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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of One Wonderful Night, by Louis Tracy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: One Wonderful Night
+       A Romance of New York
+
+Author: Louis Tracy
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19707]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  BEVERLY BAYNE AS
+LADY HERMIONE.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
+
+A ROMANCE OF NEW YORK
+
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS TRACY
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+MIRABEL'S ISLAND, THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, ETC.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+
+EDWARD J. CLODE
+
+
+
+
+A FOREWORD
+
+Moving picture enthusiasts who reveled in the romantic mysteries that
+tangled the plot of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT will find even more pleasure in
+reading this fascinating story.
+
+"THE LADIES' WORLD" contest--the greatest in the history of motion
+pictures--has just come to a close.  Under the auspices of the "Ladies'
+World" with its million circulation monthly, moving picture lovers all
+over the United States have been voting for the actor to impersonate
+the heroic part of John Delancy Curtis in the photo-play of ONE
+WONDERFUL NIGHT--probably the most interesting and absorbing
+presentation ever made on the screen.
+
+_Five million, four hundred and forty-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty
+votes were cast_.  Francis Bushman won the prize.  With a vote of
+1,806,630 he was chosen the typical American hero.  In the Essanay
+Company's elaborate production of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT, Mr. Bushman is
+supported by a strong cast, including beautiful Beverly Bayne as Lady
+Hermione.
+
+Those who have witnessed the photo-play production will find the book
+even more intensely interesting.  The hero, John Delancy Curtis, drops
+in from Pekin, China, for a brief rest from strenuous engineering work,
+and on his first night in New York finds a marriage license in the
+pocket of a murdered man's coat, rushes off in a taxi to the address of
+the woman named therein, marries her, punches a frantic rival on the
+nose, flouts her father (an English baronet), takes the fair one to a
+hotel, holds a banquet at which the Chief of Police of New York is an
+honored guest, and sits down to gaze contentedly into the future of
+bliss that a half a million a year will bring.
+
+We bespeak for the reader pleasure, entertainment and diversion in this
+absorbing and unusual story.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. DUSK
+   II. EIGHT O'CLOCK
+  III. EIGHT-THIRTY
+   IV. AN INTERLUDE
+    V. NINE O'CLOCK
+   VI. NINE-THIRTY
+  VII. TEN O'CLOCK
+ VIII. TEN-THIRTY
+   IX. ELEVEN O'CLOCK
+    X. MIDNIGHT
+   XI. ONE O'CLOCK
+  XII. TWO-THIRTY A.M.
+ XIII. WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"
+  XIV. THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
+   XV. WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS--BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS
+  XVI. A PARLEY
+ XVII. WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  BEVERLY BAYNE
+  AS LADY HERMIONE . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+
+
+
+
+ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DUSK
+
+"There, sonny--behold the city of your dreams!  Good old New York, as
+per schedule. . . .  Gee!  Ain't she great?"
+
+The slim, self-possessed youth of twenty hardly seemed to expect an
+answer; but the man addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of
+the pair by six years, felt that the emotion throbbing in his heart
+must be allowed to bubble forth lest he became hysterical.
+
+"Old New York, do you call it?" he asked quietly.  The tense restraint
+in his voice would perhaps have betrayed his mood to a more delicately
+tuned ear than his companion's, but young Howard Devar, heir of the
+Devar millions--son of "Vancouver" Devar, the Devar who fed multitudes
+on canned salmon, and was suspected of having cornered wheat at least
+once, thus woefully misapplying the parable of the loaves and
+fishes--had the wit to appreciate the significance of the question,
+deaf as he was to its note of longing, of adulation, of vibrant
+sentiment.
+
+"_Coelum non animum mutat_, which, in good American, means that it is
+the same old city on the level, and only changes its sky-line," he
+chortled.  "Bet you a five-spot to a nickel I'll walk blindfolded along
+Twenty-third Street from the Hoboken Ferry any time of the day, and
+take the correct turn into Broadway, bar being run over by a taxi or
+street-car at the crossings."
+
+"I'll take the same odds and do that myself.  How could any normal
+human being miss the rattle of the Sixth Avenue Elevated?"
+
+Devar's forehead wrinkled with surprise.
+
+"Hello, there!  Hold on!  How often have you told me that you had never
+seen New York since you were a baby?" he cried.
+
+"Nor have I.  Ten years ago, almost to a day, I sailed from Boston to
+Europe with my people, and I had never revisited New York after leaving
+it in infancy, though both my father and mother hailed from the Bronx."
+
+"There's a cog missing somewhere, or my mental gear-box is out of
+shape."
+
+"Not a bit of it.  One may learn heaps of things from maps and books."
+
+"Start right in, then, and take an honors course, for behold in me a
+map and a book and a high-grade society index for the whole blessed
+little island of Manhattan."
+
+"Thank you.  What is that slender, column-like structure to the left of
+the Singer Building?"
+
+Devar gazed hard at the graceful tower indicated by his friend; then he
+laughed.
+
+"Oh, you're uncanny, that's what you are," he said.  "You've lived so
+long in the East that you've imbibed its tricks of occultism and
+necromancy.  I suppose you have discovered in some way that that
+mushroom has sprung up since the old man sent me to Heidelberg?"
+
+"I guessed it, I admit.  It does not figure among the down-town
+sky-scrapers in the latest drawing available in London."
+
+"And d'ye mean to tell me that you can pick out any of these
+top-notchers merely by studying a picture?"
+
+"Yes.  Probably you could do the same if you, like me, felt yourself a
+returned exile."
+
+Young Devar awoke at last to the fact that his companion was brimming
+over with subdued excitement.  Whether this arose from the intense
+nationalism of an expatriated American, or from some more subtle
+personal cause, he could not determine, but, being young, he was
+cynical.  He looked at the strong, set face, the well-knit, sinewy
+figure, the purposeful hands gripping the fore rail of the promenade
+deck; then he growled, with just the least spice of humorous envy:
+
+"Say, Curtis, old man, you ought to have a hell of a good time in New
+York!"
+
+"At any rate, I shall not suffer from lack of enthusiasm," came the
+quick retort.
+
+Devar felt the spur, and his restless, bird-like eyes condescended to
+dwell for a few seconds in silence on the splendid panorama in front.
+The _Lusitania_ had passed through the Narrows before the two young men
+had strolled along the upper deck of the great steamship to the
+'vantage point of a gangway which made a half-circle around the
+commander's quarters.  Already the Statue of Liberty loomed
+majestically over the port bow, and the wide expanse of the Hudson
+River was framed by the wooded slopes of Staten Island, the low shores
+of New Jersey, and the heights of the Palisades.  Somewhat to the right
+rose the imperial outlines of newest New York, that wonderful city
+which, even in the memory of children, has raised itself hundreds of
+feet nearer the sky.  A thin, blue haze gave glamour to a delightful
+scene, glowing in the declining rays of a November sun.  The gigantic
+strands of the Brooklyn Bridge showed through it like some aerial path
+to a fabulous land, while, merging fast in the shadows, other dim
+specters told of even greater engineering marvels higher up the East
+River.  A fleet of bustling vessels, for the most part ferry-boats and
+tugs of every possible size and shape, scudded across the spacious
+waterways, and lent to the picture exactly that semblance of vitality,
+of energetic purpose, of relentless effort to be up and doing--whether
+the New Yorker was going home from his office, or his wife was coming
+into town for dinner and a theater--which one, at least, of the city's
+uncounted sons had confidently expected to find in it.
+
+So John Delancy Curtis drew a deep breath that sounded almost like a
+sigh, but a pleasant smile illumined his somewhat stern face as he
+turned to Devar and said:
+
+"I am giving myself fourteen days' free run of the town before I go
+West to visit some relatives.  They live in Indiana, I believe.
+Bloomington, Monroe County, is the latest address I possess.  Don't
+forget to ring me up to-morrow.  You remember the hotel, the Central,
+in West 27th Street."
+
+"Oh, forget it!" cried the other vexedly.  "Why in the world are you
+burying yourself in that pre-historic shanty?  Man alive, the Holland
+House is only a block away, and there are 'steen hotels of the right
+sort strung out along Fifth Avenue, 'way up to Central Park----"
+
+"It's just a whim," broke in Curtis, who did not feel like explaining
+at the moment that he was choosing a quiet old inn in a side street
+because he had been born there!  Nevertheless, his words held that ring
+of decision, of finality in judgment, which invariably forms part of
+the equipment of men who have lived in wild lands and lorded it over
+inferior races.  Devar was vaguely conscious, and perhaps slightly
+resentful, of this compelling quality in his new-found crony.
+Oft-times it had quelled him for an instant during some stubbornly
+contested argument, though he raged at himself just as often for
+yielding to it, as if, forsooth, he were one of those patient,
+animal-like, Chinese coolies of whose courage and endurance Curtis
+spoke so admiringly.  Yet he was drawn to the man, and clung to his
+friendship.
+
+"Right-o!  I s'pose the place owns a telephone," he snickered, and then
+hurried away to finish packing.  Curtis, whose belongings were locked
+and strapped hours ago, remained on deck, and watched the preparations
+for bringing the great liner alongside the Cunard pier.  When her
+engines were stopped in mid-stream a number of fussy little tugs began
+nosing her round to starboard.  It seemed a matter of sheer
+impossibility that these puny creatures should move such a monster; but
+faith can move mountains, and in half an hour, or less, the tugs had
+moved the _Lusitania_ to her allotted berth.
+
+Meanwhile, in each wide arch of the Customs shed, parterres of joyous
+faces grew momentarily more distinct.  It was easy to discern the very
+instant when one or other eager group on shore recognized the features
+of relatives and friends on the ship.  A frenzied waving of
+handkerchiefs, small flags, or umbrellas, an occasional wild whoop, a
+college cry or a rebel yell, would evoke similar demonstrations from
+the packed lines of onlookers fringing the lower decks.  One fact was
+dominant--to the vast majority of the passengers, this was home.
+
+Suddenly, Curtis found that he was the sole tenant of the open
+promenade.  Everyone on board had hurried to the less exalted levels,
+the many to hail their loved ones, the few to watch that first unique
+demonstration of welcome to a new land which New York gives so
+generously.  Somehow, he had never felt himself more alone--not even by
+night in the solemn plains of Manchuria--and he threw off the feeling,
+almost with contempt.  Was not this city his very own?  Had he not a
+birthright in every stone of it, from pavement to loftiest pinnacle?
+This was _his_ home-coming, too, more real, more literally complete,
+than in the case of any but the few born New Yorkers who might figure
+among the two thousand passengers carried by the _Lusitania_.
+
+Insistently claiming his share of recognition, he turned abruptly, and
+made his way to the third deck.  There he met a lady, a young bride,
+who was returning to the States with her husband after a prolonged tour
+through Europe.  Her pretty face was wrung with emotion, but a second
+glance revealed that her distress was due to the pleasant pain of
+happiness.
+
+"Have you seen your father and mother?" he asked sympathetically,
+knowing that she had looked forward to this great hour with so much
+longing.
+
+"Y-yes," she sobbed.  "They are there--somewhere.  B-but, oh dear!  I
+cannot see them now for my tears."
+
+Someone dug a joyful thumb into Curtis's ribs.  It was the girl's
+husband.
+
+"Gee, it's fine to be home again!" he said huskily.  "Your leaning
+towers of Pisa are all right by way of a change, but deal me the
+Metropolitan for keeps, an' I've just spotted my old dad grinning at me
+like a Cheshire cat from the middle of a crowd wedged so tight that it
+would take a panic to squeeze in an extra walking-stick."
+
+So the knowledge was borne in on Curtis that one could feel quite as
+lonely on C Deck as on A, and, case-hardened wanderer that he was, he
+badly wanted someone to yell at gleefully among the waiting multitude.
+
+Now the gangways were out, and West folded East in her willing arms.
+The stolid masses of steamship and Customs shed obliterated the orange
+and crimson sky still gleaming over the Jersey shore, and pallid
+electric lights revealed but vaguely the ever-changing groups beyond
+the gangways.
+
+To an experienced traveler like Curtis all Custom-houses were alike,
+dingy, nerve-racking, superfluous clogs on free movement.  Taking his
+time, for he had none to embrace or greet with outstretched hand, he
+strolled quietly off the ship, collected his baggage, which was piled
+with other people's belongings under a big "C," and nodded to Devar,
+similarly engaged at "D."
+
+The boy ran to him for an instant.
+
+"I may look you up to-night," he said.  "Dad is in Chicago, and won't
+be here till the morning.  You remember we passed the _Switzerland_
+after breakfast, and she signaled that she was steaming with the port
+engine only?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, her trouble was known by wireless, and there is a man on board
+whom dad has to meet.  This chap is important.  I am not."
+
+"My dear fellow, don't think of leaving your friends on my account this
+evening," and Curtis, without looking around, showed that he had
+noticed the befurred elderly lady and two very pretty daughters who
+were taking Howard Devar under their elegant wings.
+
+"Oh, that's my aunt, and two of my cousins.  I have dozens of 'em,
+dozens of cousins, that is.  Anyhow, old sport, don't wait in after
+7.30; just leave word where you may be about eleven."
+
+No further protest by Curtis was possible, because Devar's present
+behavior was of the whirlwind order.  He seemed to own as many trunks
+as cousins, and a lantern-jawed Customs official was gloating over them
+already.  Perhaps Curtis felt a faint whiff of surprise that his young
+friend had not introduced him to his relatives, but it vanished
+instantly.  Steamer acquaintance is a nebulous thing at the best; in
+that respect, the land is more unstable than the sea.
+
+At last, the stranger in his own country was consigned to a porter, his
+two steamer trunks, a kit-bag, a suit-case, and a bundle of worn golf
+clubs were placed on a taxi, and a breath of clean, cold air blew in on
+his face as the vehicle hurried along West Street, that broad and
+exceedingly useful thoroughfare which New York has finally wrested from
+its waterside slums.
+
+The chief city of America is fortunate in the fact that a noble harbor
+presents her in full regalia to the voyager from Europe.  That
+favorable first impression, unattainable by the majority of the world's
+capitals, is never lost, and now it enabled Curtis to disregard the
+garish ugliness of the avenues and streets glimpsed during a quick run
+to the center of the town.  For one thing, he realized how the mere
+propinquity of docks and wharves infects entire districts with the
+happy-go-lucky carelessness of Jack ashore; for another, he knew what
+was coming.
+
+Or he fancied that he knew, a state of mind which, particularly in New
+York, produces brain storms.  His first shock came when the taxi drew
+up in front of a narrow-fronted, exceedingly tall building, equipped
+with revolving doors, while a hall-porter, dressed like an archduke,
+peered through the window and inquired severely:
+
+"Have you reserved a room, sir?"
+
+Yes, this was the Central Hotel, rebuilt, gone skyward, in full cry
+after its more pretentious _à la carte_ neighbors, and the hall-porter
+was pained by the mere suspicion that the fact was not accepted of all
+the world of travel.
+
+Although the newcomer confessed that he had not made any reservation of
+rooms, the Archduke graciously permitted him to alight--indeed, quelled
+an incipient rebellion on Curtis's part by ordering a couple of negroes
+to disappear with most of the baggage.  So Curtis announced meekly to a
+super-clerk that he wanted a room with a bathroom, and was allowed to
+register.  As in a dream, he signed "John D. Curtis, Pekin," and was
+promptly annoyed at finding what he had written, because, being a
+citizen of New York, he had meant to claim the distinction, and ignore
+his long years in Cathay.
+
+"You'll find 605 a comfortable, quiet room, Mr. Curtis," said the
+clerk.  "Going to make a long stay, may I ask?"
+
+"A few days--perhaps a fortnight.  I cannot say offhand."
+
+"Well, sir, I can't fix you better than in 605."
+
+From some points of view, the clerk had never uttered a truer word.  It
+was wholly impossible that he or Curtis should guess how an apparently
+empty and really excellent apartment in the Central Hotel should be
+full to the ceiling that evening with that dynamite in human affairs
+called chance.  If the slightest inkling of the forthcoming explosion
+could have been vouchsafed to both men, there is no telling what Curtis
+might have done, for he was a true adventurer, of the D'Artagnan genus,
+but the clerk would certainly have used all his persuasiveness to
+induce the guest to occupy some other part of the house.  In later
+periods of unruffled calm, he was wont to date from that moment the
+genesis of gray hairs among his once raven-hued locks.
+
+But chance, like dynamite, not only gives no warning of its explosive
+properties but resembles that agent of disruption in following a
+curiously wayward path.  Curtis was piloted into an elevator by an
+affable negro, was conducted to 605, which, of course, lay on the sixth
+floor, and was plunged forthwith into the prosaic business of
+consigning a good deal of soiled linen to the laundry.
+
+The room was insufferably hot, so he directed the negro attendant to
+shut off the radiator, and himself threw open the window.  Glancing
+out, he discovered that he was located in a corner which commanded a
+distant glimpse of Broadway.  Directly before his eyes, in the topmost
+story of a comparatively low building, a lady who had forgotten to draw
+the blinds of her flat was apparently indulging in calisthenic
+exercises, so Curtis, being a modest man, drew the blind in his own
+room, and busied himself with a partial unpacking of his baggage.  The
+door faced the bed, at a distance of some six feet.  A wardrobe
+occupied the recess, and the negro, while unstrapping a steel trunk at
+the foot of the bed, balanced the bag of golf clubs against the front
+of the wardrobe--an action simple enough in itself, but comparable in
+its after effects to the setting of a clock attached to a bomb.
+
+Soon afterwards, Curtis dismissed the man, and noticed casually that
+the opening of the door caused a pleasant draught of cool air.  He
+wrote a few letters, dressed, electing for a Tuxedo and black tie,
+filled a cigar-case, donned a green Homburg hat, threw an overcoat over
+his left arm, picked up the letters, extinguished the lights, and went
+out.  Again there came that rush of air from the window, and, just as
+the lock snapped, a crash from the interior announced the falling of
+the golf clubs, probably owing to a swaying of the wardrobe door.
+Simultaneously, Curtis realized that he had left the key on the
+dressing-table.
+
+It was hardly worth while searching the floor for a chamber-maid: he
+decided to inform the civil-spoken clerk, and have the key brought to
+the office, at which sapient resolve Puck, who was surely abroad in New
+York that night, must have chuckled delightedly.  Unhappily, there were
+other spirits brooding in the city, spirits before whose deathly scowls
+the prime mischief-maker would have fled in terror, and Curtis, all
+unwitting, brushed against one of them in the hall.  His only
+acquaintance, the clerk, was momentarily absent, so he turned to a
+bookstall and cigar counter, and bought some stamps.  A man who had
+been seated in a sort of café, which the news-stand and a flower-stall
+partially screened from the main hall, rose hurriedly when he saw
+Curtis, and purchased a cigar.  In doing so, he touched the young man's
+shoulder, and said: "Pardon!"
+
+Curtis turned, and looked into the singularly unprepossessing face of a
+swarthy foreigner, a powerfully-built, ungainly person of about his own
+age.
+
+"That's all right," said he, licking a stamp.
+
+"I jostled you by accident, monsieur," said the other, in correct
+French, though with a quaint accent which Curtis, himself no mean
+linguist, put down to a Polish or Czech nationality.
+
+"_Ca ne fait rien_," he replied civilly, and the stamping of the
+letters being completed, he took them to the letter-box.
+
+The stranger, who seemed to be rather puzzled, if somewhat reassured,
+dawdled over the lighting of the cigar, and watched Curtis enter the
+dining-room.  Then he went back to his chair in the café.  So much, and
+no more, did the youth in charge of the counter observe--not a great
+deal, but it went a long way before midnight.
+
+A clock in the hall showed that the hour was five minutes to seven.
+Half hoping that Devar might actually put in an appearance a little
+later, Curtis gave his hat and coat to a negro, and decided to dine in
+the hotel.  Evidently, the place still retained its old-time repute as
+a family and commercial resort.  The family element was in evidence at
+some of the tables, while, in the case of solitary diners, each man
+could have been labeled Pittsburg, Chicago, or Philadelphia, almost
+without error, by those acquainted with the industrial life of the
+United States.
+
+He ate well, if simply, and treated himself to a small bottle of a
+noted champagne.  At half-past seven, meaning to give Devar ten
+minutes' grace, he ordered coffee and a glass of green Chartreuse.  As
+a time-killer, there is no liqueur more potent, but, regarded in the
+light of subsequent occurrences, it would be hard to say exactly how
+far the cunning monkish decoction helped in determining his wayward
+actions.  Undoubtedly, some fantastic influence carried him beyond
+those bounds of calm self-possession within which everyone who knew
+John Delancy Curtis would have expected to find him.  His subsequent
+light-headedness, his placid acceptance of a mad romance as the one
+thing that was inevitable, his ready yielding to impulse, his no less
+stubborn refusal to return to the beaten path of common sense--these
+unlikely traits in a character gifted with the New England dourness of
+purpose can only be explained, if at all, as arising from some
+unsuspected hereditary streak of knight-errantry brought into sudden
+and exotic life by the good wines of France.
+
+Be that as it may, at twenty minutes to eight he paid what he owed,
+lighted a cigar, donned his hat, and, still carrying the overcoat, was
+walking to the office to leave word about the key, when his attention
+was attracted by the peculiar behavior of the man who had pushed
+against him at the cigar counter.
+
+This person, apparently obeying a signal from another man of his own
+type who had just emerged from the elevator, hastened from the café,
+and the two ran to the door.  Now, the weather had been mild during the
+afternoon, and the revolving shutters of the doorway were folded back
+to allow of the overheated hall being cooled.  A porter stood there,
+and it was ascertained afterwards that, noticing a certain air of
+flurry and confusion about the foreigners, he asked if they wanted a
+taxi.  They gave no heed, but continued to gaze up and down the street,
+as though they awaited someone.  Equally did they seem to expect, or
+dread, an apparition from the hotel.  It would have been hard to pick
+out, at that instant, two persons more singularly ill at ease in all
+New York.
+
+Curtis saw that the clerk, now at his desk, was engaged with a lady, so
+he strolled to the door, being rather interested in the excited antics
+of the pair on the sidewalk.  He had just passed through the door when
+an automobile dashed up, and he fancied, though he could not be quite
+sure in the half-light, that the chauffeur nodded to the waiting men.
+The porter opened the door of the automobile, and a young man in
+evening dress, and carrying an overcoat, leaped out.  Obviously, he was
+in a desperate hurry, and Curtis heard him say in French:
+
+"Don't stop the engine, Anatole.  I shall be but one moment."
+
+At that instant the two foreigners sprang at him.  One, swinging the
+porter off his feet, seized the newcomer's right arm, and, helped by
+his comrade, endeavored to force him back into the vehicle.  The effort
+failed, however, so the second desperado drew a knife and plunged it
+deliberately into the unfortunate man's neck.  It was a fearsome
+stroke, intended both to silence and to kill, and, with a gurgling cry,
+its victim collapsed in the grip of his assailants.
+
+Curtis, though almost stupefied by the suddenness of the crime, did not
+hesitate a second when he caught the venomous gleam of the knife.
+Throwing aside his coat, he rushed forward, but he had to cross the
+whole width of the pavement, and the murderers, realizing that the
+capture of one or both was imminent, thrust the inert body in his way.
+The chauffeur, who must have seen all that happened, had already
+started the car, the two men scrambled into it, and all that Curtis
+could do was to run after it and shout frantically to the driver of a
+taxi coming in the opposite direction to turn his vehicle and block the
+roadway.
+
+The man understood, but was naturally slow to risk a sharp collision
+merely at the order of an excited gentleman in evening dress.  He
+stopped quickly enough, but, by the time his help was available,
+pursuit was hopeless; the one thing Curtis could do he had done--while
+running up the street he had deciphered the number of the car, X24-305.
+
+Before Curtis rejoined the dazed hall-porter a small crowd had
+gathered, and it was difficult to get near the body lying on the curb.
+A man picked up an overcoat, and Curtis, cool and clear-headed now,
+took it, and appealed to him, if he knew where the nearest doctor
+lived, to run thither at top speed.  The man obeyed him instantly.
+
+"Meanwhile, let me see to the poor fellow," he said.  "I am not a
+doctor, but I know enough about wounds to say whether those scoundrels
+have killed him or not."
+
+The throng yielded to an authoritative voice, and some of the more
+sensible bystanders formed a ring, thus securing a semblance of light
+and air around the prostrate man.  Curtis struck a match, and it needed
+no second glance to learn that the stranger's lung had been pierced by
+an almost vertical thrust; indeed, he was already dying.  The poor
+lips, from which blood and froth were bubbling, strove vainly to
+articulate words which, in the prevalent hubbub of alarm and
+excitement, it was impossible to distinguish.  A policeman came, and,
+as a traffic station for the precinct happened to lie within a couple
+of doors, the moribund form was carried in, and placed on a stretcher
+kept there for use in emergency.
+
+A doctor was soon on the spot, but he arrived just in time to record
+the last flicker of life in the tortured eyes.  Then, as one in a
+dream, Curtis gave the policeman the details of the crime, the name of
+the chauffeur, and the number of the car, his testimony being borne out
+to some extent by the hall-porter, and, so far as the car was
+concerned, by the sharp-eyed driver of the taxi.  His own name and
+address were taken, and a police captain and a couple of detectives,
+called to the scene by telephone, thanked him for his alertness in
+securing valuable clews, not only in regard to the car and chauffeur
+but also in describing the features, figure, and dress of one of the
+criminals.
+
+Finally, he was warned to hold himself in readiness to attend the
+opening of an inquest on the following morning, and the police
+intimated that they did not desire the presence of witnesses while the
+dead man's clothing was being scrutinized.
+
+So Curtis went out into the street, and, with no other purpose than to
+avoid the publicity and questioning of the crowd gathered in and around
+the hotel, sauntered into Broadway.  At the corner he halted for a
+moment to put on the overcoat.  He had gone some few yards up the
+brilliantly illuminated thoroughfare when he fancied that his nervous
+system needed the tonic of a cigar, and he searched in the pockets of
+the overcoat for a box of matches he had placed there before leaving
+his bedroom.  The box had gone, but in the right-hand pocket his
+fingers closed on a long, narrow envelope, made of stiff linen paper,
+which somehow seemed unfamiliar.  He drew it out, and examined it,
+standing in front of a well-lighted shop window.
+
+Then he whistled with sheer amazement, as well he might.  The envelope
+held a marriage license for two people named Jean de Courtois and
+Hermione Beauregard Grandison. . . .  In a word, he was wearing the
+dead man's overcoat, and the fearsome conviction leaped to his brain
+that the dead man must be Jean de Courtois.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+EIGHT O'CLOCK
+
+From one aspect, Curtis's sense of dread and horror was merely
+altruistic, the natural welling forth of the springs of human
+sentiment.  If the man now lying stark and lifeless in that dreary
+official bureau had in truth been hurrying on his way to a marriage
+feast, then, indeed, tragedy had assumed its grimmest aspect that night
+in New York.  But, beyond an enforced personal contact with a ghastly
+crime, Curtis had no vital interest in its victim, and it should have
+occurred to him, as a law-abiding citizen, that his instant duty was to
+communicate this new discovery to the authorities.  Nay more, such
+definite information would help the police materially in their pursuit
+of the murderers.  It might lay bare a motive, put the bloodhounds of
+the law on a well-marked trail, and render impossible the escape of the
+guilty ones.
+
+That was the sane, level-headed, man-of-the-world view, and, to one
+inured to deeds of violence in a land where the Foreign Devil oft-time
+holds his life as scarce worth an hour's purchase, no other solution of
+the problem should have presented itself.  But, for all his strength of
+character, Curtis had been breathing an intoxicating atmosphere ever
+since he set foot on American soil.  His home-coming had begun by
+producing in his soul a subtle exaltation which had survived a
+conspiracy of repression.  Devar's careless acceptance of the city's
+grandeur had jarred; the exuberance of the joyous throng on the jetty
+had touched dormant chords of sad memories; even at the very portals of
+the hotel the building's newness had struck a bizarre note; and now, as
+though to emphasize the vile crime of which he had been an involuntary
+witness, came the stifling knowledge that somewhere in New York an
+expectant bride was chafing at delay--a delay caused by an assassin's
+dagger, while there was not lacking even the tormenting suspicion that
+somehow, had he been more wide-awake, he could have prevented that
+malignant thrust.
+
+Yet, his head remained in the clouds.  In common with most men whose
+lot is cast in climes far removed from civilization, Curtis worshiped
+an ideal of womanhood which was rather that of a poet than of the
+blasé, cynical town-dweller.  He had seen death too often to be shocked
+by its harsh visage, and, perhaps in protest against the idle belief
+that the crime was preventable, his sympathies were absorbed now by the
+vision of some fair girl waiting vainly for the bridegroom who would
+never come.  His analytical mind fastened instantly on the theory that
+murder had been done to prevent a marriage.  He took it for granted
+that the Jean de Courtois of the marriage certificate was dead, and his
+heart grieved for the hapless young woman whose aristocratic name was
+blazoned on that same document.  So, instead of retracing his steps,
+and warning the officers of the law, he bent his brows over the
+certificate, and, in acting thus, unconsciously committed himself to as
+fantastic a course as ever was followed by mortal man.
+
+It is only fair to urge that had he known the truth, had the veil been
+lifted ever so slightly on other happenings in the Central Hotel that
+night, he would not have hesitated a moment about returning to the
+conclave of policemen and detectives.  He acted impulsively, absurdly,
+almost insanely, it may be held, but he did honestly act in good faith,
+and that is the best and the worst that can be said of him, or for him.
+
+And now to peer over his shoulder at the printed form and its written
+interlineations, which he was perusing with anxious, thoughtful eyes.
+
+It was headed "State of New York, County of New York, City of New
+York," and bade all men know that any person authorized by law to
+perform marriage ceremonies within the State was thereby "authorized
+and empowered to solemnize the rites of matrimony between Jean de
+Courtois, a citizen of the French Republic, now residing in the Central
+Hotel, West 27th Street, New York, and Hermione Beauregard Grandison, a
+citizen of Great Britain, now residing at 1000 West 59th Street, New
+York."
+
+It had been issued that very day, November 8th.  Annexed to the license
+was the actual marriage certificate, with blanks for names and dates,
+to be filled in by the person performing the ceremony.  A set of
+printed rules, reciting various duties, legal obligations, and
+penalties for infringing the same, was also inclosed; but Curtis was in
+no mood to master the provisions of "An Act to Amend the Domestic
+Relations Law, by providing for Marriage Licenses," for they must
+perforce be silent on the one topic wherein he needed guidance--the
+course to be pursued in the circumstances now facing him.
+
+His thoughts were focussed on the name and address of the girl who had
+been so cruelly, so wantonly, bereft of her lover, and it seemed to him
+both fitting and charitable that someone other than a police sergeant
+or detective should interpose between the grim tragedy of 27th Street
+and the even more poignant horror which was fated to descend on some
+house in 59th Street.  Apparently, fate had decreed that he should be
+the messenger charged with this sad errand, and, with a singular
+disregard of consequences, he accepted the mandate.
+
+He did not act blindly.  When all was said and done, the certificate
+had come into his possession by unavoidable chance.  At the hapless
+bride's residence he would surely be able to meet someone who could
+accompany him to the police office, and give the details needed for a
+successful chase.  Indeed, he argued that he was saving valuable time
+by his prompt action, and, reviewing the whole of the facts while being
+carried swiftly up Broadway in a taxi, he found, at first, no flaw in
+his judgment.
+
+Though busy in mind with the extraordinary events of the past quarter
+of an hour, his alert eyes missed few features of the abounding life of
+the Great White Way.  As it happened, a stranger in New York could not
+have entered the city's main thoroughfare at any point better
+calculated to bewilder and astound than the very corner where Curtis
+had picked up the cab.  On both sides, from the level of the street to
+a height often measurable in hundreds of feet, nearly every building
+blazed with electric signs.  Many of the devices seemed to be alive.
+Horses galloped, either in Roman stadium or modern polo-ground; a
+girl's skirts were fluttered by a rain-storm; a giant's hand, with
+unerring skill, bowled a ball at ten-pins in a bowling alley; the names
+of theaters, of hotels, of drugs, of patent foods, of every known
+variety of caterer for human needs and amusements, flickered, and
+winked, and stared, at the passer-by from ground floor to attic--while
+each and all--horses, skirts, rain-drops, hand, ball, pins, and
+names--glowed in every known shade of color from every known form of
+electric lamp.
+
+The glare of this advertisers' paradise was so overpowering that even
+the marvel-surfeited citizens who crowded the sidewalks would gather in
+dense groups at a corner, thence to watch and take in the dazzling
+significance of some sign new to their vision.  Curtis noticed many
+such assemblies before the taxi sped out of the magic area which ends
+at 42nd Street; but it was all novel to him; he could not discuss the
+contrast between last week's glorification of Somebody's Pickles and
+to-night's triumph of Everybody's Whisky, and he was almost bemused by
+the display, which provided such a bizarre anti-climax to the terrible
+drama he had just witnessed.
+
+It was a positive relief, therefore, when the vehicle bowled swiftly
+into a quiet cross street, and he was vouchsafed only fleeting glimpses
+of broad avenues where fresh multitudes of lamps again bade defiance to
+the night.
+
+In one place, an illuminated dial showed that the hour was eight
+o'clock, and the curiously simple fact of noting the time roused him to
+a perception of all that had happened since he strolled out of the
+dining-room of the Central Hotel.  He smiled dourly when he remembered
+the mislaid key.  Did it still repose in the bedroom?  Or had a
+housemaid found it, and restored it to a numbered hook in the office?
+Had not that immaculately dressed clerk said he would find Number 605
+"a comfortable, quiet room"?  Well, it might be all that, yet Curtis
+could hardly help dwelling on the thought that had he been put in any
+other cell of the human beehive called the Central Hotel it was highly
+probable he would not now be flying across New York on a self-imposed
+mission so nebulous, so ill-defined, that already his orderly brain was
+beginning to doubt the logic which inspired it.
+
+Was it too late to draw back?  To this handy automobile city distances
+were negligible quantities, and he would rejoin the detectives before
+they could have any reason to suspect him even of carelessness in
+withholding from their ken the new and important fact revealed by the
+accidental change of overcoats.
+
+And, yes--by Jove!--it would be assumed that _his_ overcoat was the
+dead man's, though, indeed, certain papers in the pockets would soon
+show that there was a blunder somewhere, because the John D. Curtis
+mentioned therein necessarily figured as the chief witness in the case
+now being worked up against three unknown malefactors.  Oddly enough,
+it was contemporaneous with this thought that the queer similarity of
+his own name to that of the unfortunate Frenchman first dawned on him.
+John D. Curtis and Jean de Courtois were, as names, particularly as the
+names of two men of different nationalities, sufficiently alike to
+invite comment.  Well, that being so, there was all the more reason why
+the identity of poor Jean de Courtois should be established beyond
+doubt, and this reflection appealed so strongly that, when the cab
+stopped, Curtis was once more reconciled to the policy hurriedly
+arrived at while he was standing at the corner of Broadway and 27th
+Street.
+
+He opened the door, alighted, glanced up at a rather imposing block of
+flats, and said to the driver:
+
+"Is this 1000 West 59th Street?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  Quite a bunch of people live here," was the answer.
+
+"I take it, then, that the lady I wish to see occupies one of the
+flats?"
+
+The driver smiled broadly, for it seemed to him that the naïve
+statement sounded rather funny.
+
+"I guess that's about the size of it," he said.
+
+Curtis smiled, too.  This needless blurting out of confidences to a
+cabman was the one folly essential to a complete restoration of his
+wits.
+
+"Wait for me," he said.  "I may be only a minute or two, and I shall
+want you to take me right back to the point I came from."
+
+The man nodded, and turned to set the time index of the taximeter.  A
+few steps led up to a spacious doorway, and Curtis passed through a
+revolving door.  Halfway along a well-lighted passage he saw an
+elevator sign, and found an attendant sitting there.
+
+"I believe that Miss Grandison lives here?" he said.
+
+"Second floor--Number 10--take you up?" was the time-saving reply.
+
+"Yes, but I am not anxious to see Miss Grandison herself.  I would
+prefer to speak to some male relative."
+
+The attendant looked puzzled; perhaps he was wishful to make smooth the
+way for a visitor who was obviously a gentleman, but the problem
+offered by Curtis's request presented difficulties, and he fell back on
+his official instructions.
+
+"Sorry, but you must explain matters to the maid at Number 10," he
+said, quite civilly, and Curtis was soon pressing an electric bell at
+the door of the flat itself.
+
+A neatly dressed girl appeared.  Her out-of-doors costume suggested
+that she was either just going out or just returned, and Curtis,
+unaccustomed to the domestic problem as it exists in New York, fancied
+that she ranked above the level of a house-maid.
+
+"Is Miss Grandison in?" he asked.
+
+"I'll inquire, sir.  What name shall I say?"
+
+It was a noncommittal answer, so he changed ground in the next question.
+
+"I would prefer not to meet Miss Grandison herself if it is in any way
+possible to interview a relative of hers, or a friend," he said.
+
+This colorless statement, intended to be reassuring, seemed to have
+such an alarming effect on the girl that he hastened to add:
+
+"I am here with reference to Monsieur Jean de Courtois."
+
+His hearer smiled, and her manner changed from fright to friendliness.
+Indeed, if he had not been so wrapped up in the highly disagreeable
+task which lay before him, he could hardly have failed to notice that
+she welcomed, rather than resented, the visit of a smart looking young
+man to the establishment.
+
+"Oh, come in, do," she said, glancing up at him with demure but very
+bright eyes.  "Why didn't you say at once that you had been sent by Mr.
+de Courtois, without trying to scare me stiff by talking about
+relatives?"
+
+He obeyed, and he closed the door.
+
+"I really meant what I said," he persisted.  "Something has happened to
+prevent Monsieur de Courtois coming here this evening----"
+
+"Not coming!  Then there will be no wedding!"
+
+Her voice was subdued, but she put such distress, such perplexity, into
+her words that at any other time Curtis would have marveled at the
+gamut of emotion which the feminine temperament was capable of.  Still,
+he had to risk even a mild display of hysteria, so he went on quietly:
+
+"You will understand now why I would rather meet some person other than
+Miss Grandison."
+
+"But who is there to meet?  She is alone.  I do believe I am the only
+living being she knows in New York, except Mr. de Courtois. . . .  Why
+can't he come?  What is keeping him?  Has he met with an
+accident? . . .  Oh, I can see by your face that he is hurt--or he has
+been kidnapped!  Yes, that's it, for sure!  And that dear young lady
+will be trapped like a bird in a cage! . . .  Miss Hermione!  Miss
+Hermione!  Here is someone come to tell you that Mr. de Courtois has
+been spirited away. . . .  Oh dear, to think that this should be the
+end of all our planning and contriving!"
+
+During this crescendo of excited and scarcely intelligible utterances
+the girl had first backed away from Curtis, and then turned, running to
+open, without knocking, a door on the right of the extreme end of a
+corridor which divided the suite into two sections.
+
+Curtis did not attempt to stop her.  Whatsoever the outcome, he was
+committed now to an undertaking from which there was no retreat.  He
+half expected that the maid, whose disjointed outburst betokened, at
+least, that she was her mistress's trusted confidante, would reappear
+from the room into which she had vanished.  But he was mistaken, doubly
+mistaken, since the mental picture he had formed of Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison was utterly falsified by the slight, elegant, girlish figure
+which presented itself before his astonished eyes.  Somehow, those
+superfine Christian names and that aristocratic surname had prepared
+him for a rather magnificent person, young, probably, because the dead
+man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive.
+He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous,
+well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if
+and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch correctly
+placed for scenic effect.
+
+The reality took his breath away.
+
+He saw a girl, not a day older than twenty, dressed in a simple costume
+of brown cloth, and wearing a hat, veil, and gloves of harmonizing
+tints.  The veil had been hurriedly lifted above the brim of the hat,
+and a pair of what seemed to be intensely dark violet eyes gazed at him
+from a small-featured, pallid face from which every vestige of color
+had fled.
+
+"Is this thing true?" she said, halting timidly within a few feet of
+him.  "Perhaps Marcelle has misunderstood you.  Who sent you?--Monsieur
+de Courtois himself, I suppose?"
+
+Her voice, so wistful, so pleading, perfect in cadence yet almost
+childlike in its evident anxiety to be reassured, reached uncharted
+depths in his soul.  At once he began to ask himself why this mere girl
+should be exposed to the impish trick which fate had played on her,
+and, in the same breath, he was conscious of a fierce anger against the
+ghouls who had contrived it.
+
+"Are you Miss Grandison?" he asked, rather to gain time than because of
+any doubt as to her personality.
+
+"Yes.  And you?"
+
+"My name is Curtis--John D. Curtis.  I only landed in New York three
+hours ago."
+
+He added the explanatory sentence in order to clear the ground, as it
+were, for the strange and horrible story he had to tell, but its effect
+was curious in the extreme.  The girl's white face blanched to that wan
+hue which personal fear lends to distress.
+
+"Where have you come from?" she gasped.
+
+"From Pekin."
+
+"From Pekin!"
+
+"Yes.  I have been traveling without pause during the past eight weeks."
+
+By this time he had ascertained two certain facts about Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison.  In the first place, she was the prettiest and
+most graceful creature he had ever met; in the second, she had all the
+hall-marks of good breeding and high social caste.  His brain was so
+busy over these discoveries that he disregarded the really remarkable
+way in which the object of his visit had been shelved for the moment.
+It might reasonably be expected that the disconsolate lady would be
+concerned mainly as to the fate of the missing bridegroom, but the
+mistress evidently shared the maid's disquietude about Curtis himself.
+
+And, precisely as in the case of Marcelle, Miss Grandison's face showed
+relief when it became manifest that he was a complete stranger.
+
+"Pray forgive me for questioning you in this manner," she said, with a
+rapid reversion to a conventional air that disconcerted her hearer in a
+way she little imagined.  "Will you come in here, and be seated? . . .
+Now, please tell me just why you have called, Mr. Curtis."
+
+She had preceded him into a prettily furnished dining-room, and the
+notion leaped up in his troubled mind that she was not so deeply moved
+by the malfortune of Monsieur Jean de Courtois as might be expected
+from the man's prospective bride.
+
+Still, he tried bravely to accommodate himself to conditions which left
+his brain in a whirl.
+
+"I had better begin by saying that your marriage cannot take
+place--to-night----" he added, flinching from the necessity of bringing
+that look of dismay into those charming eyes.  "That is why I asked
+your maid if there was no other person whom I could take into my
+confidence.  You see, it is a terribly hard thing to be compelled to
+discuss such a matter with one so closely bound up with--with Monsieur
+de Courtois."
+
+"But there is no one else.  Marcelle and I live here quite alone."
+
+More than ever did Curtis feel uncomfortable, but he had deliberately
+elected for this miserable job, and he meant to go through with it.
+
+"So I gathered from Mademoiselle Marcelle herself," he said.  "Well,
+then, Miss Grandison, I have no option but to inform you, with all the
+sympathy any man must feel for a woman in your position, that Monsieur
+de Courtois has met with an accident."
+
+"Oh, how terrible!  Is he badly hurt?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Yet it may be possible for the ceremony to be performed.  Monsieur de
+Courtois has proved himself such a true friend, he has always been so
+anxious to help me, that I am sure he would be glad if I brought the
+minister to the hospital, or to his apartments in the hotel if he has
+been taken there, and the marriage would be solemnized without causing
+him the slightest inconvenience or worry, no matter how ill he may be,
+so long as he is conscious."
+
+Curtis thought he had never before heard the English language twisted
+into such enigmas as these few simple words presented.  It was an
+outrage to credit this well-mannered and delightful girl with the
+cold-blooded callousness which seemed to reveal itself in every
+syllable.  That she was blithely unaware of this element in her excited
+utterances was shown by her eager face and animated attitude.  She had
+risen from the chair in which she had seated herself when they entered
+the room, and obviously expected him to lose no time in conducting her
+to the bedside of Jean de Courtois.
+
+"Pray sit down again, Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and his voice
+assumed a sterner, more commanding note, though he, too, stood up, and
+approached nearer, lest she might collapse in a faint and fall before
+he could save her.  "I fear I have blundered woefully in assuming a
+role for which I am ill-fitted, but I must make you realize somehow
+that your marriage is irrevocably--postponed."
+
+"Why?"
+
+A slight color tinged her cheeks; she was actually becoming annoyed
+with him!
+
+"I will tell you when you are seated."
+
+"What nonsense!  One can hear as well standing."
+
+Nevertheless, she obeyed.  People generally did obey when Curtis spoke
+in that insistent manner.
+
+Now he was quite near her, and his tone grew gentle again.
+
+"The accident from which Monsieur de Courtois suffered was fatal," he
+said.
+
+She looked at him, wide-eyed, alarmed, but assuredly not with the
+soul-sickened terror of a woman who loves when she hears that her lover
+is dead.
+
+"Do you mean that he has been killed?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, poor fellow.  I have lost my only friend, and now, indeed, I am
+the most wretched girl in all the world."
+
+Flinging her clasped arms on the table, she hid her face in them, and
+sobbed as though her heart would break.  Curtis placed a hand on her
+shoulder, and strove to calm her with such commonplace phrases as his
+dazed brain could dictate, but she wept bitterly, just as a child might
+weep if disappointed about the non-fulfillment of some object on which
+its heart was set.
+
+"It sounds horrid--I know--" she murmured brokenly, "that I
+should--seem to be thinking--only of myself.  But--Monsieur de
+Courtois--was the one man--who could save me.  Now--I don't know--what
+will become of me.  How cruel is fate!  If only--we could have been
+married yesterday--perhaps this dreadful thing would not have happened."
+
+Curtis, who had never been so mystified in his life, followed up those
+last disjointed words as a man lost in a forest might cling to a path
+in the certainty that it would lead somewhere.  He rejected all else,
+since the wild vagaries of events during the past few minutes were
+beyond his comprehension.  He waited, therefore, until the vehemence of
+her grief had somewhat subsided, and then, with another friendly
+pressure on her shoulder, he spoke with as much firmness as he thought
+the situation demanded.
+
+"Now, Miss Grandison, you must endeavor to regain self-control," he
+said.  "Monsieur de Courtois has been killed, and your--your friendship
+for him--no less than the interests of justice--demand that those
+responsible for his death should be discovered and punished."
+
+At that, she raised her head, and lifted her swimming eyes to his, and
+Curtis saw that they were blue, not violet, and that their hue changed
+as the light irradiated their profound depths.
+
+"He met with no accident, then, but was murdered?" she cried.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And for my sake?"
+
+"I gather from what you have said that that is possible."
+
+"But what have I said?"
+
+"Well, you seemed to hint that your marriage might have prevented this
+crime."
+
+"Why?"
+
+No more exasperating monosyllable can fall from a woman's lips than
+that one word "why," and Curtis felt its full force then and there.
+
+"That is what I am asking you," he said, a trifle brusquely.
+
+"But how can I tell you?" she cried.
+
+"I am only striving vainly to pierce the fog which seems to envelop us.
+Let me begin again.  I, a mere stranger in New York, just three hours
+landed from the _Lusitania_, witnessed a murderous attack on a young
+man who was alighting from a cab in front of my hotel, the Central, in
+West 27th Street.  I saw him stabbed so seriously that he died within a
+couple of minutes, and his assailants made off in an automobile, the
+very vehicle, in fact, in which he arrived.  I managed to note its
+number, and I gathered, from instructions the victim himself had given,
+that the chauffeur's Christian name was Anatole.  The two men who
+actually committed the murder--though the chauffeur was in league with
+them--seemed to me to be Czechs or Hungarians----"
+
+"Ah, I thought so," broke in the girl.
+
+"And now may I ask why you did think so?"
+
+"I may tell you later, perhaps.  Please forgive me.  I am quite
+unnerved, and oh, so unhappy.  Why have you come here?"
+
+"That is due to one of those fantastic chances which occur
+occasionally.  In the effort to save Monsieur de Courtois, or rather to
+seize his slayers, because I was too far away to interfere when the
+blow was struck, I dropped the overcoat I was carrying.  A crowd
+gathered, and someone gave me a coat which I took as my own.  It was
+not until I had quitted the police and doctor, who arrived almost
+immediately, and I had gone into Broadway to avoid the clamor in the
+hotel, that I discovered I was wearing the dead man's overcoat, and in
+one of the pockets I found a marriage license.  Here it is.  By that
+means I learnt your address, and I came here quickly, hoping to save
+you some of the agony which the appearance of a policeman or detective
+would have caused.  Unfortunately, I have proved but a sorry substitute
+for an official messenger."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Mr. Curtis.  You have been most kind, most considerate.
+If anyone is to blame, it is I."
+
+"Will you pardon me, then, if I remind you that time is pressing?  Even
+a half-hour gained to-night by the authorities may be invaluable.  If
+you are able to supply any clew, the least hint of motive, the most
+shadowy of guesses at a personality behind this beastly crime, you will
+be rendering a great service."
+
+"Please, please, give me time to think.  I am not heartless--indeed I
+am not. . . .  If I could do anything to save Monsieur de Courtois'
+life I would make the sacrifice--you will believe that, won't
+you? . . .  But he is dead, you say, and I might blurt out something in
+my distress which would cause endless mischief.  Perhaps I have thought
+too much of my own troubles.  Now I must begin to endure for the sake
+of others.  That is the woman's lot in life, I fear. . . .  Have you a
+wife or a sister, Mr. Curtis, or is there some woman whom you love?
+For her sake, have pity on me, and do not drag me into the horrible
+arena of courts and newspapers."
+
+Her pleading, her attitude, her pathetic gestures, gave extraordinary
+force to an appeal which, by contrast with her extreme agitation, was
+almost grotesquely inconsequent.  Curtis was at his wits' end to find
+the line of reasoning calculated to convince this beautiful creature
+that she might, indeed, begin enduring "for the sake of others" by
+expressing her determination to give the police all possible assistance.
+
+"There is no urgency for a few minutes," was the best reply he could
+frame on the spur of the moment.  "Shall I leave you alone for a little
+while?  Perhaps you would like to consult your maid?  Indeed, her
+services might meet all the requirements of the case.  The police would
+be the first to recognize that a woman who had lost her affianced
+husband under such terrible----"
+
+"Ah, but that is the wretched difficulty I am in.  Poor Monsieur de
+Courtois was nothing to me."
+
+"Nothing to you!"
+
+Probably Curtis's brain did not reel, but it assuredly felt like
+reeling, and it is quite certain that his eyes blazed down on the
+half-hysterical girl with an intensity that magnetized her into a
+broken excuse.
+
+"It is--quite--true," she stammered, with the diffidence of a child
+explaining some lapse which, it was hoped, might not be regarded as a
+real fault.  "I never dreamed of marriage--in the sense--that people
+mean--when they intend to live happily together. . . .  Monsieur de
+Courtois was to be my husband--only in name.  I--I paid him for
+that. . . .  I--I gave him a thousand dollars--and--and----  Don't look
+at me in that way or I shall scream! . . .  I have done nothing
+wrong. . . .  I was trying to protect myself. . . .  Oh, if you are a
+man you will want to help me, rather than push me into the living tomb
+which threatens to engulf me before to-morrow morning!"
+
+Even in their agitation, they both heard the jar of a bell.  The girl
+sprang upright.  There was something splendid in her courage, in the
+way she threw back her proud head and clenched her tiny hands.
+
+"Ah me!" she sighed.  "Perhaps it is already too late!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+EIGHT-THIRTY
+
+They stood in silence, listening to the footsteps of Marcelle on the
+parquet floor of the passage.  The outer door was opened, and a murmur
+of voices reached them indistinctly.
+
+"I have had the honor of knowing you not much longer than ten minutes,
+Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and the strong, vibrant note in his voice
+might well have won any woman's confidence, "but if you feel that you
+can trust me, and my help is of value, please command me, that is, if
+your enemies are men."
+
+She rewarded him with one swift look of gratitude.
+
+"If it is my father, both you and I are powerless," she whispered.
+"And the other would not dare come without him."
+
+A discreet tap on the door heralded Marcelle.  That sprightly young
+person, despite her Parisian name, was unquestionably American in every
+inch of her self-possessed neatness; she smiled at Curtis while giving
+him a message.
+
+"The driver of your taxi has sent up the hall-porter to ask if you wish
+him to wait any longer," she said.
+
+Not often, even in comedy, has the mountain heaved and brought forth
+such a ridiculous mouse.  Curtis did actually laugh; even his
+distraught companion tittered in sheer nervous reaction.
+
+"Please tell him to wait, and not to worry about the fare," said
+Curtis.  "I suppose," he added, turning to Miss Grandison, "the man put
+me down as a newcomer, and, taught by previous experience, thought it
+best to warn me how the register mounts."
+
+The effort to restore their rather strained relations to a sedate level
+was well meant, but the girl's downcast eyes and tremulous lips
+revealed a state of piteous uncertainty and confusion that was more
+distressing to Curtis than anything which had gone before.
+Nevertheless, reminding himself that precious time was being wasted, he
+determined to seek a full explanation of circumstances which at present
+savored of Bedlam.
+
+"Now that the fears of the taxi-driver have been stilled," he said
+cheerfully, "suppose you and I sit down and discuss matters like
+sensible people.  I am an American, Miss Grandison, and, although long
+an exile from my own country, I appreciate the national characteristic
+of plain speech.  Let me explain that I am not married, that I have no
+ties which prevent free action on my part, and that nothing on earth
+will stop me from helping a woman who pins her faith to me.  With that
+preamble, as the lawyers say, I purpose taking off this heavy overcoat,
+and listening in comfort to anything you may wish to tell.  Or, if you
+are afraid of being disturbed, what do you say if we go to some
+restaurant, where, perhaps, we may eat, and, at any rate, talk without
+fear of interference?"
+
+"I think we had better remain here," said the girl sadly, though it was
+plain that Curtis's offer of protection during the alarm created by the
+hall-porter's errand had advanced him a long way in her esteem.  "There
+are only two persons living who dare pretend to exercise control over
+my actions, and if they have arrived in New York this evening I have
+good reason to believe that I cannot escape them."
+
+"Are they coming here from Europe?" asked Curtis quickly, for his
+active mind was already groping toward certain dimly defined
+conclusions.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Could they have been fellow-passengers of mine on the _Lusitania_?"
+
+"No, they are on board the _Switzerland_."
+
+He smiled, and discarded that fateful overcoat.
+
+"Then set your mind at rest," he said, with the nonchalance of a man
+who has shelved a major difficulty.  "The _Switzerland_ has broken
+down.  We passed her early to-day.  She is staggering into port with
+engines partly disabled and she cannot possibly reach New York before
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"Are you quite sure?" came the eager demand.
+
+"Well, there is nothing so uncertain as the sea but a young friend of
+mine said that those facts were signaled by wireless, and, to some
+extent, they governed his own movements.  I myself can assure you that
+the _Switzerland_ was limping along like a lame duck at 8 A.M. to-day."
+
+"Ah, thank Heaven for that small mercy!" murmured the girl.  For a few
+seconds she busied herself with gloves, veil, and hat-pins, and Curtis
+happened to glance at the overcoat, which he had placed over the back
+of a chair.  To his dismay, he noticed that one of the sleeves, the
+left, was bespattered with blood, but he contrived to refold the
+garment so as to conceal this grewsome record of a tragedy before his
+hostess had divested herself of hat and gloves.
+
+Then they seemed to survey each other with a new interest, for Curtis
+was a good figure of a man in evening dress, and Hermione Grandison
+became, if possible, more attractive to the male eye because of the
+wealth of brown hair which crowned her smooth forehead, almost hid her
+tiny ears, and clustered low at the back of her slender, well-shaped
+neck.  Where the rays of light caught the coiled tresses they had the
+sheen of burnished gold.  In the shadow they commingled those
+voluptuous tints by which the magic of Rubens has immortalized one fair
+woman, Isabella Brant, in every gallery of note throughout the world.
+
+Hermione it was, now, who first broke the silence which had reigned in
+the room for a minute or more.  Seating herself on the opposite side of
+a square table, and resting her elbows thereon, she propped her pretty
+chin on her small, clenched fists, and gazed fearlessly at Curtis.
+
+"You must think me a very extraordinary person," she began.
+
+"Let that pass," said he, with a smile, wise in the knowledge that the
+present was no hour for compliments.
+
+"But I am, and I know it, not because I differ so greatly from other
+girls of my own age, but owing to the misery which has been my portion.
+The one man in the world who should wish to secure my happiness has
+become my persecutor.  I am here to-night because I have run away from
+my father, and I have used every lawful means to get married--under
+conditions framed by myself, of course--in order to escape from a
+hateful marriage which he has planned."
+
+She hesitated, for a reflective frown was deepening on Curtis's face.
+
+"Now you recognize my name!" she cried.  "Have you seen anything about
+me in the newspapers?"
+
+"You are Lady Hermione Grandison?" he said, meeting her watchful eyes
+frankly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Daughter of the Earl of Valletort?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And about a month ago you were reported missing from some apartment in
+the Rue de Rivoli, on the eve of your marriage with--with some
+Hungarian prince?"
+
+"Yes, Count Ladislas Vassilan."
+
+"So you came here--with Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
+
+"I brought him here, and paid him for his services.  I have no desire
+to minimize his friendly aid, but I was buying the security of his name
+as my husband, and he had given me his guarantee that, when it suited
+my purposes, he would help me to dissolve the marriage."
+
+Curtis disregarded a perceptible coldness in her tone.  He was too busy
+sweeping away the mists.
+
+"What sort of guarantee?" he asked.
+
+"His promise, his word of honor."
+
+"Was he--a gentleman?"
+
+"Not socially, but in every other sense.  He was my music-master in
+Paris."
+
+Curtis put his next question hurriedly.  He was anxious to avoid the
+least suspicion on the girl's part that he might be crediting Jean de
+Courtois with motives which would not pass muster before a jury of
+cool-headed men so readily as they seemed to have satisfied an
+impetuous and frightened girl.
+
+"How did your father ascertain that you were in New York?" he said.
+
+"Oh, it seems that a certain period of residence was necessary before a
+marriage license could be obtained, and it was unavoidable that my name
+should be found out by those whom he hired to track me."
+
+"But why were you not married under an assumed name?"
+
+"Monsieur de Courtois assured me that such a thing would render the
+marriage invalid."
+
+"He was wrong," said Curtis dryly.  "It subjected you to some small
+legal penalty, but you would be just as effectually married if you
+called yourself Jane Smith."
+
+"I really think you are mistaken.  Monsieur de Courtois made the most
+exhaustive inquiries."
+
+"Were you not leaving the ceremony to the latest possible hour?" went
+on Curtis, divided now between the fear of shocking her and the
+paramount importance of learning the truth about the curiously
+scrupulous Jean de Courtois.
+
+"We were to have been married two days ago, but the license was stolen."
+
+"So it is rather by accident than otherwise that Lord Valletort and
+Count Vassilan, who, I take it, is with your father on board the
+_Switzerland_, have not arrived in time to prevent the marriage--that
+is, if they were able to prevent it?"
+
+"No, I think not.  Poor Monsieur de Courtois was here this afternoon,
+and he was jubilant because we had plenty of time, provided we were
+married this evening."
+
+"Where was the ceremony to take place?"
+
+"I--I don't know.  I left everything in the hands of Monsieur de
+Courtois."
+
+A very real and active doubt of the Frenchman's good faith was
+beginning to peep up in Curtis's mind.  Rather to account for the
+thoughtful lines on his forehead than for any reason connected with the
+license, he took that document from the table, where it had lain since
+he produced it, and affected to examine it judiciously.  Therefore, he
+was really surprised when he found an endorsement on the back which
+read;--"Issued in duplicate.  This license is not available if the
+original has been used."
+
+"Oh!" he said, and the monosyllable might mean much or little.
+
+"What have you discovered there?" said the girl, rising and coming
+nearer, to stoop over the table and scrutinize the paper with him.
+
+"The original license certainly seems to have disappeared," said
+Curtis, who had suddenly become aware that the propinquity of a
+charming woman was one of the subtle joys of life.
+
+"Ah me!" sighed Lady Hermione, straightening her supple form, and
+turning slightly aside.
+
+There was a little pause.  Curtis, whose enunciation was usually
+distinguished by its ease and clearness, found some slight difficulty
+in resuming the conversation.  He resolved firmly that, in future, he
+would eschew liqueurs after champagne.
+
+"I hate to act the role of inquisitor, Lady Hermione," he said, rather
+huskily as to the first few words, "but would you mind telling me why
+you are so opposed to Count Ladislas Vassilan as a husband?"
+
+"First, because I do not want to marry any man; secondly, because Count
+Vassilan is a vile person, both in appearance and repute; and thirdly,
+because my father is only urging this match to serve his own ends.  Our
+unhappy history is so widely known that there is no harm in telling you
+that my mother and he were separated during many years, and when mamma
+died three years ago she left all her money to me, absolutely under my
+control.  I was young, only seventeen, but I managed to retain it,
+though goodness only knows how, and this horrid Hungarian prince wants
+it--to help him to regain a throne, he says--but I don't believe him."
+
+"You could not be forced into matrimony," said Curtis, with a slow
+gravity that was lost on his dejected hearer.
+
+"You cannot have lived in France, or you would not say that," was the
+bitter answer.  "Everyone, everything, was opposed to me.  I was a
+minor, and one against many.  The laws seemed to conspire with my
+relatives to force me into the power of a beast. . . .  Yes, it sounds
+horrid on my lips, but the man is really a beast," and she stamped an
+emphatic foot on the floor; Curtis could see the white circles over the
+tiny knuckles as her hands clenched in protest.  They were such pretty
+hands, too.  He had often smiled at the notion of a man kissing a
+woman's hand, but it did not strike him now as a specially foolish act.
+
+"Let us forget him," he agreed.
+
+"But how can I forget him?  He will be here to-morrow.  Once my father
+and he have found me, what am I to do?  Die, I suppose! . . .  I would
+rather die than marry Count Vassilan, and again I would rather die than
+figure in a vulgar brawl, such as the newspapers would take a delight
+in.  My father is well aware of that, and will play on my
+weakness. . . .  B-but--I may--be able--to defeat them--in another way."
+
+Curtis stood up.  The sound of her grief maddened him, and he threw
+prudence to the winds.
+
+"The first reason you gave was the most convincing one, so far as you
+personally are concerned, Lady Hermione," he said, making the effort of
+his life to speak calmly.  "You said you did not want to marry any man."
+
+"Y-yes, it is true.  I d-don't."
+
+"Still, there is only one way out of your trouble.  You must marry
+me--to-night."
+
+The girl whirled round on him; her eyes were glistening with tears, but
+her face was radiant.
+
+"Do you really mean that?" she cried.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then never let anyone tell me that the age of chivalry has passed."
+
+"I fancy it has just begun," he said, though the jest nearly choked him.
+
+"But why should you do this kind and gracious thing for a girl you have
+been acquainted with only a brief half-hour?  You see, I understand
+that you are a gentleman--I realize that, although I have plenty of
+money, I cannot offer to recompense you as I did that poor Jean de
+Courtois."
+
+"No," he agreed grimly.
+
+"Don't you grasp what this one-sided bargain implies?  You are merely
+to pose as my husband until Count Vassilan leaves me in peace?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And then we are to obtain a divorce?"
+
+"You are, not I."
+
+"Isn't that a distinction without a difference?"
+
+"Perhaps.  The fact remains that I shall agree to all your terms save
+one--you, of course, can divorce me at your own pleasure.  The
+procedure is simple in some States of the Union."
+
+For no obvious reason, Lady Hermione blushed.  For an instant, indeed,
+she was somewhat disconcerted, and the vivacity fled from her mobile
+face.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Curtis, I have no right to let you make this sacrifice,"
+she said, a trifle coldly.  "It would be different if I could repay you
+in some way.  Surely, although you may be a wealthy man, there will be
+expenses--you will, at least, lose a good deal of time, which you could
+occupy to better purpose?"
+
+"I have given myself twelve months' respite from railway construction
+in China.  I really don't see how I could pass a part of my holiday
+better than as your husband."
+
+"In idle make-believe?"
+
+"Every decent man has the heart of a child, and make-believe is reality
+to some children."
+
+"But, even though in my need I take you at your word, how can a
+marriage become possible?"
+
+"Here is the license.  For the purposes of the ceremony I become Jean
+de Courtois.  By singular chance, the change of name is not such a
+wrench as it might be if I didn't happen to be called John D. Curtis."
+
+Still she hesitated.  Somehow, becoming Mrs. John D. Curtis impressed
+her as a far more serious undertaking than purchasing the right to pose
+as Madame de Courtois.
+
+"We don't even know where to get married," she faltered.
+
+"Given a license and a comparatively small sum of money, New York
+abounds with facilities."
+
+"Are you sure the ceremony will be legal if you appear under a false
+name?"
+
+"Quite positive."
+
+"Can you be punished if it is found out?"
+
+"I'll run the risk."
+
+After a fateful pause, which would have been considerably curtailed had
+Lady Hermione Grandison been vouchsafed the least premonition of events
+in which the night was still rich, she held out her hand.
+
+"I can only thank you from the depths of my heart, Mr. Curtis," she
+said.  "I must trust someone, and I do trust you most implicitly."
+
+"You will never regret it, Lady Hermione," he said reverently.  He
+wondered whether or not this was an occasion on which hand-kissing was
+permissible, but contented himself with returning the friendly pressure
+of the girl's fingers--retaining them, in fact, for a second or two.
+
+"I have your word of honor that you will regard the ceremony as a
+formal compact between us two?" she murmured, unaccountably shy, and
+seemingly half-afraid that he meant to clasp her in his arms then and
+there.
+
+"You have," he said, relinquishing her hand.  Perhaps, at that instant,
+Puck sighed, and wondered what would have happened had this husband
+only in name strained to his heart the bride whom he had vowed not to
+embrace.  But Curtis did nothing of the sort.  His tone became
+intensely practical and businesslike, and he glanced at his watch.
+
+"It is half-past eight," he said.  "How soon will you be ready to come
+with me and hunt up a minister?"
+
+"Now--I am ready now.  Marcelle and I were waiting for--for that
+unhappy Monsieur de Courtois when you arrived.  It sounds rather
+dreadful, Mr. Curtis, to talk of marriage, even as a mere means of
+cheating the law, at a moment when a man is already lying dead for my
+sake.  Please don't consider me, but draw back, if you want to, before
+it is too late."
+
+"My grandfather commanded the Fifth Cavalry during the Civil War, Lady
+Hermione."
+
+"Pray, how does that interesting fact affect us?"
+
+"It is well-known that the Fifth never retreat, and the habit has
+become a family tradition."
+
+He pocketed the license, and picked up the overcoat, meaning to put it
+on in the hall while her ladyship was rearranging her hat.  But
+Marcelle was waiting there, hatted, and gloved.
+
+"Have you fixed things?" she whispered breathlessly.
+
+"We have," said Curtis.
+
+"Goodness me!  But I guessed it.  Nobody can resist her, can they?"
+
+"I didn't try," said Curtis, wriggling into the coat sideways.
+
+"Poor _dear_.  She has had a time.  What a piece of luck I met her the
+day she landed."
+
+Curtis had no opportunity to inquire just what Marcelle meant, for Lady
+Hermione had joined them.  Sedulously keeping that tell-tale sleeve out
+of sight, Curtis took the lead, and opened the door, which Marcelle
+closed and locked.
+
+While they were waiting for the elevator, Curtis fathomed Marcelle's
+stock of information as to the addresses of neighboring ministers of
+the Protestant Episcopal Church.  It was nil.  He appealed to the
+attendant when the elevator came up, but that worthy thoughtfully
+tickled his scalp under his cap, and suggested a consultation with the
+taxi-driver.  Indeed, to further the quest, he went with them to the
+door, and, while Lady Hermione and Marcelle seated themselves in the
+cab, the three men discussed the religious problem on the sidewalk.
+
+"Ministers don't use taxis much in N' York, sir," commented the driver.
+"Fact is, they mostly can't afford 'em, but I do happen to know where
+one old gentleman lives, an' he's sure to be home, because he's
+crippled something cruel with the rheumatiz."
+
+"Is it far?" demanded Curtis.
+
+"Three blocks away, in 56th Street, near Seventh Avenue.  Lives next
+door to the church, he does."
+
+"Take us there," and Curtis entered the vehicle, which whirled out of
+sight in the peculiarly downright fashion of the automobile.
+
+The elevator man looked after it, and tickled another section of his
+scalp.
+
+"I'd a notion she was going to marry that Frenchman," he said to
+himself.  "Of course, it's her business, an' not mine, but of the two
+I'd take a chance with this new fellar.  An' it's odd, too, that they
+shouldn't know where to go, unless they mean to pick up Froggy on the
+road.  Well, wimmen is queer creetures, they are, sure, an' the English
+ones are just as queer as the Americans.  Not that Miss Grandison ain't
+a peach wherever she comes from, an' I hope she'll be happy, night an'
+day till the time comes when she don't care if it snows."
+
+He glanced up at the sky, rolled a cigarette, and, before returning
+indoors, sniffed a keen wind which was rustling the last crisp leaves
+in Central Park.  The street was quiet, and no one was stirring in the
+mansion.
+
+"I'm not likely to be wanted for another minnit or two," he said, "so
+I'll just give the furnace a shake-out.  Unless I'm mistaken, there's a
+frost coming."
+
+Had he prophesied a hurricane he would not have been far wrong, but it
+was entirely in keeping with the other remarkable developments of a
+night already noteworthy for its strange happenings that the elevator
+attendant at No. 1000 59th Street should have chosen the next few
+minutes to attend to the steam-heating arrangements in the basement.
+
+There is little to be gained, however, from speculation as to the
+probable outcome of conditions which did not obtain, and the trivial
+space of time which was demanded for the shaking-out and re-coaling of
+a furnace was largely responsible for John D. Curtis and Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison being made man and wife.
+
+Curiously enough, the tying of this particular knot was facilitated by
+the fact that the clergyman was hale mentally but decrepit physically,
+and, as might be expected, resented the conclusion, long ago arrived at
+by his friends, that he was unfitted for work.  He burgeoned with
+delight when a servant announced that two young people wanting to get
+married were waiting in the vestibule; he hobbled out of the library,
+where he was poring over an essay on the Sixtine text of the
+Septuagint, and ushered them into a parlor.  The room was not
+well-lighted, because of some defect in the electric installation, but
+the old gentleman--"Rev. Thomas J. Hughes" was the legend on the
+door-plate--bustled about in the liveliest way, and talked most
+cheerfully.
+
+"Ah, young folk--as usual, leaving things to the last moment, and then
+in a desperate hurry," he chirped.  "Got the license--yes?  Complied
+with all the formalities?  Of course, of course.  Where's the ring?
+You've _not_ forgotten the ring?"
+
+Curtis and Hermione looked at each other in blank dismay; even
+Marcelle's aplomb yielded under this unforeseen strain, and her
+agitation showed itself in a gasping murmur:
+
+"Oh dear!  What shall we do now?"
+
+Mr. Hughes positively chortled over their discomfiture.  He limped to a
+secretaire, and opened a drawer.
+
+"See what it is to have a long experience in these affairs," he cried.
+"Do you fancy you are the first couple who failed to provide a ring?
+Ah me!  When I was quite a boy in the cloth I learnt the necessity of
+keeping rings in stock, so a jeweler friend of mind replenishes my
+store, and, when I sell one, I apply a small profit to a favorite
+charity of mine.  The wearing of a wedding ring has no legal
+significance, but it is a fine old custom, and should be preserved.
+Among the Romans the ring was a pledge, _pignus_, that the betrothal
+contract would be fulfilled.  Pliny tells us that the ring, or circle,
+was of iron, but the ladies speedily determined that it should be of
+gold, and the Church went a step farther in recognizing it as a symbol
+of matrimony.  Hence, perhaps, the Episcopal ring, and even the Ring of
+the Fisherman itself, though some authorities hold that signets--Ah,
+yes," for Curtis had intimated politely that the hour was growing late,
+"if the lady will say which of these rings fits; they are fifteen
+dollars each--cheaper, I believe, than you can buy them in Fifth
+Avenue. . . .  Ah, _that_ one?  Very well.  Now, as to the form of
+service?"
+
+"The full marriage rite," said Curtis.
+
+"Precisely, just what I would have suggested.  I adhere to the
+time-honored formula.  Now, let me examine the license--my eyes fail me
+a little, but I take the utmost pains to be accurate, because accuracy
+is of the greatest importance. . . .  Yes, yes, State of New York--what
+are the names?"
+
+"John D. Curtis and Hermione Beauregard Grandison," said Curtis.  His
+tone was so calm and self-confident that even the prospective bride was
+deaf for a moment to the vital significance of the words.  Then she
+whispered tremulously:
+
+"Are you not making some mistake?"
+
+"No," he replied, looking her straight in the eyes.
+
+The minister, whose ears partook of the defects in his other faculties,
+caught the word "mistake."
+
+"This is no place for mistakes, my dear young lady," he said, "A nice
+young couple like you should only require to be married once in your
+lives.  Take my advice, and stick to one another in sunshine and in
+storm, and you shall be blessed even unto the fourth generation. . . .
+Now, all is in order. . . .  Is this your witness?" and he nodded
+affably toward Marcelle.  "Shall we have one other?  William Jenkins,
+my factotum, has been privileged to assist on many such
+occasions. . . .  Wil-li-am!"
+
+He raised his voice, and a wizened little man appeared suddenly, having
+evidently waited outside the door until he was summoned.
+
+Then, with due ritual, John Delancy Curtis and Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison were joined in the bonds of wedlock, and, by the time Mr.
+Hughes had completed the ceremony, he had pronounced their names so
+often, and was so accustomed to their form and sound, that when he
+filled in the certificate annexed to the license, "John D. Curtis"
+appeared therein in place of "Jean de Courtois."
+
+Hermione was in a pitiable state of suppressed excitement before the
+ordeal was concluded.  The solemnity and impressiveness of the vows she
+was taking disturbed the serenity with which she had schooled herself
+to regard the marriage as "make-believe."  She was frightened at her
+own daring.  A dread that the tie she was so lightly assuming might be
+harder to undo than she had contemplated was fluttering her heart and
+almost paralyzing her limbs.  But Curtis was unemotional as an icicle;
+or, at any rate, he looked it, which was all that the half-hysterical
+girl by his side could ascertain by an occasional timid glance.  The
+fact lent her a sort of courage to persevere to the end, and she signed
+her maiden name for the last time with a numb confidence in the man
+whom she had, so to speak, bargained for as a husband in an emergency.
+
+Curtis did not fail to note that the aged clergyman's handwriting was
+crabbed and palsied as his bent frame.  None could tell, for certain,
+whether he wrote "Jean" or "John," "Courtois" or "Curtis," though,
+indeed, the balance of probability inclined to the latter of the two
+names, Christian and surname, since those were indubitably what he
+meant to write.
+
+Then, having stated his fee, and been paid for the ring, he handed
+Hermione a copy of the certificate.
+
+"Treasure that during all your days, Mrs. Curtis," he said.  "May it be
+a charter of lasting happiness and content!"
+
+Mrs. Curtis!  Another shock!  Hermione felt that she would scream if
+there were many more such.  And the pressure of the little gold ring on
+the third finger of her left hand was becoming intolerable.  Iron, it
+used to be, said the minister, and a band of iron it seemed to have
+become since this man whom she had taken, so completely on trust had
+placed it there.
+
+On the way out, Curtis tipped Jenkins, tipped him so lavishly that a
+queer little voice squeaked from a queer little face:
+
+"Thank you, sir.  Fair weather to both you and your wife, and a safe
+berth when you drop anchor!"
+
+So Jenkins had been a sailor, for none but a shell-back would put his
+good wishes in such nautical lingo.
+
+"I have just finished one long voyage, but seem to have begun another,"
+said Curtis to his "wife."  He accompanied the words with a laugh, and
+was really talking for the sake of breaking an awkward silence.  They
+were descending a few steps from the door, and he noticed that a
+private automobile was speeding down the street from the same direction
+as the taxi had taken.  It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up
+barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was
+starting with the crank.
+
+A shout came from the interior, and a man leaped out.  The street was
+rather dark in that part, but Hermione recognized the stranger
+instantly.
+
+"Count Vassilan!" she cried, and the fear in her voice thrilled Curtis
+to the core.
+
+Almost as quickly, the man now running along the sidewalk knew that a
+long chase had ended, or he fancied that it had ended, which is not
+always the same thing.
+
+"Here we are, Valletort!" he shouted.  "Got 'em, by ----!  You see
+after Hermione!  I'll attend to this d--d Frenchman!"
+
+Curtis gently disengaged the clasp of a tiny hand on his arm, a clasp
+which was eloquent of a woman's sore need and complete trust.  He
+stepped forward to meet the Count, a stoutly built, heavy man, who had
+reckoned on closing with an undersized Frenchman.  There was no time to
+rectify mistakes.  Curtis met his rival's onset with a beautiful
+half-arm jab on the nose.  Scientifically, it was perfect, since the
+blow was delivered at the back of the Count's head with complete
+disregard of intervening tissues, and its recipient went down like one
+of those pins which succumbed so regularly to the ball bowled by a
+colossal fist in the Broadway electric sign.  The only difference was
+that the pin fell noiselessly, whereas Count Vassilan roared like a
+bull in anguish.
+
+In the next instant Curtis, who, for a mild-mannered person, appeared
+to possess a singularly close acquaintance with the ethics of a street
+row, sprang at the automobile, pushed back a man who was getting out,
+slammed the door, seized the speed levers, and bent them hopelessly
+with a violent tug.
+
+A swearing chauffeur fumbled in the seat, but was in no real hurry to
+alight, because he had noted the Count's _débâcle_, and Curtis ran to
+the two cowering women.
+
+"In with you!" he said cheerily, adding, with a grin at the driver:
+
+"Fifty for you if we win clear.  Now, be a sport!"
+
+Of course, the driver of a taxi would be a sport.  In five minutes he
+pulled up somewhere in Madison Avenue, and, leaning back and twisting
+his neck, bawled:
+
+"Where to _now_, sir?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN INTERLUDE
+
+The appearance on the scene of the Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas
+Vassilan at a moment which, though undeniably critical, might be
+described as either opportune or inopportune--the choice of an
+adjective depending solely on the varying points of view of the one who
+gave and the one who received that powerful thump on the nose--was due
+to no feat of skill on the part of the engine-room staff of the
+_Switzerland_, but to a judicious combination of wireless telegraphy,
+money, and influence.
+
+When it became evident, very early in the morning, that the vessel
+might, with luck, crawl up to the quarantine station about midnight,
+urgent messages were sent to two consulates and the Port Authorities of
+New York.  In the result, a fast steam-yacht drew up alongside the
+vessel when she took the pilot on board, and the two magnates and their
+baggage were transferred from the disabled liner to the deck of the
+trim yacht.
+
+She made praiseworthy efforts to reach a quay and a batch of Customs
+officers before eight o'clock, but failed by five minutes.
+Consequently, some slight delay was experienced, and, with the best of
+good will on the part of the officials, the two fuming passengers could
+not fling themselves into a waiting automobile until nearly twenty
+minutes past the hour.
+
+Then, however, they made up for lost time.  Intrusting their belongings
+to a porter and a taxi, with instructions to proceed to the
+Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, they bade the chauffeur travel at top speed to
+No. 1000 59th Street.  Many times were they sworn at en route by
+endangered pedestrians and enraged drivers of horsed vehicles; the
+growing torrent of ill wishes thus engendered may have exercised some
+unrecognized form of telepathy at No. 1000, because a regulating valve
+in the steam-heat apparatus, which had never proved intractable before,
+suddenly took it into its metallic head to go wrong.  Thus, the
+elevator man was not aware of a good deal of ringing of electric bells
+and hammering on the locked door of flat Number 10.
+
+Ultimately, the valve resumed its normal functions, for no cause that a
+hot and oily human being could perceive other than the occasional
+"cussedness" which inanimate objects can be capable of; while surveying
+it wrathfully, he awoke to the racket in the upper regions.
+
+Behold him, then, angry and perspiring, vowing by all his gods that he
+had other duties to perform than eternally watching the comings and
+goings of the mansion's occupants; being a free-born American of Irish
+ancestry, name of Rafferty, he would certainly have bandied contumely
+with Count Ladislas Vassilan had not the Earl intervened.  The
+Hungarian had addressed Rafferty as though he were a dog: the
+Englishman, more certain of his social predominance, treated him as a
+person endowed with reason.
+
+"Now, listen to me, my good man," he said, calmly but emphatically, "I
+am the Earl of Valletort, and the lady you know as Miss Grandison is
+the Lady Hermione Grandison, my daughter.  She has come to New York in
+order to marry a wretched little French adventurer named Jean de
+Courtois, and it is absolutely essential, for her own welfare, not to
+mention other considerations, that the wedding, which is to take place
+to-night, shall be prevented.  Two European consuls and several
+important men in your own city have helped me to land this evening from
+a vessel which will not disembark her passengers till the morning.
+Therefore, it is fairly obvious that you run several sorts of risk by
+refusing to help me in finding my daughter, and I can hardly believe
+that you know nothing about her movements. . . .  Come, my man, don't
+be both a fool and a knave, but speak!"
+
+Rafferty, who had calmed down during this impressive harangue, took
+thought, and did speak.
+
+"If yer friend had said half as much, my lord, I'd have made him wise
+straight away," he answered.  "Miss Grandison went off at 8.30 in a
+taxi with her maid, Marcelle Leroux, and a strange gentleman who
+certainly wasn't Mr. de Courtois, my lord.  They wanted to find out
+where a clergyman lived, an' I couldn't tell them--not about the
+Protestant Episcopal, I mean, my lord--but the driver of the taxi
+remembered that there was a minister of that persuasion living in 56th
+Street, near 7th Avenue, an' next door to a church.  So they made a
+bee-line that-a-way, my lord, an' I went to see to the furnace, an'
+that's all there is to it, my lord."
+
+"You say the man was not de Courtois?" queried the Earl impatiently.
+
+"I'm sure he wasn't the man who has passed under that name hereabouts
+nearly every day for a month, my lord," said Rafferty.
+
+"Oh, some fellow of his own kidney he has hired to assist him," put in
+Vassilan, who held fast to that theory, in part, even after he had been
+painfully disillusioned as to other parts of it.  "Come quickly now,
+you, and tell our chauffeur where to take us."
+
+If Rafferty had dared, he would have given the chauffeur directions
+likely to lead to further bickering, but the presence of the Earl
+restrained him, for Valletort, though thin and hawk-nosed, was an
+aristocrat in every inch, whereas Count Ladislas Vassilan wore the
+stage aspect of a successful pork-butcher.  So he explained matters to
+the chauffeur, yet smiled grimly when the automobile wheeled away
+almost in the very tracks of Curtis's taxi.
+
+"Who sez there's no such thing as luck?" he chuckled.  "That valve knew
+what it was about when it stuck, an' my name ain't what it is if that
+wedding isn't over and done with by this time.  An' I gev him 'my lord'
+for it, too!  Played the high-tone society act for all it was worth,
+eh, what?"
+
+The next scene in the drama began for the Hungarian when he sat upon
+the sidewalk in 56th Street, and tried to pacify certain outraged
+blood-vessels in the nasal region.  Of course, the curtain had been up
+some time, but, so far as he was concerned, the incidents which
+followed his precipitate descent from the automobile were merely
+catastrophic.  He had seen a vivid, violet-colored star close to his
+eyes, had felt a crushing blow, had heard his own voice vaguely; and
+then he awoke to a singular sense of personal dis-ease, and to the fact
+that the noble Earl had nearly lost his temper.
+
+"It was entirely your fault, Vassilan," his lordship was saying.  "You
+gain nothing but lose everything by your bullying tactics.  Dash it
+all, the fellow downed you like a prize-fighter.  Who was he?  Not Jean
+de Courtois, I'll swear, so where has de Courtois gone?  Can't you
+stand up?  It's damn silly to sit there, nursing your nose.  Our
+motor-car is out of action.  We had better interview this clergyman,
+and learn exactly what has happened."
+
+Vassilan rose.  He was neither a coward nor a weakling, but he felt
+sore in mind as in body.
+
+"What's wrog with the car?" he demanded.  "Ad cad you led me ad
+hadkerchief?"
+
+"That rascal who was with Hermione nearly pulled the gear levers out by
+the roots," said the Earl testily.  "He pushed me back into the
+limousine--with some degree of force, too, confound him!  Who can he
+be?"
+
+"Suppose we idquire," growled Vassilan, and, mopping his nose with the
+Earl's handkerchief, he tugged viciously at the old-fashioned bell-pull
+which served the needs of visitors to the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes.
+
+The maid-servant who took the names of the two men was surprised, and
+showed it, but her democratic respect for titles yielded to suspicion
+when she observed Count Vassilan's villainous guise.
+
+"Wil-li-am!" she cried, and, when the ex-sailor appeared from the
+depths, she asked him to "look after the gentlemen" while she summoned
+Mr. Hughes.
+
+"Cad you take me somewhere, ad supply me with a towel ad pledty of cold
+water?" said the Hungarian, addressing the wizened one.
+
+Now, Jenkins was verger and pew-opener in the church as well as trusted
+assistant to the aged minister, but the ways and language of the
+fo'c's'l came back to him with irresistible force when he gazed on the
+Hungarian's damaged organ.
+
+"Lord love a duck, you've had it handed to you all right," he gasped.
+"How did you get it?  Did you foul a lamp-post, or bump a rock, or
+what?"
+
+"It is edough that I have met with ad accided," snarled the Count.
+"Cad't you see that I wadt some water?  Is there do place where I cad
+wash?"
+
+"What you reelly want is a tap," said Jenkins sympathetically.  "An' I
+shouldn't be surprised if a slab of raw beefsteak across yer lamps
+wouldn't be a bully good notion, too, or you'll have a lovely pair of
+mice in the morning."
+
+Then, hearing Mr. Hughes's voice from the library, he suddenly
+recollected the habits of later years.
+
+"Come with me, sir," he said, leading the way to the basement.  "I'll
+do my best for you."
+
+Perhaps it was fortunate for the success of his mission that the Earl
+of Valletort was left free to deal with the clergyman.  The Count's
+hectoring methods would certainly have stiffened the worthy old
+gentleman's back, whereas he yielded readily to the Earl's skillful
+handling.  He was much pained at hearing that a peer's daughter should
+have fallen into the hands of an adventurer.
+
+"Dear me!  Dear me!" he wheezed.  "This is very sad.  The man looked
+quite a gentleman, I assure you.  And he had not the least semblance to
+a foreigner.  His name, too--John D. Curtis--is your lordship really
+certain of the facts?"
+
+Now, "John" and "Jean" are sufficiently alike in sound to pass muster
+with the average man, who also connotes no difference between "D" and
+"de," but the Earl was moved to say quickly:
+
+"Perhaps you are not accustomed to French names, Mr. Hughes?"
+
+"No, I admit it.  But, here is an unimpeachable witness," and the
+minister produced the license from a drawer in the writing-desk.
+
+Lord Valletort glanced at it, and a peculiarly unpleasant scowl
+convulsed his aristocratic features.  Hitherto, a stranger might have
+believed that Hermione's unfavorable picture of her father had been
+tinged by a high-spirited girl's hatred of the marriage which he was
+forcing upon her; but that fleeting expression spoke volumes.  If Count
+Vassilan was of the bovine order, the Earl of Valletort savored of the
+tiger.
+
+He contrived to smile, however, and the effort to figure wholly as a
+disconsolate parent cost him far more than he dreamed, since he
+examined neither the actual certificate nor the register, though both
+would have been submitted to his scrutiny by the bewildered Mr. Hughes.
+
+"Thank you," he said.  "I fully appreciate the position.  The scoundrel
+has learnt how to give an English sound to his name.  Probably my
+daughter taught him.  Hard though it is for a father to say such a
+thing, she is the real brain behind this sordid story of intrigue and
+wrong-doing."
+
+"Dear me!" gasped Mr. Hughes again.  He felt that he must, indeed, be
+growing old.  He had married many hundreds of couples during his
+ministerial career, and had, in many instances, compared the subsequent
+lives of his matrimonial clients with the impressions formed during the
+ceremony, yet never had he been so gravely at fault as in his
+summing-up of the characteristics of John D. Curtis and Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison.
+
+Vassilan emerged from the kitchen, dripping but less gory, and the two
+visitors disappeared, whereupon Mr. Hughes confided his mystification
+to Jenkins.
+
+But Wil-li-am shook his cadaverous head.
+
+"Mebbe the Earl was right, an' mebbe he was wrong," he said decisively.
+"I didn't size up the Earl, so I let it go at that, but I did see the
+other guy--beg pardon, sir, I mean the other gentleman--an' he'll be
+lucky if he gets to bed to-night without being clubbed by a policeman.
+Someone has been at him already--hard at him--an' I'm not surprised,
+for his langwidge reminded me of my best days at sea."
+
+"William!"
+
+"What, sir?  Oh, I meant my young days, of course.  Now, I wonder----"
+
+It had just occurred to Jenkins that Mr. Curtis and his bride could
+hardly have got clear away from 56th Street before the Earl and his
+companion turned up.
+
+"Gee!" he cackled.  "I wish I hadn't closed the door so damn quick!"
+
+Mr. Hughes raised hands of horrified protest, and Jenkins wilted.
+
+"Sorry, sir," he stammered.  "I must have got a bit wound up when I saw
+the foreign gentleman's nose.  When I went a-whalin' on the _Star of
+the Sea_ we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he
+would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in _that_
+shape.  Now, the question is--_could_ it have been this here Mr.
+Curtis?  It reely is a pity I was so--so spry on the door."
+
+Outside, the chauffeur had announced that he had straightened the
+levers sufficiently to render them serviceable, and he was directed to
+make for the Central Hotel, 27th Street, but he had not reached
+Broadway before the Earl bade him return to Mr. Hughes's residence.
+What had happened was this--Lord Valletort's recollection of the
+physique and manner of Jean de Courtois fitted in so ill with the
+knock-down blow delivered to a portly individual like Ladislas Vassilan
+that he began to compare the remarks of the elevator man at 1000 59th
+Street with the confusion in the clergyman's mind on the question of
+names.  Then, though the light had been dim, and his mind was given
+more to the recognition of his daughter than of the person accompanying
+her, he was conscious of a growing conviction that the French
+music-master was a being of an altogether different species.  Vassilan,
+too, having regained some degree of self-control, confirmed him in the
+belief that there must be some error in their reckoning, and agreed
+that they might save time by interviewing Mr. Hughes again.
+
+But when the mild eyes of the minister rested on the Count's truculent
+visage, and noted his water-soaked and blood-stained clothing, there
+was a distinct drying up in the fount of information.
+
+"No," he said stiffly, in reply to the Earl's request that the marriage
+license should be produced again, "I regret that I cannot reopen that
+matter to-night.  To-morrow, if you have any cause for complaint, you
+should consult the proper authorities."
+
+"But you must allow me to emphasize the fact that the license is made
+out for the marriage of a man with a French name, whereas admittedly
+you have married my daughter to a man with an English or American
+name," said the Earl.
+
+"I express no opinion on the point.  Your lordship may be assuming
+facts which are not facts."
+
+"I am making a statement which can be verified quite easily.  The name
+I saw on the license was that of Jean de Courtois, an undersized
+Frenchman whom I know by sight, whereas my unfortunate friend is a
+living witness to the presence here of a man who must be of powerful
+build and exceptional strength."
+
+Mr. Hughes surveyed Vassilan's battered face again, and a doubt, born
+of a vague memory, began to intrude into his own mind.  Moreover, he
+was an eminently reasonable old gentleman.
+
+"Ah, yes," he said.  "My man, Jenkins, said something about a first
+mate and a belaying pin, whatever that may be--I fancy it is an
+instrument connected with the flaying of whales--and the bridegroom
+could certainly not be described as 'an undersized Frenchman' by anyone
+who paid due regard to the truth. . . .  Well, the whole proceeding is
+highly irregular, but the circumstances are quite exceptional, so----"
+
+In a word, the Earl and Count Vassilan were soon gorged with astonished
+wrath, for, no matter what discrepancies might exist between license
+and certificate, there could be no dispute as to the bold signature
+"John D. Curtis" in the register, while Hermione's handwriting
+compelled Lord Valletort to believe that he was not the victim of
+hallucination.
+
+It is easy to see, therefore, how the chase after John D. Curtis became
+hot thenceforth, but cooled off perceptibly on the trail of Jean de
+Courtois.  The hunters, of course, credited Hermione with a talent for
+craft and duplicity which she certainly did not possess; being rogues,
+or of the essence of rogues, they suspected her of roguery, and, in so
+doing, dug a deep pit for themselves.
+
+On arriving at the Central Hotel they were plunged into a denser fog
+than ever, and by means so ludicrously simple that even a budding
+dramatist would hesitate to avail himself of such a crude device.  The
+police had searched the dead man's clothing without finding any
+positive clew to his name.  His linen was marked H. R. H., and certain
+laundry marks might serve to establish his identity after long and
+patient inquiry, but the detective who had charge of the case felt that
+it was becoming unusually complex when the victim's overcoat was
+produced and the pockets were found to contain letters, a _Lusitania_
+wine bill, and a Marconigram--all pointing to the clear fact that the
+owner of the coat was John D. Curtis.
+
+The detective, Steingall by name, was one of the shrewdest men in the
+New York police, and his extraordinary faculty of observing minute
+facts which had escaped others while investigating a crime had earned
+him the repute of being "the man with a microscopic eye."  But he owned
+to being mystified by this juggling with names.
+
+"Why," he said to the police captain of the precinct, "this fellow
+Curtis is the man who witnessed the murder, and who will be our most
+reliable witness if we lay hands on the scoundrels who committed it."
+
+"He _said_ his name was Curtis," commented the other.
+
+The implied doubt seemed to be justified, but Steingall stroked his
+chin reflectively.
+
+"These papers bear out his story.  Look at the dates on the telegram
+and the bill, and the postmarks on the letters.  Can he, by some queer
+chance, have changed overcoats with the dead man?"
+
+"A most unlikely thing, I should say."
+
+"Something of the sort must have happened.  Anyhow, let us get hold of
+him, and sift this matter thoroughly."
+
+An ambulance came just then, to take the body to the mortuary, and,
+when it had departed, the two men quitted the traffic bureau where they
+had been talking, and entered the hotel.  Here, excitement was still at
+fever heat.  The press had heard of the murder, and a number of
+reporters were interviewing everybody in sight, while photographers
+were adding to the confusion by taking flash-light pictures.
+
+The super-clerk was already showing tokens of the strain.  He glared
+wildly at Steingall when the latter asked if Mr. Curtis was in.
+
+"You're the hundred and first man to whom I have answered 'No' in the
+last quarter of an hour," he said.
+
+"The first hundred didn't count, anyway," was the dry response.  "Pull
+yourself together, and read that card slowly and collectedly."
+
+"Well," he went on, seeing that the clerk had apparently mastered the
+copper-plate script, "you see I am not here for amusement.  Now, about
+Curtis, are you sure he is not in his room?"
+
+"His key has not been given up, but I have sent to 605, and we can't
+get in."
+
+"What do you mean?  Is the door locked?"
+
+"We can open every lock in the hotel.  It is bolted."
+
+"Have you knocked?"
+
+"We've done everything, short of breaking open the door."
+
+Steingall looked perplexed, but the police captain was confident.
+
+"He has buncoed us, for sure," he said with a smile, though the smile
+boded evil for John D. Curtis at their next meeting.
+
+"Did you notice him particularly when he registered?" demanded the
+detective, after a pause.
+
+"Yes.  Came to-night by the _Lusitania_.  Here is his signature."
+
+The three men gazed at the register, and Steingall produced a card, on
+which Curtis had written the name of the hotel.
+
+"Same handwriting!" he murmured.  "By the way," he continued,
+addressing the clerk, "were you here when the murder took place?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you see anything of it?"
+
+"Not a scratch.  I was busy with a lady, who was worrying me about a
+train to Montclair.  She was five minutes making up her mind whether to
+take the Jersey tunnel or the 23rd Street ferry."
+
+"The only other person, beside Curtis, who saw the whole affair was the
+hall-porter?"
+
+"I guess that's so."
+
+"Call him into the office."
+
+Questioned anew, the hall-porter was positive about everything except
+Curtis's connection with the attack.  The reporters had scalped him,
+metaphorically speaking, and his brain was seething.  He said "No" when
+he meant "Yes," and "Yes" for "No," and contradicted himself in each
+fresh version of the cataclasm which had seared his sky with lightning.
+
+Steingall ultimately gave him up as hopeless that night.  Perhaps, next
+morning, when he had slept and eaten, he might become sane again.
+
+"It's an odd thing that Curtis should have wandered away in this
+fashion, wearing a strange overcoat," mused the detective aloud.
+
+"He must know it," said the police captain meaningly.
+
+"I rather think we must force that door," said Steingall.
+
+The clerk did not understand the reference to the overcoat, but he was
+ready enough to adopt the detective's suggestion.
+
+"Shall I send for the engineer, and tell him to bring tools?" he asked.
+
+"There is nothing else for it," admitted Steingall with a shrug.  Be it
+remembered he had seen Curtis, and heard his story.  If such a man had
+committed the most daring crime recorded in New York during a decade,
+and had flouted the police with such cool effrontery, he (Steingall)
+would never again trust impressions.
+
+The policemen, the clerk, and a strong-armed artificer went up in the
+elevator, and, after an imperative knock and a loud-voiced summons to
+open had been met with blank silence from the interior of No. 605, the
+workman got busy.  The door was stout, and offered a stubborn
+resistance.  It had to be forced off its upper hinge; then it yielded
+so suddenly that it fell into the room, with the engineer sprawling on
+top of it.  The man yelled, thinking he was being plunged headlong into
+tragedy, but Steingall switched on the lights, and four pairs of eager
+eyes peered at nothing in particular.  They found the golf clubs, which
+partially explained the blocking of the door, though it did not occur
+to any of them at once that the open window might have caused the bag
+to fall.  They rummaged Curtis's portmanteaux and steamer trunks, and
+came upon evidence in plenty to prove that he was no mere masquerader
+in another man's name.  But that was all.  They could form no theory to
+account for his disappearance, until Steingall noticed the key, lying
+on the dressing-table, which, with its odds and ends of small articles,
+was the last place to invite scrutiny.  He was gazing at it when the
+blind flapped, and the door of the wardrobe creaked.
+
+"Confound it!" he cried.  "The bedroom door was fastened by accident!
+The man forgot his key.  Look here!  I'll show you just how it came
+about."
+
+He illustrated the slipping of the clubs, and his theory was borne out
+subsequently by the negro porter who had brought Curtis's belongings
+upstairs.  But an atmosphere of suspicion, of non-comprehension, had
+been created around the missing man, and it was not to be dispelled,
+even in Steingall's acute mind, by whittling away the mystery of the
+blocked door to a minor incident which might occur in any hotel any day.
+
+Leaving the mechanic and the negro to patch the shattered door
+sufficiently to serve its purpose until it was replaced by another in
+the morning, the clerk escorted the representatives of the law
+downstairs.  Of course, their departure from the hall and their
+prolonged absence had been noted by the phalanx of reporters, and they
+were surrounded instantly.  Searching questions were fired at them, but
+Steingall, who knew how to use the press for his own ends, countered by
+asking genially:
+
+"In your hunt for copy, have any of you boys come across Mr. John D.
+Curtis?"
+
+"The man who really saw the riot?  I guess not.  We want him badly."
+
+An approving grin from his colleagues vouched for the speaker's
+accuracy.
+
+"Who was killed, anyhow, Steingall?" demanded the journalist who had
+answered the detective.
+
+"We don't know, yet."
+
+"Does Curtis know?"
+
+"He said he didn't, but I'll tell you something--I shan't be happy till
+I've had another chat with him."
+
+"Can anyone say who 'John D. Curtis, of Pekin,' really is?" went on the
+reporter.
+
+"That is the man we are looking for.  If there are police officers
+present, I want them to understand that Curtis should be arrested at
+sight."
+
+Everyone turned at the sound of the authoritative English voice which
+had intervened so unexpectedly in the conclave.  They saw an elderly
+man, well dressed, and bearing the unmistakable tokens of good social
+standing.  With him was a foreigner, a most truculent looking person,
+whose collar, shirt, and waistcoat carried other signs, quite as
+obvious, but curiously ominous in view of the cause of this gathering
+in the hall of the hotel.
+
+"May I ask who you are, sir?" said Steingall.
+
+"I am the Earl of Valletort," said the stranger, "and this is Count
+Ladislas Vassilan."
+
+"Ah!  Count Vassilan is not an Englishman?"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"Is he, by any chance, a Hungarian?"
+
+"Count Vassilan is a Hungarian prince.  But the nationality of either
+of us is unimportant.  Are you connected with the New York police?"
+
+"Yes," said Steingall.  He answered the Earl, but kept that microscopic
+eye of his fixed on the Count.
+
+"Very well, then.  I repeat that John D. Curtis must be found and
+arrested--to-night."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he is a dangerous adventurer.  I----"
+
+"That's a lie, first sizz out of the syphon," broke in another voice.
+"I have the honor to be a friend of John D. Curtis.  My name is Howard
+Devar, and I'll stand for John D. all the time against the noble Earl
+and any God's quantity of blue-blooded, full-blooded Hungarians."
+
+Each member of the animated group was gazing at Devar's boyish,
+self-possessed, well-chiseled face, when another interruption held them
+agog.  A stout, middle-aged man, followed by a stouter matron, bustled
+into the circle.  The newcomers were just as clearly Americans as the
+Earl was English, and the man cried angrily:
+
+"Who says that John D. Curtis is a tough?  I'm his uncle."
+
+"And I'm his aunt," chimed in the lady.
+
+"Of Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana," said the man.
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Horace P. Curtis," announced the lady.
+
+"Shake!" said Devar.  "I heard about you to-day on board the
+_Lusitania_. . . .  Now, my lord, we are three to two.  What charge do
+you bring against John D. Curtis?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NINE O'CLOCK
+
+A new note had crept into the voice of the taxi-cab driver when he
+stopped his vehicle in Madison Avenue and sought Curtis's further
+commands.  No longer did he address his patron with a species of
+good-humored tolerance, almost of sarcasm; his mental attitude had now
+become one of respect, even of hero-worship.  A little later, while
+smoking a thoughtful pipe in his own cozy flat somewhere near Second
+Avenue, he tried to explain this curious development to his wife.
+
+"You see, my dear," he said, "I picked up a fare in Broadway, an' took
+him where he said he wanted to go.  When he got out, he didn't seem to
+be quite sure whether he wanted to be there or not, an' you can bet I
+smiled when he said that he supposed the lady he was callin' on lived
+somewhere around.  Anyhow, after hesitatin' a bit, an' tellin' me he
+wouldn't keep me a minnit, in he dives, an' kep' me coolin' my heels a
+good quarter of an hour.  I grew uneasy, because fares do get so nasty
+about waitin' charges, so I signals the elevator man, name o' Rafferty,
+to ask if it was O.K.  When Rafferty comes back, we had a chat, an' he
+tells me that this Miss Grandison--a mighty smart piece she is,
+too,--was goin' to marry a little Frenchman right away--she was
+expectin' him to call at eight o'clock an' take her to the minister's
+place--so it gev' both Rafferty an' me a jar when my dude turns up with
+the girl an' pipes us for any old address where people could get
+married.  Well, I remembers the number of a shovel hat in 56th Street,
+an' away we hike, man, girl, an' lady's maid, with never a sign of any
+Frenchman anywheres.  An', by Jove, in they skipped to the parsonage,
+an' were spliced."
+
+"No, George!" exclaimed his highly interested hearer.
+
+"Fact.  True as I'm sittin' here.  When they were comin' out, a queer
+lookin' specimen who opened the door wished 'em happiness.  'Fair
+weather to you an' your wife, sir,' he said; an' Mr. Curtis--that's my
+fare's name, I asked him--said something about havin' finished one long
+voyage an' beginnin' another.  Then the fun began.  I was just startin'
+the machine when a private auto dashes up, an' out jumps a
+foreign-lookin' swell.  The girl spots him, an' screams his name--Count
+Vaseline it sounded like--an' he shouts, 'Here we are, Valtaw'--p'raps
+that was his way of sayin' Walter--'Got 'em, by--  You see after
+Hermione.  I'll fix this--Frenchman?'"
+
+"Don't swear, George," remonstrated the driver's better half.
+
+"I'm not swearin'.  Ain't I tellin' you what he said?"
+
+The point was waived.
+
+"And the lady's name was Hermione, was it?  It's a pretty name."
+
+"You haven't got it quite right.  It was more like the way I said it."
+
+And, indeed, the correction was justified, since it is a regrettable
+fact that the taxi-cab driver's wife made "Hermione" rhyme with "bone,"
+and laid no stress on the second syllable.  Strong in her superior
+knowledge, for she was an omnivorous reader of fiction--and Greek names
+were fashionable last November--she passed that point also.
+
+"Well?" she demanded breathlessly.
+
+"Ha, ha!"  The narrator laughed joyfully.  "The Dago Count went for
+Curtis as if he was on to a sure thing, but before you could say
+'knife' he was on his back on the sidewalk.  I've never seen a man put
+down so quick.  I couldn't have floored him so beautifully if I'd hit
+him with a spanner.  But that was only part of the entertainment.
+Curtis--mind you, before that I'd been treatin' him as an ordinary dude
+in evenin' dress--acted like an injarubber man filled with chain
+lightning.  He shoved 'Valtaw' back into the auto, grabs the brake an'
+gear lever, an' puts 'em both out of action, sweeps the two girls into
+my cab, and----"
+
+Here the taxi-driver bethought himself, and grinned vacuously.
+
+"Well--an' here I am," he concluded.
+
+"I suppose he handed out a good fare," said his wife.
+
+"Yes, he was quite decent about it.  Tipped me a couple of dollars over
+an' above the register."
+
+"I should have thought it would have been more.  Men are usually
+generous when they are getting married."
+
+"He was takin' on a rather expensive bit of stuff, unless I am much
+mistaken, an' p'raps he was just rememberin' it."
+
+In this ingenuous fashion was a poor woman neatly headed off the scent
+of a fifty-dollar bill.  She rang the knell of a new hat by her next
+question.
+
+"What was the young lady really like--how was she dressed?" she cried.
+. . .
+
+
+Hardly a word was said within the taxi until the corner was turned out
+of 56th Street into Seventh Avenue.  Curtis, who was sitting with his
+back to the driver, rose, apologized for the disturbance, and looked
+through the tiny rear window.
+
+"That's all right," he said.  "That car won't be able to move for
+several minutes; but we must leave nothing to chance," so he sank back
+into a seat, and permitted the driver to take them whither he listed.
+
+Hermione's first words were not exactly those of a fair maid in utmost
+distress.
+
+"Oh, how splendid it must be to feel sure that you are able to hit a
+wretch like Count Vassilan and knock him flat!" she cried.
+
+Curtis was surprised.  He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted
+lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather
+expected to hear subdued sobbing.
+
+"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that
+fellow," he said.
+
+"I never could.  It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he
+treats them.  I do hope you have hurt him."
+
+"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis.  "He impressed me
+as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will
+afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity
+to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body
+of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour.
+There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a
+decent problem.  Meanwhile, the vital question is--where are we going?"
+
+Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood.  He could
+picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"It is evident," he went on, "that they procured the minister's address
+from the elevator man at your dwelling."
+
+"Ah, that Rafferty!  Wait till I see him," broke in Marcelle.
+
+"Please do not scarify Rafferty, if that is his name.  I am much more
+to be blamed than he, because I assured your mistress that the Earl and
+Count Vassilan were safe on board the _Switzerland_ till the morning.
+I see now that they telegraphed for a tug, and it is best to assume
+that they have been kept informed by wireless of nearly every move in
+the game. . . .  You agree with me, I suppose, Lady Hermione, that your
+return to 1000 59th Street is out of the question?"
+
+"It is, if this mock marriage is to serve any real purpose," she said.
+
+"But pray remember that it is not a mock marriage.  You and I are as
+firmly bound together by the law as if--well, as if we meant it."
+
+She leaned forward a little; her face was etched in Rembrandt lights by
+the glare from some shop windows.
+
+"Mr. Curtis," she said earnestly, "it is neither just nor reasonable
+that you should plunge yourself into difficulties for the sake of a
+girl whom you met to-night for the first time.  Why not go out of my
+life now--this instant? . . .  Marcelle and I can find refuge
+somewhere.  The hour is early. . . .  Why should you take all the risk?"
+
+He was ready for some such appeal on her part.
+
+"I was taught in school if I did a thing at all to do it thoroughly,"
+he said, "and my experience of life has given the adage a halo.  It
+would be worse than useless to desert you now, Lady Hermione.  Whatever
+penalties I may have incurred in the eyes of the law are committed
+beyond hope of redemption.  If I am sought for, the police know exactly
+where to lay hands on me, and my crime would become monstrous if it
+were proved that I ran away from my wife on the night of our marriage.
+No; we must face the music boldly, and together.  We must go to some
+well-known hotel, register openly, secure rooms, and conduct ourselves
+on the orthodox lines of all runaway couples, who are presumably head
+over heels in love with each other.  Moreover, in the morning, or
+whenever we are run to earth, you should allow me to face your father
+and play the part of the indignant husband.  It is essential that your
+marriage should appear real, or you go back to bondage and I to prison."
+
+"To prison!"  The girl's horrified accents showed that she had hardly
+given a thought to the bald consequences of her escapade.
+
+"Yes.  I am not trying to frighten you; but what sort of mercy would a
+judge show to the craven who absconded before the battle began?  If, on
+the other hand, I am, so to speak, torn from your arms--if a plausible
+lawyer can depict you tearful and inconsolable--if----"
+
+"You make out a fairly strong case, Mr. Curtis.  I have told you that I
+trust you, and I can only repeat my words of gratitude. . . .
+Marcelle, you will not leave me?"
+
+"Never, miss, ma'am--that is, your ladyship."
+
+Thus it befell that Curtis was ready with the name of a prominent hotel
+in Fifth Avenue when the driver halted in Madison Avenue.  He made his
+choice almost at random, but selected one of the newest uptown
+caravanserais, merely because it lay a considerable distance from 27th
+Street.  Otherwise, his object in picking a large hotel being to avoid
+notice among a fashionable throng, he might easily have taken his
+"wife" to the Waldorf-Astoria, in which event certain complications
+even then hot in the making would not have followed their intricate
+course, while Hermione's future must have been affected most powerfully.
+
+"I suppose you are prepared to submit to certain conditions which
+govern this new venture?" said Curtis, when the cab was once more
+speeding onward to a definite goal.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+It would be scarcely fair to describe Hermione's tone as suspicious,
+for she was a loyal soul, and was wondering in her heart of hearts what
+manner of man this knight errant could be; but his very self-possession
+fluttered her; she had been so accustomed to think and act in her own
+defense that she experienced a subtle fear of this calm, cool-headed,
+masterful person whom she must learn to regard as her husband.
+
+"Well,"--Curtis's speech was so unemotional that he might have been
+describing one of his Manchurian railway schemes--"we must treat each
+other with a certain familiarity--even use little endearments--in
+public--and address each other by pet names--mine is Chow."
+
+Despite her troubles, the girl laughed, and Curtis recalled the tinkle
+of silver bells in a temple at evening on the banks of the far-away
+Wei-ho.
+
+"But that is the name of a dog!" she tittered.
+
+"Yes.  In my case, it denoted some unpleasant personal characteristics
+when a stupid mandarin put obstacles in my way.  I never gave any
+warning, but rushed in and bit him, not actually, of course, but in his
+illicit commissions, which annoyed him more than a real bite."
+
+"I don't like Chow," she said.  "Your name is John.  Won't Jack do?"
+
+"Fine."  It was lucky she could not see the smile that flitted across
+his face.  "And yours?"
+
+"Mamma always used my full name, and I have never had anyone else to
+give me a pet name, unless it was 'Tatters' at school."
+
+"We might bracket Tatters with Chow, and dismiss both," he said
+lightly.  "And I like the sound of Hermione so well that it is pat on
+my lips already. . . .  Now, you, Marcelle--remember that her ladyship
+has become Lady Hermione Curtis."
+
+"Oh, not Mrs. Curtis?"
+
+"No.  An earl's daughter retains her courtesy title after marriage."
+
+"All right, sir.  I shan't forget."  Indeed, Marcelle was jubilant.
+She had been "dying" to use her mistress's title, once she became aware
+of it, but it was taboo at 59th Street.
+
+Curtis had covered a good deal of ground during that brief discussion
+in the cab, but Hermione was not quite prepared for its logical sequel
+in the hotel.
+
+Naturally, they attracted no unusual attention when they entered the
+hotel.  Other people merely noticed the passing of a distinguished
+looking young man in evening dress--for Curtis had promptly whipped off
+that ominous overcoat--and a slender, veiled lady, of elegant carriage,
+who walked up to the bureau, followed by a smartly dressed girl who
+gazed about her with bright, all-seeing eyes.
+
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+
+"My wife and I have been detained in New York this evening
+unexpectedly," explained Curtis to the hotel clerk.  "We want a suite
+of rooms, a sitting-room, three bedrooms with baths--you would like
+Marcelle's room to communicate with yours, wouldn't you, dear?" and he
+turned suddenly to Hermione.
+
+"Y-yes," she faltered, for the attack took her unaware.
+
+"What floor, sir?  We have a nice suite on the tenth."
+
+"Not so high, please," said Hermione.  Then she sprung a mine on her
+own account.  "I know it is stupid, Jack, darling, but I am so afraid
+of fire."
+
+"This hotel is absolutely fireproof, madam," put in the clerk, stating
+a fact implicitly believed by every hotel proprietor in New York in so
+far as his own building is concerned, "but we can accommodate you on
+the second floor, Suite F., fifty dollars a day."
+
+"Thank you.  That will be just right," said Curtis quickly, for he
+meant to live like a prince during one night at least, let the morrow
+bring its own cares.  "Now, you understand that we are here without
+baggage, though my wife's maid will procure some necessaries while we
+eat, and I mean to get some clothes later, but, if you would like a
+deposit of, say, a hundred dollars----?"
+
+He felt for his pocketbook, but, to the credit of the clerk be it said,
+the suggestion was negatived with a smile.
+
+"No need at all for any deposit, sir," was the answer.  "I wouldn't be
+on to my job it I didn't know how and when to discriminate in matters
+of that sort.  Will you register?"
+
+Curtis took a pen and wrote:
+
+"Mr. and Lady Hermione Curtis, and maid."  Some imp of adventure moved
+him to inscribe "Pekin" in the column for visitors' home addresses.
+But the clerk was obviously impressed by Hermione's title, no less than
+the singularly remote locality the couple hailed from.  He leant back,
+and took a key from its hook.
+
+"Page!" he said.  "Show Mr. Curtis and her ladyship to Suite F."  Then
+he added, as an afterthought: "Would you like dinner served in your
+sitting-room, sir?"
+
+"I think so," said Curtis, "but my wife shall decide a little later."
+
+Hermione kept silent until they were safely behind the closed door of a
+well-furnished and delightfully spacious apartment.
+
+"Of course, I bear all expenses," she said firmly.
+
+"What--are we quarreling already?" he asked.
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"You think I am being wildly extravagant.  Why, bless your ladyship's
+dear little heart, this hotel doesn't begin to know how to charge like
+a taxi.  Now, no argument till to-morrow.  An American millionaire can
+really be quite a decent sort of fellow at times, and, if we may assume
+that this is one of the times, please let me play at being a
+millionaire--for once."
+
+She raised her veil, and looked at him, straight in the eyes.
+
+"Why are you so different from other men?  Why have I never before
+spoken to a man like you?" she asked.
+
+"But I am not different, and there are plenty of men like me; the other
+poor chaps haven't had my glorious chance of serving you--that is all.
+Now, won't you go and see if your room is comfortable, and whether or
+not Marcelle's quarters are just right?  Then come back here, and we'll
+discuss menus, for which purpose I shall ring for a waiter _ek dum_."
+
+"Is that Chinese?"
+
+"No, Hindustani.  It means 'at once,' but every hotel-wala east of Suez
+understands it."
+
+Still she lingered.
+
+"Have you any sisters--a mother living?" she said.
+
+"No.  I'm the sole survivor of my own family.  But I mean to give
+myself the pleasure of a full introduction while we dine, or sup.  Do
+say you are hungry."
+
+"I have not eaten a morsel since luncheon," she confessed.
+
+"Oh, joy!  I must interview the head waiter.  No common serf will
+suffice.  Please hurry."
+
+She left him, not without an impulsive movement as though she meant to
+utter some further words of thanks, but checked her intent on the very
+threshold of speech.  As the lock of the bedroom door clicked, and he
+was alone, he essayed a review of the amazing sequence of events which
+had befallen since he strolled out of the dining-room of the Central
+Hotel.  He stood there, motionless, with hands plunged deep in his
+pockets, but, at the outset of a reverie in which judgment and prudence
+might have helped in the council, he happened to catch sight of himself
+in an oblong mirror over the mantelpiece, for the apartment, redolent
+of New York's later architecture, contained an open grate, and was
+furnished with the chaste beauty of the Chippendale period.  In his
+present position the reflection in the mirror was oddly reminiscent of
+a half-length portrait of his grandfather, the warrior who rode at the
+head of the Fifth Cavalry in '61.
+
+Then Curtis laughed, with the pleasant conviction of a man whose mind
+has been made up for him by circumstances beyond his control.
+
+"It's bred in the bone--a clear case of Mendelism," he murmured softly,
+because he had just remembered how Colonel Curtis, before ever the war
+was ended and its bitterness assuaged, had decided a Southern girl's
+conflict between love and duty by galloping fifty miles across
+Confederate South Carolina and carrying off the lady.
+
+Grandfather and grandson alike were men of action.  Curtis seldom used
+a gesture, and never cried over spilt milk.  Now he merely turned,
+peered into his own bedroom, assured himself that Hermione would find
+its prototype to her fancy, and then summoned a waiter.
+
+Behind the closed door of the other room a girl was similarly engaged
+in taking stock of the situation; but she had feminine assistance, so
+there was bound to be talk.
+
+"Oh, your ladyship, isn't this just the dandiest bit out of a novel you
+ever read?" cried Marcelle when she entered her mistress's room through
+a communicating door.
+
+"It might be more thrilling if it were not a page out of my own life,"
+said Hermione sadly.  She, too, was gazing in a mirror, though, being a
+woman, the oppressive thought bobbed up through a sea of troubles that
+her hair must be untidy, and she owned neither comb nor brush.
+
+"But, what luck, miss, your ladyship, to have found a gentleman like
+Mr. Curtis at the right moment.  Talk about life buoys for drowning men
+and rich uncles from California in plays--who ever heard of anyone
+wanting a nice husband and getting him in such a way!"
+
+Marcelle's eyes were positively glistening.  And these two now were not
+mistress and maid, but a pair of highly strung women, and young ones at
+that.
+
+"You have lost your wits in this night's excitement, Marcelle," said
+Hermione.  "Don't you realize that I am only married under mere
+pretense.  Mr. Curtis is nothing to me, nor I to him.  He has been kind
+and gallant, and I am under an obligation which I can never
+discharge--but that is not marriage."
+
+"It's awful like it, your ladyship."
+
+"No, no.  Drive such nonsense from your head.  When you marry, don't
+you hope to love the man of your choice, and will you not feel sure
+that he loves you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, miladi."
+
+"Then how is it possible for any relationship of that sort to exist
+between Mr. Curtis and me?"
+
+"You've gone a long way already, ma'am," giggled Marcelle.
+
+"Please don't call me ma'am.  It--it irritates me."
+
+"Sorry, miladi, but you will admit, at least, a marriage being
+necessary, that you were fortunate in finding Mr. Curtis?"
+
+"Yes, doubly fortunate--it is that fact which makes things hard for me."
+
+"Makes what things hard, your ladyship?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  I scarce recognize my own voice.  Marcelle, if I
+seem distraught and unreasonable, promise me you will pay no heed.  For
+pity's sake, don't leave me!"
+
+Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and Marcelle was on the verge of
+hysteria.
+
+"I--can't imagine--what there is--to cry about," she murmured brokenly.
+"Nothing on earth would induce me to go away now--but I do hope--and
+pray--you will be happy--even though--you only met your husband--little
+more than an hour ago! . . .  And I believe in my heart, Lady Hermione,
+that you will soon see how fortunate you were in escaping that mincing
+little Frenchman----"
+
+"Marcelle, the poor man is dead."
+
+"Then it is the best turn he has done you, miladi.  I never fancied
+him.  There was something underhanded and mean about him.  I have seen
+his face when you were not looking, and I'm sure he was a hypocrite."
+
+"Marcelle, you will drive me crazy.  Don't you understand that I have
+never intended to marry anybody--really?"
+
+A knock at the door opening into the sitting-room came to Hermione's
+relief.
+
+"Yes?" she said.
+
+"If you can spare Marcelle, I would recommend that she should go to
+your flat for any clothes you may need," said Curtis's voice.
+
+Hermione threw open the door.
+
+"A little while ago you told me that it was impossible to think of
+returning there," she said.
+
+"For you, yes, but not for your maid.  Who is to hinder?  That man,
+Rafferty, looked a decent sort of fellow."
+
+"I can manage Rafferty all right," put in Marcelle.
+
+"Of course you can," smiled Curtis.  "Just pack a trunk or a couple of
+bags with Lady Hermione's belongings--you know what to bring--and get
+Rafferty to call a taxi without attracting too much notice.  If you
+think you are being followed, put your pursuers off the scent.  But my
+own view is that 1000 59th Street is the last place anyone will think
+of watching to-night."
+
+"Shall I go at once, your ladyship?" said Marcelle, and Hermione said
+"Yes," with a meekness that was admirable in a wife.
+
+Curtis looked at his pretty bride's hat.
+
+"I have ordered a meal," he said.  "It will be served in a few minutes."
+
+"I shall be ready," she replied, beginning nervously to take off her
+gloves.  The wedding ring was inclined to accompany the left hand
+glove, but, after a second's hesitation, she replaced it.  When she
+appeared in the sitting-room she had discarded her jacket, a
+close-fitting one of a style that fastened _à la militaire_, high in
+the neck.  Beneath it she had been wearing a white silk blouse, and the
+delicate pink of her arms and throat was revealed now through its
+diaphanous sheen.  A string of pearls supported a diamond cross on her
+breast, and on her left wrist was a watch set in small diamonds and
+turquoises and carried by a bracelet of gold filigree.  She wore only
+one ring--_the_ ring--and even the slight glance which Curtis gave it
+brought a vivid blush to her cheeks.
+
+"I am not a past master in the art of ordering banquets," he said
+cheerily, turning at once to draw her attention to the table, "but the
+head-waiter here is a gourmet.  He suggested caviare, a white soup, a
+king-fish, a tourne-dos, and a grouse--does that appeal?"
+
+"You take my breath away," she said, with valorous effort to seem at
+ease.
+
+"Now--as to wine?"
+
+"I seldom touch wine."
+
+"To-night it will make you sleep.  What do you say to a glass of Clos
+Vosgeot?"
+
+"Is that a claret?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, as it happens, that is the one wine I take."
+
+The dinner proceeded most pleasantly.  To his own astonishment, Curtis
+worked up sufficient appetite to enjoy the meal, though he would have
+stuffed himself remorselessly to save his charming _vis-à-vis_ from the
+slightest embarrassment.  But he only sipped the wine, for a sixth
+sense warned him that he must keep a clear head that night.
+
+By inference rather than plain statement, for a deft waiter was
+constantly coming in and out, he supplied Hermione with glimpses of his
+own career, and ascertained from her that she had secured Marcelle's
+services through the good offices of a lady who was a fellow-passenger
+on the ship.
+
+"She comes from New Orleans, but, notwithstanding her name, she does
+not speak French," said Hermione.  "I think that rather accounts
+for----"
+
+She stopped, and Curtis did not press for an explanation, but she
+continued, after a second's pause:
+
+"Marcelle did not like Monsieur de Courtois.  I imagined she was
+annoyed because he always conversed with me in a language she did not
+understand."
+
+"Then I shall avoid Chinese," he laughed.
+
+"Marcelle----"
+
+Again she hesitated.  She was positively dismayed by consciousness of
+the imminent disclosure, yet too well-bred even to appear to be
+withholding confidences.
+
+"You have won Marcelle's golden opinion already," she said.  "But let
+us talk of something else."
+
+For the moment they were alone, and she glanced at the watch on her
+wrist.
+
+"Have you made any plans?" she inquired, and her voice was low, yet
+sufficiently composed.
+
+"For the future?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When Marcelle arrives, I am going to my hotel for some baggage.  You,
+I suggest, are going to bed."
+
+"You will return?"
+
+"Within the hour--if I am alive."
+
+"And to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow, may it please your ladyship, we breakfast together at nine
+o'clock."
+
+"Your plan, then, is mainly composed of eating and sleeping?"
+
+"What else--our policy is one of drifting."
+
+"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."
+
+"It is 'Jack' in the compact."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Alas, this compact reads only one way.  It means that you give and I
+receive.  Will you--will you believe, in the future, that despair alone
+could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"
+
+"No," he said sturdily.
+
+"No?  That is the only unkind thing you have said."
+
+"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair.
+But--here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages.  I hear thuds in
+the next room."
+
+And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's
+voice reached them sharply from the corridor:
+
+"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box!  Do you think you are an
+express man, or what?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NINE-THIRTY
+
+Chance is often a skilled stage manager, and chance had arranged a
+really effective scene in the hall of the Central Hotel.  The Earl of
+Valletort seemed to be somewhat unwilling to take up any of the
+gauntlets so readily thrown down by Devar and the Curtis family, and,
+for a few seconds, the ring of reporters was held spellbound by a
+situation which promised most excellently with regard to the
+all-important question of "copy."
+
+Then the police captain, after waiting for Steingall to take the lead,
+nudged his silent colleague, and said gruffly:
+
+"This thing cannot be gone into here.  Those who can bring forward
+testimony of any value ought to come with Mr. Steingall and myself to
+the precinct station-house."
+
+"Why lose time which cannot be overtaken later?" urged the Earl,
+appealing to Steingall, since it was the detective who had spoken to
+him in the first instance.
+
+"We appear to be at cross purposes," said Steingall.  "How did you two
+gentlemen get to know that a murder had been committed?"
+
+"Murder!" gasped Count Vassilan.
+
+"We are not talking of a murder, but of a most scandalous abduction,
+which will provide only one of a number of most serious charges against
+this person, Curtis," cried the Earl.
+
+Vassilan seized him by the arm excitedly.
+
+"Don't you understand, dear friend," he muttered in French.  "The
+rascal must have killed de Courtois in order to gain possession of the
+marriage certificate."
+
+"It will save trouble, sir, if you speak English here," said Steingall.
+Then he turned to the hotel clerk.
+
+"Place a room at our disposal at once.  Lord Valletort is quite right.
+We have not a second to waste."
+
+A murmur of protest arose from the pressmen, though it was obvious that
+the police could not conduct the inquiry in the midst of an
+ever-growing crowd of residents and servants.
+
+"Say, Steingall," whispered the reporter who had spoken for the others
+earlier, "can't you let us into this?  We'll suppress anything you
+wish--I'll guarantee that, absolutely without reservation."
+
+"_I_ have no objection, but these high-toned strangers may not like
+it," said the detective quietly.
+
+The Earl, when the point was referred to him, made no difficulty
+whatsoever about the presence of the journalists--in fact, he rather
+welcomed publicity.
+
+"It is better that the truth should appear than a garbled and
+misleading version," he said affably.  "I want your help, gentlemen.  I
+know enough of newspaper ways to feel sure that a story of some sort
+will be star-headed in every news sheet in New York to-morrow, so my
+friend, Count Vassilan, and I are more than willing that you should be
+well informed."
+
+Now, that phase of the problem was precisely what Count Ladislas
+Vassilan seemed to be exceedingly disconcerted about.  He was
+singularly ill at ease.  His florid face had paled to a dusky wanness
+when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served
+only to increase his agitation.  Steingall, to all intents and purposes
+paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not
+missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous
+gesture.  His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had
+fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence.  Curtis had hazarded a
+guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a
+Hungarian Count denouncing Curtis.  Certainly that question of
+nationality promised remarkable developments.
+
+When the whole party, consisting of some fifteen persons, had gathered
+behind the closed door of the hotel's private office, Steingall took
+the lead in directing the proceedings.
+
+"It will help straighten out a tangle if I say exactly what has taken
+place here to-night--that is, to the best of our knowledge," he said.
+"There is every reason to believe that Mr. John D. Curtis arrived in
+New York this afternoon from Europe----"
+
+"Right," broke in Devar.  "I traveled with him on the _Lusitania_."
+
+"Yes, his presence on board was announced in most of the papers," added
+a journalist.
+
+"Please don't interrupt," said the detective.  "You will be heard in
+your turn.  Now, this Mr. Curtis was allotted room No. 605, and there
+is evidence to prove that he behaved like any ordinary individual who
+had just come from shipboard.  He superintended the unpacking of his
+clothes, gave out a quantity of linen for the laundry, changed into
+evening dress, and dined alone.  Thus far, there is ample corroboration
+of his own story, because his movements can be checked by the
+observation of half-a-dozen hotel employés.  He says, by the way, that
+while buying some stamps at the cigar counter before going to the
+restaurant, he was jostled by a rough-looking foreigner, who apologized
+in broken French, and whom he took to be a Czech or Hungarian.  No one
+seems to have witnessed this incident, but I have not questioned the
+man who sold him the stamps.  Anyhow, after dinner, at twenty minutes
+of eight to be exact, he came into the lobby, intending to inform the
+clerk that he had closed the bedroom door and left his key in the room.
+We have ascertained that this statement is true; the door had to be
+forced, because a bag of golf clubs had fallen and become wedged
+between the door and the side of a steel trunk.  Curtis never did speak
+to the clerk about the key; at that instant, he says, his attention was
+drawn to the queer behavior of the foreigner who had pushed against
+him, and who had been joined in the meantime by another man of similar
+type.  They seemed to be very excited, and were apparently expecting
+someone to turn up, either in the street or from the hotel--Curtis
+fancied that they were on the look-out for interruption, or news, from
+both quarters.  The porter on duty at the door, who is not quite
+intelligible to-night, remembers asking these men if they wanted a
+taxi, but they gave no heed to him.  Then, according to Curtis's
+version of the affair, an automobile dashed up outside, and a young man
+in evening dress, carrying an overcoat, stepped out, and told the
+chauffeur to keep the engine going, as he would not be detained more
+than a minute.  At that instant the two foreigners--Hungarians
+according to Curtis--sprang at the newcomer, and endeavored to force
+him back into the auto.  Failing in this, one of them drew a knife, and
+stabbed him so severely that he died within a few minutes, and without
+uttering an intelligible word.  Curtis ran to help, but was too far
+away to prevent the crime, and was further balked in an attempt to
+seize either of the wretches by having the dying man's body flung in
+his way.  He endeavored to hinder the escape of the scoundrels in the
+automobile, but failed, because the chauffeur was evidently in league
+with them, and, when he came back to the crowd which had collected
+around the prostrate man, it would appear that someone gave him, by
+mistake, the victim's overcoat in place of his own.  This error was not
+discovered until the police came to search the dead man's clothing,
+when various documents showed beyond question that the overcoat
+believed to be his was really Curtis's.  Curtis told his story in a
+clear and straightforward way, and I, for one, have not seen any reason
+to doubt it.  It is odd that he should have disappeared so completely
+since a few minutes after the crime, but that may be capable of a
+simple explanation, while it is possible that he has not as yet
+discovered the change of overcoats, or he must surely have returned and
+informed us of the mistake.  I am assuming, of course, that he would
+act as one would expect of any reasonable minded citizen who had
+witnessed a serious crime. . . .  Now, Lord Valletort, what have you to
+say about Mr. Curtis?"
+
+A guttural exclamation from Count Vassilan drew all eyes to him.  He
+seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was positively livid with
+fright.  In other conditions than those obtaining at the moment, such a
+display of terror on the part of a truculent looking, strongly built
+man would have been almost ludicrous; but Steingall found no humor in
+the spectacle.  He was gazing at the Hungarian with a curious
+concentration, and the police captain, who had begun by thinking his
+colleague was saying far too much, and who was inclined to disagree
+with some of his conclusions, now thought he could discern method in
+his madness.
+
+Again did Vassilan murmur something to the Earl in a strange tongue,
+and Valletort, with difficulty repressing his annoyance, explained that
+his friend was feeling the effects of a blow received earlier in the
+evening, and wished to retire at once to his room in the
+Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
+
+"By all means," said Steingall suavely.  "I gather that Count Vassilan
+has no connection with the inquiry--in fact, he is not interested in
+it."
+
+"He is, in a sense----" began the Earl, but Vassilan grasped his arm,
+and evidently besought him to come away without another word.  Though
+Valletort was in a towering rage, he obviously thought fit to fall in
+with his companion's views.
+
+"You see how it is," he said, with a nonchalant gesture that was belied
+by his grating tone.  "I am afraid I must postpone my branch of this
+inquiry till a later hour--probably until the morning."
+
+"Do you withdraw all charges against John D. Curtis?" demanded Devar,
+and his clear, incisive voice was distinctly hostile in its icy
+precision.
+
+"No, sir.  I do not," was the angry retort.
+
+"Well, I guess you know best why you and the Hungarian potentate have
+developed this sudden attack of cold feet, but----"
+
+"I'll thank you not to interfere, Mr. Devar," said Steingall
+determinedly.  "If Lord Valletort thinks his business can wait till
+Count Vassilan has recovered from an indisposition, that is his affair
+only."
+
+"I think nothing of the sort," snapped the Earl.  "You all see that the
+Count is ill, and common humanity impels me to attend to him first.  It
+may serve to curb this young gentleman's tongue if I say----"
+
+But Vassilan would not permit him to say anything.  Though he was the
+ailing man, he literally dragged Valletort out of the room and into the
+street.
+
+Steingall looked at the police captain, who quitted the apartment
+instantly.  Then the detective gazed around at the others with a placid
+smile which seemed to show that he, for one, was well content with the
+unusual turn taken by events.
+
+"I suppose you boys have verbatim notes of all that was said," he
+inquired, tossing the remark collectively to the group of pressmen.
+
+"Every word," came the assurance.
+
+"Well, now, I want you to keep all that out of the papers."
+
+"If we do that, Steingall, what is there left?" said one of them
+good-humoredly.
+
+"The biggest thing you have dropped on to this year; unless I am
+greatly mistaken, the scoop of scoops for those who happen to be
+present.  I'm not going to pretend that any of you are blind or deaf,
+and it will assist the police materially if no comment is made on what
+you have heard and seen.  I don't like to put it otherwise than as a
+friendly hint; but I may want the whole bunch as witnesses before this
+thing is through, so your mouths should be closed effectually with
+regard to incidents in this room."
+
+A half-hearted laugh went around, and someone asked:
+
+"We must put up a readable story of some kind--if we cut out certain
+details, surely we can use others?"
+
+"I said 'incidents in this room,'" repeated the detective.
+
+"Then we can mention the arrival of the Earl and the Count on the
+scene?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"One minute, sir," put in Mr. Horace P. Curtis.  "If these gentlemen
+take you at your word, the charge made against my nephew will be
+published throughout the length and breadth of the United States
+to-morrow."
+
+"I don't see how something of the sort is to be avoided," said
+Steingall.
+
+"Then, in common fairness, the newspapers ought to state that my wife
+and I, as well as Mr. Devar, as good as told the Earl that he was
+lying."
+
+"I imagine you can leave the matter safely in the very capable hands of
+the reporters present," said Steingall.
+
+"Remember, please, that no charge was actually named against Curtis,"
+said Devar.  "The Earl of Valletort demanded that he should be found
+and arrested, and described him as a dangerous adventurer, but gave no
+shred of proof of his wild-cat statement that Curtis had been engaged
+in a scandalous abduction, and, when asked for it, discovered that he
+had urgent business elsewhere."
+
+Steingall held up a hand in quiet reproof.
+
+"My own view is that it would be best, at this stage, to say merely
+that the two noblemen came here inquiring for Curtis, and leave it at
+that.  I am not trying to deprive the press of a sensation.  Surely
+there is enough in Chapter One for to-night, and those reporters who
+have had the luck to be present will be able to fill in gaps in
+Chapters Two and Three when they come along to-morrow or next day."
+
+"Right," said the journalist who, by tacit agreement, seemed to
+represent his confrères.  "There are one or two items we want you to
+clear up, if you don't mind.  First, did Curtis, or anybody else, note
+the number of the automobile?"
+
+"Yes," said Steingall instantly.  "The number is X24-305, and Curtis
+heard the man who was murdered address the chauffeur as 'Anatole.'  He
+spoke French to the man, too."
+
+"You omitted both of those interesting facts from your summary,"
+commented the reporter with a smile.
+
+"Did I?  That was a piece of sheer forgetfulness on my part."
+
+"You didn't forget to rope us all in here as witnesses when the
+Hungarian prince came on the boards.  I knew you had something up your
+sleeve the moment you began to fill in details.  But, as to the crime
+itself--have you found out the name of the man who was killed?"
+
+"No.  There were no papers in his clothes, but that may be accounted
+for by the singular accident of the exchange of overcoats.  His linen
+was marked 'H. R. H.'"
+
+"'H. R. H.,'" cried a bespectacled journalist who had been a silent
+listener hitherto.  "That's rather odd.  Those are the initials of
+Henry R. Hunter, a member of our staff.  The news editor wanted him to
+take hold in the first instance when the fact that a murder had been
+committed was 'phoned to the office, but he could not be found
+anywhere, so I am here in his stead."
+
+"I don't recall anyone of that name," said Steingall sharply.
+
+"No, you wouldn't.  He was in our Chicago office till the beginning of
+September.  He did one or two bright things there that caught the
+chief's eye, so he was brought to New York. . . .  By Jove, Hunter is a
+good French scholar.  It was on that account he got on the track of a
+gang of Chicago anarchists."
+
+A curious stillness fell on the gathering.  It was as though a spirit
+of evil had suddenly made its presence felt; even the electric lamps
+seemed to have grown dimmer.
+
+"Describe Hunter."
+
+Steingall's voice rang out incisively; the reporter took off his
+spectacles, and began to burnish them, for his face was glistening with
+perspiration.
+
+"He is about five feet ten inches in height, and weighs somewhere in
+the neighborhood of 150 pounds.  He is straight and well-built, and his
+face is finely molded, with big, luminous eyes, deeply recessed,
+and----"
+
+"Has he a white scar across the left eyebrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+For some reason, the journalist carried his description of Hunter's
+personal appearance no farther.  It was unnecessary.  Before Steingall
+uttered another word everyone in the room had a foreboding that they
+were on the threshold of a discovery which lifted this tragedy into a
+prominence far beyond aught they had yet dreamed of.
+
+Except for that momentary touch of amazement in the detective's tone
+they could gather nothing from his manner.  But his invariable habit
+was to speak to the point, and without the least suggestion of
+ambiguity in his words.
+
+"I am very much afraid, gentlemen, that the murdered man is Mr. Henry
+B. Hunter," he said.  "I must trouble you to come with me, and place
+the question of identity beyond doubt.  I hope that you, Mr. and Mrs.
+Curtis, and you, Mr. Devar, will make it convenient to await my return.
+There are matters on which you can give me valuable information."
+
+In a few seconds the three found themselves alone.  The clerk had
+business to attend to, but he courteously invited them to remain in the
+office until the detective came back.
+
+"Did you ever hear such nonsense as this talk about Curtis being mixed
+up in an abduction?" began Devar, eager to dispossess his friend's
+relatives of any false impressions they might have formed.  "Why, he
+didn't know a soul in the States--except yourselves," he added
+tactfully.
+
+The uncle, who had been polishing his domed forehead with a large
+handkerchief at intervals during the past quarter of an hour, cleared
+his throat as a preliminary to some important announcement, but his
+better half had only kept silent because of a real fear that her nephew
+had been engaged in the commission of serious crime from the instant he
+set foot in New York, and she entered the fray vigorously now.
+
+"We don't know much about him, and that's the truth, Mr. Devar," she
+cried.  "There was some family disagreement years ago, and the brothers
+lost track of each other, but Horace here never forgets a name, and why
+should he, seeing that John was his father's name, and Delancy his
+mother's, and our nephew has both, so the minute we saw that paragraph
+in the Chicago papers about the eminent American engineer who had been
+building railways in China being on board the _Lusitania_, I says to
+Horace: 'Horace, it would be shame on us if we allowed your brother's
+son and your own nephew to arrive in New York without some of his kith
+and kin to bid him welcome,' and with that we hustled to catch the next
+train east, but the steamer did the trip quicker'n we counted on, and
+we just missed being at the docks, so if it hadn't been for our good
+luck in finding the man who helped John with his baggage, and who
+remembered the name of the hotel he gave the taxi-driver, we might have
+been searching New York all this blessed night without dreaming of
+coming to such a place as this, because the newspapers spoke so highly
+of John that we made sure he would be stopping in one of the Fifth
+Avenue hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria or Hoffman House, or perhaps
+higher uptown, in the Ritz-Carlton or the Plaza."
+
+Mrs. Curtis was stout, so she yielded perforce to lack of breath, and
+Devar was able to explain smilingly that he, and none other, was
+responsible for the item in the newspapers.
+
+"The fact is that I took a great liking to John D.," he said.  "He is
+such a real good fellow, and so sublimely unconscious of his own
+merits, that I wanted to surprise him by starting a modest boom in the
+press, so I sent a wireless message about him to a journalistic friend
+in New York.  I wondered why the reporters did not get hold of him when
+they came aboard at the quarantine station, but I remember now that, by
+some curious trick of fate, he and I stowed ourselves away in a part of
+the ship where no one was likely to find us, and I clean forgot to put
+them on his track when I went below."
+
+"I guess my nephew has attended to the booming proposition on his own
+account," said Horace, getting under way at last.
+
+Devar laughed, but Mrs. Curtis was shocked.
+
+"Horace!" she cried indignantly, "that's the only unkind thing I've
+heard you say in years.  Oh, yes,"--for her husband had spread his
+hands in mild protest--"I know you didn't mean it, but barbed shafts of
+humor often fall in places where they hurt, and it is terrible to think
+of your nephew being mixed up in a murder, and an abduction, and----"
+
+She broke off in mid-career, and fixed a stern eye on Devar.
+
+"Are you quite sure he didn't get flirting with some giddy young thing
+on board?" she demanded.  "I've heard and read of some strange
+goings-on among people crossing the Atlantic.  I could tell you of two
+marriages and no less than five divorces which----"
+
+Devar was a polite young man, but he thought the situation called for
+firmness.
+
+"To the best of my belief, your nephew never so much as spoke to any
+lady on the ship," he vowed.  "He read a good deal, and played cards
+occasionally, and walked the decks with me when the weather permitted,
+but he did not even mention a woman's name except your own, madam."
+
+"The marvel is that he mentioned us at all," said Horace.
+
+Devar thought in his own mind, that the elder Curtis might be ponderous
+in body and speech but he certainly revealed horse sense when he opened
+his mouth.
+
+"And whose fault was that, I should like to know?" cried Mrs. Curtis.
+"Didn't your own brother quarrel with you because you said he ought to
+have married a woman of some stability of character, and not a pretty,
+feather-headed girl who spent her days reading poetry and her nights in
+attending lectures, and who didn't begin to understand the A.B.C. of a
+wife's domestic duties?"
+
+"Maybe I was wrong and he was right," said her husband.
+
+"Horace!"
+
+Mrs. Curtis was marshaling her forces for a mighty effort when the door
+opened, and Steingall entered, accompanied by a tall, well set-up man
+in evening dress, and wearing an open overcoat and green Homburg hat.
+
+"Well," cried Devar, springing forward with outstretched hand, "I'm
+mighty glad to see you, John D.!"
+
+The newcomer's face lit with pleasure, but before he could utter a
+responsive word Mrs. Curtis gurgled:
+
+"John D.! . . .  Are you John Delancy Curtis? . . .  Horace, is this
+your nephew?"
+
+"Judging from his looks, Louisa, he ought to be," said the stout man,
+gazing at the stranger with wide-eyed astonishment.
+
+The Christian names of the couple acted like a galvanic battery on
+Curtis.  At first, he could hardly believe his ears, but some
+resemblance in the portly Curtis to his own father warned him that this
+night of nights had not yet exhausted its store of stupefying surprises.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, smiling cheerfully, "you must be my uncle and aunt
+from Bloomington, Indiana!"
+
+"If you're John Delancy Curtis, that's our correct description," said
+Horace.
+
+"Of course he is," chortled Mrs. Curtis.  "He's as like you the day I
+married you as two peas in a pod, and if our little Horace had been
+spared he would have been his living image.  Nephew, I'm proud to meet
+you," and Mrs. Curtis folded her relation in an ample embrace.
+
+Curtis carried off a difficult situation with ease.  He kissed his
+aunt, shook hands with his uncle, and was about to answer the lady's
+torrent of questions with regard to himself and his own people when
+Steingall interfered.
+
+"Sorry to interrupt you," he said, "but the turn taken by to-night's
+crime demands your immediate attention, Mr. Curtis.  Do you know you
+are wearing the dead man's overcoat?"
+
+"Yes.  I discovered that fact some time ago."
+
+Curtis's prompt admission was more favorable to his cause than he could
+possibly realize then, though he had seen that the detective's
+extraordinarily brilliant eyes were fixed on the garment's
+blood-stained sleeve.
+
+"And have you learnt the owner's name?" went on Steingall quietly.
+
+"Yes, that is, I believe so, owing to a document I found in one of the
+pockets."
+
+"Ah, what was that?"
+
+"It concerned another person, but I am prepared to tell you its nature
+if it is absolutely essential."
+
+"Believe me, there must be no concealment--now."
+
+Something in the detective's tone conveyed a hint of peril, of
+suspicion, to the ears of one so accustomed to dealing with his
+fellow-men as was Curtis.  But he shook off the premonition of ill, and
+decided, once and for all, to be candor itself where the authorities
+were concerned.
+
+"It was a marriage license," he said.
+
+"And the names on it?"
+
+"They were those of a Frenchman, Jean de Courtois, and of an English
+lady, Hermione Beauregard Grandison."
+
+"So you have imagined that the man who was killed was this Monsieur
+Jean de Courtois?"
+
+For the life of him, Curtis could not prevent the tumultuous pumping of
+his heart from drawing some of the color from his face.
+
+"Who else?" he inquired, never flinching from Steingall's searching
+gaze.
+
+"No matter who owned the coat, or whom the license was intended for,
+the murdered man was no Frenchman, but a New York journalist named
+Henry R. Hunter," said Steingall.
+
+Then Curtis yielded to the swift conviction that he had unwittingly
+trapped Lady Hermione into a marriage on grounds that were inadequate
+and false.
+
+"Good God!" he muttered, and, for the moment, it was impossible for his
+hearers to resist the dreadful inference that, in some shape or form,
+he was implicated in the outrage which bulked so large in their minds.
+Mrs. Curtis wanted to scream aloud, but she dared not.  Even Devar was
+staggered by his friend's unaccountable attitude.  The only outwardly
+unmoved individual present was Horace P. Curtis.  He turned and pressed
+an electric bell; Steingall glared at him, so he explained his action.
