Louis Joseph Vance

“ Recognizing in neither of these a personality to call for the waste of two consecutive thoughts, Lanyard returned his attention to the woman, who recoiled a step 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 . . ." ”

“ 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 yourself. 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!" ”

“ To compass an end so just, to avenge society as he revenged himself, was the one way Lanyard could conjecture to make amends for being as life had made him; to this he dedicated himself without any reservation 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. ”

“ Neither less nor more the dupe of vanity than most men of his years, Lanyard rather liked to think of himself as one whom life had lessoned out of all susceptibility to such emotions as that of surprise, a creature of sophistication cynical but bland, weathered by arduous experience and long contemplation of man the slave of folly and the feeble sport of chance until nothing could amaze him. ”

“ In the intervening open nothing human moved: only the bystanding trees tossed their arms and lamented as they looked on, like a grouped chorus morbidly curious.
If Morphew and his lot were about, they were keeping to good cover.
The Lone Wolf in his day would have rendered such discretion tribute of slavish flattery, would have picked his way toward the house from shadow to shadow, taking profit of the shelter afforded by every bush and hole 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 professional soft-shoes of the butler padded from pantry to front door, bolts thumped, the latch rattled, Morphew was heard to salute Soames with gruff condescension, the colourless voice of the servant responded: and having surrendered his hat and coat, the Sultan of Loot paraded into the study with a strut (or the observation of his audience erred) coloured by a lively sense of gratification in unction yet to come. With Folly netted in his toils—no mistake about it, Morphew in this moment was on the best of terms with the business of life in a richly rewarding world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 companionway, 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. ”

“ 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 dismay, "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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lanyard hazarded a saunter past on the sidewalk opposite. Under more direct scrutiny the house remained 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. ”

“ 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 submerged 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. ”

“ From a point close by the street door rose a flight 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 bedchamber at the back of the house and a boudoir overlooking the street, linked by a short hall on which opened a bathroom and capacious clothes-presses, all furnished with an extravagance that bespoke means ample to gratify the wildest whim of even a modern young woman. ”

“ 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 intervention . . ."
"That at least one finds easy to believe." ”

“ 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. ”

“ His love warm in his arms, Lanyard was trying to live for the moment only, to be oblivious of yesterday and reckless 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 understand, win her consent and concurrence? ”

“ 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 . ”

“ 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 endearments 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 reward of virtue . . .
Lanyard laughed aloud, a cracked, ugly laugh.
Pagan hadn't been far wrong. Impertinent clown! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lanyard sipped his drink with unaffected relish. "Prime stuff, my friend! and I will be glad to fetch you its fellow if you'll only be nice and forget for a time you're a limb of the law whose sworn duty it is to pinch out of hand revisitants, like me, from another and a wetter world."
"The devil himself couldn't twist the King's English into such ornery knots," Crane declared. "I'm convinced: it is indeed the Lone Wolf who lurks behind those lovely whiskers." ”

“ 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, rendezvous 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 considers a bootlegger a criminal nowadays." ”