Chapter IV: Part 4

Early in the afternoon Eve de Montalais made it possible for Lanyard to examine the safe in her boudoir without exciting comment in the household. He was nearly an hour thus engaged, but brought back to the drawing-room, in addition to the heavy magnifying glass which he had requisitioned to eke out his eyesight, only a face of disappointment.

"Nothing," he retorted to Eve. "Evidently a gentleman of rigidly formal habits, our friend of last night--wouldn't dream of calling at any hour without his gloves on.... I've been over every inch of the safe, outside and in, and the frame of the screen too, but--nothing. However, I've been thinking a bit as well, I hope to some purpose."

The woman nodded intently as he drew up his chair and sat down.

"You have made a plan," she stated rather than enquired.

"I won't call it that, not yet. We've got too little to go on. But one or two things seem fairly obvious, therefore must not be left out of consideration. Assuming for the sake of argument that Mr. Whitaker Monk and his lot had a hand in this--"

"Ah! you think that?"

"I admit I'm unfair. But first they quarrel with my sense of the normal by being too confoundedly picturesque, too rich and brilliant, too sharp and smart and glib, too--well!--theatrical; like characters from the cast of what your American theatre calls a crook melodrama. And then, if their intentions were so blessed pure and praiseworthy, what right had they to make so many ambiguous gestures?"

"Leading the talk up to my jewels, you mean?"

"I mean every move they made: all too suspiciously smooth, too well rehearsed in effect. That stop to dine in Nant with the storm coming on, when they could easily have made Millau before it broke: what else was that for but to stage a 'break-down' at your door at a time when it would be reasonable to beg the shelter and hospitality of your roof? Then Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes--whoever _she_ is--must get her feet wet, an excellent excuse for asking to be introduced to your boudoir, so she may change her shoes and stockings and incidentally spy out the precise location of your safe. And when their ear is hauled into the garage, Mr. Phinuit must go to help, which gives him a chance to stroll at leisure through the lower part of the house and note every easy way of breaking in. Mr. Monk casually notes your likeness to the little girl he once met, _he_ says, in your father's office; something you tell me you don't recall at all. And that places you as the veritable owner of the Anstruther jewels, and no mistake. Then--Madame de Lorgnes guiding the conversation by secret signals which I intercept--somebody recognises me as the Lone Wolf, in spite of the work of years and a new-grown beard; and you are obliquely warned that, if your jewels should happen to disappear it's more than likely the Lone Wolf will prove to be the guilty party. At any rate, they will be ever so much obliged if you'll believe he is, it'll save so much trouble all around. Finally: when your ex-chauffeur--what's his name--?" "Albert Dupont."

"A name as unique in France as John Smith is in England ... When Albert Dupont tries to take my life, as a simple and natural act of vendetta--"

"You really think it was that?"

"I recognised the beast when he let off that pistol at my head. I was in his way here, and he owed me one besides for my interference at Montpellier that night.... When Dupont half murders me and I'm laid up on your hands for nearly a month, our friends with designs on your jewels thoughtfully wait before they strike till I am able to be up and about, consequently in a position to be accused of a crime which no one would put past the Lone Wolf. Oh, I think we can fairly count Mr. Monk and his friends in on this coup!"

"I am sure of it," said Eve de Montalais. "But Albert: is he one of them, their employee or confrère?"

"Dupont? I fancy not. I may be wrong, but I believe he is entirely on his own--quite independent of the Monk party."

"But his attack on us at Montpellier, and later on you here, coming at about the same time as their visit--"

"Coincidence, if you ask me. The weight of probability is against any collusion between the two parties."

"Please explain..."

"Dupont is an Apache of Paris. The language he used to me when we fought in that carriage at Montpellier was the slang of the lowest order of Parisian criminal, used spontaneously, under stress of great excitement, with no intent to mislead. These other people were--if anything but poor misjudged lambs--swell mobsmen, the élite of the criminal world. The two castes never work together because they can't trust each other. The swell mobsman works with his head and only kills when cornered. The Apache kills first, as a matter of instinct, and then thinks--to the best of his ability. The Apache knows the swell mobsman can outwit him. The swell mobsman knows the Apache will assassinate him at the first hint of a suspicion of his good faith. So they rarely if ever make use of each other."

"You say 'rarely.' But possibly in this instance?"

"I think not. Dupont was employed as your chauffeur, you've told me, upwards of a month. He had ample opportunity to familiarise himself with the premises and pass the information on, if acting in connivance with those others. But we know he didn't, or they would never have shown themselves here in order to secure information they couldn't have got otherwise."

"I see, monsieur," said the woman. "Then you think the thief may have been any one of the Monk party--"

"Or several of them acting in concert," Lanyard interrupted, smiling.

"Or Albert."

"Not Dupont. Unless I underestimate him gravely he is incapable of such finesse. He is a thug first, a thief afterwards. He would have killed me out of hand if it had been he who had me at his mercy, down here, in the dark. Nor would he have been able to open the safe without using an explosive. That, indeed, is why, as I understand him, Dupont attacked you at Montpellier. If he could have disposed of you there, he would have returned here to work upon the safe and blow it at his leisure, fobbing the servants off with some yarn, or if they proved too troublesome intimidating them, killing one or two if necessary."

"But why has he made no other attempt--?"

