CHAPTER IV

AN INTERLUDE

The appearance on the scene of the Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas

Vassilan at a moment which, though undeniably critical, might be

described as either opportune or inopportune--the choice of an

adjective depending solely on the varying points of view of the one who

gave and the one who received that powerful thump on the nose--was due

to no feat of skill on the part of the engine-room staff of the

_Switzerland_, but to a judicious combination of wireless telegraphy,

money, and influence.

When it became evident, very early in the morning, that the vessel

might, with luck, crawl up to the quarantine station about midnight,

urgent messages were sent to two consulates and the Port Authorities of

New York. In the result, a fast steam-yacht drew up alongside the

vessel when she took the pilot on board, and the two magnates and their

baggage were transferred from the disabled liner to the deck of the

trim yacht.

She made praiseworthy efforts to reach a quay and a batch of Customs

officers before eight o'clock, but failed by five minutes.

Consequently, some slight delay was experienced, and, with the best of

good will on the part of the officials, the two fuming passengers could

not fling themselves into a waiting automobile until nearly twenty

minutes past the hour.

Then, however, they made up for lost time. Intrusting their belongings

to a porter and a taxi, with instructions to proceed to the

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, they bade the chauffeur travel at top speed to

No. 1000 59th Street. Many times were they sworn at en route by

endangered pedestrians and enraged drivers of horsed vehicles; the

growing torrent of ill wishes thus engendered may have exercised some

unrecognized form of telepathy at No. 1000, because a regulating valve

in the steam-heat apparatus, which had never proved intractable before,

suddenly took it into its metallic head to go wrong. Thus, the

elevator man was not aware of a good deal of ringing of electric bells

and hammering on the locked door of flat Number 10.

Ultimately, the valve resumed its normal functions, for no cause that a

hot and oily human being could perceive other than the occasional

"cussedness" which inanimate objects can be capable of; while surveying

it wrathfully, he awoke to the racket in the upper regions.

Behold him, then, angry and perspiring, vowing by all his gods that he

had other duties to perform than eternally watching the comings and

goings of the mansion's occupants; being a free-born American of Irish

ancestry, name of Rafferty, he would certainly have bandied contumely

with Count Ladislas Vassilan had not the Earl intervened. The

Hungarian had addressed Rafferty as though he were a dog: the

Englishman, more certain of his social predominance, treated him as a

person endowed with reason.

"Now, listen to me, my good man," he said, calmly but emphatically, "I

am the Earl of Valletort, and the lady you know as Miss Grandison is

the Lady Hermione Grandison, my daughter. She has come to New York in

order to marry a wretched little French adventurer named Jean de

Courtois, and it is absolutely essential, for her own welfare, not to

mention other considerations, that the wedding, which is to take place

to-night, shall be prevented. Two European consuls and several

important men in your own city have helped me to land this evening from

a vessel which will not disembark her passengers till the morning.

Therefore, it is fairly obvious that you run several sorts of risk by

refusing to help me in finding my daughter, and I can hardly believe

that you know nothing about her movements. . . . Come, my man, don't

be both a fool and a knave, but speak!"

Rafferty, who had calmed down during this impressive harangue, took

thought, and did speak.

"If yer friend had said half as much, my lord, I'd have made him wise

straight away," he answered. "Miss Grandison went off at 8.30 in a

taxi with her maid, Marcelle Leroux, and a strange gentleman who

certainly wasn't Mr. de Courtois, my lord. They wanted to find out

where a clergyman lived, an' I couldn't tell them--not about the

Protestant Episcopal, I mean, my lord--but the driver of the taxi

remembered that there was a minister of that persuasion living in 56th

Street, near 7th Avenue, an' next door to a church. So they made a

bee-line that-a-way, my lord, an' I went to see to the furnace, an'

that's all there is to it, my lord."

"You say the man was not de Courtois?" queried the Earl impatiently.

"I'm sure he wasn't the man who has passed under that name hereabouts

nearly every day for a month, my lord," said Rafferty.

"Oh, some fellow of his own kidney he has hired to assist him," put in

Vassilan, who held fast to that theory, in part, even after he had been

painfully disillusioned as to other parts of it. "Come quickly now,

you, and tell our chauffeur where to take us."

If Rafferty had dared, he would have given the chauffeur directions

likely to lead to further bickering, but the presence of the Earl

restrained him, for Valletort, though thin and hawk-nosed, was an

aristocrat in every inch, whereas Count Ladislas Vassilan wore the

stage aspect of a successful pork-butcher. So he explained matters to

the chauffeur, yet smiled grimly when the automobile wheeled away

almost in the very tracks of Curtis's taxi.

