Book: The False Faces

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




Crane abandoned his effort, resuming contemplation of his cigar.

"Now we come to the point. Monsieur Lanyard, or whatever your name is."

"I have found Duchemin very agreeable, monsieur le capitaine."

"I daresay," Captain Osborne sneered. He hesitated, glowering in the
difficulty of thinking. "See here, Monsieur Duchemin--since you prefer that
style--I'm not going to beat about the bush with you. I'm a plain man,
plain-spoken. They tell me you reformed. I don't know anything about that.
It's my conviction, once a thief, always a thief. I may be wrong."

"Right or wrong, monsieur might easily be less offensive."

The captain's dark countenance became still more darkly congested.
Implacable prejudice glinted in his small eyes. Nor was his temper softened
by the effrontery of this offender in giving back look for look with a calm
poise that overshadowed his arrogance of an honest, law-abiding man.

He made a vague gesture of impatience.

"The point is," he said, "this crime was accompanied by robbery."

"Am I to understand I am accused?"

"Nobody is accused," Crane cut in hastily.

"You have found no clues--?"

"Nary clue."

"What I want to say to you, Monsieur Duchemin, is this: the stolen property
has got to be recovered before this ship makes her dock in New York.
It means the loss of my command if it isn't. It means more than that,
according to my information; it means a disastrous calamity to the Allied
cause. And you're a Frenchman, Monsieur--Duchemin."

"And a thief. Monsieur le capitaine must not forget his pet conviction."

"As to that, a man can't always be particular about the tools he employs. I
believe the old saying, set a thief to catch a thief, holds good."

"Do I understand," Lanyard suggested sweetly, "you are about to honour me
by utilizing my reputed talents, by commissioning a thief to catch this
thief of to-night?"

"Precisely. You know more of this matter than any of us here. You were at
hand-grips with the murderer--and let him get away."

"To my deep regret. But I have told you how that happened."

"Seems a bit strange you made no real effort to find out what the scoundrel
looked like."

"It was dark in that alleyway, monsieur."

The captain made an inarticulate noise, apparently meant to convey an
effect of ironic incredulity. More intelligible comment was interrupted by
a ring of the telephone. He swung around, clapped receiver to ear, snapped
an impatient "Well?" and listened with evident exasperation.

Lanyard's eyes narrowed. This business of telephoning was conceivably
well-timed; not improbably the captain was receiving the report of somebody
who had been sent to search Stateroom 29 in Lanyard's absence. He wondered
and, wondering, glanced at Crane, to find that gentleman watching him with
a whimsical glimmer which he was quick to extinguish when the captain said
curtly, "Very good, Mr. Warde," and turned back from the telephone, his
manner more than ever truculent.

"Mr. Lanyard," he said--"Monsieur Duchemin, that is--a valuable paper has
been stolen, an exceedingly valuable document. I don't know which carried
it, Lieutenant Thackeray or Mr. Bartholomew. But I do know such a paper was
in their possession. And to the best of my knowledge, we three were the
only ones on board that did know it. And it has disappeared. Now, sir, you
may or may not be deeper in this affair than you have admitted. If you are,
I'd advise you to own up."

"Monsieur le capitaine implies my complicity in this dastardly crime!"

Osborne shook his head doggedly. "I imply nothing. I only say this: if you
know anything you haven't told us, my advice is to make a clean breast of
it."

"I have nothing to tell you, monsieur, beyond the fact that I find you,
your tone, your manner, and your choice of words, intolerably insolent."

"Then you know nothing--?"

"Monsieur!" Lanyard cried sharply.

"Very good," the captain persisted. "I'll take your word for it--and give
you till we take on our pilot to find the real criminal and make him give
up that paper."

"And if I fail?"

"Not a soul on board leaves the _Assyrian_ till the murderer and thief are
found--if they are not one."

"But that is a general threat; whereas monsieur has honoured me by
making this a personal matter. What punishment have you prepared for
me specifically, if I fail to accomplish this task which baffles
your--shrewdness?"

"I'll at least inform the port authorities in New York, tell them who you
are, and have you barred out of the country."

"I want to say, Lanyard," Crane interposed, "this isn't my notion of how to
deal with you, or in any way by my advice."

"Thank you, monsieur," the adventurer replied icily, without removing his
attention from the captain. "What else, Captain Osborne?"

"That is all I have to say to you to-night, sir. Good-night."

