The Black Bag

by Louis Joseph Vance

For the better part of the succeeding hour Kirkwood circumnavigated the neighborhood of the steamer pier and the Terminus Hôtel, striving to render himself as inconspicuous as he felt insignificant, and keenly on the alert for any sign or news of Hobbs. In this pursuit he was pleasantly disappointed.

At noon precisely, his suspense grown too onerous for his strength of will, throwing caution and their understanding to the winds, he walked boldly into the Terminus, and inquired for Miss Calendar.

The assurance he received that she was in safety under its roof did not deter him from sending up his name and asking her to receive him in the public lounge; he required the testimony of his senses to convince him that no harm had come to her in the long hour and a half that had elapsed since their separation.

Woman-like, she kept him waiting. Alone in the public rooms of the hotel, he suffered excruciating torments. How was he to know that Calendar had not arrived and found his way to her?

When at length she appeared on the threshold of the apartment, bringing with her the traveling bag and looking wonderfully the better for her ninety minutes of complete repose and privacy, the relief he experienced was so intense that he remained transfixed in the middle of the floor, momentarily able neither to speak nor to move.

On her part, so fagged and distraught did he seem, that at sight of his care-worn countenance she hurried to him with outstretched, compassionate hands and a low pitiful cry of concern, forgetful entirely of that which he himself had forgotten—the emotion she had betrayed on parting.

"Oh, nothing wrong," he hastened to reassure her, with a sorry ghost of his familiar grin; "only I have lost Hobbs and the satchel with your things; and there's no sign yet of Mr. Calendar. We can feel pretty comfortable now, and—and I thought it time we had something like a meal."

The narrative of his adventure which he delivered over their déjeuner à la fourchette contained no mention either of his rebuff at the American Consulate or the scratch he had sustained during Hobbs' murderous assault; the one could not concern her, the other would seem but a bid for her sympathy. He counted it a fortunate thing that the mate's knife had been keen enough to penetrate the cloth of his sleeve without tearing it; the slit it had left was barely noticeable. And he purposely diverted the girl with flashes of humorous description, so that they discussed both meal and episode in a mood of wholesome merriment.

It was concluded, all too soon for the taste of either, by the waiter's announcement that the steamer was on the point of sailing.

Outwardly composed, inwardly quaking, they boarded the packet, meeting with no misadventure whatever—if we are to except the circumstance that, when the restaurant bill was settled and the girl had punctiliously surrendered his change with the tickets, Kirkwood found himself in possession of precisely one franc and twenty centimes.