ardently looked forward to a comfortable ill-gotten revenue at the
hands of the man, who--through a skilful manipulation of the German
janitor of the Western Trading Company's office--had obtained the
place of office boy, "with substantial references," for the son of
his cast-off paramour.

Leah Einstein had long forgotten the face of the reckless Polish
country noble who was the real father of this budding criminal, and
the lad himself but dimly discerned the drift of his Mephistophelian
patron's proposed villainy.

Timid and cowardly at heart, the young waif would have shuddered
had he known of the callous-handed and desperate murders which had
shocked Vienna just before Hugo Landor, a talented and handsome
young chemist, disappeared forever in flight, lost under a cloud
of scandal caused by drink and a maddening devotion to a baby-faced
devil of the Ring Strasse Theater chorus, a woman at whose
feet the hungry-eyed aristocrats had knelt to sue, a man-eater, a
hard-hearted, velvet-eyed, reckless and defiant devil.

At an almost imperceptible nod Einstein drew near to his patron,
taking the vacant place in the little alcove, a deux, with his
back prudently screening him from any chance visitor who might know
the Western Trading Company's personnel. Braun was eager for his
spy's report now.

"All right, at last!" the youth huskily whispered. "I watched him
meet her, at the picture window, you know. I had posted her! And
then he slyly followed her over here and went three blocks out of
his way to pipe her off here! So, after his lunch at Taylor's, I