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The Gray Mask

by Wadsworth Camp · English · Gutenberg #33230 · 396,147 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Gray Mask

Author: Wadsworth Camp

Illustrator: Walter DeMaris


        
Release date: July 22, 2010 [eBook #33230]

Language: English

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THE GRAY MASK

by

WADSWORTH CAMP

Author of
"The Abandoned Room"
"The House of Fear," Etc.

Frontispiece by Walter De Maris







Garden City, New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1920

Copyright, 1920, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All Rights Reserved, Including That of
Translation into Foreign Languages,
Including the Scandinavian

Copyright, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, by P. F. Collier & Sons, Inc.,
in the United States, Great Britain and Canada




[Illustration: "_'Even if you had croaked him you wouldn't dare
acknowledge it here. Why, George, you're kneeling where he lay'_"]




CONTENTS

       I. GARTH IS SHOWN A GRAY MASK

      II. IT OPENS NORA'S EYES

     III. IN THE STEEL ROOM

      IV. GARTH BUYS A BOUTONNIERE

       V. WHAT HAPPENED AT ELMFORD

      VI. A CRYING THROUGH THE SILENCE

     VII. NORA FEARS FOR GARTH

    VIII. THROUGH THE DARK

      IX. THE PHANTOM ARMY

       X. THE COINS AND THE CHINAMAN

      XI. NORA DISAPPEARS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE

     XII. THE HIDDEN DOOR

    XIII. ALSOP'S INCREDIBLE VISITOR

     XIV. THE LEVANTINE WHO GUARDED A CURTAIN

      XV. THE VEILED WOMAN

     XVI. A NOTE FROM THE DEAD

    XVII. THE KNIFE BY THE LIFELESS HAND

   XVIII. THE STAINED ROBE

     XIX. PAYMENT IS DEMANDED FOR THE GRAY MASK

      XX. THE BLACK CAP

     XXI. THE ANTICS OF A TRAIN




THE GRAY MASK




CHAPTER I

GARTH IS SHOWN A GRAY MASK


Garth, in response to the unforeseen summons, hurried along the hallway
and opened the inspector's door. As he faced the rugged figure behind
the desk, and gazed into those eyes whose somnolence concealed a
perpetual vigil, his heart quickened.

He had been assigned to the detective bureau less than six months. That
brief period, however, had revealed a thousand eccentricities of his
chief. The pudgy hand beating a tattoo on the table desk, the lips
working at each other thirstily, the doubt that slipped from behind the
veil of the sleepy eyes, were all like largely printed letters to
Garth--letters that spelled delicate work for him, possibly an
exceptional danger.

"Where were you going, Garth?"

"Home. That is--"

Garth hesitated and cleared his throat.

"First--I thought I might drop in on Nora for a minute."

With a quick gesture the inspector brushed the mention of his daughter
aside. Abruptly he verified Garth's hazard.

"How much do you love your life?"

The inspector's voice possessed the growling quality of an animal. A
warning rather than an aggressive roar, it issued from a throat remotely
surviving behind great masses of flesh. Garth had rarely heard it
raised, nor, for that matter, had it ever deceived him as to the other's
amiability and gentleness of soul. Its present tone of apologetic regret
startled him.

"On the whole I value my life rather highly just now," he answered,
trying to smile.

"Then turn this down and nothing said," the inspector went on. "It's
volunteer's work. No gilt-edged prophecies. It's touch and go whether
whoever tackles it eats bacon and eggs to-morrow morning."

"What's the job?" Garth asked.

The inspector glanced up.

"You've heard of that fellow without a face?"

Garth stared until he thought he understood.

"One of those Bellevue cases? Awful burns?"

The heavy head shook impatiently.

"No. This fellow Simmons in Chicago--several years ago
now--experimenting with some new explosive in a laboratory. He got his
arm up in time to save his eyes."

"Seems to me I remember," Garth began.

"Worn a gray mask ever since," the inspector said.

