"I insist: there will be trust on both sides or no negotiations."

"But I a.s.sure you, my dear friend--"

"My dear Count, it is useless: I am determined. Blindfold? I should say not! This is not--need I remind you again?--the Paris of Balzac and that wonderful Dumas of yours!"

"What do you propose, then?" De Morbihan enquired, worrying his moustache.

"What better place for the proposed conference than here?"

"But not here!"

"Why not? Everybody comes here: it will cause no gossip. I am here--I have come half-way; your friends must do as much on their part."

"It is not possible...."

"Then, I beg you, tender them my regrets."

"Would you give us away?"

"Never that: one makes gifts to one's friends only. But my interest in yours is depreciating so rapidly that, should you delay much longer, it will be on sale for the sum of two sous."

"O--d.a.m.n!" the Count complained peevishly.

"With all the pleasure in life.... But now," Lanyard went on, rising to end the interview, "you must forgive me for reminding you that the morning wanes apace. I shall be going home in another hour."

De Morbihan shrugged. "Out of my great affection for you," he purred venomously, "I will do my possible. But I promise nothing."

"I have every confidence in your powers of moral suasion, monsieur,"

Lanyard a.s.sured him cheerfully. "Au revoir!"

And with this, not at all ill-pleased with himself, he strutted off to a table at which a high-strung session of chemin-de-fer was in process, possessed himself of a vacant chair, and in two minutes was so engrossed in the game that the Pack was quite forgotten.

In fifteen minutes he had won thrice as many thousands of francs.

Twenty minutes or half an hour later, a hand on his shoulder broke the grip of his besetting pa.s.sion.

"Our table is made up, my friend," De Morbihan announced with his inextinguishable grin. "We're waiting for you."

"Quite at your service."

Settling his score and finding himself considerably better off than he had imagined, he resigned his place gracefully, and suffered the Count to link arms and drag him away up the main staircase to the second storey, where smaller rooms were reserved for parties who preferred to gamble privately.

"So it appears you succeeded!" he chaffed his conductor good-humouredly.

"I have brought you the mountain," De Morbihan a.s.sented.

"One is grateful for small miracles...."

But De Morbihan wouldn't laugh at his own expense; for a moment, indeed, he seemed inclined to take umbrage at Lanyard's levity. But the sudden squaring of his broad shoulders and the hardening of his features was quickly modified by an uneasy sidelong glance at his companion. And then they were at the door of the cabinet particulier.

De Morbihan rapped, turned the k.n.o.b, and stood aside, bowing politely.

With a nod acknowledging the courtesy, Lanyard consented to precede him, and entered a room of intimate proportions, furnished chiefly with a green-covered card-table and five easy-chairs, of which three were occupied--two by men in evening dress, the third by one in a well-tailored lounge suit of dark grey.

Now all three men wore visors of black velvet.

Lanyard looked from one to the other and chuckled quietly.

With an aggrieved air De Morbihan launched into introductions:

"Messieurs, I have the honour to present to you our confrere, Monsieur Lanyard, best known as 'The Lone Wolf.' Monsieur Lanyard--the Council of our a.s.sociation, known to you as 'The Pack.'"

The three rose and bowed ceremoniously, Lanyard returned a cool, good-natured nod. Then he laughed again and more openly:

"A pack of knaves!"

"Monsieur doubtless feels at ease?" one retorted acidly.

"In your company, Popinot? But hardly!" Lanyard returned in light contempt.

The fellow thus indicated, a burly rogue of a Frenchman in rusty and baggy evening clothes, started and flushed scarlet beneath his mask; but the man next him dropped a restraining hand upon his arm, and Popinot, with a shrug, sank back into his chair.

"Upon my word!" Lanyard declared gracelessly, "it's as good as a play!

Are you sure, Monsieur le Comte, there's no mistake--that these gay masqueraders haven't lost their way to the stage of the Grand Guignol?"

"d.a.m.n!" muttered the Count. "Take care, my friend! You go too far!"

"You really think so? But you amaze me! You can't in reason expect me to take you seriously, gentlemen!"

"If you don't, it will prove serious business for you!" growled the one he had called Popinot.

"You mean that? But you are magnificent, all of you! We lack only the solitary illumination of a candle-end--a grinning skull--a cup of blood upon the table--to make the farce complete! But as it is.... Messieurs, you must be rarely uncomfortable, and feeling as foolish as you look, into the bargain! Moreover, I'm no child. ... Popinot, why not disembarra.s.s your amiable features? And you, Mr. Wertheimer, I'm sure, will feel more at ease with an open countenance--as the saying runs,"

he said, nodding to the man beside Popinot. "As for this gentleman," he concluded, eyeing the third, "I haven't the pleasure of his acquaintance."

With a short laugh, Wertheimer unmasked and exposed a face of decidedly English type, fair and well-modelled, betraying only the faintest traces of Semitic cast to account for his surname. And with this example, Popinot s.n.a.t.c.hed off his own black visor--and glared at Lanyard: in his shabby dress, the incarnate essence of bourgeoisie outraged. But the third, he of the grey lounge suit, remained motionless; only his eyes clashed coldly with the adventurer's.

He seemed a man little if at all Lanyard's senior, and built upon much the same lines. A close-clipped black moustache ornamented his upper lip. His chin was square and strong with character. The cut of his clothing was conspicuously neither English nor Continental.

"I don't know you, sir," Lanyard continued slowly, puzzled to account for a feeling of familiarity with this person, whom he could have sworn he had never met before.

"But you won't let your friends here outdo you in civility, I trust?"

"If you mean you want me to unmask, I won't," the other returned brusquely, in fair French but with a decided transatlantic intonation.

"American, eh?"

"Native-born, if it interests you."

"Have I ever met you before?"