VI
"BELOW BRIDGE"
In silence Mrs. Hallam turned to Kirkwood, her pose in itself a questionand a peremptory one. Her eyes had narrowed; between their lashes the greenshowed, a thin edge like jade, cold and calculating. The firm lines of hermouth and chin had hardened.
Temporarily dumb with consternation, he returned her stare as silently.
"_Well_, Mr.--Kirkwood?"
"Mrs. Hallam," he stammered, "I--"
She lifted her shoulders impatiently and with a quick movement stepped backacross the threshold, where she paused, a rounded arm barring the entrance,one hand grasping the door-knob, as if to shut him out at any moment.
"I'm awaiting your explanation," she said coldly.
"I'm waiting your explanation," she said coldly.]
He grinned with nervousness, striving to penetrate the mental processes ofthis handsome Mrs. Hallam. She seemed to regard him with a suspicion whichhe thought inexcusable. Did she suppose he had spirited Dorothy Calendaraway and then called to apprise her of the fact? Or that he was some sortof an adventurer, who had manufactured a plausible yarn to gain him accessto her home? Or--harking back to her original theory--that he was anemissary from Scotland Yard? ... Probably she distrusted him on the latterhypothesis. The reflection left him more at ease.
"I am quite as mystified as you, Mrs. Hallam," he began. "Miss Calendar washere, at this door, in a four-wheeler, not ten minutes ago, and--"
"Then where is she now?"
"Tell me where Calendar is," he retorted, inspired, "and I'll try to answeryou!"
But her eyes were blank. "You mean--?"
"That Calendar was in this house when I came; that he left, found hisdaughter in the cab, and drove off with her. It's clear enough."
"You are quite mistaken," she said thoughtfully. "George Calendar has notbeen here this night."
He wondered that she did not seem to resent his imputation. "I think not--"
"Listen!" she cried, raising a warning hand; and relaxing her vigilantattitude, moved forward once more, to peer down toward the Embankment.
A cab had cut in from that direction and was bearing down upon them witha brisk rumble of hoofs. As it approached, Kirkwood's heart, thathad lightened, was weighed upon again by disappointment. It was nofour-wheeler, but a hansom, and the open wings of the apron, disclosing awhite triangle of linen surmounted by a glowing spot of fire, betrayed thesex of the fare too plainly to allow of further hope that it might be thegirl returning.
At the door, the cab pulled up sharply and a man tumbled hastily out uponthe sidewalk.
"Here!" he cried throatily, tossing the cabby his fare, and turned towardthe pair upon the doorstep, evidently surmising that something was amiss.For he was Calendar in proper person, and a sight to upset in a twinklingKirkwood's ingeniously builded castle of suspicion.
"Mrs. Hallam!" he cried, out of breath. "'S my daughter here?" And then,catching sight of Kirkwood's countenance: "Why, hello, Kirkwood!" hesaluted him with a dubious air.
The woman interrupted hastily. "Please come in, Mr. Calendar. Thisgentleman has been inquiring for you, with an astonishing tale about yourdaughter."
"Dorothy!" Calendar's moon-like visage was momentarily divested of anytrace of color. "What of her?"
"You had better come in," advised Mrs. Hallam brusquely.
The fat adventurer hopped hurriedly across the threshold, Kirkwoodfollowing. The woman shut the door, and turned with back to it, noddingsignificantly at Kirkwood as her eyes met Calendar's.
"Well, well?" snapped the latter impatiently, turning to the young man.
But Kirkwood was thinking quickly. For the present he contented himselfwith a deliberate statement of fact: "Miss Calendar has disappeared." Itgave him an instant's time ... "There's something damned fishy!" he toldhimself. "These two are playing at cross-purposes. Calendar's no fool; he'sevidently a crook, to boot. As for the woman, she's had her eyes open fora number of years. The main thing's Dorothy. She didn't vanish of her owninitiative. And Mrs. Hallam knows, or suspects, more than she's going totell. I don't think she wants Dorothy found. Calendar does. So do I. Ergo:I'm for Calendar."
