The Lone Wolf, Louis Joseph Vance [best historical fiction books of all time txt] 📗

nurse’s duties; and saw them

each tight-fisted but quivering as they rested on the table, as though

their mistress struggled to suppress the manifestation of some emotion

as powerful as unfathomable to him.

 

“But why?” she demanded in bewilderment. “But why do you say that? What

can have happened to make you—?”

 

“Not fear of that Pack!” he laughed—“not that, I promise you.”

 

“Oh, I know!” she said impatiently—“I know that very well. But still I

don’t understand….”

 

“If it won’t bore you, I’ll try to explain.” He drew up his chair and

sat down again, facing her across the littered table. “I don’t suppose

you’ve ever stopped to consider what an essentially stupid animal a

crook must be. Most of them are stupid because they practise clumsily

one of the most difficult professions imaginable, and inevitably fail

at it, yet persist. They wouldn’t think of undertaking a job of civil

engineering with no sort of preparation, but they’ll tackle a

dangerous proposition in burglary without a thought, and pay for

failure with years of imprisonment, and once out try it again. That’s

one kind of criminal—the ninety-nine percent class—incurably stupid!

There’s another class, men whose imagination forewarns them of dangers

and whose mental training, technical equipment and sheer manual

dexterity enable them to attack a formidable proposition like a modern

safe—by way of illustration—and force its secret. They’re the

successful criminals, like myself—but they’re no less stupid, no less

failures, than the other ninety-nine in our every hundred, because they

never stop to think. It never occurs to them that the same

intelligence, applied to any one of the trades they must be masters of,

would not only pay them better, but leave them their self-respect and

rid them forever of the dread of arrest that haunts us all like the

memory of some shameful act…. All of which is much more of a lecture

than I meant to inflict upon you, Miss Shannon, and sums up to just

this: I‘ve stopped to think….”

 

With this he stopped for breath as well, and momentarily was silent,

his faint, twisted smile testifying to self-consciousness; but

presently, seeing that she didn’t offer to interrupt, but continued to

give him her attention so exclusively that it had the effect of

fascination, he stumbled on, at first less confidently. “When I woke up

it was as if, without my will, I had been thinking all this out in my

sleep. I saw myself for the first time clearly, as I have been ever

since I can remember—a crook, thoughtless, vain, rapacious, ruthless,

skulking in shadows and thinking myself an amazingly fine fellow

because, between coups, I would play the gentleman a bit, venture into

the light and swagger in the haunts of the gratin! In my poor,

perverted brain I thought there was something fine and thrilling and

romantic in the career of a great criminal and myself a wonderful

figure—an enemy of society!”

 

“Why do you say this to me?” she demanded abruptly, out of a phase of

profound thoughtfulness.

 

He lifted an apologetic shoulder. “Because, I fancy, I’m no longer

self-sufficient. I was all of that, twenty-four hours ago; but now

I’m as lonesome as a lost child in a dark forest. I haven’t a friend in

the world. I’m like a stray pup, grovelling for sympathy. And you are

unfortunate enough to be the only person I can declare myself to.

It’s going to be a fight—I know that too well!—and without something

outside myself to struggle toward, I’ll be heavily handicapped. But

if …” He faltered, with a look of wistful earnestness. “If I thought

that you, perhaps, were a little interested, that I had your faith to

respect and cherish … if I dared hope that you’d be glad to know I

had won out against odds, it would mean a great deal to me, it might

mean my salvation!”

 

Watching her narrowly, hanging upon her decision with the anxiety of a

man proscribed and hoping against hope for pardon, he saw her eyes

cloud and shift from his, her lips parted but hesitant; and before she

could speak, hastily interposed:

 

“Please don’t say anything yet. First let me demonstrate my sincerity.

So far I’ve done nothing to persuade you but—talk and talk and talk!

Give me a chance to prove I mean what I say.”

 

“How”—she enunciated only with visible effort and no longer met his

appeal with an open countenance—“how can you do that?”

 

“In the long run, by establishing myself in some honest way of life,

however modest; but now, and principally, by making reparation for at

least one crime I’ve committed that’s not irreparable.”

 

He caught her quick glance of enquiry, and met it with a confident nod

as he placed between them the morocco-bound jewel-case.

 

“In London, yesterday,” he said quietly, “I brought off two big coups.

One was deliberate, the other the inspiration of a moment. The one I’d

planned for months was the theft of the Omber jewels—here.”

 

He tapped the case and resumed in the same manner: “The other job needs

a diagram: Not long ago a Frenchman named Huysman, living in Tours, was

mysteriously murdered—a poor inventor, who had starved himself to

perfect a stabilizator, an attachment to render aeroplanes practically

fool-proof. His final trials created a sensation and he was on the eve

of selling his invention to the Government when he was killed and his

plans stolen. Circumstantial evidence pointed to an international spy

named Ekstrom—Adolph Ekstrom, once Chief of the Aviation Corps of the

German Army, cashiered for general blackguardism with a suspicion of

treason to boot. However, Ekstrom kept out of sight; and presently the

plans turned up in the German War Office. That was a big thing for

Germany; already supreme with her dirigibles, the acquisition of the

Huysman stabilizator promised her ten years’ lead over the world in the

field of aeroplanes…. Now yesterday Ekstrom came to the surface in

London with those self-same plans to sell to England. Chance threw him

my way, and he mistook me for the man he’d expected to meet—Downing

Street’s secret agent. Well—no matter how—I got the plans from him

and brought them over with me, meaning to turn them over to France, to

whom by rights they belong.”

