the combination, caressing it, humouring it, wheedling it, inexorably
questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in
his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers
murmured articulate response in the terms of their cryptic code.
Now and again, releasing the knob and sitting back on his heels, he
would bend intent scrutiny to the dial; note the position of the
combination, and with the pencil jot memoranda on the paper. This
happened perhaps a dozen times, at intervals of irregular duration.
He worked diligently, in a phase of concentration that apparently
excluded from his consciousness the near proximity of the girl, who
stood--or rather stooped, half-kneeling--less than a pace from his
shoulder, watching the process with interest hardly less keen than his
own.
Yet when one faint, odd sound broke the slumberous silence of the
salons, instantly he swung around and stood erect in a single movement,
gaze to the curtains.
But it had only been a premonitory rumble in the throat of a tall old
clock about to strike in the room beyond. And as its sonorous chimes
heralded two deep-toned strokes, Lanyard laughed quietly, intimately,
to the girl's startled eyes, and sank back before the safe.
And now his task was nearly finished. Within another minute he sat back
with face aglow, uttered a hushed exclamation of satisfaction, studied
his memoranda for a space, then swiftly and with assured movements
threw the knob and dial into the several positions of the combination,
grasped the lever-handle, turned it smartly, and swung the door wide
open.
"Simple, eh?" he chuckled, with a glance aside to the girl's eager
face, bewitchingly flushed and shadowed by the lamp's up-thrown
glow--"when one knows the trick, of course! And now ... if one were not
an honest man!"
A wave of his hand indicated the pigeonholes with which the body of the
safe was fitted: wide spaces and deep, stored tight with an
extraordinary array of leather jewel-cases, packets of stout paper
bound with tape and sealed, and boxes of wood and pasteboard of every
shape and size.
"They were only her finest pieces, her personal jewels, that Madame
Omber took with her to England," he explained; "she's mad about them
... never separated from them.... Perhaps the finest collection in the
world, for size and purity of water.... She had the heart to leave
these--all this!"
Lifting a hand he chose at random, dislodged two leather cases, placed
them on the floor, and with a blade of his pen-knife forced their
fastenings.
From the first the light smote radiance in blinding, coruscant welter.
Here was nothing but diamond jewellery, mostly in antique settings.
He took up a piece and offered it to the girl. She drew back her hand
involuntarily.
"No!" she protested in a whisper of fright.
"But just look!" he urged. "There's no danger ... and you'll never see
the like of this again!"
Stubbornly she withheld her hand. "No, no!" she pleaded. "I--I'd rather
not touch it. Put it back. Let's hurry. I--I'm frightened."
He shrugged and replaced the jewel; then yielded again to impulse of
curiosity and lifted the lid of the second case.
It contained nothing but pieces set with coloured stones of the first
order--emeralds, amethysts, sapphires, rubies, topaz, garnets,
lapis-lazuli, jacinthes, jades, fashioned by master-craftsmen into
rings, bracelets, chains, brooches, lockets, necklaces, of exquisite
design: the whole thrown heedlessly together, without order or care.
For a moment the adventurer stared down soberly at this priceless
hoard, his eyes narrowing, his breathing perceptibly quickened. Then
with a slow gesture, he reclosed the case, took from his pocket that
other which he had brought from London, opened it, and held it aside
beneath the light, for the girl's inspection.
He looked not once either at its contents or at her, fearing lest his
countenance betray the truth, that he had not yet succeeded completely
in exorcising that mutinous and rebellious spirit, the Lone Wolf, from
the tenement over which it had so long held sway; and content with the
sound of her quick, startled sigh of amaze that what she now beheld
could so marvellously outshine what had been disclosed by the other
boxes, he withdrew it, shut it, found it a place in the safe, and
without pause closed the door, shot the bolts, and twirled the dial
until the tumblers fairly sang.
One final twist of the lever-handle convincing him that the combination
was effectively dislocated, he rose, picked up the lamp, replaced it on
the desk with scrupulous care to leave no sign that it had been moved,
and looked round to the girl.
She was where he had left her, a small, tense, vibrant figure among the
shadows, her eyes dark pools of wonder in a face of blazing pallor.
