One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York
"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."