The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance

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Wertheimer laughed easily. "Had me there!" he admitted, unabashed. "I
take it you know a bit more about the Old Man than you did a week ago?"

"Perhaps."

"But sit down: take that chair there, which commands both doors, if you
don't trust me."

"Do you think I ought to?"

"Hardly. Otherwise I'd ask you to take my word that you're safe for the
time being. As it is, I shan't be offended if you keep your gun handy
and your sense of self-preservation running under forced draught. But
you won't refuse to join me in a whiskey and soda?"

"No," said Lanyard slowly--"not if you drink from the same bottle."

Again the Englishman laughed unaffectedly as he fetched a decanter,
glasses, bottled soda, and a box of cigarettes, and placed them within
Lanyard's reach.

The adventurer eyed him narrowly, puzzled. He knew nothing of this man,
beyond his reputation--something unsavoury enough, in all conscience!--
had seen him only once, and then from a distance, before that
conference in the rue Chaptal. And now he was becoming sensitive to a
personality uncommonly insinuating: Wertheimer was displaying all the
poise of an Englishman of the better caste More than anybody in the
underworld that Lanyard had ever known this blackmailer had an air of
one acquainted with his own respect. And his nonchalance, the good
nature with which he accepted Lanyard's pardonable distrust, his genial
assumption of fellowship and a common footing, attracted even as it
intrigued.

With the easy courtesy of a practised host, he measured whiskey into
Lanyard's glass till checked by a "Thank you," then helped himself
generously, and opened the soda.

"I'll not ask you to drink with me," he said with a twinkle, "but--
chin-chin!"--and tilting his glass, half-emptied it at a draught.

Muttering formally, at a disadvantage and resenting it, Lanyard drank
with less enthusiasm if without misgivings.

Wertheimer selected a cigarette and lighted it at leisure.

"Well," he laughed through a cloud of smoke--"I think we're fairly on
our way to an understanding, considering you told me to go to hell when
last we met!"

His spirit was irresistible: in spite of himself Lanyard returned the
smile. "I never knew a man to take it with better grace," he admitted,
lighting his own cigarette.

"Why not! I _liked_ it: you gave us precisely what we asked for."

"Then," Lanyard demanded gravely, "if that's your viewpoint, if you're
decent enough to see it that way--what the devil are you doing in that
galley?"

"Mischief makes strange bed-fellows, you'll admit. And if you think
that a fair question--what are you doing here, with me?"

"Same excuse as before--trying to find out what your game is."

Wertheimer eyed the ceiling with an intimate grin. "My dear fellow!" he
protested--"all _you_ want to know is everything!"

"More or less," Lanyard admitted gracelessly. "One gathers that you
mean to stop this side the Channel for some time."

"How so?"

"There's a settled, personal atmosphere about this establishment. It
doesn't look as if half your things were still in trunks."

"Oh, these digs! Yes, they are comfy."

"You don't miss London?"

"Rather! But I shall appreciate it all the more when I go back."

"Then you can go back, if you like?"

"Meaning your impression is, I made it too hot for me?"

Wertheimer interposed with a quizzical glance. "I shan't tell you
about that. But I'm hoping to be able to run home for an occasional
week-end without vexing Scotland Yard. Why not come with me some
time?"

Lanyard shook his head.

"Come!" the Englishman rallied him. "Don't put on so much side. I'm not
bad company. Why not be sociable, since we're bound to be thrown
together more or less in the way of business."

"Oh, I think not."

"But, my dear chap, you can't keep this up. Playing taxi-way man is
hardly your shop. And of course you understand you won't be permitted
to engage in any more profitable pursuit until you make terms with the
powers that be--or leave Paris."

"Terms with Bannon, De Morbihan, Popinot and yourself--eh?"

"With the same."

"Mr. Wertheimer," Lanyard told him quietly, "none of you will stop me
if ever I make up my mind to take the field again."

"You haven't been thinking of quitting it--what?" Wertheimer demanded
innocently, opening his eyes wide.

"Perhaps..."

"Ah, now I begin to see a light! So that's the reason you've come down
to tooling a taxi. I wondered! But somehow, Mr. Lanyard"--Wertheimer's
eyes narrowed thoughtfully--"I can hardly see you content with that
line... even if this reform notion isn't simple swank!"

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think," the Englishman laughed--"_I_ think this conference doesn't
get anywhere in particular. Our simple, trusting natures don't seem to
fraternize as spontaneously as they might. We may as well cut the
sparring and go, down to business--don't you think? But before we do,
I'd like your leave to offer one word of friendly advice."

