Omber is close by; and I'll follow and join you there within an hour at
most. Meantime, this note will introduce you to the concierge and his
wife--I hope you won't mind--as my fiancée. I'm telling them we became
engaged in England, and I've brought you to Paris to visit my mother in
Montrouge; but am detained by my employer's business; and will they
please give you shelter for an hour."
"He's coming in," the girl announced quietly.
"In here?"
"No--merely inside the row of little trees."
"Which entrance?"
"The boulevard side. He's taken the corner table. Now a waiter's going
out to him."
"You can see his face now?" Lanyard asked, sealing the note.
"Not well...."
"Nothing you recognize about him, eh?"
"Nothing...."
"You know Popinot and Wertheimer by sight?"
"No; they're only names to me; De Morbihan and Mr. Bannon mentioned
them last night."
"It won't be Popinot," Lanyard reflected, addressing the envelope;
"he's tubby."
"This man is tall and slender."
"Wertheimer, possibly. Does he suggest an Englishman, any way?"
"Not in the least. He wears a moustache--blond--twisted up like the
Kaiser's."
Lanyard made no reply; but his heart sank, and he shivered
imperceptibly with foreboding. He entertained no doubt but that the
worst had happened, that to the number of his enemies in Paris was
added Ekstrom.
One furtive glance confirmed this inference. He swore bitterly, if
privately and with a countenance of child-like blandness, as he sipped
the coffee and finished his cigarette.
"Who is it, then?" she asked. "Do you know him?"
He reckoned swiftly against distressing her, recalling his mention of
the fact that Ekstrom was credited with the Huysman murder.
"Merely a hanger-on of De Morbihan's," he told her lightly; "a
spineless animal--no trouble about scaring him off.... Now take this
note, please, and we'll go. But as we reach the door, turn back--and go
out the other. You'll find a taxi without trouble. And stop for
nothing!"
He had shown foresight in paying when served, and was consequently able
to leave abruptly, without giving Ekstrom time to shy. Rising smartly,
he pushed the table aside. The girl was no less quick, and little less
sensitive to the strain of the moment; but as she passed him her lashes
lifted and her eyes were all his for the instant.
"Good night," she breathed--"good night ... my dear!"
She could have guessed no more shrewdly what he needed to nerve him
against the impending clash. He hadn't hesitated as to his only course,
but till then he'd been horribly afraid, knowing too well the
desperate cast of the outlawed German's nature. But now he couldn't
fail.
He strode briskly toward the door to the boulevard, out of the corner
of his eye aware that Ekstrom, taken by surprise, half-started from his
chair, then sank back.
Two paces from the entrance the girl checked, murmured in French, "Oh,
my handkerchief!" and turned briskly back. Without pause, as though he
hadn't heard, Lanyard threw the door wide and swung out, turning
directly to the spy. At the same time he dropped a hand into the pocket
where nestled his automatic.
Fortunately Ekstrom had chosen a table in a corner well removed from
any in use. Lanyard could speak without fear of being overheard.
But for a moment he refrained. Nor did Ekstrom speak or stir; sitting
sideways at his table, negligently, with knees crossed, the German
likewise kept a hand buried in the pocket of his heavy, dark ulster.
Thus neither doubted the other's ill-will or preparedness. And through
thirty seconds of silence they remained at pause, each striving with
all his might to read the other's purpose in his eyes. But there was
this distinction to be drawn between their attitudes, that whereas
Lanyard's gaze challenged, the German's was sullenly defiant. And
presently Lanyard felt his heart stir with relief: the spy's glance had
winced.
"Ekstrom," the adventurer said quietly, "if you fire, I'll get you
before I fall. That's a simple statement of fact."
The German hesitated, moistened the corners of his lips with a nervous
tongue, but contented himself with a nod of acknowledgement.
"Take your hand off that gun," Lanyard ordered. "Remember--I've only to
cry your name aloud to have you torn to pieces by these people. Your
life's not worth a moment's purchase in Paris--as you should know."
The German hesitated, but in his heart knew that Lanyard didn't
exaggerate. The murder of the inventor had exasperated all France; and
though tonight's weather kept a third of Paris within doors, there was
still a tide of pedestrians fluent on the sidewalk, beyond the flimsy
barrier of firs, that would thicken to a ravening mob upon the least
excuse.