With a high head and his shoulders well back he made a gesture
signifying more eloquently than any words: "All that is ended!"
"And now...?" she asked breathlessly.
"Now for our get-away," he replied with assumed lightness. "Before dawn
we must be out of Paris.... Two minutes, while I straighten this place
up and leave it as I found it."
He moved back to the safe, restored the wing of the screen to the spot
from which he had moved it, and after an instant's close examination of
the rug, began to explore his pockets.
"What are you looking for?" the girl enquired.
"My memoranda of the combination--"
"I have it." She indicated its place in a pocket of her coat. "You left
it on the floor, and I was afraid you might forget--"
"No fear!" he laughed. "No"--as she offered him the folded paper--"keep
it and destroy it, once we're out of this. Now those portières..."
Extinguishing the desk-light, he turned attention to the draperies at
doors and windows....
Within five minutes, they were once more in the silent streets of Passy.
They had to walk as far as the Trocadéro before Lanyard found a fiacre,
which he later dismissed at the corner in the Faubourg St. Germain.
Another brief walk brought them to a gate in the garden wall of a
residence at the junction of two quiet streets.
"This, I think, ends our Parisian wanderings," Lanyard announced. "If
you'll be good enough to keep an eye out for busybodies--and yourself
as inconspicuous as possible in this doorway..."
And he walked back to the curb, measuring the wall with his eye.
"What are you going to do?"
He responded by doing it so swiftly that she gasped with surprise:
pausing momentarily within a yard of the wall, he gathered himself
together, shot lithely into the air, caught the top curbing with both
hands, and...
She heard the soft thud of his feet on the earth of the enclosure; the
latch grated behind her; the door opened.
"For the last time," Lanyard laughed quietly, "permit me to invite you
to break the law by committing an act of trespass!"
Securing the door, he led her to a garden bench secluded amid
conventional shrubbery.
"If you'll wait here," he suggested--"well, it will be best. I'll be
back as soon as possible, though I may be detained some time. Still,
inasmuch as I'm about to break into this hôtel, my motives, which are
most commendable, may be misinterpreted, and I'd rather you'd stop
here, with the street at hand. If you hear a noise like trouble, you've
only to unlatch the gate.... But let's hope my purely benevolent
intentions toward the French Republic won't be misconstrued!"
"I'll wait," she assured him bravely; "but won't you tell me--?"
With a gesture, he indicated the mansion back of the garden.
"I'm going to break in there to pay an early morning call and impart
some interesting information to a person of considerable
consequence--nobody less, in fact, than Monsieur Ducroy."
"And who is that?"
"The present Minister of War.... We haven't as yet the pleasure of each
other's acquaintance; still, I think he won't be sorry to see me.... In
brief, I mean to make him a present of the Huysman plans and bargain
for our safe-conduct from France."
Impulsively she offered her hand and, when he, surprised, somewhat
diffidently took it, "Be careful!" she whispered brokenly, her pale
sweet face upturned to his. "Oh, do be careful! I am afraid for you...."
And for a little the temptation to take her in his arms was stronger
than any he had ever known....
But remembering his stipulated year of probation, he released her hand
with an incoherent mumble, turned, and disappeared in the direction of
the house.
XVII
THE FORLORN HOPE
Established behind his splendid mahogany desk in his office at the
Ministère de la Guerre, or moving majestically abroad attired in frock
coat and glossy topper, or lending the dignity of his presence to some
formal ceremony in that beautiful uniform which appertained unto his
office, Monsieur Hector Ducroy cut an imposing figure.
Abed ... it was sadly otherwise.
Lanyard switched on the bedside light, turning it so that it struck
full upon the face of the sleeper; and as he sat down, smiled.
The Minister of War lay upon his back, his distinguished corpulence
severely dislocating the chaste simplicity of the bed-clothing. Athwart
his shelving chest, fat hands were folded in a gesture affectingly
naïve. His face was red, a noble high-light shone upon the promontory
of his bald pate, his mouth was open. To the best of his unconscious
ability he was giving a protracted imitation of a dog-fight; and he was
really exhibiting sublime virtuosity: one readily distinguished
individual howls, growls, yelps, against an undertone of blended voices
of excited non-combatants...
