Ferris dropped into a chair, shivering violently. "It will be featured in all the morning papers," coolly continued McNerney. "There's your problem solved. The poor fellow was decoyed in some black-hearted, cowardly manner and done up for the stuff. It was no common gang who fixed him for fair," gloomily concluded the dissatisfied officer. "There were no marks of violence upon the body."
Ferris staggered to the sideboard and took a draught of brandy. "I wash my hands of the whole thing," he huskily said. "If you wish to follow it up, go and see Stillwell."
"That's all you have to say?" cried the now suspicious policeman.
"I'm sick of the whole job, and shall leave town," sullenly answered
Ferris, as he opened the door and said, "Call our affair off! I'll
telegraph to Stillwell, and he can handle the company's interests."
Dennis McNerney watched Ferris disappear in the swarm of Broadway's evening loungers, and then directed his steps to Magdal's Pharmacy. "I'll take that boy under my wing; and the published reward must be mine. This cold-hearted brute may have had a hand in it. I'll watch him night and day, and let the boy get over all his fears. Inside of a month I'll find that woman, the hack-driver, and perhaps this lame duck caught in the meshes. I'll lay low for a week, but that boy and that woman shall tell their story to me alone, and it's worth a fortune. I fancy I see daylight. It's a case of soft and easy. Once the boy would be frightened, I would lose this blind trail forever!"
CHAPTER XII.
THE LONELY PURSUER.
Arthur Ferris was secluded from all callers in his rooms at the
Fifth Avenue Hotel until late on the morning when a million people
read the "featured" details of the mysterious murder of Randall
Clayton.
Exhausted by the mental struggle with his now defiant wife, he yet retained enough of his cunning to heed Policeman McNerney's roughly-given advice.
Ferris' rooms were littered with the score of newspapers over which he had been busied since daybreak, and his breakfast stood still untasted at his side. He wavered between his desire for self-protection and his fear of the hard-featured Stillwell.
In his own heart Ferris cared not a whit whether Clayton had been waylaid by accidental thugs, betrayed at the bank, duped by some insidious woman, or slain by an inner conspiracy of the employees.