"Who sez there's no such thing as luck?" he chuckled. "That valve knew

what it was about when it stuck, an' my name ain't what it is if that

wedding isn't over and done with by this time. An' I gev him 'my lord'

for it, too! Played the high-tone society act for all it was worth,

eh, what?"

The next scene in the drama began for the Hungarian when he sat upon

the sidewalk in 56th Street, and tried to pacify certain outraged

blood-vessels in the nasal region. Of course, the curtain had been up

some time, but, so far as he was concerned, the incidents which

followed his precipitate descent from the automobile were merely

catastrophic. He had seen a vivid, violet-colored star close to his

eyes, had felt a crushing blow, had heard his own voice vaguely; and

then he awoke to a singular sense of personal dis-ease, and to the fact

that the noble Earl had nearly lost his temper.

"It was entirely your fault, Vassilan," his lordship was saying. "You

gain nothing but lose everything by your bullying tactics. Dash it

all, the fellow downed you like a prize-fighter. Who was he? Not Jean

de Courtois, I'll swear, so where has de Courtois gone? Can't you

stand up? It's damn silly to sit there, nursing your nose. Our

motor-car is out of action. We had better interview this clergyman,

and learn exactly what has happened."

Vassilan rose. He was neither a coward nor a weakling, but he felt

sore in mind as in body.

"What's wrog with the car?" he demanded. "Ad cad you led me ad

hadkerchief?"

"That rascal who was with Hermione nearly pulled the gear levers out by

the roots," said the Earl testily. "He pushed me back into the

limousine--with some degree of force, too, confound him! Who can he

be?"

"Suppose we idquire," growled Vassilan, and, mopping his nose with the

Earl's handkerchief, he tugged viciously at the old-fashioned bell-pull

which served the needs of visitors to the Rev. Thomas J. Hughes.

The maid-servant who took the names of the two men was surprised, and

showed it, but her democratic respect for titles yielded to suspicion

when she observed Count Vassilan's villainous guise.

"Wil-li-am!" she cried, and, when the ex-sailor appeared from the

depths, she asked him to "look after the gentlemen" while she summoned

Mr. Hughes.

"Cad you take me somewhere, ad supply me with a towel ad pledty of cold

water?" said the Hungarian, addressing the wizened one.

Now, Jenkins was verger and pew-opener in the church as well as trusted

assistant to the aged minister, but the ways and language of the

fo'c's'l came back to him with irresistible force when he gazed on the

Hungarian's damaged organ.

"Lord love a duck, you've had it handed to you all right," he gasped.

"How did you get it? Did you foul a lamp-post, or bump a rock, or

what?"

"It is edough that I have met with ad accided," snarled the Count.

"Cad't you see that I wadt some water? Is there do place where I cad

wash?"

"What you reelly want is a tap," said Jenkins sympathetically. "An' I

shouldn't be surprised if a slab of raw beefsteak across yer lamps

wouldn't be a bully good notion, too, or you'll have a lovely pair of

mice in the morning."

Then, hearing Mr. Hughes's voice from the library, he suddenly

recollected the habits of later years.

"Come with me, sir," he said, leading the way to the basement. "I'll

do my best for you."

Perhaps it was fortunate for the success of his mission that the Earl

of Valletort was left free to deal with the clergyman. The Count's

hectoring methods would certainly have stiffened the worthy old

gentleman's back, whereas he yielded readily to the Earl's skillful

handling. He was much pained at hearing that a peer's daughter should

have fallen into the hands of an adventurer.

"Dear me! Dear me!" he wheezed. "This is very sad. The man looked

quite a gentleman, I assure you. And he had not the least semblance to

a foreigner. His name, too--John D. Curtis--is your lordship really

certain of the facts?"

Now, "John" and "Jean" are sufficiently alike in sound to pass muster

with the average man, who also connotes no difference between "D" and

"de," but the Earl was moved to say quickly:

"Perhaps you are not accustomed to French names, Mr. Hughes?"

"No, I admit it. But, here is an unimpeachable witness," and the

minister produced the license from a drawer in the writing-desk.

Lord Valletort glanced at it, and a peculiarly unpleasant scowl

convulsed his aristocratic features. Hitherto, a stranger might have

believed that Hermione's unfavorable picture of her father had been

tinged by a high-spirited girl's hatred of the marriage which he was

forcing upon her; but that fleeting expression spoke volumes. If Count

Vassilan was of the bovine order, the Earl of Valletort savored of the

tiger.

He contrived to smile, however, and the effort to figure wholly as a

disconsolate parent cost him far more than he dreamed, since he

examined neither the actual certificate nor the register, though both

would have been submitted to his scrutiny by the bewildered Mr. Hughes.

