The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales

by Maurice Leblanc

  “Eh?”

  “You carry your reason with you, my friend—in the shape of the Omber loot.”

  “Assuming you are right—”

  “You never went to the rue du Bac, monsieur, without those jewels: and

  I have had you under observation ever since.”

  “What conceivable interest,” Lanyard pursued evenly, “do you fancy you’ve got in the said loot?”

  “Enough, at least, to render me unwilling to kiss it adieu by leaving you to the mercies of Popinot. You don’t imagine I’d ever hear of it again, when his Apaches had finished with you?”

  “Ah!… So, after all, your so-called organization isn’t founded on that reciprocal trust so essential to the prosperity of such—enterprises!”

  “Amuse yourself as you will with your inferences, my friend,” the Count returned, unruffled; “but don’t forget my advice: pull wide of Popinot!”

  “A vindictive soul, eh?”

  “One may say that.”

  “You can’t hold him?”

  “That one? No fear! You were anything but wise to bait him as you did.”

  “Perhaps. It’s purely a matter of taste in associates.”

  “If I were the fool you think me,” mused the Count “I’d resent that innuendo. As it happens, I’m not. At least, I can wait before calling you to account.”

  “And meantime profit by your patience?”

  “But naturally. Haven’t I said as much?”

  “Still, I’m perplexed. I can’t imagine how you reckon to declare yourself in on the Omber loot.”

  “All in good time: if you were wise, you’d hand the stuff over to me here and now, and accept what I chose to give you in return. But inasmuch as you’re the least wise of men, you must have your lesson.”

  “Meaning—?”

  “The night brings counsel: you’ll have time to think things over. By tomorrow you’ll be coming to offer me those jewels in exchange for what influence I have in certain quarters.”

  “With your famous friend, the Chief of the Sûreté, eh?”

  “Possibly. I am known also at La Tour Pointue.”

  “I confess I don’t follow you, unless you mean to turn informer.”

  “Never that.”

  “It’s a riddle, then?”

  “For the moment only…. But I will say this: it will be futile, your attempting to escape Paris; Popinot has already picketted every outlet. Your one hope resides in me; and I shall be at home to you until midnight tomorrow—today, rather.”

  Impressed in spite of himself, Lanyard stared. But the Count maintained an imperturbable manner, looking straight ahead. Such calm assurance would hardly be sheer bluff.

  “I must think this over,” Lanyard mused aloud.

  “Pray don’t let me hinder you,” the Count begged with mild sarcasm. “I have my own futile thoughts….”

  Lanyard laughed quietly and subsided into a reverie which, undisturbed by De Morbihan, endured throughout the brief remainder of their drive; for, thanks to the smallness of the hour, the streets were practically deserted and offered no obstacle to speed; while the chauffeur was doubtless eager for his bed.

  As they drew near Troyon’s, however, Lanyard sat up and jealously reconnoitered both sides of the way.

  “Surely you don’t expect to be kept out?” the Count asked dryly. “But that just shows how little you appreciate our good Popinot. He’ll never object to your locking yourself up where he knows he can find you—but only to your leaving without permission!”

  “Something in that, perhaps. Still, I make it a rule to give myself the benefit of every doubt.”

  There was, indeed, no sign of ambush that he could detect in any quarter, nor any indication that Popinot’s Apaches were posted thereabouts. Nevertheless, Lanyard produced his automatic and freed the safety-catch before opening the door.

  “A thousand thanks, my dear Count!”

  “For what? Doing myself a service? But you make me feel ashamed!”

  “I know,” agreed Lanyard, depreciatory; “but that’s the way I am—a little devil—you really can’t trust me! Adieu, Monsieur le Comte.”

  “Au revoir, monsieur!”

  Lanyard saw the car round the corner before turning to the entrance of Troyon’s, keeping his weather-eye alert the while. But when the car was gone, the street seemed quite deserted and as soundless as though it had been the thoroughfare of some remote village rather than an artery of the pulsing old heart of Paris.

