The Black Bag by Louis Joseph Vance (best manga ereader .TXT) đ
- Author: Louis Joseph Vance
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first time caught off his guard, had dropped behind more than half a long
block. But now Kirkwoodâs quick sidelong glance discovered the mate in the
act of taking alarm and quickening his pace. None the less the American was
at the time barely conscious of anything other than a wholly unexpected
furtive pressure of the girlâs gloved fingers on his own.
âGood-by,â she whispered.
He caught at her hand, protesting. âDorothyâ!â
âGood-by,â she repeated breathlessly, with a queer little catch in her
voice. âGod be with you, Philip, andâand send you safely back to meâŠ.â
And she was running away.
Dumfounded with dismay, seeing in a flash how all his plans might be set at
naught by this her unforeseen insubordination, he took a step or two after
her; but she was fleet of foot, and, remembering Hobbs, he halted.
By this time the mate, too, was running; Kirkwood could hear the heavy
pounding of his clumsy feet. Already Dorothy had almost gained the farther
corner; as she whisked round it with a flutter of skirts, Kirkwood dodged
hastily behind a gate-post. A thought later, Hobbs appeared, head down,
chest out, eyes straining for sight of his quarry, pelting along for dear
life.
As, rounding the corner, he stretched out in swifter stride, Kirkwood was
inspired to put a spoke in his wheel; and a foot thrust suddenly out from
behind the gate-post accomplished his purpose with more success than he
had dared anticipate. Stumbling, the mate plunged headlong, arms and legs
asprawl; and the momentum of his pace, though checked, carried him along
the sidewalk, face downwards, a full yard ere he could stay himself.
Kirkwood stepped out of the gateway and sheered off as Hobbs picked
himself up; something which he did rather slowly, as if in a daze, without
comprehension of the cause of his misfortune. And for a moment he stood
pulling his wits together and swaying as though on the point of resuming
his rudely interrupted chase; when the noise of Kirkwoodâs heels brought
him about face in a twinkling.
âOw, itâs you, eh!â he snarled in a temper as vicious as his countenance;
and both of these were much the worse for wear and tear.
âMyself,â admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor: âWerenât
you looking for me?â
His rage seemed to take the little Cockney and shake him by the throat; he
trembled from head to foot, his face shockingly congested, and spat out
dust and fragments of lurid blasphemy like an infuriated cat.
Of a sudden, âWâereâs the gel?â he sputtered thickly as his quick shifting
eyes for the first time noted Dorothyâs absence.
âMiss Calendar has other businessânone with you. Iâve taken the liberty of
stopping you because I have a word or twoââ
âOw, you âave, âave you? Gawd strike me blind, but Iâve a word for you,
too!⊠âAnd over that bagâand look nippy, or Iâll myke you pye for wâat
youâve done to me ⊠Iâll myke you pye!â he iterated hoarsely, edging
closer. ââAnd it over orââ
âYouâve got another guessââ Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in
deference to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action.
To some extent he had underestimated the brute courage of the fellow, the
violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his kind.
Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of villainy, Kirkwood
had been a little less wary than he would have been with Calendar or
Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so
conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to
learn that if Strykerâs nature was like a snakeâs for low cunning and
deviousness, Hobbsâ soul was the soul of a viper.
Almost imperceptibly he had advanced upon Kirkwood; almost insensibly his
right hand had moved toward his chest; now, with a movement marvelously
deft, it had slipped in and out of his breast pocket. And a six-inch blade
of tarnished steel was winging toward Kirkwoodâs throat with the speed of
light.
Instinctively he stepped back; as instinctively he guarded with his right
forearm, lifting the hand that held the satchel. The knife, catching in his
sleeve, scratched the arm beneath painfully, and simultaneously was twisted
from the mateâs grasp, while in his surprise Kirkwoodâs grip on the
bag-handle relaxed. It was torn forcibly from his fingers just as he
received a heavy blow on his chest from the mateâs fist. He staggered back.
By the time he had recovered from the shock, Hobbs was a score of feet
away, the satchel tucked under his arm, his body bent almost double,
running like a jack-rabbit. Ere Kirkwood could get under way, in pursuit,
the mate had dodged out of sight round the corner. When the American caught
sight of him again, he was far down the block, and bettering his pace with
every jump.
He was approaching, also, some six or eight good citizens of Calais, men of
the laboring class, at a guess. Their attention attracted by his frantic
flight, they stopped to wonder. One or two moved as though to intercept
him, and he doubled out into the middle of the street with the quickness of
thought; an instant later he shot round another corner and disappeared, the
natives streaming after in hot chase, electrified by the inspiring strains
of âStop, thief!ââor its French equivalent.
Kirkwood, cheering them on with the same wild cry, followed to the farther
street; and there paused, so winded and weak with laughter that he was fain
to catch at a fence picket for support. Standing thus he saw other denizens
of Calais spring as if from the ground miraculously to swell the hue and
cry; and a dumpling of a gendarme materialized from nowhere at all, to fall
in behind the rabble, waving his sword above his head and screaming at the
top of his lungs, the while his fat legs twinkled for all the world like
thick sausage links marvelously animated.
