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THE LONE WOLF RETURNS


BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE LONE WOLF
ALIAS THE LONE WOLF
BAROQUE, A MYSTERY
LINDA LEE, INC.
JOAN THURSDAY
RED MASQUERADE
THE DARK MIRROR
THE FALSE FACES
SHEEP'S CLOTHING
THE DAY OF DAYS
NOBODY
THE DESTROYING ANGEL
THE BANDBOX
CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
THE FORTUNE HUNTER
NO MAN'S LAND
THE POOL OF FLAME
THE BRONZE BELL
THE BLACK BAG
THE BRASS BOWL
TERENCE O'ROURKE


THE LONE WOLF
RETURNS
BY
LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 Fifth Avenue


Copyright, 1923
By INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO. (COSMOPOLITAN
MAGAZINE)
Copyright, 1923
By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
All rights reserved, including the rights of translation into
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian
Firit printing, August, 1923
Second printing, August, 1923
Third printing, August, 1923
Fourth printing, August, 1923
Fifth printing, August, 1923
Sixth printing, August, 1923
Seventh printing, October, 1923
Eighth printing, October, 1923

Printed in the United States of America



To
FRANK EDWIN VERNEY
because he asked for more and
because there won't be any more





2 The Lone Wolf Returns
deferential and demanding, held her in a spell she had
no wish to break.
"I love you," he repeated.
Her brows took on a quaintly plaintive cast. "I
know, my friend," she replied in the same tongue and
tone. "For a long time I have known ... as you
have known my love was all for you. And yet ..."
The slender shoulders lifting their fairness out of the
corsage of her jetted gown sketched a shrug.
"I had to wait to tell you," he said, "till I was
sure—"
In indulgent raillery she interrupted: "Sure that
you loved me?"
He smiled, but wagged his head in stubborn earnest-
ness: "Sure of what else I must say."
"There is more?"
"Much more." The man leaned over the table, with
an even deeper accent of sincerity in his guarded voice:
"I love you so dearly, Eve, the thought of a life with-
out you is beyond my understanding . . . Yet I may
not ask you to be my wife."
"May not?" Hands of consummate grace fluttered
above the cloth in tragicomic impatience. "Or will
not?"
"Will not because I may not."
Eve de Montalais held a small pause of perplexity,
made a small sign of frustration. "It is a riddle," she
said. "But when one speaks in riddles, one speaks
playfully ... as you do not. Tell me, then, my
Michael! why you think you may not ask me to marry
you, when between us all else has been said?"


The Lone Wolf Returns 3
"I love you too well—"
"Too well to make me happy?"
"Too well to let you stake your happiness on the
hazards of such a life as mine."
"You forget, if you deny me the right to share those
hazards, whatever they may be, I shall have no happi-
ness to risk."
"You are young," the man thoughtfully stated, "the
best of your life lies before you. And you are, I think,
the loveliest woman that ever lived. Many men after
me will long for and love you, one of them you will
find worthy . . ."
"Still, you forget, my heart is given."
"Time heals all memories."
"You believe that?" She withdrew a little, settling
back in her chair, and used her fan, gazing away over
its nodding plumes. "I was mistaken, then; I believed
you loved me too well to hold my love the whim of a
day or a month or a year. I thought you knew me
too well to think my love was lightly given, or once
given might be recalled."
He winced under that reproach. "Without your
help," he pleaded, "how shall I be strong? You know
what it costs me to say what I am saying, that I could
not say anything to displease you if I held your happi-
ness second to my own. It is of you alone I am think-
ing; you whom I love and who are not for me."
"If you love me," Eve de Montalais said quietly,
"you will never leave me."
"Better that; better you should learn to hold the
memory of me in contempt, than I should risk your


4 The Lone Wolf Returns
waking up too late, as some day you would surely
waken, to realize you had joined your life to the life
of one whom the world esteems a common thief."
"'The world esteems'!" Disdain touched her lips.
"You are not that."
"I was once—"
"The past is dead."
"Or merely sleeping? Who shall say?"
"Ah no! my friend, you waste your time if you
ask me to believe that."
The music fell, and the gay rumour of voices that
replaced it, as the dancers began to move back to their
tables, was not enough to warrant the former sense of
security from eavesdropping by inadvertence or inten-
tion. In tacit silence Madame de Montalais extended
her hand, Lanyard offered his cigarette-case, then a
match. But after a single inhalation the woman for-
got to smoke, and permitted the tobacco to fume to
waste in its jewelled holder, her attention seemingly
diverted by the pomp and vanity of that sumptuous
cavern wherein the folk of her world were accustomed
nightly to foregather and play yet once again the time-
old game whose fascination never fails, whose stake
is love ... /
But Lanyard had eyes for his love alone.
Her beauty in his sight was like a pain in his heart,
a hand at his throat. Slender and gracious and fair,
with a sense, hard to define, of something more than
human in that warmly human loveliness, something
that made one think of a sickle of moon afloat in an
azure midnight sky, of dawnlight fleeting breathlessly
athwart a summer sea . . .


The Lone Wolf Returns 5
His for the asking!
He had loved before, but never as now, never with
this tenderness, this all-possessing wish to serve and
safeguard, this passionate self-abnegation . . .
"What is it?" he asked, seeing her start, with an
almost imperceptible suggestion of aversion, as she
sat looking away across the room.
"That man," she replied—"that creature, rather,
whom one never sees without shuddering. And one
sees him everywhere."
Even before he looked Lanyard had divined the
occasion of this antipathy. It was true, what she had
said: ever since this tide in their affairs had brought
these two together in New York, no matter where they
turned of an evening in quest of amusement, or rather
for an excuse to be with each other, at some time in
its course they seemed fated to cross the path of this
personality, odd, compelling, and in some how for-
bidding.
One saw the man now, with a party of guests laying
claim to a table on the far side of the floor, a table
that had been conspicuously reserved and refused to
others, though the Crystal Room was crowded and
late-comers were importunate. A gross body, ponder-
ous and slow of movement, with a heavy face of singu-
larly immobile cast, resembling and for all its fleshi-
ness as destitute of colour as a mask of papier-mache,
with a strange effect of transparency as if lighted by
an inner glow akin to phosphorescence. Punctiliously
mannered and at all times dressed with the nicest care
as to the cut and propriety of his clothing, but unfail-


6 The Lone Wolf Returns
ingly bedecked like a sultan with an incalculable wealth
of jewellery in sets meticulously matched; yesterday
with emeralds, today with diamonds, tomorrow with
rubies, at another time it might be with fire-opals burn-
ing on fingers and watch chain, serving as cuff-links,
waistcoat buttons, and studs for his shirt: a bizarre
shape to meet in the haunts of fashion . . . And
never alone, always surrounded by a little court of
sycophants, seldom twice of the same composition, but
as a rule including a few fragile beauties, apparently
of the stage, and invariably one whom Lanyard took
to be a paid clown, an undersized man with the face
of a sage droll, the dress and deportment of a diplo-
mat, and something in his fixed solemnity which sug-
gested an ever-present expectation that his lightest
word would win a gale of laughter—as, indeed, more
often than not it seemed to.
The other sat, as by habit, taciturn and aloof in the
heart of his noisy company. A dull man or a deep.
Speaking seldom, eating little, drinking nothing, always
smoking, holding one pose without stir for long min-
utes at a time: only the eyes beneath hood-like lids,
eyes of a repellant pallor and surprising brightness,
were restless, ranging from face to face, not only of
his companions but of every person within his scope
of vision, peering into each with a steadfast, imper-
turbable and penetrating curiosity . . .
Lanyard had more than once been resentfully con-
scious of that prying look. He was conscious of it
now and rather hoped its author could read his lips,
reckoning its impertinence ample provocation for the
temper of what he was about to say.


The Lone Wolf Returns 7
"The Sultan of Loot," he mused aloud, adding in
answer to Eve's mirthful glance: "my private nick-
name for the animal. If it does him injustice, he ought
to take in his sign, don't you think? I know him by
sight, of course; but that is all. Some bucketeer or
bootlegger, no doubt; Prohibition no less than Provi-
dence makes strange bedfellows, nowadays, in this
mad country."
"Strange," the woman observed, "how people one
doesn't know sometimes seem to haunt one."
"When it is strange."
Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you say that,
Michael?"
"I hardly know," he confessed with a deprecatory
laugh. "More, at least, than this: that it has seldom
been my fortune to be so haunted without something
in the nature of a sequel."
She made a mental shudder graphic. "In this in-
stance, for your sake, I trust the rule will not hold
good."
"I hope so, indeed. I entertain the least inclination
imaginable to better my acquaintance with that mon-
sieur. And yet, it would surprise me not at all if I
were to see much more of him before I see less."
There was music again, a retrograde movement from
tables to open floor.
"Why so mysterious, Michael?"
"Upon my word, I can't tell you. Why did you
shiver when you spoke of the fellow? Blame it, if you
like, to that sixth sense, that instinct of self-preserva-
tion which serves some men as intuition serves most


8
The Lone Wolf Returns
women—call it what you will, I have quite definitely
a feeling I am no more done with that one whom I do
not know than I am as yet begun with him."
A sidelong glance discovered the personage in
question indulging in one of his rare smiles, an intro-
spective smile that might mean he had indeed been
reading Lanyard's lips, or might mean nothing of the
sort. True, that he was no longer-Rooking at Lanyard;
it remained equally true that he was apparently paying
no attention to the conversation of his company.
"And that is why"—a derisive shift of the woman's
eyes indicated the quarter of the room in which the
subject of their speculations had established himself—
"you are trying to jilt me—is it?—and excusing your
ungallant conduct with vague references to the 'haz-
ards' of your life!"
Lanyard shook his head, again possessed by the
gravity of his purpose. "I am scarcely so childish,"
he said. "But for days—for months, indeed, but espe-
cially in these last few days—I have been thinking of
the life I have to offer a wife, the life of a man hunted,
without fortune or position, friendless in a strange
land but for you."
"'Hunted'?"
The echo deprecated the strength of that term, but
he would not modify it. "Hunted," he reiterated:
"the life of an outlaw. Society does not forgive: it
will sometimes applaud a successful transgressor, but
it never has patience with the penitent."
"Tell me why you say that, Michael. I have the
right to know."


The Lone Wolf Returns 9
"It is this, then," Lanyard said with reluctance:
"wherever I go, I am a marked man. The world wears
mocking eyebrows when it hears that the Lone Wolf
no longer prowls. 'Perhaps, today,' it says: 'but wait.
Let him prove his sincerity and fortitude against the
dead drag of my indifference, let him make his way if
he can, I have my own affairs to busy me.' . . . The
police are satisfied my change of character is merely a
blind. Another class, even more skeptic, is made up
of those whose lot today is as mine was yesterday,
creatures of envy, greed, and uncharitableness, all those
qualities that make criminals. These, should they see
me in rags, would say: 'Another turn or two of the
screw and he will be one of us again.' Seeing me ap-
parently prosperous, they say: 'Observe that he wants
for nothing: he is cunning, that one.' Or suppose some
unknown makes a famous coup; the chorus is then:
'The Lone Wolf has done this thing!' . . . Society
indifferent, its police distrustful, its enemies envious:
one needs strength to make way against so strong a
ride!"
"You have it."
"But will it last?"
"With mine to comfort and encourage you when
your strength wearies . . ."
"But figure to yourself a possible event: We marry.
What happens? Your friends are affronted, they turn
from you—" *.
"Did you call them friends?"
"Even friendship fails when its self-esteem is
flouted. . . . You are left alone," Lanyard obstinately


10 The Lone Wolf Returns
pursued, "but for me. And for every friend you have
lost, you have found an enemy—my enemies. These
good haters of mine will resort to every expedient to
poison your mind against me, while to me they will
come saying, 'Do as we bid you or prepare yourself
to see her suffer.' Conceive me mad enough to tell
them to go to the devil: the next time we find ourselves
conspicuously placed in public, a hand falls on my
shoulder, I your husband am arrested on a trumped-up
charge. Assume that I clear myself: still the disgrace
remains, the shame. And I its cause. . . . No! never
ask me to condemn you to a life like that."
He sat brooding, in a silence which she respected for
a little, watching him with shrewd vision all the while.
"Something has happened," she said at length, "to
make you think such things."
"You are right." He nodded sadly: "I have come
to my senses. These months I have spent in almost
daily association with you have been the happiest of
my life. I have been too happy . . . They can't con-
tinue: I love you too well."
The plumed fan was arrested, the woman's eyes
grew wide and dark, her breathing quickened. "What
do you propose?"
"I think you must know . . ."
"Tell me!"
He entreated her with haggard eyes. "Since we
may not marry, what else can I do but go my way?"
"No!" she impatiently countered. "There is some-
thing more in your mind than you have told me."
"Neither there nor in my heart."


The Lone Wolf Returns 11
"You are keeping something back for fear of fright-
ening me: some danger threatens you—!"
"Nothing."
"Nevertheless you have reason to fear—"
"I have always to be on my guard. Misfortune
visits in strange guises, and most often unannounced.
For myself, I am accustomed to that; I do not greatly
care. But for you—that is another matter."
The fan resumed its weaving. After a pause Eve
said: "If you must go, so be it. But 'whither thou
goest, there go I'—"
"No!"
"It matters not how far," she nodded. "What is it
to me where I live, so I am with you?"
"Can you require that of me?"
"I!" she cried, startled—"of you?"
"You are a woman of this world, Eve. Do I not
know? Can I forget how you were when I found you,
buried to life in that isolate chateau half a hundred
years to the south of Paris? Can I not see what a
change has come over you in these few months of your
own New York?"
"Of you—"
But he would not listen. "You were born and bred
to breathe this atmosphere. Can you ask me to doom
you to exile in some hole or corner, some place so lost
that the whisper of my ill fame will not find it? Some
kraal in South Africa! an iron hut in the Australian
bush!—where else? . . . You would die of such a
life, or live only to learn to hate me."
"Never that. Love outweighs all."


12 The Lone Wolf Returns
"So we tell ourselves, so we believe, till we are
required to lay down for love even our self-respect.
Could I retain that—could I forgive myself—knowing
I had robbed you of all that had made life fair for
you, and left you only the happiness of giving up your
life for love?"
"Selfishness speaks there . . ."
"Vanity, the father of selfishness, is present in every
human affair. It is not a pretty thought; but men and
women in this world are made that way. There is my
vanity, too, to be thought of." Lanyard had a wry,
apologetic smile. ^'Consider that you have never
known a want you could not gratify out of your pri-
vate means; while I am a penniless adventurer, a man
living from hand to mouth, today on a modest pension,
tomorrow on God knows what . . ."
"At last!" said Eve de Montalais: "it is that, then,
your pride that stands between us."
"A man with less is not a man whom you could
love."
She made no direct reply, but after a time sat up
and began to gather round her the folds of her wrap.
"I am a little weary," she told Lanyard. "There
is more to be said than you have said, my Michael!
but not now, not here . . . Perhaps another night
. . . Please take me home."


II
HE breath of that November night was soft and
warm, its dim sky distilled a pensive rain with
frequent lulls. Burnished by the daily traffic of eighty
thousand tires the wet pave of the Avenue resembled
a broad channel of black marble veined with pulsing
gold. Over churning tides of after-theatre travel the
police towers watched like great gaunt goblins, stab-
bing the misty mirk with angry eyes, ruby, emerald,
and amber.
The brougham drifted sedately with the northbound
press; its pace all too swift notwithstanding, its jour-
ney too quickly accomplished. Yet neither of the lovers
had spoken since leaving the Ritz. Only when the
grey palisades of the Hotel Walpole loomed ahead,
spangled with the gilt of a thousand windows, the
woman stirred in her corner and sat forward, peering
with fond concern into the face of the man, giving him
her hands.
"Be patient with me, Michael," she said. "It isn't
that I can't read your heart—I know, my dear, I
know! . . . All you said just now was true enough;
but all the truth has not yet been said. Neither are
my wits as ready as yours. You must give me time to
think. You will, I know."
"I am altogether yours," he answered. "Your hap-
piness is all that matters."
13


14 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Not all, not my happiness alone, but yours as
well—ours!"
She swayed into his arms; for the first time Lanyard
knew her lips . . .
He came to himself, after a fashion, standing bare
of head beneath a lamp-fringed canopy of bronze and
glass, formally touching her fingers and mouthing
polite phrases as to a woman he barely knew . . .
Absurd!
And on her part only enriched colour and a height-
ened radiance in her eyes betrayed the revolutionary
work of those too few moments.
"Tomorrow," he heard Eve saying . . . "No:
not tomorrow; I'm dining with the Druces. The day
after. Call for me early, Michael: we'll have a long
drive and a little dinner somewhere in the country."
Her look said so much more, he had no certain
knowledge of what he stammered in response. But
presumably the phrases served. She nodded gayly,
ran up the steps. He watched her whisk through the
revolving door and fade away from view in the hot
illumination of the foyer before it occurred to him to
cover his head. And his stare was vacant when her
chauffeur delayed him with a respectful query; to
which, after a moment, Lanyard replied, many thanks,
but he felt more in the humour for a stroll than to be
motored to his rooms; he wouldn't mind the drizzle.
The goblin eyes blinking from red to green, he
profited by the interruption of up-and-down-town
travel to cross to the west side of the Avenue before
settling into stride for a walk of a mile to his modest


The Lone Wolf Returns 15
lodgings; in a mood of exaltation too rare to counte-
nance return of those misgivings to which he had that
night for the first time given voice, those doubts and
fears by which his lonelier hours of late had none the
less been ridden, ever since he had learned that his
love for Eve de Montalais had grown to be a passion
passing his strength to withstand.
He had done his best but had essayed the impossible
tonight, in attempting to make her see that marriage
between them were for her a madness. He admitted
that, now he knew of her own confession that she loved
him. Now with the music of her incomparable voice
still chiming that assurance in his memory, now with
the fragrance of her lips lingering on his own, Lan-
yard knew that whether he had fought well or ill to
save her from himself, the fight was lost; one course
alone remained to him: to do away with every hin-
drance to the firm establishment of Eve's happiness,
to reorganize his life so that every objection to their
union might be compromised, every echo of the past
silenced, every embarrassment of the present com-
pensated.
A task to tax the wits and heart of a superman,
contemplation of it in that hour affected Lanyard with
no dismay: armoured in and inspired by her love he
could not fail.
In this ecstatic temper only subconsciously aware of
his surroundings, the man was measuring off a round
four miles an hour, southbound on the sidewalk over
across from the Cathedral, when that occurred which
brought his head down from the clouds: the sema-


16 The Lone Wolf Returns
phores signalled for another suspension of traffic on
the Avenue, and an instant later a taxicab inexpertly
driven at unlawful speed passed Lanyard crabwise,
skidding wildly on the greasy asphaltum as its chauffeur
threw out clutch and applied brakes to avoid crashing
into a file of cars debouching from West Fiftieth street.
An old-fashioned, gloomy contraption, of that high-
chested hobbledehoy type now fast becoming extinct,
the cab performed two complete revolutions like a
skittish monstrosity chasing its tail, and toppled peril-
ously as if minded to try a somersault as well, before
it brought up, rocking and growling, broadside to the
curb.
From its black pocket of a body noises of embit-
tered expostulation were issuing in a woman's voice
and a foreign tongue; neither the voice of a gentle-
woman nor language such as one would employ with
whatever provocation. It was to Lanyard, indeed,
like a souvenir of younger years to hear that broad-
side of vituperation couched in the argot of the thieves'-
kitchens of Paris. And at a discreet distance he paused,
diverted, humanly hoping for the worst.
At the same time a badly rattled driver, compre-
hending no word of the abuse cascading upon his head
but sensitive enough to its tone, tumbled off his box
and made for the door, vainly seeking to make an
authentic brogue audible. But his hand was no sooner
lifted to its latch than the door flew open in his face
and a lovely lady in resplendent attire and a towering
fury bounced out and—a figure of flaming colour in
the blue-blacks of the nocturnal scheme—addressed


The Lone Wolf Returns 17
herself to the man with gesticulation so vividly ade-
quate to her temper that instinctively he lifted both
arms to guard his features and, stumbling over his
own heels in panic retreat, sat down with suddenness
and shocking force.
No national spirit is so exquisitively responsive as
that of the French to comedy of physical misadventure.
When the chauffeur coming into contact with the side-
walk gave up his breath in one vast "OufI" his fare
forgot to be angry, bit a blistering epithet in two, and
incontinently passed into such spasms of mirth that she
was fain to lean her finery against the dripping side of
the cab lest her limbs refuse to sustain her. And while
she shook and held her sides and uttered peal upon
peal of laughter—heedlessly permitting her wrap to
fall open and expose to the inclement air the most
cynical of decolletages framing flesh quite literally
crusted with jewels—the chauffeur was scrambling to
his feet in a rage that threatened to rival her own late
transports, and a crowd was beginning to gather, too,
as crowds will in New York, upon any provocation, in
any street, at any hour of any day or night. On which
accounts Lanyard reckoned in time to interfere.
Hurriedly consulting the taximeter, he stepped be-
tween the two, fished a bill from his pocket, and thrust
it into the palm of the chauffeur before this last com-
prehended what was happening.
"None of that!" he enjoined, raising a peremptory
voice to drown the snarl with which the man was tun-
ing up to repay abuse and derision with the drippings
of his own vocabulary. "You've got your fare, so


18 The Lone .Wolf Returns
clear out before this officer whom I see approaching
hands you a summons for careless driving. D'you
hear?—not another word!"
And as the chauffeur, cowed by this appearance of
authority, shut a gaping mouth and stumbled to his
seat, Lanyard turned to the woman and caught her
arm in a firm grasp. "Come, Liane! compose your-
self. I'll find you another cab."
The woman responded with a moment of stupefied
silence during which her eyes incredulously rounded,
then with a squeal of rapture—"Lanyarrrrd !"—and
an impulsive offer to enfold him to that generous
bosom, which only clever footwork foiled.
"Michael!" she cried in French—"my Michael! Of
all men living the one whom I most have longed to
find!"
"Observe that the lost is now found," he advised
in the same language, smiling. "But be so amiable as
not to keep me waiting here in the rain. Pull yourself
together, Liane—your wrap as well, if you don't want
to catch cold in your chest—in most of it, at least."
In a more urgent voice he added: "Can you not under-
stand your danger? Cover yourself, Liane—you are
mad to expose such treasure on a public street at
night!"
"What flattery!" the woman demurely responded.
Nevertheless she did as he bade, clipping her cloak at
the throat with one hand while the other slipped be-
neath his arm. "I am so overjoyed to find you again,
my dear friend, I do not believe any evil could affect
me. But come . . ,**


The Lone Wolf Returns 19
She tugged him out of the grinning ring that had
begun to form, and away from the kerb, where the
grumbling chauffeur was settling into place behind his
wheel, and where Lanyard had been preparing to
beckon in the first vacant cab.
"But you want another taxi—" %
"Not I, monsieur. It is but a step, where I am
going. As for this rain, it is nothing"—she held out
a hand—"already it has ceased. And surely I can
count upon your gallantry . . ."
He consented with entire good-nature—"As ever,
irresistible, Liane !"—and found himself with the wo-
man on his arm rounding the corner and moving
toward Sixth avenue. "New York, by what appears,
has the honour of entertaining you once again . . ."
"Again? But still, if you please."
"Proving the weakness of deductive reasoning," he
observed. "When one saw you in a hired cab, one
inferred you were merely a bird of passage."
"But I have never been away, monsieur, never since
that luckless voyage landed us here last Spring. I find
it amusing, this great town; as Paris is no more, alas!
thanks to the War and the poor health of the franc.
... As for that infamous taxicab, I ask you: what
is one to do when one's own car is, as these quaint
Americans put it, laid out?"
"Laid up."
"Laid out or laid up—it is all the same."
MI believe you," Lanyard chuckled—"at my age,
Liane."
He was aware, but seemed not to be, of sidelong
scrutiny, keenly inquisitive.


20 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Is it that you begin to find yourself bored with this
America, Michael?"
"Ah!" he parried—"I must not complain."
"The old life calls, eh?" (So she construed that
i equivoque as confirming her surmise; which argued an
anxiety to do so. But why?) "You miss something,
my friend, in this land where more things are verboten
than in Germany before the War?"
"I miss my youth," Lanyard admitted with a rueful
laugh—"those misspent years!"
"You would have them back?" she inquisitively de-
manded. "What for? To misspend them all over
again?" He smiled illegibly; she laughed in impish
glee. "I felt sure of it, when I thought of you today,
Michael, I said to myself: By this time he will be well
weary of this country of atrocious cookery, ice-water,
and virtue with the indigestion."
"You, then, knew I was still here?"
"One was so informed."
"One has, it seems, friends of whose kind interest
one was unaware."
"It was a little bird that told me."
"An idle little bird, if it finds no better gossip to
twitter than the tale of my dull days."
"It is truly as I said!" She squeezed his arm. "You
are bored. So, then! a little patience and you will call
it, as I do, a happy chance that threw me in your way
tonight."
"Impossible that one should esteem it otherwise."
Lanyard smiled down at the woman, openly taking
advantage of the illumination of a street lamp to study
her.


The Lone Wolf Returns 21
In her day reputed the most beautiful demi-mon-
daine in Paris and the most dangerous, the old allure
of her charms, by this tricky light at least, seemed
unimpaired; while that she was still dangerous one
had memories of events by no means stale to prove.
And now what diablerie was she fostering behind that
mask of fair, seductive flesh? what mischief had she
in mind that required his co-operation?
An innate flair for anything in the nature of an
intrigue stirred in its sleep, lifted its head, sniffed the
wind with eager nostrils . . .
They came to Sixth avenue, where the hand under
his arm gently led him south again, in the shadow of
the Elevated.
"A long 'step' to this rendezvous of yours, Liane."
"Patience: we are nearly there. Or is it that your
soul has grown so deeply ennuied even I—r"
"To the contrary, as you see, I am coming along
quite peaceably. I have but one regret."
"And that?"
"It desolates me to know we must part so soon."
"This way, impostor." Guiding him across the
Avenue, the woman held on toward Broadway. "What
hour is it, do you know?"
"A quarter to one," Lanyard reported on the advice
of his watch.
"Then I am fifteen minutes beforehand—"
"That is to say, practically unsexed."
"Furthermore, my friends are never on time. Why
not keep me company while I wait, and enjoy a little
raking over of old scandals?"


22 The Lone Wolf Returns
"It would be a pleasure, Liane; but are you sure—?"
"We are arrived."
The woman was diverging toward a dwelling which
wore an aspect of too much decorum; a modest estab-
lishment with just two windows on the street level dif-
fusing a benign, domestic glow through heavy draperies
behind stout bars of iron, and a tight-lipped look about
the solid door at the back of its mildly lighted vestibule.
Coupling the atmosphere of its environment, which
was both tawdry and rowdy, with certain rumours that
had come to his attention, the reticent expression of
the house with the rank of private cars that lined the
kerb before it, Lanyard hazarded with an accent of
distaste: "The Clique Club, eh?"
"You are acquainted?"
"With its reputation only. One hears that the per-
centage of mortality resulting from indulgence in its
bootliquor is unusually low."
"Do you suspect me of luring you here to poison
you, Michael?"
"Not while you remain incontestibly the mistress of
weapons so much more deadly than moonshine. More-
over, it is written in my horoscope, curiosity will be
the death of me."
Liane giggled, planting a finger on a push-button
which, Lanyard remarked, she located without look-
ing. By way of response a horizontal slit opened in
the upper half of the door, and through this a pair of
anonymous eyes appraised them, Lanyard without fa-
vour, but otherwise in respect of the woman. Then
with an impressive clanking and thumping of chains'


.The Lone Wolf Returns 23
and bolts the door swung wide, disclosing an entry, the
habitat of a good actor in the make-up of a movie
gangster, functioning as Cerberus to this institution of
post-Prohibition New York. And passing through a
second and less formidable door, Lanyard and the
woman entered a reception-hall of voluptuous embel-
lishment and devilishly subtle illumination.
Here, in a chair before an ardent grate, a youthful
odalisque was lounging with crossed knees, a waspy
young blood of the town was holding a pose of ele-
gance, with elbow on the mantel, and both were engag-
ing in conversation an overmannered person distin-
guished by ornate evening dress and the beak and bald
head of a bird of prey; a scene that might readily have
passed for one in a private home but for wild squalls of
jazz drifting down the broad staircase and the vibration
of the floor above with the rhythmical shuffle and stamp
of many feet.
At sight of the newcomers the hairless Wonder with
a perfect bow excused himself to his gossips, and glided
forward, smirking, shaping deferential shoulders, giv-
ing his bleached talons a good air-wash.
"Mademoiselle Delorme!" he uttered in accents of
intense gratification.
"Good evening, Theodore," Liane gave him in
French, with friendly nonchalance. "Monsieur Mor-
phew is here so soon, no?"
"Not yet, mademoiselle. But before long, beyond
doubt . . ."
"The usual room? We will go up and wait . . .
But I believe you do not know Monsieur Lanyard,
Theodore."


'24 The Lone Wolf Returns
"The Clique Club is so unfortunate," Theodore de-
plored, saluting Lanyard profoundly, "as not to num-
ber monsieur among its members."
"And very stupid of it, if you ask me," Liane re-
torted. "See that he gets a card, will you."
"You are much too gracious, Liane; I shall have so
little use for a guest-card—"
"What are you talking about, Michael? Guest-
card! I should say not. I am proposing you for mem-
bership. It costs nothing when one is properly intro-
duced. Eh, Theodore?"
"As mademoiselle says ... If Monsieur Lanyard
will be so kind as to let me have his address . . ."
With a shrug, Lanyard gave in. After all, it didn't
matter. . . . And when he had duly been entered in
the club register, Theodore escorted the newly fledged
member to the foot of the stairs, upon which Liane
Delorme was picturesquely waiting, and there turned
both over to the guidance of a highly polished sub-
altern.
Wide doorways on the first landing disclosed a chain
of rooms dedicated to the rites of jazz, liquid, instru-
mental, terpsichorean. Calculated to remind a crusad-
ing clergyman of Belshazzar's Feast, they reminded
Lanyard of almost any Broadway restaurant at mid-
night.
On the second landing, however, a break in the dance
music below made audible the heartless laughter of
an ivory ball coquetting with a roulette wheel behind
one closed door, while a waiter emerging from another
room permitted a glimpse of a private supper party


The Lone Wolf Returns 25
at the peak of its lead, an interior tolerably Ho-
garthian.
Lanyard exchanged amused glances with Liane.
"Busy little club," he commented, "but wants re-
christening—Clique's far too conservative—should be
known as the Liberal."
At the rear end of the hall another door admitted
to a prettily furnished supper room, where a table was
being laid and, in coolers on a side-table, several bot-
tles of champagne were enjoying their last rest. Re-
questing the waiter in attendance to open one of these,
Liane shrugged out of her wrap—which Lanyard took,
though he kept his overcoat on by way of pointing an
intention to stop for a few minutes only—and having
made herself at ease upon the club fender of an open
fire, clinked her glass to Lanyard's.
"To you, my too-long lost friend, and to me—to a
friendship that has known too many interruptions and
must henceforth know fewer."
He toasted with cool ambiguity: "To a rapport
more complete."
With professional ease the waiter faded from their
knowledge; and the woman dimpled bewitchingly, pat-
ting the broad seat of the fender.
"Come, sit by my side, Michael: let us talk."
"With all the pleasure in life," he assented, placing
himself at a discreeter distance than she had designated
—"on one condition, my dear Liane: none of your
artfulness."
"Michael!" she reproached, delighted—"you don't
trust me?"


26 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Really, you read one's mind."
"Don't be alarmed, my old one." She made a face
to match her tone of mocking reassurance. "I was
mad about you once, I don't deny; but that was long
ago. Besides, you little know me if you think it likely
I would lay myself open to be scorned another time."
"I little know you," Lanyard conceded, "whatever
I may think; and I've got the quaintest notion, Liane,
that the less I learn about you the more likely I am to
enjoy ordinary peace of mind. Be a good child, now;
treat me as you would a father, not as you might a
prospective papa. Tell me: what the deuce is your
little game?"
"'Game'?" she repeated, petulant. "Michael, my
dear! your manners aren't as good as they were when
your morals were worse."
"Admit that you didn't ask me up here to amuse
yourself with innocent flirtation."
"That is true."
"Admit, then, I am pardonably curious."
"Well! if you will have the truth . . . When I got
over being foolish about you, Michael . . . How
long ago it seems!"
"A good half-year."
"I found I was still fond of you. When all's said
about that sad affair, you know, it was I who was
rather a devil, and you who were rather a dear. I owe
you for more than one good turn I never did anything
to deserve."
"I wish I might think your associates in that adven-
ture had come out of it as well disposed."


The Lone Wolf Returns 27
"That absurd Monk, that clown Phinuit! Why
bother your head about such canaille?"
"And what has become of the precious pair?"
Plump but pretty shoulders described a gesture of
indifference. "I know nothing of them since that day
w^en last you saw us all together. I was out of
patience with them then—as I think you guessed.
When you dismissed us, I sent them packing. And
you?" Lanyard, smiling, shook his head, and the
woman cheerfully consigned reminiscences to the grave
of those dead yesterdays where they belonged. "Tell
me now about yourself."
"What is there to tell?"
"Much, monsieur. You are a mystery."
"I am flattered . .
"That's all blague," the woman scoffed. "You know
I'm interested in all you do. I've just told you so, and
why." She endured his quizzical scrutiny with a frank
and friendly countenance, more entertained than irri-
tated by his mistrust. "Surely, my dear! you've not
been misbehaving so badly you need hesitate to confide
in me."
"But a little while ago you were telling me my life
was dull."
"You don't find it so?"
"You might the tale of it. Tastes differ."
"One is to infer your conduct has been good?"
"Irreproachable—by certain standards."
"Mine?" Liane twinkled—"or yours?"
"Yours certainly, since I hesitate to bore you."
"But you are provoking! And not at all polite."


28 The Lone Wolf Returns
Lanyard looked apologetic and said nothing. "Very
well, then! if you won't answer when I ask you pret-
tily, I presume I shall have to tell you all I know about
yourself."
Lanyard pricked up his ears. "The little bird
again?"
She solemnly nodded. "It is industrious; every day
it brings me news of this and that."
"And it tells you what of this?"
"Enough to make you what I styled you a moment
ago: a mystery."
"Is it permitted to ask, how a mystery?"
"Assuredly. To begin with: It is now six months
since you settled down, apparently to vegetate in this
dry climate."
"You distrust appearance?"
"Always when so far out of character. It is not
like Michael Lanyard to become static all at once.
But here you live quietly, in the cheapest decent lodg-
ings, you have no callers, you write few letters, you
see no friends—but one—and spend no money on your-
self; only when you are seen in public with Madame
de Montalais you seem indifferent to expense. You
see—?"
"I see one thing plainly: that it were well to put
salt on the tail of that little bird and wring its damned
. neck."
"But you do not see that this is, in one of your his-
tory, questionable conduct? It is too much like rever-
sion to your old days, when you lived solitary and
worked alone, making the name of the Lone Wolf


The Lone Wolf Returns 29
famous in Europe by following out your theory that a
thief to be successful should have no friends to betray
him."
"But today!" Lanyard remonstrated—"the source
of this astonishingly detailed and accurate information
about my modest habits can hardly have failed to
assure itself that they are all well within the law."
"On the surface. As were those of Michael Lan-
yard, the world-known Parisian connoisseur of art be-
fore the War. But the cunning that made it possible
for the Lone Wolf to maintain that disguise, unsus-
pected by the keenest criminal investigators of the
Continent, has not necessarily failed with years. To
the contrary: what you did once you should be able to
do again, with even greater success, since you are now
older, less hot-headed, more astute. Let me tell you,
my dear friend!" the woman concluded with an unmis-
takable note of earnestness: "they have great respect
for your abilities, those who are interested in you
today."
"It seems, then," said Lanyard after a reflective
pause, "I have to thank you for a warning."
"I would be an ungrateful wretch did I fail to give
it, who owe you my life twice over at least."
"I think we may call that debt cancelled if you'll
answer one question."
"No questions!" A jewelled hand flashed a sign of
refusal. "I have said more than was wise as it is."
He persisted: "You won't tell me—?"
"Ask me nothing, my friend," Liane Delorme
begged. "But use your wits; they will tell you more


30 The Lone Wolf Returns
than I dare, perhaps—fond as I am of you, Michael—
they are more to be trusted. Remember, with women
like me self-interest is ever at work. Perhaps it may
be that the pleasure of seeing you tonight has made
me for once self-forgetful, another time may find me
less indiscreet."
"I will be careful," Lanyard said gravely, "not to
expect too much . . ."
With equal gravity she responded: "Then you will
be wise."
"And now," he concluded, rising, "your friends
can't be much longer; I mustn't put them to the trouble
of kicking me out."
Liane put out a hand and caught his. "But I wish
you to stay. I promise you will be welcome. My
friends will be delighted. One of them in especial I
am anxious you should know. You will find him well
worth your while, one of the most interesting men in
New York, quite a social power in his way."
"In his way—?"
"A quiet way, my friend, but a very real one."
There was more meaning in her eyes than in her
words. Lanyard hung in doubt. Impossible to mis-
read the sincerity of her desire to have him stay on.
But her motive?
He had delayed too long. Voices sounded in the
hallway, the gay accents of a woman predominating.
Then the door opened; five people entered.


Ill
HE first was a pretty young thing, piquantly fair
and petite, with glowing face and merry eyes, at
sight of whom Lanyard felt warranted in breathing an
invocation to his prophetic soul. For now, it seemed,
chance or predestination was making good that pre-
sentiment to which he had confessed during supper at
the Ritz.
This brilliant little shape of life in the dark rectangle
of the doorway had been conspicuously one of that
party whose forbidding host had excited the aversion
of Eve de Montalais and, in himself, half-formed fore-
bodings. The man at whom she was so gayly gurgling
over her shoulder, who wore both topper and grin at
the doggish slant which becomes the author of an
amusingly improper wheeze, was the little chap of the
weazened wise mask whom Lanyard privately reckoned
court jester to the Sultan of Loot. The latter in very
person bulked in the shadowy background provided by
the corridor, a presence vast but vague, betrayed by
the baleful burning of fire opals as a thunderhead on
a summer's night may remain more sensed than seen
till a glimer of lightning lends definition to its loom.
Behind lurked a fourth, a figure still more indefinite.
And in the rear a gleam picked out the hairless poll of
Theodore, inclined at a servile angle.
Discovering Liane Delorme all at once, the lady on

31


32 The Lone Wolf Returns
the threshold registered rapture, then ran to her with
glad hands extended, her slight little body bearing an
extravagant wrap of Russian sables with a grace as
dainty as a fay's. Lips that didn't need paint to point
their pretty contours bubbling joyously—"Darling
Liane! You luscious thing! How we've missed
you!"— she precipitated herself into Liane's arms
and printed inconsiderate kisses upon that studiously
composed complexion. When she permitted Liane to
disengage and present Lanyard, he received an almost
disconcertingly cordial smile and a tiny hand on which
blazed in insolent beauty what he rated at first glance
the most exquisite emeralds he had ever seen, who in
his day had been somewhat an amateur of emeralds.
"Mr. Lanyard!"—Liane's introduction had been
effected in English—"I am so glad to know you. It
seems to me Liane knows all the interesting people—
and nobody else."
"One trusts very truly you will not find need tonight
to revise that recommendation," Lanyard returned,
bowing low over the little hand. He added with an
enquiring inflexion, because he wasn't sure of having
caught the name aright: "Mrs. McFee . . ."
"Mrs. Folliott McFee," Liane supplied with an ac-
cent on the Folliott that supplemented something to
this sense: 'Surely you must know that magic name!'
All the same, Lanyard didn't.
"Folly for short," laughed Mrs. McFee—"Folly to
my friends." Then she gave a small make-believe
shriek because the sable robe was being lifted from
her shoulders by the gentleman of the carven coun-


The Lone Wolf Returns 33
tenance. "Peter Pagan! how you startled me . . .
You know Peter Pagan, of course, Mr. Lanyard:
everybody does."
"Business of initiating you to the inner circle of
certified somebodies, Mr. Lanyard," quoth Mr. Pagan
solemnly, shaking hands, and leaving Lanyard with a
feeling that no man had a right to look like that if he
couldn't extemporize more tellingly.
But Liane had dropped a hand upon his sleeve and
was drawing him aside to be made known to the Sultan
of Loot.
"Mr. Morphew: Mr. Lanyard . . . You must
become good friends, you two who are both such good
friends of mine."
This impressive figure of the immobile and livid face
and the hooded eyes, this Mr. Hugh Morphew, met
Lanyard with a manner subtly allusive beneath a show
of non-committal courtesy. His smile was grave, reti-
cent and fugitive, a solitary cat's-paw flawing the sur-
face of plumbless deeps; his few words were carefully
chosen and cast in polished periods by an orotund voice:
he was honoured to make the acquaintance of Mr. Lan-
yard and hoped that he, as a friend of Mademoiselle
Delorme, would be so very good as to become one
of their number for the remainder of the evening . . .
But in the cast of his eye, the clasp of his hand, in an
undertone his accents had as he pronounced these per-
functory phrases, there was meaning intended to be
seized by Lanyard only, and which the latter inter-
preted much to this effect: 'We have been waiting a
long time for this meeting, you and I. But patience:


34
The Lone Wolf Returns
all in good time we will come to understand each other
perfectly.' . . .
To this finesse Lanyard returned no acknowledge-
ment of any sort. Indeed, he contrived to appear
unconscious of it, to interpose an amiably modest man-
ner between the scrutiny of those inquisitive but illeg-
ible eyes and a nature anything but easy to impress.
He had lived so long in this world, in the course of a
busy life had had so much to do with pretentiousness,
that secretly, and the innuendoes of Liane Delorme to
the contrary notwithstanding, he inclined to suspect
Mr. Morphew of being a pompous fraud, a character
of the utmost commonplaceness skulking behind the
consequential false front of a jerry-built personality.
He might be mistaken; but for the present the best he
was disposed to grant Mr. Morphew was suspended
judgement.
Moreover, at the moment, Folly McFee was de-
manding his attention on behalf of one Mr. Mallison,
another whom Lanyard remembered having noticed at
the Ritz.
This final introduction was transacted without cas-
ualties but without eliciting crows of ecstasy from
either party. Mr. Mallison, indeed, was unaffectedly
off-hand in his attitude, he didn't care a damn who
knew that, to him, Mr. Lanyard was an interloper, an
upstart, nobody in particular. A gesture for which
Lanyard was grateful since it enabled him to recipro-
cate the sentiment that shaped it without feeling remiss
in the matter of everyday urbanity.
Tall and gracefully made, Mr. Mallison aired eve-


The Lone Wolf Returns 35
ning clothes and hair of a lustre seldom to be observed
this side of the cinema screen, His speech had the
tune of the educated English, or something nearly
resembling it, his manners were silky and sulky, he
practised a furtive smile down his nose as if he knew
something but wouldn't tell, he had mastered a killing
trick or two of the eyes for use in talking to women.
And when it transpired, on the word of Folly McFee,
that Mally tango'd quite too divinely, one felt that one
needed to know no more. ... A person of impor-
tance, if you asked Lanyard, solely as he might upon ^
occasion shine with incandescence borrowed from the
genius of Mr. Morphew, upon whom Mallison seemed
assiduous to fawn in season and out.
Having offered the apology for his intrusion which
custom prescribed and accepted the equally conventional
assurance that all hands were ravished to have the priv-
ilege of welcoming one so well sponsored, Lanyard
settled down to use his wits, as Liane had recom-
mended, and find out for himself what this party was
all about; if, indeed, it was 'about' anything more un-
usual than mankind's native predisposition to make
light of whatever laws there be.
Certainly, if its members had foregathered at the
Clique Club for any purpose other than the desire to
drink forbidden wine upon premises of unholy repute,
it wasn't at first blush apparent. Nobody was hungry,
every soul present having sat through a supper else*
where and earlier. On the other hand, everybody was
famously thirsty with the exception of Mr. Morphew,
who was alleged never to drink, and Lanyard who,


The Lone Wolf Returns 37
my life observed is never to gamble with borrowed
money."
"Your credit is good, Mr. Lanyard," Morphew
tersely put in.
"Rule Number Three: Never play on credit . . .
I am deeply sensible of your courtesy, Mr. Morphew,
but really I will be most grateful if you will permit me
to sit by and look on merely. The novelty of seeing
myself in such a role at a roulette table will be com-
pensation enough for the self-denial."
"As you prefer . . ." Morphew politely gave in.
But before long he made occasion to exchange with
Liane a look clouded with meaning, which Lanyard
wasn't supposed to see and which, so far as anybody
else knew, he didn't, who was busy just then refilling
Folly McFee's glass and making amused response to
the coquetry with which the flushed and laughing face
turned up to his was instinct.
All the same, Lanyard wasn't missing much that
went on, Life had too well trained his faculties to over-
look nothing that fell within their range and to be wary
of dismissing as necessarily negligible the most minor
and incidental details of any affair. He was begin-
ning now to experience glimmerings, to perceive that
this curious post-midnight party was 'about' something
after all. Even before intercepting that mute consulta-
tion of eyes he had felt tolerably satisfied that a com-
munity of interests existed between at least three of
those present, that Liane, Morphew and Pagan were
playing prearranged parts in complete mutual sym-
pathy. It was just possible that Mallison, too, was


38 The Lone Wolf Returns
privy to their confidence; but one rather doubted that,
Mallison impressed one as more likely to prove a tool,
a pawn, a wage-loyal henchman, than a peer of this
interesting confederation.
The arguments he had adduced in his endeavour to
make Eve understand that he was not a man of the sort
she ought to marry began to seem inspired. Liane had
never brought him here simply to gratify a vagrant
whim. Neither had her half-veiled hints been idly ut-
tered, concerning those nameless acquaintances of hers
who were taking such a profound if gratuitous interest
in Lanyard, and the one whom she most wanted him to
meet, either Pagan or Morphew unquestionably, and
who was "quite a social power ... in a quiet way."
Because the woman was well-disposed, for old sake's
sake she had chosen to warn him, if in her own oblique
fashion, to be on his guard with those two in whose
minds, Lanyard hadn't any manner of doubt, the proj-
ect for some time had been forming of inveigling him
into some shady sort of association with them, for
purposes of their own in the last degree questionable.
Undoubtedly they had taken a good deal of pains
to inform themselves as to Lanyard's circumstances.
How they expected to be repaid for their trouble re-
mained for him to find out. Hardly out of his pocket;
knowing as much as Liane had revealed, they probably
knew more, even that the debacle of his unregenerate
days had left him without resources other than the
half-pay attaching to an extended leave of absence from
the British Secret Service, and that the not inconsider-
able cost of squiring about New York a woman of


The Lone Wolf Returns 39
fashion had brought him to a pass where he might no
longer refuse to face the prospect of being unable
to pursue that sweet association for sheer inability to
finance it—he who had been accustomed to waste
money away as freely as in more spacious times he had
been wont to appropriate it! A plight the more painful
in that it was one he couldn't possibly confess to the
woman he loved. He had gone tonight as far in that
direction as pride would let him. . . .
Since, then, it was manifestly not pence they wanted
of him, this precious pair, this Morphew and this
Pagan, it followed that they wanted something less
tangible but probably in the upshot more profitable,
something which they might have found themselves in
a position to require of him if he could have been
induced to play roulette on credit and had lost—as he
made no doubt he would have lost. Setting aside all
question of the honesty of the wheel which Morphew's
huge hands were manipulating with notable deftness,
the observation and experience of this inveterate gam-
bler of other days had convinced Lanyard that luck
seldom or never favours him to whom its smile is a
matter of life or death.
Not that he conceived the game to have been planned
with any idea of inducing him to play and lose, his
attendance had come about too fortuitously. To believe
that was to believe Liane had foreseen that he would
be marching down Fifth avenue at half an hour after
midnight and had deliberately arranged to have her
cab skid and land her on the kerb a dozen pacea ahead
of him.


