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’hôtel 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.
15
“’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
16
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 protégé, 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
17
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.
18
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.
“Garçon!” 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 Sûreté. 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
19
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 Sûreté 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 Sûreté 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
20
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.
Lanyard gently pinched the small end of a cigar, dipped it into his coffee, and
lighted it with not so much as a suspicion of tremor. His brain, however, was
working rapidly in effort to determine whether De Morbihan meant this for
warning, or was simply narrating an amusing yarn founded on advance
information and amplified by an ingenious imagination. For by now the news
of the Omber affair must have thrilled many a Continental telegraph-wire....
“Madame Omber—of course!” the American agreed thoughtfully. “Everyone
has heard of her wonderful jewels. The real marvel is that the Lone Wolf
neglected so shining a mark as long as he did.”
“But truly so, monsieur!”
“And they caught him at it, eh?”
“Not precisely: but he left a clue—and London, to boot—with such haste as
would seem to indicate he knew his cunning hand had, for once, slipped.”
“Then they’ll nab him soon?”
“Ah, monsieur, one must say no more!” De Morbihan protested. “Rest assured
the Chief of the Sûreté has laid his plans: his web is spun, and so artfully that
I think our unsociable outlaw will soon be making friends in the Prison of the
Santé.... But now we must adjourn. One is sorry. It has been so very
pleasant....”
A waiter conjured the bill from some recess of his waistcoat and served it on a
clean plate to the American. Another ran bawling for the vestiaire. Roddy
glued his gaze afresh to the Daily Mail. The party rose.
Lanyard noticed that the American signed instead of settling the bill with cash,
indicating that he resided at Troyon’s as well as dined there. And the
adventurer found time to reflect that it was odd for such as he to seek that
particular establishment in preference to the palatial modern hostelries of the
Rive Droit—before De Morbihan, ostensibly for the first time espying Lanyard,
plunged across the room with both hands outstretched and a cry of joyous
surprise not really justified by their rather slight acquaintanceship.
“Ah! Ah!” he clamoured vivaciously. “It is Monsieur Lanyard, who knows all
about paintings! But this is delightful, my friend—one grand pleasure! You
must know my friends.... But come!”
And seizing Lanyard’s hands, when that one somewhat reluctantly rose in
response to this surprisingly over-exuberant greeting, he dragged him willynilly
from behind his table.
“And you are American, too. Certainly you must know one another.
Mademoiselle Bannon—with your permission—my friend, Monsieur Lanyard.
And Monsieur Bannon—an old, dear friend, with whom you will share a
passion for the beauties of art.”
The hand of the American, when Lanyard clasped it, was cold, as cold as ice;
and as their eyes met that abominable cough laid hold of the man, as it were
by the nape of his neck, and shook him viciously. Before it had finished with
21
him, his sensitively coloured face was purple, and he was gasping,
breathless—and infuriated.
“Monsieur Bannon,” De Morbihan explained disconnectedly—“it is most
distressing—I tell him he should not stop in Paris at this season—“
“It is nothing!” the American interposed brusquely between paroxysms.
“But our winter climate, monsieur—it is not fit for those in the prime
of health—“
“It is I who am unfit!” Bannon snapped, pressing a handkerchief to his lips—
“unfit to live!” he amended venomously.
Lanyard murmured some conventional expression of sympathy. Through it all
he was conscious of the regard of the girl. Her soft brown eyes met his
candidly, with a look cool in its composure, straightforward in its enquiry,
neither bold nor mock-demure. And if they were the first to fall, it was with an
effect of curiosity sated, without hint of discomfiture.... And somehow the
adventurer felt himself measured, classified, filed away.
Between amusement and pique he continued to stare while the elderly
American recovered his breath and De Morbihan jabbered on with unfailing
vivacity; and he thought that this closer scrutiny discovered in her face
contours suggesting maturity of thought beyond her apparent years—which
were somewhat less than the sum of Lanyard’s—and with this the suggestion
of an elusive, provoking quality of wistful languor, a hint of patient
melancholy....
“We are off for a glimpse of Montmartre,” De Morbihan was explaining—
“Monsieur Bannon and I. He has not seen Paris in twenty years, he tells me.
Well, it will be amusing to show him what changes have taken place in all that
time. One regrets mademoiselle is too fatigued to accompany us. But you, my
friend—now if you would consent to make our third, it would be most amiable
of you.”
“I’m sorry,” Lanyard excused himself; “but as you see, I am only just
in from the railroad, a long and tiresome journey. You are very good,
but I—“
“Good!” De Morbihan exclaimed with violence. “I? On the contrary, I am a very
selfish man; I seek but to afford myself the pleasure of your company. You
lead such a busy life, my friend, romping about Europe, here one day, Godknows-
where the next, that one must make one’s best of your spare
moments. You will join us, surely?”
“Really I cannot to-night. Another time perhaps, if you’ll excuse me.”
“But it is always this way!” De Morbihan explained to his friends with a vast
show of mock indignation. “’Another time, perhaps’—his invariable excuse! I
tell you, not two men in all Paris have any real acquaintance with this
gentleman whom all Paris knows! His reserve is proverbial—‘as distant as
Lanyard,’ we say on the boulevards!” And turning again to the adventurer,
meeting his cold stare with the De Morbihan grin of quenchless effrontery—
“As you will, my friend!” he granted. “But should you change your mind—well,
22
you’ll have no trouble finding us. Ask any place along the regular route. We
see far too little of one another, monsieur—and I am most anxious to have a
little chat with you.”
“It will be an honour,” Lanyard returned formally....
In his heart he was pondering several most excruciating methods of
murdering the man. What did he mean? How much did he know? If he knew
anything, he must mean ill, for assuredly he could not be ignorant of Roddy’s
business, or that every other word he uttered was rivetting suspicion on
Lanyard of identity with the Lone Wolf, or that Roddy was listening with all his
ears and staring into the bargain!
Decidedly something must be done to silence this animal, should it turn out he
really did know anything!
It was only after profound reflection over his liqueur (while Roddy devoured
his Daily Mail and washed it down with a third bottle of Bass) that Lanyard
summoned the maitre-d’hôtel and asked for a room.
It would never do to fix the doubts of the detective by going elsewhere that
night. But, fortunately, Lanyard knew that warren which was Troyon’s as no
one else knew it; Roddy would find it hard to detain him, should events seem
to advise an early departure.