Book: The False Faces

V >> Vance, Louis Joseph >> The False Faces




"Chap who called to-night, giving the name of Duchemin--André Duchemin. Had
French passports, and letters from the Home Office recommending him rather
highly. Useful creature, one would fancy, with his knowledge of the right
way to go about the wrong thing. What? Ought to be especially helpful to us
in hunting down the Hun over here."

"Is this the man who returns at midnight?"

"Yes, sir. I thought it best to make the appointment."

"Why?"

"He said he had crossed on the _Assyrian_, said it significantly, you know.
I fancied he might be the person you have been expecting."

Stanistreet looked up with a frown. "Hardly," he said--"if, that is, he is
really what he claims to be. I wonder how he came by those letters."

"Does seem odd, doesn't it, sir? A confessed criminal!"

"An extraordinary man, by all accounts.... Those other callers--?"

"Nobody of importance, I should say. A man who gave his name as Ember and
got a bit shirty when I asked his business. Told him you might consent to
see him at nine in the morning."

"And the other?"

"A young woman--deuced pretty girl--also reticent. What was her name?
Brooke--that was it: Cecelia Brooke."

"The devil!" Stanistreet exclaimed, dropping the papers. "What did you say
to her?"

"What could I say, sir? She refused to divulge a word about her business
with us. I told her--"

Warned by a gesture from Colonel Stanistreet, Blensop broke off. Walker was
opening the door.

"Well, Walker?"

"A Mr. Duchemin, sir, says Mr. Blensop made an appointment with you for
twelve to-night."

"Show him in, please."

The footman shut himself out. Blensop clutched nervously at Mrs. Arden's
jewels.

"Hadn't I better put these in the safe first?"

"No--no time." Stanistreet opened a drawer of the desk--"Here!"--and closed
it as Blensop hastily swept the jewellery into it. "Safe enough there--as
long as he doesn't know, at all events. But don't forget to put them away
after he goes."

"No, sir."

Again the door opened. Walker announced: "Mr. Duchemin." Stanistreet rose
in his place. A man strode in with the assurance of one who has discounted
a cordial welcome.

Through the gap which he had quietly created between the portière and the
side of the window, Lanyard stared hungrily, and for the second time that
night damned heartily the inadequate light in the library.

The impostor's face, barely distinguishable in the up-thrown penumbra
of the lampshade, wore a beard--a rather thick, dark beard of negligent
abundance, after a mode popular among Frenchmen--above which his features
were an indefinite blur.

Lanyard endeavoured with ill success to identify the fellow by his
carriage; there was a perceptible suggestion of a military strut, but that
is something hardly to be termed distinctive in these days. Otherwise, he
was tall, quite as tall as Lanyard, and had much the same character of
body, slender and lithe.

But he was "Karl" beyond question, confederate and murderer of Baron von
Harden, the man who had thrown the light bomb to signal the U-boat,
the brute with whom Lanyard had struggled on the boat deck of the
_Assyrian_--though the latter, in the confusion of that struggle, had
thought the German's beard a masking handkerchief of black silk.

Now by that same token he was no member of that smoking-room coterie upon
which Lanyard's suspicions had centered.

On the other hand, any number of passengers had worn beards, not a few of
much the same mode as that sported by this nonchalant fraud.

Vainly Lanyard cudgelled his wits to aid a laggard memory, haunted by a
feeling that he ought to know this man instantly, even in so poor a light.
Something in his habit, something in that insouciance which so narrowly
escaped insolence, was at once strongly reminiscent and provokingly
elusive....

Pausing a little ways within the room, the fellow clicked heels and bowed
punctiliously in Continental fashion, from the hips.

"Colonel Stanistreet, I believe," he said in a sonorous voice--"Karl's"
unmistakable voice--"chief of the American bureau of the British Secret
Service?"

"I am Colonel Stanistreet," that gentleman admitted. "And you, sir--?"

"I have adopted the name of André Duchemin," the impostor stated. "With
permission I retain it."

Colonel Stanistreet inclined his head slightly. "As you will. Pray be
seated."

He dropped back into his chair, while "Karl" with a murmur of
acknowledgment again took the armchair on the far side of the desk, where
the lamp stood between him and the secret watcher.

"My secretary tells me you have letters of introduction...."

"Here." Calmly "Karl" produced and offered those purloined papers.

"You will smoke?" Stanistreet indicated a cigarette-box and leaned back to
glance through the letters.

