The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance

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And, its propeller no longer gripping the air, the aeroplane drifted on
at ever-lessening speed, until it had no way whatever and rested
without motion of any sort; as it might have been in the cup of some
mighty and invisible hand, held up to that stark and merciless light,
under the passionless eye of the Infinite, to await a Judgment....

Then, with a little shudder of hesitation, the planes dipped, inclined
slightly earthwards, and began slowly and as if reluctantly to slip
down the long and empty channels of the air.

At this, rousing, Lanyard became aware of his own voice yammering
wildly at Vauquelin:

"Good God, man! Why did you do that?"

Vauquelin answered only with a pale grimace and a barely perceptible
shrug.

Momentarily gathering momentum, the biplane sped downward with a
resistless rush, with the speed of a great wind--a speed so great that
when Lanyard again attempted speech, the breath was whipped from his
lips and he could utter no sound.

Thus from that awful height, from the still heart of that immeasurable
void, they swept down and ever down, in a long series of sickening
swoops, broken only by negligible pauses. And though they approached it
on a long slant, the floor of vapour rose to meet them like a mighty
rushing wave: in a trice the biplane was hovering instantaneously
before plunging on down into that cold, grey world of fog.

In that moment of hesitation, while still the adventurer gasped for
breath and pawed at his streaming eyes with an aching hand, pierced
through and through with cold, the fog showed itself as something less
substantial than it had seemed; blurs of colour glowed through its
folds of gauze, and with these the rounded summit of a brownish, knoll.

Then they plunged on, down out of the bleak, bright sunshine into cool
twilight depths of clinging vapours; and the good green earth lifted
its warm bosom to receive them.

Tilting its nose a trifle, fluttering as though undecided, the Parrott
settled gracefully, with scarcely a Jar, upon a wide sweep of untilled
land covered with short coarse grass.

For some time the three remained in their perches like petrified things,
quite moveless and--with the possible exception of the aviator--hardly
conscious.

But presently Lanyard became aware that he was regularly filling his
lungs with air sweet, damp, wholesome, and by comparison warm, and that
the blood was tingling painfully in his half-frozen hands and feet.

He sighed as one waking from a strange dream.

At the same time the aviator bestirred himself, and began a bit stiffly
to climb down.

Feeling the earth beneath his feet, he took a step or two away from the
machine, reeling and stumbling like a drunken man, then turned back.

"Come, my friend!" he urged Lanyard in a voice of strangely normal
intonation--"look alive--if you're able--and lend me a hand with
mademoiselle. I'm afraid she has fainted."

The girl was reclining inertly in the bands of webbing, her eyes closed,
her lips ajar, her limbs slackened.

"Small blame to her!" Lanyard commented, fumbling clumsily with the
chest-band. "That dive was enough to drive a body mad!"

"But I had to do it!" the aviator protested earnestly. "I dared not
remain longer up there. I have never before been afraid in the air, but
after _that_ I was terribly afraid. I could feel myself going--taking
leave of my senses--and I knew I must act if we were not to follow that
other... God! what a death!"

He paused, shuddered, and drew the back of his hand across his eyes
before continuing: "So I cut off the ignition and volplaned. Here--my
hand. So-o! All right, eh?"

"Oh, I'm all right," Lanyard insisted confidently.

But his confidence was belied by a look of daze; for the earth was
billowing and reeling round him as though bewitched; and before he knew
what had happened he sat down hard and stared foolishly up at the aviator.

"Here!" said the latter courteously, his wind-mask hiding a smile--"my
hand again, monsieur. You've endured more than you know. And now for
mademoiselle."

But when they approached the girl, she surprised both by shivering,
sitting up, and obviously pulling herself together.

"You feel better now, mademoiselle?" Vauquelin enquired, hastening to
loosen her fastenings.

"I'm better--yes, thank you," she admitted in a small, broken
voice--"but not yet quite myself."

She gave a hand to the aviator, the other to Lanyard, and as they
helped her to the ground, Lanyard, warned by his experience, stood by
with a ready arm.

She needed that support, and for a few minutes didn't seem even
conscious of it. Then gently disengaging, she moved a foot or two away.

"Where are we--do you know?"

"On the South Downs, somewhere?" Lanyard suggested, consulting
Vauquelin.

"That is probable," this last affirmed--"at all events, judging from
the course I steered. Somewhere well in from the coast, at a venture;
I don't hear the sea."

