[The Midnight Passenger by Richard Henry Savage]@TWC D-Link bookThe Midnight Passenger CHAPTER II 10/23
He must know nothing of my deep game." "If this Clayton will only break into the flirtation in the right way, the victory is assured.
But, if he were to show her off around town, or try and dodge these spotter fellows in New York, then I should lose a year's time, my expenses, and this heavy money stake. It's the one chance of a life time." In half an hour, Fitz Braun, crossing on the Tenth Street Ferry to Greenpoint, was soon lost, as was his wont, in the human hive of Brooklyn toilers.
Men had seen him go over for years invariably on this ferry, his burly figure was always seen on the Fulton Ferry daily at half-past eight each morning, but not a soul among the thousand clients of Magdal's Pharmacy knew where the human fox, Fritz Braun, laid his head to rest at night. From nine till four he lurked behind the high dispensing screen of Magdal's Pharmacy, his inner life and antecedents a sealed book to all the sleuth-eyed votaries of vice on Sixth Avenue. And yet, for all his craft, on this balmy night of spring, the man who had buried Hugo Landor's stormy past forever under staid Fritz Braun's impenetrable mask, shivered while plotting his new iniquities lest the panther-footed pursuer might even now demand at his hand a life in return for those victims who had lain, staring eyed, cold in death, mute witness against him in far away Vienna. The terrible record of his past evil days haunted his every footstep now.
He saw these avenging eyes even in his dreams. There was but one who could lift the veil of the awful past.
On this eventful night Fritz Braun hid, within his heart, an awful resolve, born of the fear of the disguised felon, floating uneasily in the maelstrom of a great city.
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