Читать книгу The Lone Wolf (Detective Mystery Novel) - Louis Joseph Vance - Страница 16

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And then, when the girl made no response, but remained with troubled gaze focused on some remote abstraction, "You will have tea, won't you?" he urged.

She recalled her thoughts, nodded with the faintest of smiles — "Yes, thank you!" — and dropped into a chair.

He began at once to make talk in effort to dissipate that constraint which stood between them like an unseen alien presence: "You must be very hungry?"

"I am."

"Sorry I've nothing better to offer you. I'd have run out for something more substantial, only — "

"Only — ?" she prompted, coolly helping herself to biscuit and potted ham.

"I didn't think it wise to leave you alone."

"Was that before or after you'd made up your mind about me — the latest phase, I mean?" she persisted with a trace of malice.

"Before," he returned calmly — "likewise, afterwards. Either way you care to take it, it wouldn't have been wise to leave you here. Suppose you had waked up to find me gone, yourself alone in this strange house — "

"I've been awake several hours," she interposed — "found myself locked in, and heard no sound to indicate that you were still here."

"I'm sorry: I was overtired and slept like a log…. But assuming the case: you would have gone out, alone, penniless — "

"Through a locked door, Mr. Lanyard?"

"I shouldn't have left it locked," he explained patiently…. "You would have found yourself friendless and without resources in a city to which you are a stranger."

She nodded: "True. But what of that?"

"In desperation you might have been forced to go back — "

"And report the outcome of my investigation!"

"Pressure might have been brought to induce admissions damaging to me," Lanyard submitted pleasantly. "Whether or no, you'd have been obliged to renew associations you're well rid of."

"You feel sure of that?"

"But naturally."

"How can you be?" she challenged. "You've yet to know me twenty-four hours."

"But perhaps I know the associations better. In point of fact, I do.

Even though you may have stooped to play the spy last night, Miss

Bannon — you couldn't keep it up. You had to fly further contamination

from that pack of jackals."

"Not — you feel sure — merely to keep you under observation?"

"I do feel sure of that. I have your word for it."

The girl deliberately finished her tea, and sat back, regarding him steadily beneath level brows. Then she said with an odd laugh: "You have your own way of putting one on honour!"

"I don't need to — with you."

She analyzed this with gathering perplexity. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, I don't need to put you on your honour — because I'm sure of you. Even were I not, still I'd refrain from exacting any pledge, or attempting to." He paused and shrugged before continuing: "If I thought you were still to be distrusted, Miss Bannon, I'd say: 'There's a free door; go when you like, back to the Pack, turn in your report, and let them act as they see fit.'… Do you think I care for them? Do you imagine for one instant that I fear any one — or all — of that gang?"

"That rings suspiciously of egoism!"

"Let it," he retorted. "It's pride of caste, if you must know. I hold myself a grade better than such cattle; I've intelligence, at least…. I can take care of myself!"

If he might read her countenance, it expressed more than anything else distress and disappointment.

"Why do you boast like this — to me?"

"Less through self-satisfaction than in contempt for a pack of murderous mongrels — impatience that I have to consider such creatures as Popinot, Wertheimer, De Morbihan and — all their crew."

"And Bannon," she corrected calmly — "you meant to say!"

"Wel-l — " he stammered, discountenanced.

"It doesn't matter," she assured him. "I quite understand, and strange as it may sound, I've very little feeling in the matter." And then she acknowledged his stupefied stare with a weary smile. "I know what I know," she added, with obscure significance….

"I'd give a good deal to know how much you know," he muttered in his confusion.

"But what do you know?" she caught him up — "against Mr. Bannon — against my father, that is — that makes you so ready to suspect both him and me?"

"Nothing," he confessed — "I know nothing; but I suspect everything and everybody…. And the more I think of it, the more closely I examine that brutal business of last night, the more I seem to sense his will behind it all — as one might glimpse a face in darkness through a lighted lattice…. Oh, laugh if you like! It sounds high-flown, I know. But that's the effect I get…. What took you to my room, if not his orders? Why does he train with De Morbihan, if he's not blood-kin to that breed? Why are you running away from him if not because you've found out his part in that conspiracy?"

