The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (best manga ereader .TXT) đ
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desperation flung himself, key in hand, against the door at the end. Mark
how his luck served him who had forsworn her! He found a keyhole and
inserted the key. It turned. So did the knob. The door gave inward. He fell
in with it, slammed it, shot the bolts, and, panting, leaned against its
panels, in a pit of everlasting night butâsaved!âfor the time being, at
all events.
Outside somebody brushed against one wall, cannoned to the other, brought
up with a crash against the door, and, perforce at a standstill, swore from
his heart.
âGorblimy!â he declared feelingly. âIâd âaâ took my oath I soreâm run in
âere!â And then, in answer to an inaudible question: âNo, âe ainât. Gorn
anâ let the fool go to âell. âOo wants âim to share gooâ liker? Not I!âŠâ
Joining his companion he departed, leaving behind him a trail of
sulphur-tainted air. The mews quieted gradually.
Indoors Kirkwood faced unhappily the enigma of fortuity, wondering: Was
this by any possibility Number 9?
The key had fitted; the bolts had been drawn on the inside; and while
the key had been one of ordinary pattern and would no doubt have proven
effectual with any one of a hundred common locks, the finger of probability
seemed to indicate that his luck had brought him back to Number 9.
In spite of all this, he was sensible of little confidence; though this
were truly Number 9, his freedom still lay on the knees of the gods, his
very life, belike, was poised, tottering, on a pinnacle of chance.
In the end, taking heart of desperation, he stooped and removed his shoes;
a precaution which later appealed to his sense of the ridiculous, in view
of the racket he had raised in entering, but which at the moment seemed
most natural and in accordance with common sense. Then rising, he held his
breath, staring and listening. About him the pitch darkness was punctuated
with fading points of fire, and in his ears was a noise of strange
whisperings, very creepyâuntil, gritting his teeth, he controlled his
nerves and gradually realized that he was alone, the silence undisturbed.
He went forward gingerly, feeling his way like a blind man on strange
ground. Ere long he stumbled over a door-sill and found that the walls
of the passage had fallen away; he had entered a room, a black cavern of
indeterminate dimensions. Across this he struck at random, walked himself
flat against a wall, felt his way along to an open door, and passed through
to another apartment as dark as the first.
Here, endeavoring to make a circuit of the walls, he succeeded in throwing
himself bodily across a bed, which creaked horribly; and for a full minute
lay as he had fallen, scarce daring to think. But nothing followed, and he
got up and found a shut door which let him into yet a third room, wherein
he barked both shins on a chair; and escaped to a fourth whose atmosphere
was highly flavored with reluctant odors of bygone cookery, stale water and
damp plumbingâprobably the kitchen. Thence progressing over complaining
floors through what may have been the servantsâ hall, a large room with
a table in the middle and a number of promiscuous chairs (witness his
tortured shins!), he finally blundered into the basement hallway.
By now a little calmer, he felt assured that this was really Number 9,
Frognall Street, and a little happier about it all, though not even
momentarily forgetful of the potential police and night-watchman.
However, he mounted the steps to the ground floor without adventure and
found himself at last in the same dim and ghostly hall which he had entered
some six hours before; the mockery of dusk admitted by the fanlight was
just strong enough to enable him to identify the general lay of the land
and arrangement of furniture.
More confidently with each uncontested step, he continued his quest.
Elation was stirring his spirit when he gained the first floor and moved
toward the foot of the second flight, approaching the spot whereat he was
to begin the search for the missing purse. The knowledge that he lacked
means of obtaining illumination deterred him nothing; he had some hope
of finding matches in one of the adjacent rooms, but, failing that, was
prepared to ascend the stairs on all fours, feeling every inch of their
surface, if it took hours. Ever an optimistic soul, instinctively inclined
to father faith with a hope, he felt supremely confident that his search
would not prove fruitless, that he would win early release from his
temporary straits.
And thus it fell out that, at the instant he was thinking it time to begin
to crawl and hunt, his stockinged feet came into contact with something
heavy, yielding, warmâsomething that moved, moaned, and caused his hair to
bristle and his flesh to creep.
We will make allowances for him; all along he had gone on the assumption
that his antagonist of the dark stairway would have recovered and made off
with all expedition, in the course of ten or twenty minutes, at most, from
the time of his accident. To find him still there was something entirely
outside of Kirkwoodâs reckoning: he would as soon have thought to encounter
say, Calendar,âwould have preferred the latter, indeed. But this fellow
whose disability was due to his own interference, who was reasonably to be
counted upon to raise the very deuce and all of a row!
The initial shock, however shattering to his equanimity, soon, lost effect.
The man evidently remained unconscious, in fact had barely moved; while the
moan that Kirkwood heard, had been distressingly faint.
âPoor devil!â murmured the young man. âHe must be in a pretty bad way, for
sure!â He knelt, compassion gentling his heart, and put one hand to the
insentient face. A warm sweat moistened his fingers; his palm was fanned by
steady respiration.
