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

weary hours,—came and sat by his side,

slipping a grisly hand in his and tightening its grip until he could have

cried out with the torment of it; the while whispering insidiously subtile,

evil things in his ear. And he had not even Hope to comfort him; at

any previous stage he had been able to distil a sort of bitter-sweet

satisfaction from the thought that he was suffering for the love of his

life. But now—now Dorothy was lost, gone like the glamour of Romance in

the searching light of day.

 

Stryker, emerging from his room for breakfast, found the passenger with a

hostile look in his eye and a jaw set in ugly fashion. His eyes, too, were

the abiding-place of smoldering devils; and the captain, recognizing them,

considerately forbore to stir them up with any untimely pleasantries. To be

sure, he was autocrat in his own ship, and Kirkwood’s standing aboard was

nil; but then there was just enough yellow in the complexion of Stryker’s

soul to incline him to sidestep trouble whenever feasible. And besides, he

entertained dark suspicions of his guest—suspicions he scarce dared voice

even to his inmost heart.

 

The morning meal, therefore, passed off in constrained silence. The captain

ate voraciously and vociferously, pushed back his chair, and went on deck

to relieve the mate. The latter, a stunted little Cockney with a wizened

countenance and a mind as foul as his tongue, got small change of his

attempts to engage the passenger in conversation on topics that he

considered fit for discussion. After the sixth or eighth snubbing he rose

in dudgeon, discharged a poisonous bit of insolence, and retired to his

berth, leaving Kirkwood to finish his breakfast in peace; which the latter

did literally, to the last visible scrap of food and the ultimate drop of

coffee, poor as both were in quality.

 

To the tune of a moderating wind, the morning wearied away. Kirkwood went

on deck once, for distraction from the intolerable monotony of it all, got

a sound drenching of spray, with a glimpse of a dark line on the eastern

horizon, which he understood to be the low littoral of Holland, and was

glad to dodge below once more and dry himself.

 

He had the pleasure of the mate’s company at dinner, the captain remaining

on deck until Hobbs had finished and gone up to relieve him; and by that

time Kirkwood likewise was through.

 

Stryker blew down with a blustery show of cheer. “Well, well, my little

man!” (It happened that he topped Kirkwood’s stature by at least five

inches.) “Enj’yin’ yer sea trip?”

 

“About as much as you’d expect,” snapped Kirkwood.

 

“Ow?” The captain began to shovel food into his face. (The author regrets

he has at his command no more delicate expression that is literal and

illustrative.) Kirkwood watched him, fascinated with suspense; it seemed

impossible that the man could continue so to employ his knife without

cutting his throat from the inside. But years of such manipulation had made

him expert, and his guest, keenly disappointed, at length ceased to hope.

 

Between gobbles Stryker eyed him furtively.

 

“‘Treat you all right?” he demanded abruptly.

 

Kirkwood started out of a brown study. “What? Who? Why, I suppose I ought

to be—indeed, I am grateful,” he asserted. “Certainly you saved my life,

and—”

 

“Ow, I don’t mean that.” Stryker gathered the imputation into his paw and

flung it disdainfully to the four winds of Heaven. “Bless yer ‘art, you’re

welcome; I wouldn’t let no dorg drownd, ‘f I could ‘elp it. No,” he

declared, “nor a loonatic, neither.”

 

He thrust his plate away and shifted sidewise in his chair. “I ‘uz just

wonderin’,” he pursued, picking his teeth meditatively with a penknife,

“‘ow they feeds you in them as-ylums. ‘Avin’ never been inside one,

myself, it’s on’y natural I’d be cur’us…. There was one of them

institootions near where I was borned—Birming’am, that is. I used to see

the loonies playin’ in the grounds. I remember just as well!… One of

‘em and me struck up quite an acquaintance—”

 

“Naturally he’d take to you on sight.”

 

“Ow? Strynge ‘ow we ‘it it off, eigh?… You myke me think of ‘im. Young

chap, ‘e was, the livin’ spi’t-‘n-himage of you. It don’t happen, does it,

you’re the same man?”

 

“Oh, go to the devil!”

 

“Naughty!” said the captain serenely, wagging a reproving forefinger. “Bad,

naughty word. You’ll be sorry when you find out wot it means…. Only ‘e

was allus plannin’ to run awye and drownd ‘is-self.”…

 

He wore the joke threadbare, even to his own taste, and in the end got

heavily to his feet, starting for the companionway. “Land you this

arternoon,” he remarked casually, “come three o’clock or thereabahts.

Per’aps later. I don’t know, though, as I ‘ad ought to let you loose.”

 

Kirkwood made no answer. Chuckling, Stryker went on deck.

 

In the course of an hour the American followed him.

 

Wind and sea alike had gone down wonderfully since daybreak—a circumstance

undoubtedly in great part due to the fact that they had won in under the

lee of the mainland and were traversing shallower waters. On either hand,

like mist upon the horizon, lay a streak of gray, a shade darker than the

gray of the waters. The Alethea was within the wide jaws of the Western

Scheldt. As for the wind, it had shifted several points to the northwards;

the brigantine had it abeam and was lying down to it and racing to port

with slanting deck and singing cordage.

 

Kirkwood approached the captain, who, acting as his own pilot, was standing

by the wheel and barking sharp orders to the helmsman.

 

“Have you a Bradshaw on board?” asked the young man.