During a brief pause Blensop busied himself with collecting together the
documents which had occupied him and began reassorting them, while "Karl,"
helping himself to a cigarette, smoked with manifest enjoyment.

"These seem to be in order," Stanistreet observed. "I note from this code
letter that your true name is Michael Lanyard, you were once a professional
French thief known as 'The Lone Wolf', but have since displayed every
indication of desire to reform your ways, and have been of considerable
use to the Intelligence Office. I am desired to employ your services in my
discretion, contingent--pardon me--upon your continued good behaviour."

"Precisely," assented "Karl."

"Proceed, Monsieur Duchemin."

"It is an affair of some delicacy.... Do we speak alone, Colonel
Stanistreet?"

"Mr. Blensop is my confidential secretary...."

"Oh, no objection. Still--if I may venture the suggestion--those windows
open upon a garden, I take it?"

"Yes. Blensop, be good enough to close the windows."

"Certainly, sir."

Stepping delicately, Blensop moved toward the end of the room.

Again Lanyard was confronted with the alternatives of incontinent flight or
attempting to remain undetected through the adoption of an expedient of the
most desperate audacity. He had prepared against such contingency, he did
not mean to go; but the feasibility of his contemplated manoeuvre depended
entirely upon chance, its success in any event was forlornly problematic.

"Karl" remained hidden from him by the lamp, so he from "Karl." Colonel
Stanistreet, facing his caller, sat half turned away from the windows.
Everything rested with Blensop's choice, which of the two windows he would
elect first to close.

A right-handed man, he turned, as Lanyard had foreseen, to the right, and
momentarily disappeared in the recess of the farther window.

In the same instant Lanyard slipped noiselessly from behind the portière,
and dropped into that capacious wing chair which Blensop had thoughtfully
placed for him some time since.

Thus seated, making himself as small and still as possible, he was wholly
concealed from all other occupants of the library but Blensop; and even
this last was little likely to discover him.

He did not. He closed and latched the farther window, then that wherein
Lanyard had lurked, and ambled back into the room with never a glance
toward that shadowed corner which held the wing chair.

And Lanyard drew a deep breath, if a quiet one. Behind him the conversation
had continued without break. It was true, he could see nothing; but he
could hear all that was said, he had missed no syllable, and now every
second was informing him to his profit....

"Your secretary, no doubt, has told you I am a survivor of the _Assyrian_
disaster."

"Yes...."

"You were, I believe, expecting a certain communication of extraordinary
character by the _Assyrian_, to be brought, that is, by an agent of the
British Secret Service."

After an almost imperceptible pause Stanistreet said evenly: "It is
possible."

"A communication, in fact, of such character that it was impossible to
entrust it to the mails or to cable transmission, even in code."

"And if so, sir...?"

"And you are aware that, of the two gentlemen entrusted with the care of
this document, one was drowned when the _Assyrian_ went down, and the other
so seriously injured that he has not yet recovered consciousness, but
was transferred directly from the pier to a hospital when the _Saratoga_
docked."

"What then, Monsieur Duchemin?"

"Colonel Stanistreet," said the impostor deliberately, "I have that
communication. I will ask you not to question me too closely as to how it
came into my possession. I have it: that is sufficient."

"If you possess any document which you conceive to be so valuable to the
British Government, monsieur, and consequently to the Allied cause, I have
every confidence in your intention to deliver it to me without delay."

A note of mild derision crept into the accents of "Karl."

"I have every intention of so doing, my dear sir.... But you must
appreciate I have incurred considerable personal danger, hardship, and
inconvenience in taking good care of this document, in seeing that it did
not fall into the wrong hands; in short, in bringing it safely here to you
to-night."

A slightly longer pause prefaced Stanistreet's reply, something which
he delivered in measured tones: "I am able to promise you the British
Government will show due appreciation of your disinterested services,
Monsieur--Duchemin."

"Not disinterested--not that!" the cheat protested. "Gentlemen of my
kidney, sir, seldom put themselves out except in lively anticipation of
favours to come."

"Be good enough to make yourself more clear."

"Cheerfully. I possess this document. I understand its character is such
that Germany would pay a round price for it. But I am a good patriot. In
spite of the fact that nobody knew I possessed it, in spite of the fact
that I need only have quietly taken it to Seventy-ninth Street to-night--"

"Monsieur Duchemin!" Stanistreet's voice was icy. "Your price?"

