The Lone Wolf - Louis Joseph Vance (year 7 reading list txt) š
- Author: Louis Joseph Vance
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didnāt dare: close at hand stood a sergent de ville, inquisitive eyes
bright beneath the dripping visor of his kepi, keenly welcoming this
diversion of a cheerless hour.
With at least outward semblance of resignation, Lanyard approached the
window.
āI have been guilty of some stupidity, perhaps?ā he enquired with
lip-civility that had no echo in his heart. āBut I am sorryāā
āThe stupidity is mine,ā the girl interrupted in accents tense with
agitation. āMr. Lanyard, IāIāā
Her voice faltered and broke off in a short, dry sob, and she drew
back with an effect of instinctive distaste for public emotion.
Lanyard smothered an impulse to demand roughly āWell, what now?ā and
came closer to the window.
āSomething more I can do, Miss Bannon?ā
āI donāt knowā¦. Iāve just found it outāI came away so hurriedly I
never thought to make sure; but Iāve no moneyānot a franc!ā
After a little pause he commented helpfully: āThat does complicate
matters, doesnāt it?ā
āWhat am I to do? I canāt go backāI wonāt! Anything rather. You may
judge how desperate I am, when I prefer to throw myself on your
generosityāand already Iāve strained your patienceāā
āNot much,ā he interrupted in a soothing voice. āButāhalf a momentāwe
must talk this over.ā
Directing the cocher to drive to the place Pigalle, he reentered the
cab, suspicion more than ever rife in his mind. But as far as he could
seeāwith that confounded sergo staring!āthere was nothing else for
it. He couldnāt stand there in the rain forever, gossiping with a girl
half-hystericalāor pretending to be.
āYou see,ā she explained when the fiacre was again under way, āI
thought I had a hundred-franc note in my pocketbook; and so I
haveābut the pocketbookās back there, in my room at Troyonās.ā
āA hundred francs wouldnāt see you far toward New York,ā he observed
thoughtfully.
āOh, I hope you donāt thinkā!ā
She drew back into her corner with a little shudder of humiliation.
As if he hadnāt noticed, Lanyard turned to the window, leaned out,
and redirected the driver sharply: āImpasse Stanislas!ā
Immediately the vehicle swerved, rounded a corner, and made back
toward the Seine with a celerity which suggested that the stables
were on the Rive Gauche.
āWhere?ā the girl demanded as Lanyard sat back. āWhere are you taking
me?ā
āIām sorry,ā Lanyard said with every appearance of sudden contrition;
āI acted impulsivelyāon the assumption of your complete confidence.
Which, of course, was unpardonable. But, believe me; you have only
to say no and it shall be as you wish.ā
āBut,ā she persisted impatientlyāāyou havenāt answered me: what is
this impasse Stanislas?ā
āThe address of an artist I knowāSolon, the painter. Weāre going to
take possession of his studio in his absence. Donāt worry; he wonāt
mind. He is under heavy obligation to meāIāve sold several canvasses
for him; and when heās away, as now, in the States, he leaves me the
keys. Itās a sober-minded, steady-paced neighbourhood, where we can
rest without misgivings and take our time to think things out.ā
āButāā the girl began in an odd tone.
āBut permit me,ā he interposed hastily, āto urge the facts of the case
upon your consideration.ā
āWell?ā she said in the same tone, as he paused.
āTo begin withāI donāt doubt youāve good reason for running away from
your father.ā
āA very real, a very grave reason,ā she affirmed quietly.
āAnd youād rather not go backāā
āThat is out of the question!āāwith a restrained passion that almost
won his credulity.
āBut youāve no friends in Parisā?ā
āNot one!ā
āAnd no money. So it seems, if youāre to elude your father, you must
find some place to hide pro tem. As for myself, Iāve not slept in
forty-eight hours and must rest before Iāll be able to think clearly
and plan aheadā¦.And we wonāt accomplish much riding round forever in
this ark. So I offer the only solution Iām capable of advancing, under
the circumstances.ā
āYou are quite right,ā the girl agreed after a moment. āPlease donāt
think me unappreciative. Indeed, it makes me very unhappy to think I
know no way to make amends for your trouble.ā
āThere may be a way,ā Lanyard informed her quietly; ābut weāll not
discuss that until weāve rested up a bit.ā
āI shall be only too gladāā she began, but fell silent and, in a
silence that seemed almost apprehensive, eyed him speculatively
throughout the remainder of the journey.
It wasnāt a long one; in the course of the next ten minutes they drew
up at the end of a shallow pocket of a street, a scant half-block in
depth; where alighting, Lanyard helped the girl out, paid and dismissed
the cocher, and turned to an iron gate in a high stone wall crowned
with spikes.
The grille-work of that gate afforded glimpses of a small, dark garden
and a little house of two storeys. Blank walls of old tenements
shouldered both house and garden on either side.
Unlocking the gate, Lanyard refastened it very carefully, repeated the
business at the front door of the house, and when they were securely
locked and bolted within a dark reception-hall, turned on the electric
light.
But he granted the girl little more than time for a fugitive survey of
this anteroom to an establishment of unique artistic character.
āThese are living-rooms, downstairs here,ā he explained hurriedly.