"You forget the police have been making the neighbourhood fairly warm for him. Besides, he wanted me out of the way before he tried housebreaking. If he had succeeded in murdering me that night, I don't doubt he would have burglarised the château soon after. But he failed; the police were stirred up to renewed activity; and if Monsieur Dupont is not now safely back in Paris, hiding in some warren of Montmartre or Belleville, I am much mistaken in the man--a type I know well."

"Eliminating Albert then--"

"There remains the Monk lot."

"You are satisfied that one or all of its members committed the theft last night?"

"Not less than two, probably; say Phinuit, at a venture, and his alleged brother, Jules, the chauffeur, both Americans, adventurous, intelligent and resourceful. Yes; I believe that."

"And your plan of campaign is based on this conclusion?"

"That's a big name"--Lanyard's smile was diffident, a plea for suspended judgment on his lack of inventiveness--"for a lame idea. I believe our only course is to let them believe they have been successful in every way, and so lull them into carelessness with a false sense of security."

A wrinkle appeared between the woman's eyebrows. "How do you propose to accomplish that?" she asked in a voice that betrayed ready antagonism to what her intuition foresaw.

"Very simply. They hoped to shift suspicion on to my shoulders. Well, let them believe they have done so."

The waiting hostility developed in a sharp negative: "Ah, no!"

"But yes," Lanyard insisted. "It's so simple. Nobody here knows as yet that your jewels have been stolen, only you and I. Very well: you will not discover your loss and announce it till to-morrow morning. By that time André Duchemin will have disappeared mysteriously. The room to which he will retire to-night will be found vacant in the morning, his bed unslept in. Obviously the scoundrel would not fly the château between two suns without a motive. Inform the police of the fact and let them draw their own conclusions: before evening all France will know that André Duchemin is suspected of stealing the Montalais jewels, and is a fugitive from justice."

"No, monsieur," the woman iterated decidedly.

"You will observe," he continued, lightly persuasive, "it is André Duchemin who will be accused, madame, not Michael Lanyard, never the Lone Wolf! The heart of man is in truth a dark forest, and vanity the only light to guide us through its mazes. I confess I am jealous of my reputation as a reformed character. But André Duchemin is merely a name, a nom de guerre; you may saddle him with all the crimes in the calendar if you like, and welcome. For when I say he will disappear to-night, I mean it quite literally: André Duchemin will nevermore be heard of in this world."

She had a smile quivering on her lips, yet shook her head.

"Monsieur forgets I learned to know him under the name of Duchemin."

"Ah, madame! do not make me think too kindly of the poor fellow; for whether we like it or not, he is doomed. And if madame, in her charity, means to continue to know me, it must be Michael Lanyard whom she suffers to claim a little portion of her friendship."

Her smile grew wistful, with a tenderness he had the grace not to recognise. Abashed, incredulous, he turned aside his gaze. Then without warning he found her hand at rest in his. "More than a little, monsieur, more than a little friendship only!"

He closed the hand in both his own.

"Then be kind to me, madame, be still more kind; give me this chance to find and restore your jewels. It is the only way, this plan of mine. If we adopt it no one will suffer, only an old alias that is no longer useful. If we do not adopt it, I may not succeed, for the true authors of this crime may prove too wary for me; and the end will be that my best friends will believe the worst of me; even you, madame, even you will not be sure your faith was not misplaced."

"Enough!" the woman begged in a stifled voice. "It shall be as you wish--if you will have it so."

She sought to take away her hand; but Lanyard kissed it before he let it go. And immediately she rose with a murmured, half articulate excuse, and went from the room, leaving him to struggle with himself and that which was in him which was stronger than himself, his hunger for her love, to deny stubbornly the evidence of his senses and end by persuading himself against his will that he was nothing to her more than an object of common kindness such as she would extend to anyone in similar plight.

Because he never could be more....

Those few last hours in the château passed swiftly enough, most of them in making plans for his "escape," something which demanded a deal of puzzling over maps and railway guides in the seclusion of his room. Since the next noon must find André Duchemin a criminal published and proscribed, he had need to utilise every shred of cunning at his command if he were to reach Paris without being arrested and without undue loss of time.

To take a train at Millau would be simply to invite pursuit; for that was the likeliest point an escaping criminal would strike for, a stopping place for all trains north and southbound. Telegraphic advices would cause every such train to be searched to a certainty. Furthermore, Lanyard had no desire to enter Paris by the direct route from Millau. Not the police alone, but others, enemies even more dangerous, might be expecting him by that route.

On the other hand, the nearest railway station, Combe-Redonde, was equally out of the question, since to gain it one must pass through Nant, where André Duchemin was known, and risk being seen, while at Combe-Redonde itself the station people would be apt to remember the monsieur who had recently created a sensation by despatching a code telegram to London.

There was nothing for it, then, but a twenty-mile walk due west across the Causse Larzac by night to Tournemire, where one could get trains in any one of four directions.

Constraint marked that last dinner with Eve de Montalais. They were alone. Louise was dining by the bedside of Madame de Sévénié, who remained indisposed, a shade more so than yesterday. The ill health of this poor lady, indeed, was the excuse Eve had given for putting off her trip to Paris.

Their talk was framed in stilted phrases, inconsecutive. They dared not converse naturally, each fearing to say too little or too much. For the memory of that surge of emotion, transient though it had been, in which their discussion had culminated, that afternoon, stood between them like a warning ghost, an implacable finger sealing its lips and theirs with the sign of silence.

But talk they must, for the benefit of the servants, and talk they did after an uneasy fashion, making specious arrangements for Lanyard's departure on the morrow, when Eve was to drive him to Millau to catch the afternoon rapide for Paris.