"Disappeared?" Calendar was barking at him. "How? When? Where?"
"Within ten minutes," said Kirkwood. "Here, let's get it straight.... Withher permission I brought her here in a four-wheeler." He was carefullysuppressing all mention of Frognall Street, and in Calendar's glance readapproval of the elision. "She didn't want to get out, unless you were here.I asked for you. The maid showed me up-stairs. I left your daughter in thecab--and by the way, I hadn't paid the driver. That's funny, too! Perhapssix or seven minutes after I came in Mrs. Hallam found out that MissCalendar was with me and wanted to ask her in. When we got to the door--nocab. There you have it all."
"Thanks--it's plenty," said Calendar dryly. He bent his head in thought foran instant, then looked up and fixed Mrs. Hallam with an unprejudicedeye, "I say!" he demanded explosively. "There wasn't any one here thatknew--eh?"
Her fine eyes wavered and fell before his; and Kirkwood remarked that herunder lip was curiously drawn in.
"I heard a man leave as Mrs. Hallam joined me," he volunteered helpfully,and with a suspicion of malice. "And after that--I paid no attention at thetime--it seems to me I did hear a cab in the street--"
"Ow?" interjected Calendar, eying the woman steadfastly and employing anexclamation of combined illumination and inquiry more typically Britishthan anything Kirkwood had yet heard from the man.
For her part, the look she gave Kirkwood was sharp with fury. It was more;it was a mistake, a flaw in her diplomacy; for Calendar intercepted it.Unceremoniously he grasped her bare arm with his fat hand.
"Tell me who it was," he demanded in an ugly tone.
She freed herself with a twist, and stepped back, a higher color in hercheeks, a flash of anger in her eyes.
"Mr. Mulready," she retorted defiantly. "What of that?"
"I wish I was sure," declared the fat adventurer, exasperated. "As it is,I bet a dollar you've put your foot in it, my lady. I warned you of thatblackguard.... There! The mischief's done; we won't row over it. Onemoment." He begged it with a wave of his hand; stood pondering briefly,fumbled for his watch, found and consulted it. "It's the barest chance," hemuttered. "Perhaps we can make it."
"What are you going to do?" asked the woman.
"Give _Mister_ Mulready a run for his money. Come along, Kirkwood; wehaven't a minute. Mrs. Hallam, permit us...." She stepped aside and hebrushed past her to the door. "Come, Kirkwood!"
He seemed to take Kirkwood's company for granted; and the young man was notinclined to argue the point. Meekly enough he fell in with Calendar on thesidewalk. Mrs. Hallam followed them out. "You won't forget?" she calledtentatively.
"I'll 'phone you if we find out anything." Calendar jerked the wordsunceremoniously over his shoulder as, linking arms with Kirkwood, he drewhim swiftly along. They heard her shut the door; instantly Calendarstopped. "Look here, did Dorothy have a--a small parcel with her?"
"She had a gladstone bag."
"Oh, the devil, the devil!" Calendar started on again, mutteringdistractedly. As they reached the corner he disengaged his arm. "We've aminute and a half to reach Charing Cross Pier; and I think it's the lastboat. You set the pace, will you? But remember I'm an oldish man and--andfat."
They began to run, the one easily, the other lumbering after like anold-fashioned square-rigged ship paced by a liner.
Beneath the railway bridge, in front of the Underground station, thecab-rank cried them on with sardonic view-halloos; and a bobby remarkedthem with suspicion, turning to watch as they plunged round the corner andacross the wide Embankment.
The Thames appeared before them, a river of ink on whose burnished surfacelights swam in long winding streaks and oily blobs. By the floating pier aCounty Council steamboat strained its hawsers, snoring huskily. Bells werejingling in her engine-room as the two gained the head of the slopinggangway.<
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Kirkwood slapped a shilling down on the ticket-window ledge. "Where to?" hecried back to Calendar.
