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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Black Bag, by Louis Joseph Vance
+#3 in our series by Louis Joseph Vance
+
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+
+Title: The Black Bag
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9779]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK BAG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Leonard Johnson
+and PG Distributed Proofreading.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLACK BAG
+
+
+By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
+
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOMAS FOGARTY
+
+
+1908
+
+
+
+
+TO MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN
+
+   II. "AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM"
+
+  III. CALENDAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+   IV. 9 FROGNALL STREET, W. C.
+
+    V. THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER
+
+   VI. "BELOW BRIDGE"
+
+  VII. DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN--RESUMED
+
+ VIII. MADAME L'INTRIGANTE
+
+   IX. AGAIN "BELOW BRIDGE"; AND BEYOND
+
+    X. DESPERATE MEASURES
+
+   XI. OFF THE NORE
+
+  XII. PICARESQUE PASSAGES
+
+ XIII. A PRIMER OF PROGRESSIVE CRIME
+
+  XIV. STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS
+
+   XV. REFUGEES
+
+  XVI. TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON
+
+ XVII. ROGUES AND VAGABONDS
+
+XVIII. ADVENTURERS' LUCK
+
+  XIX. i--THE UXBRIDGE ROAD
+
+      ii--THE CROWN AND MITRE
+
+     iii--THE JOURNEY'S END
+
+
+THE BLACK BAG
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN
+
+Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the
+apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, _Artist-peintre_, 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"True! But you shall: I am the Shade of Care--"
+
+"Dull Care!" murmured Kirkwood, bewildered and dismayed; for the visitation
+had come upon him with little presage and no invitation whatever.
+
+"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--"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+There came a rapping at the door.
+
+Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say "Come
+in!" pleasantly.
+
+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.
+
+"Mister Kirkwood?"
+
+Kirkwood nodded.
+
+"Gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Brentwick!" Kirkwood almost shouted, jumping forward to seize his
+visitor's hand.
+
+"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!"
+
+"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!"
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"Why?" he persisted, as the younger man hesitated. "I am here to find out.
+To-night I leave for the Continent. In the meantime ..."
+
+"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."
+
+"You're going home--" A shadow clouded Brentwick's clear eyes.
+
+"To fight it out, shoulder to shoulder with my brethren in adversity."
+
+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!"
+
+"I was born in San Francisco," affirmed Kirkwood a bit sadly. "My father
+and mother were buried there ..."
+
+"And your fortune--?"
+
+"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."
+
+"You have heard from Mr. Vanderlip?"
+
+"Fifteen minutes ago." Kirkwood took a cable-form, still damp, from his
+pocket, and handed it to his guest. Unfolding it, the latter read:
+
+"_Kirkwood, Pless, London. Stay where you are no good coming back
+everything gone no insurance letter follows vanderlip_."
+
+"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
+_Minneapolis_, 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."
+
+In silence Brentwick returned the cable message. Then, with a thoughtful
+look, "You are sure this is wise?" he queried.
+
+"It's the only thing I can see."
+
+"But your partner says--"
+
+"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--"
+
+"Your genius!"
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"The painting can wait," reiterated Kirkwood. "I can work like other men."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Mr. Brentwick!" Kirkwood protested vehemently. "I've ample for my present
+needs," he added.
+
+"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?"
+
+"In your absence this afternoon your estimable butler, with commendable
+discretion, kept me without the doors," laughed the young man.
+
+"It's a comfortable home. You would not consent to share it with me
+until--?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"Please!" begged Kirkwood, with a little laugh of pleasure because of the
+other's insistence. "I only wish I could. Another day--"
+
+"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.
+
+"The opportunity to make a million in a year?" chuckled Kirkwood.
+
+"No. I envy you your Romance."
+
+"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."
+
+"There spoke Youth--blind, enviable Youth!... On the contrary, you are but
+turning the leaves of the first chapter of your Romance, Philip."
+
+"Romance is dead," contended the young man stubbornly.
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+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 ...
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Nearer at hand the Shade of Care nudged Kirkwood's elbow, whispering
+subtly. Romance was indeed dead; the world was cold and cruel.
+
+The gloom deepened.
+
+In the cant of modern metaphysics, the moment was psychological.
+
+There came a rapping at the door.
+
+Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say "Come
+in!" pleasantly.
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+Kirkwood nodded.
+
+"Gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+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.
+
+"'George B. Calendar,'" he read. "'George B. Calendar!' But I know no such
+person. Sure there's no mistake, young man?"
+
+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.
+
+"Very well. But before you show him up, ask this Mr. Calendar if he is
+quite sure he wants to see Philip Kirkwood."
+
+"Yessir."
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+There came a rapping at the door.
+
+Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say "Come
+in!" pleasantly.
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+Kirkwood nodded, with some effort recalling the name, so detached had been
+his thoughts since the disappearance of the page.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Calendar--?"
+
+"Are you--ah--busy, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"Are you, Mr. Calendar?" Kirkwood's smile robbed the retort of any flavor
+of incivility.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes?" Kirkwood looked the man over with more interest, less
+matter-of-course courtesy.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"So you knew I was an American, Mr. Calendar?" suggested Kirkwood.
+
+"'Saw your name on the register; we both hail from the same neck of the
+woods, you know."
+
+"I didn't know it, and--"
+
+"Yes; I'm from Frisco, too."
+
+"And I'm sorry."
+
+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, be
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"I hope not altogether," said Kirkwood politely.
+
+Mr. Calendar drew his own inferences from the response and mustered up a
+show of cheerfulness. "Then you're not completely wiped out?"
+
+"To the contrary, I was hoping you were less unhappy."
+
+"Oh! Then you are--?"
+
+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.'"
+
+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.
+
+"You wished to see me about something else, I'm sure?"
+
+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--"
+
+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."
+
+"Pardon _me_." Mr. Calendar's moon-like countenance darkened; he assumed a
+transparent dignity. "You misconstrue my motive, sir."
+
+"Then I'm sorry."
+
+"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.
+
+"It might," admitted Kirkwood, speculative.
+
+"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."
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"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."
+
+"That, of course, is the question."
+
+"Eh?" Calendar pulled up suddenly in a full-winged flight of enthusiasm.
+
+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 _quid
+pro quo_, this trifling service I'm to render in recognition of your
+benevolence, you may."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Thanks," he concluded pensively; "I reckon you're right. You won't do,
+after all. I've wasted your time. Mine, too."
+
+"Don't mention it."
+
+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 _was_
+looking for some one to serve me in a certain capacity--"
+
+"Certain or questionable?" propounded Kirkwood blandly, opening the door.
+
+Pointedly Mr. Calendar ignored the imputation. "Sorry I disturbed you.
+G'dafternoon, Mr. Kirkwood."
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Calendar." A smile twitched the corners of Kirkwood's
+too-wide mouth.
+
+Calendar stepped hastily out into the hall. As he strode--or rather,
+rolled--away, Kirkwood maliciously feathered a Parthian arrow.
+
+"By the way, Mr. Calendar--?"
+
+The sound of retreating footsteps was stilled and "Yes?" came from the
+gloom of the corridor.
+
+"Were you ever in San Francisco? Really and truly? Honest Injun, Mr.
+Calendar?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM"
+
+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. Paneras
+at half-after eleven, set about his packing and dismissed from his thoughts
+the incident created by the fat _chevalier d'industrie_; 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Fifteen minutes later the waiter departed rejoicing, his order complete.
+
+To distract a conscience whispering of extravagance, Kirkwood lighted a
+cigarette.
+
+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.
+
+A cab clattered down the side street on which the window opened.
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood was conscious of a strange pang of emotion. It took him some time
+to comprehend that it was envy.
+
+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.
+
+And he was renouncing her.
+
+He was painfully conscious of what he had missed, had lost--or had not yet
+found: the love of woman.
+
+The sensation was curious--new, unique in his experience.
+
+His cigarette burned down to his fingers as he sat pondering. Abstractedly,
+he ground its fire out in an ash-tray.
+
+The waiter set before him a silver tureen, covered.
+
+He sat up and began to consume his soup, scarce doing it justice. His dream
+troubled him--his dream of the love of woman.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+He had never understood this before. This much he had missed in life.
+
+It seemed hard to realize that one must forego it all for ever.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Idly employed with his cigar, he sipped his coffee. In time aware that she
+had turned her attention elsewhere, he looked up.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+A slow color burned his cheeks. In his temples there rose a curious
+pulsing.
+
+After a while she drew his gaze again, imperiously--herself all unaware of
+the havoc she was wreaking on his temperament.
+
+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?
+
+"Eighteen?" he hazarded. "Eighteen, or possibly nineteen, dining at the
+Pless in a ravishing dinner-gown, and--unhappy? Oh, hardly--not she!"
+
+Yet the impression haunted him, and ere long he was fain to seek
+confirmation or denial of it in the manner of her escort.
+
+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.
+
+Calendar?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 selfconfident and self-possessed.
+
+Men turned involuntarily to look after her, not altogether in undiluted
+admiration.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_vis-à-vis_ sat motionless, head inclined as if in thought.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Is it?" returned Kirkwood coolly. He disengaged his fingers.
+
+The pink plump face was contorted in a furtive grimace of deprecation.
+Without waiting for permission Calendar dropped into the vacant chair.
+
+"My dear sir," he proceeded, unabashed, "I throw myself upon your mercy."
+
+"The devil you do!"
+
+"I must. I'm in the deuce of a hole, and there's no one I know here besides
+yourself. I--I--"
+
+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--?"
+
+"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."
+
+Calendar paused in anxiety.
+
+"That's easily remedied, then," suggested Kirkwood.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Put her in a cab at the door."
+
+"I ... No. The devil! I couldn't think of it. You won't understand. I--"
+
+"I do not understand,--" amended the younger man politely.
+
+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.
+
+"It is impossible, Mr. Kirkwood. I must ask you to be generous and believe
+me."
+
+"Very well; for the sake of the argument, I do believe you, Mr. Calendar."
+
+"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!"
+
+"What--again?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"Then why place her in such a position?" Kirkwood demanded sharply.
+
+Calendar's eyes burned, incandescent with resentment. Offended, he offered
+to rise and go, but changed his mind and sat tight in hope.
+
+"I beg of you, sir--"
+
+"One moment, Mr. Calendar."
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood considered her, forthwith. In the process thereof, his eyes sought
+her, perturbed. Their glances clashed. She looked away hastily, crimson to
+her temples.
+
+Instantly the conflict between curiosity and caution, inclination and
+distrust, was at an end. With sudden compliance, the young man rose.
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+CALENDAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+All but purring with satisfaction and relief, Calendar halted.
+
+"Dorothy, my dear, permit me to introduce an old friend--Mr. Kirkwood.
+Kirkwood, this is my daughter."
+
+"Miss Calendar," acknowledged Kirkwood.
+
+The girl bowed, her eyes steady upon his own. "Mr. Kirkwood is very kind,"
+she said gravely.
+
+"That's right!" Calendar exclaimed blandly. "He's promised to see you home.
+Now both of you will pardon my running away, I know."
+
+"Yes," assented Kirkwood agreeably.
+
+The elder man turned and hurried toward the main entrance.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"Well," he stammered, "if I didn't doubt, let's say I was unprejudiced."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+She nodded, with a shadowy smile. He continued, purposefully, to distract
+her, holding her with his honest, friendly eyes.
+
+"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."
+
+"And you are an old friend of my father's?"
+
+He opened his lips, but only to close them without speaking. The girl moved
+her shoulders with a shiver of disdain.
+
+"I knew it wasn't so."
+
+"You know it would be hard for a young man like myself to be a very old
+friend," he countered lamely.
+
+"How long, then, have you known each other?"
+
+"Must I answer?"
+
+"Please."
+
+"Between three and four hours."
+
+"I thought as much." She stared past him, troubled. Abruptly she said:
+"Please smoke."
+
+"Shall I? If you wish it, of course...."
+
+She repeated: "Please."
+
+"We were to wait ten minutes or so," she continued.
+
+He produced his cigarette-case.
+
+"If you care to smoke it will seem an excuse." He lighted his cigarette.
+"And then, you may talk to me," she concluded calmly.
+
+"I would, gladly, if I could guess what would interest you."
+
+"Yourself. Tell me about yourself," she commanded.
+
+"It would bore you," he responded tritely, confused.
+
+"No; you interest me very much." She made the statement quietly,
+contemptuous of coquetry.
+
+"Very well, then; I am Philip Kirkwood, an American."
+
+"Nothing more?"
+
+"Little worth retailing."
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"Why?" he demanded, piqued.
+
+"Because you have merely indicated that you are a wealthy American."
+
+"Why wealthy?"
+
+"If not, you would have some aim in life--a calling or profession."
+
+"And you think I have none?"
+
+"Unless you consider it your vocation to be a wealthy American."
+
+"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."
+
+Her eyes lightened with interest. "An artist?"
+
+"I hope so. I don't paint signs--or houses," he remarked.
+
+Amused, she laughed softly. "I suspected it," she declared.
+
+"Not really?"
+
+"It was your way of looking at--things, that made me guess it: the
+painter's way. I have often noticed it."
+
+"As if mentally blending colors all the time?"
+
+"Yes; that and--seeing flaws."
+
+"I have discovered none," he told her brazenly.
+
+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.
+
+Provoked, he would have continued the chatter. "I have confessed," he
+persisted. "You know everything of material interest about me. And
+yourself?"
+
+"I am merely Dorothy Calendar," she answered.
+
+"Nothing more?" He laughed.
+
+"That is all, if you please, for the present."
+
+"I am to content myself with the promise of the future?"
+
+"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."
+
+"I am quite ready, Miss Calendar."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Beneath a permanent awning of steel and glass she waited patiently,
+slender, erect, heedless of the attention she attracted from wayfarers.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Calendar?" said the man tensely. "I presume I needn't name my
+business. I'm from the Yard--"
+
+"My name is not Calendar."
+
+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."
+
+"But the woman?" argued the detective, unconvinced, staring into the cab.
+
+"Am I not at liberty to have a lady dine with me in a public restaurant?"
+interposed Kirkwood, without raising his voice.
+
+The hard eyes looked him up and down without favor. Then: "Beg pardon, sir.
+I see my mistake," said the detective brusquely.
+
+"I am glad you do," returned Kirkwood grimly. "I fancy it will bear
+investigation."
+
+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.
+
+He slipped into his place as the hansom wheeled into the turgid tide of
+west-bound traffic.