 

“Steady!” This to the man at the wheel; then to Kirkwood: “Wot’s that, me

lud?”

 

Kirkwood repeated his question. Stryker eyed him suspiciously for a

thought.

 

“Wot d’you want it for?”

 

“I want to see when I can get a boat back to England.”

 

“Hmm…. Yes, you’ll find a Bradshaw in the port-locker, near the for’ard

bulk’ead. Run along now and pl’y—and mind you don’t go tearin’ out the

pyges to myke pyper boatses to go sylin’ in.”

 

Kirkwood went below. Like its adjacent rooms, the cabin was untenanted; the

watch was the mate’s, and Stryker a martinet. Kirkwood found the designated

locker and, opening it, saw first to his hand the familiar bulky red volume

with its red garter. Taking it out he carried it to a chair near the

companionway, for a better reading light: the skylight being still battened

down.

 

The strap removed, the book opened easily, as if by force of habit, at the

precise table he had wished to consult; some previous client had left a

marker between the pages,—and not an ordinary book-mark, by any manner

of means. Kirkwood gave utterance to a little gasp of amazement, and

instinctively glanced up at the companionway, to see if he were observed.

 

He was not, but for safety’s sake he moved farther back into the cabin

and out of the range of vision of any one on deck; a precaution which was

almost immediately justified by the clumping of heavy feet upon the steps

as Stryker descended in pursuit of the ever-essential drink.

 

“‘Find it?” he demanded, staring blindly—with eyes not yet focused to the

change from light to gloom—at the young man, who was sitting with the

guide open on his knees, a tightly clenched fist resting on the transom at

either side of him.

 

In reply he received a monosyllabic affirmative; Kirkwood did not look up.

 

“You must be a howl,” commented the captain, making for the seductive

locker.

 

“A—what?”

 

“A howl, readin’ that fine print there in the dark. W’y don’t you go over

to the light?… I’ll ‘ave to ‘ave them shutters tyken off the winders.”

This was Stryker’s amiable figure of speech, frequently employed to

indicate the coverings of the skylight.

 

“I’m all right.” Kirkwood went on studying the book.

 

Stryker swigged off his rum and wiped his lips with the back of a red paw,

hesitating a moment to watch his guest.

 

“Mykes it seem more ‘ome-like for you, I expect,” he observed.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“W’y, Bradshaw’s first-cousin to a halmanack, ain’t ‘e? Can’t get one,

take t’other—next best thing. Sorry I didn’t think of it sooner; like my

passengers to feel comfy…. Now don’t you go trapsein’ off to gay Paree

and squanderin’ wot money you got left. You ‘ear?”

 

“By the way, Captain!” Kirkwood looked up at this, but Stryker was already

half-way up the companion.

 

Cautiously the American opened his right fist and held to the light that

which had been concealed, close wadded in his grasp,—a square of sheer

linen edged with lace, crumpled but spotless, and diffusing in the

unwholesome den a faint, intangible fragrance, the veriest wraith of

that elusive perfume which he would never again inhale without instantly

recalling that night ride through London in the intimacy of a cab.

 

He closed his eyes and saw her again, as clearly as though she stood before

him,—hair of gold massed above the forehead of snow, curling in adorable

tendrils at the nape of her neck, lips like scarlet splashed upon the

immaculate whiteness of her skin, head poised audaciously in its spirited,

youthful allure, dark eyes smiling the least trace sadly beneath the level

brows.

 

Unquestionably the handkerchief was hers; if proof other than the

assurance of his heart were requisite, he had it in the initial delicately

embroidered in one corner: a D, for Dorothy!… He looked again, to make

sure; then hastily folded up the treasure-trove and slipped it into a

breast pocket of his coat.

 

No; I am not sure that it was not the left-hand pocket.

 

Quivering with excitement he bent again over the book and studied it

intently. After all, he had not been wrong! He could assert now, without

fear of refutation, that Stryker had lied.

 

Some one had wielded an industrious pencil on the page. It was, taken as a

whole, fruitful of clues. Its very heading was illuminating:

 

LONDON to VLISSINGEN (FLUSHING) AND BREDA;

 

which happened to be the quickest and most direct route between London and

Antwerp. Beneath it, in the second column from the right, the pencil had

put a check-mark against:

 

QUEENSBOROUGH … DEP … 11A10.

 

And now he saw it clearly—dolt that he had been not to have divined it ere

this! The Alethea had run in to Queensborough, landing her passengers

there, that they might make connection with the eleven-ten morning boat for

Flushing,—the very sidewheel steamer, doubtless, which he had noticed

beating out in the teeth of the gale just after the brigantine had picked

him up. Had he not received the passing impression that the Alethea, when

first he caught sight of her, might have been coming out of the Medway, on

whose eastern shore is situate Queensborough Pier? Had not Mrs. Hallam,

going upon he knew not what information or belief, been bound for

Queensborough, with design there to intercept the fugitives?

 

Kirkwood chuckled to recall how, all unwittingly, he had been the means

of diverting from her chosen course that acute and resourceful lady; then

again turned his attention to the tables.

 

A third check had been placed against the train for Amsterdam scheduled to

leave Antwerp at 6:32 p. m. Momentarily his heart misgave him, when he saw

this, in fear lest Calendar and Dorothy should have gone on from Antwerp

the previous evening; but then he rallied, discovering that