His pause and questioning look evoked no answer; the girl sat moveless and intent, meeting his gaze inscrutably. And something in her impassive attitude worked a little exasperation into his temper.

"Why," he declared hotly — "if I dare trust to intuition — forgive me if I pain you — "

She interrupted with impatience: "I've already begged you not to consider my feelings, Mr. Lanyard! If you dared trust to your intuition — what then?"

"Why, then, I could believe that Mr. Bannon, your father … I could believe it was his order that killed poor Roddy!"

There could be no doubting her horrified and half-incredulous surprise.

"Roddy?" she iterated in a whisper almost inaudible, with face fast blanching. "Roddy — !"

"Inspector Roddy of Scotland Yard," he told her mercilessly, "was murdered in his sleep last night at Troyon's. The murderer broke into his room by way of mine — the two adjoin. He used my razor, wore my dressing-gown to shield his clothing, did everything he could think of to cast suspicion on me, and when I came in assaulted me, meaning to drug and leave me insensible to be found by the police. Fortunately — I was beforehand with him. I had just left him drugged, insensible in my place, when I met you in the corridor…. You didn't know?"

"How can you ask?" the girl moaned.

Bending forward, an elbow on the table, she worked her hands together until their knuckles shone white through the skin — but not as white as the face from which her eyes sought his with a look of dumb horror, dazed, pitiful, imploring.

"You're not deceiving me? But no — why should you?" she faltered. "But how terrible, how unspeakably awful! …"

"I'm sorry," Lanyard mumbled — "I'd have held my tongue if I hadn't thought you knew — "

"You thought I knew — and didn't lift a finger to save the man?" She jumped up with a blazing face. "Oh, how could you?"

"No — not that — I never thought that. But, meeting you then and there, so opportunely — I couldn't ignore the coincidence; and when you admitted you were running away from your father, considering all the circumstances, I was surely justified in thinking it was realization, in part at least, of what had happened that was driving you away." She shook her head slowly, her indignation ebbing as quickly as it had risen. "I understand," she said; "you had some excuse, but you were mistaken. I ran away — yes — but not because of that. I never dreamed …"

She fell silent, sitting with bowed head and twisting her hands together in a manner he found it painful to watch.

"But please," he implored, "don't take it so much to heart, Miss Bannon. If you knew nothing, you couldn't have prevented it."

"No," she said brokenly — "I could have done nothing … But I didn't know. It isn't that — it's the horror and pity of it. And that you could think — !"

"But I didn't!" he protested — "truly I did not. And for what I did think, for the injustice I did do you, believe me, I'm truly sorry."

"You were quite justified," she said — "not only by circumstantial evidence but to a degree in fact. You must know … now I must tell you …"

"Nothing you don't wish to!" he interrupted. "The fact that I practically kidnapped you under pretence of doing you a service, and suspected you of being in the pay of that Pack, gives me no title to your confidence."

"Can I blame you for thinking what you did?" She went on slowly, without looking up — gaze steadfast to her interlaced fingers: "Now for my own sake I want you to know what otherwise, perhaps, I shouldn't have told you — not yet, at all events. I'm no more Bannon's daughter than you're his son. Our names sound alike — people frequently make the same mistake. My name is Shannon — Lucy Shannon. Mr. Bannon called me Lucia because he knew I didn't like it, to tease me; for the same reason he always kept up the pretence that I was his daughter when people misunderstood."

"But — if that is so — then what — ?"

"Why — it's very simple." Still she didn't look up. "I'm a trained nurse. Mr. Bannon is consumptive — so far gone, it's a wonder he didn't die years ago: for months I've been haunted by the thought that it's only the evil in him keeps him alive. It wasn't long after I took the assignment to nurse him that I found out something about him…. He'd had a haemorrhage at his desk; and while he lay in coma, and I was waiting for the doctor, I happened to notice one of the papers he'd been working over when he fell. And then, just as I began to appreciate the sort of man I was employed by, he came to, and saw — and knew. I found him watching me with those dreadful eyes of his, and though he was unable to speak, knew my life wasn't safe if ever I breathed a word of what I had read. I would have left him then, but he was too cunning for me, and when in time I found a chance to escape — I was afraid I'd not live long if ever I left him. He went about it deliberately; to keep me frightened, and though he never mentioned the matter directly, let me know plainly, in a hundred ways, what his power was and what would happen if I whispered a word of what I knew. It's nearly a year now — nearly a year of endless terror and…"