He drew a telegram from a pile of papers at his elbow, spread it on the
writing-pad, and tapped it with his thick forefinger. Garth wondered
what was coming. A feeling of uneasiness compelled him to lower his eyes
before the other's steady gaze. There was something uncanny about this
thought of a mask, worn always to hide a horror.

The inspector's tapping quickened to an expression of anger. His voice
exposed a cherished resentment.

"No doubt about your having heard of our friend Hennion?"

Garth started forward, resting his closed fists on the desk top. His
face was excited, unbelieving.

"Mean to say there's a chance--"

The inspector ceased his tapping. He looked up slyly.

"A real one at last. You know what that means. It's the job. Take it or
leave it. I won't ask you to go where I mightn't have cared to go myself
at your age."

Garth thought rapidly. His chief had been right. The man who tried to
trip Hennion needn't worry about to-morrow's breakfast until his eyes
greeted the sun in the east.

He, with the rest of the bureau, could point to half a dozen men as
vassals of this almost mythical figure. He, like the rest, had
frequently diagnosed obscure crimes as the workmanship of the Hennion
group. But he knew also that nothing had ever been proved against this
organization of criminals, which was unique, because, in addition to
prosaic brutality, it appeared to be informed by brains of a brilliant
and inscrutable character.

"How much of a chance?" Garth asked.

All the drowsiness left the inspector's eyes.

"Maybe to sit in with them to-night. I've never had a ghost of a show
with a stool before, and this is the night of all nights. One of these
crooks has been boasting. He said--and I have it straight--'To-night we
play our ace.' Get that, Garth! What must an ace mean to that lot, eh?
And the president's here, but he'll be well looked after. Still there
are lots of big men in this town whose sudden death would make a noise
more like a home-run than a funeral. Or, if it's burglary, play it to
scale. These fellows would unlock the gates of Hades while Satan slept
in the vestibule. I've been saying to myself all day I've got to find
out what that ace is and stack the cards, and at the same time I've been
asking myself what the devil I was going to do about it. But the luck's
changed."

Garth breathed hard.

"How do you expect to throw sand in the eyes of that outfit?"

"Give me," the inspector answered slowly, his rumble approximating a
whisper, "someone with no nerves to speak of and a build like this
faceless man Simmons."

He looked up. His eyes were very sleepy again.

"You have that build, Garth. All you need is a plain, dark brown suit."

He raised the telegram.

"This is Simmons' description as he left Chicago last evening. He
expects to arrive on the Western express to-night. He's looking for
someone to meet him and take him to the headquarters of the Hennion
gang."

Garth's face lightened.

"Has he a record?"

"A suspect, chiefly because he's tied up with that anarchist crowd out
there--an analyst of explosives, a chemist, cursed by this hideous
accident--dangerous as giant powder itself! That's why his mail's been
watched, how they got onto this move. But they've no details for us.
Maybe Simmons himself doesn't know what he's up against."

With a secretive air he opened a drawer and lifted out a tightly-woven
gray cloth. It was pierced by two holes above and a long, narrow opening
below. From its edges four elastic straps dangled.

"I had it made," he said, holding it out tentatively, "so that, perhaps,
you might find out instead of Simmons."

Garth took the cloth and fitted it over his face. It left visible a
small scar on his neck. The inspector pointed at this with a pleased,
wondering smile.

"That scar peeping will fetch them. Put on a brown suit and you'll
pass."

"Where," Garth asked, "does Simmons change cars?"

"I'll have the express stopped at the end of the bridge above Garrison.
Not much chance of spies there. A couple of my men will take him off and
keep him out of mischief while you get on. Understand? You'll go up on
the West Shore and ferry over from West Point. You're on?"

"Sure. You'd jump at the chance yourself, sir."

He removed the mask. The inspector handed him a piece of frayed white
paper.

"Did you notice me fingering this just now?" he asked anxiously.

Garth shook his head.