As suddenly as though some one, wearying of the entertainment, had
lifted the needle from that record, it was discontinued. The Minister
of War stirred uneasily in his sleep, muttered a naughty word, opened
one eye, scowled, opened the other.
He blinked furiously, half-blinded but still able to make out the
disconcerting silhouette of a man seated just beyond the glare: a quiet
presence that moved not but eyed him steadfastly; an apparition the
more arresting because of its very immobility.
Rapidly the face of the Minister of War lost several shades of purple.
He moistened his lips nervously with a thick, dry tongue, and
convulsively he clutched the bed-clothing high and tight about his
neck, as though labouring under the erroneous impression that the
sanctity of his person was threatened.
"What do you want, monsieur?" he stuttered in a still, small voice
which he would have been the last to acknowledge his own.
"I desire to discuss a matter of business with monsieur," replied the
intruder after a small pause. "If you will be good enough to calm
yourself--"
"I am perfectly calm--"
But here the Minister of War verified with one swift glance an earlier
impression, to the effect that the trespasser was holding something
that shone with metallic lustre; and his soul began to curl up round
the edges.
"There are eighteen hundred francs in my pocketbook--about," he managed
to articulate. "My watch is on the stand here. You will find the family
plate in the dining-room safe, behind the buffet--the key is on my
ring--and the jewels of madame my wife are in a small strong-box
beneath the head of her bed. The combination--"
"Pardon: monsieur labours under a misapprehension," the housebreaker
interposed drily. "Had one desired these valuables, one would readily
have taken them without going to the trouble of disturbing the repose
of monsieur.... I have, however, already mentioned the nature of my
errand."
"Eh?" demanded the Minister of War. "What is that? But give me of your
mercy one chance to explain! I have never wittingly harmed you,
monsieur, and if I have done so without my knowledge, rest assured you
have but to petition me through the proper channels and I will be only
too glad to make amends!"
"_Still_ you do not listen!" the other insisted. "Come, Monsieur
Ducroy--calm yourself. I have not robbed you, because I have no wish to
rob you. I have not harmed you, for I have no wish to harm you. Nor
have I any wish other than to lay before you, as representing
Government, a certain matter of State business."
There was silence while the Minister of War permitted this exhortation
to sink in. Then, apparently reassured, he sat up in bed and eyed his
untimely visitor with a glare little short of truculent.
"Eh? What's that?" he demanded. "Business? What sort of business? If
you wish to submit to my consideration any matter of business, how is
it you break into my home at dead of night and rouse me in this brutal
fashion"--here his voice faltered--"with a lethal weapon pointed at my
head?"
"Monsieur will admit he speaks under an error," returned the burglar.
"I have yet to point this pistol at him. I should be very sorry to feel
obliged to do so. I display it, in fact, simply that monsieur may not
forget himself and attempt to summon servants in his resentment of this
(I admit) unusual method of introducing one's self to his attention.
When we understand each other better there will be no need for such
precautions, and then I shall put my pistol away, so that the sight of
it may no longer annoy monsieur."
"It is true, I do not understand you," grumbled the Minister of War.
"Why--if your errand be peaceable--break into my house?"
"Because it was urgently necessary to see monsieur instantly. Monsieur
will reflect upon the reception one would receive did one ring the
front door-bell and demand audience at three o'clock in the morning!"
"Well ..." Monsieur Ducroy conceded dubiously. Then, on reflection, he
iterated the monosyllable testily: "Well! What is it you want, then?"
"I can best explain by asking monsieur to examine--what I have to show
him."
With this Lanyard dropped the pistol into his coat-pocket, from another
produced a gold cigarette-case, and from the store of this last with
meticulous care selected a single cigarette.
Regarding the Minister of War in a mystifying manner, he began to roll
the cigarette briskly between his palms. A small shower of tobacco
sifted to the floor: the rice-paper cracked and came away; and with the
bland smile and gesture of a professional conjurer, Lanyard exhibited a
small cylinder of stiff paper between his thumb and index-finger.
Goggling resentfully, Monsieur Ducroy spluttered:
"Eh--what impudence is this?"
His smile unchanged, Lanyard bent forward and silently dropped the
cylinder into the Frenchman's hand. At the same time he offered him a
pocket magnifying-glass. "What is this?" Ducroy persisted stupidly.