Nor was it much better after dinner in the drawing-room. Consciousness of each other and consciousness of self, as each fought to master the emotions inspired by thoughts of their near parting, drove both into the refuge of a dry, insincere, cool impersonality. Lanyard communicated nothing of his plans, though aware his failure to do so might be misconstrued, instil an instinctive if possibly unconscious resentment to render the situation still more difficult. The truth was, he could barely trust himself to speak lest mere words work on his guard like tiny streams that sap the strength of the dike till it breaks and looses the pent and devastating seas.

At half past nine, ending a long silence, Lanyard sat forward in his chair, hesitated, and covered his hesitation by lighting a cigarette.

"I must go now," he said, puffing out the match.

He was aware of her almost imperceptible start of surprise.

"So soon?" she breathed.

"The moon rises not long after ten, and I want to get away without being seen either by the servants or by--anybody who might happen to be passing. You understand."

She nodded. He lingered, frowning at his cigarette.

"With permission, I will write..."

"Please."

"When I have anything to report."

She turned her head full face to him, letting him see her fluttering, indulgent smile.

"You must wait for that?"

"Perhaps," he faltered--"at least, I hope--it won't be long."

"You must wait for that?"

"Perhaps," he faltered--"at least, I hope--it won't be long." "I shall be waiting," she told him simply--"watching every post for word from you. I shan't worry, only for you."

He got up slowly from his chair, and stood half choking with unutterable words.

"I know no way to thank you," he managed to say at last.

"For what?"

"For everything--kindness, charity, sympathy--"

"What are those things?" she demanded with a nervous little laugh. "Words! Just words that you and I use to hide behind, like timid children..." She rose suddenly and offered him her hand. "But I don't think it's any use, my friend, I'm quite sure that neither of us is deceived. No: say nothing more; the time is not yet and--we both can wait. Only know I understand ... Go now"--her fingers tightened round his--"but don't stay away any longer than you must, don't be influenced by silly traditions, false and foolish standards when you think of me. Go now"--she freed her hand and turned away--"but oh, come safely back to me, my dear!"

XII

TRAVELS WITH AN ASSASSIN

Under a sky whose misty silver pulsed with waves of violet light and dim glimmerings of gold, Lanyard, grey with the dust and weariness of twenty leagues of heavy walking, trudged into the sleeping streets of the town of Tournemire.

In the railway station--whose buvette served him such listless refreshment as one may find at railway lunch-counters and nowhere else the world over--a train was waiting with an apathetic crew and a sprinkling of sleepy passengers, for the most part farm and village folk of the department. There was nowhere in evidence any figure resembling that of an agent de police.

Lanyard made enquiry, found that the train was destined for Le Vigan, on the eastern slope of the Cévennes, and purchased a ticket for that point.

Making himself as comfortable as might be in a depressingly third-rate second-class compartment (there was no first class, and the third was far too richly flavoured for his stomach) he cultivated a doze as the train pulled out. But, driven as provincial trains habitually are, in a high spirit of devil-may-care, its first stop woke him up with a series of savage, back-breaking jolts which were translated into jerks when it started on again and fiendishly reiterated at every suspicion of a way-station on the course. So that he presently abandoned all hope of sleep and sought solace in tobacco and the shifting views afforded by the windows. Penetrating the upper valley of the Cernon, the railroad skirted the southern boundary of the Causse Larzac, then laboriously climbed up to the plateau itself; and Lanyard roused to the fact that he was approaching familiar ground from a new angle: the next stop would be Combe-Redonde.

The day was still in its infancy when that halt was made. Aside from the station agent, not a soul waited upon the platform. But one or two passengers were set down and, as the engine began to snort anew, a man darted from behind the tiny structure that housed ticket-office and waiting-room, galloped heavily across the platform, and with nothing to spare threw himself into the compartment immediately behind that wherein Lanyard sat alone.

This manoeuvre was performed so briskly and unexpectedly that Lanyard caught barely a glimpse of the fellow; but one glimpse was enough to convince him he had been wrong in assuming that Monsieur Albert Dupont had sneaked back to Paris to hide from the authorities after failing to assassinate André Duchemin more than three weeks ago.

But why--assuming one were not misled by a chance likeness to that heavy but athletic figure so well-remembered--why had Dupont lingered so long in the neighbourhood, in hourly peril of arrest? And why this sudden departure in the chill break of dawn, a move so timed and executed that it wore every sign of haste and fear?

No reasonable explanation offered in solution of either of these riddles; unless, indeed, it were reasonable to believe that lust for vengeance was the ruling passion in the Dupont nature, that the creature had hung about the château in hope of getting another chance at Duchemin, and had decided to give it up only on discovering --inexplicably, at this hour--that the latter had stolen away under cover of night. But Lanyard didn't believe that. Neither did he believe that Dupont had had any hand in the robbery of night before last, and was now in tardy flight. In truth, he didn't know what to think, and the wildest flights of an imagination provoked by this mystery were tame and timid in contrast with the truth as he was later to learn it.

To an amateur in sensations there was true piquancy in the thought that one was travelling in company with a thug who had already had two tries for one's life and would not hesitate to essay a third; in the same coach, separated only by the thin partition between the compartments, safe only in the thug's unconsciousness of one's proximity! And this without the privilege of denouncing the man to the police; for to do so now would be to enmesh in the toils of the law not only Albert Dupont, would-be assassin, but André Duchemin, charged with stealing the Montalais jewels.

