The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (best manga ereader .TXT) đ
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retorted Calendar dangerously.
âPlease yourself. I bid you good evening andâgood-by.â The man took a step
toward the stairs.
Calendar dropped his right hand into his topcoat pocket. âJust a minute,â
he said sweetly, and Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurerâs
smoldering resentment leaped in flame. âThatâll be about all, Mr. Mulready!
âBout face, you hound, and get into that boat! Dâyou think Iâll temporize
with you till Doomsday? Then forget it. Youâre wrong, dead wrong. Your
bluffâs called, andââwith an evil chuckleââI hold a full house,
Mulready,âevery chamber taken.â He lifted meaningly the hand in the coat
pocket. âNow, in with you.â
With a grin and a swagger of pure bravado Mulready turned and obeyed.
Unnoticed of any, save perhaps Calendar himself, the boat had drawn in at
the stage a moment earlier. Mulready dropped into it and threw himself
sullenly upon the midships thwart.
âNow, Dorothy, in you go, my dear,â continued Calendar, with a
self-satisfied wag of his head.
Half dazed, to all seeming, she moved toward the boat. With clumsy and
assertive gallantry her father stepped before her, offering his hand,âhis
hand which she did not touch; for, in the act of descending, she remembered
and swung impulsively back to Kirkwood.
âGood night, Mr. Kirkwood; good night,âI shanât forget.â
He took her hand and bowed above it; but when his head was lifted, he still
retained her fingers in a lingering clasp.
âGood night,â he said reluctantly.
The crass incongruity of her in that setting smote him with renewed force.
Young, beautiful, dainty, brilliant and graceful in her pretty evening
gown, she figured strangely against the gloomy background of the river, in
those dull and mean surroundings of dank stone and rusted iron. She was
like (he thought extravagantly) a whiff of flower-fragrance lost in the
miasmatic vapors of a slough.
The innocent appeal and allure of her face, upturned to his beneath the
gas-light, wrought compassionately upon his sensitive and generous heart.
He was aware of a little surge of blind rage against the conditions that
had brought her to that spot, and against those whom he held responsible
for those conditions.
In a sudden flush of daring he turned and nodded coolly to Calendar. âWith
your permission,â he said negligently; and drew the girl aside to the angle
of the stairway.
âMiss Calendarââ he began; but was interrupted.
âHereâI say!â
Calendar had started toward him angrily.
Kirkwood calmly waved him back. âI want a word in private with your
daughter, Mr. Calendar,â he announced with quiet dignity. âI donât think
youâll deny me? Iâve saved you some slight trouble to-night.â
Disgruntled, the adventurer paused. âOhâ_all_ right,â he grumbled. âI
donât see what âŠâ He returned to the boat.
âForgive me, Miss Calendar,â continued Kirkwood nervously. âI know Iâve no
right to interfere, butââ
âYes, Mr. Kirkwood?â
ââbut hasnât this gone far enough?â he floundered unhappily. âI canât like
the look of things. Are you sureâsure that itâs all rightâwith you, I
mean?â
She did not answer at once; but her eyes were kind and sympathetic. He
plucked heart of their tolerance.
âIt isnât too late, yet,â he argued. âLet me take you to your friends,âyou
must have friends in the city. But thisâthis midnight flight down the
Thames, this atmosphere of stealth and suspicion, thisââ
âBut my place is with my father, Mr. Kirkwood,â she interposed. âI darenât
doubt himâdare I?â
âI ⊠suppose not.â
âSo I must go with himâŠ. Iâm gladâthank you for caring, dear Mr.
Kirkwood. And again, good night.â
âGood luck attend you,â he muttered, following her to the boat.
Calendar helped her in and turned back to Kirkwood with a look of arch
triumph; Kirkwood wondered if he had overheard. Whether or no, he could
afford to be magnanimous. Seizing Kirkwoodâs hand, he pumped it vigorously.
âMy dear boy, youâve been an angel in disguise! And I guess you think me
the devil in masquerade.â He chuckled, in high conceit with himself over
the turn of affairs. âGood night andâand fare thee well!â He dropped into
the boat, seating himself to face the recalcitrant Mulready. âCast off,
there!â
The boat dropped away, the oars lifting and falling. With a weariful sense
of loneliness and disappointment, Kirkwood hung over the rail to watch them
out of sight.
A dozen feet of water lay between the stage and the boat. The girlâs dress
remained a spot of cheerful color; her face was a blur. As the watermen
swung the bows downstream, she looked back, lifting an arm spectral in its
white sheath. Kirkwood raised his hat.
The boat gathered impetus, momentarily diminishing in the nightâs illusory
perspective; presently it was little more than a fugitive blot, gliding
swiftly in midstream. And then, it was gone entirely, engulfed by the
obliterating darkness.
[Illustration: The boat gathered impetus.]
Somewhat wearily the young man released the railing and ascended the
stairs. âAnd that is the end!â he told himself, struggling with an acute
sense of personal injury. He had been hardly used. For a few hours his
life had been lightened by the ineffable glamor of Romance; mystery and
adventure had engaged him, exorcising for the time the Shade of Care; he
had served a fair woman and been associated with men whose ways, however
questionable, were the ways of courage, hedged thickly about with perils.
All that was at an end. Prosaic and workaday to-morrows confronted him in
endless and dreary perspective; and he felt again upon his shoulder the
bony hand of his familiar, CareâŠ.
He sighed: âAh, well!â
Disconsolate and aggrieved, he gained the street. He was miles from St.
Pancras, foot-weary, to all intents and purposes lost.
