The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance

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But he was mistaken.

With a surly shrug the spy swung about and marched straight to the kiosk
of the underground railway, into which, without one backward glance, he
disappeared.

Two minutes later the earth beneath Lanyard's feet quaked with the crash
and rumble of a north-bound train.

He waited three minutes longer; but Ekstrom didn't reappear; and at
length convinced that his warning had proved effectual, Lanyard turned
and made off.

XVI

RESTITUTION

For all that success had rewarded his effrontery, Lanyard's mind was
far from easy during the subsequent hour that he spent before
attempting to rejoin Lucy Shannon, dodging, ducking and doubling across
Paris and back again, with design to confuse and confound any jackals
of the Pack that might have picked up his trail as adventitiously as
Ekstrom had.

His delight, indeed, in discomfiting his dupe was chilled by
apprehension that it were madness, simply because the spy had proved
unexpectedly docile, to consider the affaire Ekstrom closed. In the
very fact of that docility inhered something strange and ominous, a
premonition of evil which was hardly mitigated by finding the girl safe
and sound under the wing of madame la concierge, in the little court of
private stables, where he rented space for his car, off the rue des
Acacias.

Monsieur le concierge, it appeared, was from home; and madame,
thick-witted, warm-hearted, simple body that she was, discovered a
phase of beaming incuriosity most grateful to the adventurer, enabling
him as it did to dispense with embarrassing explanations, and to whisk
the girl away as soon as he liked.

This last was just as soon as personal examination had reassured him
with respect to his automobile--superficially an ordinary motor-cab of
the better grade, but with an exceptionally powerful engine hidden
beneath its hood. A car of such character, passing readily as the
town-car of any family in modest circumstances, or else as what Paris
calls a voiture de remise (a hackney car without taximeter) was a
tremendous convenience, enabling its owner to scurry at will about
cab-ridden Paris free of comment. But it could not be left standing in
public places at odd hours, or for long, without attracting the
interest of the police, and so was useless in the present emergency.
Lanyard, however, entertained a shrewd suspicion that his plans might
all miscarry and the command of a fast-travelling car soon prove
essential to his salvation; and he cheerfully devoted a good half-hour
to putting the motor in prime trim for the road.

With this accomplished--and the facts established through discreet
interrogation of madame la concierge that no enquiries had been made
for "Pierre Lamier," and that she had noticed no strange or otherwise
questionable characters loitering in the neighbourhood of late--he was
ready for his first real step toward rehabilitation....

It was past one in the morning when, with the girl on his arm, he
issued forth into the dark and drowsy rue des Acacias and, moving
swiftly, crossed the avenue de la Grande Armee. Thereafter, avoiding
main-travelled highways, they struck southward through tangled side
streets to aristocratic Passy, skirted the boulevards of the
fortifications, and approached the private park of La Muette.

The hotel particulier of that wealthy and amiable eccentric, Madame
Helene Omber, was a souvenir of those days when Passy had been suburban.
A survival of the Revolution, a vast, dour pile that had known few
changes since the days of its construction, it occupied a large, unkempt
park, irregularly triangular in shape, bounded by two streets and an
avenue, and rendered private by high walls crowned with broken glass.
Carriage gates opened on the avenue, guarded by a porter's lodge; while
of three posterns that pierced the walls on the side streets, one only
was in general use by the servants of the establishment; the other two
were presumed to be permanently sealed.

Lanyard, however, knew better.

When they had turned off from the avenue, he slackened pace and moved at
caution, examining the prospect narrowly.

On the one hand rose the wall of the park, topped by naked, soughing
limbs of neglected trees; on the other, across the way, a block of tall
old dwellings, withdrawn behind jealous garden walls, showed stupid,
sleepy faces and lightless eyes.

Within the perspective of the street but three shapes stirred; Lanyard
and the girl in the shadow of the wall, and a disconsolate, misprized
cat that promptly decamped like a terror-stricken ghost.

Overhead the sky was breaking and showing ebon patches and infrequent
stars through a wind-harried wrack of cloud. The night had grown
sensibly colder, and noisy with the rushing sweep of a new-sprung wind.

Several yards from the postern-gate, Lanyard paused definitely, and
spoke for the first time in many minutes; for the nature of their
errand had oppressed the spirits of both and enjoined an unnatural
silence, ever since their departure from the rue des Acacias.

