The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance

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Produced by Suzanne Shell, Leonard Johnson
and PG Distributed Proofreading.

THE BLACK BAG

By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOMAS FOGARTY

1908

TO MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN

II. "AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM"

III. CALENDAR'S DAUGHTER

IV. 9 FROGNALL STREET, W. C.

V. THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER

VI. "BELOW BRIDGE"

VII. DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN--RESUMED

VIII. MADAME L'INTRIGANTE

IX. AGAIN "BELOW BRIDGE"; AND BEYOND

X. DESPERATE MEASURES

XI. OFF THE NORE

XII. PICARESQUE PASSAGES

XIII. A PRIMER OF PROGRESSIVE CRIME

XIV. STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS

XV. REFUGEES

XVI. TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON

XVII. ROGUES AND VAGABONDS

XVIII. ADVENTURERS' LUCK

XIX. i--THE UXBRIDGE ROAD

ii--THE CROWN AND MITRE

iii--THE JOURNEY'S END

THE BLACK BAG

I

DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN

Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the
apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, _Artist-peintre_, were enlivened
by the discovery that he was occupying that singularly distressing social
position, which may be summed up succinctly in a phrase through long usage
grown proverbial: "Alone in London." These three words have come to connote
in our understanding so much of human misery, that to Mr. Kirkwood they
seemed to epitomize absolutely, if not happily, the various circumstances
attendant upon the predicament wherein he found himself. Inevitably an
extremist, because of his youth, (he had just turned twenty-five), he
took no count of mitigating matters, and would hotly have resented the
suggestion that his case was anything but altogether deplorable and
forlorn.

That he was not actually at the end of his resources went for nothing; he
held the distinction a quibble, mockingly immaterial,--like the store of
guineas in his pocket, too insignificant for mention when contrasted with
his needs. And his base of supplies, the American city of his nativity,
whence--and not without a glow of pride in his secret heart--he was wont to
register at foreign hostelries, had been arbitrarily cut off from him by
one of those accidents sardonically classified by insurance and express
corporations as Acts of God.

Now to one who has lived all his days serenely in accord with the dictates
of his own sweet will, taking no thought for the morrow, such a situation
naturally seems both appalling and intolerable, at the first blush. It must
be confessed that, to begin with, Kirkwood drew a long and disconsolate
face over his fix. And in that black hour, primitive of its kind in his
brief span, he became conscious of a sinister apparition taking shape at
his elbow--a shade of darkness which, clouting him on the back with a
skeleton hand, croaked hollow salutations in his ear.

"Come, Mr. Kirkwood, come!" its mirthless accents rallied him. "Have you
no welcome for me?--you, who have been permitted to live the quarter of a
century without making my acquaintance? Surely, now, it's high time we were
learning something of one another, you and I!" "But I don't understand,"
returned Kirkwood blankly. "I don't know you--"

"True! But you shall: I am the Shade of Care--"

"Dull Care!" murmured Kirkwood, bewildered and dismayed; for the visitation
had come upon him with little presage and no invitation whatever.

"Dull Care," the Shade assured him. "Dull Care am I--and Care that's
anything but dull, into the bargain: Care that's like a keen pain in your
body, Care that lives a horror in your mind, Care that darkens your days
and flavors with bitter poison all your nights, Care that--"

But Kirkwood would not listen further. Courageously submissive to his
destiny, knowing in his heart that the Shade had come to stay, he yet found
spirit to shake himself with a dogged air, to lift his chin, set the strong
muscles of his jaw, and smile that homely wholesome smile which was his
peculiarly.

"Very well," he accepted the irremediable with grim humor; "what must be,
must. I don't pretend to be glad to see you, but--you're free to stay as
long as you find the climate agreeable. I warn you I shan't whine. Lots of
men, hundreds and hundreds of 'em, have slept tight o' nights with you for
bedfellow; if they could grin and bear you, I believe I can."

Now Care mocked him with a sardonic laugh, and sought to tighten upon his
shoulders its bony grasp; but Kirkwood resolutely shrugged it off and went
in search of man's most faithful dumb friend, to wit, his pipe; the which,
when found and filled, he lighted with a spill twisted from the envelope of
a cable message which had been vicariously responsible for his introduction
to the Shade of Care.

