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Updated: June 7, 2025
Nor did Ekstrom speak or stir; sitting sideways at his table, negligently, with knees crossed, the German likewise kept a hand buried in the pocket of his heavy, dark ulster. Thus neither doubted the other's ill-will or preparedness. And through thirty seconds of silence they remained at pause, each striving with all his might to read the other's purpose in his eyes.
"I think," she said, judgmatical, "that you're very like the other lone wolf, the fictitious one Lupin, you know a bit of a blagueur. If you're not nervous, why keep glancing over there? as if you were rather expecting somebody as if you wouldn't be surprised to see Popinot or De Morbihan pop out of the ground or Ekstrom!" "Hum!" he said gravely.
"Ekstrom," the officer supplied as the prisoner hesitated oddly. "And Ekstrom," the other agreed. There was a little silence between the two; then the officer mused aloud: "All dead!" "All ... but one." The officer looked up sharply. "Which ?" "The last-named." "Ekstrom? But we saw him die! You yourself fired the shot that " "It was not Ekstrom.
Blows thundered on the hallway door. Neither heeded. The spy was staring into Lanyard's face, his eyes starting with horror and affright. "Lanyard!" he gasped. "Good God! will you never die?" "Never by your hand " Lanyard began, but stopped sharply. For a moment he glared incredulously, and in that moment knew his enemy. "Ekstrom!" he cried; and the man at his mercy winced and quailed.
Lanyard's hand, that rested on the table, clenched and whitened beneath its begrimed skin. His eyes fathomed distances immeasurably removed beyond the confines of that grim cellar. But he presently continued: "Ekstrom had accompanied the army of invasion, had seen and recognized Lucy in passing through Louvain.
"But why introduce yourself to me in this extraordinary fashion, for a transaction for which the customary channels with which you must be familiar are entirely adequate?" "Simply because Ekstrom has followed me to Paris," Lanyard explained indulgently. "Did I venture to approach you in the usual way, my chances of rounding out a useful life thereafter would be practically nil.
With Ekstrom accounted for finally and forevermore, there was nothing to come but the final accounting of the Lone Wolf with that civilization which had bred and suffered him. One way presented itself to make that reckoning even. The Foreign Legion of France asks no embarrassing questions of its recruits, and enlistment in its ranks offers with anonymity a consoling certainty.
Ekstrom shot backward half a dozen feet, stumbled over the prostrate body of the watchman, and crashed headlong into the windows, going down in a shower of shattered glass. In one and the same instant Lanyard darted back and dropped upon his knees in the shadow of the club lounge, and the door to the hallway slammed open.
Barring injudicious attempt to summon aid or take the offensive, Ekstrom was safe from injury at the hands of Michael Lanyard. His cunning, his favour in the countenance of fortune, or whatever it was that had enabled him to make the girl his prisoner and bring her here, bade fair to prove his salvation.
His wits clearing, Ekstrom saw him and with a howl of fury staggered to his feet, clutching the unloaded pistol and endeavouring to level it for steady aim. Simultaneously Lanyard turned the knob and let the door fly open, remaining beside the chair that hid the girl.
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