+
+So Calendar had escaped, after all! Moreover, he had told the truth to
+Kirkwood.
+
+By his side the girl moved uneasily. "Who was that man?" she inquired.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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--?"
+
+She seemed to realize his meaning with surprise, as one, whose thoughts
+have strayed afar, recalled to an imperative world.
+
+"Oh, did I forget? Tell him please to drive to Number Nine, Frognall
+Street, Bloomsbury."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"You have been so kind," she told him warmly, "that one hardly knows how to
+thank you, Mr. Kirkwood."
+
+"I have done nothing--nothing at all," he mumbled, disturbed by a sudden,
+unreasoning alarm for her.
+
+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.
+
+"Good night," she said.
+
+"I'm to understand that I'm dismissed, then?" he stammered ruefully.
+
+She evaded his eyes. "I--thank you--I have no further need--"
+
+"You are quite sure? Won't you believe me at your service?"
+
+She laughed uneasily. "I'm all right now."
+
+"I can do nothing more? Sure?"
+
+"Nothing. But you--you make me almost sorry I can't impose still further
+upon your good nature."
+
+"Please don't hesitate ..."
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+He lifted his hat automatically. The door closed with an echoing slam. He
+turned to the waiting cab, fumbling for change.
+
+"I'll walk," he told the cabby, paying him off.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+9 FROGNALL STREET, W. C.
+
+The covered alleyway gave upon Quadrant Mews; or so declared a notice
+painted on the dead wall of the passage.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The door of Number 9 stood ajar, a black interval an inch or so in width
+showing between its edge and the jamb.
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+"'Old'ard, guvner!"
+
+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.
+
+"'Ere now, guvner, yer mykin' a mistyke. You don't live 'ere."
+
+"How do you know?" demanded Kirkwood crisply, tightening his grip on his
+stick.
+
+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.
+
+"I knows. You clear hout, or--"
+
+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.
+
+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!
+
+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?
+
+"The devil!" he whispered. "What an ass, what an utter ass I am!"
+
+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.
+
+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 _was_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Now then, my man, what do you want there? Come now, speak up, and step out
+into the light, where I can see you."
+
+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.
+
+"Le' me alone, carntcher? Ah'm doin' no 'arm, officer,--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"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'--"
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The silence of it discomfited him beyond measure; it was, in a word,
+uncanny.
+
+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.
+
+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 _perdui_, in some
+dark corner, to ambush him as he passed?
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Nothing happened.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"_Is it you, Eccles_?"
+
+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.
+
+"_Eccles, is it you_?"
+
+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.
+
+"_Halt or--or I fire_!"
+
+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, "_Hands up_!"--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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+And once more silence had folded its wings over Number 9, Frognall Street.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Heart in his mouth, he stepped back, lowering the lamp (which impishly went
+out) and lifting a protecting forearm.
+
+"Who's that?" he demanded harshly.
+
+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.
+
+"Miss Calendar!" he cried guardedly. "Miss Calendar, it is I--Philip
+Kirkwood!"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"I think, perhaps," said Kirkwood uneasily, again troubled by his racing
+pulses, "perhaps you can do that better than I."
+
+"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--?"
+
+"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 ..."
+
+"I can't be thankful enough," she told him warmly, "that you did interfere.
+You have indeed saved me from ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I don't know what. If I knew the man--"
+
+"You don't _know_ him?"
+
+"I can't even guess. The light--?"
+
+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.
+
+"It's no use," he confessed. "The thing's gone wrong."
+
+"Have you a match?"
+
+"I used my last before I got hold of this."
+
+"Oh," she commented, discouraged. "Have you any notion what he looks like?"
+
+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."
+
+"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--?"
+
+"Nothing worth mention; but _he_ 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?"
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER
+
+"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?"
+
+"I don't know." He laid a hand reassuringly over that which trembled on his
+forearm. "The police, possibly."
+
+"Police!" she iterated, aghast. "What makes you think--?"
+
+"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.
+
+But the girl was tugging at his hand. "Come!" she begged breathlessly.
+"Come! There is a way! Before they break in--"
+
+"But this man--?" Kirkwood hung back, troubled.
+
+"They--the police are sure to find and care for him."
+
+"So they will." He chuckled, "And serve him right! He'd have choked me to
+death, with all the good will in the world!"
+
+"Oh, do hurry!"
+
+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 _frou-frou_ 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."
+
+He pulled himself together, glaring wildly at nothing. "It's all right--"
+
+"You're not hurt, truly? Oh, do come quickly."
+
+She waited for him at the bottom of the flight;--happily for him, for he
+was all at sea.
+
+"Here--your hand--let me guide you. This darkness is dreadful ..."
+
+He found her hand, somehow, and tucked his into it, confidingly, and not
+without an uncertain thrill of satisfaction.
+
+"Come!" she panted. "Come! If they break in--"
+
+Stifled by apprehension, her voice failed her.
+
+They went forward, now less impetuously, for it was very black; and the
+knocker had fallen still.
+
+"No fear of that," he remarked after a time. "They wouldn't dare break in."
+
+A fluttering whisper answered him: "I don't know. We dare risk nothing."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+Her full voice broke out of the obscurity startlingly close, in his very
+ear.
+
+"The door--the bolts--I can't budge them."
+
+"Let me ..."
+
+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? ..."
+
+Could it be love at an hour's acquaintance? Absurd! But he could not
+laugh--nor render himself insensible to the suggestion.
+
+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.
+
+"Where does this open?"
+
+"On the mews," she informed him.
+
+"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--"
+
+"There's no other way. We must chance it. Are you afraid?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The cabby had a foot upon the step when Kirkwood tapped his shoulder.
+
+"My man--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"That's my affair," said Kirkwood briskly. "Are you engaged?"
+
+"If you mykes yerself my fare," returned the cabby shrewdly, "I _ham_."
+
+"Ten shillings, then, if you get us out of here in one minute and
+to--say--Hyde Park Corner in fifteen."
+
+"Us?" demanded the fellow aggressively.
+
+Kirkwood motioned toward the passageway. "There's a lady with me--there.
+Quick now!"
+
+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'--"
+
+"A pound then. _Will_ you hurry?"
+
+By way of answer the fellow scrambled hastily up to the box and snatched at
+the reins. "_Ck_! Gee-e hup!" he cried sonorously.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+An urchin, leaping on the step to spy in Kirkwood's window, fell off,
+yelping, as the driver's whiplash curled about his shanks.
+
+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.
+
+"Thank God!" he said softly.
+
+The girl had no words.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Miss Calendar?"
+
+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.
+
+"I didn't know--" he began.
+
+"It was to get that," she hastened to explain, "that my father sent me ..."
+
+"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 ...?
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"It is enough if I've been useful," he rose in gallantry to the emergency.
+
+"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."
+
+"I? ... What should I think of you, Miss Calendar?"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I don't see it that way."
+
+"I do ... You have made me like you very much, Mr. Kirkwood."
+
+He shot her a covert glance--causelessly, for her _naiveté_ 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."
+
+"No; only kind and a gentleman."
+
+"But--please!" he protested.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Craven Street, please," said the girl, and added a house number. "I am to
+meet my father there, with this,"--indicating the gladstone bag.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I understand, Miss Calendar."
+
+"There's one thing I may say, however. I have done nothing wrong to-night,
+I believe," she added quickly.
+
+"I've never for an instant questioned that," he returned with a qualm of
+shame; for what he said was not true.
+
+"Thank you ..."
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"Indeed, I've no reason or right to think otherwise."
+
+"I was afraid--afraid his actions might have seemed peculiar, to-night ..."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I refuse positively to take such a gloomy view of the case!"
+
+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."
+
+"Leaving England?" he echoed. "You're not by any chance bound for America,
+are you?"
+
+"I ... can't tell you."
+
+"But you can tell me this: are you booked on the _Minneapolis_?"
+
+"No--o; it is a--quite another boat."
+
+"Of course!" he commented savagely. "It wouldn't be me to have _any_ sort
+of luck!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The cab rolled soberly into the Strand.
+
+"Since we are to say good-by so very soon," suggested Kirkwood, "may I ask
+a parting favor, Miss Calendar?"
+
+She regarded him with friendly eyes. "You have every right," she affirmed
+gently.
+
+"Then please to tell me frankly: are you going into any further danger?"
+
+"And is that the only boon you crave at my hands, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"Without impertinence ..."
+
+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."
+
+He lifted his brows at the unfamiliar name. "Mrs. Hallam--?"
+
+"I am going to her house in Craven Street."
+
+"Your father is to meet you there?"--persistently.
+
+"He promised to."
+
+"But if he shouldn't?"
+
+"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."
+
+But she made it plain that the prospect did not please her.
+
+"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."
+
+The cab drew up. Kirkwood put a hand on the door and awaited her will.
+
+"It--it would be very kind ... I hate to impose upon you."
+
+He turned the knob and got out. "If you'll wait one moment," he said
+superfluously, as he closed the door.
+
+Pausing only to verify the number, he sprang up the steps and found the
+bell-button.
+
+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.
+
+The door opened, framing the figure of a maid sketched broadly in masses of
+somber black and dead white.
+
+"Can you tell me, is Mr. Calendar here?"
+
+The servant's eyes left his face, looked past him at the waiting cab, and
+returned.
+
+"I'm not sure, sir. If you will please step in."
+
+Kirkwood hesitated briefly, then acceded. The maid closed the door.
+
+"What name shall I say, sir?"
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood."
+
+"If you will please to wait one moment, sir--"
+
+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.
+
+"Mrs. Hallam says, will you kindly step up-stairs, sir."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Wearied, he deposited himself sulkily in an armchair by the hearth.
+
+From a boudoir on the same floor there came murmurs of two voices, a man's
+and a woman's. The latter laughed prettily.
+
+"Oh, any time!" snorted the American. "Any time you're through with your
+confounded flirtation, Mr. George B. Calendar!"
+
+The voices rose, approaching. "Good night," said the woman gaily; "farewell
+and--good luck go with you!"
+
+"Thank you. Good night," replied the man more conservatively.
+
+Kirkwood rose, expectant.
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+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 _rencontre_.
+
+"I am Mrs. Hallam. You were asking for Mr. Calendar?"
+
+"He was to have been here at this hour, I believe," said Kirkwood.
+
+"Yes?" There was just the right inflection of surprise in her carefully
+controlled tone.
+
+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.
+
+Below stairs a door slammed.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+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."
+
+"Thank you, I will return, if I may." Kirkwood moved toward the door.
+
+"But there's no necessity--" She seemed insistent on detaining him,
+possibly because she questioned his motive, possibly for her own
+divertisement.
+
+Kirkwood deprecated his refusal with a smile. "The truth is, Miss Calendar
+is waiting in a cab, outside. I--"
+
+"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.
+
+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--"
+
+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.
+
+"But," she exclaimed, perplexed, gazing to right and left, "but the cab,
+Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+He was on the stoop a second later. Standing beside her, he stared blankly.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+"BELOW BRIDGE"
+
+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.
+
+Temporarily dumb with consternation, he returned her stare as silently.
+
+"_Well_, Mr.--Kirkwood?"
+
+"Mrs. Hallam," he stammered, "I--"
+
+She lifted her shoulders impatiently and with a quick movement stepped 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.
+
+"I'm awaiting your explanation," she said coldly.
+
+[Illustration: "I'm waiting your explanation," she said coldly.]
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Then where is she now?"
+
+"Tell me where Calendar is," he retorted, inspired, "and I'll try to answer
+you!"
+
+But her eyes were blank. "You mean--?"
+
+"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."
+
+"You are quite mistaken," she said thoughtfully. "George Calendar has not
+been here this night."
+
+He wondered that she did not seem to resent his imputation. "I think not--"
+
+"Listen!" she cried, raising a warning hand; and relaxing her vigilant
+attitude, moved forward once more, to peer down toward the Embankment.
+
+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.
+
+At the door, the cab pulled up sharply and a man tumbled hastily out upon
+the sidewalk.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+The woman interrupted hastily. "Please come in, Mr. Calendar. This
+gentleman has been inquiring for you, with an astonishing tale about your
+daughter."
+
+"Dorothy!" Calendar's moon-like visage was momentarily divested of any
+trace of color. "What of her?"
+
+"You had better come in," advised Mrs. Hallam brusquely.
+
+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.
+
+"Well, well?" snapped the latter impatiently, turning to the young man.
+
+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."
+
+"Disappeared?" Calendar was barking at him. "How? When? Where?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+Her fine eyes wavered and fell before his; and Kirkwood remarked that her
+under lip was curiously drawn in.
+
+"I heard a man leave as Mrs. Hallam joined me," he volunteered helpfully,
+and with a suspicion of malice. "And after that--I paid no attention at the
+time--it seems to me I did hear a cab in the street--"
+
+"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.
+
+For her part, the look she gave Kirkwood was sharp with fury. It was more;
+it was a mistake, a flaw in her diplomacy; for Calendar intercepted it.
+Unceremoniously he grasped her bare arm with his fat hand.
+
+"Tell me who it was," he demanded in an ugly tone.
+
+She freed herself with a twist, and stepped back, a higher color in her
+cheeks, a flash of anger in her eyes.
+
+"Mr. Mulready," she retorted defiantly. "What of that?"
+
+"I wish I was sure," declared the fat adventurer, exasperated. "As it is,
+I bet a dollar you've put your foot in it, my lady. I warned you of 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."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked the woman.
+
+"Give _Mister_ 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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"She had a gladstone bag."
+
+"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."
+
+They began to run, the one easily, the other lumbering after like an
+old-fashioned square-rigged ship paced by a liner.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood slapped a shilling down on the ticket-window ledge. "Where to?" he
+cried back to Calendar.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Mastering his involuntary qualms, Kirkwood followed.
+
+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.
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed the young man. "What, in Heaven's name, Calendar--?"
+
+"Bermondsey Old Stairs. Come on."
+
+They descended to the landing-stage. Beneath them the Pool slept, a 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Finally, consulting his watch, "Almost ten," he announced.
+
+"We're in time?"
+
+"Can't say.... Damn! ... If that infernal boat would only show up--"
+
+He was lifting the whistle to sound a second summons when a rowboat 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.
+
+Calendar waddled to the brink of the stage, grunting with relief.
+
+"The other man?" he asked brusquely. "Has he gone aboard? Or is this the
+first trip to-night?"
+
+One of the watermen nodded assent to the latter question, adding gruffly:
+"Seen nawthin' of 'im, sir."
