shaken with nausea.
The plot was damnably patent: Roddy proving a menace to the Pack and
requiring elimination, his murder had been decreed as well as that the
blame for it should be laid at Lanyard's door. Hence the attempt to
drug him, that he might not escape before police could be sent to find
him there.
He could no longer doubt that De Morbihan had been left behind at the
Circle of Friends of Harmony solely to detain him, if need be, and
afford Smith time to finish his hideous job and set the trap for the
second victim.
And the plot had succeeded despite its partial failure, despite the
swift reverse chance and Lanyard's cunning had meted out to the Pack's
agent. It was _his_ dressing-gown that was saturate with Roddy's blood,
just as they were his gloves, pilfered from his luggage, which had
measurably protected the killer's hands, and which Lanyard had found in
the next room, stripped hastily off and thrown to the floor--twin
crumpled wads of blood-stained chamois-skin.
He had now little choice; he must either flee Paris and trust to his
wits to save him, or else seek De Morbihan and solicit his protection,
his boasted influence in high quarters.
But to give himself into the hands, to become an associate, of one who
could be party to so cowardly a Crime as this ... Lanyard told himself
he would sooner pay the guillotine the penalty....
Consulting his watch, he found the hour to be no later than half-past
four: so swiftly (truly treading upon one another's heels) events had
moved since the incident of the somnambulist.
This left at his disposal a fair two hours more of darkness: November
nights are long and black in Paris; it would hardly be even moderately
light before seven o'clock. But that were a respite none too long for
Lanyard's necessity; he must think swiftly in contemplation of instant
action were he to extricate himself without the Pack's knowledge and
consent.
Granted, then, he must fly this stricken field of Paris. But how? De
Morbihan had promised that Popinot's creatures would guard every
outlet; and Lanyard didn't doubt him. An attempt to escape the city by
any ordinary channel would be to invite either denunciation to the
police on the charge of murder, or one of those fatally expeditious
forms of assassination of which the Apaches are past-masters.
He must and would find another way; but his decision was frightfully
hampered by lack of ready money; the few odd francs in his pocket were
no store for the war-chest demanded by this emergency.
True, he had the Omber jewels; but they were not negotiable--not at
least in Paris.
And the Huysman plans?
He pondered briefly the possibilities of the Huysman plans.
In his fretting, pacing softly to and fro, at each turn he passed his
dressing-table, and chancing once to observe himself in its mirror, he
stopped short, thunderstruck by something he thought to detect in the
counterfeit presentment of his countenance, heavy with fatigue as it
was, and haggard with contemplation of this appalling contretemps.
And instantly he was back beside the American, studying narrowly the
contours of that livid mask. Here, then, was that resemblance which had
baffled him; and now that he saw it, he could not deny that it was
unflatteringly close: feature for feature the face of the murderer
reproduced his face, coarsened perhaps but recognizably a replica of
that Michael Lanyard who confronted him every morning in his
shaving-glass, almost the only difference residing in the scrubby black
moustache that shadowed the American's upper lip.
After all, there was nothing wonderful in this; Lanyard's type was not
uncommon; he would never have thought himself a distinguished figure.
Before rising he turned out the pockets of his counterfeit. But this
profited him little: the assassin had dressed for action with
forethought to evade recognition in event of accident. Lanyard
collected only a cheap American watch in a rolled-gold case of a sort
manufactured by wholesale, a briquet, a common key that might fit any
hotel door, a broken paper of Régie cigarettes, an automatic pistol, a
few francs in silver--nothing whatever that would serve as a mark of
identification; for though the grey clothing was tailor-made, the
maker's labels had been ripped out of its pockets, while the man's
linen and underwear alike lacked even a laundry's hieroglyphic.
With this harvest of nothing for his pains, Lanyard turned again to the
wash-stand and his shaving kit, mixed a stiff lather, stropped another
razor to the finest edge he could manage, fetched a pair of keen
scissors from his dressing-case, and went back to the murderer.
He worked rapidly, at a high pitch of excitement--as much through sheer
desperation as through any appeal inherent in the scheme either to his
common-sense or to his romantic bent.
In two minutes he had stripped the moustache clean away from that
stupid, flaccid mask.