40 The Lone Wolf Returns
No: by every sign acceptable to a fairly sophisti-
cated intelligence, tonight's affair had been plotted for
the sole if highly problematic benefit of Mrs. Folliott
McFee. Not in all likelihood for the purpose of fleec-
ing her at a friendly little game, though she was punting
with feverish imprudence, broadcasting her bets and
losing very considerable sums without perceptible care.
Lanyard was prepared to credit Messrs. Morphew and
Pagan with capacity for any degree of knavery; but
their evident affluence and their association with Liane
Delorme inclined him to believe that they were in this
instance up to some mischief at least a cut above
crooked gambling. Liane, thorough-paced rip that
she was, had in the course of a highly chromatic career
feathered her nest too warmly to be reduced to the role
of tout to a brace of common sharpers.
What, then, could their purpose be with this engag-
ing and indiscreet young person? If only one knew a
little more about Mrs. Folliott McFee it might be
easier to guess.
In the absence of such specific information, a study
of her as she was tonight would do no harm, might
quite possibly prove rewarding.
Indisputably a fascinating creature. Divested of
her sables, disclosed partially in but largely out of a
flimsy piece of impudence which the cynical Rue de la
Paix had fashioned to serve as an evening gown, she
cut a figure the most sprightly and sightly heart could
wish: an animated miniature of extreme loveliness,
abandoning herself to the spirit of play with the heed-
less vivacity of a charming child; drinking a bit more


The Lone Wolf Returns 41
than she should, perhaps, while she watched her stakes
unfailingly fall to the lot of the croupier's rake, but
plaguing Mallison with a lightly malicious wit that
struck him speechless and left him more than ever
sulky, bartering pungent banter with Mr. Peter Pagan,
cheeking the taciturn Morphew till he smiled perforce
his rare begrudged smiles, and never for an instant
forgetting that Lanyard was likewise an unattached
and personable male; and all with a delicate air that
robbed her most flagrant audacities of any suggestion
of poor taste and made her seem strangely out of place
in that ring of hard and selfish faces, in that overheated
private room of an establishment whose every purpose
was illicit, in that demoralizing atmosphere drenched
with perfume of wine and scent of perfumed flesh . . .
Strangely out of place, appealingly helpless for all her
bravado: a child among thieves and worse . . .
But it were a thankless job to waste solicitude upon
her: if Folly couldn't take care of herself, nothing
was more certain than that the way to earn her abiding
dislike was to try to take care of her. In New York,
as every elsewhere in the haunts of men of means
beyond their needs or native ability to spend with good
grace, no novelty at all inheres in the spectacle of such
flighty young women, amusement-mad and gifted with
too much freedom from responsibility, going devious
ways with dubious guides. And the worst of it is, as
a general rule it's nobody's business but their own.
Now in course of time, when a waiter entered with
yet another cooler wherein two more bottles were lux-
uriously cuddled in cracked ice, the open door admitted


42 The Lone Wolf Returns
stimulating strains of the orchestra downstairs; and
forthwith Folly McFee concluded she'd had enough of
roulette, at least temporarily.
"Perfectly damn' rotten luck!" she declared, push-
ing back her chair and jumping up. "I'm for a dance,
maybe that will change it. Who wants to take me
down for this tango? Mally?"
"You can't have Mally," Liane Delorme informed
her with serene decision. "You've had him all evening
at the Ritz. It's my turn now. Take Peter Pagan:
he's a better match for you, dear."
"Pick on somebody your own size," Pagan para-
phrased, leaving his place with an alacrity that fore-
stalled Lanyard's intended response to the glint of
invitation in the eyes which Folly promptly had turned
his way. "If you refuse me, Folly, you doom me to
dance with Liane; and that always makes me feel like
an enterprising tug waltzing the Mauretania round the
North River."
Liane retorted with one of those characterizations
so dear to the Parisian heart, a deadly insult but abso-
lutely meaningless when rendered into English; and
Pagan proved a certain lack of finish in his cosmopoli-
tan education by merely looking blank as he mentally
translated her remarks. After which he bowed cheer-
fully to the traducer of his lineage and ambled off with
Folly's hand under his arm; while Liane rose and
playfully tweaked Mallison out of his chair by an ear,
to his indignation, for he had been winning and nat-
urally wanted to go on playing as long as his luck
lasted.


The Lone Wolf Returns 43
"It isn't that I really want to dance," she coolly
explained to Morphew and Lanyard as she haled Mal-
lison to the door, "but simply to give you two time to
get acquainted . . ."
Morphew lumbered heavily after her and set the
spring-lock by way of providing against interruption.
"Intelligent woman, Liane," he approved, unsmiling,
as he returned to his chair.
"As to that, monsieur, one is entirely of your mind."
Lanyard helped himself to a cigarette and looked
civilly receptive under the weight of Morphew's direct
and thoughtful stare.
"Odd," that one considered, "we never happened to
meet before this, Mr. Lanyard."
"Think so?"
"Noticed you about town often enough."
"But does not the fact that our paths have sometimes
crossed prove we travel widely different courses?"
"I'm not so sure . . ."
"Not ?" Lanyard murmured, lifting the brows
of polite surprise.
"I've got a notion, if the whole truth were known,
you and I would find we were travelling in much the
same direction ... in the dark."
"Monsieur does much travelling in the dark?"
"Guess you know what I mean," Morphew's gravity
was lightened by a twinkle of genial cunning. "When
I say 'in the dark,' I mean, of course, the side of our
lives we like to keep covered up."
"This is most interesting," Lanyard protested with
animation. "You are going to tell me about that side
of your life which you like to keep covered up?"


44 The Lone Wolf Returns
"No fear." The twinkle broadened into a grin.
"Guess I'll let you guess at that, same as I have to
guess at yours."
"I hope very truly monsieur does not so waste his
time. I can assure him, if his guess-work were to
flood with light every nook and byway of my life,
what he would see would not entertain him."
The lines running from Morphew's nostrils to the
corners of his mouth took on a sardonic set. "I doubt
that, Mr. Lanyard."
"My ways of life are very quiet."
"I believe you. Still, I doubt I'd be bored."
"Possibly not," Lanyard conceded. "One is able to
judge only by what one has seen of you in public,
monsieur; which leads one to believe your interests
centre by choice in light-hearted young people, not
sober-sided, steady-paced elderlies like myself."
"Oh! as to that, I take folks as I find them," Mor-
phew alleged. "And I find 'em all interesting, one
way or another. Now yourself . . ."
"But I do assure you I am not at all interesting."
"Point of view," Morphew contended. "I'll say
you've had an interesting life."
Lanyard gave a good-natured shrug. "After all, it
is the only life I have . . . But monsieur, I am sure"
—his manner grew moderately pointed—"would find
it tiresome."
"I don't," Morphew bluntly countered.
"Then I am honoured—I presume—to learn you
have concerned yourself in respect of my modest self."
"I know a lot about you," Morphew admitted—
"past and present."


The Lone Wolf Returns 45
"Yet you tell me you think my present mode of life
intriguing!"
"Intensely."
Lanyard laughed. "Monsieur will pardon my sug-
gesting that his sources of information, however busy,
are unreliable if they have led him to believe my
small affairs worthy of his attention."
"Point of view again." Morphew dismissed argu-
ment with a flirt of a massive hand. "Be that as it
may: I've been anxious to meet you to ask you to
help me answer a certain question."
"Indeed?"
"Perhaps it would be more nearly right to call it a
problem in psychology."
"I am all attention."
"It's like this . . ." Morphew had resumed his
customary guise of profound solemnity. "What I want
your expert opinion on, Mr. Lanyard, is the question
of whether it's possible for a man . . . say he's a
friend I'm taking a personal interest in . . . a man
who built up a pretty warm criminal reputation for
himself, when he was younger, and then hit the saw-
dust trail apparently for keeps . . . Whether it's
possible for such a man to keep going straight in the
face of every possible incentive to set up shop again
as a master crook."
"Such incentives as ?" Lanyard enquired with
every symptom of intelligent interest in a hypothetical
instance.
"Well! let's suppose this man I've got in mind, this
friend of mine, has fallen for a woman who's got


46 The Lone Wolf Returns
everything, social position, any amount of coin, all that
sort of thing. Say she's in love with him, too, and
they want to get married. But my friend is broke, or
next thing to it; and he's got a touchy sense of honour
—sometimes reformed crooks have, you know—so he
can't marry the woman, because that would make him
look like a fortune-hunter if she ever found out he
hadn't a red cent; and he can't let on to her he's stoney,
because then she'd insist on marrying him to support
him, and he'd feel like a yellow pup; and he can't do
a quiet fade-out, either, because then she'd think he
hadn't been on the level with her, and that would break
her heart. That leaves him where? He's got to
have coin to go on with, and the only way to get it is for
him to remember some of the things he's been trying
to forget. He's living in a city where there's more
money and loot lying round loose to be picked up for
the taking than any place else in the world, and where
police protection against burglary and highway robbery
is a positive joke, where a good fat safe is cracked or
a hold-up pulled off every other day, and ninety-nine
times out of a hundred the crook's never caught. So
you see our friend has just what I said he had, every
temptation to come back strong in the house-breaking
line, and practically nothing to fear—except maybe
that the woman he's crazy about will tumble sometime
to how he's getting his dough. And that's the prob-
lem that's been puzzling me, Mr. Lanyard: What's
our friend going to do? . . . What would you do?"
Lanyard thoughtfully ground out the fire of his cig-
arette in an ash-tray and got up. "I imagine," he


The Lone Wolf Returns 4'
said quietly, "your anonymous friend would do pre-
cisely what I mean to do, Mr. Morphew. He would
gee well weary of tedious beating about the bush, but
at the same time would remind himself that the obliga-
tions which devolve upon a guest constrain him to
overlook, for the present, a piece of damnable im-
pertinence. He would for that reason take his hat and
coat and stick—as you see me taking mine—and finally
his departure—as I shall take mine, monsieur, pausing
only to advise you . . ."
Lanyard stood over Morphew, plunging a stare ugly
with anger into the apathetic and unreadable eyes of
his host. "At the first sign, Mr. Morphew," he said,
"of any disposition on your part to meddle further in
my affairs, either in person or through an agent, I will
seek you out, wherever you may try to hide, and break
this stick, or a stouter one, over your contemptible
back. Be advised: hands off!"
He waited an instant to hear what Morphew might
have to say to this defiance; but since the man said
nothing, made no sign of any sort, his huge body
betrayed his mind by not so much as the stir of a
finger or the wince of an eye, Lanyard at length wheeled
on a heel and went to the door. Only then, as his
hand closed on the knob, Morphew spoke, employing
the same conversational tone he had all along em-
ployed.
"One moment, Mr. Lanyard. It may interest you
to know I own this joint. When I got up to shut that
door a while ago, I gave Theodore the high-sign.
Ever since then four of our waiters, the toughest


48 The Lone Wolf Returns
rough-necks on the pay-roll, have been stationed in the
hall. If you try to leave without my say so, you'll be
badly beaten up; and if you try any rough stuff in here,
my finger's on the push-button that will call them in
... I am not done talking with you yet, my friend.
So now, if you'll, attend to me and keep your temper
in hand, I'll show you just where you stand."
He rested, watching Lanyard with no perceptible
emotion in his bleak, pale eyes; and when, after mo-
mentary consideration, Lanyard turned back from the
door, the man resumed with the same minatory com-
posure, leaning forward with an arm on the table and
rapping out his points with a thick forefinger.
"Whether you've gone back to thieving or not, Lan-
yard, I don't know yet. I guess you have. If you
haven't, you've thought of doing so. Whether or not,
you've got to come to me. I've got you"—Morphew
turned his hand palm up and closed the fingers slowly
into a tremendous fist—"there! You can marry your
Mrs. de Montalais as soon as you like, but only with
my consent; and you won't get that for nothing. If
you're back at your old game, you'll come across to
me, fifty-fifty. If you marry the woman for her
money, my share will be half of all you squeeze out
of her."
"And"—Lanyard's fingers were itching to bury
themselves in that fat throat and shake the beast till
he cried for mercy—"and if I refuse?"1
"I'll advertise you to all New York—or anywhere
else you try to live with your wife—as the Lone Wolf
back at his old dodges. I'll prove you committed


The Lone Wolf Returns 49
every burglary of any size this Town has known in
the last three months; and if that isn't enough, Tll
plant others on you. You'll come across to me, my
dear sir, or go up the River for life."
"Such being the case," said Lanyard, shortening his
grip on his stick, "I think I would as willingly go up
for manslaughter—if killing a blackmailer comes under
that head."
As he spoke the door was thrown open, a vast din
of angry and excited voices seethed up from below,
and Theodore appeared on the threshold, chattering,
wringing his talons in antic terror.
"Monsieur!" he stuttered between clashing teeth—
"Monsieur Morphew! The police! A raid! A raid!"


IV
TT7ITH an incoherent bellow of rage and astonish-
™ * ment Morphew reared up out of his chair, over-
turning it. But that was all: instantaneously something
like a paralysis of consternation laid hold of him, so
that he stood with huge hands fluttering feebly and
knees quaking under his great weight, the light dim-
ming behind the bleached flesh of his face, jaw sagging,
stunned eyes seeking the doorway.
Through this last, a froth of noise upon the uproar
from below, came sounds of scuffling and voices angry
and expostulant. In the corridor a confused move-
ment became visible, a knot of figures fell apart, Liane
Delorme broke through and, ghastly with pallor be-
neath her war-paint, strode breathlessly into the room,
one strong sweep of a perfecdy modelled arm brush-
ing aside the gibbering Theodore.
Mallison followed her closely, like a fearful child
tagging at its mother's skirts, with the slinking tread
and something of the witless look of a cowed animal
peering through the sleek surface of his comeliness.
And that this look little belied his state of mind was
shown by the nervous shy he gave when Lanyard, sat-
isfied there was nothing to be gained by more delay,
made for the door.
The corridor was choked with people, flustered wait-
ers mixed in with guests whom the alarm had routed
50


The Lone Wolf Returns 51
out of the other private rooms, all aimlessly milling
about and questioning one another with vacant eyes
and babbling tongues. Nobody offered to stay Lan-
yard, on the other hand nobody offered to get out of
his way. Pagan passed him, plying busy elbows, his
habitual leer erased. Of Mrs. McFee one saw nothing.
Half-way to the head of the staircase Lanyard found
the jam on the narrow landing too dense to be pene-
trated other than by main strength and ill will; and,
crowded against the banisters, waited for some general
movement that might permit him to proceed.
Looking down over the handrail, he commanded a
view of the first landing, the stage of a more lively
scene, as guests and employees stampeding for the
stairs were checked, hustled, and bullyragged by a
squad of police, readily to be picked out by their flat-
topped blue caps, and by a number of plain-clothes
men, quite as conspicuously badged by those weather-
worn derbies lacking which self-respecting police de-
tectives consider themselves no sportsmen in their atti-
tude toward lawbreakers.
Hectoring cries of authority, plain profanity of an
unimaginative citizenry, and yammering of hysterical
women manufactured a clamour that drowned out all
lesser noises till somebody near Lanyard used stentor-
ian lungs to suggest the roof as a possible way of
escape; upon which advice the whole body of people
surged toward the third flight of stairs.
In that moment, while clinging to the banister-rail
to keep from being swept along, Lanyard heard his
name shrilled in a pathetic voice, and saw Mrs. McFee


52 The Lone Wolf Returns
struggling in the rush, the violet eyes darkly dilate with
dismay, the mouth of a child tremulous with appeal.
Immediately he threw himself toward her. Tripped
and jostled till her strength began to fail, his arms
alone saved the young woman from going down under
those panic feet. Then putting his shoulders to the
press, he dragged her out of the worst of it and into
the semi-shelter of a jog in the wall, in front of which
he planted himself as a shield.
"Now we're all right," he cheerfully said. "Take
it easy, and don't worry."
"But I can't help worrying!" the small person
objected, clutching the lapels of his dress coat with
importunate hands. "How can I, if I'm going to be
arrested and put in jail and brought up in a police
court with all these awful people? The shame of it!
the disgrace!"
"If you'll trust to me," Lanyard suggested, "I
think I can promise you none of those calamities will
happen."
"But how can you?"
"I'm sure I know a way . . ."
As he spoke, with no warning whatsoever the house
from cellar to roof was drenched with darkness ab-
solute.
This thing befell with fine dramatic force. Where
there had been deafening hubbub and confusion to con-
found the readiest, a lull of a long moment succeeded,
during which every voice was hushed and nobody
stirred. In this breathing-spell Lanyard found time to
surmise what had happened: that some creature of


The Lone Wolf Returns 53
Morphew's, acting possibly on inspiration but more
probably in conformance with a plan preconcerted
against such emergency, had disconnected the master-
switch of the electric lighting system. . . . But Folly
McFee whimpered in new fright and caught him closer
to her; and in another breath the turmoil revived in
redoubled volume.
Lanyard lifted his hands to the woman's and gently
disengaged them.
"There, Mrs. McFee! don't be alarmed. They've
simply shut off the lights to give the people the police
are after a chance to escape. If you will calm yourself
and have a bit of faith in me, I'll get you out of this in
a jiffy, and no harm done."
"But my wrap! I can't go without my wrap, I'd
catch my death! And my handbag, too— I left it on
the table!"
"I'll find them for you; it won't delay us a minute."
Lanyard swept the darkness roundabout with an
extended hand, which encountered nothing; then, satis-
fied that the landing was now practically deserted,
drew the woman out of her corner and coolly wound
an arm round her.
"I'll be better able to avoid losing you, this way,"
he explained. "Hope you don't mind."
"No-o," said the small voice—"I think—I believe
I rather like it."
For all that unmitigated mirk Lanyard experienced
no difficulty in finding the way back to the right
door.
"Hello?" he called, pausing on its threshold. "I've


54 The Lone Wolf Returns
got Mrs. McFee here, safe and sound. Somebody
make a light: I noticed candles on the mantlepiece ..."
Nothing answered him. But this he had discounted.
Releasing the woman and bidding her stop where she
was, he struck a match whose flare revealed a room
deserted.
Folly McFee gave a gasp of astonishment: "Where
are they?"
"In sound American slanguage," Lanyard replied,
crossing to the fireplace and applying the flame to the
wicks of moulded and tinted candles which decorated
its mantel—"our friends have flown the coop. You
see, Morphew just now told me he is the proprietor
of these premises; so I'm inclined to suspect the lights
were put out to permit him to make a clean getaway.
. . . But here's your wrap." He draped the sable
robe round the woman's shoulders. "And your bag,"
he added, finding the same where Folly had left it.
"But I don't understand," she protested, lifting a
bewildered small face to the light.
"I never imagined you would, Mrs. McFee," Lan-
yard laughed, catching up one of the candlesticks and
turning to the door. "If you had understood, I fancy,
you would never have come here tonight—or any night
—that is, unless it's a fad of yours to live up to your
nickname. . . ."
The words failed on his lips as he pulled up, finding
the door blocked by a long, lanky shape of humanity
that lounged with one lazy shoulder against the frame;
the derby of tradition on the back of his head, hands
buried in the pockets of an unbuttoned overcoat—one


The Lone Wolf Returns 55
of them, Lanyard hadn't any doubt whatever, holding
an automatic pistol ready.
"The devil!" he involuntarily exclaimed.
"Devil yourself, Monseer Lanyard," a nasal drawl
retorted. "Funny! I was thinking only a day or so
ago, it was about time for you and me to be bumping
into each other again. And now, lo and behold you!"
"It can't be!" Lanyard incredulously cried, stepping
nearer and holding his candle high.
"Wrong again: it can," drawled the humorous voice
—"it is!"
Candlelight ruddled the lineaments of a North
American Indian in the skin of a paleface: narrowed
eyes beneath a lofty brow, a thin nose with a prominent
bridge, lantern jaws and high cheek-bones, a wide slit
of a firm-lipped mouth.
"Crane!" Lanyard cried in unfeigned pleasure.
"Never forget anything, do you?" Mr. Crane com-
plained in mock bitterness. "Here I was counting on
being able to put something over on you, because you
hadn't seen me for five or six years—Nineteen-Seven-
teen, wasn't it?—and you'd ought've forgotten my
map entirely . . . Swell chance!"
He surrendered to Lanyard's friendly grasp a bony
hand of tremendous strength. "Well!" he groused
on: "I guess here's where I miss another opportunity
to put you out of harm's way—in the hoosegow—
because you wouldn't be so gosh-awful glad to see me
if you'd been doing anything real naughty."
"My dear man!" Lanyard informed him: "if every
American detective discovered even a tenth of your de-


56 The Lone Wolf Returns
ductive intelligence, New York's crime wave wouldn't
be a ripple. . . . That aside, I'm more glad to see
you than I can tell."
"I bet you are," Crane assented with ironic intent.
"And I'll risk another safe bet, too: The sooner you
see the last of me for tonight, the gladder you'll be."
"Why waste time trying to deceive you? I don't
deny it."
"Then I reckon it'll make you and your lady happy
if I fix it up pronto for you to get away without being
mugged and finger-printed and all? Well: I'm a
sworn servant of the law, and by all accounts you're
a desperate bad lot; but come along . . . Only you
got to promise you wont tell on me."
Crane sighed and straightened up, only to have Lan-
yard drop a detaining hand on his arm.
"A moment, my friend, by your leave. My personal
gratitude I hope to prove when you are less occupied.
But Mrs. McFee, too, would like to thank you. . . .
Permit me, Mrs. McFee: Mr. Crane . . .".
"Mrs. Folliptt McFee?" Crane quickly queried,
with a glint of interest, and engulfed in his grasp her
absurdly insignificant hand. "How do you do, ma'm?
Pleased to meet you."
"It's awfully sweet of you," Folly replied with trust-
ing eyes and that hint—no more—of an infantile lisp
which she had found so serviceable in dealing with
certain types of men. "I'm sure I'd be frightened
silly if it wasn't for you and Mr. Lanyard."
"Nothing for you to be scared about," Crane reas-
sured her. "It's the outfit runs this joint we're after


The Lone Wolf Returns 57
tonight, not the general public, that great body"—his
tone took on the authentic twang of a public orator—
"of simple-minded, plain-living, law-deriding hooch
hounds that forms the sturdy backbone of this glori-
ous nation. . . . Listen to 'em yap!" He grinned
broadly, cocking an appreciative ear to the racket.
"No, ma'm: even if you and Monseer Lanyard hadn't
run into me, the worst that could happen to you would
be to have your names and addresses taken, so's you
could be called as witnesses in case we caught some-
body. Which," Crane added with conviction, "I don't
much think we will, not tonight, not since they put the
lights out on us. That's a brand new dodge, and a hot
one. After this gets out, I reckon we'll have to carry
our own lighting-plant along with us for night work,
like in the movies."
He was piloting Mrs. McFee down the corridor
while thus discoursing, in the wake of Lanyard's
candle. Now, at the head of the stairs, he nodded
to a patrolman stationed there, and the three were
permitted to descend.
The raiding party had by this time found other
candles and brought a few electric torches into play,
by whose meagre illumination the business of winnow-
ing out the goats from the sheep was proceeding in the
rooms which had been reserved for dancing. But of
this Lanyard and Folly McFee caught only the barest
of glimpses in passing; for Crane, obviously in haste
to discharge his friendly duty and be rid of them,
passed them with all possible expedition through the
house. At the front door he nevertheless held them
for a moment.


58 The Lone Wolf Returns
»
"There's more or less a mob outside," he stated;
"but I guess you won't have much trouble finding a
taxi. T,hat is, unless Mrs. McFee came in her own
car . . ." But it transpired that Folly hadn't.
"Then I guess it's good night folks! Only, I'd like
one word with you first, Lanyard, if Mrs. McFee won't
mind . . ."
Drawing Lanyard aside, Crane dropped his voice:
"Still with the B. S. S.? Doing anything special over
here?"
"No: in fact, nothing. On leave of absence."
"I see. Where you stopping?" Crane noted the
street number on the back of an envelope. "I'll look
you up as soon's I get time. Like to have a chin about
this and that."
"Do, my friend; and don't delay too long."
Passed by Crane through the police lines but pur-
sued by jeers and cat-calls of the crowd which had
collected, Laynard and Folly hurried round the corner
into Sixth avenue, and there by good fortune picked up
a cab almost at once. This they would hardly have
needed but for the drizzle, which had set in again:
Folly McFee, it appeared, lived in the lower Fifties,
just east of Park avenue. Learning which, Lanyard
hushed a sigh of content: the shorter the drive, the
better. This latter part of his evening had exhilarated
him not at all; and though the woman at his side
was charming enough in her way, nothing would please
him more than to see the last of her and be free to
trot home to his dreams of Eve. In fact, he found
himself surprisingly sleepy, considering the hour, which,


The Lone Wolf Returns 59
according to a street clock on Fifth Avenue, still lacked
a few minutes of two: so swift had been the transaction
of events since his meeting with Liane Delorme.
A plaintive sigh from the other corner of the seat
recalled him.
"You are tired, madame?" he enquired of the small
figure huddled in that magnificent panoply of fur.
Passing lights fitfully revealed a petulant face to
match Folly's tone: "More disgusted than tired. I'm so
awfully grateful, and you've been such a perfect brick
to me, Mr. Lanyard, it makes me sick to have you
think me a little fool."
"But I assure you, I do not think anything of the
sort."
"You forget what you said, back there in the Clique
Club, about it's being a fad of mine to live up to my
name."
"That would be unforgiveable were it open to the
construction you put on it, madame. What I said
was"
"I know perfectly well what you said, at least what
you meant: that I ought to have known better than
to be there at all. But I don't see why."
"I should like very much to tell you, if I might with-
out seeming to presume . . ."
"But I want you to tell me, Mr. Lanyard; I don't
want to do things that make people think it's a fad
of mine—"
"Surely you will be generous enough to forget those
stupid words. Otherwise I shall never forgive my-
self."


60 The Lone Wolf Returns
"I will ... on one condition." A suggestion
of the impish spirit of an hour ago revived in Folly's
smile. "And that is, that you explain what you meant
—right away."
"But it is so late, madame; and already we are
arrived."
The cab was in fact halting in front of one of those
interesting bijou residences into which modern archi-
tectural ingenuity has, in the more fashionable quar-
ters of New York, remodelled so many of the brown-
stone and brick abominations of decades dead and
gone.
"Late?" Folly McFee expostulated, dilating eyes
of naive perplexity. "Why, it's only two—the shank
of the evening! Plenty of time to come in and have
a drink and a cigarette and tell me how to save myself
from the pitfalls of life in a great city."
And Lanyard, helping the woman to alight, with a
bow and a smile covered yet another sigh of senti-
mental desolation. There was no refusal possible
without rudeness . . .
By the time he had paid off the taxi Folly had used
a latch-key, and was unfastening the throat of her
wrap in the little entrance-hall.
"Do leave your coat and hat here, Mr. Lanyard—
and make believe you're not bored to tears with the
prospect of spending half an hour alone with a pretty
woman who thinks you're rather nice."
"You do me injustice," he gravely returned. "This
pensive silence you misconstrue is solely due to wonder
what your family will think . . ."


The Lone Wolf Returns 61
"The Saints be praised!" cried Folly McFee, rolling
up devout eyes—"I haven't a suspicion of family, more
than a maiden aunt who insists on living with me for
the looks of the thing. But if it's information you're
fishing for, it's only fair to tell you I'm a lone, lorn
widdy woman, and have been for years. So you
needn't be hoping for a jealous husband to pop in un-
expectedly and save you from my wiles."
She danced to the back of the hall, a bewitching
smile bidding him follow.
The room was a study and lounge in which easy
chairs faced the embers of an open fire and windows
heavily draped contributed to a cosy and informal
atmosphere.
Here, measurably less bored than he thought he
ought to be, Laynard accepted a cigarette and a high-
ball compounded with such Scotch as he had not tasted
since leaving England, and made himself comfortable
on one side of the fireplace while on the other Folly
curled herself up in an interesting pose with feet
beneath her.
"And now," she announced with a speciously de-
mure look—"I'm waiting to be told why I'm aptly
nicknamed."
Smiling, Laynard put his glass aside. "Perhaps
one reason is because you recklessly invite into your
house at ungodly hours a man about whom you know
nothing whatever."
know enough from the way you've behaved to-
night. Besides, anything I want to know about you
I can find out from Liane any time I care to ask."


62 The Lone Wolf Returns
Folly made a provoking face. "You'll have to do
better than that!"
Lanyard shrugged. "I see there's no fobbing you
off . . . Is it permitted to be plain-spoken?"
"Please. Even if it hurts, I'm sure I'll find it
refreshing . . ." With malice Folly amended:
"coming from a man." She pursued with all the
solemnity of a sagacious infant: "You know, Mr.
Lanyard, it's all tosh, this effort you men are forever
making to persuade the world you're the straight-for-
ward sex. Maybe you are among yourselves, but with
women—!"
Her eyes called Heaven to witness to the subtlety
of masculine methods with women.
"I agree entirely, madame. But do you claim more
for your own sex?"
"Ohl there's never any doubt about a woman's
mind. She may not always say what she means, some-
times she doesn't just know how, but one always knows
what she means."
"One always knows she means business . . ."
"Precisely." Folly giggled joyously. "You know,
Mr. Lanyard, you're too delightful. I'm afraid you're
a dangerous man."
Lanyard bowed his appreciation of this flattery.
"You begin to believe, perhaps, you may have been a
trifle injudicious in asking me in . . ."
The young woman agitated a dissentient head till
its bobbed brassy tresses fluffed out like an aureole.
"Not the least bit!" she declared. "You could be
dangerous and not half try; but so long as you persist


The Lone Wolf Returns 63
in being a gentleman, why should I fear? Here am
I using all my girlish arts to make you flirt—and all
you can think of is how quickly you can read me the
lecture I need and escape. Ain't that the truth?" She
relished in elfin mischief Lanyard's momentary loss
of countenance, then abruptly made a prim mouth, and
sat with modest eyes downcast to folded hands.
"Well!" she sighed: "go on . . ."
"No," Lanyard demurred; "I don't think I shall,
if you don't mind. I begin to see my mistake: you
can very well be trusted to take care of yourself."
"But if I insist? It isn't good manners to start
something without finishing it."
"A man might better rush down a steep place into
the sea than take a dare to advise any woman . . .
But evidently I may as well resign myself to being
thrown out instead of taking my leave in orderly
fashion."
"Anything, so long as you get away some time
soon!" Folly lisped, without looking up: "I under-
stand you."
"To begin with, then: You are an extremely at-
tractive young woman."
"Yes, I know. But is this part of the lecture? or
have I at last succeeded in rousing you?"
But Lanyard wouldn't be diverted. "And appar-
ently," he persisted, "too well supplied with money
to know a real care."
"Simple sloughs of the wretched stuff," Folly frankly
admitted.
"That sable coat you wore tonight can't have cost
less than twenty thousand dollars."


64 The Lone Wolf Returns
"How little men know! It cost thirty."
"The jewels you're wearing would ransom a profi-
teer's wife—"
"Why not? I'm a profiteer's widow."
"Those emeralds alone must be worth a hundred
thousand."
"You do know emeralds, don't you, Mr. Lanyard?"
"Altogether, taken as you stand, you'd probably
assay a quarter of a million. Yet you complacently
riot about town and without a moment's hesitation
trust yourself in resorts like the Clique Club, rendez-
vous of the rarest set of rogues New York can boast
—and your host its self-confessed proprietor!"
"Oh! everybody knows Morphy's the King of the
Bootleggers; but nobody except Revenue officials con-
siders a bootlegger a criminal nowadays."
"Possibly not. Still, I fancy, society is less kindly
disposed toward professional blackmailers, notorious
demi-mondaines, and jewel thieves of international
ill-fame."
"Mr. Lanyard! you don't mean to say—" Folly
McFee sat up and made shocked eyes.
"I am one whose lot it has been to see a vast deal
of this world, madame. I give you my word I
recognized representatives of all those classes at the
Clique tonight.v
The woman illustrated a little thrill of delicious
dread. "Of course, as to blackmailers, I've nothing
to fear—"
"Pardon: but can you be sure? In the absence of
any fair excuse for bleeding their victims, blackmailers


66 The Lone Wolf Returns
mitted reasonably; "or perhaps he's keeping his hand
in order to have a good trade to fall back on if ever
anything happens to upset the Eighteenth Amend-
ment."
"You aren't serious, Mr. Lanyard?"
"Madame: I know."
"How can you?"
"Your American courts permit a witness to refuse
to answer leading questions on the ground that his
testimony might tend to incriminate or degrade."
"You mean Morphy's trying to blackmail you?
What a wicked life you must have led!"
"I don't deny that; but rest assured, I admit it only
to convince you I am not guessing. You will do well,
believe me, madame, to avoid hereafter Mr. Morphew
and all his crew."
"Mally and Peter Pagan and Liane Delorme?
And they've been such funl What's the matter with
Liane?"
"Madame Delorme," Lanyard said slowly and with
meaning, "I have known many years. Her friend-
ship I value highly. I should be very sad to do any-
thing to deserve her enmity."
"You are provoking!" Folly declared—"forever
tantalizing one with hints. I presume you mean me to
understand she's the notorious demi-mondaine you
mentioned."
"Has Liane told you nothing about herself?"
"Oh heaps! but—"
"Then I beg you to excuse me from saying anything
that might, possibly through my ignorance of the true
facts, conflict with her confidences."


The Lone Wolf Returns 67
"Beast!" said Folly McFee with feeling, and made
him a face of pique. "I suppose it's no use trying to
pump you about that international jewel thief ..."
"None whatever, madame."
"Of course, you mean the Lone Wolf."
"But why that one?"
"Peter Pagan was talking about him at the Ritz
tonight, told us there was a rumour the Lone Wolf
had convalesced from his reformation and was on the
loose again, right here in New York."
"I have no doubt," Lanyard agreed with entire
tranquillity, "there is such a rumour . . . And
now that I have duly functioned in my paternal role,
my dear young woman"—he rose—"now I have told
you all I know—"
"Anybody that believes that—!"
"I fancy you will be relieved if I bid you good night."
"I think you're perfectly damn' horrid," said Folly
McFee, rising and extending her hand. "First you
spoil my evening, then you run away."
"You will forgive me one spoiled evening, I know,
if anything I may have said preserves to you the beauty
of your tomorrows."
"I won't forgive you for running away from me,"
the young woman promised darkly, holding fast to his
hand and unleashing 80 c.-p. eyes to do their devastat-
ing work. "You can be rather a dear when you
choose; but I don't think it's a bit fair of you to rob
me of four friends and not replace them with one."
"But I trust very truly—" Lanyard began.
A peremptory buzz of the doorbell interrupted.


V
'OLLY McFEE whipped her hand away with a jerk,
her round eyes consulted Lanyard's, in that fur-
tive tone which people seem instinctively to adopt in
times of apprehension, irrespective of the possibility
of being overheard, "What can that mean?" she de-
manded—"at this hour of morning! Who can it be?"
"One or more of our fancy friends, undoubtedly,"
Lanyard replied with comforting absence of agitation
—"calling to enquire if you got safely home—with,
I'll wager, some transparent excuse for having left
you to shift for yourself during the raid."
"But," the woman.boggled, with a frown, "I don't
want to see them . . . And all the servants are
in bed . . ."
"Then I'm afraid there's no way out of it." Lan-
yard moved toward the hall door as the bell sounded
another and more imperative stridulation. "Let
me—
"No," Folly decided, darting ahead—"I'll let them
in. But I do wish I didn't have to."
"Then remember," Lanyard enjoined: "better not
give them any reason to suspect I have warned
you . . ."
"I understand." She paused an instant, nodding

68


The Lone Wolf Returns 69
back to him. "I'll do my best. But promise me one
thing: you wont leave me alone with them."
He promised, a gay flirt of that fair head thanked
him, Folly vanished. And in another moment Lan-
yard heard her give little cries of elation whose ring
was as true as one could wish: "Liane! Peter!
how sweet of you both!" And the listener gave a
nod of thoughtful approbation.
The dry accents of Mr. Pagan replied: "I told
Liane you were all right, but she wouldn't hear of
going home without stopping to make sure . . ."
"Oh I'm all right, of course! Mr. Lanyard brought
me home. Thanks to him we didn't have the least
trouble. But do come in, both of you, and tell him
how you got out of it."
Liane was heard to consent, stipulating, however,
that they would stop only a moment; and the three
entered the study to find Lanyard at a wide window
in the rear wall, thoughtfully peering out through its
tear-blinded panes.
"Ah! ah! my friend," Liane saluted him in lively
imitation of the tone she might have used to a child
caught in mild mischief; and wagged a forefinger of
reproof. "What are you up to there?"
"Trying to make out whether or not it's raining,"
Lanyard serenely explained, dropping the draperies
his hands had parted.
"You might have waited to enquire of us."
"Judging by the state of mind you and Monsieur
Pagan were betraying when I saw you last," Lanyard
retorted, "it seemed fair to doubt whether you'd pay


The Lone Wolf Returns 71
"How so?"
"Why! if I were in Monsieur Morphew's shoes—"
"You'd rattle," Pagan asserted.
"What a literal mind you have, my friend! Well;
but if I were, like that good soul, head of an institu-
tion so exposed to police attentions, I would be at
pains to provide myself with more than one secret
avenue of escape—when the lights were out."
"You've got to make allowances for Morph,"
Pagan blandly declared; "he hasn't had your early
advantages."
"What do I see?" Apparently possessed by the
belief that some sharp distraction was indicated if open
hostilities were to be averted, Liane pounced upon
Lanyard's barely tasted highball. "And this hour I
have been dying of thirst!" She gulped with gusto,
making eyes at Lanyard over the glass. "Yours, my
friend? Never mind: Folly will fetch you another."
"Do with a drink myself," Pagan volunteered.
"No, don't you trouble, Mrs. McFee, I know the way."
He ducked briskly out into the hall and was pres-
ently heard in the dining-room making melody with
glasses and siphons and ice.
Liane set aside an empty glass, crossed to Lanyard,
and petted his cheek with the authentic professional
touch. "You mustn't mind Peter, mon coco," she
cooed affectionately in French. "He presumes, per-
haps, but then he's a privileged type."
"Mind him?" Lanyard questioned in a tone that
implied he found the thought weird. "Vermin, my
dear Liane, were ever my pet aversion. If you set


72 The Lone Wolf Returns
any value on this insect, be good enough to keep him
out from under my feet."
"Every time you do that," Folly grumbled in Eng-
lish, "you make me sick, to think of all the youth I
wasted studying what I fondly thought was French."
Liane turned with a murmur of self-reproach, and
gracefully posing on the broad arm of the easy chair
passed a fair arm round Folly's even fairer shoulders.
"Forgive me, my pretty. Michael and I knew each
other so long ago in that dear Paris of before the
War, it goes against Nature to converse with him in
any tongue but French. . . . Ahl my old one," she
lamented to Lanyard. "Those old days! will we
ever know their like again?"
Mistrustful of her drift, Lanyard briefly replied:
"God forbid!"
Timely to catch the sense of these latter lines, Pa-
gan returned, his countenance of a clown radiant with
good nature restored by the fragrance of four eight-
ihch glasses on the tray beneath his nose.
"The dilute laughter of the peasants of Scotland,"
he announced, presenting the tray to Folly and Liane
—"guaranteed to cure every heartache born of pining
for a past that, if the truth were known, probably
wasn't half so pleasant as the present—Prohibition
and everything!" He presented the tray to Lanyard
in turn, then, determined at all costs to win the centre
of the stage, struck an absurd declamatory attitude.
"To tonight and tomorrow," he toasted—"to hell with
yesterday! Why waste good time mourning that
which is immortal, anyway? All of yesterday that


The Lone Wolf Returns 73
mattered we carry with us, imperishably enshrined in
our hearts. After all, what is the present more than
the past plus? What man was yesterday, he is today,
with something adcrd. Eh, Mr. Lanyard?"
"Or subtracted."
"I disagree"—Pagan made him a formal salute—
"with all due respect. Man adds daily to the sum of
his experiences, which sum he is; but he can never
subtract from that sum one iota of what he has been.
The peasant who becomes a financier remains at heart
a peasant still."
"A pretty thought," Liane interpolated with earnest
interest. "But, to a woman, somewhat unsettling, is
it not?"
Pagan stared: "How unsettling?"
"Whyl by what you tell me, I find myself still a
virgin."
"Don't be depressing. Here am I, being deuced
entertaining and eloquent and profound, philosophiz-
ing on matters of the spirit, while you*. . . Bah!"
quoth Pagan. "But to continue: Give the financier
who was a peasant respite from his cares, and whither
turns his heart? Back to the stage of his young days;
if he takes a vacation, he spends it in overalls down
on the farm." *
"And yours, one presumes, are devoted to making
records for the gramophone?"
"Don't interrupt, Liane. ... Or take, say a crim-
inal who has abandoned his misguided ways and
become a respected member of the community. How
will he relax? Eh, Mr. Lanyard?"


74 The Lone Wolf Returns
"I will not presume to instruct monsieur on a point
concerning which he is undoubtedly better informed
than I."'
Liane exploded a "Ho!" of pure joy, and Pagan
shot Lanyard an envenomed glance which he was swift
to mask with his well-worn smirk. "To be frank,"
he generously admitted, dropping into a conversational
tone, "I had the Lone Wolf in mind. They say the
fellow is here, in New York, now, and up to his old
games again. I confess the thought rides my imagina-
tion, the puzzle of it. By all accounts, he went straight
for years. How, then, came he to backslide? Were
the claims of the past too strong? or the demands of
the present? Does he steal today deliberately for
gain? or involuntarily at the dictates of some subde
and deathless instinct?"
"But monsieur has so many entertaining theories,
surely he will produce one to cover this hypothetical
instance."
"I don't know. Nature is too strong for us, she
laughs at all our efforts to revise her. We may repress
and inhibit our native instincts as much as we will,
but in the end, as a rule, they have their way. The
Psychical Research Society reported, not long ago,
the case of a man in whom the influence of instincts
developed in early professional life were so strong
that, buried though his criminal past was unddr a
dozen years of law-abiding life, he reverted to old
practices from time to time without knowing what he
did; that it to say, in spells of amnesia, during which
his first personality, the natural man, broke through the


The Lone Wolf Returns 75
veneer of the secondary or artificial personality with
which he had so painstakingly overlaid it. A safe-
breaker and jewel thief like this Lone Wolf. Interest-
ing if this were another such case."
"Interesting, indeed, monsieur, if conceivable."
"But think a minute, and I believe you'll admit it's
easily conceivable. Imagine such a man, with wits
and senses all habituated by years of rigorous training
to serve his predatory nature. Because he's trying to
live an honest life today doesn't mean that those old,
ingrained habits have necessarily ceased to function.
To the contrary, I imagine, they are always at work.
As he goes to and fro and meets men and women who
invite him into their homes—in their ignorance of his
former identity, of course—inevitably, I maintain, such
a man will always be observing and valuing and formu-
lating plans of attack—subconsciously, perhaps, but
still and for all that making use of the faculties he
trained in other days. I can believe he never visits a
home of any consequence without taking away with
him a comprehensive scheme for burglarizing it. As
you or I might, Mr. Lanyard, if either of us had the
education of the Lone Wolf, say in respect of this
very house. . . . And then some night, when he's
least dreaming of anything of the sort, the old Adam
reasserts itself, without or with his will and cogni-
zance—"
Perhaps a little frightened by the gleam in Lan-
yard's eyes and the tension of his lips, Liane bounced
up vivaciously, ran to Pagan, and clapped a palm over
his mouth.


