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Thenceforward, the run was taken in silence. But Steingall had decided on his next move. When they neared Smith's Pier Carshaw wished to drive straight there. "Nothing of the sort," was the sharp official command. "We have failed once. Perhaps it was my fault. This time there shall be no mistakes. Turn along the next street to the right. The precinct station is three blocks down."
He had appraised his relatives almost at a glance, and was sufficiently broad-minded to allow for the natural distress of a respectable middle-aged lady who had been whirled, as it were, out of her wonted environment, and rapt into the realms of necromancy and Arabian Nights. Steingall swept aside this intermission with the emphatic hand of a cross-examining lawyer.
"It is almost grotesque to imagine that a number of men could be found in New York who would stop short of no crime, however daring, simply to prevent a young lady from marrying in despite of her father's wishes." "Of course, the young lady figures large in your eyes," said Steingall with a dry laugh. "You haven't thought this matter out, Mr. Curtis.
"Still smashing idols?" he said, slapping the shoulder of Steingall, with whom and Quinny he had passed his student days, "Well, what's the row?" "My dear Britt, we are reforming matrimony. Steingall is for the importation of Mongolian wives," said De Gollyer, who had written two favorable articles on Herkimer, "while Quinny is for founding a school for wives on most novel and interesting lines."
"I don't see how something of the sort is to be avoided," said Steingall. "Then, in common fairness, the newspapers ought to state that my wife and I, as well as Mr. Devar, as good as told the Earl that he was lying." "I imagine you can leave the matter safely in the very capable hands of the reporters present," said Steingall.
"Now, I want you two gentlemen to attend closely to what I have to say," said Steingall seriously, placing himself between them, so that his words might not reach other ears than those for which they were intended. "Mr. Hunter's murder has passed long ago out of the common class of crimes.
"Why," he said to the police captain of the precinct, "this fellow Curtis is the man who witnessed the murder, and who will be our most reliable witness if we lay hands on the scoundrels who committed it." "He said his name was Curtis," commented the other. The implied doubt seemed to be justified, but Steingall stroked his chin reflectively. "These papers bear out his story.
"I shall take up your contention," said Quinny without pause for breath, "first, because you have opened up one of my pet topics, and, second, because it gives me a chance to talk." He gave a sidelong glance at Steingall and winked at De Gollyer. "What is the peculiar fascination that the detective problem exercises over the human mind? You will say curiosity. Yes and no.
"Some joker has been at that game before me," he announced. "A chunk of wire has been forced in there after the door was locked." "From the outside?" inquired Steingall. "Yes, sir. These locks work by a key only from without. There is a handle inside. . . . Well, here goes!" A few blows with a sharp chisel soon cut away sufficient of the frame to allow the door to be forced open.
Schmidt's face was also devoid of eyebrows, and was colorless in its pallor, and as his lips met in a thin seam above a chin which merged in folds of soft flesh where his neck ought to be, his features at such a moment assumed the disagreeable aspect of a death mask, though this impression vanished when those brilliant eyes peered forth from their bulbous sockets. "But I know Steingall," he said.
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