Kitabı oku: «The Gray Mask», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XIX
PAYMENT IS DEMANDED FOR THE GRAY MASK

The approach of the moment when she must testify against Slim and George; must tell in public the details of that tragedy which had played such havoc with her, drove Nora into a morbid humor which neither Garth nor the inspector could alter. She followed Garth on the stand. She was dressed in black. The appeal of her personality was irresistible. It was clear that if the two criminals had ever had a chance Nora would destroy it.

Slim and George sat by their counsel. George could not quite hide the animal character of his face, but he had managed to soften it somewhat. Evidently he endeavoured to impress the jurors with the idea that he was a good-natured fellow who had been involved in the case through some curious mischance. At Nora's appearance, Garth noticed, there came into his eyes a survival of the passion he had so recklessly declared in the steel-lined room.

Slim, on the other hand, let slip nothing of the criminal. His quiet clothing gave him an air almost clerical. His sharp features expressed a polite interest. He could not, a casual spectator would have said, be capable of the evil with which he was charged.

Garth watched the men perpetually. He saw the hatred slip through while he quietly told the story that would condemn them to death. During Nora's recital, too, both men exposed something of their powerful desire for revenge against these two who quietly droned away their lives.

Garth took Nora from the courtroom well aware that, given the opportunity, Slim and George would not let them move a foot without exacting full payment.

Garth respected Nora's mood. He put her in a cab and sent her home, then wandered restlessly about the down town streets.

Perhaps Nora's attitude was partly responsible for his feeling of oppression, of imminence. Nothing could happen, he told himself again. Slim and George would start for the death house to-morrow. They would have no chance. If they delegated such work to their subordinates still at large, Garth fancied that he could take care of himself and Nora, too. It was the exceptional cunning of Slim and George that he shrank from, had feared ever since the night Nora and he had trapped them.

Angry with himself he went to headquarters. The inspector admitted that he, too, would breathe easier when the two were in the chair.

The next day Garth managed to dismiss his premonition. He chatted with two or three detectives in the outside office. The inspector sent for him. The moment he answered the summons he knew something disastrous had occurred. He felt that the exceptional, almost with the effect of a physical violence, had entered the room ahead of him.

The inspector held the telephone. The receiver was at his ear. His huge figure projected to Garth an uncontrolled fear. His voice, customarily rumbling and authoritative, was no more than a groping whisper.

"Why the devil doesn't Nora answer? Do you know, Garth, that Slim and George are loose on the town?"

Garth started back. He would have responded just so to a blow in the face.

"They are on their way to the death house," he countered.

"You mean they were," the inspector said, "condemned by your testimony and Nora's."

His voice rose and thickened.

"I've just got the word. An explosion was planted in front of their van on the way to the Grand Central. There was a crowd of rats from the slums. Those birds were torn from the sheriff's men, and their bracelets knocked off. They were spirited away. But don't you suppose Slim and George would gamble I'll never let them out of this town? Every exit's barred now. They know their liberty's only good to pay old debts. What'll they do at the start?"

Garth braced himself against the desk.

"They'll go for Nora first. Then they'll get me. I've been afraid of it all along."

"I'm trying to warn her," the inspector raged. "She doesn't answer."

He shouted into the transmitter:

"Are you all dead out there? Get me that number, or by heaven – "

While the inspector stormed to be put in communication with his daughter Garth tried to plan. Could he devise any useful defence against Slim's imagination, abnormally clever and inscrutable; or against such naked brutality as George's? And the malevolence of these two would be all the more certain in its action since no fear of punishment would restrain it. The murder, or worse, of Garth and Nora, which undoubtedly they intended, could earn for them only the death penalty to which they were already condemned.

"You've got to get Nora," Garth urged the inspector. "The servant at least should be there."

"Her afternoon out, and Nora said she would be home."

"Then," Garth cried, "they made for her like a shot."

He turned and strode to the door.

"Where are you going, Jim?"

"Keep after that number," Garth called back. "If you get Nora tell her I'm on the way, and to sit tight."

The inspector tried to stop him.

"You're out of your head. Your only chance is to keep under cover. They'll give you a bullet in the back."

"Somebody's got to look after Nora," Garth called, and caught up his coat and hat, and ran from the building.

He threaded a course through the homeward bound crowds, experiencing the sensations of a truant from an impending and destructive retribution, his eyes alert for a sudden movement, his ears constantly prepared for the sharp crack of a revolver.

As he ran he recalled that evening last summer when he had side-tracked Simmons and had taken his place behind a replica of the gray mask. He could see Nora in her cheap finery, and George, he remembered with a sense of sheer terror, had loved Nora in his way; had, in fact, through his brutal and amorous eagerness, delivered himself into her hands. He threw aside all caution. He ran faster. Somehow, no matter what the cost, he had to keep Nora out of the grasp of those men.

He reached the flat, breathless and wondering that he had not been disturbed. No one answered his ring. He questioned the hall-boy. The inspector's daughter had left fifteen minutes ago. She had said headquarters had telephoned her to go to her father without delay. The situation was clear. Garth grasped the hall-boy's arm.

"Didn't you follow her to the door? Didn't you see where she went?"

The boy shook his head, clearly alarmed before such vehemence.

"Then you must have heard. Did you hear anything?"

The boy tried to free his arm. He whimpered.

