Kitabı oku: «The Gray Mask», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XIII
ALSOP'S INCREDIBLE VISITOR

When the crowded police van had left, Nora, Garth, and the inspector stepped into the crisp night air.

"Garth," the inspector said, "you and Nora ought to have medals or something. That pale-face at the head of the gang is Jerry Smith. He must have been sent on from San Francisco. If there's a country-wide syndicate of crime he's on the board of directors along with your old friend Slim."

"Some day," Garth said, "that syndicate will be tapped properly."

Nora, after her experience in the heavy, repellent atmosphere of the house, was anxious to remain in the air. She proposed that they walk down town.

Garth, aware of her displeasure, scarcely dared suggest an answer to his curiosity, but the inspector, in a happier mood, did not hesitate.

"Maybe, Nora, you'll tell us how you got in that dive as a first class housemaid."

"There was only one way I could think of," she answered. "The place was bound to make cases for Bellevue, so I went to the head nurse and took her into my confidence. She kept me posted. At every chance I went there and was apparently ill myself of the same dreadful illness as the patient in the next cot. About two weeks ago the head nurse telephoned me a case had come in which looked promising. I've been there since. I'll confess, the best I hoped for was the number of the house, but this girl grew confidential finally. She had actually worked there. When she found she couldn't go back for a long time, and learned that I was about to be discharged as cured, she whispered a telephone number and a name. She said they would want somebody and it was hard to get just the right kind. I called up last night and told them about her and my anxiety for the place. A meeting was arranged with Smith in a café. He wouldn't give me the address, but he agreed to take me there this afternoon. You see he wouldn't have let me out again until he was sure of me – no afternoons off there."

"Clever, Nora," the inspector muttered.

She shook her head.

"Only choosing the best chance. I knew I couldn't trace them in any obvious fashion. They were too careful. Few customers had the run of the place. The stuff was taken to the rest. The way they had Black followed last night to make sure he left no trail shows how they accounted for everything. He had evidently been seen answering to that generous symptom of his before."

Garth noticed that she did not speak to him directly, but her resentment could not completely veil her relief at his safety, her appreciation of the courage that had urged him to her rescue, her gratitude that his daring had brought about the end she had so ardently desired. He hoped, moreover, that there was, about her quiet manner, something to be followed to that necessary but impulsive moment in the brown radiance of the evil house.

Yet that illusion she did not permit him to hold for long. He left the inspector and her at the flat with an uncomfortable feeling of having failed to measure up to the idea of him she had developed. She did not mention Black again, but her restraint persisted. Sooner or later, he tried to tell himself, something would destroy that – probably another case that would throw them together, that would make them depend one upon the other.

At headquarters one day the doorman told him that the inspector had been taken ill. The detective satisfied himself that nothing serious was to be feared, so he smiled, thinking the situation might offer something useful for himself.

It was really the trivial fact of the inspector's cold that involved Nora and Garth in the troubles of Addington Alsop. Those gathered into one of the most daring and dangerous cases headquarters had had since the commencement of the period of reconstruction.

To begin with, the inspector's indisposition confined him to his flat. It held Nora there in the part of a nurse. It drew Garth, who would have braved the most virulent contagion to be near her. Most important of all, it allowed the mighty Alsop to apply for police help without fear of detection by the reporters and agents constantly swarming at headquarters.

When Garth entered the flat that afternoon, he was, unknowingly, already on the threshold of the strange case; for he had read in the noon editions the brief paragraph which recited an accident to all appearances common enough. A man had been picked up unconscious in the middle of a quiet street. Evidently he had been struck by an automobile. Two details, however, arrested Garth's attention. The victim, Ralph Brown, he knew as a successful private detective. Moreover, the outrage had occurred during the slack hours before the dawn. Apparently no clue as to its perpetrators remained. Garth spoke of that casually to the inspector. The huge, suffering man was scarcely intrigued. Wrapped in an ancient dressing-gown, his throat smothered beneath flannel, he sat in an easy chair, facing the fire, whose coals he perpetually reproved with a frown. He groaned. There was utter despair in the rumbling, animal-like note. Nora laughed.

"Laugh away," the inspector roared, "but make Garth forget he's a detective if he can't do better than hound a sick man with a cheap automobile case."

From her dark and striking face Nora's quiet eyes smiled sympathetically at Garth.

"These unimportant things, father, are sometimes the most important of all," she said. "Jim's right. It's odd no witnesses can be found."

As if there had been something prophetic in her words and her attitude, a muffled knock came from the outer door.

