The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (snow like ashes txt) 📕

like its accompanying,

inarticulate ejaculation, might have been taken to indicate either

satisfaction or disgust. He ignored Kirkwood altogether, for the time

being, and presently produced a small, bright object, which, applied to his

lips, proved to be a boatswain’s whistle. He sounded two blasts, one long,

one brief.

 

There fell a lull, Kirkwood watching the other and wondering what next

would happen. Calendar paced restlessly to and fro upon the narrow landing,

now stopping to incline an ear to catch some anticipated sound, now

searching with sweeping glances the black reaches of the Pool.

 

Finally, consulting his watch, “Almost ten,” he announced.

 

“We’re in time?”

 

“Can’t say…. Damn! … If that infernal boat would only show up—”

 

He was lifting the whistle to sound a second summons when a rowboat rounded

a projecting angle formed by the next warehouse down stream, and with

clanking oar-locks swung in toward the landing. On her thwarts two figures,

dipping and rising, labored with the sweeps. As they drew in, the man

forward shipped his blades, and rising, scrambled to the bows in order to

grasp an iron mooring-ring set in the wall. The other awkwardly took in his

oars and, as the current swung the stern downstream, placed a hand palm

downward upon the bottom step to hold the boat steady.

 

Calendar waddled to the brink of the stage, grunting with relief.

 

“The other man?” he asked brusquely. “Has he gone aboard? Or is this the

first trip to-night?”

 

One of the watermen nodded assent to the latter question, adding gruffly:

“Seen nawthin’ of ‘im, sir.”

 

“Very good,” said Calendar, as if he doubted whether it were very good or

bad. “We’ll wait a bit.”

 

“Right-o!” agreed the waterman civilly.

 

Calendar turned back, his small eyes glimmering with satisfaction. Fumbling

in one coat pocket he brought to light a cigar-case. “Have a smoke?” he

suggested with a show of friendliness. “By Heaven, I was beginnin’ to get

worried!”

 

“As to what?” inquired Kirkwood pointedly, selecting a cigar.

 

He got no immediate reply, but felt Calendar’s sharp eyes upon him while he

manoeuvered with matches for a light.

 

“That’s so,” it came at length. “You don’t know. I kind of forgot for a

minute; somehow you seemed on the inside.”

 

Kirkwood laughed lightly. “I’ve experienced something of the same sensation

in the past few hours.”

 

“Don’t doubt it.” Calendar was watching him narrowly. “I suppose,” he put

it to him abruptly, “you haven’t changed your mind?”

 

“Changed my mind?”

 

“About coming in with me.”

 

“My dear sir, I can have no mind to change until a plain proposition is

laid before me.”

 

“Hmm!” Calendar puffed vigorously until it occurred to him to change the

subject. “You won’t mind telling me what happened to you and Dorothy?”

 

“Certainly not.”

 

Calendar drew nearer and Kirkwood, lowering his voice, narrated briefly the

events since he had left the Pless in Dorothy’s company.

 

Her father followed him intently, interrupting now and again with

exclamation or pertinent question; as, Had Kirkwood been able to see the

face of the man in No. 9, Frognall Street? The negative answer seemed to

disconcert him.

 

“Youngster, you say? Blam’ if I can lay my mind to him! Now if that

Mulready—”

 

“It would have been impossible for Mulready—whoever he is—to recover and

get to Craven Street before we did,” Kirkwood pointed out.

 

“Well—go on.” But when the tale was told, “It’s that scoundrel, Mulready!”

the man affirmed with heat. “It’s his hand—I know him. I might have had

sense enough to see he’d take the first chance to hand me the double-cross.

Well, this does for him, all right!” Calendar lowered viciously at the

river. “You’ve been blame’ useful,” he told Kirkwood assertively. “If

it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know where I’d be now,—nor Dorothy,

either,”—an obvious afterthought. “There’s no particular way I can show my

appreciation, I suppose? Money—?”

 

“I’ve got enough to last me till I reach New York, thank you.”

 

“Well, if the time ever comes, just shout for George B. I won’t be

wanting…. I only wish you were with us; but that’s out of the question.”

 

“Doubtless …”

 

“No two ways about it. I bet anything you’ve got a conscience concealed

about your person. What? You’re an honest man, eh?”

 

“I don’t want to sound immodest,” returned Kirkwood, amused.

 

“You don’t need to worry about that…. But an honest man’s got no business

in my line.” He glanced again at his watch. “Damn that Mulready! I wonder

if he was ‘cute enough to take another way? Or did he think … The fool!”

 

He cut off abruptly, seeming depressed by the thought that he might have

been outwitted; and, clasping hands behind his back, chewed savagely on his

cigar, watching the river. Kirkwood found himself somewhat wearied; the

uselessness of his presence there struck him with added force. He bethought

him of his boat-train, scheduled to leave a station miles distant, in an

hour and a half. If he missed it, he would be stranded in a foreign land,

penniless and practically without friends—Brentwick being away and all the

rest of his circle of acquaintances on the other side of the Channel. Yet

he lingered, in poor company, daring fate that he might see the end of the

affair. Why?

 

There was only one honest answer to that question. He stayed on because of

his interest in a girl whom he had known for a matter of three hours, at

most. It was insensate folly on his part, ridiculous from any point of

view. But he made no move to go.

 

The slow minutes lengthened monotonously.

 

There came a sound from the street level. Calendar held up a hand of

warning. “Here they come! Steady!” he said tensely. Kirkwood, listening

intently, interpreted the noise as a clash of hoofs upon cobbles.

