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

>shivering with disappointment, realizing as he could not but realize that,

all else aside, his only chance of rehabilitation lay in meeting Calendar.

But in none of the coaches or carriages did he discover any one even

remotely resembling the fat adventurer, his daughter, or Mulready.

 

Satisfied that they had not yet boarded the train, he stood aside, tortured

with forebodings, while anxiously scrutinizing each individual of the

throng of intending travelers…. Perhaps they had been delayed—by the

Alethea’s lateness in making port very likely; perhaps they purposed

taking not this but a later train; perhaps they had already left the city

by an earlier, or had returned to England.

 

On time, the bell clanged its warning; the guards bawled theirs; doors were

hastily opened and slammed; the trucks began to groan, couplings jolting

as the engine chafed in constraint. The train and Kirkwood moved

simultaneously out of opposite ends of the station, the one to rattle and

hammer round the eastern boundaries of the city and straighten out at top

speed on the northern route for the Belgian line, the other to stroll

moodily away, idle hands in empty pockets, bound aimlessly anywhere—it

didn’t matter!

 

Nothing whatever mattered in the smallest degree. Ere now the outlook had

been dark; but this he felt to be the absolute nadir of his misfortunes.

Presently—after a while—as soon as he could bring himself to it—he would

ask the way and go to the American Consulate. But just now, low as the tide

of chance had ebbed, leaving him stranded on the flats of vagabondage,

low as showed the measure of his self-esteem, he could not tolerate the

prospect of begging for assistance—help which would in all likelihood be

refused, since his story was quite too preposterous to gain credence in

official ears that daily are filled with the lamentations of those whose

motives do not bear investigation. And if he chose to eliminate the strange

chain of events which had landed him in Antwerp, to base his plea solely on

the fact that he was a victim of the San Francisco disaster … he himself

was able to smile, if sourly, anticipating the incredulous consular smile

with which he would be shown the door.

 

No; that he would reserve as a last resort. True, he had already come to

the Jumping-off Place; to the Court of the Last Resort alone could he now

appeal. But … not yet; after a while he could make his petition, after he

had made a familiar of the thought that he must armor himself with callous

indifference to rebuff, to say naught of the waves of burning shame that

would overwhelm him when he came to the point of asking charity.

 

He found himself, neither knowing nor caring how he had won thither, in the

Place Verte, the vast venerable pile of the Cathedral rising on his right,

hotels and quaint Old-World dwellings with peaked roofs and gables and

dormer windows, inclosing the other sides of the square. The chimes (he

could hear none but those of the Cathedral) were heralding the hour of

seven. Listless and preoccupied in contemplation of his wretched case he

wandered purposelessly half round the square, then dropped into a bench on

its outskirts.

 

It was some time later that he noticed, with a casual, indifferent eye, a

porter running out of the H�tel de Flandre, directly opposite, and calling

a fiacre in to the carriage block.

 

As languidly he watched a woman, very becomingly dressed, follow the porter

down to the curb.

 

The fiacre swung in, and the woman dismissed the porter before entering the

vehicle; a proceeding so unusual that it fixed the onlooker’s interest.

He sat rigid with attention; the woman seemed to be giving explicit

and lengthy directions to the driver, who nodded and gesticulated his

comprehension.

 

The woman was Mrs. Hallam.

 

The first blush of recognition passed, leaving Kirkwood without any

amazement. It was an easy matter to account for her being where she was.

Thrown off the scent by Kirkwood at Sheerness, the previous morning, she

had missed the day boat, the same which had ferried over those whom she

pursued. Returning from Sheerness to Queensborough, however, she had taken

the night boat for Flushing and Antwerp,—and not without her plan, who was

not a woman to waste her strength aimlessly; Kirkwood believed that she

had had from the first a very definite campaign in view. In that campaign

Queensborough Pier had been the first strategic move; the journey to

Antwerp, apparently, the second; and the American was impressed that he was

witnessing the inception of the third decided step…. The conclusion of

this process of reasoning was inevitable: Madam would bear watching.

 

Thus was a magical transformation brought about. Instantaneously lassitude

and vain repinings were replaced by hopefulness and energy. In a twinkling

the young man was on his feet, every nerve a-thrill with excitement.

 

Mrs. Hallam, blissfully ignorant of this surveillance over her movements,

took her place in the fiacre. The driver clucked to his horse, cracked

his whip, and started off at a slow trot: a pace which Kirkwood imitated,

keeping himself at a discreet distance to the rear of the cab, but prepared

to break into a run whenever it should prove necessary.

 

Such exertion, however, was not required of him. Evidently Mrs. Hallam

was in no great haste to reach her destination; the speed of the fiacre

remained extremely moderate; Kirkwood found a long, brisk stride fast

enough to keep it well in sight.

 

Round the green square, under the beautiful walls of Notre Dame d’Anvers,

through Grande Place and past the H�tel de Ville, the cab proceeded, dogged

by what might plausibly be asserted the most persistent and infatuated soul

that ever crossed the water; and so on into the Quai Van Dyck, turning to

the left at the old Steen dungeon and, slowing to a walk, moving soberly up

the drive.