"But I have something more to say to you, monsieur le capitaine. First, I
desire to give over to you this article which it will doubtless please you
to consider stolen property." Lanyard placed the automatic pistol on the
desk. "One of Lieutenant Thackeray's," he explained; "at Miss Brooke's
suggestion, I borrowed it as a life-preserver, in event of another brush
with this homicidal maniac."

"She told us about that," Osborne said heavily, fumbling with the weapon.
"What else, sir?"

"Only this, monsieur le capitaine: I shall use my best endeavour to uncover
the author of these crimes. If I succeed, be sure I shall denounce him. If
I succeed only in securing this valuable paper you speak of, be equally
sure you will never see it; for it shall leave my hands only to pass into
those which I consider entirely trustworthy."

"The devil!" Captain Osborne leaped from his chair quaking with fury. "You
dare accuse me of disloyalty--!"

"Now you mention it...." Lanyard cocked his head to one side with a
maddening effect of deliberation. "No," he concluded--"no; I wouldn't
accuse you of intentional treason, monsieur; for that would involve an
imputation of intelligence...."

He opened the door and nodded pleasantly to Crane and the third officer.

"Good-night, gentlemen," he said silkily. "Oh, and you, too, Captain
Osborne--good-night, I'm sure."




VII

IN STATEROOM 29


In spite of his own anger, something far from being either assumed or
inconsiderable, Lanyard was fain to pause, a few paces from the deck-house,
and laugh quietly at a vast and incoherent booming which was resounding in
the room he had just quitted--Captain Osborne trying to do justice to
the emotions inspired in his virtuous bosom by the cheek of this damned
gaol-bird.

But suddenly, reminded of the grim reason for all this wretched brawling,
Lanyard shrugged off his amusement. Beneath his very feet, almost a man
lay dead, another perhaps dying, while the beast who had wrought that
devilishness remained at large.

He comprehended in a wondering regard that wide, star-blazoned arch of
skies, that broad, dark, restful mystery of waters, that still, sweet world
of peace through which the _Assyrian_ forged, muttering contentedly at her
toil ... while Murder with foul hands and slavering chops skulked somewhere
in the darkened fabric of her, somewhere beyond that black mouth of the
deck-port yawning at Lanyard's elbow.

From that same portal a man came abruptly but quietly, saw Lanyard standing
there, gave him a staring look and grudging nod, and strode forward to the
captain's quarters: Mr. Warde, the first officer.

Lanyard recollected himself, and went below.

Still the sailor guarded the door in that port alleyway; but now it stood
wide, and Cecelia Brooke was on its threshold, conversing guardedly with
the surgeon. Even as Lanyard caught sight of them, the latter bowed and
turned aft, while the girl retreated and refastened the door on its hook.

Thus reminded of Crane's shrewd questions, Lanyard was speculating rather
foggily concerning the reason therefor as he turned down the passage to
his own quarters. What had the American noticed, or been told, to make him
surmise covert sympathy between the girl and the lieutenant?

He caught himself yawning. Drowsiness buzzed in his brain. He had an
incoherent feeling that he would now sleep long and heavily. Entering his
stateroom, he put a shoulder against the door, pushing it to as he fumbled
for the switch. The circumstance that the lights were no longer burning as
he had left them failed to impress him as noteworthy in view of his belief
that, by the captain's orders, Mr. Warde had been ransacking his effects in
his absence.

But when no more than a click responded to a turn of the switch, the room
remaining quite dark, Lanyard uttered an imprecation, abruptly very wide
awake indeed.

Before he could move he stiffened to positive immobility: the cool, hard
nose of a pistol had come into contact with his skull, just behind the ear.

Simultaneously a softly-modulated voice advised him in purest German: "Be
quite still, Herr Lanyard, and hold up your hands--so! Also, see that you
utter no sound till I give you leave.... Karl, the handkerchief."

Lanyard stood motionless, hands well elevated, while a heavy silk blindfold
was whipped over his eyes and knotted tight at the back of his head.

"Now your paws, Herr Lone Wolf--put them together behind your back,
prudently making no attempt to reach a pocket."

Obediently Lanyard permitted his wrists to be caught together with a second
silk handkerchief. He could feel a slight sensation of heat upon his hands,
and guessed that this was caused by the light of a flash-lamp held close
to the flesh. None the less he took the chance of clenching his fists and
tensing the muscles of his wrists.

"Tightly, Karl."

The bonds were made painfully fast. Still it did not seem to occur to his
captors to oblige their prisoner to open his hands and relax his wrists.
Lanyard perceived a glimmer of hope in this oversight: the enemy was
normally stupid.