Her voice fell; she was trembling with the recrudescent suffering of that year-long servitude. And for a little Lanyard felt too profoundly moved to trust himself to speak; he stood aghast, staring down at this woman, so intrinsically and gently feminine, so strangely strong and courageous; and vaguely envisaging what anguish must have been hers in enforced association with a creature of Bannon's ruthless stamp, he was rent with compassion and swore to himself he'd stand by her and see her through and free and happy if he died for it — or ended in the Santé!

"Poor child!" he heard himself murmuring — "poor child!"

"Don't pity me!" she insisted, still with face averted. "I don't deserve it. If I had the spirit of a mouse, I'd have defied him; it needed only courage enough to say one word to the police — "

"But who is he, then?" Lanyard demanded. "What is he, I mean?"

"I hardly know how to tell you. And I hardly dare: I feel as if these walls would betray me if I did…. But to me he's the incarnation of all things evil…." She shook herself with a nervous laugh. "But why be silly about it? I don't really know what or who he is: I only suspect and believe that he is a man whose life is devoted to planning evil and ordering its execution through his lieutenants. When the papers at home speak of 'The Man Higher Up' they mean Archer Bannon, though they don't know it — or else I'm merely a hysterical woman exaggerating the impressions of a morbid imagination…. And that's all I know of him that matters."

"But why, if you believe all this — how did you at length find courage — ?"

"Because I no longer had courage to endure; because I was more afraid to stay than to go — afraid that my own soul would be forfeit. And then, last night, he ordered me to go to your room and search it for evidence that you were the Lone Wolf. It was the first time he'd ever asked anything like that of me. I was afraid, and though I obeyed, I was glad when you interrupted — glad even though I had to lie the way I did…. And all that worked on me, after I'd gone back to my room, until I felt I could stand it no longer; and after a long time, when the house seemed all still, I got up, dressed quietly and … That is how I came to meet you — quite by accident."

"But you seemed so frightened at first when you saw me — "

"I was," she confessed simply; "I thought you were Mr. Greggs."

"Greggs?"

"Mr. Bannon's private secretary — his right-hand man. He's about your height and has a suit like the one you wear, and in that poor light — at the distance I didn't notice you were clean-shaven — Greggs wears a moustache — "

"Then it was Greggs murdered Roddy and tried to drug me! … By George, I'd like to know whether the police got there before Bannon, or somebody else, discovered the substitution. It was a telegram to the police, you know, I sent from the Bourse last night!"

In his excitement Lanyard began to pace the floor rapidly; and now that he was no longer staring at her, the girl lifted her head and watched him closely as he moved to and fro, talking aloud — more to himself than to her.

"I wish I knew! … And what a lucky thing, you did meet me! For if you'd gone on to the Gare du Nord and waited there….Well, it isn't likely Bannon didn't discover your flight before eight o'clock this morning, is it?"

"I'm afraid not…."

"And they've drawn the dead-line for me round every conceivable exit from Paris: Popinot's Apaches are picketed everywhere. And if Bannon had found out about you in time, it would have needed only a word…"

He paused and shuddered to think what might have ensued had that word been spoken and the girl been found waiting for her train in the Gare du Nord.

"Mercifully, we've escaped that. And now, with any sort of luck, Bannon ought to be busy enough, trying to get his precious Mr. Greggs out of the Santé, to give us a chance. And a fighting chance is all I ask."

"Mr. Lanyard" — the girl bent toward him across the table with a gesture of eager interest — "have you any idea why he — why Mr. Bannon hates you so?"

"But does he? I don't know!"

"If he doesn't, why should he plot to cast suspicion of murder on you, and why be so anxious to know whether you were really the Lone Wolf? I saw his eyes light up when De Morbihan mentioned that name, after dinner; and if ever I saw hatred in a man's face, it was in his as he watched you, when you weren't looking."

