Book: The False Faces

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




The car stopped, a narrow-chested door slid open, a gush of hectic light
coloured morbidly the faces of alighting passengers, a blare of syncopated
noise singularly unmusical saluted the astonished ears of Lanyard and
Cecelia Brooke. She met his gaze with a smiling _moue_ and slightly lifted
eyebrows.

"More than we bargained for?" he laughed. "But there is always something
new in this America, I promise you. Au Printemps itself is new, at all
events did not exist when I was last in New York."

Following her out, he paused beside the girl in a constricted space hedged
about with tables, waiting for the maître d'hôtel to seat those who had
been first to leave the elevator.

The room, of irregular conformation, held upward of two hundred guests and
habitués seated at tables large and small and so closely set together
that waiters with difficulty navigated narrow and tortuous channels of
communication. In the middle, upon a small dancing floor, rudely octagonal
in shape, made smaller by tables crowded round its edge to accommodate the
crush, a mob of couples danced arduously, close-locked in one another's
arms, swaying in rhythm with the over-emphasized time beaten out by a
perspiring little band of musicians on a dais in a far corner, their
activities directed by an antic conductor whose lantern-jawed, sallow face
peered grotesquely out through a mop of hair as black and coarse and lush
as a horse's mane.

Execrable ventilation or absence thereof manufactured an atmosphere that
reeked with heat animal and artificial and with ill-blended effluvia from a
hundred sources. Perhaps the odour of alcohol predominated; Lanyard thought
of a steam-heated wine-cellar. He observed nothing but champagne in any
glass, and if food were being served it was done surreptitiously. Sweat
dripped from the faces of the dancers, deep flushes discoloured all not so
heavily enamelled as to preserve an inalterable complexion, the eyes of
many stared with the fixity of hypnosis. Yet when the music ended with an
unexpected crash of discord these dancers applauded insatiably till the
jaded orchestra struck up once more, when they renewed their curious
gyrations with quenchless abandon.

The Brooke girl caught Lanyard's eye, her lips moved. Thanks to the din, he
had to bend his head near to hear.

She murmured with infinite expression: "Au Printemps!"

The maître d'hôtel was plucking at his sleeve.

"Monsieur had made reservations, no?" Startled recognition washed the man's
tired and pasty countenance. "Pardon, monsieur: this way!" He turned and
began to thread deviously between the jostling tables.

Dubiously Lanyard followed. He likewise had known the maître d'hôtel at
sight: a beastly little decadent whose cabaret on the rue d'Antin, just off
the avenue de l'Opéra, had been a famous rendezvous of international spies
till war had rendered it advisable for him to efface himself from the ken
of Paris with the same expedition and discretion which had marked the
departure from London of his confrère who now guarded the lower gateway to
these ethereal regions of Au Printemps.

The coincidence of finding those two so closely associated worked with the
riddle of that note further to trouble Lanyard's mind.

Was he to believe Au Printemps the legitimate successor in America of that
less pretentious establishment on the rue d'Antin, an overseas headquarters
for Secret Service agents of the Central Powers?

He began to regret heartily, not so much that he had presented himself in
answer to that note, but the responsibility which now devolved upon him of
caring for Miss Brooke. Much as he had wished to see her an hour ago, now
he would willingly be rid of her company.

Why had he been lured to this place, if its character were truly what he
feared? Conceivably because he was believed--since it now appeared he had
cheated death--still to possess either that desired document or knowledge
of its whereabouts.

Naturally the enemy would not think otherwise. He must not forget that
Ekstrom was playing double; as yet none but Lanyard knew he had stolen the
document and done a murder to cover the theft from his associates and leave
him free to sell to England without exciting their suspicion.

Consequently, Lanyard believed, he had been invited to this place to
be sounded, to be tempted, bribed, intimidated--if need be, and
possible--somehow to be won over to the uses of the Prussian spy system.

Leading them to the farther side of the room, the maître d'hôtel paused
bowing and mowing beside a large table already in the possession of a party
of three.

Lanyard's eyes narrowed. One of the three was Velasco, another a young man
unknown to him, a mannerly little creature who might have been written by
the author of "What the Man Will Wear" in the theatre programmes. The third
was Sophie Weringrode, the Wilhelmstrasse agent whom he had only that
afternoon observed entering the house in Seventy-ninth Street.

