The Black Bag Part 12

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 antic.i.p.ated 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 divertis.e.m.e.nt.

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 k.n.o.b, 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-k.n.o.b, as if to shut him out at any moment.

"I'm awaiting your explanation," she said coldly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 att.i.tude, 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 ap.r.o.n, disclosing a white triangle of linen surmounted by a glowing spot of fire, betrayed the s.e.x 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, h.e.l.lo, 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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.