The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance

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Bourke died in Switzerland, of consumption, in the winter of
1910--Lanyard at his side till the end.

Then the boy set his face against the world: alone, lonely, and
remembering.

II

RETURN

His return to Troyon's, whereas an enterprise which Lanyard had been
contemplating for several years--in fact, ever since the death of
Bourke--came to pass at length almost purely as an affair of impulse.

He had come through from London by the afternoon service--via
Boulogne--travelling light, with nothing but a brace of handbags and
his life in his hands. Two coups to his credit since the previous
midnight had made the shift advisable, though only one of them, the
later, rendered it urgent.

Scotland Yard would, he reckoned, require at least twenty-four hours to
unlimber for action on the Omber affair; but the other, the theft of
the Huysman plans, though not consummated before noon, must have set
the Chancelleries of at least three Powers by the ears before Lanyard
was fairly entrained at Charing Cross.

Now his opinion of Scotland Yard was low; its emissaries must operate
gingerly to keep within the laws they serve. But the agents of the
various Continental secret services have a way of making their own laws
as they go along: and for these Lanyard entertained a respect little
short of profound.

He would not have been surprised had he ran foul of trouble on the pier
at Folkestone. Boulogne, as well, figured in his imagination as a
crucial point: its harbour lights, heaving up over the grim grey waste,
peered through the deepening violet dusk to find him on the packet's
deck, responding to their curious stare with one no less insistently
inquiring.... But it wasn't until in the gauntlet of the Gare du Nord
itself that he found anything to shy at.

Dropping from train to platform, he surrendered his luggage to a ready
facteur, and followed the man through the crush, elbowed and
shouldered, offended by the pervasive reek of chilled steam and
coal-gas, and dazzled by the brilliant glare of the overhanging
electric arcs.

Almost the first face he saw turned his way was that of Roddy.

The man from Scotland Yard was stationed at one side of the platform
gates. Opposite him stood another known by sight to Lanyard--a highly
decorative official from the Prefecture de Police. Both were scanning
narrowly every face in the tide that churned between them.

Wondering if through some fatal freak of fortuity these were acting
under late telegraphic advice from London, Lanyard held himself well in
hand: the first sign of intent to hinder him would prove the signal for
a spectacular demonstration of the ungentle art of not getting caught
with the goods on. And for twenty seconds, while the crowd milled
slowly through the narrow exit, he was as near to betraying himself as
he had ever been--nearer, for he had marked down the point on Roddy's
jaw where his first blow would fall, and just where to plant a
coup-de-savate most surely to incapacitate the minion of the
Prefecture; and all the while was looking the two over with a manner of
the most calm and impersonal curiosity.

But beyond an almost imperceptible narrowing of Roddy's eyes when they
met his own, as if the Englishman were struggling with a faulty memory,
neither police agent betrayed the least recognition.

And then Lanyard was outside the station, his facteur introducing him
to a ramshackle taxicab.

No need to speculate whether or not Roddy were gazing after him; in the
ragged animal who held the door while Lanyard fumbled for his facteur's
tip, he recognized a runner for the Prefecture; and beyond question
there were many such about. If any lingering doubt should trouble
Roddy's mind he need only ask, "Such-and-such an one took what cab and
for what destination?" to be instantly and accurately informed.

In such case to go directly to his apartment, that handy little
rez-de-chaussee near the Trocadero, was obviously inadvisable. Without
apparent hesitation Lanyard directed the driver to the Hotel Lutetia,
tossed the ragged spy a sou, and was off to the tune of a slammed door
and a motor that sorely needed overhauling....

The rain, which had welcomed the train a few miles from Paris, was in
the city torrential. Few wayfarers braved the swimming sidewalks, and
the little clusters of chairs and tables beneath permanent cafe
awnings were one and all neglected. But in the roadways an amazing
concourse of vehicles, mostly motor-driven, skimmed, skidded, and shot
over burnished asphalting all, of course, at top-speed--else this were
not Paris. Lanyard thought of insects on the surface of some dark
forest pool....

The roof of the cab rang like a drumhead; the driver blinked through
the back-splatter from his rubber apron; now and again the tyres lost
grip on the treacherous going and provided instants of lively suspense.
Lanyard lowered a window to release the musty odour peculiar to French
taxis, got well peppered with moisture, and promptly put it up again.
Then insensibly he relaxed, in the toils of memories roused by the
reflection that this night fairly duplicated that which had welcomed
him to Paris, twenty years ago.

It was then that, for the first time in several months, he thought
definitely of Troyon's.