"Thank you," he said. "I fully appreciate the position. The scoundrel

has learnt how to give an English sound to his name. Probably my

daughter taught him. Hard though it is for a father to say such a

thing, she is the real brain behind this sordid story of intrigue and

wrong-doing."

"Dear me!" gasped Mr. Hughes again. He felt that he must, indeed, be

growing old. He had married many hundreds of couples during his

ministerial career, and had, in many instances, compared the subsequent

lives of his matrimonial clients with the impressions formed during the

ceremony, yet never had he been so gravely at fault as in his

summing-up of the characteristics of John D. Curtis and Hermione

Beauregard Grandison.

Vassilan emerged from the kitchen, dripping but less gory, and the two

visitors disappeared, whereupon Mr. Hughes confided his mystification

to Jenkins.

But Wil-li-am shook his cadaverous head.

"Mebbe the Earl was right, an' mebbe he was wrong," he said decisively.

"I didn't size up the Earl, so I let it go at that, but I did see the

other guy--beg pardon, sir, I mean the other gentleman--an' he'll be

lucky if he gets to bed to-night without being clubbed by a policeman.

Someone has been at him already--hard at him--an' I'm not surprised,

for his langwidge reminded me of my best days at sea."

"William!"

"What, sir? Oh, I meant my young days, of course. Now, I wonder----"

It had just occurred to Jenkins that Mr. Curtis and his bride could

hardly have got clear away from 56th Street before the Earl and his

companion turned up.

"Gee!" he cackled. "I wish I hadn't closed the door so damn quick!"

Mr. Hughes raised hands of horrified protest, and Jenkins wilted.

"Sorry, sir," he stammered. "I must have got a bit wound up when I saw

the foreign gentleman's nose. When I went a-whalin' on the _Star of

the Sea_ we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he

would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in _that_

shape. Now, the question is--_could_ it have been this here Mr.

Curtis? It reely is a pity I was so--so spry on the door."

Outside, the chauffeur had announced that he had straightened the

levers sufficiently to render them serviceable, and he was directed to

make for the Central Hotel, 27th Street, but he had not reached

Broadway before the Earl bade him return to Mr. Hughes's residence.

What had happened was this--Lord Valletort's recollection of the

physique and manner of Jean de Courtois fitted in so ill with the

knock-down blow delivered to a portly individual like Ladislas Vassilan

that he began to compare the remarks of the elevator man at 1000 59th

Street with the confusion in the clergyman's mind on the question of

names. Then, though the light had been dim, and his mind was given

more to the recognition of his daughter than of the person accompanying

her, he was conscious of a growing conviction that the French

music-master was a being of an altogether different species. Vassilan,

too, having regained some degree of self-control, confirmed him in the

belief that there must be some error in their reckoning, and agreed

that they might save time by interviewing Mr. Hughes again.

But when the mild eyes of the minister rested on the Count's truculent

visage, and noted his water-soaked and blood-stained clothing, there

was a distinct drying up in the fount of information.

"No," he said stiffly, in reply to the Earl's request that the marriage

license should be produced again, "I regret that I cannot reopen that

matter to-night. To-morrow, if you have any cause for complaint, you

should consult the proper authorities."

"But you must allow me to emphasize the fact that the license is made

out for the marriage of a man with a French name, whereas admittedly

you have married my daughter to a man with an English or American

name," said the Earl.

"I express no opinion on the point. Your lordship may be assuming

facts which are not facts."

"I am making a statement which can be verified quite easily. The name

I saw on the license was that of Jean de Courtois, an undersized

Frenchman whom I know by sight, whereas my unfortunate friend is a

living witness to the presence here of a man who must be of powerful

build and exceptional strength."

Mr. Hughes surveyed Vassilan's battered face again, and a doubt, born

of a vague memory, began to intrude into his own mind. Moreover, he

was an eminently reasonable old gentleman.

"Ah, yes," he said. "My man, Jenkins, said something about a first

mate and a belaying pin, whatever that may be--I fancy it is an

instrument connected with the flaying of whales--and the bridegroom

could certainly not be described as 'an undersized Frenchman' by anyone

who paid due regard to the truth. . . . Well, the whole proceeding is

highly irregular, but the circumstances are quite exceptional, so----"

In a word, the Earl and Count Vassilan were soon gorged with astonished

wrath, for, no matter what discrepancies might exist between license

and certificate, there could be no dispute as to the bold signature

"John D. Curtis" in the register, while Hermione's handwriting

compelled Lord Valletort to believe that he was not the victim of

hallucination.

