The Black Bag

by Louis Joseph Vance

  XVIII

  ADVENTURERS' LUCK

  As the door closed, Kirkwood swung impulsively to Brentwick, with thebrief, uneven laugh of fine-drawn nerves.

  "Good God, sir!" he cried. "You don't know--"

  "I can surmise," interrupted the elder man shrewdly.

  "You turned up in the nick of time, for all the world like--"

  "Harlequin popping through a stage trap?"

  "No!--an incarnation of the Providence that watches over children andfools."

  Brentwick dropped a calming hand upon his shoulder. "Your simile seemssingularly happy, Philip. Permit me to suggest that you join the child inmy study." He laughed quietly, with a slight nod toward an open door at theend of the hallway. "For myself, I'll be with you in one moment."

  A faint, indulgent smile lurking in the shadow of his white mustache, hewatched the young man wheel and dart through the doorway. "Young hearts!"he commented inaudibly--and a trace sadly. "Youth!..."

  Beyond the threshold of the study, Kirkwood paused, eager eyes searchingits somber shadows for a sign of Dorothy.

  A long room and deep, it was lighted only by the circumscribed disk ofillumination thrown on the central desk by a shaded reading-lamp, and theflickering glow of a grate-fire set beneath the mantel of a side-wall. Atthe back, heavy velvet portieres cloaked the recesses of two long windows,closed jealously even against the twilight. Aside from the windows, doorsand chimney-piece, every foot of wall space was occupied by toweringbookcases or by shelves crowded to the limit of their capacity with anamazing miscellany of objects of art, the fruit of years of patient anddiscriminating collecting. An exotic and heady atmosphere, compounded ofthe faint and intangible exhalations of these insentient things, fragranceof sandalwood, myrrh and musk, reminiscent whiffs of half-forgottenincense, seemed to intensify the impression of gloomy richness andrepose...

  By the fireplace, a little to one side, stood Dorothy, one small footresting on the brass fender, her figure merging into the dusky background,her delicate beauty gaining an effect of elusive and ethereal mystery inthe waning and waxing ruddy glow upflung from the bedded coals.

  "Oh, Philip!" She turned swiftly to Kirkwood with extended hands and a low,broken cry. "I'm _so_ glad...."

  A trace of hysteria in her manner warned him, and he checked himself uponthe verge of a too dangerous tenderness. "There!" he said soothingly,letting her hands rest gently in his palms while he led her to a chair. "Wecan make ourselves easy now." She sat down and he released her hands with areluctance less evident than actual. "If ever I say another word against myluck--"

  "Who," inquired the girl, lowering her voice, "who is the gentleman in theflowered dressing-gown?"

  "Brentwick--George Silvester Brentwick: an old friend. I've known him foryears,--ever since I came abroad. Curiously enough, however, this is thefirst time I've ever been here. I called once, but he wasn't in,--a fewdays ago,--the day we met. I thought the place looked familiar. Stupid ofme!"

  "Philip," said the girl with a grave face but a shaking voice, "it was."She laughed provokingly.... "It was so funny, Philip. I don't know why Iran, when you told me to, but I did; and while I ran, I was consciousof the front door, here, opening, and this tall man in the flowereddressing-gown coming down to the gate as if it were the most ordinary thingin the world for him to stroll out, dressed that way, in the evening. Andhe opened the gate, and bowed, and said, ever so pleasantly, 'Won't youcome in, Miss Calendar?'--"

  "He did!" exclaimed Kirkwood. "But how--?"

  "How can I say?" she expostulated. "At all events, he seemed to knowme; and when he added something about calling you in, too--he said 'Mr.Kirkwood '--I didn't hesitate."

  "It's strange enough, surely--and fortunate. Bless his heart!" saidKirkwood.

  And, "Hum!" said Mr. Brentwick considerately, entering the study. He haddiscarded the dressing-gown and was now in evening dress.

  The girl rose. Kirkwood turned. "Mr. Brentwick--" he began.

  But Brentwick begged his patience with an eloquent gesture. "Sir," he said,somewhat austerely, "permit me to put a single question: Have you by anychance paid your cabby?"

  "Why--" faltered the younger man, with a flaming face. "I--why, no--thatis--"

  The other quietly put his hand upon a bell-pull. A faint jingling sound wasat once audible, emanating from the basement.

  "How much should you say you owe him?"

  "I--I haven't a penny in the world!"

