The Black Bag

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Black Bag

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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 Tete 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 Tete 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....

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