"Why doesn't he ring?" the inspector growled. "You haven't had the bell disconnected, Nora? Good Lord! Am I as sick as that?"

Nora, a trifle bewildered, moved towards the door. "Queer! And I think there are two in the hall."

Garth, as he always did, marveled at her acute perception. For, although he had heard no footsteps, no voices, two men followed Nora into the living room. The one in advance was young, with a frightened and apprehensive face. His companion was older and portlier, with narrow eyes and full-blooded cheeks. And those eyes were uneasy. For Garth they did not quite veil a sense of sheer terror. With a growing discomfort he guessed the cause of this visit.

Nora's voice betrayed none of the amazement Garth knew she felt.

"It's Mr. Alsop, father," she said – "Mr. Addington Alsop."

The inspector had already struggled to rise. He conceded the importance of this unexpected call. He apologized for his failure.

"Nora's got me wound up like a mummy – "

Alsop broke in rapidly.

"No politeness, inspector. I must speak to you. I'm up against it. They're after me."

He sat down heavily. The young man, whom he introduced as his secretary, Arthur Marvin, lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers. Garth watched them both while the inspector explained that they might speak freely before him and Nora. Alsop, he knew, because of his genius for organizing money and industry, and his utter ruthlessness in dealing with those whom necessity had thrown within his power, had made dangerous and active enemies. Garth was aware, moreover, that recently Alsop had publicly defied certain organizations which had asked what he believed to be too much. The detective could understand the financier's position. His death might be a cheap risk for outside fanatics to take to destroy his leadership against the forces of radicalism, for there were few men strong enough to replace him. Alsop had a newspaper in his hand now, and was holding it out to the inspector, while with his forefinger he tapped the paragraph which told of Brown's accident.

"No accident," he muttered. "That man worked for me – a precaution any fool would take. Well, he must have found out what he was after last night, and they got him, and thought they had killed him. They tell me at the hospital he's still unconscious."

Nora smiled at her father.

"A cheap automobile case!" she reminded him softly.

Alsop handed Garth a crumpled, torn, and soiled post-card.

"That came in the noon mail. Must have been picked up by somebody and dropped in a post box. I figure Brown, before they got him, threw it out of a window, or some such thing. Anyway that settled it. It brought me here for a quiet talk."

Garth read the card. A single line, almost undecipherable, sprawled across the back:

"Danger to-morrow night. Brown."

"That means to-night," Garth said. "Had you planned anything important for to-night?"

Marvin laughed a little. Alsop spread his hands.

"The conference with capitalists and politicians at which we settle on certain legislation that will put some of these foreign anarchists on the skids, snatch American labor beyond their influence, and give the honest business man a chance to make a fair profit by driving his men as he should. See here, inspector. I'm not afraid of good Americans. They may put me out of business, but if they do, I'll know I've been beaten in a fair fight. It's these damned foreign anarchists and some sore central Europeans I'm afraid of. I expect some important men from Wall Street and Washington to-night. I can't let them walk into a bomb, and I don't want any high explosives myself."

The inspector grunted.

"Nasty situation. I'm no politician. Fight crime. We'll see what we can do. It's a good thing you found Garth here."

Garth, who had not ceased to study Alsop's face, realized that the man had more to report – something which he shrank, however, from mentioning.

"What is it, Mr. Alsop?" he asked. "You've something else to tell us."

Nora, who had clearly noticed the same symptoms, nodded approvingly. Alsop flushed and glanced at Marvin. The secretary knocked the ashes from his cigarette. The trembling of his fingers was more apparent.

"You should tell that by all means, Mr. Alsop," he said in a low voice. "That's what I want to find out. If I don't get some explanation of that I'll doubt my sanity."

Alsop cleared his throat.

"A ghost story," he said with an attempt at a laugh. "Fact is, Marvin and I and some of the servants are haunted by a veiled woman."

Nora came closer. The inspector turned back to the fire a little contemptuously. But Garth had no doubt that this hard-headed business man was serious.

"Go on," he said softly. "You think this ghost is connected with a dangerous conspiracy against you?"

"I can only tell you facts and let you judge," Alsop answered. "I daresay you know about my house on the river near the city line. It is lonely for that neighbourhood, and very old. I've always heard stories about a ghost, a veiled woman on the upper floor – some connection with the suicide of a beautiful girl long ago. You know the sort of thing. It's always told about old houses. The point is, I saw that veiled woman last night, and she gave me rather too much evidence of spirituality."

"Why do you connect a ghost with anarchists?" the inspector demanded.

