Part 21 (1/2)

Without a word, but smiling slightly, he handed it un.o.btrusively to Curtis. It bore that day's date, and the decoded time of delivery was 4 P.M.

”Arriving to-night,” it ran. ”Coming direct Fifty-Ninth Street.

Expect us there about eight-thirty.”

Curtis smiled, too. He grasped the detective's unspoken thought.

Steingall had as good as said that the message bore out Curtis's counter charge against Count Va.s.silan and the Earl of Valletort of conspiring with de Courtois himself to defeat Lady Hermione's marriage project. Indeed, before replacing the slip of paper on the table, the detective produced a note-book, and entered therein particulars which would secure proof of the Marconigram's origin if necessary.

The maid hurried in with the milk, and Steingall, why had covered more ground among the Frenchman's correspondence than the others gave him credit for, now acted as nurse. With some difficulty he succeeded in persuading the stricken man on the bed to relax his firmly closed jaws and endeavor to swallow the fluid. It was a tedious business, but progress became more rapid when de Courtois realized that he was in the hands of those who meant well by him. It was noticeable, too, as his senses returned and the panic glare left his eyes, that his expression changed from one of abject fear to a lowering look of suspicious uncertainty. He peered at Steingall and the hotel clerk many times, but gave Curtis and Devar only a perfunctory glance. Oddly enough, the fact that the two latter were in evening dress seemed to rea.s.sure him, and it became evident later that the presence of the clerk led him to regard these strangers as guests in the hotel who had been attracted to his room by the mere accident of propinquity.

His first intelligible words, uttered in broken English, were:

”Vat time ees eet?”

”Ten-thirty,” said Steingall.

”_Ah, cre nom d'un nom_! I haf to go, queek!”

”Where to?”

”No mattaire. I tank you all to-morrow. I explain eferyting den.

Now, I go.”

”You had better stay where you are, Monsieur de Courtois,” said Steingall in French. ”Milord Valletort and Count Va.s.silan have arrived. I have seen them, and nothing more can be done with respect to their affair tonight. I am the chief of the New York Detective Bureau, and I want you to tell me how you came to be in the state in which you were found.”

But de Courtois was regaining his wits rapidly, and the clarifying of his senses rendered him obviously unwilling to give any information as to the cause of his own plight. Nor would he speak French. For some reason, probably because of a permissible vagueness in statements couched in a foreign tongue, he insisted on using English.

”Eef you haf seen my frien's you tell me vare I fin' dem. I come your office to-morrow, an' make ze complete explanation,” he said.

”I must trouble you to-night, please,” insisted Steingall quietly.

”You don't understand what has occurred while you were fastened up here. You know Mr. Henry R. Hunter?”

”Yes, yes. I know heem.”

”Well, he was stabbed while alighting from an automobile outside this hotel shortly before eight o'clock, and I imagine he was coming to see you.”

”Stabbed! Did zey keel heem?”

”Yes. Now, tell me who 'they' were.”

Monsieur Jean de Courtois was taken instantly and violently ill. He dropped back on the bed, from which he had risen valiantly in his eagerness to be stirring, and faintly proclaimed his inability to grasp what the detective was saying.

”Ah, _Grand Dieu_!” he murmured. ”I am eel; fetch a doctaire. My brain, eet ees, vat you say, _etourdi_.”

”You will soon recover from your illness. Come, now, pull yourself together, and tell me who the men were who tied you up, and why, if you can give a reason.”

The Frenchman shut his eyes, and groaned.

”I am stranjare here, Monsieur le Commissaire,” he said brokenly. ”I know no ones, nodings. Milor' Valletort, he ees acquaint. Send for heem, and bring ze doctaire.”

”Don't you understand that your friend, Mr. Hunter, the journalist who was helping you in the matter of Lady Hermione Grandison's marriage, has been murdered?”