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

a few minutes,” he said undecidedly, plainly endeavoring to

cover up his own dark doubts. “My dear,” to the girl, “if I have brought

trouble upon you in this wise, I shall never earn my own forgiveness.”

 

Kirkwood stood up again, watchful, attentive to the sounds of night; but

the voice of the pursuing motor-car was not of their company. “I hear

nothing,” he announced.

 

“You will forgive me,—won’t you, my dear?—for causing you these few

moments of needless anxiety?” pleaded the old gentleman, his tone

tremulous.

 

“As if you could be blamed!” protested the girl. “You mustn’t think of it

that way. Fancy, what should we have done without you!”

 

“I’m afraid I have been very clumsy,” sighed Brentwick, “clumsy and

impulsive … Kirkwood, do you hear anything?”

 

“Not yet, sir.”

 

“Perhaps,” suggested Brentwick a little later, “perhaps we had better

alight and go up to the inn. It would be more cosy there, especially if the

petrol proves hard to obtain, and we have long to wait.”

 

“I should like that,” assented the girl decidedly.

 

Kirkwood nodded his approval, opened the door and jumped out to assist her;

then picked up the bag and followed the pair,—Brentwick leading the way

with Dorothy on his arm.

 

At the doorway of the Crown and Mitre, Charles met them evidently seriously

disturbed. “No petrol to be had here, sir,” he announced reluctantly; “but

the landlord will send to the next inn, a mile up the road, for some. You

will have to be patient, I’m afraid, sir.”

 

“Very well. Get some one to help you push the car in from the road,”

ordered Brentwick; “we will be waiting in one of the private parlors.”

 

“Yes, sir; thank you, sir.” The mechanician touched the visor of his cap

and hurried off.

 

“Come, Kirkwood.” Gently Brentwick drew the girl in with him.

 

Kirkwood lingered momentarily on the doorstep, to listen acutely. But the

wind was blowing into that quarter whence they had come, and he could hear

naught save the soughing in the trees, together with an occasional burst

of rude rustic laughter from the tap-room. Lifting his shoulders in dumb

dismay, and endeavoring to compose his features, he entered the tavern.

 

II–-THE CROWN AND MITRE

 

A rosy-cheeked and beaming landlady met him in the corridor and, all bows

and smiles, ushered him into a private parlor reserved for the party,

immediately bustling off in a desperate flurry, to secure refreshments

desired by Brentwick.

 

The girl had seated herself on one end of an extremely comfortless lounge

and was making a palpable effort to seem at ease. Brentwick stood at one of

the windows, shoulders rounded and head bent, hands clasped behind his back

as he peered out into the night. Kirkwood dropped the traveling bag beneath

a chair the farthest removed from the doorway, and took to pacing the

floor.

 

In a corner of the room a tall grandfather’s clock ticked off ten

interminable minutes. For some reason unconscionably delaying, the landlady

did not reappear. Brentwick, abruptly turning from the window, remarked

the fact querulously, then drew a chair up to a marble-topped table in the

middle of the floor.

 

“My dear,” he requested the girl, “will you oblige me by sitting over here?

And Philip, bring up a chair, if you will. We must not permit ourselves to

worry, and I have something here which may, perhaps, engage your interest

for a while.”

 

To humor him and alleviate his evident distress of mind, they acceded.

Kirkwood found himself seated opposite Dorothy, Brentwick between them.

After some hesitation, made the more notable by an air of uneasiness

which sat oddly on his shoulders, whose composure and confident mien had

theretofore been so complete and so reassuring, the elder gentleman fumbled

in an inner coat-pocket and brought to light a small black leather wallet.

He seemed to be on the point of opening it when hurried footfalls sounded

in the hallway. Brentwick placed the wallet, still with its secret intact,

on the table before him, as Charles burst unceremoniously in, leaving the

door wide open.

 

“Mr. Brentwick, sir!” he cried gustily. “That other car—”

 

With a smothered ejaculation Kirkwood leaped to his feet, tugging at the

weapon in his pocket. In another instant he had the revolver exposed.

The girl’s cry of alarm, interrupting the machinist, fixed Brentwick’s

attention on the young man. He, too, stood up, reaching over very quickly,

to clamp strong supple fingers round Kirkwood’s wrist, while with the other

hand he laid hold of the revolver and by a single twist wrenched it away.

 

Kirkwood turned upon him in fury. “So!” he cried, shaking with passion.

“This is what your hospitality meant! You’re going to—”

 

“My dear young friend,” interrupted Brentwick with a flash of impatience,

“remember that if I had designed to betray you, I could have asked no

better opportunity than when you were my guest under my own roof.”

 

“But—hang it all, Brentwick!” expostulated Kirkwood, ashamed and contrite,

but worked upon by desperate apprehension; “I didn’t mean that, but—”

 

“Would you have bullets flying when she is near?” demanded Brentwick

scathingly. Hastily he slipped the revolver upon a little shelf beneath the

table-top. “Sir!” he informed Kirkwood with some heat, “I love you as my

own son, but you’re a young fool!… as I have been, in my time … and as

I would to Heaven I might be again! Be advised, Philip,—be calm. Can’t you

see it’s the only way to save your treasure?”

 

“Hang the jewels!” retorted Kirkwood warmly. “What—”

 

“Sir, who said anything about the jewels?”

 

As Brentwick spoke, Calendar’s corpulent figure filled the doorway;

Stryker’s weather-worn features loomed over his shoulder, distorted in a

cheerful leer.

 

“As to the jewels,” announced the fat adventurer, “I’ve got a word to say,

if you put it to me that way.”