"Then take it, and, when the time comes, play with it that way yourself.
Scratch your instructions on it with a match, a toothpick, anything
handy. It will stay white, but I can make whatever you put on it as
visible as headlines in a war extra. You'll reach town after ten. I'll
hold back instructions until eleven in case these fellows have any spies
in the department. But after that you can drop it near a uniformed
policeman with a fair chance of its reaching me."

"You'll try to trail us, too?" Garth asked.

The inspector grinned sheepishly.

"Of course I'll try. I'll probably have to let it go at that."

"Yes--slippery," Garth answered.

Now that his offer was accepted, and his plan understood, the inspector
gave way to a disquieting nervousness. He stood up and stepped around
the desk, putting his hand on Garth's shoulder.

"Watch out for yourself," he faltered. "I don't want another Kridel
case on my conscience."

The name dampened Garth's enthusiasm. He had never known Joe Kridel who,
a year ago, had been the ascending star of the bureau. But the manner of
the young man's death was depressingly familiar to him--found stabbed
through the heart in a private house whose dwellers had heard no alarm.
The key to that puzzle had never been discovered. Even the inspector had
harbored the nature of Kridel's assignment that night of his murder.

"I hate," the inspector continued, that note of regret in his voice
again, "to give a man I like such an ugly risk."

This reached Garth as definite encouragement to words which he had
restrained for some time with difficulty. To loose them, now, however,
would be, in a way, unfair to his chief; would, in every sense, form no
fitting prelude to his formidable and dangerous task. He contented
himself, therefore, with an unsatisfactory compromise.

"If I've time I may drop in for a chat with Nora after all."

"But you won't alarm her with this?"

"Certainly not."

The inspector was very friendly.

"You know I wouldn't be surprised if Nora had taken kind of a fancy for
you herself."

Garth's face reddened. He turned away.

The inspector sighed.

"Oh, well. There's plenty of time to think of that when you bring
yourself back--alive."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Before making his arrangements Garth called at the inspector's flat.
This was, in fact, a preparation. Without seeing Nora he felt he would
not be armed to enter these unfair lists with death.

He found her by the window in the sitting room. She looked, he thought,
more Latin than usual, although the black clothes she habitually wore
accentuated her dark hair and flashing eyes, the olive complexion and
regular features she had inherited from her Italian mother.

She smiled up at Garth, and, as always in face of that smile, he
recalled the unexplored neutral ground where their minds had never
really met. This impression had unquestionably retarded the development
of their relations. It had until now held their emotions in the leash of
friendship. Garth had no idea of snapping that cord at his entrance, but
Nora's proximity and the suddenness of an unexpected gesture distilled
logic and fairness for the moment's irresistible intoxication.

Their hands, reaching for the book she had dropped, met. The quick
contact was galvanic to Garth. An unconquerable impulse possessed him.
If he was to risk death that night it was folly to shirk life to-day. So
his hand closed over hers while he sought for words.

After a moment he became aware of the impassivity of her fingers within
his violent grasp. He saw grave trouble and an unanswerable doubt
extinguish the excitement in her eyes. A premonition reached him. He
fought against it desperately. His voice swayed a little.

"Don't look at me like that, Nora. You're going to marry me."

She shook her head. All at once there were tears in her eyes. Her hand
lightly brushed her black skirt.

"Jim, you've often asked me why I wear these dark clothes. Now you make
me tell you. I can trust you? Because no one knows unless my father
guesses."

He nodded. She spoke with an effort.

"For the man I was going to marry, Jim. You see he--he died."

Garth arose and turned to the window. He leaned there, staring at the
busy street, listening to its jarring discords. Among the children at
play one boy, unkempt and filthy, stood braced against a railing, crying
at the top of his lungs. In his abandonment to disappointment Garth
accepted the picture as typical of his life--a crying out for the
unattainable, a surrender to despair. The night's work lost its terror.
Its issue became a matter of callous indifference.

