The Black Bag | Page 5

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