The Gray Mask

Beyond the doors of the saloon he faced the proprietor across unoccupied tables. He remembered the round, livid face beneath its crown of reddish hair. He had seen it more than once, sullen and unashamed, behind the bars at headquarters. He had often watched its wrinkles smooth into a bland hypocrisy before the frown of a magistrate. The man's past history made a connection between him and Slim's party nearly inevitable. But Garth had no choice. The proprietor, at his entrance, had braced his elbows against the bar.

"I ain't done a thing, Mr. Garth. I call God to witness there ain't anything to bring a bull here except near beer and tobaccy."

"We'll see, Papa Marlowe," Garth said evenly. "I'm going into the cellar of the warehouse next door. Dollars to dimes there's a way through your place. Will you give up the combination quietly?"

Marlowe's misgivings resolved into a smile. Instead of protestations he offered only an oily surprise.

"Now who told you there was a door through my cellar?"

"Never mind," Garth snapped. "I'll take all the chances and use it, but at a sound from you – You understand? Come ahead then."

Marlowe slouched down the stairs, muttering apologetically:

"Blest if I know what you want there. Old hole's been closed six years. That was a growler door for the warehousemen. Hold up, Mr. Garth, and I'll strike a match."

Garth ordered him ahead while he pressed the control of his pocket lamp. They continued between grim walls, splashed with mold, beaded with moisture, offering the appearance and the odor of a neglected tomb. They paused before an oak door.

"Don't open," Garth whispered. "Let me get my fingers on the latch."

"Maybe it's locked on the other side," Marlowe whispered back.

But when Garth tried the latch noiselessly he found that the door would open.

"I don't trust you, Papa," he said, "but if you want to make yourself solid at headquarters find a policeman and tell him what I'm up against."

The round, white face leered.

"The cops and I seem hand and glove these days. What are you up against, Mr. Garth? What you want in that empty cellar?"

Garth waved him away; watched him retreat towards the stairs, squinting his beady eyes, mouthing unintelligibly.

The detective snapped off his light, aware that he faced the critical moment. He opened the door and stepped into the black pall of the warehouse cellar. His memory reinforced him. Other members of the bureau had taken equal risks, had followed into such places criminals as desperate as the ones who held Nora. Moreover, they had lacked the impulse of a vigorous personal motive. They had answered only to the stimulation of duty. Not frequently they had emerged successful, unharmed.

He held his revolver ready. He moved to one side and paused. For some moments the silence was broken only by the drumming of his pulse in his ears. He realized it was not unlikely that the cellar was empty save for himself. The men might have led Nora into it as a trick to confuse the police. Nora's cry might have marked their departure by some ingeniously contrived exit. As his own immediate danger appeared to diminish his disappointment and anxiety increased. He had been prepared to risk everything for Nora. As if it had actually been prolonged to this moment, her cry still vibrated in his brain. Inaction was no longer bearable. He must assure himself that the cellar was, indeed, empty. He must find that exit and continue his pursuit. He stepped forward.

Light flashed, and from the sudden, sparkling confusion a remembered laugh jeered at him.

CHAPTER XX

THE BLACK CAP

Four shadowy figures stood in front of him, holding flashlights. Behind the blinding barrier he could make out Nora, crouched against a stained and rugged wall. And the brute, George, was at her side, his muscular hands on her arm. Slim stepped out of the obscurity, moving for Garth with a stealth and an evenness nearly cat-like.

Garth raised his revolver, strengthened by the knowledge that the inspector with many men would soon be tearing through the cellar doors. If only he could postpone the issue for himself – fight for time until that saving moment! There lay Nora's best chance, but her ignorance of such a possibility couldn't account for the horror in her customarily expressionless face.

"It's no use," she screamed. "Get back, Jim! Quick! Through the door!"

Slim was so close that Garth could see the automatic held at his hip.

"You'll stick here, Garth," came the smooth tones. "And you might's well drop your gun."

Garth saw George's hands tighten on Nora's arm. He understood then the real threat by which they would control him.

"Hands off the girl!" he said.

But George smiled, and pressed tighter until Nora cried out involuntarily.

"That means, drop your gun. For any little damage you do here Nora'll foot the bill."

