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, why 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.



"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.