"Cherry Gardens Pier," rasped the winded man. He stumbled after Kirkwood,groaning with exhaustion. Only the tolerance of the pier employees gainedthem their end; the steamer was held some seconds for them; as Calendarstaggered to its deck, the gangway was jerked in, the last hawser cast off.The boat sheered wide out on the river, then shot in, arrow-like, to thepier beneath Waterloo Bridge.
The deck was crowded and additional passengers embarked at every stop. Inthe circumstances conversation, save on the most impersonal topics, wasimpossible; and even had it been necessary or advisable to discuss theaffair which occupied their minds, where so many ears could hear, Calendarhad breath enough neither to answer nor to catechize Kirkwood. They foundseats on the forward deck and rested there in grim silence, both frettingunder the enforced restraint, while the boat darted, like some illuminatedand exceptionally active water insect, from pier to pier.
As it snorted beneath London Bridge, Calendar's impatience drove him fromhis seat back to the gangway. "Next stop," he told Kirkwood curtly; andrested his heavy bulk against the paddle-box, brooding morosely, until,after an uninterrupted run of more than a mile, the steamer swept in,side-wheels backing water furiously against the ebbing tide, to CherryGardens landing.
Sweet name for a locality unsavory beyond credence! ... As they emerged onthe street level and turned west on Bermondsey Wall, Kirkwood was fain totug his top-coat over his chest and button it tight, to hide his linen. Ina guarded tone he counseled his companion to do likewise; and Calendar,after a moment's blank, uncomprehending stare, acknowledged the wisdom ofthe advice with a grunt.
The very air they breathed was rank with fetid odors bred of the gaunt darkwarehouses that lined their way; the lights were few; beneath the loomingbuildings the shadows were many and dense. Here and there dreary andcheerless public houses appeared, with lighted windows conspicuous in alightless waste. From time to time, as they hurried on, they encountered,and made wide detours to escape contact with knots of wayfarers--mendebased and begrimed, with dreary and slatternly women, arm in arm,zigzaging widely across the sidewalks, chorusing with sodden voices theburden of some popularized ballad. The cheapened, sentimental refrainsechoed sadly between benighted walls....
Kirkwood shuddered, sticking close to Calendar's side. Life's nakedbrutalities had theretofore been largely out of his ken. He had heard ofslums, had even ventured to mouth politely moral platitudes on the subjectof overcrowding in great centers of population, but in the darkest flightsof imagination had never pictured to himself anything so unspeakablyfoul and hopeless as this.... And they were come hither seeking--DorothyCalendar! He was unable to conceive what manner of villainy could bedirected against her, that she must be looked for in such surroundings.
After some ten minutes' steady walking, Calendar turned aside with amuttered word, and dived down a covered, dark and evil-smelling passagewaythat seemed to lead toward the river.
Mastering his involuntary qualms, Kirkwood followed.
Some ten or twelve paces from its entrance the passageway swerved at aright angle, continuing three yards or so to end in a blank wall, wherefroma flickering, inadequate gas-lamp jutted. At this point a stone platform,perhaps four feet square, was discovered, from the edge of which a flightof worn and slimy stone steps led down to a permanent boat-landing, whereanother gas-light flared gustily despite the protection of its frame ofbegrimed glass.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed the young man. "What, in Heaven's name, Calendar--?"
"Bermondsey Old Stairs. Come on."
They descended to the landing-stage. Beneath them the Pool slept, a sheetof polished ebony, whispering to itself, lapping with small stealthygurgles angles of masonry and ancient piles. On the farther bank tallwarehouses reared square old-time heads, their uncompromising, ruggedprofile relieved here and there by tapering mastheads. A few, scattering,feeble lights were visible. Nothing moved save the river and the wind.
The landing itself they found quite deserted; something which theadventurer comprehended with a nod which, like its accompanying,inarticulate ejaculation, might have been taken to indicate eithersatisfaction or disgust. He ignored Kirkwood altogether, for the timebeing, and presently produced a small, bright object, which, applied to hislips, proved to be a boatswain's whistle. He sounded two blasts, one long,one brief.
