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Updated: June 27, 2025
It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was starting with the crank. A shout came from the interior, and a man leaped out. The street was rather dark in that part, but Hermione recognized the stranger instantly. "Count Vassilan!" she cried, and the fear in her voice thrilled Curtis to the core.
"Have you his name?" "Yes. Captain Eugene de Karely." "How does he stand with regard to Count Vassilan?" "I am told that he has challenged him repeatedly to a duel, but Count Vassilan cannot meet him because they are not equals in the grades of Hungarian aristocracy. I am glad that Mr. Curtis did not wait to consult the Almanach de Gotha when he encountered the wretch.
"I hate to act the role of inquisitor, Lady Hermione," he said, rather huskily as to the first few words, "but would you mind telling me why you are so opposed to Count Ladislas Vassilan as a husband?"
Behold him, then, angry and perspiring, vowing by all his gods that he had other duties to perform than eternally watching the comings and goings of the mansion's occupants; being a free-born American of Irish ancestry, name of Rafferty, he would certainly have bandied contumely with Count Ladislas Vassilan had not the Earl intervened.
"So it is rather by accident than otherwise that Lord Valletort and Count Vassilan, who, I take it, is with your father on board the Switzerland, have not arrived in time to prevent the marriage that is, if they were able to prevent it?" "No, I think not. Poor Monsieur de Courtois was here this afternoon, and he was jubilant because we had plenty of time, provided we were married this evening."
His voice was kindly, and his expression gravely sympathetic, and Hermione could not read the amused tolerance lurking behind the mask of those keen eyes. "I mean that I am yet what lawyers call an infant. In six months I shall be twenty-one, and the coercion which has been used to force me into marrying Count Ladislas Vassilan will be no longer possible."
"You are Lady Hermione Grandison?" he said, meeting her watchful eyes frankly. "Yes." "Daughter of the Earl of Valletort?" "Yes." "And about a month ago you were reported missing from some apartment in the Rue de Rivoli, on the eve of your marriage with with some Hungarian prince?" "Yes, Count Ladislas Vassilan." "So you came here with Monsieur Jean de Courtois?"
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 Vassilan and the Earl of Valletort of conspiring with de Courtois himself to defeat Lady Hermione's marriage project.
I tried to go back on my bargains with the Israelite in the store, but he made such a row that I paid him, and when I reached the second cab the driver told me that my man nodded as he passed, showing that Vassilan was returning to the hotel. So I came here, and 'phoned you." Steingall glanced at a clock on the mantel-piece. He rose, threw open a door, and switched on a light. "Mr.
I haven't the remotest idea as to why they are here, or how they dropped across me. But isn't it a rather fortunate thing? They may prove useful in a hundred ways." "Please don't keep them waiting. What does the detective want?" "Every syllable you can tell him about Count Vassilan." "I hardly know the man at all. I always avoided him in Paris."
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