One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York
sore in mind as in body.
"What's wrog with the car?" he demanded. "Ad cad you led me ad
hadkerchief?"
"That rascal who was with Hermione nearly pulled the gear levers out by
the roots," said the Earl testily. "He pushed me back into the
limousine--with some degree of force, too, confound him! Who can he
be?"
"Suppose we idquire," growled Vassilan, and, mopping his nose with the
Earl's handkerchief, he tugged viciously at the old-fashioned bell-pull
which served the needs of visitors to the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes.
The maid-servant who took the names of the two men was surprised, and
showed it, but her democratic respect for titles yielded to suspicion
when she observed Count Vassilan's villainous guise.
"Wil-li-am!" she cried, and, when the ex-sailor appeared from the
depths, she asked him to "look after the gentlemen" while she summoned
Mr. Hughes.
"Cad you take me somewhere, ad supply me with a towel ad pledty of cold
water?" said the Hungarian, addressing the wizened one.
Now, Jenkins was verger and pew-opener in the church as well as trusted
assistant to the aged minister, but the ways and language of the
fo'c's'l came back to him with irresistible force when he gazed on the
Hungarian's damaged organ.
"Lord love a duck, you've had it handed to you all right," he gasped.
"How did you get it? Did you foul a lamp-post, or bump a rock, or
what?"
"It is edough that I have met with ad accided," snarled the Count.
"Cad't you see that I wadt some water? Is there do place where I cad
wash?"
"What you reelly want is a tap," said Jenkins sympathetically. "An' I
shouldn't be surprised if a slab of raw beefsteak across yer lamps
wouldn't be a bully good notion, too, or you'll have a lovely pair of
mice in the morning."
Then, hearing Mr. Hughes's voice from the library, he suddenly
recollected the habits of later years.
"Come with me, sir," he said, leading the way to the basement. "I'll
do my best for you."
Perhaps it was fortunate for the success of his mission that the Earl
of Valletort was left free to deal with the clergyman. The Count's
hectoring methods would certainly have stiffened the worthy old
gentleman's back, whereas he yielded readily to the Earl's skillful
handling. He was much pained at hearing that a peer's daughter should
have fallen into the hands of an adventurer.
"Dear me! Dear me!" he wheezed. "This is very sad. The man looked
quite a gentleman, I assure you. And he had not the least semblance to
a foreigner. His name, too--John D. Curtis--is your lordship really
certain of the facts?"
Now, "John" and "Jean" are sufficiently alike in sound to pass muster
with the average man, who also connotes no difference between "D" and
"de," but the Earl was moved to say quickly:
"Perhaps you are not accustomed to French names, Mr. Hughes?"
"No, I admit it. But, here is an unimpeachable witness," and the
minister produced the license from a drawer in the writing-desk.
Lord Valletort glanced at it, and a peculiarly unpleasant scowl
convulsed his aristocratic features. Hitherto, a stranger might have
believed that Hermione's unfavorable picture of her father had been
tinged by a high-spirited girl's hatred of the marriage which he was
forcing upon her; but that fleeting expression spoke volumes. If Count
Vassilan was of the bovine order, the Earl of Valletort savored of the
tiger.
He contrived to smile, however, and the effort to figure wholly as a
disconsolate parent cost him far more than he dreamed, since he
examined neither the actual certificate nor the register, though both
would have been submitted to his scrutiny by the bewildered Mr. Hughes.
"Thank you," he said. "I fully appreciate the position. The scoundrel
has learnt how to give an English sound to his name. Probably my
daughter taught him. Hard though it is for a father to say such a
thing, she is the real brain behind this sordid story of intrigue and
wrong-doing."
"Dear me!" gasped Mr. Hughes again. He felt that he must, indeed, be
growing old. He had married many hundreds of couples during his
ministerial career, and had, in many instances, compared the subsequent
lives of his matrimonial clients with the impressions formed during the
ceremony, yet never had he been so gravely at fault as in his
summing-up of the characteristics of John D. Curtis and Hermione
Beauregard Grandison.
Vassilan emerged from the kitchen, dripping but less gory, and the two
visitors disappeared, whereupon Mr. Hughes confided his mystification
to Jenkins.
But Wil-li-am shook his cadaverous head.
"Mebbe the Earl was right, an' mebbe he was wrong," he said decisively.
"I didn't size up the Earl, so I let it go at that, but I did see the
other guy--beg pardon, sir, I mean the other gentleman--an' he'll be
lucky if he gets to bed to-night without being clubbed by a policeman.
Someone has been at him already--hard at him--an' I'm not surprised,
for his langwidge reminded me of my best days at sea."
"William!"
"What, sir? Oh, I meant my young days, of course. Now, I wonder----"
It had just occurred to Jenkins that Mr. Curtis and his bride could
hardly have got clear away from 56th Street before the Earl and his
companion turned up.
"Gee!" he cackled. "I wish I hadn't closed the door so damn quick!"
Mr. Hughes raised hands of horrified protest, and Jenkins wilted.
"Sorry, sir," he stammered. "I must have got a bit wound up when I saw
the foreign gentleman's nose. When I went a-whalin' on the _Star of
the Sea_ we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he
would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in _that_
shape. Now, the question is--_could_ it have been this here Mr.