  Yet he wasn’t satisfied. He was as little susceptible to psychic admonition as any sane and normal human organism, but he was just then strongly oppressed by intuitive perception that there was something radically amiss in his neighbourhood. Whether or not the result of the Count’s open intimations and veiled hints working upon a nature sensitized by excitement and fatigue, he felt as though he had stepped from the cab into an atmosphere impregnated to saturation with nameless menace. And he even shivered a bit, perhaps because of the chill in that air of early morning, perhaps because a shadow of premonition had fallen athwart his soul….

  Whatever its cause, he could find no reason for this; and shaking himself impatiently, pressed a button that rang a bell by the ear of the concierge, heard the latch click, thrust the door wide, and re-entered Troyon’s.

  Here reigned a silence even more marked than that of the street, a silence as heavy and profound as the grave’s, so that sheer instinct prompted Lanyard to tread lightly as he made his way down the passage and across the courtyard toward the stairway; and in that hush the creak of a greaseless hinge, when the concierge opened the door of his quarters to identify this belated guest, seemed little less than a profanity.

  Lanyard paused and delved into his pockets, nodding genially to the blowsy, sleepy old face beneath the guardian’s nightcap.

  “Sorry to disturb monsieur,” he said politely, further impoverishing himself in the sum of five francs in witness to the sincerity of his regret.

  “I thank monsieur; but what need to consider me? It’s my duty. And what is one interruption more or less? All night they come and go….”

  “Good night, monsieur,” Lanyard cut short the old man’s garrulity; and went on up the stairs, now a little wearily, of a sudden newly conscious of his vast and enervating fatigue.

  He thought longingly of bed, yawned involuntarily and, reaching his door, fumbled the key in a most unprofessional way; there were weights upon his eyelids, a heaviness in his brain….

  But the key met with no resistance from the wards; and in a trice, appreciating this fact, Lanyard was wide-awake again.

  No question but that he had locked the door securely, on leaving after his adventure with the charming somnambulist….

  Had she, then, taken a whim to his room?

  Or was this but proof of what he had anticipated in the beginning—a bit of sleuthing on the part of Roddy?

  He entertained little doubt as to the correctness of this latter surmise, as he threw the door open and stepped into the room, his first action being to grasp the electric switch and twist it smartly.

  But no light answered.

  “Hello!” he exclaimed softly, remembering that the lights could readily have been turned off at the bulbs. “What’s the good of that?”

  In the same breath he started violently, and swung about.

  The door had closed behind him, swiftly but gently, eclipsing the faint light from the hall, leaving what amounted to stark darkness.

  His first impression was that the intruder—Roddy or whoever—had darted past him and out, pulling the door to in that act.

  Before he could consciously revise this misconception he was fighting for his life.

  So unexpected, so swift and sudden fell the assault, tha
t he was caught completely off guard: between the shutting of the door and an onslaught whose violence sent him reeling to the wall, the elapsed time could have been measured by the fluttering of an eyelash.

  And then two powerful arms were round him, pinioning his hands to his sides, his feet were tripped up, and he was thrown with a force that fairly jarred his teeth, half-stunning him.

  For a breath he lay dazed, struggling feebly; not long, but long enough to enable his antagonist to shift his hold and climb on top of his body, where he squatted, bearing down heavily with a knee on either of Lanyard’s forearms, hands encircling his neck, murderous thumbs digging into his windpipe.

  He revived momentarily, pulled himself together, and heaved mightily in futile effort to unseat the other.

  The sole outcome of this was a tightening pressure on his throat.

  The pain grew agonizing; Lanyard’s breath was almost completely shut off; he gasped vainly, with a rattling noise in his gullet; his eyeballs started; a myriad coruscant lights danced and interlaced blindingly before them; in his ears there rang a roaring like the voice of heavy surf breaking upon a rock-bound coast.

  And of a sudden he ceased to struggle and lay slack, passive in the other’s hands.