Immeasurably perplexed, the American rose, slipped on his shoes and
buttoned them, thinking hard the while. What ought he to do? Obviously
flight suggested itself,âincontinent flight, anticipating the manâs
recovery. On the other hand, indubitably the latter had sustained such
injury that consciousness, when it came to him, would hardly be reinforced
by much aggressive power. Moreover, it was to be remembered that the one
was in that house with quite as much warrant as the other, unless Kirkwood
had drawn a rash inference from the incident of the ragged sentry. The two
of them were mutual, if antagonistic, trespassers; neither would dare
bring about the arrest of the other. And thenâand this was not the least
consideration to influence Kirkwoodâperhaps the fellow would die if he got
no attention.
Kirkwood shut his teeth grimly. âIâm no assassin,â he informed himself, âto
strike and run. If Iâve maimed this poor devil and there are consequences,
Iâll stand âem. The Lord knows it doesnât matter a damn to anybody, not
even to me, what happens to me; while he may be valuable.â
Light upon the subject, actual as well as figurative, seemed to be the
first essential; his mind composed, Kirkwood set himself in search of it.
The floor he was on, however, afforded him no assistance; the mantels were
guiltless of candles and he discovered no matches, either in the wide and
silent drawing-room, with its ghastly furniture, like mummies in their
linen swathings, or in the small boudoir at the back. He was to look either
above or below, it seemed.
After some momentary hesitation, he went up-stairs, his ascent marked by a
single and grateful accident; half-way to the top he trod on an object that
clinked underfoot, and, stooping, retrieved the lost purse. Thus was he
justified of his temerity; the day was savedâthat is, to-morrow was.
The rooms of the second-floor were bedchambers, broad, deep, stately,
inhabited by seven devils of loneliness. In one, on a dresser, Kirkwood
found a stump of candle in a china candlestick; the two charred ends of
matches at its base were only an irritating discovery, howeverâevidence
that real matches had been the mode in Number 9, at some remote date.
Disgusted and oppressed by cumulative inquisitiveness, he took the
candle-end back to the hall; he would have given much for the time and
means to make a more detailed investigation into the secret of the house.
Perhaps it was mostly his hope of chancing on some clue to the mystery of
Dorothy Calenderâbewitching riddle that she was!âthat fascinated his
imagination so completely. Aside from her altogether, the great house that
stood untenanted, yet in such complete order, so self-contained in its
darkened quiet, intrigued him equally with the train of inexplicable events
that had brought him within its walls. Nowâsince his latest entranceâhis
vision had adjusted itself to cope with the obscurity to some extent; and
the street lights, meagerly reflected through the windows from the bosom of
a sullen pall of cloud, low-swung above the city, had helped him to piece
together many a detail of decoration and furnishing, alike somber and
richly dignified. Kirkwood told himself that the owner, whoever he might
be, was a man of wealth and taste inherited from another age; he had found
little of meretricious to-day in the dwelling, much that was solid and
sedate and homely, andâVictorianâŠ. He could have wished for more; a box
of early Victorian vestas had been highly acceptable.
Making his way down-stairs to the stricken manâwho was quite as he had
beenâKirkwood bent over and thrust rifling fingers into his pockets,
regardless of the wretched sense of guilt and sneakishness imparted by the
action, stubbornly heedless of the possibility of the manâs awakening to
find himself being searched and robbed.
In the last place he sought, which should (he realized) have been the
first, to wit, the fob pocket of the white waistcoat, he found a small gold
matchbox, packed tight with wax vestas; and, berating himself for crass
stupidityâhe had saved a deal of time and trouble by thinking of this
beforeâlighted the candle.
As its golden flame shot up with scarce a tremor, preyed upon by a
perfectly excusable concern, he bent to examine the manâs countenanceâŠ.
The arm which had partly hidden it had fallen back into a natural position.
It was a young face that gleamed pallid in the candlelightâa face unlined,
a little vapid and insignificant, with features regular and neat, betraying
few characteristics other than the purely negative attributes of a
character as yet unformed, possibly unformable; much the sort of a face
that he might have expected to see, remembering those thin and pouting lips
that before had impressed him. Its owner was probably little more than
twenty. In his attire there was a suspicion of a fopâs preciseness, aside
from its accidental disarray; the cut of his waistcoat was the extreme of
the then fashion, the white tie (twisted beneath one ear) an exaggerated
âbutterfly,â his collar nearly an inch too tall; and he was shod with pumps
suitable only for the dancing-floor,âa whim of the young-bloods of London
of that year.
âI canât make him out at all!â declared Kirkwood. âThe son of a gentleman
too weak to believe that cubs need licking into shape? Reared to manâs
estate, so sheltered from the wicked world that he never grew a bark?âŠ
The sort that never had a quarrel in his life, âcept with his tailor?âŠ
Now what the devil is this thing doing in this midnight mischief?âŠ
Damn!â
It was most exasperating, the incongruity of the boyâs appearance assorted
with his double rïżœle of persecutor of distressed damsels and nocturnal
house-breaker!
Kirkwood bent closer above the motionless head, with puzzled eyes striving
to pin down some elusive resemblance that he
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