he mused as
he made a last examination of the rooms above and below. There was
nothing left to betray him.

"Leah is a cunning one," he gleefully said, as he slipped on the
well-remembered brown top coat of the "pharmacist," and adjusted
anew his false beard and goggles. He felt for Clayton's useless
pistol and placed it in his outside pocket.

"Overboard you go, my friend, as soon as I reach the dock." Then
seizing his black valise, he passed out of the cellar entrance in
the rear and clambered upon the high seat of the great luggage van.

"Where to?" gruffly demanded the waiting driver, who, with his
burly mate, was drenched with rain.

"To the Atlantic Basin," sharply said Braun. "I've an extra ten
dollars in my pocket for you. It's a wild night." His only task
now was to rid himself of the stripped body of his victim, and he
had acted with a devilish ingenuity of forethought.

Then, turning the corner of the "Valkyrie," Fritz Braun led the
way along to where a snub-nosed tug lay with her hissing steam
escaping, as she tossed up and down on the frothy waves of the
yacht mooring.

The ringing of bells in the engine-room, the heavy trampling of
feet, aroused the helpless, half-dazed Irma Gluyas, as Fritz Braun
tenderly ordered the men to bear her into the little cabin.

"Give her a spoonful of this mixture," significantly said Braun,
"I must look out for the luggage."

With a delighted grin, the two expressmen received Fritz Braun's
liberal donation.

"Happy voyage, boss," they screamed, as the stout little vessel
twisted around on her hawser and moved out on the blackened waters,
throwing the yeasty spray high up with the saucy thrusts of her
blunt bows.

"Never mind that old trunk," cried Braun, as the sailors busied
themselves with throwing tarpaulins over the traveller's half dozen
boxes.

It was a heavy package left dangerously near the gunwale of the
boat. Mr. Fritz Braun was in a fever of good humor. He had dropped
overboard something which glittered a moment as it disappeared under
the black surges of the freshening waves. The faithless pistol of
the dead cashier now lay twenty fathoms under the dark tide.

While the tug's crew busied themselves with their duties and hastily
cast off the lines, the two women were crouching in the dingy cabin.

Fritz Braun, his cigar gleaming out a red defiance, watched the
light of the Battery glide by him. He had taken a deep draught of
brandy as a final lib