He stopped short, in a cold rage. Till that moment a mirror-sheathed pillar
had hidden from him Velasco and the Weringrode; else Lanyard had refused
to come so far; for obviously there were no unreserved tables, indeed few
vacant chairs, in that part of the room.

Not that he minded the cynical barefacedness of the dodge; that was indeed
amusing; he was sanguine as to his ability to dominate any situation that
might arise, and to a degree indifferent if the upshot should prove his
confidence misplaced; and he did not in the least object to letting the
enemy show his cards. But he did enormously resent what was, after all,
something quite outside the calculations of these giddy conspirators, the
fact that he must either beat incontinent retreat or introduce Cecelia
Brooke to the company of Sophie Weringrode.

His face darkened, a stinging reproof for the maître d'hôtel trembled on
his tongue's tip; but that one was busily avoiding his eye on the far side
of the table, drawing out a chair for "mademoiselle," while Velasco and the
Weringrode were alert to read Lanyard's countenance and forestall any steps
he might contemplate in defiance of their designs.

At first glimpse of the Brooke girl Velasco jumped up and hastened to her,
with eager Latin courtesy expressing his unanticipated delight in the
prospect of her consenting to join their party. And she was suffering with
quiet graciousness his florid compliments.

At the same time the Weringrode was greeting Lanyard in the most intimate
fashion--and damning him in the understanding of Cecelia Brooke with every
word.

"My dear friend!" she cried gayly, extending a bedizened hand. "I had begun
to despair of you. Is it part of your system with women always to be a
little late, always to keep us wondering?"

Schooling his features to a civil smile, Lanyard bowed over the hand.

"In warfare such as ours, my dear Sophie," he said with meaning, "one uses
all weapons, even the most primitive, in sheer self-defense."

The woman laughed delightedly. "I think," she said, "if you rose from the
dead at the bottom of the sea, _Tony_, it would be with wit upon your
lips.... And you have brought a friend with you? How charming!" She shifted
in her chair to face Cecelia Brooke. "I wish to know her instantly!"

Velasco was waiting only for that opening. "Dear princess," he said,
instantly, "permit me to present Miss Cecelia Brooke ... Princess de
Alavia...."

Completely at ease and by every indication enjoying herself hugely, the
girl bowed and took the hand the Weringrode thrust upon her. Her eyes,
a-brim with excitement and mischief, veered to Lanyard's, ignored their
warning, glanced away.

"How do you do?" she said simply. "I didn't understand Mr. Ember expected
to meet friends here, but that only makes it the more agreeable. May we sit
down?"




XVII

FINESSE


The person in the educated evening clothes was made known as Mr. Revel.
For Lanyard's benefit and his own he vacated the chair beside Sophie
Weringrode, seating himself to one side of Cecelia Brooke, who had Velasco
between her and the soi-disant princess.

Already a waiter had placed and was filling glasses for Lanyard and the
girl.

With the best grace he could muster the adventurer sat down, accepted
a cigarette from the Weringrode case, and with openly impertinent eyes
inspected the intrigante critically.

She endured that ordeal well, smiling confidently, a handsome creature with
a beautiful body bewitchingly gowned.

Time, he considered, had been kind to Sophie--time, the mysteries of the
modern toilette, and the astonishing adaptability of womankind. Splendidly
vital, like all of her sort who survive, she seemed mysteriously able to
renew that vitality through the very extravagance with which she squandered
it. She had lived much of late years, rapidly but well, had learned much,
had profited by her lessons. To-night she looked legitimately the princess
of her pretensions; the manner of the grande dame suited her type; her
gesture was as impeccable as her taste; prettier than ever, she seemed at
worst little more than half her age.

And her quick intelligence mocked the privacy of his reflections.

"Fair, fast, and forty," she interpreted smilingly.

He pretended to be stunned. "Never!" he protested feebly.

The woman reaffirmed in a series of rapid nods. "Have I ever had secrets
from you? You are too quick for me, monsieur: I do not intend to begin
deceiving you at this late day--or trying to."

"Flattery," he declared, "is meat and drink to me. Tell me more."

She laughed lightly. "Thank you, no; vanity is unbecoming in men; I do not
care to make you vain."

Aware that Cecelia Brooke was listening all the while she seemed to be
enchanted with the patter of Mr. Revel and the less vapid observations of
Velasco, Lanyard sought to shunt personalities from himself.

"And now a princess!"

"Did you not know I had married? Yes, a princess of Spain--and with a
castle there, if you must know."

"Quite a change of atmosphere from Berlin," he remarked. "But it has done
you no perceptible harm."

