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

to undress her?”

 

“I’m not ready yet. When I am—I’m old enough to take care of myself.

Besides, I prefer you to go to bed, Sidonie. It doesn’t improve your

temper to lose your beauty sleep.”

 

“Many thanks, madame. Good night.”

 

“Good night.”

 

The maid moved off toward the main staircase, while her mistress turned

deliberately through the salons toward the library.

 

At this, swinging back to the girl in a stride, and grasping her wrist

to compel attention, Lanyard spoke in a rapid whisper, mouth close to

her ear, but his solicitude so unselfish and so intense that for the

moment he was altogether unconscious of either her allure or his

passion.

 

“This way,” he said, imperatively drawing her toward the window by

which he had entered: “there’s a balcony outside—a short drop to the

ground.” And unlatching the window, he urged her through it. “Try to

leave by the back gateway—the one I showed you before—avoiding

Ekstrom–-”

 

“But surely you are coming too?” she insisted, hanging back.

 

“Impossible: there’s no time for us both to escape undetected. I shall

keep madame interested only long enough for you to get away. But take

this”—and he pressed his automatic into her hand. “No—take it; I’ve

another,” he lied, “and you may need it. Don’t fear for me, but go—O

my heart!—go!”

 

The footfalls of Madame Omber were sounding dangerously near, and

without giving the girl more opportunity to protest, Lanyard closed

the windows, shot the latch and stole like a cat round the farther

side of the desk, pausing within a few feet of the screen and safe.

 

The desk-lamp was still burning, where the girl had left it behind the

cinnabar screen; and Lanyard knew that the diffusion of its rays was

enough to render his figure distinctly and immediately visible to one

entering the doorway.

 

Now everything hung upon the temper of the householder, whether she

would take that apparition quietly, deceived by Lanyard’s mumming into

believing she had only a poor thievish fool to deal with, or with a

storm of bourgeois hysteria. In the latter event, Lanyard’s hand was

ready planted, palm down, on the top of the desk: should the woman

attempt to give the alarm, a single bound would carry the adventurer

across it in full flight for the front doors.

 

In the doorway the mistress of the house appeared and halted, her quick

bright eyes shifting from the light on the floor to the dark figure of

the thief. Then, in a stride, she found a switch and turned on the

chandelier, a blaze of light.

 

As this happened, Lanyard cowered, lifting an elbow as though to guard

his face—as though expecting to find himself under the muzzle of a

revolver.

 

The gesture had the calculated effect of focussing the attention of the

woman exclusively to him, after one swift glance round had shown her a

room tenanted only by herself and a cringing thief. And immediately it

was made manifest that, whether or not deceived, she meant to take the

situation quietly, if in a strong hand.

 

Her eyes narrowed and the muscles of her square, almost masculine jaw

hardened ominously as she looked the intruder up and down. Then a

flicker of contempt modified the grimness of her countenance. She took

three steps forward, pausing on the other side of the desk, her back to

the doorway.

 

Lanyard trembled visibly….

 

“Well!”—the word boomed like the opening gun of an engagement—“Well,

my man!”—the shrewd eyes swerved to the closed door of the safe and

quickly back again—“you don’t seem to have accomplished much!”

 

“For God’s sake, madame!” Lanyard blurted in a husky, shaken voice,

nothing like his own—“don’t have me arrested! Give me a chance! I

haven’t taken anything. Don’t call the flics!”

 

He checked, moving an uncertain hand towards his throat as if his

tongue had gone dry.

 

“Come, come!” the woman answered, with a look almost of pity. “I

haven’t called anyone—as yet.”

 

The fingers of one strong white hand were drumming gently on the top of

the desk; then, with a movement so quick and sure that Lanyard himself

could hardly have bettered it, they slipped down to a handle of a

drawer, jerked it open, closed round the butt of a revolver, and

presented it at the adventurer’s head.

 

Automatically he raised both hands.

 

“Don’t shoot!” he cried. “I’m not armed–-”

 

“Is that the truth?”

 

“You’ve only to search me, madame!”

 

“Thanks!” Madame’s accents now discovered a trace of dry humour. “I’ll

leave that to you. Turn out your pockets on the desk there—and,

remember, I’ll stand no nonsense!”

 

The weapon covered Lanyard steadily, leaving him no choice but to obey.

As it happened, he was glad of the excuse to listen for sounds to tell

how the girl was faring in her flight, and made a pretence of trembling

fingers cover the slowness with which he complied.

 

But he heard nothing.

 

When he had visibly turned every pocket inside out, and their contents

lay upon the desk, the woman looked the exhibits over incuriously.

 

“Put them back,” she said curtly. “And then fetch that chair over

there—the one in the corner. I’ve a notion I’d like to talk to you.

That’s the usual thing, isn’t it?”

 

“How?” Lanyard demanded with a vacant stare.

 

“In all the criminal novels I’ve ever read, the law-abiding householder

always sits down and has a sociable chat with the housebreaker—before

calling in the police. I’m afraid that’s part of the price you’ve got

to pay for my hospitality.”

 

She paused, eyeing Lanyard inquisitively while he restored his

belongings to his pockets. “Now, get that chair!” she ordered; and

waited, standing, until she had been obeyed. “That’s it—there!

Sit down.”

