One Wonderful Night 15Wherein the Pace Slackens--But Only for a Few Hours
18
Literature · Romance
One Wonderful Night 15
Wherein the Pace Slackens--But Only for a Few Hours
TracyEnglish
"Say, old man," muttered Devar, gazing fixedly at Brodie's broad shoulders as Broadway unrolled its even width before the car on the uptown journey, "are we the same couple of blighters who met in a bathroom gangway, 'B' Deck, near staterooms 51 and 52, on board the Cunard steamship Lusitania, about twenty-one hours since; or have we become dematerialized?"
Curtis knew that the boy was quivering with excitement, but it was useless to advise a slackening of the tension, so he merely said:
"Do you feel like a Mahatma?"
"If a Mahatma is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but in contents, yes. Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but the wild-eyed, imp-seeing, genuine rip-snorter?"
"No. Neither have you."
"I should have denied the charge before to-night. But I know now what it means. It is a brain-storm induced by rum. There are many other varieties, at least fifty-seven, and I've sampled fifty-six different sorts in nine hours. Do you realize that it is just nine hours since I walked into the Central Hotel, and the orchestra struck up? Good Lord! Nine hours! And do you remember, Curtis, I said as we came up the harbor that you would have a hell of a good time in New York? Ha, ha! likewise ho, ho! A good time! Eating, fighting, marrying, plunging neck and crop out of one frantic revel into another. Talk about delirium tremens, and its little green devils with little pink eyes--why, it's commonplace, that's what it is--a poor sort of pipe-dream compared with the reality of life in New York as seen in company with John Delancy Curtis, of Pekin."
Devar was not by any means the first person in the city who had associated the name of the capital of China with some bizarre and elusive element of fantasy in connection with the man who gave "Pekin" as his address. There was no explaining the conceit; it was just one of those whimsies which are alike plausible yet enigmatical. Had Curtis described himself as being of London, or Paris, or even of Yokohama, no sense of mystery would have attached itself to his personality. But, to the world at large, Pekin represents the unknown, and therefore the incongruous. It is the Forbidden City, the inner shrine of the East, the symbolic rallying-point of a race which occupies no common ground with the peoples of Europe or America. Had Curtis written that he hailed from Lhassa, his legal domicile would have lost its occult extravagance save to the discriminating few.
The mere mention of Pekin now brought back to Curtis's mind the last time he had written the word, and, by association of ideas, the queer way in which Steingall had twice alluded to the Plaza Hotel. He said nothing of this to Devar. He thought, and with good reason, that the sooner that young man was in bed and asleep the better it would be for his health, because a mercurial temperament was levying heavy draughts on physical powers, so he gave no hint of the nebulous doubt induced by the detective's words.
"The order of the day is bed for each of us," he said, bidding his friend farewell at the door of the hotel. "Therefore, I shall not offer you any sort of hospitality at this hour, except the kindest one of saying good-by speedily. You are coming to lunch, I think?"
"Lunch!" Devar's head wagged solemnly. Feverishly wakeful, he was really half asleep. "Don't talk to me of lunch. You haven't had breakfast yet, John D. New York will keep you busy yet awhile, or I don't size her up right. . . . Good old New York! Isn't she a peach? Well, so long! If you want me, 'phone. I'll pull a couch under the instrument and sleep with my clothes on. If I shove my head beneath a tap I'll be as right as rain. Home, Arthur."
Then Curtis entered the hotel, and a night-porter took him up in the elevator. When he opened the door of Suite F. its tiny lobby was in darkness, but the lights in the sitting-room were switched on. Evidently, then, neither he nor Devar was mistaken in identifying those illuminated windows when the chase led them past the hotel. But he was struck instantly by the fact that the door leading to Hermione's room was wide open, and, before he could assimilate this singular fact, he saw a note lying on a small table just where it must catch his eye on entering his own bedroom.
Curtis was no soothsayer, but he was endowed with a penetrating and usually accurate judgment, and he knew at once that Hermione had left him. Although he had only seen her handwriting when she signed the register at the clergyman's house he recognized the same free, well-formed characters in the "John Delancy Curtis, Esq." on the envelope. He paled, perhaps, and a pang of a pain crueller than bodily ill may have wrung his heart, but he hesitated not a second about opening the letter.
Then he read:
"DEAR MR. CURTIS:--My father has been here, and with him a Mr. Otto Schmidt, a lawyer. They told me that Jean de Courtois is alive, and that you know it, and have known it throughout. Gladly would I have refused to believe them, but, sometimes, there are statements which cannot be lies--which partake of truth in their very essence--which sear their way into one's consciousness as white-hot iron scorches the flesh. Still, owing to my trust in you, I clung to the frail hope that there might be some mistake, so, when they had gone, I telephoned the Central Hotel, and a clerk there assured me that Monsieur de Courtois was in bed and asleep.