"Now the lights again."

After a little wait, during which he could hear the bulbs being pressed
back into their sockets, the switch clicked once more.

"And now, swine-dog!"--the pistol tapped his skull significantly--"if you
value your life, speak, and speak quickly. Where is that document?"

"Document?" Lanyard repeated in a tone of wonder.

"Unless you are eager to explore the hereafter, tell us where we may find
it without delay."

"Upon my word, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You lie!" the German snapped. "Face about!"

Somebody grasped his shoulders roughly and swung him round to the light,
the nose of the pistol shifting to press against his abdomen.

"Search him, Karl."

Unseen hands investigated his pockets cunningly. As they finished, the man
who answered to the name of Karl became articulate for the first time,
following a grunt of disappointment:

"Nothing--he has it not upon him."

"Look more thoroughly. Did you think him idiot enough to carry it where
you'd find it at the first dip? Imbecile!"

For the purpose of this second search Lanyard's garments were ripped
open, and the enemy made sure that he carried nothing next his skin more
incriminating than a money-belt, which was forcibly removed.

"His shoes--see to his shoes!" the first speaker insisted irritably. "Sit
down, Lanyard!"

A petulant push sent the adventurer reeling across the cabin to fall upon
the lounge seat beneath the port. With some effort he assumed a sitting
position, while Karl, kneeling, hastily unlaced and tore off his shoes and
socks.

"Nothing, captain," was the report.

"Damnation!... Continue to search his luggage. Leave nothing unexamined.
In particular look into every hole and corner where none but a fool would
attempt to hide anything. This fine gentleman imagines we value his
intelligence too highly to believe he would leave the paper in plain
sight."

To an accompaniment of sounds indicating that Karl was obeying his
superior, this last resumed in a tone of lofty contempt:

"How is it you have abandoned the habit of going armed, Herr Lone Wolf?
That is not like you. Is it that you grow unwary through drug-using? But
that matters nothing. We have more important business to speak over, you
and I. You will be very, very docile, and answer promptly, also in a low
voice, if you would avoid getting hurt. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," Lanyard replied, furtively working at the bonds on his wrists.

"Good. We speak together like good friends, yes?"

"Naturally," said Lanyard. "It is so conducive to chumminess to be caressed
with an automatic pistol--you've no idea!"

"Oblige by speaking German. Our ears are sick with all this bastard
English. Also, more quietly speak. Do not put me to the regrettable
necessity of shooting you."

"How regrettable? You didn't stick at braining those others--"

"Hardly the same thing. You are not like those English swine. You are
French; and Germany has no hatred for France, but only pity that it so
fatuously opposes manifest destiny. In truth, you are not even French, but
a great thief; and criminals have no patriotism, nor loyalty to any State
but their own, the state of moral turpitude."

The speaker interrupted himself to relish his wit with a thick chuckle. And
Lanyard's jaws ached with the strain of self-control. He continued to pluck
at the folds of silk while concentrating in effort to memorise the voice,
which he failed utterly to place. Undoubtedly this animal was a shipboard
acquaintance, one who knew him well; but those detestable German gutturals
disguised his accents quite beyond identification.

"For all that, you are not wise so to try my patience. I permit you five
minutes by my watch in which to make up your mind to surrender that
document."

"How often must I tell you," Lanyard enquired, "all this talk of documents
is Greek to me?"

"Then you have five minutes to brush up your classical education, and
translate into terms suited to your intelligence. I will have that document
from you or--in four more minutes--shoot you dead."

To this Lanyard said nothing. But his patient attentions to the
handkerchief round his wrists were beginning perceptibly to be rewarded.

"Moreover, Herr Lanyard, you will do yourself a very good turn by
confessing--entirely aside from saving your life."

"How is that?"

"Providing you persuade me of your good faith, I am empowered to offer you
employment in our service."

Lanyard's breath passed hardly through a throat swollen with rage, chagrin,
and hatred, all hopelessly impotent. But he succeeded in preserving an
unruffled countenance, as his captor's next words demonstrated.

"You are surprised, yes? You are thinking it over? Take your time--you have
three minutes more. Or perhaps you are sulky, resenting that our cleverness
has found you out? Be reasonable, my good man. Think: you cannot be
insensible to the honour my offer does you."

"What do you want of me?"

"First, that paper--thereafter to use your surpassing talents to the glory
of God and Fatherland. In addition, you will be greatly rewarded."

