Back Aa

Black Bag, The

<h2 align="center">III</h2> <h3 align="center">CALENDAR'S DAUGHTER</h3> All but purring with satisfaction and relief, Calendar halted. "Dorothy, my dear, permit me to introduce an old friend&#8212Mr. 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,&#8212the more so, perhaps, since it seemed eloquent of her intention to remain enigmatic,&#8212but 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&#8212a 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&#8212or houses," he remarked. Amused, she laughed softly. "I suspected it," she declared. "Not really?" "It was your way of looking at&#8212things, 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&#8212seeing 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&#8212" "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&#8212?" 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&#8212materially 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&#8212nothing 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&#8212thank you&#8212I have no further need&#8212" "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&#8212you 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!&#8212was it right for him to leave her so? <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.