Lanyard would have given something for a peep-hole in the partition, to be able to study the countenance of Dupont unaware that he was under scrutiny. But he had to content himself with keeping vigil at the windows, making sure that Dupont did not drop off at some one of those many way-stations which the train was so scrupulous never to slight.

Monsieur Dupont, however, did not budge a foot out of his compartment before the end of the run; and then Lanyard, purposely delaying, saw Dupont get down from the compartment astern and make for the booking-office at Le Vigan without a glance to right or left--evidencing not the remotest interest in his late company on the train, but rather a complete indifference, an absolute assurance that he had nothing now to fear, and with this a preoccupation of mind so thoroughgoing that Lanyard was able to edge up behind him, when he paused at the guichet, and eavesdrop on his consultation with the clerk of the ticket bureau.

Dupont desired ardently to proceed to Lyons with the least avoidable delay. Under such conditions, according to the Indicateur des Chemins de Fer, his best available route was via Nimes, where the next express from Le Vigan made close connection with a northbound train rapide, due to arrive in Lyons late in the afternoon.

There was, however, this drawback; or so the clerk declared after a dubious summing up of the disreputable Dupont ensemble: whereas one might travel any class as far as Nimes, the rapide for Lyons carried only passengers of the first class.

But, said Dupont, with other blasphemy, all the world knew that the sacred rapides had no sacred accommodations for sacred passengers of the second and third class. Was he not the peer of any sacred first-class pig that ever travelled by train in France? If not, he proved the contrary to his own satisfaction by paying for his ticket from an imposing accumulation of French bank-notes.

Then, with half an hour to wait, he lumbered into the buvette and gorged, while Lanyard--having secured his own transportation for Lyons by the some route--skulked in the offing and kept a close eye on the gourmand.

Having eaten ferociously, Dupont came out, slouched into a seat on a bench and, his thick limbs a-sprawl, consumed cigarette after cigarette in most absolute abstraction of mind.

Observed thus, off his guard and at tolerably close range, with his face clean of soot, he projected a personality so forbidding that Lanyard marvelled at the guilelessness which must have influenced the ladies of Château de Montalais to accept the man at his own valuation and give him a place in their household.

The face of fat features was of porcine cast; the forehead low and slanted sharply back into bristles of black hair, the snout long and blunt, the lips flabby, the chin retreating, the jowls pendulous; the eyes a pig's, little, cunning, and predaceous; the complexion sallow and pimply from unholy living, with an incongruous over-layer of sunburn. A type to inspire distrust, one would think, at sight; a nature as repellant as a snake's, and ten times as deadly; in every line and lineament, in every move and gesture, an Apache of the Apaches...

As for the baleful reflections with which Dupont was patently concerned to the exclusion of all considerations of either surveillance or environment, Lanyard found himself so inquisitive that he had never a thought but to follow and study the fellow till he surprised his secret, if possible--at least so long as it might seem safe to do so.

Moreover, nothing could have suited his own purpose better than to proceed to Paris by way of Lyons.

Nothing hindered the carrying out of his design. Still lost in thought and inattentive, Dupont entrained for Nimes and at that station changed to the rapide for Lyons, where duly at four o'clock--with Lanyard still a discreet shadow--he alighted in the Gare de Perrache.

Here again fortune favoured the voluntary sleuth. The station was well thronged, a circumstance which enabled him to keep inconspicuously close to his victim. Furthermore, Dupont was obviously looking for somebody, and so distracted. Presently a shabby, furtive little rat of a man nudged his elbow, and Dupont followed him to a corner, where they confabulated in undertones for many minutes; while Lanyard loitered just outside their normal range of vision. An unnecessary precaution: they were unafraid of observation, interested only in their private concerns. The little man did most of the talking; Dupont seeming content with a listening rôle, and gratified by what he heard. He nodded frequently, and once or twice a grim smile enhanced the ugliness of his mouth, a smile terrible in its contained savagery, fit to make one's blood run cold, that cruelly relished in anticipation the success of some evil scheme.

Not to be able to hear a word was exasperating to a degree....

The smaller villain produced something--a slip of paper--from a waistcoat pocket, and handed it to Dupont, who examined it with disfavour, shaking his head repeatedly to the other's recommendations. Of a sudden he ended the argument by thrusting the slip back into the hands of the jackal, growled a few words of imperative instruction, jerked his thumb toward the ticket bureau, and without more ado turned and strode from the terminus.

Alone, the little man rolled appealing eyes heavenward. Then he shrugged in resignation, and trotted over to the guichet. Lanyard, now with no fear of being recognised, ranged alongside and listened openly.

It seemed that, booked for Paris on the rapide to leave at one-twelve in the morning, this lesser rascal had been assigned a certain sleeping-car berth. Business of displaying the ticket: identified by Lanyard as the object over which the conference had split. Now, however, it appeared that a friend was to journey to Paris by the same train, but in another sleeping-car. It was greatly desired by both that they be separated no farther than necessity might dictate, that this reservation might be exchanged for another in the same carriage with the friend.

Thus far without interruption from the clerk of the ticket bureau. But here ensued inevitably the violent French altercation between the two human beings on either side of the guichet. Then, as suddenly as it had arisen, the squall blew over, an amicable settlement was arrived at, the exchange of reservation was effected, the small scoundrel, with ten thousand thanks and profuse assurances of deathless esteem, departed grinning.

