nse, and his presumed relaxation.

When McNerney had glanced at Irma Gluyas' own retreat, he hastily
locked the door of Braun's separate retreat. The policeman's quick
eye had caught sight of the inner bolts and chains! "The stuff
is surely hidden near here! I must make my play upon his pretty
companion." When McNerney rejoined Doctor Atwater, the physician
had already left Braun to the formal questioning of the methodical
sergeant.

Irma Gluyas was now sobbing wildly, her head resting on the bosom
of the woman who had been Braun's dupe as well as slave; the woman
who had feebly enacted the role of Madame Raffoni.

And now the whole frightful truth had dawned upon the beautiful
Magyar. She gazed despairingly at McNerney when he quickly said:
"You can purchase your own safety; you can aid us now. Tell me, where
did he hide the quarter of a million he stole? For this scoundrel
only did murder to reach the fortune carried by poor Clayton!"

"Kill me! Do what you will; I care not," sobbed the singer. "I knew
nothing of these crimes, of either one. Hasten, though. Search well
the second floor of the turret. This fiend spent all his evenings
there alone. He always locked his rooms, and the door into the
tower. Even the servants were not allowed to enter his den! What
you seek must be there! May the curse of God reach him! And now
is my hour of vengeance. He betrayed this poor victim, the man who
died through a noble love for me!"

Only Leah Einstein and the resolute Atwater remained at Irma's
side as McNerney ran upstairs alone. The police matron who had
been Leah Einstein's secret jailer on the voyage was now listening
to Braun's stubborn negations of all Sergeant Breyman's formal
questions.

Atwater, with a touched heart, listened to Irma Gluyas in her
passionate ravings. "The lying fiend! I will tell all! I will go
on my knees to pray God to strike him dead!"

For, at last, the duped woman knew that Randall Clayton was already
cold in death when Braun had forged the lying telegram which bade
her hope for deliverance.

"He watched me, night and day, lest I should try to escape! He
plotted to kill me, but he feared the servants. I always kept a
little peasant child here in my rooms, night and day.

"Our old forester, Hermann, who guards the estate for the young
Count von Kinsky, who is travelling over the world for four years,
is good and true. He is Frida's uncle. And I told him all my fears.
I had only