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Updated: May 25, 2025
Liane Delorme! Those syllables were like a spoken spell to break the power of dark enchantment which had hampered Lanyard's memory ever since first sight of this woman in the Café de l'Univers at Nant. A great light began to flood his understanding, but he was denied time to advantage himself immediately of its illumination: Liane Delorme was quick to parry and riposte.
"Come along, O'Reilly," he said. "Fetch the woman, and give no more heed to swine-dogs!" His hand slipped up the rail to the first floor, vanished. If O'Reilly followed with the woman mentioned, both kept back from the rail and so out of Lanyard's field of vision. The group at the foot of the stairs moved away, grumbling profanely.
Not that he grudged the time; for in Lanyard's esteem Bourke's epigram had come to have the weight and force of an axiom: "The more trouble you make for yourself, the less the good public will make for you."
And his mind could not be at ease with respect to Roddy, thanks to De Morbihan's gasconade in the presence of the detective and also to that hint which the Count had dropped concerning some fatal blunder in the course of Lanyard's British campaign. The adventurer could recall leaving no step uncovered.
Deep in Lanyard's consciousness an echo stirred of half-forgotten words: "Vengeance is mine...." The sense of frustration brewed a hopelessness as stark as that of a brow-beaten child. A blackness seemed to be settling down upon his faculties. A mist wavered momentarily before his eyes. He gulped convulsively, swallowing what had almost been a sob.
Lanyard's mouth twitched, slow colour mounted in his face, the light in his eyes was lambent. He found himself looking deep into other eyes that were like pools of violet shadow troubled by a deep surge and resurge of feeling for which there was no name. Aware that they revealed more than he ought to know, he sought to escape them by bending his lips to Sofia's hands.
As if the name of love meant aught to him but the memory of a sweetness like a vagrant air of Spring that had breathed fitfully for a season upon the Winter of his heart! A corner of Lanyard's mouth lifted in a sneer. That precious heart of his! the heart of a thief upon which even now the fruits of his thieving weighed....
It was the needle of this instrument that had pricked the skin of Lanyard's neck; beyond reasonable doubt it contained a soporific, if not exactly a killing dose of some narcotic drug cocaine, at a venture.
There is, however, a gentleman present who is amply qualified to pass upon the merits of this work. With his permission" his eye sought Lanyard's "I venture to request the opinion of Monsieur Michael Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!" Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, but his contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor.
Behind him, on the landing at the head of the staircase, running up from below, ascending to the upper storeys, were a score' or more of men of sturdy and business-like bearing and indubitably American stamp. Of these two were herding into a corner a little group of frightened German servants. Lanyard's stare of astonishment was met by Crane's twisted smile.
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