There fell a lull, Kirkwood watching the other and wondering what nextwould happen. Calendar paced restlessly to and fro upon the narrow landing,now stopping to incline an ear to catch some anticipated sound, nowsearching with sweeping glances the black reaches of the Pool.
Finally, consulting his watch, "Almost ten," he announced.
"We're in time?"
"Can't say.... Damn! ... If that infernal boat would only show up--"
He was lifting the whistle to sound a second summons when a rowboat roundeda projecting angle formed by the next warehouse down stream, and withclanking oar-locks swung in toward the landing. On her thwarts two figures,dipping and rising, labored with the sweeps. As they drew in, the manforward shipped his blades, and rising, scrambled to the bows in order tograsp an iron mooring-ring set in the wall. The other awkwardly took in hisoars and, as the current swung the stern downstream, placed a hand palmdownward upon the bottom step to hold the boat steady.
Calendar waddled to the brink of the stage, grunting with relief.
"The other man?" he asked brusquely. "Has he gone aboard? Or is this thefirst trip to-night?"
One of the watermen nodded assent to the latter question, adding gruffly:"Seen nawthin' of 'im, sir."
"Very good," said Calendar, as if he doubted whether it were very good orbad. "We'll wait a bit."
"Right-o!" agreed the waterman civilly.
Calendar turned back, his small eyes glimmering with satisfaction. Fumblingin one coat pocket he brought to light a cigar-case. "Have a smoke?" hesuggested with a show of friendliness. "By Heaven, I was beginnin' to getworried!"
"As to what?" inquired Kirkwood pointedly, selecting a cigar.
He got no immediate reply, but felt Calendar's sharp eyes upon him while hemanoeuvered with matches for a light.
"That's so," it came at length. "You don't know. I kind of forgot for aminute; somehow you seemed on the inside."
Kirkwood laughed lightly. "I've experienced something of the same sensationin the past few hours."
"Don't doubt it." Calendar was watching him narrowly. "I suppose," he putit to him abruptly, "you haven't changed your mind?"
"Changed my mind?"
"About coming in with me."
"My dear sir, I can have no mind to change until a plain proposition islaid before me."
"Hmm!" Calendar puffed vigorously until it occurred to him to change thesubject. "You won't mind telling me what happened to you and Dorothy?"
"Certainly not."
Calendar drew nearer and Kirkwood, lowering his voice, narrated briefly theevents since he had left the Pless in Dorothy's company.
Her father followed him intently, interrupting now and again withexclamation or pertinent question; as, Had Kirkwood been able to see theface of the man in No. 9, Frognall Street? The negative answer seemed todisconcert him.
"Youngster, you say? Blam' if I can lay my mind to _him_! Now if thatMulready--"
"It would have been impossible for Mulready--whoever he is--to recover andget to Craven Street before we did," Kirkwood pointed out.
"Well--go on." But when the tale was told, "It's that scoundrel, Mulready!"the man affirmed with heat. "It's his hand--I know him. I might have hadsense enough to see he'd take the first chance to hand me the double-cross.Well, this does for _him_, all right!" Calendar lowered viciously at theriver. "You've been blame' useful," he told Kirkwood assertively. "Ifit hadn't been for you, I don't know where _I'd_ be now,--nor Dorothy,either,"--an obvious afterthought. "There's no particular way I can show myappreciation, I suppose? Money--?"
"I've got enough to last me till I reach New York, thank you."
"Well, if the time ever comes, just shout for George B. I won't bewanting.... I only wish you were with us; but that's out of the question."
"Doubtless ..."
"No two ways about it. I bet anything you've got a conscience concealedabout your person. What? You're an honest man, eh?"
"I don't want to sound immodest," returned Kirkwood, amused.
"You don't need to worry about that.... But an honest man's got no businessin _my_ line." He glanced again at his watch. "Damn that Mulready! I wonderif he was 'cute enough to take another way? Or did he think ... The fool!"
