Part 9

Mallison got a black grin from the patrolman and subsided at discretion, while Crane cocked a meaning eye at Lanyard.

"Now, Mr. Lanyard, if you'll just tell us what you know about how this man Mallison comes to be here . . ."

"Gladly." Lanyard had his story pat, it fell from a glib tongue. "I presume everybody present knows Mrs. McFee's emeralds were stolen last night from the safe in that secretary over there, under circumstances which caused a certain person to be suspected--"

"Why so modest?" Mallison interrupted vindictively. "Why so mealy-mouthed? 'Suspected' is hardly the word."

"I am desolated to disappoint monsieur; unhappily or not, as you may care to take it, Mr. Crane was able to establish my innocence this morning."

"Like hell he was!"

"Just one more nasty crack out of you, Mallison," Crane advised, "and I'll let Hoffmeyer do your wife a swell favour."

"Strangely enough," Lanyard serenely pursued: "Mrs. McFee and I, thinking the case over independently, arrived at the same conclusion: that Mallison probably knew as much as anybody about the theft. Mrs. McFee accordingly laid a trap: invited him to a little dinner-party this evening, in the course of which she let it become known that the thief had overlooked a valuable lot of jewellery which she meant to leave unprotected tonight other than by the safe which had once already been attacked with success. This made a second visit probable, if there were grounds for our suspicions. . . . I on my part arranged to occupy that clothes-press which you see with its door open; by leaving the door just off the latch, it was easy to keep direct watch over the safe. Toward the end of dinner Mallison received the telephone call which has been mentioned, and used it as a pretext for leaving before the other guests. He said good night to Mrs. McFee at the front door, but as soon as she returned to the dining-room let himself back into the house and stole upstairs. He was hiding behind the screen in the corner when Mrs. McFee came up, but when she had put her remaining jewels in the safe and turned to go to her bedchamber, he blundered--made his presence known in a way she couldn't overlook. Then he tried to overpower her, to prevent her giving the alarm. I was obliged to interfere and had just succeeded in discouraging him when these people broke in . . ."

"Straight enough story, far as it goes," Crane approved.

But Mallison dissented wildly: "A pack of lies from beginning to end!" he termed it. To which Lanyard replied, with nonchalance quite unfeigned, that if they doubted his word they might ask Mrs. McFee. Neither was his confidence misplaced: quietly the young woman affirmed the substantial truthfulness of the tissue of misrepresentation which he had woven so brazenly under her very eyes and for her benefit as much as for his own.

"But one thing I want settled at once," she declared: "These people say Mallison used a latch-key. I say he didn't--unless he has one he stole. If they're right, I want that key. If they're wrong, I want that proved for my own sake."

"Reasonable enough," Crane agreed. "How about it, Mallison? got a little key to give up?" The dancing man shook his head, mumbling a negative. "You can save yourself a heap of trouble by forking it over, you know."

"I tell you I haven't got any key!" Mallison insisted with what seemed extravagant passion, while Lanyard eyed him in deepening perplexity: some secret fear, inexplicable, unwarranted by known circumstances, seemed to be at work in the man, desperation was glimpsing in his hunted eyes. "Mrs. McFee knows I haven't--I won't be sacrificed to save her--"

"How's that?"

"Mrs. McFee," Mallison defiantly affirmed, "knows damn' well I haven't got a key and never had one, she knows damn' well she left the door fixed for me, so that I could reopen it by simply turning the knob from the outside--"

"Oh!" Folly gasped, infuriated--"what a contemptible lie! Search him, Mr. Crane--I demand that this beast be searched and proved a liar. He must have had a key, he couldn't possibly have got in any other way."

Even while she was speaking events got in motion, not consecutively but all at once: Mallison, stung to frenzy by his fears, whirled on a heel and made a mad dash for the passage leading to the bedchamber. A sinewy hand at the end of one of Crane's long arms shot out, with surprising readiness, to clamp upon his shoulder and drag him back. He turned and fought wildly. The policeman, Hoffmeyer, cheerfully waded in to lend Crane needed assistance. Mrs. Mallison and Messrs. Howlin and Regan thought to profit by the general preoccupation, but were painfully surprised to discover that Lanyard, an instant since a dozen feet away, was now planted firmly in front of the hall door and smiling a bright, bland smile over the sinister grin of Mallison's pistol.

