The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance

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The engine was running up and down a scale of staccato snorts, in
preparation for the race, and the cars were on the edge of moving,
couplings clanking, wheels a-groan, ere Mr. Hobbs condescended to join them
between the tracks.

Wearily, disheartened, Kirkwood reopened the door, flung the bags in, and
helped the girl back into their despised compartment; the quicker route to
England via Ostend was now out of the question. As for himself, he waited
for a brace of seconds, eying wickedly the ubiquitous Hobbs, who had popped
back into his compartment, but stood ready to pop out again on the least
encouragement. In the meantime he was pleased to shake a friendly foot at
Mr. Kirkwood, thrusting that member out through the half-open door.

Only the timely departure of the train, compelling him to rejoin Dorothy at
once, if at all, prevented the American from adding murder to the already
noteworthy catalogue of his high crimes and misdemeanors.

Their simple meal, consumed to the ultimate drop and crumb while the
Dunkerque train meandered serenely through a sunny, smiling Flemish
countryside, somewhat revived their jaded spirits. After all, they were
young, enviably dowered with youth's exuberant elasticity of mood; the
world was bright in the dawning, the night had fled leaving naught but an
evil memory; best of all things, they were together: tacitly they were
agreed that somehow the future would take care of itself and all be well
with them.

For a time they laughed and chattered, pretending that the present held no
cares or troubles; but soon the girl, nestling her head in a corner of the
dingy cushions, was smiling ever more drowsily on Kirkwood; and presently
she slept in good earnest, the warm blood ebbing and flowing beneath
the exquisite texture of her cheeks, the ghost of an unconscious smile
quivering about the sensitive scarlet mouth, the breeze through the open
window at her side wantoning at will in the sunlit witchery of her hair.
And Kirkwood, worn with sleepless watching, dwelt in longing upon the dear
innocent allure of her until the ache in his heart had grown well-nigh
insupportable; then instinctively turned his gaze upwards, searching his
heart, reading the faith and desire of it, so that at length knowledge and
understanding came to him, of his weakness and strength and the clean love
that he bore for her, and gladdened he sat dreaming in waking the same
clear dreams that modeled her unconscious lips secretly for laughter and
the joy of living.

When Dunkerque halted their progress, they were obliged to alight and
change cars,--Hobbs a discreetly sinister shadow at the end of the
platform.

By schedule they were to arrive in Calais about the middle of the forenoon,
with a wait of three hours to be bridged before the departure of the Dover
packet. That would be an anxious time; the prospect of it rendered both
Dorothy and Kirkwood doubly anxious throughout this final stage of their
flight. In three hours anything could happen, or be brought about. Neither
could forget that it was quite within the bounds of possibilities for
Calendar to be awaiting them in Calais. Presuming that Hobbs had been acute
enough to guess their plans and advise his employer by telegraph, the
latter could readily have anticipated their arrival, whether by sea in the
brigantine, or by land, taking the direct route via Brussels and Lille. If
such proved to be the case, it were scarcely sensible to count upon the
arch-adventurer contenting himself with a waiting rôle like Hobbs'.

With such unhappy apprehensions for a stimulant, between them the man and
the girl contrived a make-shift counter-stratagem; or it were more accurate
to say that Kirkwood proposed it, while Dorothy rejected, disputed, and
at length accepted it, albeit with sad misgivings. For it involved a
separation that might not prove temporary.

Together they could never escape the surveillance of Mr. Hobbs; parted, he
would be obliged to follow one or the other. The task of misleading the
_Alethea's_ mate, Kirkwood undertook, delegating to the girl the duty of
escaping when he could provide her the opportunity, of keeping under
cover until the hour of sailing, and then proceeding to England, with the
gladstone bag, alone if Kirkwood was unable, or thought it inadvisable, to
join her on the boat.

