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

A matter of

no importance whatever, since his end was gained and the pursuing cab had

been shut off by the blockade.

 

In Calendar’s driver, however, he had an adversary of abilities by no means

to be despised. Precisely how the man contrived it, is a question; that he

made a detour by way of Derby Street is not improbable, unpleasant as it

may have been for Stryker and Calendar to find themselves in such close

proximity to “the Yard.” At all events, he evaded the block, and hardly

had the chase swung across Bridge Street, than the pursuer was nimbly

clattering in its wake.

 

Past the Houses of Parliament, through Old Palace Yard, with the Abbey on

their left, they swung away into Abingdon Street, whence suddenly they

dived into the maze of backways, great and mean, which lies to the south of

Victoria. Doubling and twisting, now this way, now that, the driver tooled

them through the intricate heart of this labyrinth, leading the pursuers

a dance that Kirkwood thought calculated to dishearten and shake off the

pursuit in the first five minutes. Yet always, peering back through the

little peephole, he saw Calendar’s cab pelting doggedly in their rear—a

hundred yards behind, no more, no less, hanging on with indomitable grit

and determination.

 

By degrees they drew westwards, threading Pimlico, into Chelsea—once

dashing briefly down the Grosvenor Road, the Thames a tawny flood beyond

the river wall.

 

Children cheered them on, and policemen turned to stare, doubting whether

they should interfere. Minutes rolled into tens, measuring out an hour;

and still they hammered on, hunted and hunters, playing their game of

hare-and-hounds through the highways and byways of those staid and aged

quarters.

 

In the leading cab there were few words spoken. Kirkwood and Dorothy alike

sat spellbound with the fascination of the game; if it is conceivable

that the fox enjoys his part in the day’s sport, then they were enjoying

themselves. Now one spoke, now another—chiefly in the clipped phraseology,

of excitement. As—

 

“We’re gaining?”

 

“Yes—think so.”

 

Or, “We’ll tire them out?”

 

“Sure-ly.”

 

“They can’t catch us, can they, Philip?”

 

“Never in the world.”

 

But he spoke with a confidence that he himself did not feel, for hope as

he would he could never see that the distance between the two had been

materially lessened or increased. Their horses seemed most evenly matched.

 

The sun was very low behind the houses of the Surrey Side when Kirkwood

became aware that their horse was flagging, though (as comparison

determined) no more so than the one behind.

 

In grave concern the young man raised his hand, thrusting open the trap

in the roof. Immediately the square of darkling sky was eclipsed by the

cabby’s face.

 

“Yessir?”

 

“You had better drive as directly as you can to the Hotel Pless,” Kirkwood

called up. “I’m afraid it’s no use pushing your horse like this.”

 

“I’m sure of it, sir. ‘E’s a good ‘oss, ‘e is, but ‘e carn’t keep goin’ for

hever, you know, sir.”

 

“I know. You’ve done very well; you’ve done your best.”

 

“Very good, sir. The Pless, you said, sir? Right.”

 

The trap closed.

 

Two blocks farther, and their pace had so sensibly moderated that Kirkwood

was genuinely alarmed. The pursuing cabby was lashing his animal without

mercy, while, “It aren’t no use my w’ippin’ ‘im, sir,” dropped through the

trap. “‘E’s doing orl ‘e can.”

 

“I understand.”

 

Despondent recklessness tightened Kirkwood’s lips and kindled an unpleasant

light in his eyes. He touched his side pocket; Calendar’s revolver was

still there…. Dorothy should win away clear, if—if he swung for it.

 

He bent forward with the traveling bag in his hands.

 

“What are you going to do?” The girl’s voice was very tremulous.

 

“Stand a chance, take a losing hazard. Can you run? You’re not too tired?”

 

“I can run—perhaps not far—a little way, at least.”

 

“And will you do as I say?”

 

Her eyes met his, unwavering, bespeaking her implicit faith.

 

“Promise!”

 

“I promise.”

 

“We’ll have to drop off in a minute. The horse won’t last…. They’re in

the same box. Well, I undertake to stand ‘em off for a bit; you take the

bag and run for it. Just as soon as I can convince them, I’ll follow, but

if there’s any delay, you call the first cab you see and drive to the

Pless. I’ll join you there.”

 

He stood up, surveying the neighborhood. Behind him the girl lifted her

voice in protest.

 

“No, Philip, no!”

 

“You’ve promised,” he said sternly, eyes ranging the street.

 

“I don’t care; I won’t leave you.”

 

He shook his head in silent contradiction, frowning; but not frowning

because of the girl’s mutiny. He was a little puzzled by a vague

impression, and was striving to pin it down for recognition; but was so

thoroughly bemused with fatigue and despair that only with great difficulty

could he force his faculties to logical reasoning, his memory to respond to

his call upon it.

 

The hansom was traversing a street in Old Brompton—a quaint, prim by-way

lined with dwellings singularly Old-Worldish, even for London. He seemed

to know it subjectively, to have retained a memory of it from another

existence: as the stage setting of a vivid dream, all forgotten, will

sometimes recur with peculiar and exasperating intensity, in broad

daylight. The houses, with their sloping, red-tiled roofs, unexpected

gables, spontaneous dormer windows, glass panes set in leaded frames, red

brick fa�ades trimmed with green shutters and doorsteps of white stone,

each sitting back, sedate and self-sufficient, in its trim dooryard fenced

off from the public thoroughfare: all wore an aspect hauntingly familiar,

and yet strange.

