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

lay of the land to attempt

his one plan; as matters stood, the Apaches would be upon him before

he could jump from his seat.

 

Bending low over the wheel, searching with anxious eyes the shadowed

reaches of that winding drive, he steered for a time with one hand,

while the other tore open his ulster and brought his pistol into

readiness.

 

Then, as he topped the brow of the incline, above the whine of his

motor, the crackle of road-metal beneath the tires, and the boom of the

rushing air in his ears, he heard the sharp clatter of hoofs, and

surmised that the gendarmerie had given chase.

 

And then, on a slight down-grade, though he took it at perilous speed

and seemed veritably to ride the wind, the following machine, aided by

its greater weight, began to close in still more rapidly. Momentarily

the hoarse snoring of its motor sounded more loud and menacing. It was

now a mere question of seconds….

 

Inspiration of despair came to him, as wild as any ever conceived by

mind of man.

 

They approached a point where, on the left, a dense plantation walled

the road. To the right a wide foot walk separated the drive from a

gentle declivity sown with saplings, running down to the water.

 

Rising in his place, Lanyard slipped from under him the heavy

waterproof cushion.

 

Then edging over to the left of the middle of the road, abruptly he

shut off power and applied the brakes with all his might.

 

From its terrific speed the cab came to a stop within twice its length.

 

Lanyard was thrown forward against the wheel, but having braced in

anticipation, escaped injury and effected instant recovery.

 

The car of the Apaches was upon him in a pulse-beat. With no least

warning of his intention, De Morbihan had no time to employ brakes.

Lanyard saw its dark shape flash past the windows of his cab and heard

a shout of triumph. Then with all his might he flung the heavy cushion

across that scant space, directly into the face of De Morbihan.

 

His aim was straight and true.

 

In alarm, unable to comprehend the nature of that large, dark, whirling

mass, De Morbihan attempted to lift a warding elbow. He was too slow:

the cushion caught him in the face, full-force, and before he could

recover or guess what he was doing, he had twisted the wheel sharply to

the right.

 

The car, running a little less than locomotive speed, shot across the

strip of sidewalk, caught its right forewheel against a sapling, swung

heavily broadside to the drive, and turned completely over as it shot

down the slope to the lake.

 

A terrific crash was followed by a hideous chorus of oaths, shrieks,

cries and groans. Promptly Lanyard started his motor anew and, trembling

in every limb, ran on for several hundred yards. But time pressed, and

the usefulness of his car was at an end, as far as he was concerned;

there was no saying how many times its identity might not have been

established by the police in the course of that wild chase through

Paris, or how soon these last might contrive to overhaul and apprehend

him; and as soon as a bend in the road shut off the scene of wreck, he

stopped finally, jumped down, and plunged headlong into the dark

midnight heart of the Bois, seeking its silences where trees stood

thickest and lights were few.

 

Later, like some worried creature of the night, panting, dishevelled,

his rough clothing stained and muddied, he slunk across an open space,

a mile or so from his point of disappearance, dropped cautiously down

into the dry bed of the moat, climbed as stealthily a slippery glacis

of the fortifications, darted across the inner boulevard, and began to

describe a wide arc toward his destination, the h�tel Omber.

XXI APOSTATE

He was singularly free from any sort of exultation over the manner in

which he had at once compassed his own escape and brought down

catastrophe upon his self-appointed murderers; his mood was quick with

wonder and foreboding and bewilderment. The more closely he examined

the affair, the more strange and inexplicable it bulked in his

understanding. He had not thought to defy the Pack and get off lightly;

but he had looked for no such overt effort at disciplining him so long

as he kept out of the way and suspended his criminal activities. An

unwilling recruit is a potential traitor in the camp; and retired

competition isn’t to be feared. So it seemed that Wertheimer hadn’t

believed his protestations, or else Bannon had rejected the report

which must have been made him by the girl. In either case, the Pack had

not waited for the Lone Wolf to prove his insincerity; it hadn’t

bothered to declare war; it had simply struck; with less warning than

a rattlesnake gives, it had struck—out of the dark—at his back.

 

And so—Lanyard swore grimly—even so would he strike, now that it was

his turn, now that his hour dawned.

 

But he would have given much for a clue to the riddle. Why must he be

saddled with this necessity of striking in self-defence? Why had this

feud been forced upon him, who asked nothing better than to be let

alone? He told himself it wasn’t altogether the professional jealousy

of De Morbihan, Popinot and Wertheimer; it was the strange, rancorous

spite that animated Bannon.

 

But, again, why? Could it be that Bannon so resented the aid and

encouragement Lanyard had afforded the girl in her abortive attempt to

escape? Or was it, perhaps, that Bannon held Lanyard responsible for the

arrest and death of Greggs?

 

Could it be possible that there was really anything substantial at the

bottom of Wertheimer’s wild yarn about the pretentiously named

“International Underworld Unlimited”? Was this really a demonstration

of purpose to crush out competition—“and hang the expense”?