That won him a black look. "Oh, Berlin!" she said with contemptuous lips.
"I haven't been there since the beginning of the war. I wish never to see
the place again. True: I was born an Austrian; but is that any reason why I
should love Germany?"

She leaned forward, her fan gently tapping the knuckles of his hand.

"Pay less attention to me," she insisted, with a nod toward the middle of
the room. "You are missing something. Me, I never tire of her."

The floor had been cleared. A drummer on the dais was sounding the
long-roll crescendo. At the culminating crash the lights were everywhere
darkened save for an orange-coloured spot-light set in the ceiling
immediately above the dancing floor. Into that circular field of torrid
glare bounded a woman wearing little more than an abbreviated kirtle of
grass strands with a few festoons of artificial flowers. Applause roared
out to her, the orchestra sounded the opening bars of an Americanised
Hawaiian melody, the woman with extraordinary vivacity began to perform a
denatured hula: a wild and tawny animal, superbly physical, relying with
warrant upon the stark sensuality of her body to make amends for the
censored phrases of the primitive dance. The floor resounded like a great
drum to the stamping of her bare feet, till one marvelled at such solidity
of flesh as could endure that punishment.

Sophie Weringrode lounged negligently upon the table, bringing her head
near Lanyard's shoulder.

"Play fair," she said between lips that barely moved.

Without looking round Lanyard answered in the same manner: "Why ask more
than you are prepared to give?"

"The police ran you out of America once. We need only publish the fact that
Mr. Anthony Ember is the Lone Wolf...."

"Well?"

"Leave Berlin out of it before this girl."

Lanyard shrugged and laughed quietly. "What else?"

"We can't talk now. Ask me for the next dance."

The woman sat back in her chair, attentive to the posturing of the dancer,
slowly fanning herself.

Lanyard's semblance of as much interest was nothing more; furtively his
watchfulness alternated between two quarters of the room.

On the farther edge of the circle of tropical radiance he had marked down a
table at which two men were seated, Dressier and O'Reilly. No more question
now as to the personnel of the conspiracy; even Velasco had thrown off
the mask. The enemy had come boldly into the open, indicating a sense of
impudent assurance, indicating even more, contempt of opposition. No
longer afraid, they no longer skulked in shadows. Lanyard experienced a
premonition of events impending.

In addition he was keeping an eye on the door to the elevator shaft. Once
already it had opened, letting a bright window into the farther wall of the
shadowed room, discovering the figure of the maître d'hôtel in silhouette,
anxiety in his attitude. He was waiting for somebody, waiting tensely. So
were the others waiting, all that crew and their fellow workers scattered
among the guests. Lanyard told himself he could guess for whom.

Only Ekstrom was wanting to complete the circle. When he appeared--if by
chance he should--things ought to begin to happen.

If tolerably satisfied that Ekstrom would not come--not that night, at all
events--Lanyard, none the less, continued to be jealously heedful of that
doorway.

But the hula came to an end without either his vigilance or the impatience
of the maître d'hôtel being rewarded. Writhing with serpentine grace to the
edge of the illuminated area, the dancer leaped back into darkness and the
folds of a wrap held by a maid, in which garment she was seen, bowing and
laughing, when the lights again blazed up.

Without ceasing to play, changing only the time of the tune, the orchestra
swung into a fox-trot. Lanyard glanced across the table to see Cecelia
Brooke rising in response to the invitation of dapper Mr. Revel.

In his turn, he rose with Sophie Weringrode. "Be patient with me,"
he begged. "It is long since I danced to music more frivolous than a
cannonade."

"But it is simple," the woman promised--"simple, at least, to one who can
dance as you could in the old days. Just follow me till you catch the step.
It doesn't matter, anyway; I desire only the opportunity to converse."

Yielding to his arms, she shifted into French when next she spoke.

"You do admirably, my friend. Never again depreciate your dancing. If you
knew how one suffers at the feet of these Americans--!"

"Excellent!" he said. "Now that is settled: what is it you are instructed
to propose to me?"

She laughed softly. "Always direct! Truly you would never shine as a secret
agent."

"Not as they shine," Lanyard countered--"in the dark."

"Don't be a fraud. We are what we are, and so are you. Let us not begin to
be censorious of one another's methods of winning a living."

"Agreed. But when do we begin to talk business?"

"Why do you continue so persistently antagonistic?"

"I am French."

