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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:42 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:42 -0700 |
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diff --git a/9779-h/9779-h.htm b/9779-h/9779-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d4387b --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/9779-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,16104 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Black Bag | Project Gutenberg</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.caption {font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 9779 ***</div> + +<h1>THE BLACK BAG</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE</h2> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="600" height="569" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h4>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOMAS FOGARTY</h4> + +<h5>COPYRIGHT 1908</h5> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +TO MY MOTHER +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. “AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. CALENDAR’S DAUGHTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. 9 FROGNALL STREET, W. C.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. “BELOW BRIDGE”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN—RESUMED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. MADAME L’INTRIGANTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. AGAIN "BELOW BRIDGE"; AND BEYOND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. DESPERATE MEASURES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. OFF THE NORE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. PICARESQUE PASSAGES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. A PRIMER OF PROGRESSIVE CRIME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. REFUGEES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. ROGUES AND VAGABONDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. ADVENTURERS’ LUCK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. i—THE UXBRIDGE ROAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">ii—THE CROWN AND MITRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">iii—THE JOURNEY’S END</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus01">Permit me to introduce an old friend.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus02">“I’m awaiting your explanation,” she said coldly.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus03">The boat gathered impetus.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus04">He helped the boy to his feet, and stood waiting.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus05">Eccles</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus06">“Hi, matey!” he blustered. “’Ow goes it now?”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus07">Straddling Mulready’s body, he confronted Calendar and Stryker.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus08">From the window, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus09">A costume consisting mainly of a flowered dressing-gown and slippers.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#illus10">“Good evening, all!” he saluted them blandly.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>THE BLACK BAG</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I<br/> +DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN</h2> + +<p> +Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the +apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, <i>Artist-peintre</i>, were +enlivened by the discovery that he was occupying that singularly distressing +social position, which may be summed up succinctly in a phrase through long +usage grown proverbial: “Alone in London.” These three words have come to +connote in our understanding so much of human misery, that to Mr. Kirkwood they +seemed to epitomize absolutely, if not happily, the various circumstances +attendant upon the predicament wherein he found himself. Inevitably an +extremist, because of his youth, (he had just turned twenty-five), he took no +count of mitigating matters, and would hotly have resented the suggestion that +his case was anything but altogether deplorable and forlorn. +</p> + +<p> +That he was not actually at the end of his resources went for nothing; he held +the distinction a quibble, mockingly immaterial,—like the store of guineas in +his pocket, too insignificant for mention when contrasted with his needs. And +his base of supplies, the American city of his nativity, whence—and not without +a glow of pride in his secret heart—he was wont to register at foreign +hostelries, had been arbitrarily cut off from him by one of those accidents +sardonically classified by insurance and express corporations as Acts of God. +</p> + +<p> +Now to one who has lived all his days serenely in accord with the dictates of +his own sweet will, taking no thought for the morrow, such a situation +naturally seems both appalling and intolerable, at the first blush. It must be +confessed that, to begin with, Kirkwood drew a long and disconsolate face over +his fix. And in that black hour, primitive of its kind in his brief span, he +became conscious of a sinister apparition taking shape at his elbow—a shade of +darkness which, clouting him on the back with a skeleton hand, croaked hollow +salutations in his ear. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Mr. Kirkwood, come!” its mirthless accents rallied him. “Have you no +welcome for me?—you, who have been permitted to live the quarter of a century +without making my acquaintance? Surely, now, it’s high time we were learning +something of one another, you and I!” “But I don’t understand,” returned +Kirkwood blankly. “I don’t know you—” +</p> + +<p> +“True! But you shall: I am the Shade of Care—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dull Care!” murmured Kirkwood, bewildered and dismayed; for the visitation had +come upon him with little presage and no invitation whatever. +</p> + +<p> +“Dull Care,” the Shade assured him. “Dull Care am I—and Care that’s anything +but dull, into the bargain: Care that’s like a keen pain in your body, Care +that lives a horror in your mind, Care that darkens your days and flavors with +bitter poison all your nights, Care that—” +</p> + +<p> +But Kirkwood would not listen further. Courageously submissive to his destiny, +knowing in his heart that the Shade had come to stay, he yet found spirit to +shake himself with a dogged air, to lift his chin, set the strong muscles of +his jaw, and smile that homely wholesome smile which was his peculiarly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he accepted the irremediable with grim humor; “what must be, must. +I don’t pretend to be glad to see you, but—you’re free to stay as long as you +find the climate agreeable. I warn you I shan’t whine. Lots of men, hundreds +and hundreds of ’em, have slept tight o’ nights with you for bedfellow; if they +could grin and bear you, I believe I can.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Care mocked him with a sardonic laugh, and sought to tighten upon his +shoulders its bony grasp; but Kirkwood resolutely shrugged it off and went in +search of man’s most faithful dumb friend, to wit, his pipe; the which, when +found and filled, he lighted with a spill twisted from the envelope of a cable +message which had been vicariously responsible for his introduction to the +Shade of Care. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about time,” he announced, watching the paper blacken and burn in the +grate fire, “that I was doing something to prove my title to a living.” And +this was all his valedictory to a vanished competence. “Anyway,” he added +hastily, as if fearful lest Care, overhearing, might have read into his tone a +trace of vain repining, “anyway, I’m a sight better off than those poor devils +over there! I really have a great deal to be thankful for, now that my +attention’s drawn to it.” +</p> + +<p> +For the ensuing few minutes he thought it all over, soberly but with a stout +heart; standing at a window of his bedroom in the Hotel Pless, hands deep in +trouser pockets, pipe fuming voluminously, his gaze wandering out over a +blurred infinitude of wet shining roofs and sooty chimney-pots: all of London +that a lowering drizzle would let him see, and withal by no means a cheering +prospect, nor yet one calculated to offset the disheartening influence of the +indomitable Shade of Care. But the truth is that Kirkwood’s brain comprehended +little that his eyes perceived; his thoughts were with his heart, and that was +half a world away and sick with pity for another and a fairer city, stricken in +the flower of her loveliness, writhing in Promethean agony upon her storied +hills. +</p> + +<p> +There came a rapping at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say “Come in!” +pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, swinging on one heel, beheld +hesitant upon the threshold a diminutive figure in the livery of the Pless +pages. +</p> + +<p> +“Mister Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman to see you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded again, smiling. “Show him up, please,” he said. But before the +words were fairly out of his mouth a footfall sounded in the corridor, a hand +was placed upon the shoulder of the page, gently but with decision swinging him +out of the way, and a man stepped into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Brentwick!” Kirkwood almost shouted, jumping forward to seize his +visitor’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear boy!” replied the latter. “I’m delighted to see you. ’Got your note +not an hour ago, and came at once—you see!” +</p> + +<p> +“It was mighty good of you. Sit down, please. Here are cigars.... Why, a moment +ago I was the most miserable and lonely mortal on the footstool!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can fancy.” The elder man looked up, smiling at Kirkwood from the depths of +his arm-chair, as the latter stood above him, resting an elbow on the mantel. +“The management knows me,” he offered explanation of his unceremonious +appearance; “so I took the liberty of following on the heels of the bellhop, +dear boy. And how are you? Why are you in London, enjoying our abominable +spring weather? And why the anxious undertone I detected in your note?” +</p> + +<p> +He continued to stare curiously into Kirkwood’s face. At a glance, this Mr. +Brentwick was a man of tallish figure and rather slender; with a countenance +thin and flushed a sensitive pink, out of which his eyes shone, keen, alert, +humorous, and a trace wistful behind his glasses. His years were indeterminate; +with the aspect of fifty, the spirit and the verve of thirty assorted oddly. +But his hands were old, delicate, fine and fragile; and the lips beneath the +drooping white mustache at times trembled, almost imperceptibly, with the +generous sentiments that come with mellow age. He held his back straight and +his head with an air—an air that was not a swagger but the sign-token of +seasoned experience in the world. The most carping could have found no flaw in +the quiet taste of his attire. To sum up, Kirkwood’s very good friend—and his +only one then in London—Mr. Brentwick looked and was an English gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” he persisted, as the younger man hesitated. “I am here to find out. +To-night I leave for the Continent. In the meantime ...” +</p> + +<p> +“And at midnight I sail for the States,” added Kirkwood. “That is mainly why I +wished to see you—to say good-by, for the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going home—” A shadow clouded Brentwick’s clear eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“To fight it out, shoulder to shoulder with my brethren in adversity.” +</p> + +<p> +The cloud lifted. “That is the spirit!” declared the elder man. “For the moment +I did you the injustice to believe that you were running away. But now I +understand. Forgive me.... Pardon, too, the stupidity which I must lay at the +door of my advancing years; to me the thought of you as a Parisian fixture has +become such a commonplace, Philip, that the news of the disaster hardly stirred +me. Now I remember that you are a Californian!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was born in San Francisco,” affirmed Kirkwood a bit sadly. “My father and +mother were buried there ...” +</p> + +<p> +“And your fortune—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I inherited my father’s interest in the firm of Kirkwood & Vanderlip; when +I came over to study painting, I left everything in Vanderlip’s hands. The +business afforded me a handsome living.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have heard from Mr. Vanderlip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen minutes ago.” Kirkwood took a cable-form, still damp, from his pocket, +and handed it to his guest. Unfolding it, the latter read: +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Kirkwood, Pless, London. Stay where you are no good coming back everything +gone no insurance letter follows vanderlip</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I got the news in Paris,” Kirkwood volunteered, “I tried the banks; they +refused to honor my drafts. I had a little money in hand,—enough to see me +home,—so closed the studio and came across. I’m booked on the +<i>Minneapolis</i>, sailing from Tilbury at daybreak; the boat-train leaves at +eleven-thirty. I had hoped you might be able to dine with me and see me off.” +</p> + +<p> +In silence Brentwick returned the cable message. Then, with a thoughtful look, +“You are sure this is wise?” he queried. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the only thing I can see.” +</p> + +<p> +“But your partner says—” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally he thinks that by this time I should have learned to paint well +enough to support myself for a few months, until he can get things running +again. Perhaps I might.” Brentwick supported the presumption with a decided +gesture. “But have I a right to leave Vanderlip to fight it out alone? For +Vanderlip has a wife and kiddies to support; I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Your genius!” +</p> + +<p> +“My ability, such as it is—and that only. It can wait.... No; this means simply +that I must come down from the clouds, plant my feet on solid earth, and get to +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sentiment is sound,” admitted Brentwick, “the practice of it, folly. Have +you stopped to think what part a rising young portrait-painter can contribute +toward the rebuilding of a devastated city?” +</p> + +<p> +“The painting can wait,” reiterated Kirkwood. “I can work like other men.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can do yourself and your genius grave injustice. And I fear me you will, +dear boy. It’s in keeping with your heritage of American obstinacy. Now if it +were a question of money—” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Brentwick!” Kirkwood protested vehemently. “I’ve ample for my present +needs,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” conceded Brentwick with a sigh. “I didn’t really hope you would +avail yourself of our friendship. Now there’s my home in Aspen Villas.... You +have seen it?” +</p> + +<p> +“In your absence this afternoon your estimable butler, with commendable +discretion, kept me without the doors,” laughed the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a comfortable home. You would not consent to share it with me until—?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are more than good; but honestly, I must sail to-night. I wanted only this +chance to see you before I left. You’ll dine with me, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you would stay in London, Philip, we would dine together not once but many +times; as it is, I myself am booked for Munich, to be gone a week, on business. +I have many affairs needing attention between now and the nine-ten train from +Victoria. If you will be my guest at Aspen Villas—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please!” begged Kirkwood, with a little laugh of pleasure because of the +other’s insistence. “I only wish I could. Another day—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you will make your million in a year, and return scandalously independent. +It’s in your American blood.” Frail white fingers tapped an arm of the chair as +their owner stared gravely into the fire. “I confess I envy you,” he observed. +</p> + +<p> +“The opportunity to make a million in a year?” chuckled Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I envy you your Romance.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Romance of a Poor Young Man went out of fashion years ago.... No, my dear +friend; my Romance died a natural death half an hour since.” +</p> + +<p> +“There spoke Youth—blind, enviable Youth!... On the contrary, you are but +turning the leaves of the first chapter of your Romance, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Romance is dead,” contended the young man stubbornly. +</p> + +<p> +“Long live the King!” Brentwick laughed quietly, still attentive to the fire. +“Myself when young,” he said softly, “did seek Romance, but never knew it till +its day was done. I’m quite sure that is a poor paraphrase of something I have +read. In age, one’s sight is sharpened—to see Romance in another’s life, at +least. I say I envy you. You have Youth, unconquerable Youth, and the world +before you.... I must go.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose stiffly, as though suddenly made conscious of his age. The old eyes +peered more than a trifle wistfully, now, into Kirkwood’s. “You will not fail +to call on me by cable, dear boy, if you need—anything? I ask it as a favor.... +I’m glad you wished to see me before going out of my life. One learns to value +the friendship of Youth, Philip. Good-by, and good luck attend you.” +</p> + +<p> +Alone once more, Kirkwood returned to his window. The disappointment he felt at +being robbed of his anticipated pleasure in Brentwick’s company at dinner, +colored his mood unpleasantly. His musings merged into vacuity, into a dull +gray mist of hopelessness comparable only to the dismal skies then lowering +over London-town. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick was good, but Brentwick was mistaken. There was really nothing for +Kirkwood to do but to go ahead. But one steamer-trunk remained to be packed; +the boat-train would leave before midnight, the steamer with the morning tide; +by the morrow’s noon he would be upon the high seas, within ten days in New +York and among friends; and then ... +</p> + +<p> +The problem of that afterwards perplexed Kirkwood more than he cared to own. +Brentwick had opened his eyes to the fact that he would be practically useless +in San Francisco; he could not harbor the thought of going back, only to become +a charge upon Vanderlip. No; he was resolved that thenceforward he must rely +upon himself, carve out his own destiny. But—would the art that he had +cultivated with such assiduity, yield him a livelihood if sincerely practised +with that end in view? Would the mental and physical equipment of a painter, +heretofore dilettante, enable him to become self-supporting? +</p> + +<p> +Knotting his brows in concentration of effort to divine the future, he doubted +himself, darkly questioning alike his abilities and his temper under trial; +neither ere now had ever been put to the test. His eyes became somberly +wistful, his heart sore with regret of Yesterday—his Yesterday of care-free +youth and courage, gilded with the ineffable, evanescent glamour of Romance—of +such Romance, thrice refined of dross, as only he knows who has wooed his Art +with passion passing the love of woman. +</p> + +<p> +Far away, above the acres of huddled roofs and chimney-pots, the storm-mists +thinned, lifting transiently; through them, gray, fairy-like, the towers of +Westminster and the Houses of Parliament bulked monstrous and unreal, fading +when again the fugitive dun vapors closed down upon the city. +</p> + +<p> +Nearer at hand the Shade of Care nudged Kirkwood’s elbow, whispering subtly. +Romance was indeed dead; the world was cold and cruel. +</p> + +<p> +The gloom deepened. +</p> + +<p> +In the cant of modern metaphysics, the moment was psychological. +</p> + +<p> +There came a rapping at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say “Come in!” +pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, turning on one heel, beheld +hesitant upon the threshold a diminutive figure in the livery of the Pless +pages. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman to see you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded again, smiling if somewhat perplexed. Encouraged, the child +advanced, proffering a silver card-tray at the end of an unnaturally rigid +forearm. Kirkwood took the card dubiously between thumb and forefinger and +inspected it without prejudice. +</p> + +<p> +“‘George B. Calendar,’” he read. “‘George B. Calendar!’ But I know no such +person. Sure there’s no mistake, young man?” +</p> + +<p> +The close-cropped, bullet-shaped, British head was agitated in vigorous +negation, and “Card for Mister Kirkwood!” was mumbled in dispassionate accents +appropriate to a recitation by rote. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. But before you show him up, ask this Mr. Calendar if he is quite +sure he wants to see Philip Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir.” +</p> + +<p> +The child marched out, punctiliously closing the door. Kirkwood tamped down the +tobacco in his pipe and puffed energetically, dismissing the interruption to +his reverie as a matter of no consequence—an obvious mistake to be rectified by +two words with this Mr. Calendar whom he did not know. At the knock he had +almost hoped it might be Brentwick, returning with a changed mind about the bid +to dinner. +</p> + +<p> +He regretted Brentwick sincerely. Theirs was a curious sort of +friendship—extraordinarily close in view of the meagerness of either’s +information about the other, to say nothing of the disparity between their +ages. Concerning the elder man Kirkwood knew little more than that they had met +on shipboard, “coming over”; that Brentwick had spent some years in America; +that he was an Englishman by birth, a cosmopolitan by habit, by profession a +gentleman (employing that term in its most uncompromisingly British +significance), and by inclination a collector of “articles of virtue and +bigotry,” in pursuit of which he made frequent excursions to the Continent from +his residence in a quaint quiet street of Old Brompton. It had been during his +not infrequent, but ordinarily abbreviated, sojourns in Paris that their +steamer acquaintance had ripened into an affection almost filial on the one +hand, almost paternal on the other.... +</p> + +<p> +There came a rapping at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say “Come in!” +pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, swinging on one heel, beheld +hesitant upon the threshold a rather rotund figure of medium height, clad in an +expressionless gray lounge suit, with a brown “bowler” hat held tentatively in +one hand, an umbrella weeping in the other. A voice, which was unctuous and +insinuative, emanated from the figure. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded, with some effort recalling the name, so detached had been his +thoughts since the disappearance of the page. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr. Calendar—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you—ah—busy, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you, Mr. Calendar?” Kirkwood’s smile robbed the retort of any flavor of +incivility. +</p> + +<p> +Encouraged, the man entered, premising that he would detain his host but a +moment, and readily surrendering hat and umbrella. Kirkwood, putting the latter +aside, invited his caller to the easy chair which Brentwick had occupied by the +fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +“It takes the edge off the dampness,” Kirkwood explained in deference to the +other’s look of pleased surprise at the cheerful bed of coals. “I’m afraid I +could never get acclimated to life in a cold, damp room—or a damp cold +room—such as you Britishers prefer.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is grateful,” Mr. Calendar agreed, spreading plump and well cared-for hands +to the warmth. “But you are mistaken; I am as much an American as yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” Kirkwood looked the man over with more interest, less matter-of-course +courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +He proved not unprepossessing, this unclassifiable Mr. Calendar; he was dressed +with some care, his complexion was good, and the fullness of his girth, +emphasized as it was by a notable lack of inches, bespoke a nature genial, +easy-going and sybaritic. His dark eyes, heavy-lidded, were active—curiously, +at times, with a subdued glitter—in a face large, round, pink, of which the +other most remarkable features were a mustache, close-trimmed and showing +streaks of gray, a chubby nose, and duplicate chins. Mr. Calendar was +furthermore possessed of a polished bald spot, girdled with a tonsure of +silvered hair—circumstances which lent some factitious distinction to a +personality otherwise commonplace. +</p> + +<p> +His manner might be best described as uneasy with assurance; as though he +frequently found it necessary to make up for his unimpressive stature by +assuming an unnatural habit of authority. And there you have him; beyond these +points, Kirkwood was conscious of no impressions; the man was apparently +neutral-tinted of mind as well as of body. +</p> + +<p> +“So you knew I was an American, Mr. Calendar?” suggested Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“’Saw your name on the register; we both hail from the same neck of the woods, +you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know it, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I’m from Frisco, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Calendar passed five fat fingers nervously over his mustache, glanced +alertly up at Kirkwood, as if momentarily inclined to question his tone, then +again stared glumly into the fire; for Kirkwood had maintained an attitude +purposefully colorless. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he believed that +his caller was lying; the man’s appearance, his mannerisms, his voice and +enunciation, while they might have been American, seemed all un-Californian. To +one born and bred in that state, as Kirkwood had been, her sons are +unmistakably hall-marked. +</p> + +<p> +Now no man lies without motive. This one chose to reaffirm, with a show of deep +feeling: “Yes; I’m from Frisco, too. We’re companions in misfortune.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not altogether,” said Kirkwood politely. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Calendar drew his own inferences from the response and mustered up a show +of cheerfulness. “Then you’re not completely wiped out?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the contrary, I was hoping you were less unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Then you are—?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood lifted the cable message from the mantel. “I have just heard from my +partner at home,” he said with a faint smile; and quoted: “‘Everything gone; no +insurance.’” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Calendar pursed his plump lips, whistling inaudibly. “Too bad, too bad!” he +murmured sympathetically. “We’re all hard hit, more or less.” He lapsed into +dejected apathy, from which Kirkwood, growing at length impatient, found it +necessary to rouse him. +</p> + +<p> +“You wished to see me about something else, I’m sure?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Calendar started from his reverie. “Eh? ... I was dreaming. I beg pardon. +It seems hard to realize, Mr. Kirkwood, that this awful catastrophe has +overtaken our beloved metropolis—” +</p> + +<p> +The canting phrases wearied Kirkwood; abruptly he cut in. “Would a sovereign +help you out, Mr. Calendar? I don’t mind telling you that’s about the limit of +my present resources.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon <i>me</i>.” Mr. Calendar’s moon-like countenance darkened; he assumed a +transparent dignity. “You misconstrue my motive, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’m sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not here to borrow. On the other hand, quite by accident I discovered +your name upon the register, down-stairs; a good old Frisco name, if you will +permit me to say so. I thought to myself that here was a chance to help a +fellow-countryman.” Calendar paused, interrogative; Kirkwood remained +interested but silent. “If a passage across would help you, I—I think it might +be arranged,” stammered Calendar, ill at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“It might,” admitted Kirkwood, speculative. +</p> + +<p> +“I could fix it so that you could go over—first-class, of course—and pay your +way, so to speak, by, rendering us, me and my partner, a trifling service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” +</p> + +<p> +“In fact,” continued Calendar, warming up to his theme, “there might be +something more in it for you than the passage, if—if you’re the right man, the +man I’m looking for.” +</p> + +<p> +“That, of course, is the question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” Calendar pulled up suddenly in a full-winged flight of enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood eyed him steadily. “I said that it is a question, Mr. Calendar, +whether or not I am the man you’re looking for. Between you and me and the +fire-dogs, I don’t believe I am. Now if you wish to name your <i>quid pro +quo</i>, this trifling service I’m to render in recognition of your +benevolence, you may.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-es,” slowly. But the speaker delayed his reply until he had surveyed his +host from head to foot, with a glance both critical and appreciative. +</p> + +<p> +He saw a man in height rather less than the stock size six-feet so much in +demand by the manufacturers of modern heroes of fiction; a man a bit +round-shouldered, too, but otherwise sturdily built, self-contained, +well-groomed. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood wears a boy’s honest face; no one has ever called him handsome. A few +prejudiced persons have decided that he has an interesting countenance; the +propounders of this verdict have been, for the most part, feminine. Kirkwood +himself has been heard to declare that his features do not fit; in its essence +the statement is true, but there is a very real, if undefinable, engaging +quality in their very irregularity. His eyes are brown, pleasant, set wide +apart, straightforward of expression. +</p> + +<p> +Now it appeared that, whatever his motive, Mr. Calendar had acted upon impulse +in sending his card up to Kirkwood. Possibly he had anticipated a very +different sort of reception from a very different sort of man. Even in the +light of subsequent events it remains difficult to fathom the mystery of his +choice. Perhaps Fate directed it; stranger things have happened at the dictates +of a man’s Destiny. +</p> + +<p> +At all events, this Calendar proved not lacking in penetration; men of his +stamp are commonly endowed with that quality to an eminent degree. Not slow to +reckon the caliber of the man before him, the leaven of intuition began to work +in his adipose intelligence. He owned himself baffled. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” he concluded pensively; “I reckon you’re right. You won’t do, after +all. I’ve wasted your time. Mine, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it.” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar got heavily out of his chair, reaching for his hat and umbrella. +“Permit me to apologize for an unwarrantable intrusion, Mr. Kirkwood.” He +faltered; a worried and calculating look shadowed his small eyes. “I <i>was</i> +looking for some one to serve me in a certain capacity—” +</p> + +<p> +“Certain or questionable?” propounded Kirkwood blandly, opening the door. +</p> + +<p> +Pointedly Mr. Calendar ignored the imputation. “Sorry I disturbed you. +G’dafternoon, Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Mr. Calendar.” A smile twitched the corners of Kirkwood’s too-wide +mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar stepped hastily out into the hall. As he strode—or rather, +rolled—away, Kirkwood maliciously feathered a Parthian arrow. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Mr. Calendar—?” +</p> + +<p> +The sound of retreating footsteps was stilled and “Yes?” came from the gloom of +the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +“Were you ever in San Francisco? Really and truly? Honest Injun, Mr. Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +For a space the quiet was disturbed by harsh breathing; then, in a strained +voice, “Good day, Mr. Kirkwood”; and again the sound of departing footfalls. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood closed the door and the incident simultaneously, with a smart bang of +finality. Laughing quietly he went back to the window with its dreary outlook, +now the drearier for lengthening evening shadows. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what his game is, anyway. An adventurer, of course; the woods are +full of ’em. A queer fish, even of his kind! And with a trick up his sleeve as +queer and fishy as himself, no doubt!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II<br/> +“AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM”</h2> + +<p> +The assumption seems not unwarrantable, that Mr. Calendar figuratively washed +his hands of Mr. Kirkwood. Unquestionably Mr. Kirkwood considered himself well +rid of Mr. Calendar. When the latter had gone his way, Kirkwood, mindful of the +fact that his boat-train would leave St. Pancras at half-after eleven, set +about his packing and dismissed from his thoughts the incident created by the +fat <i>chevalier d’industrie</i>; and at six o’clock, or thereabouts, let +himself out of his room, dressed for the evening, a light rain-coat over one +arm, in the other hand a cane,—the drizzle having ceased. +</p> + +<p> +A stolid British lift lifted him down to the ground floor of the establishment +in something short of five minutes. Pausing in the office long enough to settle +his bill and leave instructions to have his luggage conveyed to the boat-train, +he received with entire equanimity the affable benediction of the clerk, in +whose eyes he still figured as that radiant creature, an American millionaire; +and passed on to the lobby, where he surrendered hat, coat and stick to the +cloak-room attendant, ere entering the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +The hour was a trifle early for a London dinner, the handsome room but +moderately filled with patrons. Kirkwood absorbed the fact unconsciously and +without displeasure; the earlier, the better: he was determined to consume his +last civilized meal (as he chose to consider it) at his serene leisure, to live +fully his ebbing moments in the world to which he was born, to drink to its +cloying dregs one ultimate draught of luxury. +</p> + +<p> +A benignant waiter bowed him into a chair by a corner table in juxtaposition +with an open window, through which, swaying imperceptibly the closed hangings, +were wafted gentle gusts of the London evening’s sweet, damp breath. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood settled himself with an inaudible sigh of pleasure. He was dining, for +the last time in Heaven knew how long, in a first-class restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +With a deferential flourish the waiter brought him the menu-card. He had served +in his time many an “American, millionaire”; he had also served this Mr. +Kirkwood, and respected him as one exalted above the run of his kind, in that +he comprehended the art of dining. +</p> + +<p> +Fifteen minutes later the waiter departed rejoicing, his order complete. +</p> + +<p> +To distract a conscience whispering of extravagance, Kirkwood lighted a +cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +The room was gradually filling with later arrivals; it was the most favored +restaurant in London, and, despite the radiant costumes of the women, its +atmosphere remained sedate and restful. +</p> + +<p> +A cab clattered down the side street on which the window opened. +</p> + +<p> +At a near-by table a woman laughed, quietly happy. Incuriously Kirkwood glanced +her way. She was bending forward, smiling, flattering her escort with the +adoration of her eyes. They were lovers alone in the wilderness of the crowded +restaurant. They seemed very happy. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood was conscious of a strange pang of emotion. It took him some time to +comprehend that it was envy. +</p> + +<p> +He was alone and lonely. For the first time he realized that no woman had ever +looked upon him as the woman at the adjoining table looked upon her lover. He +had found time to worship but one mistress—his art. +</p> + +<p> +And he was renouncing her. +</p> + +<p> +He was painfully conscious of what he had missed, had lost—or had not yet +found: the love of woman. +</p> + +<p> +The sensation was curious—new, unique in his experience. +</p> + +<p> +His cigarette burned down to his fingers as he sat pondering. Abstractedly, he +ground its fire out in an ash-tray. +</p> + +<p> +The waiter set before him a silver tureen, covered. +</p> + +<p> +He sat up and began to consume his soup, scarce doing it justice. His dream +troubled him—his dream of the love of woman. +</p> + +<p> +From a little distance his waiter regarded him, with an air of disappointment. +In the course of an hour and a half he awoke, to discover the attendant in the +act of pouring very hot and black coffee from a bright silver pot into a +demi-tasse of fragile porcelain. Kirkwood slipped a single lump of sugar into +the cup, gave over his cigar-case to be filled, then leaned back, deliberately +lighting a long and slender panetela as a preliminary to a last lingering +appreciation of the scene of which he was a part. +</p> + +<p> +He reviewed it through narrowed eyelids, lazily; yet with some slight surprise, +seeming to see it with new vision, with eyes from which scales of ignorance had +dropped. +</p> + +<p> +This long and brilliant dining-hall, with its quiet perfection of proportion +and appointment, had always gratified his love of the beautiful; to-night it +pleased him to an unusual degree. Yet it was the same as ever; its walls tinted +a deep rose, with their hangings of dull cloth-of-gold, its lights +discriminatingly clustered and discreetly shaded, redoubled in half a hundred +mirrors, its subdued shimmer of plate and glass, its soberly festive assemblage +of circumspect men and women splendidly gowned, its decorously muted murmur of +voices penetrated and interwoven by the strains of a hidden string +orchestra—caressed his senses as always, yet with a difference. To-night he saw +it a room populous with lovers, lovers insensibly paired, man unto woman +attentive, woman of man regardful. +</p> + +<p> +He had never understood this before. This much he had missed in life. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed hard to realize that one must forego it all for ever. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he found himself acutely self-conscious. The sensation puzzled him; +and without appearing to do so, he traced it from effect to cause; and found +the cause in a woman—a girl, rather, seated at a table the third removed from +him, near the farther wall of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Too considerate, and too embarrassed, to return her scrutiny openly, look for +look, he yet felt sure that, however temporarily, he was become the object of +her intent interest. +</p> + +<p> +Idly employed with his cigar, he sipped his coffee. In time aware that she had +turned her attention elsewhere, he looked up. +</p> + +<p> +At first he was conscious of an effect of disappointment. She was nobody that +he knew, even by reputation. She was simply a young girl, barely out of her +teens—if as old as that phrase would signify. He wondered what she had found in +him to make her think him worth so long a study; and looked again, more keenly +curious. +</p> + +<p> +With this second glance, appreciation stirred the artistic side of his nature, +that was already grown impatient of his fretted mood. The slender and girlish +figure, posed with such absolute lack of intrusion against a screen of rose and +gilt, moved him to critical admiration. The tinted glow of shaded candles +caught glistening on the spun gold of her fair hair, and enhanced the fine +pallor of her young shoulders. He saw promise, and something more than promise, +in her face, its oval something dimmed by warm shadows that unavailingly sought +to blend youth and beauty alike into the dull, rich background. +</p> + +<p> +In the sheer youth of her (he realized) more than in aught else, lay her +chiefest charm. She could be little more than a child, indeed, if he were to +judge her by the purity of her shadowed eyes and the absence of emotion in the +calm and direct look which presently she turned upon him who sat wondering at +the level, penciled darkness of her brows. +</p> + +<p> +At length aware that she had surprised his interest, Kirkwood glanced +aside—coolly deliberate, lest she should detect in his attitude anything more +than impersonal approval. +</p> + +<p> +A slow color burned his cheeks. In his temples there rose a curious pulsing. +</p> + +<p> +After a while she drew his gaze again, imperiously—herself all unaware of the +havoc she was wreaking on his temperament. +</p> + +<p> +He could have fancied her distraught, cloaking an unhappy heart with placid +brow and gracious demeanor; but such a conception matched strangely her glowing +youth and spirit. What had she to do with Care? What concern had Black Care, +whose gaunt shape in sable shrouds had lurked at his shoulder all the evening, +despite his rigid preoccupation, with a being as charmingly flushed with +budding womanhood as this girl? +</p> + +<p> +“Eighteen?” he hazarded. “Eighteen, or possibly nineteen, dining at the Pless +in a ravishing dinner-gown, and—unhappy? Oh, hardly—not she!” +</p> + +<p> +Yet the impression haunted him, and ere long he was fain to seek confirmation +or denial of it in the manner of her escort. +</p> + +<p> +The latter sat with back to Kirkwood, cutting a figure as negative as his snug +evening clothes. One could surmise little from a fleshy thick neck, a round, +glazed bald spot, a fringe of grizzled hair, and two bright red ears. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar? +</p> + +<p> +Somehow the fellow did suggest Kirkwood’s caller of the afternoon. The young +man could not have said precisely how, for he was unfamiliar with the aspect of +that gentleman’s back. None the less the suggestion persisted. +</p> + +<p> +By now, a few of the guests, theater-bound, for the most part, were leaving. +Here and there a table stood vacant, that had been filled, cloth tarnished, +chairs disarranged: in another moment to be transformed into its pristine +brilliance under the deft attentions of the servitors. +</p> + +<p> +Down an aisle, past the table at which the girl was sitting, came two, making +toward the lobby; the man, a slight and meager young personality, in the lead. +Their party had attracted Kirkwood’s notice as they entered; why, he did not +remember; but it was in his mind that then they had been three. Instinctively +he looked at the table they had left—one placed at some distance from the girl, +and hidden from her by an angle in the wall. It appeared that the third member +had chosen to dally a few moments over his tobacco and a liqueur-brandy. +Kirkwood could see him plainly, lounging in his chair and fumbling the stem of +a glass: a heavy man, of somber habit, his black and sullen brows lowering and +thoughtful above a face boldly handsome. +</p> + +<p> +The woman of the trio was worthy of closer attention. Some paces in the wake of +her lack-luster esquire, she was making a leisurely progress, trailing the +skirts of a gown magnificent beyond dispute, half concealed though it was by +the opera cloak whose soft folds draped her shoulders. Slowly, carrying her +head high, she approached, insolent eyes reviewing the room from beneath their +heavy lids; a metallic and mature type of dark beauty, supremely self-confident +and self-possessed. +</p> + +<p> +Men turned involuntarily to look after her, not altogether in undiluted +admiration. +</p> + +<p> +In the act of passing behind the putative Calendar, she paused momentarily, +bending as if to gather up her train. Presumably the action disturbed her +balance; she swayed a little, and in the effort to recover, rested the tips of +her gloved fingers upon the edge of the table. Simultaneously (Kirkwood could +have sworn) a single word left her lips, a word evidently pitched for the ear +of the hypothetical Calendar alone. Then she swept on, imperturbable, assured. +</p> + +<p> +To the perplexed observer it was indubitably evident that some communication +had passed from the woman to the man. Kirkwood saw the fat shoulders of the +girl’s companion stiffen suddenly as the woman’s hand rested at his elbow; as +she moved away, a little rippling shiver was plainly visible in the muscles of +his back, beneath his coat—mute token of relaxing tension. An instant later one +plump and mottled hand was carelessly placed where the woman’s had been; and +was at once removed with fingers closed. +</p> + +<p> +To the girl, watching her face covertly, Kirkwood turned for clue to the +incident. He made no doubt that she had observed the passage; proof of that one +found in her sudden startling pallor (of indignation?) and in her eyes, briefly +alight with some inscrutable emotion, though quickly veiled by lowered lashes. +Slowly enough she regained color and composure, while her <i>vis-à-vis</i> sat +motionless, head inclined as if in thought. +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly the man turned in his chair to summon a waiter, and exposed his +profile. Kirkwood was in no wise amazed to recognize Calendar—a badly +frightened Calendar now, however, and hardly to be identified with the sleek, +glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks +were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers +were drumming incessantly an inaudible tattoo of shattered nerves. +</p> + +<p> +“Scared silly!” commented Kirkwood. “Why?” Having spoken to his waiter, +Calendar for some seconds raked the room with quick glances, as if seeking an +acquaintance. Presumably disappointed, he swung back to face the girl, bending +forward to reach her ears with accents low-pitched and confidential. She, on +her part, fell at once attentive, grave and responsive. Perhaps a dozen +sentences passed between them. At the outset her brows contracted and she shook +her head in gentle dissent; whereupon Calendar’s manner became more imperative. +Gradually, unwillingly, she seemed to yield consent. Once she caught her breath +sharply, and, infected by her companion’s agitation, sat back, color fading +again in the round young cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s waiter put in an inopportune appearance with the bill. The young man +paid it. When he looked up again Calendar had swung squarely about in his +chair. His eye encountered Kirkwood’s. He nodded pleasantly. Temporarily +confused, Kirkwood returned the nod. +</p> + +<p> +In a twinkling he had repented; Calendar had left his chair and was wending his +way through the tables toward Kirkwood’s. Reaching it, he paused, offering the +hand of genial fellowship. Kirkwood accepted it half-heartedly (what else was +he to do?) remarking at the same time that Calendar had recovered much of his +composure. There was now a normal coloring in the heavily jowled countenance, +with less glint of fear in the quick, dark eyes; and Calendar’s hand, even if +moist and cold, no longer trembled. Furthermore it was immediately demonstrated +that his impudence had not deserted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Kirkwood, my dear fellow!” he crowed—not so loudly as to attract +attention, but in a tone assumed to divert suspicion, should he be overheard. +“This is great luck, you know—to find you here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it?” returned Kirkwood coolly. He disengaged his fingers. +</p> + +<p> +The pink plump face was contorted in a furtive grimace of deprecation. Without +waiting for permission Calendar dropped into the vacant chair. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” he proceeded, unabashed, “I throw myself upon your mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil you do!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must. I’m in the deuce of a hole, and there’s no one I know here besides +yourself. I—I—” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood saw fit to lead him on; partly because, out of the corner of his eye, +he was aware of the girl’s unconcealed suspense. “Go on, please, Mr. Calendar. +You throw yourself on a total stranger’s mercy because you’re in the deuce of a +hole; and—?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s this way; I’m called away on urgent business imperative business. I must +go at once. My daughter is with me. My daughter! Think of my embarrassment; I +can not leave her here, alone, nor can I permit her to go home unprotected.” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar paused in anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s easily remedied, then,” suggested Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Put her in a cab at the door.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ... No. The devil! I couldn’t think of it. You won’t understand. I—” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not understand,—” amended the younger man politely. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar compressed his lips nervously. It was plain that the man was quivering +with impatience and half-mad with excitement. He held quiet only long enough to +regain his self-control and take counsel with his prudence. +</p> + +<p> +“It is impossible, Mr. Kirkwood. I must ask you to be generous and believe me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; for the sake of the argument, I do believe you, Mr. Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hell!” exploded the elder man in an undertone. Then swiftly, stammering in his +haste: “I can’t let Dorothy accompany me to the door,” he declared. “She—I—I +throw myself upon your mercy!” +</p> + +<p> +“What—again?” +</p> + +<p> +“The truth—the truth is, if you will have it, that I am in danger of arrest the +moment I leave here. If my daughter is with me, she will have to endure the +shame and humiliation—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why place her in such a position?” Kirkwood demanded sharply. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar’s eyes burned, incandescent with resentment. Offended, he offered to +rise and go, but changed his mind and sat tight in hope. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg of you, sir—” +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, Mr. Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly Kirkwood’s weathercock humor shifted—amusement yielding to intrigued +interest. After all, why not oblige the fellow? What did anything matter, now? +What harm could visit him if he yielded to this corpulent adventurer’s +insistence? Both from experience and observation he knew this for a world +plentifully peopled by soldiers of fortune, contrivers of snares and pitfalls +for the feet of the unwary. On the other hand, it is axiomatic that a penniless +man is perfectly safe anywhere. Besides, there was the girl to be considered. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood considered her, forthwith. In the process thereof, his eyes sought +her, perturbed. Their glances clashed. She looked away hastily, crimson to her +temples. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the conflict between curiosity and caution, inclination and distrust, +was at an end. With sudden compliance, the young man rose. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be most happy to be of service to your daughter, Mr. Calendar,” he +said, placing the emphasis with becoming gravity. And then, the fat adventurer +leading the way, Kirkwood strode across the room—wondering somewhat at himself, +if the whole truth is to be disclosed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III<br/> +CALENDAR’S DAUGHTER</h2> + +<p> +All but purring with satisfaction and relief, Calendar halted. +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy, my dear, permit me to introduce an old friend—Mr. Kirkwood. Kirkwood, +this is my daughter.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus01"></a> +<img src="images/img01.jpg" width="414" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">Permit me to introduce an old friend.</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar,” acknowledged Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +The girl bowed, her eyes steady upon his own. “Mr. Kirkwood is very kind,” she +said gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right!” Calendar exclaimed blandly. “He’s promised to see you home. Now +both of you will pardon my running away, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” assented Kirkwood agreeably. +</p> + +<p> +The elder man turned and hurried toward the main entrance. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood took the chair he had vacated. To his disgust he found himself +temporarily dumb. No flicker of thought illuminated the darkness of his +confusion. How was he to open a diverting conversation with a young woman whom +he had met under auspices so extraordinary? Any attempt to gloze the situation, +he felt, would be futile. And, somehow, he did not care to render himself +ridiculous in her eyes, little as he knew her. +</p> + +<p> +Inanely dumb, he sat watching her, smiling fatuously until it was borne in on +him that he was staring like a boor and grinning like an idiot. Convinced, he +blushed for himself; something which served to make him more tongue-tied than +ever. +</p> + +<p> +As for his involuntary protégée, she exhibited such sweet composure that he +caught himself wondering if she really appreciated the seriousness of her +parent’s predicament; if, for that matter, its true nature were known to her at +all. Calendar, he believed, was capable of prevarication, polite and impolite. +Had he lied to his daughter? or to Kirkwood? To both, possibly; to the former +alone, not improbably. That the adventurer had told him the desperate truth, +Kirkwood was quite convinced; but he now began to believe that the girl had +been put off with some fictitious explanation. Her tranquillity and +self-control were remarkable, otherwise; she seemed very young to possess those +qualities in such eminent degree. +</p> + +<p> +She was looking wearily past him, her gaze probing some unguessed abyss of +thought. Kirkwood felt himself privileged to stare in wonder. Her naïve +aloofness of poise gripped his imagination powerfully,—the more so, perhaps, +since it seemed eloquent of her intention to remain enigmatic,—but by no means +more powerfully than the unaided appeal of her loveliness. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the girl herself relieved the tension of the situation, fairly +startling the young man by going straight to the heart of things. Without +preface or warning, lifting her gaze to his, “My name is really Dorothy +Calendar,” she observed. And then, noting his astonishment, “You would be +privileged to doubt, under the circumstances,” she added. “Please let us be +frank.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he stammered, “if I didn’t doubt, let’s say I was unprejudiced.” +</p> + +<p> +His awkward, well-meant pleasantry, perhaps not conceived in the best of taste, +sounded in his own ears wretchedly flat and vapid. He regretted it +spontaneously; the girl ignored it. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very kind,” she iterated the first words he had heard from her lips. +“I wish you to understand that I, for one, appreciate it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not kind; I have done nothing. I am glad.... One is apt to become interested +when Romance is injected into a prosaic existence.” Kirkwood allowed himself a +keen but cheerful glance. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, with a shadowy smile. He continued, purposefully, to distract her, +holding her with his honest, friendly eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Since it is to be confidences” (this she questioned with an all but +imperceptible lifting of the eyebrows), “I don’t mind telling you my own name +is really Philip Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you are an old friend of my father’s?” +</p> + +<p> +He opened his lips, but only to close them without speaking. The girl moved her +shoulders with a shiver of disdain. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it wasn’t so.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know it would be hard for a young man like myself to be a very old +friend,” he countered lamely. +</p> + +<p> +“How long, then, have you known each other?” +</p> + +<p> +“Must I answer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please.” +</p> + +<p> +“Between three and four hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought as much.” She stared past him, troubled. Abruptly she said: “Please +smoke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I? If you wish it, of course....” +</p> + +<p> +She repeated: “Please.” +</p> + +<p> +“We were to wait ten minutes or so,” she continued. +</p> + +<p> +He produced his cigarette-case. +</p> + +<p> +“If you care to smoke it will seem an excuse.” He lighted his cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“And then, you may talk to me,” she concluded calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“I would, gladly, if I could guess what would interest you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yourself. Tell me about yourself,” she commanded. +</p> + +<p> +“It would bore you,” he responded tritely, confused. +</p> + +<p> +“No; you interest me very much.” She made the statement quietly, contemptuous +of coquetry. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then; I am Philip Kirkwood, an American.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Little worth retailing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” he demanded, piqued. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you have merely indicated that you are a wealthy American.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why wealthy?” +</p> + +<p> +“If not, you would have some aim in life—a calling or profession.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you think I have none?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unless you consider it your vocation to be a wealthy American.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t. Besides, I’m not wealthy. In point of fact, I ...” He pulled up +short, on the verge of declaring himself a pauper. “I am a painter.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes lightened with interest. “An artist?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so. I don’t paint signs—or houses,” he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +Amused, she laughed softly. “I suspected it,” she declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Not really?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was your way of looking at—things, that made me guess it: the painter’s +way. I have often noticed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“As if mentally blending colors all the time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that and—seeing flaws.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have discovered none,” he told her brazenly. +</p> + +<p> +But again her secret cares were claiming her thoughts, and the gay, +inconsequential banter died upon her scarlet lips as a second time her glance +ranged away, sounding mysterious depths of anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +Provoked, he would have continued the chatter. “I have confessed,” he +persisted. “You know everything of material interest about me. And yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am merely Dorothy Calendar,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing more?” He laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“That is all, if you please, for the present.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am to content myself with the promise of the future?” +</p> + +<p> +“The future,” she told him seriously, “is to-morrow; and to-morrow ...” She +moved restlessly in her chair, eyes and lips pathetic in their distress. +“Please, we will go now, if you are ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite ready, Miss Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose. A waiter brought the girl’s cloak and put it in Kirkwood’s hands. He +held it until, smoothing the wrists of her long white gloves, she stood up, +then placed the garment upon her white young shoulders, troubled by the +indefinable sense of intimacy imparted by the privilege. She permitted him this +personal service! He felt that she trusted him, that out of her gratitude had +grown a simple and almost childish faith in his generosity and considerateness. +</p> + +<p> +As she turned to go her eyes thanked him with an unfathomable glance. He was +again conscious of that esoteric disturbance in his temples. Puzzled, hazily +analyzing the sensation, he followed her to the lobby. +</p> + +<p> +A page brought him his top-coat, hat and stick; tipping the child from sheer +force of habit, he desired a gigantic porter, impressively ornate in hotel +livery, to call a hansom. Together they passed out into the night, he and the +girl. +</p> + +<p> +Beneath a permanent awning of steel and glass she waited patiently, slender, +erect, heedless of the attention she attracted from wayfarers. +</p> + +<p> +The night was young, the air mild. Upon the sidewalk, muddied by a million +feet, two streams of wayfarers flowed incessantly, bound west from Green Park +or east toward Piccadilly Circus; a well-dressed throng for the most part, with +here and there a man in evening dress. Between the carriages at the curb and +the hotel doors moved others, escorting fluttering butterfly women in elaborate +toilets, heads bare, skirts daintily gathered above their perishable slippers. +Here and there meaner shapes slipped silently through the crowd, sinister +shadows of the city’s proletariat, blotting ominously the brilliance of the +scene. +</p> + +<p> +A cab drew in at the block. The porter clapped an arc of wickerwork over its +wheel to protect the girl’s skirts. She ascended to the seat. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood, dropping sixpence in the porter’s palm, prepared to follow; but a +hand fell upon his arm, peremptory, inexorable. He faced about, frowning, to +confront a slight, hatchet-faced man, somewhat under medium height, dressed in +a sack suit and wearing a derby well forward over eyes that were hard and +bright. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Calendar?” said the man tensely. “I presume I needn’t name my business. +I’m from the Yard—” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is <i>not</i> Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective smiled wearily. “Don’t be a fool, Calendar,” he began. But the +porter’s hand fell upon his shoulder and the giant bent low to bring his mouth +close to the other’s ear. Kirkwood heard indistinctly his own name followed by +Calendar’s, and the words: “Never fear. I’ll point him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the woman?” argued the detective, unconvinced, staring into the cab. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I not at liberty to have a lady dine with me in a public restaurant?” +interposed Kirkwood, without raising his voice. +</p> + +<p> +The hard eyes looked him up and down without favor. Then: “Beg pardon, sir. I +see my mistake,” said the detective brusquely. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you do,” returned Kirkwood grimly. “I fancy it will bear +investigation.” +</p> + +<p> +He mounted the step. “Imperial Theater,” he told the driver, giving the first +address that occurred to him; it could be changed. For the moment the main +issue was to get the girl out of the range of the detective’s interest. +</p> + +<p> +He slipped into his place as the hansom wheeled into the turgid tide of +west-bound traffic. +</p> + +<p> +So Calendar had escaped, after all! Moreover, he had told the truth to +Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +By his side the girl moved uneasily. “Who was that man?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood sought her eyes, and found them wholly ingenuous. It seemed that +Calendar had not taken her into his confidence, after all. She was, therefore, +in no way implicated in her father’s affairs. Inexplicably the young man’s +heart felt lighter. “A mistake; the fellow took me for some one he knew,” he +told her carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +The assurance satisfied her. She rested quietly, wrapped up in personal +concerns. Her companion pensively contemplated an infinity of arid and +hansom-less to-morrows. About them the city throbbed in a web of misty +twilight, the humid farewell of a dismal day. In the air a faint haze swam, +rendering the distances opalescent. Athwart the western sky the after-glow of a +drenched sunset lay like a wash of rose-madder. Piccadilly’s asphalt shone like +watered silk, black and lustrous, reflecting a myriad lights in vibrant ribbons +of party-colored radiance. On every hand cab-lamps danced like fire-flies; the +rumble of wheels blended with the hollow pounding of uncounted hoofs, merging +insensibly into the deep and solemn roar of London-town. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Kirkwood was recalled to a sense of duty by a glimpse of Hyde Park +Corner. He turned to the girl. “I didn’t know where you wished to go—?” +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to realize his meaning with surprise, as one, whose thoughts have +strayed afar, recalled to an imperative world. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, did I forget? Tell him please to drive to Number Nine, Frognall Street, +Bloomsbury.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood poked his cane through the trap, repeating the address. The cab +wheeled smartly across Piccadilly, swung into Half Moon Street, and thereafter +made better time, darting briskly down abrupt vistas of shining pavement, +walled in by blank-visaged houses, or round two sides of one of London’s +innumerable private parks, wherein spring foliage glowed a tender green in +artificial light; now and again it crossed brilliant main arteries of travel, +and eventually emerged from a maze of backways into Oxford Street, to hammer +eastwards to Tottenham Court Road. +</p> + +<p> +Constraint hung like a curtain between the two; a silence which the young man +forbore to moderate, finding more delight that he had cared (or dared) confess +to, in contemplation of the pure girlish profile so close to him. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed quite unaware of him, lost in thought, large eyes sober, lips +serious that were fashioned for laughter, round little chin firm with some +occult resolution. It was not hard to fancy her nerves keyed to a high pitch of +courage and determination, nor easy to guess for what reason. Watching always, +keenly sensitive to the beauty of each salient line betrayed by the flying +lights, Kirkwood’s own consciousness lost itself in a profitless, even a +perilous labyrinth of conjecture. +</p> + +<p> +The cab stopped. Both occupants came to their senses with a little start. The +girl leaned out over; the apron, recognized the house she sought in one swift +glance, testified to the recognition with a hushed exclamation, and began to +arrange her skirts. Kirkwood, unheeding her faint-hearted protests, jumped out, +interposing his cane between her skirts and the wheel. Simultaneously he +received a vivid mental photograph of the locality. +</p> + +<p> +Frognall Street proved to be one of those by-ways, a short block in length, +which, hemmed in on all sides by a meaner purlieu, has (even in Bloomsbury!) +escaped the sordid commercial eye of the keeper of furnished lodgings, +retaining jealously something of the old-time dignity and reserve that were its +pride in the days before Society swarmed upon Mayfair and Belgravia. +</p> + +<p> +Its houses loomed tall, with many windows, mostly lightless—materially +aggravating that air of isolate, cold dignity which distinguishes the +Englishman’s castle. Here and there stood one less bedraggled than its +neighbors, though all, without exception, spoke assertively of respectability +down-at-the-heel but fighting tenaciously for existence. Some, vanguards of +that imminent day when the boarding-house should reign supreme, wore with +shamefaced air placards of estate-agents, advertising their susceptibility to +sale or lease. In the company of the latter was Number 9. +</p> + +<p> +The American noted the circumstance subconsciously, at a moment when Miss +Calendar’s hand, small as a child’s, warm and compact in its white glove, lay +in his own. And then she was on the sidewalk, her face, upturned to his, +vivacious with excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been so kind,” she told him warmly, “that one hardly knows how to +thank you, Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have done nothing—nothing at all,” he mumbled, disturbed by a sudden, +unreasoning alarm for her. +</p> + +<p> +She passed quickly to the shelter of the pillared portico. He followed +clumsily. On the door-step she turned, offering her hand. He took and retained +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Good night,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m to understand that I’m dismissed, then?” he stammered ruefully. +</p> + +<p> +She evaded his eyes. “I—thank you—I have no further need—” +</p> + +<p> +“You are quite sure? Won’t you believe me at your service?” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed uneasily. “I’m all right now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can do nothing more? Sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. But you—you make me almost sorry I can’t impose still further upon +your good nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t hesitate ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you very persistent, Mr. Kirkwood?” Her fingers moved in his; burning +with the reproof, he released them, and turned to her so woebegone a +countenance that she repented of her severity. “Don’t worry about me, please. I +am truly safe now. Some day I hope to be able to thank you adequately. Good +night!” +</p> + +<p> +Her pass-key grated in the lock. Opening, the door disclosed a dark and +uninviting entry-hall, through which there breathed an air heavy with the dank +and dusty odor of untenanted rooms. Hesitating on the threshold, over her +shoulder the girl smiled kindly upon her commandeered esquire; and stepped +within. +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his hat automatically. The door closed with an echoing slam. He +turned to the waiting cab, fumbling for change. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll walk,” he told the cabby, paying him off. +</p> + +<p> +The hansom swept away to a tune of hammering hoofs; and quiet rested upon the +street as Kirkwood turned the nearest corner, in an unpleasant temper, puzzled +and discontented. It seemed hardly fair that he should have been dragged into +so promising an adventure, by his ears (so to put it), only to be thus +summarily called upon to write “Finis” beneath the incident. +</p> + +<p> +He rounded the corner and walked half-way to the next street, coming to an +abrupt and rebellious pause by the entrance to a covered alleyway, of two minds +as to his proper course of action. +</p> + +<p> +In the background of his thoughts Number 9, Frognall Street, reared its +five-story façade, sinister and forbidding. He reminded himself of its +unlighted windows; of its sign, “To be let”; of the effluvia of desolation that +had saluted him when the door swung wide. A deserted house; and the girl alone +in it!—was it right for him to leave her so? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV<br/> +9 FROGNALL STREET, W. C.</h2> + +<p> +The covered alleyway gave upon Quadrant Mews; or so declared a notice painted +on the dead wall of the passage. +</p> + +<p> +Overhead, complaining as it swayed in the wind, hung the smirched and +weather-worn sign-board of the Hog-in-the-Pound public house; wherefrom escaped +sounds of such revelry by night as is indulged in by the British working-man in +hours of ease. At the curb in front of the house of entertainment, dejected +animals drooping between their shafts, two hansoms stood in waiting, until such +time as the lords of their destinies should see fit to sally forth and inflict +themselves upon a cab-hungry populace. As Kirkwood turned, a third vehicle +rumbled up out of the mews. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood can close his eyes, even at this late day, and both see and hear it +all again—even as he can see the unbroken row of dingy dwellings that lined his +way back from Quadrant Mews to Frognall Street corner: all drab and unkempt, +all sporting in their fan-lights the legend and lure, “Furnished Apartments.” +</p> + +<p> +For, between his curiosity about and his concern for the girl, he was being led +back to Number 9, by the nose, as it were,—hardly willingly, at best. +Profoundly stupefied by the contemplation of his own temerity, he yet returned +unfaltering. He who had for so long plumed himself upon his strict supervision +of his personal affairs and equally steadfast unconsciousness of his neighbor’s +businesses, now found himself in the very act of pushing in where he was not +wanted: as he had been advised in well-nigh as many words. He experienced an +effect of standing to one side, a witness of his own folly, with rising wonder, +unable to credit the strength of the infatuation which was placing him so +conspicuously in the way of a snubbing. +</p> + +<p> +If perchance he were to meet the girl again as she was leaving Number 9,—what +then? The contingency dismayed him incredibly, in view of the fact that it did +not avail to make him pause. To the contrary he disregarded it resolutely; mad, +impertinent, justified of his unnamed apprehensions, or simply addled,—he held +on his way. +</p> + +<p> +He turned up Frognall Street with the manner of one out for a leisurely evening +stroll. Simultaneously, from the farther corner, another pedestrian debouched, +into the thoroughfare—a mere moving shadow at that distance, brother to blacker +shadows that skulked in the fenced areas and unlively entries of that poorly +lighted block. The hush was something beyond belief, when one remembered the +nearness of blatant Tottenham Court Road. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood conceived a wholly senseless curiosity about the other wayfarer. The +man was walking rapidly, heels ringing with uncouth loudness, cane tapping the +flagging at brief intervals. Both sounds ceased abruptly as their cause turned +in beneath one of the porticos. In the emphatic and unnatural quiet that +followed, Kirkwood, stepping more lightly, fancied that another shadow followed +the first, noiselessly and with furtive stealth. +</p> + +<p> +Could it be Number 9 into which they had passed? The American’s heart beat a +livelier tempo at the suggestion. If it had not been Number 9—he was still too +far away to tell—it was certainly one of the dwellings adjacent thereunto. The +improbable possibility (But why improbable?) that the girl was being joined by +her father, or by friends, annoyed him with illogical intensity. He mended his +own pace, designing to pass whichever house it might be before the door should +be closed; thought better of this, and slowed up again, anathematizing himself +with much excuse for being the inquisitive dolt that he was. +</p> + +<p> +Approaching Number 9 with laggard feet, he manufactured a desire to light a +cigarette, as a cover for his design, were he spied upon by unsuspected eyes. +Cane under arm, hands cupped to shield a vesta’s flame, he stopped directly +before the portico, turning his eyes askance to the shadowed doorway; and made +a discovery sufficiently startling to hold him spellbound and, incidentally, to +scorch his gloves before he thought to drop the match. +</p> + +<p> +The door of Number 9 stood ajar, a black interval an inch or so in width +showing between its edge and the jamb. +</p> + +<p> +Suspicion and alarm set his wits a-tingle. More distinctly he recalled the +jarring bang, accompanied by the metallic click of the latch, when the girl had +shut herself in—and him out. Now, some person or persons had followed her, +neglecting the most obvious precaution of a householder. And why? Why but +because the intruders did not wish the sound of closing to be audible to her—or +those—within? +</p> + +<p> +He reminded himself that it was all none of his affair, decided to pass on and +go his ways in peace, and impulsively, swinging about, marched straight away +for the unclosed door. +</p> + +<p> +“’Old’ard, guvner!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood halted on the cry, faltering in indecision. Should he take the plunge, +or withdraw? Synchronously he was conscious that a man’s figure had detached +itself from the shadows beneath the nearest portico and was drawing nearer, +with every indication of haste, to intercept him. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere now, guvner, yer mykin’ a mistyke. You don’t live ’ere.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” demanded Kirkwood crisply, tightening his grip on his stick. +</p> + +<p> +Was this the second shadow he had seemed to see—the confederate of him who had +entered Number 9; a sentry to forestall interruption? If so, the fellow lacked +discretion, though his determination that the American should not interfere was +undeniable. It was with an ugly and truculent manner, if more warily, that the +man closed in. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> knows. You clear hout, or—” +</p> + +<p> +He flung out a hand with the plausible design of grasping Kirkwood by the +collar. The latter lifted his stick, deflecting the arm, and incontinently +landed his other fist forcibly on the fellow’s chest. The man reeled back, +cursing. Before he could recover Kirkwood calmly crossed the threshold, closed +the door and put his shoulder to it. In another instant, fumbling in the +darkness, he found the bolts and drove them home. +</p> + +<p> +And it was done, the transformation accomplished; his inability to refrain from +interfering had encompassed his downfall, had changed a peaceable and +law-abiding alien within British shores into a busybody, a trespasser, a +misdemeanant, a—yes, for all he knew to the contrary, in the estimation of the +Law, a burglar, prime candidate for a convict’s stripes! +</p> + +<p> +Breathing hard with excitement he turned and laid his back against the panels, +trembling in every muscle, terrified by the result of his impulsive audacity, +thunder-struck by a lightning-like foreglimpse of its possible consequences. Of +what colossal imprudence had he not been guilty? +</p> + +<p> +“The devil!” he whispered. “What an ass, what an utter ass I am!” +</p> + +<p> +Behind him the knob was rattled urgently, to an accompaniment of feet shuffling +on the stone; and immediately—if he were to make a logical deduction from the +rasping and scraping sound within the door-casing—the bell-pull was violently +agitated, without, however, educing any response from the bell itself, wherever +that might be situate. After which, as if in despair, the outsider again +rattled and jerked the knob. +</p> + +<p> +Be his status what it might, whether servant of the household, its caretaker, +or a night watchman, the man was palpably determined both to get himself in and +Kirkwood out, and yet (curious to consider) determined to gain his end without +attracting undue attention. Kirkwood had expected to hear the knocker’s +thunder, as soon as the bell failed to give tongue; but it did not sound +although there <i>was</i> a knocker,—Kirkwood himself had remarked that +antiquated and rusty bit of ironmongery affixed to the middle panel of the +door. And it made him feel sure that something surreptitious and lawless was in +process within those walls, that the confederate without, having failed to +prevent a stranger from entering, left unemployed a means so certain-sure to +rouse the occupants. +</p> + +<p> +But his inferential analysis of this phase of the proceedings was summarily +abrupted by that identical alarm. In a trice the house was filled with flying +echoes, wakened to sonorous riot by the crash and clamor of the knocker; and +Kirkwood stood fully two yards away, his heart hammering wildly, his nerves +a-jingle, much as if the resounding blows had landed upon his own person rather +than on stout oaken planking. +</p> + +<p> +Ere he had time to wonder, the racket ceased, and from the street filtered +voices in altercation. Listening, Kirkwood’s pulses quickened, and he laughed +uncertainly for pure relief, retreating to the door and putting an ear to a +crack. +</p> + +<p> +The accents of one speaker were new in his hearing, stern, crisp, quick with +the spirit of authority which animates that most austere and dignified limb of +the law to be encountered the world over, a London bobby. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then, my man, what do you want there? Come now, speak up, and step out +into the light, where I can see you.” +</p> + +<p> +The response came in the sniffling snarl of the London ne’er-do-well, the +unemployable rogue whose chiefest occupation seems to be to march in the ranks +of The Unemployed on the occasion of its annual demonstrations. +</p> + +<p> +“Le’ me alone, carntcher? Ah’m doin’ no ’arm, officer,—” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you hear me? Step out here. Ah, that’s better.... No harm, eh? Perhaps +you’ll explain how there’s no harm breakin’ into unoccupied ’ouses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gorblimy, ’ow was I to know? ’Ere’s a toff ’ands me sixpence fer hopenin’ ’is +cab door to-dye, an’, sezee, ‘My man,’ ’e sez, ‘yer’ve got a ’onest fyce. W’y +don’cher work?’ sezee. ‘’Ow can I?’ sez I. ‘’Ere’m I hout of a job these six +months, lookin’ fer work every dye an’ carn’t find it.’ Sezee, ‘Come an’ see me +this hevenin’ at me home, Noine, Frognall Stryte,’ ’e sez, an’—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do for now. You borrow a pencil and paper and write it down and I’ll +read it when I’ve got more time; I never heard the like of it. This ’ouse +hasn’t been lived in these two years. Move on, and don’t let me find you round +’ere again. March, I say!” +</p> + +<p> +There was more of it—more whining explanations artfully tinctured with abuse, +more terse commands to depart, the whole concluding with scraping footsteps, +diminuendo, and another perfunctory, rattle of the knob as the bobby, having +shoo’d the putative evil-doer off, assured himself that no damage had actually +been done. Then he, too, departed, satisfied and self-righteous, leaving a +badly frightened but very grateful amateur criminal to pursue his +self-appointed career of crime. +</p> + +<p> +He had no choice other than to continue; in point of fact, it had been insanity +just then to back out, and run the risk of apprehension at the hands of that +ubiquitous bobby, who (for all he knew) might be lurking not a dozen yards +distant, watchful for just such a sequel. Still, Kirkwood hesitated with the +best of excuses. Reassuring as he had found the sentinel’s extemporized +yarn,—proof positive that the fellow had had no more right to prohibit a +trespass than Kirkwood to commit one,—at the same time he found himself +pardonably a prey to emotions of the utmost consternation and alarm. If he +feared to leave the house he had no warrant whatever to assume that he would be +permitted to remain many minutes unharmed within its walls of mystery. +</p> + +<p> +The silence of it discomfited him beyond measure; it was, in a word, uncanny. +</p> + +<p> +Before him, as he lingered at the door, vaguely disclosed by a wan illumination +penetrating a dusty and begrimed fan-light, a broad hall stretched indefinitely +towards the rear of the building, losing itself in blackness beyond the foot of +a flight of stairs. Save for a few articles of furniture,—a hall table, an +umbrella-stand, a tall dumb clock flanked by high-backed chairs,—it was empty. +Other than Kirkwood’s own restrained respiration not a sound throughout the +house advertised its inhabitation; not a board creaked beneath the pressure of +a foot, not a mouse rustled in the wainscoting or beneath the floors, not a +breath of air stirred sighing in the stillness. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, a tremendous racket had been raised at the front door, within the +sixty seconds past! And yet, within twenty minutes two persons, at least, had +preceded Kirkwood into the building! Had they not heard? The speculation seemed +ridiculous. Or had they heard and, alarmed, been too effectually hobbled by the +coils of their nefarious designs to dare reveal themselves, to investigate the +cause of that thunderous summons? Or were they, perhaps, aware of Kirkwood’s +entrance, and lying <i>perdui</i>, in some dark corner, to ambush him as he +passed? +</p> + +<p> +True, that were hardly like the girl. True, on the other hand, it were possible +that she had stolen away while Kirkwood was hanging in irresolution by the +passage to Quadrant Mews. Again, the space of time between Kirkwood’s dismissal +and his return had been exceedingly brief; whatever her errand, she could +hardly have fulfilled it and escaped. At that moment she might be in the power +and at the mercy of him who had followed her; providing he were not friendly. +And in that case, what torment and what peril might not be hers? +</p> + +<p> +Spurred by solicitude, the young man put personal apprehensions in his pocket +and forgot them, cautiously picking his way through the gloom to the foot of +the stairs. There, by the newel-post, he paused. Darkness walled him about. +Overhead the steps vanished in a well of blackness; he could not even see the +ceiling; his eyes ached with futile effort to fathom the unknown; his ears rang +with unrewarded strain of listening. The silence hung inviolate, profound. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly he began to ascend, a hand following the balusters, the other with his +cane exploring the obscurity before him. On the steps, a carpet, thick and +heavy, muffled his footfalls. He moved noiselessly. Towards the top the +staircase curved, and presently a foot that groped for a higher level failed to +find it. Again he halted, acutely distrustful. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing happened. +</p> + +<p> +He went on, guided by the balustrade, passing three doors, all open, through +which the undefined proportions of a drawing-room and boudoir were barely +suggested in a ghostly dusk. By each he paused, listening, hearing nothing. +</p> + +<p> +His foot struck with a deadened thud against the bottom step of the second +flight, and his pulses fluttered wildly for a moment. Two minutes—three—he +waited in suspense. From above came no sound. He went on, as before, save that +twice a step yielded, complaining, to his weight. Toward the top the close air, +like the darkness, seemed to weigh more heavily upon his consciousness; little +drops of perspiration started out on his forehead, his scalp tingled, his mouth +was hot and dry, he felt as if stifled. +</p> + +<p> +Again the raised foot found no level higher than its fellows. He stopped and +held his breath, oppressed by a conviction that some one was near him. +Confirmation of this came startlingly—an eerie whisper in the night, so close +to him that he fancied he could feel the disturbed air fanning his face. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Is it you, Eccles</i>?” He had no answer ready. The voice was masculine, if +he analyzed it correctly. Dumb and stupid he stood poised upon the point of +panic. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Eccles, is it you</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +The whisper was both shrill and shaky. As it ceased Kirkwood was half blinded +by a flash of light, striking him squarely in the eyes. Involuntarily he shrank +back a pace, to the first step from the top. Instantaneously the light was +eclipsed. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Halt or—or I fire</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +By now he realized that he had been scrutinized by the aid of an electric +hand-lamp. The tremulous whisper told him something else—that the speaker +suffered from nerves as high-strung as his own. The knowledge gave him +inspiration. He cried at a venture, in a guarded voice, “<i>Hands up</i>!”—and +struck out smartly with his stick. Its ferrule impinged upon something soft but +heavy. Simultaneously he heard a low, frightened cry, the cane was swept aside, +a blow landed glancingly on his shoulder, and he was carried fairly off his +feet by the weight of a man hurled bodily upon him with staggering force and +passion. Reeling, he was borne back and down a step or two, and then,—choking +on an oath,—dropped his cane and with one hand caught the balusters, while the +other tore ineffectually at wrists of hands that clutched his throat. So, for a +space, the two hung, panting and struggling. +</p> + +<p> +Then endeavoring to swing his shoulders over against the wall, Kirkwood +released his grip on the hand-rail and stumbled on the stairs, throwing his +antagonist out of balance. The latter plunged downward, dragging Kirkwood with +him. Clawing, kicking, grappling, they went to the bottom, jolted violently by +each step; but long before the last was reached, Kirkwood’s throat was free. +</p> + +<p> +Throwing himself off, he got to his feet and grasped the railing for support; +then waited, panting, trying to get his bearings. Himself painfully shaken and +bruised, he shrewdly surmised that his assailant had fared as ill, if not +worse. And, in point of fact, the man lay with neither move nor moan, still as +death at the American’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +And once more silence had folded its wings over Number 9, Frognall Street. +</p> + +<p> +More conscious of that terrifying, motionless presence beneath him, than able +to distinguish it by power of vision, he endured interminable minutes of +trembling horror, in a witless daze, before he thought of his match-box. +Immediately he found it and struck a light. As the wood caught and the bright +small flame leaped in the pent air, he leaned forward, over the body, +breathlessly dreading what he must discover. +</p> + +<p> +The man lay quiet, head upon the floor, legs and hips on the stairs. One arm +had fallen over his face, hiding the upper half. The hand gleamed white and +delicate as a woman’s. His chin was smooth and round, his lips thin and +petulant. Beneath his top-coat, evening dress clothed a short and slender +figure. Nothing whatever of his appearance suggested the burly ruffian, the +midnight marauder; he seemed little more than a boy old enough to dress for +dinner. In his attitude there was something pitifully suggestive of a beaten +child, thrown into a corner. +</p> + +<p> +Conscience-smitten and amazed Kirkwood stared on until, without warning, the +match flickered and went out. Then, straightening up with an exclamation at +once of annoyance and concern, he rattled the box; it made no sound,—was empty. +In disgust he swore it was the devil’s own luck, that he should run out of +vestas at a time so critical. He could not even say whether the fellow was +dead, unconscious, or simply shamming. He had little idea of his looks; and to +be able to identify him might save a deal of trouble at some future time,—since +he, Kirkwood, seemed so little able to disengage himself from the clutches of +this insane adventure! And the girl—. what had become of her? How could he +continue to search for her, without lights or guide, through all those silent +rooms, whose walls might inclose a hundred hidden dangers in that house of +mystery? +</p> + +<p> +But he debated only briefly. His blood was young, and it was hot; it was quite +plain to him that he could not withdraw and retain his self-respect. If the +girl was there to be found, most assuredly, he must find her. The hand-lamp +that had dazzled him at the head of the stairs should be his aid, now that he +thought of it,—and providing he was able to find it. +</p> + +<p> +In the scramble on the stairs he had lost his hat, but he remembered that the +vesta’s short-lived light had discovered this on the floor beyond the man’s +body. Carefully stepping across the latter he recovered his head-gear, and +then, kneeling, listened with an ear close to the fellow’s face. A softly +regular beat of breathing reassured him. Half rising, he caught the body +beneath the armpits, lifting and dragging it off the staircase; and knelt +again, to feel of each pocket in the man’s clothing, partly as an obvious +precaution, to relieve him of his advertised revolver against an untimely +wakening, partly to see if he had the lamp about him. +</p> + +<p> +The search proved fruitless. Kirkwood suspected that the weapon, like his own, +had existed only in his victim’s ready imagination. As for the lamp, in the act +of rising he struck it with his foot, and picked it up. +</p> + +<p> +It felt like a metal tube a couple of inches in diameter, a foot or so in +length, passably heavy. He fumbled with it impatiently. “However the dickens,” +he wondered audibly, “does the infernal machine work?” As it happened, the +thing worked with disconcerting abruptness as his untrained fingers fell +hapchance on the spring. A sudden glare again smote him in the face, and at the +same instant, from a point not a yard away, apparently, an inarticulate cry +rang out upon the stillness. +</p> + +<p> +Heart in his mouth, he stepped back, lowering the lamp (which impishly went +out) and lifting a protecting forearm. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s that?” he demanded harshly. +</p> + +<p> +A strangled sob of terror answered him, blurred by a swift rush of skirts, and +in a breath his shattered nerves quieted and a glimmer of common sense +penetrated the murk anger and fear had bred in his brain. He understood, and +stepped forward, catching blindly at the darkness with eager hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar!” he cried guardedly. “Miss Calendar, it is I—Philip Kirkwood!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a second sob, of another caliber than the first; timid fingers +brushed his, and a hand, warm and fragile, closed upon his own in a passion of +relief and gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am so g-glad!” It was Dorothy Calendar’s voice, beyond mistake. “I—I +didn’t know what t-to t-think.... When the light struck your face I was sure it +was you, but when I called, you answered in a voice so strange,—not like yours +at all! ... Tell me,” she pleaded, with palpable effort to steady herself; +“what has happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think, perhaps,” said Kirkwood uneasily, again troubled by his racing +pulses, “perhaps you can do that better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the voice guiltily; her fingers trembled on his, and were gently +withdrawn. “I was so frightened,” she confessed after a little pause, “so +frightened that I hardly understand ... But you? How did you—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I worried about you,” he replied, in a tone absurdly apologetic. “Somehow it +didn’t seem right. It was none of my business, of course, but ... I couldn’t +help coming back. This fellow, whoever he is—don’t worry; he’s +unconscious—slipped into the house in a manner that seemed to me suspicious. I +hardly know why I followed, except that he left the door an open invitation to +interference ...” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t be thankful enough,” she told him warmly, “that you did interfere. You +have indeed saved me from ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what. If I knew the man—” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t <i>know</i> him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t even guess. The light—?” +</p> + +<p> +She paused inquiringly. Kirkwood fumbled with the lamp, but, whether its rude +handling had impaired some vital part of the mechanism, or whether the +batteries through much use were worn out, he was able to elicit only one feeble +glow, which was instantly smothered by the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no use,” he confessed. “The thing’s gone wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a match?” +</p> + +<p> +“I used my last before I got hold of this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she commented, discouraged. “Have you any notion what he looks like?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood thought briefly. “Raffles,” he replied with a chuckle. “He looks like +an amateurish and very callow Raffles. He’s in dress clothes, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder!” There was a nuance of profound bewilderment in her exclamation. +Then: “He knocked against something in the hall—a chair, I presume; at all +events, I heard that and put out the light. I was ... in the room above the +drawing-room, you see. I stole down to this floor—was there, in the corner by +the stairs when he passed within six inches, and never guessed it. Then, when +he got on the next floor, I started on; but you came in. I slipped into the +drawing-room and crouched behind a chair. You went on, but I dared not move +until ... And then I heard some one cry out, and you fell down the stairs +together. I hope you were not hurt—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing worth mention; but <i>he</i> must have got a pretty stiff knock, to +lay him out so completely.” Kirkwood stirred the body with his toe, but the man +made no sign. “Dead to the world ... And now, Miss Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +If she answered, he did not hear; for on the heels of his query banged the +knocker down below; and thereafter crash followed crash, brewing a deep and +sullen thundering to rouse the echoes and send them rolling, like voices of +enraged ghosts, through the lonely rooms. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V<br/> +THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER</h2> + +<p> +“What’s that?” At the first alarm the girl had caught convulsively at +Kirkwood’s arm. Now, when a pause came in the growling of the knocker, she made +him hear her voice; and it was broken and vibrant with a threat of hysteria. +“Oh, what can it mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” He laid a hand reassuringly over that which trembled on his +forearm. “The police, possibly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Police!” she iterated, aghast. “What makes you think—?” +</p> + +<p> +“A man tried to stop me at the door,” he answered quickly. “I got in before he +could. When he tried the knocker, a bobby came along and stopped him. The +latter may have been watching the house since then,—it’d be only his duty to +keep an eye on it; and Heaven knows we raised a racket, coming head-first down +those stairs! Now we are up against it,” he added brightly. +</p> + +<p> +But the girl was tugging at his hand. “Come!” she begged breathlessly. “Come! +There is a way! Before they break in—” +</p> + +<p> +“But this man—?” Kirkwood hung back, troubled. +</p> + +<p> +“They—the police are sure to find and care for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“So they will.” He chuckled, “And serve him right! He’d have choked me to +death, with all the good will in the world!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do hurry!” +</p> + +<p> +Turning, she sped light-footed down the staircase to the lower hall, he at her +elbow. Here the uproar was loudest—deep enough to drown whatever sounds might +have been made by two pairs of flying feet. For all that they fled on tiptoe, +stealthily, guilty shadows in the night; and at the newel-post swung back into +the unbroken blackness which shrouded the fastnesses backward of the dwelling. +A sudden access of fury on the part of the alarmist at the knocker, spurred +them on with quaking hearts. In half a dozen strides, Kirkwood, guided only by +instinct and the <i>frou-frou</i> of the girl’s skirts as she ran invisible +before him, stumbled on the uppermost steps of a steep staircase; only a +hand-rail saved him, and that at the last moment. He stopped short, shocked +into caution. From below came a contrite whisper: “I’m so sorry! I should have +warned you.” +</p> + +<p> +He pulled himself together, glaring wildly at nothing. “It’s all right—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not hurt, truly? Oh, do come quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited for him at the bottom of the flight;—happily for him, for he was all +at sea. +</p> + +<p> +“Here—your hand—let me guide you. This darkness is dreadful ...” +</p> + +<p> +He found her hand, somehow, and tucked his into it, confidingly, and not +without an uncertain thrill of satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” she panted. “Come! If they break in—” +</p> + +<p> +Stifled by apprehension, her voice failed her. +</p> + +<p> +They went forward, now less impetuously, for it was very black; and the knocker +had fallen still. +</p> + +<p> +“No fear of that,” he remarked after a time. “They wouldn’t dare break in.” +</p> + +<p> +A fluttering whisper answered him: “I don’t know. We dare risk nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +They seemed to explore, to penetrate acres of labyrinthine chambers and +passages, delving deep into the bowels of the earth, like rabbits burrowing in +a warren, hounded by beagles. +</p> + +<p> +Above stairs the hush continued unbroken; as if the dumb Genius of the Place +had cast a spell of silence on the knocker, or else, outraged, had smitten the +noisy disturber with a palsy. +</p> + +<p> +The girl seemed to know her way; whether guided by familiarity or by intuition, +she led on without hesitation, Kirkwood blundering in her wake, between +confusion of impression, and dawning dismay conscious of but one tangible +thing, to which he clung as to his hope of salvation: those firm, friendly +fingers that clasped his own. +</p> + +<p> +It was as if they wandered on for an hour; probably from start to finish their +flight took up three minutes, no more. Eventually the girl stopped, releasing +his hand. He could hear her syncopated breathing before him, and gathered that +something was wrong. He took a step forward. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Her full voice broke out of the obscurity startlingly close, in his very ear. +</p> + +<p> +“The door—the bolts—I can’t budge them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me ...” +</p> + +<p> +He pressed forward, brushing her shoulder. She did not draw away, but willingly +yielded place to his hands at the fastenings; and what had proved impossible to +her, to his strong fingers was a matter of comparative ease. Yet, not entirely +consciously, he was not quick. As he tugged at the bolts he was poignantly +sensitive to the subtle warmth of her at his side; he could hear her soft dry +sobs of excitement and suspense, punctuating the quiet; and was frightened, +absolutely, by an impulse, too strong for ridicule, to take her in his arms and +comfort her with the assurance that, whatever her trouble, he would stand by +her and protect her.... It were futile to try to laugh it off; he gave over the +endeavor. Even at this critical moment he found himself repeating over and over +to his heart the question: “Can this be love? Can this be love? ...” +</p> + +<p> +Could it be love at an hour’s acquaintance? Absurd! But he could not laugh—nor +render himself insensible to the suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +He found that he had drawn the bolts. The girl tugged and rattled at the knob. +Reluctantly the door opened inwards. Beyond its threshold stretched ten feet or +more of covered passageway, whose entrance framed an oblong glimmering with +light. A draught of fresh air smote their faces. Behind them a door banged. +</p> + +<p> +“Where does this open?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the mews,” she informed him. +</p> + +<p> +“The mews!” He stared in consternation at the pallid oval that stood for her +face. “The mews! But you, in your evening gown, and I—” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no other way. We must chance it. Are you afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +Afraid? ... He stepped aside. She slipped by him and on. He closed the door, +carefully removing the key and locking it on the outside; then joined the girl +at the entrance to the mews, where they paused perforce, she as much +disconcerted as he, his primary objection momentarily waxing in force as they +surveyed the conditions circumscribing their escape. +</p> + +<p> +Quadrant Mews was busily engaged in enjoying itself. Night had fallen sultry +and humid, and the walls and doorsteps were well fringed and clustered with +representatives of that class of London’s population which infests mews through +habit, taste, or force of circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +On the stoops men sprawled at easy length, discussing short, foul cutties +loaded with that rank and odoriferous compound which, under the name and in the +fame of tobacco, is widely retailed at tuppence the ounce. Their women-folk +more commonly squatted on the thresholds, cheerfully squabbling; from opposing +second-story windows, two leaned perilously forth, slanging one another across +the square briskly in the purest billingsgate; and were impartially applauded +from below by an audience whose appreciation seemed faintly tinged with envy. +Squawking and yelling children swarmed over the flags and rude cobblestones +that paved the ways. Like incense, heavy and pungent, the rich effluvia of +stable-yards swirled in air made visible by its faint burden of mist. +</p> + +<p> +Over against the entrance wherein Kirkwood and the girl lurked, confounded by +the problem of escaping undetected through this vivacious scene, a stable-door +stood wide, exposing a dimly illumined interior. Before it waited a +four-wheeler, horse already hitched in between the shafts, while its driver, a +man of leisurely turn of mind, made lingering inspection of straps and buckles, +and, while Kirkwood watched him, turned attention to the carriage lamps. +</p> + +<p> +The match which he raked spiritedly down his thigh, flared ruddily; the +succeeding paler glow of the lamp threw into relief a heavy beefy mask, with +shining bosses for cheeks and nose and chin; through narrow slits two cunning +eyes glittered like dull gems. Kirkwood appraised him with attention, as one in +whose gross carcass was embodied their only hope of unannoyed return to the +streets and normal surroundings of their world. The difficulty lay in +attracting the man’s attention and engaging him without arousing his suspicions +or bringing the population about their ears. Though he hesitated long, no +favorable opportunity presented itself; and in time the Jehu approached the box +with the ostensible purpose of mounting and driving off. In this critical +situation the American, forced to recognize that boldness must mark his course, +took the girl’s fate and his own in his hands, and with a quick word to his +companion, stepped out of hiding. +</p> + +<p> +The cabby had a foot upon the step when Kirkwood tapped his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“My man—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lor, lumme!” cried the fellow in amaze, pivoting on his heel. Cupidity and +quick understanding enlivened the eyes which in two glances looked Kirkwood up +and down, comprehending at once both his badly rumpled hat and patent-leather +shoes. “S’help me,”—thickly,—“where’d you drop from, guvner?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my affair,” said Kirkwood briskly. “Are you engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mykes yerself my fare,” returned the cabby shrewdly, “I <i>ham</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten shillings, then, if you get us out of here in one minute and to—say—Hyde +Park Corner in fifteen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Us?” demanded the fellow aggressively. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood motioned toward the passageway. “There’s a lady with me—there. Quick +now!” +</p> + +<p> +Still the man did not move. “Ten bob,” he bargained; “an’ you runnin’ awye with +th’ stuffy ol’ gent’s fair darter? Come now, guvner, is it gen’rous? Myke it a +quid an’—” +</p> + +<p> +“A pound then. <i>Will</i> you hurry?” +</p> + +<p> +By way of answer the fellow scrambled hastily up to the box and snatched at the +reins. “<i>Ck</i>! Gee-e hup!” he cried sonorously. +</p> + +<p> +By now the mews had wakened to the fact of the presence of a “toff” in its +midst. His light topcoat and silk hat-rendered him as conspicuous as a red +Indian in war-paint would have been on Rotten Row. A cry of surprise was +raised, and drowned in a volley of ribald inquiry and chaff. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately, the cabby was instant to rein in skilfully before the passageway, +and Kirkwood had the door open before the four-wheeler stopped. The girl, +hugging her cloak about her, broke cover (whereat the hue and cry redoubled), +and sprang into the body of the vehicle. Kirkwood followed, shutting the door. +As the cab lurched forward he leaned over and drew down the window-shade, +shielding the girl from half a hundred prying eyes. At the same time they +gathered momentum, banging swiftly, if loudly out of the mews. +</p> + +<p> +An urchin, leaping on the step to spy in Kirkwood’s window, fell off, yelping, +as the driver’s whiplash curled about his shanks. +</p> + +<p> +The gloom of the tunnel inclosed them briefly ere the lights of the +Hog-in-the-Pound flashed by and the wheels began to roll more easily. Kirkwood +drew back with a sigh of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” he said softly. +</p> + +<p> +The girl had no words. +</p> + +<p> +Worried by her silence, solicitous lest, the strain ended, she might be on the +point of fainting, he let up the shade and lowered the window at her side. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to have collapsed in her corner. Against the dark upholstery her +hair shone like pale gold in the half-light; her eyes were closed and she held +a handkerchief to her lips; the other hand lay limp. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +She started, and something bulky fell from the seat and thumped heavily on the +floor. Kirkwood bent to pick it up, and so for the first time was made aware +that she had brought with her a small black gladstone bag of considerable +weight. As he placed it on the forward seat their eyes met. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“It was to get that,” she hastened to explain, “that my father sent me ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he assented in a tone indicating his complete comprehension. “I trust +...” he added vaguely, and neglected to complete the observation, losing +himself in a maze of conjecture not wholly agreeable. This was a new phase of +the adventure. He eyed the bag uneasily. What did it contain? How did he know +...? +</p> + +<p> +Hastily he abandoned that line of thought. He had no right to infer anything +whatever, who had thrust himself uninvited into her concerns—uninvited, that +was to say, in the second instance, having been once definitely given his +congé. Inevitably, however, a thousand unanswerable questions pestered him; +just as, at each fresh facet of mystery disclosed by the sequence of the +adventure, his bewilderment deepened. +</p> + +<p> +The girl stirred restlessly. “I have been thinking,” she volunteered in a +troubled tone, “that there is absolutely no way I know of, to thank you +properly.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough if I’ve been useful,” he rose in gallantry to the emergency. +</p> + +<p> +“That,” she commented, “was very prettily said. But then I have never known any +one more kind and courteous and—and considerate, than you.” There was no savor +of flattery in the simple and direct statement; indeed, she was looking away +from him, out of the window, and her face was serious with thought; she seemed +to be speaking of, rather than to, Kirkwood. “And I have been wondering,” she +continued with unaffected candor, “what you must be thinking of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I? ... What should I think of you, Miss Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +With the air of a weary child she laid her head against the cushions again, +face to him, and watched him through lowered lashes, unsmiling. +</p> + +<p> +“You might be thinking that an explanation is due you. Even the way we were +brought together was extraordinary, Mr. Kirkwood. You must be very generous, as +generous as you have shown yourself brave, not to require some sort of an +explanation of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see it that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do ... You have made me like you very much, Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +He shot her a covert glance—causelessly, for her <i>naiveté</i> was flawless. +With a feeling of some slight awe he understood this—a sensation of sincere +reverence for the unspoiled, candid, child’s heart and mind that were hers. +“I’m glad,” he said simply; “very glad, if that’s the case, and presupposing I +deserve it. Personally,” he laughed, “I seem to myself to have been rather +forward.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; only kind and a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—please!” he protested. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I mean it, every word! Why shouldn’t I? In a little while, ten +minutes, half an hour, we shall have seen the last of each other. Why should I +not tell you how I appreciate all that you have unselfishly done for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you put it that way,—I’m sure I don’t know; beyond that it embarrasses me +horribly to have you overestimate me so. If any courage has been shown this +night, it is yours ... But I’m forgetting again.” He thought to divert her. +“Where shall I tell the cabby to go this time, Miss Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +“Craven Street, please,” said the girl, and added a house number. “I am to meet +my father there, with this,”—indicating the gladstone bag. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood thrust head and shoulders out the window and instructed the cabby +accordingly; but his ruse had been ineffectual, as he found when he sat back +again. Quite composedly the girl took up the thread of conversation where it +had been broken off. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather hard to keep silence, when you’ve been so good. I don’t want you +to think me less generous than yourself, but, truly, I can tell you nothing.” +She sighed a trace resentfully; or so he thought. “There is little enough in +this—this wretched affair, that I understand myself; and that little, I may not +tell ... I want you to know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand, Miss Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one thing I may say, however. I have done nothing wrong to-night, I +believe,” she added quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never for an instant questioned that,” he returned with a qualm of shame; +for what he said was not true. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you ...” +</p> + +<p> +The four-wheeler swung out of Oxford Street into Charing Cross Road. Kirkwood +noted the fact with a feeling of some relief that their ride was to be so +short; like many of his fellow-sufferers from “the artistic temperament,” he +was acutely disconcerted by spoken words of praise and gratitude; Miss +Calendar, unintentionally enough, had succeeded only in rendering him +self-conscious and ill at ease. +</p> + +<p> +Nor had she fully relieved her mind, nor voiced all that perturbed her. +“There’s one thing more,” she said presently: “my father. I—I hope you will +think charitably of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I’ve no reason or right to think otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid—afraid his actions might have seemed peculiar, to-night ...” +</p> + +<p> +“There are lots of things I don’t understand, Miss Calendar. Some day, perhaps, +it will all clear up,—this trouble of yours. At least, one supposes it is +trouble, of some sort. And then you will tell me the whole story.... Won’t +you?” Kirkwood insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid not,” she said, with a smile of shadowed sadness. “We are to say +good night in a moment or two, and—it will be good-by as well. It’s unlikely +that we shall ever meet again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I refuse positively to take such a gloomy view of the case!” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, laughing with him, but with shy regret. “It’s so, none the +less. We are leaving London this very night, my father and I—leaving England, +for that matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leaving England?” he echoed. “You’re not by any chance bound for America, are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ... can’t tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you can tell me this: are you booked on the <i>Minneapolis</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—o; it is a—quite another boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course!” he commented savagely. “It wouldn’t be me to have <i>any</i> sort +of luck!” +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply beyond a low laugh. He stared gloomily out of his window, +noting indifferently that they were passing the National Gallery. On their left +Trafalgar Square stretched, broad and bare, a wilderness of sooty stone with an +air of mutely tolerating its incongruous fountains. Through Charing Cross +roared a tide-rip of motor-busses and hackney carriages. +</p> + +<p> +Glumly the young man foresaw the passing of his abbreviated romance; their +destination was near at hand. Brentwick had been right, to some extent, at +least; it was quite true that the curtain had been rung up that very night, +upon Kirkwood’s Romance; unhappily, as Brentwick had not foreseen, it was +immediately to be rung down. +</p> + +<p> +The cab rolled soberly into the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +“Since we are to say good-by so very soon,” suggested Kirkwood, “may I ask a +parting favor, Miss Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +She regarded him with friendly eyes. “You have every right,” she affirmed +gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Then please to tell me frankly: are you going into any further danger?” +</p> + +<p> +“And is that the only boon you crave at my hands, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Without impertinence ...” +</p> + +<p> +For a little time, waiting for him to conclude his vague phrase, she watched +him in an expectant silence. But the man was diffident to a degree—At length, +somewhat unconsciously, “I think not,” she answered. “No; there will be no +danger awaiting me at Mrs. Hallam’s. You need not fear for me any more—Thank +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his brows at the unfamiliar name. “Mrs. Hallam—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to her house in Craven Street.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father is to meet you there?”—persistently. +</p> + +<p> +“He promised to.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if he shouldn’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—” Her eyes clouded; she pursed her lips over the conjectural annoyance. +“Why, in that event, I suppose—It would be very embarrassing. You see, I don’t +know Mrs. Hallam; I don’t know that she expects me, unless my father is already +there. They are old friends—I could drive round for a while and come back, I +suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +But she made it plain that the prospect did not please her. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you let me ask if Mr. Calender is there, before you get out, then? I +don’t like to be dismissed,” he laughed; “and, you know, you shouldn’t go +wandering round all alone.” +</p> + +<p> +The cab drew up. Kirkwood put a hand on the door and awaited her will. +</p> + +<p> +“It—it would be very kind ... I hate to impose upon you.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned the knob and got out. “If you’ll wait one moment,” he said +superfluously, as he closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +Pausing only to verify the number, he sprang up the steps and found the +bell-button. +</p> + +<p> +It was a modest little residence, in nothing more remarkable than its +neighbors, unless it was for a certain air of extra grooming: the area railing +was sleek with fresh black paint; the doorstep looked the better for vigorous +stoning; the door itself was immaculate, its brasses shining lustrous against +red-lacquered woodwork. A soft glow filled the fanlight. Overhead the +drawing-room windows shone with a cozy, warm radiance. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, framing the figure of a maid sketched broadly in masses of +somber black and dead white. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you tell me, is Mr. Calendar here?” +</p> + +<p> +The servant’s eyes left his face, looked past him at the waiting cab, and +returned. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure, sir. If you will please step in.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood hesitated briefly, then acceded. The maid closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +“What name shall I say, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will please to wait one moment, sir—” +</p> + +<p> +He was left in the entry hall, the servant hurrying to the staircase and up. +Three minutes elapsed; he was on the point of returning to the girl, when the +maid reappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam says, will you kindly step up-stairs, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Disgruntled, he followed her; at the head of the stairs she bowed him into the +drawing-room and again left him to his own resources. +</p> + +<p> +Nervous, annoyed, he paced the floor from wall to wall, his footfalls silenced +by heavy rugs. As the delay was prolonged he began to fume with impatience, +wondering, half regretting that he had left the girl outside, definitely sorry +that he had failed to name his errand more explicitly to the maid. At another +time, in another mood, he might have accorded more appreciation to the charm of +the apartment, which, betraying the feminine touch in every detail of +arrangement and furnishing, was very handsome in an unconventional way. But he +was quite heedless of externals. +</p> + +<p> +Wearied, he deposited himself sulkily in an armchair by the hearth. +</p> + +<p> +From a boudoir on the same floor there came murmurs of two voices, a man’s and +a woman’s. The latter laughed prettily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, any time!” snorted the American. “Any time you’re through with your +confounded flirtation, Mr. George B. Calendar!” +</p> + +<p> +The voices rose, approaching. “Good night,” said the woman gaily; “farewell +and—good luck go with you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. Good night,” replied the man more conservatively. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood rose, expectant. +</p> + +<p> +There was a swish of draperies, and a moment later he was acknowledging the +totally unlooked-for entrance of the mistress of the house. He had thought to +see Calendar, presuming him to be the man closeted with Mrs. Hallam; but, +whoever that had been, he did not accompany the woman. Indeed, as she advanced +from the doorway, Kirkwood could hear the man’s footsteps on the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Mr. Kirkwood?” The note of inquiry in the well-trained voice—a very +alluring voice and one pleasant to listen to, he thought—made it seem as though +she had asked, point-blank, “Who is Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed, discovering himself in the presence of an extraordinarily handsome +and interesting woman; a woman of years which as yet had not told upon her, of +experience that had not availed to harden her, at least in so far as her +exterior charm of personality was involved; a woman, in brief, who bore close +inspection well, despite an elusive effect of maturity, not without its +attraction for men. Kirkwood was impressed that it would be very easy to learn +to like Mrs. Hallam more than well—with her approval. +</p> + +<p> +Although he had not anticipated it, he was not at all surprised to recognize in +her the woman who, if he were not mistaken, had slipped to Calendar that +warning in the dining-room of the Pless. Kirkwood’s state of mind had come to +be such, through his experiences of the past few hours, that he would have +accepted anything, however preposterous, as a commonplace happening. But for +that matter there was nothing particularly astonishing in this +<i>rencontre</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Mrs. Hallam. You were asking for Mr. Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was to have been here at this hour, I believe,” said Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” There was just the right inflection of surprise in her carefully +controlled tone. +</p> + +<p> +He became aware of an undercurrent of feeling; that the woman was estimating +him shrewdly with her fine direct eyes. He returned her regard with admiring +interest; they were gray-green eyes, deep-set but large, a little shallow, a +little changeable, calling to mind the sea on a windy, cloudy day. +</p> + +<p> +Below stairs a door slammed. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a detective, Mrs. Hallam,” announced the young man suddenly. “Mr. +Calendar required a service of me this evening; I am here in natural +consequence. If it was Mr. Calendar who left this house just now, I am wasting +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not Mr. Calendar.” The fine-lined brows arched in surprise, real or +pretended, at his first blurted words, and relaxed; amused, the woman laughed +deliciously. “But I am expecting him any moment; he was to have been here half +an hour since.... Won’t you wait?” +</p> + +<p> +She indicated, with a gracious gesture, a chair, and took for herself one end +of a davenport. “I’m sure he won’t be long, now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, I will return, if I may.” Kirkwood moved toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s no necessity—” She seemed insistent on detaining him, possibly +because she questioned his motive, possibly for her own divertisement. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood deprecated his refusal with a smile. “The truth is, Miss Calendar is +waiting in a cab, outside. I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy Calendar!” Mrs. Hallam rose alertly. “But why should she wait there? +To be sure, we’ve never met; but I have known her father for many years.” Her +eyes held steadfast to his face; shallow, flawed by her every thought, like the +sea by a cat’s-paw he found them altogether inscrutable; yet received an +impression that their owner was now unable to account for him. +</p> + +<p> +She swung about quickly, preceding him to the door and down the stairs. “I am +sure Dorothy will come in to wait, if I ask her,” she told Kirkwood in a high +sweet voice. “I’m so anxious to know her. It’s quite absurd, really, of her—to +stand on ceremony with me, when her father made an appointment here. I’ll run +out and ask—” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hallam’s slim white fingers turned latch and knob, opening the street +door, and her voice died away as she stepped out into the night. For a moment, +to Kirkwood, tagging after her with an uncomfortable sense of having somehow +done the wrong thing, her figure—full fair shoulders and arms rising out of the +glittering dinner gown—cut a gorgeous silhouette against the darkness. Then, +with a sudden, imperative gesture, she half turned towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” she exclaimed, perplexed, gazing to right and left, “but the cab, Mr. +Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +He was on the stoop a second later. Standing beside her, he stared blankly. +</p> + +<p> +To the left the Strand roared, the stream of its night-life in high spate; on +the right lay the Embankment, comparatively silent and deserted, if brilliant +with its high-swung lights. Between the two, quiet Craven Street ran, short and +narrow, and wholly innocent of any form of equipage. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI<br/> +“BELOW BRIDGE”</h2> + +<p> +In silence Mrs. Hallam turned to Kirkwood, her pose in itself a question and a +peremptory one. Her eyes had narrowed; between their lashes the green showed, a +thin edge like jade, cold and calculating. The firm lines of her mouth and chin +had hardened. +</p> + +<p> +Temporarily dumb with consternation, he returned her stare as silently. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Well</i>, Mr.—Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam,” he stammered, “I—” +</p> + +<p> +She lifted her shoulders impatiently and with a quick movement stepped back +across 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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awaiting your explanation,” she said coldly. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus02"></a> +<img src="images/img02.jpg" width="391" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“I’m awaiting your explanation,” she said coldly.</p> +</div> + +<p> +He grinned with nervousness, striving to penetrate the mental processes of this +handsome Mrs. Hallam. She seemed to regard him with a suspicion which he +thought inexcusable. Did she suppose he had spirited Dorothy Calendar away and +then called to apprise her of the fact? Or that he was some sort of an +adventurer, who had manufactured a plausible yarn to gain him access to her +home? Or—harking back to her original theory—that he was an emissary from +Scotland Yard? ... Probably she distrusted him on the latter hypothesis. The +reflection left him more at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite as mystified as you, Mrs. Hallam,” he began. “Miss Calendar was +here, at this door, in a four-wheeler, not ten minutes ago, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then where is she now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me where Calendar is,” he retorted, inspired, “and I’ll try to answer +you!” +</p> + +<p> +But her eyes were blank. “You mean—?” +</p> + +<p> +“That Calendar was in this house when I came; that he left, found his daughter +in the cab, and drove off with her. It’s clear enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are quite mistaken,” she said thoughtfully. “George Calendar has not been +here this night.” +</p> + +<p> +He wondered that she did not seem to resent his imputation. “I think not—” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen!” she cried, raising a warning hand; and relaxing her vigilant +attitude, moved forward once more, to peer down toward the Embankment. +</p> + +<p> +A cab had cut in from that direction and was bearing down upon them with a +brisk rumble of hoofs. As it approached, Kirkwood’s heart, that had lightened, +was weighed upon again by disappointment. It was no four-wheeler, but a hansom, +and the open wings of the apron, disclosing a white triangle of linen +surmounted by a glowing spot of fire, betrayed the sex of the fare too plainly +to allow of further hope that it might be the girl returning. +</p> + +<p> +At the door, the cab pulled up sharply and a man tumbled hastily out upon the +sidewalk. +</p> + +<p> +“Here!” he cried throatily, tossing the cabby his fare, and turned toward the +pair upon the doorstep, evidently surmising that something was amiss. For he +was Calendar in proper person, and a sight to upset in a twinkling Kirkwood’s +ingeniously builded castle of suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam!” he cried, out of breath. “’S my daughter here?” And then, +catching sight of Kirkwood’s countenance: “Why, hello, Kirkwood!” he saluted +him with a dubious air. +</p> + +<p> +The woman interrupted hastily. “Please come in, Mr. Calendar. This gentleman +has been inquiring for you, with an astonishing tale about your daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy!” Calendar’s moon-like visage was momentarily divested of any trace of +color. “What of her?” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better come in,” advised Mrs. Hallam brusquely. +</p> + +<p> +The fat adventurer hopped hurriedly across the threshold, Kirkwood following. +The woman shut the door, and turned with back to it, nodding significantly at +Kirkwood as her eyes met Calendar’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well?” snapped the latter impatiently, turning to the young man. +</p> + +<p> +But Kirkwood was thinking quickly. For the present he contented himself with a +deliberate statement of fact: “Miss Calendar has disappeared.” It gave him an +instant’s time ... “There’s something damned fishy!” he told himself. “These +two are playing at cross-purposes. Calendar’s no fool; he’s evidently a crook, +to boot. As for the woman, she’s had her eyes open for a number of years. The +main thing’s Dorothy. She didn’t vanish of her own initiative. And Mrs. Hallam +knows, or suspects, more than she’s going to tell. I don’t think she wants +Dorothy found. Calendar does. So do I. Ergo: I’m for Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Disappeared?” Calendar was barking at him. “How? When? Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Within ten minutes,” said Kirkwood. “Here, let’s get it straight.... With her +permission I brought her here in a four-wheeler.” He was carefully suppressing +all mention of Frognall Street, and in Calendar’s glance read approval 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 the cab—and by the way, I +hadn’t paid the driver. That’s funny, too! Perhaps six or seven minutes after I +came in Mrs. Hallam found out that Miss Calendar was with me and wanted to ask +her in. When we got to the door—no cab. There you have it all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks—it’s plenty,” said Calendar dryly. He bent his head in thought for an +instant, then looked up and fixed Mrs. Hallam with an unprejudiced eye, “I +say!” he demanded explosively. “There wasn’t any one here that knew—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Her fine eyes wavered and fell before his; and Kirkwood remarked that her under +lip was curiously drawn in. +</p> + +<p> +“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 the time—it +seems to me I did hear a cab in the street—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow?” interjected Calendar, eying the woman steadfastly and employing an +exclamation of combined illumination and inquiry more typically British than +anything Kirkwood had yet heard from the man. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me who it was,” he demanded in an ugly tone. +</p> + +<p> +She freed herself with a twist, and stepped back, a higher color in her cheeks, +a flash of anger in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mulready,” she retorted defiantly. “What of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 that +blackguard.... There! The mischief’s done; we won’t row over it. One moment.” +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,” he muttered. “Perhaps +we can make it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” asked the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Give <i>Mister</i> Mulready a run for his money. Come along, Kirkwood; we +haven’t a minute. Mrs. Hallam, permit us....” She stepped aside and he brushed +past her to the door. “Come, Kirkwood!” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to take Kirkwood’s company for granted; and the young man was not +inclined to argue the point. Meekly enough he fell in with Calendar on the +sidewalk. Mrs. Hallam followed them out. “You won’t forget?” she called +tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll ’phone you if we find out anything.” Calendar jerked the words +unceremoniously over his shoulder as, linking arms with Kirkwood, he drew him +swiftly along. They heard her shut the door; instantly Calendar stopped. “Look +here, did Dorothy have a—a small parcel with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She had a gladstone bag.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the devil, the devil!” Calendar started on again, muttering distractedly. +As they reached the corner he disengaged his arm. “We’ve a minute and a half to +reach Charing Cross Pier; and I think it’s the last boat. You set the pace, +will you? But remember I’m an oldish man and—and fat.” +</p> + +<p> +They began to run, the one easily, the other lumbering after like an +old-fashioned square-rigged ship paced by a liner. +</p> + +<p> +Beneath the railway bridge, in front of the Underground station, the cab-rank +cried them on with sardonic view-halloos; and a bobby remarked them with +suspicion, turning to watch as they plunged round the corner and across the +wide Embankment. +</p> + +<p> +The Thames appeared before them, a river of ink on whose burnished surface +lights swam in long winding streaks and oily blobs. By the floating pier a +County Council steamboat strained its hawsers, snoring huskily. Bells were +jingling in her engine-room as the two gained the head of the sloping gangway. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood slapped a shilling down on the ticket-window ledge. “Where to?” he +cried back to Calendar. +</p> + +<p> +“Cherry Gardens Pier,” rasped the winded man. He stumbled after Kirkwood, +groaning with exhaustion. Only the tolerance of the pier employees gained them +their end; the steamer was held some seconds for them; as Calendar staggered 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 the pier beneath Waterloo +Bridge. +</p> + +<p> +The deck was crowded and additional passengers embarked at every stop. In the +circumstances conversation, save on the most impersonal topics, was impossible; +and even had it been necessary or advisable to discuss the affair which +occupied their minds, where so many ears could hear, Calendar had breath enough +neither to answer nor to catechize Kirkwood. They found seats on the forward +deck and rested there in grim silence, both fretting under the enforced +restraint, while the boat darted, like some illuminated and exceptionally +active water insect, from pier to pier. +</p> + +<p> +As it snorted beneath London Bridge, Calendar’s impatience drove him from his +seat back to the gangway. “Next stop,” he told Kirkwood curtly; and rested 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 Cherry Gardens landing. +</p> + +<p> +Sweet name for a locality unsavory beyond credence! ... As they emerged on the +street level and turned west on Bermondsey Wall, Kirkwood was fain to tug his +top-coat over his chest and button it tight, to hide his linen. In a guarded +tone he counseled his companion to do likewise; and Calendar, after a moment’s +blank, uncomprehending stare, acknowledged the wisdom of the advice with a +grunt. +</p> + +<p> +The very air they breathed was rank with fetid odors bred of the gaunt dark +warehouses that lined their way; the lights were few; beneath the looming +buildings the shadows were many and dense. Here and there dreary and cheerless +public houses appeared, with lighted windows conspicuous in a lightless waste. +From time to time, as they hurried on, they encountered, and made wide detours +to escape contact with knots of wayfarers—men debased and begrimed, with dreary +and slatternly women, arm in arm, zigzaging widely across the sidewalks, +chorusing with sodden voices the burden of some popularized ballad. The +cheapened, sentimental refrains echoed sadly between benighted walls.... +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood shuddered, sticking close to Calendar’s side. Life’s naked brutalities +had theretofore been largely out of his ken. He had heard of slums, had even +ventured to mouth politely moral platitudes on the subject of overcrowding in +great centers of population, but in the darkest flights of imagination had +never pictured to himself anything so unspeakably foul and hopeless as this.... +And they were come hither seeking—Dorothy Calendar! He was unable to conceive +what manner of villainy could be directed against her, that she must be looked +for in such surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +After some ten minutes’ steady walking, Calendar turned aside with a muttered +word, and dived down a covered, dark and evil-smelling passageway that seemed +to lead toward the river. +</p> + +<p> +Mastering his involuntary qualms, Kirkwood followed. +</p> + +<p> +Some ten or twelve paces from its entrance the passageway swerved at a right +angle, continuing three yards or so to end in a blank wall, wherefrom a +flickering, inadequate gas-lamp jutted. At this point a stone platform, perhaps +four feet square, was discovered, from the edge of which a flight of worn and +slimy stone steps led down to a permanent boat-landing, where another gas-light +flared gustily despite the protection of its frame of begrimed glass. +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord!” exclaimed the young man. “What, in Heaven’s name, Calendar—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bermondsey Old Stairs. Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +They descended to the landing-stage. Beneath them the Pool slept, a sheet of +polished ebony, whispering to itself, lapping with small stealthy gurgles +angles of masonry and ancient piles. On the farther bank tall warehouses reared +square old-time heads, their uncompromising, rugged profile relieved here and +there by tapering mastheads. A few, scattering, feeble lights were visible. +Nothing moved save the river and the wind. +</p> + +<p> +The landing itself they found quite deserted; something which the adventurer +comprehended with a nod which, like its accompanying, inarticulate ejaculation, +might have been taken to indicate either satisfaction or disgust. He ignored +Kirkwood altogether, for the time being, and presently produced a small, bright +object, which, applied to his lips, proved to be a boatswain’s whistle. He +sounded two blasts, one long, one brief. +</p> + +<p> +There fell a lull, Kirkwood watching the other and wondering what next would +happen. Calendar paced restlessly to and fro upon the narrow landing, now +stopping to incline an ear to catch some anticipated sound, now searching with +sweeping glances the black reaches of the Pool. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, consulting his watch, “Almost ten,” he announced. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re in time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say.... Damn! ... If that infernal boat would only show up—” +</p> + +<p> +He was lifting the whistle to sound a second summons when a rowboat rounded a +projecting angle formed by the next warehouse down stream, and with clanking +oar-locks swung in toward the landing. On her thwarts two figures, dipping and +rising, labored with the sweeps. As they drew in, the man forward shipped his +blades, and rising, scrambled to the bows in order to grasp an iron +mooring-ring set in the wall. The other awkwardly took in his oars and, as the +current swung the stern downstream, placed a hand palm downward upon the bottom +step to hold the boat steady. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar waddled to the brink of the stage, grunting with relief. +</p> + +<p> +“The other man?” he asked brusquely. “Has he gone aboard? Or is this the first +trip to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +One of the watermen nodded assent to the latter question, adding gruffly: “Seen +nawthin’ of ’im, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said Calendar, as if he doubted whether it were very good or bad. +“We’ll wait a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right-o!” agreed the waterman civilly. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar turned back, his small eyes glimmering with satisfaction. Fumbling in +one coat pocket he brought to light a cigar-case. “Have a smoke?” he suggested +with a show of friendliness. “By Heaven, I was beginnin’ to get worried!” +</p> + +<p> +“As to what?” inquired Kirkwood pointedly, selecting a cigar. +</p> + +<p> +He got no immediate reply, but felt Calendar’s sharp eyes upon him while he +manoeuvered with matches for a light. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s so,” it came at length. “You don’t know. I kind of forgot for a minute; +somehow you seemed on the inside.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood laughed lightly. “I’ve experienced something of the same sensation in +the past few hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t doubt it.” Calendar was watching him narrowly. “I suppose,” he put it to +him abruptly, “you haven’t changed your mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“Changed my mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“About coming in with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir, I can have no mind to change until a plain proposition is laid +before me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hmm!” Calendar puffed vigorously until it occurred to him to change the +subject. “You won’t mind telling me what happened to you and Dorothy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not.” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar drew nearer and Kirkwood, lowering his voice, narrated briefly the +events since he had left the Pless in Dorothy’s company. +</p> + +<p> +Her father followed him intently, interrupting now and again with exclamation +or pertinent question; as, Had Kirkwood been able to see the face of the man in +No. 9, Frognall Street? The negative answer seemed to disconcert him. +</p> + +<p> +“Youngster, you say? Blam’ if I can lay my mind to <i>him</i>! Now if that +Mulready—” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have been impossible for Mulready—whoever he is—to recover and get to +Craven Street before we did,” Kirkwood pointed out. +</p> + +<p> +“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 had sense +enough to see he’d take the first chance to hand me the double-cross. Well, +this does for <i>him</i>, all right!” Calendar lowered viciously at the river. +“You’ve been blame’ useful,” he told Kirkwood assertively. “If it hadn’t been +for you, I don’t know where <i>I’d</i> be now,—nor Dorothy, either,”—an obvious +afterthought. “There’s no particular way I can show my appreciation, I suppose? +Money—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got enough to last me till I reach New York, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if the time ever comes, just shout for George B. I won’t be wanting.... +I only wish you were with us; but that’s out of the question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless ...” +</p> + +<p> +“No two ways about it. I bet anything you’ve got a conscience concealed about +your person. What? You’re an honest man, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to sound immodest,” returned Kirkwood, amused. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t need to worry about that.... But an honest man’s got no business in +<i>my</i> line.” He glanced again at his watch. “Damn that Mulready! I wonder +if he was ’cute enough to take another way? Or did he think ... The fool!” +</p> + +<p> +He cut off abruptly, seeming depressed by the thought that he might have been +outwitted; and, clasping hands behind his back, chewed savagely on his cigar, +watching the river. Kirkwood found himself somewhat wearied; the uselessness of +his presence there struck him with added force. He bethought him of his +boat-train, scheduled to leave a station miles distant, in an hour 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 the rest of his circle +of acquaintances on the other side of the Channel. Yet he lingered, in poor +company, daring fate that he might see the end of the affair. Why? +</p> + +<p> +There was only one honest answer to that question. He stayed on because of his +interest in a girl whom he had known for a matter of three hours, at most. It +was insensate folly on his part, ridiculous from any point of view. But he made +no move to go. +</p> + +<p> +The slow minutes lengthened monotonously. +</p> + +<p> +There came a sound from the street level. Calendar held up a hand of warning. +“Here they come! Steady!” he said tensely. Kirkwood, listening intently, +interpreted the noise as a clash of hoofs upon cobbles. