The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance

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And then, on a slight down-grade, though he took it at perilous speed
and seemed veritably to ride the wind, the following machine, aided by
its greater weight, began to close in still more rapidly. Momentarily
the hoarse snoring of its motor sounded more loud and menacing. It was
now a mere question of seconds....

Inspiration of despair came to him, as wild as any ever conceived by
mind of man.

They approached a point where, on the left, a dense plantation walled
the road. To the right a wide foot walk separated the drive from a
gentle declivity sown with saplings, running down to the water.

Rising in his place, Lanyard slipped from under him the heavy
waterproof cushion.

Then edging over to the left of the middle of the road, abruptly he
shut off power and applied the brakes with all his might.

From its terrific speed the cab came to a stop within twice its length.

Lanyard was thrown forward against the wheel, but having braced in
anticipation, escaped injury and effected instant recovery.

The car of the Apaches was upon him in a pulse-beat. With no least
warning of his intention, De Morbihan had no time to employ brakes.
Lanyard saw its dark shape flash past the windows of his cab and heard
a shout of triumph. Then with all his might he flung the heavy cushion
across that scant space, directly into the face of De Morbihan.

His aim was straight and true.

In alarm, unable to comprehend the nature of that large, dark, whirling
mass, De Morbihan attempted to lift a warding elbow. He was too slow:
the cushion caught him in the face, full-force, and before he could
recover or guess what he was doing, he had twisted the wheel sharply to
the right.

The car, running a little less than locomotive speed, shot across the
strip of sidewalk, caught its right forewheel against a sapling, swung
heavily broadside to the drive, and turned completely over as it shot
down the slope to the lake.

A terrific crash was followed by a hideous chorus of oaths, shrieks,
cries and groans. Promptly Lanyard started his motor anew and, trembling
in every limb, ran on for several hundred yards. But time pressed, and
the usefulness of his car was at an end, as far as he was concerned;
there was no saying how many times its identity might not have been
established by the police in the course of that wild chase through
Paris, or how soon these last might contrive to overhaul and apprehend
him; and as soon as a bend in the road shut off the scene of wreck, he
stopped finally, jumped down, and plunged headlong into the dark
midnight heart of the Bois, seeking its silences where trees stood
thickest and lights were few.

Later, like some worried creature of the night, panting, dishevelled,
his rough clothing stained and muddied, he slunk across an open space,
a mile or so from his point of disappearance, dropped cautiously down
into the dry bed of the moat, climbed as stealthily a slippery glacis
of the fortifications, darted across the inner boulevard, and began to
describe a wide arc toward his destination, the hotel Omber.

XXI

APOSTATE

He was singularly free from any sort of exultation over the manner in
which he had at once compassed his own escape and brought down
catastrophe upon his self-appointed murderers; his mood was quick with
wonder and foreboding and bewilderment. The more closely he examined
the affair, the more strange and inexplicable it bulked in his
understanding. He had not thought to defy the Pack and get off lightly;
but he had looked for no such overt effort at disciplining him so long
as he kept out of the way and suspended his criminal activities. An
unwilling recruit is a potential traitor in the camp; and retired
competition isn't to be feared. So it seemed that Wertheimer hadn't
believed his protestations, or else Bannon had rejected the report
which must have been made him by the girl. In either case, the Pack had
not waited for the Lone Wolf to prove his insincerity; it hadn't
bothered to declare war; it had simply struck; with less warning than
a rattlesnake gives, it had struck--out of the dark--at his back.

And so--Lanyard swore grimly--even so would he strike, now that it was
his turn, now that his hour dawned.

But he would have given much for a clue to the riddle. Why must he be
saddled with this necessity of striking in self-defence? Why had this
feud been forced upon him, who asked nothing better than to be let
alone? He told himself it wasn't altogether the professional jealousy
of De Morbihan, Popinot and Wertheimer; it was the strange, rancorous
spite that animated Bannon.

But, again, why? Could it be that Bannon so resented the aid and
encouragement Lanyard had afforded the girl in her abortive attempt to
escape? Or was it, perhaps, that Bannon held Lanyard responsible for the
arrest and death of Greggs?

Could it be possible that there was really anything substantial at the
bottom of Wertheimer's wild yarn about the pretentiously named
"International Underworld Unlimited"? Was this really a demonstration
of purpose to crush out competition--"and hang the expense"?

