The Lone Wolf Series. Louis Joseph Vance
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"That can't be helped. I can wait in the station."
He shrugged: that was her own look-out — if she were sincere in asserting that she meant to leave Paris; something which he took the liberty of doubting.
"You can reach it by the Métro," he suggested — "the Underground, you know; there's a station handy — St. Germain des Prés. If you like, I'll show you the way."
Her relief seemed so genuine, he could have almost believed in it. And yet — !
"I shall be very grateful," she murmured.
He took that for whatever worth it might assay, and quietly fell into place beside her; and in a mutual silence — perhaps largely due to her intuitive sense of his bias — they gained the boulevard St. Germain. But here, even as they emerged from the side street, that happened which again upset Lanyard's plans: a belated fiacre hove up out of the mist and ranged alongside, its driver loudly soliciting patronage.
Beneath his breath Lanyard cursed the man liberally, nothing could have been more inopportune; he needed that uncouth conveyance for his own purposes, and if only it had waited until he had piloted the girl to the station of the Métropolitain, he might have had it. Now he must either yield the cab to the girl or — share it with her…. But why not? He could readily drop out at his destination, and bid the driver continue to the Gare du Nord; and the Métro was neither quick nor direct enough for his design — which included getting under cover well before daybreak.
Somewhat sulkily, then, if without betraying his temper, he signalled the cocher, opened the door, and handed the girl in.
"If you don't mind dropping me en route…"
"I shall be very glad," she said … "anything to repay, even in part, the courtesy you've shown me!"
"Oh, please don't fret about that…."
He gave the driver precise directions, climbed in, and settled himself beside the girl. The whip cracked, the horse sighed, the driver swore; the aged fiacre groaned, stirred with reluctance, crawled wearily off through the thickening drizzle.
Within its body a common restraint held silence like a wall between the two.
The girl sat with face averted, reading through the window what corner signs they passed: rue Bonaparte, rue Jacob, rue des Saints Pères, Quai Malquais, Pont du Carrousel; recognizing at least one landmark in the gloomy arches of the Louvre; vaguely wondering at the inept French taste in nomenclature which had christened that vast, louring, echoing quadrangle the place du Carrousel, unliveliest of public places in her strange Parisian experience.
And in his turn, Lanyard reviewed those well-remembered ways in vast weariness of spirit — disgusted with himself in consciousness that the girl had somehow divined his distrust….
"The Lone Wolf, eh?" he mused bitterly. "Rather, the Cornered Rat — if people only knew! Better still, the Errant — no! — the Arrant Ass!"
They were skirting the Palais Royal when suddenly she turned to him in an impulsive attempt at self-justification.
"What must you be thinking of me, Mr. Lanyard?"
He was startled: "I? Oh, don't consider me, please. It doesn't matter what I think — does it?"
"But you've been so kind; I feel I owe you at least some explanation — "
"Oh, as for that," he countered cheerfully, "I've got a pretty definite notion you're running away from your father."
"Yes. I couldn't stand it any longer — "
She caught herself up in full voice, as though tempted but afraid to say more. He waited briefly before offering encouragement.
"I hope I haven't seemed impertinent…."
"No, no!"
Than this impatient negative his pause of invitation evoked no other recognition. She had subsided into her reserve, but — he fancied — not altogether willingly.
Was it, then, possible that he had misjudged her?
"You've friends in London, no doubt?" he ventured.
"No — none."
"But — "
"I shall manage very well. I shan't be there more than a day or two — till the next steamer sails."
"I see." There had sounded in her tone a finality which signified desire to drop the subject. None the less, he pursued mischievously: "Permit me to wish you bon voyage, Miss Bannon… and to express my regret that circumstances have conspired to change your plans."
She was still eyeing him askance, dubiously, as if weighing the question of his acquaintance with her plans, when the fiacre lumbered from the rue Vivienne into the place de la Bourse, rounded that frowning pile, and drew up on its north side before the blue lights of the all-night telegraph bureau.
"With permission," Lanyard said, unlatching the door, "I'll stop off here. But I'll direct the cocher very carefully to the Gare du Nord. Please don't even tip him — that's my affair. No — not another word of thanks; to have been permitted to be of service — it is a unique pleasure, Miss Bannon. And so, good night!"
With an effect that seemed little less than timid, the girl offered her hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Lanyard," she said in an unsteady voice. "I am sorry — "
But she didn't say what it was she regretted; and Lanyard, standing with bared head in the driving mist, touched her fingers coolly, repeated his farewells, and gave the driver both money and instructions, and watched the cab lurch away before he approached the telegraph bureau….
But the enigma of the girl so deeply intrigued his imagination that it was only with difficulty that he concocted a non-committal telegram to Roddy's friend in the Prefecture — that imposing personage who had watched with the man from Scotland Yard at the platform gates in the Gare du Nord.
It was couched in English, when eventually composed and submitted to the telegraph clerk with a fervent if inaudible prayer that he might be ignorant of the tongue.
"Come at once to my room at Troyon's. Enter via adjoining room prepared for immediate action on important development. Urgent. Roddy."
Whether or not this were Greek to the man behind the wicket, it was accepted with complete indifference — or, rather, with an interest that apparently evaporated on receipt of the fees. Lanyard couldn't see that the clerk favoured him with as much as a curious glance before he turned away to lose himself, to bury his identity finally and forever under the incognito of the Lone Wolf.
He couldn't have rested without taking that one step to compass the arrest of the American assassin; now with luck and prompt action on the part of the Préfecture, he felt sure Roddy would be avenged by Monsieur de Paris…. But it was very well that there should exist no clue whereby the author of that mysterious telegram might be traced….
It was, then, not an ill-pleased Lanyard who slipped oft into the night and the rain; but his exasperation was elaborate when the first object that met his gaze was that wretched fiacre, back in place before the door, Lucia Bannon leaning from its lowered window, the cocher on his box brandishing an importunate whip at the adventurer.
He barely escaped choking on suppressed profanity; and for two sous would have swung on his heel and ignored the girl deliberately. But he didn't dare: close at hand stood a sergent de ville, inquisitive eyes bright beneath the dripping visor of his kepi, keenly welcoming this diversion of a cheerless hour.
With at least outward semblance of resignation, Lanyard approached the window.
"I have been guilty of some stupidity, perhaps?" he enquired with lip-civility that had no echo in his heart. "But I am sorry — "
"The stupidity is mine," the girl interrupted in accents tense with agitation. "Mr. Lanyard, I — I — "
Her voice faltered and broke off in a short, dry