The three men were as unmoved as sphinxes while McNerney led her
along. "I only thought Fritz wanted him to meet the pretty woman,
the one they called Irma, and then, while he was there, take his
things from him. He had only a leather valise; no diamonds. I saw
no money, and I was with the sick woman. Mr. Clayton loved her,
and used to come and see her."
"Where does this Fritz live?" sternly said the policeman. "Everybody
knows Fritz Braun, the druggist of Magdal's Pharmacy. Ask Mr.
Lilienthal of the Newport Art Gallery. He is his friend."
With assumed indifference, McNerney mixed a glass of brandy and
water for the woman, and walked the floor in deep thought. "Where
is he now?" at last asked McNerney. "This Fritz Braun!"
There was a silence while the quick-witted Jewess caught at the
protection of the far-off hiding place of her quandam lover. "He
went away; I do not know where; and took the woman with him, this
Hungarian woman, this Irma Gluyas! Lilienthal knows; you can make
him tell."
"Look here!" sharply cried the officer, in a sudden rage. "You are
lying to me! Your rooms are being searched even now! Your boy has
been taken away, and he will go straight to the electric chair.
He gave that poor man over into your hands. You took him to the
murderer's den! BOTH OF YOU WILL DIE! You were yourself getting
ready to run away to Europe! Your baggage is all packed! We will
force the truth out of your boy; you shall never see him. You can't
help him lie now! I was the cobbler opposite your door, and I've
watched you for a month!"
For five minutes the men labored to restore the stricken woman,
whose tortured nerves gave way. "I shall now search you," roughly
said McNerney, "but I'll have a police matron here to do it. I want
that letter and telegram from August Meyer! I want the money--the
stolen money--he sent you. I'll give you just five minutes to tell
me the whole truth. It's life and death for you now. They are busy
searching your rooms."
With a cry of entreaty, Leah Einstein tore open her dress. She threw
a packet on the table. "It's all there, all there," she wailed.
"And I will tell you all. I will take you to him. You shall catch
him. But spare my boy!" And, moaning and pleading, she now told
the whole truth.
It was long after midnight when the woman scrawled her name in
Polish-Hebrew script under the record of Fritz Braun's crime.
McNerney grasped Witherspoon's arm and led him away. "Do you see
the light now?" he cried, in triumph. "The boy and woman were
used by this damned fiend, Braun. You can see that she was Braun's
slave in the old days. The other woman is innocent of the murder,
and was only a handsome stool-pigeon! But, behind Braun, there
may lurk Lilienthal and Ferris! Braun was to get the plunder for
putting Clayton out of the way. Don't you see that Clayton stood
between Ferris and the millionaire's only daughter!"
"What are we to do?" gasped Witherspoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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