The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance (ebook reader browser txt) 📖

if she knew—suspected—even dreamed—that he was what he was?…

 

He shook his head again, but now impatiently, with a scowl and a

grumble:

 

“What’s the matter with me anyway? Mooning over a girl I never saw

before tonight! As if it matters a whoop in Hepsidam what she

thinks!… Or is it possible I’m beginning to develop a rudimentary

conscience, at this late day? Me!…”

 

If there were anything in this hypothesis, the growing-pains of that

late-blooming conscience were soon enough numbed by the hypnotic spell

of clattering chips, an ivory ball singing in an ebony race, and

croaking croupiers.

 

For Lanyard’s chair at the table of chemin-de-fer had been filled by

another and, too impatient to wait a vacancy, he wandered on to the

salon dedicated to roulette, tested his luck by staking a note of five

hundred francs on the black, won, and incontinently subsided into a

chair and an oblivion that endured for the space of three-quarters of

an hour.

 

At the end of that period he found himself minus his heavy winnings at

chemin-de-fer and ten thousand francs of his reserve fund to boot.

 

By way of lining for his pockets there remained precisely the sum which

he had brought into Paris that same evening, less subsequent general

disbursements.

 

The experience was nothing novel in his history. He rose less resentful

than regretful that his ill-luck obliged him to quit just when play was

most interesting, and resignedly sought the cloak-room for his coat and

hat.

 

And there he found De Morbihan—again!—standing all garmented for the

street, mouthing a huge cigar and wearing a look of impatient

discontent.

 

“At last!” he cried in an aggrieved tone as Lanyard appeared in the

offing. “You do take your time, my friend!”

 

Lanyard smothered with a smile whatever emotion was his of the moment.

 

“I didn’t imagine you really meant to wait for me,” he parried with

double meaning, both to humour De Morbihan and hoodwink the attendant.

 

“What do you think?” retorted the Count with asperity—“that I’m

willing to stand by and let you moon round Paris at this hour of the

morning, hunting for a taxicab that isn’t to be found and running

God-knows-what risk of being stuck up by some misbegotten Apache? But I

should say not! I mean to take you home in my car, though it cost me a

half-hour of beauty sleep not lightly to be forfeited at my age!”

 

The significance that underlay the semi-humourous petulance of the

little man was not wasted.

 

“You’re most amiable, Monsieur le Comte!” Lanyard observed

thoughtfully, while the attendant produced his hat and coat. “So now,

if you’re ready, I won’t delay you longer.”

 

In another moment they were outside the club-house, its doors shut

behind them, while before them, at the curb, waited that same handsome

black limousine which had brought the adventurer from L’Abbaye.

 

Two swift glances, right and left, showed him an empty street, bare of

hint of danger.

 

“One moment, monsieur!” he said, detaining the Count with a touch on

his sleeve. “It’s only right that I should advise you … I’m armed.”

 

“Then you’re less foolhardy than one feared. If such things interest

you, I don’t mind admitting I carry a life-preserver of my own. But

what of that? Is one eager to go shooting at this time of night, for

the sheer fun of explaining to sergents de ville that one has been

attacked by Apaches? … Providing always one lives to explain!”

 

“It’s as bad as that, eh?”

 

“Enough to make me loath to linger at your side in a lighted doorway!”

 

Lanyard laughed in his own discomfiture. “Monsieur le Comte,” said he,

“there’s a dash in you of what your American pal, Mysterious Smith,

would call sporting blood, that commands my unstinted admiration. I

thank you for your offered courtesy, and beg leave to accept.”

 

De Morbihan replied with a grunt of none too civil intonation,

instructed the chauffeur “To Troyon’s,” and followed Lanyard into the

car.

 

“Courtesy!” he repeated, settling himself with a shake. “That makes

nothing. If I regarded my own inclinations, I’d let you go to the devil

as quick as Popinot’s assassins could send you there!”

 

“This is delightful!” Lanyard protested. “First you must see me home to

save my life, and then you tell me your inclinations consign me to a

premature grave. Is there an explanation, possibly?”

 

“On your person,” said the Count, sententious.

 

“Eh?”

 

“You carry your reason with you, my friend—in the shape of the Omber

loot.”

 

“Assuming you are right—”

 

“You never went to the rue du Bac, monsieur, without those jewels: and

I have had you under observation ever since.”

 

“What conceivable interest,” Lanyard pursued evenly, “do you fancy

you’ve got in the said loot?”

 

“Enough, at least, to render me unwilling to kiss it adieu by leaving

you to the mercies of Popinot. You don’t imagine I’d ever hear of it

again, when his Apaches had finished with you?”

 

“Ah!… So, after all, your so-called organization isn’t founded on

that reciprocal trust so essential to the prosperity of

such—enterprises!”

 

“Amuse yourself as you will with your inferences, my friend,” the Count

returned, unruffled; “but don’t forget my advice: pull wide of Popinot!”

 

“A vindictive soul, eh?”

 

“One may say that.”

 

“You can’t hold him?”

 

“That one? No fear! You were anything but wise to bait him as you did.”

 

“Perhaps. It’s purely a matter of taste in associates.”

 

“If I were the fool you think me,” mused the Count “I’d resent that

innuendo. As it happens, I’m not. At least, I can wait before calling

you to account.”

 

“And meantime profit by your patience?”

 

“But naturally. Haven’t I said as much?”

