e unfortunate Frenchman first dawned on him.
John D. Curtis and Jean de Courtois were, as names, particularly as the
names of two men of different nationalities, sufficiently alike to
invite comment. Well, that being so, there was all the more reason why
the identity of poor Jean de Courtois should be established beyond
doubt, and this reflection appealed so strongly that, when the cab
stopped, Curtis was once more reconciled to the policy hurriedly
arrived at while he was standing at the corner of Broadway and 27th
Street.

He opened the door, alighted, glanced up at a rather imposing block of
flats, and said to the driver:

"Is this 1000 West 59th Street?"

"Yes, sir. Quite a bunch of people live here," was the answer.

"I take it, then, that the lady I wish to see occupies one of the
flats?"

The driver smiled broadly, for it seemed to him that the naive
statement sounded rather funny.

"I guess that's about the size of it," he said.

Curtis smiled, too. This needless blurting out of confidences to a
cabman was the one folly essential to a complete restoration of his
wits.

"Wait for me," he said. "I may be only a minute or two, and I shall
want you to take me right back to the point I came from."

The man nodded, and turned to set the time index of the taximeter. A
few steps led up to a spacious doorway, and Curtis passed through a
revolving door. Halfway along a well-lighted passage he saw an
elevator sign, and found an attendant sitting there.

"I believe that Miss Grandison lives here?" he said.

"Second floor--Number 10--take you up?" was the time-saving reply.

"Yes, but I am not anxious to see Miss Grandison herself. I would
prefer to speak to some male relative."

The attendant looked puzzled; perhaps he was wishful to make smooth the
way for a visitor who was obviously a gentleman, but the problem
offered by Curtis's request presented difficulties, and he fell back on
his official instructions.

"Sorry, but you must explain matters to the maid at Number 10," he
said, quite civilly, and Curtis was soon pressing an electric bell at
the door of the flat itself.

A neatly dressed girl appeared. Her out-of-doors costume suggested
that she was either just going out or just returned, and Curtis,
unaccustomed to the domestic problem as it exists in New York, fancied
that she ranked above the level of a house-maid.

"Is Miss Grandison in?" he asked.

"I'll inquire, sir. What name shall