"He looks a gentleman, and, under ordinary conditions, I would regard him as a social equal," admitted the Earl.

"So, unfortunate as the circ.u.mstances may be, he is a more desirable _parti_ than the French music-master?"

Then the n.o.ble lord flared into heat.

"Dash it all!" he cried. "You are almost as bad as that detective person. I am not bothering my brains as to Curtis's desirableness or otherwise, or comparing him with a worm like de Courtois. I want this marriage annulled. I want him arrested. I want the aid of the law to extricate my daughter from the consequences of her own folly. Surely, such a marriage cannot be legal!"

Schmidt weighed the point from behind the veil, and an unemotional reply soothed his fiery client.

"The idea is, perhaps, untenable--almost repulsive," he said, "but the law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand. You see, the question of consideration intervenes. And--and--where is the lady now?"

"I don't know."

"You left Curtis at the Central Hotel!"

"Yes."

"In company with Steingall, and two elderly Curtises, and young Devar?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you demand your daughter's present address?"

"I--I was so stunned by what I regarded as official sanction of an outrage that I came away in a fury."

Mr. Otto Schmidt rose, or rather, raised his oblong shape from a slight incline on a chair to a horizontal position.

"Let us go to the hotel," he said. "And there must be no more fury.

Leave the inquiry in my hands, my lord, and it will be strange if I do not succeed in elucidating points which are now baffling us--in fact, I may say, inducing mental disturbance."

Thus, it came to pa.s.s that Krantz, the reception clerk at the Central Hotel, had just seen the doctor sent to dose de Courtois with bromide leaving the building when the Earl and Mr. Schmidt entered.

As it happened, the lawyer was known to him, Schmidt having had legal charge of the corporation which reconstructed the hotel, so it was impossible for an employe to be reticent with him about the matters which were discussed forthwith.

"Mr. Steingall gone?" inquired Schmidt affably.

"Yes, sir. He left here nearly half an hour ago," said the clerk, outwardly self-possessed, but wondering inwardly what new bomb would be exploded in his weary brain.

"This murder, and its attendant circ.u.mstances, const.i.tute a very extraordinary affair," said the lawyer.

"Yes, sir."

Krantz was not deceived. He had answered some such remark a hundred times that evening, but he would surely be put on the rack in a moment by some fantastic disclosure which none save a lunatic would dream of.

"Now, about this Mr. John Delancy Curtis," purred Schmidt, "has it been ascertained beyond all doubt that he arrived in New York from Europe this evening?"

"I think so, sir," was the jaded answer. "The police are satisfied on that point, I believe, and he himself gave his last address as Pekin."

"Pekin!"

"Yes, sir."

Everybody was invariably astonished when they heard of Pekin. Had Curtis described his recent residence as "the Moon" it would have been regarded as only a degree more recondite.

"Then," said Schmidt, closing his eyes, "a.s.suming he is the stranger he represents himself as being, he could have no personal connection with the murder of Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"

There! Another comet had fallen in 27th Street. Krantz winced, as if the lawyer had struck him.

"Mr. de Courtois!" he gasped. "Who says he was murdered? He is--not very well, it is true, but for all that I can tell, he is sound asleep in bed at this minute."

"Sound asleep!" roared the Earl, who had been most positive in his opinion that Curtis must have brought about the Frenchman's death for his own fell purpose.

Otto Schmidt laid a restraining hand on his lordship's shoulder.

"Steady now," he murmured. "Remember my instructions. The inquiry is committed to me for the time."

"But, confound it, man----"

"Yes, this is startling, this changes the whole aspect of the case.

But you see the value of calm and judicious method."

The egg-shaped man was certainly ent.i.tled to take credit for the disclosure, and seldom failed to do so in many subsequent expositions to admiring friends of a singular case, but he never realized how thoroughly self-deluded the Earl had been by the original blunder.

"But, sir," protested the clerk, "it was never supposed that Mr. de Courtois had been killed. No one knew who the poor gentleman was at first, because Mr. Curtis's overcoat and his had been accidently exchanged in the flurry and excitement after the crime was committed.

The police found the initials H. R. H. on his clothing, and that fact led to his being recognized as Mr. Henry R. Hunter, a well-known New York journalist. Had I seen him myself, I would have settled that point in a moment, because he often came here to visit Mr. de Courtois."

"Indeed! That is very interesting, most decidedly interesting."

"Are you quite certain that what you are saying is correct? Mr.

Hunter, the murdered man, was acquainted with Monsieur de Courtois?"

The question came from the Earl of Valletort, whose angry bewilderment had suddenly given place to a gravity of demeanor that was significant of the serious complications involved in the clerk's statement.

Poor Krantz could have bitten his tongue for its too free wagging. He was thoroughly tired, and had intended to go to his room at the earliest moment and repair damages by a long night's rest. Now, to all appearance, he had unwittingly reopened the whole wretched imbroglio.

But there was no help for it. Having put his hand to the plow he was obliged to turn the furrow.

"Yes, my lord, positive," he said between his teeth.

"Ah!" Schmidt was beginning to think that the amazing marriage promised to develop into a _cause celebre_. "In that event, it becomes essential, indeed, I may say imperative, that his lordship and I should interview Monsieur de Courtois without delay."

"Sorry, sir," said the clerk, desperately availing himself of the detective's instructions, "but Mr. Steingall left orders that no one should be permitted to visit Mr. de Courtois to-night."

"Left orders? Is the man in this hotel?"

"Oh, yes, I was aware of that all the time," put in the Earl. "He lived here--don't you see, that accounts for the mistake I made in a.s.suming that----"

"Forgive me." The lawyer's monitory hand rose again, and he turned to the clerk. "You can hardly expect me, Mr. Krantz, to regard Mr.

Steingall's 'orders' as in any way controlling my actions. Kindly show his lordship and me to Monsieur de Courtois's room at once."