76 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Peter!" she cried—"you make me tired, you talk
so much. Once you get started, you never know when
to stop. But now you will stop, I insist that you stop
and take me home. It is nearly three, and I am weary
to the marrow of my bones, too fatigued to listen
another instant to your twaddle."
Lanyard contrived with fair enough grace to decline
Pagan's magnanimous offer of a lift in his car; but by
the time he found himself on Fifth avenue again was
half sorry he had. There were no taxicabs cruising
for fares at that hour, at least all he spied were tearing
along with metal flags reversed; and his head was at
one and the same time buzzing with fumes of whiskey
and thick with that drowsiness of which he had first
become sensible in the cab with Folly McFee. Singularly
enough, that cloud had lifted during his stop in her
home, whereas since leaving it, ever since he had drawn
his first breath of the dank, chill air of the streets, his
wits had been like slugs fumbling blindly in a bed of
cotton-wool. Now his feet as well were beginning to
feel leaden, walking, ordinarily a source of such keen
enjoyment to this man of vigorous physical life, had
become a task.
Hard to understand how one could have been so
affected by the scanty ration of alcohol one had con-
sumed that evening, a solitary glass of champagne at
the Clique, a single Scotch and soda two hours later.
It might be, of course, that Pagan had mixed too stiff
a highball. One hadn't been so impressed while drink-
ing, but now the flavour of the whisky clung to the
palate, harshly reminiscent. Evidently not such good
stuff as it had seemed at the first sip.


78 The Lone Wolf Returns
glimpses fugitive and ravishing of beauty adorning
the most hackneyed ways ... As now when, lifting
dazzled eyes, Lanyard beheld himself a lonely way-
farer in a lane of jewels set in jet and gold . . .
Jewels that outrivalled even those the Sultan of Loot
had paraded, and Liane, and that other woman . . .
pretty little thing so well named . . . What the deuce
was her name? Folly? Folly McFee!
Idiotic to mislay so soon a distinctive name like
that . . .
Wading in jewels. Up to one's knees. As Liane
waded in them, and Folly, and the Sultan of Loot
. . . Between them these three must have had on
display that night stones that would fetch four or five
hundred thousand . . . flaunting them in the face of
a pauper!
A pauper? Well: little better! Penniless, or next
door to it. A few more days of running round with
Eve . . . who must never guess . . . and he would
be stoney. Not pinched for money—broke. The re-
ward of virtue . . .
Lanyard laughed aloud, a cracked, ugly laugh.
Pagan hadn't been far wrong. Impertinent clown!
Not far wrong, at that . . . Anything but easy to
forget the cunning one once had gloried in, to remain
forever deaf and dumb to the insiduous prompting of
instincts which, as long as the sun shone, seemed to
have been utterly stamped out and exterminated, but
which, when clouds massed and the wind bared its
teeth, had an accursed habit of proving they had been
but rebelliously quiescent . . .


The Lone Wolf Returns
79
Curious, how close to the line that mountebank had
hewn in his guesswork at the psychology of the outlaw
reclaimed!
There lingered still a picture instantaneously printed
upon the sensitive film of consciousness, in that moment
when Lanyard had stood peering out of the rear win-
dow at Folly McFee's: a view of the roof of a one-
storey extension running back from the window, a flat
roof decked over to serve as a terrace in warm weather,
with, beyond it, thanks to an excavation being dug for
a new building on the north side of the block, nothing
between the house and the next street but a board fence
enclosing the kitchen-yard. An open invitation to any
man who might fancy the jewels of Folly McFee;
jewels that, shrewdly marketed, would put a careful
man beyond want for the rest of his days . . .
Lanyard growled an oath, gave himself an angry
shake. What the devil had got into him tonight, that
he should consent for a single instant to indulge such
a train of thought?
Not that there was danger of his being tempted
. . . He gave a thick chuckle of scorn. Nevertheless
it was annoying to find oneself unable to forget that
the temptation was there.
All the fault of that reptile with his viperous tongue
and machine-made leer, What's-his-name . . . What
was his name? Fagin? No: Pagan. Loathsome
creature . . .
What an ass one had been to swallow his insolence
simply because there were women present, to let such
an illogical consideration restrain one from yielding


80 The Lone Wolf Returns
to natural, primitive impulse and, with every provo-
cation, throttling the fellow, wringing his scrawny
neck . . .
In amaze Lanyard emerged from a seizure of
sodden insanity to find himself at halt in front of the
Waldorf, standing quite still in the driving rain and
glaring at his hands, which were extended with tensed
fingers compressing the windpipe of an imaginary
victim.
What was he doing? He made an effort to pull
himself together, and cast glances right and left,
shame-faced to think that he might have been seen.
But there was not another soul in sight on the whole,
undulant length of the Avenue. Only a taxi shot past,
and its driver hooted . . .
He seemed to have mislaid his stick. After a mo-
ment of myopic searching he gave it up, pocketed his
hands and lunged on. . . . Not far to go now; but
one made indifferent progress because of the fog. Of
course it was fog! What else could make the lights
so dim? Like a London fog, a London particular.
And getting thicker every minute, blotting out the
lights as a blotting paper sops up ink, leaving only
blurs, faint and formless blotches fading into night
absolute, black and steaming . . .
In a sudden saffron blaze Lanyard identified the
common aspect of the small suite of rooms which he
rented furnished. He was in the sitting-room, wrest-
ling with his overcoat. Soaked through and dripping,
the wretched thing seemed possessed of a devil of per-
versity which resisted all his efforts to shed it. He


The Lone Wolf Returns 81
gave an infuriated wriggle, heard something rip, and
discovered, in some surprise, that he was rid of it.
Then with indignation he saw that the door stood
open to the public hall, a staring oblong of black in
the lighted walls. Lurching to this, Lanyard flung it
shut with a thundering crash.
The problem of escaping from the intimate embrace
of his dress-coat next engaged his intelligence. Some-
thing he couldn't afford to tear off his back. Yet he
darkly foresaw difficulties. After a while of ponder-
ing, a spirit of low cunning prompted him to try to
deceive the thing by making believe he didn't care
whether it came off or not. . . . And astonishingly it
appeared that this strategem had been successful: he
was holding the garment in his hands. With the harsh,
unfeeling laugh of a conqueror he cast it from him
and shaped a course for his bedchamber. And barely
in time: that London fog had stolen in after him
somehow, probably through the door he had carelessly
left open, Heaven knew how long. ... At its old
tricks, dimming down the lights till one could hardly
see. Rapidly, too. He succeeded in beating the dark-
ness to his bed, but with nothing to spare: as he sat
on its edge, fumbling with his shoes, night whelmed
the world with a stunning crash . , .


I
VI
ASPLITTING headache roused Lanyard out of
the void, with the help of an unfeeling hand that
shook his shoulder, and a voice that heartlessly dinned
his name into his ears.
When he tried to remonstrate his other shoulder
was captured by another vice-like hand, and he was
raised to a sitting position on the side of the bed.
There, bending forward and clasping his head with
both hands lest it rend itself in twain, he regained a
measure of lucidity.
Broad daylight was flooding the room, not sunlight
but the warm reflection of a sunny sky, beyond telling
painful to optic nerves. On throbbing eardrums a
voice jarred, hideously cheerful.
"Well: how're you feeling now?"
Without understanding Lanyard blinked into the
homely, grininng countenance of Crane.
"Pretty rocky, I'll tell the World, the Tribune and
the Herald! Next time you'll know better than to
take liberties with lawless liquor—or I miss my guess.
Got anything in the place good for a wrecked dome?"
Unwisely Lanyard sought to reply with a shake of
the head under consideration. His moans were heart-
rendering. When he got them under control he heard
Crane say: "Well, sonl it's a good thing to have a
82


The Lone Wolf Returns 83
true friend on the job when you're feeling like this.
You set there and take it easy while I run down to the
drug store and fetch you a pick-me-up."
What were intended to be words of gratitude in
response came out as the most disconsolate noises
imaginable. Crane's footsteps receded through the
sitting-room and died out beyond a door which was
closed with thoughtful care. Pricked by pride, Lan-
yard put forth a tremendous effort of will and stood up.
Not till then did he appreciate that he was fully
clothed but for his shoes and the dress-coat which he
had a muggy memory of having discarded in the ad-
joining room.
When Crane re-entered without knocking, Lanyard
was splashing in the bath-room. Some minutes later
he came out wrapped in a dressing-gown and bearing
some resemblance to his normal, self-respecting self.
A steaming hot soak followed by five minutes under an
icy needle-shower had moderated the headache to a
bearable grumble. Crane was waiting with a tall and
foaming glass. A draught long and acrid but grate-
ful. The flavour of aromatic spirits of ammonia re-
placing that of aloes in his mouth, Lanyard was able
to express his thanks with a smile less wan than might
have been expected.
"I think you called yourself a true friend," he said:
"that was true talk. Never in my life have I needed
one more." Subsiding into a chair, he waved a feeble
hand toward another. "Sit down and tell me to what
I owe this act of mercy ..."
"Well: if you want to know, I guess you owe it


84 The Lone Wolf Returns
mainly to forgetting to lock your door when you
crashed in last night." Crane sat down and favoured
Lanyard with a quizzical stare, caressing lean jaws
with bony fingers. "I knocked till I was tired, then
tried the door, feeling pretty sure you were at home,
because I could see by the transom you had all the lights
going full blast. So I just naturally walked in and
found you practically a total loss. You were cold sober
when I saw you at two o'clock, but you sure did manage
to collect a skinful between then and the time you
turned in, whenever that was."
"To the best of my knowledge, not much after
three."
"Blessed if I see how you managed it. Mind tell-
ing? I don't like to seem nosey, but this record you're
claiming for the standing broad jag in one hour flat
has got me guessing. Didn't know you went in much
for that sort of thing."
"No more do I," Lanyard protested. "That is to
say, I never did before and never will again, Heaven
helping me to avoid further entanglements with tem-
perance drinks."
"That what you call 'em?"
"I mean, the sort of drinks one's friends serve in
these Prohibition times. I hesitate to ask you to be-
lieve that the ruin you see before you was wrought by
one small glass of champagne at the Clique last night,
followed by a single Scotch and soda at Mrs.
McFee's."
"From the funny things I've seen bootliquor do in
the last few months," Crane replied—"some of 'em


86 The Lone Wolf Returns
Liane and Pagan, then, had lied about being turned
back. from the roof. Not that it mattered . . .
"How'd you get on with the pretty McFee?" Crane
was pursuing with an interest too elaborately casual.
"Well enough, thanks. She seems a nice little thing
if a thought flighty."
"Flighty's the word. I guess you haven't known
her long."
"Only met her last night, a few minutes before the
raid."
"Nice place she's got . . ."
"Nice enough," Lanyard assented languidly.
"Get much of a show to look around while you were
there?"
Lanyard opened his eyes. "You're not asking these
questions for conversation's sake."
"You're dead right I'm not," Crane drawled, strok-
ing his jaws. "Guess I may as well break it to you.
Mrs. McFee reported this morning, her house had
been broken into last night, some time between three
o'clock and daylight, her safe opened—little tin box
she keeps in her boodwah—and the pick of her jewels
looted."
"So!" said Lanyard—"it's to that I owe this
honour."
"You've had such a lot of experience in that line,
I thought maybe you wouldn't mind giving me a few
tips ..."
Lanyard lounged back in his chair again, tolerantly
smiling.
"Why trifle with the truth to spare my feelings?"


The Lone Wolf Returns
87
"Well!" Crane uncomfortably conceded—"I don't
mind telling you, the job had all the ear-marks of one
of the Lone Wolf's."
"Indeed?"
"The bird that opened that box did it painlessly,
like you always used to, going on all I've heard—just
talked to the works till the safe lay down and rolled
over with all four paws in the air. Of course, he
didn't leave any finger-marks. He got in by way of
an extension at the back of the house: there's a French
window opens onto it from the study. He didn't even
need to jimmy that, though Mrs. McFee and the ser-
vants can't explain how it come to be open. In fact,
the butler swears he latched it himself before he went
to bed. Looks like somebody must have fixed it . .."
"Somebody who, like your obedient servant, had
plenty of opportunity."
"You got the idea."
"In short," said Lanyard, "what you are delicately
trying to convey is that you'd be obliged if I'd come
along quietly."
"No," Crane surprisingly answered: "nothing like
that."
"Not—?" Lanyard persisted, in an unbelieving
stare.
"No. . . . I'll admit, I looked you up today with
a divided mind. I couldn't somehow believe it of you.
On the other hand, I've been fooled by a lot of human
nature in my time. But you put in an alibi, even before
you came to, sound enough to satisfy me. Maybe I'm
wrong about you, Lanyard, maybe you're as crooked


88 The Lone Wolf Returns
as a Revenue inspector; but nothing will ever make
me believe you pulled that job and then pickled your-
self to celebrate, or that the Lone Wolf ever went
home after cracking a box and crawled into the hay
leaving his front door unlocked. Not only that, but
just to make sure, in a perfectly friendly way, I frisked
your pockets and searched these rooms high and low
before I woke you up. You've got a good right to be
sore, if it hits you that way; but I figured it was my
duty as a friend as well as an officer of the law."
"On the contrary," Lanyard sincerely assured him,
"I am appreciative and grateful, glad to be cleared
in your sight, even more glad to be cleared in my
own."
"In your own?" Crane repeated in perplexity.
"What d'you think you mean by that?"
"I'm glad I do not have to wonder if possibly I did
this thing in my sleep,-so to speak."
"Quit your kidding!" Crane got up with a laugh.
"I've got to be getting along now, oughtn't to have
lost as much time as I have."
"I shall miss your soothing presence. But I am
sure you understand that there are times, and this is
one of them, when one would rather be alone."
"You said it."
"You will pardon my not rising to see you to the
door?"
"Stay right where you are. I'll drop in again, some
time this evening, maybe, to see how you are."
"Do. There are many things I want to consult you
about when I feel better able."


The Lone Wolf Returns 89
"Well: if anything gets in my way and I don't show-
up like I said ..." Crane fished out a card from
a worn wallet and placed it on the mantelpiece of the
old-fashioned marble fireplace: "There's my name
and number. Give me a ring any time you feel like
it, and I'll blow you to a dinner with, maybe, some-
thing on the side whose kick isn't quite as deadly as
a Georgia mule's."
For upwards of an hour after the detective had
taken himself off, Lanyard lingered on in the easy
chair, listlessly reviewing his memories of the previous
night, memories comfortably clear-cut up to a certain
stage . . .
After all, he were an ingrate to complain, surely he
had no excuse for considering himself in disgrace with
fortune, who had come thus far through this conjunc-
ture retaining the confidence of Crane, but best of
all his ownl
He counted himself happy indeed—for all the ma-
laise from which he still suffered and which only time
and heroic measures in the way of exercise would do
away with altogether—that Crane's investigation,
while he lay senseless, had resolved every question
that might otherwise have perturbed his secret mind.
It was grateful to be spared the torment that, but for
this exoneration, must have been his, the fear that he
might himself, without his knowledge, have proved
there was support in fact for the theory of criminal
psychology which Pagan had advanced, the theory that
it was well within the compass of possibility for a man
in his plight, in sore financial straits and subconsciously


90 The Lone Wolf Returns
tempted beyond his strength, to commit a theft while
in a phase of auto-hypnosis coupled with amnesia, a
condition comparable with somnambulism . . .
Otherwise his affairs, as Lanyard saw them, had
come suddenly to a precarious pass.
In spite of the fact that he knew his intelligence
would need some time to recover its accustomed com-
petence, he entertained no slightest doubt but that he
would be tomorrow, as he was today, convinced that
the abstraction of the McFee jewels had been merely
the first move in a campaign shrewdly planned to
bring him to Morphew's terms.
His defiance of that one had not been tardy of
result: the enemy had not only accepted his declara-
tion of war, he had committed the first overt act.
Lanyard's temper hardened. If Morphew wanted
war, he should have his fill . . .
But if war it must be, this was no time to waste
in inaction: the enemy was already in the field and
taking the offensive, while he lay resting.
Rising, Lanyard bestirred himself to set his house
in order.
When he had shaved and dressed and dosed him-
self with stabilizing draughts of black coffee, he began
to collect the clothes he had worn overnight, all of
which would require the attentions of a valet before
they would be again presentable. Rain had defaced
the gloss of his topper beyond repair but by the hat-
ter's iron. His trousers were damp and wrinkled bags
,of black stuff splashed to the knees with mud.
Over these stains Lanyard frowned. Impossible to


The Lone Wolf Returns 91
understand how he had managed to come by the worst
of them, even taking into account the condition in
which he had traversed Fifth Avenue during the storm.
The marks of that thin black ooze which accumulates
on asphaltum explained themselves. But there were
others inexplicable, and on his patent leather boots as
well, smears and crusts of ochre mud which he could
hardly have accumulated without wandering into
broken ground, such as was not to be found on Fifth
avenue at any point within the bounds of his besotted
promenade.
But he distinctly recollected noticing an excavation
behind the residence of Folly McFee. . . .
With a worried shake of his head that cost him
several stabs of anguish, Lanyard folded and laid aside
the trousers, and returned to the sitting-room to get
his dress-coat.
As he took this up something in one of the coat-tail
pockets struck against a leg of the table with a muffled
but clashing thump.
By his own account, Crane had already rummaged
the pockets of the garment, but conceivably the coat-
tail pockets he had overlooked, who was better
acquainted with dress clothes of American tailoring,
from which such conveniences are commonly omitted.
Lanyard's clothes, however, had been built in London;
and to the British tailor coat-tail pockets are as an
article of faith.
An exploring hand brought forth a little packet
knotted in a handkerchief, one of his own.
t


92 The Lone Wolf Returns
Lanyard surmised its contents before he had suc-
ceeded in loosing the knots.
With a sense of sickness, he stood staring down at
the stolen jewels of Folly McFee.


VII
TN sequel the life of Michael Lanyard knew some of
its busiest moments, his modest lodgings were the
stage of a scene of rare animation whose solitary actor
figured as the restless axis of a whirlwind of gar-
ments. Then the air, clearing, disclosed the man
decently clad for the street and stowing away in a
safe pocket his unchancy treasure-trove.
Thus far he had gone about doing what he had to
do automatically in a measure, as one will in times of
extremity, putting off against an hour more opportune,
when he might bring a clearer head to bear upon the
business, too, the deliberate study which his troubles
needed. Enough now to know the longer he delayed
where he was, the more immediate his peril of suffer-
ing a second domiciliary visit by the police; who on this
new occasion, beyond much doubt, would be repre-
sented by agents less kindly biassed than Crane, more
skeptical and thoroughgoing in the matter of search-
ing for Folly McFee's emeralds. It remained for Lan-
yard to prove appreciation of this fleeting smile of for-
tune by turning to good account the slender chance it
granted to work out his salvation in his own time and
way.
One detail, however, he dared not slight, though it
cost minutes each more precious than the last: Lan-
93


94 The Lone Wolf Returns
yard left behind him shoes and trousers from which
every lingering suspicion of mud had been erased.
Some two hours later, after a tedious tale of twists
and turns in the labyrinth of New York's several trans-
portation systems, he left a train at the Mount Vernon
terminal of the subway extension, and addressed him-
self to the tramp back to New York.
The sky was bright, the Indian Summer sunlight
kind, the air inspiriting. By the time Lanyard had
stretched his legs over a mile or two of by-roads—
chosen for the long and lonely perspectives which en-
abled him to make sure he travelled with no other
shadow than his own—he began to feel once more
competent to ponder his fix and plot a way out.
No easy task: the problem posed by the fact that
he had somehow, at some time in the course of the
preceding night, unwittingly come into possession of
stolen property, seemed open to solution only on one
of two hypotheses, antagonistic, and neither at a glance
more likely than the other. Failing his ability to turn
up proof that another hand had rifled the McFee safe
and secreted its loot in his coat while he slept, Lanyard
would have to become reconciled to the belief that he
himself had stolen the jewels while in a phase of sub-
merged consciousness. Distasteful as was the bare
suggestion, and human though the temptation was to
adopt the more grateful theory and guide himself
thereby, he still could not but doubt: the other was all
too possibly the true explanation.
One thing at least he might take for granted, that
the drink Pagan had brought him was drugged. But


The Lone Wolf Returns 95
here again the lane of likelihood developed a con-
founding fork: Who could say whether the drug had
been added to the drink by Pagan, or whether the
whiskey itself had been one of those deadly synthetic
concoctions with which that bastard offspring of Pro-
hibition, the bootlegging industry, had flooded the
land?
If it were the whiskey that Lanyard had to blame,
Pagan, too, and Folly McFee and Liane Delorme must
have suffered as severely, Liane even more, since she
had made away with two drinks to Lanyard's one.
. . . A simple matter to find out the truth, if one
only knew the woman's address; but she had neglected
to say where she was stopping, and other than those
whom under the circumstances he would hardly care
to consult, Lanyard could think of nobody who would
be likely to know.
And even though investigation might prove that
nobody else had been so punished, and thus satisfy Lan-
yard that his drink alone had maliciously been doc-
tored, such knowledge would not necessarily lead him
nearer to the facts of the robbery. Comfortable
though it was to impute to Pagan the mischief with the
whiskey, and assume that its object had been to throw
Lanyard into coma and thus render it feasible to enter
his rooms without his knowledge, smear yellow mud on
his clothing and plant the plunder in his pocket, still it
remained possible that the arch-intelligence which had
decreed the administration of the drug, whether Mor-
phew's or another's, had reckoned with even more
diabolical cunning upon its breaking down those inhi-


The Lone Wolf Returns 97
Now dusk was closing down upon the world in shade
on shade of lilac, violet and blue, through which, mo-
ment by moment, the lights of the outlying city were
blowing their blossoms of silver and gold. Directly
ahead of Lanyard the electric sign of a roadhouse
exploded its soundless salvo against the sky; and thus
reminded that he needed food, who had so much to do
ere dawn, he entered the place and dined with a frugal-
ity considerate of digestive powers sadly out of kilter.
Then in the dark of the young night he resumed his
walk, and between nine and half-past might have been
(only that he took good care not to be) seen at pause
on the Lexington avenue corner of the block in which
Folly McFee dwelt, quietly reconnoitering the ap-
proach to her residence.
The house stood on the north side of the street,
nearer Lexington avenue than Park, and with windows
diffusing a dim glow through discreet draperies pre-
sented to the beholder the demure face that suited an
establishment whose youthful chatelaine sported a so-
briquet so apt and alluring.
Observers less interested than Lanyard was then
have been known feelingly to comment upon the impish
trick houses frequently practice of keeping their own
counsel: the shrewdest reader of facades would have
gathered nothing informing from the aspect worn that
night by the dwelling of Folly McFee, no clue as to
whether its pretty resident were at home, or, if at
home, alone . . .
Lanyard hazarded a saunter past on the sidewalk
opposite. Under more direct scrutiny the house re-


98 The Lone Wolf Returns
mained as little communicative, the only profit he had
of the maneuvre was the assurance that nobody was
skulking in any of the areaways over across from it,
on the watch for the likes of himself. But then there
was no conceivable reason why anybody should be;
not even his most impassioned ill-wisher, much less an
unimaginative police force, could have been expected
to divine that any attraction could possibly draw this
putative criminal back to haunt the scene of his alleged
crime.
Lanyard nevertheless, on gaining the Park avenue
corner, merely crossed the street and continued his
stroll through the next to the north, passing on the
way the gaping foundation pit observed the night be-
fore from the windows of Folly's study, a survey of
which from this new angle confirmed his belief that
the thief need not have found it difficult to make his
way into the backyard and swarm up to the roof of the
extension. On the other hand, this aspect of the
premises afforded Lanyard no least twinge of guilty
reminiscence. Another circumstance that proved noth-
ing; if his personal acquaintance with downright
drunkenness was limited, he knew too well that it was
quite possible for one to drink oneself into a state of
alcoholic insanity and retain, on coming out of it, no
memory of one's performances while in that condition.
Circumnavigation of the block having brought him
again into the street upon which the McFee residence
faced, but this time on its northern sidewalk, Lan-
yard's pace slackened; and idlest insouciance masked
the surge of acute interest in him when, at twenty paces'


The Lone Wolf Returns 99
distance, he saw the iron gate to its service entrance
swing open and a maid emerge and make briskly off
toward Park avenue—a tidy figure in black dress,
white apron and cap, taking letters to post at the corner
letter-box in time for the last collection.
Another freak of friendly fortune? or one of ill-
favoured fate? The thing was too confoundedly well-
timed, the invitation of that unguarded entrance too
tempting. Indeed, when it occured to Lanyard that his
action might have been considered a thought precipi-
tate, it was too late to turn back, he had already slipped
into the service hallway and restored the door to the
position, half on the latch, in which the woman had
left it. To change his mind now and retreat would be
to court her attention, who would already be on her
way back from the corner.
The hallway was long, narrow, dimly lighted. At
its far end a stairway led down to kitchen offices. Mid-
way, a swing-door communicated with the main body
of the house. Through this Lanyard had no choice
but to dart, reckless of what might await him on its
far side: to linger where he was meant immediate dis-
covery . . . and the emeralds on his person I
The swing-door gave into a butler's pantry, at the
moment empty, where another opened into the dining-
room and a third to the main hallway. Stacks of dishes
in the pantry sink, no less than a clash of cheerful
voices in the room adjoining, with Folly's rippling
laughter clearly recognizable, told of a dinner party
still in progress. The other living-rooms, then, ought
to be untenanted. The butler due to pop back from


100 The Lone Wolf Returns
the dining-room at any instant, Lanyard passed on to
the entrance-hall, and experienced a relief, on finding it
deserted, that betrayed an old hand sorely out of prac-
tice: the day had been when he could have taken far
more desperate chances without a tremor.
Even so, he wasted no gestures. To go the way he
meant to go, he had the dining-room door to pass, the
risk to run of being seen. He edged to a point whence
Folly's back was visible, and the butler, a decent, plod-
ding, British body, taking himself off with an emptied
decanter. He disappeared; and the pantry-door was
heard to buffet the air. Lanyard waited a minute, then
coolly ran—or, rather, stumped—the risk of the open
door, trusting, if noticed by any of the diners, to pass
as the butler with some business in the front part of
the house. To the best of his observation his audacity
served: the dinner-party seemed to be finding itself
much too amusing to have attention to spare for mat-
ters of domestic routine. But one swift glance askance
noted that Folly was entertaining only Pagan, Liane
Delorme, and Mallison. «
So much for Lanyard's solemn sermon on the dan-
gers of questionable associations!
But could one fairly have expected anything better,
when Folly had been given, subsequently, every reason
to believe she had entertained in that overnight
moralist a felon unawares? This, presumably, was her
way of consoling herself for having been so shamefully
taken in: as gay a partie carree as heart could wish,
figuratively making merry on the very coffin-lid of
Folly's most recent bereavement . . .


The Loiie Wolf Returns 101
Fragments were all Lanyard could garner of the
talk, who had no time at all to spare; but what little
he did overhear was instructive. Folly, he learned,
was firmly declining to be down-hearted: the police had
given her every assurance that she would be wearing
her emeralds again within a few days at most. Mean-
time, she knew no lack of objects of bedizenment: the
thief in his haste had overlooked a secret cache of
treasure in the safe he had used so cavalierly, she had
still the McFee pearls and diamonds to don for pro-
tection against inclement elements; in witness whereto
she was wearing them now. Challenged by Pagan to
state what steps, if any, she had taken to safeguard
these against the chance that the marauder might re-
turn to cancel his oversight, Folly laughed the notion
to scorn, but under pressure admitted that she meant to
have the combination of the safe changed as soon as
she could remember to telephone its maker.
Communications all pitched in a key of the lightest
banter. Folly, for example, was pleased to recount the
antics of her maiden aunt when it dawned upon her
that she had actually slept all through the visit of a
burglar: the good woman had forthwith gone into
hysterics and had come out of them only to pack
herself off (at Folly's expense) to Atlantic City, pro-
fessing the slender hope that a vacation from this
theatre of crime would mend a shattered nervous sys-
tem. In view of which Folly was disposed to hold the
loss of her emeralds a not unmixed affliction. And
when Pagan suggested that it might be good business
for Folly to put a professional house-breaker on her


102 The Lone 'Woli Returns
weekly payroll, Liane applauded his wit with a deep-
chested laugh.
No more need to wonder how this last had fared
after her two drinks of the liquor a single dose of
which had been enough to put Lanyard hors de com-
bat. True: Liane might have been innocent of what
was intended. But it wasn't easy to give her the bene-
fit of the doubt.
As for Pagan, the pencilled question-mark against
his name had been replaced by a cross in indelible ink.


VIII
T^ROM a point close by the street door rose a flight
A of stairs which introduced Lanyard to a floor by
every indication devoted wholly to the most intimate
uses of Folly. There were two major rooms, a bed-
chamber at the back of the house and a boudoir over-
looking the street, linked by a short hall on which
opened a bath-room and capacious clothes-presses, all
furnished with an extravagance that bespoke means
ample to gratify the wildest whim of even a modern
young woman. Folly's wardrobe alone would have
given a dozen exacting women of fashion a choice of
changes for every hour of the day and have left the
first owner still ridiculously over-stocked. And Lan-
yard, taking cursory yet comprehensive note of the
endless detail of luxury that went to make up a sy-
baritic ensemble, told himself it would be unreasonable
to expect the tenant of this suite not to fancy herself
much more than merely a little.
His survey, however, had gained him little more
than a bare grasp of the general arrangement, when
a light patter on the stairs drove him to cover in a
retreat whose selection had been his first care: a
closet stored with clothing for day-wear exclusively,
therefore the least liable to be used by night, and fur-
thermore so situate that its door, left—as Lanyard
had found it—half an inch ajar, afforded a direct and
wide-angled vista of the boudoir, and also, indirectly,
r
103


104 The Lone Wolf Returns
by grace of a long mirror in the latter, a more frag-
mentary view of the bedchamber.
To his taste almost too cosily snuggled into a
smother of garments whose subtle fragrance was most
demoralizing, he lurked for many minutes, spying—
as the mirrow permitted—on the maid whom he had
first seen in the street and whose present duty, it tran-
spired, was to turn down the bed-clothes and otherwise
make the bedchamber ready to receive its mistress.
The quick, competent creature went about her work
with a step so light that even ears trained to abnormal
acuteness found it not entirely easy to keep track of
her movements; so that, when she made an end and
left the bedchamber, the man in hiding wasted several
minutes waiting to make sure that he had the floor
all to himself again.
Emerging at length, he wasted no more, but turned
directly to the focal point of his most immediate inter-
est, that is to say to the safe which had provided the
wits of last night's thief with a test so trifling. And,
Lanyard reflected, having inspected the thing, no won-
der! When, he asked impatiently, would man learn
anything from experience and cease to put his trust
and his treasures in repositories of such pregnable con-
struction? A pretty, dainty thing, neatly fitted into
the base of a period secretary, its door masked by a
hinged frame wrought to resemble a tier of drawers,
its "combination-lock"—God save the mark!—capable
of offering about as much resistance to trained talents
as that of a child's bank . . .
Lanyard was proving all this to his own satisfaction,


The Lone Wolf Returns 105
and indeed had already solved the combination by bend-
ing an ear to the fall of its tumblers, when the tele-
phone rang.
The sharp thrill of the bell sounded in the study
downstairs; the extension instrument on the little desk
in the boudoir gave only a muffled click.
Lanyard used a silk handkerchief on the face of the
safe to smudge out fingerprints, shut the false front,
and moved lightly out into the hall, arriving at the
rail round the stairway at the moment when the voca-
tional singsong of the butler broke upon the conver-
sation of Folly and her friends:
"Beg pardon, but Mr. Mallison is being wanted on
the telephone."
With neither delay nor compunction Lanyard turned
back to the boudoir extension, and had its receiver at
his ear when Mallison arrived in the study and breathed
a melodious "Hello?" to the waiting wire. But when
a strange voice answered him, feminine at that, the
eavesdropper was taken with a twinge of mixed chag-
rin and distaste, who had hoped for something worse
than this and more illuminating, who had hastily set
his heart on gaining instruction from Morphew's pom-
pously measured rumble, and who, finally, knew no de-
light whatever in the prospect of prying upon some
trivial affair of sentiment such as was promised by the
cloying affection of this strange woman's salutation:
"Is that you, Mally darling?"
Only the striking ambiguity of the reply she got
helped Lanyard to overcome an impulse to hang up
forthwith.


106 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Yes," Mallison pronounced too clearly, too loudly,
and in a manner of cold enquiry that carried no con-
viction whatever—"this is Mr. Mallison speaking.
Who wants him?"
"Clever old sweetie!" the unknown applauded with
a confidential laugh. "I do hope she can hear you;
but I suppose she isn't in the same room if you have
to shout like that. Better soft-pedal it a bit, dear, or
the little lady may get leary."
To this Mallison replied, again remarkably as to
sense, and in accents of unmistakably mortified amaze-
ment: "Oh, for Heaven's sake! you don't mean to say
it's tonight? I don't see how I could possibly have let
anything so important slip my mind . . ."
No less remarkably the woman pursued: "It's all
right, then, dearie? I mean, everything is all set for
the big bust?"
"Why, of course!" Mallison intoned distinctly, with
a dying echo of the emotion which had coloured his
last preceding response—"of course I'll be there. But
I shall have to go down on my knees and beg Mrs.
McFee to forgive me—and I really can't quite forgive
myself for being so forgetful."
"Gosh!" the other breathed in awed admiration—
"got to hand it to you, kid, you stall so pretty. Well:
our friend—you know—is getting impatient, so it's up
to you to shake a leg. How soon shall I say you'll
be ready?"
"Oh, but really! I'm afraid I can hardly make it
under half an hour."
"Sure that'll be long enough?" Surprising solid-


The Lone Wolf Returns 107
tude seemed to shade the strange voice. "You know,
dearie, we wouldn't for worlds crash in too soon, I
mean before you get a good chance to do your very
best dirty work. 'Cause the blacker the looks of it,
the better the pay—and the surer."
"Oh quite!" Mallison cheerily agreed. "But half
an hour will do me famously."
"Good enough." A sly chuckle accompanied this
commendation. "You're one little fast worker, all
right, darling: I only wanted you to take all the time
you need to turn out an artistic job. All rightie: I'll
set the alarm for thirty minutes from now—the zero
hour! And mind you take good care of yourself,
dearie. Ta-ta."
With elegance indisputable Mallison returned a mu-
sical "Au revoir."
Lanyard waited for the other receiver to refind its
hook, then hung up in turn, and took his seething
mystification back to the head of the stairs, whence
he could overhear the apologies Mallison was offering
below.
"Do be charitable, Folly, and make allowances for
my weak mind. I simply can not understand how I
could have been so great an idiot as to forget I'd
promised Mary Ashe—Mrs. Stuyvesant Ashe, you
know—I'd join a party she's made up for the Rendez-
vous tonight—"
"O Mally!" Mrs. McFee lamented—"how perfectly
stupid!"
"I know: isn't it? But I promised over a week ago.
And anyway, it's partly your fault, getting up this little


108 The Lone Wolf Returns
dinner to celebrate your robbery, and making me forget
everything else I had on for tonight. . . . Now please
don't budge—and I don't need Soames to put me out,
either. I know where I left my hat and coat and how
to open and shut a front door all by myself."
"You can take my car, Mally, if you'll send it right
back," Pagan generously put in. "Liane and I have
got to hop along, too, in a brace of shakes. That is,
you're welcome to it if you find it waiting. I told Ben
to be back around ten."
"Thanks, old soul; but I'll have no trouble picking
up a taxi over on Park avenue. Besides, it isn't nearly
ten yet."
Pronouncing gracious but hurried good-nights all
round, Mallison was heard to pass through the en-
trance hall, in a more guarded and intimate tone, and
a decidedly tender one, remonstrating with his hostess
because she had insisted on accompanying him to the
door.
"Consider the looks of it, Folly: Liane and Peter
will think you've fallen for me at last."
"No fear," Folly returned with uncomplimentary
composure: "they know better."
"Besides, anyone would think you didn't trust
me . . ."
This rang a note so false as to cause the eyebrows
of the secret audience to lift and knit. But Folly's
frame of mind was too completely and openly petulant
to permit of her being wary and discriminative as well.
"Trust you!" she mocked lightly. "I'd like to know
why I should, the way you carry on with women t . .


The Lone Wolf Returns 109
Ohl I'm not in the least taken in by this tale about
Mrs. Stuyvesant Ashe, you know, I believe that's just
bunk to cover up a heavy date with some other mis-
guided female."
"How perfectly flattering!"
"You wouldn't think so if you knew my opinion of
the kind of women that fall for you, Mally."
The two moved into Lanyard's field of vision and
paused by the door, Mallison buttoning himself into
his top-coat and leering down at Folly with a doggish
air, the woman maintaining for his benefit a pout that
was less than half put on.
"As if you'd care a snap of those lovely fingers if
I really were deceiving you!"
"You couldn't." Folly tossed her head. "I'm not
quite simpleton enough to believe you mean anything
you say to a woman, to any pretty woman, it doesn't
matter who—"
"Now you are flattering me and no mistake." Mal-
lison clapped on his topper, gave its crown an artful
pat that adjusted it at the most killing angle, and man-
aged a still more maddening smirk of complacence.
"Believe you do care," he drawled . . .
"I care about having my party spoiled. Now Peter
and Liane are going to run, too, and leave me all
lonely and lorn."
Mallison laid hold of the knob and opened the door,
but put his back to the edge of it and rested so, unaf-
fectedly loath to forego the flirtation at its piquant
stage of the present. His smile grew momentarily
more personal and meaning; but some of its assurance


110 The Lone Wolf Returns
might have been make-believe, considering the nerv-
ousness he betrayed in Lanyard's sight (though not
in Folly's, since she couldn't see them) by keeping
his hands behind him and fiddling with the door-knob.
An impudent nod designated the two who had been
left in the dining-room.
"I'll come back, if you like . . . after they've
blown . . ."
"Mally!" Folly drew back, flushing. "Don't be
a silly fool, don't say things like that to make me
angry. I oughtn't to overlook—"
Of a sudden Mallison stood away from the door,
permitting it to shut itself gently, and caught the
woman in his arms. "I mean it," he breathed ardently
to Folly's hair, holding her fast in spite of a notable
absence of effort to escape. "I'm mad about you,
Folly, simply mad about you—and you know it, you
wild, sweet witch!"
"I know you're mad now," the witch replied neither
wildly nor sweetly. "I may have suspected it before,
but this proves it. Please let me go."
"Not a chance," Mallison confidently laughed—
"I've got you now where I've been wanting you, God
knows how long! Folly dear: I'm simply desperate
with love of you. Only say the word—I'll tell Mrs.
Ashe where she can go, and be back here inside half
an hour, or as soon as I'm sure Peter and Liane have
left. Folly! be kind to me—"
"Mally!" The cry was keyed low yet tense with
indignation. A sudden squirm broke his embrace.
Folly stood back, fending the man off with a firm hand.


The Lone Wolf Returns 111
"Don't do that again, I wont have it. . . . How
dare you say, or even suggest, such things to me? You
know I don't care the least in the world for you. And
even if I did . . . But I don't want to be unfair.
You've had too much to drink tonight. Do go now,
please, go right away, and don't come back till you're
ready to beg my pardon."
"Oh!" The iced sincerity of the rebuff wiped away
the self-confident smirk and set in its place a scowl of
affronted self-esteem. "That's your style, is it, my lady?
Virtue on a pedestal! And after the way you've led
me on."
Folly held him briefly in a stare of incredulous dis-
dain; her rush of colour slowly ebbing. A slight ges-
ture sketched inability to understand the man, in a
voice of reproach and regret she said quietly: "O
Mally! how can you be so contemptible?"
The countenance of the dancing man grew darker
still, his too-full lips took on an ugly contour beneath
their closely-trimmed moustache of the mode. He
seemed to contemplate, even with difficulty to refrain
from uttering, some embittered and withering retort.
Instead, he turned in dumb fury and flung out of the
house. Thanks less to his temper and intention than
to its automatic air-check the door closed without noise
other than the click of its latch. And Folly gave her-
self a little shake of impatience and reasserted the
wonted spirit of her countenance as she ran back to
rejoin Pagan and Liane Delorme.
Their three voices were once more busy when Lan-
yard made his way back to the boudoir telephone and


112 The Lone Wolf Returns
took a long chance with it, communicating to the Cen-
tral operator the number Crane had left with him.
But the turn of his luck was such that, though the con-
nection was established all but instantaneously, the
masculine voice that answered was not the one he
wanted to hear.
No: Mr. Crane wasn't in, and there was no telling
when he would be in; maybe in ten minutes, maybe in
ten days. But the voice was perfunctorily prepared
to take any message that Lanyard might care to leave
and see that it got into Crane's hands as soon as he
did return, if ever.
"Tell him, please, Mr. Duchemin called him up."
It was necessary to spell out that old alias which Crane
could hardly have forgotten. "Say my business is ur-
gent—Mr. Crane will understand."
"Want him to call y'up? What's yuh number?"
Without the least hesitation, in a single phrase Lan-
yard abolished the telephone installation at Folly Mc-
Fee's: "Say there is no telephone. But give him, if
you will be so good, this address." Lanyard detailed
the number of the house and street and hung up. He
had no fear that Crane would fail to draw an intelli-
gent inference and guide himself by the light thereof.
Nevertheless he would have been grateful for some
assurance that Crane would get the message in good
time. . . .
Back at the head of the stairs, he felt warranted in
assuming that his daring with the telephone had not
betrayed him. The hum of talk that rose from the
diminished dinner party was constant, or punctuated


The Lone Wolf Returns 113
only by the laughter with which the two women en-
couraged Peter Pagan in his efforts to be funny. For
all that, Lanyard escaped discovery by the narrowest
of squeaks; for he stepped out into the hallway only
to find that Mallison had let himself into the house
again, and was furtively slinking up the stairs—was
even then, indeed, half way up.
Driven back to the refuge of the clothes-press, Lan-
yard pulled its door into position in the same instant
that saw Mallison skulk into the boudoir.
It appeared from this, then, that one had not erred
in mistrusting the nervous hands of the dancing man
as they had played with the knob—and one might no
longer doubt, with the safety-catch as well—what time
Mallison had delayed, posing with his back to the door
and philandering with Folly.


IX
EITHER might he who unsuspected spied,
^ through the crack of a closet-door all but
closed, on Mr. Mallison with many a gesture of quiet
authority making himself at home in Folly's rooms,
seriously question the presence of a practician adept
in the grammar of second-storey work. Mallison's
footfalls would not have ruffled the repose of an in-
somniac, the play of his hands was certain yet light
as the flutter of butterfly wings; and what he had to
do by way of making ready for what he purposed
doing, he did with right professional economy of effort.
To begin with, he did nothing at all more than stand
still in the middle of the boudoir and study with glances
keen, direct and comprehensive what one guessed were
surroundings not wholly strange to him. And seeing
him thus with his guard down, naked of all his petty
social airs and graces and that shining garment of
conceit which clothed the man like a woven armour
when he was self-conscious, the hidden watcher began
to suspect that he might have erred in his first rating,
that the Mallison now revealed was worthier to be
reckoned with than he had guessed. The Mallison of
this minute was nobody's fool, knew what he was about,
and—or Lanyard read every surface sign awry—was
dangerously capable of proving at need a disconcerting
knowledge of how to take care of himself.

114


The Lone Wolf Returns 115
With a muted grunt of gratification in the sum of his
survey, the man passed through to the bedchamber,
wherein his maneuvres were less readily followed, since
the mirror in the boudoir revealed to Lanyard only a
narrow segment of the adjoining room. This com-
prehended, however, the head of Folly's bed, and the
small table beside it from whose drawer Mallison re-
moved a pretty trinket of a silver-plated, pearl-handled
pistol, extracting its shells, thoughtfully putting them
away in one of his waistcoat pockets, and finally re-
placing the weapon with nice precision where he had
found it.
Content, it seemed, thus to have done his bit for
preparedness, Mallison sauntered back to the boudoir,
stripped off his top-coat, folded it with meticulous care
and hid it, together with his hat, on the floor behind
a capacious lounge chair.
Then consulting his watch and with a yawn politely
shielded registering time to kill, he strolled over to the
secretary and stooped to inspect, with a flickering, sly
smile, the safe built into its base. The tip of a finger-
nail discreetly pried open the blind front, leaving no
treacherous trace, but after a show of hesitation the
man seemingly decided not to disturb the safe itself,
and restored the front to its former position. Private
papers, with which the pigeonholes of the secretary
were well stocked, next drew his interest, and he was
betraying a mean disposition to tamper with them when
the chance discovery of a hand-mirror resting face up
on Folly's blotting-book diverted Mallison with a temp-
tation which he didn't even try to resist. And he had


116 The Lone Wolf Returns
finished disciplining an imperceptibly unruly eyebrow
and had begun to practice a killing smile, an artful
variation of the infallible gleam-of-teeth suite, when a
bell grumbled vigorously in the bowels of the house
and was interpreted as a signal for strict attention to
business thenceforward.
Mallison went at once to the door to listen, an occu-
pation in which he had the man in the clothes-press at
a good disadvantage. The latter none the less contrived
to infer from noises in the entrance-hall that Pagan's
car had duly reported and that its owner and Liane
were saying good-night. Then, as the rumor of their
voices failed, Mallison re-crossed the boudoir with
swift but silent tread and once more passed from Lan-
yard's range of vision. The latter, however, recalled
having noticed a handsome, painted screen in that cor-
ner, and entertained no doubt but that Mallison was
making himself small behind it.
To prove this guess well-grounded, Folly herself
entered in another moment, and gave every evidence of
being unaware of any alien presence as she faltered
through the boudoir, casting discontented glances round
as if in aimless search of something in the nature of a
distraction. Unmistakably disappointed, and thereby
the more frankly fretted, she drifted on to her bed-
chamber, from whose unseen recesses her voice and
her maid's were presently to be heard.
What they said was of no moment: their bedtime
dialogue of every day, varied only by Folly's decision
to stay up a while longer: she wasn't sleepy and had
letters to write. So saying, she dismissed the maid


The Lone Wolf Returns 117
and sulkily trailed back into the boudoir, bringing a siz-
able case of tooled leather which held, one surmised,
the jewellery she had worn at dinner, and which she
proceeded to put away in the safe that deserved its style
so little, but only as a matter of habit, demonstrating
that all faith in the contraption was dead by not troub-
ling to shut its door and set the lock.
In the pause that ensued, with a sigh of boredom
Folly settled down in the chair before her secretary,
and Lanyard ventured to widen the crack of the door
a fraction.
The woman sat toying with a pen and more than
half-turned away from this observer, charmingly posed
with all the unconscious grace that was native to the
sweetly fashioned body which her neglige, a sheer web
of lace threaded with ribbon, made so bare a pretence
of covering. A lamp on the secretary turned the
tangle of her hair into a living nimbus and edged ten-
derly a neck and shoulders kissable in the sight of any
man. Indeed, Mallison was hardly to be blamed . . .
Without making a sound he stole up behind the
woman lost in thought, the fire of his lips on her flesh
was the first that she knew of his presence. Crying
out in alarm and anger, she started up to find herself
in his arms.
"Hush, dear—please!" Mallison entreated, trying
to insure her silence by resting fingers lightly upon her
lips. "The servants might hear—"
"'Might'!" Folly stormed, jerking her head away "they shall!"
If Mallison had counted on such toleration as she


118 The Lone Wolf Returns
had shown him by the street door half an hour earlier,
his lamentable error was made manifest to him without
an instant's grace. Folly fought him like a miniature
fury, and to such effect that she was free while her
defiance was still an echo in the room—free and swell-
ing her throat with a scream when he plunged upon his
knees before her and threw wide arms of suppliance.
"Please, please!" he begged—"don't call for help.
I'll do anything you say, promise to be good and go
quietly when you choose to send me away—only, don't
call your servants. Think what they'd think!"
"What's that to me?" Folly demanded. "What do
I care what they think of you?"
"It's you I'm considering," the man protested—"it's
what they'd think of you I'm worrying about. You
can't imagine they'd give you the benefit of the
doubt . . ."
"Benefit of what doubt?"
"Do you suppose they'd believe I ever found my
way up here without your invitation?"
"Is a woman always suspected of enticing the man
who breaks into her house like a thief? I'll risk that."
"No—for God's sake! wait, listen to me, Folly! I
don't deserve to be thrown out, you owe me fairer
treatment—"
"I owe you what?"
"You're a woman, not a school-girl—you know what
you've been doing to me these last few weeks, you know
you've driven me half out of my head flirting with me."
"Oh?" Sense of humour reasserted itself in a little
laugh. "Why half?"


