door, only to find it blocked by the substantial form of a plain
citizen with his hands in his pockets and understanding in his eyes.
"Steady, gents!" he counselled coolly. "Orders are to let everybody in
and nobody out without Mr. Lanyard says so."
For a moment they hung in doubt and consternation, consulting one
another with dismayed stares. Then Phinuit made as if to shoulder the
man aside. But for the sake of the moral effect the latter casually
exhibited a pistol; and the moral effect of that was stupendous. Mr.
Phinuit disconsolately slouched back into the room.
Grasping the situation, Eve de Montalais turned to the quartet eyes
that glimmered in a face otherwise quite composed.
"But how surprising!" she declared. "Madame la Comtesse de
Lorgnes--Monsieur Monk--Mr. Phinuit--how delightful to see you all
again!"
The civility met with inadequate appreciation.
"Nothing could be more opportune," Lanyard declared; "for it is to this
lady, Madame de Montalais, and to these gentlemen that you owe the
recovery of your jewels."
"Truly?"
"As I am telling you. But for them, their charming hospitality in
inviting me to cruise aboard their yacht, but for the assistance they
lent me, though sometimes unconsciously, I admit--I should never have
been able to say to you to-day: Your jewels are in a safe place,
madame, immediately at your disposal."
"But how can I thank them?"
"Well," said Lanyard, "if you ask me, I think we have detained them
long enough, I believe they would be most grateful to be permitted to
leave and keep their numerous and pressing appointments elsewhere."
"I am entirely of your mind, monsieur."
Lanyard nodded to the man in the doorway--"All right, Mr. Murray"--and
he stood indifferently aside.
In silence the three men moved to the door and out, Phinuit with a
brazen swagger, Jules without emotion visible, Monk with eyebrows
adroop and flapping.
But Lanyard interposed when Liane Delorme would have followed.
"A moment, Liane, if you will be so good."
She paused, regarding him with a sombre and inscrutable face while he
produced from his coat-pocket a fat envelope without endorsement.
"This is yours."
The woman murmured blankly: "Mine?"
He said in a guarded voice: "Papers I found in the safe in your
library, that night. I had to take them for use in event of need.
Now...they are useless. But you are unwise to keep such papers, Liane.
Good-bye."
The envelope was unsealed. Lifting the flap, the woman half withdrew
the enclosure, recognised it at a glance, and crushed it in a
convulsive grasp, while the blood, ebbing swiftly from her face, threw
her rouge into livid relief. For an instant she seemed about to speak,
then bowed her head in dumb acknowledgment, and left the room.
Lanyard nodded to Mr. Murray, who amiably closed the door, keeping
himself on the outside of it.
Eve de Montalais was eyeing him with an indulgent and amused glance. As
he turned to her, she shook her head slowly in mockery of reproof.
"That woman loves you, monsieur," she stated quietly.
He succeeded admirably in looking as if the thought was strange to him.
"One is sure madame must be mistaken."
"Ah, but I am not!" said Eve de Montalais. "Who should know better the
signs that tell of woman's love for you, my dear?"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Alias The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance