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to keeping late hours with me; and who ever heard of a young and
pretty woman being bored on the third day of her first visit to Paris?”
He pronounced the name with the hard C of the Italian tongue, as though
it were spelled Luchia.
“To be sure,” laughed the Frenchman; “one suspects it will be long
before mademoiselle loses interest in the rue de la Paix.”
“You may well, when such beautiful things come from it,” said the girl.
“See what we found there to-day.”
She slipped a ring from her hand and passed it to De Morbihan.
There followed silence for an instant, then an exclamation from the
Frenchman:
“But it is superb! Accept, mademoiselle, my compliments. It is worthy
even of you.”
She flushed prettily as she nodded smiling acknowledgement.
“Ah, you Americans!” De Morbihan sighed. “You fill us with envy: you
have the souls of poets and the wealth of princes!”
“But we must come to Paris to find beautiful things for our
women-folk!”
“Take care, though, lest you go too far, Monsieur Bannon.”
“How so—too far?”
“You might attract the attention of the Lone Wolf. They say he’s on
the prowl once more.”
The American laughed a trace contemptuously. Lanyard’s fingers
tightened on his knife and fork; otherwise he made no sign. A sidelong
glance into a mirror at his elbow showed Roddy still absorbed in the
Daily Mail.
The girl bent forward with a look of eager interest.
“The Lone Wolf? Who is that?”
“You don’t know him in America, mademoiselle?”
“No….”
“The Lone Wolf, my dear Lucia,” the valetudinarian explained in a dryly
humourous tone, “is the sobriquet fastened by some imaginative French
reporter upon a celebrated criminal who seems to have made himself
something of a pest over here, these last few years. Nobody knows
anything definite about him, apparently, but he operates in a most
individual way and keeps the police busy trying to guess where he’ll
strike next.”
The girl breathed an incredulous exclamation.
“But I assure you!” De Morbihan protested. “The rogue has had a
wonderfully successful career, thanks to his dispensing with
confederates and confining his depredations to jewels and similar
valuables, portable and easy to convert into cash. Yet,” he added,
nodding sagely, “one isn’t afraid to predict his race is almost run.”
“You don’t tell me!” the older man exclaimed. “Have they picked up the
scent—at last?”
“The man is known,” De Morbihan affirmed.
By now the conversation had caught the interest of several loitering
waiters, who were listening open-mouthed. Even Roddy seemed a bit
startled, and for once forgot to make business with his newspaper; but
his wondering stare was exclusively for De Morbihan.
Lanyard put down knife and fork, swallowed a final mouthful of Haut
Brion, and lighted a cigarette with the hand of a man who knew not the
meaning of nerves.
“Gar�on!” he called quietly; and ordered coffee and cigars, with a
liqueur to follow….
“Known!” the American exclaimed. “They’ve caught him, eh?”
“I didn’t say that,” De Morbihan laughed; “but the mystery is no
more—in certain quarters.”
“Who is he, then?”
“That—monsieur will pardon me—I’m not yet free to state. Indeed, I
may be indiscreet in saying as much as I do. Yet, among friends…”
His shrug implied that, as far as he was concerned, waiters were
unhuman and the other guests of the establishment non-existent.
“But,” the American persisted, “perhaps you can tell us how they got on
his track?”
“It wasn’t difficult,” said De Morbihan: “indeed, quite simple. This
tone of depreciation is becoming, for it was my part to suggest the
solution to my friend, the Chief of the S�ret�. He had been annoyed and
distressed, had even spoken of handing in his resignation because of
his inability to cope with this gentleman, the Lone Wolf. And since he
is my friend, I too was distressed on his behalf, and badgered my poor
wits until they chanced upon an idea which led us to the light.”
“You won’t tell us?” the girl protested, with a little moue of
disappointment, as the Frenchman paused provokingly.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t. And yet—why not? As I say, it was elementary
reasoning—a mere matter of logical deduction and elimination. One made
up one’s mind the Lone Wolf must be a certain sort of man; the rest was
simply sifting France for the man to fit the theory, and then watching
him until he gave himself away.”
“You don’t imagine we’re going to let you stop there?” The American
demanded in an aggrieved tone.
“No? I must continue? Very well: I confess to some little pride. It was
a feat. He is cunning, that one!”
De Morbihan paused and shifted sideways in his chair, grinning like a
mischievous child.
By this manoeuvre, thanks to the arrangement of mirrors lining the
walls, he commanded an indirect view of Lanyard; a fact of which the
latter was not unaware, though his expression remained unchanged as he
sat—with a corner of his eye reserved for Roddy—speculating whether
De Morbihan were telling the truth or only boasting for his own
glorification.
“Do go on—please!” the girl begged prettily.
“I can deny you nothing, mademoiselle…. Well, then! From what little
was known of this mysterious creature, one readily inferred he must be
a bachelor, with no close friends. That is clear, I trust?”
“Too deep for me, my friend,” the elderly man confessed.
