Enigma explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Identity and Duality

  Lanyard's disguise as Pierre Lamier and his internal conflict between his past as the Lone Wolf and his new life highlight his dual identity.

• Loyalty and Betrayal

  Lanyard feels betrayed by Lucia's apparent return to the Pack, questioning her loyalty and his own motives.

• Crime and Morality

  Lanyard wrestles with the temptation to return to crime, symbolized by the jeweler's safe, versus his commitment to an honest life.

Characters to notice

• Michael Lanyard

  Disguised as Pierre Lamier, Lanyard searches for Lucia, battles despair, and resists the lure of his former life.

• Comte Remy de Morbihan

  Seen by Lanyard on the Boulevards, elegantly flâning, but does not recognize Lanyard in disguise.

• Popinot

  Passed closely by Lanyard but fails to notice him.

• Mr. Wertheimer

  Seen alighting from a limousine at Viel's with Lucia Bannon and De Morbihan.

• Lucia Bannon

  Lanyard spots her with Wertheimer and De Morbihan at Viel's, leading to his bitter disillusionment.

• Ware Bannon

  Seen with the party at Viel's, leaning on De Morbihan's arm.

Key passages

• “He could have sworn they hadn’t been followed either to or from the rue des Acacias; their way had been too long and purposely too roundabout, his vigilance too lively, for any sort of surveillance to have been practised without his remarking some indication thereof, at one time or another.”

  Lanyard was confident that no one had tailed them to or from the rue des Acacias, as their route was deliberately circuitous and he remained alert.

  Lanyard's reasoning about the lack of surveillance reflects his paranoia and expertise.

• “A single step aside from the path he had chosen—and tomorrow night he might dine at the Ritz instead of in some sordid cochers’ cabaret!”

  One wrong move could let him dine at the Ritz tomorrow instead of a cheap cabaret.

  Highlights Lanyard's temptation to abandon his new life for luxury.

• “But his mind was poisoned by this brutal revelation of the wide, deep gulf that yawned between the Lone Wolf of yesterday and Pierre Lamier of today; between Michael Lanyard the debonnaire, the amateur of fine arts and fine clothing, the beau sabreur of gentlemen-cracksmen and that lean, worn, shabby and dispirited animal who had glared back at him from the jeweller’s mirror.”

  Seeing his reflection in the jeweler's mirror, Lanyard was struck by the vast difference between his former elegant self and his current shabby appearance.

  This moment crystallizes Lanyard's crisis of identity and self-loathing.