"As far as I know, I never heard of him before," Lanyard said carelessly. "I fancy it's nothing more than the excitement of a man-hunt. Now that they've found me out, De Morbihan and his crew won't rest until they've got my scalp."

"But why?"

"Professional jealousy. We're all crooks, all in the same boat, only I won't row to their stroke. I've always played a lone hand successfully; now they insist on coming into the game and sharing my winnings. And I've told them where they could go."

"And because of that, they're willing to —— "

"There's nothing they wouldn't do, Miss Shannon, to bring me to my knees or see me put out of the way, where my operations couldn't hurt their pocketbooks. Well … all I ask is a fighting chance, and they shall have their way!"

Her brows contracted. "I don't understand…. You want a fighting chance — to surrender — to give in to their demands?"

"In a way — yes. I want a fighting chance to do what I'd never in the world get them to credit — give it all up and leave them a free field."

And when still she searched his face with puzzled eyes, he insisted: "I mean it; I want to get away — clear out — chuck the game for good and all!"

A little silence greeted this announcement. Lanyard, at pause near the table, resting a hand on it, bent to the girl's upturned face a grave but candid regard. And the deeps of her eyes that never swerved from his were troubled strangely in his vision. He could by no means account for the light he seemed to see therein, a light that kindled while he watched like a tiny flame, feeble, fearful, vacillant, then as the moments passed steadied and grew stronger but ever leaped and danced; so that he, lost in the wonder of it and forgetful of himself, thought of it as the ardent face of a happy child dancing in the depths of some brown autumnal woodland….

"You," she breathed incredulously — "you mean, you're going to stop — ?"

"I have stopped, Miss Shannon. The Lone Wolf has prowled for the last time. I didn't know it until I woke up, an hour or so ago, but I've turned my last job."

He remarked her hands were small, in keeping with the slightness of her person, but somehow didn't seem so — wore a look of strength and capability, befitting hands trained to a nurse's duties; and saw them each tight-fisted but quivering as they rested on the table, as though their mistress struggled to suppress the manifestation of some emotion as powerful as unfathomable to him.

"But why?" she demanded in bewilderment. "But why do you say that? What can have happened to make you — ?"

"Not fear of that Pack!" he laughed — "not that, I promise you."

"Oh, I know!" she said impatiently — "I know that very well. But still I don't understand…."

"If it won't bore you, I'll try to explain." He drew up his chair and sat down again, facing her across the littered table. "I don't suppose you've ever stopped to consider what an essentially stupid animal a crook must be. Most of them are stupid because they practise clumsily one of the most difficult professions imaginable, and inevitably fail at it, yet persist. They wouldn't think of undertaking a job of civil engineering with no sort of preparation, but they'll tackle a dangerous proposition in burglary without a thought, and pay for failure with years of imprisonment, and once out try it again. That's one kind of criminal — the ninety-nine per-cent class — incurably stupid! There's another class, men whose imagination forewarns them of dangers and whose mental training, technical equipment and sheer manual dexterity enable them to attack a formidable proposition like a modern safe — by way of illustration — and force its secret. They're the successful criminals, like myself — but they're no less stupid, no less failures, than the other ninety-nine in our every hundred, because they never stop to think. It never occurs to them that the same intelligence, applied to any one of the trades they must be masters of, would not only pay them better, but leave them their self-respect and rid them forever of the dread of arrest that haunts us all like the memory of some shameful act…. All of which is much more of a lecture than I meant to inflict upon you, Miss Shannon, and sums up to just this: I've stopped to think…."

With this he stopped for breath as well, and momentarily was silent, his faint, twisted smile testifying to self-consciousness; but presently, seeing that she didn't offer to interrupt, but continued to give him her attention so exclusively that it had the effect of fascination, he stumbled on, at first less confidently. "When I woke up it was as if, without my will, I had been thinking all this out in my sleep. I saw myself for the first time clearly, as I have been ever since I can remember — a crook, thoughtless, vain, rapacious, ruthless, skulking in shadows and thinking myself an amazingly fine fellow because, between coups, I would play the gentleman a bit, venture into the light and swagger in the haunts of the gratin! In my poor, perverted brain I thought there was something fine and thrilling and romantic in the career of a great criminal and myself a wonderful figure — an enemy of society!"