"This is where we stop," he said, with a jerk of his head toward the
wall; "but it's not too late--"

"For what?" the girl asked quickly.

"I promised you no danger; but now I've thought it over, I can't
promise that: there's always danger. And I'm afraid for you. It's not
yet too late for you to turn back and wait for me in a safer place."

"You asked me to accompany you for a special purpose," she argued; "you
begged me to come with you, in fact.... Now that I have agreed and come
this far, I don't mean to turn back without good reason."

His gesture indicated uneasy acquiescence. "I should never have asked
this of you. I think I must have been a little mad. If anything should
come of this to injure you...!"

"If you mean to do what you promised--"

"Do you doubt my sincerity?"

"It was your own suggestion that you leave me no excuse for doubt..."

Without further remonstrance, if with a mind beset with misgivings, he
led on to the gate--a blank door of wood, painted a dark green, deeply
recessed in the wall.

In proof of his assertion that he had long since made every preparation
to attack the premises, Lanyard had a key ready and in the lock almost
before they reached it.

And the door swung back easily and noiselessly as though on well-greased
hinges. As silently it shut them in.

They stood upon a weed-grown gravel path, hedged about with thick masses
of shrubbery; but the park was as black as a pocket; and the heavy
effluvia of wet mould, decaying weeds and rotting leaves that choked the
air, seemed only to render the murk still more opaque.

But Lanyard evidently knew his way blindfold: though motives of prudence
made him refrain from using his flash-lamp, he betrayed not the least
incertitude in his actions.

Never once at loss for the right turning, he piloted the girl swiftly
through a bewildering black labyrinth of paths, lawns and thickets....

In due course he pulled up, and she discovered that they had come out
upon a clear space of lawn, close beside the featureless, looming bulk of
a dark and silent building.

An admonitory grasp tightened upon her fingers, and she caught his
singularly penetrating yet guarded whisper:

"This is the back of the house--the service-entrance. From this door a
broad path runs straight to the main service gateway; you can't mistake
it; and the gate itself has a spring lock, easy enough to open from the
inside. Remember this in event of trouble. We might become separated in
the darkness and confusion...."

Gently returning the pressure, "I understand," she said in a whisper.

Immediately he drew her on to the house, pausing but momentarily before a
wide doorway; one half of which promptly swung open, and as soon as they
had passed through, closed with no perceptible jar or click. And then
Lanyard's flash-lamp was lancing the gloom on every hand, swiftly raking
the bounds of a large, panelled servants' hall, until it picked out the
foot of a flight of steps at the farther end. To this they moved
stealthily over a tiled flooring.

The ascent of the staircase was accomplished, however, only with infinite
care, Lanyard testing each rise before trusting it with his weight or the
girl's. Twice he bade her skip one step lest the complaints of the ancient
woodwork betray them. In spite of all this, no less than three hideous
squeals were evoked before they gained the top; each indicating a pause
and wait of several breathless seconds.

But it would seem that such servants as had been left in the house, in
the absence of its chatelaine, either slept soundly or were accustomed to
the midnight concert of those age-old timbers; and without mischance, at
length, they entered the main reception-hall, revealed by the dancing
spot-light as a room of noble proportions furnished with sombre
magnificence.

Here the girl was left alone for a few minutes, while Lanyard darted
above-stairs for a review of the state bedchambers and servants'
quarters.

With a sensation of being crushed and suffocated by the encompassing
dark mystery, she nerved herself against a protracted vigil. The
obscurity on every hand seemed alive with stealthy footfalls,
whisperings, murmurings, the passage of shrouded shapes of silence and
of menace. Her eyes ached, her throat and temples throbbed, her skin
crept, her scalp tingled. She seemed to hear a thousand different
noises of alarm. The only sounds she did not hear were
those--if any--that accompanied Lanyard's departure and return. Had he
not been thoughtful enough, when a few feet distant, to give warning
with the light, she might well have greeted with a cry of fright the
consciousness of a presence near her: so silently he moved about. As it
was, she was startled, apprehensive of some misadventure, to find him
back so soon; for he hadn't been gone three minutes.

"It's quite all right," he announced in hushed accents--no longer
whispering. "There are just five people in the house aside from
ourselves--all servants, asleep in the rear wing. We've got a clear
field--if no excuse for taking foolish chances! However, we'll be
finished and off again in less than ten minutes. This way."