  The shrewd eyes flashed their amusement into Kirkwood's. "Tut, tut!"Brentwick chuckled. "Between gentlemen, my dear boy! Dear me! you are slowto learn."

  "I'll never be contented to sponge on my friends," explained Kirkwood indeepest misery. "I can't tell when--"

  "Tut, tut! How much did you say?"

  "Ten shillings--or say twelve, would be about right," stammered theAmerican, swayed by conflicting emotions of gratitude and profoundembarrassment.

  A soft-footed butler, impassive as Fate, materialized mysteriously in thedoorway.

  "You rang, sir?" he interrupted frigidly.

  "I rang, Wotton." His master selected a sovereign from his purse and handedit to the servant. "For the cabby, Wotton."

  "Yes sir." The butler swung automatically, on one heel.

  "And Wotton!"

  "Sir?"

  "If any one should ask for me, I'm not at home."

  "Very good, sir."

  "And if you should see a pair of disreputable scoundrels skulking, in theneighborhood, one short and stout, the other tall and evidently a seafaringman, let me know."

  "Thank you, sir." A moment later the front door was heard to close.

  Brentwick turned with a little bow to the girl. "My dear Miss Calendar," hesaid, rubbing his thin, fine hands,--"I am old enough, I trust, to call yousuch without offense,--please be seated."

  Complying, the girl rewarded him with a radiant smile. Whereupon, stridingto the fireplace, their host turned his back to it, clasped his handsbehind him, and glowered benignly upon the two. "Ah!" he observed inaccents of extreme personal satisfaction. "Romance! Romance!"

  "Would you mind telling us how you knew--" began Kirkwood anxiously.

  "Not in the least, my dear Philip. It is simple enough: I possess animagination. From my bedroom window, on the floor above, I happen to beholdtwo cabs racing down the street, the one doggedly pursuing the other. Theforemost stops, perforce of a fagged horse. There alights a young gentlemanlooking, if you'll pardon me, uncommonly seedy; he is followed by a younglady, if she will pardon me," with another little bow, "uncommonly pretty.With these two old eyes I observe that the gentleman does not pay hiscabby. Ergo--I intelligently deduce--he is short of money. Eh?"

  "You were right," affirmed Kirkwood, with a rueful and crooked smile."But--"

  "So! so!" pursued Brentwick, rising on his toes and dropping back again;"so this world of ours wags on to the old, old tune!... And I, who in myyounger days pursued adventure without success, in dotage find myselfdragged into a romance by my two ears, whether I will or no! Eh? And nowyou are going to tell me all about it, Philip. There is a chair.... Well,Wotton?"

  The butler had again appeared noiselessly in the doorway.

  "Beg pardon, sir; they're waiting, sir."

  "The caitiffs, Wotton?"

  "Yessir."

  "Where waiting?"

  "One at each end of the street, sir."

  "Thank you. You may bring us sherry and biscuit, Wotton."

  "Thank you, sir."

  The servant vanished.

  Brentwick removed his glasses, rubbed them, and blinked thoughtfully at thegirl. "My dear," he said suddenly, with a peculiar tremor in his voice,"you resemble your mother remarkably. Tut--I should know! Time was when Iwas one of her most ardent admirers."

  "You--y-you knew my mother?" cried Dorothy, profoundly moved.

  "Did I not know you at sight? My dear, you are your mother reincarnate, forthe good of an unworthy world. She was a very beautiful woman, my dear."
r />   Wotton entered with a silver serving tray, offering it in turn to Dorothy,Kirkwood and his employer. While he was present the three held silent--thegirl trembling slightly, but with her face aglow; Kirkwood half stupefiedbetween his ease from care and his growing astonishment, as Brentwickcontinued to reveal unexpected phases of his personality; Brentwick himselfoutwardly imperturbable and complacent, for all that his hand shook as helifted his wine glass.

  "You may go, Wotton--or, wait. Don't you feel the need of a breath of freshair, Wotton?"

  "Yessir, thank you, sir."

  "Then change your coat, Wotton, light your pipe, and stroll out for half anhour. You need not leave the street, but if either the tall thin blackguardwith the seafaring habit, or the short stout rascal with the air of mysteryshould accost you, treat them with all courtesy, Wotton. You will becareful not to tell either of them anything in particular, although I don'tmind your telling them that Mr. Brentwick lives here, if they ask. I ammostly concerned to discover if they purpose becoming fixtures on thestreet-corners, Wotton."

  "Quite so, sir."