"Because," Alsop answered, perfectly seriously, "I believe the thing was after my papers."

Garth laughed outright.

"Then why suspect your visitor of being a ghost?"

"Because," Alsop said patiently, "this visitor had every appearance of walking through a locked door."

Nora alone was thoroughly impressed.

"Tell us," she urged.

"I've a safe in my room," Alsop said, "and as an extra precaution, when I've had important papers at the house, I've locked my door. I went upstairs late last night. There was no light in the upper hall, but a glow came from the lamps downstairs. In this sort of radiance I saw the figure of a woman, clothed in white, her face hidden behind a white veil, come apparently from my room, cross the hall, and disappear. I cried out. I sprang for the door. It was locked. Marvin and I searched the house. My daughters are in Florida. The only women in the place were servants. There seemed no way in or out of the house without the collusion of one of these. And I've had them a long time. It's hard to suspect them. Besides, Marvin has had much the same experience. Tell them, Arthur."

"As a motive," Marvin said slowly, "I might mention the fact that I often take my work upstairs – letters of Mr. Alsop's to answer, statements to make out. The first time the thing happened was Thursday night. It must have been after midnight. I was in bed. I awakened with that uncomfortable feeling of being no longer alone. At first I saw nothing. The only light in the room came from a dying moon. I had been nervous for several nights, fearing an attempt on Mr. Alsop. I never could get him to take that very seriously until to-day. At any rate, after a long time, I saw this figure that Mr. Alsop describes. It did not seem to come from anywhere."

He commenced to pace up and down the room. There was about the sudden gesture of his hand a despairing belief that shocked Garth.

"The thing – white veil and all – seemed to materialize out of nothing. It moved softly about the room as if searching – searching. I thought of the letters on my desk. I called out instinctively, 'Who's there?' There was no reply. The figure did not hurry. It stepped behind a screen by the fireplace. I sprang up and went there. I couldn't believe the evidence of my eyes. There was no one – nothing behind the screen. I examined the door. It was locked as I had left it, with the key on the inside. There was no way in or out of that room. Yet the veiled woman had been there, and had gone, leaving no trace."

"The windows," Garth said, "or the fireplace?"

Marvin shook his head.

"The windows were scarcely open, and a fire burned in the fireplace. And, mind you, this was before Mr. Alsop had seen the woman. I mean, he had not suggested the vision to me. The same thing happened last night. That figure came searching and disappeared in the same impossible way. I knew I wasn't dreaming then. I spoke of it to Mr. Alsop. It frightens me. I want an explanation of that."

"Catch your enemies and you'll catch your ghost," Garth said drily. "I'd like a shot at both."

"What you want," the inspector said to Alsop and Marvin, "is protection for yourselves and your distinguished guests. What the police want is to catch these fellows red-handed. We'll try to fit the two things. Don't lose your nerve. Go ahead with your conference, and trust Garth to find out how your veiled woman gets in and out of the house and through locked doors. I should say if we find her we should have the brains of the conspiracy. There may be no danger for you to-night. We've only Brown's post card to go on. That looks serious, and I'll do my best to protect you. But you must give me every chance to nab these birds. This sort of thing's getting too bold. There's too much foreign propaganda in this country. It would please me to throw the fear of Uncle Sam into such people."

And when Nora had gone to the door with Alsop and Marvin, he called Garth over, and hurriedly whispered:

"It's a big chance, Garth, but dangerous as dynamite. These fellows won't hesitate to blow that house up if they can't block Alsop's dirty politics any other way. And remember, you're fighting a woman who behaves like a ghost. Take it from me, she's the one you've got to be afraid of. She has the brains."

"If I could get something out of Brown," Garth mused.

"Maybe he's conscious now," the inspector said. "Run up to the hospital, then look over the neighborhood where he was found. Come back here by five, and we'll lay our plans."

Nora stopped Garth in the hall.

"Jim," she breathed, "you're going to take this case?"

"Surely. I've only to lay a ghost. That ought to be simple."

She hesitated.

"I've been thinking," she said, "and I wish you wouldn't go, because it will be hard, terribly hard – with death always in the way."

CHAPTER XIV
THE LEVANTINE WHO GUARDED A CURTAIN

Garth, in spite of Nora's fears, went confidently enough to the hospital. If he could learn all Brown knew the case should be easy sailing.

