One Wonderful Night Part 28

"That is Anatole, I am nearly sure," said Curtis.

"Why not jump out and grab him now?" suggested Devar.

"Do you gentlemen mind following him for a time?" asked the policeman.

"No, I'm game for anything. And you, Curtis?"

"Oh, I feel ready to start the night all over again."

The street-cars went on, and the gray automobile darted through the first possible opening.

"You see, it is this way," explained the official. "I am prepared to arrest the man on Mr. Curtis's evidence, because I couldn't have better testimony than that of the chief witness. But I've been chewing on this thing for the past few minutes, and it strikes me that we gain nothing by acting in a hurry. You may be sure that this fellow, even if he is the person we want, will deny it, and a day or two may be lost in proving his ident.i.ty, or collecting facts which would support the theory that he was the chauffeur connected with the crime. Now, if we let him go on, we shall certainly have a better hold over him. We'll find out his destination--perhaps secure a very useful address, or, with real luck, discover that he is keeping a fixture with some other individual."

"In a word, we must watch and pray," said Devar.

"Well, we can wait and see, anyhow," said the practical minded McCulloch.

His counsel sounded good, and the others agreed with him, thereby letting themselves and the patient Brodie in for some remarkable developments in a pursuit which began by a simple coincidence and was destined to end in a manner which none of them dreamed of.

Devar opened the window again.

"Arthur," he said, "did you happen to notice whether or not that fellow is carrying a reflector?"

"Yes, sir. He has one. I saw him looking into it when I drew alongside."

"Ah, that puts a different complexion on the affair, as the young man said when he kissed his best girl and tasted Somebody's Beauty Powder.

Don't press, Arthur. Just keep him in sight till I consult the law."

As the outcome of a hurried discussion, Brodie received a fresh mandate. During the straightaway run he was not to approach the gray car nearer than sixty yards or thereabouts--in effect, remaining within the same block if possible, but, if the gray car stopped in front of any dwelling, he was to slacken speed and pa.s.s it, taking the middle of the road, and holding himself in instant readiness to halt or turn as directed.

"By the way, how are you fixed for petrol?" added Devar.

"I filled the tanks, sir, before leaving the garage. We're good for the trip to Albany and back."

Brodie's tone was quite cheerful. He, too, had been reviewing the situation, and the presence of a uniformed policeman had dispelled the last shred of suspicion that some stupid joke had been worked off outside the Police Headquarters when a fearsome looking tough was introduced to him as the Chief of the New York Detective Bureau.

Devar was about to congratulate the roundsman on the prospect of an all-night journey if Brodie's chance phrase were fated to come true, when he glanced at Curtis, and elected to remain silent. They were pa.s.sing the Plaza Hotel, and his friend was peering up at its square white bulk. Obviously, he was striving to locate Hermione's room.

Most probably he failed, for it is no easy matter to pick out the windows of any particular set of rooms in a huge building while rushing along at twenty-five or more miles an hour. Further, it was now past one o'clock in the morning, and most respectable people were in bed, so the solemn ma.s.s of the hotel was enlivened by very few rectangles of light.

But Curtis fancied, as did Devar also, that the illuminated blinds of three windows on the second floor might possibly be those of Suite F., and each wondered, if the surmise were correct, why her ladyship was remaining up so late.

Devar resolved to say nothing, but Curtis felt that he must talk, if only for the sake of hearing his own voice. Usually a man of taciturn habit, the outcome of long vigils among an alien and often hostile race in a semi-civilized land, he had gone through so much during the five and a half hours which had unfolded their marvels since he quitted the dining-room of the Central Hotel, that he ached for human sympathy, even in a trivial matter of this sort.

"I thought I saw a light in my wife's rooms," he said.

"As you mention it, so did I," agreed Devar.

"I hope she is not awaiting my return?"

"Perhaps she is anxious about you?"

"But why?"

"Women are given that way. She knows you went out with Steingall, and he is a dangerous character."

"Is Mrs. Curtis staying in the Plaza?" asked the puzzled McCulloch.

"Yes."

"But I thought you occupied a room at the Central Hotel in 27th Street?"

"I did, but I got married at half-past eight, and we went to the Plaza."

"Married at half-past eight--just after the murder!" The policeman's words formed a crescendo of sheer surprise. For some indefinable reason this curious conjunction of a crime and a wedding went beyond his comprehension.

"Yes, it happened so. It might have been avoided, yet, looking back now over the whole of the circ.u.mstances, it would appear that I have followed a beaten track inevitable as death."

Of course, the roundsman could not grasp the somber thought underlying Curtis's words, but a species of indeterminate suspicion prompted his next question.

"You came from the Plaza with Mr. Steingall, I believe, sir?"

"Yes. We were having supper there, with Mr. Devar and my uncle and aunt, when Mr. Clancy rang him up on the telephone, and he invited us to accompany him to the Police Headquarters. The rest you know."

Certainly, the explanation sounded quite satisfactory. The att.i.tude of these two young men and their chauffeur was perfectly correct, and the policeman's views had been strengthened materially by the tell-tale tokens he had noted on the gray car, which, however, he had not thought fit to mention. If Steingall had attended the supper in the Plaza he must have convinced himself that there was nothing unusual, or, at any rate, doubtful, about the queer fact that a man who was mixed up in a remarkable murder should have gone straight from the scene of the tragedy and got married.

Just to dispel a little of the mist that befogged his brain, he waited a while and then said:

"Which side of the car was opposite the doorway when those two men attacked Mr. Hunter?"

"The left. The car had entered the street from Broadway."

"Why do you ask?" inquired Devar, instantly alive to the queerness of this alteration of topics.

"My mind went back to the job we have in hand," said the roundsman readily. "I was wondering just what sort of glimpse Mr. Curtis obtained of the chauffeur. Of course, I see now that he was looking at the man exactly under similar conditions when we made that stop at 42nd Street."

Thus, unknown to either of the parties to the alliance, a minor crisis was averted, because it may safely be conceded that the hard-headed policeman would have refused then and there to accept any sort of statement from such a lunatic as John Delancy Curtis, if he were given a full, true, and particular account of the night's proceedings while being whirled up Fifth Avenue in a fast moving automobile.

Romance, if it is to be accepted without question, requires the setting of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden.

There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound Heaven knew whither long after midnight, it is apt to savor of the moon and witchcraft.

Away up the straight vista of Fifth Avenue sped the two cars. On the left lay the black solitude of Central Park, on the right the varied architecture of New York's millionaire dwellings.

Devar and the policeman talked cheerfully enough, but Curtis was wrapped in his own musings till the rear lamp of the gray car suddenly curved to the left and vanished.

"He has turned into the Parkway at 110th Street," said McCulloch, and Curtis awoke with a start to a sense of his surroundings.

"I suppose he's making for St. Nicholas Avenue," went on the roundsman.