He cut off abruptly, seeming depressed by the thought that he might havebeen outwitted; and, clasping hands behind his back, chewed savagely on hiscigar, watching the river. Kirkwood found himself somewhat wearied; theuselessness of his presence there struck him with added force. He bethoughthim of his boat-train, scheduled to leave a station miles distant, in anhour and a half. If he missed it, he would be stranded in a foreign land,penniless and practically without friends--Brentwick being away and all therest of his circle of acquaintances on the other side of the Channel. Yethe lingered, in poor company, daring fate that he might see the end of theaffair. Why?
There was only one honest answer to that question. He stayed on because ofhis interest in a girl whom he had known for a matter of three hours, atmost. It was insensate folly on his part, ridiculous from any point ofview. But he made no move to go.
The slow minutes lengthened monotonously.
There came a sound from the street level. Calendar held up a hand ofwarning. "Here they come! Steady!" he said tensely. Kirkwood, listeningintently, interpreted the noise as a clash of hoofs upon cobbles.
Calendar turned to the boat.
"Sheer off," he ordered. "Drop out of sight. I'll whistle when I want you."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The boat slipped noiselessly away with the current and in an instant waslost to sight. Calendar plucked at Kirkwood's sleeve, drawing him into theshadow of the steps. "E-easy," he whispered; "and, I say, lend me a hand,will you, if Mulready turns ugly?"
"Oh, yes," assented Kirkwood, with a nonchalance not entirely unassumed.
The racket drew nearer and ceased; the hush that fell thereafter seemedonly accentuated by the purling of the river. It was ended by footstepsechoing in the covered passageway. Calendar craned his thick neck round theshoulder of stone, reconnoitering the landing and stairway.
"Thank God!" he said under his breath. "I was right, after all!"
A man's deep tones broke out above. "This way. Mind the steps; they're abit slippery, Miss Dorothy."
"But my father--?" came the girl's voice, attuned to doubt.
"Oh, he'll be along--if he isn't waiting now, in the boat."
They descended, the man leading. At the foot, without a glance to right orleft, he advanced to the edge of the stage, leaning out over the rail as ifendeavoring to locate the rowboat. At once the girl appeared, moving to hisside.
"But, Mr. Mulready--"
The girl's words were drowned by a prolonged blast on the boatswain'swhistle at her companion's lips; the shorter one followed in due course.Calendar edged forward from Kirkwood's side.
"But what shall we do if my father isn't here? Wait?"
"No; best not to; best to get on the _Alethea_ as soon as possible, MissCalendar. We can send the boat back."
"'Once aboard the lugger the girl is mine'--eh, Mulready?--to say nothingof the loot!"
If Calendar's words were jocular, his tone conveyed a different impressionentirely. Both man and girl wheeled right about to face him, the one with astrangled oath, the other with a low cry.
"The devil!" exclaimed this Mr. Mulready.
"Oh! My father!" the girl voiced her recognition of him.
"Not precisely one and the same person," commented Calendar suavely."But--er--thanks, just as much.... You see, Mulready, when I make anappointment, I keep it."
"We'd begun to get a bit anxious about you--" Mulready began defensively.
"So I surmised, from what Mrs. Hallam and Mr. Kirkwood told me.... Well?"
The man found no ready answer. He fell back a pace to the railing, hisfeatures working with his deep chagrin. The murky flare of the gas-lampoverhead fell across a face handsome beyond the ordinary but marred by asullen humor and seamed with indulgence: a face that seemed hauntinglyfamiliar until Kirkwood in a flash of visual memory reconstructed theportrait of a man who lingered over a dining-table, with two empty chairsfor company. This, then, was he whom Mrs. Hallam had left at the Pless; atall, strong man, very heavy about the chest and shoulders....
