One Wonderful Night Part 31

"That helped some, but I also remarked that, if he moved, this toy of his would surely go off by accident, and he seemed to think it might hurt."

McCulloch held the lamp close to the livid, twisted face.

"Is this Anatole?" he said suddenly.

"Yes," said Curtis, with instant appreciation of his adroitness.

They were rewarded by the scowl which convulsed the mask-like face, and terror set its unmistakable seal there. A harsh metallic voice came from the huddled-up form.

"Cut this d--d rope, and let me stand on my feet!"

"There's no special hurry," said the policeman coolly. "We won't object to making things more pleasant for you if you promise to take us straight to your Hungarian friends."

Again that wave of dread which betokens the quailing heart of the detected felon swept over the man's features, but he only swore again, and protested that they had no right to torture him.

McCulloch saw that he had to deal with a hardened criminal, from whom no conscience stricken confession would be forthcoming. He gave the lamp to Curtis, stooped, and lifted the prisoner out on to the ground.

Untying the rope, except at the man's ankles, he brought the listless hands in front, and placed a pair of handcuffs on the wrists.

"Now," he said, "if you have any sense left, you'll keep quiet and enjoy the ride back to New York."

"Why am I arrested? I have a right to know?" The words were yelped at him rather than spoken.

"All in good time, Anatole. You'll have everything explained to you fair and square."

"That is not my name. That's a Frenchman's name."

"It fitted you all right in 27th Street a few hours ago."

"I was not there. I can prove it."

"Of course you can. You'd be a poor sort of crook if you couldn't.

But what's this?" the roundsman had found some letters and a pocketbook in an inner pocket of the chauffeur's closely b.u.t.toned jacket--"M.

Anatole Labergerie, care of Morris Siegelman, saloon-keeper, East Broadway, N. Y.," he said. "You know someone named Anatole, anyhow, so we are warm, as the kids say," he went on sarcastically.

"I say nothing. I admit nothing. I demand the presence of a lawyer,"

was the defiant reply.

"You'll see a heap of lawyers before the State of New York has no further use for you. Now, I'll take you to a nice, quiet hotel for the night. In with you. . . . Mind the step. Let me give you a friendly hand. . . . No, that seat, if you please, close up in the corner.

I'll go next. Mr. Curtis, you don't object to being squeezed a little, I'm sure, though the three of us will crowd the back seat, and if the gentleman who says nothing and admits nothing will only change his mind, and tell us exactly how he has spent a rather exciting evening, the story will help pa.s.s the journey quite pleasantly."

But Anatole Labergerie, whose accent was that of a Frenchman with a very complete knowledge of English, had evidently determined on a policy of silence, and no word crossed his lips during the greater part of the long run to the police station-house in 30th Street, in which precinct, the 23rd, the murder had occurred, and to which McCulloch was attached.

His presence in the car acted as an effectual damper on conversation in so far as Curtis and Devar were concerned. If their suspicions were justified, he was a princ.i.p.al in an atrocious crime, and mere propinquity with such a wretch induced a feeling of loathing comparable only with that shrinking from physical contact to which mankind yields when confronted with leprosy in its final forbidding form.

But McCulloch was jubilant. He regarded his prisoner with the almost friendly interest taken in his quarry by the slayer of wild beasts to whose rifle has fallen some peculiarly rare and dangerous "specimen."

He enlivened the road with anecdotes of famous criminals, and each story invariably concluded with a facetious reference to the "chair" or a "lifer." Once or twice he gave details of the breaking up of some notorious gang owing to information extracted from one of its minor members, who, in consequence, either escaped punishment or received a light sentence; but the captive remained mute and apparently indifferent, whereupon Curtis, who had been revolving in his mind certain elements in a singularly complex mystery, broke fresh ground by saying:

"The strangest feature of this affair is probably unknown to you, Mr.

McCulloch. To all intents and purposes, the men who killed the journalist were acting in concert with a Frenchman named Jean de Courtois, and their common object was to prevent a marriage arranged for last night. Yet this same de Courtois was found gagged and bound in his room at the Central Hotel shortly before midnight. Someone had maltreated him badly, and the wonder is he was not killed outright."

Now, the roundsman, wedged close against the prisoner, felt the man give an almost unconscious and quite involuntary start when de Courtois was mentioned, and there could be no question that he was straining his ears to catch each syllable Curtis uttered.

Nudging the latter, McCulloch said:

"So it was a near thing that two weddings were not interfered with last night, sir?"

"No, not two, only one. I married the lady."

"You did!"

The policeman's undoubted bewilderment was convincingly genuine, but, despite his surprise, he was alert to catch the slightest move or sign of emotion on the part of the captive.

"Yes," said Curtis. "I married her before half-past eight."

"Then you must have possessed some knowledge of the parties mixed up in this business?"

"No, not in the sense you have in mind. I cannot supply full particulars now, but you will learn them in due course. The point I wish to emphasize is this--poor Mr. Hunter's death was absolutely needless. I imagine he only came into connection with the intrigue by exercising the journalistic instinct to obtain exclusive details of a sensational news item which involved several distinguished people. The miserable tools employed by men who wished to gain their own ends were not even true to each other, and they undoubtedly attacked Hunter by error."

"Did they mean to kill you, then?"

"Oh, no. They had never heard of me. I dropped from the skies, or the nearest thing to it, since I was on the Atlantic at this hour yesterday."

McCulloch was aware that the Frenchman had been profoundly disturbed by Curtis's statements, and kept the ball rolling. That name, de Courtois, seemed to supply the clew to the man's agitation, so he harped on it.

"Has Mr. Steingall seen de Courtois?" he asked.

"Yes. Mr. Devar and I accompanied him to de Courtois's room, and set the rascal free."

"That settles it," said the roundsman emphatically. "If the man with the camera eye has looked de Courtois over it is all up with the whole bunch. Are you listening, Anatole? This should be real lively hearing for you."

"Monsieur de Courtois is a friend of mine," came the sullen response.

"Oh, is he? Then you do know something about events in 27th Street, eh?"

"I tell you nothing, but why should I deny that I know Monsieur de Courtois?"

"Or that you are a Frenchman," put in Curtis quietly. "One of the few words in the French language which no foreigner can ever p.r.o.nounce is that word 'Monsieur,' especially when it is followed by a 'de.' I speak French well enough to realize my limitations."

"Now, Anatole, cough it up," said McCulloch jocularly. "You've no more chance of winning through than a chunk of ice in h.e.l.l's flames."

"Let me alone, I'm tired," said the other, relapsing into a stony inattention which did not end even when Brodie brought the car to a stand outside the police station-house in West 30th Street.

The advent of the roundsman with a prisoner and escort created some commotion among his colleagues. The police captain was the same official who had harbored suspicion against Curtis not so many hours ago, and his opinion was not entirely changed, only modified.

He glanced darkly at Curtis and Devar, but was manifestly cheered by sight of McCulloch with a chauffeur in custody.

"h.e.l.lo!" he cried, "and where in Hades have _you_ been?"

"A long way from home, Mr. Evans," said the roundsman. "But it was worth while. This is Anatole, whose other name is Labergerie, the man wanted for the murder in 27th Street."