In Brown's room the blinds were down. The greenish light scarcely found the upturned face. It sought rather the bandage, ghastly and white, wound thickly about the head. From time to time Brown's lips moved with a pitiful futility. Garth, while the nurse cautioned him to silence, bent closer, so that at last he could define the pallid face and the closed eyelids that trembled. Suddenly the eyes opened. From them into Garth's brain sprang an impression of immeasurable terror as if they still secreted the outline of some monstrous vision.

Garth started back as the injured man, apparently spurred by that recollection, struggled to rise, sat bolt upright, his head swaying drunkenly, while from his wide throat vibrated an accusing and despairing cry:

"The veiled woman! Oh, my God! The veiled woman!"

Garth's nerves tightened. Again that incredible feature of the case startled him. Here was proof he needed. The figure that had frightened Alsop and Marvin was probably involved in the attack on Brown. The inspector was right. She was the brains of the affair. Brown must tell him all he knew. He urged the man desperately.

"Take hold of yourself! You've seen this woman! You've got to talk to me!"

But Brown screamed incoherently with a diminishing power. The nurse had run into the hall. Through the open doorway her voice tore anxiously, summoning a house physician.

Garth's feeling of a desperate helplessness increased. Before him was the knowledge that would safeguard Alsop and his friends, that would insure Garth's own life, that would destroy, perhaps, a dangerous foreign influence, and the man couldn't speak.

At last the nurse's calls seemed to seep through the bandage into that tortured brain, suggesting the necessity for caution. In a whisper coherent words came again from the trembling lips.

"For God's sake, don't look behind the white veil! No! No! I have. That's madness!"

The doctor slipped in and hurried to the bedside. In response to his touch Brown lay down.

"Don't dope him," Garth begged. "That man knows things on which many lives depend. He must tell them to me before night. When will he be able to talk straight?"

The doctor smiled tolerantly.

"You don't seem to understand. A frightful fracture at the base of the brain. He seems inclined to be quiet enough now."

The doctor turned away. Garth followed him to the door, urging him to use his skill to make Brown talk. The nurse had remained by the bed. Garth heard her sharp cry through his own pleading. The sound puzzled him because it was a trifle strangled. The doctor, however, turned like a flash and hurried back to the bed. Garth looked. The nurse bent over the bandaged head. The doctor fumbled quickly beneath the bed clothes. He arose, glanced at Garth, and spread his hands. Garth picked at his hat, unwilling to believe.

"You mean," he whispered, "that he's – gone?"

The doctor nodded. The nurse sobbed once. Garth had not noticed how young her face was.

The block where the murdered man had been found was flanked by long rows of similar houses. Its cobblestones, unfriendly to traffic, made it an ideal place for the brutal deception which had been attempted.

Opposite the spot where Brown had been picked up Garth paused and looked curiously across the street. The dreary house line was broken there by a number of basement and first-story shops. His eyes, alert for the unusual, had found it. A basement window displayed intricately patterned rugs, lamps of the Orient, unfamiliar and barbaric jewelry. The fact that he had not noticed the window sooner testified to a significant discretion in its arrangement. It was, he fancied, designed less to attract curiosity than to satisfy it once it was aroused. Probably it was that idea that suggested a fantastic connection between what he had heard at the flat and the hospital and what he saw now. Half derisively he recalled that Oriental women went veiled – customarily secreted their faces behind white veils.

He had intended entering all these shops and houses in search of a witness of the attack on Brown. He determined now to proceed rather more warily. Suppose Brown spying, or about to spy, had been assaulted in one of these basements – for instance, in the Oriental shop which had straightway aroused his interest?

He crossed the street and darted quickly down the steps from one side, so that he was sure he had taken by surprise whoever was in the place. What he saw was sufficient proof of his success, and his special detective sense was immediately impressed by much that was ominous in the shadowed room. The echoes of such an attack as Brown had suffered could have been easily smothered here.

Rugs were draped against the walls or flung at haphazard on the floor. Carved tables supported lacquer work. From a glass case jewelry gleamed with a dull beauty. But it was on the rear of the shop that Garth's eyes rested, while a cold fear grasped him.

A long, low divan sprawled there against a tapestry hanging of a colorful and grotesque design. On this divan, seated cross-legged, was the figure of a man, at first quite motionless, like an image in a somber and guarded temple. He wore a fez, set formally on his head. One hand clasped the sinuous stem of a water pipe.

The round, flaccid, repulsive face defied classification. Garth could not be sure whether it was Egyptian, Turkish, Arabian, or Semitic. He only knew that it was evil and accustomed to perfect control, for he suspected that his rapid entrance had made the concealment of the fez and the alteration of that ritual attitude impossible. In a matter-of-fact tone Garth spoke of examining the rugs and antiques.

