The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (best manga ereader .TXT) đ
- Author: Louis Joseph Vance
- Performer: -
Book online «The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (best manga ereader .TXT) đ». Author Louis Joseph Vance
and fortune in an affair so strangely flavored?⊠This opened up a desert
waste of barren speculation. âWhatâs anybodyâs motive, who figures in this
thundering dime-novel?â demanded the American, almost contemptuously.
Andâfor the hundredth timeâgave it up; the day should declare it, if so
hap he lived to see that day: a distant one, he made no doubt. The only
clear fact in his befogged and bemused mentality was that he was at once
âbrokeâ and in this business up to his ears. Well, heâd see it through;
heâd nothing better to do, andâthere was the girl:
Dorothy, whose eyes and lips he had but to close his own eyes to see
again as vividly as though she stood before him; Dorothy, whose unspoiled
sweetness stood out in vivid relief against this moil and toil of
conspiracy, like a star of evening shining clear in a stormy sky.
âPoetic simile: Iâm going fast,â conceded Kirkwood; but he did not smile.
It was becoming quite too serious a matter for laughter. For her sake,
he was in the game âfor keepsâ; especially in view of the fact that
everythingâhis own heartâs inclination includedâseemed to conspire to
keep him in it. Of course he hoped for nothing in return; a pauper who
turns squire-of-dames with matrimonial intent is open to the designation,
âpenniless adventurer.â No; whatever service he might be to the girl would
be ample recompense to him for his labors. And afterwards, heâd go his
way in peace; sheâd soon forget himâif she hadnât already. Women (he
propounded gravely) are queer: thereâs no telling anything about them!
One of the most unreadable specimens of the sex on which he pronounced this
highly original dictum, entered the room just then; and he found himself at
once out of his chair and his dream, bowing.
âMrs. Hallam.â
The woman nodded and smiled graciously. âEccles has attended to your needs,
I hope? Please donât stop smoking.â She sank into an armchair on the
other side of the hearth and, probably by accident, out of the radius of
illumination from the lamp; sitting sidewise, one knee above the other, her
white arms immaculate against the somber background of shadowed crimson.
She was very handsome indeed, just then; though a keener light might have
proved less flattering.
âNow, Mr. Kirkwood?â she opened briskly, with a second intimate and
friendly nod; and paused, her pose receptive.
Kirkwood sat down again, smiling good-natured appreciation of her
unprejudiced attitude.
âYour son, Mrs. Hallamâ?â
âOh, Freddieâs doing well enoughâŠ. Freddie,â she explained, âhas a
delicate constitution and has seen little of the world. Such melodrama
as to-nightâs is apt to shock him severely. We must make allowances, Mr.
Kirkwood.â
Kirkwood grinned again, a trace unsympathetically; he was unable to
simulate any enthusiasm on the subject of poor Freddie, whom he had sized
up with passable acumen as a spoiled and coddled child completely under the
thumb of an extremely clever mother.
âYes,â he responded vaguely; âheâll be quite fit after a nightâs sleep, I
dare say.â
The woman was watching him keenly, beneath her lowered lashes. âI think,â
she said deliberately, âthat it is time we came to an understanding.â
Kirkwood agreedââYes?â affably.
âI purpose being perfectly straightforward. To begin with, I donât place
you, Mr. Kirkwood. You are an unknown quantity, a new factor. Wonât you
please tell me what you are andâŠ. Are you a friend of Mr. Calendarâs?â
âI think I may lay claim to that honor, thoughââto Kirkwoodâs way of
seeing things some little frankness on his own part would be essential if
they were to get onââI hardly know him, Mrs. Hallam. I had the pleasure of
meeting him only this afternoon.â
She knitted her brows over this statement.
âThat, I assure you, is the truth,â he laughed.
âBut ⊠I really donât understand.â
âNor I, Mrs. Hallam. Calendar aside, I am Philip Kirkwood, American,
resident abroad for some years, a native of San Francisco, of a certain
age, unmarried, by profession a poor painter.â
âAndâ?â
âBeyond that? I presume I must tell you, though I confess Iâm in doubtâŠ.â
He hesitated, weighing candor in the balance with discretion.
âBut who are you for? Are you in George Calendarâs pay?â
âHeaven forfend!ââpiously. âMy sole interest at the present moment is to
unravel a most entrancing mysteryââ
âEntitled âDorothy Calendarâ! Of course. Youâve known her long?â
âEight hours, I believe,â he admitted gravely; âless than that, in fact.â
âMiss Calendarâs interests will not suffer through anything you may tell
me.â
âWhether they will or no, I see I must swing a looser tongue, or youâll be
showing me the door.â
The woman shook her head, amused, âNot until,â she told him significantly.
âVery well, then.â And he launched into an abridged narrative of the
nightâs events, as he understood them, touching lightly on his own
circumstances, the real poverty which had brought him back to Craven Street
by way of Frognall. âAnd there you have it all, Mrs. Hallam.â
She sat in silent musing. Now and again he caught the glint of her eyes
and knew that he was being appraised with such trained acumen as only
long knowledge of men can give to women. He wondered if he were found
wantingâŠ. Her dark head bended, elbow on knee, chin resting lightly in
the cradle of her slender, parted fingers, the woman thought profoundly,
her reverie ending with a brief, curt laugh, musical and mirthless as the
sound of breaking glass.