Unquestionably the resemblance was now most striking; the American
would readily pass for Michael Lanyard.
This much accomplished, he pursued his preparations in feverish haste.
In spite of this, he overlooked no detail. In less than twenty minutes
he had exchanged clothing with the American in detail, even down to
shirts, collars and neckties; had packed in his own pockets the several
articles taken from the other, together with the jointed jimmy and a
few of his personal effects, and was ready to bid adieu to himself, to
that Michael Lanyard whom Paris knew.
The insentient masquerader on the floor had called himself "good-enough
Smith"; he must serve now as good-enough Lanyard, at least for the Lone
Wolf's purposes; the police at all events would accept him as such. And
if the memory of Michael Lanyard must needs wear the stigma of brutal
murder, he need not repine in his oblivion, since through this
perfunctory decease the Lone Wolf would gain a freedom even greater
than before.
The Pack had contrived only to eliminate Michael Lanyard, the amateur
of fine paintings; remained the Lone Wolf with not one faculty
impaired, but rather with a deadlier purpose to shape his occult
courses....
Under the influence of his methodical preparations, his emotions had
cooled appreciably, taking on a cast of cold malignant vengefulness.
He who never in all his criminal record had so much as pulled trigger
in self-defence, was ready now to shoot to kill with the most
cold-blooded intent--given one of three targets; while Popinot's
creatures, if they worried him, he meant to exterminate with as little
compunction as though they were rats in fact as well as in spirit....
Extinguishing the lights, he stepped quickly to a window and from one
edge of its shade looked down into the street.
He was in time to see a stunted human silhouette detach itself from the
shadow of a doorway on the opposite walk, move to the curb, and wave an
arm--evidently signaling another sentinel on a corner out of Lanyard's
range of vision.
Herein was additional proof, if any lacked, that De Morbihan had not
exaggerated the disposition of Popinot. This animal in the street,
momentarily revealed by the corner light as he darted across to take
position by the door, this animal with sickly face and pointed chin,
with dirty muffler round its chicken-neck, shoddy coat clothing its
sloping shoulders, baggy corduroy trousers flapping round its bony
shanks--this was Popinot's, and but one of a thousand differing in no
essential save degree of viciousness.
It wasn't possible to guess how thoroughly Popinot had picketed the
house, in co-operation with Roddy's murderer, by way of provision
against mischance; but the adventurer was satisfied that, in his proper
guise as himself, he needed only to open that postern door at the
street end of the passage, to feel a knife slip in between his
ribs--most probably in his back, beneath the shoulder-blade....
He nodded grimly, moved back from the window, and used the flash-lamp
to light him to the door.
XI
FLIGHT
Now when Lanyard had locked the door, he told himself that the gruesome
peace of those two bed-chambers was ensured, barring mischance, for as
long as the drug continued to hold dominion over the American; and he
felt justified in reckoning that period apt to be tolerably protracted;
while not before noon at earliest would any hôtelier who knew his
business permit the rest of an Anglo-Saxon guest to be
disturbed--lacking, that is, definite instructions to the contrary.
For a full minute after withdrawing the key the adventurer stood at
alert attention; but the heavy silence of that sinister old rookery
sang in his ears untroubled by any untoward sound....
That wistful shadow of his memories, that cowering Marcel of the
so-dead yesterday in acute terror of the hand of Madame Troyon, had
never stolen down that corridor more quietly: yet Lanyard had taken not
five paces from his door when that other opened, at the far end, and
Lucia Bannon stepped out.
He checked then, and shut his teeth upon an involuntary oath: truly it
seemed as though this run of the devil's own luck would never end!
Astonishment measurably modified his exasperation.
What had roused the girl out of bed and dressed her for the street at
that unholy hour? And why her terror at sight of him?
For that the surprise was no more welcome to her than to him was as
patent as the fact that she was prepared to leave the hotel forthwith,
enveloped in a business-like Burberry rainproof from her throat to the
hem of a tweed walking-skirt, and wearing boots both stout and brown.
And at sight of him she paused and instinctively stepped back, groping
blindly for the knob of her bed-chamber door; while her eyes, holding
to his with an effect of frightened fascination, seemed momentarily to
grow more large and dark in her face of abnormal pallor.
