ventured.
"None the less, if I refuse, you declare war?"
"Something like that," the American admitted.
"In that case--I am now able to state my position definitely." Lanyard
got up and grinned provokingly down at the group. "You can--all four of
you--go plumb to hell!"
"My dear friend!" the Count cried, shocked--"you forget--"
"I forget nothing!" Lanyard cut in coldly--"and my decision is final.
Consider yourselves at liberty to go ahead and do your damnedest! But
don't forget that it is you who are the aggressors. Already you've had
the insolence to interfere with my arrangements: you began offensive
operations before you declared war. So now if you're hit beneath the
belt, you mustn't complain: you've asked for it!"
"Now just what _do_ you mean by that?" the American drawled ironically.
"I leave you to figure it out for yourselves. But I will say this: I
confidently expect you to decide to live and let live, and shall be
sorry, as you'll certainly be sorry, if you force my hand."
He opened the door, turned, and saluted them with sarcastic punctilio.
"I have the honour to bid adieu to Messieurs the Council of--'The
Pack'!"
IX
DISASTER
Having fulfilled his purpose of making himself acquainted with the
personnel of the opposition, Lanyard slammed the door in its face,
thrust his hands in his pockets, and sauntered down stairs, chuckling,
his nose in the air, on the best of terms with himself.
True, the fat was in the fire and well a-blaze: he had to look to
himself now, and go warily in the shadow of their enmity. But it was
something to have faced down those four, and he wasn't seriously
impressed by any one of them.
Popinot, perhaps, was the most dangerous in Lanyard's esteem; a
vindictive animal, that Popinot; and the creatures he controlled, a
murderous lot, drug-ridden, drink bedevilled, vicious little rats of
Belleville, who'd knife a man for the price of an absinthe. But Popinot
wouldn't move without leave from De Morbihan, and unless Lanyard's
calculations were seriously miscast, De Morbihan would restrain both
himself and his associates until thoroughly convinced Lanyard was
impregnable against every form of persuasion. Murder was something a
bit out of De Morbihan's line--something, at least, which he might be
counted on to hold in reserve. And by the time he was ready to employ
it, Lanyard would be well beyond his reach. Wertheimer, too, would
deprecate violence until all else failed; his half-caste type was as
cowardly as it was blackguard; and cowards kill only impulsively,
before they've had time to weigh consequences. There remained "Smith,"
enigma; a man apparently gifted with both intelligence and
character.... But if so, what the deuce was _he_ doing in such company?
Still, there he was: and the association damned him beyond
consideration. His sorts were all of a piece, beneath the consideration
of men of spirit....
At this point, the self-complacence bred of his contempt for Messrs. de
Morbihan et Cie. bred in its turn a thought that brought the adventurer
up standing.
The devil! Who was he, Michael Lanyard, that held himself above such
vermin, yet lived in such a way as practically to invite their
advances? What right was his to resent their opening the door to
confraternity, as long as he trod paths so closely parallel to theirs
that only a sophist might discriminate them? What comforting
distinction was to be drawn between on the one hand a blackmailer like
Wertheimer, a chevalier-d'industrie like De Morbihan, or a patron of
Apaches like Popinot, and on the other himself whose bread was eaten in
the sweat of thievery?
He 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 Paris; Popinot has already picketted every outlet.
Your one hope resides in me; and I shall be at home to you until
midnight to-morrow--to-day, rather."
Impressed in spite of himself, Lanyard stared. But the Count maintained
an imperturbable manner, looking straight ahead. Such calm assurance
would hardly be sheer bluff.
"I must think this over," Lanyard mused aloud.
"Pray don't let me hinder you," the Count begged with mild sarcasm. "I
have my own futile thoughts...."
Lanyard laughed quietly and subsided into a reverie which, undisturbed
by De Morbihan, endured throughout the brief remainder of their drive;
for, thanks to the smallness of the hour, the streets were practically
deserted and offered no obstacle to speed; while the chauffeur was
doubtless eager for his bed.
As they drew near Troyon's, however, Lanyard sat up and jealously
reconnoitered both sides of the way.
"Surely you don't expect to be kept out?" the Count asked dryly. "But
that just shows how little you appreciate our good Popinot. He'll never
object to your locking yourself up where he knows he can find you--but
only to your leaving without permission!"
"Something in that, perhaps. Still, I make it a rule to give myself the
benefit of every doubt."
There was, indeed, no sign of ambush that he could detect in any
quarter, nor any indication that Popinot's Apaches were posted
thereabouts. Nevertheless, Lanyard produced his automatic and freed the
safety-catch before opening the door.
"A thousand thanks, my dear Count!"
"For what? Doing myself a service? But you make me feel ashamed!"
"I know," agreed Lanyard, depreciatory; "but that's the way I am--a
little devil--you really can't trust me! Adieu, Monsieur le Comte."
"Au revoir, monsieur!"