The Lone Wolf Returns 119
"Entirely, then," Mallison sullenly conceded. He
got on his feet again, but his attitude remained concil-
iatory, even though he would persist in seeking to de-
fend himself at her expense. "If it's insanity to love
you, then I'm mad enough—but, God's my witness!
I'm not altogether to blame. And you know that's
true."
"And I'm to understand you stole back here tonight
to tell me that?"
"No—but to beg your forgiveness for having acted
as I did a while ago. I couldn't leave things as they
were between us overnight, I couldn't think of anything
but how unfair you were when I lost control of myself
for just one little minute and made you see how madly
I love you. I had to come back and have it out,
explain—arrive at some sort of understanding."
"And you want me to believe you considered these
your best overtures?" Folly uttered a cluck of con-
tempt. "Before you go," she pursued, instinctively
dragging across her bosom the inadequate protection
of the neglige—"you might be good enough to explain
how you did manage to sneak up here."
But Mallison merely uttered a sibilant "Hush!" and
lifted a hand of warning.
Below, the grumble of the door-bell sounded with
an accent imperative.
"What do you suppose that means?" the dancing
man demanded in a whisper of apprehension.
"Somebody at the front door . . . How should
I know?" The noise was repeated. A glint of dis-
trust kindled in the woman's eyes. "What's the mat-
ter, Mally? Expecting somebody?"


120 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Nonsense. What a question! Who should I be
expecting?"
"How do I know?"
"I was only startled . . ."
"Yes," Folly affirmed with tightened lips: "I noticed
that."
A sudden confusion arose in the lower hallway, sev-
eral people giving tongue all at once: evidently who-
ever it was that had answered the door had been in-
stantly made the target of a storm of questions.
Folly's face showed a stamp of deepened misgivings
and suspicion. "What on earth—!" she murmured.
Upon these words Mallison closed in on her again
and made her captive in a tight embrace.
"What does it matter?" he insisted. "Stupid people
bothering Soames: what do they matter to you and me?
Folly, I love you, I'm mad—"
She was fighting wildly but impotently now, kicking,
pommeling with fists that did no hurt, biting at the
hand that closed her mouth. Downstairs the clamour
rose to a higher pitch of angry disputation. Boldly
Lanyard stepped out of concealment.
Neither Folly nor Mallison saw him till he caught
the dancing man from behind, with calculated brutality
broke the clasp of his arms round the woman's body,
and sent him spinning and stumbling across the room
to bring up against the further wall with a crash that
started his eyes in their orbits.
The disturbance below by this time had attained the
proportions of a small riot. There were scuffling feet
on the stairs. Nearer at hand Folly was screaming.
/


The Lone Wolf Returns 121
To this Mallison added the snarl with which, recover-
ing, he took the offensive in turn, launching himself at
his assailant's throat in murderous fury. Unhappily
enough for him, Lanyard had wanted nothing better.
They closed, grappled, for a breath swayed as one.
Then Mallison felt one of his arms being irresistibly
wrenched out of its socket, and to such exquisite tor-
ture yielded, perforce turning his back to Lanyard,
who held him so another instant, then without warn-
ing released him.
With the racket of argument, physical and vocal,
now loud upon the very landing outside, Lanyard dared
not be merciful or give Mallison any fighting chance.
As the man whirled round to launch a new onslaught,
Lanyard's fist carried every ounce of his weight and
all his ill-will to the other's jaw. Lifted bodily by
that terrific blow, Mallison crashed back across an
occasional table, sweeping off and extinguishing a lamp,
and collapsed, insensible, on the floor.
Simultaneously the door flung open and four people
broke into the boudoir, a struggling knot that instandy
resolved itself into its elements; the McFee butler, with
coat half torn from his back, two strange men, one of
rough-and-ready appearance, the other a type slightly
more genteel, and a woman, a garish blonde of the
synthetic school, with her hat over one ear.
The shaded light on the secretary alone remained to
lend these several actors visibility. Lanyard stood
squarely in front of it, his figure, to eyes new from the
stronger illumination of the hall, hardly better than a
silhouette. Folly, well out of harm's way on his one


122 The Lone Wolf Returns
hand, was less kindly,shadowed, in view of the extreme
candour of her deshabille; Mallison, on the other,
was screened from the invaders by the drop-leaf of
the table behind which he had gone down.
Thus chance set the stage and lighted it for a twist
in the action of the piece unforseen even by its first
player and collaborating dramatist. For the bottle-
made blonde with hat askew needed only a glimpse of
that tall, slender, and well-poised shape, bulking black
against the glow, to hurl herself across the room, fall
weeping upon Lanyard's bosom, and strain him pas-
sionately to the agitated abundance of her own.
"My husband!" she cried—"my husband! O
Harry! how could you?"
And Lanyard suffered her.


X
TTE was in no hurry, the truth would all too soon
be her bitter medicine; if meantime to rest on
him the burthen of her wrongs were any comfort to the
lady, she was welcome. Still, he inclined to think it
lamentable that he didn't know her well enough to
reason with her in a friendly way about her taste in
scent for the hair. Chivalry he reckoned a fine ges-
ture but a bit dear at the cost of asphyxiation.
For all that, the longer this unhappy creature con-
tinued blind to her blunder, the better for Folly—for
Michael Lanyard, too. He was far from enjoying any
sort of confidence that the next blind turn of events
would prosper his meddlesome hand; he was con-
strained by circumstance to count more heavily than
he relished on the resilience of Folly's wits and their
readiness to read his heart in respect of herself and
play up to the cues which he must somehow manage
to give her.
An anxious sidelong glance caught Folly thunder-
struck and gaping, with eyes astart doubting their own
dependability. The last man she had ever thought to
see again, with his consent, and particularly beneath
that roof, the alleged larcener of her emeralds last
night, tonight figuring spontaneously in the dual role
of knight errant and spouse recreant!
He saw her so, and knew very well it could hardly
123


124 The Lone Wolf Returns
tend but to make her bewilderment the thicker, yet an
irrepressible devil of ribaldry in Lanyard prompted
him to wag his head at Folly and make a comic mouth
over the fair false limpet that had fastened to his
bosom. Not a little to his surprise, more to his en-
couragement, a gleam of lively appreciation broke
through the clouds of Folly's bemusement. But the
limpet chose the selfsame moment to prove her pro-
tean versatility by shifting all at once into the guise
of a shrew, thus rendering infeasible any further at-
tempt to impart his mind to Folly through the medium
of the eloquent eye.
Abruptly and with a clever effect of casting Lanyard
off by main strength, the strange woman struck a florid
pose with arm levelled and eyes ablaze.
"There!" she rasped—and Lanyard wondered could
this possibly be the voice that had so lately cooed en-
dearments by telephone—"there he is, gentlemen ! there
stands my husband, the dirty hound that leaves me to
cry my heart out at home while he steps out with fast
society dames, like that shameless, half-naked hussy
there!"
The quivering index of denunciation picked out the
shrinking shape of Folly in her informal attire, and
the self-appointed censor paused to let this characteri-
zation bite deep. But when she offered to resume she
half-choked instead because an unpresaged glare of
ceiling lights, thoughtfully switched on by Soames, re-
vealed to her not the hang-dog mask of Mallison but
an utterly strange countenance whose graciousness was
shaded by a problematical smile.


The Lone Wolf Returns 125
A brief seizure of speechlessness was shared by the
woman's companions, and utilized by Lanyard to note
the more salient features of the others, individually,
against the chance of future need. There was no fore-
telling when some flash of temper might not precipitate
a free-for-all of outcome highly dubious; it might be
useful to be able to identify these precious impostors
should ill-luck throw one in with them another time.
Commonplace scamps he accounted them every one.
Contempt for Morphew mounted; a scoundrel of really
respectable calibre would have known better than to
employ such cheap tools for even a simple job of
villainy.
The woman was, or had been, a comely wench; but
the strong light wasn't kind to her complexion, to such
of it, that is, as she hadn't scrubbed off on Lanyard's
waistcoat. Her skin roughed up through its thick wash
of whiting and smears of carmine, skillfully painted
contours failed to amend the viciousness of thin lips
that dragged in their corners, more than belladonna
and mascaro would be needed to restore the pristine
charm of eyes grown hard with looking too long upon
life stripped of all loveliness.
And the men seemed her well-suited associates: one,
a thickset body whose eyes of a brute went forbiddingly
with an undershot jaw, the other a figure of saturnine
cast and seedy gentility set off by a cutaway coat and
a standing collar slightly soiled.
Recognizing in neither of these a personality to call
for the waste of two consecutive thoughts, Lanyard re-
turned his attention to the woman, who recoiled a step


126 The Lone Wolf Returns
instinctively, as if afraid he meant to lay hold of her.
"What!" she squawked in throaty disgust—"you ain't
my husband!"
"Madame"—Lanyard did her a grave bow—"the
misfortune is mutual."
"But where is he? Where's my husband?"
"Madame has mislaid one?"
The mock told, with a slack jaw and befogged eyes
the woman fell back another pace. "I guess," she
stammered, "there's some mistake . . ."
"The conjecture does madame's intelligence vast
credit."
"It's Mr. Mallison she's after, sir." The butler
Soames, schooled to view without any amazement the
vagaries of a mad world of masters, and sensibly put-
ting aside the immomentuous issue of his inability to
account for Lanyard, addressed himself to this last as
to his one intellectual peer of the time being. "They
would 'ave it 'e was upstairs 'ere with Mrs. McFee, sir,
and forced their way up in spite of all I could do."
"I quite understand, Soames—Mrs. McFee, too,
I'm sure. You do understand, don't you, Mrs. Mc-
Fee, this is no fault of Soames'?"
Folly shook herself together and vigorously nodded;
but Lanyard coolly forestalled whatever words they
were that troubled her lips.
"Mr. Mallison is no doubt madame's husband?" he
challenged the blonde female. "She had some reason
to think she would find him here?"
"Just a minute, Grace." The rusty genteel half of
her supporting company, now that he pushed himself


The Lone Wolf Returns 127
forward, proved to possess a rather formidable man-
ner, at once truculent and crafty. "Let me speak for
you—"
"You have that right?" Lanyard with pointed civil-
ity enquired.
"I've been retained by Mrs. Mallison . . ." The
fellow fished a passee professional card from a pocket
and thrust it under Lanyard's nose. "I represent her
in this case."
"Interesting—but perhaps irrelevant—if true. I
mean to say"—Lanyard brushed the card aside, but
not before his eye had caught the name Hobart G.
Howlin in engraved script followed by the designation
Attorney-at-law; and all at once he became as ugly as
he had theretofore been bland—"what of it?"
"We were led to believe Mr. Mallison was here—"
"You call yourself a lawyer and pretend that gave
you any right to violate the privacy of this house-
hold?"
"It sometimes becomes necessary for a wronged wife
to take the law into her own hands."
"Mrs. Mallison has been wronged, then? How
sad."
"Mrs. Mallison," her counsel persisted, but with
shaken bravado—"happens to know her husband has
been spending too much of his time of late in the
society of Mrs. McFee."
"In brief: you have had the effrontery to force your
way into a private residence in the hope of securing
evidence for divorce proceedings?"
"You've got the idea."


128 The Lone Wolf Returns
"O insolent!" Folly flamed.
It was now again necessary for Lanyard firmly to
put down interference, lest his diplomacy fail. "By
your leave, Folly: permit me to deal with these gentry.
Their account of themselves is much too ingenious to
lose. If we let them rattle on—who knows?—we may
learn something to their disadvantage."
At this the rogue of ruder mien concluded that he,
for one, had had enough. "Come on," he mumbled,
plucking at Howlin's sleeve: "le's get out o' this."
"Not so fast. You entered by force; you will leave
in the good pleasure of Mrs. McFee. And then Mr.
Mallison will go with you."
"What's that?" the lawyer demanded. "Mallison's
here?"
"We have no wish to deceive you."
"But where?" the slighted wife shrilly objected. "I
don't see him . . ."
"How little married folk ever know each other!
The dear lad's so high-strung, when he heard you on
the stairs he swooned away. Half a minute ..."
Lanyard stepped behind the table to find Mallison
in the first throes of coming to. An unceremonious
hand twisted in his collar helped him find his feet.
He swayed on them, glaring groggily round that ring
of faces whose lips framed confounded murmurs, while
Lanyard nodded politely to the confessed wife: "Per-
mit me, Mrs. Mallison: your husband." More
brusquely he added: "Now Soames: if you think you
could find a policeman . . ."
The butler saluted this suggestion with unbegrudged


The Lone Wolf Returns La,
respect, but the man who had lately been so anxious
to go now moved in haste to intercept him at the door.
."Here!" he growled in an effort, not too happy, to
assert authority—"wait a minute, wait—a—minute,
you! What's the grand idea?"
"What is your objection?" Lanyard countered.
"If you got any use for a cop, you don't have to look
no farther. I'm a city detective."
"Splendid. You shall enjoy every opportunity to
exercise the powers of your office. Nevertheless,
Soames will proceed to fetch a policeman."
In a bluster of panic the self-styled detective elbowed
the butler away from the door. "Wait, now! This
is my job; if any pinchin's goin' to be done here to-
night, I'll do it."
"To the contrary ..." A hand slipped deftly be-
neath the skirts of Mallison's dinner-jacket brought to
light an automatic pistol of whose presence on his per-
son Lanyard had become aware in the course of their
struggle. "To the contrary, you will be good enough
to stand back and let Soames do my bidding. Do you
hear? And all of you"—a push sent Mallison reeling
drunkenly into the ranks of his confederates—"all four
of you will be well advised to put up your hands."
Prompt and unanimous respect rewarded this good
advice, even Mallison proving himself sufficiently re-
covered to heed.
"Cut along now Soames; and you might tell the
policeman he will need a patrol wagon, with four pris-
oners to handle."
"Look here!" Mallison found his tongue in a splut-


l'he Lone Wolf Returns
cer of spite and fear—"you're going too far, Lanyard,
carrying things with too high a hand—"
"I know but one way to deal with blackmailers."
"And what about yourself—you damn' burglar?"
A new voice introduced itself to the dialogue.
"Blackmailers?" it drawled. "Burglar? Fightin' words,
folks, fightin' words!"
Soames, moving to execute Lanyard's instructions,
had opened the door to find it blocked by a long, loose-
jointed body. Now, hands in pockets, hat well back
on his head, chewing the unlighted cigar of his custom,
the detective Crane, lounged in, with ironic glances re-
viewing the several countenances so variously coloured
with emotion, until he perceived the presence of Mrs.
McFee. Then he was quick to uncover his head and
disembarrass his teeth.
"Your servant, ma'm. Hope you'll excuse the in-
formality, but we found your front door standing wide
open and figured maybe something might be going
wrong. H'are you, Lanyard? Business as usual, I
see." A nod and wrinkling grin designated the pistol.
"I'll tell anybody that don't know, you're the little guy
that stages the quick come-backs." Over his shoulder,
Crane called: "Come on in, Hoffmeyer; looks like we'd
found us a regular job."
A brisk policeman in uniform moved in from the
hallway. And sensible of sharp relief, Lanyard put
down the pistol. "My friend!" he told Crane: "never
in your life were you more welcome."
"That's easy to believe; going on the looks of things
we've happened along at one of these psychological


The Lone Wolf Returns 131
moments, all right. No thanks to me, of course, Lan-
yard: I just naturally hiked right up here as soon as
I got your 'phone message."
"You telephoned for Mr. Crane?" Folly demanded,
eyeing Lanyard intently.
"He sure did," Crane affirmed.
"At what time?"
"Half an hour or so ago—wasn't it, Lanyard?"
"Approximately. But I can fix the hour precisely:
Mrs. McFee will undoubtedly remember when Malli-
son was called from the table to answer the telephone."
Folly nodded, her eyes growing rounder. Lanyard
laughed, with a wave of a debonnaire hand introduced
the other woman. "You see here the lady who was
then, according to Mallison, Mrs. Stuyvesant Ashe.
Now she accuses herself of being his wife. One or
both of them would seem to be mistaken. No matter:
after listening in on their conversation, I felt warranted
in calling up Mr. Crane without waiting to secure your
approval."
"You called him up from here?"
"But what would you?" With a specious show of
naivete Lanyard chose to misconstrue that almost
purely rhetorical query of astonishment. "Admit that
I had hardly time to run out and hunt up a sound-
proof booth, madame, admit that I had no choice other
than to remain here if I were to keep faith with you
—and more especially when the telephone had just
told me enough to prove that this fine gentleman in-
tended blackmail, whether or not we were justified in
crediting him with a graver offence against your hos-
pitality."


132 The Lone Wolf Returns
The earnest eyes that held Folly's saw them con-
fused by these cunningly sown hints and implications.
And not until she had heard him out with a compre-
hending nod for all comment, and the lips that had
been parted in breathless interest closed without utter-
ing a word to refute his impudent assertion of an
understanding which made Folly a party to his presence
in the house, did Lanyard again find it easy to breathe.
But that nod, coupled with her silence, testified to
appreciation of the fact that in tacit confirmation of
his claim lay the one sure way to save her good repute,
that to gainsay him would be to lend colour to the
calumny implicit in the intrusion of Mallison's "wife"
and her accomplices.
If Folly wanted proof of this, she had it in another
breath, when the seedy conspirator instituted a counter-
offensive.
"Just a minute, gentlemen!" he insisted, pushing in
his sallow, excited face between Lanyard and Crane.
"You go too fast. We deny all these ridiculous alle-
gations, but particularly we deny that my client is here
in any sort of collusion with her husband. That ma-
licious innuendo we flatly contradict and brand a lie
out of whole cloth!"
"'We'?" Crane echoed, inquisitive but otherwise
indifferently impressed. "Your 'client'?"
"I am counsel for Mrs. Mallison—"
"You don't say? Bet anything she deserves you,
too." Crane showed Lanyard arched brows of du-
biety. "Shyster?"
"Calls himself Howlin," Lanyard assented impa-


The Lone Wolf Returns 133
tiently. "If you like he'll show you a card almost as
shady as the business which engages his talents to-
night."
"I can afford to ignore slurs upon my professional
standing which come from such a source," Howlin
loftily retorted. "But my business tonight being the
legitimate one of looking after the interests of a client,
I can hardly be expected to stand by and enter no
objection when I hear her slandered."
"I'll say you can't," Crane cruelly agreed, looking
the lady up and down with a glance so discerning that
it caused a dull flush to burn beneath her complexion.
But now again Howlin considered the source and
concluded he could afford to ignore constructive sar-
casm.
"Mr. Regan here," he said, introducing the man
who had styled himself a "city detective"—"has under
my direction been shadowing my client's husband for
several weeks. His reports show there's a question-
able degree of intimacy between Mallison and Mrs.
McFee. When, therefore, Mallison was seen tonight
letting himself into this house, using his own latch-
key, we had every excuse for assuming that an unex-
pected visit would produce certain results. Now,
however, since we would seem to have been misled, we
can only offer Mrs. McFee the assurance that my client
stands ready to give her every satisfaction the law may
hold her entitled to. I think that's all . . ."
He turned confidently toward the door. "Now,
Mrs. Mallison, if you're ready . . . Come, Regan."
"What's your hurry?" Crane genially wanted to


134 The Lone Wolf Returns
know, but quickly enough to anticipate the storm of
words promised by Folly's violent start. "You ad-
mit your liability for unlawful trespass, I take it?"
"If Mrs. McFee thinks she can induce any court in
the land to call it that," Howlin stipulated.
"Outside of that, however, you've got nothing to
fear?"
Mr. Howlin achieved a shrug which utterly abol-
ished a suggestion so absurd.
"Then be good sports—why don't you?—and stick
around a while. Maybe you might be able to help us
out in dealing with Mr. Mallison. Going on all you
tell me, Mrs. Mallison don't owe him any good will;
I judge she ought to be happy to see him come up
with. How about it, ma'm?"
The person appealed to in a touching twitter looked
to Howlin for guidance, and got from him a subtle
sign which she may have misinterpreted; not without
excuse, seeing that the situation was one of the ex-
tremest delicacy for all of them, and that the sacrifice
of one to the salvation of the majority is a time-hon-
oured expedient with her kind.
"Ask me anything you want," she volunteered, wag-
gling an indignant head and giving Mallison a poison-
ous look . . . "after the way he's treated me, the
low cur!"
"That's handsome of you, ma'm." Crane beamed
benignantly upon the lady, and with little less warmth
upon the unhappy dancing man. "I won't forget it,
either. But first I'd like to ask Mr. Lanyard here a
few questions, to sort of clear the ground."


The Lone Wolf Returns 135
"I object!" Mallison stuttered in dismay. "I re-
fuse to submit to these star-chamber proceedings—"
"Do you, now?" Crane commented with much in-
terest. "Well, if you ask me, 'star-chamber proceed-
ings' is a mighty hifalutin' name for what's going to
happen to you right here and now, my lad; it's going
to be a whole lot more like the third degree, if you
know what I mean."
Mallison knew only too well; fear lent those ingra-
tiating eyes, usually so gentle beneath their long and
silky lashes, the wickedness of a cornered rat's. "I
protest!" he snarled—"I deny'your right—"
"You better hush. Hoffmeyer here don't like your
looks nohow, he'll admire to improve 'em if you don't
quit speaking out of your turn."
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 circum-
stances which caused a certain person to be
suspected—"
"Why so modest?" Mallison interrupted vindic-
tively. "Why so mealy-mouthed? 'Suspected' is
hardly the word."
"I am desolated to disappoint monsieur; unhappily


136 The Lone Wolf Returns
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 independ-
ently, 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


The Lone Wolf Returns 137
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 Lan-
yard 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 danc-
ing 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, in-
explicable, 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—"


138 The Lone Wolf Returns
"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 contemp-
tible 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 him-
self 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!"


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 content-
ment, "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 neigh-
bours 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 adher-
ence to this programme, to which one prisoner alone
entered no objection: in disgrace with Fortune, Malli-
son 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
140


The Lone Wolf Returns 141
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 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 role 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 uncom-
promising. 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!"


142 The Lone Wolf Returns
"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 Ly letting you
lie like a . . ."
Folly faltered, at loss for a figure, and Laynard
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 sup-
port. 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 testi-
mony 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 tele-


The Lone Wolf Returns 143
phone, 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 hap-
pened, 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


144 The Lone Wolf Returns
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 gladl
. . . 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 chal-
lenged 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 jump-


The Lone Wolf Returns 145
ing 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 im-
pressionable, or I'd never trust you at all, with appear-
ances so black for you."
"Innocence," he modestly opined, "is so shining a
garment, black appearances can only lend it an en-
hancing 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 meet-
ing me so unexpectedly, you will be able to come down-
stairs 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


146 The Lone Wolf Returns
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 deshabille. "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 en-
vironmental, 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 Malli-
son 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


The Lone Wolf Returns 147
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 communi-
cated 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 oh 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 ad-
vance 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


148 The Lone Wolf Returns
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, Mor-
phew halted. He cleared his throat importantly, con-
sulted 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 becom-
ing 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 con-
fessed 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.


The Lone .Wolf Returns 149
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 mono-
syllable: "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 move-
ment 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;


150 The Lone Wolf Returns
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 Mor-
phew's fell, he turned sullenly back to the table, fum-
bling, 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 won-
dering 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.


The Lone Wolf Returns 151
"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 steal-
ing Mrs. McFee's emeralds."
The pupils of the little, flesh-embedded eyes con-
tracted, Morphew licked his lips again. "How's that?"
"Your protege, monsieur, so neatly styled the danc-
ing 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 Laynard.
"How'd you manage that?"
"But surely one who couldn't—so simple a matter 1
—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 dis-
played in this affair, to the end that you may spare
yourself further discomfiture by foregoing any in-
judicious 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


152 The Lone Wolf Returns
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 be-
ing served nowadays."
"Four drinks were mixed for us last night, Mor-
phew, by your man Pagan. The other three were
consumed without ill effects. Thirty minutes after
drinking mine, I became unconscious of my actions."
"Never knew a Frenchman yet could hold his liquor
like a gentleman."
"No doubt monsieur knows best how a gentleman
drinks ... At the same time, Pagan did his best,
by means of hints thinly veiled, to prepare Mrs. McFee
to credit me with the robbery which was even then
planned in detail."
"Is this a confession you're making?"
"Planned by you, monsieur, and brilliantly executed
by your henchman, the dancing yegg."
"If you didn't know what you were doing last night,
like you claim, how d'you know you didn't pull the job
off yourself?"
"One was waiting for that question, one knew it was
sure to come after the preparation Pagan had made
for it."


The Lone Wolf Returns 153
"I notice you don't seem in any sweat to answer it."
"It has been answered for me. With her complaint
of the theft, Mrs. McFee communicated to the police
the suspicions Pagan had been at such pains to sow
in her mind; with the result that my rooms were visited
early today and, like me, searched while I slept."
Morphew took the cigar from between his teeth and
with an air of anxiety inspected its half-inch or more
of ash. "And nothing found," he incuriously inferred.
"Nothing."
"Can't remember what you did with the stuff, either,
I suppose?" The cigar went back to its appointed
berth. "Too bad. You must've been stewed as a
boiled owl, all right."
"Patience. Tonight, when Mrs. McFee called in
the police to arrest Mallison for having sneaked back
like the thief he is, after leaving this house in the
character of a guest and friend, he was searched and
found to possess"—Lanyard made provokingly de-
liberate pause—"a pocket kit of burglar's tools."
"Sounds fishy." Nevertheless, more business with
the cigar told of strain to keep up appearances under
unrelenting study. "That all your news?"
"But by no means all. Further search proved that
Mallison had been guilty of the amazing indiscretion
of bringing the emeralds, concealed upon his person,
back into the house from which he had stolen them."
Untouched by Morphew's hand the cigar between
his teeth dropped its ash. "How do you mean?" he
mambled, watching his fat bedizened fingers brush gray
flakes from the lapel of his dinner jacket. "The


154 The Lone Wolf Returns
emeralds couldn't have been found on Mally unless"
—the colourless eyes lifted to Lanyard's face—"unless
you put them there!"
"My gifts are small, I am hardly so clever as mon-
sieur flatters me by supposing."
"By God!" Morphew heaved out of his chair in
a cold rage of conviction—"you planted the stuff on
the boy!"
"But," Lanyard pointed out, his suavity unruffled—
"if you are so positive the emeralds were in my poses-
sion before they were found on Mallison, the admis-
sion is implicit that you had compromising knowledge
of the robbery. Else how can you be so sure?"
"I'm satisfied you stole 'em," Morphew growled—
"I'm satisfied you planted 'em on Mally for fear they'd
be found on you."
"But why?" Lanyard argued as one perplexed
but reasonable. "Have you never been mistaken in
reading the hearts of those whom you employ? Re-
member what you must have known about Mallison
before you reckoned him skillful and unscrupulous
enough to be of use to you. Was it altogether wise,
do you think, to trust such a one to resist the tempta-
tion to keep for himself the plunder you had set him
to steal and bestow on me for my undoing? Was it
wise to forget the least miscarriage of the scheme
would leave you unable to prove your tool had been
false to your trust? Was it wise to believe Mallison
too dense to think of that for himself? How can
you be sure he didn't put the jewels into his own
pocket instead of into mine?"


The Lone Wolf Returns 155
"See here—!" Morphew stammered, equanimity at
last shattered beyond dissembling.
"Ah! but there I have you," Lanyard chuckled.
"There I touched the heel of Achilles—eh, monsieur?
—your vulnerable spot! The truth is, you dare trust
nobody; you don't know that Mallison didn't play you
false, any more than you know now he won't, when
the pinch comes, turn State's evidence and betray you
to save himself."
"Get out of my way!" Morphew bit through his
cigar and cast it from him with a violent hand. "I've
had enough of this, I've stood for about all of your
damned nonsense—"
"By all means, monsieur"—Lanyard politely stood
clear of the door—"hasten to the police station and
put the fear of God into the heart of this poor thing
whom you were ass enough to trust. You haven't a
minute to lose if you hope to succeed in stopping the
mouths of those four whom the police are even now,
doubtless, putting through the third degree—"
"Four?" Morphew checked short in ponderous
dismay, his heavy head low between his shoulders and
swaying like that of a tormented animal. "Four!"
"Bless my soul! did I forget to tell you? How
unpardonably stupid of me. The lady so lost to shame
that she openly accuses herself of being Mrs. Malli-
son, the enterprising Mr. Howlin, and his associate
Mr. Regan—all stepped with Mallison into the trap
you'd set for Mrs. McFee, for purposes of blackmail,
and sprung it on themselves. If you doubt my word,
you'll find them all at the East Fifty-first Street Police
Station."


156 The Lone Wolf Returns
"If that's true," Morphew rumbled, barely articu-
late—"if I owe that to you, Lanyard—"
"It is—you do."
"You'll settle with me, you crook — if you hide
at the ends of the earth, I'll find you and break
you—"
"Ah! thanks, my good Morphew, many thanks!"
Lanyard laughed in high delight. "How generously
you play into my hands. You confess you employed
Pagan to drug me and Mallison to commit a burglary
in an attempt to fasten the crime on me—you own
your complicity in an even fouler job of blackmail
'framed,' as you would say, for Mrs. McFee—and
now you add the cap-stone!"
Lanyard checked, then called: "Are you there, Mrs.
McFee?"
The portieres parted that closed the doorway to
the drawing-room, Folly entered and halted, her slight
figure now decorously clothed but drawn up to the
full of its inches and from the crown of the dainty
head to the tips of silken slippers tense with contempt
from whose fire, ablaze in her eyes, Morphew had
the grace to flinch.
"And now, before this witness," Lanyard pursued,
"you add a threat against my life. It's more than I
hoped for, Morphew, all I need to insure me a sound
night's sleep. If I don't wake up from it unharmed,
Mrs. McFee will know what to do. Must you go?
Soames, no doubt, is waiting to show you out. But
if you'd rather I gave you a lift with my foot—"
Morphew gave an incoherent bellow, lunged blindly


The Lone Wolf Returns 157
to the door, threw it open and himself through to the
hall. The very floor of the house quaked with the
pounding of his feet as he stampeded for open air. •
The street door banged like thunder while Lanyard
stood laughing into Folly's eyes.


XII
"DUT Lanyard was one who had learned how to
laugh without losing sight of graver matters; the
surface of his mood alone chimed with Folly's delight
in the confusion he had meted out to Morphew, his
thoughts were all a-ferment with perception of the
worth of every instant lost to his first duty, which was
straightway to put himself beyond the range of Mor-
phew's exacerbated spite.
Yet he was hardly so engrossed with the more seri-
ous as to be blind to his closer peril, the glow that
warmed Folly's countenance for him beneath the bright
ripples of her glee; and in its unmistakable kindness
read but one more reason why he must let nothing
stand in the way of his prompt going.
The thought took him quickly to the table; he was
lifting a hand to the switch of the lamp when Folly
caught his arm, her two hands staying him with a
gesture as gentle and importunate as the clasp of
tendrils.
"You're wonderful!" she declared in a breath, look-
ing up with eyes from which mirth had been swift to
ebb—"marvellous, the way you managed him, twisted
him round your little finger, made him own up to
everything 1 And I'd always considered Morphy a sort
of superman, so wise and calm and strong."
158


The Lone Wolf Returns 159
"Never reproach yourself with that," Lanyard re-
plied with a twinkle. "I too was taken in, till he made
it worth my while to call his bluff. But we mustn't
forget all men are much alike: only so long as he fails
to find a way to call mine will Morphew respect me.
My one hope is to keep him at a distance—how do you
say, over here?—to keep him guessing."
But the young woman wasn't so cheaply to be cheated
out of her new-found luxury of hero-worship, the bright
head dissented vigorously. "Why, Morphy hasn't a
chance! you're equal to a dozen of him any day—and
as many more Mallisons and Peter Pagans thrown in
for good measure. Don't I know? Haven't you
proved it here tonight?"
"The night is still young," Lanyard gravely re-
minded her. "It may tell another tale, if Morphew's
crew can contrive to lay hands on me before morning."
"After he'd threatened you in front of me? Non.
sense: he simply wouldn't dare—just as you told him."
"My bluff. Not that I mean to give him any op-
portunity to prove it such. But I shall need to move
quickly, none the less . . ."
The hint he gave of a desire to be free of her
hands got little encouragement, indeed their hold
tightened while she mocked his professions with looks
of disturbing admiration and derisive lips: "You're
not afraid!"
"But I assure you I am profoundly afraid. I don't
say Morphew would be flattered, but I fancy he'd feel
far less a fool if he knew how thoroughly I am afraid
of him. For we may be sure of one thing: in the


160 The Lone Wolf Returns
event of my becoming an early victim of some curious
accident, Morphew's hand will never show. He's not
the thundering scoundrel I thought him, but he's far
too clever notwithstanding to order a misfortune for
me that could possibly be traced to his management.
So you see—with permission—I really must be going."
"But where, to be safe—?"
Lanyard's expression took on another shade of
patience. "Time enough to think about that after
I've called at my rooms to collect some belongings."
"But"—Folly held fast to his arm, with a little
frown of solicitude to excuse her persistence—"if
you feel so sure Morphew means mischief—"
"Do you need more proof than you've had tonight?"
"Then surely he'll have set somebody to watch the
house already—"
"The front of it, yes. Precisely why I'm anxious
to get away before he can set spies to guard the rear.
If you have no objection, I shall leave by these win-
dows after putting out the lamp."
"But why?" Folly adorably pouted. "You're safe
enough here."
"Madame will forgive if I make so bold as to
question that." She let fall her lovely lashes to deny
Lanyard's meaning smile, but still held on. "And
every minute I linger makes the danger outside more
real."
"Then . . . don't leave at all . . ."
"Madame is generous to a fault. She forgers the
world is never broad-minded. There are the servants
to be considered, the neighbours—"


The Lone Wolf Returns 161
"A lot I care what people think, it's you I'm think-
ing of!"
Suffused with facile sentiment, the face at Lanyard's
shoulder was that of an exquisite and ingenuous child,
vibrant with glad recognition of a world whose won-
der and beauty had till that moment been all unsus-
pected. And the worst of it was, she knew it . . .
No: the real worst of it was that it wasn't art, it wasn't
put on, she wasn't coquetting, actually she was stirred
to the depths of her being and meant with all of her
every lovely nuance of her looks. Even Lanyard knew
an instant when nothing in life seemed more desirous
than those lambent eyes and the yielding mouth whose
lips trembled with her hastened breathing. . . .
But an instant only; in another he got himself in
hand again and steeled his heart to cruel kindness.
It went against nature to hurt her; but the hurt would
not bite deep, its tonic pang would leave no scar. Not
for the first time did life now give him proof of the
readiness of a nature emotionally shallow and im-
pressionable to succumb to the glamour of his ill-fame
as a romantic rogue.
"Madame," said he with genuine reluctance, "would
be so much wiser to think first of herself always."
She argued with a rebellious face: "But I can't help
it—can I ?—if it's you I must think of first."
"Nor can I help it," he gently said, "if I must
always think first of another."
Folly caught her breath with a sharp little hiss, re-
leased Lanyard's arm and stood away, colouring but
—strangely enough—not in anger.


162 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Oh!" she cried; and added with a half-smile of
whimsical self-reproach—"I'd forgotten. So it's true,
what Liane told me." She accepted a slow inclination
of Lanyard's head, gave a small wistful sigh. "I sup-
pose she must be very beautiful. . . . Won't you tell
me what she is like?"
"Some day, perhaps," Lanyard vaguely agreed
. . . "if you let me live to see another."
"I!"
"There's practically no danger if I may be permitted
to say good night without more delay."
"I presume you must . . ." Folly wagged her head,
with a smile that broke in ruefulness but radiated in
unaffected amusement at her own expense. "What a
silly you must think me, a sentimental little ninny!
No: don't deny it, because you're quite right. So that's
that—and what must be, must. Many thanks for my
emeralds, Monsieur the Lone Wolf, and"—she
dropped him a mischievous courtesy—"more for my
lesson. And so—good bye!"
He waited with intention till, in a gesture of charm-
ing petulance, a hand fluttered into his.
"Good night, my dear," Folly tenderly murmured
as he bent his lips to her hand—"good bye!"
Straightening up, Lanyard turned off the light.


XIII
O OME time after four o'clock the brougham, curbed
^ overlong to pace sedately the interlacing mazes of
the Bronx, gave a little start and shudder of pleasure
to find itself at last heading into open country, with a
soft deep purr crescendo flirted the dust of White
Plains from its tyres and sped away, ventre-a-terre,
upon the highway which, skirting the eastern shores of
the Kensico Reservoir, wanders with such a luring
random air the lake country of Westchester.
That day, true to the type of those that render
Autumn in the Northern states the fairest season of
the four, had been luminous of sky and languorous
with reminiscent warmth. But now—as in a field of
pastel tinting ineffably pellucid its sun dipped low to
hills whose shadows like vast purple wraiths crept
sluggishly across the valleys and their embayed waters,
small lakes as still and bright and bleakly blue as
plaques of polished steel now as the dim haze of
Indian Summer took on shades of lavender ever deeper
and more tender, blotted up all distances and robbed
the wooded hillsides of their flaming splendour—pre-
monitions of evening chill lent tang to air aromatic
with incense of dead leaves a-smoulder in uncounted
pyres.
Lanyard leaned forward and offered to put up the
windows at the chauffeur's back, but Eve de Montalais
r
163


164 The Lone Wolf Returns
gave a slight sign of dissent. "I like it better so, I
love this air—if it's not too cold for you, my Michael."
He smiled a negative, and taking the rug from its
rail made her snug in it. She lifted her eyes to his in
lovely acknowledgement and, emboldened by the clos-
ing dusk and the loneliness of that little-travelled way,
nestled nearer, cheek to his shoulder.
Thus, pensive with the gentle melancholy distilled
by that hour of dying beauty, symbolic of the cruel
haste with which all beauty passes, the lovers sat a
while in silence; as, for that matter, they had, barring
a few brief interludes of gossip upon indifferent topics,
ever since leaving New York; not that either had too
little to say . . .
"Michael: tell me you are happy."
He had to bend his head to hear that whisper, her
lips brushed his cheek with a caress so fugitive and
light they might have been a moth's fluttering wings.
"Never so happy, Eve."
"Tell me it shall be always so with us. Surely we
can make it so . . ."
For all answer she had the tightened pressure of his
arm; and, a little chilled with disappointment, she said
no more till, after several minutes, Lanyard was moved
to wonder aloud: "This country is all strange to my
eyes. Where are you taking me?"
"To a far-away place I hope you'll like."
"How should I not, seeing it is your choice?"
"A little old inn, Michael, tucked away in the lone-
liest hills. We can be quiet there, and talk."
"Talk?" Lanyard made a sad stab at humour, hop-


The Lone Wolf Returns 165
ing thereby to divert her. "Is it kind to encourage
my besetting vice?"
"I think," Eve answered, "you have something to
tell me tonight."
"But you know it already," he parried poorly in his
disquietude—"I think you have heard too often what
I have to tell you."
As if he hadn't spoken, as if involuntarily giving her
heart voice, in a tone curiously dispassionate yet de-
termined Eve replied: "We must not part."
Again he dared not trust his tongue . . .
The afterglow, pulsing through a hundred changes,
faded, fainted, and contracted, till a long, clear pool
of emeraude alone defined the foot of the sky, the
profile of those hills within whose pleats night hung
already close and breathless. Through its dark, across
gulfs unguessable, lost lights winked, beaconing un-
known heights. And the spreading surfaces of still
water on every hand, so thickly shadowed as to be more
felt than seen, grew wan by degrees with shine of
stars.
Smartly tooled, with the sureness of a swallow's
flight the car pursued its fan of yellow light over the
intricate meander of the road, its windings, dips and
soarings, while ever and again a bend ahead or the
summit of some sharp ascent would take sudden shape
in a sheen of spectral blue, heralding the advent of
twin minor moons which, bearing down upon the
brougham with a startling show of destructive mania,
would pass harmlessly in a roaring rush; or some fleet-
ing eye, crimson with anger, would be raised and over-


166 The Lone Wolf Returns
hauled and swept astern, metamorphosed into head-
lights of blank glare rocking in feebly furious emula-
tion of that headlong pace.
The buffeting air grew cooler and yet more cold; but
neither the man nor the woman minded. His love
warm in his arms, Lanyard was trying to live for the
moment only, to be oblivious of yesterday and reck-
less of tomorrow. He failed, of course: impossible
for one who loved so well to be deaf to the murmurings
of his heart against that resolution which, shaped by
his soberest judgment, firmed by his will, bade him put
love away tonight forevermore, lest harm befall her
in whom love had its source and whole existence. This
evening together must be the last: so he was fixed in
his intention. But how tell Eve, how make her under-
stand, win her consent and concurrence? . . .
"Why do you look behind so often, Michael?"
"A bad old habit," Lanyard lightly lied, cursing his
stupidity for having let her remark that symptom of a
mind perturbed—"a souvenir of bad old days. Jungle
folk, they say, never are wholly reclaimed from jungle
ways; the instincts of the chase are always cropping
up in our least considered action, we are forever con-
ceiving ourselves, as of old, hunter, and hunted in the
same skin."
"My poor Michael!" The woman indulgently
laughed. "Does he imagine he is deceiving some-
body?"
"But do you not forget"—he snatched at this straw
—"that there are motor-cycle police abroad, even on
these back-country roads? Naturally one keeps an
eye out for them . . ."


