Alias the Lone Wolf Part 30

"My thanks, mademoiselle..."

"Your thanks!"--she laughed with indulgent scorn--"your thanks to me!"

He offered to rise, but was restrained by kindly hands.

"No: rest there a little longer, give yourself a little time before you try to get up."

"But I shall tire you..."

"No. And if you did, what of that? It seems to me, my friend, I owe to you my life."

"To me it seems you do," he agreed. "But such a debt is always the first to be forgotten, is it not?"

"You reproach me?"

"No, mademoiselle; not you, but the hearts of men... We are all very much alike, I think."

"No," the woman insisted: "you do reproach me. In your heart you have said: 'She has forgotten that, but for me, she would have been dead long years ago. This service, too, she will presently forget.' But you are wrong, my friend. It is true, the years between had made that other time a little vague with old remoteness in my memory; but to-night has brought it all back and--a renewed memory never fades."

"So one is told. But trust self-interest at need to black it out."

"You have no faith in me!" she said bitterly.

Lanyard gave her a weary smile. "Why should I not? And as for that: Why should I have faith in you, Liane? Our ways run leagues apart."

"They can be one."

She met his perplexed stare with an emphatic nod, with eyes that he could have sworn were abrim with tenderness. He shook his head as if to shake off a ridiculous plaguing notion, and grinned broadly. "That was a drink!" he declared. "I a.s.sure you, it was too much for my elderly head. Let me up."

The cruel agony stabbed his side again and again as he--not unaided--got upon his feet; and though he managed to gulp down his groans, no grinding of his teeth could mitigate his recurrent pallor or the pained contractions of his eyes. Furthermore, he wavered when he tried to walk, and was glad to subside into a chair to which the woman guided him. Then she fetched him another brandy and soda, put a lighted cigarette between his lips, picked up a chair for herself, and sat down, so close to him that their elbows almost touched.

"It is better, that pain, monsieur?"

He replied with an uncertain nod, pressing a careful hand to his side.

"... wound that animal gave me a month ago."

"Which animal?"

"Monsieur of the garotte, Liane; recently the a.s.sa.s.sin of de Lorgnes; before that the ex-chauffeur of the Chateau de Montalais."

"Albert Dupont?"

"As you say, it is not a name."

"The same?" Her old terror revived. "My G.o.d! what have I ever done to that one that he should seek my life?"

"What had de Lorgnes?"

Her eyes turned away, she sat for a moment in silent thought, started suddenly to speak but checked the words before one pa.s.sed her lips, and--as Lanyard saw quite plainly--hastened to subst.i.tute others.

"No: I do not understand at all! What do you think?"

Lanyard indicated a shrug with sufficient clearness, meaning to say, she probably knew as much as if not more than he.

"But how did he get in? I had not one suspicion I was not alone until that handkerchief----"

"Naturally."

"And you, my friend?"

"I saw him enter, and followed."

This was strictly within the truth: Lanyard had now no doubt Dupont and the man who had reconnoitered from the service-door were one. But it was no part of his mind to tell the whole truth to Liane. She might be as grateful as she ought to be, but she was still ... Liane Delorme ...

a woman to be tested rather than trusted.

"I must tell you. But perhaps you knew there were agents de police in the restaurant to-night?"

Liane's head described a negative; her violet eyes were limpid pools of candour.

"I am so much a stranger in Paris," Lanyard pursued, "I would not know them. But I thought you, perhaps----"

"No, no, my friend, I have nothing to do with the police, I know little about them. Not only that, but I was so interested in our talk, and then inexpressibly shocked, I paid attention to nothing else."

"I understand. Otherwise you must have noticed who followed me."

"You were followed?"

And she had found the effrontery to chide him for lack of faith in her!

He was in pain: for all that, the moment seemed amusing.

"We are followed, I a.s.sure you," Lanyard replied gravely. "One man or two--I don't know how many--in a town-car."

"But you are sure?"

"All we could get was a hansom drawn by a snail. The automobile, running without lights, went no faster, kept a certain distance behind us all the way from the Place Pigalle to the apartment of Mademoiselle Reneaux. What have you to say to that? Furthermore, when Mademoiselle Reneaux had persuaded me to take refuge in her apartment--who knew what they designed?--one man left the automobile as it pa.s.sed her door and stood on watch across the way. Could one require proof that one was followed?"

"Then you think somebody of the Prefecture recognized d.u.c.h.emin in you?"

"Who knows? I know I was followed, watched. If you ask me, I think Paris is not a healthy place for me."

"But all that," Liane objected, "does not bring you here!"

"Patience: I am well on my way."

Lanyard paused to sip his brandy and soda, and, under cover of that, summon ingenuity to the fore; here a little hand-made fabrication was indicated.

"We waited till about half an hour ago. So did the spy. Mademoiselle Reneaux then let me out by a private way. I started to walk to my hotel, the Chatham. There wasn't a taxi to be had, you understand.

Presently I looked back and saw I was being followed again. To make sure, I ran--and the spy ran after me. I twisted and doubled all through this quarter, and at last succeeded in shaking him off. Then I turned down this street, hoping to pick up a cab in the Champ-elysees.