  Only an instant longer was the clutch on his throat maintained. Both hands left it quickly, one shifting to his head to turn and press it roughly cheek to floor. Simultaneously he was aware of the other hand fumbling about his neck, and then of a touch of metal and the sting of a needle driven into the flesh beneath his ear.

  That galvanized him; he came to life again in a twinkling, animate with threefold strength and cunning. The man on his chest was thrown off as by a young earthquake; and Lanyard’s right arm was no sooner free than it shot out with blind but deadly accuracy to the point of his assailant’s jaw. A click of teeth was followed by a sickish grunt as the man lurched over….

  Lanyard found himself scrambling to his feet, a bit giddy perhaps, but still sufficiently master of his wits to get his pistol out before making another move.

  CHAPTER X

  TURN ABOUT

  The thought of Lanyard’s pocket flash-lamp offering itself, immediately its wide circle of light enveloped his late antagonist.

  That one was resting on a shoulder, legs uncouthly a-sprawl, quite without movement of any perceptible sort; his face more than half-turned to the floor, and masked into the bargain.

  Incredulously Lanyard stirred the body with a foot, holding his weapon poised as though half-expecting it to quicken with instant and violent action; but it responded in no way.

  With a nod of satisfaction, he shifted the light until it marked down the nearest electric bulb, which proved, in line with his inference, to have been extinguished by the socket key, while the heat of its bulb indicated that the current had been shut off only an instant before his entrance.

  The light full up, he went back to the thug, knelt and, lifting the body, turned it upon its back.

  Recognition immediately rewarded this manoeuvre: the masked face upturned to the glare was that of the American who had made a fourth in the concert of the Pack—“Mr. Smith,” Quickly unlatching the mask, Lanyard removed it; but the countenance thus exposed told little more than he knew; he could have sworn he had never seen it before. None the less, something in its evil cast persistently troubled his memory, with the same provoking and baffling effect that had attended their first encounter.

  Already the American was struggling toward consciousness. His lips and eyelids twitched spasmodically, he shuddered, and his flexed muscles began to relax. In this process something fell from between the fingers of his right hand—something small and silver-bright that caught Lanyard’s eye.

  Picking it up, he examined with interest a small hypodermic syringe loaded to the full capacity of its glass cylinder, plunger drawn back—all ready for instant service.

  It was the needle of this instrument that had pricked the skin of Lanyard’s neck; beyond reasonable doubt it contained a soporific, if not exactly a killing dose of some narcotic drug—cocaine, at a venture.

  So it appeared that this agent of the Pack had been commissioned to put the Lone Wolf to sleep for an hour or two or more—perhaps not permanently!—that he might be out of the way long enough for their occult purposes.

  He smiled grimly, fingering the hypodermic and eyeing the prostrate man.

  “Turn about,” he reflected, “is said to be fair play…. Well, why not?”

  He bent forward, dug the needle into the wrist of the American and shot the plunger home, all in a single movement so swift and deft that the drug was delivered before the pain could startle the victim from his coma.

  As for that, the man came to quickly enough; but only to have his clearing senses met and dashed by the muzzle of a pistol stamping a cold ring upon his temple.

  “Lie perfectly quiet, my dear Mr. Smith,” Lanyard advised; “don’t speak above a whisper! Give the good dope a chance: it’ll only need a moment, or I’m no judge and you’re a careless highbinder! I’d like to know, however—if it’s all the same to you—”

  But already the injection was taking effect; the look of panic, which had drawn the features of the American and flickered from his eyes with dawning appreciation of his plight, was clouding, fading, blending into one of daze and stupour. The eyelids flickered and lay still; the lips moved as if with urgent desire to speak, but were dumb; a long convulsive sigh shook the American’s body; and he rested with the immobility of the dead, save for the slow but steady rise and fall of his bosom.

  Lanyard thoughtfully reviewed these phenomena.