Or was there some less superficially tangible motive to be sought? Did
Bannon entertain some secret, personal animus against Michael Lanyard
himself as distinguished from the Lone Wolf?

Debating these questions from every angle but to no end, he worked
himself into a fine fury of exasperation, vowing he would consummate
this one final coup, sequestrate himself in England until the affair
had blown over, and in his own good time return to Paris to expose De
Morbihan (presuming he survived the wreck in the Bois) exterminate
Popinot utterly, drive Wertheimer into permanent retirement at Dartmoor,
and force an accounting from Bannon though it were surrendered together
with that invalid's last wheezing breaths....

In this temper he arrived, past one in the morning, under the walls of
the hotel Omber, and prudently selected a new point of attack. In the
course of his preliminary examinations of the walls, it hadn't escaped
him that their brick-and-plaster construction was in bad repair; he had
marked down several spots where the weather had eaten the outer coat of
plaster completely away. At one of these, midway between the avenue and
the junction of the side-streets, he hesitated.

As he had foreseen, the mortar that bound the bricks together was all
dry and crumbling; it was no great task to work one of them loose,
making a foothold from which he might grasp with a gloved hand the
glass-toothed curbing, cast his ulster across this for further
protection, and swing himself bodily atop the wall.

But there, momentarily, he paused in doubt and trembling. In that
exposed and comfortless perch, the lifeless street on one hand, the
black mystery of the neglected park on the other, he was seized and
shaken by a sudden revulsion of feeling like a sickness of his very
soul. Physical fear had nothing to do with this, for he was quite alone
and unobserved; had it been otherwise faculties trained through a
lifetime to such work as this and now keyed to concert pitch would not
have failed to give warning of whatever danger his grosser senses might
have overlooked.

Notwithstanding, he was afraid as though Fear's very self had laid hold
of his soul by the heels and would not let it go until its vision of
itself was absolute. He was afraid with a great fear such as he had
never dreamed to know; who knew well the wincing of the flesh from risk
of pain, the shuddering of the spirit in the shadow of death, and
horror such as had gripped him that morning in poor Roddy's bed-chamber.

But none of these had in any way taught him the measure of such fear as
now possessed him, so absolute that he quaked like a naked soul in the
inexorable presence of the Eternal.

He was afraid of himself, in panic terror of that ego which tenanted
the shell of functioning, sensitive stuff called Michael Lanyard: he
was afraid of the strange, silent, incomprehensible Self lurking occult
in him, that masked mysterious Self which in its inscrutable whim could
make him fine or make him base, that Self impalpable and elusive as any
shadow yet invincibly strong, his master and his fate, in one the grave
of Yesterday, the cup of Today, the womb of Tomorrow....

He looked up at the tired, dull faces of those old dwellings that
loomed across the way with blind and lightless windows, sleeping
without suspicion that he had stolen in among them--the grim and deadly
thing that walked by night, the Lone Wolf, creature of pillage and
rapine, scourged slave of that Self which knew no law....

Then slowly that obsession lifted like the passing of a nightmare; and
with a start, a little shiver and a sigh, Lanyard roused and went on to
do the bidding of his Self for its unfathomable ends....

Dropping silently to the soft, damp turf, he made himself one with the
shadows of the park, as mute, intangible and fugitive as they, until
presently coming out beneath the stars, on an open lawn running up to
the library wing of the hotel, he approached a shallow stone balcony
which jutted forth eight feet above the lawn--an elevation so
inconsiderable that, with one bound grasping its stone balustrade,
the adventurer was upon it in a brace of seconds.

Nor did the long French windows that opened on the balcony offer him
any real hindrance: a penknife quickly removed the dried putty round
one small, lozenge-shaped pane, then pried out the pane itself; a hand
through this space readily found and turned the latch; a cautious
pressure opened the two wings far enough to admit his body; and--he
stood inside the library.

He had made no sound; and thanks to thorough familiarity with the
ground, he needed no light. The screen of cinnabar afforded all the
protection he required; and because he meant to accomplish his purpose
and be out of the house with the utmost expedition, he didn't trouble
to explore beyond a swift, casual review of the adjoining salons.

The clock was chiming the three-quarters as he knelt behind the screen
and grasped the combination-knob.