But these were illegible evidences, and Lanyard was intent solely on
securing her silence before she could betray him and ruin incontinently
that grim alibi which he had prepared at such elaborate pains. He moved
toward her swiftly, with long and silent strides, a lifted hand
enjoining rather than begging her attention, aware as he drew nearer
that a curious change was colouring the complexion of her temper: she
passed quickly from dread to something oddly like relief, from
repulsion to something strangely like welcome; and dropping the hand
that had sought the door-knob, in her turn moved quietly to meet him.
He was grateful for this consideration, this tacit indulgence of the
wish he had as yet to voice; drew a little hope and comfort from it in
an emergency which had surprised him without resource other than to
throw himself upon her generosity. And as soon as he could make himself
heard in the clear yet concentrated whisper that was a trick of his
trade, a whisper inaudible to ears a yard distant from those to which
it was pitched, he addressed her in a manner at once peremptory and
apologetic.
"If you please, Miss Bannon--not a word, not a whisper!"
She paused and nodded compliance, questioning eyes steadfast to his.
Doubtfully, wondering that she betrayed so little surprise, he pursued
as one committed to a forlorn hope:
"It's vitally essential that I leave this hotel without it becoming
known. If I may count on you to say nothing--"
She gave him reassurance with a small gesture. "But how?" she breathed
in the least of whispers. "The concierge--!"
"Leave that to me--I know another way. I only need a chance--"
"Then won't you take me with you?"
"Eh?" he stammered, dashed.
Her hands moved toward him in a flutter of entreaty: "I too must leave
unseen--I _must_! Take me with you--out of this place--and I promise
you no one shall ever know--"
He lacked time to weigh the disadvantages inherent in her proposition;
though she offered him a heavy handicap, he had no choice but to accept
it without protest.
"Come, then," he told her--"and not a sound--"
She signified assent with another nod; and on this he turned to an
adjacent door, opened it gently, whipped out his flash-lamp, and passed
through. Without sign of hesitancy, she followed; and like two shadows
they dogged the dancing spot-light of the flash-lamp, through a
linen-closet and service-room, down a shallow well threaded by a spiral
of iron steps and, by way of the long corridor linking the
kitchen-offices, to a stout door secured only by huge, old-style bolts
of iron.
Thus, in less than two minutes from the instant of their encounter,
they stood outside Troyon's back door, facing a cramped, malodorous
alley-way--a dark and noisome souvenir of that wild mediaeval Paris
whose effacement is an enduring monument to the fame of the good Baron
Haussmann.
Now again it was raining, a thick drizzle that settled slowly, lacking
little of a fog's opacity; and the faint glimmer from the street lamps
of that poorly lighted quarter, reflected by the low-swung clouds, lent
Lanyard and the girl little aid as they picked their way cautiously,
and always in complete silence, over the rude and slimy cobbles of the
foul back way. For the adventurer had pocketed his lamp, lest its beams
bring down upon them some prowling creature of Popinot's; though he
felt passably sure that the alley had been left unguarded in the
confidence that he would never dream of its existence, did he survive
to seek escape from Troyon's.
For all its might and its omniscience, Lanyard doubted if the Pack had
as yet identified Michael Lanyard with that ill-starred Marcel who once
had been as intimate with this forgotten way as any skulking tom of the
quarter.
But with the Lone Wolf confidence was never akin to foolhardiness; and
if on leaving Troyon's he took the girl's hand without asking
permission and quite as a matter-of-course, and drew it through his
arm--it was his left arm that he so dedicated to gallantry; his right
hand remained unhampered, and never far from the grip of his automatic.
Nor was he altogether confident of his companion. The weight of her
hand upon his arm, the fugitive contacts of her shoulder, seemed to
him, just then, the most vivid and interesting things in life; the
consciousness of her personality at his side was like a shaft of golden
light penetrating the darkness of his dilemma. But as minutes passed
and their flight was unchallenged, his mood grew dark with doubts and
quick with distrust. Reviewing it all, he thought to detect something
too damnably adventitious in the way she had nailed him, back there in
the corridor of Troyon's. It was a bit too coincidental--"a bit
thick!"--like that specious yarn of somnambulism she had told to excuse
her presence in his room. Come to examine it, that excuse had been far
too clumsy to hoodwink any but a man bewitched by beauty in distress.
Who was she, anyway? And what her interest in him? What had she been
after in his room?--this American girl making a first visit to Paris in
company with her venerable ruin of a parent? Who, for that matter, was
Bannon? If her story of sleep-walking were untrue, then Bannon must
have been at the bottom of her essay in espionage--Bannon, the intimate
of De Morbihan, and an American even as the murderer of poor Roddy was
an American!
Was this singularly casual encounter, then, but a cloak for further
surveillance? Had he in his haste and desperation simply played into
her hands, when he burdened himself with the care of her?
But it seemed absurd; to think that she... a girl like her, whose every
word and gesture was eloquent of gentle birth and training...!
Yet--what _had_ she wanted in his room? Somnambulists are sincere
indeed in the indulgence of their failing when they time their
expeditions so opportunely--and arm themselves with keys to fit strange
doors. Come to think of it, he had been rather willfully blind to that
flaw in her excuse.... Again, why should she be up and dressed and so
madly bent on leaving Troyon's at half-past four in the morning? Why
couldn't she wait for daylight at least? What errand, reasonable duty
or design could have roused her out into the night and the storm at
that weird hour? He wondered!
And momentarily he grew more jealously heedful of her, critical of
every nuance in her bearing. The least trace of added pressure on his
arm, the most subtle suggestion that she wasn't entirely indifferent to
him or regarded him in any way other than as the chance-found comrade
of an hour of trouble, would have served to fix his suspicions. For
such, he told himself, would be the first thought of one bent on
beguiling--to lead him on by some intimation, the more tenuous and
elusive the more provocative, that she found his person not altogether
objectionable.
But he failed to detect anything of this nature in her manner.
So, what was one to think? That she was mental enough to appreciate how
ruinous to her design would be any such advances? ...
In such perplexity he brought her to the end of the alley and there
pulled up for a look round before venturing out into the narrow, dark,
and deserted side street that then presented itself.
At this the girl gently disengaged her hand and drew away a pace or
two; and when Lanyard had satisfied himself that there were no Apaches
in the offing, he turned to see her standing there, just within the
mouth of the alley, in a pose of blank indecision.
Conscious of his regard, she turned to his inspection a face touched
with a fugitive, uncertain smile.
"Where are we?" she asked.
He named the street; and she shook her head. "That doesn't mean much to
me," she confessed; "I'm so strange to Paris, I know only a few of the
principal streets. Where is the boulevard St. Germain?"
Lanyard indicated the direction: "Two blocks that way."
"Thank you." She advanced a step or two, but paused again. "Do you
know, possibly, just where I could find a taxicab?"
"I'm afraid you won't find any hereabouts at this hour," he replied. "A
fiacre, perhaps--with luck: I doubt if there's one disengaged nearer
than Montmartre, where business is apt to be more brisk."
"Oh!" she cried in dismay. "I hadn't thought of that.... I thought
Paris never went to sleep!"
"Only about three hours earlier than most of the world's capitals....
But perhaps I can advise you--"
"If you would be so kind! Only, I don't like to be a nuisance--"
He smiled deceptively: "Don't worry about that. Where do you wish to
go?"
"To the Gare du Nord."
That made him open his eyes. "The Gare du Nord!" he echoed. "But--I beg
your pardon--"
"I wish to take the first train for London," the girl informed him
calmly.
"You'll have a while to wait," Lanyard suggested. "The first train
leaves about half-past eight, and it's now not more than five."
"That can't be helped. I can wait in the station."
He shrugged: that was her own look-out--if she were sincere in
asserting that she meant to leave Paris; something which he took the
liberty of doubting.
"You can reach it by the Métro," he suggested--"the Underground, you
know; there's a station handy--St. Germain des Prés. If you like, I'll
show you the way."
Her relief seemed so genuine, he could have almost believed in it. And
yet--!
"I shall be very grateful," she murmured.
He took that for whatever worth it might assay, and quietly fell into
place beside her; and in a mutual silence--perhaps largely due to her
intuitive sense of his bias--they gained the boulevard St. Germain. But
here, even as they emerged from the side street, that happened which
again upset Lanyard's plans: a belated fiacre hove up out of the mist
and ranged alongside, its driver loudly soliciting patronage.