Lanyard saw the car round the corner before turning to the entrance of
Troyon's, keeping his weather-eye alert the while. But when the car was
gone, the street seemed quite deserted and as soundless as though it
had been the thoroughfare of some remote village rather than an artery
of the pulsing old heart of Paris.
Yet he wasn't satisfied. He was as little susceptible to psychic
admonition as any sane and normal human organism, but he was just then
strongly oppressed by intuitive perception that there was something
radically amiss in his neighbourhood. Whether or not the result of the
Count's open intimations and veiled hints working upon a nature
sensitized by excitement and fatigue, he felt as though he had stepped
from the cab into an atmosphere impregnated to saturation with nameless
menace. And he even shivered a bit, perhaps because of the chill in
that air of early morning, perhaps because a shadow of premonition had
fallen athwart his soul....
Whatever its cause, he could find no reason for this; and shaking
himself impatiently, pressed a button that rang a bell by the ear of
the concierge, heard the latch click, thrust the door wide, and
re-entered Troyon's.
Here reigned a silence even more marked than that of the street, a
silence as heavy and profound as the grave's, so that sheer instinct
prompted Lanyard to tread lightly as he made his way down the passage
and across the courtyard toward the stairway; and in that hush the
creak of a greaseless hinge, when the concierge opened the door of his
quarters to identify this belated guest, seemed little less than a
profanity.
Lanyard paused and delved into his pockets, nodding genially to the
blowsy, sleepy old face beneath the guardian's nightcap.
"Sorry to disturb monsieur," he said politely, further impoverishing
himself in the sum of five francs in witness to the sincerity of his
regret.
"I thank monsieur; but what need to consider me? It's my duty. And what
is one interruption more or less? All night they come and go...."
"Good night, monsieur," Lanyard cut short the old man's garrulity; and
went on up the stairs, now a little wearily, of a sudden newly
conscious of his vast and enervating fatigue.
He thought longingly of bed, yawned involuntarily and, reaching his
door, fumbled the key in a most unprofessional way; there were weights
upon his eyelids, a heaviness in his brain....
But the key met with no resistance from the wards; and in a trice,
appreciating this fact, Lanyard was wide-awake again.
No question but that he had locked the door securely, on leaving after
his adventure with the charming somnambulist....
Had she, then, taken a whim to his room?
Or was this but proof of what he had anticipated in the beginning--a
bit of sleuthing on the part of Roddy?
He entertained little doubt as to the correctness of this latter
surmise, as he threw the door open and stepped into the room, his first
action being to grasp the electric switch and twist it smartly.
But no light answered.
"Hello!" he exclaimed softly, remembering that the lights could readily
have been turned off at the bulbs. "What's the good of that?"
In the same breath he started violently, and swung about.
The door had closed behind him, swiftly but gently, eclipsing the faint
light from the hall, leaving what amounted to stark darkness.
His first impression was that the intruder--Roddy or whoever--had
darted past him and out, pulling the door to in that act.
Before he could consciously revise this misconception he was fighting
for his life.
So unexpected, so swift and sudden fell the assault, that he was caught
completely off guard: between the shutting of the door and an onslaught
whose violence sent him reeling to the wall, the elapsed time could
have been measured by the fluttering of an eyelash.
And then two powerful arms were round him, pinioning his hands to his
sides, his feet were tripped up, and he was thrown with a force that
fairly jarred his teeth, half-stunning him.
For a breath he lay dazed, struggling feebly; not long, but long enough
to enable his antagonist to shift his hold and climb on top of his
body, where he squatted, bearing down heavily with a knee on either of
Lanyard's forearms, hands encircling his neck, murderous thumbs digging
into his windpipe.
He revived momentarily, pulled himself together, and heaved mightily in
futile effort to unseat the other.
The sole outcome of this was a tightening pressure on his throat.
The pain grew agonizing; Lanyard's breath was almost completely shut
off; he gasped vainly, with a rattling noise in his gullet; his
eyeballs started; a myriad coruscant lights danced and interlaced
blindingly before them; in his ears there rang a roaring like the voice
of heavy surf breaking upon a rock-bound coast.
And of a sudden he ceased to struggle and lay slack, passive in the
other's hands.
Only an instant longer was the clutch on his throat maintained. Both
hands left it quickly, one shifting to his head to turn and press it
roughly cheek to floor. Simultaneously he was aware of the other hand
fumbling about his neck, and then of a touch of metal and the sting of
a needle driven into the flesh beneath his ear.
That galvanized him; he came to life again in a twinkling, animate with
threefold strength and cunning. The man on his chest was thrown off as
by a young earthquake; and Lanyard's right arm was no sooner free than
it shot out with blind but deadly accuracy to the point of his
assailant's jaw. A click of teeth was followed by a sickish grunt as
the man lurched over....
Lanyard found himself scrambling to his feet, a bit giddy perhaps, but
still sufficiently master of his wits to get his pistol out before
making another move.
X
TURN ABOUT
The thought of Lanyard's pocket flash-lamp offering itself, immediately
its wide circle of light enveloped his late antagonist.