The Lone Wolf Returns 167
For all that Eve had again contrived to put him out
of countenance, there had been colour of truth in his
equivocation that had failed: Lanyard's restless vigi-
lance was more instinctive than excited by any indica-
tion either that the car was being trailed or that the
riddle of his whereabouts was one of any present
interest to those whose malevolence he had sound
reason to beware of. Since the previous night nothing
had happened to show that Morphew had succeeded
in having the devious way traced which Lanyard had
taken en route from Folly's residence to his own lodg-
ings and then on to the modest hotel which ultimately
had provided him with a bed, or to contradict the
inference that Morphew had decided to profit by his
lesson in humility and count it cheap at its cost. . . .
Than which last Lanyard could not readily imagine
any hope more infatuate: Life had taught him too
well to know the temper of the Morphew breed.
It was true, however, that he had been at some
pains all day to keep himself rather thoroughly in-
sulated against news from Morphew's side. The story
of the recovered emeralds had "broken" too late for
the morning papers; and although Crane beyond much
doubt could have supplied helpful information, Lan-
yard had been studious to remain lost to that one, too,
entertaining as he did not the remotest wish to be
haled into court as a witness against Mallison.
Not that conscience reproached for the ruse which
had brought about the arrest of the dancing man as
the thief of night before last. Even though Mallison
might in point of simple fact be innocent of that crime,


The Lone Wolf Returns 169
banished by Eve's announcement: "We are nearly
there."
Its pace growing momentarily more moderate, the
car approached the mouth of a by-way where a road-
side sign seared the night with letters of fire: INN OF
THE GREEN WOODS. Wheeling headlights raked
aisles of pines through which the road serpentined at a
sharp grade upward, leading the brougham out at last
into a hilltop clearing where a rambling structure sat,
of undressed logs, with deep verandas and windows of
ingratiating warmth. To one side a few cars of earlier
arrivals were parked. Indoors an atmosphere neither
too rude nor too sybaritic made good Eve's recom-
mendation, a discriminating taste had imposed the
refinements of today upon yesterday's primitive accom-
modations. A great fireplace of field-stone nursed a
blaze of logs grateful to flesh nipped by the night air.
Tables dressed in good taste and not closely ranked
gained an additional effect of privacy through low
fences of rustic work setting them apart. Of these
a number were in use when Eve de Montalais and
Lanyard were conducted to one which waited in a
corner, ready laid for them.
Not long after, still another party turned up and
was assigned a nearby table. Lanyard accorded its
four members the same shrewd but covert study which
he had already wasted on their predecessors, perceiv-
ing in these newcomers, as well, nothing to re-excite a
disposition to distrust mankind in toto which was yield-
ing rapidly to the blandishments of that delightful and
devoted presence at his elbow, a dinner most admirable


172 The Lone Wolf Returns
leaving a matter so vital in suspense. If nothing had
occurred to make you hesitate, for fear of giving me
pain, you wouldn't be trying so hard to talk about
everything imaginable but the one thing that counts."
He gave his head a tormented shake. "Is it not
enough that, the more I weigh the circumstances, the
more sure I feel I am right?—the only way to be fair
to you is to take myself out of your life."
"But it seems to me I am the one to say what is fair
or unfair to me. After all, my happiness is at stake."
"Not more than mine."
"Much more than yours. You are selfish, Michael
—not meaning to be, but because you would hurt me
to my very heart to spare yourself self-reproach, if
ever after our marriage anything should come out of
the past to trouble us. As if anything matters to a
woman who loves, so long as she is well loved in
return!"
"You show me to myself in an unkind light . . ."
"I am using every weapon I can find in my fight with
life for the right to be happy."
"I would break my own heart rather than cause you
an instant's unhappiness . . ."
"You think so, dear. But you at least would have
the memory of an act of renunciation to console you—
you could say to yourself: 'I suffer, but for her sake.'
For me there would be only the knowledge that I had
been cheated out of my due. I have the right to claim
more of life than it has given me . . ."
The voice of melancholy music faltered, then re-
sumed: "The War took my husband from me before


The Lone Wolf Returns 173
I was old enough to know what love could mean. Now,
long after, I have found a greater love—and I am
required to give it up solely because you are afraid
somebody may some day tell me what I already knew,
that once upon a time you were a little lower than the
angels!"
To avoid the accusation of her look, Lanyard stared
blindly into the fire.
"I am not good enough for such a love as yours,
Eve."
"Perhaps no one of us is good enough for Love.
Yet we can try to be, by serving . . ."
Lanyard hung his head; and in accents of quiet con-
viction Eve de Montalais pursued: "Something has
happened. I thought so, from your manner this after-
noon, now I am sure. It isn't that you have ceased
to care for me—"
"You know it is not that."
"What, then? It must be something quite as seri-
ous, you couldn't hold out against me as you do if it
were anything less. Michael: you can't refuse to tell
me now."
He made a sign of submission combined with a plea
for time in which to assort his thoughts. Indisputably
nothing less than the truth would satisfy her; but it
might be that something less than the whole truth, so
sure to terrify the woman, would serve.
And while he sat turning the matter over in his
mind, their waiter approached.
"Monsieur Paul Martin?" the man enquired, with
an execrable attempt to give the words a French in-
flexion.


174 The Lone Wolf Returns
In his abstraction, Lanyard signified an impatient
negative, but Eve de Montalais was less thick-witted.
"What name?" she quickly enquired.
"Paul Martin, ma'm. He's wanted on the telephone
—a long distance call."
"From New York?"
"I don't know, ma'm, the party didn't say, just asked
for Monsieur Paul Martin—party with a sort of a
foreign accent, French, I guess."
Eve looked sharply to Lanyard: "It is for you—
you must answer it." He responded with a puzzled
nod, though his memory needed no more jogging. But
was it possible? he wondered, letting the waiter lead
to the telephone booth in the office of the inn; aside
from Eve and himself, that alias of a day long past
was known to but three people in the world; and of
these one was in London and one at last accounts in
Paris, the third alone was in New York . . .
But if Liane knew where he was dining, so far
away from Town, she must have been informed by
somebody who had followed him without his knowl-
edge!
Not the voice of Liane, but a man's saluted him
above the humming of the long distance wire, a man's
. voice with, as the waiter had indicated, a strong tinge
of nasal French.
"Monsieur Paul Martin?"
"Yes. Who wants him?"
"I am spikin' for 'is sister. Ees this Monsieur
Martin spikin'?"
It was Liane who for her own ends had nominated


The Lone Wolf Returns 175
herself the sister of Monsieur Paul Martin, one day
in Paris long ago.
Lanyard answered "Yes."
"Pardon, monsieur: your sister ees too beesy now
to telephone you 'erself. She have ask' me to geev
you a message.'
"Monsieur is most amiable," Lanyard replied in
French. "What is the message, please?"
"Prenez garde."
"What do you say?"
"Bon soir, monsieur."
"Hello! hello!"
But Lanyard worried the hook in vain: the other
had hung up, the wire was closed. . . ,
Prenez garde—take care/


XIV
ANYARD took back to Eve by the fire the most
degage manner he could manage, a manner of
leisured good humour that wasn't all put on at the
prompting of amour propre, that was assumed less in
hope of hoodwinking her ingenious intuitions than for
the benefit of their fellow guests, if so be it these en-
tertained any latent interest in the reactions of Michael
Lanyard to a long distance call for "Monsieur Paul
Martin," and that dissembled better than he believed
a sense of discouragement the most devastating he had
ever known—not on his account alone so much as that
he was not alone.
The quandary in which he found himself trapped,
now that his eyes had been opened by that singular
admonition from out of the night, at once cryptic and
only too intelligible, was one that defied and, what was
worse, promised persistent defiance to the utmost of
his resources, from which extrication with credit to
himself—or, if it came to that, with his life—seemed
out of the question. Not that he put life first: his
solicitude was nine parts unselfish, his disheartenment
the fruit of inability to hit on any pretext that con-
ceivably would induce Eve to part then and there with
one whose company had all at once become equivalent
to a pistol trained on her heart point-blank—and with

176


The Lone Wolf Returns 179
business," clothed in a weirdly uniform mode of smart-
ness, something stale with over-feeding and drinking
and fondling, wanting stimulation yet inclined to grow
causelessly arrogant in their cups. But Lanyard was
too well learned in the ways of urban America not to
know that its Apaches seldom if ever conform to the
cliche of the cinema when it turns its cyclopaedic if
gullible eye on what it knows as denizens of the under-
world. The gunman of New York is blown with pride
of caste; for all that he isn't keen on bidding for the
attention of the police by sporting the conventionalized
make-up of a suspicious character, he far prefers to
pass in a crowd as a simple man in the street normally
addicted to the machine-made "clothing of distinction"
of the magazine advertisements. The fact, then, that
these three were apparently nobodies in particular
minding their own business, didn't necessarily mean
that Lanyard could afford to dismiss them from his
calculations.
Neither did he, careful though he was to give them
no excuse for suspecting he had one thought to spare
from the woman at his side.
"There is no one like you," he was saying in gallant
repayment of her steadfast and demanding attention:
"the loveliest woman that ever breathed, the most
adorably patient . . ."
"How little you know me !" she calmly commented—
"at least, if you expect me to believe you think me
patient. Then your message was important?"
"Very," the man admitted: the time was by when
fencing were anything but waste of time. "I am wor-
ried about getting you back to Town . . ."


180 The Lone Wolf Returns
"So it was Mademoiselle Delorme!"
"That only goes to show," Lanyard obliquely re-
marked, "one should never tell you anything one ex-
pects you to forget."
"I have forgotten nothing you have ever told me
about yourself—nothing, least of all, that had to do
with another woman's affection for you."
"Yet you are incapable of jealousy."
"Still, I am very greedy, I don't like sharing even
the least of your thoughts with any other woman."
"Oh!" he laughed—"but Liane isn't a woman, ex-
cept professionally."
"You are tantalizing me all the same when you don't
tell me what she had to say—and how in Heaven's
name she guessed you were dining here—and why she
resurrected that old nom de guerre instead of calling
for you by your right name."
"I'm afraid Liane didn't guess, I suspect somebody
told her we had stopped here to dine—"
The teasing half-smile with which Eve had been
regarding her lover was erased. "You think we were
followed—!"
"How else could they have known?"
"'They'?"
"Who informed Liane."
"But why should she have harked back to 'Paul
Martin'?"
"I fancy her reason for that is implicit in Liane's
message, a brief one—delivered, if it matters, by a
stranger's tongue—'prenez garde'."
Eve nodded thoughtful confirmation of a private


The Lone Wolf Returns 181
conjecture. "You are in some danger?" Not at all
deceived by the shrug that sought to depreciate the
weight of that term, she glanced quickly to and from
the little party that was, just then, noisily making
merry at its table across the room. In response,
another movement of Lanyard's shoulders disclaimed
intelligence: "Perhaps . . . Who knows?"
"You must tell me everything . . ."
"I know; but it's a fairish yarn, and the car ought
to be here any minute—I'll hardly have time before
we leave. So let me first of all throw myself upon
your mercy, Eve, beg you to trust me."
"But you know I do, in every way."
"I mean: trust me to know what is best . . ."
Analysis of this ambiguity knitted a speculative
frown. "You're going to ask something of me I
won't want to do."
"It is dangerous for us to attempt the journey back
to New York together."
"Dangerous," Eve objected, "isn't definite enough."
"It would appear that one whom I have recently
been obliged to humiliate plans to pay me out tonight.
He will fail—trust me for that—but I shall be more
free to make him see the error of his ways if I can
feel sure the harm meant for me can't by mischance
be visited upon you instead."
"Ah, no, my friend! you don't seriously think I will
consent . . ."
"You would not hesitate if I could only make it
clear how much better my chances would be."
"I'm afraid it's a hopeless task, but"—she made her
smile provoking—"suppose you try."


182 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Conceive, then"—Lanyard spoke deliberately in an
endeavour to put the business in a nutshell—"that
after leaving you night before last I was thrown in
with one who chose to declare war on me for his own
ends—"
"The Sultan of Loot!"
"Why try to keep anything from you?"
"You forget, I too had a premonition concerning
that creature. Who is he?"
"I can more easily tell you what he is. He styles
himself Morphew and the Tenderloin calls him King
of the Bootleggers—justly, one is told. In addition,
he nurses a penchant for having a finger in every law-
less pie. To discipline me, that night, he caused the
loot of a burglary to be hidden in my pockets while
I lay in a stupor, drugged by his direction, then saw
to it that I was suspected of having committed the
theft."
"Oh, no!" the woman interrupted involuntarily, re-
volted by the bare suggestion of such enormity.
"Or else—I must believe I stole the jewels myself,
in instinctive reversion to old ways, drink having abol-
ished the inhibitions of the new."
"Never!"
"I do not know," Lanyard confessed with a wry
face. "There are circumstances which make me un-
easy ... I do not know!"
"How can you even suggest such a thing?"
"Let me tell you . . . Last night I visited—or
revisited!—the house from which the jewels had been
stolen, meaning secretly to restore them. This I man-


The Lone Wolf Returns 183
aged. I was even more fortunate in being able to
bring about the arrest of one of Morphew's lot as
the burglar of fact—which the fellow may well have
been. Finally, to confuse pursuit, I quitted the house
by the way the burglar had taken the night before—
let myself out of a window to the roof of an extension,
dropped down to a backyard, scaled a board fence,
and stole through an excavation for a new building to
the street beyond. Eve . . ."
Lanyard faltered and worked his hands together,
his features wrung, haunted eyes reflecting the enigma
of the embers which held their stare. And with a
gesture of quick sympathy, the woman sat forward to
screen him. But these others seemed to be completely
preoccupied with their own hilarious concerns; and the
racket of congenial voices they raised must have pre-
vented their overhearing anything of Lanyard's con-
fession when at length he resumed.
"Up to that time," he said slowly, "I had hardly
questioned the assumption that Morphew deliberately
had schemed to victimize me . . . But then, while
I was creeping away from that house, quite literally
like a thief in the night—once upon the roof, again
when I stood in the kitchen-yard, looking back at the
blank rear windows, and yet again while stumbling
through that foundation pit beyond the fence — at
every stage of that journey I knew a feeling as of
doing something I had done before, repeating the iden-
tical moves I had made at another time, upon an
occasion strangely forgotten . . ."
"Well?" the woman in cool amusement asked.


184 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Well!"—his smile sketched a wistful expression of
bewilderment—"I do not know, perhaps it was true,
perhaps . . ."
Careless whether they were observed, the woman
leaned forward and lightly covered one of his hands
with her own. "Poor dear!" she cried, with a thrill
of fond laughter—"to let himself be so tormented by a
sensation such as everybody has at times."
"Everybody?" he iterated in a stare.
"It happens to us all—has it never happened to you
before?—a phenomenon so common the psychologists
have a special name for it. What do they call it?
reflex memory? Something of the sort, I forget . . .
One only needs a new scene and a mood especially
susceptible to impressions of strangeness or beauty—
and all at once one feels quite sure one has visited
that very spot in some previous existence. Precisely
that happened to you, last night, my Michael, in your
super-excited state of mind, worried by ignorance of
the truth about the stolen property in your posses-
sion. . . . Take my word for it."
"You believe that?" he insisted—"truly?"
"Truly, my dear."
"You don't think I could possibly—?"
"Never—I know you better than you do yourself."
Eve gave his hand a comforting pressure, and sat back.
"If you let anything so absurd fret you another instant
I shall be cross with you."
"You make me happy," Lanyard said. "It costs
me something to tell you . . ."
"I know!"


The Lone Wolf Returns 185
"I don't deserve such faith."
"But I don't consider you a good judge of your
own worth, dear. And now that I understand the sit-
uation—you've made a fool and an enemy of this man
Morphew, and he's conspiring to be revenged—tell
me, what is it you have to propose about returning to
Town?"
"I want you to let me find my way back alone. I
have consulted road-maps and time-tables posted in the
office here. There's a train for New York from the
nearest station"—Lanyard glanced at the watch on his
wrist—"in about half an hour. . . . Which reminds
me, your driver is taking his time."
"Patience. He's always tinkering with the motor
—he'll be ready any minute. You were saying—?"
"I want you to let me drop you at the railroad and
take the train back to Town, with your chauffeur for
protection, while I go on in the car."
Undisguised derision honoured this proposal. "But
why should I, when it is you, not I, the Sultan of
Loot is after? If the train can be considered safe,
surely you're the one—"
"You forget, Morphew's people will aim at your
motor-car, believing me to be in it whether I am or not.
If I should succeed in leaving it unobserved, they would
still pursue the car. You can't ask me to expose you
to a danger from which I turn tail."
"Then why shouldn't we both take the train?"
"It is what you American call an accomodation—
stops at every station. If we should abandon your
car to be found near the railroad, it would be too


186 The Lone Wolf Returns
simple to have the train anticipated by telephone,
boarded somewhere between here and New York, and
the two of us kept so closely watched we would have
no chance . . ."
The woman's head described a sign of flat rejection Lanyard's rueful recognition of an outcome fore-
seen.
"Impossible, my friend. I couldn't dream of leav-
ing you to shift for yourself."
"But how else—?"
"I have a saner scheme. Why not stop here for
the night? The inn must have accomodations. . . .
You see!" Eve cried in laughing triumph—"you are
trying to get rid of me when the truth is, you need me.
Two heads are better than one . . . But why shake
yours so dourly?"
"I am afraid of your plan for more reasons than
one. Daylight for our return will hardly be the same
thing as accident insurance. If you give me my choice,
I like darkness better."
"And your other reasons—?"
"If I stop here overnight, where I am beyond much
doubt under surveillance even now, f remain placed
and give Morphew just so much more time to close
his net round me. And nothing I know of makes this
inn a sanctuary or guarantees the bona fides of the
management."
"You don't mean to say you think the people who
run this place—!"
"I have been taught to trust nobody at times like
this. More than that, everybody knows most of these


The Lone Wolf Returns 187
resorts in and about New York that openly flout the
Prohibition Amendment are actively in league with if
not actually owned by bootlegging interests. I will
breathe more comfortably, I promise you, when—and
if—we are permitted to go our way unhindered."
"Oh, but surely you exaggerate!"
"Possibly; it's not always a bad fault, by no means
so bad as under-exaggeration when one's neck is con-
cerned. However, it can't be long now before we
know."
Seeing their waiter approach, Lanyard got up and
took Eve's wrap from the back of her chair. But
the natural expectation of word that the brougham
was at the door suffered a blight even before the man
spoke, by reason of the odd look with which he saluted
Lanyard.
"Excuse me, Mr. Martin," he said with—or instinct
was at fault—a tinge of mockery in his supple habit—
"the manager's compliments, and he'd be much obliged
if you'd step into the office a minute, he'd like to have
a word with you."
"Indeed? What does the good man want?"
"If it's all the same to you, sir, it'd be better if
you'd kindly talk with the boss."
"About what?"
"Well, sir," the waiter stammered—"I don't want
to alarm the lady—something's happened."
Lanyard looked to Eve with lifting brows. "If you
will excuse me—"
"I don't think I will," Eve cheerfully replied, rising.
"And I don't in the least mind being alarmed. I'm
coming along."


188 The Lone Wolf Returns
With a formal bow of consent, Lanyard folded the
wrap round her shoulders, then threw his coat over his
arm and prepared to follow the waiter. But the latter
was just then peremptorily hailed by the host of the
remaining party with a demand for "the check"; so
Lanyard and Eve proceeded to the little office unes-
corted, to find awaiting them a person of decent man-
ners with an intelligent if at the moment somewhat
harassed eye. There had been, he began, an unfor-
tunate accident, he was more sorry than he could say
that it had occured in his establishment . . .
"What sort of an accident?" Lanyard with a touch
of asperity cut his apologies short.
"If you and your lady don't mind stepping this way,
I'll show you . . ."
Ushered out to the night, they were conducted round
the corner of the building to the space where, in the
chilly glimmer of a belated moon, the brougham stood
parked with one other motor-car, and, near the former,
two men were stooping over something that rested mo-
tionless upon the packed earth, one of them focussing
upon it the beam of an electric torch.
Lanyard touched Eve's arm, recommending her to
wait aside, and with the manager joined the group
round the supine body of Eve's chauffeur.
The man lay in a limp sprawl, his face in that un-
compromising glare a congested crimson, mouth slack
and drooling, half-closed lids showing only the whites
of eyes rolled back, stertorous respiration fouling the
sweet smell of the night—evidently no worse than dead
drunk.


The Lone Wolf Returns 189
"I just don't know how he worked it to get like
this," the manager was protesting. "It's dead against
our rules to sell hootch to chauffeurs, and I'll sack
the bird responsible for this if I have to bounce the
whole staff to get rid of him. But that isn't any com-
fort to you, I guess."
"None," Lanyard curtly agreed.
"He was all right as long's he was sittin' in the
chowfers' dinin'-room," the man with the lamp volun-
teered—"you wouldn't have thought he'd had more'n
a couple. But as soon as the cold air hit him he
flopped like somebody'd crowned him. Funny . .
"No doubt you find it so."
"The only thing I can suggest, Mr. Martin," the
manager put in, Lanyard thought too eagerly, "is to
lend you somebody to drive you back to New York.
Arthur here's a darn' good driver, knows all the roads
like a book."
"That's very good of you," Lanyard returned, with
a warning eye for Eve. "We'll be glad to make it
worth Arthur's while, for neither of us can drive or
has even a general idea of the roads. But first"—
the toe of his boot stirred the body—"we would like
to be sure this poor fool will get proper attention. I
daresay you can give him a room."
"Of course, sir—and I'll 'phone for a doctor, if you
say so, though I don't think that ought to be neces-
sary. This isn't any case of wood-alcohol poisoning,
there isn't a drop of bad liquor in the house—"
"I'm sure there isn't. All the same, what he had
must have been wicked stuff. If you don't mind hav-


190 The Lone Wolf Returns
ing him carried indoors, I'll make an examination my-
self—I have a limited amount of medical knowledge."
"You bet I will . . ."
Directed by the speaker, the two underlings, with
no noteworthy enthusiasm, surrendered the torch and
their leisure, lifted the body of the drunkard by the
legs and shoulders and, staggering with the weight of
that inert lump, made crabwise progress toward the
rear entrance to the inn, the manager following with
the light while Lanyard turned back to Eve with a
suggestion clearly articulated for the benefit of what-
ever ears might care to hear.
"If you'll make yourself comfortable in the car, I
promise I won't keep you waiting long."
"Thank you," Eve equably returned. "I don't mind
waiting, and I do want to be sure that poor boy is in
no real danger."
Lanyard offered Eve a hand, but the door he un-
latched was one that admitted not to the car but to
the front seat of the driver's right.
"Quick!" he urged in an undertone, and when Eve
was in place doubled round to the other side of the
brougham.
But the manager was not napping. "Here now!"
he remonstrated, jolted out of his vocational ur-
banity, and came running back—"thought you said
you couldn't—"
The moonlight silvered something in his hand which
might or might not have been the darkened torch, and
which Lanyard could not afford to give the benefit of
the doubt. Standing on the running-board, without


The Lone Wolf Returns 191
the smallest compunction he planted a foot in the mid-
riff of the man so forcibly that the latter dropped
whatever it was he had been holding and, with a yelp,
doubled up.
Immediately settling into place behind the wheel,
Lanyard released the emergency brake, with the re-
sult that the brougham, standing on a slight down-
grade, began to move of its own weight even before
he could locate the starting pedal. Muttering a prayer
of thankfulness, he meshed the gears in third and
swung the car into the down-hill road. At the same
time the two who had been carrying the chauffeur let
their senseless burden drop and started in pursuit. One
tripped over some inequality in the ground and plunged
to his knees. The other gained the running-board in
a bound and aimed a blow at Lanyard's head. It went
wide, and Lanyard's fist glanced upon the fellow's jaw
with sufficient weight to dislodge him. Beating the
air with frantic arms, he disappeared.
Fumbling for the switch with one hand, with the
other Lanyard steered for the maw of the road through
the woods. For one more instant the inn, painted with
pale lunar phosphorescence, stood out in bold relief
against its background of blurred forest, while with the
tail of his eye Lanyard saw its front door of a sudden
release a stream of saffron light. Somebody shouted
in profane astonishment, somebody stumbled out upon
the veranda and pelted toward the parking space.
Then, between two heartbeats, Lanyard solved the se-
cret of headlights and ignition, and the brougham,
momentum sharply hastened, swept on into the pillared
tunnel through the pines.


192 The Lone Wolf Returns
At first, hands that hadn't grasped a wheel in years
had all they could do to hold the lurching fabric to a
sharply declivitous and twisting path. Then the grade
grew more moderate, the way less tortuous, and the
car, obedient to its brakes, slipped gently past the fiery
sign and turned its nose southwards on the highway.
"Well done!" Eve applauded—"Oh, well done!"
"Wait!" Lanyard prayed, with the man in mind who
had sprinted from the lighted doorway toward the
other car—"physical fact to the contrary notwithstand-
ing, we're not out of the woods yet."
His toe found the accelerator pedal, the motor
responded with a mettlesome snort and a drumming
drone that waxed apace, the car clove the night like
a frightened cat . . .
After a mile or so of fast going on a road whose
wendings required for safe navigation a sure hand and
eye, Lanyard felt confidence confirmed in his ability
to handle the brougham with fair skill and extract from
its motor the best it had to give. And when, before
long, a rarely long stretch of straight road made a fair
trial feasible, he coaxed the speedometer by degrees up
to, then past the mark 50, without feeling that he was
tempting fate.
Toward the end of that dash, Eve, who had been
keeping an eye on the road astern, reported it bare of
pursuing headlights.
"Do you mean to try for that railroad?"
"No—not now, not since things have turned out as
they have."
"I am glad," she told him coolly. "This night is


The Lone Wolf Returns 193
too lovely to be spoiled by travelling in a stuffy train."
"Is it?" he queried in grim humour.
"Do you not find it so, my Michael?"
"I find it damnably dangerous."
"And I find it, danger and all, divine."
But Lanyard drove in an obsession of fatality . . .
The road, a river of oxidized silver threading an
upland world of purples and blacks in blended masses
and ever and again opening up vistas of long valleys
filled with mist like streams of milk, was a gauntlet of
deadly perils. In the blue bowl of the sky it bleached
the misshapen moon like a grinning devil-mask swung
from side to side of the devious way. The vast still-
ness that dwelt upon the world beneath had a brooding
effect as of beauty holding its breath in dread. Through
that somehow abnormal hush the swaying bulk of the
brougham bored like something wild of eye and mad
with fear. The wind its flight created had an insane
whine, and the incessant drum of its exhaust, echoing
from hard smooth surfaces, was re-echoed by hills and
woods and fields with a rumour as of tom-toms thrum-
ming a bacchanal of death . . .
But to the woman who loved Lanyard it was all
divine . . .
Summing up another survey of the road behind, she
declared: "There is nothing. You have outwitted and
distanced them."
"Have I?"
"Is there more to fear?"
"But everything."
"Even an open road?"


194 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Who can say what may lie in wait for us round the
next bend?"
"What does it matter, so we go to meet it together?"
Neither daring to take his eyes from the streaming
road nor knowing how to answer her, Lanyard gave
only a groan.
"I fear nothing but to be parted from you. Prom-
ise we shall never part."
He could not promise . . .
"Michael!" the heartbreaking voice at his shoulder
insisted—"why don't you answer me? Surely you can't
still be thinking I will ever let you go?"
He contrived to say, almost explosively: "But I
must."
"Ah, no, nol Michael, you couldn't hurt me so."
"Is not tonight enough to prove to you no man who
loved you truly could consent to expose you to such a
life? It is my fate to love you too well . . ."
What the woman said to that was lost in the blast
of a tyre blown out on one of the front wheels. An
instantaneous swerve toward a ditch by the roadside
all but wrenched the wheel out of control and resulted
in a wreck. As it was, frantic work averted that dis-
aster by the slenderest of scrapes. With locked brakes
the brougham skidded drunkenly and rolled to a halt
broadside to a bluff over across from the ditch.
With amazing self-command, Lanyard suffered never
a syllable of a seething vocabulary to escape his lips as
he unlatched the door and leaped down. An instant
later Eve on her side alighted and came round to join
him. Together, they contemplated in silence the rup-


XV
■pAIN that threatened to rend his head asunder
played before his eyes in blinding flashes, like
ragged lightning, crimson and soundless—or the man
was deaf to its thunders whose every other faculty was
numb in subjugation to sense of pain intolerable, who
was faint with pain, sick with it . . .
Hands clipped his body under the arm-pits, a thin,
far rumour of articulate noise pronounced some stu-
pidity which he made no attempt either to comprehend
or to acknowledge. Arms wrapped round him from
behind tightened, heaved, he was set upon unsteady
feet, then half-carried, half-guided to an angle of some
sort and propped up in it, with arms resting on two
broad, plane surfaces, elbow-high. A rudely genial
voice volunteered: "There you are, sir, and no 'arm
done. Now you'll do nicely."
Lanyard wanted to tell the speaker he was a fool,
it was impossible for one to have come through that
motor wreck, impossible for any mortal to have been
caught between two heavy cars meeting head-on in
headlong flight, without incurring desperate if not
deadly injuries. How reasonable and true that was
this pain proved that racked him from head to foot,
but more particularly his head, and made him want to
retch, pain so acute it paralyzed the very instinct to
complain... >. m
197


198 The Lone Wolf Returns
His tongue temporarily refusing its office, Lanyard
contented himself with a grunt through locked teeth;
and because his knees were as water, hung on with both
hands to the rounded surfaces that met behind his back
to form the angle, till presently the pain grew less, thp
feeling of nausea passed off, his senses renewed contact
with their environment and flashed strange tidings to
his brain in respect of conditions they could neither
grasp nor accomodate themselves to.
Some moron (he inferred) had taken to amusing
himself with the headlights of one of the motor-cars,
switching them on and off while they stared Lanyard
full in the face at such close range that he was conscious
of the heat they generated between the spaces of dark-
ness. Furthermore, a storm of sorts had evidently
sprung up out of that clear midnight sky: he remem-
bered well how cloudless it had been just before the
collision, how bright with mockery the gibbous moon;
the boding calm which had bound everything in Nature
he recalled distinctly, too. But now a great wind was
shrieking like a warlock, gusts of warm rain spattered
the flesh of his face, the very earth beneath him was
convulsed, bucking and rocking like a wild mustang,
and the keen, sweet smell of the inland night had given
place to the salt breath of the sea . . .
Lanyard opened his eyes, only to close them tight
the next instant and shut out what indisputably was the
delusion of a mind deranged; yet a vision so vividly
coloured and in every particular so circumstantial,
stamping the retinas with an impression of so much
brilliance and animation, that he could not refrain from


[The Lone Wolf Returns
199
looking again, if only to convince himself of the sheer
wonder of it—but half expecting his sight, on this occa-
sion, to be greeted by another illusion and a different,
if one quite as impossibly unreal.
He saw, however, precisely what he had seen, and
rejected, before . . .
A length of steamer deck, looking forward from the
angle in which he stood at the after end of the super-
structure, with deck-chairs all folded and lashed to the
inner rail and window-ports all fast; its scoured plank-
ing now blue with shadow cast by the deck overhead,
now flooded with sun glare from end to end, as the
vessel rolled in a rough seaway. Beyond the rail a
bright blue sky without a cloud, a horizon unbroken
by any loom of land, a sea of incredible ultramarine
creaming under the lash of a full gale, the sleek hollow
bellies of its charging waves a-dazzle with the sun's
spilled gold, its flying spindrift sprays of diamond-
dust . . .
Forward, opposite the entrance to the saloon com-
panionway, a girl clinging to the rail, bobbed blonde
hair fluffed out by the wind, filmy yellow sweater and
brief sports-skirt of white silk moulded to her slender
young contours, intent eyes turned aft to Lanyard.
In the dark mouth of the door a cluster of men and
women, likewise staring. Nearer and a little to the
left a lithe young man of British stamp, wearing a look
of cheerful concern and the white-duck jacket of a
steward, with long legs well apart balancing to the mo-
tion of the vessel while he watched Lanyard.
Finding himself the target of the latter's bemused


200 The Lone Wolf Returns
regard, the man grinned broadly. "Nahsty tumble,
sir," he cried in the penetrating pitch of a seafarer
schooled to talk against the wind, and with an inflexion
that suited precisely his racial type —"and a wicked
crack it did give your 'ead and no mistike. Like a
pistol shot it sounded. Thought for a minute it 'ad
done you in for fair, but it didn't take long to mike
sure you 'adn't broke' no bones. 'Ow do you feel
now, sir?"
"What . . ." Lanyard's voice in his hearing was
attenuated and strange. His tongue felt unwieldy.
"What . . .?"
The figure in the white jacket waved a hand toward
the foot of a ladder nearby. "You was comin' down
from the bridge-deck, sir — don't you remember? —
when a sea 'it us and knocked you clean off your pins.
'Ad to 'ang on to the rail to keep from bein' knocked
abaht myself."
Lanyard replied with a sign of exorcism, releasing
the rail with one hand to describe it. At the same
time he shut his eyes fast and made a determined effort
to shake off the bondage of this fantastic dream. But
when he looked again nothing had changed, the hallu-
cination remained as definite and bright as ever, perfect
to its last least detail.
"Feel a bit shiken up, don't you, sir?" The steward
moved to Lanyard's side. "I don't wonder. But if
you'll just tike it easy a while, I think you'll find you
aren't much 'urt."
Dumbfoundered, Lanyard wagged his head, bring-
ing about recurrence of its splitting ache, which none


The Lone Wolf Returns 201
the less led to the discovery that, barring a bruised
shoulder and elbow, a well-battered head was all his
damage. But this too he laid to delirium, as being a
manifest physical inconsistency in one who had just
taken part in a motor smash of the first magnitude.
And wondering if exertion of will would bring this
lunatic scramble of a world round to its right guise of
reality, he fixed the steward with an exacting eye, the
eye of a man who had made up his mind to stand for
no more nonsense.
"Madame de Montalais?" he enunciated distinctly
—"is she all right?"
But demonstrably this wasn't the requisite magic
formula, enunciation of it failed to do away with those
unbelievably factual circumstances of a summer gale at
sea and set up in their stead an autumnal nocturne of
moonlit hills and vales. Its only effect, indeed, was to
light a flicker of real solicitude in the steward's eyes.
"Beg pardon, sir: what was that you said?"
"The lady with me—was she injured?"
"But there wasn't any lidy with you, sir—you was
quite alone, arf w'y down the ladder, when the sea 'it
us. I 'appened to be watchin' you, sir, though not
'andy enough to save you the fall, I'm sorry to s'y.
But per'aps you feel strong enough now to let me 'elp
you to your berth and fetch the doctor to give you a
look over."
Lanyard in despair resigned himself: the world had
gone stark staring mad and he was the maddest mad-
man in it. Weakly he suffered the steward to take his
arm in a respectful yet persuasive hold.


202 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Let me see, now, sir: what was the number of your
stiteroom?"
In unbounded amazement Lanyard heard himself
reply without any hesitation: "Thirty-nine."
"Quite so, sir. This w'y, if you please, and lean
on me as 'eavy as you like: I won't let you tike another
tumble, never fear."
A door in the after wall of the superstructure ad-
mitted to a passage by way of which it was only a
step to Stateroom 39. Here the steward considerately
removed the passenger's coat and shoes and made him
comfortable in a berth wedged with pillows, then hur-
ried away to call the ship's surgeon, leaving Lanyard
to nurse a temper of dull indignation, satisfied that he
was being somehow sold by his ingrate senses, but quite
incapable of understanding how. His head still hurt
like hell—there was a cruel swelling above one ear—
and seemed to be utterly of no service other than as a
container for pain-impregnated cotton wool that stif-
fled eVery essay of his wits to seize the meaning of his
present plight. After a while he gave up trying to
think and lay looking round the room with resentful
eyes; to move these in their orbits made them ache
intolerably, but there was nothing else to do ...
The stateroom had been designed and fitted to ac-
comodate three people without crowding. Neverthe-
less it had every appearance of dedication to the uses
of a single tenant. A solitary dressing-gown and one
suit of pyjamas hung on hooks behind the door. One
collection of shaving implements and other masculine
toilet articles cluttered the shelves above the wash-


The Lone Wolf Returns 203
stand. A lonely kit-bag, obviously on its first voyage
out of the shop, displayed the monogram A. D. None
of these was Lanyard able to identify as property of
his. If you asked him, he could swear he had never
laid eyes on them before. But neither was he on terms
of visual acquaintance with the coat which the steward
had stripped from his shoulders and which was now
oscillating like some uncouth and eccentric pendulum
from a hook at the foot of the berth. A garment
fashioned of the smokiest of Scotch tweed but with
an incurably American accent, it gave circumstantial
contradiction to the feeling that one had no business
to pose as the rightful tenant of that stateroom; for
quite as apparently one had had no business posing as
the rightful tenant of that coat.
But the affair as a whole was past puzzling out by
a head whose buzzing mocked every attempt at ordered
thought; and with a sigh Lanyard gave it up for the
time being, and shut his eyes to screen out refracted
sun-glare wavering like a prismatic cobweb on the
white paint overhead . . .
Consciousness was on the point of lapsing when
the door-latch rattled and the inimitable cadences of
a British public school voice hailed him with an affec-
tation of friendliness whose falsity was more elusive,
and yet somehow less successful, than it commonly is
in the bedside geniality of the general practitioner.
"Ah, Mr. Duchemin! been tryin' to butt a hole
through the promenade deck, have you?"
Disguising instinctive resentment, Lanyard smiled
amiably up at a new face that proved a good match


204 The Lone Wolf Returns
for the voice, the sanguine face of a young man, cleanly
razored, set with hard blue eyes and an arrogant, thin
nose. "Monsieur . . ." he managed to say, rousing
on an elbow; but the movement caused agony to stab
through his temples again and he dropped back to his
pillow, groaning.
"Bad as all that, eh?" the other commented in a
tone that somehow implied he wasn't being taken in.
"Well! needn't punish yourself to prove it to me:
I'm not fussy about fine points of etiquette, I don't
insist on everybody risin' when I come into the room.
Lie still now, and let me have a look."
"You are the ship's surgeon, monsieur?" Lanyard
enquired with difficulty, because his teeth were set to
stifle grunts as fingers deft enough but none too gentle
searched out the sore spot.
"Well: I leave it to you," their owner replied in
ironic patience . . . "Hmml worse than I expected.
Miracle you got off without a fracture. . . . Do you
think I've been pullin' your leg about my ratin' these
last few nights? Or d'you mean my luck at Bridge
qualifies me in your estimation as a card-sharp
first and a sea-goin' sawbones last? . . . Hold still,
now, and don't try to answer: I'm goin' to sponge
this noble contusion and decorate it with a becoming
patch."
An interlude of intense discomfort came to an end
with the announcement: "You'll do now, I fancy; but
if I were you, my friend, I'd take it easy and watch
my step till this hatful of wind blows itself out—which
it ought to before long, goin' by the glass."


The Lone Wolf Returns 205
"Many thanks, monsieur . . ."
A rising inflection made that last word an open bid
for the name of the person addressed; who, however,
chose coolly to ignore it.
"And now, if you don't mind ownin' up," he said
with a clearer note of sarcasm: "What the devil are
you drivin' at? Am I the ship's surgeon! Tryin''to
make out a triflin' crack on the head has knocked you
silly? Because it's no go, if you are: I may be the
demon Bridge player of this vessel, but I'm a good
enough medico besides to know that, barrin' a beau-
tiful bump, you're as right as rain."
It was anything but easy to school oneself to stom-
ach such superciliousness; but it had to be done if one
hoped to learn the reason for it, or the inwardness of
those several other matters which urgently required
elucidation.
"If you would be so good as t& sit down one mo-
ment, monsieur," Lanyard civilly suggested—"assum-
ing, of course, your valuable time permits—I would be
most grateful for your professional advice."
"Right-O!" The surgeon drew up a chair and set-
tled himself in it with the manner of a man who didn't
mind humouring a persistent child this once. "What's
on your mind, Mr. Duchemin—more than your cas-
ualty?"
"To begin with, I should be glad to know the time
of day."
"Why not consult that pretty trinket strapped on
your wrist? Or was that, too, cracked by your fall?"
Indignation failed while Lanyard studied the time-


206 The Lone Wolf Returns
piece to which his attention had thus delicately been
drawn, with the more interest because, to the best of
his knowledge, the watch, unmistakably a fine one, was
none of his.
Through the concert of the gale three double strokes
of resonant bell-metal sang and were followed by a
single. "Seven bells of the forenoon watch," the sur-
geon interpreted of his own accord. "Does yours
agree?"
"Precisely. . . Monsieur," Lanyard said earnestly:
"I should like very much to eonsult you concerning
myself in strict confidence . . ."
"Let the oath of Hippocrates comfort your misgiv-
in's—and fire away."
"Then let me tell you something." After a brief
pause Lanyard announced with a deal of true diffi-
dence: "It is now some twelve hours, or little more,
by my best reckoning, since I figured unfortunately in
a motor-car accident on the Armonk Road, in West-
chester County, thirty miles or so north of the city
of New York."
"That's interestin'," the Englishman commented
with a skeptical twitch of lips—"especially in view of
the fact that we are now three days' run south of
New York."
"Monsieur is not making fun of me?"
"No, thanks: that sort of thing doesn't amuse me
as it does you."
"But I am entirely serious, I assure you."
"Haven't the slightest doubt of it. All the same
I'd give somethin' to know what it is you're so serious
about."


The Lone Wolf Returns 207
"Be patient with me another minute, monsieur,"
Lanyard devoted at least that much'time to anxious
thought. "Yesterday," he at length submitted, "was
the third of November, Nineteen Twenty-two."
"You're going to have trouble, my friend, makin'
that statement jibe with the log, which calls today the
fifth of June, Twenty-three."
Lanyard lifted a hand to beg for grace, and did the
sum in his head while the Englishman sat watching
him with what all but insufferably seemed to be con-
temptuous amusement. But one couldn't afford to
resent that yet.
A double line deepened between Lanyard's brows.
His first guess had evidently been a poor one: the
elapsed time proved that Morphew hadn't picked him
up unconscious after the crash, hurried him in that
condition back to New York, and caused him forthwith
to be shanghaied.
"Seven months to be accounted for," he mused aloud
—"seven months lost out of life !'*
"Oh?"
None but a Briton could have infused so much cynic
incredulity into one lonely syllable. In spite of him-
self Lanyard flushed.
"Oblige me, monsier, by believing that, between
losing consciousness in that motor crash of November
fifth, and regaining it after being thrown from a ladder
half an hour ago, I remember nothing."
"AstonishinV
"Even so, not—I believe—a case without pre-
cedent."


The Lone Wolf Returns 209
"Right: you took it for Nassau, Havana, Kingston,
the Canal Zone, and Costa Rica."
"I think you said we were three days out? Then
we ought to be not far from Nassau now."
"This gale has held us back a bit, but we ought to
make port by daybreak tomorrow."
"One can send a cable there, of course . . ."
Either a mistrustful mind deceived Lanyard or the
Englishman wasn't happy in his efforts to disguise a
thrill of keen inquisitiveness.
"Of course; but why wait? Mean to say, there's
our wireless at your service if you're keen to get some
message off your mind, Mr. .Duchemin."
"How stupid of me to forget." Lanyard's smile
could be as charming as he chose, and he chose it to be
entirely so just then, intent as he was on disarming one
whom he had reason enough to think curiously hostile
to him, in whose manner it was impossible to ignore an
undercurrent of inexplicable animus. "But then you
will be indulgent, remembering the circumstances. One
question more, Doctor—?"
"Bright!" that person snapped curtly.
"Thank you. I am wondering . . . No doubt you
saw me when or soon after I embarked?"
"Happened to be standin' by the head of the gang-
plank when you came aboard, in point of fact."
"If you could tell me whether that event was marked
by any unusual circumstances, such as might possibly
shed light upon the riddle of why I came aboard at
all—?"
"Sorry," the surgeon answered; "but you seemed
to be quite peaceable."


210 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Nothing to lead you to suspect I wasn't in full com-
mand of my faculties?"
"Rather not"
"I was—alone?"
"Quite."
"Nobody to bid me bon voyage?"
"At least, I saw nobody."
"And my subsequent behaviour has been, I trust,
discreet?"
"To the letter of the word. If you mean your
smokin'-room habits, they've been above reproach—
more than one can say of most Americans since the
'greatest country on God's green footstool' dried up."
"But I am not an American—"
"Never thought you were, Mr. Duchemin." Dr.
Bright's sprained self-esteem was now convalescent.
The eyes he bent on Lanyard were lambent with secret
satisfaction, as if he knew something that Lanyard
didn't, and found this proof of his superiority gratify-
ing. "There's your name, for one thing. And then no
American ever spoke such French. Saw enough service
in France to know the true Parisian accent when I
hear it."
"Indeed? So I have found occasion to speak French
about this vessel?"
"Rather. You've been at it daily, and a good part
of every day, with the attentions you've been payin'
the pretty lady."
Lanyard's eyebrows went up alertly, and he didn't
count the twinge that form of comment cost him.
"'Pretty lady'?"


