CHAPTER VI

NINE-THIRTY

Chance is often a skilled stage manager, and chance had arranged a

really effective scene in the hall of the Central Hotel. The Earl of

Valletort seemed to be somewhat unwilling to take up any of the

gauntlets so readily thrown down by Devar and the Curtis family, and,

for a few seconds, the ring of reporters was held spellbound by a

situation which promised most excellently with regard to the

all-important question of "copy."

Then the police captain, after waiting for Steingall to take the lead,

nudged his silent colleague, and said gruffly:

"This thing cannot be gone into here. Those who can bring forward

testimony of any value ought to come with Mr. Steingall and myself to

the precinct station-house."

"Why lose time which cannot be overtaken later?" urged the Earl,

appealing to Steingall, since it was the detective who had spoken to

him in the first instance.

"We appear to be at cross purposes," said Steingall. "How did you two

gentlemen get to know that a murder had been committed?"

"Murder!" gasped Count Vassilan.

"We are not talking of a murder, but of a most scandalous abduction,

which will provide only one of a number of most serious charges against

this person, Curtis," cried the Earl.

Vassilan seized him by the arm excitedly.

"Don't you understand, dear friend," he muttered in French. "The

rascal must have killed de Courtois in order to gain possession of the

marriage certificate."

"It will save trouble, sir, if you speak English here," said Steingall.

Then he turned to the hotel clerk.

"Place a room at our disposal at once. Lord Valletort is quite right.

We have not a second to waste."

A murmur of protest arose from the pressmen, though it was obvious that

the police could not conduct the inquiry in the midst of an

ever-growing crowd of residents and servants.

"Say, Steingall," whispered the reporter who had spoken for the others

earlier, "can't you let us into this? We'll suppress anything you

wish--I'll guarantee that, absolutely without reservation."

"_I_ have no objection, but these high-toned strangers may not like

it," said the detective quietly.

The Earl, when the point was referred to him, made no difficulty

whatsoever about the presence of the journalists--in fact, he rather

welcomed publicity.

"It is better that the truth should appear than a garbled and

misleading version," he said affably. "I want your help, gentlemen. I

know enough of newspaper ways to feel sure that a story of some sort

will be star-headed in every news sheet in New York to-morrow, so my

friend, Count Vassilan, and I are more than willing that you should be

well informed."

Now, that phase of the problem was precisely what Count Ladislas

Vassilan seemed to be exceedingly disconcerted about. He was

singularly ill at ease. His florid face had paled to a dusky wanness

when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served

only to increase his agitation. Steingall, to all intents and purposes

paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not

missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous

gesture. His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had

fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence. Curtis had hazarded a

guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a

Hungarian Count denouncing Curtis. Certainly that question of

nationality promised remarkable developments.

When the whole party, consisting of some fifteen persons, had gathered

behind the closed door of the hotel's private office, Steingall took

the lead in directing the proceedings.

"It will help straighten out a tangle if I say exactly what has taken

place here to-night--that is, to the best of our knowledge," he said.

"There is every reason to believe that Mr. John D. Curtis arrived in

New York this afternoon from Europe----"

"Right," broke in Devar. "I traveled with him on the _Lusitania_."

"Yes, his presence on board was announced in most of the papers," added

a journalist.

"Please don't interrupt," said the detective. "You will be heard in

your turn. Now, this Mr. Curtis was allotted room No. 605, and there

is evidence to prove that he behaved like any ordinary individual who

had just come from shipboard. He superintended the unpacking of his

clothes, gave out a quantity of linen for the laundry, changed into

evening dress, and dined alone. Thus far, there is ample corroboration

of his own story, because his movements can be checked by the

observation of half-a-dozen hotel employes. He says, by the way, that

while buying some stamps at the cigar counter before going to the

restaurant, he was jostled by a rough-looking foreigner, who apologized

in broken French, and whom he took to be a Czech or Hungarian. No one

seems to have witnessed this incident, but I have not questioned the

man who sold him the stamps. Anyhow, after dinner, at twenty minutes

of eight to be exact, he came into the lobby, intending to inform the

clerk that he had closed the bedroom door and left his key in the room.

