The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance

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"Pardon: monsieur labours under a misapprehension," the housebreaker
interposed drily. "Had one desired these valuables, one would readily
have taken them without going to the trouble of disturbing the repose of
monsieur.... I have, however, already mentioned the nature of my
errand."

"Eh?" demanded the Minister of War. "What is that? But give me of your
mercy one chance to explain! I have never wittingly harmed you,
monsieur, and if I have done so without my knowledge, rest assured you
have but to petition me through the proper channels and I will be only
too glad to make amends!"

"_Still_ you do not listen!" the other insisted. "Come, Monsieur
Ducroy--calm yourself. I have not robbed you, because I have no wish to
rob you. I have not harmed you, for I have no wish to harm you. Nor
have I any wish other than to lay before you, as representing
Government, a certain matter of State business."

There was silence while the Minister of War permitted this exhortation
to sink in. Then, apparently reassured, he sat up in bed and eyed his
untimely visitor with a glare little short of truculent.

"Eh? What's that?" he demanded. "Business? What sort of business? If
you wish to submit to my consideration any matter of business, how is
it you break into my home at dead of night and rouse me in this brutal
fashion"--here his voice faltered--"with a lethal weapon pointed at my
head?"

"Monsieur will admit he speaks under an error," returned the burglar.
"I have yet to point this pistol at him. I should be very sorry to feel
obliged to do so. I display it, in fact, simply that monsieur may not
forget himself and attempt to summon servants in his resentment of this
(I admit) unusual method of introducing one's self to his attention.
When we understand each other better there will be no need for such
precautions, and then I shall put my pistol away, so that the sight of
it may no longer annoy monsieur."

"It is true, I do not understand you," grumbled the Minister of War.
"Why--if your errand be peaceable--break into my house?"

"Because it was urgently necessary to see monsieur instantly. Monsieur
will reflect upon the reception one would receive did one ring the front
door-bell and demand audience at three o'clock in the morning!"

"Well ..." Monsieur Ducroy conceded dubiously. Then, on reflection, he
iterated the monosyllable testily: "Well! What is it you want, then?"

"I can best explain by asking monsieur to examine--what
I have to show him."

With this Lanyard dropped the pistol into his coat-pocket, from another
produced a gold cigarette-case, and from the store of this last with
meticulous care selected a single cigarette.

Regarding the Minister of War in a mystifying manner, he began to roll
the cigarette briskly between his palms. A small shower of tobacco
sifted to the floor: the rice-paper cracked and came away; and with the
bland smile and gesture of a professional conjurer, Lanyard exhibited a
small cylinder of stiff paper between his thumb and index-finger.

Goggling resentfully, Monsieur Ducroy spluttered:

"Eh--what impudence is this?"

His smile unchanged, Lanyard bent forward and silently dropped the
cylinder into the Frenchman's hand. At the same time he offered him a
pocket magnifying-glass. "What is this?" Ducroy persisted stupidly.
"What--what--!"

"If monsieur will be good enough to unroll the papers and examine them
with the aid of this glass--"

With a wondering grunt, the other complied, unrolling several small
sheets of photographer's printing-out paper, to which several
extraordinarily complicated and minute designs had been
transferred--strongly resembling laborious efforts to conventionalize a
spider's web.

But no sooner had Monsieur Ducroy viewed these through the glass, than
he started violently, uttered an excited exclamation, and subjected them
to an examination both prolonged and exacting.

"Monsieur is, no doubt, now satisfied?" Lanyard enquired when his
patience would endure no longer.

"These are genuine?" the Minister of War demanded sharply, without
looking up.

"Monsieur can readily discern notations made upon the drawings by the
inventor, Georges Huysman, in his own hand. Furthermore, each plan has
been marked in the lower left-hand corner with the word '_accepted_'
followed by the initials of the German Minister of War. I think this
establishes beyond dispute the authenticity of these photographs of the
plan for Huysman's invention."

"Yes," the Minister of War agreed breathlessly. "You have the negatives
from which these prints were made?"

"Here," Lanyard said, indicating a second cigarette.

And then, with a movement so leisurely and careless that his purpose
was accomplished before the other in his preoccupation was aware of it,
the adventurer leaned forward and swept up the prints from the
counterpane in front of Monsieur Ducroy.

"Here!" the Frenchman exclaimed. "Why do you do that?"

"Monsieur no longer questions their authenticity?"

"I grant you that."

"Then I return to myself these prints, pending negotiations for their
transfer to France."

