The Black Bag - Louis Joseph Vance (best reads of all time txt) 📗

latter read:

 

“_Kirkwood, Pless, London. Stay where you are no good coming back

everything gone no insurance letter follows vanderlip_.”

 

“When I got the news in Paris,” Kirkwood volunteered, “I tried the banks;

they refused to honor my drafts. I had a little money in hand,—enough

to see me home,—so closed the studio and came across. I’m booked on the

Minneapolis, sailing from Tilbury at daybreak; the boat-train leaves at

eleven-thirty. I had hoped you might be able to dine with me and see me

off.”

 

In silence Brentwick returned the cable message. Then, with a thoughtful

look, “You are sure this is wise?” he queried.

 

“It’s the only thing I can see.”

 

“But your partner says—”

 

“Naturally he thinks that by this time I should have learned to paint well

enough to support myself for a few months, until he can get things running

again. Perhaps I might.” Brentwick supported the presumption with a decided

gesture. “But have I a right to leave Vanderlip to fight it out alone? For

Vanderlip has a wife and kiddies to support; I—”

 

“Your genius!”

 

“My ability, such as it is—and that only. It can wait…. No; this means

simply that I must come down from the clouds, plant my feet on solid earth,

and get to work.”

 

“The sentiment is sound,” admitted Brentwick, “the practice of it, folly.

Have you stopped to think what part a rising young portrait-painter can

contribute toward the rebuilding of a devastated city?”

 

“The painting can wait,” reiterated Kirkwood. “I can work like other men.”

 

“You can do yourself and your genius grave injustice. And I fear me you

will, dear boy. It’s in keeping with your heritage of American obstinacy.

Now if it were a question of money—”

 

“Mr. Brentwick!” Kirkwood protested vehemently. “I’ve ample for my present

needs,” he added.

 

“Of course,” conceded Brentwick with a sigh. “I didn’t really hope you

would avail yourself of our friendship. Now there’s my home in Aspen

Villas…. You have seen it?”

 

“In your absence this afternoon your estimable butler, with commendable

discretion, kept me without the doors,” laughed the young man.

 

“It’s a comfortable home. You would not consent to share it with me

until—?”

 

“You are more than good; but honestly, I must sail to-night. I wanted only

this chance to see you before I left. You’ll dine with me, won’t you?”

 

“If you would stay in London, Philip, we would dine together not once but

many times; as it is, I myself am booked for Munich, to be gone a week,

on business. I have many affairs needing attention between now and the

nine-ten train from Victoria. If you will be my guest at Aspen Villas—”

 

“Please!” begged Kirkwood, with a little laugh of pleasure because of the

other’s insistence. “I only wish I could. Another day—”

 

“Oh, you will make your million in a year, and return scandalously

independent. It’s in your American blood.” Frail white fingers tapped an

arm of the chair as their owner stared gravely into the fire. “I confess I

envy you,” he observed.

 

“The opportunity to make a million in a year?” chuckled Kirkwood.

 

“No. I envy you your Romance.”

 

“The Romance of a Poor Young Man went out of fashion years ago…. No, my

dear friend; my Romance died a natural death half an hour since.”

 

“There spoke Youth—blind, enviable Youth!… On the contrary, you are but

turning the leaves of the first chapter of your Romance, Philip.”

 

“Romance is dead,” contended the young man stubbornly.

 

“Long live the King!” Brentwick laughed quietly, still attentive to the

fire. “Myself when young,” he said softly, “did seek Romance, but never

knew it till its day was done. I’m quite sure that is a poor paraphrase of

something I have read. In age, one’s sight is sharpened—to see Romance in

another’s life, at least. I say I envy you. You have Youth, unconquerable

Youth, and the world before you…. I must go.”

 

He rose stiffly, as though suddenly made conscious of his age. The old eyes

peered more than a trifle wistfully, now, into Kirkwood’s. “You will not

fail to call on me by cable, dear boy, if you need—anything? I ask it as

a favor…. I’m glad you wished to see me before going out of my life. One

learns to value the friendship of Youth, Philip. Good-by, and good luck

attend you.”

 

Alone once more, Kirkwood returned to his window. The disappointment he

felt at being robbed of his anticipated pleasure in Brentwick’s company at

dinner, colored his mood unpleasantly. His musings merged into vacuity,

into a dull gray mist of hopelessness comparable only to the dismal skies

then lowering over London-town.

 

Brentwick was good, but Brentwick was mistaken. There was really nothing

for Kirkwood to do but to go ahead. But one steamer-trunk remained to be

packed; the boat-train would leave before midnight, the steamer with the

morning tide; by the morrow’s noon he would be upon the high seas, within

ten days in New York and among friends; and then …

 

The problem of that afterwards perplexed Kirkwood more than he cared to

own. Brentwick had opened his eyes to the fact that he would be practically

useless in San Francisco; he could not harbor the thought of going

back, only to become a charge upon Vanderlip. No; he was resolved that

thenceforward he must rely upon himself, carve out his own destiny.

But—would the art that he had cultivated with such assiduity, yield him a

livelihood if sincerely practised with that end in view? Would the mental

and physical equipment of a painter, heretofore dilettante, enable him to

become self-supporting?

 

Knotting his brows in concentration of effort to divine the future, he

doubted himself, darkly questioning alike his abilities and his temper

under trial; neither ere now had ever been put to the test. His eyes became

somberly wistful, his heart sore with regret of Yesterday—his Yesterday of

care-free youth and courage, gilded with the ineffable, evanescent glamour

of Romance—of such Romance, thrice refined of dross, as only he knows who

has wooed his Art with passion passing the love of woman.

