Above the rows of bottled "bitters," the fiery drink of the temperance frauds, high over the three score jars of "nervines" and pick-me-up preparations, towered a life-size marble statue of Hygeia, glowing in a voluptuous Parian nakedness.
Behind the fountain counter, with its serried rows of crystal glasses in artistic silver holders, there lurked on watch, now, the factotum, the thieving London-bred drug-clerk who had escaped "transportation," at Her Gracious Majesty's behest, by slipping over to New York City disguised as a stoker.
To him alone was entrusted the traffic in slops and the flimsy produce of the soda fountain, to him the drudgery of the illicit Sunday liquor trade, when the "regulars" entered by the side door from the hall, bearing the portentous sign, "Hugo Adler, M.D., Physician and Surgeon." No mortal had ever gazed upon the legendary Adler, but Timmins the cockney, and Braunschweiger the ex-Prussian grenadier, gaily dispensed from jugs and bottles the "spiritual comforts" stacked up in the "dark room" every Saturday against the Sunday of legally enforced thirst and resultant sadness.
But while these minor villains slaved for the master who greedily snatched every bill from the till, and held them up to a keen return for every measured drink in the stock of the Sunday "bar" of the mock drug-store, it was the taciturn Fritz Braun himself who murmured in confidence to the important patrons of the den.
The morning run beginning at nine, embraced the haggard-eyed devotees of pleasure--Wall Street men, clerk and financiers, habitues of the Tenderloin--actors and men about town.
In subdued murmurs the skilful Fritz Braun trafficked with these "shaky" mortals, while Timmins covered their "prescriptions" with an innocent layer of Vichy.
Sometimes the favored few entered behind Braun's screen, until the chemist solved their varying problems by manipulating his vials in the closely locked cabinet, the key of which never left his person.
There were little packages by the gross ready in that capacious lock box.

Opium, hasheesh, chorodyne, sulphonal, cocaine, "dope," all the life-stealing narcotics in every form.
There were medicines the traffic in which leads even the innocent behind the bars.
And it was from the sale of these "nervines," forbidden medicines, and poisonous agents that the runaway Vienna criminal drew his increasing revenue.

There was an aristocracy among the motley customers.
From the "hypodermic" regulars, men and women, laying down their syringes to be filled with the soul-stealing morphia solution--faded men and trembling women, down to the shattered wretch, with his pitiful twenty-five cents for a bit of "dope," no one with money was turned away.
Yet all of these passed under Fritz Braun's watchful scrutiny.
The disguised criminal trembled lest some ugly-minded detective or crank journalist might entrap him into the meshes of the law.
Alas! Nearly all the customers bore the seal of safety in their imploring eyes.

By the freemasonry of the degenerates, Magdal's was a known haven of refuge to all the weaklings of Manhattan.
The frequent ringing of "Doctor Adler's" bell admitted to the little dimly-lighted rear room the sullen-eyed visitors who bore away the colorless vials of "knock-out drops," for which five- and ten-dollar bills were eagerly thrust into Braun's itching palm.
This important traffic was confided to no one but the real proprietor.
And stealthily-treading, matronly-looking women often found their way into the den, where nameless "remedies" were sold, often for their weight in diamonds, the weapons of that hidden guild which paves New York's streets with the bones of ignorant and martyred women.

For all the thirty-third degree trade of the "consulting-room," an "introduction" was stiffly demanded.
Thanks to his craft, to his fear of the awful doom hanging over him from the unpunished Viennese murders, Hugo Landor had so far defied detection and avoided all awkward inquiry.