The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance

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VIII

MADAME L'INTRIGANTE

"Mrs. Hallam!" cried Kirkwood, beneath his breath.

The woman ignored his existence. Moving swiftly forward, she dropped on
both knees by the side of the boy, and caught up one of his hands, clasping
it passionately in her own.

"Fred!" she cried, a curious break in her tone. "My little Freddie! Oh,
what has happened, dearie?"

"Oh, hello, Mamma," grunted that young man, submitting listlessly to her
caresses and betraying no overwhelming surprise at her appearance there.
Indeed he seemed more concerned as to what Kirkwood, an older man, would
be thinking, to see him so endeared and fondled, than moved by any other
emotion. Kirkwood could see his shamefaced, sidelong glances; and despised
him properly for them.

But without attending to his response, Mrs. Hallam rattled on in the uneven
accents of excitement. "I waited until I couldn't wait any longer, Freddie
dear. I had to know--had to come. Eccles came home about nine and said that
you had told him to wait outside, that some one had followed you in here,
and that a bobby had told him to move on. I didn't know what--"

"What's o'clock now?" her son interrupted.

"It's about three, I think ... Have you hurt yourself, dear? Oh, why
_didn't_ you come home? You must've known I was dying of anxiety!"

"Oh, I say! Can't you see I'm hurt? 'Had a nasty fall and must've been
asleep ever since."

"My precious one! How--?"

"Can't say, hardly ... I say, don't paw a chap so, Mamma ... I brought
Eccles along and told him to wait because--well, because I didn't feel so
much like shuttin' myself up in this beastly old tomb. So I left the door
ajar, and told him not to let anybody come in. Then I came up-stairs. There
must've been somebody already in the house; I know I _thought_ there was.
It made me feel creepy, rather. At any rate, I heard voices down below, and
the door banged, and somebody began hammerin' like fun on the knocker."

The boy paused, rolling an embarrassed eye up at the stranger.

"Yes, yes, dear!" Mrs. Hallam urged him on.

"Why, I--I made up my mind to cut my stick--let whoever it was pass me on
the stairs, you know. But he followed me and struck me, and then I jumped
at him, and we both fell down the whole flight. And that's all. Besides, my
head's achin' like everything."

"But this man--?"

Mrs. Hallam looked up at Kirkwood, who bowed silently, struggling to hide
both his amusement and perplexity. More than ever, now, the case presented
a front inscrutable to his wits; try as he might, he failed to fit an
explanation to any incident in which he had figured, while this last
development--that his antagonist of the dark stairway had been Mrs.
Hallam's son!--seemed the most astounding of all, baffling elucidation
completely.

He had abandoned all thought of flight and escape. It was too late; in the
brisk idiom of his mother-tongue, he was "caught with the goods on." "May
as well face the music," he counseled himself, in resignation. From what he
had seen and surmised of Mrs. Hallam, he shrewdly suspected that the tune
would prove an exceedingly lively one; she seemed a woman of imagination,
originality, and an able-bodied temper.

"_You_, Mr. Kirkwood!"

Again he bowed, grinning awry.

She rose suddenly. "You will be good enough to explain your presence here,"
she informed him with dangerous serenity.

"To be frank with you--"

"I advise that course, Mr. Kirkwood."

"Thanks, awf'ly.... I came here, half an hour ago, looking for a lost purse
full--well, not _quite_ full of sovereigns. It was my purse, by the way."

Suspicion glinted like foxfire in the cold green eyes beneath her puckered
brows. "I do not understand," she said slowly and in level tones.

"I didn't expect you to," returned Kirkwood; "no more do I.... But, anyway,
it must be clear to you that I've done my best for this gentleman here." He
paused with an interrogative lift of his eyebrows.