Lanyard secured the rejected berth and went about his business profoundly mystified, but not downhearted. Beyond shadow of fair doubt Dupont was up to some new devilment, but Lanyard would be surprised if its nature failed to develop on the train or at latest upon its arrival in Paris the next morning. For the present he was weary of the sight of the fat Apache, glad to believe he had seen the last of him for some hours; he had much to do on his own part, nothing less in fact than utterly to obliterate from human ken the personality of André Duchemin.

This affair involved several purchases; for he was travelling light indeed, having left even his rucksack at the Château de Montalais. Nevertheless it was no later than seven in the evening when he left a room which he had engaged in a hotel so pretentious and heavily patronised that he was lost in its ebb and flow of life, an inconsiderable and unconsidered bit of flotsam--and left it a changed man.

The pointed beard of Monsieur Duchemin was no more; and a little stain, artfully applied, had toned the newly exposed flesh to match the tan of the rest. The rough tweed walking-suit had been replaced by a modest and commonplace blue serge, the cap and heavy brown boots by a straw boater and plain black shoes, the loose-throated flannel shirt by one of plain linen with stiff cuffs and a fold collar and neat foulard tie. So easily was Madame de Sévénié's buccaneer metamorphosed into the semblance of a Government clerk!

But this was by no means all. The papers of André Duchemin were crisp black ashes in the fireplace of the room which Lanyard had just quitted, all but the letter of credit; and this last was enclosed in an envelope, to be sent to London by registered post with a covering note to request that the unpaid balance be forwarded in French bank-notes to Monsieur Paul Martin, poste restante, Paris; Paul Martin being the name which appeared on an entirely new set of papers of identification which Lanyard had thoughtfully secreted in the lining of the tweed coat before leaving London.

If Lanyard wanted better testimony than that supplied by his bedroom mirror to the thoroughness of the transformation in his looks, he had it unsought, and that twice within an hour.

The first time was when, leaving the hotel to seek the post office and despatch his letter to London, he found himself suddenly face to face with Dupont, who was seated at a café table near the hotel entrance and narrowly scrutinising all who passed in and out; covering this occupation with affected interest in the gossip of his companion, the little rat man of the Gare de Perrache.

At this rencontre Lanyard knew a momentary shock of doubt; perhaps he hadn't been so clever as he had thought himself in trailing Dupont all the way from Combe-Re-donde to Lyons. But the beady little eyes of a pig comprehended him in a glance, and rejected him as of positively no interest to Albert Dupont, a complete stranger and a cheap one at that. So he fared serenely on his way, and Dupont gave him never another thought.

Returning, Lanyard was favoured with even less attention; an error in judgment which enabled him to remark that Dupont was in an ugly temper, sullen and snappy, it might be because of a disappointment of some sort, possibly in consequence of the liberal potations indicated by the tall stack of little saucers at his elbow. As for the lesser villain, he was already silly with drink.

One would have been glad of a chance to eavesdrop again upon those two; but there was no vacant place within earshot of their table. Besides Lanyard wanted his dinner. So he re-entered the hotel and sought its restaurant, where the untiring Long Arm of Coincidence took him by the hand and led him to a table immediately adjoining one occupied exclusively by Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes.

And this one in turn looked Lanyard up and down but, detecting in him not the remotest flavour of reminiscence, returned divided attention to a soup and the door of the restaurant, which he was watching just as closely and impatiently as Dupont, outside, was watching the main entrance, and apparently with as little reward for his pains.

But now, Lanyard told himself, one knew what had dragged Dupont in such hot haste to Lyons. Somehow word had reached him, probably by telegraph, that monsieur le comte was waiting there to keep a rendezvous. And if you asked him, Lanyard would confess his firm conviction that the other party to the rendezvous would prove to be the person (or persons) who had effected the burglary at Château de Montalais.

So he settled to keep an eye on monsieur le comte, and promised himself an interesting evening.

But as time passed it became evident that there had been a hitch somewhere; de Lorgnes was only human, he couldn't rendezvous all by himself alone, and nobody turned up to help him out. He was fretting when Lanyard first saw him; before his dinner was half served his nerve was giving way. Continually his distracted gaze sought the door only to turn back in disappointment to his plate. Everlastingly he consulted his watch. His appetite failed, the hand that too often carried a glass to his lips shook so that drops of wine spattered the cloth like blood; he could not even keep a cigarette alive, but burned more matches than tobacco. A heavy sweat bedewed his forehead; the ruddy colour of that plump countenance grew sadly faded, the good-natured features drawn and pinched with worry. By nine o'clock the man was hag-ridden by fear of the unknown, by terror of learning what fault had developed in the calculations of his confrères.

Efforts to fix his mind on an evening newspaper failed miserably. And this was not for lack of interest in the news it published to the citizens of Lyons. For Lanyard had a copy of the same sheet, and knew that Eve had loyally kept her promise; a brief despatch from Millau told of the simultaneous disappearance of one André Duchemin and the jewels of Madame de Montalais, and added that the police were already active in the case.

At length, unable longer to endure the growing tension of anxiety and keep up a pretence of eating, de Lorgnes called for his addition and fled the restaurant. Lanyard finished his own meal in haste, and arrived in the foyer of the hotel in time to see de Lorgnes settle his account at the bureau and hear him instruct a porter to have his luggage ready for the one-twelve rapide for Paris. In the meantime, anybody who might enquire for Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes should be directed to seek him in the café.

