Alias The Lone Wolf - Louis Joseph Vance
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"No," Lanyard replied. "I never thought to be rid of you without one
more meeting--"
"Then there's good in the old bean yet," Phinuit interrupted in wasted
irony.
"One cherishes that hope, monsieur....But the trail I left for you to
follow! I would be an ass indeed if I thought you would fail to find
it. When one borrows a rowboat at Plum Island Light without asking
permission--government property, too--and leaves it moored to a dock
on the Greenport waterfront; when one arrives in Greenport clothed in
shirt and trousers only, and has to bribe its pardonably suspicious
inhabitants with handfuls of British gold--which they are the more
loath to accept in view of its present depreciation--in order to secure
a slopchest coat and shoes and transportation by railway to New York;
when a taxicab chauffeur refuses a sovereign for his fare from the
Pennsylvania Station to this hotel, and one is constrained to borrow
from the management--why, I should say the trail was fairly broad and
well blazed, mes amis."
"Be that as it may," said Phinuit--"here in a manner of speaking we all
are, at least, the happy family reunited and ready to talk business."
"And no hard feelings, Monsieur Phinuit?"
"There will be none"--Monk's eyebrows were at once sardonic and
self-satisfied; which speaks volumes for their versatility--"at least,
none on our side--when we are finished."
"That makes me more happy still. And you, Liane?"
The woman gave a negligent movement of pretty shoulders.
"One begins to see how very right you are, Michael," she said
wearily--"and always were, for that matter. If one wishes to do wrong,
one should do it all alone... and escape being bored to death by the...
Oh! the unpardonable stupidity of associates.
"But no, messieurs!" she insisted with temper as Monk and Phinuit
simultaneously flew signals of resentment. "I mean what I say. I wish I
had never seen any of you, I am sick of you all! What did I tell you
when you insisted on coming here to see Monsieur Lanyard? That you
would gain nothing and perhaps lose much. But you would not listen to
me, you found it impossible to believe there could be in all the world
a man who keeps his word, not only to others but to himself. You are so
lost in admiration of your own cleverness in backing that poor little
ship off the rocks and letting her fill and sink, so that there could
be no evidence of wrong-doing against you, that you must try to prove
your wits once more where they have always failed"--she illustrated
with a dramatic gesture--"against his! You say to yourselves: Since we
are wrong, he must be wrong; and since that is now clearly proved, that
he is as wrong in every way as we, then it follows naturally that he
will heed our threats and surrender to us those jewels...Those jewels!"
she declared bitterly, "which we would have been fortunate never to
have heard of!"
She threw herself back in her chair and showed them a scornful
shoulder, compressing indignant lips to a straight, unlovely line, and
beating out the devil's tattoo with her slipper.
Lanyard watched her with a puzzled smile. How much of this was acting?
How much, if anything, an expression of true feeling? Was she actually
persuaded it was waste of time to contend against him? Or was she
shrewdly playing upon his not unfriendly disposition toward her in the
hope that it would spare her in the hour of the grand debacle?
He could be sure of one thing only: since she was a woman, he would
never know...
Monk had been making ominous motions with the eyebrows, but Phinuit
made haste to be beforehand with him.
"You said one thing, mademoiselle, one thing anyway that meant
something: that Monsieur Lanyard would give up those jewels to us.
That's all arranged."
Lanyard turned to him with genuine amusement. "Indeed, monsieur?"
"Indeed and everything! We don't want to pull any rough stuff on you,
Lanyard, and we won't unless you force us to--"
"Rough stuff, monsieur? You mean, physical force?"
"Not exactly. But I think you'll recall my telling you I stand in well
with the Police Department in the old home town. Maybe you thought that
was swank. Likely you did. But it wasn't. I've got a couple of friends
of mine from Headquarters waiting downstairs this very minute, ready
and willing to cop out the honour of putting the Lone Wolf under arrest
for stealing the Montalais jewels."
"But is it possible," Lanyard protested, "you still do not understand
me? Is it possible you still believe I am a thief at heart and
interested in those jewels only to turn them to my own profit?"
He stared unbelievingly at the frosty eyes of Monk beneath their
fatuously stubborn brows, at the hard, unyielding eyes of Phinuit.
"You said it," this last replied with brevity.
"It was a good bluff while it lasted, Monsieur Lanyard," Monk added;
"but it couldn't last forever. You can't get away with it. Why not give
in gracefully, admit you're licked for once, be a good fellow?"
"My God!" Lanyard pronounced in comic despair--"it passes
understanding! It is true, then--and true especially of such as you are
to-day, as I was in my yesterday--that 'Whom Fortune wishes to destroy
she first makes mad'! For, I give you my word of honour, you seem to me
quite mad, messieurs, too mad to be allowed at large. And in proof of
my sincerity, I propose that you shall not longer remain at large."
