The Gray Mask by Charles Wadsworth Camp (children's ebooks online .txt) 📕

The door hinges responded to a pressure. The lamp had evidently been extinguished again, for he saw in the uncertain radiance of the embers a thing, scarcely definable as human, prone beyond the threshold.

The empty doorway, the inert object on the floor, the darkness, accented rather than diminished by the embers, blurred his calculations. Where was the one who had opened and for whom his knife was eager?

Unexpectedly a brilliant light flashed in his eyes and went out. Half-blinded, he sensed the presence of something on the sill, and he struck downward with all his force. He reached only emptiness. The one on the sill had sprung through. From somewhere in the house Garth heard the patter of hastening feet.

He fought away the effects of the flash, striving to locate the one who had entered. There beside the heap of rubbish knelt a form darker than the white darkness.

He moved noiselessly over. He reached down and grasped the bent shoulder, and, as the shoulder recoiled from his touch, so he recoiled from its quality that revealed the presence in his prison of a woman.

Through his amazement he heard the door close, but he felt sure of himself now. Mrs. Alden was his prisoner—a hostage, if he chose, for his own escape, unless, indeed, she had finally revolted and come to his aid.

"Get up," he said roughly.

The woman's sigh conveyed relief. Something scraped beneath her hand. A tiny flame was born and entered into the base of the rubbish.

Then the woman turned slowly, and, in the light of the flame, Garth looked into Nora's excited eyes and smiling face.

Incredulous, he grasped her arms, lifted her to her feet, and stared. The growing flame struck a flash from his knife, drove into his brain a full realization of the monstrous misunderstanding which had nearly involved them in unspeakable disaster.

"Good God, Nora! I nearly—I tried to—"

Her smile grew.

"I didn't know what I should find in here. I couldn't afford to take chances."

"But I left you in New York," he went on uncertainly. "How did you come? Why are you here?"

"No time for explanations now," she answered quickly. "We must get out of here."

He recalled the patter of hastening feet, the soft closing of the door. In the growing light he saw its tin-sheeted face flush with the wall.

"The door has been shut," he said. "I'm afraid—locked. Why did you light that fire?"

She ran across, grasped the knob, then commenced to beat with her fists at the tin. Suddenly she stopped. Her shoulders drooped.

"No use," she whispered. "She must have come in. She won't open now."

Garth hurried to her side.

"I don't understand," he said, "but it's evident we are caught here, and that fire has been fixed—a signal?"

She nodded.

"Why did you light it?"

"Because," she answered dully, "it had to burn to-night."

The crisis they faced was clear to him.

"Nora! In a minute this room will be a furnace."

He imagined from the excitement still flashing in her eyes that she did not quite realize, but she spoke without regret, and her words carried the shocking fatality of the German's.

"I'm sorry, Jim, but if I had known we would be caught I would have lighted it just the same. After all, a small price in the long run—only the two of us."

He brushed the rapid perspiration from his face. The fire had reached the heart of the pile. The air thickened with a reddish, pungent smoke. He choked.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I came only to help you, but I found—"

The vapour cut her voice.

The sentimental possibilities of their predicament came with a gentle wonder to Garth. They over-weighed the danger, robbed him for the moment of full comprehension. This clearly was his moment, and whatever the next might bring seemed a fair exchange for her probable response. He reached blindly towards her through the smoke.

"Nora!"

His heart leapt as she swayed a little. Then he heard the grating of the key in the lock. It impressed him as curious that the saving sound carried to him a sense of disappointment, the emptiness of a destiny unfulfilled.

Nora turned the knob. He pushed against the door. They stumbled into the next room, breathing deeply the fresh, clean air.

Alden's prostrate form lay just within. His wife stood across the room by the hall door, the revolver held listlessly in her hand. Her hair, more than ever disordered, fell about her weary eyes, and gave her face an air of ironical witchery.

Garth caught the meaning of the tableau. He glanced with admiration at the sick man, appreciating the bitter obstacle he had overcome, the abhorrent chance he had taken after conquering his physical incapacity and reaching the door. The result, Garth noticed, had carried to Alden a vast relief, a shadow of content. The light from the conservatory flickered about his face, exposing an expression of pride. The silent lips moved as if to frame a boast.

"So, Mrs. Alden," Garth said, "you left him again. To warn the others?"

She did not answer. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyway," he went on, "when you came back and found him at the key you didn't have time to get to him, and you weren't quite as bad as you should have been. You let him unlock the door. You didn't have the nerve to shoot—your husband."

"Don't, Jim," Nora warned. "You don't understand."

Frankly he didn't, but he knew that Mrs. Alden, in a sense, still controlled the situation. Her revolver could compel their movements. Its explosion would doubtless bring help swarming to her side.

"And you see," Nora went on, speaking to her gently, "what a useless sacrifice it would have been. Everything was finished for you the moment I lighted the beacon."