And it was then that Chance ordained that his taxicab should skid. On
the point of leaving the Ile de la Cite by way of the Pont St. Michel,
it suddenly (one might pardonably have believed) went mad, darting
crabwise from the middle of the road to the right-hand footway with
evident design to climb the rail and make an end to everything in the
Seine. The driver regained control barely in time to avert a tragedy,
and had no more than accomplished this much when a bit of broken glass
gutted one of the rear tyres, which promptly gave up the ghost with a
roar like that of a lusty young cannon.

At this the driver (apparently a person of religious bias) said
something heartfelt about the sacred name of his pipe and, crawling
from under the apron, turned aft to assess damages.

On his own part Lanyard swore in sound Saxon, opened the door, and
delivered himself to the pelting shower.

"Well?" he enquired after watching the driver muzzle the eviscerated
tyre for some eloquent moments.

Turning up a distorted face, the other gesticulated with profane
abandon, by way of good measure interpolating a few disconnected words
and phrases. Lanyard gathered that this was the second accident of the
same nature since noon that the cab consequently lacked a spare tyre,
and that short of a trip to the garage the accident was irremediable.
So he said (intelligently) it couldn't be helped, paid the man and over
tipped precisely as though their journey had been successfully
consummated, and standing over his luggage watched the maimed vehicle
limp miserably off through the teeming mists.

Now in normal course his plight should have been relieved within two
minutes. But it wasn't. For some time all such taxis as did pass
displayed scornfully inverted flags. Also, their drivers jeered in
their pleasing Parisian way at the lonely outlander occupying a
position of such uncommon distinction in the heart of the storm and the
precise middle of the Pont St. Michel.

Over to the left, on the Quai de Marche Neuf, the facade of the
Prefecture frowned portentously--"La Tour Pointue," as the Parisian
loves to term it. Lanyard forgot his annoyance long enough to salute
that grim pile with a mocking bow, thinking of the men therein who
would give half their possessions to lay hands on him who was only a
few hundred yards distant, marooned in the rain!...

In its own good time a night-prowling fiacre ambled up and veered over
to his hail. He viewed this stroke of good-fortune with intense
disgust: the shambling, weather-beaten animal between the shafts
promised a long, damp crawl to the Lutetia.

And on this reflection he yielded to impulse.

Heaving in his luggage--"Troyon's!" he told the
cocher....

The fiacre lumbered off into that dark maze of streets, narrow and
tortuous, which backs up from the Seine to the Luxembourg, while its
fare reflected that Fate had not served him so hardly after all: if
Roddy had really been watching for him at the Gare du Nord, with a mind
to follow and wait for his prey to make some incriminating move, this
chance-contrived change of vehicles and destination would throw the
detective off the scent and gain the adventurer, at worst, several
hours' leeway.

When at length his conveyance drew up at the historic corner, Lanyard
alighting could have rubbed his eyes to see the windows of Troyon's all
bright with electric light.

Somehow, and most unreasonably, he had always believed the place would
go to the hands of the house-wrecker unchanged.

A smart portier ducked out, seized his luggage, and offered an
umbrella. Lanyard composed his features to immobility as he entered the
hotel, of no mind to let the least flicker of recognition be detected
in his eyes when they should re-encounter familiar faces.

And this was quite as well: for--again--the first he saw was Roddy.

III

A POINT OF INTERROGATION

The man from Scotland Yard had just surrendered hat, coat, and umbrella
to the vestiaire and was turning through swinging doors to the
dining-room. Again, embracing Lanyard, his glance seemed devoid of any
sort of intelligible expression; and if its object needed all his
self-possession in that moment, it was to dissemble relief rather than
dismay. An accent of the fortuitous distinguished this second encounter
too persuasively to excuse further misgivings. What the adventurer
himself hadn't known till within the last ten minutes, that he was
coming to Troyon's, Roddy couldn't possibly have anticipated; ergo,
whatever the detective's business, it had nothing to do with Lanyard.

Furthermore, before quitting the lobby, Roddy paused long enough to
instruct the vestiaire to have a fire laid in his room.

So he was stopping at Troyon's--and didn't care who knew it!

His doubts altogether dissipated by this incident, Lanyard followed his
natural enemy into the dining-room with an air as devil-may-care as one
could wish and so impressive that the maitre-d'hotel abandoned the
detective to the mercies of one of his captains and himself hastened to
seat Lanyard and take his order.

This last disposed of; Lanyard surrendered himself to new
impressions--of which the first proved a bit disheartening.