+
+"Very good," said Calendar, as if he doubted whether it were very good or
+bad. "We'll wait a bit."
+
+"Right-o!" agreed the waterman civilly.
+
+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!"
+
+"As to what?" inquired Kirkwood pointedly, selecting a cigar.
+
+He got no immediate reply, but felt Calendar's sharp eyes upon him while he
+manoeuvered with matches for a light.
+
+"That's so," it came at length. "You don't know. I kind of forgot for a
+minute; somehow you seemed on the inside."
+
+Kirkwood laughed lightly. "I've experienced something of the same sensation
+in the past few hours."
+
+"Don't doubt it." Calendar was watching him narrowly. "I suppose," he put
+it to him abruptly, "you haven't changed your mind?"
+
+"Changed my mind?"
+
+"About coming in with me."
+
+"My dear sir, I can have no mind to change until a plain proposition is
+laid before me."
+
+"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?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+Calendar drew nearer and Kirkwood, lowering his voice, narrated briefly the
+events since he had left the Pless in Dorothy's company.
+
+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.
+
+"Youngster, you say? Blam' if I can lay my mind to _him_! Now if that
+Mulready--"
+
+"It would have been impossible for Mulready--whoever he is--to recover and
+get to Craven Street before we did," Kirkwood pointed out.
+
+"Well--go on." But when the tale was told, "It's that scoundrel, Mulready!"
+the man affirmed with heat. "It's his hand--I know him. I might have had
+sense enough to see he'd take the first chance to hand me the double-cross.
+Well, this does for _him_, all right!" Calendar lowered viciously at the
+river. "You've been blame' useful," he told Kirkwood assertively. "If
+it hadn't been for you, I don't know where _I'd_ be now,--nor Dorothy,
+either,"--an obvious afterthought. "There's no particular way I can show my
+appreciation, I suppose? Money--?"
+
+"I've got enough to last me till I reach New York, thank you."
+
+"Well, if the time ever comes, just shout for George B. I won't be
+wanting.... I only wish you were with us; but that's out of the question."
+
+"Doubtless ..."
+
+"No two ways about it. I bet anything you've got a conscience concealed
+about your person. What? You're an honest man, eh?"
+
+"I don't want to sound immodest," returned Kirkwood, amused.
+
+"You don't need to worry about that.... But an honest man's got no business
+in _my_ 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!"
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+The slow minutes lengthened monotonously.
+
+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.
+
+Calendar turned to the boat.
+
+"Sheer off," he ordered. "Drop out of sight. I'll whistle when I want you."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+The boat slipped noiselessly away with the current and in an instant 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?"
+
+"Oh, yes," assented Kirkwood, with a nonchalance not entirely unassumed.
+
+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.
+
+"Thank God!" he said under his breath. "I was right, after all!"
+
+A man's deep tones broke out above. "This way. Mind the steps; they're a
+bit slippery, Miss Dorothy."
+
+"But my father--?" came the girl's voice, attuned to doubt.
+
+"Oh, he'll be along--if he isn't waiting now, in the boat."
+
+They descended, the man leading. At the foot, without a glance to right 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.
+
+"But, Mr. Mulready--"
+
+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.
+
+"But what shall we do if my father isn't here? Wait?"
+
+"No; best not to; best to get on the _Alethea_ as soon as possible, Miss
+Calendar. We can send the boat back."
+
+"'Once aboard the lugger the girl is mine'--eh, Mulready?--to say nothing
+of the loot!"
+
+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.
+
+"The devil!" exclaimed this Mr. Mulready.
+
+"Oh! My father!" the girl voiced her recognition of him.
+
+"Not precisely one and the same person," commented Calendar suavely.
+"But--er--thanks, just as much.... You see, Mulready, when I make an
+appointment, I keep it."
+
+"We'd begun to get a bit anxious about you--" Mulready began defensively.
+
+"So I surmised, from what Mrs. Hallam and Mr. Kirkwood told me.... Well?"
+
+The man found no ready answer. He fell back a pace to the railing, 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....
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"I have it, thanks to Mr. Kirkwood," she said quietly.
+
+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.
+
+"Why, Mr. Kirkwood! ... But I left you at Mrs. Hallam's!"
+
+Kirkwood bowed, smiling openly at Mulready's discomfiture.
+
+"By your father's grace, I came with him," he said. "You ran away without
+saying good night, you know, and I'm a jealous creditor."
+
+She laughed excitedly, turning to Calendar. "But _you_ were to meet me at
+Mrs. Hallam's?"
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"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 _Alethea_."
+
+"So-o! How about it, Mulready?"
+
+The man swung back slowly. "What you choose to think," he said after a
+deliberate pause.
+
+"Well, never mind! We'll go over the matter at our leisure on the
+_Alethea_."
+
+There was in the adventurer's tone a menace, bitter and not to be ignored;
+which Mulready saw fit to challenge.
+
+"I think not," he declared; "I think not. I'm weary of your addle-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."
+
+"Oh, if you want to put it that way, I'm _not_ content, Mr. Mulready,"
+retorted Calendar dangerously.
+
+"Please yourself. I bid you good evening and--good-by." The man took a step
+toward the stairs.
+
+Calendar dropped his right hand into his top-coat pocket. "Just a minute,"
+he said sweetly, and Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurer'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."
+
+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.
+
+"Now, Dorothy, in you go, my dear," continued Calendar, with a
+self-satisfied wag of his head.
+
+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.
+
+"Good night, Mr. Kirkwood; good night,--I shan't forget."
+
+He took her hand and bowed above it; but when his head was lifted, he still
+retained her fingers in a lingering clasp.
+
+"Good night," he said reluctantly.
+
+The crass incongruity of her in that setting smote him with renewed force.
+Young, beautiful, dainty, brilliant and graceful in her pretty 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Miss Calendar--" he began; but was interrupted.
+
+"Here--I say!"
+
+Calendar had started toward him angrily.
+
+Kirkwood calmly waved him back. "I want a word in private with 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."
+
+Disgruntled, the adventurer paused. "Oh--_all_ right," he grumbled. "I
+don't see what ..." He returned to the boat.
+
+"Forgive me, Miss Calendar," continued Kirkwood nervously. "I know I've no
+right to interfere, but--"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"--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?"
+
+She did not answer at once; but her eyes were kind and sympathetic. He
+plucked heart of their tolerance.
+
+"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--"
+
+"But my place is with my father, Mr. Kirkwood," she interposed. "I daren't
+doubt him--dare I?"
+
+"I ... suppose not."
+
+"So I must go with him.... I'm glad--thank you for caring, dear Mr.
+Kirkwood. And again, good night."
+
+"Good luck attend you," he muttered, following her to the boat.
+
+Calendar helped her in and turned back to Kirkwood with a look of 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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: The boat gathered impetus.]
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+He sighed: "Ah, well!"
+
+Disconsolate and aggrieved, he gained the street. He was miles from St.
+Pancras, foot-weary, to all intents and purposes lost.
+
+In this extremity, Chance smiled upon him. The cabby who, at his 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN--RESUMED
+
+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.
+
+An adjacent but theretofore abstracted policeman pricked up his ears and
+assumed an intelligent expression.
+
+"Bermondsey Ol' Stairs to Sain' Pancras," argued the cabby assertively;
+"seven mile by th' radius; three 'n' six!"
+
+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.
+
+"All right, cabby," he said, with pacific purpose; "you'll get your fare in
+half a shake."
+
+"Three 'n' six!" croaked the cabby, like a blowsy and vindictive parrot.
+
+The bobby strolled nearer.
+
+"Yes?" said Kirkwood, mildly diverted. "Why not sing it, cabby?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"A 'ard lot, sir," commented the policeman, jerking his helmeted head
+towards the vanishing four-wheeler.
+
+"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.
+
+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:
+
+BOAT-TRAIN LEAVES ON TRACK 3
+
+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.
+
+Excitedly Kirkwood touched the man's arm with a detaining hand.
+"Boat-train?" he gasped, pointing at the board.
+
+"Left ten minutes ago, thank you, sir."
+
+"Wel-l, but...! Of course I can get another train at Tilbury?"
+
+"For yer boat? No, sir, thank you, sir. Won't be another tryne till
+mornin', sir."
+
+"Oh-h!..."
+
+Aimlessly Kirkwood drifted away, his mind a blank.
+
+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.
+
+He was stranded....
+
+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.
+
+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--
+
+Stranded!...
+
+Distracted, he searched pocket after pocket, locating his watch, cigar- and
+cigarette-cases, match-box, penknife--all the minutiae 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.
+
+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.
+
+And, searching his heart, he found it brimming with gratitude to Mulready,
+for having relieved him of the necessity of settling with the cabby.
+
+"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...
+
+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.
+
+If Brentwick were only in town--But he wasn't, and wouldn't be, within the
+week.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+He found them in the lost-luggage room.
+
+A clerk helped him identify the articles and ultimately clucked with a
+perfunctory note: "Sixpence each, please."
+
+"I--ah--pardon?"
+
+"Sixpence each, the fixed charge, sir. For every twenty-four hours or
+fraction thereof, sixpence per parcel."
+
+"Oh, thank you so much," said Kirkwood sweetly. "I will call to-morrow."
+
+"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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? _What
+are you going to do?_"
+
+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?
+
+An hour passed.
+
+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.
+
+Through this long hour Kirkwood walked without a pause.
+
+Another clock, somewhere, clanged resonantly twice.
+
+The world was very still....
+
+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.
+
+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 new 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!
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Why," he expostulated feebly, "I might's well turn back and beat that
+bobby over the head with my cane!..."
+
+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!
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+There would be none to see....
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+But--which passage should he choose?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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!..."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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!
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _he_ may be valuable."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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 _this_ thing doing in this midnight mischief?...
+Damn!"
+
+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!
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"You're feeling better?" He was almost surprised to hear his own voice put
+the query.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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?"
+
+The other snuffled childishly and scrubbed across the floor to rest his
+back against the wall.
+
+"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?"
+
+Instead of replying, Kirkwood lifted a warning finger.
+
+"Hush!" he said tensely, alarmed by noises in the street. "You don't
+suppose--?"
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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--_perhaps_--he might be able to rush them.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+MADAME L'INTRIGANTE
+
+"Mrs. Hallam!" cried Kirkwood, beneath his breath.
+
+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.
+
+"Fred!" she cried, a curious break in her tone. "My little Freddie! Oh,
+what has happened, dearie?"
+
+"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.
+
+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--"
+
+"What's o'clock now?" her son interrupted.
+
+"It's about three, I think ... Have you hurt yourself, dear? Oh, why
+_didn't_ you come home? You must've known I was dying of anxiety!"
+
+"Oh, I say! Can't you see I'm hurt? 'Had a nasty fall and must've been
+asleep ever since."
+
+"My precious one! How--?"
+
+"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 _thought_ 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."
+
+The boy paused, rolling an embarrassed eye up at the stranger.
+
+"Yes, yes, dear!" Mrs. Hallam urged him on.
+
+"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."
+
+"But this man--?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"_You_, Mr. Kirkwood!"
+
+Again he bowed, grinning awry.
+
+She rose suddenly. "You will be good enough to explain your presence here,"
+she informed him with dangerous serenity.
+
+"To be frank with you--"
+
+"I advise that course, Mr. Kirkwood."
+
+"Thanks, awf'ly.... I came here, half an hour ago, looking for a lost purse
+full--well, not _quite_ full of sovereigns. It was my purse, by the way."
+
+Suspicion glinted like foxfire in the cold green eyes beneath her puckered
+brows. "I do not understand," she said slowly and in level tones.
+
+"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.
+
+"'This gentleman' is my son, Frederick Hallam.... But you will explain--"
+
+"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."
+
+His levity seemed to displease and perturb the woman; she turned from him
+with an impatient movement of her shoulders.
+
+"Freddie, dear, do you feel able to walk?"
+
+"Eh? Oh, I dare say--I don't know. Wonder would your friend--ah--Mr.
+Kirkwood, lend me an arm?"
+
+"Charmed," Kirkwood declared suavely. "If you'll take the candle, Mrs.
+Hallam--"
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: He helped the boy to his feet, and stood waiting.]
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Half-way down, "Mr. Kirkwood!" she called tempestuously.
+
+"Didn't you find it?" he countered blandly.
+
+She stopped jerkily at the bottom, and, after a moment of confusion. "Find
+what, sir?" she asked.
+
+"What you sought, Mrs. Hallam."
+
+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.
+
+"You knew I wouldn't find it, then!... Didn't you?"
+
+"I may have suspected you wouldn't."
+
+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--?
+
+"Where is it, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"Madam, have you the right to know?"
+
+Through another lengthening pause, while they faced each other, he marked
+again the curious contraction of her under lip.
+
+"I have the right," she declared steadily. "Where is it?"
+
+"How can I be sure?"
+
+"Then you don't know--!"
+
+"Indeed," he interrupted, "I would be glad to feel that I ought to tell you
+what I know."
+
+"_What_ you know!"
+
+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.
+
+The woman would have led again, but young Hallam cut in, none too
+courteously.
+
+"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."
+
+Instantly his mother softened. "My poor boy!... Of course we'll go."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Just a minute, please, you there!"
+
+"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.
+
+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?"
+
+"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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Beg pardon, ma'am, but I was told Colonel George Burgoyne, of Cornwall--"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+At length, turning to the driver, he demanded, received, and noted in his
+memorandum-book, the license number of the equipage.
+
+"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--"
+
+"And safeguard our property. You are perfectly justified, officer."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am. And would you mind giving me your cards, please, all of
+you?"
+
+"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.
+
+"I've no cards with me," the American told the policeman; "my name,
+however, is Philip Kirkwood, and I'm staying at the Pless."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood, will you be good enough to tell me who and what you are?"
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"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.
+
+"Very good, sir, thank you, sir."
+
+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.
+
+"Eccles!" he called sharply, at a venture.
+
+The butler halted, thunderstruck. "Ye-es, s-sir?"
+
+[Illustration: Eccles]
+
+"Turn round, Eccles; I want a look at you."
+
+Eccles faced him unwillingly, with a stolid front but shifty eyes. Kirkwood
+glanced him up and down, grinning.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," mumbled the man unhappily; and took instant
+advantage of the implied permission to go.
+
+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.
+
+Thoughtfully he poured himself a cup of coffee, swallowing it hot and black
+as it came from the silver pot; then munched the sandwiches.
+
+It _was_ 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!
+
+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:
+
+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.
+
+"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!
+
+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.
+
+"Mrs. Hallam."
