a few jewels, my own. Braun feared to give me money.
But Hermann was arranging to help me away to Poland, when you came.
Once there I would have been safe from Braun. He would not have
dared to claim me. And Hermann, the forester, is known to all the
officials. He has charge of the estate.

"Braun feared him. He dared not take me away, for I would not go.
It has been the slavery of hell itself. But I baffled him! Four
times a day Hermann came for my orders, and I always left a little
light burning in one window of my rooms. Every night one of the
men watched. My food was prepared by little Frida alone, and she
never left my side. Braun dared not poison me! I waited, and he
waited. What did he wait for?"

"HE WAITED FOR ME," cried Leah Einstein, in a fit of remorseful
tears, now anxious to save her boy.

She seized Atwater's arm with trembling hands. "Your police
detective did not get Braun's first letter to me. He begged me to
come to him. He was to get rid of this poor girl, and I was to live
like a lady."

The two guilty women were weeping together when McNerney stole into
the room. He drew the young doctor aside.

"Our main work is done here," he whispered. "Now get these two
women in trim so they will not tell anything to our German friends.
You and I can handle this quest alone. I've found out his hiding
place!"

While the matron delayed Sergeant Breyman below, Atwater and McNerney
ascended to the murderer's lair.

"I at once saw that the flagstones of the fireplace in the turret
had been lifted," hoarsely whispered the overjoyed Dennis. "With
this old boar spear I pried up the slabs. It's all down in there.
A valise full of notes! Here! Help me drag this couch over the
stones, and move the furniture. The German police must not see
this. To-night you and I will gather up the harvest!"

The athletic young men worked with a will. In five minutes the
panting McNerney said, "Safe enough now from the ox-eyed German
detective! Let us go down. How badly is he hurt?"

"His right arm is merely disabled! It's a very severe flesh wound,"
complacently answered the doctor. "Just enough loss of blood and
following inflammation to leave him as helpless as a lamb in our
hands."

"I want to take the wolf home," growled McNerney, "and to see him
sit in the chair of death. I'll give him no chance to play tricks!"

There was little sleep in the old schloss of Adler's Horst on this
eventful night. The regular paci