 

Beyond the lip of the embankment, the Scheldt flowed, its broad shining

surface oily, smooth and dark, a mirror for the incandescent glory of the

skies. Over on the western bank old T�te de Flandre lifted up its grim

curtains and bastions, sable against the crimson, rampart and parapet edged

with fire. Busy little sidewheeled ferry steamers spanked the waters

noisily and smudged the sunset with dark drifting trails of smoke; and ever

and anon a rowboat would slip out of shadow to glide languidly with the

current. Otherwise the life of the river was gone; and at their moorings

the ships swung in great quietness, riding lights glimmering like low wan

stars.

 

In the company of the latter the young man marked down the Alethea; a

sight which made him unconsciously clench both fists and teeth, reminding

him of that rare wag, Stryker….

 

To his way of thinking the behavior of the fiacre was quite unaccountable.

Hardly had the horse paced off the length of two blocks on the Quai ere

it was guided to the edge of the promenade and brought to a stop. And the

driver twisted the reins round his whip, thrust the latter in its socket,

turned sidewise on the box, and began to smoke and swing his heels,

surveying the panorama of river and sunset with complacency—a cabby, one

would venture, without a care in the world and serene in the assurance of

a generous pour-boire when he lost his fare. But as for the latter, she

made no move; the door of the cab remained closed,—like its occupant’s

mind, a mystery to the watcher.

 

Twilight shadows lengthened, darkling, over the land; street-lights flashed

up in long, radiant ranks. Across the promenade hotels and shops were

lighted up; people began to gather round the tables beneath the awnings of

an open-air caf�. In the distance, somewhere, a band swung into the dreamy

rhythm of a haunting waltz. Scattered couples moved slowly, arm in arm,

along the riverside walk, drinking in the fragrance of the night. Overhead

stars popped out in brilliance and dropped their reflections to swim lazily

on spellbound waters…. And still the fiacre lingered in inaction, still

the driver lorded it aloft, in care-free abandon.

 

In the course of time this inertia, where he had looked for action, this

dull suspense when he had forecast interesting developments, wore upon the

watcher’s nerves and made him at once impatient and suspicious. Now that he

had begun to doubt, he conceived it as quite possible that Mrs. Hallam (who

was capable of anything) should have stolen out of the cab by the other

and, to him, invisible door. To resolve the matter, finally, he took

advantage of the darkness, turned up his coat collar, hunched up his

shoulders, hid his hands in pockets, pulled the visor of his cap well

forward over his eyes, and slouched past the fiacre.

 

Mrs. Hallam sat within. He could see her profile clearly silhouetted

against the light; she was bending forward and staring fixedly out of the

window, across the driveway. Mentally he calculated the direction of her

gaze, then, moved away and followed it with his own eyes; and found himself

staring at the fa�ade of a third-rate hotel. Above its roof the gilded

letters of a sign, catching the illumination from below, spelled out the

title of “H�tel du Commerce.”

 

Mrs. Hallam was interested in the H�tel du Commerce?

 

Thoughtfully Kirkwood fell back to his former point of observation, now

the richer by another object of suspicion, the hostelry. Mrs. Hallam was

waiting and watching for some one to enter or to leave that establishment.

It seemed a reasonable inference to draw. Well, then, so was Kirkwood, no

less than the lady; he deemed it quite conceivable that their objects were

identical.

 

He started to beguile the time by wondering what she would do, if…

 

Of a sudden he abandoned this line of speculation, and catching his breath,

held it, almost afraid to credit the truth that for once his anticipations

were being realized under his very eyes.

 

Against the lighted doorway of the H�tel du Commerce, the figures of two

men were momentarily sketched, as they came hurriedly forth; and of the

two, one was short and stout, and even at a distance seemed to bear himself

with an accent of assertiveness, while the other was tall and heavy of

shoulder.

 

Side by side they marched in step across the embankment to the head of the

Quai gangway, descending without pause to the landing-stage. Kirkwood,

hanging breathlessly over the guard-rail, could hear their footfalls

ringing in hollow rhythm on the planks of the inclined way,—could even

discern Calendar’s unlovely profile in dim relief beneath one of the

waterside lights; and he recognized unmistakably Mulready’s deep voice,

grumbling inarticulately.

 

At the outset he had set after them, with intent to accost Calendar; but

their pace had been swift and his irresolute. He hung fire on the issue,

dreading to reveal himself, unable to decide which were the better course,

to pursue the men, or to wait and discover what Mrs. Hallam was about. In

the end he waited; and had his disappointment for recompense.

 

For Mrs. Hallam did nothing intelligible. Had she driven over to the hotel,

hard upon the departure of the men, he would have believed that she was

seeking Dorothy, and would, furthermore, have elected to crowd their

interview, if she succeeded in obtaining one with the girl. But she did

nothing of the sort. For a time the fiacre remained as it had been ever

since stopping; then, evidently admonished by his fare, the driver

straightened up, knocked out his pipe, disentangled reins and whip, and

wheeled the equipage back on the way it had come, disappearing in a dark

side street leading eastward from the embankment.