+
+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.
+
+She was very handsome indeed, just then; though a keener light might have
+proved less flattering.
+
+"Now, Mr. Kirkwood?" she opened briskly, with a second intimate and
+friendly nod; and paused, her pose receptive.
+
+Kirkwood sat down again, smiling good-natured appreciation of her
+unprejudiced attitude.
+
+"Your son, Mrs. Hallam--?"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Yes," he responded vaguely; "he'll be quite fit after a night's sleep, I
+dare say."
+
+The woman was watching him keenly, beneath her lowered lashes. "I think,"
+she said deliberately, "that it is time we came to an understanding."
+
+Kirkwood agreed--"Yes?" affably.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+She knitted her brows over this statement.
+
+"That, I assure you, is the truth," he laughed.
+
+"But ... I really don't understand."
+
+"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."
+
+"And--?"
+
+"Beyond that? I presume I must tell you, though I confess I'm in doubt...."
+He hesitated, weighing candor in the balance with discretion.
+
+"But who are you for? Are you in George Calendar's pay?"
+
+"Heaven forfend!"--piously. "My sole interest at the present moment is to
+unravel a most entrancing mystery--"
+
+"Entitled 'Dorothy Calendar'! Of course. You've known her long?"
+
+"Eight hours, I believe," he admitted gravely; "less than that, in fact."
+
+"Miss Calendar's interests will not suffer through anything you may tell
+me."
+
+"Whether they will or no, I see I must swing a looser tongue, or you'll be
+showing me the door."
+
+The woman shook her head, amused, "Not until," she told him significantly.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Beautifully circumstantial, my dear lady," commented Kirkwood--to his
+inner consciousness. Outwardly he maintained consistently a pose of
+impassive gullibility.
+
+"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.
+
+"Quite clear, I assure you," he assented encouragingly.
+
+"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."
+
+"At Number 9, Frognall Street."
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+"I, for one, don't believe it." Kirkwood spoke quietly, rising. "Whatever
+the culpability of Calendar and Mulready, Dorothy was only their hoodwinked
+tool."
+
+"But, Mr. Kirkwood, she must have known the jewels were not hers."
+
+"Yes," he assented passively, but wholly unconvinced.
+
+"And what," she demanded with a gesture of exasperation, "what would you
+advise?"
+
+"Scotland Yard," he told her bluntly.
+
+"But it's a family secret! It must not appear in the papers. Don't you
+understand--George Calendar is my husband's cousin!"
+
+"I can think of nothing else, unless you pursue them in person."
+
+"But--whither?"
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+The butler showed him out.
+
+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.
+
+"Well," appreciated Mr. Kirkwood with gusto, "_she's_ 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_ 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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+AGAIN "BELOW BRIDGE"; AND BEYOND
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+The bobby produced a well-worn pocket-almanac, moistened a massive thumb,
+and rippled the pages.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_ would not attempt to sail before the turn of
+the tide.
+
+For this was his mission, to find the _Alethea_ 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.
+
+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, _Alethea_, whose
+name had fallen from their lips at Bermondsey Old Stairs.
+
+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 _Alethea_; 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.
+
+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 _Alethea_....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"The shilling over and above the tip's for finding me the waterman and
+boat," he stipulated.
+
+"Right-o. You'll mind the 'orse a minute, sir?"
+
+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.
+
+To this day he can not put a name to it; he surmises that it was Wapping.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Nevvy of mine, sir," announced the cabby; "and a fust-ryte waterman; knows
+the river like a book, he do."
+
+The nephew touched his forelock sheepishly.
+
+"Thank you," said Kirkwood; and, turning to the man, "Your boat?" he asked
+with the brevity of weariness.
+
+"This wye, sir."
+
+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.
+
+"'Ere we are, sir," said the cabman's nephew, pausing at the head of the
+steps. "Now, where's it to be?"
+
+The American explained tersely that he had a message to deliver a friend,
+who had shipped aboard a vessel known as the _Alethea_, scheduled to sail
+at floodtide; further than which deponent averred naught.
+
+The waterman scratched his head. "A 'ard job, sir; not knowin' wot kind of
+a boat she are mykes it 'arder." He waited hopefully.
+
+"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."
+
+The man promptly turned his back to hail his mate. "'Arf a quid, Bob, if we
+puts this gent aboard a wessel name o' _Allytheer_ afore she syles at turn
+o' tide."
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood crept down the shaky ladder and deposited himself in the stern of
+the boat; the younger boatman settled himself on the midship thwart.
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"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.
+
+Bows swinging down-stream, the boat shot out from the shore.
+
+"How's the tide?" demanded Kirkwood, his impatience growing.
+
+"On th' turn, sir," he was told.
+
+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.
+
+The _Alethea_ was not of their number.
+
+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.
+
+In the bows old Bob lifted up a stentorian voice, summoning one William.
+
+Recognizing that there was some design in this, the passenger subdued his
+disapproval of the delay, and sat quiet.
+
+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.
+
+"'Ello," he said surlily. "Wot's th' row?"
+
+"'Oo," interrogated old Bob, holding the boat steady by grasping the stage,
+"was th' party wot engyged yer larst night, Bill?"
+
+"Party name o' _Allytheer_," growled the drowsy one. "W'y?"
+
+"Party 'ere's lookin' for 'im. Where'll I find this _Allytheer?_"
+
+"Best look sharp 'r yer won't find 'im," retorted the one above. "'E _was_
+at anchor off Bow Creek larst night."
+
+Kirkwood's heart leaped in hope. "What sort of a vessel was she?" he asked,
+half rising in his eagerness.
+
+"Brigantine, sir."
+
+"_Thank--you!_" 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.
+
+And again the boat was flying down in midstream, the leaden waters, shot
+with gold of the morning sun, parting sullenly beneath its bows.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Are we near?" Kirkwood would know; and by way of reply had a grunt of the
+younger waterman.
+
+Again, "Will we make it?" he asked.
+
+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.
+
+Hugging the marshy shore, they rounded the Blackwall Point. Young William
+looked to Kirkwood, caught his eye, and nodded.
+
+"Here?"
+
+Kirkwood rose, balancing himself against the leap and sway of the boat.
+
+"Sumwhere's ... 'long ... o' 'ere."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+He sat down suddenly. "She's gone!" he cried in a hollow gasp.
+
+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.
+
+Old Bob panted: "'Dawn't--see--nawthin'--o' 'er." He resumed his seat.
+
+"There's no hope, I suppose?"
+
+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."
+
+"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 _got_ to catch that ship!"
+
+Old Bob wagged his head in slow negation; young William lifted his.
+
+"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."
+
+"How far's Woolwich?" Kirkwood demanded instantly.
+
+"Mile," said the elder man. "Tyke yer for five-bob extry."
+
+"Done!"
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+DESPERATE MEASURES
+
+Old Bob seemed something inclined toward optimism, when the boat lay
+alongside a landing-stage at Woolwich, and Kirkwood had clambered ashore.
+
+"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."
+
+"Arsk th' wye to th' Dorkyard Styshun," young William volunteered. "'Tis
+th' shortest walk, sir. I 'opes yer catches 'er.... Thanky, sir."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood mended his pace accordingly, but, contrary to the prediction, had
+no time to spare at all. Even as he stormed the ticket-grating, the train
+was thundering in at the platform. Therefore a nervous ticket agent passed
+him out a first-class ticket instead of the third-class he had asked for;
+and there was no time wherein to have the mistake rectified. Kirkwood
+planked down the fare, swore, and sprinted for the carriages.
+
+The first compartment whose door he jerked violently open, proved to be
+occupied, and was, moreover, not a smoking-car. He received a fleeting
+impression of a 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.
+
+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 _had_ caught the
+Sheerness train, or that he was really losing no time; a sense of deep
+dejection had settled down upon his consciousness, with a realization of
+how completely a 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.
+
+Rattling and swaying, the train left the town behind.
+
+Presently he put aside his pipe and stared blankly out at a reeling
+landscape, the pleasant, homely, smiling countryside of Kent. A deeper
+melancholy tinted his mind: Dorothy Calendar was for ever lost to him.
+
+The trucks drummed it out persistently--he thought, vindictively:
+"_Lost!... Lost!... For ever lost!..._"
+
+And he had made--was then making--a damned fool of himself. The trucks had
+no need to din _that_ into his thick skull by their ceaseless iteration; he
+knew it, would not deny it....
+
+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!...
+
+Before his eyes field and coppice, hedge and homestead, stream and flowing
+highway, all blurred and ran streakily into one another, like a highly
+impressionistic water-color. He could make neither head nor tail of the
+flying views, and so far as coherent thought was concerned, he could not
+put two ideas together. Without understanding distinctly, he presently did
+a more wise and wholesome thing: which was to topple limply over on the
+cushions and fall fast asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a long time he seemed to realize rather hazily that the carriage-door
+had been opened to admit somebody. Its smart closing _bang_ shocked him
+awake. He sat up, blinking in confusion, hardly conscious of more, to begin
+with, than that the train had paused and was again in full flight. Then,
+his senses clearing, he became aware that his solitary companion, just
+entered, was a woman. She was seated over across from him, her back to the
+engine, in an attitude which somehow suggested a highly nonchalant frame of
+mind. She laughed, and immediately her speaking voice was high and sweet in
+his hearing.
+
+"Really, you know, Mr. Kirkwood, I simply couldn't contain my impatience
+another instant."
+
+Kirkwood gasped and tried to re-collect his wits.
+
+"Beg pardon--I've been asleep," he said stupidly.
+
+"Yes. I'm sorry to have disturbed you, but, you know, you must make
+allowances for a woman's nerves."
+
+Beneath his breath the bewildered man said: "The deuce!" and above it, in a
+stupefied tone: "Mrs. Hallam!"
+
+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!"
+
+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.
+
+"Surprised and delighted," he replied, recovering, with mendacity so
+intentional and obvious that the woman laughed aloud.
+
+"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."
+
+She paused invitingly, but Kirkwood, grown wary, contented himself
+with picking up his pipe and carefully knocking out the dottle on the
+window-ledge.
+
+"I was glad to see _you_," 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."
+
+"A woman wise enough for that is an adult prodigy," he ventured cautiously.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"For you are going to Queensborough, aren't you, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"Queensborough?" he echoed blankly; and, in fact, he was at a loss to
+follow her drift. "No, Mrs. Hallam; I'm not bound there."
+
+Her surprise was apparent; she made no effort to conceal it. "But," she
+faltered, "if not there--"
+
+"'Give you my word, Mrs. Hallam, I have no intention whatever of going to
+Queensborough," Kirkwood protested.
+
+"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 _was_ at fault!"
+
+"In this instance, if it was at all concerned with my insignificant
+affairs, yes--most decidedly at fault."
+
+She shook her head, regarding him with grave suspicion. "I hardly know:
+whether to believe you. I think...."
+
+Kirkwood's countenance displayed an added shade of red. After a moment, "I
+mean no discourtesy," he began stiffly, "but--"
+
+"But you don't care a farthing whether I believe you or not?"
+
+He caught her laughing eye, and smiled, the flush subsiding.
+
+"Very well, then! Now let us see: Where _are_ you bound?"
+
+Kirkwood looked out of the window.
+
+"I'm convinced it's a rendezvous...?"
+
+Kirkwood smiled patiently at the landscape.
+
+"Is Dorothy Calendar so very, very beautiful, Mr. Kirkwood?"--with a trace
+of malice.
+
+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.
+
+"You are going to meet her, aren't you?"
+
+He gracefully concealed a yawn.
+
+The woman's plan of attack took another form. "Last night, when you told me
+your story, I believed you."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+Having exhausted his repertoire of rudenesses, Kirkwood took to twiddling
+his thumbs.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Mrs. Hallam," he said soberly, "if I am going to meet Mr. Calendar or Mr.
+Mulready, I have no assurance of that fact."
+
+There was only the briefest of pauses, during which she analyzed this;
+then, quickly, "But you hope to?" she snapped.
+
+He felt that the only adequate retort to this would be a shrug of his
+shoulders; doubted his ability to carry one off; and again took refuge in
+silence.
+
+The woman abandoned a second plan of siege, with a readiness that did
+credit to her knowledge of mankind. She thought out the next very
+carefully, before opening with a masked battery.
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood, can't we be friends--this aside?"
+
+"Nothing could please me more, Mrs. Hallam!"
+
+"I'm sorry if I've annoyed you--"
+
+"And I, too, have been rude."
+
+"Last night, when you cut away so suddenly, you prevented my making you a
+proposal, a sort of a business proposition...."
+
+"Yes--?"
+
+"To come over to our side--"
+
+"I thought so. That was why I went."
+
+"Yes; I understood. But this morning, when you've had time to think it
+over--?"
+
+"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--"
+
+She discovered him eying her with a smile of such inscrutable and sardonic
+intelligence, that the words died on her lips, and she crimsoned,
+treasonably to herself. For he saw it; and the belief he had conceived
+while attending to her tissue of fabrication, earlier that morning, was
+strengthened to the point of conviction that, if anything had been stolen
+by anybody, Mrs. Hallam and her son owned it as little as Calendar.
+
+As for the woman, she felt she had steadily lost, rather than gained,
+ground; and the flash of anger that had colored her cheeks, lit twin
+beacons in her eyes, which she resolutely fought down until they faded to
+mere gleams of resentment and determination. But she forgot to control
+her lips; and they are the truest indices to a 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.
+
+"So," she said slowly, after a silent time, "you are not for Queensborough!
+The corollary of that _admission_, Mr. Kirkwood, is that you are for
+Sheerness."
+
+"I believe," he replied wearily, "that there are no other stations on this
+line, after Newington."
+
+"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."
+
+Considerably amused, he chuckled. "Let us talk of other things, Mrs.
+Hallam," he suggested pleasantly. "How is your son?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+He rose, opened the door, and holding it so, turned.
+
+"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."
+
+His irrepressible humor proved infectious; and Mrs. Hallam's spirit ran as
+high as his own. She was smiling cheerfully when she, too, rose.
+
+"I also am in some haste," she averred demurely, gathering up her hand-bag
+and umbrella.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Sleepy Sheerness must have been scandalized, that day, and its gossips have
+acquired ground for many, an uncharitable surmise.
+
+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.
+
+"That's good for ten minutes' start!" Kirkwood crowed. "And it never
+occurred to me--!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood clambered painfully out, shook himself together and the bruises
+out of his bones, and looked fearfully back.
+
+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.
