The Black Bag | Page 6

paused, interrogative; Kirkwood remained interested but silent. "If a passage across would help you, I--I think it might be arranged," stammered Calendar, ill at ease.
"It might," admitted Kirkwood, speculative.
"I could fix it so that you could go over--first-class, of course--and pay your way, so to speak, by, rendering us, me and my partner, a trifling service."
"Ah?"
"In fact," continued Calendar, warming up to his theme, "there might be something more in it for you than the passage, if--if you're the right man, the man I'm looking for."
"That, of course, is the question."
"Eh?" Calendar pulled up suddenly in a full-winged flight of enthusiasm.
Kirkwood eyed him steadily. "I said that it is a question, Mr. Calendar, whether or not I am the man you're looking for. Between you and me and the fire-dogs, I don't believe I am. Now if you wish to name your quid pro quo, this trifling service I'm to render in recognition of your benevolence, you may."
"Ye-es," slowly. But the speaker delayed his reply until he had surveyed his host from head to foot, with a glance both critical and appreciative.
He saw a man in height rather less than the stock size six-feet so much in demand by the manufacturers of modern heroes of fiction; a man a bit round-shouldered, too, but otherwise sturdily built, self-contained, well-groomed.
Kirkwood wears a boy's honest face; no one has ever called him handsome. A few prejudiced persons have decided that he has an interesting countenance; the propounders of this verdict have been, for the most part, feminine. Kirkwood himself has been heard to declare that his features do not fit; in its essence the statement is true, but there is a very real, if undefinable, engaging quality in their very irregularity. His eyes are brown, pleasant, set wide apart, straightforward of expression.
Now it appeared that, whatever his motive, Mr. Calendar had acted upon impulse in sending his card up to Kirkwood. Possibly he had anticipated a very different sort of reception from a very different sort of man. Even in the light of subsequent events it remains difficult to fathom the mystery of his choice. Perhaps Fate directed it; stranger things have happened at the dictates of a man's Destiny.
At all events, this Calendar proved not lacking in penetration; men of his stamp are commonly endowed with that quality to an eminent degree. Not slow to reckon the caliber of the man before him, the leaven of intuition began to work in his adipose intelligence. He owned himself baffled.
"Thanks," he concluded pensively; "I reckon you're right. You won't do, after all. I've wasted your time. Mine, too."
"Don't mention it."
Calendar got heavily out of his chair, reaching for his hat and umbrella. "Permit me to apologize for an unwarrantable intrusion, Mr. Kirkwood." He faltered; a worried and calculating look shadowed his small eyes. "I was looking for some one to serve me in a certain capacity--"
"Certain or questionable?" propounded Kirkwood blandly, opening the door.
Pointedly Mr. Calendar ignored the imputation. "Sorry I disturbed you. G'dafternoon, Mr. Kirkwood."
"Good-by, Mr. Calendar." A smile twitched the corners of Kirkwood's too-wide mouth.
Calendar stepped hastily out into the hall. As he strode--or rather, rolled--away, Kirkwood maliciously feathered a Parthian arrow.
"By the way, Mr. Calendar--?"
The sound of retreating footsteps was stilled and "Yes?" came from the gloom of the corridor.
"Were you ever in San Francisco? Really and truly? Honest Injun, Mr. Calendar?"
For a space the quiet was disturbed by harsh breathing; then, in a strained voice, "Good day, Mr. Kirkwood"; and again the sound of departing footfalls.
Kirkwood closed the door and the incident simultaneously, with a smart bang of finality. Laughing quietly he went back to the window with its dreary outlook, now the drearier for lengthening evening shadows.
"I wonder what his game is, anyway. An adventurer, of course; the woods are full of 'em. A queer fish, even of his kind! And with a trick up his sleeve as queer and fishy as himself, no doubt!"

II
"AND SOME THERE BE WHO HAVE ADVENTURES THRUST UPON THEM"
The assumption seems not unwarrantable, that Mr. Calendar figuratively washed his hands of Mr. Kirkwood. Unquestionably Mr. Kirkwood considered himself well rid of Mr. Calendar. When the latter had gone his way, Kirkwood, mindful of the fact that his boat-train would leave St. Paneras at half-after eleven, set about his packing and dismissed from his thoughts the incident created by the fat _chevalier d'industrie_; and at six o'clock, or thereabouts, let himself out of his room, dressed for the evening, a light rain-coat over one arm, in the other hand a cane,--the drizzle having ceased.
A stolid British lift lifted him down to the ground floor of the establishment in something short of five minutes. Pausing in the office long enough to settle his bill and leave instructions to have his luggage conveyed to the boat-train, he