The Lone Wolf Part 17

"I see." There had sounded in her tone a finality which signified desire to drop the subject. None the less, he pursued mischievously: "Permit me to wish you bon voyage, Miss Bannon... and to express my regret that circ.u.mstances have conspired to change your plans."

She was still eyeing him askance, dubiously, as if weighing the question of his acquaintance with her plans, when the fiacre lumbered from the rue Vivienne into the place de la Bourse, rounded that frowning pile, and drew up on its north side before the blue lights of the all-night telegraph bureau.

"With permission," Lanyard said, unlatching the door, "I'll stop off here. But I'll direct the cocher very carefully to the Gare du Nord.

Please don't even tip him--that's my affair. No--not another word of thanks; to have been permitted to be of service--it is a unique pleasure, Miss Bannon. And so, good night!"

With an effect that seemed little less than timid, the girl offered her hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Lanyard," she said in an unsteady voice. "I am sorry--"

But she didn't say what it was she regretted; and Lanyard, standing with bared head in the driving mist, touched her fingers coolly, repeated his farewells, and gave the driver both money and instructions, and watched the cab lurch away before he approached the telegraph bureau....

But the enigma of the girl so deeply intrigued his imagination that it was only with difficulty that he concocted a non-committal telegram to Roddy's friend in the Prefecture--that imposing personage who had watched with the man from Scotland Yard at the platform gates in the Gare du Nord.

It was couched in English, when eventually composed and submitted to the telegraph clerk with a fervent if inaudible prayer that he might be ignorant of the tongue.

_"Come at once to my room at Troyon's. Enter via adjoining room prepared for immediate action on important development. Urgent. Roddy."_

Whether or not this were Greek to the man behind the wicket, it was accepted with complete indifference--or, rather, with an interest that apparently evaporated on receipt of the fees. Lanyard couldn't see that the clerk favoured him with as much as a curious glance before he turned away to lose himself, to bury his ident.i.ty finally and forever under the incognito of the Lone Wolf.

He couldn't have rested without taking that one step to compa.s.s the arrest of the American a.s.sa.s.sin; now with luck and prompt action on the part of the Prefecture, he felt sure Roddy would be avenged by Monsieur de Paris.... But it was very well that there should exist no clue whereby the author of that mysterious telegram might be traced....

It was, then, not an ill-pleased Lanyard who slipped oft into the night and the rain; but his exasperation was elaborate when the first object that met his gaze was that wretched fiacre, back in place before the door, Lucia Bannon leaning from its lowered window, the cocher on his box brandishing an importunate whip at the adventurer.

He barely escaped choking on suppressed profanity; and for two sous would have swung on his heel and ignored the girl deliberately. But he didn't dare: close at hand stood a sergent de ville, inquisitive eyes bright beneath the dripping visor of his kepi, keenly welcoming this diversion of a cheerless hour.

With at least outward semblance of resignation, Lanyard approached the window.

"I have been guilty of some stupidity, perhaps?" he enquired with lip-civility that had no echo in his heart. "But I am sorry--"

"The stupidity is mine," the girl interrupted in accents tense with agitation. "Mr. Lanyard, I--I--"

Her voice faltered and broke off in a short, dry sob, and she drew back with an effect of instinctive distaste for public emotion. Lanyard smothered an impulse to demand roughly "Well, what now?" and came closer to the window.

"Something more I can do, Miss Bannon?"

"I don't know.... I've just found it out--I came away so hurriedly I never thought to make sure; but I've no money--not a franc!"

After a little pause he commented helpfully: "That does complicate matters, doesn't it?"

"What am I to do? I can't go back--I won't! Anything rather. You may judge how desperate I am, when I prefer to throw myself on your generosity--and already I've strained your patience--"

"Not much," he interrupted in a soothing voice. "But--half a moment--we must talk this over."

Directing the cocher to drive to the place Pigalle, he reentered the cab, suspicion more than ever rife in his mind. But as far as he could see--with that confounded sergo staring!--there was nothing else for it. He couldn't stand there in the rain forever, gossiping with a girl half-hysterical--or pretending to be.

"You see," she explained when the fiacre was again under way, "I thought I had a hundred-franc note in my pocketbook; and so I have--but the pocketbook's back there, in my room at Troyon's."

"A hundred francs wouldn't see you far toward New York," he observed thoughtfully.

"Oh, I hope you don't think--!"

She drew back into her corner with a little shudder of humiliation.

As if he hadn't noticed, Lanyard turned to the window, leaned out, and redirected the driver sharply: "Impa.s.se Stanislas!"

Immediately the vehicle swerved, rounded a corner, and made back toward the Seine with a celerity which suggested that the stables were on the Rive Gauche.

"Where?" the girl demanded as Lanyard sat back. "Where are you taking me?"

"I'm sorry," Lanyard said with every appearance of sudden contrition; "I acted impulsively--on the a.s.sumption of your complete confidence.

Which, of course, was unpardonable. But, believe me; you have only to say no and it shall be as you wish."

"But," she persisted impatiently--"you haven't answered me: what is this impa.s.se Stanislas?"

"The address of an artist I know--Solon, the painter. We're going to take possession of his studio in his absence. Don't worry; he won't mind. He is under heavy obligation to me--I've sold several canva.s.ses for him; and when he's away, as now, in the States, he leaves me the keys. It's a sober-minded, steady-paced neighbourhood, where we can rest without misgivings and take our time to think things out."

"But--" the girl began in an odd tone.

"But permit me," he interposed hastily, "to urge the facts of the case upon your consideration."

"Well?" she said in the same tone, as he paused.

"To begin with--I don't doubt you've good reason for running away from your father."

"A very real, a very grave reason," she affirmed quietly.

"And you'd rather not go back--"

"That is out of the question!"--with a restrained pa.s.sion that almost won his credulity.

"But you've no friends in Paris--?"

"Not one!"

"And no money. So it seems, if you're to elude your father, you must find some place to hide pro tem. As for myself, I've not slept in forty-eight hours and must rest before I'll be able to think clearly and plan ahead....And we won't accomplish much riding round forever in this ark. So I offer the only solution I'm capable of advancing, under the circ.u.mstances."

"You are quite right," the girl agreed after a moment. "Please don't think me unappreciative. Indeed, it makes me very unhappy to think I know no way to make amends for your trouble."

"There may be a way," Lanyard informed her quietly; "but we'll not discuss that until we've rested up a bit."

"I shall be only too glad--" she began, but fell silent and, in a silence that seemed almost apprehensive, eyed him speculatively throughout the remainder of the journey.

It wasn't a long one; in the course of the next ten minutes they drew up at the end of a shallow pocket of a street, a scant half-block in depth; where alighting, Lanyard helped the girl out, paid and dismissed the cocher, and turned to an iron gate in a high stone wall crowned with spikes.

The grille-work of that gate afforded glimpses of a small, dark garden and a little house of two storeys. Blank walls of old tenements shouldered both house and garden on either side.

Unlocking the gate, Lanyard refastened it very carefully, repeated the business at the front door of the house, and when they were securely locked and bolted within a dark reception-hall, turned on the electric light.