It is easy to see, therefore, how the chase after John D. Curtis became

hot thenceforth, but cooled off perceptibly on the trail of Jean de

Courtois. The hunters, of course, credited Hermione with a talent for

craft and duplicity which she certainly did not possess; being rogues,

or of the essence of rogues, they suspected her of roguery, and, in so

doing, dug a deep pit for themselves.

On arriving at the Central Hotel they were plunged into a denser fog

than ever, and by means so ludicrously simple that even a budding

dramatist would hesitate to avail himself of such a crude device. The

police had searched the dead man's clothing without finding any

positive clew to his name. His linen was marked H. R. H., and certain

laundry marks might serve to establish his identity after long and

patient inquiry, but the detective who had charge of the case felt that

it was becoming unusually complex when the victim's overcoat was

produced and the pockets were found to contain letters, a _Lusitania_

wine bill, and a Marconigram--all pointing to the clear fact that the

owner of the coat was John D. Curtis.

The detective, Steingall by name, was one of the shrewdest men in the

New York police, and his extraordinary faculty of observing minute

facts which had escaped others while investigating a crime had earned

him the repute of being "the man with a microscopic eye." But he owned

to being mystified by this juggling with names.

"Why," he said to the police captain of the precinct, "this fellow

Curtis is the man who witnessed the murder, and who will be our most

reliable witness if we lay hands on the scoundrels who committed it."

"He _said_ his name was Curtis," commented the other.

The implied doubt seemed to be justified, but Steingall stroked his

chin reflectively.

"These papers bear out his story. Look at the dates on the telegram

and the bill, and the postmarks on the letters. Can he, by some queer

chance, have changed overcoats with the dead man?"

"A most unlikely thing, I should say."

"Something of the sort must have happened. Anyhow, let us get hold of

him, and sift this matter thoroughly."

An ambulance came just then, to take the body to the mortuary, and,

when it had departed, the two men quitted the traffic bureau where they

had been talking, and entered the hotel. Here, excitement was still at

fever heat. The press had heard of the murder, and a number of

reporters were interviewing everybody in sight, while photographers

were adding to the confusion by taking flash-light pictures.

The super-clerk was already showing tokens of the strain. He glared

wildly at Steingall when the latter asked if Mr. Curtis was in.

"You're the hundred and first man to whom I have answered 'No' in the

last quarter of an hour," he said.

"The first hundred didn't count, anyway," was the dry response. "Pull

yourself together, and read that card slowly and collectedly."

"Well," he went on, seeing that the clerk had apparently mastered the

copper-plate script, "you see I am not here for amusement. Now, about

Curtis, are you sure he is not in his room?"

"His key has not been given up, but I have sent to 605, and we can't

get in."

"What do you mean? Is the door locked?"

"We can open every lock in the hotel. It is bolted."

"Have you knocked?"

"We've done everything, short of breaking open the door."

Steingall looked perplexed, but the police captain was confident.

"He has buncoed us, for sure," he said with a smile, though the smile

boded evil for John D. Curtis at their next meeting.

"Did you notice him particularly when he registered?" demanded the

detective, after a pause.

"Yes. Came to-night by the _Lusitania_. Here is his signature."

The three men gazed at the register, and Steingall produced a card, on

which Curtis had written the name of the hotel.

"Same handwriting!" he murmured. "By the way," he continued,

addressing the clerk, "were you here when the murder took place?"

"Yes."

"Did you see anything of it?"

"Not a scratch. I was busy with a lady, who was worrying me about a

train to Montclair. She was five minutes making up her mind whether to

take the Jersey tunnel or the 23rd Street ferry."

"The only other person, beside Curtis, who saw the whole affair was the

hall-porter?"

"I guess that's so."

"Call him into the office."

Questioned anew, the hall-porter was positive about everything except

Curtis's connection with the attack. The reporters had scalped him,

metaphorically speaking, and his brain was seething. He said "No" when

he meant "Yes," and "Yes" for "No," and contradicted himself in each

fresh version of the cataclasm which had seared his sky with lightning.

Steingall ultimately gave him up as hopeless that night. Perhaps, next

morning, when he had slept and eaten, he might become sane again.

"It's an odd thing that Curtis should have wandered away in this

fashion, wearing a strange overcoat," mused the detective aloud.

"He must know it," said the police captain meaningly.

"I rather think we must force that door," said Steingall.

The clerk did not understand the reference to the overcoat, but he was

ready enough to adopt the detective's suggestion.

"Shall I send for the engineer, and tell him to bring tools?" he asked.

"There is nothing else for it," admitted Steingall with a shrug. Be it

remembered he had seen Curtis, and heard his story. If such a man had

committed the most daring crime recorded in New York during a decade,

and had flouted the police with such cool effrontery, he (Steingall)

would never again trust impressions.