"What's that?" Monk demanded, startled.
"Why, you have not hesitated to threaten me with the police. So now I,
in my turn, have the honour to inform you that, anticipating this call,
I have had relays of detectives waiting in this hotel day and night,
with instructions to guard the doors as soon as you were shown up to my
rooms. Be advised, Mr. Phinuit, and forget your pistol. Even to show it
in this city would make matters infinitely worse for you than they
are."
"He's lying," Monk insisted, putting a restraining hand on Phinuit's
arm as that one started from his chair in rage and panic. "He wouldn't
dare."
"Would I not? Then, since you believe nothing till it is proved to you,
messieurs, permit me..."
Lanyard crossed rapidly to the hall door and flung it open--and fell
back a pace with a cry of amazement.
At the threshold stood, not the detective whom he had expected to see,
but a woman with a cable message form in one hand, the other lifted to
knock.
"Madame!" Lanyard gasped--"Madame de Montalais!"
The cable-form fluttered to the floor as she entered with a gladness
in her face that was carried out by the impulsive gesture with which
she gave him her hands.
"My dear friend!" she cried happily--"I am so glad! And to think we
have been guests of the same hotel for three livelong days and never
knew it. I arrived by La Touraine Saturday, but your message,
telegraphed back from Combe-Redonde, reached me not five minutes ago. I
telephoned the desk, they told me the number of your room and--here I
am!"
"But I cannot believe my senses!"
With unanimous consent Jules, Phinuit and Monk uprose and made for the
door, only to find it blocked by the substantial form of a plain
citizen with his hands in his pockets and understanding in his eyes.
"Steady, gents!" he counselled coolly. "Orders are to let everybody in
and nobody out without Mr. Lanyard says so."
For a moment they hung in doubt and consternation, consulting one
another with dismayed stares. Then Phinuit made as if to shoulder the
man aside. But for the sake of the moral effect the latter casually
exhibited a pistol; and the moral effect of that was stupendous. Mr.
Phinuit disconsolately slouched back into the room.
Grasping the situation, Eve de Montalais turned to the quartet eyes
that glimmered in a face otherwise quite composed.
"But how surprising!" she declared. "Madame la Comtesse de
Lorgnes--Monsieur Monk--Mr. Phinuit--how delightful to see you all
again!"
The civility met with inadequate appreciation.
"Nothing could be more opportune," Lanyard declared; "for it is to this
lady, Madame de Montalais, and to these gentlemen that you owe the
recovery of your jewels."
"Truly?"
"As I am telling you. But for them, their charming hospitality in
inviting me to cruise aboard their yacht, but for the assistance they
lent me, though sometimes unconsciously, I admit--I should never have
been able to say to you to-day: Your jewels are in a safe place,
madame, immediately at your disposal."
"But how can I thank them?"
"Well," said Lanyard, "if you ask me, I think we have detained them
long enough, I believe they would be most grateful to be permitted to
leave and keep their numerous and pressing appointments elsewhere."
"I am entirely of your mind, monsieur."
Lanyard nodded to the man in the doorway--"All right, Mr. Murray"--and
he stood indifferently aside.
In silence the three men moved to the door and out, Phinuit with a
brazen swagger, Jules without emotion visible, Monk with eyebrows
adroop and flapping.
But Lanyard interposed when Liane Delorme would have followed.
"A moment, Liane, if you will be so good."
She paused, regarding him with a sombre and inscrutable face while he
produced from his coat-pocket a fat envelope without endorsement.
"This is yours."
The woman murmured blankly: "Mine?"
He said in a guarded voice: "Papers I found in the safe in your
library, that night. I had to take them for use in event of need.
Now...they are useless. But you are unwise to keep such papers, Liane.
Good-bye."
The envelope was unsealed. Lifting the flap, the woman half withdrew
the enclosure, recognised it at a glance, and crushed it in a
convulsive grasp, while the blood, ebbing swiftly from her face, threw
her rouge into livid relief. For an instant she seemed about to speak,
then bowed her head in dumb acknowledgment, and left the room.
Lanyard nodded to Mr. Murray, who amiably closed the door, keeping
himself on the outside of it.
Eve de Montalais was eyeing him with an indulgent and amused glance. As
he turned to her, she shook her head slowly in mockery of reproof.
"That woman loves you, monsieur," she stated quietly.
He succeeded admirably in looking as if the thought was strange to him.
"One is sure madame must be mistaken."
"Ah, but I am not!" said Eve de Montalais. "Who should know better the
signs that tell of woman's love for you, my dear?"
THE END