Alias The Lone Wolf - Louis Joseph Vance
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
"Presently," Liane prophesied darkly, "you may be talking about
nothing."
At a loss, Monk muttered: "Don't get you...."
"When you find yourself, some fine morning, with your throat cut in
your sleep, like poor de Lorgnes--or garroted, as I might have been."
"I'm not going to lose any sleep....." Monk began.
"Lose none before you have the vessel searched," Liane pleaded, with a
change of tone. "You know, messieurs, I am not a woman given to
hallucinations. I _saw_ ... And I tell you, while that assassin is at
liberty aboard this yacht, not one of our lives is worth a sou--no, not
one!"
"Oh, you shall have your search." Monk gave in as one who indulges a
childish whim. "But I can tell you now what we'll find--or won't."
"Then Heaven help us all!" Liane went swiftly to the door of her room,
but there hesitated, looking back in appeal to Lanyard. "I am
afraid...."
"Let me have a look round first."
And when Lanyard had satisfied himself there was nobody concealed in
any part of Liane's suite, and had been rewarded with a glance of
gratitude--"I shall lock myself in, of course," the woman said from the
threshold--"and I have my pistol, too."
"But I assure you," Monk commented in heavy sarcasm, "our intentions
are those of honourable men."
The door slammed, and the sound of the key turning in the lock
followed. Monk trained the eyebrows into a look of long-suffering
patience.
"A glass too much... Seein' things!"
"No," Lanyard voiced shortly his belief; "you are wrong. Liane saw
something."
"Nobody questions that," Phinuit yawned. "What one does question is
whether she saw a man or a figment of her imagination--some effect of
the shadows that momentarily suggested a man."
"Shadows do play queer tricks at night, at sea," Monk agreed. "I
remember once--"
"Then let us look the ground over and see if we can make that
explanation acceptable to our own intelligences," Lanyard cut in.
"No harm in that."
Phinuit fetched a pocket flash-lamp, and the three reconnoitred
exhaustively the quarters of the deck in which the apparition had
manifested itself to the woman. By no strain of credulity could the
imagination be made to accept the effect of shadows at the designated
spot as the shape of somebody standing there. On the other hand, when
Phinuit obligingly posed himself between the mouth of the companionway
and the skylight, it had to be admitted that the glow from either side
provided fairly good cover for one who might wish to linger there,
observing and unobserved.
"Still, I don't believe she saw anything," Monk persisted--"a phantom
Popinot, if anything."
"But wait. What is it we have here?"
Lanyard, scrutinising the deck with the flashlamp, stooped, picked up
something, and offered it on an outspread palm upon which he trained
the clear electric beam.
"Cigarette stub?" Monk said, and sniffed. "That's a famous find!"
"A cigarette manufactured by the French Regie."
"And well stepped on, too," Phinuit observed. "Well, what about it?"
"Who that uses this part of the deck would be apt to insult his palate
with such a cigarette? No one of us--hardly any one of the officers or
stewards."
"Some deck-hand might have sneaked aft for a look-see, expecting to
find the quarterdeck deserted at this hour."
"Even ordinary seamen avoid, when they can, what the Regie sells under
the name of tobacco. Nor is it likely such a one would risk the
consequences of defying Captain Monk's celebrated discipline."
"Then you believe it was Popinot, too?"
"I believe you would do well to make the search you have promised
thorough and immediate."
"Plenty of time," Monk replied wearily. "I'll turn this old tub inside
out, if you insist, in the morning."
"But why, monsieur, do you remain so obstinately incredulous?"
"Well," Monk drawled, "I've known the pretty lady a number of years,
and if you ask me she's quite up to playing little games all her own."
"Pretending, you mean--for private ends?"
The eyebrows offered a gesture urbane and sceptical.
Whether or not sleep brought Monk better counsel, the morning's
ransacking of the vessel and the examination of her crew proved more
painstaking than Lanyard had expected. And the upshot was precisely as
Monk had foretold, precisely negative. He reported drily to this effect
at an informal conference in his quarters after luncheon. He himself
had supervised the entire search and had made a good part of it in
person, he said. No nook or cranny of the yacht had been overlooked.
"I trust mademoiselle is satisfied," he concluded with a mockingly
civil movement of eyebrows toward Liane.