"Why do you say this to me?" she demanded abruptly, out of a phase of profound thoughtfulness.

He lifted an apologetic shoulder. "Because, I fancy, I'm no longer self-sufficient. I was all of that, twenty-four hours ago; but now I'm as lonesome as a lost child in a dark forest. I haven't a friend in the world. I'm like a stray pup, grovelling for sympathy. And you are unfortunate enough to be the only person I can declare myself to. It's going to be a fight — I know that too well! — and without something outside myself to struggle toward, I'll be heavily handicapped. But if …" He faltered, with a look of wistful earnestness. "If I thought that you, perhaps, were a little interested, that I had your faith to respect and cherish … if I dared hope that you'd be glad to know I had won out against odds, it would mean a great deal to me, it might mean my salvation!"

Watching her narrowly, hanging upon her decision with the anxiety of a man proscribed and hoping against hope for pardon, he saw her eyes cloud and shift from his, her lips parted but hesitant; and before she could speak, hastily interposed:

"Please don't say anything yet. First let me demonstrate my sincerity.

So far I've done nothing to persuade you but — talk and talk and talk!

Give me a chance to prove I mean what I say."

"How" — she enunciated only with visible effort and no longer met his appeal with an open countenance — "how can you do that?"

"In the long run, by establishing myself in some honest way of life, however modest; but now, and principally, by making reparation for at least one crime I've committed that's not irreparable."

He caught her quick glance of enquiry, and met it with a confident nod as he placed between them the morocco-bound jewel-case.

"In London, yesterday," he said quietly, "I brought off two big coups. One was deliberate, the other the inspiration of a moment. The one I'd planned for months was the theft of the Omber jewels — here."

He tapped the case and resumed in the same manner: "The other job needs a diagram: Not long ago a Frenchman named Huysman, living in Tours, was mysteriously murdered — a poor inventor, who had starved himself to perfect a stabilizator, an attachment to render aeroplanes practically fool-proof. His final trials created a sensation and he was on the eve of selling his invention to the Government when he was killed and his plans stolen. Circumstantial evidence pointed to an international spy named Ekstrom — Adolph Ekstrom, once Chief of the Aviation Corps of the German Army, cashiered for general blackguardism with a suspicion of treason to boot. However, Ekstrom kept out of sight; and presently the plans turned up in the German War Office. That was a big thing for Germany; already supreme with her dirigibles, the acquisition of the Huysman stabilizator promised her ten years' lead over the world in the field of aeroplanes…. Now yesterday Ekstrom came to the surface in London with those self-same plans to sell to England. Chance threw him my way, and he mistook me for the man he'd expected to meet — Downing Street's secret agent. Well — no matter how — I got the plans from him and brought them over with me, meaning to turn them over to France, to whom by rights they belong."

"Without consideration?" the girl enquired shrewdly.

"Not exactly. I had meant to make no profit of the affair — I'm a bit squeamish about tainted money! — but under present conditions, if France insists on rewarding me with safe conduct out of the country, I shan't refuse it…. Do you approve?"

She nodded earnestly: "It would be worse than criminal to return them to Ekstrom…."

"That's my view of the matter."

"But these?" The girl rested her hand upon the jewel-case.

"Those go back to Madame Omber. She has a home here in Paris that I know very well. In fact, the sole reason why I didn't steal them here was that she left for England unexpectedly, just as I was all set to strike. Now I purpose making use of my knowledge to restore the jewels without risk of falling into the hands of the police. That will be an easy matter…. And that brings me to a great favour I would beg of you."

She gave him a look so unexpectedly kind that it staggered him. But he had himself well in hand.

"You can't now leave Paris before morning — thanks to my having overslept," he explained. "There's no honest way I know to raise money before the pawn-shops open. But I'm hoping that won't be necessary; I'm hoping I can arrange matters without going to that extreme. Meanwhile, you agree that these jewels must be returned?"

