One Wonderful Night

ur dreams! Good old New York, as pe

addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of the pair by six years, felt that the

oward Devar, heir of the Devar millions-son of "Vancouver" Devar, the Devar who fed multitudes on canned salmon, and was suspected of having cornered wheat at least once, thus woefully

-line," he chortled. "Bet you a five-spot to a nickel I'll walk blindfolded along Twenty-third Street from the Hoboken Ferry

lf. How could any normal human being miss

ead wrinkled

you told me that you had never seen New

urope with my people, and I had never revisited New York after leaving

omewhere, or my mental g

ay learn heaps of thing

ehold in me a map and a book and a high-grade society i

er, column-like structure to t

aceful tower indicated by

hat you've imbibed its tricks of occultism and necromancy. I suppose you have discovere

ure among the down-town sky-scrapers in

can pick out any of these top-not

the same if you, like me, fe

xpatriated American, or from some more subtle personal cause, he could not determine, but, being young, he was cynical. He looked at the strong, set face,

u ought to have a hell of

uffer from lack of enthusia

the low shores of New Jersey, and the heights of the Palisades. Somewhat to the right rose the imperial outlines of newest New York, that wonderful city which, even in the memory of children, has raised itself hundreds of feet nearer the sky. A thin, blue haze gave glamour to a delightful scene, glowing in the declining rays of a November sun. The gigantic strands of the Brooklyn Bridge showed through it like some aerial path to a fabulous land, while, merging fast in the shadows, other dim specters told of even

d almost like a sigh, but a pleasant smile illumined

. They live in Indiana, I believe. Bloomington, Monroe County, is the latest address I possess.

hat pre-historic shanty? Man alive, the Holland House is only a block away, and there are

art of the equipment of men who have lived in wild lands and lorded it over inferior races. Devar was vaguely conscious, and perhaps slightly resentful, of this compelling quality in his new-found crony. Oft-times it had quelled him for an instant during some stubbornly

e preparations for bringing the great liner alongside the Cunard pier. When her engines were stopped in mid-stream a number of fussy little tugs began nosing her round to starboard. It seemed a ma

shore recognized the features of relatives and friends on the ship. A frenzied waving of handkerchiefs, small flags, or umbrellas, an occasional wild whoop, a college cry or a reb

h New York gives so generously. Somehow, he had never felt himself more alone-not even by night in the solemn plains of Manchuria-and he threw off the feeling, almost with contempt. Was not this city his very own? Had he not a birthright in ever

lady, a young bride, who was returning to the States with her husband after a prolonged tour through Europe. Her prett

d sympathetically, knowing that she had looked

ere-somewhere. B-but, oh dear! I

mb into Curtis's ribs. I

nge, but deal me the Metropolitan for keeps, an' I've just spotted my old dad grinning at me like a Cheshire c

lonely on C Deck as on A, and, case-hardened wanderer that he was, he

ship and Customs shed obliterated the orange and crimson sky still gleaming over the Jersey sho

nt. Taking his time, for he had none to embrace or greet with outstretched hand, he strolled quietly off the ship, collecte

to him for

here till the morning. You remember we passed the Switzerland after brea

es

and there is a man on board whom dad has t

Curtis, without looking around, showed that he had noticed the befurred elderly lady

em, dozens of cousins, that is. Anyhow, old sport, don't wait

lantern-jawed Customs official was gloating over them already. Perhaps Curtis felt a faint whiff of surprise that his young friend had not introduced him

ndle of worn golf clubs were placed on a taxi, and a breath of clean, cold air blew in on his face as the vehicle hurried al

ity of the world's capitals, is never lost, and now it enabled Curtis to disregard the garish ugliness of the avenues and streets glimpsed during a quick run to the center of the town. F

t shock came when the taxi drew up in front of a narrow-fronted, exceedingly tall building, equipped with re

reserved a

s more pretentious à la carte neighbors, and the hall-porter was pained by t

a couple of negroes to disappear with most of the baggage. So Curtis announced meekly to a super-clerk that he wanted a room with a bathroom, and was allowed to register. As in a dream, he signed

room, Mr. Curtis," said the clerk. "

s a fortnight. I c

n't fix you bett

that dynamite in human affairs called chance. If the slightest inkling of the forthcoming explosion could have been vouchsafed to both men, there is no telling what Curtis might have done, for he was a true adventurer, of the D'Artagnan genus, but

ing a curiously wayward path. Curtis was piloted into an elevator by an affable negro, was conducted to 605, which, of course, la

ively low building, a lady who had forgotten to draw the blinds of her flat was apparently indulging in calisthenic exercises, so Curtis, being a modest man, drew the blind in his own room, and busied himself with a partial unpacking of his baggage. The door faced the bed, at a distance of som

a cigar-case, donned a green Homburg hat, threw an overcoat over his left arm, picked up the letters, extinguished the lights, and went out. Again there came that rush of air from the window, and, just as the

her spirits brooding in the city, spirits before whose deathly scowls the prime mischief-maker would have fled in terror, and Curtis, all unwitting, brushed against one of them in the hall. His only acquaintance, the clerk, was momentarily absent, so he turned to a bookstall and ciga

repossessing face of a swarthy foreigner, a power

ht," said he, l

rect French, though with a quaint accent which Curtis, himsel

and the stamping of the letters being c

r, and watched Curtis enter the dining-room. Then he went back to his chair in the café. So much, and no mo

decided to dine in the hotel. Evidently, the place still retained its old-time repute as a family and commercial resort. The family element was in evidence at some of the tables, while, in

monkish decoction helped in determining his wayward actions. Undoubtedly, some fantastic influence carried him beyond those bounds of calm self-possession within which everyone who knew John Delancy Curtis would have expected to find him. His subsequent light-headedness, his placid acceptance of a mad romance as the one thing that was inevitable, his

nd, still carrying the overcoat, was walking to the office to leave word about the key, when his atten

orway were folded back to allow of the overheated hall being cooled. A porter stood there, and it was ascertained afterwards that, noticing a certain air of flurry and confusion about the foreigners, he asked if they wanted a taxi. They gave no heed, but c

t passed through the door when an automobile dashed up, and he fancied, though he could not be quite sure in the half-light, that the chauffeur nodded to the waiting men. The porter

ne, Anatole. I shall

avored to force him back into the vehicle. The effort failed, however, so the second desperado drew a knife and plunged it deliberately into the unfortuna

le width of the pavement, and the murderers, realizing that the capture of one or both was imminent, thrust the inert body in his way. The chauffeur, who must have seen all that happened, had already started t

in evening dress. He stopped quickly enough, but, by the time his help was available, pursuit was hopeless; the o

ody lying on the curb. A man picked up an overcoat, and Curtis, cool and clear-headed now, took it, and appeale

"I am not a doctor, but I know enough about wounds to

t the stranger's lung had been pierced by an almost vertical thrust; indeed, he was already dying. The poor lips, from which blood and froth were bubbling, strove vainly to articulate words which, in the prevalent hubbub of alarm and exc

umber 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

inquest on the following morning, and the police intimated that they did not des

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

eople named Jean de Courtois and Hermione Beauregard Grandison.… In a word, he was wearing the dead man