His reply was the slightest of shrugs executed by perfect shoulders
beneath a gown of cynical transparency. Lanyard was aware that the
violet eyes, large with apprehension, flashed transiently his way, as
if in hope that he might submit some helpful suggestion. But he had
none to offer. If the manner in which the search had been conducted
were open to criticism, that would have to be made by a mind better
informed than his in respect of things maritime. And he avoided
acknowledging that glance by even so much as seeming aware of it. And
in point of fact, coldly reviewed in dispassionate daylight, the thing
seemed preposterous to him, to be asked to believe that Popinot had
contrived to secrete himself beyond finding on board the Sybarite.
Without his participation the discussion continued.
He heard Phinuit's voice utter in accents of malicious amusement:
"Barring, of course, the possibility of connivance on the part of
officers or crew."
"Don't be an ass!" Monk snapped.
"Don't be unreasonable: I am simply as God made me."
"Well, it was a nasty job of work."
"Now, listen." Phinuit rose to leave, as one considering the conference
at an end. "If you persist in picking on me, skipper, I'll ravish you
of those magnificent eyebrows with a safety razor, some time when
you're asleep, and leave you as dumb as a Wop peddler who's lost both
arms."
Liane followed him out in silence, but her carriage was that of a queen
of tragedy. Lanyard got up in turn, and to his amazement found the
eyebrows signalling confidentially to him.
"What the devil!" he exclaimed, in an open stare.
Immediately the eyebrows became conciliatory.
"Well, monsieur, and what is your opinion?"
"Why, to me it would seem there might be something in the suggestion of
Monsieur Phinuit."
"Ridiculous!" Monk dismissed it finally. "Do you know, I rather fancy
my own.... Liane's up to something," he added, explanatory; and then,
as Lanyard said nothing--"You haven't told me yet what she was talking
to you about last night just before her--alleged fright."
Lanyard contrived a successful offensive with his own eyebrows.
"Oh?" he said, "haven't I?" and walked out.
Here was a new angle to consider. Monk's attitude hinted at a possible
rift in the entente cordiale of the conspirators. Why else should he
mistrust Liane's sincerity in asserting that she had seen Popinot?
Aside from the question of what he imagined she could possibly gain by
making a scene out of nothing--a riddle unreadable--one wondered
consumedly what had happened to render Monk suspicious of her good
faith.
The explanation, when it was finally revealed to Lanyard by the most
trivial of incidents, made even his own blindness seem laughable.
For three more days the life of the ship followed in unruffled
tranquillity its ordered course. Liane Delorme was afflicted with no
more visions, as the captain would have called them; though by common
consent the subject had been dropped upon the failure of the search,
and to all seeming was rapidly fading from the minds of everybody but
Liane herself and Lanyard. This last continued to plague himself with
the mystery and, maintaining always an open mind, was prepared at any
time to be shockingly enlightened; that is, to discover that Liane had
not cried wolf without substantial reason. For he had learned this much
at least of life, that everything is always possible.
As for Liane, she made no secret of her unabated timidity, yet suffered
it with such fortitude as could not fail to win admiration. If she was
a bit more subdued, a trifle less high-spirited than was her habit, if
she refused positively to sit with her back to any door or to retire
for the night until her quarters had been examined, if (as Lanyard
suspected) she was never unarmed for a moment, day or night, she
permitted no signs of mental strain to mar the serenity of her
countenance or betray the studied graciousness of her gestures.
Toward Lanyard she bore herself precisely as though nothing had
happened to disturb the even adjustment of their personal relations;
or, perhaps, as if she considered everything had happened, so that
their rapport had become absolute; at all events, with a pleasing
absence of constraint. He really couldn't make her out. Sometimes he
thought she wished him to believe she was not as other women and could
make rational allowance for his poor response to her naive overtures.
But that seemed so abnormal, he felt forced to fall back on the theory
that her declaration had been nothing more than a minor gambit in
whatever game she was playing, and that consequently she bore no malice
because of its failure. No matter which explanation was the true one,
no matter which keyed her temper toward him, Lanyard found himself
liking the woman better, not as a woman but as another human being,
than he had ever thought to. Say what you liked, in this humour she was
charming.
But he never for an instant imagined she was meekly accepting defeat at
his hands instead of biding her time to resume the attack from a new
quarter. So he wasn't at all surprised when, one evening, quite early
after dinner, she contrived another tete-a-tete, and with good
conversational generalship led their talk presently into a channel of
amiable personalities.
"And have you been thinking about what we said--or what I said, my
friend--that night--so long ago it seems!--three nights ago?"
"But inevitably, Liane."
"You have not forgotten my stupidity, then."
"I have forgotten nothing."
