One Wonderful Night | Page 8

the hapless young woman whose aristocratic name was
blazoned on that same document. So, instead of retracing his steps, and
warning the officers of the law, he bent his brows over the certificate,
and, in acting thus, unconsciously committed himself to as fantastic a
course as ever was followed by mortal man.
It is only fair to urge that had he known the truth, had the veil been
lifted ever so slightly on other happenings in the Central Hotel that
night, he would not have hesitated a moment about returning to the

conclave of policemen and detectives. He acted impulsively, absurdly,
almost insanely, it may be held, but he did honestly act in good faith,
and that is the best and the worst that can be said of him, or for him.
And now to peer over his shoulder at the printed form and its written
interlineations, which he was perusing with anxious, thoughtful eyes.
It was headed "State of New York, County of New York, City of New
York," and bade all men know that any person authorized by law to
perform marriage ceremonies within the State was thereby "authorized
and empowered to solemnize the rites of matrimony between Jean de
Courtois, a citizen of the French Republic, now residing in the Central
Hotel, West 27th Street, New York, and Hermione Beauregard
Grandison, a citizen of Great Britain, now residing at 1000 West 59th
Street, New York."
It had been issued that very day, November 8th. Annexed to the license
was the actual marriage certificate, with blanks for names and dates, to
be filled in by the person performing the ceremony. A set of printed
rules, reciting various duties, legal obligations, and penalties for
infringing the same, was also inclosed; but Curtis was in no mood to
master the provisions of "An Act to Amend the Domestic Relations
Law, by providing for Marriage Licenses," for they must perforce be
silent on the one topic wherein he needed guidance--the course to be
pursued in the circumstances now facing him.
His thoughts were focussed on the name and address of the girl who
had been so cruelly, so wantonly, bereft of her lover, and it seemed to
him both fitting and charitable that someone other than a police
sergeant or detective should interpose between the grim tragedy of 27th
Street and the even more poignant horror which was fated to descend
on some house in 59th Street. Apparently, fate had decreed that he
should be the messenger charged with this sad errand, and, with a
singular disregard of consequences, he accepted the mandate.
He did not act blindly. When all was said and done, the certificate had
come into his possession by unavoidable chance. At the hapless bride's
residence he would surely be able to meet someone who could

accompany him to the police office, and give the details needed for a
successful chase. Indeed, he argued that he was saving valuable time by
his prompt action, and, reviewing the whole of the facts while being
carried swiftly up Broadway in a taxi, he found, at first, no flaw in his
judgment.
Though busy in mind with the extraordinary events of the past quarter
of an hour, his alert eyes missed few features of the abounding life of
the Great White Way. As it happened, a stranger in New York could
not have entered the city's main thoroughfare at any point better
calculated to bewilder and astound than the very corner where Curtis
had picked up the cab. On both sides, from the level of the street to a
height often measurable in hundreds of feet, nearly every building
blazed with electric signs. Many of the devices seemed to be alive.
Horses galloped, either in Roman stadium or modern polo-ground; a
girl's skirts were fluttered by a rain-storm; a giant's hand, with unerring
skill, bowled a ball at ten-pins in a bowling alley; the names of theaters,
of hotels, of drugs, of patent foods, of every known variety of caterer
for human needs and amusements, flickered, and winked, and stared, at
the passer-by from ground floor to attic--while each and all--horses,
skirts, rain-drops, hand, ball, pins, and names--glowed in every known
shade of color from every known form of electric lamp.
The glare of this advertisers' paradise was so overpowering that even
the marvel-surfeited citizens who crowded the sidewalks would gather
in dense groups at a corner, thence to watch and take in the dazzling
significance of some sign new to their vision. Curtis noticed many such
assemblies before the taxi sped out of the magic area which ends at
42nd Street; but it was all novel to him; he could not discuss the
contrast between last week's glorification of Somebody's Pickles and
to-night's triumph of Everybody's Whisky, and he was almost bemused