He had mistaken his man; he had thought that Lanyard, even if aware of
his pursuit, would seek to shake it off in flight rather than turn and
fight--and fight here, of all places!
"Do you hear me?" Lanyard continued in the same level and unyielding
tone. "Bring both hands in sight--upon the table!"
There was no more hesitation: Ekstrom obeyed, if with the sullen grace
of a wild beast that would and could slay its trainer with one sweep of
its paw--if only it dared.
For the first time since leaving the girl Lanyard relaxed his vigilant
watch over the man long enough for one swift glance through the window
at his side. But she was already vanished from the café.
He breathed more freely now.
"Come!" he said peremptorily. "Get up. We've got to talk, I
presume--thrash this matter out--and we'll come to no decision here."
"Where do we go, then?" the German demanded suspiciously.
"We can walk."
Irresolutely the spy uncrossed his knees, but didn't rise.
"Walk?" he repeated, "walk where?"
"Up the boulevard, if you like--where the lights are brightest."
"Ah!"--with a malignant flash of teeth--"but I don't trust you."
Lanyard laughed: "You wear only one shoe of that pair, my dear captain!
We're a distrustful flock, we birds of prey. Come along! Why sit there
sulking, like a spoiled child? You've made an ass of yourself,
following me to Paris; sadly though you bungled that job in London, I
gave you credit for more wit than to poke your head into the lion's
mouth here. But--admitting that--why not be graceful about it? Here am
I, amiably treating you like an equal: you might at least show
gratitude enough to accept my invitation to flâner yourself!"
With a grunt the spy got upon his feet, while Lanyard stood back,
against the window, and made him free of the narrow path between the
tree-tubs and the tables.
"After you, my dear Adolph...!"
The German paused, half turned towards him, choking with rage, his
suffused face darkly relieving its white scars won at Heidelberg. At
this, with a nod of unmistakable meaning, Lanyard advanced the muzzle
of his pocketed weapon; and with an ugly growl the German moved on and
out to the sidewalk, Lanyard respectfully an inch or two behind his
elbow.
"To your right," he requested pleasantly--"if it's all the same to you:
I've business on the Boulevards..."
Ekstrom said nothing for the moment, but sullenly yielded to the
suggestion.
"By the way," the adventurer presently pursued, "you might be good
enough to inform me how you knew where we were dining--eh?"
"If it interests you--"
"I own it does--tremendously!"
"Pure accident: I happened to be sitting in the café, and caught a
glimpse of you through the door as you went upstairs. Therefore I
waited till the waiter asked for your bill at the caisse, then
stationed myself outside."
"But why? Can you tell me what you thought to accomplish?"
"You know well," Ekstrom muttered. "After what happened in London ...
it's your life or mine!"
"Spoken like a true villain! But it seems to me you overlooked a
conspicuous chance to accomplish your hellish design, back there in the
side streets."
"Would I be such a fool as to shoot you down before finding out what
you've done with those plans?"
"You might as well have," Lanyard informed him lightly ... "For you
won't know otherwise."
With an infuriated oath the German stopped short: but he dared not
ignore the readiness with which his tormentor imitated the manoeuvre
and kept the pistol trained through the fabric of his raincoat.
"Yes--?" the adventurer enquired with an exasperating accent of
surprise.
"Understand me," Ekstrom muttered vindictively: "next time I'll show
you no mercy--"
"But if there _is_ no next time? We're not apt to meet again, you know."
"That's something beyond your knowledge--"
"You think so? ... But shan't we resume our stroll? People might notice
us standing here--you with your teeth bared like an ill-tempered
dog.... Oh, thank you!"
And as they moved on, Lanyard continued: "Shall I explain why we're not
apt to meet again?"
"If it amuses you."
"Thanks once more! ... For the simple reason that Paris satisfies me;
so here I stop."
"Well?" the spy asked with a blank sidelong look.
"Whereas you are leaving Paris tonight."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because you value your thick hide too highly to remain, my dear
captain." Having gained the corner of the boulevard St. Denis, Lanyard
pulled up. "One moment, by your leave. You see yonder the entrance to
the Metro--don't you? And here, a dozen feet away, a perfectly
able-bodied sergent de ville? Let this fateful conjunction impress you
properly: for five minutes after you have descended to the Métro--or as
soon as the noise of a train advises me you've had one chance to get
away--I shall mention casually to the sergo--that I have seen Captain
Ek--"
"Hush!" the German protested in a hiss of fright.
