IV. A STRATAGEM
When the maitre-d’hôtel had shown him all over the establishment (innocently
enough, en route, furnishing him with a complete list of his other guests and
their rooms: memoranda readily registered by a retentive memory) Lanyard
chose the bed-chamber next that occupied by Roddy, in the second storey.
The consideration influencing this selection was—of course—that, so situated,
he would be in position not only to keep an eye on the man from Scotland
Yard but also to determine whether or no Roddy were disposed to keep an
eye on him.
In those days Lanyard’s faith in himself was a beautiful thing. He could not
have enjoyed the immunity ascribed to the Lone Wolf as long as he had
without gaining a power of sturdy self-confidence in addition to a certain
amount of temperate contempt for spies of the law and all their ways.
Against the peril inherent in this last, however, he was self-warned, esteeming
it the most fatal chink in the armour of the lawbreaker, this disposition to
underestimate the acumen of the police: far too many promising young
adventurers like himself were annually laid by the heels in that snare of their
own infatuate weaving. The mouse has every right, if he likes, to despise the
cat for a heavy-handed and bloodthirsty beast, lacking wit and imagination, a
creature of simple force-majeure; but that mouse will not advisedly swagger in
cat-haunted territory; a blow of the paw is, when all’s said and done, a blow of
the paw—something to numb the wits of the wiliest mouse.

Considering Roddy, he believed it to be impossible to gauge the limitations of
that essentially British intelligence—something as self-contained as a London
flat. One thing only was certain: Roddy didn’t always think in terms of beef
and Bass; he was nobody’s facile fool; he could make a shrewd inference as
well as strike a shrewd blow.
Reviewing the scene in the restaurant, Lanyard felt measurably warranted in
assuming not only that Roddy was interested in De Morbihan, but that the
Frenchman was well aware of that interest. And he resented sincerely his
inability to feel as confident that the Count, with his gossip about the Lone
Wolf, had been merely seeking to divert Roddy’s interest to putatively larger
game. It was just possible that De Morbihan’s identification of Lanyard with
that mysterious personage, at least by innuendo, had been unintentional. But
somehow Lanyard didn’t believe it had.
The two questions troubled him sorely: Did De Morbihan know, did he merely
suspect, or had he only loosed an aimless shot which chance had sped to the
right goal? Had the mind of Roddy proved fallow to that suggestion, or had it,
with its simple national tenacity, been impatient of such side issues, or
incredulous, and persisted in focusing its processes upon the personality and
activities of Monsieur le Comte Remy de Morbihan? However, one would
surely learn something illuminating before very long. The business of a sleuth
is to sleuth, and sooner or later Roddy must surely make some move to
indicate the quarter wherein his real interest lay.
Just at present, reasoning from noises audible through the bolted door that
communicated with the adjoining bed-chamber, the business of a sleuth
seemed to comprise going to bed. Lanyard, shaving and dressing, could
distinctly hear a tuneless voice contentedly humming “Sally in our Alley,” a
rendition punctuated by one heavy thump and then another and then by a
heartfelt sigh of relief—as Roddy kicked off his boots—and followed by the
tapping of a pipe against grate-bars, the squeal of a window lowered for
ventilation, the click of an electric-light, and the creaking of bed-springs.
Finally, and before Lanyard had finished dressing, the man from Scotland
Yard began placidly to snore.
Of course, he might well be bluffing; for Lanyard had taken pains to let Roddy
know that they were neighbours, by announcing his selection in loud tones
close to the communicating door.
But this was a question which the adventurer meant to have answered before
he went out....
It was hard upon twelve o’clock when the mirror on the dressing-table assured
him that he was at length point-device in the habit and apparel of a gentleman
of elegant nocturnal leisure. But if he approved the figure he cut, it was mainly
because clothes interested him and he reckoned his own impeccable. Of their
tenant he was feeling just then a bit less sure than he had half-an-hour since;
his regard was louring and mistrustful. He was, in short, suffering reaction
from the high spirits engendered by his cross-Channel exploits, his successful
get-away, and the unusual circumstances attendant upon his return to this
memory-haunted mausoleum of an unhappy childhood. He even shivered a

