The Gray Mask

"Whole force at your heels, Nora?" the leader asked gently.

Closing the door, she faced them breathlessly. Her eyes flashed, but fear lurked there, too.

"No," she said, "but it might be tramping on the dock without your guessing it. Listen, Slim."

She raised her clenched fists.

"There's a bull here. There's a cop with his hand at your throat."

"Nora! You're having a nightmare."

"Hold on," George said. "Nora ought to know."

"Yes," she gasped, "and it's straight."

Slim relaxed.

"From your father?"

She nodded.

"How in – "

"I don't know," she said, "but he was sure he'd have a stool with you to-night. He's tried so long I know he wasn't bragging. Slim! We can't trip up now. I've worked too hard. You've told me what a mess you made last time, when that cop, Kridel, was croaked. Where will we be if anything like that's pulled again?"

"Easy, Nora," Slim said. "Maybe we wouldn't be any worse off than we were then. Has anybody burned in the chair for that? Does anybody know who croaked Kridel? Well – the man who did it. Don't lose your nerve. The cops would have a fine time getting a witness in a murder case out of this crowd. And, if what you say is so, maybe the same thing will happen to-night, only in a more convenient spot."

"What are you going to do, Slim?" she asked. "Tie him up, but no more murder. I quit at that."

"Leave it to me," he muttered. "Show me the bull."

Garth received the words as a condemned man probably hears the voice of a judge who wears the black cap.

The girl glanced rapidly around. Then, advancing steadily to the table, she raised her hand and pointed at Garth.

He stared fascinated at the finger which, a few hours ago, he had held violently in the rush of his passion. He was aware of the flashing eyes which that afternoon had been wet with tears. But his brain was dull. He waited patiently for the exposure which now appeared unavoidable because of the woman he loved.

She spoke evenly.

"Who could it be but this man that hides his face? There's no doubt about the rest of you. You only have to see, Slim, whether this fellow, Simmons, has got a face."

"He had the word," the leader answered, "and look at that scar. But you're right, Nora. If there's a bull here he's behind that mask."

"Then make him take it off," she said.

Garth raised his hands. His croaking voice was torn with dismay.

"No. I warn you. Spare me and yourselves that. It's not pretty, what you'd see."

"Take it off," the girl repeated.

"I hide it," Garth cried. "For years – Listen, you. If you don't let me keep a little pride you can do your dirty work without me."

The leader put his hand on Garth's shoulder.

"Now, now," he said soothingly. "Depend on it, Simmons, if you're all right we don't want to hurt your feelings."

"All right!" Nora mocked. "And I tell you there's a cop here. And you know as well as I he's the only one. You're crazy, Slim."

"Good thing one of us is then," the leader sneered. "If this isn't Simmons we're out of the running for to-night anyway. If it is, what do we gain by making a show of him? That's what I was going to propose. Only one of us need look."

"That'll do," Nora agreed. "Well! Who?"

"George here was anxious."

"Look yourself," George answered. "I'm no dime museum fiend."

Suddenly Garth arose.

"Maybe the lady – " he croaked. "She's so set on it. A pleasant sight for ladies."

Nora flushed angrily.

"I'll call that bluff."

She waved the others back towards the end of the room.

"And be quick about it," she said to Garth.

Garth caught the expressions of the others. He noticed their ready hands. While his fingers rose to the fastenings of the gray mask he turned slowly and faced Nora.

For a moment he hesitated. Even after all he had seen he shrank from forcing on the girl the responsibility of tossing him to those waiting hands. He was tempted to spare her that, to confess himself to the others. But the stamping of her foot, the tone of her voice, impatient, commanding, decided him.

"Hurry, I say! There's no way out."

So, holding her with his eyes, he slipped the gray mask aside.

He saw her stare while the angry color left her cheeks. But at first her expression did not alter. It seemed to him a long time before terror twisted her face, before she screamed. He watched her cower back, crossing her arms over her eyes; watched her fall against the wall, where she bent, trembling.

Garth replaced the mask, shrugging his shoulders, and turned to the others. The leader laughed lightly, with satisfaction.

"Never dreamed it was as bad as that, Simmons. You're right. Don't blame you, but you must see we had to be sure."