+
+"I feel like a highball," he said blandly.  "I guess Mrs. Curtis could
+do with one also.  In fact, five highballs would be a bully good
+notion."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TEN O'CLOCK
+
+Curtis had seized the opportunity while Hermione was in her room before
+dinner to rub the blood-stained sleeve of the overcoat with a wet
+cloth.  He had not, of course, been able to eradicate the ghastly dye
+wholly from the thick material, but the garment was now wearable, at
+any rate by night, and he had little fear of attracting attention as he
+crossed the brilliantly lighted foyer of the hotel.
+
+Passing out by the Fifth Avenue exit, he began the second cigar of the
+evening, and stood in the porch for a moment to collect his faculties.
+The time was five minutes of ten, and he had been married about an hour
+and a half.  He had just finished his second dinner, and for the
+guerdon of companionship with the charming and gracious girl whom fate
+had figuratively thrown into his arms he would cheerfully have tackled
+a third meal without any personal qualms as to subsequent indigestion.
+
+But, joking apart, he was married.  That was the overwhelming feature
+of life, a feature which dwarfed every other circumstance much as
+grimly gigantic Windsor Castle dominates the puny town beneath its
+walls.  The mere tying of the matrimonial knot had not troubled him.
+He was heart whole and fancy free then--or, not to strain the metaphor,
+he could have boasted those attributes a little earlier in the
+evening--and he recked nothing of the really serious legal disabilities
+incurred by the adventure.  But, like every other young man, his
+thoughts had turned sometimes to a young woman--not any special young
+woman, but that nebulous entity which is necessarily bound up with the
+notion that some day, somewhere, somehow, a man will encounter the maid
+in whose limpid eyes lurks his destiny.  He had pictured the desirable
+one in day-dreams, and, merely because of his violent antipathy towards
+the Eurasian element in the Far East, the dulcissima had appeared
+invariably as a tall, slender creature, with the lightest of flaxen
+hair and the grayest of gray eyes.  Now, some alchemy devised by the
+magician spirit of New York had fashioned his ideal, though slender,
+not so tall, and she owned a wealth of brown hair, hair that shone and
+glistened in every changing light, while her eyes were either blue or
+violet, just as one happened to catch the glint of them.  And she had
+fascinating ways, too, which the lady of his fantasy could never have
+displayed, or he would not have abandoned the vision so readily.  When
+she smiled, it was with lips and eyes in unison.  When she spoke he
+heard harmonies not framed in mere words, whereas the other fair dame
+was unquestionably a deaf mute.
+
+Indeed, while his glance was dwelling, to all outward semblance, on the
+passing traffic of one of New York's busiest thoroughfares, he was
+admitting to himself that he was deeply, irrevocably, in love, and the
+knowledge was almost stupefying.  To one of Curtis's temperament it
+seemed to be a wildly fanciful thing that he should have yielded so
+swiftly.  Two hours ago he had not seen Hermione, did not even know her
+name, whereas now he breathed it with devout reverence, though, with a
+perverseness seldom attached to such circumstances, the amazing fact
+that she was his wife formed a stubborn barrier against which the flood
+of new-born desire must rage in vain.  For, above all else, he held
+dear his plighted word.  He knew now that the marriage offered an
+almost insuperable obstacle to any effort on his part to win the girl's
+affections.  In her despair she had trusted him, and he awoke with a
+guilty start to consciousness of that winsome face being wrung with a
+new terror if for one instant she had reason to suspect him of other
+than the altruistic motives he had professed in giving her the
+protection of his name.
+
+Perhaps, in time--well, he was done now with moon-madness, and he
+stepped briskly down the avenue, firm set in purpose to risk everything
+for his wife's sake, and let the future rest in the lap of the gods.
+
+This, be it noted, was his first stroll in New York.  The night was
+fine and clear, for Rafferty's diagnosis of "a touch of frost in the
+air" was becoming justified, and no thoroughfare in the world could
+lend itself more completely to the romance of that walk than the
+wonderful promenade which leads from Central Park to Madison Square.
+With few exceptions, the nineteenth century plutocrat has been ousted
+from that section of Fifth Avenue; a giant democracy has reared its own
+palaces in the shape of hotels and office buildings which pierce the
+skies, stores which rival the proudest mansions of Venice in its heyday
+and Florence under Lorenzo Medici.  Never in after life did Curtis
+forget that intimate glimpse of the grandeur and wealth of his native
+place.  Coming up the harbor by daylight he had been overwhelmed by New
+York's proud defiance of the limits imposed by nature, but now, partly
+veiled by the mystery of night, the city displayed a feminine beauty at
+once entrancing and elusive.
+
+At a cross street he paused for a moment to admire a gem of
+architecture wrenched bodily from its Cinque Cento setting by
+Brunelleschi, and transplanted to this new land to serve the opulent
+need of a vendor of precious stones and metals.  In the strip of dark
+blue firmament visible above the admirably proportioned cornice he
+caught sight of two planets flaming high in the west, and in close
+juxtaposition.  Necessity had made him somewhat of an astronomer, and
+he had studied Chinese astrology as a pastime.  He recognized these
+lamps of the empyrean as Mars and Venus, and, up-to-date American
+though he was, drew comfort from that favoring augury.  Then, in
+stepping from the roadway to the sidewalk, he stumbled over a heavy
+curb, and laughed at the reminder that star-gazing did not reveal
+pitfalls before unwary feet.
+
+The incident knocked some of the poetry out of him, and it was a quite
+normal and level-headed young man who walked into the Central Hotel
+soon after ten o'clock, and found Detective Steingall's gaze resting on
+him contemplatively from the neighborhood of the cigar counter.
+
+Before rejoining the waiting trio in the office, Steingall was
+interviewing the youth in charge of the tobacco and current literature
+department.
+
+Such story as the boy had to tell was hardly in favor of Curtis.
+
+"The gentleman came here to buy some stamps, and he and a man who was
+reading in the café said something to each other in a foreign lingo,"
+ran the recital.  "No, I don't think I would recognize French if I
+heard it--American is good enough for me--but there was no argument,
+nothing in the shape of a quarrel.  The Englishman spoke twice, and the
+other fellar three times."
+
+"Mr. Curtis is an American," Steingall explained.
+
+"Well, he doesn't talk like one, anyhow," pronounced young New York--in
+this instance, of a pronounced Jewish type--which is perhaps the most
+dogmatic juvenility extant.
+
+Then Curtis entered.  He glanced around, and seemed to be gratified by
+the discovery that the hotel had lost its inquisitive crowd.  He did
+not realize that every newspaper office in New York was alive with
+conjecture of which he was the chief figure, and that telegraph and
+telephone were carrying his name and fame across the length and breadth
+of the country.
+
+"Hello!" he said, hailing Steingall affably, "you here still?  Has
+anything turned up with regard to those scoundrels and their
+automobile?"
+
+"Not a word--about them," said the detective.
+
+The purveyor of cigars and news was positively awe-stricken.  He was
+aware of Steingall's repute as the "man with the microscopic eye," and
+he fully expected that the "sleuth's" penetrating organ had already
+discerned the word "murderer" branded on Curtis's shirt front.
+
+"What time will you want me in the morning?" went on Curtis, looking in
+the direction of the office.  He was really thinking about the mislaid
+key; not for an instant did he imagine that by that simple gesture he
+had almost eradicated from Steingall's mind the germ of doubt which
+events had certainly conspired to plant there.
+
+"I want you now," came the somewhat startling answer.
+
+"Eh, why?"
+
+"Some friends of yours are anxious to see you.  They are in the private
+office over there," and Steingall thrust out his chin in the indicative
+manner which the Romans used to call _annuens_.
+
+"Oh, Howard Devar, I suppose.  But who else?"
+
+"Come along, Mr. Curtis.  You can stand a pleasant surprise, I am
+sure," and, with that, the detective led the way across the hall,
+leaving the youthful Jew in a maze of conflicting emotions, for,
+according to all the rules of the game as played in the dime novel, the
+tec' should have sprung on his prey like a tiger.  Another person whose
+nervous system received a shock was the super-clerk.  He, like the boy,
+knew of the network of suspicion which had closed on Curtis during the
+past two hours, and he had watched the cordial meeting between the two
+men with something akin to stupefaction.
+
+But neither of these onlookers had grasped the really essential fact
+that Steingall did not say one word as to the hue and cry which
+resulted from Curtis's strange disappearance.  The detective was a
+master of the art of restraint.  In his own way, he applied to his
+profession the maxim of Horace--_Ars est celare artem_.
+
+And he had his reward in that cry of dismay, almost of horror, which
+burst from Curtis's lips when he heard the true name of the murdered
+man.
+
+Uncle Horace's seemingly maladroit interruption (it raised him to a
+pinnacle of esteem in Devar's mind from which he was never dislodged
+subsequently) prevented any striking development until a glad-eyed
+waiter had entered and taken an order for four highballs.  Even Mrs.
+Curtis admitted the need of a stimulant, but Curtis steadily refused
+any intoxicant, even the mildest.  Steingall endured the delay
+stoically.  He actually held back a sufficient time to allow Horace P.
+Curtis to empty his glass with one well-sustained effort.  Then he came
+to close quarters with Napoleonic directness.
+
+"I take it you assumed that the dead man was the Jean de Courtois
+mentioned in the marriage license?" he said.
+
+He gave that question pride of place in pursuance of a queer thought
+which had leaped into his brain during the enforced interval.  But, if
+he had been thinking hard, so had Curtis, and the latter had outlined a
+plan of action which was fated to disrupt Steingall's, much as a
+harmless looking percussion cap may interfere with the smug torpor of a
+powder magazine.
+
+"Yes," said Curtis, with the judicial nod of a man who states a
+comparatively obvious fact.
+
+"Have you that license?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Reposing in the writing-desk of the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes, a minister
+of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who lives in 56th Street, near
+Seventh Avenue."
+
+"And what is it doing there, pray?"
+
+"I used it.  I have married Lady Hermione Grandison."
+
+Steingall permitted himself the rare luxury of a semi-hysterical break
+in his voice.
+
+"What!" he cried.  "Is she the daughter of the Earl of Valletort?"
+
+"Precisely, though you astonish me by the ease with which you connect
+two such widely different names.  Such knowledge usually implies a
+close acquaintance with the amiable foibles of the British aristocracy."
+
+Certainly it was well that Mrs. Horace P. Curtis had partaken of a
+tonic in the shape of a highball.
+
+"Well!" she gasped.
+
+For once she was practically speechless, but she gave the astounded
+Devar a pitiless glance which said plainly:
+
+"Wait till I get my breath, young man, and I'll take some of the
+cocksureness out of you!"
+
+Steingall soon gathered his scattered wits.
+
+"Are you really speaking seriously, Mr. Curtis?" he asked.
+
+"Quite seriously."
+
+"Was this marriage an arranged affair?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  The marriage itself was prearranged."
+
+"Candidly, I don't understand you."
+
+"No?  I am not surprised.  But I do not wish you to remain under any
+misapprehension as to the true state of affairs.  Lady Hermione
+Grandison meant to marry a French music-master named Jean de Courtois.
+I thought, thought honestly but mistakenly, that the man was dead, and,
+as it was of vital importance that her ladyship should get married
+to-night, I offered my services as Jean de Courtois' substitute, and
+they were accepted."
+
+"Am I to take that statement as literally true?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"You were not acquainted with the lady earlier?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Never seen or heard of her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How did you come to engage in this--this freak marriage, then?"
+
+Curtis measured Steingall with a contemplative eye.
+
+"You are called on to assimilate a novel idea, and, in consequence, are
+choosing your words badly," he said.  "It was not a freak marriage.
+Although I may have broken the laws of the State of New York by using a
+license issued to some other person, Lady Hermione and I are legally
+husband and wife, and no power on earth can dissolve the union without
+the expressed consent of one or both of us."
+
+"Do you mean me to accept the bald theory that you first learnt the
+lady's name and address from a document discovered in another man's
+overcoat, that you went to her house, told her the man was dead, and
+suggested that you should become the bridegroom in his stead?"
+
+"As an adjective, 'bald' is--well, bald.  But you've got the affair
+sized up accurately otherwise."
+
+"Oh, the shameless hussy!" broke in Mrs. Horace vehemently.
+
+Steingall turned on her with a certain heat of manner.
+
+"Do not interrupt, madam, I beg," he exclaimed.
+
+"Better reserve judgment, aunt, until you have met my wife," said
+Curtis.  He spoke gently enough.  He had appraised his relatives almost
+at a glance, and was sufficiently broad-minded to allow for the natural
+distress of a respectable middle-aged lady who had been whirled, as it
+were, out of her wonted environment, and rapt into the realms of
+necromancy and Arabian Nights.
+
+Steingall swept aside this intermission with the emphatic hand of a
+cross-examining lawyer.
+
+"You say it was 'of vital importance that the lady should be married
+to-night.'  What does that imply?"
+
+"Do you wish me to put it in different language?"
+
+"I want to know what the vitally important reason was.  I presume she
+furnished one?"
+
+"Ah, but how does that concern the New York police, Mr. Steingall?"
+
+"Every element in this business concerns us.  The license was in
+Hunter's possession--was he bringing it to someone named de Courtois?
+Or was he masquerading under an alias?"
+
+"Answering your second question, I imagine not.  I have the best of
+reasons for believing that Jean de Courtois exists.  I wish now I
+hadn't.  Don't you see, Steingall, I am in a deuce of a fix?  I married
+the lady under a misapprehension.  She might have really preferred this
+fellow, de Courtois."
+
+Steingall liked a joke as well as any man in New York, and was not at
+all averse from chaffing some of his less gifted colleagues when their
+obtuseness or faithful adherence to the letter of instructions
+permitted a criminal to befool them; but he resented the levity of
+Curtis's tone now, though, deep in his heart, he felt that he liked the
+man.
+
+"You don't seem to realize the peculiarly awkward position in which you
+stand," he said, with due official gravity.
+
+"On the contrary, I feel it acutely.  What am I to say to my wife----?"
+
+"I am not wrung with agony over the lady's sensitiveness," broke in the
+detective dryly.  "A good many people believe that you were concerned
+in this murder.  There are not lacking circumstantial details which
+warrant that view.  I am not saying too much when I tell you that some
+men, in my shoes, would arrest you forthwith."
+
+Curtis looked at Steingall quizzically, and even laughed with a
+whole-hearted appreciation of the jest.
+
+"Lucky for me I have fallen into the hands of a sensible person," he
+said.
+
+"Allow me to remark," put in Uncle Horace solemnly, "that Mr. Steingall
+has won my unstinted admiration by the way in which he has conducted
+this inquiry."
+
+Devar was beginning to enjoy himself.  He alone was able to estimate
+Curtis at his true worth; even that astounding marriage was losing some
+of its bizarre attributes since Curtis had begun to talk about it.
+
+"Good for you, Mr. Curtis, senior," he crowed delightedly.  "If Indiana
+knew what it really wanted it would run you for Governor."
+
+Steingall nearly became angry.  Indeed, it is probable that he would
+have expressed his sentiments in strong language were it not for the
+presence of Mrs. Curtis.
+
+"Now, sir," he said, with a perceptible stiffening of manner, "let us
+have done with pretense.  You strike me as being sane, yet you ask me
+to believe that you have acted like a lunatic.  Well, let it go at
+that.  Who is this Jean de Courtois, whom Lady Hermione Grandison was
+to have married to-night?"
+
+"My wife tells me that he is a French music-master whom she hired to
+marry her in order that she might escape from a pestiferous person
+named Count Ladislas Vassilan," replied Curtis with cool directness.
+"She brought the obliging individual with her from Paris for the
+purpose, and paid him a thousand dollars as a sort of retaining fee.
+From what little I have seen of her, she impresses me as a charming
+girl wholly without experience of a world which, though not altogether
+wicked, is nevertheless callous and self-seeking.  Among other
+drawbacks, she embarked on a fantastic project with a most disingenuous
+belief in the good faith of a Frenchman.  Now, I admire France as a
+nation, but where women are concerned, I distrust Frenchmen as a race,
+and I suspect--mind you, I am merely guessing--but I repeat that I
+suspect the honesty of Monsieur Jean de Courtois in this matter.  There
+was no earthly reason why he should not have married Lady Hermione some
+weeks ago, but it is clear that he has used every artifice to delay the
+ceremony until to-night--and, it may be found when we learn the facts,
+was prepared to put it off once more till to-morrow or next day.  Why?
+In my opinion, the reason is not far to seek.  The Earl of Valletort
+and Count Ladislas Vassilan were crossing the Atlantic hot in pursuit
+of the unwilling bride.  They arrived in New York to-night, and were so
+well posted in events, both past and prospective, that they headed
+straight for the flat in which Lady Hermione was living with her maid.
+Naturally, I am keenly interested in the causes which led up to a
+peculiarly brutal and uncalled-for murder, and, as my wife's husband, I
+have the further incentive of hoping to bring to justice certain of her
+persecutors whom I cannot help connecting indirectly with the crime of
+which I was, I suppose, one of the most credible and intelligent
+witnesses.  Now, before I was aware that such a winsome creature
+existed as the present Lady Hermione Curtis, I had estimated the
+murderers as Hungarians, two of them at any rate, since I am hardly
+prepared to vouch for the chauffeur.  Count Ladislas Vassilan is a
+Hungarian.  The poor fellow who was killed, though his name is American
+enough, spoke French with a pure accent.  One of the Hungarians spoke
+French, fluently but vilely.  Jean de Courtois is admittedly a
+Frenchman.  I am not a detective, Mr. Steingall, but as a plain man of
+affairs I am forced to the conclusion that there has seldom been a
+similarly mysterious crime in which certain lines of inquiry thrust
+themselves more pertinently on the imagination.  To sum up, I advise
+you to find Jean de Courtois--unless, indeed, he, too, has been
+killed--and you will be in close touch with the origin of the whole
+ugly business."
+
+"Good egg!" cried the irresistible Devar.  "It's a pity you were not
+with us on the _Lusitania_, Mr. Steingall, or you would realize that
+when John D. rears up on his hind legs, and talks like that, there is
+nothing more to be said."
+
+"Is Lady Hermione a pretty girl?" demanded Mrs. Curtis eagerly.  Her
+democratic soul was rejoicing in the discovery that her nephew's wife
+did not lose her title because of the marriage.  Of course, no one ever
+before heard of such folly as this matrimonial leap in the dark, but,
+once taken, there was satisfaction in the thought that the bride was an
+earl's daughter.  Moreover, she had read of such queer goings on among
+the British Aristocracy that a wedding at sight was a comparatively
+venial offense.
+
+Curtis assured his aunt that Hermione was the most beautiful and
+fascinating person he had ever met, and Steingall listened to the
+eulogy with a grinning rictus of jaw.  In the whole course of his
+professional experience he had never encountered anything on a par with
+this capricious blend of comedy and tragedy.
+
+Of course, it did not escape his acute brain that Curtis was right in
+assuming that the _clou_ of the situation lay with Jean de Courtois.
+Dead or alive, the Frenchman must be found, and found quickly.  The
+extraordinary story told by Curtis, if true--and the detective was
+persuaded that this curiously constituted young man was not trying to
+hoodwink him in any particular--pointed a ready way toward
+investigation.  The unfortunate journalist, Hunter, was about to enter
+the Central Hotel when he was attacked so mercilessly.  As a
+consequence, some knowledge of de Courtois was probably awaiting the
+first questioner at the inquiry counter.  What a whimsical incongruity
+it would be if he were told that the French music-master around whom
+the inquiry pivoted was within arm's length all the time!  He had
+actually turned to the door in order to summon the hotel clerk when
+that worthy himself knocked and entered.
+
+"The Earl of Valletort is here, and wishes to have a word with you, Mr.
+Steingall," he said.
+
+The detective's present grim conceit ran somewhat to the effect that if
+he remained long enough in the Central Hotel he would accumulate
+sufficient evidence to electrocute three criminals, at least, and send
+others to the penitentiary, but he merely nodded and said:
+
+"Show his lordship right in."
+
+He was conscious of a dramatic pause in the conversation which had
+broken out between the others.  Once again had Mrs. Curtis been
+rendered dumb by the shock of an unforeseen development.  Devar, who
+was having the night of his life, leaned back against the wainscot,
+Uncle Horace peered hopelessly into an empty tumbler, but dared not
+suggest a second highball, while Curtis, after one sharp glance at the
+detective, whom he credited with having arranged this surprise in some
+inexplicable way, thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets and
+awaited the advent of Hermione's father with a calmness that he himself
+could hardly account for.  Hitherto, his adventurous life had been made
+up of strenuous effort tempered by the Anglo-Saxon phlegm which
+disregards dangers and difficulties.  Prolonged strain of an emotional
+nature was new to him.  He understood, but did not apply the knowledge,
+that when the human vessel is full to the brim with excitement, the
+earth may rock and the heavens roll together in fury without the power
+to add one more drop of gall or distress to the completed measure.  At
+that instant, if the Earl of Valletort had been accompanied by the
+embodied ghosts of his ancestors, Curtis would have viewed the
+procession with unconcern.
+
+The Earl, a handsome slightly built, erect man of fifty, hawk-nosed,
+keen-eyed, with drooping mustache and carefully arranged thin gray
+hair, glanced at Curtis as he might have regarded any other stranger.
+
+"I have disposed of my friend," he said to Steingall, "and I hurried
+back here on off-chance that you might still be engaged in----"
+
+"Before your lordship enters into details, allow me to introduce Mr.
+John D. Curtis," said Steingall, silently thanking the fates which had
+brought about a meeting so opportune to his own task if embarrassing to
+its chief actors.
+
+"Mr. John D. Curtis, the--the person who conspired with my daughter to
+contract an illegal marriage!" barked the Earl, instantly dropping the
+repose of Vere de Vere.
+
+"John Delancy Curtis, at any rate," said Curtis gravely.  "As your
+son-in-law, may I remark that a few minutes' conversation with a lawyer
+will enable you to correct two misstatements in the rest of your
+description?  There was no conspiracy, and the ceremony was
+unquestionably legal."
+
+The Earl gave him one searching and envenomed look, and appealed
+forthwith to the detective.
+
+"I charge that man with abduction and personation," he cried, and his
+voice grew husky with wrath.  "There can be no gainsaying the facts.
+My daughter, it is true, had arranged a marriage with a Monsieur Jean
+de Courtois.  It was provisionally fixed to take place this evening at
+eight o'clock, but, by some means not known to me, the marriage license
+came into the hands of this admitted law-breaker, and he evidently
+persuaded a foolish and impetuous girl to accept him instead of de
+Courtois.  I am not an authority on the laws of the State of New York,
+but I stake my reputation on the belief that a flagrant offense has
+been committed against the social ordinances of any well regulated
+community.  I now call on you to arrest him, or, if official process is
+needed, to direct me to the proper authority."
+
+"Have you any proof of the charge?" said Steingall, who had not failed
+to observe Curtis's air of unconcern under the Earl's fiery
+denunciation.
+
+"Proof in plenty," came the snarling answer.  "I have seen the license
+and the signed register, and Monsieur de Courtois is known to me
+personally.  Besides, have you not this rascal's own admission?"
+
+"Why omit the equally damning evidence of conspiracy?" demanded Curtis.
+
+"What do you mean, you, you----"
+
+"Interloper.  How will that serve?  It was you who spoke of conspiring,
+though I grant you seem to have dropped that item of the indictment.
+But Mr. Steingall, as representing the law, should hear the full tale
+of villainy.  If your lordship will produce de Courtois's letters,
+cablegrams, and wireless messages to yourself and your confederate,
+Count Ladislas Vassilan, he will begin to appreciate the true bearing
+of a rather intricate inquiry."
+
+It was a chance shot, but it went home.  Curtis had not spent ten years
+in counteracting Manchu scheming and duplicity without arriving at
+certain basic principles in laying bare the methods of double-dealing,
+and the Earl of Valletort was manifestly disturbed by this cold
+analysis of facts which he imagined were known to an exceedingly
+limited circle in New York.
+
+But he had the presence of mind to waive aside Curtis's allegations as
+unworthy of discussion.
+
+"I address myself to you," he said to Steingall.  "Have I made my
+request clear, or shall I repeat it?"
+
+"Have you any objection to answering a few questions, my lord?" said
+the detective.
+
+"None whatsoever."
+
+"When did you and Count Vassilan arrive in New York?"
+
+"At twenty minutes after eight to-night."
+
+"How did you ascertain what was happening with regard to your daughter?"
+
+"By inquiry."
+
+"Of course, but from whom?"
+
+"From the minister who performed an unauthorized ceremony."
+
+"How did you know where to go so promptly to secure information?"
+
+"I was kept informed of my daughter's movements by agents."
+
+"Who were they?"
+
+"Their names will be given at the right time."
+
+"The right time is now."
+
+"You are not a magistrate.  I take it you are a police officer."
+
+"Your lordship may feel well assured on that point.  It is exactly
+because I am a police officer that I press for a reply.  Your grievance
+against Mr. John D. Curtis is much more of a matter for a civil than a
+criminal court.  I guess he has broken the law, but the machinery for
+putting it in motion is not under my control.  I am investigating a
+murder, and every word you have said confirms my belief that your
+daughter's contemplated marriage was the indirect but none the less
+certain cause of the crime.  Now, Lord Valletort, who were your inquiry
+agents?"
+
+"Ha!" muttered Uncle Horace.
+
+It was a simple enough ejaculation, but it served to drive home the
+nail which the detective's outspoken declaration had hammered into the
+Earl's startled consciousness.  Here, in truth, was a new and
+disturbing phase of the matrimonial problem contrived by Hermione,
+aided and abetted by that mischievous scoundrel, Curtis.  Still, he was
+not one to be driven easily into a corner.
+
+"You practically refer me to a lawyer for advice; I take you at your
+word," he said, with a quick return to the self-controlled attitude of
+an experienced man of the world.
+
+"You decline, then, to answer the only vitally important question I
+have put to you?" said Steingall.
+
+"I decline to answer that question until I have consulted someone
+better able--or shall I say, more willing?--to instruct me as to the
+speediest means of punishing a malefactor."
+
+"The noble lord is disqualified," broke in Devar.  "This is the second
+time since the flag fell that he has refused his fences."
+
+"If you interrupt again I shall turn you out of the room, Mr. Devar,"
+cried Steingall vexedly.
+
+"But, dash it all, Steingall, somebody must see that John D. has fair
+play.  He only swerved once, and then for a single stride, while he----"
+
+"I shall not warn you a second time," and Devar knew that the detective
+meant what he said, and kept quiet.
+
+"May I ask where the police headquarters are situated?" said the Earl
+in the frostiest tone he could command at the moment.
+
+"At the corner of Center Street and Grand," said Steingall
+indifferently.  He was about to add the unpleasing fact--unpleasing to
+Lord Valletort, that is--that the man on duty at the Detective Bureau
+would certainly refer an inquirer to him, Steingall, when the clerk
+reappeared.
+
+"A patrolman has brought a note for you," he said, handing Steingall a
+sealed letter, which the detective opened instantly after glancing at
+the superscription.  It was from the police captain, and ran:
+
+
+"Count Vassilan has just left the Waldorf-Astoria in a taxi.  Clancy is
+driving."
+
+
+Steingall's face betrayed no more expression than that of the Sphinx,
+though inwardly he was consumed with laughter; he himself was chief of
+the Bureau, and Clancy was his most trusted assistant!  Certainly, the
+gods were contriving a spicy dish for the news-loving inhabitants of
+New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TEN-THIRTY
+
+The Earl of Valletort turned on his heel, and went out abruptly.
+Therefore, he missed Steingall's first words to the hotel clerk, which
+would have given him furiously to think, while it is reasonable to
+suppose that he would have paid quite a large sum of money to have
+heard the clerk's answer.
+
+For the detective said:
+
+"Do you happen to know anything about a Frenchman, name of Jean de
+Courtois?"
+
+And the clerk replied:
+
+"Why, yes.  He's in his room now, I believe."
+
+"In his room--where?"
+
+"Here, of course.  He came in about 6.30, took his key and a
+Marconigram, and has not showed up since."
+
+Uncle Horace could withstand the strain no longer.
+
+"Would you mind sending the waiter again?" he gasped.  "If I don't get
+a pick-me-up of some sort quickly, I'll collapse."
+
+Aunt Louisa would dearly have loved to put in a word, but she knew not
+what to say.  Life at Bloomington supplied no parallel to the rapidity
+of existence in New York that evening.  She was aware of statements
+being made in language which rang familiarly in her ears, but they had
+no more coherence in her clogged understanding than the gabble of
+dementia.
+
+Steingall was the least surprised of the five people who listened to
+the clerk's words.  The notion that de Courtois might be close at hand
+had dawned on him already; still, he was not prepared to hear that the
+man was actually a resident in the hotel.
+
+"Has Monsieur de Courtois lived here some time?" he asked, not without
+a sharp glance at Curtis to see how the suspect was taking this new
+phase in his adventure.
+
+"About a month," said the clerk.
+
+"Has he received many visitors?"
+
+"A few, mostly foreigners.  A Mr. Hunter called here occasionally, and
+they dined together last evening.  I believe Mr. Hunter is connected
+with the press."
+
+The clerk wondered why he was being catechized about the Frenchman.  He
+had no more notion that de Courtois and Hunter were connected with the
+tragedy than the man in the moon.
+
+"Take me to Monsieur de Courtois's room," Said Steingall, after a
+momentary pause.
+
+"May I come with you?" inquired Curtis.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I am deeply interested in de Courtois, and I may be able to help you
+in questioning him.  I speak French well."
+
+"So do I," said Steingall.  "But, come if you like."
+
+"For the love of Heaven, don't leave me out of this, Steingall,"
+pleaded Devar.
+
+The detective was blessed with a sense of humor; he realized that the
+inquiry had long since passed the bounds of official decorum, and its
+irregularities had proved so illuminative that he was not anxious to
+check them yet a while.
+
+"Yes," he said, "you'll do no harm if you keep a still tongue in your
+head."
+
+"You'll come back to us, John, won't you?" broke in Mrs. Curtis,
+desperately contributing the first commonplace remark that occurred to
+her bemused brain.
+
+"Yes, aunt.  I'll rejoin you here.  Shall I have some supper sent in
+for both of you?"
+
+"No, my boy," said Uncle Horace, who had revived under the prospect of
+a long drink.  "If any feasting is to be done later it is up to me to
+arrange it.  The night is young.  I hope to have the honor of toasting
+your wife before I go to bed."
+
+Curtis smiled at that, but made no reply, the moment being inopportune
+for explanations, but Devar murmured, as they crossed the lobby with
+Steingall and the clerk:
+
+"That uncle of yours is a peach, John D.  He points the moral like a
+Greek chorus."
+
+"I fear he will regard me as a hare-brained nephew," said Curtis.  "As
+for my aunt, poor lady, she must think me the most extraordinary human
+being she has ever set eyes on.  What puzzles me most is----"
+
+"Wow!  I know what aunts are capable of," broke in Devar rapidly, for
+he was doubtful now how his friend would regard the publicity he had
+not desired.  "Mrs. Curtis, senior, is thanking her stars at this
+minute that she will have a chance of paralyzing Bloomington with full
+details of her nephew's marriage into the ranks of the British
+aristocracy.  The odd thing is that I'm tickled to death by the notion
+that I, little Howard, put you in for this night's gorgeous doings.
+Didn't you wonder why I passed up an introduction to _my_ aunt and my
+cousins in the Customs shed?  Man alive, if Mrs. Morgan Apjohn had made
+your acquaintance to-day she would have insisted on your dining with
+the family to-night, and at 7.30 P.M.  your feet would have been safely
+tucked under the mahogany in her home on Riverside Drive instead of
+leading you into the maze you seem to have found so readily.  All I
+wanted was an excuse to get away soon.  Gee whizz!  What a fireworks
+display you've put up in the meantime!"
+
+"Fifth," said the clerk to the elevator attendant, and the four men
+shot skyward.
+
+As each floor above the street level was a replica of the next higher
+one, Curtis happened to note that the route followed to the Frenchman's
+room was similar to that leading to 605.
+
+"What number does Monsieur de Courtois occupy?" he inquired.
+
+"505," said the clerk.
+
+"Then it is directly beneath mine?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  He must have heard us breaking open your door."
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Heard what?"
+
+"We committed some minor offenses with regard to your property during
+your absence," said Steingall, "but they were of slight account as
+compared with your own extravagances.  Let me warn you not to say too
+much before de Courtois.  Even taking your version of events, Mr.
+Curtis, Lord Valletort will probably raise a wasps' nest about your
+ears in the morning."
+
+"But why _break open_ the door?  Surely, there was a pass key----"
+
+"Sh-s-sh!  Here we are!"
+
+Steingall tapped lightly on a panel of 505, and the four listened
+silently for any response.  None came--that is, there was nothing which
+could be recognized as the sound of a voice or of human movement inside
+the room.  Nevertheless, they fancied they heard something, and the
+detective knocked again, somewhat more insistently.  Now they were
+intent for the slightest noise behind that closed door, and they caught
+a subdued groan or whine, followed by the metallic creak of a bed-frame.
+
+At that instant a chamber-maid hurried up.
+
+"I was just going to 'phone the office," she said to the clerk.  "A
+little while ago I tried to enter that room, but my key would not turn
+in the lock."
+
+"Did you hear anyone stirring within?" asked the clerk.
+
+"No, sir.  I knocked, and there was no answer."
+
+"Listen now, then."
+
+A third time did Steingall rap on the door, and the strange whine was
+repeated, while there could be no question that a bed was being dragged
+or shoved to and fro on a carpeted floor.
+
+"My land!" whispered the girl in an awed tone.  "There's something
+wrong in there!"
+
+"Let me try your key," said the clerk.  He rattled the master-key in
+the keyhole, but with no avail.
+
+"I suppose it acts all right in every other lock?" he growled.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir.  I've been using it all the evening."
+
+"Someone has tampered with the lock from the outside," he said
+savagely.  "There is nothing for it but to send for the engineer.
+Before we're through with this business we'll pull the d--d hotel to
+pieces.  A nice reputation the place will get if all this door-forcing
+appears in the papers to-morrow."
+
+Certainly the clerk was to be pitied.  Never before had the decorum of
+the Central Hotel been so outraged.  Its air of smug respectability
+seemed to have vanished.  Even to the clerk's own disturbed imagination
+the establishment had suddenly grown raffish, and its dingy paint and
+drab upholstery resembled the make-up and cloak of a scowling tragedian.
+
+A strong-armed workman came joyously.  He had already figured as a
+personage below stairs, because of his earlier experiences, and it was
+a cheering thing to be called on twice in one night to participate in a
+mystery which was undoubtedly connected with the murder in the street.
+
+Before adopting more strenuous methods he inserted a piece of strong
+wire into the keyhole, thinking to pick the lock by that means; but he
+soon desisted.
+
+"Some joker has been at that game before me," he announced.  "A chunk
+of wire has been forced in there after the door was locked."
+
+"From the outside?" inquired Steingall.
+
+"Yes, sir.  These locks work by a key only from without.  There is a
+handle inside. . . .  Well, here goes!"
+
+A few blows with a sharp chisel soon cut away sufficient of the frame
+to allow the door to be forced open.  On this occasion, there being no
+wedge in the center, it was not necessary to attack the hinges, and,
+once the lock was freed, the door swung back readily into the interior
+darkness.
+
+The engineer, remembering his needless alarm at falling head foremost
+into Curtis's room, went forward boldly enough now, and paid for his
+temerity.  He was so anxious to be the first to discover whatever
+horror existed there that he made for the center of the apartment
+without waiting to turn on the light, and, as a consequence, when he
+stumbled over something which he knew was a human body, and was greeted
+with a subdued though savage whine, he was even more frightened than
+before.
+
+But no one was concerned about him or his feelings when Steingall
+touched an electric switch and revealed a bound and gagged man fastened
+to a leg of the bed.  At first, owing to the extraordinary posture of
+the body, it was feared that another tragedy had been enacted.  The
+victim of an uncanny outrage was lying on his side, and his arms and
+legs were roughly but skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise
+that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven.  After securing him in
+this fashion, his assailants had fastened the ends of the rope to the
+iron frame of the bed, and his only possible movement was an
+ignominious half roll, back and forth, in a space of less than eight
+inches.  This maneuver he had evidently been engaged in as soon as he
+heard voices and knocking outside, but he had been gagged with such
+brutal efficacy that his sole effort at speech was a species of whinny
+through his nose.
+
+The detective's knife speedily liberated him; when he was lifted from
+the floor and laid gently on the bed, he remained there, quite
+speechless and overcome.
+
+Steingall turned to the agitated chambermaid, whose eyes were round
+with terror, and who would certainly have alarmed the hotel with her
+screams had she come upon the occupant of the room in the course of her
+rounds.
+
+"Bring a glass of hot milk, as quickly as you can," he said, and the
+girl sped away to the service telephone.
+
+"Wouldn't brandy be better?" inquired Devar.
+
+"No.  Milk is the most soothing liquid in a case like this.  The man's
+jaws are sore and aching.  Probably, too, he is faint from fright and
+want of food.  If we can get him to sip some milk he will be able to
+tell us, perhaps, just what has happened."
+
+While they awaited the return of the chamber-maid, the party of
+rescuers gazed curiously at the prostrate figure on the bed.  They saw
+a small, slight, neatly built man, attired in evening dress, whose
+sallow face was in harmony with a shock of black hair.  A large and
+somewhat vicious mouth was partly concealed by a heavy black mustache,
+and the long-fingered, nervous hands were sure tokens of the artistic
+temperament.  There could be no manner of doubt that this hapless
+individual was Jean de Courtois.  He looked exactly what he was, a
+French musician, while initials on his boxes, and a number of letters
+on the dressing-table, all testified to his identity.
+
+Curtis, Devar, and the hotel clerk seemed to be more interested in the
+appearance of the half-insensible de Courtois than Steingall.  He gave
+him one penetrating glance, and would have known the man again after
+ten years had they been parted that instant; but, if he favored the
+Frenchman with scant attention, he made no scruples about examining the
+documents on the table, though his first care was to thank the workman,
+and send him from the room.
+
+"Now," he muttered to the others in a low tone, "leave the questioning
+to me, and mention no names."
+
+He picked up a Marconigram lying among the letters, and read it.
+Without a word, but smiling slightly, he handed it unobtrusively to
+Curtis.  It bore that day's date, and the decoded time of delivery was
+4 P.M.
+
+"Arriving to-night," it ran.  "Coming direct Fifty-Ninth Street.
+Expect us there about eight-thirty."
+
+Curtis smiled, too.  He grasped the detective's unspoken thought.
+Steingall had as good as said that the message bore out Curtis's
+counter charge against Count Vassilan and the Earl of Valletort of
+conspiring with de Courtois himself to defeat Lady Hermione's marriage
+project.  Indeed, before replacing the slip of paper on the table, the
+detective produced a note-book, and entered therein particulars which
+would secure proof of the Marconigram's origin if necessary.
+
+The maid hurried in with the milk, and Steingall, who had covered more
+ground among the Frenchman's correspondence than the others gave him
+credit for, now acted as nurse.  With some difficulty he succeeded in
+persuading the stricken man on the bed to relax his firmly closed jaws
+and endeavor to swallow the fluid.  It was a tedious business, but
+progress became more rapid when de Courtois realized that he was in the
+hands of those who meant well by him.  It was noticeable, too, as his
+senses returned and the panic glare left his eyes, that his expression
+changed from one of abject fear to a lowering look of suspicious
+uncertainty.  He peered at Steingall and the hotel clerk many times,
+but gave Curtis and Devar only a perfunctory glance.  Oddly enough, the
+fact that the two latter were in evening dress seemed to reassure him,
+and it became evident later that the presence of the clerk led him to
+regard these strangers as guests in the hotel who had been attracted to
+his room by the mere accident of propinquity.
+
+His first intelligible words, uttered in broken English, were:
+
+"Vat time ees eet?"
+
+"Ten-thirty," said Steingall.
+
+"_Ah, cré nom d'un nom_!  I haf to go, queek!"
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"No mattaire.  I tank you all to-morrow.  I explain eferyting den.
+Now, I go."
+
+"You had better stay where you are, Monsieur de Courtois," said
+Steingall in French.  "Milord Valletort and Count Vassilan have
+arrived.  I have seen them, and nothing more can be done with respect
+to their affair tonight.  I am the chief of the New York Detective
+Bureau, and I want you to tell me how you came to be in the state in
+which you were found."
+
+But de Courtois was regaining his wits rapidly, and the clarifying of
+his senses rendered him obviously unwilling to give any information as
+to the cause of his own plight.  Nor would he speak French.  For some
+reason, probably because of a permissible vagueness in statements
+couched in a foreign tongue, he insisted on using English.
+
+"Eef you haf seen my frien's you tell me vare I fin' dem.  I come your
+office to-morrow, an' make ze complete explanation," he said.
+
+"I must trouble you to-night, please," insisted Steingall quietly.
+"You don't understand what has occurred while you were fastened up
+here.  You know Mr. Henry R. Hunter?"
+
+"Yes, yes.  I know heem."
+
+"Well, he was stabbed while alighting from an automobile outside this
+hotel shortly before eight o'clock, and I imagine he was coming to see
+you."
+
+"Stabbed!  Did zey keel heem?"
+
+"Yes.  Now, tell me who 'they' were."
+
+Monsieur Jean de Courtois was taken instantly and violently ill.  He
+dropped back on the bed, from which he had risen valiantly in his
+eagerness to be stirring, and faintly proclaimed his inability to grasp
+what the detective was saying.
+
+"Ah, _Grand Dieu_!" he murmured.  "I am eel; fetch a doctaire.  My
+brain, eet ees, vat you say, _étourdi_."
+
+"You will soon recover from your illness.  Come, now, pull yourself
+together, and tell me who the men were who tied you up, and why, if you
+can give a reason."
+
+The Frenchman shut his eyes, and groaned.
+
+"I am stranjare here, Monsieur le Commissaire," he said brokenly.  "I
+know no ones, nodings.  Milor' Valletort, he ees acquaint.  Send for
+heem, and bring ze doctaire."
+
+"Don't you understand that your friend, Mr. Hunter, the journalist who
+was helping you in the matter of Lady Hermione Grandison's marriage,
+has been murdered?"
+
+The other men in the room caught a new quality in Steingall's voice.
+Contempt, disgust, utter disdain of a type of rascal whom he would
+prefer to deal with most fittingly by kicking him, were revealed in
+each syllable; but Jean de Courtois was apparently deaf to the mean
+opinion his conduct was inducing among those who had extricated him
+from a disagreeable if not actually dangerous predicament.  He squirmed
+convulsively, and half sobbed his inability to realize the true nature
+of anything that had happened either to himself or to any other person.
+
+"Very well," said the detective, "if you are so thoroughly knocked out
+I'll see that you are kept quiet for the rest of the evening."
+
+He turned to the clerk.
+
+"Kindly arrange that two trustworthy men shall undress this ill-used
+gentleman.  He may be given anything to eat or drink that he requires,
+but if he shows signs of delirium, such as a desire to go out, or write
+letters, or use the telephone, he must be stopped, forcibly if
+necessary.  Should he become violent, ring up the nearest police
+station-house.  I'll send a doctor to him in a few minutes."
+
+De Courtois revived slightly under the stimulus of these emphatic
+directions.
+
+"I haf not done ze wrong," he protested.  "Eet ees me who suffare, and
+I do not permeet dis interference wid my leebairty."
+
+"You see," said Steingall coolly.  "His mind is wandering already.
+Just 'phone for a couple of attendants, will you, and I'll give them
+instructions.  I take full responsibility, of course."
+
+"But, monsieur----" cried the Frenchman.
+
+"Would you mind getting a move on?  I am losing time here," said
+Steingall quietly to the clerk.
+
+"I claim ze protection of my consul," sputtered de Courtois.
+
+"Poor fellow!  He is quite light-headed," said the detective
+sympathetically, addressing the company at large but speaking in
+French.  "I do hope most sincerely that I may arrest those infernal
+Hungarians to-night.  Not only did they kill Hunter but they have
+brought this little man to death's door."
+
+The effect of these few harmless sounding words was electrical.
+Monsieur de Courtois' angry demeanor suddenly changed to that of a
+sufferer almost as seriously injured as Steingall made out.  He
+collapsed utterly, and never lifted his head even when most drastic
+measures were enjoined on a couple of sturdy negroes as to the care
+that must be devoted to the invalid.
+
+Steingall was astonishingly outspoken to Curtis and Devar while they
+were walking to the elevator.
+
+"I am surprised that that miserable whelp escaped with his life," he
+said.  "Usually, in cases of this sort, the rascal who betrays his
+friends receives short shrift from those who make use of him.  He knows
+too much for their safety, and gets a knife between his ribs as soon as
+his services cease to be valuable."
+
+"I must confess that I don't begin to grasp the bearings of this
+affair," admitted Curtis.  "It is almost grotesque to imagine that a
+number of men could be found in New York who would stop short of no
+crime, however daring, simply to prevent a young lady from marrying in
+despite of her father's wishes."
+
+"Of course, the young lady figures large in your eyes," said Steingall
+with a dry laugh.  "You haven't thought this matter out, Mr. Curtis.
+When you have slept on it, and the fact dawns on you that there are
+other people in the world than the charming Lady Hermione, you will
+realize that she is a mere pawn around whom a number of very important
+persons are contending.  I don't wish to say a word to depreciate her
+as a star of the first magnitude, but I am greatly mistaken if there is
+not another woman, either here or in Europe, whose personality, if
+known, would attract far more attention from the police. . . .  By the
+way, has it occurred to you that Providence has certainly befriended
+you to-night?  The dare-devils who murdered Hunter were inclined to
+kill you in error. . . .  Now, I want you to concentrate your mind on
+the face and expression of that chauffeur, Anatole.  Keep him
+constantly in your thoughts.  If you can swear to him when we parade
+him before you with half-a-dozen other men, I shall soon strip the
+inquiry of its mystery."
+
+In the hall they were surrounded by a squad of reporters, and three
+photographers took flashlight pictures.
+
+"Hello!" muttered the detective to Curtis, "they've found you!  Now we
+must use our brains to get you out of this."
+
+They escaped the journalists by closing the door of the office on them.
+Then the clerk was summoned, and solved the first difficulty by
+revealing a back-stairs exit by way of the basement.  An attendant was
+sent to Curtis's room, to pack a grip with some clothes and linen, and,
+by adroit maneuvering, the whole party got away from the hotel.
+
+Steingall insisted on interviewing Lady Hermione that night.  He
+pointed out, reasonably enough, that she might possess a good deal of
+valuable information concerning Count Ladislas Vassilan; if, as Curtis
+believed was the case, she had already retired to rest, she must be
+aroused.  The hour was not so late, and Vassilan's movements in New
+York might be elucidated by knowledge of his previous career.
+
+So Curtis announced that his bride was installed in the Plaza Hotel,
+and, while he and Devar escaped through the cellars, Steingall took
+Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa boldly through the lobby.  A taxi was
+waiting there, and he gave the driver the address of the police
+headquarters downtown, but re-directed him when they were safe from
+pursuit, and the three, so oddly assorted as companions, arrived at the
+Plaza within a minute of the two young men.
+
+Steingall went straight to the telephone room, and Curtis ascended to
+his suite of apartments.  He knocked at Hermione's door, and her "Yes,
+who is there?" came with disconcerting speed.  Evidently, she was far
+from being asleep yet.
+
+"It is I--dear," said Curtis, in whom the mere sense of being near his
+"wife" induced a species of vertigo.  Indeed, he was horribly nervous,
+since he could not form the slightest notion as to the manner in which
+she would receive the latest news of de Courtois.
+
+The door was opened without delay, and Hermione appeared, dressed
+exactly as she was when he bade her farewell.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but it cannot be helped.  Things
+have been happening since I left you."
+
+Her face blanched, but she tried to smile, though the corners of her
+mouth drooped piteously.
+
+"They are not here already?" she cried, and he had no occasion to ask
+who "they" were.
+
+"No," he said, with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.  "The fact
+is I--I--have brought some friends to see you.  That is, some of them
+will, I hope, be your very good friends--my uncle and aunt, and young
+Howard Devar, whom I spoke about earlier.  There is a detective, too--a
+very decent fellow named Steingall.  Shall I bring them here?  It will
+be pleasanter than being stared at in a crowded supper room."
+
+She was surprised, but the relief in her tone was unmistakable.
+
+"I don't want any supper," she said.  "I shall be glad to meet your
+relatives, of course, though----"
+
+"Though you think I might have mentioned them sooner?  Well, the
+strangest part of the business is that they should be in New York at
+all.  I haven't the remotest idea as to why they are here, or how they
+dropped across me.  But isn't it a rather fortunate thing?  They may
+prove useful in a hundred ways."
+
+"Please don't keep them waiting.  What does the detective want?"
+
+"Every syllable you can tell him about Count Vassilan."
+
+"I hardly know the man at all.  I always avoided him in Paris."
+
+"You may be astonished by the number of facts you will produce when
+Steingall questions you.  And, I had better warn you that my uncle is
+even now consulting the head-waiter about a wedding feast.  He has
+adopted you without reservation on my poor description."
+
+His frankly admiring look brought a blush to her cheeks; but she only
+laughed a little constrainedly, and murmured that she would try to be
+as complacent as the occasion demanded.  Events were certainly in
+league to lend her wedding night a remarkably close semblance to the
+real thing.  And as Curtis descended to the foyer to summon their
+waiting guests he decided then and there not to mar the festivities by
+any explanations concerning Jean de Courtois's second time on earth.
+Steingall had practically settled the question by confining the
+Frenchman to his room for the remainder of the night.  Why interfere
+with an admirable arrangement?  Let the wretched intriguer be forgotten
+till the morrow, at any rate!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ELEVEN O'CLOCK
+
+"In multitude of counselors there is safety," says the Book of
+Proverbs.  Usually, the philosophy attributed to Solomon exhibits a
+soundness of judgment which is unrivaled, so it is reasonable to assume
+that in Hebrew gnomic thought four do not constitute a multitude,
+because four people agreed with Curtis that there was not the slightest
+need to mention Jean de Courtois to Hermione that evening, and five
+people were wrong, though in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they
+might have been right.  Hermione herself admitted afterwards that she
+would have believed Curtis implicitly had he explained the
+circumstances which accounted for his undoubted conviction that de
+Courtois was dead; indeed, she went so far as to say that, as a matter
+of choice, she infinitely preferred the American to the Frenchman in
+the role of a husband _pro tem_.  She had never regarded de Courtois
+from any other point of view than as her paid ally, and she was
+beginning to share Curtis's belief that the man was a double-dealer, a
+fact which helped to modify her natural regret at the report of his
+death in her behalf.
+
+In a calmer mood, too, Curtis would have been quick to realize that a
+girl who had reposed such supreme confidence in his probity was
+entitled to share his fullest knowledge of the extraordinary bond which
+united them, but for one half-hour he was swayed by expediency, and
+expediency often exercises a disrupting influence on a friendship
+founded on faith.  He only meant to spare her the dismay which could
+hardly fail to manifest itself when she heard that de Courtois was
+alive, and that additional complications must now arise with reference
+to the wrongful use of the marriage license; in reality, he was doing
+himself a bitter injustice.
+
+But, having elected for a definite course, he was not a man who would
+deviate from it by a hair's breadth.  When the junta in the vestibule
+of the Plaza Hotel had promised to remain mute on the topic of de
+Courtois, he dismissed the matter from his mind as having no further
+influence on the night's doings.
+
+"Is there any means of recovering my overcoat?" he asked Steingall,
+remembering the change of garments when a waiter asked if the gentlemen
+cared to deposit their hats and coats in the cloak-room.
+
+"Yes," said the detective.  "Just empty the pockets of the coat you are
+wearing, and I'll send a messenger to the police station-house with a
+note.  You won't mind if I retain your documents till after the
+inquest?  One never knows what questions will be asked, and you must
+remember that an attempt may be made to fasten the crime upon you."
+
+Curtis laughed at the absurdity of any such notion, but, for the first
+time, he examined the contents of the dead man's coat pockets
+methodically.  The pocket in which the license had reposed was empty.
+Its fellow contained a notebook and pencil.  There were also some
+newspaper cuttings--items of current interest in New York, but devoid
+of bearing on the crime or its cognate developments.
+
+An elastic band caused the book to open at a definite page, and
+Steingall, who knew a little of everything, and a great deal of all
+matters appertaining to his profession, deciphered some shorthand
+characters which promised enlightenment.  He passed no comment,
+however, but pocketed the book, scribbled a few lines on a sheet of
+paper bearing the name of the hotel, and intrusted coat and letter to
+an attendant.
+
+Uncle Horace, after a momentary qualm, gave instructions to the
+head-waiter in the approved manner of a trust magnate.
+
+"We're up against it now, Louisa," he whispered confidentially to his
+wife, "so let's have one wonderful night if we never have another."
+
+Mrs. Curtis nodded her complete agreement.  She would have sanctioned a
+mortgage on her home rather than forego any material part of an
+experience which would command the breathless attention of many a
+future gathering of matrons and maids in faraway Bloomington.
+
+Lady Hermione received her visitors with a shy cordiality which won
+their prompt approval.  Aunt Louisa had been perplexed by indecision as
+to what she was to say or how she was to act when she met the bride,
+but one glance of her keen, motherly eyes at the blushing and timid
+girl resolved any doubts on both scores.
+
+"God bless you, my dear!" she said, throwing her arms around Hermione's
+neck and kissing her heartily.  "Perhaps everything is for the best,
+and, anyway, you've married into a family of honest men and true women."
+
+"Ma'am," said Uncle Horace, when his turn came to be introduced,
+"strange as it may sound, I know less about my nephew than you
+yourself, but if he resembles his father in character as he does in
+appearance, you've chosen well, and let me add, ma'am, that _he_ seems
+to have made a first-rate selection at sight."
+
+Of course, such congratulations were woefully misplaced, but Hermione
+was too well-bred to reveal any cause for disquietude other than the
+normal embarrassment any young woman would display in like conditions.
+
+Curtis, too, put in a quiet word which threw light on the situation.
+
+"As I told you a few minutes since, I was not aware that my uncle and
+aunt were in New York," he said.  "I cannot even guess how they came to
+find me so opportunely, and we have hardly been able to say a word to
+each other yet, because they were in the thick of the police inquiry
+when I met them in my hotel."
+
+"Why, that's the easiest thing," declared Aunt Louisa, rejoicing in a
+long-looked-for opportunity to hear her own voice in full volume.
+"This young gentleman here," and she nodded at the dismayed Devar,
+"told us that he cottoned to your husband, my dear, something
+remarkable on board the steamer, so he sent a message by wireless to
+the editor of a New York paper, asking him to let America know that one
+of her citizens who had won distinction in China was homeward bound,
+and the editor circulated a real nice paragraph about it.  It quite
+took my breath away when Mrs. Harvey, our mayor's wife--such a charming
+woman, my dear, and I do hope I may have the pleasure of bringing you
+to one of her delightful tea-and-bridge afternoons--said to me on
+Monday: 'Surely, Mrs. Curtis, this John Delancy Curtis who is on board
+the _Lusitania_ must be a son of that brother of your husband who died
+in China some years ago?' and I said: 'What in the world are you
+talking about, Mrs. Harvey?' so she showed me the newspaper, and I was
+that taken aback that I revoked in the next hand, and the only mean
+player we have in the club claimed three tricks 'without,' and went
+game, being a woman herself who hasn't chick nor child, but devotes far
+too much time and money to toy dogs; anyhow, I couldn't give my mind to
+cards any more that day, so off I rushed home and 'phoned Horace, and
+here we are, after such a flurry as you never would imagine, what
+between packing in a hurry for the trip east, and missing the steamer's
+arrival by nearly an hour, and turning up in the Central Hotel just in
+time to hear----"  Then Aunt Louisa, assuredly at no loss for words,
+but remembering in a hazy way the compact made in the vestibule, found
+it incumbent on her to break away from the main trend of the narrative,
+so she concluded: "Just in time to hear things being said about our
+nephew which we felt bound to deny, both for his sake and our own."
+
+Curtis had favored Devar with a questioning scowl when he learnt how
+his advent had been heralded in the press, but Devar merely vouchsafed
+a brazen wink, and in the next breath Hermione herself became his
+unconscious and most persuasive advocate.
+
+"I have been bothering my brains to discover when or where I had seen
+Mr. Curtis's name before--before we met to-night," she said, smiling at
+the ridiculous vagueness of her own phrase.  "Now I remember.  I used
+to read the newspaper reports about every ship that arrived, and I
+noticed that identical paragraph."
+
+"Thank you, Lady Hermione," cried Devar, crowing inwardly over his
+friend's discomfiture.  "John D. will begin to believe soon what I have
+been telling him during the last half-hour--that I am the real _Deus ex
+machinâ_ of the whole business.  Why, if it hadn't been for me you two
+would never have got married, and this merry party couldn't have
+happened!"
+
+A knock at the door caused Hermione to turn with a startled look.  Try
+as she might, she dreaded every such incident as the preliminary to a
+stormy interview with her father.
+
+"Unless I am greatly mistaken, ma'am," interposed Uncle Horace blandly,
+"this will be a waiter coming to tell us that supper is ready."
+
+As usual, he said the correct thing, and Steingall drew Hermione aside
+while the table was being spread for the feast.  He lost no time in
+coming to the point.  His first demand showed that he took nothing for
+granted.
+
+"I am bound to speak plainly, your ladyship," he said.  "Is the
+remarkable story told by Mr. John D. Curtis true?"
+
+"Regarding the marriage?" said Hermione promptly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, as I do not know what he may have said, you can decide that
+matter for yourself after you have heard my version.  I am a fugitive
+from Paris, where my father was endeavoring to force me into a
+detestable union: I am practically a complete stranger in New York: I
+had arranged with Monsieur de Courtois to become my husband, under a
+clear agreement for money paid that the marriage should serve only as a
+shield against my pursuers; he was prevented by some dreadful men from
+keeping to-night's appointment, and Mr. Curtis came to me, intending to
+break the news somewhat more gently than one might look for otherwise.
+He heard my sad little explanation, and was sorry for me.  As it
+happened, he appreciated the real nature of my predicament, and, having
+no ties to prevent such a daring step, offered me the protection of his
+name until such time as I become my own mistress and am free to secure
+a dissolution of the marriage."
+
+"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?" said the detective.  His
+voice was kindly, and his expression gravely sympathetic, and Hermione
+could not read the amused tolerance lurking behind the mask of those
+keen eyes.
+
+"I mean that I am yet what lawyers call an infant.  In six months I
+shall be twenty-one, and the coercion which has been used to force me
+into marrying Count Ladislas Vassilan will be no longer possible."
+
+"Do you forfeit an inheritance by refusing to obey Lord Valletort's
+wishes?"
+
+"No, unless with respect to my father's estate.  My mother was wealthy,
+and her money is settled on me most securely."
+
+"In trust?"
+
+"Yes, I have trustees, an English banker and a clergyman."
+
+"But, if they are men of good standing, they ought to have protected
+you from undue interference."
+
+"An earl is of good standing, too, in my country, and Count Vassilan
+claims royal rank in Hungary.  I loathe the man, yet every one of my
+friends and relatives urged me to accept him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has a chance of obtaining a throne when the
+Austro-Hungarian Empire breaks up, and my wealth will help his cause
+materially."
+
+Steingall allowed himself to appear surprised.
+
+"Is your income so large, then?" he said.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so.  My trustees tell me that I am worth nearly a
+hundred thousand a year."
+
+"Dollars?"
+
+"No--pounds sterling."
+
+They were conversing in subdued tones, yet the detective behaved like a
+commonplace mortal in giving a rabbit-peep sideways to ascertain if the
+girl's astounding statement had been overheard by the others.  But the
+members of the Curtis family of honest men and true women had withdrawn
+purposely to the far side of the room, and Devar was laboring to
+convince his friend that he had acted wisely in placarding his name and
+fame throughout the United States.
+
+"To your knowledge, Lady Hermione, is any other person in New York
+aware that you are several times a millionaire?"
+
+"I think not.  Poor Jean de Courtois may have had some notion of the
+fact, but I lived so unostentatiously in Paris that he would
+necessarily be inclined to minimize the amount of my fortune.  Tell me,
+Mr. Steingall, do you really think he----"
+
+The detective shook his head, and laughed with official dryness.
+
+"Forgive me, Lady Hermione," he said, "but I must not advance any
+theories, at present.  Now, as to Count Vassilan--how long have you
+known him?"
+
+"About a year."
+
+"Has he been your suitor practically all that time?"
+
+"Yes.  The first day we met I was told by my father that I ought to be
+proud if he chose me as his wife.  So I hated him from the very
+beginning."
+
+"You took a dislike to him, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, an instant and violent dislike.  But that is not all.  There are
+things I cannot mention, though they are the common property of anyone
+who has mixed in Parisian society during the past twelve months.
+Surely you will be able to find men and women in this great city who
+can supply enough of Paris gossip to show you clearly what manner of
+man this Hungarian prince really is!"
+
+Hermione's face showed the distress she felt, and Steingall's
+disposition was far too generous to permit of any further probing in
+this direction when the inquiry gave pain to a young and
+innocent-minded girl.
+
+"To-morrow," he said grimly, "I may read several chapters of Count
+Vassilan's life.  But so much depends on this night's work.  At any
+minute--certainly within an hour--I shall have news which may be
+affected most markedly by some chance hint supplied by you.  I want you
+to understand, Lady Hermione, that Mr. Curtis's share in the queer
+tangle of the past few hours is not so simple or unimportant as you
+seem to imagine.  I believe he has been actuated by the best of
+motives----"
+
+"Oh, yes, I am sure of it," she broke in eagerly.  "If I am fated never
+to see him again after to-night I shall always remember him as a true
+friend and gallant gentleman."
+
+Steingall bit back the words which rose unbidden to his lips.  He had
+certainly been wallowing in romance since the telephone called him to
+the Central Hotel, but even in the pages of fiction he had never found
+a more wildly improbable theory than the likelihood of John Delancy
+Curtis allowing any consideration short of death to separate him from
+such a bride as Lady Hermione within the short space of time she
+apparently regarded as the possible span of her married life.
+
+"Ah," he murmured, "if he is wise he will call you to give evidence in
+his behalf.  Judges exercise a good deal of latitude in these matters."
+
+"But will he be arrested for marrying me?  If any wrong has been done
+with respect to the marriage license, I am equally to blame," she said
+loyally.
+
+Steingall frowned judicially.  Their conversation was approaching
+perilously near the forbidden topic of de Courtois.
+
+"In law, as in most affairs of life, it does no good to meet trouble
+half way, your ladyship," he said.  "Now, reverting to the Hungarian
+prince--do you remember the names of any persons, of either sex, whom
+he associated with in Paris?  Of course, such a man would be widely
+known in what is called society, but I want you to try and recall some
+of his intimate friends."
+
+"I believe you would find his boon companions in certain cafés on the
+Grand Boulevard and in the vaudeville theaters on Montmartre; but would
+it not help you a little if I told you of his enemies?"
+
+"Most certainly."
+
+"Well, I do happen to know that he is hated most cordially by the
+Countess Marie Zapolya, who lives in the Hotel Ritz."
+
+"In Paris?"
+
+"Yes.  She advised me to shun him as I would the plague."
+
+"Did she give any reason?"
+
+"It may sound strange, but I really believe she wants him to marry her
+daughter."
+
+"Ah, that is interesting.  Pray go on."
+
+"I never understood the thing rightly, but I heard once, through a
+servant, that Count Vassilan was expected to wed Elizabetta
+Zapolya--the succession to the Hungarian monarchy, if ever it were
+revived, was involved--but Count Vassilan spurned the lady.  The
+Countess is furious because her daughter was slighted, yet wishes to
+compel him to fulfill his obligations."
+
+"In that event, she would be anxious to see you safely married to some
+other person?"
+
+"Oh, she was.  She visited me, several times, and advised me not to
+risk a life-long unhappiness by becoming mixed up in the maze of
+Mid-Europe politics.  And--there is something else.  Poor Elizabetta
+Zapolya, who is somewhat older than me, is in love with an attaché at
+the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Paris."
+
+"Have you his name?"
+
+"Yes.  Captain Eugene de Karely."
+
+"How does he stand with regard to Count Vassilan?"
+
+"I am told that he has challenged him repeatedly to a duel, but Count
+Vassilan cannot meet him because they are not equals in the grades of
+Hungarian aristocracy.  I am glad that Mr. Curtis did not wait to
+consult the Almanach de Gotha when _he_ encountered the wretch.  Has he
+told you that he hit him?"
+
+"I have seen the Count," said Steingall.
+
+"Where?"
+
+The detective was not deaf to the note of alarm in her voice, but the
+matter must be broached some time, and why not now?
+
+"At the Central Hotel, about an hour ago," he said.
+
+"Was my father with him?"
+
+"Yes.  The Earl has also had the pleasure of a few minutes' talk with
+Mr. Curtis."
+
+Hermione was open-eyed with surprise.
+
+"Mr. Curtis has not said a word of this to me," she cried, and her
+louder tone traveled across the room.
+
+"Said a word about what?" inquired Curtis, being not unwilling to break
+in on the conversation, which he thought had lasted quite long enough.
+
+"That my father and Count Vassilan had met you at your hotel."
+
+"No, not Count Vassilan," explained the detective.  "He had gone before
+Mr. Curtis came, but Lord Valletort returned."
+
+"Did he ask you where I was?" demanded the girl breathlessly,
+addressing Curtis.
+
+"No.  He tried to have me arrested, and failed.  I think he looked on
+me as an unlikely subject to yield unnecessary information."
+
+"Supper is served, sir," said a maître d'hôtel to Uncle Horace, and
+further discussion of Count Vassilan's tangled matrimonial schemes
+became difficult for the moment.
+
+Steingall was pressed to join the party--without prejudice to any
+official duties he might be called on to perform next day, as Curtis
+put it pleasantly--and consented.  Once again had his instinct been
+justified, for he was sure that Lady Hermione's Parisian reminiscences
+would prove important in some way not yet determinable.  Moreover, his
+colleagues knew he was at the Plaza Hotel, and he was content to remain
+there while his trusted aide, Clancy, was acting as chauffeur during
+Count Vassilan's belated excursion.
+
+The police captain was keeping an eye on the Waldorf-Astoria, a
+detective was searching the apartment rented by the murdered
+journalist, and other men of the Bureau were hunting the record of the
+automobile, though Steingall was convinced that this branch of the
+inquiry would end in a blind alley, because the car had undoubtedly
+been stolen, and its lawful owner would only be able to identify it,
+and declare that, to the best of his belief, it was locked in a garage
+at the time it was being used for the commission of a crime.  Steingall
+assumed that the unfortunate Hunter--or it might have been de
+Courtois--was led to hire this particular vehicle by adroit
+misrepresentation on the part of some unknown scoundrels who were aware
+of the contemplated marriage.  The shorthand notes in Hunter's book
+bore out this theory, because they were obviously data supplied by de
+Courtois which would have enabled the journalist to write a thoroughly
+sensational story next day.  He was convinced, when the truth was
+known, it would be discovered that Hunter made the Frenchman's
+acquaintance owing to his habit of mixing with the strange underworld
+from the Continent of Europe which has its lost legion in New York.  De
+Courtois was just the sort of vainglorious little man who would welcome
+the notoriety of such an adventure as the prevented marriage ceremony,
+wherein his name would figure with those of distinguished people, and
+the last thing he counted on was the murder of the scribe who had
+promised him columns of descriptive matter in the press.  The pert
+musician was not the first, nor would he be the last, to find that the
+role of cat's-paw is apt to prove more exacting than was anticipated.
+To his chagrin, he saw himself changed suddenly from a trusted agent
+into a dupe, and his utter collapse on hearing of the murder fitted in
+exactly with the theory taking shape in the detective's mind--that
+there were two implacable forces at war in New York that night, that
+Lady Hermione's marriage to Count Vassilan or the Frenchman provided
+the immediate bone of contention, and that the struggle had been
+complicated by a too literal interpretation of instructions carried out
+by bitter partisans.
+
+In the midst of a lively conversation, the telephone jangled its
+imperative message from a wall bracket in the room.  Devar was nearest
+the instrument, and he answered the call.
+
+"It's for you, Mr. Steingall," he said.
+
+The detective would have preferred greater privacy, but he rose at once
+and answered.
+
+"And who is Mr. Krantz?" he demanded.  Then, after a pause: "Oh,
+yes. . . .  Is he? . . .  You needn't trouble at all about that.  The
+police surgeon, at my request, has dosed him with sufficient bromide to
+keep him quiet till to-morrow morning. . . .  Yes, I understand.  Tell
+them it can't be done, and refer them to the Centre-street
+Bureau. . . .  What? . . .  No, so far as I can guess, the engineer
+won't be wanted again to-night."
+
+He hung up the receiver, and returned to his seat, though he had just
+been informed that the Earl of Valletort and another person, having
+ascertained by some means that de Courtois still lived, were raising a
+commotion at the Central Hotel and demanding access to the Frenchman's
+room.
+
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+
+"Please, am I mixed up with Mr. Krantz?" inquired Hermione, smiling,
+for it was a bizarre experience to find herself interested in all sorts
+and conditions of people whom she had never heard of.
+
+"Mr. Krantz is the reception clerk at the Central Hotel," was the
+answer, which conveyed fuller information to other ears than the
+girl's.  Then Steingall glanced at his watch.
+
+"I think some of you people must be tired after a strenuous day," he
+said.  "I expect to be called away soon, and it is possible that I may
+want to disturb you, Mr. Curtis, before you retire for the night.  Do
+you intend to remain here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+For an instant, an appreciable constraint manifested its presence, and
+Uncle Horace did not display his wonted tact when he accentuated it by
+a dry chuckle, _à propos_ of nothing in particular.  Curtis relieved
+the situation after a slight hesitation.
+
+"Lady Hermione, I take it, will now go to bed," he said coolly, "and,
+if she is wise, will refuse to unlock her door again till her maid
+comes in the morning.  I purpose changing my clothes, in case I may
+have to accompany you on some midnight expedition.  My uncle and aunt
+will tell us where they are staying, and arrange to meet us here at
+lunch to-morrow.  You, Devar, being an approved night hawk, will join
+me in a cigar.  How is that for a reasonable disposal of the company,
+Mr. Steingall?"
+
+As though in reply, the telephone rang again, and the detective lifted
+the receiver from its hook.
+
+"Hello!  That you, Clancy?" he said.  "Right.  I'll come along by the
+subway from 59th Street--that will be quicker than a taxi . . .
+yes . . . yes."
+
+He turned, and the five people in the room saw that his face was
+glowing with the fire of action.
+
+"You can defer that change of suits, Mr. Curtis.  We must be off at
+once. . . .  Mr. Devar, have you an automobile?  Can you get hold of it
+now?  Well, 'phone your chauffeur to be at Centre-street headquarters
+in as much under half-an-hour as he can manage.  Taxi-drivers gossip
+among themselves, so a private car is better. . . .  Excuse the rush,
+Lady Hermione, and you, too, Mrs. Curtis.  I haven't another minute to
+spare."
+
+Luckily, Curtis found his overcoat awaiting him in the cloak room, or
+he might have been in a difficulty, for New York in November is not a
+city which encourages midnight journeys in evening dress.
+
+Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa were hurried into a taxi, and as they were
+being whisked off to the quiet hotel to which their baggage had been
+consigned, the stout man began polishing his domed forehead once more.
+
+"Lou," he said, "I can't make head nor tail of this business.  Can you?"
+
+"Not yet, Horace," was the hopeful response.
+
+"But--what sort of marriage is this, anyway?"
+
+"Oh, that's all right.  Those two haven't begun courting yet.  But it
+won't be long before they start.  Did you notice----"
+
+And details observed by Aunt Louisa endured till the taxi stopped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MIDNIGHT
+
+After a quick journey by New York's unrivaled system of rapid transit,
+the three men alighted at Spring Street, and a couple of minutes' brisk
+walk brought them to a large, white-fronted building of severe
+architecture.  Above the main entrance two green lamps stared solemnly
+into the night, and their monitory gleam seemed to bid evildoers
+"Beware!"; nor was there aught far-fetched in the notion, because from
+this imposing center New York's guardians kept watch and ward over the
+city.
+
+"Clancy still waiting?" demanded Steingall of a policeman in uniform
+who was on duty in an inquiry office.
+
+"Yes, sir.  He asked me to be on the lookout in case you turned up
+unexpectedly, as he didn't want to miss you."
+
+The Chief Inspector led his companions straight to the Detective
+Bureau, taking good care to avoid the room in which the "covering"
+reporters were gathered, because the Police Headquarters of New York,
+unlike any similar department outside the bounds of the United States,
+makes the press welcome, and gives details of all arrests, fires,
+accidents and other occurrences of a noteworthy nature as soon as the
+facts are telegraphed or telephoned from outlying districts.
+
+Passing through the general office, Steingall entered his own sanctum.
+A small, slightly built man was bent over a table and scrutinizing a
+Rogues' Gallery of photographs in a large album.  He turned as the door
+opened, straightened himself, and revealed a wizened face, somewhat of
+the actor type, its prominent features being an expressive mouth, a
+thin, hooked nose, and a pair of singularly piercing and deeply sunken
+eyes.
+
+"Hello, Bob," he said to Steingall.  Then, without a moment's
+hesitation, he added: "Good-evening, Mr. Curtis--glad to see you, Mr.
+Devar."
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Clancy," said Curtis, not to be outdone in this
+exchange of compliments, though he could not imagine how a person who
+had never seen him should not only know his name but apply it so
+confidently.
+
+"May we smoke here?" asked Devar, who had lighted a cigar on emerging
+from the subway station.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Steingall.  "Make yourselves at home in that respect.
+I am a hard smoker.  Let me offer you a good American cigar, Mr.
+Curtis."
+
+"Thank you.  Perhaps you will try one of mine.  I bought them in
+London, but they are of a fair brand.  You, too, Mr. Clancy?"
+
+"I'll take one, with pleasure, though I don't smoke," said the little
+man.  Seeing the question on the faces of both visitors, he cackled, in
+a queer, high-pitched voice:
+
+"I refuse to poison my gastric juices with nicotine, but I like the
+smell of tobacco.  Poor old Steingall there has pretty fair eyesight,
+but his nose wouldn't sniff brimstone in a volcano, all because he
+insists on smoking."
+
+"Gastric juice!" laughed Steingall.  "You don't possess the article.
+Skin, bones, and tongue are your chief constituents.  I'm not surprised
+you make an occasional hit as a detective, because the average crook
+would never suspect a funny little gazook like you of being that
+celebrated sleuth, Eugene Clancy."
+
+Clancy's long, nervous fingers had cracked the wrapper of the cigar
+given him by Curtis, and he was now passing it to and fro beneath his
+nostrils.
+
+"You will observe the difference, gentlemen, between beef and brains,"
+he said, nodding derisively at the bulky Chief Inspector.  "He rubbers
+along because he looks like a prize-fighter, and can drive his fist
+through a three-quarter inch pine plank.  But we hunt well together,
+being a unique combination of science and brute force. . . .  By the
+way, that reminds me.  If I have got the story right, Count Ladislas
+Vassilan only landed in New York to-night.  Did he drive straight to a
+boxing contest, or what?"
+
+"Wait a second, Clancy," interrupted Steingall.  "Is there anything
+doing?  How much time have we?"
+
+"Exactly twenty minutes.  At twelve-thirty I must be in East Broadway."
+
+"Good.  Now, Mr. Curtis, tell Clancy exactly what happened since you
+put on poor Hunter's overcoat at the corner of Broadway and 27th
+Street."
+
+Curtis obeyed, though he fancied he had never encountered a more
+unofficial official than Clancy.  Shrewd judge of character as he was,
+he could hardly be expected to guess, after such a momentary glimpse of
+a man of extraordinary genius in unraveling crime, that Clancy was
+never more discursive, never more prone to chaff and sneer at his
+special friend, Steingall, than when hot on the trail of some
+particularly acute and daring malefactor.  The Chief of the Bureau, of
+course, knew by these signs that his trusted _aide_ had obtained
+information of a really startling nature, but neither Curtis nor Devar
+was aware of Clancy's idiosyncrasies, and some few minutes elapsed
+before they began to suspect that he had a good deal more up his sleeve
+than they gave him credit for at first.
+
+From the outset he took an original view of Curtis's marriage.
+
+"The girl is young and good-looking, you say?" was his opening question.
+
+"Not yet twenty-one, and remarkably attractive," said Curtis, though
+hardly prepared for the detective's interest in this direction.
+
+"Well educated and lady-like, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, as befits her position."
+
+"Cut out her position, which doesn't amount to a row of beans where
+intellect is concerned. . . .  Well, a man never knows much about a
+woman anyway, and what little he learns is acquired by a process of
+rejection after marriage."
+
+"May I ask what you mean?"
+
+"Judging from your history and apparent age, Mr. Curtis, I take it you
+have not had time to go fooling about after girls?"
+
+"You are certainly right in that respect."
+
+"Naturally, or you wouldn't be so ignorant concerning the dear
+creatures.  You are to be congratulated, 'pon my soul.  You will have
+the rare experience of constructing a divinity out of a wife, whereas
+the average man begins by choosing a divinity and finds he has only
+secured a wife."
+
+Curtis laughed, but met the detective's penetrating gaze frankly.
+
+"Your bitter philosophy may be sound, Mr. Clancy," he said, "but it is
+built on a false premiss.  My marriage is only a matter of form.  It
+may be legal--indeed, I believe it is--but there can be no dispute as
+to the nature of the bond between Lady Hermione and myself.  She
+regards me as a husband in name only, and will dissolve the tie at her
+own convenience."
+
+"You'll place no obstacles in her way?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+Clancy giggled, as though he were a comedian who had scored a point
+with his audience.
+
+"Then you're married for keeps," he announced, with the grin of a man
+who has solved a humorous riddle.  "By refusing to thwart the lady you
+throw away your last slender chance of freedom, and you will find her
+waiting at the gate of the State Penitentiary when you come out.  By
+Jove, you've been pretty rapid, though.  No wonder people say the East
+is waking up.  Are there many more like you in China?"
+
+Curtis was not altogether pleased by this banter, nor did he trouble to
+conceal his opinion that the New York Detective Bureau was treating a
+grave crime with scandalous levity.
+
+"Whether Lady Hermione married me or Jean de Courtois is a rather
+immaterial side issue," he said, somewhat emphatically.  "From what
+little I can grasp of a curiously involved affair, it seems to me that
+there are weightier interests than ours at stake.  And, if I may
+venture to differ from you, a lot of things may happen before I see the
+inside of a prison."
+
+"After your meteoric career during the past few hours I am inclined to
+agree with that last remark," and Clancy's tone became so serious that
+Devar laughed outright.  "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Curtis.  I am
+lost in admiration of your nerve, but you have told me just what I
+wanted to make sure of."
+
+"I have expressed no opinions.  I confined myself to actual facts."
+
+"And isn't it a highly significant fact that you are over head and ears
+in love with your wife?  _Nom d'un pipe_!  Doesn't that complicate the
+thing worse than a Chinese puzzle?"
+
+"I really don't see----" began Curtis, yielding to a feeling of
+annoyance which was not altogether unwarrantable, but Clancy jerked out
+his hands as though they were attached to arms moved by the strings of
+a marionette.
+
+"Of course, you don't!" he cried.  "You're in love!  You're gorged with
+the amococcus microbe!  It's the worst case I've ever heard of.  I once
+knew a man who met a girl for the first time at the Park Row end of
+Brooklyn Bridge and proposed to her before they had crossed the East
+River, but you've set up a record that will never be beaten.  You find
+a marriage license in the pockets of a murdered man, rush off in a taxi
+to the address of the lady named therein, marry her, punch a frantic
+rival on the nose, take the fair one to a hotel, flout her father, a
+British peer, and hold a banquet at which the Chief of the New York
+Detective Bureau is an honored guest; and then you have the hardihood
+to tell me that your actions constitute an immaterial side issue in the
+biggest sensation New York has produced this year.  Young man, wait
+till the interviewers get hold of you to-morrow!  Wait till the sob
+sisters begin gushing over your bride--a pretty one--with a title!
+Name of good little gray man!  They'll whoop your side issues into a
+scare-head front page!  Before you know where you are they'll have you
+bleating about the color of her eyes, the exquisite curve of her
+Cupid's Bow lips, and the way her hair shone when the electric light
+fell on it, while she, on her part, will be confiding, with a
+suspicious break in her voice, what a perfectly darling specimen of the
+American man at his best you are.  Mr. Curtis, you're married good and
+hard, and if you want to cinch the job you ought to go to jail for a
+while."
+
+Unquestionably, the two civilians present thought that Clancy was
+slightly mad, so Steingall intervened.
+
+"Hop off your perch, Eugene," he said, "and tell us how you came to
+drive Count Vassilan's taxi, and where you took him."
+
+"It was a case of intelligent anticipation of forthcoming events," said
+Clancy, whose excitability disappeared instantly, leaving him calm and
+extremely lucid of speech.  "When Evans (the police captain) gave me
+the bearings of the affair--though, of course, being a creature of
+handcuffs and bludgeons, he thought our friend Curtis was the real
+scoundrel--I realized at once that Vassilan's indisposition was a bad
+attack of blue funk.  Such a man could no more remain quietly in his
+room at the hotel than a fox terrier could pass a dog fight without
+taking hold.  As soon as I saw the Earl go out alone, and heard him
+direct the taxi to the Central Hotel in 27th Street, I decided that my
+best place was at the driving wheel of another taxi.  I picked out a
+man on the rank who was about my size, and might be mistaken for me in
+a half-light, and got him to lend me his coat and cap.  He took mine,
+and a word to the door-porter fixed things so that I was whistled up
+quite naturally when his countship appeared.  He had changed his
+clothes and linen, but one glance at his nose showed that I had marked
+my bird, even if the porter hadn't given me the mystic sign at the
+right moment.  I received my orders, and off we went, a second cab
+following, with the driver of my taxi as a fare.  Evidently, the Count
+was not well posted in New York distances, because he grew restive, and
+wondered where I was taking him.  He tried to be artful, too, and when
+we reached East Broadway he pulled me up at the corner of Market
+Street, told me to wait, and lodged a five-dollar bill as security,
+saying I would have annozzaire when we got back to the hotel.  Didn't
+that make things easy?  He plunged into the crowd--you know what a
+bunch of Russians, Hungarians, and Polish Jews get together in East
+Broadway about ten-thirty--so I rushed to the second cab, swapped coats
+and hats again, gave the taxi-man the five-spot, and put him in charge
+of his own cab.  In less than a minute I overtook the Count, just as he
+was crossing the street, and saw him enter a house, after saying
+something to a second-hand clothes man who was bawling out his goods
+from the open store on the ground floor.  By the time I had bought two
+silk handkerchiefs and a pair of boots, and was haggling like mad over
+a collection of linen collars, size 16--a present for you,
+Steingall--his nobility came downstairs, but not alone; there was a
+girl with him.  Luckily, she was no Hungarian, but Italian, and they
+talked in broken English.  'They no come-a here-a now-a-time,
+Excellenza,' she said, 'but you-a fin' dem at Morris Siegelman's
+restaurant at 'alf-a-pass twelve.'  He said something choice--in pure
+Magyar, I guess--and headed for the taxi.  That is all, or practically
+all.  I tried to go back on my bargains with the Israelite in the
+store, but he made such a row that I paid him, and when I reached the
+second cab the driver told me that my man nodded as he passed, showing
+that Vassilan was returning to the hotel.  So I came here, and 'phoned
+you."
+
+Steingall glanced at a clock on the mantel-piece.  He rose, threw open
+a door, and switched on a light.
+
+"Mr. Curtis," he said, "we must risk something, but I think I can make
+you up sufficiently to escape recognition, not so much by the Count as
+by others who may attend that supper party.  You come, too, Mr. Devar.
+There is safety in numbers."
+
+With a deftness that was worthy of a theatrical costumier, the
+detectives converted themselves and the two young men into ship's
+firemen.  No more effective or simpler disguise could have been devised
+on the spur of the moment, nor one that might be assumed more readily.
+Boots offered the main difficulty, but Clancy's purchase fitted Devar,
+and Curtis made the best of a pair of canvas shoes, while a mixture of
+grease and coffee extract applied to face and hands changed four
+respectable looking persons into a gang which would certainly attract
+the attention of the police anywhere outside the bounds of just such a
+locality as they were bound for.
+
+In case the exigencies of the chase separated them, Steingall gave some
+instructions to the man in the inquiry office, and Devar tested the
+realism of his appearance by disregarding the chauffeur of the
+splendidly appointed automobile waiting at the exit.  Walking up to the
+car, he opened the door and said gruffly:
+
+"Jump in, boys!"
+
+The chauffeur wriggled out of his seat instantly, and leaped to the
+pavement.
+
+"Here, what the----" he began, whereupon Devar laughed.
+
+"It's all right, Arthur," he said.
+
+"What's all right?  This car is here for Mr. Howard Devar," cried the
+man angrily.
+
+"Well, you cuckoo, and who am I?"
+
+Something familiar in the voice caused the chauffeur to look closely at
+the speaker, whom he had not seen for a considerable time except for a
+fleeting glimpse on the arrival of the _Lusitania_ at New York that
+afternoon.  He was perplexed, but was evidently not devoid of humor.
+
+"It's either you or your ghost, sir," he said, "and if it's your ghost
+you must have been badly treated in the next world."
+
+A roundsman was entering headquarters at the moment, and gave the
+quartette a sharp glance.
+
+"Here, Parker," said Steingall, "tell this man my name."
+
+The policeman came up, looked at the detective, and laughed.
+
+"This is Mr. Steingall, chief of the Detective Bureau," he said to the
+bewildered driver, who resumed charge of the car without further ado,
+but nevertheless remained uneasy in his mind.  And not without cause.
+He, poor fellow, all unconsciously, was now gathered into the net which
+had spread its meshes so wide in New York that night.  He could not
+understand why his employer's son should be gallivanting around the
+city in company with such questionable looking characters, even though
+one of them might be the famous "man with the microscopic eye," but he
+was far from realizing that he and his car would help to make history
+before morning.
+
+In obedience to orders, he ran along Grand Street, and halted the car
+on the south side of W. H. Seward Park.
+
+"Remain here, if we do not return earlier, till one o'clock," Steingall
+told him, "and then run slowly along East Broadway to the corner of
+Montgomery Street.  We are going to Morris Siegelman's restaurant,
+which is a few doors higher up, on the north side.  If we stroll past
+you, pay no heed, but follow at a little distance.  Have you got that
+right?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Devar was hugely delighted by the man's discomfited tone.
+
+"Cheer up, Arthur," he said.  "You'll be tickled to death to-morrow
+when you read the newspapers, and discover the part you played in a big
+news item."
+
+"Now, don't forget to lurch about the sidewalk," was Steingall's next
+injunction to the amateurs.  "Think of all the bad language you ever
+heard, and use it.  We're toughs, and must behave as such.  Can either
+of you sing?"
+
+"I can," admitted Curtis.
+
+"That will help some.  Strike up any sort of sailor's chanty when we're
+in the restaurant."
+
+Late as the hour, East Broadway was full to repletion with a
+cosmopolitan crowd.  It was a Thursday evening, and the Hebrew Sabbath
+began at sunset on the following day, so the poor Jews of the quarter
+were out in their thousands, either buying provisions for the coming
+holiday or attracted by the light and bustle.  Heavy looking Russians,
+olive-skinned Italians, placid Germans, wild-eyed and pallid Czechs,
+lounged along the thoroughfare, chatting with compatriots, or gathering
+in amused groups to hear the strange patter of some voluble merchant
+retailing goods from a barrow.  From the interiors of tiny shops and
+cellars came eldritch voices crying the nature and remarkable qualities
+of the wares within.  Every hand-cart carried a flaring naphtha-lamp,
+and the glare of these innumerable torches created strong lights and
+flickering shadows which would have gladdened the heart of Rembrandt
+were his artistic wraith permitted to roam the by-ways of a city which,
+perhaps, he never heard of, even in its early Dutch guise as New
+Amsterdam.
+
+The lofty tenement houses seemed to be crowded as the streets.  Within
+a square mile of that section of New York a quarter of a million people
+find habitation, food, and employment.  They supply each other's needs,
+speak their own weird tongues, and by slow degrees become absorbed by
+the great continent which harbors them, and then only when a second or
+third generation becomes Americanized.
+
+In such a motley throng four prowling stokers, ashore for a night's
+spree, attracted scant attention, and Morris Siegelman's hospitable
+door was reached without incident.  A taxi-cab was standing by the
+curb, and the driver, gazing at the living panorama of the street,
+little guessed that he had changed garments with one of the
+half-drunken firemen two hours earlier.
+
+"Here y'are, mattes!" cried Steingall, joyously surveying a printed
+legend displayed among the bottles of a dingy bar running along the
+side of an apartment which had once been the parlor of a pretentious
+house, "this is the right sort o' dope--vodka--same as is supplied to
+the Czar of all the Roossias.  Get a pint of vodka into yer gizzards
+an' you'll think you've swallowed a lump of red-hot clinker."
+
+Clancy hopped on to a high stool, and curled himself up on the rounded
+seat in the accepted posture of Buddha, while Devar, who was by way of
+being a gymnast, stood on his hands and beat a tattoo with his feet
+against the edge of the counter.  Not to be outdone, Curtis began to
+sing.  He had a good baritone voice, and entered with zest into the mad
+spirit of the frolic.  The song he chose was redolent of the sea.  It
+related a tar's escapades among witches, cruisers, and girls.  Three of
+the latter claimed him at one and the same time--so "What was a
+sailor-boy to do?  Yeo-ho, Yeo-ho, Yeo-ho!"  The chorus decided the
+point:
+
+  "Why, we went strolling down by the rolling,
+     Down by the rolling sea.
+  If you can't be true to One or Two,
+    You're much better off with Three."
+
+
+Evidently, the roysterers' antics commanded the general approval of
+Morris Siegelman's patrons, and loud cries of "Brava!" "Encore!" "Bis!"
+"Herrlich!" rewarded Curtis's lyrical effort.  Some thirty people or
+more were scattered about the room, mostly in small parties seated
+around marble-topped tables.  Beer was the favorite beverage; a
+minority was eating, the menu being strange and wondrous, and everyone
+was smoking cigarettes.  When Curtis received his share of the
+poisonous decoction so vaunted by Steingall, he faced the company,
+glass in hand, and saw Count Vassilan seated in a corner close to a
+window.  With him were a good-looking Italian girl and a youth, and the
+three were deep in eager converse, giving no heed to the other
+revelers, but rather taking advantage of the prevalent clatter of talk
+and drinking utensils to discuss whatever topic it was which proved so
+interesting.
+
+Steingall's eyes carried a question, and Curtis shook his head.
+Vassilan's male companion bore only the slight resemblance of a kindred
+nationality to the men who committed the murder, while he differed
+essentially from the treacherous "Anatole."
+
+"I wish your best girl could see you now, John D.," whispered Devar,
+who had just recovered from a violent fit of coughing induced by the
+raw whisky which Siegelman dispensed under the seal of vodka.  Curtis
+laughed at the conceit, which was grotesque in its very essence.  Wild
+and bizarre as his experiences had been that night, none was more
+whimsical than this bawling of a ballad in an East Broadway saloon
+while posing as a sailor with three sheets in the wind.
+
+"Mostly Hungarians here," muttered Steingall.  "We seem to be in the
+right place, anyhow."
+
+"Let's eat," said Clancy suddenly.
+
+Reflected in a cracked mirror he had seen a man and two women rise and
+leave a table in the corner occupied by the Count.  He skipped off the
+stool, and made for the vacant place; the others followed, and Curtis
+had several glasses raised to his honor as he passed through the
+merry-makers.
+
+Clancy noisily summoned a waitress, and ordered four plates of
+spaghetti with tomatoes.  He sat with his back to the absorbed party
+beneath the window, and apologized with exaggerated politeness when his
+chair touched that of the Italian girl, though his accent, needless to
+say, was redolent of the East side.
+
+"They do not come, then?" he heard Vassilan say impatiently.
+
+"P'raps notta to-night," said the girl, "but you sure meet-a dem here,
+mebbe to-morrow, mebbe de nex' day."
+
+The Count tore a leaf from a notebook and scribbled something rapidly.
+When he spoke, it was to the Hungarian, and in Magyar, but it was easy
+to guess that he was giving earnest directions as to the delivery of
+the note.
+
+"Now would be a good time to raise a row if we could manage it,"
+growled Steingall.
+
+Curtis was toying with his fourth meal since sunset, and admitted that
+he was ready for anything rather than spaghetti à la tomato.
+
+"If there's enough varieties of Hungarians and Slavs in the street I
+can start a riot in less than no time," confided Devar.
+
+"How?" asked the detective.
+
+"This way," and Devar began to sing.  He owned a light tenor, clear and
+melodious, and the air had a curiously barbaric lilt which, musically
+considered, was reminiscent of the gypsies' chorus in "The Bohemian
+Girl."  But the words were couched in a strange tongue, sonorous and
+full voweled, and the Hungarians in the room became greatly stirred
+when it dawned on them that a semi-intoxicated American stoker was
+chanting a forbidden national melody.  Far better than he knew, he
+sounded uncharted deeps in human nature.  Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun
+stated an eternal truth when he wrote to the Marquis of Montrose: "I
+know a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make
+all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."
+Before Devar had finished the first verse people from the street were
+crowding in through the open door, and flashing eyes and strange
+ejaculations showed that the Czechs thought they were witnessing a
+miracle.  As the second verse rang out, vibrant and challenging, the
+mob, eager to share in the interior excitement, rushed the entrance.
+Many could hear, but few could see, and all were roused to exaltation
+by a melody the public singing of which would have brought imprisonment
+or death in their own land.
+
+"Now for it!" roared Steingall, and over went table and crockery with a
+crash.  Of course, this added to the turmoil, and some women in the
+café began to shriek.  Not knowing in the least what was causing the
+commotion, the crowd surged into that particular corner, and Steingall,
+apparently frenzied, sprang to the window, opened it, and said to Count
+Vassilan:
+
+"Get out, quick!  They'll be knifing you in a minute!"
+
+The Italian girl screamed at that, so she was lifted into the safety of
+the street.  Vassilan followed, or rather was practically thrown out,
+and the young Hungarian could have climbed after him nimbly enough had
+not Curtis insisted on helping him, and, pinioning his arms, forced him
+head foremost over the sill, but not so rapidly that Steingall should
+be unable to "go through him" scientifically for the note.
+
+"Be off, you two!  Take the car and go home!"
+
+It was no time for argument.  Both Curtis and Devar read into
+Steingall's muttered injunction the belief that the hunt had ended for
+the night.  They knew that the detectives could take care of
+themselves, and they had scrambled through the window and made off
+swiftly in the direction of the waiting automobile before the despoiled
+Hungarian regained his feet.  The hour yet wanted nearly ten minutes of
+being one o'clock, so the chauffeur had not budged from his post in the
+park.  Devar told him to start the engine, and be ready to jump off
+without delay.  Then they waited, and watched the corner of the square
+intersected by East Broadway, but neither Steingall nor Clancy
+appeared, so they judged it best to obey orders, and make for the
+Police Headquarters.  There they washed and resumed their own clothes,
+an operation which consumed another quarter of an hour.  Still there
+was no sign of the detectives, and they decided, somewhat reluctantly,
+to do as they had been bidden, and go home.
+
+"What sort of witches' shibboleth was that which you brought off in
+Siegelman's?" asked Curtis, while the car was humming placidly up
+Broadway.
+
+"Oh, that was an inspiration," chuckled Devar.
+
+"An inspiration founded on a solid basis of fact.  Now, out with it!"
+
+"Well, I was a year at Heidelberg, you know, and a fellow there told me
+that one evening, in a café at Temesvar, a student kicked up a shindy
+by singing that song.  In less than a minute an officer had been
+stabbed with his own sword, and a policeman shot, and it took a
+squadron of cavalry to clear the street.  He learnt the blessed ditty,
+out of sheer curiosity, and I picked it up from him."
+
+"What is it all about?"
+
+"I don't know.  I believe it tells the Austrians their real name, but I
+couldn't translate a line of it to save my life."
+
+Curtis leaned back in the car and laughed.
+
+"You are by way of being a genius," he said.  "I have seen a crowd go
+stark, staring mad because some idiot waved a black flag, but that was
+a symbol of the Boxer rebellion, and it meant something.  In this
+instance, among people so far away from their own country, one would
+hardly expect----"
+
+He broke off suddenly, and leaned forward.
+
+The car had just entered Madison Square, at the junction of Broadway
+and Fifth Avenue, south of 23rd Street.  A Columbus Avenue street-car
+had halted to allow traffic to pass, and a gray automobile which was
+coming out of Fifth Avenue had been held up by a policeman stationed
+there.  Curtis's attention was caught by the color and shape of the
+vehicle, and in the flood of light cast by the powerful lamps and
+brilliant electric devices concentrated on that important crossing, he
+obtained a vivid glimpse of the chauffeur's face.
+
+"Devar," he said, and some electrical quality in his voice startled his
+mercurial companion, "tell your man to overtake that car and run it
+into the sidewalk.  The driver is 'Anatole,' and it is our duty to stop
+him!"
+
+At that instant the policeman signaled the uptown traffic to move on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ONE O'CLOCK
+
+Devar had the nimble wits of a fox, and the blood which raced in his
+veins was volatile as quicksilver.  The same glance which showed him
+the gray automobile stealing softly across the network of car-lines of
+one of the city's main thoroughfares revealed a roundsman crossing the
+square.
+
+"Friend Anatole may be heeled," he said.  "Let's get help."
+
+Leaning out, he shouted to Arthur, whose other name was Brodie:
+
+"Pull in alongside the cop.  I want to speak to him."
+
+The chauffeur obeyed, and the policeman turned a questioning eye on the
+car, thinking some idiot meant to run him down.  Devar had the door
+open in a second.
+
+"Have you heard of the murder in 27th Street, outside the Central
+Hotel?" he said, almost bewildering the man by his eager directness.
+
+"Of course I have," came the answer, quickly enough.
+
+"Well, the car mixed up in it is right ahead.  There it is, making for
+Fifth Avenue.  Jump in!  We'll explain as we go."
+
+The roundsman needed no second invitation.  Obviously, unless some
+brainless young fool was trying to be humorous, there was no time to
+spare for words.  He sprang inside, and Devar cried to the surprised
+chauffeur:
+
+"Follow that gray auto.  Don't kill anybody, but hit up the speed until
+we are close behind it, and then I'll tell you what next to do."
+
+Little recking what this order really meant, for its true inwardness
+was hidden at the moment from the ken of those far better versed than
+he in the tangle of events, Brodie changed gear and touched the
+accelerator, and the machine whirred past Admiral Farragut's statue at
+a pace which would have caused even doughty "Old Salamander" to blink
+with astonishment.
+
+While four pairs of eyes were watching the fast moving vehicle in
+front, Curtis gave the policeman a brief resume of the night's doings
+since he and Devar had gone with Steingall to the Police Headquarters.
+There was no need to say much about the actual crime, because the man
+had full details, with descriptions of the man-slayers, in his notebook.
+
+He was a shrewd person, too.  His name was McCulloch; his father had
+emigrated from Belfast, and a man of such ancestry seldom takes
+anything for granted.
+
+"I suppose you are not quite certain, Mr. Curtis, that the chauffeur
+driving that car ahead is the 'Anatole' concerned in the death of Mr.
+Hunter?" he asked.
+
+But Curtis was of a cautious temperament, too.
+
+"No," he said, "that is more than I dare state, even if I had an
+opportunity to look at him closely.  As it is, I merely received what I
+may term 'an impression' of him.  That, together with the marked
+similarity of the car to the one I saw outside the hotel, seems to
+offer reasonable ground for inquiry at any rate."
+
+"Did you notice the number of this car?"
+
+"No, not exactly.  I believe it differs from that which I undoubtedly
+did see and put on record."
+
+"Of course, the plate must have been changed or he would never venture
+in this locality again.  If you are right, sir, the fellow must possess
+a mighty cool nerve, because he is just passing 27th Street, within a
+few yards of the hotel."
+
+Somehow, the fact had escaped Curtis's remembrance; excellent though
+his topographical sense might be, he was still sufficient of a stranger
+in New York not to appreciate the bearings of particular localities
+with the prompt discrimination necessarily displayed by the policeman.
+
+During the succeeding few seconds none of the occupants of the
+limousine spoke.  Devar was kneeling on one of the front seats, and the
+roundsman, who had removed his uniform hat to avoid attracting notice
+when a lamp shone directly into the interior, quietly took stock of the
+men who had so unceremoniously called him off his tour of inspection.
+Evidently he satisfied himself that he was not being dragged into a
+wild-goose chase.  Their tense manner could hardly have been assumed:
+they were in desperate and deadly earnest; so he thanked the stars
+which had brought him into active connection with an important crime,
+and gave his mind strictly to the business in hand.  Several knotty
+points demanded careful if speedy decision.  The chased automobile
+might prove to be an innocent vehicle, driven by a chauffeur above
+suspicion, and if its owner appeared in the guise of some highly
+influential person he, the roundsman, might be called to sharp account
+for exceeding his duty in making an arrest, or, if he stopped short of
+that extreme course, in conducting an offensive inquiry.
+
+Brodie took his instructions literally, and the distance between the
+two cars was diminishing sensibly.  It seemed, too, as though the
+driver of the gray car slackened pace after passing 27th Street,
+although Fifth Avenue was fairly clear of traffic, which, such as it
+was, consisted mainly of motors going uptown--that is to say, in the
+same direction as pursued and pursuer.
+
+At 34th Street came a check.  A cross-town street-car caused the gray
+automobile to swerve rapidly in order to avoid a collision, and Brodie,
+a methodical person of law-abiding instincts, lost nearly fifty yards
+in allowing the streetcar to pass.
+
+"Whoever he may be, he is not going to make any unnecessary stops,"
+commented the roundsman, fully alive to the significance of the
+incident, since ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have applied
+the brake and allowed the heavy public conveyance to get out of the way.
+
+"Unless the Hungarian assassins of New York are bang up-to-date in the
+benzine part of their stock-in-trade, our car will make good in the
+next two blocks," said Devar, over his shoulder.
+
+And, indeed, it almost appeared that Brodie had heard what was said.
+He bent forward slightly, touched a few taps with skilled fingers,
+squared his shoulders, and set about the race with the air of a man who
+thought it had lasted long enough.
+
+Nearing 42nd Street, he had reduced the gap to little more than twice
+the length of the car, and the three men saw the number plate clearly.
+Not only did the number differ, but it was of another series.
+
+"That's a New Jersey car," announced the policeman.
+
+"It may be a New Jersey number," Curtis corrected him, "but I still
+retain my belief that we are following the right man and the right car."
+
+Just then no less than four cross-town electric cars loomed into sight,
+and completely blocked the avenue at its intersection with 42nd Street.
+The gray automobile had to pull up very quickly, and Brodie was
+compelled to execute a neat half-turn to clear the rear wheels.  In the
+result, both cars halted side by side, but Curtis found himself just
+short of a position whence he could obtain a second look at the
+suspected man.
+
+The policeman had bent low in his seat, lest his uniform should be
+seen, but he, like his companions, gave a sharp glance into the
+interior of the other car.  It was empty.
+
+He was seated on the near side, however, and he noticed that the lower
+panel behind the door had been cleaned since the remainder of the
+paint-work was touched, and the step bore signs of a recent washing.
+
+Devar lowered one of the front sashes a couple of inches.
+
+"Don't look round, Arthur," he said in a low tone, "and don't take any
+notice of the chauffeur, but creep forward a foot or two, and then let
+him go ahead again."
+
+Brodie sat like a sphinx, and apparently did nothing, yet the car
+moved.  Sacrificing himself, Roundsman McCulloch fell back into his
+corner, and left the window clear for Curtis.
+
+"Well?" he inquired, and, surfeited though he might be with New York
+sensations, the others were conscious of just a hint of excitement in
+his voice.
+
+"That is Anatole, I am nearly sure," said Curtis.
+
+"Why not jump out and grab him now?" suggested Devar.
+
+"Do you gentlemen mind following him for a time?" asked the policeman.
+
+"No, I'm game for anything.  And you, Curtis?"
+
+"Oh, I feel ready to start the night all over again."
+
+The street-cars went on, and the gray automobile darted through the
+first possible opening.
+
+"You see, it is this way," explained the official.  "I am prepared to
+arrest the man on Mr. Curtis's evidence, because I couldn't have better
+testimony than that of the chief witness.  But I've been chewing on
+this thing for the past few minutes, and it strikes me that we gain
+nothing by acting in a hurry.  You may be sure that this fellow, even
+if he is the person we want, will deny it, and a day or two may be lost
+in proving his identity, or collecting facts which would support the
+theory that he was the chauffeur connected with the crime.  Now, if we
+let him go on, we shall certainly have a better hold over him.  We'll
+find out his destination--perhaps secure a very useful address, or,
+with real luck, discover that he is keeping a fixture with some other
+individual."
+
+"In a word, we must watch and pray," said Devar.
+
+"Well, we can wait and see, anyhow," said the practical minded
+McCulloch.
+
+His counsel sounded good, and the others agreed with him, thereby
+letting themselves and the patient Brodie in for some remarkable
+developments in a pursuit which began by a simple coincidence and was
+destined to end in a manner which none of them dreamed of.
+
+Devar opened the window again.
+
+"Arthur," he said, "did you happen to notice whether or not that fellow
+is carrying a reflector?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  He has one.  I saw him looking into it when I drew
+alongside."
+
+"Ah, that puts a different complexion on the affair, as the young man
+said when he kissed his best girl and tasted Somebody's Beauty Powder.
+Don't press, Arthur.  Just keep him in sight till I consult the law."
+
+As the outcome of a hurried discussion, Brodie received a fresh
+mandate.  During the straightaway run he was not to approach the gray
+car nearer than sixty yards or thereabouts--in effect, remaining within
+the same block if possible, but, if the gray car stopped in front of
+any dwelling, he was to slacken speed and pass it, taking the middle of
+the road, and holding himself in instant readiness to halt or turn as
+directed.
+
+"By the way, how are you fixed for petrol?" added Devar.
+
+"I filled the tanks, sir, before leaving the garage.  We're good for
+the trip to Albany and back."
+
+Brodie's tone was quite cheerful.  He, too, had been reviewing the
+situation, and the presence of a uniformed policeman had dispelled the
+last shred of suspicion that some stupid joke had been worked off
+outside the Police Headquarters when a fearsome looking tough was
+introduced to him as the Chief of the New York Detective Bureau.
+
+Devar was about to congratulate the roundsman on the prospect of an
+all-night journey if Brodie's chance phrase were fated to come true,
+when he glanced at Curtis, and elected to remain silent.  They were
+passing the Plaza Hotel, and his friend was peering up at its square
+white bulk.  Obviously, he was striving to locate Hermione's room.
+Most probably he failed, for it is no easy matter to pick out the
+windows of any particular set of rooms in a huge building while rushing
+along at twenty-five or more miles an hour.  Further, it was now past
+one o'clock in the morning, and most respectable people were in bed, so
+the solemn mass of the hotel was enlivened by very few rectangles of
+light.
+
+But Curtis fancied, as did Devar also, that the illuminated blinds of
+three windows on the second floor might possibly be those of Suite F.,
+and each wondered, if the surmise were correct, why her ladyship was
+remaining up so late.
+
+Devar resolved to say nothing, but Curtis felt that he must talk, if
+only for the sake of hearing his own voice.  Usually a man of taciturn
+habit, the outcome of long vigils among an alien and often hostile race
+in a semi-civilized land, he had gone through so much during the five
+and a half hours which had unfolded their marvels since he quitted the
+dining-room of the Central Hotel, that he ached for human sympathy,
+even in a trivial matter of this sort.
+
+"I thought I saw a light in my wife's rooms," he said.
+
+"As you mention it, so did I," agreed Devar.
+
+"I hope she is not awaiting my return?"
+
+"Perhaps she is anxious about you?"
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Women are given that way.  She knows you went out with Steingall, and
+he is a dangerous character."
+
+"Is Mrs. Curtis staying in the Plaza?" asked the puzzled McCulloch.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I thought you occupied a room at the Central Hotel in 27th Street?"
+
+"I did, but I got married at half-past eight, and we went to the Plaza."
+
+"Married at half-past eight--just after the murder!"  The policeman's
+words formed a crescendo of sheer surprise.  For some indefinable
+reason this curious conjunction of a crime and a wedding went beyond
+his comprehension.
+
+"Yes, it happened so.  It might have been avoided, yet, looking back
+now over the whole of the circumstances, it would appear that I have
+followed a beaten track inevitable as death."
+
+Of course, the roundsman could not grasp the somber thought underlying
+Curtis's words, but a species of indeterminate suspicion prompted his
+next question.
+
+"You came from the Plaza with Mr. Steingall, I believe, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  We were having supper there, with Mr. Devar and my uncle and
+aunt, when Mr. Clancy rang him up on the telephone, and he invited us
+to accompany him to the Police Headquarters.  The rest you know."
+
+Certainly, the explanation sounded quite satisfactory.  The attitude of
+these two young men and their chauffeur was perfectly correct, and the
+policeman's views had been strengthened materially by the tell-tale
+tokens he had noted on the gray car, which, however, he had not thought
+fit to mention.  If Steingall had attended the supper in the Plaza he
+must have convinced himself that there was nothing unusual, or, at any
+rate, doubtful, about the queer fact that a man who was mixed up in a
+remarkable murder should have gone straight from the scene of the
+tragedy and got married.
+
+Just to dispel a little of the mist that befogged his brain, he waited
+a while and then said:
+
+"Which side of the car was opposite the doorway when those two men
+attacked Mr. Hunter?"
+
+"The left.  The car had entered the street from Broadway."
+
+"Why do you ask?" inquired Devar, instantly alive to the queerness of
+this alteration of topics.
+
+"My mind went back to the job we have in hand," said the roundsman
+readily.  "I was wondering just what sort of glimpse Mr. Curtis
+obtained of the chauffeur.  Of course, I see now that he was looking at
+the man exactly under similar conditions when we made that stop at 42nd
+Street."
+
+Thus, unknown to either of the parties to the alliance, a minor crisis
+was averted, because it may safely be conceded that the hard-headed
+policeman would have refused then and there to accept any sort of
+statement from such a lunatic as John Delancy Curtis, if he were given
+a full, true, and particular account of the night's proceedings while
+being whirled up Fifth Avenue in a fast moving automobile.
+
+Romance, if it is to be accepted without question, requires the setting
+of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden.
+There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be
+carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two
+strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound
+Heaven knew whither long after midnight, it is apt to savor of the moon
+and witchcraft.
+
+Away up the straight vista of Fifth Avenue sped the two cars.  On the
+left lay the black solitude of Central Park, on the right the varied
+architecture of New York's millionaire dwellings.
+
+Devar and the policeman talked cheerfully enough, but Curtis was
+wrapped in his own musings till the rear lamp of the gray car suddenly
+curved to the left and vanished.
+
+"He has turned into the Parkway at 110th Street," said McCulloch, and
+Curtis awoke with a start to a sense of his surroundings.
+
+"I suppose he's making for St. Nicholas Avenue," went on the roundsman.
+
+"Why?" demanded Curtis, whose recollections of map-study would have
+reminded him, in other conditions, that the avenue named by McCulloch
+is one of the few which slant across the city's rectangles.
+
+"Well, sir, it's only a guess, but St. Nicholas Avenue is a short cut
+to Washington Heights, and cars often follow that route.  Yes, there he
+goes!"
+
+For an instant they caught a fleeting glimpse of Lenox Avenue, which
+runs parallel with Fifth, and then they were bowling along St. Nicholas
+Avenue.  After a half-mile or less, they crossed Eighth Avenue at an
+acute angle, but the gray car kept steadily on, and soon was skirting
+St. Nicholas Park.
+
+Thenceforth another mile and a half counted as little until the flying
+automobile gained the Harlem River Speedway.  Here the pace improved.
+There was practically no traffic to interfere with progress now, and
+Brodie had to maintain an equable rate of forty miles an hour in order
+to keep within sight of his quarry.
+
+At last, by way of Nagle and Amsterdam Avenues, they regained Broadway
+itself, at the point where its many sinuosities end at the bridges over
+the Harlem River and Spuyten Creek.
+
+By this time, McCulloch was undeniably anxious.  Many a mile separated
+him from the busy activities of Madison Square and its surroundings,
+and the main roads of the State of New York were opening up their
+possibilities.  Still, he was of Scotch-Irish stock, and even the most
+ardent Nationalist would be slow to maintain that the men from beyond
+the Boyne are what is popularly and tersely described as "quitters."
+
+"I'd be better pleased if I had any sort of notion where that joker was
+heading for," he said, with a grim smile.  "I didn't count on taking a
+joy-ride at this hour of the morning."
+
+That was his sole concession to outraged official decorum.  He accepted
+a cigar, and forthwith resigned himself to the exigencies of the chase,
+which lay not with him but with the dark and devious purposes of the
+sinister Anatole.
+
+The end, however, was nearer than any of them was now inclined to
+imagine.  A rapid run along the main road through Yonkers brought them
+to Hastings and the bank of the Hudson River.  The comparatively level
+grades of New York were replaced by hilly ground, and if they would
+avoid courting observation beyond any doubt of error it was essential
+that the gray car should be allowed greater latitude.  In fact, it was
+almost demonstrable that an alert criminal like the man they were
+pursuing--if he really were the ally of Hunter's slayers--could hardly
+have failed to realize much earlier that he was being followed.
+Moreover, being an expert motorist, he would know that the car in the
+rear could not only hold him in the race but close up with him whenever
+its occupants were so minded.  He would not be lulled into false
+security by the present widening of the gap, because that was an
+obvious maneuver due to altered circumstances.  In a word, there was
+now no hope or prospect of running him to earth at a rendezvous, but,
+giving him credit for the possession and use of a criminal's brains, it
+became an urgent matter to overtake him and compel a halt by
+deliberately blocking the way.
+
+They debated the point fully, and Devar was about to tell Brodie to act
+when the gray car disappeared.
+
+Not wishing to interfere at a critical moment, Devar drew back from the
+window.  Brodie spurted down a hill and along a short level lined with
+suburban villas; he slowed to take a sharp corner, and the car ran
+along a winding lane which could lead nowhere but to the water's edge.
+It was pitch dark, and a mist from the Hudson filled the valley.
+Common sense urged a careful pace, because it had never been possible
+to stop and adjust the powerful headlights, while the luminous haze of
+an occasional street lamp served only to reveal the narrowness of the
+road and the presence of shacks and warehouses.
+
+The descent was fairly steep, so Brodie shut off the engine, and the
+big car crept on with a stealthy and noiseless rapidity which seemed to
+betoken an actual sense of danger.
+
+Suddenly they heard a loud splash, accompanied by a muffled explosion,
+and McCulloch relieved his feelings by a few words, the use of which is
+expressly forbidden by the police manual.  But their purport was
+ridiculously clear; the gray car had plunged into the Hudson, and who
+could tell whether or not Anatole had gone with it?  Curtis was the
+first to adopt a definite line of reasoning: he assumed command now
+with the confidence of one accustomed to be in tight places and to
+depend on his own wits for extrication.
+
+"Go forward slowly until the buildings stop, Brodie," he said, for the
+two front windows were lowered, and the three men were crowded at them.
+"That fellow knew exactly where he was going.  When you pull up, light
+the acetylene lamps, and we will take the other pair and search the
+wharf from which that car was shot into the stream."
+
+Within a few yards the brakes went on with a jerk, and a tall crane
+loomed up vaguely in front.  All four men sprang to the ground, and
+while the chauffeur busied himself with the big lamps Curtis and Devar
+disconnected the smaller ones.
+
+They found themselves standing on a wooden quay, evidently used for the
+trans-shipment of building materials, and a quick scrutiny showed that
+the lane supplied the only practicable means of egress.  Some gaunt
+sheds blocked one end of the wharf and piles of dressed stone cumbered
+the other.  The tiny wavelets of the river murmured and gurgled amid
+the heavy piles which shored up the landing-place, and Devar's sharp
+eyes soon detected a corner of the gray-colored limousine round which a
+ripple had formed.  In all probability the heated cylinders had burst
+when the water rushed in, and the explosion had tilted the chassis,
+else the river, necessarily deep by the side of the quay, would have
+concealed the wreckage completely.
+
+From out of the mist came a white glare.  Brodie had set the lamps
+going, and now the square section of the submerged car became
+distinctly visible.  A little to one side a barge was moored, and the
+policeman, who had produced a serviceable looking revolver, determined
+to search it.
+
+A plank spanned the foot or so of interstice between the quay and the
+rough deck, and, in the flurry of the moment, the three men crossed
+without warning the chauffeur as to their movements.  The squat craft
+had an open well amidships, but there were two covered-in ends, and
+McCulloch, taking one of the lamps, peered down into the nearest
+hatchway.
+
+"If anyone is below there, speak," he said, "or I give you warning that
+I shall shoot at sight."
+
+There was no answer; he knelt down, lowered the lamp, and peered inside.
+
+"Empty!" he announced.  "Now for the other one."
+
+He repeated the same tactics, but the cavity revealed no lurking form
+within.  Naturally, his companions were absorbed in McCulloch's
+actions, because they knew that any instant a blinding sheet of flame
+might leap out of the darkness and a bullet send him prostrate and
+writhing.  Of the three, Curtis was most inured to an environment that
+was unusual and weird, and he it was who first noticed that the barge
+was altering its position with regard to the white discs of light which
+the lamps of the automobile formed in the mist, and a splash caused by
+the falling plank confirmed his frenzied doubt.
+
+One glance showed what had happened.  Already they were ten or twelve
+feet from the quay, which stood fully two feet above the deck of the
+barge.  Even while the fantastic notion flashed through his mind, a
+shoreward jump barely achievable by a first-rate athlete became a sheer
+impossibility.
+
+"Good Lord!" he cried, almost laughing with vexation.  "The barge has
+been cast off from her moorings!"
+
+Devar and McCulloch greeted the discovery with appropriate remarks, but
+the situation called for deeds rather than words.  The cumbrous craft
+was swinging gayly out into the stream, displaying a light-hearted
+energy and ease of motion which would certainly not have been
+forthcoming had it been the object of her unwilling crew to get her
+under way.
+
+The whereabouts of Brodie and the automobile were still vaguely
+discernible by two fast converging luminous circles now some twenty
+yards distant, and the fact was painfully borne in on them that in
+another few seconds this landmark would be swallowed in a sea of mist
+and swirling waters.
+
+Curtis, accustomed to the vagaries of Chinese junks in the swift
+currents of the Yang-tse-Kiang, adopted the only measures which
+promised any degree of success.  He ran to the helm, which had been
+lashed on the starboard side to keep it from fouling any submerged
+piles near the bank.  Casting it loose, he put it hard a-port, and
+shouted to the policeman and Devar to bring a couple of boards from the
+floor of the well, and use them to sheer in the hulk to the bank.
+
+The night was pitch dark, the mist fell on them like an impenetrable
+veil, and the wooded heights which dominated both banks of the river
+prevented any ray of light from coming to their assistance.  Still,
+they had two lamps, which at least enabled them to see each other, and
+Curtis could judge with reasonable accuracy of the direction they were
+taking by the set of the stream.  They seemed to have been toiling a
+weary time before the helmsman fancied he could see something looming
+out of the void.  He believed that, however slowly, they were surely
+forging inshore again, and was about to ask Devar to abandon his
+valiant efforts to convert a long plank into a paddle and go forward in
+order to keep a lookout, when the barge crashed heavily into the stern
+of a ship of some sort, and simultaneously bumped into a wharf.  The
+noise was terrific, coming so unexpectedly out of the silence, and
+their argosy careened dangerously under some obstruction forward.
+
+No orders were needed now.  They scrambled ashore, abandoning one of
+the lamps in their desperate hurry, and the policeman instantly
+extinguished the light of the other by pressing the glass closely to
+his breast when a rumble of curses heralded the coming on deck of two
+men who had been aroused from sleep on board the vessel by the
+thunderous onset of the colliding barge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TWO-THIRTY A. M.
+
+Few men or women of sympathetic nature, and gifted with ordinary powers
+of observation, can go through life without learning, at some time or
+other in the course of their careers, that circumstances wholly beyond
+human control can display on occasion a fiendish faculty of converting
+patent honesty into apparent dishonesty--and that which is true of
+motive holds equally good in the case of conduct.
+
+The three men standing breathless and unmoved on some unknown wharf on
+the left bank of the Hudson might fairly be described as superlatively
+honest persons, nor had they done any act which could be construed as
+wrongful by the most captious critic; yet McCulloch's concealment of
+the lamp suggested something thievish and illicit, and, though he alone
+could give a valid reason for exercising extreme discretion, because he
+realized, better than the others, what a choice morsel this adventure
+would supply to the press if ever it became known, both Curtis and
+Devar listened like himself with bated breath to the oaths and
+ejaculations which came from the after part of the moored vessel.
+
+"Howly war!" cried one of the startled crew.  "See what's butted into
+us--the divvle's own battherin'-ram av a scow, an' wid an ilegant
+lanthern shtuck on her mangy hide, if ye plaze."
+
+A ship's lamp bobbed up and down in the gloom, and another voice said
+gruffly:
+
+"Mighty good job we had those fenders out, or she would have knocked a
+hole in us.  She seems to be wedged in good and hard under our mooring
+rope; but shin over, Pat, an' make her fast.  Somebody owns the brute,
+an' there'll be damages to pay for this, an' p'raps salvage as well."
+
+The Irishman dropped down into the barge.  The silent trio on the quay
+heard him walking to the lamp, and saw its dull orb of radiance lifted
+from the deck.
+
+"Begob, but this is a bit of a fairy tale," came the comment.  "Here is
+none o' yer tin-cint Standard Ile prapositions, but a rale dandy uv a
+lamp, fit for a lady's cabin on Vandherbilt's yacht.  An', for the luv
+o' Hiven, look at the make uv it, wid a handle where the bottom ought
+to be, an' all polished up like the pewther in Casey's saloon."
+
+"Oh, get a move on, Pat, an' tie her up," said the other voice.  "It's
+the Lord knows what o'clock, an' we've a long day before us to-morrow."
+
+The lamp moved astern, and the Irishman investigated matters further.
+
+"There's bin black wur-rk here, George," he shouted.  "The moorin' rope
+nivver bruk.  It was cut."
+
+A sharp hiss of breath between McCulloch's teeth betrayed the stress of
+his emotions.  To think that he, a smart roundsman of the Broadway
+squad, should have been bested so thoroughly by a miserable alien
+chauffeur!  The man had merely slipped over the edge of the quay, and
+clung like a limpet to the rough baulks of timber which faced it; when
+his pursuers were safely disposed of on board the barge, one cut of a
+sharp knife had sent them adrift by the stern, while the forward rope,
+released of any strain, had probably uncoiled itself from a stanchion
+with the diabolical ingenuity which inanimate objects can display at
+unlooked-for moments.
+
+"Fling a coil uv line here," continued the speaker.  "This fag ind is
+no good, at all at all."
+
+The thud of a falling rope, and various grunts and comments from the
+Irishman, showed that the barge was being secured.  Still the three
+waited.  The primary display of secrecy, the instinct to remain unseen,
+had passed, but there was nothing to be gained by entering into a long
+and difficult explanation with the ship's hands, while it would be a
+simple matter to recoup the owner of the barge for any charge which
+might be levied on him for injury to the vessel, provided the liability
+rested with him and not with others.
+
+Swearing and grumbling, Pat stumbled along the quay, carrying the lamp.
+He passed within a few feet of the motionless group, and soon they
+heard him and his mate descending the companionway to their bunks.
+
+"Now for a light," said the policeman, "and let's get out of this!"
+
+Taking heed not to turn the lamp toward the ship, lest their movements
+should be overheard and a head pop up out of the hatch, he led the way
+quietly to the rear of the wharf.  A rough road climbed the hill to the
+left, and, as this direction offered the only probable means of
+regaining the car, they took it.
+
+After a long climb they reached a better road, which ultimately brought
+them into a main thoroughfare.  Then Curtis bethought him of looking at
+his watch, and was astonished to find that the hour was half-past two
+o'clock.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried.  "We must have consumed fully half an hour over
+that trip.  I wonder whether your man has waited, Devar; or would he
+give us up as lost, and go home?"
+
+"What!  Arthur return alone, and tell my aunt that the last he saw of
+me I was adrift on the Hudson River in a barge with a policeman and a
+swashbuckler from Pekin?  Not much!"
+
+"I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch.  "Even when we reach New
+York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and
+report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire
+precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time."
+
+Devar laughed loudly.
+
+"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch--not that you are of the neurotic
+habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored
+through you while searching that blessed barge--but if you believe you
+can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained
+John D. Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are
+hugging a delusion.  I started out from a happy home last evening
+intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox
+sights of New York.  Gee whizz!  Look at me now!  I missed John D. by a
+few minutes, but found myself gaping with the crowd at the scene of a
+murder in which he had figured heavily.  Since then I have helped to
+break open hotel doors, discovered a villain tied and gagged by other
+villains, stood on my head in Morris Siegelman's joint, started a riot
+in East Broadway, helped a detective to commit a larceny, cheeked a
+British lord, and scoffed at a Hungarian prince, to say nothing of the
+present racket.  So don't you go making plans for the night yet a
+while, McCulloch, because John D. will keep you busy without any call
+for you exercising your brain cells in that respect."
+
+The roundsman did not try to grasp the inner significance of this
+rigmarole.  He was unfeignedly glad to have escaped from an awkward
+predicament.
+
+"Anyhow," he said briefly, "if it comes to the worst I can ring up my
+captain from the nearest station-house, and at least he will know where
+I am."
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, either.  Suppose you had 'phoned your
+captain before you went on board the barge, would he be any the wiser
+now?  Just to prove the exceeding wisdom of my remarks, do you know
+where you are at the present moment?  Because _I_ don't."
+
+The policeman stopped short, and gazed ahead with a new anxiety.  The
+mist was thinner here, and pin-points of light from a row of lamps
+showed in a straight line for a considerable distance.  For an instant
+there was an embarrassed pause, because all three failed to remember
+covering any similar stretch of level road after descending the hill
+and turning into the lane leading to the Hudson.
+
+"Did you notice a few minutes since that a low wall bounded the road on
+both sides?" said Curtis, breaking a somewhat strained silence.
+
+Yes, each had seen it.
+
+"Well, I am inclined to believe," he went on, "that that wall formed
+part of an accommodation bridge, under which the car passed in the dark
+without our being aware of it.  Indeed, I feel confident that if we
+turn back along this main road, we shall meet our lane on the right,
+and about three hundred yards from this very point."
+
+They agreed to make the experiment, and Devar grinned broadly when the
+lane presented itself exactly as Curtis had predicted.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he cackled to the roundsman.  "John D. is a
+Chinese necromancer.  I'm getting used to his tricks, and you will
+catch the habit in another hour or two.  By four o'clock you won't be
+the least bit surprised if you find yourself flying across the New
+Jersey flats in an aeroplane, or having a cup of hot coffee on board
+the pilot steamer off Sandy Hook."
+
+"I'll risk either of those unlikely things, sir, if we find your car
+where we left it," They stepped out briskly.  When all was said and
+done, none of the three wished to be stranded in some unknown byway of
+Westchester County at that ungodly hour, and their relief was great
+when the stark outline of the crane became visible in an otherwise
+impenetrable wall of darkness.
+
+"By Jove!  The car is here all right," crowed Devar joyously.
+
+In the next few strides the automobile came in sight, the blaze of its
+headlights casting a cheerful glow over the wharf.  Brodie was standing
+where the barge had been moored, and gazing blankly at the river; he
+turned when he heard their footsteps, and ran quickly to the car.
+
+"It's O. K., Arthur," cried Devar, realizing that the chauffeur might
+be dreading an attack from the rear, "little Willie has returned, and
+won't go boating again in a derelict barge at two o'clock in the
+morning if he can help it."
+
+"Oh, it's you, sir!" came the answer in a tone of vast relief.  "My,
+but I'm glad to see you!  I didn't know what to do.  I thought you were
+safe enough, because I heard your voices as you drifted away, and I
+fancied you might make the shore again lower down, but it seemed to be
+a hopeless job to go in search of you, so, after things had calmed down
+a bit, I decided to stop right here."
+
+After the first gasp of excitement, there had crept into the placid
+Brodie's voice a note of quiet jubilation which hinted at developments.
+
+"Did anything happen after we sailed away?" asked Devar.
+
+"Did you see anyone?" demanded the policeman.
+
+"Things were quiet as the grave for quite a time after you gentlemen
+disappeared," said Brodie, speaking with the unctuous slowness of a man
+who has been vouchsafed the opportunity of his life and has grabbed it
+with both hands.
+
+"Something _did_ occur, then?" put in Devar impatiently.
+
+"Nothing to speak of, sir--at first," came the irritating answer.  "I
+watched you go on board the barge, and I noticed her edging out into
+the river, and it was easy enough to know that none of you had cast her
+off, because what you said showed that you were even more surprised
+than I was.  So, sez I to meself, 'Arthur, me boy, barges don't untie
+themselves from wharves in that casual sort of way, and at just the
+right minute, too, for anyone who wanted to dispose of a cop,' begging
+your pardon, Mr. Policeman, but that was the line of argument I had
+with meself."
+
+"Try the accelerator, Arthur," groaned Devar.
+
+"If ever I meet with a bit of an accident, sir, I always pull up and
+plan the wheel-marks; I carry a tape for the purpose, and it saves a
+lot of hard swearing in court afterwards."  Brodie spoke seriously, and
+Devar vowed that he would interrupt no more, since he merely succeeded
+in stimulating the man's torpid wits.
+
+Even now, the chauffeur waited to allow his philosophy to sink into
+minds which might prove unreceptive.  Finding that there was no
+likelihood of debate, he went on:
+
+"It struck me, too, that a feller who didn't hesitate about shoving a
+good car into a river must be a rank tough, the kind of character who
+would jump at the chance of plugging me with a bullet, or two, for that
+matter, and hiking off with the car, without anybody being the wiser,
+so I nipped out from behind the wheel, and, taking care to keep away
+from the light, crept in behind that pile of rock there," and he nodded
+to the mass of dressed stone which filled one end of the wharf.
+
+He waited, as though to make sure that they appreciated his
+generalship.  Devar's teeth grated, and McCulloch stirred uneasily, but
+no one spoke.
+
+"You'll notice that it is only a few feet away," he said, measuring the
+distance with a thoughtful eye, "but, to make sure of reaching anybody
+who might try to monkey with the car, I groped around until I had found
+two half bricks.  Then I waited.  By that time, which was really less
+than it takes me to tell you about it, there wasn't a sound to be heard
+but the lapping of the river.  The last thing I heard you say, Mr.
+Howard, was----"
+
+"I used language which no self-respecting chauffeur could possibly
+repeat," broke in Devar despairingly.
+
+"That's as may be, sir.  Circumstances alter cases, as you will see
+before I've done.  Well, I listened to the river, which resembled
+nothing in all the world so much as the sobbing of a child, but no one
+stirred for such a time that I began to feel stiff, and I was thinking
+that I might be acting like a fool for my pains when a head popped up
+over the edge of the wharf."
+
+Obviously, this sentence demanded a dramatic pause, and Brodie knew his
+business.  Perhaps he expected cries of horror from his audience, but
+none was forthcoming, so, with a sigh, he continued:
+
+"That cured the stiffness, gentlemen, I can assure you.  I balanced one
+of the half bricks in my left hand--I'm a left-handed man in many
+things--and watched the head, while it was easy to see that the head
+watched the car.  'Now,' sez I to meself, 'that's the whelp who
+mistreated a car which had served him well, and he's reckoning in his
+own mind that my car would suit his needs just as well as the one he
+has lost.'  I do believe I read that man's mind correctly.  He might
+have said out loud: 'That party of sports were muts.  They're all
+aboard the Hudson River liner, chauffeur and all.'  I beg your pardon,
+gentlemen, if I have put it awkwardly, but I am sort of feeling my way
+towards the feller's sentiments, groping in the dark, as you might say."
+
+Notwithstanding his effort at self-restraint, Devar felt that he must
+speak or explode.
+
+"Go right ahead, Arthur," he said.  "Explain the position thoroughly.
+The fog is lifting, and we have heaps of time before sunrise."
+
+"The whole affair is a mighty queer business, sir," said Brodie
+seriously.  "The roundsman here will tell you how careful one has to be
+in such matters.  I have had a law-case or two in my time, and them
+lawyers turn you inside out if you begin romancing.  For instance, what
+I've just told you isn't evidence.  The man said nothing; neither did
+I.  We played a fine game of cat and mouse, only it happened that I was
+the cat. . . .  Well, it is getting late, so I'll get on with the
+story.  The head didn't budge for quite a while, but at last it made a
+move, and soon the identical chauffeur who hit up the pace from 23rd
+Street climbed on to the wharf and dodged in behind the crane.  He had
+something in his right hand, too, that I didn't like the look of, so I
+gripped my chunk of brick mighty hard.  This time he didn't wait so
+long, but crept forward like a stage murderer, peeping this way and
+that, but making for the car.  Once he looked straight at where I was
+crouching, and I was scared stiff, because a brick ain't any fair match
+for one of them new-fangled pistols at six yards or so; but I guess he
+was a bit nervy himself, and he didn't make out anything unusual in my
+direction.  Then he dodged right round the car to the back, and
+returned on the side nearest to me.  I suppose he reckoned all was safe
+by that time, so he took hold of the crank and began to start the
+engine.  'Now or never!' says I to meself, so up I gets, and my knee
+joints cracked like--well, they cracked so loud that only the turning
+of the crank stopped him from hearing them.  With that, I let drive
+with the half brick, and caught him square in the small of the back.
+Down he went with a yell, and me on top of him.  I had the second half
+brick ready to batter his skull in if he showed fight, but the first
+one had laid him out sufficient for my purpose, which was to get hold
+of this."
+
+Brodie's hand dived into a pocket, and he produced a particularly
+vicious looking automatic pistol.
+
+Then McCulloch said imperatively:
+
+"You've got him.  Where is he?"
+
+Brodie was really an artist.  Some men would have smirked with triumph,
+but he merely jerked a thumb casually toward the automobile:
+
+"In there!" he said.
+
+The policeman ran to a door and wrenched it open.  He turned the rays
+of the lamp which he still held in his hand on to a figure, lying
+kneeling on the floor in an extraordinary attitude.  From a white face
+a pair of gleaming eyes met his in a glance of hate and fear, but no
+words came from the thin lips set in a line, and a moment's scrutiny
+showed that the captive was bound hand and foot.  Indeed, hands and
+feet were fastened together with a stout cord, which had been passed
+around the man's neck subsequently, so that he was in some danger of
+suffocation if he endeavored to wriggle loose, or even straighten his
+back, which was bent over his heels.
+
+"He's all right," said Brodie, who had strolled leisurely after the
+others.  "I told him I was taking no chances, and was compelled to make
+him uncomfortable, but that he wouldn't choke if he kept quiet.  Of
+course, he has had a rather trying wait, but I couldn't help that,
+could I?"
+
+"We give you best," growled McCulloch.  "Did you stiffen him with the
+half brick, then, that you were able to hunt around for a rope?"
+
+"That helped some, but I also remarked that, if he moved, this toy of
+his would surely go off by accident, and he seemed to think it might
+hurt."
+
+McCulloch held the lamp close to the livid, twisted face.
+
+"Is this Anatole?" he said suddenly.
+
+"Yes," said Curtis, with instant appreciation of his adroitness.
+
+They were rewarded by the scowl which convulsed the mask-like face, and
+terror set its unmistakable seal there.  A harsh metallic voice came
+from the huddled-up form.
+
+"Cut this d--d rope, and let me stand on my feet!"
+
+"There's no special hurry," said the policeman coolly.  "We won't
+object to making things more pleasant for you if you promise to take us
+straight to your Hungarian friends."
+
+Again that wave of dread which betokens the quailing heart of the
+detected felon swept over the man's features, but he only swore again,
+and protested that they had no right to torture him.
+
+McCulloch saw that he had to deal with a hardened criminal, from whom
+no conscience stricken confession would be forthcoming.  He gave the
+lamp to Curtis, stooped, and lifted the prisoner out on to the ground.
+Untying the rope, except at the man's ankles, he brought the listless
+hands in front, and placed a pair of handcuffs on the wrists.
+
+"Now," he said, "if you have any sense left, you'll keep quiet and
+enjoy the ride back to New York."
+
+"Why am I arrested?  I have a right to know?"  The words were yelped at
+him rather than spoken.
+
+"All in good time, Anatole.  You'll have everything explained to you
+fair and square."
+
+"That is not my name.  That's a Frenchman's name."
+
+"It fitted you all right in 27th Street a few hours ago."
+
+"I was not there.  I can prove it."
+
+"Of course you can.  You'd be a poor sort of crook if you couldn't.
+But what's this?" the roundsman had found some letters and a pocketbook
+in an inner pocket of the chauffeur's closely buttoned jacket--"M.
+Anatole Labergerie, care of Morris Siegelman, saloon-keeper, East
+Broadway, N. Y.," he said.  "You know someone named Anatole, anyhow, so
+we are warm, as the kids say," he went on sarcastically.
+
+"I say nothing.  I admit nothing.  I demand the presence of a lawyer,"
+was the defiant reply.
+
+"You'll see a heap of lawyers before the State of New York has no
+further use for you.  Now, I'll take you to a nice, quiet hotel for the
+night.  In with you. . . .  Mind the step.  Let me give you a friendly
+hand. . . .  No, that seat, if you please, close up in the corner.
+I'll go next.  Mr. Curtis, you don't object to being squeezed a little,
+I'm sure, though the three of us will crowd the back seat, and if the
+gentleman who says nothing and admits nothing will only change his
+mind, and tell us exactly how he has spent a rather exciting evening,
+the story will help pass the journey quite pleasantly."
+
+But Anatole Labergerie, whose accent was that of a Frenchman with a
+very complete knowledge of English, had evidently determined on a
+policy of silence, and no word crossed his lips during the greater part
+of the long run to the police station-house in 30th Street, in which
+precinct, the 23rd, the murder had occurred, and to which McCulloch was
+attached.
+
+His presence in the car acted as an effectual damper on conversation in
+so far as Curtis and Devar were concerned.  If their suspicions were
+justified, he was a principal in an atrocious crime, and mere
+propinquity with such a wretch induced a feeling of loathing comparable
+only with that shrinking from physical contact to which mankind yields
+when confronted with leprosy in its final forbidding form.
+
+But McCulloch was jubilant.  He regarded his prisoner with the almost
+friendly interest taken in his quarry by the slayer of wild beasts to
+whose rifle has fallen some peculiarly rare and dangerous "specimen."
+He enlivened the road with anecdotes of famous criminals, and each
+story invariably concluded with a facetious reference to the "chair" or
+a "lifer."  Once or twice he gave details of the breaking up of some
+notorious gang owing to information extracted from one of its minor
+members, who, in consequence, either escaped punishment or received a
+light sentence; but the captive remained mute and apparently
+indifferent, whereupon Curtis, who had been revolving in his mind
+certain elements in a singularly complex mystery, broke fresh ground by
+saying:
+
+"The strangest feature of this affair is probably unknown to you, Mr.
+McCulloch.  To all intents and purposes, the men who killed the
+journalist were acting in concert with a Frenchman named Jean de
+Courtois, and their common object was to prevent a marriage arranged
+for last night.  Yet this same de Courtois was found gagged and bound
+in his room at the Central Hotel shortly before midnight.  Someone had
+maltreated him badly, and the wonder is he was not killed outright."
+
+Now, the roundsman, wedged close against the prisoner, felt the man
+give an almost unconscious and quite involuntary start when de Courtois
+was mentioned, and there could be no question that he was straining his
+ears to catch each syllable Curtis uttered.
+
+Nudging the latter, McCulloch said:
+
+"So it was a near thing that two weddings were not interfered with last
+night, sir?"
+
+"No, not two, only one.  I married the lady."
+
+"You did!"
+
+The policeman's undoubted bewilderment was convincingly genuine, but,
+despite his surprise, he was alert to catch the slightest move or sign
+of emotion on the part of the captive.
+
+"Yes," said Curtis.  "I married her before half-past eight."
+
+"Then you must have possessed some knowledge of the parties mixed up in
+this business?"
+
+"No, not in the sense you have in mind.  I cannot supply full
+particulars now, but you will learn them in due course.  The point I
+wish to emphasize is this--poor Mr. Hunter's death was absolutely
+needless.  I imagine he only came into connection with the intrigue by
+exercising the journalistic instinct to obtain exclusive details of a
+sensational news item which involved several distinguished people.  The
+miserable tools employed by men who wished to gain their own ends were
+not even true to each other, and they undoubtedly attacked Hunter by
+error."
+
+"Did they mean to kill you, then?"
+
+"Oh, no.  They had never heard of me.  I dropped from the skies, or the
+nearest thing to it, since I was on the Atlantic at this hour
+yesterday."
+
+McCulloch was aware that the Frenchman had been profoundly disturbed by
+Curtis's statements, and kept the ball rolling.  That name, de
+Courtois, seemed to supply the clew to the man's agitation, so he
+harped on it.
+
+"Has Mr. Steingall seen de Courtois?" he asked.
+
+"Yes.  Mr. Devar and I accompanied him to de Courtois's room, and set
+the rascal free."
+
+"That settles it," said the roundsman emphatically.  "If the man with
+the camera eye has looked de Courtois over it is all up with the whole
+bunch.  Are you listening, Anatole?  This should be real lively hearing
+for you."
+
+"Monsieur de Courtois is a friend of mine," came the sullen response.
+
+"Oh, is he?  Then you do know something about events in 27th Street,
+eh?"
+
+"I tell you nothing, but why should I deny that I know Monsieur de
+Courtois?"
+
+"Or that you are a Frenchman," put in Curtis quietly.  "One of the few
+words in the French language which no foreigner can ever pronounce is
+that word 'Monsieur,' especially when it is followed by a 'de.'  I
+speak French well enough to realize my limitations."
+
+"Now, Anatole, cough it up," said McCulloch jocularly.  "You've no more
+chance of winning through than a chunk of ice in hell's flames."
+
+"Let me alone, I'm tired," said the other, relapsing into a stony
+inattention which did not end even when Brodie brought the car to a
+stand outside the police station-house in West 30th Street.
+
+The advent of the roundsman with a prisoner and escort created some
+commotion among his colleagues.  The police captain was the same
+official who had harbored suspicion against Curtis not so many hours
+ago, and his opinion was not entirely changed, only modified.
+
+He glanced darkly at Curtis and Devar, but was manifestly cheered by
+sight of McCulloch with a chauffeur in custody.
+
+"Hello!" he cried, "and where in Hades have _you_ been?"
+
+"A long way from home, Mr. Evans," said the roundsman.  "But it was
+worth while.  This is Anatole, whose other name is Labergerie, the man
+wanted for the murder in 27th Street."
+
+"The deuce it is!  Where did you get him?"
+
+"Away up beyond Yonkers."
+
+"Hold on a minute."
+
+He swung round quickly to a telephone, and called up Headquarters.
+
+"Hello, there," he said, when an answer came.  "Mr. Steingall or Mr.
+Clancy in?  Both?  Well, put me through. . . .  That you, Mr.
+Steingall?  I'm Evans, 23rd precinct. . . .  Sergeant McCulloch has
+just arrived with a prisoner, the chauffeur, Anatole; and Mr. Curtis is
+here, too. . . .  Anatole Labergerie is the full name."
+
+Some conversation followed.  The others could hear the peculiar rasping
+sound of a voice otherwise undistinguishable, but it was evident that
+the police captain was greatly puzzled.  At last he beckoned to Curtis.
+
+"You're wanted," he said laconically.
+
+Curtis went to the instrument, and Steingall's rather amused tone was
+soon explicable.
+
+"There's a screw loose, somewhere," he said.  "Anatole Labergerie is a
+respectable garage-keeper.  I know him well.  Half an hour ago I called
+him out of bed, chiefly on account of his front name, and he told me
+that Mr. Hunter hired a car from him last evening, but never showed up
+at the appointed place and time, and the chauffeur brought the car back
+to the garage to wait further orders."
+
+"I have no wish to traduce Anatole Labergerie," said Curtis, "but I am
+quite sure that the man under arrest is the driver of the car in which
+the Hungarians made off.  He has admitted, too, that Jean de Courtois
+is his friend."
+
+A low whistle revealed Steingall's revised view of the situation.
+
+"Don't go away," he said.  "Clancy and I will be with you in less than
+quarter of an hour."
+
+Curtis hung up the receiver, and announced the new development.  The
+Frenchman did not betray any cognizance of it.  He had collapsed into a
+chair, and looked the degenerate that he was.
+
+But Devar slapped McCulloch's broad shoulders.
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" he cried.  "There's a whole lot of night ahead of
+us yet.  Gee whizz!  I'll write a book before I'm through with this!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"
+
+A dejected and disheveled super-clerk was called on to face a new
+crisis soon after he had apparently got rid of most of the persons
+concerned in the pandemonium which had raged for hours around that
+refuge of middle-class decorum and respectability, the Central Hotel in
+27th Street.
+
+As he was wont to explain in later days of blessed peacefulness:
+
+"The queerest part of the whole business was that I never had the
+slightest notion as to what was going to happen next.  Everything
+occurred like a flash of lightning, and imitated lightning by never
+striking twice in the same place."
+
+It was not to be expected that a man of the Earl of Valletort's social
+standing and experience would allow himself to be brow-beaten by a
+police official and an uncertain miscellany of people like Devar and
+the members of the Curtis family.  When the cool night air had tempered
+his indignation, and he was removed from the electrical atmosphere
+created by his son-in-law's positive disdain and Steingall's negative
+indifference, he began to survey the situation.  Though not wholly a
+stranger in New York, he was far from being versed in the
+technicalities of legal and police methods, so he bethought him of
+securing skilled advice.  The hour was late, but the fact merely
+presented a difficulty which was not insuperable to a person of even
+average intelligence.  He turned into an imposing looking hotel on
+Broadway, produced his card, and asked for the manager.
+
+An affable clerk hurried forward, thinking that his house was about to
+earn new laurels; if somewhat surprised by the Earl's explanation that
+he was in need of a lawyer of repute, and had applied to the proprietor
+of an important hotel as one most likely to further the quest, he
+responded with prompt civility.
+
+"There are several lawyers guests in the hotel at this moment, my
+lord," he said.  "Each is a notable man in one branch of practice or
+another.  May I ask if you want advice in a matter of real estate, or
+some commercial claim, or a criminal charge?"
+
+"The latter, in a sense," said the Earl.  "A relative of mine has
+contracted a marriage under conditions which are illegal, or, at any
+rate, most irregular."
+
+The clerk stroked his chin.
+
+"Mr. Otto Schmidt has just concluded a remarkable nullity of marriage
+suit," he pondered.
+
+"Just the man for my purpose.  Is he in?"
+
+Within five minutes the Earl was closeted with Mr. Otto Schmidt in the
+latter's private sitting-room.  The lawyer was a short man, who bore a
+remarkable physical resemblance to an egg.  Head, rotund body, and
+immensely fat legs tapering to very small feet, formed a complete oval,
+while his ivory-tinted skin, and a curious crease running round
+forehead and ears beneath a scalp wholly devoid of hair, suggested that
+the egg had been boiled, and the top cut off and replaced.