"How did you come by them?" demanded Monsieur Ducroy, after a moment's
thought.

"Need monsieur ask? Is France so ill-served by her spies that you do
not already know of the misfortune one Captain Ekstrom recently
suffered in London?"

Ducroy shook his head. Lanyard received this indication with impatience.
It seemed hardly possible that the French Minister of War could be
either so stupid or so ignorant....

But with a patient shrug, he proceeded to elucidate.

"Captain Ekstrom," he said, "but recently succeeded in photographing
these plans and took them to London to sell to the English.
Unfortunately for himself--unhappily for perfidious Albion!--Captain
Ekstrom fell in with me and mistook me for Downing Street's
representative. And here are the plans."

"You are--the Lone Wolf--then?"

"I am, as far as concerns you, monsieur, merely the person in possession
of these plans, who offers them through you, to France, for a price."

"But why introduce yourself to me in this extraordinary
fashion, for a transaction for which the customary channels
--with which you must be familiar--are entirely adequate?"

"Simply because Ekstrom has followed me to Paris," Lanyard explained
indulgently. "Did I venture to approach you in the usual way, my chances
of rounding out a useful life thereafter would be practically nil.
Furthermore, my circumstances are such that it has become necessary
for me to leave France immediately--without an hour's delay--also
secretly; else I might as well remain here to be butchered.... Now you
command the only means I know of, to accomplish my purpose. And that
is the price, the only price, you will have to pay me for these plans."

"I don't understand you."

"It is on schedule, is it not, that Captain Vauquelin of the Aviation
Corps is to attempt a non-stop flight from Paris to London this morning,
with two passengers, in a new Parrott biplane?"

"That is so.... Well?"

"I must be one of those passengers; and I have a companion, a young
lady, who will take the place of the other."

"It isn't possible, monsieur. Those arrangements are already fixed."

"You will countermand them."

"There is no time--"

"You can get into telephonic communication with Port Aviation in two
minutes."

"But the passengers have been promised--"

"You will disappoint them."

"The start is to be made in the first flush of daylight. How could you
reach Port Aviation in time?"

"In your motor-car, monsieur."

"It cannot be done."

"It must! If the start must be delayed till we arrive, you will give
orders that it shall be so delayed."

For a minute the Minister of War hesitated; then he shook his head
definitely.

"The difficulties are insuperable--"

"There is no such thing, monsieur."

"I am sorry: it can't be done."

"That is your answer?"

"It is regrettable, monsieur..."

"Very well!" Lanyard bent forward again, took a match from the stand on
the bedside table, and struck it. Very calmly he advanced the flame
toward the cigarette containing the roll of inflammable films.

"Monsieur!" Ducroy cried in horror. "What are you doing?"

Lanyard favoured him with a look of surprise.

"I am about to destroy these films and prints."

"You must never do that!"

"Why not? They are mine, to do with as I like. If I cannot dispose of
them at my price, I shall destroy them!"

"But--my God!--what you demand is impossible! Stay, monsieur! Think
what your action means to France!"

"I have already thought of that. Now I must think of myself."

"But--one moment!"

Ducroy sat up in bed and dangled hairy fat legs over the side.

"But one moment only, monsieur. Don't make me waste your matches!"

"Monsieur, it shall be as you desire, if it lies in my power to
accomplish it."

With this the Minister of War stood up and made for the telephone, in
his agitation forgetful of dressing-gown and slippers.

"You must accomplish it, Monsieur Ducroy," Lanyard advised him gravely,
puffing out the flame; "for if you fail, you make yourself the
instrument of my death. Here are the plans."

"You trust them to me?" Ducroy asked in astonishment.

"But naturally: that makes it an affair of your honour," Lanyard
explained suavely.

With a gesture of graceful capitulation the Frenchman accepted the
little roll of film.

"Permit me," he said, "to acknowledge the honour of monsieur's
confidence!"

Lanyard bowed low: "One knows with whom one deals, monsieur!... And now,
if you will be good enough to excuse me...."

He turned to the door.

"But--eh--where are you going?" Ducroy demanded.

"Mademoiselle," Lanyard said, pausing on the threshold--"that is, the
young lady who is to accompany me--is waiting anxiously in the garden,
out yonder. I go to find and reassure her and--with your permission--to
bring her in to the library, where we will await monsieur when he has
finished telephoning and--ah--repaired the deficiencies in his attire;
which one trusts he will forgive one's mentioning!"