The mob straggled round yet another corner and was gone; its clamor
diminished on the still Spring air; and Kirkwood, recovering, abandoned
Mr. Hobbs to the justice of the high gods and the French system of
jurisprudence (at least, he hoped the latter would take an interest in the
case, if haply Hobbs were laid by the heels), and went his way rejoicing.
As for the scratch on his arm, it was nothing, as he presently demonstrated
to his complete satisfaction in the seclusion of a chancesent fiacre.
Kirkwood, commissioning it to drive him to the American Consulate, made
his diagnosis en route; wound a handkerchief round the negligible wound,
rolled down his sleeve, and forgot it altogether in the joys of picturing
to himself Hobbs in the act of opening the satchel in expectation of
finding therein the gladstone bag.
At the consulate door he paid off the driver and dismissed him; the fiacre
had served his purpose, and he could find his way to the Terminus Hïżœtel at
infinitely less expense. He had a considerably harder task before him as
he ascended the steps to the consular doorway, knocked and made known the
nature of his errand.
No malicious destiny could have timed the hour of his call more appositely;
the consul was at home and at the disposal of his fellow-citizensâwithin
bounds.
In the course of thirty minutes or so Kirkwood emerged with dignity from
the consulate, his face crimson to the hair, his soul smarting with
shame and humiliation; and left an amused official representative of his
countryâs government with the impression of having been entertained to the
point of ennui by an exceptionally clumsy but pertinacious liar.
For the better part of the succeeding hour Kirkwood circumnavigated the
neighborhood of the steamer pier and the Terminus Hïżœtel, striving to render
himself as inconspicuous as he felt insignificant, and keenly on the
alert for any sign or news of Hobbs. In this pursuit he was pleasantly
disappointed.
At noon precisely, his suspense grown too onerous for his strength of will,
throwing caution and their understanding to the winds, he walked boldly
into the Terminus, and inquired for Miss Calendar.
The assurance he received that she was in safety under its roof did not
deter him from sending up his name and asking her to receive him in the
public lounge; he required the testimony of his senses to convince him that
no harm had come to her in the long hour and a half that had elapsed since
their separation.
Woman-like, she kept him waiting. Alone in the public rooms of the hotel,
he suffered excruciating torments. How was he to know that Calendar had not
arrived and found his way to her?
When at length she appeared on the threshold of the apartment, bringing
with her the traveling bag and looking wonderfully the better for her
ninety minutes of complete repose and privacy, the relief he experienced
was so intense that he remained transfixed in the middle of the floor,
momentarily able neither to speak nor to move.
On her part, so fagged and distraught did he seem, that at sight of his
care-worn countenance she hurried to him with outstretched, compassionate
hands and a low pitiful cry of concern, forgetful entirely of that which he
himself had forgottenâthe emotion she had betrayed on parting.
âOh, nothing wrong,â he hastened to reassure her, with a sorry ghost of his
familiar grin; âonly I have lost Hobbs and the satchel with your things;
and thereâs no sign yet of Mr. Calendar. We can feel pretty comfortable
now, andâand I thought it time we had something like a meal.â
The narrative of his adventure which he delivered over their _dïżœjeuner ïżœ
la fourchette_ contained no mention either of his rebuff at the American
Consulate or the scratch he had sustained during Hobbsâ murderous assault;
the one could not concern her, the other would seem but a bid for her
sympathy. He counted it a fortunate thing that the mateâs knife had been
keen enough to penetrate the cloth of his sleeve without tearing it; the
slit it had left was barely noticeable. And he purposely diverted the girl
with flashes of humorous description, so that they discussed both meal and
episode in a mood of wholesome merriment.
It was concluded, all too soon for the taste of either, by the waiterâs
announcement that the steamer was on the point of sailing.
Outwardly composed, inwardly quaking, they boarded the packet, meeting with
no misadventure whateverâif we are to except the circumstance that, when
the restaurant bill was settled and the girl had punctiliously surrendered
his change with the tickets, Kirkwood found himself in possession of
precisely one franc and twenty centimes.
He groaned in spirit to think how differently he might have been fixed, had
he not in his infatuated spirit of honesty been so anxious to give Calendar
more than ample value for his money!
An inexorable anxiety held them both near the gangway until it was cast off
and the boat began to draw away from the pier. Then, and not till then, did
an unimpressive, small figure of a man detach itself from the shield of a
pile of luggage and advance to the pier-head. No second glance was
needed to identify Mr. Hobbs; and until the perspective dwarfed him
indistinguishably, he was to be seen, alternately waving Kirkwood ironic
farewell and blowing violent kisses to Miss Calendar from the tips of his
soiled fingers.
So he had escaped arrestâŠ.
At first by turns indignant and relieved to realize that thereafter they
were to
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