"It is I--dear," said Curtis, in whom the mere sense of being near his "wife" induced a species of vertigo. Indeed, he was horribly nervous, since he could not form the slightest notion as to the manner in which she would receive the latest news of de Courtois.
The door was opened without delay, and Hermione appeared, dressed exactly as she was when he bade her farewell.
"I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but it cannot be helped. Things have been happening since I left you."
Her face blanched, but she tried to smile, though the corners of her mouth drooped piteously.
"They are not here already?" she cried, and he had no occasion to ask who "they" were.
"No," he said, with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. "The fact is I--I--have brought some friends to see you. That is, some of them will, I hope, be your very good friends--my uncle and aunt, and young Howard Devar, whom I spoke about earlier. There is a detective, too--a very decent fellow named Steingall. Shall I bring them here? It will be pleasanter than being stared at in a crowded supper room."
She was surprised, but the relief in her tone was unmistakable.
"I don"t want any supper," she said. "I shall be glad to meet your relatives, of course, though----"
"Though you think I might have mentioned them sooner? Well, the strangest part of the business is that they should be in New York at all. I haven"t the remotest idea as to why they are here, or how they dropped across me. But isn"t it a rather fortunate thing? They may prove useful in a hundred ways."
"Please don"t keep them waiting. What does the detective want?"
"Every syllable you can tell him about Count Va.s.silan."
"I hardly know the man at all. I always avoided him in Paris."
"You may be astonished by the number of facts you will produce when Steingall questions you. And, I had better warn you that my uncle is even now consulting the head-waiter about a wedding feast. He has adopted you without reservation on my poor description."
His frankly admiring look brought a blush to her cheeks; but she only laughed a little constrainedly, and murmured that she would try to be as complacent as the occasion demanded. Events were certainly in league to lend her wedding night a remarkably close semblance to the real thing. And as Curtis descended to the foyer to summon their waiting guests he decided then and there not to mar the festivities by any explanations concerning Jean de Courtois"s second time on earth.
Steingall had practically settled the question by confining the Frenchman to his room for the remainder of the night. Why interfere with an admirable arrangement? Let the wretched intriguer be forgotten till the morrow, at any rate!
CHAPTER IX
ELEVEN O"CLOCK
"In mult.i.tude of counselors there is safety," says the Book of Proverbs. Usually, the philosophy attributed to Solomon exhibits a soundness of judgment which is unrivaled, so it is reasonable to a.s.sume that in Hebrew gnomic thought four do not const.i.tute a mult.i.tude, because four people agreed with Curtis that there was not the slightest need to mention Jean de Courtois to Hermione that evening, and five people were wrong, though in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they might have been right. Hermione herself admitted afterwards that she would have believed Curtis implicitly had he explained the circ.u.mstances which accounted for his undoubted conviction that de Courtois was dead; indeed, she went so far as to say that, as a matter of choice, she infinitely preferred the American to the Frenchman in the role of a husband _pro tem_. She had never regarded de Courtois from any other point of view than as her paid ally, and she was beginning to share Curtis"s belief that the man was a double-dealer, a fact which helped to modify her natural regret at the report of his death in her behalf.
In a calmer mood, too, Curtis would have been quick to realize that a girl who had reposed such supreme confidence in his probity was ent.i.tled to share his fullest knowledge of the extraordinary bond which united them, but for one half-hour he was swayed by expediency, and expediency often exercises a disrupting influence on a friendship founded on faith. He only meant to spare her the dismay which could hardly fail to manifest itself when she heard that de Courtois was alive, and that additional complications must now arise with reference to the wrongful use of the marriage license; in reality, he was doing himself a bitter injustice.
But, having elected for a definite course, he was not a man who would deviate from it by a hair"s breadth. When the junta in the vestibule of the Plaza Hotel had promised to remain mute on the topic of de Courtois, he dismissed the matter from his mind as having no further influence on the night"s doings.
"Is there any means of recovering my overcoat?" he asked Steingall, remembering the change of garments when a waiter asked if the gentlemen cared to deposit their hats and coats in the cloak-room.
"Yes," said the detective. "Just empty the pockets of the coat you are wearing, and I"ll send a messenger to the police station-house with a note. You won"t mind if I retain your doc.u.ments till after the inquest? One never knows what questions will be asked, and you must remember that an attempt may be made to fasten the crime upon you."
Curtis laughed at the absurdity of any such notion, but, for the first time, he examined the contents of the dead man"s coat pockets methodically. The pocket in which the license had reposed was empty.
Its fellow contained a notebook and pencil. There were also some newspaper cuttings--items of current interest in New York, but devoid of bearing on the crime or its cognate developments.
An elastic band caused the book to open at a definite page, and Steingall, who knew a little of everything, and a great deal of all matters appertaining to his profession, deciphered some shorthand characters which promised enlightenment. He pa.s.sed no comment, however, but pocketed the book, scribbled a few lines on a sheet of paper bearing the name of the hotel, and intrusted coat and letter to an attendant.
Uncle Horace, after a momentary qualm, gave instructions to the head-waiter in the approved manner of a trust magnate.
"We"re up against it now, Louisa," he whispered confidentially to his wife, "so let"s have one wonderful night if we never have another."
Mrs. Curtis nodded her complete agreement. She would have sanctioned a mortgage on her home rather than forego any material part of an experience which would command the breathless attention of many a future gathering of matrons and maids in faraway Bloomington.
