Part 20 (1/2)
”I don't need to--with you.”
She a.n.a.lyzed this with gathering perplexity. ”What do you mean by that?”
”I mean, I don't need to put you on your honour--because I'm sure of you. Even were I not, still I'd refrain from exacting any pledge, or attempting to.” He paused and shrugged before continuing: ”If I thought you were still to be distrusted, Miss Bannon, I'd say: 'There's a free door; go when you like, back to the Pack, turn in your report, and let them act as they see fit.'... Do you think I care for them? Do you imagine for one instant that I fear any one--or all--of that gang?”
”That rings suspiciously of egoism!”
”Let it,” he retorted. ”It's pride of caste, if you must know. I hold myself a grade better than such cattle; I've intelligence, at least....
I can take care of myself!”
If he might read her countenance, it expressed more than anything else distress and disappointment.
”Why do you boast like this--to me?”
”Less through self-satisfaction than in contempt for a pack of murderous mongrels--impatience that I have to consider such creatures as Popinot, Wertheimer, De Morbiban and--all their crew.”
”And Bannon,” she corrected calmly--”you meant to say!”
”Wel-l--” he stammered, discountenanced.
”It doesn't matter,” she a.s.sured him. ”I quite understand, and strange as it may sound, I've very little feeling in the matter.” And then she acknowledged his stupefied stare with a weary smile. ”I know what I know,” she added, with obscure significance....
”I'd give a good deal to know how much you know,” he muttered in his confusion.
”But what do _you_ know?” she caught him up--”against Mr.
Bannon--against my father, that is--that makes you so ready to suspect both him and me?”
”Nothing,” he confessed--”I know nothing; but I suspect everything and everybody.... And the more I think of it, the more closely I examine that brutal business of last night, the more I seem to sense his will behind it all--as one might glimpse a face in darkness through a lighted lattice.... Oh, laugh if you like! It sounds high-flown, I know. But that's the effect I get.... What took you to my room, if not his orders? Why does he train with De Morbihan, if he's not blood-kin to that breed? Why are you running away from him if not because you've found out his part in that conspiracy?”
His pause and questioning look evoked no answer; the girl sat moveless and intent, meeting his gaze inscrutably. And something in her impa.s.sive att.i.tude worked a little exasperation into his temper.
”Why,” he declared hotly--”if I dare trust to intuition--forgive me if I pain you--”
She interrupted with impatience: ”I've already begged you not to consider my feelings, Mr. Lanyard! If you dared trust to your intuition--what then?”
”Why, then, I could believe that Mr. Bannon, your father ... I could believe it was his order that killed poor Roddy!”
There could be no doubting her horrified and half-incredulous surprise.
”Roddy?” she iterated in a whisper almost inaudible, with face fast blanching. ”Roddy--!”
”Inspector Roddy of Scotland Yard,” he told her mercilessly, ”was murdered in his sleep last night at Troyon's. The murderer broke into his room by way of mine--the two adjoin. He used my razor, wore my dressing-gown to s.h.i.+eld his clothing, did everything he could think of to cast suspicion on me, and when I came in a.s.saulted me, meaning to drug and leave me insensible to be found by the police. Fortunately--I was beforehand with him. I had just left him drugged, insensible in my place, when I met you in the corridor.... You didn't know?”
”How can you ask?” the girl moaned.
Bending forward, an elbow on the table, she worked her hands together until their knuckles shone white through the skin--but not as white as the face from which her eyes sought his with a look of dumb horror, dazed, pitiful, imploring.
”You're not deceiving me? But no--why should you?” she faltered. ”But how terrible, how unspeakably awful! ...”
”I'm sorry,” Lanyard mumbled--”I'd have held my tongue if I hadn't thought you knew--”