+
+He had won; at all events in so much as to win meant eluding the
+persevering Mrs. Hallam. But to what end?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_.
+
+There's no mistaking a ship brigantine-rigged for any other style of craft
+that sails the seas.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+"I'll hire your boat," Kirkwood told him, "to put me aboard that
+brigantine, off to leeward. We ought to start at once."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"How much?" Kirkwood demanded curtly, annoyed.
+
+The man hesitated, scowling blackly at the heeling vessel, momentarily
+increasing her distance from shore. Then with a crafty smile, "Two pound',"
+he declared.
+
+The American nodded. "Very well," he agreed simply. "Get out your boat."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+In the background the cabby loitered, gnawed by insatiable curiosity.
+
+The fisherman turned, calling over his shoulder: "If ye'd catch yon vessel,
+come!"
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Then, in two breaths: "Can't do it," he decided; "not at the price."
+
+"Why?" Kirkwood stared despairingly after the brigantine, that was already
+drawn far ahead.
+
+"Danger," growled the fellow, "--wind."
+
+At a loss completely, Kirkwood found no words. He dropped his head,
+considering.
+
+"Not at the price," the sullen voice iterated; and he looked up to find the
+cunning gaze upon him.
+
+"How much, then?"
+
+"Five poun' I'll have--no less, for riskin' my life this day."
+
+"Impossible. I haven't got it."
+
+In silence the man unshipped the tiller and moved toward the cleats.
+
+"Hold on a minute."
+
+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.
+
+"Will you take these?" he offered. "Take and keep them--only set me aboard
+that ship!"
+
+Deliberately the fisherman weighed the watch and chain in his broad, hard
+palm, eyes narrowing to mere slits in his bronzed mask.
+
+"How much?" he asked slowly.
+
+"Eighty pounds, together; the chain alone cost me twenty."
+
+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.
+
+"How do I know?" objected the skipper.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"What...?"
+
+"Hand over th' two pound' and we'll go."
+
+"I'll see you damned first!"
+
+A flush of rage blinded the young man. The knowledge that the _Alethea_
+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.
+
+"Ashore ye go," he pronounced his ultimatum, motioning Kirkwood to enter
+the boat.
+
+The American turned, looking for the _Alethea_, 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!
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+OFF THE NORE
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+But that was aside, something irreparable. Wan and grim, he fought it out.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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--_Alethea_!--he could read it plain
+beyond dispute.
+
+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....
+
+They were watching him, aboard the brigantine; he could see a line of heads
+above her windward rail. Perhaps _she_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+Abruptly the _Alethea_ 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....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Jump! _Jump, you fool_!"
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+And his senses were blotted out in blackness....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+As Kirkwood's gaze encountered his, the man smiled sourly, jerking his head
+to one side with a singularly derisive air.
+
+"Hi, matey!" he blustered. "'Ow goes it now? Feelin' 'appier, eigh?"
+
+[Illustration: "Hi, matey!" he blustered. "'Ow goes it now?"]
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_ 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....
+
+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.
+
+"I sye, 're you lookin' for some one you know?"
+
+"Yes--your passengers. I presume they're below--?"
+
+"Passengers!"
+
+A hush fell upon the group, during which Kirkwood sought Stryker's eye in
+pitiful pleading; and Stryker looked round him blankly.
+
+"Where's Miss Calendar?" the young man demanded sharply. "I must see her at
+once!"
+
+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.
+
+"I must see Miss Calendar, or Calendar himself, or Mulready." Kirkwood
+paused, and, getting no reply, grew restive under Stryker's inscrutable
+regard.
+
+"That's why I came aboard," he amended, blind to the absurdity of the
+statement; "to see--er--Calendar."
+
+"Well ... I'm damned!"
+
+Stryker managed to infuse into his tone a deal of suspicious contempt.
+
+"Why?" insisted Kirkwood, nettled but still uncomprehending.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Certainly I did. Why--?"
+
+"Well!" cried Mr. Stryker, rubbing his hands together with an air
+oppressively obsequious, "I'm sorry to _hin_-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."
+
+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!"
+
+Staggered, Kirkwood bore his sarcastic truculence without resentment.
+
+"Calendar," he stammered, trying to explain, "Calendar _said_--"
+
+"I carn't 'elp wot Calendar said. Mebbe 'e _did_ 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!"
+
+"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--"
+
+"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 _Allytheer_, an' never was, an' never will
+be!"
+
+"What name did you say?" Kirkwood inquired.
+
+"This ship? The _Allytheer_; registered from Liverpool; bound from London
+to Hantwerp, in cargo. Anythink else?"
+
+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.
+
+Smartly the brigantine luffed and wore about, heeling deep as she spun away
+on the starboard tack.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"I presume you couldn't put me ashore?" Kirkwood replied ingenuously.
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+PICARESQUE PASSAGES
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_.
+
+Overhead, on the deck, a heavy thumping of hurrying feet awoke him to
+keener perceptiveness.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+A wild night, certainly; probably, by that time, the little vessel was in
+the middle of the North Sea ... _bound for Antwerp_!
+
+"Oh-h," said Kirkwood vindictively, "_hell_!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Ow, there you are, eigh, little bright-eyes!" he exclaimed with surprised
+animation.
+
+"Good morning, Captain Stryker," said Kirkwood, rising. "I want to tell
+you--"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"No, thank you," said Kirkwood, smiling tolerantly. "I've got any amount of
+appetite..."
+
+"'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."
+
+Depositing the bottle on the said table, the captain searched until he
+found another glass for Kirkwood, and sat down.
+
+"Do you good," he insinuated, pushing the bottle gently over.
+
+"No, thank you," reiterated Kirkwood shortly, a little annoyed.
+
+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.
+
+"Please," he implored,--"Please don't let me hinterrupt;" and filled his
+pipe, pretending a pensive detachment from his company.
+
+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."
+
+An intensely contemplative expression crept into the captain's small blue
+eyes.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"I had about ten shillings in my pocket when I came aboard, captain,
+and ... a few other articles."
+
+"Ow, yes; so you 'ad, now you mention it."
+
+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.
+
+"Anything I can do?" he inquired, in suave concern.
+
+"Why ... there _was_ a black pearl scarfpin--"
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh," commented Kirkwood briefly. The pin had been among the most valuable
+and cherished of his belongings.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh," repeated Kirkwood.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh, indeed."
+
+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.
+
+"Guess I'll be turnin' in," he volunteered affably, yawning and stretching.
+
+"I was about to ask you to do me a service...." began Kirkwood.
+
+"Yes?"--with the rising inflection of mockery.
+
+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?"
+
+Stryker examined the collection with exaggerated interest strongly
+tinctured with mistrust. "I'll buy 'em," he offered eventually, looking up.
+
+"That's kind of you--"
+
+"Ow, they ain't much use to me, but Bill Stryker's allus willin' to
+accommodate a friend.... Four quid, you said?"
+
+"Five...."
+
+"They ain't wuth over four to me."
+
+"Very well; make it four," Kirkwood assented contemptuously.
+
+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.
+
+"I sye, 'ow did you come to get the impression there was a party named
+Almanack aboard this wessel?"
+
+"Calendar--"
+
+"'Ave it yer own wye," Stryker conceded gracefully.
+
+"There isn't, is there?"
+
+"You 'eard me."
+
+"Then," said Kirkwood sweetly, "I'm sure you wouldn't be interested."
+
+The captain pondered this at leisure. "You seemed pretty keen abaht seein'
+'im," he remarked conclusively.
+
+"I was."
+
+"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?"
+
+"No," said Kirkwood wearily.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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,
+_Alethea_ (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.
+
+His second impregnable conclusion was that those whom he sought had boarded
+the _Alethea_, 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.
+
+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!
+
+Idiot! Kirkwood groaned with despair of his inability to fathom the abyss
+of his self-contempt. There seemed to be positively no excuse for _him_.
+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.
+
+"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 ...!"
+
+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 ...
+
+"Oh, the devil!" he groaned, head in hands.
+
+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--!
+
+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.
+
+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
+_nil_; 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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?"
+
+"About as much as you'd expect," snapped Kirkwood.
+
+"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.
+
+Between gobbles Stryker eyed him furtively.
+
+"'Treat you all right?" he demanded abruptly.
+
+Kirkwood started out of a brown study. "What? Who? Why, I suppose I ought
+to be--indeed, I _am_ grateful," he asserted. "Certainly you saved my life,
+and--"
+
+"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."
+
+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 _as_-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 _just_ as well!... One of
+'em and me struck up quite an acquaintance--"
+
+"Naturally he'd take to you on sight."
+
+"Ow? Strynge 'ow _we_ '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?"
+
+"Oh, go to the devil!"
+
+"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."...
+
+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."
+
+Kirkwood made no answer. Chuckling, Stryker went on deck.
+
+In the course of an hour the American followed him.
+
+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 _Alethea_ 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.
+
+Kirkwood approached the captain, who, acting as his own pilot, was standing
+by the wheel and barking sharp orders to the helmsman.
+
+"Have you a Bradshaw on board?" asked the young man.
+
+"Steady!" This to the man at the wheel; then to Kirkwood: "Wot's that, me
+lud?"
+
+Kirkwood repeated his question. Stryker eyed him suspiciously for a
+thought.
+
+"Wot d'you want it for?"
+
+"I want to see when I can get a boat back to England."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"'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.
+
+In reply he received a monosyllabic affirmative; Kirkwood did not look up.
+
+"You must be a howl," commented the captain, making for the seductive
+locker.
+
+"A--what?"
+
+"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.
+
+"I'm all right." Kirkwood went on studying the book.
+
+Stryker swigged off his rum and wiped his lips with the back of a red paw,
+hesitating a moment to watch his guest.
+
+"Mykes it seem more 'ome-like for you, I expect," he observed.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"By the way, Captain!" Kirkwood looked up at this, but Stryker was already
+half-way up the companion.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+No; I am not sure that it was not the left-hand pocket.
+
+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.
+
+Some one had wielded an industrious pencil on the page. It was, taken as a
+whole, fruitful of clues. Its very heading was illuminating:
+
+LONDON to VLISSINGEN (FLUSHING) AND BREDA;
+
+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:
+
+QUEENSBOROUGH ... DEP ... 11A10.
+
+And now he saw it clearly--dolt that he had been not to have divined it ere
+this! The _Alethea_ 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 _Alethea_, 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?
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Antwerp was in sight.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_Alethea_ 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.
+
+And again Kirkwood sought Stryker, his carking query ready on his lips. But
+the captain impatiently waved him aside.
+
+"Don't you bother me now, me lud juke! Wyte until I gets done with the
+custom hofficer."
+
+Kirkwood acceded, perforce; and bided his time with what tolerance he could
+muster.
+
+A pluttering customs launch bustled up to the _Alethea's_ side, discharged
+a fussy inspector on the brigantine's deck, and panted impatiently until
+he, the examination concluded without delay, was again aboard.
+
+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.
+
+Advancing to the rail, the captain whistled in one of the river-boats;
+then, while the waterman waited, faced his passenger.
+
+"Now, yer r'yal 'ighness, wot can I do for you afore you goes ashore?"
+
+"I think you must have forgotten," said Kirkwood quietly. "I hate to
+trouble you, but--there's that matter of four pounds."
+
+Stryker's face was expressive only of mystified vacuity. "Four quid? I
+dunno _as_ I know just wot you means."
+
+"You agreed to advance me four pounds on those things of mine...."
+
+"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!"
+
+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."
+
+"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 '_ave_ given you yer quid."
+
+"Just about as much as I gave you that pearl pin," retorted Kirkwood hotly.
+"What the devil do you mean--"
+
+"W'y, yer ludship, four pounds jus pyes yer passyge; I thought you
+understood."
+
+"My passage! But I can come across by steamer for thirty shillings,
+first-class--"
+
+"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."
+
+Stunned by his effrontery, Kirkwood stared in silence.
+
+"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--"
+
+"You damned scoundrel!" interpolated Kirkwood thoughtfully.
+
+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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+Nodding to the boatman, "The Steen landing--quickly," he said in French.
+
+Stryker, recovering, advanced to the rail and waved him a derisive _bon
+voyage_.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The hand reappeared, displaying in its outspread palm three big, round,
+brown, British pennies. Staring down at them, Kirkwood's lips moved.
+
+"Bed rock!" he whispered huskily.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+A PRIMER OF PROGRESSIVE CRIME
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_Alethea's_ 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.
+
+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!
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+As languidly he watched a woman, very becomingly dressed, follow the porter
+down to the curb.
+
+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.
+
+The woman was Mrs. Hallam.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+In the company of the latter the young man marked down the _Alethea_; a
+sight which made him unconsciously clench both fists and teeth, reminding
+him of that rare wag, Stryker....
+
+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 _pour-boire_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+Mrs. Hallam was interested in the Hôtel du Commerce?
+
+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.
+
+He started to beguile the time by wondering what she would do, if...
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_ to confer again with Stryker,--that
+was, unless they proposed sailing on the brigantine, possibly at turn of
+tide that night.
+
+Panic gripped his soul and shook it, as a terrier shakes a rat, when he
+conceived this frightful proposition.
+
+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!
+
+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.
+
+Upon such slender threads of circumstance depends our boasted moral health.
+In one fleeting minute Kirkwood's conception of the law of _meum et tuum_,
+its foundations already insidiously undermined by a series of cumulative
+misfortunes, toppled crashing to its fall; and was not.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Alethea_. 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _raconteur_ in a gale of mirth.
+
+Mulready laughed with him, if a little uncertainly. Calendar's chuckle was
+not audible, but he broke the pause that followed.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _this_
+business?"
+
+"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."
+
+"The more fool you, to take outsiders into your confidence," grumbled
+Mulready.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh, cut that, cawn't you?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes," argued Mulready; "but suppose this Kirkwood had taken on with you
+and then peached?"
+
+"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 _had_ 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.
+
+"I don't see yet how Kirkwood got anything to do with Dorothy."
+
+"Miss Calendar to you, _Mister_ 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."
+
+There came the noise of chair legs scraped harshly on the cabin deck.
+Apparently Mulready had leaped to his feet in a rage.
+
+"I've told you--" he began in a voice thick with passion.
+
+"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."
+
+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!"
+
+"Now, then," Calendar proposed, "Mr. Kirkwood aside--peace be with
+him!--let's get down to cases."
+
+"Wot's the row?" asked the captain.
+
+"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."
+
+"Wot's the odds? She carn't 'urt us without lyin' up trouble for 'erself."