"Now you do begin to interest me," Lanyard said coolly.... Surely he could
contrive some way to slay this beast with his naked hands! He must play for
time.... "How rewarded?"

"As I say, with a place in the Prussian Secret Service, its protection,
freedom to ply your trade unhindered in America, even countenanced, till
that country becomes a German province under German laws."

"But do I hear you offer this to a Frenchman?"

"Undeceive yourself. Men of all nations to-day, recognising that the star
of Germany is in the ascendant, that soon all nations will be German,
are hastening to make their peace beforehand by rendering Germany good
service."

"Something in that, perhaps," Lanyard admitted thoughtfully.

"Think well, my friend.... Yes, Karl?"

The voice of the other spy responded sullenly: "Nothing--absolutely
nothing."

"Two minutes, Herr Lanyard."

Of a sudden Lanyard's face was violently distorted in a grimace of terror.
He lurched his shoulders forward, openly struggling with his bonds.

"But--good God!" he protested in a voice of terror, "you can't possibly be
so unreasonable! I tell you, I haven't got your damned paper!"

A loop of the handkerchief slipped over one hand.

"Be still! Cease your struggles. And not so loud, my friend!" The
peremptory voice dropped into mockery as Lanyard, pale and exhausted, sat
back trembling--and a second loop of silk dropped over the other hand. "So
you begin to appreciate that we mean business, yes? One minute and thirty
seconds!"

"Have mercy!" the adventurer whined desperately--and licked his lips as if
he found them dry with fear. Now both hands were all but wholly free. True:
he remained blindfolded and covered by a deadly weapon. "Give me a chance.
I'll do anything you wish! But I can't give you what I haven't got."

"Be silent! Here, Karl."

There was a sound of unintelligible murmuring as the two spies conferred
together. Lanyard writhed in apparent extremity of terror. His hands were
free. He sought hopelessly for inspiration. What to do without arms?

"Be grateful to Karl. He urges that perhaps you know nothing of the
document."

"Don't you think I'd tell if I did know?"

"Then you have one minute--no, forty seconds--in which to pledge yourself
to the Prussian Secret Service."

"You want me to swear--?"

"Certainly."

"Then hear me," said Lanyard earnestly: "_You damned canaille_!" And in
one movement he tore the bandage from his eyes and launched himself head
foremost at the man who stood over him.

He caught part of an oath drowned out by the splitting report of a pistol
that went off within an inch of his ear. Then his head took the man full
in the belly, and both went sprawling to the deck, Lanyard fighting like a
maniac.

Sheer luck had guided clawing fingers to the right wrist of his antagonist,
round which they shut like jaws of a trap. At the same time he wrenched the
other's arm high above his head.

Momentarily expecting the shock of a bullet from the pistol of the second
spy, he found time to wonder that it was so long deferred, and even in
the fury of his struggles, out of the corner of one eye caught a fugitive
glimpse of a tallish man, masked, standing back to the forward partition in
a pose of singular indecision, pistol poised in his grasp.

Then the efforts of his immediate adversary threw him into a position in
which he was unable to see the other.

Of a sudden the stateroom was filled with the thunder of an automatic, its
seven cartridges discharged in one brisk, rippling crash.

It was as if a white-hot iron had been laid across Lanyard's shoulder.
Beneath him the man started convulsively, with such force as almost to
throw him off bodily, then relaxed altogether and lay limp and still,
pinning one of Lanyard's arms under him.

Its visor displaced, the face of Baron von Harden was revealed, features
distorted, eyes glaring, a frozen mask of hate and terror.

His arm free, the adventurer rolled away from the corpse in time to see the
open window-port blocked by the body of the other spy.

Gathering himself together, he snatched up the pistol that dropped from the
inert grasp of the dead man, and levelled it at the port.

But now that space was empty.

He rose and paused for an instant, his glance instinctively seeking the
ledge above the hand-basin.

The hypodermic outfit was there, but minus the phial.

In the alleyway rose a confusion of running feet and shouting tongues.
A heavy banging rang on the door to Stateroom 29. Crane's nasal accents
called upon Lanyard to open.




VIII

OFF NANTUCKET


Upon the authors of that commotion Lanyard wasted no consideration
whatever. Let them knock and clamour; he had more urgent work in hand, and
knew too well the penalty were he stupid enough to unbolt to them. Their
bodies would dam the doorway hopelessly; insistent hands would hinder him;
innumerable importunate enquiries would be dinned at him, all immaterial
in contrast with this emergency, a catechism one would need an hour to
satisfy. And all attempts would be futile to make them understand that,
while they plagued him with futile questions, a murderer and spy and thief
was making good his escape, being afforded ample opportunity to slough all
traces of his recent work and resume unchallenged his place among them.