However impulsively, he hadn't resought Troyon's without definite
intent, to wit, to gain some clue, however slender, to the mystery of
that wretched child, Marcel. But now it appeared he had procrastinated
fatally: Time and Change had left little other than the shell of the
Troyon's he remembered. Papa Troyon was gone; Madame no longer occupied
the desk of the caisse; enquiries, so discreetly worded as to be
uncompromising, elicited from the maitre-d'hotel the information that
the house had been under new management these eighteen months; the old
proprietor was dead, and his widow had sold out lock, stock and barrel,
and retired to the country--it was not known exactly where. And with
the new administration had come fresh decorations and furnishings as
well as a complete change of personnel: not even one of the old waiters
remained.

"'All, all are gone, the old familiar faces,'" Lanyard quoted in
vindictive melancholy--"damn 'em!"

Happily, it was soon demonstrated that the cuisine was being maintained
on its erstwhile plane of excellence: one still had that comfort....

Other impressions, less ultimate, proved puzzling, disconcerting, and
paradoxically reassuring.

Lanyard commanded a fair view of Roddy across the waist of the room.
The detective had ordered a meal that matched his aspect well--both
of true British simplicity. He was a square-set man with a square jaw,
cold blue eyes, a fat nose, a thin-lipped trap of a mouth, a face as
red as rare beefsteak. His dinner comprised a cut from the joint,
boiled potatoes, brussels sprouts, a bit of cheese, a bottle of Bass.
He ate slowly, chewing with the doggedness of a strong character
hampered by a weak digestion, and all the while kept eyes fixed to an
issue of the Paris edition of the London Daily Mail, with an effect of
concentration quite too convincing.

Now one doesn't read the Paris edition of the London Daily Mail with
tense excitement. Humanly speaking, it can't be done.

Where, then, was the object of this so sedulously dissembled interest?

Lanyard wasn't slow to read this riddle to his satisfaction--in as far,
that is, as it was satisfactory to feel still more certain that Roddy's
quarry was another than himself.

Despite the lateness of the hour, which had by now turned ten o'clock,
the restaurant had a dozen tables or so in the service of guests
pleasantly engaged in lengthening out an agreeable evening with
dessert, coffee, liqueurs and cigarettes. The majority of these were in
couples, but at a table one removed from Roddy's sat a party of three;
and Lanyard noticed, or fancied, that the man from Scotland Yard turned
his newspaper only during lulls in the conversation in this quarter.

Of the three, one might pass for an American of position and wealth: a
man of something more than sixty years, with an execrable accent, a
racking cough, and a thin, patrician cast of features clouded darkly by
the expression of a soul in torment, furrowed, seamed, twisted--a mask
of mortal anguish. And once, when this one looked up and casually
encountered Lanyard's gaze, the adventurer was shocked to find himself
staring into eyes like those of a dead man: eyes of a grey so light
that at a little distance the colour of the irises blended
indistinguishably with their whites, leaving visible only the round
black points of pupils abnormally distended and staring, blank, fixed,
passionless, beneath lashless lids.

For the instant they seemed to explore Lanyard's very soul with a look
of remote and impersonal curiosity; then they fell away; and when next
the adventurer looked, the man had turned to attend to some observation
of one of his companions.

On his right sat a girl who might be his daughter; for not only was
she, too, hall-marked American, but she was far too young to be the
other's wife. A demure, old-fashioned type; well-poised but unassuming;
fetchingly gowned and with sufficient individuality of taste but not
conspicuously; a girl with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes; pretty,
not extravagantly so when her face was in repose, but with a slow smile
that rendered her little less than beautiful: in all (Lanyard thought)
the kind of woman that is predestined to comfort mankind, whose
strongest instinct is the maternal.

She took little part in the conversation, seldom interrupting what was
practically a duologue between her putative father and the third of
their party.

This last was one, whom Lanyard was sure he knew, though he could see
no more than the back of Monsieur le Comte Remy de Morbihan.

And he wondered with a thrill of amusement if it were possible that
Roddy was on the trail of that tremendous buck. If so, it would be a
chase worth following--a diversion rendered the more exquisite to
Lanyard by the spice of novelty, since for once he would figure as a
dispassionate bystander.

The name of Comte Remy de Morbihan, although unrecorded in the Almanach
de Gotha, was one to conjure with in the Paris of his day and
generation. He claimed the distinction of being at once the homeliest,
one of the wealthiest, and the most-liked man in France.