That way led to a huge and gloomy library at one extreme of a chain of
great salons, a veritable treasure-gallery of exquisite furnishings and
authentic old masters. As they moved slowly through these chambers
Lanyard kept his flash-lamp busy; involuntarily, now and again, he
checked the girl before some splendid canvas or extraordinary antique.

"I've always meant to happen in some day with a moving-van and loot this
place properly!" he confessed with a little affected sigh. "Considered
from the viewpoint of an expert practitioner in my--ah--late profession,
it's a sin and a shame to let all this go neglected, when it's so
poorly guarded. The old lady--Madame Omber, you know--has all the money
there is, approximately, and when she dies all these beautiful things
go to the Louvre; for she's without kith or kin."

"But how did she manage to accumulate them all?" the girl wondered.
"It's the work of generations of passionate collectors," he explained.
"The late Monsieur Omber was the last of his dynasty; he and his
forebears brought together the paintings and the furniture; madame added
the Orientals gathered together by her first husband, and her own
collection of antique jewellery and precious stones--_her_ particular
fad...."

As he spoke the light of the flash-lamp was blotted out. An instant
later the girl heard a little clashing noise, of curtain rings sliding
along a pole; and this was thrice repeated.

Then, following another brief pause, a switch clicked; and streaming from
the hood of a portable desk-lamp, a pool of light flooded the heart of a
vast place of shadows, an apartment whose doors and windows alike were
cloaked with heavy draperies that hung from floor to ceiling in long and
shining folds. Immense black bookcases lined the walls, their shelves
crowded with volumes in rich bindings; from their tops pallid marble masks
peered down inquisitively, leering and scowling at the intruders. A huge
mantelpiece of carved marble, supporting a great, dark mirror, occupied
the best of one wall, beneath it a wide, deep fireplace yawned, partly
shielded by a screen of wrought brass and crystal. In the middle of the
room stood a library table of mahogany; huge leather chairs and couches
encumbered the remainder of its space. And the corner to the right of the
fireplace was shut off by a high Japanese screen of cinnabar and gold.

To this Lanyard moved confidently, carrying the lamp. Placing it on the
floor, he grasped one wing of the screen with both hands, and at cost of
considerable effort swung it aside, uncovering the face of a huge,
old-style safe built into the wall.

For several seconds--but not for many--Lanyard studied this problem
intently, standing quite motionless, his head lowered and thrust forward,
hands resting on his hips. Then turning, he nodded an invitation to draw
nearer.

"My last job," he said with a smile oddly lighted by the lamp at his
feet--"and my easiest, I fancy. Sorry, too, for I'd rather have liked to
show off a bit. But this old-fashioned tin bank gives no excuse for
spectacular methods!"

"But," the girl objected, "You've brought no tools!"

"Oh, but I have!" And fumbling in a pocket, Lanyard produced a pencil.
"Behold!" he laughed, brandishing it.

She knitted thoughtful brows: "I don't understand."

"All I need--except this."

Crossing to the desk, he found a sheet of note-paper and, folding it,
returned.

"Now," he said, "give me five minutes...."

Kneeling, he gave the combination-knob a smart preliminary twirl, then
rested a shoulder against the sheet of painted iron, his cheek to its
smooth, cold cheek, his ear close beside the dial; and with the
practised fingers of a master locksmith began to manipulate the knob.

Gently, tirelessly, to and fro he twisted, turned, raced, and checked
the combination, caressing it, humouring it, wheedling it, inexorably
questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in
his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers
murmured articulate response in the terms of their cryptic code.

Now and again, releasing the knob and sitting back on his heels, he
would bend intent scrutiny to the dial; note the position of the
combination, and with the pencil jot memoranda on the paper. This
happened perhaps a dozen times, at intervals of irregular duration.

He worked diligently, in a phase of concentration that apparently
excluded from his consciousness the near proximity of the girl, who
stood--or rather stooped, half-kneeling--less than a pace from his
shoulder, watching the process with interest hardly less keen than his
own.

Yet when one faint, odd sound broke the slumberous silence of the
salons, instantly he swung around and stood erect in a single movement,
gaze to the curtains.

But it had only been a premonitory rumble in the throat of a tall old
clock about to strike in the room beyond. And as its sonorous chimes
heralded two deep-toned strokes, Lanyard laughed quietly, intimately,
to the girl's startled eyes, and sank back before the safe.