She shook her head, but her face recorded an insufferable pain. Garth knew that the one shot for which he would have time would spare her nothing.

"I never expected to see the pride of your gang slinking behind a woman's skirts," he sneered. "I suppose those are four of the rats who helped put your breakaway over. Six against one, and a woman for a shield!"

It chilled him that the four strangers exposed their faces to his glance with a contemptuous indifference. He laughed, however, as Slim took his revolver.

"You giants must know that you haven't the chance of a pretzel at a Dutch wedding."

Slim affected not to have heard, but his gestures lacked smoothness.

"Let's see how you enjoy your own jewelry, Garth."

And he reached in Garth's pocket and drew out the pair of handcuffs he had been certain to find there. He snapped them on the detective's wrists. The four confederates lounged forward, produced stout cords, and bound them about Garth's ankles. His momentary resistance was smothered by Nora's sharp cry:

"Don't fight, Jim!"

His sense of utter helplessness increased, while the men, in obedience to Slim's gestures, stretched him on the floor. The surface was wet, as if the ooze of the river had penetrated this far. Slim stooped and glared at him, his eyes exposing a measureless resentment.

"Thanks for walking into our parlor, you fly cop. We heard how you and the skirt had fallen for each other. We guessed if we gave you a lead with some of her trinklets, you'd play the busy sleuth hound."

Nora's voice held the quality of a sob.

"Jim! Why did you come?"

He shrugged his shoulders. He forced on himself a semblance of confidence.

"Planted or not, the trail was my best chance."

Slim beckoned to George.

"Straight you've come to the place where I've dreamed for months of getting you."

Garth managed a grin.

"Cut out the bum acting, Slim. Let's hear what you've got on your mind."

He shrank from a reply. More and more he was impressed by the indifference with which these confederates constantly revealed their faces. He knew, if the inspector did not arrive quickly, he must suffer an eccentric and barbarous punishment. He tried to forecast the penalty, but his imagination was insufficient and his appraisal of Slim's cruelty too conservative. It wasn't until George stepped forward and Nora screamed that he guessed why the others were unafraid of his identification, that he understood how his situation might involve more than life and death. And, perhaps, the shambling creature outside had put the inspector's party on the wrong track.

George placed a pint bottle in Slim's hand. A smoky liquid did not quite fill it. Slim turned to the others, assuming an attitude of mockery.

"This is the brave guy that side-tracked Simmons last summer and wore the gray mask just as if he had something, too, that would frighten women and children. He's the bull that steered us against the black cap yesterday. Let's see how he likes hearing the sentence read himself. Only he isn't going to get anything as comfortable as the electric chair."

A laugh sneered through the cellar.

"Better speed it up, Slim," George advised.

Slim drew the cork from the bottle while his thin lips ceased to smile.

"Since you found a gray mask so becoming, Garth," he snarled, "it's only fair to give you honest cause to wear one. But you'll go poor Simmons one better. Your mask won't need any eye holes."

Nora cried out again.

"You couldn't do it," Garth muttered.

Beneath his rage lurked a fear of which he had never dreamed himself capable. To face death would have been so much simpler.

"What's in that bottle, Slim?"

"A black cap for you, damn you! Pure vitriol!"

He bent closer.

"Squirm! Those ropes and your own handcuffs will hold you. You'll beg me for a bullet before I'm through."

George twisted the girl so she had to watch.

"Pipe your handsome beau, Nora! You'll think I'm more your style in about ten seconds."

She shuddered.

"You're not bad enough to do that, Slim!"

"Watch me," he answered.

A complete satisfaction blotted from his eyes the fear he had hitherto never quite concealed – the quiet fear of a strong man who acknowledges his own inevitable destiny. Garth reminded him of that. It was his last weapon.

"They'll get you, Slim. They're keeping the chair warm for you. Will this help then?"

Slim laughed.

"Will it hurt? I've waited for this moment ever since you and she sent me to rot in the Tombs. I'll pay old scores while I can."