 

Calendar turned to the boat.

 

“Sheer off,” he ordered. “Drop out of sight. I’ll whistle when I want you.”

 

“Aye, aye, sir.”

 

The boat slipped noiselessly away with the current and in an instant was

lost to sight. Calendar plucked at Kirkwood’s sleeve, drawing him into the

shadow of the steps. “E-easy,” he whispered; “and, I say, lend me a hand,

will you, if Mulready turns ugly?”

 

“Oh, yes,” assented Kirkwood, with a nonchalance not entirely unassumed.

 

The racket drew nearer and ceased; the hush that fell thereafter seemed

only accentuated by the purling of the river. It was ended by footsteps

echoing in the covered passageway. Calendar craned his thick neck round the

shoulder of stone, reconnoitering the landing and stairway.

 

“Thank God!” he said under his breath. “I was right, after all!”

 

A man’s deep tones broke out above. “This way. Mind the steps; they’re a

bit slippery, Miss Dorothy.”

 

“But my father—?” came the girl’s voice, attuned to doubt.

 

“Oh, he’ll be along—if he isn’t waiting now, in the boat.”

 

They descended, the man leading. At the foot, without a glance to right or

left, he advanced to the edge of the stage, leaning out over the rail as if

endeavoring to locate the rowboat. At once the girl appeared, moving to his

side.

 

“But, Mr. Mulready—”

 

The girl’s words were drowned by a prolonged blast on the boatswain’s

whistle at her companion’s lips; the shorter one followed in due course.

Calendar edged forward from Kirkwood’s side.

 

“But what shall we do if my father isn’t here? Wait?”

 

“No; best not to; best to get on the Alethea as soon as possible, Miss

Calendar. We can send the boat back.”

 

“‘Once aboard the lugger the girl is mine’—eh, Mulready?—to say nothing

of the loot!”

 

If Calendar’s words were jocular, his tone conveyed a different impression

entirely. Both man and girl wheeled right about to face him, the one with a

strangled oath, the other with a low cry.

 

“The devil!” exclaimed this Mr. Mulready.

 

“Oh! My father!” the girl voiced her recognition of him.

 

“Not precisely one and the same person,” commented Calendar suavely.

“But—er—thanks, just as much…. You see, Mulready, when I make an

appointment, I keep it.”

 

“We’d begun to get a bit anxious about you—” Mulready began defensively.

 

“So I surmised, from what Mrs. Hallam and Mr. Kirkwood told me…. Well?”

 

The man found no ready answer. He fell back a pace to the railing, his

features working with his deep chagrin. The murky flare of the gas-lamp

overhead fell across a face handsome beyond the ordinary but marred by a

sullen humor and seamed with indulgence: a face that seemed hauntingly

familiar until Kirkwood in a flash of visual memory reconstructed the

portrait of a man who lingered over a dining-table, with two empty chairs

for company. This, then, was he whom Mrs. Hallam had left at the Pless; a

tall, strong man, very heavy about the chest and shoulders….

 

“Why, my dear friend,” Calendar was taunting him, “you don’t seem overjoyed

to see me, for all your wild anxiety! ‘Pon my word, you act as if you

hadn’t expected me—and our engagement so clearly understood, at that! …

Why, you fool!”—here the mask of irony was cast. “Did you think for a

moment I’d let myself be nabbed by that yap from Scotland Yard? Were you

banking on that? I give you my faith I ambled out under his very nose! …

Dorothy, my dear,” turning impatiently from Mulready, “where’s that bag?”

 

The girl withdrew a puzzled gaze from Mulready’s face, (it was apparent to

Kirkwood that this phase of the affair was no more enigmatic to him than to

her), and drew aside a corner of her cloak, disclosing the gladstone bag,

securely grasped in one gloved hand.

 

“I have it, thanks to Mr. Kirkwood,” she said quietly.

 

Kirkwood chose that moment to advance from the shadow. Mulready started and

fixed him with a troubled and unfriendly stare. The girl greeted him with a

note of sincere pleasure in her surprise.

 

“Why, Mr. Kirkwood! … But I left you at Mrs. Hallam’s!”

 

Kirkwood bowed, smiling openly at Mulready’s discomfiture.

 

“By your father’s grace, I came with him,” he said. “You ran away without

saying good night, you know, and I’m a jealous creditor.”

 

She laughed excitedly, turning to Calendar. “But you were to meet me at

Mrs. Hallam’s?”

 

“Mulready was good enough to try to save me the trouble, my dear. He’s an

unselfish soul, Mulready. Fortunately it happened that I came along not

five minutes after he’d carried you off. How was that, Dorothy?”

 

Her glance wavered uneasily between the two, Mulready and her father. The

former, shrugging to declare his indifference, turned his back squarely

upon them. She frowned.

 

“He came out of Mrs. Hallam’s and got into the four-wheeler, saying you had

sent him to take your place, and would join us on the Alethea.”

 

“So-o! How about it, Mulready?”

 

The man swung back slowly. “What you choose to think,” he said after a

deliberate pause.

 

“Well, never mind! We’ll go over the matter at our leisure on the

Alethea.”

 

There was in the adventurer’s tone a menace, bitter and not to be ignored;

which Mulready saw fit to challenge.

 

“I think not,” he declared; “I think not. I’m weary of your addlepated

suspicions. It’d be plain to any one but a fool that I acted for the best

interests of all concerned in this matter. If you’re not content to see it

in that light, I’m done.”

 

“Oh, if you want to put it that way,