The Lone Wolf Returns 211
"Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes. At all events,
that's her style on the passenger-list. Most fascinatin'
and highly finished piece of work this tub has ever
carried."
"Good to look at, you mean, monsieur?"
"Good to look at is a feeble way to put it. Every
unattached male on board is balmy about her; and the
attached ones aren't what one might call unconscious
when she's in sight. And every man-jack loathes you
like fun because the pretty lady has a hospitable eye
and you haven't given anybody else a ghost of a look
in."
"Beautiful and—shall we say—not ingenue, eh?"
"Look here," the Englishman knowingly laughed:
"if you keep on guessin' so closely, I'll have to suspect
your memory isn't as poor as you claim."
"It is true," Lanyard admitted with an air of per-
plexity, "that name, de Lorgnes, seems not unfamiliar.
One wonders where, or when, one has heard it before,
if possibly this lady is some friend of younger
years . . ."
"Not this Comtesse de Lorgnes," Dr. Bright as-
serted in another turn of impertinence—"that is, unless
the two of you have been playin' a game with me."
"Impossible, monsieur."
"Then you'll have to take my word for it—just as
I took yours—you never met the lady before the first
day out, when I had the honour of presentin' you—at
her request."
"It must be an echo," Lanyard speculated—"that
name—from some forgotten yesterday. I recall now


The Lone Wolf Returns 213
out. But I'll go bail it will all come back. to you inside
of twenty-four hours."
"Why twenty-four hours?"
"As soon as you've had a sound sleep, that is—
same thing. Let me send you in a powder, and by
dinner time you'll be ready to apologize for tryin' to
take advantage of my innocent and trustin' nature.
What do you say?"
Lanyard said that monsieur was too kind . . . "But
a favour, my dear doctor," he added with a tolerably
crest-fallen air. "We won't find it necessary to tell
our fellow passengers what a sorry fraud I am, will
we?"
"Oh! I won't be the one to expose you," Bright re-
plied with vast pleasure in his ambiguity. "And you
won't have a chance to tell on yourself before the sea
goes down a bit. Meanin' to say, madam la comtesse
is a poor sailor. But, you see, your anxiety not to be
made a laughin' stock to her proves that your memory
is improvin' every minute."
"One wastes time trying to deceive you," Lanyard
admitted with humility. "But there is one thing, I
believe, that might aid my recovery: a look at the
passenger-list. Do you think you could by any chance
find a copy for me?"
Contentment with his great cunning sustained this
shock with poor grace: the surgeon frowned a frown
of impatience mixed with mystification. Was it pos-
sible this chap still imagined he had found an easy
dupe? However, one had to be diplomatic . . .
"Oh! very well," the surgeon said shortly. "I'll


214 The Lone Wolf Returns
have the steward bring you one with your sleeping
powder. Though I must admit I don't quite see . . ."
Lanyard forgot to offer any explanation; and when
the passenger-list had duly been delivered and scru-
tinized was obliged to confess that he had exerted him-
self to no purpose. "Madame la Comtesse de Lor-
gnes" was much too transparent an incognita for Liane
Delorme; and the discovery that she was a fellow
passenger had been excuse enough for the surmise that
others of their common acquaintance might be keep-
ing them company en voyage. But if such were the
case, the printed list gave no clue, no other name that
figured in it proved in the least degree stimulating,
none suggested a likely alias for Morphew, or Pagan,
or Mallison, or . . . Mrs. Folliott McFee . . .
Neither did anything reward his eager search for
a name whose music was like an old song singing
in one's heart.
The list slipped from his grasp and joined the sur-
geon's rejected sleeping powder on the floor. Lanyard
lay with a face that mirrored pain more real than that
which racked his head, blindly studying the play of
rainbow gleams upon the painted ceiling.
Seven months lost beyond recall . . .
And Eve 2


XVI
ITHIN the hour thought flagged for sheer
"weariness of beating to no purpose against that
wall of oblivion whose featureless facade sequestered
seven mortal months of forfeit yesterdays, nerves grew
weary of the zooming wind, incessant slap and slash
of broken water streaming down the side, the tuneless
crooning of the engines: Lanyard slept.
A noise of light knuckles on the door awakened him
when the afternoon was old and wind and sea had both
abated, as the muting of their deep diapason affirmed
and that horizontal beam of rusty light which bored in
through the port to flail with slow and steady strokes
the dusk whose blue it strengthened.
Without waiting to receive permission, Liane De-
lorme turned the knob and entered.
Most adept of actresses, she carried herself now
with an air of delicate audacity that would have graced
a virtuous lady of a sudden turned so venturesome as
to call on a man in his lodgings alone. Almost any-
body else it would surely have taken in, even Lanyard
found himself for a moment at loss to account for
this revolutionary innovation, a change of role made
the more confounding by the fact that Liane had gone
to the length of dressing it with garments of a semi-
negligee sort whose circumspection, though they were

215


216 The Lone Wolf Returns
dainty and costly enough to delight any woman, was
hardly akin to the spirit that sported them.
But one glimpse of Lanyard's eyes, one flash of their
reclaimed intelligence, made plain the poverty of ob-
jective artifice as an aid to Liane's intentions. It
indeed did more, it struck pale glints of panic from her
own eyes, or something very like that emotion in the
sight of one who knew as yet no reason why it should
discountenance the woman to find him, whom she had
sought of her own accord, awake and in his proper
mind.
She held a dead wait with a hand on the door-
knob behind her, the other unconsciously plucking at
lace which, in this novel modesty of raiment, clothed
chastely that bosom of fine fullness—dusky eyes quick
in a face that wanted a shade or so of its habitually
high illumination, lips a trace apart as if with a cry
unsounded.
But the pause imposed by her illegible emotion was
brief of life, with her next breath Liane recollected her-
self and, uttering a low sound of compassion crossed
the room to kneel by the head of the berth.
"No, no, my friend!" She spoke in French, her
arms lightly forced back to the pillow the shoulders
which Lanyard was lifting. "Rest tranquil—with that
poor headl Thou dost still suffer greatly, my old
one?"
Lanyard mumbled a dashed negative with lips that
were muffled, before he could object, by lips ardent
and tender, whose clinging intimacy he escaped at
length only by moving his head aside.
0


The Lone Wolf Returns 217
Happily, that movement excited only a grumble of
pain, entirely bearable; he was able to muster a smile
by way of redressing the rebuff.
"I say!" he remonstrated in his most British Eng-
lish—"we are getting on, rather—aren't we?"
The woman drew back sharply and, half-kneeling,
half resting on her heels, showed a face sad with re-
proach. "Hast thou forgotten, then?"
"More than I guessed, going on this bit of business,
my dear." Lanyard was firm in his stand against
French; it was easier to be unsentimental in sound
Anglo-Saxon, a tongue that enabled one to avoid using
the too personal "thou" without administering an af-
front unpardonable. "What bothers me most is this,"
he proceeded in querulous vein, a self-conscious smile
accounting for his neglect of the stricken eyes staring
into his: "I've remembered and forgotten much too
much, all at once. It's damned discouraging—you may
be interested to know—to wake up from what
amounted to a sound long nap and find that seven
perfectly useful months have been stolen while one
slept."
"It is true, then, what I feared!"
"Afraid it is, Liane, if what you feared was that
a blow on the head had bumped my right mind back
to its throne."
Slowly and with a bitter smile the woman repeated
the English phrase: "'A blow on the head!' . . ."
"That's what did the trick for me—and I don't mind
telling you it hurt like the devil."
"But what of the blow to my heart?" Her closed


218 The Lone Wolf Returns
hand smote Liane's breast. "You complain with rea-
son of having been robbed of seven months of memory;
but what of me, who stand to lose seven months of
memories?"
"Pardon?" Lanyard queried, politely dense.
"You loved me well in that time while you were
your old, true self."
"Loved you, Liane? And forgot! Ah, nol you
ask me to believe too much."
"You jest—and my heart is breaking!"
"It's no joke to forget an experience like that, some-
thing which one man in a million would be lucky to
know once in his lifetime."
"One in a million!"
"I beg your pardon: I was counting in your unsuc-
cessful lovers as well."
"But this is too much!"
With an abrupt movement the woman started up, to
pause with face averted and hands fast laced. As
promptly Lanyard tumbled out of the berth.
"Forgive me, Liane," he said contritely. "I daresay
I am a bit light-headed, it would be surprising if I
weren't, considering that I've experienced something
of a shock today, and not by any means a physical
shock merely—and am still shaken from it. You can
hardly demand rational behaviour of a revenant lately
spewed back into life by a psychic earthquake. That
it was a strictly private earthquake doesn't make its
after-effects any the less unsettling."
"True: it is you rather who have me to forgive."
With a spontaneous generosity that shamed him, Liane


The Lone Wolf Returns
219
swung back to Lanyard and caught both his hands to
her bosom. "In my sadness and pain I forget you can-
not understand . . ."
"Then make me understand. I've no one else to
look to—and it would be unkindness to leave me in
the dark."
"But give me time to consider . . ." She let go
his hands and sank into the room's one chair. "It is
going to hurt me to tell you, Michael, even more than
it will hurt you."
"And how is that?"
"Because, I think" . . . She studied him a while
with troubled gaze ... "I think you have gone back
to the ways of thought that were yours seven months
ago.
"And what is so deplorable in that? Ways of
thought about what?"
The woman leaned forward to bend her head to his
in confidence, but gave a slight start instead and drew
back with a veering glance, as if disturbed by some
noise unheard by Lanyard, then laid a finger to her lips,
sprang up lightly, and went to the port to look out.
From this, in agreeable disappointment, she crossed
back to the door, inclining to it an attentive ear for
some seconds before opening it furtively to peer out,
and concluding the performance with an expression of
alarms allayed.
"I was mistaken," she announced, shooting the bolt
—"there is nobody."
"Madame la comtesse was expecting;—?"
She gave her head a shake of irritation excited by


220 The Lone .Wolf Returns
his levity, and without warning whipped from the folds
of her neglige an automatic pistol, which she pressed
into Lanyard's hand regardless of his efforts to re-
fuse it."
"No, take it—take it, I say, while there is time."
"But what the deuce—!"
"Take it, I tell you—you may need it soon." And
then as Lanyard humoured her for the sake of peace,
she proceeded with every appearance of offering a
complete explanation: "That dolt of a doctor told
me you were unarmed."
"Bright? But how does he know? And why should
he care?"
"Your effects were searched this morning, while
you were at breakfast, and the steward who picked you
up after your fall took the trouble to find out that you
had no weapon about you."
"Thoughtful of all hands, I'm sure!" Lanyard
muttered in amazement. "But do tell me what I
have done to deserve so much respect?"
"Presently," Liane promised in a hushed voice. She
moved nearer and held out an open hand. "No!" she
insisted, and brusquely brushed aside the pistol when
he tried to return it—"the necklace! Give me that
now—we can come to an explanation later. Let me
hide it away before they come to put you under arrest
—they may, at any moment."
"Indeed?" Impatience with all this, as it seemed,
determined effort to mystify him to no end, resulted in
the pistol being flirted into the berth, and peremptory
imprisonment of the woman's wrists. "Now!" Lan-


The Lone JVolf Returns 221
yard demanded—"come to your senses, Liane, be in-
telligible if you can. Why should I be in danger of
arrest? What is this necklace you are raving about?"
"Give it to me first—"
"I know nothing of any necklace."
"You have forgotten; nevertheless, you have it.
You told me you would never let it leave your person,
you must have it hidden somewhere about you now.
Find and give it to me before it is too late."
Her agitation was too truly rendered to seem put
on for a purpose; and though he had not the least
inkling of its -cause, Lanyard reflected that in those
seven months anything might have happened, the
amplest reason might all too possibly exist for the
distress of mind which Liane was so vividly portraying.
Half-persuaded, he released her wrists and, stepping
back, ran the hands of old cunning through his gar-
ments, locating every spot which in former days he had
been accustomed to use as a temporary cache for pur-
loined property—and drawing every one blank. Wind-
ing up with a shrug of fatigued incredulity: "There
is nothing," he declared shortly. "Now be so
kind—"
"Nothing!" Consternation rang in that guarded
cry. "They must have it already, then, they must have
searched you and found it while you slept! The doctor
spoke of having given you a sleeping powder—enough,
he said, to keep you quiet till morning."
"I didn't take it."
"They must have thought you had, or you wouldn't
have been left unwatched, I would have found it im-
, -


222 The Lone Wolf Returns
possible to see you. You have been asleep?" Lanyard
nodded. "You have slept all afternoon, and soundly?"
He confessed that he had. Liane subsided, crushed
by despair, upon the cushioned transom beneath the
port. "It was the same to them as if you had taken
their drug—the opportunity they needed. Now they
have found the necklace—you are lost!"
"But I have often been 'lost' in my life," Lanyard
retorted, unmoved more than by impatience with this
everlasting beating about the bush. "And at present
I feel less lost than quite newly found, and so prefer
to think myself—until, at least, you consent to become
more coherent."
Beneath the sheer silk perfect shoulders stirred dis-
consolately. "There is nothing one can do now—one
can only wait."
"Let me recommend you to study myself, then: to
my mind, a perfect pattern of patience."
Lanyard offered the cigarettes in an unfamiliar case
which he had found in his pockets, and when they were
disdained philosophically helped himself, while the
woman sat glowering at the door as if to wither the
object of her spite, wherever he might lurk beyond
those walls.
"That animal of a doctor! how dare he be so sly
with me and at the same time such an imbecile?"
"Oh, very well!" said Lanyard, settling into the
chair: "by all means let us begin with that good Dr.
Bright. What has he done?"
"He came to me an hour ago, Michael, to put me
on my guard against you."


The Lone Wolf Returns 223
"Considerate beggar. But do go on . . ."
"The idiot would like to make love to me. He
thought he might worm into my good graces by warn-
ing me to keep an eye on my jewels, since it has
transpired that you were the Lone Wolf."
"And since when has that transpired—?"
"He told me that the captain had been advised by
wireless, early this morning, to keep you under obser-
vation until we arrive at Nassau; where officers will
board the vessel with a warrant for your arrest."
"Something to do with the missing necklace, of
course."
"You're wanted in New York for stealing it. Your
last great coup, my friend—and you bungled it!"
"I did? Then I trust devoutly you are right, it was
my last. From what you hint, Liane, I would seem
to have been leading a busy life of late. If you would
only be a little less vague . . ."
"If I hesitate to speak plainly," the woman gently
reminded him, "it is because you are dear to me,
Michael, I find it not easy to say anything that will
give you pain."
"Console yourself by observing that I am prepared.
You have told me so much already, a word here and
a hint there, I could almost foretell this revelation you
shrink from making." Lanyard shot a quizzical grin
through cigarette smoke. "I am accused of stealing
a valuable necklace and making such an unworkman-
like job of it that I had to fly the States incognito. It
would further appear that I wasn't very clever about
making my escape, since my presence aboard this ves-


224 The Lone Wolf Returns
sel is known and steps have been taken by the authori-
ties to have me detained at her first port of call. For
all of which, I presume, I have to thank that perserver-
ing hater of mine—and friend of yours—Morphew.
What a memory the man must have! what a genius for
bearing a grudge!"
"All that is good guesswork and substantially true"
—the woman nodded regretfully—"all but your sus-
picions of Morphew. There you are wrong: he had
nothing to do with this affair, Michael, it is all of
your own contriving."
"You tell me that," Lanyard laughed—"and in the
same breath that I am 'dear' to you! It's no good,
Liane: you can't be Morphew's friend and mine."
"I tell you nothing but what of a certainty and my
own knowledge I know. Morphew is nothing to me,
you are everything; notwithstanding, your suspicions
do him an injustice—he would have saved you in New
York had you permitted. But you wouldn't listen to
me when I prayed you to accept his offer of interven-
tion . . ."
"That at least one finds easy to believe."
"And even now he would be your friend—yours as
well as mine—if you would consent: Morphew stands
prepared to save you yet, if we can find a way to slip
through their fingers who await you at Nassau."
"But tell me how . . ."
"The last thing before we sailed, Morphew sent
Peter Pagan to promise me, if I could persuade you
to go ashore at Nassau and apply to his factors there,
the agents who have charge of his bootlegging interests


The Lone Wolf Returns 225
in the Bahamas, he would have us both conveyed sec-
retly to France, in his own yacht."
"Truly?" Lanyard laughed again, flipped his
cigarette through the port, and sat up. "How charm-
ing of the man—but how strange! Who would ever
suspect that rude and unlovely exterior disguised so
much goodness and simplicity of heart?"
"You laugh because you do not trust me," Liane
sullenly complained. "I have for months devoted
myself to you—this is my reward!"
"Prove me ungrateful, my dear," Lanyard lightly
offered—"prove me skeptical without sound cause and
provocation—and you can ask nothing of me that I
will refuse you in testimony to my penitence."
A stare of new intensity enveloped him. He saw
her countenance overcast with petulance, an odd frame
for eyes of singular wistfulness.
"You are wrong to tempt me with such a prom-
ise . . ."
"Why?" Lanyard parried. "Are you afraid of the
test? or that I won't make good my word?"
"What makes me hesitate is fear lest you try to
make your word good against your will. It's your love
I want, Michael, not your duty—another name for
hatred!"
"Do you truly believe you'd find me so contemptible,
Liane? You should know me better than that."
"I know men better than you do, my dear friend;
and when all's said, I know, you are but little different
from any other; only, it is my lot to see you differ-
r


228 The Lone Wolf Returns
where the maltre-d'hotel happened to be a protege of
mine from Paris of pre-War days—but Morphew
knew nothing about that. He had just finished telling
how you had humiliated him before Folly, and was
making my blood curdle with threats to be revenged—
0 but you were wrong to make an enemy of that one,
Michael!—when he was called to the telephone. He
came back grinning hideously, and said his agents re-
ported having traced you and Madame de Montalais
to the Inn of the Green Woods. You would never,
Morphew boasted, return to New York the same man.
1 tried to wheedle him into disclosing his mind, but
he was too wary, I learned nothing; and the best I
could manage was to bribe my maitre-d'hotel, as soon
as Morphew's back was turned again, to try to get a
warning through to you by telephone. Then I made
believe to be indisposed, got rid of Morphew, and
engaged an automobile I had used before. . . .
Never, my friend, shall I forget that ride! not even
that night of our flight to Cherbourg from Paris was
its equal for wildness ... if you remember . . ."
A hand found Lanyard's in the mirk and clasped it
tightly. He suffered it, replying simply: "I remember."
"Let me tell you, Michael, when we swung wide to
clear your automobile by the roadside, and that other
in which Morphew's people were pursuing you came
hurtling toward us like a juggernaut gone mad, I did
not hope to live another minute. As it turned out, my
hired car came through with a crumpled fender for all
damage. It was the other cannoned off and turned
turtle in the ditch. The men in it escaped somehow


The Lone Wolf Returns 229
with their lives, though they crawled back to the road
too badly shaken to be dangerous. I left them trying
to fit a tyre from their wrecked car to yours, and took
you and Madame de Montalais back to New York with
me. She had wrenched an ankle falling into the ditch
when you threw her off the road, and was unable to
walk; otherwise she had come to no harm. But you—
it seemed a miracle you lived . . .
"You had your right arm and two ribs broken, and
a great gash in your head—you'll find the scar under
your hair. The surgeons said it meant concussion of
the brain, you might survive but never could be your
mental self again. It was two months before you
were able to talk connectedly, more than a few words
at a time. I took you to my apartment from the hos-
pital, and myself nursed you through your convales-
cence. As it progressed, one saw that mentally as well
as bodily your recovery would be complete^'it was
your spirit had been wounded beyond repair. All your
old vivacity was gone, Michael, you never laughed;
you seemed fond of having me near you, but fonder
still of being solitary, sitting all alone with your black
thoughts, brooding . . .
"Madame de Montalais came to see you daily. She,
too, was quick to observe the change. I never knew
what passed between you, naturally; but that you were
neither of you happy it was easy to perceive. One day
she called when I was out; I met her, leaving, as I
returned—she had been weeping. She never called
again. Not long after, her name appeared in the
newspapers as one of the notables sailing on the Paris
for France . .


le W.oli Returns
The voice in the darkness ran out, Lanyard's hand
was freed, a long pause was filled with the throbbing
of the engines, the hiss and suck of water down the
side, the mellow calling of the ship's bell.
In dull abstraction Lanyard counted its strokes:
seven bells, half past seven o'clock.
The port, a square of ultramarine let into a blank
black wall, framed a nocturne, silken swells with dusky
bosoms stung by starlight, on the nearest point of land
a great red constant star following the progress of
the steamer with unfriendly stare, somewhat astern
another of sardonic green, far ahead, low upon the
horizon, a third, more volatile, winking white and
white. ... A thought like flotsam drifted with the
dark tide of despond: A long swim to either light,
even for a man in his prime . . .
Lanyard heard flat metallic tones pronounce: "Con-
tinue, if you please"—and realized that he had heard
himself speaking.
"You never told me what had happened, but I was
soon able to guess. A day or so later—I remember,
it was the first day when you were permitted to walk
about a bit—you opened your heart to me in a way I
hadn't looked for, and made mine very sad for you.
You told me how your memory of that affair at Folly's
had become clear and positive, somehow, in sequence
to your accident, and had satisfied you there could be
no profit for any man in contending against his nature,
the arbiter of his fate. Nature, you said, had formed
you a thief and an enemy of society—you had grown
resigned to give over struggling to be other than as you


The Lone JVolf Returns 231
had been made. I told you, no matter what you might
do, I would always be your friend—more, if you would.
You were sweet to me that night, Michael, without
committing yourself to definite promises; but the next
day you disappeared. I was out for the afternoon,
and neither of the maids saw you leave. You took
nothing with you but the clothing you wore. I neither
saw nor heard from you for many weeks. But New
York did . . ."
Lanyard all at once swung round, caught the seated
woman roughly by her shoulders, by main strength
lifted her to her feet, and with hard eyes searched the
face revealed by the dull blue glimmer seeping in
through the port.
"Is this the truth you are telling me, Liane?"
Pliant and passive in his hands, she answered: "The
whole truth, Michael."
"You swear it?"
"By the love I bear you."
With a mutter of apology he released her, and
silently, like a figure of fair marble sinking into a pool
of ink, the pale shade of her subsided through the
shadows, lost definition, and rested as before.
"I am listening . . ."
"It didn't take the newspapers long to guess the
Lone Wolf was at work again. In quick succession,
Michael, you consummated a series of exploits that
beggared the most lurid chapters of your old Parisian
days."
"How can you say it was I?"
"You confessed to me yourself—"


232 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Be careful, Liane!"
"I tell you only the truth as I had it from your own
lips. If you are loath to hear . . ."
"Forgive me."
"You came to me in my apartment without warning
one midnight; at your wits' ends, police snapping at
your heels, you turned to me! That made me happy,
Michael. . . . But it was no easy task to hide you,
when rewards of more than fifty thousand dollars were
being advertised for your arrest, and every Boy Scout
in the land was carrying a copy of your photograph—"
"But I have never been photographed in my life
except for passport purposes during the War; and my
appearance today is not as it was then, I no longer
wear a beard—"
"You nevertheless had recently been photographed
by flashlight, in the act of opening a safe in the Stuy-
vesant Ashe home. Some ingenious member of the
household, in anticipation of the Lone Wolf's visit,
had rigged up a camera commanding the safe and a
flashlight to be set off by electric current when the door
was tampered with. You were caught at close range,
facing the camera as you knelt with your ear to the
safe door, listening to its mechanism. The likeness
was exact and unmistakeable; and all the papers re-
produced it to further the hue and cry."
"You tell me that happened—and ask me to believe
the Lone Wolf left that house without wrecking the
camera!"
"To the contrary you destroyed a camera utterly;
but there were two, the ingenuity of the inventor had


The Lone Wolf Returns 233
been equal to that contingency—one carefully con-
cealed, the other where you might find it without too
much trouble."
Lanyard had an unpleasant laugh in his throat.
"Decidedly he was right who said a reformed crook
could never come back! If I was the dupe of so cheap
a trick . . . But to resume: I appealed to you—to a
woman!—to stand between me and the police. . . .
Ask them to believe that who once hunted the Lone
Wolf across Europe and back again—and failed to
catch him! . . . Well and good! what then?"
"The chase struck a false scent and passed us by;
but from that time on you made your home with me.
It was safe, that had been proved; and I was useful
to you."
"How useful?"
"You had got together a collection of jewellery diffi-
cult to dispose of without courting arrest; also, you
would have found it impracticable to take care of large
sums of money such as this sale realized. I saw to all
that for you: through Morphew I found a way to mar-
ket the jewels, and in my own name I carried your
funds in a separate account with my bankers."
"And I still called myself the Lone Wolf!"
"I think you were learning to be less jealous of
your loneliness, Michael. You had learned—as most
men do at some stage of life—that there was one'
woman at least whose devotion would never fail you."
"I used to know the Lone Wolf well: a strange
belief for him to hold!"
"But life had forged yet another bond between


234 The Lone Wolf Returns
The vibrations of Liane's words died upon a sup-
pliant silence. It grew long while in her hearing the
pulsing of the engines aped the tempo of a funeral
march. Lanyard made no move or sound. Vision
tempered to the gloom and made keen by hunger saw
his face, its salient lines picked out by gleams of de-
flected starlight, steadfast to the port, inscrutably set.
If he would not speak she must . . .
"I loved you well, and love comes of loving . . .
of being loved . . ."
"You wish me to understand," Laynard bluntly
translated, "I became your lover."
"Yes."
"Yet you knew I loved Madame de Montalaia—"
"You swore to me all that was finished."
"And you believed—?"
"I wanted to."
Another silence spun itself into minutes charged
with emotion pent and mute. The woman felt rather
than saw the sign of a hand that bade her resume.
But her tongue stumbled, she was breathless with mis-
givings . . .
"What more do you wish me to say, Michael?"
"There is more to tell, surely, a hiatus to be filled
in between that time and this." But still she faltered
till he added in enforced patience: "I have yet to learn
what brings us together aboard this vessel."
"Your own vanity must answer for that, Michael.
. . . You had been several weeks inactive, the news-
paper sensation had begun to blow over, we were
planning to return to Paris—though you balked at


The Lone Wolf Returns 235
becoming indebted to Morphew for the forged pass-
ports he offered to secure. Then, one day, the Chief
of Police gave out an interview exalting himself at
your expense; and in that quaint, excitable temper,
which you had nursed ever since the motor accident,
exasperated beyond reason, you vowed to expose the
man's incompetence, and did—breaking into his home
and making off with a necklace of diamonds which he
had just presented to his wife. But somehow you
must have blundered, or your luck had turned: you
hardly escaped being caught, and left your path of
flight so plainly marked it led the police to my very
door. We had to fly New York between two suns,
with no choice but to seek refuge in some country
that did not require passports. This steamer was the
first that sailed for South America; we secured pass-
age, came aboard separately, and pretended to be
strangers till that officious doctor insisted on present-
ing you as my fellow-countryman."
"And now"—Lanyard demanded of himself more
than of the woman—"what?"
"If you would only consent to listen to me . . ."
"By what you tell me, Liane, the experience would
be anything but a novel one for you."
"Morphew remains my good friend—"
"Permit me to wish you joy of him."
"And is willing for my sake to be yours."
"Unfortunately, I have the prejudice to be loved
for my own blue eyes or not at all."
"I am not suspected, it would be a simple matter for
me to send a wireless, in a code which Morphew gave


The Lone Wolf Returns 237
ing my liability for acts committed whilst my intelli-
gence was—constructively, at least—under a cloud.
Nor, for that matter, am I: if I may not clear the
name of Michael Lanyard or wipe out the score against
him, I have little use—no, none—for the liberty of
Andre Duchemin."
In uncontrollable disquietude, the woman rose.
"What do you propose, then?"
"I have made no plan."
"If you won't have Morphew's help—"
"My dear Liane: that 'if of yours is downright,
voluptuous redundancy."
"But we are due at Nassau at dawn, the police will
board us with the pilot boat—!"
"Eight bells just sounded; it should be daybreak by
four o'clock, at this season. In other words, I com-
mand eight hours of darkness. And the Lone Wolf
that lives on in Michael Lanyard, let me tell you, is
hardly the half-witted cur you have sketched for me,
who cowered behind a woman's skirts in terror of
American police."
Discovering Liane's arms about him, her face
strained up to him, Lanyard caught himself up sharply,
shrugged, and wagged a long-suffering head: "My
dear Liane!"
She said in a sob: "You do not mean it—"
"But very truly, my dear."
"Yesterday your dear, today less than the dust—!"
"You are mistaken. I owe you too much—"
"You will never repay it now. Did I not foretell
that, when I had told you everything, you would for-


238 The Lone Wo\i Returns
get your pledge to me? Trove me ungrateful'—out
of your own mouth, Michael !—'and you can ask noth-
ing of me I will refuse to do in testimony to my
penitence.'"
Still unresisting in her embrace, he asked: "And
I am already proved ungrateful in your sight?"
"Do you not mean to forsake me, put me by now
I am of no more use?"
"I have not said so."
"What else do you intend, when you tell me of your
determination to go back to New York?"
"One must first pay one's debts—"
"Then the debt you owe my love and devotion stands
second to the debt you owe self-love?"
"Say, rather, self-respect; wanting that, no man can
claim to deserve any woman's love. Let me first of
all settle my reckoning with Society—"
"There will be nothing of you left for me!"
"In one breath you urge me to hold myself blameless
for wrongs done to others that I don't remember, in
the next you call me to account for obligations to you
incurred under the same conditions."
"I am not concerned with consistency, Michael, but
with love. You have made yourself too dear to me,
even though you didn't know what you were doing—
I can't go on without you now. You hold your dream
of honesty dear; do not deny me my dream of decency.
Back there in New York we joined our lives, outlaw
and outcast; we must go on together or forego all
hope for all time. Give me at least the fair chance
you ask for yourself . . ."


The Lone Wolf Returns 239
Her prayers ran out in a mumble under a hand which
gently closed her mouth; ears not deaf to them had
been quick none the less to pick up footfalls in the
passageway. Now in the hush that fell the knob of
the stateroom door rattled, the door itself creaked to
the pressure of a shoulder, someone swore indignantly
beyond it, and immediately a knock weighted with
authority resounded on its panels.
In the panting bosom pressed to his Lanyard felt
the heart leap and flutter wildly. To a whisper of dis-
may, "They have come for you already!" he returned
with calm: "Never fear—they shan't get me."
The summons was repeated.
"What can you do?" Liane breathed.
"Nothing so long as I am not free to move."
Her arms fell away, but her hands lingered upon
his shoulders. In the passage several men were con-
fabulating in mutters dulled by the intervening door.
One became articulate in vexation: "I tell you, he
didn't get enough dope in that powder to make him
sleep like this!"
Again Liane's whisper: "What shall we do?"
Lanyard considered: "We can't keep them out
. . . may as well let them in."
"But you said you wouldn't give yourself up—"
"No more do I mean to."
The knuckles of authority drummed on for a mo-
ment. When they ceased Lanyard was hailed right
cheerily: "I say, Mr. Duchemin wake up, let me in!
It's I, Dr. Bright. Don't you hear me?"


The Lone Wolf Returns 241
staring amber. Through it broke a din of voices blas-
phemous in anger and disappointment. Lanyard
darted aft.
The watch on the afterdeck witnessed the plunge
of a dark body from the rail of the promenade deck
down over the side. A man who appeared at the same
rail an instant later lifted up a voice of authentic
seafaring whine:
"Man oo-verboard!"
The watch took up the cry.


XVII
CEA-WISE Bahaman corespondents of American
press services were of one mind concerning Lan-
yard's disappearance from the Port Royal, arguing
that the known conditions of time and tide ruled it out
of all consideration as a sane attempt at escape. The
stories they cabled North were accordingly published,
for the most part, under headlines something in this
sense:
LONE WOLF SUICIDES AT SEA
Lanyard, these reports related, had gone overboard,
rather than submit to arrest, after dark of a moonless
night, when the Port Royal was standing into North-
east Providence Channel, her position being approxi-
mately midway between its jaws. Thus, if he dreamed
to win to land either in the North, where Hole-in-the-
Wall Lighthouse sentinels the southernmost point of
Great Abaco Island, or in South, where Egg Island
Light warns of the perils lying off the northerly tip of
Eleuthera, the fugitive had undertaken a ten-mile pull
against the drag of the strong offshore current which
was setting through the channel at the time; a task
which must have thwarted the stoutest effort of the
strongest swimmer, even assuming that the sharks with
which those waters swarm had been content to let him
pass unmolested. Something which, the consensus
242


The Lone Wolf Returns 243
maintained, in the case of Lanyard, the sharks indis-
putably hadn't.
That cry of "Man overboard!" had brought the
Port Royal to a prompt and a dead halt; the waters
roundabout had been lavishly sown with ring-buoys as
well as with floating flares, guided by whose weird
illumination a life-boat quartered the theatre of the
mystery for upwards of an hour before the steamer
called it in and proceeded. Nevertheless the authori-
ties who boarded her at Nassau, in their disappoint-
ment indisposed to accept the suicide theory, insisted
on a thorough rummage of the vessel which accom-
plished little toward hushing the murmurs of dissatis-
faction with which, at length and empty-handed, they
took themselves ashore.
These doubters had at least one confrere of
weathered judgment in New York, who gave free
tongue to his conviction that the Lone Wolf was one
wise bird and a tough fish to drown. And the faith
of this one in the will-to-live animating the hybrid
monstrosity of his figure had good justification in the
outcome, when, one night more than a month after
the event of the alleged suicide, a glare beating directly
into his face roused him from the slumbers of an
honest man to find that some marauder had added the
cool isolence of switching on the bedside lamp to the
felonious injury of housebreaking.
One who in his time had done much to make life
a misery to men of wicked ways, and more than once
had figured as the target of an assassin's weapon, the
householder had long been accustomed to sleep with a


244 The Lone Wolf Returns
pistol ready to his hand. But his instinctive fumble for
it drew a blank this time; so, with such composure as
he could command, he turned attention to the agent
of its confiscation.
This person had cheekily drawn up a chair to the
bedside and made himself at home in it, one of the
detective's cigars between his teeth and a highball of
the detective's precious pre-Prohibition Scotch in his
hand testifying to amiable readiness to be sociable,
provided his host had no real objection to advance.
A semi-blinded stare was met by a smile that flashed
teeth of notable whiteness in a face deeply bronzed
where it didn't boast a lush overgrowth of beard. This
last was sparely shot with grey, and so was hair that
also wanted shearing; but the rich complexion of the
miscreant was clear, his eyes were luminous with vi-
tality, he had in every particular the look of one who
had consorted long and profitably with Nature in her
least sophisticated phases. As for his costume, it was
altogether shocking, comprising simply a cotton singlet,
a coat without much definite shape or colour, a pair of
ragged trousers belted with an end of rope, and foot-
gear that would have kindled the envy of a slapstick
clown of the cinema.
"Well!" the detective summed up his scrutiny—
"if that front didn't make you the spit of the devil,
I'd lay long odds you were none other than my poor
dear pal, the late Mike Angelo Lanyardi."
"It isn't sporting to bet on a certainty," the guest
severely pointed out. "And I'm sorry you think I'm
late, my good Crane; but I'd rather far be that than
never."


246 The Lone Wolf Returns
"You don't have to worry," Crane insisted with an
air of some aggrievance. "If I can't round you up
without a gun, you can run loose and wild for all of
me.
"On that understanding, then . . ." Lanyard
tossed the weapon back to the bed. "Forgive a simple
precaution not inspired by any real doubt of your good
disposition toward an old friend, or your sporting
attitude toward a professional antagonist . . ."
The broad of his back was a shining mark for Crane
as he strode away to an adjoining room, where he made
a light, and from which he presently returned with a
box of cigars and a musical glass.
Crane had not stirred. The pistol rested where it
had fallen. Lanyard tendered the drink and the open
box.
"Astonishing," he mused, "what a sound taste in
cigars one finds prevalent among members of a venal
and brutalized constabulary!"
He remarked in pained astonishment that the bed
was quaking with Crane's silent mirth.
"Don't mind me!" the detective protested: "it's
myself I'm giving the laugh, not you. I've been
figuring for some time now, you were about due to
stage a gaudy resurrection; but this beats my craziest
notions of what the show would be like. I'm a pretty
old mule of a dick, and a tough audience for trick
stuff, but I've got to hand it to you, Lanyard: I've
never yet been able to dope out what your next dodge
would be nor how you'd pull it. So, whenever you get
all set to explain what the hell you mean by sitting


[The Lone .Wolf Returns 247
there and looking like that—well, you needn't be
afraid I'll walk out on you."
"You don't like my make-up?" Lanyard drew a
long face over his vestments. "Do you know? I rather
fancied it. These jibs seem so appropriate to my
newly adopted calling. Behold in me, if you please,
my dear Crane, a seafaring man fully three weeks of
age."
"That leaves a couple to be accounted for, then,
since the night you took to the big drink."
"There were two weeks before I became what I am,"
Lanyard confessed, "when, not to put too fine a point
on it, I was purely and beautifully a beachcomber in
those enchanting Bahamas."
"I've got a hunch this is going to be good." Crane
grinned luxuriously through cigar-smoke. "At least,
I don't imagine you've got the crust to think you stand
any show of getting whatever it is you want out of
me, without coming through with a full account of
yourself from then right up to now."
"A stipulation of quid pro quo is always reasonable
and in order," Lanyard agreed. "Yet I am afraid you
may find my story a poor exchange for what I wish to
learn from you, my friend . . ."
"It's your risk. Shoot."
"You are wondering how I eluded the authorities at
Nassau? That was elementary. ... On the other
hand, one must admit one was dealing, aboard the Port
Royal, with gentry of small experience and less
imagination. . . . When I left my stateroom by way
of its window, I found myself with scant stomach for a


248 The Lone Wolf Returns
long swim in black water: it needs the hot blood of
youth to contemplate without a qualm adventures like
that. There was a deck-chair nearby, and in it some-
body's steamer-rug; I folded up the one in the other,
and cast them overboard. In the darkness they passed
for the shape of a man to startled eyes on the main
deck below; nobody questioned the alarm I raised of
'Man overboard!' There was much excitement then;
but other than the ship's officers, nobody knew the
unfortunate was a notorious criminal trying to evade
arrest, nobody else was looking for Andre Duchemin—
and I was careful enough to make myself insignificant.
When the boat was lowered to scour the seas for me,
all hands honoured the performance with undivided
attention, it was easy to take refuge in one of the life-
boats swung inboard on its davits on the opposite side
of the deck; I wormed my way in under the canvas
cover and lay snug till the Port Royal took the pilot
aboard outside Nassau and with him the police agents.
It was still quite dark; and as the blood-hounds
swarmed up one side, the Lone Wolf dropped down
the opposite, unseen. There were a number of vessels
riding at anchor in the roadstead, and when I had put
a good distance between myself and the Port Royal
I picked out a little schooner of unkempt appearance,
climbed aboard her while the anchor-watch snored, and
hid myself in her hold."
Lanyard paused to puff his cigar into a glow, and
chuckled. "That was a sorry shift, out of the frying-
pan into the fire for the poor old Lone Wolf. . . .
The schooner turned out to be a rum-runaer. Her


The Lone Wolf Returns 249
owners had put into Nassau for a night's carouse. In
the morning they came aboard, weighed anchor, and
set sail. When I reckoned the time ripe to declare
myself, a jury of noble headaches sat on my case,
decided that a stowaway with so lame a story could be
nothing but a spy of the United States Internal Rev-
enue Service; and, true to piratical tradition, sentenced
me to be marooned on a desert isle. That very night
the foul deed was done: the next sun rose to shine
upon an outcast from humankind squatting forlornly
on the beach of a desolate cay, God only knew where,
and trying to recall his Robinson Crusoe . . .
"I had a thin time of it for several days, my friend!
I lived frugally on the fruits of the land, when and if
found, and such creatures of the shallow sea as I was
able to snare with naked hands. The fruits were not
sustaining, and the raw seafood made me wretchedly
sick.
"The cay was one of an endless chain—little islets,
some nothing more than rocks, some mere sandbanks
dry only at low tide, separated by narrow channels of
no great depth. I made my laborious way from one
to another; but when at length I did stumble across a
settlement it was only a huddle of wattled huts
inhabited by negro sponge-fishers, their wives and
progeny, who spoke a patois unintelligible to my ears,
lived in squalour indescribable, and discovered bound-
less contempt for a white man in such plight. For all
that, they gave me cooked food of a kind into which
I did not care to enquire too closely, being contented
enough to have it stay on my stomach.


250 'The Lone Wolf Returns
"Their headman had enough English to strike a
bargain with me. ... I had fled in my shirt and
trousers, the only valuable I possessed was a wrist-
watch in a gold case. Sea-water had put it out of
service, but the negro coveted it with great lust, and
agreed in exchange for it to convey me in his boat to
another island on which there were white men. Thus
it fell out that, some ten days after my dive into the
harbour of Nassau, I found myself on a cay of good
size which served one particular band of rum-runners
as a secret rendezvous and depot.
"My condition at that juncture was so pitiable as to
make my tale seem credible; I posed as a French sailor
who had been washed overboard from a passing yessel
during a blow that had recently swept the islands. The
rum-runners were a rough lot, but humane: they took
me in, fed and clothed me, would have let me kill
myself with drink had I been so minded, and raised
no objection when I prayed for a chance to work my
passage on the first vessel that put in to take on a cargo
for the States. Having eaten their bread and salt, I
shall not betray their confidence: it is enough that
I was set ashore not too far from this city. And here
I am."
Lanyard saluted the detective with his glass; aim
in an explosive grunt Crane proclaimed that he would
be everlastingly damned. "You went through all that
hell to come back here and stick your fool head into
the noose that's waiting for it!"
"My dear friend: I didn't like to dash your expec-
tations . . ."


The Lone Wolf Returns 251
"Don't you realize what you're up against?—
wanted for a dozen jobs pulled off in the last six
months! a price of fifty thousand cold-drawn dollars
on your head!"
"But, by all accounts, the Lone Wolf was drowned
to death in the middle of Northeast Providence Chan-
nel on the night of the fifth of June."
"Don't suppose anybody takes any stock in that yarn
today, do you?"
The stress on the adverb caused Lanyard's eyes to
widen. "And why not?"
"See here!" Crane bounced up in his bed and with
every evidence of strong emotion levelled a bony fore-
finger; but second thought closed the lips that stormy
indignation had opened, bewilderment blanked out the
fire that had flamed up in his eyes, frustration slack-
ened his arm; in mild despair he fell back upon his
pillow. "I don't get you," he uttered feebly—"that's-
all: I just don't get you."
"But, my dear sir, it is now and ever will be my
ambition to make sure that you, in your official cap-
acity, never do get me."
But the detective wasn't in a humour to be patient
with persiflage. "I don't get you," he mulishly reiter-
ated. "If you're aiming to give me some sort of a
steer, I don't connect with the big idea, when your one
best bet—and / know you're wise enough to know it—
is to keep all the scenery you can between you and me
all the time, and not come stalling around in fancy dress
to give me an earful that don't matter a whoop if it
ain't true. Because, I tell you this, Lanyard I . . ."


252 The Lone Wolf Returns
Crane was again sitting up and brandishing an ad-
monitory forefinger. "Let me tell you this here and
now, for your own good: As long as I believed in
you, there wasn't much you could name I wouldn't
have done for you; but the way things look now, unless
you're prepared to come through with something more
nourishing to my confidence than drawing-room man-
ners and a baby stare, you're monkeying with high ex-
plosive this very minute; because just as soon as ever
you leave this flat and I'm no longer bound by my
promise not to mix things up with you"—a move of a
disgusted hand designated the pistol whose return had
put the detective on his honour—"I'm going to light
out after you and camp on your trail night and day
till I get you right—so help me!"
"Amen!" Lanyard piously chanted. "No: don't be
angry, but believe I mean that in all seriousness. Had
I not expected to find such fidelity to principle in you,
that even friendship cannot corrupt, I should have held
to my ancient rule and played a lone hand in this game
of Blind Wolf's Buff: I am here tonight for a single
purpose: to ask your aid and offer you mine in the
business of bringing the Lone Wolf to book, whether
he prove to be myself or some impostor trading on my
old-time reputation."
"So that's the song and dance, eh?"
Lanyard shrugged. "I must not resent your tone,
matters being as they have been made to seem. But
I shall persuade you of my sincerity before I bid you
good night, and more, that grounds exist for reason-
able doubt concerning my guilt of the crimes imputed


The Lone Wolf Returns 253
to me; or . . . I will surrender to you forthwith and
let the law take its course."
In a hard stare Crane wondered aloud: "You mean
that, Lanyard?" But a smile was all his answer; and
after another little pause the detective silently extended
a hand which Lanyard leaned forward to grasp. "Now
lay 'em on the table, face up."
"I have every confidence in your charity," Lanyard
responded, sitting back; "but what I shall tell you now
will test it. On the night of the third of November
last—"
"That night after you pulled that turn with Malli-
son at little Mrs. McFee's?"
"Precisely—"
"Night of the day you disappeared!"
"'Disappeared'?"
"Nobody I know has seen hair nor hide of you
since."
"That's most interesting," Lanyard commented,
making mental memoranda. "You know nothing,
then, of a motor accident on the Armonk Road in
which I was involved on the night in question?"
"First I've heard of it."
"There was such an accident, notwithstanding, in
which I sustained grave injuries; I bear a new scar
upon my head, beneath the hair, that satisfies me at
least one hurt was grave."
"Well!" Crane laughed shortly—"guess you ought
to know if anybody."
"That's the very point: I ought to—but I don't."
"Mean to say you don't remember—?"


254 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Between the moment when I was struck and thrown
by a motor-car that night of November, and the mo-
ment when, on the morning of the fifth of June, I
bumped my head badly, falling from a companion-lad-
der on the Port Royal, I remember nothing. For all
I know of my life between these dates, I am indebted
to a lady who may or may not be a sacred vessel of
the unbiased truth—Mademoiselle Delorme."
"Liane Delorme !" cried Crane—"where in time did
you meet up with that war-horse?"
"On board the Port Royal."
"Funny! that dame sailed for France last February
—by request—and specially requested not to come
back, too."
"You are sure?"
"Made it my business to see her off. The Lone
Wolf had just begun to be a regular pest, about that
time, and I thought maybe little Liane knew more than
she was willing to let on. So we got the Government
to put on the screws; it amounted to her being de-
ported, though she was given to understand the Gov-
ernment's memory might go bad if her's got good.
But she left swearing in seven languages, none of 'em
ladylike, she didn't know the first thing about you and
was a cruelly misjudged woman and all like that."
"Yet she must have returned, to have sailed on the
Port Royal with me."
"Oh! there are a hundred different ways, all good,
for an undesirable alien to sneak into this country—
by rail from Canada or Mexico, or through any port
but New York—running next to no risk of being spot-
ted and held up except by accident."


The Lone Wolf Returns 255
"You interest me more every minute. Pray bear in
mind I have seen no newspapers, while you, I daresay,
have read more than one report of my disappearance
from the Port Royal . . . No doubt, then, you can
tell me who claimed the honour of having recovered
the necklace."
"What necklace?"
"The one I am credited with having stolen from
the wife of your worthy Chief of Police."
"Guess you mean Commissioner of Police—Com-
missioner Enright." Frankly mistrustful examination
of Lanyard's face ended in the generous verdict:
"Somebody's been kidding you, son."
"I will not dispute that—I begin to be distressed
to discriminate the statements of fact which have re-
cently been made me from what would seem to have
been the fictions of a lively fancy. I have, for ex-
ample, on the one hand, your word, as I understand
it, that the good wife of Commissioner Enright did
not, shortly prior to the sailing of the Port Royal,
suffer the loss by theft of a valuable diamond neck-
lace."
"Nor at any other time. Or if she did—and if
he's got a wife—the Commish kept it darned quiet."
"On the other hand, I am suspected of having done
much business in the Lone Wolf's well-known line—"
"Sure are."
"During a period which began, I take it, about the
first of the year—"
"Some time before Christmas."
"And ended with my late but well-timed decease."


256 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Thought I told you nobody in this burg takes any
stock in that fairy tale."
"But you didn't answer my question: Why not?"
"Because all New York knows, if the Lone Wolf
was drowned last June, his ghost goes prowling on."
"What are you telling me?"
"Just what you hear: When the news leaked out
that you'd croaked in the Bahamas, everybody who
had anything worth stealing drew a long breath and
turned over to get a few winks of badly needed sleep.
Right there was the wide open chance your ghost
couldn't overlook without losing face in the spirit un-
derworld. And didn't: no ghost ever walked that
shook a livelier hoof. If it's any satisfaction to you,
its latest manifestations have converted the entire Po-
lice Department of the City of New York into a posse
of wild-eyed spiritualists."
"And you, my friend?"
Crane twinkled like a roguish wooden Indian.
"Who, me? I ain't all converted yet. An hour ago
I was wabbly, but now I see you sitting before me as
large as life and twice as unnatural, I'm just on the
fence. One thing I'm sure of: You ain't noticeably
demised. But that isn't saying you're not responsible
for the performances that have been given in your
name, these last few weeks."
"While I was sustaining life on shellfish in the
Bahamas?"
"That's your story. I don't say it isn't gospel: but
you've got to admit you'd have told it, or something
like it, if you had been in Town here all the time.


