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

me?”

 

“Why did you do that?” the adventurer asked, with a jerk of his head

toward the hall.

 

“Tell Sidonie to wait instead of calling for help? Because—well,

because you interest me strangely. I’ve got a theory you’re in a

desperate quandary and are about to throw yourself on my mercy.”

 

“You are right,” Lanyard admitted tersely.

 

“Ah! Now you do begin to grow interesting! Would you mind explaining

why you think I’ll be merciful?”

 

“Because, madame, I’ve done you a great service, and feel I can count

upon your gratitude.”

 

The Frenchwoman’s eyebrows lifted at this. “Doubtless, monsieur knows

what he’s talking about–-”

 

“Listen, madame: I am in love with a young woman, an American, a

stranger and friendless in Paris. If anything happens to me

tonight, if I am arrested or assassinated–-”

 

“Is that likely?”

 

“Quite likely, madame: I have enemies among the Apaches, and in my own

profession as well; and I have reason to believe that several of them

are in this neighbourhood tonight. I may possibly not escape their

attentions. In that event, this young lady of whom I speak will need

a protector.”

 

“And why must I interest myself in her fate, pray?”

 

“Because, madame, of this service I have done you … Recently, in

London, you were robbed–-”

 

The woman started and coloured with excitement: “You know something of

my jewels?”

 

“Everything, madame: it was I who stole them.”

 

“You? You are, then, that Lone Wolf?”

 

“I was, madame.”

 

“Why the past tense?” the woman demanded, eyeing him with a portentous

frown.

 

“Because I am done with thieving.”

 

She threw back her head and laughed, but without mirth: “A likely story,

monsieur! Have you reformed since I caught you here–-?”

 

“Does it matter when? I take it that proof, visible, tangible proof of

my sincerity, more than a meaningless date, would be needed to convince

you.”

 

“No doubt of that, Monsieur the Lone Wolf!”

 

“Could you ask better proof than the restoration of your stolen

property?”

 

“Are you trying to bribe me to let you off with an offer to return my

jewels?”

 

“I’m afraid emergency reformation wouldn’t persuade you–-”

 

“You may well be afraid, monsieur!”

 

“But if I can prove I’ve already restored your jewels–-?”

 

“But you have not.”

 

“If madame will do me the favour to open her safe, she will find them

there—conspicuously placed.”

 

“What nonsense–-!”

 

“Am I wrong in assuming that madame didn’t return from England until

quite recently?”

 

“But today, in fact–-”

 

“And you haven’t troubled to investigate your safe since returning?”

 

“It had not occurred to me–-”

 

“Then why not test my statement before denying it?”

 

With an incredulous shrug Madame Omber terminated a puzzled scrutiny

of Lanyard’s countenance, and turned to the safe.

 

“But to have done what you declare you have,” she argued, “you must

have known the combination—since it appears you haven’t broken this

open.”

 

The combination ran glibly off Lanyard’s tongue. And at this, with

every evidence of excitement, at length beginning to hope if not to

believe, the woman set herself to open the safe. Within a minute she

had succeeded, the morocco-bound jewel-case was in her hand, and a

hasty examination had assured her its treasure was intact.

 

“But why–-?” she stammered, pale with emotion—“why, monsieur, why?”

 

“Because I decided to leave off stealing for a livelihood.”

 

“When did you bring these jewels here?”

 

“Within the week—four or five nights since–-”

 

“And then—repented, eh?”

 

“I own it.”

 

“But came here again tonight, to steal a second time what you had

stolen once?”

 

“That’s true, too.”

 

“And I interrupted you–-”

 

“Pardon, madame: not you, but my better self. I came to steal—I could

not.”

 

“Monsieur—you do not convince. I fail to fathom your motives, but–-”

 

A sudden shock of heavy trampling feet in the reception-hall,

accompanied by a clash of excited voices, silenced her and brought

Lanyard instantly to the face-about.

 

Above that loud wrangle—of which neither had received the least

warning, so completely had their argument absorbed them—Sidonie’s

accents were audible:

 

“Madame—madame!”—a cry of protest.

 

“What is it?” madame demanded of Lanyard.

 

He threw her the word “Police!” as he turned and flung himself into the

recess of the window.

 

But when he wrenched it open the voice of a picket on the lawn saluted

him in sharp warning; and when, involuntarily, he stepped out upon the

balcony, a flash of flame split the gloom below, a loud report rang in

the quiet of the park, and a bullet slapped viciously the stone facing

of the window.

XXIV RENDEZVOUS

With as little ceremony as though the bullet had lodged in himself,

Lanyard tumbled back into the room, tripped, and fell sprawling; while

to a tune of clattering boots two sergents de ville lumbered valiantly

into the library and pulled up to discover Madame Omber standing

calmly, safe and sound, beside her desk, and Lanyard picking himself

up from the floor by the open window.

 

Behind them Sidonie trotted, wringing her hands.

 

“Madame!” she bleated—“they wouldn’t listen to me, madame—I couldn’t

stop them!”

 

“All right, Sidonie. Go back to the hall. I’ll call you when needed….

Messieurs, good morning!”

 

One of the sergents advanced with an uncertain salute and a superfluous

question: “Madame Omber–-?” The other waited on the threshold,

barring the way.

 

Lanyard measured the two speculatively: the spokesman seemed a bit old

and fat, ripe for his pension, little apt to prove seriously effective

in a rough-and-tumble; but the other was young, sturdy, and

broad-chested, with the poise of an athlete, and carried in addition to

his sword a pistol naked in his hand, while his clear blue eyes, meeting

the adventurer’s, lighted up with a glint of invitation.

