The Lone Wolf/Chapter 23
XXXIII
MADAME OMBER
Before the echo of that crash ceased to reverberate from room to room, Lanyard slipped to one side of the doorway, from which point he could command the perspective of the salons together with a partial view of the front doors. And he was no more than there, in the shadow of the portières, when light from an electrolier flooded the reception-hall.
It showed him a single figure, that of a handsome woman, considerably beyond middle age but still a well-poised, vigorous, and commanding presence, in full evening dress of such magnificence as to suggest recent attendance at some State function.
Standing beneath the light, she was restoring a key to a brocaded hand-bag. This done, she turned her head and spoke indistinguishably over her shoulder. Promptly there came into view a second woman of about the same age, but even more strong and able of appearance—a serving-woman, in plain, dark garments, undoubtedly madame's maid.
Handing over the brocaded bag, madame unlatched the throat of her ermine cloak and surrendered it to the servant's care.
Her next words were audible, and reassuring in as far as they indicated ignorance of anything amiss.
"Thank you, Sidonie. You may go to bed now."
"Madame will not need me to undress her?"
"I'm not ready yet. When I am—I'm old enough to take care of myself. Besides, I prefer you to go to bed, Sidonie. It doesn't improve your temper to lose your beauty sleep."
"Many thanks, madame. Good night."
"Good night."
The maid moved off toward the main staircase, while her mistress turned deliberately through the salons toward the library.
At this, swinging back to the girl in a stride, and grasping her wrist to compel attention, Lanyard spoke in a rapid whisper, mouth close to her ear, but his solicitude so unselfish and so intense that for the moment he was altogether unconscious of either her allure or his passion.
"This way," he said, imperatively drawing her toward the window by which he had entered: "there's a balcony outside—a short drop to the ground." And unlatching the window, he urged her through it. "Try to leave by the back gateway—the one I showed you before—avoiding Ekstrom—"
"But surely you are coming too?" she insisted, hanging back.
"Impossible: there's no time for us both to escape undetected. I shall keep madame interested only long enough for you to get away. But take this"—and he pressed his automatic into her hand. "No—take it; I've another," he lied, "and you may need it. Don't fear for me, but go—O my heart!—go!"
The footfalls of Madame Omber were sounding dangerously near, and without giving the girl more opportunity to protest, Lanyard closed the windows, shot the latch and stole like a cat round the farther side of the desk, pausing within a few feet of the screen and safe.
The desk-lamp was still burning, where the girl had left it behind the cinnabar screen; and Lanyard knew that the diffusion of its rays was enough to render his figure distinctly and immediately visible to one entering the doorway.
Now everything hung upon the temper of the house-holder, whether she would take that apparition quietly, deceived by Lanyard's mumming into believing she had only a poor thievish fool to deal with, or with a storm of bourgeois hysteria. In the latter event, Lanyard's hand was ready planted, palm down, on the top of the desk: should the woman attempt to give the alarm, a single bound would carry the adventurer across it in full flight for the front doors.
In the doorway the mistress of the house appeared and halted, her quick bright eyes shifting from the light on the floor to the dark figure of the thief. Then, in a stride, she found a switch and turned on the chandelier, a blaze of light.
As this happened, Lanyard cowered, lifting an elbow as though to guard his face—as though expecting to find himself under the muzzle of a revolver.
The gesture had the calculated effect of focussing the attention of the woman exclusively to him, after one swift glance round had shown her a room tenanted only by herself and a cringing thief. And immediately it was made manifest that, whether or not deceived, she meant to take the situation quietly, if in a strong hand.
Her eyes narrowed and the muscles of her square, almost masculine jaw hardened ominously as she looked the intruder up and down. Then a flicker of contempt modified the grimness of her countenance. She took three steps forward, pausing on the other side of the desk, her back to the doorway.
Lanyard trembled visibly. …
"Well!"—the word boomed like the opening gun of an engagement—"Well, my man!"—the shrewd eyes swerved to the closed door of the safe and quickly back again—"you don't seem to have accomplished much!"
"For God's sake, madame!" Lanyard blurted in a husky, shaken voice, nothing like his own—"don't have me arrested! Give me a chance! I haven't taken anything. Don't call the flics!"
He checked, moving an uncertain hand towards his throat as if his tongue had gone dry.
"Come, come!" the woman answered, with a look almost of pity. "I haven't called anyone—as yet."
The fingers of one strong white hand were drumming gently on the top of the desk; then, with a movement so quick and sure that Lanyard himself could hardly have bettered it, they slipped down to a handle of a drawer, jerked it open, closed round the butt of a revolver, and presented it at the adventurer's head.
Automatically he raised both hands.
"Don't shoot!" he cried. "I'm not armed—"
"Is that the truth?"
"You've only to search me, madame!"
"Thanks!" Madame's accents now discovered a trace of dry humour. "I'll leave that to you. Turn out your pockets on the desk there—and, remember, I'll stand no nonsense!"