And now his task was nearly finished. Within another minute he sat back
with face aglow, uttered a hushed exclamation of satisfaction, studied
his memoranda for a space, then swiftly and with assured movements
threw the knob and dial into the several positions of the combination,
grasped the lever-handle, turned it smartly, and swung the door wide
open.

"Simple, eh?" he chuckled, with a glance aside to the girl's eager face,
bewitchingly flushed and shadowed by the lamp's up-thrown glow--"when
one knows the trick, of course! And now ... if one were not an honest
man!"

A wave of his hand indicated the pigeonholes with which the body of the
safe was fitted: wide spaces and deep, stored tight with an
extraordinary array of leather jewel-cases, packets of stout paper
bound with tape and sealed, and boxes of wood and pasteboard of every
shape and size.

"They were only her finest pieces, her personal jewels, that Madame
Omber took with her to England," he explained; "she's mad about
them ... never separated from them.... Perhaps the finest collection in
the world, for size and purity of water.... She had the heart to leave
these--all this!"

Lifting a hand he chose at random, dislodged two leather cases, placed
them on the floor, and with a blade of his pen-knife forced their
fastenings.

From the first the light smote radiance in blinding, coruscant welter.
Here was nothing but diamond jewellery, mostly in antique settings.

He took up a piece and offered it to the girl. She drew back her hand
involuntarily.

"No!" she protested in a whisper of fright.

"But just look!" he urged. "There's no danger ... and you'll never see
the like of this again!"

Stubbornly she withheld her hand. "No, no!" she pleaded. "I--I'd rather
not touch it. Put it back. Let's hurry. I--I'm frightened."

He shrugged and replaced the jewel; then yielded again to impulse of
curiosity and lifted the lid of the second case.

It contained nothing but pieces set with coloured stones of the first
order--emeralds, amethysts, sapphires, rubies, topaz, garnets,
lapis-lazuli, jacinthes, jades, fashioned by master-craftsmen into
rings, bracelets, chains, brooches, lockets, necklaces, of exquisite
design: the whole thrown heedlessly together, without order or care.

For a moment the adventurer stared down soberly at this priceless hoard,
his eyes narrowing, his breathing perceptibly quickened. Then with a
slow gesture, he reclosed the case, took from his pocket that other
which he had brought from London, opened it, and held it aside beneath
the light, for the girl's inspection.

He looked not once either at its contents or at her, fearing lest his
countenance betray the truth, that he had not yet succeeded completely
in exorcising that mutinous and rebellious spirit, the Lone Wolf, from
the tenement over which it had so long held sway; and content with the
sound of her quick, startled sigh of amaze that what she now beheld
could so marvellously outshine what had been disclosed by the other
boxes, he withdrew it, shut it, found it a place in the safe, and
without pause closed the door, shot the bolts, and twirled the dial
until the tumblers fairly sang.

One final twist of the lever-handle convincing him that the combination
was effectively dislocated, he rose, picked up the lamp, replaced it on
the desk with scrupulous care to leave no sign that it had been moved,
and looked round to the girl.

She was where he had left her, a small, tense, vibrant figure among the
shadows, her eyes dark pools of wonder in a face of blazing pallor.

With a high head and his shoulders well back he made a gesture
signifying more eloquently than any words: "All that is ended!"

"And now...?" she asked breathlessly.

"Now for our get-away," he replied with assumed lightness. "Before
dawn we must be out of Paris.... Two minutes, while I straighten this
place up and leave it as I found it."

He moved back to the safe, restored the wing of the screen to the spot
from which he had moved it, and after an instant's close examination of
the rug, began to explore his pockets.

"What are you looking for?" the girl enquired.

"My memoranda of the combination--"

"I have it." She indicated its place in a pocket of her coat. "You left
it on the floor, and I was afraid you might forget--"

"No fear!" he laughed. "No"--as she offered him the folded paper--"keep
it and destroy it, once we're out of this. Now those portieres..."

Extinguishing the desk-light, he turned attention to the draperies at
doors and windows....

Within five minutes, they were once more in the silent streets of Passy.

They had to walk as far as the Trocadero before Lanyard found a fiacre,
which he later dismissed at the corner in the Faubourg St. Germain.

Another brief walk brought them to a gate in the garden wall of a
residence at the junction of two quiet streets.

"This, I think, ends our Parisian wanderings," Lanyard announced. "If
you'll be good enough to keep an eye out for busybodies--and yourself
as inconspicuous as possible in this doorway..."