“Impenetrable reticence,” the Count expounded, sententious—and
enjoying himself hugely—“isn’t possible in the human relations. Sooner
or later one is doomed to share one’s secrets, however reluctantly,
even unconsciously, with a wife, a mistress, a child, or with some
trusted friend. And a secret between two is—a prolific breeder of
platitudes! Granted this line of reasoning, the Lone Wolf is of
necessity not only unmarried but practically friendless. Other
attributes of his will obviously comprise youth, courage, imagination,
a rather high order of intelligence, and a social position—let us say,
rather, an ostensible business—enabling him to travel at will hither
and yon without exciting comment. So far, good! My friend the Chief of
the S�ret� forthwith commissioned his agents to seek such an one, and
by this means several fine fish were enmeshed in the net of suspicion,
carefully scrutinized, and one by one let go—all except one, the
veritable man. Him they sedulously watched, shadowing him across Europe
and back again. He was in Berlin at the time of the famous Rheinart
robbery, though he compassed that coup without detection; he was in
Vienna when the British embassy there was looted, but escaped by a
clever ruse and managed to dispose of his plunder before the agents of
the S�ret� could lay hands on him; recently he has been in London, and
there he made love to, and ran away with, the diamonds of a certain
lady of some eminence. You have heard of Madame Omber, eh?” Now by
Roddy’s expression it was plain that, if Madame Omber’s name wasn’t
strange in his hearing, at least he found this news about her most
surprising. He was frankly staring, with a slackened jaw and with
stupefaction in his blank blue eyes.
Lanyard gently pinched the small end of a cigar, dipped it into his
coffee, and lighted it with not so much as a suspicion of tremor. His
brain, however, was working rapidly in effort to determine whether De
Morbihan meant this for warning, or was simply narrating an amusing
yarn founded on advance information and amplified by an ingenious
imagination. For by now the news of the Omber affair must have thrilled
many a Continental telegraph-wire….
“Madame Omber—of course!” the American agreed thoughtfully.
“Everyone has heard of her wonderful jewels. The real marvel is that
the Lone Wolf neglected so shining a mark as long as he did.”
“But truly so, monsieur!”
“And they caught him at it, eh?”
“Not precisely: but he left a clue—and London, to boot—with such
haste as would seem to indicate he knew his cunning hand had, for once,
slipped.”
“Then they’ll nab him soon?”
“Ah, monsieur, one must say no more!” De Morbihan protested. “Rest
assured the Chief of the S�ret� has laid his plans: his web is spun,
and so artfully that I think our unsociable outlaw will soon be making
friends in the Prison of the Sant�…. But now we must adjourn. One is
sorry. It has been so very pleasant….”
A waiter conjured the bill from some recess of his waistcoat and served
it on a clean plate to the American. Another ran bawling for the
vestiaire. Roddy glued his gaze afresh to the Daily Mail. The party
rose.
Lanyard noticed that the American signed instead of settling the bill
with cash, indicating that he resided at Troyon’s as well as dined
there. And the adventurer found time to reflect that it was odd for
such as he to seek that particular establishment in preference to the
palatial modern hostelries of the Rive Droit—before De Morbihan,
ostensibly for the first time espying Lanyard, plunged across the room
with both hands outstretched and a cry of joyous surprise not really
justified by their rather slight acquaintanceship.
“Ah! Ah!” he clamoured vivaciously. “It is Monsieur Lanyard, who knows
all about paintings! But this is delightful, my friend—one grand
pleasure! You must know my friends…. But come!”
And seizing Lanyard’s hands, when that one somewhat reluctantly rose in
response to this surprisingly over-exuberant greeting, he dragged him
willy-nilly from behind his table.
“And you are American, too. Certainly you must know one another.
Mademoiselle Bannon—with your permission—my friend, Monsieur Lanyard.
And Monsieur Bannon—an old, dear friend, with whom you will share a
passion for the beauties of art.”
The hand of the American, when Lanyard clasped it, was cold, as cold as
ice; and as their eyes met that abominable cough laid hold of the man,
as it were by the nape of his neck, and shook him viciously. Before it
had finished with him, his sensitively coloured face was purple, and he
was gasping, breathless—and infuriated.
“Monsieur Bannon,” De Morbihan explained disconnectedly—“it is most
distressing—I tell him he should not stop in Paris at this season—”
“It is nothing!” the American interposed brusquely between paroxysms.
“But our winter climate, monsieur—it is not fit for those in the prime
of health—”
“It is I who am unfit!” Bannon snapped, pressing a handkerchief to his
lips—“unfit to live!” he amended venomously.
Lanyard murmured some conventional expression of sympathy. Through it
all he was conscious of the regard of the girl. Her soft brown eyes
met his candidly, with a look cool in its composure, straightforward in
its enquiry, neither bold nor mock-demure. And if they were the first
to fall, it was with an effect of curiosity sated, without hint of
discomfiture…. And somehow the adventurer felt himself measured,
classified, filed away.
Between amusement and pique he continued to stare while the elderly
American recovered his breath and De Morbihan jabbered on with
unfailing vivacity; and he thought that this closer scrutiny discovered
in her face contours suggesting maturity of thought beyond her apparent
years—which were somewhat less than the sum of Lanyard’s—and with
this the suggestion of an elusive, provoking quality of wistful
languor, a hint of patient melancholy….
“We are off for a glimpse of Montmartre,” De Morbihan was
explaining—“Monsieur Bannon and I. He has not seen Paris in twenty
years, he tells me. Well, it will be amusing to show him what changes
have taken place in all that time. One regrets mademoiselle is too
fatigued to accompany us.
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