+
+"Damn little consolation to us when we're working it out in Dartmoor."
+
+"Speak for yourself," grunted Mulready surlily.
+
+"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, _but_ ..."
+
+"Ow, blow that!" interrupted the captain irritably. "Let's 'ear about the
+'Allam. Wot're you afryd of?"
+
+"'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."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Amsterdam," Mulready chimed in. "I told you that in the beginning."
+
+"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."
+
+"But wot I'm arskin' is, wot's the matter with--"
+
+"The _Alethea_, 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."
+
+"You leave her to me," Mulready interposed, with a brutal laugh. "I'll
+guarantee to get her aboard, or..."
+
+"Drop it, Dick!" Calendar advised quietly. "And go a bit easy with that
+bottle for five minutes, can't you?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"You drop it!" snarled Mulready, in accents so ugly that the listener was
+startled. "Enough's enough and--"
+
+"There, there, Dick! All right; I'll behave," Calendar soothed him. "We'll
+forget and say no more about it."
+
+"Well, see you don't."
+
+"But 'as either of you a plan?" persisted Stryker.
+
+"I have," replied Mulready; "and it's the simplest and best, if you could
+only make this long-lost parent here see it."
+
+"Wot is it?"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Leavin' the dootiful darter?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"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."
+
+"Why can't you be content with what you've got?" demanded Mulready
+wrathfully.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"I won't," returned Calendar inflexibly.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+And Dorothy, was waiting....
+
+He swung round and without attempting to muffle his footfalls strode toward
+the companionway. He must pretend he had just come aboard.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+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.
+
+As they went down together, sprawling, Mulready's head struck against a
+transom and the revolver fell from his limp fingers.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS
+
+Prepared as he had been for the shock, Kirkwood was able to pick himself up
+quickly, uninjured, Mulready's revolver in his grasp.
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Straddling Mulready's body, he confronted Calendar and
+Stryker.]
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+The fat adventurer nodded assent, his eyes contracting.
+
+"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..."
+
+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.
+
+"Quick! I'm not patient to-night..."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+The captain shook visibly with contrition. "No, Mr. Kirkwood," he managed
+to reply in a voice singularly lacking in his wonted bluster.
+
+"Say 'sir'!" suggested Kirkwood.
+
+"No, Mr. Kirkwood, sir," amended Stryker eagerly.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+Submissively the captain retired to the indicated spot. Kirkwood turned
+to Calendar; of whose attitude, however, he had not been for an instant
+unmindful.
+
+"Won't you sit down, Mr. Calendar?" he suggested pleasantly. "Forgive me
+for keeping you waiting."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Well?" he demanded testily. "What d'you want of me?"
+
+"I was just wondering at you, Calendar. In the last few days you've given
+me enough cause to wonder, as you'll admit."
+
+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--"
+
+"I'm not so sure of that! Perhaps it had been more humane--"
+
+Calendar owned the touch with a wry grimace. "But I'm damned if I
+understand this high-handed attitude of yours!" he concluded heatedly.
+
+"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?"
+
+The restless eyes sought the companionway.
+
+"Dorothy," the man lied spontaneously, without a tremor, "is with friends
+in England. Why? Did you want to see her?"
+
+"I rather expected to."
+
+"Well, I thought it best to leave her home, after all."
+
+"I'm glad to hear she's in safe hands," commented Kirkwood.
+
+The adventurer's glance analyzed his face. "Ah," he said slowly, "I see.
+You followed me on Dorothy's account, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Despite the fact that you're an honest man, Kirkwood?" The fat lips
+twitched with premature enjoyment.
+
+"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."
+
+"Well--yes." Calendar's thick fingers caressed his lips, trying to hide the
+dawning smile.
+
+"Is that offer still open?"
+
+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.
+
+"I'm sorry," he replied, "that it isn't--now. You're too late, Kirkwood;
+I've made other arrangements."
+
+"Too bad." Kirkwood's eyes narrowed. "You force me to harsher measures,
+Calendar."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"What?" stammered Calendar, astonished. "What in hell _are_ you driving
+at?"
+
+"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."
+
+"I got it 'ere," responded the sailor hastily, fumbling with his tie.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"And if I refuse?"
+
+"I wouldn't refuse, if I were you."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The consequences would be too painful."
+
+"You mean you'd puncture me with that gun?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"No." The adventurer had become suddenly thoughtful. "No, I won't. 'Glad to
+oblige you."
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Never fear, little one!" Calendar's laugh was nervously cheerful. "The
+Lord knows you're welcome."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+He had its lid up in a twinkling, and in another had lifted out the
+well-remembered black gladstone bag.
+
+This seems to have been his first compound larceny.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+And doubts assailed him, pressing close upon the ebb of his
+excitement--doubts and fears innumerable.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Well! (Kirkwood set his mouth savagely) Calendar should have a run for his
+money!
+
+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 _Quai Steen_
+landing and (possibly) the arms of the despoiled boat-owner.
+
+At first he could hear crash after splintering crash sounding dully muffled
+from the cabin of the _Alethea_: 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+They passed the Hôtel du Commerce. Kirkwood stared up at its windows,
+wondering....
+
+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.
+
+"Gare Centrale!" he cried. "And drive like the devil!"
+
+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.
+
+He drew in his head the better to preserve his brains against further
+emergencies.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+With more courage, now that he had the hateful thing under cover, he found
+and entered the Hôtel du Commerce.
+
+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 _bourgeoisie_ 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.
+
+"Three flights, M'sieu', in the front; suite seventeen it is. M'sieu' does
+not mind walking up?" she inquired.
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Believing that he overheard from within a sudden startled exclamation, he
+smiled patiently, tolerant of her surprise.
+
+Burning with impatience as with a fever, he endured a long minute's wait.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Then, of the two the first to recover countenance, he doffed his cap and
+bowed.
+
+"Good evening, Mrs. Hallam," he said with a rueful smile.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+REFUGEES
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"Dorothy," returned the lady with spirit, "is engaged...."
+
+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.
+
+The woman flushed angrily; their glances crossed, her eyes flashing with
+indignation; but Kirkwood's held them with a level and unyielding stare.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Dorothy!" the woman called over her shoulder; "ring for the porter."
+
+"By all means," assented Kirkwood agreeably. "I'll send him for a
+gendarme."
+
+"You insolent puppy!"
+
+"Madam, your wit disarms me--"
+
+"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."
+
+"You have no time to waste with him, Dorothy," said the woman coldly. "I
+must insist--"
+
+"But you don't seem to understand; it is Mr. Kirkwood!" argued the
+girl,--as if he were ample excuse for any imprudence!
+
+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.
+
+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!"
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+"I was about to go out," she repeated in confusion. "I--it's pleasant to
+see you, too."
+
+"Thank you," he stammered ineptly; "I--I--"
+
+"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."
+
+"I am infinitely complimented, Mrs. Hallam," Kirkwood assured her; and of
+the girl quickly: "You're going back home?" he asked.
+
+She nodded, with a faint, puzzled smile that included the woman. "After a
+little--not immediately. Mrs. Hallam is so kind--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Dorothy will be with me," Mrs. Hallam answered for her, with cold
+defiance.
+
+Deliberately insolent, Kirkwood turned his back to the woman. "Miss
+Calendar, will you answer my question for yourself?" he asked the girl
+pointedly.
+
+"Why--yes; several friends; none in London, but--"
+
+"Dorothy--"
+
+"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--"
+
+"Dorothy, I--"
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Why, I--" the girl faltered, taken by surprise.
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood!" cried Mrs. Hallam angrily, finding her voice.
+
+Kirkwood turned to meet her onslaught with a mien grave, determined,
+unflinching. "Please do not interfere, Madam," he said quietly.
+
+"You are impertinent, sir! Dorothy, I forbid you to listen to this person!"
+
+The girl flushed, lifting her chin a trifle. "Forbid?" she repeated
+wonderingly.
+
+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--"
+
+"How dare you, sir?"
+
+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.
+
+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...."
+
+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--"
+
+"Mrs. Hallam!" Kirkwood cut her short with a menacing tone.
+
+"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 _chanson_ which brought the hot blood to
+Kirkwood's face.
+
+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--"
+
+"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."
+
+From the window, where she stood, holding the curtains back and staring
+out, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.
+
+[Illustration: From the window, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.]
+
+"'The honor of an American gentleman,'" she quoted with a stinging sneer;
+"I'm sure I wish you comfort of it, child!"
+
+"We must make haste, Miss Calendar," said Kirkwood, ignoring the
+implication. "Have you a traveling-bag?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Gare du Sud," he directed the driver. "Drive your fastest--double fare for
+quick time!"
+
+The driver awoke with a start from profound reverie, looked Kirkwood over,
+and bowed with gesticulative palms.
+
+"M'sieu', I am desolated, but engaged!" he protested.
+
+"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."
+
+"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? _En
+voiture_!"
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"And if we miss that?" asked the girl, breaking silence for the first time
+since they had left the hotel.
+
+"We'll take the first train out of Antwerp."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes..." Her assent was more a sigh than a word.
+
+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.
+
+"Don't stop! Gare Centrale now--and treble fare!"
+
+"_Oui, M'sieu'! Allons!_"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood dropped the flap and turned back to find the girl's wide eyes
+searching his face. He said nothing.
+
+"What was that?" she asked after a patient moment.
+
+"Your father, Miss Calendar," he returned uncomfortably.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+And she was insistent; he might not dodge the issue. "Why?" she repeated as
+he paused.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't press me for an answer just now, Miss Calendar."
+
+"Don't you think I had better know?"
+
+Instinctively he inclined his head in assent.
+
+"Then why--?"
+
+Kirkwood bent forward and patted the flank of the satchel that held the
+gladstone bag.
+
+"What does that mean, Mr. Kirkwood?"
+
+"That I have the jewels," he told her tersely, looking straight ahead.
+
+At his shoulder he heard a low gasp of amazement and incredulity
+commingled.
+
+"But--! How did you get them? My father deposited them in bank this
+morning?"
+
+"He must have taken them out again.... I got them on board the Alethea,
+where your father was conferring with Mulready and Captain Stryker."
+
+"The Alethea!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You took them from those men?--you!... But didn't my father--?"
+
+"I had to persuade him," said Kirkwood simply.
+
+"But there were three of them against you!"
+
+"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.
+
+"I understand...."
+
+But for some moments she did not speak. He avoided looking at her.
+
+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.
+
+"You don't--k-know--" began the girl without warning, in a voice gusty with
+sobs.
+
+"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."
+
+"Please!" she agreed brokenly.
+
+The fiacre slowed up and stopped.
+
+"Are you all right, Miss Calendar?" Kirkwood asked.
+
+The girl sat up, lifting her head proudly. "I am quite ready," she said,
+steadying her voice.
+
+Kirkwood reconnoitered through the window, while the driver was descending.
+
+"Gare Centrale, M'sieu'," he said, opening the door.
+
+"No one in sight," Kirkwood told the girl. "Come, please."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+The girl smiled bravely.... "And after Brussels?" she inquired.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Who was that?" demanded the girl, without moving her head.
+
+"How did you know?" he asked, astonished. "You didn't look--"
+
+"I saw your knuckles whiten beneath the skin.... Who was it?"
+
+"Hobbs," he acknowledged bitterly; "the mate of the _Alethea_."
+
+"I know.... And you think--?"
+
+"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!"
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"I didn't understand, you know," she told him with a slow, shy smile.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Perfectly," she said, brightening. "And what do you purpose doing now?"
+
+"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."
+
+"I shan't be worried," she said simply, "with you here...."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_vice-versa_, with every train that crosses a boundary line of the state.
+
+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.
+
+"Can't you find out anything?" Dorothy was asking.
+
+"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 _can_ 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."
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+The guard departed, doubtless with private views as to the madness of all
+English-speaking travelers.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+His eyes, dumbly eloquent, turned to meet hers. She was smiling.
+
+"Please!" she iterated, with the least imperative pressure on his hand,
+pushing the folder aside.
+
+"I beg pardon?" he muttered blankly.
+
+"Is it quite necessary, now, to study those schedules? Haven't you decided
+to try for the Bruges express?"
+
+"Why yes, but--"
+
+"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!"
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh-h!" She brightened. "That night, at the Pless? But that was _ages_
+ago!"
+
+"It seems so," he admitted.
+
+"So much has happened!"
+
+"Yes," he assented vaguely.
+
+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.
+
+"Forgive me. I was thinking about, if not talking to, you.... I've been
+wondering just why it was that you left the _Alethea_ at Queensborough, to
+go on by steamer."
+
+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.
+
+"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 _Alethea_, 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."
+
+"Were you sorry for the change?"
+
+"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 _Alethea_ 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."
+
+Kirkwood shut his teeth on what he knew of the blackguard.
+
+"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."
+
+"But you were with your father, in his care--"
+
+"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."
+
+"I thought so," he confessed, troubled. "It's very inconsiderate of you,
+you must admit."
+
+"I don't understand..."
+
+"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."
+
+"Protection!" she echoed warmly. "If you call it that!"
+
+"Kidnapping," he said thoughtfully: "I presume that'd be the charge."
+
+"Oh!" She laughed the notion to scorn. "Besides, they must catch us first,
+mustn't they?"
+
+"Of course; and"--with a simulation of confidence sadly deceitful--"they
+shan't, Mr. Hobbs to the contrary notwithstanding."
+
+"You make me share your confidence, against my better judgment."
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+"Hallam!"
+
+"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.
+
+"But never mind," he began awkwardly.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I have met the young gentleman," interpolated Kirkwood.
+
+"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--"
+
+She choked on a little, dry sob. It was some time before she seemed able to
+continue.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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--?"
+
+"I do, indeed," replied Kirkwood grimly. "I understand a lot of things now
+that I didn't five minutes ago. Please let me think..."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"But that doesn't prove--"
+
+"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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Yes," whispered the girl huskily; and turned her face to the window, a
+quivering muscle in the firm young throat alone betraying her emotion.
+
+"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."
+
+He waited patiently. Eventually, "No-o," the girl sobbed assent.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood!" she deprecated, in horror.
+
+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!"
+
+"You are, dreadfully," she confessed in a tremulous voice.
+
+"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!"
+
+"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--"
+
+"We'd best be getting ready," he interrupted hastily. "Here's Brussels."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_Alethea_ serenely ensconced in the coach behind.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+And thus she saw him, when, without warning, she awoke.
+
+Bewilderment at first informed the wide brown eyes; then, as their
+drowsiness vanished, a little laughter, a little tender mirth.