The Lone Wolf Returns 257
Not only that, but how do I know you aren't what
they call psychic—a medium—able to swing a mean
ectoplasm?"
"But—bear with me, my friend, remembering that
this to me is the gravest of questions—admit that any
one capable of trading on my posthumous reputation
must have been equally capable of impersonating me
while I was still presumed to be alive."
"That's reasonable . . ."
Lanyard had a thoughtful moment. "Do me another
favour," he resumed—"allow me to use your good
offices to make another test of my information. Take
that telephone on the table by your elbow, call the
Hotel Walpole, ask for Madame de Montalais. If
she is no longer stopping there, find out, if you can,
when she left, and whether the management knows her
present address."
"Madame de Montalais . . ." Crane took the
telephone instrument to his bosom and called for the
Walpole, but while he waited for the connection made
no secret of the spirit of inquisitiveness in which he
was mulling over that strange new name. "If it's a
fair question—"
"The lady with whom I dined at the Inn of the
Green Woods, an hour before my misfortune on the
Armonk Road."
Before Crane could comment, the Walpole an-
swered; and after some delay the hotel detective,
none too well pleased to be waked up at three in the
morning but obligingly bestirring himself on behalf
of a colleague, reported that Madame de Montalais


258 The Lone Wolf Returns
had "checked out" to sail for France on the ninth of
March, leaving the forwarding address of Chateau
de Montalais, near the town of Nant, in the Depart-
ment of the Lozere.
Lanyard nodded doleful acknowledgement of this
facer to hopes cruelly reanimated by the discovery that
Liane Delorme had, in the course of their conference
on board the Port Royal, and for reasons of her own
that remained illegible, been guilty of more than one
lache in respect of the truth. "That avenue is closed,
then. I feared it would be. But give me a moment
now to put my thoughts in order . . ."
More to cover his disconsolation than for the reason
alleged, he bent forward with an elbow on a knee and
a hand shading his eyes. "You tell me," he presently
pursued, "no one you know has seen me in the flesh
since we met at Folly McFee's . . ."
"Any number of reputable citizens have caught
glimpses of you," Crane corrected—"and very much
in the flesh, very busy raising particular hell with their
property rights."
"But nobody in fact who knew me personally, who
could swear to my identity with the man who passed
for me?"
"Nobody. Just the same, the descriptions they
turned in were middling good portraits of the Lone
Wolf in action. More than that, there's that flash-
light photo—"
"I was coming to that: Liane mentioned it, and I
have wondered ... It was secured, I believe, when
the Lone Wolf descended upon the family fold of
the Stuyvesant Ashes?"


260 The Lone Wolf Returns
Lanyard straightened up and cheerfully smiled.
"Pretty thing," he said—"jolly well done ... If
you can find yourself another, I'd be grateful for the
gift of this."
"You're much obliged. I can lay my hands on a
gross or two any time I want. The Police Depart-
ment struck 'em off by the thousand."
"Pity!" Lanyard deplored: "such a curiosity really
ought to be a rarity. Thus does commercial photo-
graphing ring the death-knell of Art."
"But joking aside—" Crane began with some as-
perity.
"You ask too much," Lanyard interrupted. "Do
you honestly expect me to gaze on this and keep a
straight face?"
"If you want my opinion, I'll say it's no laughing
matter for you."
"But do you tell me that as one who has given this
photograph close and intelligent study?"
"What's the matter with it? Don't you think it
does your fatal beauty justice?"
"But more: I am overcome by the appreciation
which this drives home of the dashing figure I cut of
old in the popular eye. Prior to this, I have always
imagined that the public took the gentleman cracks-
man with a grain of salt—holding his attitudinizing
in romantic evening dress properly peculiar to his ap-
pearances on the stage and the cinema screen. And
you, my dear Crane! a man of your wide acquaintance
with the ways of crooks taking this blatant bit of impo-
sition seriously—!"


262 The Lone Wolf Returns
on a_guy like Morphew; he always keeps well inside
the law, never turns a trick with his own hand; and
pulls too strong an oar politically not to be able to
look after the people he hires to do his dirty work.
Stands to reason, he's got to; he can't afford to risk
somebody's turning State's evidence for lack of pro-
tection."
"But surely a man of his type must have enemies in
high places as well as friends—"
"Maybe so; but they're not in the saddle just now;
we'll have to be patient and wait for New York to pull
another of its periodical spasms of civic virtue before
an ordinary dick like me can go out after the likes of
Morphew without hearing a still small voice whisper-
ing at his shoulder, if he cares anything about his job
he'd better lay off. Remember that time we raided
the Clique Club? That had a follow-up that still
sticks in my crop . . ."
"But if Morphew were actually caught, as you say,
with the goods on—"
"That's different: prove anything on that bird and
outraged public sentiment will do the rest."
"Do you happen to know where he lives?"
Crane recited the address in sulky abstraction from
which he emerged abruptly with a gleam of alarm.
"Look here! don't tell me you're simp enough to dream
of starting anything with Morphew—"
"My dear friend: I never was, it was Morphew
took the offensive with me, unprovoked—"
"And you're a glutton for punishment, eh?"
"Do you take me for one to endure such malice


The Lone Wolf Returns 263
■without striking a blow for self-respect? What way
I shall take with the animal I am as yet undecided,
I count on events to show it to me; and now I count
on something more — your passive countenance, a<
least."
"Oh, don't worry! I won't ever come between you
two; and if I ever see a chance to land on Morphew
when he isn't looking, because he's too busy keeping
his guard up against you—you can bet your life I'll do
it. All the same, if you'll take a fool's advice, you'll
quit right now, admit you're licked and let it go at
that."
"It may be your advice is wiser than you think,"
Lanyard conceded.
"Well: I'm not going to lose any sleep on your
account. Morphew's out of Town, nobody seems to
know just where . . ."
"Like Mallison, eh?"
"Why keep fretting about Mallison? He's out."
"Perhaps . . ."
"What do you mean, 'perhaps'?"
"Jumping one's bail is not precisely proof of a
clear conscience; that act of the dancing yegg's ought
to be enough for you—no matter what your mind may
be with respect to my guilt or innocence."
"Don't get your point."
"It's rather an obvious point in the sight of one
who knows what I know—that Mallison claimed to
be on intimately friendly terms with the Stuyvesant
Ashes, with Mrs. Ashe, at least; Mary, I remember
he called the lady, in mentioning her to Folly McFee."
"Well?"


264 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Is it not at least a curious circumstance that this
print, this so well posed and composed likeness of the
Lone Wolf wearing his working clothes for the night
shift, should have been snapped in the home of people
reputed to be on friendly terms with Mallison?"
"That only goes to show how little you know New
York Society, if you've got any idea the Ashes—one
of the oldest and best families in Town—would lend
themselves to any frame-up engineered by a cheap little
crook like that egg."
"One infers that no Ashe has ever been known to
be guilty of a mis-step—"
"I don't say that. The men of that family have
always stepped out pretty lively—"
"But isn't it possible Mallison may have known
something which the present Stuyvesant Ashe pre-
ferred to keep secret from the general public? You're
surely not forgetting blackmail was one of Mallison's
ways of earning a dishonest living."
"Meaning you believe Mallison blackmailed Stuy-
vesant Ashe and his wife into letting him snap a
phoney photograph of some one made up to look like
you, trying to open their safe?"
"Really, you read my mind."
"Well!" Crane snorted his contempt—"that bright
little theory blows up like a toy balloon somebody
pokes a hot cigarette into—because the bird you see
in front of that safe got away with every little thing
it held. I guess you won't go so far as to tell me
the Stuyvesant Ashes would fall for blackmail to that
extent."


The Lone Wolf Returns 265
"I tell you nothing, because I know nothing—I do
but recommend the possibility to your thoughtful con-
sideration. Conceding the thanklessness of trying to
get the Stuyvesant Ashes to contradict the story they
told, I can only point out its more glaring absurdities."
Smilingly Lanyard put the print into the detective's
hands. "Look closely, my good Crane! and tell me
how you would describe the look of this alleged Lone
Wolf."
"Looks sort of flabbergasted," Crane replied.
"Who wouldn't with a flashlight going off all of a
sudden under his nose when he's keyed up to G try-
ing to pull off a big job?"
"But have you never observed that a man actually
taken by surprise never shows it in a flashlight photo-
graph? The flash comes and goes too quickly for
such an one to put on an appropriate expression for
the camera to catch. It is the man who is, as you
put it, all keyed up in expectation of the flash who
looks startled in the picture."
Crane took another look. "Something in that,
maybe," he grudged.
"Consider then, these other anomalies: Not only
am I represented as being idiot enough to go a-burg-
ling in evening dress—"
"But you claim you didn't know what you were
doing when all this happened."
"What I claim is, if it is fair to assume a rap on
the head caused me to revert to foregone ways of
knavery, it is only fair to assume further that I would
have displayed at least a little reverence for the prin-


266 The Lone Wolf Returns
ciples of common sense that formerly guided my errant I
footsteps. The succes fou of the Lone Wolf in pre- I
War Paris did not result from the expenditure of a I
medium of mental effort. That one never touched j
burglar's tools, far less carried a kit of them, once he
had served out his apprenticeship. If he could solve
the secret of a safe by ear—as the fellow in this
amusing picture would have us believe he can—why
burden himself with tools which, if found upon him,
would spell his damnation in the esteem of the police?
Finally, we are asked to believe not only that the Lone
Wolf neglected to search for burglar-alarm wiring on
this occasion—and if he had taken that first precaution
of all competent cracksmen he could hardly have over-
looked the wire which led to the flashlight—but that
after the flash had gone off in his face he proceeded
methodically to open the safe, abstract what valuables
it contained, and make good his escape!"
"Well!" Crane argued in the last ditch—"but we've
always been told the Lone Wolf was a cool hand."
Lanyard laughed aloud. "But I am in a position
to assure you the coolth of that hand would have been
nothing compared with the coldness of his feet, had
anything like this ever happened to him; I have my
low pride, my friend, and while I will never admit
the Lone Wolf was a white-livered cur, I am free to
confess that, in circumstances such as must have at-
tended the taking of this photograph, he would have
tucked tail between legs and ingloriously have run for
cover without an instant of needless delay."
"I don't know," Crane reluctantly conceded. "All


The Lone Wolf Returns 267
you say sounds reasonable enough, and I've got a
mean feeling I was the world's prize dumbell not to
think of your arguments before. But admitting all
that—where does it get us?"
"To the point I promised to bring you to, where you
are obliged to admit I may not have been the author
of those recent robberies attributed to the Lone Wolf."
"And where do we go from there?"
"I can speak only for myself," said Lanyard, rising:
"I go to find out the truth. I do not know what hap-
pened, where I lay hid, or what I did, in all those
seven months. It may be this conviction that I feel, that
I had no hand in the crimes imputed to me, is merely
a mirage of vain hope cheating my good judgement.
It is possible I shall find I myself am the man—even
the posing popinjay one sees in this snapshot. In that
event—one so subject to spells of criminal activity in
phases of submerged consciousness is too dangerous
to remain at large; I shall return and let you put me
where I can do no more harm. But I don't believe
you need hope to see me again on these terms; and if
we should chance to meet before I succeed in satisfy-
ing myself—well! bear in mind, I ask no quarter. It
is your duty to lay me by the heels if you can—and
if you do, the fault will be mine, I'll have no right
to complain. I have only one favour to ask of you,
and that runs on all fours with your duty: don't let
anxiety to bag Michael Lanyard make you forget that
Mallison likewise is at liberty and may very well turn
out to be the key to all this mystery."
Crane's face wrinkled into a radiating grin. "Funny


XVIII
ONFIDENT that their interview just ended had
converted an active antagonist, the most danger-
ous he knew because the most intelligent and dispas-
sionately devoted to his duty, into at worst a passive
opponent disposed to let the benefit be his of any
legitimate doubt and to adopt a policy of hands-off in
as far as Lanyard's still nebulous plans might affect a
common enemy; confident as well that the change in
his appearance insured against casual identification by
any other adversary, public or private: Lanyard on
leaving Crane none the less went his way as warily as
one who walked in living dread of being ambushed at
every corner.
From the door of the building in which Crane lodged
to the maw of an underground railway station was only
a step, but a step which Lanyard took with all the fur-
tive haste of a ghost belated at the hour of cockcrow.
The last coin that lined his pockets passed him through
a clattering turnstile to a bare platform from which,
while waiting for one of the occasional trains of the
post-midnight schedule, he watched both entrances with
eyes quick in the cast shadow of a ragged hat-brim.
But not another soul followed into the station, he was
able to board a northbound train unvexed by any hint
of espionage; though he reckoned this poor compensa-
269


270 The Lone Wolf Returns
tion for a sense of quandary only aggravated by ad-
vices which, dependable though he must hold them,
coming as they had from Crane, had paradoxically
proved more benighting than otherwise with the new
light they shed upon his dark perplexities.
He knew no amazement in the discovery that Liane
had lightly trifled with the truth in her version of his
seven months of lost existence; but her capricious warp-
ing of certain facts and suppression of others only
added one more mystery to that company whose faces
of empty imbecility now mocked every waking effort to
read their meaning and, when Lanyard slept, like night-
mares drifted through his dreams. Not that he found
it hard to understand that she had woven her tissue
of deception hoping thereby to fix a lien upon his
gratitude. Either he had been her lover for a time,
as she asserted, and she was bent on holding him by
hook or crook, or he had not and she thought to win
him by making him believe himself bound to her in
honour; wherefore the inventions of the purloined
necklace and the forced flight from New York that had
been infeasible without her friendly offices, as well as
of the sanctuary and aid that Liane claimed to have
given Lanyard when he was hard pressed in his flag-
rant course as the Lone Wolf redivivus.
In this last allegation there might be, no doubt there
was, some half-truth latent: Lanyard was not yet pre-
pared to deny that the Lone Wolf had lately prowled
again in his own flesh if in his mental dissociation; but
the conflict of testimony that proved the distortion to
Liane's purposes of half the truth at least made it


The Lone Wolf Returns 271
competent to him to question whether her story had
had any foundation in the truth whatever. Certain it
was—Crane's word for this—that Lanyard's long ab-
sence from the city had failed to put a period to that
sequence of thievish feats which New York credited to
the Lone Wolf's cunning. And, as Lanyard had in-
sisted, there was nothing to show that the author of
these more recent exploits had not been the author
likewise of the series which had predated his flight.
Nothing forbade his hugging that contention to his
heart and getting what comfort he could of it.
As a matter of fact, he got precious little: nothing
seemed of any real moment, just then, measured by the
riddle of Eve's return to France as the report of the
Hotel Walpole posed it; a statement which circum-
stantially refuted Liane's account of that event, which
happened unhappily to be the only explanation Lan-
yard could accept without reluctance. By the impli-
cations inherent in Liane's version, the lovers had
parted prior to the beginning of that bad new chapter
in the history of the Lone Wolf, had parted in tender-
ness and sadly, because of Lanyard's set refusal to let
Eve link her life with that of a reclaimed criminal.
And with all his heart Lanyard wanted to believe it
had been so. . . . But Crane asserted that the Lone
Wolf had been active in New York before Christmas,
and that Liane had been deported during the month of
February, while the Hotel Walpole fixed the date of
Eve's departure on the ninth of March! Liane, then,
could have had no personal acquaintance with the rea-
sons which had impelled Eve to leave America. But


272 The Lone Wolf Returns
could they have been anything else than heartbreak
resulting from failure to reanimate the spirit of the
man she loved in the being of the Lone Wolf?
Would he ever know? Never, he told himself,
from the lips of Eve. Inconceivable that she should
ever again consent to see him, believing what she must
believe, or even to read his letters—assuming that he
could find the effrontery so to importune her. Nothing
short of full exoneration could revive her faith in him;
and even given that, Lanyard would hardly find it in his
heart to blame her did she shrink from meeting him,
being seen with him, letting her name be coupled in the
public mouth with the name of one who had been
singled out by the spotlight of a notoriety so shameful.
No: he must count Eve lost to him for all time and
soothe that wound, if he could, with the assurance that
it was better so.
But before he could become reconciled to that renun-
ciation he must possess the truth in his own knowledge,
the truth whole and unvarnished.
So now he was striking directly at the heart of dark-
ness in which, he was satisfied, the truth lay perdu.
Ten minutes from Crane's door he came up for air
from the Plaza station of the Subway, slipped into
Central Park like a snake into a thicket, and was lost
to human sight for more than half an hour thereafter.
Then the lights of Central Park West picked him
up at Seventy-seventh street; and striking diagonally
across the grounds of the Museum of Natural History
he threaded quiet residential streets to Riverside Drive,
upon which he turned north, moving with the carefree


The Lone Wolf Returns 273
slouch of the vagabond he so picturesquely seemed to
be. A policeman on patrol, nobody else, gave him a
second glance in passing, saw that he was sober, dis-
missed him as a figure of no potential consequence
for either good or ill.
The night, seasonably intemperate, might have been
compounded according to his own prescription, so ex-
cellently suited it was to his purpose. Its heat had
made the parks populous with refugees from swel-
tering apartments; at this late hour they lingered
still upon the walks, the lawns and benches in sufficient
numbers to render Lanyard's restless presence equally
inconspicuous with uncounted others. A tenuous haze
dimmed the lustre of the sluggish flood of ink that
was the Hudson River and turned distant lights into
pulsing points of iridescence. The driveway proper
droned wearily with its steady if diminished flow of
motor traffic.
Morphew's town-house stood apart from less pre-
tentious neighbors, a four-square lump of unlovely
masonry squatting, with a singular effect of family like-
ness to its owner, in grounds more ample than even
opulence is wont to run to for its city pieds-a-terre.
Open windows and unboarded doors showed it had not
been shut up for the Summer, though Morphew were,
as Crane had intimated, sojourning somewhere out of
Town. And the lack of illumination other than a soft
night-light behind the iron grille and plate-glass of
its great front doors seemed to advertise a household
sensibly abed. The sharp eyes beneath the brim of
that disreputable hat had marked down half a dozen


274 The Lone Wolf Returns
avenues of easy if unconventional entrance before Lan-
yard, with his idlest air, turned off from the main prom-
enade that runs with the driveway and found a soft
spot on a lawn where a clump of shrubbery, standing
between him and the nearest street lamps, threw a
shadow black as jet.
Here, in a lazy sprawl, he rested for upwards of an
hour, covert attention constant to the mansion across
the Drive. In that time it gave no evidence of wake-
ful occupation; but as break of dawn drew near the
population of the park dispersed and the tide of
wheeled traffic became an intermittent trickle, lessening
the risk of observation that he must chance when the
time came to put his purpose into effect. In this last
he went ahead unhindered by any scruple, holding Mor-
phew solely answerable, as he did, for all the tribu-
lations that had been visited upon him since that long
ago night of their first acquaintance. Eight months
of enforced submission to the wear and tear of Mor-
phew's malevolence had brought him to the pass in
which tonight found him, penniless, homeless, hungry,
a hunted thing without a friend to turn to. It de-
volved upon Morphew, consequently, to bow to the
inexorable workings of the law of compensation and
stand to Lanyard now in the place of friend, willy-
nilly to furnish him food and drink, shelter and change
of raiment, set his mind at rest upon the matters that
most distressed it, and finally put money in his pockets.
Morphew could afford all that and never miss its cost
to him out of the profits he must have piled up as
impresario for the Lone Wolf's farewell tour.


The Lone Wolf Returns 277
The eye of fire burned a more sardonic crimson;
that was all.
In sheer bravado he began to count: "One—two—"
A whistle lanced the stillness, he was sensitive to a
sudden stir at his back and swung about, striking out
at random and without effect; a savage blow, likewise
launched at random, fell notwithstanding squarely upon
his cheek, just forward of the ear; staggered, he reeled
sideways and blundered into a brace of ready arms.
Before he could recover and set himself to break that
hold other arms found and wrapped his body round
from behind, a deft foot kicked his heels from under
him, and, fighting like a maniac, Lanyard took the
floor with a crash that made its timbers groan, beneath
a writhing mass of humanity whose weight alone was
enough to crush him into breathless quiescence.
Overhead a prism chandelier blazed out like a sun-
burst . . .
Pinned down by no less than five huskies, one to
each arm and leg and one, inevitably the stoutest, dig-
ging hard knees into his chest, Lanyard turned his head
to one side to give his eyes respite from than blinding
glare above, and lay looking directly into the apathetic
mask of Morphew.


XIX
TV/TORPHEW was holding down a huge easy-chair
without any appearance of ease: feet well apart
and planted solidly, huge and bedizened paws firmly
clasping each an arm of the chair as if to forestall its
wickedly slipping out from under him. His face of a
pale beast, with its unwinking light eyes under leaden
hoods, its gash of a mouth, its flaccid jowls and wattles,
was void of any readable expression; but for seepage
of smoke from its nostrils and the corner of the mouth
that wasn't filled by the cigar it might have passed for
a devil-mask modelled by hands of decadence.
Above and somewhat behind this unholy vision, Mr.
Peter Pagan, resting folded arms on the back of the
chair, presented the face of a subsenile imp in familiar
attendance, innocent, however, of his master's affec-
tion for the pose imperturbable—his clown's lips wide
with a gleeful grin, beady eyes alive with malice.
"I suppose," he said, as one might to a troublesome
child, "you think you're smart, keeping decent, law-
abiding folk up like this, till all hours!"
Lanyard reflected on this pleasantry with a weary
droop of eyelids, otherwise held still and dumb.
With dramatic deliberation Morphew relaxed the
hold of one hand on the chair long enough to extract
the cigar from between his teeth. All in a grunt he
commanded: "Frisk him."
278


280 The Lone Wolf Returns
"A policeman, my good Morphew! do my ears mis-
lead me?"
"No," Morphew definitely replied, "they don't."
Pagan cocked a critical eye at the ears in question.
"Even foreshortened," he volunteered, "they don't
look like ears to mislead anybody else."
But Pagan could wait, Lanyard couldn't afford to let
an antic second distract any of the attention due his
principal.
"I am to understand," he persisted, addressing Mor-
phew, "it is your intention to give me in charge?"
"That rests with you." -
"Monsieur undoubtedly is pleased to be humor-
ous ..."
"Maybe, so, maybe not." Fixing Lanyard with an
unintelligible stare, Morphew thoughtfully champed
his cigar. "There's a lot of popularity lying around
loose in this town, waiting to be pinned onto the hero
that puts the Lone Wolf behind bars. And you ought
to know whether you've had enough."
"But if you ask me," Lanyard frankly laughed—
"too much!"
"All right," Morphew agreed in gloomy gratifica-
tion: "That puts it up to you which you want to do
now—go up the River to do a nice long stretch or
stick on in Town here and take life easy."
"Not so long ago it was the Lone Wolf's boast that
he never found it necessary to take life easily or other-
wise ... as you were good enough to remind me,
monsieur, the last time we had the pleasure of con-
versing together."


The Lone Wolf Returns 283
now we've all made our mistakes and are ready to
admit and profit by them—you're going to cut out all
this running round in circles and frothing at the mouth,
going to come in and lie down under the table and be
a good dog."
"I am?"
"Sure thing. Ask Morph: he knows. And you
will, too, before long, if you don't now. And then
we'll all be just like this"—Pagan illustrated by lacing
his fingers—"just girls together, you know, all out for
a good time. So why not begin the peace conference
with just one friendly little hooter? It'll do us both
good: you've had a hard day of it, and you've given
us a hard night."
"It desolates me, monsieur, to think I have been,
however unwittingly, the agent of your martyrdom to
insomnia."
"Well: what did you think?" Giving up the un-
grateful work of trying to seduce Lanyard into tip-
pling, Pagan philosophically mixed himself a lonely
solace. "Didn't suppose we'd be able to sleep a wink,
did you, when you'd got us all excited up?"
"I! but how?"
"Pulling off this pussyfoot return of the prodigal."
"It is true," Lanyard thoughtfully considered: "by
what appears, you did know of my return."
"If we hadn't, there wouldn't have been any sense
in our staging this swell reception in your honour."
"I presume it seems stupid of me to be surprised—"
"Dear man!" Pagan benignly advised him—"we
brought you back."


286 The Lone Wolf Returns
South America." A side alley of self-revelation proved
too tempting: "That's the way I am, you see: when
a man I want bucks on me, I make it a rule to give
him all the rope he wants to wind himself up in good
and tight before I start hauling in the slack. That
night we first met, now ... I made you a plain,
open-and-shut business proposition, take it or leave it.
If you hadn't r'ared back, showed your teeth and the
whites of your eyes, and made such a fuss altogether
about your lovely virtue, I and you wouldn't Ve ever
had any trouble. If there's one thing I despise worse
than poison it's phony righteousness. And the way you
carried on that night showed me plain enough kind
treatment wasn't ever going to gentle you. So I laid
off and let you perform. What happened?"
"Must we go into that? See: you're embarrassing
Mr. Pagan here frightfully."
Morphew gave his head a shake, as one pestered by
a buzzing insect. "What happened?" he obstinately
iterated. "You went off and got loaded on a thimbleful
of liquor, forgot all about being nature's nobleman, and
pulled off one of the rawest jobs of second-storey stuff
ever."
"But surely you are dealing unfairly now by the
talents of that poor but willing creature Mallison."
"Mallison!"
A passion of indignation exploded in that snort, such
as Morphew had never before betrayed capacity for
feeling; and seeming to choke on a rush of words, he
was temporarily unable to resume; while Lanyard,
forbearing to question or comment, continued in a


The Lone Wolf Returns 287
wide stare of a sudden grown genuine. Unmistakably
his mention of Mallison had touched a spot so sore
that the iron rule of stolidity had been unseated. But
for an instant only; quick to pull himself together,
Morphew resumed his level drone of habit.
"Get that idea out of your head—if it's in it.
Mally's a crooked little damn' fool if there ever was
one, but he never in his best days had the guts to tackle
big business."
"But, if memory serves, you were of another mind
when we met at Mrs. McFee's—"
"You had me at a disadvantage—"
"How generous an admission!"
"It was your word against mine; and what chance
did I have of proving you had everything all wrong,
with the little McFee daft about you, ready to believe
black was white if you told her so?"
"It isn't fair to confuse me with compliments.
Pardon a slight digression: I am interested to know
what became of Mallison."
"I don't know," Morphew admitted, louring. "But
I will before long . . ."
He gave a minute to savage brooding. "If that boy
had only had sense enough to trust me . . . But he
got panicky for fear we'd fall down trying to alibi him,
and blew without so much as good night."
"And you have not see him since?"
"Fat chance. He knows enough to steer clear of me
alter jumping the bail I put up for him."
"Still, one is hardly convinced that Mallison is the
simple innocent you make him out to be."


288 The Lone Wolf Returns
"I suppose"—Morphew's manner was irritating by
intention—"what you want me to believe is you don't
remember owning up you done that job yourself."
"Ah!" Light from yet another angle promised
now to illuminate the darker recesses of Liane's du-
plicity. "You have been talking with Mademoiselle
Delorme—"
"With both of you."
"Pardon?"
"I'm telling you the three of us talked all that busi-
ness over, I and you and Liane, half a dozen times if
once, last Winter. You didn't make any bones then
about admitting you'd turned that trick at Folly's
while you were lit. What good do you think it's going
to do you to stall about it now, try to feed the bull
to me, the way you did to Liane on board that boat?
Maybe she swallowed your yarn because she wanted
to; but I'm no crazy woman, I'm not so dead struck
on you I'll let you get away with telling me to my face
you don't remember anything that went on in this Town
before you went South. I'm wise, I know what you've
got in mind; and that tale won't go down a little bit
with yours truly."
"I see . . ."
"Well," Morphew roughly insisted: "what do you
see?"
"For one thing, that one was not mistaken in as-
suming you had recently talked with Mademoiselle
Delorme."
"Why not? She hiked right back to Town as soon
as you left her flat on the Port Royal."


The Lone Wolf Returns 289
"And promptly reported to you of course."
"Who do you think? What other friend did her
and you have, with pull enough to keep the cops off
your backs while you were running that continuous
performance of yours last Winter?"
"Nevertheless, your influence failed to save Liane
from deportation."
"She came back all right, she's here now, isn't she?
Well then: who do you suppose fixed things up for
her?"
"Pardon, monsieur: I do but marvel that power so
autocratic should even once have failed a friend."
"Pretending you've forgotten all about how that
happened, too, eh?" An uglier sneer overcast Mor-
phew's countenance. "I suppose you don't remember
anything about how you two got to feeling your oats,
after you'd been Lone Wolfing a while and making a
good thing out of it with my protection, and thought
you could give me the air and never miss me—"
"No! not really?"
"I suppose you don't remember how I nudged the
Government into deporting Liane to teach her dis-
cipline and then, when I found you didn't handle any
better with her away, let her sneak back, gave you
another chance, and when that didn't work made Town
so hot for you both you had to take a running jump off
the Battery ... I suppose it's only natural you
wouldn't remember little things like that."
"And very handsome it is of you to suppose so, and
prove you do by itemizing in such minute detail all I
pretend to have forgotten."


290 The Lone Wolf Returns
"That line of talk won't get you anywhere with me,
Lanyard. Sarcastic cracks won't stop me checking up
to show you where you get off trying to pull that lost
memory stall on me. Why!" Morphew snorted in
disgust—"you must think I'm easy."
"But no, monsieur! my memory is hardly so bad as
all that."
"It's only on the blink when you want it to be, I
guess."
"What it really needs now," Pagan put in with ani-
mation, "is for you to get yourself lammed over the
bean again." He grasped the neck of the decanter
suggestively. "I hate to do it, but for a friend . . .
Just say the word, Lanyard, and I'll crown you King of
Cracksmen."
"Shut up," Morphew brutally snapped.
With a little moan the sycophant applied himself
anew to the soothing Scotch; and for a few moments
no more was said, while Lanyard, sitting forward,
bent a thoughtful frown to the rug at his feet, and
Morphew studied his man with a subtile smile.
"Licked," he declared, at length: "that's what you
are, Lanyard, licked to a standstill. Your nature
started the job and I finished it. You'd ought to 've
known better than to try to buck a combination like
that."
"I'm sorry," Lanyard replied, looking up with an
apologetic smile—"but if it isn't too much to ask you
to be more plain-spoken . . ."
"All I mean is—there's no cure for a crook. If
you were born crooked, you'll die a crook, no matter


The Lone Woli Returns
how hard you struggle. It's your nature, and it's no
use any man's trying to lick his nature: you're licked
before you start. God knows I don't blame you for
not wanting to believe that, on account of that dame
you were stuck on—"
"By your leave, monsieur!" Lanyard sharply in-
sisted—"we will not discuss that phase of my af-
fairs."
"Just as you like. No offense intended, none, far's
I'm concerned, taken." Morphew had suddenly shifted
to an amazingly conciliatory line. "I bear you no ill
will, Lanyard, in spite of all you've done to sprain my
patience. Why! that battle you put up against your
nature and me was a classic, and a man can't help but
admire you for it, even if he did know all along you
never had a chance. But now you know it, too, you're
too sensible to keep on kicking against the pricks. Your
motto from now on is 'Make the best of it'—and the
best you can make of it, if you put your back into the
business, is the life of Reilly for a man who knows how
to live like you do."
"You advise me, then—?"
"I leave it to your good sense, seeing where you
stand today, what's the only sensible way for you to
go-
In a subdued voice, with thoughtful gaze constant
to Morphew's, Lanyard repeated: "Where I stand
today!"
"Well: where do you? You've got to live somehow,
and you only know one way to make a decent living.
It's no good your pulling out for Paris or London


XX
THE sleepiness that Lanyard alleged was no mere
subterfuge to end a wearing conversation, the
fatigue he felt was all too real, harvest of many toilful
days and nights of broken rest, so real that, once he
ceased to stave off its creeping paralysis with inflexible
resistance, it overwhelmed him of a sudden altogether.
It was with something very like the carriage of a
somnambulist that he permitted the still sprightly
Peter Pagan to lead him from the library, through a
maze of corridors and stairs apprehended as in dream,
and leave him at last in a lordly bedchamber.
Here by early dawn-light he undressed like an au-
tomaton, fell across the bed rather than laid him down
upon it, and in a trice was sleeping heavily. . . .
The sun grew so old its level rays struck in at
length beneath the window awning and burned his face
with a crimson glare till Lanyard started up, bemused,
out of a nightmare of stokehold drudgery—only to
fancy himself, with that ruddy beam boring through
blue shadow to lend colour to the illusion, back in his
stateroom on the Port Royal, waiting for the pretty
person of Liane Delorme to justify her knuckling of
the door.
But nobody had knocked, the band of raw red gold
was stationary that barred the dusk, it was a bed that
held him, not a berth, the spacious sleeping quarters
295


296 The Lone Wolf Returns
of a pampered landlubber were his instead of cramped
and bare accomodations aboard an ocean-going boat;
and he was quickening to apprehensions of a plight
more exigent even than that which Liane had come to
tell him of upon that other nightfall, in the Bahamas,
weeks ago; by courtesy a guest in the town-house of a
new-found ally, in fact no better than a prisoner in the
stronghold of his most embittered enemy . . .
Fagged though he had been all through that parley
of the small hours, Lanyard had likewise been far too
thoroughly alive to its vital bearing upon the issue of
whether or not this life of his were worth the struggle,
to have slighted any innuendo in Morphew's attitude,
however trivial in seeming or elusive. And now re-
calling, weighing and minutely searching every spoken
word and unsaid implication, he perceived no reason
for reconsidering his verdict on their consequence^ that
Morphew's proposal of an alliance had beem as
treacherous as his own complaisance toward it. . . .
A memory the cause of corroding chagrin, to him who
had never before met offer of oppression with less
than flat defiance, to whom the bare thought of com-
promise with an overbearing and corrupt antagonist
was one to sicken over. He had sour comfort of the
saying that it's fair to fight the devil with fire, he would
liever have known himself surely the poor thing they
pictured him, uncontrollably subject to criminal lapses,
than to remember he had been reduced to trafficing
with cattle such as Morphew—and on terms of Mor-
phew's choice!
Yet it had been that or worse—a knife in his back.


The Lone Wolf Returns 297
very likely, before he could find out the truth for him-
self about those latterday prowlings of the Lone Wolf
that enemy and friend alike attributed to Michael Lan-
yard, that the friendliest guesses ascribed to the crop-
ping out of ingrained criminal proclivities which the
best will in the world might neither eradicate nor hope
to hold in check.
God knew it might be true! and if it were, then it
was time indeed to let Society rid itself of such a
menace. But first all doubts must be resolved . . .
Morphew had had the best of him from the outset,
had chosen the ground, forced the fighting, outgen-
eralled him in every skirmish, beaten him down at last
to his knees, forced him to stomach quarter on condi-
tions unspeakably humiliating. But better to bow to
such abasement than forfeit every chance to clear his
scutcheon or, failing, tear him down whose malevolance
had been the first cause of its smirching, down from
the strong place he had set up to be his refuge, and
bury him deep in its ruins—though these bury not
Morphew alone.
To compass an end so just, to avenge society as he
revenged himself, was the one way Lanyard could con-
jecture to make amends for being as life had made
him; to this he dedicated himself without any reserva-
tion whatever, renouncing every cherished prejudice
against unfaith and double-dealing, holding no sacrifice
whether of scruples or of life itself too heavy a price
to pay for its accomplishment, refusing to know any
depth of degradation to which he would not gladly
descend with the promise that at the bottom he would
find Morphew's throat defenseless.


The Lone Wolf Returns 299
must have known, or was a denser dunce than Lan-
yard thought him—that last night's compact had been
a farce, that neither of them meant to abide by it one
moment longer than suited his convenience, and finally
that so long as Lanyard lived and had his liberty Mor-
phew's own liberty if not his very life was in jeopardy.
Yet he had preferred that risk . . .
A man so ruled by his passions was surely vulner-
able : it remained to bide one's time with every wit wide
awake to catch and profit by the first clue that Mor-
phew might let fall, then strike with all the shrewd-
ness one could muster at the weak spot so exposed.
Lanyard would hardly have to school himself to pa-
tience very long . . .
Arrived at this conclusion, scarcely one to content
him, nevertheless the one with which he must for the
time being be content, Lanyard permitted considera-
tions of more material sort to assert their claims, with
the promptly resultant discovery that he was both
sticky and hungry, in sore need of a bath and breakfast.
And sitting up, he made another discovery, that his
privacy had not been respected while he slept. His
weatherbeaten wardrobe had vanished from the chair
over which he had thrown it on going to bed; in its
place he found a flowered dressing-gown of thinnest
silk and a pair of bedroom slippers—a costume su-
premely suited to such sultry weather, as long as one
remained indoors. He perceived himself to be indeed
a prisoner.
In the bathroom still a third discovery awaited him
when, having turned on the hot-water tap in the tub,
*■


300 The Lone Wolf Returns
he had his first look at himself in the mirror above
the washtand. Mirrors had been rare furniture of
the scenes in which his life had been staged of late,
and he was interested to view the effect of a six weeks'
untamed growth of beard, had been rather looking
forward to revising it, as soon as he could lay hands
on a sharp pair of scissors, into a neat Van Dyke, a
style calculated to be more becoming and hardly less
disguising. But one glance showed him that Morphew
or another had been beforehand with him, had played
Delilah to his Samson while he slept; that wanton
luxuriance had been edited already and in such vandal
spirit that nothing could now be done for it but shave
it off entirely.
Scissors had been left on the glass shelf below the
mirror, together with a razor, soap and a brush. In
resignation Lanyard clipped and shaved, telling him-
self that it wouldn't do to resent the impertinence—
not yet—it was just Morphew's delicate way of serving
notice that Lanyard must not count on any liberty of
action unhandicapped by constant danger of being
identified with the original of that confounded flash-
light, in other words, that any attempt to elude his
watchful care would be extremely impolitic.
Later, while he wallowed in hot water, Lanyard
heard footfalls in the bedchamber, then a discreet voice
just outside the bathroom door.
"I beg pardon, sir, but I thought I heard you mov-
ing about. Mr. Morphew's compliments, and you'll
be dining out of Town tonight with him and Mr.
\ Pagan; the car is ordered for seven o'clock."


The Lone Wolf Returns 301
"That's very interesting—thank you. What time
is it now?"
"Just on six, sir. I've laid out your dinner clothes,
and now, if you wish, I'll fetch your coffee. Perhaps
you'd care for grapefruit, too, and a bit of toast."
"I'm sure I would, thanks, especially if I'm in for
anything of a drive."
"That I can't tell you, sir—Mr. Morphew didn't
say."
By the time Lanyard had finished towelling, his
breakfast was waiting. He consumed it in a thought-
ful turn, eyeing the array of clothing provided for
him, hoping that the tailor who presumably had taken
his measure while he slept had been a better man at
his trade than the barber who had operated on his
beard. But misgivings were groundless; the dinner-
coat, most ungainly of garments when it isn't just right,
turned out to be a very tolerable fit, and he could not
complain of a shortage of anything he required to
make him feel entirely at ease—barring money. Even
a cigarette-case and a wafer-thin watch with chain of
platinum had been fitted into the waistcoat pockets.
Finding himself dressed with twenty minutes to
spare, he had the curiosity to try the door. It wasn't
locked. He went down the stairs deliberately, expect-
ing at every step to encounter Morphew or Pagan or
else discover some servant spying on him. But nothing
of the sort: everything was being done to beguile him
into believing he was entirely at liberty on his own
recognizance. He knew too much, however, to act on
any such rash assumption.


300 The Lone Wolf Returns
he had his first look at himself in the mirror above
the washtand. Mirrors had been rare furniture of
the scenes in which his life had been staged of late,
and he was interested to view the effect of a six weeks'
untamed growth of beard, had been rather looking
forward to revising it, as soon as he could lay hands
on a sharp pair of scissors, into a neat Van Dyke, a
style calculated to be more becoming and hardly less
disguising. But one glance showed him that Morphew
or another had been beforehand with him, had played
Delilah to his Samson while he slept; that wanton
luxuriance had been edited already and in such vandal
spirit that nothing could now be done for it but shave
it off entirely.
Scissors had been left on the glass shelf below the
mirror, together with a razor, soap and a brush. In
resignation Lanyard clipped and shaved, telling him-
self that it wouldn't do to resent the impertinence—
not yet—it was just Morphew's delicate way of serving
notice that Lanyard must not count on any liberty of
action unhandicapped by constant danger of being
identified with the original of that confounded flash-
light, in other words, that any attempt to elude his
watchful care would be extremely impolitic.
Later, while he wallowed in hot water, Lanyard
heard footfalls in the bedchamber, then a discreet voice
just outside the bathroom door.
"I beg pardon, sir, but I thought I heard you mov-
ing about. Mr. Morphew's compliments, and you'll
be dining out of Town tonight with him and Mr.
\ Pagan; the car is ordered for seven o'clock."


The Lone Wolf Returns 301
"That's very interesting—thank you. What time
is it now?"
"Just on six, sir. I've laid out your dinner clothes,
and now, if you wish, I'll fetch your coffee. Perhaps
you'd care for grapefruit, too, and a bit of toast."
"I'm sure I would, thanks, especially if I'm in for
anything of a drive."
"That I can't tell you, sir—Mr. Morphew didn't
say."
By the time Lanyard had finished towelling, his
breakfast was waiting. He consumed it in a thought-
ful turn, eyeing the array of clothing provided for
him, hoping that the tailor who presumably had taken
his measure while he slept had been a better man at
his trade than the barber who had operated on his
beard. But misgivings were groundless; the dinner-
coat, most ungainly of garments when it isn't just right,
turned out to be a very tolerable fit, and he could not
complain of a shortage of anything he required to
make him feel entirely at ease—barring money. Even
a cigarette-case and a wafer-thin watch with chain of
platinum had been fitted into the waistcoat pockets.
Finding himself dressed with twenty minutes to
spare, he had the curiosity to try the door. It wasn't
locked. He went down the stairs deliberately, expect-
ing at every step to encounter Morphew or Pagan or
else discover some servant spying on him. But nothing
of the sort: everything was being done to beguile him
into believing he was entirely at liberty on his own
recognizance. He knew too much, however, to act on
any such rash assumption.


302 The Lone JVolf Returns
He met nobody, for that matter, either in the halls
or in the living-rooms, and was twirling lonesome
thumbs in the library of mortifying associations when
the clock chimed the hour, and promptly the servant
who had waited on him upstairs put in appearance,
bringing a hat of black felt and a slender stick of ebony,
ivory-capped.
"The car is waiting, sir, if you are quite ready."
"Quite — thanks. But Mr. Morphew and Mr.
Pagan?"
"They are neither of them at home, sir. I believe
it is their intention to meet you wherever it is you are
to dine—the chauffeur will know."
"Then I'm to make the trip alone?"
"Yes, sir."
A certain quality of cheek in the way Morphew had
made his arrangemetns won an ungrudged laugh as
Lanyard accepted the hat and stick.
The Rolls-Royce landaulet at the door was so
brightly blue and sleek it might have been making its
first run from the show-room floor. The liveried foot-
man who held its door with all the rare poise of his
kind, saluted smartly as Lanyard got in, and smartly
doubled round the car to hop up to the chauffeur's side:
the vehicle began to move almost before he was for-
mally posed in his place with folded arms. But Lan-
yard remarked that the rear-view mirror above the
wheel was so tilted as to afford the driver a view of the
tonneau; and knew by this that to discover symptoms
of intending unceremoniously to leave the car would
be unwise.


The Lone Wolf Returns 303
At the same time he inclined to dispute the wisdom
that had provided a progress of so much state and
ostentation for one so badly wanted; for while it was
true enough that the police in uniform were far too
busy supervising the traffic of the Drive to have room
in their heads for thoughts of the Lone Wolf, it was
equally true that plain-clothes men were presumed to
be aboard and on the qui vive, it wasn't an extravagant
flight of fancy that supposed a chance crossing of
trails, a casual look into the car fixing on the features
of its passenger and kindling with recognition . . .
But when furtive reconnaissance astern, at intervals
in the course of the first twenty minutes, had satisfied
him that the landaulet was being discreetly dogged by
another car, an unpretentious affair in sober paint
occupied by three men of competent presence, compact
bodies who rode with eyes alert, and looked quite
capable, jointly and severally, of giving a good account
of themselves in action, he concluded that it wasn't
worth his while to worry about adventitious interfer-
ence on the part of the police, who, if inspired to such
an attempt, would stand about as much chance of
stopping the Rolls-Royce and arresting its tenant as
the latter would of winning his freedom by means of
a flying leap. One might as profitably occupy one's
leisure trying to guess one's destination: and the next
hour satisfied Lanyard that the route had been mapped
with intent to confuse him. For after following main-
travelled ways to White Plains, the landaulet and its
satellite struck off into a bewildering tangle of back-
country roads in which, as night closed down, it was


The Lone Wolf Returns 307
she posed provocatively to him in the half-light of the
window behind her, head daintily aslant, elfin mischief
glinting through the dusk that masked her eyes. "I
must say you might take it more kindly, seeing how
happy it makes me. You don't know how long you've
kept me waiting—I'd begun to be afraid you'd backed
out of coming after all."
"Then you actually were expecting me for dinner?"
"Of course! without you it wouldn't really be a
party."
So much for the suspicion that his escort had mis-
taken the way and blundered into the wrong premises
. . . Then it behooved him to have his wits about
him and beware of being misled into taking false steps
on such false ground.
"You're an arrant young baggage," Lanyard con-
sidered aloud.
"I know—but you're an old hand."
"Then cultivate a bit of reverence for my grey
hairs, remember it's not seemly to make mock of your
elders."
"Come and sit down, then, beside me." With a
chuckle of delight Folly flitted back into the shadows
from which she had come, plumped down upon a settee,
and patted its vacant cushions with a peremptory hand
as Lanyard more deliberately followed. "Do you
always insist on having a plot to explain why people
request the honour of your presence at their dinners?"
"I have a humble heart," Lanyard protested, sitting;
"I am too much mystified to understand why it's termed
an honour . . ."