"What am I to say? Perhaps, silence is best. Marcelle and I are returning to my apartments in 59th Street. Please do not come there. I feel now that I have been selfish and misguided. I fear it will hurt you if I ask to be permitted to bear the heavy expense you must incur with regard to the wretched affair into which I have dragged you, though involuntarily, or, shall I put it? with the blind striving for succor of one sinking in deep waters. Yet, do me one last kindness, and let me reimburse you. That would be a small concession to my pride, because, in some respects, sorely as I am wounded, I shall regard myself as ever in your debt.
"Sincerely yours,
HERMIONE.
"P.S. This person, Schmidt, seems to be reliable. You might arrange matters with him."
Now, above and beyond every other characteristic, Curtis was fair-minded. He read the girl's letter once in order to learn what had happened and why she had gone: then he reread it critically, word for word, trying to distil from its disjointed phrases "that essence of truth" which Hermione had spoken of. Evidently, she had determined to keep her words within the bare walls of necessity. The note had a jerkiness of style that was certainly absent from her speech, and the fact argued that she was compelling herself to write with restraint. She was brimming over with reproach, grief-stricken, and miserable, and unquestionably shocked beyond measure, but she had forced the reflection: "I have no real claim on this man, nor wrong to lay at his door, and, although he has deceived me, I am under heavy obligation to him, so I must neither condemn nor reproach, but say nothing that goes beyond a temperate explanation of my action."
The signature itself was eloquent of the conflict which raged in her troubled brain while the pen was framing those formal sentences. Well-bred young ladies do not sign themselves by their Christian names, tout court, in notes written to young gentlemen of an evening's acquaintance. Yet, what was she to do? "Hermione Beauregard Grandison" had gone beyond recovery with the marriage ceremony, but "Hermione Curtis" was almost ludicrous, considering the text of this, the first note she had written to her "husband."
It was only one side of Curtis's self-reliant nature which analyzed, and criticised, and weighed matters with such judicial calm. There was another which brought a hard glint into his eyes, and caused a hand which gripped the molded back of a lightly-built chair to exert a force of which he was unconscious until the mahogany rail snapped.
Then he remembered Steingall, and his enigmatical inquiries, and turned to the telephone.
At sound of his voice, the detective cleared away any doubt as to the reason which inspired those vague questions.
"Lady Hermione has gone, has she?" he said sympathetically. "I thought as much. There was no use in worrying you about it sooner, but I was told that the Earl and Schmidt had visited her, and that she and the maid had left the hotel in a taxi a few minutes after the departure of the visitors. Will you take my advice?"
"What is it?"
"You ought to have said 'Yes' at once. Go to bed, and force yourself to sleep. Give no instructions to be called, but get up when you waken, and start a new day with a clear head. You'll need it."
"I'm not going to disturb the peace of Lady Hermione's apartments in 59th Street, if that is what you mean."
"Not quite. In fact, not at all. You are not that kind of a man. Did she leave any message?"
"Yes, a letter. Would you care to hear it?"
"If you have no objection."
Curtis read the note instantly, and, so delicate is the perceptiveness of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was mentioned or a reason given for some particular action.
"Like the majority of women, she conveys the most important fact in a postscript," was Steingall's dry comment when Curtis had reached the end.
"Where shall I find this man, Schmidt?" inquired Curtis.
"Are you in a hurry, then, to begin the suit for dissolution?"
"That does not account for my anxiety to meet Schmidt."
"He is a stoutly-built individual, with a large, soft neck, and eyes which would protrude most satisfactorily under pressure. Is that what you mean?"
"I want to make his acquaintance, and soon--that is all."
"Now, Mr. Curtis, don't destroy the good opinion I have formed of you. Let well enough alone. Schmidt has done you a splendid turn, and it would be foolish on your part to requite a benefactor by trying to strangle him."
"Mr. Steingall, I am tired, and very, very uncertain of myself----"
"So you don't want even to pretend that there is any humor in the situation. Yet, unless I err greatly, before many hours have passed you will agree with me that nothing more directly fortunate in your behalf could have occurred than Schmidt's interference as Lord Valletort's legal adviser. I know Schmidt, and Schmidt knows me. In this affair you would be a baby in his hands, just as he would resemble a bladder of lard in yours. My difficulty is that I really cannot give reasons, but you will appreciate the position when I say that, for the moment, the murder of Mr. Hunter has become an affair of state, and all information regarding recent developments will be withheld from the press. Do you follow?"
"Yes."
