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

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 M�tro—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 M�tro; 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 Arm�e. 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 h�tel particulier of that wealthy and amiable eccentric, Madame

H�l�ne 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