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

A sibilant demand for caution reached Garth. The droning recommenced. Garth fancied that it continued in the guttural accents of some eastern dialect.

He replaced the screw. He got down from the table, able to plan definitely. Against her protests, he took the girl to headquarters and warned the matron to let her communicate with no one before nine-thirty. He hurried to the flat then, and told the inspector and Nora of Brown's death and of his experience at the shop.

"That's where Brown was struck," he ended, "and Brown was right. They are after Alsop and his crowd to-night with dynamite, and the veiled woman's the figure of chief danger. Do you know, chief, I'm going to let them hand her that bomb, then I'll try to handle her."

The inspector shook his head.

"It's taking too big chances to let them get as far as the house with the thing."

"It's the veiled woman I'm thinking of," Garth answered. "Grab these people before her share commences, and you'll probably never see her. She'll bob up here and there, causing infinite trouble, because everything she does has the marks of a fiendish cleverness. Let me take the risk and land her."

"It's utter madness your way," Nora said quietly. "How could you control her with a thing like that in her hands?"

"I think I can take care of her and the bomb, too," Garth said quietly.

The inspector thought for a long time. It was clear the idea tempted him. If Garth could ambush the mysterious creature at the proper moment, her capture would be certain. His own share in the night's work was simple. He had arranged to surround the Alsop place quietly with his best detectives. They would keep themselves hidden. They would permit the conspirators to enter the grounds. Garth, at the house, would use his own judgment. When he blew his whistle this small army would close in and make the arrests. Meantime the Oriental shop would be raided. The dictaphone, which undoubtedly carried the signaling of the pipe, would probably lead the police to another rendezvous.

"It looks like a big haul," the inspector said. "We can't let Alsop's ghost slip us."

With a grumbled oath the inspector tossed his blankets aside and lumbered to his feet. He stood for a moment swaying against the chair. His pudgy fingers tore at the bandage about his throat. Nora ran to him and grasped his arm.

"What are you doing, father?"

"Haven't you any eyes?" he roared. "Getting well. I'm tired being sick. I want to get on this job. Working, I can cough my head off as comfortably as I can sitting here."

Nora spread her hands.

"You are both mad," she said. "You both want to take too great risks—impossible risks."

Garth was warmed by her concern for him. For the first time since their quarrel in the house with the hidden door the barrier of reserve which had risen between them lost a little its solidity.

The inspector had gone into his bedroom. From the sounds there Garth gathered that the huge man fought his way into his clothing. Nora stared helplessly from the door to Garth and back again. Then he saw resolution tighten the lines of her face. Her eyes flashed. She laughed. Without shaking hands she turned and walked to the door of the inspector's room.

"Good-by, Jim," she called. "I suppose I'll have to look after this reckless one first."

Garth went. Nora's words and manner had made him a trifle uneasy. Little time, however, remained for speculation. It was seven o'clock when he had completed his arrangements. He took the subway to Harlem and continued in a taxicab.

Alsop's great wealth permitted him a rural loneliness even in this expensive neighborhood. Garth dismissed the cab at the edge of a wide property along the river, made sure he had not been followed, then climbed the fence, and entered a thick piece of woods.

Certainly nature favored the police as thoroughly as it did the conspirators. There was no moon, and sullen clouds hid the stars.

Suddenly in the dense obscurity of the woods he experienced that sensation Marvin had described of no longer being alone. He paused and waited, scarcely breathing, aware of the dangers, perhaps fatal, that might lurk for him here. And, as he stood, not knowing what to expect, he wondered if the veiled woman was abroad in the woods. He became filled with a passionate desire to learn her identity. The somber, perfumed atmosphere of the shop came back to him. There were odd things in the Orient—happenings, apparently occult, for which no explanation had ever been offered. Marvin was young and imaginative, but Alsop was not the type to be frightened by fancies, yet both of these men believed that the woman could pass through locked doors, that she could appear and disappear as she wished. And Brown had said that to look behind the veil was madness. Was she abroad in these woods? He had waited for some time. There was nothing. He stepped forward.

Immediately he knew there was someone. He sprang aside, whipping out his revolver, crouching against an expected attack; for a figure blacker than the night had glided in his path from behind a tree trunk, and the hands carried something round, black—

"Put that thing down," Garth whispered, "then up with your hands!"

Her laugh barely reached him.

"I thought it was you, Jim."

He dropped his revolver in his pocket and strode forward, angry and anxious.

"What are you doing here, Nora?"

He laughed uncomfortably.

"For a minute I looked for the veiled woman."

"I've come," she said confidently, "for her, and to see that you don't throw your life away, because you won't admit the possibility of incomprehensible forces."

"You must go back," he said. "What's in that bundle you're carrying?"

She held the bundle up, and Garth touched it. It was a soft substance wrapped in a black shawl.

"What is it?" he repeated.