With an extreme deliberation he commenced to tip the bottle. The fluid, almost imperceptibly approaching the mouth, exercised for Garth a dreadful fascination. It was easy to estimate its progress. George had been right. In about ten seconds! And he couldn't get his chained hands to his eyes. He tried to tell himself it was impossible that that innocent-appearing fluid in the control of this criminal could condemn him to an unrelieved blackness through which, hideously scarred, he must grope henceforth, a thing repellent and past use.

The lights were centred upon his face. It struck him as ironic that their glare should hurt his eyes.

Suddenly Nora sprang forward. She stretched her hand towards Slim, but she didn't touch the bottle or his wrist, for the fluid filled the neck; was so close to the edge that a quick contact might have spilled it. George looked on, his hands in his pockets, his attitude expressing satisfaction at a just and long-deferred punishment.

Slim smiled at Nora. He moved the bottle a little. A drop fell. Something tortured the skin of Garth's cheek. It was as if an iron at white heat had been applied against his flesh with a strong pressure. The stuff was real enough.

Again Slim moved the bottle sluggishly, so that the liquid, ready to trickle out, was directly above Garth's eyes. Nora reached and closed her hands about the mouth.

"Look out!" George warned. "You'll get burnt."

"You see, George won't stand for that," Slim said slily.

"No, no, Slim!" Nora whispered. "I'll bargain."

"You're in a swell position to bargain," George scoffed.

The handcuffs cut into Garth's wrists.

"You don't think," he muttered, "that I was fool enough to follow that trail without covering myself?"

"That doesn't affect me," Slim grinned. "There's a getaway from this place no cop will ever find. Now, Nora! Hands off!"

But she resisted him.

"Slim," she said breathlessly. "You're not a fool. You must know that I can bargain. Suppose you got clear – across the border – into Canada? Couldn't you keep out of trouble once you were there?"

Slim ceased pulling at her hands. He stared at her, amazed, casting aside his last pretence.

"What you talking about, Nora? I know you're clever, but there aren't any more miracles. There's no way out of this town for us."

Her voice was barely audible.

"Unless my father unlocked the gates."

Slim started. Garth, too, answered to a desire almost violent. Surely Slim would realize the hopelessness of securing the inspector's complicity, or, failing that, would seek, as Garth did, for the stratagem behind her plan. Slim, nevertheless, continued to study her, and the narrow face no longer hid his greed for life.

"There's no way under heaven to get the old man to stand for that."

She took her hands from the bottle. Her eyes did not waver.

"No one else could do it, but you know how he loves me. I could make him do it as the price for myself and Jim."

Slim laughed shortly.

"One thing's certain," he mused. "If you did get away with it, I could keep you and the inspector straight. I'd take Garth, bound tight, some guns, and the acid along as gilt-edge securities. Hadn't thought of that, eh? Expected to trip me, didn't you? Well, Nora, you have let yourself in for a dicker, and, by gad I'm inclined to think it over, because I've got you this far: the minute you played queer Garth would go blind and burnt."

Nora conquered her disappointment.

"You'd swear to let Jim go at the border?"

"On my oath I'd let him go clean."

"Not for a million," George broke in angrily. "She gets herself away, then she throws Garth down to see us roast in the chair. You ought to know the skirt. She'd double cross the devil himself."

Garth waited for Slim's answer, his gaze controlled again by the acid.

"George," Slim said slowly, "any chance is worth playing now, for we're as good as in the chair already. And I don't believe she'd throw Garth down. You know what she went through with for the sake of a dead lover."

"You've got to show me," George sneered, "that she's forgotten the dead one to take on Garth."

"We heard in the Tombs," Slim said drily, "that these pigeons wanted to roost on the same stool."

With a growing wonder Garth watched Nora fling aside her reserve. She turned on George, raising her hands in an attitude of fury, as if inspired by a passion beyond her control.

"And that's true. If you think I'd let him take that acid give the bottle to me, and I'll use it on myself instead."

She knelt at Garth's side, and for a moment the light in her eyes, her unrestraint, more than the result of her appeal, held him tense.

"Tell them, Jim," she cried. "If they made you that way I swear I'd kill myself."

She glanced up, tears in her eyes.

"I love him so much, Slim, that to save him I'd see my father dead."

A subdued murmur of voices sifted through from the street. They could hear the stealthy straining of hands at the cellar doors. Nora arose, and, hiding her face, stood trembling.