+
+"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?"
+
+He shook his head, smiling.
+
+"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 _you_ wouldn't know."
+
+"It seems all right," he replied vacantly.
+
+"Then please to try to look a little happier, since you find me quite
+presentable."
+
+"I do..."
+
+Without lifting her bended head, she looked up, laughing, not ill-pleased.
+"_You'd_ say so... really?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Through the window they watched the train roll in and stop.
+
+Among others, alighted, smirking, the unspeakable Hobbs.
+
+He lifted his hat and bowed jauntily to the waiting-room window, making it
+plain that his keen eyes had discovered them instantly.
+
+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.
+
+There remained but a single untried ruse in his bag of tricks; mercifully
+it might suffice.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+When Dunkerque halted their progress, they were obliged to alight and
+change cars,--Hobbs a discreetly sinister shadow at the end of the
+platform.
+
+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'.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_Alethea's_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+At length Kirkwood spoke.
+
+"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, _if_ I can."
+
+"You must," replied the girl. "I shan't go without you."
+
+"But, Dor--Miss Calendar!" he exclaimed, aghast.
+
+"I don't care--I know I agreed," she declared mutinously. "But I won't--I
+can't. Remember I shall wait for you."
+
+"But--but perhaps--"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Good-by," she whispered.
+
+He caught at her hand, protesting. "Dorothy--!"
+
+"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...."
+
+And she was running away.
+
+Dumfounded with dismay, seeing in a flash how all his plans might be set at
+naught by this her unforeseen insubordination, he took a step or two after
+her; but she was fleet of foot, and, remembering Hobbs, he halted.
+
+By this time the mate, too, was running; Kirkwood could hear the heavy
+pounding of his clumsy feet. Already Dorothy had almost gained the farther
+corner; as she whisked round it with a flutter of skirts, Kirkwood dodged
+hastily behind a gate-post. A thought later, Hobbs appeared, head down,
+chest out, eyes straining for sight of his quarry, pelting along for dear
+life.
+
+As, rounding the corner, he stretched out in swifter stride, Kirkwood was
+inspired to put a spoke in his wheel; and a foot thrust suddenly out from
+behind the gate-post accomplished his purpose with more success than he
+had dared anticipate. Stumbling, the mate plunged headlong, arms and legs
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Myself," admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor: "Weren't
+you looking for me?"
+
+His rage seemed to take the little Cockney and shake him by the throat; he
+trembled from head to foot, his face shockingly congested, and spat out
+dust and fragments of lurid blasphemy like an infuriated cat.
+
+Of a sudden, "W'ere's the gel?" he sputtered thickly as his quick shifting
+eyes for the first time noted Dorothy's absence.
+
+"Miss Calendar has other business--none with you. I've taken the liberty of
+stopping you because I have a word or two--"
+
+"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--"
+
+"You've got another guess--" Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in
+deference to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action.
+
+To some extent he had underestimated the brute courage of the fellow, the
+violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his kind.
+Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of villainy, Kirkwood
+had been a little less wary than he would have been with Calendar or
+Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so
+conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to
+learn that if Stryker's nature was like a snake's for low cunning and
+deviousness, Hobbs' soul was the soul of a viper.
+
+Almost imperceptibly he had advanced upon Kirkwood; almost insensibly his
+right hand had moved toward his chest; now, with a movement marvelously
+deft, it had slipped in and out of his breast pocket. And a six-inch blade
+of tarnished steel was winging toward Kirkwood's throat with the speed of
+light.
+
+Instinctively he stepped back; as instinctively he guarded with his right
+forearm, lifting the hand that held the satchel. The knife, catching in his
+sleeve, scratched the arm beneath painfully, and simultaneously was twisted
+from the 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.
+
+By the time he had recovered from the shock, Hobbs was a score of feet
+away, the satchel tucked under his arm, his body bent almost double,
+running like a jack-rabbit. Ere Kirkwood could get under way, in pursuit,
+the mate had dodged out of sight round the corner. When the American caught
+sight of him again, he was far down the block, and bettering his pace with
+every jump.
+
+He was approaching, also, some six or eight good citizens of Calais, men of
+the laboring class, at a guess. Their attention attracted by his frantic
+flight, they stopped to wonder. One or two moved as though to intercept
+him, and he doubled out into the middle of the street with the quickness of
+thought; an instant later he shot round another corner and disappeared, the
+natives streaming after in hot chase, electrified by the inspiring strains
+of "Stop, thief!"--or its French equivalent.
+
+Kirkwood, cheering them on with the same wild cry, followed to the farther
+street; and there paused, so winded and weak with laughter that he was fain
+to catch at a fence picket for support. Standing thus he saw other denizens
+of Calais spring as if from the ground miraculously to swell the hue and
+cry; and a dumpling of a gendarme materialized from nowhere at all, to fall
+in behind the rabble, waving his sword above his head and screaming at the
+top of his lungs, the while his fat legs twinkled for all the world like
+thick sausage links marvelously animated.
+
+The mob straggled round yet another corner and was gone; its clamor
+diminished on the still Spring air; and Kirkwood, recovering, abandoned
+Mr. Hobbs to the justice of the high gods and the French system of
+jurisprudence (at least, he hoped the latter would take an interest in the
+case, if haply Hobbs were laid by the heels), and went his way rejoicing.
+
+As for the scratch on his arm, it was nothing, as he presently demonstrated
+to his complete satisfaction in the seclusion of a chance-sent fiacre.
+Kirkwood, commissioning it to drive him to the American Consulate, made
+his diagnosis _en route_; wound a handkerchief round the negligible wound,
+rolled down his sleeve, and forgot it altogether in the joys of picturing
+to himself Hobbs in the act of opening the satchel in expectation of
+finding therein the gladstone bag.
+
+At the consulate door he paid off the driver and dismissed him; the fiacre
+had served his purpose, and he could find his way to the Terminus 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+At noon precisely, his suspense grown too onerous for his strength of will,
+throwing caution and their understanding to the winds, he walked boldly
+into the Terminus, and inquired for Miss Calendar.
+
+The assurance he received that she was in safety under its roof did not
+deter him from sending up his name and asking her to receive him in the
+public lounge; he required the testimony of his senses to convince him that
+no harm had come to her in the long hour and a half that had elapsed since
+their separation.
+
+Woman-like, she kept him waiting. Alone in the public rooms of the hotel,
+he suffered excruciating torments. How was he to know that Calendar had not
+arrived and found his way to her?
+
+When at length she appeared on the threshold of the apartment, bringing
+with her the traveling bag and looking wonderfully the better for her
+ninety minutes of complete repose and privacy, the relief he experienced
+was so intense that he remained transfixed in the middle of the floor,
+momentarily able neither to speak nor to move.
+
+On her part, so fagged and distraught did he seem, that at sight of his
+care-worn countenance she hurried to him with outstretched, compassionate
+hands and a low pitiful cry of concern, forgetful entirely of that which he
+himself had forgotten--the emotion she had betrayed on parting.
+
+"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."
+
+The narrative of his adventure which he delivered over their _déjeuner à
+la fourchette_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+He groaned in spirit to think how differently he might have been fixed, had
+he not in his infatuated spirit of honesty been so anxious to give Calendar
+more than ample value for his money!
+
+An inexorable anxiety held them both near the gangway until it was cast off
+and the boat began to draw away from the pier. Then, and not till then, did
+an unimpressive, small figure of a man detach itself from the shield of a
+pile of luggage and advance to the pier-head. No second glance was
+needed to identify Mr. Hobbs; and until the perspective dwarfed him
+indistinguishably, he was to be seen, alternately waving Kirkwood ironic
+farewell and blowing violent kisses to Miss Calendar from the tips of his
+soiled fingers.
+
+So he had escaped arrest....
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+ROGUES AND VAGABONDS
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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?"
+
+"How do you know what I meant to say?" he demanded, staring.
+
+"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."
+
+This latter was so essentially undeserved and so artlessly insincere, that
+he must needs, of course, treat it with all seriousness.
+
+"That isn't fair, Miss Calendar. Really it's not."
+
+"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--"
+
+"Don't!" he pleaded vehemently. "Please!... You _know_ it isn't that. I
+_don't_ 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.
+
+"I mean," he floundered on presently, in the fatuous belief that he would
+this time be able to control both mind and tongue, "_what_ 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...."
+
+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 _right_?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+She had understood without resentment!
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+"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.
+
+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?"
+
+"It--it affects us both," he conceded drearily. "I--I don't--"
+
+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.
+
+The train began to move slowly across the Thames to Charing Cross.
+
+Mercilessly the girl persisted. "We've only a minute more. Surely you can
+trust me...."
+
+In exasperation he interrupted almost rudely. "It's only this: I--I'm
+strapped."
+
+"Strapped?" She knitted her brows over this fresh specimen of American
+slang.
+
+"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--"
+
+"Oh!" she interpolated, enlightened.
+
+"--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."
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"Oh, poor Mr. Kirkwood! And it's all because of me! You've beggared
+yourself--"
+
+"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--"
+
+"You've told me nothing, nothing whatever about yourself," she said
+reproachfully.
+
+"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."
+
+"And you were going home that night we made you miss your steamer!"
+
+"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--"
+
+"Please! I want to think, I'm trying to remember how much you've gone
+through--"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"And there's no way I can repay you...."
+
+"There's nothing to be repaid," he contended stoutly.
+
+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--"
+
+"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."
+
+She looked up inquiringly.
+
+"Craven Street is just round the corner."
+
+"Yes?"--wonderingly.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+He dared not meet her look.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+With a jar the train started and began to move more swiftly.
+
+Kirkwood lifted the traveling bag to his knees.
+
+"Don't forget," he said with some difficulty, "you're to stick by me,
+whatever happens. You mustn't desert me."
+
+"You _know_," the girl reproved him.
+
+"I know; but there must be no misunderstanding.... Don't worry; we'll win
+out yet, I've a plan."
+
+_Splendide mendax_! He had not the glimmering of a plan.
+
+The engine panting, the train drew in beneath the vast sounding dome of the
+station, to an accompaniment of dull thunderings; and stopped finally.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Abruptly he caught the girl by the arm and unceremoniously hurried her
+toward a waiting hansom.
+
+"Quick!" he begged her. "Jump right in--not an instant to spare.--"
+
+She nodded brightly, lips firm with courage, eyes shining.
+
+"My father?"
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+Dorothy said nothing.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+The American stood up again, catching the cabby's eye.
+
+"Drive on!" he cried excitedly. "Don't stop--drive as fast as you dare!"
+
+"W'ere to, sir?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Good little horse!" he applauded.
+
+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.
+
+That the same conditions, but slightly modified, hemmed them in ahead, went
+for nothing in Kirkwood's estimation.
+
+"Good driver!" he approved heartily. "He's got a head on his shoulders!"
+
+The girl found her voice. "How," she demanded in a breath, face blank with
+consternation, "how did you dare?"
+
+"Dare?" he echoed exultantly; and in his veins excitement was running like
+liquid fire. "What wouldn't I dare for you, Dorothy?"
+
+"What have you not?" she amended softly, adding with a shade of timidity:
+"Philip..."
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+"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!"
+
+She said something inaudible, holding her face averted. He bent nearer to
+her, wondering. "I didn't understand," he suggested.
+
+Still looking from him, "I said you were very good to me," she said in a
+quavering whisper.
+
+"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
+_is_ 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 _right_. Only have a little faith in me, and I'll _make_
+everything work out right, Dorothy."
+
+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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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--
+
+"We're gaining?"
+
+"Yes--think so."
+
+Or, "We'll tire them out?"
+
+"Sure-ly."
+
+"They can't catch us, can they, Philip?"
+
+"Never in the world."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Yessir?"
+
+"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."
+
+"I'm sure of it, sir. 'E's a good 'oss, 'e is, but 'e carn't keep goin' for
+hever, you know, sir."
+
+"I know. You've done very well; you've done your best."
+
+"Very good, sir. The Pless, you said, sir? Right."
+
+The trap closed.
+
+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."
+
+"I understand."
+
+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.
+
+He bent forward with the traveling bag in his hands.
+
+"What are you going to do?" The girl's voice was very tremulous.
+
+"Stand a chance, take a losing hazard. Can you run? You're not too tired?"
+
+"I can run--perhaps not far--a little way, at least."
+
+"And will you do as I say?"
+
+Her eyes met his, unwavering, bespeaking her implicit faith.
+
+"Promise!"
+
+"I promise."
+
+"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."
+
+He stood up, surveying the neighborhood. Behind him the girl lifted her
+voice in protest.
+
+"No, Philip, no!"
+
+"You've promised," he said sternly, eyes ranging the street.
+
+"I don't care; I won't leave you."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"No," he gasped; "not hurt--only surprised. Wait...."
+
+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.
+
+Incontinently the young man turned to the girl and forced the traveling-bag
+into her hands.
+
+"Run for it!" he begged her. "Don't stop to argue. You promised--run! I'll
+come...."
+
+"Philip!" she pleaded.
+
+"Dorothy!" he cried in torment.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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:
+
+"Stryker--not another foot--"
+
+With this there chimed in Dorothy's voice, ringing bell-clear from a little
+distance:
+
+"Philip!"
+
+Like a flash he wheeled, to add yet another picture to his mental gallery.
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: A costume consisting mainly of a flowered dressing-gown and
+slippers.]
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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!"
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+From his threshold, watching him with a slight contraction of the eyes,
+Brentwick hailed him in tones of cloying courtesy.
+
+"Do you wish to see me, sir?"
+
+The fat adventurer faltered just within the gateway; then, with a truculent
+swagger, "I want my daughter," he declared vociferously.
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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--"
+
+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.
+
+Sullenly extracting money from his pocket, he paid off his driver, and in
+company with Stryker, trudged in morose silence down the street.
+
+Brentwick touched Kirkwood's arm and drew him into the house.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+ADVENTURERS' LUCK
+
+As the door closed, Kirkwood swung impulsively to Brentwick, with the
+brief, uneven laugh of fine-drawn nerves.
+
+"Good God, sir!" he cried. "You don't know--"
+
+"I can surmise," interrupted the elder man shrewdly.
+
+"You turned up in the nick of time, for all the world like--"
+
+"Harlequin popping through a stage trap?"
+
+"No!--an incarnation of the Providence that watches over children and
+fools."
+
+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."
+
+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!..."
+
+Beyond the threshold of the study, Kirkwood paused, eager eyes searching
+its somber shadows for a sign of Dorothy.
