Steingall

“ Poor old Steingall there has pretty fair eyesight, but his nose wouldn't sniff brimstone in a volcano, all because he insists on smoking."
"Gastric juice!" laughed Steingall. "You don't possess the article. Skin, bones, and tongue are your chief constituents. I'm not surprised you make an occasional hit as a detective, because the average crook would never suspect a funny little gazook like you of being that celebrated sleuth, Eugene Clancy."
Clancy's long, nervous fingers had cracked the wrapper of the cigar given him by Curtis, and he was now passing it to and fro beneath his nostrils. ”

“ At the round table, Quinny alone, absorbing energy as he devoured the conversation, having routed Steingall on the Germans and archæology and Rankin on the origins of the Lord’s Prayer, had seized a chance remark of De Gollyer’s to say:
193“There are only half a dozen stories in the world. Like everything that’s true it isn’t true.” He waved his long, gouty fingers in the direction of Steingall, who, having been silenced, was regarding him with a look of sleepy indifference. ”

“ It was a phrase which he had heard the night before, and which he flung off casually with an air of spontaneity, twisting the old Spanish ring on his bony, white fingers, which he held invariably in front of his long, sliding nose.
"Thank you, I said that about the year 1907," said Quinny, while Steingall gasped and nudged Towsey. "That is the tragedy of life, not the tragedy of art, two very different things. An artist has need of ten, fifteen, twenty women, according to the multiplicity of his ideas. ”

“ Steingall glanced at a clock on the mantel-piece. He rose, threw open a door, and switched on a light.
"Mr. Curtis," he said, "we must risk something, but I think I can make you up sufficiently to escape recognition, not so much by the Count as by others who may attend that supper party. You come, too, Mr. Devar. There is safety in numbers."
With a deftness that was worthy of a theatrical costumier, the detectives converted themselves and the two young men into ship's firemen. ”

“ The comedy is over."
"But that's what they don't understand," said Steingall, with enthusiasm. "That's what they will never understand."
"Such miracles exist?" said Towsey with a short, disagreeable laugh.
"I know the wife of an artist," said Quinny, "whom I consider the most remarkable woman I know—who sits and knits and smiles. She is one who understands. Her husband adores her, and he is in love with a woman a month. When he gets in too deep, ready for another inspiration, you know, she calls up the old love on the telephone and asks her to stop annoying her husband." ”

“ Curtis are remaining right here," said the detective.
"Oh, be a man, Steingall!" cried Devar disgustedly. "Don't play dog when there's a chance of a real row. Look how I swung things your way in Morris Siegelman's!" ”

“ Vassilan seized him by the arm excitedly.
"Don't you understand, dear friend," he muttered in French. "The rascal must have killed de Courtois in order to gain possession of the marriage certificate."
"It will save trouble, sir, if you speak English here," said Steingall. Then he turned to the hotel clerk.
"Place a room at our disposal at once. Lord Valletort is quite right. We have not a second to waste."
A murmur of protest arose from the pressmen, though it was obvious that the police could not conduct the inquiry in the midst of an ever-growing crowd of residents and servants. ”

“ He motored quickly to the police-station. Within the hour Carshaw, with frowning face [Pg 298] and dreams of wreaking physical vengeance on the burly frame of Voles, was speeding across New York with Steingall in his recovered car. He simply hungered for a personal combat with the man who had inflicted such sufferings on his beloved Winifred. ”

“ Moreover, Steingall quite emphatically ordered Carshaw to remain on the wharf while he and others went on board.
“You want to strangle Voles, if possible,” he said. “From what I’ve heard of him he would meet the attempt squarely, and you two [Pg 301] might do each other serious injury. I simply refuse to permit any such thing. You have a much more pleasant task awaiting you when you meet the young lady. No one will say a word if you hug her as hard as you like.” ”