trifle, as if under premonition of misfortune, and asked himself heavily: Why
not?
For, logically considered, a break in the run of his luck was due. Thus far he
had played, with a success almost too uniform, his dual rôle, by day the
amiable amateur of art, by night the nameless mystery that prowled unseen
and preyed unhindered. Could such success be reasonably expected to
attend him always? Should he count De Morbihan’s yarn a warning? Black
must turn up every so often in a run of red: every gambler knows as much.
And what was Michael Lanyard but a common gambler, who persistently
staked life and liberty against the blindly impartial casts of Chance?
With one last look round to make certain there was nothing in the calculated
disorder of his room to incriminate him were it to be searched in his absence,
Lanyard enveloped himself in a long full-skirted coat, clapped on an opera
hat, and went out, noisily locking the door. He might as well have left it wide,
but it would do no harm to pretend he didn’t know the bed-chamber keys at
Troyon’s were interchangeable—identically the same keys, in fact, that had
been in service in the days of Marcel the wretched.
A single half-power electric bulb now modified the gloom of the corridor; its
fellow made a light blot on the darkness of the courtyard. Even the windows of
the conciergerie were black.
None the less, Lanyard tapped them smartly.
“_Cordon_!” he demanded in a strident voice. “_Cordon, s’il vous
plait! _”
“_Eh? _” A startled grunt from within the lodge was barely audible.
Then the latch clicked loudly at the end of the passageway.
Groping his way in the direction of this last sound, Lanyard found the small
side door ajar. He opened it, and hesitated a moment, looking out as though
questioning the weather; simultaneously his deft fingers wedged the latch
back with a thin slip of steel.
No rain, in fact, had fallen within the hour; but still the sky was dense with a
sullen rack, and still the sidewalks were inky wet.
The street was lonely and indifferently lighted, but a swift searching
reconnaissance discovered nothing that suggested a spy skulking in the
shelter of any of the nearer shadows.
Stepping out, he slammed the door and strode briskly round the corner, as if
making for the cab-rank that lines up along the Luxembourg Gardens side of
the rue de Medicis; his boot-heels made a cheerful racket in that quiet hour;
he was quite audibly going away from Troyon’s.
But instead of holding on to the cab-rank, he turned the next corner, and then
the next, rounding the block; and presently, reapproaching the entrance to
Troyon’s, paused in the recess of a dark doorway and, lifting one foot after
another, slipped rubber caps over his heels. Thereafter his progress was
practically noiseless.

The smaller door yielded to his touch without a murmur. Inside, he closed it
gently, and stood a moment listening with all his senses—not with his ears
alone but with every nerve and fibre of his being—with his imagination, to
boot. But there was never a sound or movement in all the house that he could
detect.
And no shadow could have made less noise than he, slipping cat-footed
across the courtyard and up the stairs, avoiding with super-developed
sensitiveness every lift that might complain beneath his tread. In a trice he
was again in the corridor leading to his bed-chamber.
It was quite as gloomy and empty as it had been five minutes ago, yet with a
difference, a something in its atmosphere that made him nod briefly in
confirmation of that suspicion which had brought him back so stealthily.
For one thing, Roddy had stopped snoring. And Lanyard smiled over the
thought that the man from Scotland Yard might profitably have copied that
trick of poor Bourke’s, of snoring like the Seven Sleepers when most
completely awake....
It was naturally no surprise to find his bed-chamber door unlocked and slightly
ajar. Lanyard made sure of the readiness of his automatic, strode into the
room, and shut the door quietly but by no means soundlessly.
He had left the shades down and the hangings drawn at both windows; and
since these had not been disturbed, something nearly approaching complete
darkness reigned in the room. But though promptly on entering his fingers
closed upon the wall-switch near the door, he refrained from turning up the
lights immediately, with a fancy of impish inspiration that it would be amusing
to learn what move Roddy would make when the tension became too much
even for his trained nerves.
Several seconds passed without the least sound disturbing the stillness.
Lanyard himself grew a little impatient, finding that his sight failed to grow
accustomed to the darkness because that last was too absolute, pressing
against his staring eyeballs like a black fluid impenetrably opaque, as
unbroken as the hush.
Still, he waited: surely Roddy wouldn’t be able much longer to endure such
suspense....
And, surely enough, the silence was abruptly broken by a strange and moving
sound, a hushed cry of alarm that was half a moan and half a sob.
Lanyard himself was startled: for that was never Roddy’s voice!
There was a noise of muffled and confused footsteps, as though someone
had started in panic for the door, then stopped in terror.
Words followed, the strangest he could have imagined, words spoken in a
gentle and tremulous voice:
“In pity’s name! who are you and what do you want?”
Thunderstruck, Lanyard switched on the lights.
At a distance of some six paces he saw, not Roddy, but a woman, and not a
woman merely, but the girl he had met in the restaurant.