āSolonās unmarried, and lives quite aloneāhis studio-devil and
femme-de-mļæ½nage come in by the day onlyāand so he avoids that pest a
concierge. With your permission, Iāll assign you to the studioāup
here.ā
And leading the way up a narrow flight of steps, he made a light in the
huge room that was the upper storey.
āI believe youāll be comfortable,ā he saidāāthat divan yonder is as
easy a couch as one could wishāand thereās this door you can lock at
the head of the staircase; while I, of course, will be on guard
belowā¦. And now, Miss Bannonā¦ unless thereās something more I can
doā?ā
The girl answered with a wan smile and a little broken sigh. Almost
involuntarily, in the heaviness of her fatigue, she had surrendered to
the hospitable arms of a huge lounge-chair.
Her weary glance ranged the luxuriously appointed studio and returned
to Lanyardās face; and while he waited he fancied something moving in
those wistful eyes, so deeply shadowed with distress, perplexity, and
fatigue.
āIām very tired indeed,ā she confessedāāmore than I guessed. But Iām
sure I shall be comfortableā¦. And I count myself very fortunate, Mr.
Lanyard. Youāve been more kind than I deserved. Without you, I donāt
like to think what might have become of meā¦.ā
āPlease donāt!ā he pleaded and, suddenly discountenanced by
consciousness of his duplicity, turned to the stairs. āGood night,
Miss Bannon,ā he mumbled; and was half-way down before he heard his
valediction faintly echoed.
As he gained the lower floor, the door was closed at the top of the
stairs and its bolt shot home with a soft thud.
But turning to lock the lower door, he stayed his hand in transient
indecision.
āDamn it!ā he growled uneasilyāāthere canāt be any harm in that girl!
Impossible for eyes like hers to lie!ā¦ And yet ā¦ And yet!ā¦ Oh,
whatās the matter with me? Am I losing my grip? Why stick at ordinary
precaution against treachery on the part of a woman whoās nothing to me
and of whom I know nothing that isnāt conspicuously questionable?ā¦
All because of a pretty face and an appealing manner!ā
And so he secured that door, if very quietly; and having pocketed the
key and made the round of doors and windows, examining their locks, he
stumbled heavily into the bedroom of his friend the artist.
Darkness overwhelmed him then: he was stricken down by sleep as an ox
falls under the pole.
XII AWAKENINGIt was late afternoon when Lanyard wakened from sleep so deep and
dreamless that nothing could have induced it less potent than sheer
systemic exhaustion, at once nervous, muscular and mental.
A profound and stifling lethargy benumbed his senses. There was stupor
in his brain, and all his limbs ached dully. He opened dazed eyes upon
blank darkness. In his ears a vast silence pulsed.
And in that strange moment of awakening he was conscious of no
individuality: it was, for the time, as if he had passed in slumber
from one existence to another, sloughing en passant all his threefold
personality as Marcel Troyon, Michael Lanyard, and the Lone Wolf. Had
any one of these names been uttered in his hearing just then it would
have meant nothing to himāor little more than nothing: he was for the
time being merely himself, a shell of sensations enclosing dull
embers of vitality.
For several minutes he lay without moving, curiously intrigued by this
riddle of identity: it was but slowly that his mind, like a blind hand
groping round a dark chamber, picked up the filaments of memory.
One by one the connections were renewed, the circuits closedā¦.
But, singularly enough in his understanding, his first thought was of
the girl upstairs in the studio, unconsciously his prisoner and
hostageārather than of himself, who lay there, heavy with loss of
sleep, languidly trying to realize himself.
For he was no more as he had been. Wherein the difference lay he
couldnāt say, but that a difference existed he was persuadedāthat he
had changed, that some strange reaction in the chemistry of his nature
had taken place during slumber. It was as if sleep had not only
repaired the ravages of fatigue upon the tissues of his brain and body,
but had mended the tissues of his soul as well. His thoughts were
fluent in fresh channels, his interests no longer the interests of the
Michael Lanyard he had known, no longer self-centred, the interests of
the absolute ego. He was concerned less for himself, even now when he
should be most gravely so, than for another, for the girl Lucia Bannon,
who was nothing to him, whom he had yet to know for twenty-four hours,
but of whom he could not cease to think if he would.
It was her plight that perturbed him, from which he sought an
outletānever his own.
Yet his own was desperate enoughā¦.
Baffled and uneasy, he at length bethought him of his watch. But its
testimony seemed incredible: surely the hour could not be five in the
afternoon!āsurely he could not have slept so close upon a full round
of the clock!
And if it were so, what of the girl? Had she, too, so sorely needed
sleep that the brief November day had dawned and waned without her
knowledge?
That question was one to rouse him: in an instant he was up and groping
his way through the gloom that enshrouded bedchamber and dining-room
to the staircase door in the hall. He found this fast enough, its key
still safe in his pocket, and unlocking it quietly, shot the beam of
his flash-lamp up that dark well to the door at the top; which was
tight shut.
For several moments he attended to a taciturn silence broken by never a
sound to indicate that he wasnāt a lonely tenant of the little
dwelling, then irresolutely lifted a foot to the first stepāand
withdrew it. If she continued to sleep, why disturb her? He had much to
do in the way of thinking things out; and that was a process more
easily performed in solitude.
Leaving the door ajar, then, he turned to one of the front
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