"Why, my dear friend," Calendar was taunting him, "you don't seem overjoyedto see me, for all your wild anxiety! 'Pon my word, you act as if youhadn't expected me--and our engagement so clearly understood, at that! ...Why, you fool!"--here the mask of irony was cast. "Did you think for amoment I'd let myself be nabbed by that yap from Scotland Yard? Were youbanking on that? I give you my faith I ambled out under his very nose! ...Dorothy, my dear," turning impatiently from Mulready, "where's that bag?"
The girl withdrew a puzzled gaze from Mulready's face, (it was apparent toKirkwood that this phase of the affair was no more enigmatic to him than toher), and drew aside a corner of her cloak, disclosing the gladstone bag,securely grasped in one gloved hand.
"I have it, thanks to Mr. Kirkwood," she said quietly.
Kirkwood chose that moment to advance from the shadow. Mulready started andfixed him with a troubled and unfriendly stare. The girl greeted him with anote of sincere pleasure in her surprise.
"Why, Mr. Kirkwood! ... But I left you at Mrs. Hallam's!"
Kirkwood bowed, smiling openly at Mulready's discomfiture.
"By your father's grace, I came with him," he said. "You ran away withoutsaying good night, you know, and I'm a jealous creditor."
She laughed excitedly, turning to Calendar. "But _you_ were to meet me atMrs. Hallam's?"
"Mulready was good enough to try to save me the trouble, my dear. He's anunselfish soul, Mulready. Fortunately it happened that I came along notfive minutes after he'd carried you off. How was that, Dorothy?"
Her glance wavered uneasily between the two, Mulready and her father. Theformer, shrugging to declare his indifference, turned his back squarelyupon them. She frowned.
"He came out of Mrs. Hallam's and got into the four-wheeler, saying you hadsent him to take your place, and would join us on the _Alethea_."
"So-o! How about it, Mulready?"
The man swung back slowly. "What you choose to think," he said after adeliberate pause.
"Well, never mind! We'll go over the matter at our leisure on the_Alethea_."
There was in the adventurer's tone a menace, bitter and not to be ignored;which Mulready saw fit to challenge.
"I think not," he declared; "I think not. I'm weary of your addle-patedsuspicions. It'd be plain to any one but a fool that I acted for the bestinterests of all concerned in this matter. If you're not content to see itin that light, I'm done."
"Oh, if you want to put it that way, I'm _not_ content, Mr. Mulready,"retorted Calendar dangerously.
"Please yourself. I bid you good evening and--good-by." The man took a steptoward the stairs.
Calendar dropped his right hand into his top-coat pocket. "Just a minute,"he said sweetly, and Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurer'ssmoldering resentment leaped in flame. "That'll be about all, Mr. Mulready!'Bout face, you hound, and get into that boat! D'you think I'll temporizewith you till Doomsday? Then forget it. You're wrong, dead wrong. Yourbluff's called, and"--with an evil chuckle--"I hold a full house,Mulready,--every chamber taken." He lifted meaningly the hand in the coatpocket. "Now, in with you."
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 atthe stage a moment earlier. Mulready dropped into it
and threw himselfsullenly upon the midships thwart.
"Now, Dorothy, in you go, my dear," continued Calendar, with aself-satisfied wag of his head.
Half dazed, to all seeming, she moved toward the boat. With clumsy andassertive gallantry her father stepped before her, offering his hand,--hishand which she did not touch; for, in the act of descending, she rememberedand swung impulsively back to Kirkwood.
"Good night, Mr. Kirkwood; good night,--I shan't forget."
He took her hand and bowed above it; but when his head was lifted, he stillretained her fingers in a lingering clasp.
"Good night," 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 eveninggown, she figured strangely against the gloomy background of the river, inthose dull and mean surroundings of dank stone and rusted iron. She waslike (he thought extravagantly) a whiff of flower-fragrance lost in themiasmatic vapors of a slough.
The innocent appeal and allure of her face, upturned to his beneath thegas-light, wrought compassionately upon his sensitive and generous heart.He was aware of a little surge of blind rage against the conditions thathad brought her to that spot, and against those whom he held responsiblefor those conditions.
