"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, "Fraulein 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 that!" Witherspoon gasped, in a sudden dismay, as he read the crushing news. The dispatch was simply signed "Alice,"

and the young men were speechless as Witherspoon falteringly read the words:

"Ellensburg, Washington, July 5, 1897. Father lying dying at Pasco.

Railroad accident. Join me there. I arrive six o'clock morning."

"I have ordered all the Tacoma dispatches repeated to her," muttered Ferris.

"He did not get this news about Clayton." Ferris' eyes were averted.

In his craven heart there was but one burning question, "My God!

Did he remake his will after our marriage? I may be left a pauper on Alice's bounty."

And Ferris, with a mighty effort, controlled his knowledge of the secret wedding. "This is horrible!" he cried, as he sank into a chair.

And while they were mute, a ghastly, gleaming corpse was whirled hither and thither, under the blackened waters rushing inward from the sea, under the arch of Brooklyn Bridge, a mute witness of the curse of Cain, waiting God's awful mandate for the sea to give up its dead.

CHAPTER X.

A CRUEL LEGACY.

Randall Clayton's name was being bandied scornfully by thousands of sneering lips as Arthur Ferris evaded his New York friends in the crowded lobby of the Hoffman. The crafty lawyer bridegroom was happy at Witherspoon's promise to remain and aid him.

The secret antagonists had, however, lied to each other with all possible show of candor. Ferris returned rapidly to Robert Wade's private office, having engaged a temporary resting place at the Fifth Avenue. "Let no cards be sent to my room--from the press or any other people. You can easily understand why!" he ordered.

The suave head clerk convoluted in sympathy with the financial disaster, now the theme of the wildest gossip. But his heart was as cold as the gleam of his gigantic diamond stud (real), as he smoothly greeted the next customer. What is human suffering or disgrace in a New York crowd?

Ferris calmly refreshed himself at the Fifth Avenue's historic bar, and then, hastening away to the Trading Company's office, sharply dismissed the timorous Wade. That fat functionary was visibly rattled when Ferris sent him home for the night. "I shall personally direct all important matters now. You may as well notify Bell and Edson that (for your own sake) I allow you and Somers, as well as them, to remain on duty. But you four men can consider yourselves practically suspended until Hugh Worthington arrives. You officials can sign no single paper, from now on, without my counter endorsement.

There's my warrant for this action. I shall have this letter spread on your confidential letter-book, so consider me as the real manager until I put you on duty again."

Robert Wade turned ashen pale as he read Hugh Worthington's carte blanche powers given under his own hand to the new vice-president.

"As I hold this, his power of attorney, and all his proxies, I presume that you recognize my authority," coldly remarked Ferris.

"I will take charge of all here. I will be either here or at Parlor C, Fifth Avenue."

"When do you expect Worthington?" stammered the deposed manager.

"I don't know," sharply said Ferris.

"For God's sake, consider my family, my business future, my reputation," cried Wade, with tears in his eyes.

"Pooh!" angrily rejoined Ferris. "Make that by-play on old Hugh.

It's all lost on me!"

And, as the door closed, he sharply locked it, and, after examining the rooms to prevent any Peeping Tom observing his actions, Ferris sat down to study Clayton's telegraph book, and the messages which he had rifled from the dead man's desk.

"I am safe so far," muttered Ferris. "No one knows of my big secret deal. But from this fellow's dispatch to Hugh, he certainly intended to go out and see Edson at Bay Ridge. Now, did he start in good faith? I must set some good outside detectives at work on that.

"Then this dispatch to Alice, I wonder if she had still left a sneaking fondness for him! Who can read a woman's heart? It's like judging the depth of water by its smoothness: all mere conjecture.

Half the women are liars, and the other half hide more than half the truth under their silken breastplates. They fight with double-edged lies as their keenest weapons.

"Unless Clayton was a very deep rascal, he certainly intended to go on West. Where the devil is he? Kidnapped, and held till the swag is safe? Dead? No!"

A guilty spasm of conscience suggested that the missing cashier might have secreted the funds and fled, to make private terms later from his hiding place, with the wary Hugh.

"He knew nothing, he suspected nothing of the Detroit land deal,"