No; if by any freak of good fortune, any exertion of wit or daring, that
one were to be apprehended, it must be within the next few minutes, it
could only be through immediate pursuit.

Nor did the adventurer waste time debating the better course. With him,
whose ways of life were ceaselessly beset by instant and mortal perils,
each with its especial and imperative demand upon his readiness and
ingenuity, action must ever press so hard upon the heels of thought as to
make the two seem one.

For that matter, the whole transaction had been characterised by almost
unbelievable rapidity. And that square opening of the window-port was
hardly vacant when Lanyard sprang to his feet; the fugitive had barely time
to find his own upon the outer deck before Lanyard leaped after him; the
first thumps upon the panels of his door were still echoing when he thrust
head and shoulders out of the port and began to pump the automatic at a
shadow fleeing aft upon that narrow breadth of planking between rail and
wall.

Then, at the third shot, the automatic jammed upon a discharged shell.

Exasperated, the adventurer cast the weapon from him, shrugged hastily out
of his unfastened coat and waistcoat, hitched tight his belt, and clambered
through the port.

Dropping to the deck, he turned in time to see the fugitive dart round the
shoulder of the superstructure.

As Lanyard gained the after rail of the promenade deck a man standing on
the boat-deck at the head of the companion-ladder greeted him with pistol
fire. He dodged back, untouched, and instantaneously devised a stratagem to
cope with this untoward development.

Overhead, at the side, a lifeboat hung on its davits, ready for emergency
launching, the gap in the rail which it filled when normally swung inboard
spanned only by a length of line. And the darkness in the shadow of the
boat was dense, an excellent screen.

Climbing upon the rail, Lanyard grasped the edge of the deck overhead and
drew himself up undetected by his quarry, whom he espied still holding
the head of the companion ladder, hidden from the bridge by the after
deck-house, standing ready to shoot Lanyard should he attempt to renew the
pursuit by that approach.

At the same time, "Karl" seemed mysteriously occupied with some object or
objects in whose manipulation he was hampered to a degree by the necessity
under which he laboured of holding his pistol ready and dividing his
attention.

A man of good stature, broad at the shoulders, slender at the hips, he
poised himself with athletic grace--the lower part of his face masked by
what Lanyard took to be a dark silk handkerchief.

Lanyard heard him swearing in German.

Then a brisk little spray of sparks jetted from the flint and steel of a
patent cigar-lighter in the hands of the spy. And as Lanyard rose from his
knees after ducking beneath the line, a stream of fatter sparks spat from
the end of a fuse.

The man leaned over the rail and cast a small black object to which the
sputtering fuse was attached, down to the main deck.

As it struck midway between superstructure and stern it burst into
brilliant flame, releasing upon the night an electric-blue glare that must
have been visible from any point within the compass of the horizon.

A yell of profane remonstrance saluted the light, and throughout the brief
passage that followed Lanyard was conscious that pistols and rifles on the
after deck below were making him and his antagonist their targets.

Before the German could face about, Lanyard, moving almost noiselessly in
his bare feet, had covered more than half the intervening space. In another
breath he might have had the fellow at a disadvantage. But the distance
was too great. Twice the automatic blazed in his face as he closed in, the
bullets clearing narrowly--or else he fancied that their deadly cold breath
fanned his cheek.

Then the spy's weapon in turn went out of action. Half blinded, Lanyard
clipped the man round the body and hugged him tight, exerting all his skill
and strength to effect a throw.

That effort failed; his onslaught was met with address and ability that
all but matched his own. The animal he embraced had muscles like tempered
springs and the cunning and fury of a wild beast in a trap. For a moment
Lanyard was able to accomplish no more than to smother resistance in a
rib-crushing embrace; no sooner did he relax it than all attempts to shift
his hold were anticipated and met half way, forcing him back upon the
defensive.

Yet he was given little chance to prove himself the master. The first phase
of the struggle was still in contest when the rear door of the smoking room
opened and a man stepped out, paused, summed up the situation in a glance,
seized Lanyard from behind.

The adventurer felt his arms grasped by hands whose strength seemed little
short of superhuman, and wrenched back so violently that his very bones
cracked. Fairly lifted from his feet, he was held as helpless as an infant
kicking in the arms of its nurse.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.