"I take it, too, that if Lady Hermione were restored to you, and it was left to the pair of you to determine whether or not the marriage entered into under such extraordinary conditions should become a real union, you would be satisfied?"
"I don't see how----"
"You can at least take my word for it, Mr. Curtis, that the chance of such an outcome will be greatly forwarded if you go straight to bed, whereas any design you may have formed as to assaulting and battering Otto Schmidt would, if put into execution, probably defeat the more important object, or, at any rate, cripple its prospects of success."
"Do you really mean that?"
"I am almost sure of it. There is only one thing of which I am more certain at the moment."
"And that is?"
"That if it were not for your quickness of eye and hand--and foot, for that matter--I would now be laid out in a mortuary or on an hospital table. I appreciate those qualities when exercised on a person like Martiny, whose main argument is centered in an automatic pistol, but they would be singularly out of place if tested on Otto Schmidt, when backed by the laws of the United States, which, strange as it may seem, I also represent."
"If you put it that way, Steingall----"
"I do, most emphatically. Let me be more precise. Promise me now that you will not stir out of the Plaza Hotel until I come to you."
"Is that really essential?"
"I would not ask you if it were not."
"What time may I expect you?"
"Let me see. . . . It is now nearly five o'clock. I hope to sleep till eight. I give you till nine. Bath and breakfast brings you to ten. Say eleven."
"I owe you a good deal, so I shall await you till noon. After that hour I reserve my freedom of action."
The detective laughed.
"Good-by," he said, and, as though in keeping with the other fantasies of the night, Curtis was sound asleep in quarter of an hour. He had acquired the faculty of sleeping under any conditions of mental or physical stress, short of illness or severe bodily pain, and he could awake at any hour previously determined on, so, a few minutes before nine o'clock he was in his bath. At a quarter-past nine he rang for a waiter and ordered breakfast.
"For one, sir?" said the man, who had not been on duty the previous evening, but had taken care to ascertain the names of the guests on his section of the floor.
"Yes, for one," said Curtis. "My wife and her maid are not breakfasting in the hotel. Will you kindly send up a batch of morning newspapers?"
It was only to be expected that the keen and bright intelligence of New York journalism should have fastened on to the murder in 27th Street as something out of the ordinary. But its methods were new to the man whose adult years had been passed far from his native city, and he was astounded now to find how the descriptive reporter, aided by the photographer, had depicted and dissected nearly every feature of the crime. On one point the press was silent--as yet. There was no mention of Lady Hermione, and, with a reticence which spoke volumes for the close relations existing between police and reporters, the Earl of Valletort and Count Vassilan were represented as merely "enquiring for" John Delancy Curtis, "the man from Pekin."
Curtis had spread the newspapers on the table, and, when a tap on the door of the sitting-room seemed to indicate the re-appearance of the waiter, he swept them up in a heap, meaning to go through them at leisure after breakfast.
"Come in," he said, turning casually.
The door opened, and Hermione entered.
It was what dramatists term "a psychological moment," and, according to Berkeley, one of the axioms of psychology is that it never transcends the limits of the individual. Most certainly, at that moment, the truth of this dictum was demonstrated in a manner which would have surprised even the doughty philosopher himself.
Curtis saw nothing, knew nothing, thought of nothing not strictly bounded by the fact that Hermione, and none other, stood there. He gazed at her spell-bound for a second or two. He neither moved nor spoke, but remained stock-still, with the newspapers gathered in his hands, while his eyes blazed into hers without any pretense of restraint.
She was rosy red, partly because of the wine-like morning air through which she had walked swiftly, but more, perhaps, because of a very real embarrassment and contriteness of spirit.
"I came," she faltered--"I am here--that is--will you ever forgive me!----"
Down went the papers, and round Hermione went Curtis's strong arms. He was a man of thew and sinew, against whom a slender girl's strength might not hope to prevail. The last thing she looked for was to be embraced at sight. It is the last thing any woman expects, and the one thing to which she is most apt to yield. And really, despite her fluttered cry of protest, there was something very comforting and dependable about that masculine hug. Hermione had never before been clasped in a man's arms. She was a highly kissable person, and women would embrace her readily, but the total absence of any milk-and-water convention about Curtis's method of showing delight at meeting her was at once bewildering and stupefying.
There must be a great deal, too, which does not leap promptly to the eye in the study of such a dry-as-dust subject as psychology, because three of its fixed principles are: "Experience is the process of becoming expert by experiment," "One finds a measure of truth in the naive realism of Common Sense;" and "Action and Reaction are strictly correlative."
