It had been a busy morning with the astute Lilienthal, and the sudden arrival of the "big fish," a wary "customer" from the Schuylkill, caused the dealer to temporarily forget Randall Clayton. He scented only an ordinary amorous intrigue in the young man's ardent desire to make that particular "artist proof" his own.
Besides, the postman had just staggered in with a considerable bundle of letters all addressed to the Newport Art Gallery. There was a good hour's work for the rosy-faced graduate of a Viennan cafe in removing the decoy wrappers and assorting the private correspondence which alone paid the rental of Mr. Lilienthal's "emporium."
Randall Clayton was already hastening back from the Astor Place Bank, forgetting his own luncheon in his eagerness to hear once more of Fräulein Irma Gluyas, when Mr. Fritz Braun had at last disposed of the morning swarm of "privately attended" customers at Magdal's Pharmacy.
The blue-spectacled chemist had been working with lightning rapidity behind his effective screen, following the whispered directions of his depraved London assistant. It was for him an anxious morning.
His heart would have leaped up in a wild joy had he known how carefully Randall Clayton had already entered the accidentally found address in the little silver-clasped address book, in which he had recorded, with judicious cabalistic cloudiness, the combinations of his safes and certain vital private business memoranda.
These secrets were all hidden in a mass of artfully inserted characters so as to defy the curious eye of any stranger in case of mishap, but the young cashier's fingers trembled with eagerness as he had paused on his way in a corridor to boldly enter an already beloved name.
"I can easily find her out over there," Clayton murmured. "She shall not drift out of my life. I must some day read the secret of those wistful eyes."
But Fritz Braun, anxiously waiting in his den on Sixth Avenue, was chafing until his labors of the day should cease. "I'm all right," he mused, "if that sheepshead Lilienthal does not blunder. I do not dare to tell him too much. And then, if only Irma follows my instructions.
"But the wild-hearted witch may speculate in love a little on her own account. She is only to be trusted as far as any other woman." He snorted in disdain. "And the fellow is young, eager, good looking. At any rate, I shall steer them both out of Lilienthal's clutches. The game is too risky for 'mein frent Adolph.' He is wrapped up in his greed, his blackmail schemes, his 'sure thing' villainies.
"Here is the prize of a life to fight for, and—the electric chair to face—should I be betrayed. Neither of them shall ever know my little game." The master plotter was busy with dreams of an ill-gotten harvest soon to ripen.