"Professional jealousy. We're all crooks, all in the same boat, only I won't row to their stroke. I've always played a lone hand successfully; now they insist on coming into the game and sharing my winnings. And I've told them where they could go."
"And because of that, they're willing to —— "
"There's nothing they wouldn't do, Miss Shannon, to bring me to my knees or see me put out of the way, where my operations couldn't hurt their pocketbooks. Well … all I ask is a fighting chance, and they shall have their way!"
Her brows contracted. "I don't understand…. You want a fighting chance — to surrender — to give in to their demands?"
"In a way — yes. I want a fighting chance to do what I'd never in the world get them to credit — give it all up and leave them a free field."
And when still she searched his face with puzzled eyes, he insisted: "I mean it; I want to get away — clear out — chuck the game for good and all!"
A little silence greeted this announcement. Lanyard, at pause near the table, resting a hand on it, bent to the girl's upturned face a grave but candid regard. And the deeps of her eyes that never swerved from his were troubled strangely in his vision. He could by no means account for the light he seemed to see therein, a light that kindled while he watched like a tiny flame, feeble, fearful, vacillant, then as the moments passed steadied and grew stronger but ever leaped and danced; so that he, lost in the wonder of it and forgetful of himself, thought of it as the ardent face of a happy child dancing in the depths of some brown autumnal woodland….
"You," she breathed incredulously — "you mean, you're going to stop — ?"
"I have stopped, Miss Shannon. The Lone Wolf has prowled for the last time. I didn't know it until I woke up, an hour or so ago, but I've turned my last job."
He remarked her hands were small, in keeping with the slightness of her person, but somehow didn't seem so — wore a look of strength and capability, befitting hands trained to a nurse's duties; and saw them each tight-fisted but quivering as they rested on the table, as though their mistress struggled to suppress the manifestation of some emotion as powerful as unfathomable to him.
"But why?" she demanded in bewilderment. "But why do you say that? What can have happened to make you — ?"
"Not fear of that Pack!" he laughed — "not that, I promise you."
"Oh, I know!" she said impatiently — "I know that very well. But still I don't understand…."
"If it won't bore you, I'll try to explain." He drew up his chair and sat down again, facing her across the littered table. "I don't suppose you've ever stopped to consider what an essentially stupid animal a crook must be. Most of them are stupid because they practise clumsily one of the most difficult professions imaginable, and inevitably fail at it, yet persist. They wouldn't think of undertaking a job of civil engineering with no sort of preparation, but they'll tackle a dangerous proposition in burglary without a thought, and pay for failure with years of imprisonment, and once out try it again. That's one kind of criminal — the ninety-nine per-cent class — incurably stupid! There's another class, men whose imagination forewarns them of dangers and whose mental training, technical equipment and sheer manual dexterity enable them to attack a formidable proposition like a modern safe — by way of illustration — and force its secret. They're the successful criminals, like myself — but they're no less stupid, no less failures, than the other ninety-nine in our every hundred, because they never stop to think. It never occurs to them that the same intelligence, applied to any one of the trades they must be masters of, would not only pay them better, but leave them their self-respect and rid them forever of the dread of arrest that haunts us all like the memory of some shameful act…. All of which is much more of a lecture than I meant to inflict upon you, Miss Shannon, and sums up to just this: I've stopped to think…."
With this he stopped for breath as well, and momentarily was silent, his faint, twisted smile testifying to self-consciousness; but presently, seeing that she didn't offer to interrupt, but continued to give him her attention so exclusively that it had the effect of fascination, he stumbled on, at first less confidently. "When I woke up it was as if, without my will, I had been thinking all this out in my sleep. I saw myself for the first time clearly, as I have been ever since I can remember — a crook, thoughtless, vain, rapacious, ruthless, skulking in shadows and thinking myself an amazingly fine fellow because, between coups, I would play the gentleman a bit, venture into the light and swagger in the haunts of the gratin! In my poor, perverted brain I thought there was something fine and thrilling and romantic in the career of a great criminal and myself a wonderful figure — an enemy of society!"
"Why do you say this to me?" she demanded abruptly, out of a phase of profound thoughtfulness.
He lifted an apologetic shoulder. "Because, I fancy, I'm no longer self-sufficient. I was all of that, twenty-four hours ago; but now I'm as lonesome as a lost child in a dark forest. I haven't a friend in the world. I'm like a stray pup, grovelling for sympathy. And you are unfortunate enough to be the only person I can declare myself to. It's going to be a fight — I know that too well! — and without something outside myself to struggle toward, I'll be heavily handicapped. But if …" He faltered, with a look of wistful earnestness. "If I thought that you, perhaps, were a little interested, that I had your faith to respect and cherish … if I dared hope that you'd be glad to know I had won out against odds, it would mean a great deal to me, it might mean my salvation!"
Watching her narrowly, hanging upon her decision with the anxiety of a man proscribed and hoping against hope for pardon, he saw her eyes cloud and shift from his, her lips parted but hesitant; and before she could speak, hastily interposed:
"Please don't say anything yet. First let me demonstrate my sincerity.
So far I've done nothing to persuade you but — talk and talk and talk!
Give me a chance to prove I mean what I say."
"How" — she enunciated only with visible effort and no longer met his appeal with an open countenance — "how can you do that?"
"In the long run, by establishing myself in some honest way of life, however modest; but now, and principally, by making reparation for at least one crime I've committed that's not irreparable."
He caught her quick glance of enquiry, and met it with a confident nod as he placed between them the morocco-bound jewel-case.
"In London, yesterday," he said quietly, "I brought off two big coups. One was deliberate, the other the inspiration of a moment. The one I'd planned for months was the theft of the Omber jewels — here."
He tapped the case and resumed in the same manner: "The other job needs a diagram: Not long ago a Frenchman named Huysman, living in Tours, was mysteriously murdered — a poor inventor, who had starved himself to perfect a stabilizator, an attachment to render aeroplanes practically fool-proof. His final trials created a sensation and he was on the eve of selling his invention to the Government when he was killed and his plans stolen. Circumstantial evidence pointed to an international spy named Ekstrom — Adolph Ekstrom, once Chief of the Aviation Corps of the German Army, cashiered for general blackguardism with a suspicion of treason to boot. However, Ekstrom kept out of sight; and presently the plans turned up in the German War Office. That was a big thing for Germany; already supreme with her dirigibles, the acquisition of the Huysman stabilizator promised her ten years' lead over the world in the field of aeroplanes…. Now yesterday Ekstrom came to the surface in London with those self-same plans to sell to England. Chance threw him my way, and he mistook me for the man he'd expected to meet — Downing Street's secret agent. Well — no matter how — I got the plans from him and brought them over with me, meaning to turn them over to France, to whom by rights they belong."
"Without consideration?" the girl enquired shrewdly.
"Not exactly. I had meant to make no profit of the affair — I'm a bit squeamish about tainted money! — but under present conditions, if France insists on rewarding me with safe conduct out of the country, I shan't refuse