The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance

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Slowly schooling himself to assume a masque of illuding self-possession and
composure, he passed down the corridor to the door whose panels wore the
painted legend, 17; and there knocked.

Believing that he overheard from within a sudden startled exclamation, he
smiled patiently, tolerant of her surprise.

Burning with impatience as with a fever, he endured a long minute's wait.

Misgivings were prompting him to knock again and summon her by name, when
he heard footfalls on the other side of the door, followed by a click of
the lock. The door was opened grudgingly, a bare six inches.

Of the alarmed expression in the eyes that stared into his, he took no
account. His face lengthened a little as he stood there, dumb, panting,
staring; and his heart sank, down, deep down into a gulf of disappointment,
weighted sorely with chagrin.

Then, of the two the first to recover countenance, he doffed his cap and
bowed.

"Good evening, Mrs. Hallam," he said with a rueful smile.

XV

REFUGEES

Now, if Kirkwood's emotion was poignant, Mrs. Hallam's astonishment
paralleled, and her relief transcended it. In order to understand this it
must be remembered that while Mr. Kirkwood was aware of the lady's presence
in Antwerp, on her part she had known nothing of him since he had so
ungallantly fled her company in Sheerness. She seemed to anticipate that
either Calendar or one of his fellows would be discovered at the door,--to
have surmised it without any excessive degree of pleasure.

Only briefly she hesitated, while her surprise swayed her; then with a
hardening of the eyes and a curt little nod, "I'm sorry," she said with
decision, "but I am busy and can't see you now, Mr. Kirkwood"; and
attempted to shut the door in his face.

Deftly Kirkwood forestalled her intention by inserting both a foot and a
corner of the newly purchased hand-bag between the door and the jamb. He
had dared too greatly to be thus dismissed. "Pardon me," he countered,
unabashed, "but I wish to speak with Miss Calendar."

"Dorothy," returned the lady with spirit, "is engaged...."

She compressed her lips, knitted her brows, and with disconcerting
suddenness thrust one knee against the obstructing hand-bag; Kirkwood,
happily, anticipated the movement just in time to reinforce the bag with
his own knee; it remained in place, the door standing open.

The woman flushed angrily; their glances crossed, her eyes flashing with
indignation; but Kirkwood's held them with a level and unyielding stare.

"I intend," he told her quietly, "to see Miss Calendar. It's useless your
trying to hinder me. We may as well understand each other, Madam, and I'll
tell you now that if you wish to avoid a scene--"

"Dorothy!" the woman called over her shoulder; "ring for the porter."

"By all means," assented Kirkwood agreeably. "I'll send him for a
gendarme."

"You insolent puppy!"

"Madam, your wit disarms me--"

"What is the matter, Mrs. Hallam?" interrupted a voice from the other side
of the door. "Who is it?"

"Miss Calendar!" cried Kirkwood hastily, raising his voice.

"Mr. Kirkwood!" the reply came on the instant. She knew his voice! "Please,
Mrs. Hallam, I will see Mr. Kirkwood."

"You have no time to waste with him, Dorothy," said the woman coldly. "I
must insist--"

"But you don't seem to understand; it is Mr. Kirkwood!" argued the
girl,--as if he were ample excuse for any imprudence!

Kirkwood's scant store of patience was by this time rapidly becoming
exhausted. "I should advise you not to interfere any further, Mrs. Hallam,"
he told her in a tone low, but charged with meaning.

How much did he know? She eyed him an instant longer, in sullen suspicion,
then swung open the door, yielding with what grace she could. "Won't you
come in, Mr. Kirkwood?" she inquired with acidulated courtesy.

"If you press me," he returned winningly, "how can I refuse? You are too
good!"

His impertinence disconcerted even himself; he wondered that she did not
slap him as he passed her, entering the room; and felt that he deserved it,
despite her attitude. But such thoughts could not long trouble one whose
eyes were enchanted by the sight of Dorothy, confronting him in the middle
of the dingy room, her hands, bristling dangerously with hat pins, busy
with the adjustment of a small gray toque atop the wonder that was her
hair. So vivacious and charming she seemed, so spirited and bright her
welcoming smile, so foreign was she altogether to the picture of her, worn
and distraught, that he had mentally conjured up, that he stopped in an
extreme of disconcertion; and dropped the hand-bag, smiling sheepishly
enough under her ready laugh--mirth irresistibly incited by the
plainly-read play of expression on his mobile countenance.

"You must forgive the unconventionally, Mr. Kirkwood," she apologized,
needlessly enough, but to cover his embarrassment. "I am on the point of
going out with Mrs. Hallam--and of course you are the last person on earth
I expected to meet here!"