Thither Lanyard dutifully repaired; and wasted the rest of that evening, which he had thought would prove so amusing, watching Dupont and company watch de Lorgnes, to whom Dupont's barely dissembled interest plainly meant nothing at all, but whose mental anguish grew to be all but unbearable. Nor did the quantities of veeskysoda consumed by the unhappy nobleman help him bear it, though undoubtedly he assured himself it did. By midnight he was more than half-fuddled and wholly in despair. Half an hour later he finished his eighth veeskysoda and wove an unsteady but most dignified way back to the foyer of the hotel.

Immediately Dupont and his fellow, both markedly the worse for wear, paid and left the café.

Lanyard returned to his room to get a new-bought travelling bag, and started for the train afoot, a neat brown paper parcel under one arm. On the way he made occasion to cross the Saône by one of its dozen bridges, and paused in the middle of the span to meditate upon the witchery of the night. When he moved on the brown paper parcel was bearing merrily downstream the mortal remains of André Duchemin, that is to say his discarded clothing.

In the Gare de Perrache Lanyard witnessed an affecting farewell scene between the little man and Dupont. Not much to his surprise he discovered that the former was not travelling to Paris that night, after all; it was on Dupont's account alone that he had taken so much trouble to secure the change of reservation.

And when Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes had wavered through the gateway in tow of a luggage-laden porter; and Dupont had torn himself away from his fond familiar and lurched after the count; and Lanyard, after a little wait, had followed in turn: he was able to see for himself that Dupont had contrived to be berthed in the same carriage with de Lorgnes; proving that he did not mean to let the count out of sight, day or night.

Well weary, Lanyard proceeded to his own compartment, in the car ahead, and turned in. A busy day, and not altogether unprofitable; whatever expectations had been thwarted in this mild outcome, one had learned much; and to-morrow one would resume the chase anew and, one rather fancied, learn a deal more.

But he was not of those who sleep well on trains. In spite of his extreme fatigue he woke up every time the rapide stopped. He was awake at Dijon, at four in the morning, and again at Laroche, about a quarter after six. There, peering out of the window to identify the station, he was startled to see the broad, round-shouldered back of Albert Dupont making away across the rails--leaving the train!

It was not feasible to dress and pursue, even had it been wise. And Lanyard was vexed. Dupont, he felt, was hardly playing fair, after giving one every reason to believe he meant to go through to Paris. And what under heaven did the brute think to accomplish in Laroche? Was he still after the Comte de Lorgnes? Then the latter must likewise have fled the train! Or else ...

Something sinister in the slant of the Dupont shoulders, as he vanished, something indescribably evil in his furtive yet heavy tread of a beast of prey, struck a thrill of horror into the mind of Lanyard. He shuddered, and warned himself he must learn to hold his imagination in better check.

The newspapers of Paris, that day, had a sensation that crushed into insignificance the news from Château de Montalais: in a compartment which he had occupied alone on the night rapide from Lyons, a man had been found with his throat cut, his clothing ripped to rags, even his luggage slashed to ribbons.

Whether through chance or intention, every possible clue to the victim's identity was missing.

XIII

ATHENAIS

In London, about noon of that day, a gentleman whom Lanyard most often thought of by the name of Wertheimer deciphered a code message whose contempt for customary telegraphic brevity was quite characteristic of the sender, indeed a better voucher for his bona fides than the initials appended in place of a signature. With some editing in the way of punctuation, it follows:

"Dear old bean:--Please advise Prefecture de Police without revealing your source of information, unidentified man found murdered on rapide arriving Gare de Lyon eight-thirty this morning stopped yesterday Hôtel Terminus, Lyons, under name of Comte de Lorgnes. During entire evening before entraining he was shadowed by two Apaches, one of whom, passing as Albert Dupont--probably recent and temporary alias--booked through to Paris occupying berth in same carriage with Lorgnes, but detrained Laroche six-fifteen, murder remaining undiscovered till arrival in Paris. [An admirably succinct sketch of the physical Dupont is here deleted.] 'In return for gift of this opportunity to place Préfecture under obligations, please do me a service. As stranger in Paris I crave passionately to review Night Life of Great City but am naturally timid about going about alone after dark. Only society of beautiful, accomplished, well-informed and agreeable lady of proved discretion can put me thoroughly at ease. If you can recommend one such to me by telegraph, stipulating her amiability must begin to function this evening, you may depend on my not hesitating to ask further favours as occasion may arise. Presume you have heard your old friend Duchemin, now missing, is suspected of looting jewels of Madame de Montalais, Château de Montalais, near Millau. He counts on your discretion to preserve secret of his innocence pending further advices. Paul Martin here stopping Hotel Chatham. Toodle-oo.

"M. L."

A telegram from London addressed to M. Paul Martin, Hotel Chatham, Paris, was delivered late in the afternoon:

"Préfecture tipped off. Many thanks. Heartfelt regrets poor Duchemin's success keeping out of gaol. Uneasy about him as long as he remains at large. Fully appreciate you cannot trust yourself alone in the dark. Therefore cheerfully delegating preservation your virtue while in Paris to Mlle. Athenais Reneaux, maiden lady mature charms whom I beg you will respect as you would my sister. Wishing you enjoyable intellectual evening--

"W."

It needed receipt of a petit-bleu, while he was dressing for dinner, to cure Lanyard of an attack of premonitory shivers brought on by recollection of the awful truth that one is never really safe in trifling with an Englishman's sense of humour. "Dear monsieur Martin:--It is too sweet of you to remember your promise to ask me to dine the first time you came to Paris. Since you leave it to me, shall we say the Ritz, at half past seven? In case your memory for faces is poor--it has been a long time since we met, hasn't it?--I shall be wearing the conventional fast black with my very best ingenue expression; and my feather fan will be flame-coloured.