+
+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...
+
+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.
+
+"Oh, Philip!" She turned swiftly to Kirkwood with extended hands and a low,
+broken cry. "I'm _so_ glad...."
+
+A trace of hysteria in her manner warned him, and he checked himself 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--"
+
+"Who," inquired the girl, lowering her voice, "who is the gentleman in the
+flowered dressing-gown?"
+
+"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!"
+
+"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?'--"
+
+"He did!" exclaimed Kirkwood. "But how--?"
+
+"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."
+
+"It's strange enough, surely--and fortunate. Bless his heart!" said
+Kirkwood.
+
+And, "Hum!" said Mr. Brentwick considerately, entering the study. He had
+discarded the dressing-gown and was now in evening dress.
+
+The girl rose. Kirkwood turned. "Mr. Brentwick--" he began.
+
+But Brentwick begged his patience with an eloquent gesture. "Sir," he said,
+somewhat austerely, "permit me to put a single question: Have you by any
+chance paid your cabby?"
+
+"Why--" faltered the younger man, with a flaming face. "I--why, no--that
+is--"
+
+The other quietly put his hand upon a bell-pull. A faint jingling sound was
+at once audible, emanating from the basement.
+
+"How much should you say you owe him?"
+
+"I--I haven't a penny in the world!"
+
+The shrewd eyes flashed their amusement into Kirkwood's. "Tut, tut!"
+Brentwick chuckled. "Between gentlemen, my dear boy! Dear me! you are slow
+to learn."
+
+"I'll never be contented to sponge on my friends," explained Kirkwood in
+deepest misery. "I can't tell when--"
+
+"Tut, tut! How much did you say?"
+
+"Ten shillings--or say twelve, would be about right," stammered the
+American, swayed by conflicting emotions of gratitude and profound
+embarrassment.
+
+A soft-footed butler, impassive as Fate, materialized mysteriously in the
+doorway.
+
+"You rang, sir?" he interrupted frigidly.
+
+"I rang, Wotton." His master selected a sovereign from his purse and handed
+it to the servant. "For the cabby, Wotton."
+
+"Yes sir." The butler swung automatically, on one heel.
+
+"And Wotton!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"If any one should ask for me, I'm not at home."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"And if you should see a pair of disreputable scoundrels skulking, in the
+neighborhood, one short and stout, the other tall and evidently a seafaring
+man, let me know."
+
+"Thank you, sir." A moment later the front door was heard to close.
+
+Brentwick turned with a little bow to the girl. "My dear Miss Calendar," he
+said, rubbing his thin, fine hands,--"I am old enough, I trust, to call you
+such without offense,--please be seated."
+
+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!"
+
+"Would you mind telling us how you knew--" began Kirkwood anxiously.
+
+"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?"
+
+"You were right," affirmed Kirkwood, with a rueful and crooked smile.
+"But--"
+
+"So! so!" pursued Brentwick, rising on his toes and dropping back again;
+"so this world of ours wags on to the old, old tune!... And I, who in 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?"
+
+The butler had again appeared noiselessly in the doorway.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir; they're waiting, sir."
+
+"The caitiffs, Wotton?"
+
+"Yessir."
+
+"Where waiting?"
+
+"One at each end of the street, sir."
+
+"Thank you. You may bring us sherry and biscuit, Wotton."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+The servant vanished.
+
+Brentwick removed his glasses, rubbed them, and blinked thoughtfully at 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."
+
+"You--y-you knew my mother?" cried Dorothy, profoundly moved.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"You may go, Wotton--or, wait. Don't you feel the need of a breath of fresh
+air, Wotton?"
+
+"Yessir, thank you, sir."
+
+"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."
+
+"Quite so, sir."
+
+"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."
+
+"But you will tell me--"
+
+"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."
+
+Kirkwood chuckled, infected by his host's genial humor. "How do you know--"
+
+"How can it be otherwise?" countered Brentwick with a trace of asperity.
+"Am I to be denied my adventure? Sir, I refuse without equivocation. 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."
+
+"But Mr. Brentwick--!"
+
+"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?"
+
+"I apologize," Kirkwood humored him.
+
+"I accept the apology in the spirit in which it is offered.... I repeat,
+now for the adventure, Philip. If the story's long, epitomize. We can
+consider details more at our leisure."
+
+Kirkwood's eyes consulted the girl's face; almost imperceptibly she nodded
+him permission to proceed.
+
+"Briefly, then," he began haltingly, "the man who followed us to the door
+here, is Miss Calendar's father."
+
+"Oh? His name, please?"
+
+"George Burgoyne Calendar."
+
+"Ah! An American; I remember, now. Continue, please."
+
+"He is hounding us, sir, with the intention of stealing some property,
+which he caused to be stolen, which we--to put it bluntly--stole from him,
+to which he has no shadow of a title, and which, finally, we're endeavoring
+to return to its owners."
+
+"My dear!" interpolated Brentwick gently, looking down at the girl's
+flushed face and drooping head.
+
+"He ran us to the last ditch," Kirkwood continued; "I've spent my last
+farthing trying to lose him."
+
+"But why have you not caused his arrest?" Brentwick inquired.
+
+Kirkwood nodded meaningly toward the girl. Brentwick made a sound
+indicating comprehension, a click of the tongue behind closed teeth.
+
+"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."
+
+"A communication from my solicitors detained me," explained Brentwick. "And
+now, what do you intend to do?"
+
+"Trespass as far on your kindness as you'll permit. In the first place,
+I--I want the use of a few pounds with which to cable some friends in New
+York, for money; on receipt of which I can repay you."
+
+"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."
+
+"You're one of the best men in the world," said Kirkwood.
+
+"Tut, tut! Will you get on?"
+
+"Secondly, I want you to help us to escape Calendar to-night. It is
+necessary that Miss Calendar should go to Chiltern this evening, where she
+has friends who will receive and protect her."
+
+"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."
+
+Again he put a hand upon the bell-pull. Simultaneously Dorothy and Kirkwood
+rose.
+
+"Mr. Brentwick," said the girl, her eyes starred with tears of gratitude,
+"I don't, I really don't know how--"
+
+"My dear," said the old gentleman, "you will thank me most appropriately
+by continuing, to the best of your ability, to resemble your mother more
+remarkably every minute."
+
+"But I," began Kirkwood----.
+
+"You, my dear Philip, can thank me best by permitting me to enjoy myself;
+which I am doing thoroughly at the present moment. My pleasure in 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."
+
+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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+A suspicion of moisture glimmered in his eyes. "Dorothy!" he whispered
+huskily. And a little later, rising, he proceeded to the telephone....
+
+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.
+
+"And that," he said, looking up from his savory, "is about all."
+
+"Bravo!" applauded Brentwick; eyes shining with delight.
+
+"All," interposed Dorothy in warm reproach, "but what he hasn't told--"
+
+"Which, my dear, is to be accounted for wholly by a very 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?"
+
+Brentwick sat back in his chair, inclining an attentive ear to a
+communication murmured by the butler.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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."
+
+Resolutely the girl repressed a gasp of dismay. Kirkwood stared moodily
+into his cup.
+
+"These men bore me fearfully," he commented at last.
+
+"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....
+
+"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?"
+
+Instinctively the girl looked to Kirkwood; then shifted her glance to their
+host. "I think you are wonderfully thoughtful and kind," she said simply.
+
+"And you, Philip?"
+
+"It's an inspiration," the younger man declared. "I can't think of 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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+At one corner another and a smaller car stood in waiting, its lamps like
+baleful eyes glaring through the night.
+
+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.
+
+Dorothy presently joining them, Brentwick led the way to the door.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The watcher across the way was moved to whistle shrilly; the other car
+lunged forward nervously.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"You aren't afraid, Dorothy?"
+
+She answered quietly: "I am with you, Philip."
+
+Beneath the robe their hands met...
+
+Exalted, excited, he turned and looked back. A hundred yards to the rear
+four unwinking eyes trailed them, like some modern Nemesis in monstrous
+guise.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+I----THE UXBRIDGE ROAD
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+He shook his head, as if to say: They can not catch us.
+
+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 gene 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.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+The girl sat up, opening her eyes, disengaging her arm.
+
+Kirkwood bent forward and touched Brentwick on the shoulder; the latter
+turned to him a face lined with deep concern.
+
+"Trouble," he announced superfluously. "I fear we have blundered."
+
+"What is it?" asked Dorothy in a troubled voice.
+
+"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."
+
+"Are we--? Do you think--?"
+
+"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."
+
+Dorothy looked anxiously to Kirkwood, her lips forming an unuttered query:
+What did he think?
+
+"Don't worry; we'll have no trouble," he assured her stoutly; "the
+chauffeur knows, undoubtedly."
+
+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.
+
+There was nothing to be seen of their persecutors.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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!"
+
+"I'm afraid I have been very clumsy," sighed Brentwick, "clumsy and
+impulsive ... Kirkwood, do you hear anything?"
+
+"Not yet, sir."
+
+"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."
+
+"I should like that," assented the girl decidedly.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes, sir; thank you, sir." The mechanician touched the visor of his cap
+and hurried off.
+
+"Come, Kirkwood." Gently Brentwick drew the girl in with him.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+II----THE CROWN AND MITRE
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Brentwick, sir!" he cried gustily. "That other car--"
+
+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.
+
+Kirkwood turned upon him in fury. "So!" he cried, shaking with passion.
+"This is what your hospitality meant! You're going to--"
+
+"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."
+
+"But--hang it all, Brentwick!" expostulated Kirkwood, ashamed and contrite,
+but worked upon by desperate apprehension; "I didn't mean that, but--"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Hang the jewels!" retorted Kirkwood warmly. "What--"
+
+"Sir, who said anything about the jewels?"
+
+As Brentwick spoke, Calendar's corpulent figure filled the doorway;
+Stryker's weather-worn features loomed over his shoulder, distorted in a
+cheerful leer.
+
+"As to the jewels," announced the fat adventurer, "I've got a word to say,
+if you put it to me that way."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+Stryker obeyed, with a derisive grimace for Kirkwood.
+
+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.
+
+"_Good_ 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 _you_ to bring the police about our ears. I believe that
+in substance such was your sapient counsel to me in the cabin of the
+_Alethea_; 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?"
+
+[Illustration: "_Good_ evening, all!" he saluted them blandly.]
+
+"It might be Brentwick," said that gentleman placidly.
+
+"Brentwick, eh? Well, I like a man of spirit. But permit me to advise
+you--"
+
+"Gladly," nodded Brentwick.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"I have it here,--under the table," interrupted Brentwick suavely. "Shall I
+hand it to you?"
+
+"By the muzzle, if you please. Be very careful; this one's loaded, too--apt
+to explode any minute."
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"In my traveling bag," the girl told him in a toneless voice.
+
+"Then you may bring it along. You may also say good night to the kind
+gentlemen."
+
+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.
+
+"Dorothy!" cried the adventurer with a touch of displeasure. "You heard
+me?"
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Bravo, my dear!" cried Brentwick encouragingly.
+
+"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--"
+
+"I know, I know," she told him in cold disdain. "I am content. Won't you be
+kind enough to leave me alone?"
+
+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?"
+
+"What has that--?" cried the girl indignantly.
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"That," interposed Kirkwood, "is completely understood." His gaze sought
+her eyes, but she looked away.
+
+"You forget that I am your father," sneered Calendar; "and that you are a
+minor. I can refuse my consent."
+
+"But you won't," Kirkwood told him with assurance.
+
+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--"
+
+"It is not your property," interrupted the girl.
+
+"It was your mother's, dear child. It's now mine."
+
+"I dispute that assertion," Kirkwood put in.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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--"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Then you admit," queried Brentwick civilly, "that you've no legal title to
+the jewels in dispute?"
+
+"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."
+
+"'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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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!"
+
+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....
+
+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. "_Mmm_!" grunted the adventurer in bewilderment.
+He began to pant.
+
+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: "_Hôtel du Commerce, Anvers_." 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.
+
+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!"
+
+He fell suddenly silent, the blood congesting in his face; as suddenly
+broke forth again, haranguing the company.
+
+"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 _this_! 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--"
+
+He swayed, gibbering with rage, his countenance frightfully contorted, his
+fat hands shaking as he struggled for expression.
+
+And then, while yet their own astonishment held Dorothy, Kirkwood,
+Brentwick and Stryker speechless, Charles, the mechanician, moved suddenly
+upon the adventurer.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Mr. Kirkwood!" he cried. "Here, please--one moment. Take this man's gun,
+from him, will you?"
+
+Kirkwood sprang to his assistance, and without encountering much trouble,
+succeeded in wresting a Webley from Stryker's limp, flaccid fingers.
+
+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?"
+
+Trembling like a whipped cur, Stryker meekly obeyed his instructions to the
+letter.
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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?"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"It's come with you now, I guess?" he suggested very quietly.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Thank you," said the girl with an effort.
+
+"Well," the adventurer delivered his peroration, "I certainly am blame'
+glad to hear it. 'Twouldn't 've been a square deal, any other way."
+
+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.
+
+III----THE JOURNEY'S END
+
+Kirkwood, following the exodus, closed the door with elaborate care and
+slowly, deep in thought, returned to the table.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+The younger man grinned broadly. "And you were responsible for all that!"
+he commented, infinitely amused.
+
+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."
+
+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!"
+
+"Weren't you taking chances, you and Charles?" asked Kirkwood curiously.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+He leveled a forefinger at the card.
+
+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:
+
+MR. GEORGE BURGOYNE CALENDAR
+
+81, ASPEN VILLAS, S. W.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Kirkwood at length, standing up, his face bright with
+understanding. "_You_--!"
+
+"I," laconically assented the elder man.
+
+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.
+
+Then he rose hastily, and went over to stand by the window, staring mistily
+into the blank face of night beyond its unseen panes.
+
+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.
+
+"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...."
+
+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!"
+
+The old gentleman was standing, his arm around his daughter's shoulders,
+when Kirkwood turned.
+
+"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....
+
+"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!"
+
+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."
+
+And the door crashed to behind him....
+
+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.
+
+Singing about them, the silence deepened. Fascinated, though his heart was
+faint with longing, Kirkwood faltered on the threshold of his kingdom.
+
+"Dorothy!... You did mean it, dear?"
+
+She laughed, a little, low, sobbing laugh that had its source deep in the
+hidden sanctuary of her heart of a child.
+
+"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!..."
+
+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....
+
+After a time Philip Kirkwood laughed aloud.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Black Bag, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
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