With the portentous sweep of a sorcerer's wand one wing of the screen
doors nearby swung wide to deliver to Lanyard's stunned recognition the
last person in the world he had cared to see just then, a presence of
florid allurement en grande toilette. He rose in resignation, telling
himself he might have been better prepared, would have been had Folly's
most recent confidence broken upon his understanding with force less
scandalizing--that the interruption was after all timely, since beyond
doubt it saved him from speaking his mind too plainly on the theme of
Morphew as a husband meet for Folly.
The woman at the doorway waited a moment for her vision to accomodate
itself to the change of light, then marked him where he stood by the
settee and approached with a carriage whose measured grace matched the
play of the fantastic fan of plumes she managed, her fine body sinuously
undulant within its scanty sheath of lace and satin.
"It is you at last, my friend. One fancied it was your car one
heard. . . . But how long since last we met!"
"Too long," Lanyard gallantly insisted, performing a punctilious bow
over a hand whose fingers tightened upon his with a significance
unsentimental, a brief sharp squeeze that carried a clear message to his
discretion: Folly, he was to understand, knew nothing, and Liane for
reasons personal and sufficient held it wise she should continue to know
nothing, of that ill-fated flight of theirs together to the Bahamas.
By way of supplement the throaty voice pursued with heavier stress on
the note of professional blandishment: "It is true, then, you have
missed me?"
"Ah!" Lanyard gave back agreeably to her humour--"if you only knew!"
"Hark to that grand blageur!" Liane grumbled to Folly. "Who would
believe, to hear him, the last time we met he coldly spurned my love?
But it is always so with him, one never knows how to take this fickle
animal. Heed what I tell you, who have suffered: do not let him break
your heart, too."
"But he has already," Folly stated, deceitfully demure. "If it wasn't
for him I would never have had any practice throwing myself at a man's
head and falling flat on my foolish face."
"I am too much confused," Lanyard claimed on behalf of his modesty.
"These unmaidenly confidences oblige me to change the subject kindly but
with decision. Permit me to observe at a venture how ready we aliens are
to adopt the tribal customs of this great country, such as the rite of
Old Home Week. Tonight, for example, our little circle is completely
reunited--with one lamentable defection--"
"Oh, hush!" Folly caught his arm with an imploring hand. "Here comes
Morphy; don't let him hear us, the mere mention of Mallison's name makes
him simply frantic."
"On your account I promise to be careful. But you really must take the
good man in hand and teach him self-control. As your husband, he will be
sure to need it."
Folly's eyes flashed up in mute prayer and warning: Morphy leaving the
swing-door, was already within earshot. In his wake, as ever at no great
distance, the inevitable Pagan strutted.
With that dogged elasticity of gait which men of too certain years and
too, too solid flesh affect in their pathetic strivings to seem youthful
to the women they prefer, Morphew approached, his dinner clothes,
over-cleverly tailored, decked out with a regalia of jewels more than
ordinarily shocking, last night's surly truculence now a genial suavity
that harked back to the first half-hour of his acquaintance with
Lanyard, at the Clique Club so long ago. On his very best behavior, he
was apparently charmed to be so. And observing him in covert wonder
when, after throwing Liane a light but friendly greeting, he bent his
lips to Folly's hand, Lanyard perceived in a blinding flash of
divination the chink in the armor of this uncouth colossus: Morphew was
madly in love, in bondage absolute to one of those late blooming
passions that men know who feel their flesh, still warm from the midday
sun, breathed upon by chill premonitions of the night to come.
"Ah, Lanyard, my boy! there you are, eh?" No friend of his heart ever
gave Lanyard a more cordial hand. "Sorry Pete and I had to keep you
waiting--"
"But I was glad of the chance to find myself in relation to the
surprise you had prepared for me--the surprises, I mean."
A small bow comprehended Liane, who returned an arch look as Folly
linked her arm and snuggled.
"Darling Liane is stopping with me for the looks of the thing, to keep
my name sweet on the tongue of my neighbours."
"Pour les convenances," Liane interpreted for Lanyard with an intonation
inimitably droll.
Dinner was announced . . .