"The bulls!" George whispered. "Throw the stuff and let's make our getaway."

Slim shook his head.

"I tell you it's a chance. All of you vamoose except George. We'll wait and see, and maybe we won't need you after this. Remember, Nora, there'll always be time for us to wash Garth's face and show our heels."

"Oh, I know it," she breathed. "I know it."

The lights snapped out. Garth was aware of clandestine stirrings. Then the silence of the cellar was broken only by the fumbling at the door.

"I'll let you go, Nora," Slim whispered. "Send the other cops back. If they try to rush us, by God we'll do the trick on Garth and kill who we can besides, the inspector first of all. So play straight."

Garth heard her retreating footsteps. After all he had accomplished his chief purpose. Through him Nora had found escape.

He heard a sharp splintering of wood, and a wan light, not much stronger than the glow of the city through the mist, diffused itself in the cellar. The inspector's breathless voice reached them.

"Nora! Garth!"

Garth saw Nora's shadowy figure advance into the well of the door. He heard her stifle her father's relief and tell him to order his men beyond ear-shot. Her voice murmured. Garth guessed that it recited his abhorrent danger and the terms on which she had agreed to buy his release.

He strained his ears, understanding fully what depended on the answer, yet convinced that reasonably it could only be a refusal. In a way Nora had placed the responsibility for whatever might happen to him on the inspector's shoulders, but the alternative was too distinct. As the price for his connivance the inspector must throw his position and his reputation to the winds, perhaps, face a trial, more than likely to jail sentence. It was conceivable that his love for Nora would dictate even that sacrifice, but she would have to force on him an illusion of a passion as unaccounting as that which had convinced Slim. Could she act to that extent with her father? In spite of his logical interpretation of it, Garth responded to the memory of her agitation. Had she, in fact, been acting in the cellar? Had his peril finally shown her heart the truth? The two most compelling issues of his own life, as well as the inspector's career, depended on the reply, and he could hear nothing. Nora and her father must have moved to one side, for their voices entered the cellar in barely audible murmurs. Slim had handed the bottle to George, and he moved now into the door well where he could listen.

Garth's nerves tightened. Always George held the acid close to the detective's bound and helpless body. Of course the inspector couldn't do it.

Slim came slinking back. His whisper warmed the cold, damp air.

"I couldn't catch it all, but she's getting away with something."

The murmuring ceased, and through the wan light Nora glided, wraith-like, into the doorway, and called to them softly across the cellar:

"Slim! He hates me for making him, but he'll do what he can. He'll tell the Harlem police and the towns along the Hudson that he's got you. He'll try to cover himself with a planted getaway. You have an automobile. Take it and leave by the Broadway bridge. You'll catch the Montreal express at Tarrytown. You've plenty of time, and everything will be arranged; but he can't keep the wool over the district attorney's eyes forever. If you're not over the border to-morrow morning it's no good. So catch that train."

"Come here, Nora," Slim sighed, "and let me thank you properly."

Her laugh was hard, more suggestive of forbidden tears than mirth.

"One hostage is enough. And, Jim, there's a condition for you. Father won't budge unless you give him your word to go quietly. You have to promise on your sacred oath not to make any effort to escape or to throw Slim down."

"What's that for?" George asked suspiciously.

Her tone was contemptuous.

"Use your head, George. It would do father a lot of good to risk so much for Jim if he took matters into his own hands and got the acid just the same."

"Right!" Slim agreed. "You've plenty of common-sense, Nora, and it's going to give us a chance."

"You promise, Jim?"

He fancied an element of command in her voice.

"I'll do what you wish, Nora," he answered. "I promise."

"Then good-by," she called, and her voice no longer held any command, nor was it steady. "Good-by. If I only dared come over to you! God bring you back safe to me."

Garth tried to fight back the response of his heart. He told himself that honorably he must accept all she had said that night as mimicry whose only intention was to save his life. She would expect him to take it at its real value, but he could not shake off the recollection of her emotion. With a great longing he watched her move into the shadows beyond the door.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ANTICS OF A TRAIN

At a gesture from Slim, George cut the cords that bound Garth's ankles. The detective rose. With a nod Slim motioned George towards the oak door which opened on Marlowe's cellar.

