The Black Bag Part 40

Kirkwood reconnoitered through the window, while the driver was descending.

"Gare Centrale, M'sieu'," he said, opening the door.

"No one in sight," Kirkwood told the girl. "Come, please."

He got out and gave her his hand, then paid the driver, picked up the two bags, and hurried with Dorothy into the station, to find in waiting a string of cars into which people were moving at leisurely rate. His inquiries at the ticket-window developed the fact that it was the 22:26 for Brussels, the last train leaving the Gare Centrale that night, and due to start in ten minutes.

The information settled their plans for once and all; Kirkwood promptly secured through tickets, also purchasing "Reserve" supplementary tickets which ent.i.tled them to the use of those modern corridor coaches which take the place of first-cla.s.s compartments on the Belgian state railways.

"It's a pleasure," said Kirkwood lightly, as he followed the girl into one of these, "to find one's self in a common-sense sort of a train again.

'Feels like home." He put their luggage in one of the racks and sat down beside her, chattering with simulated cheerfulness in a vain endeavor to lighten her evident depression of spirit. "I always feel like a traveling anachronism in one of your English trains," he said. "You can't appreciate--"

The girl smiled bravely.... "And after Brussels?" she inquired.

"First train for the coast," he said promptly. "Dover, Ostend, Boulogne,--whichever proves handiest, no matter which, so long as it gets us on English soil without undue delay."

She said "Yes" abstractedly, resting an elbow on the window-sill and her chin in her palm, to stare with serious, sweet brown eyes out into the arc-smitten night that hung beneath the echoing roof.

Kirkwood fidgeted in despite of the constraint he placed himself under, to be still and not disturb her needlessly. Impatience and apprehension of misfortune obsessed his mental processes in equal degree. The ten minutes seemed interminable that elapsed ere the grinding couplings advertised the imminence of their start.

The guards began to bawl, the doors to slam, belated travelers to dash madly for the coaches. The train gave a preliminary lurch ere settling down to its league-long inland dash.

Kirkwood, in a fever of hope and an ague of fear, saw a man sprint furiously across the platform and throw himself on the forward steps of their coach, on the very instant of the start.

Presently he entered by the forward door and walked slowly through, narrowly inspecting the various pa.s.sengers. As he approached the seats occupied by Kirkwood and Dorothy Calendar, his eyes encountered the young man's, and he leered evilly. Kirkwood met the look with one that was like a kick, and the fellow pa.s.sed with some haste into the car behind.

"Who was that?" demanded the girl, without moving her head.

"How did you know?" he asked, astonished. "You didn't look--"

"I saw your knuckles whiten beneath the skin.... Who was it?"

"Hobbs," he acknowledged bitterly; "the mate of the _Alethea_."

"I know.... And you think--?"

"Yes. He must have been ash.o.r.e when I was on board the brigantine; he certainly wasn't in the cabin. Evidently they hunted him up, or ran across him, and pressed him into service.... You see, they're watching every outlet.... But we'll win through, never fear!"

XVI

TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON

The train, escaping the outskirts of the city, remarked the event with an exultant shriek, then settled down, droning steadily, to night-devouring flight. In the corridor-car the few pa.s.sengers disposed themselves to drowse away the coming hour--the short hour's ride that, in these piping days of frantic traveling, separates Antwerp from the capital city of Belgium.

A guard, slamming gustily in through the front door, reeled unsteadily down the aisle. Kirkwood, rousing from a profound reverie, detained him with a gesture and began to interrogate him in French. When he departed presently it transpired that the girl was unaquainted with that tongue.

"I didn't understand, you know," she told him with a slow, shy smile.

"I was merely questioning him about the trains from Brussels to-night. We daren't stop, you see; we must go on,--keep Hobbs on the jump and lose him, if possible. There's where our advantage lies--in having only Hobbs to deal with. He's not particularly intellectual; and we've two heads to his one, besides. If we can prevent him from guessing our destination and wiring back to Antwerp, we may win away. You understand?"

"Perfectly," she said, brightening. "And what do you purpose doing now?"

"I can't tell yet. The guard's gone to get me some information about the night trains on other lines. In the meantime, don't fret about Hobbs; I'll answer for Hobbs."

"I shan't be worried," she said simply, "with you here...."