They stopped. Simultaneously Mallison found himself helpless in an embrace which Hoffmeyer had fastened round him from behind.

"Cut it out, now!" the patrolman growled. "You kick my shins again, and I'll shake every tooth out of your fool head!"

Panting and twitching like a whipped animal, Mallison gave in, and with eyes of blank hopelessness followed the work of Crane's clever hands as they turned out the contents of his pockets, one by one, and neatly arranged their plunder on the top of the occasional table; bringing to light, in addition to everyman's horde of minor personal effects, a flat leather case which fitted neatly a lining pocket in Mallison's dress waistcoat and which held a light jointed jimmy of the toughest procurable steel with an assortment of skeleton keys designed to make the most modern of door-locks tamely yield up its secret.

Mallison's countenance gave open confession of abandonment to despair when this damning find was made; yet Crane was not half-finished with him. The next plunge of his fingers fished a tissue-paper packet from a lower waistcoat pocket, which, being unfolded, disclosed the purloined emeralds of Folly McFee.

Crane clucked in astonishment, Folly gave an incredulous squeal of joy, Lanyard a graphic start and stare. The others present reacted variously, each according to his idiosyncrasy. Only Mallison made neither sound nor stir. But the eyes he turned toward Lanyard were a murderer's . . .

XI

"Pretty!" The chuckle with which Crane let that priceless hoard cascade, clashing, a stream of baleful green fire, into the cupped, eager hands of its owner, ended the hush which had spellbound the assorted actors. "Me," he pursued in high contentment, "I'm _convinced_! Now if you'll slip your wrist-warmers on our little friend here, the dancing yegg, we'll blow, Hoffmeyer . . . But le's see: I guess Mrs. McFee would just as leave not treat the neighbours to the sight of a patrol wagon boiling up to her front door at this time of night to cart this gay bunch away--it might look sort of funny. So, if it's all right with you, ma'm, I'll just get your butler to breeze out and rustle a brace of taxis. And then, folks"--his tolerant regard embraced Mallison, his soi-distant wife, her counsel, and the disgusted collaborator of this last--"we'll all go riding round to the House with the Green Lamps in East Fifty-first."

Neither did argument, expostulation, abuse, and threats more or less unveiled budge him from adherence to this programme, to which one prisoner alone entered no objection: in disgrace with Fortune, Mallison demonstrated at least the wit of silence. Nothing he said was ever to be used against him at his trial, for he said nothing. What, indeed (he must have reasoned) was the use? What possible profit to him could accrue through his protesting that the case against him was a "frame-up," that Lanyard must wickedly have made him an involuntary receiver of stolen goods at some time during their struggle? The other contents of his pockets provided evidence too ruinous as to his character and secret shop to give such a claim a ghost of a show of winning evidence.

So Mallison submitted without any murmur; but the attention with which he enveloped Lanyard to the last left that one in no doubt as to his mind; and one less self-reliant might well have trembled to think that next morning at latest would see the man free, "out on bail," with every facility at his command to further plans for vengeance--else one had either overrated the power and prestige of Morphew or wronged that one in crediting him to Mallison in the rôle of patron.

The beck of Folly's head was brusque in deference to which Lanyard found himself finally closeted with her alone in her study, the temper in which she shut the door was openly one of direct impatience, his most disarming smile was wasted on the face she showed him, with its lips taut, brows level, and eyes uncompromising. To the "Well?" with which she chose to prompt him in a voice too cool for comfort, Lanyard returned a deprecating shrug.

"Well enough thus far, if you like; but this is far from the end. . . . I wonder, is it waste of time to beg a service of you, madame?"

The even brows contracted, his impudence earned the blank demur: "I don't know whether I ought!"

"After all," he submitted, "madame again has her emeralds . . ."

"And you to thank--I know. But still--!"

"And she retains that intangible something which is worth nothing till it is lost, I refer to her--as we absurdly say--good name."

"Haven't I proved my appreciation by letting you lie like a . . ."