She made a pretty mouth of doubt. "Would it not have been more kind to
forget?"
"Such compliments are not easily forgotten."
"You are sure, quite sure it was a compliment?"
"No-o; by no means sure. Still, I am a man, and I am giving you the
full benefit of every doubt."
She laughed, not ill-pleased. "But what a man! how blessed of the gods
to be able to laugh at yourself as well as at me."
"Undeceive yourself: I could never laugh at you, Liane. Even if one did
not believe you to be a great natural comedienne at will, one would
always wonder what your purpose was--oh yes! with deep respect one
would wonder about that."
"And you have been wondering these last three days? Well, tell me what
you think my purpose was in abandoning all maidenly reserve and
throwing myself at your head."
"Why," said Lanyard with a look of childlike candour, "you might, you
know, have been uncontrollably swayed by some passionate impulses of
the heart."
"But otherwise--?" she prompted, hugely amused.
"Oh, if you had a low motive in trying to make a fool of me, you know
too well how to hide your motive from such a fool."
In a fugitive seizure of thoughtfulness the violet eyes lost all their
impishness. She sighed, the bright head drooped a little toward the
gleaming bosom, a hand stole out to rest lightly upon his once again.
"It was not acting, Michael--I tell you that frankly--at least, not all
acting."
"Meaning, I take it, you know love too well to make it artlessly."
"I'm afraid so, my dear," said Liane Delorme with another sigh. "You
know: I am afraid of you. You see everything so clearly..."
"It's a vast pity. I wish I could outgrow it. One misses so many
amusing emotions when one sees too clearly."
During another brief pause, Lanyard saw Monk come on deck, pause, and
search them out, in the chairs they occupied near the taffrail, much as
on that other historic night. Not that he experienced any difficulty in
locating them; for this time the decklights were burning clearly.
Nevertheless, Captain Monk confessed emotion at sight of those two in a
quite perceptible start; and Lanyard saw the eyebrows tremendously
agitated as their manipulator moved aft.
Unconscious of all this, Liane ended her pensive moment by leaning
toward Lanyard and making demoralizing eyes, while the hand left his
and stole with a caressing gesture up his forearm.
"Is love, then, distasteful to you unless it be truly artless,
Michael?"
"There's so much to be said about that, Liane," he evaded.
Monk was standing over them, a towering figure in white with the most
forbidding eyebrows Lanyard had ever seen.
"Might one suggest," he did suggest in iced accents, "that the
quarter-deck is a fairly conspicuous place for this exhibition of
family affection?"
Liane Delorme turned up an enquiring look, tinged slightly with an
impatience which all at once proved too much for her.
"Oh, go to the devil!" she snapped in that harsh voice of the sidewalks
which she was able to use and discard at will.
For a moment Monk made no reply; and Lanyard remarked a curious
quivering of that excessively tall, excessively attenuated body, a real
trembling, and suddenly understood that the absurd creature was being
shaken by jealousy, by an enormous passion of jealousy, quite beyond
his control, that shook him very much as a cat might shake a mouse.
It was too funny to be laughable, it was comic in a way to make one
want to weep. So that Lanyard, who refused to weep in public, could
merely gape in speechless and transfixed rapture. And perhaps this was
fortunate; otherwise Monk must have seen that his idiotic secret was
out, the sport of ribald mirth, and the situation must have been
precipitated with a vengeance and an outcome impossible to predict. As
it was, absorbed in his inner torment, Monk was insensible to the peril
that threatened his stilted but precious dignity, which he proceeded to
parade, as it were underlining it with the eyebrows, to lend emphasis
to his words.
"So long as this entertaining fiction of brother-and-sister is thought
worth while," he said with infuriated condescension, "it might be
judicious not to indulge in inconsistent and unseemly demonstrations of
affection within view of my officers and crew. Suppose we..." He choked
a little. "In short, I came to invite you to a little conference in my
rooms, with Mr. Phinuit."
"Conference?" Liane enquired coolly, without stirring. "I know nothing
of this conference."
"Mr. Phinuit and I are agreed that Monsieur Lanyard is entitled to know
more about our intentions while he has time to weigh them carefully. We
have only four more days at sea..."
Unable longer to contain himself, Lanyard left his chair with alacrity.
"But this is so delightful! You've no idea, really, monsieur, how I
have looked forward to this moment." And to Liane: "Do come, and see
how I take it, this revelation of my preordained fate. It will be, I
trust sincerely, like a man."