Curtis? It reely is a pity I was so--so spry on the door."
Outside, the chauffeur had announced that he had straightened the
levers sufficiently to render them serviceable, and he was directed to
make for the Central Hotel, 27th Street, but he had not reached
Broadway before the Earl bade him return to Mr. Hughes's residence.
What had happened was this--Lord Valletort's recollection of the
physique and manner of Jean de Courtois fitted in so ill with the
knock-down blow delivered to a portly individual like Ladislas Vassilan
that he began to compare the remarks of the elevator man at 1000 59th
Street with the confusion in the clergyman's mind on the question of
names. Then, though the light had been dim, and his mind was given
more to the recognition of his daughter than of the person accompanying
her, he was conscious of a growing conviction that the French
music-master was a being of an altogether different species. Vassilan,
too, having regained some degree of self-control, confirmed him in the
belief that there must be some error in their reckoning, and agreed
that they might save time by interviewing Mr. Hughes again.
But when the mild eyes of the minister rested on the Count's truculent
visage, and noted his water-soaked and blood-stained clothing, there
was a distinct drying up in the fount of information.
"No," he said stiffly, in reply to the Earl's request that the marriage
license should be produced again, "I regret that I cannot reopen that
matter to-night. To-morrow, if you have any cause for complaint, you
should consult the proper authorities."
"But you must allow me to emphasize the fact that the license is made
out for the marriage of a man with a French name, whereas admittedly
you have married my daughter to a man with an English or American
name," said the Earl.
"I express no opinion on the point. Your lordship may be assuming
facts which are not facts."
"I am making a statement which can be verified quite easily. The name
I saw on the license was that of Jean de Courtois, an undersized
Frenchman whom I know by sight, whereas my unfortunate friend is a
living witness to the presence here of a man who must be of powerful
build and exceptional strength."
Mr. Hughes surveyed Vassilan's battered face again, and a doubt, born
of a vague memory, began to intrude into his own mind. Moreover, he
was an eminently reasonable old gentleman.
"Ah, yes," he said. "My man, Jenkins, said something about a first
mate and a belaying pin, whatever that may be--I fancy it is an
instrument connected with the flaying of whales--and the bridegroom
could certainly not be described as 'an undersized Frenchman' by anyone
who paid due regard to the truth. . . . Well, the whole proceeding is
highly irregular, but the circumstances are quite exceptional, so----"
In a word, the Earl and Count Vassilan were soon gorged with astonished
wrath, for, no matter what discrepancies might exist between license
and certificate, there could be no dispute as to the bold signature
"John D. Curtis" in the register, while Hermione's handwriting
compelled Lord Valletort to believe that he was not the victim of
hallucination.
It is easy to see, therefore, how the chase after John D. Curtis became
hot thenceforth, but cooled off perceptibly on the trail of Jean de
Courtois. The hunters, of course, credited Hermione with a talent for
craft and duplicity which she certainly did not possess; being rogues,
or of the essence of rogues, they suspected her of roguery, and, in so
doing, dug a deep pit for themselves.
On arriving at the Central Hotel they were plunged into a denser fog
than ever, and by means so ludicrously simple that even a budding
dramatist would hesitate to avail himself of such a crude device. The
police had searched the dead man's clothing without finding any
positive clew to his name. His linen was marked H. R. H., and certain
laundry marks might serve to establish his identity after long and
patient inquiry, but the detective who had charge of the case felt that
it was becoming unusually complex when the victim's overcoat was
produced and the pockets were found to contain letters, a _Lusitania_
wine bill, and a Marconigram--all pointing to the clear fact that the
owner of the coat was John D. Curtis.
The detective, Steingall by name, was one of the shrewdest men in the
New York police, and his extraordinary faculty of observing minute
facts which had escaped others while investigating a crime had earned
him the repute of being "the man with a microscopic eye." But he owned
to being mystified by this juggling with names.
"Why," he said to the police captain of the precinct, "this fellow
Curtis is the man who witnessed the murder, and who will be our most
reliable witness if we lay hands on the scoundrels who committed it."
"He _said_ his name was Curtis," commented the other.
The implied doubt seemed to be justified, but Steingall stroked his
chin reflectively.
"These papers bear out his story. Look at the dates on the telegram
and the bill, and the postmarks on the letters. Can he, by some queer
chance, have changed overcoats with the dead man?"
"A most unlikely thing, I should say."
"Something of the sort must have happened. Anyhow, let us get hold of
him, and sift this matter thoroughly."
An ambulance came just then, to take the body to the mortuary, and,
when it had departed, the two men quitted the traffic bureau where they
had been talking, and entered the hotel. Here, excitement was still at
fever heat. The press had heard of the murder, and a number of
reporters were interviewing everybody in sight, while photographers
were adding to the confusion by taking flash-light pictures.
The super-clerk was already showing tokens of the strain. He glared
wildly at Steingall when the latter asked if Mr. Curtis was in.
"You're the hundred and first man to whom I have answered 'No' in the
last quarter of an hour," he said.
"The first hundred didn't count, anyway," was the dry response. "Pull