Folly faltered, at loss for a figure, and Lanyard gravely suggested: "Like--I trust very truly--a gentleman."

"Well!" The efforts failed that she had been making to re-establish that poise of impartiality which he had already shaken, she twinkled outright. "And I loved you for it and lied like a baggage in your support. Still, I think you owe me something more . . ."

"The explanation which I am as ready to make as you are to hear it, but a strange story--"

"I can imagine."

"Forgive me if I doubt that . . . A story so strange it will hardly seem credible without the testimony of one little likely to be suspected of bias in my favour, I mean Monsieur Morphew--"

"Morphew!"

Lanyard pretended not to know he had managed to stagger her a second time: "If you would be so gracious as to telephone the good man--one assumes you know his number--"

"But Morphy's _never_ at home in the evening."

"Nevertheless I venture to prophesy he will be found at home this evening, and not far from the telephone, either--providing you call him without too much delay."

"Morphew?" Folly re-echoed as if she mistrusted her ears.

"You are such great friends, he won't think it strange if you turn to him for friendly offices in your distress--"

"But I'm not in any distress."

"Precisely there is the favour I would beg of you, madame; to make believe you are, to tell Monsieur Morphew that something so disturbing has just happened, you can not rest without his advice. If you will do that, I think you will find him more than willing to oblige you, to wait on you here with all possible expedition."

"But what on earth--!"

"That I will make clear when you have telephoned. If you put it off until the Mallison lot is permitted to call in counsel and arrange for bondsmen, you won't catch Monsieur Morphew at home."

Lanyard endured gracefully the probe of mistrustful eyes, only a whimsical twitch of lips reminded Folly at length of his exemplary patience; whereupon she did a good descriptive bit with pretty shoulders and plumped herself down at the telephone.

Committing to memory the number she gave the Central operator, Lanyard saw the woman start when the voice that responded bore out his prediction that Morphew would be found anomalously at home, this night of all nights. But the ability of an excellent amateur actress which Folly had once before proved to Lanyard's delight this time again stood her in good stead, he was fain to admit he himself might have been taken in by the ring of sincerity in her tremulous accents.

"Is that you, _really_, Morphy? Oh, I'm so glad! . . . Something terrible has happened, Morphy. Please don't ask questions now, I don't want to talk about it over the wire; but if you can possibly spare a minute, come around and give me your advice. You're the wisest man I know, and I'm in a peck of trouble, half out of my mind with worry . . . How perfectly sweet of you! Yes: as soon as you can, I'll be waiting so anxiously . . ."

Without rising, Folly swung round and mutely challenged Lanyard to make good his promise. But he merely bowed the bow that signifies "Thank you very much."

"Morphy says he'll come this minute."

"Figure to yourself, madame, one can with difficulty constrain oneself to wait."

"That's no fair." Folly got up with a flounce. "You're not telling me anything."

"There is so little time--and one feels sure madame will need all of it if she means to remedy what one may, without intending an impertinence, be permitted to term the quite too delightful unconventionality of her attire."

Not in the least displeased, Folly demanded: "Are you complaining--?"

"I am seeking delicately to suggest it would be a pity to give Monsieur Morphew any excuse for jumping at a conclusion which, however flattering to my unworthy self, might prove difficult to correct, not to say painful . . ."

"Painful?"

"To him."

"But you aren't a bit fair, you know, to keep on making me like you when you know very well you haven't been playing the game."

"Madame wrongs me: one can play only such cards as chance deals to one's hand."

"O dear!" Folly sighed. "I'm afraid I'm too impressionable, or I'd never trust you at all, with appearances so black for you."

"Innocence," he modestly opined, "is so shining a garment, black appearances can only lend it an enhancing background." She wavered between a smile and a frown. "But you have trusted me so far"--judging the moment ripe, Lanyard passed from trifling to earnest entreaty--"surely you can afford to trust me still farther. I want you out of the way when Soames shows Morphew in--let him say you will be down directly, nothing more--I want Morphew to meet me alone and without any warning. On the other hand, I wish you to hear every word that passes; so all that seems mysterious now will be made clear. While Morphew is busy trying to dissemble his joy at meeting me so unexpectedly, you will be able to come downstairs without making too much noise--"

"You aren't suggesting that I eavesdrop--!"