Lady Hermione received her visitors with a shy cordiality which won their prompt approval. Aunt Louisa had been perplexed by indecision as to what she was to say or how she was to act when she met the bride, but one glance of her keen, motherly eyes at the blushing and timid girl resolved any doubts on both scores.
"G.o.d bless you, my dear!" she said, throwing her arms around Hermione"s neck and kissing her heartily. "Perhaps everything is for the best, and, anyway, you"ve married into a family of honest men and true women."
"Ma"am," said Uncle Horace, when his turn came to be introduced, "strange as it may sound, I know less about my nephew than you yourself, but if he resembles his father in character as he does in appearance, you"ve chosen well, and let me add, ma"am, that _he_ seems to have made a first-rate selection at sight."
Of course, such congratulations were woefully misplaced, but Hermione was too well-bred to reveal any cause for disquietude other than the normal embarra.s.sment any young woman would display in like conditions.
Curtis, too, put in a quiet word which threw light on the situation.
"As I told you a few minutes since, I was not aware that my uncle and aunt were in New York," he said. "I cannot even guess how they came to find me so opportunely, and we have hardly been able to say a word to each other yet, because they were in the thick of the police inquiry when I met them in my hotel."
"Why, that"s the easiest thing," declared Aunt Louisa, rejoicing in a long-looked-for opportunity to hear her own voice in full volume.
"This young gentleman here," and she nodded at the dismayed Devar, "told us that he cottoned to your husband, my dear, something remarkable on board the steamer, so he sent a message by wireless to the editor of a New York paper, asking him to let America know that one of her citizens who had won distinction in China was homeward bound, and the editor circulated a real nice paragraph about it. It quite took my breath away when Mrs. Harvey, our mayor"s wife--such a charming woman, my dear, and I do hope I may have the pleasure of bringing you to one of her delightful tea-and-bridge afternoons--said to me on Monday: "Surely, Mrs. Curtis, this John Delancy Curtis who is on board the _Lusitania_ must be a son of that brother of your husband who died in China some years ago?" and I said: "What in the world are you talking about, Mrs. Harvey?" so she showed me the newspaper, and I was that taken aback that I revoked in the next hand, and the only mean player we have in the club claimed three tricks "without," and went game, being a woman herself who hasn"t chick nor child, but devotes far too much time and money to toy dogs; anyhow, I couldn"t give my mind to cards any more that day, so off I rushed home and "phoned Horace, and here we are, after such a flurry as you never would imagine, what between packing in a hurry for the trip east, and missing the steamer"s arrival by nearly an hour, and turning up in the Central Hotel just in time to hear----" Then Aunt Louisa, a.s.suredly at no loss for words, but remembering in a hazy way the compact made in the vestibule, found it inc.u.mbent on her to break away from the main trend of the narrative, so she concluded: "Just in time to hear things being said about our nephew which we felt bound to deny, both for his sake and our own."
Curtis had favored Devar with a questioning scowl when he learnt how his advent had been heralded in the press, but Devar merely vouchsafed a brazen wink, and in the next breath Hermione herself became his unconscious and most persuasive advocate.
"I have been bothering my brains to discover when or where I had seen Mr. Curtis"s name before--before we met to-night," she said, smiling at the ridiculous vagueness of her own phrase. "Now I remember. I used to read the newspaper reports about every ship that arrived, and I noticed that identical paragraph."
"Thank you, Lady Hermione," cried Devar, crowing inwardly over his friend"s discomfiture. "John D. will begin to believe soon what I have been telling him during the last half-hour--that I am the real _Deus ex machina_ of the whole business. Why, if it hadn"t been for me you two would never have got married, and this merry party couldn"t have happened!"
A knock at the door caused Hermione to turn with a startled look. Try as she might, she dreaded every such incident as the preliminary to a stormy interview with her father.
"Unless I am greatly mistaken, ma"am," interposed Uncle Horace blandly, "this will be a waiter coming to tell us that supper is ready."
As usual, he said the correct thing, and Steingall drew Hermione aside while the table was being spread for the feast. He lost no time in coming to the point. His first demand showed that he took nothing for granted.
"I am bound to speak plainly, your ladyship," he said. "Is the remarkable story told by Mr. John D. Curtis true?"
"Regarding the marriage?" said Hermione promptly.
"Yes."
"Well, as I do not know what he may have said, you can decide that matter for yourself after you have heard my version. I am a fugitive from Paris, where my father was endeavoring to force me into a detestable union: I am practically a complete stranger in New York: I had arranged with Monsieur de Courtois to become my husband, under a clear agreement for money paid that the marriage should serve only as a shield against my pursuers; he was prevented by some dreadful men from keeping to-night"s appointment, and Mr. Curtis came to me, intending to break the news somewhat more gently than one might look for otherwise.
He heard my sad little explanation, and was sorry for me. As it happened, he appreciated the real nature of my predicament, and, having no ties to prevent such a daring step, offered me the protection of his name until such time as I become my own mistress and am free to secure a dissolution of the marriage."
"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?" said the detective. His voice was kindly, and his expression gravely sympathetic, and Hermione could not read the amused tolerance lurking behind the mask of those keen eyes.
"I mean that I am yet what lawyers call an infant. In six months I shall be twenty-one, and the coercion which has been used to force me into marrying Count Ladislas Va.s.silan will be no longer possible."
"Do you forfeit an inheritance by refusing to obey Lord Valletort"s wishes?"