The Black Bag by Vance, Louis Joseph, 1879-1933

"Oh, I am so g-glad!" It was Dorothy Calendar's voice, beyond mistake. "I--I didn't know what t-to t-think.... When the light struck your face I was sure it was you, but when I called, you answered in a voice so strange,--not like yours at all! ... Tell me," she pleaded, with palpable effort to steady herself; "what has happened?"

"I think, perhaps," said Kirkwood uneasily, again troubled by his racing pulses, "perhaps you can do that better than I."

"Oh!" said the voice guiltily; her fingers trembled on his, and were gently withdrawn. "I was so frightened," she confessed after a little pause, "so frightened that I hardly understand ... But you? How did you--?"

"I worried about you," he replied, in a tone absurdly apologetic. "Somehow it didn't seem right. It was none of my business, of course, but ... I couldn't help coming back. This fellow, whoever he is--don't worry; he's unconscious--slipped into the house in a manner that seemed to me suspicious. I hardly know why I followed, except that he left the door an open invitation to interference ..."

"I can't be thankful enough," she told him warmly, "that you did interfere. You have indeed saved me from ..."

"Yes?"

"I don't know what. If I knew the man--"

"You don't _know_ him?"

"I can't even guess. The light--?"

She paused inquiringly. Kirkwood fumbled with the lamp, but, whether its rude handling had impaired some vital part of the mechanism, or whether the batteries through much use were worn out, he was able to elicit only one feeble glow, which was instantly smothered by the darkness.

"It's no use," he confessed. "The thing's gone wrong."

"Have you a match?"

"I used my last before I got hold of this."

"Oh," she commented, discouraged. "Have you any notion what he looks like?"

Kirkwood thought briefly. "Raffles," he replied with a chuckle. "He looks like an amateurish and very callow Raffles. He's in dress clothes, you know."

"I wonder!" There was a nuance of profound bewilderment in her exclamation. Then: "He knocked against something in the hall--a chair, I presume; at all events, I heard that and put out the light. I was ... in the room above the drawing-room, you see. I stole down to this floor--was there, in the corner by the stairs when he passed within six inches, and never guessed it. Then, when he got on the next floor, I started on; but you came in. I slipped into the drawing-room and crouched behind a chair. You went on, but I dared not move until ... And then I heard some one cry out, and you fell down the stairs together. I hope you were not hurt--?"

"Nothing worth mention; but _he_ must have got a pretty stiff knock, to lay him out so completely." Kirkwood stirred the body with his toe, but the man made no sign. "Dead to the world ... And now, Miss Calendar?"

If she answered, he did not hear; for on the heels of his query banged the knocker down below; and thereafter crash followed crash, brewing a deep and sullen thundering to rouse the echoes and send them rolling, like voices of enraged ghosts, through the lonely rooms.

V

THE MYSTERY OF A FOUR-WHEELER