ALIAS

THE LONE WOLF

BY

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

1921

TO
ROBERT AITKEN SWAN
WHOSE FRIENDSHIP I HAVE TRIED
IN MANY OTHER WAYS, THIS
YARN WITH DIFFIDENCE IS
DEDICATED

NOTE: This is the fourth of the Lone Wolf stories. Its predecessors were, in chronological sequence, "The Lone Wolf," "The False Faces," "Red Masquerade."

Each story, however, is entirely self-contained and independent of the others.

If it matters....

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

Westport--9 September, 1921.

Contents

I WALKING PAPERS

II ONE WALKS

III MEETING BY MOONLIGHT

IV EVE

V PHINUIT & CO

VI VISITATION

VII TURN ABOUT

VIII IN RE AMOR ET AL

IX BLIND MAN'S BUFF

X BUT AS A MUSTARD SEED

XI AU REVOIR

XII TRAVELS WITH AN ASSASSIN

XIII ATHENAIS

XIV DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

XV ADIEU

XVI THE HOUSE OF LILITH

XVII CHEZ LIANE

XVIII BROTHER AND SISTER

XIX SIX BOTTLES OF CHAMPAGNE

XX THE SYBARITES

XXI SOUNDINGS

XXII OUT OF SOUNDINGS

XXIII THE CIGARETTE

XXIV HISTORIC REPETITION

XXV THE MALCONTENT

XXVI THE BINNACLE

XXVII ÇA VA BIEN!

XXVIII FINALE

ALIAS

THE LONE WOLF

I

WALKING PAPERS

Through the suave, warm radiance of that afternoon of Spring in England a gentleman of modest and commonly amiable deportment bore a rueful countenance down Piccadilly and into Halfmoon street, where presently he introduced it to one whom he found awaiting him in his lodgings, much at ease in his easiest chair, making free with his whiskey and tobacco, and reading a slender brown volume selected from his shelves.

This dégagé person was patently an Englishman, though there were traces of Oriental ancestry in his cast. The other, he of the doleful habit, was as unmistakably of Gallic pattern, though he dressed and carried himself in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon fashion, and even seemed a trace intrigued when greeted by a name distinctively French.

For the Englishman, rousing from his appropriated ease, dropped his book to the floor beside the chair, uprose and extended a cordial hand, exclaiming: "H'are ye, Monsieur Duchemin?"

To this the other responded, after a slight pause, obscurely enough: "Oh! ancient history, eh? Well, for the matter of that: How are you, Mister Wertheimer?"

Their hands fell apart, and Monsieur Duchemin proceeded to do away his hat and stick and chamois gloves; while his friend, straddling in front of a cold grate and extending his hands to an imaginary blaze, covered with a mild complaint the curiosity excited by a brief study of that face of melancholy.

"Pretty way you've got of making your friends wait on your pleasure. Here I've wasted upwards of two hours of His Majesty's time..."

"How was I to know you'd have the cheek to force your way in here in my absence and help yourself to my few poor consolations?" Duchemin retorted, helping himself to them in turn. "But then one never does know what fresh indignity Fate has in store..."

"After you with that whiskey, by your leave. I say: I'd give something to know where you ignorant furriners come by this precious pre-War stuff." But without waiting to be denied this information, Mr. Wertheimer