"The deuce it is! Where did you get him?"

"Away up beyond Yonkers."

"Hold on a minute."

He swung round quickly to a telephone, and called up Headquarters.

"h.e.l.lo, there," he said, when an answer came. "Mr. Steingall or Mr.

Clancy in? Both? Well, put me through. . . . That you, Mr.

Steingall? I'm Evans, 23rd precinct. . . . Sergeant McCulloch has just arrived with a prisoner, the chauffeur, Anatole; and Mr. Curtis is here, too. . . . Anatole Labergerie is the full name."

Some conversation followed. The others could hear the peculiar rasping sound of a voice otherwise undistinguishable, but it was evident that the police captain was greatly puzzled. At last he beckoned to Curtis.

"You're wanted," he said laconically.

Curtis went to the instrument, and Steingall's rather amused tone was soon explicable.

"There's a screw loose, somewhere," he said. "Anatole Labergerie is a respectable garage-keeper. I know him well. Half an hour ago I called him out of bed, chiefly on account of his front name, and he told me that Mr. Hunter hired a car from him last evening, but never showed up at the appointed place and time, and the chauffeur brought the car back to the garage to wait further orders."

"I have no wish to traduce Anatole Labergerie," said Curtis, "but I am quite sure that the man under arrest is the driver of the car in which the Hungarians made off. He has admitted, too, that Jean de Courtois is his friend."

A low whistle revealed Steingall's revised view of the situation.

"Don't go away," he said. "Clancy and I will be with you in less than quarter of an hour."

Curtis hung up the receiver, and announced the new development. The Frenchman did not betray any cognizance of it. He had collapsed into a chair, and looked the degenerate that he was.

But Devar slapped McCulloch's broad shoulders.

"Didn't I tell you?" he cried. "There's a whole lot of night ahead of us yet. Gee whizz! I'll write a book before I'm through with this!"

CHAPTER XIII

WHEREIN LADY HERMIONE "ACTS FOR THE BEST"

A dejected and disheveled super-clerk was called on to face a new crisis soon after he had apparently got rid of most of the persons concerned in the pandemonium which had raged for hours around that refuge of middle-cla.s.s decorum and respectability, the Central Hotel in 27th Street.

As he was wont to explain in later days of blessed peacefulness:

"The queerest part of the whole business was that I never had the slightest notion as to what was going to happen next. Everything occurred like a flash of lightning, and imitated lightning by never striking twice in the same place."

It was not to be expected that a man of the Earl of Valletort's social standing and experience would allow himself to be brow-beaten by a police official and an uncertain miscellany of people like Devar and the members of the Curtis family. When the cool night air had tempered his indignation, and he was removed from the electrical atmosphere created by his son-in-law's positive disdain and Steingall's negative indifference, he began to survey the situation. Though not wholly a stranger in New York, he was far from being versed in the technicalities of legal and police methods, so he bethought him of securing skilled advice. The hour was late, but the fact merely presented a difficulty which was not insuperable to a person of even average intelligence. He turned into an imposing looking hotel on Broadway, produced his card, and asked for the manager.

An affable clerk hurried forward, thinking that his house was about to earn new laurels; if somewhat surprised by the Earl's explanation that he was in need of a lawyer of repute, and had applied to the proprietor of an important hotel as one most likely to further the quest, he responded with prompt civility.

"There are several lawyers guests in the hotel at this moment, my lord," he said. "Each is a notable man in one branch of practice or another. May I ask if you want advice in a matter of real estate, or some commercial claim, or a criminal charge?"

"The latter, in a sense," said the Earl. "A relative of mine has contracted a marriage under conditions which are illegal, or, at any rate, most irregular."

The clerk stroked his chin.

"Mr. Otto Schmidt has just concluded a remarkable nullity of marriage suit," he pondered.

"Just the man for my purpose. Is he in?"

Within five minutes the Earl was closeted with Mr. Otto Schmidt in the latter's private sitting-room. The lawyer was a short man, who bore a remarkable physical resemblance to an egg. Head, rotund body, and immensely fat legs tapering to very small feet, formed a complete oval, while his ivory-tinted skin, and a curious crease running round forehead and ears beneath a scalp wholly devoid of hair, suggested that the egg had been boiled, and the top cut off and replaced.

But he showed presently that the ovum was sound in quality. He listened in absolute silence until his lordship had told his story.

All things considered, the recital was essentially true.

There were suppressions of fact, such as the lack of any mention of collusion between the distraught father and Count Ladislas Va.s.silan on the one hand and Jean de Courtois on the other, and there were wholly unwarrantable imputations against Curtis's character and attributes, but, on the whole, Mr. Schmidt was able, in his own phrase, "to size up the position" with fair accuracy.

Like every other man of common sense who became acquainted with the night's doings in a connected narrative, he began by expressing his astonishment.

"I have had some singular cases to handle during a long and varied professional career," he said, and eyelids almost devoid of lashes dropped for an instant over a pair of dark and curiously piercing eyes, "but I have never heard of anything quite like this. You say the name of the detective who gave you the account of the murder, and of the connection of this John Delancy Curtis with it, is Steingall?"

"Yes."

Again the eyelids fell, and, as Mr. Schmidt's face was also devoid of eyebrows, and was colorless in its pallor, and as his lips met in a thin seam above a chin which merged in folds of soft flesh where his neck ought to be, his features at such a moment a.s.sumed the disagreeable aspect of a death mask, though this impression vanished when those brilliant eyes peered forth from their bulbous sockets.

"But I know Steingall," he said. "He is at the head of the New York Detective Bureau, a man of the highest reputation, and one who commands confidence in the courts, not to speak of his department."

"He struck me as an able man, but I am quite sure he has failed to appreciate the share this fellow, Curtis, has borne in the affair,"

said the Earl testily.

"It seems to me that your daughter, Lady Hermione, could not possibly have been what is commonly described as 'in love' with de Courtois?

Stupid as the comment may appear, I must search for a motive."

"My good sir, the notion is preposterous. I--I have reason to believe that she intended this marriage to serve as a shield, or cloak, for her own purposes, which were, I regret to say, largely inspired by a stubborn resolve not to marry a man who is suitable as a husband in every way--by birth, social position, and distinguished prospects."

"Her own purposes. What does that mean exactly?"

"It means that she was contracting a marriage as a matter of form.

Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de Courtois's subst.i.tute, while my misguided daughter was equally prepared to accept them?"

"Ah!"

The eyelids shut tightly once more, and the Earl, feeling rather irritated and disturbed by this unpleasing habit, shifted his chair noisily. He found, however, that Mr. Schmidt merely kept the shutters down for a rather longer period than before, and, as the lawyer impressed him with a sense of power and ability, he resolved to put up with a peculiarity which was certainly disconcerting.

"May I ask if your daughter is what is popularly known as a pretty girl, my lord?" demanded Schmidt suddenly.

"Yes. She is remarkably good-looking, but----"

"Motive, my lord, motive. I was wondering why Curtis should behave like a thundering idiot. Now, apart from your natural dislike to the man, how would you describe him?"