 

Far away, above the acres of huddled roofs and chimney-pots, the

storm-mists thinned, lifting transiently; through them, gray, fairy-like,

the towers of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament bulked monstrous

and unreal, fading when again the fugitive dun vapors closed down upon the

city.

 

Nearer at hand the Shade of Care nudged Kirkwood’s elbow, whispering

subtly. Romance was indeed dead; the world was cold and cruel.

 

The gloom deepened.

 

In the cant of modern metaphysics, the moment was psychological.

 

There came a rapping at the door.

 

Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say “Come

in!” pleasantly.

 

The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, turning on one heel, beheld

hesitant upon the threshold a diminutive figure in the livery of the Pless

pages.

 

“Mr. Kirkwood?”

 

Kirkwood nodded.

 

“Gentleman to see you, sir.”

 

Kirkwood nodded again, smiling if somewhat perplexed. Encouraged, the child

advanced, proffering a silver card-tray at the end of an unnaturally rigid

forearm. Kirkwood took the card dubiously between thumb and forefinger and

inspected it without prejudice.

 

“‘George B. Calendar,’” he read. “‘George B. Calendar!’ But I know no such

person. Sure there’s no mistake, young man?”

 

The close-cropped, bullet-shaped, British head was agitated in vigorous

negation, and “Card for Mister Kirkwood!” was mumbled in dispassionate

accents appropriate to a recitation by rote.

 

“Very well. But before you show him up, ask this Mr. Calendar if he is

quite sure he wants to see Philip Kirkwood.”

 

“Yessir.”

 

The child marched out, punctiliously closing the door. Kirkwood tamped

down the tobacco in his pipe and puffed energetically, dismissing the

interruption to his reverie as a matter of no consequence—an obvious

mistake to be rectified by two words with this Mr. Calendar whom he did not

know. At the knock he had almost hoped it might be Brentwick, returning

with a changed mind about the bid to dinner.

 

He regretted Brentwick sincerely. Theirs was a curious sort of

friendship—extraordinarily close in view of the meagerness of either’s

information about the other, to say nothing of the disparity between their

ages. Concerning the elder man Kirkwood knew little more than that they had

met on shipboard, “coming over”; that Brentwick had spent some years in

America; that he was an Englishman by birth, a cosmopolitan by habit, by

profession a gentleman (employing that term in its most uncompromisingly

British significance), and by inclination a collector of “articles of

virtue and bigotry,” in pursuit of which he made frequent excursions to the

Continent from his residence in a quaint quiet street of Old Brompton. It

had been during his not infrequent, but ordinarily abbreviated, sojourns in

Paris that their steamer acquaintance had ripened into an affection almost

filial on the one hand, almost paternal on the other….

 

There came a rapping at the door.

 

Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say “Come

in!” pleasantly.

 

The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, swinging on one heel,

beheld hesitant upon the threshold a rather rotund figure of medium height,

clad in an expressionless gray lounge suit, with a brown “bowler” hat held

tentatively in one hand, an umbrella weeping in the other. A voice, which

was unctuous and insinuative, emanated from the figure.

 

“Mr. Kirkwood?”

 

Kirkwood nodded, with some effort recalling the name, so detached had been

his thoughts since the disappearance of the page.

 

“Yes, Mr. Calendar—?”

 

“Are you—ah—busy, Mr. Kirkwood?”

 

“Are you, Mr. Calendar?” Kirkwood’s smile robbed the retort of any flavor

of incivility.

 

Encouraged, the man entered, premising that he would detain his host but a

moment, and readily surrendering hat and umbrella. Kirkwood, putting the

latter aside, invited his caller to the easy chair which Brentwick had

occupied by the fireplace.

 

“It takes the edge off the dampness,” Kirkwood explained in deference to

the other’s look of pleased surprise at the cheerful bed of coals. “I’m

afraid I could never get acclimated to life in a cold, damp room—or a damp

cold room—such as you Britishers prefer.”

 

“It is grateful,” Mr. Calendar agreed, spreading plump and well cared-for

hands to the warmth. “But you are mistaken; I am as much an American as

yourself.”

 

“Yes?” Kirkwood looked the man over with more interest, less

matter-of-course courtesy.

 

He proved not unprepossessing, this unclassifiable Mr. Calendar; he was

dressed with some care, his complexion was good, and the fullness of his

girth, emphasized as it was by a notable lack of inches, bespoke a nature

genial, easy-going and sybaritic. His dark eyes, heavy-lidded, were

active—curiously, at times, with a subdued glitter—in a face large,

round, pink, of which the other most remarkable features were a mustache,

close-trimmed and showing streaks of gray, a chubby nose, and duplicate

chins. Mr. Calendar was furthermore possessed of a polished bald spot,

girdled with a tonsure of silvered hair—circumstances which lent some

factitious distinction to a personality otherwise commonplace.

 

His manner might be best described as uneasy with assurance; as though he

frequently found it necessary to make up for his unimpressive stature by

assuming an unnatural habit of authority. And there you have him; beyond

these points, Kirkwood was conscious of no impressions; the man was

apparently neutral-tinted of mind as well as of body.

 

“So you knew I was an American, Mr. Calendar?” suggested Kirkwood.

 

“‘Saw your name on the register; we both hail from the same neck of the

woods, you know.”

 

“I didn’t know it, and—”

 

“Yes; I’m