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

>Kirkwood was, then, to believe that Mrs. Hallam, having taken all that

trouble and having waited for the two adventurers to appear, had been

content with sight of them? He could hardly believe that of the woman; it

wasn’t like her.

 

He started across the driveway, after the fiacre, but it was lost in a

tangle of side streets before he could make up his mind whether it was

worth while chasing or not; and, pondering the woman’s singular action, he

retraced his steps to the promenade rail.

 

Presently he told himself he understood. Dorothy was no longer of her

father’s party; he had a suspicion that Mulready’s attitude had made it

seem advisable to Calendar either to leave the girl behind, in England, or

to segregate her from his associates in Antwerp. If not lodged in another

quarter of the city, or left behind, she was probably traveling on ahead,

to a destination which he could by no means guess. And Mrs. Hallam was

looking for the girl; if there were really jewels in that gladstone bag,

Calendar would naturally have had no hesitation about intrusting them to

his daughter’s care; and Mrs. Hallam avowedly sought nothing else. How

the woman had found out that such was the case, Kirkwood did not stop to

reckon; unless he explained it on the proposition that she was a person of

remarkable address. It made no matter, one way or the other; he had lost

Mrs. Hallam; but Calendar and Mulready he could put his finger on; they had

undoubtedly gone off to the Alethea to confer again with Stryker,—that

was, unless they proposed sailing on the brigantine, possibly at turn of

tide that night.

 

Panic gripped his soul and shook it, as a terrier shakes a rat, when he

conceived this frightful proposition.

 

In his confusion of mind he evolved spontaneously an entirely new

hypothesis: Dorothy had already been spirited aboard the vessel; Calendar

and his confederate, delaying to join her from enigmatic motives, were now

aboard; and presently the word would be, Up-anchor and away!

 

Were they again to elude him? Not, he swore, if he had to swim for it. And

he had no wish to swim. The clothes he stood in, with what was left of his

self-respect, were all that he could call his own on that side of the North

Sea. Not a boatman on the Scheldt would so much as consider accepting three

English pennies in exchange for boat-hire. In brief, it began to look as if

he were either to swim or … to steal a boat.

 

Upon such slender threads of circumstance depends our boasted moral health.

In one fleeting minute Kirkwood’s conception of the law of meum et tuum,

its foundations already insidiously undermined by a series of cumulative

misfortunes, toppled crashing to its fall; and was not.

 

He was wholly unconscious of the change. Beneath him, in a space between

the quays bridged by the gangway, a number of rowboats, a putative score,

lay moored for the night and gently rubbing against each other with the

soundless lift and fall of the river. For all that Kirkwood could determine

to the contrary, the lot lay at the mercy of the public; nowhere about was

he able to discern a figure in anything resembling a watchman.

 

Without a quiver of hesitation—moments were invaluable, if what he feared

were true—he strode to the gangway, passed down, and with absolute

nonchalance dropped into the nearest boat, stepping from one to another

until he had gained the outermost. To his joy he found a pair of oars

stowed beneath the thwarts.

 

If he had paused to moralize—which he didn’t—upon the discovery, he would

have laid it all at the door of his lucky star; and would have been wrong.

We who have never stooped to petty larceny know that the oars had been

placed there at the direction of his evil genius bent upon facilitating his

descent into the avernus of crime. Let us, then, pity the poor young man

without condoning his offense.

 

Unhitching the painter he set one oar against the gunwale of the next boat,

and with a powerful thrust sent his own (let us so call it for convenience)

stern-first out upon the river; then sat him composedly down, fitted the

oars to their locks, and began to pull straight across-stream, trusting to

the current to carry him down to the Alethea. He had already marked down

that vessel’s riding-light; and that not without a glow of gratitude to see

it still aloft and in proper juxtaposition to the river-bank; proof that it

had not moved.

 

He pulled a good oar, reckoned his distance prettily, and shipping the

blades at just the right moment, brought the little boat in under the

brigantine’s counter with scarce a jar. An element of surprise he held

essential to the success of his plan, whatever that might turn out to be.

 

Standing up, he caught the brigantine’s after-rail with both hands, one of

which held the painter of the purloined boat, and lifted his head above

the deck line. A short survey of the deserted after-deck gave him further

assurance. The anchor-watch was not in sight; he may have been keeping

well forward by Stryker’s instructions, or he may have crept off for forty

winks. Whatever the reason for his absence from the post of duty, Kirkwood

was relieved not to have him to deal with; and drawing himself gently in

over the rail, made the painter fast, and stepped noiselessly over toward

the lighted oblong of the companionway. A murmur of voices from below

comforted him with the knowledge that he had not miscalculated, this time;

at last he stood within striking distance of his quarry.

 

The syllables of his surname ringing clearly in his ears and followed by

Stryker’s fleeting laugh, brought him to a pause. He flushed hotly in the

darkness; the captain was retailing with relish some of his most successful

witticisms at Kirkwood’s expense…. “You’d ought to’ve seed the wye’e

looked at me!” concluded the raconteur in a gale of mirth.