We have ascertained that this statement is true; the door had to be

forced, because a bag of golf clubs had fallen and become wedged

between the door and the side of a steel trunk. Curtis never did speak

to the clerk about the key; at that instant, he says, his attention was

drawn to the queer behavior of the foreigner who had pushed against

him, and who had been joined in the meantime by another man of similar

type. They seemed to be very excited, and were apparently expecting

someone to turn up, either in the street or from the hotel--Curtis

fancied that they were on the look-out for interruption, or news, from

both quarters. The porter on duty at the door, who is not quite

intelligible to-night, remembers asking these men if they wanted a

taxi, but they gave no heed to him. Then, according to Curtis's

version of the affair, an automobile dashed up outside, and a young man

in evening dress, carrying an overcoat, stepped out, and told the

chauffeur to keep the engine going, as he would not be detained more

than a minute. At that instant the two foreigners--Hungarians

according to Curtis--sprang at the newcomer, and endeavored to force

him back into the auto. Failing in this, one of them drew a knife, and

stabbed him so severely that he died within a few minutes, and without

uttering an intelligible word. Curtis ran to help, but was too far

away to prevent the crime, and was further balked in an attempt to

seize either of the wretches by having the dying man's body flung in

his way. He endeavored to hinder the escape of the scoundrels in the

automobile, but failed, because the chauffeur was evidently in league

with them, and, when he came back to the crowd which had collected

around the prostrate man, it would appear that someone gave him, by

mistake, the victim's overcoat in place of his own. This error was not

discovered until the police came to search the dead man's clothing,

when various documents showed beyond question that the overcoat

believed to be his was really Curtis's. Curtis told his story in a

clear and straightforward way, and I, for one, have not seen any reason

to doubt it. It is odd that he should have disappeared so completely

since a few minutes after the crime, but that may be capable of a

simple explanation, while it is possible that he has not as yet

discovered the change of overcoats, or he must surely have returned and

informed us of the mistake. I am assuming, of course, that he would

act as one would expect of any reasonable minded citizen who had

witnessed a serious crime. . . . Now, Lord Valletort, what have you to

say about Mr. Curtis?"

A guttural exclamation from Count Vassilan drew all eyes to him. He

seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was positively livid with

fright. In other conditions than those obtaining at the moment, such a

display of terror on the part of a truculent looking, strongly built

man would have been almost ludicrous; but Steingall found no humor in

the spectacle. He was gazing at the Hungarian with a curious

concentration, and the police captain, who had begun by thinking his

colleague was saying far too much, and who was inclined to disagree

with some of his conclusions, now thought he could discern method in

his madness.

Again did Vassilan murmur something to the Earl in a strange tongue,

and Valletort, with difficulty repressing his annoyance, explained that

his friend was feeling the effects of a blow received earlier in the

evening, and wished to retire at once to his room in the

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

"By all means," said Steingall suavely. "I gather that Count Vassilan

has no connection with the inquiry--in fact, he is not interested in

it."

"He is, in a sense----" began the Earl, but Vassilan grasped his arm,

and evidently besought him to come away without another word. Though

Valletort was in a towering rage, he obviously thought fit to fall in

with his companion's views.

"You see how it is," he said, with a nonchalant gesture that was belied

by his grating tone. "I am afraid I must postpone my branch of this

inquiry till a later hour--probably until the morning."

"Do you withdraw all charges against John D. Curtis?" demanded Devar,

and his clear, incisive voice was distinctly hostile in its icy

precision.

"No, sir. I do not," was the angry retort.

"Well, I guess you know best why you and the Hungarian potentate have

developed this sudden attack of cold feet, but----"

"I'll thank you not to interfere, Mr. Devar," said Steingall

determinedly. "If Lord Valletort thinks his business can wait till

Count Vassilan has recovered from an indisposition, that is his affair

only."

"I think nothing of the sort," snapped the Earl. "You all see that the

Count is ill, and common humanity impels me to attend to him first. It

may serve to curb this young gentleman's tongue if I say----"

But Vassilan would not permit him to say anything. Though he was the

ailing man, he literally dragged Valletort out of the room and into the

street.

Steingall looked at the police captain, who quitted the apartment

instantly. Then the detective gazed around at the others with a placid

smile which seemed to show that he, for one, was well content with the

unusual turn taken by events.

