The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales

by Maurice Leblanc

  He wasn’t left long in suspense. The coughing died away by spasms; followed the unmistakable, sonorous accents of Bannon.

  “Well, my dear boy! I have to thank you for an excellent dinner and a most interesting evening. Pity to break it up so early. Still, les affaires—you know! Sorry you’re not going my way—but that’s a handsome taxi you’ve drawn. What’s its number—eh?”

  “Haven’t the faintest notion,” a British voice drawled in response.

  “Never fret about a taxi’s number until it has run over me.”

  “Great mistake,” Bannon rejoined cheerfully. “Always take the number before entering. Then, if anything happens … However, that’s a good-looking chap at the wheel—doesn’t look as if he’d run you into any trouble.”

  “Oh, I fancy not,” said the Englishman, bored.

  “Well, you never can tell. The number’s on the lamp. Make a note of it and be on the safe side. Or trust me—I never forget numbers.”

  With this speech Bannon ranged alongside Lanyard and looked him over, keenly malicious enjoyment gleaming in his evil old eyes.

  “You are an honest-looking chap,” he observed with a mocking smile but in a tone of the most inoffensive admiration—“honest and—ah—what shall I say?—what’s the word we’re all using now-a-days?—efficient! Honest and efficient-looking, capable of better things, or I’m no judge! Forgive an old man’s candour, my friend—and take good care of our British cousin here. He doesn’t know his way around Paris very well. Still, I feel confident he’ll come to no harm in your company. Here’s a franc for you.” With matchless effrontery, he produced a coin from the pocket of his fur-lined coat.

  Unhesitatingly, permitting no expression to colour his features, Lanyard extended his palm, received the money, dropped it into his own pocket, and carried two fingers to the visor of his cap.

  “Merci, monsieur,” he said evenly.

  “Ah, that’s the right spirit!” the deep voice jeered. “Never be above your station, my man—never hesitate to take a tip! Here, I’ll give you another, gratis: get out of this business: you’re too good for it. Don’t ask me how I know; I can tell by your face—Hello! Why do you turn down the flag? You haven’t started yet!”

  “Conversation goes up on the clock,” Lanyard replied stolidly in French. He turned and faced Bannon squarely, loosing a glance of venomous hatred into the other’s eyes. “The longer I have to stop here listening to your senile monologue, the more you’ll have to pay. What address, please?” he added, turning back to get a glimpse of his passenger.

  “Hotel Astoria,” the porter supplied.

  “Very good.”

  The porter closed the door.

  “But remember my advice,” Bannon counselled coolly, stepping back and waving his hand to the man in the cab. “Good night.”

  Lanyard took his car smartly away from the curb, wheeled round the corner into the boulevard des Capucines, and toward the rue Royale.

  He had gone but a block when the window at his back was lowered and his fare observed pleasantly:

  “That you, Lanyard?”

  The adventurer hesitated an instant; then, without looking round, responded:

  “Wertheimer, eh?”

  “Right-O! The old man had me puzzled for a minute with his silly chaffing. Stupid of me, too, because we’d just been talking about you.”

  “Had you, though!”

  “Rather. Hadn’t you better take me where we can have a quiet little talk?”

  “I’m not conscious of the necessity—”

  “Oh, I say!” Wertheimer protested amiably—“don’t be shirty, old top. Give a chap a chance. Besides, I have a bit of news from Antwerp that I guarantee will interest you.”

  “Antwerp?” Lanyard iterated, mystified.

  “Antwerp, where the ships sail from,” Wertheimer laughed: “not

  Amsterdam, where the diamonds flock together, as you may know.”

  “I don’t follow you, I’m afraid.”

  “I shan’t elucidate until we’re under cover.”

  “All right. Where shall I take you?”

  “Any quiet café will do. You must know one—”

  “Thanks—no,” said Lanyard dryly. “If I must confabulate with gentlemen of your kidney, I prefer to keep it dark. Even dressed as I am, I might be recognized, you know.”

  But it was evident that Wertheimer didn’t mean to permit himself to be ruffled.

  “Then will my modest diggings do?” he suggested pleasantly. “I’ve taken a suite in the rue Vernet, just back of the Hôtel Astoria, where we can be as private as you please, if you’ve no objection.”

  “None whatever.”

  Wertheimer gave him the number and replaced the window….

  His rooms in the rue Vernet proved to be a small ground-floor apartment with private entrance to the street.

  “Took the tip from you,” he told Lanyard as he unlocked the door. “I daresay you’d be glad to get back to that rez-de-chaussée of yours. Ripping place, that…. By the way—judging from your apparently robust state of health, you haven’t been trying to live at home of late.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Indeed yes, monsieur! If I may presume to advise—I’d pull wide of the rue Roget for a while—for as long, at least, as you remain in your present intractable temper.”

  “Daresay you’re right,” Lanyard assented carelessly, following, as

  Wertheimer turned up the lights, into a modest salon cosily furnished.

  “You live here alone, I understand?”