"But certainly: I've no desire to embarrass you: publicity must be
terribly distasteful to one of your sensitive and retiring
disposition.... But I trust you understand me? On the one hand, there's
the Métro; on the other, there's the flic; while here, you must admit,
am I, as large as life and very much on the job! ... And inasmuch as I
shall certainly mention my suspicions to the minion of the law--as
aforesaid--I'd advise you to be well out of Paris before dawn!"
There was murder in the eyes of the spy as he lingered, truculently
glowering at the smiling adventurer; and for an instant Lanyard was
well-persuaded he had gone too far, that even there, even on that busy
junction of two crowded thoroughfares, Ekstrom would let his temper get
the better of his judgment and risk everything in an attempt upon the
life of his despoiler.
But he was mistaken.
With a surly shrug the spy swung about and marched straight to the
kiosk of the underground railway, into which, without one backward
glance, he disappeared.
Two minutes later the earth beneath Lanyard's feet quaked with the
crash and rumble of a north-bound train.
He waited three minutes longer; but Ekstrom didn't reappear; and at
length convinced that his warning had proved effectual, Lanyard turned
and made off.
XVI
RESTITUTION
For all that success had rewarded his effrontery, Lanyard's mind was
far from easy during the subsequent hour that he spent before
attempting to rejoin Lucy Shannon, dodging, ducking and doubling across
Paris and back again, with design to confuse and confound any jackals
of the Pack that might have picked up his trail as adventitiously as
Ekstrom had.
His delight, indeed, in discomfiting his dupe was chilled by
apprehension that it were madness, simply because the spy had proved
unexpectedly docile, to consider the affaire Ekstrom closed. In the
very fact of that docility inhered something strange and ominous, a
premonition of evil which was hardly mitigated by finding the girl safe
and sound under the wing of madame la concierge, in the little court of
private stables, where he rented space for his car, off the rue des
Acacias.
Monsieur le concierge, it appeared, was from home; and madame,
thick-witted, warm-hearted, simple body that she was, discovered a
phase of beaming incuriosity most grateful to the adventurer, enabling
him as it did to dispense with embarrassing explanations, and to whisk
the girl away as soon as he liked.
This last was just as soon as personal examination had reassured him
with respect to his automobile--superficially an ordinary motor-cab of
the better grade, but with an exceptionally powerful engine hidden
beneath its hood. A car of such character, passing readily as the
town-car of any family in modest circumstances, or else as what Paris
calls a voiture de remise (a hackney car without taximeter) was a
tremendous convenience, enabling its owner to scurry at will about
cab-ridden Paris free of comment. But it could not be left standing in
public places at odd hours, or for long, without attracting the
interest of the police, and so was useless in the present emergency.
Lanyard, however, entertained a shrewd suspicion that his plans might
all miscarry and the command of a fast-travelling car soon prove
essential to his salvation; and he cheerfully devoted a good half-hour
to putting the motor in prime trim for the road.
With this accomplished--and the facts established through discreet
interrogation of madame la concierge that no enquiries had been made
for "Pierre Lamier," and that she had noticed no strange or otherwise
questionable characters loitering in the neighbourhood of late--he was
ready for his first real step toward rehabilitation....
It was past one in the morning when, with the girl on his arm, he
issued forth into the dark and drowsy rue des Acacias and, moving
swiftly, crossed the avenue de la Grande Armée. Thereafter, avoiding
main-travelled highways, they struck southward through tangled side
streets to aristocratic Passy, skirted the boulevards of the
fortifications, and approached the private park of La Muette.
The hôtel particulier of that wealthy and amiable eccentric, Madame
Hélène Omber, was a souvenir of those days when Passy had been
suburban. A survival of the Revolution, a vast, dour pile that had
known few changes since the days of its construction, it occupied a
large, unkempt park, irregularly triangular in shape, bounded by two
streets and an avenue, and rendered private by high walls crowned with
broken glass. Carriage gates opened on the avenue, guarded by a
porter's lodge; while of three posterns that pierced the walls on the
side streets, one only was in general use by the servants of the
establishment; the other two were presumed to be permanently sealed.
Lanyard, however, knew better.