"It's about time," he announced, watching the paper blacken and burn in the
grate fire, "that I was doing something to prove my title to a living." And
this was all his valedictory to a vanished competence. "Anyway," he added
hastily, as if fearful lest Care, overhearing, might have read into his
tone a trace of vain repining, "anyway, I'm a sight better off than those
poor devils over there! I really have a great deal to be thankful for, now
that my attention's drawn to it."

For the ensuing few minutes he thought it all over, soberly but with a
stout heart; standing at a window of his bedroom in the Hotel Pless, hands
deep in trouser pockets, pipe fuming voluminously, his gaze wandering out
over a blurred infinitude of wet shining roofs and sooty chimney-pots: all
of London that a lowering drizzle would let him see, and withal by no means
a cheering prospect, nor yet one calculated to offset the disheartening
influence of the indomitable Shade of Care. But the truth is that
Kirkwood's brain comprehended little that his eyes perceived; his thoughts
were with his heart, and that was half a world away and sick with pity
for another and a fairer city, stricken in the flower of her loveliness,
writhing in Promethean agony upon her storied hills.

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 diminutive figure in the livery of the
Pless pages.

"Mister Kirkwood?"

Kirkwood nodded.

"Gentleman to see you, sir."

Kirkwood nodded again, smiling. "Show him up, please," he said. But before
the words were fairly out of his mouth a footfall sounded in the corridor,
a hand was placed upon the shoulder of the page, gently but with decision
swinging him out of the way, and a man stepped into the room.

"Mr. Brentwick!" Kirkwood almost shouted, jumping forward to seize his
visitor's hand.

"My dear boy!" replied the latter. "I'm delighted to see you. 'Got your
note not an hour ago, and came at once--you see!"

"It was mighty good of you. Sit down, please. Here are cigars.... Why, a
moment ago I was the most miserable and lonely mortal on the footstool!"

"I can fancy." The elder man looked up, smiling at Kirkwood from the depths
of his arm-chair, as the latter stood above him, resting an elbow on
the mantel. "The management knows me," he offered explanation of his
unceremonious appearance; "so I took the liberty of following on the heels
of the bellhop, dear boy. And how are you? Why are you in London, enjoying
our abominable spring weather? And why the anxious undertone I detected in
your note?"

He continued to stare curiously into Kirkwood's face. At a glance, this
Mr. Brentwick was a man of tallish figure and rather slender; with a
countenance thin and flushed a sensitive pink, out of which his eyes shone,
keen, alert, humorous, and a trace wistful behind his glasses. His years
were indeterminate; with the aspect of fifty, the spirit and the verve of
thirty assorted oddly. But his hands were old, delicate, fine and fragile;
and the lips beneath the drooping white mustache at times trembled, almost
imperceptibly, with the generous sentiments that come with mellow age. He
held his back straight and his head with an air--an air that was not a
swagger but the sign-token of seasoned experience in the world. The most
carping could have found no flaw in the quiet taste of his attire. To sum
up, Kirkwood's very good friend--and his only one then in London--Mr.
Brentwick looked and was an English gentleman.

"Why?" he persisted, as the younger man hesitated. "I am here to find out.
To-night I leave for the Continent. In the meantime ..."

"And at midnight I sail for the States," added Kirkwood. "That is mainly
why I wished to see you--to say good-by, for the time."

"You're going home--" A shadow clouded Brentwick's clear eyes.

"To fight it out, shoulder to shoulder with my brethren in adversity."

The cloud lifted. "That is the spirit!" declared the elder man. "For the
moment I did you the injustice to believe that you were running away. But
now I understand. Forgive me.... Pardon, too, the stupidity which I must
lay at the door of my advancing years; to me the thought of you as a
Parisian fixture has become such a commonplace, Philip, that the news of
the disaster hardly stirred me. Now I remember that you are a Californian!"

"I was born in San Francisco," affirmed Kirkwood a bit sadly. "My father
and mother were buried there ..."

"And your fortune--?"

"I inherited my father's interest in the firm of Kirkwood & Vanderlip; when
I came over to study painting, I left everything in Vanderlip's hands. The
business afforded me a handsome living."

"You have heard from Mr. Vanderlip?"

"Fifteen minutes ago." Kirkwood took a cable-form, still damp, from his
pocket, and handed it to his guest. Unfolding it, the 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 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.

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