Garth nodded. He sat down. Let the girl speak. Until then he would play his part.

"Looks as if the stool lost a leg somewhere," he said.

He studied Nora. Her face hidden, she remained shrinking against the wall. Still she did not speak.

George stepped to her side and put his arm around her.

"Forget it, little girl. Wish I'd looked for you."

She shook his arm off and pushed him away.

"Forget it yourself, George," the leader warned. "You ought to have learned that won't go with Nora."

"She knows I'm no butterfly," George answered sullenly.

His touch had aroused her. She straightened and turned wild eyes on the gray mask. Garth waited then for her to betray him, but she only stammered a little.

"He's right. A pleasant sight for ladies! Boat – must have thrown them off the track."

She laughed hysterically. She sank on the end of the bench.

Garth was surprised, now that the strain was broken, not to experience any exceptional relief. In spite of the game's vital stakes it had interested him chiefly because of the various effects it might have had on Nora. Yet it had yielded him no key to her presence here, to her disgraceful marketing of her father's confidence, to her assumption at home of black robes and grief, or, finally, to her apparent decision to let the night's work continue in spite of his presence. Probably she hoped he could not get help until the job had been done. Or – and the thought struck him with the shameful tingling of a slap – perhaps she thought he would let the others go rather than capture and convict the woman he had craved in marriage.

He pressed his lips together. He beckoned to Slim. He took the whip in his own hands.

"Is the safe here? Are we going to spend the rest of the night on this boat? If the cops are awake it isn't wise."

"All right," the leader said. "George, you and Nora and Simmons wait here. The rest of you start out."

The studious-appearing youth, the tramp, the dandy, and the elderly man filed through the door and silently closed it. The leader spoke to Garth quickly.

"George will unlock the safe without any trouble. He's the best in the business. Your job's to open it and handle what you find without blowing the lot of us to everlasting dirt."

Garth stirred uneasily.

"Explosives!" he said. "I see why you wanted me."

"The pay's high," Slim answered. "The fellows that are after this stuff don't trust diplomatic talk. Everybody wants it if only to be sure that nobody else gets it, for they claim that the nation that has it, could make a league of all the rest look like Tod Sloan fighting Dempsey. The inventor thinks Uncle Sam ought to have it, if anybody, but he's been holding off. It's new, and he's either afraid of it himself, or he thinks he can perfect it."

"He's afraid of it," Nora breathed. "He told me it was a sin to invent it."

"The point is, Simmons," the leader said, "can you handle the stuff with a degree of safety after you have read the formula? A man of your experience – "

"I am not afraid to tackle it if I can see the formula," Garth answered quietly.

"Say, Simmons," George put in with a wry face, "if there's anything phony about your education, drop off here."

Garth fingered a frayed sheet of white paper.

"I am not afraid if I can see the formula," he repeated.

The leader turned to Nora.

"You're sure there's some of the stuff in the safe with the formula? The foreigner wouldn't dicker without a sample to analyze."

"I saw the formula and the sacks put in the safe to-night," she answered.

George shook his head.

"Nora, you're a wonder."

"No wonder," she said contemptuously. "Nothing but hard work. An imbecile could have made friends with the housekeeper, but it took drudgery to get at the old man. I won't waste that. If there's any slip – "

The leader glanced at the gray mask.

"That's up to Simmons now," he said.

CHAPTER III

IN THE STEEL ROOM

Garth's fingers played with the piece of white paper.

"You haven't told me where the house is," he said.

The moment the leader had answered Garth was standing on the bench. He waved his arm. Suddenly he blew out the lamp.

"On the dock!" he stammered to the darkness. "A noise!"

As the others crept to the door he scratched rapidly and silently with a match on the piece of paper the location of the house, the nature of the job, and an appeal for help. When he was through he heard the others coming back.

"If your nerves jump like that, Simmons, what a chance we'll have!" George said. "Not a sign. Light up."

Garth struck the match and relighted the lamp.

"I never take unnecessary risks," he said simply.

Nora, he knew, would guess that his excess of caution was a police trick. His eyes sought her anxiously as the lamp flamed, but she gave no sign. After a moment she whispered:

"Let's start. It – it frightens me here."

