With this accomplished--and the facts established through discreet interrogation of madame la concierge that no enquiries had been made for "Pierre Lamier," and that she had noticed no strange or otherwise questionable characters loitering in the neighbourhood of late--he was ready for his first real step toward rehabilitation....

It was past one in the morning when, with the girl on his arm, he issued forth into the dark and drowsy rue des Acacias and, moving swiftly, crossed the avenue de la Grande Armee. Thereafter, avoiding main-travelled highways, they struck southward through tangled side streets to aristocratic Pa.s.sy, skirted the boulevards of the fortifications, and approached the private park of La Muette.

The hotel particulier of that wealthy and amiable eccentric, Madame Helene Omber, was a souvenir of those days when Pa.s.sy had been suburban. A survival of the Revolution, a vast, dour pile that had known few changes since the days of its construction, it occupied a large, unkempt park, irregularly triangular in shape, bounded by two streets and an avenue, and rendered private by high walls crowned with broken gla.s.s. Carriage gates opened on the avenue, guarded by a porter's lodge; while of three posterns that pierced the walls on the side streets, one only was in general use by the servants of the establishment; the other two were presumed to be permanently sealed.

Lanyard, however, knew better.

When they had turned off from the avenue, he slackened pace and moved at caution, examining the prospect narrowly.

On the one hand rose the wall of the park, topped by naked, soughing limbs of neglected trees; on the other, across the way, a block of tall old dwellings, withdrawn behind jealous garden walls, showed stupid, sleepy faces and lightless eyes.

Within the perspective of the street but three shapes stirred; Lanyard and the girl in the shadow of the wall, and a disconsolate, misprized cat that promptly decamped like a terror-stricken ghost.

Overhead the sky was breaking and showing ebon patches and infrequent stars through a wind-harried wrack of cloud. The night had grown sensibly colder, and noisy with the rushing sweep of a new-sprung wind.

Several yards from the postern-gate, Lanyard paused definitely, and spoke for the first time in many minutes; for the nature of their errand had oppressed the spirits of both and enjoined an unnatural silence, ever since their departure from the rue des Acacias.

"This is where we stop," he said, with a jerk of his head toward the wall; "but it's not too late--"

"For what?" the girl asked quickly.

"I promised you no danger; but now I've thought it over, I can't promise that: there's always danger. And I'm afraid for you. It's not yet too late for you to turn back and wait for me in a safer place."

"You asked me to accompany you for a special purpose," she argued; "you begged me to come with you, in fact.... Now that I have agreed and come this far, I don't mean to turn back without good reason."

His gesture indicated uneasy acquiescence. "I should never have asked this of you. I think I must have been a little mad. If anything should come of this to injure you...!"

"If you mean to do what you promised--"

"Do you doubt my sincerity?"

"It was your own suggestion that you leave me no excuse for doubt..."

Without further remonstrance, if with a mind beset with misgivings, he led on to the gate--a blank door of wood, painted a dark green, deeply recessed in the wall.

In proof of his a.s.sertion that he had long since made every preparation to attack the premises, Lanyard had a key ready and in the lock almost before they reached it.

And the door swung back easily and noiselessly as though on well-greased hinges. As silently it shut them in.

They stood upon a weed-grown gravel path, hedged about with thick ma.s.ses of shrubbery; but the park was as black as a pocket; and the heavy effluvia of wet mould, decaying weeds and rotting leaves that choked the air, seemed only to render the murk still more opaque.

But Lanyard evidently knew his way blindfold: though motives of prudence made him refrain from using his flash-lamp, he betrayed not the least incert.i.tude in his actions.

Never once at loss for the right turning, he piloted the girl swiftly through a bewildering black labyrinth of paths, lawns and thickets....

In due course he pulled up, and she discovered that they had come out upon a clear s.p.a.ce of lawn, close beside the featureless, looming bulk of a dark and silent building.

An admonitory grasp tightened upon her fingers, and she caught his singularly penetrating yet guarded whisper:

"This is the back of the house--the service-entrance. From this door a broad path runs straight to the main service gateway; you can't mistake it; and the gate itself has a spring lock, easy enough to open from the inside. Remember this in event of trouble. We might become separated in the darkness and confusion...."

Gently returning the pressure, "I understand," she said in a whisper.

Immediately he drew her on to the house, pausing but momentarily before a wide doorway; one half of which promptly swung open, and as soon as they had pa.s.sed through, closed with no perceptible jar or click. And then Lanyard's flash-lamp was lancing the gloom on every hand, swiftly raking the bounds of a large, panelled servants' hall, until it picked out the foot of a flight of steps at the farther end. To this they moved stealthily over a tiled flooring.

