Randall Clayton and his friend heard the "chimes at midnight" after the disquieting disclosures. Witherspoon finally allayed Clayton's sudden distrust. The Detroit lawyer succeeded in lamely explaining his own delay in making the fraud known.
"You see, Randall," he finally said at parting for the night, "I must live my life in Detroit under the heel of these great operators.
"I intended to take this long hidden matter up on my return from this trip, but I have been carried on, into a premature confidence.
"Just take care of yourself and bide your time! I want Worthington to consummate the whole deal. I wish the marriage and the election to take place undisturbed by clamor. For Worthington has put a fancy price on the land. It is to-day only worth a million at market rates. We, however, get immediate possession and pay in hauling, but the real extra million comes out of the pockets of the Cattle Trust, for as President, Worthington sells his own land really to the Cattle Company for two million dollars.
"He has duties as a Trustee to all the stockholders of the cattle association. When all is over, when Ferris is his son-in-law, I will have Senator Durham connected with this matter. The young couple will set up in royal style.
"I will then open out on Hugh Worthington, lay all the uncontested facts before him, and bring him to bay! I will soon squeeze out of him a fortune for you and also one for me. I only want twenty-five per cent. of the recovery. That will be a guarantee against my losing my place as railroad attorney. But old Hugh will never dare to "squeal." He wants social quiet, and he does not care to have his toga of respectability ripped up."
"Your motive?" agnostically demanded Clayton. I am poor, friendless; you will risk much in this."
"There's a sweet little dark-eyed French-descended angel in Detroit, whom I will then marry at once," smilingly answered Jack Witherspoon, "that is, as soon as Papa Worthington has given me the sinking fund. Any college man is a fool now who marries in these days unless he has the assured income on the principal of a quarter of a million."
"Money is the one thing, my boy," sighed Jack. "Without it, Venus herself, ever young and ever fair, would be a millstone around any man's neck, in these later days. Great God! How you missed it! If I had only stumbled on this discovery sooner. You could have antedated Ferris' crafty game.
"You could have easily married Alice. She has often told my Francine that you were the noblest of men."
But the moody Randall Clayton had tired already of hearing Miss Francine Delacroix's praises in divers keys.
"Poor Little Sister," muttered Randall Clayton. "Traded off to a senator's nephew, for an illicit government pull. Damn all treachery!" he growled, as he stalked off to bed.
He felt that he was powerless in his calculating friend's hands, and yet, the possibilities of a coming future swept him from his feet. He wanted money now but for one purpose—revenge upon Arthur Ferris.
"Of course," he growled, "the dog knew the whole deal, and has been a secret guardian over me, in the interest of the thief who has robbed my father's grave. Poor, dear old Dad! If he had only remembered these cheap lands and set them aside for me. It was the only real estate holding forgotten in the hard-driven bargain which vastly enriched old Hugh. But old Hugh shall pay; yes, to the last farthing. I will lock up my heart. I will circumvent his spies, and then await my own hour of triumph. It will be a fight to the finish and no quarter asked or given. I swear it!"
A thorough confidence was reestablished between the two collegians before the coming of Monday morning took Randall Clayton back to his money mill. His first impulse to give up the apartment had returned to him. He now loathed the memory of Arthur Ferris as the slimy snake in the grass; and yet he resisted his desire to shove all the traitor's traps into a storage warehouse.
"Be ruled by me, Randall," urged Jack Witherspoon, as he set out on Monday morning for his last business conferences with the New York end of his railroad employers.
"I will surely make Hugh give up the million. You shall have your three-quarters, for it would be ruin to Worthington to drag out his relations with Durham."
"Play the honest Iago. Keep your counsel. Dismiss this from you mind. Make love to some pretty girl, amuse yourself. Do anything but drink or gamble. Keep up a jolly mien. Go in to the summer pleasures a little. It will throw these two crafty ones off their guard. The weeks will soon roll around. I will cable you of my return.
"Then we will jointly descend upon this new combination of Worthington, Durham, and Ferris. But I must first be in Detroit, back in my impregnable railroad law fortress. Then, at my nod, he settles or down come the gates of Gaza on him! Remember that you have no one in your matrimonial eye. I want to win Francine Delacroix's home from these robbers. And then install the little dainty therein. I will go in and win for you!"
