The Lone Wolf/Chapter 5
V
ANTICLIMAX
The surprise was complete; none, indeed, was ever more so; but it's a question which party thereto was the more affected.
Lanyard stared with the eyes of stupefaction. To his fancy, this thing passed the compass of simple incredulity: it wasn't merely improbable, it was preposterous; it was anticlimax exaggerated to the proportions of the grotesque.
He had come prepared to surprise and bully rag the most astute police detective of whom he had any knowledge; he found himself surprised and discountenanced by this …!
Confusion no less intense informed the girl's expression; her eyes were fixed to his with a look of blank enquiry; her face, whose colouring had won his admiration two hours since, was colourless; her lips were just ajar; the fingers of one hand touched her cheek, indenting it.
The other hand caught up before her the long skirts of a pretty robe-de-chambre, beneath whose edge a hand's-breadth of white silk shimmered and the toe of a silken mule was visible. Thus she stood, poised for flight, attired only in a dressing-gown over what, one couldn't help suspecting, was her night-dress: for her hair was down, and she was unquestionably all ready for her bed.…
But Bourke's patient training had been wasted if this man proved one to remain long at loss. Rallying his wits quickly from their momentary rout, he reasserted command over them, and if he didn't in the least understand, made a brave show of accepting this amazing accident as a commonplace.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Bannon—" he began with a formal bow.
She interrupted with a gasp of wondering recognition: "Mr. Lanyard!"
He inclined his head a second time: "Sorry to disturb you—"
"But I don't understand—"
"Unfortunately," he proceeded smoothly, "I forgot something when I went out, and had to come back for it."
"But—but—"
"Yes?"
Suddenly her eyes, for the first time detached from his, swept the room with a glance of wild dismay.
"This room," she breathed—"I don't know it—"
"It is mine."
"Yours! But—"
"That is how I happened to—interrupt you."
The girl shrank back a pace—two paces—uttering a low-toned monosyllable of understanding, an "O!" abruptly gasped. Simultaneously her face and throat flamed scarlet.
"Your room, Mr. Lanyard!"
Her tone so convincingly voiced shame and horror that his heart misgave him. Not that alone, but the girl was very good to look upon.
"I'm sure," he began soothingly; "it doesn't matter. You mistook a door—"
"But you don't understand!" She shuddered. … "This dreadful habit! And I was hoping I had outgrown it! How can I ever explain—?"
"Believe me, Miss Bannon, you need explain nothing."
"But I must…I wish to…I can't bear to let you think.… But surely you can make allowances for sleepwalking!"
To this appeal he could at first return nothing more intelligent than a dazed repetition of the phrase.
So that was how.… Why hadn't he thought of it before? Ever since he had turned on the lights, he had been subjectively busy trying to invest her presence there with some plausible excuse. But somnambulism had never once entered his mind. And in his stupidity, at pains though he had been to render his words inoffensive, he had been guilty of constructive incivility.
In his turn, Lanyard coloured warmly.
"I beg your pardon," he muttered.
The girl paid no attention; she seemed self-absorbed, thinking only of herself and the anomalous position into which her infirmity had tricked her. When she did speak, her words came swiftly:
"You see … I was so frightened! I found myself suddenly standing up in darkness, just as if I had jumped out of bed at some alarm; and then I heard somebody enter the room and shut the door stealthily. … Oh, please understand me!"
"But I do, Miss Bannon—quite."
"I am so ashamed—"
"Please don't consider it that way."
"But now that you know—you don't think—"
"My dear Miss Bannon!"
"But it must be so hard to credit! Even I. … Why, it's more than a year since this last happened. Of course, as a child, it was almost a habit; they had to watch me all the time. Once. … But that doesn't matter. I am so sorry."
"You really mustn't worry," Lanyard insisted. "It's all quite natural—such things do happen—are happening all the time—"
"But I don't want you—"
"I am nobody, Miss Bannon. Besides I shan't mention the matter to a soul. And if ever I am fortunate enough to meet you again, I shall have forgotten it completely—believe me."
There was convincing sincerity in his tone. The girl looked down, as though abashed.
"You are very good," she murmured, moving toward the door.
"I am very fortunate."
Her glance of surprise was question enough.
"To be able to treasure this much of your confidence," he explained with a tentative smile.
She was near the door; he opened it for her, but cautioned her with a gesture and a whispered word: "Wait. I'll make sure nobody's about."
He stepped noiselessly into the hall and paused an instant, looking right and left, listening.
The girl advanced to the threshold and there checked, hesitant, eyeing him anxiously.
He nodded reassurance: "All right—coast's clear!"
But she delayed one moment more.
"It's you who are mistaken," she whispered, colouring again beneath his regard, in which admiration could not well be lacking, "It is I who am fortunate—to have met a—gentleman."
Her diffident smile, together with the candour of her eyes, embarrassed him to such extent that for the moment he was unable to frame a reply.
"Good night," she whispered—"and thank you, thank you!"
Her room was at the far end of the corridor. She gained its threshold in one swift dash, noiseless save for the silken whisper of her garments, turned, flashed him a final look that left him with the thought that novelists did not always exaggerate, that eyes could shine like stars.…
Her door closed softly.
Lanyard shook his head as if to dissipate a swarm of annoying thoughts, and went back into his own bed-chamber.
He was quite content with the explanation the girl had given, but being the slave of a methodical and pertinacious habit of mind, spent five busy minutes examining his room and all that it contained with a perseverance that would have done credit to a Frenchman searching for a mislaid sou.
If pressed, he would have been put to it to name what he sought or thought to find. What he did find was that nothing had been tampered with and nothing more—not even so much as a dainty, lace-trimmed wisp of sheer linen bearing the lady's monogram and exhaling a faint but individual perfume.
Which, when he came to consider it, seemed hardly playing the game by the book.
As for Roddy, Lanyard wasted several minutes, off and on, listening attentively at the communicating door; but if the detective had stopped snoring, his respiration was loud enough in that quiet hour, a sound of harsh monotony.
True, that proved nothing; but Lanyard, after the fiasco of his first attempt to catch his enemy awake, was no more disposed to be hypercritical; he had his fill of being ingenious and profound. And when presently he again left Troyon's (this time without troubling the repose of the concierge) it was with the reflection that, if Roddy were really playing 'possum, he was welcome to whatever he could find of interest in the quarters of Michael Lanyard.