But he did not turn it. That mellow music died out slowly, and left him
transfixed, there in the silence and gloom, his eyes staring wide into
blackness at nothing, his jaw set and rigid, his forehead knotted and
damp with sweat, his hands so clenched that the nails bit deep into his
palms; while he looked back over the abyss yawning between the Lone
Wolf of tonight and the man who had, within the week, knelt in that
spot in company with the woman he loved, bent on making restitution
that his soul might be saved through her faith in him.

He was visited by clear vision of himself: the thief caught in his
crime by his conscience--or whatever it was, what for want of a better
name he must call his conscience: this thing within him that revolted
from his purpose, mutinied against the dictates of his Self, and
stopped his hand from reaping the harvest of his cunning and daring;
this sense of honour and of honesty that in a few brief days had grown
more dear to him than all else in life, knitting itself inextricably
into the fibre of his being, so that to deny it were against Nature....

He closed his eyes to shut out the accusing vision, and knelt on,
unstirring, though torn this way and that in the conflict of man's dual
nature.

Minutes passed without his knowledge.

But in time he grew more calm; his hands relaxed, the muscles of his
brow smoothed out, he breathed more slowly and deeply; his set lips
parted and a profound sigh whispered in the stillness. A great
weariness upon him, he rose slowly and heavily from the floor, and
stood erect, free at last and forever from that ancient evil which so
long had held his soul in bondage.

And in that moment of victory, through the deep hush reigning in the
house, he detected an incautious footfall on the parquetry of the
reception-hall.

XXII

TRAPPED

It was a sound so slight, so very small and still, that only a
super-subtle sense of hearing could have discriminated it from the
confused multiplicity of almost inaudible, interwoven, interdependent
sounds that make up the slumberous quiet of every human habitation, by
night.

Lanyard, whose training had taught him how to listen, had learned that
the nocturnal hush of each and every house has its singular cadence,
its own gentle movement of muted but harmonious sound in which the
introduction of an alien sound produces immediate discord, and to which,
while at his work, he need attend only subconsciously since the least
variation from the norm would give him warning.

Now, in the silence of this old mansion, he detected a faint flutter of
discordance that sounded a note of stealth; such a note as no move of
his since entering had evoked.

He was no longer alone, but shared the empty magnificence of those vast
salons with one whose purpose was as furtive, as secret, as wary as his
own; no servant or watchman roused by an intuition of evil, but one who
had no more than he any lawful business there.

And while he stood at alert attention the sound was repeated from a
point less distant, indicating that the second intruder was moving
toward the library.

In two swift strides Lanyard left the shelter of the screen and took to
cover in the recess of one of the tall windows, behind its heavy velvet
hangings: an action that could have been timed no more precisely had it
been rehearsed; he was barely in hiding when a shape of shadow slipped
into the library, paused beside the massive desk, and raked the room
with the light of a powerful flash-lamp.

Its initial glare struck squarely into Lanyard's eyes, dazzling them,
as he peered through a narrow opening in the portieres; and though the
light was instantly shifted, for several moments a blur of peacock
colour, blending, ebbing, hung like a curtain in the darkness, and he
could see nothing distinctly--only the trail traced by that dancing
spot-light over walls and furnishings.

When at length his vision cleared, the newcomer was kneeling in turn
before the safe; but more light was needed, and this one, lacking
Lanyard's patience and studious caution, turned back to the desk, and,
taking the reading-lamp, transferred it to the floor behind the screen.

But even before the flood of light followed the dull click of the
switch, Lanyard had recognized the woman.

For an instant he felt dazed, half-stunned, suffocating, much as he had
felt with Greggs' fingers tightening on his windpipe, that week-old
night at Troyon's; he experienced real difficulty about breathing, and
was conscious of a sickish throbbing in his temples and a pounding in
his bosom like the tolling of a great bell. He stared, swaying....

The light, gushing from the opaque hood, made the safe door a glare,
and was thrown back into her intent, masked face, throwing out in sharp
silhouette her lithe, sweet body, indisputably identified by the
individual poise of her head and shoulders and the gracious contours
of her tailored coat.

She was all in black, even to her hands, no trace of white or any
colour showing but the fair curve of the cheek below her mask and the
red of her lips. And if more evidence were needed, the intelligence
with which she attacked the combination, the confident, business-like
precision distinguishing her every action, proved her an apt pupil in
that business.