"And that is--?"

"'Ware Bannon!"

Lanyard nodded. "Thanks," he said simply.

"I say that in all sincerity," Wertheimer declared. "God knows you're
nothing to me, but at least you've played the game like a man; and I
won't see you butchered to make an Apache holiday for want of warning."

"Bannon's as vindictive as that, you think?"

"Holds you in the most poisonous regard, if you ask me. Perhaps you
know why: I don't. Anyway, it was rotten luck that brought your car to
the door tonight. He named you during dinner, and while apparently he
doesn't know where to look for you, it is plain he's got no use for
you--not, at least, until your attitude towards the organization
changes."

"It hasn't. But I'm obliged."

"Sure you can't see your way to work with us?"

"Absolutely."

"Mind you, I'll have to report to the Old Man. I've got to tell him
your answer."

"I don't think I need tell you what to tell him," said Lanyard with
a grin.

"Still, it's worth thinking over. I know the Old Man's mind well enough
to feel safe in offering you any inducement you can name, in reason, if
you'll come to us. Ten thousand francs in your pocket before morning,
if you like, and freedom to chuck this filthy job of yours--"

"Please stop there!" Lanyard interrupted hotly. "I was beginning to
like you, too... Why persist in reminding me you're intimate with the
brute who had Roddy butchered in his sleep?"

"Poor devil!" Wertheimer said gently. "That was a sickening business,
I admit. But who told you--?"

"Never mind. It's true, isn't it?"

"Yes," the Englishman admitted gravely--"it's true. It lies at Bannon's
door, when all's said.... Perhaps you won't believe me, but it's a fact
I didn't know positively who was responsible till to-night."

"You don't really expect me to swallow that? You were hand-in-glove--"

"Ah, but on probation only! When they voted Roddy out, I wasn't
consulted. They kept me in the dark--mostly, I flatter myself, because
I draw the line at murder. If I had known--this you won't believe, of
course--Roddy would be alive to-day."

"I'd like to believe you," Lanyard admitted. "But when you ask me to
sign articles with that damned assassin--!"

"You can't play our game with clean hands," Wertheimer retorted.

Lanyard found no answer to that.

"If you've said all you wished to," he suggested, rising, "I can assure
you my answer is final--and go about my business."

"What's your hurry? Sit down. There's more to say--much more."

"As for instance--?"

"I had a fancy you might like to put a question or two."

Lanyard shook his head; it was plain that Wertheimer designed to draw
him out through his interest in Lucy Shannon.

"I haven't the slightest curiosity concerning your affairs," he
observed.

"But you should have; I could tell you a great many interesting things
that intimately affect your affairs, if I liked. You must understand
that I shall hold the balance of power here, from now on."

"Congratulations!" Lanyard laughed derisively.

"No joke, my dear chap: I've been promoted over the heads of your
friends, De Morbihan and Popinot, and shall henceforth be--as they say
in America--the whole works."

"By what warrant?"

"The illustrious Bannon's. I've been appointed his lieutenant--vice
Greggs, deposed for bungling."

"Do you mean to tell me Bannon controls De Morbihan and Popinot?"

The Englishman smiled indulgently. "If you didn't know it, he's
commander-in-chief of our allied forces, presiding genius of the
International Underworld Unlimited."

"Bosh!" cried Lanyard contemptuously. "Why talk to me as if I were a
child, to be frightened by a bogey-tale like that?"

"Take it or leave it: the fact remains.... I know, if you don't. I
confess I didn't till to-night; but I've learned some things that have
opened my eyes.... You see, we had a table in a quiet corner of the
Cafe de la Paix, and since the Old Man's sailing for home before long
it was time for him to unbosom rather thoroughly to the man he leaves
to represent him in London and Paris. I never suspected our power
before he began to talk...."

Lanyard, watching the man closely, would have sworn he had never seen
one more sober. He was indescribably perplexed by this ostensible
candour--mystified and mistrustful.

"And then there's this to be considered, from your side," Wertheimer
resumed with the most business-like manner: "you can work with us
without being obliged to deal in any way with the Old Man or De
Morbihan, or Popinot. Bannon will never cross the Atlantic again, and
you can do pretty much as you like, within reason--subject to my
approval, that is."

"One of us is mad," Lanyard commented profoundly.

"One of us is blind to his best interests," Wertheimer amended with
entire good-humour.

"Perhaps... Let it go at that. I'm not interested--never did care for
fairy tales."