He bowed again, impudently, gaily, and--when the Minister of War looked
up again sheepishly from contemplation of his naked shanks--had
vanished.

In high feather Lanyard made his way to a door at the rear of the house
which gave upon the garden--in his new social status of Governmental
protege disdaining any such a commonplace avenue as that conservatory
window whose fastenings he had forced on entering. And boldly unbolting
the door, he ran out into the night, to rejoin his beloved, like a man
waking to new life.

But she was no more there: the bench was vacant, the garden deserted,
the gateway yawning on the street.

With a low, stifled cry, Lanyard turned from the bench and stumbled out
to the junction of the cross-street. But nowhere in their several
perspectives could he see anything that moved.

After some time he returned to the garden and quartered it with the
thoroughness of a pointer beating a covert. But he did this hopelessly,
bitterly aware that the outcome would be precisely what it eventually
was, that is to say, nothing....

He was kneeling beside the bench--scrutinizing the turf with
microscopic attention by aid of his flash-lamp, seeking some sign of
struggle to prove she had not left him willingly, and finding
none--when a voice brought him momentarily out of his distraction.

He looked up wildly, to discover Ducroy standing over him, his stout
person chastely swathed in a quilted dressing-gown and trousers, his
expression one of stupefaction.

"Well, monsieur--well?" the Minister of War demanded irritably. "What--I
repeat--what are you doing there?"

Lanyard essayed response, choked up, and gulped. He rose and stood
swaying, showing a stricken face.

"Eh?" Ducroy insisted with an accent of exasperation. "Why do you stand
glaring at me like that--eh? Come, monsieur: what ails you? I have
arranged everything, I say. Where is mademoiselle?"

Lanyard made a broken gesture.

"Gone!" he muttered forlornly.

Instantly the countenance of the stout Frenchman was lightened with a
gleam of eager interest--inveterate romantic that he was!--and he
stepped nearer, peering closely into the face of the adventurer.

"Gone?" he echoed. "Mademoiselle? Your sweetheart,
eh?"

Lanyard assented with a disconsolate nod and sigh.
Impatiently Ducroy caught him by the sleeve.

"Come!" he insisted, tugging--"but come at once into the house. Now,
monsieur--now at length you enlist all one's sympathies! Come, I say!
Is it your desire that I catch my death of cold?"

Indifferently Lanyard suffered himself to be led away.

He was, indeed, barely conscious of what was happening. All his being
was possessed by the thought that she had forsaken him. And he could
well guess why: impossible for such an one as she to contemplate
without a shudder association with the man who had been what he had
been! Infatuate!--to have dreamed that she would tolerate the devotion
of a criminal, that she could ever forget his identity with the Lone
Wolf. Inevitably--soon or late--she must have fled that ignominious
thought in dread and horror, daring whatever consequences to escape
and forget both it and him. And better now, perhaps, than later....

XVIII

ENIGMA

He found no reason to believe she had left him other than voluntarily,
or that their adventures since the escape from the impasse Stanislas
had been attended upon by spies of the Pack. He could have sworn they
hadn't been followed either to or from the rue des Acacias; their way
had been too long and purposely too roundabout, his vigilance too
lively, for any sort of surveillance to have been practised without his
remarking some indication thereof, at one time or another.

On the other hand (he told himself) there was every reason to believe
she hadn't left him to go back to Bannon; concerning whom she had
expressed herself too forcibly to excuse a surmise that she had
preferred his protection to the Lone Wolf's.

Reasoning thus, he admitted, one couldn't blame her. He could readily
see how, illuded at first by a certain romantic glamour, she had not,
until left to herself in the garden, come to clear perception of the
fact that she was casting her lot with a common criminal's. Then,
horror overmastering her of a sudden she had fled--wildly, blindly, he
didn't doubt. But whither? He looked in vain for her at their agreed
rendezvous, the Sacre Coeur. She had neither money nor friends in
Paris.

True: she had mentioned some personal jewellery she planned to
hypothecate. Her first move, then, would be to seek the mont-de-piete--
not to force himself again upon her, but to follow at a distance and
ward off interference on Bannon's part.

The Government pawn-shop had its invitation for Lanyard himself: he was
there before the doors were open for the day; and fortified by loans
negotiated on his watch, cigarette-case, and a ring or two, retired to
a cafe commanding a view of the entrance on the rue des
Blancs-Manteaux, and settled himself against a day-long vigil.