"Near Lewes, perhaps?"

"I have no reason to doubt that."

A constrained pause ensued. The girl looked from the aviator to Lanyard,
then turned away from both and, trembling with fatigue and enforcing
self-control by clenching her hands, stared aimlessly off into the mist.

Painfully, Lanyard set himself to consider their position.

The Parrott had come to rest in what seemed to be a wide, shallow,
saucer-like depression, whose irregular bounds were cloaked in fog. In
this space no living thing stirred save themselves; and the waste was
crossed by not so much as a sheep track. In brief, they were lost.
There might be a road running past the saucer ten yards from its brim
in any quarter. There might not. Possibly there was a town or village
immediately adjacent. Quite as possibly the Downs billowed away for
desolate miles on either hand.

"Well--what do we do now?" the girl demanded suddenly, in a nervous
voice, sharp and jarring.

"Oh, we'll find a way out of this somehow," Vauquelin asserted
confidently. "England isn't big enough for anybody to remain lost in
it--not for long, at all events. I'm sorry only on Miss Shannon's
account."

"We'll manage, somehow," Lanyard affirmed stoutly.

The aviator smiled curiously. "To begin with," he advanced, "I daresay
we might as well get rid of these awkward costumes. They'll hamper
walking--rather."

In spite of his fatigue Lanyard was so struck by the circumstances that
he couldn't help remarking it as he tore off his wind-veil.

"Your English is remarkably good, Captain Vauquelin," he observed.

The other laughed shortly.

"Why not?" said he, removing his mask.

Lanyard looked up into his face, stared, and fell back a pace.

"Wertheimer!" he gasped.

XXVII

DAYBREAK

The Englishman smiled cheerfully in response to Lanyard's cry of
astonishment.

"In effect," he observed, stripping off his gauntlets, "you're right,
Mr. Lanyard. 'Wertheimer' isn't my name, but it is so closely
identified with my--ah--insinuative personality as to warrant the
misapprehension. I shan't demand an apology so long as you permit me to
preserve an incognito which may yet prove somewhat useful."

"Incognito!" Lanyard stammered, utterly discountenanced. "Useful!"

"You have my meaning exactly; although my work in Paris is now ended,
there's no saying when it may not be convenient to be able to go back
without establishing a new identity."

Before Lanyard replied to this the look of wonder in his eyes had
yielded to one of understanding.

"Scotland Yard, eh?" he queried curtly.

Wertheimer bowed. "Special agent," he added.

"I might have guessed, if I'd had the wit of a goose!" Lanyard affirmed
bitterly. "But I must admit..."

"Yes," the Englishman assented pleasantly; "I did pull your leg--didn't
I? But not more than our other friends. Of course, it's taken some
time: I had to establish myself firmly as a shining light of the swell
mob over here before De Morbihan would take me to his hospitable bosom."

"I presume I'm to consider myself under arrest?"

With a laugh, the Englishman shook his head vigorously.

"No, thank you!" he declared. "I've had too convincing proof of your
distaste for interference in your affairs. You fight too sincerely,
Mr. Lanyard--and I'm a tired sleuth this very morning as ever was! I
would need a week's rest to fit me for the job of taking you into
custody--a week and some able-bodied assistance!... But," he amended
with graver countenance, "I will say this: if you're in England a week
hence, I'll be tempted to undertake the job on general principles. I
don't in the least question the sincerity of your intention to behave
yourself hereafter; but as a servant of the King, it's my duty to
advise you that England would prefer you to start life anew--as they
say--in another country. Several steamers sail for the States before
the end of the week: further details I leave entirely to your
discretion. But go you must," he concluded firmly.

"I understand..." said Lanyard; and would have said more, but couldn't.
There was something suspiciously like a mist before his eyes.

Avoiding the faces of his sweetheart and the Englishman, he turned
aside, put forth a hand blindly to a wing of the biplane to steady
himself, and stood with head bowed and limbs trembling.

Moving quietly to his side, the girl took his other hand and held it
tight....

Presently Lanyard shook himself impatiently and lifted his head again.

"Sorry," he said, apologetic--"but your generosity--when I looked for
nothing better than arrest--was a bit too much for my nerves!"

"Nonsense!" the Englishman commented with brusque good-humour. "We're
all upset. A drop of brandy will do us no end of good."

Unbuttoning his leather surtout, he produced a flask from an inner
pocket, filled its metal cup, and offered it to the girl.