+
+But he showed presently that the ovum was sound in quality.  He
+listened in absolute silence until his lordship had told his story.
+All things considered, the recital was essentially true.
+
+There were suppressions of fact, such as the lack of any mention of
+collusion between the distraught father and Count Ladislas Vassilan on
+the one hand and Jean de Courtois on the other, and there were wholly
+unwarrantable imputations against Curtis's character and attributes,
+but, on the whole, Mr. Schmidt was able, in his own phrase, "to size up
+the position" with fair accuracy.
+
+Like every other man of common sense who became acquainted with the
+night's doings in a connected narrative, he began by expressing his
+astonishment.
+
+"I have had some singular cases to handle during a long and varied
+professional career," he said, and eyelids almost devoid of lashes
+dropped for an instant over a pair of dark and curiously piercing eyes,
+"but I have never heard of anything quite like this.  You say the name
+of the detective who gave you the account of the murder, and of the
+connection of this John Delancy Curtis with it, is Steingall?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Again the eyelids fell, and, as Mr. Schmidt's face was also devoid of
+eyebrows, and was colorless in its pallor, and as his lips met in a
+thin seam above a chin which merged in folds of soft flesh where his
+neck ought to be, his features at such a moment assumed the
+disagreeable aspect of a death mask, though this impression vanished
+when those brilliant eyes peered forth from their bulbous sockets.
+
+"But I know Steingall," he said.  "He is at the head of the New York
+Detective Bureau, a man of the highest reputation, and one who commands
+confidence in the courts, not to speak of his department."
+
+"He struck me as an able man, but I am quite sure he has failed to
+appreciate the share this fellow, Curtis, has borne in the affair,"
+said the Earl testily.
+
+"It seems to me that your daughter, Lady Hermione, could not possibly
+have been what is commonly described as 'in love' with de Courtois?
+Stupid as the comment may appear, I must search for a motive."
+
+"My good sir, the notion is preposterous.  I--I have reason to believe
+that she intended this marriage to serve as a shield, or cloak, for her
+own purposes, which were, I regret to say, largely inspired by a
+stubborn resolve not to marry a man who is suitable as a husband in
+every way--by birth, social position, and distinguished prospects."
+
+"Her own purposes.  What does that mean exactly?"
+
+"It means that she was contracting a marriage as a matter of form.
+Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible
+for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de
+Courtois's substitute, while my misguided daughter was equally prepared
+to accept them?"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The eyelids shut tightly once more, and the Earl, feeling rather
+irritated and disturbed by this unpleasing habit, shifted his chair
+noisily.  He found, however, that Mr. Schmidt merely kept the shutters
+down for a rather longer period than before, and, as the lawyer
+impressed him with a sense of power and ability, he resolved to put up
+with a peculiarity which was certainly disconcerting.
+
+"May I ask if your daughter is what is popularly known as a pretty
+girl, my lord?" demanded Schmidt suddenly.
+
+"Yes.  She is remarkably good-looking, but----"
+
+"Motive, my lord, motive.  I was wondering why Curtis should behave
+like a thundering idiot.  Now, apart from your natural dislike to the
+man, how would you describe him?"
+
+"He looks a gentleman, and, under ordinary conditions, I would regard
+him as a social equal," admitted the Earl.
+
+"So, unfortunate as the circumstances may be, he is a more desirable
+_parti_ than the French music-master?"
+
+Then the noble lord flared into heat.
+
+"Dash it all!" he cried.  "You are almost as bad as that detective
+person.  I am not bothering my brains as to Curtis's desirableness or
+otherwise, or comparing him with a worm like de Courtois.  I want this
+marriage annulled.  I want him arrested.  I want the aid of the law to
+extricate my daughter from the consequences of her own folly.  Surely,
+such a marriage cannot be legal!"
+
+Schmidt weighed the point from behind the veil, and an unemotional
+reply soothed his fiery client.
+
+"The idea is, perhaps, untenable--almost repulsive," he said, "but the
+law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I
+cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand.  You see, the question of
+consideration intervenes.  And--and--where is the lady now?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You left Curtis at the Central Hotel!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In company with Steingall, and two elderly Curtises, and young Devar?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why didn't you demand your daughter's present address?"
+
+"I--I was so stunned by what I regarded as official sanction of an
+outrage that I came away in a fury."
+
+Mr. Otto Schmidt rose, or rather, raised his oblong shape from a slight
+incline on a chair to a horizontal position.
+
+"Let us go to the hotel," he said.  "And there must be no more fury.
+Leave the inquiry in my hands, my lord, and it will be strange if I do
+not succeed in elucidating points which are now baffling us--in fact, I
+may say, inducing mental disturbance."
+
+Thus, it came to pass that Krantz, the reception clerk at the Central
+Hotel, had just seen the doctor sent to dose de Courtois with bromide
+leaving the building when the Earl and Mr. Schmidt entered.
+
+As it happened, the lawyer was known to him, Schmidt having had legal
+charge of the corporation which reconstructed the hotel, so it was
+impossible for an employé to be reticent with him about the matters
+which were discussed forthwith.
+
+"Mr. Steingall gone?" inquired Schmidt affably.
+
+"Yes, sir.  He left here nearly half an hour ago," said the clerk,
+outwardly self-possessed, but wondering inwardly what new bomb would be
+exploded in his weary brain.
+
+"This murder, and its attendant circumstances, constitute a very
+extraordinary affair," said the lawyer.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Krantz was not deceived.  He had answered some such remark a hundred
+times that evening, but he would surely be put on the rack in a moment
+by some fantastic disclosure which none save a lunatic would dream of.
+
+"Now, about this Mr. John Delancy Curtis," purred Schmidt, "has it been
+ascertained beyond all doubt that he arrived in New York from Europe
+this evening?"
+
+"I think so, sir," was the jaded answer.  "The police are satisfied on
+that point, I believe, and he himself gave his last address as Pekin."
+
+"Pekin!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Everybody was invariably astonished when they heard of Pekin.  Had
+Curtis described his recent residence as "the Moon" it would have been
+regarded as only a degree more recondite.
+
+"Then," said Schmidt, closing his eyes, "assuming he is the stranger he
+represents himself as being, he could have no personal connection with
+the murder of Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
+
+There!  Another comet had fallen in 27th Street.  Krantz winced, as if
+the lawyer had struck him.
+
+"Mr. de Courtois!" he gasped.  "Who says he was murdered?  He is--not
+very well, it is true, but for all that I can tell, he is sound asleep
+in bed at this minute."
+
+"Sound asleep!" roared the Earl, who had been most positive in his
+opinion that Curtis must have brought about the Frenchman's death for
+his own fell purpose.
+
+Otto Schmidt laid a restraining hand on his lordship's shoulder.
+
+"Steady now," he murmured.  "Remember my instructions.  The inquiry is
+committed to me for the time."
+
+"But, confound it, man----"
+
+"Yes, this is startling, this changes the whole aspect of the case.
+But you see the value of calm and judicious method."
+
+The egg-shaped man was certainly entitled to take credit for the
+disclosure, and seldom failed to do so in many subsequent expositions
+to admiring friends of a singular case, but he never realized how
+thoroughly self-deluded the Earl had been by the original blunder.
+
+"But, sir," protested the clerk, "it was never supposed that Mr. de
+Courtois had been killed.  No one knew who the poor gentleman was at
+first, because Mr. Curtis's overcoat and his had been accidently
+exchanged in the flurry and excitement after the crime was committed.
+The police found the initials H. R. H. on his clothing, and that fact
+led to his being recognized as Mr. Henry R. Hunter, a well-known New
+York journalist.  Had I seen him myself, I would have settled that
+point in a moment, because he often came here to visit Mr. de Courtois."
+
+"Indeed!  That is very interesting, most decidedly interesting."
+
+"Are you quite certain that what you are saying is correct?  Mr.
+Hunter, the murdered man, was acquainted with Monsieur de Courtois?"
+
+The question came from the Earl of Valletort, whose angry bewilderment
+had suddenly given place to a gravity of demeanor that was significant
+of the serious complications involved in the clerk's statement.
+
+Poor Krantz could have bitten his tongue for its too free wagging.  He
+was thoroughly tired, and had intended to go to his room at the
+earliest moment and repair damages by a long night's rest.  Now, to all
+appearance, he had unwittingly reopened the whole wretched imbroglio.
+But there was no help for it.  Having put his hand to the plow he was
+obliged to turn the furrow.
+
+"Yes, my lord, positive," he said between his teeth.
+
+"Ah!"  Schmidt was beginning to think that the amazing marriage
+promised to develop into a _cause célèbre_.  "In that event, it becomes
+essential, indeed, I may say imperative, that his lordship and I should
+interview Monsieur de Courtois without delay."
+
+"Sorry, sir," said the clerk, desperately availing himself of the
+detective's instructions, "but Mr. Steingall left orders that no one
+should be permitted to visit Mr. de Courtois to-night."
+
+"Left orders?  Is the man in this hotel?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I was aware of that all the time," put in the Earl.  "He
+lived here--don't you see, that accounts for the mistake I made in
+assuming that----"
+
+"Forgive me."  The lawyer's monitory hand rose again, and he turned to
+the clerk.  "You can hardly expect me, Mr. Krantz, to regard Mr.
+Steingall's 'orders' as in any way controlling my actions.  Kindly show
+his lordship and me to Monsieur de Courtois's room at once."
+
+There was nothing for it but to obey.  Krantz understood exactly how he
+would be jumped on and pulverized in the morning by irate stockholders
+in the hotel if any action of his should be adversely reported on by
+the great Otto Schmidt.
+
+But the visit to de Courtois fizzled out unexpectedly.  The Frenchman,
+still attired in evening dress, for that is the conventional wedding
+attire of his race, was lying on the bed sleeping the sleep of utter
+exhaustion supplemented by bromide.  The two negro attendants, who were
+hoping for some more exciting experience, were squatted on the floor
+playing pinochle, and the strenuous efforts of Lord Valletort to arouse
+the slumberer were quite useless.  But--and that was a vital thing--he
+had seen de Courtois, and knew beyond doubt that he was alive, and
+seemingly in good health, or, at any rate, physically uninjured.
+
+"The man has been drugged," said the lawyer, watching the Earl's
+unavailing attempt to awaken the Frenchman.  "Is, by any chance, Mr.
+Curtis's room situated near this one?"
+
+"It is just overhead," said the clerk.
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+Schmidt looked up at the ceiling as though his eyes might discern a
+trap-door.  "Is Mr. Curtis there now?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He went out with a Mr. Devar."
+
+"Oh!  Do you know where he went to?"
+
+Krantz was tempted to prevaricate, but Schmidt was a power in the
+Central Hotel.
+
+"I believe, sir, he is at the Plaza."
+
+"A large hotel, near Central Park, is it not?" demanded the Earl
+eagerly.
+
+"My lord, pardon me."  The lawyer was no believer in letting all the
+world into your secrets, and the clerk's manner showed that he was far
+from well posted in certain elements of the affair.
+
+Valletort was for rushing forthwith off in a taxi to the Plaza; but
+Schmidt vetoed the notion.  He shared the Earl's conviction that
+Hermione would be discovered there, but, before meeting her, he wanted
+to obtain a great many particulars the lack of which in his client's
+earlier story his legal acumen had already scented.
+
+So he drew the impatient nobleman into a quiet corner of the
+restaurant, and extracted from his unwilling lips certain details as to
+Count Vassilan and the marriage project which had not been forthcoming
+before.
+
+Krantz seized the opportunity to call up Steingall on the telephone and
+told him something, not all, of what had occurred.  He did not say that
+the Earl and Schmidt had actually seen de Courtois, and suppressed any
+mention of his disclosure with reference to Curtis's whereabouts, not
+that he wished to mislead the detective willfully, but he felt that he
+had been indiscreet, and there was no need to proclaim the fact.
+Moreover, he had never heard Hermione's name mentioned, or he was
+gallant enough to have risked any trouble next day if a lady would be
+saved distress thereby.
+
+Schmidt's lawyer-like caution was destined to have far-reaching effects
+on the night's history.  It provided one of the minor rills of a
+torrent which was gaining irresistible momentum, and would submerge
+many people before its uncontrolled madness was exhausted.  Had he
+yielded to the Earl, and hurried to the Plaza at once, he would have
+met Curtis and Steingall there, and those two men might have diverted
+the bursting current of events into a new channel.  But, naturally
+enough, he wanted to understand precisely where he stood.  In a word,
+the egg was excellent in its constituents, but lacked the exuberant
+freshness of the newly-laid article.
+
+Hence, while the Earl nearly choked with indignation at sight of that
+entry in the visitors' book at the Plaza--"Mr. and Lady Hermione
+Curtis, Pekin,"--mistress and maid were once more discussing the
+astounding things which had taken place since the moment when John
+Delancy Curtis rang the bell at Flat 10 in Number 1000 59th Street.
+
+"If only I knew how to act for the best!" wailed Hermione half
+tearfully.  "I am afraid, Marcelle, I have been too egotistical, too
+much concerned about myself, I mean, and far too regardless of others.
+I have allowed Mr. Curtis to place himself in a dreadful position----"
+
+"I'm sure, miladi, he doesn't think so," interrupted Marcelle
+breathlessly.
+
+"That is the worst feature of it, to my thinking.  He is making all the
+sacrifice."
+
+"What!  To get a wife like you, miladi!"
+
+"I am _not_ his wife."
+
+"Well, you are not married like folk who go away for a honeymoon and
+find rice in their clothes every day for a week, but Mr. Curtis says,
+miladi, that you are his wife right enough in the eyes of the law, and
+I'm sure he admires you immensely already, so there's no telling----"
+
+"Marcelle, do you imagine for one single instant that I would really
+marry any man who took me as a favor, who conferred an obligation on
+me, who came to my assistance in a moment of despair?"
+
+"No, miladi, not if he thought those things.  But I have a sort of
+notion that Mr. Curtis would hurt any other man who suggested any of
+them, and it is easy to see by the very way he looks at you----"
+
+"Oh, have pity, and don't harp on that string!  I can be nothing to
+him.  You mistake his kindness for something which is so utterly
+impossible that it almost drives me to hysteria to hear it even spoken
+of."
+
+Marcelle knew better.  In some recess of her own acute mind she felt
+that Lady Hermione's heightened color and shining eyes were due to just
+that wild and irresponsible conceit which they were debating.  Indeed,
+Hermione could not leave the topic alone.  She forbade it, rejected it,
+stormed at its folly, yet came back to it like a child held spellbound
+by some terrifying yet fascinating object.
+
+The maid was racking her brain for some feminine argument which should
+convince an impulsive mistress that Curtis might reasonably regard his
+matrimonial entanglement as by no means so incapable of a satisfactory
+outcome as his "wife" deemed it, when a knock at the door of the
+sitting-room alarmed both.
+
+And, indeed, the ever-present dread which haunted them was justified,
+because a page announced "The Earl of Valletort and Mr. Otto Schmidt,"
+and before the petrified Marcelle could utter a word of protest, the
+two men were in the room.
+
+Marcelle said afterwards that no incident of those tumultuous hours
+surprised her more than the way in which Lady Hermione received her
+unbidden and unwelcome visitors.  The instant before their arrival she
+was an irresponsible and doubting and vacillating girl, torn by
+emotion, and swayed hither and thither by gusts of perplexity which
+ranged from half-formed hope to blank despair, but now she came from
+her bedroom without a second's hesitancy, and faced her father and the
+lawyer with a proud serenity which obviously disconcerted them, and
+quite dumfounded Marcelle.
+
+"Ah!  At last!" said the Earl, trying to speak complacently, but
+failing rather badly, because his attitude and words were decidedly
+melodramatic.
+
+"And too late!" said his daughter, letting her fine eyes dwell on
+Schmidt with the contemplative scrutiny she might bestow on an exhibit
+in a natural history museum.
+
+"Pardon me, your ladyship, not too late, but just in time, I fancy."
+
+Otto Schmidt met her gaze without flinching, and he was a man who
+undoubtedly commanded attention when he spoke.  His tone was
+deferential but decisive.  His black eyes were taking in this charming
+and intelligent woman in full measure.  Her rare beauty, her unstudied
+pose, her slender elegance, the quiet harmonies of her costume--each
+and all made their appeal.  He even waited for her reply, compelling it
+by some subtle transference of the knowledge that he would not endeavor
+to browbeat or misunderstand her.
+
+"I have heard your name, but may I ask why you are here?" she said
+composedly.
+
+It pleased him to find that he had not erred by underrating her
+intelligence.
+
+"A very proper question, Lady Hermione," he said.  "I am a lawyer,
+fairly well known in New York, and your father has consulted me with
+reference to the marriage you have contracted to-night."
+
+"Since, as you say, the marriage has most certainly been contracted,
+the statement hardly explains your presence."
+
+He smiled, and Lord Valletort, who had not seen Otto Schmidt smile once
+during the past hour, discovered that he had not begun to appraise his
+new ally's qualities at their due worth.
+
+"It is a legal habit to state events in their order," he replied
+suavely.  "But these are matters which we ought to discuss privately."
+
+"No, Marcelle, do not go," said Hermione, hiding her fear under an
+assumption of icy indifference, and checking the maid's movement in
+response to the lawyer's hint.  "Marcelle Leroux is fully in my
+confidence," she explained, "and you can say nothing which she may not
+listen to."
+
+"I am obliged to your ladyship, but I had to mention her presence,"
+said Schmidt.  "Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news,
+but you were inveigled into a marriage ceremony with John Delancy
+Curtis by gross and fraudulent misrepresentation.  He told you, I
+assume, that Monsieur Jean de Courtois was dead.  That is not true.
+Monsieur de Courtois is alive, and in his room at the Central Hotel in
+27th Street at this moment.  He was detained there at the hour you
+awaited him--kept there forcibly, by means which must be investigated,
+but the really important fact now is that he lives.  Need I tell you
+what that statement implies?  Need I emphasize the lie with which this
+man Curtis attained his object?  Your father, the Earl, and I myself,
+saw Jean de Courtois a few minutes since.  Probably, and not without
+reason, you doubt my word.  If that is so, will you kindly use the
+telephone yourself, ring up the Central Hotel, and ask if Monsieur de
+Courtois is there?  You will hardly imagine that the hotel staff would
+enter into a conspiracy with us to deceive you.  Again, you might send
+for the manager here.  He knows me, and will assure you that I am not a
+person who would lend himself to subterfuge or falsehood."
+
+"But some man was killed, was he not?"
+
+Hermione's lips had whitened, but her courage was superb, though her
+poor heart was like to burst with its frenzied throbbing, for she was
+certain this self-possessed man was speaking truly, and, if he were,
+her hero with the head of gold had revealed feet of clay.
+
+"Yes, unhappily, a journalist named Hunter."
+
+Schmidt was an artist.  He knew when to use few words.
+
+"But Mr. Curtis himself may have been deceived."
+
+"Mr. Curtis was among those who pretended to liberate de Courtois from
+his bonds.  Your unfortunate friend was brutally tied and gagged in his
+room in the hotel, and is now recovering from the effects of the
+maltreatment he received."
+
+"Mr. Curtis couldn't have known of this when he was here, little more
+than half an hour ago."
+
+"He knew it two hours ago.  Not only he, but Mr. Steingall knew it.
+Did neither of them tell you?"
+
+In utter despair, broken-hearted now not by reason of her own plight,
+but rather because of a shattered faith, Hermione appealed to the Earl.
+
+"Father, is this true?"
+
+"Absolutely true, every syllable.  I really think you ought to confirm
+Mr. Schmidt's statement by inquiry at the Central Hotel."
+
+"And publish my unhappy story more widely! . . .  Will you kindly leave
+me now?  I must think, and act."
+
+"One word, your ladyship, and I have done," said the lawyer, speaking
+with a slow seriousness that could not fail to be convincing.  "The
+mischief is not irreparable--at present.  But you must not remain here.
+You are registered in the books of the hotel as the wife of John
+Delancy Curtis, and, if I may say it with respect, your own sense of
+what is right and proper will forbid the notion that you can abide in
+the hotel until to-morrow.  I pledge my reputation that it will
+immensely facilitate the legal steps necessary to secure the annulment
+of the marriage if you dissever yourself from your so-called husband at
+the earliest moment after you have discovered his tort."
+
+Hermione was not the type of woman who faints in an emergency, though
+gladly now would she have found in unconsciousness a respite from the
+bitter pain that was rending her innermost fiber.
+
+"I think--I understand," she said brokenly.  "Will you please go?"
+
+"But will you not come with me, Hermione?" said her father.  "I give
+you my word of honor there will be no recriminations."
+
+"I must be alone--to-night," she cried, flaring into a passionate
+vehemence.  "Marcelle and I will return to my apartment.  You know
+where it is.  Come there in the morning, at any hour you choose, but go
+now, this instant, or I shall refuse to leave the hotel, no matter what
+the consequences."
+
+Her voice rose almost to a scream, and Schmidt, a profound student of
+human nature, realized that any extra pressure would be fatal.  He had
+succeeded.  This girl would keep her promise, of that he was well
+assured, but if her high-strung temperament was subjected to undue
+force she would put her back against the wall and defy law and
+convention alike.
+
+"Come," he said to the Earl, and, with a courteous bow to Hermione, he
+literally pulled her father from the room.
+
+Hermione did not weep.  She was done with tears, sick with vain regret,
+yet braced to unfaltering purpose.  The instant the door was closed she
+picked up the telephone, and the wretched Krantz was soon in evidence
+to verify the lawyer's words.
+
+Marcelle was crying as though she had lost a lover or some dear
+relative; when Hermione bade her prepare for their departure, she gave
+no heed, but wailed her sorrow aloud.
+
+"I d-don't believe them, miladi," she sobbed.  "Mr. Curtis--will wring
+the lawyer-man's neck--to-morrow. . . .  I know he will. . . .  Did Mr.
+Curtis kill poor Mr. Hunter?  If not, why should he tie that
+Frenchman? . . .  And wouldn't he t-tie twenty Frenchmen if he w-wanted
+to m-marry you!"
+
+Hermione stooped and fondled the girl's shoulders, for Marcelle had
+collapsed to her knees on the hearth-rug while her mistress was using
+the telephone.
+
+"You have been my very good friend, Marcelle," she said, and the misery
+in her voice subjugated the maid's louder grief.  "Don't fail me now,
+there's a dear!  I want to write a letter, and there can be no question
+whatever that you and I must get away before Mr. Curtis returns.  Don't
+fret, or lose faith in Providence.  A great man once wrote: 'God's in
+Heaven, and all's well with the world.'  You and I must try to believe
+that, and place utmost trust in its promise. . . .  There, now!  Hurry,
+and I shall join you in a few minutes.  We shall send for our baggage
+in the morning, and so avoid attracting attention in the hotel
+to-night."
+
+Brave as she was, when left alone in the room she pressed her hands to
+her face in sheer abandonment of agony.  But the storm passed, and she
+sat down to write.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
+
+Evans, the police captain of the 23rd Precinct, had a fairly long story
+to hear from McCulloch.  The roundsman did not spare himself in the
+recital.  He pleaded guilty to three errors of judgment.  In the first
+instance, he would have done well had he taken the advice given by
+Devar during the halt at 42nd Street, and arrested the supposed
+"Anatole" then and there; secondly, he might have secured corroborative
+evidence of the cleansing of parts of the automobile--evidence now
+destroyed by the waters of the Hudson; and, thirdly, he should have
+asked Brodie to intercept the fugitive long before it became possible
+to plunge the car into the river.
+
+"All I can say is, I sized up the situation and acted accordingly," he
+commented ruefully.  "It did look like a good plan to give him rope
+enough"--here he checked his utterance, and glanced at the disconsolate
+prisoner--"but he fairly got the better of me when I went aboard that
+barge.  I ought to have left one of these gentlemen to watch the quay.
+My excuse is that the barge seemed to offer the only probable
+hiding-place, and there was always the chance that he had gone into the
+river with the car."
+
+"Anyhow, you got him," observed Evans sympathetically, for McCulloch
+was a valued and trustworthy officer.
+
+"Well, he's here, but Mr. Brodie got him," whereupon Brodie tried not
+to look sheepish.
+
+Steingall and Clancy arrived before the roundsman had made an end of
+his experiences, which he had to recount for their benefit.  The two
+detectives had resumed their ordinary clothing.  They looked tired, but
+quietly elated, and it was noticeable that Clancy's mercurial spirits
+seemed to have evaporated.  Those who knew him would have augured from
+that fact that the chase was reaching its climax, but Curtis and Devar
+fancied that the little man was thoroughly worn out and pining for
+rest.  Never had they been more egregiously deceived.  He resembled a
+hound which bays its excitement when the quarry is scented but
+restrains all its energies for the last desperate struggle when the
+flying prey is in sight.
+
+The Frenchman sat as though in a stupor, and seemingly gave no
+attention to the details of the hunt, but he sprang to his feet in
+sheer fright when Steingall walked up to him and said sternly:
+
+"Now, Antoine Lamotte, listen to what I have to say."
+
+"I am betrayed, then?" snarled the man viciously, though his voice went
+off into a curious yelp of agony as a twinge reminded him of Brodie's
+vigorous aim with half a brick.
+
+"Yes, the game is up.  I know your confederates, and you will be
+confronted with them before daybreak. . . .  No, I am not bluffing.
+That is not my way.  Their names are Gregor Martiny and Ferdinand
+Rossi.  Now are you satisfied?"
+
+Lamotte sank back into his chair.  His features were wrung with pain,
+but the momentary excitement vanished, and his manner grew sullen again.
+
+"If you know so much I can tell you nothing," he growled.
+
+"No.  You can give me little or no information I do not possess
+already.  But, unless you are more fool than knave, you can at least
+try to save your own miserable life."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By a full confession.  Did you know that Martiny and Rossi meant to
+kill Mr. Hunter?"
+
+"No, I swear it."
+
+"Then why don't you take the hint I have given you?  It will be too
+late when you are brought before a judge.  Believe me, I shall waste no
+more breath in persuading you.  It is now or never."
+
+The Frenchman rose again, this time more slowly.  He glanced around at
+the ring of faces, and, for a moment, his gaze dwelt contemplatively on
+Clancy.  Perhaps he was vouchsafed some intuition that this man was to
+be feared, but Clancy remained unemotional as a Sioux Indian.  When he
+spoke, it was with a certain dignity, and, oddly enough, his words,
+though uttered in English, savored of a literal translation from the
+French mint which coined them.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I am a man who regards loyalty to his friends
+before all."
+
+"An excellent quality, even in a criminal, if your friends are loyal to
+you," replied Steingall with equal seriousness of manner.
+
+"But the woman who betrayed us--may she be eaten up with cancer!--is
+not my friend.  Those others are."
+
+"I have met with no woman.  I have good reason to think that you have
+no real notion of the influences which led your Hungarian friends, as
+you call them, to commit a murder.  But I rather respect your
+sentiment, so, to give you one final chance, I tell you now just how
+you were brought into this thing.  You are a thief, and the associate
+of thieves, but you have never, so far as our records go, been
+convicted.  Your real name is not Lamotte, though you have passed under
+it long enough in New York to establish some sort of claim to it, and
+you were sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Toulon eight years ago
+for a breach of military discipline.  On your release you consorted
+with anarchists in Paris, and, to escape arrest as a suspect after a
+dynamite outrage on the Grand Boulevard, you emigrated to America.  You
+are a clever mechanic, and, had you tried to earn an honest living, you
+would have succeeded, but some kink in your nature drove you to crime,
+mixed up with a good deal of political froth.  When you heard that
+precious pair of fanatics, Martiny and Rossi, plotting in Morris
+Siegelman's café to prevent a marriage between an English lady of great
+wealth and a wretched little Frenchman, so that the cause of a
+Hungarian party might benefit if Count Ladislas Vassilan secured the
+lady and the money, especially the money, you thought you saw a way
+towards striking a blow at the Austrian monarchy and also benefiting
+yourself.  So you offered your services, and your more acute brain put
+them up to a dodge they would never have thought of.  It was necessary
+for your purpose that you should figure as a respectable man, so you
+had cards printed in the name of Anatole Labergerie, and addressed
+letters to yourself under that same name at Morris Siegelman's
+restaurant.  I do not know yet where you obtained the car, but I shall
+know to-morrow--the fact is immaterial now.  What is of real importance
+is the method whereby you humbugged the janitor at Mr. Hunter's office
+by pretending that you had been sent there by Mr. Labergerie because
+the car was at liberty somewhat earlier than was expected, and the
+unfortunate journalist took it as a compliment, drove to his rooms,
+changed his clothes, and returned to the office, thus playing into your
+hands, because the car sent to his order by Mr. Labergerie was thereby
+prevented from picking him up at the appointed time.  It was shrewd of
+you to guess that a busy man on the staff of a newspaper would be glad
+to utilize an automobile placed unexpectedly at his disposal, and fate
+played into your hands by the delay in issuing the duplicate marriage
+license, which he had promised de Courtois to obtain from the City
+Hall."
+
+"Sir, I knew nothing of any marriage license."
+
+"Probably not.  You were concerned only with taking your confederates'
+money, and posing as the clever brain of the outfit.  But I imagine,
+and not another word shall I say, that they overreached you a bit when
+they knifed Mr. Hunter."
+
+Lamotte, to describe him by the name under which he figured in the
+annals of the crime, stretched out his hands in a gesture of emphatic
+protest.
+
+"No matter what becomes of me," he said eagerly, "I ask you to believe
+that I did not even know they had killed Mr. Hunter until I saw the
+blood on the panel when I took them to Market Street."
+
+"So.  You have been slow to adopt the lead I offered you.  But why, in
+God's name, did they stab the man?  That could hardly have been their
+deliberate plan."
+
+"It was a sort of accident.  So they said.  They really meant to force
+him into the car, and overpower him.  The scheme was to bring him to
+Market Street and keep him there until----"
+
+He hesitated.  He had given up hope for himself, but he stopped short
+of introducing other names into prominence.
+
+"Until the _Switzerland_ had reached New York, with Count Ladislas
+Vassilan and the English lord on board."
+
+Then Lamotte yielded.
+
+"You know everything," he said, with a dejected shrug.  "Either you are
+a wizard, or Gregor and Rossi are open-mouthed fools."
+
+Steingall smiled inscrutably, but Clancy, who had remained strangely
+quiet, did not relax the close attention he was giving to the
+Frenchman's least word or action.  It was about this time that Curtis
+noticed the little detective's air of complete absorption, and he
+wondered at it, since Clancy and his chief seemed to have unfolded the
+whole mystery in a way that was at once admirable and bewildering.
+
+"Then why don't you exercise your wits, man?  I have been candor itself
+in my statement, but it is your own words which will be taken down by
+the police captain here, as you are charged in his presence with
+complicity in the murder, and they will be on record for or against you
+when you are brought to trial."
+
+"You want me to admit that what you have said is true?"
+
+"Just as you wish," said Steingall, half contemptuously.  "I now charge
+you formally with taking part in the murder of Mr. Hunter.  If you have
+anything to say, say it, and it will be written at once, and signed by
+you, if you choose."
+
+He waited a moment, and then turned aside.
+
+"Put him in the cells," he said.  "I shall not trouble farther about
+him now."
+
+"One moment, monsieur," exclaimed Lamotte, evidently believing that he
+was seriously jeopardizing his life by not taking the advice given so
+openly.  "I admit that you are well informed, but I must add that I was
+ignorant of the murder till nearly half an hour after it had occurred."
+
+"Pooh, that's no use.  Make a full statement, or take the
+consequences."  Steingall's tone was so offhanded that Lamotte was
+afraid he had lost a good opportunity of saving his neck.
+
+"But what is there to tell?" he cried.
+
+"Just what happened outside the Central Hotel and afterwards."
+
+"I brought Mr. Hunter there, and nodded to Martiny and Rossi, who were
+waiting on the sidewalk, to show that he was inside the car.  I
+remained at the wheel, and anyone can perceive that my position made it
+impossible to see what was going on when the door opened.  Martiny was
+nearest to me, and I am sure he never used a knife, so it must have
+been Rossi.  Is that correct?"
+
+"I believe so, absolutely.  What next?"
+
+"Martiny said 'Vite, allez!' so I shoved in the clutch and made off at
+top speed.  In Fifth Avenue I glanced over my shoulder to look at Mr.
+Hunter, and see whether or not he was struggling, but my friends alone
+were visible in the back seat, so I believed they had put him on the
+floor, and did not stop or look at them again until I reached De
+Silva's house in Market Street.  Then, to my annoyance, when I got down
+to help carry in Mr. Hunter, I found blood on the step and the panel,
+and the idiots told me what they had done.  It is only fair to say that
+De Silva is innocent of any part in the affair.  He didn't even know
+that we were bringing anyone to Rossi's room, and we took care that he
+should be out at the time we counted on arriving at Market Street."
+
+"You didn't attack Mr. Hunter sooner because your orders were to wait
+until the last possible moment?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+
+Devar was unaware of any change in the manner of either of the
+detectives, because he was watching Lamotte's livid face with a species
+of fascinated horror, but Curtis, who had often been compelled to hold
+similar inquiries into cold-blooded crimes committed by Chinese
+coolies, found greater interest in observing Clancy.  A subtle
+exultation had suddenly danced into the diminutive Franco-Irishman's
+expressive features when Market Street was first mentioned, and his
+coal-black eyes blazed in their slits at the sound of that name, De
+Silva.
+
+A queer thought flitted through Curtis's mind, but he put it aside,
+because Steingall was speaking again.
+
+"Well, you got rid of your friends.  Then what did you do?"
+
+"The rest was simple.  I cleaned the car in a hurry with a bit of oily
+waste, took it to a yard which I have used at times, at an address
+which I beg you to permit me to forget, changed the number plate, and,
+at an hour which I deemed discreet, drove uptown in order to dispose of
+the car by leaving it deserted near the garage from which it came.  The
+owner's house is on Riverside Drive.  His name is Morris; he is absent
+in Chicago on business, while I learnt that his chauffeur was ill."
+
+A gasp of uncontrollable excitement from Devar drew all eyes to him.
+
+"Great Jerusalem!" he cried.  "Next house to my aunt's!"
+
+"There's a mistake somewhere," broke in Brodie.  "I know Mr. Morris's
+car, and that isn't it."
+
+Lamotte was positively annoyed that his word should appear to be
+doubted.
+
+"Messieurs," he said grandiloquently, "I assure you on my honor that I
+am not misleading you."
+
+Nor was he.  The discrepancy was cleared up next day.  The Morris
+automobile was undergoing repairs, and the motor manufacturers had
+supplied the gray car for use in the interim.
+
+Steingall swept the matter aside impatiently.
+
+"Go on," he said to the Frenchman.  "You're taking a note of this?" he
+added, glancing at police captain Evans.
+
+"Got it," was the laconic reply.
+
+"There is nothing else," said Lamotte.  "I noticed that I was being
+followed, and soon discovered that I could not shake off a more
+powerful car.  I was armed, but did not want to get into trouble on my
+own account, and I knew that I would have to deal with three men.  So I
+decided to throw the car in the river, and trust to my wits for a means
+of escape.  I would have succeeded, too, had I been aware that there
+was a fourth man in the party.  From where I lay hidden beneath the
+wharf I could only count the number of people who crossed to the barge.
+I was unable to see them, so I included the chauffeur among the three.
+I was wrong.  Perhaps it is as well, because I meant to get away, and
+would have fought. . . .  That is all. . . .  Will one of you give me a
+cigarette?"
+
+Devar produced a case, and in response to Steingall's nod, offered its
+contents to the prisoner, who took two cigarettes; nor could he be
+prevailed on to accept more.  Despite his hang-dog looks he had an
+undoubted air of refinement.  Degeneracy had claimed him as its own,
+yet some streak of a nobler heredity had struggled to exert its
+influence, only to fail.
+
+Steingall put no more questions, and Lamotte relapsed into silence,
+smoking nonchalantly while the police captain's pen was scratching a
+transcript of the shorthand notes.
+
+Curtis caught Steingall's eye, and drew him aside.
+
+"That fellow told the truth about the actual murder, I think" he said.
+"My story coincides with his in every detail."
+
+"I'm sure you are right," agreed the detective.  "The odd thing is that
+Clancy should have spotted him from your description telephoned to
+headquarters.  You remember Clancy was looking at a book of photographs
+when I brought you to the Bureau?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He had found him then.  Some time since, during the anarchist troubles
+in Chicago, the French police sent us a lot of pictures, and this
+fellow's was among them."
+
+"Why didn't he ask me if I recognized him?"
+
+"That is not pretty Fanny's way.  Clancy never does what any other man
+would do.  He hates to have anyone verify an opinion he has once
+formed.  Had you said the photograph resembled the man you saw outside
+the hotel Clancy would actually have begun to believe that he might be
+mistaken."
+
+"At any rate," said Curtis, smiling, "you two seem to have made
+marvelous progress with the inquiry since a set of drunken stokers
+broke up a harmonious gathering at Morris Siegelman's."
+
+"We have done pretty well, but this"--and Steingall glanced at
+Lamotte--"this goes far beyond anything we hoped for to-night, or this
+morning, for the new day is growing old."
+
+Curtis was puzzled.  He realized that the capture of the chauffeur was
+important, but it shrank into insignificance beside the connected
+history of events which the detective seemed to have at his fingers'
+ends.
+
+"I suppose I must not ask questions," he said with a quizzical look
+into the extraordinary eyes which had earned the chief of the Detective
+Bureau the picturesque description coined by an enthusiastic reporter.
+
+"No need," said Steingall.  "Unless you are fed up with excitement, I
+purpose taking you and Mr. Devar down town again, just as soon as Evans
+has stopped slinging ink.  Then you will appreciate the importance of
+the things said here."
+
+Curtis remembered that fleeting impression he had garnered while
+watching Clancy during the Frenchman's statement, which, however,
+appeared only to confirm the ample history already in Steingall's
+possession.  But again his thoughts were diverted from the matter by
+Steingall's next words.
+
+"I take it you have not called at the Plaza Hotel since we came away
+together?" he said.  "You certainly could not stop there during the
+rush after the missing chauffeur, and I suppose McCulloch brought you
+straight here after the arrest?"
+
+"Yes.  We passed the hotel on the outward journey, and I thought I saw
+a light in--in my wife's suite, but we returned by a different route."
+
+He fancied that the detective was about to explain a somewhat peculiar
+question, but at that instant the police captain summoned Lamotte to
+his desk.
+
+"I'll read what I have written," he said, "and, if it is correct, you
+will sign it.  You need not sign unless you wish, but the statement
+will be given in court, and, if you attest it now, may count in your
+favor."
+
+He recited an exact record of the Frenchman's words, and Lamotte took
+the pen and scrawled his name.  Then, at a nod from Evans, the
+roundsman took the prisoner to a cell.
+
+"By Jove!  George, or perhaps I ought to say 'By George, Jove!' you did
+that well," exclaimed Clancy, speaking for the first time since he had
+entered the station-house, and addressing Steingall.
+
+"I thought I was going to fail, but I stuck to my guns, and it came
+off," was the modest if rather cryptic reply.
+
+"We, too, have fought with beasts at Ephegus, so let us into this,"
+cried Devar.  "What came off, and where was the risk of failure?  To my
+mind, you had Lamotte in a double Nelson grip all the time."
+
+"That's where you are in error, young man," said Steingall cheerfully.
+"Sometimes it pays to pretend a knowledge you don't possess, and this
+was one of the occasions.  Mr. Clancy and I knew that somewhere in New
+York were two Hungarians named Gregor Martiny and Ferdinand Rossi.  We
+knew that they were the men who killed Mr. Hunter, but we had no more
+notion where they were hiding, or how to lay hands on them, than the
+man in the moon."
+
+"Great Scott.  Haven't you arrested them?"
+
+"No, sir.  That is a pleasure deferred."
+
+"Do you mean that you wanged that address out of the Frenchman?"
+
+"That's about the size of it.  I might have searched for a week for
+Martiny and Rossi, but no one in East Broadway would have owned up to
+seeing or even hearing of them."
+
+"Still, you had their names pat?"
+
+"Yes," said the detective, cutting the end off a cigar, "we had their
+names, and we ascertained why they killed Hunter, or would have killed
+any other person who tried to balk their scheme, but our information
+stopped there."
+
+Steingall, usually so communicative, evidently meant to keep to himself
+the source of his inspiration, and, in a few minutes, Brodie was
+driving the four men to the Police Headquarters.
+
+They went to the Detective Bureau, and Steingall telephoned the Clinton
+Street police station-house.
+
+"You know De Silva's place in Market Street?" he said.  "Well, within
+ten minutes have half-a-dozen men gather quietly near the door. . . .
+Two others should watch the back, and stop anyone making a bolt that
+way. . . .  Yes, of course, there may be shooting.  I'll turn up in a
+private auto, and stop off at the corner of East Broadway. . . .  Leave
+the rest to Clancy and myself. . . .  No, only two, but they're hot
+stuff."
+
+He unlocked a drawer in a desk, and took out a pair of revolvers.
+After examining them to make sure they were fully loaded, he handed one
+to Clancy.
+
+"I hope we shall not require them, Eugene, but there's no telling," he
+said.
+
+"I suppose I'm not allowed to shoot anybody, so you might lend me a
+stick," suggested Devar.
+
+"You and Mr. Curtis are remaining right here," said the detective.
+
+"Oh, be a man, Steingall!" cried Devar disgustedly.  "Don't play dog
+when there's a chance of a real row.  Look how I swung things your way
+in Morris Siegelman's!"
+
+"You might let us peep round the corner, at any rate," smiled Curtis.
+
+Steingall meant to be obdurate, but yielded, and it was well that he
+allowed his sympathies to sway his judgment, or there might have been
+an early vacancy in the chief inspectorship.
+
+At that middle hour of the night even New York's prowlers of the dark
+had retired to their foul rookeries.  The streets were almost deserted,
+and the glare of gas and naphtha had vanished.  The houses of the
+Hungarian quarter were stark and gloomy now, many woe-begone in their
+semi-dismantled aspect, and all sinister.  When the automobile drew up
+noiselessly at the corner of Market Street, a broad enough
+thoroughfare, but broken and battered in appearance, the only visible
+forms were those of three or four patrolmen, who were sauntering
+aimlessly along the sidewalk.  But there were eyes watching through
+unknown chinks in shutters, or peering through soiled curtains behind
+dirt-stained windows, and the quiet concentration of the police in one
+special quarter evidently did not pass unnoticed.
+
+When the battle began, it partook of the vagaries of real warfare by
+opening unexpectedly.
+
+It was ascertained afterwards that two men darted like shadows out of a
+passage in Market Street, and separated instantly.  One came toward
+East Broadway, where the detectives and their companions had just
+alighted from the car, and the other, breaking into a run, dived into
+Henry Street, with two patrolmen after him.  He it was who opened the
+fray, and the peace of the night was suddenly disrupted by the loud
+bark of an automatic pistol.  Three shots were fired with a quick
+irregularity, and then came the deeper report of a service revolver.
+
+Steingall and Clancy ran forward, and the fugitive coming their way had
+actually passed them, with two more patrolmen in pursuit, when
+Steingall saw him and turned instantly.
+
+"Stop!" he shouted.
+
+The man only increased his pace, and the detective, astonishingly
+active for one of his bulk, raced along at top speed.
+
+"Stop or I shoot!" he cried again.
+
+By that time the self-confessed outlaw was nearly opposite the car.  He
+checked his pace, half turned, luckily not to the side where Curtis and
+the others were standing, and leveled a Browning pistol at the
+detective.  He even hesitated an instant to take aim, but before his
+finger had pressed the trigger, Curtis had sprung at him.  There was no
+time for a blow, but a well placed kick spun the would-be murderer off
+his feet, and the crash of the shot came an infinitesimal part of a
+second too late.  As it was, the bullet struck a lamp higher up the
+street, and a line taken subsequently showed that it must have missed
+Steingall by only a few inches.
+
+The miscreant reeled, and lost his balance.  Then Curtis closed with
+him, caught his right wrist, and threw him heavily, but, such was the
+man's frenzied resolve not to be arrested, that he fired twice again
+before the deadly weapon fell from his grasp.  He did no damage, but
+the uproar brought a motley crowd from the neighboring dwellings.
+Market Street, which had seemed asleep or dead, proved itself very much
+alive and awake, but the sight of uniformed police hurrying up from
+several directions restrained any undue curiosity on the part of its
+denizens.
+
+The desperado on the ground was handcuffed at once, and, while a
+policeman was searching his pockets rapidly to ascertain if he carried
+another pistol, Steingall gripped Curtis by the shoulder.
+
+"I owe you something for that," he said quietly.  "I rather fancy he
+would have dropped me if it hadn't been for you. . . .  Oh, I know what
+I am saying.  I shall not forget. . . .  Show a light here," he added
+to a patrolman who had run from East Broadway on hearing the shooting.
+"Now, Mr. Curtis, do you recognize him?"
+
+"Yes," said Curtis---whose experiences in New York were revealing an
+unsuspected side of his character, for in 56th Street, in Morris
+Siegelman's, and now again in Market Street, he had proved himself what
+Allen Breck would have termed "a bonnie fighter"--"yes, that is the man
+who spoke to me in the Central Hotel.  I imagine he is Martiny."
+
+"Good!  Put him in the car!"
+
+The detective rushed off, but soon returned.
+
+"Sorry to trouble you, but will you come this way a minute?" he said.
+
+Curtis went with him.  In Henry Street a small group was gathered in
+the roadway.  A policeman had proved himself a better shot than Rossi,
+and Hunter's murder was already avenged in part.
+
+The dead man was left to the district police, to be carried to the
+mortuary in an ambulance.  Steingall, with his prisoner, returned to
+headquarters, while Clancy made a thorough search of the room the pair
+had occupied in De Silva's house.
+
+The Hungarian did not deny his name nor his share in the earlier crime.
+
+"It is fate," he said doggedly in his broken French.  "When they tell
+me we have killed the man I know the police get us."
+
+He would say no more.  His words seemed to imply that neither he nor
+Rossi meant to do other than maim the journalist whom they regarded as
+de Courtois's dangerous helper; but he did not urge the plea.  Perhaps
+he felt that when a Hungarian uses a knife, a trifling error in the
+matter of direction is pardonable.
+
+"I shall not go home now," said Steingall, bidding farewell to his
+allies when Martiny had been formally identified and charged.  "I must
+get this thing thoroughly straightened out before morning, though the
+inquest and police court proceedings will be mere adjournments.
+Good-night, Mr. Devar.  Good-night, Mr. Curtis.  Once more, thank you.
+And, by the way, if all is not well at the Plaza, 'phone me at once.
+Remember, won't you?  Good-night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS--BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS
+
+"Say, old man," muttered Devar, gazing fixedly at Brodie's broad
+shoulders as Broadway unrolled its even width before the car on the
+uptown journey, "are we the same couple of blighters who met in a
+bathroom gangway, 'B' Deck, near staterooms 51 and 52, on board the
+Cunard steamship _Lusitania_, about twenty-one hours since; or have we
+become dematerialized?"
+
+Curtis knew that the boy was quivering with excitement, but it was
+useless to advise a slackening of the tension, so he merely said:
+
+"Do you feel like a Mahatma?"
+
+"If a Mahatma is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but
+in contents, yes.  Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big
+dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but the wild-eyed,
+imp-seeing, genuine rip-snorter?"
+
+"No.  Neither have you."
+
+"I should have denied the charge before to-night.  But I know now what
+it means.  It is a brain-storm induced by rum.  There are many other
+varieties, at least fifty-seven, and I've sampled fifty-six different
+sorts in nine hours.  Do you realize that it is just nine hours since I
+walked into the Central Hotel, and the orchestra struck up?  Good Lord!
+Nine hours!  And do you remember, Curtis, I said as we came up the
+harbor that you would have a hell of a good time in New York?  Ha, ha!
+likewise ho, ho!  A good time!  Eating, fighting, marrying, plunging
+neck and crop out of one frantic revel into another.  Talk about
+delirium tremens, and its little green devils with little pink
+eyes--why, it's commonplace, that's what it is--a poor sort of
+pipe-dream compared with the reality of life in New York as seen in
+company with John Delancy Curtis, of Pekin."
+
+Devar was not by any means the first person in the city who had
+associated the name of the capital of China with some bizarre and
+elusive element of fantasy in connection with the man who gave "Pekin"
+as his address.  There was no explaining the conceit; it was just one
+of those whimsies which are alike plausible yet enigmatical.  Had
+Curtis described himself as being of London, or Paris, or even of
+Yokohama, no sense of mystery would have attached itself to his
+personality.  But, to the world at large, Pekin represents the unknown,
+and therefore the incongruous.  It is the Forbidden City, the inner
+shrine of the East, the symbolic rallying-point of a race which
+occupies no common ground with the peoples of Europe or America.  Had
+Curtis written that he hailed from Lhassa, his legal domicile would
+have lost its occult extravagance save to the discriminating few.
+
+The mere mention of Pekin now brought back to Curtis's mind the last
+time he had written the word, and, by association of ideas, the queer
+way in which Steingall had twice alluded to the Plaza Hotel.  He said
+nothing of this to Devar.  He thought, and with good reason, that the
+sooner that young man was in bed and asleep the better it would be for
+his health, because a mercurial temperament was levying heavy draughts
+on physical powers, so he gave no hint of the nebulous doubt induced by
+the detective's words.
+
+"The order of the day is bed for each of us," he said, bidding his
+friend farewell at the door of the hotel.  "Therefore, I shall not
+offer you any sort of hospitality at this hour, except the kindest one
+of saying good-by speedily.  You are coming to lunch, I think?"
+
+"Lunch!"  Devar's head wagged solemnly.  Feverishly wakeful, he was
+really half asleep.  "Don't talk to me of lunch.  You haven't had
+breakfast yet, John D.  New York will keep you busy yet awhile, or I
+don't size her up right. . . .  Good old New York!  Isn't she a peach?
+Well, so long!  If you want me, 'phone.  I'll pull a couch under the
+instrument and sleep with my clothes on.  If I shove my head beneath a
+tap I'll be as right as rain.  Home, Arthur."
+
+Then Curtis entered the hotel, and a night-porter took him up in the
+elevator.  When he opened the door of Suite F. its tiny lobby was in
+darkness, but the lights in the sitting-room were switched on.
+Evidently, then, neither he nor Devar was mistaken in identifying those
+illuminated windows when the chase led them past the hotel.  But he was
+struck instantly by the fact that the door leading to Hermione's room
+was wide open, and, before he could assimilate this singular fact, he
+saw a note lying on a small table just where it must catch his eye on
+entering his own bedroom.
+
+Curtis was no soothsayer, but he was endowed with a penetrating and
+usually accurate judgment, and he knew at once that Hermione had left
+him.  Although he had only seen her handwriting when she signed the
+register at the clergyman's house he recognized the same free,
+well-formed characters in the "John Delancy Curtis, Esq." on the
+envelope.  He paled, perhaps, and a pang of a pain crueller than bodily
+ill may have wrung his heart, but he hesitated not a second about
+opening the letter.
+
+Then he read:
+
+
+"DEAR MR. CURTIS:--My father has been here, and with him a Mr. Otto
+Schmidt, a lawyer.  They told me that Jean de Courtois is alive, and
+that you know it, and have known it throughout.  Gladly would I have
+refused to believe them, but, sometimes, there are statements which
+cannot be lies--which partake of truth in their very essence--which
+sear their way into one's consciousness as white-hot iron scorches the
+flesh.  Still, owing to my trust in you, I clung to the frail hope that
+there might be some mistake, so, when they had gone, I telephoned the
+Central Hotel, and a clerk there assured me that Monsieur de Courtois
+was in bed and asleep.
+
+"What am I to say?  Perhaps, silence is best.  Marcelle and I are
+returning to my apartments in 59th Street.  Please do not come there.
+I feel now that I have been selfish and misguided.  I fear it will hurt
+you if I ask to be permitted to bear the heavy expense you must incur
+with regard to the wretched affair into which I have dragged you,
+though involuntarily, or, shall I put it? with the blind striving for
+succor of one sinking in deep waters.  Yet, do me one last kindness,
+and let me reimburse you.  That would be a small concession to my
+pride, because, in some respects, sorely as I am wounded, I shall
+regard myself as ever in your debt.
+
+"Sincerely yours,
+  HERMIONE.
+
+"P.S.  This person, Schmidt, seems to be reliable.  You might arrange
+matters with him."
+
+
+Now, above and beyond every other characteristic, Curtis was
+fair-minded.  He read the girl's letter once in order to learn what had
+happened and why she had gone: then he reread it critically, word for
+word, trying to distil from its disjointed phrases "that essence of
+truth" which Hermione had spoken of.  Evidently, she had determined to
+keep her words within the bare walls of necessity.  The note had a
+jerkiness of style that was certainly absent from her speech, and the
+fact argued that she was compelling herself to write with restraint.
+She was brimming over with reproach, grief-stricken, and miserable, and
+unquestionably shocked beyond measure, but she had forced the
+reflection: "I have no real claim on this man, nor wrong to lay at his
+door, and, although he has deceived me, I am under heavy obligation to
+him, so I must neither condemn nor reproach, but say nothing that goes
+beyond a temperate explanation of my action."
+
+The signature itself was eloquent of the conflict which raged in her
+troubled brain while the pen was framing those formal sentences.
+Well-bred young ladies do not sign themselves by their Christian names,
+_tout court_, in notes written to young gentlemen of an evening's
+acquaintance.  Yet, what was she to do?  "Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison" had gone beyond recovery with the marriage ceremony, but
+"Hermione Curtis" was almost ludicrous, considering the text of this,
+the first note she had written to her "husband."
+
+It was only one side of Curtis's self-reliant nature which analyzed,
+and criticised, and weighed matters with such judicial calm.  There was
+another which brought a hard glint into his eyes, and caused a hand
+which gripped the molded back of a lightly-built chair to exert a force
+of which he was unconscious until the mahogany rail snapped.
+
+Then he remembered Steingall, and his enigmatical inquiries, and turned
+to the telephone.
+
+At sound of his voice, the detective cleared away any doubt as to the
+reason which inspired those vague questions.
+
+"Lady Hermione has gone, has she?" he said sympathetically.  "I thought
+as much.  There was no use in worrying you about it sooner, but I was
+told that the Earl and Schmidt had visited her, and that she and the
+maid had left the hotel in a taxi a few minutes after the departure of
+the visitors.  Will you take my advice?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You ought to have said 'Yes' at once.  Go to bed, and force yourself
+to sleep.  Give no instructions to be called, but get up when you
+waken, and start a new day with a clear head.  You'll need it."
+
+"I'm not going to disturb the peace of Lady Hermione's apartments in
+59th Street, if that is what you mean."
+
+"Not quite.  In fact, not at all.  You are not that kind of a man.  Did
+she leave any message?"
+
+"Yes, a letter.  Would you care to hear it?"
+
+"If you have no objection."
+
+Curtis read the note instantly, and, so delicate is the perceptiveness
+of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's
+unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was
+mentioned or a reason given for some particular action.
+
+"Like the majority of women, she conveys the most important fact in a
+postscript," was Steingall's dry comment when Curtis had reached the
+end.
+
+"Where shall I find this man, Schmidt?" inquired Curtis.
+
+"Are you in a hurry, then, to begin the suit for dissolution?"
+
+"That does not account for my anxiety to meet Schmidt."
+
+"He is a stoutly-built individual, with a large, soft neck, and eyes
+which would protrude most satisfactorily under pressure.  Is that what
+you mean?"
+
+"I want to make his acquaintance, and soon--that is all."
+
+"Now, Mr. Curtis, don't destroy the good opinion I have formed of you.
+Let well enough alone.  Schmidt has done you a splendid turn, and it
+would be foolish on your part to requite a benefactor by trying to
+strangle him."
+
+"Mr. Steingall, I am tired, and very, very uncertain of myself----"
+
+"So you don't want even to pretend that there is any humor in the
+situation.  Yet, unless I err greatly, before many hours have passed
+you will agree with me that nothing more directly fortunate in your
+behalf could have occurred than Schmidt's interference as Lord
+Valletort's legal adviser.  I know Schmidt, and Schmidt knows me.  In
+this affair you would be a baby in his hands, just as he would resemble
+a bladder of lard in yours.  My difficulty is that I really cannot give
+reasons, but you will appreciate the position when I say that, for the
+moment, the murder of Mr. Hunter has become an affair of state, and all
+information regarding recent developments will be withheld from the
+press.  Do you follow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I take it, too, that if Lady Hermione were restored to you, and it was
+left to the pair of you to determine whether or not the marriage
+entered into under such extraordinary conditions should become a real
+union, you would be satisfied?"
+
+"I don't see how----"
+
+"You can at least take my word for it, Mr. Curtis, that the chance of
+such an outcome will be greatly forwarded if you go straight to bed,
+whereas any design you may have formed as to assaulting and battering
+Otto Schmidt would, if put into execution, probably defeat the more
+important object, or, at any rate, cripple its prospects of success."
+
+"Do you really mean that?"
+
+"I am almost sure of it.  There is only one thing of which I am more
+certain at the moment."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"That if it were not for your quickness of eye and hand--and foot, for
+that matter--I would now be laid out in a mortuary or on an hospital
+table.  I appreciate those qualities when exercised on a person like
+Martiny, whose main argument is centered in an automatic pistol, but
+they would be singularly out of place if tested on Otto Schmidt, when
+backed by the laws of the United States, which, strange as it may seem,
+I also represent."
+
+"If you put it that way, Steingall----"
+
+"I do, most emphatically.  Let me be more precise.  Promise me now that
+you will not stir out of the Plaza Hotel until I come to you."
+
+"Is that really essential?"
+
+"I would not ask you if it were not."
+
+"What time may I expect you?"
+
+"Let me see. . . .  It is now nearly five o'clock.  I hope to sleep
+till eight.  I give you till nine.  Bath and breakfast brings you to
+ten.  Say eleven."
+
+"I owe you a good deal, so I shall await you till noon.  After that
+hour I reserve my freedom of action."
+
+The detective laughed.
+
+"Good-by," he said, and, as though in keeping with the other fantasies
+of the night, Curtis was sound asleep in quarter of an hour.  He had
+acquired the faculty of sleeping under any conditions of mental or
+physical stress, short of illness or severe bodily pain, and he could
+awake at any hour previously determined on, so, a few minutes before
+nine o'clock he was in his bath.  At a quarter-past nine he rang for a
+waiter and ordered breakfast.
+
+"For one, sir?" said the man, who had not been on duty the previous
+evening, but had taken care to ascertain the names of the guests on his
+section of the floor.
+
+"Yes, for one," said Curtis.  "My wife and her maid are not
+breakfasting in the hotel.  Will you kindly send up a batch of morning
+newspapers?"
+
+It was only to be expected that the keen and bright intelligence of New
+York journalism should have fastened on to the murder in 27th Street as
+something out of the ordinary.  But its methods were new to the man
+whose adult years had been passed far from his native city, and he was
+astounded now to find how the descriptive reporter, aided by the
+photographer, had depicted and dissected nearly every feature of the
+crime.  On one point the press was silent--as yet.  There was no
+mention of Lady Hermione, and, with a reticence which spoke volumes for
+the close relations existing between police and reporters, the Earl of
+Valletort and Count Vassilan were represented as merely "enquiring for"
+John Delancy Curtis, "the man from Pekin."
+
+Curtis had spread the newspapers on the table, and, when a tap on the
+door of the sitting-room seemed to indicate the re-appearance of the
+waiter, he swept them up in a heap, meaning to go through them at
+leisure after breakfast.
+
+"Come in," he said, turning casually.
+
+The door opened, and Hermione entered.
+
+It was what dramatists term "a psychological moment," and, according to
+Berkeley, one of the axioms of psychology is that it never transcends
+the limits of the individual.  Most certainly, at that moment, the
+truth of this dictum was demonstrated in a manner which would have
+surprised even the doughty philosopher himself.
+
+Curtis saw nothing, knew nothing, thought of nothing not strictly
+bounded by the fact that Hermione, and none other, stood there.  He
+gazed at her spell-bound for a second or two.  He neither moved nor
+spoke, but remained stock-still, with the newspapers gathered in his
+hands, while his eyes blazed into hers without any pretense of
+restraint.
+
+She was rosy red, partly because of the wine-like morning air through
+which she had walked swiftly, but more, perhaps, because of a very real
+embarrassment and contriteness of spirit.
+
+"I came," she faltered--"I am here--that is--will you ever forgive
+me!----"
+
+Down went the papers, and round Hermione went Curtis's strong arms.  He
+was a man of thew and sinew, against whom a slender girl's strength
+might not hope to prevail.  The last thing she looked for was to be
+embraced at sight.  It is the last thing any woman expects, and the one
+thing to which she is most apt to yield.  And really, despite her
+fluttered cry of protest, there was something very comforting and
+dependable about that masculine hug.  Hermione had never before been
+clasped in a man's arms.  She was a highly kissable person, and women
+would embrace her readily, but the total absence of any milk-and-water
+convention about Curtis's method of showing delight at meeting her was
+at once bewildering and stupefying.
+
+There must be a great deal, too, which does not leap promptly to the
+eye in the study of such a dry-as-dust subject as psychology, because
+three of its fixed principles are: "Experience is the process of
+becoming expert by experiment," "One finds a measure of truth in the
+naïve realism of Common Sense;" and "Action and Reaction are strictly
+correlative."
+
+Applying these tests to the remarkable rapidity of decision and fixity
+of purpose displayed by Curtis in squeezing the breath out of Hermione,
+and gazing into her eyes until her proud head bent and sought refuge
+for a glowing face by hiding it on his breast, it will be noted first,
+that, for a man who had no experience in love-making, Curtis was
+quickly becoming expert; secondly, that Common Sense teaches that if
+one would win a wife one must also woo her; and thirdly, that a
+wonderfully effective way to obtain a satisfactory response from
+Hermione was to reveal the educational value of a hug.
+
+At last, then--though not before Hermione's arms had gone around his
+neck of their own accord, and her lips had met his with a sigh of sheer
+content--he permitted her to speak.  And of all things in the world she
+said that which it thrilled him to hear.
+
+"John, dear," she murmured, "we have become husband and wife in a
+strange, mad way, but, perhaps it is for the best, and I shall try
+never to give you cause for regret."
+
+By this time one hand was firmly braced around her waist, but the other
+was free to lift her chin until her swimming eyes met his.
+
+"Hermione," he said, "I vowed last night that not all the men and laws
+in America would tear you from me.  If we parted, it was you, and you
+alone, who could send me away, and I am glad, oh, so glad, that you
+have come back to me."
+
+"Dearest, it sounds like a dream," she said brokenly.  "Can a man and a
+woman truly love each other who have only met as you and I have met?"
+
+"I think we have solved that problem for all time," he said, tilting
+her hat with the joyous abandon of a lover jealous even of the flowers
+and plaited straw which should hide any of the sweet perfections of his
+mistress.
+
+"But you have plunged me into a sort of trance," she whispered.  "I
+came here to explain----"
+
+An ominous rattle of a laden tray at the outer door drove them apart as
+though a thunderbolt had fallen between them.  Hermione rushed to her
+own room, there to consult a mirror, and readjust her hat and veil and
+disordered hair, but Curtis met a hurrying waiter.
+
+"Sorry to bother you," he said, "but my wife has come in unexpectedly,
+and we shall want breakfast for two."  He raised his voice:
+
+"Coffee for you, Hermione, or would you prefer tea?"
+
+"Coffee, of course," was the answer, in so calm and collected a tone
+that the waiter thought he must have been mistaken in his first
+impression.
+
+"No trouble at all, sir," he said, with the ready civility of his
+class.  "Unless you wish to wait, sir, I'll bring another cup and some
+hot plates, and order a further supply from the kitchen."
+
+"You're a man of resource," cried Curtis cheerfully.  "I leave the
+arrangements to you with confidence. . . .  Come along, Hermione.
+Don't say you have breakfasted already."
+
+"I won't, because I haven't," she said, reappearing with a smiling
+nonchalance which removed the last shred of doubt from the waiter's
+mind.  But, for all that, she electrified Curtis with a timidly
+grateful glance, for she appreciated his thoughtfulness in giving her
+an opportunity to collect her scattered wits.  There was need of some
+such respite; she had much to relate, she thought, before he could
+possibly understand the motives which led to her flight.
+
+Barely half an hour ago Mr. Steingall had put in an appearance at her
+apartment.  He had told her, with convincing brevity, exactly why
+Curtis refrained from adding to her perplexities by announcing the
+comparative well-being of Jean de Courtois.
+
+"He was very kind," said Hermione, sweetly penitent, "but he made me
+feel rather like a worm when he said that if I were his own daughter he
+would thank God that I had fallen into the hands of a man like you.  He
+said, too, that if I owed you something, he owed you more, because you
+had saved his life last night, so, being an impulsive creature, I
+hurried here to ask your forgiveness for that horrid note."
+
+"There is no lie so difficult to combat as a half truth," said John.
+"That fellow, Schmidt, impressed you because he probably believed what
+he was saying.  As for Steingall, he makes rather too much of what I
+did for him, but, if there was any debt on his side, he has repaid me
+with ample interest."
+
+The waiter had left the room, and Hermione was free to blush without
+restraint, a privilege she availed herself of fully now.
+
+"But, dear, you and I can hardly feel that we are really married," she
+said.  "Yesterday--it was--different.  I cannot remain here now.
+Perhaps your uncle and aunt will receive me--until----"
+
+"It is surprising how easily one can get married if one is really bent
+on the act," said Curtis, discussing the point as coolly as if it were
+a question as to where they would lunch.  "At any rate, we shall settle
+that difficulty to your complete satisfaction.  I expect Steingall here
+in less than an hour.  Meanwhile, we have lots to tell each other.  I
+want you to know just what sort of husband you have drawn in the
+lottery."
+
+"Do you take me on trust, then?"
+
+"Absolutely without reservation."
+
+Obviously, the conversation did not flag before the detective was
+announced.  He looked tired and preoccupied when he came in, but his
+shrewd, pleasant face brightened with a cheery smile when he saw
+Hermione, who was pretending to be interested in a newspaper.
+
+"I am glad to find that two people, at least, have taken my advice," he
+said.  "Now, Mr. Curtis, I want you for an hour.  The various official
+inquiries are adjourned till next week, and your presence was dispensed
+with.  But we are going now to the office of Mr. Otto Schmidt, where we
+shall have the pleasure of meeting the Earl of Valletort, Count
+Ladislas Vassilan, and, possibly, Monsieur Jean de Courtois. . . .  On
+no account, young lady," and he turned to Hermione, "must you run away
+again during our absence."
+
+"I shall not," said Hermione, so emphatically that they all laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A PARLEY
+
+Nature was kind that morning.  A flood of sunshine greeted Curtis when
+he turned into Fifth Avenue with the detective, as the latter had
+suggested that they might walk a little way before taking a taxi, there
+being plenty of time before the hour fixed for the meeting in Schmidt's
+office.  It was a morning when life and good health assumed their
+fitting places in the forefront of those many and varied considerations
+which form the sum of human happiness.  The world had suddenly resumed
+its everyday aspect of bustle and content.  New York smiled at its new
+citizen, and the new citizen beamed appreciatively on New York.
+
+"I cannot explain matters to you fully even yet----" Steingall was
+saying, when an automobile drew up close to the curb, and a well-known
+voice cried joyously:
+
+"Just in time.  Where's the fire?  There's bound to be a blaze when you
+two run in a leash."
+
+Devar bounced out of the car, and Brodie grinned with pleasure.  The
+chauffeur was beginning to like the excitement of acting as
+supernumerary on the staff of the Detective Bureau.
+
+"Will you jump in, or shall I prowl with you down Fifth Avenue?" asked
+Devar, blithely ignoring Steingall's somewhat strained welcome.
+
+"We are keeping an appointment," said Curtis.  "I, for one, shall be
+more than pleased if the combination which proved so effective last
+night may remain intact this morning."
+
+"Steingall daren't cut adrift from me," said Devar.  "If you knew the
+truth about him, you'd find that he is deeply superstitious, and I'm a
+real mascot for bringing good luck.  Perhaps he is not aware, John D.,
+that I was the impresario who 'presented' you to an admiring public.
+Tell him that, and see if he has the nerve to say I'm not wanted."
+
+"Come along, Mr. Devar," said the detective, apparently yielding to a
+sudden resolve.  "I think I can make use of you--justify your presence,
+that is.  Tell your chauffeur to wait for us at 42d Street."
+
+Off went Brodie, jubilant at the prospect of his services being in
+requisition again.  He had not yet learnt the application to all things
+mundane of Disraeli's quip that it is the unexpected which happens.
+
+"Now, I want you two gentlemen to attend closely to what I have to
+say," said Steingall seriously, placing himself between them, so that
+his words might not reach other ears than those for which they were
+intended.  "Mr. Hunter's murder has passed long ago out of the common
+class of crimes.  It will be inquired into thoroughly, of course, and
+punishment will be dealt out impartially to those responsible for its
+commission.  But--and this is the point I want to emphasize--neither of
+you know, nor am I at liberty to inform you--just what bounds the
+authorities may reach, or stop at.  Have I made my meaning clear?"
+
+"Yes," said Curtis.
+
+"We're to be good little boys, and sit still, and say nothing, and do
+as we're told," said Devar.
+
+"I'm not asking impossibilities," said Steingall, who had a dry humor,
+and seldom missed a chance of gratifying it.  "I have merely laid down
+a proviso which must be observed, not for a day, or a week, but as long
+as any of us is alive.  State affairs are not the property of
+individuals.  They come first, all the time.  If they don't suit our
+convenience, we must simply adjust ourselves to the new conditions."
+
+"You alarm me, Steingall," cried Devar.  "Have we been drawn into an
+international squabble?  Don't tell me that Devar's canned salmon is
+really a deadly sort of bomb."
+
+"I've heard more improbable things.  But you would not be your father's
+son, Mr. Devar, if you can't keep a tight lip when statements are made
+in your presence which may astonish you.  Mr. Curtis and you are now
+about to meet a very clever man, Otto Schmidt, the lawyer, and I fancy
+your name will help in the argument.  Is your father in New York?"
+
+"He arrives here from Chicago to-night."
+
+"He has never met Mr. Curtis?"
+
+"No, but he jolly soon will."
+
+"But, if it were possible to get hold of him by telephone or telegraph
+to-day, he would say he had never heard of him?"
+
+"I guess that's so.  What are you driving at?"
+
+"Schmidt must know your father.  They are bound to have come together
+in more than one important deal."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It seems to me that, if the father's evidence is not available, the
+son's gains a trifle more weight."
+
+"Dash me if I can imagine where you are getting off at, Steingall."
+
+"You regard Mr. Curtis as a friend?"
+
+"I am proud of the fact."
+
+"Stick to that, and you will do him good service."
+
+"Well, that's easy."
+
+The detective seemed to be picking his words with a good deal of care.
+He covered several paces in silence, and Curtis, who had reverted to
+his normal habit of sober gravity, took no part in the conversation.
+His estimate of its purport differed from Devar's.  That light-hearted
+youngster was somewhat annoyed by the detective's implied hint that his
+friendship with Curtis rested on no more solid foundation than a
+steamer acquaintance, and would hardly bear the test of close scrutiny
+if it came to analysis on the score of prior knowledge, or if his
+testimony were sought as to Curtis's earlier career.  But he had the
+good sense to understand that Steingall was actuated by no light
+motive, so he held his peace.  Curtis went farther.  He believed that
+the detective was telling Devar what to say and how to say it.
+
+"Now that we have settled the matter of Mr. Curtis's references," said
+Steingall, resuming the talk as though it had not been interrupted, "I
+reach the next item.  Both of you are aware that two men have been
+arrested, and one is dead, and that all three were concerned in the
+attack on Mr. Hunter."
+
+"Yes," came the simultaneous answer.
+
+"I want you to forget names, except with regard to Lamotte, the
+chauffeur.  Martiny and Rossi, for the time being, vanish into the
+Ewigkeit."
+
+"What--forever?" Curtis could not help saying.
+
+"No, for a week or so."  Steingall darted a quick glance to his
+questioner.  "I have a stupid trick of adopting phrases from my pet
+authors," he said.  "Does Ewigkeit mean eternity?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, I withdraw it."
+
+"Try Niflheim."
+
+"Or Rüdesheim," suggested Devar wickedly.
+
+Steingall laughed.  Despite his German-sounding name, he spoke French
+fluently, but German not at all.
+
+"They're off the map," he said.  "There, that's good American, and I'll
+get on with my story, or rather, with the lack of it.  I cannot, of
+course, foretell the exact lines our discussion with Schmidt and his
+clients will follow, but if I have made you understand that your
+combined share in it is to say little, and be thoroughly non-committal
+in anything you may have to say, I am content."
+
+"You are as mysterious as an astrologer," vowed Devar.  "Having money
+to burn one day in Paris, I visited one of those jokers, and he told me
+I was born in Capricorn, under the sign of Aries, and I as good as told
+him he was a liar, because I was born in Manhattan under an ordinary
+roof.  By Jove! that reminds me, John D., you're a whale on stars.  Did
+you spot those two last night, low down in the west?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what did they prognosticate?"
+
+"That you and I would promise Mr. Steingall not to spoil any scheme he
+may have in mind by interfering at an inopportune moment."
+
+"I suppose I ought to feel crushed, but I don't," said Devar.
+
+"My dear fellow, if it hadn't been for you and your loyal championship
+at the right moment, I might easily have been in jail as an accomplice
+of the unknown scoundrels who killed Mr. Hunter."
+
+"That's the right kind of remark," broke in the detective.  "I think
+I'll offer each of you a post in the Bureau after this business is
+ended."
+
+"Give me a pointer on one matter," said Devar.  "You spoke of Schmidt's
+clients.  Who are they?"
+
+He whistled softly when he heard the names of Valletort and Vassilan
+and de Courtois.
+
+"Up to the neck in it again!" he crowed.  "Oh, it's me that is the
+happy youth because I blew in to New York at the right time yesterday."
+
+Otto Schmidt's office was in Madison Square, perched high above the
+clatter of 23d Street.  The windows of the lawyer's private sanctum
+commanded magnificent views of the city to south and west, and in that
+marvelously clear air the Statue of Liberty seemed to be little more
+than a mile away, while the villas of Montclair and houses on other
+heights in the neighboring State were distinctly visible.
+
+Steingall and his friends were the first to arrive, and Schmidt
+received them with the air of armed neutrality a lawyer displays
+towards the opposite camp.  He begged them to be seated, smiled
+pleasantly when Curtis asked to be allowed to admire the interesting
+panorama spread before his eyes, but gave Devar a contemplative look
+when Steingall introduced him.
+
+"Mr. Howard Devar, son of my friend William B. Devar?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Devar, feeling that this was safe ground.  "My father and
+you put it that way since you pulled off the Saskatchewan Combine
+together, but I've heard him describe you differently."
+
+Schmidt, who looked more egg-like than ever at this hour of the
+morning, disapproved of such flippancy.
+
+"William B. Devar is a fair fighter," he said.  "He gives and takes
+hard knocks with perfect good humor.  But, may I inquire how you come
+to figure in a matter which, if I understand aright a message received
+from Mr. Steingall, concerns persons with whom you can have little in
+common?"
+
+"It was a mere toss-up whether I or my friend, John Delancy Curtis,
+took the floor against the combination of noble lords who have retained
+you to look after their interests, or protect them, I ought to say; but
+fate favored him, so I am a mere bottle-holder.  To push the simile a
+bit farther, Mr. Schmidt, I may describe Mr. Steingall as the referee
+and watch-holder.  When he cries 'Time' someone will go to Sing-Sing."
+
+Perhaps some attribute of the father revealed itself in the son,
+because Steingall, who thought at first that Devar had allowed his
+tongue to run away with him, fancied that the lawyer dropped his
+inquiries somewhat suddenly.
+
+"The Earl of Valletort and Count Vassilan are due now," he said,
+glancing at a clock.
+
+"Oh, they will be here without fail," said the detective.  "Mr. Clancy,
+of the Bureau, is bringing de Courtois."
+
+"Bringing him?" repeated Schmidt.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Unofficially?"
+
+"That depends wholly on de Courtois.  He has to come, whether he likes
+it or not.  Whether he will be allowed to go away again is another
+matter."
+
+Schmidt's eyelids fell in thought.  Probably he reflected that there
+are two sides to every argument, and he had heard but one.  Certainly,
+John Delancy Curtis did not strike him as the dare-devil meddler, if
+not worse, he had been depicted by the fiery Earl.
+
+"The Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas Vassilan," announced a clerk,
+and Curtis took one square look at his rival.  He needed no more to
+confirm Hermione's unfavorable opinion.  The Count's appearance was not
+prepossessing.  His nose was still swollen, and the earnest effort of a
+doctor to paint out two black eyes had not been wholly successful.
+
+His lordship looked mightily displeased when he discovered the presence
+of Curtis and Devar, but he was a self-confident man, and regarded
+himself as a personage of such importance that he assumed the lead in
+this company at once.  Moreover, it was evident that he had resolved to
+keep a firm rein on his temper.
+
+"Now, Mr. Schmidt," he said brusquely, "your time and mine is valuable.
+Why have Count Vassilan and I been summoned here this morning by the
+police authorities?"
+
+Schmidt looked at Steingall, and the detective seemed to be almost at a
+loss for words.
+
+"I am--not aware--there is any particular call--for hurry," he said.
+"Are you, my lord, and Count Vassilan thinking of returning to Europe
+to-morrow?"
+
+The Hungarian laughed, not mirthfully, but with the forced gayety of a
+man who had considered how to act, and meant to adopt a decided
+attitude.
+
+"Certainly not," said the Earl stiffly, with uplifted eyebrows.
+
+Steingall pursed his lips, and his forehead seamed in a reflective
+frown.
+
+"I ought to explain," he said, "that I put that question as offering
+what appeared to me an easy way out of a situation which bristles with
+difficulties otherwise."
+
+His hesitancy had suddenly been replaced by slowness of utterance, but
+it is reasonable to suppose that, of those present, Curtis and Schmidt
+alone noted the marked distinction.
+
+"My good man," said the Earl, "you must have the strangest notion of
+the reason which accounts for my presence in New York.  I came here to
+rescue my daughter from a set of designing ruffians, some of whom I
+knew of, and others whom I had never heard of.  Why you should think
+that I may have it in mind to leave the country without being
+accompanied by Lady Hermione Grandison I cannot tell, and it is in the
+highest degree improbable that she will be prepared to sail to-morrow.
+Apart from my private arrangements, too, I mean to remain here until I
+have punished at least one person as he deserves."
+
+"Jean de Courtois?" inquired Steingall.
+
+"No, sir.  That man who stands there, and whose name is given as
+Curtis."
+
+The Earl nearly grew wrathful.  It annoyed him to find that Curtis was
+not looking at him at all, but was greatly interested in Schmidt.  That
+was another trait of Curtis's.  He had learnt long ago to select the
+ablest among his adversaries, and watch that man's face.  Mere
+impassivity supplied no real cloak, for Curtis, in his time, had dealt
+with Chinese mandarins whose countenances betrayed no more expression
+than a carved ivory mask.
+
+"But it was de Courtois who meant to marry Lady Hermione?" persisted
+Steingall.
+
+"That remains to be seen.  The person who did marry her signed himself
+John Delancy Curtis."
+
+Instantly the detective turned to Otto Schmidt.
+
+"It will assist the inquiry if you tell us whether or not such a
+marriage, if it took place under the assumed conditions, that is, by
+use of a marriage license not intended for one of the parties, is
+legal," he said.
+
+"I have no doubt whatever that, in the circumstances, the courts will
+find it to be illegal," was the answer.
+
+"What circumstances?"
+
+"That the lady quitted her supposed husband as soon as she discovered
+the fraud which had been practised on her."
+
+Steingall weighed the point for a moment.
+
+"I see," he nodded.  "If she refused to remain with him, the marriage
+would be declared void.  But if she elected to treat the marriage as a
+binding act, no matter how it was procured, and continued to live with
+her husband, that vital fact would affect the question of validity?"
+
+"As you say, it would be a vital fact."
+
+The detective was clearly impressed, but Lord Valletort swept aside
+these quibbles of jurisprudence.
+
+"My daughter's actions will be revealed in detail to a judge," he said
+loftily.  "At present I fail to see what bearing they have on the
+discussion, unless, indeed, you mean to arrest Curtis immediately on a
+charge which I am prepared to formulate."
+
+"No, that is not why I requested your lordship and Count Vassilan to
+come here this morning," said Steingall, gazing anxiously at the clock.
+"I would prefer to await the arrival of Detective Clancy with Jean de
+Courtois, but, if the Frenchman refuses to come, he is within his
+rights, and I suppose I shall have to apply for a warrant, though, if I
+choose, I can arrest him merely on suspicion."
+
+"Suspicion of what?" demanded the Earl.
+
+"Of complicity in the murder of Mr. Hunter last night."
+
+"The man was tied in his room at the time of the murder," cried the
+Hungarian hoarsely, speaking for the first time since he had entered
+Schmidt's office.  He was obviously excited, and excitement is a
+powerful foe of good resolutions, with which the moral pavement is
+littered in Hungary and elsewhere.
+
+"That does not affect the charge of complicity," said Steingall
+thoughtfully.  "A man may be an accomplice, though the actual crime is
+committed at a time and place when he is far distant.  It is possible
+for an accomplice to be in Paris, or on the high seas, while a victim
+is falling under an assassin's knife in New York.  A man, or a number
+of men, can even be what I may term unconscious accomplices, in the
+sense that their actions and instructions have brought about a crime,
+though their intent may have stopped short of actual violence.  I
+assure you, my lord, the arm of the law reaches far when life is taken,
+and the death of a popular and prominent journalist like Mr. Hunter
+will be inquired into most searchingly."
+
+The detective spoke so impressively that Lord Valletort eyed him with a
+species of misgiving, while Count Vassilan, whose knowledge of English
+was excellent, had broken out into a perspiration.
+
+A smooth, mellifluous voice suddenly intervened.  Otto Schmidt thought
+fit to assume a role for which Lord Valletort was manifestly ill
+equipped.
+
+"We seem to be dealing with two items which, though related, by
+accident, as it were, yet differ widely.  The Earl of Valletort is
+interested only in his daughter's marriage, Mr. Steingall."
+
+The detective wheeled round on him.
+
+"Precisely, Mr. Schmidt, but it happens, unfortunately, that the
+marriage of Lady Hermione and Mr. Curtis was the direct outcome of the
+murder of Mr. Hunter.  More than that, Mr. Hunter met his death because
+of the plot and counter-plot attending the preliminary arrangements for
+her ladyship's marriage.  The two events, so far apart in their nature,
+thus become indissolubly connected."
+
+"And is that why we are to have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur de
+Courtois?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Perhaps, before he comes, you will be good enough to give us some
+idea, informally of course, as to the statement,--or, shall I say
+revelation?--he may make."
+
+"It is asking a good deal of a police official," said Steingall,
+smiling pleasantly, "but if I am assured that the discussion will
+really be regarded as informal, I am ready to speak quite openly."
+
+"It is a characteristic of yours, Mr. Steingall, which has often
+commanded the admiration of the New York bar," said Schmidt.
+
+"Then," said the detective, "I must begin by telling you that Mr.
+Clancy and I were in Morris Siegelman's saloon in East Broadway shortly
+after midnight last night."
+
+A curious click issued from the throat of that distinguished Hungarian
+magnate, Count Ladislas Vassilan, and everyone present noticed it
+except the chief of the Detective Bureau.  He, it would appear, was
+busy marshaling his thoughts.
+
+"For all practical purposes, our inquiry began there," he continued.
+"We intercepted a note written by a certain gentleman, and intended to
+be conveyed to a Pole named Peter Balusky.  He, and a Hungarian, Franz
+Viviadi, together with a French chauffeur, whose real name is Lamotte,
+but who has been passing recently as Anatole Labergerie, are now under
+arrest.  Mr. Curtis has recognized Lamotte as the driver of the
+automobile out of which Mr. Hunter stepped to meet his death, and
+Lamotte himself has confessed his share in the crime.  The precise
+connection of Balusky and Viviadi with it remains yet to be determined.
+They undoubtedly visited the Central Hotel last night.  They
+undoubtedly were the paid agents of some person or persons interested
+in preventing the marriage of Lady Hermione Grandison.  They
+undoubtedly received letters and wireless messages which seem to
+implicate others, far removed from them in social position, in the
+plot, or undertaking, that her ladyship's marriage should not take
+place.  As a lawyer, Mr. Schmidt, you will see that I cannot possibly
+enter into full details, but I think I have said sufficient to prove my
+main contention, which is, you will remember, that it will be
+difficult, very difficult, to dissociate the two incidents--I mean the
+marriage and the murder."
+
+During quite an appreciable time there was no sound in the spacious
+apartment other than the heavy breathing of Count Ladislas Vassilan.
+He had openly and candidly abandoned all pretense.  He was now nothing
+more nor less than a burly, well-fed, well-dressed evil-doer quaking
+with fear.
+
+"Difficult, you say, Mr. Steingall?" repeated the lawyer, selecting, as
+was his way, the word which supplied the key to a whole sentence.
+
+"Very difficult," corrected the detective.
+
+"But not impossible?"
+
+"I would not care to hazard a reasoned opinion, but it seems to me
+that, in certain conditions, the District Attorney might elect to
+confine the inquiry to its main issues, which are, of course, the
+causes of the crime, and the conviction of the persons actually engaged
+in it."
+
+"Why did you want to bring Jean de Courtois here?"
+
+"Because he is the connecting link between the one set of circumstances
+and the other."
+
+"Is he coming, do you think?"
+
+Steingall looked at the clock, and showed a disappointment which he did
+not try to conceal.
+
+"I fear not," he said.  "I told Clancy only to try and persuade him to
+come.  The Frenchman is pretending to be ill, but he is not ill, only
+frightened."
+
+"Frightened of what?"
+
+"Of the consequences of his own acts.  In a sense, Mr. Hunter was his
+ally, but only from a journalist's standpoint, which centered in the
+sensation which would be provided by the projected marriage."
+
+Schmidt's eyelids had fallen and risen regularly during the past few
+minutes.  They dropped now for a longer period than usual.  As for Lord
+Valletort and his would-be son-in-law, they were profoundly and
+unfeignedly ill at ease.  Even a British Earl cannot afford to play
+fast and loose with the law, and it did seem most convincingly clear
+that they had brought themselves within measurable reach of the law by
+the tactics they had employed prior to their arrival in New York.
+
+Oddly enough, their own possible connection with the murder of the
+journalist was a good deal more patent to them than to Curtis and
+Devar, who were vastly better posted in the evidence affecting them.
+Still more curiously, not a word had been said about Martiny or Rossi.
+
+"Let us suppose," said Schmidt, when his eyes had opened again, "that
+Lady Hermione elects to return to Europe at once with her father, the
+Earl----"
+
+Steingall shook his head with a weary smile, and the lawyer's voice
+ceased suddenly.
+
+"Out of the question, Mr. Schmidt, out of the question.  I am sure of
+it.  Why, little more than half an hour ago I found her with Mr. Curtis
+in their apartments at the Plaza Hotel----"
+
+"Ridiculous!" shrieked Lord Valletort in a shrill falsetto.  "My
+daughter passed the night in her apartment in 59th Street.  I myself
+saw her go there."
+
+"Probably.  Your lordship would know the facts if you watched her
+departure from the Plaza Hotel.  But a woman has the inalienable
+privilege of changing her mind, and Lady Hermione has returned to her
+husband.  In fact, I am given to understand that she and Mr. Curtis are
+arranging a new marriage, not because the earlier ceremony is illegal,
+or can be upset, but in deference to certain natural scruples which
+such a charming young lady would be bound to entertain. . . .  There
+can be no manner of doubt as to the correctness of what I am saying,"
+and the detective's tone grew emphatic in view of the Earl's pish-tush
+gestures.  "You have a telephone there, Mr. Schmidt.  Ring up the
+Plaza, and speak to the lady yourself."
+
+The lawyer did nothing of the sort.  He eyed Curtis in his
+contemplative way, being aware that the quiet man standing near a
+window had favored him with his exclusive attention during the
+proceedings.
+
+But Lord Valletort was moved now to stormy protest.  He was convulsed
+with passion, and seemed to be careless what the outcome might be so
+long as he lashed Curtis with venom.
+
+"You are the only person in this infernal city whose actions are
+consistent," he roared at him.  "It is quite evident that you have
+ascertained by some means that my daughter is exceedingly wealthy, and
+you have managed to delude her into the belief that your conduct is
+altruistic and above reproach.  But you make a great mistake if you
+believe that I can be set aside as an incompetent fool.  I shall go
+straight from this office to that of the District Attorney, and lay the
+whole of the facts before him.  I----"
+
+"Does your lordship wish to dispense with my services?" broke in
+Schmidt, speaking without flurry or heat.  The angry Earl choked, but
+remained silent, and the lawyer kept on in the same even tone:
+
+"May I suggest, Mr. Steingall, that you and Mr. Curtis and Mr. Devar
+should step into another room while I have a brief consultation with
+Lord Valletort and Count Vassilan?"
+
+"I cannot become a party to any arrangement----" began Steingall, but
+Otto Schmidt bowed him and his companions out suavely.  Those two
+understood each other fully, no matter what divergencies of opinion
+might exist elsewhere.
+
+When the door had closed on the three men in a smaller room, Devar was
+about to say something, but Steingall checked him with a warning hand.
+Walking to a window, he stood there, with his back turned on his
+companions, and stared out into the square beneath.  Once they fancied
+they saw him nod his head in a species of signal, but they might have
+been in error.  At any rate, their thoughts were soon distracted by the
+entrance of the stout lawyer.
+
+"On some occasions, the fewest words are the most satisfactory," he
+said, "so I wish to inform you, Mr. Steingall, that Lord Valletort and
+Count Vassilan intend to sail for Europe by to-morrow's steamer.  They
+have empowered me to offer to pay the passage money to France of the
+music-teacher, Jean de Courtois, though not by the same vessel as that
+in which they purpose traveling.  As for you, Mr. Curtis, the Earl
+withdraws all threats, and leaves you to settle your dispute with the
+authorities as you may think fit.  May I add that if you choose to
+consult me I shall be glad to act for you.  I would not say this if it
+was merely a professional matter, but there are circumstances--
+Certainly, I shall be here at eleven o'clock on Monday.  Till then,
+sir, I wish you good-day.  Good-day, Mr. Devar.  Remember me to your
+father.  By, by, Mr. Steingall.  You and I will meet at Philippi."
+
+Once the three were in Madison Square, Devar could not be restrained.
+
+"Steingall," he said, "if you don't tell me how you managed it, I'll
+sit down right here on the sidewalk and blubber like a child."
+
+"You were present.  You heard every word," said the detective blandly.
+
+"Yes, I know you scared them stiff.  But who, in Heaven's name, are
+Peter Balusky and Franz Viviadi?  Where, did you find 'em?  Did they
+drop from the skies, or come up from--  Well, where _did_ you get 'em?"
+
+"Clancy and I bagged them quite easily after Mr. Curtis and you left
+Siegelman's café.  All we had to do was wait till Vassilan quit.  They
+were hanging about all the time, but afraid to meet him. . . .  Now,
+you must ask me no more questions.  I am going to Clancy.  He is
+keeping an eye on Jean de Courtois."
+
+"Did you ever intend to have the Frenchman brought to Schmidt's office?"
+
+"Of course I did.  What a question!  Good-by.  There's your car.  I'm
+off," and the detective swung himself into a passing streetcar.
+
+"Do you know," said Devar thoughtfully, "I am beginning to believe that
+Steingall says a lot of things he really doesn't mean.  I haven't quite
+made up my mind yet as to whether or not he hasn't run an awful bluff
+on the noble lord and the most noble count.  And the weird thing is
+that Schmidt didn't call it.  Did it strike you, Curtis, that----"
+
+Then he looked at his friend, whose silent indifference to what he was
+saying could no longer pass unnoticed.
+
+"What is it, old man?" he asked, with ready solicitude.  "Are you
+feeling the strain, or what?"
+
+"It is nothing," said Curtis.  "A run in the car will soon clear my
+head.  Perhaps you and I might arrange for a long week-end, far away
+from New York."
+
+A second time did Devar look at his friend, but, being really a
+good-natured and sympathetic person, he repressed the imminent cry of
+amazement.  Somehow, he realized the one spear-thrust which had pierced
+Curtis's armor.  It was hateful that such a man should be told he had
+married Hermione for her money.  It was hateful to think that this
+might be said of him in the years to come.  It was even possible that
+she herself might come to believe it of him, and John Delancy Curtis's
+knight-errant soul shrank and cringed under the thought, even while the
+memory of Hermione's first kiss of love was still hot on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
+
+But the phase passed like a disturbing dream.  Hermione herself laughed
+the notion to scorn: and a ready opportunity for such effective
+exorcism of an evil spirit was supplied by Devar's tact.
+
+When the two young men reached the hotel Devar insisted that Curtis
+should take Hermione for an hour's run in the park.
+
+"Here's the car, and it's a fine morning, and you've got the girl.
+What more do you want?" he cried.  "If Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa
+show up before your return I'll take care of 'em.  Now, who helps her
+ladyship to put on her hat and fur coat--you or I?"  That duty,
+however, was discharged by a smiling and voluble maid named Marcelle
+Leroux.
+
+So it befell that when Brodie piloted his charges into Central Park
+through Scholar's Gate, Curtis behaved like a man deeply in love but
+gravely ill at ease, and Hermione, also in love, but afire with the
+divine flame of womanly faith, and therefore serenely blind to any
+possible obstacle which should thrust itself between her and the
+beloved, saw instantly that something was wrong.  Curtis was just the
+type of man who would torture himself unnecessarily about a
+consideration which certainly would not have rendered his inamorata
+less desirable in the eyes of the average wooer.  He knew that he had
+waited all his life to meet Hermione--to meet her, and none other--and
+the thought that, having found her, having snatched her, as it were,
+from the sacrificial altar of a false god, he should now lose her, was
+inflicting exquisite agony.
+
+Happily, this girl-wife of his was adorably feminine, and she decided
+without inquiry that she was the cause of his melancholy.
+
+"Tell me, John," she said suddenly.  "I am brave.  I can bear it."
+
+The unexpected words stirred him from his disconsolate mood.
+
+"Bear what, dear one?" he asked, looking at her with the wistful eyes
+of Tantalus gazing at the luscious fruits which the wrathful winds
+wafted ever from his parched lips.
+
+"You know that you have made a mistake, and have brought me out here
+to--to----"
+
+"Ah, dear Heaven!" he sighed; "if I had but the strength of will to
+adopt that subterfuge it might prove easier for you.  But one thing I
+cannot do, Hermione.  I refuse to set you free by means of a lie.  I
+love you, and will love you till life itself has sped."
+
+The trouble was not so bad, then.  She nestled closer.
+
+"What is it, John dear?" she cooed, quite confident of her ability to
+slay dragons so long as he talked in that strain.
+
+He trembled a little, so overpowering was the bitter-sweet sense of her
+nearness.
+
+"It is rather horrible that you and I should have to discuss dollars
+and cents," he said, speaking with the slow distinctness of a man
+pronouncing his own death-sentence, "but your father taunted me with
+the fact that you are very wealthy.  Is that true?"
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+She affected to treat the matter seriously.  It was rather delicious to
+find her lover distressing himself about money, if that was all.
+
+"What is your income?" he demanded curtly.
+
+"I am quite rich.  I am worth about half a million dollars a year."
+
+He groaned, and shrank away from her.
+
+"Why did you not tell me that sooner?" he said, almost with a scowl.
+
+"Why should I?  Does it matter?  Isn't it rather nice to have plenty of
+money?"
+
+"Good God!  It is hard to--to----"  His hands covered his face in sheer
+agony.
+
+"John, don't be stupid.  Why alarm me in that way?  Wealth doesn't
+bring happiness--far from it.  But didn't you and I--discover each
+other--before--before----"
+
+"But I know, now," he said brokenly, "and it is a mad absurdity to
+think that a woman of your place in the world should marry a poor
+engineer.  Do you realize that you receive every fortnight more than I
+earn in twelve months?  King Cophetua marrying a beggar-maid sounds
+excellent in romance, but who ever heard of a queen wedding a pauper?"
+
+"You are describing yourself rather lamely, John."
+
+"Hermione, don't drive me beyond endurance.  I can't bear it, I tell
+you."
+
+She caught his right hand, and imprisoned it lovingly in hers.  Her
+left hand went around his neck, and she drew him closer.
+
+"John," she whispered, and the fragrance of her was intoxicating, "you
+must not break my poor heart after taking it by storm.  I want you, and
+shall keep you if I were ten times as rich and you were in rags.  What
+joy has money brought hitherto in my short life?  It killed my mother,
+and has alienated me from my father.  It has driven me to the verge of
+a folly I now shudder at.  It has caused death and suffering to men
+whom I have never seen.  It has separated a man and a woman who love
+each other even as you and I love.  If I were a poor girl, working for
+a living in office or shop, I should know what laughter meant, and
+cheerfulness, and the bright careless hours when the heart is light and
+the world goes well.  You have brought these things to me, dear, and
+you must not take them away now.  I forbid it.  I deny you that
+wrongful act with my very soul. . . .  John, do you wish to see me in
+tears on this--our first day--together?"
+
+Brodie summed up the remainder of the situation with unconscious
+accuracy in a subsequent disquisition delivered to an admiring circle
+in the servants' hall at Mrs. Morgan Apjohn's house.
+
+"Spooning is a right and proper thing in the right and proper place,"
+he said, "but Central Park on a fine morning is not the locality.  I
+was jogging along comfortably when I saw some guys in Columbus Plaza
+rubbering around at the car, and grinning like clowns at a circus, so I
+just opened up the engine a bit, and let her rip, except when a mounted
+cop cocked his eye at me.  But, bless you, them two inside didn't care
+if it snowed.  When I brought 'em back to the hotel, Mr. Curtis sez to
+me: 'We've enjoyed that ride thoroughly, Brodie, but I had a notion
+that Central Park was larger.'  Dash me, I took 'em over nine miles of
+roadway, and they thought I had gone in at 59th Street and come out at
+Eighth Avenue."
+
+Devar, too, appreciated the success of his maneuver when he saw
+Hermione's sparkling eyes and Curtis's complacent air.
+
+"Have you got a sister, Lady Hermione?" he asked _à propos_ to nothing
+which she or any other person had said.
+
+"No," she answered, without the semblance of a blush.
+
+"I was only wondering," he said.  "If you had, you might have cabled
+for her.  I'd just love to take her round the Park in that car."
+
+But the rest of that day, not to mention many successive days, was
+devoted to other matters than love-making.  Shoals of interviewers
+descended on Curtis and Hermione, on Devar, on Uncle Horace and Aunt
+Louisa, on Brodie, even on Mrs. Morgan Apjohn when it was discovered
+that she came to lunch, and on "Vancouver" Devar when he arrived at the
+Central Station that evening.  Steingall's orders were imperative,
+however.  Not a syllable was to be uttered about the one topic
+concerning which the press was hungering for information, because the
+shooting affray in Market Street had now become known, and the gray car
+had been dragged out of the Hudson, and the reporters were agog for the
+news which was withheld at headquarters.  It was then that the magic
+word, _sub judice_, proved very useful.  Even in outspoken America,
+witnesses do not retail their evidence to all and sundry when men's
+lives are at stake, and it was quickly determined to charge all five
+prisoners under one and the same indictment.
+
+Yet, for reasons never understood by the public, Balusky and Viviadi
+were discharged, and Jean de Courtois was deported.  Martiny was
+sentenced to capital punishment, and Lamotte received a long term of
+imprisonment.  But these eventualities came long after Curtis and
+Hermione had been remarried in strict privacy, and in the presence of a
+small but select circle of friends, an occasion which supplied Aunt
+Louisa with fresh oceans of talk for the delectation of society in
+Bloomington, Indiana.
+
+At the wedding breakfast, Steingall made a speech.
+
+"Once," he said, "when the present happy event did not seem to be quite
+so easy of attainment as it looks to all of us now, my friend Mr.
+Curtis, playing upon a weakness of mine in the matter of literary
+allusions, suggested that I should substitute Niflheim for Ewigkeit as
+a simile.  I didn't know what Niflheim meant, but I have ascertained
+since that it is a Scandinavian word describing a region of cold and
+darkness, a place, therefore, where people might easily get lost.
+Well, it might have suited certain conditions I had then in my mind,
+but Mr. Curtis will never go to Scandinavian mythology when he wants to
+describe New York.  To my thinking, it will figure in his mind as more
+akin to Elysium."
+
+Clancy led the applause with sardonic appreciation, whereupon his chief
+allowed a severe eye to dwell on him, though his glance traveled
+instantly to the egg-shell dome of Otto Schmidt, whose aid had been
+invaluable in stilling certain qualms in the breast of authority.
+
+"My singularly boisterous and most esteemed friend, Mr. Clancy," he
+continued, "seems to be delighted by the success of that trope.  I
+might gladden your hearts with some which he has coined, because the
+bride and bridegroom owe more, far more, to him than they imagine at
+this moment.  I remember----"
+
+A loud "No, no!" from Clancy indicated that revelations were imminent.
+
+"Well," said Steingall, "I forget just what he said on one memorable
+night when four semi-intoxicated stokers held up a downtown saloon, but
+I do wish to assure you of this--if it were not for Clancy's genius as
+a detective, and his splendid qualities of heart and mind as a man,
+this wedding might never have taken place, or, if that is putting a
+strain on your imagination, let me say that its principals would have
+encountered difficulties which are now, happily, the dim ghosts of what
+might have been."
+
+Curtis took an opportunity later to ask Steingall what those cryptic
+words meant, and the Chief of the Bureau set at rest a doubt which had
+long perplexed him.
+
+"It was Clancy who prompted the idea of mixing up the two branches of
+the inquiry," he said.  "Under that wizened skin of his he has a heart
+of gold.  'Why shouldn't those two young people be made happy?' he
+said.  'I haven't seen the girl,' nor had he, then, 'but I like Curtis,
+and she won't get a better husband if she searches the island of
+Manhattan.'  So we allowed Lord Valletort and the Count to believe that
+it was their set of hirelings who killed poor Hunter, whereas Balusky
+and Viviadi only tied up de Courtois, and were quaking with fear when
+they heard of the murder, because they assumed he had been killed by
+some other scoundrels, and that they would be held responsible.  It was
+they who gave us the names of Rossi and Martiny as the likely pair, and
+the bluff I threw with Lamotte came off."
+
+"For whom were Rossi and Martiny acting?  You have never told me," said
+Curtis.
+
+"Don't ask, sir.  But I don't mind giving you a sort of hint.  You
+know, better than I do probably, that Hungary is seething with
+revolutionary parties, which are more bitter against each other than
+against the common enemy, Austria.  Now, two of these organizations
+were keen to have Count Vassilan married to Lady Hermione, one because
+of a patriotic desire to draw her money into the war-chest, the other
+because they suspected him, and rightly, as a mere tool in the hands of
+Austria, and they believed, again with justice I think, that when he
+was married it would be Paris and the gay life for him rather than a
+throne which might be shattered by Austrian bullets.  The Earl of
+Valletort has degenerated into little better than a company-promoter,
+and he had made his own compact with Vassilan.  Add to these certain
+facts one other--Elizabeth Zapolya, whom Lady Hermione knows, married
+an attaché in the Austrian Embassy in Paris last week.  Tell her that.
+She will be interested.  For the rest, you must deduce your own
+theories."
+
+Curtis remained silent for a moment.  Then he seized Steingall's hand
+and wrung it warmly.
+
+"Hermione and I have been wondering what we can do to show our sense of
+gratitude to you and Mr. Clancy," he said.
+
+"Nothing, sir," broke in the detective.  "It was all in the way of
+business, so to speak."
+
+"Yes, and our recognition of your services will take shape in that
+direction," said Curtis.  "Why, man, if it were not for you I might
+have been charged with murder, and if it were not for Clancy and you,
+Hermione might now be in Paris with her good-for-nothing father. . . .
+I'll talk this over with Schmidt."
+
+"Schmidt is a good fellow, but he doesn't know everything, even though
+he may be a mighty fine guesser," said Steingall.
+
+"I'll tell him just as much as is good for any lawyer," laughed Curtis.
+"He is acting for my wife and myself now in the matter of providing for
+Hunter's relatives.  We look forward to meeting Clancy and you when we
+return from the West."
+
+"Is that where you are going for the honeymoon?" asked the detective,
+with the amiable grin which invariably accompanies the question.
+
+"Yes.  We debated the point during a whole day, but some enterprising
+agent settled it for us by exhibiting a catchy sign--'Why not see
+America?'  And we both cried 'Why not?'  Mr. Devar senior, who has what
+you call a pull in such matters, has secured us the use of a railway
+president's car for the trip, and a whole lot of friends join us at
+Chicago.  Can you come, too?"
+
+Steingall shook his head.
+
+"No, sir," he said ruefully.  "I can't get away from headquarters.  I
+have too much on hand.  As for Clancy, he'll be carried out before he
+quits."
+
+So, for two people at least, a wonderful night merged into a more
+wonderful month, and the dawn of a new year found them on the threshold
+of a happy, and therefore, quite wonderful life.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of One Wonderful Night, by Louis Tracy
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of One Wonderful Night, by Louis Tracy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: One Wonderful Night
+       A Romance of New York
+
+Author: Louis Tracy
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19707]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  BEVERLY BAYNE AS LADY HERMIONE." BORDER="2" WIDTH="397" HEIGHT="625">
+<H3>
+[Frontispiece: FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  <BR>
+BEVERLY BAYNE AS LADY HERMIONE.]
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
+</H1>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+A ROMANCE OF NEW YORK
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+LOUIS TRACY
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+AUTHOR OF
+<BR>
+MIRABEL'S ISLAND, THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, ETC.
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+NEW YORK
+<BR>
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP
+<BR>
+PUBLISHERS
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+<BR>
+EDWARD J. CLODE
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A FOREWORD
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Moving picture enthusiasts who reveled in the romantic mysteries that
+tangled the plot of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT will find even more pleasure in
+reading this fascinating story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"THE LADIES' WORLD" contest&mdash;the greatest in the history of motion
+pictures&mdash;has just come to a close.  Under the auspices of the "Ladies'
+World" with its million circulation monthly, moving picture lovers all
+over the United States have been voting for the actor to impersonate
+the heroic part of John Delancy Curtis in the photo-play of ONE
+WONDERFUL NIGHT&mdash;probably the most interesting and absorbing
+presentation ever made on the screen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Five million, four hundred and forty-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty
+votes were cast</I>.  Francis Bushman won the prize.  With a vote of
+1,806,630 he was chosen the typical American hero.  In the Essanay
+Company's elaborate production of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT, Mr. Bushman is
+supported by a strong cast, including beautiful Beverly Bayne as Lady
+Hermione.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Those who have witnessed the photo-play production will find the book
+even more intensely interesting.  The hero, John Delancy Curtis, drops
+in from Pekin, China, for a brief rest from strenuous engineering work,
+and on his first night in New York finds a marriage license in the
+pocket of a murdered man's coat, rushes off in a taxi to the address of
+the woman named therein, marries her, punches a frantic rival on the
+nose, flouts her father (an English baronet), takes the fair one to a
+hotel, holds a banquet at which the Chief of Police of New York is an
+honored guest, and sits down to gaze contentedly into the future of
+bliss that a half a million a year will bring.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We bespeak for the reader pleasure, entertainment and diversion in this
+absorbing and unusual story.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<CENTER>
+
+<TABLE WIDTH="80%">
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap01">DUSK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap02">EIGHT O'CLOCK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap03">EIGHT-THIRTY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap04">AN INTERLUDE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap05">NINE O'CLOCK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap06">NINE-THIRTY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap07">TEN O'CLOCK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap08">TEN-THIRTY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap09">ELEVEN O'CLOCK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap10">MIDNIGHT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap11">ONE O'CLOCK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap12">TWO-THIRTY A.M.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap13">WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap14">THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap15">WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS&mdash;BUT ONLY <BR>FOR A FEW HOURS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap16">A PARLEY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap17">WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME <BR>ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-front">
+FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  BEVERLY BAYNE<BR>
+AS LADY HERMIONE&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <I>Frontispiece</I>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-102">
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-198">
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#img-302">
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+DUSK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"There, sonny&mdash;behold the city of your dreams!  Good old New York, as
+per schedule.&#8230;  Gee!  Ain't she great?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The slim, self-possessed youth of twenty hardly seemed to expect an
+answer; but the man addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of
+the pair by six years, felt that the emotion throbbing in his heart
+must be allowed to bubble forth lest he became hysterical.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Old New York, do you call it?" he asked quietly.  The tense restraint
+in his voice would perhaps have betrayed his mood to a more delicately
+tuned ear than his companion's, but young Howard Devar, heir of the
+Devar millions&mdash;son of "Vancouver" Devar, the Devar who fed multitudes
+on canned salmon, and was suspected of having cornered wheat at least
+once, thus woefully misapplying the parable of the loaves and
+fishes&mdash;had the wit to appreciate the significance of the question,
+deaf as he was to its note of longing, of adulation, of vibrant
+sentiment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Coelum non animum mutat</I>, which, in good American, means that it is
+the same old city on the level, and only changes its sky-line," he
+chortled.  "Bet you a five-spot to a nickel I'll walk blindfolded along
+Twenty-third Street from the Hoboken Ferry any time of the day, and
+take the correct turn into Broadway, bar being run over by a taxi or
+street-car at the crossings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll take the same odds and do that myself.  How could any normal
+human being miss the rattle of the Sixth Avenue Elevated?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar's forehead wrinkled with surprise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello, there!  Hold on!  How often have you told me that you had never
+seen New York since you were a baby?" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nor have I.  Ten years ago, almost to a day, I sailed from Boston to
+Europe with my people, and I had never revisited New York after leaving
+it in infancy, though both my father and mother hailed from the Bronx."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's a cog missing somewhere, or my mental gear-box is out of
+shape."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit of it.  One may learn heaps of things from maps and books."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Start right in, then, and take an honors course, for behold in me a
+map and a book and a high-grade society index for the whole blessed
+little island of Manhattan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you.  What is that slender, column-like structure to the left of
+the Singer Building?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar gazed hard at the graceful tower indicated by his friend; then he
+laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you're uncanny, that's what you are," he said.  "You've lived so
+long in the East that you've imbibed its tricks of occultism and
+necromancy.  I suppose you have discovered in some way that that
+mushroom has sprung up since the old man sent me to Heidelberg?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guessed it, I admit.  It does not figure among the down-town
+sky-scrapers in the latest drawing available in London."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And d'ye mean to tell me that you can pick out any of these
+top-notchers merely by studying a picture?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  Probably you could do the same if you, like me, felt yourself a
+returned exile."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Young Devar awoke at last to the fact that his companion was brimming
+over with subdued excitement.  Whether this arose from the intense
+nationalism of an expatriated American, or from some more subtle
+personal cause, he could not determine, but, being young, he was
+cynical.  He looked at the strong, set face, the well-knit, sinewy
+figure, the purposeful hands gripping the fore rail of the promenade
+deck; then he growled, with just the least spice of humorous envy:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Say, Curtis, old man, you ought to have a hell of a good time in New
+York!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At any rate, I shall not suffer from lack of enthusiasm," came the
+quick retort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar felt the spur, and his restless, bird-like eyes condescended to
+dwell for a few seconds in silence on the splendid panorama in front.
+The <I>Lusitania</I> had passed through the Narrows before the two young men
+had strolled along the upper deck of the great steamship to the
+'vantage point of a gangway which made a half-circle around the
+commander's quarters.  Already the Statue of Liberty loomed
+majestically over the port bow, and the wide expanse of the Hudson
+River was framed by the wooded slopes of Staten Island, the low shores
+of New Jersey, and the heights of the Palisades.  Somewhat to the right
+rose the imperial outlines of newest New York, that wonderful city
+which, even in the memory of children, has raised itself hundreds of
+feet nearer the sky.  A thin, blue haze gave glamour to a delightful
+scene, glowing in the declining rays of a November sun.  The gigantic
+strands of the Brooklyn Bridge showed through it like some aerial path
+to a fabulous land, while, merging fast in the shadows, other dim
+specters told of even greater engineering marvels higher up the East
+River.  A fleet of bustling vessels, for the most part ferry-boats and
+tugs of every possible size and shape, scudded across the spacious
+waterways, and lent to the picture exactly that semblance of vitality,
+of energetic purpose, of relentless effort to be up and doing&mdash;whether
+the New Yorker was going home from his office, or his wife was coming
+into town for dinner and a theater&mdash;which one, at least, of the city's
+uncounted sons had confidently expected to find in it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So John Delancy Curtis drew a deep breath that sounded almost like a
+sigh, but a pleasant smile illumined his somewhat stern face as he
+turned to Devar and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am giving myself fourteen days' free run of the town before I go
+West to visit some relatives.  They live in Indiana, I believe.
+Bloomington, Monroe County, is the latest address I possess.  Don't
+forget to ring me up to-morrow.  You remember the hotel, the Central,
+in West 27th Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, forget it!" cried the other vexedly.  "Why in the world are you
+burying yourself in that pre-historic shanty?  Man alive, the Holland
+House is only a block away, and there are 'steen hotels of the right
+sort strung out along Fifth Avenue, 'way up to Central Park&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's just a whim," broke in Curtis, who did not feel like explaining
+at the moment that he was choosing a quiet old inn in a side street
+because he had been born there!  Nevertheless, his words held that ring
+of decision, of finality in judgment, which invariably forms part of
+the equipment of men who have lived in wild lands and lorded it over
+inferior races.  Devar was vaguely conscious, and perhaps slightly
+resentful, of this compelling quality in his new-found crony.
+Oft-times it had quelled him for an instant during some stubbornly
+contested argument, though he raged at himself just as often for
+yielding to it, as if, forsooth, he were one of those patient,
+animal-like, Chinese coolies of whose courage and endurance Curtis
+spoke so admiringly.  Yet he was drawn to the man, and clung to his
+friendship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right-o!  I s'pose the place owns a telephone," he snickered, and then
+hurried away to finish packing.  Curtis, whose belongings were locked
+and strapped hours ago, remained on deck, and watched the preparations
+for bringing the great liner alongside the Cunard pier.  When her
+engines were stopped in mid-stream a number of fussy little tugs began
+nosing her round to starboard.  It seemed a matter of sheer
+impossibility that these puny creatures should move such a monster; but
+faith can move mountains, and in half an hour, or less, the tugs had
+moved the <I>Lusitania</I> to her allotted berth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, in each wide arch of the Customs shed, parterres of joyous
+faces grew momentarily more distinct.  It was easy to discern the very
+instant when one or other eager group on shore recognized the features
+of relatives and friends on the ship.  A frenzied waving of
+handkerchiefs, small flags, or umbrellas, an occasional wild whoop, a
+college cry or a rebel yell, would evoke similar demonstrations from
+the packed lines of onlookers fringing the lower decks.  One fact was
+dominant&mdash;to the vast majority of the passengers, this was home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly, Curtis found that he was the sole tenant of the open
+promenade.  Everyone on board had hurried to the less exalted levels,
+the many to hail their loved ones, the few to watch that first unique
+demonstration of welcome to a new land which New York gives so
+generously.  Somehow, he had never felt himself more alone&mdash;not even by
+night in the solemn plains of Manchuria&mdash;and he threw off the feeling,
+almost with contempt.  Was not this city his very own?  Had he not a
+birthright in every stone of it, from pavement to loftiest pinnacle?
+This was <I>his</I> home-coming, too, more real, more literally complete,
+than in the case of any but the few born New Yorkers who might figure
+among the two thousand passengers carried by the <I>Lusitania</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Insistently claiming his share of recognition, he turned abruptly, and
+made his way to the third deck.  There he met a lady, a young bride,
+who was returning to the States with her husband after a prolonged tour
+through Europe.  Her pretty face was wrung with emotion, but a second
+glance revealed that her distress was due to the pleasant pain of
+happiness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you seen your father and mother?" he asked sympathetically,
+knowing that she had looked forward to this great hour with so much
+longing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Y-yes," she sobbed.  "They are there&mdash;somewhere.  B-but, oh dear!  I
+cannot see them now for my tears."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Someone dug a joyful thumb into Curtis's ribs.  It was the girl's
+husband.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gee, it's fine to be home again!" he said huskily.  "Your leaning
+towers of Pisa are all right by way of a change, but deal me the
+Metropolitan for keeps, an' I've just spotted my old dad grinning at me
+like a Cheshire cat from the middle of a crowd wedged so tight that it
+would take a panic to squeeze in an extra walking-stick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the knowledge was borne in on Curtis that one could feel quite as
+lonely on C Deck as on A, and, case-hardened wanderer that he was, he
+badly wanted someone to yell at gleefully among the waiting multitude.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the gangways were out, and West folded East in her willing arms.
+The stolid masses of steamship and Customs shed obliterated the orange
+and crimson sky still gleaming over the Jersey shore, and pallid
+electric lights revealed but vaguely the ever-changing groups beyond
+the gangways.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To an experienced traveler like Curtis all Custom-houses were alike,
+dingy, nerve-racking, superfluous clogs on free movement.  Taking his
+time, for he had none to embrace or greet with outstretched hand, he
+strolled quietly off the ship, collected his baggage, which was piled
+with other people's belongings under a big "C," and nodded to Devar,
+similarly engaged at "D."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy ran to him for an instant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I may look you up to-night," he said.  "Dad is in Chicago, and won't
+be here till the morning.  You remember we passed the <I>Switzerland</I>
+after breakfast, and she signaled that she was steaming with the port
+engine only?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, her trouble was known by wireless, and there is a man on board
+whom dad has to meet.  This chap is important.  I am not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear fellow, don't think of leaving your friends on my account this
+evening," and Curtis, without looking around, showed that he had
+noticed the befurred elderly lady and two very pretty daughters who
+were taking Howard Devar under their elegant wings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that's my aunt, and two of my cousins.  I have dozens of 'em,
+dozens of cousins, that is.  Anyhow, old sport, don't wait in after
+7.30; just leave word where you may be about eleven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No further protest by Curtis was possible, because Devar's present
+behavior was of the whirlwind order.  He seemed to own as many trunks
+as cousins, and a lantern-jawed Customs official was gloating over them
+already.  Perhaps Curtis felt a faint whiff of surprise that his young
+friend had not introduced him to his relatives, but it vanished
+instantly.  Steamer acquaintance is a nebulous thing at the best; in
+that respect, the land is more unstable than the sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, the stranger in his own country was consigned to a porter, his
+two steamer trunks, a kit-bag, a suit-case, and a bundle of worn golf
+clubs were placed on a taxi, and a breath of clean, cold air blew in on
+his face as the vehicle hurried along West Street, that broad and
+exceedingly useful thoroughfare which New York has finally wrested from
+its waterside slums.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chief city of America is fortunate in the fact that a noble harbor
+presents her in full regalia to the voyager from Europe.  That
+favorable first impression, unattainable by the majority of the world's
+capitals, is never lost, and now it enabled Curtis to disregard the
+garish ugliness of the avenues and streets glimpsed during a quick run
+to the center of the town.  For one thing, he realized how the mere
+propinquity of docks and wharves infects entire districts with the
+happy-go-lucky carelessness of Jack ashore; for another, he knew what
+was coming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Or he fancied that he knew, a state of mind which, particularly in New
+York, produces brain storms.  His first shock came when the taxi drew
+up in front of a narrow-fronted, exceedingly tall building, equipped
+with revolving doors, while a hall-porter, dressed like an archduke,
+peered through the window and inquired severely:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you reserved a room, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, this was the Central Hotel, rebuilt, gone skyward, in full cry
+after its more pretentious <I>à la carte</I> neighbors, and the hall-porter
+was pained by the mere suspicion that the fact was not accepted of all
+the world of travel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Although the newcomer confessed that he had not made any reservation of
+rooms, the Archduke graciously permitted him to alight&mdash;indeed, quelled
+an incipient rebellion on Curtis's part by ordering a couple of negroes
+to disappear with most of the baggage.  So Curtis announced meekly to a
+super-clerk that he wanted a room with a bathroom, and was allowed to
+register.  As in a dream, he signed "John D. Curtis, Pekin," and was
+promptly annoyed at finding what he had written, because, being a
+citizen of New York, he had meant to claim the distinction, and ignore
+his long years in Cathay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll find 605 a comfortable, quiet room, Mr. Curtis," said the
+clerk.  "Going to make a long stay, may I ask?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A few days&mdash;perhaps a fortnight.  I cannot say offhand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, sir, I can't fix you better than in 605."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From some points of view, the clerk had never uttered a truer word.  It
+was wholly impossible that he or Curtis should guess how an apparently
+empty and really excellent apartment in the Central Hotel should be
+full to the ceiling that evening with that dynamite in human affairs
+called chance.  If the slightest inkling of the forthcoming explosion
+could have been vouchsafed to both men, there is no telling what Curtis
+might have done, for he was a true adventurer, of the D'Artagnan genus,
+but the clerk would certainly have used all his persuasiveness to
+induce the guest to occupy some other part of the house.  In later
+periods of unruffled calm, he was wont to date from that moment the
+genesis of gray hairs among his once raven-hued locks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But chance, like dynamite, not only gives no warning of its explosive
+properties but resembles that agent of disruption in following a
+curiously wayward path.  Curtis was piloted into an elevator by an
+affable negro, was conducted to 605, which, of course, lay on the sixth
+floor, and was plunged forthwith into the prosaic business of
+consigning a good deal of soiled linen to the laundry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The room was insufferably hot, so he directed the negro attendant to
+shut off the radiator, and himself threw open the window.  Glancing
+out, he discovered that he was located in a corner which commanded a
+distant glimpse of Broadway.  Directly before his eyes, in the topmost
+story of a comparatively low building, a lady who had forgotten to draw
+the blinds of her flat was apparently indulging in calisthenic
+exercises, so Curtis, being a modest man, drew the blind in his own
+room, and busied himself with a partial unpacking of his baggage.  The
+door faced the bed, at a distance of some six feet.  A wardrobe
+occupied the recess, and the negro, while unstrapping a steel trunk at
+the foot of the bed, balanced the bag of golf clubs against the front
+of the wardrobe&mdash;an action simple enough in itself, but comparable in
+its after effects to the setting of a clock attached to a bomb.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Soon afterwards, Curtis dismissed the man, and noticed casually that
+the opening of the door caused a pleasant draught of cool air.  He
+wrote a few letters, dressed, electing for a Tuxedo and black tie,
+filled a cigar-case, donned a green Homburg hat, threw an overcoat over
+his left arm, picked up the letters, extinguished the lights, and went
+out.  Again there came that rush of air from the window, and, just as
+the lock snapped, a crash from the interior announced the falling of
+the golf clubs, probably owing to a swaying of the wardrobe door.
+Simultaneously, Curtis realized that he had left the key on the
+dressing-table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was hardly worth while searching the floor for a chamber-maid: he
+decided to inform the civil-spoken clerk, and have the key brought to
+the office, at which sapient resolve Puck, who was surely abroad in New
+York that night, must have chuckled delightedly.  Unhappily, there were
+other spirits brooding in the city, spirits before whose deathly scowls
+the prime mischief-maker would have fled in terror, and Curtis, all
+unwitting, brushed against one of them in the hall.  His only
+acquaintance, the clerk, was momentarily absent, so he turned to a
+bookstall and cigar counter, and bought some stamps.  A man who had
+been seated in a sort of café, which the news-stand and a flower-stall
+partially screened from the main hall, rose hurriedly when he saw
+Curtis, and purchased a cigar.  In doing so, he touched the young man's
+shoulder, and said: "Pardon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis turned, and looked into the singularly unprepossessing face of a
+swarthy foreigner, a powerfully-built, ungainly person of about his own
+age.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all right," said he, licking a stamp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I jostled you by accident, monsieur," said the other, in correct
+French, though with a quaint accent which Curtis, himself no mean
+linguist, put down to a Polish or Czech nationality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Ca ne fait rien</I>," he replied civilly, and the stamping of the
+letters being completed, he took them to the letter-box.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stranger, who seemed to be rather puzzled, if somewhat reassured,
+dawdled over the lighting of the cigar, and watched Curtis enter the
+dining-room.  Then he went back to his chair in the café.  So much, and
+no more, did the youth in charge of the counter observe&mdash;not a great
+deal, but it went a long way before midnight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A clock in the hall showed that the hour was five minutes to seven.
+Half hoping that Devar might actually put in an appearance a little
+later, Curtis gave his hat and coat to a negro, and decided to dine in
+the hotel.  Evidently, the place still retained its old-time repute as
+a family and commercial resort.  The family element was in evidence at
+some of the tables, while, in the case of solitary diners, each man
+could have been labeled Pittsburg, Chicago, or Philadelphia, almost
+without error, by those acquainted with the industrial life of the
+United States.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He ate well, if simply, and treated himself to a small bottle of a
+noted champagne.  At half-past seven, meaning to give Devar ten
+minutes' grace, he ordered coffee and a glass of green Chartreuse.  As
+a time-killer, there is no liqueur more potent, but, regarded in the
+light of subsequent occurrences, it would be hard to say exactly how
+far the cunning monkish decoction helped in determining his wayward
+actions.  Undoubtedly, some fantastic influence carried him beyond
+those bounds of calm self-possession within which everyone who knew
+John Delancy Curtis would have expected to find him.  His subsequent
+light-headedness, his placid acceptance of a mad romance as the one
+thing that was inevitable, his ready yielding to impulse, his no less
+stubborn refusal to return to the beaten path of common sense&mdash;these
+unlikely traits in a character gifted with the New England dourness of
+purpose can only be explained, if at all, as arising from some
+unsuspected hereditary streak of knight-errantry brought into sudden
+and exotic life by the good wines of France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Be that as it may, at twenty minutes to eight he paid what he owed,
+lighted a cigar, donned his hat, and, still carrying the overcoat, was
+walking to the office to leave word about the key, when his attention
+was attracted by the peculiar behavior of the man who had pushed
+against him at the cigar counter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This person, apparently obeying a signal from another man of his own
+type who had just emerged from the elevator, hastened from the café,
+and the two ran to the door.  Now, the weather had been mild during the
+afternoon, and the revolving shutters of the doorway were folded back
+to allow of the overheated hall being cooled.  A porter stood there,
+and it was ascertained afterwards that, noticing a certain air of
+flurry and confusion about the foreigners, he asked if they wanted a
+taxi.  They gave no heed, but continued to gaze up and down the street,
+as though they awaited someone.  Equally did they seem to expect, or
+dread, an apparition from the hotel.  It would have been hard to pick
+out, at that instant, two persons more singularly ill at ease in all
+New York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis saw that the clerk, now at his desk, was engaged with a lady, so
+he strolled to the door, being rather interested in the excited antics
+of the pair on the sidewalk.  He had just passed through the door when
+an automobile dashed up, and he fancied, though he could not be quite
+sure in the half-light, that the chauffeur nodded to the waiting men.
+The porter opened the door of the automobile, and a young man in
+evening dress, and carrying an overcoat, leaped out.  Obviously, he was
+in a desperate hurry, and Curtis heard him say in French:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't stop the engine, Anatole.  I shall be but one moment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that instant the two foreigners sprang at him.  One, swinging the
+porter off his feet, seized the newcomer's right arm, and, helped by
+his comrade, endeavored to force him back into the vehicle.  The effort
+failed, however, so the second desperado drew a knife and plunged it
+deliberately into the unfortunate man's neck.  It was a fearsome
+stroke, intended both to silence and to kill, and, with a gurgling cry,
+its victim collapsed in the grip of his assailants.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis, though almost stupefied by the suddenness of the crime, did not
+hesitate a second when he caught the venomous gleam of the knife.
+Throwing aside his coat, he rushed forward, but he had to cross the
+whole width of the pavement, and the murderers, realizing that the
+capture of one or both was imminent, thrust the inert body in his way.
+The chauffeur, who must have seen all that happened, had already
+started the car, the two men scrambled into it, and all that Curtis
+could do was to run after it and shout frantically to the driver of a
+taxi coming in the opposite direction to turn his vehicle and block the
+roadway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man understood, but was naturally slow to risk a sharp collision
+merely at the order of an excited gentleman in evening dress.  He
+stopped quickly enough, but, by the time his help was available,
+pursuit was hopeless; the one thing Curtis could do he had done&mdash;while
+running up the street he had deciphered the number of the car, X24-305.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before Curtis rejoined the dazed hall-porter a small crowd had
+gathered, and it was difficult to get near the body lying on the curb.
+A man picked up an overcoat, and Curtis, cool and clear-headed now,
+took it, and appealed to him, if he knew where the nearest doctor
+lived, to run thither at top speed.  The man obeyed him instantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Meanwhile, let me see to the poor fellow," he said.  "I am not a
+doctor, but I know enough about wounds to say whether those scoundrels
+have killed him or not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The throng yielded to an authoritative voice, and some of the more
+sensible bystanders formed a ring, thus securing a semblance of light
+and air around the prostrate man.  Curtis struck a match, and it needed
+no second glance to learn that the stranger's lung had been pierced by
+an almost vertical thrust; indeed, he was already dying.  The poor
+lips, from which blood and froth were bubbling, strove vainly to
+articulate words which, in the prevalent hubbub of alarm and
+excitement, it was impossible to distinguish.  A policeman came, and,
+as a traffic station for the precinct happened to lie within a couple
+of doors, the moribund form was carried in, and placed on a stretcher
+kept there for use in emergency.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A doctor was soon on the spot, but he arrived just in time to record
+the last flicker of life in the tortured eyes.  Then, as one in a
+dream, Curtis gave the policeman the details of the crime, the name of
+the chauffeur, and the number of the car, his testimony being borne out
+to some extent by the hall-porter, and, so far as the car was
+concerned, by the sharp-eyed driver of the taxi.  His own name and
+address were taken, and a police captain and a couple of detectives,
+called to the scene by telephone, thanked him for his alertness in
+securing valuable clews, not only in regard to the car and chauffeur
+but also in describing the features, figure, and dress of one of the
+criminals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finally, he was warned to hold himself in readiness to attend the
+opening of an inquest on the following morning, and the police
+intimated that they did not desire the presence of witnesses while the
+dead man's clothing was being scrutinized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Curtis went out into the street, and, with no other purpose than to
+avoid the publicity and questioning of the crowd gathered in and around
+the hotel, sauntered into Broadway.  At the corner he halted for a
+moment to put on the overcoat.  He had gone some few yards up the
+brilliantly illuminated thoroughfare when he fancied that his nervous
+system needed the tonic of a cigar, and he searched in the pockets of
+the overcoat for a box of matches he had placed there before leaving
+his bedroom.  The box had gone, but in the right-hand pocket his
+fingers closed on a long, narrow envelope, made of stiff linen paper,
+which somehow seemed unfamiliar.  He drew it out, and examined it,
+standing in front of a well-lighted shop window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he whistled with sheer amazement, as well he might.  The envelope
+held a marriage license for two people named Jean de Courtois and
+Hermione Beauregard Grandison.&#8230;  In a word, he was wearing the
+dead man's overcoat, and the fearsome conviction leaped to his brain
+that the dead man must be Jean de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+EIGHT O'CLOCK
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+From one aspect, Curtis's sense of dread and horror was merely
+altruistic, the natural welling forth of the springs of human
+sentiment.  If the man now lying stark and lifeless in that dreary
+official bureau had in truth been hurrying on his way to a marriage
+feast, then, indeed, tragedy had assumed its grimmest aspect that night
+in New York.  But, beyond an enforced personal contact with a ghastly
+crime, Curtis had no vital interest in its victim, and it should have
+occurred to him, as a law-abiding citizen, that his instant duty was to
+communicate this new discovery to the authorities.  Nay more, such
+definite information would help the police materially in their pursuit
+of the murderers.  It might lay bare a motive, put the bloodhounds of
+the law on a well-marked trail, and render impossible the escape of the
+guilty ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was the sane, level-headed, man-of-the-world view, and, to one
+inured to deeds of violence in a land where the Foreign Devil oft-time
+holds his life as scarce worth an hour's purchase, no other solution of
+the problem should have presented itself.  But, for all his strength of
+character, Curtis had been breathing an intoxicating atmosphere ever
+since he set foot on American soil.  His home-coming had begun by
+producing in his soul a subtle exaltation which had survived a
+conspiracy of repression.  Devar's careless acceptance of the city's
+grandeur had jarred; the exuberance of the joyous throng on the jetty
+had touched dormant chords of sad memories; even at the very portals of
+the hotel the building's newness had struck a bizarre note; and now, as
+though to emphasize the vile crime of which he had been an involuntary
+witness, came the stifling knowledge that somewhere in New York an
+expectant bride was chafing at delay&mdash;a delay caused by an assassin's
+dagger, while there was not lacking even the tormenting suspicion that
+somehow, had he been more wide-awake, he could have prevented that
+malignant thrust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet, his head remained in the clouds.  In common with most men whose
+lot is cast in climes far removed from civilization, Curtis worshiped
+an ideal of womanhood which was rather that of a poet than of the
+blasé, cynical town-dweller.  He had seen death too often to be shocked
+by its harsh visage, and, perhaps in protest against the idle belief
+that the crime was preventable, his sympathies were absorbed now by the
+vision of some fair girl waiting vainly for the bridegroom who would
+never come.  His analytical mind fastened instantly on the theory that
+murder had been done to prevent a marriage.  He took it for granted
+that the Jean de Courtois of the marriage certificate was dead, and his
+heart grieved for the hapless young woman whose aristocratic name was
+blazoned on that same document.  So, instead of retracing his steps,
+and warning the officers of the law, he bent his brows over the
+certificate, and, in acting thus, unconsciously committed himself to as
+fantastic a course as ever was followed by mortal man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is only fair to urge that had he known the truth, had the veil been
+lifted ever so slightly on other happenings in the Central Hotel that
+night, he would not have hesitated a moment about returning to the
+conclave of policemen and detectives.  He acted impulsively, absurdly,
+almost insanely, it may be held, but he did honestly act in good faith,
+and that is the best and the worst that can be said of him, or for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now to peer over his shoulder at the printed form and its written
+interlineations, which he was perusing with anxious, thoughtful eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was headed "State of New York, County of New York, City of New
+York," and bade all men know that any person authorized by law to
+perform marriage ceremonies within the State was thereby "authorized
+and empowered to solemnize the rites of matrimony between Jean de
+Courtois, a citizen of the French Republic, now residing in the Central
+Hotel, West 27th Street, New York, and Hermione Beauregard Grandison, a
+citizen of Great Britain, now residing at 1000 West 59th Street, New
+York."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had been issued that very day, November 8th.  Annexed to the license
+was the actual marriage certificate, with blanks for names and dates,
+to be filled in by the person performing the ceremony.  A set of
+printed rules, reciting various duties, legal obligations, and
+penalties for infringing the same, was also inclosed; but Curtis was in
+no mood to master the provisions of "An Act to Amend the Domestic
+Relations Law, by providing for Marriage Licenses," for they must
+perforce be silent on the one topic wherein he needed guidance&mdash;the
+course to be pursued in the circumstances now facing him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His thoughts were focussed on the name and address of the girl who had
+been so cruelly, so wantonly, bereft of her lover, and it seemed to him
+both fitting and charitable that someone other than a police sergeant
+or detective should interpose between the grim tragedy of 27th Street
+and the even more poignant horror which was fated to descend on some
+house in 59th Street.  Apparently, fate had decreed that he should be
+the messenger charged with this sad errand, and, with a singular
+disregard of consequences, he accepted the mandate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not act blindly.  When all was said and done, the certificate
+had come into his possession by unavoidable chance.  At the hapless
+bride's residence he would surely be able to meet someone who could
+accompany him to the police office, and give the details needed for a
+successful chase.  Indeed, he argued that he was saving valuable time
+by his prompt action, and, reviewing the whole of the facts while being
+carried swiftly up Broadway in a taxi, he found, at first, no flaw in
+his judgment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Though busy in mind with the extraordinary events of the past quarter
+of an hour, his alert eyes missed few features of the abounding life of
+the Great White Way.  As it happened, a stranger in New York could not
+have entered the city's main thoroughfare at any point better
+calculated to bewilder and astound than the very corner where Curtis
+had picked up the cab.  On both sides, from the level of the street to
+a height often measurable in hundreds of feet, nearly every building
+blazed with electric signs.  Many of the devices seemed to be alive.
+Horses galloped, either in Roman stadium or modern polo-ground; a
+girl's skirts were fluttered by a rain-storm; a giant's hand, with
+unerring skill, bowled a ball at ten-pins in a bowling alley; the names
+of theaters, of hotels, of drugs, of patent foods, of every known
+variety of caterer for human needs and amusements, flickered, and
+winked, and stared, at the passer-by from ground floor to attic&mdash;while
+each and all&mdash;horses, skirts, rain-drops, hand, ball, pins, and
+names&mdash;glowed in every known shade of color from every known form of
+electric lamp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The glare of this advertisers' paradise was so overpowering that even
+the marvel-surfeited citizens who crowded the sidewalks would gather in
+dense groups at a corner, thence to watch and take in the dazzling
+significance of some sign new to their vision.  Curtis noticed many
+such assemblies before the taxi sped out of the magic area which ends
+at 42nd Street; but it was all novel to him; he could not discuss the
+contrast between last week's glorification of Somebody's Pickles and
+to-night's triumph of Everybody's Whisky, and he was almost bemused by
+the display, which provided such a bizarre anti-climax to the terrible
+drama he had just witnessed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a positive relief, therefore, when the vehicle bowled swiftly
+into a quiet cross street, and he was vouchsafed only fleeting glimpses
+of broad avenues where fresh multitudes of lamps again bade defiance to
+the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In one place, an illuminated dial showed that the hour was eight
+o'clock, and the curiously simple fact of noting the time roused him to
+a perception of all that had happened since he strolled out of the
+dining-room of the Central Hotel.  He smiled dourly when he remembered
+the mislaid key.  Did it still repose in the bedroom?  Or had a
+housemaid found it, and restored it to a numbered hook in the office?
+Had not that immaculately dressed clerk said he would find Number 605
+"a comfortable, quiet room"?  Well, it might be all that, yet Curtis
+could hardly help dwelling on the thought that had he been put in any
+other cell of the human beehive called the Central Hotel it was highly
+probable he would not now be flying across New York on a self-imposed
+mission so nebulous, so ill-defined, that already his orderly brain was
+beginning to doubt the logic which inspired it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was it too late to draw back?  To this handy automobile city distances
+were negligible quantities, and he would rejoin the detectives before
+they could have any reason to suspect him even of carelessness in
+withholding from their ken the new and important fact revealed by the
+accidental change of overcoats.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, yes&mdash;by Jove!&mdash;it would be assumed that <I>his</I> overcoat was the
+dead man's, though, indeed, certain papers in the pockets would soon
+show that there was a blunder somewhere, because the John D. Curtis
+mentioned therein necessarily figured as the chief witness in the case
+now being worked up against three unknown malefactors.  Oddly enough,
+it was contemporaneous with this thought that the queer similarity of
+his own name to that of the unfortunate Frenchman first dawned on him.
+John D. Curtis and Jean de Courtois were, as names, particularly as the
+names of two men of different nationalities, sufficiently alike to
+invite comment.  Well, that being so, there was all the more reason why
+the identity of poor Jean de Courtois should be established beyond
+doubt, and this reflection appealed so strongly that, when the cab
+stopped, Curtis was once more reconciled to the policy hurriedly
+arrived at while he was standing at the corner of Broadway and 27th
+Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He opened the door, alighted, glanced up at a rather imposing block of
+flats, and said to the driver:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is this 1000 West 59th Street?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir.  Quite a bunch of people live here," was the answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I take it, then, that the lady I wish to see occupies one of the
+flats?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The driver smiled broadly, for it seemed to him that the naïve
+statement sounded rather funny.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guess that's about the size of it," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis smiled, too.  This needless blurting out of confidences to a
+cabman was the one folly essential to a complete restoration of his
+wits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait for me," he said.  "I may be only a minute or two, and I shall
+want you to take me right back to the point I came from."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man nodded, and turned to set the time index of the taximeter.  A
+few steps led up to a spacious doorway, and Curtis passed through a
+revolving door.  Halfway along a well-lighted passage he saw an
+elevator sign, and found an attendant sitting there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe that Miss Grandison lives here?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Second floor&mdash;Number 10&mdash;take you up?" was the time-saving reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, but I am not anxious to see Miss Grandison herself.  I would
+prefer to speak to some male relative."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The attendant looked puzzled; perhaps he was wishful to make smooth the
+way for a visitor who was obviously a gentleman, but the problem
+offered by Curtis's request presented difficulties, and he fell back on
+his official instructions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry, but you must explain matters to the maid at Number 10," he
+said, quite civilly, and Curtis was soon pressing an electric bell at
+the door of the flat itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A neatly dressed girl appeared.  Her out-of-doors costume suggested
+that she was either just going out or just returned, and Curtis,
+unaccustomed to the domestic problem as it exists in New York, fancied
+that she ranked above the level of a house-maid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is Miss Grandison in?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll inquire, sir.  What name shall I say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a noncommittal answer, so he changed ground in the next question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would prefer not to meet Miss Grandison herself if it is in any way
+possible to interview a relative of hers, or a friend," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This colorless statement, intended to be reassuring, seemed to have
+such an alarming effect on the girl that he hastened to add:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am here with reference to Monsieur Jean de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hearer smiled, and her manner changed from fright to friendliness.
+Indeed, if he had not been so wrapped up in the highly disagreeable
+task which lay before him, he could hardly have failed to notice that
+she welcomed, rather than resented, the visit of a smart looking young
+man to the establishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, come in, do," she said, glancing up at him with demure but very
+bright eyes.  "Why didn't you say at once that you had been sent by Mr.
+de Courtois, without trying to scare me stiff by talking about
+relatives?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He obeyed, and he closed the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I really meant what I said," he persisted.  "Something has happened to
+prevent Monsieur de Courtois coming here this evening&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not coming!  Then there will be no wedding!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her voice was subdued, but she put such distress, such perplexity, into
+her words that at any other time Curtis would have marveled at the
+gamut of emotion which the feminine temperament was capable of.  Still,
+he had to risk even a mild display of hysteria, so he went on quietly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will understand now why I would rather meet some person other than
+Miss Grandison."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But who is there to meet?  She is alone.  I do believe I am the only
+living being she knows in New York, except Mr. de Courtois.&#8230;  Why
+can't he come?  What is keeping him?  Has he met with an
+accident?&#8230;  Oh, I can see by your face that he is hurt&mdash;or he has
+been kidnapped!  Yes, that's it, for sure!  And that dear young lady
+will be trapped like a bird in a cage!&#8230;  Miss Hermione!  Miss
+Hermione!  Here is someone come to tell you that Mr. de Courtois has
+been spirited away.&#8230;  Oh dear, to think that this should be the
+end of all our planning and contriving!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During this crescendo of excited and scarcely intelligible utterances
+the girl had first backed away from Curtis, and then turned, running to
+open, without knocking, a door on the right of the extreme end of a
+corridor which divided the suite into two sections.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis did not attempt to stop her.  Whatsoever the outcome, he was
+committed now to an undertaking from which there was no retreat.  He
+half expected that the maid, whose disjointed outburst betokened, at
+least, that she was her mistress's trusted confidante, would reappear
+from the room into which she had vanished.  But he was mistaken, doubly
+mistaken, since the mental picture he had formed of Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison was utterly falsified by the slight, elegant, girlish figure
+which presented itself before his astonished eyes.  Somehow, those
+superfine Christian names and that aristocratic surname had prepared
+him for a rather magnificent person, young, probably, because the dead
+man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive.
+He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous,
+well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if
+and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch correctly
+placed for scenic effect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The reality took his breath away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He saw a girl, not a day older than twenty, dressed in a simple costume
+of brown cloth, and wearing a hat, veil, and gloves of harmonizing
+tints.  The veil had been hurriedly lifted above the brim of the hat,
+and a pair of what seemed to be intensely dark violet eyes gazed at him
+from a small-featured, pallid face from which every vestige of color
+had fled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is this thing true?" she said, halting timidly within a few feet of
+him.  "Perhaps Marcelle has misunderstood you.  Who sent you?&mdash;Monsieur
+de Courtois himself, I suppose?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her voice, so wistful, so pleading, perfect in cadence yet almost
+childlike in its evident anxiety to be reassured, reached uncharted
+depths in his soul.  At once he began to ask himself why this mere girl
+should be exposed to the impish trick which fate had played on her,
+and, in the same breath, he was conscious of a fierce anger against the
+ghouls who had contrived it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you Miss Grandison?" he asked, rather to gain time than because of
+any doubt as to her personality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  And you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My name is Curtis&mdash;John D. Curtis.  I only landed in New York three
+hours ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He added the explanatory sentence in order to clear the ground, as it
+were, for the strange and horrible story he had to tell, but its effect
+was curious in the extreme.  The girl's white face blanched to that wan
+hue which personal fear lends to distress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where have you come from?" she gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From Pekin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From Pekin!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  I have been traveling without pause during the past eight weeks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time he had ascertained two certain facts about Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison.  In the first place, she was the prettiest and
+most graceful creature he had ever met; in the second, she had all the
+hall-marks of good breeding and high social caste.  His brain was so
+busy over these discoveries that he disregarded the really remarkable
+way in which the object of his visit had been shelved for the moment.