In furtherance of this design, a majority of the girl's belongings were
transferred from her traveling bag to Kirkwood's, the gladstone taking
their place; and the young man provided her with voluminous instructions, a
revolver which she did not know how to handle and declared she would never
use for any consideration, and enough money to pay for her accommodation at
the Terminus Hôtel, near the pier, and for two passages to London. It was
agreed that she should secure the steamer booking, lest Kirkwood be delayed
until the last moment.

These arrangements concluded, the pair of blessed idiots sat steeped in
melancholy silence, avoiding each other's eyes, until the train drew in at
the Gare Centrale, Calais.

In profound silence, too, they left their compartment and passed through
the station, into the quiet, sun-drenched streets of the seaport,--Hobbs
hovering solicitously in the offing.

Without comment or visible relief of mind they were aware that their fears
had been without apparent foundation; they saw no sign of Calendar, Stryker
or Mulready. The circumstance, however, counted for nothing; one or all of
the adventurers might arrive in Calais at any minute.

Momentarily more miserable as the time of parting drew nearer, dumb with
unhappiness, they turned aside from the main thoroughfares of the city,
leaving the business section, and gained the sleepier side streets,
bordered by the residences of the proletariat, where for blocks none but
children were to be seen, and of them but few--quaint, sober little bodies
playing almost noiselessly in their dooryards.

At length Kirkwood spoke.

"Let's make it the corner," he said, without looking at the girl. "It's a
short block to the next street. You hurry to the Terminus and lock yourself
in your room. Have the management book both passages; don't run the risk of
going to the pier yourself. I'll make things interesting for Mr. Hobbs, and
join you as soon as I can, _if_ I can."

"You must," replied the girl. "I shan't go without you."

"But, Dor--Miss Calendar!" he exclaimed, aghast.

"I don't care--I know I agreed," she declared mutinously. "But I won't--I
can't. Remember I shall wait for you."

"But--but perhaps--"

"If you have to stay, it will be because there's danger--won't it? And
what would you think of me if I deserted you then, af-after all y-you've
done?... Please don't waste time arguing. Whether you come at one to-day,
to-morrow, or a week from to-morrow, I shall be waiting.... You may be
sure. Good-by."

They had turned the corner, walking slowly, side by side; Hobbs, for the
first time caught off his guard, had dropped behind more than half a long
block. But now Kirkwood's quick sidelong glance discovered the mate in the
act of taking alarm and quickening his pace. None the less the American was
at the time barely conscious of anything other than a wholly unexpected
furtive pressure of the girl's gloved fingers on his own.

"Good-by," she whispered.

He caught at her hand, protesting. "Dorothy--!"

"Good-by," she repeated breathlessly, with a queer little catch in her
voice. "God be with you, Philip, and--and send you safely back to me...."

And she was running away.

Dumfounded with dismay, seeing in a flash how all his plans might be set at
naught by this her unforeseen insubordination, he took a step or two after
her; but she was fleet of foot, and, remembering Hobbs, he halted.

By this time the mate, too, was running; Kirkwood could hear the heavy
pounding of his clumsy feet. Already Dorothy had almost gained the farther
corner; as she whisked round it with a flutter of skirts, Kirkwood dodged
hastily behind a gate-post. A thought later, Hobbs appeared, head down,
chest out, eyes straining for sight of his quarry, pelting along for dear
life.

As, rounding the corner, he stretched out in swifter stride, Kirkwood was
inspired to put a spoke in his wheel; and a foot thrust suddenly out from
behind the gate-post accomplished his purpose with more success than he
had dared anticipate. Stumbling, the mate plunged headlong, arms and legs
a-sprawl; and the momentum of his pace, though checked, carried him along
the sidewalk, face downwards, a full yard ere he could stay himself.

Kirkwood stepped out of the gateway and sheered off as Hobbs picked
himself up; something which he did rather slowly, as if in a daze, without
comprehension of the cause of his misfortune. And for a moment he stood
pulling his wits together and swaying as though on the point of resuming
his rudely interrupted chase; when the noise of Kirkwood's heels brought
him about face in a twinkling.