"You first, if you please, Miss Shannon. No--I insist. You positively
need it."

She allowed herself to be persuaded, drank, coughed, gasped, and
returned the cup, which Wertheimer promptly refilled and passed to
Lanyard.

The raw spirits stung like fire, but proved an instant aid to the badly
jangled nerves of the adventurer. In another moment he was much more
himself.

Drinking in turn, Wertheimer put away the flask. "That's better!" he
commented. "Now I'll be able to cut along with this blessed machine
without fretting over the fate of Ekstrom. But till now I haven't been
able to forget----"

He paused and drew a hand across his eyes.

"It was, then, Ekstrom--you think?" Lanyard demanded.

"Unquestionably! De Morbihan had learned--I know--of your bargain with
Ducroy; and I know, too, that he and Ekstrom spent each morning in the
hangars at St. Germain, after your sensational evasion. It never
entered my head, of course, that they had any such insane scheme
brewing as that--else I would never have so giddily arranged with
Ducroy--through the Surete, you understand--to take Vauquelin's
place.... Besides, who else could it have been? Not De Morbihan, for
he's crippled for life, thanks to that affair in the Bois; not
Popinot, who was on his way to the Sante, last I saw of him; and never
Bannon--he was dead before I left Paris for Port Aviation."

"Dead!"

"Oh, quite!" the Englishman affirmed nonchalantly, "When we arrested
him at three this morning--charged with complicity in the murder of
Roddy--he flew into a passion that brought on a fatal haemorrhage. He
died within ten minutes."

There was a little silence....

"I may tell you, Mr. Lanyard," the Englishman resumed, looking up from
the motor, to which he was paying attentions with monkey-wrench and
oil-can, "that you were quite off your bat when you ridiculed the idea
of the 'International Underworld Unlimited.' Of course, if you _hadn't_
laughed, I shouldn't feel quite as much respect for you as I do; in
fact, the chances are you'd be in handcuffs or in a cell of the Sante,
this very minute.... But, absurd as it sounded--and was--the
'Underworld' project was a pet hobby of Bannon's--who'd been the brains
of a gang of criminals in New York for many years. He was a bit touched
on the subject: a monomaniac, if you ask me. And his enthusiasm won De
Morbihan and Popinot over ... and me! He took a wonderful fancy to me,
Bannon did; I really was appointed first-lieutenant in Greggs'
stead.... So you first won my sympathy by laughing at my offer," said
Wertheimer, restoring the oil-can to its place in the tool-kit;
"wherein you were very wise.... In fact, my personal feeling for you is
one of growing esteem, if you'll permit me to say so. You've most of
the makings of a man. Will you shake hands--with a copper's nark?"

He gave Lanyard's hand a firm and friendly grasp, and turned to the girl.

"Good-bye, Miss Shannon. I'm truly grateful for the assistance you gave
us. Without you, we'd have been sadly handicapped. I understand you have
sent in your resignation? It's too bad: the Service will feel the loss
of you. But I think you were right to leave us, the circumstances
considered.... And now it's good-bye and good luck! I hope you may be
happy.... I'm sure you can't go far without coming across a highroad or
a village; but--for reasons not unconnected with my profession--I prefer
to remain in ignorance of the way you go."

Releasing her hand, he stepped back, saluted the lovers with a smile
and gay gesture, and clambered briskly to the pilot's seat of the
biplane.

When firmly established, he turned the switch of the starting mechanism.

The heavy, distinctive hum of the great motor filled that isolated
hollow in the Downs like the purring of a dynamo.

With a final wave of his hand, Wertheimer grasped the starting-lever.

Its _brool_ deepening, the Parrott stirred, shot forward abruptly. In
two seconds it was fifty yards distant, its silhouette already blurred,
its wheels lifting from the rim of the hollow.

Then lightly it leaped, soared, parted the mists, vanished....

For some time Lanyard and Lucy Shannon remained motionless, clinging
together, hand-in-hand, listening to the drone that presently dwindled
to a mere thread of sound and died out altogether in the obscurity
above them.

Then, turning, they faced each other, smiling a trace uncertainly, a
smile that said: "So all that is finished! ... Or, perhaps, we dreamed
it!"...

Suddenly, with a low cry, the girl gave herself to Lanyard's arms; and
as this happened the mists parted and bright sunlight flooded the
hollow in the Downs.

THE END

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