  "Now you may go.... Wotton," continued his employer as the butler tookhimself off as softly as a cat, "grows daily a more valuable mechanism. Heis by no means human in any respect, but I find him extremely handy tohave round the house.... And now, my dear," turning to Dorothy, "with yourpermission I desire to drink to the memory of your beautiful mother and tothe happiness of her beautiful daughter."

  "But you will tell me--"

  "A number of interesting things, Miss Calendar, if you'll be good enough tolet me choose the time. I beg you to be patient with the idiosyncrasiesof an old man, who means no harm, who has a reputation as an eccentric tosustain before his servants.... And now," said Brentwick, setting aside hisglass, "now, my dear boy, for the adventure."

  Kirkwood chuckled, infected by his host's genial humor. "How do you know--"

  "How can it be otherwise?" countered Brentwick with a trace of asperity."Am I to be denied my adventure? Sir, I refuse without equivocation. Yourvery bearing breathes of Romance. There must be an adventure forthcoming,Philip; otherwise my disappointment will be so acute that I shall beregretfully obliged seriously to consider my right, as a householder, toshow you the door."

  "But Mr. Brentwick--!"

  "Sit down, sir!" commanded Brentwick with such a peremptory note that theyoung man, who had risen, obeyed out of sheer surprise. Upon which his hostadvanced, indicting him with a long white forefinger. "Would you, sir,"he demanded, "again expose this little lady to the machinations of thatcorpulent scoundrel, whom I have just had the pleasure of shooing off mypremises, because you choose to resent an old man's raillery?"

  "I apologize," Kirkwood humored him.

  "I accept the apology in the spirit in which it is offered.... I repeat,now for the adventure, Philip. If the story's long, epitomize. We canconsider details more at our leisure."

  Kirkwood's eyes consulted the girl's face; almost imperceptibly she noddedhim permission to proceed.

  "Briefly, then," he began haltingly, "the man who followed us to the doorhere, is Miss Calendar's father."

  "Oh? His name, please?"

  "George Burgoyne Calendar."

  "Ah! An American; I remember, now. Continue, please."

  "He is hounding us, sir, with the intention of stealing some property,which he caused to be stolen, which we--to put it bluntly--stole from him,to which he has no shadow of a title, and which, finally, we're endeavoringto return to its owners."

  "My dear!" interpolated Brentwick gently, looking down at the girl'sflushed face and drooping head.

  "He ran us to the last ditch," Kirkwood continued; "I've spent my lastfarthing trying to lose him."

  "But why have you not caused his arrest?" Brentwick inquired.

  Kirkwood nodded meaningly toward the girl. Brentwick made a soundindicating comprehension, a click of the tongue behind closed teeth.

  "We came to your door by the merest accident--it might as well have beenanother. I understood you were in Munich, and it never entered my head thatwe'd find you home."

  "A communication from my solicitors detained me," explained Brentwick. "Andnow, what do you intend to do?"

  "Trespass as far on your kindness as you'll permit. In the first place,I--I want the use of a few pounds with which to cable some friends in NewYork, for money; on receipt of which I can repay you."

  "Philip," observed Brentwood, "you are a most irritating child. But Iforgive you the faults of youth. You may proceed, bearing in mind, if youplease, that I am your friend equally with any you may own in America."

  "You're one of the best men in the world," said Kirkwood.

  "Tut, tut! Will you get on?"

  "Secondly, I want you to help us to escape Calendar to-night. It isnecessary that Miss Calendar should go to Chiltern this evening, where shehas friends who will receive and protect her."

  "Mm-mm," grumbled their host, meditative. "My faith!" he commented, withbrightening eyes. "It sounds almost too good to be true! And I've beengrowing afraid that the world was getting to be a most humdrum anduninteresting planet!... Miss Calendar, I am a widower of so many yearsstanding that I had almost forgotten I had ever been anything but abachelor. I fear my house contains little that will be of service to ayoung lady. Yet a room is at your disposal; the parlor-maid shall show youthe way. And Philip, between you and me, I venture to remark that hot waterand cold steel would add to the attractiveness of your personal appearance;my valet will attend you in my room. Dinner," concluded Brentwick withanticipative relish, "will be served in precisely thirty minutes. I shallexpect you to entertain me with a full and itemized account of every phaseof your astonishing adventure. Later, we will find a way to Chiltern."

  Again he put a hand upon the bell-pull. Simultaneously Dorothy and Kirkwoodrose.

