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

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 h�tel, 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

Minist�re 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 bedclothing. Athwart

his shelving chest, fat hands were folded in a gesture affectingly

na�ve. 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 bedclothing 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