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Updated: May 25, 2025
The girl's face wore a startled expression, her gaze was direct to the woman at Lanyard's side; then it shifted enquiringly to him. With a look Lanyard warned her to compose herself, then lifted an eyebrow and glanced meaningly toward the doors. The least of nods answered him before Le Brun swung Athenais toward the middle of the floor and other couples intervened. Liane Delorme stirred abruptly.
And Thérèse had taken her at her word. She was glad of that. In event that anything should leak out and be printed by the newspapers concerning the theft of Monsieur Lanyard's famous "Corot" by a strange, closely veiled woman, it was just as well that none of the servants was about to see her come in with the canvas clumsily hidden under her cloak.
They feasted famously: the cuisine, if bourgeois, was admirable and, better still, well within the resources of Lanyard's emaciated purse. Nor did he fret with consciousness that, when the bill had been paid and the essential tips bestowed, there would remain in his pocket hardly more than cab fare.
But what was to be done could not be done in any other way. The surprise aided him, for the fellow offered barely a show of opposition. His astounded faculties had no more than recognised the call for resistance when he was powerless in Lanyard's hands. Swung bodily away from the wheel, he went over the rail to the forward deck like a bag of sugar. Immediately Lanyard turned to the binnacle.
A lightning coup de pied planted a heel against one of the man's shins, and his onslaught faltered in a gust of curses. Then the point of his jaw received the full force of Lanyard's right fist with all the ill will imaginable behind it. The man reared back, reeled into the black mouth of the alleyway, fell heavily. Even so, he demonstrated extraordinary vitality and appetite for punishment.
When he was able once more to throw the gears into high, the chase was a long block ahead. They were entering Longacre Square before he made up that loss. And at Forty-fourth Street, again, a stream of east-bound cars edged in between the two, reducing Lanyard's driver to the verge of gibbering lunacy.
Then somehow the painting must have passed out of her possession; and in all likelihood she had made frantic and awkward efforts to regain it which had aroused the suspicions of Victor; with the sequel of that afternoon.... Lanyard's speculations were interrupted by the peremptory telephone. Without premonition he picked up the combination receiver and transmitter.
And Lanyard's jaws ached with the strain of self-control. He continued to pluck at the folds of silk while concentrating in effort to memorise the voice, which he failed utterly to place. Undoubtedly this animal was a shipboard acquaintance, one who knew him well; but those detestable German gutturals disguised his accents quite beyond identification.
"Providing you persuade me of your good faith, I am empowered to offer you employment in our service." Lanyard's breath passed hardly through a throat swollen with rage, chagrin, and hatred, all hopelessly impotent. But he succeeded in preserving an unruffled countenance, as his captor's next words demonstrated. "You are surprised, yes? You are thinking it over?
But his confidence was so shaken, his morale so impaired by Lanyard's sublime effrontery added to his recent shocking experience, that the gaunt hands trembled beyond his control, and it was several seconds before he succeeded. Lanyard gave no sign, but his heart sank. He had exhausted his last resource to gain time, he was now at his wits' ends. Only his star could save him now....
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