  “Quite: make yourself perfectly at ease; nobody can hear us. And,” the Englishman added with a laugh, “do forget your pistol, Mr. Lanyard. I’m not Popinot, nor is this Troyon’s.”

  “Still,” Lanyard countered, “you’ve just been dining with Bannon.”

  Wertheimer laughed easily. “Had me there!” he admitted, unabashed. “I take it you know a bit more about the Old Man than you did a week ago?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But sit down: take that chair there, which commands both doors, if you don’t trust me.”

  “Do you think I ought to?”

  “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, glasses, 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 assumption of fellowship and a common footing, attracted even as it intrigued.

  With the easy courtesy of a practised host, he measured whiskey into Lanyard’s glass 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 glass, 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 ciga
rette 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 hell 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 swank!”

  “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. “God 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 attitude 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—?”

  “Never mind. It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” the Englishman admitted gravely—“it’s true. It lies at Bannon’s door, when all’s said…. Perhaps you won’t believe me, but it’s a fact I didn’t know positively who was responsible till tonight.”

  “You don’t really expect me to swallow that? You were hand-in-glove—”

  “Ah, but on probation only! When they voted Roddy out, I wasn’t consulted. They kept me in the dark—mostly, I flatter myself, because I draw the line at murder. If I had known—this you won’t believe, of course—Roddy would be alive today.”

  “I’d like to believe you,” Lanyard admitted. “But when you ask me to sign articles with that damned assassin—!”

  “You can’t play our game with clean hands,” Wertheimer retorted.

  Lanyard found no answer to that.

  “If you’ve said all you wished to,” he suggested, rising, “I can assure you my answer is final—and go about my business.”

  “What’s your hurry? Sit down. There’s more to say—much more.”

  “As for instance—?”

  “I had a fancy you might like to put a question or two.”

  Lanyard shook his head; it was plain that Wertheimer designed to draw him out through his interest in Lucy Shannon.

  “I haven’t the slightest curiosity concerning your affairs,” he observed.

  “But you should have; I could tell you a great many interesting things that intimately affect your affairs, if I liked. You must understand that I shall hold the balance of power here, from now on.”

  “Congratulations!” Lanyard laughed derisively.

  “No joke, my dear chap: I’ve been promoted over the heads of your friends, De Morbihan and Popinot, and shall henceforth be—as they say in America—the whole works.”

  “By what warrant?”

  “The illustrious Bannon’s. I’ve been appointed his lieutenant—vice

  Greggs, deposed for bungling.”

  “Do you mean to tell me Bannon controls De Morbihan and Popinot?”

  The Englishman smiled indulgently. “If you didn’t know it, he’s commander-in-chief of our allied forces, presiding genius of the International Underworld Unlimited.”

  “Bosh!” cried Lanyard contemptuously. “Why talk to me as if I were a child, to be frightened by a bogey-tale like that?”

  “Take it or leave it: the fact remains…. I know, if you don’t. I confess I didn’t till tonight; but I’ve learned some things that have opened my eyes…. You see, we had a table in a quiet corner of the Café de la Paix, and since the Old Man’s sailing for home before long it was time for him to unbosom rather thoroughly to the man he leaves to represent him in London and Paris. I never suspected our power before he began to talk….”

 
Lanyard, watching the man closely, would have sworn he had never seen one more sober. He was indescribably perplexed by this ostensible candour—mystified and mistrustful.

  “And then there’s this to be considered, from your side,” Wertheimer resumed with the most business-like manner: “you can work with us without being obliged to deal in any way with the Old Man or De Morbihan, or Popinot. Bannon will never cross the Atlantic again, and you can do pretty much as you like, within reason—subject to my approval, that is.”

  “One of us is mad,” Lanyard commented profoundly.

  “One of us is blind to his best interests,” Wertheimer amended with entire good-humour.

  “Perhaps… Let it go at that. I’m not interested—never did care for fairy tales.”

  “Don’t go yet. There is still much to be said on both sides of the argument.”

  “Has there been one?”

  “Besides, I promised you news from Antwerp.”

  “To be sure,” Lanyard said, and paused, his curiosity at length engaged.

  Wertheimer delved into the breast-pocket of his dress-coat and produced a blue telegraph-form, handing it to the adventurer.

  Of even date, from Antwerp, it read:

  “Underworld—Paris—Greggs arrested today boarding steamer for America after desperate struggle killed himself immediately afterward poison no confession—Q-2.”

  “Underworld?” Lanyard queried blankly.

  “Our telegraphic address, of course. ‘Q-2’ is our chief factor in

  Antwerp.”

  “So they got Greggs!”

  “Stupid oaf,” Wertheimer observed; “I’ve no sympathy for him. The whole affair was a blunder, from first to last.”

  “But you got Greggs out and burned Troyon’s—!”

  “Still our friends at the Préfecture weren’t satisfied. Something must have roused their suspicions.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  “There must have been a leak somewhere—”

  “If so, it would certainly have led the police to me, after all the pains you were at to saddle me with the crime. There’s something more than simple treachery in this, Mr. Wertheimer.”