âIt is so like Calendar!â she exclaimed: âso like him that one sees how
foolish it was to trustâno, not to trust, but to believe that he could
ever be thrown off the scent, once he got nose to ground. So, if we suffer,
my son and I, I shall have only myself to thank!â
Kirkwood waited in patient attention till she chose to continue. When she
did âNow for my side of the case!â cried Mrs. Hallam; and rising, began to
pace the room, her slender and rounded figure swaying gracefully, the while
she talked.
âGeorge Calendar is a scoundrel,â she said: âa swindler, gambler,âwhat I
believe you Americans call a confidence-man. He is also my late husbandâs
first cousin. Some years since he found it convenient to leave England,
likewise his wife and daughter. Mrs. Calendar, a country-woman of yours, by
the bye, died shortly afterwards. Dorothy, by the merest accident, obtained
a situation as private secretary in the household of the late Colonel
Burgoyne, of The Cliffs, Cornwall. You follow me?â
âYes, perfectly.â
âColonel Burgoyne died, leaving his estates to my son, some time ago.
Shortly afterwards Dorothy Calendar disappeared. We know now that her
father took her away, but then the disappearance seemed inexplicable,
especially since with her vanished a great deal of valuable information.
She alone knew of the location of certain of the old colonelâs personal
effects.â
âHe was an eccentric. One of his peculiarities involved the secreting of
valuables in odd places; he had no faith in banks. Among these valuables
were the Burgoyne family jewelsâquite a treasure, believe me, Mr.
Kirkwood. We found no note of them among the colonelâs papers, and without
Dorothy were powerless to pursue a search for them. We advertised and
employed detectives, with no result. It seems that father and daughter were
at Monte Carlo at the time.â
âBeautifully circumstantial, my dear lady,â commented Kirkwoodâto his
inner consciousness. Outwardly he maintained consistently a pose of
impassive gullibility.
âThis afternoon, for the first time, we received news of the Calendars.
Calendar himself called upon me, to beg a loan. I explained our difficulty
and he promised that Dorothy should send us the information by the
morningâs post. When I insisted, he agreed to bring it himself, after
dinner, this eveningâŠ. I make it quite clear?â she interrupted, a little
anxious.
âQuite clear, I assure you,â he assented encouragingly.
âStrangely enough, he had not been gone ten minutes when my son came
in from a conference with our solicitors, informing me that at last a
memorandum had turned up, indicating that the heirlooms would be found in a
safe secreted behind a dresser in Colonel Burgoyneâs bedroom.â
âAt Number 9, Frognall Street.â
âYesâŠ. I proposed going there at once, but it was late and we were dining
at the Pless with an acquaintance, a Mr. Mulready, whom I now recall as a
former intimate of George Calendar. To our surprise we saw Calendar and his
daughter at a table not far from ours. Mr. Mulready betrayed some agitation
at the sight of Calendar, and told me that Scotland Yard had a man out with
a warrant for Calendarâs arrest, on old charges. For old sakeâs sake, Mr.
Mulready begged me to give Calendar a word of warning. I did soâfoolishly,
it seems: Calendar was at that moment planning to rob us, Mulready aiding
and abetting him.â
The woman paused before Kirkwood, looking down upon him. âAnd so,â she
concluded, âwe have been tricked and swindled. I can scarcely believe it of
Dorothy Calendar.â
âI, for one, donât believe it.â Kirkwood spoke quietly, rising. âWhatever
the culpability of Calendar and Mulready, Dorothy was only their hoodwinked
tool.â
âBut, Mr. Kirkwood, she must have known the jewels were not hers.â
âYes,â he assented passively, but wholly unconvinced.
âAnd what,â she demanded with a gesture of exasperation, âwhat would you
advise?â
âScotland Yard,â he told her bluntly.
âBut itâs a family secret! It must not appear in the papers. Donât you
understandâGeorge Calendar is my husbandâs cousin!â
âI can think of nothing else, unless you pursue them in person.â
âButâwhither?â
âThat remains to be discovered; I can tell you nothing more than I haveâŠ.
May I thank you for your hospitality, express my regrets that I should
unwittingly have been made the agent of this disaster, and wish you good
nightâor, rather, good morning, Mrs. Hallam?â
For a moment she held him under a calculating glance which he withstood
with graceless fortitude. Then, realizing that he was determined not by any
means to be won to her cause, she gave him her hand, with a commonplace
wish that he might find his affairs in better order than seemed probable;
and rang for Eccles.
The butler showed him out.
He took away with him two strong impressions; the one visual, of a
strikingly handsome woman in a wonderful gown, standing under the red glow
of a reading-lamp, in an attitude of intense mental concentration, her
expression plainly indicative of a train of thought not guiltless of
vindictiveness; the other, more mental but as real, he presently voiced to
the huge bronze lions brooding over desolate Trafalgar Square.
âWell,â appreciated Mr. Kirkwood with gusto, âsheâs got Ananias and
Sapphira talked to a standstill, all right!â He ruminated over this for
a moment. âCalendar can lie some, too; but hardly with her picturesque
touchâŠ. Uncommon ingenious, I call it. All the same, there were only
about a dozen bits of tiling that didnât fit into her mosaic a little
bitâŠ. I think theyâre all tarred with the same stickâall but the girl.
And thereâs something afoot a long sight more devilish and crafty than that
shilling-shocker of madamâsâŠ. Dorothy Calendarâs got about as much active
part in it as I have. Iâm only from California, but theyâve got to show
me, before Iâll believe a word against her. Those infernal
scoundrels!âŠSomebodyâs got to be on the girlâs side and I seem to have
drawn the lucky strawâŠ. Good Heavens! is it possible for a grown man to
fall heels over head in love in two short
Comments (0)