The Midnight Passenger by Richard Henry Savage (historical books to read txt) 📕

now."

After a short pause, Witherspoon said calmly, "There may be some sudden sickness, some accident in the country, some mysterious happening. His rooms should be carefully examined."

"You are right," answered Ferris, "and I have my duplicate keys. Let us drive up there, you and I; we will take a look and then seal them up till the detectives examine them. We are getting at facts here; we are awaiting now to hear from Hugh. As you knew Clayton at college, I'd like to have you represent the fair thing at the searching of the rooms, particularly as I lived with him. But he has not been there since Saturday morning, and the money is gone. That tells the whole story. It's impossible to keep it quiet now, and I wash my hands of the whole thing. It occurred three days before I took charge."

The two young men silently made their way to the street. As they seated themselves in the first carriage they saw idle, Witherspoon calmly remarked, "If I know Worthington's mind, he will make very radical changes here now. Do you suspect any collusion?"

Ferris shook his head. "Poor old Somers has Clayton's tag receipts for the currency and cheques as usual. I'm sorry for the old man. We'll retire him, at any rate, pension or no pension. It was Wade's silly system, to trace all our money down with two sets of custodians, and then send it to bank by ONE man!"

"You don't think Clayton can have been made away with? Followed by those who have accidentally dropped on his secrets, or some one informed by some member of your office staff?"

"No; that's all far-fetched and speculative," gruffly said Ferris. "But the whole damned lot, from old Wade down, are under secret espionage now. I ordered that on at once. Besides, the Fidelity Company have their own people at work."

"Ah! There was a bond?" questioned Witherspoon. "Fifty thousand, only," growled Ferris, "and they probably will only pay a half. They'll make us prove our loss in open court, and you know we don't care to haul out our books. But the recovery goes really to old Hugh; he paid all the dues on Clayton's bond."

They halted in a watchful silence at the fashionable apartment-house, and Ferris, calling the janitor as a witness, using his own keys, opened the vacant rooms. At the door he paused to give a few sharp directions to the watchers, and so Jack Witherspoon stepped into the room first. By a mere accident he felt a small object under his foot, and then quickly secured it in his hand, having carelessly dropped his hat. He felt a little card-case in the hand which remained thrust idly in his pocket.

Together the two young men searched every corner of the double apartment. The careful housewife's summer shroudings of Ferris' rooms were still undisturbed.

As for Clayton's apartment, it was left in the careless disorder of a young man about town. "I will touch nothing," said Ferris, awed into a dismal silence. Jack Witherspoon keenly followed Ferris' every movement. There was nothing to indicate any idea of departure.

Even Clayton's trunk-keys were in the scattered packages in the ante-rooms. The closets, dressers, and wardrobes showed no gap, as the young men explored.

"That's the only new thing I see - that picture," casually said Ferris, pointing to the Danube view. "I never saw that before, and he was not much of an art collector."

A sharp knock on the door drew Ferris to the door, where an office clerk awaited him with a telegram. Witherspoon still stood eying the picture, when Ferris said, "Look out for things here. I've got to answer a telegram. Hugh is not at Cheyenne. I must call him at Tacoma. Alice can forward the dispatch."

Left alone in the room, Jack Witherspoon redoubled his energies, knowing that he might never see the interior again. Ferris' remark about the picture had strangely attracted his attention. "That means something," mused the excited Jack. His hand was on a closet door, and by a strange impulse he opened it quickly. A picture-case of heavy pasteboard stood there, upright in a corner, and a half-detached label caught his eye. The Detroit lawyer tore it off and hastily secreted it. He was seated at a table in the room when Ferris reentered.

"Now," said he, bolting the doors between the two apartments, "I wish to have you see these rooms sealed up! I must get back to the office. You would do me a great favor if you would be here and represent me as well as Clayton's interests when the detectives search to-morrow. For nothing more can be done till I hook on to Worthington, or the police may have a report from the outside.

"Twenty tramp steamers and fifty sea-going boats have left since Saturday noon. I am afraid Clayton has shown us a clean pair of heels. What do you think?"

But Jack Witherspoon only clutched the objects in his pocket, and slowly shook his head. "I think nothing! It is a sad business, and I will help you all I can! I will wait here until you hear from Hugh, at any rate. You can drop me at the Hoffman."

At the hotel Ferris said, on parting, "Come over at ten o'clock to-morrow. I'll give you a stenographer and one of our assistant cashiers. Then you can verify the whole contents of Clayton's rooms with the detectives. The lawyers and head police will look through his safe and office papers under my eye."

At the parting, Ferris, worn out by the day's excitements, murmured, as if seeking a confirmation of his theory, "Clayton has been acting very strangely of late. Old Hugh wanted me to give him a talking to!"

