His return to Troyon’s, whereas an enterprise which Lanyard had been
contemplating for several years—in fact, ever since the death of Bourke—
came to pass at length almost purely as an affair of impulse.
He had come through from London by the afternoon service—via Boulogne—
travelling light, with nothing but a brace of handbags and his life in his hands.
Two coups to his credit since the previous midnight had made the shift
advisable, though only one of them, the later, rendered it urgent.
Scotland Yard would, he reckoned, require at least twenty-four hours to
unlimber for action on the Omber affair; but the other, the theft of the
Huysman plans, though not consummated before noon, must have set the
Chancelleries of at least three Powers by the ears before Lanyard was fairly
entrained at Charing Cross.
Now his opinion of Scotland Yard was low; its emissaries must operate
gingerly to keep within the laws they serve. But the agents of the various
Continental secret services have a way of making their own laws as they go
along: and for these Lanyard entertained a respect little short of profound.
He would not have been surprised had he ran foul of trouble on the pier at
Folkestone. Boulogne, as well, figured in his imagination as a crucial point: its
harbour lights, heaving up over the grim grey waste, peered through the
deepening violet dusk to find him on the packet’s deck, responding to their
curious stare with one no less insistently inquiring.... But it wasn’t until in the
gauntlet of the Gare du Nord itself that he found anything to shy at.
Dropping from train to platform, he surrendered his luggage to a ready
facteur, and followed the man through the crush, elbowed and shouldered,
offended by the pervasive reek of chilled steam and coal-gas, and dazzled by
the brilliant glare of the overhanging electric arcs.
Almost the first face he saw turned his way was that of Roddy.
The man from Scotland Yard was stationed at one side of the platform gates.
Opposite him stood another known by sight to Lanyard—a highly decorative
official from the Préfecture de Police. Both were scanning narrowly every face
in the tide that churned between them.
Wondering if through some fatal freak of fortuity these were acting under late
telegraphic advice from London, Lanyard held himself well in hand: the first
sign of intent to hinder him would prove the signal for a spectacular
demonstration of the ungentle art of not getting caught with the goods on. And
12
for twenty seconds, while the crowd milled slowly through the narrow exit, he
was as near to betraying himself as he had ever been—nearer, for he had
marked down the point on Roddy’s jaw where his first blow would fall, and just
where to plant a coup-de-savate most surely to incapacitate the minion of the
Préfecture; and all the while was looking the two over with a manner of the
most calm and impersonal curiosity.
But beyond an almost imperceptible narrowing of Roddy’s eyes when they
met his own, as if the Englishman were struggling with a faulty memory,
neither police agent betrayed the least recognition.
And then Lanyard was outside the station, his facteur introducing him to a
ramshackle taxicab.
No need to speculate whether or not Roddy were gazing after him; in the
ragged animal who held the door while Lanyard fumbled for his facteur’s tip,
he recognized a runner for the Préfecture; and beyond question there were
many such about. If any lingering doubt should trouble Roddy’s mind he need
only ask, “Such-and-such an one took what cab and for what destination?” to
be instantly and accurately informed.
In such case to go directly to his apartment, that handy little rez-de-chaussée
near the Trocadéro, was obviously inadvisable. Without apparent hesitation
Lanyard directed the driver to the Hotel Lutetia, tossed the ragged spy a sou,
and was off to the tune of a slammed door and a motor that sorely needed
overhauling....
The rain, which had welcomed the train a few miles from Paris, was in the city
torrential. Few wayfarers braved the swimming sidewalks, and the little
clusters of chairs and tables beneath permanent café awnings were one and
all neglected. But in the roadways an amazing concourse of vehicles, mostly
motor-driven, skimmed, skidded, and shot over burnished asphalting all, of
course, at top-speed—else this were not Paris. Lanyard thought of insects on
the surface of some dark forest pool....
The roof of the cab rang like a drumhead; the driver blinked through the backsplatter
from his rubber apron; now and again the tyres lost grip on the
treacherous going and provided instants of lively suspense. Lanyard lowered
a window to release the musty odour peculiar to French taxis, got well
peppered with moisture, and promptly put it up again. Then insensibly he
relaxed, in the toils of memories roused by the reflection that this night fairly
duplicated that which had welcomed him to Paris, twenty years ago.
It was then that, for the first time in several months, he thought definitely of
Troyon’s.
And it was then that Chance ordained that his taxicab should skid. On the
point of leaving the Ile de la Cité by way of the Pont St. Michel, it suddenly
(one might pardonably have believed) went mad, darting crabwise from the
middle of the road to the right-hand footway with evident design to climb the
rail and make an end to everything in the Seine. The driver regained control
barely in time to avert a tragedy, and had no more than accomplished this
much when a bit of broken glass gutted one of the rear tyres, which promptly
gave up the ghost with a roar like that of a lusty young cannon.
13
At this the driver (apparently a person of religious bias) said something
heartfelt about the sacred name of his pipe and, crawling from under the
apron, turned aft to assess damages.
On his own part Lanyard swore in sound Saxon, opened the door, and
delivered himself to the pelting shower.
“Well?” he enquired after watching the driver muzzle the eviscerated tyre for
some eloquent moments.
Turning up a distorted face, the other gesticulated with profane abandon, by
way of good measure interpolating a few disconnected words and phrases.
Lanyard gathered that this was the second accident of the same nature since
noon that the cab consequently lacked a spare tyre, and that short of a trip to
the garage the accident was irremediable. So he said (intelligently) it couldn’t
be helped, paid the man and over tipped precisely as though their journey had
been successfully consummated, and standing over his luggage watched the
maimed vehicle limp miserably off through the teeming mists.
Now in normal course his plight should have been relieved within two minutes.
But it wasn’t. For some time all such taxis as did pass displayed scornfully
inverted flags. Also, their drivers jeered in their pleasing Parisian way at the
lonely outlander occupying a position of such uncommon distinction in the
heart of the storm and the precise middle of the Pont St. Michel.
Over to the left, on the Quai de Marché Neuf, the façade of the Préfecture
frowned portentously—“La Tour Pointue,” as the Parisian loves to term it.
Lanyard forgot his annoyance long enough to salute that grim pile with a
mocking bow, thinking of the men therein who would give half their
possessions to lay hands on him who was only a few hundred yards distant,
marooned in the rain!...
In its own good time a night-prowling fiacre ambled up and veered over to his
hail. He viewed this stroke of good-fortune with intense disgust: the
shambling, weather-beaten animal between the shafts promised a long, damp
crawl to the Lutetia.
And on this reflection he yielded to impulse.
Heaving in his luggage—“Troyon’s!” he told the
cocher....
The fiacre lumbered off into that dark maze of streets, narrow and tortuous,
which backs up from the Seine to the Luxembourg, while its fare reflected that
Fate had not served him so hardly after all: if Roddy had really been watching
for him at the Gare du Nord, with a mind to follow and wait for his prey to
make some incriminating move, this chance-contrived change of vehicles and
destination would throw the detective off the scent and gain the adventurer, at
worst, several hours’ leeway.
When at length his conveyance drew up at the historic corner, Lanyard
alighting could have rubbed his eyes to see the windows of Troyon’s all bright
with electric light.
Somehow, and most unreasonably, he had always believed the place would
go to the hands of the house-wrecker unchanged.
14
A smart portier ducked out, seized his luggage, and offered an umbrella.
Lanyard composed his features to immobility as he entered the hotel, of no
mind to let the least flicker of recognition be detected in his eyes when they
should re-encounter familiar faces.
And this was quite as well: for—again—the first he saw was Roddy.