The weapon covered Lanyard steadily, leaving him no choice but to obey. As it happened, he was glad of the excuse to listen for sounds to tell how the girl was faring in her flight, and made a pretence of trembling fingers cover the slowness with which he complied.
But he heard nothing.
When he had visibly turned every pocket inside out, and their contents lay upon the desk, the woman looked the exhibits over incuriously.
"Put them back," she said curtly. "And then fetch that chair over there—the one in the corner. I've a notion I'd like to talk to you. That's the usual thing, isn't it?"
"How?" Lanyard demanded with a vacant stare.
"In all the criminal novels I've ever read, the law-abiding householder always sits down and has a sociable chat with the house-breaker—before calling in the police. I'm afraid that's part of the price you've got to pay for my hospitality."
She paused, eyeing Lanyard inquisitively while he restored his belongings to his pockets. "Now, get that chair!" she ordered; and waited, standing, until she had been obeyed. "That's it—there! Sit down."
Leaning against the desk, her revolver held negligently, the speaker favoured Lanyard with a more leisurely inspection; the harshness of her stare was softened, and the anger which at first had darkened her countenance was gone by the time she chose to pursue her catechism.
"What's your name? No—don't answer! I saw your eyes waver, and I'm not interested in a makeshift alias. But it's the stock question, you know. … Do you care for a cigar?"
She opened a mahogany humidor on the desk.
"No, thanks."
"Right—according to Hoyle: the criminal always refuses to smoke in these scenes. But let's forget the book and write our own lines. I'll ask you an original question: Why were you acting just now?"
"Acting?" Lanyard repeated, intrigued by the acuteness of this masterful woman's mentality.
"Precisely—pretending you were a common thief. For a moment you actually made me think you afraid of me. But you're neither the one nor the other. How do I know? Because you're unarmed, your voice has changed in the last two minutes to that of a cultivated man, you've stopped cringing and started thinking, and the way you walked across the floor and handled that chair showed how powerfully you're made. If I didn't have this revolver, you could overpower me in an instant—and I'm no weakling, as women go. So—why the acting?"
Studying his captor with narrow interest, Lanyard smiled faintly and shrugged, but made no answer. He could do no more than this—no more than spare for time: the longer he indulged madame in her whim, the better Lucy's chances of scot-free escape. By this time, he reckoned, she would have found her way through the service gate to the street. But he was on edge with unending apprehension of mischance.
"Come, come!" Madame Omber insisted. "You're hardly civil, my man. Answer my question!"
"You don't expect me to—do you?"
"Why not? You owe me at least satisfaction of my curiosity, in return for breaking into my house."
"But if, as you suggest, I am—or was—acting with a purpose, why expect me to give the show away?"
"That's logic. I knew you could think. More's the pity!"
"Pity I can think?"
"Pity you can get your own consent to waste yourself like this. I'm an old woman, and I know men better than most; I can see ability in you. So I say, it's a pity you won't use yourself to better advantage. Don't misunderstand me: this isn't the conventional act; I don't hold with encouraging a fool in his folly. You're a fool, for all your intelligence, and the only cure I can see for you is drastic punishment."
"Meaning the Santé, madame?"
"Quite so. I tell you frankly, when I'm finished lecturing you, off you go to prison."
"If that's the case I don't see I stand to gain much by retailing the history of my life. This seems to be your cue to ring for servants to call the police."
A trace of anger shone in the woman's eyes. "You're right," she said shortly; "I dare say Sidonie isn't asleep yet. I'll get her to telephone while I keep an eye on you."
Bending over the desk, without removing her gaze from the adventurer, his captor groped for, found, and pressed a call-button.
From some remote quarter of the house sounded the grumble of an electric bell.
"Pity you're so brazen," she observed. "Just a little less side, and you'd be a rather engaging person!"
Lanyard made no reply. In fact he wasn't listening.
Under the strain of that suspense, the iron control which had always been his was breaking down—since now it was for another he was concerned. And he wasted no strength trying to enforce it. The stress of his anxiety was both undisguised and undisguisable. Nor did Madame Omber overlook it.
"What's the trouble, eh? Is it that already you hear the cell door clang in your ears?"
As she spoke, Lanyard left his chair with a movement in the execution of which all his wits co-operated, with a spring as lithe and sure and swift as an animal's, that carried him like a shot across the two yards or so between them.
The slightest error in his reckoning would have finished him: for the other had been watching for just such a move, and the revolver was nearly level with Lanyard's head when he grasped it by the barrel, turned that to the ceiling, imprisoned the woman's wrist with his other hand, and in two movements had captured the weapon without injuring its owner.
"Don't be alarmed," he said quietly. "I'm not going to do anything more violent than to put this weapon out of commission."
Breaking it smartly, he shot a shower of cartridges to the door, and tossed the now-useless weapon into a waste-basket beneath the desk.