 

For the present, however, Lanyard wasn’t taking any. He met that

challenge with a look of utter stupidity, folded his arms, lounged

against the desk, and watched Madame Omber acknowledge, none too

cordially, the other sergent’s query.

 

“I am Madame Omber—yes. What can I do for you?”

 

The sergent gaped. “Pardon!” he stammered, then laughed as one who

tardily appreciates a joke. “It is well we are arrived in time,

madame,” he added—“though it would seem you have not had great trouble

with this miscreant. Where is the woman?”

 

He moved a pace toward Lanyard: handcuffs jingled in his grasp.

 

“But a moment!” madame interposed. “Woman? What woman?”

 

Pausing, the older sergent explained in a tone of surprise:

 

“But his accomplice, naturally! Such were our instructions—to proceed

at once to madame’s h�tel, come in quietly by the servants’ entrance—

which would be open—and arrest a burglar with his female accomplice.”

 

Again the stout sergent moved toward Lanyard; again Madame Omber

stopped him.

 

“But one moment more, if you please!”

 

Her eyes, dense with suspicion, questioned Lanyard; who, with a

significant nod toward the jewel-case still in her hands, gave her a

glance of dumb entreaty.

 

After brief hesitation, “It is a mistake,” madame declared; “there is

no woman in this house, to my certain knowledge, who has no right to be

here… But you say you received a message? I sent none!”

 

The fat sergent shrugged. “That is not for me to dispute, madame. I

have only my orders to go by.”

 

He glared sullenly at Lanyard; who returned a placid smile that

(despite such hope as he might derive from madame’s irresolute manner)

masked a vast amount of trepidation. He felt tolerably sure Madame

Omber had not sent for police on prior knowledge of his presence in

the library. All this, then, would seem to indicate a new form of

attack on the part of the Pack. He had probably been followed and seen

to enter; or else the girl had been caught attempting to steal away and

the information wrung from her by force majeure…. Moreover, he

could hear two more pair of feet tramping through the salons.

 

Pending the arrival of these last, Madame Omber said nothing more.

 

And, unceremoniously enough, the newcomers shouldered into the

library—one pompous uniformed body, of otherwise undistinguished

appearance, promptly identified by the sergents de ville as monsieur

le commissaire of that quarter; the other, a puffy mediocrity, known

to Lanyard at least (if apparently to no one else) as Popinot.

 

At this confirmation of his darkest fears, the adventurer abandoned

hope of aid from Madame Omber and began quietly to reckon his chances

of escape through his own efforts.

 

But he was quite unarmed, and the odds were heavy: four against one,

all four no doubt under arms, and two at least—the sergents—men of

sound military training.

 

“Madame Omber?” enquired the commissaire, saluting that lady with

immense dignity. “One trusts that this intrusion may be pardoned, the

circumstances remembered. In an affair of this nature, involving this

repository of so historic treasures—”

 

“That is quite well understood, monsieur le commissaire,” madame

replied distantly. “And this monsieur is, no doubt, your aide?”

 

“Pardon!” the official hastened to identify his companion: “Monsieur

Popinot, agent de la S�ret�, who lays these informations!”

 

With a profound obeisance to Madame Omber, Popinot strode dramatically

over to confront Lanyard and explore his features with his small, keen,

shifty eyes of a pig; a scrutiny which the adventurer suffered with

superficial calm.

 

“It is he!” Popinot announced with a gesture. “Messieurs, I call upon

you to arrest this man, Michael Lanyard, alias ‘The Lone Wolf.’”

 

He stepped back a pace, expanding his chest in vain effort to eclipse

his abdomen, and glanced triumphantly at his respectful audience.

 

“Accused,” he added with intense relish, “of the murder of Inspector

Roddy of Scotland Yard at Troyon’s, as well as of setting fire to that

establishment—”

 

“For this, Popinot,” Lanyard interrupted in an undertone, “I shall some

day cut off your ears!” He turned to Madame Omber: “Accept, if you

please, madame, my sincere regrets … but this charge happens to be

one of which I am altogether innocent.”

 

Instantly, from lounging against the desk, Lanyard straightened up: and

the heavy humidor of brass and mahogany, on which his right hand had

been resting, seemed fairly to leap from its place as, with a sweep of

his arm, he sent it spinning point-blank at the younger sergent.

 

Before that one, wholly unprepared, could more than gasp, the humidor

caught him a blow like a kick just below the breastbone. He reeled, the

breath left him in one great gust, he sat down abruptly—blue eyes wide

with a look of aggrieved surprise—clapped both hands to his middle,

blinked, turned pale, and keeled over on his side.

 

But Lanyard hadn’t waited to note results. He was busy. The fat sergent

had leaped snarling upon his arm, and was struggling to hold it still

long enough to snap a handcuff round the wrist; while the commissaire

had started forward with a bellow of rage and two hands extended and

itching for the adventurer’s throat.

 

The first received a half-arm jab on the point of his chin that jarred

his entire system, and without in the least understanding how it

happened, found himself whirled around and laid prostrate in the

commissaire’s path. The latter tripped, fell, and planted two hard

knees, with the bulk of his weight atop them, on the apex of the

sergent’s paunch.

 

At the same time Lanyard, leaping toward the doorway, noticed Popinot

tugging at something in his hip-pocket.

 

Followed a vivid flash, then complete darkness: with a well-aimed

kick—an elementary movement of la savate—Lanyard had dislocated the

switch of