The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (best manga ereader .TXT) đ
- Author: Louis Joseph Vance
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Kirkwood mended his pace accordingly, but, contrary to the prediction, had
no time to spare at all. Even as he stormed the ticket-grating, the train
was thundering in at the platform. Therefore a nervous ticket agent passed
him out a first-class ticket instead of the third-class he had asked for;
and there was no time wherein to have the mistake rectified. Kirkwood
planked down the fare, swore, and sprinted for the carriages.
The first compartment whose door he jerked violently open, proved to be
occupied, and was, moreover, not a smoking-car. He received a fleeting
impression of a womanâs startled eyes, staring into his own through a thin
mesh of veiling, fell off the running-board, slammed the door, and hurled
himself towards the next compartment. Here happier fortune attended upon
his desire; the box-like section was untenanted, and a notice blown upon
the window-glass announced that it was â2nd Class Smoking.â Kirkwood
promptly tumbled in; and when he turned to shut the door the coaches were
moving.
A pipe helped him to bear up while the train was making its two other stops
in the Borough of Woolwich: a circumstance so maddening to a man in a
hurry, that it set Kirkwoodâs teeth on edge with sheer impatience, and
made him long fervently for the land of his birth, where they do things
differentlyâwhere the Board of Directors of a railway company doesnât
erect three substantial passenger depïżœts in the course of a mile and a half
of overgrown village. It consoled him little that none disputed with
him his lonely possession of the compartment, that he had caught the
Sheerness train, or that he was really losing no time; a sense of deep
dejection had settled down upon his consciousness, with a realization of
how completely a foolâs errand was this of his. He felt foredoomed to
failure; he was never to see Dorothy Calendar again; and his brain seemed
numb with disappointment.
Rattling and swaying, the train left the town behind.
Presently he put aside his pipe and stared blankly out at a reeling
landscape, the pleasant, homely, smiling countryside of Kent. A deeper
melancholy tinted his mind: Dorothy Calendar was for ever lost to him.
The trucks drummed it out persistentlyâhe thought, vindictively:
âLost!⊠Lost!⊠For ever lost!âŠâ
And he had madeâwas then makingâa damned fool of himself. The trucks had
no need to din that into his thick skull by their ceaseless iteration; he
knew it, would not deny itâŠ.
And it was all his own fault. Heâd had his chance, Calendar had offered him
it. If only he had closed with the fat adventurer!âŠ
Before his eyes field and coppice, hedge and homestead, stream and flowing
highway, all blurred and ran streakily into one another, like a highly
impressionistic water-color. He could make neither head nor tail of the
flying views, and so far as coherent thought was concerned, he could not
put two ideas together. Without understanding distinctly, he presently did
a more wise and wholesome thing: which was to topple limply over on the
cushions and fall fast asleep.
*
After a long time he seemed to realize rather hazily that the carriage-door
had been opened to admit somebody. Its smart closing bang shocked him
awake. He sat up, blinking in confusion, hardly conscious of more, to begin
with, than that the train had paused and was again in full flight. Then,
his senses clearing, he became aware that his solitary companion, just
entered, was a woman. She was seated over across from him, her back to the
engine, in an attitude which somehow suggested a highly nonchalant frame of
mind. She laughed, and immediately her speaking voice was high and sweet in
his hearing.
âReally, you know, Mr. Kirkwood, I simply couldnât contain my impatience
another instant.â
Kirkwood gasped and tried to recollect his wits.
âBeg pardonâIâve been asleep,â he said stupidly.
âYes. Iâm sorry to have disturbed you, but, you know, you must make
allowances for a womanâs nerves.â
Beneath his breath the bewildered man said: âThe deuce!â and above it, in a
stupefied tone: âMrs. Hallam!â
She nodded in a not unfriendly fashion, smiling brightly. âMyself, Mr.
Kirkwood! Really, our predestined paths are badly tangled, just now; arenât
they? Were you surprised to find me in here, with you? Come now, confess
you were!â
He remarked the smooth, girlish freshness of her cheeks, the sense and
humor of her mouth, the veiled gleam of excitement in her eyes of the
changing sea; and saw, as well, that she was dressed for traveling,
sensibly but with an air, and had brought a small hand-bag with her.
âSurprised and delighted,â he replied, recovering, with mendacity so
intentional and obvious that the woman laughed aloud.
âI knew youâd be!⊠You see, I had the carriage ahead, the one you didnât
take. I was so disappointed when you flung up to the door and away again!
You didnât see me hanging half out the window, to watch where you went, did
you? Thatâs how I discovered that your discourtesy was unintentional, that
you hadnât recognized me,âby the fact that you took this compartment,
right behind my own.â
She paused invitingly, but Kirkwood, grown wary, contented himself
with picking up his pipe and carefully knocking out the dottle on the
window-ledge.
âI was glad to see you,â she affirmed; âbut only partly because you
were you, Mr. Kirkwood. The other and major part was because sight of you
confirmed my own secret intuition. You see, Iâm quite old enough and wise
enough to question even my own intuitions.â
âA woman wise enough for that is an adult prodigy,â he ventured cautiously.