"Hope I didn't hurt you," he added abstractedly—"but your pistol was in my way!"
He took a stride toward the door, pulled up, and hung in hesitation, frowning absently at the woman; who, without moving, laughed quietly and watched him with a twinkle of malicious diversion.
He repaid this with a stare of thoughtful appraisal; from the first he had recognized in her a character of uncommon tolerance and amiability.
"Pardon, madame, but—" he began abruptly—and checked in constrained appreciation of his impudence.
"If that's permission to interrupt your reverie," Madame Omber remarked, "I don't mind telling you, you're the most extraordinary burglar I ever heard of!"
Footfalls became audible on the staircase—the hasty scuffling of slippered feet.
"Is that you, Sidonie?" madame called.
The voice of the maid replied: "Yes, madame—coming!"
"Well—don't, just yet—not till I call you."
"Very good, madame."
The woman returned complete attention to Lanyard.
"Now, monsieur-of-two-minds, what is it you wish to say to me?"
"Why did you do that?" the adventurer asked, with a jerk of his head toward the hall.
"Tell Sidonie to wait instead of calling for help? Because—well, because you interest me strangely. I've got a theory you're in a desperate quandary and are about to throw yourself on my mercy."
"You are right," Lanyard admitted tersely.
"Ah! Now you do begin to grow interesting! Would you mind explaining why you think I'll be merciful?"
"Because, madame, I've done you a great service, and feel I can count upon your gratitude."
The Frenchwoman's eyebrows lifted at this. "Doubtless, monsieur knows what he's talking about—"
"Listen, madame: I am in love with a young woman, an American, a stranger and friendless in Paris. If anything happens to me tonight, if I am arrested or assassinated—"
"Is that likely?"
"Quite likely, madame: I have enemies among the Apaches, and in my own profession as well; and I have reason to believe that several of them are in this neighbourhood tonight. I may possibly not escape their attentions. In that event, this young lady of whom I speak will need a protector."
"And why must I interest myself in her fate, pray?"
"Because, madame, of this service I have done you … Recently, in London, you were robbed—"
The woman started and coloured with excitement: "You know something of my jewels?"
"Everything, madame: it was I who stole them."
"You? You are, then, that Lone Wolf?"
"I was, madame."
"Why the past tense?" the woman demanded, eyeing him with a portentous frown.
"Because I am done with thieving."
She threw back her head and laughed, but without mirth: "A likely story, monsieur! Have you reformed since I caught you here—?"
"Does it matter when? I take it that proof, visible, tangible proof of my sincerity, more than a meaningless date, would be needed to convince you."
"No doubt of that, Monsieur the Lone Wolf!"
"Could you ask better proof than the restoration of your stolen property?"
"Are you trying to bribe me to let you off with an offer to return my jewels?"
"I'm afraid emergency reformation wouldn't persuade you—"
"You may well be afraid, monsieur!"
"But if I can prove I've already restored your jewels—?"
"But you have not."
"If madame will do me the favour to open her safe, she will find them there—conspicuously placed."
"What nonsense—!"
"Am I wrong in assuming that madame didn't return from England until quite recently?"
"But today, in fact—"
"And you haven't troubled to investigate your safe since returning?"
"It had not occurred to me—"
"Then why not test my statement before denying it?"
With an incredulous shrug Madame Omber terminated a puzzled scrutiny of Lanyard's countenance, and turned to the safe.
"But to have done what you declare you have," she argued, "you must have known the combination—since it appears you haven't broken this open."
The combination ran glibly off Lanyard's tongue. And at this, with every evidence of excitement, at length beginning to hope if not to believe, the woman set herself to open the safe. Within a minute she had succeeded, the morocco-bound jewel-case was in her hand, and a hasty examination had assured her its treasure was intact.
"But why—?" she stammered, pale with emotion—"why, monsieur, why?"
"Because I decided to leave off stealing for a livelihood."
"When did you bring these jewels here?"
"Within the week—four or five nights since—"
"And then—repented, eh?"
"I own it."
"But came here again tonight, to steal a second time what you had stolen once?"
"That's true, too."
"And I interrupted you—"
"Pardon, madame: not you, but my better self. I came to steal—I could not."
"Monsieur—you do not convince. I fail to fathom your motives, but—"
A sudden shock of heavy trampling feet in the reception-hall, accompanied by a clash of excited voices, silenced her and brought Lanyard instantly to the face-about.
Above that loud wrangle—of which neither had received the least warning, so completely had their argument absorbed them—Sidonie's accents were audible: "Madame—madame!"—a cry of protest.
"What is it?" madame demanded of Lanyard.
He threw her the word "Police!" as he turned and flung himself into the recess of the window.
But when he wrenched it open the voice of a picket on the lawn saluted him in sharp warning; and when, involuntarily, he stepped out upon the balcony, a flash of flame split the gloom below, a loud report rang in the quiet of the park, and a bullet slapped viciously the stone facing of the window.