The Midnight Passenger | Page 9

couple of boxes of the best Havanas on Company
account, for the 'big customers.' Yes, and a drop of good old cognac,

too.
"There's often a bit of fun behind the ground glass partitions. I've
scraped a little eye hole."
"You are your sly mother's own darling imp," growled Braun, bringing
out his pocketbook. "She was the devil's own, too, before she got old
and lost her good looks," he sighed.
"Tell me," said he, selecting a note with grave deliberation, "how much
did Clayton deposit to-day?"
"Only thirty-eight thousand," contemptuously answered the boy, as he
clutched the note now held out to him. "Sometimes it's a round hundred
thousand," continued Emil, eager to show off his knowledge, "and on
the annual settlements, July 1 to 4th, last year we put in two hundred
thousand into the Astor Place. That's our biggest monthly settlement. I
always help Mr. Clayton pack it up, in his own room, after he verifies
the accountant's tabs."
Fritz Braun suddenly awoke from a reverie. "Get out of here now, and
see that you post me on all that this Clayton is up to at night, on his
Sundays and vacations. I'll give you a third twenty for the two keys. I
may want to take a look at his rooms some Sunday when you are
sporting out of town.
"And watch the spotters, too! You might do a good turn in pocket
money by posting him, but only as I tell you, mind that! Now, don't go
to the devil too fast. Do you ever give your mother any money?"
Einstein's vicious leer was a silent answer. "Tell her she shall have a
new silk dress from me, if you keep your wits about you. Remember,
Monday!"
The lad sped away at a curt nod of dismissal, and was soon lost in the
devil's whirlpool of the Bowery.
But, as Mr. Fritz Braun sedately finished his cosy dinner, he saw
strange golden gleams in the blue, wreathing smoke mists of his
Perfectos.
"Two hundred thousand; that would be a stake. And July, too; this
lawyer fellow gone. What a chance! There must be no mistake now! He
must lead himself on, now. One prick of the hidden hook and this fat
trout would be off forever I must see Irma and coach her. Donnerwetter!
It's too good to be true. After all this waiting. And now I've got to keep
my eyes on both the spider and the fly. Irma is such a tempestuous

devil. If Leah only had her years and looks and dash, she would twist
any man in the world around her finger. But I can never teach this
Hungarian madcap, Leah's velvet softness and never-tiring patience."
The prosperous pharmacist gleefully paid for his dinner and nimbly
chased an East-side ferry-bound car. He laughed in spite of himself at
Emil's unflagging deviltry. "He is a credit to Leah's Polish blood and
my Austrian nurture," mused Braun. "The young wretch might be
dangerous, too. He must know nothing of my deep game."
"If this Clayton will only break into the flirtation in the right way, the
victory is assured. But, if he were to show her off around town, or try
and dodge these spotter fellows in New York, then I should lose a
year's time, my expenses, and this heavy money stake. It's the one
chance of a life time."
In half an hour, Fitz Braun, crossing on the Tenth Street Ferry to
Greenpoint, was soon lost, as was his wont, in the human hive of
Brooklyn toilers. Men had seen him go over for years invariably on this
ferry, his burly figure was always seen on the Fulton Ferry daily at
half-past eight each morning, but not a soul among the thousand clients
of Magdal's Pharmacy knew where the human fox, Fritz Braun, laid his
head to rest at night.
From nine till four he lurked behind the high dispensing screen of
Magdal's Pharmacy, his inner life and antecedents a sealed book to all
the sleuth-eyed votaries of vice on Sixth Avenue.
And yet, for all his craft, on this balmy night of spring, the man who
had buried Hugo Landor's stormy past forever under staid Fritz Braun's
impenetrable mask, shivered while plotting his new iniquities lest the
panther-footed pursuer might even now demand at his hand a life in
return for those victims who had lain, staring eyed, cold in death, mute
witness against him in far away Vienna. The terrible record of his past
evil days haunted his every footstep now. He saw these avenging eyes
even in his dreams.
There was but one who could lift the veil of the awful past. On this
eventful night Fritz Braun hid, within his heart, an awful resolve, born
of the fear of