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

guard, with a handful of time-tables; and when, rewarded

with a modest gratuity, the man had gone his way, and Kirkwood turned again

to the girl, she had withdrawn her attention for the time.

 

Unconscious of his bold regard, she was dreaming, her thoughts at

loose-ends, her eyes studying the incalculable depths of blue-black night

that swirled and eddied beyond the window-glass. The most shadowy of smiles

touched her lips, the faintest shade of deepened color rested on her

cheeks…. She was thinking of—him? As long as he dared, the young man,

his heart in his own eyes, watched her greedily, taking a miser’s joy of

her youthful beauty, striving with all his soul to analyze the enigma of

that most inscrutable smile.

 

It baffled him. He could not say of what she thought; and told himself

bitterly that it was not for him, a pauper, to presume a place in her

meditations. He must not forget his circumstances, nor let her tolerance

render him oblivious to his place, which must be a servant’s, not a

lover’s.

 

The better to convince himself of this, he plunged desperately into

a forlorn attempt to make head or tail of Belgian railway schedule,

complicated as these of necessity are by the alternation from normal

time notation to the abnormal system sanctioned by the government, and

vice-versa, with every train that crosses a boundary line of the state.

 

So preoccupied did he become in this pursuit that he was subconsciously

impressed that the girl had spoken twice, ere he could detach his interest

from the exasperatingly inconclusive and incoherent cohorts of ranked

figures.

 

“Can’t you find out anything?” Dorothy was asking.

 

“Precious little,” he grumbled. “I’d give my head for a Bradshaw! Only it

wouldn’t be a fair exchange…. There seems to be an express for

Bruges leaving the Gare du Nord, Brussels, at fifty-five minutes after

twenty-three o’clock; and if I’m not mistaken, that’s the latest train out

of Brussels and the earliest we can catch,… if we can catch it. I’ve

never been in Brussels, and Heaven only knows how long it would take us to

cab it from the Gare du Midi to the Nord.”

 

In this statement, however, Mr. Kirkwood was fortunately mistaken; not

only Heaven, it appeared, had cognizance of the distance between the two

stations. While Kirkwood was still debating the question, with pessimistic

tendencies, the friendly guard had occasion to pass through the coach; and,

being tapped, yielded the desired information with entire tractability.

 

It would be a cab-ride of perhaps ten minutes. Monsieur, however, would

serve himself well if he offered the driver an advance tip as an incentive

to speedy driving. Why? Why because (here the guard consulted his watch;

and Kirkwood very keenly regretted the loss of his own)—because this

train, announced to arrive in Brussels some twenty minutes prior to the

departure of that other, was already late. But yes—a matter of some ten

minutes. Could that not be made up? Ah, Monsieur, but who should say?

 

The guard departed, doubtless with private views as to the madness of all

English-speaking travelers.

 

“And there we are!” commented Kirkwood in factitious resignation. “If we’re

obliged to stop overnight in Brussels, our friends will be on our back

before we can get out in the morning, if they have to come by motor-car.”

He reflected bitterly on the fact that with but a little more money at

his disposal, he too could hire a motor-car and cry defiance to their

persecutors. “However,” he amended, with rising spirits, “so much the

better our chance of losing Mr. Hobbs. We must be ready to drop off the

instant the train stops.”

 

He began to unfold another time-table, threatening again to lose himself

completely; and was thrown into the utmost confusion by the touch of

the girl’s hand, in appeal placed lightly on his own. And had she been

observant, she might have seen a second time his knuckles whiten beneath

the skin as he asserted his self-control—though this time not over his

temper.

 

His eyes, dumbly eloquent, turned to meet hers. She was smiling.

 

“Please!” she iterated, with the least imperative pressure on his hand,

pushing the folder aside.

 

“I beg pardon?” he muttered blankly.

 

“Is it quite necessary, now, to study those schedules? Haven’t you decided

to try for the Bruges express?”

 

“Why yes, but—”

 

“Then please don’t leave me to my thoughts all the time, Mr. Kirkwood.”

There was a tremor of laughter in her voice, but her eyes were grave and

earnest. “I’m very weary of thinking round in a circle—and that,” she

concluded, with a nervous little laugh, “is all I’ve had to do for days!”

 

“I’m afraid I’m very stupid,” he humored her. “This is the second time, you

know, in the course of a very brief acquaintance, that you have found it

necessary to remind me to talk to you.”

 

“Oh-h!” She brightened. “That night, at the Pless? But that was ages

ago!”

 

“It seems so,” he admitted.

 

“So much has happened!”

 

“Yes,” he assented vaguely.

 

She watched him, a little piqued by his absentminded mood, for a moment;

then, and not without a trace of malice: “Must I tell you again what to

talk about?” she asked.

 

“Forgive me. I was thinking about, if not talking to, you…. I’ve been

wondering just why it was that you left the Alethea at Queensborough, to

go on by steamer.”

 

And immediately he was sorry that his tactless query had swung the

conversation to bear upon her father, the thought of whom could not but

prove painful to her. But it was too late to mend matters; already her

evanescent flush of amusement had given place to remembrance.