"Sorry you feel that way about it," said "Karl" with ill-concealed
insincerity. "You must know thieving is no more what it once was. Even I,
too, often am put to it to make both ends--"

"If you please, sir--how much?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

Silence greeted this demand, a lull that to Lanyard seemed endless. For in
his fury he was trembling so that he feared lest his agitation betray him.
The very walls before his eyes seemed to quake in sympathy. He was aware of
the ache of swollen veins in his temples, his teeth hurt with the pressure
put upon them, his breath came heavily, and his nails were digging
painfully into his palms.

"Blensop?"

"Sir?"

"How much have we on hand, in the emergency fund?"

"Between ten and twelve thousand dollars, sir."

"Intuition, monsieur, is an indispensable item in the equipment of a
successful _chevalier d'Industrie_. So, at least, the good novelists tell
us...."

"Open the safe, Blensop, and fetch me ten thousand dollars."

"Very good, sir."

"I presume you won't object to satisfying me that you really have this
document, before I pay you your price."

"It is this which makes it a pleasure to deal with an Englishman, monsieur:
one may safely trust his word of honour."

"Indeed...."

"Permit me: here is the document. Use that magnifying glass I see by your
elbow, monsieur; take your time, satisfy yourself."

"Thanks; I mean to."

Another break in the dialogue, during which the eavesdropper heard an
odd sound, a sort of muffled swishing ending in a slight thud, then the
peculiar metallic whine of a combination dial rapidly manipulated, finally
the dull clank of bolts falling back into their sockets.

"Your _coffre-fort_--what do you say?--strong-box--safe--is cleverly
concealed, Colonel Stanistreet."

There was no direct reply, but after a moment Stanistreet announced
quietly: "This seems to be an authentic paper.... Monsieur Duchemin, what
knowledge precisely have you of the nature of this document?"

"Surely monsieur cannot have overlooked the circumstance that its seals
were intact."

"True," Stanistreet admitted. "Still...."

"I trust Monsieur does not question my good faith?"

"Why not?" Stanistreet enquired drily.

"Monsieur!"

"Oh, damn your play-acting, sir! If you can be capable of one infamy, you
are capable of more. None the less, you are right about an Englishman's
word: here is your money. Count it and--get out!"

"Thanks"--the impostor's tone was an impertinently exact imitation of
Stanistreet's--"I mean to."

"Permit me to excuse myself," Stanistreet added; and Lanyard heard the
muffled scrape of chair-legs on the rug as the Englishman got up.

"Gladly," the spy returned--"and ten thousand thanks, monsieur!"

The secretary intoned melodiously: "This way, Monsieur Duchemin, if you
please."

"Pardon. Is it material which way I leave?"

"What do you mean?" Stanistreet demanded.

"I should be far easier in my mind if monsieur would permit me to go by way
of his garden, rather than run the risk of his front door."

"What's this?"

"In these little affairs, monsieur, I try to make it a rule to avoid
covering the same ground twice."

"You have the insolence to imply I would lend myself to treachery!"

"I beg monsieur's pardon very truly for suggesting such a thing.
Nevertheless, one cannot well be overcautious when one is a hunted man."

"Blensop ... be good enough to see this man out through the garden."

"Yes, sir."

"Again, monsieur, my thanks."

"Good-night," said Stanistreet curtly.

Blensop passed Lanyard's chair, unlatched and opened the window and stood
aside. An instant later "Karl" joined him, swung on a heel, facing back,
clicked heels again and bowed mockingly. Apparently he got no response, for
he laughed quietly, then turned and went out through the window, Blensop
mincing after.

With a struggle Lanyard mastered the temptation to dash after the spy,
overtake and overpower him, expose and give him up to justice. Only the
knowledge that by remaining quiescent, by biding his time, he might be
enabled to redeem his word to the Brooke girl, gave him strength to be
still.

But he suffered exquisitely, maddened by the defamation imposed upon his
nick-name of a thief by this brazen impostor.

Nor was wounded _amour-propre_ mended by an exclamation in the room behind
his chair, the accents of Colonel Stanistreet thick with contempt:

"The Lone Wolf! Faugh!"




XV

RECOGNITION


Presently Blensop came back, closed the window, and passed blindly by
Lanyard, his reappearance saluted by Stanistreet in tones that shook with
contained temper.

"You saw that animal outside the walls?"

Mildly injured surprise was indicated in the reply: "Surely, sir!"

"And locked the door after him?"

"Yes, sir--securely."

"Howson anywhere about?"

"I didn't see him. Daresay he's prowling somewhere within call. Do you wish
to speak to him?"