"I suppose you boys have verbatim notes of all that was said," he

inquired, tossing the remark collectively to the group of pressmen.

"Every word," came the assurance.

"Well, now, I want you to keep all that out of the papers."

"If we do that, Steingall, what is there left?" said one of them

good-humoredly.

"The biggest thing you have dropped on to this year; unless I am

greatly mistaken, the scoop of scoops for those who happen to be

present. I'm not going to pretend that any of you are blind or deaf,

and it will assist the police materially if no comment is made on what

you have heard and seen. I don't like to put it otherwise than as a

friendly hint; but I may want the whole bunch as witnesses before this

thing is through, so your mouths should be closed effectually with

regard to incidents in this room."

A half-hearted laugh went around, and someone asked:

"We must put up a readable story of some kind--if we cut out certain

details, surely we can use others?"

"I said 'incidents in this room,'" repeated the detective.

"Then we can mention the arrival of the Earl and the Count on the

scene?"

"Why not?"

"One minute, sir," put in Mr. Horace P. Curtis. "If these gentlemen

take you at your word, the charge made against my nephew will be

published throughout the length and breadth of the United States

to-morrow."

"I don't see how something of the sort is to be avoided," said

Steingall.

"Then, in common fairness, the newspapers ought to state that my wife

and I, as well as Mr. Devar, as good as told the Earl that he was

lying."

"I imagine you can leave the matter safely in the very capable hands of

the reporters present," said Steingall.

"Remember, please, that no charge was actually named against Curtis,"

said Devar. "The Earl of Valletort demanded that he should be found

and arrested, and described him as a dangerous adventurer, but gave no

shred of proof of his wild-cat statement that Curtis had been engaged

in a scandalous abduction, and, when asked for it, discovered that he

had urgent business elsewhere."

Steingall held up a hand in quiet reproof.

"My own view is that it would be best, at this stage, to say merely

that the two noblemen came here inquiring for Curtis, and leave it at

that. I am not trying to deprive the press of a sensation. Surely

there is enough in Chapter One for to-night, and those reporters who

have had the luck to be present will be able to fill in gaps in

Chapters Two and Three when they come along to-morrow or next day."

"Right," said the journalist who, by tacit agreement, seemed to

represent his confreres. "There are one or two items we want you to

clear up, if you don't mind. First, did Curtis, or anybody else, note

the number of the automobile?"

"Yes," said Steingall instantly. "The number is X24-305, and Curtis

heard the man who was murdered address the chauffeur as 'Anatole.' He

spoke French to the man, too."

"You omitted both of those interesting facts from your summary,"

commented the reporter with a smile.

"Did I? That was a piece of sheer forgetfulness on my part."

"You didn't forget to rope us all in here as witnesses when the

Hungarian prince came on the boards. I knew you had something up your

sleeve the moment you began to fill in details. But, as to the crime

itself--have you found out the name of the man who was killed?"

"No. There were no papers in his clothes, but that may be accounted

for by the singular accident of the exchange of overcoats. His linen

was marked 'H. R. H.'"

"'H. R. H.,'" cried a bespectacled journalist who had been a silent

listener hitherto. "That's rather odd. Those are the initials of

Henry R. Hunter, a member of our staff. The news editor wanted him to

take hold in the first instance when the fact that a murder had been

committed was 'phoned to the office, but he could not be found

anywhere, so I am here in his stead."

"I don't recall anyone of that name," said Steingall sharply.

"No, you wouldn't. He was in our Chicago office till the beginning of

September. He did one or two bright things there that caught the

chief's eye, so he was brought to New York. . . . By Jove, Hunter is a

good French scholar. It was on that account he got on the track of a

gang of Chicago anarchists."

A curious stillness fell on the gathering. It was as though a spirit

of evil had suddenly made its presence felt; even the electric lamps

seemed to have grown dimmer.

"Describe Hunter."

Steingall's voice rang out incisively; the reporter took off his

spectacles, and began to burnish them, for his face was glistening with

perspiration.

"He is about five feet ten inches in height, and weighs somewhere in

the neighborhood of 150 pounds. He is straight and well-built, and his

face is finely molded, with big, luminous eyes, deeply recessed,

and----"

"Has he a white scar across the left eyebrow?"

"Yes."

