"But today, in fact —— "
"And you haven't troubled to investigate your safe since returning?"
"It had not occurred to me —— "
"Then why not test my statement before denying it?"
With an incredulous shrug Madame Omber terminated a puzzled scrutiny of Lanyard's countenance, and turned to the safe.
"But to have done what you declare you have," she argued, "you must have known the combination — since it appears you haven't broken this open."
The combination ran glibly off Lanyard's tongue. And at this, with every evidence of excitement, at length beginning to hope if not to believe, the woman set herself to open the safe. Within a minute she had succeeded, the morocco-bound jewel-case was in her hand, and a hasty examination had assured her its treasure was intact.
"But why —— ?" she stammered, pale with emotion — "why, monsieur, why?"
"Because I decided to leave off stealing for a livelihood."
"When did you bring these jewels here?"
"Within the week — four or five nights since —— "
"And then — repented, eh?"
"I own it."
"But came here again tonight, to steal a second time what you had stolen once?"
"That's true, too."
"And I interrupted you —— "
"Pardon, madame: not you, but my better self. I came to steal — I could not."
"Monsieur — you do not convince. I fail to fathom your motives, but —— "
A sudden shock of heavy trampling feet in the reception-hall, accompanied by a clash of excited voices, silenced her and brought Lanyard instantly to the face-about.
Above that loud wrangle — of which neither had received the least warning, so completely had their argument absorbed them — Sidonie's accents were audible:
"Madame — madame!" — a cry of protest.
"What is it?" madame demanded of Lanyard.
He threw her the word "Police!" as he turned and flung himself into the recess of the window.
But when he wrenched it open the voice of a picket on the lawn saluted him in sharp warning; and when, involuntarily, he stepped out upon the balcony, a flash of flame split the gloom below, a loud report rang in the quiet of the park, and a bullet slapped viciously the stone facing of the window.
XXIV
RENDEZVOUS
With as little ceremony as though the bullet had lodged in himself, Lanyard tumbled back into the room, tripped, and fell sprawling; while to a tune of clattering boots two sergents de ville lumbered valiantly into the library and pulled up to discover Madame Omber standing calmly, safe and sound, beside her desk, and Lanyard picking himself up from the floor by the open window.
Behind them Sidonie trotted, wringing her hands.
"Madame!" she bleated — "they wouldn't listen to me, madame — I couldn't stop them!"
"All right, Sidonie. Go back to the hall. I'll call you when needed….
Messieurs, good morning!"
One of the sergents advanced with an uncertain salute and a superfluous question: "Madame Omber —— ?" The other waited on the threshold, barring the way.
Lanyard measured the two speculatively: the spokesman seemed a bit old and fat, ripe for his pension, little apt to prove seriously effective in a rough-and-tumble; but the other was young, sturdy, and broad-chested, with the poise of an athlete, and carried in addition to his sword a pistol naked in his hand, while his clear blue eyes, meeting the adventurer's, lighted up with a glint of invitation.
For the present, however, Lanyard wasn't taking any. He met that challenge with a look of utter stupidity, folded his arms, lounged against the desk, and watched Madame Omber acknowledge, none too cordially, the other sergent's query.
"I am Madame Omber — yes. What can I do for you?"
The sergent gaped. "Pardon!" he stammered, then laughed as one who tardily appreciates a joke. "It is well we are arrived in time, madame," he added — "though it would seem you have not had great trouble with this miscreant. Where is the woman?"
He moved a pace toward Lanyard: hand-cuffs jingled in his grasp.
"But a moment!" madame interposed. "Woman? What woman?"
Pausing, the older sergent explained in a tone of surprise:
"But his accomplice, naturally! Such were our instructions — to proceed at once to madame's hôtel, come in quietly by the servants' entrance — which would be open — and arrest a burglar with his female accomplice."
Again the stout sergent moved toward Lanyard; again Madame Omber stopped him.
"But one moment more, if you please!"
Her eyes, dense with suspicion, questioned Lanyard; who, with a significant nod toward the jewel-case still in her hands, gave her a glance of dumb entreaty.
After brief hesitation, "It is a mistake," madame declared; "there is no woman in this house, to my certain knowledge, who has no right to be here… But you say you received a message? I sent none!"
The fat sergent shrugged. "That is not for me to dispute, madame. I have only my orders to go by."
He glared sullenly at Lanyard; who returned a placid smile that (despite such hope as he might derive from madame's irresolute manner) masked a vast amount of trepidation. He felt tolerably sure Madame Omber had not sent for police on prior knowledge of his presence in the library. All this, then, would seem to indicate a new form of attack on the part of the Pack. He had probably been followed and seen to enter; or else the girl had been caught attempting to steal away and the information wrung from her by force majeure…. Moreover, he could hear two more pair of feet tramping through the salons.
Pending the arrival of these last, Madame Omber said nothing more.
And, unceremoniously enough, the newcomers shouldered into the library — one pompous uniformed body, of otherwise undistinguished appearance, promptly identified by the sergents de ville as monsieur le commissaire of that quarter; the other, a puffy mediocrity, known to Lanyard at least (if apparently to no one else) as Popinot.
At this confirmation of his darkest fears, the adventurer abandoned hope of aid from Madame Omber and began quietly to reckon his chances of escape through his own efforts.
But he was quite unarmed, and the odds were heavy: four against one, all four no doubt under arms, and two at least — the sergents — men of sound military training.
"Madame Omber?" enquired the commissaire, saluting that lady with immense dignity. "One trusts that this intrusion may be pardoned, the circumstances remembered. In an affair of this nature, involving this repository of so historic treasures — "
"That is quite well understood, monsieur le commissaire," madame replied distantly. "And this monsieur is, no doubt, your aide?"
"Pardon!" the official hastened to identify his companion: "Monsieur Popinot, agent de la Sûreté, who lays these informations!"
With a profound obeisance to Madame Omber, Popinot strode dramatically over to confront Lanyard and explore his features with his small, keen, shifty eyes of a pig; a scrutiny which the adventurer suffered with superficial calm.
"It is he!" Popinot announced