The Black Bag Part 49

"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 f.a.gged 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 gla.s.ses, 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 gla.s.s.

"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 gla.s.s, "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 t.i.tle, 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?"

"Trespa.s.s 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 antic.i.p.ative 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 astonis.h.i.+ng adventure. Later, we will find a way to Chiltern."