The Lone Wolf Series. Louis Joseph Vance
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if you've no objection."
"None whatever."
Wertheimer gave him the number and replaced the window….
His rooms in the rue Vernet proved to be a small ground-floor apartment with private entrance to the street.
"Took the tip from you," he told Lanyard as he unlocked the door. "I daresay you'd be glad to get back to that rez-de-chaussée of yours. Ripping place, that…. By the way — judging from your apparently robust state of health, you haven't been trying to live at home of late."
"Indeed?"
"Indeed yes, monsieur! If I may presume to advise — I'd pull wide of the rue Roget for a while — for as long, at least, as you remain in your present intractable temper."
"Daresay you're right," Lanyard assented carelessly, following, as Wertheimer turned up the lights, into a modest salon cosily furnished.
"You live here alone, I understand?"
"Quite: make yourself perfectly at ease; nobody can hear us. And," the Englishman added with a laugh, "do forget your pistol, Mr. Lanyard. I'm not Popinot, nor is this Troyon's."
"Still," Lanyard countered, "you've just been dining with Bannon."
Wertheimer laughed easily. "Had me there!" he admitted, unabashed. "I take it you know a bit more about the Old Man than you did a week ago?"
"Perhaps."
"But sit down: take that chair there, which commands both doors, if you don't trust me."
"Do you think I ought to?"
"Hardly. Otherwise I'd ask you to take my word that you're safe for the time being. As it is, I shan't be offended if you keep your gun handy and your sense of self-preservation running under forced draught. But you won't refuse to join me in a whiskey and soda?"
"No," said Lanyard slowly — "not if you drink from the same bottle."
Again the Englishman laughed unaffectedly as he fetched a decanter, glasses, bottled soda, and a box of cigarettes, and placed them within Lanyard's reach.
The adventurer eyed him narrowly, puzzled. He knew nothing of this man, beyond his reputation — something unsavoury enough, in all conscience! — had seen him only once, and then from a distance, before that conference in the rue Chaptal. And now he was becoming sensitive to a personality uncommonly insinuating: Wertheimer was displaying all the poise of an Englishman of the better caste More than anybody in the underworld that Lanyard had ever known this blackmailer had an air of one acquainted with his own respect. And his nonchalance, the good nature with which he accepted Lanyard's pardonable distrust, his genial assumption of fellowship and a common footing, attracted even as it intrigued.
With the easy courtesy of a practised host, he measured whiskey into Lanyard's glass till checked by a "Thank you," then helped himself generously, and opened the soda.
"I'll not ask you to drink with me," he said with a twinkle, "but — chin-chin!" — and tilting his glass, half-emptied it at a draught.
Muttering formally, at a disadvantage and resenting it, Lanyard drank with less enthusiasm if without misgivings.
Wertheimer selected a cigarette and lighted it at leisure.
"Well," he laughed through a cloud of smoke — "I think we're fairly on our way to an understanding, considering you told me to go to hell when last we met!"
His spirit was irresistible: in spite of himself Lanyard returned the smile. "I never knew a man to take it with better grace," he admitted, lighting his own cigarette.
"Why not! I liked it: you gave us precisely what we asked for."
"Then," Lanyard demanded gravely, "if that's your viewpoint, if you're decent enough to see it that way — what the devil are you doing in that galley?"
"Mischief makes strange bed-fellows, you'll admit. And if you think that a fair question — what are you doing here, with me?"
"Same excuse as before — trying to find out what your game is."
Wertheimer eyed the ceiling with an intimate grin. "My dear fellow!" he protested — "all you want to know is everything!"
"More or less," Lanyard admitted gracelessly. "One gathers that you mean to stop this side the Channel for some time."
"How so?"
"There's a settled, personal atmosphere about this establishment. It doesn't look as if half your things were still in trunks."
"Oh, these digs! Yes, they are comfy."
"You don't miss London?"
"Rather! But I shall appreciate it all the more when I go back."
"Then you can go back, if you like?"
"Meaning your impression is, I made it too hot for me?"
Wertheimer interposed with a quizzical glance. "I shan't tell you about that. But I'm hoping to be able to run home for an occasional week-end without vexing Scotland Yard. Why not come with me some time?"
Lanyard shook his head.
"Come!" the Englishman rallied him. "Don't put on so much side. I'm not bad company. Why not be sociable, since we're bound to be thrown together more or less in the way of business."
"Oh, I think not."
"But, my dear chap, you can't keep this up. Playing taxi-way man is hardly your shop. And of course you understand you won't be permitted to engage in any more profitable pursuit until you make terms with the powers that be — or leave Paris."
"Terms with Bannon, De Morbihan, Popinot and yourself — eh?"
"With the same."
"Mr. Wertheimer," Lanyard told him quietly, "none of you will stop me if ever I make up my mind to take the field again."
"You haven't been thinking of quitting it — what?" Wertheimer demanded innocently, opening his eyes wide.
"Perhaps…"
"Ah, now I begin to see a light! So that's the reason you've come down to tooling a taxi. I wondered! But somehow, Mr. Lanyard" — Wertheimer's eyes narrowed thoughtfully — "I can hardly see you content with that line… even if this reform notion isn't simple swank!"
"Well, what do you think?"
"I think," the Englishman laughed — "I think this conference doesn't get anywhere in particular. Our simple, trusting natures don't seem to fraternize as spontaneously as they might. We may as well cut the sparring and go, down to business — don't you think? But before we do, I'd like your leave to offer one word of friendly advice."
"And that is — ?"
"'Ware Bannon!"
Lanyard nodded. "Thanks," he said simply.
"I say that in all sincerity," Wertheimer declared. "God knows you're nothing to me, but at least you've played the game like a man; and I won't see you butchered to make an Apache holiday for want of warning."
"Bannon's as vindictive as that, you think?"
"Holds you in the most poisonous regard, if you ask me. Perhaps you know why: I don't. Anyway, it was rotten luck that brought your car to the door tonight. He named you during dinner, and while apparently he doesn't know where to look for you, it is plain he's got no use for you — not, at least, until your attitude towards the organization changes."
"It hasn't. But I'm obliged."
"Sure you can't see your way to work with us?"
"Absolutely."
"Mind you, I'll have to report to the Old Man. I've got to tell him your answer."
"I don't think I need tell you what to tell him," said Lanyard with a grin.
"Still, it's worth thinking over. I know the