"Why not? I did as much for you an hour ago--and very much to your advantage, you'll agree. Take my word for it, in this instance you will have even more excuse . . ."

"Heaven knows how you always manage to get round me, but you do." Folly went to the door, but there paused, looking back over her shoulder with provocative eyes, pretty to death as she stood with head perked pertly, her dainty body less hidden than set off by its frothy déshabillé. "And it's well for me, I'm afraid," she confided, "if its true, as Liane says, you're madly in love with another woman!"

She vanished, was heard briefly conferring with the butler in the entrance hall, then scampering up the stairs.

"And well for me!" Lanyard admitted then, with a wry grimace of self-knowledge; and forthwith closed his mind to the troubling concept of Folly as a woman too kindly inclined, a thought it wouldn't do to dally with for weightier reasons than that it was the truth Liane had babbled.

Against this impending interview of precarious issue he had to make all his dispositions, mental and environmental, in minutes of grace he had no means of knowing how few. Everything depended on how soon Morphew might leave his quarters in response to Folly's call, on whether or not he would learn before leaving of the reverse which had waited on the Mallison coup. Lanyard asked no longer odds than to have Morphew arrive uninformed and unsuspicious; if he didn't, Lanyard would need to mind his eye, likewise his step, if he meant to go on living . . .

Swift review of four walls and all they enclosed made careful note of the heavier articles of furniture and their arrangement in respect of one another and even more particularly of the four exits: the door to the entrance hall, the draped opening that communicated with the drawing-room, the two French windows that gave on the roof of the extension.

Wall-sconces with shields of painted parchment bathed the study in a glareless glow; these darkened, a shaded table lamp was left for all illumination. And this in its turn having been extinguished, it was feasible to reconnoitre at the windows without risking detection by any spy who might be stationed in the vacant land back of the house. But when Lanyard had gently parted the draperies and put his nose to a pane, his vision spent itself fruitlessly on the welter of blacks, from dense to dusky, that blotted out the kitchen-yard within its wooden walls and the open foundation pit beyond. Footfarers on the sidewalks to the north were well-defined by the bleak shine of a street light on the Lexington avenue corner; but if any living thing lurked in the waste between it was lost to the cunning of Lanyard's eyes.

Notwithstanding, he watched on, to make sure the avenues of escape were not stealthily picketed in advance of Morphew's call, till the house-bell dictated retreat from the window to relight the table lamp and take the place and pose which Lanyard most fancied, in an easy chair screened from the hall by the door that opened inward.

The professional soft-shoes of the butler padded from pantry to front door, bolts thumped, the latch rattled, Morphew was heard to salute Soames with gruff condescension, the colourless voice of the servant responded: and having surrendered his hat and coat, the Sultan of Loot paraded into the study with a strut (or the observation of his audience erred) coloured by a lively sense of gratification in unction yet to come. With Folly netted in his toils--no mistake about it, Morphew in this moment was on the best of terms with the business of life in a richly rewarding world. And viewing the man revealed in this humour, Lanyard ceased to entertain a doubt as to the best course to take with him.

Near the table whose lamp painted with stagey shadows his pale and crudely modelled features, Morphew halted. He cleared his throat importantly, consulted his watch, pricked an ear impatient for Folly's footfalls on the stairs, frowned ever so slightly over failure to hear them and, tickled by some furtive thought, flashed his rare, unholy smile. Then becoming cognizant of Lanyard sitting quietly in his corner, watchfully waiting, the man all at once grew taut in body and limb, like a dog confronted by some sudden shape of danger, and wiped his countenance clean of every treacherous trace of legibility. This much, and the swift veer of his eyes toward the doorway, alone confessed the facer to his expectations. The blinkless gaze that steadied to Lanyard's told nothing. Neither did it put any question. Pending the first move, which he was plainly resolved Lanyard must make, Morphew constrained himself to a set of dull, impassive patience.