Long before that meal was finished Lanyard knew the conviction that
never had he sat through a stranger, or one better composed and served,
or consumed in an atmosphere of more general amenity.
It would have been anything but easy, for that matter, to be uncongenial
under the influences of food of such excellence and so skillfully
prepared, wines so well chosen, and the steady flow of high spirits
contributed by Folly, Liane and Pagan in tacit collaboration, and
encouraged by a surprising display of good feeling in the more saturnine
Morphew. Yet Lanyard thought it doubtful if any of his company forgot
self or selfish interests for one fleeting instant or pronounced a
single unweighed witticism, however spontaneously it might seem to fall.
On his own part, he could not--had he wished--have forgotten the
sinister tension of distrust and cross-purpose running through it all;
and if he seemed to let himself go and enter without reserve into the
frivolous spirit of the gathering, he remained in his heart an outsider
to the end, captious and skeptical, and to the end a prey to dour
forebodings. And his attention, ranging in turn from one to another,
with a quality of vision inhumanly dispassionate stripped each and every
one, even himself, of their trappings of pretension and self deception,
and saw the rot that ate at every heart.
He saw in Pagan the perfect pattern of a parasite, fawning on all and
sundry for empty laughter, that he might esteem himself a wit and so
repair the abrasion of his self-love by the knowledge that he was, at
bottom, no better than a pickthank and a pander.
He saw Liane Delorme estranged from these her boon accomplices of
yesterday because of Morphew's inexplicable new animus, bitterly stung
by the discovery that she who had ever been wont to queen it
unchallenged was tonight being barely tolerated for what she might be
worth toward the consummation of another's corrupt and ungenerous ends;
haunted by the incidental knowledge that her charms were day by day more
swiftly fading, that their potency once so magical was now nearly spent,
and that the increase of her years had brought and would bring no
compensating repose, neither the peace that crowns a life well lived nor
any surcease from repining.
He saw Folly McFee, a trifling moth, vain, empty-headed,
pretty-to-death, avid for admiration to dull the irk of discontent with
life for all it had denied her of her heart's desire, for the shabby
indemnity it offered her in the shape of Morphew as her promised
husband.
He saw Morphew, gross in person, gross in appetites, seeking in vain to
slake his lust for power, that men might look up to him, by fostering
those puerile and unprofitable criminal intrigues of his incubation, and
at the same time laid so low by love of a doll's face and a pretty body
he could not dissemble his fatuous doting or the jealousy that made him
sick to his core every time the amorous little baggage of his fancy
chose to make eyes at another man.
Finally, Lanyard saw himself, to whom pride had once been as breath of
life, broken and degraded to a shameful sort of peonage, constrained to
take his orders from a Morphew and faithfully perform the tasks set for
him, lest enemy and patron in one withdraw his favour and leave him
without defense against the wrath of a society which his mere existence
affronted beyond pardon.
Satyr and sycophant, coquette, courtesan and criminal: a shady
crew . . .
And against that ring of worn and raddled faces present in actual being
to his sight, hall-marked every one by self-seeking, he had ever before
him a face infinitely more real and true, his vision of his lost love,
beyond all telling fair and kind, never more near to him than now, nor
ever more inaccessibly remote.
And these with whom he sat and dined and drank, with whom he laughed and
leered and bandied ribald personalities, were they whose egoism had cost
him Eve . . .
Dull rage smouldered in his bosom, he knew he was ripe for murder--and
went on feeding and guzzling with them, winking and nudging and giggling
with the best of them, put in his proper place by life at last,
relegated to his rowdy sphere, to escape from which he had been insane
ever to aspire . . .
Oh, he knew it now! Doubts no more vexed his mind. He was where he
belonged, where his own acts had brought him, in the vicious circle of
his peers, welcomed and accepted in virtue of the proof he had provided,
though unconsciously and without intention, that he was one of
them--"guilty as charged," guilty as Hell.
So be it--he was tired of fighting against the fate inherent in his
failings, he would fight no more. The destiny of his own architecture
must henceforth have its way with him. . . .