"Ow, it's you, eh!" he snarled in a temper as vicious as his countenance;
and both of these were much the worse for wear and tear.

"Myself," admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor: "Weren't
you looking for me?"

His rage seemed to take the little Cockney and shake him by the throat; he
trembled from head to foot, his face shockingly congested, and spat out
dust and fragments of lurid blasphemy like an infuriated cat.

Of a sudden, "W'ere's the gel?" he sputtered thickly as his quick shifting
eyes for the first time noted Dorothy's absence.

"Miss Calendar has other business--none with you. I've taken the liberty of
stopping you because I have a word or two--"

"Ow, you 'ave, 'ave you? Gawd strike me blind, but I've a word for you,
too!... 'And over that bag--and look nippy, or I'll myke you pye for w'at
you've done to me ... I'll myke you pye!" he iterated hoarsely, edging
closer. "'And it over or--"

"You've got another guess--" Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in
deference to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action.

To some extent he had underestimated the brute courage of the fellow, the
violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his kind.
Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of villainy, Kirkwood
had been a little less wary than he would have been with Calendar or
Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so
conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to
learn that if Stryker's nature was like a snake's for low cunning and
deviousness, Hobbs' soul was the soul of a viper.

Almost imperceptibly he had advanced upon Kirkwood; almost insensibly his
right hand had moved toward his chest; now, with a movement marvelously
deft, it had slipped in and out of his breast pocket. And a six-inch blade
of tarnished steel was winging toward Kirkwood's throat with the speed of
light.

Instinctively he stepped back; as instinctively he guarded with his right
forearm, lifting the hand that held the satchel. The knife, catching in his
sleeve, scratched the arm beneath painfully, and simultaneously was twisted
from the mate's grasp, while in his surprise Kirkwood's grip on the
bag-handle relaxed. It was torn forcibly from his fingers just as he
received a heavy blow on his chest from the mate's fist. He staggered back.

By the time he had recovered from the shock, Hobbs was a score of feet
away, the satchel tucked under his arm, his body bent almost double,
running like a jack-rabbit. Ere Kirkwood could get under way, in pursuit,
the mate had dodged out of sight round the corner. When the American caught
sight of him again, he was far down the block, and bettering his pace with
every jump.

He was approaching, also, some six or eight good citizens of Calais, men of
the laboring class, at a guess. Their attention attracted by his frantic
flight, they stopped to wonder. One or two moved as though to intercept
him, and he doubled out into the middle of the street with the quickness of
thought; an instant later he shot round another corner and disappeared, the
natives streaming after in hot chase, electrified by the inspiring strains
of "Stop, thief!"--or its French equivalent.

Kirkwood, cheering them on with the same wild cry, followed to the farther
street; and there paused, so winded and weak with laughter that he was fain
to catch at a fence picket for support. Standing thus he saw other denizens
of Calais spring as if from the ground miraculously to swell the hue and
cry; and a dumpling of a gendarme materialized from nowhere at all, to fall
in behind the rabble, waving his sword above his head and screaming at the
top of his lungs, the while his fat legs twinkled for all the world like
thick sausage links marvelously animated.

The mob straggled round yet another corner and was gone; its clamor
diminished on the still Spring air; and Kirkwood, recovering, abandoned
Mr. Hobbs to the justice of the high gods and the French system of
jurisprudence (at least, he hoped the latter would take an interest in the
case, if haply Hobbs were laid by the heels), and went his way rejoicing.

As for the scratch on his arm, it was nothing, as he presently demonstrated
to his complete satisfaction in the seclusion of a chance-sent fiacre.
Kirkwood, commissioning it to drive him to the American Consulate, made
his diagnosis _en route_; wound a handkerchief round the negligible wound,
rolled down his sleeve, and forgot it altogether in the joys of picturing
to himself Hobbs in the act of opening the satchel in expectation of
finding therein the gladstone bag.