 

“Still, I’m perplexed. I can’t imagine how you reckon to declare

yourself in on the Omber loot.”

 

“All in good time: if you were wise, you’d hand the stuff over to me

here and now, and accept what I chose to give you in return. But

inasmuch as you’re the least wise of men, you must have your lesson.”

 

“Meaning—?”

 

“The night brings counsel: you’ll have time to think things over. By

tomorrow you’ll be coming to offer me those jewels in exchange for

what influence I have in certain quarters.”

 

“With your famous friend, the Chief of the S�ret�, eh?”

 

“Possibly. I am known also at La Tour Pointue.”

 

“I confess I don’t follow you, unless you mean to turn informer.”

 

“Never that.”

 

“It’s a riddle, then?”

 

“For the moment only…. But I will say this: it will be futile, your

attempting to escape Paris; Popinot has already picketted every outlet.

Your one hope resides in me; and I shall be at home to you until midnight

tomorrow—to-day, rather.”

 

Impressed in spite of himself, Lanyard stared. But the Count maintained

an imperturbable manner, looking straight ahead. Such calm assurance

would hardly be sheer bluff.

 

“I must think this over,” Lanyard mused aloud.

 

“Pray don’t let me hinder you,” the Count begged with mild sarcasm. “I

have my own futile thoughts….”

 

Lanyard laughed quietly and subsided into a reverie which, undisturbed

by De Morbihan, endured throughout the brief remainder of their drive;

for, thanks to the smallness of the hour, the streets were practically

deserted and offered no obstacle to speed; while the chauffeur was

doubtless eager for his bed.

 

As they drew near Troyon’s, however, Lanyard sat up and jealously

reconnoitered both sides of the way.

 

“Surely you don’t expect to be kept out?” the Count asked dryly. “But

that just shows how little you appreciate our good Popinot. He’ll never

object to your locking yourself up where he knows he can find you—but

only to your leaving without permission!”

 

“Something in that, perhaps. Still, I make it a rule to give myself

the benefit of every doubt.”

 

There was, indeed, no sign of ambush that he could detect in any

quarter, nor any indication that Popinot’s Apaches were posted

thereabouts. Nevertheless, Lanyard produced his automatic and freed

the safety-catch before opening the door.

 

“A thousand thanks, my dear Count!”

 

“For what? Doing myself a service? But you make me feel ashamed!”

 

“I know,” agreed Lanyard, depreciatory; “but that’s the way I am—a

little devil—you really can’t trust me! Adieu, Monsieur le Comte.”

 

“Au revoir, monsieur!”

 

Lanyard saw the car round the corner before turning to the entrance of

Troyon’s, keeping his weather-eye alert the while. But when the car was

gone, the street seemed quite deserted and as soundless as though it

had been the thoroughfare of some remote village rather than an artery

of the pulsing old heart of Paris.

 

Yet he wasn’t satisfied. He was as little susceptible to psychic

admonition as any sane and normal human organism, but he was just then

strongly oppressed by intuitive perception that there was something

radically amiss in his neighbourhood. Whether or not the result of the

Count’s open intimations and veiled hints working upon a nature

sensitized by excitement and fatigue, he felt as though he had stepped

from the cab into an atmosphere impregnated to saturation with nameless

menace. And he even shivered a bit, perhaps because of the chill in

that air of early morning, perhaps because a shadow of premonition had

fallen athwart his soul….

 

Whatever its cause, he could find no reason for this; and shaking

himself impatiently, pressed a button that rang a bell by the ear of

the concierge, heard the latch click, thrust the door wide, and

reentered Troyon’s.

 

Here reigned a silence even more marked than that of the street, a

silence as heavy and profound as the grave’s, so that sheer instinct

prompted Lanyard to tread lightly as he made his way down the passage

and across the courtyard toward the stairway; and in that hush the

creak of a greaseless hinge, when the concierge opened the door of his

quarters to identify this belated guest, seemed little less than a

profanity.

 

Lanyard paused and delved into his pockets, nodding genially to the

blowsy, sleepy old face beneath the guardian’s nightcap.

 

“Sorry to disturb monsieur,” he said politely, further impoverishing

himself in the sum of five francs in witness to the sincerity of his

regret.

 

“I thank monsieur; but what need to consider me? It’s my duty. And what

is one interruption more or less? All night they come and go….”

 

“Good night, monsieur,” Lanyard cut short the old man’s garrulity; and

went on up the stairs, now a little wearily, of a sudden newly

conscious of his vast and enervating fatigue.

 

He thought longingly of bed, yawned involuntarily and, reaching his

door, fumbled the key in a most unprofessional way; there were weights

upon his eyelids, a heaviness in his brain….

 

But the key met with no resistance from the wards; and in a trice,

appreciating this fact, Lanyard was wide-awake again.

 

No question but that he had locked the door securely, on leaving after

his adventure with the charming somnambulist….

 

Had she, then, taken a whim to his room?

 

Or was this but proof of what he had anticipated in the beginning—a

bit of sleuthing on the part of Roddy?

 

He entertained little doubt as to the correctness of this latter

surmise, as he threw the door open and stepped into the room, his first

action being to grasp the electric switch and twist it smartly.

 

But no light answered.

 

“Hello!” he exclaimed softly, remembering that the lights could readily

have been turned off at the bulbs. “What’s the good of that?”

 

In