The leader opened the door.

"It's time," he said. "They're asleep in the house by now."

They followed him, threading obscure spaces and alleyways to the unlighted end of a street which deployed into a stone mason's yard, and always Garth asked:

"Will she whisper my life away to the others?"

A taxicab waited there. Garth man[oe]uvred so that he had a seat by the window. He let his hand, which clenched the piece of paper, dangle through. Such policemen as he saw were indifferent until crossing One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street he noticed one who looked straight at the cab. He let the paper flutter from his fingers, but he did not dare glance back to see if the policeman had picked it up.

The cab halted in a dark side street off Lexington Avenue. A man stepped from the shadows and waved his hand. They alighted and walked with an unconcern that surprised Garth to the servants' entrance of a large house. This Nora unlocked. They entered and waited in the alley while one by one the four from the boat slipped through after them.

Garth understood what these numbers meant. In order that Nora, George, and he might accomplish their task undisturbed, these men would bear to each inmate of the house chloroform, or, under necessity, something more permanently silencing.

Walking heavy-hearted through the alley at Nora's heels, one last saving possibility occurred to Garth. Could this be another police trick? It was likely that the inspector had denied him his full confidence. Could Nora be on the same errand as himself, working for her father?

When she had unlocked the house door he found himself brushing against her in the hall. Impulsively he reached down and clasped her hand. But her hand was like ice. She snatched it away. In her action and the sharp intake of her breath he felt his doubts resolved.

Then he was flung into a stealthy, sure, and dreadful whirlpool of action. He heard feline movements on the stairs, a muffled thud in the darkness ahead, from the second floor a shrill cry, all at once strangled and beaten back into the heavy silence.

He waited, panting. Upstairs someone rapped sharply three times. A pocket lamp flashed ahead, throwing a white shaft against finely-grained mahogany.

A hand in the shaft signalled him, and he crept forward until he stumbled over a round, inert mass which lay just outside the room where the white light searched the mahogany.

The light, wavering around to greet him, disclosed the obstacle. It was a man, deftly bound, and bandaged about the mouth, the ears, the eyes.

"Shut the door."

Garth closed the door on this disturbing vision.

The mahogany formed the doors of a large and very wide cabinet. George knelt in front of this, inserting slender, gleaming tools in the lock with the adroitness of a watchmaker. To one side Nora crouched, playing the light on his illicit undertaking.

George opened the doors and nodded to Garth. The light glowed now on the sleek, steel belly of a safe; and, as Garth, a trifle confused, reached out a steadying hand, he realized that the walls of this room were of steel, too. The cold, uncompromising feel of the metal was another warning to him. His only chance was that the safe might balk George for some time.

The man's first words, indeed, encouraged this hope.

"May take a little time," he muttered. "Might's well be comfortable, Simmons. Nora, toss us a couple of those sofa pillows."

Nora reached to the divan behind her and passed the cushions to George. He arranged one to his satisfaction before raising his hand to the combination.

"Plenty of time, isn't there?" Garth croaked anxiously.

"Ought to be," George answered. "Everything's covered now. Didn't expect to find the watchman where we did though. If he hadn't been half asleep – Nora, maybe you doped him at supper."

The girl gave no sign. She remained crouched at the side. She was like an animal, ready to spring at the first alarm.

Garth was aware of an unusual tension himself. It was not quite the suspense he had forecasted. Perhaps this sharing of criminal labor for the first time accounted for its nature. He appreciated the amount of courage demanded. He received, as it were, George's disturbing point of view of the moment.

Garth had caught a new stammering quality in the man's voice. He wondered at the perspiration which bathed his face in spite of the comfortable temperature of the room. He studied the shoulders, squared as for an attack, momentarily expected. Only the fingers at their facile work displayed no emotion.

Garth questioned if George always worked under this strain. Did any of the responsibility rest with this room? Since his first entrance over the prostrate form of the watchman, since his first touch of those unyielding walls, he had himself experienced a distaste for the apartment. This may have been accounted for in part by that single, brilliant shaft of light, which, illuminating the nest of this perilous booty, deepened the shadows elsewhere.