"A white gown," she answered simply, "and a white veil, so that I may take the bomb after I have trapped this queer creature; so that I may talk to these men and learn how wide the organization is."

She argued logically enough that there was less risk this way than the other. Once she had the bomb in her hands the great danger would be over. Try as he might, Garth could not move her. She walked on towards the house.

They paused at the edge of the woods. The dark, vague mass of the building frowned at them. The windows, Garth gathered, were heavily curtained, for no gleam of light escaped.

"I am going in with you, Jim, to see it through," Nora whispered. "Don't be disapproving. I only want to help."

Impulsively he grasped her hand. For a moment he forgot the restraint she had forced upon him.

"Nora," he said hoarsely, "since I lost my temper with Black, you've not been kind. You know I want you with all my heart—"

Through the darkness her voice was filled with wistful regret and sympathy. It reminded him again that her tragic love affair, preceding their capture of Slim and George, still touched her with fingers of sorrow; had not yet given her time to adjust herself to this new ardor.

"Hush! You were not to speak of that."

But he would not let her hand go.

"And you—will you ever speak?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered dully.

She snatched her hand away. Her voice rose.

"Don't you see? It's because I don't know that I can't let you take such chances with death. That's why I'm here, Jim."

Inside the house the atmosphere of danger reached Garth more positively than it had done even through Brown's unreasoning terror. Alsop and Marvin met them in the hall. Both were white-faced and nervous. Through the open door of a library Garth saw five men in evening clothes gathered about a table which was littered with papers. Alsop closed the door.

"I hope you and the inspector are satisfied," he jeered. "We're properly trapped."

"The house is surrounded by detectives," Garth said. "We've arranged to take care of the one with the bomb. For there is a bomb, Mr. Alsop. There's no point lying about that."

Alsop scarcely made an effort to hide his fear.

"How are your detectives outside going to help us in here?"

He pointed to the closed door of the library.

"All my figures, all of my plans that I've ever put on paper I've brought out here for the first time to-night for this conference. Don't you suppose those devils know? And that thing—you can laugh at me if you like—I tell you that thing in white is after them. When I went upstairs just now to bring them from the safe I felt it. I saw something white, and I ran down. Ask Marvin. I'm afraid. I acknowledge it. Stay in this house with that—that influence, then if you'll tell me I'm a coward I'll believe it."

"I'm not sneering," Garth said grimly. "As a matter of fact we know your veiled woman is actually to be in this house at nine o'clock. It's likely enough she's upstairs now in some hidden corner after failing to steal your papers. I'll search every rat hole, because you can take it for granted her apparent magic is pure trickery, and if she isn't to be found upstairs we've a net arranged down here for her a little later."

He explained briefly the arrangement that Nora's presence and her disguise had made possible. Alsop and Marvin were not impressed.

"Better find out what you can now," Alsop advised.

He nodded at Marvin. Garth and Nora followed the secretary towards the stairs. Suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath, Garth turned, grasped Nora's arm, and drew her back.

"Alsop," he whispered excitedly, "I don't give a hang how long you've had your servants, or how much you trust them. The thing's obvious anyway. Nora! You saw that?"

Nora nodded. Her eyes were wide.

"What do you mean?" Alsop gasped.

Without answering Garth ran down the hallway and flung the curtain at the end to one side. Across a wide dining-room he saw a woman, slender and middle-aged. Her attitude was of flight. Her hand rested on the knob of the farther door. As Garth called sharply for Alsop she opened the door and went through. Alsop had only a glimpse.

"It's my housekeeper," he said. "She's worked here for twenty years. Certainly there's nothing wrong there."

"I wonder." Nora spoke softly. "Such people are clever enough to involve one's own family against one. She can't leave the house anyway. Suppose, Jim, we look upstairs."

While Alsop, angry and at a loss, went back to the library, Garth and Nora climbed to the upper hall. Garth supposed that Marvin would have made a light for them, but of all the doors that opened from the stair landing one alone was wide, and no light gleamed through that.

"Marvin!" he called, and again: "Marvin! Marvin!"

He was aware of Nora's shivering. He glanced at her. The color had left her cheeks.

"Something's wrong up here, Jim," she said. "I know it. I feel it. Don't you feel anything strange? You heard him come up, and after what Mr. Alsop said—where is he? Why doesn't he answer?"

Garth stepped forward. Nora reached out and grasped his arms. The quality of her voice startled him.

"Don't go in there without a light, Jim."

He shook off her hands. He entered the dark room, and immediately he knew she had been right, that he had advanced too precipitately. He stumbled against something soft and yielding, and went down, stretching out his hand to save himself. He knew what his fingers had found. He snatched them away with a little cry:

"Get back to the hall, Nora!"

But he heard no movement from her, so, since he didn't dare wait, he took his flashlight from his pocket, pressed the control, and turned the ray on the features his hand had touched in the dark. Marvin was stretched, face downward on the floor near the head of the bed.