The college comrades had now unravelled all the past, and their Sunday outing had after all been a jolly one. Thoroughly reassured, Clayton had given Jack Witherspoon his whole history, and the future campaign was laid out in all its details.
"As for these Fidelity Company men," said Jack, "you can give them the go by in only frequenting secluded places.
"As long as you avoid the public resorts of New York, they cannot reach you. But keep your eyes always open. And, remember, secrecy above all. If Hugh Worthington should divine our plan to unveil his devilment, you might be the victim of some 'strange accident!'
"Money has a long arm in these days," ominously said the lawyer, "and, it can strike with remorseless power. So, keep on here, but look out for yourself.
"I shall not come back to your rooms. I will send for my luggage; go down to the Astor House, and you must not be seen in the streets with me. I want Worthington to think that I have dug up his villainy all alone.
"Otherwise you would suffer in some strange way.
"When I open my battery, you must publicly resign your place by a simple telegram. And then jump out of New York to some secret haunt until I telegraph you to come to Detroit and make your deeds for the stolen property."
Clayton saw the cogency of his friend's reasoning, and, after agreeing to meet Witherspoon in the Astor Rotunda each evening until the sailing of the "Fuerst Bismarck," he proceeded to the office to take up the white man's burden.
Swinging down Fourteenth Street from Broadway, he paused once more to look at the lovely Danube scene smiling out from the window of the Newport Art Gallery.
It was an exquisite artist proof and bore the name of the Viennese artist and a pencilled address. "I'll buy it at once," thought the man whose memory now brought back that lovely, wistful face.
As his foot was on the doorstep he paused. "No! It may bring her back to me! When I go out to the bank I can step in and secure it. It can remain on exhibition in the window for a few days. She may be there again to-day, who knows?"
He was under the spell of the unknown beauty again, as he absently exclaimed, "Pardon me!" when he rudely jostled a sedate-looking gentleman emerging from the gallery. "My fault, sir," courteously remarked Mr. Fritz Braun, beaming benevolently through his blue glass eye screens.
The pharmacist turned and raised a warning finger as Clayton hastened away to resume his morning duties.
In the doorway, following Braun's mouse-colored overcoat, as he mingled with the "madding crowd," stood Mr. Adolph Lilienthal, the proprietor of the "Art Emporium."
Briskly rubbing his hands, the art dealer murmured "Vot devilment is Fritz up to, now?"
He was only one of the many comrades in evil of the Sixth Avenue chemist, for Mr. Lilienthal boasted a "private view" room, in rear of his pretentious "Art Gallery," where many conveniently arranged interviews habitually took place.
Not one in one hundred of his patrons knew the secret of that room with its cosy divans and a private entrance to the stairway of an adjoining fashionable photograph gallery.
But the dealers in the "queer," the handlers of lottery tickets, the pool-sellers, the oily green-goods man, and many a velvet-voiced, silken clad Delilah knew the pathway to that inner room.
Benevolent-looking old capitalists with gold-rimmed spectacles; soft-eyed sirens of the Four Hundred, and the splendid Aspasias of the apartment-house clique, brisk clubmen, and the reckless jeunesse doreÉ, were all in the secret of the "private view" rooms.
A meek, furtive cat-like connoisseur was Mr. Adolph Lilienthal, and the "diamond coterie" of smugglers often hastily exchanged in the safe retirement of the "art parlors" packages of glittering gems all innocent of Uncle Sam's imposts. The "Newport Art Gallery" was a gem, a very gem in itself and judiciously protected.
Mr. Fritz Braun enjoyed the crystalline spring air as he hastened along to catch his avenue car. There was a gleam of triumph behind the blue shields as he murmured, "If she only plays her part as I laid it down yesterday, he is a hooked fish, sure enough."
Randall Clayton sat for an hour in his office, dispatching his accumulated two-days' mail, all unobservant of the cat-like tread of Einstein, the office boy, moving in and out. He lingered in a gloomy reverie, after checking up his correspondence, and a half hour's sharp dictations, absorbed in the cautious letter of Hugh Worthington, Esq., the man who had robbed him of his birthright.
It was in vain that he tried to be cool. Every drop of blood in his heart now throbbed through his pulses in an eager unrest. He had suddenly lost faith in all men. "Wait, only wait," he murmured, and then started up as Einstein touched his arm.
