"This Irma is not such a bad woman; with a better chance she might have been some one's heart darling for all time. The only thing I cannot see is how Braun killed this man so quietly."
Both of the friends had discerned no more than the final trap. The fatal lure of Irma Gluyas' beauty!
Braun, at last becoming distrustful of the woman whose heart was rebaptized in love, had acted on the moment, and his crafty advantage was taken of Clayton's headlong passion.
"It is clear poor Leah was only used as a stool-pigeon; she is far too cowardly to harm the meanest creature," said Atwater. "In some way, Braun must have given Clayton a stupefying poison, and then strangled him.
"In that lonely place, he undoubtedly hid the body and had it thrown overboard later. Of course, it was probably hidden in some case or box, perhaps a great trunk, and then cast into the bay by others. One thing is sure, we will never know from this brute's confession. He will die mute."
"You are right," said McNerney; "for he will go grimly silent to the chair, a thug and a murderer, in heart and soul.
"This fellow could have prospered in any decent line of life! He is only one more to make the bitter discovery THAT CRIME DOES NOT PAY! It is both stupid and useless. But the criminal only finds this hard truth out too late. He will never get away from me, alive or dead; back he goes to New York." And yet McNerney forgot his keenest daily precautions, deceived by the apparent helplessness of the wounded murderer.
The strangely-assorted party were hurried through Breslau by the authorities, and Sergeant Breyman proudly wore Doctor Atwater's gold repeater as a parting present, when the train rushed away, bearing the secretly raging criminal back to a shameful death.
"I shall not sleep till I get that fellow safely in an iron tank stateroom on the Hamburg steamer," said the stern-eyed McNerney, preparing to lock Braun's wrist to his own. "After we sail, we can have him watched, night and day; then, you and I can rest!"
The secret of the vast money recovery had been faithfully kept, and even when the "Fuerst Bismarck" turned the Lizard and sped out on the Atlantic, few of the passengers suspected that a daring criminal was imprisoned below.