The policemen, the clerk, and a strong-armed artificer went up in the

elevator, and, after an imperative knock and a loud-voiced summons to

open had been met with blank silence from the interior of No. 605, the

workman got busy. The door was stout, and offered a stubborn

resistance. It had to be forced off its upper hinge; then it yielded

so suddenly that it fell into the room, with the engineer sprawling on

top of it. The man yelled, thinking he was being plunged headlong into

tragedy, but Steingall switched on the lights, and four pairs of eager

eyes peered at nothing in particular. They found the golf clubs, which

partially explained the blocking of the door, though it did not occur

to any of them at once that the open window might have caused the bag

to fall. They rummaged Curtis's portmanteaux and steamer trunks, and

came upon evidence in plenty to prove that he was no mere masquerader

in another man's name. But that was all. They could form no theory to

account for his disappearance, until Steingall noticed the key, lying

on the dressing-table, which, with its odds and ends of small articles,

was the last place to invite scrutiny. He was gazing at it when the

blind flapped, and the door of the wardrobe creaked.

"Confound it!" he cried. "The bedroom door was fastened by accident!

The man forgot his key. Look here! I'll show you just how it came

about."

He illustrated the slipping of the clubs, and his theory was borne out

subsequently by the negro porter who had brought Curtis's belongings

upstairs. But an atmosphere of suspicion, of non-comprehension, had

been created around the missing man, and it was not to be dispelled,

even in Steingall's acute mind, by whittling away the mystery of the

blocked door to a minor incident which might occur in any hotel any day.

Leaving the mechanic and the negro to patch the shattered door

sufficiently to serve its purpose until it was replaced by another in

the morning, the clerk escorted the representatives of the law

downstairs. Of course, their departure from the hall and their

prolonged absence had been noted by the phalanx of reporters, and they

were surrounded instantly. Searching questions were fired at them, but

Steingall, who knew how to use the press for his own ends, countered by

asking genially:

"In your hunt for copy, have any of you boys come across Mr. John D.

Curtis?"

"The man who really saw the riot? I guess not. We want him badly."

An approving grin from his colleagues vouched for the speaker's

accuracy.

"Who was killed, anyhow, Steingall?" demanded the journalist who had

answered the detective.

"We don't know, yet."

"Does Curtis know?"

"He said he didn't, but I'll tell you something--I shan't be happy till

I've had another chat with him."

"Can anyone say who 'John D. Curtis, of Pekin,' really is?" went on the

reporter.

"That is the man we are looking for. If there are police officers

present, I want them to understand that Curtis should be arrested at

sight."

Everyone turned at the sound of the authoritative English voice which

had intervened so unexpectedly in the conclave. They saw an elderly

man, well dressed, and bearing the unmistakable tokens of good social

standing. With him was a foreigner, a most truculent looking person,

whose collar, shirt, and waistcoat carried other signs, quite as

obvious, but curiously ominous in view of the cause of this gathering

in the hall of the hotel.

"May I ask who you are, sir?" said Steingall.

"I am the Earl of Valletort," said the stranger, "and this is Count

Ladislas Vassilan."

"Ah! Count Vassilan is not an Englishman?"

"No, but----"

"Is he, by any chance, a Hungarian?"

"Count Vassilan is a Hungarian prince. But the nationality of either

of us is unimportant. Are you connected with the New York police?"

"Yes," said Steingall. He answered the Earl, but kept that microscopic

eye of his fixed on the Count.

"Very well, then. I repeat that John D. Curtis must be found and

arrested--to-night."

"Why?"

"Because he is a dangerous adventurer. I----"

"That's a lie, first sizz out of the syphon," broke in another voice.

"I have the honor to be a friend of John D. Curtis. My name is Howard

Devar, and I'll stand for John D. all the time against the noble Earl

and any God's quantity of blue-blooded, full-blooded Hungarians."

Each member of the animated group was gazing at Devar's boyish,

self-possessed, well-chiseled face, when another interruption held them

agog. A stout, middle-aged man, followed by a stouter matron, bustled

into the circle. The newcomers were just as clearly Americans as the

Earl was English, and the man cried angrily:

"Who says that John D. Curtis is a tough? I'm his uncle."

"And I'm his aunt," chimed in the lady.

"Of Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana," said the man.

"Mr. and Mrs. Horace P. Curtis," announced the lady.

"Shake!" said Devar. "I heard about you to-day on board the

_Lusitania_. . . . Now, my lord, we are three to two. What charge do

you bring against John D. Curtis?"