"Don't go yet. There is still much to be said on both sides of the
argument."

"Has there been one?"

"Besides, I promised you news from Antwerp."

"To be sure," Lanyard said, and paused, his curiosity at length engaged.

Wertheimer delved into the breast-pocket of his dress-coat and produced
a blue telegraph-form, handing it to the adventurer.

Of even date, from Antwerp, it read:

"_Underworld--Paris--Greggs arrested today boarding
steamer for America after desperate struggle killed himself
immediately afterward poison no confession--Q-2._"

"_Underworld?_" Lanyard queried blankly.

"Our telegraphic address, of course. 'Q-2' is our chief factor in
Antwerp."

"So they got Greggs!"

"Stupid oaf," Wertheimer observed; "I've no sympathy for him. The whole
affair was a blunder, from first to last."

"But you got Greggs out and burned Troyon's--!"

"Still our friends at the Prefecture weren't satisfied. Something must
have roused their suspicions."

"You don't know what?"

"There must have been a leak somewhere--"

"If so, it would certainly have led the police to me, after all the
pains you were at to saddle me with the crime. There's something more
than simple treachery in this, Mr. Wertheimer."

"Perhaps you're right," said the other thoughtfully.

"And it doesn't speak well for the discipline of your precious
organization--granting, for the sake of the argument, the possibility
of such nonsense."

"Well, well, have your own way about that. I don't insist, so long as
you agree to join forces with me."

"Oh, it's with you alone, now--is it? Not with that insane fiction,
the International Underworld Unlimited?"

"With me alone. I offer you a clear field. Go where you like, do what
you will--I wouldn't have the cheek to attempt to guide or influence
you."

Lanyard kept himself in hand with considerable difficulty.

"But you?" he asked. "Where do you come in?"

Wertheimer lounged back in his chair and laughed quietly. "Need you
ask? Must I recall to you the foundations of my prosperity? You had the
name of it glib enough on your tongue the other night in the rue
Chaptal.... When you've done your work, you'll come to me and split the
proceeds fairly--and as long as you do that, never a word will pass my
lips!"

"Blackmail...!"

"Oh, if you insist! Odd, how I dislike that word!"

Abruptly the adventurer got to his feet. "By God!" he cried, "I'd
better get out of this before I do you an injury!"

The door slammed behind him on a room ringing with Wertheimer's
unaffected laughter.

XX

WAR

But why?--he asked himself as he swung his cab aimlessly away--why that
blind rage with which he had welcomed Wertheimer's overtures?

Unquestionably the business of blackmailing was despicable enough; and
as a master cracksman, of the highest caste of the criminal world, the
Lone Wolf had warrantably treated with scorn and contempt the advances
of a pariah like Wertheimer. But in no such spirit had he comprehended
the Englishman's meaning, when finally that one came to the point; no
cool disdain had coloured his attitude, but in the beginning hot
indignation, in the end insensate rage....

He puzzled himself. That fit of passion had all the aspect of a
psychical inconsistency impossible to reconcile with reason.

He recalled in perplexity how, toward the last, the face of the
Englishman had swum in haze before his eyes; with what disfavour,
approaching hatred, he had regarded its fixed, false smirk; with what
loathing he had suffered the intimacy of Wertheimer's tone; how he had
been tempted to fly at the man's throat and shake him senseless in
reward of his effrontery: emotions that had suited better a man of
unblemished honour and integrity subjected to the insolent addresses of
a contemptible blackguard, emotions that might well have been expected
of the man Lanyard had once dreamed to become.

But now, since he had resigned that infatuate ambition and turned
apostate to all his vows, his part in character had been to laugh in
Wertheimer's face and bid him go to the devil ere a worse thing befall
him. Instead of which, he had flown into fury. And as he sat brooding
over the wheel, he knew that, were the circumstances to be duplicated,
his demeanour would be the same.

Was it possible he had changed so absolutely in the course of that
short-lived spasm of reform?

He cried no to that: knowing well what he contemplated, that all his
plans were laid and serious mischance alone could prevent him from
putting them into effect, feeling himself once more quick with the
wanton, ruthless spirit of the Lone Wolf, invincibly self-sufficient,
strong and cunning.

When at length he roused from his reverie, it was to discover that his
haphazard course had taken him back toward the heart of Paris; and
presently, weary with futile cruising and being in the neighbourhood
of the Madeleine, he sought the cab-rank there, silenced his motor,
and relapsed into morose reflections so profound that nothing objective
had any place in his consciousness.

