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The voice, when at length it resumed, was bitter. "But Michael Lanyard was my enemy ... and is to-day.... He became a lover of Sofia's mother, he had a hand in overturning plans I had made, he humiliated, mocked me.... And to-day he is interfering again.... But ..." Victor sank back in his chair. Suddenly that unholy grin of his flashed and faded.
Lanyard made sure of the readiness of his automatic, strode into the room, and shut the door quietly but by no means soundlessly. He had left the shades down and the hangings drawn at both windows; and since these had not been disturbed, something nearly approaching complete darkness reigned in the room.
There was murder in the eyes of the spy as he lingered, truculently glowering at the smiling adventurer; and for an instant Lanyard was well-persuaded he had gone too far, that even there, even on that busy junction of two crowded thoroughfares, Ekstrom would let his temper get the better of his judgment and risk everything in an attempt upon the life of his despoiler. But he was mistaken.
"I prefer one thing at a time." "Unfortunate ... don't know what is good ... King's peg ... wonderful drink. No matter. To 'new commander prosit!" He drained his cup at a gulp. "To the new commander!" Lanyard echoed, and drank judiciously. "Excellent.... How long can he last, do you think, at this pace?" "No telling not long too long for my liking. Shall I tell 'something?"
But here, as our guest !" "More than that," said Liane with her most killing glance for Lanyard: "a dear friend." But Lanyard was not to be put off by fair words and flattery. "No," he said gravely: "but there is some deeper motive..." He sought Phinuit's eyes, and Phinuit unexpectedly gave him an open-faced return. "There is," he stated frankly. "Then why not tell me ?" "All in good time.
It might save time if you would give me their names." "Now it is you who ask me to risk losing an enjoyable evening. But so be it. Le Comte de Lorgnes?" Mademoiselle Reneaux looked blank. "Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes?" The young woman shook her head. "Both of a class sure to be conspicuous in such places as Maxim's," Lanyard explained. "The names, then, are probably fictitious."
And this one in turn looked Lanyard up and down but, detecting in him not the remotest flavour of reminiscence, returned divided attention to a soup and the door of the restaurant, which he was watching just as closely and impatiently as Dupont, outside, was watching the main entrance, and apparently with as little reward for his pains.
Continually the air buffeted their faces like a flood of icy water. Below, the scroll of the world unrolled like some vast and intricately illuminated missal, or like some strange mosaic, marvellously minute.... Lanyard could see the dial of the compass, fixed to a strut on the pilot's left. By that telltale their course lay nearly due northeast.
As for Crane, his cool gray, humorous eyes, half-hooded with their heavy lids, favoured Lanyard with casual regard and never a tremor of interest or surprise; but as he passed his right eye closed deliberately and with a significance not to be ignored. To this Lanyard responded only with a look of blankest amaze.
A luminous lilac twilight vied with the street lamps of Caen when the limousine rolled through the city at moderate speed. Lanyard utilized this occasion to confer with Jules through the window. "Beyond the town," he said, "you will stop just round the first suitable turning, so that we can't be seen before the corner is turned.
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