Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1916-03-09

the Circle of Friends of Harmony
+ solely to detain him, afford Smith time
to finish his hideous job, and set the
trap for the second victim
And the plot had succeeded despite
| its partial failure, despite the swift
reverse chance and Lanyard's cunning
had meted out TO the Packs agent
In was his dressing gown that was
saturated with Roddy's blood, just as
those were his gloves. pilfered from
his luggage. which had measurably
protected the killers hands, ard which
Lanyard had found in the next room,
stripped hastily of and thrown to the
floor, twin crumpled wads of blood
stained chamois skin.
He had now little choice; he must
either fee Paris and rely on his wits
to save him, or else seek De Morbihan
and trust to his protection, to his in
fuence III high .uarters.
But to give himself into the hands,
to become an associate of one who
/ could be party to SO cowardly a crime
as this-Lanyard told himself be
would sooner pay the guillotine the
penalty.
! Consulting his watch, he found the
hour to be no later than half past four,
so swiftly-truly treading upon @
another's heels-events had
since the adventure of the somnam.
list
loft ct J, go
two hours more of darkness-Novem-
Der nights are long and black in
Paris; it would hardly be even mod
erately light before seven O'Clock. But
that was respite none too long for
| Lanyards necessity-he must think
swiftly in contemplation of instant &C.
ton were he to eXtricate himself with
out the Packs knowledge and consent
Granted, then, that he must fly this
stricken field Of Paris. But how? De
| Morbihan had promised that Popinot' s
creatures would guard every outlet;
and Lanyard didn't doubt him An at
tempt to escape the city by any nor
nal channel would be to invite one of
two DISCRIMINATION to the police
on the charge of murder or one of
those fatally expeditions forms of as
sassinatiOn of which the Apaches are
past masters.
He must and would find another
way: but his decision was frightfully
hampered by lack of ready money, the
! few odd francs in his pocket were no
store for the war chest demanded by
this emergency.
True, he had the Omber jewels; but
they were not egotlable-not, at
least, in Paris.
And the Iiuysman plaus?
He pondered briefly the possibilities
of the Huysman plans.
IN his fTetting, pacing softly to and
| fro, at each turn he passed his dress
ing table, and CHANGING once to OBJ
serve himself in the mirror, he
stopped short, thunderstruck by some
thing he thought to detect in that
counterfeit presentment of his coun-
tenance, heavy with fatigue as it was,
and haggard with contemplation Of
this appalling cOntretemps.
the American, studying narrowly the
contours Of that Iivid mask Here,
then, was that resemblance that had
! baffied him; and now that he saw it
he could not deny that it was unhat-
! teringly close-feature for feature the
face Of the murderer reproduced his
| face; cOarsened, perhaps, but recog-
nizably a replica of that Michael Lam
yard who confronted him every morn
| ing in his shaving glass, almost the
only difference residing in the scrubby
| black mustache that Swallowed the
Americans upper lip.
After all, nothing wonderful in this;
| Lanyard's type was not uncommon;
he would never have thought himself
a distinguished figure
Before rising he turned out the
! pockets Of this casual double. But
| this prOfted him little-quite evident
ly the assassin had dressed for action
with forethought to evade recognition
in event Of accident. Lanyard collect
| ed only a cheap American watch in
| ''rolled-gold" case, of sort manufac-
tured by wholesale, a common key
| that might fit any hotel door, broken
aaper Of Reggie cigarettes, an auto
matte pistol, few francs in silver
nothing whatever that would serve as
a mark Of identification; for, though
the gray lounge suit was tailor made.
the tailor's labels had been ripped out
of its pockets. while the mans linen
and underwear alike lacked even a
laundry's hieroglyphic
With this harvest of nothing for his
pains Lanyard turned again to the
Washstand and his shaving kit, mixed
stiff lather, stropped another razor
to the finest edge he could manage,
fetched a pair Of keen scissors from
his dressing case, and went back to
the murderer
He worked rapidly, at a high pitch
of eXcitement-as much through sheer
desperation as through any appeal in
herent in his scheme, either to his
common sense or to his romantic bent
In two minutes he had stripped the
mustache clean away from that stu
pid, faccid mask.
Unquestionably the resemblance was
now most striking; the American
would readily pass for Michael Ian
yard
This much accomplished, he pursued
n Ic IN 5-l, Tn