"It's good to see you, Miss Calendar," he said simply, remarking with much
satisfaction that her trim walking costume bore witness to her statement
that she was prepared for the street.

The girl glanced into a mirror, patted the small, bewitching hat an
infinitesimal fraction of an inch to one side, and turned to him again,
her hands free. One of them, small but cordial, rested in his grasp for an
instant all too brief, the while he gazed earnestly into her face,
noting with concern what the first glance had not shown him,--the almost
imperceptible shadows beneath her eyes and cheek-bones, pathetic records of
the hours the girl had spent, since last he had seen her, in company with
his own grim familiar, Care.

Not a little of care and distress of mind had seasoned her portion in those
two weary days. He saw and knew it; and his throat tightened inexplicably,
again, as it had out there in the corridor. Possibly the change in her had
passed unchallenged by any eyes other than his, but even in the little time
that he had spent in her society, the image of her had become fixed so
indelibly on his memory, that he could not now be deceived. She was
changed--a little, but changed; she had suffered, and was suffering and,
forced by suffering, her nascent womanhood was stirring in the bud. The
child that he had met in London, in Antwerp he found grown to woman's
stature and slowly coming to comprehension of the nature of the change in
herself,--the wonder of it glowing softly in her eyes....

The clear understanding of mankind that is an appanage of woman's estate,
was now added to the intuitions of a girl's untroubled heart. She could
not be blind to the mute adoration of his gaze; nor could she resent it.
Beneath it she colored and lowered her lashes.

"I was about to go out," she repeated in confusion. "I--it's pleasant to
see you, too."

"Thank you," he stammered ineptly; "I--I--"

"If Mr. Kirkwood will excuse us, Dorothy," Mrs. Hallam's sharp tones struck
in discordantly, "we shall be glad to see him when we return to London."

"I am infinitely complimented, Mrs. Hallam," Kirkwood assured her; and of
the girl quickly: "You're going back home?" he asked.

She nodded, with a faint, puzzled smile that included the woman. "After a
little--not immediately. Mrs. Hallam is so kind--"

"Pardon me," he interrupted; "but tell me one thing, please: have you any
one in England to whom you can go without invitation and be welcomed and
cared for--any friends or relations?"

"Dorothy will be with me," Mrs. Hallam answered for her, with cold
defiance.

Deliberately insolent, Kirkwood turned his back to the woman. "Miss
Calendar, will you answer my question for yourself?" he asked the girl
pointedly.

"Why--yes; several friends; none in London, but--"

"Dorothy--"

"One moment, Mrs. Hallam," Kirkwood flung crisply over his shoulder. "I'm
going to ask you something rather odd, Miss Calendar," he continued,
seeking the girl's eyes. "I hope--"

"Dorothy, I--"

"If you please, Mrs. Hallam," suggested the girl, with just the right shade
of independence. "I wish to listen to Mr. Kirkwood. He has been very kind
to me and has every right...." She turned to him again, leaving the woman
breathless and speechless with anger.

"You told me once," Kirkwood continued quickly, and, he felt, brazenly,
"that you considered me kind, thoughtful and considerate. You know me
no better to-day than you did then, but I want to beg you to trust me a
little. Can you trust yourself to my protection until we reach your friends
in England?"

"Why, I--" the girl faltered, taken by surprise.

"Mr. Kirkwood!" cried Mrs. Hallam angrily, finding her voice.

Kirkwood turned to meet her onslaught with a mien grave, determined,
unflinching. "Please do not interfere, Madam," he said quietly.

"You are impertinent, sir! Dorothy, I forbid you to listen to this person!"

The girl flushed, lifting her chin a trifle. "Forbid?" she repeated
wonderingly.

Kirkwood was quick to take advantage of her resentment. "Mrs. Hallam is not
fitted to advise you," he insisted, "nor can she control your actions. It
must already have occurred to you that you're rather out of place in the
present circumstances. The men who have brought you hither, I believe you
already see through, to some extent. Forgive my speaking plainly ... But
that is why you have accepted Mrs. Hallam's offer of protection. Will you
take my word for it, when I tell you she has not your right interests at
heart, but the reverse? I happen to know, Miss Calendar, and I--"

"How dare you, sir?"

Flaming with rage, Mrs. Hallam put herself bodily between them, confronting
Kirkwood in white-lipped desperation, her small, gloved hands clenched and
quivering at her sides, her green eyes dangerous.

But Kirkwood could silence her; and he did. "Do you wish me to speak
frankly, Madam? Do you wish me to tell what I know--and all I know--," with
rising emphasis,--"of your social status and your relations with Calendar
and Mulready? I promise you that if you wish it, or force me to it...."