  "Mr. Brentwick," said the girl, her eyes starred with tears of gratitude,"I don't, I really don't know how--"

  "My dear," said the old gentleman, "you will thank me most appropriatelyby continuing, to the best of your ability, to resemble your mother moreremarkably every minute."

  "But I," began Kirkwood----.

  "You, my dear Philip, can thank me best by permitting me to enjoy myself;which I am doing thoroughly at the present moment. My pleasure in beinginvited to interfere in your young affairs is more keen than you can wellsurmise. Moreover," said Mr. Brentwick, "so long have I been an amateuradventurer that I esteem it the rarest privilege to find myself thus on thepoint of graduating into professional ranks." He rubbed his hands, beamingupon them. "And," he added, as a maid appeared at the door, "I have alreadyschemed me a scheme for the discomfiture of our friends the enemy: a schemewhich we will discuss with our dinner, while the heathen rage and imagine avain thing, in the outer darkness."

  Kirkwood would have lingered, but of such inflexible temper was his hostthat he bowed him into the hands of a man servant without permitting himanother word.

  "Not a syllable," he insisted. "I protest I am devoured with curiosity, mydear boy, but I have also bowels of compassion. When we are well on withour meal, when you are strengthened with food and drink, then you maybegin. But now--Dickie," to the valet, "do your duty!"

  Kirkwood, laughing with exasperation, retired at discretion, leavingBrentwick the master of the situation: a charming gentleman with a will ofhis own and a way that went with it.

  He heard the young man's footsteps diminish on the stairway; and againhe smiled the indulgent, melancholy smile of mellow years. "Youth!" hewhispered softly. "Romance!... And now," with a brisk change of tone ashe closed the study door, "now we are ready for this interesting Mr.Calendar."

  Sitting down at his desk, he found and consulted a telephone directory;but its leaves, at first rustling briskly at the touch of the slender anddelicate fingers, were presently permitted to lie unturned,--the bookresting open on his knees the while he stared wistfully into the fire.

  A suspicion of moisture glimmered in his eyes. "Dorothy!" he
whisperedhuskily. And a little later, rising, he proceeded to the telephone....

  An hour and a half later Kirkwood, his self-respect something restored bya bath, a shave, and a resumption of clothes which had been hastily butthoroughly cleansed and pressed by Brentwick's valet; his confidence andcourage mounting high under the combined influence of generous wine,substantial food, the presence of his heart's mistress and theadmiration--which was unconcealed--of his friend, concluded at thedinner-table, his narration.

  "And that," he said, looking up from his savory, "is about all."

  "Bravo!" applauded Brentwick; eyes shining with delight.

  "All," interposed Dorothy in warm reproach, "but what he hasn't told--"

  "Which, my dear, is to be accounted for wholly by a very creditablemodesty, rarely encountered in the young men of the present day. It was, ofcourse, altogether different with those of my younger years. Yes, Wotton?"

  Brentwick sat back in his chair, inclining an attentive ear to acommunication murmured by the butler.

  Kirkwood's gaze met Dorothy's across the expanse of shining cloth; hedeprecated her interruption with a whimsical twist of his eyebrows."Really, you shouldn't," he assured her in an undertone. "I've done nothingto deserve..." But under the spell of her serious sweet eyes, he fellsilent, and presently looked down, strangely abashed; and contemplated thevast enormity of his unworthiness.

  Coffee was set before them by Wotton, the impassive, Brentwick refusingit with a little sigh. "It is one of the things, as Philip knows," heexplained to the girl, "denied me by the physician who makes his life happyby making mine a waste. I am allowed but three luxuries; cigars, travelin moderation, and the privilege of imposing on my friends. The first Ipropose presently, to enjoy, by your indulgence; and the second I shallthis evening undertake by virtue of the third, of which I have just availedmyself."

  Smiling at the involution, he rested his head against the back of thechair, eyes roving from the girl's face to Kirkwood's. "Inspiration todo which," he proceeded gravely, "came to me from the seafaring picaroon(Stryker did you name him?) via the excellent Wotton. While you werepreparing for dinner, Wotton returned from his constitutional with the newsthat, leaving the corpulent person on watch at the corner, Captain Strykerhad temporarily, made himself scarce. However, we need feel no anxietyconcerning his whereabouts, for he reappeared in good time and amotor-car. From which it becomes evident that you have not overrated theirpertinacity; the fiasco of the cab-chase is not to be reenacted."

  Resolutely the girl repressed a gasp of dismay. Kirkwood stared moodilyinto his cup.