 

A corner sign, remarked in passing, had named the spot “Aspen Villas”;

though he felt he knew the sound of those syllables as well as he did

the name of the Pless, strive as he might he failed to make them convey

anything tangible to his intelligence. When had he heard of it? At what

time had his errant footsteps taken him through this curious survival of

Eighteenth Century London?

 

Not that it mattered when. It could have no possible bearing on the

emergency. He really gave it little thought; the mental processes recounted

were mostly subconscious, if none the less real. His objective attention

was wholly preoccupied with the knowledge that Calendar’s cab was drawing

perilously near. And he was debating whether or not they should alight

at once and try to make a better pace afoot, when the decision was taken

wholly out of his hands.

 

Blindly staggering on, wilted with weariness, the horse stumbled in the

shafts and plunged forward on its knees. Quick as the driver was to pull it

up, with a cruel jerk of the bits, Kirkwood was caught unprepared; lurching

against the dashboard, he lost his footing, grasped frantically at the

unstable air, and went over, bringing up in a sitting position in the

gutter, with a solid shock that jarred his very teeth.

 

For a moment dazed he sat there blinking; by the time he got to his feet,

the girl stood beside him, questioning him with keen solicitude.

 

“No,” he gasped; “not hurt—only surprised. Wait….”

 

Their cab had come to a complete standstill; Calendar’s was no more than

twenty yards behind, and as Kirkwood caught sight of him the fat adventurer

was in the act of lifting himself ponderously out of the seat.

 

Incontinently the young man turned to the girl and forced the traveling-bag

into her hands.

 

“Run for it!” he begged her. “Don’t stop to argue. You promised—run! I’ll

come….”

 

“Philip!” she pleaded.

 

“Dorothy!” he cried in torment.

 

Perhaps it was his unquestionable distress that weakened her. Suddenly she

yielded—with whatever reason. He was only hazily aware of the swish of her

skirts behind him; he had no time to look round and see that she got away

safely. He had only eyes and thoughts for Calendar and Stryker.

 

They were both afoot, now, and running toward him, the one as awkward as

the other, but neither yielding a jot of their malignant purpose. He held

the picture of it oddly graphic in his memory for many a day thereafter:

Calendar making directly, for him, his heavy-featured face a dull red with

the exertion, his fat head dropped forward as if too heavy for his neck of

a bull, his small eyes bright with anger; Stryker shying off at a discreet

angle, evidently with the intention of devoting himself to the capture of

the girl; the two cabs with their dejected screws, at rest in the middle of

the quiet, twilit street. He seemed even to see himself, standing stockily

prepared, hands in his coat pockets, his own head inclined with a

suggestion of pugnacity.

 

To this mental photograph another succeeds, of the same scene an instant

later; all as it had been before, their relative positions unchanged, save

that Stryker and Calendar had come to a dead stop, and that Kirkwood’s

right arm was lifted and extended, pointing at the captain.

 

So forgetful of self was he, that it required a moment’s thought to

convince him that he was really responsible for the abrupt transformation.

Incredulously he realized that he had drawn Calendar’s revolver and pulled

Stryker up short, in mid-stride, by the mute menace of it, as much as by

his hoarse cry of warning:

 

“Stryker—not another foot—”

 

With this there chimed in Dorothy’s voice, ringing bell-clear from a little

distance:

 

“Philip!”

 

Like a flash he wheeled, to add yet another picture to his mental gallery.

 

Perhaps two-score feet up the sidewalk a gate stood open; just outside it a

man of tall and slender figure, rigged out in a bizarre costume consisting

mainly of a flowered dressing-gown and slippers, was waiting in an attitude

of singular impassivity; within it, pausing with a foot lifted to the

doorstep, bag in hand, her head turned as she looked back, was Dorothy.

 

[Illustration: A costume consisting mainly of a flowered dressing-gown and

slippers.]

 

As he comprehended these essential details of the composition, the man in

the flowered dressing-gown raised a hand, beckoning to him in a manner as

imperative as his accompanying words.

 

“Kirkwood!” he saluted the young man in a clear and vibrant voice, “put

up that revolver and stop this foolishness.” And, with a jerk of his

head towards the doorway, in which Dorothy now waited, hesitant: “Come,

sir—quickly!”

 

Kirkwood choked on a laugh that was half a sob. “Brentwick!” he cried,

restoring the weapon to his pocket and running toward his friend. “Of all

happy accidents!”

 

“You may call it that,” retorted the elder man with a fleeting smile as

Kirkwood slipped inside the dooryard. “Come,” he said; “let’s get into the

house.”

 

“But you said—I thought you went to Munich,” stammered Kirkwood; and so

thoroughly impregnated was his mind with this understanding that it was

hard for him to adjust his perceptions to the truth.

 

“I was detained—by business,” responded Brentwick briefly. His gaze, weary

and wistful behind his glasses, rested on the face of the girl on the

threshold of his home; and the faint, sensitive flush of her face deepened.

He stopped and honored her with a bow that, for all his fantastical attire,

would have graced a beau of an earlier decade. “Will you be pleased to

enter?” he suggested punctiliously. “My house, such as it is, is quite at

your disposal. And,” he added, with a glance over his shoulder, “I fancy

that a word or two may presently be passed which you would hardly care to

hear.”

 

Dorothy’s hesitation