Alias the Lone Wolf Part 31

Of a sudden I see Dupont. He is crossing the street toward this house.

He does not know me, but quickens his pace, and hastily lets himself in at the service entrance.... Incidentally, if I were you, Liane, I would give my staff of servants a bad quarter of an hour in the morning. The door and gate were not locked; I am sure Dupont used no key. Some person of this establishment was careless or--worse."

"Trust me to look into that."

"Enfin! in his haste, Dupont leaves the door as he found it. I take a moment's thought; it is plain he is here for no good purpose. I follow him in... The state of this room tells the rest."

"It is no matter." The woman reviewed the ruins of her boudoir with an apathetic glance which was, however, anything but apathetic when she turned it back to Lanyard's face. Bending forward, she closed a hand upon his arm. Emotion troubled her accents. "My friend, my dear friend: tell me what I can do to repay you?"

"Help me," said Lanyard simply, holding her eyes.

"How is that--help you?"

"To make my honour clear." Speaking rapidly and with unfeigned feeling, he threw himself upon her generosity: "You know I am no more what I was once, in this Paris--when you first knew me. You know I have given up all that. For years I have fought an uphill fight to live down that evil fame in which I once rejoiced. Now I stand accused of two crimes."

"Two!"

"Two in one, I hardly know which is the greater: that of stealing, or that of violating the hospitality and confidence of those good ladies of the Chateau de Montalais. I cannot rest while they think me guilty... and not they alone, but all my friends, and I have made good friends, in France and England. So, if you think you owe me anything, Liane, help me to find and restore the Montalais jewels."

Liane Delorme sat back, her hand lifted from his arm and fell with a helpless gesture. Her eyes mirrored no more guile than a child's. Yet her accent was that of one who remonstrates, but with forbearance, against unreasonable demands.

"How can I do that?"

And she had protested her grat.i.tude to him! He knew that she was lying.

Anger welled in Lanyard's heart, but he was able to hold it in leash and let no sign of it show in manner or expression.

"You have much influence," he suggested, "here in Paris, with people of many cla.s.ses. A word from you here, a question there, pressure exerted in certain quarters, will help me more than all the powers of Prefecture and Surete combined. You know that."

"Let me think." She was staring at the floor. "You must give me time.

I will do what I can, I promise you that. Perhaps"--she met his gaze again, but he saw something crafty in her smile--"I have a scheme already in mind. We will discuss that in the morning, when I have slept on it."

"You give me new hope." Lanyard finished his drink and made as if to rise, but relapsed, a spasm of pain knotting his face. "Afraid I must have a cab," he said in a low voice. "And if you could lend me a coat of some sort to cover these rags...."

And indeed his ready-made evening clothes had fared badly in their first social adventure.

"But if you think I dream of letting you leave this house--in pain and perhaps to run into the arms of the police--you little know me, Monsieur Michael Lanyard!"

"Paul Martin, if you don't mind."

"The guest rooms are there." She waved a hand to indicate the front part of the house on that floor. "You will find everything you need to make you comfortable for to-night, and in the morning I will send to the Chatham for your things.... Or perhaps it would be wiser to wait till we are sure the police are not watching there for your return. But if they are, it will be a simple matter to find suitable clothing for you. Meanwhile we will have arrived at an understanding.... You comprehend, monsieur, I am resolved, this affair is now arranged?"

"I am well content, Liane."

And that was true enough; whatever she had in mind for him, she was only playing into his hands when she proposed to keep him near her. He managed to get out of the chair, and accepted the offer of her arm, but held back for a moment.

"But your servants..."

"Well, monsieur, what of them?"

"For one thing, they sleep sincerely."

"There are sound-proof walls between their part of the house and this.

More than that, they are forbidden to intrude, no matter what may happen, unless I summon them."

"But in the morning, Liane, when they regard this wreckage... I am afraid they will think me a tempestuous lover!"

"They will find me a tempestuous mistress," promised Liane Delorme, "when I question them about that open door."

XVIII

BROTHER AND SISTER

The storm had pa.s.sed off, an ardent noonday sun was collaborating with a coquettish breeze to make gay the window awnings of the chamber where Lanyard, in borrowed pyjamas and dressing-gown of silk, lay luxuriously bedded, listening to the purr of wide-awake Paris and, with an excellent cigar to chew on, ruminating upon the problematic issue of his latest turn of fortune, and not in the least downhearted about it.

