The Lone Wolf Part 36

"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, gla.s.ses, 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 a.s.sumption of fellows.h.i.+p and a common footing, attracted even as it intrigued.

With the easy courtesy of a practised host, he measured whiskey into Lanyard's gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 h.e.l.l 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 sw.a.n.k!"

"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. "G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 Old Man's mind well enough to feel safe in offering you any inducement you can name, in reason, if you'll come to us. Ten thousand francs in your pocket before morning, if you like, and freedom to chuck this filthy job of yours--"

"Please stop there!" Lanyard interrupted hotly. "I was beginning to like you, too... Why persist in reminding me you're intimate with the brute who had Roddy butchered in his sleep?"

"Poor devil!" Wertheimer said gently. "That was a sickening business, I admit. But who told you--?"