With momentary hesitation, and in a temper precluding any sympathy,
with his humour, the woman rose and silently followed with him that
long-legged figure whose stalk held so much dramatic significance as he
led to the companionway.
After that it was refreshing to find unromantic Mr. Phinuit lounging
beside the captain's desk with crossed feet overhanging one corner of
it and mind intent on the prosaic business of paring his fingernails.
Lanyard nodded to him with great good temper and--while Phinuit lowered
his feet and put away his penknife--considerately placed a chair for
Liane in the position in which she preferred to sit, with her face
turned a little from the light. Nor would his appreciation of the
formality which seemed demanded by Monk's solemn manner, permit him to
sit before the captain had taken his own chair behind the desk.
Then, however, he discovered the engaging spontaneity of a schoolboy at
a pantomime, and drawing up a chair sat on the edge of it and addressed
himself with unaffected eagerness to the most portentous eyebrows in
captivity.
"Now," he announced with a little bow, "for what, one imagines, Mr.
Phinuit would term the Elaborate Idea!"
XXIV
HISTORIC REPETITION
Phinuit grinned, then smothered a little yawn. Liane Delorme gave a
small, disdainful movement of shoulders, and posed herself becomingly,
resting an elbow on the arm of her chair and inclining her cheek upon
two fingers of a jewelled hand. Thus she sat somewhat turned from Monk
and Phinuit, but facing Lanyard, to whom her grave but friendly eyes
gave undivided heed, for all the world as if there were no others
present: she seemed to wait to hear him speak again rather than to care
in the least what Monk would find to say.
Captain Monk filled in that pause with an impressive arrangement of
eyebrows. Then, fixing his gaze, not upon Lanyard, but upon the point
of a pencil with which his incredibly thin fingers traced elaborate but
empty designs upon the blotter, he opened his lips, hemmed in warning
that he was about to speak, and seemed tremendously upset to find that
Liane was inconsiderately forestalling him.
Her voice was at its most musical pitch, rather low for her, fluting,
infinitely disarming and seductive.
"Let me say to you, mon ami, that--naturally I know what is coming--I
disapprove absolutely of this method of treating with you."
"But it is such an honour to be considered important enough to be
treated with at all!"
"You have the true gift for sarcasm: a pity to waste it on an audience
two-thirds incapable of appreciation."
"Oh, you're wrong!" Phinuit declared earnestly. "I'm appreciative, I
think the dear man's immense."
"Might I suggest"--the unctuous tones of Captain Monk issued from under
mildly wounded eyebrows--"if any one of us were unappreciative of
Monsieur Lanyard's undoubted talents, he would not be with us tonight."
"You might suggest it," Phinuit assented, "but that wouldn't make it
so, it is to mademoiselle's appreciation that you and I owe this treat,
and you know it. Now quit cocking those automatic eyebrows at me;
you've been doing that ever since we met, and they haven't gone off
yet, not once."
Irrepressible, Liane's laughter pealed; and though he couldn't help
smiling, Lanyard hastened to offer up himself on the altar of peace.
"But--messieurs!--you interest me so much. Won't you tell me quickly
what possible value my poor talents can have found in your sight?"
"You tell him, Monk," Phinuit said irreverently--"I'm no tale-bearer."
Monk elevated his eyebrows above recognition of the impertinence, and
offered Lanyard a bow of formidable courtesy.
"They are such, monsieur," he said with that deliberation which becomes
a diplomatic personage--"your talents are such that you can, if you
will, become invaluable to us."
Phinuit chuckled outright at Lanyard's look of polite obtuseness.
"Never sail a straight course--can you skipper?--when you can get there
by tacking. Here: I'm a plain-spoken guy, let me act as an interpreter.
Mr. Lanyard: this giddy association of malefactors here present has the
honour to invite you to become a full-fledged working member and
stockholder of equal interest with the rest of us, participating in all
benefits of the organization, including police protection. And as added
inducement we're willing to waive initiation fee and dues. Do I make
myself clear?"
"But perfectly."
"It's like this: I've told you how we came together, the five of us,
including Jules and Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes. Now we expect this
venture, our first, to pan out handsomely. There'll be a juicy melon
cut when we get to New York. There's a lot more--I think you
understand--than the Montalais plunder to whack up on. We'll make the
average get-rich-quick scheme look like playing store in the back-yard
with two pins the top price for anything on the shelves. And there
isn't any sane reason why we need stop at that. In fact, we don't mean
to. The Sybarite will make more voyages, and if anything should happen
to stop it, there are other means of making the U. S. Customs look
foolish. Each of us contributes valuable and essential services,
mademoiselle, the skipper, my kid-brother, even I--and I pull a strong
oar with the New York Police Department into the bargain. But there's a
vacancy in our ranks, the opening left by the death of de Lorgnes, an
opening that nobody could hope to fill so well as you. So we put it up
to you squarely: If you'll sign on and work with us, we'll turn over to
you a round fifth share of the profits of this voyage as well as
everything that comes after. That's fair enough, isn't it?"
