The Lone Wolf Series. Louis Joseph Vance
drew a long face; whistled softly; shook his head; and smiled a wry smile.
"Glad I didn't think of that two minutes ago, or I'd never have had the cheek…"
Without warning, incongruously and, in his understanding, inexplicably, he found himself beset by recurrent memory of the girl, Lucia Bannon.
For an instant he saw her again, quite vividly, as last he had seen her: turning at the door of her bed-chamber to look back at him, a vision of perturbing charm in her rose-silk dressing-gown, with rich hair loosened, cheeks softly glowing, eyes brilliant with an emotion illegible to her one beholder….
What had been the message of those eyes, flashed down the dimly lighted length of that corridor at Troyon's, ere she vanished?
Adieu? Or au revoir? …
She had termed him, naïvely enough, and a gentleman.
But 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 to-night! 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 to-morrow 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 Sûreté, 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