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar turned to the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Sheer off,” he ordered. “Drop out of sight. I’ll whistle when I want you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, aye, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The boat slipped noiselessly away with the current and in an instant was lost +to sight. Calendar plucked at Kirkwood’s sleeve, drawing him into the shadow of +the steps. “E-easy,” he whispered; “and, I say, lend me a hand, will you, if +Mulready turns ugly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” assented Kirkwood, with a nonchalance not entirely unassumed. +</p> + +<p> +The racket drew nearer and ceased; the hush that fell thereafter seemed only +accentuated by the purling of the river. It was ended by footsteps echoing in +the covered passageway. Calendar craned his thick neck round the shoulder of +stone, reconnoitering the landing and stairway. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” he said under his breath. “I was right, after all!” +</p> + +<p> +A man’s deep tones broke out above. “This way. Mind the steps; they’re a bit +slippery, Miss Dorothy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my father—?” came the girl’s voice, attuned to doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’ll be along—if he isn’t waiting now, in the boat.” +</p> + +<p> +They descended, the man leading. At the foot, without a glance to right or +left, he advanced to the edge of the stage, leaning out over the rail as if +endeavoring to locate the rowboat. At once the girl appeared, moving to his +side. +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mr. Mulready—” +</p> + +<p> +The girl’s words were drowned by a prolonged blast on the boatswain’s whistle +at her companion’s lips; the shorter one followed in due course. Calendar edged +forward from Kirkwood’s side. +</p> + +<p> +“But what shall we do if my father isn’t here? Wait?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; best not to; best to get on the <i>Alethea</i> as soon as possible, Miss +Calendar. We can send the boat back.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Once aboard the lugger the girl is mine’—eh, Mulready?—to say nothing of the +loot!” +</p> + +<p> +If Calendar’s words were jocular, his tone conveyed a different impression +entirely. Both man and girl wheeled right about to face him, the one with a +strangled oath, the other with a low cry. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil!” exclaimed this Mr. Mulready. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! My father!” the girl voiced her recognition of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Not precisely one and the same person,” commented Calendar suavely. +“But—er—thanks, just as much.... You see, Mulready, when I make an appointment, +I keep it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d begun to get a bit anxious about you—” Mulready began defensively. +</p> + +<p> +“So I surmised, from what Mrs. Hallam and Mr. Kirkwood told me.... Well?” +</p> + +<p> +The man found no ready answer. He fell back a pace to the railing, his features +working with his deep chagrin. The murky flare of the gas-lamp overhead fell +across a face handsome beyond the ordinary but marred by a sullen humor and +seamed with indulgence: a face that seemed hauntingly familiar until Kirkwood +in a flash of visual memory reconstructed the portrait of a man who lingered +over a dining-table, with two empty chairs for company. This, then, was he whom +Mrs. Hallam had left at the Pless; a tall, strong man, very heavy about the +chest and shoulders.... +</p> + +<p> +“Why, my dear friend,” Calendar was taunting him, “you don’t seem overjoyed to +see me, for all your wild anxiety! ’Pon my word, you act as if you hadn’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 a moment I’d let +myself be nabbed by that yap from Scotland Yard? Were you banking 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?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl withdrew a puzzled gaze from Mulready’s face, (it was apparent to +Kirkwood that this phase of the affair was no more enigmatic to him than to +her), and drew aside a corner of her cloak, disclosing the gladstone bag, +securely grasped in one gloved hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I have it, thanks to Mr. Kirkwood,” she said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood chose that moment to advance from the shadow. Mulready started and +fixed him with a troubled and unfriendly stare. The girl greeted him with a +note of sincere pleasure in her surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Kirkwood! ... But I left you at Mrs. Hallam’s!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood bowed, smiling openly at Mulready’s discomfiture. +</p> + +<p> +“By your father’s grace, I came with him,” he said. “You ran away without +saying good night, you know, and I’m a jealous creditor.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed excitedly, turning to Calendar. “But <i>you</i> were to meet me at +Mrs. Hallam’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mulready was good enough to try to save me the trouble, my dear. He’s an +unselfish soul, Mulready. Fortunately it happened that I came along not five +minutes after he’d carried you off. How was that, Dorothy?” +</p> + +<p> +Her glance wavered uneasily between the two, Mulready and her father. The +former, shrugging to declare his indifference, turned his back squarely upon +them. She frowned. +</p> + +<p> +“He came out of Mrs. Hallam’s and got into the four-wheeler, saying you had +sent him to take your place, and would join us on the <i>Alethea</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“So-o! How about it, Mulready?” +</p> + +<p> +The man swung back slowly. “What you choose to think,” he said after a +deliberate pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, never mind! We’ll go over the matter at our leisure on the +<i>Alethea</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +There was in the adventurer’s tone a menace, bitter and not to be ignored; +which Mulready saw fit to challenge. +</p> + +<p> +“I think not,” he declared; “I think not. I’m weary of your addle-pated +suspicions. It’d be plain to any one but a fool that I acted for the best +interests of all concerned in this matter. If you’re not content to see it in +that light, I’m done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if you want to put it that way, I’m <i>not</i> content, Mr. Mulready,” +retorted Calendar dangerously. +</p> + +<p> +“Please yourself. I bid you good evening and—good-by.” The man took a step +toward the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar dropped his right hand into his top-coat pocket. “Just a minute,” he +said sweetly, and Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurer’s smoldering +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 temporize with you till +Doomsday? Then forget it. You’re wrong, dead wrong. Your bluff’s called, +and”—with an evil chuckle—“I hold a full house, Mulready,—every chamber taken.” +He lifted meaningly the hand in the coat pocket. “Now, in with you.” +</p> + +<p> +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 at the stage a +moment earlier. Mulready dropped into it and threw himself sullenly upon the +midships thwart. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Dorothy, in you go, my dear,” continued Calendar, with a self-satisfied +wag of his head. +</p> + +<p> +Half dazed, to all seeming, she moved toward the boat. With clumsy and +assertive gallantry her father stepped before her, offering his hand,—his hand +which she did not touch; for, in the act of descending, she remembered and +swung impulsively back to Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Good night, Mr. Kirkwood; good night,—I shan’t forget.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand and bowed above it; but when his head was lifted, he still +retained her fingers in a lingering clasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Good night,” he said reluctantly. +</p> + +<p> +The crass incongruity of her in that setting smote him with renewed force. +Young, beautiful, dainty, brilliant and graceful in her pretty evening gown, +she figured strangely against the gloomy background of the river, in those dull +and mean surroundings of dank stone and rusted iron. She was like (he thought +extravagantly) a whiff of flower-fragrance lost in the miasmatic vapors of a +slough. +</p> + +<p> +The innocent appeal and allure of her face, upturned to his beneath the +gas-light, wrought compassionately upon his sensitive and generous heart. He +was aware of a little surge of blind rage against the conditions that had +brought her to that spot, and against those whom he held responsible for those +conditions. +</p> + +<p> +In a sudden flush of daring he turned and nodded coolly to Calendar. “With your +permission,” he said negligently; and drew the girl aside to the angle of the +stairway. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar—” he began; but was interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Here—I say!” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar had started toward him angrily. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood calmly waved him back. “I want a word in private with your daughter, +Mr. Calendar,” he announced with quiet dignity. “I don’t think you’ll deny me? +I’ve saved you some slight trouble to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Disgruntled, the adventurer paused. “Oh—<i>all</i> right,” he grumbled. “I +don’t see what ...” He returned to the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me, Miss Calendar,” continued Kirkwood nervously. “I know I’ve no +right to interfere, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“—but hasn’t this gone far enough?” he floundered unhappily. “I can’t like the +look of things. Are you sure—sure that it’s all right—with you, I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer at once; but her eyes were kind and sympathetic. He plucked +heart of their tolerance. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t too late, yet,” he argued. “Let me take you to your friends,—you must +have friends in the city. But this—this midnight flight down the Thames, this +atmosphere of stealth and suspicion, this—” +</p> + +<p> +“But my place is with my father, Mr. Kirkwood,” she interposed. “I daren’t +doubt him—dare I?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ... suppose not.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I must go with him.... I’m glad—thank you for caring, dear Mr. Kirkwood. +And again, good night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good luck attend you,” he muttered, following her to the boat. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar helped her in and turned back to Kirkwood with a look of arch triumph; +Kirkwood wondered if he had overheard. Whether or no, he could afford to be +magnanimous. Seizing Kirkwood’s hand, he pumped it vigorously. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear boy, you’ve been an angel in disguise! And I guess you think me the +devil in masquerade.” He chuckled, in high conceit with himself over the turn +of affairs. “Good night and—and fare thee well!” He dropped into the boat, +seating himself to face the recalcitrant Mulready. “Cast off, there!” +</p> + +<p> +The boat dropped away, the oars lifting and falling. With a weariful sense of +loneliness and disappointment, Kirkwood hung over the rail to watch them out of +sight. +</p> + +<p> +A dozen feet of water lay between the stage and the boat. The girl’s dress +remained a spot of cheerful color; her face was a blur. As the watermen swung +the bows down-stream, she looked back, lifting an arm spectral in its white +sheath. Kirkwood raised his hat. +</p> + +<p> +The boat gathered impetus, momentarily diminishing in the night’s illusory +perspective; presently it was little more than a fugitive blot, gliding swiftly +in midstream. And then, it was gone entirely, engulfed by the obliterating +darkness. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus03"></a> +<img src="images/img03.jpg" width="366" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">The boat gathered impetus.</p> +</div> + +<p> +Somewhat wearily the young man released the railing and ascended the stairs. +“And that is the end!” he told himself, struggling with an acute sense of +personal injury. He had been hardly used. For a few hours his life had been +lightened by the ineffable glamor of Romance; mystery and adventure had engaged +him, exorcising for the time the Shade of Care; he had served a fair woman and +been associated with men whose ways, however questionable, were the ways of +courage, hedged thickly about with perils. +</p> + +<p> +All that was at an end. Prosaic and workaday to-morrows confronted him in +endless and dreary perspective; and he felt again upon his shoulder the bony +hand of his familiar, Care.... +</p> + +<p> +He sighed: “Ah, well!” +</p> + +<p> +Disconsolate and aggrieved, he gained the street. He was miles from St. +Pancras, foot-weary, to all intents and purposes lost. +</p> + +<p> +In this extremity, Chance smiled upon him. The cabby who, at his initial +instance, had traveled this weary way from Quadrant Mews, after the manner of +his kind, ere turning back, had sought surcease of fatigue at the nearest +public; from afar Kirkwood saw the four-wheeler at the curb, and made all haste +toward it. +</p> + +<p> +Entering the gin-mill he found the cabby, soothed him with bitter, and, +instructing him for St. Pancras with all speed, dropped, limp and listless with +fatigue, into the conveyance. +</p> + +<p> +As it moved, he closed his eyes; the face of Dorothy Calendar shone out from +the blank wall of his consciousness, like an illuminated picture cast upon a +screen. She smiled upon him, her head high, her eyes tender and trustful. And +he thought that her scarlet lips were sweet with promise and her glance a-brim +with such a light as he had never dreamed to know. +</p> + +<p> +And now that he knew it and desired it, it was too late; an hour gone he might, +by a nod of his head, have cast his fortunes with hers for weal or woe. But now +... Alas and alackaday, that Romance was no more! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII<br/> +DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN,—RESUMED</h2> + +<p> +From the commanding elevation of the box, “Three ’n’ six,” enunciated the +cabby, his tone that of a man prepared for trouble, acquainted with trouble, +inclined to give trouble a welcome. His bloodshot eyes blinked truculently at +his alighted fare. “Three ’n’ six,” he iterated aggressively. +</p> + +<p> +An adjacent but theretofore abstracted policeman pricked up his ears and +assumed an intelligent expression. +</p> + +<p> +“Bermondsey Ol’ Stairs to Sain’ Pancras,” argued the cabby assertively; “seven +mile by th’ radius; three ’n’ six!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood stood on the outer station platform, near the entrance to third-class +waiting-rooms. Continuing to fumble through his pockets for an elusive +sovereign purse, he looked up mildly at the man. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, cabby,” he said, with pacific purpose; “you’ll get your fare in +half a shake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Three ’n’ six!” croaked the cabby, like a blowsy and vindictive parrot. +</p> + +<p> +The bobby strolled nearer. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Kirkwood, mildly diverted. “Why not sing it, cabby?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lor’ lumme!” The cabby exploded with indignation, continuing to give a +lifelike imitation of a rumpled parrot. “I ’ad trouble enough wif you at +Bermondsey Ol’ Stairs, hover that quid you promised, didn’t I? Sing it! My +heye!” +</p> + +<p> +“Quid, cabby?” And then, remembering that he had promised the fellow a +sovereign for fast driving from Quadrant Mews, Kirkwood grinned broadly, eyes +twinkling; for Mulready must have fallen heir to that covenant. “But you got +the sovereign? You got it, didn’t you, cabby?” +</p> + +<p> +The driver affirmed the fact with unnecessary heat and profanity and an +amendment to the effect that he would have spoiled his fare’s sanguinary conk +had the outcome been less satisfactory. +</p> + +<p> +The information proved so amusing that Kirkwood, chuckling, forbore to resent +the manner of its delivery, and, abandoning until a more favorable time the +chase of the coy sovereign purse, extracted from one trouser pocket half a +handful of large English small change. +</p> + +<p> +“Three shillings, six-pence,” he counted the coins into the cabby’s grimy and +bloated paw; and added quietly: “The exact distance is rather less than, four +miles, my man; your fare, precisely two shillings. You may keep the extra +eighteen pence, for being such a conscientious blackguard,—or talk it over with +the officer here. Please yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded to the bobby, who, favorably impressed by the silk hat which +Kirkwood, by diligent application of his sleeve during the cross-town ride, had +managed to restore to a state somewhat approximating its erstwhile luster, +smiled at the cabby a cold, hard smile. Whereupon the latter, smirking in +unabashed triumph, spat on the pavement at Kirkwood’s feet, gathered up the +reins, and wheeled out. +</p> + +<p> +“A ’ard lot, sir,” commented the policeman, jerking his helmeted head towards +the vanishing four-wheeler. +</p> + +<p> +“Right you are,” agreed Kirkwood amiably, still tickled by the knowledge that +Mulready had been obliged to pay three times over for the ride that ended in +his utter discomfiture. Somehow, Kirkwood had conceived no liking whatever for +the man; Calendar he could, at a pinch, tolerate for his sense of humor, but +Mulready—! “A surly dog,” he thought him. +</p> + +<p> +Acknowledging the policeman’s salute and restoring two shillings and a few fat +copper pennies to his pocket, he entered the vast and echoing train-shed. In +the act, his attention was attracted and immediately riveted by the spectacle +of a burly luggage navvy in a blue jumper in the act of making off with a +large, folding sign-board, of which the surface was lettered expansively with +the advice, in red against a white background: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +BOAT-TRAIN LEAVES ON TRACK 3 +</p> + +<p> +Incredulous yet aghast the young man gave instant chase to the navvy, +overhauling him with no great difficulty. For your horny-handed British +working-man is apparently born with two golden aphorisms in his mouth: “Look +before you leap,” and “Haste makes waste.” He looks continually, seldom, if +ever, leaps, and never is prodigal of his leisure. +</p> + +<p> +Excitedly Kirkwood touched the man’s arm with a detaining hand. “Boat-train?” +he gasped, pointing at the board. +</p> + +<p> +“Left ten minutes ago, thank you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wel-l, but...! Of course I can get another train at Tilbury?” +</p> + +<p> +“For yer boat? No, sir, thank you, sir. Won’t be another tryne till mornin’, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h!...” +</p> + +<p> +Aimlessly Kirkwood drifted away, his mind a blank. +</p> + +<p> +Sometime later he found himself on the steps outside the station, trying to +stare out of countenance a glaring electric mineral-water advertisement on the +farther side of the Euston Road. +</p> + +<p> +He was stranded.... +</p> + +<p> +Beyond the spiked iron fence that enhedges the incurving drive, the roar of +traffic, human, wheel and hoof, rose high for all the lateness of the hour: +sidewalks groaning with the restless contact of hundreds of ill-shod feet; the +roadway thundering—hansoms, four-wheelers, motor-cars, dwarfed coster-mongers’ +donkey-carts and ponderous, rumbling, C.-P. motor-vans, struggling for place +and progress. For St. Pancras never sleeps. +</p> + +<p> +The misty air swam luminous with the light of electric signs as with the +radiance of some lurid and sinister moon. The voice of London sounded in +Kirkwood’s ears, like the ominous purring of a somnolent brute beast, resting, +gorged and satiated, ere rising again to devour. To devour— +</p> + +<p> +Stranded!... +</p> + +<p> +Distracted, he searched pocket after pocket, locating his watch, cigar- and +cigarette-cases, match-box, penknife—all the minutiæ of pocket-hardware +affected by civilized man; with old letters, a card-case, a square envelope +containing his steamer ticket; but no sovereign purse. His small-change pocket +held less than three shillings—two and eight, to be exact—and a brass key, +which he failed to recognize as one of his belongings. +</p> + +<p> +And that was all. At sometime during the night he had lost (or been cunningly +bereft of?) that little purse of chamois-skin containing the three golden +sovereigns which he had been husbanding to pay his steamer expenses, and which, +if only he had them now, would stand between him and starvation and a night in +the streets. +</p> + +<p> +And, searching his heart, he found it brimming with gratitude to Mulready, for +having relieved him of the necessity of settling with the cabby. +</p> + +<p> +“Vagabond?” said Kirkwood musingly. “Vagabond?” He repeated the word softly a +number of times, to get the exact flavor of it, and found it little to his +taste. And yet... +</p> + +<p> +He thrust both hands deep in his trouser pockets and stared purposelessly into +space, twisting his eyebrows out of alignment and crookedly protruding his +lower lip. +</p> + +<p> +If Brentwick were only in town—But he wasn’t, and wouldn’t be, within the week. +</p> + +<p> +“No good waiting here,” he concluded. Composing his face, he reëntered the +station. There were his trunks, of course. He couldn’t leave them standing on +the station platform for ever. +</p> + +<p> +He found the luggage-room and interviewed a mechanically courteous attendant, +who, as the result of profound deliberation, advised him to try his luck at the +lost-luggage room, across the station. He accepted the advice; it was a +foregone conclusion that his effects had not been conveyed to the Tilbury dock; +they could not have been loaded into the luggage van without his personal +supervision. Still, anything was liable to happen when his unlucky star was in +the ascendant. +</p> + +<p> +He found them in the lost-luggage room. +</p> + +<p> +A clerk helped him identify the articles and ultimately clucked with a +perfunctory note: “Sixpence each, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—ah—pardon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sixpence each, the fixed charge, sir. For every twenty-four hours or fraction +thereof, sixpence per parcel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank you so much,” said Kirkwood sweetly. “I will call to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Five times sixpence is two-and-six,” Kirkwood computed, making his way hastily +out of the station, lest a worse thing befall him. “No, bless your heart!—not +while two and eight represents the sum total of my fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +He wandered out into the night; he could not linger round the station till +dawn; and what profit to him if he did? Even were he to ransom his trunks, one +can scarcely change one’s clothing in a public waiting-room. +</p> + +<p> +Somewhere in the distance a great clock chimed a single stroke, freighted sore +with melancholy. It knelled the passing of the half-hour after midnight; a +witching hour, when every public shuts up tight, and gentlemen in top-hats and +evening dress are doomed to pace the pave till day (barring they have homes or +visible means of support)—till day, when pawnshops open and such personal +effects as watches and hammered silver cigar-cases may be hypothecated. +</p> + +<p> +Sable garments fluttering, Care fell into step with Philip Kirkwood; Care the +inexorable slipped a skeleton arm through his and would not be denied; Care the +jade clung affectionately to his side, refusing to be jilted. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you thought you would forget me?” chuckled the fleshless lips by his ear. +“But no, my boy; I’m with you now, for ever and a day. ‘Misery loves company,’ +and it wouldn’t be pretty of me to desert you in this extremity, would it? +Come, let us beguile the hours till dawn with conversation. Here’s a sprightly +subject: What are you going to do, Mr. Kirkwood? <i>What are you going to +do?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +But Kirkwood merely shook a stubborn head and gazed straight before him, +walking fast through ways he did not recognize, and pretending not to hear. +None the less the sense of Care’s solicitous query struck like a pain into his +consciousness. What was he to do? +</p> + +<p> +An hour passed. +</p> + +<p> +Denied the opportunity to satisfy its beast hunger and thirst, humanity goes +off to its beds. In that hour London quieted wonderfully; the streets achieved +an effect of deeper darkness, the skies, lowering, looked down with a blush +less livid for the shamelessness of man; cab ranks lengthened; solitary +footsteps added unto themselves loud, alarming, offensive echoes; policemen, +strolling with lamps blazing on their breasts, became as lightships in a +trackless sea; each new-found street unfolded its perspective like a canyon of +mystery, and yet teeming with a hundred masked hazards; the air acquired a +smell more clear and clean, an effect more volatile; and the night-mist +thickened until it studded one’s attire with myriads of tiny buttons, bright as +diamond dust. +</p> + +<p> +Through this long hour Kirkwood walked without a pause. +</p> + +<p> +Another clock, somewhere, clanged resonantly twice. +</p> + +<p> +The world was very still.... +</p> + +<p> +And so, wandering foot-loose in a wilderness of ways, turning aimlessly, now +right, now left, he found himself in a street he knew, yet seemed not to know: +a silent, black street one brief block in length, walled with dead and +lightless dwellings, haunted by his errant memory; a street whose atmosphere +was heavy with impalpable essence of desuetude; in two words, Frognall Street. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood identified it with a start and a guilty tremor. He stopped +stock-still, in an unreasoning state of semi-panic, arrested by a silly impulse +to turn and fly; as if the bobby, whom he descried approaching him with +measured stride, pausing now and again to try a door or flash his bull’s-eye +down an area, were to be expected to identify the man responsible for that +damnable racket raised ere midnight in vacant Number 9! +</p> + +<p> +Oddly enough, the shock of recognition brought him to his senses,—temporarily. +He was even able to indulge himself in a quiet, sobering grin at his own folly. +He passed the policeman with a nod and a cool word in response to the man’s +good-natured, “Good-night, sir.” Number 9 was on the other side of the street; +and he favored its blank and dreary elevation with a prolonged and frank +stare—that profited him nothing, by the way. For a crazy notion popped +incontinently into his head, and would not be cast forth. +</p> + +<p> +At the corner he swerved and crossed, still possessed of his devil of +inspiration. It would be unfair to him to say that he did not struggle to +resist it, for he did, because it was fairly and egregiously asinine; yet +struggling, his feet trod the path to which it tempted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” he expostulated feebly, “I might’s well turn back and beat that bobby +over the head with my cane!...” +</p> + +<p> +But at the moment his hand was in his change pocket, feeling over that same +brass door-key which earlier he had been unable to account for, and he was +informing himself how very easy it would have been for the sovereign purse to +have dropped from his waistcoat pocket while he was sliding on his ear down the +dark staircase. To recover it meant, at the least, shelter for the night, +followed by a decent, comfortable and sustaining morning meal. Fortified by +both he could redeem his luggage, change to clothing more suitable for daylight +traveling, pawn his valuables, and enter into negotiations with the steamship +company for permission to exchange his passage, with a sum to boot, for +transportation on another liner. A most feasible project! A temptation all but +irresistible! +</p> + +<p> +But then—the risk.... Supposing (for the sake of argument) the customary +night-watchman to have taken up a transient residence in Number 9; supposing +the police to have entered with him and found the stunned man on the second +floor: would the watchman not be vigilant for another nocturnal marauder? would +not the police now, more than ever, be keeping a wary eye on that house of +suspicious happenings? +</p> + +<p> +Decidedly, to reënter it would be to incur a deadly risk. And yet, undoubtedly, +beyond question! his sovereign purse was waiting for him somewhere on the +second flight of stairs; while as his means of clandestine entry lay warm in +his fingers—the key to the dark entry, which he had by force of habit pocketed +after locking the door. +</p> + +<p> +He came to the Hog-in-the-Pound. Its windows were dim with low-turned +gas-lights. Down the covered alleyway, Quadrant Mews slept in a dusk but +fitfully relieved by a lamp or two round which the friendly mist clung close +and thick. +</p> + +<p> +There would be none to see.... +</p> + +<p> +Skulking, throat swollen with fear, heart beating like a snare-drum, Kirkwood +took his chance. Buttoning his overcoat collar up to his chin and cursing the +fact that his hat must stand out like a chimney-pot on a detached house, he +sped on tiptoe down the cobbled way and close beneath the house-walls of +Quadrant Mews. But, half-way in, he stopped, confounded by an unforeseen +difficulty. How was he to identify the narrow entry of Number 9, whose +counterparts doubtless communicated with the mews from every residence on four +sides of the city block? +</p> + +<p> +The low inner tenements were yet high enough to hide the rear elevations of +Frognall Street houses, and the mist was heavy besides; otherwise he had made +shift to locate Number 9 by ticking off the dwellings from the corner. If he +went on, hit or miss, the odds were anything-you-please to one that he would +blunder into the servant’s quarters of some inhabited house, and—be promptly +and righteously sat upon by the service-staff, while the bobby was summoned. +</p> + +<p> +Be that as it might—he almost lost his head when he realized this—escape was +already cut off by the way he had come. Some one, or, rather, some two men were +entering the alley. He could hear the tramping and shuffle of clumsy feet, and +voices that muttered indistinctly. One seemed to trip over something, and +cursed. The other laughed; the voices grew more loud. They were coming his way. +He dared no longer vacillate. +</p> + +<p> +But—which passage should he choose? +</p> + +<p> +He moved on with more haste than discretion. One heel slipped on a cobble +time-worn to glassy smoothness; he lurched, caught himself up in time to save a +fall, lost his hat, recovered it, and was discovered. A voice, maudlin with +drink, hailed and called upon him to stand and give an account of himself, +“like a goo’ feller.” Another tempted him with offers of drink and sociable +confabulation. He yielded not; adamantine to the seductive lure, he picked up +his heels and ran. Those behind him, remarking with resentment the amazing fact +that an intimate of the mews should run away from liquor, cursed and made after +him, veering, staggering, howling like ravening animals. +</p> + +<p> +For all their burden of intoxication, they knew the ground by instinct and from +long association. They gained on him. Across the way a window-sash went up with +a bang, and a woman screamed. Through the only other entrance to the mews a +belated cab was homing; its driver, getting wind of the unusual, pulled up, +blocking the way, and added his advice to the uproar. +</p> + +<p> +Caught thus between two fires, and with his persecutors hard upon him, Kirkwood +dived into the nearest black hole of a passageway and in sheer desperation +flung himself, key in hand, against the door at the end. Mark how his luck +served him who had forsworn her! He found a keyhole and inserted the key. It +turned. So did the knob. The door gave inward. He fell in with it, slammed it, +shot the bolts, and, panting, leaned against its panels, in a pit of +everlasting night but—saved!—for the time being, at all events. +</p> + +<p> +Outside somebody brushed against one wall, cannoned to the other, brought up +with a crash against the door, and, perforce at a standstill, swore from his +heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Gorblimy!” he declared feelingly. “I’d ’a’ took my oath I sore’m run in ’ere!” +And then, in answer to an inaudible question: “No, ’e ain’t. Gorn an’ let the +fool go to ’ell. ’Oo wants ’im to share goo’ liker? Not I!...” +</p> + +<p> +Joining his companion he departed, leaving behind him a trail of +sulphur-tainted air. The mews quieted gradually. Indoors Kirkwood faced +unhappily the enigma of fortuity, wondering: Was this by any possibility Number +9? The key had fitted; the bolts had been drawn on the inside; and while the +key had been one of ordinary pattern and would no doubt have proven effectual +with any one of a hundred common locks, the finger of probability seemed to +indicate that his luck had brought him back to Number 9. In spite of all this, +he was sensible of little confidence; though this were truly Number 9, his +freedom still lay on the knees of the gods, his very life, belike, was poised, +tottering, on a pinnacle of chance. In the end, taking heart of desperation, he +stooped and removed his shoes; a precaution which later appealed to his sense +of the ridiculous, in view of the racket he had raised in entering, but which +at the moment seemed most natural and in accordance with common sense. Then +rising, he held his breath, staring and listening. About him the pitch darkness +was punctuated with fading points of fire, and in his ears was a noise of +strange whisperings, very creepy—until, gritting his teeth, he controlled his +nerves and gradually realized that he was alone, the silence undisturbed. He +went forward gingerly, feeling his way like a blind man on strange ground. Ere +long he stumbled over a door-sill and found that the walls of the passage had +fallen away; he had entered a room, a black cavern of indeterminate dimensions. +Across this he struck at random, walked himself flat against a wall, felt his +way along to an open door, and passed through to another apartment as dark as +the first. +</p> + +<p> +Here, endeavoring to make a circuit of the walls, he succeeded in throwing +himself bodily across a bed, which creaked horribly; and for a full minute lay +as he had fallen, scarce daring to think. But nothing followed, and he got up +and found a shut door which let him into yet a third room, wherein he barked +both shins on a chair; and escaped to a fourth whose atmosphere was highly +flavored with reluctant odors of bygone cookery, stale water and damp +plumbing—probably the kitchen. Thence progressing over complaining floors +through what may have been the servants’ hall, a large room with a table in the +middle and a number of promiscuous chairs (witness his tortured shins!), he +finally blundered into the basement hallway. +</p> + +<p> +By now a little calmer, he felt assured that this was really Number 9, Frognall +Street, and a little happier about it all, though not even momentarily +forgetful of the potential police and night-watchman. +</p> + +<p> +However, he mounted the steps to the ground floor without adventure and found +himself at last in the same dim and ghostly hall which he had entered some six +hours before; the mockery of dusk admitted by the fan-light was just strong +enough to enable him to identify the general lay of the land and arrangement of +furniture. +</p> + +<p> +More confidently with each uncontested step, he continued his quest. Elation +was stirring his spirit when he gained the first floor and moved toward the +foot of the second flight, approaching the spot whereat he was to begin the +search for the missing purse. The knowledge that he lacked means of obtaining +illumination deterred him nothing; he had some hope of finding matches in one +of the adjacent rooms, but, failing that, was prepared to ascend the stairs on +all fours, feeling every inch of their surface, if it took hours. Ever an +optimistic soul, instinctively inclined to father faith with a hope, he felt +supremely confident that his search would not prove fruitless, that he would +win early release from his temporary straits. +</p> + +<p> +And thus it fell out that, at the instant he was thinking it time to begin to +crawl and hunt, his stockinged feet came into contact with something heavy, +yielding, warm—something that moved, moaned, and caused his hair to bristle and +his flesh to creep. +</p> + +<p> +We will make allowances for him; all along he had gone on the assumption that +his antagonist of the dark stairway would have recovered and made off with all +expedition, in the course of ten or twenty minutes, at most, from the time of +his accident. To find him still there was something entirely outside of +Kirkwood’s reckoning: he would as soon have thought to encounter say, +Calendar,—would have preferred the latter, indeed. But this fellow whose +disability was due to his own interference, who was reasonably to be counted +upon to raise the very deuce and all of a row! +</p> + +<p> +The initial shock, however shattering to his equanimity, soon, lost effect. The +man evidently remained unconscious, in fact had barely moved; while the moan +that Kirkwood heard, had been distressingly faint. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor devil!” murmured the young man. “He must be in a pretty bad way, for +sure!” He knelt, compassion gentling his heart, and put one hand to the +insentient face. A warm sweat moistened his fingers; his palm was fanned by +steady respiration. +</p> + +<p> +Immeasurably perplexed, the American rose, slipped on his shoes and buttoned +them, thinking hard the while. What ought he to do? Obviously flight suggested +itself,—incontinent flight, anticipating the man’s recovery. On the other hand, +indubitably the latter had sustained such injury that consciousness, when it +came to him, would hardly be reinforced by much aggressive power. Moreover, it +was to be remembered that the one was in that house with quite as much warrant +as the other, unless Kirkwood had drawn a rash inference from the incident of +the ragged sentry. The two of them were mutual, if antagonistic, trespassers; +neither would dare bring about the arrest of the other. And then—and this was +not the least consideration to influence Kirkwood—perhaps the fellow would die +if he got no attention. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood shut his teeth grimly. “I’m no assassin,” he informed himself, “to +strike and run. If I’ve maimed this poor devil and there are consequences, I’ll +stand ’em. The Lord knows it doesn’t matter a damn to anybody, not even to me, +what happens to me; while <i>he</i> may be valuable.” +</p> + +<p> +Light upon the subject, actual as well as figurative, seemed to be the first +essential; his mind composed, Kirkwood set himself in search of it. The floor +he was on, however, afforded him no assistance; the mantels were guiltless of +candles and he discovered no matches, either in the wide and silent +drawing-room, with its ghastly furniture, like mummies in their linen +swathings, or in the small boudoir at the back. He was to look either above or +below, it seemed. +</p> + +<p> +After some momentary hesitation, he went up-stairs, his ascent marked by a +single and grateful accident; half-way to the top he trod on an object that +clinked underfoot, and, stooping, retrieved the lost purse. Thus was he +justified of his temerity; the day was saved—that is, to-morrow was. +</p> + +<p> +The rooms of the second-floor were bedchambers, broad, deep, stately, inhabited +by seven devils of loneliness. In one, on a dresser, Kirkwood found a stump of +candle in a china candlestick; the two charred ends of matches at its base were +only an irritating discovery, however—evidence that real matches had been the +mode in Number 9, at some remote date. Disgusted and oppressed by cumulative +inquisitiveness, he took the candle-end back to the hall; he would have given +much for the time and means to make a more detailed investigation into the +secret of the house. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it was mostly his hope of chancing on some clue to the mystery of +Dorothy Calender—bewitching riddle that she was!—that fascinated his +imagination so completely. Aside from her altogether, the great house that +stood untenanted, yet in such complete order, so self-contained in its darkened +quiet, intrigued him equally with the train of inexplicable events that had +brought him within its walls. Now—since his latest entrance—his vision had +adjusted itself to cope with the obscurity to some extent; and the street +lights, meagerly reflected through the windows from the bosom of a sullen pall +of cloud, low-swung above the city, had helped him to piece together many a +detail of decoration and furnishing, alike somber and richly dignified. +Kirkwood told himself that the owner, whoever he might be, was a man of wealth +and taste inherited from another age; he had found little of meretricious +to-day in the dwelling, much that was solid and sedate and homely, +and—Victorian.... He could have wished for more; a box of early Victorian +vestas had been highly acceptable. +</p> + +<p> +Making his way down-stairs to the stricken man—who was quite as he had +been—Kirkwood bent over and thrust rifling fingers into his pockets, regardless +of the wretched sense of guilt and sneakishness imparted by the action, +stubbornly heedless of the possibility of the man’s awakening to find himself +being searched and robbed. +</p> + +<p> +In the last place he sought, which should (he realized) have been the first, to +wit, the fob pocket of the white waistcoat, he found a small gold matchbox, +packed tight with wax vestas; and, berating himself for crass stupidity—he had +saved a deal of time and trouble by thinking of this before—lighted the candle. +</p> + +<p> +As its golden flame shot up with scarce a tremor, preyed upon by a perfectly +excusable concern, he bent to examine the man’s countenance.... The arm which +had partly hidden it had fallen back into a natural position. It was a young +face that gleamed pallid in the candlelight—a face unlined, a little vapid and +insignificant, with features regular and neat, betraying few characteristics +other than the purely negative attributes of a character as yet unformed, +possibly unformable; much the sort of a face that he might have expected to +see, remembering those thin and pouting lips that before had impressed him. Its +owner was probably little more than twenty. In his attire there was a suspicion +of a fop’s preciseness, aside from its accidental disarray; the cut of his +waistcoat was the extreme of the then fashion, the white tie (twisted beneath +one ear) an exaggerated “butterfly,” his collar nearly an inch too tall; and he +was shod with pumps suitable only for the dancing-floor,—a whim of the +young-bloods of London of that year. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t make him out at all!” declared Kirkwood. “The son of a gentleman too +weak to believe that cubs need licking into shape? Reared to man’s estate, so +sheltered from the wicked world that he never grew a bark?... The sort that +never had a quarrel in his life, ’cept with his tailor?... Now what the devil +is <i>this</i> thing doing in this midnight mischief?... Damn!” +</p> + +<p> +It was most exasperating, the incongruity of the boy’s appearance assorted with +his double rôle of persecutor of distressed damsels and nocturnal +house-breaker! +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood bent closer above the motionless head, with puzzled eyes striving to +pin down some elusive resemblance that he thought to trace in those vacuous +features—a resemblance to some one he had seen, or known, at some past time, +somewhere, somehow. +</p> + +<p> +“I give it up. Guess I’m mistaken. Anyhow, five young Englishmen out of every +ten of his class are just as blond and foolish. Now let’s see how bad he’s +hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +With hands strong and gentle, he turned the round, light head. Then, “Ah!” he +commented in the accent of comprehension. For there was an angry looking bump +at the base of the skull; and, the skin having been broken, possibly in +collision with the sharp-edged newel-post, a little blood had stained and +matted the straw-colored hair. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood let the head down and took thought. Recalling a bath-room on the floor +above, thither he went, unselfishly forgetful of his predicament if discovered, +and, turning on the water, sopped his handkerchief until it dripped. Then, +returning, he took the boy’s head on his knees, washed the wound, purloined +another handkerchief (of silk, with a giddy border) from the other’s pocket, +and of this manufactured a rude but serviceable bandage. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the conclusion of his attentions, the sufferer began to show signs of +returning animation. He stirred restlessly, whimpered a little, and sighed. And +Kirkwood, in consternation, got up. +</p> + +<p> +“So!” he commented ruefully. “I guess I am an ass, all right—taking all that +trouble for you, my friend. If I’ve got a grain of sense left, this is my cue +to leave you alone in your glory.” +</p> + +<p> +He was lingering only to restore to the boy’s pockets such articles as he had +removed in the search for matches,—the match-box, a few silver coins, a bulky +sovereign purse, a handsome, plain gold watch, and so forth. But ere he +concluded he was aware that the boy was conscious, that his eyes, open and +blinking in the candlelight, were upon him. +</p> + +<p> +They were blue eyes, blue and shallow as a doll’s, and edged with long, fine +lashes. Intelligence, of a certain degree, was rapidly informing them. Kirkwood +returned their questioning glance, transfixed in indecision, his primal impulse +to cut-and-run for it was gone; he had nothing to fear from this child who +could not prevent his going whenever he chose to go; while by remaining he +might perchance worm from him something about the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re feeling better?” He was almost surprised to hear his own voice put the +query. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I think so. Ow, my head!... I say, you chap, whoever you are, what’s +happened?... I want to get up.” The boy added peevishly: “Help a fellow, can’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve had a nasty fall,” Kirkwood observed evenly, passing an arm beneath the +boy’s shoulder and helping him to a sitting position. “Do you remember?” +</p> + +<p> +The other snuffled childishly and scrubbed across the floor to rest his back +against the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Why-y ... I remember fallin’; and then ... I woke up and it was all dark and +my head achin’ fit to split. I presume I went to sleep again ... I say, what’re +you, doing here?” +</p> + +<p> +Instead of replying, Kirkwood lifted a warning finger. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” he said tensely, alarmed by noises in the street. “You don’t suppose—?” +</p> + +<p> +He had been conscious of a carriage rolling up from the corner, as well as that +it had drawn up (presumably) before a near-by dwelling. Now the rattle of a key +in the hall-door was startlingly audible. Before he could move, the door itself +opened with a slam. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood moved toward the stair-head, and drew back with a cry of disgust. “Too +late!” he told himself bitterly; his escape was cut off. He could run up-stairs +and hide, of course, but the boy would inform against him and.... +</p> + +<p> +He buttoned up his coat, settled his hat on his head, and moved near the +candle, where it rested on the floor. One glimpse would suffice to show him the +force of the intruders, and one move of his foot put out the light; +then—<i>perhaps</i>—he might be able to rush them. +</p> + +<p> +Below, a brief pause had followed the noise of the door, as if those entering +were standing, irresolute, undecided which way to turn; but abruptly enough the +glimmer of candlelight must have been noticed. Kirkwood heard a hushed +exclamation, a quick clatter of high heels on the parquetry, pattering feet on +the stairs, all but drowned by swish and ripple of silken skirts; and a woman +stood at the head of the flight—to the American an apparition profoundly +amazing as she paused, the light from the floor casting odd, theatric shadows +beneath her eyes and over her brows, edging her eyes themselves with brilliant +light beneath their dark lashes, showing her lips straight and drawn, and +shimmering upon the spangles of an evening gown, visible beneath the dark cloak +which had fallen back from her white, beautiful shoulders. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII<br/> +MADAME L’INTRIGANTE</h2> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam!” cried Kirkwood, beneath his breath. +</p> + +<p> +The woman ignored his existence. Moving swiftly forward, she dropped on both +knees by the side of the boy, and caught up one of his hands, clasping it +passionately in her own. +</p> + +<p> +“Fred!” she cried, a curious break in her tone. “My little Freddie! Oh, what +has happened, dearie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hello, Mamma,” grunted that young man, submitting listlessly to her +caresses and betraying no overwhelming surprise at her appearance there. Indeed +he seemed more concerned as to what Kirkwood, an older man, would be thinking, +to see him so endeared and fondled, than moved by any other emotion. Kirkwood +could see his shamefaced, sidelong glances; and despised him properly for them. +</p> + +<p> +But without attending to his response, Mrs. Hallam rattled on in the uneven +accents of excitement. “I waited until I couldn’t wait any longer, Freddie +dear. I had to know—had to come. Eccles came home about nine and said that you +had told him to wait outside, that some one had followed you in here, and that +a bobby had told him to move on. I didn’t know what—” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s o’clock now?” her son interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about three, I think ... Have you hurt yourself, dear? Oh, why +<i>didn’t</i> you come home? You must’ve known I was dying of anxiety!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say! Can’t you see I’m hurt? ’Had a nasty fall and must’ve been asleep +ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +“My precious one! How—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say, hardly ... I say, don’t paw a chap so, Mamma ... I brought Eccles +along and told him to wait because—well, because I didn’t feel so much like +shuttin’ myself up in this beastly old tomb. So I left the door ajar, and told +him not to let anybody come in. Then I came up-stairs. There must’ve been +somebody already in the house; I know I <i>thought</i> there was. It made me +feel creepy, rather. At any rate, I heard voices down below, and the door +banged, and somebody began hammerin’ like fun on the knocker.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy paused, rolling an embarrassed eye up at the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, dear!” Mrs. Hallam urged him on. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I—I made up my mind to cut my stick—let whoever it was pass me on the +stairs, you know. But he followed me and struck me, and then I jumped at him, +and we both fell down the whole flight. And that’s all. Besides, my head’s +achin’ like everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“But this man—?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hallam looked up at Kirkwood, who bowed silently, struggling to hide both +his amusement and perplexity. More than ever, now, the case presented a front +inscrutable to his wits; try as he might, he failed to fit an explanation to +any incident in which he had figured, while this last development—that his +antagonist of the dark stairway had been Mrs. Hallam’s son!—seemed the most +astounding of all, baffling elucidation completely. +</p> + +<p> +He had abandoned all thought of flight and escape. It was too late; in the +brisk idiom of his mother-tongue, he was “caught with the goods on.” “May as +well face the music,” he counseled himself, in resignation. From what he had +seen and surmised of Mrs. Hallam, he shrewdly suspected that the tune would +prove an exceedingly lively one; she seemed a woman of imagination, +originality, and an able-bodied temper. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i>, Mr. Kirkwood!” +</p> + +<p> +Again he bowed, grinning awry. +</p> + +<p> +She rose suddenly. “You will be good enough to explain your presence here,” she +informed him with dangerous serenity. +</p> + +<p> +“To be frank with you—” +</p> + +<p> +“I advise that course, Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, awf’ly.... I came here, half an hour ago, looking for a lost purse +full—well, not <i>quite</i> full of sovereigns. It was my purse, by the way.” +</p> + +<p> +Suspicion glinted like foxfire in the cold green eyes beneath her puckered +brows. “I do not understand,” she said slowly and in level tones. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t expect you to,” returned Kirkwood; “no more do I.... But, anyway, it +must be clear to you that I’ve done my best for this gentleman here.” He paused +with an interrogative lift of his eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +“‘This gentleman’ is my son, Frederick Hallam.... But you will explain—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, Mrs. Hallam; I shall explain nothing, at present. Permit me to +point out that your position here—like mine—is, to say the least, anomalous.” +The random stroke told, as he could tell by the instant contraction of her eyes +of a cat. “It would be best to defer explanations till a more convenient +time—don’t you think? Then, if you like, we can chant confidences in an +antiphonal chorus. Just now your—er—son is not enjoying himself apparently, and +... the attention of the police had best not be called to this house too often +in one night.” +</p> + +<p> +His levity seemed to displease and perturb the woman; she turned from him with +an impatient movement of her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Freddie, dear, do you feel able to walk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh? Oh, I dare say—I don’t know. Wonder would your friend—ah—Mr. Kirkwood, +lend me an arm?” +</p> + +<p> +“Charmed,” Kirkwood declared suavely. “If you’ll take the candle, Mrs. Hallam—” +</p> + +<p> +He helped the boy to his feet and, while the latter hung upon him and +complained querulously, stood waiting for the woman to lead the way with the +light; something which, however, she seemed in no haste to do. The pause at +length puzzled Kirkwood, and he turned, to find Mrs. Hallam holding the +candlestick and regarding him steadily, with much the same expression of +furtive mistrust as that with which she had favored him on her own door-stoop. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus04"></a> +<img src="images/img04.jpg" width="382" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">He helped the boy to his feet, and stood waiting.</p> +</div> + +<p> +“One moment,” she interposed in confusion; “I won’t keep you waiting...;” and, +passing with an averted face, ran quickly up-stairs to the second floor, taking +the light with her. Its glow faded from the walls above and Kirkwood surmised +that she had entered the front bedchamber. For some moments he could hear her +moving about; once, something scraped and bumped on the floor, as if a heavy +bit of furniture had been moved; again there was a resounding thud that defied +speculation; and this was presently followed by a dull clang of metal. +</p> + +<p> +His fugitive speculations afforded him little enlightenment; and, meantime, +young Hallam, leaning partly against the wall and quite heavily on Kirkwood’s +arm, filled his ears with puerile oaths and lamentations; so that, but for the +excuse of his really severe shaking-up, Kirkwood had been strongly tempted to +take the youngster by the shoulders and kick him heartily, for the health of +his soul. +</p> + +<p> +But eventually—it was not really long—there came the quick rush of Mrs. +Hallam’s feet along the upper hall, and the woman reappeared, one hand holding +her skirts clear of her pretty feet as she descended in a rush that caused the +candle’s flame to flicker perilously. +</p> + +<p> +Half-way down, “Mr. Kirkwood!” she called tempestuously. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you find it?” he countered blandly. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped jerkily at the bottom, and, after a moment of confusion. “Find +what, sir?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What you sought, Mrs. Hallam.” +</p> + +<p> +Smiling, he bore unflinching the prolonged inspection of her eyes, at once +somber with doubt of him and flashing with indignation because of his +impudence. +</p> + +<p> +“You knew I wouldn’t find it, then!... Didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may have suspected you wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Now he was sure that she had been searching for the gladstone bag. That, +evidently, was the bone of contention. Calendar had sent his daughter for it, +Mrs. Hallam her son; Dorothy had been successful ... But, on the other hand, +Calendar and Mrs. Hallam were unquestionably allies. Why, then—? +</p> + +<p> +“Where is it, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madam, have you the right to know?” +</p> + +<p> +Through another lengthening pause, while they faced each other, he marked again +the curious contraction of her under lip. +</p> + +<p> +“I have the right,” she declared steadily. “Where is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I be sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t know—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed,” he interrupted, “I would be glad to feel that I ought to tell you +what I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“What you know!” +</p> + +<p> +The exclamation, low-spoken, more an echo of her thoughts than intended for +Kirkwood, was accompanied by a little shake of the woman’s head, mute evidence +to the fact that she was bewildered by his finesse. And this delighted the +young man beyond measure, making him feel himself master of a difficult +situation. Mysteries had been woven before his eyes so persistently, of late, +that it was a real pleasure to be able to do a little mystifying on his own +account. By adopting this reticent and non-committal attitude, he was forcing +the hand of a woman old enough to be his mother and most evidently a +past-mistress in the art of misleading. All of which seemed very fascinating to +the amateur in adventure. +</p> + +<p> +The woman would have led again, but young Hallam cut in, none too courteously. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Mamma, it’s no good standing here, palaverin’ like a lot of flats. +Besides, I’m awf’ly knocked up. Let’s get home and have it out there.” +</p> + +<p> +Instantly his mother softened. “My poor boy!... Of course we’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +Without further demur she swept past and down the stairway before them—slowly, +for their progress was of necessity slow, and the light most needed. Once they +were in the main hall, however, she extinguished the candle, placed it on a +side table, and passed out through the door. +</p> + +<p> +It had been left open, as before; and Kirkwood was not at all surprised to see +a man waiting on the threshold,—the versatile Eccles, if he erred not. He had +little chance to identify him, as it happened, for at a word from Mrs. Hallam +the man bowed and, following her across the sidewalk, opened the door of a +four-wheeler which, with lamps alight and liveried driver on the box, had been +waiting at the carriage-block. +</p> + +<p> +As they passed out, Kirkwood shut the door; and at the same moment the little +party was brought up standing by a gruff and authoritative summons. +</p> + +<p> +“Just a minute, please, you there!” +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” said Kirkwood to himself. “I thought so.” And he halted, in unfeigned +respect for the burly and impressive figure, garbed in blue and brass, helmeted +and truncheoned, bull’s-eye shining on breast like the Law’s unblinking and +sleepless eye, barring the way to the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hallam showed less deference for the obstructionist. The assumed hauteur +and impatience of her pose was artfully reflected in her voice as she rounded +upon the bobby, with an indignant demand: “What is the meaning of this, +officer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely what I wants to know, ma’am,” returned the man, unyielding beneath +his respectful attitude. “I’m obliged to ask you to tell me what you were doing +in that ’ouse.... And what’s the matter with this ’ere gentleman?” he added, +with a dubious stare at young Hallam’s bandaged head and rumpled clothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you don’t understand,” admitted Mrs. Hallam sweetly. “Of course—I +see—it’s perfectly natural. The house has been shut up for some time and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, ma’am; that’s just it. There was something wrong going on early in +the evening, and I was told to keep an eye on the premises. It’s duty, ma’am; +I’ve got my report to make.” +</p> + +<p> +“The house,” said Mrs. Hallam, with the long-suffering patience of one +elucidating a perfectly plain proposition to a being of a lower order of +intelligence, “is the property of my son, Arthur Frederick Burgoyne Hallam, of +Cornwall. This is—” +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon, ma’am, but I was told Colonel George Burgoyne, of Cornwall—” +</p> + +<p> +“Colonel Burgoyne died some time ago. My son is his heir. This is my son. He +came to the house this evening to get some property he desired, and—it +seems—tripped on the stairs and fell unconscious. I became worried about him +and drove over, accompanied by my friend, Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +The policeman looked his troubled state of mind, and wagged a doubtful head +over the case. There was his duty, and there was, opposed to it, the fact that +all three were garbed in the livery of the well-to-do. +</p> + +<p> +At length, turning to the driver, he demanded, received, and noted in his +memorandum-book, the license number of the equipage. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very unusual case, ma’am,” he apologized; “I hopes you won’t ’old it +against me. I’m only trying to do my duty—” +</p> + +<p> +“And safeguard our property. You are perfectly justified, officer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, ma’am. And would you mind giving me your cards, please, all of +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not.” Without hesitation the woman took a little hand-bag from the +seat of the carriage and produced a card; her son likewise found his case and +handed the officer an oblong slip. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no cards with me,” the American told the policeman; “my name, however, is +Philip Kirkwood, and I’m staying at the Pless.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir; thank you.” The man penciled the information in his little +book. “Thank you, ma’am, and Mr. Hallam, sir. Sorry to have detained you. Good +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood helped young Hallam into the carriage, gave Mrs. Hallam his hand, and +followed her. The man Eccles shut the door, mounting the box beside the driver. +Immediately they were in motion. +</p> + +<p> +The American got a final glimpse of the bobby, standing in front of Number 9, +Frognall Street, and watching them with an air of profound uncertainty. He had +Kirkwood’s sympathy, therein; but he had little time to feel with him, for Mrs. +Hallam turned upon him very suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood, will you be good enough to tell me who and what you are?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man smiled his homely, candid smile. “I’ll be only too glad, Mrs. +Hallam, when I feel sure you’ll do as much for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him no answer; it, was as if she were choosing words. Kirkwood braced +himself to meet the storm; but none ensued. There was rather a lull, which +strung itself out indefinitely, to the monotonous music of hoofs and rubber +tires. +</p> + +<p> +Young Hallam was resting his empty blond head against the cushions, and had +closed his eyes. He seemed to doze; but, as the carriage rolled past the +frequent street-lights, Kirkwood could see that the eyes of Mrs. Hallam were +steadily directed to his face. +</p> + +<p> +His outward composure was tempered by some amusement, by more admiration; the +woman’s eyes were very handsome, even when hardest and most cold. It was not +easy to conceive of her as being the mother of a son so immaturely mature. Why, +she must have been at least thirty-eight or -nine! One wondered; she did not +look it.... +</p> + +<p> +The carriage stopped before a house with lighted windows. Eccles jumped down +from the box and scurried to open the front door. The radiance of a hall-lamp +was streaming out into the misty night when he returned to release his +employers. +</p> + +<p> +They were returned to Craven Street! “One more lap round the track!” mused +Kirkwood. “Wonder will the next take me back to Bermondsey Old Stairs.” +</p> + +<p> +At Mrs. Hallam’s direction, Eccles ushered him into the smoking-room, on the +ground floor in the rear of the dwelling, there to wait while she helped her +son up-stairs and to bed. He sighed with pleasure at first glimpse of its +luxurious but informal comforts, and threw himself carelessly into a heavily +padded lounging-chair, dropping one knee over the other and lighting the last +of his expensive cigars, with a sensation of undiluted gratitude; as one coming +to rest in the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. +</p> + +<p> +Over his shoulder a home-like illumination was cast by an electric reading-lamp +shaded with red silk. At his feet brass fire-dogs winked sleepily in the +fluttering blaze of a well-tended stove. The walls were hung with deep red, the +doors and divans upholstered in the same restful shade. In one corner an old +clock ticked soberly. The atmosphere would have proved a potent invitation to +reverie, if not to sleep—he was very sleepy—but for the confusion in the house. +</p> + +<p> +In its chambers, through the halls, on the stairs, there were hurryings and +scurryings of feet and skirts, confused with murmuring voices. Presently, in an +adjoining room, Philip Kirkwood heard a maid-servant wrestling hopefully with +that most exasperating of modern time-saving devices, the telephone as +countenanced by our English cousins. Her patience and determination won his +approval, but availed nothing for her purpose; in the outcome the telephone +triumphed and the maid gave up the unequal contest. +</p> + +<p> +Later, a butler entered the room; a short and sturdy fellow, extremely ill at +ease. Drawing a small taboret to the side of Kirkwood’s chair, he placed +thereon a tray, deferentially imparting the information that “Missis ’Allam ’ad +thought ’ow as Mister Kirkwood might care for a bit of supper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please thank Mrs. Hallam for me.” Kirkwood’s gratified eyes ranged the laden +tray. There were sandwiches, biscuit, cheese, and a pot of black coffee, with +sugar and cream. “It was very kindly thought of,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir, thank you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The man turned to go, shuffling soundlessly. Kirkwood was suddenly impressed +with his evasiveness; ever since he had entered the room, his countenance had +seemed turned from the guest. +</p> + +<p> +“Eccles!” he called sharply, at a venture. +</p> + +<p> +The butler halted, thunderstruck. “Ye-es, s-sir?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus05"></a> +<img src="images/img05.jpg" width="335" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">Eccles</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Turn round, Eccles; I want a look at you.” +</p> + +<p> +Eccles faced him unwillingly, with a stolid front but shifty eyes. Kirkwood +glanced him up and down, grinning. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Eccles; I’ll remember you now. You’ll remember me, too, won’t you? +You’re a bad actor, aren’t you, Eccles?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; thank you, sir,” mumbled the man unhappily; and took instant +advantage of the implied permission to go. +</p> + +<p> +Intensely diverted by the recollection of Eccles’ abortive attempt to stop him +at the door of Number 9, and wondering—now that he came to think of it—why, +precisely, young Hallam had deemed it necessary to travel with a body-guard and +adopt such furtive methods to enter into as well as to obtain what was asserted +to be his own property, Kirkwood turned active attention to the lunch. +</p> + +<p> +Thoughtfully he poured himself a cup of coffee, swallowing it hot and black as +it came from the silver pot; then munched the sandwiches. +</p> + +<p> +It <i>was</i> kindly thought of, this early morning repast; Mrs. Hallam seemed +more and more a remarkable woman with each phase of her character that she +chose to disclose. At odds with him, she yet took time to think of his creature +needs! +</p> + +<p> +What could be her motive,—not in feeding him, but in involving her name and +fortune in an affair so strangely flavored?... This opened up a desert waste of +barren speculation. “What’s anybody’s motive, who figures in this thundering +dime-novel?” demanded the American, almost contemptuously. And—for the +hundredth time—gave 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 “broke” and in this business up +to his ears. Well, he’d see it through; he’d nothing better to do, and—there +was the girl: +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Poetic simile: I’m going fast,” 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 “for keeps”; especially in view of the fact that everything—his own +heart’s inclination included—seemed 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, “penniless adventurer.” No; +whatever service he might be to the girl would be ample recompense to him for +his labors. And afterwards, he’d go his way in peace; she’d soon forget him—if +she hadn’t already. Women (he propounded gravely) are queer: there’s no telling +anything about them! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman nodded and smiled graciously. “Eccles has attended to your needs, I +hope? Please don’t stop smoking.” She sank into an arm-chair 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. +</p> + +<p> +She was very handsome indeed, just then; though a keener light might have +proved less flattering. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mr. Kirkwood?” she opened briskly, with a second intimate and friendly +nod; and paused, her pose receptive. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood sat down again, smiling good-natured appreciation of her unprejudiced +attitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Your son, Mrs. Hallam—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Freddie’s doing well enough.... Freddie,” she explained, “has a delicate +constitution and has seen little of the world. Such melodrama as to-night’s is +apt to shock him severely. We must make allowances, Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he responded vaguely; “he’ll be quite fit after a night’s sleep, I dare +say.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman was watching him keenly, beneath her lowered lashes. “I think,” she +said deliberately, “that it is time we came to an understanding.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood agreed—“Yes?” affably. +</p> + +<p> +“I purpose being perfectly straightforward. To begin with, I don’t place you, +Mr. Kirkwood. You are an unknown quantity, a new factor. Won’t you please tell +me what you are and.... Are you a friend of Mr. Calendar’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I may lay claim to that honor, though”—to Kirkwood’s way of seeing +things some little frankness on his own part would be essential if they were to +get on—“I hardly know him, Mrs. Hallam. I had the pleasure of meeting him only +this afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +She knitted her brows over this statement. +</p> + +<p> +“That, I assure you, is the truth,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“But ... I really don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beyond that? I presume I must tell you, though I confess I’m in doubt....” He +hesitated, weighing candor in the balance with discretion. +</p> + +<p> +“But who are you for? Are you in George Calendar’s pay?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forfend!”—piously. “My sole interest at the present moment is to +unravel a most entrancing mystery—” +</p> + +<p> +“Entitled ‘Dorothy Calendar’! Of course. You’ve known her long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eight hours, I believe,” he admitted gravely; “less than that, in fact.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar’s interests will not suffer through anything you may tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whether they will or no, I see I must swing a looser tongue, or you’ll be +showing me the door.