Quaint respect for the conventions of another world at length ordained
the withdrawal of the women, leaving the men to the walnuts and wine of
tradition. And Lanyard, when he got up with the others to bow Folly and
Liane out of the room, returning to the table, drew his chair up to the
end where Morphew presided.
The curious good nature of the Sultan of Loot was holding up in spite of
his bereavement, the temporary defection of the apple of his eye; he
felt free to declare the little party an unblemished success; and though
he adhered strictly to his plain water régime, he didn't hesitate to
hector the servants, who didn't need his hectoring, into producing from
Folly's cellar for the delectation of Lanyard and Pagan the rarest of
grandes champagnes.
"That's the stuff to go to the right spot," he asserted, with a glitter
of envy in his moist eyes of an ex-tank. "Drink hearty, it won't hurt
you any, and there's lashin's more where it came from--though you won't
find half a dozen bottles between Maine and California, outside the
stock I control."
"Monsieur is a rare judge, for one who never drinks."
"That isn't saying I never did." Vanity grew warm with reminiscence.
"Haven't touched liquor in ten years, but my daily average is still
high."
"But how seldom does one find a host who has foresworn drink so
considerate of the palates of his guests."
"Stick around," Morphew countered in simple pride--and possibly, in
Lanyard's judgment, with an arrière-pensée--"you'll find out a lot of
things about me you don't know, before we part. Besides, tonight isn't
every night . . ."
The pause of suspense was meant to provoke the question underlined by
arching eyebrows: "No?"
"Want to put plenty of heart into you," Morphew jovially admitted, "so
you can put it into your stuff tonight."
With reluctance Lanyard detached a ravished gaze from the amber contents
of the glass which he had been holding up to the light. Knitting
eyebrows now lent accent of apprehensiveness to the query: "My 'stuff'?"
"Sure thing, your stuff; your act, you know, your turn, your job, the
little thing you do better'n anything else."
"Monsieur undoubtedly means my shop--the Lone Wolf's craft."
"Call it anything you like," Morphew graciously conceded--"you know what
I mean."
"But--I think monsieur said something about tonight--"
"That's right. Tonight's the night."
With undisguised regret Lanyard put aside a barely tasted glass;
whereupon Morphew made a noise of expostulation.
"When the Lone Wolf was at his best, monsieur, he never drank anything
if he had work in view. I have had too much already, if I am to believe
you are not jesting . . ."
"That's something else you're due to learn when you get to know me
better--I never joke about serious matters."
"In effect, monsieur has a great deal in common with humanity," Lanyard
observed with a straight face. "It would be interesting, none the less,
to learn where he draws the line between the serious and the trivial."
"I guess you won't want to argue that point when you realize the
proposition I've laid out for you tonight is one of the biggest
contracts you ever tackled."
With a quiet smile in eyes that cast back across a gulf of years,
Lanyard pronounced: "I wonder . . ."
"Oh, I know you were a hell-bender in your prime!" Morphew
contended--"but when all returns are in you'll be ready to admit you
never went up against anything bigger than this."
Did the ulterior thought faintly re-echo in that assertion? With a
finesse of which no man was more truly master Lanyard continued to seem
astray in by-paths of diverting retrospection while in reality
concentrating keenly critical scrutiny upon Morphew's countenance.
Such pure malevolence as glimpsed in those lightless eyes, in spite of
every artifice of hooded lids and webbing wrinkles, was hardly to be
taken as the work of a thwarted will to dominate or of mortified egotism
merely, but must have been the distillation of an even stronger passion,
fear or . . .
"The haul you made of Folly's emeralds that night you were pie-eyed, was
a wonder, or would have been if you hadn't lost your nerve; and some of
the tricks you've turned since then have been pippins; but tonight's
going to make history. You listen to me . . ."
But Lanyard didn't, he heard only a rumour of words whose sense made no
impression upon faculties staggered by a thunderstoke of intelligence.
The very elaboration of carelessness with which he had named Folly McFee
had betrayed Morphew's guarded secret: brute jealousy was the
fundamental cause of the hatred in which he held Lanyard, the blind
insensate jealousy of an aging man who foresees the failure of his
efforts to find in love of woman fuel for waning fires.
