The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance

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Slowly he began to ascend, a hand following the balusters, the other with
his cane exploring the obscurity before him. On the steps, a carpet, thick
and heavy, muffled his footfalls. He moved noiselessly. Towards the top
the staircase curved, and presently a foot that groped for a higher level
failed to find it. Again he halted, acutely distrustful.

Nothing happened.

He went on, guided by the balustrade, passing three doors, all open,
through which the undefined proportions of a drawing-room and boudoir were
barely suggested in a ghostly dusk. By each he paused, listening, hearing
nothing.

His foot struck with a deadened thud against the bottom step of the
second flight, and his pulses fluttered wildly for a moment. Two
minutes--three--he waited in suspense. From above came no sound. He went
on, as before, save that twice a step yielded, complaining, to his weight.
Toward the top the close air, like the darkness, seemed to weigh more
heavily upon his consciousness; little drops of perspiration started out on
his forehead, his scalp tingled, his mouth was hot and dry, he felt as if
stifled.

Again the raised foot found no level higher than its fellows. He stopped
and held his breath, oppressed by a conviction that some one was near him.
Confirmation of this came startlingly--an eerie whisper in the night, so
close to him that he fancied he could feel the disturbed air fanning his
face.

"_Is it you, Eccles_?"

He had no answer ready. The voice was masculine, if he analyzed it
correctly. Dumb and stupid he stood poised upon the point of panic.

"_Eccles, is it you_?"

The whisper was both shrill and shaky. As it ceased Kirkwood was
half blinded by a flash of light, striking him squarely in the eyes.
Involuntarily he shrank back a pace, to the first step from the top.
Instantaneously the light was eclipsed.

"_Halt or--or I fire_!"

By now he realized that he had been scrutinized by the aid of an electric
hand-lamp. The tremulous whisper told him something else--that the speaker
suffered from nerves as high-strung as his own. The knowledge gave him
inspiration. He cried at a venture, in a guarded voice, "_Hands up_!"--and
struck out smartly with his stick. Its ferrule impinged upon something soft
but heavy. Simultaneously he heard a low, frightened cry, the cane was
swept aside, a blow landed glancingly on his shoulder, and he was carried
fairly off his feet by the weight of a man hurled bodily upon him with
staggering force and passion. Reeling, he was borne back and down a step
or two, and then,--choking on an oath,--dropped his cane and with one hand
caught the balusters, while the other tore ineffectually at wrists of
hands that clutched his throat. So, for a space, the two hung, panting and
struggling.

Then endeavoring to swing his shoulders over against the wall, Kirkwood
released his grip on the hand-rail and stumbled on the stairs, throwing his
antagonist out of balance. The latter plunged downward, dragging Kirkwood
with him. Clawing, kicking, grappling, they went to the bottom, jolted
violently by each step; but long before the last was reached, Kirkwood's
throat was free.

Throwing himself off, he got to his feet and grasped the railing for
support; then waited, panting, trying to get his bearings. Himself
painfully shaken and bruised, he shrewdly surmised that his assailant had
fared as ill, if not worse. And, in point of fact, the man lay with neither
move nor moan, still as death at the American's feet.

And once more silence had folded its wings over Number 9, Frognall Street.

More conscious of that terrifying, motionless presence beneath him, than
able to distinguish it by power of vision, he endured interminable minutes
of trembling horror, in a witless daze, before he thought of his match-box.
Immediately he found it and struck a light. As the wood caught and the
bright small flame leaped in the pent air, he leaned forward, over the
body, breathlessly dreading what he must discover.

The man lay quiet, head upon the floor, legs and hips on the stairs. One
arm had fallen over his face, hiding the upper half. The hand gleamed white
and delicate as a woman's. His chin was smooth and round, his lips thin and
petulant. Beneath his top-coat, evening dress clothed a short and slender
figure. Nothing whatever of his appearance suggested the burly ruffian, the
midnight marauder; he seemed little more than a boy old enough to dress
for dinner. In his attitude there was something pitifully suggestive of a
beaten child, thrown into a corner.

Conscience-smitten and amazed Kirkwood stared on until, without warning,
the match flickered and went out. Then, straightening up with an
exclamation at once of annoyance and concern, he rattled the box; it made
no sound,--was empty. In disgust he swore it was the devil's own luck, that
he should run out of vestas at a time so critical. He could not even say
whether the fellow was dead, unconscious, or simply shamming. He had little
idea of his looks; and to be able to identify him might save a deal of
trouble at some future time,--since he, Kirkwood, seemed so little able
to disengage himself from the clutches of this insane adventure! And the
girl--. what had become of her? How could he continue to search for her,
without lights or guide, through all those silent rooms, whose walls might
inclose a hundred hidden dangers in that house of mystery?