"What--what--!"
"If monsieur will be good enough to unroll the papers and examine them
with the aid of this glass--"
With a wondering grunt, the other complied, unrolling several small
sheets of photographer's printing-out paper, to which several
extraordinarily complicated and minute designs had been
transferred--strongly resembling laborious efforts to conventionalize a
spider's web.
But no sooner had Monsieur Ducroy viewed these through the glass, than
he started violently, uttered an excited exclamation, and subjected
them to an examination both prolonged and exacting.
"Monsieur is, no doubt, now satisfied?" Lanyard enquired when his
patience would endure no longer.
"These are genuine?" the Minister of War demanded sharply, without
looking up.
"Monsieur can readily discern notations made upon the drawings by the
inventor, Georges Huysman, in his own hand. Furthermore, each plan has
been marked in the lower left-hand corner with the word '_accepted_'
followed by the initials of the German Minister of War. I think this
establishes beyond dispute the authenticity of these photographs of the
plan for Huysman's invention."
"Yes," the Minister of War agreed breathlessly. "You have the negatives
from which these prints were made?"
"Here," Lanyard said, indicating a second cigarette.
And then, with a movement so leisurely and careless that his purpose
was accomplished before the other in his preoccupation was aware of it,
the adventurer leaned forward and swept up the prints from the
counterpane in front of Monsieur Ducroy.
"Here!" the Frenchman exclaimed. "Why do you do that?"
"Monsieur no longer questions their authenticity?"
"I grant you that."
"Then I return to myself these prints, pending negotiations for their
transfer to France."
"How did you come by them?" demanded Monsieur Ducroy, after a moment's
thought.
"Need monsieur ask? Is France so ill-served by her spies that you do
not already know of the misfortune one Captain Ekstrom recently
suffered in London?"
Ducroy shook his head. Lanyard received this indication with
impatience. It seemed hardly possible that the French Minister of War
could be either so stupid or so ignorant....
But with a patient shrug, he proceeded to elucidate.
"Captain Ekstrom," he said, "but recently succeeded in photographing
these plans and took them to London to sell to the English.
Unfortunately for himself--unhappily for perfidious Albion!--Captain
Ekstrom fell in with me and mistook me for Downing Street's
representative. And here are the plans."
"You are--the Lone Wolf--then?"
"I am, as far as concerns you, monsieur, merely the person in
possession of these plans, who offers them through you, to France, for
a price."
"But why introduce yourself to me in this extraordinary fashion, for a
transaction for which the customary channels--with which you must be
familiar--are entirely adequate?"
"Simply because Ekstrom has followed me to Paris," Lanyard explained
indulgently. "Did I venture to approach you in the usual way, my
chances of rounding out a useful life thereafter would be practically
nil. Furthermore, my circumstances are such that it has become
necessary for me to leave France immediately--without an hour's
delay--also secretly; else I might as well remain here to be
butchered.... Now you command the only means I know of, to accomplish
my purpose. And that is the price, the only price, you will have to pay
me for these plans."
"I don't understand you."
"It is on schedule, is it not, that Captain Vauquelin of the Aviation
Corps is to attempt a non-stop flight from Paris to London this
morning, with two passengers, in a new Parrott biplane?"
"That is so.... Well?"
"I must be one of those passengers; and I have a companion, a young
lady, who will take the place of the other."
"It isn't possible, monsieur. Those arrangements are already fixed."
"You will countermand them."
"There is no time--"
"You can get into telephonic communication with Port Aviation in two
minutes."
"But the passengers have been promised--"
"You will disappoint them."
"The start is to be made in the first flush of daylight. How could you
reach Port Aviation in time?"
"In your motor-car, monsieur."
"It cannot be done."
"It must! If the start must be delayed till we arrive, you will give
orders that it shall be so delayed."
For a minute the Minister of War hesitated; then he shook his head
definitely.
"The difficulties are insuperable--"
"There is no such thing, monsieur."
"I am sorry: it can't be done."
"That is your answer?"
"It is regrettable, monsieur..."
"Very well!" Lanyard bent forward again, took a match from the stand on
the bedside table, and struck it. Very calmly he advanced the flame
toward the cigarette containing the roll of inflammable films.