Then her hand was on his arm, drawing him around so that he saw her
face, which had lost its colour, and the growing doubt in her eyes.

"Try to understand, Jim. I think I scarcely do myself. I only know it
hurts to see you unhappy. Six months ago when you first came I never
dreamed a man could make even that much difference to me again."

Without warning the colour rushed back to her face. She clenched her
hands. The determination in her tone was overwhelming.

"Is that inconstancy to him? Don't think that. I'm not inconstant. I
wouldn't be that."

Garth waved his hand helplessly.

"What difference--Never mind, Nora. It's finished."

"But you--It's so unfair. And I want you for my friend."

She sat down, hiding her face.

"Later--I don't know. How can I tell? How can anybody?"

Garth saw her shoulders commence to shake. This emotion fired a tiny
hope, yet it angered him that she should suffer, too.

"Stop that," he said roughly. "It isn't worth it to you. I'm sorry I
spoke. I ought to have had better sense, but I'm going out of town
to-day on a job--"

He paused. He turned back to the window.

"That's why I spoke, because--because I may be away a very long time."

She controlled herself.

"How long, Jim?"

"God knows."

"Where? West?"

He shook his head.

"Up the state. It's just as well now. I've got to go. I ought to be
getting ready."

She arose. She spoke wistfully.

"Then good-by, Jim. And you'll try to understand? Maybe you'll come to
see me just the same when you get back?"

He swallowed hard, forcing back his craving for abandonment, for
revelation.

"When I get back," he said.




CHAPTER II

IT OPENS NORA'S EYES


Garth waited at the end of the bridge above Garrison. At eight o'clock
it was dark, but the river, glass-like between the rugged hills,
retained a pallid light. At a short distance two men smoked and chatted.
They had withdrawn themselves in response to Garth's moodiness. He
fancied they discussed him as one already dead.

A whistle shrieked. The hills rumbled. Flinging their cigars in the
water, the men rejoined Garth. He slipped the mask from his pocket, and
secreted his features behind its gray protection.

The train dashed across the bridge, sparks grinding from its wheels.
When it stopped, panting sullenly, the two men sprang aboard.

Garth flattened himself against the side of the car and watched them
reappear, leading a third who wore a grey mask above a plain brown suit.
He heard a croaking, unnatural voice issue from behind the mask.

"Didn't look for you so soon, friends."

Excitement drove the melancholy from Garth's brain. The undertaking had
begun reassuringly. Simmons had no suspicion that he was in the hands of
the police. Garth noticed also as he entered the car that the
passengers were not aware of the substitution. He resented the
repugnance in the glances they turned on the mask. Simmons' attitude
toward life became comprehensible. But, as the journey extended itself
interminably, Garth grew restless. He realized he was in the position of
a man entering a cavern without a light. He must feel his way step by
step. He must walk blindly toward innumerable and fatal pitfalls.

At last the train paused for the change from locomotive to electric
motor. Although he knew that normally no passengers would board it at
this place, he gazed anxiously from the window. A man stood close to the
track with the evident intention of entering the train. Garth saw him
elude a brakeman, saw him grasp the railing and swing himself out of
sight. A moment later the man walked into the car, stopped dead, and
turned sharp, inquisitive eyes on the gray mask.

About the figure was a somber air, accentuated by a black felt hat,
drawn low over the eyes. It let Garth see, however, a sharp and
colorless face which conveyed an impression of uncommon forcefulness.

After a moment the slender man leaned over and spoke with a leer.

"You must be a star gambler, judging from your face."

He continued to stare as though expectant of an answer. Perhaps some
countersign was demanded. If that was so the whole enterprise swayed in
the balance. Garth concentrated his thoughts with difficulty. One word
had strayed circuitously from the gang to him. He used it at random,
trying to approximate the voice he had heard at the bridge.

"That depends on whether I hold the ace."

The slender man continued to stare. Garth's heart sank, but at last the
other straightened with a nod.

