"Why do you ask?" inquired Devar, instantly alive to the queerness of this alteration of topics.
"My mind went back to the job we have in hand," said the roundsman readily. "I was wondering just what sort of glimpse Mr. Curtis obtained of the chauffeur. Of course, I see now that he was looking at the man exactly under similar conditions when we made that stop at 42nd Street."
Thus, unknown to either of the parties to the alliance, a minor crisis was averted, because it may safely be conceded that the hard-headed policeman would have refused then and there to accept any sort of statement from such a lunatic as John Delancy Curtis, if he were given a full, true, and particular account of the night's proceedings while being whirled up Fifth Avenue in a fast moving automobile.
Romance, if it is to be accepted without question, requires the setting of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden. There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound Heaven knew whither long after midnight, it is apt to savor of the moon and witchcraft.
Away up the straight vista of Fifth Avenue sped the two cars. On the left lay the black solitude of Central Park, on the right the varied architecture of New York's millionaire dwellings.
Devar and the policeman talked cheerfully enough, but Curtis was wrapped in his own musings till the rear lamp of the gray car suddenly curved to the left and vanished.
"He has turned into the Parkway at 110th Street," said McCulloch, and Curtis awoke with a start to a sense of his surroundings.
"I suppose he's making for St. Nicholas Avenue," went on the roundsman.
"Why?" demanded Curtis, whose recollections of map-study would have reminded him, in other conditions, that the avenue named by McCulloch is one of the few which slant across the city's rectangles.
"Well, sir, it's only a guess, but St. Nicholas Avenue is a short cut to Washington Heights, and cars often follow that route. Yes, there he goes!"