"'This gentleman' is my son, Frederick Hallam.... But you will explain--"

"Pardon me, Mrs. Hallam; I shall explain nothing, at present. Permit me
to point out that your position here--like mine--is, to say the least,
anomalous." The random stroke told, as he could tell by the instant
contraction of her eyes of a cat. "It would be best to defer explanations
till a more convenient time--don't you think? Then, if you like, we can
chant confidences in an antiphonal chorus. Just now your--er--son is not
enjoying himself apparently, and ... the attention of the police had best
not be called to this house too often in one night."

His levity seemed to displease and perturb the woman; she turned from him
with an impatient movement of her shoulders.

"Freddie, dear, do you feel able to walk?"

"Eh? Oh, I dare say--I don't know. Wonder would your friend--ah--Mr.
Kirkwood, lend me an arm?"

"Charmed," Kirkwood declared suavely. "If you'll take the candle, Mrs.
Hallam--"

He helped the boy to his feet and, while the latter hung upon him and
complained querulously, stood waiting for the woman to lead the way with
the light; something which, however, she seemed in no haste to do. The
pause at length puzzled Kirkwood, and he turned, to find Mrs. Hallam
holding the candlestick and regarding him steadily, with much the same
expression of furtive mistrust as that with which she had favored him on
her own door-stoop.

[Illustration: He helped the boy to his feet, and stood waiting.]

"One moment," she interposed in confusion; "I won't keep you waiting...;"
and, passing with an averted face, ran quickly up-stairs to the second
floor, taking the light with her. Its glow faded from the walls above and
Kirkwood surmised that she had entered the front bedchamber. For some
moments he could hear her moving about; once, something scraped and bumped
on the floor, as if a heavy bit of furniture had been moved; again there
was a resounding thud that defied speculation; and this was presently
followed by a dull clang of metal.

His fugitive speculations afforded him little enlightenment; and, meantime,
young Hallam, leaning partly against the wall and quite heavily on
Kirkwood's arm, filled his ears with puerile oaths and lamentations; so
that, but for the excuse of his really severe shaking-up, Kirkwood had
been strongly tempted to take the youngster by the shoulders and kick him
heartily, for the health of his soul.

But eventually--it was not really long--there came the quick rush of Mrs.
Hallam's feet along the upper hall, and the woman reappeared, one hand
holding her skirts clear of her pretty feet as she descended in a rush that
caused the candle's flame to flicker perilously.

Half-way down, "Mr. Kirkwood!" she called tempestuously.

"Didn't you find it?" he countered blandly.

She stopped jerkily at the bottom, and, after a moment of confusion. "Find
what, sir?" she asked.

"What you sought, Mrs. Hallam."

Smiling, he bore unflinching the prolonged inspection of her eyes, at once
somber with doubt of him and flashing with indignation because of his
impudence.

"You knew I wouldn't find it, then!... Didn't you?"

"I may have suspected you wouldn't."

Now he was sure that she had been searching for the gladstone bag. That,
evidently, was the bone of contention. Calendar had sent his daughter for
it, Mrs. Hallam her son; Dorothy had been successful ... But, on the other
hand, Calendar and Mrs. Hallam were unquestionably allies. Why, then--?

"Where is it, Mr. Kirkwood?"

"Madam, have you the right to know?"

Through another lengthening pause, while they faced each other, he marked
again the curious contraction of her under lip.

"I have the right," she declared steadily. "Where is it?"

"How can I be sure?"

"Then you don't know--!"

"Indeed," he interrupted, "I would be glad to feel that I ought to tell you
what I know."

"_What_ you know!"

The exclamation, low-spoken, more an echo of her thoughts than intended
for Kirkwood, was accompanied by a little shake of the woman's head, mute
evidence to the fact that she was bewildered by his finesse. And this
delighted the young man beyond measure, making him feel himself master of
a difficult situation. Mysteries had been woven before his eyes so
persistently, of late, that it was a real pleasure to be able to do a
little mystifying on his own account. By adopting this reticent and
non-committal attitude, he was forcing the hand of a woman old enough to be
his mother and most evidently a past-mistress in the art of misleading. All
of which seemed very fascinating to the amateur in adventure.