 

“Without consideration?” the girl enquired shrewdly.

 

“Not exactly. I had meant to make no profit of the affair—I’m a bit

squeamish about tainted money!—but under present conditions, if France

insists on rewarding me with safe conduct out of the country, I shan’t

refuse it…. Do you approve?”

 

She nodded earnestly: “It would be worse than criminal to return them

to Ekstrom….”

 

“That’s my view of the matter.”

 

“But these?” The girl rested her hand upon the jewel-case.

 

“Those go back to Madame Omber. She has a home here in Paris that I

know very well. In fact, the sole reason why I didn’t steal them here

was that she left for England unexpectedly, just as I was all set to

strike. Now I purpose making use of my knowledge to restore the jewels

without risk of falling into the hands of the police. That will be an

easy matter…. And that brings me to a great favour I would beg of

you.”

 

She gave him a look so unexpectedly kind that it staggered him. But he

had himself well in hand.

 

“You can’t now leave Paris before morning—thanks to my having

overslept,” he explained. “There’s no honest way I know to raise money

before the pawn-shops open. But I’m hoping that won’t be necessary; I’m

hoping I can arrange matters without going to that extreme. Meanwhile,

you agree that these jewels must be returned?”

 

“Of course,” she affirmed gently.

 

“Then … will you accompany me when I replace them? There won’t be any

danger: I promise you that. Indeed, it would be more hazardous for you

to wait for me elsewhere while I attended to the matter alone. And I’d

like you to be convinced of my good faith.”

 

“Don’t you think you can trust me for that as well?” she asked, with a

flash of humour.

 

“Trust you!”

 

“To believe … Mr. Lanyard,” she told him gently but earnestly, “I do

believe.”

 

“You make me very happy,” he said … “but I’d like you to see for

yourself…. And I’d be glad not to have to fret about your safety in

my absence. As a bureau of espionage, Popinot’s brigade of Apaches is

without a peer in Europe. I am positively afraid to leave you

alone….”

 

She was silent.

 

“Will you come with me, Miss Shannon?” “That is your sole reason for

asking this of me?” she insisted, eyeing him steadily.

 

“That I wish you to believe in me—yes.”

 

“Why?” she pursued, inexorable.

 

“Because … I’ve already told you.”

 

“That you want someone’s good opinion to cherish…. But why, of all

people, me—whom you hardly know, of whom what little you do know is

hardly reassuring?”

 

He coloured, and boggled his answer…. “I can’t tell you,” he

confessed in the end.

 

“Why can’t you tell me?”

 

He stared at her miserably…. “I’ve no right….”

 

“In spite of all I’ve said, in spite of the faith you so generously

promise me, in your eyes I must still figure as a thief, a liar, an

impostor—self-confessed. Men aren’t made over by mere protestations,

nor even by their own efforts, in an hour, or a day, or a week. But

give me a year: if I can live a year in honesty, and earn my bread,

and so prove my strength—then, perhaps, I might find the courage,

the—the effrontery to tell you why I want your good opinion…. Now

I’ve said far more than I meant or had any right to. I hope,” he

ventured pleadingly—“you’re not offended.”

 

Only an instant longer could she maintain her direct and unflinching

look. Then, his meaning would no more be ignored. Her lashes fell; a

tide of crimson flooded her face; and with a quick movement, pushing

her chair a little from the table, she turned aside. But she said

nothing.

 

He remained as he had been, bending eagerly toward her. And in the long

minute that elapsed before either spoke again, both became oddly

conscious of the silence brooding in that lonely little house, of their

isolation from the world, of their common peril and mutual dependence.

 

“I’m afraid,” Lanyard said, after a time—“I’m afraid I know what you

must be thinking. One can’t do your intelligence the injustice to

imagine that you haven’t understood me—read all that was in my mind

and”—his voice fell—“in my heart. I own I was wrong to speak so

transparently, to suggest my regard for you, at such a time, under

such conditions. I am truly sorry, and beg you to consider unsaid all

that I should not have said…. After all, what earthly difference can

it make to you if one thief more decides suddenly to reform?”

 

That brought her abruptly to her feet, to show him a face of glowing

loveliness and eyes distractingly dimmed and softened.

 

“No!” she implored him breathlessly—“please—you mustn’t spoil it!

You’ve paid me the finest of compliments, and one I’m glad and grateful

for … and would I might think I deserved! … You say you need a year

to prove yourself? Then—I’ve no right to say this—and you must

please not ask me what I mean—then I grant you that year. A year I

shall wait to hear from you from the day we part, here in Paris…. And

tonight, I will go with you, too, and gladly, since you wish it!”

 

And then as he, having risen, stood at loss, thrilled,