Beneath his breath Lanyard cursed the man liberally, nothing could have
been more inopportune; he needed that uncouth conveyance for his own
purposes, and if only it had waited until he had piloted the girl to
the station of the Métropolitain, he might have had it. Now he must
either yield the cab to the girl or--share it with her.... But why not?
He could readily drop out at his destination, and bid the driver
continue to the Gare du Nord; and the Métro was neither quick nor
direct enough for his design--which included getting under cover well
before daybreak.
Somewhat sulkily, then, if without betraying his temper, he signalled
the cocher, opened the door, and handed the girl in.
"If you don't mind dropping me en route..."
"I shall be very glad," she said ... "anything to repay, even in part,
the courtesy you've shown me!"
"Oh, please don't fret about that...."
He gave the driver precise directions, climbed in, and settled himself
beside the girl. The whip cracked, the horse sighed, the driver swore;
the aged fiacre groaned, stirred with reluctance, crawled wearily off
through the thickening drizzle.
Within its body a common restraint held silence like a wall between the
two.
The girl sat with face averted, reading through the window what corner
signs they passed: rue Bonaparte, rue Jacob, rue des Saints Pères, Quai
Malquais, Pont du Carrousel; recognizing at least one landmark in the
gloomy arches of the Louvre; vaguely wondering at the inept French
taste in nomenclature which had christened that vast, louring, echoing
quadrangle the place du Carrousel, unliveliest of public places in her
strange Parisian experience.
And in his turn, Lanyard reviewed those well-remembered ways in vast
weariness of spirit--disgusted with himself in consciousness that the
girl had somehow divined his distrust....
"The Lone Wolf, eh?" he mused bitterly. "Rather, the Cornered Rat--if
people only knew! Better still, the Errant--no!--the Arrant Ass!"
They were skirting the Palais Royal when suddenly she turned to him in
an impulsive attempt at self-justification.
"What _must_ you be thinking of me, Mr. Lanyard?"
He was startled: "I? Oh, don't consider me, please. It doesn't matter
what I think--does it?"
"But you've been so kind; I feel I owe you at least some explanation--"
"Oh, as for that," he countered cheerfully, "I've got a pretty definite
notion you're running away from your father."
"Yes. I couldn't stand it any longer--"
She caught herself up in full voice, as though tempted but afraid to
say more. He waited briefly before offering encouragement.
"I hope I haven't seemed impertinent...."
"No, no!"
Than this impatient negative his pause of invitation evoked no other
recognition. She had subsided into her reserve, but--he fancied--not
altogether willingly.
Was it, then, possible that he had misjudged her?
"You've friends in London, no doubt?" he ventured.
"No--none."
"But--"
"I shall manage very well. I shan't be there more than a day or
two--till the next steamer sails."
"I see." There had sounded in her tone a finality which signified
desire to drop the subject. None the less, he pursued mischievously:
"Permit me to wish you bon voyage, Miss Bannon... and to express my
regret that circumstances have conspired to change your plans."
She was still eyeing him askance, dubiously, as if weighing the
question of his acquaintance with her plans, when the fiacre lumbered
from the rue Vivienne into the place de la Bourse, rounded that
frowning pile, and drew up on its north side before the blue lights of
the all-night telegraph bureau.
"With permission," Lanyard said, unlatching the door, "I'll stop off
here. But I'll direct the cocher very carefully to the Gare du Nord.
Please don't even tip him--that's my affair. No--not another word of
thanks; to have been permitted to be of service--it is a unique
pleasure, Miss Bannon. And so, good night!"
With an effect that seemed little less than timid, the girl offered her
hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Lanyard," she said in an unsteady voice. "I am sorry--"
But she didn't say what it was she regretted; and Lanyard, standing
with bared head in the driving mist, touched her fingers coolly,
repeated his farewells, and gave the driver both money and
instructions, and watched the cab lurch away before he approached the
telegraph bureau....
But the enigma of the girl so deeply intrigued his imagination that it
was only with difficulty that he concocted a non-committal telegram to
Roddy's friend in the Prefecture--that imposing personage who had
watched with the man from Scotland Yard at the platform gates in the
Gare du Nord.