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

"It was not Mr. Calendar." The fine-lined brows arched in surprise, real or pretended, at his first blurted words, and relaxed; amused, the woman laughed deliciously. "But I am expecting him any moment; he was to have been here half an hour since.... Won't you wait?"

She indicated, with a gracious gesture, a chair, and took for herself one end of a davenport. "I'm sure he won't be long, now."

"Thank you, I will return, if I may." Kirkwood moved toward the door.

"But there's no necessity--" She seemed insistent on detaining him, possibly because she questioned his motive, possibly for her own divertisement.

Kirkwood deprecated his refusal with a smile. "The truth is, Miss Calendar is waiting in a cab, outside. I--"

"Dorothy Calendar!" Mrs. Hallam rose alertly. "But why should she wait there? To be sure, we've never met; but I have known her father for many years." Her eyes held steadfast to his face; shallow, flawed by her every thought, like the sea by a cat's-paw he found them altogether inscrutable; yet received an impression that their owner was now unable to account for him.

She swung about quickly, preceding him to the door and down the stairs. "I am sure Dorothy will come in to wait, if I ask her," she told Kirkwood in a high sweet voice. "I'm so anxious to know her. It's quite absurd, really, of her--to stand on ceremony with me, when her father made an appointment here. I'll run out and ask--"

Mrs. Hallam's slim white fingers turned latch and knob, opening the street door, and her voice died away as she stepped out into the night. For a moment, to Kirkwood, tagging after her with an uncomfortable sense of having somehow done the wrong thing, her figure--full fair shoulders and arms rising out of the glittering dinner gown--cut a gorgeous silhouette against the darkness. Then, with a sudden, imperative gesture, she half turned towards him.

"But," she exclaimed, perplexed, gazing to right and left, "but the cab, Mr. Kirkwood?"

He was on the stoop a second later. Standing beside her, he stared blankly.

To the left the Strand roared, the stream of its night-life in high spate; on the right lay the Embankment, comparatively silent and deserted, if brilliant with its high-swung lights. Between the two, quiet Craven Street ran, short and narrow, and wholly innocent of any form of equipage.

VI

"BELOW BRIDGE"

In silence Mrs. Hallam turned to Kirkwood, her pose in itself a question and a peremptory one. Her eyes had narrowed; between their lashes the green showed, a thin edge like jade, cold and calculating. The firm lines of her mouth and chin had hardened.

Temporarily dumb with consternation, he returned her stare as silently.

"_Well_, Mr.--Kirkwood?"

"Mrs. Hallam," he stammered, "I--"

She lifted her shoulders impatiently and with a quick movement stepped back across the threshold, where she paused, a rounded arm barring the entrance, one hand grasping the door-knob, as if to shut him out at any moment.

"I'm awaiting your explanation," she said coldly.

[Illustration: "I'm waiting your explanation," she said coldly.]