âItâs experience and age. I insist upon the age; I the mother of a
grown-up boy! So I deliberately ran after you, changing when we stopped
at Newington. You mightâve escaped me if I had waited until We got to
Queensborough.â
Again she paused in open expectancy. Kirkwood, perplexed, put the pipe in
his pocket, and assumed a factitious look of resignation, regarding her
askance with that whimsical twist of his eyebrows.
âFor you are going to Queensborough, arenât you, Mr. Kirkwood?â
âQueensborough?â he echoed blankly; and, in fact, he was at a loss to
follow her drift. âNo, Mrs. Hallam; Iâm not bound there.â
Her surprise was apparent; she made no effort to conceal it. âBut,â she
faltered, âif not thereââ
ââGive you my word, Mrs. Hallam, I have no intention whatever of going to
Queensborough,â Kirkwood protested.
âI donât understand.â The nervous drumming of a patent-leather covered
toe, visible beneath the hem of her dress, alone betrayed a rising tide of
impatience. âThen my intuition was at fault!â
âIn this instance, if it was at all concerned with my insignificant
affairs, yesâmost decidedly at fault.â
She shook her head, regarding him with grave suspicion. âI hardly know:
whether to believe you. I thinkâŠ.â
Kirkwoodâs countenance displayed an added shade of red. After a moment, âI
mean no discourtesy,â he began stiffly, âbutââ
âBut you donât care a farthing whether I believe you or not?â
He caught her laughing eye, and smiled, the flush subsiding.
âVery well, then! Now let us see: Where are you bound?â
Kirkwood looked out of the window.
âIâm convinced itâs a rendezvousâŠ?â
Kirkwood smiled patiently at the landscape.
âIs Dorothy Calendar so very, very beautiful, Mr. Kirkwood?ââwith a trace
of malice.
Ostentatiously Kirkwood read the South Eastern and Chathamâs framed card
of warning, posted just above Mrs. Hallamâs head, to all such incurable
lunatics as are possessed of a desire to travel on the running-boards of
railway carriages.
âYou are going to meet her, arenât you?â
He gracefully concealed a yawn.
The womanâs plan of attack took another form. âLast night, when you told me
your story, I believed you.â
He devoted himself to suppressing the temptingly obvious retort, and
succeeded; but though he left it unspoken, the humor of it twitched the
corners of his mouth; and Mrs. Hallam was observant. So that her next
attempt to draw him out was edged with temper.
âI believed you an American but a gentleman; it appears that, if you ever
were the latter, youâve fallen so low that you willingly cast your lot with
thieves.â
Having exhausted his repertoire of rudenesses, Kirkwood took to twiddling
his thumbs.
âI want to ask you if you think it fair to me or my son, to leave us in
ignorance of the place where you are to meet the thieves who stole ourâmy
sonâs jewels?â
âMrs. Hallam,â he said soberly, âif I am going to meet Mr. Calendar or Mr.
Mulready, I have no assurance of that fact.â
There was only the briefest of pauses, during which she analyzed this;
then, quickly, âBut you hope to?â she snapped.
He felt that the only adequate retort to this would be a shrug of his
shoulders; doubted his ability to carry one off; and again took refuge in
silence.
The woman abandoned a second plan of siege, with a readiness that did
credit to her knowledge of mankind. She thought out the next very
carefully, before opening with a masked battery.
âMr. Kirkwood, canât we be friendsâthis aside?â
âNothing could please me more, Mrs. Hallam!â
âIâm sorry if Iâve annoyed youââ
âAnd I, too, have been rude.â
âLast night, when you cut away so suddenly, you prevented my making you a
proposal, a sort of a business propositionâŠ.â
âYesâ?â
âTo come over to our sideââ
âI thought so. That was why I went.â
âYes; I understood. But this morning, when youâve had time to think it
overâ?â
âI have no choice in the matter, Mrs. Hallam.â The green eyes darkened
ominously. âYou meanâI am to understand, then, that youâre against us,
that you prefer to side with swindlers and scoundrels, all because of aââ
She discovered him eying her with a smile of such inscrutable and sardonic
intelligence, that the words died on her lips, and she crimsoned,
treasonably to herself. For he saw it; and the belief he had conceived
while attending to her tissue of fabrication, earlier that morning, was
strengthened to the point of conviction that, if anything had been stolen
by anybody, Mrs. Hallam and her son owned it as little as Calendar.
As for the woman, she felt she had steadily lost, rather than gained,
ground; and the flash of anger that had colored her cheeks, lit twin
beacons in her eyes, which she resolutely fought down until they faded to
mere gleams of resentment and determination. But she forgot to control
her lips; and they are the truest indices to a womanâs character and
temperament; and Kirkwood did not overlook the circumstance that their
specious sweetness had vanished, leaving them straight, set and hard, quite
the reverse of attractive.
âSo,â she said slowly, after a silent time, âyou are not for Queensborough!
The corollary of that admission, Mr. Kirkwood, is that you are for
Sheerness.â
âI believe,â he replied wearily, âthat there are no other stations on this
line, after Newington.â
âIt follows, then, thatâthat I follow.â And in answer to his perturbed
glance, she added: âOh, Iâll grant that intuition is sometimes a poor
guide. But if you meet George Calendar, so shall I. Nothing can prevent
that. You canât hinder me.â
Considerably amused, he chuckled. âLet us talk of other things, Mrs.
Hallam,â he suggested pleasantly. âHow is your son?â
At this
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