The woman would have led again, but young Hallam cut in, none too
courteously.

"I say, Mamma, it's no good standing here, palaverin' like a lot of flats.
Besides, I'm awf'ly knocked up. Let's get home and have it out there."

Instantly his mother softened. "My poor boy!... Of course we'll go."

Without further demur she swept past and down the stairway before
them--slowly, for their progress was of necessity slow, and the light most
needed. Once they were in the main hall, however, she extinguished the
candle, placed it on a side table, and passed out through the door.

It had been left open, as before; and Kirkwood was not at all surprised to
see a man waiting on the threshold,--the versatile Eccles, if he erred not.
He had little chance to identify him, as it happened, for at a word from
Mrs. Hallam the man bowed and, following her across the sidewalk, opened
the door of a four-wheeler which, with lamps alight and liveried driver on
the box, had been waiting at the carriage-block.

As they passed out, Kirkwood shut the door; and at the same moment the
little party was brought up standing by a gruff and authoritative summons.

"Just a minute, please, you there!"

"Aha!" said Kirkwood to himself. "I thought so." And he halted, in
unfeigned respect for the burly and impressive figure, garbed in blue and
brass, helmeted and truncheoned, bull's-eye shining on breast like the
Law's unblinking and sleepless eye, barring the way to the carriage.

Mrs. Hallam showed less deference for the obstructionist. The assumed
hauteur and impatience of her pose was artfully reflected in her voice as
she rounded upon the bobby, with an indignant demand: "What is the meaning
of this, officer?"

"Precisely what I wants to know, ma'am," returned the man, unyielding
beneath his respectful attitude. "I'm obliged to ask you to tell me what
you were doing in that 'ouse.... And what's the matter with this 'ere
gentleman?" he added, with a dubious stare at young Hallam's bandaged head
and rumpled clothing.

"Perhaps you don't understand," admitted Mrs. Hallam sweetly. "Of course--I
see--it's perfectly natural. The house has been shut up for some time
and--"

"Thank you, ma'am; that's just it. There was something wrong going on early
in the evening, and I was told to keep an eye on the premises. It's duty,
ma'am; I've got my report to make."

"The house," said Mrs. Hallam, with the long-suffering patience of one
elucidating a perfectly plain proposition to a being of a lower order of
intelligence, "is the property of my son, Arthur Frederick Burgoyne Hallam,
of Cornwall. This is--"

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but I was told Colonel George Burgoyne, of Cornwall--"

"Colonel Burgoyne died some time ago. My son is his heir. This is my son.
He came to the house this evening to get some property he desired, and--it
seems--tripped on the stairs and fell unconscious. I became worried about
him and drove over, accompanied by my friend, Mr. Kirkwood."

The policeman looked his troubled state of mind, and wagged a doubtful head
over the case. There was his duty, and there was, opposed to it, the fact
that all three were garbed in the livery of the well-to-do.

At length, turning to the driver, he demanded, received, and noted in his
memorandum-book, the license number of the equipage.

"It's a very unusual case, ma'am," he apologized; "I hopes you won't 'old
it against me. I'm only trying to do my duty--"

"And safeguard our property. You are perfectly justified, officer."

"Thank you, ma'am. And would you mind giving me your cards, please, all of
you?"

"Certainly not." Without hesitation the woman took a little hand-bag from
the seat of the carriage and produced a card; her son likewise found his
case and handed the officer an oblong slip.

"I've no cards with me," the American told the policeman; "my name,
however, is Philip Kirkwood, and I'm staying at the Pless."

"Very good, sir; thank you." The man penciled the information in his little
book. "Thank you, ma'am, and Mr. Hallam, sir. Sorry to have detained you.
Good morning."