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman shook her head, amused, “Not until,” she told him significantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then.” And he launched into an abridged narrative of the night’s +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. +“And there you have it all, Mrs. Hallam.” +</p> + +<p> +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 wanting.... +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It is so like Calendar!” she exclaimed: “so like him that one sees how foolish +it was to trust—no, 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!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood waited in patient attention till she chose to continue. When she did +“Now for my side of the case!” cried Mrs. Hallam; and rising, began to pace the +room, her slender and rounded figure swaying gracefully, the while she talked. +</p> + +<p> +“George Calendar is a scoundrel,” she said: “a swindler, gambler,—what I +believe you Americans call a confidence-man. He is also my late husband’s 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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, perfectly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Colonel 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 colonel’s personal effects.” +</p> + +<p> +“He 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 jewels—quite a treasure, believe me, Mr. Kirkwood. We found +no note of them among the colonel’s 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beautifully circumstantial, my dear lady,” commented Kirkwood—to his inner +consciousness. Outwardly he maintained consistently a pose of impassive +gullibility. +</p> + +<p> +“This 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 morning’s post. +When I insisted, he agreed to bring it himself, after dinner, this evening.... +I make it quite clear?” she interrupted, a little anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite clear, I assure you,” he assented encouragingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Strangely 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 Burgoyne’s bedroom.” +</p> + +<p> +“At Number 9, Frognall Street.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.... 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 +Calendar’s arrest, on old charges. For old sake’s sake, Mr. Mulready begged me +to give Calendar a word of warning. I did so—foolishly, it seems: Calendar was +at that moment planning to rob us, Mulready aiding and abetting him.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman paused before Kirkwood, looking down upon him. “And so,” she +concluded, “we have been tricked and swindled. I can scarcely believe it of +Dorothy Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“I, for one, don’t believe it.” Kirkwood spoke quietly, rising. “Whatever the +culpability of Calendar and Mulready, Dorothy was only their hoodwinked tool.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mr. Kirkwood, she must have known the jewels were not hers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he assented passively, but wholly unconvinced. +</p> + +<p> +“And what,” she demanded with a gesture of exasperation, “what would you +advise?” +</p> + +<p> +“Scotland Yard,” he told her bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s a family secret! It must not appear in the papers. Don’t you +understand—George Calendar is my husband’s cousin!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can think of nothing else, unless you pursue them in person.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—whither?” +</p> + +<p> +“That remains to be discovered; I can tell you nothing more than I have.... 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 night—or, rather, +good morning, Mrs. Hallam?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The butler showed him out. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” appreciated Mr. Kirkwood with gusto, “<i>she’s</i> got Ananias and +Sapphira talked to a standstill, all right!” He ruminated over this for a +moment. “Calendar can lie some, too; but hardly with her picturesque touch.... +Uncommon ingenious, <i>I</i> call it. All the same, there were only about a +dozen bits of tiling that didn’t fit into her mosaic a little bit.... I think +they’re all tarred with the same stick—all but the girl. And there’s something +afoot a long sight more devilish and crafty than that shilling-shocker of +madam’s.... Dorothy Calendar’s got about as much active part in it as I have. +I’m only from California, but they’ve got to show me, before I’ll believe a +word against her. Those infernal scoundrels!...Somebody’s got to be on the +girl’s side and I seem to have drawn the lucky straw.... Good Heavens! is it +possible for a grown man to fall heels over head in love in two short hours? I +don’t believe it. It’s just interest—nothing more.... And I’ll have to have a +change of clothes before I can do anything further.” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed gratefully to the lions, in view of their tolerant interest in his +soliloquy, and set off very suddenly round the square and up St. Martin’s Lane, +striking across town as directly as might be for St. Pancras Station. It would +undoubtedly be a long walk, but cabs were prohibited by his straitened means, +and the busses were all abed and wouldn’t be astir for hours. +</p> + +<p> +He strode along rapidly, finding his way more through intuition than by +observation or familiarity with London’s geography—indeed, was scarce aware of +his surroundings; for his brain was big with fine imagery, rapt in a glowing +dream of knighterrantry and chivalric deeds. +</p> + +<p> +Thus is it ever and alway with those who in the purity of young hearts rush in +where angels fear to tread; if these, Kirkwood and his ilk, be fools, thank God +for them, for with such foolishness is life savored and made sweet and sound! +To Kirkwood the warp of the world and the woof of it was Romance, and it +wrapped him round, a magic mantle to set him apart from all things mean and +sordid and render him impregnable and invisible to the haunting Shade of Care. +</p> + +<p> +Which, by the same token, presently lost track of him entirely, and wandered +off to find and bedevil some other poor devil. And Kirkwood, his eyes like his +spirit elevated, saw that the clouds of night were breaking, the skies +clearing, that the East pulsed ever more strongly with the dim golden promise +of the day to come. And this he chose to take for an omen—prematurely, it may +be. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX<br/> +AGAIN “BELOW BRIDGE”; AND BEYOND</h2> + +<p> +Kirkwood wasted little time, who had not much to waste, were he to do that upon +whose doing he had set his heart. It irked him sore to have to lose the +invaluable moments demanded by certain imperative arrangements, but his haste +was such that all was consummated within an hour. +</p> + +<p> +Within the period of a single hour, then, he had ransomed his luggage at St. +Pancras, caused it to be loaded upon a four-wheeler and transferred to a +neighboring hotel of evil flavor but moderate tariff, where he engaged a room +for a week, ordered an immediate breakfast, and retired with his belongings to +his room; he had shaved and changed his clothes, selecting a serviceable suit +of heavy tweeds, stout shoes, a fore-and-aft cap and a negligée shirt of a deep +shade calculated at least to seem clean for a long time; finally, he had +devoured his bacon and eggs, gulped down his coffee and burned his mouth, and, +armed with a stout stick, set off hotfoot in the still dim glimmering of early +day. +</p> + +<p> +By this time his cash capital had dwindled to the sum of two pounds, ten +shillings, eight-pence, and would have been much less had he paid for his +lodging in advance. But he considered his trunks ample security for the bill, +and dared not wait the hour when shopkeepers begin to take down shutters and it +becomes possible to realize upon one’s jewelry. Besides which, he had never +before been called upon to consider the advisability of raising money by +pledging personal property, and was in considerable doubt as to the right +course of procedure in such emergency. +</p> + +<p> +At King’s Cross Station on the Underground an acute disappointment awaited him; +there, likewise, he learned something about London. A sympathetic bobby +informed him that no trains would be running until after five-thirty, and that, +furthermore, no busses would begin to ply until half after seven. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s tramp it or cab it, then,” mused the young man mournfully, his longing +gaze seeking a nearby cab-rank—just then occupied by a solitary hansom, driver +somnolent on the box. “Officer,” he again addressed the policeman, mindful of +the English axiom: “When in doubt, ask a bobby.”—“Officer, when’s high-tide +this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +The bobby produced a well-worn pocket-almanac, moistened a massive thumb, and +rippled the pages. +</p> + +<p> +“London Bridge, ’igh tide twenty minutes arfter six, sir,” he announced with a +glow of satisfaction wholly pardonable in one who combines the functions of +perambulating almanac, guide-book, encyclopedia, and conserver of the peace. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood said something beneath his breath—a word in itself a comfortable +mouthful and wholesome and emphatic. He glanced again at the cab and groaned: +“O Lord, I just dassent!” With which, thanking the bureau of information, he +set off at a quick step down Grey’s Inn Road. +</p> + +<p> +The day had closed down in brilliance upon the city—and the voice of the +milkman was to be heard in the land—when he trudged, still briskly if a trifle +wearily, into Holborn, and held on eastward across the Viaduct and down Newgate +Street; the while addling his weary wits with heart-sickening computations of +minutes, all going hopelessly to prove that he would be late, far too late even +presupposing the unlikely. The unlikely, be it known, was that the +<i>Alethea</i> would not attempt to sail before the turn of the tide. +</p> + +<p> +For this was his mission, to find the <i>Alethea</i> before she sailed. +Incredible as it may appear, at five o’clock, or maybe earlier, on the morning +of the twenty-second of April, 1906, A.D., Philip Kirkwood, normally a +commonplace but likable young American in full possession of his senses, might +have been seen (and by some was seen) plodding manfully through Cheapside, +London, England, engaged upon a quest as mad, forlorn, and gallant as any whose +chronicle ever inspired the pen of a Malory or a Froissart. In brief he +proposed to lend his arm and courage to be the shield and buckler of one who +might or might not be a damsel in distress; according as to whether Mrs. Hallam +had spoken soothly of Dorothy Calendar, or Kirkwood’s own admirable faith in +the girl were justified of itself. +</p> + +<p> +Proceeding upon the working hypothesis that Mrs. Hallam was a polished liar in +most respects, but had told the truth, so far as concerned her statement to the +effect that the gladstone bag contained valuable real property (whose ownership +remained a moot question, though Kirkwood was definitely committed to the +belief that it was none of Mrs. Hallam’s or her son’s): he reasoned that the +two adventurers, with Dorothy and their booty, would attempt to leave London by +a water route, in the ship, <i>Alethea</i>, whose name had fallen from their +lips at Bermondsey Old Stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s initial task, then, would be to find the needle in the haystack—the +metaphor is poor: more properly, to sort out from the hundreds of vessels, of +all descriptions, at anchor in midstream, moored to the wharves of ’long-shore +warehouses, or in the gigantic docks that line the Thames, that one called +<i>Alethea</i>; of which he was so deeply mired in ignorance that he could not +say whether she were tramp-steamer, coastwise passenger boat, one of the liners +that ply between Tilbury and all the world, Channel ferry-boat, private yacht +(steam or sail), schooner, four-master, square-rigger, barque or brigantine. +</p> + +<p> +A task to stagger the optimism of any but one equipped with the sublime +impudence of Youth! Even Kirkwood was disturbed by some little awe when he +contemplated the vast proportions of his undertaking. None the less doggedly he +plugged ahead, and tried to keep his mind from vain surmises as to what would +be his portion when eventually he should find himself a passenger, uninvited +and unwelcome, upon the <i>Alethea</i>.... +</p> + +<p> +London had turned over once or twice, and was pulling the bedclothes over its +head and grumbling about getting up, but the city was still sound asleep when +at length he paused for a minute’s rest in front of the Mansion House, and +realized with a pang of despair that he was completely tuckered out. There was +a dull, vague throbbing in his head; weights pressed upon his eyeballs until +they ached; his mouth was hot and tasted of yesterday’s tobacco; his feet were +numb and heavy; his joints were stiff; he yawned frequently. +</p> + +<p> +With a sigh he surrendered to the flesh’s frailty. An early cabby, cruising up +from Cannon Street station on the off-chance of finding some one astir in the +city, aside from the doves and sparrows, suffered the surprise of his life when +Kirkwood hailed him. His face was blank with amazement when he reined in, and +his eyes bulged when the prospective fare, on impulse, explained his urgent +needs. Happily he turned out a fair representative of his class, an intelligent +and unfuddled cabby. +</p> + +<p> +“Jump in, sir,” he told Kirkwood cheerfully, as soon as he had assimilated the +latter’s demands. “I knows precisely wotcher wants. Leave it all to me.” +</p> + +<p> +The admonition was all but superfluous; Kirkwood was unable, for the time +being, to do aught else than resign his fate into another’s guidance. Once in +the cab he slipped insensibly into a nap, and slept soundly on, as reckless of +the cab’s swift pace and continuous jouncing as of the sunlight glaring full in +his tired young face. +</p> + +<p> +He may have slept twenty minutes; he awoke faint with drowsiness, tingling from +head to toe from fatigue, and in distress of a queer qualm in the pit of his +stomach, to find the hansom at rest and the driver on the step, shaking his +fare with kindly determination. “Oh, a’ right,” he assented surlily, and by +sheer force of will made himself climb out to the sidewalk; where, having +rubbed his eyes, stretched enormously and yawned discourteously in the face of +the East End, he was once more himself and a hundred times refreshed into the +bargain. Contentedly he counted three shillings into the cabby’s palm—the fare +named being one-and-six. +</p> + +<p> +“The shilling over and above the tip’s for finding me the waterman and boat,” +he stipulated. +</p> + +<p> +“Right-o. You’ll mind the ’orse a minute, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded. The man touched his hat and disappeared inexplicably. +Kirkwood, needlessly attaching himself to the reins near the animal’s head, +pried his sense of observation open and became alive to the fact that he stood +in a quarter of London as strange to him as had been Bermondsey Wall. +</p> + +<p> +To this day he can not put a name to it; he surmises that it was Wapping. +</p> + +<p> +Ramshackle tenements with sharp gable roofs lined either side of the way. +Frowsy women draped themselves over the window-sills. Pallid and wasted +parodies on childhood contested the middle of the street with great, slow +drays, drawn by enormous horses. On the sidewalks twin streams of masculine +humanity flowed without rest, both bound in the same direction: dock laborers +going to their day’s work. Men of every nationality known to the world (he +thought) passed him in his short five-minute wait by the horse’s head; Britons, +brown East Indians, blacks from Jamaica, swart Italians, Polaks, Russian Jews, +wire-drawn Yankees, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, even a Nubian or two: +uniform in these things only, that their backs were bent with toil, bowed +beyond mending, and their faces stamped with the blurred type-stamp of the dumb +laboring brute. A strangely hideous procession, they shambled on, for the most +part silent, all uncouth and unreal in the clear morning glow. +</p> + +<p> +The outlander was sensible of some relief when his cabby popped hurriedly out +of the entrance to a tenement, a dull-visaged, broad-shouldered waterman +ambling more slowly after. +</p> + +<p> +“Nevvy of mine, sir,” announced the cabby; “and a fust-ryte waterman; knows the +river like a book, he do.” +</p> + +<p> +The nephew touched his forelock sheepishly. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Kirkwood; and, turning to the man, “Your boat?” he asked with +the brevity of weariness. +</p> + +<p> +“This wye, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +At his guide’s heels Kirkwood threaded the crowd and, entering the tenement, +stumbled through a gloomy and unsavory passage, to come out at last upon a +scanty, unrailed veranda overlooking the river. Ten feet below, perhaps, foul +waters purred and eddied round the piles supporting the rear of the building. +On one hand a ladder-like flight of rickety steps descended to a floating stage +to which a heavy rowboat lay moored. In the latter a second waterman was seated +bailing out bilge with a rusty can. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere we are, sir,” said the cabman’s nephew, pausing at the head of the steps. +“Now, where’s it to be?” +</p> + +<p> +The American explained tersely that he had a message to deliver a friend, who +had shipped aboard a vessel known as the <i>Alethea</i>, scheduled to sail at +floodtide; further than which deponent averred naught. +</p> + +<p> +The waterman scratched his head. “A ’ard job, sir; not knowin’ wot kind of a +boat she are mykes it ’arder.” He waited hopefully. +</p> + +<p> +“Ten shillings,” volunteered Kirkwood promptly; “ten shillings if you get me +aboard her before she weighs anchor; fifteen if I keep you out more than an +hour, and still you put me aboard. After that we’ll make other terms.” +</p> + +<p> +The man promptly turned his back to hail his mate. “’Arf a quid, Bob, if we +puts this gent aboard a wessel name o’ <i>Allytheer</i> afore she syles at turn +o’ tide.” +</p> + +<p> +In the boat the man with the bailing can turned up an impassive countenance. +“Coom down,” he clenched the bargain; and set about shipping the sweeps. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood crept down the shaky ladder and deposited himself in the stern of the +boat; the younger boatman settled himself on the midship thwart. +</p> + +<p> +“Ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ready,” assented old Bob from the bows. He cast off the painter, placed one +sweep against the edge of the stage, and with a vigorous thrust pushed off; +then took his seat. +</p> + +<p> +Bows swinging down-stream, the boat shot out from the shore. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s the tide?” demanded Kirkwood, his impatience growing. +</p> + +<p> +“On th’ turn, sir,” he was told. +</p> + +<p> +For a long moment broadside to the current, the boat responded to the sturdy +pulling of the port sweeps. Another moment, and it was in full swing, the +watermen bending lustily to their task. Under their unceasing urge, the +broad-beamed, heavy craft, aided by the ebbing tide, surged more and more +rapidly through the water; the banks, grim and unsightly with their towering, +impassive warehouses broken by toppling wooden tenements, slipped swiftly +up-stream. Ship after ship was passed, sailing vessels in the majority, +swinging sluggishly at anchor, drifting slowly with the river, or made fast to +the goods-stages of the shore; and in keen anxiety lest he should overlook the +right one, Kirkwood searched their bows and sterns for names, which in more +than one case proved hardly legible. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Alethea</i> was not of their number. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of some ten minutes, the watermen drove the boat sharply inshore, +bringing her up alongside another floating stage, in the shadow of another +tenement.—both so like those from which they had embarked that Kirkwood would +have been unable to distinguish one from another. +</p> + +<p> +In the bows old Bob lifted up a stentorian voice, summoning one William. +</p> + +<p> +Recognizing that there was some design in this, the passenger subdued his +disapproval of the delay, and sat quiet. +</p> + +<p> +In answer to the third ear-racking hail, a man, clothed simply in dirty shirt +and disreputable trousers, showed himself in the doorway above, rubbing the +sleep out of a red, bloated countenance with a mighty and grimy fist. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ello,” he said surlily. “Wot’s th’ row?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Oo,” interrogated old Bob, holding the boat steady by grasping the stage, +“was th’ party wot engyged yer larst night, Bill?” +</p> + +<p> +“Party name o’ <i>Allytheer</i>,” growled the drowsy one. “W’y?” +</p> + +<p> +“Party ’ere’s lookin’ for ’im. Where’ll I find this <i>Allytheer?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Best look sharp ’r yer won’t find ’im,” retorted the one above. “’E <i>was</i> +at anchor off Bow Creek larst night.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s heart leaped in hope. “What sort of a vessel was she?” he asked, +half rising in his eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +“Brigantine, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Thank—you!</i>” replied Kirkwood explosively, resuming his seat with +uncalculated haste as old Bob, deaf to the amenities of social intercourse in +an emergency involving as much as ten-bob, shoved off again. +</p> + +<p> +And again the boat was flying down in midstream, the leaden waters, shot with +gold of the morning sun, parting sullenly beneath its bows. +</p> + +<p> +The air was still, heavy and tepid; the least exertion brought out beaded +moisture on face and hands. In the east hung a turgid sky, dull with haze, +through which the mounting sun swam like a plaque of brass; overhead it was +clear and cloudless, but besmirched as if the polished mirror of the heavens +had been fouled by the breath of departing night. +</p> + +<p> +On the right, ahead, Greenwich Naval College loomed up, the great gray-stone +buildings beyond the embankment impressively dominating the scene, in happy +relief against the wearisome monotony of the river-banks; it came abreast; and +ebbed into the backwards of the scene. +</p> + +<p> +The watermen straining at the sweeps, the boat sped into Blackwall Reach, +Bugsby Marshes a splash of lurid green to port, dreary Cubitt Town and the West +India Docks to starboard. Here the river ran thick with shipping. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we near?” Kirkwood would know; and by way of reply had a grunt of the +younger waterman. +</p> + +<p> +Again, “Will we make it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +The identical grunt answered him; he was free to interpret it as he would; +young William—as old Bob named him—had no breath for idle words. Kirkwood +subsided, controlling his impatience to the best of his ability; the men, he +told himself again and again, were earning their pay, whether or not they +gained the goal of his desire.... Their labors were titanic; on their temples +and foreheads the knotted veins stood out like discolored whip-cord; their +faces were the shade of raw beef, steaming with sweat; their eyes protruded +with the strain that set their jaws like vises; their chests heaved and shrank +like bellows; their backs curved, straightened, and bent again in rhythmic +unison as tiring to the eye as the swinging of a pendulum. +</p> + +<p> +Hugging the marshy shore, they rounded the Blackwall Point. Young William +looked to Kirkwood, caught his eye, and nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Here?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood rose, balancing himself against the leap and sway of the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Sumwhere’s ... ’long ... o’ ’ere.” +</p> + +<p> +From right to left his eager glance swept the river’s widening reach. Vessels +were there in abundance, odd, unwieldy, blunt-bowed craft with huge, rakish, +tawny sails; long strings of flat barges, pyramidal mounds of coal on each, +lashed to another and convoyed by panting tugs; steam cargo boats, battered, +worn, rusted sore through their age-old paint; a steel leviathan of the deep +seas, half cargo, half passenger boat, warping reluctantly into the mouth of +the Victoria Dock tidal basin,—but no brigantine, no sailing vessel of any +type. +</p> + +<p> +The young man’s lips checked a cry that was half a sob of bitter +disappointment. He had entered into the spirit of the chase heart and soul, +with an enthusiasm that was strange to him, when he came to look back upon the +time; and to fail, even though failure had been discounted a hundredfold since +the inception of his mad adventure, seemed hard, very hard. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down suddenly. “She’s gone!” he cried in a hollow gasp. +</p> + +<p> +The boatmen eased upon their oars, and old Bob stood up in the bows, scanning +the river-scape with keen eyes shielded by a level palm. Young William drooped +forward suddenly, head upon knees, and breathed convulsively. The boat drifted +listlessly with the current. +</p> + +<p> +Old Bob panted: “‘Dawn’t—see—nawthin’—o’ ’er.” He resumed his seat. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no hope, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +The elder waterman shook his head. “‘Carn’t sye.... Might be round—nex’ +bend—might be—passin’ Purfleet.... ’Point is—me an’ young Wilyum ’ere—carn’t do +no more—’n we ’as. We be wore out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Kirkwood assented, disconsolate, “You’ve certainly earned your pay.” +Then hope revived; he was very young in heart, you know. “Can’t you suggest +something? I’ve <i>got</i> to catch that ship!” +</p> + +<p> +Old Bob wagged his head in slow negation; young William lifted his. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a rylewye runs by Woolwich,” he ventured. “Yer might tyke tryne an’ go +to Sheerness, sir. Yer’d be positive o’ passin’ ’er if she didn’t syle afore +’igh-tide. ’Ire a boat at Sheerness an’ put out an’ look for ’er.” +</p> + +<p> +“How far’s Woolwich?” Kirkwood demanded instantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mile,” said the elder man. “Tyke yer for five-bob extry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done!” +</p> + +<p> +Young William dashed the sweat from his eyes, wiped his palms on his hips, and +fitted the sweeps again to the wooden tholes. Old Bob was as ready. With an +inarticulate cry they gave way. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X<br/> +DESPERATE MEASURES</h2> + +<p> +Old Bob seemed something inclined toward optimism, when the boat lay alongside +a landing-stage at Woolwich, and Kirkwood had clambered ashore. +</p> + +<p> +“Yer’ll mebbe myke it,” the waterman told him with a weatherwise survey of the +skies. “Wind’s freshenin’ from the east’rds, an’ that’ll ’old ’er back a bit, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Arsk th’ wye to th’ Dorkyard Styshun,” young William volunteered. “’Tis th’ +shortest walk, sir. I ’opes yer catches ’er.... Thanky, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He caught dextrously the sovereign which Kirkwood, in ungrudging liberality, +spared them of his store of two. The American nodded acknowledgments and +adieux, with a faded smile deprecating his chances of winning the race, sorely +handicapped as he was. He was very, very tired, and in his heart suspected that +he would fail. But, if he did, he would at least be able to comfort himself +that it was not for lack of trying. He set his teeth on that covenant, in grim +determination; either there was a strain of the bulldog latent in the Kirkwood +breed or else his infatuation gripped him more strongly than he guessed. +</p> + +<p> +Yet he suspected something of its power; he knew that this was altogether an +insane proceeding, and that the lure that led him on was Dorothy Calendar. A +strange dull light glowed in his weary eyes, on the thought of her. He’d go +through fire and water in her service. She was costing him dear, perhaps was to +cost him dearer still; and perhaps there’d be for his guerdon no more than a +“Thank you, Mr. Kirkwood!” at the end of the passage. But that would be no less +than his deserts; he was not to forget that he was interfering unwarrantably; +the girl was in her father’s hands, surely safe enough there—to the casual +mind. If her partnership in her parent’s fortunes were distasteful, she endured +it passively, without complaint. +</p> + +<p> +He decided that it was his duty to remind himself, from time to time, that his +main interest must be in the game itself, in the solution of the riddle; +whatever should befall, he must look for no reward for his gratuitous and +self-appointed part. Indeed he was all but successful in persuading himself +that it was the fascination of adventure alone that drew him on. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever the lure, it was inexorable; instead of doing as a sensible person +would have done—returning to London for a long rest in his hotel room, ere +striving to retrieve his shattered fortunes—Philip Kirkwood turned up the +village street, intent only to find the railway station and catch the first +available train for Sheerness, were that an early one or a late. +</p> + +<p> +A hapchance native whom he presently encountered, furnished minute directions +for reaching the Dockyard Station of the Southeastern and Chatham Rail-way, +adding comfortable information to the effect that the next east-bound train +would pass through in ten minutes; if Kirkwood would mend his pace he could +make it easily, with time to spare. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 woman’s startled eyes, staring into his own through a thin mesh +of veiling, fell off the running-board, slammed the door, and hurled himself +to-wards 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 “2nd Class Smoking.” Kirkwood promptly tumbled in; and +when he turned to shut the door the coaches were moving. +</p> + +<p> +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 Kirkwood’s teeth on edge with sheer impatience, and made him long +fervently for the land of his birth, where they do things differently—where the +Board of Directors of a railway company doesn’t erect three substantial +passenger depôts 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 <i>had</i> 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 fool’s 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. +</p> + +<p> +Rattling and swaying, the train left the town behind. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The trucks drummed it out persistently—he thought, vindictively: “<i>Lost!... +Lost!... For ever lost!...</i>” +</p> + +<p> +And he had made—was then making—a damned fool of himself. The trucks had no +need to din <i>that</i> into his thick skull by their ceaseless iteration; he +knew it, would not deny it.... +</p> + +<p> +And it was all his own fault. He’d had his chance, Calendar had offered him it. +If only he had closed with the fat adventurer!... +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +After a long time he seemed to realize rather hazily that the carriage-door had +been opened to admit somebody. Its smart closing <i>bang</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, you know, Mr. Kirkwood, I simply couldn’t contain my impatience +another instant.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood gasped and tried to re-collect his wits. +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon—I’ve been asleep,” he said stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, but, you know, you must make allowances +for a woman’s nerves.” +</p> + +<p> +Beneath his breath the bewildered man said: “The deuce!” and above it, in a +stupefied tone: “Mrs. Hallam!” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded in a not unfriendly fashion, smiling brightly. “Myself, Mr. +Kirkwood! Really, our predestined paths are badly tangled, just now; aren’t +they? Were you surprised to find me in here, with you? Come now, confess you +were!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Surprised and delighted,” he replied, recovering, with mendacity so +intentional and obvious that the woman laughed aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew you’d be!... You see, I had the carriage ahead, the one you didn’t +take. I was so disappointed when you flung up to the door and away again! You +didn’t see me hanging half out the window, to watch where you went, did you? +That’s how I discovered that your discourtesy was unintentional, that you +hadn’t recognized me,—by the fact that you took this compartment, right behind +my own.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused invitingly, but Kirkwood, grown wary, contented himself with picking +up his pipe and carefully knocking out the dottle on the window-ledge. +</p> + +<p> +“I was glad to see <i>you</i>,” she affirmed; “but 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, I’m quite old enough and wise enough to +question even my own intuitions.” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman wise enough for that is an adult prodigy,” he ventured cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s 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 might’ve escaped me if I had waited until We got to Queensborough.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“For you are going to Queensborough, aren’t you, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Queensborough?” he echoed blankly; and, in fact, he was at a loss to follow +her drift. “No, Mrs. Hallam; I’m not bound there.” +</p> + +<p> +Her surprise was apparent; she made no effort to conceal it. “But,” she +faltered, “if not there—” +</p> + +<p> +“’Give you my word, Mrs. Hallam, I have no intention whatever of going to +Queensborough,” Kirkwood protested. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand.” The nervous drumming of a patent-leather covered toe, +visible beneath the hem of her dress, alone betrayed a rising tide of +impatience. “Then my intuition <i>was</i> at fault!” +</p> + +<p> +“In this instance, if it was at all concerned with my insignificant affairs, +yes—most decidedly at fault.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, regarding him with grave suspicion. “I hardly know: whether +to believe you. I think....” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s countenance displayed an added shade of red. After a moment, “I mean +no discourtesy,” he began stiffly, “but—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t care a farthing whether I believe you or not?” +</p> + +<p> +He caught her laughing eye, and smiled, the flush subsiding. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then! Now let us see: Where <i>are</i> you bound?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood looked out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m convinced it’s a rendezvous...?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood smiled patiently at the landscape. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Dorothy Calendar so very, very beautiful, Mr. Kirkwood?”—with a trace of +malice. +</p> + +<p> +Ostentatiously Kirkwood read the South Eastern and Chatham’s framed card of +warning, posted just above Mrs. Hallam’s head, to all such incurable lunatics +as are possessed of a desire to travel on the running-boards of railway +carriages. +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to meet her, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +He gracefully concealed a yawn. +</p> + +<p> +The woman’s plan of attack took another form. “Last night, when you told me +your story, I believed you.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I believed you an American but a gentleman; it appears that, if you ever were +the latter, you’ve fallen so low that you willingly cast your lot with +thieves.” +</p> + +<p> +Having exhausted his repertoire of rudenesses, Kirkwood took to twiddling his +thumbs. +</p> + +<p> +“I 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 our—my son’s +jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam,” he said soberly, “if I am going to meet Mr. Calendar or Mr. +Mulready, I have no assurance of that fact.” +</p> + +<p> +There was only the briefest of pauses, during which she analyzed this; then, +quickly, “But you hope to?” she snapped. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood, can’t we be friends—this aside?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing could please me more, Mrs. Hallam!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry if I’ve annoyed you—” +</p> + +<p> +“And I, too, have been rude.” +</p> + +<p> +“Last night, when you cut away so suddenly, you prevented my making you a +proposal, a sort of a business proposition....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—?” +</p> + +<p> +“To come over to our side—” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so. That was why I went.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I understood. But this morning, when you’ve had time to think it over—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no choice in the matter, Mrs. Hallam.” The green eyes darkened +ominously. “You mean—I am to understand, then, that you’re against us, that you +prefer to side with swindlers and scoundrels, all because of a—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 woman’s 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. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” she said slowly, after a silent time, “you are not for Queensborough! The +corollary of that <i>admission</i>, Mr. Kirkwood, is that you are for +Sheerness.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” he replied wearily, “that there are no other stations on this +line, after Newington.” +</p> + +<p> +“It follows, then, that—that I follow.” And in answer to his perturbed glance, +she added: “Oh, I’ll grant that intuition is sometimes a poor guide. But if you +meet George Calendar, so shall I. Nothing can prevent that. You can’t hinder +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Considerably amused, he chuckled. “Let us talk of other things, Mrs. Hallam,” +he suggested pleasantly. “How is your son?” +</p> + +<p> +At this juncture the brakes began to shriek and grind upon the wheels. The +train slowed; it stopped; and the voice of a guard could be heard admonishing +passengers for Queensborough Pier to alight and take the branch line. In the +noise the woman’s response was drowned, and Kirkwood was hardly enough +concerned for poor Freddie to repeat his question. +</p> + +<p> +When, after a little, the train pulled out of the junction, neither found +reason to resume the conversation. During the brief balance of the journey Mrs. +Hallam presumably had food for thought; she frowned, pursed her lips, and with +one daintily gloved forefinger followed a seam of her tailored skirt; while +Kirkwood sat watching and wondering how to rid himself of her, if she proved +really as troublesome as she threatened to be. +</p> + +<p> +Also, he wondered continually what it was all about. Why did Mrs. Hallam +suspect him of designing to meet Calendar at Queensborough? Had she any +tangible ground for believing that Calendar could be found in Queensborough? +Presumably she had, since she was avowedly in pursuit of that gentleman, and, +Kirkwood inferred, had booked for Queensborough. Was he, then, running away +from Calendar and his daughter to chase a will-o’-the-wisp of his credulous +fancy, off Sheerness shore? +</p> + +<p> +Disturbing reflection. He scowled over it, then considered the other side of +the face. Presuming Mrs. Hallam to have had reasonably dependable assurance +that Calendar would stop in Queensborough, would she so readily have abandoned +her design to catch him there, on the mere supposition that Kirkwood might be +looking for him in Sheerness? That did not seem likely to one who esteemed Mrs. +Hallam’s acumen as highly as Kirkwood did. He brightened up, forgot that his +was a fool’s errand, and began again to project strategic plans into a +problematic future. +</p> + +<p> +A sudden jolt interrupted this pastime, and the warning screech of the brakes +informed that he had no time to scheme, but had best continue on the plan of +action that had brought him thus far—that is, trust to his star and accept what +should befall without repining. +</p> + +<p> +He rose, opened the door, and holding it so, turned. +</p> + +<p> +“I regret, Mrs. Hallam,” he announced, smiling his crooked smile, “that a +pressing engagement is about to prohibit my ’squiring you through the +ticket-gates. You understand, I’m sure.” +</p> + +<p> +His irrepressible humor proved infectious; and Mrs. Hallam’s spirit ran as high +as his own. She was smiling cheerfully when she, too, rose. +</p> + +<p> +“I also am in some haste,” she averred demurely, gathering up her hand-bag and +umbrella. +</p> + +<p> +A raised platform shot in beside the carriage, and the speed was so sensibly +moderated that the train seemed to be creeping rather than running. Kirkwood +flung the door wide open and lowered himself to the running-board. The end of +the track was in sight and—a man who has been trained to board San Francisco +cable-cars fears to alight from no moving vehicle. He swung off, got his +balance, and ran swiftly down the platform. +</p> + +<p> +A cry from a bystander caused him to glance over his shoulder; Mrs. Hallam was +then in the act of alighting. As he looked the flurry of skirts subsided and +she fell into stride, pursuing. +</p> + +<p> +Sleepy Sheerness must have been scandalized, that day, and its gossips have +acquired ground for many, an uncharitable surmise. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood, however, was so fortunate as to gain the wicket before the employee +there awoke to the situation. Otherwise, such is the temper of British petty +officialdom, he might have detained the fugitive. As it was, Kirkwood +surrendered his ticket and ran out into the street with his luck still a +dominant factor in the race. For, looking back, he saw that Mrs. Hallam had +been held up at the gate, another victim of British red-tape; her ticket read +for Queensborough, she was attempting to alight one station farther down the +line, and while undoubtedly she was anxious to pay the excess fare, Heaven +alone knew when she would succeed in allaying the suspicions and resentment of +the ticket-taker. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good for ten minutes’ start!” Kirkwood crowed. “And it never occurred +to me—!” +</p> + +<p> +Before the station he found two hacks in waiting, with little to choose between +them; neither was of a type that did not seem to advertise its pre-Victorian +fashioning, and to neither was harnessed an animal that deserved anything but +the epithet of screw. Kirkwood took the nearest for no other reason than +because it was the nearest, and all but startled the driver off his box by +offering double-fare for a brisk pace and a simple service at the end of the +ride. Succinctly he set forth his wants, jumped into the antiquated +four-wheeler, and threw himself down upon musty, dusty cushions to hug himself +over the joke and bless whatever English board of railway, directors it was +that first ordained that tickets should be taken up at the end instead of the +outset of a journey. +</p> + +<p> +It was promptly made manifest that he had further cause for gratulation. The +cabby, recovering from his amazement, was plying an indefatigable whip and +thereby eliciting a degree of speed from his superannuated nag, that his fare +had by no means hoped for, much less anticipated. The cab rocked and racketed +through Sheerness’ streets at a pace which is believed to be unprecedented and +unrivaled; its passenger, dashed from side to side, had all he could do to keep +from battering the vehicle to pieces with his head; while it was entirely out +of the question to attempt to determine whether or not he was being pursued. He +enjoyed it all hugely. +</p> + +<p> +In a period of time surprisingly short, he saw, from fleeting glimpses of the +scenery to be obtained through the reeling windows, that they were threading +the outskirts of the town; synchronously, whether by design or through actual +inability to maintain it, the speed was moderated. And in the course of a few +more minutes the cab stopped definitely. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood clambered painfully out, shook himself together and the bruises out of +his bones, and looked fearfully back. +</p> + +<p> +Aside from a slowly settling cloud of dust, the road ran clear as far as he +could see—to the point, in fact, where the town closed in about it. +</p> + +<p> +He had won; at all events in so much as to win meant eluding the persevering +Mrs. Hallam. But to what end? +</p> + +<p> +Abstractedly he tendered his lonely sovereign to the driver, and without even +looking at it, crammed the heavy weight of change into his pocket; an oversight +which not only won him the awe-struck admiration of the cabby, but entailed +consequences (it may be) he little apprehended. It was with an absentminded nod +that he acquiesced in the man’s announcement that he might arrange about the +boat for him. Accordingly the cabby disappeared; and Kirkwood continued to +stare about him, eagerly, hopefully. +</p> + +<p> +He stood on the brink of the Thames estuary, there a possible five miles from +shore to shore; from his feet, almost, a broad shingle beach sloped gently to +the water. +</p> + +<p> +On one hand a dilapidated picket-fence enclosed the door-yard of a fisherman’s +cottage, or, better, hovel,—if it need be accurately described—at the door of +which the cabby was knocking. +</p> + +<p> +The morning was now well-advanced. The sun rode high, a sphere of tarnished +flame in a void of silver-gray, its thin cold radiance striking pallid sparks +from the leaping crests of wind-whipped waves. In the east a wall of vapor, +dull and lusterless, had taken body since the dawn, masking the skies and +shutting down upon the sea like some vast curtain; and out of the heart of this +a bitter and vicious wind played like a sword. +</p> + +<p> +To the north, Shoeburyness loomed vaguely, like a low-drifted bank of cloud. +Off to the right the Nore Lightship danced, a tiny fleck of warm crimson in a +wilderness of slatey-blue waters, plumed with a myriad of vanishing white-caps. +</p> + +<p> +Up the shelving shore, small, puny wavelets dashed in impotent fury, and the +shingle sang unceasingly its dreary, syncopated monotone. High and dry, a few +dingy boats lay canted wearily upon their broad, swelling sides,—a couple of +dories, apparently in daily use; a small sloop yacht, dismantled and plainly +beyond repair; and an oyster-smack also out of commission. About them the beach +was strewn with a litter of miscellany,—nets, oars, cork buoys, bits of +wreckage and driftwood, a few fish too long forgotten and (one assumed) +responsible in part for the foreign wealth of the atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +Some little distance offshore a fishing-boat, catrigged and not more than +twenty-feet over all, swung bobbing at her mooring, keen nose searching into +the wind; at sight of which Kirkwood gave thanks, for his adventitious guide +had served him well, if that boat were to be hired by any manner of persuasion. +</p> + +<p> +But it was to the farther reaches of the estuary that he gave more prolonged +and most anxious heed, scanning narrowly what shipping was there to be seen. +Far beyond the lightship a liner was riding the waves with serene contempt, +making for the river’s mouth and Tilbury Dock. Nearer in, a cargo boat was +standing out upon the long trail, the white of riven waters showing clearly +against her unclean freeboard. Out to east a little covey of fishing-smacks, +red sails well reefed, were scudding before the wind like strange affrighted +water-fowl, and bearing down past a heavy-laden river barge. The latter, with +tarpaulin battened snugly down over the cockpit and the seas dashing over her +wash-board until she seemed under water half the time, was forging stodgily +Londonwards, her bargee at the tiller smoking a placid pipe. +</p> + +<p> +But a single sailing vessel of any notable tonnage was in sight; and when he +saw her Kirkwood’s heart became buoyant with hope, and he began to tremble with +nervous eagerness. For he believed her to be the <i>Alethea</i>. +</p> + +<p> +There’s no mistaking a ship brigantine-rigged for any other style of craft that +sails the seas. +</p> + +<p> +From her position when first he saw her, Kirkwood could have fancied she was +tacking out of the mouth of the Medway; but he judged that, leaving the Thames’ +mouth, she had tacked to starboard until well-nigh within hail of Sheerness. +Now, having presumably, gone about, she was standing out toward the Nore, +boring doggedly into the wind. He would have given a deal for glasses wherewith +to read the name upon her bows, but was sensible of no hampering doubts; nor, +had he harbored any, would they have deterred him. He had set his heart upon +the winning of his venture, had come too far, risked far too much, to suffer +anything now to stay his hand and stand between him and Dorothy Calendar. +Whatever the further risks and hazards, though he should take his life in his +hands to win to her side, he would struggle on. He recked nothing of personal +danger; a less selfish passion ran molten in his veins, moving him to madness. +</p> + +<p> +Fascinated, he fixed his gaze upon the reeling brigantine, and for a space it +was as if by longing he had projected his spirit to her slanting deck, and were +there, pleading his case with the mistress of his heart.... +</p> + +<p> +Voices approaching brought him back to shore. He turned, resuming his mask of +sanity, the better to confer with the owner of the cottage and boats—a heavy, +keen-eyed fellow, ungracious and truculent of habit, and chary of his words; as +he promptly demonstrated. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll hire your boat,” Kirkwood told him, “to put me aboard that brigantine, +off to leeward. We ought to start at once.” +</p> + +<p> +The fisherman shifted his quid of tobacco from cheek to cheek, grunted +inarticulately, and swung deliberately on his heel, displaying a bull neck +above a pair of heavy shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Dirty weather,” he croaked, facing back from his survey of the eastern skies +before the American found out whether or not he should resent his insolence. +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” Kirkwood demanded curtly, annoyed. +</p> + +<p> +The man hesitated, scowling blackly at the heeling vessel, momentarily +increasing her distance from shore. Then with a crafty smile, “Two pound’,” he +declared. +</p> + +<p> +The American nodded. “Very well,” he agreed simply. “Get out your boat.” +</p> + +<p> +The fisherman turned away to shamble noisily over the shingle, huge booted +heels crunching, toward one of the dories. To this he set his shoulder, shoving +it steadily down the beach until only the stern was dry. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood looked back, for the last time, up the road to Sheerness. Nothing +moved upon it. He was rid of Mrs. Hallam, if face to face with a sterner +problem. He had a few pence over ten shillings in his pocket, and had promised +to pay the man four times as much. He would have agreed to ten times the sum +demanded; for the boat he must and would have. But he had neglected to conclude +his bargain, to come to an understanding as to the method of payment; and he +felt more than a little dubious as to the reception the fisherman would give +his proposition, sound as he, Kirkwood, knew it to be. +</p> + +<p> +In the background the cabby loitered, gnawed by insatiable curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +The fisherman turned, calling over his shoulder: “If ye’d catch yon vessel, +come!” +</p> + +<p> +With one final twinge of doubt—the task of placating this surly dog was +anything but inviting—the American strode to the boat and climbed in, taking +the stern seat. The fisherman shoved off, wading out thigh-deep in the spiteful +waves, then threw himself in over the gunwales and shipped the oars. Bows +swinging offshore, rocking and dancing, the dory began to forge slowly toward +the anchored boat. In their faces the wind beat gustily, and small, slapping +waves, breaking against the sides, showered them with fine spray.... +</p> + +<p> +In time the dory lay alongside the cat-boat, the fisherman with a gnarled hand +grasping the latter’s gunwale to hold the two together. With some difficulty +Kirkwood transhipped himself, landing asprawl in the cockpit, amid a tangle of +cordage slippery with scales. The skipper followed, with clumsy expertness +bringing the dory’s painter with him and hitching it to a ring-bolt abaft the +rudder-head. Then, pausing an instant to stare into the East with somber eyes, +he shipped the tiller and bent to the halyards. As the sail rattled up, +flapping wildly, Kirkwood marked with relief—for it meant so much time +saved—that it was already close reefed. +</p> + +<p> +But when at least the boom was thrashing overhead and the halyards had been +made fast to their cleats, the fisherman again stood erect, peering +distrustfully at the distant wall of cloud. +</p> + +<p> +Then, in two breaths: “Can’t do it,” he decided; “not at the price.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” Kirkwood stared despairingly after the brigantine, that was already +drawn far ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Danger,” growled the fellow, “—wind.” +</p> + +<p> +At a loss completely, Kirkwood found no words. He dropped his head, +considering. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at the price,” the sullen voice iterated; and he looked up to find the +cunning gaze upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“How much, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five poun’ I’ll have—no less, for riskin’ my life this day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible. I haven’t got it.” +</p> + +<p> +In silence the man unshipped the tiller and moved toward the cleats. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood unbuttoned his coat and, freeing the chain from his waistcoat +buttonholes, removed his watch.... As well abandon them altogether; he had +designed to leave them as security for the two pounds, and had delayed stating +the terms only for fear lest they be refused. Now, too late as ever, he +recognized his error. But surely, he thought, it should be apparent even to +that low intelligence that the timepiece alone was worth more than the boat +itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take these?” he offered. “Take and keep them—only set me aboard that +ship!” +</p> + +<p> +Deliberately the fisherman weighed the watch and chain in his broad, hard palm, +eyes narrowing to mere slits in his bronzed mask. +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” he asked slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Eighty pounds, together; the chain alone cost me twenty.” +</p> + +<p> +The shifty, covetous eyes ranged from the treasure in his hand to the +threatening east. A puff of wind caught the sail and sent the boom +athwartships, like a mighty flail. Both men ducked instinctively, to escape a +braining. +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know?” objected the skipper. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m telling you. If you’ve got eyes, you can see,” retorted Kirkwood savagely, +seeing that he had erred in telling the truth; the amount he had named was too +great to be grasped at once by this crude, cupidous brain. +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know?” the man repeated. Nevertheless he dropped watch and chain into +his pocket, then with a meaning grimace extended again his horny, greedy palm. +</p> + +<p> +“What...?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hand over th’ two pound’ and we’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see you damned first!” +</p> + +<p> +A flush of rage blinded the young man. The knowledge that the <i>Alethea</i> +was minute by minute slipping beyond his reach seemed to madden him. +White-lipped and ominously quiet he rose from his seat on the combing, as, +without answer, the fisherman, crawling out on the overhand, began to haul in +the dory. +</p> + +<p> +“Ashore ye go,” he pronounced his ultimatum, motioning Kirkwood to enter the +boat. +</p> + +<p> +The American turned, looking for the <i>Alethea</i>, or for the vessel that he +believed bore that name. She was nearing the light-ship when he found her, and +as he looked a squall blurred the air between them, blotting the brigantine out +with a smudge of rain. The effect was as if she had vanished, as if she were +for ever snatched from his grasp; and with Dorothy aboard her—Heaven alone knew +in what need of him! +</p> + +<p> +Mute and blind with despair and wrath, he turned upon the man and caught him by +the collar, forcing him out over the lip of the overhang. They were unevenly +matched, Kirkwood far the slighter, but strength came to him in the crisis, +physical strength and address such as he had not dreamed was at his command. +And the surprise of his onslaught proved an ally of unguessed potency. Before +he himself knew it he was standing on the overhang and had shifted his hold to +seize the fellow about the waist; then, lifting him clear of the deck, and +aided by a lurch of the cat-boat, he cast him bodily into the dory. The man, +falling, struck his head against one of the thwarts, a glancing blow that +stunned him temporarily. Kirkwood himself dropped as if shot, a trailing +reef-point slapping his cheek until it stung as the boom thrashed overhead. It +was as close a call as he had known; the knowledge sickened him a little. +</p> + +<p> +Without rising he worked the painter loose and cast the dory adrift; then +crawled back into the cockpit. No pang of compassion disturbed him as he +abandoned the fisherman to the mercy of the sea; though the fellow lay still, +uncouthly distorted, in the bottom of the dory, he was in no danger; the wind +and waves together would carry the boat ashore.... For that matter, the man was +even then recovering, struggling to sit up. +</p> + +<p> +Crouching to avoid the boom, Kirkwood went forward to the bows, and, grasping +the mooring cable, drew it in, slipping back into the cockpit to get a stronger +purchase with his feet. It was a struggle; the boat pulled sluggishly against +the wind, the cable inching in jealously. And behind him he could hear a voice +bellowing inarticulate menaces, and knew that in another moment the fisherman +would be at his oars. Frantically he tugged and tore at the slimy rope, hauling +with a will and a prayer. It gave more readily, towards the end, but he seemed +to have fought with it for ages when at last the anchor tripped and he got it +in. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately he leaped back to the stern, fitted in the tiller, and seizing the +mainsheet, drew the boom in till the wind should catch in the canvas. In the +dory the skipper, bending at his oars, was not two yards astern. +</p> + +<p> +He was hard aboard when, the sail filling with a bang, Kirkwood pulled the +tiller up; and the cat-boat slid away, a dozen feet separating them in a +breath. +</p> + +<p> +A yell of rage boomed down the wind, but he paid no heed. Careless alike of the +dangers he had passed and those that yawned before him, he trimmed the sheet +and stood away on the port tack, heading directly for the Nore Lightship. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI<br/> +OFF THE NORE</h2> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s anger cooled apace; at worst it had been a flare of +passion—incandescent. It was seldom more. His brain clearing, the temperature +of his judgment quickly regained its mean, and he saw his chances without +distortion, weighed them without exaggeration. +</p> + +<p> +Leaning against the combing, feet braced upon the slippery and treacherous +deck, he clung to tiller and mainsheet and peered ahead with anxious eyes, a +pucker of daring graven deep between his brows. +</p> + +<p> +A mile to westward, three or more ahead, he could see the brigantine standing +close in under the Essex shore. At times she was invisible; again he could +catch merely the glint of her canvas, white against the dark loom of the +littoral, toned by a mist of flying spindrift. He strained his eyes, watching +for the chance which would take place in the rake of her masts and sails, when +she should come about. +</p> + +<p> +For the longer that manoeuver was deferred, the better was his chance of +attaining his object. It was a forlorn hope. But in time the brigantine, to +escape Maplin Sands, would be forced to tack and stand out past the lightship, +the wind off her port bows. Then their courses would intersect. It remained to +be demonstrated whether the cat-boat was speedy enough to arrive at this point +of contact in advance of, or simultaneously with, the larger vessel. Every +minute that the putative <i>Alethea</i> put off coming about brought the +cat-boat nearer that goal, but Kirkwood could do no more than hope and try to +trust in the fisherman’s implied admission that it could be done. It was all in +the boat and the way she handled. +</p> + +<p> +He watched her anxiously, quick to approve her merits as she displayed them. He +had sailed small craft before—frail center-board cat-boats, handy and swift, +built to serve in summer winds and protected waters: never such an one as this. +Yet he liked her. +</p> + +<p> +Deep bosomed she was, with no center-board, dependent on her draught and heavy +keel to hold her on the wind; stanch and seaworthy, sheathed with stout plank +and ribbed with seasoned timber, designed to keep afloat in the wickedest +weather brewed by the foul-tempered German Ocean. Withal her lines were fine +and clean; for all her beam she was calculated to nose narrowly into the wind +and make a pretty pace as well. A good boat: he had the grace to give the +credit to his luck. +</p> + +<p> +Her disposition was more fully disclosed as they drew away from the beach. +Inshore with shoaling water, the waves had been choppy and spiteful but lacking +force of weight. Farther out, as the bottom fell away, the rollers became more +uniform and powerful; heavy sweeping seas met the cat-boat, from their hollows +looming mountainous to the man in the tiny cockpit; who was nevertheless aware +that to a steamer they would be negligible. +</p> + +<p> +His boat breasted them gallantly, toiling sturdily up the steep acclivities, +poising breathlessly on foam-crested summits for dizzy instants, then plunging +headlong down the deep green swales; and left a boiling wake behind her,—urging +ever onward, hugging the wind in her wisp of blood-red sail, and boring into +it, pulling at the tiller with the mettle of a race-horse slugging at the bit. +</p> + +<p> +Offshore, too, the wind stormed with added strength, or, possibly, had +freshened. For minutes on end the leeward gunwales would run green, and now and +again the screaming, pelting squalls that scoured the estuary would heel her +over until the water cascaded in over the lee combing, and the rudder, lifted +clear, would hang idle until, smitten by some racing billow, the tiller would +be all but torn from Kirkwood’s hands. Again and again this happened; and those +were times of trembling. But always the cat-boat righted, shaking the clinging +waters from her and swinging her stem into the wind again; and there would +follow an abbreviated breathing spell, during which Kirkwood was at liberty to +dash the salt spray from his eyes and search the wind-harried waste for the +brigantine. Sometimes he found her, sometimes not. +</p> + +<p> +Long after he had expected her to, she went about and they began to close in +upon each other. He could see that even with shortened canvas she was +staggering drunkenly under the fierce impacts of the wind. For himself, it was +nip-and-tuck, now, and no man in his normal sense would have risked a sixpence +on the boat’s chance to live until she crossed the brigantine’s bows. +</p> + +<p> +Time out of reckoning he was forced to kneel in the swimming cockpit, steering +with one hand, using the bailing-dish with the other, and keeping his eyes +religiously turned to the bellying patch of sail. It was heartbreaking toil; he +began reluctantly to concede that it could not last much longer. And if he +missed the brigantine he would be lost; mortal strength was not enough to stand +the unending strain upon every bone, muscle and sinew, required to keep the +boat upon her course; though for a time it might cope with and solve the +problems presented by each new, malignant billow and each furious, howling +squall, the end inevitably must be failure. To struggle on would be but to +postpone the certain end ... save and except the possibility of his gaining the +brigantine within the period of time strictly and briefly limited by his powers +of endurance. +</p> + +<p> +Long since he had become numb with cold from incessant drenchings of icy spray, +that piled in over the windward counter, keeping the bottom ankle-deep +regardless of his laborious but intermittent efforts with the bailing dish. And +the two, brigantine and cockle-shell, were drawing together with appalling +deliberation. +</p> + +<p> +A dozen times he was on the point of surrender, as often plucked up hope; as +the minutes wore on and he kept above water, he began to believe that if he +could stick it out his judgment and seamanship would be justified ... though +human ingenuity backed by generosity could by no means contrive adequate excuse +for his foolhardiness. +</p> + +<p> +But that was aside, something irreparable. Wan and grim, he fought it out. +</p> + +<p> +But that his voice stuck in his parched throat, he could have shouted in his +elation, when eventually he gained the point of intersection an eighth of a +mile ahead of the brigantine and got sight of her windward freeboard as, most +slowly, the cat-boat forged across her course. +</p> + +<p> +For all that, the moment of his actual triumph was not yet; he had still to +carry off successfully a scheme that for sheer audacity of conception and +contempt for danger, transcended all that had gone before. +</p> + +<p> +Holding the cat-boat on for a time, he brought her about handsomely a little +way beyond the brigantine’s course, and hung in the eye of the wind, the leach +flapping and tightening with reports like rifle-shots, and the water sloshing +about his calves—bailing-dish now altogether out of mind—while he watched the +oncoming vessel, his eyes glistening with anticipation. +</p> + +<p> +She was footing it smartly, the brigantine—lying down to it and snoring into +the wind. Beneath her stem waves broke in snow-white showers, whiter than the +canvas of her bulging jib—broke and, gnashing their teeth in impotent fury, +swirled and eddied down her sleek dark flanks. Bobbing, courtesying, she +plunged onward, shortening the interval with mighty, leaping bounds. On her +bows, with each instant, the golden letters of her name grew larger and more +legible until—<i>Alethea</i>!—he could read it plain beyond dispute. +</p> + +<p> +Joy welled in his heart. He forgot all that he had undergone in the prospect of +what he proposed still to do in the name of the only woman the world held for +him. Unquestioning he had come thus far in her service; unquestioning, by her +side, he was prepared to go still farther, though all humanity should single +her out with accusing fingers.... +</p> + +<p> +They were watching him, aboard the brigantine; he could see a line of heads +above her windward rail. Perhaps <i>she</i> was of their number. He waved an +audacious hand. Some one replied, a great shout shattering itself +unintelligibly against the gale. He neither understood nor attempted to reply; +his every faculty was concentrated on the supreme moment now at hand. +</p> + +<p> +Calculating the instant to a nicety, he paid off the sheet and pulled up the +tiller. The cat-boat pivoted on her heel; with a crack her sail flapped full +and rigid; then, with the untempered might of the wind behind her, she shot +like an arrow under the brigantine’s bows, so close that the bowsprit of the +latter first threatened to impale the sail, next, the bows plunging, crashed +down a bare two feet behind the cat-boat’s stern. +</p> + +<p> +Working in a frenzy of haste, Kirkwood jammed the tiller hard alee, bringing +the cat about, and, trimming the mainsheet as best he might, found himself +racing under the brigantine’s leeward quarter,—water pouring in generously over +the cat’s. +</p> + +<p> +Luffing, he edged nearer, handling his craft as though intending to ram the +larger vessel, foot by foot shortening the little interval. When it was four +feet, he would risk the jump; he crawled out on the overhang, crouching on his +toes, one hand light upon the tiller, the other touching the deck, ready ... +ready.... +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly the <i>Alethea</i> shut off the wind; the sail flattened and the cat +dropped back. In a second the distance had doubled. In anguish Kirkwood uttered +an exceeding bitter cry. Already he was falling far off her counter.... +</p> + +<p> +A shout reached him. He was dimly conscious of a dark object hurtling through +the air. Into the cockpit, splashing, something dropped—a coil of rope. He fell +forward upon it, into water eighteen inches deep; and for the first time +realized that, but for that line, he had gone to his drowning in another +minute. The cat was sinking. +</p> + +<p> +As he scrambled to his feet, clutching the life-line, a heavy wave washed over +the water-logged craft and left it all but submerged; and a smart tug on the +rope added point to the advice which, reaching his ears in a bellow like a +bull’s, penetrated the panic of his wits. +</p> + +<p> +“Jump! <i>Jump, you fool</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant of coherence he saw that the brigantine was luffing; none the +less much of the line had already been paid out, and there was no reckoning +when the end would be reached. Without time to make it fast, he hitched it +twice round his waist and chest, once round an arm, and, grasping it above his +head to ease its constriction when the tug should come, leaped on the combing +and overboard. A green roaring avalanche swept down upon him and the luckless +cat-boat, overwhelming both simultaneously. +</p> + +<p> +The agony that was his during the next few minutes can by no means be +exaggerated. With such crises the human mind is not fitted adequately to cope; +it retains no record of the supreme moment beyond a vague and incoherent +impression of poignant, soul-racking suffering. Kirkwood underwent a prolonged +interval of semi-sentience, his mind dominated and oppressed by a deathly fear +of drowning and a deadening sense of suffocation, with attendant tortures as of +being broken on the wheel—limb rending from limb; of compression of his ribs +that threatened momentarily to crush in his chest; of a world a-welter with dim +swirling green half-lights alternating with flashes of blinding white; of +thunderings in his ears like salvoes from a thousand cannon.... +</p> + +<p> +And his senses were blotted out in blackness.... +</p> + +<p> +Then he was breathing once more, the keen clean air stabbing his lungs, the +while he swam unsupported in an ethereal void of brilliance. His mouth was full +of something that burned, a liquid hot, acrid, and stinging. He gulped, +swallowed, slobbered, choked, coughed, attempted to sit up, was aware that he +was the focal center of a ring of glaring, burning eyes, like eyes of ravening +beasts; and fainted. +</p> + +<p> +His next conscious impression was of standing up, supported by friendly arms on +either side, while somebody was asking him if he could walk a step or two. +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his head and let it fall in token of assent, mumbling a yes; and +looked round him with eyes wherein the light of intelligence burned more clear +with every second. By degrees he catalogued and comprehended his weirdly +altered circumstances and surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +He was partly seated, partly held up, on the edge of the cabin sky-light, an +object of interest to some half-dozen men, seafaring fellows all, by their +habit, clustered round between him and the windward rail. Of their number one +stood directly before him, dwarfing his companions as much by his air of +command as by his uncommon height: tall, thin-faced and sallow, with hollow +weather-worn cheeks, a mouth like a crooked gash from ear to ear, and eyes like +dying coals, with which he looked the rescued up and down in one grim, +semi-humorous, semi-speculative glance. In hands both huge and red he fondled +tenderly a squat brandy flask whose contents had apparently been employed as a +first aid to the drowning. +</p> + +<p> +As Kirkwood’s gaze encountered his, the man smiled sourly, jerking his head to +one side with a singularly derisive air. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi, matey!” he blustered. “’Ow goes it now? Feelin’ ’appier, eigh?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus06"></a> +<img src="images/img06.jpg" width="526" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“Hi, matey!” he blustered. “’Ow goes it now?”