Thus it was that without his knowledge a brace of furtive thugs were
able to slouch down the rank, scrutinizing it covertly but in detail,
pause opposite Lanyard's car under pretext of lighting cigarettes,
identify him to their satisfaction, and hastily take themselves off.

Not until they were quite disappeared did the driver of the cab ahead
dare warn him.

Lounging back, this last looked the adventurer over inquisitively.

"Is it, then," he enquired civilly, when Lanyard at length looked
round, "that you are in the bad books of the good General Popinot, my
friend?"

"Eh--what's that you say?" Lanyard asked, with a stare of blank
misapprehension.

The man nodded wisely. "He who is at odds with Popinot," he observed,
sententious, "does well not to sleep in public. You did not see those
two who passed just now and took your number--rats of Montmartre, if I
know my Paris! You were dreaming, my friend, and it is my impression
that only the presence of those two flies over the way prevented your
immediate assassination. If I were you, I should go away very quickly,
and never stop till I had put stout walls between myself and Popinot."

A chill of apprehension sent a shiver stealing down Lanyard's spine.

"You're sure?"

"But of a certainty, my old one!"

"A thousand thanks!"

Jumping down, the adventurer cranked the motor, sprang back to his
seat, and was off like a hunted hare....

And when, more than an hour later, he brought his panting car to a
pause in a quiet and empty back-street of the Auteuil quarter, after
a course that had involved the better part of Paris, it was with the
conviction that he had beyond question shaken off pursuit--had there
in fact been any attempt to follow him.

He took advantage of that secluded spot to substitute false numbers for
those he was licensed to display; then at a more sedate pace followed
the line of the fortifications northward as far as La Muette, where,
branching off, he sought and made a circuit of two sides of the private
park enclosing the hotel of Madame Omber.

But the mansion showed no lights, and there was nothing in the aspect
of the property to lead him to believe that the chatelaine had as yet
returned to Paris.

Now the night was still young, but Lanyard had his cab to dispose of
and not a few other essential details to arrange before he could take
definite steps toward the reincarnation of the Lone Wolf.

Picking a most circumspect route across the river--via the Pont
Mirabeau--to the all-night telegraph bureau in the rue de Grenelle he
despatched a cryptic message to the Minister of War, then with the
same pains to avoid notice made back toward the rue des Acacias. But
it wasn't possible to recross the Seine secretly--in effect, at least
--without returning the way he had come--a long detour that irked his
impatient spirit to contemplate.

Unwisely he elected to cross by way of the Pont des Invalides--how
unwisely was borne in upon him almost as soon as he turned from the
brilliant Quai de la Conference into the darkling rue Francois
Premier. He had won scarcely twenty yards from the corner when, with
a rush, its motor purring like some great tiger-cat, a powerful
touring-car swept up from behind, drew abreast, but instead of passing
checked speed until its pace was even with his own.

Struck by the strangeness of this manoeuvre, he looked quickly round,
to recognize the moon-like mask of De Morbihan grinning sardonically
at him over the steering-wheel of the black car.

A second hasty glance discovered four men in the tonneau. Lacking time
to identify them, Lanyard questioned their character as little as their
malign intent: Belleville bullies, beyond doubt, drafted from Popinot's
batallions, with orders to bring in the Lone Wolf, dead or alive.

He had instant proof that his apprehensions were not exaggerated. Of a
sudden De Morbihan cut out the muffler and turned loose, full strength,
the electric horn. Between the harsh detonations of the exhaust and the
mad, blatant shrieks of the warning, a hideous clamour echoed and
re-echoed in that quiet street--a din in which the report of a
revolver-shot was drowned out and went unnoticed. Lanyard himself might
have been unaware of it, had he not caught out of the corner of his eye
a flash that spat out at him like a fiery serpent's tongue, and heard
the crash of the window behind him as it fell inward, shattered.

That the shot had no immediate successor was due almost wholly to
Lanyard's instant and instinctive action.

Even before the clash of broken glass registered on his consciousness,
he threw in the high-speed and shot away like a frightened greyhound.

So sudden was this move that it caught De Morbihan himself unprepared.
In an instant Lanyard had ten yards' lead. In another he was spinning
on two wheels round an acute corner, into the rue Jean Goujon; and in
a third, as he shot through that short block to the avenue d'Antin,
had increased his lead to fifteen yards. But he could never hope to
better that: rather, the contrary. The pursuit had the more powerful
car, and it was captained by one said to be the most daring and
skilful motorist in France.