"Mr. Somers has the deposits all ready, now, sir. It's a quarter of twelve," the boy remarked, with a veiled scrutiny of the restless-eyed cashier. Clayton sprang to his feet and then, with lightning rapidity, packed up the treasure which the old accountant had gathered out of the morning mail, and received from the prompt and timorous debtors fearful of having their "credit cut."
He was fifteen minutes late as he stepped out upon Fourteenth Street, valise in hand and the ready pistol once more in his pocket. The day's "haul" was rich in checks and light in cash, but the total was a considerable fortune.
"Serve the old brute right if I'd bolt some day with a good stake," wrathfully murmured Clayton. "He would be in for fifty thousand dollars' bond! Damn his famed benevolence. He wished to anchor me here for life, and, so cover his tracks. He might even put up a fancied theft on me if I quarrel. I'll be out of this slavery the very moment that Jack opens his guns. And he shall pay the last score, to the last stiver!"
In a vain effort at self deception Randall Clayton avoided glancing at the art window where he had seen the mysterious beauty until he was abreast of it. But his beating heart told him already that she was not there. He paused a moment, once more to feast his eyes upon the picture which he proposed to order reserved for him on his return from the Astor Place Bank. It was gone!
He started back in surprise as he saw the place of honor vacated. There was only a mawkish color reprint of "Mary Stuart and Rizzio" parading its faded romance in the show window. Resolutely entering, he quickly called for the proprietor.
In his momentary excitement, Clayton failed to notice the sly twinkle of Mr. Adolph Lilienthal's crow-footed eyes. "You had a beautiful artist proof of a Hungarian scene in your window this morning," began Clayton.
"Sold, sir; you are but a few moments too late," blandly replied Lilienthal, in his best manner. "We are just packing it up for a lady. An exquisite thing; sorry I cannot replace it, sir," remarked the vendor, "Show you anything else?"
"You could not order me another, could you?" blankly demanded Clayton, with a baffled sense of losing both the lady and the art gem.
"It was a unique proof," volubly continued Lilienthal. "I might, however,"—he briskly turned to an assistant, and after a few words, led the annoyed Clayton back to a counter.
There a packing case was lying, plainly marked "FrÄulein Irma Gluyas, No. 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn."
"I might open it," hesitated the dealer, "and yet, the lady might not like it. She paid a round price for it, a hundred dollars. And some persons do not like to have a proof duplicated. Still, I could get the artist's name and address, and then my agents in Vienna perhaps could get one. I might see the lady. She is a patron of mine. This is Mr. Randall Clayton, is it not?"
The young man started in surprise, as his hand involuntarily closed upon the handle of his portmanteau. "Oh, we are neighbors," laughed Lilienthal. "Your Mr. Robert Wade frequently drops in here to pick up an etching or a bit of French color. I do a good deal of business with the gentlemen of the Western Trading Company."
Clayton dropped his hand, instantly mollified. "I wish you would see what you can do," he cordially said. "Perhaps the lady only purchased it to fill a place on the walls of her drawing room. I, at least, would like to be allowed to open it and have you take the particulars. If she has no objection, you might be able to order me a replica."
Lilienthal stood musing for a moment with his ferret eyes gleaming under their bushy brows. "I might try! Suppose you look in here after your lunch. The fact is," laughed the dealer, "FrÄulein Gluyas only took a sudden fancy to the Danube view a few days ago. And she has gone down to the bank to get the money to gratify her whim. She seemed to think some one else might claim it, and she dropped in a half an hour ago, and ordered it packed up. She will take it home in her carriage, as such a proof can be easily injured."
Randall Clayton's eyes were fixed on the floor, as he nodded an assent. "I'll be back in half an hour. See what you can do," he pleasantly said. "And at any rate, I'll be thankful to be allowed to have the data."
"I think I can fix it all right," genially remarked Lilienthal. "FrÄulein Gluyas is a Hungarian prima donna of rare merit, an artist, too, of no mean order. She may be heard here in grand opera this winter. She is living in retirement until Mr. Grau's return, as she does not want to be heralded before the public."
Clayton tried to appear unconcerned as he asked, "Is she married?"
"She is single," carelessly remarked Lilienthal, showing Clayton to the door. "And I am told she has refused some very eligible offers at home. But she is a Magyar of an old and noble family and they detest the Austrian nobility, who have now all the fortunes and privileges of the old Hungarian noblesse."