  "These men bore me fearfully," he commented at last.

  "And so," continued Brentwick, "I bethought me of a counter-stroke. It ismy good fortune to have a friend whose whim it is to support a touring-car,chiefly in innocuous idleness. Accordingly I have telephoned him andcommandeered the use of this machine--mechanician, too.... Though not abetting man, I am willing to risk recklessly a few pence in support of mycontention, that of the two, Captain Stryker's car and ours, the latterwill prove considerably the most speedy....

  "In short, I suggest," he concluded, thoughtfully lacing his long whitefingers, "that, avoiding the hazards of cab and railway carriage, we motorto Chiltern: the night being fine and the road, I am told, exceptionallygood. Miss Dorothy, what do you think?"

  Instinctively the girl looked to Kirkwood; then shifted her glance to theirhost. "I think you are wonderfully thoughtful and kind," she said simply.

  "And you, Philip?"

  "It's an inspiration," the younger man declared. "I can't think of anythingbetter calculated to throw them off, than to distance them by motor-car. Itwould be always possible to trace our journey by rail."

  "Then," announced Brentwick, making as if to rise, "we had best go. Ifneither my hearing nor Captain Stryker's car deceives me, our fiery chariotis panting at the door."

  A little sobered from the confident spirit of quiet gaiety in which theyhad dined, they left the table. Not that, in their hearts, either greatlyquestioned their ultimate triumph; but they were allowing for the elementof error so apt to set at naught human calculations. Calendar himself hadalready been proved fallible. Within the bounds of possibility, their turnto stumble might now be imminent.

  When he let himself dwell upon it, their utter helplessness to giveCalendar pause by commonplace methods, maddened Kirkwood. With anotherscoundrel it had been so simple a matter to put a period to his activitiesby a word to the police. But he was her father; for that reason he mustcontinually be spared ... Even though, in desperate extremity, she shouldgive consent to the arrest of the adventurers, retaliation would follow,swift and sure. For they might not overlook nor gloze the fact that hershad been the hands responsible for the theft of the jewels; innocentthough she had been in committing that larceny, a cat's-paw guided by anintelligence unscrupulous and malign, the law would not hold her guiltlesswere she once brought within its cognizance. Nor, possibly, would theHallams, mother and son.

  Upon their knowledge and their fear of this, undoubtedly Calendar wasreckoning: witness the barefaced effrontery with which he operated againstthem. His fear of the police might be genuine enough, but he was never foran instant disturbed by any doubt lest his daughter should turn againsthim. She would never dare that.

  Before they left the house, while Dorothy was above stairs resuming herhat and coat, Kirkwood and Brentwick reconnoitered from the drawing-roomwindows, themselves screened from observation by the absence of light inthe room behind.

  Before the door a motor-car waited, engines humming impatiently,mechanician ready in his seat, an uncouth shape in goggles and leathergarments that shone like oilskins under the street lights.

  At one corner another and a smaller car stood in waiting, its lamps likebaleful eyes glaring through the night.

  In the shadows across the way, a lengthy shadow lurked: Stryker, beyondreasonable question. Otherwise the street was deserted. Not even thatadventitous bobby of the early evening was now in evidence.

  Dorothy presently joining them, Brentwick led the way to the door.

  Wotton, apparently nerveless beneath his absolute immobility, let themout--and slammed the door behind them with such promptitude as to givecause for the suspicion that he was a fraud, a sham, beneath his icyexterior desperately afraid lest the house be stormed by the adventurers.

  Kirkwood to the right, Brentwick to the left of Dorothy, the formercarrying the treasure bag, they hastened down the walk and through the gateto the car.

  The watcher across the way was moved to whistle shrilly; the other carlunged forward nervously.

  Brentwick taking the front seat, beside the mechanician, left the tonneauto Kirkwood and Dorothy. As the American slammed the door, the car sweptsmoothly out into the middle of the way, while the pursuing car swerved into the other curb, slowing down to let Stryker jump aboard.

  Kirkwood put himself in the seat by the girl's side and for a few momentswas occupied with the arrangement of the robes. Then, sitting back, hefound her eyes fixed upon him, pools of inscrutable night in the shadow ofher hat.

  "You aren't afraid, Dorothy?"

  She answered quietly: "I am with you, Philip."

  Beneath the robe their hands met...

  Exalted, excited, he turned and looked back. A hundred yards to the rearfour unwinking eyes trailed them, like some modern Nemesis in monstrousguise.