Garth could make out little. His eyes failed to explore the corners, succeeded only in reaching the divan and one or two easy chairs – furniture altogether incongruous in a chemist's laboratory.

Although the water streamed from George's face, he saw the man shiver. It started an expository train of thought. The last time this job had been attempted Kridel had been killed – in this house, almost certainly in this room. He recalled the superstitious fears of many criminals. Perhaps that accounted in a degree for the other's bared nerves.

"May take time," George jerked out again. "If I could only use a drill and a touch of nitro."

He whistled softly.

"None of that rough business here. Good Lord, Simmons, don't let that stuff go off."

Nora leaned forward.

"Scared, George?"

The question brought fire.

"Show me anybody else who'd do this stunt with more nerve."

"Slim must think a lot of you to put you at it twice."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Didn't you fall down on it last time?"

"Ask Slim," he said shortly. "This is the time I'm interested in, and if we pull it off – "

He reached over, tapping the mahogany with ritual precaution.

"If we pull it off, Nora, you're going to quit fooling with me. I've dangled a long time, and we'll have plenty of money then."

Physical greed for a moment drove the uneasiness from his eyes.

"Maybe, when I get the door open, you'll give me that kiss I've been waiting for."

Garth felt shame that he had the impulse to risk his mission for this woman he should have loathed. He wanted to take the burly, glistening throat between his hands. He controlled himself with an effort. But he could not experience for the girl that just loathing.

She had altered subtly. At George's question her form had lost its alertness and had assumed the unyielding lines of a somnambulist; and her voice had the colorless tone of one who speaks out of a dream.

"Maybe when you get it open, George. Time enough to think of that then. I'm not so sure you'll open it. I'm not so sure of your nerve."

"Wait and see," he said. "You're a pretty one to talk about nerve. You look as though you'd seen a ghost."

She sank back in a heap. She screened her face with her hands. George stared.

"Now what – "

"Don't say that, George," she whispered. "Not here. Ever since I've been in this room – it – it doesn't feel right."

She trembled.

"Hurry! I'm afraid here."

"Hold the light up," he said roughly. "What's the matter with you? This isn't a graveyard."

He resumed his manipulation of the knob. Garth noticed that from time to time he glanced quickly over his shoulder at the somber corners of the room.

Nora had, to a certain extent, startled Garth. Her barely audible words still breathed disquietingly in his ears. They had been like a bow drawn across a string too tightly stretched.

She kept her face hidden now while George worked. The only sound was the muffled clicking of the balls in the combination; the only light, the shaft from the lamp which she held unsteadily. The thought of the steel walls added to the oppression of the air. Garth breathed with difficulty. He fancied once that something moved behind the divan. George caught his start and demanded an explanation. He scolded querulously.

"Well," Garth croaked, "I agree with the lady. I don't like the room."

"I looked around," George said.

Nora lowered her arms.

"George," she said, "sometimes you can't see everything."

She straightened. That disquieting, colorless whisper came again.

"I know what it is. That cop was killed here, wasn't he?"

"What do I know about it?" he asked angrily.

She leaned closer and grasped his arm.

"Right here, George. And if he – It must have been just like this – this time of night – when he – George! Can't we turn on the lights?"

He swallowed hard.

"Why not send out a call for the patrol? What do you mean, if he – "

She shivered.

"I don't like places where people have died hard. That's what I felt when I came in here. But you – you're not afraid?"

He turned momentarily from his work. He tried with indifferent success to fill his voice with challenge. Afterwards he looked up expectantly as though he was far from certain the challenge might not be accepted.

"Afraid! A man with a red heart afraid of dead ones! They never come back."

"Don't say that. I know. My mother told me such things. She was Italian. She knew. She saw. George, don't say that. It's like cursing the dead. And he lay right there, didn't he, George, between you and the safe? That's why Slim stayed outside. Maybe Slim killed him. I want to go, too. Let Simmons hold the lamp."

"No," George said. "That thing he wears isn't human company. You stay."

Garth wondered that in that fantastic light the girl's manner should set a cold anxiety rippling along his own nerves. He looked with an unnatural curiosity at the place which she had indicated.