"No. Unless – maybe somebody screamed, but there are so many children in the street, playin' and hollerin' – "

Garth let him go and ran to the sidewalk. A man stood there. In spite of the sharp cold he wore no coat. Garth recognized him for a tailor who worked in a nearby shop. The tailor's excitement made him nearly incoherent, but Garth drew from him a description of Slim and George. As the inspector's daughter had stepped to the sidewalk, he said, the men had sprung upon her, stifled her one scream, and driven her off in an automobile.

"I saw it from my shop," he spluttered. "I've been telephoning the inspector. I just got him, because his wire was busy."

"Which direction did they take?"

The tailor pointed south. Garth hurried to the curb, stooped, and found fresh tire marks. He was aware of his helplessness unless Nora's ingenuity had hit upon some trick for his guidance. He searched with a greedy hope. While his eyes roved about the frozen dust of the gutter he acknowledged that the inspector had appraised his men justly. Slim and George wouldn't even try to leave the city until the hue and cry had somewhat abated. Into the windings of the underworld they had carried Nora, and Garth knew how devious those windings were – what silent and invisible machinery would nourish and secrete and protect.

He lifted a tiny tuft of fur which had nestled, almost hidden, in the dust of the gutter. He examined it closely. It's colour and texture were reminiscent of the muff he had frequently seen Nora carry. It might be a souvenir of her struggle, or else —

He arose and walked down the street, searching every inch of the pavement. At the corner his breath quickened, for he knew the piece of fur had not rested in the gutter by accident. Two others were there, trampled, but suggestive of the direction taken by the automobile. He could picture Nora surreptitiously tearing the bits from her muff and dropping them from the window of the car.

He hastened on. As soon as he was confident the pieces constituted an intelligible trail he conquered his impatience long enough to enter a drug store and telephone his discovery to the inspector.

"I'm going on," he explained. "The Lord knows what I'll find, so get after me right away."

The voice that reached him could not conceal its suspense.

"Go fast, Garth, and I'll follow with every man I can raise. Pull Nora out of this and ask me for my badge."

Garth went on, following the trail into the dark and intricate thoroughfares of the lower east side, knowing that each moment his pursuit might be abruptly and fatally ended by a flash of light from the obscurity ahead.

He emerged into a waterfront street which was nearly deserted at this hour. One or two street lamps of an antiquated pattern flickered ineffectually. The only sign of habitation was a glow, wan and unhealthy, which escaped from the broad windows of a saloon on the corner.

Garth knew the reputation of that dive, and its long resistance to a final closing of its shutters. More than once the yellow sawdust of its floor had reddened, while men had fought towards its doors through a whirling, pungent fog of powder smoke. He remembered, too, that it was suspected of harboring the explanation of stealthier and more revolting crimes, the responsibility for which, however, had never been legally determined. He was glad when the automobile tracks swung beyond it, but they turned in at the next building, a warehouse with a crumbling, picturesque façade. He saw beneath the edge of a double cellar door a larger piece of fur, mute testimony that the place had recently been opened, that the condemned men had carried Nora to its abandoned vaults; but if Slim and George had trusted themselves there, the cellar obviously furnished other exits, perhaps underground to the river, almost certainly through the evil saloon next door. That, indeed, might offer him the chance he must have to come upon his men unexpectedly, from the rear.

He glanced around. There was no policeman in sight. He saw only half a dozen pedestrians – shambling creatures who appeared to seek the plentiful darkness. The neighboring warehouses, the pier opposite, frowned back at him. The lapping of the water was expectant. Yet high in the air two brilliant arches were suspended across a slight mist. They were restless with blurred movement. Constantly they lowered into this somber pit an incessant murmuring, like an echo, heard at a distance, from some complicated and turbulent industry.

These crowded bridges, his desolate surroundings, assumed a phantasmal quality for Garth. The only real world lay beyond those sloping, silent doors which had been swung back to admit Nora.

While he looked a figure detached itself from the shadows at the corner of the warehouse. It moved, lurching, in his direction. He could only see that the newcomer was in rags with unkempt hair, and features, sunken and haggard. He grasped his revolver, suspecting that this vagabond exterior disguised a member of the gang – an outpost. Yet there was a chance that the man was one of the neighborhood's multitude of derelicts – a purveyor, possibly, of valuable information.

"Come here, my friend," he called. "How long have you been loafing in that corner?"

The other hesitated. When he answered his voice was without resonance – scarcely more than an exaggerated whisper.

"Who the devil are you?"

Garth held out some money. The claw-like hand extended itself, closing over the coins. In quick succession the man rang three of the pieces on the pavement. Garth's watchfulness increased. Such routine suggested a signal, but the fellow picked up his money, grinning.

"Seems good," he said in his difficult voice. "If you want to know that bad, maybe an hour; maybe more. Napping. Nothing better to do, but I'm honest, and I'd work if I got the chance."

"An automobile drove up here," Garth said rapidly.

"Why so it did. I seen it with these very peepers – not a quarter of an hour back."

"How many got out of it? What did they do?"

"I seen two men and a woman," the other answered. "They lifted that cellar door and went down. Now I wondered why they did that."

"Did the woman make a fight?"

The other shook his head.

"Went like it was a candy store."

Cutting across his throaty accents, a feminine cry shrilled. The heavy doors could not muffle its terror. It seemed like a response to the ringing of the coins. Suddenly it was hushed. Garth shoved the man to one side, urged by a temper that no longer permitted calculation. At any risk he must get to Nora and to those who were responsible for that unrestrained appeal.

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."