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Updated: May 9, 2025
And as its sonorous chimes heralded two deep-toned strokes, Lanyard laughed quietly, intimately, to the girl's startled eyes, and sank back before the safe. And now his task was nearly finished.
"Accused," he added with intense relish, "of the murder of Inspector Roddy of Scotland Yard at Troyon's, as well as of setting fire to that establishment " "For this, Popinot," Lanyard interrupted in an undertone, "I shall some day cut off your ears!"
"My father!" Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain "you!" He gave a slight shrug. "Such, it appears, is your sad fortune." "A servant!" "And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one must admit." Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer.
"And you will stand by me, I know.... Only there is nothing in that, of course, no justification possible before a court martial. Even your testimony could not save me ... I am done for, utterly...." He hung his head. Lanyard heard whispered words: "degraded," "dishonour," "firing squad".... A chronometer in the central operating compartment tolled eight bells.
On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her that in real life things simply didn't happen like this, so smoothly, so fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be wrong. "Please: what is my father's name?" "Prince Victor Vassilyevski." "You're sure it isn't Michael Lanyard?" Now Mr. Karslake was genuinely startled and showed it.
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.
But the interior arrangement was disconcertingly simple. Lanyard saw no sign of waste space in which such a drawer might be secreted. Unless, to be sure, one of the pigeonholes had a false back.... He began a fresh examination, again emptying each pigeonhole and sounding its rear wall without result till there remained only that in which Blensop had placed the Arden jewels.
They fought for their most deeply-rooted passions, he to kill, Lanyard to live, Dupont to batter Lanyard into conceding a moment of respite in which a weapon might be used, Lanyard to prevent that very thing from happening.
It was late afternoon when Lanyard wakened from sleep so deep and dreamless that nothing could have induced it less potent than sheer systemic exhaustion, at once nervous, muscular and mental. A profound and stifling lethargy benumbed his senses. There was stupor in his brain, and all his limbs ached dully. He opened dazed eyes upon blank darkness. In his ears a vast silence pulsed.
At the same time he dropped a hand into the pocket where nestled his automatic. Fortunately Ekstrom had chosen a table in a corner well removed from any in use. Lanyard could speak without fear of being overheard. But for a moment he refrained.
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