"That is silly. You are an outlaw, a man without a country. Why not change
all that?"

"And how does one effect miracles?"

"Germany offers you a refuge, security, freedom to ply your trade
unhindered--within reasonable limits."

"And in exchange what do I give?"

"Your services, as and when required, in our service."

"Beginning when?"

"To-night."

"With what specific performance?"

"We want, we must without fail have, that document you took from the Brooke
girl."

"Perhaps we had better continue in English. You are speaking a tongue
unknown to me."

"Don't talk rot. You know well what I mean. We know you have the thing.
You didn't steal it to turn it over to England or the States. What is your
price to Germany?"

"Whatever you have in mind, believe me when I say I have nothing to sell to
the Wilhelmstrasse."

"But what else can you do with it? What other market--?"

"My dear Sophie, upon my word I haven't got what you want."

"Then why so keen to get the Brooke girl on the telephone as soon as you
found out where she was stopping?"

"How did you learn about that, by the way?"

"Let the credit go to Señor Velasco. He saw you first."

"One thought as much.... Nevertheless, I haven't what you want."

"You gave it back to Miss Brooke?"

"Having nothing to give her, I gave her nothing."

The woman was silent throughout a round of the floor; then, "Tell me
something," she requested.

"Can I keep anything from you?"

"Are you in love with the English girl?"

Lanyard almost lost step, then laughed the thought to derision. "What put
that into your pretty head, Sophie?"

"Do you not know it yourself, my friend?"

"It is absurd."

She laughed maliciously. "Think it over. Possibly you have not stopped to
think as yet. When you know the truth yourself, you will be the better
qualified to fib about it. Also, you will not forget...."

"What?" he demanded bluntly as she paused with intention.

"That as long as she possesses the document--since you have it not--her
life is endangered even more than yours."

"She hasn't got it!" Lanyard declared, as nearly in panic as he ever was.

"Ah!" the woman jeered. "So you confess to some knowledge of it after all!"

"My dear," he said, teasingly, "do you really want to know what has become
of that paper?"

"I do, and mean to."

"What if I tell you?"

Her eyes lifted to his in childlike candour. "Need you ask?"

"You are irresistible.... Ask Karl."

She demanded sharply: "Whom?"

"Ekstrom."

"Ah!" Again the adventuress was silent for a little. "What does he know?"

"Ask him, enquire why he murdered von Harden, then what business took him
to Ninety-fifth Street twice this evening--once about nine o'clock, again
at midnight."

"You must be mad, monsieur. Karl would not dare...."

"You don't know him--or have forgotten he was trained in the International
Bureau of Brussels, and there learned how to sell out both parties to a
business that won't bear publicity."

"I wonder," the woman mused. "Never have I wholly trusted that one."

"Shall I give you the key?"

"If you love Karl as little as I...."

"But where do you suppose the good man is, this night of nights?"

"Who knows? He was not here when I arrived at midnight. I have seen nothing
of him since."

"When you do--if he shows himself at all--look him over carefully for signs
of wear and tear."

"Yes, monsieur? And in what respect?"

"Look for cuts about his head and hands, possibly elsewhere. And should he
confess to an affair with a wind-shield in a motor accident, ask him what
happened to the study window in the house at Ninety-fifth Street."

Impish glee danced in the woman's eyes. "Your handiwork, dear friend?"

"A mere beginning.... You may tell him so, if you like."

He was subjected to a convulsive squeeze. "Never have I felt so kindly
disposed toward an enemy!"

"It is true, I were a better foe to Germany if I kept my counsel and let
Ekstrom continue to play double."

The music ceasing, to be followed by the inevitable clamour for more,
Lanyard offered an arm upon which Sophie rested a detaining hand.

"No--wait. We dance this encore. I have more to say."

He submitted amiably, the more so since not ill-pleased with himself. And
when again they were moving round the floor, she bore more heavily upon his
shoulder and was thoughtful longer than he had expected. Then--

"Attention, my friend."

"I am listening, Sophie."

"If what you hint is true--and I do not doubt it is--Karl's day is done."

"More nearly than he dreams," Lanyard affirmed grimly.

"I shan't be sorry. I am German through and through; what I do, I do for
the Fatherland, and in that find absolution for many things I care not to
remember. If through what you tell me I may prove Karl traitor, I owe you
something."

"Always it has been my fondest hope, Sophie, some day to have you in my
debt."