 

He paused on the threshold, partly for dramatic effect, partly for his own

satisfaction, his quick eyes darting from face to face of the four people

whom he had caught so unexpectedly. A shade of complacency colored his

expression, and he smiled evilly beneath the coarse short thatch of his

gray mustache. In his hand a revolver appeared, poised for immediate use if

there were need.

 

There was none. Brentwick, at his primal appearance, had dropped a

peremptory hand on Kirkwood’s shoulder, forcing the young man back to his

seat; at the same time he resumed his own. The girl had not stirred from

hers since the first alarm; she sat as if transfixed with terror, leaning

forward with her elbows on the table, her hands tightly clasped, her face,

a little blanched, turned to the door. But her scarlet lips were set and

firm with inflexible purpose, and her brown eyes met Calendar’s with a look

level and unflinching. Beyond this she gave no sign of recognition.

 

Nearest of the four to the adventurers was Charles, the mechanician, paused

in affrighted astonishment at sight of the revolver. Calendar, choosing to

advance suddenly, poked the muzzle of the weapon jocularly in the man’s

ribs. “Beat it, Four-eyes!” he snapped. “This is your cue to duck! Get out

of my way.”

 

The mechanician jumped as if shot, then hastily, retreated to the table,

his sallow features working beneath the goggle-mask which had excited the

fat adventurer’s scorn.

 

“Come right in, Cap’n,” Calendar threw over one shoulder; “come in, shut

the door and lock it. Let’s all be sociable, and have a nice quiet time.”

 

Stryker obeyed, with a derisive grimace for Kirkwood.

 

Calendar, advancing jauntily to a point within a yard of the table,

stopped, smiling affably down upon his prospective victims, and airily

twirling his revolver.

 

“Good evening, all!” he saluted them blandly. “Dorothy, my child,” with

assumed concern, “you’re looking a trifle upset; I’m afraid you’ve been

keeping late hours. Little girls must be careful, you know, or they lose

the bloom of roses in their cheeks…. Mr. Kirkwood, it’s a pleasure to

meet you again! Permit me to paraphrase your most sound advice, and remind

you that pistol-shots are apt to attract undesirable attention. It wouldn’t

be wise for you to bring the police about our ears. I believe that

in substance such was your sapient counsel to me in the cabin of the

Alethea; was it not?… And you, sir!”—fixing Brentwick with a cold

unfriendly eye. “You animated fossil, what d’you mean by telling me to go

to the devil?… But let that pass; I hold no grudge. What might your name

be?”

 

[Illustration: “Good evening, all!” he saluted them blandly.]

 

“It might be Brentwick,” said that gentleman placidly.

 

“Brentwick, eh? Well, I like a man of spirit. But permit me to advise

you—”

 

“Gladly,” nodded Brentwick.

 

“Eh?… Don’t come a second time between father and daughter; another man

might not be as patient as I, Mister Brentwick. There’s a law in the land,

if you don’t happen to know it.”

 

“I congratulate you on your success in evading it,” observed Brentwick,

undisturbed. “And it was considerate of you not to employ it in this

instance.” Then, with a sharp change of tone, “Come, sir!” he demanded.

“You have unwarrantably intruded in this room, which I have engaged for my

private use. Get through with your business and be off with you.”

 

“All in my good time, my antediluvian friend. When I’ve wound up my

business here I’ll go—not before. But, just to oblige you, we’ll get down

to it…. Kirkwood, you have a revolver of mine. Be good enough to return

it.”

 

“I have it here,—under the table,” interrupted Brentwick suavely. “Shall I

hand it to you?”

 

“By the muzzle, if you please. Be very careful; this one’s loaded, too—apt

to explode any minute.”

 

To Kirkwood’s intense disgust Brentwick quietly slipped one hand beneath

the table and, placing the revolver on its top, delicately with his

finger-tips shoved it toward the farther edge. With a grunt of approval,

Calendar swept the weapon up and into his pocket.

 

“Any more ordnance?” he inquired briskly, eyes moving alertly from face to

face. “No matter; you wouldn’t dare use ‘em anyway. And I’m about done.

Dorothy, my dear, it’s high time you returned to your father’s protection.

Where’s that gladstone bag?”

 

“In my traveling bag,” the girl told him in a toneless voice.

 

“Then you may bring it along. You may also say good night to the kind

gentlemen.”

 

Dorothy did not move; her pallor grew more intense and Kirkwood saw her

knuckles tighten beneath the gloves. Otherwise her mouth seemed to grow

more straight and hard.

 

“Dorothy!” cried the adventurer with a touch of displeasure. “You heard

me?”

 

“I heard you,” she replied a little wearily, more than a little

contemptuously. “Don’t mind him, please, Mr. Kirkwood!”—with an appealing

gesture, as Kirkwood, unable to contain himself, moved restlessly in his

chair, threatening to rise. “Don’t say anything. I have no intention

whatever of going with this man.”

 

Calendar’s features twitched nervously; he chewed a corner of his mustache,

fixing the girl with a black stare. “I presume,” he remarked after a

moment, with slow deliberation, “you’re aware that, as your father, I am in

a position to compel you to accompany me.”

 

“I shall not go with you,” iterated Dorothy in a level tone. “You may

threaten me, but—I shall not go. Mr. Brentwick and Mr. Kirkwood are taking

me to—friends, who will give me a home until I can find a way to take care

of myself. That is all I have to say to you.”

 

“Bravo, my dear!” cried Brentwick encouragingly.

 

“Mind your business, sir!” thundered Calendar, his face