But he debated only briefly. His blood was young, and it was hot; it was
quite plain to him that he could not withdraw and retain his self-respect.
If the girl was there to be found, most assuredly, he must find her. The
hand-lamp that had dazzled him at the head of the stairs should be his aid,
now that he thought of it,--and providing he was able to find it.

In the scramble on the stairs he had lost his hat, but he remembered that
the vesta's short-lived light had discovered this on the floor beyond
the man's body. Carefully stepping across the latter he recovered his
head-gear, and then, kneeling, listened with an ear close to the fellow's
face. A softly regular beat of breathing reassured him. Half rising, he
caught the body beneath the armpits, lifting and dragging it off the
staircase; and knelt again, to feel of each pocket in the man's clothing,
partly as an obvious precaution, to relieve him of his advertised revolver
against an untimely wakening, partly to see if he had the lamp about him.

The search proved fruitless. Kirkwood suspected that the weapon, like his
own, had existed only in his victim's ready imagination. As for the lamp,
in the act of rising he struck it with his foot, and picked it up.

It felt like a metal tube a couple of inches in diameter, a foot or so
in length, passably heavy. He fumbled with it impatiently. "However the
dickens," he wondered audibly, "does the infernal machine work?" As it
happened, the thing worked with disconcerting abruptness as his untrained
fingers fell hapchance on the spring. A sudden glare again smote him in the
face, and at the same instant, from a point not a yard away, apparently, an
inarticulate cry rang out upon the stillness.

Heart in his mouth, he stepped back, lowering the lamp (which impishly went
out) and lifting a protecting forearm.

"Who's that?" he demanded harshly.

A strangled sob of terror answered him, blurred by a swift rush of skirts,
and in a breath his shattered nerves quieted and a glimmer of common sense
penetrated the murk anger and fear had bred in his brain. He understood,
and stepped forward, catching blindly at the darkness with eager hands.

"Miss Calendar!" he cried guardedly. "Miss Calendar, it is I--Philip
Kirkwood!"

There was a second sob, of another caliber than the first; timid fingers
brushed his, and a hand, warm and fragile, closed upon his own in a passion
of relief and gratitude.

"Oh, I am so g-glad!" It was Dorothy Calendar's voice, beyond mistake.
"I--I didn't know what t-to t-think.... When the light struck your face
I was sure it was you, but when I called, you answered in a voice so
strange,--not like yours at all! ... Tell me," she pleaded, with palpable
effort to steady herself; "what has happened?"

"I think, perhaps," said Kirkwood uneasily, again troubled by his racing
pulses, "perhaps you can do that better than I."

"Oh!" said the voice guiltily; her fingers trembled on his, and were gently
withdrawn. "I was so frightened," she confessed after a little pause, "so
frightened that I hardly understand ... But you? How did you--?"

"I worried about you," he replied, in a tone absurdly apologetic. "Somehow
it didn't seem right. It was none of my business, of course, but ... I
couldn't help coming back. This fellow, whoever he is--don't worry;
he's unconscious--slipped into the house in a manner that seemed to me
suspicious. I hardly know why I followed, except that he left the door an
open invitation to interference ..."

"I can't be thankful enough," she told him warmly, "that you did interfere.
You have indeed saved me from ..."

"Yes?"

"I don't know what. If I knew the man--"

"You don't _know_ him?"

"I can't even guess. The light--?"

She paused inquiringly. Kirkwood fumbled with the lamp, but, whether its
rude handling had impaired some vital part of the mechanism, or whether the
batteries through much use were worn out, he was able to elicit only one
feeble glow, which was instantly smothered by the darkness.

"It's no use," he confessed. "The thing's gone wrong."

"Have you a match?"

"I used my last before I got hold of this."

"Oh," she commented, discouraged. "Have you any notion what he looks like?"

Kirkwood thought briefly. "Raffles," he replied with a chuckle. "He looks
like an amateurish and very callow Raffles. He's in dress clothes, you
know."

"I wonder!" There was a nuance of profound bewilderment in her exclamation.
Then: "He knocked against something in the hall--a chair, I presume; at all
events, I heard that and put out the light. I was ... in the room above the
drawing-room, you see. I stole down to this floor--was there, in the corner
by the stairs when he passed within six inches, and never guessed it. Then,
when he got on the next floor, I started on; but you came in. I slipped
into the drawing-room and crouched behind a chair. You went on, but I dared
not move until ... And then I heard some one cry out, and you fell down the
stairs together. I hope you were not hurt--?"