It wasn't easy; drowsiness buzzed in his brain and weighted his eyelids;
now and again, involuntarily, he nodded over his glass of black coffee.
And when evening came and the mont-de-piete closed for the night, he
rose and stumbled off, wondering if possibly he had napped a little
without his knowledge and so missed her visit.

Engaging obscure lodgings close by the rue des Acacias, he slept till
nearly noon of the following day, then rose to put into execution a
design which had sprung full-winged from his brain at the instant of
wakening.

He had not only his car but a chauffeur's license of long standing in
the name of Pierre Lamier--was free, in short, to range at will the
streets of Paris. And when he had levied on the stock of a second-hand
clothing shop and a chemist's, he felt tolerably satisfied it would
need sharp eyes--whether the Pack's or the Prefecture's--to identify
"Pierre Lamier" with either Michael Lanyard or the Lone Wolf.

His face, ears and neck he stained a weather-beaten brown, a discreet
application of rouge along his cheekbones enhancing the effect of daily
exposure to the winter winds and rains of Paris; and he gave his hands
an even darker shade, with the added verisimilitude of finger-nails
inked into permanent mourning. Also, he refrained from shaving: a
stubble of two days' neglect bristled upon his chin and jowls. A
rusty brown ulster with cap to match, shoddy trousers boasting
conspicuous stripes of leaden colour, and patched boots completed the
disguise.

Monsieur and madame of the conciergerie he deceived with a yarn of
selling his all to purchase the motor-car and embark in business for
himself; and with their blessing, sallied forth to scout Paris
diligently for sight or sign of the woman to whom his every heart-beat
was dedicated.

By the close of the third day he was ready to concede that she had
managed to escape without his aid.

And he began to suspect that Bannon had fled the town as well; for the
most diligent enquiries failed to educe the least clue to the movements
of the American following the fire at Troyon's.

As for Troyon's, it was now nothing more than a gaping excavation
choked with ashes and charred timbers; and though still rumours of
police interest in the origin of the fire persisted, nothing in the
papers linked the name of Michael Lanyard with their activities. His
disappearance and Lucy Shannon's seemed to be accepted as due to
death in the holocaust; the fact that their bodies hadn't
been recovered was no longer a matter for comment.

In short, Paris had already lost interest in the affair.

Even so, it seemed, had the Pack lost interest in the Lone Wolf; or
else his disguise was impenetrable. Twice he saw De Morbihan "flanning"
elegantly on the Boulevards, and once he passed close by Popinot; but
neither noticed him.

Toward midnight of the third day, Lanyard, driving slowly westward on
the boulevard de la Madeleine, noticed a limousine of familiar aspect
round a corner half a block ahead and, drawing up in front of Viel's,
discharge four passengers.

The first was Wertheimer; and at sight of his rather striking figure,
decked out in evening apparel from Conduit street and Bond, Lanyard
slackened speed.

Turning as he alighted, the Englishman offered his hand to a young
woman. She jumped down to the sidewalk in radiant attire and a laughing
temper.

Involuntarily Lanyard stopped his car; and one immediately to the rear,
swerving out to escape collision, shot past, its driver cursing him
freely; while a sergent de ville scowled darkly and uttered an
imperative word.

He pulled himself together, somehow, and drove on.

The girl was entering the restaurant by way of the revolving door,
Wertheimer in attendance; while De Morbihan, having alighted, was
lending a solicitous arm to Bannon.

Quite automatically the adventurer drove on, rounded the Madeleine, and
turned up the boulevard Malesherbes. Paris and all its brisk midnight
traffic swung by without claiming a tithe of his interest: he was
mainly conscious of lights that reeled dizzily round him like a
multitude of malicious, mocking eyes....

At the junction with the boulevard Haussmann a second sergent de ville
roused him with a warning about careless driving. He went more sanely
thereafter, but bore a heart of utter misery; his eyes still wore a
dazed expression, and now and again he shook his head impatiently as
though to rid it of a swarm of tormenting thoughts.

So, it seemed, he had all along been her dupe; all the while that he
had been ostentatiously shielding her from harm and diffidently
discovering every evidence of devotion, she had been laughing in her
sleeve and planning to return to the service she pretended to despise,
with her report of a fool self-duped.

A great anger welled in his bosom.

Turning round, he made back to the boulevard de la Madeleine, and on
one pretext and another contrived to haunt the neighbourhood of Viel's
until the party reappeared, something after one o'clock.