 

Or was there some less superficially tangible motive to be sought? Did

Bannon entertain some secret, personal animus against Michael Lanyard

himself as distinguished from the Lone Wolf?

 

Debating these questions from every angle but to no end, he worked

himself into a fine fury of exasperation, vowing he would consummate

this one final coup, sequestrate himself in England until the affair

had blown over, and in his own good time return to Paris to expose De

Morbihan (presuming he survived the wreck in the Bois) exterminate

Popinot utterly, drive Wertheimer into permanent retirement at Dartmoor,

and force an accounting from Bannon though it were surrendered together

with that invalid’s last wheezing breaths….

 

In this temper he arrived, past one in the morning, under the walls of

the h�tel Omber, and prudently selected a new point of attack. In the

course of his preliminary examinations of the walls, it hadn’t escaped

him that their brick-and-plaster construction was in bad repair; he had

marked down several spots where the weather had eaten the outer coat of

plaster completely away. At one of these, midway between the avenue and

the junction of the side-streets, he hesitated.

 

As he had foreseen, the mortar that bound the bricks together was all

dry and crumbling; it was no great task to work one of them loose,

making a foothold from which he might grasp with a gloved hand the

glass-toothed curbing, cast his ulster across this for further

protection, and swing himself bodily atop the wall.

 

But there, momentarily, he paused in doubt and trembling. In that

exposed and comfortless perch, the lifeless street on one hand, the

black mystery of the neglected park on the other, he was seized and

shaken by a sudden revulsion of feeling like a sickness of his very

soul. Physical fear had nothing to do with this, for he was quite alone

and unobserved; had it been otherwise faculties trained through a

lifetime to such work as this and now keyed to concert pitch would not

have failed to give warning of whatever danger his grosser senses might

have overlooked.

 

Notwithstanding, he was afraid as though Fear’s very self had laid hold

of his soul by the heels and would not let it go until its vision of

itself was absolute. He was afraid with a great fear such as he had

never dreamed to know; who knew well the wincing of the flesh from risk

of pain, the shuddering of the spirit in the shadow of death, and

horror such as had gripped him that morning in poor Roddy’s bedchamber.

 

But none of these had in any way taught him the measure of such fear as

now possessed him, so absolute that he quaked like a naked soul in the

inexorable presence of the Eternal.

 

He was afraid of himself, in panic terror of that ego which tenanted

the shell of functioning, sensitive stuff called Michael Lanyard: he

was afraid of the strange, silent, incomprehensible Self lurking occult

in him, that masked mysterious Self which in its inscrutable whim could

make him fine or make him base, that Self impalpable and elusive as any

shadow yet invincibly strong, his master and his fate, in one the grave

of Yesterday, the cup of Today, the womb of Tomorrow….

 

He looked up at the tired, dull faces of those old dwellings that

loomed across the way with blind and lightless windows, sleeping

without suspicion that he had stolen in among them—the grim and deadly

thing that walked by night, the Lone Wolf, creature of pillage and

rapine, scourged slave of that Self which knew no law….

 

Then slowly that obsession lifted like the passing of a nightmare; and

with a start, a little shiver and a sigh, Lanyard roused and went on to

do the bidding of his Self for its unfathomable ends….

 

Dropping silently to the soft, damp turf, he made himself one with the

shadows of the park, as mute, intangible and fugitive as they, until

presently coming out beneath the stars, on an open lawn running up to

the library wing of the h�tel, he approached a shallow stone balcony

which jutted forth eight feet above the lawn—an elevation so

inconsiderable that, with one bound grasping its stone balustrade,

the adventurer was upon it in a brace of seconds.

 

Nor did the long French windows that opened on the balcony offer him

any real hindrance: a penknife quickly removed the dried putty round

one small, lozenge-shaped pane, then pried out the pane itself; a hand

through this space readily found and turned the latch; a cautious

pressure opened the two wings far enough to admit his body; and—he

stood inside the library.

 

He had made no sound; and thanks to thorough familiarity with the

ground, he needed no light. The screen of cinnabar afforded all the

protection he required; and because he meant to accomplish his purpose

and be out of the house with the utmost expedition, he didn’t trouble

to explore beyond a swift, casual review of the adjoining salons.

 

The clock was chiming the three-quarters as he knelt behind the screen

and grasped the combination-knob.

 

But he did not turn it. That mellow music died out slowly, and left him

transfixed, there in the silence and gloom, his eyes staring wide into

blackness at nothing, his jaw set and rigid, his forehead knotted and

damp with sweat, his hands so clenched that the nails bit deep into his

palms; while he looked back over the abyss yawning between the Lone

Wolf of tonight and the man who had, within the week, knelt in that

spot in company with the woman he loved, bent on making restitution

that his soul might be saved through her faith in him.

 

He was visited by clear vision of himself: the