"Now there is where you can instruct me. I have been long in exile."
"But you know how Liane graduated from the chorus of the Varietes, became first a princ.i.p.al there, then the rage of all the music halls with her way of singing rhymed indecencies."
"One has heard something of that."
"On the peak of her success she retired, saying she had worked long enough, made enough money. That, too, knows itself. But Liane retired only from the stage... You understand?"
"Perfectly."
"She continued to make many dear friends, some of them among the greatest personages of Europe. So that gradually she became what she is to-day," Athenais Reneaux p.r.o.nounced soberly: "as I think, the most dangerous woman on the Continent."
"How--"dangerous"?"
"Covetous, grasping, utterly unscrupulous and corrupt, and weirdly powerful. She has a strange influence in the highest places."
"Blackmail?"
"G.o.d knows! It was, at all events, strong enough to save her from being shot during the war. I was a.s.signed to watch her then. There was a suspicion in England that she was in communication with the enemy. I found it to be quite true. She knew Bolo Pasha intimately, Caillaux, too. Other women, many of them, fled the country, or went to St. Lazare for the duration of the war, or faced firing squads at dawn for doing infinitely less than she did to betray France and her Allies; but Liane Delorme got off scot-free. I happen to know that England made the strongest representations to the French government about her. I know personally of two young French officers who had been on friendly terms with Liane, and who shot themselves, one dramatically on her very doorstep. And why did they do that, if not in remorse for betraying to her secrets which afterwards somehow found their way to the enemy?...
But nothing was ever done about it, she was never in the least molested, and nightly you might see her at Maxim"s or L"Abbaye, making love to officers, while at the Front men were being slaughtered by the hundreds, thanks to her treachery.... Ah, monsieur, I tell you I know that woman too well!"
The girl"s voice quavered with indignation.
"So that was how you came to know her," Lanyard commented as if he had found nothing else of interest. "I wondered..."
"Yes: we were bosom friends--almost--for a time. It wasn"t nice, but the job had to be done. Then Liane grew suspicious, and our friendship cooled. One night I had a narrow escape from some Apaches. I recognised Liane"s hand in that. She was afraid I knew something. So I did. But she didn"t dream how much I knew. If she had there would have been a second attempt of that sort minus the escape. Then the armistice came to cool our pa.s.sions, and Liane found other things to think about ...
G.o.d knows what other mischief to do in time of peace!"
"I think," Lanyard suggested, recalling that conversation in the grand salon of the Chateau de Montalais, "you had better look to yourself, Athenais, as far as Liane is concerned, after to-night. She only needed to see you with me to have confirmed any suspicions she may previously have had concerning your relations with the B. S. S."
"I will remember that," the girl said calmly. "Many thanks, dear friend.... But what is it you are doing all the time? What is it you see?"
As the hansom swung round the dark pile of the Trinite, Lanyard had for the third time twisted round in his seat, to peep back up the rue Pigalle through the little window in the rear.
"As I thought!" He let the leather flap fall over the peep-hole and sat back. "Liane doesn"t trust me," he sighed, disconsolate.
"We are followed?"
"By a motor-car of some sort, creeping along without lights, probably one of the private cars that were waiting when we came out."
"I have a pistol, if you need one," Athenais offered, matter-of-fact.
"Then you were more sensible than I."
Lanyard held a thoughtful silence for some minutes, while the cab jogged sedately down the rue St. Lazare, then had another look back through the little window.
"No mistake about that," he reported; and bending forward began to peer intently right and left into the dark throats of several minor streets they pa.s.sed after leaving the Hotel Terminus behind and heading down the rue de la Pepiniere. "The deuce of it is," he complained, "this inhuman loneliness! If there were only something like a crowd in the streets as there must have been earlier in the evening..."
"What are you thinking of, monsieur?"
"But naturally of ridding you of an embarra.s.sing and perhaps dangerous companion."
"If you mean you"re planning to jump down and run for it," Athenais replied, "you"re a fool. You"ll not get far with a motor car pursuing you and sergents de ville abnormally on the qui vive because the crime wave that followed demobilisation as yet shows no signs of subsiding."
"But, mademoiselle, it makes me so unhappy to have any shadow but my own."
"Then rest tranquil here with me. It isn"t much farther to my apartment."
"Possibly it would be better to drop you there first--"
"Nothing of the sort; but positively the contrary."
"My dear child! if I were to do as you wish they would think--"
"My dear Paul, I don"t give a d.a.m.n what they think. Remember I am specially charged with the preservation of your life while in Paris.
Besides, my apartment is the most discreet little rez-de-chaussee one could wish. There is more than one way in and out. And once they think you are placed for the night, it"s more than likely they won"t even set a watch, but will trot off to report. Then you can slip away when you will...." He stared, knowing a moment of doubt to which a hard little laugh put a period.
"Oh, you needn"t be so thoughtful of my reputation! If this were the worst that could be said of me--"
Lanyard laughed in turn, quietly tolerant, and squeezed her hand again.
"You are a dear," he said, "but you need to be a far better actress to deceive me about such matters."
"Don"t be stupid!" her sulky voice retorted.
"I"m not."
He bent forward again, folding his arms on the ledge of the ap.r.o.n, studying the streets and consulting an astonishingly accurate mental map of Paris which more than once had stood him in good stead in other times.
After a little the girl"s hand crept along his arm, took possession of his hand and used it as a lever to swing him back to face her.
In the stronger lighting of the Boulevard Haussmann her face seemed oddly childlike, oddly luminous with appeal.
"Please, pet.i.t Monsieur Paul! I ask it of you, I wish it.... To please me?"
"O Lord!" Lanyard sighed--"how is one to resist when you plead so prettily to be compromised?"
"Since that"s settled"--of a sudden the imploring child was replaced by self-possessed Mademoiselle Athenais Reneaux--"you may have your hand back again. I a.s.sure you I have no more use for it."
The hansom turned off the boulevard, affording Lanyard an opportunity to look back through the side window.
"Still on the trail," he announced. "But they"ve got the lights on now."
With a profound sigh from the heart the horse stopped in front of a corner apartment building and later, with a groan almost human, responded to the whip and jingled the hansom away, leaving Lanyard the poorer by the exorbitant fare he had promised and something more.
Athenais was already at the main entrance, ringing for the concierge.
Lanyard hastened to join her, but before he could cross the sidewalk a motor-car poked its nose round the corner of the Boulevard Haussmann, a short block away, and bore swiftly their way, seeming to search the street suspiciously with its blank, lidless eyes of glare.
"Peste!" breathed the girl. "I have a private entrance and my own key.