"Nothing worth mention; but _he_ must have got a pretty stiff knock, to lay
him out so completely." Kirkwood stirred the body with his toe, but the man
made no sign. "Dead to the world ... And now, Miss Calendar?"

If she answered, he did not hear; for on the heels of his query banged the
knocker down below; and thereafter crash followed crash, brewing a deep and
sullen thundering to rouse the echoes and send them rolling, like voices of
enraged ghosts, through the lonely rooms.

V

THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER

"What's that?" At the first alarm the girl had caught convulsively at
Kirkwood's arm. Now, when a pause came in the growling of the knocker, she
made him hear her voice; and it was broken and vibrant with a threat of
hysteria. "Oh, what can it mean?"

"I don't know." He laid a hand reassuringly over that which trembled on his
forearm. "The police, possibly."

"Police!" she iterated, aghast. "What makes you think--?"

"A man tried to stop me at the door," he answered quickly. "I got in before
he could. When he tried the knocker, a bobby came along and stopped him.
The latter may have been watching the house since then,--it'd be only his
duty to keep an eye on it; and Heaven knows we raised a racket, coming
head-first down those stairs! Now we are up against it," he added brightly.

But the girl was tugging at his hand. "Come!" she begged breathlessly.
"Come! There is a way! Before they break in--"

"But this man--?" Kirkwood hung back, troubled.

"They--the police are sure to find and care for him."

"So they will." He chuckled, "And serve him right! He'd have choked me to
death, with all the good will in the world!"

"Oh, do hurry!"

Turning, she sped light-footed down the staircase to the lower hall, he
at her elbow. Here the uproar was loudest--deep enough to drown whatever
sounds might have been made by two pairs of flying feet. For all that
they fled on tiptoe, stealthily, guilty shadows in the night; and at the
newel-post swung back into the unbroken blackness which shrouded the
fastnesses backward of the dwelling. A sudden access of fury on the part of
the alarmist at the knocker, spurred them on with quaking hearts. In half a
dozen strides, Kirkwood, guided only by instinct and the _frou-frou_ of the
girl's skirts as she ran invisible before him, stumbled on the uppermost
steps of a steep staircase; only a hand-rail saved him, and that at the
last moment. He stopped short, shocked into caution. From below came a
contrite whisper: "I'm so sorry! I should have warned you."

He pulled himself together, glaring wildly at nothing. "It's all right--"

"You're not hurt, truly? Oh, do come quickly."

She waited for him at the bottom of the flight;--happily for him, for he
was all at sea.

"Here--your hand--let me guide you. This darkness is dreadful ..."

He found her hand, somehow, and tucked his into it, confidingly, and not
without an uncertain thrill of satisfaction.

"Come!" she panted. "Come! If they break in--"

Stifled by apprehension, her voice failed her.

They went forward, now less impetuously, for it was very black; and the
knocker had fallen still.

"No fear of that," he remarked after a time. "They wouldn't dare break in."

A fluttering whisper answered him: "I don't know. We dare risk nothing."

They seemed to explore, to penetrate acres of labyrinthine chambers and
passages, delving deep into the bowels of the earth, like rabbits burrowing
in a warren, hounded by beagles.

Above stairs the hush continued unbroken; as if the dumb Genius of the
Place had cast a spell of silence on the knocker, or else, outraged, had
smitten the noisy disturber with a palsy.

The girl seemed to know her way; whether guided by familiarity or by
intuition, she led on without hesitation, Kirkwood blundering in her wake,
between confusion of impression, and dawning dismay conscious of but one
tangible thing, to which he clung as to his hope of salvation: those firm,
friendly fingers that clasped his own.

It was as if they wandered on for an hour; probably from start to finish
their flight took up three minutes, no more. Eventually the girl stopped,
releasing his hand. He could hear her syncopated breathing before him, and
gathered that something was wrong. He took a step forward.

"What is it?"

Her full voice broke out of the obscurity startlingly close, in his very
ear.

"The door--the bolts--I can't budge them."

"Let me ..."

He pressed forward, brushing her shoulder. She did not draw away, but
willingly yielded place to his hands at the fastenings; and what had proved
impossible to her, to his strong fingers was a matter of comparative ease.
Yet, not entirely consciously, he was not quick. As he tugged at the bolts
he was poignantly sensitive to the subtle warmth of her at his side; he
could hear her soft dry sobs of excitement and suspense, punctuating the
quiet; and was frightened, absolutely, by an impulse, too strong for
ridicule, to take her in his arms and comfort her with the assurance that,
whatever her trouble, he would stand by her and protect her.... It were
futile to try to laugh it off; he gave over the endeavor. Even at this
critical moment he found himself repeating over and over to his heart the
question: "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 congé. 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 _naiveté_ 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?"

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