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

“Can this be love? Can this be love? …”

 

Could it be love at an hour’s acquaintance? Absurd! But he could not

laugh—nor render himself insensible to the suggestion.

 

He found that he had drawn the bolts. The girl tugged and rattled at the

knob. Reluctantly the door opened inwards. Beyond its threshold stretched

ten feet or more of covered passageway, whose entrance framed an oblong

glimmering with light. A draught of fresh air smote their faces. Behind

them a door banged.

 

“Where does this open?”

 

“On the mews,” she informed him.

 

“The mews!” He stared in consternation at the pallid oval that stood for

her face. “The mews! But you, in your evening gown, and I—”

 

“There’s no other way. We must chance it. Are you afraid?”

 

Afraid? … He stepped aside. She slipped by him and on. He closed the

door, carefully removing the key and locking it on the outside; then joined

the girl at the entrance to the mews, where they paused perforce, she as

much disconcerted as he, his primary objection momentarily waxing in force

as they surveyed the conditions circumscribing their escape.

 

Quadrant Mews was busily engaged in enjoying itself. Night had fallen

sultry and humid, and the walls and doorsteps were well fringed and

clustered with representatives of that class of London’s population which

infests mews through habit, taste, or force of circumstance.

 

On the stoops men sprawled at easy length, discussing short, foul cutties

loaded with that rank and odoriferous compound which, under the name and

in the fame of tobacco, is widely retailed at tuppence the ounce. Their

women-folk more commonly squatted on the thresholds, cheerfully squabbling;

from opposing second-story windows, two leaned perilously forth, slanging

one another across the square briskly in the purest billingsgate; and were

impartially applauded from below by an audience whose appreciation seemed

faintly tinged with envy. Squawking and yelling children swarmed over the

flags and rude cobblestones that paved the ways. Like incense, heavy and

pungent, the rich effluvia of stable-yards swirled in air made visible by

its faint burden of mist.

 

Over against the entrance wherein Kirkwood and the girl lurked, confounded

by the problem of escaping undetected through this vivacious scene, a

stable-door stood wide, exposing a dimly illumined interior. Before it

waited a four-wheeler, horse already hitched in between the shafts, while

its driver, a man of leisurely turn of mind, made lingering inspection of

straps and buckles, and, while Kirkwood watched him, turned attention to

the carriage lamps.

 

The match which he raked spiritedly down his thigh, flared ruddily; the

succeeding paler glow of the lamp threw into relief a heavy beefy mask,

with shining bosses for cheeks and nose and chin; through narrow slits

two cunning eyes glittered like dull gems. Kirkwood appraised him with

attention, as one in whose gross carcass was embodied their only hope of

unannoyed return to the streets and normal surroundings of their world. The

difficulty lay in attracting the man’s attention and engaging him without

arousing his suspicions or bringing the population about their ears. Though

he hesitated long, no favorable opportunity presented itself; and in time

the Jehu approached the box with the ostensible purpose of mounting and

driving off. In this critical situation the American, forced to recognize

that boldness must mark his course, took the girl’s fate and his own in his

hands, and with a quick word to his companion, stepped out of hiding.

 

The cabby had a foot upon the step when Kirkwood tapped his shoulder.

 

“My man—”

 

“Lor, lumme!” cried the fellow in amaze, pivoting on his heel. Cupidity and

quick understanding enlivened the eyes which in two glances looked

Kirkwood up and down, comprehending at once both his badly rumpled hat

and patent-leather shoes. “S’help me,”—thickly,—“where’d you drop from,

guvner?”

 

“That’s my affair,” said Kirkwood briskly. “Are you engaged?”

 

“If you mykes yerself my fare,” returned the cabby shrewdly, “I ham.”

 

“Ten shillings, then, if you get us out of here in one minute and

to—say—Hyde Park Corner in fifteen.”

 

“Us?” demanded the fellow aggressively.

 

Kirkwood motioned toward the passageway. “There’s a lady with me—there.

Quick now!”

 

Still the man did not move. “Ten bob,” he bargained; “an’ you runnin’ awye

with th’ stuffy ol’ gent’s fair darter? Come now, guvner, is it gen’rous?

Myke it a quid an’—”

 

“A pound then. Will you hurry?”

 

By way of answer the fellow scrambled hastily up to the box and snatched at

the reins. “Ck! Gee-e hup!” he cried sonorously.

 

By now the mews had wakened to the fact of the presence of a “toff” in its

midst. His light topcoat and silk hat-rendered him as conspicuous as a red

Indian in war-paint would have been on Rotten Row. A cry of surprise was

raised, and drowned in a volley of ribald inquiry and chaff.

 

Fortunately, the cabby was instant to rein in skilfully before the

passageway, and Kirkwood had the door open before the four-wheeler stopped.

The girl, hugging her cloak about her, broke cover (whereat the hue and cry

redoubled), and sprang into the body of the vehicle. Kirkwood followed,

shutting the door. As the cab lurched forward he leaned over and drew down

the window-shade, shielding the girl from half a hundred prying eyes. At

the same time they gathered momentum, banging swiftly, if loudly out of the

mews.

 

An urchin, leaping on the step to spy in Kirkwood’s window, fell off,

yelping, as the driver’s whiplash curled about his shanks.

 

The gloom of the tunnel inclosed them briefly ere the lights of the

Hog-in-the-Pound flashed by and the wheels began to roll more easily.

