The Lone Wolf Part 22

She was silent.

"Will you come with me, Miss Shannon?" "That is your sole reason for asking this of me?" she insisted, eyeing him steadily.

"That I wish you to believe in me--yes."

"Why?" she pursued, inexorable.

"Because ... I've already told you."

"That you want someone's good opinion to cherish.... But why, of all people, me--whom you hardly know, of whom what little you do know is hardly rea.s.suring?"

He coloured, and boggled his answer.... "I can't tell you," he confessed in the end.

"Why can't you tell me?"

He stared at her miserably.... "I've no right...."

"In spite of all I've said, in spite of the faith you so generously promise me, in your eyes I must still figure as a thief, a liar, an impostor--self-confessed. Men aren't made over by mere protestations, nor even by their own efforts, in an hour, or a day, or a week. But give me a year: if I can live a year in honesty, and earn my bread, and so prove my strength--then, perhaps, I might find the courage, the--the effrontery to tell you why I want your good opinion.... Now I've said far more than I meant or had any right to. I hope," he ventured pleadingly--"you're not offended."

Only an instant longer could she maintain her direct and unflinching look. Then, his meaning would no more be ignored. Her lashes fell; a tide of crimson flooded her face; and with a quick movement, pushing her chair a little from the table, she turned aside. But she said nothing.

He remained as he had been, bending eagerly toward her. And in the long minute that elapsed before either spoke again, both became oddly conscious of the silence brooding in that lonely little house, of their isolation from the world, of their common peril and mutual dependence.

"I'm afraid," Lanyard said, after a time--"I'm afraid I know what you must be thinking. One can't do your intelligence the injustice to imagine that you haven't understood me--read all that was in my mind and"--his voice fell--"in my heart. I own I was wrong to speak so transparently, to suggest my regard for you, at such a time, under such conditions. I am truly sorry, and beg you to consider unsaid all that I should not have said.... After all, what earthly difference can it make to you if one thief more decides suddenly to reform?"

That brought her abruptly to her feet, to show him a face of glowing loveliness and eyes distractingly dimmed and softened.

"No!" she implored him breathlessly--"please--you mustn't spoil it!

You've paid me the finest of compliments, and one I'm glad and grateful for ... and would I might think I deserved! ... You say you need a year to prove yourself? Then--I've no right to say this--and you must please not ask me what I mean--then I grant you that year. A year I shall wait to hear from you from the day we part, here in Paris.... And to-night, I will go with you, too, and gladly, since you wish it!"

And then as he, having risen, stood at loss, thrilled, and incredulous, with a brave and generous gesture she offered him her hand.

"Mr. Lanyard, I promise...."

To every woman, even the least lovely, her hour of beauty: it had not entered Lanyard's mind to think this woman beautiful until that moment.

Of her exotic charm, of the allure of her pensive, plaintive prettiness, he had been well aware; even as he had been unable to deny to himself that he was all for her, that he loved her with all the strength that was his; but not till now had he understood that she was the one woman whose loveliness to him would darken the fairness of all others.

And for a little, holding her tremulous hand upon his finger-tips as though he feared to bruise it with a ruder contact, he could not take his eyes from her.

Then reverently he bowed his head and touched his lips to that hand ...

and felt it s.n.a.t.c.hed swiftly away, and started back, aghast, the idyll roughly dissipated, the castle of his dreams falling in thunders round his ears.

In the studio-skylight overhead a pane of gla.s.s had fallen in with a shattering crash as ominous as the Trump of Doom.

XIV

RIVE DROIT

Falling without presage upon the slumberous hush enveloping the little house marooned in that dead back-water of Paris, the shock of that alarm drove the girl back from the table to the nearest wall, and for a moment held her there, transfixed in panic.

To the wide, staring eyes that questioned his so urgently, Lanyard promptly nodded grave rea.s.surance. He hadn't stirred since his first, involuntary and almost imperceptible start, and before the last fragment of splintered gla.s.s had tinkled on the floor above, he was calming her in the most matter-of-fact manner.

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "It's nothing--merely Solon's skylight gone smash!"

"You call that nothing!" she cried gustily. "What caused it, then?"

