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

move in scenes in which his hateful shadow would not form an

essentially component part, subsequently Kirkwood fell a prey to prophetic

terrors. It was not alone fear of retribution that had induced Hobbs to

relinquish his persecution—or so Kirkwood became convinced; if the mate’s

calculation had allowed for them the least fraction of a chance to escape

apprehension on the farther shores of the Channel, nor fears nor threats

would have prevented him from sailing with the fugitives…. Far from

having left danger behind them on the Continent, Kirkwood believed in his

secret heart that they were but flying to encounter it beneath the smoky

pall of London.

XVII ROGUES AND VAGABONDS

A westering sun striking down through the drab exhalations of ten-thousand

sooty chimney-pots, tinted the atmosphere with the hue of copper. The

glance that wandered purposelessly out through the carriage windows,

recoiled, repelled by the endless dreary vista of the Surrey Side’s

unnumbered roofs; or, probing instantaneously the hopeless depths of some

grim narrow thoroughfare fleetingly disclosed, as the evening boat-train

from Dover swung on toward Charing Cross, its trucks level with the eaves

of Southwark’s dwellings, was saddened by the thought that in all the world

squalor such as this should obtain and flourish unrelieved.

 

For perhaps the tenth time in the course of the journey Kirkwood withdrew

his gaze from the window and turned to the girl, a question ready framed

upon his lips.

 

“Are you quite sure—” he began; and then, alive to the clear and

penetrating perception in the brown eyes that smiled into his from under

their level brows, he stammered and left the query uncompleted.

 

Continuing to regard him steadily and smilingly, Dorothy shook her head in

playful denial and protest. “Do you know,” she commented, “that this is

about the fifth repetition of that identical question within the last

quarter-hour?”

 

“How do you know what I meant to say?” he demanded, staring.

 

“I can see it in your eyes. Besides, you’ve talked and thought of nothing

else since we left the boat. Won’t you believe me, please, when I say

there’s absolutely not a soul in London to whom I could go and ask for

shelter? I don’t think it’s very nice of you to be so openly anxious to get

rid of me.”

 

This latter was so essentially undeserved and so artlessly insincere, that

he must needs, of course, treat it with all seriousness.

 

“That isn’t fair, Miss Calendar. Really it’s not.”

 

“What am I to think? I’ve told you any number of times that it’s only an

hour’s ride on to Chiltern, where the Pyrfords will be glad to take me in.

You may depend upon it,—by eight to-night, at the latest, you’ll have me

off your hands,—the drag and worry that I’ve been ever since—”

 

“Don’t!” he pleaded vehemently. “Please!… You know it isn’t that. I

don’t want you off my hands, ever…. That is to say, I—ah—” Here

he was smitten with a dumbness, and sat, aghast at the enormity of his

blunder, entreating her forgiveness with eyes that, very likely, pleaded

his cause more eloquently than he guessed.

 

“I mean,” he floundered on presently, in the fatuous belief that he would

this time be able to control both mind and tongue, “what I mean is I’d be

glad to go on serving you in any way I might, to the end of time, if you’d

give me….”

 

He left the declaration inconclusive—a stroke of diplomacy that would have

graced an infinitely more adept wooer. But he used it all unconsciously. “O

Lord!” he groaned in spirit. “Worse and more of it! Why in thunder can’t I

say the right thing right?”

 

Egotistically absorbed by the problem thus formulated, he was heedless of

her failure to respond, and remained pensively preoccupied until roused by

the grinding and jolting of the train, as it slowed to a halt preparatory

to crossing the bridge.

 

Then he sought to read his answer in the eyes of Dorothy. But she was

looking away, staring thoughtfully out over the billowing sea of roofs

that merged illusively into the haze long ere it reached the horizon; and

Kirkwood could see the pulsing of the warm blood in her throat and cheeks;

and the glamorous light that leaped and waned in her eyes, as the ruddy

evening sunlight warmed them, was something any man might be glad to live

for and die for…. And he saw that she had understood, had grasped the

thread of meaning that ran through the clumsy fabric of his halting speech

and his sudden silences.

 

She had understood without resentment!

 

While, incredulous, he wrestled with the wonder of this fond discovery,

she grew conscious of his gaze, and turned her head to meet it with one

fearless and sweet, if troubled.

 

“Dear Mr. Kirkwood,” she said gently, bending forward as if to read between

the lines anxiety had graven on his countenance, “won’t you tell me,

please, what it can be that so worries you? Is it possible that you still

have a fear of my father? But don’t you know that he can do nothing

now—now that we’re safe? We have only to take a cab to Paddington Station,

and then—”

 

“You mustn’t underestimate the resource and ability of Mr. Calendar,” he

told her gloomily; “we’ve got a chance—no more. It wasn’t….” He shut his

teeth on his unruly tongue—too late.

 

Woman-quick she caught him up. “It wasn’t that? Then what was it that

worried you? If it’s something that affects me, is it kind and right of you

not to tell me?”

 

“It—it affects us both,” he conceded drearily. “I—I don’t—”

 

The wretched embarrassment of the confession befogged his wits; he felt

unable to frame the words. He appealed speechlessly for tolerance, with a

face utterly woebegone and eyes piteous.

 

The train began to move slowly across the Thames to Charing Cross.