Applying these tests to the remarkable rapidity of decision and fixity of purpose displayed by Curtis in squeezing the breath out of Hermione, and gazing into her eyes until her proud head bent and sought refuge for a glowing face by hiding it on his breast, it will be noted first, that, for a man who had no experience in love-making, Curtis was quickly becoming expert; secondly, that Common Sense teaches that if one would win a wife one must also woo her; and thirdly, that a wonderfully effective way to obtain a satisfactory response from Hermione was to reveal the educational value of a hug.
At last, then--though not before Hermione's arms had gone around his neck of their own accord, and her lips had met his with a sigh of sheer content--he permitted her to speak. And of all things in the world she said that which it thrilled him to hear.
"John, dear," she murmured, "we have become husband and wife in a strange, mad way, but, perhaps it is for the best, and I shall try never to give you cause for regret."
By this time one hand was firmly braced around her waist, but the other was free to lift her chin until her swimming eyes met his.
"Hermione," he said, "I vowed last night that not all the men and laws in America would tear you from me. If we parted, it was you, and you alone, who could send me away, and I am glad, oh, so glad, that you have come back to me."
"Dearest, it sounds like a dream," she said brokenly. "Can a man and a woman truly love each other who have only met as you and I have met?"
"I think we have solved that problem for all time," he said, tilting her hat with the joyous abandon of a lover jealous even of the flowers and plaited straw which should hide any of the sweet perfections of his mistress.
"But you have plunged me into a sort of trance," she whispered. "I came here to explain----"
An ominous rattle of a laden tray at the outer door drove them apart as though a thunderbolt had fallen between them. Hermione rushed to her own room, there to consult a mirror, and readjust her hat and veil and disordered hair, but Curtis met a hurrying waiter.
"Sorry to bother you," he said, "but my wife has come in unexpectedly, and we shall want breakfast for two." He raised his voice:
"Coffee for you, Hermione, or would you prefer tea?"
"Coffee, of course," was the answer, in so calm and collected a tone that the waiter thought he must have been mistaken in his first impression.
"No trouble at all, sir," he said, with the ready civility of his class. "Unless you wish to wait, sir, I'll bring another cup and some hot plates, and order a further supply from the kitchen."
"You're a man of resource," cried Curtis cheerfully. "I leave the arrangements to you with confidence. . . . Come along, Hermione. Don't say you have breakfasted already."
"I won't, because I haven't," she said, reappearing with a smiling nonchalance which removed the last shred of doubt from the waiter's mind. But, for all that, she electrified Curtis with a timidly grateful glance, for she appreciated his thoughtfulness in giving her an opportunity to collect her scattered wits. There was need of some such respite; she had much to relate, she thought, before he could possibly understand the motives which led to her flight.
Barely half an hour ago Mr. Steingall had put in an appearance at her apartment. He had told her, with convincing brevity, exactly why Curtis refrained from adding to her perplexities by announcing the comparative well-being of Jean de Courtois.
"He was very kind," said Hermione, sweetly penitent, "but he made me feel rather like a worm when he said that if I were his own daughter he would thank God that I had fallen into the hands of a man like you. He said, too, that if I owed you something, he owed you more, because you had saved his life last night, so, being an impulsive creature, I hurried here to ask your forgiveness for that horrid note."
"There is no lie so difficult to combat as a half truth," said John. "That fellow, Schmidt, impressed you because he probably believed what he was saying. As for Steingall, he makes rather too much of what I did for him, but, if there was any debt on his side, he has repaid me with ample interest."
The waiter had left the room, and Hermione was free to blush without restraint, a privilege she availed herself of fully now.
"But, dear, you and I can hardly feel that we are really married," she said. "Yesterday--it was--different. I cannot remain here now. Perhaps your uncle and aunt will receive me--until----"
"It is surprising how easily one can get married if one is really bent on the act," said Curtis, discussing the point as coolly as if it were a question as to where they would lunch. "At any rate, we shall settle that difficulty to your complete satisfaction. I expect Steingall here in less than an hour. Meanwhile, we have lots to tell each other. I want you to know just what sort of husband you have drawn in the lottery."
"Do you take me on trust, then?"
"Absolutely without reservation."
Obviously, the conversation did not flag before the detective was announced. He looked tired and preoccupied when he came in, but his shrewd, pleasant face brightened with a cheery smile when he saw Hermione, who was pretending to be interested in a newspaper.
"I am glad to find that two people, at least, have taken my advice," he said. "Now, Mr. Curtis, I want you for an hour. The various official inquiries are adjourned till next week, and your presence was dispensed with. But we are going now to the office of Mr. Otto Schmidt, where we shall have the pleasure of meeting the Earl of Valletort, Count Ladislas Vassilan, and, possibly, Monsieur Jean de Courtois. . . . On no account, young lady," and he turned to Hermione, "must you run away again during our absence."
"I shall not," said Hermione, so emphatically that they all laughed.