With crimsoned cheeks Randall Clayton was speeding away to the bank before he had digested the crafty dealer's story. He was reassured at the mention of Robert Wade's name and, hemmed in, all in ignorance that his grave-mannered superior often met a bit of very lively "French color" in the luxurious solitude of the "private view" room, as yet a terra incognita to the young cashier.
For Mr. Robert Wade had a "Sunday-school reputation" to support, and was dignified, worldly wise, a pillar of a fashionable church, and hence, duly sly. His left hand often wisted not the doings of his right hand, and Lilienthal found in Mr. Robert Wade a judicious and accommodating patron.
"This is a simple-minded youth," grinned Lilienthal, as he turned away. "He has swallowed my story, and—I fancy I see Mr. Fritz Braun's little game. I wonder if the Vienna witch is still over there. I must hurry up and post her. This young chap may be a good customer, for he handles plenty of money." And the brisk Figaro darted away, his eyes gleaming in the ardor of the undying covetousness of the Israelite.
While Mr. Adolph Lilienthal was cautiously conducting a Philadelphia money magnate into the "Private Gallery," a closely veiled lady was entering that sanctum from the photographer's hall. The secret of the two double rings of the push button admitted her to the "packing room," where an innocent-faced young German lad stood guard over the complicated system of letter boxes, telegraph racks, and telephones in that jealously guarded "packing room."
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.
Braun peered out into his shop, sneeringly glanced at two shop girls lingering at the soda fountain, drew up a chair, picked up the Staats-Zeitung, and lit a cheroot, while he waited for the advance guard of the afternoon customers.
"I dare not go over to the 'Bavaria' until three o'clock," mused the chemist. "It will never do to let Clayton see me with either Irma or Lilienthal. Once hooked, though, I can give him plenty of line, and play him, in the shadows of water too deep for him. Einstein has given me a fair insight into his character and habits. I must go and see Leah and take her that promised dress. I need that boy, for he is true to Leah, his dam, and she at least loves me as fondly yet as the dumb dog that licks the hand. The other one, I can never rule that way. Never mind, you proud-hearted Hungarian devil, I'll tame you yet." There was an ugly cloud on his broad brow as he dreamed of a yet unshapen crime.
Fritz Braun, gliding out behind the high sample cases, swept the morning's receipts out of the large bill compartment of the cash drawer. "Seventy-five dollars. Not so bad," he grinned, as he clutched the only thing on earth which he loved.
The crumpled, greasy green bills! Passed from hand to hand, as the hard wage of toil, the prize of infamy, the badge of shame! Tossed from the fingers of the spendthrift, dragged from the reluctant miser, filched from yokel and rounder, slyly stolen by thieving domestic or dishonest clerk, still the "long green" was as sacred to Fritz Braun as Mahomet's emerald banner hanging over the pulpit of magnificent Saint Sophia to the Moslem heart.
Magdal's Pharmacy was an innocent enough looking place of business. Few of the neighboring shopkeepers dated back to the time, long years ago, when the real Magdal ran upon the breakers of bankruptcy and disappeared in the "eternal smash" of a final pecuniary ruin.
The crafty Braun, once a co-laborer with Magdal, had jumped eagerly at the opportunity of burying the identity of Hugo Landor, the criminal fugitive, under the banner of the hopelessly wrecked Magdal.
Fritz Braun had been a good enough name to use until the crafty employee had robbed drunken old Magdal's till of money enough to purchase the now valueless fixtures.
Magdal, the victim of an expensive liason with a dashing neighboring French modiste, had tried to keep up a "regular" business.
All this was foreign to the ideas of the quick-witted Braun, safe now under his humble alias, and his flowing false beard and the never absent blue glass eye screens. Braun duly closed the doors for a "reopening."
A few dollars spent in paint and gilding, a "gorgeous" soda fountain "on lease," had soon transformed the dingy interior. A couple of dozen cheap red plush stools wooed the tawdy Phrynes of Sixth Avenue, and the light-headed shop girls to a repose from the crash and roar of the shopping street.
From a dealer in "fake" goods, Braun cheaply obtained the empty packages, the jars of colored water, and the stacks of imitation "put up" goods, which gave to the pharmacy its air of rosy prosperity. To cater to his natural patrons, cheap perfumes, confectionery, gaudy nostrums, theatrical make-up, and a round of disguised narcotics and "headache" medicines were always at hand.