At the consulate door he paid off the driver and dismissed him; the fiacre
had served his purpose, and he could find his way to the Terminus Hôtel at
infinitely less expense. He had a considerably harder task before him as
he ascended the steps to the consular doorway, knocked and made known the
nature of his errand.

No malicious destiny could have timed the hour of his call more appositely;
the consul was at home and at the disposal of his fellow-citizens--within
bounds.

In the course of thirty minutes or so Kirkwood emerged with dignity from
the consulate, his face crimson to the hair, his soul smarting with
shame and humiliation; and left an amused official representative of his
country's government with the impression of having been entertained to the
point of ennui by an exceptionally clumsy but pertinacious liar.

For the better part of the succeeding hour Kirkwood circumnavigated the
neighborhood of the steamer pier and the Terminus Hôtel, striving to render
himself as inconspicuous as he felt insignificant, and keenly on the
alert for any sign or news of Hobbs. In this pursuit he was pleasantly
disappointed.

At noon precisely, his suspense grown too onerous for his strength of will,
throwing caution and their understanding to the winds, he walked boldly
into the Terminus, and inquired for Miss Calendar.

The assurance he received that she was in safety under its roof did not
deter him from sending up his name and asking her to receive him in the
public lounge; he required the testimony of his senses to convince him that
no harm had come to her in the long hour and a half that had elapsed since
their separation.

Woman-like, she kept him waiting. Alone in the public rooms of the hotel,
he suffered excruciating torments. How was he to know that Calendar had not
arrived and found his way to her?

When at length she appeared on the threshold of the apartment, bringing
with her the traveling bag and looking wonderfully the better for her
ninety minutes of complete repose and privacy, the relief he experienced
was so intense that he remained transfixed in the middle of the floor,
momentarily able neither to speak nor to move.

On her part, so fagged and distraught did he seem, that at sight of his
care-worn countenance she hurried to him with outstretched, compassionate
hands and a low pitiful cry of concern, forgetful entirely of that which he
himself had forgotten--the emotion she had betrayed on parting.

"Oh, nothing wrong," he hastened to reassure her, with a sorry ghost of his
familiar grin; "only I have lost Hobbs and the satchel with your things;
and there's no sign yet of Mr. Calendar. We can feel pretty comfortable
now, and--and I thought it time we had something like a meal."

The narrative of his adventure which he delivered over their _déjeuner à
la fourchette_ contained no mention either of his rebuff at the American
Consulate or the scratch he had sustained during Hobbs' murderous assault;
the one could not concern her, the other would seem but a bid for her
sympathy. He counted it a fortunate thing that the mate's knife had been
keen enough to penetrate the cloth of his sleeve without tearing it; the
slit it had left was barely noticeable. And he purposely diverted the girl
with flashes of humorous description, so that they discussed both meal and
episode in a mood of wholesome merriment.

It was concluded, all too soon for the taste of either, by the waiter's
announcement that the steamer was on the point of sailing.

Outwardly composed, inwardly quaking, they boarded the packet, meeting with
no misadventure whatever--if we are to except the circumstance that, when
the restaurant bill was settled and the girl had punctiliously surrendered
his change with the tickets, Kirkwood found himself in possession of
precisely one franc and twenty centimes.

He groaned in spirit to think how differently he might have been fixed, had
he not in his infatuated spirit of honesty been so anxious to give Calendar
more than ample value for his money!

An inexorable anxiety held them both near the gangway until it was cast off
and the boat began to draw away from the pier. Then, and not till then, did
an unimpressive, small figure of a man detach itself from the shield of a
pile of luggage and advance to the pier-head. No second glance was
needed to identify Mr. Hobbs; and until the perspective dwarfed him
indistinguishably, he was to be seen, alternately waving Kirkwood ironic
farewell and blowing violent kisses to Miss Calendar from the tips of his
soiled fingers.

So he had escaped arrest....

At first by turns indignant and relieved to realize that thereafter they
were to 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.

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