"There'll be a reward offered, of course," said Jack, anxious to lead Ferris out.

"Certainly," was the rejoinder. "I think fifteen thousand for him, and ten more for the money or cheques. But all depends on Hugh!"

"I'll meet you at ten," gravely answered the stranger lawyer. "This will break up our dinner, I am sick at heart."

Once in his room, Witherspoon drew out the two articles which he had concealed. The first was a little red morocco card-case, evidently dropped as the supposed fugitive had left his room! Jack's fingers trembled as he drew out the few visiting cards. With a wildly beating heart he examined them.

He sprang excitedly to his feet as he read the faintly pencilled lines traced on the back of one, "Irma Gluyas, No. 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn."

It was the work of an instant only to glance at the label torn from the picture-case. The printed words, "Newport Art Gallery," were visible above the words, "Fräulein Irma Gluyas, 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn," and the adjuration, "Handle with care," completed the marks upon the tell-tale paper.

The anxious lawyer saw the magnificent castle in the air which he had builded crumbled at his feet. "This is for me alone," he swore in his heart, and it was only after an hour's cogitation that he resolved upon his course. "I must hunt up Doctor Atwater; but, first, wait for the wishes of Worthington. The package from Detroit may tell me something. And I must examine that picture and see that no tell-tale inscription is on the back. Here is the key of the mystery."

Seated alone, with his nerves strained to the utmost, a sudden inspiration came to the loyal friend of the missing man. "I am too late. They have killed him!"

He cursed the evil hour when he left for Europe without placing Randall Clayton in a place of safety. "I should have taken him with me, or else gone West with him and braved old Hugh. Yes; they have lured him away! Killed him, and hidden this money. It will all come out of the stockholders. It goes back into old Hugh's own pocket. He has made his title safe!

"In some way poor Clayton has babbled, and they have swept him from the face of the earth. But for some fatal imprudence, he would have come into his stolen fortune. And, after my settlement, Hugh Worthington would have feared to attack Clayton."

In half an hour Mr. John Witherspoon was on his way to Brooklyn. He had already deposited the two precious articles in the massive safes of the Hoffman, and he began his weary quest with a glance at the "Newport Art Gallery," whose Fourteenth Street address was printed upon the label.

"This remains for a future examination," was Jack's rapid conclusion. "The picture was procured here within three months, and the shop looks like a permanent one." A glance at a Directory, in a drug-store, proved that the Emporium had been there for a year, certainly.

It was four o'clock when the lawyer resolutely rang, the bell at No. 192 Layte Street. He had consumed an hour in scanning the quiet exterior of the stately old mansion. The ignoble use of the parlor frontage as a modiste's shop, attracted him as he vainly waited for a reply to his repeated ringing.

All that he could gain from a pert shop-girl was the news that the house was shut up, and that no one lived there.

The judicious use of a two-dollar bill brought as a harvest the news that it had been used as a private club for men and that it had been recently closed. "Ask in the saloon - the "Valkyrie" - next door. They are the landlords," said the girl as she returned to her ribbons. The acute lawyer, whose years of active practice had opened his eyes to many of the mysteries of the inside life of New York, Detroit and Chicago, was not deceived by the decorous white enamel shutters.

"I have done enough for one day," he mused. "I have kept my temper, and Ferris suspects nothing. Poor Clayton never betrayed me; he only betrayed himself. And he has been trapped; BUT BY WHOM? God alone knows!"

Once safely back in the Hoffman, Jack Witherspoon leisurely dined. His self-commune had taught him the need of a perfect control of every faculty. "I will not linger here to embarrass Ferris; but the Newport Art Gallery, the mysterious woman of 192 Layte Street, and the picture's secret history shall be my property alone. I will not betray myself. Arthur Ferris may, perhaps, unbosom himself!"

As the lonely night hours advanced, Witherspoon sat in his room, vainly striving to reconcile the dozen theories of the flaring editions of the evening papers. There was not a single suggestion of foul play; not a word to point the direction of the supposed fugitive's evasion; not a clue from the baffled police.

It was the old story of a double life, the wreckage of a promising career. "Just a plain, ordinary thief was Mr. Randall Clayton," said one acute observer; "his case is only extraordinary from the amount taken. And it seems that he robbed for the lucre itself, as the most careful inquiry divulges no stain upon his private life. Another case of the 'model young man' gone wrong."

Witherspoon had thrown the journals into his trunk as a precaution, and was smothering his disgust at their heartlessness, when Arthur Ferris, white-faced, dashed into his room.

"What has happened? Have you found his body?" cried the Detroit man, springing up. "I may have to leave you here to represent me privately," gasped Ferris, as with a shaking hand he extended a telegram. "Read