"My negligence," he admitted gloomily. "I might have known that wide spread of gla.s.s with the studio electrics on, full-blaze, would give the show away completely. The house is known to be unoccupied; and it wasn't to be expected that both the police and Popinot's crew would overlook so shining a mark.... And it's all my fault, my oversight: I should have thought of it before.... High time I was quitting a game I've no longer the wit to play by the rules!"

"But the police would never...!"

"Certainly not. This is Popinot's gentle method of letting us know he's on the job. But I'll just have a look, to make sure.... No: stop where you are, please. I'd rather go alone."

He swung alertly through to the hall window, pausing there only long enough for an instantaneous glance through the draperies--a fugitive survey that discovered the impa.s.se Stanislas no more abandoned to the wind and rain, but tenanted visibly by one at least who lounged beneath the lonely lamp-post, a shoulder against it: a featureless civilian silhouette with attention fixed to the little house.

But Lanyard didn't doubt this one had a dozen fellows stationed within call....

Springing up the stairs, he paused prudently at the top-most step, one quick glance showing him the huge rent gaping black in the skylight, the second the missile of destruction lying amid a litter of broken gla.s.s--a brick wrapped in newspaper, by the look of it.

Swooping forward, he retrieved this, darted back from the exposed s.p.a.ce beneath the shattered skylight, and had no more than cleared the threshold than a second something fell through the gap and buried itself in the parquetry. This was a bullet fired from the roof of one of the adjoining buildings: confirming his prior reasoning that the first missile must have fallen from a height, rather than have been thrown up from the street, to have wrought such destruction with those tough, thick panes of clouded gla.s.s....

Swearing softly to himself, he descended to the kitchen.

"As I thought," he said coolly, exhibiting his find.

"They're on the roof of the next house--though they've posted a sentry in the street, of course."

"But that second thump--?" the girl demanded.

"A bullet," he said, placing the bundle on the table and cutting the string that bound it: "they were on the quivive and fired when I showed myself beneath the skylight."

"But I heard no report," she objected.

"A Maxim silencer on the gun, I fancy," he explained, unwrapping the brick and smoothing out the newspaper.... "Glad you thought to put on your hat before you came down," he added, with an approving glance for the girl; "it won't be safe to go up to the studio again--of course."

His nonchalance was far less real than it seemed, but helped to steady one who was holding herself together with a struggle, on the verge of nervous collapse.

"But what are we to do now?" she stammered. "If they've surrounded the house--!"

"Don't worry: there's more than one way out," he responded, frowning at the newspaper; "I wouldn't have picked this place out, otherwise. Nor would Solon have rented it in the first instance had it lacked an emergency exit, in event of creditors.... Ah--thought so!"

"What--?"

"Troyon's is gone," he said, without looking up. "This is to-night's Presse.... '_Totally destroyed by a fire which started at six-thirty this morning and in less than half an hour had reduced the ancient structure to a heap of smoking ashes_'! ..." He ran his eye quickly down the column, selecting salient phrases: "'_Believed to have been of incendiary origin though the premises were uninsured_'--that's an intelligent guess!... '_Narrow escape of guests in their '_whatyemaycallems...._'Three lives believed to have been lost ... one body recovered charred almost beyond recognition_'--but later identified as Roddy--poor devil! ... '_Two guests missing, Monsieur Lanyard, the well-known connoisseur of art, who occupied the room adjoining that of the unfortunate detective, and Mademoiselle Bannon, daughter of the American millionaire, who himself escaped only by a miracle with his secretary Monsieur Greggs, the latter being overcome by fumes_'--what a shame!... '_Police and firemen searching the ruins_'--hm-hm--' _extraordinary interest manifested by the Prefecture indicates a suspicion that the building may have been fired to conceal some crime of a political nature_.'"

Crushing the newspaper between his hands, he tossed it into a corner.

"That's all of importance. Thoughtful of Popinot to let me know, this way! The Prefecture, of course, is humming like a wasp's-nest with the mystery of that telegram, signed with Roddy's name and handed in at the Bourse an hour or so before he was 'burned to death.' Too bad I didn't know then what I do now; if I'd even remotely suspected Greggs'

a.s.sociation with the Pack was via Bannon.... But what's the use? I did my possible, knowing the odds were heavy against success."