+It might reasonably be expected that the disconsolate lady would be
+concerned mainly as to the fate of the missing bridegroom, but the
+mistress evidently shared the maid's disquietude about Curtis himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, precisely as in the case of Marcelle, Miss Grandison's face showed
+relief when it became manifest that he was a complete stranger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pray forgive me for questioning you in this manner," she said, with a
+rapid reversion to a conventional air that disconcerted her hearer in a
+way she little imagined.  "Will you come in here, and be seated?&#8230;
+Now, please tell me just why you have called, Mr. Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had preceded him into a prettily furnished dining-room, and the
+notion leaped up in his troubled mind that she was not so deeply moved
+by the malfortune of Monsieur Jean de Courtois as might be expected
+from the man's prospective bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still, he tried bravely to accommodate himself to conditions which left
+his brain in a whirl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had better begin by saying that your marriage cannot take
+place&mdash;to-night&mdash;&mdash;" he added, flinching from the necessity of bringing
+that look of dismay into those charming eyes.  "That is why I asked
+your maid if there was no other person whom I could take into my
+confidence.  You see, it is a terribly hard thing to be compelled to
+discuss such a matter with one so closely bound up with&mdash;with Monsieur
+de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But there is no one else.  Marcelle and I live here quite alone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More than ever did Curtis feel uncomfortable, but he had deliberately
+elected for this miserable job, and he meant to go through with it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So I gathered from Mademoiselle Marcelle herself," he said.  "Well,
+then, Miss Grandison, I have no option but to inform you, with all the
+sympathy any man must feel for a woman in your position, that Monsieur
+de Courtois has met with an accident."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, how terrible!  Is he badly hurt?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet it may be possible for the ceremony to be performed.  Monsieur de
+Courtois has proved himself such a true friend, he has always been so
+anxious to help me, that I am sure he would be glad if I brought the
+minister to the hospital, or to his apartments in the hotel if he has
+been taken there, and the marriage would be solemnized without causing
+him the slightest inconvenience or worry, no matter how ill he may be,
+so long as he is conscious."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis thought he had never before heard the English language twisted
+into such enigmas as these few simple words presented.  It was an
+outrage to credit this well-mannered and delightful girl with the
+cold-blooded callousness which seemed to reveal itself in every
+syllable.  That she was blithely unaware of this element in her excited
+utterances was shown by her eager face and animated attitude.  She had
+risen from the chair in which she had seated herself when they entered
+the room, and obviously expected him to lose no time in conducting her
+to the bedside of Jean de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pray sit down again, Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and his voice
+assumed a sterner, more commanding note, though he, too, stood up, and
+approached nearer, lest she might collapse in a faint and fall before
+he could save her.  "I fear I have blundered woefully in assuming a
+role for which I am ill-fitted, but I must make you realize somehow
+that your marriage is irrevocably&mdash;postponed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A slight color tinged her cheeks; she was actually becoming annoyed
+with him!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will tell you when you are seated."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What nonsense!  One can hear as well standing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, she obeyed.  People generally did obey when Curtis spoke
+in that insistent manner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now he was quite near her, and his tone grew gentle again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The accident from which Monsieur de Courtois suffered was fatal," he
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at him, wide-eyed, alarmed, but assuredly not with the
+soul-sickened terror of a woman who loves when she hears that her lover
+is dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you mean that he has been killed?" she whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, poor fellow.  I have lost my only friend, and now, indeed, I am
+the most wretched girl in all the world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Flinging her clasped arms on the table, she hid her face in them, and
+sobbed as though her heart would break.  Curtis placed a hand on her
+shoulder, and strove to calm her with such commonplace phrases as his
+dazed brain could dictate, but she wept bitterly, just as a child might
+weep if disappointed about the non-fulfillment of some object on which
+its heart was set.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It sounds horrid&mdash;I know&mdash;" she murmured brokenly, "that I
+should&mdash;seem to be thinking&mdash;only of myself.  But&mdash;Monsieur de
+Courtois&mdash;was the one man&mdash;who could save me.  Now&mdash;I don't know&mdash;what
+will become of me.  How cruel is fate!  If only&mdash;we could have been
+married yesterday&mdash;perhaps this dreadful thing would not have happened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis, who had never been so mystified in his life, followed up those
+last disjointed words as a man lost in a forest might cling to a path
+in the certainty that it would lead somewhere.  He rejected all else,
+since the wild vagaries of events during the past few minutes were
+beyond his comprehension.  He waited, therefore, until the vehemence of
+her grief had somewhat subsided, and then, with another friendly
+pressure on her shoulder, he spoke with as much firmness as he thought
+the situation demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Miss Grandison, you must endeavor to regain self-control," he
+said.  "Monsieur de Courtois has been killed, and your&mdash;your friendship
+for him&mdash;no less than the interests of justice&mdash;demand that those
+responsible for his death should be discovered and punished."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that, she raised her head, and lifted her swimming eyes to his, and
+Curtis saw that they were blue, not violet, and that their hue changed
+as the light irradiated their profound depths.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He met with no accident, then, but was murdered?" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And for my sake?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I gather from what you have said that that is possible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what have I said?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you seemed to hint that your marriage might have prevented this
+crime."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No more exasperating monosyllable can fall from a woman's lips than
+that one word "why," and Curtis felt its full force then and there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is what I am asking you," he said, a trifle brusquely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But how can I tell you?" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am only striving vainly to pierce the fog which seems to envelop us.
+Let me begin again.  I, a mere stranger in New York, just three hours
+landed from the <I>Lusitania</I>, witnessed a murderous attack on a young
+man who was alighting from a cab in front of my hotel, the Central, in
+West 27th Street.  I saw him stabbed so seriously that he died within a
+couple of minutes, and his assailants made off in an automobile, the
+very vehicle, in fact, in which he arrived.  I managed to note its
+number, and I gathered, from instructions the victim himself had given,
+that the chauffeur's Christian name was Anatole.  The two men who
+actually committed the murder&mdash;though the chauffeur was in league with
+them&mdash;seemed to me to be Czechs or Hungarians&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, I thought so," broke in the girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now may I ask why you did think so?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I may tell you later, perhaps.  Please forgive me.  I am quite
+unnerved, and oh, so unhappy.  Why have you come here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is due to one of those fantastic chances which occur
+occasionally.  In the effort to save Monsieur de Courtois, or rather to
+seize his slayers, because I was too far away to interfere when the
+blow was struck, I dropped the overcoat I was carrying.  A crowd
+gathered, and someone gave me a coat which I took as my own.  It was
+not until I had quitted the police and doctor, who arrived almost
+immediately, and I had gone into Broadway to avoid the clamor in the
+hotel, that I discovered I was wearing the dead man's overcoat, and in
+one of the pockets I found a marriage license.  Here it is.  By that
+means I learnt your address, and I came here quickly, hoping to save
+you some of the agony which the appearance of a policeman or detective
+would have caused.  Unfortunately, I have proved but a sorry substitute
+for an official messenger."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no, no, Mr. Curtis.  You have been most kind, most considerate.
+If anyone is to blame, it is I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you pardon me, then, if I remind you that time is pressing?  Even
+a half-hour gained to-night by the authorities may be invaluable.  If
+you are able to supply any clew, the least hint of motive, the most
+shadowy of guesses at a personality behind this beastly crime, you will
+be rendering a great service."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please, please, give me time to think.  I am not heartless&mdash;indeed I
+am not.&#8230;  If I could do anything to save Monsieur de Courtois'
+life I would make the sacrifice&mdash;you will believe that, won't
+you?&#8230;  But he is dead, you say, and I might blurt out something in
+my distress which would cause endless mischief.  Perhaps I have thought
+too much of my own troubles.  Now I must begin to endure for the sake
+of others.  That is the woman's lot in life, I fear.&#8230;  Have you a
+wife or a sister, Mr. Curtis, or is there some woman whom you love?
+For her sake, have pity on me, and do not drag me into the horrible
+arena of courts and newspapers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her pleading, her attitude, her pathetic gestures, gave extraordinary
+force to an appeal which, by contrast with her extreme agitation, was
+almost grotesquely inconsequent.  Curtis was at his wits' end to find
+the line of reasoning calculated to convince this beautiful creature
+that she might, indeed, begin enduring "for the sake of others" by
+expressing her determination to give the police all possible assistance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no urgency for a few minutes," was the best reply he could
+frame on the spur of the moment.  "Shall I leave you alone for a little
+while?  Perhaps you would like to consult your maid?  Indeed, her
+services might meet all the requirements of the case.  The police would
+be the first to recognize that a woman who had lost her affianced
+husband under such terrible&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, but that is the wretched difficulty I am in.  Poor Monsieur de
+Courtois was nothing to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing to you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Probably Curtis's brain did not reel, but it assuredly felt like
+reeling, and it is quite certain that his eyes blazed down on the
+half-hysterical girl with an intensity that magnetized her into a
+broken excuse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is&mdash;quite&mdash;true," she stammered, with the diffidence of a child
+explaining some lapse which, it was hoped, might not be regarded as a
+real fault.  "I never dreamed of marriage&mdash;in the sense&mdash;that people
+mean&mdash;when they intend to live happily together.&#8230;  Monsieur de
+Courtois was to be my husband&mdash;only in name.  I&mdash;I paid him for
+that.&#8230;  I&mdash;I gave him a thousand dollars&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;  Don't look
+at me in that way or I shall scream!&#8230;  I have done nothing
+wrong.&#8230;  I was trying to protect myself.&#8230;  Oh, if you are a
+man you will want to help me, rather than push me into the living tomb
+which threatens to engulf me before to-morrow morning!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Even in their agitation, they both heard the jar of a bell.  The girl
+sprang upright.  There was something splendid in her courage, in the
+way she threw back her proud head and clenched her tiny hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah me!" she sighed.  "Perhaps it is already too late!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+EIGHT-THIRTY
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+They stood in silence, listening to the footsteps of Marcelle on the
+parquet floor of the passage.  The outer door was opened, and a murmur
+of voices reached them indistinctly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have had the honor of knowing you not much longer than ten minutes,
+Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and the strong, vibrant note in his voice
+might well have won any woman's confidence, "but if you feel that you
+can trust me, and my help is of value, please command me, that is, if
+your enemies are men."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rewarded him with one swift look of gratitude.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If it is my father, both you and I are powerless," she whispered.
+"And the other would not dare come without him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A discreet tap on the door heralded Marcelle.  That sprightly young
+person, despite her Parisian name, was unquestionably American in every
+inch of her self-possessed neatness; she smiled at Curtis while giving
+him a message.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The driver of your taxi has sent up the hall-porter to ask if you wish
+him to wait any longer," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not often, even in comedy, has the mountain heaved and brought forth
+such a ridiculous mouse.  Curtis did actually laugh; even his
+distraught companion tittered in sheer nervous reaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please tell him to wait, and not to worry about the fare," said
+Curtis.  "I suppose," he added, turning to Miss Grandison, "the man put
+me down as a newcomer, and, taught by previous experience, thought it
+best to warn me how the register mounts."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The effort to restore their rather strained relations to a sedate level
+was well meant, but the girl's downcast eyes and tremulous lips
+revealed a state of piteous uncertainty and confusion that was more
+distressing to Curtis than anything which had gone before.
+Nevertheless, reminding himself that precious time was being wasted, he
+determined to seek a full explanation of circumstances which at present
+savored of Bedlam.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now that the fears of the taxi-driver have been stilled," he said
+cheerfully, "suppose you and I sit down and discuss matters like
+sensible people.  I am an American, Miss Grandison, and, although long
+an exile from my own country, I appreciate the national characteristic
+of plain speech.  Let me explain that I am not married, that I have no
+ties which prevent free action on my part, and that nothing on earth
+will stop me from helping a woman who pins her faith to me.  With that
+preamble, as the lawyers say, I purpose taking off this heavy overcoat,
+and listening in comfort to anything you may wish to tell.  Or, if you
+are afraid of being disturbed, what do you say if we go to some
+restaurant, where, perhaps, we may eat, and, at any rate, talk without
+fear of interference?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think we had better remain here," said the girl sadly, though it was
+plain that Curtis's offer of protection during the alarm created by the
+hall-porter's errand had advanced him a long way in her esteem.  "There
+are only two persons living who dare pretend to exercise control over
+my actions, and if they have arrived in New York this evening I have
+good reason to believe that I cannot escape them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are they coming here from Europe?" asked Curtis quickly, for his
+active mind was already groping toward certain dimly defined
+conclusions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Could they have been fellow-passengers of mine on the <I>Lusitania</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, they are on board the <I>Switzerland</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He smiled, and discarded that fateful overcoat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then set your mind at rest," he said, with the nonchalance of a man
+who has shelved a major difficulty.  "The <I>Switzerland</I> has broken
+down.  We passed her early to-day.  She is staggering into port with
+engines partly disabled and she cannot possibly reach New York before
+to-morrow morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you quite sure?" came the eager demand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, there is nothing so uncertain as the sea but a young friend of
+mine said that those facts were signaled by wireless, and, to some
+extent, they governed his own movements.  I myself can assure you that
+the <I>Switzerland</I> was limping along like a lame duck at 8 A.M. to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, thank Heaven for that small mercy!" murmured the girl.  For a few
+seconds she busied herself with gloves, veil, and hat-pins, and Curtis
+happened to glance at the overcoat, which he had placed over the back
+of a chair.  To his dismay, he noticed that one of the sleeves, the
+left, was bespattered with blood, but he contrived to refold the
+garment so as to conceal this grewsome record of a tragedy before his
+hostess had divested herself of hat and gloves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they seemed to survey each other with a new interest, for Curtis
+was a good figure of a man in evening dress, and Hermione Grandison
+became, if possible, more attractive to the male eye because of the
+wealth of brown hair which crowned her smooth forehead, almost hid her
+tiny ears, and clustered low at the back of her slender, well-shaped
+neck.  Where the rays of light caught the coiled tresses they had the
+sheen of burnished gold.  In the shadow they commingled those
+voluptuous tints by which the magic of Rubens has immortalized one fair
+woman, Isabella Brant, in every gallery of note throughout the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione it was, now, who first broke the silence which had reigned in
+the room for a minute or more.  Seating herself on the opposite side of
+a square table, and resting her elbows thereon, she propped her pretty
+chin on her small, clenched fists, and gazed fearlessly at Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must think me a very extraordinary person," she began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let that pass," said he, with a smile, wise in the knowledge that the
+present was no hour for compliments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I am, and I know it, not because I differ so greatly from other
+girls of my own age, but owing to the misery which has been my portion.
+The one man in the world who should wish to secure my happiness has
+become my persecutor.  I am here to-night because I have run away from
+my father, and I have used every lawful means to get married&mdash;under
+conditions framed by myself, of course&mdash;in order to escape from a
+hateful marriage which he has planned."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She hesitated, for a reflective frown was deepening on Curtis's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now you recognize my name!" she cried.  "Have you seen anything about
+me in the newspapers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are Lady Hermione Grandison?" he said, meeting her watchful eyes
+frankly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Daughter of the Earl of Valletort?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And about a month ago you were reported missing from some apartment in
+the Rue de Rivoli, on the eve of your marriage with&mdash;with some
+Hungarian prince?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, Count Ladislas Vassilan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you came here&mdash;with Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I brought him here, and paid him for his services.  I have no desire
+to minimize his friendly aid, but I was buying the security of his name
+as my husband, and he had given me his guarantee that, when it suited
+my purposes, he would help me to dissolve the marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis disregarded a perceptible coldness in her tone.  He was too busy
+sweeping away the mists.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What sort of guarantee?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"His promise, his word of honor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was he&mdash;a gentleman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not socially, but in every other sense.  He was my music-master in
+Paris."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis put his next question hurriedly.  He was anxious to avoid the
+least suspicion on the girl's part that he might be crediting Jean de
+Courtois with motives which would not pass muster before a jury of
+cool-headed men so readily as they seemed to have satisfied an
+impetuous and frightened girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How did your father ascertain that you were in New York?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it seems that a certain period of residence was necessary before a
+marriage license could be obtained, and it was unavoidable that my name
+should be found out by those whom he hired to track me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why were you not married under an assumed name?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Monsieur de Courtois assured me that such a thing would render the
+marriage invalid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He was wrong," said Curtis dryly.  "It subjected you to some small
+legal penalty, but you would be just as effectually married if you
+called yourself Jane Smith."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I really think you are mistaken.  Monsieur de Courtois made the most
+exhaustive inquiries."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Were you not leaving the ceremony to the latest possible hour?" went
+on Curtis, divided now between the fear of shocking her and the
+paramount importance of learning the truth about the curiously
+scrupulous Jean de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We were to have been married two days ago, but the license was stolen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So it is rather by accident than otherwise that Lord Valletort and
+Count Vassilan, who, I take it, is with your father on board the
+<I>Switzerland</I>, have not arrived in time to prevent the marriage&mdash;that
+is, if they were able to prevent it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I think not.  Poor Monsieur de Courtois was here this afternoon,
+and he was jubilant because we had plenty of time, provided we were
+married this evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where was the ceremony to take place?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I&mdash;I don't know.  I left everything in the hands of Monsieur de
+Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A very real and active doubt of the Frenchman's good faith was
+beginning to peep up in Curtis's mind.  Rather to account for the
+thoughtful lines on his forehead than for any reason connected with the
+license, he took that document from the table, where it had lain since
+he produced it, and affected to examine it judiciously.  Therefore, he
+was really surprised when he found an endorsement on the back which
+read;&mdash;"Issued in duplicate.  This license is not available if the
+original has been used."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" he said, and the monosyllable might mean much or little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What have you discovered there?" said the girl, rising and coming
+nearer, to stoop over the table and scrutinize the paper with him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The original license certainly seems to have disappeared," said
+Curtis, who had suddenly become aware that the propinquity of a
+charming woman was one of the subtle joys of life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah me!" sighed Lady Hermione, straightening her supple form, and
+turning slightly aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a little pause.  Curtis, whose enunciation was usually
+distinguished by its ease and clearness, found some slight difficulty
+in resuming the conversation.  He resolved firmly that, in future, he
+would eschew liqueurs after champagne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hate to act the role of inquisitor, Lady Hermione," he said, rather
+huskily as to the first few words, "but would you mind telling me why
+you are so opposed to Count Ladislas Vassilan as a husband?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"First, because I do not want to marry any man; secondly, because Count
+Vassilan is a vile person, both in appearance and repute; and thirdly,
+because my father is only urging this match to serve his own ends.  Our
+unhappy history is so widely known that there is no harm in telling you
+that my mother and he were separated during many years, and when mamma
+died three years ago she left all her money to me, absolutely under my
+control.  I was young, only seventeen, but I managed to retain it,
+though goodness only knows how, and this horrid Hungarian prince wants
+it&mdash;to help him to regain a throne, he says&mdash;but I don't believe him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You could not be forced into matrimony," said Curtis, with a slow
+gravity that was lost on his dejected hearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You cannot have lived in France, or you would not say that," was the
+bitter answer.  "Everyone, everything, was opposed to me.  I was a
+minor, and one against many.  The laws seemed to conspire with my
+relatives to force me into the power of a beast.&#8230;  Yes, it sounds
+horrid on my lips, but the man is really a beast," and she stamped an
+emphatic foot on the floor; Curtis could see the white circles over the
+tiny knuckles as her hands clenched in protest.  They were such pretty
+hands, too.  He had often smiled at the notion of a man kissing a
+woman's hand, but it did not strike him now as a specially foolish act.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us forget him," he agreed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But how can I forget him?  He will be here to-morrow.  Once my father
+and he have found me, what am I to do?  Die, I suppose!&#8230;  I would
+rather die than marry Count Vassilan, and again I would rather die than
+figure in a vulgar brawl, such as the newspapers would take a delight
+in.  My father is well aware of that, and will play on my
+weakness.&#8230;  B-but&mdash;I may&mdash;be able&mdash;to defeat them&mdash;in another way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis stood up.  The sound of her grief maddened him, and he threw
+prudence to the winds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first reason you gave was the most convincing one, so far as you
+personally are concerned, Lady Hermione," he said, making the effort of
+his life to speak calmly.  "You said you did not want to marry any man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Y-yes, it is true.  I d-don't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Still, there is only one way out of your trouble.  You must marry
+me&mdash;to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl whirled round on him; her eyes were glistening with tears, but
+her face was radiant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you really mean that?" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then never let anyone tell me that the age of chivalry has passed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fancy it has just begun," he said, though the jest nearly choked him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why should you do this kind and gracious thing for a girl you have
+been acquainted with only a brief half-hour?  You see, I understand
+that you are a gentleman&mdash;I realize that, although I have plenty of
+money, I cannot offer to recompense you as I did that poor Jean de
+Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he agreed grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you grasp what this one-sided bargain implies?  You are merely
+to pose as my husband until Count Vassilan leaves me in peace?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And then we are to obtain a divorce?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are, not I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Isn't that a distinction without a difference?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps.  The fact remains that I shall agree to all your terms save
+one&mdash;you, of course, can divorce me at your own pleasure.  The
+procedure is simple in some States of the Union."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For no obvious reason, Lady Hermione blushed.  For an instant, indeed,
+she was somewhat disconcerted, and the vivacity fled from her mobile
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps, Mr. Curtis, I have no right to let you make this sacrifice,"
+she said, a trifle coldly.  "It would be different if I could repay you
+in some way.  Surely, although you may be a wealthy man, there will be
+expenses&mdash;you will, at least, lose a good deal of time, which you could
+occupy to better purpose?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have given myself twelve months' respite from railway construction
+in China.  I really don't see how I could pass a part of my holiday
+better than as your husband."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In idle make-believe?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Every decent man has the heart of a child, and make-believe is reality
+to some children."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, even though in my need I take you at your word, how can a
+marriage become possible?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here is the license.  For the purposes of the ceremony I become Jean
+de Courtois.  By singular chance, the change of name is not such a
+wrench as it might be if I didn't happen to be called John D. Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still she hesitated.  Somehow, becoming Mrs. John D. Curtis impressed
+her as a far more serious undertaking than purchasing the right to pose
+as Madame de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't even know where to get married," she faltered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Given a license and a comparatively small sum of money, New York
+abounds with facilities."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you sure the ceremony will be legal if you appear under a false
+name?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quite positive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can you be punished if it is found out?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll run the risk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a fateful pause, which would have been considerably curtailed had
+Lady Hermione Grandison been vouchsafed the least premonition of events
+in which the night was still rich, she held out her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can only thank you from the depths of my heart, Mr. Curtis," she
+said.  "I must trust someone, and I do trust you most implicitly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will never regret it, Lady Hermione," he said reverently.  He
+wondered whether or not this was an occasion on which hand-kissing was
+permissible, but contented himself with returning the friendly pressure
+of the girl's fingers&mdash;retaining them, in fact, for a second or two.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have your word of honor that you will regard the ceremony as a
+formal compact between us two?" she murmured, unaccountably shy, and
+seemingly half-afraid that he meant to clasp her in his arms then and
+there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have," he said, relinquishing her hand.  Perhaps, at that instant,
+Puck sighed, and wondered what would have happened had this husband
+only in name strained to his heart the bride whom he had vowed not to
+embrace.  But Curtis did nothing of the sort.  His tone became
+intensely practical and businesslike, and he glanced at his watch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is half-past eight," he said.  "How soon will you be ready to come
+with me and hunt up a minister?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now&mdash;I am ready now.  Marcelle and I were waiting for&mdash;for that
+unhappy Monsieur de Courtois when you arrived.  It sounds rather
+dreadful, Mr. Curtis, to talk of marriage, even as a mere means of
+cheating the law, at a moment when a man is already lying dead for my
+sake.  Please don't consider me, but draw back, if you want to, before
+it is too late."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My grandfather commanded the Fifth Cavalry during the Civil War, Lady
+Hermione."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pray, how does that interesting fact affect us?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is well-known that the Fifth never retreat, and the habit has
+become a family tradition."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He pocketed the license, and picked up the overcoat, meaning to put it
+on in the hall while her ladyship was rearranging her hat.  But
+Marcelle was waiting there, hatted, and gloved.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you fixed things?" she whispered breathlessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We have," said Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodness me!  But I guessed it.  Nobody can resist her, can they?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't try," said Curtis, wriggling into the coat sideways.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor <I>dear</I>.  She has had a time.  What a piece of luck I met her the
+day she landed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis had no opportunity to inquire just what Marcelle meant, for Lady
+Hermione had joined them.  Sedulously keeping that tell-tale sleeve out
+of sight, Curtis took the lead, and opened the door, which Marcelle
+closed and locked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While they were waiting for the elevator, Curtis fathomed Marcelle's
+stock of information as to the addresses of neighboring ministers of
+the Protestant Episcopal Church.  It was nil.  He appealed to the
+attendant when the elevator came up, but that worthy thoughtfully
+tickled his scalp under his cap, and suggested a consultation with the
+taxi-driver.  Indeed, to further the quest, he went with them to the
+door, and, while Lady Hermione and Marcelle seated themselves in the
+cab, the three men discussed the religious problem on the sidewalk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ministers don't use taxis much in N' York, sir," commented the driver.
+"Fact is, they mostly can't afford 'em, but I do happen to know where
+one old gentleman lives, an' he's sure to be home, because he's
+crippled something cruel with the rheumatiz."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it far?" demanded Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Three blocks away, in 56th Street, near Seventh Avenue.  Lives next
+door to the church, he does."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take us there," and Curtis entered the vehicle, which whirled out of
+sight in the peculiarly downright fashion of the automobile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The elevator man looked after it, and tickled another section of his
+scalp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd a notion she was going to marry that Frenchman," he said to
+himself.  "Of course, it's her business, an' not mine, but of the two
+I'd take a chance with this new fellar.  An' it's odd, too, that they
+shouldn't know where to go, unless they mean to pick up Froggy on the
+road.  Well, wimmen is queer creetures, they are, sure, an' the English
+ones are just as queer as the Americans.  Not that Miss Grandison ain't
+a peach wherever she comes from, an' I hope she'll be happy, night an'
+day till the time comes when she don't care if it snows."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He glanced up at the sky, rolled a cigarette, and, before returning
+indoors, sniffed a keen wind which was rustling the last crisp leaves
+in Central Park.  The street was quiet, and no one was stirring in the
+mansion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not likely to be wanted for another minnit or two," he said, "so
+I'll just give the furnace a shake-out.  Unless I'm mistaken, there's a
+frost coming."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had he prophesied a hurricane he would not have been far wrong, but it
+was entirely in keeping with the other remarkable developments of a
+night already noteworthy for its strange happenings that the elevator
+attendant at No. 1000 59th Street should have chosen the next few
+minutes to attend to the steam-heating arrangements in the basement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is little to be gained, however, from speculation as to the
+probable outcome of conditions which did not obtain, and the trivial
+space of time which was demanded for the shaking-out and re-coaling of
+a furnace was largely responsible for John D. Curtis and Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison being made man and wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curiously enough, the tying of this particular knot was facilitated by
+the fact that the clergyman was hale mentally but decrepit physically,
+and, as might be expected, resented the conclusion, long ago arrived at
+by his friends, that he was unfitted for work.  He burgeoned with
+delight when a servant announced that two young people wanting to get
+married were waiting in the vestibule; he hobbled out of the library,
+where he was poring over an essay on the Sixtine text of the
+Septuagint, and ushered them into a parlor.  The room was not
+well-lighted, because of some defect in the electric installation, but
+the old gentleman&mdash;"Rev. Thomas J. Hughes" was the legend on the
+door-plate&mdash;bustled about in the liveliest way, and talked most
+cheerfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, young folk&mdash;as usual, leaving things to the last moment, and then
+in a desperate hurry," he chirped.  "Got the license&mdash;yes?  Complied
+with all the formalities?  Of course, of course.  Where's the ring?
+You've <I>not</I> forgotten the ring?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis and Hermione looked at each other in blank dismay; even
+Marcelle's aplomb yielded under this unforeseen strain, and her
+agitation showed itself in a gasping murmur:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh dear!  What shall we do now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Hughes positively chortled over their discomfiture.  He limped to a
+secretaire, and opened a drawer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See what it is to have a long experience in these affairs," he cried.
+"Do you fancy you are the first couple who failed to provide a ring?
+Ah me!  When I was quite a boy in the cloth I learnt the necessity of
+keeping rings in stock, so a jeweler friend of mind replenishes my
+store, and, when I sell one, I apply a small profit to a favorite
+charity of mine.  The wearing of a wedding ring has no legal
+significance, but it is a fine old custom, and should be preserved.
+Among the Romans the ring was a pledge, <I>pignus</I>, that the betrothal
+contract would be fulfilled.  Pliny tells us that the ring, or circle,
+was of iron, but the ladies speedily determined that it should be of
+gold, and the Church went a step farther in recognizing it as a symbol
+of matrimony.  Hence, perhaps, the Episcopal ring, and even the Ring of
+the Fisherman itself, though some authorities hold that signets&mdash;Ah,
+yes," for Curtis had intimated politely that the hour was growing late,
+"if the lady will say which of these rings fits; they are fifteen
+dollars each&mdash;cheaper, I believe, than you can buy them in Fifth
+Avenue.&#8230;  Ah, <I>that</I> one?  Very well.  Now, as to the form of
+service?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The full marriage rite," said Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Precisely, just what I would have suggested.  I adhere to the
+time-honored formula.  Now, let me examine the license&mdash;my eyes fail me
+a little, but I take the utmost pains to be accurate, because accuracy
+is of the greatest importance.&#8230;  Yes, yes, State of New York&mdash;what
+are the names?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John D. Curtis and Hermione Beauregard Grandison," said Curtis.  His
+tone was so calm and self-confident that even the prospective bride was
+deaf for a moment to the vital significance of the words.  Then she
+whispered tremulously:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you not making some mistake?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he replied, looking her straight in the eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The minister, whose ears partook of the defects in his other faculties,
+caught the word "mistake."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is no place for mistakes, my dear young lady," he said, "A nice
+young couple like you should only require to be married once in your
+lives.  Take my advice, and stick to one another in sunshine and in
+storm, and you shall be blessed even unto the fourth generation.&#8230;
+Now, all is in order.&#8230;  Is this your witness?" and he nodded
+affably toward Marcelle.  "Shall we have one other?  William Jenkins,
+my factotum, has been privileged to assist on many such
+occasions.&#8230;  Wil-li-am!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He raised his voice, and a wizened little man appeared suddenly, having
+evidently waited outside the door until he was summoned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, with due ritual, John Delancy Curtis and Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison were joined in the bonds of wedlock, and, by the time Mr.
+Hughes had completed the ceremony, he had pronounced their names so
+often, and was so accustomed to their form and sound, that when he
+filled in the certificate annexed to the license, "John D. Curtis"
+appeared therein in place of "Jean de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione was in a pitiable state of suppressed excitement before the
+ordeal was concluded.  The solemnity and impressiveness of the vows she
+was taking disturbed the serenity with which she had schooled herself
+to regard the marriage as "make-believe."  She was frightened at her
+own daring.  A dread that the tie she was so lightly assuming might be
+harder to undo than she had contemplated was fluttering her heart and
+almost paralyzing her limbs.  But Curtis was unemotional as an icicle;
+or, at any rate, he looked it, which was all that the half-hysterical
+girl by his side could ascertain by an occasional timid glance.  The
+fact lent her a sort of courage to persevere to the end, and she signed
+her maiden name for the last time with a numb confidence in the man
+whom she had, so to speak, bargained for as a husband in an emergency.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis did not fail to note that the aged clergyman's handwriting was
+crabbed and palsied as his bent frame.  None could tell, for certain,
+whether he wrote "Jean" or "John," "Courtois" or "Curtis," though,
+indeed, the balance of probability inclined to the latter of the two
+names, Christian and surname, since those were indubitably what he
+meant to write.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, having stated his fee, and been paid for the ring, he handed
+Hermione a copy of the certificate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Treasure that during all your days, Mrs. Curtis," he said.  "May it be
+a charter of lasting happiness and content!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Curtis!  Another shock!  Hermione felt that she would scream if
+there were many more such.  And the pressure of the little gold ring on
+the third finger of her left hand was becoming intolerable.  Iron, it
+used to be, said the minister, and a band of iron it seemed to have
+become since this man whom she had taken, so completely on trust had
+placed it there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the way out, Curtis tipped Jenkins, tipped him so lavishly that a
+queer little voice squeaked from a queer little face:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, sir.  Fair weather to both you and your wife, and a safe
+berth when you drop anchor!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Jenkins had been a sailor, for none but a shell-back would put his
+good wishes in such nautical lingo.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have just finished one long voyage, but seem to have begun another,"
+said Curtis to his "wife."  He accompanied the words with a laugh, and
+was really talking for the sake of breaking an awkward silence.  They
+were descending a few steps from the door, and he noticed that a
+private automobile was speeding down the street from the same direction
+as the taxi had taken.  It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up
+barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was
+starting with the crank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shout came from the interior, and a man leaped out.  The street was
+rather dark in that part, but Hermione recognized the stranger
+instantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Count Vassilan!" she cried, and the fear in her voice thrilled Curtis
+to the core.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost as quickly, the man now running along the sidewalk knew that a
+long chase had ended, or he fancied that it had ended, which is not
+always the same thing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here we are, Valletort!" he shouted.  "Got 'em, by &mdash;&mdash;!  You see
+after Hermione!  I'll attend to this d&mdash;d Frenchman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis gently disengaged the clasp of a tiny hand on his arm, a clasp
+which was eloquent of a woman's sore need and complete trust.  He
+stepped forward to meet the Count, a stoutly built, heavy man, who had
+reckoned on closing with an undersized Frenchman.  There was no time to
+rectify mistakes.  Curtis met his rival's onset with a beautiful
+half-arm jab on the nose.  Scientifically, it was perfect, since the
+blow was delivered at the back of the Count's head with complete
+disregard of intervening tissues, and its recipient went down like one
+of those pins which succumbed so regularly to the ball bowled by a
+colossal fist in the Broadway electric sign.  The only difference was
+that the pin fell noiselessly, whereas Count Vassilan roared like a
+bull in anguish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the next instant Curtis, who, for a mild-mannered person, appeared
+to possess a singularly close acquaintance with the ethics of a street
+row, sprang at the automobile, pushed back a man who was getting out,
+slammed the door, seized the speed levers, and bent them hopelessly
+with a violent tug.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A swearing chauffeur fumbled in the seat, but was in no real hurry to
+alight, because he had noted the Count's <I>débâcle</I>, and Curtis ran to
+the two cowering women.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In with you!" he said cheerily, adding, with a grin at the driver:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fifty for you if we win clear.  Now, be a sport!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course, the driver of a taxi would be a sport.  In five minutes he
+pulled up somewhere in Madison Avenue, and, leaning back and twisting
+his neck, bawled:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where to <I>now</I>, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AN INTERLUDE
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The appearance on the scene of the Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas
+Vassilan at a moment which, though undeniably critical, might be
+described as either opportune or inopportune&mdash;the choice of an
+adjective depending solely on the varying points of view of the one who
+gave and the one who received that powerful thump on the nose&mdash;was due
+to no feat of skill on the part of the engine-room staff of the
+<I>Switzerland</I>, but to a judicious combination of wireless telegraphy,
+money, and influence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When it became evident, very early in the morning, that the vessel
+might, with luck, crawl up to the quarantine station about midnight,
+urgent messages were sent to two consulates and the Port Authorities of
+New York.  In the result, a fast steam-yacht drew up alongside the
+vessel when she took the pilot on board, and the two magnates and their
+baggage were transferred from the disabled liner to the deck of the
+trim yacht.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She made praiseworthy efforts to reach a quay and a batch of Customs
+officers before eight o'clock, but failed by five minutes.
+Consequently, some slight delay was experienced, and, with the best of
+good will on the part of the officials, the two fuming passengers could
+not fling themselves into a waiting automobile until nearly twenty
+minutes past the hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, however, they made up for lost time.  Intrusting their belongings
+to a porter and a taxi, with instructions to proceed to the
+Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, they bade the chauffeur travel at top speed to
+No. 1000 59th Street.  Many times were they sworn at en route by
+endangered pedestrians and enraged drivers of horsed vehicles; the
+growing torrent of ill wishes thus engendered may have exercised some
+unrecognized form of telepathy at No. 1000, because a regulating valve
+in the steam-heat apparatus, which had never proved intractable before,
+suddenly took it into its metallic head to go wrong.  Thus, the
+elevator man was not aware of a good deal of ringing of electric bells
+and hammering on the locked door of flat Number 10.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ultimately, the valve resumed its normal functions, for no cause that a
+hot and oily human being could perceive other than the occasional
+"cussedness" which inanimate objects can be capable of; while surveying
+it wrathfully, he awoke to the racket in the upper regions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Behold him, then, angry and perspiring, vowing by all his gods that he
+had other duties to perform than eternally watching the comings and
+goings of the mansion's occupants; being a free-born American of Irish
+ancestry, name of Rafferty, he would certainly have bandied contumely
+with Count Ladislas Vassilan had not the Earl intervened.  The
+Hungarian had addressed Rafferty as though he were a dog: the
+Englishman, more certain of his social predominance, treated him as a
+person endowed with reason.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, listen to me, my good man," he said, calmly but emphatically, "I
+am the Earl of Valletort, and the lady you know as Miss Grandison is
+the Lady Hermione Grandison, my daughter.  She has come to New York in
+order to marry a wretched little French adventurer named Jean de
+Courtois, and it is absolutely essential, for her own welfare, not to
+mention other considerations, that the wedding, which is to take place
+to-night, shall be prevented.  Two European consuls and several
+important men in your own city have helped me to land this evening from
+a vessel which will not disembark her passengers till the morning.
+Therefore, it is fairly obvious that you run several sorts of risk by
+refusing to help me in finding my daughter, and I can hardly believe
+that you know nothing about her movements.&#8230;  Come, my man, don't
+be both a fool and a knave, but speak!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rafferty, who had calmed down during this impressive harangue, took
+thought, and did speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If yer friend had said half as much, my lord, I'd have made him wise
+straight away," he answered.  "Miss Grandison went off at 8.30 in a
+taxi with her maid, Marcelle Leroux, and a strange gentleman who
+certainly wasn't Mr. de Courtois, my lord.  They wanted to find out
+where a clergyman lived, an' I couldn't tell them&mdash;not about the
+Protestant Episcopal, I mean, my lord&mdash;but the driver of the taxi
+remembered that there was a minister of that persuasion living in 56th
+Street, near 7th Avenue, an' next door to a church.  So they made a
+bee-line that-a-way, my lord, an' I went to see to the furnace, an'
+that's all there is to it, my lord."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You say the man was not de Courtois?" queried the Earl impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure he wasn't the man who has passed under that name hereabouts
+nearly every day for a month, my lord," said Rafferty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, some fellow of his own kidney he has hired to assist him," put in
+Vassilan, who held fast to that theory, in part, even after he had been
+painfully disillusioned as to other parts of it.  "Come quickly now,
+you, and tell our chauffeur where to take us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If Rafferty had dared, he would have given the chauffeur directions
+likely to lead to further bickering, but the presence of the Earl
+restrained him, for Valletort, though thin and hawk-nosed, was an
+aristocrat in every inch, whereas Count Ladislas Vassilan wore the
+stage aspect of a successful pork-butcher.  So he explained matters to
+the chauffeur, yet smiled grimly when the automobile wheeled away
+almost in the very tracks of Curtis's taxi.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who sez there's no such thing as luck?" he chuckled.  "That valve knew
+what it was about when it stuck, an' my name ain't what it is if that
+wedding isn't over and done with by this time.  An' I gev him 'my lord'
+for it, too!  Played the high-tone society act for all it was worth,
+eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next scene in the drama began for the Hungarian when he sat upon
+the sidewalk in 56th Street, and tried to pacify certain outraged
+blood-vessels in the nasal region.  Of course, the curtain had been up
+some time, but, so far as he was concerned, the incidents which
+followed his precipitate descent from the automobile were merely
+catastrophic.  He had seen a vivid, violet-colored star close to his
+eyes, had felt a crushing blow, had heard his own voice vaguely; and
+then he awoke to a singular sense of personal dis-ease, and to the fact
+that the noble Earl had nearly lost his temper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was entirely your fault, Vassilan," his lordship was saying.  "You
+gain nothing but lose everything by your bullying tactics.  Dash it
+all, the fellow downed you like a prize-fighter.  Who was he?  Not Jean
+de Courtois, I'll swear, so where has de Courtois gone?  Can't you
+stand up?  It's damn silly to sit there, nursing your nose.  Our
+motor-car is out of action.  We had better interview this clergyman,
+and learn exactly what has happened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Vassilan rose.  He was neither a coward nor a weakling, but he felt
+sore in mind as in body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's wrog with the car?" he demanded.  "Ad cad you led me ad
+hadkerchief?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That rascal who was with Hermione nearly pulled the gear levers out by
+the roots," said the Earl testily.  "He pushed me back into the
+limousine&mdash;with some degree of force, too, confound him!  Who can he
+be?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Suppose we idquire," growled Vassilan, and, mopping his nose with the
+Earl's handkerchief, he tugged viciously at the old-fashioned bell-pull
+which served the needs of visitors to the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The maid-servant who took the names of the two men was surprised, and
+showed it, but her democratic respect for titles yielded to suspicion
+when she observed Count Vassilan's villainous guise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wil-li-am!" she cried, and, when the ex-sailor appeared from the
+depths, she asked him to "look after the gentlemen" while she summoned
+Mr. Hughes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cad you take me somewhere, ad supply me with a towel ad pledty of cold
+water?" said the Hungarian, addressing the wizened one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, Jenkins was verger and pew-opener in the church as well as trusted
+assistant to the aged minister, but the ways and language of the
+fo'c's'l came back to him with irresistible force when he gazed on the
+Hungarian's damaged organ.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord love a duck, you've had it handed to you all right," he gasped.
+"How did you get it?  Did you foul a lamp-post, or bump a rock, or
+what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is edough that I have met with ad accided," snarled the Count.
+"Cad't you see that I wadt some water?  Is there do place where I cad
+wash?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What you reelly want is a tap," said Jenkins sympathetically.  "An' I
+shouldn't be surprised if a slab of raw beefsteak across yer lamps
+wouldn't be a bully good notion, too, or you'll have a lovely pair of
+mice in the morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, hearing Mr. Hughes's voice from the library, he suddenly
+recollected the habits of later years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come with me, sir," he said, leading the way to the basement.  "I'll
+do my best for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Perhaps it was fortunate for the success of his mission that the Earl
+of Valletort was left free to deal with the clergyman.  The Count's
+hectoring methods would certainly have stiffened the worthy old
+gentleman's back, whereas he yielded readily to the Earl's skillful
+handling.  He was much pained at hearing that a peer's daughter should
+have fallen into the hands of an adventurer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear me!  Dear me!" he wheezed.  "This is very sad.  The man looked
+quite a gentleman, I assure you.  And he had not the least semblance to
+a foreigner.  His name, too&mdash;John D. Curtis&mdash;is your lordship really
+certain of the facts?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, "John" and "Jean" are sufficiently alike in sound to pass muster
+with the average man, who also connotes no difference between "D" and
+"de," but the Earl was moved to say quickly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps you are not accustomed to French names, Mr. Hughes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I admit it.  But, here is an unimpeachable witness," and the
+minister produced the license from a drawer in the writing-desk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lord Valletort glanced at it, and a peculiarly unpleasant scowl
+convulsed his aristocratic features.  Hitherto, a stranger might have
+believed that Hermione's unfavorable picture of her father had been
+tinged by a high-spirited girl's hatred of the marriage which he was
+forcing upon her; but that fleeting expression spoke volumes.  If Count
+Vassilan was of the bovine order, the Earl of Valletort savored of the
+tiger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He contrived to smile, however, and the effort to figure wholly as a
+disconsolate parent cost him far more than he dreamed, since he
+examined neither the actual certificate nor the register, though both
+would have been submitted to his scrutiny by the bewildered Mr. Hughes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you," he said.  "I fully appreciate the position.  The scoundrel
+has learnt how to give an English sound to his name.  Probably my
+daughter taught him.  Hard though it is for a father to say such a
+thing, she is the real brain behind this sordid story of intrigue and
+wrong-doing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear me!" gasped Mr. Hughes again.  He felt that he must, indeed, be
+growing old.  He had married many hundreds of couples during his
+ministerial career, and had, in many instances, compared the subsequent
+lives of his matrimonial clients with the impressions formed during the
+ceremony, yet never had he been so gravely at fault as in his
+summing-up of the characteristics of John D. Curtis and Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Vassilan emerged from the kitchen, dripping but less gory, and the two
+visitors disappeared, whereupon Mr. Hughes confided his mystification
+to Jenkins.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Wil-li-am shook his cadaverous head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mebbe the Earl was right, an' mebbe he was wrong," he said decisively.
+"I didn't size up the Earl, so I let it go at that, but I did see the
+other guy&mdash;beg pardon, sir, I mean the other gentleman&mdash;an' he'll be
+lucky if he gets to bed to-night without being clubbed by a policeman.
+Someone has been at him already&mdash;hard at him&mdash;an' I'm not surprised,
+for his langwidge reminded me of my best days at sea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"William!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What, sir?  Oh, I meant my young days, of course.  Now, I wonder&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had just occurred to Jenkins that Mr. Curtis and his bride could
+hardly have got clear away from 56th Street before the Earl and his
+companion turned up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gee!" he cackled.  "I wish I hadn't closed the door so damn quick!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Hughes raised hands of horrified protest, and Jenkins wilted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry, sir," he stammered.  "I must have got a bit wound up when I saw
+the foreign gentleman's nose.  When I went a-whalin' on the <I>Star of
+the Sea</I> we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he
+would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in <I>that</I>
+shape.  Now, the question is&mdash;<I>could</I> it have been this here Mr.
+Curtis?  It reely is a pity I was so&mdash;so spry on the door."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Outside, the chauffeur had announced that he had straightened the
+levers sufficiently to render them serviceable, and he was directed to
+make for the Central Hotel, 27th Street, but he had not reached
+Broadway before the Earl bade him return to Mr. Hughes's residence.
+What had happened was this&mdash;Lord Valletort's recollection of the
+physique and manner of Jean de Courtois fitted in so ill with the
+knock-down blow delivered to a portly individual like Ladislas Vassilan
+that he began to compare the remarks of the elevator man at 1000 59th
+Street with the confusion in the clergyman's mind on the question of
+names.  Then, though the light had been dim, and his mind was given
+more to the recognition of his daughter than of the person accompanying
+her, he was conscious of a growing conviction that the French
+music-master was a being of an altogether different species.  Vassilan,
+too, having regained some degree of self-control, confirmed him in the
+belief that there must be some error in their reckoning, and agreed
+that they might save time by interviewing Mr. Hughes again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when the mild eyes of the minister rested on the Count's truculent
+visage, and noted his water-soaked and blood-stained clothing, there
+was a distinct drying up in the fount of information.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he said stiffly, in reply to the Earl's request that the marriage
+license should be produced again, "I regret that I cannot reopen that
+matter to-night.  To-morrow, if you have any cause for complaint, you
+should consult the proper authorities."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you must allow me to emphasize the fact that the license is made
+out for the marriage of a man with a French name, whereas admittedly
+you have married my daughter to a man with an English or American
+name," said the Earl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I express no opinion on the point.  Your lordship may be assuming
+facts which are not facts."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am making a statement which can be verified quite easily.  The name
+I saw on the license was that of Jean de Courtois, an undersized
+Frenchman whom I know by sight, whereas my unfortunate friend is a
+living witness to the presence here of a man who must be of powerful
+build and exceptional strength."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Hughes surveyed Vassilan's battered face again, and a doubt, born
+of a vague memory, began to intrude into his own mind.  Moreover, he
+was an eminently reasonable old gentleman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, yes," he said.  "My man, Jenkins, said something about a first
+mate and a belaying pin, whatever that may be&mdash;I fancy it is an
+instrument connected with the flaying of whales&mdash;and the bridegroom
+could certainly not be described as 'an undersized Frenchman' by anyone
+who paid due regard to the truth.&#8230;  Well, the whole proceeding is
+highly irregular, but the circumstances are quite exceptional, so&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a word, the Earl and Count Vassilan were soon gorged with astonished
+wrath, for, no matter what discrepancies might exist between license
+and certificate, there could be no dispute as to the bold signature
+"John D. Curtis" in the register, while Hermione's handwriting
+compelled Lord Valletort to believe that he was not the victim of
+hallucination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is easy to see, therefore, how the chase after John D. Curtis became
+hot thenceforth, but cooled off perceptibly on the trail of Jean de
+Courtois.  The hunters, of course, credited Hermione with a talent for
+craft and duplicity which she certainly did not possess; being rogues,
+or of the essence of rogues, they suspected her of roguery, and, in so
+doing, dug a deep pit for themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On arriving at the Central Hotel they were plunged into a denser fog
+than ever, and by means so ludicrously simple that even a budding
+dramatist would hesitate to avail himself of such a crude device.  The
+police had searched the dead man's clothing without finding any
+positive clew to his name.  His linen was marked H. R. H., and certain
+laundry marks might serve to establish his identity after long and
+patient inquiry, but the detective who had charge of the case felt that
+it was becoming unusually complex when the victim's overcoat was
+produced and the pockets were found to contain letters, a <I>Lusitania</I>
+wine bill, and a Marconigram&mdash;all pointing to the clear fact that the
+owner of the coat was John D. Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective, Steingall by name, was one of the shrewdest men in the
+New York police, and his extraordinary faculty of observing minute
+facts which had escaped others while investigating a crime had earned
+him the repute of being "the man with a microscopic eye."  But he owned
+to being mystified by this juggling with names.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why," he said to the police captain of the precinct, "this fellow
+Curtis is the man who witnessed the murder, and who will be our most
+reliable witness if we lay hands on the scoundrels who committed it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He <I>said</I> his name was Curtis," commented the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The implied doubt seemed to be justified, but Steingall stroked his
+chin reflectively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These papers bear out his story.  Look at the dates on the telegram
+and the bill, and the postmarks on the letters.  Can he, by some queer
+chance, have changed overcoats with the dead man?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A most unlikely thing, I should say."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something of the sort must have happened.  Anyhow, let us get hold of
+him, and sift this matter thoroughly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An ambulance came just then, to take the body to the mortuary, and,
+when it had departed, the two men quitted the traffic bureau where they
+had been talking, and entered the hotel.  Here, excitement was still at
+fever heat.  The press had heard of the murder, and a number of
+reporters were interviewing everybody in sight, while photographers
+were adding to the confusion by taking flash-light pictures.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The super-clerk was already showing tokens of the strain.  He glared
+wildly at Steingall when the latter asked if Mr. Curtis was in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're the hundred and first man to whom I have answered 'No' in the
+last quarter of an hour," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first hundred didn't count, anyway," was the dry response.  "Pull
+yourself together, and read that card slowly and collectedly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," he went on, seeing that the clerk had apparently mastered the
+copper-plate script, "you see I am not here for amusement.  Now, about
+Curtis, are you sure he is not in his room?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"His key has not been given up, but I have sent to 605, and we can't
+get in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean?  Is the door locked?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We can open every lock in the hotel.  It is bolted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you knocked?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've done everything, short of breaking open the door."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall looked perplexed, but the police captain was confident.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He has buncoed us, for sure," he said with a smile, though the smile
+boded evil for John D. Curtis at their next meeting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you notice him particularly when he registered?" demanded the
+detective, after a pause.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  Came to-night by the <I>Lusitania</I>.  Here is his signature."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The three men gazed at the register, and Steingall produced a card, on
+which Curtis had written the name of the hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Same handwriting!" he murmured.  "By the way," he continued,
+addressing the clerk, "were you here when the murder took place?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you see anything of it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a scratch.  I was busy with a lady, who was worrying me about a
+train to Montclair.  She was five minutes making up her mind whether to
+take the Jersey tunnel or the 23rd Street ferry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The only other person, beside Curtis, who saw the whole affair was the
+hall-porter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guess that's so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Call him into the office."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Questioned anew, the hall-porter was positive about everything except
+Curtis's connection with the attack.  The reporters had scalped him,
+metaphorically speaking, and his brain was seething.  He said "No" when
+he meant "Yes," and "Yes" for "No," and contradicted himself in each
+fresh version of the cataclasm which had seared his sky with lightning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall ultimately gave him up as hopeless that night.  Perhaps, next
+morning, when he had slept and eaten, he might become sane again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's an odd thing that Curtis should have wandered away in this
+fashion, wearing a strange overcoat," mused the detective aloud.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He must know it," said the police captain meaningly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I rather think we must force that door," said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The clerk did not understand the reference to the overcoat, but he was
+ready enough to adopt the detective's suggestion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shall I send for the engineer, and tell him to bring tools?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is nothing else for it," admitted Steingall with a shrug.  Be it
+remembered he had seen Curtis, and heard his story.  If such a man had
+committed the most daring crime recorded in New York during a decade,
+and had flouted the police with such cool effrontery, he (Steingall)
+would never again trust impressions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The policemen, the clerk, and a strong-armed artificer went up in the
+elevator, and, after an imperative knock and a loud-voiced summons to
+open had been met with blank silence from the interior of No. 605, the
+workman got busy.  The door was stout, and offered a stubborn
+resistance.  It had to be forced off its upper hinge; then it yielded
+so suddenly that it fell into the room, with the engineer sprawling on
+top of it.  The man yelled, thinking he was being plunged headlong into
+tragedy, but Steingall switched on the lights, and four pairs of eager
+eyes peered at nothing in particular.  They found the golf clubs, which
+partially explained the blocking of the door, though it did not occur
+to any of them at once that the open window might have caused the bag
+to fall.  They rummaged Curtis's portmanteaux and steamer trunks, and
+came upon evidence in plenty to prove that he was no mere masquerader
+in another man's name.  But that was all.  They could form no theory to
+account for his disappearance, until Steingall noticed the key, lying
+on the dressing-table, which, with its odds and ends of small articles,
+was the last place to invite scrutiny.  He was gazing at it when the
+blind flapped, and the door of the wardrobe creaked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Confound it!" he cried.  "The bedroom door was fastened by accident!
+The man forgot his key.  Look here!  I'll show you just how it came
+about."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He illustrated the slipping of the clubs, and his theory was borne out
+subsequently by the negro porter who had brought Curtis's belongings
+upstairs.  But an atmosphere of suspicion, of non-comprehension, had
+been created around the missing man, and it was not to be dispelled,
+even in Steingall's acute mind, by whittling away the mystery of the
+blocked door to a minor incident which might occur in any hotel any day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leaving the mechanic and the negro to patch the shattered door
+sufficiently to serve its purpose until it was replaced by another in
+the morning, the clerk escorted the representatives of the law
+downstairs.  Of course, their departure from the hall and their
+prolonged absence had been noted by the phalanx of reporters, and they
+were surrounded instantly.  Searching questions were fired at them, but
+Steingall, who knew how to use the press for his own ends, countered by
+asking genially:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In your hunt for copy, have any of you boys come across Mr. John D.
+Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man who really saw the riot?  I guess not.  We want him badly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An approving grin from his colleagues vouched for the speaker's
+accuracy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who was killed, anyhow, Steingall?" demanded the journalist who had
+answered the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't know, yet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Does Curtis know?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He said he didn't, but I'll tell you something&mdash;I shan't be happy till
+I've had another chat with him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can anyone say who 'John D. Curtis, of Pekin,' really is?" went on the
+reporter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is the man we are looking for.  If there are police officers
+present, I want them to understand that Curtis should be arrested at
+sight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Everyone turned at the sound of the authoritative English voice which
+had intervened so unexpectedly in the conclave.  They saw an elderly
+man, well dressed, and bearing the unmistakable tokens of good social
+standing.  With him was a foreigner, a most truculent looking person,
+whose collar, shirt, and waistcoat carried other signs, quite as
+obvious, but curiously ominous in view of the cause of this gathering
+in the hall of the hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I ask who you are, sir?" said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am the Earl of Valletort," said the stranger, "and this is Count
+Ladislas Vassilan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!  Count Vassilan is not an Englishman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is he, by any chance, a Hungarian?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Count Vassilan is a Hungarian prince.  But the nationality of either
+of us is unimportant.  Are you connected with the New York police?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Steingall.  He answered the Earl, but kept that microscopic
+eye of his fixed on the Count.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very well, then.  I repeat that John D. Curtis must be found and
+arrested&mdash;to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because he is a dangerous adventurer.  I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a lie, first sizz out of the syphon," broke in another voice.
+"I have the honor to be a friend of John D. Curtis.  My name is Howard
+Devar, and I'll stand for John D. all the time against the noble Earl
+and any God's quantity of blue-blooded, full-blooded Hungarians."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Each member of the animated group was gazing at Devar's boyish,
+self-possessed, well-chiseled face, when another interruption held them
+agog.  A stout, middle-aged man, followed by a stouter matron, bustled
+into the circle.  The newcomers were just as clearly Americans as the
+Earl was English, and the man cried angrily:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who says that John D. Curtis is a tough?  I'm his uncle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I'm his aunt," chimed in the lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana," said the man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. and Mrs. Horace P. Curtis," announced the lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shake!" said Devar.  "I heard about you to-day on board the
+<I>Lusitania</I>.&#8230;  Now, my lord, we are three to two.  What charge do
+you bring against John D. Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+NINE O'CLOCK
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+A new note had crept into the voice of the taxi-cab driver when he
+stopped his vehicle in Madison Avenue and sought Curtis's further
+commands.  No longer did he address his patron with a species of
+good-humored tolerance, almost of sarcasm; his mental attitude had now
+become one of respect, even of hero-worship.  A little later, while
+smoking a thoughtful pipe in his own cozy flat somewhere near Second
+Avenue, he tried to explain this curious development to his wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see, my dear," he said, "I picked up a fare in Broadway, an' took
+him where he said he wanted to go.  When he got out, he didn't seem to
+be quite sure whether he wanted to be there or not, an' you can bet I
+smiled when he said that he supposed the lady he was callin' on lived
+somewhere around.  Anyhow, after hesitatin' a bit, an' tellin' me he
+wouldn't keep me a minnit, in he dives, an' kep' me coolin' my heels a
+good quarter of an hour.  I grew uneasy, because fares do get so nasty
+about waitin' charges, so I signals the elevator man, name o' Rafferty,
+to ask if it was O.K.  When Rafferty comes back, we had a chat, an' he
+tells me that this Miss Grandison&mdash;a mighty smart piece she is,
+too,&mdash;was goin' to marry a little Frenchman right away&mdash;she was
+expectin' him to call at eight o'clock an' take her to the minister's
+place&mdash;so it gev' both Rafferty an' me a jar when my dude turns up with
+the girl an' pipes us for any old address where people could get
+married.  Well, I remembers the number of a shovel hat in 56th Street,
+an' away we hike, man, girl, an' lady's maid, with never a sign of any
+Frenchman anywheres.  An', by Jove, in they skipped to the parsonage,
+an' were spliced."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, George!" exclaimed his highly interested hearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fact.  True as I'm sittin' here.  When they were comin' out, a queer
+lookin' specimen who opened the door wished 'em happiness.  'Fair
+weather to you an' your wife, sir,' he said; an' Mr. Curtis&mdash;that's my
+fare's name, I asked him&mdash;said something about havin' finished one long
+voyage an' beginnin' another.  Then the fun began.  I was just startin'
+the machine when a private auto dashes up, an' out jumps a
+foreign-lookin' swell.  The girl spots him, an' screams his name&mdash;Count
+Vaseline it sounded like&mdash;an' he shouts, 'Here we are, Valtaw'&mdash;p'raps
+that was his way of sayin' Walter&mdash;'Got 'em, by&mdash;  You see after
+Hermione.  I'll fix this&mdash;Frenchman?'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't swear, George," remonstrated the driver's better half.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not swearin'.  Ain't I tellin' you what he said?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The point was waived.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the lady's name was Hermione, was it?  It's a pretty name."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You haven't got it quite right.  It was more like the way I said it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, indeed, the correction was justified, since it is a regrettable
+fact that the taxi-cab driver's wife made "Hermione" rhyme with "bone,"
+and laid no stress on the second syllable.  Strong in her superior
+knowledge, for she was an omnivorous reader of fiction&mdash;and Greek names
+were fashionable last November&mdash;she passed that point also.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?" she demanded breathlessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ha, ha!"  The narrator laughed joyfully.  "The Dago Count went for
+Curtis as if he was on to a sure thing, but before you could say
+'knife' he was on his back on the sidewalk.  I've never seen a man put
+down so quick.  I couldn't have floored him so beautifully if I'd hit
+him with a spanner.  But that was only part of the entertainment.
+Curtis&mdash;mind you, before that I'd been treatin' him as an ordinary dude
+in evenin' dress&mdash;acted like an injarubber man filled with chain
+lightning.  He shoved 'Valtaw' back into the auto, grabs the brake an'
+gear lever, an' puts 'em both out of action, sweeps the two girls into
+my cab, and&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here the taxi-driver bethought himself, and grinned vacuously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well&mdash;an' here I am," he concluded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose he handed out a good fare," said his wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, he was quite decent about it.  Tipped me a couple of dollars over
+an' above the register."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should have thought it would have been more.  Men are usually
+generous when they are getting married."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He was takin' on a rather expensive bit of stuff, unless I am much
+mistaken, an' p'raps he was just rememberin' it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this ingenuous fashion was a poor woman neatly headed off the scent
+of a fifty-dollar bill.  She rang the knell of a new hat by her next
+question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What was the young lady really like&mdash;how was she dressed?" she cried.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Hardly a word was said within the taxi until the corner was turned out
+of 56th Street into Seventh Avenue.  Curtis, who was sitting with his
+back to the driver, rose, apologized for the disturbance, and looked
+through the tiny rear window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all right," he said.  "That car won't be able to move for
+several minutes; but we must leave nothing to chance," so he sank back
+into a seat, and permitted the driver to take them whither he listed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione's first words were not exactly those of a fair maid in utmost
+distress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, how splendid it must be to feel sure that you are able to hit a
+wretch like Count Vassilan and knock him flat!" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis was surprised.  He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted
+lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather
+expected to hear subdued sobbing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that
+fellow," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never could.  It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he
+treats them.  I do hope you have hurt him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis.  "He impressed me
+as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will
+afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity
+to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body
+of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour.
+There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a
+decent problem.  Meanwhile, the vital question is&mdash;where are we going?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood.  He could
+picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is evident," he went on, "that they procured the minister's address
+from the elevator man at your dwelling."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, that Rafferty!  Wait till I see him," broke in Marcelle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please do not scarify Rafferty, if that is his name.  I am much more
+to be blamed than he, because I assured your mistress that the Earl and
+Count Vassilan were safe on board the <I>Switzerland</I> till the morning.
+I see now that they telegraphed for a tug, and it is best to assume
+that they have been kept informed by wireless of nearly every move in
+the game.&#8230;  You agree with me, I suppose, Lady Hermione, that your
+return to 1000 59th Street is out of the question?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is, if this mock marriage is to serve any real purpose," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But pray remember that it is not a mock marriage.  You and I are as
+firmly bound together by the law as if&mdash;well, as if we meant it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She leaned forward a little; her face was etched in Rembrandt lights by
+the glare from some shop windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Curtis," she said earnestly, "it is neither just nor reasonable
+that you should plunge yourself into difficulties for the sake of a
+girl whom you met to-night for the first time.  Why not go out of my
+life now&mdash;this instant?&#8230;  Marcelle and I can find refuge
+somewhere.  The hour is early.&#8230;  Why should you take all the risk?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was ready for some such appeal on her part.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was taught in school if I did a thing at all to do it thoroughly,"
+he said, "and my experience of life has given the adage a halo.  It
+would be worse than useless to desert you now, Lady Hermione.  Whatever
+penalties I may have incurred in the eyes of the law are committed
+beyond hope of redemption.  If I am sought for, the police know exactly
+where to lay hands on me, and my crime would become monstrous if it
+were proved that I ran away from my wife on the night of our marriage.
+No; we must face the music boldly, and together.  We must go to some
+well-known hotel, register openly, secure rooms, and conduct ourselves
+on the orthodox lines of all runaway couples, who are presumably head
+over heels in love with each other.  Moreover, in the morning, or
+whenever we are run to earth, you should allow me to face your father
+and play the part of the indignant husband.  It is essential that your
+marriage should appear real, or you go back to bondage and I to prison."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To prison!"  The girl's horrified accents showed that she had hardly
+given a thought to the bald consequences of her escapade.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  I am not trying to frighten you; but what sort of mercy would a
+judge show to the craven who absconded before the battle began?  If, on
+the other hand, I am, so to speak, torn from your arms&mdash;if a plausible
+lawyer can depict you tearful and inconsolable&mdash;if&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You make out a fairly strong case, Mr. Curtis.  I have told you that I
+trust you, and I can only repeat my words of gratitude.&#8230;
+Marcelle, you will not leave me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never, miss, ma'am&mdash;that is, your ladyship."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus it befell that Curtis was ready with the name of a prominent hotel
+in Fifth Avenue when the driver halted in Madison Avenue.  He made his
+choice almost at random, but selected one of the newest uptown
+caravanserais, merely because it lay a considerable distance from 27th
+Street.  Otherwise, his object in picking a large hotel being to avoid
+notice among a fashionable throng, he might easily have taken his
+"wife" to the Waldorf-Astoria, in which event certain complications
+even then hot in the making would not have followed their intricate
+course, while Hermione's future must have been affected most powerfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you are prepared to submit to certain conditions which
+govern this new venture?" said Curtis, when the cab was once more
+speeding onward to a definite goal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are they?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It would be scarcely fair to describe Hermione's tone as suspicious,
+for she was a loyal soul, and was wondering in her heart of hearts what
+manner of man this knight errant could be; but his very self-possession
+fluttered her; she had been so accustomed to think and act in her own
+defense that she experienced a subtle fear of this calm, cool-headed,
+masterful person whom she must learn to regard as her husband.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well,"&mdash;Curtis's speech was so unemotional that he might have been
+describing one of his Manchurian railway schemes&mdash;"we must treat each
+other with a certain familiarity&mdash;even use little endearments&mdash;in
+public&mdash;and address each other by pet names&mdash;mine is Chow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Despite her troubles, the girl laughed, and Curtis recalled the tinkle
+of silver bells in a temple at evening on the banks of the far-away
+Wei-ho.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But that is the name of a dog!" she tittered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  In my case, it denoted some unpleasant personal characteristics
+when a stupid mandarin put obstacles in my way.  I never gave any
+warning, but rushed in and bit him, not actually, of course, but in his
+illicit commissions, which annoyed him more than a real bite."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't like Chow," she said.  "Your name is John.  Won't Jack do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fine."  It was lucky she could not see the smile that flitted across
+his face.  "And yours?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mamma always used my full name, and I have never had anyone else to
+give me a pet name, unless it was 'Tatters' at school."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We might bracket Tatters with Chow, and dismiss both," he said
+lightly.  "And I like the sound of Hermione so well that it is pat on
+my lips already.&#8230;  Now, you, Marcelle&mdash;remember that her ladyship
+has become Lady Hermione Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, not Mrs. Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  An earl's daughter retains her courtesy title after marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right, sir.  I shan't forget."  Indeed, Marcelle was jubilant.
+She had been "dying" to use her mistress's title, once she became aware
+of it, but it was taboo at 59th Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis had covered a good deal of ground during that brief discussion
+in the cab, but Hermione was not quite prepared for its logical sequel
+in the hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Naturally, they attracted no unusual attention when they entered the
+hotel.  Other people merely noticed the passing of a distinguished
+looking young man in evening dress&mdash;for Curtis had promptly whipped off
+that ominous overcoat&mdash;and a slender, veiled lady, of elegant carriage,
+who walked up to the bureau, followed by a smartly dressed girl who
+gazed about her with bright, all-seeing eyes.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-102"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-102.jpg" ALT="Scenes from the photo-drama." BORDER="2" WIDTH="387" HEIGHT="751">
+<H3>
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"My wife and I have been detained in New York this evening
+unexpectedly," explained Curtis to the hotel clerk.  "We want a suite
+of rooms, a sitting-room, three bedrooms with baths&mdash;you would like
+Marcelle's room to communicate with yours, wouldn't you, dear?" and he
+turned suddenly to Hermione.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Y-yes," she faltered, for the attack took her unaware.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What floor, sir?  We have a nice suite on the tenth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not so high, please," said Hermione.  Then she sprung a mine on her
+own account.  "I know it is stupid, Jack, darling, but I am so afraid
+of fire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This hotel is absolutely fireproof, madam," put in the clerk, stating
+a fact implicitly believed by every hotel proprietor in New York in so
+far as his own building is concerned, "but we can accommodate you on
+the second floor, Suite F., fifty dollars a day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you.  That will be just right," said Curtis quickly, for he
+meant to live like a prince during one night at least, let the morrow
+bring its own cares.  "Now, you understand that we are here without
+baggage, though my wife's maid will procure some necessaries while we
+eat, and I mean to get some clothes later, but, if you would like a
+deposit of, say, a hundred dollars&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He felt for his pocketbook, but, to the credit of the clerk be it said,
+the suggestion was negatived with a smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No need at all for any deposit, sir," was the answer.  "I wouldn't be
+on to my job it I didn't know how and when to discriminate in matters
+of that sort.  Will you register?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis took a pen and wrote:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. and Lady Hermione Curtis, and maid."  Some imp of adventure moved
+him to inscribe "Pekin" in the column for visitors' home addresses.
+But the clerk was obviously impressed by Hermione's title, no less than
+the singularly remote locality the couple hailed from.  He leant back,
+and took a key from its hook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Page!" he said.  "Show Mr. Curtis and her ladyship to Suite F."  Then
+he added, as an afterthought: "Would you like dinner served in your
+sitting-room, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think so," said Curtis, "but my wife shall decide a little later."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione kept silent until they were safely behind the closed door of a
+well-furnished and delightfully spacious apartment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, I bear all expenses," she said firmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What&mdash;are we quarreling already?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You think I am being wildly extravagant.  Why, bless your ladyship's
+dear little heart, this hotel doesn't begin to know how to charge like
+a taxi.  Now, no argument till to-morrow.  An American millionaire can
+really be quite a decent sort of fellow at times, and, if we may assume
+that this is one of the times, please let me play at being a
+millionaire&mdash;for once."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She raised her veil, and looked at him, straight in the eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why are you so different from other men?  Why have I never before
+spoken to a man like you?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I am not different, and there are plenty of men like me; the other
+poor chaps haven't had my glorious chance of serving you&mdash;that is all.
+Now, won't you go and see if your room is comfortable, and whether or
+not Marcelle's quarters are just right?  Then come back here, and we'll
+discuss menus, for which purpose I shall ring for a waiter <I>ek dum</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that Chinese?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Hindustani.  It means 'at once,' but every hotel-wala east of Suez
+understands it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still she lingered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you any sisters&mdash;a mother living?" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  I'm the sole survivor of my own family.  But I mean to give
+myself the pleasure of a full introduction while we dine, or sup.  Do
+say you are hungry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have not eaten a morsel since luncheon," she confessed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, joy!  I must interview the head waiter.  No common serf will
+suffice.  Please hurry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She left him, not without an impulsive movement as though she meant to
+utter some further words of thanks, but checked her intent on the very
+threshold of speech.  As the lock of the bedroom door clicked, and he
+was alone, he essayed a review of the amazing sequence of events which
+had befallen since he strolled out of the dining-room of the Central
+Hotel.  He stood there, motionless, with hands plunged deep in his
+pockets, but, at the outset of a reverie in which judgment and prudence
+might have helped in the council, he happened to catch sight of himself
+in an oblong mirror over the mantelpiece, for the apartment, redolent
+of New York's later architecture, contained an open grate, and was
+furnished with the chaste beauty of the Chippendale period.  In his
+present position the reflection in the mirror was oddly reminiscent of
+a half-length portrait of his grandfather, the warrior who rode at the
+head of the Fifth Cavalry in '61.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Curtis laughed, with the pleasant conviction of a man whose mind
+has been made up for him by circumstances beyond his control.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's bred in the bone&mdash;a clear case of Mendelism," he murmured softly,
+because he had just remembered how Colonel Curtis, before ever the war
+was ended and its bitterness assuaged, had decided a Southern girl's
+conflict between love and duty by galloping fifty miles across
+Confederate South Carolina and carrying off the lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Grandfather and grandson alike were men of action.  Curtis seldom used
+a gesture, and never cried over spilt milk.  Now he merely turned,
+peered into his own bedroom, assured himself that Hermione would find
+its prototype to her fancy, and then summoned a waiter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Behind the closed door of the other room a girl was similarly engaged
+in taking stock of the situation; but she had feminine assistance, so
+there was bound to be talk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, your ladyship, isn't this just the dandiest bit out of a novel you
+ever read?" cried Marcelle when she entered her mistress's room through
+a communicating door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It might be more thrilling if it were not a page out of my own life,"
+said Hermione sadly.  She, too, was gazing in a mirror, though, being a
+woman, the oppressive thought bobbed up through a sea of troubles that
+her hair must be untidy, and she owned neither comb nor brush.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, what luck, miss, your ladyship, to have found a gentleman like
+Mr. Curtis at the right moment.  Talk about life buoys for drowning men
+and rich uncles from California in plays&mdash;who ever heard of anyone
+wanting a nice husband and getting him in such a way!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marcelle's eyes were positively glistening.  And these two now were not
+mistress and maid, but a pair of highly strung women, and young ones at
+that.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have lost your wits in this night's excitement, Marcelle," said
+Hermione.  "Don't you realize that I am only married under mere
+pretense.  Mr. Curtis is nothing to me, nor I to him.  He has been kind
+and gallant, and I am under an obligation which I can never
+discharge&mdash;but that is not marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's awful like it, your ladyship."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, no.  Drive such nonsense from your head.  When you marry, don't
+you hope to love the man of your choice, and will you not feel sure
+that he loves you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, miladi."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then how is it possible for any relationship of that sort to exist
+between Mr. Curtis and me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You've gone a long way already, ma'am," giggled Marcelle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please don't call me ma'am.  It&mdash;it irritates me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry, miladi, but you will admit, at least, a marriage being
+necessary, that you were fortunate in finding Mr. Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, doubly fortunate&mdash;it is that fact which makes things hard for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Makes what things hard, your ladyship?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I don't know.  I scarce recognize my own voice.  Marcelle, if I
+seem distraught and unreasonable, promise me you will pay no heed.  For
+pity's sake, don't leave me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and Marcelle was on the verge of
+hysteria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I&mdash;can't imagine&mdash;what there is&mdash;to cry about," she murmured brokenly.
+"Nothing on earth would induce me to go away now&mdash;but I do hope&mdash;and
+pray&mdash;you will be happy&mdash;even though&mdash;you only met your husband&mdash;little
+more than an hour ago!&#8230;  And I believe in my heart, Lady Hermione,
+that you will soon see how fortunate you were in escaping that mincing
+little Frenchman&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marcelle, the poor man is dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then it is the best turn he has done you, miladi.  I never fancied
+him.  There was something underhanded and mean about him.  I have seen
+his face when you were not looking, and I'm sure he was a hypocrite."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marcelle, you will drive me crazy.  Don't you understand that I have
+never intended to marry anybody&mdash;really?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A knock at the door opening into the sitting-room came to Hermione's
+relief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes?" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you can spare Marcelle, I would recommend that she should go to
+your flat for any clothes you may need," said Curtis's voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione threw open the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A little while ago you told me that it was impossible to think of
+returning there," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For you, yes, but not for your maid.  Who is to hinder?  That man,
+Rafferty, looked a decent sort of fellow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can manage Rafferty all right," put in Marcelle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course you can," smiled Curtis.  "Just pack a trunk or a couple of
+bags with Lady Hermione's belongings&mdash;you know what to bring&mdash;and get
+Rafferty to call a taxi without attracting too much notice.  If you
+think you are being followed, put your pursuers off the scent.  But my
+own view is that 1000 59th Street is the last place anyone will think
+of watching to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shall I go at once, your ladyship?" said Marcelle, and Hermione said
+"Yes," with a meekness that was admirable in a wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis looked at his pretty bride's hat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have ordered a meal," he said.  "It will be served in a few minutes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall be ready," she replied, beginning nervously to take off her
+gloves.  The wedding ring was inclined to accompany the left hand
+glove, but, after a second's hesitation, she replaced it.  When she
+appeared in the sitting-room she had discarded her jacket, a
+close-fitting one of a style that fastened <I>à la militaire</I>, high in
+the neck.  Beneath it she had been wearing a white silk blouse, and the
+delicate pink of her arms and throat was revealed now through its
+diaphanous sheen.  A string of pearls supported a diamond cross on her
+breast, and on her left wrist was a watch set in small diamonds and
+turquoises and carried by a bracelet of gold filigree.  She wore only
+one ring&mdash;<I>the</I> ring&mdash;and even the slight glance which Curtis gave it
+brought a vivid blush to her cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not a past master in the art of ordering banquets," he said
+cheerily, turning at once to draw her attention to the table, "but the
+head-waiter here is a gourmet.  He suggested caviare, a white soup, a
+king-fish, a tourne-dos, and a grouse&mdash;does that appeal?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You take my breath away," she said, with valorous effort to seem at
+ease.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now&mdash;as to wine?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I seldom touch wine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To-night it will make you sleep.  What do you say to a glass of Clos
+Vosgeot?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that a claret?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, as it happens, that is the one wine I take."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dinner proceeded most pleasantly.  To his own astonishment, Curtis
+worked up sufficient appetite to enjoy the meal, though he would have
+stuffed himself remorselessly to save his charming <I>vis-à-vis</I> from the
+slightest embarrassment.  But he only sipped the wine, for a sixth
+sense warned him that he must keep a clear head that night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By inference rather than plain statement, for a deft waiter was
+constantly coming in and out, he supplied Hermione with glimpses of his
+own career, and ascertained from her that she had secured Marcelle's
+services through the good offices of a lady who was a fellow-passenger
+on the ship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She comes from New Orleans, but, notwithstanding her name, she does
+not speak French," said Hermione.  "I think that rather accounts
+for&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stopped, and Curtis did not press for an explanation, but she
+continued, after a second's pause:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marcelle did not like Monsieur de Courtois.  I imagined she was
+annoyed because he always conversed with me in a language she did not
+understand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I shall avoid Chinese," he laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marcelle&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again she hesitated.  She was positively dismayed by consciousness of
+the imminent disclosure, yet too well-bred even to appear to be
+withholding confidences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have won Marcelle's golden opinion already," she said.  "But let
+us talk of something else."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the moment they were alone, and she glanced at the watch on her
+wrist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you made any plans?" she inquired, and her voice was low, yet
+sufficiently composed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For the future?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When Marcelle arrives, I am going to my hotel for some baggage.  You,
+I suggest, are going to bed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will return?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Within the hour&mdash;if I am alive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And to-morrow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To-morrow, may it please your ladyship, we breakfast together at nine
+o'clock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your plan, then, is mainly composed of eating and sleeping?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What else&mdash;our policy is one of drifting."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is 'Jack' in the compact."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Alas, this compact reads only one way.  It means that you give and I
+receive.  Will you&mdash;will you believe, in the future, that despair alone
+could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he said sturdily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No?  That is the only unkind thing you have said."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair.
+But&mdash;here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages.  I hear thuds in
+the next room."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's
+voice reached them sharply from the corridor:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box!  Do you think you are an
+express man, or what?"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+NINE-THIRTY
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Chance is often a skilled stage manager, and chance had arranged a
+really effective scene in the hall of the Central Hotel.  The Earl of
+Valletort seemed to be somewhat unwilling to take up any of the
+gauntlets so readily thrown down by Devar and the Curtis family, and,
+for a few seconds, the ring of reporters was held spellbound by a
+situation which promised most excellently with regard to the
+all-important question of "copy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the police captain, after waiting for Steingall to take the lead,
+nudged his silent colleague, and said gruffly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This thing cannot be gone into here.  Those who can bring forward
+testimony of any value ought to come with Mr. Steingall and myself to
+the precinct station-house."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why lose time which cannot be overtaken later?" urged the Earl,
+appealing to Steingall, since it was the detective who had spoken to
+him in the first instance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We appear to be at cross purposes," said Steingall.  "How did you two
+gentlemen get to know that a murder had been committed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Murder!" gasped Count Vassilan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are not talking of a murder, but of a most scandalous abduction,
+which will provide only one of a number of most serious charges against
+this person, Curtis," cried the Earl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Vassilan seized him by the arm excitedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you understand, dear friend," he muttered in French.  "The
+rascal must have killed de Courtois in order to gain possession of the
+marriage certificate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It will save trouble, sir, if you speak English here," said Steingall.
+Then he turned to the hotel clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Place a room at our disposal at once.  Lord Valletort is quite right.
+We have not a second to waste."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A murmur of protest arose from the pressmen, though it was obvious that
+the police could not conduct the inquiry in the midst of an
+ever-growing crowd of residents and servants.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Say, Steingall," whispered the reporter who had spoken for the others
+earlier, "can't you let us into this?  We'll suppress anything you
+wish&mdash;I'll guarantee that, absolutely without reservation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>I</I> have no objection, but these high-toned strangers may not like
+it," said the detective quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Earl, when the point was referred to him, made no difficulty
+whatsoever about the presence of the journalists&mdash;in fact, he rather
+welcomed publicity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is better that the truth should appear than a garbled and
+misleading version," he said affably.  "I want your help, gentlemen.  I
+know enough of newspaper ways to feel sure that a story of some sort
+will be star-headed in every news sheet in New York to-morrow, so my
+friend, Count Vassilan, and I are more than willing that you should be
+well informed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, that phase of the problem was precisely what Count Ladislas
+Vassilan seemed to be exceedingly disconcerted about.  He was
+singularly ill at ease.  His florid face had paled to a dusky wanness
+when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served
+only to increase his agitation.  Steingall, to all intents and purposes
+paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not
+missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous
+gesture.  His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had
+fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence.  Curtis had hazarded a
+guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a
+Hungarian Count denouncing Curtis.  Certainly that question of
+nationality promised remarkable developments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the whole party, consisting of some fifteen persons, had gathered
+behind the closed door of the hotel's private office, Steingall took
+the lead in directing the proceedings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It will help straighten out a tangle if I say exactly what has taken
+place here to-night&mdash;that is, to the best of our knowledge," he said.
+"There is every reason to believe that Mr. John D. Curtis arrived in
+New York this afternoon from Europe&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right," broke in Devar.  "I traveled with him on the <I>Lusitania</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, his presence on board was announced in most of the papers," added
+a journalist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please don't interrupt," said the detective.  "You will be heard in
+your turn.  Now, this Mr. Curtis was allotted room No. 605, and there
+is evidence to prove that he behaved like any ordinary individual who
+had just come from shipboard.  He superintended the unpacking of his
+clothes, gave out a quantity of linen for the laundry, changed into
+evening dress, and dined alone.  Thus far, there is ample corroboration
+of his own story, because his movements can be checked by the
+observation of half-a-dozen hotel employés.  He says, by the way, that
+while buying some stamps at the cigar counter before going to the
+restaurant, he was jostled by a rough-looking foreigner, who apologized
+in broken French, and whom he took to be a Czech or Hungarian.  No one
+seems to have witnessed this incident, but I have not questioned the
+man who sold him the stamps.  Anyhow, after dinner, at twenty minutes
+of eight to be exact, he came into the lobby, intending to inform the
+clerk that he had closed the bedroom door and left his key in the room.
+We have ascertained that this statement is true; the door had to be
+forced, because a bag of golf clubs had fallen and become wedged
+between the door and the side of a steel trunk.  Curtis never did speak
+to the clerk about the key; at that instant, he says, his attention was
+drawn to the queer behavior of the foreigner who had pushed against
+him, and who had been joined in the meantime by another man of similar
+type.  They seemed to be very excited, and were apparently expecting
+someone to turn up, either in the street or from the hotel&mdash;Curtis
+fancied that they were on the look-out for interruption, or news, from
+both quarters.  The porter on duty at the door, who is not quite
+intelligible to-night, remembers asking these men if they wanted a
+taxi, but they gave no heed to him.  Then, according to Curtis's
+version of the affair, an automobile dashed up outside, and a young man
+in evening dress, carrying an overcoat, stepped out, and told the
+chauffeur to keep the engine going, as he would not be detained more
+than a minute.  At that instant the two foreigners&mdash;Hungarians
+according to Curtis&mdash;sprang at the newcomer, and endeavored to force
+him back into the auto.  Failing in this, one of them drew a knife, and
+stabbed him so severely that he died within a few minutes, and without
+uttering an intelligible word.  Curtis ran to help, but was too far
+away to prevent the crime, and was further balked in an attempt to
+seize either of the wretches by having the dying man's body flung in
+his way.  He endeavored to hinder the escape of the scoundrels in the
+automobile, but failed, because the chauffeur was evidently in league
+with them, and, when he came back to the crowd which had collected
+around the prostrate man, it would appear that someone gave him, by
+mistake, the victim's overcoat in place of his own.  This error was not
+discovered until the police came to search the dead man's clothing,
+when various documents showed beyond question that the overcoat
+believed to be his was really Curtis's.  Curtis told his story in a
+clear and straightforward way, and I, for one, have not seen any reason
+to doubt it.  It is odd that he should have disappeared so completely
+since a few minutes after the crime, but that may be capable of a
+simple explanation, while it is possible that he has not as yet
+discovered the change of overcoats, or he must surely have returned and
+informed us of the mistake.  I am assuming, of course, that he would
+act as one would expect of any reasonable minded citizen who had
+witnessed a serious crime.&#8230;  Now, Lord Valletort, what have you to
+say about Mr. Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A guttural exclamation from Count Vassilan drew all eyes to him.  He
+seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was positively livid with
+fright.  In other conditions than those obtaining at the moment, such a
+display of terror on the part of a truculent looking, strongly built
+man would have been almost ludicrous; but Steingall found no humor in
+the spectacle.  He was gazing at the Hungarian with a curious
+concentration, and the police captain, who had begun by thinking his
+colleague was saying far too much, and who was inclined to disagree
+with some of his conclusions, now thought he could discern method in
+his madness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again did Vassilan murmur something to the Earl in a strange tongue,
+and Valletort, with difficulty repressing his annoyance, explained that
+his friend was feeling the effects of a blow received earlier in the
+evening, and wished to retire at once to his room in the
+Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By all means," said Steingall suavely.  "I gather that Count Vassilan
+has no connection with the inquiry&mdash;in fact, he is not interested in
+it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is, in a sense&mdash;&mdash;" began the Earl, but Vassilan grasped his arm,
+and evidently besought him to come away without another word.  Though
+Valletort was in a towering rage, he obviously thought fit to fall in
+with his companion's views.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see how it is," he said, with a nonchalant gesture that was belied
+by his grating tone.  "I am afraid I must postpone my branch of this
+inquiry till a later hour&mdash;probably until the morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you withdraw all charges against John D. Curtis?" demanded Devar,
+and his clear, incisive voice was distinctly hostile in its icy
+precision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir.  I do not," was the angry retort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I guess you know best why you and the Hungarian potentate have
+developed this sudden attack of cold feet, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll thank you not to interfere, Mr. Devar," said Steingall
+determinedly.  "If Lord Valletort thinks his business can wait till
+Count Vassilan has recovered from an indisposition, that is his affair
+only."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think nothing of the sort," snapped the Earl.  "You all see that the
+Count is ill, and common humanity impels me to attend to him first.  It
+may serve to curb this young gentleman's tongue if I say&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Vassilan would not permit him to say anything.  Though he was the
+ailing man, he literally dragged Valletort out of the room and into the
+street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall looked at the police captain, who quitted the apartment
+instantly.  Then the detective gazed around at the others with a placid
+smile which seemed to show that he, for one, was well content with the
+unusual turn taken by events.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you boys have verbatim notes of all that was said," he
+inquired, tossing the remark collectively to the group of pressmen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Every word," came the assurance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, now, I want you to keep all that out of the papers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we do that, Steingall, what is there left?" said one of them
+good-humoredly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The biggest thing you have dropped on to this year; unless I am
+greatly mistaken, the scoop of scoops for those who happen to be
+present.  I'm not going to pretend that any of you are blind or deaf,
+and it will assist the police materially if no comment is made on what
+you have heard and seen.  I don't like to put it otherwise than as a
+friendly hint; but I may want the whole bunch as witnesses before this
+thing is through, so your mouths should be closed effectually with
+regard to incidents in this room."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A half-hearted laugh went around, and someone asked:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must put up a readable story of some kind&mdash;if we cut out certain
+details, surely we can use others?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said 'incidents in this room,'" repeated the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then we can mention the arrival of the Earl and the Count on the
+scene?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One minute, sir," put in Mr. Horace P. Curtis.  "If these gentlemen
+take you at your word, the charge made against my nephew will be
+published throughout the length and breadth of the United States
+to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't see how something of the sort is to be avoided," said
+Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then, in common fairness, the newspapers ought to state that my wife
+and I, as well as Mr. Devar, as good as told the Earl that he was
+lying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I imagine you can leave the matter safely in the very capable hands of
+the reporters present," said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Remember, please, that no charge was actually named against Curtis,"
+said Devar.  "The Earl of Valletort demanded that he should be found
+and arrested, and described him as a dangerous adventurer, but gave no
+shred of proof of his wild-cat statement that Curtis had been engaged
+in a scandalous abduction, and, when asked for it, discovered that he
+had urgent business elsewhere."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall held up a hand in quiet reproof.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My own view is that it would be best, at this stage, to say merely
+that the two noblemen came here inquiring for Curtis, and leave it at
+that.  I am not trying to deprive the press of a sensation.  Surely
+there is enough in Chapter One for to-night, and those reporters who
+have had the luck to be present will be able to fill in gaps in
+Chapters Two and Three when they come along to-morrow or next day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right," said the journalist who, by tacit agreement, seemed to
+represent his confrères.  "There are one or two items we want you to
+clear up, if you don't mind.  First, did Curtis, or anybody else, note
+the number of the automobile?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Steingall instantly.  "The number is X24-305, and Curtis
+heard the man who was murdered address the chauffeur as 'Anatole.'  He
+spoke French to the man, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You omitted both of those interesting facts from your summary,"
+commented the reporter with a smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did I?  That was a piece of sheer forgetfulness on my part."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You didn't forget to rope us all in here as witnesses when the
+Hungarian prince came on the boards.  I knew you had something up your
+sleeve the moment you began to fill in details.  But, as to the crime
+itself&mdash;have you found out the name of the man who was killed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  There were no papers in his clothes, but that may be accounted
+for by the singular accident of the exchange of overcoats.  His linen
+was marked 'H. R. H.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'H. R. H.,'" cried a bespectacled journalist who had been a silent
+listener hitherto.  "That's rather odd.  Those are the initials of
+Henry R. Hunter, a member of our staff.  The news editor wanted him to
+take hold in the first instance when the fact that a murder had been
+committed was 'phoned to the office, but he could not be found
+anywhere, so I am here in his stead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't recall anyone of that name," said Steingall sharply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, you wouldn't.  He was in our Chicago office till the beginning of
+September.  He did one or two bright things there that caught the
+chief's eye, so he was brought to New York.&#8230;  By Jove, Hunter is a
+good French scholar.  It was on that account he got on the track of a
+gang of Chicago anarchists."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A curious stillness fell on the gathering.  It was as though a spirit
+of evil had suddenly made its presence felt; even the electric lamps
+seemed to have grown dimmer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Describe Hunter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall's voice rang out incisively; the reporter took off his
+spectacles, and began to burnish them, for his face was glistening with
+perspiration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is about five feet ten inches in height, and weighs somewhere in
+the neighborhood of 150 pounds.  He is straight and well-built, and his
+face is finely molded, with big, luminous eyes, deeply recessed,
+and&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has he a white scar across the left eyebrow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For some reason, the journalist carried his description of Hunter's
+personal appearance no farther.  It was unnecessary.  Before Steingall
+uttered another word everyone in the room had a foreboding that they
+were on the threshold of a discovery which lifted this tragedy into a
+prominence far beyond aught they had yet dreamed of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Except for that momentary touch of amazement in the detective's tone
+they could gather nothing from his manner.  But his invariable habit
+was to speak to the point, and without the least suggestion of
+ambiguity in his words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am very much afraid, gentlemen, that the murdered man is Mr. Henry
+B. Hunter," he said.  "I must trouble you to come with me, and place
+the question of identity beyond doubt.  I hope that you, Mr. and Mrs.
+Curtis, and you, Mr. Devar, will make it convenient to await my return.
+There are matters on which you can give me valuable information."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few seconds the three found themselves alone.  The clerk had
+business to attend to, but he courteously invited them to remain in the
+office until the detective came back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you ever hear such nonsense as this talk about Curtis being mixed
+up in an abduction?" began Devar, eager to dispossess his friend's
+relatives of any false impressions they might have formed.  "Why, he
+didn't know a soul in the States&mdash;except yourselves," he added
+tactfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The uncle, who had been polishing his domed forehead with a large
+handkerchief at intervals during the past quarter of an hour, cleared
+his throat as a preliminary to some important announcement, but his
+better half had only kept silent because of a real fear that her nephew
+had been engaged in the commission of serious crime from the instant he
+set foot in New York, and she entered the fray vigorously now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't know much about him, and that's the truth, Mr. Devar," she
+cried.  "There was some family disagreement years ago, and the brothers
+lost track of each other, but Horace here never forgets a name, and why
+should he, seeing that John was his father's name, and Delancy his
+mother's, and our nephew has both, so the minute we saw that paragraph
+in the Chicago papers about the eminent American engineer who had been
+building railways in China being on board the <I>Lusitania</I>, I says to
+Horace: 'Horace, it would be shame on us if we allowed your brother's
+son and your own nephew to arrive in New York without some of his kith
+and kin to bid him welcome,' and with that we hustled to catch the next
+train east, but the steamer did the trip quicker'n we counted on, and
+we just missed being at the docks, so if it hadn't been for our good
+luck in finding the man who helped John with his baggage, and who
+remembered the name of the hotel he gave the taxi-driver, we might have
+been searching New York all this blessed night without dreaming of
+coming to such a place as this, because the newspapers spoke so highly
+of John that we made sure he would be stopping in one of the Fifth
+Avenue hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria or Hoffman House, or perhaps
+higher uptown, in the Ritz-Carlton or the Plaza."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Curtis was stout, so she yielded perforce to lack of breath, and
+Devar was able to explain smilingly that he, and none other, was
+responsible for the item in the newspapers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The fact is that I took a great liking to John D.," he said.  "He is
+such a real good fellow, and so sublimely unconscious of his own
+merits, that I wanted to surprise him by starting a modest boom in the
+press, so I sent a wireless message about him to a journalistic friend
+in New York.  I wondered why the reporters did not get hold of him when
+they came aboard at the quarantine station, but I remember now that, by
+some curious trick of fate, he and I stowed ourselves away in a part of
+the ship where no one was likely to find us, and I clean forgot to put
+them on his track when I went below."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guess my nephew has attended to the booming proposition on his own
+account," said Horace, getting under way at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar laughed, but Mrs. Curtis was shocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Horace!" she cried indignantly, "that's the only unkind thing I've
+heard you say in years.  Oh, yes,"&mdash;for her husband had spread his
+hands in mild protest&mdash;"I know you didn't mean it, but barbed shafts of
+humor often fall in places where they hurt, and it is terrible to think
+of your nephew being mixed up in a murder, and an abduction, and&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She broke off in mid-career, and fixed a stern eye on Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you quite sure he didn't get flirting with some giddy young thing
+on board?" she demanded.  "I've heard and read of some strange
+goings-on among people crossing the Atlantic.  I could tell you of two
+marriages and no less than five divorces which&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar was a polite young man, but he thought the situation called for
+firmness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To the best of my belief, your nephew never so much as spoke to any
+lady on the ship," he vowed.  "He read a good deal, and played cards
+occasionally, and walked the decks with me when the weather permitted,
+but he did not even mention a woman's name except your own, madam."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The marvel is that he mentioned us at all," said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar thought in his own mind, that the elder Curtis might be ponderous
+in body and speech but he certainly revealed horse sense when he opened
+his mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And whose fault was that, I should like to know?" cried Mrs. Curtis.
+"Didn't your own brother quarrel with you because you said he ought to
+have married a woman of some stability of character, and not a pretty,
+feather-headed girl who spent her days reading poetry and her nights in
+attending lectures, and who didn't begin to understand the A.B.C. of a
+wife's domestic duties?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe I was wrong and he was right," said her husband.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Horace!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Curtis was marshaling her forces for a mighty effort when the door
+opened, and Steingall entered, accompanied by a tall, well set-up man
+in evening dress, and wearing an open overcoat and green Homburg hat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," cried Devar, springing forward with outstretched hand, "I'm
+mighty glad to see you, John D.!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The newcomer's face lit with pleasure, but before he could utter a
+responsive word Mrs. Curtis gurgled:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John D.!&#8230;  Are you John Delancy Curtis?&#8230;  Horace, is this
+your nephew?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Judging from his looks, Louisa, he ought to be," said the stout man,
+gazing at the stranger with wide-eyed astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Christian names of the couple acted like a galvanic battery on
+Curtis.  At first, he could hardly believe his ears, but some
+resemblance in the portly Curtis to his own father warned him that this
+night of nights had not yet exhausted its store of stupefying surprises.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why!" he exclaimed, smiling cheerfully, "you must be my uncle and aunt
+from Bloomington, Indiana!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you're John Delancy Curtis, that's our correct description," said
+Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course he is," chortled Mrs. Curtis.  "He's as like you the day I
+married you as two peas in a pod, and if our little Horace had been
+spared he would have been his living image.  Nephew, I'm proud to meet
+you," and Mrs. Curtis folded her relation in an ample embrace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis carried off a difficult situation with ease.  He kissed his
+aunt, shook hands with his uncle, and was about to answer the lady's
+torrent of questions with regard to himself and his own people when
+Steingall interfered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry to interrupt you," he said, "but the turn taken by to-night's
+crime demands your immediate attention, Mr. Curtis.  Do you know you
+are wearing the dead man's overcoat?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  I discovered that fact some time ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis's prompt admission was more favorable to his cause than he could
+possibly realize then, though he had seen that the detective's
+extraordinarily brilliant eyes were fixed on the garment's
+blood-stained sleeve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And have you learnt the owner's name?" went on Steingall quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, that is, I believe so, owing to a document I found in one of the
+pockets."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, what was that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It concerned another person, but I am prepared to tell you its nature
+if it is absolutely essential."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Believe me, there must be no concealment&mdash;now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something in the detective's tone conveyed a hint of peril, of
+suspicion, to the ears of one so accustomed to dealing with his
+fellow-men as was Curtis.  But he shook off the premonition of ill, and
+decided, once and for all, to be candor itself where the authorities
+were concerned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was a marriage license," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the names on it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They were those of a Frenchman, Jean de Courtois, and of an English
+lady, Hermione Beauregard Grandison."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you have imagined that the man who was killed was this Monsieur
+Jean de Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the life of him, Curtis could not prevent the tumultuous pumping of
+his heart from drawing some of the color from his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who else?" he inquired, never flinching from Steingall's searching
+gaze.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No matter who owned the coat, or whom the license was intended for,
+the murdered man was no Frenchman, but a New York journalist named
+Henry R. Hunter," said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Curtis yielded to the swift conviction that he had unwittingly
+trapped Lady Hermione into a marriage on grounds that were inadequate
+and false.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good God!" he muttered, and, for the moment, it was impossible for his
+hearers to resist the dreadful inference that, in some shape or form,
+he was implicated in the outrage which bulked so large in their minds.
+Mrs. Curtis wanted to scream aloud, but she dared not.  Even Devar was
+staggered by his friend's unaccountable attitude.  The only outwardly
+unmoved individual present was Horace P. Curtis.  He turned and pressed
+an electric bell; Steingall glared at him, so he explained his action.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I feel like a highball," he said blandly.  "I guess Mrs. Curtis could
+do with one also.  In fact, five highballs would be a bully good
+notion."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TEN O'CLOCK
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Curtis had seized the opportunity while Hermione was in her room before
+dinner to rub the blood-stained sleeve of the overcoat with a wet
+cloth.  He had not, of course, been able to eradicate the ghastly dye
+wholly from the thick material, but the garment was now wearable, at
+any rate by night, and he had little fear of attracting attention as he
+crossed the brilliantly lighted foyer of the hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Passing out by the Fifth Avenue exit, he began the second cigar of the
+evening, and stood in the porch for a moment to collect his faculties.
+The time was five minutes of ten, and he had been married about an hour
+and a half.  He had just finished his second dinner, and for the
+guerdon of companionship with the charming and gracious girl whom fate
+had figuratively thrown into his arms he would cheerfully have tackled
+a third meal without any personal qualms as to subsequent indigestion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But, joking apart, he was married.  That was the overwhelming feature
+of life, a feature which dwarfed every other circumstance much as
+grimly gigantic Windsor Castle dominates the puny town beneath its
+walls.  The mere tying of the matrimonial knot had not troubled him.
+He was heart whole and fancy free then&mdash;or, not to strain the metaphor,
+he could have boasted those attributes a little earlier in the
+evening&mdash;and he recked nothing of the really serious legal disabilities
+incurred by the adventure.  But, like every other young man, his
+thoughts had turned sometimes to a young woman&mdash;not any special young
+woman, but that nebulous entity which is necessarily bound up with the
+notion that some day, somewhere, somehow, a man will encounter the maid
+in whose limpid eyes lurks his destiny.  He had pictured the desirable
+one in day-dreams, and, merely because of his violent antipathy towards
+the Eurasian element in the Far East, the dulcissima had appeared
+invariably as a tall, slender creature, with the lightest of flaxen
+hair and the grayest of gray eyes.  Now, some alchemy devised by the
+magician spirit of New York had fashioned his ideal, though slender,
+not so tall, and she owned a wealth of brown hair, hair that shone and
+glistened in every changing light, while her eyes were either blue or
+violet, just as one happened to catch the glint of them.  And she had
+fascinating ways, too, which the lady of his fantasy could never have
+displayed, or he would not have abandoned the vision so readily.  When
+she smiled, it was with lips and eyes in unison.  When she spoke he
+heard harmonies not framed in mere words, whereas the other fair dame
+was unquestionably a deaf mute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Indeed, while his glance was dwelling, to all outward semblance, on the
+passing traffic of one of New York's busiest thoroughfares, he was
+admitting to himself that he was deeply, irrevocably, in love, and the
+knowledge was almost stupefying.  To one of Curtis's temperament it
+seemed to be a wildly fanciful thing that he should have yielded so
+swiftly.  Two hours ago he had not seen Hermione, did not even know her
+name, whereas now he breathed it with devout reverence, though, with a
+perverseness seldom attached to such circumstances, the amazing fact
+that she was his wife formed a stubborn barrier against which the flood
+of new-born desire must rage in vain.  For, above all else, he held
+dear his plighted word.  He knew now that the marriage offered an
+almost insuperable obstacle to any effort on his part to win the girl's
+affections.  In her despair she had trusted him, and he awoke with a
+guilty start to consciousness of that winsome face being wrung with a
+new terror if for one instant she had reason to suspect him of other
+than the altruistic motives he had professed in giving her the
+protection of his name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Perhaps, in time&mdash;well, he was done now with moon-madness, and he
+stepped briskly down the avenue, firm set in purpose to risk everything
+for his wife's sake, and let the future rest in the lap of the gods.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This, be it noted, was his first stroll in New York.  The night was
+fine and clear, for Rafferty's diagnosis of "a touch of frost in the
+air" was becoming justified, and no thoroughfare in the world could
+lend itself more completely to the romance of that walk than the
+wonderful promenade which leads from Central Park to Madison Square.
+With few exceptions, the nineteenth century plutocrat has been ousted
+from that section of Fifth Avenue; a giant democracy has reared its own
+palaces in the shape of hotels and office buildings which pierce the
+skies, stores which rival the proudest mansions of Venice in its heyday
+and Florence under Lorenzo Medici.  Never in after life did Curtis
+forget that intimate glimpse of the grandeur and wealth of his native
+place.  Coming up the harbor by daylight he had been overwhelmed by New
+York's proud defiance of the limits imposed by nature, but now, partly
+veiled by the mystery of night, the city displayed a feminine beauty at
+once entrancing and elusive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At a cross street he paused for a moment to admire a gem of
+architecture wrenched bodily from its Cinque Cento setting by
+Brunelleschi, and transplanted to this new land to serve the opulent
+need of a vendor of precious stones and metals.  In the strip of dark
+blue firmament visible above the admirably proportioned cornice he
+caught sight of two planets flaming high in the west, and in close
+juxtaposition.  Necessity had made him somewhat of an astronomer, and
+he had studied Chinese astrology as a pastime.  He recognized these
+lamps of the empyrean as Mars and Venus, and, up-to-date American
+though he was, drew comfort from that favoring augury.  Then, in
+stepping from the roadway to the sidewalk, he stumbled over a heavy
+curb, and laughed at the reminder that star-gazing did not reveal
+pitfalls before unwary feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The incident knocked some of the poetry out of him, and it was a quite
+normal and level-headed young man who walked into the Central Hotel
+soon after ten o'clock, and found Detective Steingall's gaze resting on
+him contemplatively from the neighborhood of the cigar counter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before rejoining the waiting trio in the office, Steingall was
+interviewing the youth in charge of the tobacco and current literature
+department.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such story as the boy had to tell was hardly in favor of Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The gentleman came here to buy some stamps, and he and a man who was
+reading in the café said something to each other in a foreign lingo,"
+ran the recital.  "No, I don't think I would recognize French if I
+heard it&mdash;American is good enough for me&mdash;but there was no argument,
+nothing in the shape of a quarrel.  The Englishman spoke twice, and the
+other fellar three times."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Curtis is an American," Steingall explained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, he doesn't talk like one, anyhow," pronounced young New York&mdash;in
+this instance, of a pronounced Jewish type&mdash;which is perhaps the most
+dogmatic juvenility extant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Curtis entered.  He glanced around, and seemed to be gratified by
+the discovery that the hotel had lost its inquisitive crowd.  He did
+not realize that every newspaper office in New York was alive with
+conjecture of which he was the chief figure, and that telegraph and
+telephone were carrying his name and fame across the length and breadth
+of the country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello!" he said, hailing Steingall affably, "you here still?  Has
+anything turned up with regard to those scoundrels and their
+automobile?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a word&mdash;about them," said the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The purveyor of cigars and news was positively awe-stricken.  He was
+aware of Steingall's repute as the "man with the microscopic eye," and
+he fully expected that the "sleuth's" penetrating organ had already
+discerned the word "murderer" branded on Curtis's shirt front.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What time will you want me in the morning?" went on Curtis, looking in
+the direction of the office.  He was really thinking about the mislaid
+key; not for an instant did he imagine that by that simple gesture he
+had almost eradicated from Steingall's mind the germ of doubt which
+events had certainly conspired to plant there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want you now," came the somewhat startling answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some friends of yours are anxious to see you.  They are in the private
+office over there," and Steingall thrust out his chin in the indicative
+manner which the Romans used to call <I>annuens</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Howard Devar, I suppose.  But who else?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come along, Mr. Curtis.  You can stand a pleasant surprise, I am
+sure," and, with that, the detective led the way across the hall,
+leaving the youthful Jew in a maze of conflicting emotions, for,
+according to all the rules of the game as played in the dime novel, the
+tec' should have sprung on his prey like a tiger.  Another person whose
+nervous system received a shock was the super-clerk.  He, like the boy,
+knew of the network of suspicion which had closed on Curtis during the
+past two hours, and he had watched the cordial meeting between the two
+men with something akin to stupefaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But neither of these onlookers had grasped the really essential fact
+that Steingall did not say one word as to the hue and cry which
+resulted from Curtis's strange disappearance.  The detective was a
+master of the art of restraint.  In his own way, he applied to his
+profession the maxim of Horace&mdash;<I>Ars est celare artem</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he had his reward in that cry of dismay, almost of horror, which
+burst from Curtis's lips when he heard the true name of the murdered
+man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle Horace's seemingly maladroit interruption (it raised him to a
+pinnacle of esteem in Devar's mind from which he was never dislodged
+subsequently) prevented any striking development until a glad-eyed
+waiter had entered and taken an order for four highballs.  Even Mrs.
+Curtis admitted the need of a stimulant, but Curtis steadily refused
+any intoxicant, even the mildest.  Steingall endured the delay
+stoically.  He actually held back a sufficient time to allow Horace P.
+Curtis to empty his glass with one well-sustained effort.  Then he came
+to close quarters with Napoleonic directness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I take it you assumed that the dead man was the Jean de Courtois
+mentioned in the marriage license?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He gave that question pride of place in pursuance of a queer thought
+which had leaped into his brain during the enforced interval.  But, if
+he had been thinking hard, so had Curtis, and the latter had outlined a
+plan of action which was fated to disrupt Steingall's, much as a
+harmless looking percussion cap may interfere with the smug torpor of a
+powder magazine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Curtis, with the judicial nod of a man who states a
+comparatively obvious fact.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you that license?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Reposing in the writing-desk of the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes, a minister
+of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who lives in 56th Street, near
+Seventh Avenue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what is it doing there, pray?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I used it.  I have married Lady Hermione Grandison."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall permitted himself the rare luxury of a semi-hysterical break
+in his voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!" he cried.  "Is she the daughter of the Earl of Valletort?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Precisely, though you astonish me by the ease with which you connect
+two such widely different names.  Such knowledge usually implies a
+close acquaintance with the amiable foibles of the British aristocracy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Certainly it was well that Mrs. Horace P. Curtis had partaken of a
+tonic in the shape of a highball.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well!" she gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For once she was practically speechless, but she gave the astounded
+Devar a pitiless glance which said plainly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait till I get my breath, young man, and I'll take some of the
+cocksureness out of you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall soon gathered his scattered wits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you really speaking seriously, Mr. Curtis?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quite seriously."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was this marriage an arranged affair?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes.  The marriage itself was prearranged."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Candidly, I don't understand you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No?  I am not surprised.  But I do not wish you to remain under any
+misapprehension as to the true state of affairs.  Lady Hermione
+Grandison meant to marry a French music-master named Jean de Courtois.
+I thought, thought honestly but mistakenly, that the man was dead, and,
+as it was of vital importance that her ladyship should get married
+to-night, I offered my services as Jean de Courtois' substitute, and
+they were accepted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Am I to take that statement as literally true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Absolutely."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You were not acquainted with the lady earlier?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never seen or heard of her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How did you come to engage in this&mdash;this freak marriage, then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis measured Steingall with a contemplative eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are called on to assimilate a novel idea, and, in consequence, are
+choosing your words badly," he said.  "It was not a freak marriage.
+Although I may have broken the laws of the State of New York by using a
+license issued to some other person, Lady Hermione and I are legally
+husband and wife, and no power on earth can dissolve the union without
+the expressed consent of one or both of us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you mean me to accept the bald theory that you first learnt the
+lady's name and address from a document discovered in another man's
+overcoat, that you went to her house, told her the man was dead, and
+suggested that you should become the bridegroom in his stead?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As an adjective, 'bald' is&mdash;well, bald.  But you've got the affair
+sized up accurately otherwise."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, the shameless hussy!" broke in Mrs. Horace vehemently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall turned on her with a certain heat of manner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do not interrupt, madam, I beg," he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Better reserve judgment, aunt, until you have met my wife," said
+Curtis.  He spoke gently enough.  He had appraised his relatives almost
+at a glance, and was sufficiently broad-minded to allow for the natural
+distress of a respectable middle-aged lady who had been whirled, as it
+were, out of her wonted environment, and rapt into the realms of
+necromancy and Arabian Nights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall swept aside this intermission with the emphatic hand of a
+cross-examining lawyer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You say it was 'of vital importance that the lady should be married
+to-night.'  What does that imply?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you wish me to put it in different language?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want to know what the vitally important reason was.  I presume she
+furnished one?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, but how does that concern the New York police, Mr. Steingall?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Every element in this business concerns us.  The license was in
+Hunter's possession&mdash;was he bringing it to someone named de Courtois?
+Or was he masquerading under an alias?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Answering your second question, I imagine not.  I have the best of
+reasons for believing that Jean de Courtois exists.  I wish now I
+hadn't.  Don't you see, Steingall, I am in a deuce of a fix?  I married
+the lady under a misapprehension.  She might have really preferred this
+fellow, de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall liked a joke as well as any man in New York, and was not at
+all averse from chaffing some of his less gifted colleagues when their
+obtuseness or faithful adherence to the letter of instructions
+permitted a criminal to befool them; but he resented the levity of
+Curtis's tone now, though, deep in his heart, he felt that he liked the
+man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't seem to realize the peculiarly awkward position in which you
+stand," he said, with due official gravity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"On the contrary, I feel it acutely.  What am I to say to my wife&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not wrung with agony over the lady's sensitiveness," broke in the
+detective dryly.  "A good many people believe that you were concerned
+in this murder.  There are not lacking circumstantial details which
+warrant that view.  I am not saying too much when I tell you that some
+men, in my shoes, would arrest you forthwith."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis looked at Steingall quizzically, and even laughed with a
+whole-hearted appreciation of the jest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lucky for me I have fallen into the hands of a sensible person," he
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Allow me to remark," put in Uncle Horace solemnly, "that Mr. Steingall
+has won my unstinted admiration by the way in which he has conducted
+this inquiry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar was beginning to enjoy himself.  He alone was able to estimate
+Curtis at his true worth; even that astounding marriage was losing some
+of its bizarre attributes since Curtis had begun to talk about it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good for you, Mr. Curtis, senior," he crowed delightedly.  "If Indiana
+knew what it really wanted it would run you for Governor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall nearly became angry.  Indeed, it is probable that he would
+have expressed his sentiments in strong language were it not for the
+presence of Mrs. Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, sir," he said, with a perceptible stiffening of manner, "let us
+have done with pretense.  You strike me as being sane, yet you ask me
+to believe that you have acted like a lunatic.  Well, let it go at
+that.  Who is this Jean de Courtois, whom Lady Hermione Grandison was
+to have married to-night?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My wife tells me that he is a French music-master whom she hired to
+marry her in order that she might escape from a pestiferous person
+named Count Ladislas Vassilan," replied Curtis with cool directness.
+"She brought the obliging individual with her from Paris for the
+purpose, and paid him a thousand dollars as a sort of retaining fee.
+From what little I have seen of her, she impresses me as a charming
+girl wholly without experience of a world which, though not altogether
+wicked, is nevertheless callous and self-seeking.  Among other
+drawbacks, she embarked on a fantastic project with a most disingenuous
+belief in the good faith of a Frenchman.  Now, I admire France as a
+nation, but where women are concerned, I distrust Frenchmen as a race,
+and I suspect&mdash;mind you, I am merely guessing&mdash;but I repeat that I
+suspect the honesty of Monsieur Jean de Courtois in this matter.  There
+was no earthly reason why he should not have married Lady Hermione some
+weeks ago, but it is clear that he has used every artifice to delay the
+ceremony until to-night&mdash;and, it may be found when we learn the facts,
+was prepared to put it off once more till to-morrow or next day.  Why?
+In my opinion, the reason is not far to seek.  The Earl of Valletort
+and Count Ladislas Vassilan were crossing the Atlantic hot in pursuit
+of the unwilling bride.  They arrived in New York to-night, and were so
+well posted in events, both past and prospective, that they headed
+straight for the flat in which Lady Hermione was living with her maid.
+Naturally, I am keenly interested in the causes which led up to a
+peculiarly brutal and uncalled-for murder, and, as my wife's husband, I
+have the further incentive of hoping to bring to justice certain of her
+persecutors whom I cannot help connecting indirectly with the crime of
+which I was, I suppose, one of the most credible and intelligent
+witnesses.  Now, before I was aware that such a winsome creature
+existed as the present Lady Hermione Curtis, I had estimated the
+murderers as Hungarians, two of them at any rate, since I am hardly
+prepared to vouch for the chauffeur.  Count Ladislas Vassilan is a
+Hungarian.  The poor fellow who was killed, though his name is American
+enough, spoke French with a pure accent.  One of the Hungarians spoke
+French, fluently but vilely.  Jean de Courtois is admittedly a
+Frenchman.  I am not a detective, Mr. Steingall, but as a plain man of
+affairs I am forced to the conclusion that there has seldom been a
+similarly mysterious crime in which certain lines of inquiry thrust
+themselves more pertinently on the imagination.  To sum up, I advise
+you to find Jean de Courtois&mdash;unless, indeed, he, too, has been
+killed&mdash;and you will be in close touch with the origin of the whole
+ugly business."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good egg!" cried the irresistible Devar.  "It's a pity you were not
+with us on the <I>Lusitania</I>, Mr. Steingall, or you would realize that
+when John D. rears up on his hind legs, and talks like that, there is
+nothing more to be said."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is Lady Hermione a pretty girl?" demanded Mrs. Curtis eagerly.  Her
+democratic soul was rejoicing in the discovery that her nephew's wife
+did not lose her title because of the marriage.  Of course, no one ever
+before heard of such folly as this matrimonial leap in the dark, but,
+once taken, there was satisfaction in the thought that the bride was an
+earl's daughter.  Moreover, she had read of such queer goings on among
+the British Aristocracy that a wedding at sight was a comparatively
+venial offense.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis assured his aunt that Hermione was the most beautiful and
+fascinating person he had ever met, and Steingall listened to the
+eulogy with a grinning rictus of jaw.  In the whole course of his
+professional experience he had never encountered anything on a par with
+this capricious blend of comedy and tragedy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course, it did not escape his acute brain that Curtis was right in
+assuming that the <I>clou</I> of the situation lay with Jean de Courtois.
+Dead or alive, the Frenchman must be found, and found quickly.  The
+extraordinary story told by Curtis, if true&mdash;and the detective was
+persuaded that this curiously constituted young man was not trying to
+hoodwink him in any particular&mdash;pointed a ready way toward
+investigation.  The unfortunate journalist, Hunter, was about to enter
+the Central Hotel when he was attacked so mercilessly.  As a
+consequence, some knowledge of de Courtois was probably awaiting the
+first questioner at the inquiry counter.  What a whimsical incongruity
+it would be if he were told that the French music-master around whom
+the inquiry pivoted was within arm's length all the time!  He had
+actually turned to the door in order to summon the hotel clerk when
+that worthy himself knocked and entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Earl of Valletort is here, and wishes to have a word with you, Mr.
+Steingall," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective's present grim conceit ran somewhat to the effect that if
+he remained long enough in the Central Hotel he would accumulate
+sufficient evidence to electrocute three criminals, at least, and send
+others to the penitentiary, but he merely nodded and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Show his lordship right in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was conscious of a dramatic pause in the conversation which had
+broken out between the others.  Once again had Mrs. Curtis been
+rendered dumb by the shock of an unforeseen development.  Devar, who
+was having the night of his life, leaned back against the wainscot,
+Uncle Horace peered hopelessly into an empty tumbler, but dared not
+suggest a second highball, while Curtis, after one sharp glance at the
+detective, whom he credited with having arranged this surprise in some
+inexplicable way, thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets and
+awaited the advent of Hermione's father with a calmness that he himself
+could hardly account for.  Hitherto, his adventurous life had been made
+up of strenuous effort tempered by the Anglo-Saxon phlegm which
+disregards dangers and difficulties.  Prolonged strain of an emotional
+nature was new to him.  He understood, but did not apply the knowledge,
+that when the human vessel is full to the brim with excitement, the
+earth may rock and the heavens roll together in fury without the power
+to add one more drop of gall or distress to the completed measure.  At
+that instant, if the Earl of Valletort had been accompanied by the
+embodied ghosts of his ancestors, Curtis would have viewed the
+procession with unconcern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Earl, a handsome slightly built, erect man of fifty, hawk-nosed,
+keen-eyed, with drooping mustache and carefully arranged thin gray
+hair, glanced at Curtis as he might have regarded any other stranger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have disposed of my friend," he said to Steingall, "and I hurried
+back here on off-chance that you might still be engaged in&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Before your lordship enters into details, allow me to introduce Mr.
+John D. Curtis," said Steingall, silently thanking the fates which had
+brought about a meeting so opportune to his own task if embarrassing to
+its chief actors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. John D. Curtis, the&mdash;the person who conspired with my daughter to
+contract an illegal marriage!" barked the Earl, instantly dropping the
+repose of Vere de Vere.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John Delancy Curtis, at any rate," said Curtis gravely.  "As your
+son-in-law, may I remark that a few minutes' conversation with a lawyer
+will enable you to correct two misstatements in the rest of your
+description?  There was no conspiracy, and the ceremony was
+unquestionably legal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Earl gave him one searching and envenomed look, and appealed
+forthwith to the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I charge that man with abduction and personation," he cried, and his
+voice grew husky with wrath.  "There can be no gainsaying the facts.
+My daughter, it is true, had arranged a marriage with a Monsieur Jean
+de Courtois.  It was provisionally fixed to take place this evening at
+eight o'clock, but, by some means not known to me, the marriage license
+came into the hands of this admitted law-breaker, and he evidently
+persuaded a foolish and impetuous girl to accept him instead of de
+Courtois.  I am not an authority on the laws of the State of New York,
+but I stake my reputation on the belief that a flagrant offense has
+been committed against the social ordinances of any well regulated
+community.  I now call on you to arrest him, or, if official process is
+needed, to direct me to the proper authority."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you any proof of the charge?" said Steingall, who had not failed
+to observe Curtis's air of unconcern under the Earl's fiery
+denunciation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Proof in plenty," came the snarling answer.  "I have seen the license
+and the signed register, and Monsieur de Courtois is known to me
+personally.  Besides, have you not this rascal's own admission?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why omit the equally damning evidence of conspiracy?" demanded Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean, you, you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Interloper.  How will that serve?  It was you who spoke of conspiring,
+though I grant you seem to have dropped that item of the indictment.
+But Mr. Steingall, as representing the law, should hear the full tale
+of villainy.  If your lordship will produce de Courtois's letters,
+cablegrams, and wireless messages to yourself and your confederate,
+Count Ladislas Vassilan, he will begin to appreciate the true bearing
+of a rather intricate inquiry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a chance shot, but it went home.  Curtis had not spent ten years
+in counteracting Manchu scheming and duplicity without arriving at
+certain basic principles in laying bare the methods of double-dealing,
+and the Earl of Valletort was manifestly disturbed by this cold
+analysis of facts which he imagined were known to an exceedingly
+limited circle in New York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he had the presence of mind to waive aside Curtis's allegations as
+unworthy of discussion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I address myself to you," he said to Steingall.  "Have I made my
+request clear, or shall I repeat it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you any objection to answering a few questions, my lord?" said
+the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"None whatsoever."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When did you and Count Vassilan arrive in New York?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At twenty minutes after eight to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How did you ascertain what was happening with regard to your daughter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By inquiry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, but from whom?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From the minister who performed an unauthorized ceremony."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How did you know where to go so promptly to secure information?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was kept informed of my daughter's movements by agents."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who were they?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Their names will be given at the right time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The right time is now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are not a magistrate.  I take it you are a police officer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your lordship may feel well assured on that point.  It is exactly
+because I am a police officer that I press for a reply.  Your grievance
+against Mr. John D. Curtis is much more of a matter for a civil than a
+criminal court.  I guess he has broken the law, but the machinery for
+putting it in motion is not under my control.  I am investigating a
+murder, and every word you have said confirms my belief that your
+daughter's contemplated marriage was the indirect but none the less
+certain cause of the crime.  Now, Lord Valletort, who were your inquiry
+agents?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ha!" muttered Uncle Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a simple enough ejaculation, but it served to drive home the
+nail which the detective's outspoken declaration had hammered into the
+Earl's startled consciousness.  Here, in truth, was a new and
+disturbing phase of the matrimonial problem contrived by Hermione,
+aided and abetted by that mischievous scoundrel, Curtis.  Still, he was
+not one to be driven easily into a corner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You practically refer me to a lawyer for advice; I take you at your
+word," he said, with a quick return to the self-controlled attitude of
+an experienced man of the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You decline, then, to answer the only vitally important question I
+have put to you?" said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I decline to answer that question until I have consulted someone
+better able&mdash;or shall I say, more willing?&mdash;to instruct me as to the
+speediest means of punishing a malefactor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The noble lord is disqualified," broke in Devar.  "This is the second
+time since the flag fell that he has refused his fences."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you interrupt again I shall turn you out of the room, Mr. Devar,"
+cried Steingall vexedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, dash it all, Steingall, somebody must see that John D. has fair
+play.  He only swerved once, and then for a single stride, while he&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall not warn you a second time," and Devar knew that the detective
+meant what he said, and kept quiet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I ask where the police headquarters are situated?" said the Earl
+in the frostiest tone he could command at the moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At the corner of Center Street and Grand," said Steingall
+indifferently.  He was about to add the unpleasing fact&mdash;unpleasing to
+Lord Valletort, that is&mdash;that the man on duty at the Detective Bureau
+would certainly refer an inquirer to him, Steingall, when the clerk
+reappeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A patrolman has brought a note for you," he said, handing Steingall a
+sealed letter, which the detective opened instantly after glancing at
+the superscription.  It was from the police captain, and ran:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Count Vassilan has just left the Waldorf-Astoria in a taxi.  Clancy is
+driving."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Steingall's face betrayed no more expression than that of the Sphinx,
+though inwardly he was consumed with laughter; he himself was chief of
+the Bureau, and Clancy was his most trusted assistant!  Certainly, the
+gods were contriving a spicy dish for the news-loving inhabitants of
+New York.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TEN-THIRTY
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The Earl of Valletort turned on his heel, and went out abruptly.
+Therefore, he missed Steingall's first words to the hotel clerk, which
+would have given him furiously to think, while it is reasonable to
+suppose that he would have paid quite a large sum of money to have
+heard the clerk's answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the detective said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you happen to know anything about a Frenchman, name of Jean de
+Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the clerk replied:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, yes.  He's in his room now, I believe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In his room&mdash;where?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here, of course.  He came in about 6.30, took his key and a
+Marconigram, and has not showed up since."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle Horace could withstand the strain no longer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you mind sending the waiter again?" he gasped.  "If I don't get
+a pick-me-up of some sort quickly, I'll collapse."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Aunt Louisa would dearly have loved to put in a word, but she knew not
+what to say.  Life at Bloomington supplied no parallel to the rapidity
+of existence in New York that evening.  She was aware of statements
+being made in language which rang familiarly in her ears, but they had
+no more coherence in her clogged understanding than the gabble of
+dementia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall was the least surprised of the five people who listened to
+the clerk's words.  The notion that de Courtois might be close at hand
+had dawned on him already; still, he was not prepared to hear that the
+man was actually a resident in the hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has Monsieur de Courtois lived here some time?" he asked, not without
+a sharp glance at Curtis to see how the suspect was taking this new
+phase in his adventure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"About a month," said the clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has he received many visitors?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A few, mostly foreigners.  A Mr. Hunter called here occasionally, and
+they dined together last evening.  I believe Mr. Hunter is connected
+with the press."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The clerk wondered why he was being catechized about the Frenchman.  He
+had no more notion that de Courtois and Hunter were connected with the
+tragedy than the man in the moon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take me to Monsieur de Courtois's room," Said Steingall, after a
+momentary pause.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I come with you?" inquired Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am deeply interested in de Courtois, and I may be able to help you
+in questioning him.  I speak French well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So do I," said Steingall.  "But, come if you like."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For the love of Heaven, don't leave me out of this, Steingall,"
+pleaded Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective was blessed with a sense of humor; he realized that the
+inquiry had long since passed the bounds of official decorum, and its
+irregularities had proved so illuminative that he was not anxious to
+check them yet a while.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," he said, "you'll do no harm if you keep a still tongue in your
+head."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll come back to us, John, won't you?" broke in Mrs. Curtis,
+desperately contributing the first commonplace remark that occurred to
+her bemused brain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, aunt.  I'll rejoin you here.  Shall I have some supper sent in
+for both of you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, my boy," said Uncle Horace, who had revived under the prospect of
+a long drink.  "If any feasting is to be done later it is up to me to
+arrange it.  The night is young.  I hope to have the honor of toasting
+your wife before I go to bed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis smiled at that, but made no reply, the moment being inopportune
+for explanations, but Devar murmured, as they crossed the lobby with
+Steingall and the clerk:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That uncle of yours is a peach, John D.  He points the moral like a
+Greek chorus."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fear he will regard me as a hare-brained nephew," said Curtis.  "As
+for my aunt, poor lady, she must think me the most extraordinary human
+being she has ever set eyes on.  What puzzles me most is&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wow!  I know what aunts are capable of," broke in Devar rapidly, for
+he was doubtful now how his friend would regard the publicity he had
+not desired.  "Mrs. Curtis, senior, is thanking her stars at this
+minute that she will have a chance of paralyzing Bloomington with full
+details of her nephew's marriage into the ranks of the British
+aristocracy.  The odd thing is that I'm tickled to death by the notion
+that I, little Howard, put you in for this night's gorgeous doings.
+Didn't you wonder why I passed up an introduction to <I>my</I> aunt and my
+cousins in the Customs shed?  Man alive, if Mrs. Morgan Apjohn had made
+your acquaintance to-day she would have insisted on your dining with
+the family to-night, and at 7.30 P.M.  your feet would have been safely
+tucked under the mahogany in her home on Riverside Drive instead of
+leading you into the maze you seem to have found so readily.  All I
+wanted was an excuse to get away soon.  Gee whizz!  What a fireworks
+display you've put up in the meantime!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fifth," said the clerk to the elevator attendant, and the four men
+shot skyward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As each floor above the street level was a replica of the next higher
+one, Curtis happened to note that the route followed to the Frenchman's
+room was similar to that leading to 605.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What number does Monsieur de Courtois occupy?" he inquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"505," said the clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then it is directly beneath mine?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir.  He must have heard us breaking open your door."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon.  Heard what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We committed some minor offenses with regard to your property during
+your absence," said Steingall, "but they were of slight account as
+compared with your own extravagances.  Let me warn you not to say too
+much before de Courtois.  Even taking your version of events, Mr.
+Curtis, Lord Valletort will probably raise a wasps' nest about your
+ears in the morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why <I>break open</I> the door?  Surely, there was a pass key&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sh-s-sh!  Here we are!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall tapped lightly on a panel of 505, and the four listened
+silently for any response.  None came&mdash;that is, there was nothing which
+could be recognized as the sound of a voice or of human movement inside
+the room.  Nevertheless, they fancied they heard something, and the
+detective knocked again, somewhat more insistently.  Now they were
+intent for the slightest noise behind that closed door, and they caught
+a subdued groan or whine, followed by the metallic creak of a bed-frame.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that instant a chamber-maid hurried up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was just going to 'phone the office," she said to the clerk.  "A
+little while ago I tried to enter that room, but my key would not turn
+in the lock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you hear anyone stirring within?" asked the clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir.  I knocked, and there was no answer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen now, then."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A third time did Steingall rap on the door, and the strange whine was
+repeated, while there could be no question that a bed was being dragged
+or shoved to and fro on a carpeted floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My land!" whispered the girl in an awed tone.  "There's something
+wrong in there!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me try your key," said the clerk.  He rattled the master-key in
+the keyhole, but with no avail.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose it acts all right in every other lock?" he growled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, sir.  I've been using it all the evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Someone has tampered with the lock from the outside," he said
+savagely.  "There is nothing for it but to send for the engineer.
+Before we're through with this business we'll pull the d&mdash;d hotel to
+pieces.  A nice reputation the place will get if all this door-forcing
+appears in the papers to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Certainly the clerk was to be pitied.  Never before had the decorum of
+the Central Hotel been so outraged.  Its air of smug respectability
+seemed to have vanished.  Even to the clerk's own disturbed imagination
+the establishment had suddenly grown raffish, and its dingy paint and
+drab upholstery resembled the make-up and cloak of a scowling tragedian.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A strong-armed workman came joyously.  He had already figured as a
+personage below stairs, because of his earlier experiences, and it was
+a cheering thing to be called on twice in one night to participate in a
+mystery which was undoubtedly connected with the murder in the street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before adopting more strenuous methods he inserted a piece of strong
+wire into the keyhole, thinking to pick the lock by that means; but he
+soon desisted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some joker has been at that game before me," he announced.  "A chunk
+of wire has been forced in there after the door was locked."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From the outside?" inquired Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir.  These locks work by a key only from without.  There is a
+handle inside.&#8230;  Well, here goes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few blows with a sharp chisel soon cut away sufficient of the frame
+to allow the door to be forced open.  On this occasion, there being no
+wedge in the center, it was not necessary to attack the hinges, and,
+once the lock was freed, the door swung back readily into the interior
+darkness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The engineer, remembering his needless alarm at falling head foremost
+into Curtis's room, went forward boldly enough now, and paid for his
+temerity.  He was so anxious to be the first to discover whatever
+horror existed there that he made for the center of the apartment
+without waiting to turn on the light, and, as a consequence, when he
+stumbled over something which he knew was a human body, and was greeted
+with a subdued though savage whine, he was even more frightened than
+before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But no one was concerned about him or his feelings when Steingall
+touched an electric switch and revealed a bound and gagged man fastened
+to a leg of the bed.  At first, owing to the extraordinary posture of
+the body, it was feared that another tragedy had been enacted.  The
+victim of an uncanny outrage was lying on his side, and his arms and
+legs were roughly but skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise
+that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven.  After securing him in
+this fashion, his assailants had fastened the ends of the rope to the
+iron frame of the bed, and his only possible movement was an
+ignominious half roll, back and forth, in a space of less than eight
+inches.  This maneuver he had evidently been engaged in as soon as he
+heard voices and knocking outside, but he had been gagged with such
+brutal efficacy that his sole effort at speech was a species of whinny
+through his nose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective's knife speedily liberated him; when he was lifted from
+the floor and laid gently on the bed, he remained there, quite
+speechless and overcome.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall turned to the agitated chambermaid, whose eyes were round
+with terror, and who would certainly have alarmed the hotel with her
+screams had she come upon the occupant of the room in the course of her
+rounds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bring a glass of hot milk, as quickly as you can," he said, and the
+girl sped away to the service telephone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wouldn't brandy be better?" inquired Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  Milk is the most soothing liquid in a case like this.  The man's
+jaws are sore and aching.  Probably, too, he is faint from fright and
+want of food.  If we can get him to sip some milk he will be able to
+tell us, perhaps, just what has happened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While they awaited the return of the chamber-maid, the party of
+rescuers gazed curiously at the prostrate figure on the bed.  They saw
+a small, slight, neatly built man, attired in evening dress, whose
+sallow face was in harmony with a shock of black hair.  A large and
+somewhat vicious mouth was partly concealed by a heavy black mustache,
+and the long-fingered, nervous hands were sure tokens of the artistic
+temperament.  There could be no manner of doubt that this hapless
+individual was Jean de Courtois.  He looked exactly what he was, a
+French musician, while initials on his boxes, and a number of letters
+on the dressing-table, all testified to his identity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis, Devar, and the hotel clerk seemed to be more interested in the
+appearance of the half-insensible de Courtois than Steingall.  He gave
+him one penetrating glance, and would have known the man again after
+ten years had they been parted that instant; but, if he favored the
+Frenchman with scant attention, he made no scruples about examining the
+documents on the table, though his first care was to thank the workman,
+and send him from the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," he muttered to the others in a low tone, "leave the questioning
+to me, and mention no names."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He picked up a Marconigram lying among the letters, and read it.
+Without a word, but smiling slightly, he handed it unobtrusively to
+Curtis.  It bore that day's date, and the decoded time of delivery was
+4 P.M.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Arriving to-night," it ran.  "Coming direct Fifty-Ninth Street.
+Expect us there about eight-thirty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis smiled, too.  He grasped the detective's unspoken thought.
+Steingall had as good as said that the message bore out Curtis's
+counter charge against Count Vassilan and the Earl of Valletort of
+conspiring with de Courtois himself to defeat Lady Hermione's marriage
+project.  Indeed, before replacing the slip of paper on the table, the
+detective produced a note-book, and entered therein particulars which
+would secure proof of the Marconigram's origin if necessary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The maid hurried in with the milk, and Steingall, who had covered more
+ground among the Frenchman's correspondence than the others gave him
+credit for, now acted as nurse.  With some difficulty he succeeded in
+persuading the stricken man on the bed to relax his firmly closed jaws
+and endeavor to swallow the fluid.  It was a tedious business, but
+progress became more rapid when de Courtois realized that he was in the
+hands of those who meant well by him.  It was noticeable, too, as his
+senses returned and the panic glare left his eyes, that his expression
+changed from one of abject fear to a lowering look of suspicious
+uncertainty.  He peered at Steingall and the hotel clerk many times,
+but gave Curtis and Devar only a perfunctory glance.  Oddly enough, the
+fact that the two latter were in evening dress seemed to reassure him,
+and it became evident later that the presence of the clerk led him to
+regard these strangers as guests in the hotel who had been attracted to
+his room by the mere accident of propinquity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His first intelligible words, uttered in broken English, were:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Vat time ees eet?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ten-thirty," said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Ah, cré nom d'un nom</I>!  I haf to go, queek!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where to?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No mattaire.  I tank you all to-morrow.  I explain eferyting den.
+Now, I go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You had better stay where you are, Monsieur de Courtois," said
+Steingall in French.  "Milord Valletort and Count Vassilan have
+arrived.  I have seen them, and nothing more can be done with respect
+to their affair tonight.  I am the chief of the New York Detective
+Bureau, and I want you to tell me how you came to be in the state in
+which you were found."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But de Courtois was regaining his wits rapidly, and the clarifying of
+his senses rendered him obviously unwilling to give any information as
+to the cause of his own plight.  Nor would he speak French.  For some
+reason, probably because of a permissible vagueness in statements
+couched in a foreign tongue, he insisted on using English.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eef you haf seen my frien's you tell me vare I fin' dem.  I come your
+office to-morrow, an' make ze complete explanation," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must trouble you to-night, please," insisted Steingall quietly.
+"You don't understand what has occurred while you were fastened up
+here.  You know Mr. Henry R. Hunter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, yes.  I know heem."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, he was stabbed while alighting from an automobile outside this
+hotel shortly before eight o'clock, and I imagine he was coming to see
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stabbed!  Did zey keel heem?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  Now, tell me who 'they' were."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Monsieur Jean de Courtois was taken instantly and violently ill.  He
+dropped back on the bed, from which he had risen valiantly in his
+eagerness to be stirring, and faintly proclaimed his inability to grasp
+what the detective was saying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, <I>Grand Dieu</I>!" he murmured.  "I am eel; fetch a doctaire.  My
+brain, eet ees, vat you say, <I>étourdi</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will soon recover from your illness.  Come, now, pull yourself
+together, and tell me who the men were who tied you up, and why, if you
+can give a reason."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Frenchman shut his eyes, and groaned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am stranjare here, Monsieur le Commissaire," he said brokenly.  "I
+know no ones, nodings.  Milor' Valletort, he ees acquaint.  Send for
+heem, and bring ze doctaire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you understand that your friend, Mr. Hunter, the journalist who
+was helping you in the matter of Lady Hermione Grandison's marriage,
+has been murdered?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other men in the room caught a new quality in Steingall's voice.
+Contempt, disgust, utter disdain of a type of rascal whom he would
+prefer to deal with most fittingly by kicking him, were revealed in
+each syllable; but Jean de Courtois was apparently deaf to the mean
+opinion his conduct was inducing among those who had extricated him
+from a disagreeable if not actually dangerous predicament.  He squirmed
+convulsively, and half sobbed his inability to realize the true nature
+of anything that had happened either to himself or to any other person.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very well," said the detective, "if you are so thoroughly knocked out
+I'll see that you are kept quiet for the rest of the evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to the clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Kindly arrange that two trustworthy men shall undress this ill-used
+gentleman.  He may be given anything to eat or drink that he requires,
+but if he shows signs of delirium, such as a desire to go out, or write
+letters, or use the telephone, he must be stopped, forcibly if
+necessary.  Should he become violent, ring up the nearest police
+station-house.  I'll send a doctor to him in a few minutes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+De Courtois revived slightly under the stimulus of these emphatic
+directions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I haf not done ze wrong," he protested.  "Eet ees me who suffare, and
+I do not permeet dis interference wid my leebairty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see," said Steingall coolly.  "His mind is wandering already.
+Just 'phone for a couple of attendants, will you, and I'll give them
+instructions.  I take full responsibility, of course."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, monsieur&mdash;&mdash;" cried the Frenchman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you mind getting a move on?  I am losing time here," said
+Steingall quietly to the clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I claim ze protection of my consul," sputtered de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor fellow!  He is quite light-headed," said the detective
+sympathetically, addressing the company at large but speaking in
+French.  "I do hope most sincerely that I may arrest those infernal
+Hungarians to-night.  Not only did they kill Hunter but they have
+brought this little man to death's door."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The effect of these few harmless sounding words was electrical.
+Monsieur de Courtois' angry demeanor suddenly changed to that of a
+sufferer almost as seriously injured as Steingall made out.  He
+collapsed utterly, and never lifted his head even when most drastic
+measures were enjoined on a couple of sturdy negroes as to the care
+that must be devoted to the invalid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall was astonishingly outspoken to Curtis and Devar while they
+were walking to the elevator.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am surprised that that miserable whelp escaped with his life," he
+said.  "Usually, in cases of this sort, the rascal who betrays his
+friends receives short shrift from those who make use of him.  He knows
+too much for their safety, and gets a knife between his ribs as soon as
+his services cease to be valuable."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must confess that I don't begin to grasp the bearings of this
+affair," admitted Curtis.  "It is almost grotesque to imagine that a
+number of men could be found in New York who would stop short of no
+crime, however daring, simply to prevent a young lady from marrying in
+despite of her father's wishes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, the young lady figures large in your eyes," said Steingall
+with a dry laugh.  "You haven't thought this matter out, Mr. Curtis.
+When you have slept on it, and the fact dawns on you that there are
+other people in the world than the charming Lady Hermione, you will
+realize that she is a mere pawn around whom a number of very important
+persons are contending.  I don't wish to say a word to depreciate her
+as a star of the first magnitude, but I am greatly mistaken if there is
+not another woman, either here or in Europe, whose personality, if
+known, would attract far more attention from the police.&#8230;  By the
+way, has it occurred to you that Providence has certainly befriended
+you to-night?  The dare-devils who murdered Hunter were inclined to
+kill you in error.&#8230;  Now, I want you to concentrate your mind on
+the face and expression of that chauffeur, Anatole.  Keep him
+constantly in your thoughts.  If you can swear to him when we parade
+him before you with half-a-dozen other men, I shall soon strip the
+inquiry of its mystery."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the hall they were surrounded by a squad of reporters, and three
+photographers took flashlight pictures.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello!" muttered the detective to Curtis, "they've found you!  Now we
+must use our brains to get you out of this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They escaped the journalists by closing the door of the office on them.
+Then the clerk was summoned, and solved the first difficulty by
+revealing a back-stairs exit by way of the basement.  An attendant was
+sent to Curtis's room, to pack a grip with some clothes and linen, and,
+by adroit maneuvering, the whole party got away from the hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall insisted on interviewing Lady Hermione that night.  He
+pointed out, reasonably enough, that she might possess a good deal of
+valuable information concerning Count Ladislas Vassilan; if, as Curtis
+believed was the case, she had already retired to rest, she must be
+aroused.  The hour was not so late, and Vassilan's movements in New
+York might be elucidated by knowledge of his previous career.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Curtis announced that his bride was installed in the Plaza Hotel,
+and, while he and Devar escaped through the cellars, Steingall took
+Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa boldly through the lobby.  A taxi was
+waiting there, and he gave the driver the address of the police
+headquarters downtown, but re-directed him when they were safe from
+pursuit, and the three, so oddly assorted as companions, arrived at the
+Plaza within a minute of the two young men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall went straight to the telephone room, and Curtis ascended to
+his suite of apartments.  He knocked at Hermione's door, and her "Yes,
+who is there?" came with disconcerting speed.  Evidently, she was far
+from being asleep yet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is I&mdash;dear," said Curtis, in whom the mere sense of being near his
+"wife" induced a species of vertigo.  Indeed, he was horribly nervous,
+since he could not form the slightest notion as to the manner in which
+she would receive the latest news of de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door was opened without delay, and Hermione appeared, dressed
+exactly as she was when he bade her farewell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but it cannot be helped.  Things
+have been happening since I left you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her face blanched, but she tried to smile, though the corners of her
+mouth drooped piteously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are not here already?" she cried, and he had no occasion to ask
+who "they" were.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he said, with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.  "The fact
+is I&mdash;I&mdash;have brought some friends to see you.  That is, some of them
+will, I hope, be your very good friends&mdash;my uncle and aunt, and young
+Howard Devar, whom I spoke about earlier.  There is a detective, too&mdash;a
+very decent fellow named Steingall.  Shall I bring them here?  It will
+be pleasanter than being stared at in a crowded supper room."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was surprised, but the relief in her tone was unmistakable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want any supper," she said.  "I shall be glad to meet your
+relatives, of course, though&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Though you think I might have mentioned them sooner?  Well, the
+strangest part of the business is that they should be in New York at
+all.  I haven't the remotest idea as to why they are here, or how they
+dropped across me.  But isn't it a rather fortunate thing?  They may
+prove useful in a hundred ways."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please don't keep them waiting.  What does the detective want?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Every syllable you can tell him about Count Vassilan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hardly know the man at all.  I always avoided him in Paris."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may be astonished by the number of facts you will produce when
+Steingall questions you.  And, I had better warn you that my uncle is
+even now consulting the head-waiter about a wedding feast.  He has
+adopted you without reservation on my poor description."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His frankly admiring look brought a blush to her cheeks; but she only
+laughed a little constrainedly, and murmured that she would try to be
+as complacent as the occasion demanded.  Events were certainly in
+league to lend her wedding night a remarkably close semblance to the
+real thing.  And as Curtis descended to the foyer to summon their
+waiting guests he decided then and there not to mar the festivities by
+any explanations concerning Jean de Courtois's second time on earth.
+Steingall had practically settled the question by confining the
+Frenchman to his room for the remainder of the night.  Why interfere
+with an admirable arrangement?  Let the wretched intriguer be forgotten
+till the morrow, at any rate!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+ELEVEN O'CLOCK
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+"In multitude of counselors there is safety," says the Book of
+Proverbs.  Usually, the philosophy attributed to Solomon exhibits a
+soundness of judgment which is unrivaled, so it is reasonable to assume
+that in Hebrew gnomic thought four do not constitute a multitude,
+because four people agreed with Curtis that there was not the slightest
+need to mention Jean de Courtois to Hermione that evening, and five
+people were wrong, though in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they
+might have been right.  Hermione herself admitted afterwards that she
+would have believed Curtis implicitly had he explained the
+circumstances which accounted for his undoubted conviction that de
+Courtois was dead; indeed, she went so far as to say that, as a matter
+of choice, she infinitely preferred the American to the Frenchman in
+the role of a husband <I>pro tem</I>.  She had never regarded de Courtois
+from any other point of view than as her paid ally, and she was
+beginning to share Curtis's belief that the man was a double-dealer, a
+fact which helped to modify her natural regret at the report of his
+death in her behalf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a calmer mood, too, Curtis would have been quick to realize that a
+girl who had reposed such supreme confidence in his probity was
+entitled to share his fullest knowledge of the extraordinary bond which
+united them, but for one half-hour he was swayed by expediency, and
+expediency often exercises a disrupting influence on a friendship
+founded on faith.  He only meant to spare her the dismay which could
+hardly fail to manifest itself when she heard that de Courtois was
+alive, and that additional complications must now arise with reference
+to the wrongful use of the marriage license; in reality, he was doing
+himself a bitter injustice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But, having elected for a definite course, he was not a man who would
+deviate from it by a hair's breadth.  When the junta in the vestibule
+of the Plaza Hotel had promised to remain mute on the topic of de
+Courtois, he dismissed the matter from his mind as having no further
+influence on the night's doings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is there any means of recovering my overcoat?" he asked Steingall,
+remembering the change of garments when a waiter asked if the gentlemen
+cared to deposit their hats and coats in the cloak-room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the detective.  "Just empty the pockets of the coat you are
+wearing, and I'll send a messenger to the police station-house with a
+note.  You won't mind if I retain your documents till after the
+inquest?  One never knows what questions will be asked, and you must
+remember that an attempt may be made to fasten the crime upon you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis laughed at the absurdity of any such notion, but, for the first
+time, he examined the contents of the dead man's coat pockets
+methodically.  The pocket in which the license had reposed was empty.