In a sudden flush of daring he turned and nodded coolly to Calendar. "Withyour permission," he said negligently; and drew the girl aside to the angleof the stairway.
"Miss Calendar--" he began; but was interrupted.
"Here--I say!"
Calendar had started toward him angrily.
Kirkwood calmly waved him back. "I want a word in private with yourdaughter, Mr. Calendar," he announced with quiet dignity. "I don't thinkyou'll deny me? I've saved you some slight trouble to-night."
Disgruntled, the adventurer paused. "Oh--_all_ right," he grumbled. "Idon't see what ..." He returned to the boat.
"Forgive me, Miss Calendar," continued Kirkwood nervously. "I know I've noright to interfere, but--"
"Yes, Mr. Kirkwood?"
"--but hasn't this gone far enough?" he floundered unhappily. "I can't likethe look of things. Are you sure--sure that it's all right--with you, Imean?"
She did not answer at once; but her eyes were kind and sympathetic. Heplucked heart of their tolerance.
"It isn't too late, yet," he argued. "Let me take you to your friends,--youmust have friends in the city. But this--this midnight flight down theThames, this atmosphere of stealth and suspicion, this--"
"But my place is with my father, Mr. Kirkwood," she interposed. "I daren'tdoubt him--dare I?"
"I ... suppose not."
"So I must go with him.... I'm glad--thank you for caring, dear Mr.Kirkwood. And again, good night."
"Good luck attend you," he muttered, following her to the boat.
Calendar helped her in and turned back to Kirkwood with a look of archtriumph; Kirkwood wondered if he had overheard. Whether or no, he couldafford to be magnanimous. Seizing Kirkwood's hand, he pumped it vigorously.
"My dear boy, you've been an angel in disguise! And I guess you think methe devil in masquerade." He chuckled, in high conceit with himself overthe turn of affairs. "Good night and--and fare thee well!" He dropped intothe boat, seating himself to face the recalcitrant Mulready. "Cast off,there!"
The boat dropped away, the oars lifting and falling. With a weariful senseof loneliness and disappointment, Kirkwood hung over the rail to watch themout of sight.
A dozen feet of water lay between the stage and the boat. The girl's dressremained a spot of cheerful color; her face was a blur. As the watermenswung the bows down-stream, she looked back, lifting an arm spectral in itswhite sheath. Kirkwood raised his hat.
The boat gathered impetus, momentarily diminishing in the night's illusoryperspective; presently it was little more than a fugitive blot, glidingswiftly in midstream. And then, it was gone entirely, engulfed by theobliterating darkness.
The boat gathered impetus.]
Somewhat wearily the young man released the railing and ascended thestairs. "And that is the end!" he told himself, struggling with an acutesense of personal injury. He had been hardly used. For a few hours hislife had been lightened by the ineffable glamor of Romance; mystery andadventure had engaged him, exorcising for the time the Shade of Care; hehad served a fair woman and been associated with men whose ways, howeverquestionable, were the ways of courage, hedged thickly about with perils.
All that was at an end. Prosaic and workaday to-morrows confronted him inendless and dreary perspective; and he felt again upon his shoulder thebony hand of his familiar, Care....
He sighed: "Ah, well!"
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 initialinstance, had traveled this weary way from Quadrant Mews, after the mannerof his kind, ere turning back, had sought surcease of fatigue at thenearest public; from afar Kirkwood saw the four-wheeler at the curb, andmade 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 listlesswith fatigue, into the conveyance.
As it moved, he closed his eyes; the face of Dorothy Calendar shone outfrom the blank wall of his consciousness, like an illuminated picture castupon a screen. She smiled upon him, her head high, her eyes tender andtrustful. And he thought that her scarlet lips were sweet with promise andher 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 hemight, by a nod of his head, have cast his fortunes with hers for weal orwoe. But now ...
Alas and alackaday, that Romance was no more!
The Black Bag Page 6