Braun picked up a waif of the street, an ex-Prussian soldier, who for a pittance and his daily "rum," slaved in the "Pharmacy" like a dog, polishing and cleaning until it was the smartest show place of the neighboring blocks.
But the citadel of the real business was the huge marble soda fountain, with its bewildering array of gaudy silver-plated faucets. Above the rows of bottled "bitters," the fiery drink of the temperance frauds, high over the three score jars of "nervines" and pick-me-up preparations, towered a life-size marble statue of Hygeia, glowing in a voluptuous Parian nakedness.
Behind the fountain counter, with its serried rows of crystal glasses in artistic silver holders, there lurked on watch, now, the factotum, the thieving London-bred drug-clerk who had escaped "transportation," at Her Gracious Majesty's behest, by slipping over to New York City disguised as a stoker.
To him alone was entrusted the traffic in slops and the flimsy produce of the soda fountain, to him the drudgery of the illicit Sunday liquor trade, when the "regulars" entered by the side door from the hall, bearing the portentous sign, "Hugo Adler, M.D., Physician and Surgeon."
No mortal had ever gazed upon the legendary Adler, but Timmins the cockney, and Braunschweiger the ex-Prussian grenadier, gaily dispensed from jugs and bottles the "spiritual comforts" stacked up in the "dark room" every Saturday against the Sunday of legally enforced thirst and resultant sadness.
But while these minor villains slaved for the master who greedily snatched every bill from the till, and held them up to a keen return for every measured drink in the stock of the Sunday "bar" of the mock drug-store, it was the taciturn Fritz Braun himself who murmured in confidence to the important patrons of the den.
The morning run beginning at nine, embraced the haggard-eyed devotees of pleasure—Wall Street men, clerk and financiers, habitues of the Tenderloin—actors and men about town.
In subdued murmurs the skilful Fritz Braun trafficked with these "shaky" mortals, while Timmins covered their "prescriptions" with an innocent layer of Vichy.
Sometimes the favored few entered behind Braun's screen, until the chemist solved their varying problems by manipulating his vials in the closely locked cabinet, the key of which never left his person.
There were little packages by the gross ready in that capacious lock box. Opium, hasheesh, chorodyne, sulphonal, cocaine, "dope," all the life-stealing narcotics in every form.
There were medicines the traffic in which leads even the innocent behind the bars.
And it was from the sale of these "nervines," forbidden medicines, and poisonous agents that the runaway Vienna criminal drew his increasing revenue. There was an aristocracy among the motley customers.
From the "hypodermic" regulars, men and women, laying down their syringes to be filled with the soul-stealing morphia solution—faded men and trembling women, down to the shattered wretch, with his pitiful twenty-five cents for a bit of "dope," no one with money was turned away.
Yet all of these passed under Fritz Braun's watchful scrutiny. The disguised criminal trembled lest some ugly-minded detective or crank journalist might entrap him into the meshes of the law.
Alas! Nearly all the customers bore the seal of safety in their imploring eyes. By the freemasonry of the degenerates, Magdal's was a known haven of refuge to all the weaklings of Manhattan.
The frequent ringing of "Doctor Adler's" bell admitted to the little dimly-lighted rear room the sullen-eyed visitors who bore away the colorless vials of "knock-out drops," for which five- and ten-dollar bills were eagerly thrust into Braun's itching palm.
This important traffic was confided to no one but the real proprietor. And stealthily-treading, matronly-looking women often found their way into the den, where nameless "remedies" were sold, often for their weight in diamonds, the weapons of that hidden guild which paves New York's streets with the bones of ignorant and martyred women. For all the thirty-third degree trade of the "consulting-room," an "introduction" was stiffly demanded.
Thanks to his craft, to his fear of the awful doom hanging over him from the unpunished Viennese murders, Hugo Landor had so far defied detection and avoided all awkward inquiry. Mr. Fritz Braun always had a prime cigar and a drop of "medicinal cognac" at the disposal of the visiting policeman. His perfunctory "loans" had gladdened the hands of several minor officials, whose argus eyes had noted the Sunday run of Dr. Adler's many friends.
All these dangerous wares were distributed in unlabelled vials, and no witnesses had ever verified the transfer of the felonious knock-out drops. Each week brought to Braun customers from adjacent cities, many of whom, disguised or veiled, hurried away with the means of cowardly crime to work the devil's charms at a safe distance.
