Part 4 (1/2)
Mademoiselle Bannon--with your permission--my friend, Monsieur Lanyard.
And Monsieur Bannon--an old, dear friend, with whom you will share a pa.s.sion 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 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, cla.s.sified, filed away.
Between amus.e.m.e.nt 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, G.o.d-knows-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, 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 a.s.suredly he could not be ignorant of Roddy's business, or that every other word he uttered was rivetting suspicion on Lanyard of ident.i.ty 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 Ba.s.s) that Lanyard summoned the maitre-d'hotel 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.
IV
A STRATAGEM
When the maitre-d'hotel had shown him all over the establishment (innocently enough, en route, furnis.h.i.+ng him with a complete list of his other guests and their rooms: memoranda readily registered by a retentive memory) Lanyard chose the bed-chamber next that occupied by Roddy, in the second storey.
The consideration influencing this selection was--of course--that, so situated, he would be in position not only to keep an eye on the man from Scotland Yard but also to determine whether or no Roddy were disposed to keep an eye on him.
In those days Lanyard's faith in himself was a beautiful thing. He could not have enjoyed the immunity ascribed to the Lone Wolf as long as he had without gaining a power of st.u.r.dy self-confidence in addition to a certain amount of temperate contempt for spies of the law and all their ways.
Against the peril inherent in this last, however, he was self-warned, esteeming it the most fatal c.h.i.n.k in the armour of the lawbreaker, this disposition to underestimate the ac.u.men of the police: far too many promising young adventurers like himself were annually laid by the heels in that snare of their own infatuate weaving. The mouse has every right, if he likes, to despise the cat for a heavy-handed and bloodthirsty beast, lacking wit and imagination, a creature of simple force-majeure; but that mouse will not advisedly swagger in cat-haunted territory; a blow of the paw is, when all's said and done, a blow of the paw--something to numb the wits of the wiliest mouse.
Considering Roddy, he believed it to be impossible to gauge the limitations of that essentially British intelligence--something as self-contained as a London flat. One thing only was certain: Roddy didn't always think in terms of beef and Ba.s.s; he was n.o.body's facile fool; he could make a shrewd inference as well as strike a shrewd blow.