CHAPTER VIII.
TEN-THIRTY The Earl of Valletort turned on his heel, and went out abruptly.
Therefore, he missed Steingall's first words to the hotel clerk, which would have given him furiously to think, while it is reasonable to suppose that he would have paid quite a large sum of money to have heard the clerk's answer.
For the detective said: "Do you happen to know anything about a Frenchman, name of Jean de Courtois ?" And the clerk replied: "Why, yes.

He's in his room now, I believe." "In his room--where ?" "Here, of course.

He came in about 6.30, took his key and a Marconigram, and has not showed up since." Uncle Horace could withstand the strain no longer.
"Would you mind sending the waiter again ?" he gasped.

"If I don't get a pick-me-up of some sort quickly, I'll collapse." Aunt Louisa would dearly have loved to put in a word, but she knew not what to say.

Life at Bloomington supplied no parallel to the rapidity of existence in New York that evening.