"Always to you--

"Athenais Reneaux."

Now that sounded more like ...

Only it was a bit debilitating to contemplate, as the mirror insisted one must, the shortcomings of machine-made evening clothes, whose obviously exorbitant cost as a post-War luxury did nothing to make amends for their utter want of personal feeling. For one needs sympathy in a dress-coat quite as much as cloth.

Still, it was a tolerably personable figure that suffered Lanyard's critical inspection. And an emergency is an emergency. Those readily serviceable clothes were of more value than the most superbly tailored garments that could possibly have been made up for him in any reasonable length of time. For to-morrow night it might, and as Lanyard held surely would, be too late to accomplish what he hoped to accomplish to-night, and for whose accomplishment evening dress was indispensable. Since Wertheimer had passed the word on, the name of the Comte de Lorgnes would be published to the world in the morning papers, and by evening the birds, if they were wise, would be in full flight. Whereas to-night, while still that poor mutilated body lay nameless in the Morgue...

Mademoiselle Athenais Reneaux lived up in most gratifying fashion to the tone of her note. In the very beginning she demonstrated excellent discretion by failing to be on hand and eager when Lanyard strolled into the Ritz on the minute of their appointment. To the contrary she was all of twenty-five minutes late; a circumstance so consistently feminine as to rob their meeting of any taint of the extraordinary; they might have been simple sweethearts meeting to dine remote from jealous or censorious eyes, rather than one of the most useful Parisian agents of the British Secret Service under orders to put her talents at the disposition of a man who was to her nothing more than an everyday name.

She swept spiritedly into the lounge of the Ritz, a tall, fair girl, very good-looking indeed and brilliantly costumed, and placed Monsieur Paul Martin in one glance, on the instant of his calculated start of recognition. At once her face lighted up with a charming smile--few women could boast teeth as white and fine--and almost before Lanyard could extricate himself from his chair she was at pause before him, holding his hand.

"Paul!" she cried in lilting accents. "I'm so glad! It's been simply ages.... And looking so well! I don't believe you've changed a bit."

The nicely judged pitch of her voice, neither so high nor so low as to attract more than passing attention, won approval which Lanyard put into the pressure of his lips upon her hand and the bow, at once punctilious and intimate, that accompanied it.

"And you, Athenais, always exquisite, but to-day...Truly one has never seen you looking better."

"Flattery," she commented. "But I love it!"

Meanwhile her gaze, that seemed so constant to his eyes, reviewed other people in the lounge in one swift, searching glance, and returned to Lanyard with a droop of the lashes, imperceptible to all but him, that signified there was no one present likely in her esteem to prove dangerous to their peace of mind.

"Flattery? To you? But impossible!"

He delighted her, and she showed it openly. But her lips said only: "Have I kept you waiting a frightfully long time, poor boy?"

"Let your appetite accuse you, Athenais."

"But I am starving!"

"Then, as I take it, nothing on earth can prevent our going in to dinner."

Lanyard had already consulted with the maître d'hôtel over the menu and the reservation. As the two settled down at a table on the side of the room, not conspicuously far from any other in use, and at the same time comfortably detached, their iced melon was waiting to be served.

"Always the most thoughtful of men," Mademoiselle Reneaux declared. "No fussing with the carte, no thrusting it into one's hand and saying: 'See anything you'd like, my dear? I rather fancy the boeuf-à-la-mode for myself!' That's why I'd adore dining with you, Paul, even if I didn't adore you for yourself."

"One is well repaid when one's modest efforts are so well appreciated."

"Blague, my friend, sheer blague. You know you relish a good dinner of your own ordering far more than anybody's appreciation, even mine."

The waiters had retired, leaving them alone in a momentary oasis of public isolation.

"Mademoiselle," said Lanyard in more formal vein, "I am sure, underestimates my capacity for appreciation. May one venture to compliment mademoiselle, who is marvellous in so many bewitching ways?"

"Why not, monsieur? Was ever music sweeter?" The girl laughed; then her eyes sobered while her features retained their appearance of complete amusement. "Monsieur received a telegram this afternoon?"

"Yes, mademoiselle. And you?"

"It is here--since I am. May I see yours?"

With a gay gesture she handed over her telegram from London and took his in exchange.

The ordinary cipher of the B. S. S. was as readily intelligible to both as if the messages had been couched in open French or English.

Lanyard read:

"Kindly place yourself beginning with dinner to-night and for duration his stay in Paris at the commands of Paul Martin, Hôtel Chatham, lunatic but harmless and of great value to us. He seems to be at present concerned with some affair outside our knowledge, but presumably desperate, else he would not be interested. Please exert best endeavours to get him out of France alive as soon as possible."

The girl was laughing as she returned Lanyard's telegram and received her own.

"'Mature charms'!" she pouted. "'Enjoyable intellectual evening'! Oh, how depressing! Poor Paul! but you must have felt discouraged."

"I did--at first."

"And afterwards--?"

"Disappointed."

"And are you going to obey that injunction to treat me as somebody's sister?"

"Never in my life!"

"How then?"

"As anybody's wife." Perplexity knitted a little pucker in her delicately lined brows.

"Paul! you couldn't speak French so well and be an Englishman!"