Kirkwood helped young Hallam into the carriage, gave Mrs. Hallam his hand,
and followed her. The man Eccles shut the door, mounting the box beside the
driver. Immediately they were in motion.

The American got a final glimpse of the bobby, standing in front of Number
9, Frognall Street, and watching them with an air of profound uncertainty.
He had Kirkwood's sympathy, therein; but he had little time to feel with
him, for Mrs. Hallam turned upon him very suddenly.

"Mr. Kirkwood, will you be good enough to tell me who and what you are?"

The young man smiled his homely, candid smile. "I'll be only too glad, Mrs.
Hallam, when I feel sure you'll do as much for yourself."

She gave him no answer; it, was as if she were choosing words. Kirkwood
braced himself to meet the storm; but none ensued. There was rather a lull,
which strung itself out indefinitely, to the monotonous music of hoofs and
rubber tires.

Young Hallam was resting his empty blond head against the cushions, and had
closed his eyes. He seemed to doze; but, as the carriage rolled past the
frequent street-lights, Kirkwood could see that the eyes of Mrs. Hallam
were steadily directed to his face.

His outward composure was tempered by some amusement, by more admiration;
the woman's eyes were very handsome, even when hardest and most cold. It
was not easy to conceive of her as being the mother of a son so immaturely
mature. Why, she must have been at least thirty-eight or -nine! One
wondered; she did not look it....

The carriage stopped before a house with lighted windows. Eccles jumped
down from the box and scurried to open the front door. The radiance of
a hall-lamp was streaming out into the misty night when he returned to
release his employers.

They were returned to Craven Street! "One more lap round the track!" mused
Kirkwood. "Wonder will the next take me back to Bermondsey Old Stairs."

At Mrs. Hallam's direction, Eccles ushered him into the smoking-room, on
the ground floor in the rear of the dwelling, there to wait while she
helped her son up-stairs and to bed. He sighed with pleasure at first
glimpse of its luxurious but informal comforts, and threw himself
carelessly into a heavily padded lounging-chair, dropping one knee over the
other and lighting the last of his expensive cigars, with a sensation of
undiluted gratitude; as one coming to rest in the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land.

Over his shoulder a home-like illumination was cast by an electric
reading-lamp shaded with red silk. At his feet brass fire-dogs winked
sleepily in the fluttering blaze of a well-tended stove. The walls were
hung with deep red, the doors and divans upholstered in the same restful
shade. In one corner an old clock ticked soberly. The atmosphere would
have proved a potent invitation to reverie, if not to sleep--he was very
sleepy--but for the confusion in the house.

In its chambers, through the halls, on the stairs, there were hurryings and
scurryings of feet and skirts, confused with murmuring voices. Presently,
in an adjoining room, Philip Kirkwood heard a maid-servant wrestling
hopefully with that most exasperating of modern time-saving devices,
the telephone as countenanced by our English cousins. Her patience and
determination won his approval, but availed nothing for her purpose; in the
outcome the telephone triumphed and the maid gave up the unequal contest.

Later, a butler entered the room; a short and sturdy fellow, extremely ill
at ease. Drawing a small taboret to the side of Kirkwood's chair, he placed
thereon a tray, deferentially imparting the information that "Missis 'Allam
'ad thought 'ow as Mister Kirkwood might care for a bit of supper."

"Please thank Mrs. Hallam for me." Kirkwood's gratified eyes ranged the
laden tray. There were sandwiches, biscuit, cheese, and a pot of black
coffee, with sugar and cream. "It was very kindly thought of," he added.

"Very good, sir, thank you, sir."

The man turned to go, shuffling soundlessly. Kirkwood was suddenly
impressed with his evasiveness; ever since he had entered the room, his
countenance had seemed turned from the guest.

"Eccles!" he called sharply, at a venture.

The butler halted, thunderstruck. "Ye-es, s-sir?"

[Illustration: Eccles]

"Turn round, Eccles; I want a look at you."