And he walked back to the curb, measuring the wall with his eye.

"What are you going to do?"

He responded by doing it so swiftly that she gasped with surprise:
pausing momentarily within a yard of the wall, he gathered himself
together, shot lithely into the air, caught the top curbing with both
hands, and...

She heard the soft thud of his feet on the earth of the enclosure; the
latch grated behind her; the door opened.

"For the last time," Lanyard laughed quietly, "permit me to invite you
to break the law by committing an act of trespass!"

Securing the door, he led her to a garden bench secluded amid
conventional shrubbery.

"If you'll wait here," he suggested--"well, it will be best. I'll be
back as soon as possible, though I may be detained some time. Still,
inasmuch as I'm about to break into this hotel, my motives, which are
most commendable, may be misinterpreted, and I'd rather you'd stop
here, with the street at hand. If you hear a noise like trouble, you've
only to unlatch the gate.... But let's hope my purely benevolent
intentions toward the French Republic won't be misconstrued!"

"I'll wait," she assured him bravely; "but won't you tell me--?"

With a gesture, he indicated the mansion back of the garden.

"I'm going to break in there to pay an early morning call and impart
some interesting information to a person of considerable
consequence--nobody less, in fact, than Monsieur Ducroy."

"And who is that?"

"The present Minister of War.... We haven't as yet the pleasure of each
other's acquaintance; still, I think he won't be sorry to see me....
In brief, I mean to make him a present of the Huysman plans and bargain
for our safe-conduct from France."

Impulsively she offered her hand and, when he, surprised, somewhat
diffidently took it, "Be careful!" she whispered brokenly, her pale
sweet face upturned to his. "Oh, do be careful! I am afraid for
you...."

And for a little the temptation to take her in his arms was stronger
than any he had ever known....

But remembering his stipulated year of probation, he released her hand
with an incoherent mumble, turned, and disappeared in the direction of
the house.

XVII

THE FORLORN HOPE

Established behind his splendid mahogany desk in his office at the
Ministere de la Guerre, or moving majestically abroad attired in frock
coat and glossy topper, or lending the dignity of his presence to some
formal ceremony in that beautiful uniform which appertained unto his
office, Monsieur Hector Ducroy cut an imposing figure.

Abed ... it was sadly otherwise.

Lanyard switched on the bedside light, turning it so that it struck
full upon the face of the sleeper; and as he sat down, smiled.

The Minister of War lay upon his back, his distinguished corpulence
severely dislocating the chaste simplicity of the bed-clothing. Athwart
his shelving chest, fat hands were folded in a gesture affectingly
naive. His face was red, a noble high-light shone upon the promontory
of his bald pate, his mouth was open. To the best of his unconscious
ability he was giving a protracted imitation of a dog-fight; and he was
really exhibiting sublime virtuosity: one readily distinguished
individual howls, growls, yelps, against an undertone of blended voices
of excited non-combatants...

As suddenly as though some one, wearying of the entertainment, had
lifted the needle from that record, it was discontinued. The Minister
of War stirred uneasily in his sleep, muttered a naughty word, opened
one eye, scowled, opened the other.

He blinked furiously, half-blinded but still able to make out the
disconcerting silhouette of a man seated just beyond the glare: a quiet
presence that moved not but eyed him steadfastly; an apparition the
more arresting because of its very immobility.

Rapidly the face of the Minister of War lost several shades of purple.
He moistened his lips nervously with a thick, dry tongue, and
convulsively he clutched the bed-clothing high and tight about his
neck, as though labouring under the erroneous impression that the
sanctity of his person was threatened.

"What do you want, monsieur?" he stuttered in a still, small voice
which he would have been the last to acknowledge his own.

"I desire to discuss a matter of business with monsieur," replied the
intruder after a small pause. "If you will be good enough to calm
yourself--"

"I am perfectly calm--"

But here the Minister of War verified with one swift glance an earlier
impression, to the effect that the trespasser was holding something
that shone with metallic lustre; and his soul began to curl up round
the edges.

"There are eighteen hundred francs in my pocketbook--about," he managed
to articulate. "My watch is on the stand here. You will find the family
plate in the dining-room safe, behind the buffet--the key is on my
ring--and the jewels of madame my wife are in a small strong-box
beneath the head of her bed. The combination--"

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