The figure did not stir. The sallow face remained as if carved. The only motion in the room was a lazy curling from the water pipe of white smoke which faded in the darkened, perfumed air. Then the curtain moved stealthily at one end, disclosing a dark face of a Levantine cast. This man came through, carefully replacing the curtain behind him, stroked his bony hands, and demanded Garth's desires. The immobility of the cross-legged creature ceased. The stem of the water pipe as he raised it to his mouth writhed in sinuous curves. He commenced to puff. The water bubbled unevenly.

Garth examined the rugs with growing excitement. He was prepared to believe that he had stumbled on a meeting place. And after all wasn't this an ideal rendezvous? The shop had probably been here for years. The town was full of such stores. At any rate his impression of a calculated evil increased. He felt himself the object of suspicion. It was conceivable to him that he might suffer a fate similar to Brown's – perhaps behind that hideous curtain which the Levantine and the cross-legged figure seemed to guard.

Garth started. The unequal bubbling of the pipe had accompanied all his thoughts. Constantly it would pause, then recommence. The idea which had been struggling unconsciously in the detective's brain took shape. That uneven bubbling possessed a significance beyond the pleasures of nicotine. It suggested a means of communication, a code.

While he bargained with the Levantine his confidence in this eccentric explanation increased. It condemned the occupants of the shop. Whether or not the men were connected with the plot Brown had feared against Alsop, they were decidedly objects of interest to the police. Still, if Brown had spied here, the danger was obvious. The Levantine and the man in the fez were sinister opponents. Yet Garth wanted to see behind that grotesque curtain.

For a time, listening to the bubbling, he wondered if they would let him leave the shop at all. He was in no hurry to go until he had made sure of one or two things. While fingering a rug he managed stealthily to examine the wall. It was about what he had hoped, what he had expected. The house was very old. It was one of a row built simultaneously before the fire laws had amounted to much. He was sure that the dividing walls between these basements were not fireproof. As nearly as he could tell from the surface he examined, they would probably be lath-and-plaster, with, perhaps, rubble in the space between. His next step was to measure as accurately as he could with his eye the distance between the entrance and the curtain, which was like a ceremonial background for the man in the fez. Stooping to inspect one of the rugs, he struck the flooring with his fist, as if by accident. He was satisfied. There was no cellar beneath this basement. He dared hope that he would see what lay behind the curtain.

Approximating as nearly as he could the subtleties of a buyer, he promised to make up his mind and return with his decision the next morning. He knew that sharp and angry eyes followed him from the shop.

He had a feeling that the darkened place had become active as soon as he had turned his back.

He walked slowly to the corner, studying the houses on either side of the shop. The one to the right was a cheap boarding house. The one on the other side was evidently a private dwelling.

At the nearest hardware store he bought an auger and a screwdriver. Then he entered the alley that bisected the block, and, counting the houses, knocked at the kitchen door of the one to the right of the Oriental shop. The servant who admitted him verified his hazard. At this hour the occupants were at work. She was, for the present, alone in the house.

Garth showed her his badge, warned her to make no noise, and to stay close to him. The girl, frightened and unable to comprehend, followed him into the basement. He paced from the front of the house along the wall to a point which, according to his calculations, was opposite the hidden portion of the shop. He glanced up then with satisfaction. Against a thin and antiquated partition was suspended one of those heavy and unwieldy gas meters which are found only in very old buildings.

Garth drew up a table, climbed upon it, and examined the thick screws which held the contrivance in place. With his screwdriver he commenced noiselessly to remove one of these. He thought it likely that the screw hole would go all the way through. If it did not, his auger would complete the journey. He instructed the girl to draw the blinds and close the door so that the room would be darker. He pulled the screw from the rotten wall. The aperture was sufficiently large. It admitted the repellent odor he had noticed in the shop; so he put his eye to the hole and waited for his brain to accustom itself to these new conditions.

The drone of voices reached him, but at first he could see very little – shadowy outlines circling a dull, glowing thing close to the floor – a brazier, he decided, about which men sat. Then he started, for he thought he saw something long and white, like a woman. But the smoke from the aperture hurt his eye. He had to close it. When he opened it again there was nothing white, but out of the droning voices came words in English with a foreign accent, and he crouched against the wall, listening.

He marveled that he should hear just these words at this particular moment.

"The police are suspicious," he heard, "so it's been put ahead. At nine o'clock to-night. Two raps on the west door at Alsop's. The veiled woman will open the door and take the bomb, and then, by God, we'll show them!"

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.