</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Some, thank you ... more like a drowned rat.” Kirkwood eyed him sheepishly. “I +suppose you’re the man who threw me that line? I’ll have to wait till my head +clears up before I can thank you properly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it.” He of the lantern jaws stowed the bottle away with jealous +care in one of his immense coat pockets, and seized Kirkwood’s hand in a grasp +that made the young man wince. “You’re syfe enough now. My nyme’s Stryker, +Capt’n Wilyum Stryker.... Wot’s the row? Lookin’ for a friend?” he demanded +suddenly, as Kirkwood’s attention wandered. +</p> + +<p> +For the memory of the errand that had brought him into the hands of Captain +William Stryker had come to the young man very suddenly; and his eager eyes +were swiftly roving not along the decks but the wide world besides, for sight +or sign of his heart’s desire. +</p> + +<p> +After luffing to pick him up, the brigantine had been again pulled off on the +port tack. The fury of the gale seemed rather to have waxed than waned, and the +<i>Alethea</i> was bending low under the relentless fury of its blasts, driving +hard, with leeward channels awash. Under her port counter, a mile away, the +crimson light-ship wallowed in a riot of breaking combers. Sheerness lay abeam, +five miles or more. Ahead the northeast headland of the Isle of Sheppey was +bulking large and near. The cat-boat had vanished.... +</p> + +<p> +More important still, no one aboard the brigantine resembled in the remotest +degree either of the Calendars, father or daughter, or even Mulready, the +black-avised. +</p> + +<p> +“I sye, ’re you lookin’ for some one you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—your passengers. I presume they’re below—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Passengers!” +</p> + +<p> +A hush fell upon the group, during which Kirkwood sought Stryker’s eye in +pitiful pleading; and Stryker looked round him blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Miss Calendar?” the young man demanded sharply. “I must see her at +once!” +</p> + +<p> +The keen and deep-set eyes of the skipper clouded as they returned to +Kirkwood’s perturbed countenance. “Wot’re you talking about?” he demanded +brusquely. +</p> + +<p> +“I must see Miss Calendar, or Calendar himself, or Mulready.” Kirkwood paused, +and, getting no reply, grew restive under Stryker’s inscrutable regard. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s why I came aboard,” he amended, blind to the absurdity of the +statement; “to see—er—Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well ... I’m damned!” +</p> + +<p> +Stryker managed to infuse into his tone a deal of suspicious contempt. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” insisted Kirkwood, nettled but still uncomprehending. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to tell me you came off from—wherever in ’ell you did come +from—intendin’ to board this wessel and find a party nymed Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I did. Why—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” cried Mr. Stryker, rubbing his hands together with an air oppressively +obsequious, “I’m sorry to <i>hin</i>-form you you’ve come to the wrong shop, +sir; we don’t stock no Calendars. We’re in the ’ardware line, we are. You might +try next door, or I dessay you’ll find what you want at the stytioner’s, round +the corner.” +</p> + +<p> +A giggle from his audience stimulated him. “If,” he continued acidly, “I’d +a-guessed you was such a damn’ fool, blimmy if I wouldn’t’ve let you drownd!” +</p> + +<p> +Staggered, Kirkwood bore his sarcastic truculence without resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“Calendar,” he stammered, trying to explain, “Calendar <i>said</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“I carn’t ’elp wot Calendar said. Mebbe ’e <i>did</i> myke an engygement with +you, an’ you’ve gone and went an’ forgot the dyte. Mebbe it’s larst year’s +calendar you’re thinkin’ of. You Johnny” (to a lout of a boy in the group of +seamen), “you run an’ fetch this gentleman Whitaker’s for Nineteen-six. Look +sharp, now!” +</p> + +<p> +“But—!” With an effort Kirkwood mustered up a show of dignity. “Am I to +understand,” he said, as calmly as he could, “that you deny knowing George B. +Calendar and his daughter Dorothy and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t ’ave to. Listen to me, young man.” For the time the fellow discarded +his clumsy facetiousness. “I’m Wilyum Stryker, Capt’n Stryker, marster and +’arf-owner of this wessel, and wot I says ’ere is law. We don’t carry no +passengers. D’ye understand me?”—aggressively. “There ain’t no pusson nymed +Calendar aboard the <i>Allytheer</i>, an’ never was, an’ never will be!” +</p> + +<p> +“What name did you say?” Kirkwood inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“This ship? The <i>Allytheer</i>; registered from Liverpool; bound from London +to Hantwerp, in cargo. Anythink else?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood shook his head, turning to scan the seascape with a gloomy gaze. As he +did so, and remarked how close upon the Sheppey headland the brigantine had +drawn, the order was given to go about. For the moment he was left alone, +wretchedly wet, shivering, wan and shrunken visibly with the knowledge that he +had dared greatly for nothing. But for the necessity of keeping up before +Stryker and his crew, the young man felt that he could gladly have broken down +and wept for sheer vexation and disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +Smartly the brigantine luffed and wore about, heeling deep as she spun away on +the starboard tack. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood staggered round the skylight to the windward rail. From this position, +looking forward, he could see that they were heading for the open sea, Foulness +low over the port quarter, naught before them but a brawling waste of +leaden-green and dirty white. Far out one of the sidewheel boats of the +Queensborough-Antwerp line was heading directly into the wind and making heavy +weather of it. +</p> + +<p> +Some little while later, Stryker again approached him, perhaps swayed by an +unaccustomed impulse of compassion; which, however, he artfully concealed. +Blandly ironic, returning to his impersonation of the shopkeeper, “Nothink else +we can show you, sir?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“I presume you couldn’t put me ashore?” Kirkwood replied ingenuously. +</p> + +<p> +In supreme disgust the captain showed him his back. “’Ere, you!” he called to +one of the crew. “Tyke this awye—tyke ’im below and put ’im to bed; give ’im a +drink and dry ’is clo’s. Mebbe ’e’ll be better when ’e wykes up. ’E don’t talk +sense now, that’s sure. If you arsk me, I sye ’e’s balmy and no ’ope for ’im.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII<br/> +PICARESQUE PASSAGES</h2> + +<p> +Contradictory to the hopeful prognosis of Captain Stryker, his unaccredited +passenger was not “better” when, after a period of oblivious rest indefinite in +duration, he awoke. His subsequent assumption of listless resignation, of +pacific acquiescence in the dictates of his destiny, was purely deceptive—thin +ice of despair over profound depths of exasperated rebellion. +</p> + +<p> +Blank darkness enveloped him when first he opened eyes to wonder. Then +gradually as he stared, piecing together unassorted memories and striving to +quicken drowsy wits, he became aware of a glimmer that waxed and waned, a bar +of pale bluish light striking across the gloom above his couch; and by dint of +puzzling divined that this had access by a port. Turning his head upon a stiff +and unyielding pillow, he could discern a streak of saffron light lining the +sill of a doorway, near by his side. The one phenomenon taken with the other +confirmed a theretofore somewhat hazy impression that his dreams were dignified +by a foundation of fact; that, in brief, he was occupying a cabin-bunk aboard +the good ship <i>Alethea</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Overhead, on the deck, a heavy thumping of hurrying feet awoke him to keener +perceptiveness. +</p> + +<p> +Judging from the incessant rolling and pitching of the brigantine, the crashing +thunder of seas upon her sides, the eldrich shrieking of the gale, as well as +from the chorused groans and plaints of each individual bolt and timber in the +frail fabric that housed his fortunes, the wind had strengthened materially +during his hours of forgetfulness—however many the latter might have been. +</p> + +<p> +He believed, however, that he had slept long, deeply and exhaustively. He felt +now a little emaciated mentally and somewhat absent-bodied—so he put it to +himself. A numb languor, not unpleasant, held him passively supine, the while +he gave himself over to speculative thought. +</p> + +<p> +A wild night, certainly; probably, by that time, the little vessel was in the +middle of the North Sea ... <i>bound for Antwerp</i>! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h,” said Kirkwood vindictively, “<i>hell</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +So he was bound for Antwerp! The first color of resentment ebbing from his +thoughts left him rather interested than excited by the prospect. He found that +he was neither pleased nor displeased. He presumed that it would be no more +difficult to raise money on personal belongings in Antwerp than anywhere else; +it has been observed that the first flower of civilization is the rum-blossom, +the next, the conventionalized fleur-de-lis of the money-lender. There would be +pawnshops, then, in Antwerp; and Kirkwood was confident that the sale or pledge +of his signet-ring, scarf-pin, match-box and cigar-case, would provide him with +money enough for a return to London, by third-class, at the worst. There ... +well, all events were on the knees of the gods; he’d squirm out of his +troubles, somehow. As for the other matter, the Calendar affair, he presumed he +was well rid of it,—with a sigh of regret. It had been a most enticing mystery, +you know; and the woman in the case was extraordinary, to say the least. +</p> + +<p> +The memory of Dorothy Calendar made him sigh again, this time more violently: a +sigh that was own brother to (or at any rate descended in a direct line from) +the furnace sigh of the lover described by, the melancholy Jaques. And he sat +up, bumped his head, groped round until his hand fell upon a doorknob, opened +the door, and looked out into the blowsy emptiness of the ship’s cabin proper, +whose gloomy confines were made visible only by the rays of a dingy and smoky +lamp swinging violently in gimbals from a deck-beam. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s clothing, now rough-dried and warped wretchedly out of shape, had +been thrown carelessly on a transom near the door. He got up, collected them, +and returning to his berth, dressed at leisure, thinking heavily, +disgruntled—in a humor as evil as the after-taste of bad brandy in his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +When dressed he went out into the cabin, closing the door upon his berth, and +for lack of anything better to do, seated himself on the thwartships transom, +against the forward bulkhead, behind the table. Above his head a chronometer +ticked steadily and loudly, and, being consulted, told him that the time of day +was twenty minutes to four; which meant that he had slept away some eighteen or +twenty hours. That was a solid spell of a rest, when he came to think of it, +even allowing that he had been unusually and pardonably fatigued when conducted +to his berth. He felt stronger now, and bright enough—and enormously hungry +into the bargain. +</p> + +<p> +Abstractedly, heedless of the fact that his tobacco would be water-soaked and +ruined, he fumbled in his pockets for pipe and pouch, thinking to soothe the +pangs of hunger against breakfast-time; which was probably two hours and a +quarter ahead. But his pockets were empty—every one of them. He assimilated +this discovery in patience and cast an eye about the room, to locate, if +possible, the missing property. But naught of his was visible. So he rose and +began a more painstaking search. +</p> + +<p> +The cabin was at once tiny, low-ceiled, and depressingly gloomy. Its furniture +consisted entirely in a chair or two, supplementing the transoms and lockers as +resting-places, and a center-table covered with a cloth of turkey-red, whose +original aggressiveness had been darkly moderated by libations of liquids, +principally black coffee, and burnt offerings of grease and tobacco-ash. Aside +from the companion-way to the deck, four doors opened into the room, two +probably giving upon the captain’s and the mate’s quarters, the others on +pseudo state-rooms—one of which he had just vacated—closets large enough to +contain a small bunk and naught beside. The bulkheads and partitions were badly +broken out with a rash of pictures from illustrated papers, mostly offensive. +Kirkwood was interested to read a half-column clipping from a New York yellow +journal, descriptive of the antics of a drunken British sailor who had somehow +found his way to the bar-room of the Fifth Avenue Hotel; the paragraph +exploiting the fact that it had required four policemen in addition to the +corps of porters to subdue him, was strongly underscored in red ink; and the +news-story wound up with the information that in police court the man had given +his name as William Stranger and cheerfully had paid a fine of ten dollars, +alleging his entertainment to have been cheap at the price. +</p> + +<p> +While Kirkwood was employed in perusing this illuminating anecdote, eight bells +sounded, and, from the commotion overhead, the watch changed. A little later +the companion-way door slammed open and shut, and Captain Stryker—or Stranger; +whichever you please—fell down, rather than descended, the steps. +</p> + +<p> +Without attention to the American he rolled into the mate’s room and roused +that personage. Kirkwood heard that the name of the second-in-command was +’Obbs, as well as that he occupied the starboard state-room aft. After a brief +exchange of comment and instruction, Mr. ’Obbs appeared in the shape of a +walking pillar of oil-skins capped by a sou’wester, and went on deck; Stryker, +following him out of the state-room, shed his own oilers in a clammy heap upon +the floor, opened a locker from which he brought forth a bottle and a dirty +glass, and, turning toward the table, for the first time became sensible of +Kirkwood’s presence. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, there you are, eigh, little bright-eyes!” he exclaimed with surprised +animation. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Captain Stryker,” said Kirkwood, rising. “I want to tell you—” +</p> + +<p> +But Stryker waved one great red paw impatiently, with the effect of sweeping +aside and casting into the discard Kirkwood’s intended speech of thanks; nor +would he hear him further. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ’ave a nice little nap?” he interrupted. “Come up bright and smilin’, +eigh? Now I guess”—the emphasis made it clear that the captain believed himself +to be employing an Americanism; and so successful was he in his own esteem that +he could not resist the temptation to improve upon the imitation—“Na-ow I guess +yeou’re abaout right ready, ben’t ye, to hev a drink, sonny?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said Kirkwood, smiling tolerantly. “I’ve got any amount of +appetite...” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ave you, now?” Stryker dropped his mimicry and glanced at the clock. +“Breakfast,” he announced, “will be served in the myne dinin’ saloon at eyght +a. m. Passingers is requested not to be lyte at tyble.” +</p> + +<p> +Depositing the bottle on the said table, the captain searched until he found +another glass for Kirkwood, and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you good,” he insinuated, pushing the bottle gently over. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” reiterated Kirkwood shortly, a little annoyed. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker seized his own glass, poured out a strong man’s dose of the fiery +concoction, gulped it down, and sighed. Then, with a glance at the American’s +woebegone countenance (Kirkwood was contemplating a four-hour wait for +breakfast, and, consequently, looking as if he had lost his last friend), the +captain bent over, placing both hands palm down before him and wagging his head +earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +“Please,” he implored,—“Please don’t let me hinterrupt;” and filled his pipe, +pretending a pensive detachment from his company. +</p> + +<p> +The fumes of burning shag sharpened the tooth of desire. Kirkwood stood it as +long as he could, then surrendered with an: “If you’ve got any more of that +tobacco, Captain, I’d be glad of a pipe.” +</p> + +<p> +An intensely contemplative expression crept into the captain’s small blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I only got one other pyper of this ’ere ’baccy,” he announced at length, “and +I carn’t get no more till I gets ’ome. I simply couldn’t part with it hunder +’arf a quid.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood settled back with a hopeless lift of his shoulders. Abstractedly +Stryker puffed the smoke his way until he could endure the deprivation no +longer. +</p> + +<p> +“I had about ten shillings in my pocket when I came aboard, captain, and ... a +few other articles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, yes; so you ’ad, now you mention it.” +</p> + +<p> +Stryker rose, ambled into his room, and returned with Kirkwood’s possessions +and a fresh paper of shag. While the young man was hastily filling, lighting, +and inhaling the first strangling but delectable whiff, the captain solemnly +counted into his own palm all the loose change except three large pennies. The +latter he shoved over to Kirkwood in company with a miscellaneous assortment of +articles, which the American picked up piece by piece and began to bestow about +his clothing. When through, he sat back, troubled and disgusted. Stryker met +his regard blandly. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything I can do?” he inquired, in suave concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Why ... there <i>was</i> a black pearl scarfpin—” +</p> + +<p> +“W’y, don’t you remember? You gave that to me, ’count of me ’avin syved yer +life. ’Twas me throwed you that line, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” commented Kirkwood briefly. The pin had been among the most valuable and +cherished of his belongings. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” nodded the captain in reminiscence. “You don’t remember? Likely ’twas +the brandy singing in yer ’ead. You pushes it into my ’ands,—almost weepin’, +you was,—and sez, sez you, ‘Stryker,’ you sez, ‘tyke this in triflin’ toking of +my gratichood; I wouldn’t hinsult you,’ you sez, ‘by hofferin’ you money, but +this I can insist on yer acceptin’, and no refusal,’ says you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” repeated Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“If I for a ninstant thought you wasn’t sober when you done it.... But no; +you’re a gent if there ever was one, and I’m not the man to offend you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain let the implication pass, perhaps on the consideration that he +could afford to ignore it; and said no more. The pause held for several +minutes, Kirkwood having fallen into a mood of grave distraction. Finally +Captain Stryker thoughtfully measured out a second drink, limited only by the +capacity of the tumbler, engulfed it noisily, and got up. +</p> + +<p> +“Guess I’ll be turnin’ in,” he volunteered affably, yawning and stretching. +</p> + +<p> +“I was about to ask you to do me a service....” began Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?”—with the rising inflection of mockery. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood quietly produced his cigar-case, a gold match-box, gold card-case, and +slipped a signet ring from his finger. “Will you buy these?” he asked. “Or will +you lend me five pounds and hold them as security?” +</p> + +<p> +Stryker examined the collection with exaggerated interest strongly tinctured +with mistrust. “I’ll buy ’em,” he offered eventually, looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s kind of you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, they ain’t much use to me, but Bill Stryker’s allus willin’ to accommodate +a friend.... Four quid, you said?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five....” +</p> + +<p> +“They ain’t wuth over four to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; make it four,” Kirkwood assented contemptuously. +</p> + +<p> +The captain swept the articles into one capacious fist, pivoted on one heel at +the peril of his neck, and lumbered unsteadily off to his room. Pausing at the +door he turned back in inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“I sye, ’ow did you come to get the impression there was a party named Almanack +aboard this wessel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Calendar—” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ave it yer own wye,” Stryker conceded gracefully. +</p> + +<p> +“There isn’t, is there?” +</p> + +<p> +“You ’eard me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Kirkwood sweetly, “I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain pondered this at leisure. “You seemed pretty keen abaht seein’ +’im,” he remarked conclusively. +</p> + +<p> +“I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seems to me I did ’ear the nyme sumw’eres afore.” The captain appeared to +wrestle with an obdurate memory. “Ow!” he triumphed. “I know. ’E was a chap up +Manchester wye. Keeper in a loonatic asylum, ’e was. ’That yer party?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Kirkwood wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know but mebbe ’twas. Excuse me. ’Thought as ’ow mebbe you’d escyped +from ’is tender care, but, findin’ the world cold, chynged yer mind and wanted +to gow back.” +</p> + +<p> +Without waiting for a reply he lurched into his room and banged the door to. +Kirkwood, divided between amusement and irritation, heard him stumbling about +for some time; and then a hush fell, grateful enough while it lasted; which was +not long. For no sooner did the captain sleep than a penetrating snore added +itself unto the cacophony of waves and wind and tortured ship. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood, comforted at first by the blessed tobacco, lapsed insensibly into +dreary meditations. Coming after the swift movement and sustained excitement of +the eighteen hours preceding his long sleep, the monotony of shipboard +confinement seemed irksome to a maddening degree. There was absolutely nothing +he could discover to occupy his mind. If there were books aboard, none was in +evidence; beyond the report of Mr. Stranger’s Manhattan night’s entertainment +the walls were devoid of reading matter; and a round of the picture gallery +proved a diversion weariful enough when not purely revolting. +</p> + +<p> +Wherefore Mr. Kirkwood stretched himself out on the transom and smoked and +reviewed his adventures in detail and seriatim, and was by turns indignant, +sore, anxious on his own account as well as on Dorothy’s, and out of all +patience with himself. Mystified he remained throughout, and the edge of his +curiosity held as keen as ever, you may believe. +</p> + +<p> +Consistently the affair presented itself to his fancy in the guise of a +puzzle-picture, which, though you study it never so diligently, remains +incomprehensible, until by chance you view it from an unexpected angle, when it +reveals itself intelligibly. It had not yet been his good fortune to see it +from the right viewpoint. To hold the metaphor, he walked endless circles round +it, patiently seeking, but ever failing to find the proper perspective.... Each +incident, however insignificant, in connection with it, he handled over and +over, examining its every facet, bright or dull, as an expert might inspect a +clever imitation of a diamond; and like a perfect imitation it defied analysis. +</p> + +<p> +Of one or two things he was convinced; for one, that Stryker was a liar worthy +of classification with Calendar and Mrs. Hallam. Kirkwood had not only the +testimony of his sense to assure him that the ship’s name, <i>Alethea</i> (not +a common one, by the bye), had been mentioned by both Calendar and Mulready +during their altercation on Bermondsey Old Stairs, but he had the confirmatory +testimony of the sleepy waterman, William, who had directed Old Bob and Young +William to the anchorage off Bow Creek. That there should have been two vessels +of the same unusual name at one and the same time in the Port of London, was a +coincidence too preposterous altogether to find place in his calculations. +</p> + +<p> +His second impregnable conclusion was that those whom he sought had boarded the +<i>Alethea</i>, but had left her before she tripped her anchor. That they were +not stowed away aboard her seemed unquestionable. The brigantine was hardly +large enough for the presence of three persons aboard her to be long kept a +secret from an inquisitive fourth,—unless, indeed, they lay in hiding in the +hold; for which, once the ship got under way, there could be scant excuse. And +Kirkwood did not believe himself a person of sufficient importance in +Calendar’s eyes, to make that worthy endure the discomforts of a’tween-decks +imprisonment throughout the voyage, even to escape recognition. +</p> + +<p> +With every second, then, he was traveling farther from her to whose aid he had +rushed, impelled by motives so hot-headed, so innately, chivalric, so +unthinkingly gallant, so exceptionally idiotic! +</p> + +<p> +Idiot! Kirkwood groaned with despair of his inability to fathom the abyss of +his self-contempt. There seemed to be positively no excuse for <i>him</i>. +Stryker had befriended him indeed, had he permitted him to drown. Yet he had +acted for the best, as he saw it. The fault lay in himself: an admirable fault, +that of harboring and nurturing generous and compassionate instincts. But, of +course, Kirkwood couldn’t see it that way. +</p> + +<p> +“What else could I do?” he defended himself against the indictment of common +sense. “I couldn’t leave her to the mercies of that set of rogues!... And +Heaven knows I was given every reason to believe she would be aboard this ship! +Why, she herself told me that she was sailing ...!” +</p> + +<p> +Heaven knew, too, that this folly of his had cost him a pretty penny, first and +last. His watch was gone beyond recovery, his homeward passage forfeited; he no +longer harbored illusions as to the steamship company presenting him with +another berth in lieu of that called for by that water-soaked slip of paper +then in his pocket—courtesy of Stryker. He had sold for a pittance, a tithe of +its value, his personal jewelry, and had spent every penny he could call his +own. With the money Stryker was to give him he would be able to get back to +London and his third-rate hostelry, but not with enough over to pay that one +week’s room-rent, or ... +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the devil!” he groaned, head in hands. +</p> + +<p> +The future loomed wrapped in unspeakable darkness, lightened by no least ray of +hope. It had been bad enough to lose a comfortable living through a gigantic +convulsion of Nature; but to think that he had lost all else through his own +egregious folly, to find himself reduced to the kennels—! +</p> + +<p> +So Care found him again in those weary hours,—came and sat by his side, +slipping a grisly hand in his and tightening its grip until he could have cried +out with the torment of it; the while whispering insidiously subtile, evil +things in his ear. And he had not even Hope to comfort him; at any previous +stage he had been able to distil a sort of bitter-sweet satisfaction from the +thought that he was suffering for the love of his life. But now—now Dorothy was +lost, gone like the glamour of Romance in the searching light of day. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker, emerging from his room for breakfast, found the passenger with a +hostile look in his eye and a jaw set in ugly fashion. His eyes, too, were the +abiding-place of smoldering devils; and the captain, recognizing them, +considerately forbore to stir them up with any untimely pleasantries. To be +sure, he was autocrat in his own ship, and Kirkwood’s standing aboard was +<i>nil</i>; but then there was just enough yellow in the complexion of +Stryker’s soul to incline him to sidestep trouble whenever feasible. And +besides, he entertained dark suspicions of his guest—suspicions he scarce dared +voice even to his inmost heart. +</p> + +<p> +The morning meal, therefore, passed off in constrained silence. The captain ate +voraciously and vociferously, pushed back his chair, and went on deck to +relieve the mate. The latter, a stunted little Cockney with a wizened +countenance and a mind as foul as his tongue, got small change of his attempts +to engage the passenger in conversation on topics that he considered fit for +discussion. After the sixth or eighth snubbing he rose in dudgeon, discharged a +poisonous bit of insolence, and retired to his berth, leaving Kirkwood to +finish his breakfast in peace; which the latter did literally, to the last +visible scrap of food and the ultimate drop of coffee, poor as both were in +quality. +</p> + +<p> +To the tune of a moderating wind, the morning wearied away. Kirkwood went on +deck once, for distraction from the intolerable monotony of it all, got a sound +drenching of spray, with a glimpse of a dark line on the eastern horizon, which +he understood to be the low littoral of Holland, and was glad to dodge below +once more and dry himself. +</p> + +<p> +He had the pleasure of the mate’s company at dinner, the captain remaining on +deck until Hobbs had finished and gone up to relieve him; and by that time +Kirkwood likewise was through. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker blew down with a blustery show of cheer. “Well, well, my little man!” +(It happened that he topped Kirkwood’s stature by at least five inches.) +“Enj’yin’ yer sea trip?” +</p> + +<p> +“About as much as you’d expect,” snapped Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow?” The captain began to shovel food into his face. (The author regrets he +has at his command no more delicate expression that is literal and +illustrative.) Kirkwood watched him, fascinated with suspense; it seemed +impossible that the man could continue so to employ his knife without cutting +his throat from the inside. But years of such manipulation had made him expert, +and his guest, keenly disappointed, at length ceased to hope. +</p> + +<p> +Between gobbles Stryker eyed him furtively. +</p> + +<p> +“’Treat you all right?” he demanded abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood started out of a brown study. “What? Who? Why, I suppose I ought to +be—indeed, I <i>am</i> grateful,” he asserted. “Certainly you saved my life, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, I don’t mean that.” Stryker gathered the imputation into his paw and flung +it disdainfully to the four winds of Heaven. “Bless yer ’art, you’re welcome; I +wouldn’t let no dorg drownd, ’f I could ’elp it. No,” he declared, “nor a +loonatic, neither.” +</p> + +<p> +He thrust his plate away and shifted sidewise in his chair. “I ’uz just +wonderin’,” he pursued, picking his teeth meditatively with a pen-knife, “’ow +they feeds you in them <i>as</i>-ylums. ’Avin’ never been inside one, myself, +it’s on’y natural I’d be cur’us.... There was one of them institootions near +where I was borned—Birming’am, that is. I used to see the loonies playin’ in +the grounds. I remember <i>just</i> as well!... One of ’em and me struck up +quite an acquaintance—” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally he’d take to you on sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow? Strynge ’ow <i>we</i> ’it it off, eigh?... You myke me think of ’im. Young +chap, ’e was, the livin’ spi’t-’n-himage of you. It don’t happen, does it, +you’re the same man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go to the devil!” +</p> + +<p> +“Naughty!” said the captain serenely, wagging a reproving forefinger. “Bad, +naughty word. You’ll be sorry when you find out wot it means.... Only ’e was +allus plannin’ to run awye and drownd ’is-self.”... +</p> + +<p> +He wore the joke threadbare, even to his own taste, and in the end got heavily +to his feet, starting for the companionway. “Land you this arternoon,” he +remarked casually, “come three o’clock or thereabahts. Per’aps later. I don’t +know, though, as I ’ad ought to let you loose.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood made no answer. Chuckling, Stryker went on deck. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of an hour the American followed him. +</p> + +<p> +Wind and sea alike had gone down wonderfully since daybreak—a circumstance +undoubtedly in great part due to the fact that they had won in under the lee of +the mainland and were traversing shallower waters. On either hand, like mist +upon the horizon, lay a streak of gray, a shade darker than the gray of the +waters. The <i>Alethea</i> was within the wide jaws of the Western Scheldt. As +for the wind, it had shifted several points to the northwards; the brigantine +had it abeam and was lying down to it and racing to port with slanting deck and +singing cordage. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood approached the captain, who, acting as his own pilot, was standing by +the wheel and barking sharp orders to the helmsman. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a Bradshaw on board?” asked the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Steady!” This to the man at the wheel; then to Kirkwood: “Wot’s that, me lud?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood repeated his question. Stryker eyed him suspiciously for a thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot d’you want it for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to see when I can get a boat back to England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hmm.... Yes, you’ll find a Bradshaw in the port-locker, near the for’ard +bulk’ead. Run along now and pl’y—and mind you don’t go tearin’ out the pyges to +myke pyper boatses to go sylin’ in.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood went below. Like its adjacent rooms, the cabin was untenanted; the +watch was the mate’s, and Stryker a martinet. Kirkwood found the designated +locker and, opening it, saw first to his hand the familiar bulky red volume +with its red garter. Taking it out he carried it to a chair near the +companionway, for a better reading light: the skylight being still battened +down. +</p> + +<p> +The strap removed, the book opened easily, as if by force of habit, at the +precise table he had wished to consult; some previous client had left a marker +between the pages,—and not an ordinary book-mark, by any manner of means. +Kirkwood gave utterance to a little gasp of amazement, and instinctively +glanced up at the companionway, to see if he were observed. +</p> + +<p> +He was not, but for safety’s sake he moved farther back into the cabin and out +of the range of vision of any one on deck; a precaution which was almost +immediately justified by the clumping of heavy feet upon the steps as Stryker +descended in pursuit of the ever-essential drink. +</p> + +<p> +“’Find it?” he demanded, staring blindly—with eyes not yet focused to the +change from light to gloom—at the young man, who was sitting with the guide +open on his knees, a tightly clenched fist resting on the transom at either +side of him. +</p> + +<p> +In reply he received a monosyllabic affirmative; Kirkwood did not look up. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be a howl,” commented the captain, making for the seductive locker. +</p> + +<p> +“A—what?” +</p> + +<p> +“A howl, readin’ that fine print there in the dark. W’y don’t you go over to +the light?... I’ll ’ave to ’ave them shutters tyken off the winders.” This was +Stryker’s amiable figure of speech, frequently employed to indicate the +coverings of the skylight. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m all right.” Kirkwood went on studying the book. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker swigged off his rum and wiped his lips with the back of a red paw, +hesitating a moment to watch his guest. +</p> + +<p> +“Mykes it seem more ’ome-like for you, I expect,” he observed. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“W’y, Bradshaw’s first-cousin to a halmanack, ain’t ’e? Can’t get one, take +t’other—next best thing. Sorry I didn’t think of it sooner; like my passengers +to feel comfy.... Now don’t you go trapsein’ off to gay Paree and squanderin’ +wot money you got left. You ’ear?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Captain!” Kirkwood looked up at this, but Stryker was already +half-way up the companion. +</p> + +<p> +Cautiously the American opened his right fist and held to the light that which +had been concealed, close wadded in his grasp,—a square of sheer linen edged +with lace, crumpled but spotless, and diffusing in the unwholesome den a faint, +intangible fragrance, the veriest wraith of that elusive perfume which he would +never again inhale without instantly recalling that night ride through London +in the intimacy of a cab. +</p> + +<p> +He closed his eyes and saw her again, as clearly as though she stood before +him,—hair of gold massed above the forehead of snow, curling in adorable +tendrils at the nape of her neck, lips like scarlet splashed upon the +immaculate whiteness of her skin, head poised audaciously in its spirited, +youthful allure, dark eyes smiling the least trace sadly beneath the level +brows. +</p> + +<p> +Unquestionably the handkerchief was hers; if proof other than the assurance of +his heart were requisite, he had it in the initial delicately embroidered in +one corner: a D, for Dorothy!... He looked again, to make sure; then hastily +folded up the treasure-trove and slipped it into a breast pocket of his coat. +</p> + +<p> +No; I am not sure that it was not the left-hand pocket. +</p> + +<p> +Quivering with excitement he bent again over the book and studied it intently. +After all, he had not been wrong! He could assert now, without fear of +refutation, that Stryker had lied. +</p> + +<p> +Some one had wielded an industrious pencil on the page. It was, taken as a +whole, fruitful of clues. Its very heading was illuminating: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +LONDON to VLISSINGEN (FLUSHING) AND BREDA; +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which happened to be the quickest and most direct route between London and +Antwerp. Beneath it, in the second column from the right, the pencil had put a +check-mark against: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +QUEENSBOROUGH ... DEP ... 11a10. +</p> + +<p> +And now he saw it clearly—dolt that he had been not to have divined it ere +this! The <i>Alethea</i> had run in to Queensborough, landing her passengers +there, that they might make connection with the eleven-ten morning boat for +Flushing,—the very side-wheel steamer, doubtless, which he had noticed beating +out in the teeth of the gale just after the brigantine had picked him up. Had +he not received the passing impression that the <i>Alethea</i>, when first he +caught sight of her, might have been coming out of the Medway, on whose eastern +shore is situate Queensborough Pier? Had not Mrs. Hallam, going upon he knew +not what information or belief, been bound for Queensborough, with design there +to intercept the fugitives? +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood chuckled to recall how, all unwittingly, he had been the means of +diverting from her chosen course that acute and resourceful lady; then again +turned his attention to the tables. +</p> + +<p> +A third check had been placed against the train for Amsterdam scheduled to +leave Antwerp at 6:32 p. m. Momentarily his heart misgave him, when he saw +this, in fear lest Calendar and Dorothy should have gone on from Antwerp the +previous evening; but then he rallied, discovering that the boat-train from +Flushing did not arrive at Antwerp till after ten at night; and there was no +later train thence for Amsterdam. Were the latter truly their purposed +destination, they would have stayed overnight and be leaving that very evening +on the 6:32. On the other hand, why should they wait for the latest train, +rather than proceed by the first available in the morning? Why but because +Calendar and Mulready were to wait for Stryker to join them on the +<i>Alethea</i>? +</p> + +<p> +Very well, then; if the wind held and Stryker knew his business, there would be +another passenger on that train, in addition to the Calendar party. +</p> + +<p> +Making mental note of the fact that the boat-train for Flushing and London was +scheduled to leave Antwerp daily at 8:21 p. m., Kirkwood rustled the leaves to +find out whether or not other tours had been planned, found evidences of none, +and carefully restored the guide to the locker, lest inadvertently the captain +should pick it up and see what Kirkwood had seen. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later he went on deck. The skies had blown clear and the brigantine was +well in land-bound waters and still footing a rattling pace. The river-banks +had narrowed until, beyond the dikes to right and left, the country-side +stretched wide and flat, a plain of living green embroidered with winding roads +and quaint Old-World hamlets whose red roofs shone like dull fire between the +dark green foliage of dwarfed firs. +</p> + +<p> +Down with the Scheldt’s gray shimmering flood were drifting little companies of +barges, sturdy and snug both fore and aft, tough tanned sails burning in the +afternoon sunlight. A long string of canal-boats, potted plants flowering +saucily in their neatly curtained windows, proprietors expansively smoking on +deck, in the bosoms of their very large families, was being mothered up-stream +by two funny, clucking tugs. Behind the brigantine a travel-worn Atlantic liner +was scolding itself hoarse about the right of way. Outward bound, empty cattle +boats, rough and rusty, were swaggering down to the sea, with the careless, +independent thumbs-in-armholes air of so many navvies off the job. +</p> + +<p> +And then lifting suddenly above the level far-off sky-line, there appeared a +very miracle of beauty; the delicate tracery of the great Cathedral’s spire of +frozen lace, glowing like a thing of spun gold, set against the sapphire velvet +of the horizon. +</p> + +<p> +Antwerp was in sight. +</p> + +<p> +A troublesome care stirring in his mind, Kirkwood looked round the deck; but +Stryker was very busy, entirely too preoccupied with the handling of his ship +to be interrupted with impunity. Besides, there was plenty of time. +</p> + +<p> +More slowly now, the wind falling, the brigantine crept up the river, her crew +alert with sheets and halyards as the devious windings of the stream rendered +it necessary to trim the canvas at varying angles to catch the wind. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly, too, in the shadow of that Mechlin spire, the horizon grew rough and +elevated, taking shape in the serrated profile of a thousand gables and a +hundred towers and cross-crowned steeples. +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice, more and more annoyed as the time of their association seemed to +grow more brief, Kirkwood approached the captain; but Stryker continued to be +exhaustively absorbed in the performance of his duties. +</p> + +<p> +Up past the dockyards, where spidery masts stood in dense groves about painted +funnels, and men swarmed over huge wharves like ants over a crust of bread; up +and round the final, great sweeping bend of the river, the <i>Alethea</i> made +her sober way, ever with greater slowness; until at length, in the rose glow of +a flawless evening, her windlass began to clank like a mad thing and her anchor +bit the riverbed, near the left bank, between old Forts Isabelle and Tête de +Flandre, frowned upon from the right by the grim pile of the age-old Steen +castle. +</p> + +<p> +And again Kirkwood sought Stryker, his carking query ready on his lips. But the +captain impatiently waved him aside. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you bother me now, me lud juke! Wyte until I gets done with the custom +hofficer.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood acceded, perforce; and bided his time with what tolerance he could +muster. +</p> + +<p> +A pluttering customs launch bustled up to the <i>Alethea’s</i> side, discharged +a fussy inspector on the brigantine’s deck, and panted impatiently until he, +the examination concluded without delay, was again aboard. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker, smirking benignly and massaging his lips with the back of his hand, +followed the official on deck, nodded to Kirkwood an intimation that he was +prepared to accord him an audience, and strolled forward to the waist. The +American, mastering his resentment, meekly followed; one can not well afford to +be haughty when one is asking favors. +</p> + +<p> +Advancing to the rail, the captain whistled in one of the river-boats; then, +while the waterman waited, faced his passenger. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, yer r’yal ’ighness, wot can I do for you afore you goes ashore?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you must have forgotten,” said Kirkwood quietly. “I hate to trouble +you, but—there’s that matter of four pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +Stryker’s face was expressive only of mystified vacuity. “Four quid? I dunno +<i>as</i> I know just wot you means.” +</p> + +<p> +“You agreed to advance me four pounds on those things of mine....” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow-w!” Illumination overspread the hollow-jowled countenance. Stryker smiled +cheerfully. “Garn with you!” he chuckled. “You will ’ave yer little joke, won’t +you now? I declare I never see a loony with such affecsh’nit, pl’yful wyes!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s eyes narrowed. “Stryker,” he said steadily, “give me the four pounds +and let’s have no more nonsense; or else hand over my things at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Daffy,” Stryker told vacancy, with conviction. “Lor’ luv me if I sees ’ow he +ever ’ad sense enough to escype. W’y, yer majesty!” and he bowed, ironic. “I +’<i>ave</i> given you yer quid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just about as much as I gave you that pearl pin,” retorted Kirkwood hotly. +“What the devil do you mean—” +</p> + +<p> +“W’y, yer ludship, four pounds jus pyes yer passyge; I thought you understood.” +</p> + +<p> +“My passage! But I can come across by steamer for thirty shillings, +first-class—” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, but them steamers! Tricky, they is, and unsyfe ... No, yer gryce, the W. +Stryker Packet Line Lim’ted, London to Antwerp, charges four pounds per passyge +and no reduction for return fare.” +</p> + +<p> +Stunned by his effrontery, Kirkwood stared in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Any complynts,” continued the captain, looking over Kirkwood’s head, “must be +lyde afore the Board of Directors in writin’ not more’n thirty dyes arfter—” +</p> + +<p> +“You damned scoundrel!” interpolated Kirkwood thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker’s mouth closed with a snap; his features froze in a cast of wrath; cold +rage glinted in his small blue eyes. “W’y,” he bellowed, “you bloomin’ +loonatic, d’ye think you can sye that to Bill Stryker on ’is own wessel!” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated a moment, then launched a heavy fist at Kirkwood’s face. +Unsurprised, the young man side-stepped, caught the hard, bony wrist as the +captain lurched by, following his wasted blow, and with a dexterous twist laid +him flat on his back, with a sounding thump upon the deck. And as the +infuriated scamp rose—which he did with a bound that placed him on his feet and +in defensive posture; as though the deck had been a spring-board—Kirkwood +leaped back, seized a capstan-bar, and faced him with a challenge. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand clear, Stryker!” he warned the man tensely, himself livid with rage. “If +you move a step closer I swear I’ll knock the head off your shoulders! Not +another inch, you contemptible whelp, or I’ll brain you!... That’s better,” he +continued as the captain, caving, dropped his fists and moved uneasily back. +“Now give that boatman money for taking me ashore. Yes, I’m going—and if we +ever meet again, take the other side of the way, Stryker!” +</p> + +<p> +Without response, a grim smile wreathing his thin, hard lips, Stryker thrust +one hand into his pocket, and withdrawing a coin, tossed it to the waiting +waterman. Whereupon Kirkwood backed warily to the rail, abandoned the +capstan-bar and dropped over the side. +</p> + +<p> +Nodding to the boatman, “The Steen landing—quickly,” he said in French. +</p> + +<p> +Stryker, recovering, advanced to the rail and waved him a derisive <i>bon +voyage</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“By-by, yer hexcellency. I ’opes it may soon be my pleasure to meet you again. +You’ve been a real privilege to know; I’ve henjoyed yer comp’ny somethin’ +immense. Don’t know as I ever met such a rippin’, Ay Number One, all-round, +entertynin’ ass, afore!” +</p> + +<p> +He fumbled nervously about his clothing, brought to light a rag of cotton, much +the worse for service, and ostentatiously wiped from the corner of each eye +tears of grief at parting. Then, as the boat swung toward the farther shore, +Kirkwood’s back was to the brigantine, and he was little tempted to turn and +invite fresh shafts of ridicule. +</p> + +<p> +Rapidly, as he was ferried across the busy Scheldt, the white blaze of his +passion cooled; but the biting irony of his estate ate, corrosive, into his +soul. Hollow-eyed he glared vacantly into space, pale lips unmoving, his +features wasted with despair. +</p> + +<p> +They came to the landing-stage and swung broad-side on. Mechanically the +American got up and disembarked. As heedless of time and place he moved up the +Quai to the gangway and so gained the esplanade; where pausing he thrust a +trembling hand into his trouser pocket. +</p> + +<p> +The hand reappeared, displaying in its outspread palm three big, round, brown, +British pennies. Staring down at them, Kirkwood’s lips moved. +</p> + +<p> +“Bed rock!” he whispered huskily. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII<br/> +A PRIMER OF PROGRESSIVE CRIME</h2> + +<p> +Without warning or presage the still evening air was smitten and made softly +musical by the pealing of a distant chime, calling vespers to its brothers in +Antwerp’s hundred belfries; and one by one, far and near, the responses broke +out, until it seemed as if the world must be vibrant with silver and brazen +melody; until at the last the great bells in the Cathedral spire stirred and +grumbled drowsily, then woke to such ringing resonance as dwarfed all the rest +and made it seem as nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Like the beating of a mighty heart heard through the rushing clamor of the +pulses, a single deep-throated bell boomed solemnly six heavy, rumbling +strokes. +</p> + +<p> +Six o’clock! Kirkwood roused out of his dour brooding. The Amsterdam express +would leave at 6:32, and he knew not from what station. +</p> + +<p> +Striding swiftly across the promenade, he entered a small tobacco shop and made +inquiry of the proprietress. His command of French was tolerable; he +experienced no difficulty in comprehending the good woman’s instructions. +</p> + +<p> +Trains for Amsterdam, she said, left from the Gare Centrale, a mile or so +across the city. M’sieur had plenty of time, and to spare. There was the tram +line, if m’sieur did not care to take a fiacre. If he would go by way of the +Vielle Bourse he would discover the tram cars of the Rue Kipdorp. M’sieur was +most welcome.... +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur departed with the more haste since he was unable to repay this +courtesy with the most trifling purchase; such slight matters annoyed Kirkwood +intensely. Perhaps it was well for him that he had the long walk to help him +work off the fit of nervous exasperation into which he was plunged every time +his thoughts harked back to that jovial black-guard, Stryker.... He was quite +calm when, after a brisk walk of some fifteen minutes, he reached the station. +</p> + +<p> +A public clock reassured him with the information that he had the quarter of an +hour’s leeway; it was only seventeen minutes past eighteen o’clock (Belgian +railway time, always confusing). Inquiring his way to the Amsterdam train, +which was already waiting at the platform, he paced its length, peering +brazenly in at the coach windows, now warm with hope, now shivering with +disappointment, realizing as he could not but realize that, all else aside, his +only chance of rehabilitation lay in meeting Calendar. But in none of the +coaches or carriages did he discover any one even remotely resembling the fat +adventurer, his daughter, or Mulready. +</p> + +<p> +Satisfied that they had not yet boarded the train, he stood aside, tortured +with forebodings, while anxiously scrutinizing each individual of the throng of +intending travelers.... Perhaps they had been delayed—by the <i>Alethea’s</i> +lateness in making port very likely; perhaps they purposed taking not this but +a later train; perhaps they had already left the city by an earlier, or had +returned to England. +</p> + +<p> +On time, the bell clanged its warning; the guards bawled theirs; doors were +hastily opened and slammed; the trucks began to groan, couplings jolting as the +engine chafed in constraint. The train and Kirkwood moved simultaneously out of +opposite ends of the station, the one to rattle and hammer round the eastern +boundaries of the city and straighten out at top speed on the northern route +for the Belgian line, the other to stroll moodily away, idle hands in empty +pockets, bound aimlessly anywhere—it didn’t matter! +</p> + +<p> +Nothing whatever mattered in the smallest degree. Ere now the outlook had been +dark; but this he felt to be the absolute nadir of his misfortunes. +Presently—after a while—as soon as he could bring himself to it—he would ask +the way and go to the American Consulate. But just now, low as the tide of +chance had ebbed, leaving him stranded on the flats of vagabondage, low as +showed the measure of his self-esteem, he could not tolerate the prospect of +begging for assistance—help which would in all likelihood be refused, since his +story was quite too preposterous to gain credence in official ears that daily +are filled with the lamentations of those whose motives do not bear +investigation. And if he chose to eliminate the strange chain of events which +had landed him in Antwerp, to base his plea solely on the fact that he was a +victim of the San Francisco disaster ... he himself was able to smile, if +sourly, anticipating the incredulous consular smile with which he would be +shown the door. +</p> + +<p> +No; that he would reserve as a last resort. True, he had already come to the +Jumping-off Place; to the Court of the Last Resort alone could he now appeal. +But ... not yet; after a while he could make his petition, after he had made a +familiar of the thought that he must armor himself with callous indifference to +rebuff, to say naught of the waves of burning shame that would overwhelm him +when he came to the point of asking charity. +</p> + +<p> +He found himself, neither knowing nor caring how he had won thither, in the +Place Verte, the vast venerable pile of the Cathedral rising on his right, +hotels and quaint Old-World dwellings with peaked roofs and gables and dormer +windows, inclosing the other sides of the square. The chimes (he could hear +none but those of the Cathedral) were heralding the hour of seven. Listless and +preoccupied in contemplation of his wretched case he wandered purposelessly +half round the square, then dropped into a bench on its outskirts. +</p> + +<p> +It was some time later that he noticed, with a casual, indifferent eye, a +porter running out of the Hôtel de Flandre, directly opposite, and calling a +fiacre in to the carriage block. +</p> + +<p> +As languidly he watched a woman, very becomingly dressed, follow the porter +down to the curb. +</p> + +<p> +The fiacre swung in, and the woman dismissed the porter before entering the +vehicle; a proceeding so unusual that it fixed the onlooker’s interest. He sat +rigid with attention; the woman seemed to be giving explicit and lengthy +directions to the driver, who nodded and gesticulated his comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +The woman was Mrs. Hallam. +</p> + +<p> +The first blush of recognition passed, leaving Kirkwood without any amazement. +It was an easy matter to account for her being where she was. Thrown off the +scent by Kirkwood at Sheerness, the previous morning, she had missed the day +boat, the same which had ferried over those whom she pursued. Returning from +Sheerness to Queensborough, however, she had taken the night boat for Flushing +and Antwerp,—and not without her plan, who was not a woman to waste her +strength aimlessly; Kirkwood believed that she had had from the first a very +definite campaign in view. In that campaign Queensborough Pier had been the +first strategic move; the journey to Antwerp, apparently, the second; and the +American was impressed that he was witnessing the inception of the third +decided step.... The conclusion of this process of reasoning was inevitable: +Madam would bear watching. +</p> + +<p> +Thus was a magical transformation brought about. Instantaneously lassitude and +vain repinings were replaced by hopefulness and energy. In a twinkling the +young man was on his feet, every nerve a-thrill with excitement. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hallam, blissfully ignorant of this surveillance over her movements, took +her place in the fiacre. The driver clucked to his horse, cracked his whip, and +started off at a slow trot: a pace which Kirkwood imitated, keeping himself at +a discreet distance to the rear of the cab, but prepared to break into a run +whenever it should prove necessary. +</p> + +<p> +Such exertion, however, was not required of him. Evidently Mrs. Hallam was in +no great haste to reach her destination; the speed of the fiacre remained +extremely moderate; Kirkwood found a long, brisk stride fast enough to keep it +well in sight. +</p> + +<p> +Round the green square, under the beautiful walls of Notre Dame d’Anvers, +through Grande Place and past the Hôtel de Ville, the cab proceeded, dogged by +what might plausibly be asserted the most persistent and infatuated soul that +ever crossed the water; and so on into the Quai Van Dyck, turning to the left +at the old Steen dungeon and, slowing to a walk, moving soberly up the drive. +</p> + +<p> +Beyond the lip of the embankment, the Scheldt flowed, its broad shining surface +oily, smooth and dark, a mirror for the incandescent glory of the skies. Over +on the western bank old Tête de Flandre lifted up its grim curtains and +bastions, sable against the crimson, rampart and parapet edged with fire. Busy +little side-wheeled ferry steamers spanked the waters noisily and smudged the +sunset with dark drifting trails of smoke; and ever and anon a rowboat would +slip out of shadow to glide languidly with the current. Otherwise the life of +the river was gone; and at their moorings the ships swung in great quietness, +riding lights glimmering like low wan stars. +</p> + +<p> +In the company of the latter the young man marked down the <i>Alethea</i>; a +sight which made him unconsciously clench both fists and teeth, reminding him +of that rare wag, Stryker.... +</p> + +<p> +To his way of thinking the behavior of the fiacre was quite unaccountable. +Hardly had the horse paced off the length of two blocks on the Quai ere it was +guided to the edge of the promenade and brought to a stop. And the driver +twisted the reins round his whip, thrust the latter in its socket, turned +sidewise on the box, and began to smoke and swing his heels, surveying the +panorama of river and sunset with complacency—a cabby, one would venture, +without a care in the world and serene in the assurance of a generous +<i>pour-boire</i> when he lost his fare. But as for the latter, she made no +move; the door of the cab remained closed,—like its occupant’s mind, a mystery +to the watcher. +</p> + +<p> +Twilight shadows lengthened, darkling, over the land; street-lights flashed up +in long, radiant ranks. Across the promenade hotels and shops were lighted up; +people began to gather round the tables beneath the awnings of an open-air +café. In the distance, somewhere, a band swung into the dreamy rhythm of a +haunting waltz. Scattered couples moved slowly, arm in arm, along the riverside +walk, drinking in the fragrance of the night. Overhead stars popped out in +brilliance and dropped their reflections to swim lazily on spellbound +waters.... And still the fiacre lingered in inaction, still the driver lorded +it aloft, in care-free abandon. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of time this inertia, where he had looked for action, this dull +suspense when he had forecast interesting developments, wore upon the watcher’s +nerves and made him at once impatient and suspicious. Now that he had begun to +doubt, he conceived it as quite possible that Mrs. Hallam (who was capable of +anything) should have stolen out of the cab by the other and, to him, invisible +door. To resolve the matter, finally, he took advantage of the darkness, turned +up his coat collar, hunched up his shoulders, hid his hands in pockets, pulled +the visor of his cap well forward over his eyes, and slouched past the fiacre. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hallam sat within. He could see her profile clearly silhouetted against +the light; she was bending forward and staring fixedly out of the window, +across the driveway. Mentally he calculated the direction of her gaze, then, +moved away and followed it with his own eyes; and found himself staring at the +façade of a third-rate hotel. Above its roof the gilded letters of a sign, +catching the illumination from below, spelled out the title of “Hôtel du +Commerce.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hallam was interested in the Hôtel du Commerce? +</p> + +<p> +Thoughtfully Kirkwood fell back to his former point of observation, now the +richer by another object of suspicion, the hostelry. Mrs. Hallam was waiting +and watching for some one to enter or to leave that establishment. It seemed a +reasonable inference to draw. Well, then, so was Kirkwood, no less than the +lady; he deemed it quite conceivable that their objects were identical. +</p> + +<p> +He started to beguile the time by wondering what she would do, if... +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden he abandoned this line of speculation, and catching his breath, +held it, almost afraid to credit the truth that for once his anticipations were +being realized under his very eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Against the lighted doorway of the Hôtel du Commerce, the figures of two men +were momentarily sketched, as they came hurriedly forth; and of the two, one +was short and stout, and even at a distance seemed to bear himself with an +accent of assertiveness, while the other was tall and heavy of shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Side by side they marched in step across the embankment to the head of the Quai +gangway, descending without pause to the landing-stage. Kirkwood, hanging +breathlessly over the guard-rail, could hear their footfalls ringing in hollow +rhythm on the planks of the inclined way,—could even discern Calendar’s +unlovely profile in dim relief beneath one of the waterside lights; and he +recognized unmistakably Mulready’s deep voice, grumbling inarticulately. +</p> + +<p> +At the outset he had set after them, with intent to accost Calendar; but their +pace had been swift and his irresolute. He hung fire on the issue, dreading to +reveal himself, unable to decide which were the better course, to pursue the +men, or to wait and discover what Mrs. Hallam was about. In the end he waited; +and had his disappointment for recompense. +</p> + +<p> +For Mrs. Hallam did nothing intelligible. Had she driven over to the hotel, +hard upon the departure of the men, he would have believed that she was seeking +Dorothy, and would, furthermore, have elected to crowd their interview, if she +succeeded in obtaining one with the girl. But she did nothing of the sort. For +a time the fiacre remained as it had been ever since stopping; then, evidently +admonished by his fare, the driver straightened up, knocked out his pipe, +disentangled reins and whip, and wheeled the equipage back on the way it had +come, disappearing in a dark side street leading eastward from the embankment. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood was, then, to believe that Mrs. Hallam, having taken all that trouble +and having waited for the two adventurers to appear, had been content with +sight of them? He could hardly believe that of the woman; it wasn’t like her. +</p> + +<p> +He started across the driveway, after the fiacre, but it was lost in a tangle +of side streets before he could make up his mind whether it was worth while +chasing or not; and, pondering the woman’s singular action, he retraced his +steps to the promenade rail. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he told himself he understood. Dorothy was no longer of her father’s +party; he had a suspicion that Mulready’s attitude had made it seem advisable +to Calendar either to leave the girl behind, in England, or to segregate her +from his associates in Antwerp. If not lodged in another quarter of the city, +or left behind, she was probably traveling on ahead, to a destination which he +could by no means guess. And Mrs. Hallam was looking for the girl; if there +were really jewels in that gladstone bag, Calendar would naturally have had no +hesitation about intrusting them to his daughter’s care; and Mrs. Hallam +avowedly sought nothing else. How the woman had found out that such was the +case, Kirkwood did not stop to reckon; unless he explained it on the +proposition that she was a person of remarkable address. It made no matter, one +way or the other; he had lost Mrs. Hallam; but Calendar and Mulready he could +put his finger on; they had undoubtedly gone off to the <i>Alethea</i> to +confer again with Stryker,—that was, unless they proposed sailing on the +brigantine, possibly at turn of tide that night. +</p> + +<p> +Panic gripped his soul and shook it, as a terrier shakes a rat, when he +conceived this frightful proposition. +</p> + +<p> +In his confusion of mind he evolved spontaneously an entirely new hypothesis: +Dorothy had already been spirited aboard the vessel; Calendar and his +confederate, delaying to join her from enigmatic motives, were now aboard; and +presently the word would be, Up-anchor and away! +</p> + +<p> +Were they again to elude him? Not, he swore, if he had to swim for it. And he +had no wish to swim. The clothes he stood in, with what was left of his +self-respect, were all that he could call his own on that side of the North +Sea. Not a boatman on the Scheldt would so much as consider accepting three +English pennies in exchange for boat-hire. In brief, it began to look as if he +were either to swim or ... to steal a boat. +</p> + +<p> +Upon such slender threads of circumstance depends our boasted moral health. In +one fleeting minute Kirkwood’s conception of the law of <i>meum et tuum</i>, +its foundations already insidiously undermined by a series of cumulative +misfortunes, toppled crashing to its fall; and was not. +</p> + +<p> +He was wholly unconscious of the change. Beneath him, in a space between the +quays bridged by the gangway, a number of rowboats, a putative score, lay +moored for the night and gently rubbing against each other with the soundless +lift and fall of the river. For all that Kirkwood could determine to the +contrary, the lot lay at the mercy of the public; nowhere about was he able to +discern a figure in anything resembling a watchman. +</p> + +<p> +Without a quiver of hesitation—moments were invaluable, if what he feared were +true—he strode to the gangway, passed down, and with absolute nonchalance +dropped into the nearest boat, stepping from one to another until he had gained +the outermost. To his joy he found a pair of oars stowed beneath the thwarts. +</p> + +<p> +If he had paused to moralize—which he didn’t—upon the discovery, he would have +laid it all at the door of his lucky star; and would have been wrong. We who +have never stooped to petty larceny know that the oars had been placed there at +the direction of his evil genius bent upon facilitating his descent into the +avernus of crime. Let us, then, pity the poor young man without condoning his +offense. +</p> + +<p> +Unhitching the painter he set one oar against the gunwale of the next boat, and +with a powerful thrust sent his own (let us so call it for convenience) +stern-first out upon the river; then sat him composedly down, fitted the oars +to their locks, and began to pull straight across-stream, trusting to the +current to carry him down to the <i>Alethea</i>. He had already marked down +that vessel’s riding-light; and that not without a glow of gratitude to see it +still aloft and in proper juxtaposition to the river-bank; proof that it had +not moved. +</p> + +<p> +He pulled a good oar, reckoned his distance prettily, and shipping the blades +at just the right moment, brought the little boat in under the brigantine’s +counter with scarce a jar. An element of surprise he held essential to the +success of his plan, whatever that might turn out to be. +</p> + +<p> +Standing up, he caught the brigantine’s after-rail with both hands, one of +which held the painter of the purloined boat, and lifted his head above the +deck line. A short survey of the deserted after-deck gave him further +assurance. The anchor-watch was not in sight; he may have been keeping well +forward by Stryker’s instructions, or he may have crept off for forty winks. +Whatever the reason for his absence from the post of duty, Kirkwood was +relieved not to have him to deal with; and drawing himself gently in over the +rail, made the painter fast, and stepped noiselessly over toward the lighted +oblong of the companionway. A murmur of voices from below comforted him with +the knowledge that he had not miscalculated, this time; at last he stood within +striking distance of his quarry. +</p> + +<p> +The syllables of his surname ringing clearly in his ears and followed by +Stryker’s fleeting laugh, brought him to a pause. He flushed hotly in the +darkness; the captain was retailing with relish some of his most successful +witticisms at Kirkwood’s expense.... “You’d ought to’ve seed the wye’e looked +at me!” concluded the <i>raconteur</i> in a gale of mirth. +</p> + +<p> +Mulready laughed with him, if a little uncertainly. Calendar’s chuckle was not +audible, but he broke the pause that followed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” he said with doubting emphasis. “You say you landed him without +a penny in his pocket? I don’t call that a good plan at all. Of course, he +ain’t a factor, but ... Well, it might’ve been as well to give him his fare +home. He might make trouble for us, somehow.... I don’t mind telling you, +Cap’n, that you’re an ass.” +</p> + +<p> +The tensity of certain situations numbs the sensibilities. Kirkwood had never +in his weirdest dreams thought of himself as an eavesdropper; he did not think +of himself as such in the present instance; he merely listened, edging nearer +the skylight, of which the wings were slightly raised, and keeping as far as +possible in shadow. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, I sye!” the captain was remonstrating, aggrieved. “’Ow was I to know ’e +didn’t ’ave it in for you? First off, when ’e comes on board (I’ll sye this for +’im, ’e’s as plucky as they myke ’em), I thought ’e was from the Yard. Then, +when I see wot a bally hinnocent ’e was, I mykes up my mind ’e’s just some one +you’ve been ply in’ one of your little gymes on, and ’oo was lookin’ to square +’is account. So I did ’im proper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Evidently,” assented Calendar dryly. “You’re a bit of a heavy-handed brute, +Stryker. Personally I’m kind of sorry for the boy; he wasn’t a bad sort, as his +kind runs, and he was no fool, from what little I saw of him.... I wonder what +he wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly,” Mulready chimed in suavely, “you can explain what you wanted of +him, in the first place. How did you come to drag him into <i>this</i> +business?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that!” Calendar laughed shortly. “That was partly accident, partly +inspiration. I happened to see his name on the Pless register; he’d put himself +down as from ’Frisco. I figured it out that he would be next door to broke and +getting desperate, ready to do anything to get home; and thought we might +utilize him; to smuggle some of the stuff into the States. Once before, if +you’ll remember—no; that was before we got together, Mulready—I picked up a +fellow-countryman on the Strand. He was down and out, jumped at the job, and we +made a neat little wad on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The more fool you, to take outsiders into your confidence,” grumbled Mulready. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow?” interrogated Calendar, mimicking Stryker’s accent inimitably. “Well, +you’ve got a heap to learn about this game, Mul; about the first thing is that +you must trust Old Man Know-it-all, which is me. I’ve run more diamonds into +the States, in one way or another, in my time, than you ever pinched out of the +shirt-front of a toff on the Empire Prom., before they made the graft too hot +for you and you came to take lessons from me in the gentle art of living easy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, cut that, cawn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Delighted, dear boy.... One of the first principles, next to profiting by the +admirable example I set you, is to make the fellows in your own line trust you. +Now, if this boy had taken on with me, I could have got a bunch of the +sparklers on my mere say-so, from old Morganthau up on Finsbury Pavement. He +does a steady business hoodwinking the Customs for the benefit of his American +clients—and himself. And I’d’ve made a neat little profit besides: something to +fall back on, if this fell through. I don’t mind having two strings to my bow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” argued Mulready; “but suppose this Kirkwood had taken on with you and +then peached?