"No.... But you might, if you see anything of him, tell him to keep an
extra eye open to-night. I don't trust this self-styled Lone Wolf."

"Naturally not, sir, under the circumstances."

Stanistreet acknowledged this with an irritated snort. "No matter," he
thought aloud; "if it has cost us a pretty penny, we have got this safe in
hand at last. I've not had too much sleep, I can promise you, since the
report came through of Bartholomew's death and Thackeray's disablement.
Nor am I satisfied that this Monsieur Duchemin came by the document
fairly--confound his impudence! If he hadn't put me on honour, tacitly, I'd
not hesitate an instant about informing the police."

"Rather chancy course to take in this business, what?"

"I don't know.... That Yankee invention known as the 'frame-up' would
easily make America too small for the Lone Wolf without the British Secret
Service ever being mentioned in the matter."

"Yes; but suppose the beast knows the contents of this paper, suspects
the authorship of the 'frame-up'--as he instinctively would--and blabs?
Messages have been unsealed and copied and resealed before this."

"That one consideration ties my hands.... Here, my boy: take this and
put it in the safe--and don't forget Mrs. Arden's things, of course.
Good-night."

"Trust me, sir. Good-night."

A door closed with a slight jar, and for half a minute the room was so
positively quiet that Lanyard was beginning to wonder if Blensop himself
had gone out with his employer, when he heard a low and musical chuckle,
followed by a soft clashing as the secretary scooped Mrs. Arden's jewellery
out of the desk drawer.

Itching with curiosity, Lanyard turned with infinite care and peered round
the wing of the chair, thus gaining a view of the wall farthest from the
street.

Blensop remaining invisible, Lanyard's interest centred immediately upon
the safe the ingenuity of whose concealment had excited "Karl's" favourable
comment, and with much excuse.

One of the portraits--that upon whose merits Blensop had descanted to
"Karl" earlier in the night--was, Lanyard saw, so mounted upon a solid
panel of wood that, by means of hidden mechanism, it could be moved
sidelong from its frame, uncovering the face of a safe built into the wall.

This last now stood open, its door, swung out toward Lanyard, showing
a simple arrangement of dials and locks with which he was on terms of
contemptuous familiarity; only the veriest tyro of a cracksman would want
more than a good ear and a subtle sense of touch in order to open it
without knowledge of the combination.

With all its reputation for efficiency and astuteness the British Secret
Service entrusted its mysteries to an antiquated contraption such as this!

Humming a blithe little air, Blensop moved into Lanyard's field of vision
and stopped between him and the safe, deftly pigeonholing therein the
docketed papers and Mrs. Arden's jewels. Then, closing the door, he shot
its bolts, gave the dial a brisk twirl, located a lever in the side of the
frame and thrust it into its socket.

With the same swish and thud which had puzzled Lanyard at first hearing,
the portrait slipped back into place.

Rounding on a heel, Blensop paused, head to one side, a slight frown
shadowing his bland countenance, and stood briefly rooted in some
perplexity of obscure origin. Twice he shook a peevish head, then smiled
radiantly and brought his hands together in an audible clap.

"I have it!" he cried in delight and, dancing briskly toward the desk, once
more disappeared.

Now what was this which Mr. Blensop so spontaneously had, and from the
having of which he derived so much apparently innocent enjoyment? Wanting
an answer, Lanyard settled back in disgust, then sat sharply forward, gaze
riveted to the near sash of the adjacent window.

In showing "Karl" out, Blensop had moved the portières, exposing more
glass than previously had been visible. Now this mirrored darkly to the
adventurer a somewhat distorted vision of Blensop standing over the
desk, seemingly employed in no more amusing occupation than filling his
fountain-pen. But undoubtedly he was in the highest spirits; for the lilt
of his humming rose sweet and clear and ever louder.

To this accompaniment he pocketed his pen, two-stepped to the windows,
drew the portières jealously close, returned to the desk, switched off the
reading lamp, and left the room completely dark but for a dim glow from the
ash-filmed embers of the fire.

But before he went out the secretary interrupted his humming to laugh
with a mischievous élan which completely confounded Lanyard. He was not
unacquainted with the Blensop type, but the secret glee which seemed to
animate this specimen was something far beyond his comprehension.

As the door softly closed Lanyard moved silently across the room and bent
an ear to its panels, meanwhile drawing over his hands a pair of thin white
kid gloves.

From beyond came no sound other than a faint creaking of stair-treads
quickly silenced.

