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

from Frisco, too.”

 

“And I’m sorry.”

 

Mr. Calendar passed five fat fingers nervously over his mustache, glanced

alertly up at Kirkwood, as if momentarily inclined to question his tone,

then again stared glumly into the fire; for Kirkwood had maintained an

attitude purposefully colorless. Not to put too fine a point upon it, be

believed that his caller was lying; the man’s appearance, his mannerisms,

his voice and enunciation, while they might have been American, seemed all

un-Californian. To one born and bred in that state, as Kirkwood had been,

her sons are unmistakably hall-marked.

 

Now no man lies without motive. This one chose to reaffirm, with a show of

deep feeling: “Yes; I’m from Frisco, too. We’re companions in misfortune.”

 

“I hope not altogether,” said Kirkwood politely.

 

Mr. Calendar drew his own inferences from the response and mustered up a

show of cheerfulness. “Then you’re not completely wiped out?”

 

“To the contrary, I was hoping you were less unhappy.”

 

“Oh! Then you are—?”

 

Kirkwood lifted the cable message from the mantel. “I have just heard from

my partner at home,” he said with a faint smile; and quoted: “‘Everything

gone; no insurance.’”

 

Mr. Calendar pursed his plump lips, whistling inaudibly. “Too bad, too

bad!” he murmured sympathetically. “We’re all hard hit, more or less.”

He lapsed into dejected apathy, from which Kirkwood, growing at length

impatient, found it necessary to rouse him.

 

“You wished to see me about something else, I’m sure?”

 

Mr. Calendar started from his reverie. “Eh? … I was dreaming. I beg

pardon. It seems hard to realize, Mr. Kirkwood, that this awful catastrophe

has overtaken our beloved metropolis—”

 

The canting phrases wearied Kirkwood; abruptly he cut in. “Would a

sovereign help you out, Mr. Calendar? I don’t mind telling you that’s about

the limit of my present resources.”

 

“Pardon me.” Mr. Calendar’s moon-like countenance darkened; he assumed a

transparent dignity. “You misconstrue my motive, sir.”

 

“Then I’m sorry.”

 

“I am not here to borrow. On the other hand, quite by accident I discovered

your name upon the register, down-stairs; a good old Frisco name, if you

will permit me to say so. I thought to myself that here was a chance

to help a fellow-countryman.” Calendar paused, interrogative; Kirkwood

remained interested but silent. “If a passage across would help you, I—I

think it might be arranged,” stammered Calendar, ill at ease.

 

“It might,” admitted Kirkwood, speculative.

 

“I could fix it so that you could go over—first-class, of course—and pay

your way, so to speak, by, rendering us, me and my partner, a trifling

service.”

 

“Ah?”

 

“In fact,” continued Calendar, warming up to his theme, “there might be

something more in it for you than the passage, if—if you’re the right man,

the man I’m looking for.”

 

“That, of course, is the question.”

 

“Eh?” Calendar pulled up suddenly in a full-winged flight of enthusiasm.

 

Kirkwood eyed him steadily. “I said that it is a question, Mr. Calendar,

whether or not I am the man you’re looking for. Between you and me and the

fire-dogs, I don’t believe I am. Now if you wish to name your _quid

pro quo_, this trifling service I’m to render in recognition of your

benevolence, you may.”

 

“Ye-es,” slowly. But the speaker delayed his reply until he had surveyed

his host from head to foot, with a glance both critical and appreciative.

 

He saw a man in height rather less than the stock size six-feet so much

in demand by the manufacturers of modern heroes of fiction; a man a bit

round-shouldered, too, but otherwise sturdily built, self-contained,

well-groomed.

 

Kirkwood wears a boy’s honest face; no one has ever called him handsome. A

few prejudiced persons have decided that he has an interesting countenance;

the propounders of this verdict have been, for the most part, feminine.

Kirkwood himself has been heard to declare that his features do not fit;

in its essence the statement is true, but there is a very real, if

undefinable, engaging quality in their very irregularity. His eyes are

brown, pleasant, set wide apart, straightforward of expression.

 

Now it appeared that, whatever his motive, Mr. Calendar had acted upon

impulse in sending his card up to Kirkwood. Possibly he had anticipated a

very different sort of reception from a very different sort of man. Even in

the light of subsequent events it remains difficult to fathom the mystery

of his choice. Perhaps Fate directed it; stranger things have happened at

the dictates of a man’s Destiny.

 

At all events, this Calendar proved not lacking in penetration; men of his

stamp are commonly endowed with that quality to an eminent degree. Not slow

to reckon the caliber of the man before him, the leaven of intuition began

to work in his adipose intelligence. He owned himself baffled.

 

“Thanks,” he concluded pensively; “I reckon you’re right. You won’t do,

after all. I’ve wasted your time. Mine, too.”

 

“Don’t mention it.”

 

Calendar got heavily out of his chair, reaching for his hat and umbrella.

“Permit me to apologize for an unwarrantable intrusion, Mr. Kirkwood.” He

faltered; a worried and calculating look shadowed his small eyes. “I was

looking for some one to serve me in a certain capacity—”

 

“Certain or questionable?” propounded Kirkwood blandly, opening the door.

 

Pointedly Mr. Calendar ignored the imputation. “Sorry I disturbed you.

G’dafternoon, Mr. Kirkwood.”

 

“Good-by, Mr. Calendar.” A smile twitched the corners of Kirkwood’s

too-wide mouth.

 

Calendar stepped hastily out into the hall. As he strode—or rather,

rolled—away, Kirkwood maliciously feathered a Parthian arrow.