"But more than fair, monsieur."
"Well, it's true you've done nothing to earn a fifth interest in the
first division..."
"Then, too, I am here, quite helpless in your hands."
"Oh, we don't look at it that way----"
"Which," Liane sweetly interrupted, "is the one rational gesture you
have yet offered in this conference, Monsieur Phinuit."
"Meaning, I suppose, Mr. Lanyard is far from being what he says,
helpless in our hands."
"Nor ever will be, my poor friend, while he breathes and thinks."
"But, Liane!" Lanyard deprecated, modestly casting down his eyes--"you
overwhelm me."
"I don't believe you," Liane retorted coolly.
For some moments Lanyard continued to stare reflectively at his feet.
Nothing whatever of his thought was to be gathered from his
countenance, though eyes more shrewd to read than those of Phinuit or
Monk were watching it intently.
"Well, Mr. Lanyard, what do you say?"
Lanyard lifted his meditative gaze to the face of Phinuit. "But surely
there is more...." he suggested in a puzzled way.
"More what?"
"I find something lacking.... You have shown me but one side of the
coin. What is the reverse? I appreciate the honour you do me, I
comprehend fully the strong inducements I am offered. But you have
neglected--an odd oversight on the part of the plain-spoken man you
profess to be--you have forgotten to name the penalty which would
attach to a possible refusal."
"I guess it's safe to leave that to your imagination."
"There would be a penalty, however?"
"Well, naturally, if you're not with us, you're against us. And to take
that stand would oblige us, as a simple matter of self-preservation, to
defend ourselves with every means at our command."
"Means which," Lanyard murmured, "you prefer not to name."
"Well, one doesn't like to be crude."
"I have my answer, monsieur--and many thanks. The parallel is
complete."
With a dim smile playing in his eyes and twitching at the corners of
his lips, Lanyard leaned back and studied the deck beams. Liane Delorme
sat up with a movement of sharp uneasiness.
"Of what, my friend, are you thinking?"
"I am marvelling at something everybody knows--that history does repeat
itself."
The woman made a sudden hissing sound, of breath drawn shortly between
closed teeth. "I hope not!" she sighed.
Lanyard opened his eyes wide at her. "You hope not, Liane?"
"I hope this time history will not altogether repeat itself. You see,
my friend, I think I know what is in your mind, memories of old
times...."
"True: I am thinking of those days when the Pack hunted the Lone Wolf
in Paris, ran him to earth at last, and made him much the same offer as
you have made to-night.... The Pack, you should know, messieurs, was
the name assumed by an association of Parisian criminals, ambitious
like you, who had grown envious of the Lone Wolf's success, and wished
to persuade him to run with them."
"And what happened?" Phinuit enquired.
"Why it so happened that they chose the time when I had made up my mind
to be good for the rest of my days. It was all most unfortunate."
"What answer did you give them, then?"
"As memory serves, I told them they could all go plumb to hell."
"So I hope history will not repeat, this time," Liane interjected.
"And did they go?" Monk asked.
"Presently, some of them, ultimately all; for some lingered a few years
in French prisons, like that great Popinot, the father of monsieur who
has caused us so much trouble."
"And you----?"
"Why," Lanyard laughed, "I have managed to keep out of jail, so I
presume I must have kept my vow to be good."
"And no backsliding?" Phinuit suggested with a leer.
"Ah! you must not ask me to tell you everything. That is a matter
between me and my conscience."
"Well," Phinuit hazarded with a good show of confidence, "I guess you
won't tell us to go plumb to hell, will you?"
"No; I promise to be more original than that."
"Then you refuse!" Liane breathed tensely.
"Oh, I haven't said that! You must give me time to think this over."
"I knew that would be his answer," Monk proclaimed, pride in his
perspicuity shaping the set of his eyebrows. "That is why I was firm
that we should wait no longer. You have four days in which to make up
your mind, monsieur."
"I shall need them."
"I don't see why," Phinuit argued: "it's an open and shut proposition,
if ever there was one."