Kirkwood drew back with a sigh of relief.

 

“Thank God!” he said softly.

 

The girl had no words.

 

Worried by her silence, solicitous lest, the strain ended, she might be on

the point of fainting, he let up the shade and lowered the window at her

side.

 

She seemed to have collapsed in her corner. Against the dark upholstery her

hair shone like pale gold in the half-light; her eyes were closed and she

held a handkerchief to her lips; the other hand lay limp.

 

“Miss Calendar?”

 

She started, and something bulky fell from the seat and thumped heavily on

the floor. Kirkwood bent to pick it up, and so for the first time was

made aware that she had brought with her a small black gladstone bag of

considerable weight. As he placed it on the forward seat their eyes met.

 

“I didn’t know—” he began.

 

“It was to get that,” she hastened to explain, “that my father sent me …”

 

“Yes,” he assented in a tone indicating his complete comprehension. “I

trust …” he added vaguely, and neglected to complete the observation,

losing himself in a maze of conjecture not wholly agreeable. This was a new

phase of the adventure. He eyed the bag uneasily. What did it contain? How

did he know …?

 

Hastily he abandoned that line of thought. He had no right to

infer anything whatever, who had thrust himself uninvited into her

concerns—uninvited, that was to say, in the second instance, having

been once definitely given his cong�. Inevitably, however, a thousand

unanswerable questions pestered him; just as, at each fresh facet of

mystery disclosed by the sequence of the adventure, his bewilderment

deepened.

 

The girl stirred restlessly. “I have been thinking,” she volunteered in a

troubled tone, “that there is absolutely no way I know of, to thank you

properly.”

 

“It is enough if I’ve been useful,” he rose in gallantry to the emergency.

 

“That,” she commented, “was very prettily said. But then I have never known

any one more kind and courteous and—and considerate, than you.” There was

no savor of flattery in the simple and direct statement; indeed, she was

looking away from him, out of the window, and her face was serious with

thought; she seemed to be speaking of, rather than to, Kirkwood. “And I

have been wondering,” she continued with unaffected candor, “what you must

be thinking of me.”

 

“I? … What should I think of you, Miss Calendar?”

 

With the air of a weary child she laid her head against the cushions again,

face to him, and watched him through lowered lashes, unsmiling.

 

“You might be thinking that an explanation is due you. Even the way we

were brought together was extraordinary, Mr. Kirkwood. You must be very

generous, as generous as you have shown yourself brave, not to require some

sort of an explanation of me.”

 

“I don’t see it that way.”

 

“I do … You have made me like you very much, Mr. Kirkwood.”

 

He shot her a covert glance—causelessly, for her naivet� was flawless.

With a feeling of some slight awe he understood this—a sensation of

sincere reverence for the unspoiled, candid, child’s heart and mind that

were hers. “I’m glad,” he said simply; “very glad, if that’s the case, and

presupposing I deserve it. Personally,” he laughed, “I seem to myself to

have been rather forward.”

 

“No; only kind and a gentleman.”

 

“But—please!” he protested.

 

“Oh, but I mean it, every word! Why shouldn’t I? In a little while, ten

minutes, half an hour, we shall have seen the last of each other. Why

should I not tell you how I appreciate all that you have unselfishly done

for me?”

 

“If you put it that way,—I’m sure I don’t know; beyond that it embarrasses

me horribly to have you overestimate me so. If any courage has been shown

this night, it is yours … But I’m forgetting again.” He thought to divert

her. “Where shall I tell the cabby to go this time, Miss Calendar?”

 

“Craven Street, please,” said the girl, and added a house number. “I am to

meet my father there, with this,”—indicating the gladstone bag.

 

Kirkwood thrust head and shoulders out the window and instructed the cabby

accordingly; but his ruse had been ineffectual, as he found when he sat

back again. Quite composedly the girl took up the thread of conversation

where it had been broken off.

 

“It’s rather hard to keep silence, when you’ve been so good. I don’t want

you to think me less generous than yourself, but, truly, I can tell you

nothing.” She sighed a trace resentfully; or so he thought. “There is

little enough in this—this wretched affair, that I understand myself; and

that little, I may not tell … I want you to know that.”

 

“I understand, Miss Calendar.”

 

“There’s one thing I may say, however. I have done nothing wrong to-night,

I believe,” she added quickly.

 

“I’ve never for an instant questioned that,” he returned with a qualm of

shame; for what he said was not true.

 

“Thank you …”

 

The four-wheeler swung out of Oxford Street into Charing Cross Road.

Kirkwood noted the fact with a feeling of some relief that their ride

was to be so short; like many of his fellow-sufferers from “the artistic

temperament,” he was acutely disconcerted by spoken words of praise and

gratitude; Miss Calendar, unintentionally enough, had succeeded only in

rendering him self-conscious and ill at ease.

 

Nor had she fully relieved her mind, nor voiced all that perturbed her.

“There’s one thing more,” she said presently: “my father. I—I hope you

will think charitably of him.”

 

“Indeed, I’ve no reason or right to think otherwise.”

 

“I was afraid—afraid his actions might have seemed peculiar, to-night …”

 

“There are lots of things I don’t understand, Miss Calendar. Some day,

perhaps, it will all clear up,—this trouble of yours. At least, one

supposes it is trouble, of some sort. And then you