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

boon of sight for a day or two, and

suddenly and without any warning thrust back again into darkness.

 

He knew only that his brief struggle had been all wasted, that behind

the flimsy barrier of his honourable ambition, the Lone Wolf was

ravening. And he felt that, once he permitted that barrier to be broken

down, it could never be repaired.

 

He had set it up by main strength of will, for love of a woman. He must

maintain it now for no incentive other than to retain his own good

will—or resign himself utterly to that darkness out of which he had

fought his way, to its powers that now beset his soul.

 

And … he didn’t care.

 

Quite without purpose he sought the machine-shop where he had left his

car.

 

He had no plans; but it was in his mind, a murderous thought, that

before another dawn he might encounter Bannon.

 

Interim, he would go to work. He could think out his problem while

driving as readily as in seclusion; whatever he might ultimately elect

to do, he could accomplish little before midnight.

 

Toward seven o’clock, with his machine in perfect running order, he

took the seat and to the streets in a reckless humour, in the temper of

a beast of prey.

 

The barrier was down: once more the Lone Wolf was on the prowl.

 

But for the present he controlled himself and acted perfectly his

temporary r�le of taxi-bandit, fellow to those thousands who infest

Paris. Half a dozen times in the course of the next three hours people

hailed him from sidewalks and restaurants; he took them up, carried

them to their several destinations, received payment, and acknowledged

their gratuities with perfunctory thanks—thoroughly in character—but

all with little conscious thought.

 

He saw but one thing, the face of Lucy Shannon, white, tense,

glimmering wanly in shadow—the countenance with which she had

dismissed him.

 

He had but one thought, the wish to read the riddle of her bondage. To

accomplish this he was prepared to go to any extreme; if Bannon and his

crew came between him and his purpose, so much the worse for them—and,

incidentally, so much the better for society. What might befall himself

was of no moment.

 

He entertained but one design, to become again what he had been, the

supreme adventurer, the prince of plunderers, to lose himself once more

in the delirium of adventurous days and peril-haunted nights, to

reincarnate the Lone Wolf and in his guise loot the world anew, to

court forgetfulness even at the prison’s gates….

 

It was after ten when, cruising purposelessly, without a fare, he swung

through the rue Auber into the place de l’Op�ra and, approaching the

Caf� de la Paix, was hailed by a door-boy of that restaurant.

 

Drawing in to the curb with the careless address that had distinguished

his every action of that evening, he waited, with a throbbing motor,

and with mind detached and gaze remote from the streams of foot and

wheeled traffic that brawled past on either hand.

 

After a moment two men issued from the revolving door of the caf�, and

approached the cab. Lanyard paid them no attention. His thoughts were

now engaged with a certain h�tel particulier in the neighbourhood of

La Muette and, in his preoccupation, he would need only the name of a

destination and the sound of the cab-door slammed, to send him off like

a shot.

 

Then he heard one of the men cough heavily, and in a twinkling

stiffened to rigidity in his seat. If he had heard that cough but once

before, that once had been too often. Without a glance aside,

hardening his features to perfect immobility, he knew that the cough

was shaking the slighter of those two figures.

 

And of a sudden he was acutely conscious of the clearness of the

frosty atmosphere, of the merciless glare of electricity beating upon

him from every side from the numberless street lamps and caf� lights.

And poignantly he regretted neglecting to mask himself with his

goggles.

 

He wasn’t left long in suspense. The coughing died away by spasms;

followed the unmistakable, sonorous accents of Bannon.

 

“Well, my dear boy! I have to thank you for an excellent dinner and a

most interesting evening. Pity to break it up so early. Still, les

affaires—you know! Sorry you’re not going my way—but that’s a

handsome taxi you’ve drawn. What’s its number—eh?”

 

“Haven’t the faintest notion,” a British voice drawled in response.

“Never fret about a taxi’s number until it has run over me.”

 

“Great mistake,” Bannon rejoined cheerfully. “Always take the number

before entering. Then, if anything happens … However, that’s a

good-looking chap at the wheel—doesn’t look as if he’d run you into

any trouble.”

 

“Oh, I fancy not,” said the Englishman, bored.

 

“Well, you never can tell. The number’s on the lamp. Make a note of it

and be on the safe side. Or trust me—I never forget numbers.”

 

With this speech Bannon ranged alongside Lanyard and looked him over,

keenly malicious enjoyment gleaming in his evil old eyes.

 

“You are an honest-looking chap,” he observed with a mocking smile but

in a tone of the most inoffensive admiration—“honest and—ah—what

shall I say?—what’s the word we’re all using now-a-days?—efficient!

Honest and efficient-looking, capable of better things, or I’m no

judge! Forgive an old man’s candour, my friend—and take good care of

our British cousin here. He doesn’t know his way around Paris very

well. Still, I feel confident he’ll come to no harm in your company.

Here’s a franc for you.” With matchless effrontery, he produced a

coin from the pocket of his fur-lined coat.

 

Unhesitatingly, permitting no expression to colour his features,

Lanyard extended his palm, received the money, dropped it into his

own pocket, and carried two fingers to the visor of his cap.

 

“Merci, monsieur,” he said evenly.

 

“Ah, that’s the right spirit!” the deep voice jeered. “Never be above

your station, my man—never hesitate to take a tip! Here, I’ll give

you another, gratis: get out of this business: you’re too good for

it. Don’t ask me how I know; I can tell by your face—Hello! Why do

you turn down the flag? You haven’t started yet!”