Her fingers tightened on his. "Do not jest in the shadow of death. Since
you have been unwise enough to venture here to-night, you will not be
permitted to leave alive--unless you pledge yourself to us and prove your
sincerity by producing that paper."

"That sounds reasonable--like Prussia. What next?"

"I have warned you, so paid off my debt. The rest is your affair."

"Do you imagine I take this seriously?"

"It will turn out seriously for you if you do not."

"How can I be prevented from leaving when I will, from a public
restaurant?"

"Is it possible you don't know this place? It is maintained by the
Wilhelmstrasse. Attempt to leave it without coming to a satisfactory
understanding, and see what happens."

"What, for instance?"

"The lights would be out before you were half across the room. When they
went up again, the Lone Wolf would be no more, and never a soul here would
know who stabbed him or what became of the knife."

"Are you by any chance amusing yourself at my expense?"

Once more the woman showed him her handsome eyes: he found them frankly
grave, earnest, unwavering.

"If you will not listen, your blood be on your own head."

"Forgive me. I didn't mean to be rude...."

"Still, you do not believe!"

"You are wrong. I am merely amused."

"If you understood, you could never mock your peril."

"But I don't mock it. I am enchanted with it. I accept it, and it renews
my youth. This might be Paris of the days when you ran with the Pack,
Sophie--and I alone!"

The woman moved her pretty shoulders impatiently. "I think you are either
mad or ... the very soul of courage!"

The encore ended; they returned to the table, Sophie leaning lightly on
Lanyard's arm, chattering gay inconsequentialities.

Dropping into her chair, she bent over toward Cecelia Brooke.

"He dances adorably, my dear!" the intrigante declared. "But I dare say you
know that already."

The English girl shook her head, smiling. "Not yet."

"Then lose no time. You two should dance well together, for you are more of
a size. I think the next number will be a waltz. We get altogether too few
of them; these American dances, these one-steps and foxtrots, they are not
dances, they are mere romps, favourites none the less. And there is always
more room on the floor; so few waltz nowadays. Really, you must not miss
this opportunity."

This playful insistence, the light stress she laid upon her suggestion that
Cecelia Brooke dance with him, considered in conjunction with her recent
admonition, impressed Lanyard as significantly inconsistent. Sophie was no
more a woman to make purposeless gestures than she was one sufficiently
wanting in finesse to signal him by pressures of her foot. There was sheer
intention in that iteration: "... _lose no time ... you must not miss this
opportunity_." Something had happened even since their dance; she had
observed something momentous, and was warning him to act quickly if he
meant to act at all.

With unruffled amiability, amused, urbane, Lanyard bowed his petition
across the table, and was rewarded by a bright nod of promise.

Lighting another cigarette, he lounged back, poised his wine glass
delicately, with the eye of a connoisseur appraised its pale amber tint,
touched it lightly to his lips, inhaling critically its bouquet, sipped,
and signified approval of the vintage by sipping again: all without missing
one bit of business in a scene enacted on the far side of the room,
directly behind him but reflected in a mirror panel of the wall he faced.

The diplomatist charged with the task of discriminating the sheep from the
goats in the lower lobby had come up to confer with his colleague, the
maître d'hôtel of the upper storey. When Lanyard first saw the man he was
standing by the elevator shaft, none too patiently awaiting the attention
of the other, who, caught by inadvertence at some distance, was moving to
join him, with what speed he could manage threading the thick-set tables.

Was this what Sophie had noticed? Had she likewise, perhaps, received some
secret signal from the guardian of the lower gateway?

A signal possibly indicating that Ekstrom had arrived

They met at last, those two, and discreetly confabulated, the maître
d'hôtel betraying welcome mitigation of that nervous tension which had
heretofore so palpably affected him; and, as the other stepped back into
the elevator, Lanyard saw this one's glance irresistibly attracted to the
table dedicated to the service of the Princess de Alavia. Something much
resembling satisfaction glimmered in the fellow's leaden eyes: it was
apparent that he anticipated early relief from a distasteful burden of
responsibility.

Then, at ease in the belief that he was unobserved, he turned to a near-by
table round which four sat without the solace of feminine society--four
men whose stamp was far from reassuring despite their strikingly quiet
demeanour and inconspicuously correct investiture of evening dress.

Two were unmistakable sons of the Fatherland; all were well set up, with
the look of men who would figure to advantage in any affair calling for
physical competence and courage, from coffee and pistols at sunrise in the
Parc aux Princes to a battle royal in a Tenderloin dive.

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