“Then what am I to infer? If you’re afraid to lay an information against me—and it wouldn’t be wise, I admit—you’ll merely cause me to be assassinated, eh?”
“Not of necessity,” the Count murmured in the same thoughtful tone and manner—as one holding a hidden trump.
“There are so many ways of arranging these matters,” Wertheimer ventured.
“None the less, if I refuse, you declare war?”
“Something like that,” the American admitted.
“In that case—I am now able to state my position definitely.” Lanyard got up and grinned provokingly down at the group. “You can—all four of you—go plumb to hell!”
“My dear friend!” the Count cried, shocked—“you forget—”
“I forget nothing!” Lanyard cut in coldly—“and my decision is final. Consider yourselves at liberty to go ahead and do your damnedest! But don’t forget that it is you who are the aggressors. Already you’ve had the insolence to interfere with my arrangements: you began offensive operations before you declared war. So now if you’re hit beneath the belt, you mustn’t complain: you’ve asked for it!”
“Now just what do you mean by that?” the American drawled ironically.
“I leave you to figure it out for yourselves. But I will say this: I confidently expect you to decide to live and let live, and shall be sorry, as you’ll certainly be sorry, if you force my hand.”
He opened the door, turned, and saluted them with sarcastic punctilio.
“I have the honour to bid adieu to Messieurs the Council of—‘The Pack’!”
IX
Disaster
Having fulfilled his purpose of making himself acquainted with the personnel of the opposition, Lanyard slammed the door in its face, thrust his hands in his pockets, and sauntered downstairs, chuckling, his nose in the air, on the best of terms with himself.
True, the fat was in the fire and well ablaze: he had to look to himself now, and go warily in the shadow of their enmity. But it was something to have faced down those four, and he wasn’t seriously impressed by any one of them.
Popinot, perhaps, was the most dangerous in Lanyard’s esteem; a vindictive animal, that Popinot; and the creatures he controlled, a murderous lot, drug-ridden, drink bedevilled, vicious little rats of Belleville, who’d knife a man for the price of an absinthe. But Popinot wouldn’t move without leave from De Morbihan, and unless Lanyard’s calculations were seriously miscast, De Morbihan would restrain both himself and his associates until thoroughly convinced Lanyard was impregnable against every form of persuasion. Murder was something a bit out of De Morbihan’s line—something, at least, which he might be counted on to hold in reserve. And by the time he was ready to employ it, Lanyard would be well beyond his reach. Wertheimer, too, would deprecate violence until all else failed; his half-caste type was as cowardly as it was blackguard; and cowards kill only impulsively, before they’ve had time to weigh consequences. There remained “Smith,” enigma; a man apparently gifted with both intelligence and character. … But if so, what the deuce was he doing in such company?
Still, there he was: and the association damned him beyond consideration. His sorts were all of a piece, beneath the consideration of men of spirit. …
At this point, the self-complacence bred of his contempt for Messrs. de Morbihan et Cie. bred in its turn a thought that brought the adventurer up standing.
The devil! Who was he, Michael Lanyard, that held himself above such vermin, yet lived in such a way as practically to invite their advances? What right was his to resent their opening the door to confraternity, as long as he trod paths so closely parallel to theirs that only a sophist might discriminate them? What comforting distinction was to be drawn between on the one hand a blackmailer like Wertheimer, a chevalier-d’industrie like De Morbihan, or a patron of Apaches like Popinot, and on the other himself whose bread was eaten in the sweat of thievery?
He drew a long face; whistled softly; shook his head; and smiled a wry smile.
“Glad I didn’t think of that two minutes ago, or I’d never have had the cheek …”
Without warning, incongruously and, in his understanding, inexplicably, he found himself beset by recurrent memory of the girl, Lucia Bannon.
For an instant he saw her again, quite vividly, as last he had seen her: turning at the door of her bedchamber to look back at him, a vision of perturbing charm in her rose-silk dressing-gown, with rich hair loosened, cheeks softly glowing, eyes brilliant with an emotion illegible to her one beholder. …
What had been the message of those eyes, flashed down the dimly lighted length of that corridor at Troyon’s, ere she vanished?
Adieu? Or au revoir? …
She had termed him, naively enough, and a gentleman.
But if she knew—suspected—even dreamed—that he was what he was? …
He shook his head again, but now impatiently, with a scowl and a grumble:
“What’s the matter with me anyway? Mooning over a girl I never saw before tonight! As if it matters a whoop in Hepsidam what she thinks! … Or is it possible I’m beginning to develop a rudimentary conscience, at this late day? Me! …”
If there were anything in this hypothesis, the growing-pains of that late-blooming conscience were soon enough numbed by the hypnotic spell of clattering chips, an ivory ball singing in an ebony race, and croaking croupiers.
For Lanyard’s chair at the table of chemin-de-fer had been filled by another and, too impatient to wait a vacancy, he wandered on to the salon dedicated to roulette, tested his luck by staking a note of five hundred francs on the black, won, and incontinently subsided into a chair and an oblivion that endured for the space of three-quarters of an hour.
At the end of that period he found himself minus his heavy winnings at chemin-de-fer and ten thousand francs of his reserve fund to boot.
By way of lining for his pockets there remained precisely the sum which he