 

“Conversation goes up on the clock,” Lanyard replied stolidly in

French. He turned and faced Bannon squarely, loosing a glance of

venomous hatred into the other’s eyes. “The longer I have to stop

here listening to your senile monologue, the more you’ll have to pay.

What address, please?” he added, turning back to get a glimpse of his

passenger.

 

“Hotel Astoria,” the porter supplied.

 

“Very good.”

 

The porter closed the door.

 

“But remember my advice,” Bannon counselled coolly, stepping back and

waving his hand to the man in the cab. “Good night.”

 

Lanyard took his car smartly away from the curb, wheeled round the

corner into the boulevard des Capucines, and toward the rue Royale.

 

He had gone but a block when the window at his back was lowered and his

fare observed pleasantly:

 

“That you, Lanyard?”

 

The adventurer hesitated an instant; then, without looking round,

responded:

 

“Wertheimer, eh?”

 

“Right-O! The old man had me puzzled for a minute with his silly

chaffing. Stupid of me, too, because we’d just been talking about you.”

 

“Had you, though!”

 

“Rather. Hadn’t you better take me where we can have a quiet little

talk?”

 

“I’m not conscious of the necessity—”

 

“Oh, I say!” Wertheimer protested amiably—“don’t be shirty, old top.

Give a chap a chance. Besides, I have a bit of news from Antwerp that I

guarantee will interest you.”

 

“Antwerp?” Lanyard iterated, mystified.

 

“Antwerp, where the ships sail from,” Wertheimer laughed: “not

Amsterdam, where the diamonds flock together, as you may know.”

 

“I don’t follow you, I’m afraid.”

 

“I shan’t elucidate until we’re under cover.”

 

“All right. Where shall I take you?”

 

“Any quiet caf� will do. You must know one—”

 

“Thanks—no,” said Lanyard dryly. “If I must confabulate with gentlemen

of your kidney, I prefer to keep it dark. Even dressed as I am, I might

be recognized, you know.”

 

But it was evident that Wertheimer didn’t mean to permit himself to be

ruffled.

 

“Then will my modest diggings do?” he suggested pleasantly. “I’ve taken

a suite in the rue Vernet, just back of the H�tel Astoria, where we can

be as private as you please, if you’ve no objection.”

 

“None whatever.”

 

Wertheimer gave him the number and replaced the window….

 

His rooms in the rue Vernet proved to be a small ground-floor apartment

with private entrance to the street.

 

“Took the tip from you,” he told Lanyard as he unlocked the door. “I

daresay you’d be glad to get back to that rez-de-chauss�e of yours.

Ripping place, that…. By the way—judging from your apparently robust

state of health, you haven’t been trying to live at home of late.”

 

“Indeed?”

 

“Indeed yes, monsieur! If I may presume to advise—I’d pull wide of the

rue Roget for a while—for as long, at least, as you remain in your

present intractable temper.”

 

“Daresay you’re right,” Lanyard assented carelessly, following, as

Wertheimer turned up the lights, into a modest salon cosily furnished.

“You live here alone, I understand?”

 

“Quite: make yourself perfectly at ease; nobody can hear us. And,” the

Englishman added with a laugh, “do forget your pistol, Mr. Lanyard. I’m

not Popinot, nor is this Troyon’s.”

 

“Still,” Lanyard countered, “you’ve just been dining with Bannon.”

 

Wertheimer laughed easily. “Had me there!” he admitted, unabashed. “I

take it you know a bit more about the Old Man than you did a week ago?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“But sit down: take that chair there, which commands both doors, if you

don’t trust me.”

 

“Do you think I ought to?”

 

“Hardly. Otherwise I’d ask you to take my word that you’re safe for the

time being. As it is, I shan’t be offended if you keep your gun handy

and your sense of self-preservation running under forced draught. But

you won’t refuse to join me in a whiskey and soda?”

 

“No,” said Lanyard slowly—“not if you drink from the same bottle.”

 

Again the Englishman laughed unaffectedly as he fetched a decanter,

glasses, bottled soda, and a box of cigarettes, and placed them within

Lanyard’s reach.

 

The adventurer eyed him narrowly, puzzled. He knew nothing of this man,

beyond his reputation—something unsavoury enough, in all conscience!—

had seen him only once, and then from a distance, before that

conference in the rue Chaptal. And now he was becoming sensitive to a

personality uncommonly insinuating: Wertheimer was displaying all the

poise of an Englishman of the better caste More than anybody in the

underworld that Lanyard had ever known this blackmailer had an air of

one acquainted with his own respect. And his nonchalance, the good

nature with which he accepted Lanyard’s pardonable distrust, his genial

assumption of fellowship and a common footing, attracted even as it

intrigued.

 

With the easy courtesy of a practised host, he measured whiskey into

Lanyard’s glass till checked by a “Thank you,” then helped himself

generously, and opened the soda.

 

“I’ll not ask you to drink with me,” he said with a twinkle, “but—

chin-chin!”—and tilting his glass, half-emptied it at a draught.

 

Muttering formally, at a disadvantage and resenting it, Lanyard drank

with less enthusiasm if without misgivings.

 

Wertheimer selected a cigarette and lighted it at leisure.

 

“Well,” he laughed through a cloud of smoke—“I think we’re fairly on

our way to an understanding, considering you told me to go to hell when