 

Mercilessly the girl persisted. “We’ve only a minute more. Surely you can

trust me….”

 

In exasperation he interrupted almost rudely. “It’s only this: I—I’m

strapped.”

 

“Strapped?” She knitted her brows over this fresh specimen of American

slang.

 

“Flat strapped—busted—broke—on my uppers—down and out,” he reeled off

synonyms without a smile. “I haven’t enough money to pay cab-fare across

the town—”

 

“Oh!” she interpolated, enlightened.

 

“—to say nothing of taking us to Chiltern. I couldn’t buy you a glass of

water if you were thirsty. There isn’t a soul on earth, within hail, who

would trust me with a quarter—I mean a shilling—across London Bridge. I’m

the original Luckless Wonder and the only genuine Jonah extant.”

 

With a face the hue of fire, he cocked his eyebrows askew and attempted

to laugh unconcernedly to hide his bitter shame. “I’ve led you out of

the fryingpan into the fire, and I don’t know what to do! Please call me

names.”

 

And in a single instant all that he had consistently tried to avoid doing,

had been irretrievably done; if, with dawning comprehension, dismay

flickered in her eyes—such dismay as such a confession can rouse only in

one who, like Dorothy Calendar, has never known the want of a penny—it

was swiftly driven out to make place for the truest and most gracious and

unselfish solicitude.

 

“Oh, poor Mr. Kirkwood! And it’s all because of me! You’ve beggared

yourself—”

 

“Not precisely; I was beggared to begin with.” He hastened to disclaim the

extravagant generosity of which she accused him. “I had only three or four

pounds to my name that night we met…. I haven’t told you—I—”

 

“You’ve told me nothing, nothing whatever about yourself,” she said

reproachfully.

 

“I didn’t want to bother you with my troubles; I tried not to talk about

myself…. You knew I was an American, but I’m worse than that; I’m a

Californian—from San Francisco.” He tried unsuccessfully to make light of

it. “I told you I was the Luckless Wonder; if I’d ever had any luck I would

have stored a little money away. As it was, I lived on my income, left

my principal in ‘Frisco; and when the earthquake came, it wiped me out

completely.”

 

“And you were going home that night we made you miss your steamer!”

 

“It was my own fault, and I’m glad this blessed minute that I did miss it.

Nice sort I’d have been, to go off and leave you at the mercy—”

 

“Please! I want to think, I’m trying to remember how much you’ve gone

through—”

 

“Precisely what I don’t want you to do. Anyway, I did nothing more than any

other fellow would’ve! Please don’t give me credit that I don’t deserve.”

 

But she was not listening; and a pause fell, while the train crawled warily

over the trestle, as if in fear of the foul, muddy flood below.

 

“And there’s no way I can repay you….”

 

“There’s nothing to be repaid,” he contended stoutly.

 

She clasped her hands and let them fall gently in her lap. “I’ve not

a farthing in the world!… I never dreamed…. I’m so sorry, Mr.

Kirkwood—terribly, terribly sorry!… But what can we do? I can’t consent

to be a burden—”

 

“But you’re not! You’re the one thing that …” He swerved sharply, at an

abrupt tangent. “There’s one thing we can do, of course.”

 

She looked up inquiringly.

 

“Craven Street is just round the corner.”

 

“Yes?”—wonderingly.

 

“I mean we must go to Mrs. Hallam’s house, first off…. It’s too

late now,—after five, else we could deposit the jewels in some bank.

Since—since they are no longer yours, the only thing, and the proper thing

to do is to place them in safety or in the hands of their owner. If you

take them directly to young Hallam, your hands will be clear…. And—I

never did such a thing in my life, Miss Calendar; but if he’s got a spark

of gratitude in his make-up, I ought to be able to—er—to borrow a pound

or so of him.”

 

“Do you think so?” She shook her head in doubt. “I don’t know; I know so

little of such things…. You are right; we must take him the jewels,

but…” Her voice trailed off into a sigh of profound perturbation.

 

He dared not meet her look.

 

Beneath his wandering gaze a County Council steamboat darted swiftly

downstream from Charing Cross pier, in the shadow of the railway bridge.

It seemed curious to reflect that from that very floating pier he had

started first upon his quest of the girl beside him, only—he had to

count—three nights ago! Three days and three nights! Altogether incredible

seemed the transformation they had wrought in the complexion of the world.

Yet nothing material was changed…. He lifted his eyes.

 

Beyond the river rose the Embankment, crawling with traffic, backed by the

green of the gardens and the shimmering walls of glass and stone of the

great hotels, their windows glowing weirdly golden in the late sunlight.

A little downstream Cleopatra’s Needle rose, sadly the worse for London

smoke, flanked by its couchant sphinxes, wearing a nimbus of circling,

sweeping, swooping, wheeling gulls. Farther down, from the foot of that

magnificent pile, Somerset House, Waterloo Bridge sprang over-stream in

its graceful arch…. All as of yesterday; yet all changed. Why? Because a

woman had entered into his life; because he had learned the lesson of love

and had looked into the bright face of Romance….

 

With a jar the train started and began to move more swiftly.

 

Kirkwood lifted the traveling bag to his knees.

 

“Don’t forget,” he said with some difficulty, “you’re to stick by me,

whatever happens. You mustn’t desert me.”

 

“You