But he had need to say nothing further; the woman's eyes wavered before his
and a little sob of terror forced itself between her shut teeth. Kirkwood
smiled grimly, with a face of brass, impenetrable, inflexible. And suddenly
she turned from him with indifferent bravado.

"As Mr. Kirkwood says, Dorothy," she said in her high, metallic voice, "I
have no authority over you. But if you're silly enough to consider for a
moment this fellow's insulting suggestion, if you're fool enough to go with
him, unchaperoned through Europe and imperil your--"

"Mrs. Hallam!" Kirkwood cut her short with a menacing tone.

"Why, then, I wash my hands of you," concluded the woman defiantly. "Make
your choice, my child," she added with a meaning laugh and moved away,
humming a snatch from a French _chanson_ which brought the hot blood to
Kirkwood's face.

But the girl did not understand; and he was glad of that. "You may judge
between us," he appealed to her directly, once more. "I can only offer
you my word of honor as an American gentleman that you shall be landed in
England, safe and sound, by the first available steamer--"

"There's no need to say more, Mr. Kirkwood," Dorothy informed him quietly.
"I have already decided. I think I begin to understand some things clearly,
now.... If you're ready, we will go."

From the window, where she stood, holding the curtains back and staring
out, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.

[Illustration: From the window, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.]

"'The honor of an American gentleman,'" she quoted with a stinging sneer;
"I'm sure I wish you comfort of it, child!"

"We must make haste, Miss Calendar," said Kirkwood, ignoring the
implication. "Have you a traveling-bag?"

She silently indicated a small valise, closed and strapped, on a table by
the bed, and immediately passed out into the hall. Kirkwood took the case
containing the gladstone bag in one hand, the girl's valise in the other,
and followed.

As he turned the head of the stairs he looked back. Mrs. Hallam was still
at the window, her back turned. From her very passiveness he received an
impression of something ominous and forbidding; if she had lost a trick or
two of the game she played, she still held cards, was not at the end of her
resources. She stuck in his imagination for many an hour as a force to be
reckoned with.

For the present he understood that she was waiting to apprise Calendar and
Mulready of their flight. With the more haste, then, he followed Dorothy
down the three flights, through the tiny office, where Madam sat sound
asleep at her over-burdened desk, and out.

Opposite the door they were fortunate enough to find a fiacre drawn up in
waiting at the curb. Kirkwood opened the door for the girl to enter.

"Gare du Sud," he directed the driver. "Drive your fastest--double fare for
quick time!"

The driver awoke with a start from profound reverie, looked Kirkwood over,
and bowed with gesticulative palms.

"M'sieu', I am desolated, but engaged!" he protested.

"Precisely." Kirkwood deposited the two bags on the forward seat of the
conveyance, and stood back to convince the man. "Precisely," said he,
undismayed. "The lady who engaged you is remaining for a time; I will
settle her bill."

"Very well, M'sieu'!" The driver disclaimed responsibility and accepted the
favor of the gods with a speaking shrug. "M'sieu' said the Gare du Sud? _En
voiture_!"

Kirkwood jumped in and shut the door; the vehicle drew slowly away from
the curb, then with gratifying speed hammered up-stream on the embankment.
Bending forward, elbows on knees, Kirkwood watched the sidewalks narrowly,
partly to cover the girl's constraint, due to Mrs. Hallam's attitude,
partly on the lookout for Calendar and his confederates. In a few moments
they passed a public clock.

"We've missed the Flushing boat," he announced. "I'm making a try for the
Hoek van Holland line. We may possibly make it. I know that it leaves by
the Sud Quai, and that's all I do know," he concluded with an apologetic
laugh.

"And if we miss that?" asked the girl, breaking silence for the first time
since they had left the hotel.

"We'll take the first train out of Antwerp."

"Where to?"

"Wherever the first train goes, Miss Calendar.... The main point is to get
away to-night. That we must do, no matter where we land, or how we get
there. To-morrow we can plan with more certainty."

"Yes..." Her assent was more a sigh than a word.

The cab, dashing down the Rue Leopold de Wael, swung into the Place du Sud,
before the station. Kirkwood, acutely watchful, suddenly thrust head and
shoulders out of his window (fortunately it was the one away from the
depot), and called up to the driver.

"Don't stop! Gare Centrale now--and treble fare!"

"_Oui, M'sieu'! Allons!_"

The whip cracked and the horse swerved sharply round the corner into the
Avenue du Sud. The young man, with a hushed exclamation, turned in his
seat, lifting the flap over the little peephole in the back of the
carriage.