Mrs. Alden nodded.

Garth grinned as the protective feminine instinct expressed itself through this woman in her most intricate hour.

"It was all arranged," she said. "If you will close that door the house will be safe enough from the fire."

She indicated her husband. There were tears in her eyes again.

"You will take care of him?"

"Yes," Nora said.

She turned and closed the door. Through the sudden darkness Garth heard Mrs. Alden run into the hall. He sprang after her, but Nora's voice, sharp and commanding, halted him.

"Let her go, Jim. I'll explain. Light the lamp now."

"You've earned the right to give the orders," he said.

He felt his way to the writing-table and lighted the lamp.

"You know," he said, "that there are many men near here—that they can trap us in this house?"

"I don't think," she answered, "that they will come to this house again."

He turned to her.

"Nora! What is it? Even after all I've seen I can't be sure. The furnaces? They are two miles away."

She shook her head.

"Not the furnaces, Jim. Come with me and I will show you."

She led him to an unlighted room across the hall and flung back the curtains.

The glare of a conflagration, far vaster than that which had threatened them in the conservatory, flashed in their eyes and lighted the neighborhood with a brilliancy fiercer than noonday.

For the first time Garth could see that the house stood on a high, wooded plateau. The trees had been cleared away between it and the water, and a slope, bordered with hedges, had been blasted to a beach, small and crescent-shaped. The fire blazed with a destructive violence in a structure on this beach. He recalled the driver's gossip about Alden's yacht. He saw a small launch, heavily-laden, making for the open sea.

"The boat house," he said.

"Yes," Nora answered. "Look."

She drew a little back. An explosion tore at their ears. Somewheres upstairs a window broke. The tinkling of glass was like an absurdly attenuated echo. But Garth's attention was fixed on the boat-house. The building appeared to disintegrate. Out of its ruins rose a colossal column of muddy smoke. From its summit streaming banners of purple and violet flame unfurled. They waved their frantic message to Garth. He turned, gaping, to Nora.

"That building!" he gasped. "It's crowded with gasolene—oil!"

"You didn't guess, Jim? You see now I couldn't take chances. I had to light the signal that made them fire this."

"And you were right," he agreed. "Only the two of us—"

He gazed at her wonderingly. There was only pride in his voice.

"How many lives! How many millions of dollars! You've spared them, Nora."

Garth had lifted Alden to the sofa and had left Nora hovering over the man who, they knew now, had been systematically drugged for days. After reconnecting the telephone and notifying the federal authorities he had returned to the living-room. Nora arose, and, with her finger at her lips, joined him by the fireplace.

"He's asleep," she said. "You know, Jim, there wasn't much point in your telephoning. They've destroyed the evidence. They've gone."

She sat down. Garth drew a chair close to her. Their voices were low in order that Alden might not be disturbed.

"Was it near?" he asked. "The fact that they took the launch—yet they might put in at some lonely cove and scatter."

"It must have been expected soon," she answered. "They were working desperately. They were very anxious to-night."

"You must have guessed, Nora, as soon as I left New York. How?"

"By giving father a scolding," she answered with a smile. "I knew that Mrs. Alden had been born in Berlin, and that her family was still prominent there where Mr. Alden had married her. Even since her marriage she's spent much time abroad. I wondered what these shadowy figures were doing in the woods on foggy nights unless they were transporting something or working about some building. But Mr. Alden would know if it had anything to do with the house or the stable. Since he was sick, the boat-house might be their objective without his knowing it. I suspected the truth then. Such an opportunity! No one would doubt the property of a man who manufactured ammunition for the government. The natural thought was that any attempts by Germans here would be directed against the furnaces or Alden personally. It was ideal. All that was necessary was to scare the servants away and keep Alden in the house while his wife and the rest made ready for it."

"Still those men in the woods?" Garth asked.

"They were probably working at the furnaces. When you saw them they were on their way to the boat-house to make the necessary alterations. And, of course, they carried all the supplies there. You see, I went to the freight agent of the only railroad that runs to Deacon's Bay. He helped me a lot. We found that a large number of heavy cases had been sent here and to nearby stations, falsely invoiced and labelled to be called for. He had suspected gasolene in one of them and was about to hold up further shipments. That settled it for me. I knew you were going blindly, so I took the next train."

"How did you learn about the signal?" he asked.

"I came very quietly," she answered, "a little like a sneak-thief, I'm afraid. That front window is a little open. I overheard Mrs. Alden and a huge man. Of course she was only to light that signal if the game was wholly up. It meant to them that there was a party big enough to handle the lot of them. So I made up my mind I must slip in and burn it to-night, in case it was near by. I knew then they would burn the evidence, escape themselves, while the submarine would turn back, believing that the game was up."

"What a base!" he muttered. "With the trans-atlantic lanes at its mercy. All those transports and freighters marked for destruction! Alden saved the fat."

"Yes," Nora answered,