Taciturn, morose and keeping his own counsel, Fritz Braun was a cautious trader with the great supply houses. His bills of purchase were made out to the welcome "Mr. Cash," and the old prescription books of Magdal were ostentatiously displayed with a few family orders dropping in now and then from some befogged physician. The bond between Lilienthal and Braun had been strengthened by the aid of the "picture dealer" in smuggling from Hamburg and Bremen much of the dangerous ware of this mind-wrecking business.
And so, peddling the means of murder, filling his yawning pocketbook, Fritz Braun had thrived in solitude until Irma Gluyas sought the refuge of New York City.
For the discovery of her picture in the stiffened hands of a suicide, a young noble officer, ruined by her extravagance, had caused the Viennese siren to flee the vengeance of a powerful Austrian family.
And so the lives of these two, linked by folly, sin, crime and mad extravagance, had run together again far from the scenes where, led on by her dark eyes, Hugo Landor had stumbled along on the dark road from theft and forgery to callous murder.
On this particular April early afternoon, the eager plotter was willing to leave his afternoon customers to the sly Timmins. The actresses and lazy demi-monde queens fluttered in always before sunset, together with a bevy of quacks, whose doubtful prescriptions were always put up by Timmins, easily capable of brazenly swearing to "a mistake," or denying upon oath the sale of any clumsy weapon of medical butchery.
It was also the time when the floating "shopping women" drifted in to reinforce their luncheons with Timmins' artfully veiled alcoholic preparations.
His row of bottles labelled "Vin Mariani," "Moxie," and "Nervura" were never empty, and the oldest toper would have found them veritable "well springs of joy in the desert."
All the simple machinery of the mock pharmacy was so well oiled that even an expert could detect no commerce more dangerous than Lubin's Powders, crimson lip salve, or a powder puff.
"Fritz Braun, Manager," came and went with regularity, no man knowing of his home or family ties; the old golden sign of "Magdal's Pharmacy" covering whatever mystery was not hidden behind those gleaming blue glasses.
Save for his regular luncheon at the CafÉ Bavaria, no Sixth Avenue habituÉ had ever seen Mr. Fritz Braun at concert, theater, or any of the places of local or suburban amusement.
As to woman, he seemed to be sternly indifferent, Save to the semi-professionals who were as anxious to escape Sing Sing's gloomy embrace as the man who supplied them with the drugs for their various "Ladies' Homes." These were welcome "Greeks bearing gifts" of the coveted "long green" which was Fritz Braun's god.
Braun was never in the pharmacy after six o'clock, and from that evening hour when all well-conducted men and women turn to dinner as the day's culmination, no one had ever set their eyes upon the bustling manager.
Friendless he seemed, yet ever cheerful, a man distantly respected for the open frankness of his business dealings, the order and quiet of his shop, and his rare capacity for minding his own business.
It was only in the evening that Mr. Ben Timmins' reign was uncontested. The flashy young fellows of his caught-up friendships then lurked around Magdal's Pharmacy where Timmins dispensed complimentary drinks and lorded over his fluctuating harem of unemployed "soubrettes" and light-headed shop girls freed from their daily toil.
In a rough average at a half-way honesty, Timmins "turned in" habitually about half of the evening's receipts of the "joint," which, to use his own language, he "ran for all it was worth."
He had soon lost all fear of his stern employer visiting him at random, and the clever London rascal now laughed detection to scorn.
For he always kept in hand one day's stealings so that, if suddenly "called down," he could glibly explain, "Slipped it in my pocket in my hurry! The shop was full!"
While Timmins, returning from his breakfast on this busy Monday, wondered at Mr. Fritz Braun delaying his comfortable luncheon, Mr. Adolph Lilienthal was anxiously awaiting his secret partner in villainy at the "Newport Art Gallery."
Perhaps the crowning secret of Braun's remarkable success was his clear-headed avoidance of mixing up the details of his various schemes.
Lilienthal knew nothing of Braun's whereabouts as to a real residence, and the colloquies and settlements of the two always took place in Lilienthal's little private office, proof against all eavesdroppers.
The Art Emporium, thronged with the curious, was the safest place in New York City for casual meetings, and, with a keen suspicion of his man, Lilienthal never visited Magdal's Pharmacy. He realized that there might be danger and deception in his fellow villain's hospitality.