When they had turned off from the avenue, he slackened pace and moved
at caution, examining the prospect narrowly.
On the one hand rose the wall of the park, topped by naked, soughing
limbs of neglected trees; on the other, across the way, a block of tall
old dwellings, withdrawn behind jealous garden walls, showed stupid,
sleepy faces and lightless eyes.
Within the perspective of the street but three shapes stirred; Lanyard
and the girl in the shadow of the wall, and a disconsolate, misprized
cat that promptly decamped like a terror-stricken ghost.
Overhead the sky was breaking and showing ebon patches and infrequent
stars through a wind-harried wrack of cloud. The night had grown
sensibly colder, and noisy with the rushing sweep of a new-sprung wind.
Several yards from the postern-gate, Lanyard paused definitely, and
spoke for the first time in many minutes; for the nature of their
errand had oppressed the spirits of both and enjoined an unnatural
silence, ever since their departure from the rue des Acacias.
"This is where we stop," he said, with a jerk of his head toward the
wall; "but it's not too late--"
"For what?" the girl asked quickly.
"I promised you no danger; but now I've thought it over, I can't
promise that: there's always danger. And I'm afraid for you. It's not
yet too late for you to turn back and wait for me in a safer place."
"You asked me to accompany you for a special purpose," she argued; "you
begged me to come with you, in fact.... Now that I have agreed and come
this far, I don't mean to turn back without good reason."
His gesture indicated uneasy acquiescence. "I should never have asked
this of you. I think I must have been a little mad. If anything should
come of this to injure you...!"
"If you mean to do what you promised--"
"Do you doubt my sincerity?"
"It was your own suggestion that you leave me no excuse for doubt..."
Without further remonstrance, if with a mind beset with misgivings, he
led on to the gate--a blank door of wood, painted a dark green, deeply
recessed in the wall.
In proof of his assertion that he had long since made every preparation
to attack the premises, Lanyard had a key ready and in the lock almost
before they reached it.
And the door swung back easily and noiselessly as though on
well-greased hinges. As silently it shut them in.
They stood upon a weed-grown gravel path, hedged about with thick
masses of shrubbery; but the park was as black as a pocket; and the
heavy effluvia of wet mould, decaying weeds and rotting leaves that
choked the air, seemed only to render the murk still more opaque.
But Lanyard evidently knew his way blindfold: though motives of
prudence made him refrain from using his flash-lamp, he betrayed not
the least incertitude in his actions.
Never once at loss for the right turning, he piloted the girl swiftly
through a bewildering black labyrinth of paths, lawns and thickets....
In due course he pulled up, and she discovered that they had come out
upon a clear space of lawn, close beside the featureless, looming bulk
of a dark and silent building.
An admonitory grasp tightened upon her fingers, and she caught his
singularly penetrating yet guarded whisper:
"This is the back of the house--the service-entrance. From this door a
broad path runs straight to the main service gateway; you can't mistake
it; and the gate itself has a spring lock, easy enough to open from the
inside. Remember this in event of trouble. We might become separated in
the darkness and confusion...."
Gently returning the pressure, "I understand," she said in a whisper.
Immediately he drew her on to the house, pausing but momentarily before
a wide doorway; one half of which promptly swung open, and as soon as
they had passed through, closed with no perceptible jar or click. And
then Lanyard's flash-lamp was lancing the gloom on every hand, swiftly
raking the bounds of a large, panelled servants' hall, until it picked
out the foot of a flight of steps at the farther end. To this they
moved stealthily over a tiled flooring.
The ascent of the staircase was accomplished, however, only with
infinite care, Lanyard testing each rise before trusting it with his
weight or the girl's. Twice he bade her skip one step lest the
complaints of the ancient woodwork betray them. In spite of all this,
no less than three hideous squeals were evoked before they gained the
top; each indicating a pause and wait of several breathless seconds.
But it would seem that such servants as had been left in the house, in
the absence of its chatelaine, either slept soundly or were accustomed
to the midnight concert of those age-old timbers; and without
mischance, at length, they entered the main reception-hall, revealed by
the dancing spot-light as a room of noble proportions furnished with
sombre magnificence.
Here the girl was left alone for a few minutes, while Lanyard darted
above-stairs for a review of the state bedchambers and servants'
quarters.