That one was resting on a shoulder, legs uncouthly a-sprawl, quite
without movement of any perceptible sort; his face more than
half-turned to the floor, and masked into the bargain.
Incredulously Lanyard stirred the body with a foot, holding his weapon
poised as though half-expecting it to quicken with instant and violent
action; but it responded in no way.
With a nod of satisfaction, he shifted the light until it marked down
the nearest electric bulb, which proved, in line with his inference, to
have been extinguished by the socket key, while the heat of its bulb
indicated that the current had been shut off only an instant before his
entrance.
The light full up, he went back to the thug, knelt and, lifting the
body, turned it upon its back.
Recognition immediately rewarded this manoeuvre: the masked face
upturned to the glare was that of the American who had made a fourth in
the concert of the Pack--"Mr. Smith," Quickly unlatching the mask,
Lanyard removed it; but the countenance thus exposed told little more
than he knew; he could have sworn he had never seen it before. None the
less, something in its evil cast persistently troubled his memory, with
the same provoking and baffling effect that had attended their first
encounter.
Already the American was struggling toward consciousness. His lips and
eyelids twitched spasmodically, he shuddered, and his flexed muscles
began to relax. In this process something fell from between the fingers
of his right hand--something small and silver-bright that caught
Lanyard's eye.
Picking it up, he examined with interest a small hypodermic syringe
loaded to the full capacity of its glass cylinder, plunger drawn
back--all ready for instant service.
It was the needle of this instrument that had pricked the skin of
Lanyard's neck; beyond reasonable doubt it contained a soporific, if
not exactly a killing dose of some narcotic drug--cocaine, at a venture.
So it appeared that this agent of the Pack had been commissioned to put
the Lone Wolf to sleep for an hour or two or more--_perhaps_ not
permanently!--that he might be out of the way long enough for their
occult purposes.
He smiled grimly, fingering the hypodermic and eyeing the prostrate man.
"Turn about," he reflected, "is said to be fair play.... Well, why not?"
He bent forward, dug the needle into the wrist of the American and shot
the plunger home, all in a single movement so swift and deft that the
drug was delivered before the pain could startle the victim from his
coma.
As for that, the man came to quickly enough; but only to have his
clearing senses met and dashed by the muzzle of a pistol stamping a
cold ring upon his temple.
"Lie perfectly quiet, my dear Mr. Smith," Lanyard advised; "don't speak
above a whisper! Give the good dope a chance: it'll only need a moment,
or I'm no judge and you're a careless highbinder! I'd like to know,
however--if it's all the same to you--"
But already the injection was taking effect; the look of panic, which
had drawn the features of the American and flickered from his eyes with
dawning appreciation of his plight, was clouding, fading, blending into
one of daze and stupour. The eyelids flickered and lay still; the lips
moved as if with urgent desire to speak, but were dumb; a long
convulsive sigh shook the American's body; and he rested with the
immobility of the dead, save for the slow but steady rise and fall of
his bosom.
Lanyard thoughtfully reviewed these phenomena.
"Must kick like a mule, that dope!" he reflected. "Lucky it didn't get
me before I guessed what was up! If I'd even suspected its strength,
however, I'd have been less hasty: I could do with a little information
from Mr. Mysterious Stranger here!"
Suddenly conscious of a dry and burning throat, he rose and going to
the washstand drank deep and thirstily from a water-bottle; then set
himself resolutely to repair the disarray of his wits and consider what
was best to be done.
In his abstraction he wandered to a chair over whose back hung a light
dressing-gown of wine-coloured silk, which, because it would pack in
small compass, was in the habit of carrying with him on his travels.
Lanyard had left this thrown across his bed; and he was wondering
subconsciously what use the man had thought to make of it, that he
should have taken the trouble to shift it to the chair.
But even as he laid hold of it, Lanyard dropped the garment in sheer
surprise to find it damp and heavy in his grasp, sodden with viscid
moisture. And when, in a swift flash of intuition, he examined his
fingers, he discovered them discoloured with a faint reddish stain.
Had the dye run? And how had the American come to dabble the garment in
water--to what end?
Then the shape of an object on the floor near his feet arrested
Lanyard's questing vision. He stared, incredulous, moved forward, bent
over and picked it up, clipping it gingerly between finger-tips.
It was one of his razors--a heavy hollow-ground blade--and it was foul
with blood.
With a low cry, smitten with awful understanding, Lanyard wheeled and
stared fearfully at the door communicating with Roddy's room.
It stood ajar an inch or two, its splintered lock accounted for by a
small but extremely efficient jointed steel jimmy which lay near the
threshold.
Beyond the door ... darkness ... silence...
Mustering up all his courage, the adventurer strode determinedly into
the adjoining room.
The first flash of his hand-lamp discovered to him sickening
verification of his most dreadful apprehensions.
Now he saw why his dressing-gown had been requisitioned--to protect a
butcher's clothing.
After a moment he returned, shut the door, and set his back against it,
as if to bar out that reeking shambles.