As to his looks, good or bad, they were said to prove infallibly fatal
with women, while not a few men, perhaps for that reason, did their
possessor the honour to imitate them. The revues burlesqued him; Sem
caricatured him; Forain counterfeited him extensively in that
inimitable series of Monday morning cartoons for Le Figaro: one said
"De Morbihan" instinctively at sight of that stocky figure, short and
broad, topped by a chubby, moon-like mask with waxed moustaches,
womanish eyes, and never-failing grin.

A creature of proverbial good-nature and exhaustless vitality, his
extraordinary popularity was due to the equally extraordinary
extravagance with which he supported that latest Gallic fad,
"le Sport." The Parisian Rugby team was his pampered protege, he was an
active member of the Tennis Club, maintained not only a flock of
automobiles but a famous racing stable, rode to hounds, was a good
field gun, patronized aviation and motor-boat racing, risked as many
maximums during the Monte Carlo season as the Grand Duke Michael
himself, and was always ready to whet rapiers or burn a little harmless
powder of an early morning in the Parc aux Princes.

But there were ugly whispers current with respect to the sources of his
fabulous wealth. Lanyard, for one, wouldn't have thought him the
properest company or the best Parisian cicerone for an ailing American
gentleman blessed with independent means and an attractive daughter.

Paris, on the other hand--Paris who forgives everything to him who
contributes to her amusement--adored Comte Remy de Morbihan ...

But perhaps Lanyard was prejudiced by his partiality for Americans, a
sentiment the outgrowth of the years spent in New York with Bourke. He
even fancied that between his spirit and theirs existed some subtle
bond of sympathy. For all he knew he might himself be American...

For some time Lanyard strained to catch something of the conversation
that seemed to hold so much of interest for Roddy, but without success
because of the hum of voices that filled the room. In time, however,
the gathering began to thin out, until at length there remained only
this party of three, Lanyard enjoying a most delectable salad, and
Roddy puffing a cigar (with such a show of enjoyment that Lanyard
suspected him of the sin of smuggling) and slowly gulping down a second
bottle of Bass.

Under these conditions the talk between De Morbihan and the Americans
became public property.

The first remark overheard by Lanyard came from the elderly American,
following a pause and a consultation of his watch.

"Quarter to eleven," he announced.

"Plenty of time," said De Morbihan cheerfully. "That is," he amended,
"if mademoiselle isn't bored ..."

The girl's reply, accompanied by a pretty inclination of her head
toward the Frenchman, was lost in the accents of the first speaker--a
strong and sonorous voice, in strange contrast with his ravaged
appearance and distressing cough.

"Don't let that worry you," he advised cheerfully. "Lucia's accustomed
to keeping late hours with me; and who ever heard of a young and
pretty woman being bored on the third day of her first visit to Paris?"

He pronounced the name with the hard C of the Italian tongue, as though
it were spelled Luchia.

"To be sure," laughed the Frenchman; "one suspects it will be long
before mademoiselle loses interest in the rue de la Paix."

"You may well, when such beautiful things come from it," said the girl.
"See what we found there to-day."

She slipped a ring from her hand and passed it to De Morbihan.

There followed silence for an instant, then an exclamation from the
Frenchman:

"But it is superb! Accept, mademoiselle, my compliments. It is worthy
even of you."

She flushed prettily as she nodded smiling acknowledgement.

"Ah, you Americans!" De Morbihan sighed. "You fill us with envy: you
have the souls of poets and the wealth of princes!"

"But we must come to Paris to find beautiful things for our
women-folk!"

"Take care, though, lest you go too far, Monsieur Bannon."

"How so--too far?"

"You might attract the attention of the Lone Wolf. They say he's on
the prowl once more."

The American laughed a trace contemptuously. Lanyard's fingers
tightened on his knife and fork; otherwise he made no sign. A sidelong
glance into a mirror at his elbow showed Roddy still absorbed in the
Daily Mail.

The girl bent forward with a look of eager interest.

"The Lone Wolf? Who is that?"

"You don't know him in America, mademoiselle?"

"No...."

"The Lone Wolf, my dear Lucia," the valetudinarian explained in a dryly
humourous tone, "is the sobriquet fastened by some imaginative French
reporter upon a celebrated criminal who seems to have made himself
something of a pest over here, these last few years. Nobody knows
anything definite about him, apparently, but he operates in a most
individual way and keeps the police busy trying to guess where he'll
strike next."

The girl breathed an incredulous exclamation.