“ Count Vassilan is not an Englishman?"
"No, but——"
"Is he, by any chance, a Hungarian?"
"Count Vassilan is a Hungarian prince. But the nationality of either of us is unimportant. Are you connected with the New York police?"
"Yes," said Steingall. He answered the Earl, but kept that microscopic eye of his fixed on the Count.
"Very well, then. I repeat that John D. Curtis must be found and arrested—to-night."
"Why?"
"Because he is a dangerous adventurer. I——"
"That's a lie, first sizz out of the syphon," broke in another voice. "I have the honor to be a friend of John D. Curtis. ”

“ A loud "No, no!" from Clancy indicated that revelations were imminent.
"Well," said Steingall, "I forget just what he said on one memorable night when four semi-intoxicated stokers held up a downtown saloon, but I do wish to assure you of this—if it were not for Clancy's genius as a detective, and his splendid qualities of heart and mind as a man, this wedding might never have taken place, or, if that is putting a strain on your imagination, let me say that its principals would have encountered difficulties which are now, happily, the dim ghosts of what might have been." ”

“ If we stroll past you, pay no heed, but follow at a little distance. Have you got that right?"
"Yes, sir."
Devar was hugely delighted by the man's discomfited tone.
"Cheer up, Arthur," he said. "You'll be tickled to death to-morrow when you read the newspapers, and discover the part you played in a big news item."
"Now, don't forget to lurch about the sidewalk," was Steingall's next injunction to the amateurs. "Think of all the bad language you ever heard, and use it. We're toughs, and must behave as such. Can either of you sing?"
"I can," admitted Curtis. ”

“ I am assuming, of course, that he would act as one would expect of any reasonable minded citizen who had witnessed a serious crime.... Now, Lord Valletort, what have you to say about Mr. Curtis?"
A guttural exclamation from Count Vassilan drew all eyes to him. He seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was positively livid with fright. In other conditions than those obtaining at the moment, such a display of terror on the part of a truculent looking, strongly built man would have been almost ludicrous; but Steingall found no humor in the spectacle. ”

“ Steingall assumed that the unfortunate Hunter—or it might have been de Courtois—was led to hire this particular vehicle by adroit misrepresentation on the part of some unknown scoundrels who were aware of the contemplated marriage. The shorthand notes in Hunter's book bore out this theory, because they were obviously data supplied by de Courtois which would have enabled the journalist to write a thoroughly sensational story next day. ”

“ The impulsive action broadened Steingall’s smile. He was still utterly at a loss to account for this well-mannered girl’s queer environment.
“Why,” he cried, “I quite understand that. Mr. Clancy didn’t tell you we regarded you as a desperate crook, did he?”
Winifred yielded to the chief’s obvious desire to lift their talk out of the rut of formality. She could not help being interested in these two [Pg 45] men, so dissimilar in their characteristics, yet each so utterly unlike the somewhat awesome personage she would have sketched if asked to define her idea of a “detective.” ”

“ Was it a woman who lacked the necessary courage to continue, or was it a man who repented his first impulse? Is a man or is a woman the greater natural criminal?"
"A woman took it, of course," said Rankin.
"On the contrary, it was a man," said Steingall, "for the second action was more difficult than the first."
"A man, certainly," said De Gollyer. "The restoration of the ring was a logical decision."
"You see," said Quinny triumphantly, "personally I incline to a woman for the reason that a weaker feminine nature is peculiarly susceptible to the domination of her own sex. There you are. ”

“ The world had suddenly resumed its everyday aspect of bustle and content. New York smiled at its new citizen, and the new citizen beamed appreciatively on New York.
"I cannot explain matters to you fully even yet——" Steingall was saying, when an automobile drew up close to the curb, and a well-known voice cried joyously:
"Just in time. Where's the fire? There's bound to be a blaze when you two run in a leash."
Devar bounced out of the car, and Brodie grinned with pleasure. The chauffeur was beginning to like the excitement of acting as supernumerary on the staff of the Detective Bureau. ”