"Of course," she affirmed gently.

"Then … will you accompany me when I replace them? There won't be any danger: I promise you that. Indeed, it would be more hazardous for you to wait for me elsewhere while I attended to the matter alone. And I'd like you to be convinced of my good faith."

"Don't you think you can trust me for that as well?" she asked, with a flash of humour.

"Trust you!"

"To believe … Mr. Lanyard," she told him gently but earnestly, "I do believe."

"You make me very happy," he said … "but I'd like you to see for yourself…. And I'd be glad not to have to fret about your safety in my absence. As a bureau of espionage, Popinot's brigade of Apaches is without a peer in Europe. I am positively afraid to leave you alone…."

She was silent.

"Will you come with me, Miss Shannon?" "That is your sole reason for asking this of me?" she insisted, eyeing him steadily.

"That I wish you to believe in me — yes."

"Why?" she pursued, inexorable.

"Because … I've already told you."

"That you want someone's good opinion to cherish…. But why, of all people, me — whom you hardly know, of whom what little you do know is hardly reassuring?"

He coloured, and boggled his answer…. "I can't tell you," he confessed in the end.

"Why can't you tell me?"

He stared at her miserably…. "I've no right…."

"In spite of all I've said, in spite of the faith you so generously promise me, in your eyes I must still figure as a thief, a liar, an impostor — self-confessed. Men aren't made over by mere protestations, nor even by their own efforts, in an hour, or a day, or a week. But give me a year: if I can live a year in honesty, and earn my bread, and so prove my strength — then, perhaps, I might find the courage, the — the effrontery to tell you why I want your good opinion…. Now I've said far more than I meant or had any right to. I hope," he ventured pleadingly — "you're not offended."

Only an instant longer could she maintain her direct and unflinching look. Then, his meaning would no more be ignored. Her lashes fell; a tide of crimson flooded her face; and with a quick movement, pushing her chair a little from the table, she turned aside. But she said nothing.

He remained as he had been, bending eagerly toward her. And in the long minute that elapsed before either spoke again, both became oddly conscious of the silence brooding in that lonely little house, of their isolation from the world, of their common peril and mutual dependence.

"I'm afraid," Lanyard said, after a time — "I'm afraid I know what you must be thinking. One can't do your intelligence the injustice to imagine that you haven't understood me — read all that was in my mind and" — his voice fell — "in my heart. I own I was wrong to speak so transparently, to suggest my regard for you, at such a time, under such conditions. I am truly sorry, and beg you to consider unsaid all that I should not have said…. After all, what earthly difference can it make to you if one thief more decides suddenly to reform?"

That brought her abruptly to her feet, to show him a face of glowing loveliness and eyes distractingly dimmed and softened.

"No!" she implored him breathlessly — "please — you mustn't spoil it! You've paid me the finest of compliments, and one I'm glad and grateful for … and would I might think I deserved! … You say you need a year to prove yourself? Then — I've no right to say this — and you must please not ask me what I mean — then I grant you that year. A year I shall wait to hear from you from the day we part, here in Paris…. And to-night, I will go with you, too, and gladly, since you wish it!"

And then as he, having risen, stood at loss, thrilled, and incredulous, with a brave and generous gesture she offered him her hand.

"Mr. Lanyard, I promise…."

To every woman, even the least lovely, her hour of beauty: it had not entered Lanyard's mind to think this woman beautiful until that moment. Of her exotic charm, of the allure of her pensive, plaintive prettiness, he had been well aware; even as he had been unable to deny to himself that he was all for her, that he loved her with all the strength that was his; but not till now had he understood that she was the one woman whose loveliness to him would darken the fairness of all others.

And for a little, holding her tremulous hand upon his finger-tips as though he feared to bruise it with a ruder contact, he could not take his eyes from her.

Then reverently he bowed his head and touched his lips to that hand … and felt it snatched swiftly away, and started back, aghast, the idyll roughly dissipated, the castle of his dreams falling in thunders round his ears.

In the studio-skylight overhead a pane of glass had fallen in with a shattering crash as ominous as the Trump of Doom.