 

“It was on my father’s account,” she told him in a steady voice, but with

averted eyes; “he is a very poor sailor, and the promise of a rough passage

terrified him. I believe there was a difference of opinion about it, he

disputing with Mr. Mulready and Captain Stryker. That was just after we had

left the anchorage. They both insisted that it was safer to continue by

the Alethea, but he wouldn’t listen to them, and in the end had his way.

Captain Stryker ran the brigantine into the mouth of the Medway and put us

ashore just in time to catch the steamer.”

 

“Were you sorry for the change?”

 

“I?” She shuddered slightly. “Hardly! I think I hated the ship from the

moment I set foot on board her. It was a dreadful place; it was all

night-marish, that night, but it seemed most terrible on the Alethea with

Captain Stryker and that abominable Mr. Hobbs. I think that my unhappiness

had as much to do with my father’s insistence on the change, as anything.

He … he was very thoughtful, most of the time.”

 

Kirkwood shut his teeth on what he knew of the blackguard.

 

“I don’t know why,” she continued, wholly without affectation, “but I was

wretched from the moment you left me in the cab, to wait while you went in

to see Mrs. Hallam. And when we left you, at Bermondsey Old Stairs, after

what you had said to me, I felt—I hardly know what to say—abandoned, in a

way.”

 

“But you were with your father, in his care—”

 

“I know, but I was getting confused. Until then the excitement had kept me

from thinking. But you made me think. I began to wonder, to question …

But what could I do?” She signified her helplessness with a quick and

dainty movement of her hands. “He is my father; and I’m not yet of age, you

know.”

 

“I thought so,” he confessed, troubled. “It’s very inconsiderate of you,

you must admit.”

 

“I don’t understand…”

 

“Because of the legal complication. I’ve no doubt your father can ‘have

the law on me’”—Kirkwood laughed uneasily—“for taking you from his

protection.”

 

“Protection!” she echoed warmly. “If you call it that!”

 

“Kidnapping,” he said thoughtfully: “I presume that’d be the charge.”

 

“Oh!” She laughed the notion to scorn. “Besides, they must catch us first,

mustn’t they?”

 

“Of course; and”—with a simulation of confidence sadly deceitful—“they

shan’t, Mr. Hobbs to the contrary notwithstanding.”

 

“You make me share your confidence, against my better judgment.”

 

“I wish your better judgment would counsel you to share your confidence

with me,” he caught her up. “If you would only tell me what it’s all about,

as far as you know, I’d be better able to figure out what we ought to do.”

 

Briefly the girl sat silent, staring before her with sweet somber eyes.

Then, “In the very beginning,” she told him with a conscious laugh,—“this

sounds very story-bookish, I know—in the very beginning, George Burgoyne

Calendar, an American, married his cousin a dozen times removed, and an

Englishwoman, Alice Burgoyne Hallam.”

 

“Hallam!”

 

“Wait, please.” She sat up, bending forward and frowning down upon her

interlacing, gloved fingers; she was finding it difficult to say what she

must. Kirkwood, watching hungrily the fair drooping head, the flawless

profile clear and radiant against the night-blackened window, saw hot

signals of shame burning on her cheek and throat and forehead.

 

“But never mind,” he began awkwardly.

 

“No,” she told him with decision. “Please let me go on….” She continued,

stumbling, trusting to his sympathy to bridge the gaps in her narrative.

“My father … There was trouble of some sort…. At all events, he

disappeared when I was a baby. My mother … died. I was brought up in

the home of my great-uncle, Colonel George Burgoyne, of the Indian

Army—retired. My mother had been his favorite niece, they say; I presume

that was why he cared for me. I grew up in his home in Cornwall; it was my

home, just as he was my father in everything but fact.

 

“A year ago he died, leaving me everything,—the town house in Frognall

Street, his estate in Cornwall: everything was willed to me on condition

that I must never live with my father, nor in any way contribute to his

support. If I disobeyed, the entire estate without reserve was to go to his

nearest of kin…. Colonel Burgoyne was unmarried and had no children.”

 

The girl paused, lifting to Kirkwood’s face her eyes, clear, fearless,

truthful. “I never was given to understand that there was anybody who might

have inherited, other than myself,” she declared.

 

“I see…”

 

“Last week I received a letter, signed with my father’s name, begging me to

appoint an interview with him in London. I did so,—guess how gladly! I was

alone in the world, and he, my father, whom I had never thought to see….

We met at his hotel, the Pless. He wanted me to come and live with

him,—said that he was growing old and lonely and needed a daughter’s love

and care. He told me that he had made a fortune in America and was amply

able to provide for us both. As for my inheritance, he persuaded me that it

was by rights the property of Frederick Hallam, Mrs. Hallam’s son.”

 

“I have met the young gentleman,” interpolated Kirkwood.

 

“His name was new to me, but my father assured me that he was the next of

kin mentioned in Colonel Burgoyne’s will, and convinced me that I had no

real right to the property…. After all, he was my father; I agreed; I

could not bear the thought of wronging anybody. I was to give up everything

but my mother’s jewels. It seems,—my father said,—I don’t—I can’t

believe it now—”

 

She choked on a little, dry sob. It was some time