The Lone Wolf Series. Louis Joseph Vance
Lanyard smothered an impulse to demand roughly "Well, what now?" and came closer to the window.
"Something more I can do, Miss Bannon?"
"I don't know…. I've just found it out — I came away so hurriedly I never thought to make sure; but I've no money — not a franc!"
After a little pause he commented helpfully: "That does complicate matters, doesn't it?"
"What am I to do? I can't go back — I won't! Anything rather. You may judge how desperate I am, when I prefer to throw myself on your generosity — and already I've strained your patience — "
"Not much," he interrupted in a soothing voice. "But — half a moment — we must talk this over."
Directing the cocher to drive to the place Pigalle, he reentered the cab, suspicion more than ever rife in his mind. But as far as he could see — with that confounded sergo staring! — there was nothing else for it. He couldn't stand there in the rain forever, gossiping with a girl half-hysterical — or pretending to be.
"You see," she explained when the fiacre was again under way, "I thought I had a hundred-franc note in my pocketbook; and so I have — but the pocketbook's back there, in my room at Troyon's."
"A hundred francs wouldn't see you far toward New York," he observed thoughtfully.
"Oh, I hope you don't think — !"
She drew back into her corner with a little shudder of humiliation.
As if he hadn't noticed, Lanyard turned to the window, leaned out, and redirected the driver sharply: "Impasse Stanislas!"
Immediately the vehicle swerved, rounded a corner, and made back toward the Seine with a celerity which suggested that the stables were on the Rive Gauche.
"Where?" the girl demanded as Lanyard sat back. "Where are you taking me?"
"I'm sorry," Lanyard said with every appearance of sudden contrition;
"I acted impulsively — on the assumption of your complete confidence.
Which, of course, was unpardonable. But, believe me; you have only to
say no and it shall be as you wish."
"But," she persisted impatiently — "you haven't answered me: what is this impasse Stanislas?"
"The address of an artist I know — Solon, the painter. We're going to take possession of his studio in his absence. Don't worry; he won't mind. He is under heavy obligation to me — I've sold several canvasses for him; and when he's away, as now, in the States, he leaves me the keys. It's a sober-minded, steady-paced neighbourhood, where we can rest without misgivings and take our time to think things out."
"But — " the girl began in an odd tone.
"But permit me," he interposed hastily, "to urge the facts of the case upon your consideration."
"Well?" she said in the same tone, as he paused.
"To begin with — I don't doubt you've good reason for running away from your father."
"A very real, a very grave reason," she affirmed quietly.
"And you'd rather not go back — "
"That is out of the question!" — with a restrained passion that almost won his credulity.
"But you've no friends in Paris — ?"
"Not one!"
"And no money. So it seems, if you're to elude your father, you must find some place to hide pro tem. As for myself, I've not slept in forty-eight hours and must rest before I'll be able to think clearly and plan ahead….And we won't accomplish much riding round forever in this ark. So I offer the only solution I'm capable of advancing, under the circumstances."
"You are quite right," the girl agreed after a moment. "Please don't think me unappreciative. Indeed, it makes me very unhappy to think I know no way to make amends for your trouble."
"There may be a way," Lanyard informed her quietly; "but we'll not discuss that until we've rested up a bit."
"I shall be only too glad — " she began, but fell silent and, in a silence that seemed almost apprehensive, eyed him speculatively throughout the remainder of the journey.
It wasn't a long one; in the course of the next ten minutes they drew up at the end of a shallow pocket of a street, a scant half-block in depth; where alighting, Lanyard helped the girl out, paid and dismissed the cocher, and turned to an iron gate in a high stone wall crowned with spikes.
The grille-work of that gate afforded glimpses of a small, dark garden and a little house of two storeys. Blank walls of old tenements shouldered both house and garden on either side.
Unlocking the gate, Lanyard refastened it very carefully, repeated the business at the front door of the house, and when they were securely locked and bolted within a dark reception-hall, turned on the electric light.
But he granted the girl little more than time for a fugitive survey of this ante-room to an establishment of unique artistic character.
"These are living-rooms, downstairs here," he explained hurriedly. "Solon's unmarried, and lives quite alone — his studio-devil and femme-de-ménage come in by the day only — and so he avoids that pest a concierge. With your permission, I'll assign you to the studio — up here."
And leading the way up a narrow flight of steps, he made a light in the huge room that was the upper storey.
"I believe you'll be comfortable," he said — "that divan yonder is as easy a couch as one could wish — and there's this door you can lock at the head of the staircase; while I, of course, will be on guard below…. And now, Miss Bannon… unless there's something more I can do — ?"
The girl answered with a wan smile and a little broken sigh. Almost involuntarily, in the heaviness of her fatigue, she had surrendered to the hospitable arms of a huge lounge-chair.
Her weary glance ranged the luxuriously appointed studio and returned to Lanyard's face; and while he waited he fancied something moving in those wistful eyes, so deeply shadowed with distress, perplexity, and fatigue.
"I'm very tired indeed," she confessed — "more than I guessed. But I'm sure I shall be comfortable…. And I count myself very fortunate, Mr. Lanyard. You've been more kind than I deserved. Without you, I don't like to think what might have become of me…."
"Please don't!" he pleaded and, suddenly discountenanced by consciousness of his duplicity, turned to the stairs. "Good night, Miss Bannon," he mumbled; and was half-way down before he heard his valediction faintly echoed.
As he gained the lower floor, the door was closed at the top of the stairs and its bolt shot home with a soft thud.
But turning to lock the lower door, he stayed his hand in transient indecision.
"Damn it!" he growled uneasily — "there can't be any harm in that girl! Impossible for eyes like hers to lie!… And yet … And yet!… Oh, what's the matter with me? Am I losing my grip? Why stick at ordinary precaution against treachery on the part of a woman who's nothing to me and of whom I know nothing that isn't conspicuously questionable?… All because of a pretty face and an appealing manner!"
And so he secured that door, if very quietly; and having pocketed the key and made the round of doors and windows, examining their locks, he stumbled heavily into the bedroom of his friend the artist.
Darkness overwhelmed him then: he was stricken down by sleep as an ox falls under the pole.
XII
AWAKENING
It was late afternoon when Lanyard wakened from sleep so deep and dreamless that nothing could have induced it less potent than sheer systemic exhaustion,