He had not been mistaken. Calendar was standing in front of the station;
and it was plain to be seen, from his pose, that the madly careering fiacre
interested him more than slightly. Irresolute, perturbed, the man took
a step or two after it, changed his mind, and returned to his post of
observation.

Kirkwood dropped the flap and turned back to find the girl's wide eyes
searching his face. He said nothing.

"What was that?" she asked after a patient moment.

"Your father, Miss Calendar," he returned uncomfortably.

There fell a short pause; then: "Why--will you tell me--is it necessary to
run away from my father, Mr. Kirkwood?" she demanded, with a moving little
break in her voice.

Kirkwood hesitated. It were unfeeling to tell her why; yet it was essential
that she should know, however painful the knowledge might prove to her.

And she was insistent; he might not dodge the issue. "Why?" she repeated as
he paused.

"I wish you wouldn't press me for an answer just now, Miss Calendar."

"Don't you think I had better know?"

Instinctively he inclined his head in assent.

"Then why--?"

Kirkwood bent forward and patted the flank of the satchel that held the
gladstone bag.

"What does that mean, Mr. Kirkwood?"

"That I have the jewels," he told her tersely, looking straight ahead.

At his shoulder he heard a low gasp of amazement and incredulity
commingled.

"But--! How did you get them? My father deposited them in bank this
morning?"

"He must have taken them out again.... I got them on board the Alethea,
where your father was conferring with Mulready and Captain Stryker."

"The Alethea!"

"Yes."

"You took them from those men?--you!... But didn't my father--?"

"I had to persuade him," said Kirkwood simply.

"But there were three of them against you!"

"Mulready wasn't--ah--feeling very well, and Stryker's a coward. They gave
me no trouble. I locked them in Stryker's room, lifted the bag of jewels,
and came away.... I ought to tell you that they were discussing the
advisability of sailing away without you--leaving you here, friendless and
without means. That's why I considered it my duty to take a hand.... I
don't like to tell you this so brutally, but you ought to know, and I can't
see how to tone it down," he concluded awkwardly.

"I understand...."

But for some moments she did not speak. He avoided looking at her.

The fiacre, rolling at top speed but smoothly on the broad avenues that
encircle the ancient city, turned into the Avenue de Keyser, bringing into
sight the Gare Centrale.

"You don't--k-know--" began the girl without warning, in a voice gusty with
sobs.

"Steady on!" said Kirkwood gently. "I do know, but don't let's talk about
it now. We'll be at the station in a minute, and I'll get out and see
what's to be done about a train, if neither Mulready or Stryker are about.
You stay in the carriage.... No!" He changed his mind suddenly. "I'll not
risk losing you again. It's a risk we'll have to run in company."

"Please!" she agreed brokenly.

The fiacre slowed up and stopped.

"Are you all right, Miss Calendar?" Kirkwood asked.

The girl sat up, lifting her head proudly. "I am quite ready," she said,
steadying her voice.

Kirkwood reconnoitered through the window, while the driver was descending.

"Gare Centrale, M'sieu'," he said, opening the door.

"No one in sight," Kirkwood told the girl. "Come, please."

He got out and gave her his hand, then paid the driver, picked up the two
bags, and hurried with Dorothy into the station, to find in waiting a
string of cars into which people were moving at leisurely rate. His
inquiries at the ticket-window developed the fact that it was the 22:26 for
Brussels, the last train leaving the Gare Centrale that night, and due to
start in ten minutes.

The information settled their plans for once and all; Kirkwood promptly
secured through tickets, also purchasing "Reserve" supplementary tickets
which entitled them to the use of those modern corridor coaches which take
the place of first-class compartments on the Belgian state railways.

"It's a pleasure," said Kirkwood lightly, as he followed the girl into one
of these, "to find one's self in a common-sense sort of a train again.
'Feels like home." He put their luggage in one of the racks and sat down
beside her, chattering with simulated cheerfulness in a vain endeavor to
lighten her evident depression of spirit. "I always feel like a traveling
anachronism in one of your English trains," he said. "You can't
appreciate--"

The girl smiled bravely.... "And after Brussels?" she inquired.

"First train for the coast," he said promptly. "Dover, Ostend,
Boulogne,--whichever proves handiest, no matter which, so long as it gets
us on English soil without undue delay."

She said "Yes" abstractedly, resting an elbow on the window-sill and her
chin in her palm, to stare with serious, sweet brown eyes out into the
arc-smitten night that hung beneath the echoing roof.