Eccles faced him unwillingly, with a stolid front but shifty eyes. Kirkwood
glanced him up and down, grinning.

"Thank you, Eccles; I'll remember you now. You'll remember me, too, won't
you? You're a bad actor, aren't you, Eccles?"

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," mumbled the man unhappily; and took instant
advantage of the implied permission to go.

Intensely diverted by the recollection of Eccles' abortive attempt to stop
him at the door of Number 9, and wondering--now that he came to think of
it--why, precisely, young Hallam had deemed it necessary to travel with
a body-guard and adopt such furtive methods to enter into as well as to
obtain what was asserted to be his own property, Kirkwood turned active
attention to the lunch.

Thoughtfully he poured himself a cup of coffee, swallowing it hot and black
as it came from the silver pot; then munched the sandwiches.

It _was_ kindly thought of, this early morning repast; Mrs. Hallam seemed
more and more a remarkable woman with each phase of her character that she
chose to disclose. At odds with him, she yet took time to think of his
creature needs!

What could be her motive,--not in feeding him, but in involving her name
and fortune in an affair so strangely flavored?... This opened up a desert
waste of barren speculation. "What's anybody's motive, who figures in this
thundering dime-novel?" demanded the American, almost contemptuously.
And--for the hundredth time--gave it up; the day should declare it, if so
hap he lived to see that day: a distant one, he made no doubt. The only
clear fact in his befogged and bemused mentality was that he was at once
"broke" and in this business up to his ears. Well, he'd see it through;
he'd nothing better to do, and--there was the girl:

Dorothy, whose eyes and lips he had but to close his own eyes to see
again as vividly as though she stood before him; Dorothy, whose unspoiled
sweetness stood out in vivid relief against this moil and toil of
conspiracy, like a star of evening shining clear in a stormy sky.

"Poetic simile: I'm going fast," conceded Kirkwood; but he did not smile.
It was becoming quite too serious a matter for laughter. For her sake,
he was in the game "for keeps"; especially in view of the fact that
everything--his own heart's inclination included--seemed to conspire to
keep him in it. Of course he hoped for nothing in return; a pauper who
turns squire-of-dames with matrimonial intent is open to the designation,
"penniless adventurer." No; whatever service he might be to the girl would
be ample recompense to him for his labors. And afterwards, he'd go his
way in peace; she'd soon forget him--if she hadn't already. Women (he
propounded gravely) are queer: there's no telling anything about them!

One of the most unreadable specimens of the sex on which he pronounced this
highly original dictum, entered the room just then; and he found himself at
once out of his chair and his dream, bowing.

"Mrs. Hallam."

The woman nodded and smiled graciously. "Eccles has attended to your needs,
I hope? Please don't stop smoking." She sank into an arm-chair on the
other side of the hearth and, probably by accident, out of the radius of
illumination from the lamp; sitting sidewise, one knee above the other, her
white arms immaculate against the somber background of shadowed crimson.

She was very handsome indeed, just then; though a keener light might have
proved less flattering.

"Now, Mr. Kirkwood?" she opened briskly, with a second intimate and
friendly nod; and paused, her pose receptive.

Kirkwood sat down again, smiling good-natured appreciation of her
unprejudiced attitude.

"Your son, Mrs. Hallam--?"

"Oh, Freddie's doing well enough.... Freddie," she explained, "has a
delicate constitution and has seen little of the world. Such melodrama
as to-night's is apt to shock him severely. We must make allowances, Mr.
Kirkwood."

Kirkwood grinned again, a trace unsympathetically; he was unable to
simulate any enthusiasm on the subject of poor Freddie, whom he had sized
up with passable acumen as a spoiled and coddled child completely under the
thumb of an extremely clever mother.

"Yes," he responded vaguely; "he'll be quite fit after a night's sleep, I
dare say."