"Get to the 'phone," he whispered. "Pass the fair word, and bring the wheels here on the minute."

He swung on the detective.

"If you see anybody upstairs, just keep your back turned so they won't notice your pretty bracelets."

Garth shivered, aware that a new and disquieting element had entered the situation.

Slim indicated the revolver, held ready in his coat pocket.

"After George, and in front of me. Always like that from now on."

He touched the bottle of acid which he had taken from George.

"Remember this will be behind you like my gun, but I don't want to shoot to kill with either. Just a little in the face is better if you try to cut up."

"You heard my promise," Garth said.

He followed George through the doorway, resisting continually the impulse to turn around, to assure himself of what he already knew, that Slim was actually alert each moment to discipline his slightest effort at escape.

They crossed the damp spaces of the cellar and climbed the stairs, pausing at the head until they could be certain Marlowe's evil figure still faced a bar-room, significantly empty.

George hurried to the telephone booth, fastening the door behind him so that Garth could hear nothing. Marlowe wiped his hands on his apron. A sly smile twitched at the corners of his colorless lips.

"Well! Well! Who's rented the warehouse? Who are your pals, Mr. Garth?"

Garth kept his back turned. The glasses tinkled musically under Marlowe's nervous fingers.

"Maybe you'll name your pleasure, gentlemen."

"Nothing but a little quiet," Slim grunted.

Marlowe flung up his hands, indicating a profound disapproval.

"Then what you mean coming through my cellar? That might get me in bad with the cops. Or maybe you're detectives like Mr. Garth?"

Slim responded to the strain of this waiting. He turned angrily on the man.

"How often have I told you, Papa Marlowe, to keep your fat mouth shut?"

For Garth that outburst pitilessly defined the new element. Slim's anger had let slip real evidence of the proprietor's lawless connection with the gang; and Slim, Garth knew, was unlikely to make blunders he couldn't retrieve. This one dovetailed into the fact that the detective could still identify the four confederates he had seen down stairs – that is, if he kept his eyes. Slim, then, had no intention of holding to his bargain with Nora. He would use Garth as far as the border, then he would protect his own through the unspeakable punishment his twisted soul craved. Nor could Garth see any way to save himself. Moreover, he knew Nora too well to cast lightly aside the promise she had drawn from him on a note of command.

George emerged from the booth. The four men stared at each other without words. Once or twice Marlowe started to speak, but at a frown from Slim he smothered the impulse in a busy attention to his bar cloth.

Faintly the whirring of a motor reached them. George sprang for the door. Slim motioned Garth ahead and followed him to the sidewalk where an automobile had drawn up. It exposed, in the vague light, an air of smug respectability in itself protective.

The driver wore a fur coat with a voluminous cape, of a common chauffeur pattern. Its collar was turned up so that it completely hid the lower part of the wearer's face. Garth didn't understand at first when Slim took a smaller coat from the car, stooped, and whispered in the driver's ear. The other stepped obediently to the sidewalk, removed his great coat, handed it to Slim, and slipped on the smaller one. Slim motioned George and Garth into the car, followed them, and, while he jerked out his instructions, drew down the side curtains. Garth was to sit on the back seat with George, who would keep one hand conveniently on his automatic. Slim would be opposite, his gun handy, and the bottle of acid ready at his side.

"And that isn't all," he leered. "You're too precious to take chances with. Here! Lean forward."

He flung the chauffeur's great coat across Garth's shoulders, and, over his chained wrists, buttoned it tight about him. He chuckled as the car started.

"The cape, George, makes it look as if our friend kept his hands out of sight for warmth. Let's hope the train'll be a little chilly, too. Your arms are going to sleep and get a nice rest, Garth."

He chuckled again. He took his own handkerchief and borrowed George's. With the two he improvised a gag which he fastened skillfully in the prisoner's mouth. Then he turned the great collar up so that the gag was hidden.

"You've a swell chance to make trouble now, Garth. That's how I check up on a bull's promises. If anybody tries to stop us or to snitch you free you'll get the acid in those shining peepers without being able to move. You'd better pray everybody keeps straight."