 

Mulready laughed with him, if a little uncertainly. Calendar’s chuckle was

not audible, but he broke the pause that followed.

 

“I don’t know,” he said with doubting emphasis. “You say you landed him

without a penny in his pocket? I don’t call that a good plan at all. Of

course, he ain’t a factor, but … Well, it might’ve been as well to give

him his fare home. He might make trouble for us, somehow…. I don’t mind

telling you, Cap’n, that you’re an ass.”

 

The tensity of certain situations numbs the sensibilities. Kirkwood had

never in his weirdest dreams thought of himself as an eavesdropper; he did

not think of himself as such in the present instance; he merely listened,

edging nearer the skylight, of which the wings were slightly raised, and

keeping as far as possible in shadow.

 

“Ow, I sye!” the captain was remonstrating, aggrieved. “‘Ow was I to know

‘e didn’t ‘ave it in for you? First off, when ‘e comes on board (I’ll sye

this for ‘im, ‘e’s as plucky as they myke ‘em), I thought ‘e was from the

Yard. Then, when I see wot a bally hinnocent ‘e was, I mykes up my mind

‘e’s just some one you’ve been ply in’ one of your little gymes on, and ‘oo

was lookin’ to square ‘is account. So I did ‘im proper.”

 

“Evidently,” assented Calendar dryly. “You’re a bit of a heavy-handed

brute, Stryker. Personally I’m kind of sorry for the boy; he wasn’t a bad

sort, as his kind runs, and he was no fool, from what little I saw of

him…. I wonder what he wanted.”

 

“Possibly,” Mulready chimed in suavely, “you can explain what you wanted

of him, in the first place. How did you come to drag him into this

business?”

 

“Oh, that!” Calendar laughed shortly. “That was partly accident, partly

inspiration. I happened to see his name on the Pless register; he’d put

himself down as from ‘Frisco. I figured it out that he would be next door

to broke and getting desperate, ready to do anything to get home; and

thought we might utilize him; to smuggle some of the stuff into the States.

Once before, if you’ll remember—no; that was before we got together,

Mulready—I picked up a fellow-countryman on the Strand. He was down and

out, jumped at the job, and we made a neat little wad on it.”

 

“The more fool you, to take outsiders into your confidence,” grumbled

Mulready.

 

“Ow?” interrogated Calendar, mimicking Stryker’s accent inimitably. “Well,

you’ve got a heap to learn about this game, Mul; about the first thing

is that you must trust Old Man Know-it-all, which is me. I’ve run more

diamonds into the States, in one way or another, in my time, than you ever

pinched out of the shirt-front of a toff on the Empire Prom., before they

made the graft too hot for you and you came to take lessons from me in the

gentle art of living easy.”

 

“Oh, cut that, cawn’t you?”

 

“Delighted, dear boy…. One of the first principles, next to profiting by

the admirable example I set you, is to make the fellows in your own line

trust you. Now, if this boy had taken on with me, I could have got a bunch

of the sparklers on my mere say-so, from old Morganthau up on Finsbury

Pavement. He does a steady business hoodwinking the Customs for the benefit

of his American clients—and himself. And I’d’ve made a neat little profit

besides: something to fall back on, if this fell through. I don’t mind

having two strings to my bow.”

 

“Yes,” argued Mulready; “but suppose this Kirkwood had taken on with you

and then peached?”

 

“That’s another secret; you’ve got to know your man, be able to size him

up. I called on this chap for that very purpose; but I saw at a glance he

wasn’t our man. He smelt a nigger in the woodpile and most politely told

me to go to the devil. But if he had come in, he’d’ve died before he

squealed. I know the breed; there’s honor among gentlemen that knocks the

honor of thieves higher’n a kite, the old saw to the contrary—nothing

doing…. You understand me, I’m sure, Mulready?” he concluded with

envenomed sweetness.

 

“I don’t see yet how Kirkwood got anything to do with Dorothy.”

 

“Miss Calendar to you, Mister Mulready!” snapped Calendar. “There, there,

now! Don’t get excited…. It was when the Hallam passed me word that a man

from the Yard was waiting on the altar steps for me, that Kirkwood came in.

He was dining close by; I went over and worked on his feelings until he

agreed to take Dorothy off my hands. If I had attempted to leave the place

with her, they’d’ve spotted me for sure…. My compliments to you, Dick

Mulready.”

 

There came the noise of chair legs scraped harshly on the cabin deck.

Apparently Mulready had leaped to his feet in a rage.

 

“I’ve told you—” he began in a voice thick with passion.

 

“Oh, sit down!” Calendar cut in contemptuously. “Sit down, d’you hear?

That’s all over and done with. We understand each other now, and you won’t

try any more monkey-shines. It’s a square deal and a square divide, so

far’s I’m concerned; if we stick together there’ll be profit enough for all

concerned. Sit down, Mul, and have another slug of the captain’s bum rum.”

 

Although Mulready consented to be pacified, Kirkwood got the impression

that the man was far gone in drink. A moment later he heard him growl

“Chin-chin!” antiphonal to