Sensitive as he must have been, with that abnormal and abominable
sensitiveness from which men of his coarse fiber too often suffer, to
the aversion which his caresses could not but excite, to her instinctive
shrinking from even the greed of his regard, and conceiving her to
entertain a tenderness for the more personable man, the more dashing
figure that was clothed as well in the glamour of a wildly romantic
history, and the man who most intolerably was his junior by many years,
Morphew--the conjecture gained force of verified conviction in the light
of this late disclosure--had decided upon Lanyard's death as the one
sure means of healing Folly of her infatuation, and had decreed that it
should be brought to pass as an act of justice, approved by custom and
the law, meted out to Lanyard while he was engaged in the commission of
a felony.
Thus at a stroke he would rid himself of one whom he hated and feared as
both a rival in love and an irreconcilable menace to his more material
fortunes, prove to Folly she had misplaced her admiration, and clear
Hugh Morphew of all suspicion of complicity in that old offense of
Mallison and the emeralds; he would even rehabilitate Mallison, if he
had any further use for that one, if his indignation on account of
Mallison's imputed ingratitude had not been all a blind.
And indeed it was not hard to see how well it would be for all
concerned, it might be even for Lanyard himself--it might be even for
Eve!--if he were to be found dead the next morning of a bullet fired by
an honest man in legitimate defense of his home . . .
Well for Eve and well for himself if he should meet his end tonight!
That thought hummed in Lanyard's head like the refrain of some old song
that, once recalled, sings itself endlessly over and over to memory's
ear. It intensified the sobriety with which he listened while Morphew
laid bare the cheap articulation of his plot, but it was permitted to
work no deeper treason; so that Lanyard might very well have been as he
seemed, as Pagan and Morphew believed him to be, impressed to admiration
by the finely dove-tailed ingenuity and the imaginative daring of the
scheme complete.
"The next property to the west"--Morphew flirted an iridescent paw
toward that quarter--"is the summer home of the Vandergrifts. Guess you
must know who they are . . ."
"As well as you know the fame of Rothschild, monsieur."
"The whole damn family's there just at present: pa and ma
Vandergrift--she's sporting most of the Russian crown jewels since the
last strike tacked a few dollars per ton on to the cost of coal; the
Duchess of Allborough, Theodosia Vandergrift that was, wearing the
Allborough diamonds and pearls; Dudley Vandergrift and his wife--her
father was Jules Cottier of Cottier's, the French jewellers--"
"But assume the Lone Wolf to be acquainted with the fame of Cottier's,
monsieur."
"And a whole houseful of guests--you know the sort. Nobody worth less
than eighteen millions is ever invited to one of the Vandergrift house
parties, not because ordinary millionaires ain't good enough, but
because they'd feel like poor boys at a husking. At a conservative
figure there must be upwards of a million in jewels under that roof
tonight that belongs to the Vandergrift clan alone. They take good care
of it, too. Their guests can do as they please about their stuff, but
all the Vandergrifts' goes into the big safe in the library every night.
It was built into the walls when the house was put up, in Eighteen
Eighty-five or thereabouts; that's a good enough line on the sort of box
you've got to tackle, for a man that knows all you do about safe
construction."
"It doesn't sound formidable, assuming your information to be accurate."
"It's accurate, all right; don't let that worry cramp your style. I've
been buying up inside dope on this proposition for months, getting it
all set for you--had it all but ready to slip you when Liane and you
kicked over the traces last Spring. Well--we'd have had to wait awhile
anyway for ma and pa Vandergrift to move to the country, and now it's a
bigger thing than it would have been any time sooner. So no harm done."
"And this information you have collected?"
"Got it right here." Morphew worried a gold-mounted wallet out of one of
his hip-pockets and sorted from its contents several sheets of
onion-skin tissue dark with minute pen-work. "There you are: map of the
grounds, plan of the house, diagram of the library showing locations of
all lights and switches, full notes on the habits of the
household--everything but the combination of the safe."
"We left that out on purpose, Lanyard," Pagan smirked across the cloth,
"just to make it interesting for you."
Impatiently Morphew thrust the diagrams and notes into Lanyard's hands.