“ What is the peculiar fascination that the detective problem exercises over the human mind? You will say curiosity. Yes and no. Admit at once that the whole art of a detective story consists in the statement of the problem. Any one can do it. I can do it. Steingall even can do it. The solution doesn't count. It is usually banal; it should be prohibited. What interests us is, can we guess it? Just as an able-minded man will sit down for hours and fiddle over the puzzle column in a Sunday balderdash. Same idea. There you have it, the problem—the detective story. ”

“ They're jealous, they're all jealous, I tell you, jealous of everything you do. All they want us to do is to adore them. By Jove! Herkimer's right. Rantoul was the biggest of us all. She murdered him just as much as though she had put a knife in him."
"She did it on purpose," said De Gollyer. "There was nothing childlike about her, either. On the contrary, I consider her a clever, a devilishly clever woman."
"Of course she did. They're all clever, damn them!" said Steingall, explosively. "Now, what do you say, Quinny? ”

“ Men see with different eyes in these matters, but in Trenholme's eyes this lady was faultless, and her face and air touched some answering mood of reverence in his heart. It rarely happens, however, that we can linger gazing at the faces which possess for us the most beauty. The train was getting up speed, and Trenholme, just then catching sight of the couple who had asked for the milk, had no choice but to pass down the car and pour it into the jar they held. ”

“ Night has you all, and with you a hundred other men, because of the madness that was bred in you by the eyes of Iduna the Fair, who also is lost to both of us. Steinar, I do not blame you, for I know yours was a madness which, for their own ends, the gods send upon men, naming it love. I forgive you, Steinar, if I have aught to forgive, and I tell you, so weary am I of this world, which I feel holds little that is good, that, if I might, I’d yield up my life instead of yours, and go to seek the others, though I doubt whether I should find them, since I think that our roads are different. ”

“ Steinar, there’s no need to bid you to be brave, for who of our Northern race is not? That’s our one heritage: the courage of a bull. Yet it seems to me that there are other sorts of courage which we lack: to tread the dark ways of death with eyes fixed on things gentler and better than we know. Pray to our gods, Steinar, since they are the best we have to pray to, though dark and bloody in their ways; pray that we may meet again, where priests and swords are not and women work no ruin, where we may love as we once loved in childhood and there is no more sin. ”

“ In a quarter of an hour Sandra opened Miss Steinhart’s door to the falcon-faced driver of the taxi-cab.
“Come in,” she said. “You’ll understand—the whole thing is like something in a book.”
“New Arabian Nights,” he said, “only the other way round. Will you allow me to say that I am very grateful for the chance you are kind enough to give me, and that I consider myself very fortunate in being permitted to take part in a secret? There are so few nowadays,” he added plaintively, “what with the newspapers and advertisements and wireless telegraphy.” ”

“ Jacob, I thought, certainly knows all about it; but I do not. All I could was to feel it; so could Anna. Otherwise she would not have called me Zhid, and would not have hated me so much, in spite of seeing me break all the ordinances of the Jewish ritual.
At times I thought that I and my comrades were captains in God's army, that all His ordinances were not meant for us, but for the plain soldiers of the line. They, the rank and file, must be subjected to discipline, must know how to submit to authority; all of which does not apply to the commanding officers. ”

“ It was unjust to give him away, when there was someone else to take his place. Besides, Avremel was a married man, and the father of an infant child. "Now where is justice?" demanded the rabbi. But my mother persisted. For all she knew, her own sons might yet grow up to become ornaments to israel . . . And she, too, was observing the ordinances of the Hallah and the Sabbath candles, and the rest of the laws, no less than Avremel's mother.
More arguments, more tears without arguments—till the rabbi softened: he could not resist a woman. ”

“ Miss Steinhart couldn’t carry those off—nor could Sylvia leave them behind.
It was plain that she must have another chauffeur. But. . . yes, she knew all that. All the same, there must be some man she could trust.
In one of those inspirations that only real talent knows and only real genius trusts, she thought of the driver of the taxicab from the stand in Trafalgar Square, who already on at least three occasions—two of Forrester’s influenza, and one of his failure to receive a letter—had driven her. She liked his face. ”