308 The Lone Wolf Returns
"You're a great bluff—I've told you before. You
know very well, most of the people one meets are
incurably dull, whereas nothing can cure you of being
a most interesting person. That's one reason at least
why you're wanted."
"But you are dodging my question. Few people
think it an honour to entertain the Lone Wolf—even
if they didn't entertain him unawares."
"I don't call that humour," Folly observed, critical.
"You can't amuse me by making believe you think I
take any stock in all the rotten things people say about
you."
"Oh!" Lanyard blankly cried—"you really don't?"
"I should say not—know you better."
Her tone rang true enough, and Lanyard could de-
tect nothing to contradict it in the soft silhouette of
her profile against the light.
"It makes me very happy, to think at least one
person in the world has faith in me, after all the
villainy that's been charged to my account."
"That isn't fair," Folly retorted with spirit: "You
never give your friends credit—Morphy doesn't be-
lieve it, and neither does Peter."
"To be sure . . . Yes: naturally those two must
have talked to you about me."
"You don't suppose they'd have lured you out here
to dinner without first getting my permission, do you?
If they hadn't, I'd hardly have been so fussed about
your being late."
. "But that wasn't my fault. I didn't know where I
was coming—I could only comfort myself with the


The Lone Wolf Returns
309
reminder that I was in the hands of—as you point out
—my friends."
"It doesn't matter. We arranged to make it a late
dinner anyway; and furthermore you're not the one
who's kept it waiting. Morphy and Peter didn't show
up till about ten minutes ago. They had a break-
down or something on the way."
"I was wondering . . ."
"They're upstairs in their rooms now, dressing."
"I hope they don't hurry," Lanyard confessed. "I
can spare them a little longer, need time to get my
bearings."
"Poor dear!" Folly closed an impulsive hand over
Lanyard's. "It is horrid of me to plague you, isn't
it? But you know how I love fun . . ." She drew
away and made herself prim and meek in her corner.
"It's your turn now, I'm perfectly well aware I've
got questions by the broadside coming. You may fire
when ready."
"But I think you know too well what seems most
strange to me . . ."
"All right. I don't mind telling . . . Yes: this
is my place. No: I don't own it, I just rent it fur-
nished. From Peter Pagan. He's been such a dear,
let me have it for next to nothing for the Summer, and
the most perfect staff of servants thrown in."
"I'm sure that sounds just like him."
Lanyard meant it. Since it was manifest that Mor-
phew and Pagan were determined to pluck this poor
foolish pigeon, and she was madly bent on being
plucked, certainly it had been their book to surround


310 The Lone Wolf Returns
her with a squad of servitors trained to their pur
pose.
"But that isn't what's most perplexing to you . . .'
"By no means."
"You're perfectly eaten alive by curiosity to knom
how Morphy got round me, aren't you? Well! bu
how did he get round vo«?"
Lanyard weakly parried: "Hasn't he told you?'
"Not in so many words. But of course I under
stand. How could anybody hold out against suet
magnanimity?"
"How indeed?"
"You weren't to blame for being so cruelly wrong
about him . . . about Mallison and Morphy's ha\<
ing had anything to do with my emeralds, I mean
Everything looked so black for him . . . Ever
Morphy didn't blame you; only, of course, he was
half wild at the time, when you didn't give him a chance
to defend himself and prove that Mallison had abused
his confidence just as he had mine, only more so. But
of course he's told you all about that."
"I am none the less interested to learn what he
told you." * I
"Just what I've said, what you know. He waited
weeks before he tried to see me again, and spent simple
sloughs of money on detectives, trying to find Malli-
son and bring him back to prove what an ingrate he'd
been. Oh! but I wasn't the only one of Morphy's
friends that had suffered through taking Mallison on
his endorsement."
"I am sure you were not."


The Lone Wolf Returns 311
"And then, when he had to give that up as hopeless,
he got Liane to ask me to give him a chance to explain;
and of course, I could hardly refuse to listen. And
he's been just wonderful to me ever since. Really, my
friend, you don't know what a fine nature he has.
Why! he wouldn't let Liane or Peter tell me a word
about what he was doing for you, it was only today
I wormed the whole story out of him, after he had
brought me the good news."
"'Good news'?"
"About your recovery. And when I think of how
he took care of you, all those months, after that ter-
rible motor accident, all the while you were out of
your head and the doctors held out no hope you would
ever be yourself again—when I think of the way he
fought to save your mind—and won!—well!" Folly
submitted in a voice of awe—"there aren't any two
ways of looking at it: Morphy's a sportsman if there
ever was one."
"He is," Lanyard cautiously conceded—"unique."
The young woman sat up with an indignant jerk.
"Is there a double meaning to that?" she demanded.
"Because if there is—I ought to warn you—you'll end
by making me dislike you against my will. Oh! I
know Morphy has his shortcomings; but so have we
all. And I can't believe you so ungrateful . . ."
"But I would be the last man to deny that I owe
Morphew a great deal," Lanyard was able to state
with entire sincerity. "And some day—it is my dearest
hope some day to be able to repay him as he deserves."
"That's all right, then." Mollified, Folly relaxed.
"I'm terribly glad."


The Lone Wolf Returns 313
"Oh, I don't know!" Folly sighed in plaintive re-
sentment of such bullying. "He kept asking me, and I
didn't know what else to do . . . You weren't there,
and I was lonely, and it was raining . . ."


316 The Lone Wolf Returns
"On your account I promise to be careful. But you
really must take the good man in hand and teach him
self-control. As your husband, he will be sure to need
it."
Folly's eyes flashed up in mute prayer and warning:
Morphy leaving the swing-door, was already within
earshot. In his wake, as ever at no great distance,
the inevitable Pagan strutted.
With that dogged elasticity of gait which men of
too certain years and too, too solid flesh affect in their
pathetic strivings to seem youthful to the women they
prefer, Morphew approached, his dinner clothes,
over-cleverly tailored, decked out with a regalia of
jewels more than ordinarily shocking, last night's surly
truculence now a genial suavity that harked back to
the first half-hour of his acquaintance with Lanyard,
at the Clique Club so long ago. On his very best be-
havior, he was apparently charmed to be so. And
observing him in covert wonder when, after throwing
Liane a light but friendly greeting, he bent his lips to
Folly's hand, Lanyard perceived in a blinding flash
of divination the chink in the. armor of this uncouth
colossus: Morphew was madly in love, in bondage
absolute to one of those late blooming passions that
men know who feel their flesh, still warm from the
midday sun, breathed upon by chill premonitions of the
night to come.
"Ah, Lanyard, my boyl there you are, eh?" No
friend of his heart ever gave Lanyard a more cordial
hand. "Sorry Pete and I had to keep you waiting—"
"But I was glad of the chance to find myself in re-


The Lone Wolf Returns 317
lation to the surprise you had prepared for me—the
surprises, I mean."
A small bow comprehended Liane, who returned an
arch look as Folly linked her arm and snuggled.
"Darling Liane is stopping with me for the looks of
the thing, to keep my name sweet on the tongue of my
neighbours."
"Pour les convenances," Liane interpreted for Lan-
yard with an intonation inimitably droll.
Dinner was announced . . .
Long before that meal was finished Lanyard knew
the conviction that never had he sat through a stranger,
or one better composed and served, or consumed in an
atmosphere of more general amenity.
It would have been anything but easy, for that mat-
ter, to be uncongenial under the influences of food of
such excellence and so skillfully prepared, wines so
well chosen, and the steady flow of high spirits con-
tributed by Folly, Liane and Pagan in tacit collabora-
tion, and encouraged by a surprising display of good
feeling in the more saturnine Morphew. Yet Lanyard
thought it doubtful if any of his company forgot self
or selfish interests for one fleeting instant or pro-
nounced a single unweighed witticism, however spon-
taneously it might seem to fall.
On his own part, he could not—had he wished—
have forgotten the sinister tension of distrust and cross-
purpose running through it all; and if he seemed to let
himself go and enter without reserve into the frivolous
spirit of the gathering, he remained in his heart an
outsider to the end, captious and skeptical, and to the


318 The Lone Wolf Returns
end a prey to dour forebodings. And his attention,
ranging in turn from one to another, with a quality of
vision inhumanly dispassionate stripped each and every
one, even himself, of their trappings of pretension
and self deception, and saw the rot that ate at every
heart.
He saw in Pagan the perfect pattern of a parasite,
fawning on all and sundry for empty laughter, that he
might esteem himself a wit and so repair the abrasion
of his self-love by the knowledge that he was, at bot-
tom, no better than a pickthank and a pander.
He saw Liane Delorme estranged from these her
boon accomplices of yesterday because of Morphew's
inexplicable new animus, bitterly stung by the discovery
that she who had even been wont to queen it unchal-
lenged was tonight being barely tolerated for what she
might be worth toward the consummation of another's
corrupt and ungenerous ends; haunted by the incidental
knowledge that her charms were day by day more
swiftly fading, that their potency once so magical was
now nearly spent, and that the increase of her years
had brought and would bring no compensating repose,
neither the peace that crowns a life well lived nor any
surcease from repining. ,
He saw Folly McFee, a trifling moth, vain, empty-
headed, pretty-to-death, avid for admiration to dull the
irk of discontent with life for all it had denied her of
her heart's desire, for the shabby indemnity it offered
her in the shape of Morphew as her promised husband.
He saw Morphew, gross in person, gross in appe-
tites, seeking in vain to slake his lust for power, that


320 The Lone Wolf Returns
relegated to his rowdy sphere, to escape from which
he had been insane ever to aspire . . .
Oh, he knew it now! Doubts no more vexed his
mind. He was where he belonged, where his own acts
had brought him, in the vicious circle of his peers,
welcomed and accepted in virtue of the proof he had
provided, though unconsciously and without intention,
that he was one of them—"guilty as charged," guilty
as Hell.
So be it—he was tired of fighting against the fate
inherent in his failings, he would fight no more. The
destiny of his own architecture must henceforth have
its way with him. . . .
Quaint respect for the conventions of another world
at length ordained the withdrawal of the women, leav-
ing the men to the walnuts and wine of tradition. And
Lanyard, when he got up with the others to bow Folly
and Liane out of the room, returning to the table, drew
his chair up to the end where Morphew presided.
The curious good nature of the Sultan of Loot was
holding up in spite of his bereavement, the temporary
defection of the apple of his eye; he felt free to declare
the little party an unblemished success; and though he
adhered strictly to his plain water regime, he didn't
hesitate to hector the servants, who didn't need his
hectoring, into producing from Folly's cellar for the
delectation of Lanyard and Pagan the rarest of
grandes champagnes.
"That's the stuff to go to the right spot," he as-
serted, with a glitter of envy in his moist eyes of an
ex-tank. "Drink hearty, it won't hurt you any, and


The Lone Wolf Returns 321
there's lashin's more where it came from—though you
won't find half a dozen bottles between Maine and
California, outside the stock I control."
"Monsieur is a rare judge, for one who never
drinks."
"That isn't saying I never did." Vanity grew warm
with reminiscence. "Haven't touched liquor in ten
years, but my daily average is still high."
"But how seldom does one find a host who has
foresworn drink so considerate of the palates of his
guests."
"Stick around," Morphew countered in simple pride
—and possibly, in Lanyard's judgment, with an arriere-
pensee—"you'll find out a lot of things about me you
don't know, before we part. Besides, tonight isn't
every night . . ."
The pause of suspense was meant to provoke the
question underlined by arching eyebrows: "No?"
"Want to put plenty of heart into you," Morphew
jovially admitted, "so you can put it into your stuff
tonight."
With reluctance Lanyard detached a ravished gaze
from the amber contents of the glass which he had
been holding up to the light. Knitting eyebrows now
lent accent of apprehensiveness to the query: "My
'stuff'?"
"Sure thing, your stuff; your act, you know, your
turn, your job, the little thing you do better'n anything
else."
"Monsieur undoubtedly means my shop—the Lone
Wolf's craft."


322 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Call it anything you like," Morphew graciously
conceded—"you know what I mean."
"But—I think monsieur said something about to-
night—"
"That's right. Tonight's the night."
With undisguised regret Lanyard put aside a barely
tasted glass; whereupon Morphew made a noise of
expostulation.
"When the Lone Wolf was at his best, monsieur,
he never drank anything if he had work in view. I
have had too much already, if I am to believe you
are not jesting . . ."
"That's something else you're due to learn when you
get to know me better—I never joke about serious
matters."
"In effect, monsieur has a great deal in common with
humanity," Lanyard observed with a straight face. "It
would be interesting, none the less, to learn where he
draws the line between the serious and the trivial."
"I guess you won't want to argue that point when
you realize the proposition I've laid out for you tonight
is one of the biggest contracts you ever tackled."
With a quiet smile in eyes that cast back across a
gulf of years, Lanyard pronounced: "I wonder . . ."
"Oh, I know you were a hell-bender in your prime!"
Morphew contended—"but when all returns are in
you'll be ready to admit you never went up against
anything bigger than this."
Did the ulterior thought faintly re-echo in that as-
sertion? With a finesse of which no man was more
truly master Lanyard continued to seem astray in by-


324 The Lone Wolf Returns
man who most intolerably was his junior by many
years, Morphew—the conjecture gained force of veri-
fied conviction in the light of this late disclosure—
had decided upon Lanyard's death as the one sure
means of healing Folly of her infatuation, and had
decreed that it should be brought to pass as an act
of justice, approved by custom and the law, meted out
to Lanyard while he was engaged in the commission
of a felony.
Thus at a stroke he would rid himself of one whom
he hated and feared as both a rival in love and an irrec-
oncilable menace to his more material fortunes, prove
to Folly she had misplaced her admiration, and clear
Hugh Morphew of all suspicion of complicity in that
old offense of Mallison and the emeralds; he would
even rehabilitate Mallison, if he had any further use
for that one, if his indignation on account of Malli-
son's imputed ingratitude had not been all a blind.
And indeed it was not hard to see how well it
would be for all concerned, it might be even for Lan-
yard himself—it might be even for Eve!—if he were
to be found dead the next morning of a bullet fired
by an honest man in legitimate defense of his home . ..
Well for Eve and well for himself if he should
meet his end tonight! That thought hummed in Lan-
yard's head like the refrain of some old song that,
once recalled, sings itself endlessly over and over to
memory's ear. It intensified the sobriety with which
he listened while Morphew laid bare the cheap artic-
ulation of his plot, but it was permitted to work no
deeper treason; so that Lanyard might very well have


The Lone Wolf Returns 325
been as he seemed, as Pagan and Morphew believed
him to be, impressed to admiration by the finely dove-
tailed ingenuity and the imaginative daring of the
scheme complete.
"The next property to the west"—Morphew flirted
an iridiscent paw toward that quarter—"is the summer
home of the Vandergrifts. Guess you must know who
they are . . ."
"As well as you know the fame of Rothschild,
monsieur."
"The whole damn family's there just at present:
pa and ma Vandergrift—she's sporting most of the
Russian crown jewels since the last strike tacked a
few dollars per ton on to the cost of coal; the Duchess
of Allborough, Theodosia Vandergrift that was, wear-
ing the Allborough diamonds and pearls; Dudley Van-
dergrift and his wife—her father was Jules Cottier
of Cottier's, the French jewellers—"
"But assume the Lone Wolf to be acquainted with
the fame of Cottier's, monsieur."
"And a whole houseful of guests—you know the
sort. Nobody worth less than eighteen millions is
ever invited to one of the Vandergrift house parties,
not because ordinary millionaires ain't good enough,
but because they'd feel like poor boys at a husking.
At a conservative figure there must be upwards of a
million in jewels under that roof tonight that belongs
to the Vandergrift clan alone. They take good care
of it, too. Their guests can do as they please about
their stuff, but all the Vandergrifts' goes into the big
safe in the library every night. It was built into the


The Lone kWolf Returns 327
got time now, ought to be joining the ladies before
long—and any questions you want to ask I'll try to
answer."
"Many thanks." Lanyard shuffled the papers under
a thoughtful frown. "There is only one question I
need ask: These fabulously wealthy folk no doubt
maintain a corps of night watchmen?"
"That's just where you're wrong," Morphew con-
tradicted in triumph. "There's only one night watch-
man for the whole works; and he's held the job twenty
years and got so old and confident—nothing having
ever happened to make him earn his pay—he spends
most of his time on duty asleep in a chair by the garage
door. He's supposed to make his rounds every hour,
but I've fixed it so he'll forget about the three o'clock
trip this night anyway."
"You have fixed it?"
"Don't suppose I'm taking any chances of his having
a spell of sleeplessness tonight, do you? When he
goes to sit down in his favorite chair this time he's
going to find a flask that's slipped by accidental purpose
off somebody's hip, a flask more than half full of prime
stuff."
"Why not quite full, monsieur?"
Morphew winked hideously and laid a finger to his
nose. "If that bird sees somebody had a few pulls at
it, he won't worry about whether it's prune juice or
ill-natured alcohol."
"Forgive my stupidity; now I understand—the cun-
ning hand of Monsieur Pagan will have been at work
upon the contents of that flask. How far-sighted you


328 The Lone Wolf Returns
are to keep a tame chemist. But how will the bottle
find its way to the seat of the chair?"
"One of my boys will take care of that, of course."
"You have spies within the gates, then?"
"Haven't I just been telling you I never leave any-
thing to chance?"
"But I should say you leave everything to nothing
else, when you repose faith in the loyalty of human
hearts. Trust one man with your life, and you forfeit
all your right to sleep; trust two, you may count your-
self already betrayed. Trust nobody: it is the rule
that made the Lone Wolf what he was."
"But you're trusting me—"
"Pardon, monsieur," Lanyard smiled; "but—you
will admit—under duress."
"Well! but I'm trusting you—"
"With a cordon of God knows how many spies
posted about the Vandergrift residence, beyond, to see
that I am not interfered with while at work."
"But that's only a commonsense precaution," Mor-
phew uneasily growled.
"And likewise to see that I do not take it into
my head to—how do you say it? double-cross you?
—pocket my plunder and neglect to return."
"Nothing like that." Morphew denied, with con-
tempt for the suggestion. "Got too much confidence
in your good sense."
"And yet you tell me you leave nothing to chance!"
"You're a great little kidder, all right" A sour
smile commented on the concession. "As far as that
goes, I don't expect you back here tonight."


The Lone Wolf Returns 329
"No?" Lanyard queried in surprise. "You meant
to be a consistent gambler, then—trust me to return
to New York with my loot alone?"
"Not exactly. You'll need a good car for your
getaway, and a racing driver that knows all the back-
roads—"
"Ah! not such a besotted gambler after all."
"I've marked a place on the map I gave you, a
place just outside the grounds where you'll find a racing
car waiting, when you're ready. Once you're in that,
and the driver steps on the gas, nothing but an air-
plane stands a ghost of a show of overtaking you."
"Truly, you have thought of everything . . ."
"I'm that way."
There was a lull. Lanyard with an abstracted air
folded the sheaf of papers and put them away in his
pocket, then became amiably aware that both Mor-
phew and Pagan were watching his every action with
the eagerest interest.
"Eh bien, messieurs! Shall we, as you say, rejoin
the ladies?"
"You"—Morphew abandoned all effort to disguise
the strain upon his self-control—"you're going to go
through with it?"
Lanyard's shoulders were more expressive even than
the spoken retort: "What else has one to do?"
Sitting back, Morphew absently mopped his face
with a napkin. "One hell of a hot night," he mut-
tered. . . . "That's all right, then. You're such a
fire-eater I didn't know but you might try to buck on
me at the last minute."


330 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Tranquilize yourself, monsieur. My word has
been passed. There is but one thing I cannot prom-
ise: I may not be able to make the clean sweep of
the Vandergrift jewels that you desire."
"What's to stop you, once you get set at that safe?"
"Who knows, monsieur?" Lanyard pushed back his
chair. "The element of chance enters into every hu-
man affair. Who knows whose hand will cast the
dice tonight? Who knows how they will fall?"
To himself he added a cry of despair: "Mother of
Godl who cares?"


XXIII
'HE earlier hours of that night aged without
departuKe from its programme as arranged by
Morphew. With entire apathy Lanyard made him-
self flexible to every maneuvre which that one or Pagan
recommended in bogus anxiety "to armour-plate his
alibi"—Pagan's phrase, meaning so to colour appear-
ances in advance that nobody would have any excuse
for believing Lanyard had not been far from the the-
atre of the contemplated crime at the hour of its
commission. Unshaken assurance that the intrigue
had a single object, his permanent removal from Mor-
phew's path at the smallest cost in embarrassment to
the latter, prevented Lanyard's lending himself to
the artful but meaningless dodges they proposed with
anything but the compliance of complete fatigue. It
couldn't matter to him what people might think and
say of him after that event to whose occurrence he
was looking forward with a resignation that, alone
of all its preliminary business, afforded him a certain
thrill of interest; he wondered a little at the mani-
festation of such indifference to life in one who had
always ere now loved life so well . . .
The sequelae of that mental illness which had blot-
ted seven months out of memory no doubt had some-
thing to do with the psychic background to the strange
frame of mind which now was his—impossible to sur-
mise how much or how little, lacking as he did the


332 The Lone Wolf Returns
true data of that eclipse, having to guide speculation
only Liane's account and Morphew's, each fragmen-
tary and replete with inherent discrepancies as well as
in conflict with the other on points of first importance.
And even given a faithful record of all those days and
nights when the Lone Wolf had walked and the mind
of Michael Lanyard had been dark, still it would need
a psychoanalyst to say in what manner and to what
degree the after-effects of such an experience might be
influencing his mental processes of today.
Not that it mattered now, not that Lanyard really
cared; for him it sufficed to have in his heart tonight
this living pain of longing for a love forever forfeit
through no conscious error or omission, through no
volition of his own.
Eight months ago he had reconciled himself to the
thought of renouncing his love that Eve might never
be made to repent her response, that her faith in him
might endure. But since blind fate had conspired with
human malice to uproot faith, stamp it out in that kind
bosom and destroy it altogether, life held for him no
more promise to make it worth the living, he could
look back into the very face of death and know never
a tremor of dismay. As even now . . .
It was quite true, he was not afraid. He searched
his heart and found it steadfast, was confident it would
not fail him when his hour struck. He was willing
enough to go, only stipulating that when he went he
would not go alone, Morphew must go with him.
Upon this he was determined, and with so passionate
a fixity of purpose that he wondered how Morphew


The Lone Wolf Returns 333
could be in His company and remain insensible to what
was in his mind.
They sat together, otherwise alone, long after mid-
night, in a sector of the veranda as dark as the house
behind it. In the entrance-hall a night-light burned,
throwing its dim fan of rays down the steps to the
porte-cochere. Liane and Folly had some time since
gone to bed, leaving Lanyard to enjoy a "conference"
with Morphew of the latter's allegation, before leav-
ing to return to town in the car that had fetched him.
The servants, too, were all presumably abed, since
Morphew had faithfully acted out the farce, for the
benefit of Lanyard, of telling the butler not to wait
up and promising to close up the front part of the
house in person.
Not long after, the landaulet had ground its tyres
upon the gravel of the drive, had stopped beneath the
porte-cochere long enough to permit Pagan and Mor-
phew to speed an imaginary parting guest with fare-
wells loud and clear, then had crunched noisily away
with Pagan as its passenger, under-studying Lanyard,
to be set down outside the gates ere the car proceeded
to New York; while Lanyard and Morphew had set-
tled down to await his furtive return afoot.
A lengthy period of what would have been quiet
had Morphew not been, as usual, masticating an un-
lighted cigar, ended in a snort of complacence: "Welll
guess we're all set . . ."
"Not altogether."
"What's the matter? Haven't you had chance
enough to study those diagrams?"


334 The Lone Wolf Returns
"I know them by heart. Nevertheless, you have
forgotten one essential of my equipment."
"What's that? A jimmy?"
"I seldom use one, certainly shall have no use for
one tonight."
"Don't see how you expect to get into the library
without something of the sort."
"O you of little faith!" Lanyard laughed softly.
"That is a matter for my skill."
"Well! maybe you do know your business best. But
considering you don't use tools or soup on a box,
damned if I see what else it can be you miss."
"A pistol, monsieur."
Distaste for the suggestion was evidenced by a delay
which prefaced the response: "Thought you didn't go
in for that sort of thing."
"What sort of a thing?"
"Toting a gun on a job. Thought it was against
your principles to be fixed to shed blood if you got
in a jam."
"It was. It was likewise contrary to the code of
the Lone Wolf to work with accomplices. You have
prescribed a new technique for me altogether; you
can hardly object if I consent to adopt it only upon
provisions which seem to me wise. After all, it is my
liberty that is involved—very possibly my life, too."
"All rot. There isn't the slightest danger to you
on this job, everything like that has been looked out
for."
"You feel sure, monsieur?"
"Positive."


The Lone Wolf Returns 335
After a pause Lanyard asked: "Tell me, monsieur:
have you noticed that, since we have been sitting here,
a man has stolen up behind that clump of shrubbery
yonder and is keeping watch on us?"
"What's that?" The legs of Morphew's chair
grated harshly on the flooring. "What man? Where?"
"You didn't see him, then, as he came skulking
across the lawns?"
"No—"
"Then you are not in a position to assert the fellow
is not where I have indicated?"
"No—but see here—"
"Be at ease—there is nobody." Lanyard laughed
quietly. "But neither am I in a position to assert—
and stake my life on it—that I will find nobody on
guard in the Vandergrift library tonight. So I will
have a pistol for self-protection when I go to pay my
call."
"You make that a positive condition?"
"Assuredly, monsieur. And if it comes to that—
why not?"
"Suppose you'll have to have it, then."
"A supposition that does great credit to monsieur's
efficiency of apprehension. If, however, you are afraid
to trust me with firearms, I will cheerfully consent to
a postponement till you have had time to think the
matter over."
"Why should I be afraid to trust you with a gat?"
"The very question I have been asking myself.
Believe me, monsieur, confidence alone can beget
confidence."


The Lone Wolf Returns 337
"Here! that's enough. You've been a hell of a
long time; what kept you?"
"You shouldn't risk leaving our good friend alone
so long," Lanyard cut in. "He's too trustful, people
take advantage of his confidence in human nature and
over-reach him. Regard that even I have been able
to wheedle a pistol out of him while you were playing
chuckfarthing on the tombstones — or whatever the
mischief was you've been up to."
"Is that right?" Consternation jarred the toady out
of his mean role for an instant. "What the devil—"
"Calm yourself, my good Pagan. If your terrors
were not baseless, I would be making good use of
the weapon this instant—if I had waited so long—'
instead of sitting here and playing the deuce with your
nerves."
"Cut it out, can't you?" Morphew muttered. "This
is no time to be squabbling like a couple of kids.
You need every minute you've got to run over your
plans—"
"Quite unnecessary, monsieur; my mind is already
made up."
"All the same, it's better we should leave you to
think things over—"
"I shall miss you like fun."
"Besides, it's only half an hour more now; and Pete
and I want to be in bed and sound asleep by the time
you go into action. Anything more you want to take
up with me?"
"At this moment, monsieur—nothing."
"Then we'll be going." Morphew heaved out of


338 The Lone Wolf Returns
his chair. "Good night," he mumbled in heavy effort
to sound well-disposed. "Don't let 'em put anything
over on you—watch your step."
"I shall not fail to do so." Lanyard was so occu-
pied with cigarette-case and matches that he didn't sec
the hand which Morphew half-heartedly offered and
with ill-disguised relief withdrew. "And you, too,
monsieur—dream sweetly and—but surely there must
be some appropriate American expression—don't fall
out of bed!"
Pagan offered slightly curdled noises of valediction.
Lanyard accepted them for what they were worth and
dismissed their maker with the same gesture. Like
lion and jackal—like a corpulent sloth of a lion at-
tended by an exceptionally spry and pert jackal—the
two familiars went into the house.
The front doors were closed and bolted, the shine
of their fan-light grew more dull, the stairs complained
of a weighty and deliberate tread, windows in the sec-
ond storey burned brightly for several minutes, throw-
ing saffron beams over the edge of the veranda roof
to stain the lawns, then were darkened, Lanyard imag-
ined that he heard a creak—Morphew's bed, or some
door resenting an attempt to open it by stealth—and
heard nothing more from the interior of the house.
There was no real stillness where he sat, on the
edge of the open night. A wind soft and warm was
blowing, gravid with presentiments of rain; occasional
gusts of sterner stuff wrung aeolian roars from tor-
mented tree tops, sharpened the rattle of leaves inces-
santly a-shiver, and sent strange, shapeless shadows


340 The Lone Wolf Returns
opened the large blade of the pen-knife that had
thoughtfully been provided him, and inched forward
in his chair, eyes to the sky. And when the next great
continent of cloud had blacked out the stars for a
space and passed, Lanyard's place was vacant; and he,
standing on the inside of the french window through
which he had in effect dissolved, without causing a
sound more than the thin click of a latch prized back
by the knife blade, would have risked a round wager
that nobody had seen him leave his chair.
He stood in the drawing-room, with every faculty
at concert pitch, for more than a minute. But nothing
stirred in the entrance-hall, so far as that was disclosed
by a wide arched doorway, and he heard no sound
from upstairs. Another arched opening joined the
drawing to the dining-room, which last was quite black;
but he chose that way to his goal rather than brave
the lights in the entrance-hall, passed on to the butler's
pantry and there hit upon what he had been seeking—
the service stairway, unlighted and, at least to the pres-
sure of practiced feet, agreeably taciturn.
Delivered by this route into the hallway of the sec-
ond storey, and guided by prior acquaintance with the
location of Morphew's bedchamber, Lanyard paused
outside its door to unlatch the safety device on his
commandeered pistol, then with what was equivalent to
a single supple movement let himself into the room.
But the pistol, trained on the bed the moment his
shoulders felt the door behind them, fell immediatelv
to his side; eyes that had faithfully guided the errant
footsteps of the Lone Wolf through many a blacker


342 The Lone Wolf Returns
faint diffusion, barely enough to define the shadows,
seemingly enough for Folly notwithstanding, since she
betrayed neither dread of the marauder nor doubt of
his identity, nor yet any astonishment to see him there
who should have been twenty miles away.
In accents circumspect but crisp and even she de-
manded: "What are you doing there?"
With a shrug Lanyard put away his pistol. He had
been wretchedly premature, he perceived, when, having
bluffed Morphew into giving him that weapon, he had
congratulated himself on the turn it signalized in the
tide of his luck.
"Dropping in on your dear betrothed," he replied,
moving nearer, "just by way of giving him a glad
surprise."
She had no patience for such ill-timed levity. "What
do you mean? What did you want with Morphew?"
"If you must know, I meant to invite him to take
a walk with me."
"At the pistol's point!"
"Precisely."
"Well!"—a note of scorn sounded in her voice, or
Lanyard was deceived—"why didn't you? Wouldn't
he go?"
"I regret to report that the gentleman is not at
home."
"Not—!" Acute dismay drove the woman back to
the rail round the well. A hand flew to her lips as if
to muffle them. "Morphew isn't in his room?"
"Neither is Pagan; I'm afraid they are up to some
sort of naughtiness."


344 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Tell me how you know . . ."
"Please! you hurt." She made him loose her wrists,
yet did not move beyond his reach. "Enough that I do
know," her whisper insisted. "My name may be Folly,
but I'll prove to you yet I'm far from a fool."
"You claim that," Lanyard retorted, "yet you're
going to marry Morphew—"
"And you believe it!" She laughed bitterly. "Now
you tell me, which of us is the fool?"
"It was you who informed me. How do I know
what or what not to believe? I'm like a man newly
blinded, groping my way round a strange house, hop-
ing against hope to find a friend's hand—"
"Here . .
Lanyard set his lips to the hand Folly flung him,
and folded it between his own.
"Then tell me—"
"I can't, there's no time. You must go—go at once
—save yourself before they can come back and catch
you here."
"Not a step till I know."
"Oh, you will drive me mad!" Amazingly, on top
of that, the slender body shook with guarded laughter.
"Very well, thenl I'll tell you—but on two condi-
tions: You must promise me to go immediately after,
and not to let Morphew suspect. I want to be the first
to tell him, and see his face when he learns . . . I've
had dictographs wired in all through the house."
"But—good God—for what purpose?"
"You're so stupid!" The rug deadened the stamp
of a frivolous slipper. "Why do you think I care


The Lone Wolf Returns 345
whether you go or stay? Why do you suppose I ever
let them think they'd got round me again? Only be-
cause I wanted to help . . ."
"For my sake!"
"You're not really stupid, you know," Folly com-
mented, and whipped her hand back into her own keep-
ing. "You've known all along . . . Now keep your
promise and go. Get as far away as you can and . . .
Give me a ring in the morning, I'll tell you what has
happened."
"'What has happened'!" On the point of taking
her at her word, Lanyard checked in suspicion. "What
can happen, if I let Morphew down?"
"You don't think that would stop him? You don't
know that monster. I heard him tell Pagan, if you
should fail him tonight, refuse to go through or suc-
ceed in escaping, there would be a robbery just the
same, and of course you'd get all the credit."
"You were right," Lanyard affirmed. "There's no
time to waste."
Too late the young woman saw her error and sought
to detain Him by putting herself in his path.
"What are you going to do?"
"Bid you good night."
Lanyard's hands clipped her elbows to her sides
and lifted her bodily till her face was level with
his own. Soundly if hastily kissed, she was set to one
side, and when she recovered was alone.


XXIV
AWILDER spirit now ruled the night: the fresh-
ening wind blew with zest more constant, with
briefer and less frequent lulls, the trees it worried
fought back in bootless fury, with thrashing limbs and
lows of torment, a heavier wrack coursed the skies,
the blinded stars found fewer rifts through which to
wash the world with their troubled and misleading
light. Lanyard, traversing an unknown terrain, with
nothing but impatient memories of Morphew's rough
sketch-map to guide him, threw caution to the very
wind whose wanton spirit shouted down his noisy floun-
derings, and shouldered headlong through hedges, cop-
pices and thickets, reckless whether or not he were
heard or seen and followed. His prayer, indeed, was
not so much that he might give Morphew and his crew
the slip, as that chance might throw him into direct
personal collision with his enemy.
From that moment, when, after dinner, Morphew
had first broached his mind on this foray and Lanyard
had taken the tacit implication that he might refuse
to play his part appointed only by dedicating himself
to an early and a wasted end, he had been determined
to find some means—and the fouler the fitter—of
coercing Morphew into keeping him company step by
step and sharing whatever fate would be his in the
outcome.
346


348 The Lone Wolf Returns
his way toward the house from shadow to shadow, tak-
ing profit of the shelter afforded by every bush and bole
between him and his objective, like an Indian stalking
his kill: the Lanyard of that night struck straight away
across the lawns at the top of his speed. The
worst that could reward such audacity would be an
attempt to overhaul or intercept him, in which event
there would be gun-play, Lanyard could promise that,
a fusillade sure to give the alarm: better the hazard
of that than to lose precious minutes trying to avoid
being seen, thereby granting the thief in the house the
time he needed, if he knew his business, to consum-
mate his purpose and escape.
For the thief was in the house already: Lanyard's
first cast across the lawns at the wing that held the
library—with whose location Morphew's ground plan
of the dwelling had made him acquainted—had been
repaid by discovery of a lancing play of light in the
dark beyond the windows, the thin, broken and rest-
less, blue-white blade of an electric torch in hands
either cynically indifferent to detection, or absurdly
amateurish.
He would be in time—perhaps. If so, with none
to spare. He pelted madly toward the veranda, took
its steps at a stride and, with calculated intent to make
all the noise he could and bring the household down
about his ears and that other's, battered a shoulder like
a ram against the joint in the middle of the nearest
window.
It gave with an ease he hadn't discounted, its wings
flew open with a sounding crash; and tripping on the


The Lone Wolf Returns 351
Lanyard occupied it alone, at least seemed to: the
library was over-furnished with huge, old-fashioned
pieces, any one of which might easily have been serving
the safe-breaker as a temporary screen, from behind
any one of which Lanyard had to look for his coup-
de-grace to come at any instant. . . . Or, he dared
not be unmindful, that might come through one of the
windows. Doubt of his temper could now no longer
exist in Morphew's intelligence. The one slender
chance Lanyard had of eluding a bullet from either
the outlaw in the room or the assassins outside lay in
keeping constantly on the move.
He quartered the library with swift strides, bent
almost double, zig-zagging from the shelter of one
article of furniture to that of the next, and finding
the other man nowhere. In this manner he circled a
massive table of old oak that occupied the middle of
the floor and was passing the violated safe when the
toe of one boot struck something that incontinently,
in effect, came to life, and slithered away across the
hardwood like a serpent of light.
Involuntarily Lanyard pulled up, stooped lower, and
retrieved the thing: a diamond necklace of all but
incalculable worth.
His breath stuck in his throat, his heart stood still,
his consciousness was in an instant sponged clear of
every other thought than this: he knew that necklace,
knew it almost as well as he knew the palm of his
hand, and knew it had no business being where he
found it, three thousand miles and more from the
home of its owner in the south of France.


The Lone Wolf Returns 353
"Michael!"
Existing then only in her love and in the love
he bore her, forgetting all else in life, Lanyard came
to himself in trembling, and stumbled toward her
hands . . .
It was the swift change of her expression that halted
him, the startled dread that afflicted her as something
at his back drew her attention.
Galvanized by that hint of peril to his beloved,
Lanyard whirled on a heel. But the cry of angry
challenge that rose to his lips was audible only as a
broken rattle, he was instantaneously stricken to futil-
ity to find himself confronted by Michael Lanyard his
living apparition.
It was like a trick* of delirium, a phantom parody of
Lanyard materialized from behind a huge wing-chair
beyond the far end of the table: his counterfeit in
every particular of dress and feature, his facsimile
grotesquely forged.
One look recognized the likeness and its fraudu-
lence; that is to say, assured Lanyard that he wasn't
confronting a mirror. A gleam of grim joy shone on
his features. He covered in a leap half the distance
between them, saw a pistol in the grasp of the impostor
swing level with his head, ducked before it spat. His
own weapon was out of reach, but the string of dia-
monds in his hand licked out from it like a whiplash
of white flame, and fell squarely across the other's
eyes. A second shot went wild as the man's head
jerked back from the stinging impact of the stones.
And then Lanyard was at his throat . . .


354 The Lone Wolf Returns
The sheer fury of his onslaught bore both back to
the wing-chair and over its legs as it toppled and fell
on its side. The pinned wrist of the hand that held
the pistol was twisted with such cunning that the fingers
relaxed, the weapon described a flashing arc through
the air, dropped to the polished floor, and slid a dozen
feet away from the combatants. Even more to the
purpose, when that writhing tangle of bodies resolved
itself, Lanyard was on top. But the under dog rallied
with the fury of one fighting for his very life, and
rained brutal blows on Lanyard's face. Indifferent to
these, Lanyard dug both thumbs into the fellow's
throat and slowly but savagely choked him into semi-
strangulation.
He lay still at length, gagging and wheezing, tongue
protruding, eyes starting from their sockets. And
Lanyard released his pressure on the windpipe only to
twine vindictive fingers into the hair of his victim and
tug for glory and the Saints—till a wig and false fore-
head en bloc came away in his grasp.
After that it was the work of half a minute to
snatch a handkerchief from a breast-pocket, scrub off
most of that mask of grease-paint, and bring to light
glimpses of the ruined beauty of the dancing yegg.
Eve's shadow fell athwart the two, and Lanyard,
for all the labouring of his lungs, had an irrepressible
chuckle as he looked up into her bewildered face.
"Permit me to introduce the Lone Wolf's last in-
carnation!" he cried, and jumped up, brandishing the
scalp he had taken—"known to the police and social
circles of the cabarets as Henry Mallison—Mally for
short!"


XXV
"VTO responsive elation lightened the dark regard
that shifted from Lanyard's face to Mallison's
and back again, only a smile pitiful and chiding
dawned. "So this," Eve slowly said, and slowly shook
her head at the man who loved her, "is why you ran
away!"
That look he could no more interpret than he
could the riddle of her words; both he requited with
a muddled stare. "I?" he blankly wondered—"ran
away—?"
She nodded once. "But you didn't know, I'm sure,
what you were doing then; it's natural you should
not remember. You are yourself tonight—you were
not, then."
"Yes," he cried—"thank God! tonight I am my-
self . . ."
One of her hands went out to this, he caught it
between his own, was drawn by it to her bosom. Com-
mon impulse moved them aside and away from the
man they had forgotten, the man who lay sobbing and
fighting for breath on the floor beyond the desk.
"So you come back to me!" It was as if in the
gaze that plunged into her eyes his very soul passed
out from him to lose itself, and all awareness of the
world without themselves as well, in that treasury of
love illimitable and incalculable which those eyes dis-
355


356 The Lone Wolf Returns
dosed. "So, as I knew you would, you come bad
to me at last, your honour cleansed! Michael," the
woman breathed, yearning to him—"my Michael!"
"What are you telling me? / ran away from
you—!"
"Three months after you were injured in that motor
accident, while your memory still was uncertain, when
often you couldn't recall one day's events on the next
. . . without a word of explanation or farewell, one
day you left me, disappeared . . ."
"Left you!"
"I knew, of course, why ... It was when the
papers were revelling in the sensational 'return'—as
they called it—of the Lone Wolf. I had tried to keep
it from you, fearing the consequences of the excitement,
in your condition; but the hue and cry was out for you,
I was at my wits' ends to hide you away from the
police, it was necessary to tell you why . . . What
I had so feared happened: you brooded incessantly,
whenever your mental condition made you forget the
affair for a time—as when you'd wake up from a sound
night's sleep remembering nothing of the previous day
—something was sure to happen to remind you. A
hundred times you begged me to let you go, that
you might find and expose the scoundrel who was mas-
querading in your reputation; I knew you were in-
competent for that, at the time, and always managed
somehow to talk you out of it, until—as I say—ab-
ruptly, without word or sign, you left me."
"Left you!"
"Ah! but you don't know." Her smile grew gently


The Lone Wolf Returns 357
arch, fondly teasing. "Don't you, my Michael! even
remember—"
She gave a startled movement, averting her attention
to the windows, her body became tense in his embrace,
her hands convulsively tightened upon his shoulders.
The veranda was booming with a sudden, concerted
rush of many feet. Lanyard offered to release the
woman, but she clung to him as if in terror; and at
the last he had to use his strength, because he foresaw
what was to befall, forcibly breaking her hold and
throwing her from him lest she share a peril that, he
was resolved, must at any cost be his alone.
Crying out, not loudly but in protest and solicitude
for him, she staggered back; and Lanyard turned
toward the desk to retrieve his pistol—too late. Al-
ready a man was shouldering in through the broken
window. He brought up standing with an automatic
trained on Lanyard.
"Stick 'em up, my man!" he rumbled—"and be
quick about it."
Lanyard was quick about it. His own weapon lay
on the far edge of the desk, at least eight feet away;
before he could have covered half that distance a bullet
would have stopped him. Hands level with his ears,
he swung slowly to face Morphew.
Gross, ungainly, panting, rocking from one to the
other of his heavily planted feet, the Sultan of Loot
stood with head slightly lowered and thrust forward,
face of a pig hideously twisted by a leer of malice
successful and exultant.
Behind him the window filled with followers,


The Lone Wolf Returns 361
speechlessness, into the countenance composed yet sar-
donic of Crane.
Unobserved by anybody other than Eve and Lan-
yard, the detective had quietly stepped in through the
open window, closely followed by an associate, a mild-
mannered body hall-marked police detective by the
derby hat of tradition.
"Y'oughtn't to get gay like that with loaded fire-
arms," Crane counselled in gently pained reproach—
"y'ought to know better, a man your age!" His
mouth hardened and he clamped fingers like the jaws
of a vice on Morphew's shoulder, nipping truculent
bluster in the bud. "Crane's my name, if you want
to know, but bull's my nature, Mister Morphew; and
remember this"—eyes that had the glint of steel be-
tween narrowed lids cowed Morphew's—"I don't ask
no better luck than for you to give me a good excuse
to get even with you for all the trouble you've been
putting me to, first and last. Keep a civil tongue on
your head if you value your health!"
Morphew cast glances mutely eloquent of tormented
appeal to his henchmen; but they were one and all
inattentive, to a man preoccupied with the attitude of
Crane's associate. And yet it had all the seeming of
the most inoffensive attitude imaginable. The mild-
mannered man was doing nothing whatever more than
mildly keeping mild eyes on them and his hands in his
overcoat pockets. It is true that both the said pockets
boasted singular bulges, as if two forefingers of de-
rision were being pointed under their cover . . .
"But what the—who the—what the hell right 've
you—?" Morphew stammered.


362 The Lone Wolf Returns
"Well!" Crane chuckled, "I don't know. Kind of
thought I'd drop in and see how your little framc-up
was working. Got the hottest kind of a tip half ajj
hour ago . . . Give you three guesses where it came
from." One of his eyebrows climbed his forehead on
a slant, giving his face a diabolically whimsical cast;
his thin-lipped mouth widened in an unkind smile.
"Never mind guessing, Morphy, spare the old intellect
the strain. Here she comes now . . ."
A vision of elfin fantasy, with a fur-trimmed opera-
wrap of crimson and gold brocade negligently draped
over her deshabille, who quite frankly hadn't stopped
to dress, Folly McFee airily sauntered in from the
veranda and paused and posed, reviewing the tableau
with glances of mischievous amusement.
"Why, Morphy!" in affected solicitude she cried—
"whatever has happened? You look fussed to a per-
fect frazzle . . ."
"Best little side-kick any guy ever workedvwith,"
Crane quite seriously affirmed. "Take it from me,
Morph old boy, I'll look a long ways before I find
another little lady like that, who won't even stick at
letting her name be linked with the name of a mongrel
like you, just to get the low-down on your naughty
little ways and shoot the information along to yours
truly."
A shove, seemingly playful and effortless, neverthe-
less shook the balance of that hulking body; Morphew
staggered back a step or two, regained physical equi-
librium with some effort, and braced himself like 2
badgered brute in a bull-pen, feet wide apart, head