"I assure you, Athenais, I am--mentally--a native of France."

She sighed luxuriously. "What an amusing prospect! And this is the sort of man at whose commands I am required to place myself."

"Not required, Athenais, requested--begged, besought!"

"I like that better. And," she enquired demurely, "may one ask what are monsieur's commands?"

"First: you will continue to flirt with me as at present--outrageously."

"Even when you make it so difficult?"

"And then, to waste an evening in my society."

"Must it be wasted?"

"That will be as it falls out."

"And what do we do with this evening of such questionable value?"

"We finish dinner here at our leisure; we smoke and chat a while in the lounge, if you like, or if nothing better offers we go to a play; and then you will take me by the hand, if you please, mademoiselle..."

"In the maternal manner appropriate to mature charms, I presume?"

"Precisely."

"What then?"

"You will--always remembering that my interest in such things is merely academic--you will then lead me hither and yon, as your whim lists, and show me how Paris amuses itself in these days of its nocturnal decadence. You will dutifully pretend to drink much more champagne than is good for you and to be enjoying yourself as you seldom have before. If I discover an interest in people I may chance to see, you will be good enough to tell me who they are and--other details concerning their ways of life."

"If I know."

"But I am sure you know everyone worth knowing in Paris, Athenais."

"Then--if I am right in assuming you are looking for some person in particular--"

"You have reason, mademoiselle."

"I run the risk of losing an entertaining evening."

"Not necessarily. Besides, there are many evenings. Are you not at my commands for the duration of my stay in Paris?"

"True. So I will have to chance my perilous question.... I presume one can't help being true to the traditions of one's sex."

"Inquisitive, you mean? But what else is every thinking creature, male or female? What are men of science? What--?"

"But it was Eve who first--"

"Ah! raking up old scandal, eh? But I'll wager something it was really Adam who--taking a purely scientific interest in the business--egged Eve on to try a bite of apple, asserting that the domestic menu lacked variety, telling himself if she died of it, it would only cost him another rib to replace her, and cheap at the price."

"Paul: you are too gallant. Wait till I try to find out something about you, directly or indirectly, and see what you will then have to say about the curiosity of women."

"But I shouldn't mind, it would be too flattering. So dig away."

"I will. Who is it you're looking for in Paris after midnight?"

"Anyone of several people." "Perhaps I know them. It might save time if you would give me their names."

"Now it is you who ask me to risk losing an enjoyable evening. But so be it. Le Comte de Lorgnes?"

Mademoiselle Reneaux looked blank.

"Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes?"

The young woman shook her head.

"Both of a class sure to be conspicuous in such places as Maxim's," Lanyard explained. "The names, then, are probably fictitious."

"If you could describe them, perhaps--?"

"Useless, I am afraid; neither is an uncommon type. Any word picture of either would probably fit anyone of a score of people of the same life. Are you then acquainted with a man named Phinuit--given name unknown--an American?"

"No."

"Mr. Whitaker Monk, of New York?"

"The millionaire?"

"That is quite possible."

"He made his money in munitions, I believe," the girl reflected--"or perhaps it was oil."

"Then you do know him?"

"I met him one night, or rather one morning several weeks ago, with a gay party that joined ours at breakfast at Pré-Catelan."

"And do we still drive out to Pré-Catelan to milk the cows after an adventurous night, mademoiselle?" She nodded; and Lanyard sighed: "It is true, then: man ages, his follies never."

"A quaint little stupid," the girl mused.

"Pardon, mademoiselle?"

"I was thinking of Whitaker Monk."

"Quaint, I grant you. But hardly little, or stupid. A tall man, as thin as a diet, with a face like a comic mask of tragedy..."

"Paul dear," said Athenais Reneaux more in sorrow than in anger: "somebody has been taking advantage of your trusting nature. Whitaker Monk is short, hopelessly stout, and the most commonplace person imaginable."

"Then it would appear," Lanyard commented ruefully, "one did wisely to telegraph London for a keeper. Let us get hence, if you don't mind, and endeavour to forget my shame in strong drink and the indecorous dances of an unregenerate generation."

XIV

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

Lanyard and Athenais Reneaux had dawdled over dinner and coffee and cigarettes with so much tacit deliberation that, by the time Lanyard suggested they might move on, it was too late for a play and still a bit too early to begin the contemplated round of all-night restaurants. Also, it was too warm for a music-hall.

So they killed another hour at the Ambassadeurs, where they were fortunate in getting good places and the entertainment imposed no strain upon the attention; where, too, the audience, though heterogeneous, was sufficiently well-dressed and well-mannered to impart to a beautiful lady and her squire a pleasant consciousness of being left very much to themselves in an amusing expression of a civilisation cynical and self-sufficient.

But that was so wherever they went that night; and, in a sense, they went everywhere. In no city in the world is the doctrine of go-as-you-please-but-mind-your-own-business more studiously inculcated by example than in Paris, especially in its hours of relaxation. Lanyard had not been so long an exile as to have forgotten his way about entirely, and with what was new since his time Mademoiselle Reneaux was thoroughly acquainted. And if he felt himself rather a ghost revisiting glimpses of a forgotten moon, if all the odalisques were new to his vision and all the sultans strange, if never an eye that scanned his face turned back for a second look in uncertain reminiscence, he had to console him the company of a young woman whom everybody seemed to know and admire and like. In none of the resorts they visited did she fail to greet or be hailed by a handful of acquaintances. Yet they were generously let alone.