That was too much.
His temper was grim and skeptical. The resentment roused by the trap that
had so nearly laid him by the heels, together with the subsequent effort to
assassinate him out of hand, had settled into a phase of smouldering fury
whose heat consumed like misty vapours every lesser emotion, every humane
consideration.
Some by-thought recalling the Weringrode's innuendo that he was in love
without his knowledge, moved him to laugh outright if strangely, an
unpleasant laugh that held as much of pain as of derision.
What room in that dark heart of his for love?... the heart of a thief and a
potential assassin, the heart of the Lone Wolf!...
How was he to know he had hardly left his lodgings before their hush was
interrupted by the grumble of the house telephone?
Intermittently for upward of three minutes that sound persisted. When
at length it discontinued the quiet of the untenanted rooms reigned
undisturbed for a brief time only.
An odd metallic stridor became audible, a succession of scrapings of
stealthy accent at the private entrance.
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