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Updated: June 21, 2025
Selingman sat up in his place, a champagne bottle in his hand. He beckoned to the man, who, with a little deprecating shrug of the shoulders, swaggered up to their table with some show of condescension. "A chair for Monsieur Jean Coulois, the great dancer," Selingman ordered, "a glass, and another bottle of wine. Monsieur Jean, my congratulations! But a word in your ear.
"Jean Coulois came to me a quarter of an hour ago. It is finished. Damnation, Draconmeyer, let go my arm!" Draconmeyer withdrew his fingers. There was no longer any stoop about him at all. He stood tall and straight, his lips parted, his face turned upwards, upwards as though he would gaze over the roof of the hotel before which they were standing, up to the skies. "My God, Selingman!" he cried.
"I do not see, Selingman, why you could not have hired this fellow through Allen or one of the others." Selingman shook his head. "See here, Draconmeyer," he explained, "this is one of the cases where agents are dangerous. For Allen to have been seen with Jean Coulois here would have been the same as though I had been seen with him myself.
It is an affair, this, worth considering. What do you pay, Monsieur le Gros, and for how long do you wish him out of the way?" "The pay," Selingman announced, "is two hundred louis, and the man must be in hospital for at least a fortnight." Draconmeyer leaned suddenly forward. His eyes were bright, his hands gripped the table. "Listen!" he whispered in Coulois' ear.
Coulois set down his glass for the first time half finished. His mouth had taken an evil turn. He leaned across the table. "See you," he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, "what happened, happened justly! Martin is responsible. The whole thing was conducted in the spirit of a pantomime, a great joke. Who are we, the Wolves, to brandish empty firearms, to shrink from letting a little blood! Bah!"
Oh, Coulois, Coulois, it was an opportunity lost!" "Lost!" the dancer echoed fiercely. "It was thrown into the gutter! It was madness! It was hellish, such ill-fortune! Yet what could I do? If I had been absent from here I, Coulois, whom men know of even the police would have had no excuse. So it was Martin who must lead. Our armoury had never been fuller.
He gazed at his companion with a curious expression. "My friend," he murmured, "I fear that you are vindictive." "Perhaps," Draconmeyer replied quietly. "In these matters I like to be on the safe side." Jean Coulois struck the table lightly with his small, feminine hand. He showed all his teeth as though he had been listening to an excellent joke. "It is to be done," he decided.
It was all over in a moment not a cry. You came to the right place, indeed! And now I go to the country," Coulois continued. "I have a motor-bicycle outside. I make my way up into the hills to bury this little memento. There is a farmhouse up in the mountains, a lonely spot enough, and a girl there who says what I tell her. It may be as well to be able to say that I have been there for déjeuner.
Jean Coulois was moistening his lips with his tongue, his eyes were brilliant. "Five hundred louis!" he repeated under his breath. "Is it not enough?" Draconmeyer asked coldly. "I do not believe in half measures. The man who is wounded may be well before he is welcome. If five hundred louis is not enough, name your price, but let there be no doubt.
"Are the Wolves sheep, indeed, that they can do no more than twist ankles and break heads? That two hundred shall be five hundred, Jean Coulois, but it must be a cemetery to which they take him, and not a hospital!" There was a moment's silence. Selingman sat back in his place. He was staring at his companion with wide-open eyes.
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