"You are to take the morning train and get the alias extradition
papers from the Secretary of State. Make it a strict confidence. I
will take this woman, the papers, and Doctor Atwater, and we will
grab 'Mr. August Meyer' at Schebitz.
"Jim Condon will hold the boy on the doctor's yacht, and you will
take your notary and get the boy's full confession. Let him know
that he alone can save his mother's life. The moment I have nabbed
this Fritz Braun I'll cable; but I want to recover the money and
get the whole reward. You must get me five thousand dollars from
Miss Worthington, and the letter of credit for five thousand more.
I'll take an iron-handed woman along, a nurse, and police matron."
"What shall I do with Miss Worthington?" demanded Witherspoon.
"Nothing, as yet," said McNerney, with a significant smile. "Let the
doctor handle her confidence! I'll get all this woman's belongings
and put the matron in charge of her. The woman can work skilfully
on her fears.
"To-morrow I'll take a peep at No. 192 Layte Street, then go down
to Tompkinsville with the notary. We will put Emil Einstein 'through
the thirty-third degree,' and in three days Atwater, the two women
and I will be off for Breslau. Leave me a free hand, and I'll get
your murderer and the money. But remember, one single imprudence
loses both man and money; you, your vengeance; me, my reward. And
I depend on this windfall to marry!"
"So do I, Dennis," sadly smiled Witherspoon. "Go in; I'll do your
bidding. Count on the extradition papers and the money."
In ten minutes the armorer's room was dark. "Not a bad evening's
work," said the notary, as he pocketed a hundred-dollar bill,
"and another one of those 'exquisitely executed engravings' for
to-morrow!"
Long before Alice Worthington had lifted her stately head from her
pillow the next morning, the astonished Dennis McNerney was rubbing
his eyes before the location of the Valkyrie Saloon. He had stolen
over to Brooklyn with the "early birds."
The streets were as yet unpeopled when he drew the drowsy officer
on the beat into the side room of the saloon where once Mr. August
Meyer presided in the evening.
The two uniformed giants smacked their lips over the morning
Manhattan cocktail.
"Now, that's what I call a cocktail," said Officer Hogan, as he
ordered up (on a complimentary basis) the Havanas. "This saloon
used to be a German sort of headquarters. But the new fellows are
our own people, the right sort. They knew it's an Irish neighborhood.
So they pulled down the sign 'Valkyrie,' and put up 'The Shamrock,'
drove out their Dutch kellners and put in good Irish barkeepers."
"What's become of August Meyer, who used to have an interest here?"
carelessly said McNerney, affecting a familiarity with old history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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