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s another secret; you’ve got to know your man, be able to size him up. I +called on this chap for that very purpose; but I saw at a glance he wasn’t our +man. He smelt a nigger in the woodpile and most politely told me to go to the +devil. But if he <i>had</i> come in, he’d’ve died before he squealed. I know +the breed; there’s honor among gentlemen that knocks the honor of thieves +higher’n a kite, the old saw to the contrary—nothing doing.... You understand +me, I’m sure, Mulready?” he concluded with envenomed sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see yet how Kirkwood got anything to do with Dorothy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar to you, <i>Mister</i> Mulready!” snapped Calendar. “There, +there, now! Don’t get excited.... It was when the Hallam passed me word that a +man from the Yard was waiting on the altar steps for me, that Kirkwood came in. +He was dining close by; I went over and worked on his feelings until he agreed +to take Dorothy off my hands. If I had attempted to leave the place with her, +they’d’ve spotted me for sure.... My compliments to you, Dick Mulready.” +</p> + +<p> +There came the noise of chair legs scraped harshly on the cabin deck. +Apparently Mulready had leaped to his feet in a rage. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve told you—” he began in a voice thick with passion. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sit down!” Calendar cut in contemptuously. “Sit down, d’you hear? That’s +all over and done with. We understand each other now, and you won’t try any +more monkey-shines. It’s a square deal and a square divide, so far’s I’m +concerned; if we stick together there’ll be profit enough for all concerned. +Sit down, Mul, and have another slug of the captain’s bum rum.” +</p> + +<p> +Although Mulready consented to be pacified, Kirkwood got the impression that +the man was far gone in drink. A moment later he heard him growl “Chin-chin!” +antiphonal to the captain’s “Cheer-o!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then,” Calendar proposed, “Mr. Kirkwood aside—peace be with him!—let’s +get down to cases.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s the row?” asked the captain. +</p> + +<p> +“The row, Cap’n, is the Hallam female, who has unexpectedly shown up in +Antwerp, we have reason to believe with malicious intent and a private +detective to add to the gaiety of nations.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s the odds? She carn’t ’urt us without lyin’ up trouble for ’erself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn little consolation to us when we’re working it out in Dartmoor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak for yourself,” grunted Mulready surlily. +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” returned Calendar easily; “we’re both in the shadow of Dartmoor, Mul, +my boy; since you choose to take the reference as personal. Sing Sing, however, +yawns for me alone; it’s going to keep on yawning, too, unless I miss my guess. +I love my native land most to death, <i>but</i> ...” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, blow that!” interrupted the captain irritably. “Let’s ’ear about the +’Allam. Wot’re you afryd of?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Fraid she’ll set up a yell when she finds out we’re planting the loot, Cap’n. +She’s just that vindictive; you’d think she’d be satisfied with her end of the +stick, but you don’t know the Hallam. That milk-and-water offspring of hers is +the apple of her eye, and Freddie’s going to collar the whole shooting-match or +madam will kick over the traces.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she’s queered us here. We can’t do anything if my lady is going to camp +on our trail and tell everybody we’re shady customers, can we? The question now +before the board is: Where now,—and how?” +</p> + +<p> +“Amsterdam,” Mulready chimed in. “I told you that in the beginning.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how?” argued Calendar. “The Lord knows I’m willing but ... we can’t go by +rail, thanks to the Hallam. We’ve got to lose her first of all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But wot I’m arskin’ is, wot’s the matter with—” +</p> + +<p> +“The <i>Alethea</i>, Cap’n? Nothing, so far as Dick and I are concerned. But my +dutiful daughter is prejudiced; she’s been so long without proper paternal +discipline,” Calendar laughed, “that she’s rather high-spirited. Of course I +might overcome her objections, but the girl’s no fool, and every ounce of +pressure I bring to bear just now only helps make her more restless and +suspicious.” +</p> + +<p> +“You leave her to me,” Mulready interposed, with a brutal laugh. “I’ll +guarantee to get her aboard, or...” +</p> + +<p> +“Drop it, Dick!” Calendar advised quietly. “And go a bit easy with that bottle +for five minutes, can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” Stryker resumed, apparently concurring in Calendar’s attitude, +“w’y don’t one of you tyke the stuff, go off quiet and dispose of it to a +proper fence, and come back to divide. I don’t see w’y that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally you wouldn’t,” chuckled Calendar. “Few people besides the two of us +understand the depth of affection existing between Dick, here, and me. We just +can’t bear to get out of sight of each other. We’re sure inseparable—since +night before last. Odd, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You drop it!” snarled Mulready, in accents so ugly that the listener was +startled. “Enough’s enough and—” +</p> + +<p> +“There, there, Dick! All right; I’ll behave,” Calendar soothed him. “We’ll +forget and say no more about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, see you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“But ’as either of you a plan?” persisted Stryker. +</p> + +<p> +“I have,” replied Mulready; “and it’s the simplest and best, if you could only +make this long-lost parent here see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wot is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mulready seemed to ignore Calendar and address himself to the captain. He +articulated with some difficulty, slurring his words to the point of +indistinctness at times. +</p> + +<p> +“Simple enough,” he propounded solemnly. “We’ve got the gladstone bag here; +Miss Dolly’s at the hotel—that’s her papa’s bright notion; he thinks she’s to +be trusted ... Now then, what’s the matter with weighing anchor and slipping +quietly out to sea?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leavin’ the dootiful darter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cert’n’y. She’s only a drag any way. ’Better off without her.... Then we can +wait our time and get highest market prices—” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget, Dick,” Calendar put it, “that there’s a thousand in it for each of +us if she’s kept out of England for six weeks. A thousand’s five thousand in +the land I hail from; I can use five thousand in my business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t you be content with what you’ve got?” demanded Mulready wrathfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’m a seventh son of a seventh son; I can see an inch or two beyond my +nose. If Dorothy ever finds her way back to England she’ll spoil one of the +finest fields of legitimate graft I ever licked my lips to look at. The trouble +with you, Mul, is you’re too high-toned. You want to play the swell mobs-man +from post to finish. A quick touch and a clean getaway for yours. Now, that’s +all right; that has its good points, but you don’t want to underestimate the +advantages of a good blackmailing connection.... If I can keep Dorothy quiet +long enough, I look to the Hallam and precious Freddie to be a great comfort to +me in my old age.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, for God’s sake,” cried Mulready, “go to the hotel, get your brat by the +scruif of her pretty neck and drag her aboard. Let’s get out of this.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t,” returned Calendar inflexibly. +</p> + +<p> +The dispute continued, but the listener had heard enough. He had to get away +and think, could no longer listen; indeed, the voices of the three blackguards +below came but indistinctly to his ears, as if from a distance. He was sick at +heart and ablaze with indignation by turns. Unconsciously he was trembling +violently in every limb; swept by alternate waves of heat and cold, feverish +one minute, shivering the next. All of which phenomena were due solely to the +rage that welled inside his heart. +</p> + +<p> +Stealthily he crept away to the rail, to stand grasping it and staring across +the water with unseeing eyes at the gay old city twinkling back with her +thousand eyes of light. The cool night breeze, sweeping down unhindered over +the level Netherlands from the bleak North Sea, was comforting to his throbbing +temples. By degrees his head cleared, his rioting pulses subsided, he could +think; and he did. +</p> + +<p> +Over there, across the water, in the dingy and disreputable Hôtel du Commerce, +Dorothy waited in her room, doubtless the prey of unnumbered nameless terrors, +while aboard the brigantine her fate was being decided by a council of three +unspeakable scoundrels, one of whom, professing himself her father, openly +declared his intention of using her to further his selfish and criminal ends. +</p> + +<p> +His first and natural thought, to steal away to her and induce her to accompany +him back to England, Kirkwood perforce discarded. He could have wept over the +realization of his unqualified impotency. He had no money,—not even cab-fare +from the hotel to the railway station. Something subtler, more crafty, had to +be contrived to meet the emergency. And there was one way, one only; he could +see none other. Temporarily he must make himself one of the company of her +enemies, force himself upon them, ingratiate himself into their good graces, +gain their confidence, then, when opportunity offered, betray them. And the +power to make them tolerate him, if not receive him as a fellow, the knowledge +of them and their plans that they had unwittingly given him, was his. +</p> + +<p> +And Dorothy, was waiting.... +</p> + +<p> +He swung round and without attempting to muffle his footfalls strode toward the +companionway. He must pretend he had just come aboard. +</p> + +<p> +Subconsciously he had been aware, during his time of pondering, that the voices +in the cabin had been steadily gaining in volume, rising louder and yet more +loud, Mulready’s ominous, drink-blurred accents dominating the others. There +was a quarrel afoot; as soon as he gave it heed, Kirkwood understood that +Mulready, in the madness of his inflamed brain, was forcing the issue while +Calendar sought vainly to calm and soothe him. +</p> + +<p> +The American arrived at the head of the companionway at a critical juncture. As +he moved to descend some low, cool-toned retort of Calendar’s seemed to enrage +his confederate beyond reason. He yelped aloud with wrath, sprang to his feet, +knocking over a chair, and leaping back toward the foot of the steps, flashed +an adroit hand behind him and found his revolver. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve stood enough from you!” he screamed, his voice oddly clear in that moment +of insanity. “You’ve played with me as long as you will, you hulking American +hog! And now I’m going to show—” +</p> + +<p> +As he held his fire to permit his denunciation to bite home, Kirkwood, appalled +to find himself standing on the threshold of a tragedy, gathered himself +together and launched through the air, straight for the madman’s shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +As they went down together, sprawling, Mulready’s head struck against a transom +and the revolver fell from his limp fingers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV<br/> +STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS</h2> + +<p> +Prepared as he had been for the shock, Kirkwood was able to pick himself up +quickly, uninjured, Mulready’s revolver in his grasp. +</p> + +<p> +On his feet, straddling Mulready’s insentient body, he confronted Calendar and +Stryker. The face of the latter was a sickly green, the gift of his fright. The +former seemed coldly composed, already recovering from his surprise and +bringing his wits to bear upon the new factor which had been so unceremoniously +injected into the situation. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus07"></a> +<img src="images/img07.jpg" width="565" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">Straddling Mulready’s body, he confronted Calendar and Stryker.</p> +</div> + +<p> +Standing, but leaning heavily upon a hand that rested flat on the table, in the +other he likewise held a revolver, which he had apparently drawn in +self-defense, at the crisis of Mulready’s frenzy. Its muzzle was deflected. He +looked Kirkwood over with a cool gray eye, the color gradually returning to his +fat, clean-shaven cheeks, replacing the pardonable pallor which had momentarily +rested thereon. +</p> + +<p> +As for Kirkwood, he had covered the fat adventurer before he knew it. Stryker, +who had been standing immediately in the rear of Calendar, immediately cowered +and cringed to find himself in the line of fire. +</p> + +<p> +Of the three conscious men in the brigantine’s cabin, Calendar was probably the +least confused or excited. Stryker was palpably unmanned. Kirkwood was tingling +with a sense of mastery, but collected and rapidly revolving the combinations +for the reversed conditions which had been brought about by Mulready’s drunken +folly. His elation was apparent in his shining, boyish eyes, as well as in the +bright color that glowed in his cheeks. When he decided to speak it was with +rapid enunciation, but clearly and concisely. +</p> + +<p> +“Calendar,” he began, “if a single shot is fired about this vessel the river +police will be buzzing round your ears in a brace of shakes.” +</p> + +<p> +The fat adventurer nodded assent, his eyes contracting. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well!” continued Kirkwood brusquely. “You must know that I have +personally nothing to fear from the police; if arrested, I wouldn’t be detained +a day. On the other hand, you ... Hand me that pistol, Calendar, butt first, +please. Look sharp, my man! If you don’t...” +</p> + +<p> +He left the ellipsis to be filled in by the corpulent blackguard’s +intelligence. The latter, gray eyes still intent on the younger man’s face, +wavered, plainly impressed, but still wondering. +</p> + +<p> +“Quick! I’m not patient to-night...” +</p> + +<p> +No longer was Calendar of two minds. In the face of Kirkwood’s attitude there +was but one course to be followed: that of obedience. Calendar surrendered an +untenable position as gracefully as could be wished. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you know what you mean by this,” he said, tendering the weapon as per +instructions; “I’m doggoned if I do.... You’ll allow a certain latitude in +consideration of my relief; I can’t say we were anticipating +this—ah—Heaven-sent visitation.” +</p> + +<p> +Accepting the revolver with his left hand and settling his forefinger on the +trigger, Kirkwood beamed with pure enjoyment. He found the deference of the +older man, tempered though it was by his indomitable swagger, refreshing in the +extreme. +</p> + +<p> +“A little appreciation isn’t exactly out of place, come to think of it,” he +commented, adding, with an eye for the captain: “Stryker, you bold, bad +butterfly, have you got a gun concealed about your unclean person?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain shook visibly with contrition. “No, Mr. Kirkwood,” he managed to +reply in a voice singularly lacking in his wonted bluster. +</p> + +<p> +“Say ‘sir’!” suggested Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Mr. Kirkwood, sir,” amended Stryker eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now come round here and let’s have a look at you. Please stay where you are, +Calendar.... Why, Captain, you’re shivering from head to foot! Not ill are you, +you wag? Step over to the table there, Stryker, and turn out your pockets; turn +’em inside out and let’s see what you carry in the way of offensive artillery. +And, Stryker, don’t be rash; don’t do anything you’d be sorry for afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“No fear of that,” mumbled the captain, meekly shambling toward the table, and, +in his anxiety to give no cause for unpleasantness, beginning to empty his +pockets on the way. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t forget the ‘sir,’ Stryker. And, Stryker, if you happen to think of +anything in the line of one of your merry quips or jests, don’t strain yourself +holding in; get it right off your chest, and you’ll feel better.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood chuckled, in high conceit with himself, watching Calendar out of the +corner of his eye, but with his attention centered on the infinitely diverting +spectacle afforded by Stryker, whose predacious hands were trembling violently +as, one by one, they brought to light the articles of which he had despoiled +his erstwhile victim. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, Stryker! Surely you can think of something witty, surely you +haven’t exhausted the possibilities of that almanac joke! Couldn’t you ring +another variation on the lunatic wheeze? Don’t hesitate out of consideration +for me, Captain; I’m joke proof—perhaps you’ve noticed?” +</p> + +<p> +Stryker turned upon him an expression at once ludicrous, piteous and hateful. +“That’s all, sir,” he snarled, displaying his empty palms in token of his +absolute tractability. +</p> + +<p> +“Good enough. Now right about face—quick! Your back’s prettier than your face, +and besides, I want to know whether your hip-pockets are empty. I’ve heard it’s +the habit of you gentry to pack guns in your clothes.... None? That’s all +right, then. Now roost on the transom, over there in the corner, Stryker, and +don’t move. Don’t let me hear a word from you. Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +Submissively the captain retired to the indicated spot. Kirkwood turned to +Calendar; of whose attitude, however, he had not been for an instant unmindful. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Calendar?” he suggested pleasantly. “Forgive me for +keeping you waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +For his own part, as the adventurer dropped passively into his chair, Kirkwood +stepped over Mulready and advanced to the middle of the cabin, at the same time +thrusting Calendar’s revolver into his own coat pocket. The other, Mulready’s, +he nursed significantly with both hands, while he stood temporarily quiet, +surveying the fleshy face of the prime factor in the intrigue. +</p> + +<p> +A quaint, grim smile played about the American’s lips, a smile a little +contemptuous, more than a little inscrutable. In its light Calendar grew +restive and lost something of his assurance. His feet shifted uneasily beneath +the table and his dark eyes wavered, evading Kirkwood’s. At length he seemed to +find the suspense unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he demanded testily. “What d’you want of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was just wondering at you, Calendar. In the last few days you’ve given me +enough cause to wonder, as you’ll admit.” +</p> + +<p> +The adventurer plucked up spirit, deluded by Kirkwood’s pacific tone. “I wonder +at you, Mr. Kirkwood,” he retorted. “It was good of you to save my life and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not so sure of that! Perhaps it had been more humane—” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar owned the touch with a wry grimace. “But I’m damned if I understand +this high-handed attitude of yours!” he concluded heatedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you?” Kirkwood’s humor became less apparent, the smile sobering. “You +will,” he told the man, adding abruptly: “Calendar, where’s your daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +The restless eyes sought the companionway. +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy,” the man lied spontaneously, without a tremor, “is with friends in +England. Why? Did you want to see her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I rather expected to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I thought it best to leave her home, after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to hear she’s in safe hands,” commented Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +The adventurer’s glance analyzed his face. “Ah,” he said slowly, “I see. You +followed me on Dorothy’s account, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Partly; partly on my own. Let me put it to you fairly. When you forced +yourself upon me, back there in London, you offered me some sort of employment; +when I rejected it, you used me to your advantage for the furtherance of your +purposes (which I confess I don’t understand), and made me miss my steamer. +Naturally, when I found myself penniless and friendless in a strange country, I +thought again of your offer; and tried to find you, to accept it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Despite the fact that you’re an honest man, Kirkwood?” The fat lips twitched +with premature enjoyment. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a desperate man to-night, whatever I may have been yesterday.” The young +man’s tone was both earnest and convincing. “I think I’ve shown that by my +pertinacity in hunting you down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—yes.” Calendar’s thick fingers caressed his lips, trying to hide the +dawning smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that offer still open?” +</p> + +<p> +His nonchalance completely restored by the very naïveté of the proposition, +Calendar laughed openly and with a trace of irony. The episode seemed to be +turning out better than he had anticipated. Gently his mottled fat fingers +played about his mouth and chins as he looked Kirkwood up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” he replied, “that it isn’t—now. You’re too late, Kirkwood; I’ve +made other arrangements.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too bad.” Kirkwood’s eyes narrowed. “You force me to harsher measures, +Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +Genuinely diverted, the adventurer laughed a second time, tipping back in his +chair, his huge frame shaking with ponderous enjoyment. “Don’t do anything +you’d be sorry for,” he parroted, sarcastical, the young man’s recent +admonition to the captain. +</p> + +<p> +“No fear, Calendar. I’m just going to use my advantage, which you won’t +dispute,”—the pistol described an eloquent circle, gleaming in the +lamplight—“to levy on you a little legitimate blackmail. Don’t be alarmed; I +shan’t hit you any harder than I have to.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” stammered Calendar, astonished. “What in hell <i>are</i> you driving +at?” +</p> + +<p> +“Recompense for my time and trouble. You’ve cost me a pretty penny, first and +last, with your nasty little conspiracy—whatever it’s all about. Now, needing +the money, I purpose getting some of it back. I shan’t precisely rob you, but +this is a hold-up, all right.... Stryker,” reproachfully, “I don’t see my pearl +pin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I got it ’ere,” responded the sailor hastily, fumbling with his tie. +</p> + +<p> +“Give it me, then.” Kirkwood held out his hand and received the trinket. Then, +moving over to the table, the young man, while abating nothing of his +watchfulness, sorted out his belongings from the mass of odds and ends Stryker +had disgorged. The tale of them was complete; the captain had obeyed him +faithfully. Kirkwood looked up, pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“Now see here, Calendar; this collection of truck that I was robbed of by this +resurrected Joe Miller here, cost me upwards of a hundred and fifty. I’m going +to sell it to you at a bargain—say fifty dollars, two hundred and fifty +francs.” +</p> + +<p> +“The juice you are!” Calendar’s eyes opened wide, partly in admiration. “D’you +realize that this is next door to highway robbery, my young friend?” +</p> + +<p> +“High-seas piracy, if you prefer,” assented Kirkwood with entire equanimity. +“I’m going to have the money, and you’re going to give it up. The transaction +by any name would smell no sweeter, Calendar. Come—fork over!” +</p> + +<p> +“And if I refuse?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t refuse, if I were you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“The consequences would be too painful.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you’d puncture me with that gun?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless you attack or attempt to follow me. I mean to say that the Belgian +police are notoriously a most efficient body, and that I’ll make it my duty and +pleasure to introduce ’em to you, if you refuse. But you won’t,” Kirkwood added +soothingly, “will you, Calendar?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” The adventurer had become suddenly thoughtful. “No, I won’t. ’Glad to +oblige you.” +</p> + +<p> +He tilted his chair still farther back, straightening out his elephantine legs, +inserted one fat hand into his trouser pocket and with some difficulty +extracted a combined bill-fold and coin-purse, at once heavy with gold and +bulky with notes. Moistening thumb and forefinger, “How’ll you have it?” he +inquired with a lift of his cunning eyes; and when Kirkwood had advised him, +slowly counted out four fifty-franc notes, placed them near the edge of the +table, and weighted them with five ten-franc pieces. And, “’That all?” he +asked, replacing the pocket-book. +</p> + +<p> +“That will be about all. I leave you presently to your unholy devices, you and +that gay dog, over there.” The captain squirmed, reddening. “Just by way of +precaution, however, I’ll ask you to wait in here till I’m off.” Kirkwood +stepped backwards to the door of the captain’s room, opened it and removed the +key from the inside. “Please take Mulready in with you,” he continued. “By the +time you get out, I’ll be clear of Antwerp. Please don’t think of refusing +me,—I really mean it!” +</p> + +<p> +The latter clause came sharply as Calendar seemed to hesitate, his weary, wary +eyes glimmering with doubt. Kirkwood, watching him as a cat her prey, +intercepted a lightning-swift sidelong glance that shifted from his face to the +port lockers, forward. But the fat adventurer was evidently to a considerable +degree deluded by the very child-like simplicity of Kirkwood’s attitude. If the +possibility that his altercation with Mulready had been overheard, crossed his +mind, Calendar had little choice other than to accept the chance. Either way he +moved, the risk was great; if he refused to be locked in the captain’s room, +there was the danger of the police, to which Kirkwood had convincingly drawn +attention; if he accepted the temporary imprisonment, he took a risk with the +gladstone bag. On the other hand, he had estimated Kirkwood’s honesty as +thorough-going, from their first interview; he had appraised him as a gentleman +and a man of honor. And he did not believe the young man knew, after all ... +Perplexed, at length he chose the smoother way, and with an indulgent lifting +of eyebrows and fat shoulders, rose and waddled over to Mulready. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right,” he conceded with deep toleration in his tone for the +idiosyncrasies of youth. “It’s all the same to me, beau.” He laughed a nervous +laugh. “Come along and lend us a hand, Stryker.” +</p> + +<p> +The latter glanced timidly at Kirkwood, his eyes pleading for leave to move; +which Kirkwood accorded with an imperative nod and a fine flourish of the +revolver. Promptly the captain, sprang to Calendar’s assistance; and between +the two of them, the one taking Mulready’s head, the other his feet, they +lugged him quickly into the stuffy little state-room. Kirkwood, watching and +following to the threshold, inserted the key. +</p> + +<p> +“One word more,” he counseled, a hand on the knob. “Don’t forget I’ve warned +you what’ll happen if you try to break even with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear, little one!” Calendar’s laugh was nervously cheerful. “The Lord +knows you’re welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you ’most to death,” responded Kirkwood politely. “Good-by—and good-by +to you, Stryker. ’Glad to have humored your desire to meet me soon again.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood, turning the key in the lock, withdrew it and dropped it on the cabin +table; at the same time he swept into his pocket the money he had extorted of +Calendar. Then he paused an instant, listening; from the captain’s room came a +sound of murmurs and scuffling. He debated what they were about in there—but +time pressed. Not improbably they, were crowding for place at the keyhole, he +reflected, as he crossed to the port locker forward. +</p> + +<p> +He had its lid up in a twinkling, and in another had lifted out the +well-remembered black gladstone bag. +</p> + +<p> +This seems to have been his first compound larceny. +</p> + +<p> +As if stimulated by some such reflection he sprang for the companionway, +dropping the lid of the locker with a bang which must have been excruciatingly +edifying to the men in the captain’s room. Whatever their emotions, the bang +was mocked by a mighty kick, shaking the door; which, Kirkwood reflected, +opened outward and was held only by the frailest kind of a lock: it would not +hold long. +</p> + +<p> +Spurred onward by a storm of curses, Stryker’s voice chanting infuriated +cacophony with Calendar’s, Kirkwood leapt up the companionway even as the +second tremendous kick threatened to shatter the panels. Heart in mouth, a +chill shiver of guilt running up and down his spine, he gained the deck, cast +loose the painter, drew in his rowboat, and dropped over the side; then, the +gladstone bag nestling between his feet, sat down and bent to the oars. +</p> + +<p> +And doubts assailed him, pressing close upon the ebb of his excitement—doubts +and fears innumerable. +</p> + +<p> +There was no longer a distinction to be drawn between himself and Calendar; no +more could he esteem himself a better and more honest man than that +accomplished swindler. He was not advised as to the Belgian code, but English +law, he understood, made no allowance for the good intent of those caught in +possession of stolen property; though he was acting with the most honorable +motives in the world, the law, if he came within its cognizance, would +undoubtedly place him on Calendar’s plane and judge him by the same standard. +To all intents and purposes he was a thief, and thief he would remain until the +gladstone bag with its contents should be restored to its rightful owner. +</p> + +<p> +Voluntarily, then, he had stepped from the ranks of the hunters to those of the +hunted. He now feared police interference as abjectly as did Calendar and his +set of rogues; and Kirkwood felt wholly warranted in assuming that the +adventurer, with his keen intelligence, would not handicap himself by ignoring +this point. Indeed, if he were to be judged by what Kirkwood had inferred of +his character, Calendar would let nothing whatever hinder him, neither fear of +bodily hurt nor danger of apprehension at the hands of the police, from making +a determined and savage play to regain possession of his booty. +</p> + +<p> +Well! (Kirkwood set his mouth savagely) Calendar should have a run for his +money! +</p> + +<p> +For the present he could compliment himself with the knowledge that he had +outwitted the rogues, had lifted the jewels and probably two-thirds of their +armament; he had also the start, the knowledge of their criminal guilt and +intent, and his own plans, to comfort him. As for the latter, he did not +believe that Calendar would immediately fathom them; so he took heart of grace +and tugged at the oars with a will, pulling directly for the city and +permitting the current to drift him down-stream at its pleasure. There could be +no more inexcusable folly than to return to the <i>Quai Steen</i> landing and +(possibly) the arms of the despoiled boat-owner. +</p> + +<p> +At first he could hear crash after splintering crash sounding dully muffled +from the cabin of the <i>Alethea</i>: a veritable devil’s tattoo beaten out by +the feet of the prisoners. Evidently the fastening was serving him better than +he had dared hope. But as the black rushing waters widened between boat and +brigantine, the clamor aboard the latter subsided, indicating that Calendar and +Stryker had broken out or been released by the crew. In ignorance as to whether +he were seen or being pursued, Kirkwood pulled on, winning in under the shadow +of the quais and permitting the boat to drift down to a lonely landing on the +edge of the dockyard quarter of Antwerp. +</p> + +<p> +Here alighting, he made the boat fast and, soothing his conscience with a +surmise that its owner would find it there in the morning, strode swiftly over +to the train line that runs along the embankment, swung aboard an adventitious +car and broke his first ten-franc piece in order to pay his fare. +</p> + +<p> +The car made a leisurely progress up past the old Steen castle and the Quai +landing, Kirkwood sitting quietly, the gladstone bag under his hand, a +searching gaze sweeping the waterside. No sign of the adventurers rewarded him, +but it was now all chance, all hazard. He had no more heart for confidence. +</p> + +<p> +They passed the Hôtel du Commerce. Kirkwood stared up at its windows, +wondering.... +</p> + +<p> +A little farther on, a disengaged fiacre, its driver alert for possible fares, +turned a corner into the esplanade. At sight of it Kirkwood, inspired, hopped +nimbly off the tram-car and signaled the cabby. The latter pulled up and +Kirkwood started to charge him with instructions; something which he did +haltingly, hampered by a slight haziness of purpose. While thus engaged, and at +rest in the stark glare of the street-lamps, with no chance of concealing +himself, he was aware of a rising tumult in the direction of the landing, and +glancing round, discovered a number of people running toward him. With no time +to wonder whether or no he was really the object of the hue-and-cry, he tossed +the driver three silver francs. +</p> + +<p> +“Gare Centrale!” he cried. “And drive like the devil!” +</p> + +<p> +Diving into the fiacre he shut the door and stuck his head out of the window, +taking observations. A ragged fringe of silly rabble was bearing down upon +them, with one or two gendarmes in the forefront, and a giant, who might or +might not be Stryker, a close second. Furthermore, another cab seemed to have +been requisitioned for the chase. His heart misgave him momentarily; but his +driver had taken him at his word and generosity, and in a breath the fiacre had +turned the corner on two wheels, and the glittering reaches of the embankment, +drive and promenade, were blotted out, as if smudged with lamp-black, by the +obscurity of a narrow and tortuous side street. +</p> + +<p> +He drew in his head the better to preserve his brains against further +emergencies. +</p> + +<p> +After a block or two Kirkwood picked up the gladstone bag, gently opened the +door, and put a foot on the step, pausing to look back. The other cab was +pelting after him with all the enthusiasm of a hound on a fresh trail. He +reflected that this mad progress through the thoroughfares of a civilized city +would not long endure without police intervention. So he waited, watching his +opportunity. The fiacre hurtled onward, the driver leaning forward from his box +to urge the horse with lash of whip and tongue, entirely unconscious of his +fare’s intentions. +</p> + +<p> +Between two streets the mouth of a narrow and darksome byway flashed into view. +Kirkwood threw wide the door, and leaped, trusting to the night to hide his +stratagem, to luck to save his limbs. Neither failed him; in a twinkling he was +on all fours in the mouth of the alley, and as he picked himself up, the second +fiacre passed, Calendar himself poking a round bald poll out of the window to +incite his driver’s cupidity with promises of redoubled fare. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood mopped his dripping forehead and whistled low with dismay; it seemed +that from that instant on it was to be a vendetta with a vengeance. Calendar, +as he had foreseen, was stopping at nothing. +</p> + +<p> +At a dog trot he sped down the alley to the next street, on which he turned +back—more sedately—toward the river, debouching on the esplanade just one block +from the Hôtel du Commerce. As he swung past the serried tables of a café, +whatever fears he had harbored were banished by the discovery that the +excitement occasioned by the chase had already subsided. Beneath the garish +awnings the crowd was laughing and chattering, eating and sipping its bock with +complete unconcern, heedless altogether of the haggard and shabby young man +carrying a black hand-bag, with the black Shade of Care for company and a +blacker threat of disaster dogging his footsteps. Without attracting any +attention whatever, indeed, he mingled with the strolling crowds, making his +way toward the Hôtel du Commerce. Yet he was not at all at ease; his uneasy +conscience invested the gladstone bag with a magnetic attraction for the public +eye. To carry it unconcealed in his hand furnished him with a sensation as +disturbing as though its worn black sides had been stenciled STOLEN! in letters +of flame. He felt it rendered him a cynosure of public interest, an object of +suspicion to the wide cold world, that the gaze which lit upon the bag traveled +to his face only to espy thereon the brand of guilt. +</p> + +<p> +For ease of mind, presently, he turned into a convenient shop and spent ten +invaluable francs for a hand satchel big enough to hold the gladstone bag. +</p> + +<p> +With more courage, now that he had the hateful thing under cover, he found and +entered the Hôtel du Commerce. +</p> + +<p> +In the little closet which served for an office, over a desk visibly groaning +with the weight of an enormous and grimy registry book, a sleepy, fat, bland +and good-natured woman of the Belgian <i>bourgeoisie</i> presided, a benign and +drowsy divinity of even-tempered courtesy. To his misleading inquiry for +Monsieur Calendar she returned a cheerful permission to seek that gentleman for +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Three flights, M’sieu’, in the front; suite seventeen it is. M’sieu’ does not +mind walking up?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +M’sieu’ did not in the least, though by no strain of the imagination could it, +be truthfully said that he walked up those steep and redolent stairways of the +Hôtel du Commerce d’Anvers. More literally, he flew with winged feet, spurning +each third padded step with a force that raised a tiny cloud of fine white dust +from the carpeting. +</p> + +<p> +Breathless, at last he paused at the top of the third flight. His heart was +hammering, his pulses drumming like wild things; there was a queer constriction +in his throat, a fire of hope in his heart alternating with the ice of doubt. +Suppose she were not there! What if he were mistaken, what if he had +misunderstood, what if Mulready and Calendar had referred to another +lodging-house? +</p> + +<p> +Pausing, he gripped the balustrade fiercely, forcing his self-control, forcing +himself to reflect that the girl (presuming, for the sake of argument, he were +presently to find her) could not be expected to understand how ardently he had +discounted this moment of meeting, or how strangely it affected him. Indeed, he +himself was more than a little disturbed by the latter phenomenon, though he +was no longer blind to its cause. But he was not to let her see the evidences +of his agitation, lest she be frightened. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly schooling himself to assume a masque of illuding self-possession and +composure, he passed down the corridor to the door whose panels wore the +painted legend, 17; and there knocked. +</p> + +<p> +Believing that he overheard from within a sudden startled exclamation, he +smiled patiently, tolerant of her surprise. +</p> + +<p> +Burning with impatience as with a fever, he endured a long minute’s wait. +</p> + +<p> +Misgivings were prompting him to knock again and summon her by name, when he +heard footfalls on the other side of the door, followed by a click of the lock. +The door was opened grudgingly, a bare six inches. +</p> + +<p> +Of the alarmed expression in the eyes that stared into his, he took no account. +His face lengthened a little as he stood there, dumb, panting, staring; and his +heart sank, down, deep down into a gulf of disappointment, weighted sorely with +chagrin. +</p> + +<p> +Then, of the two the first to recover countenance, he doffed his cap and bowed. +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening, Mrs. Hallam,” he said with a rueful smile. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV<br/> +REFUGEES</h2> + +<p> +Now, if Kirkwood’s emotion was poignant, Mrs. Hallam’s astonishment paralleled, +and her relief transcended it. In order to understand this it must be +remembered that while Mr. Kirkwood was aware of the lady’s presence in Antwerp, +on her part she had known nothing of him since he had so ungallantly fled her +company in Sheerness. She seemed to anticipate that either Calendar or one of +his fellows would be discovered at the door,—to have surmised it without any +excessive degree of pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Only briefly she hesitated, while her surprise swayed her; then with a +hardening of the eyes and a curt little nod, “I’m sorry,” she said with +decision, “but I am busy and can’t see you now, Mr. Kirkwood”; and attempted to +shut the door in his face. +</p> + +<p> +Deftly Kirkwood forestalled her intention by inserting both a foot and a corner +of the newly purchased hand-bag between the door and the jamb. He had dared too +greatly to be thus dismissed. “Pardon me,” he countered, unabashed, “but I wish +to speak with Miss Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy,” returned the lady with spirit, “is engaged....” +</p> + +<p> +She compressed her lips, knitted her brows, and with disconcerting suddenness +thrust one knee against the obstructing hand-bag; Kirkwood, happily, +anticipated the movement just in time to reinforce the bag with his own knee; +it remained in place, the door standing open. +</p> + +<p> +The woman flushed angrily; their glances crossed, her eyes flashing with +indignation; but Kirkwood’s held them with a level and unyielding stare. +</p> + +<p> +“I intend,” he told her quietly, “to see Miss Calendar. It’s useless your +trying to hinder me. We may as well understand each other, Madam, and I’ll tell +you now that if you wish to avoid a scene—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy!” the woman called over her shoulder; “ring for the porter.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” assented Kirkwood agreeably. “I’ll send him for a gendarme.” +</p> + +<p> +“You insolent puppy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Madam, your wit disarms me—” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, Mrs. Hallam?” interrupted a voice from the other side of +the door. “Who is it?” “Miss Calendar!” cried Kirkwood hastily, raising his +voice. “Mr. Kirkwood!” the reply came on the instant. She knew his voice! +“Please, Mrs. Hallam, I will see Mr. Kirkwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have no time to waste with him, Dorothy,” said the woman coldly. “I must +insist—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t seem to understand; it is Mr. Kirkwood!” argued the girl,—as if +he were ample excuse for any imprudence! +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s scant store of patience was by this time rapidly becoming exhausted. +“I should advise you not to interfere any further, Mrs. Hallam,” he told her in +a tone low, but charged with meaning. +</p> + +<p> +How much did he know? She eyed him an instant longer, in sullen suspicion, then +swung open the door, yielding with what grace she could. “Won’t you come in, +Mr. Kirkwood?” she inquired with acidulated courtesy. “If you press me,” he +returned winningly, “how can I refuse? You are too good!” +</p> + +<p> +His impertinence disconcerted even himself; he wondered that she did not slap +him as he passed her, entering the room; and felt that he deserved it, despite +her attitude. But such thoughts could not long trouble one whose eyes were +enchanted by the sight of Dorothy, confronting him in the middle of the dingy +room, her hands, bristling dangerously with hat pins, busy with the adjustment +of a small gray toque atop the wonder that was her hair. So vivacious and +charming she seemed, so spirited and bright her welcoming smile, so foreign was +she altogether to the picture of her, worn and distraught, that he had mentally +conjured up, that he stopped in an extreme of disconcertion; and dropped the +hand-bag, smiling sheepishly enough under her ready laugh—mirth irresistibly +incited by the plainly-read play of expression on his mobile countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“You must forgive the unconventionally, Mr. Kirkwood,” she apologized, +needlessly enough, but to cover his embarrassment. “I am on the point of going +out with Mrs. Hallam—and of course you are the last person on earth I expected +to meet here!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s good to see you, Miss Calendar,” he said simply, remarking with much +satisfaction that her trim walking costume bore witness to her statement that +she was prepared for the street. +</p> + +<p> +The girl glanced into a mirror, patted the small, bewitching hat an +infinitesimal fraction of an inch to one side, and turned to him again, her +hands free. One of them, small but cordial, rested in his grasp for an instant +all too brief, the while he gazed earnestly into her face, noting with concern +what the first glance had not shown him,—the almost imperceptible shadows +beneath her eyes and cheek-bones, pathetic records of the hours the girl had +spent, since last he had seen her, in company with his own grim familiar, Care. +</p> + +<p> +Not a little of care and distress of mind had seasoned her portion in those two +weary days. He saw and knew it; and his throat tightened inexplicably, again, +as it had out there in the corridor. Possibly the change in her had passed +unchallenged by any eyes other than his, but even in the little time that he +had spent in her society, the image of her had become fixed so indelibly on his +memory, that he could not now be deceived. She was changed—a little, but +changed; she had suffered, and was suffering and, forced by suffering, her +nascent womanhood was stirring in the bud. The child that he had met in London, +in Antwerp he found grown to woman’s stature and slowly coming to comprehension +of the nature of the change in herself,—the wonder of it glowing softly in her +eyes.... +</p> + +<p> +The clear understanding of mankind that is an appanage of woman’s estate, was +now added to the intuitions of a girl’s untroubled heart. She could not be +blind to the mute adoration of his gaze; nor could she resent it. Beneath it +she colored and lowered her lashes. +</p> + +<p> +“I was about to go out,” she repeated in confusion. “I—it’s pleasant to see +you, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” he stammered ineptly; “I—I—” +</p> + +<p> +“If Mr. Kirkwood will excuse us, Dorothy,” Mrs. Hallam’s sharp tones struck in +discordantly, “we shall be glad to see him when we return to London.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am infinitely complimented, Mrs. Hallam,” Kirkwood assured her; and of the +girl quickly: “You’re going back home?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, with a faint, puzzled smile that included the woman. “After a +little—not immediately. Mrs. Hallam is so kind—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” he interrupted; “but tell me one thing, please: have you any one +in England to whom you can go without invitation and be welcomed and cared +for—any friends or relations?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy will be with me,” Mrs. Hallam answered for her, with cold defiance. +</p> + +<p> +Deliberately insolent, Kirkwood turned his back to the woman. “Miss Calendar, +will you answer my question for yourself?” he asked the girl pointedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—yes; several friends; none in London, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy—” +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, Mrs. Hallam,” Kirkwood flung crisply over his shoulder. “I’m going +to ask you something rather odd, Miss Calendar,” he continued, seeking the +girl’s eyes. “I hope—” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy, I—” +</p> + +<p> +“If you please, Mrs. Hallam,” suggested the girl, with just the right shade of +independence. “I wish to listen to Mr. Kirkwood. He has been very kind to me +and has every right....” She turned to him again, leaving the woman breathless +and speechless with anger. +</p> + +<p> +“You told me once,” Kirkwood continued quickly, and, he felt, brazenly, “that +you considered me kind, thoughtful and considerate. You know me no better +to-day than you did then, but I want to beg you to trust me a little. Can you +trust yourself to my protection until we reach your friends in England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I—” the girl faltered, taken by surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood!” cried Mrs. Hallam angrily, finding her voice. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood turned to meet her onslaught with a mien grave, determined, +unflinching. “Please do not interfere, Madam,” he said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“You are impertinent, sir! Dorothy, I forbid you to listen to this person!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl flushed, lifting her chin a trifle. “Forbid?” she repeated +wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood was quick to take advantage of her resentment. “Mrs. Hallam is not +fitted to advise you,” he insisted, “nor can she control your actions. It must +already have occurred to you that you’re rather out of place in the present +circumstances. The men who have brought you hither, I believe you already see +through, to some extent. Forgive my speaking plainly ... But that is why you +have accepted Mrs. Hallam’s offer of protection. Will you take my word for it, +when I tell you she has not your right interests at heart, but the reverse? I +happen to know, Miss Calendar, and I—” +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Flaming with rage, Mrs. Hallam put herself bodily between them, confronting +Kirkwood in white-lipped desperation, her small, gloved hands clenched and +quivering at her sides, her green eyes dangerous. +</p> + +<p> +But Kirkwood could silence her; and he did. “Do you wish me to speak frankly, +Madam? Do you wish me to tell what I know—and all I know—,” with rising +emphasis,—“of your social status and your relations with Calendar and Mulready? +I promise you that if you wish it, or force me to it....” +</p> + +<p> +But he had need to say nothing further; the woman’s eyes wavered before his and +a little sob of terror forced itself between her shut teeth. Kirkwood smiled +grimly, with a face of brass, impenetrable, inflexible. And suddenly she turned +from him with indifferent bravado. “As Mr. Kirkwood says, Dorothy,” she said in +her high, metallic voice, “I have no authority over you. But if you’re silly +enough to consider for a moment this fellow’s insulting suggestion, if you’re +fool enough to go with him, unchaperoned through Europe and imperil your—” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hallam!” Kirkwood cut her short with a menacing tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, then, I wash my hands of you,” concluded the woman defiantly. “Make your +choice, my child,” she added with a meaning laugh and moved away, humming a +snatch from a French <i>chanson</i> which brought the hot blood to Kirkwood’s +face. +</p> + +<p> +But the girl did not understand; and he was glad of that. “You may judge +between us,” he appealed to her directly, once more. “I can only offer you my +word of honor as an American gentleman that you shall be landed in England, +safe and sound, by the first available steamer—” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no need to say more, Mr. Kirkwood,” Dorothy informed him quietly. “I +have already decided. I think I begin to understand some things clearly, +now.... If you’re ready, we will go.” +</p> + +<p> +From the window, where she stood, holding the curtains back and staring out, +Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus08"></a> +<img src="images/img08.jpg" width="449" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">From the window, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.</p> +</div> + +<p> +“‘The honor of an American gentleman,’” she quoted with a stinging sneer; “I’m +sure I wish you comfort of it, child!” +</p> + +<p> +“We must make haste, Miss Calendar,” said Kirkwood, ignoring the implication. +“Have you a traveling-bag?” +</p> + +<p> +She silently indicated a small valise, closed and strapped, on a table by the +bed, and immediately passed out into the hall. Kirkwood took the case +containing the gladstone bag in one hand, the girl’s valise in the other, and +followed. +</p> + +<p> +As he turned the head of the stairs he looked back. Mrs. Hallam was still at +the window, her back turned. From her very passiveness he received an +impression of something ominous and forbidding; if she had lost a trick or two +of the game she played, she still held cards, was not at the end of her +resources. She stuck in his imagination for many an hour as a force to be +reckoned with. +</p> + +<p> +For the present he understood that she was waiting to apprise Calendar and +Mulready of their flight. With the more haste, then, he followed Dorothy down +the three flights, through the tiny office, where Madam sat sound asleep at her +over-burdened desk, and out. +</p> + +<p> +Opposite the door they were fortunate enough to find a fiacre drawn up in +waiting at the curb. Kirkwood opened the door for the girl to enter. +</p> + +<p> +“Gare du Sud,” he directed the driver. “Drive your fastest—double fare for +quick time!” +</p> + +<p> +The driver awoke with a start from profound reverie, looked Kirkwood over, and +bowed with gesticulative palms. +</p> + +<p> +“M’sieu’, I am desolated, but engaged!” he protested. +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely.” Kirkwood deposited the two bags on the forward seat of the +conveyance, and stood back to convince the man. “Precisely,” said he, +undismayed. “The lady who engaged you is remaining for a time; I will settle +her bill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, M’sieu’!” The driver disclaimed responsibility and accepted the +favor of the gods with a speaking shrug. “M’sieu’ said the Gare du Sud? <i>En +voiture</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood jumped in and shut the door; the vehicle drew slowly away from the +curb, then with gratifying speed hammered up-stream on the embankment. Bending +forward, elbows on knees, Kirkwood watched the sidewalks narrowly, partly to +cover the girl’s constraint, due to Mrs. Hallam’s attitude, partly on the +lookout for Calendar and his confederates. In a few moments they passed a +public clock. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve missed the Flushing boat,” he announced. “I’m making a try for the Hoek +van Holland line. We may possibly make it. I know that it leaves by the Sud +Quai, and that’s all I do know,” he concluded with an apologetic laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“And if we miss that?” asked the girl, breaking silence for the first time +since they had left the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll take the first train out of Antwerp.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wherever the first train goes, Miss Calendar.... The main point is to get away +to-night. That we must do, no matter where we land, or how we get there. +To-morrow we can plan with more certainty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes...” Her assent was more a sigh than a word. +</p> + +<p> +The cab, dashing down the Rue Leopold de Wael, swung into the Place du Sud, +before the station. Kirkwood, acutely watchful, suddenly thrust head and +shoulders out of his window (fortunately it was the one away from the depot), +and called up to the driver. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t stop! Gare Centrale now—and treble fare!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Oui, M’sieu’! Allons!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +The whip cracked and the horse swerved sharply round the corner into the Avenue +du Sud. The young man, with a hushed exclamation, turned in his seat, lifting +the flap over the little peephole in the back of the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +He had not been mistaken. Calendar was standing in front of the station; and it +was plain to be seen, from his pose, that the madly careering fiacre interested +him more than slightly. Irresolute, perturbed, the man took a step or two after +it, changed his mind, and returned to his post of observation. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood dropped the flap and turned back to find the girl’s wide eyes +searching his face. He said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“What was that?” she asked after a patient moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Your father, Miss Calendar,” he returned uncomfortably. +</p> + +<p> +There fell a short pause; then: “Why—will you tell me—is it necessary to run +away from my father, Mr. Kirkwood?” she demanded, with a moving little break in +her voice. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood hesitated. It were unfeeling to tell her why; yet it was essential +that she should know, however painful the knowledge might prove to her. +</p> + +<p> +And she was insistent; he might not dodge the issue. “Why?” she repeated as he +paused. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t press me for an answer just now, Miss Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think I had better know?” +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively he inclined his head in assent. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why—?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood bent forward and patted the flank of the satchel that held the +gladstone bag. +</p> + +<p> +“What does that mean, Mr. Kirkwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I have the jewels,” he told her tersely, looking straight ahead. +</p> + +<p> +At his shoulder he heard a low gasp of amazement and incredulity commingled. +</p> + +<p> +“But—! How did you get them? My father deposited them in bank this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“He must have taken them out again.... I got them on board the Alethea, where +your father was conferring with Mulready and Captain Stryker.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Alethea!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You took them from those men?—you!... But didn’t my father—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had to persuade him,” said Kirkwood simply. +</p> + +<p> +“But there were three of them against you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mulready wasn’t—ah—feeling very well, and Stryker’s a coward. They gave me no +trouble. I locked them in Stryker’s room, lifted the bag of jewels, and came +away.... I ought to tell you that they were discussing the advisability of +sailing away without you—leaving you here, friendless and without means. That’s +why I considered it my duty to take a hand.... I don’t like to tell you this so +brutally, but you ought to know, and I can’t see how to tone it down,” he +concluded awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand....” +</p> + +<p> +But for some moments she did not speak. He avoided looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +The fiacre, rolling at top speed but smoothly on the broad avenues that +encircle the ancient city, turned into the Avenue de Keyser, bringing into +sight the Gare Centrale. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t—k-know—” began the girl without warning, in a voice gusty with sobs. +</p> + +<p> +“Steady on!” said Kirkwood gently. “I do know, but don’t let’s talk about it +now. We’ll be at the station in a minute, and I’ll get out and see what’s to be +done about a train, if neither Mulready or Stryker are about. You stay in the +carriage.... No!” He changed his mind suddenly. “I’ll not risk losing you +again. It’s a risk we’ll have to run in company.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please!” she agreed brokenly. +</p> + +<p> +The fiacre slowed up and stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you all right, Miss Calendar?” Kirkwood asked. +</p> + +<p> +The girl sat up, lifting her head proudly. “I am quite ready,” she said, +steadying her voice. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood reconnoitered through the window, while the driver was descending. +</p> + +<p> +“Gare Centrale, M’sieu’,” he said, opening the door. +</p> + +<p> +“No one in sight,” Kirkwood told the girl. “Come, please.” +</p> + +<p> +He got out and gave her his hand, then paid the driver, picked up the two bags, +and hurried with Dorothy into the station, to find in waiting a string of cars +into which people were moving at leisurely rate. His inquiries at the +ticket-window developed the fact that it was the 22:26 for Brussels, the last +train leaving the Gare Centrale that night, and due to start in ten minutes. +</p> + +<p> +The information settled their plans for once and all; Kirkwood promptly secured +through tickets, also purchasing “Reserve” supplementary tickets which entitled +them to the use of those modern corridor coaches which take the place of +first-class compartments on the Belgian state railways. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pleasure,” said Kirkwood lightly, as he followed the girl into one of +these, “to find one’s self in a common-sense sort of a train again. ’Feels like +home.” He put their luggage in one of the racks and sat down beside her, +chattering with simulated cheerfulness in a vain endeavor to lighten her +evident depression of spirit. “I always feel like a traveling anachronism in +one of your English trains,” he said. “You can’t appreciate—” +</p> + +<p> +The girl smiled bravely.... “And after Brussels?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“First train for the coast,” he said promptly. “Dover, Ostend, +Boulogne,—whichever proves handiest, no matter which, so long as it gets us on +English soil without undue delay.” +</p> + +<p> +She said “Yes” abstractedly, resting an elbow on the window-sill and her chin +in her palm, to stare with serious, sweet brown eyes out into the arc-smitten +night that hung beneath the echoing roof. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood fidgeted in despite of the constraint he placed himself under, to be +still and not disturb her needlessly. Impatience and apprehension of misfortune +obsessed his mental processes in equal degree. The ten minutes seemed +interminable that elapsed ere the grinding couplings advertised the imminence +of their start. +</p> + +<p> +The guards began to bawl, the doors to slam, belated travelers to dash madly +for the coaches. The train gave a preliminary lurch ere settling down to its +league-long inland dash. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood, in a fever of hope and an ague of fear, saw a man sprint furiously +across the platform and throw himself on the forward steps of their coach, on +the very instant of the start. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he entered by the forward door and walked slowly through, narrowly +inspecting the various passengers. As he approached the seats occupied by +Kirkwood and Dorothy Calendar, his eyes encountered the young man’s, and he +leered evilly. Kirkwood met the look with one that was like a kick, and the +fellow passed with some haste into the car behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Who was that?” demanded the girl, without moving her head. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you know?” he asked, astonished. “You didn’t look—” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw your knuckles whiten beneath the skin.... Who was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hobbs,” he acknowledged bitterly; “the mate of the <i>Alethea</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know.... And you think—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. He must have been ashore when I was on board the brigantine; he certainly +wasn’t in the cabin. Evidently they hunted him up, or ran across him, and +pressed him into service.... You see, they’re watching every outlet.... But +we’ll win through, never fear!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI<br/> +TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON</h2> + +<p> +The train, escaping the outskirts of the city, remarked the event with an +exultant shriek, then settled down, droning steadily, to night-devouring +flight. In the corridor-car the few passengers disposed themselves to drowse +away the coming hour—the short hour’s ride that, in these piping days of +frantic traveling, separates Antwerp from the capital city of Belgium. +</p> + +<p> +A guard, slamming gustily in through the front door, reeled unsteadily down the +aisle. Kirkwood, rousing from a profound reverie, detained him with a gesture +and began to interrogate him in French. When he departed presently it +transpired that the girl was unaquainted with that tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t understand, you know,” she told him with a slow, shy smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I was merely questioning him about the trains from Brussels to-night. We +daren’t stop, you see; we must go on,—keep Hobbs on the jump and lose him, if +possible. There’s where our advantage lies—in having only Hobbs to deal with. +He’s not particularly intellectual; and we’ve two heads to his one, besides. If +we can prevent him from guessing our destination and wiring back to Antwerp, we +may win away. You understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly,” she said, brightening. “And what do you purpose doing now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell yet. The guard’s gone to get me some information about the night +trains on other lines. In the meantime, don’t fret about Hobbs; I’ll answer for +Hobbs.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t be worried,” she said simply, “with you here....” +</p> + +<p> +Whatever answer he would have made he was obliged to postpone because of the +return of the guard, with a handful of time-tables; and when, rewarded with a +modest gratuity, the man had gone his way, and Kirkwood turned again to the +girl, she had withdrawn her attention for the time. +</p> + +<p> +Unconscious of his bold regard, she was dreaming, her thoughts at loose-ends, +her eyes studying the incalculable depths of blue-black night that swirled and +eddied beyond the window-glass. The most shadowy of smiles touched her lips, +the faintest shade of deepened color rested on her cheeks.... She was thinking +of—him? As long as he dared, the young man, his heart in his own eyes, watched +her greedily, taking a miser’s joy of her youthful beauty, striving with all +his soul to analyze the enigma of that most inscrutable smile. +</p> + +<p> +It baffled him. He could not say of what she thought; and told himself bitterly +that it was not for him, a pauper, to presume a place in her meditations. He +must not forget his circumstances, nor let her tolerance render him oblivious +to his place, which must be a servant’s, not a lover’s. +</p> + +<p> +The better to convince himself of this, he plunged desperately into a forlorn +attempt to make head or tail of Belgian railway schedule, complicated as these +of necessity are by the alternation from normal time notation to the abnormal +system sanctioned by the government, and <i>vice-versa</i>, with every train +that crosses a boundary line of the state. +</p> + +<p> +So preoccupied did he become in this pursuit that he was subconsciously +impressed that the girl had spoken twice, ere he could detach his interest from +the exasperatingly inconclusive and incoherent cohorts of ranked figures. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you find out anything?” Dorothy was asking. +</p> + +<p> +“Precious little,” he grumbled. “I’d give my head for a Bradshaw! Only it +wouldn’t be a fair exchange.... There seems to be an express for Bruges leaving +the Gare du Nord, Brussels, at fifty-five minutes after twenty-three o’clock; +and if I’m not mistaken, that’s the latest train out of Brussels and the +earliest we can catch,... if we <i>can</i> catch it. I’ve never been in +Brussels, and Heaven only knows how long it would take us to cab it from the +Gare du Midi to the Nord.” +</p> + +<p> +In this statement, however, Mr. Kirkwood was fortunately mistaken; not only +Heaven, it appeared, had cognizance of the distance between the two stations. +While Kirkwood was still debating the question, with pessimistic tendencies, +the friendly guard had occasion to pass through the coach; and, being tapped, +yielded the desired information with entire tractability. +</p> + +<p> +It would be a cab-ride of perhaps ten minutes. Monsieur, however, would serve +himself well if he offered the driver an advance tip as an incentive to speedy +driving. Why? Why because (here the guard consulted his watch; and Kirkwood +very keenly regretted the loss of his own)—because this train, announced to +arrive in Brussels some twenty minutes prior to the departure of that other, +was already late. But yes—a matter of some ten minutes. Could that not be made +up? Ah, Monsieur, but who should say? +</p> + +<p> +The guard departed, doubtless with private views as to the madness of all +English-speaking travelers. +</p> + +<p> +“And there we are!” commented Kirkwood in factitious resignation. “If we’re +obliged to stop overnight in Brussels, our friends will be on our back before +we can get out in the morning, if they have to come by motor-car.” He reflected +bitterly on the fact that with but a little more money at his disposal, he too +could hire a motor-car and cry defiance to their persecutors. “However,” he +amended, with rising spirits, “so much the better our chance of losing Mr. +Hobbs. We must be ready to drop off the instant the train stops.” +</p> + +<p> +He began to unfold another time-table, threatening again to lose himself +completely; and was thrown into the utmost confusion by the touch of the girl’s +hand, in appeal placed lightly on his own. And had she been observant, she +might have seen a second time his knuckles whiten beneath the skin as he +asserted his self-control—though this time not over his temper. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes, dumbly eloquent, turned to meet hers. She was smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Please!” she iterated, with the least imperative pressure on his hand, pushing +the folder aside. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg pardon?” he muttered blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it quite necessary, now, to study those schedules? Haven’t you decided to +try for the Bruges express?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why yes, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then please don’t leave me to my thoughts all the time, Mr. Kirkwood.” There +was a tremor of laughter in her voice, but her eyes were grave and earnest. +“I’m very weary of thinking round in a circle—and that,” she concluded, with a +nervous little laugh, “is all I’ve had to do for days!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I’m very stupid,” he humored her. “This is the second time, you +know, in the course of a very brief acquaintance, that you have found it +necessary to remind me to talk to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h!” She brightened. “That night, at the Pless? But that was <i>ages</i> +ago!” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems so,” he admitted. +</p> + +<p> +“So much has happened!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he assented vaguely. +</p> + +<p> +She watched him, a little piqued by his absent-minded mood, for a moment; then, +and not without a trace of malice: “Must I tell you again what to talk about?” +she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me. I was thinking about, if not talking to, you.... I’ve been +wondering just why it was that you left the <i>Alethea</i> at Queensborough, to +go on by steamer.” +</p> + +<p> +And immediately he was sorry that his tactless query had swung the conversation +to bear upon her father, the thought of whom could not but prove painful to +her. But it was too late to mend matters; already her evanescent flush of +amusement had given place to remembrance. +</p> + +<p> +“It was on my father’s account,” she told him in a steady voice, but with +averted eyes; “he is a very poor sailor, and the promise of a rough passage +terrified him. I believe there was a difference of opinion about it, he +disputing with Mr. Mulready and Captain Stryker. That was just after we had +left the anchorage. They both insisted that it was safer to continue by the +<i>Alethea</i>, but he wouldn’t listen to them, and in the end had his way. +Captain Stryker ran the brigantine into the mouth of the Medway and put us +ashore just in time to catch the steamer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you sorry for the change?” +</p> + +<p> +“I?” She shuddered slightly. “Hardly! I think I hated the ship from the moment +I set foot on board her. It was a dreadful place; it was all night-marish, that +night, but it seemed most terrible on the <i>Alethea</i> with Captain Stryker +and that abominable Mr. Hobbs. I think that my unhappiness had as much to do +with my father’s insistence on the change, as anything. He ... he was very +thoughtful, most of the time.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood shut his teeth on what he knew of the blackguard. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why,” she continued, wholly without affectation, “but I was +wretched from the moment you left me in the cab, to wait while you went in to +see Mrs. Hallam. And when we left you, at Bermondsey Old Stairs, after what you +had said to me, I felt—I hardly know what to say—abandoned, in a way.