His thoughts were all in a welter of miserable confusion. He knew that
this explained many things he would have held questionable had not his
infatuation forbidden him to consider them at all, lest he be disloyal
to this woman whom he adored; but in the anguish of that moment he
could entertain but one thought, and that possessed him altogether--that
she must somehow be saved from the evil she contemplated....

But while he hesitated, she became sensitive to his presence; though he
had made no sound since her entrance, though he had not even stirred,
somehow she divined that he--someone--was there in the recess of the
window, watching her.

In the act of opening the safe--using the memorandum of its combination
which he had jotted down in her presence--he saw her pause, freeze to a
pose of attention, then turn to stare directly at the portiere that hid
him. And for an eternal second she remained kneeling there, so still
that she seemed not even to breathe, her gaze fixed and level, waiting
for some sound, some sign, some tremor of the curtain's folds, to
confirm her suspicion.

When at length she rose it was in one swift, alert movement. And as she
paused with her slight shoulders squared and her head thrown back
defiantly, challengingly, as one without will of his own but drawn
irresistibly by her gaze, he stepped out into the room.

And since he was no more the Lone Wolf, but now a simple man in agony,
with no thought for their circumstances--for the fact that they were
both house-breakers and that the slightest sound might raise a
hue-and-cry upon them--he took one faltering step toward her, stopped,
lifted a hand in a gesture of appeal, and stammered:

"Lucy--you----"

His voice broke and failed.

She didn't answer, more than by recoiling as though he had offered to
strike her, until the table stopped her, and she leaned back as if
glad of its support.

"Oh!" she cried, trembling--"why_--why_ did you do it?"

He might have answered her in kind, but self-justification passed his
power. He couldn't say, "Because this evening you made me lose faith
in everything, and I thought to forget you by going to the devil the
quickest way I knew--this way!"--though that was true. He couldn't say:
"Because, a thief from boyhood, habit proved too strong for me, and I
couldn't withstand temptation!"--for that was untrue. He could only
hang his head and mumble the wretched confession: "I don't know."

As if he hadn't spoken, she cried again: "Why--_why_ did you do it? I
was so proud of you, so sure of you, the man who had turned straight
because of me!... It compensated... But now...!"

Her voice broke in a short, dry sob.

"Compensated?" he repeated stupidly.

"Yes, compensated!" She lifted her head with a gesture of impatience:
"For this--don't you understand?--for this that I'm doing! You don't
imagine I'm here of my own will?--that I went back to Bannon for any
reason but to try to save you from him? I knew something of his power,
and you didn't; I knew if I went away with you he'd never rest until
he had you murdered. And I thought if I could mislead him by lies for
a little time--long enough to give you a chance to escape--I thought
--perhaps--I might be able to communicate with the police, denounce
him----"

She hesitated, breathless and appealing.

At her first words he had drawn close to her; and all their talk was
murmurings. But this was quite instinctive; for both were beyond
considerations of prudence, the one coherent thought of each being
that now, once and forever, all misunderstanding must be done away
with.

Now, as naturally as though they had been lovers always, Lanyard took
her hand, and clasped it between his own.

"You cared as much as that!"

"I love you," she told him--"I love you so much I am ready to sacrifice
everything for you--life, liberty, honour----"

"Hush, dearest, hush!" he begged, half distracted.

"I mean it: if honour could hold me back, do you think I would have
broken in here tonight to steal for Bannon?"

"He sent you, eh?" Lanyard commented in a dangerous voice.

"He was too cunning for me... I was afraid to tell you... I meant to
tell--to warn you, this evening in the cab. But then I thought perhaps
if I said nothing and sent you away believing the worst of me--perhaps
you would save yourself and forget me----"

"But never!"

"I tried my best to deceive him, but couldn't. They got the truth from
me by threats----"

"They wouldn't dare----"

"They dare anything, I tell you! They knew enough of what had happened,
through their spies, to go on, and they tormented and bullied me until
I broke down and told them everything... And when they learned you had
brought the jewels back here, Bannon told me I must bring them to
him--that, if I refused, he'd have you killed. I held out until
tonight; then just as I was about to go to bed he received a telephone
message, and told me you were driving a taxi and followed by Apaches
and wouldn't live till daylight if I persisted in refusing."