The ascent of the staircase was accomplished, however, only with infinite care, Lanyard testing each rise before trusting it with his weight or the girl's. Twice he bade her skip one step lest the complaints of the ancient woodwork betray them. In spite of all this, no less than three hideous squeals were evoked before they gained the top; each indicating a pause and wait of several breathless seconds.

But it would seem that such servants as had been left in the house, in the absence of its chatelaine, either slept soundly or were accustomed to the midnight concert of those age-old timbers; and without mischance, at length, they entered the main reception-hall, revealed by the dancing spot-light as a room of n.o.ble proportions furnished with sombre magnificence.

Here the girl was left alone for a few minutes, while Lanyard darted above-stairs for a review of the state bedchambers and servants'

quarters.

With a sensation of being crushed and suffocated by the encompa.s.sing dark mystery, she nerved herself against a protracted vigil. The obscurity on every hand seemed alive with stealthy footfalls, whisperings, murmurings, the pa.s.sage of shrouded shapes of silence and of menace. Her eyes ached, her throat and temples throbbed, her skin crept, her scalp tingled. She seemed to hear a thousand different noises of alarm. The only sounds she did not hear were those--if any--that accompanied Lanyard's departure and return. Had he not been thoughtful enough, when a few feet distant, to give warning with the light, she might well have greeted with a cry of fright the consciousness of a presence near her: so silently he moved about. As it was, she was startled, apprehensive of some misadventure, to find him back so soon; for he hadn't been gone three minutes.

"It's quite all right," he announced in hushed accents--no longer whispering. "There are just five people in the house aside from ourselves--all servants, asleep in the rear wing. We've got a clear field--if no excuse for taking foolish chances! However, we'll be finished and off again in less than ten minutes. This way."

That way led to a huge and gloomy library at one extreme of a chain of great salons, a veritable treasure-gallery of exquisite furnishings and authentic old masters. As they moved slowly through these chambers Lanyard kept his flash-lamp busy; involuntarily, now and again, he checked the girl before some splendid canvas or extraordinary antique.

"I've always meant to happen in some day with a moving-van and loot this place properly!" he confessed with a little affected sigh.

"Considered from the viewpoint of an expert pract.i.tioner in my--ah--late profession, it's a sin and a shame to let all this go neglected, when it's so poorly guarded. The old lady--Madame Omber, you know--has all the money there is, approximately, and when she dies all these beautiful things go to the Louvre; for she's without kith or kin."

"But how did she manage to acc.u.mulate them all?" the girl wondered.

"It's the work of generations of pa.s.sionate collectors," he explained.

"The late Monsieur Omber was the last of his dynasty; he and his forebears brought together the paintings and the furniture; madame added the Orientals gathered together by her first husband, and her own collection of antique jewellery and precious stones--_her_ particular fad...."

As he spoke the light of the flash-lamp was blotted out. An instant later the girl heard a little clashing noise, of curtain rings sliding along a pole; and this was thrice repeated.

Then, following another brief pause, a switch clicked; and streaming from the hood of a portable desk-lamp, a pool of light flooded the heart of a vast place of shadows, an apartment whose doors and windows alike were cloaked with heavy draperies that hung from floor to ceiling in long and shining folds. Immense black bookcases lined the walls, their shelves crowded with volumes in rich bindings; from their tops pallid marble masks peered down inquisitively, leering and scowling at the intruders. A huge mantelpiece of carved marble, supporting a great, dark mirror, occupied the best of one wall, beneath it a wide, deep fireplace yawned, partly shielded by a screen of wrought bra.s.s and crystal. In the middle of the room stood a library table of mahogany; huge leather chairs and couches enc.u.mbered the remainder of its s.p.a.ce.

And the corner to the right of the fireplace was shut off by a high j.a.panese screen of cinnabar and gold.

To this Lanyard moved confidently, carrying the lamp. Placing it on the floor, he grasped one wing of the screen with both hands, and at cost of considerable effort swung it aside, uncovering the face of a huge, old-style safe built into the wall.

For several seconds--but not for many--Lanyard studied this problem intently, standing quite motionless, his head lowered and thrust forward, hands resting on his hips. Then turning, he nodded an invitation to draw nearer.

"My last job," he said with a smile oddly lighted by the lamp at his feet--"and my easiest, I fancy. Sorry, too, for I'd rather have liked to show off a bit. But this old-fashioned tin bank gives no excuse for spectacular methods!"

"But," the girl objected, "You've brought no tools!"

"Oh, but I have!" And fumbling in a pocket, Lanyard produced a pencil.

"Behold!" he laughed, brandishing it.

She knitted thoughtful brows: "I don't understand."

"All I need--except this."

Crossing to the desk, he found a sheet of note-paper and, folding it, returned.

"Now," he said, "give me five minutes...."