By that time
Dunham's senatorial term will be out. He will retire from politics,
and so, his record and our interests are secure! I always feared
that Ferris would turn up darkly in this sad murder business,"
gloomily added the old lawyer. "But the whole secret inquest so far
proves to me the correctness of Boardman and Warner's judgment.
Ferris feared Clayton's natural influence over the old man, and
his own final game was the daughter's hand, and then the control
of the old man's fortune. He spied on Clayton, lied about him, and
at last brought about the estrangement of the old man and his only
loyal servant in the whole circle.

"Poor Clayton! After his death he fell into a useless fortune!
Miss Worthington has already made arrangements for a magnificent
monument to him in the family plot at Detroit, and Randall Clayton
will be there beside his stern old master. But for Ferris' wiles
Clayton would surely have married that noble girl, and been alive
to-day, a happy man, in Detroit.

"Ferris played a bold game and lost at last. It was the sale of
the Senator's influence for the hand of the heiress. And she now
hates him with an undying bitterness. But you can drop Ferris out
as a suspected murderer. No; Clayton was evidently killed for the
vast funds he carried. And we see, too late, that no less than
three men should ever be trusted to make regular trips with such
great amounts of money. But it's the old story of life. We are all
wise, a day after the fair!"

Ten days after the stout "Rambler" shook out her snowy sails and
flitted away to Bermuda, there was nothing left to ruffle the still
waters of oblivion which had closed over Randall Clayton. Only upon
the face of Robert Wade, Esq., lingered now an anxious expression
of vague unrest.

For the Newport Art Gallery knew the oily beauty of Mr. Adolph
Lilienthal no longer. There was a new face behind the proprietor's
desk, and the "private view" gallery was permanently closed.

The furtive visitors came trooping in and went disconsolately away,
for the private hall entrance was sternly shut and the electric
bell removed. Night after night police, customs, and post-office
officials sat in secret conference over the mysterious threads of
the Baltic smuggling conspiracy now being gathered up while Mr.
Adolph Lilienthal languished in a private cell in Ludlow Street
jail.

He divided his ignorance of what he was "in for" with the frightened
"Ben Timmins," w