An attitude Lanyard was nothing loath to humour. If the enemy preferred to resign the initiative, he didn't mind. If it came to that, he had meant all along, if it should appear, as now it did, that Morphew hadn't as yet heard what had happened in the last hour, to force the fighting. He got up and performed his courtliest bow.

"Good evening, monsieur. It was gracious of you to come round so promptly. Won't you be seated."

Morphew ignored the gesture that singled out a chair for him, but after a measured instant observed rather than asked: "You were expecting me . . ."

"It was even I who advised Mrs. McFee to call monsieur into consultation."

The full, hard lips grudgingly released the monosyllable: "Why?"

"It recommended itself as the simplest way to seduce you into a conversation which I meant to have before morning whether you wanted it or not; furthermore, for me, by far the safest. Figure to yourself how much more secure I feel in my skin, meeting you here, the last place where you would have thought to find me . . ."

Morphew shifted slightly toward the door, a movement of impulse which he seemed to repent when he found Lanyard in the way. "I came here to have a talk with Mrs. McFee," he heavily stated, "at her invitation . . ."

"I have begged her to grant me the favour of a few minutes alone with you."

"I've nothing to say to you . . ."

"That places one of us at a deplorable disadvantage; for I have much to say to you, monsieur, and mean to say it."

"Suppose I don't care to listen . . ."

"It desolates me to feel obliged to inform you that, entirely by chance and contrary to my preference and habit, I happen to be armed."

"Seems to me I've heard"--a slow sneer darkened the face of uncouth ugliness--"it used to be your boast, 'The Lone Wolf never kills'."

"Monsieur says truly 'it used to be' . . . He will, moreover, wisely remind himself that the Lone Wolf is no more, his code, such as it was, is no sure guide to what Michael Lanyard may do when he fights for the right to live his own life in his own way."

Another instant their glances clashed, then Morphew's fell, he turned sullenly back to the table, fumbling, to cover nervousness out of character, for his cigar-case. "Well: what do you want?"

Lanyard pushed the hall door to before replying.

"First, to give myself the felicity of telling you the great news."

Eyes beneath leaden lids shifted back to Lanyard's face, a gross hand grossly crusted with diamonds brought to light a case of gold studded with diamonds, but delayed to open it.

"Come, Monsieur Morphew! confess you are wondering what has become of that zealous disciple of yours, Monsieur Mallison."

"What about Mallison?"

But Morphew had found it necessary to moisten his lips before he could speak.

"He is, at the present moment, one has good reason to believe, wildly telephoning about Town to get in touch with you and pray for a bondsman to bail him out, when he is arraigned tomorrow morning for stealing Mrs. McFee's emeralds."

The pupils of the little, flesh-embedded eyes contracted, Morphew licked his lips again. "How's that?"

"Your protégé, monsieur, so neatly styled the dancing yegg, was caught hiding in the boudoir upstairs, some fifteen or twenty minutes ago, and arrested."

Morphew gave himself time to assimilate this ill-omened information, bending over the gaudy trinket in his hands and making meticulous choice of a cigar. He gnawed off its end, broadcasted the waste, put the case away, struck a match, and through a screen of smoke and flame looked back to Lanyard.

"How'd you manage that?"

"But surely one who couldn't--so simple a matter!--is not one to have been honoured with the handsome offer you made me last night."

"I've put you a question," Morphew testily prompted; "I want to know how you managed to put it over on Mally. Afraid to answer?"

"All in good time. For the present, I have the whim to point out what dismal stupidity you have displayed in this affair, to the end that you may spare yourself further discomfiture by foregoing any injudicious schemes of vengeance which may be brewing behind that broad, impassive brow."

"You swing a mean tongue in English," Morphew observed--"for a foreigner." He cast about for a chair sturdy enough to sustain the bulk of him, and with an air of resignation, his first voluntary confession of feeling, sat down. "Go on, get it all off your chest; I don't mind listening."

"Monsieur is too amiable. One can only prove one's appreciation by endeavouring to be brief . . ."

"Take your time. I got plenty."

"Regard, then, my good Morphew, that last night, in this room, I was drugged."

"Hootch?" Morphew sagely queried, and receiving a nod commented: "There's a lot of wicked stuff being served nowadays."