For some reason, the journalist carried his description of Hunter's

personal appearance no farther. It was unnecessary. Before Steingall

uttered another word everyone in the room had a foreboding that they

were on the threshold of a discovery which lifted this tragedy into a

prominence far beyond aught they had yet dreamed of.

Except for that momentary touch of amazement in the detective's tone

they could gather nothing from his manner. But his invariable habit

was to speak to the point, and without the least suggestion of

ambiguity in his words.

"I am very much afraid, gentlemen, that the murdered man is Mr. Henry

B. Hunter," he said. "I must trouble you to come with me, and place

the question of identity beyond doubt. I hope that you, Mr. and Mrs.

Curtis, and you, Mr. Devar, will make it convenient to await my return.

There are matters on which you can give me valuable information."

In a few seconds the three found themselves alone. The clerk had

business to attend to, but he courteously invited them to remain in the

office until the detective came back.

"Did you ever hear such nonsense as this talk about Curtis being mixed

up in an abduction?" began Devar, eager to dispossess his friend's

relatives of any false impressions they might have formed. "Why, he

didn't know a soul in the States--except yourselves," he added

tactfully.

The uncle, who had been polishing his domed forehead with a large

handkerchief at intervals during the past quarter of an hour, cleared

his throat as a preliminary to some important announcement, but his

better half had only kept silent because of a real fear that her nephew

had been engaged in the commission of serious crime from the instant he

set foot in New York, and she entered the fray vigorously now.

"We don't know much about him, and that's the truth, Mr. Devar," she

cried. "There was some family disagreement years ago, and the brothers

lost track of each other, but Horace here never forgets a name, and why

should he, seeing that John was his father's name, and Delancy his

mother's, and our nephew has both, so the minute we saw that paragraph

in the Chicago papers about the eminent American engineer who had been

building railways in China being on board the _Lusitania_, I says to

Horace: 'Horace, it would be shame on us if we allowed your brother's

son and your own nephew to arrive in New York without some of his kith

and kin to bid him welcome,' and with that we hustled to catch the next

train east, but the steamer did the trip quicker'n we counted on, and

we just missed being at the docks, so if it hadn't been for our good

luck in finding the man who helped John with his baggage, and who

remembered the name of the hotel he gave the taxi-driver, we might have

been searching New York all this blessed night without dreaming of

coming to such a place as this, because the newspapers spoke so highly

of John that we made sure he would be stopping in one of the Fifth

Avenue hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria or Hoffman House, or perhaps

higher uptown, in the Ritz-Carlton or the Plaza."

Mrs. Curtis was stout, so she yielded perforce to lack of breath, and

Devar was able to explain smilingly that he, and none other, was

responsible for the item in the newspapers.

"The fact is that I took a great liking to John D.," he said. "He is

such a real good fellow, and so sublimely unconscious of his own

merits, that I wanted to surprise him by starting a modest boom in the

press, so I sent a wireless message about him to a journalistic friend

in New York. I wondered why the reporters did not get hold of him when

they came aboard at the quarantine station, but I remember now that, by

some curious trick of fate, he and I stowed ourselves away in a part of

the ship where no one was likely to find us, and I clean forgot to put

them on his track when I went below."

"I guess my nephew has attended to the booming proposition on his own

account," said Horace, getting under way at last.

Devar laughed, but Mrs. Curtis was shocked.

"Horace!" she cried indignantly, "that's the only unkind thing I've

heard you say in years. Oh, yes,"--for her husband had spread his

hands in mild protest--"I know you didn't mean it, but barbed shafts of

humor often fall in places where they hurt, and it is terrible to think

of your nephew being mixed up in a murder, and an abduction, and----"

She broke off in mid-career, and fixed a stern eye on Devar.

"Are you quite sure he didn't get flirting with some giddy young thing

on board?" she demanded. "I've heard and read of some strange

goings-on among people crossing the Atlantic. I could tell you of two

marriages and no less than five divorces which----"

Devar was a polite young man, but he thought the situation called for

firmness.

"To the best of my belief, your nephew never so much as spoke to any

lady on the ship," he vowed. "He read a good deal, and played cards

occasionally, and walked the decks with me when the weather permitted,

but he did not even mention a woman's name except your own, madam."

"The marvel is that he mentioned us at all," said Horace.