+Its fellow contained a notebook and pencil.  There were also some
+newspaper cuttings&mdash;items of current interest in New York, but devoid
+of bearing on the crime or its cognate developments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An elastic band caused the book to open at a definite page, and
+Steingall, who knew a little of everything, and a great deal of all
+matters appertaining to his profession, deciphered some shorthand
+characters which promised enlightenment.  He passed no comment,
+however, but pocketed the book, scribbled a few lines on a sheet of
+paper bearing the name of the hotel, and intrusted coat and letter to
+an attendant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle Horace, after a momentary qualm, gave instructions to the
+head-waiter in the approved manner of a trust magnate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're up against it now, Louisa," he whispered confidentially to his
+wife, "so let's have one wonderful night if we never have another."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Curtis nodded her complete agreement.  She would have sanctioned a
+mortgage on her home rather than forego any material part of an
+experience which would command the breathless attention of many a
+future gathering of matrons and maids in faraway Bloomington.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Hermione received her visitors with a shy cordiality which won
+their prompt approval.  Aunt Louisa had been perplexed by indecision as
+to what she was to say or how she was to act when she met the bride,
+but one glance of her keen, motherly eyes at the blushing and timid
+girl resolved any doubts on both scores.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God bless you, my dear!" she said, throwing her arms around Hermione's
+neck and kissing her heartily.  "Perhaps everything is for the best,
+and, anyway, you've married into a family of honest men and true women."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ma'am," said Uncle Horace, when his turn came to be introduced,
+"strange as it may sound, I know less about my nephew than you
+yourself, but if he resembles his father in character as he does in
+appearance, you've chosen well, and let me add, ma'am, that <I>he</I> seems
+to have made a first-rate selection at sight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course, such congratulations were woefully misplaced, but Hermione
+was too well-bred to reveal any cause for disquietude other than the
+normal embarrassment any young woman would display in like conditions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis, too, put in a quiet word which threw light on the situation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As I told you a few minutes since, I was not aware that my uncle and
+aunt were in New York," he said.  "I cannot even guess how they came to
+find me so opportunely, and we have hardly been able to say a word to
+each other yet, because they were in the thick of the police inquiry
+when I met them in my hotel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, that's the easiest thing," declared Aunt Louisa, rejoicing in a
+long-looked-for opportunity to hear her own voice in full volume.
+"This young gentleman here," and she nodded at the dismayed Devar,
+"told us that he cottoned to your husband, my dear, something
+remarkable on board the steamer, so he sent a message by wireless to
+the editor of a New York paper, asking him to let America know that one
+of her citizens who had won distinction in China was homeward bound,
+and the editor circulated a real nice paragraph about it.  It quite
+took my breath away when Mrs. Harvey, our mayor's wife&mdash;such a charming
+woman, my dear, and I do hope I may have the pleasure of bringing you
+to one of her delightful tea-and-bridge afternoons&mdash;said to me on
+Monday: 'Surely, Mrs. Curtis, this John Delancy Curtis who is on board
+the <I>Lusitania</I> must be a son of that brother of your husband who died
+in China some years ago?' and I said: 'What in the world are you
+talking about, Mrs. Harvey?' so she showed me the newspaper, and I was
+that taken aback that I revoked in the next hand, and the only mean
+player we have in the club claimed three tricks 'without,' and went
+game, being a woman herself who hasn't chick nor child, but devotes far
+too much time and money to toy dogs; anyhow, I couldn't give my mind to
+cards any more that day, so off I rushed home and 'phoned Horace, and
+here we are, after such a flurry as you never would imagine, what
+between packing in a hurry for the trip east, and missing the steamer's
+arrival by nearly an hour, and turning up in the Central Hotel just in
+time to hear&mdash;&mdash;"  Then Aunt Louisa, assuredly at no loss for words,
+but remembering in a hazy way the compact made in the vestibule, found
+it incumbent on her to break away from the main trend of the narrative,
+so she concluded: "Just in time to hear things being said about our
+nephew which we felt bound to deny, both for his sake and our own."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis had favored Devar with a questioning scowl when he learnt how
+his advent had been heralded in the press, but Devar merely vouchsafed
+a brazen wink, and in the next breath Hermione herself became his
+unconscious and most persuasive advocate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have been bothering my brains to discover when or where I had seen
+Mr. Curtis's name before&mdash;before we met to-night," she said, smiling at
+the ridiculous vagueness of her own phrase.  "Now I remember.  I used
+to read the newspaper reports about every ship that arrived, and I
+noticed that identical paragraph."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, Lady Hermione," cried Devar, crowing inwardly over his
+friend's discomfiture.  "John D. will begin to believe soon what I have
+been telling him during the last half-hour&mdash;that I am the real <I>Deus ex
+machinâ</I> of the whole business.  Why, if it hadn't been for me you two
+would never have got married, and this merry party couldn't have
+happened!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A knock at the door caused Hermione to turn with a startled look.  Try
+as she might, she dreaded every such incident as the preliminary to a
+stormy interview with her father.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Unless I am greatly mistaken, ma'am," interposed Uncle Horace blandly,
+"this will be a waiter coming to tell us that supper is ready."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As usual, he said the correct thing, and Steingall drew Hermione aside
+while the table was being spread for the feast.  He lost no time in
+coming to the point.  His first demand showed that he took nothing for
+granted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am bound to speak plainly, your ladyship," he said.  "Is the
+remarkable story told by Mr. John D. Curtis true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Regarding the marriage?" said Hermione promptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, as I do not know what he may have said, you can decide that
+matter for yourself after you have heard my version.  I am a fugitive
+from Paris, where my father was endeavoring to force me into a
+detestable union: I am practically a complete stranger in New York: I
+had arranged with Monsieur de Courtois to become my husband, under a
+clear agreement for money paid that the marriage should serve only as a
+shield against my pursuers; he was prevented by some dreadful men from
+keeping to-night's appointment, and Mr. Curtis came to me, intending to
+break the news somewhat more gently than one might look for otherwise.
+He heard my sad little explanation, and was sorry for me.  As it
+happened, he appreciated the real nature of my predicament, and, having
+no ties to prevent such a daring step, offered me the protection of his
+name until such time as I become my own mistress and am free to secure
+a dissolution of the marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?" said the detective.  His
+voice was kindly, and his expression gravely sympathetic, and Hermione
+could not read the amused tolerance lurking behind the mask of those
+keen eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I mean that I am yet what lawyers call an infant.  In six months I
+shall be twenty-one, and the coercion which has been used to force me
+into marrying Count Ladislas Vassilan will be no longer possible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you forfeit an inheritance by refusing to obey Lord Valletort's
+wishes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, unless with respect to my father's estate.  My mother was wealthy,
+and her money is settled on me most securely."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In trust?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I have trustees, an English banker and a clergyman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, if they are men of good standing, they ought to have protected
+you from undue interference."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An earl is of good standing, too, in my country, and Count Vassilan
+claims royal rank in Hungary.  I loathe the man, yet every one of my
+friends and relatives urged me to accept him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because he has a chance of obtaining a throne when the
+Austro-Hungarian Empire breaks up, and my wealth will help his cause
+materially."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall allowed himself to appear surprised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is your income so large, then?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I suppose so.  My trustees tell me that I am worth nearly a
+hundred thousand a year."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dollars?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No&mdash;pounds sterling."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were conversing in subdued tones, yet the detective behaved like a
+commonplace mortal in giving a rabbit-peep sideways to ascertain if the
+girl's astounding statement had been overheard by the others.  But the
+members of the Curtis family of honest men and true women had withdrawn
+purposely to the far side of the room, and Devar was laboring to
+convince his friend that he had acted wisely in placarding his name and
+fame throughout the United States.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To your knowledge, Lady Hermione, is any other person in New York
+aware that you are several times a millionaire?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think not.  Poor Jean de Courtois may have had some notion of the
+fact, but I lived so unostentatiously in Paris that he would
+necessarily be inclined to minimize the amount of my fortune.  Tell me,
+Mr. Steingall, do you really think he&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective shook his head, and laughed with official dryness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forgive me, Lady Hermione," he said, "but I must not advance any
+theories, at present.  Now, as to Count Vassilan&mdash;how long have you
+known him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"About a year."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has he been your suitor practically all that time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  The first day we met I was told by my father that I ought to be
+proud if he chose me as his wife.  So I hated him from the very
+beginning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You took a dislike to him, I suppose?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, an instant and violent dislike.  But that is not all.  There are
+things I cannot mention, though they are the common property of anyone
+who has mixed in Parisian society during the past twelve months.
+Surely you will be able to find men and women in this great city who
+can supply enough of Paris gossip to show you clearly what manner of
+man this Hungarian prince really is!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione's face showed the distress she felt, and Steingall's
+disposition was far too generous to permit of any further probing in
+this direction when the inquiry gave pain to a young and
+innocent-minded girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To-morrow," he said grimly, "I may read several chapters of Count
+Vassilan's life.  But so much depends on this night's work.  At any
+minute&mdash;certainly within an hour&mdash;I shall have news which may be
+affected most markedly by some chance hint supplied by you.  I want you
+to understand, Lady Hermione, that Mr. Curtis's share in the queer
+tangle of the past few hours is not so simple or unimportant as you
+seem to imagine.  I believe he has been actuated by the best of
+motives&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, I am sure of it," she broke in eagerly.  "If I am fated never
+to see him again after to-night I shall always remember him as a true
+friend and gallant gentleman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall bit back the words which rose unbidden to his lips.  He had
+certainly been wallowing in romance since the telephone called him to
+the Central Hotel, but even in the pages of fiction he had never found
+a more wildly improbable theory than the likelihood of John Delancy
+Curtis allowing any consideration short of death to separate him from
+such a bride as Lady Hermione within the short space of time she
+apparently regarded as the possible span of her married life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah," he murmured, "if he is wise he will call you to give evidence in
+his behalf.  Judges exercise a good deal of latitude in these matters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But will he be arrested for marrying me?  If any wrong has been done
+with respect to the marriage license, I am equally to blame," she said
+loyally.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall frowned judicially.  Their conversation was approaching
+perilously near the forbidden topic of de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In law, as in most affairs of life, it does no good to meet trouble
+half way, your ladyship," he said.  "Now, reverting to the Hungarian
+prince&mdash;do you remember the names of any persons, of either sex, whom
+he associated with in Paris?  Of course, such a man would be widely
+known in what is called society, but I want you to try and recall some
+of his intimate friends."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe you would find his boon companions in certain cafés on the
+Grand Boulevard and in the vaudeville theaters on Montmartre; but would
+it not help you a little if I told you of his enemies?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Most certainly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I do happen to know that he is hated most cordially by the
+Countess Marie Zapolya, who lives in the Hotel Ritz."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In Paris?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  She advised me to shun him as I would the plague."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did she give any reason?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It may sound strange, but I really believe she wants him to marry her
+daughter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, that is interesting.  Pray go on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never understood the thing rightly, but I heard once, through a
+servant, that Count Vassilan was expected to wed Elizabetta
+Zapolya&mdash;the succession to the Hungarian monarchy, if ever it were
+revived, was involved&mdash;but Count Vassilan spurned the lady.  The
+Countess is furious because her daughter was slighted, yet wishes to
+compel him to fulfill his obligations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In that event, she would be anxious to see you safely married to some
+other person?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, she was.  She visited me, several times, and advised me not to
+risk a life-long unhappiness by becoming mixed up in the maze of
+Mid-Europe politics.  And&mdash;there is something else.  Poor Elizabetta
+Zapolya, who is somewhat older than me, is in love with an attaché at
+the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Paris."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you his name?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  Captain Eugene de Karely."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How does he stand with regard to Count Vassilan?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am told that he has challenged him repeatedly to a duel, but Count
+Vassilan cannot meet him because they are not equals in the grades of
+Hungarian aristocracy.  I am glad that Mr. Curtis did not wait to
+consult the Almanach de Gotha when <I>he</I> encountered the wretch.  Has he
+told you that he hit him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have seen the Count," said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective was not deaf to the note of alarm in her voice, but the
+matter must be broached some time, and why not now?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At the Central Hotel, about an hour ago," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was my father with him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  The Earl has also had the pleasure of a few minutes' talk with
+Mr. Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione was open-eyed with surprise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Curtis has not said a word of this to me," she cried, and her
+louder tone traveled across the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Said a word about what?" inquired Curtis, being not unwilling to break
+in on the conversation, which he thought had lasted quite long enough.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That my father and Count Vassilan had met you at your hotel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not Count Vassilan," explained the detective.  "He had gone before
+Mr. Curtis came, but Lord Valletort returned."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did he ask you where I was?" demanded the girl breathlessly,
+addressing Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  He tried to have me arrested, and failed.  I think he looked on
+me as an unlikely subject to yield unnecessary information."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Supper is served, sir," said a maître d'hôtel to Uncle Horace, and
+further discussion of Count Vassilan's tangled matrimonial schemes
+became difficult for the moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall was pressed to join the party&mdash;without prejudice to any
+official duties he might be called on to perform next day, as Curtis
+put it pleasantly&mdash;and consented.  Once again had his instinct been
+justified, for he was sure that Lady Hermione's Parisian reminiscences
+would prove important in some way not yet determinable.  Moreover, his
+colleagues knew he was at the Plaza Hotel, and he was content to remain
+there while his trusted aide, Clancy, was acting as chauffeur during
+Count Vassilan's belated excursion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The police captain was keeping an eye on the Waldorf-Astoria, a
+detective was searching the apartment rented by the murdered
+journalist, and other men of the Bureau were hunting the record of the
+automobile, though Steingall was convinced that this branch of the
+inquiry would end in a blind alley, because the car had undoubtedly
+been stolen, and its lawful owner would only be able to identify it,
+and declare that, to the best of his belief, it was locked in a garage
+at the time it was being used for the commission of a crime.  Steingall
+assumed that the unfortunate Hunter&mdash;or it might have been de
+Courtois&mdash;was led to hire this particular vehicle by adroit
+misrepresentation on the part of some unknown scoundrels who were aware
+of the contemplated marriage.  The shorthand notes in Hunter's book
+bore out this theory, because they were obviously data supplied by de
+Courtois which would have enabled the journalist to write a thoroughly
+sensational story next day.  He was convinced, when the truth was
+known, it would be discovered that Hunter made the Frenchman's
+acquaintance owing to his habit of mixing with the strange underworld
+from the Continent of Europe which has its lost legion in New York.  De
+Courtois was just the sort of vainglorious little man who would welcome
+the notoriety of such an adventure as the prevented marriage ceremony,
+wherein his name would figure with those of distinguished people, and
+the last thing he counted on was the murder of the scribe who had
+promised him columns of descriptive matter in the press.  The pert
+musician was not the first, nor would he be the last, to find that the
+role of cat's-paw is apt to prove more exacting than was anticipated.
+To his chagrin, he saw himself changed suddenly from a trusted agent
+into a dupe, and his utter collapse on hearing of the murder fitted in
+exactly with the theory taking shape in the detective's mind&mdash;that
+there were two implacable forces at war in New York that night, that
+Lady Hermione's marriage to Count Vassilan or the Frenchman provided
+the immediate bone of contention, and that the struggle had been
+complicated by a too literal interpretation of instructions carried out
+by bitter partisans.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the midst of a lively conversation, the telephone jangled its
+imperative message from a wall bracket in the room.  Devar was nearest
+the instrument, and he answered the call.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's for you, Mr. Steingall," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective would have preferred greater privacy, but he rose at once
+and answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And who is Mr. Krantz?" he demanded.  Then, after a pause: "Oh,
+yes.&#8230;  Is he?&#8230;  You needn't trouble at all about that.  The
+police surgeon, at my request, has dosed him with sufficient bromide to
+keep him quiet till to-morrow morning.&#8230;  Yes, I understand.  Tell
+them it can't be done, and refer them to the Centre-street
+Bureau.&#8230;  What?&#8230;  No, so far as I can guess, the engineer
+won't be wanted again to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He hung up the receiver, and returned to his seat, though he had just
+been informed that the Earl of Valletort and another person, having
+ascertained by some means that de Courtois still lived, were raising a
+commotion at the Central Hotel and demanding access to the Frenchman's
+room.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-198"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-198.jpg" ALT="Scenes from the photo-drama." BORDER="2" WIDTH="416" HEIGHT="735">
+<H3>
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Please, am I mixed up with Mr. Krantz?" inquired Hermione, smiling,
+for it was a bizarre experience to find herself interested in all sorts
+and conditions of people whom she had never heard of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Krantz is the reception clerk at the Central Hotel," was the
+answer, which conveyed fuller information to other ears than the
+girl's.  Then Steingall glanced at his watch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think some of you people must be tired after a strenuous day," he
+said.  "I expect to be called away soon, and it is possible that I may
+want to disturb you, Mr. Curtis, before you retire for the night.  Do
+you intend to remain here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For an instant, an appreciable constraint manifested its presence, and
+Uncle Horace did not display his wonted tact when he accentuated it by
+a dry chuckle, <I>à propos</I> of nothing in particular.  Curtis relieved
+the situation after a slight hesitation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lady Hermione, I take it, will now go to bed," he said coolly, "and,
+if she is wise, will refuse to unlock her door again till her maid
+comes in the morning.  I purpose changing my clothes, in case I may
+have to accompany you on some midnight expedition.  My uncle and aunt
+will tell us where they are staying, and arrange to meet us here at
+lunch to-morrow.  You, Devar, being an approved night hawk, will join
+me in a cigar.  How is that for a reasonable disposal of the company,
+Mr. Steingall?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As though in reply, the telephone rang again, and the detective lifted
+the receiver from its hook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello!  That you, Clancy?" he said.  "Right.  I'll come along by the
+subway from 59th Street&mdash;that will be quicker than a taxi&nbsp;&#8230;
+yes&nbsp;&#8230; yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned, and the five people in the room saw that his face was
+glowing with the fire of action.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can defer that change of suits, Mr. Curtis.  We must be off at
+once.&#8230;  Mr. Devar, have you an automobile?  Can you get hold of it
+now?  Well, 'phone your chauffeur to be at Centre-street headquarters
+in as much under half-an-hour as he can manage.  Taxi-drivers gossip
+among themselves, so a private car is better.&#8230;  Excuse the rush,
+Lady Hermione, and you, too, Mrs. Curtis.  I haven't another minute to
+spare."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Luckily, Curtis found his overcoat awaiting him in the cloak room, or
+he might have been in a difficulty, for New York in November is not a
+city which encourages midnight journeys in evening dress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa were hurried into a taxi, and as they were
+being whisked off to the quiet hotel to which their baggage had been
+consigned, the stout man began polishing his domed forehead once more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lou," he said, "I can't make head nor tail of this business.  Can you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not yet, Horace," was the hopeful response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But&mdash;what sort of marriage is this, anyway?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that's all right.  Those two haven't begun courting yet.  But it
+won't be long before they start.  Did you notice&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And details observed by Aunt Louisa endured till the taxi stopped.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+MIDNIGHT
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+After a quick journey by New York's unrivaled system of rapid transit,
+the three men alighted at Spring Street, and a couple of minutes' brisk
+walk brought them to a large, white-fronted building of severe
+architecture.  Above the main entrance two green lamps stared solemnly
+into the night, and their monitory gleam seemed to bid evildoers
+"Beware!"; nor was there aught far-fetched in the notion, because from
+this imposing center New York's guardians kept watch and ward over the
+city.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Clancy still waiting?" demanded Steingall of a policeman in uniform
+who was on duty in an inquiry office.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir.  He asked me to be on the lookout in case you turned up
+unexpectedly, as he didn't want to miss you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Chief Inspector led his companions straight to the Detective
+Bureau, taking good care to avoid the room in which the "covering"
+reporters were gathered, because the Police Headquarters of New York,
+unlike any similar department outside the bounds of the United States,
+makes the press welcome, and gives details of all arrests, fires,
+accidents and other occurrences of a noteworthy nature as soon as the
+facts are telegraphed or telephoned from outlying districts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Passing through the general office, Steingall entered his own sanctum.
+A small, slightly built man was bent over a table and scrutinizing a
+Rogues' Gallery of photographs in a large album.  He turned as the door
+opened, straightened himself, and revealed a wizened face, somewhat of
+the actor type, its prominent features being an expressive mouth, a
+thin, hooked nose, and a pair of singularly piercing and deeply sunken
+eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello, Bob," he said to Steingall.  Then, without a moment's
+hesitation, he added: "Good-evening, Mr. Curtis&mdash;glad to see you, Mr.
+Devar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-evening, Mr. Clancy," said Curtis, not to be outdone in this
+exchange of compliments, though he could not imagine how a person who
+had never seen him should not only know his name but apply it so
+confidently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May we smoke here?" asked Devar, who had lighted a cigar on emerging
+from the subway station.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes," said Steingall.  "Make yourselves at home in that respect.
+I am a hard smoker.  Let me offer you a good American cigar, Mr.
+Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you.  Perhaps you will try one of mine.  I bought them in
+London, but they are of a fair brand.  You, too, Mr. Clancy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll take one, with pleasure, though I don't smoke," said the little
+man.  Seeing the question on the faces of both visitors, he cackled, in
+a queer, high-pitched voice:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I refuse to poison my gastric juices with nicotine, but I like the
+smell of tobacco.  Poor old Steingall there has pretty fair eyesight,
+but his nose wouldn't sniff brimstone in a volcano, all because he
+insists on smoking."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gastric juice!" laughed Steingall.  "You don't possess the article.
+Skin, bones, and tongue are your chief constituents.  I'm not surprised
+you make an occasional hit as a detective, because the average crook
+would never suspect a funny little gazook like you of being that
+celebrated sleuth, Eugene Clancy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clancy's long, nervous fingers had cracked the wrapper of the cigar
+given him by Curtis, and he was now passing it to and fro beneath his
+nostrils.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will observe the difference, gentlemen, between beef and brains,"
+he said, nodding derisively at the bulky Chief Inspector.  "He rubbers
+along because he looks like a prize-fighter, and can drive his fist
+through a three-quarter inch pine plank.  But we hunt well together,
+being a unique combination of science and brute force.&#8230;  By the
+way, that reminds me.  If I have got the story right, Count Ladislas
+Vassilan only landed in New York to-night.  Did he drive straight to a
+boxing contest, or what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait a second, Clancy," interrupted Steingall.  "Is there anything
+doing?  How much time have we?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Exactly twenty minutes.  At twelve-thirty I must be in East Broadway."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good.  Now, Mr. Curtis, tell Clancy exactly what happened since you
+put on poor Hunter's overcoat at the corner of Broadway and 27th
+Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis obeyed, though he fancied he had never encountered a more
+unofficial official than Clancy.  Shrewd judge of character as he was,
+he could hardly be expected to guess, after such a momentary glimpse of
+a man of extraordinary genius in unraveling crime, that Clancy was
+never more discursive, never more prone to chaff and sneer at his
+special friend, Steingall, than when hot on the trail of some
+particularly acute and daring malefactor.  The Chief of the Bureau, of
+course, knew by these signs that his trusted <I>aide</I> had obtained
+information of a really startling nature, but neither Curtis nor Devar
+was aware of Clancy's idiosyncrasies, and some few minutes elapsed
+before they began to suspect that he had a good deal more up his sleeve
+than they gave him credit for at first.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the outset he took an original view of Curtis's marriage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The girl is young and good-looking, you say?" was his opening question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not yet twenty-one, and remarkably attractive," said Curtis, though
+hardly prepared for the detective's interest in this direction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well educated and lady-like, I suppose?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, as befits her position."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cut out her position, which doesn't amount to a row of beans where
+intellect is concerned.&#8230;  Well, a man never knows much about a
+woman anyway, and what little he learns is acquired by a process of
+rejection after marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I ask what you mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Judging from your history and apparent age, Mr. Curtis, I take it you
+have not had time to go fooling about after girls?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are certainly right in that respect."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Naturally, or you wouldn't be so ignorant concerning the dear
+creatures.  You are to be congratulated, 'pon my soul.  You will have
+the rare experience of constructing a divinity out of a wife, whereas
+the average man begins by choosing a divinity and finds he has only
+secured a wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis laughed, but met the detective's penetrating gaze frankly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your bitter philosophy may be sound, Mr. Clancy," he said, "but it is
+built on a false premiss.  My marriage is only a matter of form.  It
+may be legal&mdash;indeed, I believe it is&mdash;but there can be no dispute as
+to the nature of the bond between Lady Hermione and myself.  She
+regards me as a husband in name only, and will dissolve the tie at her
+own convenience."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll place no obstacles in her way?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"None."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quite sure?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Absolutely."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clancy giggled, as though he were a comedian who had scored a point
+with his audience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you're married for keeps," he announced, with the grin of a man
+who has solved a humorous riddle.  "By refusing to thwart the lady you
+throw away your last slender chance of freedom, and you will find her
+waiting at the gate of the State Penitentiary when you come out.  By
+Jove, you've been pretty rapid, though.  No wonder people say the East
+is waking up.  Are there many more like you in China?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis was not altogether pleased by this banter, nor did he trouble to
+conceal his opinion that the New York Detective Bureau was treating a
+grave crime with scandalous levity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whether Lady Hermione married me or Jean de Courtois is a rather
+immaterial side issue," he said, somewhat emphatically.  "From what
+little I can grasp of a curiously involved affair, it seems to me that
+there are weightier interests than ours at stake.  And, if I may
+venture to differ from you, a lot of things may happen before I see the
+inside of a prison."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After your meteoric career during the past few hours I am inclined to
+agree with that last remark," and Clancy's tone became so serious that
+Devar laughed outright.  "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Curtis.  I am
+lost in admiration of your nerve, but you have told me just what I
+wanted to make sure of."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have expressed no opinions.  I confined myself to actual facts."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And isn't it a highly significant fact that you are over head and ears
+in love with your wife?  <I>Nom d'un pipe</I>!  Doesn't that complicate the
+thing worse than a Chinese puzzle?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I really don't see&mdash;&mdash;" began Curtis, yielding to a feeling of
+annoyance which was not altogether unwarrantable, but Clancy jerked out
+his hands as though they were attached to arms moved by the strings of
+a marionette.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, you don't!" he cried.  "You're in love!  You're gorged with
+the amococcus microbe!  It's the worst case I've ever heard of.  I once
+knew a man who met a girl for the first time at the Park Row end of
+Brooklyn Bridge and proposed to her before they had crossed the East
+River, but you've set up a record that will never be beaten.  You find
+a marriage license in the pockets of a murdered man, rush off in a taxi
+to the address of the lady named therein, marry her, punch a frantic
+rival on the nose, take the fair one to a hotel, flout her father, a
+British peer, and hold a banquet at which the Chief of the New York
+Detective Bureau is an honored guest; and then you have the hardihood
+to tell me that your actions constitute an immaterial side issue in the
+biggest sensation New York has produced this year.  Young man, wait
+till the interviewers get hold of you to-morrow!  Wait till the sob
+sisters begin gushing over your bride&mdash;a pretty one&mdash;with a title!
+Name of good little gray man!  They'll whoop your side issues into a
+scare-head front page!  Before you know where you are they'll have you
+bleating about the color of her eyes, the exquisite curve of her
+Cupid's Bow lips, and the way her hair shone when the electric light
+fell on it, while she, on her part, will be confiding, with a
+suspicious break in her voice, what a perfectly darling specimen of the
+American man at his best you are.  Mr. Curtis, you're married good and
+hard, and if you want to cinch the job you ought to go to jail for a
+while."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unquestionably, the two civilians present thought that Clancy was
+slightly mad, so Steingall intervened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hop off your perch, Eugene," he said, "and tell us how you came to
+drive Count Vassilan's taxi, and where you took him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was a case of intelligent anticipation of forthcoming events," said
+Clancy, whose excitability disappeared instantly, leaving him calm and
+extremely lucid of speech.  "When Evans (the police captain) gave me
+the bearings of the affair&mdash;though, of course, being a creature of
+handcuffs and bludgeons, he thought our friend Curtis was the real
+scoundrel&mdash;I realized at once that Vassilan's indisposition was a bad
+attack of blue funk.  Such a man could no more remain quietly in his
+room at the hotel than a fox terrier could pass a dog fight without
+taking hold.  As soon as I saw the Earl go out alone, and heard him
+direct the taxi to the Central Hotel in 27th Street, I decided that my
+best place was at the driving wheel of another taxi.  I picked out a
+man on the rank who was about my size, and might be mistaken for me in
+a half-light, and got him to lend me his coat and cap.  He took mine,
+and a word to the door-porter fixed things so that I was whistled up
+quite naturally when his countship appeared.  He had changed his
+clothes and linen, but one glance at his nose showed that I had marked
+my bird, even if the porter hadn't given me the mystic sign at the
+right moment.  I received my orders, and off we went, a second cab
+following, with the driver of my taxi as a fare.  Evidently, the Count
+was not well posted in New York distances, because he grew restive, and
+wondered where I was taking him.  He tried to be artful, too, and when
+we reached East Broadway he pulled me up at the corner of Market
+Street, told me to wait, and lodged a five-dollar bill as security,
+saying I would have annozzaire when we got back to the hotel.  Didn't
+that make things easy?  He plunged into the crowd&mdash;you know what a
+bunch of Russians, Hungarians, and Polish Jews get together in East
+Broadway about ten-thirty&mdash;so I rushed to the second cab, swapped coats
+and hats again, gave the taxi-man the five-spot, and put him in charge
+of his own cab.  In less than a minute I overtook the Count, just as he
+was crossing the street, and saw him enter a house, after saying
+something to a second-hand clothes man who was bawling out his goods
+from the open store on the ground floor.  By the time I had bought two
+silk handkerchiefs and a pair of boots, and was haggling like mad over
+a collection of linen collars, size 16&mdash;a present for you,
+Steingall&mdash;his nobility came downstairs, but not alone; there was a
+girl with him.  Luckily, she was no Hungarian, but Italian, and they
+talked in broken English.  'They no come-a here-a now-a-time,
+Excellenza,' she said, 'but you-a fin' dem at Morris Siegelman's
+restaurant at 'alf-a-pass twelve.'  He said something choice&mdash;in pure
+Magyar, I guess&mdash;and headed for the taxi.  That is all, or practically
+all.  I tried to go back on my bargains with the Israelite in the
+store, but he made such a row that I paid him, and when I reached the
+second cab the driver told me that my man nodded as he passed, showing
+that Vassilan was returning to the hotel.  So I came here, and 'phoned
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall glanced at a clock on the mantel-piece.  He rose, threw open
+a door, and switched on a light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Curtis," he said, "we must risk something, but I think I can make
+you up sufficiently to escape recognition, not so much by the Count as
+by others who may attend that supper party.  You come, too, Mr. Devar.
+There is safety in numbers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a deftness that was worthy of a theatrical costumier, the
+detectives converted themselves and the two young men into ship's
+firemen.  No more effective or simpler disguise could have been devised
+on the spur of the moment, nor one that might be assumed more readily.
+Boots offered the main difficulty, but Clancy's purchase fitted Devar,
+and Curtis made the best of a pair of canvas shoes, while a mixture of
+grease and coffee extract applied to face and hands changed four
+respectable looking persons into a gang which would certainly attract
+the attention of the police anywhere outside the bounds of just such a
+locality as they were bound for.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In case the exigencies of the chase separated them, Steingall gave some
+instructions to the man in the inquiry office, and Devar tested the
+realism of his appearance by disregarding the chauffeur of the
+splendidly appointed automobile waiting at the exit.  Walking up to the
+car, he opened the door and said gruffly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jump in, boys!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chauffeur wriggled out of his seat instantly, and leaped to the
+pavement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here, what the&mdash;&mdash;" he began, whereupon Devar laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's all right, Arthur," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's all right?  This car is here for Mr. Howard Devar," cried the
+man angrily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you cuckoo, and who am I?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something familiar in the voice caused the chauffeur to look closely at
+the speaker, whom he had not seen for a considerable time except for a
+fleeting glimpse on the arrival of the <I>Lusitania</I> at New York that
+afternoon.  He was perplexed, but was evidently not devoid of humor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's either you or your ghost, sir," he said, "and if it's your ghost
+you must have been badly treated in the next world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A roundsman was entering headquarters at the moment, and gave the
+quartette a sharp glance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here, Parker," said Steingall, "tell this man my name."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The policeman came up, looked at the detective, and laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is Mr. Steingall, chief of the Detective Bureau," he said to the
+bewildered driver, who resumed charge of the car without further ado,
+but nevertheless remained uneasy in his mind.  And not without cause.
+He, poor fellow, all unconsciously, was now gathered into the net which
+had spread its meshes so wide in New York that night.  He could not
+understand why his employer's son should be gallivanting around the
+city in company with such questionable looking characters, even though
+one of them might be the famous "man with the microscopic eye," but he
+was far from realizing that he and his car would help to make history
+before morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In obedience to orders, he ran along Grand Street, and halted the car
+on the south side of W. H. Seward Park.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Remain here, if we do not return earlier, till one o'clock," Steingall
+told him, "and then run slowly along East Broadway to the corner of
+Montgomery Street.  We are going to Morris Siegelman's restaurant,
+which is a few doors higher up, on the north side.  If we stroll past
+you, pay no heed, but follow at a little distance.  Have you got that
+right?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar was hugely delighted by the man's discomfited tone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cheer up, Arthur," he said.  "You'll be tickled to death to-morrow
+when you read the newspapers, and discover the part you played in a big
+news item."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, don't forget to lurch about the sidewalk," was Steingall's next
+injunction to the amateurs.  "Think of all the bad language you ever
+heard, and use it.  We're toughs, and must behave as such.  Can either
+of you sing?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can," admitted Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That will help some.  Strike up any sort of sailor's chanty when we're
+in the restaurant."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Late as the hour, East Broadway was full to repletion with a
+cosmopolitan crowd.  It was a Thursday evening, and the Hebrew Sabbath
+began at sunset on the following day, so the poor Jews of the quarter
+were out in their thousands, either buying provisions for the coming
+holiday or attracted by the light and bustle.  Heavy looking Russians,
+olive-skinned Italians, placid Germans, wild-eyed and pallid Czechs,
+lounged along the thoroughfare, chatting with compatriots, or gathering
+in amused groups to hear the strange patter of some voluble merchant
+retailing goods from a barrow.  From the interiors of tiny shops and
+cellars came eldritch voices crying the nature and remarkable qualities
+of the wares within.  Every hand-cart carried a flaring naphtha-lamp,
+and the glare of these innumerable torches created strong lights and
+flickering shadows which would have gladdened the heart of Rembrandt
+were his artistic wraith permitted to roam the by-ways of a city which,
+perhaps, he never heard of, even in its early Dutch guise as New
+Amsterdam.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lofty tenement houses seemed to be crowded as the streets.  Within
+a square mile of that section of New York a quarter of a million people
+find habitation, food, and employment.  They supply each other's needs,
+speak their own weird tongues, and by slow degrees become absorbed by
+the great continent which harbors them, and then only when a second or
+third generation becomes Americanized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In such a motley throng four prowling stokers, ashore for a night's
+spree, attracted scant attention, and Morris Siegelman's hospitable
+door was reached without incident.  A taxi-cab was standing by the
+curb, and the driver, gazing at the living panorama of the street,
+little guessed that he had changed garments with one of the
+half-drunken firemen two hours earlier.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here y'are, mattes!" cried Steingall, joyously surveying a printed
+legend displayed among the bottles of a dingy bar running along the
+side of an apartment which had once been the parlor of a pretentious
+house, "this is the right sort o' dope&mdash;vodka&mdash;same as is supplied to
+the Czar of all the Roossias.  Get a pint of vodka into yer gizzards
+an' you'll think you've swallowed a lump of red-hot clinker."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clancy hopped on to a high stool, and curled himself up on the rounded
+seat in the accepted posture of Buddha, while Devar, who was by way of
+being a gymnast, stood on his hands and beat a tattoo with his feet
+against the edge of the counter.  Not to be outdone, Curtis began to
+sing.  He had a good baritone voice, and entered with zest into the mad
+spirit of the frolic.  The song he chose was redolent of the sea.  It
+related a tar's escapades among witches, cruisers, and girls.  Three of
+the latter claimed him at one and the same time&mdash;so "What was a
+sailor-boy to do?  Yeo-ho, Yeo-ho, Yeo-ho!"  The chorus decided the
+point:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"Why, we went strolling down by the rolling,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1.5em">Down by the rolling sea.</SPAN><BR>
+If you can't be true to One or Two,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">You're much better off with Three."</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Evidently, the roysterers' antics commanded the general approval of
+Morris Siegelman's patrons, and loud cries of "Brava!" "Encore!" "Bis!"
+"Herrlich!" rewarded Curtis's lyrical effort.  Some thirty people or
+more were scattered about the room, mostly in small parties seated
+around marble-topped tables.  Beer was the favorite beverage; a
+minority was eating, the menu being strange and wondrous, and everyone
+was smoking cigarettes.  When Curtis received his share of the
+poisonous decoction so vaunted by Steingall, he faced the company,
+glass in hand, and saw Count Vassilan seated in a corner close to a
+window.  With him were a good-looking Italian girl and a youth, and the
+three were deep in eager converse, giving no heed to the other
+revelers, but rather taking advantage of the prevalent clatter of talk
+and drinking utensils to discuss whatever topic it was which proved so
+interesting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall's eyes carried a question, and Curtis shook his head.
+Vassilan's male companion bore only the slight resemblance of a kindred
+nationality to the men who committed the murder, while he differed
+essentially from the treacherous "Anatole."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish your best girl could see you now, John D.," whispered Devar,
+who had just recovered from a violent fit of coughing induced by the
+raw whisky which Siegelman dispensed under the seal of vodka.  Curtis
+laughed at the conceit, which was grotesque in its very essence.  Wild
+and bizarre as his experiences had been that night, none was more
+whimsical than this bawling of a ballad in an East Broadway saloon
+while posing as a sailor with three sheets in the wind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mostly Hungarians here," muttered Steingall.  "We seem to be in the
+right place, anyhow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's eat," said Clancy suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Reflected in a cracked mirror he had seen a man and two women rise and
+leave a table in the corner occupied by the Count.  He skipped off the
+stool, and made for the vacant place; the others followed, and Curtis
+had several glasses raised to his honor as he passed through the
+merry-makers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clancy noisily summoned a waitress, and ordered four plates of
+spaghetti with tomatoes.  He sat with his back to the absorbed party
+beneath the window, and apologized with exaggerated politeness when his
+chair touched that of the Italian girl, though his accent, needless to
+say, was redolent of the East side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They do not come, then?" he heard Vassilan say impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"P'raps notta to-night," said the girl, "but you sure meet-a dem here,
+mebbe to-morrow, mebbe de nex' day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Count tore a leaf from a notebook and scribbled something rapidly.
+When he spoke, it was to the Hungarian, and in Magyar, but it was easy
+to guess that he was giving earnest directions as to the delivery of
+the note.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now would be a good time to raise a row if we could manage it,"
+growled Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis was toying with his fourth meal since sunset, and admitted that
+he was ready for anything rather than spaghetti à la tomato.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If there's enough varieties of Hungarians and Slavs in the street I
+can start a riot in less than no time," confided Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How?" asked the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This way," and Devar began to sing.  He owned a light tenor, clear and
+melodious, and the air had a curiously barbaric lilt which, musically
+considered, was reminiscent of the gypsies' chorus in "The Bohemian
+Girl."  But the words were couched in a strange tongue, sonorous and
+full voweled, and the Hungarians in the room became greatly stirred
+when it dawned on them that a semi-intoxicated American stoker was
+chanting a forbidden national melody.  Far better than he knew, he
+sounded uncharted deeps in human nature.  Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun
+stated an eternal truth when he wrote to the Marquis of Montrose: "I
+know a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make
+all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."
+Before Devar had finished the first verse people from the street were
+crowding in through the open door, and flashing eyes and strange
+ejaculations showed that the Czechs thought they were witnessing a
+miracle.  As the second verse rang out, vibrant and challenging, the
+mob, eager to share in the interior excitement, rushed the entrance.
+Many could hear, but few could see, and all were roused to exaltation
+by a melody the public singing of which would have brought imprisonment
+or death in their own land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for it!" roared Steingall, and over went table and crockery with a
+crash.  Of course, this added to the turmoil, and some women in the
+café began to shriek.  Not knowing in the least what was causing the
+commotion, the crowd surged into that particular corner, and Steingall,
+apparently frenzied, sprang to the window, opened it, and said to Count
+Vassilan:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Get out, quick!  They'll be knifing you in a minute!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Italian girl screamed at that, so she was lifted into the safety of
+the street.  Vassilan followed, or rather was practically thrown out,
+and the young Hungarian could have climbed after him nimbly enough had
+not Curtis insisted on helping him, and, pinioning his arms, forced him
+head foremost over the sill, but not so rapidly that Steingall should
+be unable to "go through him" scientifically for the note.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Be off, you two!  Take the car and go home!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was no time for argument.  Both Curtis and Devar read into
+Steingall's muttered injunction the belief that the hunt had ended for
+the night.  They knew that the detectives could take care of
+themselves, and they had scrambled through the window and made off
+swiftly in the direction of the waiting automobile before the despoiled
+Hungarian regained his feet.  The hour yet wanted nearly ten minutes of
+being one o'clock, so the chauffeur had not budged from his post in the
+park.  Devar told him to start the engine, and be ready to jump off
+without delay.  Then they waited, and watched the corner of the square
+intersected by East Broadway, but neither Steingall nor Clancy
+appeared, so they judged it best to obey orders, and make for the
+Police Headquarters.  There they washed and resumed their own clothes,
+an operation which consumed another quarter of an hour.  Still there
+was no sign of the detectives, and they decided, somewhat reluctantly,
+to do as they had been bidden, and go home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What sort of witches' shibboleth was that which you brought off in
+Siegelman's?" asked Curtis, while the car was humming placidly up
+Broadway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that was an inspiration," chuckled Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An inspiration founded on a solid basis of fact.  Now, out with it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I was a year at Heidelberg, you know, and a fellow there told me
+that one evening, in a café at Temesvar, a student kicked up a shindy
+by singing that song.  In less than a minute an officer had been
+stabbed with his own sword, and a policeman shot, and it took a
+squadron of cavalry to clear the street.  He learnt the blessed ditty,
+out of sheer curiosity, and I picked it up from him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it all about?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know.  I believe it tells the Austrians their real name, but I
+couldn't translate a line of it to save my life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis leaned back in the car and laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are by way of being a genius," he said.  "I have seen a crowd go
+stark, staring mad because some idiot waved a black flag, but that was
+a symbol of the Boxer rebellion, and it meant something.  In this
+instance, among people so far away from their own country, one would
+hardly expect&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He broke off suddenly, and leaned forward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The car had just entered Madison Square, at the junction of Broadway
+and Fifth Avenue, south of 23rd Street.  A Columbus Avenue street-car
+had halted to allow traffic to pass, and a gray automobile which was
+coming out of Fifth Avenue had been held up by a policeman stationed
+there.  Curtis's attention was caught by the color and shape of the
+vehicle, and in the flood of light cast by the powerful lamps and
+brilliant electric devices concentrated on that important crossing, he
+obtained a vivid glimpse of the chauffeur's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Devar," he said, and some electrical quality in his voice startled his
+mercurial companion, "tell your man to overtake that car and run it
+into the sidewalk.  The driver is 'Anatole,' and it is our duty to stop
+him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that instant the policeman signaled the uptown traffic to move on.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+ONE O'CLOCK
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Devar had the nimble wits of a fox, and the blood which raced in his
+veins was volatile as quicksilver.  The same glance which showed him
+the gray automobile stealing softly across the network of car-lines of
+one of the city's main thoroughfares revealed a roundsman crossing the
+square.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Friend Anatole may be heeled," he said.  "Let's get help."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leaning out, he shouted to Arthur, whose other name was Brodie:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pull in alongside the cop.  I want to speak to him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chauffeur obeyed, and the policeman turned a questioning eye on the
+car, thinking some idiot meant to run him down.  Devar had the door
+open in a second.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you heard of the murder in 27th Street, outside the Central
+Hotel?" he said, almost bewildering the man by his eager directness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I have," came the answer, quickly enough.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, the car mixed up in it is right ahead.  There it is, making for
+Fifth Avenue.  Jump in!  We'll explain as we go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The roundsman needed no second invitation.  Obviously, unless some
+brainless young fool was trying to be humorous, there was no time to
+spare for words.  He sprang inside, and Devar cried to the surprised
+chauffeur:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Follow that gray auto.  Don't kill anybody, but hit up the speed until
+we are close behind it, and then I'll tell you what next to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Little recking what this order really meant, for its true inwardness
+was hidden at the moment from the ken of those far better versed than
+he in the tangle of events, Brodie changed gear and touched the
+accelerator, and the machine whirred past Admiral Farragut's statue at
+a pace which would have caused even doughty "Old Salamander" to blink
+with astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While four pairs of eyes were watching the fast moving vehicle in
+front, Curtis gave the policeman a brief resume of the night's doings
+since he and Devar had gone with Steingall to the Police Headquarters.
+There was no need to say much about the actual crime, because the man
+had full details, with descriptions of the man-slayers, in his notebook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was a shrewd person, too.  His name was McCulloch; his father had
+emigrated from Belfast, and a man of such ancestry seldom takes
+anything for granted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you are not quite certain, Mr. Curtis, that the chauffeur
+driving that car ahead is the 'Anatole' concerned in the death of Mr.
+Hunter?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Curtis was of a cautious temperament, too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he said, "that is more than I dare state, even if I had an
+opportunity to look at him closely.  As it is, I merely received what I
+may term 'an impression' of him.  That, together with the marked
+similarity of the car to the one I saw outside the hotel, seems to
+offer reasonable ground for inquiry at any rate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you notice the number of this car?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not exactly.  I believe it differs from that which I undoubtedly
+did see and put on record."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, the plate must have been changed or he would never venture
+in this locality again.  If you are right, sir, the fellow must possess
+a mighty cool nerve, because he is just passing 27th Street, within a
+few yards of the hotel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Somehow, the fact had escaped Curtis's remembrance; excellent though
+his topographical sense might be, he was still sufficient of a stranger
+in New York not to appreciate the bearings of particular localities
+with the prompt discrimination necessarily displayed by the policeman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the succeeding few seconds none of the occupants of the
+limousine spoke.  Devar was kneeling on one of the front seats, and the
+roundsman, who had removed his uniform hat to avoid attracting notice
+when a lamp shone directly into the interior, quietly took stock of the
+men who had so unceremoniously called him off his tour of inspection.
+Evidently he satisfied himself that he was not being dragged into a
+wild-goose chase.  Their tense manner could hardly have been assumed:
+they were in desperate and deadly earnest; so he thanked the stars
+which had brought him into active connection with an important crime,
+and gave his mind strictly to the business in hand.  Several knotty
+points demanded careful if speedy decision.  The chased automobile
+might prove to be an innocent vehicle, driven by a chauffeur above
+suspicion, and if its owner appeared in the guise of some highly
+influential person he, the roundsman, might be called to sharp account
+for exceeding his duty in making an arrest, or, if he stopped short of
+that extreme course, in conducting an offensive inquiry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brodie took his instructions literally, and the distance between the
+two cars was diminishing sensibly.  It seemed, too, as though the
+driver of the gray car slackened pace after passing 27th Street,
+although Fifth Avenue was fairly clear of traffic, which, such as it
+was, consisted mainly of motors going uptown&mdash;that is to say, in the
+same direction as pursued and pursuer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At 34th Street came a check.  A cross-town street-car caused the gray
+automobile to swerve rapidly in order to avoid a collision, and Brodie,
+a methodical person of law-abiding instincts, lost nearly fifty yards
+in allowing the streetcar to pass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whoever he may be, he is not going to make any unnecessary stops,"
+commented the roundsman, fully alive to the significance of the
+incident, since ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have applied
+the brake and allowed the heavy public conveyance to get out of the way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Unless the Hungarian assassins of New York are bang up-to-date in the
+benzine part of their stock-in-trade, our car will make good in the
+next two blocks," said Devar, over his shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, indeed, it almost appeared that Brodie had heard what was said.
+He bent forward slightly, touched a few taps with skilled fingers,
+squared his shoulders, and set about the race with the air of a man who
+thought it had lasted long enough.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nearing 42nd Street, he had reduced the gap to little more than twice
+the length of the car, and the three men saw the number plate clearly.
+Not only did the number differ, but it was of another series.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a New Jersey car," announced the policeman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It may be a New Jersey number," Curtis corrected him, "but I still
+retain my belief that we are following the right man and the right car."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just then no less than four cross-town electric cars loomed into sight,
+and completely blocked the avenue at its intersection with 42nd Street.
+The gray automobile had to pull up very quickly, and Brodie was
+compelled to execute a neat half-turn to clear the rear wheels.  In the
+result, both cars halted side by side, but Curtis found himself just
+short of a position whence he could obtain a second look at the
+suspected man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The policeman had bent low in his seat, lest his uniform should be
+seen, but he, like his companions, gave a sharp glance into the
+interior of the other car.  It was empty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was seated on the near side, however, and he noticed that the lower
+panel behind the door had been cleaned since the remainder of the
+paint-work was touched, and the step bore signs of a recent washing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar lowered one of the front sashes a couple of inches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't look round, Arthur," he said in a low tone, "and don't take any
+notice of the chauffeur, but creep forward a foot or two, and then let
+him go ahead again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brodie sat like a sphinx, and apparently did nothing, yet the car
+moved.  Sacrificing himself, Roundsman McCulloch fell back into his
+corner, and left the window clear for Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?" he inquired, and, surfeited though he might be with New York
+sensations, the others were conscious of just a hint of excitement in
+his voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is Anatole, I am nearly sure," said Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not jump out and grab him now?" suggested Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you gentlemen mind following him for a time?" asked the policeman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I'm game for anything.  And you, Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I feel ready to start the night all over again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The street-cars went on, and the gray automobile darted through the
+first possible opening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see, it is this way," explained the official.  "I am prepared to
+arrest the man on Mr. Curtis's evidence, because I couldn't have better
+testimony than that of the chief witness.  But I've been chewing on
+this thing for the past few minutes, and it strikes me that we gain
+nothing by acting in a hurry.  You may be sure that this fellow, even
+if he is the person we want, will deny it, and a day or two may be lost
+in proving his identity, or collecting facts which would support the
+theory that he was the chauffeur connected with the crime.  Now, if we
+let him go on, we shall certainly have a better hold over him.  We'll
+find out his destination&mdash;perhaps secure a very useful address, or,
+with real luck, discover that he is keeping a fixture with some other
+individual."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In a word, we must watch and pray," said Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we can wait and see, anyhow," said the practical minded
+McCulloch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His counsel sounded good, and the others agreed with him, thereby
+letting themselves and the patient Brodie in for some remarkable
+developments in a pursuit which began by a simple coincidence and was
+destined to end in a manner which none of them dreamed of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar opened the window again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Arthur," he said, "did you happen to notice whether or not that fellow
+is carrying a reflector?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir.  He has one.  I saw him looking into it when I drew
+alongside."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, that puts a different complexion on the affair, as the young man
+said when he kissed his best girl and tasted Somebody's Beauty Powder.
+Don't press, Arthur.  Just keep him in sight till I consult the law."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the outcome of a hurried discussion, Brodie received a fresh
+mandate.  During the straightaway run he was not to approach the gray
+car nearer than sixty yards or thereabouts&mdash;in effect, remaining within
+the same block if possible, but, if the gray car stopped in front of
+any dwelling, he was to slacken speed and pass it, taking the middle of
+the road, and holding himself in instant readiness to halt or turn as
+directed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By the way, how are you fixed for petrol?" added Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I filled the tanks, sir, before leaving the garage.  We're good for
+the trip to Albany and back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brodie's tone was quite cheerful.  He, too, had been reviewing the
+situation, and the presence of a uniformed policeman had dispelled the
+last shred of suspicion that some stupid joke had been worked off
+outside the Police Headquarters when a fearsome looking tough was
+introduced to him as the Chief of the New York Detective Bureau.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar was about to congratulate the roundsman on the prospect of an
+all-night journey if Brodie's chance phrase were fated to come true,
+when he glanced at Curtis, and elected to remain silent.  They were
+passing the Plaza Hotel, and his friend was peering up at its square
+white bulk.  Obviously, he was striving to locate Hermione's room.
+Most probably he failed, for it is no easy matter to pick out the
+windows of any particular set of rooms in a huge building while rushing
+along at twenty-five or more miles an hour.  Further, it was now past
+one o'clock in the morning, and most respectable people were in bed, so
+the solemn mass of the hotel was enlivened by very few rectangles of
+light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Curtis fancied, as did Devar also, that the illuminated blinds of
+three windows on the second floor might possibly be those of Suite F.,
+and each wondered, if the surmise were correct, why her ladyship was
+remaining up so late.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar resolved to say nothing, but Curtis felt that he must talk, if
+only for the sake of hearing his own voice.  Usually a man of taciturn
+habit, the outcome of long vigils among an alien and often hostile race
+in a semi-civilized land, he had gone through so much during the five
+and a half hours which had unfolded their marvels since he quitted the
+dining-room of the Central Hotel, that he ached for human sympathy,
+even in a trivial matter of this sort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought I saw a light in my wife's rooms," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As you mention it, so did I," agreed Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hope she is not awaiting my return?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps she is anxious about you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Women are given that way.  She knows you went out with Steingall, and
+he is a dangerous character."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is Mrs. Curtis staying in the Plaza?" asked the puzzled McCulloch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I thought you occupied a room at the Central Hotel in 27th Street?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did, but I got married at half-past eight, and we went to the Plaza."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Married at half-past eight&mdash;just after the murder!"  The policeman's
+words formed a crescendo of sheer surprise.  For some indefinable
+reason this curious conjunction of a crime and a wedding went beyond
+his comprehension.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, it happened so.  It might have been avoided, yet, looking back
+now over the whole of the circumstances, it would appear that I have
+followed a beaten track inevitable as death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course, the roundsman could not grasp the somber thought underlying
+Curtis's words, but a species of indeterminate suspicion prompted his
+next question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You came from the Plaza with Mr. Steingall, I believe, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  We were having supper there, with Mr. Devar and my uncle and
+aunt, when Mr. Clancy rang him up on the telephone, and he invited us
+to accompany him to the Police Headquarters.  The rest you know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Certainly, the explanation sounded quite satisfactory.  The attitude of
+these two young men and their chauffeur was perfectly correct, and the
+policeman's views had been strengthened materially by the tell-tale
+tokens he had noted on the gray car, which, however, he had not thought
+fit to mention.  If Steingall had attended the supper in the Plaza he
+must have convinced himself that there was nothing unusual, or, at any
+rate, doubtful, about the queer fact that a man who was mixed up in a
+remarkable murder should have gone straight from the scene of the
+tragedy and got married.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just to dispel a little of the mist that befogged his brain, he waited
+a while and then said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which side of the car was opposite the doorway when those two men
+attacked Mr. Hunter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The left.  The car had entered the street from Broadway."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you ask?" inquired Devar, instantly alive to the queerness of
+this alteration of topics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My mind went back to the job we have in hand," said the roundsman
+readily.  "I was wondering just what sort of glimpse Mr. Curtis
+obtained of the chauffeur.  Of course, I see now that he was looking at
+the man exactly under similar conditions when we made that stop at 42nd
+Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus, unknown to either of the parties to the alliance, a minor crisis
+was averted, because it may safely be conceded that the hard-headed
+policeman would have refused then and there to accept any sort of
+statement from such a lunatic as John Delancy Curtis, if he were given
+a full, true, and particular account of the night's proceedings while
+being whirled up Fifth Avenue in a fast moving automobile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Romance, if it is to be accepted without question, requires the setting
+of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden.
+There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be
+carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two
+strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound
+Heaven knew whither long after midnight, it is apt to savor of the moon
+and witchcraft.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Away up the straight vista of Fifth Avenue sped the two cars.  On the
+left lay the black solitude of Central Park, on the right the varied
+architecture of New York's millionaire dwellings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar and the policeman talked cheerfully enough, but Curtis was
+wrapped in his own musings till the rear lamp of the gray car suddenly
+curved to the left and vanished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He has turned into the Parkway at 110th Street," said McCulloch, and
+Curtis awoke with a start to a sense of his surroundings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose he's making for St. Nicholas Avenue," went on the roundsman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?" demanded Curtis, whose recollections of map-study would have
+reminded him, in other conditions, that the avenue named by McCulloch
+is one of the few which slant across the city's rectangles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, sir, it's only a guess, but St. Nicholas Avenue is a short cut
+to Washington Heights, and cars often follow that route.  Yes, there he
+goes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For an instant they caught a fleeting glimpse of Lenox Avenue, which
+runs parallel with Fifth, and then they were bowling along St. Nicholas
+Avenue.  After a half-mile or less, they crossed Eighth Avenue at an
+acute angle, but the gray car kept steadily on, and soon was skirting
+St. Nicholas Park.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thenceforth another mile and a half counted as little until the flying
+automobile gained the Harlem River Speedway.  Here the pace improved.
+There was practically no traffic to interfere with progress now, and
+Brodie had to maintain an equable rate of forty miles an hour in order
+to keep within sight of his quarry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, by way of Nagle and Amsterdam Avenues, they regained Broadway
+itself, at the point where its many sinuosities end at the bridges over
+the Harlem River and Spuyten Creek.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time, McCulloch was undeniably anxious.  Many a mile separated
+him from the busy activities of Madison Square and its surroundings,
+and the main roads of the State of New York were opening up their
+possibilities.  Still, he was of Scotch-Irish stock, and even the most
+ardent Nationalist would be slow to maintain that the men from beyond
+the Boyne are what is popularly and tersely described as "quitters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd be better pleased if I had any sort of notion where that joker was
+heading for," he said, with a grim smile.  "I didn't count on taking a
+joy-ride at this hour of the morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was his sole concession to outraged official decorum.  He accepted
+a cigar, and forthwith resigned himself to the exigencies of the chase,
+which lay not with him but with the dark and devious purposes of the
+sinister Anatole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The end, however, was nearer than any of them was now inclined to
+imagine.  A rapid run along the main road through Yonkers brought them
+to Hastings and the bank of the Hudson River.  The comparatively level
+grades of New York were replaced by hilly ground, and if they would
+avoid courting observation beyond any doubt of error it was essential
+that the gray car should be allowed greater latitude.  In fact, it was
+almost demonstrable that an alert criminal like the man they were
+pursuing&mdash;if he really were the ally of Hunter's slayers&mdash;could hardly
+have failed to realize much earlier that he was being followed.
+Moreover, being an expert motorist, he would know that the car in the
+rear could not only hold him in the race but close up with him whenever
+its occupants were so minded.  He would not be lulled into false
+security by the present widening of the gap, because that was an
+obvious maneuver due to altered circumstances.  In a word, there was
+now no hope or prospect of running him to earth at a rendezvous, but,
+giving him credit for the possession and use of a criminal's brains, it
+became an urgent matter to overtake him and compel a halt by
+deliberately blocking the way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They debated the point fully, and Devar was about to tell Brodie to act
+when the gray car disappeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not wishing to interfere at a critical moment, Devar drew back from the
+window.  Brodie spurted down a hill and along a short level lined with
+suburban villas; he slowed to take a sharp corner, and the car ran
+along a winding lane which could lead nowhere but to the water's edge.
+It was pitch dark, and a mist from the Hudson filled the valley.
+Common sense urged a careful pace, because it had never been possible
+to stop and adjust the powerful headlights, while the luminous haze of
+an occasional street lamp served only to reveal the narrowness of the
+road and the presence of shacks and warehouses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The descent was fairly steep, so Brodie shut off the engine, and the
+big car crept on with a stealthy and noiseless rapidity which seemed to
+betoken an actual sense of danger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly they heard a loud splash, accompanied by a muffled explosion,
+and McCulloch relieved his feelings by a few words, the use of which is
+expressly forbidden by the police manual.  But their purport was
+ridiculously clear; the gray car had plunged into the Hudson, and who
+could tell whether or not Anatole had gone with it?  Curtis was the
+first to adopt a definite line of reasoning: he assumed command now
+with the confidence of one accustomed to be in tight places and to
+depend on his own wits for extrication.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go forward slowly until the buildings stop, Brodie," he said, for the
+two front windows were lowered, and the three men were crowded at them.
+"That fellow knew exactly where he was going.  When you pull up, light
+the acetylene lamps, and we will take the other pair and search the
+wharf from which that car was shot into the stream."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within a few yards the brakes went on with a jerk, and a tall crane
+loomed up vaguely in front.  All four men sprang to the ground, and
+while the chauffeur busied himself with the big lamps Curtis and Devar
+disconnected the smaller ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They found themselves standing on a wooden quay, evidently used for the
+trans-shipment of building materials, and a quick scrutiny showed that
+the lane supplied the only practicable means of egress.  Some gaunt
+sheds blocked one end of the wharf and piles of dressed stone cumbered
+the other.  The tiny wavelets of the river murmured and gurgled amid
+the heavy piles which shored up the landing-place, and Devar's sharp
+eyes soon detected a corner of the gray-colored limousine round which a
+ripple had formed.  In all probability the heated cylinders had burst
+when the water rushed in, and the explosion had tilted the chassis,
+else the river, necessarily deep by the side of the quay, would have
+concealed the wreckage completely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From out of the mist came a white glare.  Brodie had set the lamps
+going, and now the square section of the submerged car became
+distinctly visible.  A little to one side a barge was moored, and the
+policeman, who had produced a serviceable looking revolver, determined
+to search it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A plank spanned the foot or so of interstice between the quay and the
+rough deck, and, in the flurry of the moment, the three men crossed
+without warning the chauffeur as to their movements.  The squat craft
+had an open well amidships, but there were two covered-in ends, and
+McCulloch, taking one of the lamps, peered down into the nearest
+hatchway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If anyone is below there, speak," he said, "or I give you warning that
+I shall shoot at sight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no answer; he knelt down, lowered the lamp, and peered inside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Empty!" he announced.  "Now for the other one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He repeated the same tactics, but the cavity revealed no lurking form
+within.  Naturally, his companions were absorbed in McCulloch's
+actions, because they knew that any instant a blinding sheet of flame
+might leap out of the darkness and a bullet send him prostrate and
+writhing.  Of the three, Curtis was most inured to an environment that
+was unusual and weird, and he it was who first noticed that the barge
+was altering its position with regard to the white discs of light which
+the lamps of the automobile formed in the mist, and a splash caused by
+the falling plank confirmed his frenzied doubt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One glance showed what had happened.  Already they were ten or twelve
+feet from the quay, which stood fully two feet above the deck of the
+barge.  Even while the fantastic notion flashed through his mind, a
+shoreward jump barely achievable by a first-rate athlete became a sheer
+impossibility.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good Lord!" he cried, almost laughing with vexation.  "The barge has
+been cast off from her moorings!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar and McCulloch greeted the discovery with appropriate remarks, but
+the situation called for deeds rather than words.  The cumbrous craft
+was swinging gayly out into the stream, displaying a light-hearted
+energy and ease of motion which would certainly not have been
+forthcoming had it been the object of her unwilling crew to get her
+under way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The whereabouts of Brodie and the automobile were still vaguely
+discernible by two fast converging luminous circles now some twenty
+yards distant, and the fact was painfully borne in on them that in
+another few seconds this landmark would be swallowed in a sea of mist
+and swirling waters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis, accustomed to the vagaries of Chinese junks in the swift
+currents of the Yang-tse-Kiang, adopted the only measures which
+promised any degree of success.  He ran to the helm, which had been
+lashed on the starboard side to keep it from fouling any submerged
+piles near the bank.  Casting it loose, he put it hard a-port, and
+shouted to the policeman and Devar to bring a couple of boards from the
+floor of the well, and use them to sheer in the hulk to the bank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The night was pitch dark, the mist fell on them like an impenetrable
+veil, and the wooded heights which dominated both banks of the river
+prevented any ray of light from coming to their assistance.  Still,
+they had two lamps, which at least enabled them to see each other, and
+Curtis could judge with reasonable accuracy of the direction they were
+taking by the set of the stream.  They seemed to have been toiling a
+weary time before the helmsman fancied he could see something looming
+out of the void.  He believed that, however slowly, they were surely
+forging inshore again, and was about to ask Devar to abandon his
+valiant efforts to convert a long plank into a paddle and go forward in
+order to keep a lookout, when the barge crashed heavily into the stern
+of a ship of some sort, and simultaneously bumped into a wharf.  The
+noise was terrific, coming so unexpectedly out of the silence, and
+their argosy careened dangerously under some obstruction forward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No orders were needed now.  They scrambled ashore, abandoning one of
+the lamps in their desperate hurry, and the policeman instantly
+extinguished the light of the other by pressing the glass closely to
+his breast when a rumble of curses heralded the coming on deck of two
+men who had been aroused from sleep on board the vessel by the
+thunderous onset of the colliding barge.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TWO-THIRTY A. M.
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Few men or women of sympathetic nature, and gifted with ordinary powers
+of observation, can go through life without learning, at some time or
+other in the course of their careers, that circumstances wholly beyond
+human control can display on occasion a fiendish faculty of converting
+patent honesty into apparent dishonesty&mdash;and that which is true of
+motive holds equally good in the case of conduct.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The three men standing breathless and unmoved on some unknown wharf on
+the left bank of the Hudson might fairly be described as superlatively
+honest persons, nor had they done any act which could be construed as
+wrongful by the most captious critic; yet McCulloch's concealment of
+the lamp suggested something thievish and illicit, and, though he alone
+could give a valid reason for exercising extreme discretion, because he
+realized, better than the others, what a choice morsel this adventure
+would supply to the press if ever it became known, both Curtis and
+Devar listened like himself with bated breath to the oaths and
+ejaculations which came from the after part of the moored vessel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Howly war!" cried one of the startled crew.  "See what's butted into
+us&mdash;the divvle's own battherin'-ram av a scow, an' wid an ilegant
+lanthern shtuck on her mangy hide, if ye plaze."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A ship's lamp bobbed up and down in the gloom, and another voice said
+gruffly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mighty good job we had those fenders out, or she would have knocked a
+hole in us.  She seems to be wedged in good and hard under our mooring
+rope; but shin over, Pat, an' make her fast.  Somebody owns the brute,
+an' there'll be damages to pay for this, an' p'raps salvage as well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Irishman dropped down into the barge.  The silent trio on the quay
+heard him walking to the lamp, and saw its dull orb of radiance lifted
+from the deck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Begob, but this is a bit of a fairy tale," came the comment.  "Here is
+none o' yer tin-cint Standard Ile prapositions, but a rale dandy uv a
+lamp, fit for a lady's cabin on Vandherbilt's yacht.  An', for the luv
+o' Hiven, look at the make uv it, wid a handle where the bottom ought
+to be, an' all polished up like the pewther in Casey's saloon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, get a move on, Pat, an' tie her up," said the other voice.  "It's
+the Lord knows what o'clock, an' we've a long day before us to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lamp moved astern, and the Irishman investigated matters further.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's bin black wur-rk here, George," he shouted.  "The moorin' rope
+nivver bruk.  It was cut."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sharp hiss of breath between McCulloch's teeth betrayed the stress of
+his emotions.  To think that he, a smart roundsman of the Broadway
+squad, should have been bested so thoroughly by a miserable alien
+chauffeur!  The man had merely slipped over the edge of the quay, and
+clung like a limpet to the rough baulks of timber which faced it; when
+his pursuers were safely disposed of on board the barge, one cut of a
+sharp knife had sent them adrift by the stern, while the forward rope,
+released of any strain, had probably uncoiled itself from a stanchion
+with the diabolical ingenuity which inanimate objects can display at
+unlooked-for moments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fling a coil uv line here," continued the speaker.  "This fag ind is
+no good, at all at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The thud of a falling rope, and various grunts and comments from the
+Irishman, showed that the barge was being secured.  Still the three
+waited.  The primary display of secrecy, the instinct to remain unseen,
+had passed, but there was nothing to be gained by entering into a long
+and difficult explanation with the ship's hands, while it would be a
+simple matter to recoup the owner of the barge for any charge which
+might be levied on him for injury to the vessel, provided the liability
+rested with him and not with others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Swearing and grumbling, Pat stumbled along the quay, carrying the lamp.
+He passed within a few feet of the motionless group, and soon they
+heard him and his mate descending the companionway to their bunks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for a light," said the policeman, "and let's get out of this!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Taking heed not to turn the lamp toward the ship, lest their movements
+should be overheard and a head pop up out of the hatch, he led the way
+quietly to the rear of the wharf.  A rough road climbed the hill to the
+left, and, as this direction offered the only probable means of
+regaining the car, they took it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a long climb they reached a better road, which ultimately brought
+them into a main thoroughfare.  Then Curtis bethought him of looking at
+his watch, and was astonished to find that the hour was half-past two
+o'clock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By Jove!" he cried.  "We must have consumed fully half an hour over
+that trip.  I wonder whether your man has waited, Devar; or would he
+give us up as lost, and go home?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!  Arthur return alone, and tell my aunt that the last he saw of
+me I was adrift on the Hudson River in a barge with a policeman and a
+swashbuckler from Pekin?  Not much!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch.  "Even when we reach New
+York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and
+report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire
+precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar laughed loudly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch&mdash;not that you are of the neurotic
+habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored
+through you while searching that blessed barge&mdash;but if you believe you
+can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained
+John D. Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are
+hugging a delusion.  I started out from a happy home last evening
+intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox
+sights of New York.  Gee whizz!  Look at me now!  I missed John D. by a
+few minutes, but found myself gaping with the crowd at the scene of a
+murder in which he had figured heavily.  Since then I have helped to
+break open hotel doors, discovered a villain tied and gagged by other
+villains, stood on my head in Morris Siegelman's joint, started a riot
+in East Broadway, helped a detective to commit a larceny, cheeked a
+British lord, and scoffed at a Hungarian prince, to say nothing of the
+present racket.  So don't you go making plans for the night yet a
+while, McCulloch, because John D. will keep you busy without any call
+for you exercising your brain cells in that respect."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The roundsman did not try to grasp the inner significance of this
+rigmarole.  He was unfeignedly glad to have escaped from an awkward
+predicament.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Anyhow," he said briefly, "if it comes to the worst I can ring up my
+captain from the nearest station-house, and at least he will know where
+I am."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't be too sure of that, either.  Suppose you had 'phoned your
+captain before you went on board the barge, would he be any the wiser
+now?  Just to prove the exceeding wisdom of my remarks, do you know
+where you are at the present moment?  Because <I>I</I> don't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The policeman stopped short, and gazed ahead with a new anxiety.  The
+mist was thinner here, and pin-points of light from a row of lamps
+showed in a straight line for a considerable distance.  For an instant
+there was an embarrassed pause, because all three failed to remember
+covering any similar stretch of level road after descending the hill
+and turning into the lane leading to the Hudson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you notice a few minutes since that a low wall bounded the road on
+both sides?" said Curtis, breaking a somewhat strained silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, each had seen it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I am inclined to believe," he went on, "that that wall formed
+part of an accommodation bridge, under which the car passed in the dark
+without our being aware of it.  Indeed, I feel confident that if we
+turn back along this main road, we shall meet our lane on the right,
+and about three hundred yards from this very point."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They agreed to make the experiment, and Devar grinned broadly when the
+lane presented itself exactly as Curtis had predicted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did I tell you?" he cackled to the roundsman.  "John D. is a
+Chinese necromancer.  I'm getting used to his tricks, and you will
+catch the habit in another hour or two.  By four o'clock you won't be
+the least bit surprised if you find yourself flying across the New
+Jersey flats in an aeroplane, or having a cup of hot coffee on board
+the pilot steamer off Sandy Hook."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll risk either of those unlikely things, sir, if we find your car
+where we left it," They stepped out briskly.  When all was said and
+done, none of the three wished to be stranded in some unknown byway of
+Westchester County at that ungodly hour, and their relief was great
+when the stark outline of the crane became visible in an otherwise
+impenetrable wall of darkness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By Jove!  The car is here all right," crowed Devar joyously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the next few strides the automobile came in sight, the blaze of its
+headlights casting a cheerful glow over the wharf.  Brodie was standing
+where the barge had been moored, and gazing blankly at the river; he
+turned when he heard their footsteps, and ran quickly to the car.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's O. K., Arthur," cried Devar, realizing that the chauffeur might
+be dreading an attack from the rear, "little Willie has returned, and
+won't go boating again in a derelict barge at two o'clock in the
+morning if he can help it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it's you, sir!" came the answer in a tone of vast relief.  "My,
+but I'm glad to see you!  I didn't know what to do.  I thought you were
+safe enough, because I heard your voices as you drifted away, and I
+fancied you might make the shore again lower down, but it seemed to be
+a hopeless job to go in search of you, so, after things had calmed down
+a bit, I decided to stop right here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After the first gasp of excitement, there had crept into the placid
+Brodie's voice a note of quiet jubilation which hinted at developments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did anything happen after we sailed away?" asked Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you see anyone?" demanded the policeman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Things were quiet as the grave for quite a time after you gentlemen
+disappeared," said Brodie, speaking with the unctuous slowness of a man
+who has been vouchsafed the opportunity of his life and has grabbed it
+with both hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something <I>did</I> occur, then?" put in Devar impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing to speak of, sir&mdash;at first," came the irritating answer.  "I
+watched you go on board the barge, and I noticed her edging out into
+the river, and it was easy enough to know that none of you had cast her
+off, because what you said showed that you were even more surprised
+than I was.  So, sez I to meself, 'Arthur, me boy, barges don't untie
+themselves from wharves in that casual sort of way, and at just the
+right minute, too, for anyone who wanted to dispose of a cop,' begging
+your pardon, Mr. Policeman, but that was the line of argument I had
+with meself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Try the accelerator, Arthur," groaned Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If ever I meet with a bit of an accident, sir, I always pull up and
+plan the wheel-marks; I carry a tape for the purpose, and it saves a
+lot of hard swearing in court afterwards."  Brodie spoke seriously, and
+Devar vowed that he would interrupt no more, since he merely succeeded
+in stimulating the man's torpid wits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Even now, the chauffeur waited to allow his philosophy to sink into
+minds which might prove unreceptive.  Finding that there was no
+likelihood of debate, he went on:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It struck me, too, that a feller who didn't hesitate about shoving a
+good car into a river must be a rank tough, the kind of character who
+would jump at the chance of plugging me with a bullet, or two, for that
+matter, and hiking off with the car, without anybody being the wiser,
+so I nipped out from behind the wheel, and, taking care to keep away
+from the light, crept in behind that pile of rock there," and he nodded
+to the mass of dressed stone which filled one end of the wharf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He waited, as though to make sure that they appreciated his
+generalship.  Devar's teeth grated, and McCulloch stirred uneasily, but
+no one spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll notice that it is only a few feet away," he said, measuring the
+distance with a thoughtful eye, "but, to make sure of reaching anybody
+who might try to monkey with the car, I groped around until I had found
+two half bricks.  Then I waited.  By that time, which was really less
+than it takes me to tell you about it, there wasn't a sound to be heard
+but the lapping of the river.  The last thing I heard you say, Mr.
+Howard, was&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I used language which no self-respecting chauffeur could possibly
+repeat," broke in Devar despairingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's as may be, sir.  Circumstances alter cases, as you will see
+before I've done.  Well, I listened to the river, which resembled
+nothing in all the world so much as the sobbing of a child, but no one
+stirred for such a time that I began to feel stiff, and I was thinking
+that I might be acting like a fool for my pains when a head popped up
+over the edge of the wharf."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Obviously, this sentence demanded a dramatic pause, and Brodie knew his
+business.  Perhaps he expected cries of horror from his audience, but
+none was forthcoming, so, with a sigh, he continued:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That cured the stiffness, gentlemen, I can assure you.  I balanced one
+of the half bricks in my left hand&mdash;I'm a left-handed man in many
+things&mdash;and watched the head, while it was easy to see that the head
+watched the car.  'Now,' sez I to meself, 'that's the whelp who
+mistreated a car which had served him well, and he's reckoning in his
+own mind that my car would suit his needs just as well as the one he
+has lost.'  I do believe I read that man's mind correctly.  He might
+have said out loud: 'That party of sports were muts.  They're all
+aboard the Hudson River liner, chauffeur and all.'  I beg your pardon,
+gentlemen, if I have put it awkwardly, but I am sort of feeling my way
+towards the feller's sentiments, groping in the dark, as you might say."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Notwithstanding his effort at self-restraint, Devar felt that he must
+speak or explode.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go right ahead, Arthur," he said.  "Explain the position thoroughly.
+The fog is lifting, and we have heaps of time before sunrise."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The whole affair is a mighty queer business, sir," said Brodie
+seriously.  "The roundsman here will tell you how careful one has to be
+in such matters.  I have had a law-case or two in my time, and them
+lawyers turn you inside out if you begin romancing.  For instance, what
+I've just told you isn't evidence.  The man said nothing; neither did
+I.  We played a fine game of cat and mouse, only it happened that I was
+the cat.&#8230;  Well, it is getting late, so I'll get on with the
+story.  The head didn't budge for quite a while, but at last it made a
+move, and soon the identical chauffeur who hit up the pace from 23rd
+Street climbed on to the wharf and dodged in behind the crane.  He had
+something in his right hand, too, that I didn't like the look of, so I
+gripped my chunk of brick mighty hard.  This time he didn't wait so
+long, but crept forward like a stage murderer, peeping this way and
+that, but making for the car.  Once he looked straight at where I was
+crouching, and I was scared stiff, because a brick ain't any fair match
+for one of them new-fangled pistols at six yards or so; but I guess he
+was a bit nervy himself, and he didn't make out anything unusual in my
+direction.  Then he dodged right round the car to the back, and
+returned on the side nearest to me.  I suppose he reckoned all was safe
+by that time, so he took hold of the crank and began to start the
+engine.  'Now or never!' says I to meself, so up I gets, and my knee
+joints cracked like&mdash;well, they cracked so loud that only the turning
+of the crank stopped him from hearing them.  With that, I let drive
+with the half brick, and caught him square in the small of the back.
+Down he went with a yell, and me on top of him.  I had the second half
+brick ready to batter his skull in if he showed fight, but the first
+one had laid him out sufficient for my purpose, which was to get hold
+of this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brodie's hand dived into a pocket, and he produced a particularly
+vicious looking automatic pistol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then McCulloch said imperatively:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You've got him.  Where is he?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brodie was really an artist.  Some men would have smirked with triumph,
+but he merely jerked a thumb casually toward the automobile:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In there!" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The policeman ran to a door and wrenched it open.  He turned the rays
+of the lamp which he still held in his hand on to a figure, lying
+kneeling on the floor in an extraordinary attitude.  From a white face
+a pair of gleaming eyes met his in a glance of hate and fear, but no
+words came from the thin lips set in a line, and a moment's scrutiny
+showed that the captive was bound hand and foot.  Indeed, hands and
+feet were fastened together with a stout cord, which had been passed
+around the man's neck subsequently, so that he was in some danger of
+suffocation if he endeavored to wriggle loose, or even straighten his
+back, which was bent over his heels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's all right," said Brodie, who had strolled leisurely after the
+others.  "I told him I was taking no chances, and was compelled to make
+him uncomfortable, but that he wouldn't choke if he kept quiet.  Of
+course, he has had a rather trying wait, but I couldn't help that,
+could I?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We give you best," growled McCulloch.  "Did you stiffen him with the
+half brick, then, that you were able to hunt around for a rope?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That helped some, but I also remarked that, if he moved, this toy of
+his would surely go off by accident, and he seemed to think it might
+hurt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+McCulloch held the lamp close to the livid, twisted face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is this Anatole?" he said suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Curtis, with instant appreciation of his adroitness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were rewarded by the scowl which convulsed the mask-like face, and
+terror set its unmistakable seal there.  A harsh metallic voice came
+from the huddled-up form.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cut this d&mdash;d rope, and let me stand on my feet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no special hurry," said the policeman coolly.  "We won't
+object to making things more pleasant for you if you promise to take us
+straight to your Hungarian friends."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again that wave of dread which betokens the quailing heart of the
+detected felon swept over the man's features, but he only swore again,
+and protested that they had no right to torture him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+McCulloch saw that he had to deal with a hardened criminal, from whom
+no conscience stricken confession would be forthcoming.  He gave the
+lamp to Curtis, stooped, and lifted the prisoner out on to the ground.
+Untying the rope, except at the man's ankles, he brought the listless
+hands in front, and placed a pair of handcuffs on the wrists.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," he said, "if you have any sense left, you'll keep quiet and
+enjoy the ride back to New York."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why am I arrested?  I have a right to know?"  The words were yelped at
+him rather than spoken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All in good time, Anatole.  You'll have everything explained to you
+fair and square."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is not my name.  That's a Frenchman's name."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It fitted you all right in 27th Street a few hours ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was not there.  I can prove it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course you can.  You'd be a poor sort of crook if you couldn't.
+But what's this?" the roundsman had found some letters and a pocketbook
+in an inner pocket of the chauffeur's closely buttoned jacket&mdash;"M.
+Anatole Labergerie, care of Morris Siegelman, saloon-keeper, East
+Broadway, N. Y.," he said.  "You know someone named Anatole, anyhow, so
+we are warm, as the kids say," he went on sarcastically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I say nothing.  I admit nothing.  I demand the presence of a lawyer,"
+was the defiant reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll see a heap of lawyers before the State of New York has no
+further use for you.  Now, I'll take you to a nice, quiet hotel for the
+night.  In with you.&#8230;  Mind the step.  Let me give you a friendly
+hand.&#8230;  No, that seat, if you please, close up in the corner.
+I'll go next.  Mr. Curtis, you don't object to being squeezed a little,
+I'm sure, though the three of us will crowd the back seat, and if the
+gentleman who says nothing and admits nothing will only change his
+mind, and tell us exactly how he has spent a rather exciting evening,
+the story will help pass the journey quite pleasantly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anatole Labergerie, whose accent was that of a Frenchman with a
+very complete knowledge of English, had evidently determined on a
+policy of silence, and no word crossed his lips during the greater part
+of the long run to the police station-house in 30th Street, in which
+precinct, the 23rd, the murder had occurred, and to which McCulloch was
+attached.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His presence in the car acted as an effectual damper on conversation in
+so far as Curtis and Devar were concerned.  If their suspicions were
+justified, he was a principal in an atrocious crime, and mere
+propinquity with such a wretch induced a feeling of loathing comparable
+only with that shrinking from physical contact to which mankind yields
+when confronted with leprosy in its final forbidding form.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But McCulloch was jubilant.  He regarded his prisoner with the almost
+friendly interest taken in his quarry by the slayer of wild beasts to
+whose rifle has fallen some peculiarly rare and dangerous "specimen."
+He enlivened the road with anecdotes of famous criminals, and each
+story invariably concluded with a facetious reference to the "chair" or
+a "lifer."  Once or twice he gave details of the breaking up of some
+notorious gang owing to information extracted from one of its minor
+members, who, in consequence, either escaped punishment or received a
+light sentence; but the captive remained mute and apparently
+indifferent, whereupon Curtis, who had been revolving in his mind
+certain elements in a singularly complex mystery, broke fresh ground by
+saying:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The strangest feature of this affair is probably unknown to you, Mr.
+McCulloch.  To all intents and purposes, the men who killed the
+journalist were acting in concert with a Frenchman named Jean de
+Courtois, and their common object was to prevent a marriage arranged
+for last night.  Yet this same de Courtois was found gagged and bound
+in his room at the Central Hotel shortly before midnight.  Someone had
+maltreated him badly, and the wonder is he was not killed outright."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, the roundsman, wedged close against the prisoner, felt the man
+give an almost unconscious and quite involuntary start when de Courtois
+was mentioned, and there could be no question that he was straining his
+ears to catch each syllable Curtis uttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nudging the latter, McCulloch said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So it was a near thing that two weddings were not interfered with last
+night, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not two, only one.  I married the lady."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You did!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The policeman's undoubted bewilderment was convincingly genuine, but,
+despite his surprise, he was alert to catch the slightest move or sign
+of emotion on the part of the captive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Curtis.  "I married her before half-past eight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you must have possessed some knowledge of the parties mixed up in
+this business?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not in the sense you have in mind.  I cannot supply full
+particulars now, but you will learn them in due course.  The point I
+wish to emphasize is this&mdash;poor Mr. Hunter's death was absolutely
+needless.  I imagine he only came into connection with the intrigue by
+exercising the journalistic instinct to obtain exclusive details of a
+sensational news item which involved several distinguished people.  The
+miserable tools employed by men who wished to gain their own ends were
+not even true to each other, and they undoubtedly attacked Hunter by
+error."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did they mean to kill you, then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no.  They had never heard of me.  I dropped from the skies, or the
+nearest thing to it, since I was on the Atlantic at this hour
+yesterday."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+McCulloch was aware that the Frenchman had been profoundly disturbed by
+Curtis's statements, and kept the ball rolling.  That name, de
+Courtois, seemed to supply the clew to the man's agitation, so he
+harped on it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has Mr. Steingall seen de Courtois?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  Mr. Devar and I accompanied him to de Courtois's room, and set
+the rascal free."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That settles it," said the roundsman emphatically.  "If the man with
+the camera eye has looked de Courtois over it is all up with the whole
+bunch.  Are you listening, Anatole?  This should be real lively hearing
+for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Monsieur de Courtois is a friend of mine," came the sullen response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, is he?  Then you do know something about events in 27th Street,
+eh?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I tell you nothing, but why should I deny that I know Monsieur de
+Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Or that you are a Frenchman," put in Curtis quietly.  "One of the few
+words in the French language which no foreigner can ever pronounce is
+that word 'Monsieur,' especially when it is followed by a 'de.'  I
+speak French well enough to realize my limitations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Anatole, cough it up," said McCulloch jocularly.  "You've no more
+chance of winning through than a chunk of ice in hell's flames."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me alone, I'm tired," said the other, relapsing into a stony
+inattention which did not end even when Brodie brought the car to a
+stand outside the police station-house in West 30th Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The advent of the roundsman with a prisoner and escort created some
+commotion among his colleagues.  The police captain was the same
+official who had harbored suspicion against Curtis not so many hours
+ago, and his opinion was not entirely changed, only modified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He glanced darkly at Curtis and Devar, but was manifestly cheered by
+sight of McCulloch with a chauffeur in custody.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello!" he cried, "and where in Hades have <I>you</I> been?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A long way from home, Mr. Evans," said the roundsman.  "But it was
+worth while.  This is Anatole, whose other name is Labergerie, the man
+wanted for the murder in 27th Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The deuce it is!  Where did you get him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Away up beyond Yonkers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hold on a minute."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He swung round quickly to a telephone, and called up Headquarters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello, there," he said, when an answer came.  "Mr. Steingall or Mr.
+Clancy in?  Both?  Well, put me through.&#8230;  That you, Mr.
+Steingall?  I'm Evans, 23rd precinct.&#8230;  Sergeant McCulloch has
+just arrived with a prisoner, the chauffeur, Anatole; and Mr. Curtis is
+here, too.&#8230;  Anatole Labergerie is the full name."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some conversation followed.  The others could hear the peculiar rasping
+sound of a voice otherwise undistinguishable, but it was evident that
+the police captain was greatly puzzled.  At last he beckoned to Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're wanted," he said laconically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis went to the instrument, and Steingall's rather amused tone was
+soon explicable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's a screw loose, somewhere," he said.  "Anatole Labergerie is a
+respectable garage-keeper.  I know him well.  Half an hour ago I called
+him out of bed, chiefly on account of his front name, and he told me
+that Mr. Hunter hired a car from him last evening, but never showed up
+at the appointed place and time, and the chauffeur brought the car back
+to the garage to wait further orders."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no wish to traduce Anatole Labergerie," said Curtis, "but I am
+quite sure that the man under arrest is the driver of the car in which
+the Hungarians made off.  He has admitted, too, that Jean de Courtois
+is his friend."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A low whistle revealed Steingall's revised view of the situation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't go away," he said.  "Clancy and I will be with you in less than
+quarter of an hour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis hung up the receiver, and announced the new development.  The
+Frenchman did not betray any cognizance of it.  He had collapsed into a
+chair, and looked the degenerate that he was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Devar slapped McCulloch's broad shoulders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Didn't I tell you?" he cried.  "There's a whole lot of night ahead of
+us yet.  Gee whizz!  I'll write a book before I'm through with this!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+A dejected and disheveled super-clerk was called on to face a new
+crisis soon after he had apparently got rid of most of the persons
+concerned in the pandemonium which had raged for hours around that
+refuge of middle-class decorum and respectability, the Central Hotel in
+27th Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he was wont to explain in later days of blessed peacefulness:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The queerest part of the whole business was that I never had the
+slightest notion as to what was going to happen next.  Everything
+occurred like a flash of lightning, and imitated lightning by never
+striking twice in the same place."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not to be expected that a man of the Earl of Valletort's social
+standing and experience would allow himself to be brow-beaten by a
+police official and an uncertain miscellany of people like Devar and
+the members of the Curtis family.  When the cool night air had tempered
+his indignation, and he was removed from the electrical atmosphere
+created by his son-in-law's positive disdain and Steingall's negative
+indifference, he began to survey the situation.  Though not wholly a
+stranger in New York, he was far from being versed in the
+technicalities of legal and police methods, so he bethought him of
+securing skilled advice.  The hour was late, but the fact merely
+presented a difficulty which was not insuperable to a person of even
+average intelligence.  He turned into an imposing looking hotel on
+Broadway, produced his card, and asked for the manager.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An affable clerk hurried forward, thinking that his house was about to
+earn new laurels; if somewhat surprised by the Earl's explanation that
+he was in need of a lawyer of repute, and had applied to the proprietor
+of an important hotel as one most likely to further the quest, he
+responded with prompt civility.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are several lawyers guests in the hotel at this moment, my
+lord," he said.  "Each is a notable man in one branch of practice or
+another.  May I ask if you want advice in a matter of real estate, or
+some commercial claim, or a criminal charge?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The latter, in a sense," said the Earl.  "A relative of mine has
+contracted a marriage under conditions which are illegal, or, at any
+rate, most irregular."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The clerk stroked his chin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Otto Schmidt has just concluded a remarkable nullity of marriage
+suit," he pondered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just the man for my purpose.  Is he in?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within five minutes the Earl was closeted with Mr. Otto Schmidt in the
+latter's private sitting-room.  The lawyer was a short man, who bore a
+remarkable physical resemblance to an egg.  Head, rotund body, and
+immensely fat legs tapering to very small feet, formed a complete oval,
+while his ivory-tinted skin, and a curious crease running round
+forehead and ears beneath a scalp wholly devoid of hair, suggested that
+the egg had been boiled, and the top cut off and replaced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he showed presently that the ovum was sound in quality.  He
+listened in absolute silence until his lordship had told his story.
+All things considered, the recital was essentially true.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were suppressions of fact, such as the lack of any mention of
+collusion between the distraught father and Count Ladislas Vassilan on
+the one hand and Jean de Courtois on the other, and there were wholly
+unwarrantable imputations against Curtis's character and attributes,
+but, on the whole, Mr. Schmidt was able, in his own phrase, "to size up
+the position" with fair accuracy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Like every other man of common sense who became acquainted with the
+night's doings in a connected narrative, he began by expressing his
+astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have had some singular cases to handle during a long and varied
+professional career," he said, and eyelids almost devoid of lashes
+dropped for an instant over a pair of dark and curiously piercing eyes,
+"but I have never heard of anything quite like this.  You say the name
+of the detective who gave you the account of the murder, and of the
+connection of this John Delancy Curtis with it, is Steingall?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the eyelids fell, and, as Mr. Schmidt's face was also devoid of
+eyebrows, and was colorless in its pallor, and as his lips met in a
+thin seam above a chin which merged in folds of soft flesh where his
+neck ought to be, his features at such a moment assumed the
+disagreeable aspect of a death mask, though this impression vanished
+when those brilliant eyes peered forth from their bulbous sockets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I know Steingall," he said.  "He is at the head of the New York
+Detective Bureau, a man of the highest reputation, and one who commands
+confidence in the courts, not to speak of his department."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He struck me as an able man, but I am quite sure he has failed to
+appreciate the share this fellow, Curtis, has borne in the affair,"
+said the Earl testily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It seems to me that your daughter, Lady Hermione, could not possibly
+have been what is commonly described as 'in love' with de Courtois?
+Stupid as the comment may appear, I must search for a motive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My good sir, the notion is preposterous.  I&mdash;I have reason to believe
+that she intended this marriage to serve as a shield, or cloak, for her
+own purposes, which were, I regret to say, largely inspired by a
+stubborn resolve not to marry a man who is suitable as a husband in
+every way&mdash;by birth, social position, and distinguished prospects."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Her own purposes.  What does that mean exactly?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It means that she was contracting a marriage as a matter of form.
+Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible
+for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de
+Courtois's substitute, while my misguided daughter was equally prepared
+to accept them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The eyelids shut tightly once more, and the Earl, feeling rather
+irritated and disturbed by this unpleasing habit, shifted his chair
+noisily.  He found, however, that Mr. Schmidt merely kept the shutters
+down for a rather longer period than before, and, as the lawyer
+impressed him with a sense of power and ability, he resolved to put up
+with a peculiarity which was certainly disconcerting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I ask if your daughter is what is popularly known as a pretty
+girl, my lord?" demanded Schmidt suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  She is remarkably good-looking, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Motive, my lord, motive.  I was wondering why Curtis should behave
+like a thundering idiot.  Now, apart from your natural dislike to the
+man, how would you describe him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He looks a gentleman, and, under ordinary conditions, I would regard
+him as a social equal," admitted the Earl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So, unfortunate as the circumstances may be, he is a more desirable
+<I>parti</I> than the French music-master?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the noble lord flared into heat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dash it all!" he cried.  "You are almost as bad as that detective
+person.  I am not bothering my brains as to Curtis's desirableness or
+otherwise, or comparing him with a worm like de Courtois.  I want this
+marriage annulled.  I want him arrested.  I want the aid of the law to
+extricate my daughter from the consequences of her own folly.  Surely,
+such a marriage cannot be legal!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt weighed the point from behind the veil, and an unemotional
+reply soothed his fiery client.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The idea is, perhaps, untenable&mdash;almost repulsive," he said, "but the
+law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I
+cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand.  You see, the question of
+consideration intervenes.  And&mdash;and&mdash;where is the lady now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You left Curtis at the Central Hotel!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In company with Steingall, and two elderly Curtises, and young Devar?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why didn't you demand your daughter's present address?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I&mdash;I was so stunned by what I regarded as official sanction of an
+outrage that I came away in a fury."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Otto Schmidt rose, or rather, raised his oblong shape from a slight
+incline on a chair to a horizontal position.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us go to the hotel," he said.  "And there must be no more fury.
+Leave the inquiry in my hands, my lord, and it will be strange if I do
+not succeed in elucidating points which are now baffling us&mdash;in fact, I
+may say, inducing mental disturbance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus, it came to pass that Krantz, the reception clerk at the Central
+Hotel, had just seen the doctor sent to dose de Courtois with bromide
+leaving the building when the Earl and Mr. Schmidt entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As it happened, the lawyer was known to him, Schmidt having had legal
+charge of the corporation which reconstructed the hotel, so it was
+impossible for an employé to be reticent with him about the matters
+which were discussed forthwith.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Steingall gone?" inquired Schmidt affably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir.  He left here nearly half an hour ago," said the clerk,
+outwardly self-possessed, but wondering inwardly what new bomb would be
+exploded in his weary brain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This murder, and its attendant circumstances, constitute a very
+extraordinary affair," said the lawyer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Krantz was not deceived.  He had answered some such remark a hundred
+times that evening, but he would surely be put on the rack in a moment
+by some fantastic disclosure which none save a lunatic would dream of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, about this Mr. John Delancy Curtis," purred Schmidt, "has it been
+ascertained beyond all doubt that he arrived in New York from Europe
+this evening?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think so, sir," was the jaded answer.  "The police are satisfied on
+that point, I believe, and he himself gave his last address as Pekin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pekin!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Everybody was invariably astonished when they heard of Pekin.  Had
+Curtis described his recent residence as "the Moon" it would have been
+regarded as only a degree more recondite.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said Schmidt, closing his eyes, "assuming he is the stranger he
+represents himself as being, he could have no personal connection with
+the murder of Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There!  Another comet had fallen in 27th Street.  Krantz winced, as if
+the lawyer had struck him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. de Courtois!" he gasped.  "Who says he was murdered?  He is&mdash;not
+very well, it is true, but for all that I can tell, he is sound asleep
+in bed at this minute."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sound asleep!" roared the Earl, who had been most positive in his
+opinion that Curtis must have brought about the Frenchman's death for
+his own fell purpose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Otto Schmidt laid a restraining hand on his lordship's shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steady now," he murmured.  "Remember my instructions.  The inquiry is
+committed to me for the time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, confound it, man&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, this is startling, this changes the whole aspect of the case.
+But you see the value of calm and judicious method."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The egg-shaped man was certainly entitled to take credit for the
+disclosure, and seldom failed to do so in many subsequent expositions
+to admiring friends of a singular case, but he never realized how
+thoroughly self-deluded the Earl had been by the original blunder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, sir," protested the clerk, "it was never supposed that Mr. de
+Courtois had been killed.  No one knew who the poor gentleman was at
+first, because Mr. Curtis's overcoat and his had been accidently
+exchanged in the flurry and excitement after the crime was committed.
+The police found the initials H. R. H. on his clothing, and that fact
+led to his being recognized as Mr. Henry R. Hunter, a well-known New
+York journalist.  Had I seen him myself, I would have settled that
+point in a moment, because he often came here to visit Mr. de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed!  That is very interesting, most decidedly interesting."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you quite certain that what you are saying is correct?  Mr.
+Hunter, the murdered man, was acquainted with Monsieur de Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The question came from the Earl of Valletort, whose angry bewilderment
+had suddenly given place to a gravity of demeanor that was significant
+of the serious complications involved in the clerk's statement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Poor Krantz could have bitten his tongue for its too free wagging.  He
+was thoroughly tired, and had intended to go to his room at the
+earliest moment and repair damages by a long night's rest.  Now, to all
+appearance, he had unwittingly reopened the whole wretched imbroglio.
+But there was no help for it.  Having put his hand to the plow he was
+obliged to turn the furrow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, my lord, positive," he said between his teeth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!"  Schmidt was beginning to think that the amazing marriage
+promised to develop into a <I>cause célèbre</I>.  "In that event, it becomes
+essential, indeed, I may say imperative, that his lordship and I should
+interview Monsieur de Courtois without delay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry, sir," said the clerk, desperately availing himself of the
+detective's instructions, "but Mr. Steingall left orders that no one
+should be permitted to visit Mr. de Courtois to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Left orders?  Is the man in this hotel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, I was aware of that all the time," put in the Earl.  "He
+lived here&mdash;don't you see, that accounts for the mistake I made in
+assuming that&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forgive me."  The lawyer's monitory hand rose again, and he turned to
+the clerk.  "You can hardly expect me, Mr. Krantz, to regard Mr.
+Steingall's 'orders' as in any way controlling my actions.  Kindly show
+his lordship and me to Monsieur de Courtois's room at once."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was nothing for it but to obey.  Krantz understood exactly how he
+would be jumped on and pulverized in the morning by irate stockholders
+in the hotel if any action of his should be adversely reported on by
+the great Otto Schmidt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the visit to de Courtois fizzled out unexpectedly.  The Frenchman,
+still attired in evening dress, for that is the conventional wedding
+attire of his race, was lying on the bed sleeping the sleep of utter
+exhaustion supplemented by bromide.  The two negro attendants, who were
+hoping for some more exciting experience, were squatted on the floor
+playing pinochle, and the strenuous efforts of Lord Valletort to arouse
+the slumberer were quite useless.  But&mdash;and that was a vital thing&mdash;he
+had seen de Courtois, and knew beyond doubt that he was alive, and
+seemingly in good health, or, at any rate, physically uninjured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man has been drugged," said the lawyer, watching the Earl's
+unavailing attempt to awaken the Frenchman.  "Is, by any chance, Mr.
+Curtis's room situated near this one?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is just overhead," said the clerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt looked up at the ceiling as though his eyes might discern a
+trap-door.  "Is Mr. Curtis there now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where is he?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He went out with a Mr. Devar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!  Do you know where he went to?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Krantz was tempted to prevaricate, but Schmidt was a power in the
+Central Hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe, sir, he is at the Plaza."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A large hotel, near Central Park, is it not?" demanded the Earl
+eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My lord, pardon me."  The lawyer was no believer in letting all the
+world into your secrets, and the clerk's manner showed that he was far
+from well posted in certain elements of the affair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Valletort was for rushing forthwith off in a taxi to the Plaza; but
+Schmidt vetoed the notion.  He shared the Earl's conviction that
+Hermione would be discovered there, but, before meeting her, he wanted
+to obtain a great many particulars the lack of which in his client's
+earlier story his legal acumen had already scented.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he drew the impatient nobleman into a quiet corner of the
+restaurant, and extracted from his unwilling lips certain details as to
+Count Vassilan and the marriage project which had not been forthcoming
+before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Krantz seized the opportunity to call up Steingall on the telephone and
+told him something, not all, of what had occurred.  He did not say that
+the Earl and Schmidt had actually seen de Courtois, and suppressed any
+mention of his disclosure with reference to Curtis's whereabouts, not
+that he wished to mislead the detective willfully, but he felt that he
+had been indiscreet, and there was no need to proclaim the fact.
+Moreover, he had never heard Hermione's name mentioned, or he was
+gallant enough to have risked any trouble next day if a lady would be
+saved distress thereby.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt's lawyer-like caution was destined to have far-reaching effects
+on the night's history.  It provided one of the minor rills of a
+torrent which was gaining irresistible momentum, and would submerge
+many people before its uncontrolled madness was exhausted.  Had he
+yielded to the Earl, and hurried to the Plaza at once, he would have
+met Curtis and Steingall there, and those two men might have diverted
+the bursting current of events into a new channel.  But, naturally
+enough, he wanted to understand precisely where he stood.  In a word,
+the egg was excellent in its constituents, but lacked the exuberant
+freshness of the newly-laid article.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hence, while the Earl nearly choked with indignation at sight of that
+entry in the visitors' book at the Plaza&mdash;"Mr. and Lady Hermione
+Curtis, Pekin,"&mdash;mistress and maid were once more discussing the
+astounding things which had taken place since the moment when John
+Delancy Curtis rang the bell at Flat 10 in Number 1000 59th Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If only I knew how to act for the best!" wailed Hermione half
+tearfully.  "I am afraid, Marcelle, I have been too egotistical, too
+much concerned about myself, I mean, and far too regardless of others.
+I have allowed Mr. Curtis to place himself in a dreadful position&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure, miladi, he doesn't think so," interrupted Marcelle
+breathlessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is the worst feature of it, to my thinking.  He is making all the
+sacrifice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!  To get a wife like you, miladi!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am <I>not</I> his wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you are not married like folk who go away for a honeymoon and
+find rice in their clothes every day for a week, but Mr. Curtis says,
+miladi, that you are his wife right enough in the eyes of the law, and
+I'm sure he admires you immensely already, so there's no telling&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marcelle, do you imagine for one single instant that I would really
+marry any man who took me as a favor, who conferred an obligation on
+me, who came to my assistance in a moment of despair?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, miladi, not if he thought those things.  But I have a sort of
+notion that Mr. Curtis would hurt any other man who suggested any of
+them, and it is easy to see by the very way he looks at you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, have pity, and don't harp on that string!  I can be nothing to
+him.  You mistake his kindness for something which is so utterly
+impossible that it almost drives me to hysteria to hear it even spoken
+of."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marcelle knew better.  In some recess of her own acute mind she felt
+that Lady Hermione's heightened color and shining eyes were due to just
+that wild and irresponsible conceit which they were debating.  Indeed,
+Hermione could not leave the topic alone.  She forbade it, rejected it,
+stormed at its folly, yet came back to it like a child held spellbound
+by some terrifying yet fascinating object.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The maid was racking her brain for some feminine argument which should
+convince an impulsive mistress that Curtis might reasonably regard his
+matrimonial entanglement as by no means so incapable of a satisfactory
+outcome as his "wife" deemed it, when a knock at the door of the
+sitting-room alarmed both.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, indeed, the ever-present dread which haunted them was justified,
+because a page announced "The Earl of Valletort and Mr. Otto Schmidt,"
+and before the petrified Marcelle could utter a word of protest, the
+two men were in the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marcelle said afterwards that no incident of those tumultuous hours
+surprised her more than the way in which Lady Hermione received her
+unbidden and unwelcome visitors.  The instant before their arrival she
+was an irresponsible and doubting and vacillating girl, torn by
+emotion, and swayed hither and thither by gusts of perplexity which
+ranged from half-formed hope to blank despair, but now she came from
+her bedroom without a second's hesitancy, and faced her father and the
+lawyer with a proud serenity which obviously disconcerted them, and
+quite dumfounded Marcelle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!  At last!" said the Earl, trying to speak complacently, but
+failing rather badly, because his attitude and words were decidedly
+melodramatic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And too late!" said his daughter, letting her fine eyes dwell on
+Schmidt with the contemplative scrutiny she might bestow on an exhibit
+in a natural history museum.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pardon me, your ladyship, not too late, but just in time, I fancy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Otto Schmidt met her gaze without flinching, and he was a man who
+undoubtedly commanded attention when he spoke.  His tone was
+deferential but decisive.  His black eyes were taking in this charming
+and intelligent woman in full measure.  Her rare beauty, her unstudied
+pose, her slender elegance, the quiet harmonies of her costume&mdash;each
+and all made their appeal.  He even waited for her reply, compelling it
+by some subtle transference of the knowledge that he would not endeavor
+to browbeat or misunderstand her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have heard your name, but may I ask why you are here?" she said
+composedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It pleased him to find that he had not erred by underrating her
+intelligence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A very proper question, Lady Hermione," he said.  "I am a lawyer,
+fairly well known in New York, and your father has consulted me with
+reference to the marriage you have contracted to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Since, as you say, the marriage has most certainly been contracted,
+the statement hardly explains your presence."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He smiled, and Lord Valletort, who had not seen Otto Schmidt smile once
+during the past hour, discovered that he had not begun to appraise his
+new ally's qualities at their due worth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is a legal habit to state events in their order," he replied
+suavely.  "But these are matters which we ought to discuss privately."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Marcelle, do not go," said Hermione, hiding her fear under an
+assumption of icy indifference, and checking the maid's movement in
+response to the lawyer's hint.  "Marcelle Leroux is fully in my
+confidence," she explained, "and you can say nothing which she may not
+listen to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am obliged to your ladyship, but I had to mention her presence,"
+said Schmidt.  "Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news,
+but you were inveigled into a marriage ceremony with John Delancy
+Curtis by gross and fraudulent misrepresentation.  He told you, I
+assume, that Monsieur Jean de Courtois was dead.  That is not true.
+Monsieur de Courtois is alive, and in his room at the Central Hotel in
+27th Street at this moment.  He was detained there at the hour you
+awaited him&mdash;kept there forcibly, by means which must be investigated,
+but the really important fact now is that he lives.  Need I tell you
+what that statement implies?  Need I emphasize the lie with which this
+man Curtis attained his object?  Your father, the Earl, and I myself,
+saw Jean de Courtois a few minutes since.  Probably, and not without
+reason, you doubt my word.  If that is so, will you kindly use the
+telephone yourself, ring up the Central Hotel, and ask if Monsieur de
+Courtois is there?  You will hardly imagine that the hotel staff would
+enter into a conspiracy with us to deceive you.  Again, you might send
+for the manager here.  He knows me, and will assure you that I am not a
+person who would lend himself to subterfuge or falsehood."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But some man was killed, was he not?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione's lips had whitened, but her courage was superb, though her
+poor heart was like to burst with its frenzied throbbing, for she was
+certain this self-possessed man was speaking truly, and, if he were,
+her hero with the head of gold had revealed feet of clay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, unhappily, a journalist named Hunter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt was an artist.  He knew when to use few words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But Mr. Curtis himself may have been deceived."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Curtis was among those who pretended to liberate de Courtois from
+his bonds.  Your unfortunate friend was brutally tied and gagged in his
+room in the hotel, and is now recovering from the effects of the
+maltreatment he received."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Curtis couldn't have known of this when he was here, little more
+than half an hour ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He knew it two hours ago.  Not only he, but Mr. Steingall knew it.
+Did neither of them tell you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In utter despair, broken-hearted now not by reason of her own plight,
+but rather because of a shattered faith, Hermione appealed to the Earl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Father, is this true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Absolutely true, every syllable.  I really think you ought to confirm
+Mr. Schmidt's statement by inquiry at the Central Hotel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And publish my unhappy story more widely!&#8230;  Will you kindly leave
+me now?  I must think, and act."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One word, your ladyship, and I have done," said the lawyer, speaking
+with a slow seriousness that could not fail to be convincing.  "The
+mischief is not irreparable&mdash;at present.  But you must not remain here.
+You are registered in the books of the hotel as the wife of John
+Delancy Curtis, and, if I may say it with respect, your own sense of
+what is right and proper will forbid the notion that you can abide in
+the hotel until to-morrow.  I pledge my reputation that it will
+immensely facilitate the legal steps necessary to secure the annulment
+of the marriage if you dissever yourself from your so-called husband at
+the earliest moment after you have discovered his tort."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione was not the type of woman who faints in an emergency, though
+gladly now would she have found in unconsciousness a respite from the
+bitter pain that was rending her innermost fiber.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think&mdash;I understand," she said brokenly.  "Will you please go?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But will you not come with me, Hermione?" said her father.  "I give
+you my word of honor there will be no recriminations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must be alone&mdash;to-night," she cried, flaring into a passionate
+vehemence.  "Marcelle and I will return to my apartment.  You know
+where it is.  Come there in the morning, at any hour you choose, but go
+now, this instant, or I shall refuse to leave the hotel, no matter what
+the consequences."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her voice rose almost to a scream, and Schmidt, a profound student of
+human nature, realized that any extra pressure would be fatal.  He had
+succeeded.  This girl would keep her promise, of that he was well
+assured, but if her high-strung temperament was subjected to undue
+force she would put her back against the wall and defy law and
+convention alike.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come," he said to the Earl, and, with a courteous bow to Hermione, he
+literally pulled her father from the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione did not weep.  She was done with tears, sick with vain regret,
+yet braced to unfaltering purpose.  The instant the door was closed she
+picked up the telephone, and the wretched Krantz was soon in evidence
+to verify the lawyer's words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marcelle was crying as though she had lost a lover or some dear
+relative; when Hermione bade her prepare for their departure, she gave
+no heed, but wailed her sorrow aloud.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I d-don't believe them, miladi," she sobbed.  "Mr. Curtis&mdash;will wring
+the lawyer-man's neck&mdash;to-morrow.&#8230;  I know he will.&#8230;  Did Mr.
+Curtis kill poor Mr. Hunter?  If not, why should he tie that
+Frenchman?&#8230;  And wouldn't he t-tie twenty Frenchmen if he w-wanted
+to m-marry you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermione stooped and fondled the girl's shoulders, for Marcelle had
+collapsed to her knees on the hearth-rug while her mistress was using
+the telephone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have been my very good friend, Marcelle," she said, and the misery
+in her voice subjugated the maid's louder grief.  "Don't fail me now,
+there's a dear!  I want to write a letter, and there can be no question
+whatever that you and I must get away before Mr. Curtis returns.  Don't
+fret, or lose faith in Providence.  A great man once wrote: 'God's in
+Heaven, and all's well with the world.'  You and I must try to believe
+that, and place utmost trust in its promise.&#8230;  There, now!  Hurry,
+and I shall join you in a few minutes.  We shall send for our baggage
+in the morning, and so avoid attracting attention in the hotel
+to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brave as she was, when left alone in the room she pressed her hands to
+her face in sheer abandonment of agony.  But the storm passed, and she
+sat down to write.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Evans, the police captain of the 23rd Precinct, had a fairly long story
+to hear from McCulloch.  The roundsman did not spare himself in the
+recital.  He pleaded guilty to three errors of judgment.  In the first
+instance, he would have done well had he taken the advice given by
+Devar during the halt at 42nd Street, and arrested the supposed
+"Anatole" then and there; secondly, he might have secured corroborative
+evidence of the cleansing of parts of the automobile&mdash;evidence now
+destroyed by the waters of the Hudson; and, thirdly, he should have
+asked Brodie to intercept the fugitive long before it became possible
+to plunge the car into the river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All I can say is, I sized up the situation and acted accordingly," he
+commented ruefully.  "It did look like a good plan to give him rope
+enough"&mdash;here he checked his utterance, and glanced at the disconsolate
+prisoner&mdash;"but he fairly got the better of me when I went aboard that
+barge.  I ought to have left one of these gentlemen to watch the quay.
+My excuse is that the barge seemed to offer the only probable
+hiding-place, and there was always the chance that he had gone into the
+river with the car."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Anyhow, you got him," observed Evans sympathetically, for McCulloch
+was a valued and trustworthy officer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, he's here, but Mr. Brodie got him," whereupon Brodie tried not
+to look sheepish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall and Clancy arrived before the roundsman had made an end of
+his experiences, which he had to recount for their benefit.  The two
+detectives had resumed their ordinary clothing.  They looked tired, but
+quietly elated, and it was noticeable that Clancy's mercurial spirits
+seemed to have evaporated.  Those who knew him would have augured from
+that fact that the chase was reaching its climax, but Curtis and Devar
+fancied that the little man was thoroughly worn out and pining for
+rest.  Never had they been more egregiously deceived.  He resembled a
+hound which bays its excitement when the quarry is scented but
+restrains all its energies for the last desperate struggle when the
+flying prey is in sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Frenchman sat as though in a stupor, and seemingly gave no
+attention to the details of the hunt, but he sprang to his feet in
+sheer fright when Steingall walked up to him and said sternly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Antoine Lamotte, listen to what I have to say."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am betrayed, then?" snarled the man viciously, though his voice went
+off into a curious yelp of agony as a twinge reminded him of Brodie's
+vigorous aim with half a brick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, the game is up.  I know your confederates, and you will be
+confronted with them before daybreak.&#8230;  No, I am not bluffing.
+That is not my way.  Their names are Gregor Martiny and Ferdinand
+Rossi.  Now are you satisfied?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lamotte sank back into his chair.  His features were wrung with pain,
+but the momentary excitement vanished, and his manner grew sullen again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you know so much I can tell you nothing," he growled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  You can give me little or no information I do not possess
+already.  But, unless you are more fool than knave, you can at least
+try to save your own miserable life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By a full confession.  Did you know that Martiny and Rossi meant to
+kill Mr. Hunter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I swear it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then why don't you take the hint I have given you?  It will be too
+late when you are brought before a judge.  Believe me, I shall waste no
+more breath in persuading you.  It is now or never."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Frenchman rose again, this time more slowly.  He glanced around at
+the ring of faces, and, for a moment, his gaze dwelt contemplatively on
+Clancy.  Perhaps he was vouchsafed some intuition that this man was to
+be feared, but Clancy remained unemotional as a Sioux Indian.  When he
+spoke, it was with a certain dignity, and, oddly enough, his words,
+though uttered in English, savored of a literal translation from the
+French mint which coined them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Monsieur," he said, "I am a man who regards loyalty to his friends
+before all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An excellent quality, even in a criminal, if your friends are loyal to
+you," replied Steingall with equal seriousness of manner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But the woman who betrayed us&mdash;may she be eaten up with cancer!&mdash;is
+not my friend.  Those others are."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have met with no woman.  I have good reason to think that you have
+no real notion of the influences which led your Hungarian friends, as
+you call them, to commit a murder.  But I rather respect your
+sentiment, so, to give you one final chance, I tell you now just how
+you were brought into this thing.  You are a thief, and the associate
+of thieves, but you have never, so far as our records go, been
+convicted.  Your real name is not Lamotte, though you have passed under
+it long enough in New York to establish some sort of claim to it, and
+you were sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Toulon eight years ago
+for a breach of military discipline.  On your release you consorted
+with anarchists in Paris, and, to escape arrest as a suspect after a
+dynamite outrage on the Grand Boulevard, you emigrated to America.  You
+are a clever mechanic, and, had you tried to earn an honest living, you
+would have succeeded, but some kink in your nature drove you to crime,
+mixed up with a good deal of political froth.  When you heard that
+precious pair of fanatics, Martiny and Rossi, plotting in Morris
+Siegelman's café to prevent a marriage between an English lady of great
+wealth and a wretched little Frenchman, so that the cause of a
+Hungarian party might benefit if Count Ladislas Vassilan secured the
+lady and the money, especially the money, you thought you saw a way
+towards striking a blow at the Austrian monarchy and also benefiting
+yourself.  So you offered your services, and your more acute brain put
+them up to a dodge they would never have thought of.  It was necessary
+for your purpose that you should figure as a respectable man, so you
+had cards printed in the name of Anatole Labergerie, and addressed
+letters to yourself under that same name at Morris Siegelman's
+restaurant.  I do not know yet where you obtained the car, but I shall
+know to-morrow&mdash;the fact is immaterial now.  What is of real importance
+is the method whereby you humbugged the janitor at Mr. Hunter's office
+by pretending that you had been sent there by Mr. Labergerie because
+the car was at liberty somewhat earlier than was expected, and the
+unfortunate journalist took it as a compliment, drove to his rooms,
+changed his clothes, and returned to the office, thus playing into your
+hands, because the car sent to his order by Mr. Labergerie was thereby
+prevented from picking him up at the appointed time.  It was shrewd of
+you to guess that a busy man on the staff of a newspaper would be glad
+to utilize an automobile placed unexpectedly at his disposal, and fate
+played into your hands by the delay in issuing the duplicate marriage
+license, which he had promised de Courtois to obtain from the City
+Hall."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sir, I knew nothing of any marriage license."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Probably not.  You were concerned only with taking your confederates'
+money, and posing as the clever brain of the outfit.  But I imagine,
+and not another word shall I say, that they overreached you a bit when
+they knifed Mr. Hunter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lamotte, to describe him by the name under which he figured in the
+annals of the crime, stretched out his hands in a gesture of emphatic
+protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No matter what becomes of me," he said eagerly, "I ask you to believe
+that I did not even know they had killed Mr. Hunter until I saw the
+blood on the panel when I took them to Market Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So.  You have been slow to adopt the lead I offered you.  But why, in
+God's name, did they stab the man?  That could hardly have been their
+deliberate plan."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was a sort of accident.  So they said.  They really meant to force
+him into the car, and overpower him.  The scheme was to bring him to
+Market Street and keep him there until&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He hesitated.  He had given up hope for himself, but he stopped short
+of introducing other names into prominence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Until the <I>Switzerland</I> had reached New York, with Count Ladislas
+Vassilan and the English lord on board."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Lamotte yielded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know everything," he said, with a dejected shrug.  "Either you are
+a wizard, or Gregor and Rossi are open-mouthed fools."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall smiled inscrutably, but Clancy, who had remained strangely
+quiet, did not relax the close attention he was giving to the
+Frenchman's least word or action.  It was about this time that Curtis
+noticed the little detective's air of complete absorption, and he
+wondered at it, since Clancy and his chief seemed to have unfolded the
+whole mystery in a way that was at once admirable and bewildering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then why don't you exercise your wits, man?  I have been candor itself
+in my statement, but it is your own words which will be taken down by
+the police captain here, as you are charged in his presence with
+complicity in the murder, and they will be on record for or against you
+when you are brought to trial."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You want me to admit that what you have said is true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just as you wish," said Steingall, half contemptuously.  "I now charge
+you formally with taking part in the murder of Mr. Hunter.  If you have
+anything to say, say it, and it will be written at once, and signed by
+you, if you choose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He waited a moment, and then turned aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put him in the cells," he said.  "I shall not trouble farther about
+him now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One moment, monsieur," exclaimed Lamotte, evidently believing that he
+was seriously jeopardizing his life by not taking the advice given so
+openly.  "I admit that you are well informed, but I must add that I was
+ignorant of the murder till nearly half an hour after it had occurred."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pooh, that's no use.  Make a full statement, or take the
+consequences."  Steingall's tone was so offhanded that Lamotte was
+afraid he had lost a good opportunity of saving his neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what is there to tell?" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just what happened outside the Central Hotel and afterwards."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I brought Mr. Hunter there, and nodded to Martiny and Rossi, who were
+waiting on the sidewalk, to show that he was inside the car.  I
+remained at the wheel, and anyone can perceive that my position made it
+impossible to see what was going on when the door opened.  Martiny was
+nearest to me, and I am sure he never used a knife, so it must have
+been Rossi.  Is that correct?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe so, absolutely.  What next?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martiny said 'Vite, allez!' so I shoved in the clutch and made off at
+top speed.  In Fifth Avenue I glanced over my shoulder to look at Mr.
+Hunter, and see whether or not he was struggling, but my friends alone
+were visible in the back seat, so I believed they had put him on the
+floor, and did not stop or look at them again until I reached De
+Silva's house in Market Street.  Then, to my annoyance, when I got down
+to help carry in Mr. Hunter, I found blood on the step and the panel,
+and the idiots told me what they had done.  It is only fair to say that
+De Silva is innocent of any part in the affair.  He didn't even know
+that we were bringing anyone to Rossi's room, and we took care that he
+should be out at the time we counted on arriving at Market Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You didn't attack Mr. Hunter sooner because your orders were to wait
+until the last possible moment?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is so."
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-302"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-302.jpg" ALT="Scenes from the photo-drama." BORDER="2" WIDTH="418" HEIGHT="738">
+<H3>
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+Devar was unaware of any change in the manner of either of the
+detectives, because he was watching Lamotte's livid face with a species
+of fascinated horror, but Curtis, who had often been compelled to hold
+similar inquiries into cold-blooded crimes committed by Chinese
+coolies, found greater interest in observing Clancy.  A subtle
+exultation had suddenly danced into the diminutive Franco-Irishman's
+expressive features when Market Street was first mentioned, and his
+coal-black eyes blazed in their slits at the sound of that name, De
+Silva.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A queer thought flitted through Curtis's mind, but he put it aside,
+because Steingall was speaking again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you got rid of your friends.  Then what did you do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The rest was simple.  I cleaned the car in a hurry with a bit of oily
+waste, took it to a yard which I have used at times, at an address
+which I beg you to permit me to forget, changed the number plate, and,
+at an hour which I deemed discreet, drove uptown in order to dispose of
+the car by leaving it deserted near the garage from which it came.  The
+owner's house is on Riverside Drive.  His name is Morris; he is absent
+in Chicago on business, while I learnt that his chauffeur was ill."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A gasp of uncontrollable excitement from Devar drew all eyes to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Great Jerusalem!" he cried.  "Next house to my aunt's!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's a mistake somewhere," broke in Brodie.  "I know Mr. Morris's
+car, and that isn't it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lamotte was positively annoyed that his word should appear to be
+doubted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Messieurs," he said grandiloquently, "I assure you on my honor that I
+am not misleading you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was he.  The discrepancy was cleared up next day.  The Morris
+automobile was undergoing repairs, and the motor manufacturers had
+supplied the gray car for use in the interim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall swept the matter aside impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go on," he said to the Frenchman.  "You're taking a note of this?" he
+added, glancing at police captain Evans.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got it," was the laconic reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is nothing else," said Lamotte.  "I noticed that I was being
+followed, and soon discovered that I could not shake off a more
+powerful car.  I was armed, but did not want to get into trouble on my
+own account, and I knew that I would have to deal with three men.  So I
+decided to throw the car in the river, and trust to my wits for a means
+of escape.  I would have succeeded, too, had I been aware that there
+was a fourth man in the party.  From where I lay hidden beneath the
+wharf I could only count the number of people who crossed to the barge.
+I was unable to see them, so I included the chauffeur among the three.
+I was wrong.  Perhaps it is as well, because I meant to get away, and
+would have fought.&#8230;  That is all.&#8230;  Will one of you give me a
+cigarette?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar produced a case, and in response to Steingall's nod, offered its
+contents to the prisoner, who took two cigarettes; nor could he be
+prevailed on to accept more.  Despite his hang-dog looks he had an
+undoubted air of refinement.  Degeneracy had claimed him as its own,
+yet some streak of a nobler heredity had struggled to exert its
+influence, only to fail.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall put no more questions, and Lamotte relapsed into silence,
+smoking nonchalantly while the police captain's pen was scratching a
+transcript of the shorthand notes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis caught Steingall's eye, and drew him aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That fellow told the truth about the actual murder, I think" he said.
+"My story coincides with his in every detail."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sure you are right," agreed the detective.  "The odd thing is that
+Clancy should have spotted him from your description telephoned to
+headquarters.  You remember Clancy was looking at a book of photographs
+when I brought you to the Bureau?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He had found him then.  Some time since, during the anarchist troubles
+in Chicago, the French police sent us a lot of pictures, and this
+fellow's was among them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why didn't he ask me if I recognized him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is not pretty Fanny's way.  Clancy never does what any other man
+would do.  He hates to have anyone verify an opinion he has once
+formed.  Had you said the photograph resembled the man you saw outside
+the hotel Clancy would actually have begun to believe that he might be
+mistaken."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At any rate," said Curtis, smiling, "you two seem to have made
+marvelous progress with the inquiry since a set of drunken stokers
+broke up a harmonious gathering at Morris Siegelman's."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We have done pretty well, but this"&mdash;and Steingall glanced at
+Lamotte&mdash;"this goes far beyond anything we hoped for to-night, or this
+morning, for the new day is growing old."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis was puzzled.  He realized that the capture of the chauffeur was
+important, but it shrank into insignificance beside the connected
+history of events which the detective seemed to have at his fingers'
+ends.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose I must not ask questions," he said with a quizzical look
+into the extraordinary eyes which had earned the chief of the Detective
+Bureau the picturesque description coined by an enthusiastic reporter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No need," said Steingall.  "Unless you are fed up with excitement, I
+purpose taking you and Mr. Devar down town again, just as soon as Evans
+has stopped slinging ink.  Then you will appreciate the importance of
+the things said here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis remembered that fleeting impression he had garnered while
+watching Clancy during the Frenchman's statement, which, however,
+appeared only to confirm the ample history already in Steingall's
+possession.  But again his thoughts were diverted from the matter by
+Steingall's next words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I take it you have not called at the Plaza Hotel since we came away
+together?" he said.  "You certainly could not stop there during the
+rush after the missing chauffeur, and I suppose McCulloch brought you
+straight here after the arrest?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  We passed the hotel on the outward journey, and I thought I saw
+a light in&mdash;in my wife's suite, but we returned by a different route."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fancied that the detective was about to explain a somewhat peculiar
+question, but at that instant the police captain summoned Lamotte to
+his desk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll read what I have written," he said, "and, if it is correct, you
+will sign it.  You need not sign unless you wish, but the statement
+will be given in court, and, if you attest it now, may count in your
+favor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He recited an exact record of the Frenchman's words, and Lamotte took
+the pen and scrawled his name.  Then, at a nod from Evans, the
+roundsman took the prisoner to a cell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By Jove!  George, or perhaps I ought to say 'By George, Jove!' you did
+that well," exclaimed Clancy, speaking for the first time since he had
+entered the station-house, and addressing Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought I was going to fail, but I stuck to my guns, and it came
+off," was the modest if rather cryptic reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We, too, have fought with beasts at Ephegus, so let us into this,"
+cried Devar.  "What came off, and where was the risk of failure?  To my
+mind, you had Lamotte in a double Nelson grip all the time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's where you are in error, young man," said Steingall cheerfully.
+"Sometimes it pays to pretend a knowledge you don't possess, and this
+was one of the occasions.  Mr. Clancy and I knew that somewhere in New
+York were two Hungarians named Gregor Martiny and Ferdinand Rossi.  We
+knew that they were the men who killed Mr. Hunter, but we had no more
+notion where they were hiding, or how to lay hands on them, than the
+man in the moon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Great Scott.  Haven't you arrested them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir.  That is a pleasure deferred."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you mean that you wanged that address out of the Frenchman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's about the size of it.  I might have searched for a week for
+Martiny and Rossi, but no one in East Broadway would have owned up to
+seeing or even hearing of them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Still, you had their names pat?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the detective, cutting the end off a cigar, "we had their
+names, and we ascertained why they killed Hunter, or would have killed
+any other person who tried to balk their scheme, but our information
+stopped there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall, usually so communicative, evidently meant to keep to himself
+the source of his inspiration, and, in a few minutes, Brodie was
+driving the four men to the Police Headquarters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They went to the Detective Bureau, and Steingall telephoned the Clinton
+Street police station-house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know De Silva's place in Market Street?" he said.  "Well, within
+ten minutes have half-a-dozen men gather quietly near the door.&#8230;
+Two others should watch the back, and stop anyone making a bolt that
+way.&#8230;  Yes, of course, there may be shooting.  I'll turn up in a
+private auto, and stop off at the corner of East Broadway.&#8230;  Leave
+the rest to Clancy and myself.&#8230;  No, only two, but they're hot
+stuff."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He unlocked a drawer in a desk, and took out a pair of revolvers.
+After examining them to make sure they were fully loaded, he handed one
+to Clancy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hope we shall not require them, Eugene, but there's no telling," he
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose I'm not allowed to shoot anybody, so you might lend me a
+stick," suggested Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You and Mr. Curtis are remaining right here," said the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, be a man, Steingall!" cried Devar disgustedly.  "Don't play dog
+when there's a chance of a real row.  Look how I swung things your way
+in Morris Siegelman's!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You might let us peep round the corner, at any rate," smiled Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall meant to be obdurate, but yielded, and it was well that he
+allowed his sympathies to sway his judgment, or there might have been
+an early vacancy in the chief inspectorship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that middle hour of the night even New York's prowlers of the dark
+had retired to their foul rookeries.  The streets were almost deserted,
+and the glare of gas and naphtha had vanished.  The houses of the
+Hungarian quarter were stark and gloomy now, many woe-begone in their
+semi-dismantled aspect, and all sinister.  When the automobile drew up
+noiselessly at the corner of Market Street, a broad enough
+thoroughfare, but broken and battered in appearance, the only visible
+forms were those of three or four patrolmen, who were sauntering
+aimlessly along the sidewalk.  But there were eyes watching through
+unknown chinks in shutters, or peering through soiled curtains behind
+dirt-stained windows, and the quiet concentration of the police in one
+special quarter evidently did not pass unnoticed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the battle began, it partook of the vagaries of real warfare by
+opening unexpectedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was ascertained afterwards that two men darted like shadows out of a
+passage in Market Street, and separated instantly.  One came toward
+East Broadway, where the detectives and their companions had just
+alighted from the car, and the other, breaking into a run, dived into
+Henry Street, with two patrolmen after him.  He it was who opened the
+fray, and the peace of the night was suddenly disrupted by the loud
+bark of an automatic pistol.  Three shots were fired with a quick
+irregularity, and then came the deeper report of a service revolver.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall and Clancy ran forward, and the fugitive coming their way had
+actually passed them, with two more patrolmen in pursuit, when
+Steingall saw him and turned instantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop!" he shouted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man only increased his pace, and the detective, astonishingly
+active for one of his bulk, raced along at top speed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop or I shoot!" he cried again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By that time the self-confessed outlaw was nearly opposite the car.  He
+checked his pace, half turned, luckily not to the side where Curtis and
+the others were standing, and leveled a Browning pistol at the
+detective.  He even hesitated an instant to take aim, but before his
+finger had pressed the trigger, Curtis had sprung at him.  There was no
+time for a blow, but a well placed kick spun the would-be murderer off
+his feet, and the crash of the shot came an infinitesimal part of a
+second too late.  As it was, the bullet struck a lamp higher up the
+street, and a line taken subsequently showed that it must have missed
+Steingall by only a few inches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The miscreant reeled, and lost his balance.  Then Curtis closed with
+him, caught his right wrist, and threw him heavily, but, such was the
+man's frenzied resolve not to be arrested, that he fired twice again
+before the deadly weapon fell from his grasp.  He did no damage, but
+the uproar brought a motley crowd from the neighboring dwellings.
+Market Street, which had seemed asleep or dead, proved itself very much
+alive and awake, but the sight of uniformed police hurrying up from
+several directions restrained any undue curiosity on the part of its
+denizens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The desperado on the ground was handcuffed at once, and, while a
+policeman was searching his pockets rapidly to ascertain if he carried
+another pistol, Steingall gripped Curtis by the shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I owe you something for that," he said quietly.  "I rather fancy he
+would have dropped me if it hadn't been for you.&#8230;  Oh, I know what
+I am saying.  I shall not forget.&#8230;  Show a light here," he added
+to a patrolman who had run from East Broadway on hearing the shooting.
+"Now, Mr. Curtis, do you recognize him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Curtis&mdash;-whose experiences in New York were revealing an
+unsuspected side of his character, for in 56th Street, in Morris
+Siegelman's, and now again in Market Street, he had proved himself what
+Allen Breck would have termed "a bonnie fighter"&mdash;"yes, that is the man
+who spoke to me in the Central Hotel.  I imagine he is Martiny."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good!  Put him in the car!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective rushed off, but soon returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry to trouble you, but will you come this way a minute?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis went with him.  In Henry Street a small group was gathered in
+the roadway.  A policeman had proved himself a better shot than Rossi,
+and Hunter's murder was already avenged in part.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dead man was left to the district police, to be carried to the
+mortuary in an ambulance.  Steingall, with his prisoner, returned to
+headquarters, while Clancy made a thorough search of the room the pair
+had occupied in De Silva's house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hungarian did not deny his name nor his share in the earlier crime.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is fate," he said doggedly in his broken French.  "When they tell
+me we have killed the man I know the police get us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He would say no more.  His words seemed to imply that neither he nor
+Rossi meant to do other than maim the journalist whom they regarded as
+de Courtois's dangerous helper; but he did not urge the plea.  Perhaps
+he felt that when a Hungarian uses a knife, a trifling error in the
+matter of direction is pardonable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall not go home now," said Steingall, bidding farewell to his
+allies when Martiny had been formally identified and charged.  "I must
+get this thing thoroughly straightened out before morning, though the
+inquest and police court proceedings will be mere adjournments.
+Good-night, Mr. Devar.  Good-night, Mr. Curtis.  Once more, thank you.
+And, by the way, if all is not well at the Plaza, 'phone me at once.
+Remember, won't you?  Good-night!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS&mdash;BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+"Say, old man," muttered Devar, gazing fixedly at Brodie's broad
+shoulders as Broadway unrolled its even width before the car on the
+uptown journey, "are we the same couple of blighters who met in a
+bathroom gangway, 'B' Deck, near staterooms 51 and 52, on board the
+Cunard steamship <I>Lusitania</I>, about twenty-one hours since; or have we
+become dematerialized?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis knew that the boy was quivering with excitement, but it was
+useless to advise a slackening of the tension, so he merely said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you feel like a Mahatma?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If a Mahatma is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but
+in contents, yes.  Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big
+dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but the wild-eyed,
+imp-seeing, genuine rip-snorter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No.  Neither have you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should have denied the charge before to-night.  But I know now what
+it means.  It is a brain-storm induced by rum.  There are many other
+varieties, at least fifty-seven, and I've sampled fifty-six different
+sorts in nine hours.  Do you realize that it is just nine hours since I
+walked into the Central Hotel, and the orchestra struck up?  Good Lord!
+Nine hours!  And do you remember, Curtis, I said as we came up the
+harbor that you would have a hell of a good time in New York?  Ha, ha!
+likewise ho, ho!  A good time!  Eating, fighting, marrying, plunging
+neck and crop out of one frantic revel into another.  Talk about
+delirium tremens, and its little green devils with little pink
+eyes&mdash;why, it's commonplace, that's what it is&mdash;a poor sort of
+pipe-dream compared with the reality of life in New York as seen in
+company with John Delancy Curtis, of Pekin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar was not by any means the first person in the city who had
+associated the name of the capital of China with some bizarre and
+elusive element of fantasy in connection with the man who gave "Pekin"
+as his address.  There was no explaining the conceit; it was just one
+of those whimsies which are alike plausible yet enigmatical.  Had
+Curtis described himself as being of London, or Paris, or even of
+Yokohama, no sense of mystery would have attached itself to his
+personality.  But, to the world at large, Pekin represents the unknown,
+and therefore the incongruous.  It is the Forbidden City, the inner
+shrine of the East, the symbolic rallying-point of a race which
+occupies no common ground with the peoples of Europe or America.  Had
+Curtis written that he hailed from Lhassa, his legal domicile would
+have lost its occult extravagance save to the discriminating few.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mere mention of Pekin now brought back to Curtis's mind the last
+time he had written the word, and, by association of ideas, the queer
+way in which Steingall had twice alluded to the Plaza Hotel.  He said
+nothing of this to Devar.  He thought, and with good reason, that the
+sooner that young man was in bed and asleep the better it would be for
+his health, because a mercurial temperament was levying heavy draughts
+on physical powers, so he gave no hint of the nebulous doubt induced by
+the detective's words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The order of the day is bed for each of us," he said, bidding his
+friend farewell at the door of the hotel.  "Therefore, I shall not
+offer you any sort of hospitality at this hour, except the kindest one
+of saying good-by speedily.  You are coming to lunch, I think?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lunch!"  Devar's head wagged solemnly.  Feverishly wakeful, he was
+really half asleep.  "Don't talk to me of lunch.  You haven't had
+breakfast yet, John D.  New York will keep you busy yet awhile, or I
+don't size her up right.&#8230;  Good old New York!  Isn't she a peach?
+Well, so long!  If you want me, 'phone.  I'll pull a couch under the
+instrument and sleep with my clothes on.  If I shove my head beneath a
+tap I'll be as right as rain.  Home, Arthur."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Curtis entered the hotel, and a night-porter took him up in the
+elevator.  When he opened the door of Suite F. its tiny lobby was in
+darkness, but the lights in the sitting-room were switched on.
+Evidently, then, neither he nor Devar was mistaken in identifying those
+illuminated windows when the chase led them past the hotel.  But he was
+struck instantly by the fact that the door leading to Hermione's room
+was wide open, and, before he could assimilate this singular fact, he
+saw a note lying on a small table just where it must catch his eye on
+entering his own bedroom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis was no soothsayer, but he was endowed with a penetrating and
+usually accurate judgment, and he knew at once that Hermione had left
+him.  Although he had only seen her handwriting when she signed the
+register at the clergyman's house he recognized the same free,
+well-formed characters in the "John Delancy Curtis, Esq." on the
+envelope.  He paled, perhaps, and a pang of a pain crueller than bodily
+ill may have wrung his heart, but he hesitated not a second about
+opening the letter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he read:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="letter">
+"DEAR MR. CURTIS:&mdash;My father has been here, and with him a Mr. Otto
+Schmidt, a lawyer.  They told me that Jean de Courtois is alive, and
+that you know it, and have known it throughout.  Gladly would I have
+refused to believe them, but, sometimes, there are statements which
+cannot be lies&mdash;which partake of truth in their very essence&mdash;which
+sear their way into one's consciousness as white-hot iron scorches the
+flesh.  Still, owing to my trust in you, I clung to the frail hope that
+there might be some mistake, so, when they had gone, I telephoned the
+Central Hotel, and a clerk there assured me that Monsieur de Courtois
+was in bed and asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="letter">
+"What am I to say?  Perhaps, silence is best.  Marcelle and I are
+returning to my apartments in 59th Street.  Please do not come there.
+I feel now that I have been selfish and misguided.  I fear it will hurt
+you if I ask to be permitted to bear the heavy expense you must incur
+with regard to the wretched affair into which I have dragged you,
+though involuntarily, or, shall I put it? with the blind striving for
+succor of one sinking in deep waters.  Yet, do me one last kindness,
+and let me reimburse you.  That would be a small concession to my
+pride, because, in some respects, sorely as I am wounded, I shall
+regard myself as ever in your debt.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="letter">
+"Sincerely yours,<BR>
+HERMIONE.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="letter">
+"P.S.  This person, Schmidt, seems to be reliable.  You might arrange
+matters with him."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Now, above and beyond every other characteristic, Curtis was
+fair-minded.  He read the girl's letter once in order to learn what had
+happened and why she had gone: then he reread it critically, word for
+word, trying to distil from its disjointed phrases "that essence of
+truth" which Hermione had spoken of.  Evidently, she had determined to
+keep her words within the bare walls of necessity.  The note had a
+jerkiness of style that was certainly absent from her speech, and the
+fact argued that she was compelling herself to write with restraint.
+She was brimming over with reproach, grief-stricken, and miserable, and
+unquestionably shocked beyond measure, but she had forced the
+reflection: "I have no real claim on this man, nor wrong to lay at his
+door, and, although he has deceived me, I am under heavy obligation to
+him, so I must neither condemn nor reproach, but say nothing that goes
+beyond a temperate explanation of my action."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The signature itself was eloquent of the conflict which raged in her
+troubled brain while the pen was framing those formal sentences.
+Well-bred young ladies do not sign themselves by their Christian names,
+<I>tout court</I>, in notes written to young gentlemen of an evening's
+acquaintance.  Yet, what was she to do?  "Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison" had gone beyond recovery with the marriage ceremony, but
+"Hermione Curtis" was almost ludicrous, considering the text of this,
+the first note she had written to her "husband."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was only one side of Curtis's self-reliant nature which analyzed,
+and criticised, and weighed matters with such judicial calm.  There was
+another which brought a hard glint into his eyes, and caused a hand
+which gripped the molded back of a lightly-built chair to exert a force
+of which he was unconscious until the mahogany rail snapped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he remembered Steingall, and his enigmatical inquiries, and turned
+to the telephone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At sound of his voice, the detective cleared away any doubt as to the
+reason which inspired those vague questions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lady Hermione has gone, has she?" he said sympathetically.  "I thought
+as much.  There was no use in worrying you about it sooner, but I was
+told that the Earl and Schmidt had visited her, and that she and the
+maid had left the hotel in a taxi a few minutes after the departure of
+the visitors.  Will you take my advice?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You ought to have said 'Yes' at once.  Go to bed, and force yourself
+to sleep.  Give no instructions to be called, but get up when you
+waken, and start a new day with a clear head.  You'll need it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not going to disturb the peace of Lady Hermione's apartments in
+59th Street, if that is what you mean."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not quite.  In fact, not at all.  You are not that kind of a man.  Did
+she leave any message?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, a letter.  Would you care to hear it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you have no objection."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis read the note instantly, and, so delicate is the perceptiveness
+of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's
+unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was
+mentioned or a reason given for some particular action.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Like the majority of women, she conveys the most important fact in a
+postscript," was Steingall's dry comment when Curtis had reached the
+end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where shall I find this man, Schmidt?" inquired Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you in a hurry, then, to begin the suit for dissolution?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That does not account for my anxiety to meet Schmidt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is a stoutly-built individual, with a large, soft neck, and eyes
+which would protrude most satisfactorily under pressure.  Is that what
+you mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want to make his acquaintance, and soon&mdash;that is all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Mr. Curtis, don't destroy the good opinion I have formed of you.
+Let well enough alone.  Schmidt has done you a splendid turn, and it
+would be foolish on your part to requite a benefactor by trying to
+strangle him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Steingall, I am tired, and very, very uncertain of myself&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you don't want even to pretend that there is any humor in the
+situation.  Yet, unless I err greatly, before many hours have passed
+you will agree with me that nothing more directly fortunate in your
+behalf could have occurred than Schmidt's interference as Lord
+Valletort's legal adviser.  I know Schmidt, and Schmidt knows me.  In
+this affair you would be a baby in his hands, just as he would resemble
+a bladder of lard in yours.  My difficulty is that I really cannot give
+reasons, but you will appreciate the position when I say that, for the
+moment, the murder of Mr. Hunter has become an affair of state, and all
+information regarding recent developments will be withheld from the
+press.  Do you follow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I take it, too, that if Lady Hermione were restored to you, and it was
+left to the pair of you to determine whether or not the marriage
+entered into under such extraordinary conditions should become a real
+union, you would be satisfied?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't see how&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can at least take my word for it, Mr. Curtis, that the chance of
+such an outcome will be greatly forwarded if you go straight to bed,
+whereas any design you may have formed as to assaulting and battering
+Otto Schmidt would, if put into execution, probably defeat the more
+important object, or, at any rate, cripple its prospects of success."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you really mean that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am almost sure of it.  There is only one thing of which I am more
+certain at the moment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And that is?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That if it were not for your quickness of eye and hand&mdash;and foot, for
+that matter&mdash;I would now be laid out in a mortuary or on an hospital
+table.  I appreciate those qualities when exercised on a person like
+Martiny, whose main argument is centered in an automatic pistol, but
+they would be singularly out of place if tested on Otto Schmidt, when
+backed by the laws of the United States, which, strange as it may seem,
+I also represent."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you put it that way, Steingall&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do, most emphatically.  Let me be more precise.  Promise me now that
+you will not stir out of the Plaza Hotel until I come to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that really essential?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would not ask you if it were not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What time may I expect you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me see.&#8230;  It is now nearly five o'clock.  I hope to sleep
+till eight.  I give you till nine.  Bath and breakfast brings you to
+ten.  Say eleven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I owe you a good deal, so I shall await you till noon.  After that
+hour I reserve my freedom of action."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-by," he said, and, as though in keeping with the other fantasies
+of the night, Curtis was sound asleep in quarter of an hour.  He had
+acquired the faculty of sleeping under any conditions of mental or
+physical stress, short of illness or severe bodily pain, and he could
+awake at any hour previously determined on, so, a few minutes before
+nine o'clock he was in his bath.  At a quarter-past nine he rang for a
+waiter and ordered breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For one, sir?" said the man, who had not been on duty the previous
+evening, but had taken care to ascertain the names of the guests on his
+section of the floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, for one," said Curtis.  "My wife and her maid are not
+breakfasting in the hotel.  Will you kindly send up a batch of morning
+newspapers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was only to be expected that the keen and bright intelligence of New
+York journalism should have fastened on to the murder in 27th Street as
+something out of the ordinary.  But its methods were new to the man
+whose adult years had been passed far from his native city, and he was
+astounded now to find how the descriptive reporter, aided by the
+photographer, had depicted and dissected nearly every feature of the
+crime.  On one point the press was silent&mdash;as yet.  There was no
+mention of Lady Hermione, and, with a reticence which spoke volumes for
+the close relations existing between police and reporters, the Earl of
+Valletort and Count Vassilan were represented as merely "enquiring for"
+John Delancy Curtis, "the man from Pekin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis had spread the newspapers on the table, and, when a tap on the
+door of the sitting-room seemed to indicate the re-appearance of the
+waiter, he swept them up in a heap, meaning to go through them at
+leisure after breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come in," he said, turning casually.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door opened, and Hermione entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was what dramatists term "a psychological moment," and, according to
+Berkeley, one of the axioms of psychology is that it never transcends
+the limits of the individual.  Most certainly, at that moment, the
+truth of this dictum was demonstrated in a manner which would have
+surprised even the doughty philosopher himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis saw nothing, knew nothing, thought of nothing not strictly
+bounded by the fact that Hermione, and none other, stood there.  He
+gazed at her spell-bound for a second or two.  He neither moved nor
+spoke, but remained stock-still, with the newspapers gathered in his
+hands, while his eyes blazed into hers without any pretense of
+restraint.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was rosy red, partly because of the wine-like morning air through
+which she had walked swiftly, but more, perhaps, because of a very real
+embarrassment and contriteness of spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I came," she faltered&mdash;"I am here&mdash;that is&mdash;will you ever forgive
+me!&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down went the papers, and round Hermione went Curtis's strong arms.  He
+was a man of thew and sinew, against whom a slender girl's strength
+might not hope to prevail.  The last thing she looked for was to be
+embraced at sight.  It is the last thing any woman expects, and the one
+thing to which she is most apt to yield.  And really, despite her
+fluttered cry of protest, there was something very comforting and
+dependable about that masculine hug.  Hermione had never before been
+clasped in a man's arms.  She was a highly kissable person, and women
+would embrace her readily, but the total absence of any milk-and-water
+convention about Curtis's method of showing delight at meeting her was
+at once bewildering and stupefying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There must be a great deal, too, which does not leap promptly to the
+eye in the study of such a dry-as-dust subject as psychology, because
+three of its fixed principles are: "Experience is the process of
+becoming expert by experiment," "One finds a measure of truth in the
+naïve realism of Common Sense;" and "Action and Reaction are strictly
+correlative."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Applying these tests to the remarkable rapidity of decision and fixity
+of purpose displayed by Curtis in squeezing the breath out of Hermione,
+and gazing into her eyes until her proud head bent and sought refuge
+for a glowing face by hiding it on his breast, it will be noted first,
+that, for a man who had no experience in love-making, Curtis was
+quickly becoming expert; secondly, that Common Sense teaches that if
+one would win a wife one must also woo her; and thirdly, that a
+wonderfully effective way to obtain a satisfactory response from
+Hermione was to reveal the educational value of a hug.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, then&mdash;though not before Hermione's arms had gone around his
+neck of their own accord, and her lips had met his with a sigh of sheer
+content&mdash;he permitted her to speak.  And of all things in the world she
+said that which it thrilled him to hear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John, dear," she murmured, "we have become husband and wife in a
+strange, mad way, but, perhaps it is for the best, and I shall try
+never to give you cause for regret."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time one hand was firmly braced around her waist, but the other
+was free to lift her chin until her swimming eyes met his.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hermione," he said, "I vowed last night that not all the men and laws
+in America would tear you from me.  If we parted, it was you, and you
+alone, who could send me away, and I am glad, oh, so glad, that you
+have come back to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dearest, it sounds like a dream," she said brokenly.  "Can a man and a
+woman truly love each other who have only met as you and I have met?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think we have solved that problem for all time," he said, tilting
+her hat with the joyous abandon of a lover jealous even of the flowers
+and plaited straw which should hide any of the sweet perfections of his
+mistress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you have plunged me into a sort of trance," she whispered.  "I
+came here to explain&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An ominous rattle of a laden tray at the outer door drove them apart as
+though a thunderbolt had fallen between them.  Hermione rushed to her
+own room, there to consult a mirror, and readjust her hat and veil and
+disordered hair, but Curtis met a hurrying waiter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sorry to bother you," he said, "but my wife has come in unexpectedly,
+and we shall want breakfast for two."  He raised his voice:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Coffee for you, Hermione, or would you prefer tea?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Coffee, of course," was the answer, in so calm and collected a tone
+that the waiter thought he must have been mistaken in his first
+impression.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No trouble at all, sir," he said, with the ready civility of his
+class.  "Unless you wish to wait, sir, I'll bring another cup and some
+hot plates, and order a further supply from the kitchen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're a man of resource," cried Curtis cheerfully.  "I leave the
+arrangements to you with confidence.&#8230;  Come along, Hermione.
