Count Ladislas Vassilan is a
Hungarian. The poor fellow who was killed, though his name is American
enough, spoke French with a pure accent. One of the Hungarians spoke
French, fluently but vilely. Jean de Courtois is admittedly a
Frenchman. I am not a detective, Mr. Steingall, but as a plain man of
affairs I am forced to the conclusion that there has seldom been a
similarly mysterious crime in which certain lines of inquiry thrust
themselves more pertinently on the imagination. To sum up, I advise
you to find Jean de Courtois--unless, indeed, he, too, has been
killed--and you will be in close touch with the origin of the whole
ugly business."

"Good egg!" cried the irresistible Devar. "It's a pity you were not
with us on the _Lusitania_, Mr. Steingall, or you would realize that
when John D. rears up on his hind legs, and talks like that, there is
nothing more to be said."

"Is Lady Hermione a pretty girl?" demanded Mrs. Curtis eagerly. Her
democratic soul was rejoicing in the discovery that her nephew's wife
did not lose her title because of the marriage. Of course, no one ever
before heard of such folly as this matrimonial leap in the dark, but,
once taken, there was satisfaction in the thought that the bride was an
earl's daughter. Moreover, she had read of such queer goings on among
the British Aristocracy that a wedding at sight was a comparatively
venial offense.

Curtis assured his aunt that Hermione was the most beautiful and
fascinating person he had ever met, and Steingall listened to the
eulogy with a grinning rictus of jaw. In the whole course of his
professional experience he had never encountered anything on a par with
this capricious blend of comedy and tragedy.

Of course, it did not escape his acute brain that Curtis was right in
assuming that the _clou_ of the situation lay with Jean de Courtois.
Dead or alive, the Frenchman must be found, and found quickly. The
extraordinary story told by Curtis, if true--and the detective was
persuaded that this curiously constituted young man was not trying to
hoodwink him in any particular--pointed a ready way toward
investigation. The unfortunate journalist, Hunter, was about to enter
the Central Hotel when he was attacked so mercilessly. As a
consequence, some knowledge of de Courtois was probably awaiting the
first questioner at the inquiry counter. What a whimsical incongruity
it would be if he were told that the French music-master around