Opening the door, Lanyard peered out, finding the hallway deserted and
dimly lighted by a single bulb of little candle-power at its far end, then
scouted out as far as the foot of the stairs, listened there for a little,
hearing no sounds above, and reconnoitred through the other living rooms,
at length returning to the library persuaded he was alone on the ground
floor of the house.

A Yale lock was fixed to the library side of the door. Lanyard released its
catch, insuring freedom from interruption on the part of anybody who lacked
the key, crossed to the other side door, left this on the latch and, having
thus provided an avenue for escape, turned attention to business, in brief,
to the safe.

Turning on the picture-light he found and operated the lever, with his
other hand so restraining the action of the panel that it moved aside
without perceptible jar.

Then with an ear to that smooth, cold face of enamelled steel, he began
to manipulate the combination. From within the door a succession of soft
clicks and knocks punctuated the muted whine of the dial, speaking
a language only too intelligible to the trained hearing of a thief;
synchronous breaks and resistance in the action of the dial conveyed
additional information through the medium of supersensitive finger tips.
Within two minutes he had learned all he needed to know, and standing back
twirled the knob right and left with a confident hand. At its fourth stop
he heard the dull bump of released tumblers, grasped the handle, and
twisted it strongly. The door swung open.

Systematically Lanyard searched the pigeonholes, emptying all but one,
examining minutely their contents without finding that slender roll of
paper.

Mystified, he hesitated. The thing, of course, was somewhere there, only
hidden more cunningly than he had hoped. It was possible, even probable,
that Blensop had stowed the cylinder away in a secret compartment.

But the interior arrangement was disconcertingly simple. Lanyard saw no
sign of waste space in which such a drawer might be secreted. Unless, to be
sure, one of the pigeonholes had a false back....

He began a fresh examination, again emptying each pigeonhole and sounding
its rear wall without result till there remained only that in which Blensop
had placed the Arden jewels.

It was necessary to move these, but Lanyard long withheld his hand,
reluctant to touch them, for that same reason which had influenced him to
avoid them in his first search.

Jewels such as these he both worshipped and desired with the passionate
adoration of connoisseur and lover in one. He feared violently the
temptation of physical contact with such stuff.

For his was no thief's errand to-night, but a matter, as he conceived
it, of his private honour, something apart and distinct from the code of
rogue's ethics which guided his professional activities. He had pledged
his word to Cecelia Brooke to keep safe for her that cylinder of paper, to
return it upon her demand for whatsoever disposition she might choose to
make of it. It was no concern of his what that choice might turn out to
be, any more than it was his affair if the document were a paper of
international importance. But she must and should, if act of his could
compass it, be given opportunity to redeem her word of honour if, as one
believed, that likewise were involved in the fate of the document.

He had stolen into this house like a thief because he had given his pledge
and perforce had been made false to that pledge, because he had been
despoiled of the concrete evidence of the trust reposed unasked in him, and
because he had learned that his spoiler was to meet Stanistreet in this
room at midnight.

He was here solely to make good his word, to take away that cylinder, could
he find it, and to return it to the girl ... not to thieve....

Never that!...

Slowly, reluctantly, inevitably he put forth his hand and selected from
among those brilliant symbols of his soul's profound damnation the
necklace, a rope of diamonds consummately matched, a rivulet of frozen
fire, no single stone less lovely than another.

"Admirable!" he whispered. "Oh, admirable!"

Hesitant to do this thing which to him, by the strange standard of his
warped code, spelled dishonour, he would and he would not; and while he
paltered, was visited by an oddly vivid memory of the clear and candid eyes
of Cecelia Brooke, seemed veritably to see them searching his own with
their look of grieving wonder ... the eyes of one woman who had reckoned
him worthy of her trust....

Almost he won victory in this fight he was foredoomed to lose. Under the
level and steadfast regard of those eyes his hand went out to replace the
necklace, moved unsteadily, faltered....

Beyond the windows an incautious footfall sounded. In the darkness out
there someone blundered into a piece of wicker furniture and disturbed it
with a small scraping sound, all but inaudible, but to the thief as loud as
the blast of a police whistle.

Instantly and instinctively, in two simultaneous gestures, Lanyard dropped
the necklace into an inner pocket of his coat and switched off the
picture-light.

With hands now as steady and sure as they had been vacillant a moment
since, he closed the safe door noiselessly, shot its bolts, and was yards
away, crouching behind an armchair, before the man outside had ceased to
fumble with the window fastenings.

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