One Wonderful Night | Page 7

last flicker of life in the tortured eyes. Then, as one in a dream, Curtis
gave the policeman the details of the crime, the name of the chauffeur,
and the number of the car, his testimony being borne out to some extent
by the hall-porter, and, so far as the car was concerned, by the
sharp-eyed driver of the taxi. His own name and address were taken,
and a police captain and a couple of detectives, called to the scene by
telephone, thanked him for his alertness in securing valuable clews, not
only in regard to the car and chauffeur but also in describing the
features, figure, and dress of one of the criminals.
Finally, he was warned to hold himself in readiness to attend the
opening of an inquest on the following morning, and the police

intimated that they did not desire the presence of witnesses while the
dead man's clothing was being scrutinized.
So Curtis went out into the street, and, with no other purpose than to
avoid the publicity and questioning of the crowd gathered in and
around the hotel, sauntered into Broadway. At the corner he halted for a
moment to put on the overcoat. He had gone some few yards up the
brilliantly illuminated thoroughfare when he fancied that his nervous
system needed the tonic of a cigar, and he searched in the pockets of
the overcoat for a box of matches he had placed there before leaving his
bedroom. The box had gone, but in the right-hand pocket his fingers
closed on a long, narrow envelope, made of stiff linen paper, which
somehow seemed unfamiliar. He drew it out, and examined it, standing
in front of a well-lighted shop window.
Then he whistled with sheer amazement, as well he might. The
envelope held a marriage license for two people named Jean de
Courtois and Hermione Beauregard Grandison. . . . In a word, he was
wearing the dead man's overcoat, and the fearsome conviction leaped to
his brain that the dead man must be Jean de Courtois.
CHAPTER II
EIGHT O'CLOCK
From one aspect, Curtis's sense of dread and horror was merely
altruistic, the natural welling forth of the springs of human sentiment. If
the man now lying stark and lifeless in that dreary official bureau had
in truth been hurrying on his way to a marriage feast, then, indeed,
tragedy had assumed its grimmest aspect that night in New York. But,
beyond an enforced personal contact with a ghastly crime, Curtis had
no vital interest in its victim, and it should have occurred to him, as a
law-abiding citizen, that his instant duty was to communicate this new
discovery to the authorities. Nay more, such definite information would
help the police materially in their pursuit of the murderers. It might lay
bare a motive, put the bloodhounds of the law on a well-marked trail,
and render impossible the escape of the guilty ones.

That was the sane, level-headed, man-of-the-world view, and, to one
inured to deeds of violence in a land where the Foreign Devil oft-time
holds his life as scarce worth an hour's purchase, no other solution of
the problem should have presented itself. But, for all his strength of
character, Curtis had been breathing an intoxicating atmosphere ever
since he set foot on American soil. His home-coming had begun by
producing in his soul a subtle exaltation which had survived a
conspiracy of repression. Devar's careless acceptance of the city's
grandeur had jarred; the exuberance of the joyous throng on the jetty
had touched dormant chords of sad memories; even at the very portals
of the hotel the building's newness had struck a bizarre note; and now,
as though to emphasize the vile crime of which he had been an
involuntary witness, came the stifling knowledge that somewhere in
New York an expectant bride was chafing at delay--a delay caused by
an assassin's dagger, while there was not lacking even the tormenting
suspicion that somehow, had he been more wide-awake, he could have
prevented that malignant thrust.
Yet, his head remained in the clouds. In common with most men whose
lot is cast in climes far removed from civilization, Curtis worshiped an
ideal of womanhood which was rather that of a poet than of the blasé,
cynical town-dweller. He had seen death too often to be shocked by its
harsh visage, and, perhaps in protest against the idle belief that the
crime was preventable, his sympathies were absorbed now by the
vision of some fair girl waiting vainly for the bridegroom who would
never come. His analytical mind fastened instantly on the theory that
murder had been done to prevent a marriage. He took it for granted that
the Jean de Courtois of the marriage certificate was dead, and his heart
grieved for