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you were with your father, in his care—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, but I was getting confused. Until then the excitement had kept me from +thinking. But you made me think. I began to wonder, to question ... But what +could I do?” She signified her helplessness with a quick and dainty movement of +her hands. “He is my father; and I’m not yet of age, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so,” he confessed, troubled. “It’s very inconsiderate of you, you +must admit.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand...” +</p> + +<p> +“Because of the legal complication. I’ve no doubt your father can ‘have the law +on me’”—Kirkwood laughed uneasily—“for taking you from his protection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Protection!” she echoed warmly. “If you call it that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Kidnapping,” he said thoughtfully: “I presume that’d be the charge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” She laughed the notion to scorn. “Besides, they must catch us first, +mustn’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course; and”—with a simulation of confidence sadly deceitful—“they shan’t, +Mr. Hobbs to the contrary notwithstanding.” +</p> + +<p> +“You make me share your confidence, against my better judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish your better judgment would counsel you to share your confidence with +me,” he caught her up. “If you would only tell me what it’s all about, as far +as you know, I’d be better able to figure out what we ought to do.” +</p> + +<p> +Briefly the girl sat silent, staring before her with sweet somber eyes. Then, +“In the very beginning,” she told him with a conscious laugh,—“this sounds very +story-bookish, I know—in the very beginning, George Burgoyne Calendar, an +American, married his cousin a dozen times removed, and an Englishwoman, Alice +Burgoyne Hallam.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hallam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, please.” She sat up, bending forward and frowning down upon her +interlacing, gloved fingers; she was finding it difficult to say what she must. +Kirkwood, watching hungrily the fair drooping head, the flawless profile clear +and radiant against the night-blackened window, saw hot signals of shame +burning on her cheek and throat and forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“But never mind,” he began awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she told him with decision. “Please let me go on....” She continued, +stumbling, trusting to his sympathy to bridge the gaps in her narrative. “My +father ... There was trouble of some sort.... At all events, he disappeared +when I was a baby. My mother ... died. I was brought up in the home of my +great-uncle, Colonel George Burgoyne, of the Indian Army—retired. My mother had +been his favorite niece, they say; I presume that was why he cared for me. I +grew up in his home in Cornwall; it was my home, just as he was my father in +everything but fact. +</p> + +<p> +“A year ago he died, leaving me everything,—the town house in Frognall Street, +his estate in Cornwall: everything was willed to me on condition that I must +never live with my father, nor in any way contribute to his support. If I +disobeyed, the entire estate without reserve was to go to his nearest of +kin.... Colonel Burgoyne was unmarried and had no children.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl paused, lifting to Kirkwood’s face her eyes, clear, fearless, +truthful. “I never was given to understand that there was anybody who might +have inherited, other than myself,” she declared. +</p> + +<p> +“I see... Last week I received a letter, signed with my father’s name, begging +me to appoint an interview with him in London. I did so,—guess how gladly! I +was alone in the world, and he, my father, whom I had never thought to see.... +We met at his hotel, the Pless. He wanted me to come and live with him,—said +that he was growing old and lonely and needed a daughter’s love and care. He +told me that he had made a fortune in America and was amply able to provide for +us both. As for my inheritance, he persuaded me that it was by rights the +property of Frederick Hallam, Mrs. Hallam’s son.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have met the young gentleman,” interpolated Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“His name was new to me, but my father assured me that he was the next of kin +mentioned in Colonel Burgoyne’s will, and convinced me that I had no real right +to the property.... After all, he was my father; I agreed; I could not bear the +thought of wronging anybody. I was to give up everything but my mother’s +jewels. It seems,—my father said,—I don’t—I can’t believe it now—” +</p> + +<p> +She choked on a little, dry sob. It was some time before she seemed able to +continue. +</p> + +<p> +“I was told that my great-uncle’s collection of jewels had been my mother’s +property. He had in life a passion for collecting jewels, and it had been his +whim to carry them with him, wherever he went. When he died in Frognall Street, +they were in the safe by the head of his bed. I, in my grief, at first forgot +them, and then afterwards carelessly put off removing them. +</p> + +<p> +“To come back to my father: Night before last we were to call on Mrs. Hallam. +It was to be our last night in England; we were to sail for the Continent on +the private yacht of a friend of my father’s, the next morning.... This is what +I was told—and believed, you understand. +</p> + +<p> +“That night Mrs. Hallam was dining at another table at the Pless, it seems. I +did not then know her. When leaving, she put a note on our table, by my +father’s elbow. I was astonished beyond words.... He seemed much agitated, told +me that he was called away on urgent business, a matter of life and death, and +begged me to go alone to Frognall Street, get the jewels and meet him at Mrs. +Hallam’s later.... I wasn’t altogether a fool, for I began dimly to suspect, +then, that something was wrong; but I was a fool, for I consented to do as he +desired. You understand—you know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, indeed,” replied Kirkwood grimly. “I understand a lot of things now that +I didn’t five minutes ago. Please let me think...” +</p> + +<p> +But the time he took for deliberation was short. He had hoped to find a way to +spare her, by sparing Calendar; but momentarily he was becoming more impressed +with the futility of dealing with her save in terms of candor, merciful though +they might seem harsh. +</p> + +<p> +“I must tell you,” he said, “that you have been outrageously misled, swindled +and deceived. I have heard from your father’s own lips that Mrs. Hallam was to +pay him two thousand pounds for keeping you out of England and losing you your +inheritance. I’m inclined to question, furthermore, the assertion that these +jewels were your mother’s. Frederick Hallam was the man who followed you into +the Frognall Street house and attacked me on the stairs; Mrs. Hallam admits +that he went there to get the jewels. But he didn’t want anybody to know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that doesn’t prove—” +</p> + +<p> +“Just a minute.” Rapidly and concisely Kirkwood recounted the events wherein he +had played a part, subsequent to the adventure of Bermondsey Old Stairs. He was +guilty of but one evasion; on one point only did he slur the truth: he +conceived it his honorable duty to keep the girl in ignorance of his straitened +circumstances; she was not to be distressed by knowledge of his distress, nor +could he tolerate the suggestion of seeming to play for her sympathy. It was +necessary, then, to invent a motive to excuse his return to 9, Frognall Street. +I believe he chose to exaggerate the inquisitiveness of his nature and threw in +for good measure a desire to recover a prized trinket of no particular moment, +esteemed for its associations, and so forth. But whatever the fabrication, it +passed muster; to the girl his motives seemed less important than the +discoveries that resulted from them. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid,” he concluded the summary of the confabulation he had overheard +at the skylight of the Alethea’s cabin, “you’d best make up your mind that your +father—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” whispered the girl huskily; and turned her face to the window, a +quivering muscle in the firm young throat alone betraying her emotion. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a bad business,” he pursued relentlessly: “bad all round. Mulready, in +your father’s pay, tries to have him arrested, the better to rob him. Mrs. +Hallam, to secure your property for that precious pet, Freddie, connives at, if +she doesn’t instigate, a kidnapping. Your father takes her money to deprive you +of yours,—which could profit him nothing so long as you remained in lawful +possession of it; and at the same time he conspires to rob, through you, the +rightful owners—if they are rightful owners. And if they are, why does Freddie +Hallam go like a thief in the night to secure property that’s his beyond +dispute?... I don’t really think you owe your father any further +consideration.” +</p> + +<p> +He waited patiently. Eventually, “No-o,” the girl sobbed assent. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s this way: Calendar, counting on your sparing him in the end, is going to +hound us. He’s doing it now: there’s Hobbs in the next car, for proof. Until +these jewels are returned, whether to Frognall Street or to young Hallam, we’re +both in danger, both thieves in the sight of the law. And your father knows +that, too. There’s no profit to be had by discounting the temper of these +people; they’re as desperate a gang of swindlers as ever lived. They’ll have +those jewels if they have to go as far as murder—” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood!” she deprecated, in horror. +</p> + +<p> +He wagged his head stubbornly, ominously. “I’ve seen them in the raw. They’re +hot on our trail now; ten to one, they’ll be on our backs before we can get +across the Channel. Once in England we will be comparatively safe. Until then +... But I’m a brute—I’m frightening you!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are, dreadfully,” she confessed in a tremulous voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me. If you look at the dark side first, the other seems all the +brighter. Please don’t worry; we’ll pull through with flying colors, or my +name’s not Philip Kirkwood!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have every faith in you,” she informed him, flawlessly sincere. “When I +think of all you’ve done and dared for me, on the mere suspicion that I needed +your help—” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d best be getting ready,” he interrupted hastily. “Here’s Brussels.” +</p> + +<p> +It was so. Lights, in little clusters and long, wheeling lines, were leaping +out of the darkness and flashing back as the train rumbled through the suburbs +of the little Paris of the North. Already the other passengers were bestirring +themselves, gathering together wraps and hand luggage, and preparing for the +journey’s end. +</p> + +<p> +Rising, Kirkwood took down their two satchels from the overhead rack, and +waited, in grim abstraction planning and counterplanning against the +machinations in whose wiles they two had become so perilously entangled. +</p> + +<p> +Primarily, there was Hobbs to be dealt with; no easy task, for Kirkwood dared +not resort to violence nor in any way invite the attention of the authorities; +and threats would be an idle waste of breath, in the case of that corrupt and +malignant, little cockney, himself as keen as any needle, adept in all the +artful resources of the underworld whence he had sprung, and further primed for +action by that master rogue, Calendar. +</p> + +<p> +The train was pulling slowly into the station when he reluctantly abandoned his +latest unfeasible scheme for shaking off the little Englishman, and concluded +that their salvation was only to be worked out through everlasting vigilance, +incessant movement, and the favor of the blind goddess, Fortune. There was +comfort of a sort in the reflection that the divinity of chance is at least +blind; her favors are impartially distributed; the swing of the wheel of the +world is not always to the advantage of the wrongdoer and the scamp. +</p> + +<p> +He saw nothing of Hobbs as they alighted and hastened from the station, and +hardly had time to waste looking for him, since their train had failed to make +up the precious ten minutes. Consequently he dismissed the fellow from his +thoughts until—with Brussels lingering in their memories a garish vision of +brilliant streets and glowing cafés, glimpsed furtively from their cab windows +during its wild dash over the broad mid-city, boulevards—at midnight they +settled themselves in a carriage of the Bruges express. They were speeding +along through the open country with a noisy clatter; then a minute’s +investigation sufficed to discover the mate of the <i>Alethea</i> serenely +ensconced in the coach behind. +</p> + +<p> +The little man seemed rarely complacent, and impudently greeted Kirkwood’s +scowling visage, as the latter peered through the window in the coach-door, +with a smirk and a waggish wave of his hand. The American by main strength of +will-power mastered an impulse to enter and wring his neck, and returned to the +girl, more disturbed than he cared to let her know. +</p> + +<p> +There resulted from his review of the case but one plan for outwitting Mr. +Hobbs, and that lay in trusting to his confidence that Kirkwood and Dorothy +Calendar would proceed as far toward Ostend as the train would take +them—namely, to the limit of the run, Bruges. +</p> + +<p> +Thus inspired, Kirkwood took counsel with the girl, and when the train paused +at Ghent, they made an unostentatious exit from their coach, finding +themselves, when the express had rolled on into the west, upon a station +platform in a foreign city at nine minutes past one o’clock in the morning—but +at length without their shadow. Mr. Hobbs had gone on to Bruges. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood sped his journeyings with an unspoken malediction, and collected +himself to cope with a situation which was to prove hardly more happy for them +than the espionage they had just eluded. The primal flush of triumph which had +saturated the American’s humor on this signal success, proved but fictive and +transitory when inquiry of the station attendants educed the information that +the two earliest trains to be obtained were the 5:09 for Dunkerque and the 5:37 +for Ostend. A minimum delay of four hours was to be endured in the face of many +contingent features singularly unpleasant to contemplate. The station +waiting-room was on the point of closing for the night, and Kirkwood, already +alarmed by the rapid ebb of the money he had had of Calendar, dared not subject +his finances to the strain of a night’s lodging at one of Ghent’s hotels. He +found himself forced to be cruel to be kind to the girl, and Dorothy’s cheerful +acquiescence to their sole alternative of tramping the street until daybreak +did nothing to alleviate Kirkwood’s exasperation. +</p> + +<p> +It was permitted them to occupy a bench outside the station. There the girl, +her head pillowed on the treasure bag, napped uneasily, while Kirkwood plodded +restlessly to and fro, up and down the platform, communing with the Shade of +Care and addling his poor, weary wits with the problem of the future,—not so +much his own as the future of the unhappy child for whose welfare he had +assumed responsibility. Dark for both of them, in his understanding To-morrow +loomed darkest for her. +</p> + +<p> +Not until the gray, formless light of the dawn-dusk was wavering over the land, +did he cease his perambulations. Then a gradual stir of life in the city +streets, together with the appearance of a station porter or two, opening the +waiting-rooms and preparing them against the traffic of the day, warned him +that he must rouse his charge. He paused and stood over her, reluctant to +disturb her rest, such as it was, his heart torn with compassion for her, his +soul embittered by the cruel irony of their estate. +</p> + +<p> +If what he understood were true, a king’s ransom was secreted within the cheap, +imitation-leather satchel which served her for a pillow. But it availed her +nothing for her comfort. If what he believed were true, she was absolute +mistress of that treasure of jewels; yet that night she had been forced to +sleep on a hard, uncushioned bench, in the open air, and this morning he must +waken her to the life of a hunted thing. A week ago she had had at her command +every luxury known to the civilized world; to-day she was friendless, but for +his inefficient, worthless self, and in a strange land. A week ago,—had he +known her then,—he had been free to tell her of his love, to offer her the +protection of his name as well as his devotion; to-day he was an all but +penniless vagabond, and there could be no dishonor deeper than to let her know +the nature of his heart’s desire. +</p> + +<p> +Was ever lover hedged from a declaration to his mistress by circumstances so +hateful, so untoward! He could have raged and railed against his fate like any +madman. For he desired her greatly, and she was very lovely in his sight. If +her night’s rest had been broken and but a mockery, she showed few signs of it; +the faint, wan complexion of fatigue seemed only to enhance the beauty of her +maidenhood; her lips were as fresh and desirous as the dewy petals of a crimson +rose; beneath her eyes soft shadows lurked where her lashes lay tremulous upon +her cheeks of satin.... She was to him of all created things the most +wonderful, the most desirable. +</p> + +<p> +The temptation of his longing seemed more than he could long withstand. But +resist he must, or part for ever with any title to her consideration—or his +own. He shut his teeth and knotted his brows in a transport of desire to touch, +if only with his finger-tips, the woven wonder of her hair. +</p> + +<p> +And thus she saw him, when, without warning, she awoke. +</p> + +<p> +Bewilderment at first informed the wide brown eyes; then, as their drowsiness +vanished, a little laughter, a little tender mirth. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Sir Knight of the Somber Countenance!” she cried, standing up. +“Am I so utterly disreputable that you find it necessary to frown on me so +darkly?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’m a fright,” she asserted vigorously, shaking out the folds of her +pleated skirt. “And as for my hat, it will never be on straight—but then +<i>you</i> wouldn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems all right,” he replied vacantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then please to try to look a little happier, since you find me quite +presentable.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do...” +</p> + +<p> +Without lifting her bended head, she looked up, laughing, not ill-pleased. +“<i>You’d</i> say so... really?” +</p> + +<p> +Commonplace enough, this banter, this pitiful endeavor to be oblivious of their +common misery; but like the look she gave him, her words rang in his head like +potent fumes of wine. He turned away, utterly disconcerted for the time, +knowing only that he must overcome his weakness. +</p> + +<p> +Far down the railway tracks there rose a murmuring, that waxed to a rumbling +roar. A passing porter answered Kirkwood’s inquiry: it was the night boat-train +from Ostend. He picked up their bags and drew the girl into the waiting-room, +troubled by a sickening foreboding. +</p> + +<p> +Through the window they watched the train roll in and stop. +</p> + +<p> +Among others, alighted, smirking, the unspeakable Hobbs. +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his hat and bowed jauntily to the waiting-room window, making it +plain that his keen eyes had discovered them instantly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s heart sank with the hopelessness of it all. If the railway +directorates of Europe conspired against them, what chance had they? If the +night boat-train from Ostend had only had the decency to be twenty-five minutes +late, instead of arriving promptly on the minute of 4:45 they two might have +escaped by the 5:09 for Dunkerque and Calais. +</p> + +<p> +There remained but a single untried ruse in his bag of tricks; mercifully it +might suffice. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar,” said Kirkwood from his heart, “just as soon as I get you home, +safe and sound, I am going to take a day off, hunt up that little villain, and +flay him alive. In the meantime, I forgot to dine last night, and am reminded +that we had better forage for breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +Hobbs dogged them at a safe distance while they sallied forth and in a +neighboring street discovered an early-bird bakery. Here they were able to +purchase rolls steaming from the oven, fresh pats of golden butter wrapped in +clean lettuce leaves, and milk in twin bottles; all of which they prosaically +carried with them back to the station, lacking leisure as they did to partake +of the food before train-time. +</p> + +<p> +Without attempting concealment (Hobbs, he knew, was eavesdropping round the +corner of the door) Kirkwood purchased at the ticket-window passages on the +Dunkerque train. Mr. Hobbs promptly flattered him by imitation; and so jealous +of his luck was Kirkwood by this time grown, through continual disappointment, +that he did not even let the girl into his plans until they were aboard the +5:09, in a compartment all to themselves. Then, having with his own eyes seen +Mr. Hobbs dodge into the third compartment in the rear of the same carriage, +Kirkwood astonished the girl by requesting her to follow him; and together they +left by the door opposite that by which they had entered. +</p> + +<p> +The engine was running up and down a scale of staccato snorts, in preparation +for the race, and the cars were on the edge of moving, couplings clanking, +wheels a-groan, ere Mr. Hobbs condescended to join them between the tracks. +</p> + +<p> +Wearily, disheartened, Kirkwood reopened the door, flung the bags in, and +helped the girl back into their despised compartment; the quicker route to +England via Ostend was now out of the question. As for himself, he waited for a +brace of seconds, eying wickedly the ubiquitous Hobbs, who had popped back into +his compartment, but stood ready to pop out again on the least encouragement. +In the meantime he was pleased to shake a friendly foot at Mr. Kirkwood, +thrusting that member out through the half-open door. +</p> + +<p> +Only the timely departure of the train, compelling him to rejoin Dorothy at +once, if at all, prevented the American from adding murder to the already +noteworthy catalogue of his high crimes and misdemeanors. +</p> + +<p> +Their simple meal, consumed to the ultimate drop and crumb while the Dunkerque +train meandered serenely through a sunny, smiling Flemish countryside, somewhat +revived their jaded spirits. After all, they were young, enviably dowered with +youth’s exuberant elasticity of mood; the world was bright in the dawning, the +night had fled leaving naught but an evil memory; best of all things, they were +together: tacitly they were agreed that somehow the future would take care of +itself and all be well with them. +</p> + +<p> +For a time they laughed and chattered, pretending that the present held no +cares or troubles; but soon the girl, nestling her head in a corner of the +dingy cushions, was smiling ever more drowsily on Kirkwood; and presently she +slept in good earnest, the warm blood ebbing and flowing beneath the exquisite +texture of her cheeks, the ghost of an unconscious smile quivering about the +sensitive scarlet mouth, the breeze through the open window at her side +wantoning at will in the sunlit witchery of her hair. And Kirkwood, worn with +sleepless watching, dwelt in longing upon the dear innocent allure of her until +the ache in his heart had grown well-nigh insupportable; then instinctively +turned his gaze upwards, searching his heart, reading the faith and desire of +it, so that at length knowledge and understanding came to him, of his weakness +and strength and the clean love that he bore for her, and gladdened he sat +dreaming in waking the same clear dreams that modeled her unconscious lips +secretly for laughter and the joy of living. +</p> + +<p> +When Dunkerque halted their progress, they were obliged to alight and change +cars,—Hobbs a discreetly sinister shadow at the end of the platform. +</p> + +<p> +By schedule they were to arrive in Calais about the middle of the forenoon, +with a wait of three hours to be bridged before the departure of the Dover +packet. That would be an anxious time; the prospect of it rendered both Dorothy +and Kirkwood doubly anxious throughout this final stage of their flight. In +three hours anything could happen, or be brought about. Neither could forget +that it was quite within the bounds of possibilities for Calendar to be +awaiting them in Calais. Presuming that Hobbs had been acute enough to guess +their plans and advise his employer by telegraph, the latter could readily have +anticipated their arrival, whether by sea in the brigantine, or by land, taking +the direct route via Brussels and Lille. If such proved to be the case, it were +scarcely sensible to count upon the arch-adventurer contenting himself with a +waiting rôle like Hobbs’. +</p> + +<p> +With such unhappy apprehensions for a stimulant, between them the man and the +girl contrived a make-shift counter-stratagem; or it were more accurate to say +that Kirkwood proposed it, while Dorothy rejected, disputed, and at length +accepted it, albeit with sad misgivings. For it involved a separation that +might not prove temporary. +</p> + +<p> +Together they could never escape the surveillance of Mr. Hobbs; parted, he +would be obliged to follow one or the other. The task of misleading the +<i>Alethea’s</i> mate, Kirkwood undertook, delegating to the girl the duty of +escaping when he could provide her the opportunity, of keeping under cover +until the hour of sailing, and then proceeding to England, with the gladstone +bag, alone if Kirkwood was unable, or thought it inadvisable, to join her on +the boat. +</p> + +<p> +In furtherance of this design, a majority of the girl’s belongings were +transferred from her traveling bag to Kirkwood’s, the gladstone taking their +place; and the young man provided her with voluminous instructions, a revolver +which she did not know how to handle and declared she would never use for any +consideration, and enough money to pay for her accommodation at the Terminus +Hôtel, near the pier, and for two passages to London. It was agreed that she +should secure the steamer booking, lest Kirkwood be delayed until the last +moment. +</p> + +<p> +These arrangements concluded, the pair of blessed idiots sat steeped in +melancholy silence, avoiding each other’s eyes, until the train drew in at the +Gare Centrale, Calais. +</p> + +<p> +In profound silence, too, they left their compartment and passed through the +station, into the quiet, sun-drenched streets of the seaport,—Hobbs hovering +solicitously in the offing. +</p> + +<p> +Without comment or visible relief of mind they were aware that their fears had +been without apparent foundation; they saw no sign of Calendar, Stryker or +Mulready. The circumstance, however, counted for nothing; one or all of the +adventurers might arrive in Calais at any minute. +</p> + +<p> +Momentarily more miserable as the time of parting drew nearer, dumb with +unhappiness, they turned aside from the main thoroughfares of the city, leaving +the business section, and gained the sleepier side streets, bordered by the +residences of the proletariat, where for blocks none but children were to be +seen, and of them but few—quaint, sober little bodies playing almost +noiselessly in their dooryards. +</p> + +<p> +At length Kirkwood spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s make it the corner,” he said, without looking at the girl. “It’s a short +block to the next street. You hurry to the Terminus and lock yourself in your +room. Have the management book both passages; don’t run the risk of going to +the pier yourself. I’ll make things interesting for Mr. Hobbs, and join you as +soon as I can, <i>if</i> I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must,” replied the girl. “I shan’t go without you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Dor—Miss Calendar!” he exclaimed, aghast. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care—I know I agreed,” she declared mutinously. “But I won’t—I can’t. +Remember I shall wait for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—but perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +“If you have to stay, it will be because there’s danger—won’t it? And what +would you think of me if I deserted you then, af-after all y-you’ve done?... +Please don’t waste time arguing. Whether you come at one to-day, to-morrow, or +a week from to-morrow, I shall be waiting.... You may be sure. Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +They had turned the corner, walking slowly, side by side; Hobbs, for the first +time caught off his guard, had dropped behind more than half a long block. But +now Kirkwood’s 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 girl’s gloved fingers on his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +He caught at her hand, protesting. “Dorothy—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by,” she repeated breathlessly, with a queer little catch in her voice. +“God be with you, Philip, and—and send you safely back to me....” +</p> + +<p> +And she was running away. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 a-sprawl; +and the momentum of his pace, though checked, carried him along the sidewalk, +face downwards, a full yard ere he could stay himself. +</p> + +<p> +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 Kirkwood’s heels brought him about face in a +twinkling. +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, it’s you, eh!” he snarled in a temper as vicious as his countenance; and +both of these were much the worse for wear and tear. +</p> + +<p> +“Myself,” admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor: “Weren’t you +looking for me?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Of a sudden, “W’ere’s the gel?” he sputtered thickly as his quick shifting eyes +for the first time noted Dorothy’s absence. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Calendar has other business—none with you. I’ve taken the liberty of +stopping you because I have a word or two—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow, you ’ave, ’ave you? Gawd strike me blind, but I’ve a word for you, too!... +’And over that bag—and look nippy, or I’ll myke you pye for w’at you’ve done to +me ... I’ll myke you pye!” he iterated hoarsely, edging closer. “’And it over +or—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got another guess—” Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in deference +to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action. +</p> + +<p> +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 +Stryker’s nature was like a snake’s for low cunning and deviousness, Hobbs’ +soul was the soul of a viper. +</p> + +<p> +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 Kirkwood’s throat with the speed of light. +</p> + +<p> +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 mate’s grasp, while in his surprise Kirkwood’s 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 mate’s fist. He staggered back. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 “Stop, +thief!”—or its French equivalent. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As for the scratch on his arm, it was nothing, as he presently demonstrated to +his complete satisfaction in the seclusion of a chance-sent fiacre. Kirkwood, +commissioning it to drive him to the American Consulate, made his diagnosis +<i>en route</i>; 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 Hôtel 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. +</p> + +<p> +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-citizens—within bounds. +</p> + +<p> +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 country’s +government with the impression of having been entertained to the point of ennui +by an exceptionally clumsy but pertinacious liar. +</p> + +<p> +For the better part of the succeeding hour Kirkwood circumnavigated the +neighborhood of the steamer pier and the Terminus Hôtel, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 forgotten—the emotion she had betrayed on parting. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing wrong,” he hastened to reassure her, with a sorry ghost of his +familiar grin; “only I have lost Hobbs and the satchel with your things; and +there’s no sign yet of Mr. Calendar. We can feel pretty comfortable now, +and—and I thought it time we had something like a meal.” +</p> + +<p> +The narrative of his adventure which he delivered over their <i>déjeuner à la +fourchette</i> contained no mention either of his rebuff at the American +Consulate or the scratch he had sustained during Hobbs’ 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 mate’s 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. +</p> + +<p> +It was concluded, all too soon for the taste of either, by the waiter’s +announcement that the steamer was on the point of sailing. +</p> + +<p> +Outwardly composed, inwardly quaking, they boarded the packet, meeting with no +misadventure whatever—if 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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +So he had escaped arrest.... +</p> + +<p> +At first by turns indignant and relieved to realize that thereafter they were +to move in scenes in which his hateful shadow would not form an essentially +component part, subsequently Kirkwood fell a prey to prophetic terrors. It was +not alone fear of retribution that had induced Hobbs to relinquish his +persecution—or so Kirkwood became convinced; if the mate’s calculation had +allowed for them the least fraction of a chance to escape apprehension on the +farther shores of the Channel, nor fears nor threats would have prevented him +from sailing with the fugitives.... Far from having left danger behind them on +the Continent, Kirkwood believed in his secret heart that they were but flying +to encounter it beneath the smoky pall of London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII<br/> +ROGUES AND VAGABONDS</h2> + +<p> +A westering sun striking down through the drab exhalations of ten-thousand +sooty chimney-pots, tinted the atmosphere with the hue of copper. The glance +that wandered purposelessly out through the carriage windows, recoiled, +repelled by the endless dreary vista of the Surrey Side’s unnumbered roofs; or, +probing instantaneously the hopeless depths of some grim narrow thoroughfare +fleetingly disclosed, as the evening boat-train from Dover swung on toward +Charing Cross, its trucks level with the eaves of Southwark’s dwellings, was +saddened by the thought that in all the world squalor such as this should +obtain and flourish unrelieved. +</p> + +<p> +For perhaps the tenth time in the course of the journey Kirkwood withdrew his +gaze from the window and turned to the girl, a question ready framed upon his +lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you quite sure—” he began; and then, alive to the clear and penetrating +perception in the brown eyes that smiled into his from under their level brows, +he stammered and left the query uncompleted. +</p> + +<p> +Continuing to regard him steadily and smilingly, Dorothy shook her head in +playful denial and protest. “Do you know,” she commented, “that this is about +the fifth repetition of that identical question within the last quarter-hour?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know what I meant to say?” he demanded, staring. +</p> + +<p> +“I can see it in your eyes. Besides, you’ve talked and thought of nothing else +since we left the boat. Won’t you believe me, please, when I say there’s +absolutely not a soul in London to whom I could go and ask for shelter? I don’t +think it’s very nice of you to be so openly anxious to get rid of me.” +</p> + +<p> +This latter was so essentially undeserved and so artlessly insincere, that he +must needs, of course, treat it with all seriousness. +</p> + +<p> +“That isn’t fair, Miss Calendar. Really it’s not.” +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to think? I’ve told you any number of times that it’s only an hour’s +ride on to Chiltern, where the Pyrfords will be glad to take me in. You may +depend upon it,—by eight to-night, at the latest, you’ll have me off your +hands,—the drag and worry that I’ve been ever since—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t!” he pleaded vehemently. “Please!... You <i>know</i> it isn’t that. I +<i>don’t</i> want you off my hands, ever.... That is to say, I—ah—” Here he was +smitten with a dumbness, and sat, aghast at the enormity of his blunder, +entreating her forgiveness with eyes that, very likely, pleaded his cause more +eloquently than he guessed. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean,” he floundered on presently, in the fatuous belief that he would this +time be able to control both mind and tongue, “<i>what</i> I mean is I’d be +glad to go on serving you in any way I might, to the end of time, if you’d give +me....” +</p> + +<p> +He left the declaration inconclusive—a stroke of diplomacy that would have +graced an infinitely more adept wooer. But he used it all unconsciously. “O +Lord!” he groaned in spirit. “Worse and more of it! Why in thunder can’t I say +the right thing <i>right</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +Egotistically absorbed by the problem thus formulated, he was heedless of her +failure to respond, and remained pensively preoccupied until roused by the +grinding and jolting of the train, as it slowed to a halt preparatory to +crossing the bridge. +</p> + +<p> +Then he sought to read his answer in the eyes of Dorothy. But she was looking +away, staring thoughtfully out over the billowing sea of roofs that merged +illusively into the haze long ere it reached the horizon; and Kirkwood could +see the pulsing of the warm blood in her throat and cheeks; and the glamorous +light that leaped and waned in her eyes, as the ruddy evening sunlight warmed +them, was something any man might be glad to live for and die for.... And he +saw that she had understood, had grasped the thread of meaning that ran through +the clumsy fabric of his halting speech and his sudden silences. +</p> + +<p> +She had understood without resentment! +</p> + +<p> +While, incredulous, he wrestled with the wonder of this fond discovery, she +grew conscious of his gaze, and turned her head to meet it with one fearless +and sweet, if troubled. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Mr. Kirkwood,” she said gently, bending forward as if to read between the +lines anxiety had graven on his countenance, “won’t you tell me, please, what +it can be that so worries you? Is it possible that you still have a fear of my +father? But don’t you know that he can do nothing now—now that we’re safe? We +have only to take a cab to Paddington Station, and then—” +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t underestimate the resource and ability of Mr. Calendar,” he told +her gloomily; “we’ve got a chance—no more. It wasn’t....” He shut his teeth on +his unruly tongue—too late. +</p> + +<p> +Woman-quick she caught him up. “It wasn’t that? Then what was it that worried +you? If it’s something that affects me, is it kind and right of you not to tell +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“It—it affects us both,” he conceded drearily. “I—I don’t—” +</p> + +<p> +The wretched embarrassment of the confession befogged his wits; he felt unable +to frame the words. He appealed speechlessly for tolerance, with a face utterly +woebegone and eyes piteous. +</p> + +<p> +The train began to move slowly across the Thames to Charing Cross. +</p> + +<p> +Mercilessly the girl persisted. “We’ve only a minute more. Surely you can trust +me....” +</p> + +<p> +In exasperation he interrupted almost rudely. “It’s only this: I—I’m strapped.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strapped?” She knitted her brows over this fresh specimen of American slang. +</p> + +<p> +“Flat strapped—busted—broke—on my uppers—down and out,” he reeled off synonyms +without a smile. “I haven’t enough money to pay cab-fare across the town—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” she interpolated, enlightened. +</p> + +<p> +“—to say nothing of taking us to Chiltern. I couldn’t buy you a glass of water +if you were thirsty. There isn’t a soul on earth, within hail, who would trust +me with a quarter—I mean a shilling—across London Bridge. I’m the original +Luckless Wonder and the only genuine Jonah extant.” +</p> + +<p> +With a face the hue of fire, he cocked his eyebrows askew and attempted to +laugh unconcernedly to hide his bitter shame. “I’ve led you out of the +fryingpan into the fire, and I don’t know what to do! Please call me names.” +</p> + +<p> +And in a single instant all that he had consistently tried to avoid doing, had +been irretrievably done; if, with dawning comprehension, dismay flickered in +her eyes—such dismay as such a confession can rouse only in one who, like +Dorothy Calendar, has never known the want of a penny—it was swiftly driven out +to make place for the truest and most gracious and unselfish solicitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, poor Mr. Kirkwood! And it’s all because of me! You’ve beggared yourself—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not precisely; I was beggared to begin with.” He hastened to disclaim the +extravagant generosity of which she accused him. “I had only three or four +pounds to my name that night we met.... I haven’t told you—I—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve told me nothing, nothing whatever about yourself,” she said +reproachfully. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t want to bother you with my troubles; I tried not to talk about +myself.... You knew I was an American, but I’m worse than that; I’m a +Californian—from San Francisco.” He tried unsuccessfully to make light of it. +“I told you I was the Luckless Wonder; if I’d ever had any luck I would have +stored a little money away. As it was, I lived on my income, left my principal +in ’Frisco; and when the earthquake came, it wiped me out completely.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you were going home that night we made you miss your steamer!” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my own fault, and I’m glad this blessed minute that I did miss it. Nice +sort I’d have been, to go off and leave you at the mercy—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please! I want to think, I’m trying to remember how much you’ve gone through—” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely what I don’t want you to do. Anyway, I did nothing more than any +other fellow would’ve! Please don’t give me credit that I don’t deserve.” +</p> + +<p> +But she was not listening; and a pause fell, while the train crawled warily +over the trestle, as if in fear of the foul, muddy flood below. +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s no way I can repay you....” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing to be repaid,” he contended stoutly. +</p> + +<p> +She clasped her hands and let them fall gently in her lap. “I’ve not a farthing +in the world!... I never dreamed.... I’m so sorry, Mr. Kirkwood—terribly, +terribly sorry!... But what can we do? I can’t consent to be a burden—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re not! You’re the one thing that ...” He swerved sharply, at an +abrupt tangent. “There’s one thing we can do, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked up inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“Craven Street is just round the corner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?”—wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean we must go to Mrs. Hallam’s house, first off.... It’s too late +now,—after five, else we could deposit the jewels in some bank. Since—since +they are no longer yours, the only thing, and the proper thing to do is to +place them in safety or in the hands of their owner. If you take them directly +to young Hallam, your hands will be clear.... And—I never did such a thing in +my life, Miss Calendar; but if he’s got a spark of gratitude in his make-up, I +ought to be able to—er—to borrow a pound or so of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” She shook her head in doubt. “I don’t know; I know so little +of such things.... You are right; we must take him the jewels, but...” Her +voice trailed off into a sigh of profound perturbation. +</p> + +<p> +He dared not meet her look. +</p> + +<p> +Beneath his wandering gaze a County Council steam-boat darted swiftly +down-stream from Charing Cross pier, in the shadow of the railway bridge. It +seemed curious to reflect that from that very floating pier he had started +first upon his quest of the girl beside him, only—he had to count—three nights +ago! Three days and three nights! Altogether incredible seemed the +transformation they had wrought in the complexion of the world. Yet nothing +material was changed.... He lifted his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Beyond the river rose the Embankment, crawling with traffic, backed by the +green of the gardens and the shimmering walls of glass and stone of the great +hotels, their windows glowing weirdly golden in the late sunlight. A little +down-stream Cleopatra’s Needle rose, sadly the worse for London smoke, flanked +by its couchant sphinxes, wearing a nimbus of circling, sweeping, swooping, +wheeling gulls. Farther down, from the foot of that magnificent pile, Somerset +House, Waterloo Bridge sprang over-stream in its graceful arch.... All as of +yesterday; yet all changed. Why? Because a woman had entered into his life; +because he had learned the lesson of love and had looked into the bright face +of Romance.... +</p> + +<p> +With a jar the train started and began to move more swiftly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood lifted the traveling bag to his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t forget,” he said with some difficulty, “you’re to stick by me, whatever +happens. You mustn’t desert me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>know</i>,” the girl reproved him. +</p> + +<p> +“I know; but there must be no misunderstanding.... Don’t worry; we’ll win out +yet, I’ve a plan.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Splendide mendax</i>! He had not the glimmering of a plan. +</p> + +<p> +The engine panting, the train drew in beneath the vast sounding dome of the +station, to an accompaniment of dull thunderings; and stopped finally. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood got out, not without a qualm of regret at leaving the compartment; +therein, at least, they had some title to consideration, by virtue of their +tickets; now they were utterly vagabondish, penniless adventurers. +</p> + +<p> +The girl joined him. Slowly, elbow to elbow, the treasure bag between them, +they made their way down toward the gates, atoms in a tide-rip of humanity,—two +streams of passengers meeting on the narrow strip of platform, the one making +for the streets, the other for the suburbs. +</p> + +<p> +Hurried and jostled, the girl clinging tightly to his arm lest they be +separated in the crush, they came to the ticket-wicket; beyond the barrier +surged a sea of hats—shining “toppers,” dignified and upstanding, the outward +and visible manifestation of the sturdy, stodgy British spirit of +respectability; “bowlers” round and sleek and humble; shapeless caps with cloth +visors, manufactured of outrageous plaids; flower-like miracles of millinery +from Bond Street; strangely plumed monstrosities from Petticoat Lane and Mile +End Road. Beneath any one of these might lurk the maleficent brain, the spying +eyes of Calendar or one of his creatures; beneath all of them that he +encountered, Kirkwood peered in fearful inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, when they had passed unhindered the ordeal of the wickets, had run the +gantlet of those thousand eyes without lighting in any pair a spark of +recognition, he began to bear himself with more assurance, to be sensible to a +grateful glow of hope. Perhaps Hobbs’ telegram had not reached its destination, +for unquestionably the mate would have wired his chief; perhaps some accident +had befallen the conspirators; perhaps the police had apprehended them.... No +matter how, one hoped against hope that they had been thrown off the trail. +</p> + +<p> +And indeed it seemed as if they must have been misguided in some providential +manner. On the other hand, it would be the crassest of indiscretions to linger +about the place an instant longer than absolutely necessary. +</p> + +<p> +Outside the building, however, they paused perforce, undergoing the cross-fire +of the congregated cabbies. It being the first time that he had ever felt +called upon to leave the station afoot, Kirkwood cast about irresolutely, +seeking the sidewalk leading to the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly he caught the girl by the arm and unceremoniously hurried her toward a +waiting hansom. +</p> + +<p> +“Quick!” he begged her. “Jump right in—not an instant to spare.—” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded brightly, lips firm with courage, eyes shining. +</p> + +<p> +“My father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” Kirkwood glanced back over his shoulder. “He hasn’t seen us yet. They’ve +just driven up. Stryker’s with him. They’re getting down.” And to himself, “Oh, +the devil!” cried the panic-stricken young man. +</p> + +<p> +He drew back to let the girl precede him into the cab; at the same time he kept +an eye on Calendar, whose conveyance stood half the length of the station-front +away. +</p> + +<p> +The fat adventurer had finished paying off the driver, standing on the deck of +the hansom. Stryker was already out, towering above the mass of people, and +glaring about him with his hawk-keen vision. Calendar had started to alight, +his foot was leaving the step when Stryker’s glance singled out their quarry. +Instantly he turned and spoke to his confederate. Calendar wheeled like a +flash, peering eagerly in the direction indicated by the captain’s index +finger, then, snapping instructions to his driver, threw himself heavily back +on the seat. Stryker, awkward on his land-legs, stumbled and fell in an +ill-calculated attempt to hoist himself hastily back into the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +To the delay thus occasioned alone Kirkwood and Dorothy owed a respite of +freedom. Their hansom was already swinging down toward the great gates of the +yard, the American standing to make the driver comprehend the necessity for +using the utmost speed in reaching the Craven Street address. The man proved +both intelligent and obliging; Kirkwood had barely time to drop down beside the +girl, ere the cab was swinging out into the Strand, to the peril of the toes +belonging to a number of righteously indignant pedestrians. +</p> + +<p> +“Good boy!” commented Kirkwood cheerfully. “That’s the greatest comfort of all +London, the surprising intellectual strength the average cabby displays when +you promise him a tip.... Great Heavens!” he cried, reading the girl’s dismayed +expression. “A tip! I never thought—!” His face lengthened dismally, his +eyebrows working awry. “Now we are in for it!” +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +He turned in the seat, twisting his neck to peep through the small rear window. +“I don’t see their cab,” he announced. “But of course they’re after us. +However, Craven Street’s just round the corner; if we get there first, I don’t +fancy Freddie Hallam will have a cordial reception for our pursuers. They +must’ve been on watch at Cannon Street, and finding we were not coming in that +way—of course they were expecting us because of Hobbs’ wire—they took cab for +Charing Cross. Lucky for us.... Or is it lucky?” he added doubtfully, to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +The hansom whipped round the corner into Craven Street. Kirkwood sprang up, +grasping the treasure bag, ready to jump the instant they pulled in toward Mrs. +Hallam’s dwelling. But as they drew near upon the address he drew back with an +exclamation of amazement. +</p> + +<p> +The house was closed, showing a blank face to the street—blinds drawn close +down in the windows, area gate padlocked, an estate-agent’s board projecting +from above the doorway, advertising the property “To be let, furnished.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood looked back, craning his neck round the side of the cab. At the moment +another hansom was breaking through the rank of humanity on the Strand +crossing. He saw one or two figures leap desperately from beneath the horse’s +hoofs. Then the cab shot out swiftly down the street. +</p> + +<p> +The American stood up again, catching the cabby’s eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Drive on!” he cried excitedly. “Don’t stop—drive as fast as you dare!” +</p> + +<p> +“W’ere to, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“See that cab behind? Don’t let it catch us—shake it off, lose it somehow, but +for the love of Heaven don’t let it catch us! I’ll make it worth your while. Do +you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir!” The driver looked briefly over his shoulder and lifted his whip. +“Don’t worry, sir,” he cried, entering into the spirit of the game with +gratifying zest. “Shan’t let ’em over’aul you, sir. Mind your ’ead!” +</p> + +<p> +And as Kirkwood ducked, the whip-lash shot out over the roof with a crack like +the report of a pistol. Startled, the horse leaped indignantly forward. +Momentarily the cab seemed to leave the ground, then settled down to a pace +that carried them round the Avenue Theatre and across Northumberland Avenue +into Whitehall Place apparently on a single wheel. +</p> + +<p> +A glance behind showed Kirkwood that already they had gained, the pursuing +hansom having lost ground through greater caution in crossing the main-traveled +thoroughfare. +</p> + +<p> +“Good little horse!” he applauded. +</p> + +<p> +A moment later he was indorsing without reserve the generalship of their cabby; +the quick westward turn that took them into Whitehall, over across from the +Horse Guards, likewise placed them in a pocket of traffic; a practically +impregnable press of vehicles closed in behind them ere Calendar’s conveyance +could follow out of the side street. +</p> + +<p> +That the same conditions, but slightly modified, hemmed them in ahead, went for +nothing in Kirkwood’s estimation. +</p> + +<p> +“Good driver!” he approved heartily. “He’s got a head on his shoulders!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl found her voice. “How,” she demanded in a breath, face blank with +consternation, “how did you dare?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dare?” he echoed exultantly; and in his veins excitement was running like +liquid fire. “What wouldn’t I dare for you, Dorothy?” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you not?” she amended softly, adding with a shade of timidity: +“Philip...” +</p> + +<p> +The long lashes swept up from her cheeks, like clouds revealing stars, +unmasking eyes radiant and brave to meet his own; then they fell, even as her +lips drooped with disappointment. And she sighed.... For he was not looking. +Man-like, hot with the ardor of the chase, he was deaf and blind to all else. +</p> + +<p> +She saw that he had not even heard. Twice within the day she had forgotten +herself, had overstepped the rigid bounds of her breeding in using his +Christian name. And twice he had been oblivious to that token of their maturing +understanding. So she sighed, and sighing, smiled again; resting an elbow on +the window-sill and flattening one small gloved hand against the frame for a +brace against the jouncing of the hansom. It swept on with unabated speed, +up-stream beside the tawny reaches of the river; and for a time there was no +speech between them, the while the girl lost consciousness of self and her most +imminent peril, surrendering her being to the lingering sweetness of her long, +dear thoughts.... +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a scheme!” Kirkwood declared so explosively that she caught her +breath with the surprise of it. “There’s the Pless; they know me there, and my +credit’s good. When we shake them off, we can have the cabby take us to the +hotel. I’ll register and borrow from the management enough to pay our way to +Chiltern and the tolls for a cable to New York. I’ve a friend or two over home +who wouldn’t let me want for a few miserable pounds.... So you see,” he +explained boyishly, “we’re at the end of our troubles already!” +</p> + +<p> +She said something inaudible, holding her face averted. He bent nearer to her, +wondering. “I didn’t understand,” he suggested. +</p> + +<p> +Still looking from him, “I said you were very good to me,” she said in a +quavering whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy!” Without his knowledge or intention before the fact, as instinctively +as he made use of her given name, intimately, his strong fingers dropped and +closed upon the little hand that lay beside him. “What <i>is</i> the matter, +dear?” He leaned still farther forward to peer into her face, till glance met +glance in the ending and his racing pulses tightened with sheer delight of the +humid happiness in her glistening eyes. “Dorothy, child, don’t worry so. No +harm shall come to you. It’s all working out—all working out <i>right</i>. Only +have a little faith in me, and I’ll <i>make</i> everything work out right, +Dorothy.” +</p> + +<p> +Gently she freed her fingers. “I wasn’t,” she told him in a voice that quivered +between laughter and tears, “I wasn’t worrying. I was ... You wouldn’t +understand. Don’t be afraid I shall break down or—or anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t,” he reassured her; “I know you’re not that sort. Besides, you’d have +no excuse. We’re moving along famously. That cabby knows his business.” +</p> + +<p> +In fact that gentleman was minute by minute demonstrating his peculiar fitness +for the task he had so cheerfully undertaken. The superior horsemanship of the +London hackney cabman needs no exploitation, and he in whose hands rested the +fate of the Calendar treasure was peer of his compeers. He was instant to +advantage himself of every opening to forward his pliant craft, quick to +foresee the fortunes of the way and govern himself accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +Estimating with practised eye the precise moment when the police supervisor of +traffic at the junction of Parliament and Bridge Streets, would see fit to +declare a temporary blockade, he so managed that his was the last vehicle to +pass ere the official wand, to ignore which involves a forfeited license, was +lifted; and indeed, so close was his calculation that he escaped only with a +scowl and word of warning from the bobby. A matter of no importance whatever, +since his end was gained and the pursuing cab had been shut off by the +blockade. +</p> + +<p> +In Calendar’s driver, however, he had an adversary of abilities by no means to +be despised. Precisely how the man contrived it, is a question; that he made a +detour by way of Derby Street is not improbable, unpleasant as it may have been +for Stryker and Calendar to find themselves in such close proximity to “the +Yard.” At all events, he evaded the block, and hardly had the chase swung +across Bridge Street, than the pursuer was nimbly clattering in its wake. +</p> + +<p> +Past the Houses of Parliament, through Old Palace Yard, with the Abbey on their +left, they swung away into Abingdon Street, whence suddenly they dived into the +maze of backways, great and mean, which lies to the south of Victoria. Doubling +and twisting, now this way, now that, the driver tooled them through the +intricate heart of this labyrinth, leading the pursuers a dance that Kirkwood +thought calculated to dishearten and shake off the pursuit in the first five +minutes. Yet always, peering back through the little peephole, he saw +Calendar’s cab pelting doggedly in their rear—a hundred yards behind, no more, +no less, hanging on with indomitable grit and determination. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees they drew westwards, threading Pimlico, into Chelsea—once dashing +briefly down the Grosvenor Road, the Thames a tawny flood beyond the river +wall. +</p> + +<p> +Children cheered them on, and policemen turned to stare, doubting whether they +should interfere. Minutes rolled into tens, measuring out an hour; and still +they hammered on, hunted and hunters, playing their game of hare-and-hounds +through the highways and byways of those staid and aged quarters. +</p> + +<p> +In the leading cab there were few words spoken. Kirkwood and Dorothy alike sat +spellbound with the fascination of the game; if it is conceivable that the fox +enjoys his part in the day’s sport, then they were enjoying themselves. Now one +spoke, now another—chiefly in the clipped phraseology, of excitement. As— +</p> + +<p> +“We’re gaining?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—think so.” +</p> + +<p> +Or, “We’ll tire them out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure-ly.” +</p> + +<p> +“They can’t catch us, can they, Philip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +But he spoke with a confidence that he himself did not feel, for hope as he +would he could never see that the distance between the two had been materially +lessened or increased. Their horses seemed most evenly matched. +</p> + +<p> +The sun was very low behind the houses of the Surrey Side when Kirkwood became +aware that their horse was flagging, though (as comparison determined) no more +so than the one behind. +</p> + +<p> +In grave concern the young man raised his hand, thrusting open the trap in the +roof. Immediately the square of darkling sky was eclipsed by the cabby’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir?” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better drive as directly as you can to the Hotel Pless,” Kirkwood +called up. “I’m afraid it’s no use pushing your horse like this.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure of it, sir. ’E’s a good ’oss, ’e is, but ’e carn’t keep goin’ for +hever, you know, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. You’ve done very well; you’ve done your best.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir. The Pless, you said, sir? Right.” +</p> + +<p> +The trap closed. +</p> + +<p> +Two blocks farther, and their pace had so sensibly moderated that Kirkwood was +genuinely alarmed. The pursuing cabby was lashing his animal without mercy, +while, “It aren’t no use my w’ippin’ ’im, sir,” dropped through the trap. “’E’s +doing orl ’e can.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand.” +</p> + +<p> +Despondent recklessness tightened Kirkwood’s lips and kindled an unpleasant +light in his eyes. He touched his side pocket; Calendar’s revolver was still +there.... Dorothy should win away clear, if—if he swung for it. +</p> + +<p> +He bent forward with the traveling bag in his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” The girl’s voice was very tremulous. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand a chance, take a losing hazard. Can you run? You’re not too tired?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can run—perhaps not far—a little way, at least.” +</p> + +<p> +“And will you do as I say?” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes met his, unwavering, bespeaking her implicit faith. +</p> + +<p> +“Promise!” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have to drop off in a minute. The horse won’t last.... They’re in the +same box. Well, I undertake to stand ’em off for a bit; you take the bag and +run for it. Just as soon as I can convince them, I’ll follow, but if there’s +any delay, you call the first cab you see and drive to the Pless. I’ll join you +there.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood up, surveying the neighborhood. Behind him the girl lifted her voice +in protest. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Philip, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve promised,” he said sternly, eyes ranging the street. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care; I won’t leave you.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head in silent contradiction, frowning; but not frowning because +of the girl’s mutiny. He was a little puzzled by a vague impression, and was +striving to pin it down for recognition; but was so thoroughly bemused with +fatigue and despair that only with great difficulty could he force his +faculties to logical reasoning, his memory to respond to his call upon it. +</p> + +<p> +The hansom was traversing a street in Old Brompton—a quaint, prim by-way lined +with dwellings singularly Old-Worldish, even for London. He seemed to know it +subjectively, to have retained a memory of it from another existence: as the +stage setting of a vivid dream, all forgotten, will sometimes recur with +peculiar and exasperating intensity, in broad daylight. The houses, with their +sloping, red-tiled roofs, unexpected gables, spontaneous dormer windows, glass +panes set in leaded frames, red brick façades trimmed with green shutters and +doorsteps of white stone, each sitting back, sedate and self-sufficient, in its +trim dooryard fenced off from the public thoroughfare: all wore an aspect +hauntingly familiar, and yet strange. +</p> + +<p> +A corner sign, remarked in passing, had named the spot “Aspen Villas”; though +he felt he knew the sound of those syllables as well as he did the name of the +Pless, strive as he might he failed to make them convey anything tangible to +his intelligence. When had he heard of it? At what time had his errant +footsteps taken him through this curious survival of Eighteenth Century London? +</p> + +<p> +Not that it mattered when. It could have no possible bearing on the emergency. +He really gave it little thought; the mental processes recounted were mostly +subconscious, if none the less real. His objective attention was wholly +preoccupied with the knowledge that Calendar’s cab was drawing perilously near. +And he was debating whether or not they should alight at once and try to make a +better pace afoot, when the decision was taken wholly out of his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Blindly staggering on, wilted with weariness, the horse stumbled in the shafts +and plunged forward on its knees. Quick as the driver was to pull it up, with a +cruel jerk of the bits, Kirkwood was caught unprepared; lurching against the +dashboard, he lost his footing, grasped frantically at the unstable air, and +went over, bringing up in a sitting position in the gutter, with a solid shock +that jarred his very teeth. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment dazed he sat there blinking; by the time he got to his feet, the +girl stood beside him, questioning him with keen solicitude. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he gasped; “not hurt—only surprised. Wait....” +</p> + +<p> +Their cab had come to a complete standstill; Calendar’s was no more than twenty +yards behind, and as Kirkwood caught sight of him the fat adventurer was in the +act of lifting himself ponderously out of the seat. +</p> + +<p> +Incontinently the young man turned to the girl and forced the traveling-bag +into her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Run for it!” he begged her. “Don’t stop to argue. You promised—run! I’ll +come....” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip!” she pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy!” he cried in torment. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it was his unquestionable distress that weakened her. Suddenly she +yielded—with whatever reason. He was only hazily aware of the swish of her +skirts behind him; he had no time to look round and see that she got away +safely. He had only eyes and thoughts for Calendar and Stryker. +</p> + +<p> +They were both afoot, now, and running toward him, the one as awkward as the +other, but neither yielding a jot of their malignant purpose. He held the +picture of it oddly graphic in his memory for many a day thereafter: Calendar +making directly, for him, his heavy-featured face a dull red with the exertion, +his fat head dropped forward as if too heavy for his neck of a bull, his small +eyes bright with anger; Stryker shying off at a discreet angle, evidently with +the intention of devoting himself to the capture of the girl; the two cabs with +their dejected screws, at rest in the middle of the quiet, twilit street. He +seemed even to see himself, standing stockily prepared, hands in his coat +pockets, his own head inclined with a suggestion of pugnacity. +</p> + +<p> +To this mental photograph another succeeds, of the same scene an instant later; +all as it had been before, their relative positions unchanged, save that +Stryker and Calendar had come to a dead stop, and that Kirkwood’s right arm was +lifted and extended, pointing at the captain. +</p> + +<p> +So forgetful of self was he, that it required a moment’s thought to convince +him that he was really responsible for the abrupt transformation. Incredulously +he realized that he had drawn Calendar’s revolver and pulled Stryker up short, +in mid-stride, by the mute menace of it, as much as by his hoarse cry of +warning: +</p> + +<p> +“Stryker—not another foot—” +</p> + +<p> +With this there chimed in Dorothy’s voice, ringing bell-clear from a little +distance: +</p> + +<p> +“Philip!” +</p> + +<p> +Like a flash he wheeled, to add yet another picture to his mental gallery. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps two-score feet up the sidewalk a gate stood open; just outside it a man +of tall and slender figure, rigged out in a bizarre costume consisting mainly +of a flowered dressing-gown and slippers, was waiting in an attitude of +singular impassivity; within it, pausing with a foot lifted to the doorstep, +bag in hand, her head turned as she looked back, was Dorothy. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus09"></a> +<img src="images/img09.jpg" width="413" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">A costume consisting mainly of a flowered dressing-gown and slippers.</p> +</div> + +<p> +As he comprehended these essential details of the composition, the man in the +flowered dressing-gown raised a hand, beckoning to him in a manner as +imperative as his accompanying words. +</p> + +<p> +“Kirkwood!” he saluted the young man in a clear and vibrant voice, “put up that +revolver and stop this foolishness.” And, with a jerk of his head towards the +doorway, in which Dorothy now waited, hesitant: “Come, sir—quickly!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood choked on a laugh that was half a sob. “Brentwick!” he cried, +restoring the weapon to his pocket and running toward his friend. “Of all happy +accidents!” +</p> + +<p> +“You may call it that,” retorted the elder man with a fleeting smile as +Kirkwood slipped inside the dooryard. “Come,” he said; “let’s get into the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you said—I thought you went to Munich,” stammered Kirkwood; and so +thoroughly impregnated was his mind with this understanding that it was hard +for him to adjust his perceptions to the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“I was detained—by business,” responded Brentwick briefly. His gaze, weary and +wistful behind his glasses, rested on the face of the girl on the threshold of +his home; and the faint, sensitive flush of her face deepened. He stopped and +honored her with a bow that, for all his fantastical attire, would have graced +a beau of an earlier decade. “Will you be pleased to enter?” he suggested +punctiliously. “My house, such as it is, is quite at your disposal. And,” he +added, with a glance over his shoulder, “I fancy that a word or two may +presently be passed which you would hardly care to hear.” +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy’s hesitation was but transitory; Kirkwood was reassuring her with a +smile more like his wonted boyish grin than anything he had succeeded in +conjuring up throughout the day. Her own smile answered it, and with a murmured +word of gratitude and a little, half timid, half distant bow for Brentwick, she +passed on into the hallway. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood lingered with his friend upon the door-stoop. Calendar, recovered from +his temporary consternation, was already at the gate, bending over it, fat +fingers fumbling with the latch, his round red face, lifted to the house, +darkly working with chagrin. +</p> + +<p> +From his threshold, watching him with a slight contraction of the eyes, +Brentwick hailed him in tones of cloying courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you wish to see me, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +The fat adventurer faltered just within the gateway; then, with a truculent +swagger, “I want my daughter,” he declared vociferously. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick peered mildly over his glasses, first at Calendar, then at Kirkwood. +His glance lingered a moment on the young man’s honest eyes, and swung back to +Calendar. +</p> + +<p> +“My good man,” he said with sublime tolerance, “will you be pleased to take +yourself off—to the devil if you like? Or shall I take the trouble to interest +the police?” +</p> + +<p> +He removed one fine and fragile hand from a pocket of the flowered +dressing-gown, long enough to jerk it significantly toward the nearer +street-corner. +</p> + +<p> +Thunderstruck, Calendar glanced hastily in the indicated direction. A +blue-coated bobby was to be seen approaching with measured stride, diffusing +upon the still evening air an impression of ineffably capable self-contentment. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar’s fleshy lips parted and closed without a sound. They quivered. +Beneath them quivered his assortment of graduated chins. His heavy and +pendulous cheeks quivered, slowly empurpling with the dark tide of his +apoplectic wrath. The close-clipped thatch of his iron gray mustache, even, +seemed to bristle like hairs upon the neck of a maddened dog. Beneath him his +fat legs trembled, and indeed his whole huge carcass shook visibly, in the +stress of his restrained wrath. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, overwhelmed, he banged the gate behind him and waddled off to join +the captain; who already, with praiseworthy native prudence, had fallen back +upon their cab. +</p> + +<p> +From his coign of strategic advantage, the comfortable elevation of his box, +Kirkwood’s cabby, whose huge enjoyment of the adventurers’ discomfiture had +throughout been noisily demonstrative, entreated Calendar with lifted +forefinger, bland affability, and expressions of heartfelt sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“Kebsir? ’Ave a kebsir, do! Try a ride be’ind a real ’orse, sir; don’t you go +on wastin’ time on ’im.” A jerk of a derisive thumb singled out the other +cabman. “’E aren’t pl’yin’ you fair, sir; I knows ’im,—’e’s a hartful g’y +deceiver, ’e is. Look at ’is ’orse,—w’ich it aren’t; it’s a snyle, that’s w’at +it is. Tyke a father’s hadvice, sir, and next time yer fairest darter runs awye +with the dook in disguise, chyse ’em in a real kebsir, not a cheap +imitashin.... Kebsir?... Garn, you ’ard-’arted—” +</p> + +<p> +Here he swooped upwards in a dizzy flight of vituperation best unrecorded. +Calendar, beyond an absent-minded flirt of one hand by his ear, as who should +shoo away a buzzing insect, ignored him utterly. +</p> + +<p> +Sullenly extracting money from his pocket, he paid off his driver, and in +company with Stryker, trudged in morose silence down the street. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick touched Kirkwood’s arm and drew him into the house. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII<br/> +ADVENTURES’ LUCK</h2> + +<p> +As the door closed, Kirkwood swung impulsively to Brentwick, with the brief, +uneven laugh of fine-drawn nerves. +</p> + +<p> +“Good God, sir!” he cried. “You don’t know—” +</p> + +<p> +“I can surmise,” interrupted the elder man shrewdly. +</p> + +<p> +“You turned up in the nick of time, for all the world like—” +</p> + +<p> +“Harlequin popping through a stage trap?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!—an incarnation of the Providence that watches over children and fools.” +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick dropped a calming hand upon his shoulder. “Your simile seems +singularly happy, Philip. Permit me to suggest that you join the child in my +study.” He laughed quietly, with a slight nod toward an open door at the end of +the hallway. “For myself, I’ll be with you in one moment.” +</p> + +<p> +A faint, indulgent smile lurking in the shadow of his white mustache, he +watched the young man wheel and dart through the doorway. “Young hearts!” he +commented inaudibly—and a trace sadly. “Youth!...” +</p> + +<p> +Beyond the threshold of the study, Kirkwood paused, eager eyes searching its +somber shadows for a sign of Dorothy. +</p> + +<p> +A long room and deep, it was lighted only by the circumscribed disk of +illumination thrown on the central desk by a shaded reading-lamp, and the +flickering glow of a grate-fire set beneath the mantel of a side-wall. At the +back, heavy velvet portières cloaked the recesses of two long windows, closed +jealously even against the twilight. Aside from the windows, doors and +chimney-piece, every foot of wall space was occupied by towering bookcases or +by shelves crowded to the limit of their capacity with an amazing miscellany of +objects of art, the fruit of years of patient and discriminating collecting. An +exotic and heady atmosphere, compounded of the faint and intangible exhalations +of these insentient things, fragrance of sandalwood, myrrh and musk, +reminiscent whiffs of half-forgotten incense, seemed to intensify the +impression of gloomy richness and repose... +</p> + +<p> +By the fireplace, a little to one side, stood Dorothy, one small foot resting +on the brass fender, her figure merging into the dusky background, her delicate +beauty gaining an effect of elusive and ethereal mystery in the waning and +waxing ruddy glow upflung from the bedded coals. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip!” She turned swiftly to Kirkwood with extended hands and a low, +broken cry. “I’m <i>so</i> glad....” +</p> + +<p> +A trace of hysteria in her manner warned him, and he checked himself upon the +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. “We can make +ourselves easy now.” She sat down and he released her hands with a reluctance +less evident than actual. “If ever I say another word against my luck—” +</p> + +<p> +“Who,” inquired the girl, lowering her voice, “who is the gentleman in the +flowered dressing-gown?” +</p> + +<p> +“Brentwick—George Silvester Brentwick: an old friend. I’ve known him for +years,—ever since I came abroad. Curiously enough, however, this is the first +time I’ve ever been here. I called once, but he wasn’t in,—a few days ago,—the +day we met. I thought the place looked familiar. Stupid of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“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 I ran, when +you told me to, but I did; and while I ran, I was conscious of the front door, +here, opening, and this tall man in the flowered dressing-gown coming down to +the gate as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for him to stroll +out, dressed that way, in the evening. And he opened the gate, and bowed, and +said, ever so pleasantly, ‘Won’t you come in, Miss Calendar?’—” +</p> + +<p> +“He did!” exclaimed Kirkwood. “But how—?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I say?” she expostulated. “At all events, he seemed to know me; and +when he added something about calling you in, too—he said ‘Mr. Kirkwood’—I +didn’t hesitate.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s strange enough, surely—and fortunate. Bless his heart!” said Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +And, “Hum!” said Mr. Brentwick considerately, entering the study. He had +discarded the dressing-gown and was now in evening dress. +</p> + +<p> +The girl rose. Kirkwood turned. “Mr. Brentwick—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +But Brentwick begged his patience with an eloquent gesture. “Sir,” he said, +somewhat austerely, “permit me to put a single question: Have you by any chance +paid your cabby?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—” faltered the younger man, with a flaming face. “I—why, no—that is—” +</p> + +<p> +The other quietly put his hand upon a bell-pull. A faint jingling sound was at +once audible, emanating from the basement. +</p> + +<p> +“How much should you say you owe him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I haven’t a penny in the world!” +</p> + +<p> +The shrewd eyes flashed their amusement into Kirkwood’s. “Tut, tut!” Brentwick +chuckled. “Between gentlemen, my dear boy! Dear me! you are slow to learn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll never be contented to sponge on my friends,” explained Kirkwood in +deepest misery. “I can’t tell when—” +</p> + +<p> +“Tut, tut! How much did you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten shillings—or say twelve, would be about right,” stammered the American, +swayed by conflicting emotions of gratitude and profound embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +A soft-footed butler, impassive as Fate, materialized mysteriously in the +doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“You rang, sir?” he interrupted frigidly. +</p> + +<p> +“I rang, Wotton.” His master selected a sovereign from his purse and handed it +to the servant. “For the cabby, Wotton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes sir.” The butler swung automatically, on one heel. +</p> + +<p> +“And Wotton!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“If any one should ask for me, I’m not at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if you should see a pair of disreputable scoundrels skulking, in the +neighborhood, one short and stout, the other tall and evidently a seafaring +man, let me know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir.” A moment later the front door was heard to close. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick turned with a little bow to the girl. “My dear Miss Calendar,” he +said, rubbing his thin, fine hands,—“I am old enough, I trust, to call you such +without offense,—please be seated.” +</p> + +<p> +Complying, the girl rewarded him with a radiant smile. Whereupon, striding to +the fireplace, their host turned his back to it, clasped his hands behind him, +and glowered benignly upon the two. “Ah!” he observed in accents of extreme +personal satisfaction. “Romance! Romance!” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you mind telling us how you knew—” began Kirkwood anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in the least, my dear Philip. It is simple enough: I possess an +imagination. From my bedroom window, on the floor above, I happen to behold two +cabs racing down the street, the one doggedly pursuing the other. The foremost +stops, perforce of a fagged horse. There alights a young gentleman looking, if +you’ll pardon me, uncommonly seedy; he is followed by a young lady, if she will +pardon me,” with another little bow, “uncommonly pretty. With these two old +eyes I observe that the gentleman does not pay his cabby. Ergo—I intelligently +deduce—he is short of money. Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were right,” affirmed Kirkwood, with a rueful and crooked smile. “But—” +</p> + +<p> +“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 my younger +days pursued adventure without success, in dotage find myself dragged into a +romance by my two ears, whether I will or no! Eh? And now you are going to tell +me all about it, Philip. There is a chair.... Well, Wotton?” +</p> + +<p> +The butler had again appeared noiselessly in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Beg pardon, sir; they’re waiting, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“The caitiffs, Wotton?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where waiting?” +</p> + +<p> +“One at each end of the street, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. You may bring us sherry and biscuit, Wotton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The servant vanished. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick removed his glasses, rubbed them, and blinked thoughtfully at the +girl. “My dear,” he said suddenly, with a peculiar tremor in his voice, “you +resemble your mother remarkably. Tut—I should know! Time was when I was one of +her most ardent admirers.” +</p> + +<p> +“You—y-you knew my mother?” cried Dorothy, profoundly moved. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I not know you at sight? My dear, you are your mother reincarnate, for the +good of an unworthy world. She was a very beautiful woman, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +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—the girl +trembling slightly, but with her face aglow; Kirkwood half stupefied between +his ease from care and his growing astonishment, as Brentwick continued to +reveal unexpected phases of his personality; Brentwick himself outwardly +imperturbable and complacent, for all that his hand shook as he lifted his wine +glass. +</p> + +<p> +“You may go, Wotton—or, wait. Don’t you feel the need of a breath of fresh air, +Wotton?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir, thank you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then change your coat, Wotton, light your pipe, and stroll out for half an +hour. You need not leave the street, but if either the tall thin blackguard +with the seafaring habit, or the short stout rascal with the air of mystery +should accost you, treat them with all courtesy, Wotton. You will be careful +not to tell either of them anything in particular, although I don’t mind your +telling them that Mr. Brentwick lives here, if they ask. I am mostly concerned +to discover if they purpose becoming fixtures on the street-corners, Wotton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you may go.... Wotton,” continued his employer as the butler took himself +off as softly as a cat, “grows daily a more valuable mechanism. He is by no +means human in any respect, but I find him extremely handy to have round the +house.... And now, my dear,” turning to Dorothy, “with your permission I desire +to drink to the memory of your beautiful mother and to the happiness of her +beautiful daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you will tell me—” +</p> + +<p> +“A number of interesting things, Miss Calendar, if you’ll be good enough to let +me choose the time. I beg you to be patient with the idiosyncrasies of an old +man, who means no harm, who has a reputation as an eccentric to sustain before +his servants.... And now,” said Brentwick, setting aside his glass, “now, my +dear boy, for the adventure.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood chuckled, infected by his host’s genial humor. “How do you know—” +</p> + +<p> +“How can it be otherwise?” countered Brentwick with a trace of asperity. “Am I +to be denied my adventure? Sir, I refuse without equivocation. Your very +bearing breathes of Romance. There must be an adventure forthcoming, Philip; +otherwise my disappointment will be so acute that I shall be regretfully +obliged seriously to consider my right, as a householder, to show you the +door.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Mr. Brentwick—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, sir!” commanded Brentwick with such a peremptory note that the young +man, who had risen, obeyed out of sheer surprise. Upon which his host advanced, +indicting him with a long white forefinger. “Would you, sir,” he demanded, +“again expose this little lady to the machinations of that corpulent scoundrel, +whom I have just had the pleasure of shooing off my premises, because you +choose to resent an old man’s raillery?” +</p> + +<p> +“I apologize,” Kirkwood humored him. +</p> + +<p> +“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 can consider +details more at our leisure.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s eyes consulted the girl’s face; almost imperceptibly she nodded him +permission to proceed. +</p> + +<p> +“Briefly, then,” he began haltingly, “the man who followed us to the door here, +is Miss Calendar’s father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh? His name, please?” +</p> + +<p> +“George Burgoyne Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! An American; I remember, now. Continue, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 endeavoring to return to its +owners.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear!” interpolated Brentwick gently, looking down at the girl’s flushed +face and drooping head. +</p> + +<p> +“He ran us to the last ditch,” Kirkwood continued; “I’ve spent my last farthing +trying to lose him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why have you not caused his arrest?” Brentwick inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded meaningly toward the girl. Brentwick made a sound indicating +comprehension, a click of the tongue behind closed teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“We came to your door by the merest accident—it might as well have been +another. I understood you were in Munich, and it never entered my head that +we’d find you home.” +</p> + +<p> +“A communication from my solicitors detained me,” explained Brentwick. “And +now, what do you intend to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 New York, for +money; on receipt of which I can repay you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip,” observed Brentwood, “you are a most irritating child. But I forgive +you the faults of youth. You may proceed, bearing in mind, if you please, that +I am your friend equally with any you may own in America.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re one of the best men in the world,” said Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Tut, tut! Will you get on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Secondly, I want you to help us to escape Calendar to-night. It is necessary +that Miss Calendar should go to Chiltern this evening, where she has friends +who will receive and protect her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mm-mm,” grumbled their host, meditative. “My faith!” he commented, with +brightening eyes. “It sounds almost too good to be true! And I’ve been growing +afraid that the world was getting to be a most humdrum and uninteresting +planet!... Miss Calendar, I am a widower of so many years standing that I had +almost forgotten I had ever been anything but a bachelor. I fear my house +contains little that will be of service to a young lady. Yet a room is at your +disposal; the parlor-maid shall show you the way. And Philip, between you and +me, I venture to remark that hot water and cold steel would add to the +attractiveness of your personal appearance; my valet will attend you in my +room. Dinner,” concluded Brentwick with anticipative relish, “will be served in +precisely thirty minutes. I shall expect you to entertain me with a full and +itemized account of every phase of your astonishing adventure. Later, we will +find a way to Chiltern.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he put a hand upon the bell-pull. Simultaneously Dorothy and Kirkwood +rose. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Brentwick,” said the girl, her eyes starred with tears of gratitude, “I +don’t, I really don’t know how—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear,” said the old gentleman, “you will thank me most appropriately by +continuing, to the best of your ability, to resemble your mother more +remarkably every minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I,” began Kirkwood——. +</p> + +<p> +“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 being invited to +interfere in your young affairs is more keen than you can well surmise. +Moreover,” said Mr. Brentwick, “so long have I been an amateur adventurer that +I esteem it the rarest privilege to find myself thus on the point of graduating +into professional ranks.” He rubbed his hands, beaming upon them. “And,” he +added, as a maid appeared at the door, “I have already schemed me a scheme for +the discomfiture of our friends the enemy: a scheme which we will discuss with +our dinner, while the heathen rage and imagine a vain thing, in the outer +darkness.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood would have lingered, but of such inflexible temper was his host that +he bowed him into the hands of a man servant without permitting him another +word. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a syllable,” he insisted. “I protest I am devoured with curiosity, my dear +boy, but I have also bowels of compassion. When we are well on with our meal, +when you are strengthened with food and drink, then you may begin. But +now—Dickie,” to the valet, “do your duty!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood, laughing with exasperation, retired at discretion, leaving Brentwick +the master of the situation: a charming gentleman with a will of his own and a +way that went with it. +</p> + +<p> +He heard the young man’s footsteps diminish on the stairway; and again he +smiled the indulgent, melancholy smile of mellow years. “Youth!” he whispered +softly. “Romance!... And now,” with a brisk change of tone as he closed the +study door, “now we are ready for this interesting Mr. Calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +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 and delicate +fingers, were presently permitted to lie unturned,—the book resting open on his +knees the while he stared wistfully into the fire. +</p> + +<p> +A suspicion of moisture glimmered in his eyes. “Dorothy!” he whispered huskily. +And a little later, rising, he proceeded to the telephone.... +</p> + +<p> +An hour and a half later Kirkwood, his self-respect something restored by a +bath, a shave, and a resumption of clothes which had been hastily but +thoroughly cleansed and pressed by Brentwick’s valet; his confidence and +courage mounting high under the combined influence of generous wine, +substantial food, the presence of his heart’s mistress and the admiration—which +was unconcealed—of his friend, concluded at the dinner-table, his narration. +</p> + +<p> +“And that,” he said, looking up from his savory, “is about all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” applauded Brentwick; eyes shining with delight. +</p> + +<p> +“All,” interposed Dorothy in warm reproach, “but what he hasn’t told—” +</p> + +<p> +“Which, my dear, is to be accounted for wholly by a very creditable modesty, +rarely encountered in the young men of the present day. It was, of course, +altogether different with those of my younger years. Yes, Wotton?” +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick sat back in his chair, inclining an attentive ear to a communication +murmured by the butler. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood’s gaze met Dorothy’s across the expanse of shining cloth; he +deprecated her interruption with a whimsical twist of his eyebrows. “Really, +you shouldn’t,” he assured her in an undertone. “I’ve done nothing to +deserve...” But under the spell of her serious sweet eyes, he fell silent, and +presently looked down, strangely abashed; and contemplated the vast enormity of +his unworthiness. +</p> + +<p> +Coffee was set before them by Wotton, the impassive, Brentwick refusing it with +a little sigh. “It is one of the things, as Philip knows,” he explained to the +girl, “denied me by the physician who makes his life happy by making mine a +waste. I am allowed but three luxuries; cigars, travel in moderation, and the +privilege of imposing on my friends. The first I propose presently, to enjoy, +by your indulgence; and the second I shall this evening undertake by virtue of +the third, of which I have just availed myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Smiling at the involution, he rested his head against the back of the chair, +eyes roving from the girl’s face to Kirkwood’s. “Inspiration to do which,” he +proceeded gravely, “came to me from the seafaring picaroon (Stryker did you +name him?) via the excellent Wotton. While you were preparing for dinner, +Wotton returned from his constitutional with the news that, leaving the +corpulent person on watch at the corner, Captain Stryker had temporarily, made +himself scarce. However, we need feel no anxiety concerning his whereabouts, +for he reappeared in good time and a motor-car. From which it becomes evident +that you have not overrated their pertinacity; the fiasco of the cab-chase is +not to be reënacted.” +</p> + +<p> +Resolutely the girl repressed a gasp of dismay. Kirkwood stared moodily into +his cup. +</p> + +<p> +“These men bore me fearfully,” he commented at last. +</p> + +<p> +“And so,” continued Brentwick, “I bethought me of a counter-stroke. It is my +good fortune to have a friend whose whim it is to support a touring-car, +chiefly in innocuous idleness. Accordingly I have telephoned him and +commandeered the use of this machine—mechanician, too.... Though not a betting +man, I am willing to risk recklessly a few pence in support of my contention, +that of the two, Captain Stryker’s car and ours, the latter will prove +considerably the most speedy.... +</p> + +<p> +“In short, I suggest,” he concluded, thoughtfully lacing his long white +fingers, “that, avoiding the hazards of cab and railway carriage, we motor to +Chiltern: the night being fine and the road, I am told, exceptionally good. +Miss Dorothy, what do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively the girl looked to Kirkwood; then shifted her glance to their +host. “I think you are wonderfully thoughtful and kind,” she said simply. +</p> + +<p> +“And you, Philip?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s an inspiration,” the younger man declared. “I can’t think of anything +better calculated to throw them off, than to distance them by motor-car. It +would be always possible to trace our journey by rail.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” announced Brentwick, making as if to rise, “we had best go. If neither +my hearing nor Captain Stryker’s car deceives me, our fiery chariot is panting +at the door.” +</p> + +<p> +A little sobered from the confident spirit of quiet gaiety in which they had +dined, they left the table. Not that, in their hearts, either greatly +questioned their ultimate triumph; but they were allowing for the element of +error so apt to set at naught human calculations. Calendar himself had already +been proved fallible. Within the bounds of possibility, their turn to stumble +might now be imminent. +</p> + +<p> +When he let himself dwell upon it, their utter helplessness to give Calendar +pause by commonplace methods, maddened Kirkwood. With another scoundrel it had +been so simple a matter to put a period to his activities by a word to the +police. But he was her father; for that reason he must continually be spared +... Even though, in desperate extremity, she should give consent to the arrest +of the adventurers, retaliation would follow, swift and sure. For they might +not overlook nor gloze the fact that hers had been the hands responsible for +the theft of the jewels; innocent though she had been in committing that +larceny, a cat’s-paw guided by an intelligence unscrupulous and malign, the law +would not hold her guiltless were she once brought within its cognizance. Nor, +possibly, would the Hallams, mother and son. +</p> + +<p> +Upon their knowledge and their fear of this, undoubtedly Calendar was +reckoning: witness the barefaced effrontery with which he operated against +them. His fear of the police might be genuine enough, but he was never for an +instant disturbed by any doubt lest his daughter should turn against him. She +would never dare that. +</p> + +<p> +Before they left the house, while Dorothy was above stairs resuming her hat and +coat, Kirkwood and Brentwick reconnoitered from the drawing-room windows, +themselves screened from observation by the absence of light in the room +behind. +</p> + +<p> +Before the door a motor-car waited, engines humming impatiently, mechanician +ready in his seat, an uncouth shape in goggles and leather garments that shone +like oilskins under the street lights. +</p> + +<p> +At one corner another and a smaller car stood in waiting, its lamps like +baleful eyes glaring through the night. +</p> + +<p> +In the shadows across the way, a lengthy shadow lurked: Stryker, beyond +reasonable question. Otherwise the street was deserted. Not even that +adventitous bobby of the early evening was now in evidence. +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy presently joining them, Brentwick led the way to the door. +</p> + +<p> +Wotton, apparently nerveless beneath his absolute immobility, let them out—and +slammed the door behind them with such promptitude as to give cause for the +suspicion that he was a fraud, a sham, beneath his icy exterior desperately +afraid lest the house be stormed by the adventurers. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood to the right, Brentwick to the left of Dorothy, the former carrying +the treasure bag, they hastened down the walk and through the gate to the car. +</p> + +<p> +The watcher across the way was moved to whistle shrilly; the other car lunged +forward nervously. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick taking the front seat, beside the mechanician, left the tonneau to +Kirkwood and Dorothy. As the American slammed the door, the car swept smoothly +out into the middle of the way, while the pursuing car swerved in to the other +curb, slowing down to let Stryker jump aboard. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood put himself in the seat by the girl’s side and for a few moments was +occupied with the arrangement of the robes. Then, sitting back, he found her +eyes fixed upon him, pools of inscrutable night in the shadow of her hat. +</p> + +<p> +“You aren’t afraid, Dorothy?” +</p> + +<p> +She answered quietly: “I am with you, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +Beneath the robe their hands met... +</p> + +<p> +Exalted, excited, he turned and looked back. A hundred yards to the rear four +unwinking eyes trailed them, like some modern Nemesis in monstrous guise. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX</h2> + +<h3>I——THE UXBRIDGE ROAD</h3> + +<p> +At a steady gait, now and again checked in deference to the street traffic, +Brentwick’s motor-car rolled, with resonant humming of the engine, down the +Cromwell Road, swerved into Warwick Road and swung northward through Kensington +to Shepherd’s Bush. Behind it Calendar’s car clung as if towed by an invisible +cable, never gaining, never losing, mutely testifying to the adventurer’s +unrelenting, grim determination to leave them no instant’s freedom from +surveillance, to keep for ever at their shoulders, watching his chance, biding +his time with sinister patience until the moment when, wearied, their vigilance +should relax.... +</p> + +<p> +To some extent he reckoned without his motor-car. As long as they traveled +within the metropolitan limits, constrained to observe a decorous pace in view +of the prejudices of the County Council, it was a matter of no difficulty +whatever to maintain his distance. But once they had won through Shepherd’s +Bush and, paced by huge doubledeck trolley trams, were flying through +Hammersmith on the Uxbridge Road; once they had run through Acton, and knew +beyond dispute that now they were without the city boundaries, then the +complexion of the business was suddenly changed. +</p> + +<p> +Not too soon for honest sport; Calendar was to have (Kirkwood would have said +in lurid American idiom) a run for his money. The scattered lights of Southall +were winking out behind them before Brentwick chose to give the word to the +mechanician. +</p> + +<p> +Quietly the latter threw in the clutch for the third speed—and the fourth. The +car leaped forward like a startled race-horse. The motor lilted merrily into +its deep-throated song of the open road, its contented, silken humming passing +into a sonorous and sustained purr. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood and the girl were first jarred violently forward, then thrown +together. She caught his arm to steady herself; it seemed the most natural +thing imaginable that he should take her hand and pass it beneath his arm, +holding her so, his fingers closed above her own. Before they had recovered, or +had time to catch their breath, a mile of Middlesex had dropped to the rear. +</p> + +<p> +Not quite so far had they distanced Calendar’s trailing Nemesis of the four +glaring eyes; the pursuers put forth a gallant effort to hold their place. At +intervals during the first few minutes a heavy roaring and crashing could be +heard behind them; gradually it subsided, dying on the wings of the free +rushing wind that buffeted their faces as mile after mile was reeled off and +the wide, darkling English countryside opened out before them, sweet and +wonderful. +</p> + +<p> +Once Kirkwood looked back; in the winking of an eye he saw four faded disks of +light, pallid with despair, top a distant rise and glide down into darkness. +When he turned, Dorothy was interrogating him with eyes whose melting, shadowed +loveliness, revealed to him in the light of the far, still stars, seemed to +incite him to that madness which he had bade himself resist with all his +strength. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, as if to say: They can not catch us. +</p> + +<p> +His hour was not yet; time enough to think of love and marriage (as if he were +capable of consecutive thought on any other subject!)—time enough to think of +them when he had gone back to his place, or rather when he should have found +it, in the ranks of bread-winners, and so have proved his right to mortal +happiness; time enough then to lay whatever he might have to offer at her feet. +Now he could conceive of no baser treachery to his soul’s-desire than to +advantage himself of her gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +Resolutely he turned his face forward, striving with all his will and might to +forget the temptation of her lips, weary as they were and petulant with +waiting; and so sat rigid in his time of trial, clinging with what strength he +could to the standards of his honor, and trying to lose his dream in dreaming +of the bitter struggle that seemed likely to be his future portion. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps she guessed a little of the fortunes of the battle that was being waged +within him. Perhaps not. Whatever the trend of her thoughts, she did not draw +away from him.... Perhaps the breath of night, fresh and clean and fragrant +with the odor of the fields and hedges, sweeping into her face with velvety +caress, rendered her drowsy. Presently the silken lashes drooped, fluttering +upon her cheeks, the tired and happy smile hovered about her lips.... +</p> + +<p> +In something less than half an hour of this wild driving, Kirkwood roused out +of his reverie sufficiently to become sensible that the speed was slackening. +Incoherent snatches of sentences, fragments of words and phrases spoken by +Brentwick and the mechanician, were flung back past his ears by the rushing +wind. Shielding his eyes he could see dimly that the mechanician was tinkering +(apparently) with the driving gear. Then, their pace continuing steadily to +abate, he heard Brentwick fling at the man a sharp-toned and querulously +impatient question: What was the trouble? His reply came in a single word, not +distinguishable. +</p> + +<p> +The girl sat up, opening her eyes, disengaging her arm. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood bent forward and touched Brentwick on the shoulder; the latter turned +to him a face lined with deep concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Trouble,” he announced superfluously. “I fear we have blundered.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” asked Dorothy in a troubled voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Petrol seems to be running low. Charles here” (he referred to the mechanician) +“says the tank must be leaking. We’ll go on as best we can and try to find an +inn. Fortunately, most of the inns nowadays keep supplies of petrol for just +such emergencies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are we—? Do you think—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no; not a bit of danger of that,” returned Brentwick hastily. “They’ll not +catch up with us this night. That is a very inferior car they have,—so Charles +says, at least; nothing to compare with this. If I’m not in error, there’s the +Crown and Mitre just ahead; we’ll make it, fill our tanks, and be off again +before they can make up half their loss.” +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy looked anxiously to Kirkwood, her lips forming an unuttered query: What +did he think? +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t worry; we’ll have no trouble,” he assured her stoutly; “the chauffeur +knows, undoubtedly.” +</p> + +<p> +None the less he was moved to stand up in the tonneau, conscious of the +presence of the traveling bag, snug between his feet, as well as of the weight +of Calendar’s revolver in his pocket, while he stared back along the road. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to be seen of their persecutors. +</p> + +<p> +The car continued to crawl. Five minutes dragged out tediously. Gradually they, +drew abreast a tavern standing back a distance from the road, embowered in a +grove of trees between whose ancient boles the tap-room windows shone +enticingly, aglow with comfortable light. A creaking sign-board, much worn by +weather and age, swinging from a roadside post, confirmed the accuracy of +Brentwick’s surmise, announcing that here stood the Crown and Mitre, house of +entertainment for man and beast. +</p> + +<p> +Sluggishly the car rolled up before it and came to a dead and silent halt. +Charles, the mechanician, jumping out, ran hastily up the path towards the inn. +In the car Brentwick turned again, his eyes curiously bright in the starlight, +his forehead quaintly furrowed, his voice apologetic. +</p> + +<p> +“It may take a few minutes,” he said undecidedly, plainly endeavoring to cover +up his own dark doubts. “My dear,” to the girl, “if I have brought trouble upon +you in this wise, I shall never earn my own forgiveness.” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood stood up again, watchful, attentive to the sounds of night; but the +voice of the pursuing motor-car was not of their company. “I hear nothing,” he +announced. +</p> + +<p> +“You will forgive me,—won’t you, my dear?—for causing you these few moments of +needless anxiety?” pleaded the old gentleman, his tone tremulous. +</p> + +<p> +“As if you could be blamed!” protested the girl. “You mustn’t think of it that +way. Fancy, what should we have done without you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I have been very clumsy,” sighed Brentwick, “clumsy and impulsive +... Kirkwood, do you hear anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” suggested Brentwick a little later, “perhaps we had better alight +and go up to the inn. It would be more cosy there, especially if the petrol +proves hard to obtain, and we have long to wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like that,” assented the girl decidedly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood nodded his approval, opened the door and jumped out to assist her; +then picked up the bag and followed the pair,—Brentwick leading the way with +Dorothy on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +At the doorway of the Crown and Mitre, Charles met them evidently seriously +disturbed. “No petrol to be had here, sir,” he announced reluctantly; “but the +landlord will send to the next inn, a mile up the road, for some. You will have +to be patient, I’m afraid, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Get some one to help you push the car in from the road,” ordered +Brentwick; “we will be waiting in one of the private parlors.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; thank you, sir.” The mechanician touched the visor of his cap and +hurried off. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Kirkwood.” Gently Brentwick drew the girl in with him. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood lingered momentarily on the doorstep, to listen acutely. But the wind +was blowing into that quarter whence they had come, and he could hear naught +save the soughing in the trees, together with an occasional burst of rude +rustic laughter from the tap-room. Lifting his shoulders in dumb dismay, and +endeavoring to compose his features, he entered the tavern. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap20"></a>II——THE CROWN AND MITRE</h3> + +<p> +A rosy-cheeked and beaming landlady met him in the corridor and, all bows and +smiles, ushered him into a private parlor reserved for the party, immediately +bustling off in a desperate flurry, to secure refreshments desired by +Brentwick. +</p> + +<p> +The girl had seated herself on one end of an extremely comfortless lounge and +was making a palpable effort to seem at ease. Brentwick stood at one of the +windows, shoulders rounded and head bent, hands clasped behind his back as he +peered out into the night. Kirkwood dropped the traveling bag beneath a chair +the farthest removed from the doorway, and took to pacing the floor. +</p> + +<p> +In a corner of the room a tall grandfather’s clock ticked off ten interminable +minutes. For some reason unconscionably delaying, the landlady did not +reappear. Brentwick, abruptly turning from the window, remarked the fact +querulously, then drew a chair up to a marble-topped table in the middle of the +floor. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear,” he requested the girl, “will you oblige me by sitting over here? And +Philip, bring up a chair, if you will. We must not permit ourselves to worry, +and I have something here which may, perhaps, engage your interest for a +while.” +</p> + +<p> +To humor him and alleviate his evident distress of mind, they acceded. Kirkwood +found himself seated opposite Dorothy, Brentwick between them. After some +hesitation, made the more notable by an air of uneasiness which sat oddly on +his shoulders, whose composure and confident mien had theretofore been so +complete and so reassuring, the elder gentleman fumbled in an inner coat-pocket +and brought to light a small black leather wallet. He seemed to be on the point +of opening it when hurried footfalls sounded in the hallway. Brentwick placed +the wallet, still with its secret intact, on the table before him, as Charles +burst unceremoniously in, leaving the door wide open. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Brentwick, sir!” he cried gustily. “That other car—” +</p> + +<p> +With a smothered ejaculation Kirkwood leaped to his feet, tugging at the weapon +in his pocket. In another instant he had the revolver exposed. The girl’s cry +of alarm, interrupting the machinist, fixed Brentwick’s attention on the young +man. He, too, stood up, reaching over very quickly, to clamp strong supple +fingers round Kirkwood’s wrist, while with the other hand he laid hold of the +revolver and by a single twist wrenched it away. +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood turned upon him in fury. “So!” he cried, shaking with passion. “This +is what your hospitality meant! You’re going to—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear young friend,” interrupted Brentwick with a flash of impatience, +“remember that if I had designed to betray you, I could have asked no better +opportunity than when you were my guest under my own roof.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—hang it all, Brentwick!” expostulated Kirkwood, ashamed and contrite, but +worked upon by desperate apprehension; “I didn’t mean that, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you have bullets flying when she is near?” demanded Brentwick +scathingly. Hastily he slipped the revolver upon a little shelf beneath the +table-top. “Sir!” he informed Kirkwood with some heat, “I love you as my own +son, but you’re a young fool!... as I have been, in my time ... and as I would +to Heaven I might be again! Be advised, Philip,—be calm. Can’t you see it’s the +only way to save your treasure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hang the jewels!” retorted Kirkwood warmly. “What—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, who said anything about the jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +As Brentwick spoke, Calendar’s corpulent figure filled the doorway; Stryker’s +weather-worn features loomed over his shoulder, distorted in a cheerful leer. +</p> + +<p> +“As to the jewels,” announced the fat adventurer, “I’ve got a word to say, if +you put it to me that way.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused on the threshold, partly for dramatic effect, partly for his own +satisfaction, his quick eyes darting from face to face of the four people whom +he had caught so unexpectedly. A shade of complacency colored his expression, +and he smiled evilly beneath the coarse short thatch of his gray mustache. In +his hand a revolver appeared, poised for immediate use if there were need. +</p> + +<p> +There was none. Brentwick, at his primal appearance, had dropped a peremptory +hand on Kirkwood’s shoulder, forcing the young man back to his seat; at the +same time he resumed his own. The girl had not stirred from hers since the +first alarm; she sat as if transfixed with terror, leaning forward with her +elbows on the table, her hands tightly clasped, her face, a little blanched, +turned to the door. But her scarlet lips were set and firm with inflexible +purpose, and her brown eyes met Calendar’s with a look level and unflinching. +Beyond this she gave no sign of recognition. +</p> + +<p> +Nearest of the four to the adventurers was Charles, the mechanician, paused in +affrighted astonishment at sight of the revolver. Calendar, choosing to advance +suddenly, poked the muzzle of the weapon jocularly in the man’s ribs. “Beat it, +Four-eyes!” he snapped. “This is your cue to duck! Get out of my way.” +</p> + +<p> +The mechanician jumped as if shot, then hastily, retreated to the table, his +sallow features working beneath the goggle-mask which had excited the fat +adventurer’s scorn. +</p> + +<p> +“Come right in, Cap’n,” Calendar threw over one shoulder; “come in, shut the +door and lock it. Let’s all be sociable, and have a nice quiet time.” vStryker +obeyed, with a derisive grimace for Kirkwood. +</p> + +<p> +Calendar, advancing jauntily to a point within a yard of the table, stopped, +smiling affably down upon his prospective victims, and airily twirling his +revolver. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Good</i> evening, all!” he saluted them blandly. “Dorothy, my child,” with +assumed concern, “you’re looking a trifle upset; I’m afraid you’ve been keeping +late hours. Little girls must be careful, you know, or they lose the bloom of +roses in their cheeks.... Mr. Kirkwood, it’s a pleasure to meet you again! +Permit me to paraphrase your most sound advice, and remind you that +pistol-shots are apt to attract undesirable attention. It wouldn’t be wise for +<i>you</i> to bring the police about our ears. I believe that in substance such +was your sapient counsel to me in the cabin of the <i>Alethea</i>; was it +not?... And you, sir!”—fixing Brentwick with a cold unfriendly eye. “You +animated fossil, what d’you mean by telling me to go to the devil?... But let +that pass; I hold no grudge. What might your name be?” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus10"></a> +<img src="images/img10.jpg" width="487" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“<i>Good</i> evening, all!” he saluted them blandly.</p> +</div> + +<p> +“It might be Brentwick,” said that gentleman placidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Brentwick, eh? Well, I like a man of spirit. But permit me to advise you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Gladly,” nodded Brentwick. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?... Don’t come a second time between father and daughter; another man might +not be as patient as I, Mister Brentwick. There’s a law in the land, if you +don’t happen to know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I congratulate you on your success in evading it,” observed Brentwick, +undisturbed. “And it was considerate of you not to employ it in this instance.” +Then, with a sharp change of tone, “Come, sir!” he demanded. “You have +unwarrantably intruded in this room, which I have engaged for my private use. +Get through with your business and be off with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“All in my good time, my antediluvian friend. When I’ve wound up my business +here I’ll go—not before. But, just to oblige you, we’ll get down to it.... +Kirkwood, you have a revolver of mine. Be good enough to return it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have it here,—under the table,” interrupted Brentwick suavely. “Shall I hand +it to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the muzzle, if you please. Be very careful; this one’s loaded, too—apt to +explode any minute.” +</p> + +<p> +To Kirkwood’s intense disgust Brentwick quietly slipped one hand beneath the +table and, placing the revolver on its top, delicately with his finger-tips +shoved it toward the farther edge. With a grunt of approval, Calendar swept the +weapon up and into his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Any more ordnance?” he inquired briskly, eyes moving alertly from face to +face. “No matter; you wouldn’t dare use ’em anyway. And I’m about done. +Dorothy, my dear, it’s high time you returned to your father’s protection. +Where’s that gladstone bag?” +</p> + +<p> +“In my traveling bag,” the girl told him in a toneless voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you may bring it along. You may also say good night to the kind +gentlemen.” +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy did not move; her pallor grew more intense and Kirkwood saw her +knuckles tighten beneath the gloves. Otherwise her mouth seemed to grow more +straight and hard. +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy!” cried the adventurer with a touch of displeasure. “You heard me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard you,” she replied a little wearily, more than a little contemptuously. +“Don’t mind him, please, Mr. Kirkwood!”—with an appealing gesture, as Kirkwood, +unable to contain himself, moved restlessly in his chair, threatening to rise. +“Don’t say anything. I have no intention whatever of going with this man.” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar’s features twitched nervously; he chewed a corner of his mustache, +fixing the girl with a black stare. “I presume,” he remarked after a moment, +with slow deliberation, “you’re aware that, as your father, I am in a position +to compel you to accompany me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not go with you,” iterated Dorothy in a level tone. “You may threaten +me, but—I shall not go. Mr. Brentwick and Mr. Kirkwood are taking me +to—friends, who will give me a home until I can find a way to take care of +myself. That is all I have to say to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo, my dear!” cried Brentwick encouragingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind your business, sir!” thundered Calendar, his face darkening. Then, to +Dorothy, “You understand, I trust, what this means?” he demanded. “I offer you +a home—and a good one. Refuse, and you work for your living, my girl! You’ve +forfeited your legacy—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, I know,” she told him in cold disdain. “I am content. Won’t you be +kind enough to leave me alone?” +</p> + +<p> +For a breath, Calendar glowered over her; then, “I presume,” he observed, “that +all these heroics are inspired by that whipper-snapper, Kirkwood. Do you know +that he hasn’t a brass farthing to bless himself with?” +</p> + +<p> +“What has that—?” cried the girl indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it has everything to do with me, my child. As your doting parent, I can’t +consent to your marrying nothing-a-year.... For I surmise you intend to marry +this Mr. Kirkwood, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +There followed a little interval of silence, while the warm blood flamed in the +girl’s face and the red lips trembled as she faced her tormentor. Then, with a +quaver that escaped her control, “If Mr. Kirkwood asks me, I shall,” she stated +very simply. +</p> + +<p> +“That,” interposed Kirkwood, “is completely understood.” His gaze sought her +eyes, but she looked away. +</p> + +<p> +“You forget that I am your father,” sneered Calendar; “and that you are a +minor. I can refuse my consent.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you won’t,” Kirkwood told him with assurance. +</p> + +<p> +The adventurer stared. “No,” he agreed, after slight hesitation; “no, I shan’t +interfere. Take her, my boy, if you want her—and a father’s blessing into the +bargain. The Lord knows I’ve troubles enough; a parent’s lot is not what it’s +cracked up to be.” He paused, leering, ironic. “But,”—deliberately, “there’s +still this other matter of the gladstone bag. I don’t mind abandoning my +parental authority, when my child’s happiness is concerned, but as for my +property—” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not your property,” interrupted the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“It was your mother’s, dear child. It’s now mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dispute that assertion,” Kirkwood put in. +</p> + +<p> +“You may dispute it till the cows come home, my boy: the fact will remain that +I intend to take my property with me when I leave this room, whether you like +it or not. Now are you disposed to continue the argument, or may I count on +your being sensible?” +</p> + +<p> +“You may put away your revolver, if that’s what you mean,” said Kirkwood. “We +certainly shan’t oppose you with violence, but I warn you that Scotland Yard—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that be blowed!” the adventurer snorted in disgust. “I can sail circles +round any tec. that ever blew out of Scotland Yard! Give me an hour’s start, +and you’re free to do all the funny business you’ve a mind to, with—Scotland +Yard!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you admit,” queried Brentwick civilly, “that you’ve no legal title to the +jewels in dispute?” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, my friend,” chuckled Calendar, “when you catch me admitting +anything, you write it down in your little book and tell the bobby on the +corner. Just at present I’ve got other business than to stand round admitting +anything about anything.... Cap’n, let’s have that bag of my dutiful +daughter’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere you are.” Stryker spoke for the first time since entering the room, +taking the valise from beneath the chair and depositing it on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we shan’t take anything that doesn’t belong to us,” laughed Calendar, +fumbling with the catch; “not even so small a matter as my own child’s +traveling bag. A small—heavy—gladstone bag,” he grunted, opening the valise and +plunging in one greedy hand, “will—just—about—do for mine!” With which he +produced the article mentioned. “This for the discard, Cap’n,” he laughed +contentedly, pushing the girl’s valise aside; and, rumbling with stentorian +mirth, stood beaming benignantly over the assembled company. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” he exclaimed, “this moment is worth all it cost me! My children, I +forgive you freely. Mr. Kirkwood, I felicitate you cordially on having secured +a most expensive wife. Really—d’you know?—I feel as if I ought to do a little +something for you both.” Gurgling with delight he smote his fat palms together. +“I just tell you what,” he resumed, “no one yet ever called Georgie Calendar a +tight-wad. I just believe I’m going to make you kids a handsome wedding +present.... The good Lord knows there’s enough of this for a fellow to be a +little generous and never miss it!” +</p> + +<p> +The thick mottled fingers tore nervously at the catch; eventually he got the +bag open. Those about the table bent forward, all quickened by the prospect of +for the first time beholding the treasure over which they had fought, for which +they had suffered, so long.... +</p> + +<p> +A heady and luscious fragrance pervaded the atmosphere, exhaling from the open +mouth of the bag. A silence, indefinitely sustained, impressed itself upon the +little audience,—a breathless pause ended eventually by a sharp snap of +Calendar’s teeth. “<i>Mmm</i>!” grunted the adventurer in bewilderment. He +began to pant. +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly his heavy hands delved into the contents of the bag, like the paws of +a terrier digging in earth. To Kirkwood the air seemed temporarily thick with +flying objects. Beneath his astonished eyes a towel fell upon the table—a +crumpled, soiled towel, bearing on its dingy hem the inscription in indelible +ink: “<i>Hôtel du Commerce, Anvers</i>.” A tooth-mug of substantial earthenware +dropped to the floor with a crash. A slimy soap-dish of the same manufacture +slid across the table and into Brentwick’s lap. A battered alarm clock with +never a tick left in its abused carcass rang vacuously as it fell by the open +bag.... The remainder was—oranges: a dozen or more small, round, golden globes +of ripe fruit, perhaps a shade overripe, therefore the more aromatic. +</p> + +<p> +The adventurer ripped out an oath. “Mulready, by the living God!” he raged in +fury. “Done up, I swear! Done by that infernal sneak—me, blind as a bat!” +</p> + +<p> +He fell suddenly silent, the blood congesting in his face; as suddenly broke +forth again, haranguing the company. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s why he went out and bought those damned oranges, is it? Think of it—me +sitting in the hotel in Antwerp and him lugging in oranges by the bagful +because he was fond of fruit! When did he do it? How do I know? If I knew, +would I be here and him the devil knows where, this minute? When my back was +turned, of course, the damned snake! That’s why he was so hot about picking a +fight on the boat, hey? Wanted to get thrown off and take to the woods—leaving +me with <i>this</i>! And that’s why he felt so awful done up he wouldn’t take a +hand at hunting you two down, hey? Well—by—the—Eternal! I’ll camp on his trail +for the rest of his natural-born days! I’ll have his eye-teeth for this, I’ll—” +</p> + +<p> +He swayed, gibbering with rage, his countenance frightfully contorted, his fat +hands shaking as he struggled for expression. +</p> + +<p> +And then, while yet their own astonishment held Dorothy, Kirkwood, Brentwick +and Stryker speechless, Charles, the mechanician, moved suddenly upon the +adventurer. +</p> + +<p> +There followed two metallic clicks. Calendar’s ravings were abrupted as if his +tongue had been paralyzed. He fell back a pace, flabby jowls pale and shaking, +ponderous jaw dropping on his breast, mouth wide and eyes crazed as he shook +violently before him his thick fleshy wrists—securely handcuffed. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously the mechanician whirled about, bounded eagerly across the floor, +and caught Stryker at the door, his dexterous fingers twisting in the captain’s +collar as he jerked him back and tripped him. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kirkwood!” he cried. “Here, please—one moment. Take this man’s gun, from +him, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirkwood sprang to his assistance, and without encountering much trouble, +succeeded in wresting a Webley from Stryker’s limp, flaccid fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Roughly the mechanician shook the man, dragging him to his feet. “Now,” he +ordered sternly, “you march to that corner, stick your nose in it, and be good! +You can’t get away if you try. I’ve got other men outside, waiting for you to +come out. Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +Trembling like a whipped cur, Stryker meekly obeyed his instructions to the +letter. +</p> + +<p> +The mechanician, with a contemptuous laugh leaving him, strode back to +Calendar, meanwhile whipping off his goggles; and clapped a hearty hand upon +the adventurer’s quaking shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” he cried. “And are you still sailing circles round the men from +Scotland Yard, Simmons, or Bellows, or Sanderson, or Calendar, or Crumbstone, +or whatever name you prefer to sail under?” +</p> + +<p> +Calendar glared at him aghast; then heaved a profound sigh, shrugged his fat +shoulders, and bent his head in thought. An instant later he looked up. “You +can’t do it,” he informed the detective vehemently; “you haven’t got a shred of +evidence against me! What’s there? A pile of oranges and a peck of trash! What +of it?... Besides,” he threatened, “if you pinch me, you’ll have to take the +girl in, too. I swear that whatever stealing was done, she did it. I’ll not be +trapped this way by her and let her off without a squeal. Take me—take her; +d’you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” put in the clear, bland accents of Brentwick, “we can consider that +matter settled. I have here, my man,”—nodding to the adventurer as he took up +the black leather wallet,—“I have here a little matter which may clear up any +lingering doubts as to your standing, which you may be disposed at present to +entertain.” +</p> + +<p> +He extracted a slip of cardboard and, at arm’s length, laid it on the +table-edge beneath the adventurer’s eyes. The latter, bewildered, bent over it +for a moment, breathing heavily; then straightened back, shook himself, laughed +shortly with a mirthless note, and faced the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s come with you now, I guess?” he suggested very quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“The Bannister warrant is still out for you,” returned the man. “That’ll be +enough to hold you on till extradition papers arrive from the States.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll waive those; and I won’t give you any trouble, either.... I reckon,” +mused the adventurer, jingling his manacles thoughtfully, “I’m a back-number, +anyway. When a half-grown girl, a half-baked boy, a flub like Mulready—damn his +eyes!—and a club-footed snipe from Scotland Yard can put it all over me this +way,... why, I guess it’s up to me to go home and retire to my country-place up +the Hudson.” He sighed wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“Yep; time to cut it out. But I would like to be free long enough to get in one +good lick at that mutt, Mulready. My friend, you get your hands on him, and +I’ll squeal on him till I’m blue in the face. That’s a promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have the chance before long,” replied the detective. “We received a +telegram from the Amsterdam police late this afternoon, saying they’d picked up +Mr. Mulready with a woman named Hallam, and were holding them on suspicion. It +seems,”—turning to Brentwick,—“they were opening negotiations for the sale of a +lot of stones, and seemed in such a precious hurry that the diamond merchant’s +suspicions were roused. We’re sending over for them, Miss Calendar, so you can +make your mind easy about your jewels; you’ll have them back in a few days.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said the girl with an effort. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” the adventurer delivered his peroration, “I certainly am blame’ glad to +hear it. ’Twouldn’t ’ve been a square deal, any other way.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, looking his erstwhile dupes over with a melancholy eye; then, with +an uncertain nod comprehending the girl, Kirkwood and Brentwick, “So long!” he +said thickly; and turned, with the detective’s hand under his arm and, +accompanied by the thoroughly cowed Stryker, waddled out of the room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap21"></a>III——THE JOURNEY’S END</h3> + +<p> +Kirkwood, following the exodus, closed the door with elaborate care and slowly, +deep in thought, returned to the table. +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy seemed not to have moved, save to place her elbows on the marble slab, +and rest her cheeks between hands that remained clenched, as they had been in +the greatest stress of her emotion. The color had returned to her face, with a +slightly enhanced depth of hue to the credit of her excitement. Her cheeks were +hot, her eyes starlike beneath the woven, massy sunlight of her hair. +Temporarily unconscious of her surroundings she stared steadfastly before her, +thoughts astray in the irridescent glamour of the dreams that were to come.... +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick had slipped down in his chair, resting his silvered head upon its +back, and was smiling serenely up at the low yellow ceiling. Before him on the +table his long white fingers were drumming an inaudible tune. Presently +rousing, he caught Kirkwood’s eye and smiled sheepishly, like a child caught in +innocent mischief. +</p> + +<p> +The younger man grinned broadly. “And you were responsible for all that!” he +commented, infinitely amused. +</p> + +<p> +Brentwick nodded, twinkling self-satisfaction. “I contrived it all,” he said; +“neat, I call it, too.” His old eyes brightened with reminiscent enjoyment. +“Inspiration!” he crowed softly. “Inspiration, pure and simple. I’d been +worrying my wits for fully five minutes before Wotton settled the matter by +telling me about the captain’s hiring of the motor-car. Then, in a flash, I had +it.... I talked with Charles by telephone,—his name is really Charles, by, the +bye,—overcame his conscientious scruples about playing his fish when they were +already all but landed, and settled the artistic details.” +</p> + +<p> +He chuckled delightedly. “It’s the instinct,” he declared emphatically, “the +instinct for adventure. I knew it was in me, latent somewhere, but never till +this day did it get the opportunity to assert itself. A born adventurer—that’s +what I am!... You see, it was essential that they should believe we were +frightened and running from them; that way, they would be sure to run after us. +Why, we might have baited a dozen traps and failed to lure them into my house, +after that stout scoundrel knew you’d had the chance to tell me the whole +yarn... Odd!” +</p> + +<p> +“Weren’t you taking chances, you and Charles?” asked Kirkwood curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Precious few. There was another motor from Scotland Yard trailing Captain +Stryker’s. If they had run past, or turned aside, they would have been +overhauled in short order.” +</p> + +<p> +He relapsed into his whimsical reverie; the wistful look returned to his eyes, +replacing the glow of triumph and pleasure. And he sighed a little regretfully. +</p> + +<p> +“What I don’t understand,” contended Kirkwood, “is how you convinced Calendar +that he couldn’t get revenge by pressing his charge against Miss +Calendar—Dorothy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-h?” Mr. Brentwick elevated his fine white eyebrows and sat up briskly. “My +dear boy, that was the most delectable dish on the entire menu. I have been +reserving it, I don’t mind owning, that I might better enjoy the full relish of +it.... I may answer you best, perhaps, by asking you to scan what I offered to +the fat scoundrel’s respectful consideration, my dear sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He leveled a forefinger at the card. +</p> + +<p> +At first glance it conveyed nothing to the younger man’s benighted +intelligence. He puzzled over it, twisting his brows out of alignment. An +ordinary oblong slip of thin white cardboard, it was engraved in fine script as +follows: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MR. GEORGE BURGOYNE CALENDAR +</p> + +<p> +81, ASPEN VILLAS, S. W. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” exclaimed Kirkwood at length, standing up, his face bright with +understanding. “<i>You</i>—!” +</p> + +<p> +“I,” laconically assented the elder man. +</p> + +<p> +Impulsively Kirkwood leaned across the table. “Dorothy,” he said tenderly; and +when the girl’s happy eyes met his, quietly drew her attention to the card. +</p> + +<p> +Then he rose hastily, and went over to stand by the window, staring mistily +into the blank face of night beyond its unseen panes. +</p> + +<p> +Behind him there was a confusion of little noises; the sound of a chair pushed +hurriedly aside, a rustle of skirts, a happy sob or two, low voices +intermingling; sighs.... Out of it finally came the father’s accents. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there, my dear! My dearest dear!” protested the old gentleman. +“Positively I don’t deserve a tithe of this. I—” The young old voice quavered +and broke, in a happy laugh.... “You must understand,” he continued more +soberly, “that no consideration of any sort is due me. When we married, I was +too old for your mother, child; we both knew it, both believed it would never +matter. But it did. By her wish, I went back to America; we were to see what +separation would do to heal the wounds dissension had caused. It was a very +foolish experiment. Your mother died before I could return....” +</p> + +<p> +There fell a silence, again broken by the father. “After that I was in no haste +to return. But some years ago, I came to London to live. I communicated with +the old colonel, asking permission to see you. It was refused in a manner which +precluded the subject being reopened by me: I was informed that if I persisted +in attempting to see you, you would be disinherited.... He was very angry with +me—justly, I admit.... One must grow old before one can see how unforgivably +one was wrong in youth.... So I settled down to a quiet old age, determined not +to disturb you in your happiness.... Ah—Kirkwood!” +</p> + +<p> +The old gentleman was standing, his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, when +Kirkwood turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, Philip; I’m explaining to Dorothy, but you should hear.... The +evening I called on you, dear boy, at the Pless, returning home I received a +message from my solicitors, whom I had instructed to keep an eye on Dorothy’s +welfare. They informed me that she had disappeared. Naturally I canceled my +plans to go to Munich, and stayed, employing detectives. One of the first +things they discovered was that Dorothy had run off with an elderly person +calling himself George Burgoyne Calendar—the name I had discarded when I found +that to acknowledge me would imperil my daughter’s fortune.... The +investigations went deeper; Charles—let us continue to call him—had been to see +me only this afternoon, to inform me of the plot they had discovered. This +Hallam woman and her son—it seems that they were legitimately in the line of +inheritance, Dorothy out of the way. But the woman was—ah—a bad lot. Somehow +she got into communication with this fat rogue and together they plotted it +out. Charles doesn’t believe that the Hallam woman expected to enjoy the +Burgoyne estates for very many days. Her plan was to step in when Dorothy +stepped out, gather up what she could, realize on it, and decamp. That is why +there was so much excitement about the jewels: naturally the most valuable item +on her list, the most easy to convert into cash.... The man Mulready we do not +place; he seems to have been a shady character the fat rogue picked up +somewhere. The latter’s ordinary line of business was diamond smuggling, though +he would condescend to almost anything in order to turn a dishonest penny.... +</p> + +<p> +“That seems to exhaust the subject. But one word more.... Dorothy, I am old +enough and have suffered enough to know the wisdom of seizing one’s happiness +when one may. My dear, a little while ago, you did a very brave deed. Under +fire you said a most courageous, womanly, creditable thing. And Philip’s +rejoinder was only second in nobility to yours.... I do hope to goodness that +you two blessed youngsters won’t let any addlepated scruples stand between +yourselves and—the prize of Romance, your inalienable inheritance!” +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly Brentwick, who was no longer Brentwick, but the actual Calendar, +released the girl from his embrace and hopped nimbly toward the door. “Really, +I must see about that petrol!” he cried. “While it’s perfectly true that +Charles lied about it’s running out, we must be getting on. I’ll call you when +we’re ready to start.” +</p> + +<p> +And the door crashed to behind him.... +</p> + +<p> +Between them was the table. Beyond it the girl stood with head erect, dim tears +glimmering on the lashes of those eyes with which she met Philip’s steady gaze +so fearlessly. +</p> + +<p> +Singing about them, the silence deepened. Fascinated, though his heart was +faint with longing, Kirkwood faltered on the threshold of his kingdom. +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy!... You did mean it, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed, a little, low, sobbing laugh that had its source deep in the +hidden sanctuary of her heart of a child. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant it, my dearest.... If you’ll have a girl so bold and forward, who +can’t wait till she’s asked but throws herself into the arms of the man she +loves—Philip, I meant it, every word!...” +</p> + +<p> +And as he went to her swiftly, round the table, she turned to meet him, arms +uplifted, her scarlet lips a-tremble, the brown and bewitching lashes drooping +over her wondrously lighted eyes.... +</p> + +<p> +After a time Philip Kirkwood laughed aloud. +</p> + +<p> +And there was that quality in the ring of his laughter that caused the Shade of +Care, which had for the past ten minutes been uneasily luffing and filling in +the offing and, on the whole, steadily diminishing and becoming more pale and +wan and emaciated and indistinct—there was that in the laughter of Philip +Kirkwood, I say, which caused the Shade of Care to utter a hollow croak of +despair as, incontinently, it vanished out of his life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 9779 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + diff --git a/9779-h/images/cover.jpg b/9779-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ccfe68 --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img01.jpg b/9779-h/images/img01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3db05a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img01.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img02.jpg b/9779-h/images/img02.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffe8c9b --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img02.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img03.jpg b/9779-h/images/img03.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3b76c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img03.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img04.jpg b/9779-h/images/img04.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d5305f --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img04.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img05.jpg b/9779-h/images/img05.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..69c7b4d --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img05.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img06.jpg b/9779-h/images/img06.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf66656 --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img06.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img07.jpg b/9779-h/images/img07.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f02d62b --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img07.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img08.jpg b/9779-h/images/img08.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e86ffd --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img08.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img09.jpg b/9779-h/images/img09.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ccea69d --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img09.jpg diff --git a/9779-h/images/img10.jpg b/9779-h/images/img10.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdac991 --- /dev/null +++ b/9779-h/images/img10.jpg |