The considerations that dictated Lanyard's simple strategy were sound
if unformulated: barring interference on the part of the
police--something he dared not count upon--his sole hope lay in open
flight and in keeping persistently to the better-lighted,
main-travelled thoroughfares, where a repetition of the attempt would
be inadvisable--at least, less probable. There was always a bare chance
of an accident--that De Morbihan's car would burst a tire or be
pocketed by the traffic, enabling Lanyard to strike off into some maze
of dark side-streets, abandon the cab, and take to cover in good earnest.

But that was a forlorn hope at best, and he knew it. Moreover, an
accident was as apt to happen to him as to De Morbihan: given an
unsound tire or a puncture, or let him be delayed two seconds by
some traffic hindrance, and nothing short of a miracle could save
him....

As he swung from the avenue d'Antin into Rond Point des Champs Elysees,
the nose of the pursuing car inched up on his right, effectually
blocking any attempt to strike off toward the east, to the Boulevards
and the centre of the city's life by night. He had no choice but to fly
west-wards.

He cut an arc round the sexpartite circle of the Rond Point that lost
no inch of advantage, and straightened out, ventre-a-terre, up the avenue
for the place de l'Etoile, shooting madly in and out of the tide of more
leisurely traffic--and ever the motor of the touring-car purred
contentedly just at his elbow.

If there were police about, Lanyard saw nothing of them: not that he
would have dreamed of stopping or even of checking speed for anything
less than an immovable obstacle....

But as minutes sped it became apparent that there was to be no renewed
attempt upon his life for the time being. The pursuers could afford to
wait. They could afford to ape the patience of Death itself.

And it came then to Lanyard that he drove no more alone: Death was his
passenger.

Absorbed though he was with the control of his machine and the
ever-shifting problems of the road, he still found time to think quite
clearly of himself, to recognize the fact that he was very likely
looking his last on Paris ... on life....

But a little longer, and the name of Michael Lanyard would be not even
a memory to those whose lives composed the untiring life of this broad
avenue.

Before him the Arc de Triomphe loomed ever larger and more darkly
beautiful against the field of midnight stars He wondered, would he
reach it alive....

He did: still the pursuit bided its time. But the hood of the
touring-car nosed him inexorably round the arch, away from the avenue
de la Grande Armee and into the avenue du Bois.

Only when in full course for Porte Dauphine did he appreciate De
Morbihan's design. He was to be rushed out into the midnight
solitudes of the Bois de Boulogne and there run down and slain.

But now he began to nurse a feeble thrill of hope.

Once inside the park enclosure, he reckoned vaguely on some
opportunity to make sudden halt, abandon the car and, taking refuge
in the friendly obscurity of trees and shrubbery, either make good
his escape afoot or stand off the Apaches until police came to his
aid. With night to cloak his movements and with a clump of trees to
shelter in, he dared believe he would have a chance for his
life--whereas in naked streets any such attempt would prove simply
suicidal.

Infrequent glances over-shoulder showed no change in the gap between
his own and the car of the assassins. But his motor ran sweet and true:
humouring it, coaxing it, he contrived a little longer to hold his own.

Approaching the Porte Dauphine he became aware of two sergents de ville
standing in the middle of the way and wildly brandishing their arms. He
held on toward them relentlessly--it was their lives or his--and they
leaped aside barely in time to save themselves.

And as he slipped into the park like a hunted shadow, he fancied that
he heard a pistol-shot--whether directed at himself by the Apaches, or
fired by the police to emphasize their indignation, he couldn't say.
But he was grateful enough it was a taxicab he drove, not a touring-car:
lacking the body of his vehicle to shield him, he little doubted that
a bullet would long since have found him.

In that dead hour the drives of the Bois were almost deserted. Between
the porte and the first carrefour he passed only one motor-car, a
limousine whose driver shouted something inarticulate as Lanyard
hummed past. The freedom from traffic dangers was a relief: but the
pursuit was creeping up, inch by inch, as he swung down the road-way
along the eastern border of the lake; and still he had found no
opening, had recognized no invitation in the lay of the land to attempt
his one plan; as matters stood, the Apaches would be upon him before
he could jump from his seat.

Bending low over the wheel, searching with anxious eyes the shadowed
reaches of that winding drive, he steered for a time with one hand,
while the other tore open his ulster and brought his pistol into
readiness.

Then, as he topped the brow of the incline, above the whine of his
motor, the crackle of road-metal beneath the tires, and the boom of the
rushing air in his ears, he heard the sharp clatter of hoofs, and
surmised that the gendarmerie had given chase.

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