 

“By the way, Mr. Calendar—?”

 

The sound of retreating footsteps was stilled and “Yes?” came from the

gloom of the corridor.

 

“Were you ever in San Francisco? Really and truly? Honest Injun, Mr.

Calendar?”

 

For a space the quiet was disturbed by harsh breathing; then, in a

strained voice, “Good day, Mr. Kirkwood”; and again the sound of departing

footfalls.

 

Kirkwood closed the door and the incident simultaneously, with a smart bang

of finality. Laughing quietly he went back to the window with its dreary

outlook, now the drearier for lengthening evening shadows.

 

“I wonder what his game is, anyway. An adventurer, of course; the woods are

full of ‘em. A queer fish, even of his kind! And with a trick up his sleeve

as queer and fishy as himself, no doubt!”

II

“AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM”

 

The assumption seems not unwarrantable, that Mr. Calendar figuratively

washed his hands of Mr. Kirkwood. Unquestionably Mr. Kirkwood considered

himself well rid of Mr. Calendar. When the latter had gone his way,

Kirkwood, mindful of the fact that his boat-train would leave St. Paneras

at half-after eleven, set about his packing and dismissed from his thoughts

the incident created by the fat chevalier d’industrie; and at six

o’clock, or thereabouts, let himself out of his room, dressed for the

evening, a light rain-coat over one arm, in the other hand a cane,—the

drizzle having ceased.

 

A stolid British lift lifted him down to the ground floor of the

establishment in something short of five minutes. Pausing in the office

long enough to settle his bill and leave instructions to have his luggage

conveyed to the boat-train, he received with entire equanimity the affable

benediction of the clerk, in whose eyes he still figured as that radiant

creature, an American millionaire; and passed on to the lobby, where he

surrendered hat, coat and stick to the cloak-room attendant, ere entering

the dining-room.

 

The hour was a trifle early for a London dinner, the handsome room but

moderately filled with patrons. Kirkwood absorbed the fact unconsciously

and without displeasure; the earlier, the better: he was determined to

consume his last civilized meal (as he chose to consider it) at his serene

leisure, to live fully his ebbing moments in the world to which he was

born, to drink to its cloying dregs one ultimate draught of luxury.

 

A benignant waiter bowed him into a chair by a corner table in

juxtaposition with an open window, through which, swaying imperceptibly the

closed hangings, were wafted gentle gusts of the London evening’s sweet,

damp breath.

 

Kirkwood settled himself with an inaudible sigh of pleasure. He was dining,

for the last time in Heaven knew how long, in a first-class restaurant.

 

With a deferential flourish the waiter brought him the menu-card. He had

served in his time many an “American, millionaire”; he had also served this

Mr. Kirkwood, and respected him as one exalted above the run of his kind,

in that he comprehended the art of dining.

 

Fifteen minutes later the waiter departed rejoicing, his order complete.

 

To distract a conscience whispering of extravagance, Kirkwood lighted a

cigarette.

 

The room was gradually filling with later arrivals; it was the most favored

restaurant in London, and, despite the radiant costumes of the women, its

atmosphere remained sedate and restful.

 

A cab clattered down the side street on which the window opened.

 

At a near-by table a woman laughed, quietly happy. Incuriously Kirkwood

glanced her way. She was bending forward, smiling, flattering her escort

with the adoration of her eyes. They were lovers alone in the wilderness of

the crowded restaurant. They seemed very happy.

 

Kirkwood was conscious of a strange pang of emotion. It took him some time

to comprehend that it was envy.

 

He was alone and lonely. For the first time he realized that no woman had

ever looked upon him as the woman at the adjoining table looked upon her

lover. He had found time to worship but one mistress—his art.

 

And he was renouncing her.

 

He was painfully conscious of what he had missed, had lost—or had not yet

found: the love of woman.

 

The sensation was curious—new, unique in his experience.

 

His cigarette burned down to his fingers as he sat pondering. Abstractedly,

he ground its fire out in an ash-tray.

 

The waiter set before him a silver tureen, covered.

 

He sat up and began to consume his soup, scarce doing it justice. His dream

troubled him—his dream of the love of woman.

 

From a little distance his waiter regarded him, with an air of

disappointment. In the course of an hour and a half he awoke, to discover

the attendant in the act of pouring very hot and black coffee from a bright

silver pot into a demi-tasse of fragile porcelain. Kirkwood slipped a

single lump of sugar into the cup, gave over his cigar-case to be filled,

then leaned back, deliberately lighting a long and slender panetela as a

preliminary to a last lingering appreciation of the scene of which he was a

part.

 

He reviewed it through narrowed eyelids, lazily; yet with some slight

surprise, seeming to see it with new vision, with eyes from which scales of

ignorance had dropped.

 

This long and brilliant dining-hall, with its quiet perfection of

proportion and appointment, had always gratified his love of the beautiful;

to-night it pleased him to an unusual degree. Yet it was the same as ever;

its walls tinted a deep rose, with their hangings of dull cloth-of-gold,

its lights discriminatingly clustered and discreetly shaded, redoubled in

half a hundred mirrors, its subdued shimmer of plate and glass, its soberly

festive assemblage of circumspect men and women splendidly gowned, its

decorously muted murmur of voices penetrated and interwoven by the strains

of a hidden string orchestra—caressed his senses as always, yet with

a difference. To-night he saw it a room populous with lovers, lovers

insensibly paired, man unto woman attentive, woman of man regardful.

 

He had never understood this before. This much he had missed in