Whatever answer he would have made he was obliged to postpone because of the return of the guard, with a handful of time-tables; and when, rewarded with a modest gratuity, the man had gone his way, and Kirkwood turned again to the girl, she had withdrawn her attention for the time.

Unconscious of his bold regard, she was dreaming, her thoughts at loose-ends, her eyes studying the incalculable depths of blue-black night that swirled and eddied beyond the window-gla.s.s. The most shadowy of smiles touched her lips, the faintest shade of deepened color rested on her cheeks.... She was thinking of--him? As long as he dared, the young man, his heart in his own eyes, watched her greedily, taking a miser's joy of her youthful beauty, striving with all his soul to a.n.a.lyze the enigma of that most inscrutable smile.

It baffled him. He could not say of what she thought; and told himself bitterly that it was not for him, a pauper, to presume a place in her meditations. He must not forget his circ.u.mstances, nor let her tolerance render him oblivious to his place, which must be a servant's, not a lover's.

The better to convince himself of this, he plunged desperately into a forlorn attempt to make head or tail of Belgian railway schedule, complicated as these of necessity are by the alternation from normal time notation to the abnormal system sanctioned by the government, and _vice-versa_, with every train that crosses a boundary line of the state.

So preoccupied did he become in this pursuit that he was subconsciously impressed that the girl had spoken twice, ere he could detach his interest from the exasperatingly inconclusive and incoherent cohorts of ranked figures.

"Can't you find out anything?" Dorothy was asking.

"Precious little," he grumbled. "I'd give my head for a Bradshaw! Only it wouldn't be a fair exchange.... There seems to be an express for Bruges leaving the Gare du Nord, Brussels, at fifty-five minutes after twenty-three o'clock; and if I'm not mistaken, that's the latest train out of Brussels and the earliest we can catch,... if we _can_ catch it. I've never been in Brussels, and Heaven only knows how long it would take us to cab it from the Gare du Midi to the Nord."

In this statement, however, Mr. Kirkwood was fortunately mistaken; not only Heaven, it appeared, had cognizance of the distance between the two stations. While Kirkwood was still debating the question, with pessimistic tendencies, the friendly guard had occasion to pa.s.s through the coach; and, being tapped, yielded the desired information with entire tractability.

It would be a cab-ride of perhaps ten minutes. Monsieur, however, would serve himself well if he offered the driver an advance tip as an incentive to speedy driving. Why? Why because (here the guard consulted his watch; and Kirkwood very keenly regretted the loss of his own)--because this train, announced to arrive in Brussels some twenty minutes prior to the departure of that other, was already late. But yes--a matter of some ten minutes. Could that not be made up? Ah, Monsieur, but who should say?

The guard departed, doubtless with private views as to the madness of all English-speaking travelers.

"And there we are!" commented Kirkwood in fact.i.tious resignation. "If we're obliged to stop overnight in Brussels, our friends will be on our back before we can get out in the morning, if they have to come by motor-car."

He reflected bitterly on the fact that with but a little more money at his disposal, he too could hire a motor-car and cry defiance to their persecutors. "However," he amended, with rising spirits, "so much the better our chance of losing Mr. Hobbs. We must be ready to drop off the instant the train stops."

He began to unfold another time-table, threatening again to lose himself completely; and was thrown into the utmost confusion by the touch of the girl's hand, in appeal placed lightly on his own. And had she been observant, she might have seen a second time his knuckles whiten beneath the skin as he a.s.serted his self-control--though this time not over his temper.

His eyes, dumbly eloquent, turned to meet hers. She was smiling.

"Please!" she iterated, with the least imperative pressure on his hand, pushing the folder aside.

"I beg pardon?" he muttered blankly.

"Is it quite necessary, now, to study those schedules? Haven't you decided to try for the Bruges express?"

"Why yes, but--"

"Then please don't leave me to my thoughts all the time, Mr. Kirkwood."

There was a tremor of laughter in her voice, but her eyes were grave and earnest. "I'm very weary of thinking round in a circle--and that," she concluded, with a nervous little laugh, "is all I've had to do for days!"

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid," he humored her. "This is the second time, you know, in the course of a very brief acquaintance, that you have found it necessary to remind me to talk to you."