+Don't say you have breakfasted already."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I won't, because I haven't," she said, reappearing with a smiling
+nonchalance which removed the last shred of doubt from the waiter's
+mind.  But, for all that, she electrified Curtis with a timidly
+grateful glance, for she appreciated his thoughtfulness in giving her
+an opportunity to collect her scattered wits.  There was need of some
+such respite; she had much to relate, she thought, before he could
+possibly understand the motives which led to her flight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barely half an hour ago Mr. Steingall had put in an appearance at her
+apartment.  He had told her, with convincing brevity, exactly why
+Curtis refrained from adding to her perplexities by announcing the
+comparative well-being of Jean de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He was very kind," said Hermione, sweetly penitent, "but he made me
+feel rather like a worm when he said that if I were his own daughter he
+would thank God that I had fallen into the hands of a man like you.  He
+said, too, that if I owed you something, he owed you more, because you
+had saved his life last night, so, being an impulsive creature, I
+hurried here to ask your forgiveness for that horrid note."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no lie so difficult to combat as a half truth," said John.
+"That fellow, Schmidt, impressed you because he probably believed what
+he was saying.  As for Steingall, he makes rather too much of what I
+did for him, but, if there was any debt on his side, he has repaid me
+with ample interest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The waiter had left the room, and Hermione was free to blush without
+restraint, a privilege she availed herself of fully now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, dear, you and I can hardly feel that we are really married," she
+said.  "Yesterday&mdash;it was&mdash;different.  I cannot remain here now.
+Perhaps your uncle and aunt will receive me&mdash;until&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is surprising how easily one can get married if one is really bent
+on the act," said Curtis, discussing the point as coolly as if it were
+a question as to where they would lunch.  "At any rate, we shall settle
+that difficulty to your complete satisfaction.  I expect Steingall here
+in less than an hour.  Meanwhile, we have lots to tell each other.  I
+want you to know just what sort of husband you have drawn in the
+lottery."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you take me on trust, then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Absolutely without reservation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Obviously, the conversation did not flag before the detective was
+announced.  He looked tired and preoccupied when he came in, but his
+shrewd, pleasant face brightened with a cheery smile when he saw
+Hermione, who was pretending to be interested in a newspaper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am glad to find that two people, at least, have taken my advice," he
+said.  "Now, Mr. Curtis, I want you for an hour.  The various official
+inquiries are adjourned till next week, and your presence was dispensed
+with.  But we are going now to the office of Mr. Otto Schmidt, where we
+shall have the pleasure of meeting the Earl of Valletort, Count
+Ladislas Vassilan, and, possibly, Monsieur Jean de Courtois.&#8230;  On
+no account, young lady," and he turned to Hermione, "must you run away
+again during our absence."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall not," said Hermione, so emphatically that they all laughed.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A PARLEY
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Nature was kind that morning.  A flood of sunshine greeted Curtis when
+he turned into Fifth Avenue with the detective, as the latter had
+suggested that they might walk a little way before taking a taxi, there
+being plenty of time before the hour fixed for the meeting in Schmidt's
+office.  It was a morning when life and good health assumed their
+fitting places in the forefront of those many and varied considerations
+which form the sum of human happiness.  The world had suddenly resumed
+its everyday aspect of bustle and content.  New York smiled at its new
+citizen, and the new citizen beamed appreciatively on New York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I cannot explain matters to you fully even yet&mdash;&mdash;" Steingall was
+saying, when an automobile drew up close to the curb, and a well-known
+voice cried joyously:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just in time.  Where's the fire?  There's bound to be a blaze when you
+two run in a leash."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar bounced out of the car, and Brodie grinned with pleasure.  The
+chauffeur was beginning to like the excitement of acting as
+supernumerary on the staff of the Detective Bureau.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you jump in, or shall I prowl with you down Fifth Avenue?" asked
+Devar, blithely ignoring Steingall's somewhat strained welcome.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are keeping an appointment," said Curtis.  "I, for one, shall be
+more than pleased if the combination which proved so effective last
+night may remain intact this morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steingall daren't cut adrift from me," said Devar.  "If you knew the
+truth about him, you'd find that he is deeply superstitious, and I'm a
+real mascot for bringing good luck.  Perhaps he is not aware, John D.,
+that I was the impresario who 'presented' you to an admiring public.
+Tell him that, and see if he has the nerve to say I'm not wanted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come along, Mr. Devar," said the detective, apparently yielding to a
+sudden resolve.  "I think I can make use of you&mdash;justify your presence,
+that is.  Tell your chauffeur to wait for us at 42d Street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Off went Brodie, jubilant at the prospect of his services being in
+requisition again.  He had not yet learnt the application to all things
+mundane of Disraeli's quip that it is the unexpected which happens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, I want you two gentlemen to attend closely to what I have to
+say," said Steingall seriously, placing himself between them, so that
+his words might not reach other ears than those for which they were
+intended.  "Mr. Hunter's murder has passed long ago out of the common
+class of crimes.  It will be inquired into thoroughly, of course, and
+punishment will be dealt out impartially to those responsible for its
+commission.  But&mdash;and this is the point I want to emphasize&mdash;neither of
+you know, nor am I at liberty to inform you&mdash;just what bounds the
+authorities may reach, or stop at.  Have I made my meaning clear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're to be good little boys, and sit still, and say nothing, and do
+as we're told," said Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not asking impossibilities," said Steingall, who had a dry humor,
+and seldom missed a chance of gratifying it.  "I have merely laid down
+a proviso which must be observed, not for a day, or a week, but as long
+as any of us is alive.  State affairs are not the property of
+individuals.  They come first, all the time.  If they don't suit our
+convenience, we must simply adjust ourselves to the new conditions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You alarm me, Steingall," cried Devar.  "Have we been drawn into an
+international squabble?  Don't tell me that Devar's canned salmon is
+really a deadly sort of bomb."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've heard more improbable things.  But you would not be your father's
+son, Mr. Devar, if you can't keep a tight lip when statements are made
+in your presence which may astonish you.  Mr. Curtis and you are now
+about to meet a very clever man, Otto Schmidt, the lawyer, and I fancy
+your name will help in the argument.  Is your father in New York?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He arrives here from Chicago to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He has never met Mr. Curtis?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, but he jolly soon will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, if it were possible to get hold of him by telephone or telegraph
+to-day, he would say he had never heard of him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guess that's so.  What are you driving at?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Schmidt must know your father.  They are bound to have come together
+in more than one important deal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It seems to me that, if the father's evidence is not available, the
+son's gains a trifle more weight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dash me if I can imagine where you are getting off at, Steingall."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You regard Mr. Curtis as a friend?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am proud of the fact."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stick to that, and you will do him good service."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, that's easy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective seemed to be picking his words with a good deal of care.
+He covered several paces in silence, and Curtis, who had reverted to
+his normal habit of sober gravity, took no part in the conversation.
+His estimate of its purport differed from Devar's.  That light-hearted
+youngster was somewhat annoyed by the detective's implied hint that his
+friendship with Curtis rested on no more solid foundation than a
+steamer acquaintance, and would hardly bear the test of close scrutiny
+if it came to analysis on the score of prior knowledge, or if his
+testimony were sought as to Curtis's earlier career.  But he had the
+good sense to understand that Steingall was actuated by no light
+motive, so he held his peace.  Curtis went farther.  He believed that
+the detective was telling Devar what to say and how to say it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now that we have settled the matter of Mr. Curtis's references," said
+Steingall, resuming the talk as though it had not been interrupted, "I
+reach the next item.  Both of you are aware that two men have been
+arrested, and one is dead, and that all three were concerned in the
+attack on Mr. Hunter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," came the simultaneous answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want you to forget names, except with regard to Lamotte, the
+chauffeur.  Martiny and Rossi, for the time being, vanish into the
+Ewigkeit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What&mdash;forever?" Curtis could not help saying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, for a week or so."  Steingall darted a quick glance to his
+questioner.  "I have a stupid trick of adopting phrases from my pet
+authors," he said.  "Does Ewigkeit mean eternity?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, then, I withdraw it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Try Niflheim."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Or Rüdesheim," suggested Devar wickedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall laughed.  Despite his German-sounding name, he spoke French
+fluently, but German not at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're off the map," he said.  "There, that's good American, and I'll
+get on with my story, or rather, with the lack of it.  I cannot, of
+course, foretell the exact lines our discussion with Schmidt and his
+clients will follow, but if I have made you understand that your
+combined share in it is to say little, and be thoroughly non-committal
+in anything you may have to say, I am content."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are as mysterious as an astrologer," vowed Devar.  "Having money
+to burn one day in Paris, I visited one of those jokers, and he told me
+I was born in Capricorn, under the sign of Aries, and I as good as told
+him he was a liar, because I was born in Manhattan under an ordinary
+roof.  By Jove! that reminds me, John D., you're a whale on stars.  Did
+you spot those two last night, low down in the west?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what did they prognosticate?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That you and I would promise Mr. Steingall not to spoil any scheme he
+may have in mind by interfering at an inopportune moment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose I ought to feel crushed, but I don't," said Devar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear fellow, if it hadn't been for you and your loyal championship
+at the right moment, I might easily have been in jail as an accomplice
+of the unknown scoundrels who killed Mr. Hunter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the right kind of remark," broke in the detective.  "I think
+I'll offer each of you a post in the Bureau after this business is
+ended."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Give me a pointer on one matter," said Devar.  "You spoke of Schmidt's
+clients.  Who are they?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He whistled softly when he heard the names of Valletort and Vassilan
+and de Courtois.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Up to the neck in it again!" he crowed.  "Oh, it's me that is the
+happy youth because I blew in to New York at the right time yesterday."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Otto Schmidt's office was in Madison Square, perched high above the
+clatter of 23d Street.  The windows of the lawyer's private sanctum
+commanded magnificent views of the city to south and west, and in that
+marvelously clear air the Statue of Liberty seemed to be little more
+than a mile away, while the villas of Montclair and houses on other
+heights in the neighboring State were distinctly visible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall and his friends were the first to arrive, and Schmidt
+received them with the air of armed neutrality a lawyer displays
+towards the opposite camp.  He begged them to be seated, smiled
+pleasantly when Curtis asked to be allowed to admire the interesting
+panorama spread before his eyes, but gave Devar a contemplative look
+when Steingall introduced him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Howard Devar, son of my friend William B. Devar?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Devar, feeling that this was safe ground.  "My father and
+you put it that way since you pulled off the Saskatchewan Combine
+together, but I've heard him describe you differently."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt, who looked more egg-like than ever at this hour of the
+morning, disapproved of such flippancy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"William B. Devar is a fair fighter," he said.  "He gives and takes
+hard knocks with perfect good humor.  But, may I inquire how you come
+to figure in a matter which, if I understand aright a message received
+from Mr. Steingall, concerns persons with whom you can have little in
+common?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was a mere toss-up whether I or my friend, John Delancy Curtis,
+took the floor against the combination of noble lords who have retained
+you to look after their interests, or protect them, I ought to say; but
+fate favored him, so I am a mere bottle-holder.  To push the simile a
+bit farther, Mr. Schmidt, I may describe Mr. Steingall as the referee
+and watch-holder.  When he cries 'Time' someone will go to Sing-Sing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Perhaps some attribute of the father revealed itself in the son,
+because Steingall, who thought at first that Devar had allowed his
+tongue to run away with him, fancied that the lawyer dropped his
+inquiries somewhat suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Earl of Valletort and Count Vassilan are due now," he said,
+glancing at a clock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, they will be here without fail," said the detective.  "Mr. Clancy,
+of the Bureau, is bringing de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bringing him?" repeated Schmidt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Unofficially?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That depends wholly on de Courtois.  He has to come, whether he likes
+it or not.  Whether he will be allowed to go away again is another
+matter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt's eyelids fell in thought.  Probably he reflected that there
+are two sides to every argument, and he had heard but one.  Certainly,
+John Delancy Curtis did not strike him as the dare-devil meddler, if
+not worse, he had been depicted by the fiery Earl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas Vassilan," announced a clerk,
+and Curtis took one square look at his rival.  He needed no more to
+confirm Hermione's unfavorable opinion.  The Count's appearance was not
+prepossessing.  His nose was still swollen, and the earnest effort of a
+doctor to paint out two black eyes had not been wholly successful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His lordship looked mightily displeased when he discovered the presence
+of Curtis and Devar, but he was a self-confident man, and regarded
+himself as a personage of such importance that he assumed the lead in
+this company at once.  Moreover, it was evident that he had resolved to
+keep a firm rein on his temper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Mr. Schmidt," he said brusquely, "your time and mine is valuable.
+Why have Count Vassilan and I been summoned here this morning by the
+police authorities?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt looked at Steingall, and the detective seemed to be almost at a
+loss for words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am&mdash;not aware&mdash;there is any particular call&mdash;for hurry," he said.
+"Are you, my lord, and Count Vassilan thinking of returning to Europe
+to-morrow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hungarian laughed, not mirthfully, but with the forced gayety of a
+man who had considered how to act, and meant to adopt a decided
+attitude.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Certainly not," said the Earl stiffly, with uplifted eyebrows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall pursed his lips, and his forehead seamed in a reflective
+frown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ought to explain," he said, "that I put that question as offering
+what appeared to me an easy way out of a situation which bristles with
+difficulties otherwise."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hesitancy had suddenly been replaced by slowness of utterance, but
+it is reasonable to suppose that, of those present, Curtis and Schmidt
+alone noted the marked distinction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My good man," said the Earl, "you must have the strangest notion of
+the reason which accounts for my presence in New York.  I came here to
+rescue my daughter from a set of designing ruffians, some of whom I
+knew of, and others whom I had never heard of.  Why you should think
+that I may have it in mind to leave the country without being
+accompanied by Lady Hermione Grandison I cannot tell, and it is in the
+highest degree improbable that she will be prepared to sail to-morrow.
+Apart from my private arrangements, too, I mean to remain here until I
+have punished at least one person as he deserves."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jean de Courtois?" inquired Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir.  That man who stands there, and whose name is given as
+Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Earl nearly grew wrathful.  It annoyed him to find that Curtis was
+not looking at him at all, but was greatly interested in Schmidt.  That
+was another trait of Curtis's.  He had learnt long ago to select the
+ablest among his adversaries, and watch that man's face.  Mere
+impassivity supplied no real cloak, for Curtis, in his time, had dealt
+with Chinese mandarins whose countenances betrayed no more expression
+than a carved ivory mask.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But it was de Courtois who meant to marry Lady Hermione?" persisted
+Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That remains to be seen.  The person who did marry her signed himself
+John Delancy Curtis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Instantly the detective turned to Otto Schmidt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It will assist the inquiry if you tell us whether or not such a
+marriage, if it took place under the assumed conditions, that is, by
+use of a marriage license not intended for one of the parties, is
+legal," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no doubt whatever that, in the circumstances, the courts will
+find it to be illegal," was the answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What circumstances?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That the lady quitted her supposed husband as soon as she discovered
+the fraud which had been practised on her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall weighed the point for a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," he nodded.  "If she refused to remain with him, the marriage
+would be declared void.  But if she elected to treat the marriage as a
+binding act, no matter how it was procured, and continued to live with
+her husband, that vital fact would affect the question of validity?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As you say, it would be a vital fact."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective was clearly impressed, but Lord Valletort swept aside
+these quibbles of jurisprudence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My daughter's actions will be revealed in detail to a judge," he said
+loftily.  "At present I fail to see what bearing they have on the
+discussion, unless, indeed, you mean to arrest Curtis immediately on a
+charge which I am prepared to formulate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, that is not why I requested your lordship and Count Vassilan to
+come here this morning," said Steingall, gazing anxiously at the clock.
+"I would prefer to await the arrival of Detective Clancy with Jean de
+Courtois, but, if the Frenchman refuses to come, he is within his
+rights, and I suppose I shall have to apply for a warrant, though, if I
+choose, I can arrest him merely on suspicion."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Suspicion of what?" demanded the Earl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of complicity in the murder of Mr. Hunter last night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man was tied in his room at the time of the murder," cried the
+Hungarian hoarsely, speaking for the first time since he had entered
+Schmidt's office.  He was obviously excited, and excitement is a
+powerful foe of good resolutions, with which the moral pavement is
+littered in Hungary and elsewhere.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That does not affect the charge of complicity," said Steingall
+thoughtfully.  "A man may be an accomplice, though the actual crime is
+committed at a time and place when he is far distant.  It is possible
+for an accomplice to be in Paris, or on the high seas, while a victim
+is falling under an assassin's knife in New York.  A man, or a number
+of men, can even be what I may term unconscious accomplices, in the
+sense that their actions and instructions have brought about a crime,
+though their intent may have stopped short of actual violence.  I
+assure you, my lord, the arm of the law reaches far when life is taken,
+and the death of a popular and prominent journalist like Mr. Hunter
+will be inquired into most searchingly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective spoke so impressively that Lord Valletort eyed him with a
+species of misgiving, while Count Vassilan, whose knowledge of English
+was excellent, had broken out into a perspiration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A smooth, mellifluous voice suddenly intervened.  Otto Schmidt thought
+fit to assume a role for which Lord Valletort was manifestly ill
+equipped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We seem to be dealing with two items which, though related, by
+accident, as it were, yet differ widely.  The Earl of Valletort is
+interested only in his daughter's marriage, Mr. Steingall."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The detective wheeled round on him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Precisely, Mr. Schmidt, but it happens, unfortunately, that the
+marriage of Lady Hermione and Mr. Curtis was the direct outcome of the
+murder of Mr. Hunter.  More than that, Mr. Hunter met his death because
+of the plot and counter-plot attending the preliminary arrangements for
+her ladyship's marriage.  The two events, so far apart in their nature,
+thus become indissolubly connected."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And is that why we are to have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur de
+Courtois?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps, before he comes, you will be good enough to give us some
+idea, informally of course, as to the statement,&mdash;or, shall I say
+revelation?&mdash;he may make."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is asking a good deal of a police official," said Steingall,
+smiling pleasantly, "but if I am assured that the discussion will
+really be regarded as informal, I am ready to speak quite openly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is a characteristic of yours, Mr. Steingall, which has often
+commanded the admiration of the New York bar," said Schmidt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said the detective, "I must begin by telling you that Mr.
+Clancy and I were in Morris Siegelman's saloon in East Broadway shortly
+after midnight last night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A curious click issued from the throat of that distinguished Hungarian
+magnate, Count Ladislas Vassilan, and everyone present noticed it
+except the chief of the Detective Bureau.  He, it would appear, was
+busy marshaling his thoughts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For all practical purposes, our inquiry began there," he continued.
+"We intercepted a note written by a certain gentleman, and intended to
+be conveyed to a Pole named Peter Balusky.  He, and a Hungarian, Franz
+Viviadi, together with a French chauffeur, whose real name is Lamotte,
+but who has been passing recently as Anatole Labergerie, are now under
+arrest.  Mr. Curtis has recognized Lamotte as the driver of the
+automobile out of which Mr. Hunter stepped to meet his death, and
+Lamotte himself has confessed his share in the crime.  The precise
+connection of Balusky and Viviadi with it remains yet to be determined.
+They undoubtedly visited the Central Hotel last night.  They
+undoubtedly were the paid agents of some person or persons interested
+in preventing the marriage of Lady Hermione Grandison.  They
+undoubtedly received letters and wireless messages which seem to
+implicate others, far removed from them in social position, in the
+plot, or undertaking, that her ladyship's marriage should not take
+place.  As a lawyer, Mr. Schmidt, you will see that I cannot possibly
+enter into full details, but I think I have said sufficient to prove my
+main contention, which is, you will remember, that it will be
+difficult, very difficult, to dissociate the two incidents&mdash;I mean the
+marriage and the murder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During quite an appreciable time there was no sound in the spacious
+apartment other than the heavy breathing of Count Ladislas Vassilan.
+He had openly and candidly abandoned all pretense.  He was now nothing
+more nor less than a burly, well-fed, well-dressed evil-doer quaking
+with fear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Difficult, you say, Mr. Steingall?" repeated the lawyer, selecting, as
+was his way, the word which supplied the key to a whole sentence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very difficult," corrected the detective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But not impossible?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would not care to hazard a reasoned opinion, but it seems to me
+that, in certain conditions, the District Attorney might elect to
+confine the inquiry to its main issues, which are, of course, the
+causes of the crime, and the conviction of the persons actually engaged
+in it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did you want to bring Jean de Courtois here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because he is the connecting link between the one set of circumstances
+and the other."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is he coming, do you think?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall looked at the clock, and showed a disappointment which he did
+not try to conceal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fear not," he said.  "I told Clancy only to try and persuade him to
+come.  The Frenchman is pretending to be ill, but he is not ill, only
+frightened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Frightened of what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of the consequences of his own acts.  In a sense, Mr. Hunter was his
+ally, but only from a journalist's standpoint, which centered in the
+sensation which would be provided by the projected marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schmidt's eyelids had fallen and risen regularly during the past few
+minutes.  They dropped now for a longer period than usual.  As for Lord
+Valletort and his would-be son-in-law, they were profoundly and
+unfeignedly ill at ease.  Even a British Earl cannot afford to play
+fast and loose with the law, and it did seem most convincingly clear
+that they had brought themselves within measurable reach of the law by
+the tactics they had employed prior to their arrival in New York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Oddly enough, their own possible connection with the murder of the
+journalist was a good deal more patent to them than to Curtis and
+Devar, who were vastly better posted in the evidence affecting them.
+Still more curiously, not a word had been said about Martiny or Rossi.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us suppose," said Schmidt, when his eyes had opened again, "that
+Lady Hermione elects to return to Europe at once with her father, the
+Earl&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall shook his head with a weary smile, and the lawyer's voice
+ceased suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Out of the question, Mr. Schmidt, out of the question.  I am sure of
+it.  Why, little more than half an hour ago I found her with Mr. Curtis
+in their apartments at the Plaza Hotel&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ridiculous!" shrieked Lord Valletort in a shrill falsetto.  "My
+daughter passed the night in her apartment in 59th Street.  I myself
+saw her go there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Probably.  Your lordship would know the facts if you watched her
+departure from the Plaza Hotel.  But a woman has the inalienable
+privilege of changing her mind, and Lady Hermione has returned to her
+husband.  In fact, I am given to understand that she and Mr. Curtis are
+arranging a new marriage, not because the earlier ceremony is illegal,
+or can be upset, but in deference to certain natural scruples which
+such a charming young lady would be bound to entertain.&#8230;  There
+can be no manner of doubt as to the correctness of what I am saying,"
+and the detective's tone grew emphatic in view of the Earl's pish-tush
+gestures.  "You have a telephone there, Mr. Schmidt.  Ring up the
+Plaza, and speak to the lady yourself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lawyer did nothing of the sort.  He eyed Curtis in his
+contemplative way, being aware that the quiet man standing near a
+window had favored him with his exclusive attention during the
+proceedings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Lord Valletort was moved now to stormy protest.  He was convulsed
+with passion, and seemed to be careless what the outcome might be so
+long as he lashed Curtis with venom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are the only person in this infernal city whose actions are
+consistent," he roared at him.  "It is quite evident that you have
+ascertained by some means that my daughter is exceedingly wealthy, and
+you have managed to delude her into the belief that your conduct is
+altruistic and above reproach.  But you make a great mistake if you
+believe that I can be set aside as an incompetent fool.  I shall go
+straight from this office to that of the District Attorney, and lay the
+whole of the facts before him.  I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Does your lordship wish to dispense with my services?" broke in
+Schmidt, speaking without flurry or heat.  The angry Earl choked, but
+remained silent, and the lawyer kept on in the same even tone:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I suggest, Mr. Steingall, that you and Mr. Curtis and Mr. Devar
+should step into another room while I have a brief consultation with
+Lord Valletort and Count Vassilan?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I cannot become a party to any arrangement&mdash;&mdash;" began Steingall, but
+Otto Schmidt bowed him and his companions out suavely.  Those two
+understood each other fully, no matter what divergencies of opinion
+might exist elsewhere.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the door had closed on the three men in a smaller room, Devar was
+about to say something, but Steingall checked him with a warning hand.
+Walking to a window, he stood there, with his back turned on his
+companions, and stared out into the square beneath.  Once they fancied
+they saw him nod his head in a species of signal, but they might have
+been in error.  At any rate, their thoughts were soon distracted by the
+entrance of the stout lawyer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"On some occasions, the fewest words are the most satisfactory," he
+said, "so I wish to inform you, Mr. Steingall, that Lord Valletort and
+Count Vassilan intend to sail for Europe by to-morrow's steamer.  They
+have empowered me to offer to pay the passage money to France of the
+music-teacher, Jean de Courtois, though not by the same vessel as that
+in which they purpose traveling.  As for you, Mr. Curtis, the Earl
+withdraws all threats, and leaves you to settle your dispute with the
+authorities as you may think fit.  May I add that if you choose to
+consult me I shall be glad to act for you.  I would not say this if it
+was merely a professional matter, but there are circumstances&mdash;
+Certainly, I shall be here at eleven o'clock on Monday.  Till then,
+sir, I wish you good-day.  Good-day, Mr. Devar.  Remember me to your
+father.  By, by, Mr. Steingall.  You and I will meet at Philippi."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once the three were in Madison Square, Devar could not be restrained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steingall," he said, "if you don't tell me how you managed it, I'll
+sit down right here on the sidewalk and blubber like a child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You were present.  You heard every word," said the detective blandly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know you scared them stiff.  But who, in Heaven's name, are
+Peter Balusky and Franz Viviadi?  Where, did you find 'em?  Did they
+drop from the skies, or come up from&mdash;  Well, where <I>did</I> you get 'em?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Clancy and I bagged them quite easily after Mr. Curtis and you left
+Siegelman's café.  All we had to do was wait till Vassilan quit.  They
+were hanging about all the time, but afraid to meet him.&#8230;  Now,
+you must ask me no more questions.  I am going to Clancy.  He is
+keeping an eye on Jean de Courtois."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you ever intend to have the Frenchman brought to Schmidt's office?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I did.  What a question!  Good-by.  There's your car.  I'm
+off," and the detective swung himself into a passing streetcar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know," said Devar thoughtfully, "I am beginning to believe that
+Steingall says a lot of things he really doesn't mean.  I haven't quite
+made up my mind yet as to whether or not he hasn't run an awful bluff
+on the noble lord and the most noble count.  And the weird thing is
+that Schmidt didn't call it.  Did it strike you, Curtis, that&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he looked at his friend, whose silent indifference to what he was
+saying could no longer pass unnoticed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it, old man?" he asked, with ready solicitude.  "Are you
+feeling the strain, or what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is nothing," said Curtis.  "A run in the car will soon clear my
+head.  Perhaps you and I might arrange for a long week-end, far away
+from New York."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A second time did Devar look at his friend, but, being really a
+good-natured and sympathetic person, he repressed the imminent cry of
+amazement.  Somehow, he realized the one spear-thrust which had pierced
+Curtis's armor.  It was hateful that such a man should be told he had
+married Hermione for her money.  It was hateful to think that this
+might be said of him in the years to come.  It was even possible that
+she herself might come to believe it of him, and John Delancy Curtis's
+knight-errant soul shrank and cringed under the thought, even while the
+memory of Hermione's first kiss of love was still hot on his lips.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME <BR>
+ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+But the phase passed like a disturbing dream.  Hermione herself laughed
+the notion to scorn: and a ready opportunity for such effective
+exorcism of an evil spirit was supplied by Devar's tact.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the two young men reached the hotel Devar insisted that Curtis
+should take Hermione for an hour's run in the park.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here's the car, and it's a fine morning, and you've got the girl.
+What more do you want?" he cried.  "If Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa
+show up before your return I'll take care of 'em.  Now, who helps her
+ladyship to put on her hat and fur coat&mdash;you or I?"  That duty,
+however, was discharged by a smiling and voluble maid named Marcelle
+Leroux.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it befell that when Brodie piloted his charges into Central Park
+through Scholar's Gate, Curtis behaved like a man deeply in love but
+gravely ill at ease, and Hermione, also in love, but afire with the
+divine flame of womanly faith, and therefore serenely blind to any
+possible obstacle which should thrust itself between her and the
+beloved, saw instantly that something was wrong.  Curtis was just the
+type of man who would torture himself unnecessarily about a
+consideration which certainly would not have rendered his inamorata
+less desirable in the eyes of the average wooer.  He knew that he had
+waited all his life to meet Hermione&mdash;to meet her, and none other&mdash;and
+the thought that, having found her, having snatched her, as it were,
+from the sacrificial altar of a false god, he should now lose her, was
+inflicting exquisite agony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Happily, this girl-wife of his was adorably feminine, and she decided
+without inquiry that she was the cause of his melancholy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me, John," she said suddenly.  "I am brave.  I can bear it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The unexpected words stirred him from his disconsolate mood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bear what, dear one?" he asked, looking at her with the wistful eyes
+of Tantalus gazing at the luscious fruits which the wrathful winds
+wafted ever from his parched lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know that you have made a mistake, and have brought me out here
+to&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, dear Heaven!" he sighed; "if I had but the strength of will to
+adopt that subterfuge it might prove easier for you.  But one thing I
+cannot do, Hermione.  I refuse to set you free by means of a lie.  I
+love you, and will love you till life itself has sped."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trouble was not so bad, then.  She nestled closer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it, John dear?" she cooed, quite confident of her ability to
+slay dragons so long as he talked in that strain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He trembled a little, so overpowering was the bitter-sweet sense of her
+nearness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is rather horrible that you and I should have to discuss dollars
+and cents," he said, speaking with the slow distinctness of a man
+pronouncing his own death-sentence, "but your father taunted me with
+the fact that you are very wealthy.  Is that true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course it is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She affected to treat the matter seriously.  It was rather delicious to
+find her lover distressing himself about money, if that was all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is your income?" he demanded curtly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am quite rich.  I am worth about half a million dollars a year."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He groaned, and shrank away from her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did you not tell me that sooner?" he said, almost with a scowl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why should I?  Does it matter?  Isn't it rather nice to have plenty of
+money?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good God!  It is hard to&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;"  His hands covered his face in sheer
+agony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John, don't be stupid.  Why alarm me in that way?  Wealth doesn't
+bring happiness&mdash;far from it.  But didn't you and I&mdash;discover each
+other&mdash;before&mdash;before&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I know, now," he said brokenly, "and it is a mad absurdity to
+think that a woman of your place in the world should marry a poor
+engineer.  Do you realize that you receive every fortnight more than I
+earn in twelve months?  King Cophetua marrying a beggar-maid sounds
+excellent in romance, but who ever heard of a queen wedding a pauper?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are describing yourself rather lamely, John."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hermione, don't drive me beyond endurance.  I can't bear it, I tell
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She caught his right hand, and imprisoned it lovingly in hers.  Her
+left hand went around his neck, and she drew him closer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John," she whispered, and the fragrance of her was intoxicating, "you
+must not break my poor heart after taking it by storm.  I want you, and
+shall keep you if I were ten times as rich and you were in rags.  What
+joy has money brought hitherto in my short life?  It killed my mother,
+and has alienated me from my father.  It has driven me to the verge of
+a folly I now shudder at.  It has caused death and suffering to men
+whom I have never seen.  It has separated a man and a woman who love
+each other even as you and I love.  If I were a poor girl, working for
+a living in office or shop, I should know what laughter meant, and
+cheerfulness, and the bright careless hours when the heart is light and
+the world goes well.  You have brought these things to me, dear, and
+you must not take them away now.  I forbid it.  I deny you that
+wrongful act with my very soul.&#8230;  John, do you wish to see me in
+tears on this&mdash;our first day&mdash;together?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Brodie summed up the remainder of the situation with unconscious
+accuracy in a subsequent disquisition delivered to an admiring circle
+in the servants' hall at Mrs. Morgan Apjohn's house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Spooning is a right and proper thing in the right and proper place,"
+he said, "but Central Park on a fine morning is not the locality.  I
+was jogging along comfortably when I saw some guys in Columbus Plaza
+rubbering around at the car, and grinning like clowns at a circus, so I
+just opened up the engine a bit, and let her rip, except when a mounted
+cop cocked his eye at me.  But, bless you, them two inside didn't care
+if it snowed.  When I brought 'em back to the hotel, Mr. Curtis sez to
+me: 'We've enjoyed that ride thoroughly, Brodie, but I had a notion
+that Central Park was larger.'  Dash me, I took 'em over nine miles of
+roadway, and they thought I had gone in at 59th Street and come out at
+Eighth Avenue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Devar, too, appreciated the success of his maneuver when he saw
+Hermione's sparkling eyes and Curtis's complacent air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you got a sister, Lady Hermione?" he asked <I>à propos</I> to nothing
+which she or any other person had said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she answered, without the semblance of a blush.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was only wondering," he said.  "If you had, you might have cabled
+for her.  I'd just love to take her round the Park in that car."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the rest of that day, not to mention many successive days, was
+devoted to other matters than love-making.  Shoals of interviewers
+descended on Curtis and Hermione, on Devar, on Uncle Horace and Aunt
+Louisa, on Brodie, even on Mrs. Morgan Apjohn when it was discovered
+that she came to lunch, and on "Vancouver" Devar when he arrived at the
+Central Station that evening.  Steingall's orders were imperative,
+however.  Not a syllable was to be uttered about the one topic
+concerning which the press was hungering for information, because the
+shooting affray in Market Street had now become known, and the gray car
+had been dragged out of the Hudson, and the reporters were agog for the
+news which was withheld at headquarters.  It was then that the magic
+word, <I>sub judice</I>, proved very useful.  Even in outspoken America,
+witnesses do not retail their evidence to all and sundry when men's
+lives are at stake, and it was quickly determined to charge all five
+prisoners under one and the same indictment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet, for reasons never understood by the public, Balusky and Viviadi
+were discharged, and Jean de Courtois was deported.  Martiny was
+sentenced to capital punishment, and Lamotte received a long term of
+imprisonment.  But these eventualities came long after Curtis and
+Hermione had been remarried in strict privacy, and in the presence of a
+small but select circle of friends, an occasion which supplied Aunt
+Louisa with fresh oceans of talk for the delectation of society in
+Bloomington, Indiana.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the wedding breakfast, Steingall made a speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Once," he said, "when the present happy event did not seem to be quite
+so easy of attainment as it looks to all of us now, my friend Mr.
+Curtis, playing upon a weakness of mine in the matter of literary
+allusions, suggested that I should substitute Niflheim for Ewigkeit as
+a simile.  I didn't know what Niflheim meant, but I have ascertained
+since that it is a Scandinavian word describing a region of cold and
+darkness, a place, therefore, where people might easily get lost.
+Well, it might have suited certain conditions I had then in my mind,
+but Mr. Curtis will never go to Scandinavian mythology when he wants to
+describe New York.  To my thinking, it will figure in his mind as more
+akin to Elysium."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clancy led the applause with sardonic appreciation, whereupon his chief
+allowed a severe eye to dwell on him, though his glance traveled
+instantly to the egg-shell dome of Otto Schmidt, whose aid had been
+invaluable in stilling certain qualms in the breast of authority.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My singularly boisterous and most esteemed friend, Mr. Clancy," he
+continued, "seems to be delighted by the success of that trope.  I
+might gladden your hearts with some which he has coined, because the
+bride and bridegroom owe more, far more, to him than they imagine at
+this moment.  I remember&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A loud "No, no!" from Clancy indicated that revelations were imminent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Steingall, "I forget just what he said on one memorable
+night when four semi-intoxicated stokers held up a downtown saloon, but
+I do wish to assure you of this&mdash;if it were not for Clancy's genius as
+a detective, and his splendid qualities of heart and mind as a man,
+this wedding might never have taken place, or, if that is putting a
+strain on your imagination, let me say that its principals would have
+encountered difficulties which are now, happily, the dim ghosts of what
+might have been."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis took an opportunity later to ask Steingall what those cryptic
+words meant, and the Chief of the Bureau set at rest a doubt which had
+long perplexed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was Clancy who prompted the idea of mixing up the two branches of
+the inquiry," he said.  "Under that wizened skin of his he has a heart
+of gold.  'Why shouldn't those two young people be made happy?' he
+said.  'I haven't seen the girl,' nor had he, then, 'but I like Curtis,
+and she won't get a better husband if she searches the island of
+Manhattan.'  So we allowed Lord Valletort and the Count to believe that
+it was their set of hirelings who killed poor Hunter, whereas Balusky
+and Viviadi only tied up de Courtois, and were quaking with fear when
+they heard of the murder, because they assumed he had been killed by
+some other scoundrels, and that they would be held responsible.  It was
+they who gave us the names of Rossi and Martiny as the likely pair, and
+the bluff I threw with Lamotte came off."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For whom were Rossi and Martiny acting?  You have never told me," said
+Curtis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't ask, sir.  But I don't mind giving you a sort of hint.  You
+know, better than I do probably, that Hungary is seething with
+revolutionary parties, which are more bitter against each other than
+against the common enemy, Austria.  Now, two of these organizations
+were keen to have Count Vassilan married to Lady Hermione, one because
+of a patriotic desire to draw her money into the war-chest, the other
+because they suspected him, and rightly, as a mere tool in the hands of
+Austria, and they believed, again with justice I think, that when he
+was married it would be Paris and the gay life for him rather than a
+throne which might be shattered by Austrian bullets.  The Earl of
+Valletort has degenerated into little better than a company-promoter,
+and he had made his own compact with Vassilan.  Add to these certain
+facts one other&mdash;Elizabeth Zapolya, whom Lady Hermione knows, married
+an attaché in the Austrian Embassy in Paris last week.  Tell her that.
+She will be interested.  For the rest, you must deduce your own
+theories."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curtis remained silent for a moment.  Then he seized Steingall's hand
+and wrung it warmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hermione and I have been wondering what we can do to show our sense of
+gratitude to you and Mr. Clancy," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing, sir," broke in the detective.  "It was all in the way of
+business, so to speak."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, and our recognition of your services will take shape in that
+direction," said Curtis.  "Why, man, if it were not for you I might
+have been charged with murder, and if it were not for Clancy and you,
+Hermione might now be in Paris with her good-for-nothing father.&#8230;
+I'll talk this over with Schmidt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Schmidt is a good fellow, but he doesn't know everything, even though
+he may be a mighty fine guesser," said Steingall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll tell him just as much as is good for any lawyer," laughed Curtis.
+"He is acting for my wife and myself now in the matter of providing for
+Hunter's relatives.  We look forward to meeting Clancy and you when we
+return from the West."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that where you are going for the honeymoon?" asked the detective,
+with the amiable grin which invariably accompanies the question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  We debated the point during a whole day, but some enterprising
+agent settled it for us by exhibiting a catchy sign&mdash;'Why not see
+America?'  And we both cried 'Why not?'  Mr. Devar senior, who has what
+you call a pull in such matters, has secured us the use of a railway
+president's car for the trip, and a whole lot of friends join us at
+Chicago.  Can you come, too?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Steingall shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir," he said ruefully.  "I can't get away from headquarters.  I
+have too much on hand.  As for Clancy, he'll be carried out before he
+quits."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So, for two people at least, a wonderful night merged into a more
+wonderful month, and the dawn of a new year found them on the threshold
+of a happy, and therefore, quite wonderful life.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of One Wonderful Night, by Louis Tracy
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of One Wonderful Night, by Louis Tracy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: One Wonderful Night
+       A Romance of New York
+
+Author: Louis Tracy
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19707]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  BEVERLY BAYNE AS
+LADY HERMIONE.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
+
+A ROMANCE OF NEW YORK
+
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS TRACY
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+MIRABEL'S ISLAND, THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, ETC.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+
+EDWARD J. CLODE
+
+
+
+
+A FOREWORD
+
+Moving picture enthusiasts who reveled in the romantic mysteries that
+tangled the plot of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT will find even more pleasure in
+reading this fascinating story.
+
+"THE LADIES' WORLD" contest--the greatest in the history of motion
+pictures--has just come to a close.  Under the auspices of the "Ladies'
+World" with its million circulation monthly, moving picture lovers all
+over the United States have been voting for the actor to impersonate
+the heroic part of John Delancy Curtis in the photo-play of ONE
+WONDERFUL NIGHT--probably the most interesting and absorbing
+presentation ever made on the screen.
+
+_Five million, four hundred and forty-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty
+votes were cast_.  Francis Bushman won the prize.  With a vote of
+1,806,630 he was chosen the typical American hero.  In the Essanay
+Company's elaborate production of ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT, Mr. Bushman is
+supported by a strong cast, including beautiful Beverly Bayne as Lady
+Hermione.
+
+Those who have witnessed the photo-play production will find the book
+even more intensely interesting.  The hero, John Delancy Curtis, drops
+in from Pekin, China, for a brief rest from strenuous engineering work,
+and on his first night in New York finds a marriage license in the
+pocket of a murdered man's coat, rushes off in a taxi to the address of
+the woman named therein, marries her, punches a frantic rival on the
+nose, flouts her father (an English baronet), takes the fair one to a
+hotel, holds a banquet at which the Chief of Police of New York is an
+honored guest, and sits down to gaze contentedly into the future of
+bliss that a half a million a year will bring.
+
+We bespeak for the reader pleasure, entertainment and diversion in this
+absorbing and unusual story.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. DUSK
+   II. EIGHT O'CLOCK
+  III. EIGHT-THIRTY
+   IV. AN INTERLUDE
+    V. NINE O'CLOCK
+   VI. NINE-THIRTY
+  VII. TEN O'CLOCK
+ VIII. TEN-THIRTY
+   IX. ELEVEN O'CLOCK
+    X. MIDNIGHT
+   XI. ONE O'CLOCK
+  XII. TWO-THIRTY A.M.
+ XIII. WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"
+  XIV. THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
+   XV. WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS--BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS
+  XVI. A PARLEY
+ XVII. WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN AS JOHN D. CURTIS.  BEVERLY BAYNE
+  AS LADY HERMIONE . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+
+Scenes from the photo-drama
+
+
+
+
+ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DUSK
+
+"There, sonny--behold the city of your dreams!  Good old New York, as
+per schedule. . . .  Gee!  Ain't she great?"
+
+The slim, self-possessed youth of twenty hardly seemed to expect an
+answer; but the man addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of
+the pair by six years, felt that the emotion throbbing in his heart
+must be allowed to bubble forth lest he became hysterical.
+
+"Old New York, do you call it?" he asked quietly.  The tense restraint
+in his voice would perhaps have betrayed his mood to a more delicately
+tuned ear than his companion's, but young Howard Devar, heir of the
+Devar millions--son of "Vancouver" Devar, the Devar who fed multitudes
+on canned salmon, and was suspected of having cornered wheat at least
+once, thus woefully misapplying the parable of the loaves and
+fishes--had the wit to appreciate the significance of the question,
+deaf as he was to its note of longing, of adulation, of vibrant
+sentiment.
+
+"_Coelum non animum mutat_, which, in good American, means that it is
+the same old city on the level, and only changes its sky-line," he
+chortled.  "Bet you a five-spot to a nickel I'll walk blindfolded along
+Twenty-third Street from the Hoboken Ferry any time of the day, and
+take the correct turn into Broadway, bar being run over by a taxi or
+street-car at the crossings."
+
+"I'll take the same odds and do that myself.  How could any normal
+human being miss the rattle of the Sixth Avenue Elevated?"
+
+Devar's forehead wrinkled with surprise.
+
+"Hello, there!  Hold on!  How often have you told me that you had never
+seen New York since you were a baby?" he cried.
+
+"Nor have I.  Ten years ago, almost to a day, I sailed from Boston to
+Europe with my people, and I had never revisited New York after leaving
+it in infancy, though both my father and mother hailed from the Bronx."
+
+"There's a cog missing somewhere, or my mental gear-box is out of
+shape."
+
+"Not a bit of it.  One may learn heaps of things from maps and books."
+
+"Start right in, then, and take an honors course, for behold in me a
+map and a book and a high-grade society index for the whole blessed
+little island of Manhattan."
+
+"Thank you.  What is that slender, column-like structure to the left of
+the Singer Building?"
+
+Devar gazed hard at the graceful tower indicated by his friend; then he
+laughed.
+
+"Oh, you're uncanny, that's what you are," he said.  "You've lived so
+long in the East that you've imbibed its tricks of occultism and
+necromancy.  I suppose you have discovered in some way that that
+mushroom has sprung up since the old man sent me to Heidelberg?"
+
+"I guessed it, I admit.  It does not figure among the down-town
+sky-scrapers in the latest drawing available in London."
+
+"And d'ye mean to tell me that you can pick out any of these
+top-notchers merely by studying a picture?"
+
+"Yes.  Probably you could do the same if you, like me, felt yourself a
+returned exile."
+
+Young Devar awoke at last to the fact that his companion was brimming
+over with subdued excitement.  Whether this arose from the intense
+nationalism of an expatriated American, or from some more subtle
+personal cause, he could not determine, but, being young, he was
+cynical.  He looked at the strong, set face, the well-knit, sinewy
+figure, the purposeful hands gripping the fore rail of the promenade
+deck; then he growled, with just the least spice of humorous envy:
+
+"Say, Curtis, old man, you ought to have a hell of a good time in New
+York!"
+
+"At any rate, I shall not suffer from lack of enthusiasm," came the
+quick retort.
+
+Devar felt the spur, and his restless, bird-like eyes condescended to
+dwell for a few seconds in silence on the splendid panorama in front.
+The _Lusitania_ had passed through the Narrows before the two young men
+had strolled along the upper deck of the great steamship to the
+'vantage point of a gangway which made a half-circle around the
+commander's quarters.  Already the Statue of Liberty loomed
+majestically over the port bow, and the wide expanse of the Hudson
+River was framed by the wooded slopes of Staten Island, the low shores
+of New Jersey, and the heights of the Palisades.  Somewhat to the right
+rose the imperial outlines of newest New York, that wonderful city
+which, even in the memory of children, has raised itself hundreds of
+feet nearer the sky.  A thin, blue haze gave glamour to a delightful
+scene, glowing in the declining rays of a November sun.  The gigantic
+strands of the Brooklyn Bridge showed through it like some aerial path
+to a fabulous land, while, merging fast in the shadows, other dim
+specters told of even greater engineering marvels higher up the East
+River.  A fleet of bustling vessels, for the most part ferry-boats and
+tugs of every possible size and shape, scudded across the spacious
+waterways, and lent to the picture exactly that semblance of vitality,
+of energetic purpose, of relentless effort to be up and doing--whether
+the New Yorker was going home from his office, or his wife was coming
+into town for dinner and a theater--which one, at least, of the city's
+uncounted sons had confidently expected to find in it.
+
+So John Delancy Curtis drew a deep breath that sounded almost like a
+sigh, but a pleasant smile illumined his somewhat stern face as he
+turned to Devar and said:
+
+"I am giving myself fourteen days' free run of the town before I go
+West to visit some relatives.  They live in Indiana, I believe.
+Bloomington, Monroe County, is the latest address I possess.  Don't
+forget to ring me up to-morrow.  You remember the hotel, the Central,
+in West 27th Street."
+
+"Oh, forget it!" cried the other vexedly.  "Why in the world are you
+burying yourself in that pre-historic shanty?  Man alive, the Holland
+House is only a block away, and there are 'steen hotels of the right
+sort strung out along Fifth Avenue, 'way up to Central Park----"
+
+"It's just a whim," broke in Curtis, who did not feel like explaining
+at the moment that he was choosing a quiet old inn in a side street
+because he had been born there!  Nevertheless, his words held that ring
+of decision, of finality in judgment, which invariably forms part of
+the equipment of men who have lived in wild lands and lorded it over
+inferior races.  Devar was vaguely conscious, and perhaps slightly
+resentful, of this compelling quality in his new-found crony.
+Oft-times it had quelled him for an instant during some stubbornly
+contested argument, though he raged at himself just as often for
+yielding to it, as if, forsooth, he were one of those patient,
+animal-like, Chinese coolies of whose courage and endurance Curtis
+spoke so admiringly.  Yet he was drawn to the man, and clung to his
+friendship.
+
+"Right-o!  I s'pose the place owns a telephone," he snickered, and then
+hurried away to finish packing.  Curtis, whose belongings were locked
+and strapped hours ago, remained on deck, and watched the preparations
+for bringing the great liner alongside the Cunard pier.  When her
+engines were stopped in mid-stream a number of fussy little tugs began
+nosing her round to starboard.  It seemed a matter of sheer
+impossibility that these puny creatures should move such a monster; but
+faith can move mountains, and in half an hour, or less, the tugs had
+moved the _Lusitania_ to her allotted berth.
+
+Meanwhile, in each wide arch of the Customs shed, parterres of joyous
+faces grew momentarily more distinct.  It was easy to discern the very
+instant when one or other eager group on shore recognized the features
+of relatives and friends on the ship.  A frenzied waving of
+handkerchiefs, small flags, or umbrellas, an occasional wild whoop, a
+college cry or a rebel yell, would evoke similar demonstrations from
+the packed lines of onlookers fringing the lower decks.  One fact was
+dominant--to the vast majority of the passengers, this was home.
+
+Suddenly, Curtis found that he was the sole tenant of the open
+promenade.  Everyone on board had hurried to the less exalted levels,
+the many to hail their loved ones, the few to watch that first unique
+demonstration of welcome to a new land which New York gives so
+generously.  Somehow, he had never felt himself more alone--not even by
+night in the solemn plains of Manchuria--and he threw off the feeling,
+almost with contempt.  Was not this city his very own?  Had he not a
+birthright in every stone of it, from pavement to loftiest pinnacle?
+This was _his_ home-coming, too, more real, more literally complete,
+than in the case of any but the few born New Yorkers who might figure
+among the two thousand passengers carried by the _Lusitania_.
+
+Insistently claiming his share of recognition, he turned abruptly, and
+made his way to the third deck.  There he met a lady, a young bride,
+who was returning to the States with her husband after a prolonged tour
+through Europe.  Her pretty face was wrung with emotion, but a second
+glance revealed that her distress was due to the pleasant pain of
+happiness.
+
+"Have you seen your father and mother?" he asked sympathetically,
+knowing that she had looked forward to this great hour with so much
+longing.
+
+"Y-yes," she sobbed.  "They are there--somewhere.  B-but, oh dear!  I
+cannot see them now for my tears."
+
+Someone dug a joyful thumb into Curtis's ribs.  It was the girl's
+husband.
+
+"Gee, it's fine to be home again!" he said huskily.  "Your leaning
+towers of Pisa are all right by way of a change, but deal me the
+Metropolitan for keeps, an' I've just spotted my old dad grinning at me
+like a Cheshire cat from the middle of a crowd wedged so tight that it
+would take a panic to squeeze in an extra walking-stick."
+
+So the knowledge was borne in on Curtis that one could feel quite as
+lonely on C Deck as on A, and, case-hardened wanderer that he was, he
+badly wanted someone to yell at gleefully among the waiting multitude.
+
+Now the gangways were out, and West folded East in her willing arms.
+The stolid masses of steamship and Customs shed obliterated the orange
+and crimson sky still gleaming over the Jersey shore, and pallid
+electric lights revealed but vaguely the ever-changing groups beyond
+the gangways.
+
+To an experienced traveler like Curtis all Custom-houses were alike,
+dingy, nerve-racking, superfluous clogs on free movement.  Taking his
+time, for he had none to embrace or greet with outstretched hand, he
+strolled quietly off the ship, collected his baggage, which was piled
+with other people's belongings under a big "C," and nodded to Devar,
+similarly engaged at "D."
+
+The boy ran to him for an instant.
+
+"I may look you up to-night," he said.  "Dad is in Chicago, and won't
+be here till the morning.  You remember we passed the _Switzerland_
+after breakfast, and she signaled that she was steaming with the port
+engine only?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, her trouble was known by wireless, and there is a man on board
+whom dad has to meet.  This chap is important.  I am not."
+
+"My dear fellow, don't think of leaving your friends on my account this
+evening," and Curtis, without looking around, showed that he had
+noticed the befurred elderly lady and two very pretty daughters who
+were taking Howard Devar under their elegant wings.
+
+"Oh, that's my aunt, and two of my cousins.  I have dozens of 'em,
+dozens of cousins, that is.  Anyhow, old sport, don't wait in after
+7.30; just leave word where you may be about eleven."
+
+No further protest by Curtis was possible, because Devar's present
+behavior was of the whirlwind order.  He seemed to own as many trunks
+as cousins, and a lantern-jawed Customs official was gloating over them
+already.  Perhaps Curtis felt a faint whiff of surprise that his young
+friend had not introduced him to his relatives, but it vanished
+instantly.  Steamer acquaintance is a nebulous thing at the best; in
+that respect, the land is more unstable than the sea.
+
+At last, the stranger in his own country was consigned to a porter, his
+two steamer trunks, a kit-bag, a suit-case, and a bundle of worn golf
+clubs were placed on a taxi, and a breath of clean, cold air blew in on
+his face as the vehicle hurried along West Street, that broad and
+exceedingly useful thoroughfare which New York has finally wrested from
+its waterside slums.
+
+The chief city of America is fortunate in the fact that a noble harbor
+presents her in full regalia to the voyager from Europe.  That
+favorable first impression, unattainable by the majority of the world's
+capitals, is never lost, and now it enabled Curtis to disregard the
+garish ugliness of the avenues and streets glimpsed during a quick run
+to the center of the town.  For one thing, he realized how the mere
+propinquity of docks and wharves infects entire districts with the
+happy-go-lucky carelessness of Jack ashore; for another, he knew what
+was coming.
+
+Or he fancied that he knew, a state of mind which, particularly in New
+York, produces brain storms.  His first shock came when the taxi drew
+up in front of a narrow-fronted, exceedingly tall building, equipped
+with revolving doors, while a hall-porter, dressed like an archduke,
+peered through the window and inquired severely:
+
+"Have you reserved a room, sir?"
+
+Yes, this was the Central Hotel, rebuilt, gone skyward, in full cry
+after its more pretentious _a la carte_ neighbors, and the hall-porter
+was pained by the mere suspicion that the fact was not accepted of all
+the world of travel.
+
+Although the newcomer confessed that he had not made any reservation of
+rooms, the Archduke graciously permitted him to alight--indeed, quelled
+an incipient rebellion on Curtis's part by ordering a couple of negroes
+to disappear with most of the baggage.  So Curtis announced meekly to a
+super-clerk that he wanted a room with a bathroom, and was allowed to
+register.  As in a dream, he signed "John D. Curtis, Pekin," and was
+promptly annoyed at finding what he had written, because, being a
+citizen of New York, he had meant to claim the distinction, and ignore
+his long years in Cathay.
+
+"You'll find 605 a comfortable, quiet room, Mr. Curtis," said the
+clerk.  "Going to make a long stay, may I ask?"
+
+"A few days--perhaps a fortnight.  I cannot say offhand."
+
+"Well, sir, I can't fix you better than in 605."
+
+From some points of view, the clerk had never uttered a truer word.  It
+was wholly impossible that he or Curtis should guess how an apparently
+empty and really excellent apartment in the Central Hotel should be
+full to the ceiling that evening with that dynamite in human affairs
+called chance.  If the slightest inkling of the forthcoming explosion
+could have been vouchsafed to both men, there is no telling what Curtis
+might have done, for he was a true adventurer, of the D'Artagnan genus,
+but the clerk would certainly have used all his persuasiveness to
+induce the guest to occupy some other part of the house.  In later
+periods of unruffled calm, he was wont to date from that moment the
+genesis of gray hairs among his once raven-hued locks.
+
+But chance, like dynamite, not only gives no warning of its explosive
+properties but resembles that agent of disruption in following a
+curiously wayward path.  Curtis was piloted into an elevator by an
+affable negro, was conducted to 605, which, of course, lay on the sixth
+floor, and was plunged forthwith into the prosaic business of
+consigning a good deal of soiled linen to the laundry.
+
+The room was insufferably hot, so he directed the negro attendant to
+shut off the radiator, and himself threw open the window.  Glancing
+out, he discovered that he was located in a corner which commanded a
+distant glimpse of Broadway.  Directly before his eyes, in the topmost
+story of a comparatively low building, a lady who had forgotten to draw
+the blinds of her flat was apparently indulging in calisthenic
+exercises, so Curtis, being a modest man, drew the blind in his own
+room, and busied himself with a partial unpacking of his baggage.  The
+door faced the bed, at a distance of some six feet.  A wardrobe
+occupied the recess, and the negro, while unstrapping a steel trunk at
+the foot of the bed, balanced the bag of golf clubs against the front
+of the wardrobe--an action simple enough in itself, but comparable in
+its after effects to the setting of a clock attached to a bomb.
+
+Soon afterwards, Curtis dismissed the man, and noticed casually that
+the opening of the door caused a pleasant draught of cool air.  He
+wrote a few letters, dressed, electing for a Tuxedo and black tie,
+filled a cigar-case, donned a green Homburg hat, threw an overcoat over
+his left arm, picked up the letters, extinguished the lights, and went
+out.  Again there came that rush of air from the window, and, just as
+the lock snapped, a crash from the interior announced the falling of
+the golf clubs, probably owing to a swaying of the wardrobe door.
+Simultaneously, Curtis realized that he had left the key on the
+dressing-table.
+
+It was hardly worth while searching the floor for a chamber-maid: he
+decided to inform the civil-spoken clerk, and have the key brought to
+the office, at which sapient resolve Puck, who was surely abroad in New
+York that night, must have chuckled delightedly.  Unhappily, there were
+other spirits brooding in the city, spirits before whose deathly scowls
+the prime mischief-maker would have fled in terror, and Curtis, all
+unwitting, brushed against one of them in the hall.  His only
+acquaintance, the clerk, was momentarily absent, so he turned to a
+bookstall and cigar counter, and bought some stamps.  A man who had
+been seated in a sort of cafe, which the news-stand and a flower-stall
+partially screened from the main hall, rose hurriedly when he saw
+Curtis, and purchased a cigar.  In doing so, he touched the young man's
+shoulder, and said: "Pardon!"
+
+Curtis turned, and looked into the singularly unprepossessing face of a
+swarthy foreigner, a powerfully-built, ungainly person of about his own
+age.
+
+"That's all right," said he, licking a stamp.
+
+"I jostled you by accident, monsieur," said the other, in correct
+French, though with a quaint accent which Curtis, himself no mean
+linguist, put down to a Polish or Czech nationality.
+
+"_Ca ne fait rien_," he replied civilly, and the stamping of the
+letters being completed, he took them to the letter-box.
+
+The stranger, who seemed to be rather puzzled, if somewhat reassured,
+dawdled over the lighting of the cigar, and watched Curtis enter the
+dining-room.  Then he went back to his chair in the cafe.  So much, and
+no more, did the youth in charge of the counter observe--not a great
+deal, but it went a long way before midnight.
+
+A clock in the hall showed that the hour was five minutes to seven.
+Half hoping that Devar might actually put in an appearance a little
+later, Curtis gave his hat and coat to a negro, and decided to dine in
+the hotel.  Evidently, the place still retained its old-time repute as
+a family and commercial resort.  The family element was in evidence at
+some of the tables, while, in the case of solitary diners, each man
+could have been labeled Pittsburg, Chicago, or Philadelphia, almost
+without error, by those acquainted with the industrial life of the
+United States.
+
+He ate well, if simply, and treated himself to a small bottle of a
+noted champagne.  At half-past seven, meaning to give Devar ten
+minutes' grace, he ordered coffee and a glass of green Chartreuse.  As
+a time-killer, there is no liqueur more potent, but, regarded in the
+light of subsequent occurrences, it would be hard to say exactly how
+far the cunning monkish decoction helped in determining his wayward
+actions.  Undoubtedly, some fantastic influence carried him beyond
+those bounds of calm self-possession within which everyone who knew
+John Delancy Curtis would have expected to find him.  His subsequent
+light-headedness, his placid acceptance of a mad romance as the one
+thing that was inevitable, his ready yielding to impulse, his no less
+stubborn refusal to return to the beaten path of common sense--these
+unlikely traits in a character gifted with the New England dourness of
+purpose can only be explained, if at all, as arising from some
+unsuspected hereditary streak of knight-errantry brought into sudden
+and exotic life by the good wines of France.
+
+Be that as it may, at twenty minutes to eight he paid what he owed,
+lighted a cigar, donned his hat, and, still carrying the overcoat, was
+walking to the office to leave word about the key, when his attention
+was attracted by the peculiar behavior of the man who had pushed
+against him at the cigar counter.
+
+This person, apparently obeying a signal from another man of his own
+type who had just emerged from the elevator, hastened from the cafe,
+and the two ran to the door.  Now, the weather had been mild during the
+afternoon, and the revolving shutters of the doorway were folded back
+to allow of the overheated hall being cooled.  A porter stood there,
+and it was ascertained afterwards that, noticing a certain air of
+flurry and confusion about the foreigners, he asked if they wanted a
+taxi.  They gave no heed, but continued to gaze up and down the street,
+as though they awaited someone.  Equally did they seem to expect, or
+dread, an apparition from the hotel.  It would have been hard to pick
+out, at that instant, two persons more singularly ill at ease in all
+New York.
+
+Curtis saw that the clerk, now at his desk, was engaged with a lady, so
+he strolled to the door, being rather interested in the excited antics
+of the pair on the sidewalk.  He had just passed through the door when
+an automobile dashed up, and he fancied, though he could not be quite
+sure in the half-light, that the chauffeur nodded to the waiting men.
+The porter opened the door of the automobile, and a young man in
+evening dress, and carrying an overcoat, leaped out.  Obviously, he was
+in a desperate hurry, and Curtis heard him say in French:
+
+"Don't stop the engine, Anatole.  I shall be but one moment."
+
+At that instant the two foreigners sprang at him.  One, swinging the
+porter off his feet, seized the newcomer's right arm, and, helped by
+his comrade, endeavored to force him back into the vehicle.  The effort
+failed, however, so the second desperado drew a knife and plunged it
+deliberately into the unfortunate man's neck.  It was a fearsome
+stroke, intended both to silence and to kill, and, with a gurgling cry,
+its victim collapsed in the grip of his assailants.
+
+Curtis, though almost stupefied by the suddenness of the crime, did not
+hesitate a second when he caught the venomous gleam of the knife.
+Throwing aside his coat, he rushed forward, but he had to cross the
+whole width of the pavement, and the murderers, realizing that the
+capture of one or both was imminent, thrust the inert body in his way.
+The chauffeur, who must have seen all that happened, had already
+started the car, the two men scrambled into it, and all that Curtis
+could do was to run after it and shout frantically to the driver of a
+taxi coming in the opposite direction to turn his vehicle and block the
+roadway.
+
+The man understood, but was naturally slow to risk a sharp collision
+merely at the order of an excited gentleman in evening dress.  He
+stopped quickly enough, but, by the time his help was available,
+pursuit was hopeless; the one thing Curtis could do he had done--while
+running up the street he had deciphered the number of the car, X24-305.
+
+Before Curtis rejoined the dazed hall-porter a small crowd had
+gathered, and it was difficult to get near the body lying on the curb.
+A man picked up an overcoat, and Curtis, cool and clear-headed now,
+took it, and appealed to him, if he knew where the nearest doctor
+lived, to run thither at top speed.  The man obeyed him instantly.
+
+"Meanwhile, let me see to the poor fellow," he said.  "I am not a
+doctor, but I know enough about wounds to say whether those scoundrels
+have killed him or not."
+
+The throng yielded to an authoritative voice, and some of the more
+sensible bystanders formed a ring, thus securing a semblance of light
+and air around the prostrate man.  Curtis struck a match, and it needed
+no second glance to learn that the stranger's lung had been pierced by
+an almost vertical thrust; indeed, he was already dying.  The poor
+lips, from which blood and froth were bubbling, strove vainly to
+articulate words which, in the prevalent hubbub of alarm and
+excitement, it was impossible to distinguish.  A policeman came, and,
+as a traffic station for the precinct happened to lie within a couple
+of doors, the moribund form was carried in, and placed on a stretcher
+kept there for use in emergency.
+
+A doctor was soon on the spot, but he arrived just in time to record
+the last flicker of life in the tortured eyes.  Then, as one in a
+dream, Curtis gave the policeman the details of the crime, the name of
+the chauffeur, and the number of the car, his testimony being borne out
+to some extent by the hall-porter, and, so far as the car was
+concerned, by the sharp-eyed driver of the taxi.  His own name and
+address were taken, and a police captain and a couple of detectives,
+called to the scene by telephone, thanked him for his alertness in
+securing valuable clews, not only in regard to the car and chauffeur
+but also in describing the features, figure, and dress of one of the
+criminals.
+
+Finally, he was warned to hold himself in readiness to attend the
+opening of an inquest on the following morning, and the police
+intimated that they did not desire the presence of witnesses while the
+dead man's clothing was being scrutinized.
+
+So Curtis went out into the street, and, with no other purpose than to
+avoid the publicity and questioning of the crowd gathered in and around
+the hotel, sauntered into Broadway.  At the corner he halted for a
+moment to put on the overcoat.  He had gone some few yards up the
+brilliantly illuminated thoroughfare when he fancied that his nervous
+system needed the tonic of a cigar, and he searched in the pockets of
+the overcoat for a box of matches he had placed there before leaving
+his bedroom.  The box had gone, but in the right-hand pocket his
+fingers closed on a long, narrow envelope, made of stiff linen paper,
+which somehow seemed unfamiliar.  He drew it out, and examined it,
+standing in front of a well-lighted shop window.
+
+Then he whistled with sheer amazement, as well he might.  The envelope
+held a marriage license for two people named Jean de Courtois and
+Hermione Beauregard Grandison. . . .  In a word, he was wearing the
+dead man's overcoat, and the fearsome conviction leaped to his brain
+that the dead man must be Jean de Courtois.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+EIGHT O'CLOCK
+
+From one aspect, Curtis's sense of dread and horror was merely
+altruistic, the natural welling forth of the springs of human
+sentiment.  If the man now lying stark and lifeless in that dreary
+official bureau had in truth been hurrying on his way to a marriage
+feast, then, indeed, tragedy had assumed its grimmest aspect that night
+in New York.  But, beyond an enforced personal contact with a ghastly
+crime, Curtis had no vital interest in its victim, and it should have
+occurred to him, as a law-abiding citizen, that his instant duty was to
+communicate this new discovery to the authorities.  Nay more, such
+definite information would help the police materially in their pursuit
+of the murderers.  It might lay bare a motive, put the bloodhounds of
+the law on a well-marked trail, and render impossible the escape of the
+guilty ones.
+
+That was the sane, level-headed, man-of-the-world view, and, to one
+inured to deeds of violence in a land where the Foreign Devil oft-time
+holds his life as scarce worth an hour's purchase, no other solution of
+the problem should have presented itself.  But, for all his strength of
+character, Curtis had been breathing an intoxicating atmosphere ever
+since he set foot on American soil.  His home-coming had begun by
+producing in his soul a subtle exaltation which had survived a
+conspiracy of repression.  Devar's careless acceptance of the city's
+grandeur had jarred; the exuberance of the joyous throng on the jetty
+had touched dormant chords of sad memories; even at the very portals of
+the hotel the building's newness had struck a bizarre note; and now, as
+though to emphasize the vile crime of which he had been an involuntary
+witness, came the stifling knowledge that somewhere in New York an
+expectant bride was chafing at delay--a delay caused by an assassin's
+dagger, while there was not lacking even the tormenting suspicion that
+somehow, had he been more wide-awake, he could have prevented that
+malignant thrust.
+
+Yet, his head remained in the clouds.  In common with most men whose
+lot is cast in climes far removed from civilization, Curtis worshiped
+an ideal of womanhood which was rather that of a poet than of the
+blase, cynical town-dweller.  He had seen death too often to be shocked
+by its harsh visage, and, perhaps in protest against the idle belief
+that the crime was preventable, his sympathies were absorbed now by the
+vision of some fair girl waiting vainly for the bridegroom who would
+never come.  His analytical mind fastened instantly on the theory that
+murder had been done to prevent a marriage.  He took it for granted
+that the Jean de Courtois of the marriage certificate was dead, and his
+heart grieved for the hapless young woman whose aristocratic name was
+blazoned on that same document.  So, instead of retracing his steps,
+and warning the officers of the law, he bent his brows over the
+certificate, and, in acting thus, unconsciously committed himself to as
+fantastic a course as ever was followed by mortal man.
+
+It is only fair to urge that had he known the truth, had the veil been
+lifted ever so slightly on other happenings in the Central Hotel that
+night, he would not have hesitated a moment about returning to the
+conclave of policemen and detectives.  He acted impulsively, absurdly,
+almost insanely, it may be held, but he did honestly act in good faith,
+and that is the best and the worst that can be said of him, or for him.
+
+And now to peer over his shoulder at the printed form and its written
+interlineations, which he was perusing with anxious, thoughtful eyes.
+
+It was headed "State of New York, County of New York, City of New
+York," and bade all men know that any person authorized by law to
+perform marriage ceremonies within the State was thereby "authorized
+and empowered to solemnize the rites of matrimony between Jean de
+Courtois, a citizen of the French Republic, now residing in the Central
+Hotel, West 27th Street, New York, and Hermione Beauregard Grandison, a
+citizen of Great Britain, now residing at 1000 West 59th Street, New
+York."
+
+It had been issued that very day, November 8th.  Annexed to the license
+was the actual marriage certificate, with blanks for names and dates,
+to be filled in by the person performing the ceremony.  A set of
+printed rules, reciting various duties, legal obligations, and
+penalties for infringing the same, was also inclosed; but Curtis was in
+no mood to master the provisions of "An Act to Amend the Domestic
+Relations Law, by providing for Marriage Licenses," for they must
+perforce be silent on the one topic wherein he needed guidance--the
+course to be pursued in the circumstances now facing him.
+
+His thoughts were focussed on the name and address of the girl who had
+been so cruelly, so wantonly, bereft of her lover, and it seemed to him
+both fitting and charitable that someone other than a police sergeant
+or detective should interpose between the grim tragedy of 27th Street
+and the even more poignant horror which was fated to descend on some
+house in 59th Street.  Apparently, fate had decreed that he should be
+the messenger charged with this sad errand, and, with a singular
+disregard of consequences, he accepted the mandate.
+
+He did not act blindly.  When all was said and done, the certificate
+had come into his possession by unavoidable chance.  At the hapless
+bride's residence he would surely be able to meet someone who could
+accompany him to the police office, and give the details needed for a
+successful chase.  Indeed, he argued that he was saving valuable time
+by his prompt action, and, reviewing the whole of the facts while being
+carried swiftly up Broadway in a taxi, he found, at first, no flaw in
+his judgment.
+
+Though busy in mind with the extraordinary events of the past quarter
+of an hour, his alert eyes missed few features of the abounding life of
+the Great White Way.  As it happened, a stranger in New York could not
+have entered the city's main thoroughfare at any point better
+calculated to bewilder and astound than the very corner where Curtis
+had picked up the cab.  On both sides, from the level of the street to
+a height often measurable in hundreds of feet, nearly every building
+blazed with electric signs.  Many of the devices seemed to be alive.
+Horses galloped, either in Roman stadium or modern polo-ground; a
+girl's skirts were fluttered by a rain-storm; a giant's hand, with
+unerring skill, bowled a ball at ten-pins in a bowling alley; the names
+of theaters, of hotels, of drugs, of patent foods, of every known
+variety of caterer for human needs and amusements, flickered, and
+winked, and stared, at the passer-by from ground floor to attic--while
+each and all--horses, skirts, rain-drops, hand, ball, pins, and
+names--glowed in every known shade of color from every known form of
+electric lamp.
+
+The glare of this advertisers' paradise was so overpowering that even
+the marvel-surfeited citizens who crowded the sidewalks would gather in
+dense groups at a corner, thence to watch and take in the dazzling
+significance of some sign new to their vision.  Curtis noticed many
+such assemblies before the taxi sped out of the magic area which ends
+at 42nd Street; but it was all novel to him; he could not discuss the
+contrast between last week's glorification of Somebody's Pickles and
+to-night's triumph of Everybody's Whisky, and he was almost bemused by
+the display, which provided such a bizarre anti-climax to the terrible
+drama he had just witnessed.
+
+It was a positive relief, therefore, when the vehicle bowled swiftly
+into a quiet cross street, and he was vouchsafed only fleeting glimpses
+of broad avenues where fresh multitudes of lamps again bade defiance to
+the night.
+
+In one place, an illuminated dial showed that the hour was eight
+o'clock, and the curiously simple fact of noting the time roused him to
+a perception of all that had happened since he strolled out of the
+dining-room of the Central Hotel.  He smiled dourly when he remembered
+the mislaid key.  Did it still repose in the bedroom?  Or had a
+housemaid found it, and restored it to a numbered hook in the office?
+Had not that immaculately dressed clerk said he would find Number 605
+"a comfortable, quiet room"?  Well, it might be all that, yet Curtis
+could hardly help dwelling on the thought that had he been put in any
+other cell of the human beehive called the Central Hotel it was highly
+probable he would not now be flying across New York on a self-imposed
+mission so nebulous, so ill-defined, that already his orderly brain was
+beginning to doubt the logic which inspired it.
+
+Was it too late to draw back?  To this handy automobile city distances
+were negligible quantities, and he would rejoin the detectives before
+they could have any reason to suspect him even of carelessness in
+withholding from their ken the new and important fact revealed by the
+accidental change of overcoats.
+
+And, yes--by Jove!--it would be assumed that _his_ overcoat was the
+dead man's, though, indeed, certain papers in the pockets would soon
+show that there was a blunder somewhere, because the John D. Curtis
+mentioned therein necessarily figured as the chief witness in the case
+now being worked up against three unknown malefactors.  Oddly enough,
+it was contemporaneous with this thought that the queer similarity of
+his own name to that of the unfortunate Frenchman first dawned on him.
+John D. Curtis and Jean de Courtois were, as names, particularly as the
+names of two men of different nationalities, sufficiently alike to
+invite comment.  Well, that being so, there was all the more reason why
+the identity of poor Jean de Courtois should be established beyond
+doubt, and this reflection appealed so strongly that, when the cab
+stopped, Curtis was once more reconciled to the policy hurriedly
+arrived at while he was standing at the corner of Broadway and 27th
+Street.
+
+He opened the door, alighted, glanced up at a rather imposing block of
+flats, and said to the driver:
+
+"Is this 1000 West 59th Street?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  Quite a bunch of people live here," was the answer.
+
+"I take it, then, that the lady I wish to see occupies one of the
+flats?"
+
+The driver smiled broadly, for it seemed to him that the naive
+statement sounded rather funny.
+
+"I guess that's about the size of it," he said.
+
+Curtis smiled, too.  This needless blurting out of confidences to a
+cabman was the one folly essential to a complete restoration of his
+wits.
+
+"Wait for me," he said.  "I may be only a minute or two, and I shall
+want you to take me right back to the point I came from."
+
+The man nodded, and turned to set the time index of the taximeter.  A
+few steps led up to a spacious doorway, and Curtis passed through a
+revolving door.  Halfway along a well-lighted passage he saw an
+elevator sign, and found an attendant sitting there.
+
+"I believe that Miss Grandison lives here?" he said.
+
+"Second floor--Number 10--take you up?" was the time-saving reply.
+
+"Yes, but I am not anxious to see Miss Grandison herself.  I would
+prefer to speak to some male relative."
+
+The attendant looked puzzled; perhaps he was wishful to make smooth the
+way for a visitor who was obviously a gentleman, but the problem
+offered by Curtis's request presented difficulties, and he fell back on
+his official instructions.
+
+"Sorry, but you must explain matters to the maid at Number 10," he
+said, quite civilly, and Curtis was soon pressing an electric bell at
+the door of the flat itself.
+
+A neatly dressed girl appeared.  Her out-of-doors costume suggested
+that she was either just going out or just returned, and Curtis,
+unaccustomed to the domestic problem as it exists in New York, fancied
+that she ranked above the level of a house-maid.
+
+"Is Miss Grandison in?" he asked.
+
+"I'll inquire, sir.  What name shall I say?"
+
+It was a noncommittal answer, so he changed ground in the next question.
+
+"I would prefer not to meet Miss Grandison herself if it is in any way
+possible to interview a relative of hers, or a friend," he said.
+
+This colorless statement, intended to be reassuring, seemed to have
+such an alarming effect on the girl that he hastened to add:
+
+"I am here with reference to Monsieur Jean de Courtois."
+
+His hearer smiled, and her manner changed from fright to friendliness.
+Indeed, if he had not been so wrapped up in the highly disagreeable
+task which lay before him, he could hardly have failed to notice that
+she welcomed, rather than resented, the visit of a smart looking young
+man to the establishment.
+
+"Oh, come in, do," she said, glancing up at him with demure but very
+bright eyes.  "Why didn't you say at once that you had been sent by Mr.
+de Courtois, without trying to scare me stiff by talking about
+relatives?"
+
+He obeyed, and he closed the door.
+
+"I really meant what I said," he persisted.  "Something has happened to
+prevent Monsieur de Courtois coming here this evening----"
+
+"Not coming!  Then there will be no wedding!"
+
+Her voice was subdued, but she put such distress, such perplexity, into
+her words that at any other time Curtis would have marveled at the
+gamut of emotion which the feminine temperament was capable of.  Still,
+he had to risk even a mild display of hysteria, so he went on quietly:
+
+"You will understand now why I would rather meet some person other than
+Miss Grandison."
+
+"But who is there to meet?  She is alone.  I do believe I am the only
+living being she knows in New York, except Mr. de Courtois. . . .  Why
+can't he come?  What is keeping him?  Has he met with an
+accident? . . .  Oh, I can see by your face that he is hurt--or he has
+been kidnapped!  Yes, that's it, for sure!  And that dear young lady
+will be trapped like a bird in a cage! . . .  Miss Hermione!  Miss
+Hermione!  Here is someone come to tell you that Mr. de Courtois has
+been spirited away. . . .  Oh dear, to think that this should be the
+end of all our planning and contriving!"
+
+During this crescendo of excited and scarcely intelligible utterances
+the girl had first backed away from Curtis, and then turned, running to
+open, without knocking, a door on the right of the extreme end of a
+corridor which divided the suite into two sections.
+
+Curtis did not attempt to stop her.  Whatsoever the outcome, he was
+committed now to an undertaking from which there was no retreat.  He
+half expected that the maid, whose disjointed outburst betokened, at
+least, that she was her mistress's trusted confidante, would reappear
+from the room into which she had vanished.  But he was mistaken, doubly
+mistaken, since the mental picture he had formed of Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison was utterly falsified by the slight, elegant, girlish figure
+which presented itself before his astonished eyes.  Somehow, those
+superfine Christian names and that aristocratic surname had prepared
+him for a rather magnificent person, young, probably, because the dead
+man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive.
+He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous,
+well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if
+and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch correctly
+placed for scenic effect.
+
+The reality took his breath away.
+
+He saw a girl, not a day older than twenty, dressed in a simple costume
+of brown cloth, and wearing a hat, veil, and gloves of harmonizing
+tints.  The veil had been hurriedly lifted above the brim of the hat,
+and a pair of what seemed to be intensely dark violet eyes gazed at him
+from a small-featured, pallid face from which every vestige of color
+had fled.
+
+"Is this thing true?" she said, halting timidly within a few feet of
+him.  "Perhaps Marcelle has misunderstood you.  Who sent you?--Monsieur
+de Courtois himself, I suppose?"
+
+Her voice, so wistful, so pleading, perfect in cadence yet almost
+childlike in its evident anxiety to be reassured, reached uncharted
+depths in his soul.  At once he began to ask himself why this mere girl
+should be exposed to the impish trick which fate had played on her,
+and, in the same breath, he was conscious of a fierce anger against the
+ghouls who had contrived it.
+
+"Are you Miss Grandison?" he asked, rather to gain time than because of
+any doubt as to her personality.
+
+"Yes.  And you?"
+
+"My name is Curtis--John D. Curtis.  I only landed in New York three
+hours ago."
+
+He added the explanatory sentence in order to clear the ground, as it
+were, for the strange and horrible story he had to tell, but its effect
+was curious in the extreme.  The girl's white face blanched to that wan
+hue which personal fear lends to distress.
+
+"Where have you come from?" she gasped.
+
+"From Pekin."
+
+"From Pekin!"
+
+"Yes.  I have been traveling without pause during the past eight weeks."
+
+By this time he had ascertained two certain facts about Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison.  In the first place, she was the prettiest and
+most graceful creature he had ever met; in the second, she had all the
+hall-marks of good breeding and high social caste.  His brain was so
+busy over these discoveries that he disregarded the really remarkable
+way in which the object of his visit had been shelved for the moment.
+It might reasonably be expected that the disconsolate lady would be
+concerned mainly as to the fate of the missing bridegroom, but the
+mistress evidently shared the maid's disquietude about Curtis himself.
+
+And, precisely as in the case of Marcelle, Miss Grandison's face showed
+relief when it became manifest that he was a complete stranger.
+
+"Pray forgive me for questioning you in this manner," she said, with a
+rapid reversion to a conventional air that disconcerted her hearer in a
+way she little imagined.  "Will you come in here, and be seated? . . .
+Now, please tell me just why you have called, Mr. Curtis."
+
+She had preceded him into a prettily furnished dining-room, and the
+notion leaped up in his troubled mind that she was not so deeply moved
+by the malfortune of Monsieur Jean de Courtois as might be expected
+from the man's prospective bride.
+
+Still, he tried bravely to accommodate himself to conditions which left
+his brain in a whirl.
+
+"I had better begin by saying that your marriage cannot take
+place--to-night----" he added, flinching from the necessity of bringing
+that look of dismay into those charming eyes.  "That is why I asked
+your maid if there was no other person whom I could take into my
+confidence.  You see, it is a terribly hard thing to be compelled to
+discuss such a matter with one so closely bound up with--with Monsieur
+de Courtois."
+
+"But there is no one else.  Marcelle and I live here quite alone."
+
+More than ever did Curtis feel uncomfortable, but he had deliberately
+elected for this miserable job, and he meant to go through with it.
+
+"So I gathered from Mademoiselle Marcelle herself," he said.  "Well,
+then, Miss Grandison, I have no option but to inform you, with all the
+sympathy any man must feel for a woman in your position, that Monsieur
+de Courtois has met with an accident."
+
+"Oh, how terrible!  Is he badly hurt?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Yet it may be possible for the ceremony to be performed.  Monsieur de
+Courtois has proved himself such a true friend, he has always been so
+anxious to help me, that I am sure he would be glad if I brought the
+minister to the hospital, or to his apartments in the hotel if he has
+been taken there, and the marriage would be solemnized without causing
+him the slightest inconvenience or worry, no matter how ill he may be,
+so long as he is conscious."
+
+Curtis thought he had never before heard the English language twisted
+into such enigmas as these few simple words presented.  It was an
+outrage to credit this well-mannered and delightful girl with the
+cold-blooded callousness which seemed to reveal itself in every
+syllable.  That she was blithely unaware of this element in her excited
+utterances was shown by her eager face and animated attitude.  She had
+risen from the chair in which she had seated herself when they entered
+the room, and obviously expected him to lose no time in conducting her
+to the bedside of Jean de Courtois.
+
+"Pray sit down again, Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and his voice
+assumed a sterner, more commanding note, though he, too, stood up, and
+approached nearer, lest she might collapse in a faint and fall before
+he could save her.  "I fear I have blundered woefully in assuming a
+role for which I am ill-fitted, but I must make you realize somehow
+that your marriage is irrevocably--postponed."
+
+"Why?"
+
+A slight color tinged her cheeks; she was actually becoming annoyed
+with him!
+
+"I will tell you when you are seated."
+
+"What nonsense!  One can hear as well standing."
+
+Nevertheless, she obeyed.  People generally did obey when Curtis spoke
+in that insistent manner.
+
+Now he was quite near her, and his tone grew gentle again.
+
+"The accident from which Monsieur de Courtois suffered was fatal," he
+said.
+
+She looked at him, wide-eyed, alarmed, but assuredly not with the
+soul-sickened terror of a woman who loves when she hears that her lover
+is dead.
+
+"Do you mean that he has been killed?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, poor fellow.  I have lost my only friend, and now, indeed, I am
+the most wretched girl in all the world."
+
+Flinging her clasped arms on the table, she hid her face in them, and
+sobbed as though her heart would break.  Curtis placed a hand on her
+shoulder, and strove to calm her with such commonplace phrases as his
+dazed brain could dictate, but she wept bitterly, just as a child might
+weep if disappointed about the non-fulfillment of some object on which
+its heart was set.
+
+"It sounds horrid--I know--" she murmured brokenly, "that I
+should--seem to be thinking--only of myself.  But--Monsieur de
+Courtois--was the one man--who could save me.  Now--I don't know--what
+will become of me.  How cruel is fate!  If only--we could have been
+married yesterday--perhaps this dreadful thing would not have happened."
+
+Curtis, who had never been so mystified in his life, followed up those
+last disjointed words as a man lost in a forest might cling to a path
+in the certainty that it would lead somewhere.  He rejected all else,
+since the wild vagaries of events during the past few minutes were
+beyond his comprehension.  He waited, therefore, until the vehemence of
+her grief had somewhat subsided, and then, with another friendly
+pressure on her shoulder, he spoke with as much firmness as he thought
+the situation demanded.
+
+"Now, Miss Grandison, you must endeavor to regain self-control," he
+said.  "Monsieur de Courtois has been killed, and your--your friendship
+for him--no less than the interests of justice--demand that those
+responsible for his death should be discovered and punished."
+
+At that, she raised her head, and lifted her swimming eyes to his, and
+Curtis saw that they were blue, not violet, and that their hue changed
+as the light irradiated their profound depths.
+
+"He met with no accident, then, but was murdered?" she cried.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And for my sake?"
+
+"I gather from what you have said that that is possible."
+
+"But what have I said?"
+
+"Well, you seemed to hint that your marriage might have prevented this
+crime."
+
+"Why?"
+
+No more exasperating monosyllable can fall from a woman's lips than
+that one word "why," and Curtis felt its full force then and there.
+
+"That is what I am asking you," he said, a trifle brusquely.
+
+"But how can I tell you?" she cried.
+
+"I am only striving vainly to pierce the fog which seems to envelop us.
+Let me begin again.  I, a mere stranger in New York, just three hours
+landed from the _Lusitania_, witnessed a murderous attack on a young
+man who was alighting from a cab in front of my hotel, the Central, in
+West 27th Street.  I saw him stabbed so seriously that he died within a
+couple of minutes, and his assailants made off in an automobile, the
+very vehicle, in fact, in which he arrived.  I managed to note its
+number, and I gathered, from instructions the victim himself had given,
+that the chauffeur's Christian name was Anatole.  The two men who
+actually committed the murder--though the chauffeur was in league with
+them--seemed to me to be Czechs or Hungarians----"
+
+"Ah, I thought so," broke in the girl.
+
+"And now may I ask why you did think so?"
+
+"I may tell you later, perhaps.  Please forgive me.  I am quite
+unnerved, and oh, so unhappy.  Why have you come here?"
+
+"That is due to one of those fantastic chances which occur
+occasionally.  In the effort to save Monsieur de Courtois, or rather to
+seize his slayers, because I was too far away to interfere when the
+blow was struck, I dropped the overcoat I was carrying.  A crowd
+gathered, and someone gave me a coat which I took as my own.  It was
+not until I had quitted the police and doctor, who arrived almost
+immediately, and I had gone into Broadway to avoid the clamor in the
+hotel, that I discovered I was wearing the dead man's overcoat, and in
+one of the pockets I found a marriage license.  Here it is.  By that
+means I learnt your address, and I came here quickly, hoping to save
+you some of the agony which the appearance of a policeman or detective
+would have caused.  Unfortunately, I have proved but a sorry substitute
+for an official messenger."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Mr. Curtis.  You have been most kind, most considerate.
+If anyone is to blame, it is I."
+
+"Will you pardon me, then, if I remind you that time is pressing?  Even
+a half-hour gained to-night by the authorities may be invaluable.  If
+you are able to supply any clew, the least hint of motive, the most
+shadowy of guesses at a personality behind this beastly crime, you will
+be rendering a great service."
+
+"Please, please, give me time to think.  I am not heartless--indeed I
+am not. . . .  If I could do anything to save Monsieur de Courtois'
+life I would make the sacrifice--you will believe that, won't
+you? . . .  But he is dead, you say, and I might blurt out something in
+my distress which would cause endless mischief.  Perhaps I have thought
+too much of my own troubles.  Now I must begin to endure for the sake
+of others.  That is the woman's lot in life, I fear. . . .  Have you a
+wife or a sister, Mr. Curtis, or is there some woman whom you love?
+For her sake, have pity on me, and do not drag me into the horrible
+arena of courts and newspapers."
+
+Her pleading, her attitude, her pathetic gestures, gave extraordinary
+force to an appeal which, by contrast with her extreme agitation, was
+almost grotesquely inconsequent.  Curtis was at his wits' end to find
+the line of reasoning calculated to convince this beautiful creature
+that she might, indeed, begin enduring "for the sake of others" by
+expressing her determination to give the police all possible assistance.
+
+"There is no urgency for a few minutes," was the best reply he could
+frame on the spur of the moment.  "Shall I leave you alone for a little
+while?  Perhaps you would like to consult your maid?  Indeed, her
+services might meet all the requirements of the case.  The police would
+be the first to recognize that a woman who had lost her affianced
+husband under such terrible----"
+
+"Ah, but that is the wretched difficulty I am in.  Poor Monsieur de
+Courtois was nothing to me."
+
+"Nothing to you!"
+
+Probably Curtis's brain did not reel, but it assuredly felt like
+reeling, and it is quite certain that his eyes blazed down on the
+half-hysterical girl with an intensity that magnetized her into a
+broken excuse.
+
+"It is--quite--true," she stammered, with the diffidence of a child
+explaining some lapse which, it was hoped, might not be regarded as a
+real fault.  "I never dreamed of marriage--in the sense--that people
+mean--when they intend to live happily together. . . .  Monsieur de
+Courtois was to be my husband--only in name.  I--I paid him for
+that. . . .  I--I gave him a thousand dollars--and--and----  Don't look
+at me in that way or I shall scream! . . .  I have done nothing
+wrong. . . .  I was trying to protect myself. . . .  Oh, if you are a
+man you will want to help me, rather than push me into the living tomb
+which threatens to engulf me before to-morrow morning!"
+
+Even in their agitation, they both heard the jar of a bell.  The girl
+sprang upright.  There was something splendid in her courage, in the
+way she threw back her proud head and clenched her tiny hands.
+
+"Ah me!" she sighed.  "Perhaps it is already too late!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+EIGHT-THIRTY
+
+They stood in silence, listening to the footsteps of Marcelle on the
+parquet floor of the passage.  The outer door was opened, and a murmur
+of voices reached them indistinctly.
+
+"I have had the honor of knowing you not much longer than ten minutes,
+Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and the strong, vibrant note in his voice
+might well have won any woman's confidence, "but if you feel that you
+can trust me, and my help is of value, please command me, that is, if
+your enemies are men."
+
+She rewarded him with one swift look of gratitude.
+
+"If it is my father, both you and I are powerless," she whispered.
+"And the other would not dare come without him."
+
+A discreet tap on the door heralded Marcelle.  That sprightly young
+person, despite her Parisian name, was unquestionably American in every
+inch of her self-possessed neatness; she smiled at Curtis while giving
+him a message.
+
+"The driver of your taxi has sent up the hall-porter to ask if you wish
+him to wait any longer," she said.
+
+Not often, even in comedy, has the mountain heaved and brought forth
+such a ridiculous mouse.  Curtis did actually laugh; even his
+distraught companion tittered in sheer nervous reaction.
+
+"Please tell him to wait, and not to worry about the fare," said
+Curtis.  "I suppose," he added, turning to Miss Grandison, "the man put
+me down as a newcomer, and, taught by previous experience, thought it
+best to warn me how the register mounts."
+
+The effort to restore their rather strained relations to a sedate level
+was well meant, but the girl's downcast eyes and tremulous lips
+revealed a state of piteous uncertainty and confusion that was more
+distressing to Curtis than anything which had gone before.
+Nevertheless, reminding himself that precious time was being wasted, he
+determined to seek a full explanation of circumstances which at present
+savored of Bedlam.
+
+"Now that the fears of the taxi-driver have been stilled," he said
+cheerfully, "suppose you and I sit down and discuss matters like
+sensible people.  I am an American, Miss Grandison, and, although long
+an exile from my own country, I appreciate the national characteristic
+of plain speech.  Let me explain that I am not married, that I have no
+ties which prevent free action on my part, and that nothing on earth
+will stop me from helping a woman who pins her faith to me.  With that
+preamble, as the lawyers say, I purpose taking off this heavy overcoat,
+and listening in comfort to anything you may wish to tell.  Or, if you
+are afraid of being disturbed, what do you say if we go to some
+restaurant, where, perhaps, we may eat, and, at any rate, talk without
+fear of interference?"
+
+"I think we had better remain here," said the girl sadly, though it was
+plain that Curtis's offer of protection during the alarm created by the
+hall-porter's errand had advanced him a long way in her esteem.  "There
+are only two persons living who dare pretend to exercise control over
+my actions, and if they have arrived in New York this evening I have
+good reason to believe that I cannot escape them."
+
+"Are they coming here from Europe?" asked Curtis quickly, for his
+active mind was already groping toward certain dimly defined
+conclusions.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Could they have been fellow-passengers of mine on the _Lusitania_?"
+
+"No, they are on board the _Switzerland_."
+
+He smiled, and discarded that fateful overcoat.
+
+"Then set your mind at rest," he said, with the nonchalance of a man
+who has shelved a major difficulty.  "The _Switzerland_ has broken
+down.  We passed her early to-day.  She is staggering into port with
+engines partly disabled and she cannot possibly reach New York before
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"Are you quite sure?" came the eager demand.
+
+"Well, there is nothing so uncertain as the sea but a young friend of
+mine said that those facts were signaled by wireless, and, to some
+extent, they governed his own movements.  I myself can assure you that
+the _Switzerland_ was limping along like a lame duck at 8 A.M. to-day."
+
+"Ah, thank Heaven for that small mercy!" murmured the girl.  For a few
+seconds she busied herself with gloves, veil, and hat-pins, and Curtis
+happened to glance at the overcoat, which he had placed over the back
+of a chair.  To his dismay, he noticed that one of the sleeves, the
+left, was bespattered with blood, but he contrived to refold the
+garment so as to conceal this grewsome record of a tragedy before his
+hostess had divested herself of hat and gloves.
+
+Then they seemed to survey each other with a new interest, for Curtis
+was a good figure of a man in evening dress, and Hermione Grandison
+became, if possible, more attractive to the male eye because of the
+wealth of brown hair which crowned her smooth forehead, almost hid her
+tiny ears, and clustered low at the back of her slender, well-shaped
+neck.  Where the rays of light caught the coiled tresses they had the
+sheen of burnished gold.  In the shadow they commingled those
+voluptuous tints by which the magic of Rubens has immortalized one fair
+woman, Isabella Brant, in every gallery of note throughout the world.
+
+Hermione it was, now, who first broke the silence which had reigned in
+the room for a minute or more.  Seating herself on the opposite side of
+a square table, and resting her elbows thereon, she propped her pretty
+chin on her small, clenched fists, and gazed fearlessly at Curtis.
+
+"You must think me a very extraordinary person," she began.
+
+"Let that pass," said he, with a smile, wise in the knowledge that the
+present was no hour for compliments.
+
+"But I am, and I know it, not because I differ so greatly from other
+girls of my own age, but owing to the misery which has been my portion.
+The one man in the world who should wish to secure my happiness has
+become my persecutor.  I am here to-night because I have run away from
+my father, and I have used every lawful means to get married--under
+conditions framed by myself, of course--in order to escape from a
+hateful marriage which he has planned."
+
+She hesitated, for a reflective frown was deepening on Curtis's face.
+
+"Now you recognize my name!" she cried.  "Have you seen anything about
+me in the newspapers?"
+
+"You are Lady Hermione Grandison?" he said, meeting her watchful eyes
+frankly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Daughter of the Earl of Valletort?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And about a month ago you were reported missing from some apartment in
+the Rue de Rivoli, on the eve of your marriage with--with some
+Hungarian prince?"
+
+"Yes, Count Ladislas Vassilan."
+
+"So you came here--with Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
+
+"I brought him here, and paid him for his services.  I have no desire
+to minimize his friendly aid, but I was buying the security of his name
+as my husband, and he had given me his guarantee that, when it suited
+my purposes, he would help me to dissolve the marriage."
+
+Curtis disregarded a perceptible coldness in her tone.  He was too busy
+sweeping away the mists.
+
+"What sort of guarantee?" he asked.
+
+"His promise, his word of honor."
+
+"Was he--a gentleman?"
+
+"Not socially, but in every other sense.  He was my music-master in
+Paris."
+
+Curtis put his next question hurriedly.  He was anxious to avoid the
+least suspicion on the girl's part that he might be crediting Jean de
+Courtois with motives which would not pass muster before a jury of
+cool-headed men so readily as they seemed to have satisfied an
+impetuous and frightened girl.
+
+"How did your father ascertain that you were in New York?" he said.
+
+"Oh, it seems that a certain period of residence was necessary before a
+marriage license could be obtained, and it was unavoidable that my name
+should be found out by those whom he hired to track me."
+
+"But why were you not married under an assumed name?"
+
+"Monsieur de Courtois assured me that such a thing would render the
+marriage invalid."
+
+"He was wrong," said Curtis dryly.  "It subjected you to some small
+legal penalty, but you would be just as effectually married if you
+called yourself Jane Smith."
+
+"I really think you are mistaken.  Monsieur de Courtois made the most
+exhaustive inquiries."
+
+"Were you not leaving the ceremony to the latest possible hour?" went
+on Curtis, divided now between the fear of shocking her and the
+paramount importance of learning the truth about the curiously
+scrupulous Jean de Courtois.
+
+"We were to have been married two days ago, but the license was stolen."
+
+"So it is rather by accident than otherwise that Lord Valletort and
+Count Vassilan, who, I take it, is with your father on board the
+_Switzerland_, have not arrived in time to prevent the marriage--that
+is, if they were able to prevent it?"
+
+"No, I think not.  Poor Monsieur de Courtois was here this afternoon,
+and he was jubilant because we had plenty of time, provided we were
+married this evening."
+
+"Where was the ceremony to take place?"
+
+"I--I don't know.  I left everything in the hands of Monsieur de
+Courtois."
+
+A very real and active doubt of the Frenchman's good faith was
+beginning to peep up in Curtis's mind.  Rather to account for the
+thoughtful lines on his forehead than for any reason connected with the
+license, he took that document from the table, where it had lain since
+he produced it, and affected to examine it judiciously.  Therefore, he
+was really surprised when he found an endorsement on the back which
+read;--"Issued in duplicate.  This license is not available if the
+original has been used."
+
+"Oh!" he said, and the monosyllable might mean much or little.
+
+"What have you discovered there?" said the girl, rising and coming
+nearer, to stoop over the table and scrutinize the paper with him.
+
+"The original license certainly seems to have disappeared," said
+Curtis, who had suddenly become aware that the propinquity of a
+charming woman was one of the subtle joys of life.
+
+"Ah me!" sighed Lady Hermione, straightening her supple form, and
+turning slightly aside.
+
+There was a little pause.  Curtis, whose enunciation was usually
+distinguished by its ease and clearness, found some slight difficulty
+in resuming the conversation.  He resolved firmly that, in future, he
+would eschew liqueurs after champagne.
+
+"I hate to act the role of inquisitor, Lady Hermione," he said, rather
+huskily as to the first few words, "but would you mind telling me why
+you are so opposed to Count Ladislas Vassilan as a husband?"
+
+"First, because I do not want to marry any man; secondly, because Count
+Vassilan is a vile person, both in appearance and repute; and thirdly,
+because my father is only urging this match to serve his own ends.  Our
+unhappy history is so widely known that there is no harm in telling you
+that my mother and he were separated during many years, and when mamma
+died three years ago she left all her money to me, absolutely under my
+control.  I was young, only seventeen, but I managed to retain it,
+though goodness only knows how, and this horrid Hungarian prince wants
+it--to help him to regain a throne, he says--but I don't believe him."
+
+"You could not be forced into matrimony," said Curtis, with a slow
+gravity that was lost on his dejected hearer.
+
+"You cannot have lived in France, or you would not say that," was the
+bitter answer.  "Everyone, everything, was opposed to me.  I was a
+minor, and one against many.  The laws seemed to conspire with my
+relatives to force me into the power of a beast. . . .  Yes, it sounds
+horrid on my lips, but the man is really a beast," and she stamped an
+emphatic foot on the floor; Curtis could see the white circles over the
+tiny knuckles as her hands clenched in protest.  They were such pretty
+hands, too.  He had often smiled at the notion of a man kissing a
+woman's hand, but it did not strike him now as a specially foolish act.
+
+"Let us forget him," he agreed.
+
+"But how can I forget him?  He will be here to-morrow.  Once my father
+and he have found me, what am I to do?  Die, I suppose! . . .  I would
+rather die than marry Count Vassilan, and again I would rather die than
+figure in a vulgar brawl, such as the newspapers would take a delight
+in.  My father is well aware of that, and will play on my
+weakness. . . .  B-but--I may--be able--to defeat them--in another way."
+
+Curtis stood up.  The sound of her grief maddened him, and he threw
+prudence to the winds.
+
+"The first reason you gave was the most convincing one, so far as you
+personally are concerned, Lady Hermione," he said, making the effort of
+his life to speak calmly.  "You said you did not want to marry any man."
+
+"Y-yes, it is true.  I d-don't."
+
+"Still, there is only one way out of your trouble.  You must marry
+me--to-night."
+
+The girl whirled round on him; her eyes were glistening with tears, but
+her face was radiant.
+
+"Do you really mean that?" she cried.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then never let anyone tell me that the age of chivalry has passed."
+
+"I fancy it has just begun," he said, though the jest nearly choked him.
+
+"But why should you do this kind and gracious thing for a girl you have
+been acquainted with only a brief half-hour?  You see, I understand
+that you are a gentleman--I realize that, although I have plenty of
+money, I cannot offer to recompense you as I did that poor Jean de
+Courtois."
+
+"No," he agreed grimly.
+
+"Don't you grasp what this one-sided bargain implies?  You are merely
+to pose as my husband until Count Vassilan leaves me in peace?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And then we are to obtain a divorce?"
+
+"You are, not I."
+
+"Isn't that a distinction without a difference?"
+
+"Perhaps.  The fact remains that I shall agree to all your terms save
+one--you, of course, can divorce me at your own pleasure.  The
+procedure is simple in some States of the Union."
+
+For no obvious reason, Lady Hermione blushed.  For an instant, indeed,
+she was somewhat disconcerted, and the vivacity fled from her mobile
+face.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Curtis, I have no right to let you make this sacrifice,"
+she said, a trifle coldly.  "It would be different if I could repay you
+in some way.  Surely, although you may be a wealthy man, there will be
+expenses--you will, at least, lose a good deal of time, which you could
+occupy to better purpose?"
+
+"I have given myself twelve months' respite from railway construction
+in China.  I really don't see how I could pass a part of my holiday
+better than as your husband."
+
+"In idle make-believe?"
+
+"Every decent man has the heart of a child, and make-believe is reality
+to some children."
+
+"But, even though in my need I take you at your word, how can a
+marriage become possible?"
+
+"Here is the license.  For the purposes of the ceremony I become Jean
+de Courtois.  By singular chance, the change of name is not such a
+wrench as it might be if I didn't happen to be called John D. Curtis."
+
+Still she hesitated.  Somehow, becoming Mrs. John D. Curtis impressed
+her as a far more serious undertaking than purchasing the right to pose
+as Madame de Courtois.
+
+"We don't even know where to get married," she faltered.
+
+"Given a license and a comparatively small sum of money, New York
+abounds with facilities."
+
+"Are you sure the ceremony will be legal if you appear under a false
+name?"
+
+"Quite positive."
+
+"Can you be punished if it is found out?"
+
+"I'll run the risk."
+
+After a fateful pause, which would have been considerably curtailed had
+Lady Hermione Grandison been vouchsafed the least premonition of events
+in which the night was still rich, she held out her hand.
+
+"I can only thank you from the depths of my heart, Mr. Curtis," she
+said.  "I must trust someone, and I do trust you most implicitly."
+
+"You will never regret it, Lady Hermione," he said reverently.  He
+wondered whether or not this was an occasion on which hand-kissing was
+permissible, but contented himself with returning the friendly pressure
+of the girl's fingers--retaining them, in fact, for a second or two.
+
+"I have your word of honor that you will regard the ceremony as a
+formal compact between us two?" she murmured, unaccountably shy, and
+seemingly half-afraid that he meant to clasp her in his arms then and
+there.
+
+"You have," he said, relinquishing her hand.  Perhaps, at that instant,
+Puck sighed, and wondered what would have happened had this husband
+only in name strained to his heart the bride whom he had vowed not to
+embrace.  But Curtis did nothing of the sort.  His tone became
+intensely practical and businesslike, and he glanced at his watch.
+
+"It is half-past eight," he said.  "How soon will you be ready to come
+with me and hunt up a minister?"
+
+"Now--I am ready now.  Marcelle and I were waiting for--for that
+unhappy Monsieur de Courtois when you arrived.  It sounds rather
+dreadful, Mr. Curtis, to talk of marriage, even as a mere means of
+cheating the law, at a moment when a man is already lying dead for my
+sake.  Please don't consider me, but draw back, if you want to, before
+it is too late."
+
+"My grandfather commanded the Fifth Cavalry during the Civil War, Lady
+Hermione."
+
+"Pray, how does that interesting fact affect us?"
+
+"It is well-known that the Fifth never retreat, and the habit has
+become a family tradition."
+
+He pocketed the license, and picked up the overcoat, meaning to put it
+on in the hall while her ladyship was rearranging her hat.  But
+Marcelle was waiting there, hatted, and gloved.
+
+"Have you fixed things?" she whispered breathlessly.
+
+"We have," said Curtis.
+
+"Goodness me!  But I guessed it.  Nobody can resist her, can they?"
+
+"I didn't try," said Curtis, wriggling into the coat sideways.
+
+"Poor _dear_.  She has had a time.  What a piece of luck I met her the
+day she landed."
+
+Curtis had no opportunity to inquire just what Marcelle meant, for Lady
+Hermione had joined them.  Sedulously keeping that tell-tale sleeve out
+of sight, Curtis took the lead, and opened the door, which Marcelle
+closed and locked.
+
+While they were waiting for the elevator, Curtis fathomed Marcelle's
+stock of information as to the addresses of neighboring ministers of
+the Protestant Episcopal Church.  It was nil.  He appealed to the
+attendant when the elevator came up, but that worthy thoughtfully
+tickled his scalp under his cap, and suggested a consultation with the
+taxi-driver.  Indeed, to further the quest, he went with them to the
+door, and, while Lady Hermione and Marcelle seated themselves in the
+cab, the three men discussed the religious problem on the sidewalk.
+
+"Ministers don't use taxis much in N' York, sir," commented the driver.
+"Fact is, they mostly can't afford 'em, but I do happen to know where
+one old gentleman lives, an' he's sure to be home, because he's
+crippled something cruel with the rheumatiz."
+
+"Is it far?" demanded Curtis.
+
+"Three blocks away, in 56th Street, near Seventh Avenue.  Lives next
+door to the church, he does."
+
+"Take us there," and Curtis entered the vehicle, which whirled out of
+sight in the peculiarly downright fashion of the automobile.
+
+The elevator man looked after it, and tickled another section of his
+scalp.
+
+"I'd a notion she was going to marry that Frenchman," he said to
+himself.  "Of course, it's her business, an' not mine, but of the two
+I'd take a chance with this new fellar.  An' it's odd, too, that they
+shouldn't know where to go, unless they mean to pick up Froggy on the
+road.  Well, wimmen is queer creetures, they are, sure, an' the English
+ones are just as queer as the Americans.  Not that Miss Grandison ain't
+a peach wherever she comes from, an' I hope she'll be happy, night an'
+day till the time comes when she don't care if it snows."
+
+He glanced up at the sky, rolled a cigarette, and, before returning
+indoors, sniffed a keen wind which was rustling the last crisp leaves
+in Central Park.  The street was quiet, and no one was stirring in the
+mansion.
+
+"I'm not likely to be wanted for another minnit or two," he said, "so
+I'll just give the furnace a shake-out.  Unless I'm mistaken, there's a
+frost coming."
+
+Had he prophesied a hurricane he would not have been far wrong, but it
+was entirely in keeping with the other remarkable developments of a
+night already noteworthy for its strange happenings that the elevator
+attendant at No. 1000 59th Street should have chosen the next few
+minutes to attend to the steam-heating arrangements in the basement.
+
+There is little to be gained, however, from speculation as to the
+probable outcome of conditions which did not obtain, and the trivial
+space of time which was demanded for the shaking-out and re-coaling of
+a furnace was largely responsible for John D. Curtis and Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison being made man and wife.
+
+Curiously enough, the tying of this particular knot was facilitated by
+the fact that the clergyman was hale mentally but decrepit physically,
+and, as might be expected, resented the conclusion, long ago arrived at
+by his friends, that he was unfitted for work.  He burgeoned with
+delight when a servant announced that two young people wanting to get
+married were waiting in the vestibule; he hobbled out of the library,
+where he was poring over an essay on the Sixtine text of the
+Septuagint, and ushered them into a parlor.  The room was not
+well-lighted, because of some defect in the electric installation, but
+the old gentleman--"Rev. Thomas J. Hughes" was the legend on the
+door-plate--bustled about in the liveliest way, and talked most
+cheerfully.
+
+"Ah, young folk--as usual, leaving things to the last moment, and then
+in a desperate hurry," he chirped.  "Got the license--yes?  Complied
+with all the formalities?  Of course, of course.  Where's the ring?
+You've _not_ forgotten the ring?"
+
+Curtis and Hermione looked at each other in blank dismay; even
+Marcelle's aplomb yielded under this unforeseen strain, and her
+agitation showed itself in a gasping murmur:
+
+"Oh dear!  What shall we do now?"
+
+Mr. Hughes positively chortled over their discomfiture.  He limped to a
+secretaire, and opened a drawer.
+
+"See what it is to have a long experience in these affairs," he cried.
+"Do you fancy you are the first couple who failed to provide a ring?
+Ah me!  When I was quite a boy in the cloth I learnt the necessity of
+keeping rings in stock, so a jeweler friend of mind replenishes my
+store, and, when I sell one, I apply a small profit to a favorite
+charity of mine.  The wearing of a wedding ring has no legal
+significance, but it is a fine old custom, and should be preserved.
+Among the Romans the ring was a pledge, _pignus_, that the betrothal
+contract would be fulfilled.  Pliny tells us that the ring, or circle,
+was of iron, but the ladies speedily determined that it should be of
+gold, and the Church went a step farther in recognizing it as a symbol
+of matrimony.  Hence, perhaps, the Episcopal ring, and even the Ring of
+the Fisherman itself, though some authorities hold that signets--Ah,
+yes," for Curtis had intimated politely that the hour was growing late,
+"if the lady will say which of these rings fits; they are fifteen
+dollars each--cheaper, I believe, than you can buy them in Fifth
+Avenue. . . .  Ah, _that_ one?  Very well.  Now, as to the form of
+service?"
+
+"The full marriage rite," said Curtis.
+
+"Precisely, just what I would have suggested.  I adhere to the
+time-honored formula.  Now, let me examine the license--my eyes fail me
+a little, but I take the utmost pains to be accurate, because accuracy
+is of the greatest importance. . . .  Yes, yes, State of New York--what
+are the names?"
+
+"John D. Curtis and Hermione Beauregard Grandison," said Curtis.  His
+tone was so calm and self-confident that even the prospective bride was
+deaf for a moment to the vital significance of the words.  Then she
+whispered tremulously:
+
+"Are you not making some mistake?"
+
+"No," he replied, looking her straight in the eyes.
+
+The minister, whose ears partook of the defects in his other faculties,
+caught the word "mistake."
+
+"This is no place for mistakes, my dear young lady," he said, "A nice
+young couple like you should only require to be married once in your
+lives.  Take my advice, and stick to one another in sunshine and in
+storm, and you shall be blessed even unto the fourth generation. . . .
+Now, all is in order. . . .  Is this your witness?" and he nodded
+affably toward Marcelle.  "Shall we have one other?  William Jenkins,
+my factotum, has been privileged to assist on many such
+occasions. . . .  Wil-li-am!"
+
+He raised his voice, and a wizened little man appeared suddenly, having
+evidently waited outside the door until he was summoned.
+
+Then, with due ritual, John Delancy Curtis and Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison were joined in the bonds of wedlock, and, by the time Mr.
+Hughes had completed the ceremony, he had pronounced their names so
+often, and was so accustomed to their form and sound, that when he
+filled in the certificate annexed to the license, "John D. Curtis"
+appeared therein in place of "Jean de Courtois."
+
+Hermione was in a pitiable state of suppressed excitement before the
+ordeal was concluded.  The solemnity and impressiveness of the vows she
+was taking disturbed the serenity with which she had schooled herself
+to regard the marriage as "make-believe."  She was frightened at her
+own daring.  A dread that the tie she was so lightly assuming might be
+harder to undo than she had contemplated was fluttering her heart and
+almost paralyzing her limbs.  But Curtis was unemotional as an icicle;
+or, at any rate, he looked it, which was all that the half-hysterical
+girl by his side could ascertain by an occasional timid glance.  The
+fact lent her a sort of courage to persevere to the end, and she signed
+her maiden name for the last time with a numb confidence in the man
+whom she had, so to speak, bargained for as a husband in an emergency.
+
+Curtis did not fail to note that the aged clergyman's handwriting was
+crabbed and palsied as his bent frame.  None could tell, for certain,
+whether he wrote "Jean" or "John," "Courtois" or "Curtis," though,
+indeed, the balance of probability inclined to the latter of the two
+names, Christian and surname, since those were indubitably what he
+meant to write.
+
+Then, having stated his fee, and been paid for the ring, he handed
+Hermione a copy of the certificate.
+
+"Treasure that during all your days, Mrs. Curtis," he said.  "May it be
+a charter of lasting happiness and content!"
+
+Mrs. Curtis!  Another shock!  Hermione felt that she would scream if
+there were many more such.  And the pressure of the little gold ring on
+the third finger of her left hand was becoming intolerable.  Iron, it
+used to be, said the minister, and a band of iron it seemed to have
+become since this man whom she had taken, so completely on trust had
+placed it there.
+
+On the way out, Curtis tipped Jenkins, tipped him so lavishly that a
+queer little voice squeaked from a queer little face:
+
+"Thank you, sir.  Fair weather to both you and your wife, and a safe
+berth when you drop anchor!"
+
+So Jenkins had been a sailor, for none but a shell-back would put his
+good wishes in such nautical lingo.
+
+"I have just finished one long voyage, but seem to have begun another,"
+said Curtis to his "wife."  He accompanied the words with a laugh, and
+was really talking for the sake of breaking an awkward silence.  They
+were descending a few steps from the door, and he noticed that a
+private automobile was speeding down the street from the same direction
+as the taxi had taken.  It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up
+barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was
+starting with the crank.
+
+A shout came from the interior, and a man leaped out.  The street was
+rather dark in that part, but Hermione recognized the stranger
+instantly.
+
+"Count Vassilan!" she cried, and the fear in her voice thrilled Curtis
+to the core.
+
+Almost as quickly, the man now running along the sidewalk knew that a
+long chase had ended, or he fancied that it had ended, which is not
+always the same thing.
+
+"Here we are, Valletort!" he shouted.  "Got 'em, by ----!  You see
+after Hermione!  I'll attend to this d--d Frenchman!"
+
+Curtis gently disengaged the clasp of a tiny hand on his arm, a clasp
+which was eloquent of a woman's sore need and complete trust.  He
+stepped forward to meet the Count, a stoutly built, heavy man, who had
+reckoned on closing with an undersized Frenchman.  There was no time to
+rectify mistakes.  Curtis met his rival's onset with a beautiful
+half-arm jab on the nose.  Scientifically, it was perfect, since the
+blow was delivered at the back of the Count's head with complete
+disregard of intervening tissues, and its recipient went down like one
+of those pins which succumbed so regularly to the ball bowled by a
+colossal fist in the Broadway electric sign.  The only difference was
+that the pin fell noiselessly, whereas Count Vassilan roared like a
+bull in anguish.
+
+In the next instant Curtis, who, for a mild-mannered person, appeared
+to possess a singularly close acquaintance with the ethics of a street
+row, sprang at the automobile, pushed back a man who was getting out,
+slammed the door, seized the speed levers, and bent them hopelessly
+with a violent tug.
+
+A swearing chauffeur fumbled in the seat, but was in no real hurry to
+alight, because he had noted the Count's _debacle_, and Curtis ran to
+the two cowering women.
+
+"In with you!" he said cheerily, adding, with a grin at the driver:
+
+"Fifty for you if we win clear.  Now, be a sport!"
+
+Of course, the driver of a taxi would be a sport.  In five minutes he
+pulled up somewhere in Madison Avenue, and, leaning back and twisting
+his neck, bawled:
+
+"Where to _now_, sir?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN INTERLUDE
+
+The appearance on the scene of the Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas
+Vassilan at a moment which, though undeniably critical, might be
+described as either opportune or inopportune--the choice of an
+adjective depending solely on the varying points of view of the one who
+gave and the one who received that powerful thump on the nose--was due
+to no feat of skill on the part of the engine-room staff of the
+_Switzerland_, but to a judicious combination of wireless telegraphy,
+money, and influence.
+
+When it became evident, very early in the morning, that the vessel
+might, with luck, crawl up to the quarantine station about midnight,
+urgent messages were sent to two consulates and the Port Authorities of
+New York.  In the result, a fast steam-yacht drew up alongside the
+vessel when she took the pilot on board, and the two magnates and their
+baggage were transferred from the disabled liner to the deck of the
+trim yacht.
+
+She made praiseworthy efforts to reach a quay and a batch of Customs
+officers before eight o'clock, but failed by five minutes.
+Consequently, some slight delay was experienced, and, with the best of
+good will on the part of the officials, the two fuming passengers could
+not fling themselves into a waiting automobile until nearly twenty
+minutes past the hour.
+
+Then, however, they made up for lost time.  Intrusting their belongings
+to a porter and a taxi, with instructions to proceed to the
+Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, they bade the chauffeur travel at top speed to
+No. 1000 59th Street.  Many times were they sworn at en route by
+endangered pedestrians and enraged drivers of horsed vehicles; the
+growing torrent of ill wishes thus engendered may have exercised some
+unrecognized form of telepathy at No. 1000, because a regulating valve
+in the steam-heat apparatus, which had never proved intractable before,
+suddenly took it into its metallic head to go wrong.  Thus, the
+elevator man was not aware of a good deal of ringing of electric bells
+and hammering on the locked door of flat Number 10.
+
+Ultimately, the valve resumed its normal functions, for no cause that a
+hot and oily human being could perceive other than the occasional
+"cussedness" which inanimate objects can be capable of; while surveying
+it wrathfully, he awoke to the racket in the upper regions.
+
+Behold him, then, angry and perspiring, vowing by all his gods that he
+had other duties to perform than eternally watching the comings and
+goings of the mansion's occupants; being a free-born American of Irish
+ancestry, name of Rafferty, he would certainly have bandied contumely
+with Count Ladislas Vassilan had not the Earl intervened.  The
+Hungarian had addressed Rafferty as though he were a dog: the
+Englishman, more certain of his social predominance, treated him as a
+person endowed with reason.
+
+"Now, listen to me, my good man," he said, calmly but emphatically, "I
+am the Earl of Valletort, and the lady you know as Miss Grandison is
+the Lady Hermione Grandison, my daughter.  She has come to New York in
+order to marry a wretched little French adventurer named Jean de
+Courtois, and it is absolutely essential, for her own welfare, not to
+mention other considerations, that the wedding, which is to take place
+to-night, shall be prevented.  Two European consuls and several
+important men in your own city have helped me to land this evening from
+a vessel which will not disembark her passengers till the morning.
+Therefore, it is fairly obvious that you run several sorts of risk by
+refusing to help me in finding my daughter, and I can hardly believe
+that you know nothing about her movements. . . .  Come, my man, don't
+be both a fool and a knave, but speak!"
+
+Rafferty, who had calmed down during this impressive harangue, took
+thought, and did speak.
+
+"If yer friend had said half as much, my lord, I'd have made him wise
+straight away," he answered.  "Miss Grandison went off at 8.30 in a
+taxi with her maid, Marcelle Leroux, and a strange gentleman who
+certainly wasn't Mr. de Courtois, my lord.  They wanted to find out
+where a clergyman lived, an' I couldn't tell them--not about the
+Protestant Episcopal, I mean, my lord--but the driver of the taxi
+remembered that there was a minister of that persuasion living in 56th
+Street, near 7th Avenue, an' next door to a church.  So they made a
+bee-line that-a-way, my lord, an' I went to see to the furnace, an'
+that's all there is to it, my lord."
+
+"You say the man was not de Courtois?" queried the Earl impatiently.
+
+"I'm sure he wasn't the man who has passed under that name hereabouts
+nearly every day for a month, my lord," said Rafferty.
+
+"Oh, some fellow of his own kidney he has hired to assist him," put in
+Vassilan, who held fast to that theory, in part, even after he had been
+painfully disillusioned as to other parts of it.  "Come quickly now,
+you, and tell our chauffeur where to take us."
+
+If Rafferty had dared, he would have given the chauffeur directions
+likely to lead to further bickering, but the presence of the Earl
+restrained him, for Valletort, though thin and hawk-nosed, was an
+aristocrat in every inch, whereas Count Ladislas Vassilan wore the
+stage aspect of a successful pork-butcher.  So he explained matters to
+the chauffeur, yet smiled grimly when the automobile wheeled away
+almost in the very tracks of Curtis's taxi.
+
+"Who sez there's no such thing as luck?" he chuckled.  "That valve knew
+what it was about when it stuck, an' my name ain't what it is if that
+wedding isn't over and done with by this time.  An' I gev him 'my lord'
+for it, too!  Played the high-tone society act for all it was worth,
+eh, what?"
+
+The next scene in the drama began for the Hungarian when he sat upon
+the sidewalk in 56th Street, and tried to pacify certain outraged
+blood-vessels in the nasal region.  Of course, the curtain had been up
+some time, but, so far as he was concerned, the incidents which
+followed his precipitate descent from the automobile were merely
+catastrophic.  He had seen a vivid, violet-colored star close to his
+eyes, had felt a crushing blow, had heard his own voice vaguely; and
+then he awoke to a singular sense of personal dis-ease, and to the fact
+that the noble Earl had nearly lost his temper.
+
+"It was entirely your fault, Vassilan," his lordship was saying.  "You
+gain nothing but lose everything by your bullying tactics.  Dash it
+all, the fellow downed you like a prize-fighter.  Who was he?  Not Jean
+de Courtois, I'll swear, so where has de Courtois gone?  Can't you
+stand up?  It's damn silly to sit there, nursing your nose.  Our
+motor-car is out of action.  We had better interview this clergyman,
+and learn exactly what has happened."
+
+Vassilan rose.  He was neither a coward nor a weakling, but he felt
+sore in mind as in body.
+
+"What's wrog with the car?" he demanded.  "Ad cad you led me ad
+hadkerchief?"
+
+"That rascal who was with Hermione nearly pulled the gear levers out by
+the roots," said the Earl testily.  "He pushed me back into the
+limousine--with some degree of force, too, confound him!  Who can he
+be?"
+
+"Suppose we idquire," growled Vassilan, and, mopping his nose with the
+Earl's handkerchief, he tugged viciously at the old-fashioned bell-pull
+which served the needs of visitors to the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes.
+
+The maid-servant who took the names of the two men was surprised, and
+showed it, but her democratic respect for titles yielded to suspicion
+when she observed Count Vassilan's villainous guise.
+
+"Wil-li-am!" she cried, and, when the ex-sailor appeared from the
+depths, she asked him to "look after the gentlemen" while she summoned
+Mr. Hughes.
+
+"Cad you take me somewhere, ad supply me with a towel ad pledty of cold
+water?" said the Hungarian, addressing the wizened one.
+
+Now, Jenkins was verger and pew-opener in the church as well as trusted
+assistant to the aged minister, but the ways and language of the
+fo'c's'l came back to him with irresistible force when he gazed on the
+Hungarian's damaged organ.
+
+"Lord love a duck, you've had it handed to you all right," he gasped.
+"How did you get it?  Did you foul a lamp-post, or bump a rock, or
+what?"
+
+"It is edough that I have met with ad accided," snarled the Count.
+"Cad't you see that I wadt some water?  Is there do place where I cad
+wash?"
+
+"What you reelly want is a tap," said Jenkins sympathetically.  "An' I
+shouldn't be surprised if a slab of raw beefsteak across yer lamps
+wouldn't be a bully good notion, too, or you'll have a lovely pair of
+mice in the morning."
+
+Then, hearing Mr. Hughes's voice from the library, he suddenly
+recollected the habits of later years.
+
+"Come with me, sir," he said, leading the way to the basement.  "I'll
+do my best for you."
+
+Perhaps it was fortunate for the success of his mission that the Earl
+of Valletort was left free to deal with the clergyman.  The Count's
+hectoring methods would certainly have stiffened the worthy old
+gentleman's back, whereas he yielded readily to the Earl's skillful
+handling.  He was much pained at hearing that a peer's daughter should
+have fallen into the hands of an adventurer.
+
+"Dear me!  Dear me!" he wheezed.  "This is very sad.  The man looked
+quite a gentleman, I assure you.  And he had not the least semblance to
+a foreigner.  His name, too--John D. Curtis--is your lordship really
+certain of the facts?"
+
+Now, "John" and "Jean" are sufficiently alike in sound to pass muster
+with the average man, who also connotes no difference between "D" and
+"de," but the Earl was moved to say quickly:
+
+"Perhaps you are not accustomed to French names, Mr. Hughes?"
+
+"No, I admit it.  But, here is an unimpeachable witness," and the
+minister produced the license from a drawer in the writing-desk.
+
+Lord Valletort glanced at it, and a peculiarly unpleasant scowl
+convulsed his aristocratic features.  Hitherto, a stranger might have
+believed that Hermione's unfavorable picture of her father had been
+tinged by a high-spirited girl's hatred of the marriage which he was
+forcing upon her; but that fleeting expression spoke volumes.  If Count
+Vassilan was of the bovine order, the Earl of Valletort savored of the
+tiger.
+
+He contrived to smile, however, and the effort to figure wholly as a
+disconsolate parent cost him far more than he dreamed, since he
+examined neither the actual certificate nor the register, though both
+would have been submitted to his scrutiny by the bewildered Mr. Hughes.
+
+"Thank you," he said.  "I fully appreciate the position.  The scoundrel
+has learnt how to give an English sound to his name.  Probably my
+daughter taught him.  Hard though it is for a father to say such a
+thing, she is the real brain behind this sordid story of intrigue and
+wrong-doing."
+
+"Dear me!" gasped Mr. Hughes again.  He felt that he must, indeed, be
+growing old.  He had married many hundreds of couples during his
+ministerial career, and had, in many instances, compared the subsequent
+lives of his matrimonial clients with the impressions formed during the
+ceremony, yet never had he been so gravely at fault as in his
+summing-up of the characteristics of John D. Curtis and Hermione
+Beauregard Grandison.
+
+Vassilan emerged from the kitchen, dripping but less gory, and the two
+visitors disappeared, whereupon Mr. Hughes confided his mystification
+to Jenkins.
+
+But Wil-li-am shook his cadaverous head.
+
+"Mebbe the Earl was right, an' mebbe he was wrong," he said decisively.
+"I didn't size up the Earl, so I let it go at that, but I did see the
+other guy--beg pardon, sir, I mean the other gentleman--an' he'll be
+lucky if he gets to bed to-night without being clubbed by a policeman.
+Someone has been at him already--hard at him--an' I'm not surprised,
+for his langwidge reminded me of my best days at sea."
+
+"William!"
+
+"What, sir?  Oh, I meant my young days, of course.  Now, I wonder----"
+
+It had just occurred to Jenkins that Mr. Curtis and his bride could
+hardly have got clear away from 56th Street before the Earl and his
+companion turned up.
+
+"Gee!" he cackled.  "I wish I hadn't closed the door so damn quick!"
+
+Mr. Hughes raised hands of horrified protest, and Jenkins wilted.
+
+"Sorry, sir," he stammered.  "I must have got a bit wound up when I saw
+the foreign gentleman's nose.  When I went a-whalin' on the _Star of
+the Sea_ we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he
+would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in _that_
+shape.  Now, the question is--_could_ it have been this here Mr.
+Curtis?  It reely is a pity I was so--so spry on the door."
+
+Outside, the chauffeur had announced that he had straightened the
+levers sufficiently to render them serviceable, and he was directed to
+make for the Central Hotel, 27th Street, but he had not reached
+Broadway before the Earl bade him return to Mr. Hughes's residence.
+What had happened was this--Lord Valletort's recollection of the
+physique and manner of Jean de Courtois fitted in so ill with the
+knock-down blow delivered to a portly individual like Ladislas Vassilan
+that he began to compare the remarks of the elevator man at 1000 59th
+Street with the confusion in the clergyman's mind on the question of
+names.  Then, though the light had been dim, and his mind was given
+more to the recognition of his daughter than of the person accompanying
+her, he was conscious of a growing conviction that the French
+music-master was a being of an altogether different species.  Vassilan,
+too, having regained some degree of self-control, confirmed him in the
+belief that there must be some error in their reckoning, and agreed
+that they might save time by interviewing Mr. Hughes again.
+
+But when the mild eyes of the minister rested on the Count's truculent
+visage, and noted his water-soaked and blood-stained clothing, there
+was a distinct drying up in the fount of information.
+
+"No," he said stiffly, in reply to the Earl's request that the marriage
+license should be produced again, "I regret that I cannot reopen that
+matter to-night.  To-morrow, if you have any cause for complaint, you
+should consult the proper authorities."
+
+"But you must allow me to emphasize the fact that the license is made
+out for the marriage of a man with a French name, whereas admittedly
+you have married my daughter to a man with an English or American
+name," said the Earl.
+
+"I express no opinion on the point.  Your lordship may be assuming
+facts which are not facts."
+
+"I am making a statement which can be verified quite easily.  The name
+I saw on the license was that of Jean de Courtois, an undersized
+Frenchman whom I know by sight, whereas my unfortunate friend is a
+living witness to the presence here of a man who must be of powerful
+build and exceptional strength."
+
+Mr. Hughes surveyed Vassilan's battered face again, and a doubt, born
+of a vague memory, began to intrude into his own mind.  Moreover, he
+was an eminently reasonable old gentleman.
+
+"Ah, yes," he said.  "My man, Jenkins, said something about a first
+mate and a belaying pin, whatever that may be--I fancy it is an
+instrument connected with the flaying of whales--and the bridegroom
+could certainly not be described as 'an undersized Frenchman' by anyone
+who paid due regard to the truth. . . .  Well, the whole proceeding is
+highly irregular, but the circumstances are quite exceptional, so----"
+
+In a word, the Earl and Count Vassilan were soon gorged with astonished
+wrath, for, no matter what discrepancies might exist between license
+and certificate, there could be no dispute as to the bold signature
+"John D. Curtis" in the register, while Hermione's handwriting
+compelled Lord Valletort to believe that he was not the victim of
+hallucination.
+
+It is easy to see, therefore, how the chase after John D. Curtis became
+hot thenceforth, but cooled off perceptibly on the trail of Jean de
+Courtois.  The hunters, of course, credited Hermione with a talent for
+craft and duplicity which she certainly did not possess; being rogues,
+or of the essence of rogues, they suspected her of roguery, and, in so
+doing, dug a deep pit for themselves.
+
+On arriving at the Central Hotel they were plunged into a denser fog
+than ever, and by means so ludicrously simple that even a budding
+dramatist would hesitate to avail himself of such a crude device.  The
+police had searched the dead man's clothing without finding any
+positive clew to his name.  His linen was marked H. R. H., and certain
+laundry marks might serve to establish his identity after long and
+patient inquiry, but the detective who had charge of the case felt that
+it was becoming unusually complex when the victim's overcoat was
+produced and the pockets were found to contain letters, a _Lusitania_
+wine bill, and a Marconigram--all pointing to the clear fact that the
+owner of the coat was John D. Curtis.
+
+The detective, Steingall by name, was one of the shrewdest men in the
+New York police, and his extraordinary faculty of observing minute
+facts which had escaped others while investigating a crime had earned
+him the repute of being "the man with a microscopic eye."  But he owned
+to being mystified by this juggling with names.
+
+"Why," he said to the police captain of the precinct, "this fellow
+Curtis is the man who witnessed the murder, and who will be our most
+reliable witness if we lay hands on the scoundrels who committed it."
+
+"He _said_ his name was Curtis," commented the other.
+
+The implied doubt seemed to be justified, but Steingall stroked his
+chin reflectively.
+
+"These papers bear out his story.  Look at the dates on the telegram
+and the bill, and the postmarks on the letters.  Can he, by some queer
+chance, have changed overcoats with the dead man?"
+
+"A most unlikely thing, I should say."
+
+"Something of the sort must have happened.  Anyhow, let us get hold of
+him, and sift this matter thoroughly."
+
+An ambulance came just then, to take the body to the mortuary, and,
+when it had departed, the two men quitted the traffic bureau where they
+had been talking, and entered the hotel.  Here, excitement was still at
+fever heat.  The press had heard of the murder, and a number of
+reporters were interviewing everybody in sight, while photographers
+were adding to the confusion by taking flash-light pictures.
+
+The super-clerk was already showing tokens of the strain.  He glared
+wildly at Steingall when the latter asked if Mr. Curtis was in.
+
+"You're the hundred and first man to whom I have answered 'No' in the
+last quarter of an hour," he said.
+
+"The first hundred didn't count, anyway," was the dry response.  "Pull
+yourself together, and read that card slowly and collectedly."
+
+"Well," he went on, seeing that the clerk had apparently mastered the
+copper-plate script, "you see I am not here for amusement.  Now, about
+Curtis, are you sure he is not in his room?"
+
+"His key has not been given up, but I have sent to 605, and we can't
+get in."
+
+"What do you mean?  Is the door locked?"
+
+"We can open every lock in the hotel.  It is bolted."
+
+"Have you knocked?"
+
+"We've done everything, short of breaking open the door."
+
+Steingall looked perplexed, but the police captain was confident.
+
+"He has buncoed us, for sure," he said with a smile, though the smile
+boded evil for John D. Curtis at their next meeting.
+
+"Did you notice him particularly when he registered?" demanded the
+detective, after a pause.
+
+"Yes.  Came to-night by the _Lusitania_.  Here is his signature."
+
+The three men gazed at the register, and Steingall produced a card, on
+which Curtis had written the name of the hotel.
+
+"Same handwriting!" he murmured.  "By the way," he continued,
+addressing the clerk, "were you here when the murder took place?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you see anything of it?"
+
+"Not a scratch.  I was busy with a lady, who was worrying me about a
+train to Montclair.  She was five minutes making up her mind whether to
+take the Jersey tunnel or the 23rd Street ferry."
+
+"The only other person, beside Curtis, who saw the whole affair was the
+hall-porter?"
+
+"I guess that's so."
+
+"Call him into the office."
+
+Questioned anew, the hall-porter was positive about everything except
+Curtis's connection with the attack.  The reporters had scalped him,
+metaphorically speaking, and his brain was seething.  He said "No" when
+he meant "Yes," and "Yes" for "No," and contradicted himself in each
+fresh version of the cataclasm which had seared his sky with lightning.
+
+Steingall ultimately gave him up as hopeless that night.  Perhaps, next
+morning, when he had slept and eaten, he might become sane again.
+
+"It's an odd thing that Curtis should have wandered away in this
+fashion, wearing a strange overcoat," mused the detective aloud.
+
+"He must know it," said the police captain meaningly.
+
+"I rather think we must force that door," said Steingall.
+
+The clerk did not understand the reference to the overcoat, but he was
+ready enough to adopt the detective's suggestion.
+
+"Shall I send for the engineer, and tell him to bring tools?" he asked.
+
+"There is nothing else for it," admitted Steingall with a shrug.  Be it
+remembered he had seen Curtis, and heard his story.  If such a man had
+committed the most daring crime recorded in New York during a decade,
+and had flouted the police with such cool effrontery, he (Steingall)
+would never again trust impressions.
+
+The policemen, the clerk, and a strong-armed artificer went up in the
+elevator, and, after an imperative knock and a loud-voiced summons to
+open had been met with blank silence from the interior of No. 605, the
+workman got busy.  The door was stout, and offered a stubborn
+resistance.  It had to be forced off its upper hinge; then it yielded
+so suddenly that it fell into the room, with the engineer sprawling on
+top of it.  The man yelled, thinking he was being plunged headlong into
+tragedy, but Steingall switched on the lights, and four pairs of eager
+eyes peered at nothing in particular.  They found the golf clubs, which
+partially explained the blocking of the door, though it did not occur
+to any of them at once that the open window might have caused the bag
+to fall.  They rummaged Curtis's portmanteaux and steamer trunks, and
+came upon evidence in plenty to prove that he was no mere masquerader
+in another man's name.  But that was all.  They could form no theory to
+account for his disappearance, until Steingall noticed the key, lying
+on the dressing-table, which, with its odds and ends of small articles,
+was the last place to invite scrutiny.  He was gazing at it when the
+blind flapped, and the door of the wardrobe creaked.
+
+"Confound it!" he cried.  "The bedroom door was fastened by accident!
+The man forgot his key.  Look here!  I'll show you just how it came
+about."
+
+He illustrated the slipping of the clubs, and his theory was borne out
+subsequently by the negro porter who had brought Curtis's belongings
+upstairs.  But an atmosphere of suspicion, of non-comprehension, had
+been created around the missing man, and it was not to be dispelled,
+even in Steingall's acute mind, by whittling away the mystery of the
+blocked door to a minor incident which might occur in any hotel any day.
+
+Leaving the mechanic and the negro to patch the shattered door
+sufficiently to serve its purpose until it was replaced by another in
+the morning, the clerk escorted the representatives of the law
+downstairs.  Of course, their departure from the hall and their
+prolonged absence had been noted by the phalanx of reporters, and they
+were surrounded instantly.  Searching questions were fired at them, but
+Steingall, who knew how to use the press for his own ends, countered by
+asking genially:
+
+"In your hunt for copy, have any of you boys come across Mr. John D.
+Curtis?"
+
+"The man who really saw the riot?  I guess not.  We want him badly."
+
+An approving grin from his colleagues vouched for the speaker's
+accuracy.
+
+"Who was killed, anyhow, Steingall?" demanded the journalist who had
+answered the detective.
+
+"We don't know, yet."
+
+"Does Curtis know?"
+
+"He said he didn't, but I'll tell you something--I shan't be happy till
+I've had another chat with him."
+
+"Can anyone say who 'John D. Curtis, of Pekin,' really is?" went on the
+reporter.
+
+"That is the man we are looking for.  If there are police officers
+present, I want them to understand that Curtis should be arrested at
+sight."
+
+Everyone turned at the sound of the authoritative English voice which
+had intervened so unexpectedly in the conclave.  They saw an elderly
+man, well dressed, and bearing the unmistakable tokens of good social
+standing.  With him was a foreigner, a most truculent looking person,
+whose collar, shirt, and waistcoat carried other signs, quite as
+obvious, but curiously ominous in view of the cause of this gathering
+in the hall of the hotel.
+
+"May I ask who you are, sir?" said Steingall.
+
+"I am the Earl of Valletort," said the stranger, "and this is Count
+Ladislas Vassilan."
+
+"Ah!  Count Vassilan is not an Englishman?"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"Is he, by any chance, a Hungarian?"
+
+"Count Vassilan is a Hungarian prince.  But the nationality of either
+of us is unimportant.  Are you connected with the New York police?"
+
+"Yes," said Steingall.  He answered the Earl, but kept that microscopic
+eye of his fixed on the Count.
+
+"Very well, then.  I repeat that John D. Curtis must be found and
+arrested--to-night."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he is a dangerous adventurer.  I----"
+
+"That's a lie, first sizz out of the syphon," broke in another voice.
+"I have the honor to be a friend of John D. Curtis.  My name is Howard
+Devar, and I'll stand for John D. all the time against the noble Earl
+and any God's quantity of blue-blooded, full-blooded Hungarians."
+
+Each member of the animated group was gazing at Devar's boyish,
+self-possessed, well-chiseled face, when another interruption held them
+agog.  A stout, middle-aged man, followed by a stouter matron, bustled
+into the circle.  The newcomers were just as clearly Americans as the
+Earl was English, and the man cried angrily:
+
+"Who says that John D. Curtis is a tough?  I'm his uncle."
+
+"And I'm his aunt," chimed in the lady.
+
+"Of Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana," said the man.
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Horace P. Curtis," announced the lady.
+
+"Shake!" said Devar.  "I heard about you to-day on board the
+_Lusitania_. . . .  Now, my lord, we are three to two.  What charge do
+you bring against John D. Curtis?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NINE O'CLOCK
+
+A new note had crept into the voice of the taxi-cab driver when he
+stopped his vehicle in Madison Avenue and sought Curtis's further
+commands.  No longer did he address his patron with a species of
+good-humored tolerance, almost of sarcasm; his mental attitude had now
+become one of respect, even of hero-worship.  A little later, while
+smoking a thoughtful pipe in his own cozy flat somewhere near Second
+Avenue, he tried to explain this curious development to his wife.
+
+"You see, my dear," he said, "I picked up a fare in Broadway, an' took
+him where he said he wanted to go.  When he got out, he didn't seem to
+be quite sure whether he wanted to be there or not, an' you can bet I
+smiled when he said that he supposed the lady he was callin' on lived
+somewhere around.  Anyhow, after hesitatin' a bit, an' tellin' me he
+wouldn't keep me a minnit, in he dives, an' kep' me coolin' my heels a
+good quarter of an hour.  I grew uneasy, because fares do get so nasty
+about waitin' charges, so I signals the elevator man, name o' Rafferty,
+to ask if it was O.K.  When Rafferty comes back, we had a chat, an' he
+tells me that this Miss Grandison--a mighty smart piece she is,
+too,--was goin' to marry a little Frenchman right away--she was
+expectin' him to call at eight o'clock an' take her to the minister's
+place--so it gev' both Rafferty an' me a jar when my dude turns up with
+the girl an' pipes us for any old address where people could get
+married.  Well, I remembers the number of a shovel hat in 56th Street,
+an' away we hike, man, girl, an' lady's maid, with never a sign of any
+Frenchman anywheres.  An', by Jove, in they skipped to the parsonage,
+an' were spliced."
+
+"No, George!" exclaimed his highly interested hearer.
+
+"Fact.  True as I'm sittin' here.  When they were comin' out, a queer
+lookin' specimen who opened the door wished 'em happiness.  'Fair
+weather to you an' your wife, sir,' he said; an' Mr. Curtis--that's my
+fare's name, I asked him--said something about havin' finished one long
+voyage an' beginnin' another.  Then the fun began.  I was just startin'
+the machine when a private auto dashes up, an' out jumps a
+foreign-lookin' swell.  The girl spots him, an' screams his name--Count
+Vaseline it sounded like--an' he shouts, 'Here we are, Valtaw'--p'raps
+that was his way of sayin' Walter--'Got 'em, by--  You see after
+Hermione.  I'll fix this--Frenchman?'"
+
+"Don't swear, George," remonstrated the driver's better half.
+
+"I'm not swearin'.  Ain't I tellin' you what he said?"
+
+The point was waived.
+
+"And the lady's name was Hermione, was it?  It's a pretty name."
+
+"You haven't got it quite right.  It was more like the way I said it."
+
+And, indeed, the correction was justified, since it is a regrettable
+fact that the taxi-cab driver's wife made "Hermione" rhyme with "bone,"
+and laid no stress on the second syllable.  Strong in her superior
+knowledge, for she was an omnivorous reader of fiction--and Greek names
+were fashionable last November--she passed that point also.
+
+"Well?" she demanded breathlessly.
+
+"Ha, ha!"  The narrator laughed joyfully.  "The Dago Count went for
+Curtis as if he was on to a sure thing, but before you could say
+'knife' he was on his back on the sidewalk.  I've never seen a man put
+down so quick.  I couldn't have floored him so beautifully if I'd hit
+him with a spanner.  But that was only part of the entertainment.
+Curtis--mind you, before that I'd been treatin' him as an ordinary dude
+in evenin' dress--acted like an injarubber man filled with chain
+lightning.  He shoved 'Valtaw' back into the auto, grabs the brake an'
+gear lever, an' puts 'em both out of action, sweeps the two girls into
+my cab, and----"
+
+Here the taxi-driver bethought himself, and grinned vacuously.