With a sensation of being crushed and suffocated by the encompassing
dark mystery, she nerved herself against a protracted vigil. The
obscurity on every hand seemed alive with stealthy footfalls,
whisperings, murmurings, the passage of shrouded shapes of silence and
of menace. Her eyes ached, her throat and temples throbbed, her skin
crept, her scalp tingled. She seemed to hear a thousand different
noises of alarm. The only sounds she did not hear were those--if
any--that accompanied Lanyard's departure and return. Had he not been
thoughtful enough, when a few feet distant, to give warning with the
light, she might well have greeted with a cry of fright the
consciousness of a presence near her: so silently he moved about. As it
was, she was startled, apprehensive of some misadventure, to find him
back so soon; for he hadn't been gone three minutes.
"It's quite all right," he announced in hushed accents--no longer
whispering. "There are just five people in the house aside from
ourselves--all servants, asleep in the rear wing. We've got a clear
field--if no excuse for taking foolish chances! However, we'll be
finished and off again in less than ten minutes. This way."
That way led to a huge and gloomy library at one extreme of a chain of
great salons, a veritable treasure-gallery of exquisite furnishings and
authentic old masters. As they moved slowly through these chambers
Lanyard kept his flash-lamp busy; involuntarily, now and again, he
checked the girl before some splendid canvas or extraordinary antique.
"I've always meant to happen in some day with a moving-van and loot
this place properly!" he confessed with a little affected sigh.
"Considered from the viewpoint of an expert practitioner in
my--ah--late profession, it's a sin and a shame to let all this go
neglected, when it's so poorly guarded. The old lady--Madame Omber, you
know--has all the money there is, approximately, and when she dies all
these beautiful things go to the Louvre; for she's without kith or kin."
"But how did she manage to accumulate them all?" the girl wondered.
"It's the work of generations of passionate collectors," he explained.
"The late Monsieur Omber was the last of his dynasty; he and his
forebears brought together the paintings and the furniture; madame
added the Orientals gathered together by her first husband, and her own
collection of antique jewellery and precious stones--_her_ particular
fad...."
As he spoke the light of the flash-lamp was blotted out. An instant
later the girl heard a little clashing noise, of curtain rings sliding
along a pole; and this was thrice repeated.
Then, following another brief pause, a switch clicked; and streaming
from the hood of a portable desk-lamp, a pool of light flooded the
heart of a vast place of shadows, an apartment whose doors and windows
alike were cloaked with heavy draperies that hung from floor to ceiling
in long and shining folds. Immense black bookcases lined the walls,
their shelves crowded with volumes in rich bindings; from their tops
pallid marble masks peered down inquisitively, leering and scowling at
the intruders. A huge mantelpiece of carved marble, supporting a great,
dark mirror, occupied the best of one wall, beneath it a wide, deep
fireplace yawned, partly shielded by a screen of wrought brass and
crystal. In the middle of the room stood a library table of mahogany;
huge leather chairs and couches encumbered the remainder of its space.
And the corner to the right of the fireplace was shut off by a high
Japanese screen of cinnabar and gold.
To this Lanyard moved confidently, carrying the lamp. Placing it on the
floor, he grasped one wing of the screen with both hands, and at cost
of considerable effort swung it aside, uncovering the face of a huge,
old-style safe built into the wall.
For several seconds--but not for many--Lanyard studied this problem
intently, standing quite motionless, his head lowered and thrust
forward, hands resting on his hips. Then turning, he nodded an
invitation to draw nearer.
"My last job," he said with a smile oddly lighted by the lamp at his
feet--"and my easiest, I fancy. Sorry, too, for I'd rather have liked
to show off a bit. But this old-fashioned tin bank gives no excuse for
spectacular methods!"
"But," the girl objected, "You've brought no tools!"
"Oh, but I have!" And fumbling in a pocket, Lanyard produced a pencil.
"Behold!" he laughed, brandishing it.
She knitted thoughtful brows: "I don't understand."
"All I need--except this."
Crossing to the desk, he found a sheet of note-paper and, folding it,
returned.
"Now," he said, "give me five minutes...."
Kneeling, he gave the combination-knob a smart preliminary twirl, then
rested a shoulder against the sheet of painted iron, his cheek to its
smooth, cold cheek, his ear close beside the dial; and with the
practised fingers of a master locksmith began to manipulate the knob.