A doubt of Braun's ultimate end as a citizen had caused the smug dealer to always avoid Braun at the jolly Restaurant Bavaria, where the good-natured foreign convives often joined each other over a stein.
The "private interests" of the Newport Art Gallery were as jealously guarded as the inner secrets of Magdal's Pharmacy; furthermore, the hidden post-office, telegraph exchange, and "private room" busied the dealer from morn till eve.
Lilienthal was in a particularly good humor when he at last dispatched the Danube "artist proof" by an especial messenger to Mr. Randall Clayton's own rooms. It had all fallen about in a spirit of graceful courtesy. And three hearts bounded with a hidden delight when the happy incident occurred.
When Randall Clayton returned from the Astor Place Bank he had discovered Mr. Adolph Lilienthal in a particularly cheerful frame of mind. The young cashier had hastened to his office and delivered over his bundle of exchange and checked-up bank-book. "I shall be out for an hour," he sharply called to Einstein. "Wait here in my office and let any callers return at two o'clock!"
There was a glow of expectancy on the handsome face of the customer as Lilienthal rubbed his hands. "I have been fortunate enough to carry out your wishes, Mr. Clayton," he obsequiously said. "FrÄulein Gluyas has called and paid for her picture. I have told her of your longing for a replica, and, by telephoning down to my importer, I have learned that I can get a duplicate in six weeks.
"She is not altogether satisfied with the framing of this one, and I have begged her to allow me to sell you this one, so that I can import one for her framed in our own Viennese manner.
"The lady awaits your wishes, through me. It certainly is very courteous on her part. I have done her certain little business favors and she is kindly willing to oblige."
"If I could only meet her," murmured Randall Clayton, with lips dry with all the eagerness of a newly born passion. He was in a defiant mood now, his whole being stirred with the treason of the friend of years and the unmasked villainy of his pseudo-benefactor. This fair mystery allured him strangely.
"Nothing easier," smiled the dealer, reaching out for his silk hat. "The FrÄulein is taking her usual luncheon at the Restaurant Bavaria, and I agreed to notify her of your wishes, as she may travel, and would be willing to wait for the arrival of my Vienna importation. I will be very glad to present you to her."
The world took on a new brightness as Randall Clayton passed out of the shop with the dealer. He scarcely dared to trust himself to bring up the subject now nearest his heart.
But the careful directions of Mr. Fritz Braun had given Lilienthal his cue. The dealer babbled on of pleasant trivial things as they stemmed the tide of the crowded streets. "I hope that FrÄulein Gluyas will soon appear in opera and achieve the success which she deserves. She is really here incognito, and spends all her time in private musical practice at Chickering Hall and the study of languages."
"Why this secrecy?" asked Clayton.
"Ah! My dear sir! These are the ways of impresarios. If Grau does not secure a certain great operatic star with whom he has quarrelled, then FrÄulein Gluyas will be brought out with a great flourish of trumpets under a stage name to be selected later. She will then be heralded as a 'wonder of the world.' It will pay Grau, and he will also have his revenge!"
"And if the great star relents?" smilingly asked Clayton, as they neared the Restaurant Bavaria.
"Then," cheerfully answered the dealer, "the lady will make a grand concert tour, adequately supported. It is for that contingency she is studying English ballads and the language."
Clayton suddenly remembered the unromantic address of 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn. "FrÄulein Gluyas resides in Brooklyn?" he said, with a fine air of carelessness.
Lilienthal's eyes swept obliquely the young man's distrustful face. "FrÄulein Gluyas ordered the picture sent to the rooms of her music master, 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn. Poor old Raffoni was once a world-wide star, a velvet tenor. Now he is literally a voice maker, a master of technique for Maurice Grau. The Hungarian nightingale studies there, and only takes her hall practice here in the off season, in Chickering's empty salon. There is a jealous professional mystery in this secrecy. The summer is the opera's off season, just as the winter is the same for the great circus and travelling shows. The hardest work is thus veiled from the public. The impresario is always a wily individual."
"And the lady's real residence?" impatiently queried the budding lover. "That is an absolute secret, for Grau carefully hides away his coming stars. Somewhere on Long Island an old Hungarian noble family have had a retreat since the days of Kossuth.
"The FrÄulein is their guest, and, for other reasons than complete faith with Grau, she receives no one. She is as proud and haughty as she is beautiful, and rumor has it that the pursuit of an Austrian Archduke drove her to the safety of our shores. All this I have gathered from my old friend, Signore Raffoni."