+
+"Well--an' here I am," he concluded.
+
+"I suppose he handed out a good fare," said his wife.
+
+"Yes, he was quite decent about it.  Tipped me a couple of dollars over
+an' above the register."
+
+"I should have thought it would have been more.  Men are usually
+generous when they are getting married."
+
+"He was takin' on a rather expensive bit of stuff, unless I am much
+mistaken, an' p'raps he was just rememberin' it."
+
+In this ingenuous fashion was a poor woman neatly headed off the scent
+of a fifty-dollar bill.  She rang the knell of a new hat by her next
+question.
+
+"What was the young lady really like--how was she dressed?" she cried.
+. . .
+
+
+Hardly a word was said within the taxi until the corner was turned out
+of 56th Street into Seventh Avenue.  Curtis, who was sitting with his
+back to the driver, rose, apologized for the disturbance, and looked
+through the tiny rear window.
+
+"That's all right," he said.  "That car won't be able to move for
+several minutes; but we must leave nothing to chance," so he sank back
+into a seat, and permitted the driver to take them whither he listed.
+
+Hermione's first words were not exactly those of a fair maid in utmost
+distress.
+
+"Oh, how splendid it must be to feel sure that you are able to hit a
+wretch like Count Vassilan and knock him flat!" she cried.
+
+Curtis was surprised.  He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted
+lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather
+expected to hear subdued sobbing.
+
+"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that
+fellow," he said.
+
+"I never could.  It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he
+treats them.  I do hope you have hurt him."
+
+"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis.  "He impressed me
+as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will
+afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity
+to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body
+of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour.
+There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a
+decent problem.  Meanwhile, the vital question is--where are we going?"
+
+Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood.  He could
+picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"It is evident," he went on, "that they procured the minister's address
+from the elevator man at your dwelling."
+
+"Ah, that Rafferty!  Wait till I see him," broke in Marcelle.
+
+"Please do not scarify Rafferty, if that is his name.  I am much more
+to be blamed than he, because I assured your mistress that the Earl and
+Count Vassilan were safe on board the _Switzerland_ till the morning.
+I see now that they telegraphed for a tug, and it is best to assume
+that they have been kept informed by wireless of nearly every move in
+the game. . . .  You agree with me, I suppose, Lady Hermione, that your
+return to 1000 59th Street is out of the question?"
+
+"It is, if this mock marriage is to serve any real purpose," she said.
+
+"But pray remember that it is not a mock marriage.  You and I are as
+firmly bound together by the law as if--well, as if we meant it."
+
+She leaned forward a little; her face was etched in Rembrandt lights by
+the glare from some shop windows.
+
+"Mr. Curtis," she said earnestly, "it is neither just nor reasonable
+that you should plunge yourself into difficulties for the sake of a
+girl whom you met to-night for the first time.  Why not go out of my
+life now--this instant? . . .  Marcelle and I can find refuge
+somewhere.  The hour is early. . . .  Why should you take all the risk?"
+
+He was ready for some such appeal on her part.
+
+"I was taught in school if I did a thing at all to do it thoroughly,"
+he said, "and my experience of life has given the adage a halo.  It
+would be worse than useless to desert you now, Lady Hermione.  Whatever
+penalties I may have incurred in the eyes of the law are committed
+beyond hope of redemption.  If I am sought for, the police know exactly
+where to lay hands on me, and my crime would become monstrous if it
+were proved that I ran away from my wife on the night of our marriage.
+No; we must face the music boldly, and together.  We must go to some
+well-known hotel, register openly, secure rooms, and conduct ourselves
+on the orthodox lines of all runaway couples, who are presumably head
+over heels in love with each other.  Moreover, in the morning, or
+whenever we are run to earth, you should allow me to face your father
+and play the part of the indignant husband.  It is essential that your
+marriage should appear real, or you go back to bondage and I to prison."
+
+"To prison!"  The girl's horrified accents showed that she had hardly
+given a thought to the bald consequences of her escapade.
+
+"Yes.  I am not trying to frighten you; but what sort of mercy would a
+judge show to the craven who absconded before the battle began?  If, on
+the other hand, I am, so to speak, torn from your arms--if a plausible
+lawyer can depict you tearful and inconsolable--if----"
+
+"You make out a fairly strong case, Mr. Curtis.  I have told you that I
+trust you, and I can only repeat my words of gratitude. . . .
+Marcelle, you will not leave me?"
+
+"Never, miss, ma'am--that is, your ladyship."
+
+Thus it befell that Curtis was ready with the name of a prominent hotel
+in Fifth Avenue when the driver halted in Madison Avenue.  He made his
+choice almost at random, but selected one of the newest uptown
+caravanserais, merely because it lay a considerable distance from 27th
+Street.  Otherwise, his object in picking a large hotel being to avoid
+notice among a fashionable throng, he might easily have taken his
+"wife" to the Waldorf-Astoria, in which event certain complications
+even then hot in the making would not have followed their intricate
+course, while Hermione's future must have been affected most powerfully.
+
+"I suppose you are prepared to submit to certain conditions which
+govern this new venture?" said Curtis, when the cab was once more
+speeding onward to a definite goal.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+It would be scarcely fair to describe Hermione's tone as suspicious,
+for she was a loyal soul, and was wondering in her heart of hearts what
+manner of man this knight errant could be; but his very self-possession
+fluttered her; she had been so accustomed to think and act in her own
+defense that she experienced a subtle fear of this calm, cool-headed,
+masterful person whom she must learn to regard as her husband.
+
+"Well,"--Curtis's speech was so unemotional that he might have been
+describing one of his Manchurian railway schemes--"we must treat each
+other with a certain familiarity--even use little endearments--in
+public--and address each other by pet names--mine is Chow."
+
+Despite her troubles, the girl laughed, and Curtis recalled the tinkle
+of silver bells in a temple at evening on the banks of the far-away
+Wei-ho.
+
+"But that is the name of a dog!" she tittered.
+
+"Yes.  In my case, it denoted some unpleasant personal characteristics
+when a stupid mandarin put obstacles in my way.  I never gave any
+warning, but rushed in and bit him, not actually, of course, but in his
+illicit commissions, which annoyed him more than a real bite."
+
+"I don't like Chow," she said.  "Your name is John.  Won't Jack do?"
+
+"Fine."  It was lucky she could not see the smile that flitted across
+his face.  "And yours?"
+
+"Mamma always used my full name, and I have never had anyone else to
+give me a pet name, unless it was 'Tatters' at school."
+
+"We might bracket Tatters with Chow, and dismiss both," he said
+lightly.  "And I like the sound of Hermione so well that it is pat on
+my lips already. . . .  Now, you, Marcelle--remember that her ladyship
+has become Lady Hermione Curtis."
+
+"Oh, not Mrs. Curtis?"
+
+"No.  An earl's daughter retains her courtesy title after marriage."
+
+"All right, sir.  I shan't forget."  Indeed, Marcelle was jubilant.
+She had been "dying" to use her mistress's title, once she became aware
+of it, but it was taboo at 59th Street.
+
+Curtis had covered a good deal of ground during that brief discussion
+in the cab, but Hermione was not quite prepared for its logical sequel
+in the hotel.
+
+Naturally, they attracted no unusual attention when they entered the
+hotel.  Other people merely noticed the passing of a distinguished
+looking young man in evening dress--for Curtis had promptly whipped off
+that ominous overcoat--and a slender, veiled lady, of elegant carriage,
+who walked up to the bureau, followed by a smartly dressed girl who
+gazed about her with bright, all-seeing eyes.
+
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+
+"My wife and I have been detained in New York this evening
+unexpectedly," explained Curtis to the hotel clerk.  "We want a suite
+of rooms, a sitting-room, three bedrooms with baths--you would like
+Marcelle's room to communicate with yours, wouldn't you, dear?" and he
+turned suddenly to Hermione.
+
+"Y-yes," she faltered, for the attack took her unaware.
+
+"What floor, sir?  We have a nice suite on the tenth."
+
+"Not so high, please," said Hermione.  Then she sprung a mine on her
+own account.  "I know it is stupid, Jack, darling, but I am so afraid
+of fire."
+
+"This hotel is absolutely fireproof, madam," put in the clerk, stating
+a fact implicitly believed by every hotel proprietor in New York in so
+far as his own building is concerned, "but we can accommodate you on
+the second floor, Suite F., fifty dollars a day."
+
+"Thank you.  That will be just right," said Curtis quickly, for he
+meant to live like a prince during one night at least, let the morrow
+bring its own cares.  "Now, you understand that we are here without
+baggage, though my wife's maid will procure some necessaries while we
+eat, and I mean to get some clothes later, but, if you would like a
+deposit of, say, a hundred dollars----?"
+
+He felt for his pocketbook, but, to the credit of the clerk be it said,
+the suggestion was negatived with a smile.
+
+"No need at all for any deposit, sir," was the answer.  "I wouldn't be
+on to my job it I didn't know how and when to discriminate in matters
+of that sort.  Will you register?"
+
+Curtis took a pen and wrote:
+
+"Mr. and Lady Hermione Curtis, and maid."  Some imp of adventure moved
+him to inscribe "Pekin" in the column for visitors' home addresses.
+But the clerk was obviously impressed by Hermione's title, no less than
+the singularly remote locality the couple hailed from.  He leant back,
+and took a key from its hook.
+
+"Page!" he said.  "Show Mr. Curtis and her ladyship to Suite F."  Then
+he added, as an afterthought: "Would you like dinner served in your
+sitting-room, sir?"
+
+"I think so," said Curtis, "but my wife shall decide a little later."
+
+Hermione kept silent until they were safely behind the closed door of a
+well-furnished and delightfully spacious apartment.
+
+"Of course, I bear all expenses," she said firmly.
+
+"What--are we quarreling already?" he asked.
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"You think I am being wildly extravagant.  Why, bless your ladyship's
+dear little heart, this hotel doesn't begin to know how to charge like
+a taxi.  Now, no argument till to-morrow.  An American millionaire can
+really be quite a decent sort of fellow at times, and, if we may assume
+that this is one of the times, please let me play at being a
+millionaire--for once."
+
+She raised her veil, and looked at him, straight in the eyes.
+
+"Why are you so different from other men?  Why have I never before
+spoken to a man like you?" she asked.
+
+"But I am not different, and there are plenty of men like me; the other
+poor chaps haven't had my glorious chance of serving you--that is all.
+Now, won't you go and see if your room is comfortable, and whether or
+not Marcelle's quarters are just right?  Then come back here, and we'll
+discuss menus, for which purpose I shall ring for a waiter _ek dum_."
+
+"Is that Chinese?"
+
+"No, Hindustani.  It means 'at once,' but every hotel-wala east of Suez
+understands it."
+
+Still she lingered.
+
+"Have you any sisters--a mother living?" she said.
+
+"No.  I'm the sole survivor of my own family.  But I mean to give
+myself the pleasure of a full introduction while we dine, or sup.  Do
+say you are hungry."
+
+"I have not eaten a morsel since luncheon," she confessed.
+
+"Oh, joy!  I must interview the head waiter.  No common serf will
+suffice.  Please hurry."
+
+She left him, not without an impulsive movement as though she meant to
+utter some further words of thanks, but checked her intent on the very
+threshold of speech.  As the lock of the bedroom door clicked, and he
+was alone, he essayed a review of the amazing sequence of events which
+had befallen since he strolled out of the dining-room of the Central
+Hotel.  He stood there, motionless, with hands plunged deep in his
+pockets, but, at the outset of a reverie in which judgment and prudence
+might have helped in the council, he happened to catch sight of himself
+in an oblong mirror over the mantelpiece, for the apartment, redolent
+of New York's later architecture, contained an open grate, and was
+furnished with the chaste beauty of the Chippendale period.  In his
+present position the reflection in the mirror was oddly reminiscent of
+a half-length portrait of his grandfather, the warrior who rode at the
+head of the Fifth Cavalry in '61.
+
+Then Curtis laughed, with the pleasant conviction of a man whose mind
+has been made up for him by circumstances beyond his control.
+
+"It's bred in the bone--a clear case of Mendelism," he murmured softly,
+because he had just remembered how Colonel Curtis, before ever the war
+was ended and its bitterness assuaged, had decided a Southern girl's
+conflict between love and duty by galloping fifty miles across
+Confederate South Carolina and carrying off the lady.
+
+Grandfather and grandson alike were men of action.  Curtis seldom used
+a gesture, and never cried over spilt milk.  Now he merely turned,
+peered into his own bedroom, assured himself that Hermione would find
+its prototype to her fancy, and then summoned a waiter.
+
+Behind the closed door of the other room a girl was similarly engaged
+in taking stock of the situation; but she had feminine assistance, so
+there was bound to be talk.
+
+"Oh, your ladyship, isn't this just the dandiest bit out of a novel you
+ever read?" cried Marcelle when she entered her mistress's room through
+a communicating door.
+
+"It might be more thrilling if it were not a page out of my own life,"
+said Hermione sadly.  She, too, was gazing in a mirror, though, being a
+woman, the oppressive thought bobbed up through a sea of troubles that
+her hair must be untidy, and she owned neither comb nor brush.
+
+"But, what luck, miss, your ladyship, to have found a gentleman like
+Mr. Curtis at the right moment.  Talk about life buoys for drowning men
+and rich uncles from California in plays--who ever heard of anyone
+wanting a nice husband and getting him in such a way!"
+
+Marcelle's eyes were positively glistening.  And these two now were not
+mistress and maid, but a pair of highly strung women, and young ones at
+that.
+
+"You have lost your wits in this night's excitement, Marcelle," said
+Hermione.  "Don't you realize that I am only married under mere
+pretense.  Mr. Curtis is nothing to me, nor I to him.  He has been kind
+and gallant, and I am under an obligation which I can never
+discharge--but that is not marriage."
+
+"It's awful like it, your ladyship."
+
+"No, no.  Drive such nonsense from your head.  When you marry, don't
+you hope to love the man of your choice, and will you not feel sure
+that he loves you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, miladi."
+
+"Then how is it possible for any relationship of that sort to exist
+between Mr. Curtis and me?"
+
+"You've gone a long way already, ma'am," giggled Marcelle.
+
+"Please don't call me ma'am.  It--it irritates me."
+
+"Sorry, miladi, but you will admit, at least, a marriage being
+necessary, that you were fortunate in finding Mr. Curtis?"
+
+"Yes, doubly fortunate--it is that fact which makes things hard for me."
+
+"Makes what things hard, your ladyship?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  I scarce recognize my own voice.  Marcelle, if I
+seem distraught and unreasonable, promise me you will pay no heed.  For
+pity's sake, don't leave me!"
+
+Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and Marcelle was on the verge of
+hysteria.
+
+"I--can't imagine--what there is--to cry about," she murmured brokenly.
+"Nothing on earth would induce me to go away now--but I do hope--and
+pray--you will be happy--even though--you only met your husband--little
+more than an hour ago! . . .  And I believe in my heart, Lady Hermione,
+that you will soon see how fortunate you were in escaping that mincing
+little Frenchman----"
+
+"Marcelle, the poor man is dead."
+
+"Then it is the best turn he has done you, miladi.  I never fancied
+him.  There was something underhanded and mean about him.  I have seen
+his face when you were not looking, and I'm sure he was a hypocrite."
+
+"Marcelle, you will drive me crazy.  Don't you understand that I have
+never intended to marry anybody--really?"
+
+A knock at the door opening into the sitting-room came to Hermione's
+relief.
+
+"Yes?" she said.
+
+"If you can spare Marcelle, I would recommend that she should go to
+your flat for any clothes you may need," said Curtis's voice.
+
+Hermione threw open the door.
+
+"A little while ago you told me that it was impossible to think of
+returning there," she said.
+
+"For you, yes, but not for your maid.  Who is to hinder?  That man,
+Rafferty, looked a decent sort of fellow."
+
+"I can manage Rafferty all right," put in Marcelle.
+
+"Of course you can," smiled Curtis.  "Just pack a trunk or a couple of
+bags with Lady Hermione's belongings--you know what to bring--and get
+Rafferty to call a taxi without attracting too much notice.  If you
+think you are being followed, put your pursuers off the scent.  But my
+own view is that 1000 59th Street is the last place anyone will think
+of watching to-night."
+
+"Shall I go at once, your ladyship?" said Marcelle, and Hermione said
+"Yes," with a meekness that was admirable in a wife.
+
+Curtis looked at his pretty bride's hat.
+
+"I have ordered a meal," he said.  "It will be served in a few minutes."
+
+"I shall be ready," she replied, beginning nervously to take off her
+gloves.  The wedding ring was inclined to accompany the left hand
+glove, but, after a second's hesitation, she replaced it.  When she
+appeared in the sitting-room she had discarded her jacket, a
+close-fitting one of a style that fastened _a la militaire_, high in
+the neck.  Beneath it she had been wearing a white silk blouse, and the
+delicate pink of her arms and throat was revealed now through its
+diaphanous sheen.  A string of pearls supported a diamond cross on her
+breast, and on her left wrist was a watch set in small diamonds and
+turquoises and carried by a bracelet of gold filigree.  She wore only
+one ring--_the_ ring--and even the slight glance which Curtis gave it
+brought a vivid blush to her cheeks.
+
+"I am not a past master in the art of ordering banquets," he said
+cheerily, turning at once to draw her attention to the table, "but the
+head-waiter here is a gourmet.  He suggested caviare, a white soup, a
+king-fish, a tourne-dos, and a grouse--does that appeal?"
+
+"You take my breath away," she said, with valorous effort to seem at
+ease.
+
+"Now--as to wine?"
+
+"I seldom touch wine."
+
+"To-night it will make you sleep.  What do you say to a glass of Clos
+Vosgeot?"
+
+"Is that a claret?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, as it happens, that is the one wine I take."
+
+The dinner proceeded most pleasantly.  To his own astonishment, Curtis
+worked up sufficient appetite to enjoy the meal, though he would have
+stuffed himself remorselessly to save his charming _vis-a-vis_ from the
+slightest embarrassment.  But he only sipped the wine, for a sixth
+sense warned him that he must keep a clear head that night.
+
+By inference rather than plain statement, for a deft waiter was
+constantly coming in and out, he supplied Hermione with glimpses of his
+own career, and ascertained from her that she had secured Marcelle's
+services through the good offices of a lady who was a fellow-passenger
+on the ship.
+
+"She comes from New Orleans, but, notwithstanding her name, she does
+not speak French," said Hermione.  "I think that rather accounts
+for----"
+
+She stopped, and Curtis did not press for an explanation, but she
+continued, after a second's pause:
+
+"Marcelle did not like Monsieur de Courtois.  I imagined she was
+annoyed because he always conversed with me in a language she did not
+understand."
+
+"Then I shall avoid Chinese," he laughed.
+
+"Marcelle----"
+
+Again she hesitated.  She was positively dismayed by consciousness of
+the imminent disclosure, yet too well-bred even to appear to be
+withholding confidences.
+
+"You have won Marcelle's golden opinion already," she said.  "But let
+us talk of something else."
+
+For the moment they were alone, and she glanced at the watch on her
+wrist.
+
+"Have you made any plans?" she inquired, and her voice was low, yet
+sufficiently composed.
+
+"For the future?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When Marcelle arrives, I am going to my hotel for some baggage.  You,
+I suggest, are going to bed."
+
+"You will return?"
+
+"Within the hour--if I am alive."
+
+"And to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow, may it please your ladyship, we breakfast together at nine
+o'clock."
+
+"Your plan, then, is mainly composed of eating and sleeping?"
+
+"What else--our policy is one of drifting."
+
+"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."
+
+"It is 'Jack' in the compact."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Alas, this compact reads only one way.  It means that you give and I
+receive.  Will you--will you believe, in the future, that despair alone
+could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"
+
+"No," he said sturdily.
+
+"No?  That is the only unkind thing you have said."
+
+"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair.
+But--here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages.  I hear thuds in
+the next room."
+
+And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's
+voice reached them sharply from the corridor:
+
+"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box!  Do you think you are an
+express man, or what?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NINE-THIRTY
+
+Chance is often a skilled stage manager, and chance had arranged a
+really effective scene in the hall of the Central Hotel.  The Earl of
+Valletort seemed to be somewhat unwilling to take up any of the
+gauntlets so readily thrown down by Devar and the Curtis family, and,
+for a few seconds, the ring of reporters was held spellbound by a
+situation which promised most excellently with regard to the
+all-important question of "copy."
+
+Then the police captain, after waiting for Steingall to take the lead,
+nudged his silent colleague, and said gruffly:
+
+"This thing cannot be gone into here.  Those who can bring forward
+testimony of any value ought to come with Mr. Steingall and myself to
+the precinct station-house."
+
+"Why lose time which cannot be overtaken later?" urged the Earl,
+appealing to Steingall, since it was the detective who had spoken to
+him in the first instance.
+
+"We appear to be at cross purposes," said Steingall.  "How did you two
+gentlemen get to know that a murder had been committed?"
+
+"Murder!" gasped Count Vassilan.
+
+"We are not talking of a murder, but of a most scandalous abduction,
+which will provide only one of a number of most serious charges against
+this person, Curtis," cried the Earl.
+
+Vassilan seized him by the arm excitedly.
+
+"Don't you understand, dear friend," he muttered in French.  "The
+rascal must have killed de Courtois in order to gain possession of the
+marriage certificate."
+
+"It will save trouble, sir, if you speak English here," said Steingall.
+Then he turned to the hotel clerk.
+
+"Place a room at our disposal at once.  Lord Valletort is quite right.
+We have not a second to waste."
+
+A murmur of protest arose from the pressmen, though it was obvious that
+the police could not conduct the inquiry in the midst of an
+ever-growing crowd of residents and servants.
+
+"Say, Steingall," whispered the reporter who had spoken for the others
+earlier, "can't you let us into this?  We'll suppress anything you
+wish--I'll guarantee that, absolutely without reservation."
+
+"_I_ have no objection, but these high-toned strangers may not like
+it," said the detective quietly.
+
+The Earl, when the point was referred to him, made no difficulty
+whatsoever about the presence of the journalists--in fact, he rather
+welcomed publicity.
+
+"It is better that the truth should appear than a garbled and
+misleading version," he said affably.  "I want your help, gentlemen.  I
+know enough of newspaper ways to feel sure that a story of some sort
+will be star-headed in every news sheet in New York to-morrow, so my
+friend, Count Vassilan, and I are more than willing that you should be
+well informed."
+
+Now, that phase of the problem was precisely what Count Ladislas
+Vassilan seemed to be exceedingly disconcerted about.  He was
+singularly ill at ease.  His florid face had paled to a dusky wanness
+when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served
+only to increase his agitation.  Steingall, to all intents and purposes
+paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not
+missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous
+gesture.  His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had
+fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence.  Curtis had hazarded a
+guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a
+Hungarian Count denouncing Curtis.  Certainly that question of
+nationality promised remarkable developments.
+
+When the whole party, consisting of some fifteen persons, had gathered
+behind the closed door of the hotel's private office, Steingall took
+the lead in directing the proceedings.
+
+"It will help straighten out a tangle if I say exactly what has taken
+place here to-night--that is, to the best of our knowledge," he said.
+"There is every reason to believe that Mr. John D. Curtis arrived in
+New York this afternoon from Europe----"
+
+"Right," broke in Devar.  "I traveled with him on the _Lusitania_."
+
+"Yes, his presence on board was announced in most of the papers," added
+a journalist.
+
+"Please don't interrupt," said the detective.  "You will be heard in
+your turn.  Now, this Mr. Curtis was allotted room No. 605, and there
+is evidence to prove that he behaved like any ordinary individual who
+had just come from shipboard.  He superintended the unpacking of his
+clothes, gave out a quantity of linen for the laundry, changed into
+evening dress, and dined alone.  Thus far, there is ample corroboration
+of his own story, because his movements can be checked by the
+observation of half-a-dozen hotel employes.  He says, by the way, that
+while buying some stamps at the cigar counter before going to the
+restaurant, he was jostled by a rough-looking foreigner, who apologized
+in broken French, and whom he took to be a Czech or Hungarian.  No one
+seems to have witnessed this incident, but I have not questioned the
+man who sold him the stamps.  Anyhow, after dinner, at twenty minutes
+of eight to be exact, he came into the lobby, intending to inform the
+clerk that he had closed the bedroom door and left his key in the room.
+We have ascertained that this statement is true; the door had to be
+forced, because a bag of golf clubs had fallen and become wedged
+between the door and the side of a steel trunk.  Curtis never did speak
+to the clerk about the key; at that instant, he says, his attention was
+drawn to the queer behavior of the foreigner who had pushed against
+him, and who had been joined in the meantime by another man of similar
+type.  They seemed to be very excited, and were apparently expecting
+someone to turn up, either in the street or from the hotel--Curtis
+fancied that they were on the look-out for interruption, or news, from
+both quarters.  The porter on duty at the door, who is not quite
+intelligible to-night, remembers asking these men if they wanted a
+taxi, but they gave no heed to him.  Then, according to Curtis's
+version of the affair, an automobile dashed up outside, and a young man
+in evening dress, carrying an overcoat, stepped out, and told the
+chauffeur to keep the engine going, as he would not be detained more
+than a minute.  At that instant the two foreigners--Hungarians
+according to Curtis--sprang at the newcomer, and endeavored to force
+him back into the auto.  Failing in this, one of them drew a knife, and
+stabbed him so severely that he died within a few minutes, and without
+uttering an intelligible word.  Curtis ran to help, but was too far
+away to prevent the crime, and was further balked in an attempt to
+seize either of the wretches by having the dying man's body flung in
+his way.  He endeavored to hinder the escape of the scoundrels in the
+automobile, but failed, because the chauffeur was evidently in league
+with them, and, when he came back to the crowd which had collected
+around the prostrate man, it would appear that someone gave him, by
+mistake, the victim's overcoat in place of his own.  This error was not
+discovered until the police came to search the dead man's clothing,
+when various documents showed beyond question that the overcoat
+believed to be his was really Curtis's.  Curtis told his story in a
+clear and straightforward way, and I, for one, have not seen any reason
+to doubt it.  It is odd that he should have disappeared so completely
+since a few minutes after the crime, but that may be capable of a
+simple explanation, while it is possible that he has not as yet
+discovered the change of overcoats, or he must surely have returned and
+informed us of the mistake.  I am assuming, of course, that he would
+act as one would expect of any reasonable minded citizen who had
+witnessed a serious crime. . . .  Now, Lord Valletort, what have you to
+say about Mr. Curtis?"
+
+A guttural exclamation from Count Vassilan drew all eyes to him.  He
+seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was positively livid with
+fright.  In other conditions than those obtaining at the moment, such a
+display of terror on the part of a truculent looking, strongly built
+man would have been almost ludicrous; but Steingall found no humor in
+the spectacle.  He was gazing at the Hungarian with a curious
+concentration, and the police captain, who had begun by thinking his
+colleague was saying far too much, and who was inclined to disagree
+with some of his conclusions, now thought he could discern method in
+his madness.
+
+Again did Vassilan murmur something to the Earl in a strange tongue,
+and Valletort, with difficulty repressing his annoyance, explained that
+his friend was feeling the effects of a blow received earlier in the
+evening, and wished to retire at once to his room in the
+Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
+
+"By all means," said Steingall suavely.  "I gather that Count Vassilan
+has no connection with the inquiry--in fact, he is not interested in
+it."
+
+"He is, in a sense----" began the Earl, but Vassilan grasped his arm,
+and evidently besought him to come away without another word.  Though
+Valletort was in a towering rage, he obviously thought fit to fall in
+with his companion's views.
+
+"You see how it is," he said, with a nonchalant gesture that was belied
+by his grating tone.  "I am afraid I must postpone my branch of this
+inquiry till a later hour--probably until the morning."
+
+"Do you withdraw all charges against John D. Curtis?" demanded Devar,
+and his clear, incisive voice was distinctly hostile in its icy
+precision.
+
+"No, sir.  I do not," was the angry retort.
+
+"Well, I guess you know best why you and the Hungarian potentate have
+developed this sudden attack of cold feet, but----"
+
+"I'll thank you not to interfere, Mr. Devar," said Steingall
+determinedly.  "If Lord Valletort thinks his business can wait till
+Count Vassilan has recovered from an indisposition, that is his affair
+only."
+
+"I think nothing of the sort," snapped the Earl.  "You all see that the
+Count is ill, and common humanity impels me to attend to him first.  It
+may serve to curb this young gentleman's tongue if I say----"
+
+But Vassilan would not permit him to say anything.  Though he was the
+ailing man, he literally dragged Valletort out of the room and into the
+street.
+
+Steingall looked at the police captain, who quitted the apartment
+instantly.  Then the detective gazed around at the others with a placid
+smile which seemed to show that he, for one, was well content with the
+unusual turn taken by events.
+
+"I suppose you boys have verbatim notes of all that was said," he
+inquired, tossing the remark collectively to the group of pressmen.
+
+"Every word," came the assurance.
+
+"Well, now, I want you to keep all that out of the papers."
+
+"If we do that, Steingall, what is there left?" said one of them
+good-humoredly.
+
+"The biggest thing you have dropped on to this year; unless I am
+greatly mistaken, the scoop of scoops for those who happen to be
+present.  I'm not going to pretend that any of you are blind or deaf,
+and it will assist the police materially if no comment is made on what
+you have heard and seen.  I don't like to put it otherwise than as a
+friendly hint; but I may want the whole bunch as witnesses before this
+thing is through, so your mouths should be closed effectually with
+regard to incidents in this room."
+
+A half-hearted laugh went around, and someone asked:
+
+"We must put up a readable story of some kind--if we cut out certain
+details, surely we can use others?"
+
+"I said 'incidents in this room,'" repeated the detective.
+
+"Then we can mention the arrival of the Earl and the Count on the
+scene?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"One minute, sir," put in Mr. Horace P. Curtis.  "If these gentlemen
+take you at your word, the charge made against my nephew will be
+published throughout the length and breadth of the United States
+to-morrow."
+
+"I don't see how something of the sort is to be avoided," said
+Steingall.
+
+"Then, in common fairness, the newspapers ought to state that my wife
+and I, as well as Mr. Devar, as good as told the Earl that he was
+lying."
+
+"I imagine you can leave the matter safely in the very capable hands of
+the reporters present," said Steingall.
+
+"Remember, please, that no charge was actually named against Curtis,"
+said Devar.  "The Earl of Valletort demanded that he should be found
+and arrested, and described him as a dangerous adventurer, but gave no
+shred of proof of his wild-cat statement that Curtis had been engaged
+in a scandalous abduction, and, when asked for it, discovered that he
+had urgent business elsewhere."
+
+Steingall held up a hand in quiet reproof.
+
+"My own view is that it would be best, at this stage, to say merely
+that the two noblemen came here inquiring for Curtis, and leave it at
+that.  I am not trying to deprive the press of a sensation.  Surely
+there is enough in Chapter One for to-night, and those reporters who
+have had the luck to be present will be able to fill in gaps in
+Chapters Two and Three when they come along to-morrow or next day."
+
+"Right," said the journalist who, by tacit agreement, seemed to
+represent his confreres.  "There are one or two items we want you to
+clear up, if you don't mind.  First, did Curtis, or anybody else, note
+the number of the automobile?"
+
+"Yes," said Steingall instantly.  "The number is X24-305, and Curtis
+heard the man who was murdered address the chauffeur as 'Anatole.'  He
+spoke French to the man, too."
+
+"You omitted both of those interesting facts from your summary,"
+commented the reporter with a smile.
+
+"Did I?  That was a piece of sheer forgetfulness on my part."
+
+"You didn't forget to rope us all in here as witnesses when the
+Hungarian prince came on the boards.  I knew you had something up your
+sleeve the moment you began to fill in details.  But, as to the crime
+itself--have you found out the name of the man who was killed?"
+
+"No.  There were no papers in his clothes, but that may be accounted
+for by the singular accident of the exchange of overcoats.  His linen
+was marked 'H. R. H.'"
+
+"'H. R. H.,'" cried a bespectacled journalist who had been a silent
+listener hitherto.  "That's rather odd.  Those are the initials of
+Henry R. Hunter, a member of our staff.  The news editor wanted him to
+take hold in the first instance when the fact that a murder had been
+committed was 'phoned to the office, but he could not be found
+anywhere, so I am here in his stead."
+
+"I don't recall anyone of that name," said Steingall sharply.
+
+"No, you wouldn't.  He was in our Chicago office till the beginning of
+September.  He did one or two bright things there that caught the
+chief's eye, so he was brought to New York. . . .  By Jove, Hunter is a
+good French scholar.  It was on that account he got on the track of a
+gang of Chicago anarchists."
+
+A curious stillness fell on the gathering.  It was as though a spirit
+of evil had suddenly made its presence felt; even the electric lamps
+seemed to have grown dimmer.
+
+"Describe Hunter."
+
+Steingall's voice rang out incisively; the reporter took off his
+spectacles, and began to burnish them, for his face was glistening with
+perspiration.
+
+"He is about five feet ten inches in height, and weighs somewhere in
+the neighborhood of 150 pounds.  He is straight and well-built, and his
+face is finely molded, with big, luminous eyes, deeply recessed,
+and----"
+
+"Has he a white scar across the left eyebrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+For some reason, the journalist carried his description of Hunter's
+personal appearance no farther.  It was unnecessary.  Before Steingall
+uttered another word everyone in the room had a foreboding that they
+were on the threshold of a discovery which lifted this tragedy into a
+prominence far beyond aught they had yet dreamed of.
+
+Except for that momentary touch of amazement in the detective's tone
+they could gather nothing from his manner.  But his invariable habit
+was to speak to the point, and without the least suggestion of
+ambiguity in his words.
+
+"I am very much afraid, gentlemen, that the murdered man is Mr. Henry
+B. Hunter," he said.  "I must trouble you to come with me, and place
+the question of identity beyond doubt.  I hope that you, Mr. and Mrs.
+Curtis, and you, Mr. Devar, will make it convenient to await my return.
+There are matters on which you can give me valuable information."
+
+In a few seconds the three found themselves alone.  The clerk had
+business to attend to, but he courteously invited them to remain in the
+office until the detective came back.
+
+"Did you ever hear such nonsense as this talk about Curtis being mixed
+up in an abduction?" began Devar, eager to dispossess his friend's
+relatives of any false impressions they might have formed.  "Why, he
+didn't know a soul in the States--except yourselves," he added
+tactfully.
+
+The uncle, who had been polishing his domed forehead with a large
+handkerchief at intervals during the past quarter of an hour, cleared
+his throat as a preliminary to some important announcement, but his
+better half had only kept silent because of a real fear that her nephew
+had been engaged in the commission of serious crime from the instant he
+set foot in New York, and she entered the fray vigorously now.
+
+"We don't know much about him, and that's the truth, Mr. Devar," she
+cried.  "There was some family disagreement years ago, and the brothers
+lost track of each other, but Horace here never forgets a name, and why
+should he, seeing that John was his father's name, and Delancy his
+mother's, and our nephew has both, so the minute we saw that paragraph
+in the Chicago papers about the eminent American engineer who had been
+building railways in China being on board the _Lusitania_, I says to
+Horace: 'Horace, it would be shame on us if we allowed your brother's
+son and your own nephew to arrive in New York without some of his kith
+and kin to bid him welcome,' and with that we hustled to catch the next
+train east, but the steamer did the trip quicker'n we counted on, and
+we just missed being at the docks, so if it hadn't been for our good
+luck in finding the man who helped John with his baggage, and who
+remembered the name of the hotel he gave the taxi-driver, we might have
+been searching New York all this blessed night without dreaming of
+coming to such a place as this, because the newspapers spoke so highly
+of John that we made sure he would be stopping in one of the Fifth
+Avenue hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria or Hoffman House, or perhaps
+higher uptown, in the Ritz-Carlton or the Plaza."
+
+Mrs. Curtis was stout, so she yielded perforce to lack of breath, and
+Devar was able to explain smilingly that he, and none other, was
+responsible for the item in the newspapers.
+
+"The fact is that I took a great liking to John D.," he said.  "He is
+such a real good fellow, and so sublimely unconscious of his own
+merits, that I wanted to surprise him by starting a modest boom in the
+press, so I sent a wireless message about him to a journalistic friend
+in New York.  I wondered why the reporters did not get hold of him when
+they came aboard at the quarantine station, but I remember now that, by
+some curious trick of fate, he and I stowed ourselves away in a part of
+the ship where no one was likely to find us, and I clean forgot to put
+them on his track when I went below."
+
+"I guess my nephew has attended to the booming proposition on his own
+account," said Horace, getting under way at last.
+
+Devar laughed, but Mrs. Curtis was shocked.
+
+"Horace!" she cried indignantly, "that's the only unkind thing I've
+heard you say in years.  Oh, yes,"--for her husband had spread his
+hands in mild protest--"I know you didn't mean it, but barbed shafts of
+humor often fall in places where they hurt, and it is terrible to think
+of your nephew being mixed up in a murder, and an abduction, and----"
+
+She broke off in mid-career, and fixed a stern eye on Devar.
+
+"Are you quite sure he didn't get flirting with some giddy young thing
+on board?" she demanded.  "I've heard and read of some strange
+goings-on among people crossing the Atlantic.  I could tell you of two
+marriages and no less than five divorces which----"
+
+Devar was a polite young man, but he thought the situation called for
+firmness.
+
+"To the best of my belief, your nephew never so much as spoke to any
+lady on the ship," he vowed.  "He read a good deal, and played cards
+occasionally, and walked the decks with me when the weather permitted,
+but he did not even mention a woman's name except your own, madam."
+
+"The marvel is that he mentioned us at all," said Horace.
+
+Devar thought in his own mind, that the elder Curtis might be ponderous
+in body and speech but he certainly revealed horse sense when he opened
+his mouth.
+
+"And whose fault was that, I should like to know?" cried Mrs. Curtis.
+"Didn't your own brother quarrel with you because you said he ought to
+have married a woman of some stability of character, and not a pretty,
+feather-headed girl who spent her days reading poetry and her nights in
+attending lectures, and who didn't begin to understand the A.B.C. of a
+wife's domestic duties?"
+
+"Maybe I was wrong and he was right," said her husband.
+
+"Horace!"
+
+Mrs. Curtis was marshaling her forces for a mighty effort when the door
+opened, and Steingall entered, accompanied by a tall, well set-up man
+in evening dress, and wearing an open overcoat and green Homburg hat.
+
+"Well," cried Devar, springing forward with outstretched hand, "I'm
+mighty glad to see you, John D.!"
+
+The newcomer's face lit with pleasure, but before he could utter a
+responsive word Mrs. Curtis gurgled:
+
+"John D.! . . .  Are you John Delancy Curtis? . . .  Horace, is this
+your nephew?"
+
+"Judging from his looks, Louisa, he ought to be," said the stout man,
+gazing at the stranger with wide-eyed astonishment.
+
+The Christian names of the couple acted like a galvanic battery on
+Curtis.  At first, he could hardly believe his ears, but some
+resemblance in the portly Curtis to his own father warned him that this
+night of nights had not yet exhausted its store of stupefying surprises.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, smiling cheerfully, "you must be my uncle and aunt
+from Bloomington, Indiana!"
+
+"If you're John Delancy Curtis, that's our correct description," said
+Horace.
+
+"Of course he is," chortled Mrs. Curtis.  "He's as like you the day I
+married you as two peas in a pod, and if our little Horace had been
+spared he would have been his living image.  Nephew, I'm proud to meet
+you," and Mrs. Curtis folded her relation in an ample embrace.
+
+Curtis carried off a difficult situation with ease.  He kissed his
+aunt, shook hands with his uncle, and was about to answer the lady's
+torrent of questions with regard to himself and his own people when
+Steingall interfered.
+
+"Sorry to interrupt you," he said, "but the turn taken by to-night's
+crime demands your immediate attention, Mr. Curtis.  Do you know you
+are wearing the dead man's overcoat?"
+
+"Yes.  I discovered that fact some time ago."
+
+Curtis's prompt admission was more favorable to his cause than he could
+possibly realize then, though he had seen that the detective's
+extraordinarily brilliant eyes were fixed on the garment's
+blood-stained sleeve.
+
+"And have you learnt the owner's name?" went on Steingall quietly.
+
+"Yes, that is, I believe so, owing to a document I found in one of the
+pockets."
+
+"Ah, what was that?"
+
+"It concerned another person, but I am prepared to tell you its nature
+if it is absolutely essential."
+
+"Believe me, there must be no concealment--now."
+
+Something in the detective's tone conveyed a hint of peril, of
+suspicion, to the ears of one so accustomed to dealing with his
+fellow-men as was Curtis.  But he shook off the premonition of ill, and
+decided, once and for all, to be candor itself where the authorities
+were concerned.
+
+"It was a marriage license," he said.
+
+"And the names on it?"
+
+"They were those of a Frenchman, Jean de Courtois, and of an English
+lady, Hermione Beauregard Grandison."
+
+"So you have imagined that the man who was killed was this Monsieur
+Jean de Courtois?"
+
+For the life of him, Curtis could not prevent the tumultuous pumping of
+his heart from drawing some of the color from his face.
+
+"Who else?" he inquired, never flinching from Steingall's searching
+gaze.
+
+"No matter who owned the coat, or whom the license was intended for,
+the murdered man was no Frenchman, but a New York journalist named
+Henry R. Hunter," said Steingall.
+
+Then Curtis yielded to the swift conviction that he had unwittingly
+trapped Lady Hermione into a marriage on grounds that were inadequate
+and false.
+
+"Good God!" he muttered, and, for the moment, it was impossible for his
+hearers to resist the dreadful inference that, in some shape or form,
+he was implicated in the outrage which bulked so large in their minds.
+Mrs. Curtis wanted to scream aloud, but she dared not.  Even Devar was
+staggered by his friend's unaccountable attitude.  The only outwardly
+unmoved individual present was Horace P. Curtis.  He turned and pressed
+an electric bell; Steingall glared at him, so he explained his action.
+
+"I feel like a highball," he said blandly.  "I guess Mrs. Curtis could
+do with one also.  In fact, five highballs would be a bully good
+notion."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TEN O'CLOCK
+
+Curtis had seized the opportunity while Hermione was in her room before
+dinner to rub the blood-stained sleeve of the overcoat with a wet
+cloth.  He had not, of course, been able to eradicate the ghastly dye
+wholly from the thick material, but the garment was now wearable, at
+any rate by night, and he had little fear of attracting attention as he
+crossed the brilliantly lighted foyer of the hotel.
+
+Passing out by the Fifth Avenue exit, he began the second cigar of the
+evening, and stood in the porch for a moment to collect his faculties.
+The time was five minutes of ten, and he had been married about an hour
+and a half.  He had just finished his second dinner, and for the
+guerdon of companionship with the charming and gracious girl whom fate
+had figuratively thrown into his arms he would cheerfully have tackled
+a third meal without any personal qualms as to subsequent indigestion.
+
+But, joking apart, he was married.  That was the overwhelming feature
+of life, a feature which dwarfed every other circumstance much as
+grimly gigantic Windsor Castle dominates the puny town beneath its
+walls.  The mere tying of the matrimonial knot had not troubled him.
+He was heart whole and fancy free then--or, not to strain the metaphor,
+he could have boasted those attributes a little earlier in the
+evening--and he recked nothing of the really serious legal disabilities
+incurred by the adventure.  But, like every other young man, his
+thoughts had turned sometimes to a young woman--not any special young
+woman, but that nebulous entity which is necessarily bound up with the
+notion that some day, somewhere, somehow, a man will encounter the maid
+in whose limpid eyes lurks his destiny.  He had pictured the desirable
+one in day-dreams, and, merely because of his violent antipathy towards
+the Eurasian element in the Far East, the dulcissima had appeared
+invariably as a tall, slender creature, with the lightest of flaxen
+hair and the grayest of gray eyes.  Now, some alchemy devised by the
+magician spirit of New York had fashioned his ideal, though slender,
+not so tall, and she owned a wealth of brown hair, hair that shone and
+glistened in every changing light, while her eyes were either blue or
+violet, just as one happened to catch the glint of them.  And she had
+fascinating ways, too, which the lady of his fantasy could never have
+displayed, or he would not have abandoned the vision so readily.  When
+she smiled, it was with lips and eyes in unison.  When she spoke he
+heard harmonies not framed in mere words, whereas the other fair dame
+was unquestionably a deaf mute.
+
+Indeed, while his glance was dwelling, to all outward semblance, on the
+passing traffic of one of New York's busiest thoroughfares, he was
+admitting to himself that he was deeply, irrevocably, in love, and the
+knowledge was almost stupefying.  To one of Curtis's temperament it
+seemed to be a wildly fanciful thing that he should have yielded so
+swiftly.  Two hours ago he had not seen Hermione, did not even know her
+name, whereas now he breathed it with devout reverence, though, with a
+perverseness seldom attached to such circumstances, the amazing fact
+that she was his wife formed a stubborn barrier against which the flood
+of new-born desire must rage in vain.  For, above all else, he held
+dear his plighted word.  He knew now that the marriage offered an
+almost insuperable obstacle to any effort on his part to win the girl's
+affections.  In her despair she had trusted him, and he awoke with a
+guilty start to consciousness of that winsome face being wrung with a
+new terror if for one instant she had reason to suspect him of other
+than the altruistic motives he had professed in giving her the
+protection of his name.
+
+Perhaps, in time--well, he was done now with moon-madness, and he
+stepped briskly down the avenue, firm set in purpose to risk everything
+for his wife's sake, and let the future rest in the lap of the gods.
+
+This, be it noted, was his first stroll in New York.  The night was
+fine and clear, for Rafferty's diagnosis of "a touch of frost in the
+air" was becoming justified, and no thoroughfare in the world could
+lend itself more completely to the romance of that walk than the
+wonderful promenade which leads from Central Park to Madison Square.
+With few exceptions, the nineteenth century plutocrat has been ousted
+from that section of Fifth Avenue; a giant democracy has reared its own
+palaces in the shape of hotels and office buildings which pierce the
+skies, stores which rival the proudest mansions of Venice in its heyday
+and Florence under Lorenzo Medici.  Never in after life did Curtis
+forget that intimate glimpse of the grandeur and wealth of his native
+place.  Coming up the harbor by daylight he had been overwhelmed by New
+York's proud defiance of the limits imposed by nature, but now, partly
+veiled by the mystery of night, the city displayed a feminine beauty at
+once entrancing and elusive.
+
+At a cross street he paused for a moment to admire a gem of
+architecture wrenched bodily from its Cinque Cento setting by
+Brunelleschi, and transplanted to this new land to serve the opulent
+need of a vendor of precious stones and metals.  In the strip of dark
+blue firmament visible above the admirably proportioned cornice he
+caught sight of two planets flaming high in the west, and in close
+juxtaposition.  Necessity had made him somewhat of an astronomer, and
+he had studied Chinese astrology as a pastime.  He recognized these
+lamps of the empyrean as Mars and Venus, and, up-to-date American
+though he was, drew comfort from that favoring augury.  Then, in
+stepping from the roadway to the sidewalk, he stumbled over a heavy
+curb, and laughed at the reminder that star-gazing did not reveal
+pitfalls before unwary feet.
+
+The incident knocked some of the poetry out of him, and it was a quite
+normal and level-headed young man who walked into the Central Hotel
+soon after ten o'clock, and found Detective Steingall's gaze resting on
+him contemplatively from the neighborhood of the cigar counter.
+
+Before rejoining the waiting trio in the office, Steingall was
+interviewing the youth in charge of the tobacco and current literature
+department.
+
+Such story as the boy had to tell was hardly in favor of Curtis.
+
+"The gentleman came here to buy some stamps, and he and a man who was
+reading in the cafe said something to each other in a foreign lingo,"
+ran the recital.  "No, I don't think I would recognize French if I
+heard it--American is good enough for me--but there was no argument,
+nothing in the shape of a quarrel.  The Englishman spoke twice, and the
+other fellar three times."
+
+"Mr. Curtis is an American," Steingall explained.
+
+"Well, he doesn't talk like one, anyhow," pronounced young New York--in
+this instance, of a pronounced Jewish type--which is perhaps the most
+dogmatic juvenility extant.
+
+Then Curtis entered.  He glanced around, and seemed to be gratified by
+the discovery that the hotel had lost its inquisitive crowd.  He did
+not realize that every newspaper office in New York was alive with
+conjecture of which he was the chief figure, and that telegraph and
+telephone were carrying his name and fame across the length and breadth
+of the country.
+
+"Hello!" he said, hailing Steingall affably, "you here still?  Has
+anything turned up with regard to those scoundrels and their
+automobile?"
+
+"Not a word--about them," said the detective.
+
+The purveyor of cigars and news was positively awe-stricken.  He was
+aware of Steingall's repute as the "man with the microscopic eye," and
+he fully expected that the "sleuth's" penetrating organ had already
+discerned the word "murderer" branded on Curtis's shirt front.
+
+"What time will you want me in the morning?" went on Curtis, looking in
+the direction of the office.  He was really thinking about the mislaid
+key; not for an instant did he imagine that by that simple gesture he
+had almost eradicated from Steingall's mind the germ of doubt which
+events had certainly conspired to plant there.
+
+"I want you now," came the somewhat startling answer.
+
+"Eh, why?"
+
+"Some friends of yours are anxious to see you.  They are in the private
+office over there," and Steingall thrust out his chin in the indicative
+manner which the Romans used to call _annuens_.
+
+"Oh, Howard Devar, I suppose.  But who else?"
+
+"Come along, Mr. Curtis.  You can stand a pleasant surprise, I am
+sure," and, with that, the detective led the way across the hall,
+leaving the youthful Jew in a maze of conflicting emotions, for,
+according to all the rules of the game as played in the dime novel, the
+tec' should have sprung on his prey like a tiger.  Another person whose
+nervous system received a shock was the super-clerk.  He, like the boy,
+knew of the network of suspicion which had closed on Curtis during the
+past two hours, and he had watched the cordial meeting between the two
+men with something akin to stupefaction.
+
+But neither of these onlookers had grasped the really essential fact
+that Steingall did not say one word as to the hue and cry which
+resulted from Curtis's strange disappearance.  The detective was a
+master of the art of restraint.  In his own way, he applied to his
+profession the maxim of Horace--_Ars est celare artem_.
+
+And he had his reward in that cry of dismay, almost of horror, which
+burst from Curtis's lips when he heard the true name of the murdered
+man.
+
+Uncle Horace's seemingly maladroit interruption (it raised him to a
+pinnacle of esteem in Devar's mind from which he was never dislodged
+subsequently) prevented any striking development until a glad-eyed
+waiter had entered and taken an order for four highballs.  Even Mrs.
+Curtis admitted the need of a stimulant, but Curtis steadily refused
+any intoxicant, even the mildest.  Steingall endured the delay
+stoically.  He actually held back a sufficient time to allow Horace P.
+Curtis to empty his glass with one well-sustained effort.  Then he came
+to close quarters with Napoleonic directness.
+
+"I take it you assumed that the dead man was the Jean de Courtois
+mentioned in the marriage license?" he said.
+
+He gave that question pride of place in pursuance of a queer thought
+which had leaped into his brain during the enforced interval.  But, if
+he had been thinking hard, so had Curtis, and the latter had outlined a
+plan of action which was fated to disrupt Steingall's, much as a
+harmless looking percussion cap may interfere with the smug torpor of a
+powder magazine.
+
+"Yes," said Curtis, with the judicial nod of a man who states a
+comparatively obvious fact.
+
+"Have you that license?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Reposing in the writing-desk of the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes, a minister
+of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who lives in 56th Street, near
+Seventh Avenue."
+
+"And what is it doing there, pray?"
+
+"I used it.  I have married Lady Hermione Grandison."
+
+Steingall permitted himself the rare luxury of a semi-hysterical break
+in his voice.
+
+"What!" he cried.  "Is she the daughter of the Earl of Valletort?"
+
+"Precisely, though you astonish me by the ease with which you connect
+two such widely different names.  Such knowledge usually implies a
+close acquaintance with the amiable foibles of the British aristocracy."
+
+Certainly it was well that Mrs. Horace P. Curtis had partaken of a
+tonic in the shape of a highball.
+
+"Well!" she gasped.
+
+For once she was practically speechless, but she gave the astounded
+Devar a pitiless glance which said plainly:
+
+"Wait till I get my breath, young man, and I'll take some of the
+cocksureness out of you!"
+
+Steingall soon gathered his scattered wits.
+
+"Are you really speaking seriously, Mr. Curtis?" he asked.
+
+"Quite seriously."
+
+"Was this marriage an arranged affair?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  The marriage itself was prearranged."
+
+"Candidly, I don't understand you."
+
+"No?  I am not surprised.  But I do not wish you to remain under any
+misapprehension as to the true state of affairs.  Lady Hermione
+Grandison meant to marry a French music-master named Jean de Courtois.
+I thought, thought honestly but mistakenly, that the man was dead, and,
+as it was of vital importance that her ladyship should get married
+to-night, I offered my services as Jean de Courtois' substitute, and
+they were accepted."
+
+"Am I to take that statement as literally true?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"You were not acquainted with the lady earlier?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Never seen or heard of her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How did you come to engage in this--this freak marriage, then?"
+
+Curtis measured Steingall with a contemplative eye.
+
+"You are called on to assimilate a novel idea, and, in consequence, are
+choosing your words badly," he said.  "It was not a freak marriage.
+Although I may have broken the laws of the State of New York by using a
+license issued to some other person, Lady Hermione and I are legally
+husband and wife, and no power on earth can dissolve the union without
+the expressed consent of one or both of us."
+
+"Do you mean me to accept the bald theory that you first learnt the
+lady's name and address from a document discovered in another man's
+overcoat, that you went to her house, told her the man was dead, and
+suggested that you should become the bridegroom in his stead?"
+
+"As an adjective, 'bald' is--well, bald.  But you've got the affair
+sized up accurately otherwise."
+
+"Oh, the shameless hussy!" broke in Mrs. Horace vehemently.
+
+Steingall turned on her with a certain heat of manner.
+
+"Do not interrupt, madam, I beg," he exclaimed.
+
+"Better reserve judgment, aunt, until you have met my wife," said
+Curtis.  He spoke gently enough.  He had appraised his relatives almost
+at a glance, and was sufficiently broad-minded to allow for the natural
+distress of a respectable middle-aged lady who had been whirled, as it
+were, out of her wonted environment, and rapt into the realms of
+necromancy and Arabian Nights.
+
+Steingall swept aside this intermission with the emphatic hand of a
+cross-examining lawyer.
+
+"You say it was 'of vital importance that the lady should be married
+to-night.'  What does that imply?"
+
+"Do you wish me to put it in different language?"
+
+"I want to know what the vitally important reason was.  I presume she
+furnished one?"
+
+"Ah, but how does that concern the New York police, Mr. Steingall?"
+
+"Every element in this business concerns us.  The license was in
+Hunter's possession--was he bringing it to someone named de Courtois?
+Or was he masquerading under an alias?"
+
+"Answering your second question, I imagine not.  I have the best of
+reasons for believing that Jean de Courtois exists.  I wish now I
+hadn't.  Don't you see, Steingall, I am in a deuce of a fix?  I married
+the lady under a misapprehension.  She might have really preferred this
+fellow, de Courtois."
+
+Steingall liked a joke as well as any man in New York, and was not at
+all averse from chaffing some of his less gifted colleagues when their
+obtuseness or faithful adherence to the letter of instructions
+permitted a criminal to befool them; but he resented the levity of
+Curtis's tone now, though, deep in his heart, he felt that he liked the
+man.
+
+"You don't seem to realize the peculiarly awkward position in which you
+stand," he said, with due official gravity.
+
+"On the contrary, I feel it acutely.  What am I to say to my wife----?"
+
+"I am not wrung with agony over the lady's sensitiveness," broke in the
+detective dryly.  "A good many people believe that you were concerned
+in this murder.  There are not lacking circumstantial details which
+warrant that view.  I am not saying too much when I tell you that some
+men, in my shoes, would arrest you forthwith."
+
+Curtis looked at Steingall quizzically, and even laughed with a
+whole-hearted appreciation of the jest.
+
+"Lucky for me I have fallen into the hands of a sensible person," he
+said.
+
+"Allow me to remark," put in Uncle Horace solemnly, "that Mr. Steingall
+has won my unstinted admiration by the way in which he has conducted
+this inquiry."
+
+Devar was beginning to enjoy himself.  He alone was able to estimate
+Curtis at his true worth; even that astounding marriage was losing some
+of its bizarre attributes since Curtis had begun to talk about it.
+
+"Good for you, Mr. Curtis, senior," he crowed delightedly.  "If Indiana
+knew what it really wanted it would run you for Governor."
+
+Steingall nearly became angry.  Indeed, it is probable that he would
+have expressed his sentiments in strong language were it not for the
+presence of Mrs. Curtis.
+
+"Now, sir," he said, with a perceptible stiffening of manner, "let us
+have done with pretense.  You strike me as being sane, yet you ask me
+to believe that you have acted like a lunatic.  Well, let it go at
+that.  Who is this Jean de Courtois, whom Lady Hermione Grandison was
+to have married to-night?"
+
+"My wife tells me that he is a French music-master whom she hired to
+marry her in order that she might escape from a pestiferous person
+named Count Ladislas Vassilan," replied Curtis with cool directness.
+"She brought the obliging individual with her from Paris for the
+purpose, and paid him a thousand dollars as a sort of retaining fee.
+From what little I have seen of her, she impresses me as a charming
+girl wholly without experience of a world which, though not altogether
+wicked, is nevertheless callous and self-seeking.  Among other
+drawbacks, she embarked on a fantastic project with a most disingenuous
+belief in the good faith of a Frenchman.  Now, I admire France as a
+nation, but where women are concerned, I distrust Frenchmen as a race,
+and I suspect--mind you, I am merely guessing--but I repeat that I
+suspect the honesty of Monsieur Jean de Courtois in this matter.  There
+was no earthly reason why he should not have married Lady Hermione some
+weeks ago, but it is clear that he has used every artifice to delay the
+ceremony until to-night--and, it may be found when we learn the facts,
+was prepared to put it off once more till to-morrow or next day.  Why?
+In my opinion, the reason is not far to seek.  The Earl of Valletort
+and Count Ladislas Vassilan were crossing the Atlantic hot in pursuit
+of the unwilling bride.  They arrived in New York to-night, and were so
+well posted in events, both past and prospective, that they headed
+straight for the flat in which Lady Hermione was living with her maid.
+Naturally, I am keenly interested in the causes which led up to a
+peculiarly brutal and uncalled-for murder, and, as my wife's husband, I
+have the further incentive of hoping to bring to justice certain of her
+persecutors whom I cannot help connecting indirectly with the crime of
+which I was, I suppose, one of the most credible and intelligent
+witnesses.  Now, before I was aware that such a winsome creature
+existed as the present Lady Hermione Curtis, I had estimated the
+murderers as Hungarians, two of them at any rate, since I am hardly
+prepared to vouch for the chauffeur.  Count Ladislas Vassilan is a
+Hungarian.  The poor fellow who was killed, though his name is American
+enough, spoke French with a pure accent.  One of the Hungarians spoke
+French, fluently but vilely.  Jean de Courtois is admittedly a
+Frenchman.  I am not a detective, Mr. Steingall, but as a plain man of
+affairs I am forced to the conclusion that there has seldom been a
+similarly mysterious crime in which certain lines of inquiry thrust
+themselves more pertinently on the imagination.  To sum up, I advise
+you to find Jean de Courtois--unless, indeed, he, too, has been
+killed--and you will be in close touch with the origin of the whole
+ugly business."
+
+"Good egg!" cried the irresistible Devar.  "It's a pity you were not
+with us on the _Lusitania_, Mr. Steingall, or you would realize that
+when John D. rears up on his hind legs, and talks like that, there is
+nothing more to be said."
+
+"Is Lady Hermione a pretty girl?" demanded Mrs. Curtis eagerly.  Her
+democratic soul was rejoicing in the discovery that her nephew's wife
+did not lose her title because of the marriage.  Of course, no one ever
+before heard of such folly as this matrimonial leap in the dark, but,
+once taken, there was satisfaction in the thought that the bride was an
+earl's daughter.  Moreover, she had read of such queer goings on among
+the British Aristocracy that a wedding at sight was a comparatively
+venial offense.
+
+Curtis assured his aunt that Hermione was the most beautiful and
+fascinating person he had ever met, and Steingall listened to the
+eulogy with a grinning rictus of jaw.  In the whole course of his
+professional experience he had never encountered anything on a par with
+this capricious blend of comedy and tragedy.
+
+Of course, it did not escape his acute brain that Curtis was right in
+assuming that the _clou_ of the situation lay with Jean de Courtois.
+Dead or alive, the Frenchman must be found, and found quickly.  The
+extraordinary story told by Curtis, if true--and the detective was
+persuaded that this curiously constituted young man was not trying to
+hoodwink him in any particular--pointed a ready way toward
+investigation.  The unfortunate journalist, Hunter, was about to enter
+the Central Hotel when he was attacked so mercilessly.  As a
+consequence, some knowledge of de Courtois was probably awaiting the
+first questioner at the inquiry counter.  What a whimsical incongruity
+it would be if he were told that the French music-master around whom
+the inquiry pivoted was within arm's length all the time!  He had
+actually turned to the door in order to summon the hotel clerk when
+that worthy himself knocked and entered.
+
+"The Earl of Valletort is here, and wishes to have a word with you, Mr.
+Steingall," he said.
+
+The detective's present grim conceit ran somewhat to the effect that if
+he remained long enough in the Central Hotel he would accumulate
+sufficient evidence to electrocute three criminals, at least, and send
+others to the penitentiary, but he merely nodded and said:
+
+"Show his lordship right in."
+
+He was conscious of a dramatic pause in the conversation which had
+broken out between the others.  Once again had Mrs. Curtis been
+rendered dumb by the shock of an unforeseen development.  Devar, who
+was having the night of his life, leaned back against the wainscot,
+Uncle Horace peered hopelessly into an empty tumbler, but dared not
+suggest a second highball, while Curtis, after one sharp glance at the
+detective, whom he credited with having arranged this surprise in some
+inexplicable way, thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets and
+awaited the advent of Hermione's father with a calmness that he himself
+could hardly account for.  Hitherto, his adventurous life had been made
+up of strenuous effort tempered by the Anglo-Saxon phlegm which
+disregards dangers and difficulties.  Prolonged strain of an emotional
+nature was new to him.  He understood, but did not apply the knowledge,
+that when the human vessel is full to the brim with excitement, the
+earth may rock and the heavens roll together in fury without the power
+to add one more drop of gall or distress to the completed measure.  At
+that instant, if the Earl of Valletort had been accompanied by the
+embodied ghosts of his ancestors, Curtis would have viewed the
+procession with unconcern.
+
+The Earl, a handsome slightly built, erect man of fifty, hawk-nosed,
+keen-eyed, with drooping mustache and carefully arranged thin gray
+hair, glanced at Curtis as he might have regarded any other stranger.
+
+"I have disposed of my friend," he said to Steingall, "and I hurried
+back here on off-chance that you might still be engaged in----"
+
+"Before your lordship enters into details, allow me to introduce Mr.
+John D. Curtis," said Steingall, silently thanking the fates which had
+brought about a meeting so opportune to his own task if embarrassing to
+its chief actors.
+
+"Mr. John D. Curtis, the--the person who conspired with my daughter to
+contract an illegal marriage!" barked the Earl, instantly dropping the
+repose of Vere de Vere.
+
+"John Delancy Curtis, at any rate," said Curtis gravely.  "As your
+son-in-law, may I remark that a few minutes' conversation with a lawyer
+will enable you to correct two misstatements in the rest of your
+description?  There was no conspiracy, and the ceremony was
+unquestionably legal."
+
+The Earl gave him one searching and envenomed look, and appealed
+forthwith to the detective.
+
+"I charge that man with abduction and personation," he cried, and his
+voice grew husky with wrath.  "There can be no gainsaying the facts.
+My daughter, it is true, had arranged a marriage with a Monsieur Jean
+de Courtois.  It was provisionally fixed to take place this evening at
+eight o'clock, but, by some means not known to me, the marriage license
+came into the hands of this admitted law-breaker, and he evidently
+persuaded a foolish and impetuous girl to accept him instead of de
+Courtois.  I am not an authority on the laws of the State of New York,
+but I stake my reputation on the belief that a flagrant offense has
+been committed against the social ordinances of any well regulated
+community.  I now call on you to arrest him, or, if official process is
+needed, to direct me to the proper authority."
+
+"Have you any proof of the charge?" said Steingall, who had not failed
+to observe Curtis's air of unconcern under the Earl's fiery
+denunciation.
+
+"Proof in plenty," came the snarling answer.  "I have seen the license
+and the signed register, and Monsieur de Courtois is known to me
+personally.  Besides, have you not this rascal's own admission?"
+
+"Why omit the equally damning evidence of conspiracy?" demanded Curtis.
+
+"What do you mean, you, you----"
+
+"Interloper.  How will that serve?  It was you who spoke of conspiring,
+though I grant you seem to have dropped that item of the indictment.
+But Mr. Steingall, as representing the law, should hear the full tale
+of villainy.  If your lordship will produce de Courtois's letters,
+cablegrams, and wireless messages to yourself and your confederate,
+Count Ladislas Vassilan, he will begin to appreciate the true bearing
+of a rather intricate inquiry."
+
+It was a chance shot, but it went home.  Curtis had not spent ten years
+in counteracting Manchu scheming and duplicity without arriving at
+certain basic principles in laying bare the methods of double-dealing,
+and the Earl of Valletort was manifestly disturbed by this cold
+analysis of facts which he imagined were known to an exceedingly
+limited circle in New York.
+
+But he had the presence of mind to waive aside Curtis's allegations as
+unworthy of discussion.
+
+"I address myself to you," he said to Steingall.  "Have I made my
+request clear, or shall I repeat it?"
+
+"Have you any objection to answering a few questions, my lord?" said
+the detective.
+
+"None whatsoever."
+
+"When did you and Count Vassilan arrive in New York?"
+
+"At twenty minutes after eight to-night."
+
+"How did you ascertain what was happening with regard to your daughter?"
+
+"By inquiry."
+
+"Of course, but from whom?"
+
+"From the minister who performed an unauthorized ceremony."
+
+"How did you know where to go so promptly to secure information?"
+
+"I was kept informed of my daughter's movements by agents."
+
+"Who were they?"
+
+"Their names will be given at the right time."
+
+"The right time is now."
+
+"You are not a magistrate.  I take it you are a police officer."
+
+"Your lordship may feel well assured on that point.  It is exactly
+because I am a police officer that I press for a reply.  Your grievance
+against Mr. John D. Curtis is much more of a matter for a civil than a
+criminal court.  I guess he has broken the law, but the machinery for
+putting it in motion is not under my control.  I am investigating a
+murder, and every word you have said confirms my belief that your
+daughter's contemplated marriage was the indirect but none the less
+certain cause of the crime.  Now, Lord Valletort, who were your inquiry
+agents?"
+
+"Ha!" muttered Uncle Horace.
+
+It was a simple enough ejaculation, but it served to drive home the
+nail which the detective's outspoken declaration had hammered into the
+Earl's startled consciousness.  Here, in truth, was a new and
+disturbing phase of the matrimonial problem contrived by Hermione,
+aided and abetted by that mischievous scoundrel, Curtis.  Still, he was
+not one to be driven easily into a corner.
+
+"You practically refer me to a lawyer for advice; I take you at your
+word," he said, with a quick return to the self-controlled attitude of
+an experienced man of the world.
+
+"You decline, then, to answer the only vitally important question I
+have put to you?" said Steingall.
+
+"I decline to answer that question until I have consulted someone
+better able--or shall I say, more willing?--to instruct me as to the
+speediest means of punishing a malefactor."
+
+"The noble lord is disqualified," broke in Devar.  "This is the second
+time since the flag fell that he has refused his fences."
+
+"If you interrupt again I shall turn you out of the room, Mr. Devar,"
+cried Steingall vexedly.
+
+"But, dash it all, Steingall, somebody must see that John D. has fair
+play.  He only swerved once, and then for a single stride, while he----"
+
+"I shall not warn you a second time," and Devar knew that the detective
+meant what he said, and kept quiet.
+
+"May I ask where the police headquarters are situated?" said the Earl
+in the frostiest tone he could command at the moment.
+
+"At the corner of Center Street and Grand," said Steingall
+indifferently.  He was about to add the unpleasing fact--unpleasing to
+Lord Valletort, that is--that the man on duty at the Detective Bureau
+would certainly refer an inquirer to him, Steingall, when the clerk
+reappeared.
+
+"A patrolman has brought a note for you," he said, handing Steingall a
+sealed letter, which the detective opened instantly after glancing at
+the superscription.  It was from the police captain, and ran:
+
+
+"Count Vassilan has just left the Waldorf-Astoria in a taxi.  Clancy is
+driving."
+
+
+Steingall's face betrayed no more expression than that of the Sphinx,
+though inwardly he was consumed with laughter; he himself was chief of
+the Bureau, and Clancy was his most trusted assistant!  Certainly, the
+gods were contriving a spicy dish for the news-loving inhabitants of
+New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TEN-THIRTY
+
+The Earl of Valletort turned on his heel, and went out abruptly.
+Therefore, he missed Steingall's first words to the hotel clerk, which
+would have given him furiously to think, while it is reasonable to
+suppose that he would have paid quite a large sum of money to have
+heard the clerk's answer.
+
+For the detective said:
+
+"Do you happen to know anything about a Frenchman, name of Jean de
+Courtois?"
+
+And the clerk replied:
+
+"Why, yes.  He's in his room now, I believe."
+
+"In his room--where?"
+
+"Here, of course.  He came in about 6.30, took his key and a
+Marconigram, and has not showed up since."
+
+Uncle Horace could withstand the strain no longer.
+
+"Would you mind sending the waiter again?" he gasped.  "If I don't get
+a pick-me-up of some sort quickly, I'll collapse."
+
+Aunt Louisa would dearly have loved to put in a word, but she knew not
+what to say.  Life at Bloomington supplied no parallel to the rapidity
+of existence in New York that evening.  She was aware of statements
+being made in language which rang familiarly in her ears, but they had
+no more coherence in her clogged understanding than the gabble of
+dementia.
+
+Steingall was the least surprised of the five people who listened to
+the clerk's words.  The notion that de Courtois might be close at hand
+had dawned on him already; still, he was not prepared to hear that the
+man was actually a resident in the hotel.
+
+"Has Monsieur de Courtois lived here some time?" he asked, not without
+a sharp glance at Curtis to see how the suspect was taking this new
+phase in his adventure.
+
+"About a month," said the clerk.
+
+"Has he received many visitors?"
+
+"A few, mostly foreigners.  A Mr. Hunter called here occasionally, and
+they dined together last evening.  I believe Mr. Hunter is connected
+with the press."
+
+The clerk wondered why he was being catechized about the Frenchman.  He
+had no more notion that de Courtois and Hunter were connected with the
+tragedy than the man in the moon.
+
+"Take me to Monsieur de Courtois's room," Said Steingall, after a
+momentary pause.
+
+"May I come with you?" inquired Curtis.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I am deeply interested in de Courtois, and I may be able to help you
+in questioning him.  I speak French well."
+
+"So do I," said Steingall.  "But, come if you like."
+
+"For the love of Heaven, don't leave me out of this, Steingall,"
+pleaded Devar.
+
+The detective was blessed with a sense of humor; he realized that the
+inquiry had long since passed the bounds of official decorum, and its
+irregularities had proved so illuminative that he was not anxious to
+check them yet a while.
+
+"Yes," he said, "you'll do no harm if you keep a still tongue in your
+head."
+
+"You'll come back to us, John, won't you?" broke in Mrs. Curtis,
+desperately contributing the first commonplace remark that occurred to
+her bemused brain.
+
+"Yes, aunt.  I'll rejoin you here.  Shall I have some supper sent in
+for both of you?"
+
+"No, my boy," said Uncle Horace, who had revived under the prospect of
+a long drink.  "If any feasting is to be done later it is up to me to
+arrange it.  The night is young.  I hope to have the honor of toasting
+your wife before I go to bed."
+
+Curtis smiled at that, but made no reply, the moment being inopportune
+for explanations, but Devar murmured, as they crossed the lobby with
+Steingall and the clerk:
+
+"That uncle of yours is a peach, John D.  He points the moral like a
+Greek chorus."
+
+"I fear he will regard me as a hare-brained nephew," said Curtis.  "As
+for my aunt, poor lady, she must think me the most extraordinary human
+being she has ever set eyes on.  What puzzles me most is----"
+
+"Wow!  I know what aunts are capable of," broke in Devar rapidly, for
+he was doubtful now how his friend would regard the publicity he had
+not desired.  "Mrs. Curtis, senior, is thanking her stars at this
+minute that she will have a chance of paralyzing Bloomington with full
+details of her nephew's marriage into the ranks of the British
+aristocracy.  The odd thing is that I'm tickled to death by the notion
+that I, little Howard, put you in for this night's gorgeous doings.
+Didn't you wonder why I passed up an introduction to _my_ aunt and my
+cousins in the Customs shed?  Man alive, if Mrs. Morgan Apjohn had made
+your acquaintance to-day she would have insisted on your dining with
+the family to-night, and at 7.30 P.M.  your feet would have been safely
+tucked under the mahogany in her home on Riverside Drive instead of
+leading you into the maze you seem to have found so readily.  All I
+wanted was an excuse to get away soon.  Gee whizz!  What a fireworks
+display you've put up in the meantime!"
+
+"Fifth," said the clerk to the elevator attendant, and the four men
+shot skyward.
+
+As each floor above the street level was a replica of the next higher
+one, Curtis happened to note that the route followed to the Frenchman's
+room was similar to that leading to 605.
+
+"What number does Monsieur de Courtois occupy?" he inquired.
+
+"505," said the clerk.
+
+"Then it is directly beneath mine?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  He must have heard us breaking open your door."
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Heard what?"
+
+"We committed some minor offenses with regard to your property during
+your absence," said Steingall, "but they were of slight account as
+compared with your own extravagances.  Let me warn you not to say too
+much before de Courtois.  Even taking your version of events, Mr.
+Curtis, Lord Valletort will probably raise a wasps' nest about your
+ears in the morning."
+
+"But why _break open_ the door?  Surely, there was a pass key----"
+
+"Sh-s-sh!  Here we are!"
+
+Steingall tapped lightly on a panel of 505, and the four listened
+silently for any response.  None came--that is, there was nothing which
+could be recognized as the sound of a voice or of human movement inside
+the room.  Nevertheless, they fancied they heard something, and the
+detective knocked again, somewhat more insistently.  Now they were
+intent for the slightest noise behind that closed door, and they caught
+a subdued groan or whine, followed by the metallic creak of a bed-frame.
+
+At that instant a chamber-maid hurried up.
+
+"I was just going to 'phone the office," she said to the clerk.  "A
+little while ago I tried to enter that room, but my key would not turn
+in the lock."
+
+"Did you hear anyone stirring within?" asked the clerk.
+
+"No, sir.  I knocked, and there was no answer."
+
+"Listen now, then."
+
+A third time did Steingall rap on the door, and the strange whine was
+repeated, while there could be no question that a bed was being dragged
+or shoved to and fro on a carpeted floor.
+
+"My land!" whispered the girl in an awed tone.  "There's something
+wrong in there!"
+
+"Let me try your key," said the clerk.  He rattled the master-key in
+the keyhole, but with no avail.
+
+"I suppose it acts all right in every other lock?" he growled.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir.  I've been using it all the evening."
+
+"Someone has tampered with the lock from the outside," he said
+savagely.  "There is nothing for it but to send for the engineer.
+Before we're through with this business we'll pull the d--d hotel to
+pieces.  A nice reputation the place will get if all this door-forcing
+appears in the papers to-morrow."
+
+Certainly the clerk was to be pitied.  Never before had the decorum of
+the Central Hotel been so outraged.  Its air of smug respectability
+seemed to have vanished.  Even to the clerk's own disturbed imagination
+the establishment had suddenly grown raffish, and its dingy paint and
+drab upholstery resembled the make-up and cloak of a scowling tragedian.
+
+A strong-armed workman came joyously.  He had already figured as a
+personage below stairs, because of his earlier experiences, and it was
+a cheering thing to be called on twice in one night to participate in a
+mystery which was undoubtedly connected with the murder in the street.
+
+Before adopting more strenuous methods he inserted a piece of strong
+wire into the keyhole, thinking to pick the lock by that means; but he
+soon desisted.
+
+"Some joker has been at that game before me," he announced.  "A chunk
+of wire has been forced in there after the door was locked."
+
+"From the outside?" inquired Steingall.
+
+"Yes, sir.  These locks work by a key only from without.  There is a
+handle inside. . . .  Well, here goes!"
+
+A few blows with a sharp chisel soon cut away sufficient of the frame
+to allow the door to be forced open.  On this occasion, there being no
+wedge in the center, it was not necessary to attack the hinges, and,
+once the lock was freed, the door swung back readily into the interior
+darkness.
+
+The engineer, remembering his needless alarm at falling head foremost
+into Curtis's room, went forward boldly enough now, and paid for his
+temerity.  He was so anxious to be the first to discover whatever
+horror existed there that he made for the center of the apartment
+without waiting to turn on the light, and, as a consequence, when he
+stumbled over something which he knew was a human body, and was greeted
+with a subdued though savage whine, he was even more frightened than
+before.
+
+But no one was concerned about him or his feelings when Steingall
+touched an electric switch and revealed a bound and gagged man fastened
+to a leg of the bed.  At first, owing to the extraordinary posture of
+the body, it was feared that another tragedy had been enacted.  The
+victim of an uncanny outrage was lying on his side, and his arms and
+legs were roughly but skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise
+that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven.  After securing him in
+this fashion, his assailants had fastened the ends of the rope to the
+iron frame of the bed, and his only possible movement was an
+ignominious half roll, back and forth, in a space of less than eight
+inches.  This maneuver he had evidently been engaged in as soon as he
+heard voices and knocking outside, but he had been gagged with such
+brutal efficacy that his sole effort at speech was a species of whinny
+through his nose.
+
+The detective's knife speedily liberated him; when he was lifted from
+the floor and laid gently on the bed, he remained there, quite
+speechless and overcome.
+
+Steingall turned to the agitated chambermaid, whose eyes were round
+with terror, and who would certainly have alarmed the hotel with her
+screams had she come upon the occupant of the room in the course of her
+rounds.
+
+"Bring a glass of hot milk, as quickly as you can," he said, and the
+girl sped away to the service telephone.
+
+"Wouldn't brandy be better?" inquired Devar.
+
+"No.  Milk is the most soothing liquid in a case like this.  The man's
+jaws are sore and aching.  Probably, too, he is faint from fright and
+want of food.  If we can get him to sip some milk he will be able to
+tell us, perhaps, just what has happened."
+
+While they awaited the return of the chamber-maid, the party of
+rescuers gazed curiously at the prostrate figure on the bed.  They saw
+a small, slight, neatly built man, attired in evening dress, whose
+sallow face was in harmony with a shock of black hair.  A large and
+somewhat vicious mouth was partly concealed by a heavy black mustache,
+and the long-fingered, nervous hands were sure tokens of the artistic
+temperament.  There could be no manner of doubt that this hapless
+individual was Jean de Courtois.  He looked exactly what he was, a
+French musician, while initials on his boxes, and a number of letters
+on the dressing-table, all testified to his identity.
+
+Curtis, Devar, and the hotel clerk seemed to be more interested in the
+appearance of the half-insensible de Courtois than Steingall.  He gave
+him one penetrating glance, and would have known the man again after
+ten years had they been parted that instant; but, if he favored the
+Frenchman with scant attention, he made no scruples about examining the
+documents on the table, though his first care was to thank the workman,
+and send him from the room.
+
+"Now," he muttered to the others in a low tone, "leave the questioning
+to me, and mention no names."
+
+He picked up a Marconigram lying among the letters, and read it.
+Without a word, but smiling slightly, he handed it unobtrusively to
+Curtis.  It bore that day's date, and the decoded time of delivery was
+4 P.M.
+
+"Arriving to-night," it ran.  "Coming direct Fifty-Ninth Street.
+Expect us there about eight-thirty."
+
+Curtis smiled, too.  He grasped the detective's unspoken thought.
+Steingall had as good as said that the message bore out Curtis's
+counter charge against Count Vassilan and the Earl of Valletort of
+conspiring with de Courtois himself to defeat Lady Hermione's marriage
+project.  Indeed, before replacing the slip of paper on the table, the
+detective produced a note-book, and entered therein particulars which
+would secure proof of the Marconigram's origin if necessary.
+
+The maid hurried in with the milk, and Steingall, who had covered more
+ground among the Frenchman's correspondence than the others gave him
+credit for, now acted as nurse.  With some difficulty he succeeded in
+persuading the stricken man on the bed to relax his firmly closed jaws
+and endeavor to swallow the fluid.  It was a tedious business, but
+progress became more rapid when de Courtois realized that he was in the
+hands of those who meant well by him.  It was noticeable, too, as his
+senses returned and the panic glare left his eyes, that his expression
+changed from one of abject fear to a lowering look of suspicious
+uncertainty.  He peered at Steingall and the hotel clerk many times,
+but gave Curtis and Devar only a perfunctory glance.  Oddly enough, the
+fact that the two latter were in evening dress seemed to reassure him,
+and it became evident later that the presence of the clerk led him to
+regard these strangers as guests in the hotel who had been attracted to
+his room by the mere accident of propinquity.
+
+His first intelligible words, uttered in broken English, were:
+
+"Vat time ees eet?"
+
+"Ten-thirty," said Steingall.
+
+"_Ah, cre nom d'un nom_!  I haf to go, queek!"
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"No mattaire.  I tank you all to-morrow.  I explain eferyting den.
+Now, I go."
+
+"You had better stay where you are, Monsieur de Courtois," said
+Steingall in French.  "Milord Valletort and Count Vassilan have
+arrived.  I have seen them, and nothing more can be done with respect
+to their affair tonight.  I am the chief of the New York Detective
+Bureau, and I want you to tell me how you came to be in the state in
+which you were found."
+
+But de Courtois was regaining his wits rapidly, and the clarifying of
+his senses rendered him obviously unwilling to give any information as
+to the cause of his own plight.  Nor would he speak French.  For some
+reason, probably because of a permissible vagueness in statements
+couched in a foreign tongue, he insisted on using English.
+
+"Eef you haf seen my frien's you tell me vare I fin' dem.  I come your
+office to-morrow, an' make ze complete explanation," he said.
+
+"I must trouble you to-night, please," insisted Steingall quietly.
+"You don't understand what has occurred while you were fastened up
+here.  You know Mr. Henry R. Hunter?"
+
+"Yes, yes.  I know heem."
+
+"Well, he was stabbed while alighting from an automobile outside this
+hotel shortly before eight o'clock, and I imagine he was coming to see
+you."
+
+"Stabbed!  Did zey keel heem?"
+
+"Yes.  Now, tell me who 'they' were."
+
+Monsieur Jean de Courtois was taken instantly and violently ill.  He
+dropped back on the bed, from which he had risen valiantly in his
+eagerness to be stirring, and faintly proclaimed his inability to grasp
+what the detective was saying.
+
+"Ah, _Grand Dieu_!" he murmured.  "I am eel; fetch a doctaire.  My
+brain, eet ees, vat you say, _etourdi_."
+
+"You will soon recover from your illness.  Come, now, pull yourself
+together, and tell me who the men were who tied you up, and why, if you
+can give a reason."
+
+The Frenchman shut his eyes, and groaned.
+
+"I am stranjare here, Monsieur le Commissaire," he said brokenly.  "I
+know no ones, nodings.  Milor' Valletort, he ees acquaint.  Send for
+heem, and bring ze doctaire."
+
+"Don't you understand that your friend, Mr. Hunter, the journalist who
+was helping you in the matter of Lady Hermione Grandison's marriage,
+has been murdered?"
+
+The other men in the room caught a new quality in Steingall's voice.
+Contempt, disgust, utter disdain of a type of rascal whom he would
+prefer to deal with most fittingly by kicking him, were revealed in
+each syllable; but Jean de Courtois was apparently deaf to the mean
+opinion his conduct was inducing among those who had extricated him
+from a disagreeable if not actually dangerous predicament.  He squirmed
+convulsively, and half sobbed his inability to realize the true nature
+of anything that had happened either to himself or to any other person.
+
+"Very well," said the detective, "if you are so thoroughly knocked out
+I'll see that you are kept quiet for the rest of the evening."
+
+He turned to the clerk.
+
+"Kindly arrange that two trustworthy men shall undress this ill-used
+gentleman.  He may be given anything to eat or drink that he requires,
+but if he shows signs of delirium, such as a desire to go out, or write
+letters, or use the telephone, he must be stopped, forcibly if
+necessary.  Should he become violent, ring up the nearest police
+station-house.  I'll send a doctor to him in a few minutes."
+
+De Courtois revived slightly under the stimulus of these emphatic
+directions.
+
+"I haf not done ze wrong," he protested.  "Eet ees me who suffare, and
+I do not permeet dis interference wid my leebairty."
+
+"You see," said Steingall coolly.  "His mind is wandering already.
+Just 'phone for a couple of attendants, will you, and I'll give them
+instructions.  I take full responsibility, of course."
+
+"But, monsieur----" cried the Frenchman.
+
+"Would you mind getting a move on?  I am losing time here," said
+Steingall quietly to the clerk.
+
+"I claim ze protection of my consul," sputtered de Courtois.
+
+"Poor fellow!  He is quite light-headed," said the detective
+sympathetically, addressing the company at large but speaking in
+French.  "I do hope most sincerely that I may arrest those infernal
+Hungarians to-night.  Not only did they kill Hunter but they have
+brought this little man to death's door."
+
+The effect of these few harmless sounding words was electrical.
+Monsieur de Courtois' angry demeanor suddenly changed to that of a
+sufferer almost as seriously injured as Steingall made out.  He
+collapsed utterly, and never lifted his head even when most drastic
+measures were enjoined on a couple of sturdy negroes as to the care
+that must be devoted to the invalid.
+
+Steingall was astonishingly outspoken to Curtis and Devar while they
+were walking to the elevator.
+
+"I am surprised that that miserable whelp escaped with his life," he
+said.  "Usually, in cases of this sort, the rascal who betrays his
+friends receives short shrift from those who make use of him.  He knows
+too much for their safety, and gets a knife between his ribs as soon as
+his services cease to be valuable."
+
+"I must confess that I don't begin to grasp the bearings of this
+affair," admitted Curtis.  "It is almost grotesque to imagine that a
+number of men could be found in New York who would stop short of no
+crime, however daring, simply to prevent a young lady from marrying in
+despite of her father's wishes."
+
+"Of course, the young lady figures large in your eyes," said Steingall
+with a dry laugh.  "You haven't thought this matter out, Mr. Curtis.
+When you have slept on it, and the fact dawns on you that there are
+other people in the world than the charming Lady Hermione, you will
+realize that she is a mere pawn around whom a number of very important
+persons are contending.  I don't wish to say a word to depreciate her
+as a star of the first magnitude, but I am greatly mistaken if there is
+not another woman, either here or in Europe, whose personality, if
+known, would attract far more attention from the police. . . .  By the
+way, has it occurred to you that Providence has certainly befriended
+you to-night?  The dare-devils who murdered Hunter were inclined to
+kill you in error. . . .  Now, I want you to concentrate your mind on
+the face and expression of that chauffeur, Anatole.  Keep him
+constantly in your thoughts.  If you can swear to him when we parade
+him before you with half-a-dozen other men, I shall soon strip the
+inquiry of its mystery."
+
+In the hall they were surrounded by a squad of reporters, and three
+photographers took flashlight pictures.
+
+"Hello!" muttered the detective to Curtis, "they've found you!  Now we
+must use our brains to get you out of this."
+
+They escaped the journalists by closing the door of the office on them.
+Then the clerk was summoned, and solved the first difficulty by
+revealing a back-stairs exit by way of the basement.  An attendant was
+sent to Curtis's room, to pack a grip with some clothes and linen, and,
+by adroit maneuvering, the whole party got away from the hotel.
+
+Steingall insisted on interviewing Lady Hermione that night.  He
+pointed out, reasonably enough, that she might possess a good deal of
+valuable information concerning Count Ladislas Vassilan; if, as Curtis
+believed was the case, she had already retired to rest, she must be
+aroused.  The hour was not so late, and Vassilan's movements in New
+York might be elucidated by knowledge of his previous career.
+
+So Curtis announced that his bride was installed in the Plaza Hotel,
+and, while he and Devar escaped through the cellars, Steingall took
+Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa boldly through the lobby.  A taxi was
+waiting there, and he gave the driver the address of the police
+headquarters downtown, but re-directed him when they were safe from
+pursuit, and the three, so oddly assorted as companions, arrived at the
+Plaza within a minute of the two young men.
+
+Steingall went straight to the telephone room, and Curtis ascended to
+his suite of apartments.  He knocked at Hermione's door, and her "Yes,
+who is there?" came with disconcerting speed.  Evidently, she was far
+from being asleep yet.
+
+"It is I--dear," said Curtis, in whom the mere sense of being near his
+"wife" induced a species of vertigo.  Indeed, he was horribly nervous,
+since he could not form the slightest notion as to the manner in which
+she would receive the latest news of de Courtois.
+
+The door was opened without delay, and Hermione appeared, dressed
+exactly as she was when he bade her farewell.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but it cannot be helped.  Things
+have been happening since I left you."
+
+Her face blanched, but she tried to smile, though the corners of her
+mouth drooped piteously.
+
+"They are not here already?" she cried, and he had no occasion to ask
+who "they" were.
+
+"No," he said, with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.  "The fact
+is I--I--have brought some friends to see you.  That is, some of them
+will, I hope, be your very good friends--my uncle and aunt, and young
+Howard Devar, whom I spoke about earlier.  There is a detective, too--a
+very decent fellow named Steingall.  Shall I bring them here?  It will
+be pleasanter than being stared at in a crowded supper room."
+
+She was surprised, but the relief in her tone was unmistakable.
+
+"I don't want any supper," she said.  "I shall be glad to meet your
+relatives, of course, though----"
+
+"Though you think I might have mentioned them sooner?  Well, the
+strangest part of the business is that they should be in New York at
+all.  I haven't the remotest idea as to why they are here, or how they
+dropped across me.  But isn't it a rather fortunate thing?  They may
+prove useful in a hundred ways."
+
+"Please don't keep them waiting.  What does the detective want?"
+
+"Every syllable you can tell him about Count Vassilan."
+
+"I hardly know the man at all.  I always avoided him in Paris."
+
+"You may be astonished by the number of facts you will produce when
+Steingall questions you.  And, I had better warn you that my uncle is
+even now consulting the head-waiter about a wedding feast.  He has
+adopted you without reservation on my poor description."
+
+His frankly admiring look brought a blush to her cheeks; but she only
+laughed a little constrainedly, and murmured that she would try to be
+as complacent as the occasion demanded.  Events were certainly in
+league to lend her wedding night a remarkably close semblance to the
+real thing.  And as Curtis descended to the foyer to summon their
+waiting guests he decided then and there not to mar the festivities by
+any explanations concerning Jean de Courtois's second time on earth.
+Steingall had practically settled the question by confining the
+Frenchman to his room for the remainder of the night.  Why interfere
+with an admirable arrangement?  Let the wretched intriguer be forgotten
+till the morrow, at any rate!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ELEVEN O'CLOCK
+
+"In multitude of counselors there is safety," says the Book of
+Proverbs.  Usually, the philosophy attributed to Solomon exhibits a
+soundness of judgment which is unrivaled, so it is reasonable to assume
+that in Hebrew gnomic thought four do not constitute a multitude,
+because four people agreed with Curtis that there was not the slightest
+need to mention Jean de Courtois to Hermione that evening, and five
+people were wrong, though in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they
+might have been right.  Hermione herself admitted afterwards that she
+would have believed Curtis implicitly had he explained the
+circumstances which accounted for his undoubted conviction that de
+Courtois was dead; indeed, she went so far as to say that, as a matter
+of choice, she infinitely preferred the American to the Frenchman in
+the role of a husband _pro tem_.  She had never regarded de Courtois
+from any other point of view than as her paid ally, and she was
+beginning to share Curtis's belief that the man was a double-dealer, a
+fact which helped to modify her natural regret at the report of his
+death in her behalf.
+
+In a calmer mood, too, Curtis would have been quick to realize that a
+girl who had reposed such supreme confidence in his probity was
+entitled to share his fullest knowledge of the extraordinary bond which
+united them, but for one half-hour he was swayed by expediency, and
+expediency often exercises a disrupting influence on a friendship
+founded on faith.  He only meant to spare her the dismay which could
+hardly fail to manifest itself when she heard that de Courtois was
+alive, and that additional complications must now arise with reference
+to the wrongful use of the marriage license; in reality, he was doing
+himself a bitter injustice.
+
+But, having elected for a definite course, he was not a man who would
+deviate from it by a hair's breadth.  When the junta in the vestibule
+of the Plaza Hotel had promised to remain mute on the topic of de
+Courtois, he dismissed the matter from his mind as having no further
+influence on the night's doings.
+
+"Is there any means of recovering my overcoat?" he asked Steingall,
+remembering the change of garments when a waiter asked if the gentlemen
+cared to deposit their hats and coats in the cloak-room.
+
+"Yes," said the detective.  "Just empty the pockets of the coat you are
+wearing, and I'll send a messenger to the police station-house with a
+note.  You won't mind if I retain your documents till after the
+inquest?  One never knows what questions will be asked, and you must
+remember that an attempt may be made to fasten the crime upon you."
+
+Curtis laughed at the absurdity of any such notion, but, for the first
+time, he examined the contents of the dead man's coat pockets
+methodically.  The pocket in which the license had reposed was empty.
+Its fellow contained a notebook and pencil.  There were also some
+newspaper cuttings--items of current interest in New York, but devoid
+of bearing on the crime or its cognate developments.
+
+An elastic band caused the book to open at a definite page, and
+Steingall, who knew a little of everything, and a great deal of all
+matters appertaining to his profession, deciphered some shorthand
+characters which promised enlightenment.  He passed no comment,
+however, but pocketed the book, scribbled a few lines on a sheet of
+paper bearing the name of the hotel, and intrusted coat and letter to
+an attendant.
+
+Uncle Horace, after a momentary qualm, gave instructions to the
+head-waiter in the approved manner of a trust magnate.
+
+"We're up against it now, Louisa," he whispered confidentially to his
+wife, "so let's have one wonderful night if we never have another."
+
+Mrs. Curtis nodded her complete agreement.  She would have sanctioned a
+mortgage on her home rather than forego any material part of an
+experience which would command the breathless attention of many a
+future gathering of matrons and maids in faraway Bloomington.
+
+Lady Hermione received her visitors with a shy cordiality which won
+their prompt approval.  Aunt Louisa had been perplexed by indecision as
+to what she was to say or how she was to act when she met the bride,
+but one glance of her keen, motherly eyes at the blushing and timid
+girl resolved any doubts on both scores.
+
+"God bless you, my dear!" she said, throwing her arms around Hermione's
+neck and kissing her heartily.  "Perhaps everything is for the best,
+and, anyway, you've married into a family of honest men and true women."
+
+"Ma'am," said Uncle Horace, when his turn came to be introduced,
+"strange as it may sound, I know less about my nephew than you
+yourself, but if he resembles his father in character as he does in
+appearance, you've chosen well, and let me add, ma'am, that _he_ seems
+to have made a first-rate selection at sight."
+
+Of course, such congratulations were woefully misplaced, but Hermione
+was too well-bred to reveal any cause for disquietude other than the
+normal embarrassment any young woman would display in like conditions.
+
+Curtis, too, put in a quiet word which threw light on the situation.
+
+"As I told you a few minutes since, I was not aware that my uncle and
+aunt were in New York," he said.  "I cannot even guess how they came to
+find me so opportunely, and we have hardly been able to say a word to
+each other yet, because they were in the thick of the police inquiry
+when I met them in my hotel."
+
+"Why, that's the easiest thing," declared Aunt Louisa, rejoicing in a
+long-looked-for opportunity to hear her own voice in full volume.
+"This young gentleman here," and she nodded at the dismayed Devar,
+"told us that he cottoned to your husband, my dear, something
+remarkable on board the steamer, so he sent a message by wireless to
+the editor of a New York paper, asking him to let America know that one
+of her citizens who had won distinction in China was homeward bound,
+and the editor circulated a real nice paragraph about it.  It quite
+took my breath away when Mrs. Harvey, our mayor's wife--such a charming
+woman, my dear, and I do hope I may have the pleasure of bringing you
+to one of her delightful tea-and-bridge afternoons--said to me on
+Monday: 'Surely, Mrs. Curtis, this John Delancy Curtis who is on board
+the _Lusitania_ must be a son of that brother of your husband who died
+in China some years ago?' and I said: 'What in the world are you
+talking about, Mrs. Harvey?' so she showed me the newspaper, and I was
+that taken aback that I revoked in the next hand, and the only mean
+player we have in the club claimed three tricks 'without,' and went
+game, being a woman herself who hasn't chick nor child, but devotes far
+too much time and money to toy dogs; anyhow, I couldn't give my mind to
+cards any more that day, so off I rushed home and 'phoned Horace, and
+here we are, after such a flurry as you never would imagine, what
+between packing in a hurry for the trip east, and missing the steamer's
+arrival by nearly an hour, and turning up in the Central Hotel just in
+time to hear----"  Then Aunt Louisa, assuredly at no loss for words,
+but remembering in a hazy way the compact made in the vestibule, found
+it incumbent on her to break away from the main trend of the narrative,
+so she concluded: "Just in time to hear things being said about our
+nephew which we felt bound to deny, both for his sake and our own."
+
+Curtis had favored Devar with a questioning scowl when he learnt how
+his advent had been heralded in the press, but Devar merely vouchsafed
+a brazen wink, and in the next breath Hermione herself became his
+unconscious and most persuasive advocate.
+
+"I have been bothering my brains to discover when or where I had seen
+Mr. Curtis's name before--before we met to-night," she said, smiling at
+the ridiculous vagueness of her own phrase.  "Now I remember.  I used
+to read the newspaper reports about every ship that arrived, and I
+noticed that identical paragraph."
+
+"Thank you, Lady Hermione," cried Devar, crowing inwardly over his
+friend's discomfiture.  "John D. will begin to believe soon what I have
+been telling him during the last half-hour--that I am the real _Deus ex
+machina_ of the whole business.  Why, if it hadn't been for me you two
+would never have got married, and this merry party couldn't have
+happened!"
+
+A knock at the door caused Hermione to turn with a startled look.  Try
+as she might, she dreaded every such incident as the preliminary to a
+stormy interview with her father.
+
+"Unless I am greatly mistaken, ma'am," interposed Uncle Horace blandly,
+"this will be a waiter coming to tell us that supper is ready."
+
+As usual, he said the correct thing, and Steingall drew Hermione aside
+while the table was being spread for the feast.  He lost no time in
+coming to the point.  His first demand showed that he took nothing for
+granted.
+
+"I am bound to speak plainly, your ladyship," he said.  "Is the
+remarkable story told by Mr. John D. Curtis true?"
+
+"Regarding the marriage?" said Hermione promptly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, as I do not know what he may have said, you can decide that
+matter for yourself after you have heard my version.  I am a fugitive
+from Paris, where my father was endeavoring to force me into a
+detestable union: I am practically a complete stranger in New York: I
+had arranged with Monsieur de Courtois to become my husband, under a
+clear agreement for money paid that the marriage should serve only as a
+shield against my pursuers; he was prevented by some dreadful men from
+keeping to-night's appointment, and Mr. Curtis came to me, intending to
+break the news somewhat more gently than one might look for otherwise.
+He heard my sad little explanation, and was sorry for me.  As it
+happened, he appreciated the real nature of my predicament, and, having
+no ties to prevent such a daring step, offered me the protection of his
+name until such time as I become my own mistress and am free to secure
+a dissolution of the marriage."
+
+"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?" said the detective.  His
+voice was kindly, and his expression gravely sympathetic, and Hermione
+could not read the amused tolerance lurking behind the mask of those
+keen eyes.
+
+"I mean that I am yet what lawyers call an infant.  In six months I
+shall be twenty-one, and the coercion which has been used to force me
+into marrying Count Ladislas Vassilan will be no longer possible."
+
+"Do you forfeit an inheritance by refusing to obey Lord Valletort's
+wishes?"
+
+"No, unless with respect to my father's estate.  My mother was wealthy,
+and her money is settled on me most securely."
+
+"In trust?"
+
+"Yes, I have trustees, an English banker and a clergyman."
+
+"But, if they are men of good standing, they ought to have protected
+you from undue interference."
+
+"An earl is of good standing, too, in my country, and Count Vassilan
+claims royal rank in Hungary.  I loathe the man, yet every one of my
+friends and relatives urged me to accept him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has a chance of obtaining a throne when the
+Austro-Hungarian Empire breaks up, and my wealth will help his cause
+materially."
+
+Steingall allowed himself to appear surprised.
+
+"Is your income so large, then?" he said.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so.  My trustees tell me that I am worth nearly a
+hundred thousand a year."
+
+"Dollars?"
+
+"No--pounds sterling."
+
+They were conversing in subdued tones, yet the detective behaved like a
+commonplace mortal in giving a rabbit-peep sideways to ascertain if the
+girl's astounding statement had been overheard by the others.  But the
+members of the Curtis family of honest men and true women had withdrawn
+purposely to the far side of the room, and Devar was laboring to
+convince his friend that he had acted wisely in placarding his name and
+fame throughout the United States.
+
+"To your knowledge, Lady Hermione, is any other person in New York
+aware that you are several times a millionaire?"
+
+"I think not.  Poor Jean de Courtois may have had some notion of the
+fact, but I lived so unostentatiously in Paris that he would
+necessarily be inclined to minimize the amount of my fortune.  Tell me,
+Mr. Steingall, do you really think he----"
+
+The detective shook his head, and laughed with official dryness.
+
+"Forgive me, Lady Hermione," he said, "but I must not advance any
+theories, at present.  Now, as to Count Vassilan--how long have you
+known him?"
+
+"About a year."
+
+"Has he been your suitor practically all that time?"
+
+"Yes.  The first day we met I was told by my father that I ought to be
+proud if he chose me as his wife.  So I hated him from the very
+beginning."
+
+"You took a dislike to him, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, an instant and violent dislike.  But that is not all.  There are
+things I cannot mention, though they are the common property of anyone
+who has mixed in Parisian society during the past twelve months.
+Surely you will be able to find men and women in this great city who
+can supply enough of Paris gossip to show you clearly what manner of
+man this Hungarian prince really is!"
+
+Hermione's face showed the distress she felt, and Steingall's
+disposition was far too generous to permit of any further probing in
+this direction when the inquiry gave pain to a young and
+innocent-minded girl.
+
+"To-morrow," he said grimly, "I may read several chapters of Count
+Vassilan's life.  But so much depends on this night's work.  At any
+minute--certainly within an hour--I shall have news which may be
+affected most markedly by some chance hint supplied by you.  I want you
+to understand, Lady Hermione, that Mr. Curtis's share in the queer
+tangle of the past few hours is not so simple or unimportant as you
+seem to imagine.  I believe he has been actuated by the best of
+motives----"
+
+"Oh, yes, I am sure of it," she broke in eagerly.  "If I am fated never
+to see him again after to-night I shall always remember him as a true
+friend and gallant gentleman."
+
+Steingall bit back the words which rose unbidden to his lips.  He had
+certainly been wallowing in romance since the telephone called him to
+the Central Hotel, but even in the pages of fiction he had never found
+a more wildly improbable theory than the likelihood of John Delancy
+Curtis allowing any consideration short of death to separate him from
+such a bride as Lady Hermione within the short space of time she
+apparently regarded as the possible span of her married life.
+
+"Ah," he murmured, "if he is wise he will call you to give evidence in
+his behalf.  Judges exercise a good deal of latitude in these matters."
+
+"But will he be arrested for marrying me?  If any wrong has been done
+with respect to the marriage license, I am equally to blame," she said
+loyally.
+
+Steingall frowned judicially.  Their conversation was approaching
+perilously near the forbidden topic of de Courtois.
+
+"In law, as in most affairs of life, it does no good to meet trouble
+half way, your ladyship," he said.  "Now, reverting to the Hungarian
+prince--do you remember the names of any persons, of either sex, whom
+he associated with in Paris?  Of course, such a man would be widely
+known in what is called society, but I want you to try and recall some
+of his intimate friends."
+
+"I believe you would find his boon companions in certain cafes on the
+Grand Boulevard and in the vaudeville theaters on Montmartre; but would
+it not help you a little if I told you of his enemies?"
+
+"Most certainly."
+
+"Well, I do happen to know that he is hated most cordially by the
+Countess Marie Zapolya, who lives in the Hotel Ritz."
+
+"In Paris?"
+
+"Yes.  She advised me to shun him as I would the plague."
+
+"Did she give any reason?"
+
+"It may sound strange, but I really believe she wants him to marry her
+daughter."
+
+"Ah, that is interesting.  Pray go on."
+
+"I never understood the thing rightly, but I heard once, through a
+servant, that Count Vassilan was expected to wed Elizabetta
+Zapolya--the succession to the Hungarian monarchy, if ever it were
+revived, was involved--but Count Vassilan spurned the lady.  The
+Countess is furious because her daughter was slighted, yet wishes to
+compel him to fulfill his obligations."
+
+"In that event, she would be anxious to see you safely married to some
+other person?"
+
+"Oh, she was.  She visited me, several times, and advised me not to
+risk a life-long unhappiness by becoming mixed up in the maze of
+Mid-Europe politics.  And--there is something else.  Poor Elizabetta
+Zapolya, who is somewhat older than me, is in love with an attache at
+the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Paris."
+
+"Have you his name?"
+
+"Yes.  Captain Eugene de Karely."
+
+"How does he stand with regard to Count Vassilan?"
+
+"I am told that he has challenged him repeatedly to a duel, but Count
+Vassilan cannot meet him because they are not equals in the grades of
+Hungarian aristocracy.  I am glad that Mr. Curtis did not wait to
+consult the Almanach de Gotha when _he_ encountered the wretch.  Has he
+told you that he hit him?"
+
+"I have seen the Count," said Steingall.
+
+"Where?"
+
+The detective was not deaf to the note of alarm in her voice, but the
+matter must be broached some time, and why not now?
+
+"At the Central Hotel, about an hour ago," he said.
+
+"Was my father with him?"
+
+"Yes.  The Earl has also had the pleasure of a few minutes' talk with
+Mr. Curtis."
+
+Hermione was open-eyed with surprise.
+
+"Mr. Curtis has not said a word of this to me," she cried, and her
+louder tone traveled across the room.
+
+"Said a word about what?" inquired Curtis, being not unwilling to break
+in on the conversation, which he thought had lasted quite long enough.
+
+"That my father and Count Vassilan had met you at your hotel."
+
+"No, not Count Vassilan," explained the detective.  "He had gone before
+Mr. Curtis came, but Lord Valletort returned."
+
+"Did he ask you where I was?" demanded the girl breathlessly,
+addressing Curtis.
+
+"No.  He tried to have me arrested, and failed.  I think he looked on
+me as an unlikely subject to yield unnecessary information."
+
+"Supper is served, sir," said a maitre d'hotel to Uncle Horace, and
+further discussion of Count Vassilan's tangled matrimonial schemes
+became difficult for the moment.
+
+Steingall was pressed to join the party--without prejudice to any
+official duties he might be called on to perform next day, as Curtis
+put it pleasantly--and consented.  Once again had his instinct been
+justified, for he was sure that Lady Hermione's Parisian reminiscences
+would prove important in some way not yet determinable.  Moreover, his
+colleagues knew he was at the Plaza Hotel, and he was content to remain
+there while his trusted aide, Clancy, was acting as chauffeur during
+Count Vassilan's belated excursion.
+
+The police captain was keeping an eye on the Waldorf-Astoria, a
+detective was searching the apartment rented by the murdered
+journalist, and other men of the Bureau were hunting the record of the
+automobile, though Steingall was convinced that this branch of the
+inquiry would end in a blind alley, because the car had undoubtedly
+been stolen, and its lawful owner would only be able to identify it,
+and declare that, to the best of his belief, it was locked in a garage
+at the time it was being used for the commission of a crime.  Steingall
+assumed that the unfortunate Hunter--or it might have been de
+Courtois--was led to hire this particular vehicle by adroit
+misrepresentation on the part of some unknown scoundrels who were aware
+of the contemplated marriage.  The shorthand notes in Hunter's book
+bore out this theory, because they were obviously data supplied by de
+Courtois which would have enabled the journalist to write a thoroughly
+sensational story next day.  He was convinced, when the truth was
+known, it would be discovered that Hunter made the Frenchman's
+acquaintance owing to his habit of mixing with the strange underworld
+from the Continent of Europe which has its lost legion in New York.  De
+Courtois was just the sort of vainglorious little man who would welcome
+the notoriety of such an adventure as the prevented marriage ceremony,
+wherein his name would figure with those of distinguished people, and
+the last thing he counted on was the murder of the scribe who had
+promised him columns of descriptive matter in the press.  The pert
+musician was not the first, nor would he be the last, to find that the
+role of cat's-paw is apt to prove more exacting than was anticipated.
+To his chagrin, he saw himself changed suddenly from a trusted agent
+into a dupe, and his utter collapse on hearing of the murder fitted in
+exactly with the theory taking shape in the detective's mind--that
+there were two implacable forces at war in New York that night, that
+Lady Hermione's marriage to Count Vassilan or the Frenchman provided
+the immediate bone of contention, and that the struggle had been
+complicated by a too literal interpretation of instructions carried out
+by bitter partisans.
+
+In the midst of a lively conversation, the telephone jangled its
+imperative message from a wall bracket in the room.  Devar was nearest
+the instrument, and he answered the call.
+
+"It's for you, Mr. Steingall," he said.
+
+The detective would have preferred greater privacy, but he rose at once
+and answered.
+
+"And who is Mr. Krantz?" he demanded.  Then, after a pause: "Oh,
+yes. . . .  Is he? . . .  You needn't trouble at all about that.  The
+police surgeon, at my request, has dosed him with sufficient bromide to
+keep him quiet till to-morrow morning. . . .  Yes, I understand.  Tell
+them it can't be done, and refer them to the Centre-street
+Bureau. . . .  What? . . .  No, so far as I can guess, the engineer
+won't be wanted again to-night."
+
+He hung up the receiver, and returned to his seat, though he had just
+been informed that the Earl of Valletort and another person, having
+ascertained by some means that de Courtois still lived, were raising a
+commotion at the Central Hotel and demanding access to the Frenchman's
+room.
+
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+
+"Please, am I mixed up with Mr. Krantz?" inquired Hermione, smiling,
+for it was a bizarre experience to find herself interested in all sorts
+and conditions of people whom she had never heard of.
+
+"Mr. Krantz is the reception clerk at the Central Hotel," was the
+answer, which conveyed fuller information to other ears than the
+girl's.  Then Steingall glanced at his watch.
+
+"I think some of you people must be tired after a strenuous day," he
+said.  "I expect to be called away soon, and it is possible that I may
+want to disturb you, Mr. Curtis, before you retire for the night.  Do
+you intend to remain here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+For an instant, an appreciable constraint manifested its presence, and
+Uncle Horace did not display his wonted tact when he accentuated it by
+a dry chuckle, _a propos_ of nothing in particular.  Curtis relieved
+the situation after a slight hesitation.
+
+"Lady Hermione, I take it, will now go to bed," he said coolly, "and,
+if she is wise, will refuse to unlock her door again till her maid
+comes in the morning.  I purpose changing my clothes, in case I may
+have to accompany you on some midnight expedition.  My uncle and aunt
+will tell us where they are staying, and arrange to meet us here at
+lunch to-morrow.  You, Devar, being an approved night hawk, will join
+me in a cigar.  How is that for a reasonable disposal of the company,
+Mr. Steingall?"
+
+As though in reply, the telephone rang again, and the detective lifted
+the receiver from its hook.
+
+"Hello!  That you, Clancy?" he said.  "Right.  I'll come along by the
+subway from 59th Street--that will be quicker than a taxi . . .
+yes . . . yes."
+
+He turned, and the five people in the room saw that his face was
+glowing with the fire of action.
+
+"You can defer that change of suits, Mr. Curtis.  We must be off at
+once. . . .  Mr. Devar, have you an automobile?  Can you get hold of it
+now?  Well, 'phone your chauffeur to be at Centre-street headquarters
+in as much under half-an-hour as he can manage.  Taxi-drivers gossip
+among themselves, so a private car is better. . . .  Excuse the rush,
+Lady Hermione, and you, too, Mrs. Curtis.  I haven't another minute to
+spare."
+
+Luckily, Curtis found his overcoat awaiting him in the cloak room, or
+he might have been in a difficulty, for New York in November is not a
+city which encourages midnight journeys in evening dress.
+
+Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa were hurried into a taxi, and as they were
+being whisked off to the quiet hotel to which their baggage had been
+consigned, the stout man began polishing his domed forehead once more.
+
+"Lou," he said, "I can't make head nor tail of this business.  Can you?"
+
+"Not yet, Horace," was the hopeful response.
+
+"But--what sort of marriage is this, anyway?"
+
+"Oh, that's all right.  Those two haven't begun courting yet.  But it
+won't be long before they start.  Did you notice----"
+
+And details observed by Aunt Louisa endured till the taxi stopped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MIDNIGHT
+
+After a quick journey by New York's unrivaled system of rapid transit,
+the three men alighted at Spring Street, and a couple of minutes' brisk
+walk brought them to a large, white-fronted building of severe
+architecture.  Above the main entrance two green lamps stared solemnly
+into the night, and their monitory gleam seemed to bid evildoers
+"Beware!"; nor was there aught far-fetched in the notion, because from
+this imposing center New York's guardians kept watch and ward over the
+city.
+
+"Clancy still waiting?" demanded Steingall of a policeman in uniform
+who was on duty in an inquiry office.
+
+"Yes, sir.  He asked me to be on the lookout in case you turned up
+unexpectedly, as he didn't want to miss you."
+
+The Chief Inspector led his companions straight to the Detective
+Bureau, taking good care to avoid the room in which the "covering"
+reporters were gathered, because the Police Headquarters of New York,
+unlike any similar department outside the bounds of the United States,
+makes the press welcome, and gives details of all arrests, fires,
+accidents and other occurrences of a noteworthy nature as soon as the
+facts are telegraphed or telephoned from outlying districts.
+
+Passing through the general office, Steingall entered his own sanctum.
+A small, slightly built man was bent over a table and scrutinizing a
+Rogues' Gallery of photographs in a large album.  He turned as the door
+opened, straightened himself, and revealed a wizened face, somewhat of
+the actor type, its prominent features being an expressive mouth, a
+thin, hooked nose, and a pair of singularly piercing and deeply sunken
+eyes.
+
+"Hello, Bob," he said to Steingall.  Then, without a moment's
+hesitation, he added: "Good-evening, Mr. Curtis--glad to see you, Mr.
+Devar."
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Clancy," said Curtis, not to be outdone in this
+exchange of compliments, though he could not imagine how a person who
+had never seen him should not only know his name but apply it so
+confidently.
+
+"May we smoke here?" asked Devar, who had lighted a cigar on emerging
+from the subway station.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Steingall.  "Make yourselves at home in that respect.
+I am a hard smoker.  Let me offer you a good American cigar, Mr.
+Curtis."
+
+"Thank you.  Perhaps you will try one of mine.  I bought them in
+London, but they are of a fair brand.  You, too, Mr. Clancy?"
+
+"I'll take one, with pleasure, though I don't smoke," said the little
+man.  Seeing the question on the faces of both visitors, he cackled, in
+a queer, high-pitched voice:
+
+"I refuse to poison my gastric juices with nicotine, but I like the
+smell of tobacco.  Poor old Steingall there has pretty fair eyesight,
+but his nose wouldn't sniff brimstone in a volcano, all because he
+insists on smoking."
+
+"Gastric juice!" laughed Steingall.  "You don't possess the article.
+Skin, bones, and tongue are your chief constituents.  I'm not surprised
+you make an occasional hit as a detective, because the average crook
+would never suspect a funny little gazook like you of being that
+celebrated sleuth, Eugene Clancy."
+
+Clancy's long, nervous fingers had cracked the wrapper of the cigar
+given him by Curtis, and he was now passing it to and fro beneath his
+nostrils.
+
+"You will observe the difference, gentlemen, between beef and brains,"
+he said, nodding derisively at the bulky Chief Inspector.  "He rubbers
+along because he looks like a prize-fighter, and can drive his fist
+through a three-quarter inch pine plank.  But we hunt well together,
+being a unique combination of science and brute force. . . .  By the
+way, that reminds me.  If I have got the story right, Count Ladislas
+Vassilan only landed in New York to-night.  Did he drive straight to a
+boxing contest, or what?"
+
+"Wait a second, Clancy," interrupted Steingall.  "Is there anything
+doing?  How much time have we?"
+
+"Exactly twenty minutes.  At twelve-thirty I must be in East Broadway."
+
+"Good.  Now, Mr. Curtis, tell Clancy exactly what happened since you
+put on poor Hunter's overcoat at the corner of Broadway and 27th
+Street."
+
+Curtis obeyed, though he fancied he had never encountered a more
+unofficial official than Clancy.  Shrewd judge of character as he was,
+he could hardly be expected to guess, after such a momentary glimpse of
+a man of extraordinary genius in unraveling crime, that Clancy was
+never more discursive, never more prone to chaff and sneer at his
+special friend, Steingall, than when hot on the trail of some
+particularly acute and daring malefactor.  The Chief of the Bureau, of
+course, knew by these signs that his trusted _aide_ had obtained
+information of a really startling nature, but neither Curtis nor Devar
+was aware of Clancy's idiosyncrasies, and some few minutes elapsed
+before they began to suspect that he had a good deal more up his sleeve
+than they gave him credit for at first.
+
+From the outset he took an original view of Curtis's marriage.
+
+"The girl is young and good-looking, you say?" was his opening question.
+
+"Not yet twenty-one, and remarkably attractive," said Curtis, though
+hardly prepared for the detective's interest in this direction.
+
+"Well educated and lady-like, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, as befits her position."
+
+"Cut out her position, which doesn't amount to a row of beans where
+intellect is concerned. . . .  Well, a man never knows much about a
+woman anyway, and what little he learns is acquired by a process of
+rejection after marriage."
+
+"May I ask what you mean?"
+
+"Judging from your history and apparent age, Mr. Curtis, I take it you
+have not had time to go fooling about after girls?"
+
+"You are certainly right in that respect."
+
+"Naturally, or you wouldn't be so ignorant concerning the dear
+creatures.  You are to be congratulated, 'pon my soul.  You will have
+the rare experience of constructing a divinity out of a wife, whereas
+the average man begins by choosing a divinity and finds he has only
+secured a wife."
+
+Curtis laughed, but met the detective's penetrating gaze frankly.
+
+"Your bitter philosophy may be sound, Mr. Clancy," he said, "but it is
+built on a false premiss.  My marriage is only a matter of form.  It
+may be legal--indeed, I believe it is--but there can be no dispute as
+to the nature of the bond between Lady Hermione and myself.  She
+regards me as a husband in name only, and will dissolve the tie at her
+own convenience."
+
+"You'll place no obstacles in her way?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+Clancy giggled, as though he were a comedian who had scored a point
+with his audience.
+
+"Then you're married for keeps," he announced, with the grin of a man
+who has solved a humorous riddle.  "By refusing to thwart the lady you
+throw away your last slender chance of freedom, and you will find her
+waiting at the gate of the State Penitentiary when you come out.  By
+Jove, you've been pretty rapid, though.  No wonder people say the East
+is waking up.  Are there many more like you in China?"
+
+Curtis was not altogether pleased by this banter, nor did he trouble to
+conceal his opinion that the New York Detective Bureau was treating a
+grave crime with scandalous levity.
+
+"Whether Lady Hermione married me or Jean de Courtois is a rather
+immaterial side issue," he said, somewhat emphatically.  "From what
+little I can grasp of a curiously involved affair, it seems to me that
+there are weightier interests than ours at stake.  And, if I may
+venture to differ from you, a lot of things may happen before I see the
+inside of a prison."
+
+"After your meteoric career during the past few hours I am inclined to
+agree with that last remark," and Clancy's tone became so serious that
+Devar laughed outright.  "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Curtis.  I am
+lost in admiration of your nerve, but you have told me just what I
+wanted to make sure of."
+
+"I have expressed no opinions.  I confined myself to actual facts."
+
+"And isn't it a highly significant fact that you are over head and ears
+in love with your wife?  _Nom d'un pipe_!  Doesn't that complicate the
+thing worse than a Chinese puzzle?"
+
+"I really don't see----" began Curtis, yielding to a feeling of
+annoyance which was not altogether unwarrantable, but Clancy jerked out
+his hands as though they were attached to arms moved by the strings of
+a marionette.
+
+"Of course, you don't!" he cried.  "You're in love!  You're gorged with
+the amococcus microbe!  It's the worst case I've ever heard of.  I once
+knew a man who met a girl for the first time at the Park Row end of
+Brooklyn Bridge and proposed to her before they had crossed the East
+River, but you've set up a record that will never be beaten.  You find
+a marriage license in the pockets of a murdered man, rush off in a taxi
+to the address of the lady named therein, marry her, punch a frantic
+rival on the nose, take the fair one to a hotel, flout her father, a
+British peer, and hold a banquet at which the Chief of the New York
+Detective Bureau is an honored guest; and then you have the hardihood
+to tell me that your actions constitute an immaterial side issue in the
+biggest sensation New York has produced this year.  Young man, wait
+till the interviewers get hold of you to-morrow!  Wait till the sob
+sisters begin gushing over your bride--a pretty one--with a title!
+Name of good little gray man!  They'll whoop your side issues into a
+scare-head front page!  Before you know where you are they'll have you
+bleating about the color of her eyes, the exquisite curve of her
+Cupid's Bow lips, and the way her hair shone when the electric light
+fell on it, while she, on her part, will be confiding, with a
+suspicious break in her voice, what a perfectly darling specimen of the
+American man at his best you are.  Mr. Curtis, you're married good and
+hard, and if you want to cinch the job you ought to go to jail for a
+while."
+
+Unquestionably, the two civilians present thought that Clancy was
+slightly mad, so Steingall intervened.
+
+"Hop off your perch, Eugene," he said, "and tell us how you came to
+drive Count Vassilan's taxi, and where you took him."
+
+"It was a case of intelligent anticipation of forthcoming events," said
+Clancy, whose excitability disappeared instantly, leaving him calm and
+extremely lucid of speech.  "When Evans (the police captain) gave me
+the bearings of the affair--though, of course, being a creature of
+handcuffs and bludgeons, he thought our friend Curtis was the real
+scoundrel--I realized at once that Vassilan's indisposition was a bad
+attack of blue funk.  Such a man could no more remain quietly in his
+room at the hotel than a fox terrier could pass a dog fight without
+taking hold.  As soon as I saw the Earl go out alone, and heard him
+direct the taxi to the Central Hotel in 27th Street, I decided that my
+best place was at the driving wheel of another taxi.  I picked out a
+man on the rank who was about my size, and might be mistaken for me in
+a half-light, and got him to lend me his coat and cap.  He took mine,
+and a word to the door-porter fixed things so that I was whistled up
+quite naturally when his countship appeared.  He had changed his
+clothes and linen, but one glance at his nose showed that I had marked
+my bird, even if the porter hadn't given me the mystic sign at the
+right moment.  I received my orders, and off we went, a second cab
+following, with the driver of my taxi as a fare.  Evidently, the Count
+was not well posted in New York distances, because he grew restive, and
+wondered where I was taking him.  He tried to be artful, too, and when
+we reached East Broadway he pulled me up at the corner of Market
+Street, told me to wait, and lodged a five-dollar bill as security,
+saying I would have annozzaire when we got back to the hotel.  Didn't
+that make things easy?  He plunged into the crowd--you know what a
+bunch of Russians, Hungarians, and Polish Jews get together in East
+Broadway about ten-thirty--so I rushed to the second cab, swapped coats
+and hats again, gave the taxi-man the five-spot, and put him in charge
+of his own cab.  In less than a minute I overtook the Count, just as he
+was crossing the street, and saw him enter a house, after saying
+something to a second-hand clothes man who was bawling out his goods
+from the open store on the ground floor.  By the time I had bought two
+silk handkerchiefs and a pair of boots, and was haggling like mad over
+a collection of linen collars, size 16--a present for you,
+Steingall--his nobility came downstairs, but not alone; there was a
+girl with him.  Luckily, she was no Hungarian, but Italian, and they
+talked in broken English.  'They no come-a here-a now-a-time,
+Excellenza,' she said, 'but you-a fin' dem at Morris Siegelman's
+restaurant at 'alf-a-pass twelve.'  He said something choice--in pure
+Magyar, I guess--and headed for the taxi.  That is all, or practically
+all.  I tried to go back on my bargains with the Israelite in the
+store, but he made such a row that I paid him, and when I reached the
+second cab the driver told me that my man nodded as he passed, showing
+that Vassilan was returning to the hotel.  So I came here, and 'phoned
+you."
+
+Steingall glanced at a clock on the mantel-piece.  He rose, threw open
+a door, and switched on a light.
+
+"Mr. Curtis," he said, "we must risk something, but I think I can make
+you up sufficiently to escape recognition, not so much by the Count as
+by others who may attend that supper party.  You come, too, Mr. Devar.
+There is safety in numbers."
+
+With a deftness that was worthy of a theatrical costumier, the
+detectives converted themselves and the two young men into ship's
+firemen.  No more effective or simpler disguise could have been devised
+on the spur of the moment, nor one that might be assumed more readily.
+Boots offered the main difficulty, but Clancy's purchase fitted Devar,
+and Curtis made the best of a pair of canvas shoes, while a mixture of
+grease and coffee extract applied to face and hands changed four
+respectable looking persons into a gang which would certainly attract
+the attention of the police anywhere outside the bounds of just such a
+locality as they were bound for.
+
+In case the exigencies of the chase separated them, Steingall gave some
+instructions to the man in the inquiry office, and Devar tested the
+realism of his appearance by disregarding the chauffeur of the
+splendidly appointed automobile waiting at the exit.  Walking up to the
+car, he opened the door and said gruffly:
+
+"Jump in, boys!"
+
+The chauffeur wriggled out of his seat instantly, and leaped to the
+pavement.
+
+"Here, what the----" he began, whereupon Devar laughed.
+
+"It's all right, Arthur," he said.
+
+"What's all right?  This car is here for Mr. Howard Devar," cried the
+man angrily.
+
+"Well, you cuckoo, and who am I?"
+
+Something familiar in the voice caused the chauffeur to look closely at
+the speaker, whom he had not seen for a considerable time except for a
+fleeting glimpse on the arrival of the _Lusitania_ at New York that
+afternoon.  He was perplexed, but was evidently not devoid of humor.
+
+"It's either you or your ghost, sir," he said, "and if it's your ghost
+you must have been badly treated in the next world."
+
+A roundsman was entering headquarters at the moment, and gave the
+quartette a sharp glance.
+
+"Here, Parker," said Steingall, "tell this man my name."
+
+The policeman came up, looked at the detective, and laughed.
+
+"This is Mr. Steingall, chief of the Detective Bureau," he said to the
+bewildered driver, who resumed charge of the car without further ado,
+but nevertheless remained uneasy in his mind.  And not without cause.
+He, poor fellow, all unconsciously, was now gathered into the net which
+had spread its meshes so wide in New York that night.  He could not
+understand why his employer's son should be gallivanting around the
+city in company with such questionable looking characters, even though
+one of them might be the famous "man with the microscopic eye," but he
+was far from realizing that he and his car would help to make history
+before morning.
+
+In obedience to orders, he ran along Grand Street, and halted the car
+on the south side of W. H. Seward Park.
+
+"Remain here, if we do not return earlier, till one o'clock," Steingall
+told him, "and then run slowly along East Broadway to the corner of
+Montgomery Street.  We are going to Morris Siegelman's restaurant,
+which is a few doors higher up, on the north side.  If we stroll past
+you, pay no heed, but follow at a little distance.  Have you got that
+right?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Devar was hugely delighted by the man's discomfited tone.
+
+"Cheer up, Arthur," he said.  "You'll be tickled to death to-morrow
+when you read the newspapers, and discover the part you played in a big
+news item."
+
+"Now, don't forget to lurch about the sidewalk," was Steingall's next
+injunction to the amateurs.  "Think of all the bad language you ever
+heard, and use it.  We're toughs, and must behave as such.  Can either
+of you sing?"
+
+"I can," admitted Curtis.
+
+"That will help some.  Strike up any sort of sailor's chanty when we're
+in the restaurant."
+
+Late as the hour, East Broadway was full to repletion with a
+cosmopolitan crowd.  It was a Thursday evening, and the Hebrew Sabbath
+began at sunset on the following day, so the poor Jews of the quarter
+were out in their thousands, either buying provisions for the coming
+holiday or attracted by the light and bustle.  Heavy looking Russians,
+olive-skinned Italians, placid Germans, wild-eyed and pallid Czechs,
+lounged along the thoroughfare, chatting with compatriots, or gathering
+in amused groups to hear the strange patter of some voluble merchant
+retailing goods from a barrow.  From the interiors of tiny shops and
+cellars came eldritch voices crying the nature and remarkable qualities
+of the wares within.  Every hand-cart carried a flaring naphtha-lamp,
+and the glare of these innumerable torches created strong lights and
+flickering shadows which would have gladdened the heart of Rembrandt
+were his artistic wraith permitted to roam the by-ways of a city which,
+perhaps, he never heard of, even in its early Dutch guise as New
+Amsterdam.
+
+The lofty tenement houses seemed to be crowded as the streets.  Within
+a square mile of that section of New York a quarter of a million people
+find habitation, food, and employment.  They supply each other's needs,
+speak their own weird tongues, and by slow degrees become absorbed by
+the great continent which harbors them, and then only when a second or
+third generation becomes Americanized.
+
+In such a motley throng four prowling stokers, ashore for a night's
+spree, attracted scant attention, and Morris Siegelman's hospitable
+door was reached without incident.  A taxi-cab was standing by the
+curb, and the driver, gazing at the living panorama of the street,
+little guessed that he had changed garments with one of the
+half-drunken firemen two hours earlier.
+
+"Here y'are, mattes!" cried Steingall, joyously surveying a printed
+legend displayed among the bottles of a dingy bar running along the
+side of an apartment which had once been the parlor of a pretentious
+house, "this is the right sort o' dope--vodka--same as is supplied to
+the Czar of all the Roossias.  Get a pint of vodka into yer gizzards
+an' you'll think you've swallowed a lump of red-hot clinker."
+
+Clancy hopped on to a high stool, and curled himself up on the rounded
+seat in the accepted posture of Buddha, while Devar, who was by way of
+being a gymnast, stood on his hands and beat a tattoo with his feet
+against the edge of the counter.  Not to be outdone, Curtis began to
+sing.  He had a good baritone voice, and entered with zest into the mad
+spirit of the frolic.  The song he chose was redolent of the sea.  It
+related a tar's escapades among witches, cruisers, and girls.  Three of
+the latter claimed him at one and the same time--so "What was a
+sailor-boy to do?  Yeo-ho, Yeo-ho, Yeo-ho!"  The chorus decided the
+point:
+
+  "Why, we went strolling down by the rolling,
+     Down by the rolling sea.
+  If you can't be true to One or Two,
+    You're much better off with Three."
+
+
+Evidently, the roysterers' antics commanded the general approval of
+Morris Siegelman's patrons, and loud cries of "Brava!" "Encore!" "Bis!"
+"Herrlich!" rewarded Curtis's lyrical effort.  Some thirty people or
+more were scattered about the room, mostly in small parties seated
+around marble-topped tables.  Beer was the favorite beverage; a
+minority was eating, the menu being strange and wondrous, and everyone
+was smoking cigarettes.  When Curtis received his share of the
+poisonous decoction so vaunted by Steingall, he faced the company,
+glass in hand, and saw Count Vassilan seated in a corner close to a
+window.  With him were a good-looking Italian girl and a youth, and the
+three were deep in eager converse, giving no heed to the other
+revelers, but rather taking advantage of the prevalent clatter of talk
+and drinking utensils to discuss whatever topic it was which proved so
+interesting.
+
+Steingall's eyes carried a question, and Curtis shook his head.
+Vassilan's male companion bore only the slight resemblance of a kindred
+nationality to the men who committed the murder, while he differed
+essentially from the treacherous "Anatole."
+
+"I wish your best girl could see you now, John D.," whispered Devar,
+who had just recovered from a violent fit of coughing induced by the
+raw whisky which Siegelman dispensed under the seal of vodka.  Curtis
+laughed at the conceit, which was grotesque in its very essence.  Wild
+and bizarre as his experiences had been that night, none was more
+whimsical than this bawling of a ballad in an East Broadway saloon
+while posing as a sailor with three sheets in the wind.
+
+"Mostly Hungarians here," muttered Steingall.  "We seem to be in the
+right place, anyhow."
+
+"Let's eat," said Clancy suddenly.
+
+Reflected in a cracked mirror he had seen a man and two women rise and
+leave a table in the corner occupied by the Count.  He skipped off the
+stool, and made for the vacant place; the others followed, and Curtis
+had several glasses raised to his honor as he passed through the
+merry-makers.
+
+Clancy noisily summoned a waitress, and ordered four plates of
+spaghetti with tomatoes.  He sat with his back to the absorbed party
+beneath the window, and apologized with exaggerated politeness when his
+chair touched that of the Italian girl, though his accent, needless to
+say, was redolent of the East side.
+
+"They do not come, then?" he heard Vassilan say impatiently.
+
+"P'raps notta to-night," said the girl, "but you sure meet-a dem here,
+mebbe to-morrow, mebbe de nex' day."
+
+The Count tore a leaf from a notebook and scribbled something rapidly.
+When he spoke, it was to the Hungarian, and in Magyar, but it was easy
+to guess that he was giving earnest directions as to the delivery of
+the note.
+
+"Now would be a good time to raise a row if we could manage it,"
+growled Steingall.
+
+Curtis was toying with his fourth meal since sunset, and admitted that
+he was ready for anything rather than spaghetti a la tomato.
+
+"If there's enough varieties of Hungarians and Slavs in the street I
+can start a riot in less than no time," confided Devar.
+
+"How?" asked the detective.
+
+"This way," and Devar began to sing.  He owned a light tenor, clear and
+melodious, and the air had a curiously barbaric lilt which, musically
+considered, was reminiscent of the gypsies' chorus in "The Bohemian
+Girl."  But the words were couched in a strange tongue, sonorous and
+full voweled, and the Hungarians in the room became greatly stirred
+when it dawned on them that a semi-intoxicated American stoker was
+chanting a forbidden national melody.  Far better than he knew, he
+sounded uncharted deeps in human nature.  Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun
+stated an eternal truth when he wrote to the Marquis of Montrose: "I
+know a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make
+all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."
+Before Devar had finished the first verse people from the street were
+crowding in through the open door, and flashing eyes and strange
+ejaculations showed that the Czechs thought they were witnessing a
+miracle.  As the second verse rang out, vibrant and challenging, the
+mob, eager to share in the interior excitement, rushed the entrance.
+Many could hear, but few could see, and all were roused to exaltation
+by a melody the public singing of which would have brought imprisonment
+or death in their own land.
+
+"Now for it!" roared Steingall, and over went table and crockery with a
+crash.  Of course, this added to the turmoil, and some women in the
+cafe began to shriek.  Not knowing in the least what was causing the
+commotion, the crowd surged into that particular corner, and Steingall,
+apparently frenzied, sprang to the window, opened it, and said to Count
+Vassilan:
+
+"Get out, quick!  They'll be knifing you in a minute!"
+
+The Italian girl screamed at that, so she was lifted into the safety of
+the street.  Vassilan followed, or rather was practically thrown out,
+and the young Hungarian could have climbed after him nimbly enough had
+not Curtis insisted on helping him, and, pinioning his arms, forced him
+head foremost over the sill, but not so rapidly that Steingall should
+be unable to "go through him" scientifically for the note.
+
+"Be off, you two!  Take the car and go home!"
+
+It was no time for argument.  Both Curtis and Devar read into
+Steingall's muttered injunction the belief that the hunt had ended for
+the night.  They knew that the detectives could take care of
+themselves, and they had scrambled through the window and made off
+swiftly in the direction of the waiting automobile before the despoiled
+Hungarian regained his feet.  The hour yet wanted nearly ten minutes of
+being one o'clock, so the chauffeur had not budged from his post in the
+park.  Devar told him to start the engine, and be ready to jump off
+without delay.  Then they waited, and watched the corner of the square
+intersected by East Broadway, but neither Steingall nor Clancy
+appeared, so they judged it best to obey orders, and make for the
+Police Headquarters.  There they washed and resumed their own clothes,
+an operation which consumed another quarter of an hour.  Still there
+was no sign of the detectives, and they decided, somewhat reluctantly,
+to do as they had been bidden, and go home.
+
+"What sort of witches' shibboleth was that which you brought off in
+Siegelman's?" asked Curtis, while the car was humming placidly up
+Broadway.
+
+"Oh, that was an inspiration," chuckled Devar.
+
+"An inspiration founded on a solid basis of fact.  Now, out with it!"
+
+"Well, I was a year at Heidelberg, you know, and a fellow there told me
+that one evening, in a cafe at Temesvar, a student kicked up a shindy
+by singing that song.  In less than a minute an officer had been
+stabbed with his own sword, and a policeman shot, and it took a
+squadron of cavalry to clear the street.  He learnt the blessed ditty,
+out of sheer curiosity, and I picked it up from him."
+
+"What is it all about?"
+
+"I don't know.  I believe it tells the Austrians their real name, but I
+couldn't translate a line of it to save my life."
+
+Curtis leaned back in the car and laughed.
+
+"You are by way of being a genius," he said.  "I have seen a crowd go
+stark, staring mad because some idiot waved a black flag, but that was
+a symbol of the Boxer rebellion, and it meant something.  In this
+instance, among people so far away from their own country, one would
+hardly expect----"
+
+He broke off suddenly, and leaned forward.
+
+The car had just entered Madison Square, at the junction of Broadway
+and Fifth Avenue, south of 23rd Street.  A Columbus Avenue street-car
+had halted to allow traffic to pass, and a gray automobile which was
+coming out of Fifth Avenue had been held up by a policeman stationed
+there.  Curtis's attention was caught by the color and shape of the
+vehicle, and in the flood of light cast by the powerful lamps and
+brilliant electric devices concentrated on that important crossing, he
+obtained a vivid glimpse of the chauffeur's face.
+
+"Devar," he said, and some electrical quality in his voice startled his
+mercurial companion, "tell your man to overtake that car and run it
+into the sidewalk.  The driver is 'Anatole,' and it is our duty to stop
+him!"
+
+At that instant the policeman signaled the uptown traffic to move on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ONE O'CLOCK
+
+Devar had the nimble wits of a fox, and the blood which raced in his
+veins was volatile as quicksilver.  The same glance which showed him
+the gray automobile stealing softly across the network of car-lines of
+one of the city's main thoroughfares revealed a roundsman crossing the
+square.
+
+"Friend Anatole may be heeled," he said.  "Let's get help."
+
+Leaning out, he shouted to Arthur, whose other name was Brodie:
+
+"Pull in alongside the cop.  I want to speak to him."
+
+The chauffeur obeyed, and the policeman turned a questioning eye on the
+car, thinking some idiot meant to run him down.  Devar had the door
+open in a second.
+
+"Have you heard of the murder in 27th Street, outside the Central
+Hotel?" he said, almost bewildering the man by his eager directness.
+
+"Of course I have," came the answer, quickly enough.
+
+"Well, the car mixed up in it is right ahead.  There it is, making for
+Fifth Avenue.  Jump in!  We'll explain as we go."
+
+The roundsman needed no second invitation.  Obviously, unless some
+brainless young fool was trying to be humorous, there was no time to
+spare for words.  He sprang inside, and Devar cried to the surprised
+chauffeur:
+
+"Follow that gray auto.  Don't kill anybody, but hit up the speed until
+we are close behind it, and then I'll tell you what next to do."
+
+Little recking what this order really meant, for its true inwardness
+was hidden at the moment from the ken of those far better versed than
+he in the tangle of events, Brodie changed gear and touched the
+accelerator, and the machine whirred past Admiral Farragut's statue at
+a pace which would have caused even doughty "Old Salamander" to blink
+with astonishment.
+
+While four pairs of eyes were watching the fast moving vehicle in
+front, Curtis gave the policeman a brief resume of the night's doings
+since he and Devar had gone with Steingall to the Police Headquarters.
+There was no need to say much about the actual crime, because the man
+had full details, with descriptions of the man-slayers, in his notebook.
+
+He was a shrewd person, too.  His name was McCulloch; his father had
+emigrated from Belfast, and a man of such ancestry seldom takes
+anything for granted.
+
+"I suppose you are not quite certain, Mr. Curtis, that the chauffeur
+driving that car ahead is the 'Anatole' concerned in the death of Mr.
+Hunter?" he asked.
+
+But Curtis was of a cautious temperament, too.
+
+"No," he said, "that is more than I dare state, even if I had an
+opportunity to look at him closely.  As it is, I merely received what I
+may term 'an impression' of him.  That, together with the marked
+similarity of the car to the one I saw outside the hotel, seems to
+offer reasonable ground for inquiry at any rate."
+
+"Did you notice the number of this car?"
+
+"No, not exactly.  I believe it differs from that which I undoubtedly
+did see and put on record."
+
+"Of course, the plate must have been changed or he would never venture
+in this locality again.  If you are right, sir, the fellow must possess
+a mighty cool nerve, because he is just passing 27th Street, within a
+few yards of the hotel."
+
+Somehow, the fact had escaped Curtis's remembrance; excellent though
+his topographical sense might be, he was still sufficient of a stranger
+in New York not to appreciate the bearings of particular localities
+with the prompt discrimination necessarily displayed by the policeman.
+
+During the succeeding few seconds none of the occupants of the
+limousine spoke.  Devar was kneeling on one of the front seats, and the
+roundsman, who had removed his uniform hat to avoid attracting notice
+when a lamp shone directly into the interior, quietly took stock of the
+men who had so unceremoniously called him off his tour of inspection.
+Evidently he satisfied himself that he was not being dragged into a
+wild-goose chase.  Their tense manner could hardly have been assumed:
+they were in desperate and deadly earnest; so he thanked the stars
+which had brought him into active connection with an important crime,
+and gave his mind strictly to the business in hand.  Several knotty
+points demanded careful if speedy decision.  The chased automobile
+might prove to be an innocent vehicle, driven by a chauffeur above
+suspicion, and if its owner appeared in the guise of some highly
+influential person he, the roundsman, might be called to sharp account
+for exceeding his duty in making an arrest, or, if he stopped short of
+that extreme course, in conducting an offensive inquiry.
+
+Brodie took his instructions literally, and the distance between the
+two cars was diminishing sensibly.  It seemed, too, as though the
+driver of the gray car slackened pace after passing 27th Street,
+although Fifth Avenue was fairly clear of traffic, which, such as it
+was, consisted mainly of motors going uptown--that is to say, in the
+same direction as pursued and pursuer.
+
+At 34th Street came a check.  A cross-town street-car caused the gray
+automobile to swerve rapidly in order to avoid a collision, and Brodie,
+a methodical person of law-abiding instincts, lost nearly fifty yards
+in allowing the streetcar to pass.
+
+"Whoever he may be, he is not going to make any unnecessary stops,"
+commented the roundsman, fully alive to the significance of the
+incident, since ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have applied
+the brake and allowed the heavy public conveyance to get out of the way.
+
+"Unless the Hungarian assassins of New York are bang up-to-date in the
+benzine part of their stock-in-trade, our car will make good in the
+next two blocks," said Devar, over his shoulder.
+
+And, indeed, it almost appeared that Brodie had heard what was said.
+He bent forward slightly, touched a few taps with skilled fingers,
+squared his shoulders, and set about the race with the air of a man who
+thought it had lasted long enough.
+
+Nearing 42nd Street, he had reduced the gap to little more than twice
+the length of the car, and the three men saw the number plate clearly.
+Not only did the number differ, but it was of another series.
+
+"That's a New Jersey car," announced the policeman.
+
+"It may be a New Jersey number," Curtis corrected him, "but I still
+retain my belief that we are following the right man and the right car."
+
+Just then no less than four cross-town electric cars loomed into sight,
+and completely blocked the avenue at its intersection with 42nd Street.
+The gray automobile had to pull up very quickly, and Brodie was
+compelled to execute a neat half-turn to clear the rear wheels.  In the
+result, both cars halted side by side, but Curtis found himself just
+short of a position whence he could obtain a second look at the
+suspected man.
+
+The policeman had bent low in his seat, lest his uniform should be
+seen, but he, like his companions, gave a sharp glance into the
+interior of the other car.  It was empty.
+
+He was seated on the near side, however, and he noticed that the lower
+panel behind the door had been cleaned since the remainder of the
+paint-work was touched, and the step bore signs of a recent washing.
+
+Devar lowered one of the front sashes a couple of inches.
+
+"Don't look round, Arthur," he said in a low tone, "and don't take any
+notice of the chauffeur, but creep forward a foot or two, and then let
+him go ahead again."
+
+Brodie sat like a sphinx, and apparently did nothing, yet the car
+moved.  Sacrificing himself, Roundsman McCulloch fell back into his
+corner, and left the window clear for Curtis.
+
+"Well?" he inquired, and, surfeited though he might be with New York
+sensations, the others were conscious of just a hint of excitement in
+his voice.
+
+"That is Anatole, I am nearly sure," said Curtis.
+
+"Why not jump out and grab him now?" suggested Devar.
+
+"Do you gentlemen mind following him for a time?" asked the policeman.
+
+"No, I'm game for anything.  And you, Curtis?"
+
+"Oh, I feel ready to start the night all over again."
+
+The street-cars went on, and the gray automobile darted through the
+first possible opening.
+
+"You see, it is this way," explained the official.  "I am prepared to
+arrest the man on Mr. Curtis's evidence, because I couldn't have better
+testimony than that of the chief witness.  But I've been chewing on
+this thing for the past few minutes, and it strikes me that we gain
+nothing by acting in a hurry.  You may be sure that this fellow, even
+if he is the person we want, will deny it, and a day or two may be lost
+in proving his identity, or collecting facts which would support the
+theory that he was the chauffeur connected with the crime.  Now, if we
+let him go on, we shall certainly have a better hold over him.  We'll
+find out his destination--perhaps secure a very useful address, or,
+with real luck, discover that he is keeping a fixture with some other
+individual."
+
+"In a word, we must watch and pray," said Devar.
+
+"Well, we can wait and see, anyhow," said the practical minded
+McCulloch.
+
+His counsel sounded good, and the others agreed with him, thereby
+letting themselves and the patient Brodie in for some remarkable
+developments in a pursuit which began by a simple coincidence and was
+destined to end in a manner which none of them dreamed of.
+
+Devar opened the window again.