In this extremity, Chance smiled upon him. The cabby who, at his initial
instance, had traveled this weary way from Quadrant Mews, after the manner
of his kind, ere turning back, had sought surcease of fatigue at the
nearest public; from afar Kirkwood saw the four-wheeler at the curb, and
made all haste toward it.
Entering the gin-mill he found the cabby, soothed him with bitter, and,
instructing him for St. Pancras with all speed, dropped, limp and listless
with fatigue, into the conveyance.
As it moved, he closed his eyes; the face of Dorothy Calendar shone out
from the blank wall of his consciousness, like an illuminated picture cast
upon a screen. She smiled upon him, her head high, her eyes tender and
trustful. And he thought that her scarlet lips were sweet with promise and
her glance a-brim with such a light as he had never dreamed to know.
And now that he knew it and desired it, it was too late; an hour gone he
might, by a nod of his head, have cast his fortunes with hers for weal or
woe. But now âŠ
Alas and alackaday, that Romance was no more!
VIIDIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMANâRESUMED
From the commanding elevation of the box, âThree ânâ six,â enunciated the
cabby, his tone that of a man prepared for trouble, acquainted with
trouble, inclined to give trouble a welcome. His bloodshot eyes blinked
truculently at his alighted fare. âThree ânâ six,â he iterated
aggressively.
An adjacent but theretofore abstracted policeman pricked up his ears and
assumed an intelligent expression.
âBermondsey Olâ Stairs to Sainâ Pancras,â argued the cabby assertively;
âseven mile by thâ radius; three ânâ six!â
Kirkwood stood on the outer station platform, near the entrance to
third-class waiting-rooms. Continuing to fumble through his pockets for an
elusive sovereign purse, he looked up mildly at the man.
âAll right, cabby,â he said, with pacific purpose; âyouâll get your fare in
half a shake.â
âThree ânâ six!â croaked the cabby, like a blowsy and vindictive parrot.
The bobby strolled nearer.
âYes?â said Kirkwood, mildly diverted. âWhy not sing it, cabby?â
âLorâ lumme!â The cabby exploded with indignation, continuing to give a
lifelike imitation of a rumpled parrot. âI âad trouble enough wif you at
Bermondsey Olâ Stairs, hover that quid you promised, didnât I? Sing it! My
heye!â
âQuid, cabby?â And then, remembering that he had promised the fellow a
sovereign for fast driving from Quadrant Mews, Kirkwood grinned broadly,
eyes twinkling; for Mulready must have fallen heir to that covenant. âBut
you got the sovereign? You got it, didnât you, cabby?â
The driver affirmed the fact with unnecessary heat and profanity and an
amendment to the effect that he would have spoiled his fareâs sanguinary
conk had the outcome been less satisfactory.
The information proved so amusing that Kirkwood, chuckling, forbore to
resent the manner of its delivery, and, abandoning until a more favorable
time the chase of the coy sovereign purse, extracted from one trouser
pocket half a handful of large English small change.
âThree shillings, sixpence,â he counted the coins into the cabbyâs grimy
and bloated paw; and added quietly: âThe exact distance is rather less
than, four miles, my man; your fare, precisely two shillings. You may keep
the extra eighteen pence, for being such a conscientious blackguard,âor
talk it over with the officer here. Please yourself.â
He nodded to the bobby, who, favorably impressed by the silk hat which
Kirkwood, by diligent application of his sleeve during the cross-town ride,
had managed to restore to a state somewhat approximating its erstwhile
luster, smiled at the cabby a cold, hard smile. Whereupon the latter,
smirking in unabashed triumph, spat on the pavement at Kirkwoodâs feet,
gathered up the reins, and wheeled out.
âA âard lot, sir,â commented the policeman, jerking his helmeted head
towards the vanishing four-wheeler.
âRight you are,â agreed Kirkwood amiably, still tickled by the knowledge
that Mulready had been obliged to pay three times over for the ride that
ended in his utter discomfiture. Somehow, Kirkwood had conceived no liking
whatever for the man; Calendar he could, at a pinch, tolerate for his sense
of humor, but Mulreadyâ! âA surly dog,â he thought him.
Acknowledging the policemanâs salute and restoring two shillings and a
few fat copper pennies to his pocket, he entered the vast and echoing
train-shed. In the act, his attention was attracted and immediately riveted
by the spectacle of a burly luggage navvy in a blue jumper in the act of
making off with a large, folding sign-board, of which the surface was
lettered expansively with the advice, in red against a white background:
BOAT-TRAIN LEAVES ON TRACK 3
Incredulous yet aghast the young man gave instant chase to the navvy,
overhauling him with no great difficulty. For your horny-handed British
working-man is apparently born with two golden aphorisms in his mouth:
âLook before you leap,â and âHaste makes waste.â He looks continually,
seldom, if ever, leaps, and never is prodigal of his leisure.
Excitedly Kirkwood touched the manâs arm with a detaining hand.
âBoat-train?â he gasped, pointing at the board.
âLeft ten minutes ago, thank you, sir.â
âWel-l, butâŠ! Of course I can get another train at Tilbury?â
âFor yer boat? No, sir, thank you, sir. Wonât be another tryne till
morninâ, sir.â
âOh-h!âŠâ
Aimlessly Kirkwood drifted away, his mind a blank.
Sometime later he found himself on the steps outside the station, trying to
stare out of countenance a glaring electric mineral-water advertisement on
the farther side of the Euston Road.
He was strandedâŠ.
Beyond the spiked iron fence that enhedges the incurving drive, the roar of
traffic, human, wheel and hoof, rose high for all the lateness of the hour:
sidewalks groaning with the restless contact of hundreds of ill-shod
feet; the roadway thunderingâhansoms, four-wheelers, motor-cars, dwarfed
coster-mongersâ donkey-carts and ponderous,
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