Kirkwood fidgeted in despite of the constraint he placed himself under, to
be still and not disturb her needlessly. Impatience and apprehension of
misfortune obsessed his mental processes in equal degree. The ten minutes
seemed interminable that elapsed ere the grinding couplings advertised the
imminence of their start.

The guards began to bawl, the doors to slam, belated travelers to dash
madly for the coaches. The train gave a preliminary lurch ere settling down
to its league-long inland dash.

Kirkwood, in a fever of hope and an ague of fear, saw a man sprint
furiously across the platform and throw himself on the forward steps of
their coach, on the very instant of the start.

Presently he entered by the forward door and walked slowly through,
narrowly inspecting the various passengers. As he approached the seats
occupied by Kirkwood and Dorothy Calendar, his eyes encountered the young
man's, and he leered evilly. Kirkwood met the look with one that was like a
kick, and the fellow passed with some haste into the car behind.

"Who was that?" demanded the girl, without moving her head.

"How did you know?" he asked, astonished. "You didn't look--"

"I saw your knuckles whiten beneath the skin.... Who was it?"

"Hobbs," he acknowledged bitterly; "the mate of the _Alethea_."

"I know.... And you think--?"

"Yes. He must have been ashore when I was on board the brigantine; he
certainly wasn't in the cabin. Evidently they hunted him up, or ran across
him, and pressed him into service.... You see, they're watching every
outlet.... But we'll win through, never fear!"

XVI

TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON

The train, escaping the outskirts of the city, remarked the event with an
exultant shriek, then settled down, droning steadily, to night-devouring
flight. In the corridor-car the few passengers disposed themselves to
drowse away the coming hour--the short hour's ride that, in these piping
days of frantic traveling, separates Antwerp from the capital city of
Belgium.

A guard, slamming gustily in through the front door, reeled unsteadily down
the aisle. Kirkwood, rousing from a profound reverie, detained him with a
gesture and began to interrogate him in French. When he departed presently
it transpired that the girl was unaquainted with that tongue.

"I didn't understand, you know," she told him with a slow, shy smile.

"I was merely questioning him about the trains from Brussels to-night. We
daren't stop, you see; we must go on,--keep Hobbs on the jump and lose him,
if possible. There's where our advantage lies--in having only Hobbs to deal
with. He's not particularly intellectual; and we've two heads to his one,
besides. If we can prevent him from guessing our destination and wiring
back to Antwerp, we may win away. You understand?"

"Perfectly," she said, brightening. "And what do you purpose doing now?"

"I can't tell yet. The guard's gone to get me some information about the
night trains on other lines. In the meantime, don't fret about Hobbs; I'll
answer for Hobbs."

"I shan't be worried," she said simply, "with you here...."

Whatever answer he would have made he was obliged to postpone because of
the return of the guard, with a handful of time-tables; and when, rewarded
with a modest gratuity, the man had gone his way, and Kirkwood turned again
to the girl, she had withdrawn her attention for the time.

Unconscious of his bold regard, she was dreaming, her thoughts at
loose-ends, her eyes studying the incalculable depths of blue-black night
that swirled and eddied beyond the window-glass. The most shadowy of smiles
touched her lips, the faintest shade of deepened color rested on her
cheeks.... She was thinking of--him? As long as he dared, the young man,
his heart in his own eyes, watched her greedily, taking a miser's joy of
her youthful beauty, striving with all his soul to analyze the enigma of
that most inscrutable smile.

It baffled him. He could not say of what she thought; and told himself
bitterly that it was not for him, a pauper, to presume a place in her
meditations. He must not forget his circumstances, nor let her tolerance
render him oblivious to his place, which must be a servant's, not a
lover's.

The better to convince himself of this, he plunged desperately into
a forlorn attempt to make head or tail of Belgian railway schedule,
complicated as these of necessity are by the alternation from normal
time notation to the abnormal system sanctioned by the government, and
_vice-versa_, with every train that crosses a boundary line of the state.

So preoccupied did he become in this pursuit that he was subconsciously
impressed that the girl had spoken twice, ere he could detach his interest
from the exasperatingly inconclusive and incoherent cohorts of ranked
figures.

"Can't you find out anything?" Dorothy was asking.

"Precious little," he grumbled. "I'd give my head for a Bradshaw! Only it
wouldn't be a fair exchange.... There seems to be an express for
Bruges leaving the Gare du Nord, Brussels, at fifty-five minutes after
twenty-three o'clock; and if I'm not mistaken, that's the latest train out
of Brussels and the earliest we can catch,... if we _can_ catch it. I've
never been in Brussels, and Heaven only knows how long it would take us to
cab it from the Gare du Midi to the Nord."

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