 

Leaning against the desk, her revolver held negligently, the speaker

favoured Lanyard with a more leisurely inspection; the harshness of

her stare was softened, and the anger which at first had darkened her

countenance was gone by the time she chose to pursue her catechism.

 

“What’s your name? No—don’t answer! I saw your eyes waver, and I’m

not interested in a makeshift alias. But it’s the stock question, you

know…. Do you care for a cigar?”

 

She opened a mahogany humidor on the desk.

 

“No, thanks.”

 

“Right—according to Hoyle: the criminal always refuses to smoke in

these scenes. But let’s forget the book and write our own lines. I’ll

ask you an original question: Why were you acting just now?”

 

“Acting?” Lanyard repeated, intrigued by the acuteness of this

masterful woman’s mentality.

 

“Precisely—pretending you were a common thief. For a moment you

actually made me think you afraid of me. But you’re neither the one

nor the other. How do I know? Because you’re unarmed, your voice has

changed in the last two minutes to that of a cultivated man, you’ve

stopped cringing and started thinking, and the way you walked across

the floor and handled that chair showed how powerfully you’re made. If

I didn’t have this revolver, you could overpower me in an instant—and

I’m no weakling, as women go. So—why the acting?”

 

Studying his captor with narrow interest, Lanyard smiled faintly and

shrugged, but made no answer. He could do no more than this—no more

than spare for time: the longer he indulged madame in her whim, the

better Lucy’s chances of scot-free escape. By this time, he reckoned,

she would have found her way through the service gate to the street.

But he was on edge with unending apprehension of mischance.

 

“Come, come!” Madame Omber insisted. “You’re hardly civil, my man.

Answer my question!”

 

“You don’t expect me to—do you?”

 

“Why not? You owe me at least satisfaction of my curiosity, in return

for breaking into my house.”

 

“But if, as you suggest, I am—or was—acting with a purpose, why

expect me to give the show away?”

 

“That’s logic. I knew you could think. More’s the pity!”

 

“Pity I can think?”

 

“Pity you can get your own consent to waste yourself like this. I’m

an old woman, and I know men better than most; I can see ability in

you. So I say, it’s a pity you won’t use yourself to better advantage.

Don’t misunderstand me: this isn’t the conventional act; I don’t hold

with encouraging a fool in his folly. You’re a fool, for all your

intelligence, and the only cure I can see for you is drastic

punishment.”

 

“Meaning the Sant�, madame?”

 

“Quite so. I tell you frankly, when I’m finished lecturing you, off you

go to prison.”

 

“If that’s the case I don’t see I stand to gain much by retailing the

history of my life. This seems to be your cue to ring for servants to

call the police.”

 

A trace of anger shone in the woman’s eyes. “You’re right,” she said

shortly; “I dare say Sidonie isn’t asleep yet. I’ll get her to

telephone while I keep an eye on you.”

 

Bending over the desk, without removing her gaze from the adventurer,

his captor groped for, found, and pressed a call-button.

 

From some remote quarter of the house sounded the grumble of an

electric bell.

 

“Pity you’re so brazen,” she observed. “Just a little less side, and

you’d be a rather engaging person!”

 

Lanyard made no reply. In fact he wasn’t listening.

 

Under the strain of that suspense, the iron control which had always

been his was breaking down—since now it was for another he was

concerned. And he wasted no strength trying to enforce it. The stress

of his anxiety was both undisguised and undisguisable. Nor did Madame

Omber overlook it.

 

“What’s the trouble, eh? Is it that already you hear the cell door

clang in your ears?”

 

As she spoke, Lanyard left his chair with a movement in the execution

of which all his wits co-operated, with a spring as lithe and sure

and swift as an animal’s, that carried him like a shot across the two

yards or so between them.

 

The slightest error in his reckoning would have finished him: for the

other had been watching for just such a move, and the revolver was

nearly level with Lanyard’s head when he grasped it by the barrel,

turned that to the ceiling, imprisoned the woman’s wrist with his

other hand, and in two movements had captured the weapon without

injuring its owner.

 

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to do anything

more violent than to put this weapon out of commission.”

 

Breaking it smartly, he shot a shower of cartridges to the door, and

tossed the now-useless weapon into a wastebasket beneath the desk.

 

“Hope I didn’t hurt you,” he added abstractedly—“but your pistol was

in my way!”

 

He took a stride toward the door, pulled up, and hung in hesitation,

frowning absently at the woman; who, without moving, laughed quietly

and watched him with a twinkle of malicious diversion.

 

He repaid this with a stare of thoughtful appraisal; from the first he

had recognized in her a character of uncommon tolerance and amiability.

 

“Pardon, madame, but–-” he began abruptly—and checked in constrained

appreciation of his impudence.

 

“If that’s permission to interrupt your reverie,” Madame Omber remarked,

“I don’t mind telling you, you’re the most extraordinary burglar I ever

heard of!”

 

Footfalls became audible on the staircase—the hasty scuffling of

slippered feet.

 

“Is that you, Sidonie?” madame called.

 

The voice of the maid replied: “Yes, madame—coming!”

 

“Well—don’t, just yet—not till I call you.”

 

“Very good, madame.”

 

The woman returned complete attention to Lanyard.

 

“Now, monsieur-of-two-minds, what is it you wish to say to