+
+"Arthur," he said, "did you happen to notice whether or not that fellow
+is carrying a reflector?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  He has one.  I saw him looking into it when I drew
+alongside."
+
+"Ah, that puts a different complexion on the affair, as the young man
+said when he kissed his best girl and tasted Somebody's Beauty Powder.
+Don't press, Arthur.  Just keep him in sight till I consult the law."
+
+As the outcome of a hurried discussion, Brodie received a fresh
+mandate.  During the straightaway run he was not to approach the gray
+car nearer than sixty yards or thereabouts--in effect, remaining within
+the same block if possible, but, if the gray car stopped in front of
+any dwelling, he was to slacken speed and pass it, taking the middle of
+the road, and holding himself in instant readiness to halt or turn as
+directed.
+
+"By the way, how are you fixed for petrol?" added Devar.
+
+"I filled the tanks, sir, before leaving the garage.  We're good for
+the trip to Albany and back."
+
+Brodie's tone was quite cheerful.  He, too, had been reviewing the
+situation, and the presence of a uniformed policeman had dispelled the
+last shred of suspicion that some stupid joke had been worked off
+outside the Police Headquarters when a fearsome looking tough was
+introduced to him as the Chief of the New York Detective Bureau.
+
+Devar was about to congratulate the roundsman on the prospect of an
+all-night journey if Brodie's chance phrase were fated to come true,
+when he glanced at Curtis, and elected to remain silent.  They were
+passing the Plaza Hotel, and his friend was peering up at its square
+white bulk.  Obviously, he was striving to locate Hermione's room.
+Most probably he failed, for it is no easy matter to pick out the
+windows of any particular set of rooms in a huge building while rushing
+along at twenty-five or more miles an hour.  Further, it was now past
+one o'clock in the morning, and most respectable people were in bed, so
+the solemn mass of the hotel was enlivened by very few rectangles of
+light.
+
+But Curtis fancied, as did Devar also, that the illuminated blinds of
+three windows on the second floor might possibly be those of Suite F.,
+and each wondered, if the surmise were correct, why her ladyship was
+remaining up so late.
+
+Devar resolved to say nothing, but Curtis felt that he must talk, if
+only for the sake of hearing his own voice.  Usually a man of taciturn
+habit, the outcome of long vigils among an alien and often hostile race
+in a semi-civilized land, he had gone through so much during the five
+and a half hours which had unfolded their marvels since he quitted the
+dining-room of the Central Hotel, that he ached for human sympathy,
+even in a trivial matter of this sort.
+
+"I thought I saw a light in my wife's rooms," he said.
+
+"As you mention it, so did I," agreed Devar.
+
+"I hope she is not awaiting my return?"
+
+"Perhaps she is anxious about you?"
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Women are given that way.  She knows you went out with Steingall, and
+he is a dangerous character."
+
+"Is Mrs. Curtis staying in the Plaza?" asked the puzzled McCulloch.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I thought you occupied a room at the Central Hotel in 27th Street?"
+
+"I did, but I got married at half-past eight, and we went to the Plaza."
+
+"Married at half-past eight--just after the murder!"  The policeman's
+words formed a crescendo of sheer surprise.  For some indefinable
+reason this curious conjunction of a crime and a wedding went beyond
+his comprehension.
+
+"Yes, it happened so.  It might have been avoided, yet, looking back
+now over the whole of the circumstances, it would appear that I have
+followed a beaten track inevitable as death."
+
+Of course, the roundsman could not grasp the somber thought underlying
+Curtis's words, but a species of indeterminate suspicion prompted his
+next question.
+
+"You came from the Plaza with Mr. Steingall, I believe, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  We were having supper there, with Mr. Devar and my uncle and
+aunt, when Mr. Clancy rang him up on the telephone, and he invited us
+to accompany him to the Police Headquarters.  The rest you know."
+
+Certainly, the explanation sounded quite satisfactory.  The attitude of
+these two young men and their chauffeur was perfectly correct, and the
+policeman's views had been strengthened materially by the tell-tale
+tokens he had noted on the gray car, which, however, he had not thought
+fit to mention.  If Steingall had attended the supper in the Plaza he
+must have convinced himself that there was nothing unusual, or, at any
+rate, doubtful, about the queer fact that a man who was mixed up in a
+remarkable murder should have gone straight from the scene of the
+tragedy and got married.
+
+Just to dispel a little of the mist that befogged his brain, he waited
+a while and then said:
+
+"Which side of the car was opposite the doorway when those two men
+attacked Mr. Hunter?"
+
+"The left.  The car had entered the street from Broadway."
+
+"Why do you ask?" inquired Devar, instantly alive to the queerness of
+this alteration of topics.
+
+"My mind went back to the job we have in hand," said the roundsman
+readily.  "I was wondering just what sort of glimpse Mr. Curtis
+obtained of the chauffeur.  Of course, I see now that he was looking at
+the man exactly under similar conditions when we made that stop at 42nd
+Street."
+
+Thus, unknown to either of the parties to the alliance, a minor crisis
+was averted, because it may safely be conceded that the hard-headed
+policeman would have refused then and there to accept any sort of
+statement from such a lunatic as John Delancy Curtis, if he were given
+a full, true, and particular account of the night's proceedings while
+being whirled up Fifth Avenue in a fast moving automobile.
+
+Romance, if it is to be accepted without question, requires the setting
+of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden.
+There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be
+carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two
+strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound
+Heaven knew whither long after midnight, it is apt to savor of the moon
+and witchcraft.
+
+Away up the straight vista of Fifth Avenue sped the two cars.  On the
+left lay the black solitude of Central Park, on the right the varied
+architecture of New York's millionaire dwellings.
+
+Devar and the policeman talked cheerfully enough, but Curtis was
+wrapped in his own musings till the rear lamp of the gray car suddenly
+curved to the left and vanished.
+
+"He has turned into the Parkway at 110th Street," said McCulloch, and
+Curtis awoke with a start to a sense of his surroundings.
+
+"I suppose he's making for St. Nicholas Avenue," went on the roundsman.
+
+"Why?" demanded Curtis, whose recollections of map-study would have
+reminded him, in other conditions, that the avenue named by McCulloch
+is one of the few which slant across the city's rectangles.
+
+"Well, sir, it's only a guess, but St. Nicholas Avenue is a short cut
+to Washington Heights, and cars often follow that route.  Yes, there he
+goes!"
+
+For an instant they caught a fleeting glimpse of Lenox Avenue, which
+runs parallel with Fifth, and then they were bowling along St. Nicholas
+Avenue.  After a half-mile or less, they crossed Eighth Avenue at an
+acute angle, but the gray car kept steadily on, and soon was skirting
+St. Nicholas Park.
+
+Thenceforth another mile and a half counted as little until the flying
+automobile gained the Harlem River Speedway.  Here the pace improved.
+There was practically no traffic to interfere with progress now, and
+Brodie had to maintain an equable rate of forty miles an hour in order
+to keep within sight of his quarry.
+
+At last, by way of Nagle and Amsterdam Avenues, they regained Broadway
+itself, at the point where its many sinuosities end at the bridges over
+the Harlem River and Spuyten Creek.
+
+By this time, McCulloch was undeniably anxious.  Many a mile separated
+him from the busy activities of Madison Square and its surroundings,
+and the main roads of the State of New York were opening up their
+possibilities.  Still, he was of Scotch-Irish stock, and even the most
+ardent Nationalist would be slow to maintain that the men from beyond
+the Boyne are what is popularly and tersely described as "quitters."
+
+"I'd be better pleased if I had any sort of notion where that joker was
+heading for," he said, with a grim smile.  "I didn't count on taking a
+joy-ride at this hour of the morning."
+
+That was his sole concession to outraged official decorum.  He accepted
+a cigar, and forthwith resigned himself to the exigencies of the chase,
+which lay not with him but with the dark and devious purposes of the
+sinister Anatole.
+
+The end, however, was nearer than any of them was now inclined to
+imagine.  A rapid run along the main road through Yonkers brought them
+to Hastings and the bank of the Hudson River.  The comparatively level
+grades of New York were replaced by hilly ground, and if they would
+avoid courting observation beyond any doubt of error it was essential
+that the gray car should be allowed greater latitude.  In fact, it was
+almost demonstrable that an alert criminal like the man they were
+pursuing--if he really were the ally of Hunter's slayers--could hardly
+have failed to realize much earlier that he was being followed.
+Moreover, being an expert motorist, he would know that the car in the
+rear could not only hold him in the race but close up with him whenever
+its occupants were so minded.  He would not be lulled into false
+security by the present widening of the gap, because that was an
+obvious maneuver due to altered circumstances.  In a word, there was
+now no hope or prospect of running him to earth at a rendezvous, but,
+giving him credit for the possession and use of a criminal's brains, it
+became an urgent matter to overtake him and compel a halt by
+deliberately blocking the way.
+
+They debated the point fully, and Devar was about to tell Brodie to act
+when the gray car disappeared.
+
+Not wishing to interfere at a critical moment, Devar drew back from the
+window.  Brodie spurted down a hill and along a short level lined with
+suburban villas; he slowed to take a sharp corner, and the car ran
+along a winding lane which could lead nowhere but to the water's edge.
+It was pitch dark, and a mist from the Hudson filled the valley.
+Common sense urged a careful pace, because it had never been possible
+to stop and adjust the powerful headlights, while the luminous haze of
+an occasional street lamp served only to reveal the narrowness of the
+road and the presence of shacks and warehouses.
+
+The descent was fairly steep, so Brodie shut off the engine, and the
+big car crept on with a stealthy and noiseless rapidity which seemed to
+betoken an actual sense of danger.
+
+Suddenly they heard a loud splash, accompanied by a muffled explosion,
+and McCulloch relieved his feelings by a few words, the use of which is
+expressly forbidden by the police manual.  But their purport was
+ridiculously clear; the gray car had plunged into the Hudson, and who
+could tell whether or not Anatole had gone with it?  Curtis was the
+first to adopt a definite line of reasoning: he assumed command now
+with the confidence of one accustomed to be in tight places and to
+depend on his own wits for extrication.
+
+"Go forward slowly until the buildings stop, Brodie," he said, for the
+two front windows were lowered, and the three men were crowded at them.
+"That fellow knew exactly where he was going.  When you pull up, light
+the acetylene lamps, and we will take the other pair and search the
+wharf from which that car was shot into the stream."
+
+Within a few yards the brakes went on with a jerk, and a tall crane
+loomed up vaguely in front.  All four men sprang to the ground, and
+while the chauffeur busied himself with the big lamps Curtis and Devar
+disconnected the smaller ones.
+
+They found themselves standing on a wooden quay, evidently used for the
+trans-shipment of building materials, and a quick scrutiny showed that
+the lane supplied the only practicable means of egress.  Some gaunt
+sheds blocked one end of the wharf and piles of dressed stone cumbered
+the other.  The tiny wavelets of the river murmured and gurgled amid
+the heavy piles which shored up the landing-place, and Devar's sharp
+eyes soon detected a corner of the gray-colored limousine round which a
+ripple had formed.  In all probability the heated cylinders had burst
+when the water rushed in, and the explosion had tilted the chassis,
+else the river, necessarily deep by the side of the quay, would have
+concealed the wreckage completely.
+
+From out of the mist came a white glare.  Brodie had set the lamps
+going, and now the square section of the submerged car became
+distinctly visible.  A little to one side a barge was moored, and the
+policeman, who had produced a serviceable looking revolver, determined
+to search it.
+
+A plank spanned the foot or so of interstice between the quay and the
+rough deck, and, in the flurry of the moment, the three men crossed
+without warning the chauffeur as to their movements.  The squat craft
+had an open well amidships, but there were two covered-in ends, and
+McCulloch, taking one of the lamps, peered down into the nearest
+hatchway.
+
+"If anyone is below there, speak," he said, "or I give you warning that
+I shall shoot at sight."
+
+There was no answer; he knelt down, lowered the lamp, and peered inside.
+
+"Empty!" he announced.  "Now for the other one."
+
+He repeated the same tactics, but the cavity revealed no lurking form
+within.  Naturally, his companions were absorbed in McCulloch's
+actions, because they knew that any instant a blinding sheet of flame
+might leap out of the darkness and a bullet send him prostrate and
+writhing.  Of the three, Curtis was most inured to an environment that
+was unusual and weird, and he it was who first noticed that the barge
+was altering its position with regard to the white discs of light which
+the lamps of the automobile formed in the mist, and a splash caused by
+the falling plank confirmed his frenzied doubt.
+
+One glance showed what had happened.  Already they were ten or twelve
+feet from the quay, which stood fully two feet above the deck of the
+barge.  Even while the fantastic notion flashed through his mind, a
+shoreward jump barely achievable by a first-rate athlete became a sheer
+impossibility.
+
+"Good Lord!" he cried, almost laughing with vexation.  "The barge has
+been cast off from her moorings!"
+
+Devar and McCulloch greeted the discovery with appropriate remarks, but
+the situation called for deeds rather than words.  The cumbrous craft
+was swinging gayly out into the stream, displaying a light-hearted
+energy and ease of motion which would certainly not have been
+forthcoming had it been the object of her unwilling crew to get her
+under way.
+
+The whereabouts of Brodie and the automobile were still vaguely
+discernible by two fast converging luminous circles now some twenty
+yards distant, and the fact was painfully borne in on them that in
+another few seconds this landmark would be swallowed in a sea of mist
+and swirling waters.
+
+Curtis, accustomed to the vagaries of Chinese junks in the swift
+currents of the Yang-tse-Kiang, adopted the only measures which
+promised any degree of success.  He ran to the helm, which had been
+lashed on the starboard side to keep it from fouling any submerged
+piles near the bank.  Casting it loose, he put it hard a-port, and
+shouted to the policeman and Devar to bring a couple of boards from the
+floor of the well, and use them to sheer in the hulk to the bank.
+
+The night was pitch dark, the mist fell on them like an impenetrable
+veil, and the wooded heights which dominated both banks of the river
+prevented any ray of light from coming to their assistance.  Still,
+they had two lamps, which at least enabled them to see each other, and
+Curtis could judge with reasonable accuracy of the direction they were
+taking by the set of the stream.  They seemed to have been toiling a
+weary time before the helmsman fancied he could see something looming
+out of the void.  He believed that, however slowly, they were surely
+forging inshore again, and was about to ask Devar to abandon his
+valiant efforts to convert a long plank into a paddle and go forward in
+order to keep a lookout, when the barge crashed heavily into the stern
+of a ship of some sort, and simultaneously bumped into a wharf.  The
+noise was terrific, coming so unexpectedly out of the silence, and
+their argosy careened dangerously under some obstruction forward.
+
+No orders were needed now.  They scrambled ashore, abandoning one of
+the lamps in their desperate hurry, and the policeman instantly
+extinguished the light of the other by pressing the glass closely to
+his breast when a rumble of curses heralded the coming on deck of two
+men who had been aroused from sleep on board the vessel by the
+thunderous onset of the colliding barge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TWO-THIRTY A. M.
+
+Few men or women of sympathetic nature, and gifted with ordinary powers
+of observation, can go through life without learning, at some time or
+other in the course of their careers, that circumstances wholly beyond
+human control can display on occasion a fiendish faculty of converting
+patent honesty into apparent dishonesty--and that which is true of
+motive holds equally good in the case of conduct.
+
+The three men standing breathless and unmoved on some unknown wharf on
+the left bank of the Hudson might fairly be described as superlatively
+honest persons, nor had they done any act which could be construed as
+wrongful by the most captious critic; yet McCulloch's concealment of
+the lamp suggested something thievish and illicit, and, though he alone
+could give a valid reason for exercising extreme discretion, because he
+realized, better than the others, what a choice morsel this adventure
+would supply to the press if ever it became known, both Curtis and
+Devar listened like himself with bated breath to the oaths and
+ejaculations which came from the after part of the moored vessel.
+
+"Howly war!" cried one of the startled crew.  "See what's butted into
+us--the divvle's own battherin'-ram av a scow, an' wid an ilegant
+lanthern shtuck on her mangy hide, if ye plaze."
+
+A ship's lamp bobbed up and down in the gloom, and another voice said
+gruffly:
+
+"Mighty good job we had those fenders out, or she would have knocked a
+hole in us.  She seems to be wedged in good and hard under our mooring
+rope; but shin over, Pat, an' make her fast.  Somebody owns the brute,
+an' there'll be damages to pay for this, an' p'raps salvage as well."
+
+The Irishman dropped down into the barge.  The silent trio on the quay
+heard him walking to the lamp, and saw its dull orb of radiance lifted
+from the deck.
+
+"Begob, but this is a bit of a fairy tale," came the comment.  "Here is
+none o' yer tin-cint Standard Ile prapositions, but a rale dandy uv a
+lamp, fit for a lady's cabin on Vandherbilt's yacht.  An', for the luv
+o' Hiven, look at the make uv it, wid a handle where the bottom ought
+to be, an' all polished up like the pewther in Casey's saloon."
+
+"Oh, get a move on, Pat, an' tie her up," said the other voice.  "It's
+the Lord knows what o'clock, an' we've a long day before us to-morrow."
+
+The lamp moved astern, and the Irishman investigated matters further.
+
+"There's bin black wur-rk here, George," he shouted.  "The moorin' rope
+nivver bruk.  It was cut."
+
+A sharp hiss of breath between McCulloch's teeth betrayed the stress of
+his emotions.  To think that he, a smart roundsman of the Broadway
+squad, should have been bested so thoroughly by a miserable alien
+chauffeur!  The man had merely slipped over the edge of the quay, and
+clung like a limpet to the rough baulks of timber which faced it; when
+his pursuers were safely disposed of on board the barge, one cut of a
+sharp knife had sent them adrift by the stern, while the forward rope,
+released of any strain, had probably uncoiled itself from a stanchion
+with the diabolical ingenuity which inanimate objects can display at
+unlooked-for moments.
+
+"Fling a coil uv line here," continued the speaker.  "This fag ind is
+no good, at all at all."
+
+The thud of a falling rope, and various grunts and comments from the
+Irishman, showed that the barge was being secured.  Still the three
+waited.  The primary display of secrecy, the instinct to remain unseen,
+had passed, but there was nothing to be gained by entering into a long
+and difficult explanation with the ship's hands, while it would be a
+simple matter to recoup the owner of the barge for any charge which
+might be levied on him for injury to the vessel, provided the liability
+rested with him and not with others.
+
+Swearing and grumbling, Pat stumbled along the quay, carrying the lamp.
+He passed within a few feet of the motionless group, and soon they
+heard him and his mate descending the companionway to their bunks.
+
+"Now for a light," said the policeman, "and let's get out of this!"
+
+Taking heed not to turn the lamp toward the ship, lest their movements
+should be overheard and a head pop up out of the hatch, he led the way
+quietly to the rear of the wharf.  A rough road climbed the hill to the
+left, and, as this direction offered the only probable means of
+regaining the car, they took it.
+
+After a long climb they reached a better road, which ultimately brought
+them into a main thoroughfare.  Then Curtis bethought him of looking at
+his watch, and was astonished to find that the hour was half-past two
+o'clock.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried.  "We must have consumed fully half an hour over
+that trip.  I wonder whether your man has waited, Devar; or would he
+give us up as lost, and go home?"
+
+"What!  Arthur return alone, and tell my aunt that the last he saw of
+me I was adrift on the Hudson River in a barge with a policeman and a
+swashbuckler from Pekin?  Not much!"
+
+"I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch.  "Even when we reach New
+York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and
+report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire
+precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time."
+
+Devar laughed loudly.
+
+"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch--not that you are of the neurotic
+habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored
+through you while searching that blessed barge--but if you believe you
+can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained
+John D. Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are
+hugging a delusion.  I started out from a happy home last evening
+intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox
+sights of New York.  Gee whizz!  Look at me now!  I missed John D. by a
+few minutes, but found myself gaping with the crowd at the scene of a
+murder in which he had figured heavily.  Since then I have helped to
+break open hotel doors, discovered a villain tied and gagged by other
+villains, stood on my head in Morris Siegelman's joint, started a riot
+in East Broadway, helped a detective to commit a larceny, cheeked a
+British lord, and scoffed at a Hungarian prince, to say nothing of the
+present racket.  So don't you go making plans for the night yet a
+while, McCulloch, because John D. will keep you busy without any call
+for you exercising your brain cells in that respect."
+
+The roundsman did not try to grasp the inner significance of this
+rigmarole.  He was unfeignedly glad to have escaped from an awkward
+predicament.
+
+"Anyhow," he said briefly, "if it comes to the worst I can ring up my
+captain from the nearest station-house, and at least he will know where
+I am."
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, either.  Suppose you had 'phoned your
+captain before you went on board the barge, would he be any the wiser
+now?  Just to prove the exceeding wisdom of my remarks, do you know
+where you are at the present moment?  Because _I_ don't."
+
+The policeman stopped short, and gazed ahead with a new anxiety.  The
+mist was thinner here, and pin-points of light from a row of lamps
+showed in a straight line for a considerable distance.  For an instant
+there was an embarrassed pause, because all three failed to remember
+covering any similar stretch of level road after descending the hill
+and turning into the lane leading to the Hudson.
+
+"Did you notice a few minutes since that a low wall bounded the road on
+both sides?" said Curtis, breaking a somewhat strained silence.
+
+Yes, each had seen it.
+
+"Well, I am inclined to believe," he went on, "that that wall formed
+part of an accommodation bridge, under which the car passed in the dark
+without our being aware of it.  Indeed, I feel confident that if we
+turn back along this main road, we shall meet our lane on the right,
+and about three hundred yards from this very point."
+
+They agreed to make the experiment, and Devar grinned broadly when the
+lane presented itself exactly as Curtis had predicted.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he cackled to the roundsman.  "John D. is a
+Chinese necromancer.  I'm getting used to his tricks, and you will
+catch the habit in another hour or two.  By four o'clock you won't be
+the least bit surprised if you find yourself flying across the New
+Jersey flats in an aeroplane, or having a cup of hot coffee on board
+the pilot steamer off Sandy Hook."
+
+"I'll risk either of those unlikely things, sir, if we find your car
+where we left it," They stepped out briskly.  When all was said and
+done, none of the three wished to be stranded in some unknown byway of
+Westchester County at that ungodly hour, and their relief was great
+when the stark outline of the crane became visible in an otherwise
+impenetrable wall of darkness.
+
+"By Jove!  The car is here all right," crowed Devar joyously.
+
+In the next few strides the automobile came in sight, the blaze of its
+headlights casting a cheerful glow over the wharf.  Brodie was standing
+where the barge had been moored, and gazing blankly at the river; he
+turned when he heard their footsteps, and ran quickly to the car.
+
+"It's O. K., Arthur," cried Devar, realizing that the chauffeur might
+be dreading an attack from the rear, "little Willie has returned, and
+won't go boating again in a derelict barge at two o'clock in the
+morning if he can help it."
+
+"Oh, it's you, sir!" came the answer in a tone of vast relief.  "My,
+but I'm glad to see you!  I didn't know what to do.  I thought you were
+safe enough, because I heard your voices as you drifted away, and I
+fancied you might make the shore again lower down, but it seemed to be
+a hopeless job to go in search of you, so, after things had calmed down
+a bit, I decided to stop right here."
+
+After the first gasp of excitement, there had crept into the placid
+Brodie's voice a note of quiet jubilation which hinted at developments.
+
+"Did anything happen after we sailed away?" asked Devar.
+
+"Did you see anyone?" demanded the policeman.
+
+"Things were quiet as the grave for quite a time after you gentlemen
+disappeared," said Brodie, speaking with the unctuous slowness of a man
+who has been vouchsafed the opportunity of his life and has grabbed it
+with both hands.
+
+"Something _did_ occur, then?" put in Devar impatiently.
+
+"Nothing to speak of, sir--at first," came the irritating answer.  "I
+watched you go on board the barge, and I noticed her edging out into
+the river, and it was easy enough to know that none of you had cast her
+off, because what you said showed that you were even more surprised
+than I was.  So, sez I to meself, 'Arthur, me boy, barges don't untie
+themselves from wharves in that casual sort of way, and at just the
+right minute, too, for anyone who wanted to dispose of a cop,' begging
+your pardon, Mr. Policeman, but that was the line of argument I had
+with meself."
+
+"Try the accelerator, Arthur," groaned Devar.
+
+"If ever I meet with a bit of an accident, sir, I always pull up and
+plan the wheel-marks; I carry a tape for the purpose, and it saves a
+lot of hard swearing in court afterwards."  Brodie spoke seriously, and
+Devar vowed that he would interrupt no more, since he merely succeeded
+in stimulating the man's torpid wits.
+
+Even now, the chauffeur waited to allow his philosophy to sink into
+minds which might prove unreceptive.  Finding that there was no
+likelihood of debate, he went on:
+
+"It struck me, too, that a feller who didn't hesitate about shoving a
+good car into a river must be a rank tough, the kind of character who
+would jump at the chance of plugging me with a bullet, or two, for that
+matter, and hiking off with the car, without anybody being the wiser,
+so I nipped out from behind the wheel, and, taking care to keep away
+from the light, crept in behind that pile of rock there," and he nodded
+to the mass of dressed stone which filled one end of the wharf.
+
+He waited, as though to make sure that they appreciated his
+generalship.  Devar's teeth grated, and McCulloch stirred uneasily, but
+no one spoke.
+
+"You'll notice that it is only a few feet away," he said, measuring the
+distance with a thoughtful eye, "but, to make sure of reaching anybody
+who might try to monkey with the car, I groped around until I had found
+two half bricks.  Then I waited.  By that time, which was really less
+than it takes me to tell you about it, there wasn't a sound to be heard
+but the lapping of the river.  The last thing I heard you say, Mr.
+Howard, was----"
+
+"I used language which no self-respecting chauffeur could possibly
+repeat," broke in Devar despairingly.
+
+"That's as may be, sir.  Circumstances alter cases, as you will see
+before I've done.  Well, I listened to the river, which resembled
+nothing in all the world so much as the sobbing of a child, but no one
+stirred for such a time that I began to feel stiff, and I was thinking
+that I might be acting like a fool for my pains when a head popped up
+over the edge of the wharf."
+
+Obviously, this sentence demanded a dramatic pause, and Brodie knew his
+business.  Perhaps he expected cries of horror from his audience, but
+none was forthcoming, so, with a sigh, he continued:
+
+"That cured the stiffness, gentlemen, I can assure you.  I balanced one
+of the half bricks in my left hand--I'm a left-handed man in many
+things--and watched the head, while it was easy to see that the head
+watched the car.  'Now,' sez I to meself, 'that's the whelp who
+mistreated a car which had served him well, and he's reckoning in his
+own mind that my car would suit his needs just as well as the one he
+has lost.'  I do believe I read that man's mind correctly.  He might
+have said out loud: 'That party of sports were muts.  They're all
+aboard the Hudson River liner, chauffeur and all.'  I beg your pardon,
+gentlemen, if I have put it awkwardly, but I am sort of feeling my way
+towards the feller's sentiments, groping in the dark, as you might say."
+
+Notwithstanding his effort at self-restraint, Devar felt that he must
+speak or explode.
+
+"Go right ahead, Arthur," he said.  "Explain the position thoroughly.
+The fog is lifting, and we have heaps of time before sunrise."
+
+"The whole affair is a mighty queer business, sir," said Brodie
+seriously.  "The roundsman here will tell you how careful one has to be
+in such matters.  I have had a law-case or two in my time, and them
+lawyers turn you inside out if you begin romancing.  For instance, what
+I've just told you isn't evidence.  The man said nothing; neither did
+I.  We played a fine game of cat and mouse, only it happened that I was
+the cat. . . .  Well, it is getting late, so I'll get on with the
+story.  The head didn't budge for quite a while, but at last it made a
+move, and soon the identical chauffeur who hit up the pace from 23rd
+Street climbed on to the wharf and dodged in behind the crane.  He had
+something in his right hand, too, that I didn't like the look of, so I
+gripped my chunk of brick mighty hard.  This time he didn't wait so
+long, but crept forward like a stage murderer, peeping this way and
+that, but making for the car.  Once he looked straight at where I was
+crouching, and I was scared stiff, because a brick ain't any fair match
+for one of them new-fangled pistols at six yards or so; but I guess he
+was a bit nervy himself, and he didn't make out anything unusual in my
+direction.  Then he dodged right round the car to the back, and
+returned on the side nearest to me.  I suppose he reckoned all was safe
+by that time, so he took hold of the crank and began to start the
+engine.  'Now or never!' says I to meself, so up I gets, and my knee
+joints cracked like--well, they cracked so loud that only the turning
+of the crank stopped him from hearing them.  With that, I let drive
+with the half brick, and caught him square in the small of the back.
+Down he went with a yell, and me on top of him.  I had the second half
+brick ready to batter his skull in if he showed fight, but the first
+one had laid him out sufficient for my purpose, which was to get hold
+of this."
+
+Brodie's hand dived into a pocket, and he produced a particularly
+vicious looking automatic pistol.
+
+Then McCulloch said imperatively:
+
+"You've got him.  Where is he?"
+
+Brodie was really an artist.  Some men would have smirked with triumph,
+but he merely jerked a thumb casually toward the automobile:
+
+"In there!" he said.
+
+The policeman ran to a door and wrenched it open.  He turned the rays
+of the lamp which he still held in his hand on to a figure, lying
+kneeling on the floor in an extraordinary attitude.  From a white face
+a pair of gleaming eyes met his in a glance of hate and fear, but no
+words came from the thin lips set in a line, and a moment's scrutiny
+showed that the captive was bound hand and foot.  Indeed, hands and
+feet were fastened together with a stout cord, which had been passed
+around the man's neck subsequently, so that he was in some danger of
+suffocation if he endeavored to wriggle loose, or even straighten his
+back, which was bent over his heels.
+
+"He's all right," said Brodie, who had strolled leisurely after the
+others.  "I told him I was taking no chances, and was compelled to make
+him uncomfortable, but that he wouldn't choke if he kept quiet.  Of
+course, he has had a rather trying wait, but I couldn't help that,
+could I?"
+
+"We give you best," growled McCulloch.  "Did you stiffen him with the
+half brick, then, that you were able to hunt around for a rope?"
+
+"That helped some, but I also remarked that, if he moved, this toy of
+his would surely go off by accident, and he seemed to think it might
+hurt."
+
+McCulloch held the lamp close to the livid, twisted face.
+
+"Is this Anatole?" he said suddenly.
+
+"Yes," said Curtis, with instant appreciation of his adroitness.
+
+They were rewarded by the scowl which convulsed the mask-like face, and
+terror set its unmistakable seal there.  A harsh metallic voice came
+from the huddled-up form.
+
+"Cut this d--d rope, and let me stand on my feet!"
+
+"There's no special hurry," said the policeman coolly.  "We won't
+object to making things more pleasant for you if you promise to take us
+straight to your Hungarian friends."
+
+Again that wave of dread which betokens the quailing heart of the
+detected felon swept over the man's features, but he only swore again,
+and protested that they had no right to torture him.
+
+McCulloch saw that he had to deal with a hardened criminal, from whom
+no conscience stricken confession would be forthcoming.  He gave the
+lamp to Curtis, stooped, and lifted the prisoner out on to the ground.
+Untying the rope, except at the man's ankles, he brought the listless
+hands in front, and placed a pair of handcuffs on the wrists.
+
+"Now," he said, "if you have any sense left, you'll keep quiet and
+enjoy the ride back to New York."
+
+"Why am I arrested?  I have a right to know?"  The words were yelped at
+him rather than spoken.
+
+"All in good time, Anatole.  You'll have everything explained to you
+fair and square."
+
+"That is not my name.  That's a Frenchman's name."
+
+"It fitted you all right in 27th Street a few hours ago."
+
+"I was not there.  I can prove it."
+
+"Of course you can.  You'd be a poor sort of crook if you couldn't.
+But what's this?" the roundsman had found some letters and a pocketbook
+in an inner pocket of the chauffeur's closely buttoned jacket--"M.
+Anatole Labergerie, care of Morris Siegelman, saloon-keeper, East
+Broadway, N. Y.," he said.  "You know someone named Anatole, anyhow, so
+we are warm, as the kids say," he went on sarcastically.
+
+"I say nothing.  I admit nothing.  I demand the presence of a lawyer,"
+was the defiant reply.
+
+"You'll see a heap of lawyers before the State of New York has no
+further use for you.  Now, I'll take you to a nice, quiet hotel for the
+night.  In with you. . . .  Mind the step.  Let me give you a friendly
+hand. . . .  No, that seat, if you please, close up in the corner.
+I'll go next.  Mr. Curtis, you don't object to being squeezed a little,
+I'm sure, though the three of us will crowd the back seat, and if the
+gentleman who says nothing and admits nothing will only change his
+mind, and tell us exactly how he has spent a rather exciting evening,
+the story will help pass the journey quite pleasantly."
+
+But Anatole Labergerie, whose accent was that of a Frenchman with a
+very complete knowledge of English, had evidently determined on a
+policy of silence, and no word crossed his lips during the greater part
+of the long run to the police station-house in 30th Street, in which
+precinct, the 23rd, the murder had occurred, and to which McCulloch was
+attached.
+
+His presence in the car acted as an effectual damper on conversation in
+so far as Curtis and Devar were concerned.  If their suspicions were
+justified, he was a principal in an atrocious crime, and mere
+propinquity with such a wretch induced a feeling of loathing comparable
+only with that shrinking from physical contact to which mankind yields
+when confronted with leprosy in its final forbidding form.
+
+But McCulloch was jubilant.  He regarded his prisoner with the almost
+friendly interest taken in his quarry by the slayer of wild beasts to
+whose rifle has fallen some peculiarly rare and dangerous "specimen."
+He enlivened the road with anecdotes of famous criminals, and each
+story invariably concluded with a facetious reference to the "chair" or
+a "lifer."  Once or twice he gave details of the breaking up of some
+notorious gang owing to information extracted from one of its minor
+members, who, in consequence, either escaped punishment or received a
+light sentence; but the captive remained mute and apparently
+indifferent, whereupon Curtis, who had been revolving in his mind
+certain elements in a singularly complex mystery, broke fresh ground by
+saying:
+
+"The strangest feature of this affair is probably unknown to you, Mr.
+McCulloch.  To all intents and purposes, the men who killed the
+journalist were acting in concert with a Frenchman named Jean de
+Courtois, and their common object was to prevent a marriage arranged
+for last night.  Yet this same de Courtois was found gagged and bound
+in his room at the Central Hotel shortly before midnight.  Someone had
+maltreated him badly, and the wonder is he was not killed outright."
+
+Now, the roundsman, wedged close against the prisoner, felt the man
+give an almost unconscious and quite involuntary start when de Courtois
+was mentioned, and there could be no question that he was straining his
+ears to catch each syllable Curtis uttered.
+
+Nudging the latter, McCulloch said:
+
+"So it was a near thing that two weddings were not interfered with last
+night, sir?"
+
+"No, not two, only one.  I married the lady."
+
+"You did!"
+
+The policeman's undoubted bewilderment was convincingly genuine, but,
+despite his surprise, he was alert to catch the slightest move or sign
+of emotion on the part of the captive.
+
+"Yes," said Curtis.  "I married her before half-past eight."
+
+"Then you must have possessed some knowledge of the parties mixed up in
+this business?"
+
+"No, not in the sense you have in mind.  I cannot supply full
+particulars now, but you will learn them in due course.  The point I
+wish to emphasize is this--poor Mr. Hunter's death was absolutely
+needless.  I imagine he only came into connection with the intrigue by
+exercising the journalistic instinct to obtain exclusive details of a
+sensational news item which involved several distinguished people.  The
+miserable tools employed by men who wished to gain their own ends were
+not even true to each other, and they undoubtedly attacked Hunter by
+error."
+
+"Did they mean to kill you, then?"
+
+"Oh, no.  They had never heard of me.  I dropped from the skies, or the
+nearest thing to it, since I was on the Atlantic at this hour
+yesterday."
+
+McCulloch was aware that the Frenchman had been profoundly disturbed by
+Curtis's statements, and kept the ball rolling.  That name, de
+Courtois, seemed to supply the clew to the man's agitation, so he
+harped on it.
+
+"Has Mr. Steingall seen de Courtois?" he asked.
+
+"Yes.  Mr. Devar and I accompanied him to de Courtois's room, and set
+the rascal free."
+
+"That settles it," said the roundsman emphatically.  "If the man with
+the camera eye has looked de Courtois over it is all up with the whole
+bunch.  Are you listening, Anatole?  This should be real lively hearing
+for you."
+
+"Monsieur de Courtois is a friend of mine," came the sullen response.
+
+"Oh, is he?  Then you do know something about events in 27th Street,
+eh?"
+
+"I tell you nothing, but why should I deny that I know Monsieur de
+Courtois?"
+
+"Or that you are a Frenchman," put in Curtis quietly.  "One of the few
+words in the French language which no foreigner can ever pronounce is
+that word 'Monsieur,' especially when it is followed by a 'de.'  I
+speak French well enough to realize my limitations."
+
+"Now, Anatole, cough it up," said McCulloch jocularly.  "You've no more
+chance of winning through than a chunk of ice in hell's flames."
+
+"Let me alone, I'm tired," said the other, relapsing into a stony
+inattention which did not end even when Brodie brought the car to a
+stand outside the police station-house in West 30th Street.
+
+The advent of the roundsman with a prisoner and escort created some
+commotion among his colleagues.  The police captain was the same
+official who had harbored suspicion against Curtis not so many hours
+ago, and his opinion was not entirely changed, only modified.
+
+He glanced darkly at Curtis and Devar, but was manifestly cheered by
+sight of McCulloch with a chauffeur in custody.
+
+"Hello!" he cried, "and where in Hades have _you_ been?"
+
+"A long way from home, Mr. Evans," said the roundsman.  "But it was
+worth while.  This is Anatole, whose other name is Labergerie, the man
+wanted for the murder in 27th Street."
+
+"The deuce it is!  Where did you get him?"
+
+"Away up beyond Yonkers."
+
+"Hold on a minute."
+
+He swung round quickly to a telephone, and called up Headquarters.
+
+"Hello, there," he said, when an answer came.  "Mr. Steingall or Mr.
+Clancy in?  Both?  Well, put me through. . . .  That you, Mr.
+Steingall?  I'm Evans, 23rd precinct. . . .  Sergeant McCulloch has
+just arrived with a prisoner, the chauffeur, Anatole; and Mr. Curtis is
+here, too. . . .  Anatole Labergerie is the full name."
+
+Some conversation followed.  The others could hear the peculiar rasping
+sound of a voice otherwise undistinguishable, but it was evident that
+the police captain was greatly puzzled.  At last he beckoned to Curtis.
+
+"You're wanted," he said laconically.
+
+Curtis went to the instrument, and Steingall's rather amused tone was
+soon explicable.
+
+"There's a screw loose, somewhere," he said.  "Anatole Labergerie is a
+respectable garage-keeper.  I know him well.  Half an hour ago I called
+him out of bed, chiefly on account of his front name, and he told me
+that Mr. Hunter hired a car from him last evening, but never showed up
+at the appointed place and time, and the chauffeur brought the car back
+to the garage to wait further orders."
+
+"I have no wish to traduce Anatole Labergerie," said Curtis, "but I am
+quite sure that the man under arrest is the driver of the car in which
+the Hungarians made off.  He has admitted, too, that Jean de Courtois
+is his friend."
+
+A low whistle revealed Steingall's revised view of the situation.
+
+"Don't go away," he said.  "Clancy and I will be with you in less than
+quarter of an hour."
+
+Curtis hung up the receiver, and announced the new development.  The
+Frenchman did not betray any cognizance of it.  He had collapsed into a
+chair, and looked the degenerate that he was.
+
+But Devar slapped McCulloch's broad shoulders.
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" he cried.  "There's a whole lot of night ahead of
+us yet.  Gee whizz!  I'll write a book before I'm through with this!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"
+
+A dejected and disheveled super-clerk was called on to face a new
+crisis soon after he had apparently got rid of most of the persons
+concerned in the pandemonium which had raged for hours around that
+refuge of middle-class decorum and respectability, the Central Hotel in
+27th Street.
+
+As he was wont to explain in later days of blessed peacefulness:
+
+"The queerest part of the whole business was that I never had the
+slightest notion as to what was going to happen next.  Everything
+occurred like a flash of lightning, and imitated lightning by never
+striking twice in the same place."
+
+It was not to be expected that a man of the Earl of Valletort's social
+standing and experience would allow himself to be brow-beaten by a
+police official and an uncertain miscellany of people like Devar and
+the members of the Curtis family.  When the cool night air had tempered
+his indignation, and he was removed from the electrical atmosphere
+created by his son-in-law's positive disdain and Steingall's negative
+indifference, he began to survey the situation.  Though not wholly a
+stranger in New York, he was far from being versed in the
+technicalities of legal and police methods, so he bethought him of
+securing skilled advice.  The hour was late, but the fact merely
+presented a difficulty which was not insuperable to a person of even
+average intelligence.  He turned into an imposing looking hotel on
+Broadway, produced his card, and asked for the manager.
+
+An affable clerk hurried forward, thinking that his house was about to
+earn new laurels; if somewhat surprised by the Earl's explanation that
+he was in need of a lawyer of repute, and had applied to the proprietor
+of an important hotel as one most likely to further the quest, he
+responded with prompt civility.
+
+"There are several lawyers guests in the hotel at this moment, my
+lord," he said.  "Each is a notable man in one branch of practice or
+another.  May I ask if you want advice in a matter of real estate, or
+some commercial claim, or a criminal charge?"
+
+"The latter, in a sense," said the Earl.  "A relative of mine has
+contracted a marriage under conditions which are illegal, or, at any
+rate, most irregular."
+
+The clerk stroked his chin.
+
+"Mr. Otto Schmidt has just concluded a remarkable nullity of marriage
+suit," he pondered.
+
+"Just the man for my purpose.  Is he in?"
+
+Within five minutes the Earl was closeted with Mr. Otto Schmidt in the
+latter's private sitting-room.  The lawyer was a short man, who bore a
+remarkable physical resemblance to an egg.  Head, rotund body, and
+immensely fat legs tapering to very small feet, formed a complete oval,
+while his ivory-tinted skin, and a curious crease running round
+forehead and ears beneath a scalp wholly devoid of hair, suggested that
+the egg had been boiled, and the top cut off and replaced.
+
+But he showed presently that the ovum was sound in quality.  He
+listened in absolute silence until his lordship had told his story.
+All things considered, the recital was essentially true.
+
+There were suppressions of fact, such as the lack of any mention of
+collusion between the distraught father and Count Ladislas Vassilan on
+the one hand and Jean de Courtois on the other, and there were wholly
+unwarrantable imputations against Curtis's character and attributes,
+but, on the whole, Mr. Schmidt was able, in his own phrase, "to size up
+the position" with fair accuracy.
+
+Like every other man of common sense who became acquainted with the
+night's doings in a connected narrative, he began by expressing his
+astonishment.
+
+"I have had some singular cases to handle during a long and varied
+professional career," he said, and eyelids almost devoid of lashes
+dropped for an instant over a pair of dark and curiously piercing eyes,
+"but I have never heard of anything quite like this.  You say the name
+of the detective who gave you the account of the murder, and of the
+connection of this John Delancy Curtis with it, is Steingall?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Again the eyelids fell, and, as Mr. Schmidt's face was also devoid of
+eyebrows, and was colorless in its pallor, and as his lips met in a
+thin seam above a chin which merged in folds of soft flesh where his
+neck ought to be, his features at such a moment assumed the
+disagreeable aspect of a death mask, though this impression vanished
+when those brilliant eyes peered forth from their bulbous sockets.
+
+"But I know Steingall," he said.  "He is at the head of the New York
+Detective Bureau, a man of the highest reputation, and one who commands
+confidence in the courts, not to speak of his department."
+
+"He struck me as an able man, but I am quite sure he has failed to
+appreciate the share this fellow, Curtis, has borne in the affair,"
+said the Earl testily.
+
+"It seems to me that your daughter, Lady Hermione, could not possibly
+have been what is commonly described as 'in love' with de Courtois?
+Stupid as the comment may appear, I must search for a motive."
+
+"My good sir, the notion is preposterous.  I--I have reason to believe
+that she intended this marriage to serve as a shield, or cloak, for her
+own purposes, which were, I regret to say, largely inspired by a
+stubborn resolve not to marry a man who is suitable as a husband in
+every way--by birth, social position, and distinguished prospects."
+
+"Her own purposes.  What does that mean exactly?"
+
+"It means that she was contracting a marriage as a matter of form.
+Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible
+for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de
+Courtois's substitute, while my misguided daughter was equally prepared
+to accept them?"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The eyelids shut tightly once more, and the Earl, feeling rather
+irritated and disturbed by this unpleasing habit, shifted his chair
+noisily.  He found, however, that Mr. Schmidt merely kept the shutters
+down for a rather longer period than before, and, as the lawyer
+impressed him with a sense of power and ability, he resolved to put up
+with a peculiarity which was certainly disconcerting.
+
+"May I ask if your daughter is what is popularly known as a pretty
+girl, my lord?" demanded Schmidt suddenly.
+
+"Yes.  She is remarkably good-looking, but----"
+
+"Motive, my lord, motive.  I was wondering why Curtis should behave
+like a thundering idiot.  Now, apart from your natural dislike to the
+man, how would you describe him?"
+
+"He looks a gentleman, and, under ordinary conditions, I would regard
+him as a social equal," admitted the Earl.
+
+"So, unfortunate as the circumstances may be, he is a more desirable
+_parti_ than the French music-master?"
+
+Then the noble lord flared into heat.
+
+"Dash it all!" he cried.  "You are almost as bad as that detective
+person.  I am not bothering my brains as to Curtis's desirableness or
+otherwise, or comparing him with a worm like de Courtois.  I want this
+marriage annulled.  I want him arrested.  I want the aid of the law to
+extricate my daughter from the consequences of her own folly.  Surely,
+such a marriage cannot be legal!"
+
+Schmidt weighed the point from behind the veil, and an unemotional
+reply soothed his fiery client.
+
+"The idea is, perhaps, untenable--almost repulsive," he said, "but the
+law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I
+cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand.  You see, the question of
+consideration intervenes.  And--and--where is the lady now?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You left Curtis at the Central Hotel!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In company with Steingall, and two elderly Curtises, and young Devar?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why didn't you demand your daughter's present address?"
+
+"I--I was so stunned by what I regarded as official sanction of an
+outrage that I came away in a fury."
+
+Mr. Otto Schmidt rose, or rather, raised his oblong shape from a slight
+incline on a chair to a horizontal position.
+
+"Let us go to the hotel," he said.  "And there must be no more fury.
+Leave the inquiry in my hands, my lord, and it will be strange if I do
+not succeed in elucidating points which are now baffling us--in fact, I
+may say, inducing mental disturbance."
+
+Thus, it came to pass that Krantz, the reception clerk at the Central
+Hotel, had just seen the doctor sent to dose de Courtois with bromide
+leaving the building when the Earl and Mr. Schmidt entered.
+
+As it happened, the lawyer was known to him, Schmidt having had legal
+charge of the corporation which reconstructed the hotel, so it was
+impossible for an employe to be reticent with him about the matters
+which were discussed forthwith.
+
+"Mr. Steingall gone?" inquired Schmidt affably.
+
+"Yes, sir.  He left here nearly half an hour ago," said the clerk,
+outwardly self-possessed, but wondering inwardly what new bomb would be
+exploded in his weary brain.
+
+"This murder, and its attendant circumstances, constitute a very
+extraordinary affair," said the lawyer.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Krantz was not deceived.  He had answered some such remark a hundred
+times that evening, but he would surely be put on the rack in a moment
+by some fantastic disclosure which none save a lunatic would dream of.
+
+"Now, about this Mr. John Delancy Curtis," purred Schmidt, "has it been
+ascertained beyond all doubt that he arrived in New York from Europe
+this evening?"
+
+"I think so, sir," was the jaded answer.  "The police are satisfied on
+that point, I believe, and he himself gave his last address as Pekin."
+
+"Pekin!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Everybody was invariably astonished when they heard of Pekin.  Had
+Curtis described his recent residence as "the Moon" it would have been
+regarded as only a degree more recondite.
+
+"Then," said Schmidt, closing his eyes, "assuming he is the stranger he
+represents himself as being, he could have no personal connection with
+the murder of Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
+
+There!  Another comet had fallen in 27th Street.  Krantz winced, as if
+the lawyer had struck him.
+
+"Mr. de Courtois!" he gasped.  "Who says he was murdered?  He is--not
+very well, it is true, but for all that I can tell, he is sound asleep
+in bed at this minute."
+
+"Sound asleep!" roared the Earl, who had been most positive in his
+opinion that Curtis must have brought about the Frenchman's death for
+his own fell purpose.
+
+Otto Schmidt laid a restraining hand on his lordship's shoulder.
+
+"Steady now," he murmured.  "Remember my instructions.  The inquiry is
+committed to me for the time."
+
+"But, confound it, man----"
+
+"Yes, this is startling, this changes the whole aspect of the case.
+But you see the value of calm and judicious method."
+
+The egg-shaped man was certainly entitled to take credit for the
+disclosure, and seldom failed to do so in many subsequent expositions
+to admiring friends of a singular case, but he never realized how
+thoroughly self-deluded the Earl had been by the original blunder.
+
+"But, sir," protested the clerk, "it was never supposed that Mr. de
+Courtois had been killed.  No one knew who the poor gentleman was at
+first, because Mr. Curtis's overcoat and his had been accidently
+exchanged in the flurry and excitement after the crime was committed.
+The police found the initials H. R. H. on his clothing, and that fact
+led to his being recognized as Mr. Henry R. Hunter, a well-known New
+York journalist.  Had I seen him myself, I would have settled that
+point in a moment, because he often came here to visit Mr. de Courtois."
+
+"Indeed!  That is very interesting, most decidedly interesting."
+
+"Are you quite certain that what you are saying is correct?  Mr.
+Hunter, the murdered man, was acquainted with Monsieur de Courtois?"
+
+The question came from the Earl of Valletort, whose angry bewilderment
+had suddenly given place to a gravity of demeanor that was significant
+of the serious complications involved in the clerk's statement.
+
+Poor Krantz could have bitten his tongue for its too free wagging.  He
+was thoroughly tired, and had intended to go to his room at the
+earliest moment and repair damages by a long night's rest.  Now, to all
+appearance, he had unwittingly reopened the whole wretched imbroglio.
+But there was no help for it.  Having put his hand to the plow he was
+obliged to turn the furrow.
+
+"Yes, my lord, positive," he said between his teeth.
+
+"Ah!"  Schmidt was beginning to think that the amazing marriage
+promised to develop into a _cause celebre_.  "In that event, it becomes
+essential, indeed, I may say imperative, that his lordship and I should
+interview Monsieur de Courtois without delay."
+
+"Sorry, sir," said the clerk, desperately availing himself of the
+detective's instructions, "but Mr. Steingall left orders that no one
+should be permitted to visit Mr. de Courtois to-night."
+
+"Left orders?  Is the man in this hotel?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I was aware of that all the time," put in the Earl.  "He
+lived here--don't you see, that accounts for the mistake I made in
+assuming that----"
+
+"Forgive me."  The lawyer's monitory hand rose again, and he turned to
+the clerk.  "You can hardly expect me, Mr. Krantz, to regard Mr.
+Steingall's 'orders' as in any way controlling my actions.  Kindly show
+his lordship and me to Monsieur de Courtois's room at once."
+
+There was nothing for it but to obey.  Krantz understood exactly how he
+would be jumped on and pulverized in the morning by irate stockholders
+in the hotel if any action of his should be adversely reported on by
+the great Otto Schmidt.
+
+But the visit to de Courtois fizzled out unexpectedly.  The Frenchman,
+still attired in evening dress, for that is the conventional wedding
+attire of his race, was lying on the bed sleeping the sleep of utter
+exhaustion supplemented by bromide.  The two negro attendants, who were
+hoping for some more exciting experience, were squatted on the floor
+playing pinochle, and the strenuous efforts of Lord Valletort to arouse
+the slumberer were quite useless.  But--and that was a vital thing--he
+had seen de Courtois, and knew beyond doubt that he was alive, and
+seemingly in good health, or, at any rate, physically uninjured.
+
+"The man has been drugged," said the lawyer, watching the Earl's
+unavailing attempt to awaken the Frenchman.  "Is, by any chance, Mr.
+Curtis's room situated near this one?"
+
+"It is just overhead," said the clerk.
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+Schmidt looked up at the ceiling as though his eyes might discern a
+trap-door.  "Is Mr. Curtis there now?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He went out with a Mr. Devar."
+
+"Oh!  Do you know where he went to?"
+
+Krantz was tempted to prevaricate, but Schmidt was a power in the
+Central Hotel.
+
+"I believe, sir, he is at the Plaza."
+
+"A large hotel, near Central Park, is it not?" demanded the Earl
+eagerly.
+
+"My lord, pardon me."  The lawyer was no believer in letting all the
+world into your secrets, and the clerk's manner showed that he was far
+from well posted in certain elements of the affair.
+
+Valletort was for rushing forthwith off in a taxi to the Plaza; but
+Schmidt vetoed the notion.  He shared the Earl's conviction that
+Hermione would be discovered there, but, before meeting her, he wanted
+to obtain a great many particulars the lack of which in his client's
+earlier story his legal acumen had already scented.
+
+So he drew the impatient nobleman into a quiet corner of the
+restaurant, and extracted from his unwilling lips certain details as to
+Count Vassilan and the marriage project which had not been forthcoming
+before.
+
+Krantz seized the opportunity to call up Steingall on the telephone and
+told him something, not all, of what had occurred.  He did not say that
+the Earl and Schmidt had actually seen de Courtois, and suppressed any
+mention of his disclosure with reference to Curtis's whereabouts, not
+that he wished to mislead the detective willfully, but he felt that he
+had been indiscreet, and there was no need to proclaim the fact.
+Moreover, he had never heard Hermione's name mentioned, or he was
+gallant enough to have risked any trouble next day if a lady would be
+saved distress thereby.
+
+Schmidt's lawyer-like caution was destined to have far-reaching effects
+on the night's history.  It provided one of the minor rills of a
+torrent which was gaining irresistible momentum, and would submerge
+many people before its uncontrolled madness was exhausted.  Had he
+yielded to the Earl, and hurried to the Plaza at once, he would have
+met Curtis and Steingall there, and those two men might have diverted
+the bursting current of events into a new channel.  But, naturally
+enough, he wanted to understand precisely where he stood.  In a word,
+the egg was excellent in its constituents, but lacked the exuberant
+freshness of the newly-laid article.
+
+Hence, while the Earl nearly choked with indignation at sight of that
+entry in the visitors' book at the Plaza--"Mr. and Lady Hermione
+Curtis, Pekin,"--mistress and maid were once more discussing the
+astounding things which had taken place since the moment when John
+Delancy Curtis rang the bell at Flat 10 in Number 1000 59th Street.
+
+"If only I knew how to act for the best!" wailed Hermione half
+tearfully.  "I am afraid, Marcelle, I have been too egotistical, too
+much concerned about myself, I mean, and far too regardless of others.
+I have allowed Mr. Curtis to place himself in a dreadful position----"
+
+"I'm sure, miladi, he doesn't think so," interrupted Marcelle
+breathlessly.
+
+"That is the worst feature of it, to my thinking.  He is making all the
+sacrifice."
+
+"What!  To get a wife like you, miladi!"
+
+"I am _not_ his wife."
+
+"Well, you are not married like folk who go away for a honeymoon and
+find rice in their clothes every day for a week, but Mr. Curtis says,
+miladi, that you are his wife right enough in the eyes of the law, and
+I'm sure he admires you immensely already, so there's no telling----"
+
+"Marcelle, do you imagine for one single instant that I would really
+marry any man who took me as a favor, who conferred an obligation on
+me, who came to my assistance in a moment of despair?"
+
+"No, miladi, not if he thought those things.  But I have a sort of
+notion that Mr. Curtis would hurt any other man who suggested any of
+them, and it is easy to see by the very way he looks at you----"
+
+"Oh, have pity, and don't harp on that string!  I can be nothing to
+him.  You mistake his kindness for something which is so utterly
+impossible that it almost drives me to hysteria to hear it even spoken
+of."
+
+Marcelle knew better.  In some recess of her own acute mind she felt
+that Lady Hermione's heightened color and shining eyes were due to just
+that wild and irresponsible conceit which they were debating.  Indeed,
+Hermione could not leave the topic alone.  She forbade it, rejected it,
+stormed at its folly, yet came back to it like a child held spellbound
+by some terrifying yet fascinating object.
+
+The maid was racking her brain for some feminine argument which should
+convince an impulsive mistress that Curtis might reasonably regard his
+matrimonial entanglement as by no means so incapable of a satisfactory
+outcome as his "wife" deemed it, when a knock at the door of the
+sitting-room alarmed both.
+
+And, indeed, the ever-present dread which haunted them was justified,
+because a page announced "The Earl of Valletort and Mr. Otto Schmidt,"
+and before the petrified Marcelle could utter a word of protest, the
+two men were in the room.
+
+Marcelle said afterwards that no incident of those tumultuous hours
+surprised her more than the way in which Lady Hermione received her
+unbidden and unwelcome visitors.  The instant before their arrival she
+was an irresponsible and doubting and vacillating girl, torn by
+emotion, and swayed hither and thither by gusts of perplexity which
+ranged from half-formed hope to blank despair, but now she came from
+her bedroom without a second's hesitancy, and faced her father and the
+lawyer with a proud serenity which obviously disconcerted them, and
+quite dumfounded Marcelle.
+
+"Ah!  At last!" said the Earl, trying to speak complacently, but
+failing rather badly, because his attitude and words were decidedly
+melodramatic.
+
+"And too late!" said his daughter, letting her fine eyes dwell on
+Schmidt with the contemplative scrutiny she might bestow on an exhibit
+in a natural history museum.
+
+"Pardon me, your ladyship, not too late, but just in time, I fancy."
+
+Otto Schmidt met her gaze without flinching, and he was a man who
+undoubtedly commanded attention when he spoke.  His tone was
+deferential but decisive.  His black eyes were taking in this charming
+and intelligent woman in full measure.  Her rare beauty, her unstudied
+pose, her slender elegance, the quiet harmonies of her costume--each
+and all made their appeal.  He even waited for her reply, compelling it
+by some subtle transference of the knowledge that he would not endeavor
+to browbeat or misunderstand her.
+
+"I have heard your name, but may I ask why you are here?" she said
+composedly.
+
+It pleased him to find that he had not erred by underrating her
+intelligence.
+
+"A very proper question, Lady Hermione," he said.  "I am a lawyer,
+fairly well known in New York, and your father has consulted me with
+reference to the marriage you have contracted to-night."
+
+"Since, as you say, the marriage has most certainly been contracted,
+the statement hardly explains your presence."
+
+He smiled, and Lord Valletort, who had not seen Otto Schmidt smile once
+during the past hour, discovered that he had not begun to appraise his
+new ally's qualities at their due worth.
+
+"It is a legal habit to state events in their order," he replied
+suavely.  "But these are matters which we ought to discuss privately."
+
+"No, Marcelle, do not go," said Hermione, hiding her fear under an
+assumption of icy indifference, and checking the maid's movement in
+response to the lawyer's hint.  "Marcelle Leroux is fully in my
+confidence," she explained, "and you can say nothing which she may not
+listen to."
+
+"I am obliged to your ladyship, but I had to mention her presence,"
+said Schmidt.  "Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news,
+but you were inveigled into a marriage ceremony with John Delancy
+Curtis by gross and fraudulent misrepresentation.  He told you, I
+assume, that Monsieur Jean de Courtois was dead.  That is not true.
+Monsieur de Courtois is alive, and in his room at the Central Hotel in
+27th Street at this moment.  He was detained there at the hour you
+awaited him--kept there forcibly, by means which must be investigated,
+but the really important fact now is that he lives.  Need I tell you
+what that statement implies?  Need I emphasize the lie with which this
+man Curtis attained his object?  Your father, the Earl, and I myself,
+saw Jean de Courtois a few minutes since.  Probably, and not without
+reason, you doubt my word.  If that is so, will you kindly use the
+telephone yourself, ring up the Central Hotel, and ask if Monsieur de
+Courtois is there?  You will hardly imagine that the hotel staff would
+enter into a conspiracy with us to deceive you.  Again, you might send
+for the manager here.  He knows me, and will assure you that I am not a
+person who would lend himself to subterfuge or falsehood."
+
+"But some man was killed, was he not?"
+
+Hermione's lips had whitened, but her courage was superb, though her
+poor heart was like to burst with its frenzied throbbing, for she was
+certain this self-possessed man was speaking truly, and, if he were,
+her hero with the head of gold had revealed feet of clay.
+
+"Yes, unhappily, a journalist named Hunter."
+
+Schmidt was an artist.  He knew when to use few words.
+
+"But Mr. Curtis himself may have been deceived."
+
+"Mr. Curtis was among those who pretended to liberate de Courtois from
+his bonds.  Your unfortunate friend was brutally tied and gagged in his
+room in the hotel, and is now recovering from the effects of the
+maltreatment he received."
+
+"Mr. Curtis couldn't have known of this when he was here, little more
+than half an hour ago."
+
+"He knew it two hours ago.  Not only he, but Mr. Steingall knew it.
+Did neither of them tell you?"
+
+In utter despair, broken-hearted now not by reason of her own plight,
+but rather because of a shattered faith, Hermione appealed to the Earl.
+
+"Father, is this true?"
+
+"Absolutely true, every syllable.  I really think you ought to confirm
+Mr. Schmidt's statement by inquiry at the Central Hotel."
+
+"And publish my unhappy story more widely! . . .  Will you kindly leave
+me now?  I must think, and act."
+
+"One word, your ladyship, and I have done," said the lawyer, speaking
+with a slow seriousness that could not fail to be convincing.  "The
+mischief is not irreparable--at present.  But you must not remain here.
+You are registered in the books of the hotel as the wife of John
+Delancy Curtis, and, if I may say it with respect, your own sense of
+what is right and proper will forbid the notion that you can abide in
+the hotel until to-morrow.  I pledge my reputation that it will
+immensely facilitate the legal steps necessary to secure the annulment
+of the marriage if you dissever yourself from your so-called husband at
+the earliest moment after you have discovered his tort."
+
+Hermione was not the type of woman who faints in an emergency, though
+gladly now would she have found in unconsciousness a respite from the
+bitter pain that was rending her innermost fiber.
+
+"I think--I understand," she said brokenly.  "Will you please go?"
+
+"But will you not come with me, Hermione?" said her father.  "I give
+you my word of honor there will be no recriminations."
+
+"I must be alone--to-night," she cried, flaring into a passionate
+vehemence.  "Marcelle and I will return to my apartment.  You know
+where it is.  Come there in the morning, at any hour you choose, but go
+now, this instant, or I shall refuse to leave the hotel, no matter what
+the consequences."
+
+Her voice rose almost to a scream, and Schmidt, a profound student of
+human nature, realized that any extra pressure would be fatal.  He had
+succeeded.  This girl would keep her promise, of that he was well
+assured, but if her high-strung temperament was subjected to undue
+force she would put her back against the wall and defy law and
+convention alike.
+
+"Come," he said to the Earl, and, with a courteous bow to Hermione, he
+literally pulled her father from the room.
+
+Hermione did not weep.  She was done with tears, sick with vain regret,
+yet braced to unfaltering purpose.  The instant the door was closed she
+picked up the telephone, and the wretched Krantz was soon in evidence
+to verify the lawyer's words.
+
+Marcelle was crying as though she had lost a lover or some dear
+relative; when Hermione bade her prepare for their departure, she gave
+no heed, but wailed her sorrow aloud.
+
+"I d-don't believe them, miladi," she sobbed.  "Mr. Curtis--will wring
+the lawyer-man's neck--to-morrow. . . .  I know he will. . . .  Did Mr.
+Curtis kill poor Mr. Hunter?  If not, why should he tie that
+Frenchman? . . .  And wouldn't he t-tie twenty Frenchmen if he w-wanted
+to m-marry you!"
+
+Hermione stooped and fondled the girl's shoulders, for Marcelle had
+collapsed to her knees on the hearth-rug while her mistress was using
+the telephone.
+
+"You have been my very good friend, Marcelle," she said, and the misery
+in her voice subjugated the maid's louder grief.  "Don't fail me now,
+there's a dear!  I want to write a letter, and there can be no question
+whatever that you and I must get away before Mr. Curtis returns.  Don't
+fret, or lose faith in Providence.  A great man once wrote: 'God's in
+Heaven, and all's well with the world.'  You and I must try to believe
+that, and place utmost trust in its promise. . . .  There, now!  Hurry,
+and I shall join you in a few minutes.  We shall send for our baggage
+in the morning, and so avoid attracting attention in the hotel
+to-night."
+
+Brave as she was, when left alone in the room she pressed her hands to
+her face in sheer abandonment of agony.  But the storm passed, and she
+sat down to write.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
+
+Evans, the police captain of the 23rd Precinct, had a fairly long story
+to hear from McCulloch.  The roundsman did not spare himself in the
+recital.  He pleaded guilty to three errors of judgment.  In the first
+instance, he would have done well had he taken the advice given by
+Devar during the halt at 42nd Street, and arrested the supposed
+"Anatole" then and there; secondly, he might have secured corroborative
+evidence of the cleansing of parts of the automobile--evidence now
+destroyed by the waters of the Hudson; and, thirdly, he should have
+asked Brodie to intercept the fugitive long before it became possible
+to plunge the car into the river.
+
+"All I can say is, I sized up the situation and acted accordingly," he
+commented ruefully.  "It did look like a good plan to give him rope
+enough"--here he checked his utterance, and glanced at the disconsolate
+prisoner--"but he fairly got the better of me when I went aboard that
+barge.  I ought to have left one of these gentlemen to watch the quay.
+My excuse is that the barge seemed to offer the only probable
+hiding-place, and there was always the chance that he had gone into the
+river with the car."
+
+"Anyhow, you got him," observed Evans sympathetically, for McCulloch
+was a valued and trustworthy officer.
+
+"Well, he's here, but Mr. Brodie got him," whereupon Brodie tried not
+to look sheepish.
+
+Steingall and Clancy arrived before the roundsman had made an end of
+his experiences, which he had to recount for their benefit.  The two
+detectives had resumed their ordinary clothing.  They looked tired, but
+quietly elated, and it was noticeable that Clancy's mercurial spirits
+seemed to have evaporated.  Those who knew him would have augured from
+that fact that the chase was reaching its climax, but Curtis and Devar
+fancied that the little man was thoroughly worn out and pining for
+rest.  Never had they been more egregiously deceived.  He resembled a
+hound which bays its excitement when the quarry is scented but
+restrains all its energies for the last desperate struggle when the
+flying prey is in sight.
+
+The Frenchman sat as though in a stupor, and seemingly gave no
+attention to the details of the hunt, but he sprang to his feet in
+sheer fright when Steingall walked up to him and said sternly:
+
+"Now, Antoine Lamotte, listen to what I have to say."
+
+"I am betrayed, then?" snarled the man viciously, though his voice went
+off into a curious yelp of agony as a twinge reminded him of Brodie's
+vigorous aim with half a brick.
+
+"Yes, the game is up.  I know your confederates, and you will be
+confronted with them before daybreak. . . .  No, I am not bluffing.
+That is not my way.  Their names are Gregor Martiny and Ferdinand
+Rossi.  Now are you satisfied?"
+
+Lamotte sank back into his chair.  His features were wrung with pain,
+but the momentary excitement vanished, and his manner grew sullen again.
+
+"If you know so much I can tell you nothing," he growled.
+
+"No.  You can give me little or no information I do not possess
+already.  But, unless you are more fool than knave, you can at least
+try to save your own miserable life."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By a full confession.  Did you know that Martiny and Rossi meant to
+kill Mr. Hunter?"
+
+"No, I swear it."
+
+"Then why don't you take the hint I have given you?  It will be too
+late when you are brought before a judge.  Believe me, I shall waste no
+more breath in persuading you.  It is now or never."
+
+The Frenchman rose again, this time more slowly.  He glanced around at
+the ring of faces, and, for a moment, his gaze dwelt contemplatively on
+Clancy.  Perhaps he was vouchsafed some intuition that this man was to
+be feared, but Clancy remained unemotional as a Sioux Indian.  When he
+spoke, it was with a certain dignity, and, oddly enough, his words,
+though uttered in English, savored of a literal translation from the
+French mint which coined them.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I am a man who regards loyalty to his friends
+before all."
+
+"An excellent quality, even in a criminal, if your friends are loyal to
+you," replied Steingall with equal seriousness of manner.
+
+"But the woman who betrayed us--may she be eaten up with cancer!--is
+not my friend.  Those others are."
+
+"I have met with no woman.  I have good reason to think that you have
+no real notion of the influences which led your Hungarian friends, as
+you call them, to commit a murder.  But I rather respect your
+sentiment, so, to give you one final chance, I tell you now just how
+you were brought into this thing.  You are a thief, and the associate
+of thieves, but you have never, so far as our records go, been
+convicted.  Your real name is not Lamotte, though you have passed under
+it long enough in New York to establish some sort of claim to it, and
+you were sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Toulon eight years ago
+for a breach of military discipline.  On your release you consorted
+with anarchists in Paris, and, to escape arrest as a suspect after a
+dynamite outrage on the Grand Boulevard, you emigrated to America.  You
+are a clever mechanic, and, had you tried to earn an honest living, you
+would have succeeded, but some kink in your nature drove you to crime,
+mixed up with a good deal of political froth.  When you heard that
+precious pair of fanatics, Martiny and Rossi, plotting in Morris
+Siegelman's cafe to prevent a marriage between an English lady of great
+wealth and a wretched little Frenchman, so that the cause of a
+Hungarian party might benefit if Count Ladislas Vassilan secured the
+lady and the money, especially the money, you thought you saw a way
+towards striking a blow at the Austrian monarchy and also benefiting
+yourself.  So you offered your services, and your more acute brain put
+them up to a dodge they would never have thought of.  It was necessary
+for your purpose that you should figure as a respectable man, so you
+had cards printed in the name of Anatole Labergerie, and addressed
+letters to yourself under that same name at Morris Siegelman's
+restaurant.  I do not know yet where you obtained the car, but I shall
+know to-morrow--the fact is immaterial now.  What is of real importance
+is the method whereby you humbugged the janitor at Mr. Hunter's office
+by pretending that you had been sent there by Mr. Labergerie because
+the car was at liberty somewhat earlier than was expected, and the
+unfortunate journalist took it as a compliment, drove to his rooms,
+changed his clothes, and returned to the office, thus playing into your
+hands, because the car sent to his order by Mr. Labergerie was thereby
+prevented from picking him up at the appointed time.  It was shrewd of
+you to guess that a busy man on the staff of a newspaper would be glad
+to utilize an automobile placed unexpectedly at his disposal, and fate
+played into your hands by the delay in issuing the duplicate marriage
+license, which he had promised de Courtois to obtain from the City
+Hall."
+
+"Sir, I knew nothing of any marriage license."
+
+"Probably not.  You were concerned only with taking your confederates'
+money, and posing as the clever brain of the outfit.  But I imagine,
+and not another word shall I say, that they overreached you a bit when
+they knifed Mr. Hunter."
+
+Lamotte, to describe him by the name under which he figured in the
+annals of the crime, stretched out his hands in a gesture of emphatic
+protest.
+
+"No matter what becomes of me," he said eagerly, "I ask you to believe
+that I did not even know they had killed Mr. Hunter until I saw the
+blood on the panel when I took them to Market Street."
+
+"So.  You have been slow to adopt the lead I offered you.  But why, in
+God's name, did they stab the man?  That could hardly have been their
+deliberate plan."
+
+"It was a sort of accident.  So they said.  They really meant to force
+him into the car, and overpower him.  The scheme was to bring him to
+Market Street and keep him there until----"
+
+He hesitated.  He had given up hope for himself, but he stopped short
+of introducing other names into prominence.
+
+"Until the _Switzerland_ had reached New York, with Count Ladislas
+Vassilan and the English lord on board."
+
+Then Lamotte yielded.
+
+"You know everything," he said, with a dejected shrug.  "Either you are
+a wizard, or Gregor and Rossi are open-mouthed fools."
+
+Steingall smiled inscrutably, but Clancy, who had remained strangely
+quiet, did not relax the close attention he was giving to the
+Frenchman's least word or action.  It was about this time that Curtis
+noticed the little detective's air of complete absorption, and he
+wondered at it, since Clancy and his chief seemed to have unfolded the
+whole mystery in a way that was at once admirable and bewildering.
+
+"Then why don't you exercise your wits, man?  I have been candor itself
+in my statement, but it is your own words which will be taken down by
+the police captain here, as you are charged in his presence with
+complicity in the murder, and they will be on record for or against you
+when you are brought to trial."
+
+"You want me to admit that what you have said is true?"
+
+"Just as you wish," said Steingall, half contemptuously.  "I now charge
+you formally with taking part in the murder of Mr. Hunter.  If you have
+anything to say, say it, and it will be written at once, and signed by
+you, if you choose."
+
+He waited a moment, and then turned aside.
+
+"Put him in the cells," he said.  "I shall not trouble farther about
+him now."
+
+"One moment, monsieur," exclaimed Lamotte, evidently believing that he
+was seriously jeopardizing his life by not taking the advice given so
+openly.  "I admit that you are well informed, but I must add that I was
+ignorant of the murder till nearly half an hour after it had occurred."
+
+"Pooh, that's no use.  Make a full statement, or take the
+consequences."  Steingall's tone was so offhanded that Lamotte was
+afraid he had lost a good opportunity of saving his neck.
+
+"But what is there to tell?" he cried.
+
+"Just what happened outside the Central Hotel and afterwards."
+
+"I brought Mr. Hunter there, and nodded to Martiny and Rossi, who were
+waiting on the sidewalk, to show that he was inside the car.  I
+remained at the wheel, and anyone can perceive that my position made it
+impossible to see what was going on when the door opened.  Martiny was
+nearest to me, and I am sure he never used a knife, so it must have
+been Rossi.  Is that correct?"
+
+"I believe so, absolutely.  What next?"
+
+"Martiny said 'Vite, allez!' so I shoved in the clutch and made off at
+top speed.  In Fifth Avenue I glanced over my shoulder to look at Mr.
+Hunter, and see whether or not he was struggling, but my friends alone
+were visible in the back seat, so I believed they had put him on the
+floor, and did not stop or look at them again until I reached De
+Silva's house in Market Street.  Then, to my annoyance, when I got down
+to help carry in Mr. Hunter, I found blood on the step and the panel,
+and the idiots told me what they had done.  It is only fair to say that
+De Silva is innocent of any part in the affair.  He didn't even know
+that we were bringing anyone to Rossi's room, and we took care that he
+should be out at the time we counted on arriving at Market Street."
+
+"You didn't attack Mr. Hunter sooner because your orders were to wait
+until the last possible moment?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]
+
+Devar was unaware of any change in the manner of either of the
+detectives, because he was watching Lamotte's livid face with a species
+of fascinated horror, but Curtis, who had often been compelled to hold
+similar inquiries into cold-blooded crimes committed by Chinese
+coolies, found greater interest in observing Clancy.  A subtle
+exultation had suddenly danced into the diminutive Franco-Irishman's
+expressive features when Market Street was first mentioned, and his
+coal-black eyes blazed in their slits at the sound of that name, De
+Silva.
+
+A queer thought flitted through Curtis's mind, but he put it aside,
+because Steingall was speaking again.
+
+"Well, you got rid of your friends.  Then what did you do?"
+
+"The rest was simple.  I cleaned the car in a hurry with a bit of oily
+waste, took it to a yard which I have used at times, at an address
+which I beg you to permit me to forget, changed the number plate, and,
+at an hour which I deemed discreet, drove uptown in order to dispose of
+the car by leaving it deserted near the garage from which it came.  The
+owner's house is on Riverside Drive.  His name is Morris; he is absent
+in Chicago on business, while I learnt that his chauffeur was ill."
+
+A gasp of uncontrollable excitement from Devar drew all eyes to him.
+
+"Great Jerusalem!" he cried.  "Next house to my aunt's!"
+
+"There's a mistake somewhere," broke in Brodie.  "I know Mr. Morris's
+car, and that isn't it."
+
+Lamotte was positively annoyed that his word should appear to be
+doubted.
+
+"Messieurs," he said grandiloquently, "I assure you on my honor that I
+am not misleading you."
+
+Nor was he.  The discrepancy was cleared up next day.  The Morris
+automobile was undergoing repairs, and the motor manufacturers had
+supplied the gray car for use in the interim.
+
+Steingall swept the matter aside impatiently.
+
+"Go on," he said to the Frenchman.  "You're taking a note of this?" he
+added, glancing at police captain Evans.
+
+"Got it," was the laconic reply.
+
+"There is nothing else," said Lamotte.  "I noticed that I was being
+followed, and soon discovered that I could not shake off a more
+powerful car.  I was armed, but did not want to get into trouble on my
+own account, and I knew that I would have to deal with three men.  So I
+decided to throw the car in the river, and trust to my wits for a means
+of escape.  I would have succeeded, too, had I been aware that there
+was a fourth man in the party.  From where I lay hidden beneath the
+wharf I could only count the number of people who crossed to the barge.
+I was unable to see them, so I included the chauffeur among the three.
+I was wrong.  Perhaps it is as well, because I meant to get away, and
+would have fought. . . .  That is all. . . .  Will one of you give me a
+cigarette?"
+
+Devar produced a case, and in response to Steingall's nod, offered its
+contents to the prisoner, who took two cigarettes; nor could he be
+prevailed on to accept more.  Despite his hang-dog looks he had an
+undoubted air of refinement.  Degeneracy had claimed him as its own,
+yet some streak of a nobler heredity had struggled to exert its
+influence, only to fail.
+
+Steingall put no more questions, and Lamotte relapsed into silence,
+smoking nonchalantly while the police captain's pen was scratching a
+transcript of the shorthand notes.
+
+Curtis caught Steingall's eye, and drew him aside.
+
+"That fellow told the truth about the actual murder, I think" he said.
+"My story coincides with his in every detail."
+
+"I'm sure you are right," agreed the detective.  "The odd thing is that
+Clancy should have spotted him from your description telephoned to
+headquarters.  You remember Clancy was looking at a book of photographs
+when I brought you to the Bureau?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He had found him then.  Some time since, during the anarchist troubles
+in Chicago, the French police sent us a lot of pictures, and this
+fellow's was among them."
+
+"Why didn't he ask me if I recognized him?"
+
+"That is not pretty Fanny's way.  Clancy never does what any other man
+would do.  He hates to have anyone verify an opinion he has once
+formed.  Had you said the photograph resembled the man you saw outside
+the hotel Clancy would actually have begun to believe that he might be
+mistaken."
+
+"At any rate," said Curtis, smiling, "you two seem to have made
+marvelous progress with the inquiry since a set of drunken stokers
+broke up a harmonious gathering at Morris Siegelman's."
+
+"We have done pretty well, but this"--and Steingall glanced at
+Lamotte--"this goes far beyond anything we hoped for to-night, or this
+morning, for the new day is growing old."
+
+Curtis was puzzled.  He realized that the capture of the chauffeur was
+important, but it shrank into insignificance beside the connected
+history of events which the detective seemed to have at his fingers'
+ends.
+
+"I suppose I must not ask questions," he said with a quizzical look
+into the extraordinary eyes which had earned the chief of the Detective
+Bureau the picturesque description coined by an enthusiastic reporter.
+
+"No need," said Steingall.  "Unless you are fed up with excitement, I
+purpose taking you and Mr. Devar down town again, just as soon as Evans
+has stopped slinging ink.  Then you will appreciate the importance of
+the things said here."
+
+Curtis remembered that fleeting impression he had garnered while
+watching Clancy during the Frenchman's statement, which, however,
+appeared only to confirm the ample history already in Steingall's
+possession.  But again his thoughts were diverted from the matter by
+Steingall's next words.
+
+"I take it you have not called at the Plaza Hotel since we came away
+together?" he said.  "You certainly could not stop there during the
+rush after the missing chauffeur, and I suppose McCulloch brought you
+straight here after the arrest?"
+
+"Yes.  We passed the hotel on the outward journey, and I thought I saw
+a light in--in my wife's suite, but we returned by a different route."
+
+He fancied that the detective was about to explain a somewhat peculiar
+question, but at that instant the police captain summoned Lamotte to
+his desk.
+
+"I'll read what I have written," he said, "and, if it is correct, you
+will sign it.  You need not sign unless you wish, but the statement
+will be given in court, and, if you attest it now, may count in your
+favor."
+
+He recited an exact record of the Frenchman's words, and Lamotte took
+the pen and scrawled his name.  Then, at a nod from Evans, the
+roundsman took the prisoner to a cell.
+
+"By Jove!  George, or perhaps I ought to say 'By George, Jove!' you did
+that well," exclaimed Clancy, speaking for the first time since he had
+entered the station-house, and addressing Steingall.
+
+"I thought I was going to fail, but I stuck to my guns, and it came
+off," was the modest if rather cryptic reply.
+
+"We, too, have fought with beasts at Ephegus, so let us into this,"
+cried Devar.  "What came off, and where was the risk of failure?  To my
+mind, you had Lamotte in a double Nelson grip all the time."
+
+"That's where you are in error, young man," said Steingall cheerfully.
+"Sometimes it pays to pretend a knowledge you don't possess, and this
+was one of the occasions.  Mr. Clancy and I knew that somewhere in New
+York were two Hungarians named Gregor Martiny and Ferdinand Rossi.  We
+knew that they were the men who killed Mr. Hunter, but we had no more
+notion where they were hiding, or how to lay hands on them, than the
+man in the moon."
+
+"Great Scott.  Haven't you arrested them?"
+
+"No, sir.  That is a pleasure deferred."
+
+"Do you mean that you wanged that address out of the Frenchman?"
+
+"That's about the size of it.  I might have searched for a week for
+Martiny and Rossi, but no one in East Broadway would have owned up to
+seeing or even hearing of them."
+
+"Still, you had their names pat?"
+
+"Yes," said the detective, cutting the end off a cigar, "we had their
+names, and we ascertained why they killed Hunter, or would have killed
+any other person who tried to balk their scheme, but our information
+stopped there."
+
+Steingall, usually so communicative, evidently meant to keep to himself
+the source of his inspiration, and, in a few minutes, Brodie was
+driving the four men to the Police Headquarters.
+
+They went to the Detective Bureau, and Steingall telephoned the Clinton
+Street police station-house.
+
+"You know De Silva's place in Market Street?" he said.  "Well, within
+ten minutes have half-a-dozen men gather quietly near the door. . . .
+Two others should watch the back, and stop anyone making a bolt that
+way. . . .  Yes, of course, there may be shooting.  I'll turn up in a
+private auto, and stop off at the corner of East Broadway. . . .  Leave
+the rest to Clancy and myself. . . .  No, only two, but they're hot
+stuff."
+
+He unlocked a drawer in a desk, and took out a pair of revolvers.
+After examining them to make sure they were fully loaded, he handed one
+to Clancy.
+
+"I hope we shall not require them, Eugene, but there's no telling," he
+said.
+
+"I suppose I'm not allowed to shoot anybody, so you might lend me a
+stick," suggested Devar.
+
+"You and Mr. Curtis are remaining right here," said the detective.
+
+"Oh, be a man, Steingall!" cried Devar disgustedly.  "Don't play dog
+when there's a chance of a real row.  Look how I swung things your way
+in Morris Siegelman's!"
+
+"You might let us peep round the corner, at any rate," smiled Curtis.
+
+Steingall meant to be obdurate, but yielded, and it was well that he
+allowed his sympathies to sway his judgment, or there might have been
+an early vacancy in the chief inspectorship.
+
+At that middle hour of the night even New York's prowlers of the dark
+had retired to their foul rookeries.  The streets were almost deserted,
+and the glare of gas and naphtha had vanished.  The houses of the
+Hungarian quarter were stark and gloomy now, many woe-begone in their
+semi-dismantled aspect, and all sinister.  When the automobile drew up
+noiselessly at the corner of Market Street, a broad enough
+thoroughfare, but broken and battered in appearance, the only visible
+forms were those of three or four patrolmen, who were sauntering
+aimlessly along the sidewalk.  But there were eyes watching through
+unknown chinks in shutters, or peering through soiled curtains behind
+dirt-stained windows, and the quiet concentration of the police in one
+special quarter evidently did not pass unnoticed.
+
+When the battle began, it partook of the vagaries of real warfare by
+opening unexpectedly.
+
+It was ascertained afterwards that two men darted like shadows out of a
+passage in Market Street, and separated instantly.  One came toward
+East Broadway, where the detectives and their companions had just
+alighted from the car, and the other, breaking into a run, dived into
+Henry Street, with two patrolmen after him.  He it was who opened the
+fray, and the peace of the night was suddenly disrupted by the loud
+bark of an automatic pistol.  Three shots were fired with a quick
+irregularity, and then came the deeper report of a service revolver.
+
+Steingall and Clancy ran forward, and the fugitive coming their way had
+actually passed them, with two more patrolmen in pursuit, when
+Steingall saw him and turned instantly.
+
+"Stop!" he shouted.
+
+The man only increased his pace, and the detective, astonishingly
+active for one of his bulk, raced along at top speed.
+
+"Stop or I shoot!" he cried again.
+
+By that time the self-confessed outlaw was nearly opposite the car.  He
+checked his pace, half turned, luckily not to the side where Curtis and
+the others were standing, and leveled a Browning pistol at the
+detective.  He even hesitated an instant to take aim, but before his
+finger had pressed the trigger, Curtis had sprung at him.  There was no
+time for a blow, but a well placed kick spun the would-be murderer off
+his feet, and the crash of the shot came an infinitesimal part of a
+second too late.  As it was, the bullet struck a lamp higher up the
+street, and a line taken subsequently showed that it must have missed
+Steingall by only a few inches.
+
+The miscreant reeled, and lost his balance.  Then Curtis closed with
+him, caught his right wrist, and threw him heavily, but, such was the
+man's frenzied resolve not to be arrested, that he fired twice again
+before the deadly weapon fell from his grasp.  He did no damage, but
+the uproar brought a motley crowd from the neighboring dwellings.
+Market Street, which had seemed asleep or dead, proved itself very much
+alive and awake, but the sight of uniformed police hurrying up from
+several directions restrained any undue curiosity on the part of its
+denizens.
+
+The desperado on the ground was handcuffed at once, and, while a
+policeman was searching his pockets rapidly to ascertain if he carried
+another pistol, Steingall gripped Curtis by the shoulder.
+
+"I owe you something for that," he said quietly.  "I rather fancy he
+would have dropped me if it hadn't been for you. . . .  Oh, I know what
+I am saying.  I shall not forget. . . .  Show a light here," he added
+to a patrolman who had run from East Broadway on hearing the shooting.
+"Now, Mr. Curtis, do you recognize him?"
+
+"Yes," said Curtis---whose experiences in New York were revealing an
+unsuspected side of his character, for in 56th Street, in Morris
+Siegelman's, and now again in Market Street, he had proved himself what
+Allen Breck would have termed "a bonnie fighter"--"yes, that is the man
+who spoke to me in the Central Hotel.  I imagine he is Martiny."
+
+"Good!  Put him in the car!"
+
+The detective rushed off, but soon returned.
+
+"Sorry to trouble you, but will you come this way a minute?" he said.
+
+Curtis went with him.  In Henry Street a small group was gathered in
+the roadway.  A policeman had proved himself a better shot than Rossi,
+and Hunter's murder was already avenged in part.
+
+The dead man was left to the district police, to be carried to the
+mortuary in an ambulance.  Steingall, with his prisoner, returned to
+headquarters, while Clancy made a thorough search of the room the pair
+had occupied in De Silva's house.
+
+The Hungarian did not deny his name nor his share in the earlier crime.
+
+"It is fate," he said doggedly in his broken French.  "When they tell
+me we have killed the man I know the police get us."
+
+He would say no more.  His words seemed to imply that neither he nor
+Rossi meant to do other than maim the journalist whom they regarded as
+de Courtois's dangerous helper; but he did not urge the plea.  Perhaps
+he felt that when a Hungarian uses a knife, a trifling error in the
+matter of direction is pardonable.
+
+"I shall not go home now," said Steingall, bidding farewell to his
+allies when Martiny had been formally identified and charged.  "I must
+get this thing thoroughly straightened out before morning, though the
+inquest and police court proceedings will be mere adjournments.
+Good-night, Mr. Devar.  Good-night, Mr. Curtis.  Once more, thank you.
+And, by the way, if all is not well at the Plaza, 'phone me at once.
+Remember, won't you?  Good-night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS--BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS
+
+"Say, old man," muttered Devar, gazing fixedly at Brodie's broad
+shoulders as Broadway unrolled its even width before the car on the
+uptown journey, "are we the same couple of blighters who met in a
+bathroom gangway, 'B' Deck, near staterooms 51 and 52, on board the
+Cunard steamship _Lusitania_, about twenty-one hours since; or have we
+become dematerialized?"
+
+Curtis knew that the boy was quivering with excitement, but it was
+useless to advise a slackening of the tension, so he merely said:
+
+"Do you feel like a Mahatma?"
+
+"If a Mahatma is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but
+in contents, yes.  Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big
+dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but the wild-eyed,
+imp-seeing, genuine rip-snorter?"
+
+"No.  Neither have you."
+
+"I should have denied the charge before to-night.  But I know now what
+it means.  It is a brain-storm induced by rum.  There are many other
+varieties, at least fifty-seven, and I've sampled fifty-six different
+sorts in nine hours.  Do you realize that it is just nine hours since I
+walked into the Central Hotel, and the orchestra struck up?  Good Lord!
+Nine hours!  And do you remember, Curtis, I said as we came up the
+harbor that you would have a hell of a good time in New York?  Ha, ha!
+likewise ho, ho!  A good time!  Eating, fighting, marrying, plunging
+neck and crop out of one frantic revel into another.  Talk about
+delirium tremens, and its little green devils with little pink
+eyes--why, it's commonplace, that's what it is--a poor sort of
+pipe-dream compared with the reality of life in New York as seen in
+company with John Delancy Curtis, of Pekin."
+
+Devar was not by any means the first person in the city who had
+associated the name of the capital of China with some bizarre and
+elusive element of fantasy in connection with the man who gave "Pekin"
+as his address.  There was no explaining the conceit; it was just one
+of those whimsies which are alike plausible yet enigmatical.  Had
+Curtis described himself as being of London, or Paris, or even of
+Yokohama, no sense of mystery would have attached itself to his
+personality.  But, to the world at large, Pekin represents the unknown,
+and therefore the incongruous.  It is the Forbidden City, the inner
+shrine of the East, the symbolic rallying-point of a race which
+occupies no common ground with the peoples of Europe or America.  Had
+Curtis written that he hailed from Lhassa, his legal domicile would
+have lost its occult extravagance save to the discriminating few.
+
+The mere mention of Pekin now brought back to Curtis's mind the last
+time he had written the word, and, by association of ideas, the queer
+way in which Steingall had twice alluded to the Plaza Hotel.  He said
+nothing of this to Devar.  He thought, and with good reason, that the
+sooner that young man was in bed and asleep the better it would be for
+his health, because a mercurial temperament was levying heavy draughts
+on physical powers, so he gave no hint of the nebulous doubt induced by
+the detective's words.
+
+"The order of the day is bed for each of us," he said, bidding his
+friend farewell at the door of the hotel.  "Therefore, I shall not
+offer you any sort of hospitality at this hour, except the kindest one
+of saying good-by speedily.  You are coming to lunch, I think?"
+
+"Lunch!"  Devar's head wagged solemnly.  Feverishly wakeful, he was
+really half asleep.  "Don't talk to me of lunch.  You haven't had
+breakfast yet, John D.  New York will keep you busy yet awhile, or I
+don't size her up right. . . .  Good old New York!  Isn't she a peach?
+Well, so long!  If you want me, 'phone.  I'll pull a couch under the
+instrument and sleep with my clothes on.  If I shove my head beneath a
+tap I'll be as right as rain.  Home, Arthur."
+
+Then Curtis entered the hotel, and a night-porter took him up in the
+elevator.  When he opened the door of Suite F. its tiny lobby was in
+darkness, but the lights in the sitting-room were switched on.
+Evidently, then, neither he nor Devar was mistaken in identifying those
+illuminated windows when the chase led them past the hotel.  But he was
+struck instantly by the fact that the door leading to Hermione's room
+was wide open, and, before he could assimilate this singular fact, he
+saw a note lying on a small table just where it must catch his eye on
+entering his own bedroom.
+
+Curtis was no soothsayer, but he was endowed with a penetrating and
+usually accurate judgment, and he knew at once that Hermione had left
+him.  Although he had only seen her handwriting when she signed the
+register at the clergyman's house he recognized the same free,
+well-formed characters in the "John Delancy Curtis, Esq." on the
+envelope.  He paled, perhaps, and a pang of a pain crueller than bodily
+ill may have wrung his heart, but he hesitated not a second about
+opening the letter.
+
+Then he read:
+
+
+"DEAR MR. CURTIS:--My father has been here, and with him a Mr. Otto
+Schmidt, a lawyer.  They told me that Jean de Courtois is alive, and
+that you know it, and have known it throughout.  Gladly would I have
+refused to believe them, but, sometimes, there are statements which
+cannot be lies--which partake of truth in their very essence--which
+sear their way into one's consciousness as white-hot iron scorches the
+flesh.  Still, owing to my trust in you, I clung to the frail hope that
+there might be some mistake, so, when they had gone, I telephoned the
+Central Hotel, and a clerk there assured me that Monsieur de Courtois
+was in bed and asleep.
+
+"What am I to say?  Perhaps, silence is best.  Marcelle and I are
+returning to my apartments in 59th Street.  Please do not come there.
+I feel now that I have been selfish and misguided.  I fear it will hurt
+you if I ask to be permitted to bear the heavy expense you must incur
+with regard to the wretched affair into which I have dragged you,
+though involuntarily, or, shall I put it? with the blind striving for
+succor of one sinking in deep waters.  Yet, do me one last kindness,
+and let me reimburse you.  That would be a small concession to my
+pride, because, in some respects, sorely as I am wounded, I shall
+regard myself as ever in your debt.
+
+"Sincerely yours,
+  HERMIONE.
+
+"P.S.  This person, Schmidt, seems to be reliable.  You might arrange
+matters with him."
+
+
+Now, above and beyond every other characteristic, Curtis was
+fair-minded.  He read the girl's letter once in order to learn what had
+happened and why she had gone: then he reread it critically, word for
+word, trying to distil from its disjointed phrases "that essence of
+truth" which Hermione had spoken of.  Evidently, she had determined to
+keep her words within the bare walls of necessity.  The note had a
+jerkiness of style that was certainly absent from her speech, and the
+fact argued that she was compelling herself to write with restraint.
+She was brimming over with reproach, grief-stricken, and miserable, and
+unquestionably shocked beyond measure, but she had forced the
+reflection: "I have no real claim on this man, nor wrong to lay at his
+door, and, although he has deceived me, I am under heavy obligation to
+him, so I must neither condemn nor reproach, but say nothing that goes
+beyond a temperate explanation of my action."
+
+The signature itself was eloquent of the conflict which raged in her
+troubled brain while the pen was framing those formal sentences.
+Well-bred young ladies do not sign themselves by their Christian names,
+_tout court_, in notes written to young gentlemen of an evening's
+acquaintance.  Yet, what was she to do?  "Hermione Beauregard
+Grandison" had gone beyond recovery with the marriage ceremony, but
+"Hermione Curtis" was almost ludicrous, considering the text of this,
+the first note she had written to her "husband."
+
+It was only one side of Curtis's self-reliant nature which analyzed,
+and criticised, and weighed matters with such judicial calm.  There was
+another which brought a hard glint into his eyes, and caused a hand
+which gripped the molded back of a lightly-built chair to exert a force
+of which he was unconscious until the mahogany rail snapped.
+
+Then he remembered Steingall, and his enigmatical inquiries, and turned
+to the telephone.
+
+At sound of his voice, the detective cleared away any doubt as to the
+reason which inspired those vague questions.
+
+"Lady Hermione has gone, has she?" he said sympathetically.  "I thought
+as much.  There was no use in worrying you about it sooner, but I was
+told that the Earl and Schmidt had visited her, and that she and the
+maid had left the hotel in a taxi a few minutes after the departure of
+the visitors.  Will you take my advice?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You ought to have said 'Yes' at once.  Go to bed, and force yourself
+to sleep.  Give no instructions to be called, but get up when you
+waken, and start a new day with a clear head.  You'll need it."
+
+"I'm not going to disturb the peace of Lady Hermione's apartments in
+59th Street, if that is what you mean."
+
+"Not quite.  In fact, not at all.  You are not that kind of a man.  Did
+she leave any message?"
+
+"Yes, a letter.  Would you care to hear it?"
+
+"If you have no objection."
+
+Curtis read the note instantly, and, so delicate is the perceptiveness
+of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's
+unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was
+mentioned or a reason given for some particular action.
+
+"Like the majority of women, she conveys the most important fact in a
+postscript," was Steingall's dry comment when Curtis had reached the
+end.
+
+"Where shall I find this man, Schmidt?" inquired Curtis.
+
+"Are you in a hurry, then, to begin the suit for dissolution?"
+
+"That does not account for my anxiety to meet Schmidt."
+
+"He is a stoutly-built individual, with a large, soft neck, and eyes
+which would protrude most satisfactorily under pressure.  Is that what
+you mean?"
+
+"I want to make his acquaintance, and soon--that is all."
+
+"Now, Mr. Curtis, don't destroy the good opinion I have formed of you.
+Let well enough alone.  Schmidt has done you a splendid turn, and it
+would be foolish on your part to requite a benefactor by trying to
+strangle him."
+
+"Mr. Steingall, I am tired, and very, very uncertain of myself----"
+
+"So you don't want even to pretend that there is any humor in the
+situation.  Yet, unless I err greatly, before many hours have passed
+you will agree with me that nothing more directly fortunate in your
+behalf could have occurred than Schmidt's interference as Lord
+Valletort's legal adviser.  I know Schmidt, and Schmidt knows me.  In
+this affair you would be a baby in his hands, just as he would resemble
+a bladder of lard in yours.  My difficulty is that I really cannot give
+reasons, but you will appreciate the position when I say that, for the
+moment, the murder of Mr. Hunter has become an affair of state, and all
+information regarding recent developments will be withheld from the
+press.  Do you follow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I take it, too, that if Lady Hermione were restored to you, and it was
+left to the pair of you to determine whether or not the marriage
+entered into under such extraordinary conditions should become a real
+union, you would be satisfied?"
+
+"I don't see how----"
+
+"You can at least take my word for it, Mr. Curtis, that the chance of
+such an outcome will be greatly forwarded if you go straight to bed,
+whereas any design you may have formed as to assaulting and battering
+Otto Schmidt would, if put into execution, probably defeat the more
+important object, or, at any rate, cripple its prospects of success."
+
+"Do you really mean that?"
+
+"I am almost sure of it.  There is only one thing of which I am more
+certain at the moment."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"That if it were not for your quickness of eye and hand--and foot, for
+that matter--I would now be laid out in a mortuary or on an hospital
+table.  I appreciate those qualities when exercised on a person like
+Martiny, whose main argument is centered in an automatic pistol, but
+they would be singularly out of place if tested on Otto Schmidt, when
+backed by the laws of the United States, which, strange as it may seem,
+I also represent."
+
+"If you put it that way, Steingall----"
+
+"I do, most emphatically.  Let me be more precise.  Promise me now that
+you will not stir out of the Plaza Hotel until I come to you."
+
+"Is that really essential?"
+
+"I would not ask you if it were not."
+
+"What time may I expect you?"
+
+"Let me see. . . .  It is now nearly five o'clock.  I hope to sleep
+till eight.  I give you till nine.  Bath and breakfast brings you to
+ten.  Say eleven."
+
+"I owe you a good deal, so I shall await you till noon.  After that
+hour I reserve my freedom of action."
+
+The detective laughed.
+
+"Good-by," he said, and, as though in keeping with the other fantasies
+of the night, Curtis was sound asleep in quarter of an hour.  He had
+acquired the faculty of sleeping under any conditions of mental or
+physical stress, short of illness or severe bodily pain, and he could
+awake at any hour previously determined on, so, a few minutes before
+nine o'clock he was in his bath.  At a quarter-past nine he rang for a
+waiter and ordered breakfast.
+
+"For one, sir?" said the man, who had not been on duty the previous
+evening, but had taken care to ascertain the names of the guests on his
+section of the floor.
+
+"Yes, for one," said Curtis.  "My wife and her maid are not
+breakfasting in the hotel.  Will you kindly send up a batch of morning
+newspapers?"
+
+It was only to be expected that the keen and bright intelligence of New
+York journalism should have fastened on to the murder in 27th Street as
+something out of the ordinary.  But its methods were new to the man
+whose adult years had been passed far from his native city, and he was
+astounded now to find how the descriptive reporter, aided by the
+photographer, had depicted and dissected nearly every feature of the
+crime.  On one point the press was silent--as yet.  There was no
+mention of Lady Hermione, and, with a reticence which spoke volumes for
+the close relations existing between police and reporters, the Earl of
+Valletort and Count Vassilan were represented as merely "enquiring for"
+John Delancy Curtis, "the man from Pekin."
+
+Curtis had spread the newspapers on the table, and, when a tap on the
+door of the sitting-room seemed to indicate the re-appearance of the
+waiter, he swept them up in a heap, meaning to go through them at
+leisure after breakfast.
+
+"Come in," he said, turning casually.
+
+The door opened, and Hermione entered.
+
+It was what dramatists term "a psychological moment," and, according to
+Berkeley, one of the axioms of psychology is that it never transcends
+the limits of the individual.  Most certainly, at that moment, the
+truth of this dictum was demonstrated in a manner which would have
+surprised even the doughty philosopher himself.
+
+Curtis saw nothing, knew nothing, thought of nothing not strictly
+bounded by the fact that Hermione, and none other, stood there.  He
+gazed at her spell-bound for a second or two.  He neither moved nor
+spoke, but remained stock-still, with the newspapers gathered in his
+hands, while his eyes blazed into hers without any pretense of
+restraint.
+
+She was rosy red, partly because of the wine-like morning air through
+which she had walked swiftly, but more, perhaps, because of a very real
+embarrassment and contriteness of spirit.
+
+"I came," she faltered--"I am here--that is--will you ever forgive
+me!----"
+
+Down went the papers, and round Hermione went Curtis's strong arms.  He
+was a man of thew and sinew, against whom a slender girl's strength
+might not hope to prevail.  The last thing she looked for was to be
+embraced at sight.  It is the last thing any woman expects, and the one
+thing to which she is most apt to yield.  And really, despite her
+fluttered cry of protest, there was something very comforting and
+dependable about that masculine hug.  Hermione had never before been
+clasped in a man's arms.  She was a highly kissable person, and women
+would embrace her readily, but the total absence of any milk-and-water
+convention about Curtis's method of showing delight at meeting her was
+at once bewildering and stupefying.
+
+There must be a great deal, too, which does not leap promptly to the
+eye in the study of such a dry-as-dust subject as psychology, because
+three of its fixed principles are: "Experience is the process of
+becoming expert by experiment," "One finds a measure of truth in the
+naive realism of Common Sense;" and "Action and Reaction are strictly
+correlative."
+
+Applying these tests to the remarkable rapidity of decision and fixity
+of purpose displayed by Curtis in squeezing the breath out of Hermione,
+and gazing into her eyes until her proud head bent and sought refuge
+for a glowing face by hiding it on his breast, it will be noted first,
+that, for a man who had no experience in love-making, Curtis was
+quickly becoming expert; secondly, that Common Sense teaches that if
+one would win a wife one must also woo her; and thirdly, that a
+wonderfully effective way to obtain a satisfactory response from
+Hermione was to reveal the educational value of a hug.
+
+At last, then--though not before Hermione's arms had gone around his
+neck of their own accord, and her lips had met his with a sigh of sheer
+content--he permitted her to speak.  And of all things in the world she
+said that which it thrilled him to hear.
+
+"John, dear," she murmured, "we have become husband and wife in a
+strange, mad way, but, perhaps it is for the best, and I shall try
+never to give you cause for regret."
+
+By this time one hand was firmly braced around her waist, but the other
+was free to lift her chin until her swimming eyes met his.
+
+"Hermione," he said, "I vowed last night that not all the men and laws
+in America would tear you from me.  If we parted, it was you, and you
+alone, who could send me away, and I am glad, oh, so glad, that you
+have come back to me."
+
+"Dearest, it sounds like a dream," she said brokenly.  "Can a man and a
+woman truly love each other who have only met as you and I have met?"
+
+"I think we have solved that problem for all time," he said, tilting
+her hat with the joyous abandon of a lover jealous even of the flowers
+and plaited straw which should hide any of the sweet perfections of his
+mistress.
+
+"But you have plunged me into a sort of trance," she whispered.  "I
+came here to explain----"
+
+An ominous rattle of a laden tray at the outer door drove them apart as
+though a thunderbolt had fallen between them.  Hermione rushed to her
+own room, there to consult a mirror, and readjust her hat and veil and
+disordered hair, but Curtis met a hurrying waiter.
+
+"Sorry to bother you," he said, "but my wife has come in unexpectedly,
+and we shall want breakfast for two."  He raised his voice:
+
+"Coffee for you, Hermione, or would you prefer tea?"
+
+"Coffee, of course," was the answer, in so calm and collected a tone
+that the waiter thought he must have been mistaken in his first
+impression.
+
+"No trouble at all, sir," he said, with the ready civility of his
+class.  "Unless you wish to wait, sir, I'll bring another cup and some
+hot plates, and order a further supply from the kitchen."
+
+"You're a man of resource," cried Curtis cheerfully.  "I leave the
+arrangements to you with confidence. . . .  Come along, Hermione.
+Don't say you have breakfasted already."
+
+"I won't, because I haven't," she said, reappearing with a smiling
+nonchalance which removed the last shred of doubt from the waiter's
+mind.  But, for all that, she electrified Curtis with a timidly
+grateful glance, for she appreciated his thoughtfulness in giving her
+an opportunity to collect her scattered wits.  There was need of some
+such respite; she had much to relate, she thought, before he could
+possibly understand the motives which led to her flight.
+
+Barely half an hour ago Mr. Steingall had put in an appearance at her
+apartment.  He had told her, with convincing brevity, exactly why
+Curtis refrained from adding to her perplexities by announcing the
+comparative well-being of Jean de Courtois.
+
+"He was very kind," said Hermione, sweetly penitent, "but he made me
+feel rather like a worm when he said that if I were his own daughter he
+would thank God that I had fallen into the hands of a man like you.  He
+said, too, that if I owed you something, he owed you more, because you
+had saved his life last night, so, being an impulsive creature, I
+hurried here to ask your forgiveness for that horrid note."
+
+"There is no lie so difficult to combat as a half truth," said John.
+"That fellow, Schmidt, impressed you because he probably believed what
+he was saying.  As for Steingall, he makes rather too much of what I
+did for him, but, if there was any debt on his side, he has repaid me
+with ample interest."
+
+The waiter had left the room, and Hermione was free to blush without
+restraint, a privilege she availed herself of fully now.
+
+"But, dear, you and I can hardly feel that we are really married," she
+said.  "Yesterday--it was--different.  I cannot remain here now.
+Perhaps your uncle and aunt will receive me--until----"
+
+"It is surprising how easily one can get married if one is really bent
+on the act," said Curtis, discussing the point as coolly as if it were
+a question as to where they would lunch.  "At any rate, we shall settle
+that difficulty to your complete satisfaction.  I expect Steingall here
+in less than an hour.  Meanwhile, we have lots to tell each other.  I
+want you to know just what sort of husband you have drawn in the
+lottery."
+
+"Do you take me on trust, then?"
+
+"Absolutely without reservation."
+
+Obviously, the conversation did not flag before the detective was
+announced.  He looked tired and preoccupied when he came in, but his
+shrewd, pleasant face brightened with a cheery smile when he saw
+Hermione, who was pretending to be interested in a newspaper.
+
+"I am glad to find that two people, at least, have taken my advice," he
+said.  "Now, Mr. Curtis, I want you for an hour.  The various official
+inquiries are adjourned till next week, and your presence was dispensed
+with.  But we are going now to the office of Mr. Otto Schmidt, where we
+shall have the pleasure of meeting the Earl of Valletort, Count
+Ladislas Vassilan, and, possibly, Monsieur Jean de Courtois. . . .  On
+no account, young lady," and he turned to Hermione, "must you run away
+again during our absence."
+
+"I shall not," said Hermione, so emphatically that they all laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A PARLEY
+
+Nature was kind that morning.  A flood of sunshine greeted Curtis when
+he turned into Fifth Avenue with the detective, as the latter had
+suggested that they might walk a little way before taking a taxi, there
+being plenty of time before the hour fixed for the meeting in Schmidt's
+office.  It was a morning when life and good health assumed their
+fitting places in the forefront of those many and varied considerations
+which form the sum of human happiness.  The world had suddenly resumed
+its everyday aspect of bustle and content.  New York smiled at its new
+citizen, and the new citizen beamed appreciatively on New York.
+
+"I cannot explain matters to you fully even yet----" Steingall was
+saying, when an automobile drew up close to the curb, and a well-known
+voice cried joyously:
+
+"Just in time.  Where's the fire?  There's bound to be a blaze when you
+two run in a leash."
+
+Devar bounced out of the car, and Brodie grinned with pleasure.  The
+chauffeur was beginning to like the excitement of acting as
+supernumerary on the staff of the Detective Bureau.
+
+"Will you jump in, or shall I prowl with you down Fifth Avenue?" asked
+Devar, blithely ignoring Steingall's somewhat strained welcome.
+
+"We are keeping an appointment," said Curtis.  "I, for one, shall be
+more than pleased if the combination which proved so effective last
+night may remain intact this morning."
+
+"Steingall daren't cut adrift from me," said Devar.  "If you knew the
+truth about him, you'd find that he is deeply superstitious, and I'm a
+real mascot for bringing good luck.  Perhaps he is not aware, John D.,
+that I was the impresario who 'presented' you to an admiring public.
+Tell him that, and see if he has the nerve to say I'm not wanted."
+
+"Come along, Mr. Devar," said the detective, apparently yielding to a
+sudden resolve.  "I think I can make use of you--justify your presence,
+that is.  Tell your chauffeur to wait for us at 42d Street."
+
+Off went Brodie, jubilant at the prospect of his services being in
+requisition again.  He had not yet learnt the application to all things
+mundane of Disraeli's quip that it is the unexpected which happens.
+
+"Now, I want you two gentlemen to attend closely to what I have to
+say," said Steingall seriously, placing himself between them, so that
+his words might not reach other ears than those for which they were
+intended.  "Mr. Hunter's murder has passed long ago out of the common
+class of crimes.  It will be inquired into thoroughly, of course, and
+punishment will be dealt out impartially to those responsible for its
+commission.  But--and this is the point I want to emphasize--neither of
+you know, nor am I at liberty to inform you--just what bounds the
+authorities may reach, or stop at.  Have I made my meaning clear?"
+
+"Yes," said Curtis.
+
+"We're to be good little boys, and sit still, and say nothing, and do
+as we're told," said Devar.
+
+"I'm not asking impossibilities," said Steingall, who had a dry humor,
+and seldom missed a chance of gratifying it.  "I have merely laid down
+a proviso which must be observed, not for a day, or a week, but as long
+as any of us is alive.  State affairs are not the property of
+individuals.  They come first, all the time.  If they don't suit our
+convenience, we must simply adjust ourselves to the new conditions."
+
+"You alarm me, Steingall," cried Devar.  "Have we been drawn into an
+international squabble?  Don't tell me that Devar's canned salmon is
+really a deadly sort of bomb."
+
+"I've heard more improbable things.  But you would not be your father's
+son, Mr. Devar, if you can't keep a tight lip when statements are made
+in your presence which may astonish you.  Mr. Curtis and you are now
+about to meet a very clever man, Otto Schmidt, the lawyer, and I fancy
+your name will help in the argument.  Is your father in New York?"
+
+"He arrives here from Chicago to-night."
+
+"He has never met Mr. Curtis?"
+
+"No, but he jolly soon will."
+
+"But, if it were possible to get hold of him by telephone or telegraph
+to-day, he would say he had never heard of him?"
+
+"I guess that's so.  What are you driving at?"
+
+"Schmidt must know your father.  They are bound to have come together
+in more than one important deal."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It seems to me that, if the father's evidence is not available, the
+son's gains a trifle more weight."
+
+"Dash me if I can imagine where you are getting off at, Steingall."
+
+"You regard Mr. Curtis as a friend?"
+
+"I am proud of the fact."
+
+"Stick to that, and you will do him good service."
+
+"Well, that's easy."
+
+The detective seemed to be picking his words with a good deal of care.
+He covered several paces in silence, and Curtis, who had reverted to
+his normal habit of sober gravity, took no part in the conversation.
+His estimate of its purport differed from Devar's.  That light-hearted
+youngster was somewhat annoyed by the detective's implied hint that his
+friendship with Curtis rested on no more solid foundation than a
+steamer acquaintance, and would hardly bear the test of close scrutiny
+if it came to analysis on the score of prior knowledge, or if his
+testimony were sought as to Curtis's earlier career.  But he had the
+good sense to understand that Steingall was actuated by no light
+motive, so he held his peace.  Curtis went farther.  He believed that
+the detective was telling Devar what to say and how to say it.
+
+"Now that we have settled the matter of Mr. Curtis's references," said
+Steingall, resuming the talk as though it had not been interrupted, "I
+reach the next item.  Both of you are aware that two men have been
+arrested, and one is dead, and that all three were concerned in the
+attack on Mr. Hunter."
+
+"Yes," came the simultaneous answer.
+
+"I want you to forget names, except with regard to Lamotte, the
+chauffeur.  Martiny and Rossi, for the time being, vanish into the
+Ewigkeit."
+
+"What--forever?" Curtis could not help saying.
+
+"No, for a week or so."  Steingall darted a quick glance to his
+questioner.  "I have a stupid trick of adopting phrases from my pet
+authors," he said.  "Does Ewigkeit mean eternity?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, I withdraw it."
+
+"Try Niflheim."
+
+"Or Ruedesheim," suggested Devar wickedly.
+
+Steingall laughed.  Despite his German-sounding name, he spoke French
+fluently, but German not at all.
+
+"They're off the map," he said.  "There, that's good American, and I'll
+get on with my story, or rather, with the lack of it.  I cannot, of
+course, foretell the exact lines our discussion with Schmidt and his
+clients will follow, but if I have made you understand that your
+combined share in it is to say little, and be thoroughly non-committal
+in anything you may have to say, I am content."
+
+"You are as mysterious as an astrologer," vowed Devar.  "Having money
+to burn one day in Paris, I visited one of those jokers, and he told me
+I was born in Capricorn, under the sign of Aries, and I as good as told
+him he was a liar, because I was born in Manhattan under an ordinary
+roof.  By Jove! that reminds me, John D., you're a whale on stars.  Did
+you spot those two last night, low down in the west?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what did they prognosticate?"
+
+"That you and I would promise Mr. Steingall not to spoil any scheme he
+may have in mind by interfering at an inopportune moment."
+
+"I suppose I ought to feel crushed, but I don't," said Devar.
+
+"My dear fellow, if it hadn't been for you and your loyal championship
+at the right moment, I might easily have been in jail as an accomplice
+of the unknown scoundrels who killed Mr. Hunter."
+
+"That's the right kind of remark," broke in the detective.  "I think
+I'll offer each of you a post in the Bureau after this business is
+ended."
+
+"Give me a pointer on one matter," said Devar.  "You spoke of Schmidt's
+clients.  Who are they?"
+
+He whistled softly when he heard the names of Valletort and Vassilan
+and de Courtois.
+
+"Up to the neck in it again!" he crowed.  "Oh, it's me that is the
+happy youth because I blew in to New York at the right time yesterday."
+
+Otto Schmidt's office was in Madison Square, perched high above the
+clatter of 23d Street.  The windows of the lawyer's private sanctum
+commanded magnificent views of the city to south and west, and in that
+marvelously clear air the Statue of Liberty seemed to be little more
+than a mile away, while the villas of Montclair and houses on other
+heights in the neighboring State were distinctly visible.
+
+Steingall and his friends were the first to arrive, and Schmidt
+received them with the air of armed neutrality a lawyer displays
+towards the opposite camp.  He begged them to be seated, smiled
+pleasantly when Curtis asked to be allowed to admire the interesting
+panorama spread before his eyes, but gave Devar a contemplative look
+when Steingall introduced him.
+
+"Mr. Howard Devar, son of my friend William B. Devar?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Devar, feeling that this was safe ground.  "My father and
+you put it that way since you pulled off the Saskatchewan Combine
+together, but I've heard him describe you differently."
+
+Schmidt, who looked more egg-like than ever at this hour of the
+morning, disapproved of such flippancy.
+
+"William B. Devar is a fair fighter," he said.  "He gives and takes
+hard knocks with perfect good humor.  But, may I inquire how you come
+to figure in a matter which, if I understand aright a message received
+from Mr. Steingall, concerns persons with whom you can have little in
+common?"
+
+"It was a mere toss-up whether I or my friend, John Delancy Curtis,
+took the floor against the combination of noble lords who have retained
+you to look after their interests, or protect them, I ought to say; but
+fate favored him, so I am a mere bottle-holder.  To push the simile a
+bit farther, Mr. Schmidt, I may describe Mr. Steingall as the referee
+and watch-holder.  When he cries 'Time' someone will go to Sing-Sing."
+
+Perhaps some attribute of the father revealed itself in the son,
+because Steingall, who thought at first that Devar had allowed his
+tongue to run away with him, fancied that the lawyer dropped his
+inquiries somewhat suddenly.
+
+"The Earl of Valletort and Count Vassilan are due now," he said,
+glancing at a clock.
+
+"Oh, they will be here without fail," said the detective.  "Mr. Clancy,
+of the Bureau, is bringing de Courtois."
+
+"Bringing him?" repeated Schmidt.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Unofficially?"
+
+"That depends wholly on de Courtois.  He has to come, whether he likes
+it or not.  Whether he will be allowed to go away again is another
+matter."
+
+Schmidt's eyelids fell in thought.  Probably he reflected that there
+are two sides to every argument, and he had heard but one.  Certainly,
+John Delancy Curtis did not strike him as the dare-devil meddler, if
+not worse, he had been depicted by the fiery Earl.
+
+"The Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas Vassilan," announced a clerk,
+and Curtis took one square look at his rival.  He needed no more to
+confirm Hermione's unfavorable opinion.  The Count's appearance was not
+prepossessing.  His nose was still swollen, and the earnest effort of a
+doctor to paint out two black eyes had not been wholly successful.
+
+His lordship looked mightily displeased when he discovered the presence
+of Curtis and Devar, but he was a self-confident man, and regarded
+himself as a personage of such importance that he assumed the lead in
+this company at once.  Moreover, it was evident that he had resolved to
+keep a firm rein on his temper.
+
+"Now, Mr. Schmidt," he said brusquely, "your time and mine is valuable.
+Why have Count Vassilan and I been summoned here this morning by the
+police authorities?"
+
+Schmidt looked at Steingall, and the detective seemed to be almost at a
+loss for words.
+
+"I am--not aware--there is any particular call--for hurry," he said.
+"Are you, my lord, and Count Vassilan thinking of returning to Europe
+to-morrow?"
+
+The Hungarian laughed, not mirthfully, but with the forced gayety of a
+man who had considered how to act, and meant to adopt a decided
+attitude.
+
+"Certainly not," said the Earl stiffly, with uplifted eyebrows.
+
+Steingall pursed his lips, and his forehead seamed in a reflective
+frown.
+
+"I ought to explain," he said, "that I put that question as offering
+what appeared to me an easy way out of a situation which bristles with
+difficulties otherwise."
+
+His hesitancy had suddenly been replaced by slowness of utterance, but
+it is reasonable to suppose that, of those present, Curtis and Schmidt
+alone noted the marked distinction.
+
+"My good man," said the Earl, "you must have the strangest notion of
+the reason which accounts for my presence in New York.  I came here to
+rescue my daughter from a set of designing ruffians, some of whom I
+knew of, and others whom I had never heard of.  Why you should think
+that I may have it in mind to leave the country without being
+accompanied by Lady Hermione Grandison I cannot tell, and it is in the
+highest degree improbable that she will be prepared to sail to-morrow.
+Apart from my private arrangements, too, I mean to remain here until I
+have punished at least one person as he deserves."
+
+"Jean de Courtois?" inquired Steingall.
+
+"No, sir.  That man who stands there, and whose name is given as
+Curtis."
+
+The Earl nearly grew wrathful.  It annoyed him to find that Curtis was
+not looking at him at all, but was greatly interested in Schmidt.  That
+was another trait of Curtis's.  He had learnt long ago to select the
+ablest among his adversaries, and watch that man's face.  Mere
+impassivity supplied no real cloak, for Curtis, in his time, had dealt
+with Chinese mandarins whose countenances betrayed no more expression
+than a carved ivory mask.
+
+"But it was de Courtois who meant to marry Lady Hermione?" persisted
+Steingall.
+
+"That remains to be seen.  The person who did marry her signed himself
+John Delancy Curtis."
+
+Instantly the detective turned to Otto Schmidt.
+
+"It will assist the inquiry if you tell us whether or not such a
+marriage, if it took place under the assumed conditions, that is, by
+use of a marriage license not intended for one of the parties, is
+legal," he said.
+
+"I have no doubt whatever that, in the circumstances, the courts will
+find it to be illegal," was the answer.
+
+"What circumstances?"
+
+"That the lady quitted her supposed husband as soon as she discovered
+the fraud which had been practised on her."
+
+Steingall weighed the point for a moment.
+
+"I see," he nodded.  "If she refused to remain with him, the marriage
+would be declared void.  But if she elected to treat the marriage as a
+binding act, no matter how it was procured, and continued to live with
+her husband, that vital fact would affect the question of validity?"
+
+"As you say, it would be a vital fact."
+
+The detective was clearly impressed, but Lord Valletort swept aside
+these quibbles of jurisprudence.
+
+"My daughter's actions will be revealed in detail to a judge," he said
+loftily.  "At present I fail to see what bearing they have on the
+discussion, unless, indeed, you mean to arrest Curtis immediately on a
+charge which I am prepared to formulate."
+
+"No, that is not why I requested your lordship and Count Vassilan to
+come here this morning," said Steingall, gazing anxiously at the clock.
+"I would prefer to await the arrival of Detective Clancy with Jean de
+Courtois, but, if the Frenchman refuses to come, he is within his
+rights, and I suppose I shall have to apply for a warrant, though, if I
+choose, I can arrest him merely on suspicion."
+
+"Suspicion of what?" demanded the Earl.
+
+"Of complicity in the murder of Mr. Hunter last night."
+
+"The man was tied in his room at the time of the murder," cried the
+Hungarian hoarsely, speaking for the first time since he had entered
+Schmidt's office.  He was obviously excited, and excitement is a
+powerful foe of good resolutions, with which the moral pavement is
+littered in Hungary and elsewhere.
+
+"That does not affect the charge of complicity," said Steingall
+thoughtfully.  "A man may be an accomplice, though the actual crime is
+committed at a time and place when he is far distant.  It is possible
+for an accomplice to be in Paris, or on the high seas, while a victim
+is falling under an assassin's knife in New York.  A man, or a number
+of men, can even be what I may term unconscious accomplices, in the
+sense that their actions and instructions have brought about a crime,
+though their intent may have stopped short of actual violence.  I
+assure you, my lord, the arm of the law reaches far when life is taken,
+and the death of a popular and prominent journalist like Mr. Hunter
+will be inquired into most searchingly."
+
+The detective spoke so impressively that Lord Valletort eyed him with a
+species of misgiving, while Count Vassilan, whose knowledge of English
+was excellent, had broken out into a perspiration.
+
+A smooth, mellifluous voice suddenly intervened.  Otto Schmidt thought
+fit to assume a role for which Lord Valletort was manifestly ill
+equipped.
+
+"We seem to be dealing with two items which, though related, by
+accident, as it were, yet differ widely.  The Earl of Valletort is
+interested only in his daughter's marriage, Mr. Steingall."
+
+The detective wheeled round on him.
+
+"Precisely, Mr. Schmidt, but it happens, unfortunately, that the
+marriage of Lady Hermione and Mr. Curtis was the direct outcome of the
+murder of Mr. Hunter.  More than that, Mr. Hunter met his death because
+of the plot and counter-plot attending the preliminary arrangements for
+her ladyship's marriage.  The two events, so far apart in their nature,
+thus become indissolubly connected."
+
+"And is that why we are to have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur de
+Courtois?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Perhaps, before he comes, you will be good enough to give us some
+idea, informally of course, as to the statement,--or, shall I say
+revelation?--he may make."
+
+"It is asking a good deal of a police official," said Steingall,
+smiling pleasantly, "but if I am assured that the discussion will
+really be regarded as informal, I am ready to speak quite openly."
+
+"It is a characteristic of yours, Mr. Steingall, which has often
+commanded the admiration of the New York bar," said Schmidt.
+
+"Then," said the detective, "I must begin by telling you that Mr.
+Clancy and I were in Morris Siegelman's saloon in East Broadway shortly
+after midnight last night."
+
+A curious click issued from the throat of that distinguished Hungarian
+magnate, Count Ladislas Vassilan, and everyone present noticed it
+except the chief of the Detective Bureau.  He, it would appear, was
+busy marshaling his thoughts.
+
+"For all practical purposes, our inquiry began there," he continued.
+"We intercepted a note written by a certain gentleman, and intended to
+be conveyed to a Pole named Peter Balusky.  He, and a Hungarian, Franz
+Viviadi, together with a French chauffeur, whose real name is Lamotte,
+but who has been passing recently as Anatole Labergerie, are now under
+arrest.  Mr. Curtis has recognized Lamotte as the driver of the
+automobile out of which Mr. Hunter stepped to meet his death, and
+Lamotte himself has confessed his share in the crime.  The precise
+connection of Balusky and Viviadi with it remains yet to be determined.
+They undoubtedly visited the Central Hotel last night.  They
+undoubtedly were the paid agents of some person or persons interested
+in preventing the marriage of Lady Hermione Grandison.  They
+undoubtedly received letters and wireless messages which seem to
+implicate others, far removed from them in social position, in the
+plot, or undertaking, that her ladyship's marriage should not take
+place.  As a lawyer, Mr. Schmidt, you will see that I cannot possibly
+enter into full details, but I think I have said sufficient to prove my
+main contention, which is, you will remember, that it will be
+difficult, very difficult, to dissociate the two incidents--I mean the
+marriage and the murder."
+
+During quite an appreciable time there was no sound in the spacious
+apartment other than the heavy breathing of Count Ladislas Vassilan.
+He had openly and candidly abandoned all pretense.  He was now nothing
+more nor less than a burly, well-fed, well-dressed evil-doer quaking
+with fear.
+
+"Difficult, you say, Mr. Steingall?" repeated the lawyer, selecting, as
+was his way, the word which supplied the key to a whole sentence.
+
+"Very difficult," corrected the detective.
+
+"But not impossible?"
+
+"I would not care to hazard a reasoned opinion, but it seems to me
+that, in certain conditions, the District Attorney might elect to
+confine the inquiry to its main issues, which are, of course, the
+causes of the crime, and the conviction of the persons actually engaged
+in it."
+
+"Why did you want to bring Jean de Courtois here?"
+
+"Because he is the connecting link between the one set of circumstances
+and the other."
+
+"Is he coming, do you think?"
+
+Steingall looked at the clock, and showed a disappointment which he did
+not try to conceal.
+
+"I fear not," he said.  "I told Clancy only to try and persuade him to
+come.  The Frenchman is pretending to be ill, but he is not ill, only
+frightened."
+
+"Frightened of what?"
+
+"Of the consequences of his own acts.  In a sense, Mr. Hunter was his
+ally, but only from a journalist's standpoint, which centered in the
+sensation which would be provided by the projected marriage."
+
+Schmidt's eyelids had fallen and risen regularly during the past few
+minutes.  They dropped now for a longer period than usual.  As for Lord
+Valletort and his would-be son-in-law, they were profoundly and
+unfeignedly ill at ease.  Even a British Earl cannot afford to play
+fast and loose with the law, and it did seem most convincingly clear
+that they had brought themselves within measurable reach of the law by
+the tactics they had employed prior to their arrival in New York.
+
+Oddly enough, their own possible connection with the murder of the
+journalist was a good deal more patent to them than to Curtis and
+Devar, who were vastly better posted in the evidence affecting them.
+Still more curiously, not a word had been said about Martiny or Rossi.
+
+"Let us suppose," said Schmidt, when his eyes had opened again, "that
+Lady Hermione elects to return to Europe at once with her father, the
+Earl----"
+
+Steingall shook his head with a weary smile, and the lawyer's voice
+ceased suddenly.
+
+"Out of the question, Mr. Schmidt, out of the question.  I am sure of
+it.  Why, little more than half an hour ago I found her with Mr. Curtis
+in their apartments at the Plaza Hotel----"
+
+"Ridiculous!" shrieked Lord Valletort in a shrill falsetto.  "My
+daughter passed the night in her apartment in 59th Street.  I myself
+saw her go there."
+
+"Probably.  Your lordship would know the facts if you watched her
+departure from the Plaza Hotel.  But a woman has the inalienable
+privilege of changing her mind, and Lady Hermione has returned to her
+husband.  In fact, I am given to understand that she and Mr. Curtis are
+arranging a new marriage, not because the earlier ceremony is illegal,
+or can be upset, but in deference to certain natural scruples which
+such a charming young lady would be bound to entertain. . . .  There
+can be no manner of doubt as to the correctness of what I am saying,"
+and the detective's tone grew emphatic in view of the Earl's pish-tush
+gestures.  "You have a telephone there, Mr. Schmidt.  Ring up the
+Plaza, and speak to the lady yourself."
+
+The lawyer did nothing of the sort.  He eyed Curtis in his
+contemplative way, being aware that the quiet man standing near a
+window had favored him with his exclusive attention during the
+proceedings.
+
+But Lord Valletort was moved now to stormy protest.  He was convulsed
+with passion, and seemed to be careless what the outcome might be so
+long as he lashed Curtis with venom.
+
+"You are the only person in this infernal city whose actions are
+consistent," he roared at him.  "It is quite evident that you have
+ascertained by some means that my daughter is exceedingly wealthy, and
+you have managed to delude her into the belief that your conduct is
+altruistic and above reproach.  But you make a great mistake if you
+believe that I can be set aside as an incompetent fool.  I shall go
+straight from this office to that of the District Attorney, and lay the
+whole of the facts before him.  I----"
+
+"Does your lordship wish to dispense with my services?" broke in
+Schmidt, speaking without flurry or heat.  The angry Earl choked, but
+remained silent, and the lawyer kept on in the same even tone:
+
+"May I suggest, Mr. Steingall, that you and Mr. Curtis and Mr. Devar
+should step into another room while I have a brief consultation with
+Lord Valletort and Count Vassilan?"
+
+"I cannot become a party to any arrangement----" began Steingall, but
+Otto Schmidt bowed him and his companions out suavely.  Those two
+understood each other fully, no matter what divergencies of opinion
+might exist elsewhere.
+
+When the door had closed on the three men in a smaller room, Devar was
+about to say something, but Steingall checked him with a warning hand.
+Walking to a window, he stood there, with his back turned on his
+companions, and stared out into the square beneath.  Once they fancied
+they saw him nod his head in a species of signal, but they might have
+been in error.  At any rate, their thoughts were soon distracted by the
+entrance of the stout lawyer.
+
+"On some occasions, the fewest words are the most satisfactory," he
+said, "so I wish to inform you, Mr. Steingall, that Lord Valletort and
+Count Vassilan intend to sail for Europe by to-morrow's steamer.  They
+have empowered me to offer to pay the passage money to France of the
+music-teacher, Jean de Courtois, though not by the same vessel as that
+in which they purpose traveling.  As for you, Mr. Curtis, the Earl
+withdraws all threats, and leaves you to settle your dispute with the
+authorities as you may think fit.  May I add that if you choose to
+consult me I shall be glad to act for you.  I would not say this if it
+was merely a professional matter, but there are circumstances--
+Certainly, I shall be here at eleven o'clock on Monday.  Till then,
+sir, I wish you good-day.  Good-day, Mr. Devar.  Remember me to your
+father.  By, by, Mr. Steingall.  You and I will meet at Philippi."
+
+Once the three were in Madison Square, Devar could not be restrained.
+
+"Steingall," he said, "if you don't tell me how you managed it, I'll
+sit down right here on the sidewalk and blubber like a child."
+
+"You were present.  You heard every word," said the detective blandly.
+
+"Yes, I know you scared them stiff.  But who, in Heaven's name, are
+Peter Balusky and Franz Viviadi?  Where, did you find 'em?  Did they
+drop from the skies, or come up from--  Well, where _did_ you get 'em?"
+
+"Clancy and I bagged them quite easily after Mr. Curtis and you left
+Siegelman's cafe.  All we had to do was wait till Vassilan quit.  They
+were hanging about all the time, but afraid to meet him. . . .  Now,
+you must ask me no more questions.  I am going to Clancy.  He is
+keeping an eye on Jean de Courtois."
+
+"Did you ever intend to have the Frenchman brought to Schmidt's office?"
+
+"Of course I did.  What a question!  Good-by.  There's your car.  I'm
+off," and the detective swung himself into a passing streetcar.
+
+"Do you know," said Devar thoughtfully, "I am beginning to believe that
+Steingall says a lot of things he really doesn't mean.  I haven't quite
+made up my mind yet as to whether or not he hasn't run an awful bluff
+on the noble lord and the most noble count.  And the weird thing is
+that Schmidt didn't call it.  Did it strike you, Curtis, that----"
+
+Then he looked at his friend, whose silent indifference to what he was
+saying could no longer pass unnoticed.
+
+"What is it, old man?" he asked, with ready solicitude.  "Are you
+feeling the strain, or what?"
+
+"It is nothing," said Curtis.  "A run in the car will soon clear my
+head.  Perhaps you and I might arrange for a long week-end, far away
+from New York."
+
+A second time did Devar look at his friend, but, being really a
+good-natured and sympathetic person, he repressed the imminent cry of
+amazement.  Somehow, he realized the one spear-thrust which had pierced
+Curtis's armor.  It was hateful that such a man should be told he had
+married Hermione for her money.  It was hateful to think that this
+might be said of him in the years to come.  It was even possible that
+she herself might come to believe it of him, and John Delancy Curtis's
+knight-errant soul shrank and cringed under the thought, even while the
+memory of Hermione's first kiss of love was still hot on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
+
+But the phase passed like a disturbing dream.  Hermione herself laughed
+the notion to scorn: and a ready opportunity for such effective
+exorcism of an evil spirit was supplied by Devar's tact.
+
+When the two young men reached the hotel Devar insisted that Curtis
+should take Hermione for an hour's run in the park.
+
+"Here's the car, and it's a fine morning, and you've got the girl.
+What more do you want?" he cried.  "If Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa
+show up before your return I'll take care of 'em.  Now, who helps her
+ladyship to put on her hat and fur coat--you or I?"  That duty,
+however, was discharged by a smiling and voluble maid named Marcelle
+Leroux.
+
+So it befell that when Brodie piloted his charges into Central Park
+through Scholar's Gate, Curtis behaved like a man deeply in love but
+gravely ill at ease, and Hermione, also in love, but afire with the
+divine flame of womanly faith, and therefore serenely blind to any
+possible obstacle which should thrust itself between her and the
+beloved, saw instantly that something was wrong.  Curtis was just the
+type of man who would torture himself unnecessarily about a
+consideration which certainly would not have rendered his inamorata
+less desirable in the eyes of the average wooer.  He knew that he had
+waited all his life to meet Hermione--to meet her, and none other--and
+the thought that, having found her, having snatched her, as it were,
+from the sacrificial altar of a false god, he should now lose her, was
+inflicting exquisite agony.
+
+Happily, this girl-wife of his was adorably feminine, and she decided
+without inquiry that she was the cause of his melancholy.
+
+"Tell me, John," she said suddenly.  "I am brave.  I can bear it."
+
+The unexpected words stirred him from his disconsolate mood.
+
+"Bear what, dear one?" he asked, looking at her with the wistful eyes
+of Tantalus gazing at the luscious fruits which the wrathful winds
+wafted ever from his parched lips.
+
+"You know that you have made a mistake, and have brought me out here
+to--to----"
+
+"Ah, dear Heaven!" he sighed; "if I had but the strength of will to
+adopt that subterfuge it might prove easier for you.  But one thing I
+cannot do, Hermione.  I refuse to set you free by means of a lie.  I
+love you, and will love you till life itself has sped."
+
+The trouble was not so bad, then.  She nestled closer.
+
+"What is it, John dear?" she cooed, quite confident of her ability to
+slay dragons so long as he talked in that strain.
+
+He trembled a little, so overpowering was the bitter-sweet sense of her
+nearness.
+
+"It is rather horrible that you and I should have to discuss dollars
+and cents," he said, speaking with the slow distinctness of a man
+pronouncing his own death-sentence, "but your father taunted me with
+the fact that you are very wealthy.  Is that true?"
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+She affected to treat the matter seriously.  It was rather delicious to
+find her lover distressing himself about money, if that was all.
+
+"What is your income?" he demanded curtly.
+
+"I am quite rich.  I am worth about half a million dollars a year."
+
+He groaned, and shrank away from her.
+
+"Why did you not tell me that sooner?" he said, almost with a scowl.
+
+"Why should I?  Does it matter?  Isn't it rather nice to have plenty of
+money?"
+
+"Good God!  It is hard to--to----"  His hands covered his face in sheer
+agony.
+
+"John, don't be stupid.  Why alarm me in that way?  Wealth doesn't
+bring happiness--far from it.  But didn't you and I--discover each
+other--before--before----"
+
+"But I know, now," he said brokenly, "and it is a mad absurdity to
+think that a woman of your place in the world should marry a poor
+engineer.  Do you realize that you receive every fortnight more than I
+earn in twelve months?  King Cophetua marrying a beggar-maid sounds
+excellent in romance, but who ever heard of a queen wedding a pauper?"
+
+"You are describing yourself rather lamely, John."
+
+"Hermione, don't drive me beyond endurance.  I can't bear it, I tell
+you."
+
+She caught his right hand, and imprisoned it lovingly in hers.  Her
+left hand went around his neck, and she drew him closer.
+
+"John," she whispered, and the fragrance of her was intoxicating, "you
+must not break my poor heart after taking it by storm.  I want you, and
+shall keep you if I were ten times as rich and you were in rags.  What
+joy has money brought hitherto in my short life?  It killed my mother,
+and has alienated me from my father.  It has driven me to the verge of
+a folly I now shudder at.  It has caused death and suffering to men
+whom I have never seen.  It has separated a man and a woman who love
+each other even as you and I love.  If I were a poor girl, working for
+a living in office or shop, I should know what laughter meant, and
+cheerfulness, and the bright careless hours when the heart is light and
+the world goes well.  You have brought these things to me, dear, and
+you must not take them away now.  I forbid it.  I deny you that
+wrongful act with my very soul. . . .  John, do you wish to see me in
+tears on this--our first day--together?"
+
+Brodie summed up the remainder of the situation with unconscious
+accuracy in a subsequent disquisition delivered to an admiring circle
+in the servants' hall at Mrs. Morgan Apjohn's house.
+
+"Spooning is a right and proper thing in the right and proper place,"
+he said, "but Central Park on a fine morning is not the locality.  I
+was jogging along comfortably when I saw some guys in Columbus Plaza
+rubbering around at the car, and grinning like clowns at a circus, so I
+just opened up the engine a bit, and let her rip, except when a mounted
+cop cocked his eye at me.  But, bless you, them two inside didn't care
+if it snowed.  When I brought 'em back to the hotel, Mr. Curtis sez to
+me: 'We've enjoyed that ride thoroughly, Brodie, but I had a notion
+that Central Park was larger.'  Dash me, I took 'em over nine miles of
+roadway, and they thought I had gone in at 59th Street and come out at
+Eighth Avenue."
+
+Devar, too, appreciated the success of his maneuver when he saw
+Hermione's sparkling eyes and Curtis's complacent air.
+
+"Have you got a sister, Lady Hermione?" he asked _a propos_ to nothing
+which she or any other person had said.
+
+"No," she answered, without the semblance of a blush.
+
+"I was only wondering," he said.  "If you had, you might have cabled
+for her.  I'd just love to take her round the Park in that car."
+
+But the rest of that day, not to mention many successive days, was
+devoted to other matters than love-making.  Shoals of interviewers
+descended on Curtis and Hermione, on Devar, on Uncle Horace and Aunt
+Louisa, on Brodie, even on Mrs. Morgan Apjohn when it was discovered
+that she came to lunch, and on "Vancouver" Devar when he arrived at the
+Central Station that evening.  Steingall's orders were imperative,
+however.  Not a syllable was to be uttered about the one topic
+concerning which the press was hungering for information, because the
+shooting affray in Market Street had now become known, and the gray car
+had been dragged out of the Hudson, and the reporters were agog for the
+news which was withheld at headquarters.  It was then that the magic
+word, _sub judice_, proved very useful.  Even in outspoken America,
+witnesses do not retail their evidence to all and sundry when men's
+lives are at stake, and it was quickly determined to charge all five
+prisoners under one and the same indictment.
+
+Yet, for reasons never understood by the public, Balusky and Viviadi
+were discharged, and Jean de Courtois was deported.  Martiny was
+sentenced to capital punishment, and Lamotte received a long term of
+imprisonment.  But these eventualities came long after Curtis and
+Hermione had been remarried in strict privacy, and in the presence of a
+small but select circle of friends, an occasion which supplied Aunt
+Louisa with fresh oceans of talk for the delectation of society in
+Bloomington, Indiana.
+
+At the wedding breakfast, Steingall made a speech.
+
+"Once," he said, "when the present happy event did not seem to be quite
+so easy of attainment as it looks to all of us now, my friend Mr.
+Curtis, playing upon a weakness of mine in the matter of literary
+allusions, suggested that I should substitute Niflheim for Ewigkeit as
+a simile.  I didn't know what Niflheim meant, but I have ascertained
+since that it is a Scandinavian word describing a region of cold and
+darkness, a place, therefore, where people might easily get lost.
+Well, it might have suited certain conditions I had then in my mind,
+but Mr. Curtis will never go to Scandinavian mythology when he wants to
+describe New York.  To my thinking, it will figure in his mind as more
+akin to Elysium."
+
+Clancy led the applause with sardonic appreciation, whereupon his chief
+allowed a severe eye to dwell on him, though his glance traveled
+instantly to the egg-shell dome of Otto Schmidt, whose aid had been
+invaluable in stilling certain qualms in the breast of authority.
+
+"My singularly boisterous and most esteemed friend, Mr. Clancy," he
+continued, "seems to be delighted by the success of that trope.  I
+might gladden your hearts with some which he has coined, because the
+bride and bridegroom owe more, far more, to him than they imagine at
+this moment.  I remember----"
+
+A loud "No, no!" from Clancy indicated that revelations were imminent.
+
+"Well," said Steingall, "I forget just what he said on one memorable
+night when four semi-intoxicated stokers held up a downtown saloon, but
+I do wish to assure you of this--if it were not for Clancy's genius as
+a detective, and his splendid qualities of heart and mind as a man,
+this wedding might never have taken place, or, if that is putting a
+strain on your imagination, let me say that its principals would have
+encountered difficulties which are now, happily, the dim ghosts of what
+might have been."
+
+Curtis took an opportunity later to ask Steingall what those cryptic
+words meant, and the Chief of the Bureau set at rest a doubt which had
+long perplexed him.
+
+"It was Clancy who prompted the idea of mixing up the two branches of
+the inquiry," he said.  "Under that wizened skin of his he has a heart
+of gold.  'Why shouldn't those two young people be made happy?' he
+said.  'I haven't seen the girl,' nor had he, then, 'but I like Curtis,
+and she won't get a better husband if she searches the island of
+Manhattan.'  So we allowed Lord Valletort and the Count to believe that
+it was their set of hirelings who killed poor Hunter, whereas Balusky
+and Viviadi only tied up de Courtois, and were quaking with fear when
+they heard of the murder, because they assumed he had been killed by
+some other scoundrels, and that they would be held responsible.  It was
+they who gave us the names of Rossi and Martiny as the likely pair, and
+the bluff I threw with Lamotte came off."
+
+"For whom were Rossi and Martiny acting?  You have never told me," said
+Curtis.
+
+"Don't ask, sir.  But I don't mind giving you a sort of hint.  You
+know, better than I do probably, that Hungary is seething with
+revolutionary parties, which are more bitter against each other than
+against the common enemy, Austria.  Now, two of these organizations
+were keen to have Count Vassilan married to Lady Hermione, one because
+of a patriotic desire to draw her money into the war-chest, the other
+because they suspected him, and rightly, as a mere tool in the hands of
+Austria, and they believed, again with justice I think, that when he
+was married it would be Paris and the gay life for him rather than a
+throne which might be shattered by Austrian bullets.  The Earl of
+Valletort has degenerated into little better than a company-promoter,
+and he had made his own compact with Vassilan.  Add to these certain
+facts one other--Elizabeth Zapolya, whom Lady Hermione knows, married
+an attache in the Austrian Embassy in Paris last week.  Tell her that.
+She will be interested.  For the rest, you must deduce your own
+theories."
+
+Curtis remained silent for a moment.  Then he seized Steingall's hand
+and wrung it warmly.
+
+"Hermione and I have been wondering what we can do to show our sense of
+gratitude to you and Mr. Clancy," he said.
+
+"Nothing, sir," broke in the detective.  "It was all in the way of
+business, so to speak."
+
+"Yes, and our recognition of your services will take shape in that
+direction," said Curtis.  "Why, man, if it were not for you I might
+have been charged with murder, and if it were not for Clancy and you,
+Hermione might now be in Paris with her good-for-nothing father. . . .
+I'll talk this over with Schmidt."
+
+"Schmidt is a good fellow, but he doesn't know everything, even though
+he may be a mighty fine guesser," said Steingall.
+
+"I'll tell him just as much as is good for any lawyer," laughed Curtis.
+"He is acting for my wife and myself now in the matter of providing for
+Hunter's relatives.  We look forward to meeting Clancy and you when we
+return from the West."
+
+"Is that where you are going for the honeymoon?" asked the detective,
+with the amiable grin which invariably accompanies the question.
+
+"Yes.  We debated the point during a whole day, but some enterprising
+agent settled it for us by exhibiting a catchy sign--'Why not see
+America?'  And we both cried 'Why not?'  Mr. Devar senior, who has what
+you call a pull in such matters, has secured us the use of a railway
+president's car for the trip, and a whole lot of friends join us at
+Chicago.  Can you come, too?"
+
+Steingall shook his head.
+
+"No, sir," he said ruefully.  "I can't get away from headquarters.  I
+have too much on hand.  As for Clancy, he'll be carried out before he
+quits."
+
+So, for two people at least, a wonderful night merged into a more
+wonderful month, and the dawn of a new year found them on the threshold
+of a happy, and therefore, quite wonderful life.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of One Wonderful Night, by Louis Tracy
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #19707 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19707)