  “Must kick like a mule, that dope!” he reflected. “Lucky it didn’t get me before I guessed what was up! If I’d even suspected its strength, however, I’d have been less hasty: I could do with a little information from Mr. Mysterious Stranger here!”

  Suddenly conscious of a dry and burning throat, he rose and going to the washstand drank deep and thirstily from a water-bottle; then set himself resolutely to repair the disarray of his wits and consider what was best to be done.

  In his abstraction he wandered to a chair over whose back hung a light dressing-gown of wine-coloured silk, which, because it would pack in small compass, was in the habit of carrying with him on his travels. Lanyard had left this thrown across his bed; and he was wondering subconsciously what use the man had thought to make of it, that he should have taken the trouble to shift it to the chair.

  But even as he laid hold of it, Lanyard dropped the garment in sheer surprise to find it damp and heavy in his grasp, sodden with viscid moisture. And when, in a swift flash of intuition, he examined his fingers, he discovered them discoloured with a faint reddish stain.

  Had the dye run? And how had the American come to dabble the garment in water—to what end?

  Then the shape of an object on the floor near his feet arrested Lanyard’s questing vision. He stared, incredulous, moved forward, bent over and picked it up, clipping it gingerly between finger-tips.

  It was one of his razors—a heavy hollow-ground blade—and it was foul with blood.

  With a low cry, smitten with awful understanding, Lanyard wheeled and stared fearfully at the door communicating with Roddy’s room.

  It stood ajar an inch or two, its splintered lock accounted for by a small but extremely efficient jointed steel jimmy which lay near the threshold.

  Beyond the door … darkness … silence…

  Mustering up all his courage, the adventurer strode determinedly into the adjoining room.

  The first flash of his hand-lamp discovered to him sickening verification of his most dreadful apprehensions.

  Now he saw why his dressing-gown had been requisitioned—to protect a butcher’s clothing.

  After a moment he returned, shut the door, and set his back against i
t, as if to bar out that reeking shambles.

  He was very pale, his face drawn with horror; and he was powerfully shaken with nausea.

  The plot was damnably patent: Roddy proving a menace to the Pack and requiring elimination, his murder had been decreed as well as that the blame for it should be laid at Lanyard’s door. Hence the attempt to drug him, that he might not escape before police could be sent to find him there.

  He could no longer doubt that De Morbihan had been left behind at the Circle of Friends of Harmony solely to detain him, if need be, and afford Smith time to finish his hideous job and set the trap for the second victim.

  And the plot had succeeded despite its partial failure, despite the swift reverse chance and Lanyard’s cunning had meted out to the Pack’s agent. It was his dressing-gown that was saturate with Roddy’s blood, just as they were his gloves, pilfered from his luggage, which had measurably protected the killer’s hands, and which Lanyard had found in the next room, stripped hastily off and thrown to the floor—twin crumpled wads of blood-stained chamois-skin.

  He had now little choice; he must either flee Paris and trust to his wits to save him, or else seek De Morbihan and solicit his protection, his boasted influence in high quarters.

  But to give himself into the hands, to become an associate, of one who could be party to so cowardly a Crime as this … Lanyard told himself he would sooner pay the guillotine the penalty….

  Consulting his watch, he found the hour to be no later than half-past four: so swiftly (truly treading upon one another’s heels) events had moved since the incident of the somnambulist.

  This left at his disposal a fair two hours more of darkness: November nights are long and black in Paris; it would hardly be even moderately light before seven o’clock. But that were a respite none too long for Lanyard’s necessity; he must think swiftly in contemplation of instant action were he to extricate himself without the Pack’s knowledge and consent.

  Granted, then, he must fly this stricken field of Paris. But how? De Morbihan had promised that Popinot’s creatures would guard every outlet; and Lanyard didn’t doubt him. An attempt to escape the city by any ordinary channel would be to invite either denunciation to the police on the charge of murder, or one of those fatally expeditious forms of assassination of which the Apaches are past-masters.