"But I assure you!" De Morbihan protested. "The rogue has had a
wonderfully successful career, thanks to his dispensing with
confederates and confining his depredations to jewels and similar
valuables, portable and easy to convert into cash. Yet," he added,
nodding sagely, "one isn't afraid to predict his race is almost run."
"You don't tell me!" the older man exclaimed. "Have they picked up the
scent--at last?"

"The man is known," De Morbihan affirmed.

By now the conversation had caught the interest of several loitering
waiters, who were listening open-mouthed. Even Roddy seemed a bit
startled, and for once forgot to make business with his newspaper; but
his wondering stare was exclusively for De Morbihan.

Lanyard put down knife and fork, swallowed a final mouthful of Haut
Brion, and lighted a cigarette with the hand of a man who knew not the
meaning of nerves.

"Garcon!" he called quietly; and ordered coffee and cigars, with a
liqueur to follow....

"Known!" the American exclaimed. "They've caught him, eh?"

"I didn't say that," De Morbihan laughed; "but the mystery is no
more--in certain quarters."

"Who is he, then?"

"That--monsieur will pardon me--I'm not yet free to state. Indeed, I
may be indiscreet in saying as much as I do. Yet, among friends..."

His shrug implied that, as far as _he_ was concerned, waiters were
unhuman and the other guests of the establishment non-existent.

"But," the American persisted, "perhaps you can tell us how they got on
his track?"

"It wasn't difficult," said De Morbihan: "indeed, quite simple. This
tone of depreciation is becoming, for it was my part to suggest the
solution to my friend, the Chief of the Surete. He had been annoyed and
distressed, had even spoken of handing in his resignation because of
his inability to cope with this gentleman, the Lone Wolf. And since he
is my friend, I too was distressed on his behalf, and badgered my poor
wits until they chanced upon an idea which led us to the light."

"You won't tell us?" the girl protested, with a little moue of
disappointment, as the Frenchman paused provokingly.

"Perhaps I shouldn't. And yet--why not? As I say, it was elementary
reasoning--a mere matter of logical deduction and elimination. One made
up one's mind the Lone Wolf must be a certain sort of man; the rest was
simply sifting France for the man to fit the theory, and then watching
him until he gave himself away."

"You don't imagine we're going to let you stop there?" The American
demanded in an aggrieved tone.

"No? I must continue? Very well: I confess to some little pride. It was
a feat. He is cunning, that one!"

De Morbihan paused and shifted sideways in his chair, grinning like a
mischievous child.

By this manoeuvre, thanks to the arrangement of mirrors lining the
walls, he commanded an indirect view of Lanyard; a fact of which the
latter was not unaware, though his expression remained unchanged as he
sat--with a corner of his eye reserved for Roddy--speculating whether
De Morbihan were telling the truth or only boasting for his own
glorification.

"Do go on--please!" the girl begged prettily.

"I can deny you nothing, mademoiselle.... Well, then! From what little
was known of this mysterious creature, one readily inferred he must be
a bachelor, with no close friends. That is clear, I trust?"

"Too deep for me, my friend," the elderly man confessed.

"Impenetrable reticence," the Count expounded, sententious--and
enjoying himself hugely--"isn't possible in the human relations. Sooner
or later one is doomed to share one's secrets, however reluctantly,
even unconsciously, with a wife, a mistress, a child, or with some
trusted friend. And a secret between two is--a prolific breeder of
platitudes! Granted this line of reasoning, the Lone Wolf is of
necessity not only unmarried but practically friendless. Other
attributes of his will obviously comprise youth, courage, imagination,
a rather high order of intelligence, and a social position--let us say,
rather, an ostensible business--enabling him to travel at will hither
and yon without exciting comment. So far, good! My friend the Chief of
the Surete forthwith commissioned his agents to seek such an one, and
by this means several fine fish were enmeshed in the net of suspicion,
carefully scrutinized, and one by one let go--all except one, the
veritable man. Him they sedulously watched, shadowing him across Europe
and back again. He was in Berlin at the time of the famous Rheinart
robbery, though he compassed that coup without detection; he was in
Vienna when the British embassy there was looted, but escaped by a
clever ruse and managed to dispose of his plunder before the agents of
the Surete could lay hands on him; recently he has been in London, and
there he made love to, and ran away with, the diamonds of a certain
lady of some eminence. You have heard of Madame Omber, eh?" Now by
Roddy's expression it was plain that, if Madame Omber's name wasn't
strange in his hearing, at least he found this news about her most
surprising. He was frankly staring, with a slackened jaw and with
stupefaction in his blank blue eyes.

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