Devar thought in his own mind, that the elder Curtis might be ponderous

in body and speech but he certainly revealed horse sense when he opened

his mouth.

"And whose fault was that, I should like to know?" cried Mrs. Curtis.

"Didn't your own brother quarrel with you because you said he ought to

have married a woman of some stability of character, and not a pretty,

feather-headed girl who spent her days reading poetry and her nights in

attending lectures, and who didn't begin to understand the A.B.C. of a

wife's domestic duties?"

"Maybe I was wrong and he was right," said her husband.

"Horace!"

Mrs. Curtis was marshaling her forces for a mighty effort when the door

opened, and Steingall entered, accompanied by a tall, well set-up man

in evening dress, and wearing an open overcoat and green Homburg hat.

"Well," cried Devar, springing forward with outstretched hand, "I'm

mighty glad to see you, John D.!"

The newcomer's face lit with pleasure, but before he could utter a

responsive word Mrs. Curtis gurgled:

"John D.! . . . Are you John Delancy Curtis? . . . Horace, is this

your nephew?"

"Judging from his looks, Louisa, he ought to be," said the stout man,

gazing at the stranger with wide-eyed astonishment.

The Christian names of the couple acted like a galvanic battery on

Curtis. At first, he could hardly believe his ears, but some

resemblance in the portly Curtis to his own father warned him that this

night of nights had not yet exhausted its store of stupefying surprises.

"Why!" he exclaimed, smiling cheerfully, "you must be my uncle and aunt

from Bloomington, Indiana!"

"If you're John Delancy Curtis, that's our correct description," said

Horace.

"Of course he is," chortled Mrs. Curtis. "He's as like you the day I

married you as two peas in a pod, and if our little Horace had been

spared he would have been his living image. Nephew, I'm proud to meet

you," and Mrs. Curtis folded her relation in an ample embrace.

Curtis carried off a difficult situation with ease. He kissed his

aunt, shook hands with his uncle, and was about to answer the lady's

torrent of questions with regard to himself and his own people when

Steingall interfered.

"Sorry to interrupt you," he said, "but the turn taken by to-night's

crime demands your immediate attention, Mr. Curtis. Do you know you

are wearing the dead man's overcoat?"

"Yes. I discovered that fact some time ago."

Curtis's prompt admission was more favorable to his cause than he could

possibly realize then, though he had seen that the detective's

extraordinarily brilliant eyes were fixed on the garment's

blood-stained sleeve.

"And have you learnt the owner's name?" went on Steingall quietly.

"Yes, that is, I believe so, owing to a document I found in one of the

pockets."

"Ah, what was that?"

"It concerned another person, but I am prepared to tell you its nature

if it is absolutely essential."

"Believe me, there must be no concealment--now."

Something in the detective's tone conveyed a hint of peril, of

suspicion, to the ears of one so accustomed to dealing with his

fellow-men as was Curtis. But he shook off the premonition of ill, and

decided, once and for all, to be candor itself where the authorities

were concerned.

"It was a marriage license," he said.

"And the names on it?"

"They were those of a Frenchman, Jean de Courtois, and of an English

lady, Hermione Beauregard Grandison."

"So you have imagined that the man who was killed was this Monsieur

Jean de Courtois?"

For the life of him, Curtis could not prevent the tumultuous pumping of

his heart from drawing some of the color from his face.

"Who else?" he inquired, never flinching from Steingall's searching

gaze.

"No matter who owned the coat, or whom the license was intended for,

the murdered man was no Frenchman, but a New York journalist named

Henry R. Hunter," said Steingall.

Then Curtis yielded to the swift conviction that he had unwittingly

trapped Lady Hermione into a marriage on grounds that were inadequate

and false.

"Good God!" he muttered, and, for the moment, it was impossible for his

hearers to resist the dreadful inference that, in some shape or form,

he was implicated in the outrage which bulked so large in their minds.

Mrs. Curtis wanted to scream aloud, but she dared not. Even Devar was

staggered by his friend's unaccountable attitude. The only outwardly

unmoved individual present was Horace P. Curtis. He turned and pressed

an electric bell; Steingall glared at him, so he explained his action.

"I feel like a highball," he said blandly. "I guess Mrs. Curtis could

do with one also. In fact, five highballs would be a bully good

notion."