The woman was watching him keenly, beneath her lowered lashes. "I think,"
she said deliberately, "that it is time we came to an understanding."

Kirkwood agreed--"Yes?" affably.

"I purpose being perfectly straightforward. To begin with, I don't place
you, Mr. Kirkwood. You are an unknown quantity, a new factor. Won't you
please tell me what you are and.... Are you a friend of Mr. Calendar's?"

"I think I may lay claim to that honor, though"--to Kirkwood's way of
seeing things some little frankness on his own part would be essential if
they were to get on--"I hardly know him, Mrs. Hallam. I had the pleasure of
meeting him only this afternoon."

She knitted her brows over this statement.

"That, I assure you, is the truth," he laughed.

"But ... I really don't understand."

"Nor I, Mrs. Hallam. Calendar aside, I am Philip Kirkwood, American,
resident abroad for some years, a native of San Francisco, of a certain
age, unmarried, by profession a poor painter."

"And--?"

"Beyond that? I presume I must tell you, though I confess I'm in doubt...."
He hesitated, weighing candor in the balance with discretion.

"But who are you for? Are you in George Calendar's pay?"

"Heaven forfend!"--piously. "My sole interest at the present moment is to
unravel a most entrancing mystery--"

"Entitled 'Dorothy Calendar'! Of course. You've known her long?"

"Eight hours, I believe," he admitted gravely; "less than that, in fact."

"Miss Calendar's interests will not suffer through anything you may tell
me."

"Whether they will or no, I see I must swing a looser tongue, or you'll be
showing me the door."

The woman shook her head, amused, "Not until," she told him significantly.

"Very well, then." And he launched into an abridged narrative of the
night's events, as he understood them, touching lightly on his own
circumstances, the real poverty which had brought him back to Craven Street
by way of Frognall. "And there you have it all, Mrs. Hallam."

She sat in silent musing. Now and again he caught the glint of her eyes
and knew that he was being appraised with such trained acumen as only
long knowledge of men can give to women. He wondered if he were found
wanting.... Her dark head bended, elbow on knee, chin resting lightly in
the cradle of her slender, parted fingers, the woman thought profoundly,
her reverie ending with a brief, curt laugh, musical and mirthless as the
sound of breaking glass.

"It is so like Calendar!" she exclaimed: "so like him that one sees how
foolish it was to trust--no, not to trust, but to believe that he could
ever be thrown off the scent, once he got nose to ground. So, if we suffer,
my son and I, I shall have only myself to thank!"

Kirkwood waited in patient attention till she chose to continue. When she
did "Now for my side of the case!" cried Mrs. Hallam; and rising, began to
pace the room, her slender and rounded figure swaying gracefully, the while
she talked.

"George Calendar is a scoundrel," she said: "a swindler, gambler,--what I
believe you Americans call a confidence-man. He is also my late husband's
first cousin. Some years since he found it convenient to leave England,
likewise his wife and daughter. Mrs. Calendar, a country-woman of yours, by
the bye, died shortly afterwards. Dorothy, by the merest accident, obtained
a situation as private secretary in the household of the late Colonel
Burgoyne, of The Cliffs, Cornwall. You follow me?"

"Yes, perfectly."

"Colonel Burgoyne died, leaving his estates to my son, some time ago.
Shortly afterwards Dorothy Calendar disappeared. We know now that her
father took her away, but then the disappearance seemed inexplicable,
especially since with her vanished a great deal of valuable information.
She alone knew of the location of certain of the old colonel's personal
effects."

"He was an eccentric. One of his peculiarities involved the secreting of
valuables in odd places; he had no faith in banks. Among these valuables
were the Burgoyne family jewels--quite a treasure, believe me, Mr.
Kirkwood. We found no note of them among the colonel's papers, and without
Dorothy were powerless to pursue a search for them. We advertised and
employed detectives, with no result. It seems that father and daughter were
at Monte Carlo at the time."

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