Clayton mutely followed Lilienthal to the door of a private room in the "Bavaria" and, with a wildly beating heart, was bowing low before the woman whose shining eyes had brought to his bosom such strange unrest.
"It is like a page from a novel," the flute-like voice murmured, "that this lucky picture should have brought us together again, as it strangely did once face to face."
Randall Clayton's ears drank in that soft, wooing accent, and all the ardor of his eyes betrayed the instant recognition which lay behind the diva's merry words.
When he had murmured his thanks, the presence of Lilienthal seemed to be a bar to any rapprochement. Clayton was fain to accept FrÄulein Gluyas' courtesy in allowing him a choice as to the handling of the picture or its replica.
"If Mademoiselle will allow me," said Clayton, "I will give Mr. Lilienthal my cheque for the coming proof, and retain in my possession the one framed in our American manner."
This was soon settled, and then, with a glance at his watch, the dealer, bowing low, hurried away.
"We artists have to be unconventional," frankly said the Magyar beauty.
"I await Madame Raffoni here for a little tour of the wonderful New York shops."
It was a natural passage from the picture to the memories of the Danube, and then, under the kindling glances of the diva, Randall Clayton talked, with spirit, of his happy summer ramblings through Austria and Hungary.
Irma Gluyas' magnetic eyes burned into his soul as she followed the young stranger in his itinerary. It was only when the maÎtre d'hÔtel entered, announcing Madame Raffoni as in waiting in her carriage, that Randall Clayton's castle in Spain came crashing down around him.
The Magyar witch dropped her eyes when Clayton took her hands in adieu. "You have made me forget time, and my workaday world," he said. "I have now something to live for—to hear you sing! It seems so hard to meet only to part. I may never see your coming picture; you may never see mine again. But I cannot lose you from my life. It seemed, FrÄulein Irma," he said, earnestly, "when I first met the glance of your dreaming eyes, that I had known you in some other world."
"I receive no one; I am a recluse," murmured Irma, with eyes smiling through down dropped lashes; "but, if you care, you may come, a week from to-day, and breakfast with me here! Dear old Raffoni will play propriety. As for the singing, I am pledged to be mute, parÔle d'honneur. But you must be in my first audience. I must keep an artist's faith with my manager."
"I shall have the loge d'honneur at your dÉbut," enthusiastically cried Clayton, as he lingered over her frankly extended hand after murmuring his acceptance.
The woman who sat, with her head bowed upon her hands, listened to his receding footsteps. "Il Regalantuomo," she murmured. "It is a pity, too! What does Fritz want of him?"
Then gliding serpent-like from the darkened corridor, she joined the waiting woman in the carriage below, a woman whose form was but dimly defined beyond the half-lowered silken curtain of the carriage as Randall Clayton sped along to his money mill.
Some indefinable impulse kept Clayton from speaking of his breakfast engagement as he strode into the Newport Art Gallery. His cheque for one hundred and twenty-five dollars was soon transferred to Lilienthal in return for the coveted picture, which was dispatched to the young man's lonely apartment.
"Not a bad turn," mused Adolf Lilienthal. "I raised him seventy-five dollars! He paid like a prince, and, if I mistake not, this is his first and last transaction here. The picture that he wanted is burned into his heart now."
It was but one of a hundred similar intrigues to which Lilienthal had been the successful Leporello, and he calmly betook himself to the continued villainy of his daily life. He feared also to follow on the footsteps of the crafty Fritz Braun, for in the years of their illicit dealings the weaker nature had been molded by the daring master villain into a habitual subjection. "He has some little game of his own," chuckled Lilienthal. "Friend Fritz is a sly one."
But the man, now burning with a new purpose in life, the puppet of strange destinies, dreamed only of a golden future as he lingered late that night at the Astor House with Jack Witherspoon.
It was two o'clock before he returned to his lonely rooms to gloat over the picture and its promise of the future meeting.
"I shall be rich," he mused, "and I will follow her to the end of the earth until I read the secret of those wonderful eyes."
He little dreamed that even before he had paid Lilienthal the cheque, a carriage had stopped for a moment before Magdal's Pharmacy, and Mr. Fritz Braun had heard, with a wild delight, the whispered words, "The game is won; he will come!" The busy devil prisoned in Braun's heart laughed for very joy.