Before turning in he had soaked and steamed most of the ache out of bone and muscle in the hottest water his flesh would suffer; and six hours unbroken slumber had done wonders toward lessening the distress his exertions last night had occasioned in the frail new tissues of his wound. Now, fresh from a cold shower following a second hot bath, and further comforted by a pet.i.t dejeuner served in bed, he felt measurably sane again, and sound in wind and limb as well, barring a few deep bruises whose soreness would need several days to heal.

A pleasant languour, like a light opiate, infused his consciousness; yet he was by no means mentally inactive.

The morning papers were scattered over the counterpane. Lanyard had diligently scanned all the stories that told of the identification of the murdered man of the Lyons rapide as the Comte de Lorgnes; and inasmuch as these were of one voice in praising the Prefecture for that famous feat of detective work, and not one line suggested that it did not deserve undivided credit, Lanyard had nothing to complain of there.

As for the Montalais robbery it was not even mentioned. The restricted size imposed upon French newspapers by the paper shortage of those days crowded out of their columns everything but news in true sense, and there could be none of that in connection with the Montalais affair until either Andre d.u.c.h.emin had been arrested or the jewels recovered from the real thief or thieves. And Lanyard was human enough to be almost as willing to have the first happen as the last, if it were not given to him to be the prime factor in their restoration.

For the time being--if he must confess the truth--he was actually rather enjoying himself, rather exhilarated than otherwise by the swiftly shifting scenes and characters of his unfolding investigations and by the brisk sword-play of wits in which he was called upon constantly to engage; both essential ingredients of the wine of life according to the one recipe he knew.

And then a review of recent events seemed to warrant the belief that, all things considered, he had thus far made fair progress toward his goal.

While it was true he did not as yet know what had become of the Montalais jewels, he had gathered together an acc.u.mulation of evidence which, however circ.u.mstantial and hypothetical, established acceptably to his intelligence a number of interesting inferences, to wit:

That Dupont had not left the neighbourhood of the Chateau de Montalais, after haunting it for upwards of a month, without definite knowledge that he would gain nothing by staying on, or without an equally definite objective, some motive more inspiring than such simple sensuousness as he might find in a.s.sa.s.sinating inoffensive folk indiscriminately.

That his attempt upon the life of Liane Delorme within twenty-four hours of the murder of de Lorgnes indicated conviction on his part that the two were coupled in some enterprise inimical to his personal interests.

That in spite of his mask of a stupid pig Dumont was proving himself mentally as well as physically an adversary worthy of all respect, and was--what was worse--still to be reckoned with.

That, as Lanyard had suspected all along, the Monk party had been visited upon the Chateau de Montalais through no vagary of chance whatever but as part of a deliberate design whose ulterior motive had transpired only with the disappearance of the jewels--to Dupont's vast but understandable vexation of spirit.

That the several members of the Monk party had been working in entire accord, as a close corporation; in which case the person whom the Comte de Lorgnes had expected to meet in Lyons must have been Monk Phinuit or Jules.

Consequently that at least one of the three last named had been the actual perpetrator of the robbery; and by the same token, that Liane had lied in a.s.serting that Monk and retinue had sailed for America nearly a week prior to its commission.

That Liane herself had not so suddenly decided to leave France, where she was after a fashion somebody, and journey to America, where she would be n.o.body, except in stress of mortal fear lest the fate that had befallen de Lorgnes befall her in turn--as would surely have been the case last night but for Lanyard.

That she must therefore have had a tolerably accurate knowledge either of Dupont's ident.i.ty or of the opposition interests which that one so ably represented; and thus was better informed than poor de Lorgnes, to whom Dupont had been unknown; which argued that Liane's role in the intrigue was that of a princ.i.p.al, whereas de Lorgnes had figured only as a subordinate.

That even if the woman did mean well toward Lanyard she was bound by stronger ties to others, whom she must consider first, and who were hardly likely to prove so well disposed; that her protestations of friendship and grat.i.tude must be valued accordingly.