Evidently she had yielded to an excess of terror. In spite of George's command she was trying to pass the lamp to Garth. It slipped from her fingers, and the white shaft circled swiftly downwards. She caught the handle before it reached the floor, but now the only light in the room was a narrow circle which bored into the carpet and exposed a dark, irregular stain.

Nora cried chokingly.

"Blood! George! That's his blood!"

Cursing, George reached forward, caught her arm, and swung the light away from this desolate reminder of tragedy.

"No wonder!" she whispered. "No wonder Slim didn't have the nerve to come back and do those same things. He'd have seen the man he'd killed between him and his work."

Garth could scarcely catch her voice.

"If I thought you had that much nerve, George, I might – I believe I might – "

She broke off abruptly. George stared at her, then turned back and fumbled for the knob.

"Try to keep the light steady, Nora."

There was a beseeching, child-like quality in his tone. He worked with difficulty now. His hands were no longer perfect mechanical tools. They wavered about the knob. His lips twitched. Perspiration thickened on his face. Garth saw drops glitter and fall slowly to the stained carpet.

Garth caught himself paradoxically wishing George to hurry. For a moment he was relieved when a new sound came from the combination, and George with a sigh turned the handle.

"Ready to open," he said.

He swung on Nora.

"Talk about Slim! Crying, Nora? Good Lord – "

"Don't, George," she said. "If I half close my eyes I can see him through my tears, lying here in the shadows. Can't you?"

He clasped his arms about her. He hid his eyes in her hair.

"Hush," he said hoarsely. "And, while Simmons does his work, give me that kiss."

Garth's fingers reached out, then he thought of the frayed piece of paper possibly in the inspector's hands and already urging the night to a successful climax. This anguish, too, he must suffer. So he drew back profoundly shaken.

Nora, however, was protecting her lips.

"You promised – " George began.

"I said if you had that much nerve. But I know you haven't. Even if you had croaked him you wouldn't dare acknowledge it here. Why, George, you're kneeling where he lay."

He threw back his shoulders. He laughed demonstratively.

"What difference does that make? I'm kneeling to you. And let Slim rave. I'll give you your price. You needn't be ashamed to kiss me, Nora. It wasn't Slim. I did it. The cop jumped me from behind that sofa, and I let him have the knife."

He raised his lips expectantly.

Garth didn't understand at first. He only realized with a savage joy that their lips did not touch. Yet he questioned why the big man, instead of answering the temptation of that mouth, half-open and inviting, drooped backwards until he lay stretched on the floor.

George's cry in his ears aroused him, and he saw in the reeling, drunken shaft of light that blood flowed and joined the ancient stain in the carpet.

He arose. He knew what that scream would unloose upon them.

Springing backward, he grasped the handle of the safe and opened the doors.

"Nora," he whispered. "Come here."

She obeyed him with mechanical precision; but when he took the lamp from her listless hand, turning it upward to examine her face, he read in her eyes awakening realization and horror.

He snapped off the light. Still grasping her hand, he seated himself on the floor with his back to the open safe. He drew her down. For a moment he thought she would resist, then she yielded and sank passively to the cushion at his side.

"Why?" she asked.

"They will be here," he said. "There is no way out except through that door which they will use. It is safer to wait here. Why don't they come?"

"They are careful," she whispered back. "They will come slowly. They will take no chances."

He felt the quick shaking of her body.

"I know what I have done," she said, "what I have done to you."

He realized that his hand still grasped hers. He released it gently.

"I understand a little," he answered, "but if you cared enough to accomplish this madness for him, you should have been even less kind to me than you were this afternoon."

"Perhaps," she answered. "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I was so young. I loved him so much, and my father said his murderer would never be punished – justice must fail. Maybe it was my Italian blood, but I swore over his body the day they buried him that, if there was no other way, I would get justice for the poor boy. We were practically certain it was this gang. I said nothing to my father. Through a girl I had helped I met Slim. It pleased his vanity to have a spy at headquarters. I made him trust me. But I couldn't find out who – Yet sooner or later I knew the time would come. That's why I worked so hard for to-night, why I wouldn't let anything interfere, because I thought in this room – Well! You see – Listen!"