"Kill me! Do what you will; I care not," sobbed the singer. "I knew nothing of these crimes, of either one. Hasten, though. Search well the second floor of the turret. This fiend spent all his evenings there alone. He always locked his rooms, and the door into the tower. Even the servants were not allowed to enter his den! What you seek must be there! May the curse of God reach him! And now is my hour of vengeance. He betrayed this poor victim, the man who died through a noble love for me!"
Only Leah Einstein and the resolute Atwater remained at Irma's side as McNerney ran upstairs alone. The police matron who had been Leah Einstein's secret jailer on the voyage was now listening to Braun's stubborn negations of all Sergeant Breyman's formal questions.
Atwater, with a touched heart, listened to Irma Gluyas in her passionate ravings. "The lying fiend! I will tell all! I will go on my knees to pray God to strike him dead!"
For, at last, the duped woman knew that Randall Clayton was already cold in death when Braun had forged the lying telegram which bade her hope for deliverance.
"He watched me, night and day, lest I should try to escape! He plotted to kill me, but he feared the servants. I always kept a little peasant child here in my rooms, night and day.
"Our old forester, Hermann, who guards the estate for the young Count von Kinsky, who is travelling over the world for four years, is good and true. He is Frida's uncle. And I told him all my fears. I had only a few jewels, my own. Braun feared to give me money. But Hermann was arranging to help me away to Poland, when you came. Once there I would have been safe from Braun. He would not have dared to claim me. And Hermann, the forester, is known to all the officials. He has charge of the estate.
"Braun feared him. He dared not take me away, for I would not go. It has been the slavery of hell itself. But I baffled him! Four times a day Hermann came for my orders, and I always left a little light burning in one window of my rooms. Every night one of the men watched. My food was prepared by little Frida alone, and she never left my side. Braun dared not poison me! I waited, and he waited. What did he wait for?"
"HE WAITED FOR ME," cried Leah Einstein, in a fit of remorseful tears, now anxious to save her boy.
She seized Atwater's arm with trembling hands. "Your police detective did not get Braun's first letter to me. He begged me to come to him. He was to get rid of this poor girl, and I was to live like a lady."
The two guilty women were weeping together when McNerney stole into the room. He drew the young doctor aside.