It was plain that they had supped merrily; the girl seemed in the
gayest humour, Wertheimer a bit exhilarated, De Morbihan much amused;
even Bannon--bearing heavily on the Frenchman's arm--was chuckling
contentedly. The party piled back into De Morbihan's limousine and was
driven up the avenue des Champs Elysees, pausing at the Elysee Palace
Hotel to drop Bannon and the girl--his daughter?--whoever she was!

Whither it went thereafter, Lanyard didn't trouble to ascertain. He
drove morosely home and went to bed, though not to sleep for many hours:
bitterness of disillusion ate like an acid in his heart.

But for all his anguish, he continued in an uncertain temper. He had
turned his back on the craft of which he was acknowledged master--for a
woman's sake; for nothing else (he argued) had he dedicated himself to
poverty and honest effort; and what little privation he had already
endured was hopelessly distasteful to him. The art of the Lone Wolf,
his consummate cunning and subtlety, was still at his command; with only
himself to think of, he was profoundly contemptuous of the antagonism of
the Pack; while none knew better than he with what ease the riches of
careless Paris might be diverted to his own pockets. A single step aside
from the path he had chosen--and tomorrow night he might dine at the
Ritz instead of in some sordid cochers' cabaret!

And since no one cared--since _she_ had betrayed his faith--what
mattered?

Why not...?

Yet he could not come to a decision; the next day saw him obstinately,
even a little stupidly, pursuing the course he had planned before his
disheartening disillusionment.

Because his money was fast ebbing and motives of prudence alone--if
none more worthy--forbade an attempt to replenish his pocketbook by
revisiting the little rez-de-chaussee in the rue Roget and realizing on
its treasures, he had determined to have a taximeter fitted to his car
and ply for hire until time or chance should settle the question of his
future.

Already, indeed, he had complied with the police regulations, and
received permission to convert his voiture de remise into a taxicab;
and leaving it before noon at the designated depot, he was told it
would be ready for him at four with the "clock" installed. Returning at
that hour, he learned that it couldn't be ready before six; and too
bored and restless to while away two idle hours in a cafe, he wandered
listlessly through the streets and boulevards--indifferent, in the
black melancholy oppressing him, whether or not he were recognized--and
eventually found himself turning from the rue St. Honore through the
place Vendome to the rue de la Paix.

This was not wise, a perilous business, a course he had no right to
pursue. And Lanyard knew it. None the less, he persisted.

It was past five o'clock--deep twilight beneath a cloudless sky--the
life of that street of streets fluent at its swiftest. All that Paris
knew of wealth and beauty, fashion and high estate, moved between the
curbs. One needed the temper of a Stoic to maintain indifference to the
allure of its pageant.

Trudging steadily, he of the rusty brown ulster all but touched
shoulders with men who were all that he had been but a few days since--
hale, hearty, well-fed, well-dressed symbols of prosperity--and with
exquisite women, exquisitely gowned, extravagantly be-furred and
be-jewelled, of glowing faces and eyes dark with mystery and promise:
spirited creatures whose laughter was soft music, whose gesture was
pride and arrogance.

One and all looked past, over, and through him, unaffectedly unaware
that he existed.

The roadway, its paving worn as smooth as glass, and tonight by grace
of frost no less hard, rang with a clatter of hoofs high and clear
above the resonance of motors. A myriad lights filled the wide channel
with diffused radiance. Two endless ranks of shop-windows, facing one
another--across the tide, flaunted treasures that kings might
pardonably have coveted--and would.

Before one corner window, Lanyard paused instinctively.

The shop was that of a famous jeweller. Separated from him by only the
thickness of plate-glass was the wealth of princes. Looking beyond that
display, his attention focussed on the interior of an immense safe, to
which a dapper French salesman was restoring velvet-lined trays of
valuables. Lanyard studied the intricate, ponderous mechanism of the
safe-door with a thoughtful gaze not altogether innocent of sardonic
bias. It wore all the grim appearance of a strong-box that, once locked,
would prove impregnable to everything save acquaintance with the
combination and the consent of the time-lock. But give the Lone Wolf
twenty minutes alone with it, twenty minutes free from interruption--he,
the one man living who could seduce a time-lock and leave it apparently
inviolate!...

To one side of that window stood a mirror, set at an angle, and
suddenly Lanyard caught its presentment of himself--a gaunt and hungry
apparition, with a wolfish air he had never worn when rejoicing in his
sobriquet, staring with eyes of predaceous lustre.

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