"Everything else you want to know is there. Give it all the once over as
soon as you can--we haven't got time now, ought to be joining the
ladies before long--and any questions you want to ask I'll try to
answer."
"Many thanks." Lanyard shuffled the papers under a thoughtful frown.
"There is only one question I need ask: These fabulously wealthy folk no
doubt maintain a corps of night watchmen?"
"That's just where you're wrong," Morphew contradicted in triumph.
"There's only one night watchman for the whole works; and he's held the
job twenty years and got so old and confident--nothing having ever
happened to make him earn his pay--he spends most of his time on duty
asleep in a chair by the garage door. He's supposed to make his rounds
every hour, but I've fixed it so he'll forget about the three o'clock
trip this night anyway."
"You have fixed it?"
"Don't suppose I'm taking any chances of his having a spell of
sleeplessness tonight, do you? When he goes to sit down in his favorite
chair this time he's going to find a flask that's slipped by accidental
purpose off somebody's hip, a flask more than half full of prime stuff."
"Why not quite full, monsieur?"
Morphew winked hideously and laid a finger to his nose. "If that bird
sees somebody had a few pulls at it, he won't worry about whether it's
prune juice or ill-natured alcohol."
"Forgive my stupidity; now I understand--the cunning hand of Monsieur
Pagan will have been at work upon the contents of that flask. How
far-sighted you are to keep a tame chemist. But how will the bottle
find its way to the seat of the chair?"
"One of my boys will take care of that, of course."
"You have spies within the gates, then?"
"Haven't I just been telling you I never leave anything to chance?"
"But I should say you leave everything to nothing else, when you repose
faith in the loyalty of human hearts. Trust one man with your life, and
you forfeit all your right to sleep; trust two, you may count yourself
already betrayed. Trust nobody: it is the rule that made the Lone Wolf
what he was."
"But you're trusting me--"
"Pardon, monsieur," Lanyard smiled; "but--you will admit--under duress."
"Well! but I'm trusting you--"
"With a cordon of God knows how many spies posted about the Vandergrift
residence, beyond, to see that I am not interfered with while at work."
"But that's only a commonsense precaution," Morphew uneasily growled.
"And likewise to see that I do not take it into my head to--how do you
say it? double-cross you?--pocket my plunder and neglect to return."
"Nothing like that." Morphew denied, with contempt for the suggestion.
"Got too much confidence in your good sense."
"And yet you tell me you leave nothing to chance!"
"You're a great little kidder, all right." A sour smile commented on the
concession. "As far as that goes, I don't expect you back here
tonight."
"No?" Lanyard queried in surprise. "You meant to be a consistent
gambler, then--trust me to return to New York with my loot alone?"
"Not exactly. You'll need a good car for your getaway, and a racing
driver that knows all the back-roads--"
"Ah! not such a besotted gambler after all."
"I've marked a place on the map I gave you, a place just outside the
grounds where you'll find a racing car waiting, when you're ready. Once
you're in that, and the driver steps on the gas, nothing but an airplane
stands a ghost of a show of overtaking you."
"Truly, you have thought of everything . . ."
"I'm that way."
There was a lull. Lanyard with an abstracted air folded the sheaf of
papers and put them away in his pocket, then became amiably aware that
both Morphew and Pagan were watching his every action with the eagerest
interest.
"Eh bien, messieurs! Shall we, as you say, rejoin the ladies?"
"You"--Morphew abandoned all effort to disguise the strain upon his
self-control--"you're going to go through with it?"
Lanyard's shoulders were more expressive even than the spoken retort:
"What else has one to do?"
Sitting back, Morphew absently mopped his face with a napkin. "One hell
of a hot night," he muttered. . . . "That's all right, then. You're such
a fire-eater I didn't know but you might try to buck on me at the last
minute."
"Tranquilize yourself, monsieur. My word has been passed. There is but
one thing I cannot promise: I may not be able to make the clean sweep of
the Vandergrift jewels that you desire."
"What's to stop you, once you get set at that safe?"
"Who knows, monsieur?" Lanyard pushed back his chair. "The element of
chance enters into every human affair. Who knows whose hand will cast
the dice tonight? Who knows how they will fall?"