily and then fell prone upon the tufted carpet. A danger signal had aroused him at last, the sliding of heavy doors which cut off the room where the Magyar witch lay now helpless in the stupor of the criminal's deadliest narcotic. And the frightened Leah Einstein fled away upstairs. She only divined Fritz Braun's purpose as an intended robbery, or some audacious blackmail. Murder had never entered her mind!
The strong man lying there upon the floor, with glazing eyes, saw in his last gasps a wolfish face lit up with the fires of hate bending over him. Clayton struggled to draw the pistol which had been his faithful guardian of years.
One last flush of expiring reason showed him his life, honor, and a future betrayed into the hands of nameless thugs.
But there were sinews of iron in the arm of his unknown assailant now throttling him. A hand of steel grasped his relaxing wrist and the weapon was hurled far away.
Standing there, a triumphant Moloch, the unmasked Hugo Landor watched the last struggles of the man relapsed into a helpless insensibility. "Fool, the powder in those cartridges was drawn weeks ago," muttered "August Meyer," as he growled, "This first!"
He seized upon the bank portmanteau and then disappeared for a moment. Darting back, he dragged the prostrate form of Randall Clayton out from the corner where it lay.
With one mighty effort he raised the heavy body and stealthily descended the stairway into the long-unused basement.
Alone, in the darkened horrors of that grewsome cellar, the triumphant criminal hastened to strip the body of the man whom he had lured to a horrible death.
The deadly poison in the drugged wine had killed the unfortunate lover almost instantly.