"You came alone?"

"No. Three men brought me to the gate. They're waiting outside, in the
park."

"Apaches?"

"Two of them. The other is Captain Ekstrom."

"Ekstrom!" Lanyard cried in despair. "Is he----"

The dull, heavy, crashing slam of the great front doors silenced him.

XXIII

MADAME OMBER

Before the echo of that crash ceased to reverberate from room to room,
Lanyard slipped to one side of the doorway, from which point he could
command the perspective of the salons together with a partial view of
the front doors. And he was no more than there, in the shadow of the
portieres, when light from an electrolier flooded the reception-hall.

It showed him a single figure, that of a handsome woman, considerably
beyond middle age but still a well-poised, vigorous, and commanding
presence, in full evening dress of such magnificence as to suggest
recent attendance at some State function.

Standing beneath the light, she was restoring a key to a brocaded
hand-bag. This done, she turned her head and spoke indistinguishably
over her shoulder. Promptly there came into view a second woman of
about the same age, but even more strong and able of appearance--a
serving-woman, in plain, dark garments, undoubtedly madame's maid.

Handing over the brocaded bag, madame unlatched the throat of her
ermine cloak and surrendered it to the servant's care.

Her next words were audible, and reassuring in as far as they
indicated ignorance of anything amiss.

"Thank you, Sidonie. You may go to bed now."

"Madame will not need me to undress her?"

"I'm not ready yet. When I am--I'm old enough to take care of myself.
Besides, I prefer you to go to bed, Sidonie. It doesn't improve your
temper to lose your beauty sleep."

"Many thanks, madame. Good night."

"Good night."

The maid moved off toward the main staircase, while her mistress turned
deliberately through the salons toward the library.

At this, swinging back to the girl in a stride, and grasping her wrist
to compel attention, Lanyard spoke in a rapid whisper, mouth close to
her ear, but his solicitude so unselfish and so intense that for the
moment he was altogether unconscious of either her allure or his
passion.

"This way," he said, imperatively drawing her toward the window by
which he had entered: "there's a balcony outside--a short drop to the
ground." And unlatching the window, he urged her through it. "Try to
leave by the back gateway--the one I showed you before--avoiding
Ekstrom----"

"But surely you are coming too?" she insisted, hanging back.

"Impossible: there's no time for us both to escape undetected. I shall
keep madame interested only long enough for you to get away. But take
this"--and he pressed his automatic into her hand. "No--take it; I've
another," he lied, "and you may need it. Don't fear for me, but go--O
my heart!--go!"

The footfalls of Madame Omber were sounding dangerously near, and
without giving the girl more opportunity to protest, Lanyard closed
the windows, shot the latch and stole like a cat round the farther
side of the desk, pausing within a few feet of the screen and safe.

The desk-lamp was still burning, where the girl had left it behind the
cinnabar screen; and Lanyard knew that the diffusion of its rays was
enough to render his figure distinctly and immediately visible to one
entering the doorway.

Now everything hung upon the temper of the house-holder, whether she
would take that apparition quietly, deceived by Lanyard's mumming into
believing she had only a poor thievish fool to deal with, or with a
storm of bourgeois hysteria. In the latter event, Lanyard's hand was
ready planted, palm down, on the top of the desk: should the woman
attempt to give the alarm, a single bound would carry the adventurer
across it in full flight for the front doors.

In the doorway the mistress of the house appeared and halted, her quick
bright eyes shifting from the light on the floor to the dark figure of
the thief. Then, in a stride, she found a switch and turned on the
chandelier, a blaze of light.

As this happened, Lanyard cowered, lifting an elbow as though to guard
his face--as though expecting to find himself under the muzzle of a
revolver.

The gesture had the calculated effect of focussing the attention of the
woman exclusively to him, after one swift glance round had shown her a
room tenanted only by herself and a cringing thief. And immediately it
was made manifest that, whether or not deceived, she meant to take the
situation quietly, if in a strong hand.

Her eyes narrowed and the muscles of her square, almost masculine jaw
hardened ominously as she looked the intruder up and down. Then a
flicker of contempt modified the grimness of her countenance. She took
three steps forward, pausing on the other side of the desk, her back to
the doorway.

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