"Monsieur!" Ducroy cried in horror. "What are you doing?"
Lanyard favoured him with a look of surprise.
"I am about to destroy these films and prints."
"You must never do that!"
"Why not? They are mine, to do with as I like. If I cannot dispose of
them at my price, I shall destroy them!"
"But--my God!--what you demand is impossible! Stay, monsieur! Think
what your action means to France!"
"I have already thought of that. Now I must think of myself."
"But--one moment!"
Ducroy sat up in bed and dangled hairy fat legs over the side.
"But one moment only, monsieur. Don't make me waste your matches!"
"Monsieur, it shall be as you desire, if it lies in my power to
accomplish it."
With this the Minister of War stood up and made for the telephone, in
his agitation forgetful of dressing-gown and slippers.
"You must accomplish it, Monsieur Ducroy," Lanyard advised him gravely,
puffing out the flame; "for if you fail, you make yourself the
instrument of my death. Here are the plans."
"You trust them to me?" Ducroy asked in astonishment.
"But naturally: that makes it an affair of your honour," Lanyard
explained suavely.
With a gesture of graceful capitulation the Frenchman accepted the
little roll of film.
"Permit me," he said, "to acknowledge the honour of monsieur's
confidence!"
Lanyard bowed low: "One knows with whom one deals, monsieur!... And
now, if you will be good enough to excuse me...."
He turned to the door.
"But--eh--where are you going?" Ducroy demanded.
"Mademoiselle," Lanyard said, pausing on the threshold--"that is, the
young lady who is to accompany me--is waiting anxiously in the garden,
out yonder. I go to find and reassure her and--with your permission--to
bring her in to the library, where we will await monsieur when he has
finished telephoning and--ah--repaired the deficiencies in his attire;
which one trusts he will forgive one's mentioning!"
He bowed again, impudently, gaily, and--when the Minister of War looked
up again sheepishly from contemplation of his naked shanks--had
vanished.
In high feather Lanyard made his way to a door at the rear of the house
which gave upon the garden--in his new social status of Governmental
protégé disdaining any such a commonplace avenue as that conservatory
window whose fastenings he had forced on entering. And boldly unbolting
the door, he ran out into the night, to rejoin his beloved, like a man
waking to new life.
But she was no more there: the bench was vacant, the garden deserted,
the gateway yawning on the street.
With a low, stifled cry, Lanyard turned from the bench and stumbled out
to the junction of the cross-street. But nowhere in their several
perspectives could he see anything that moved.
After some time he returned to the garden and quartered it with the
thoroughness of a pointer beating a covert. But he did this hopelessly,
bitterly aware that the outcome would be precisely what it eventually
was, that is to say, nothing....
He was kneeling beside the bench--scrutinizing the turf with
microscopic attention by aid of his flash-lamp, seeking some sign of
struggle to prove she had not left him willingly, and finding
none--when a voice brought him momentarily out of his distraction.
He looked up wildly, to discover Ducroy standing over him, his stout
person chastely swathed in a quilted dressing-gown and trousers, his
expression one of stupefaction.
"Well, monsieur--well?" the Minister of War demanded irritably.
"What--I repeat--what are you doing there?"
Lanyard essayed response, choked up, and gulped. He rose and stood
swaying, showing a stricken face.
"Eh?" Ducroy insisted with an accent of exasperation. "Why do you stand
glaring at me like that--eh? Come, monsieur: what ails you? I have
arranged everything, I say. Where is mademoiselle?"
Lanyard made a broken gesture.
"Gone!" he muttered forlornly.
Instantly the countenance of the stout Frenchman was lightened with a
gleam of eager interest--inveterate romantic that he was!--and he
stepped nearer, peering closely into the face of the adventurer.
"Gone?" he echoed. "Mademoiselle? Your sweetheart, eh?"
Lanyard assented with a disconsolate nod and sigh. Impatiently Ducroy
caught him by the sleeve.
"Come!" he insisted, tugging--"but come at once into the house. Now,
monsieur--now at length you enlist all one's sympathies! Come, I say!
Is it your desire that I catch my death of cold?"
Indifferently Lanyard suffered himself to be led away.