"Suppose you take a little stroll with me."

Garth arose and followed him down the aisle. He didn't know whether to
interpret that quick command as acceptance or condemnation. He might be
going to the work for which he had been chosen, or--and he realized how
likely that was--to an execution. Yet he had no alternative. He must
follow the slender, sinister figure into dark places not knowing.

They paused on the platform. Garth thought it likely that one of the
inspector's men was in the car, but of course the fellow would not
confess himself by stepping to the vestibule at their heels. It would be
enough for him to know that they were on board and that the train was
not scheduled to stop before reaching the Grand Central Station.

Garth knew that, too. Therefore he could not understand why his
conductor stooped and with an air of confidence opened the vestibule
door and raised the trap. Garth started, for, as if the engineer were an
accomplice and had received some subtle signal, the brakes commenced to
grind while the train lost its speed rapidly.

The slender man grasped Garth's arm, and, as the train stopped, leapt
with him to the right of way and hurried him into the shadows at the
foot of the embankment. Any men the inspector might have had on the
train had been outwitted.

He saw ahead the red and green lights of an open draw-bridge. He
understood now, and marvelled at the simplicity of the trick. Certainly
it would not have occurred to the inspector to post his men at the
Harlem River where express trains were seldom detained at night. Yet it
had been only necessary to send some small boat to loiter in the draw at
the proper moment to assure the security of the conspirators.

Immediately Garth lost all sense of direction. The other led a stealthy,
circular course through a lumber yard, across a fence, around darkened
buildings, and finally onto a small wharf. A craft was moored there--a
barge, Garth thought at first. It lay in darkness except for its
navigating lights, and, as Garth looked, even these were extinguished.

The slender man glided across the wharf, and, Garth at his heels,
stepped to the deck. There he reached over the railing, dropping
something from his hand. Garth heard three splashes at regular
intervals. A blade of light flashed sharply athwart the darkness and
became an open doorway, framing a troubled face.

Garth, shoved from behind, stumbled over the sill into the presence of
five men who circled about him, like cats, wary and suspicious. He
would know now. One word from his conductor would deliver him to the
inevitable judgment of that circle.

But the slender man slipped in after him, closing the door.

"The cops are drunk with sleep," he said.

Garth breathed again. But into that moment's respite crept the thought
of Nora, suddenly become unobtainable. Resolutely he fought his
depression back. At a gesture from the slender man he sat on a bench
against the wall.

He saw now that the apparent barge was a rough houseboat, unpainted,
unfinished, with windows closed and heavily barred. The only furniture
was this bench and another opposite with a deal table between. Fumes of
gasoline and cylinder oil came through an open doorway forward and mixed
repellently with an atmosphere already poisoned by tobacco. For all five
smoked, not with enjoyment, Garth noticed--rather in an abandonment to
nerves. It impressed him that these men, who unquestionably were the
cleverest and most indomitable of the Hennion group, should expose this
restlessness, this apparent fear, on the threshold of the night's work.
His conductor, indeed, was the only one immune to the contagion of
suspense.

Garth glanced at these others with a sharp personal curiosity. They
varied amazingly from his anticipation. One, a sallow youth with untidy
yellow hair and large-rimmed eye-glasses, might have been a student of
the most devoted species. Another cunningly resembled a well-to-do
business man, while a third had the clothing and the air of a tramp.
The fourth, with his dapper tailoring and ferret-like face, was more
familiar to the expert in crime.

These, however, Garth passed over quickly for the fifth, perhaps
because, with the detective's extra sense, he foresaw there a special
and unintelligible menace.

This man brought his huge, handsome figure forward and leaned heavily on
the table. His close-cropped hair, dampened by the heat, curled about a
bronzed forehead from beneath which inquisitorial and threatening eyes
challenged.

The slender man, who clearly was the leader, crossed the room.

"Seeing ghosts, George?" he asked. "Or maybe you're anxious for a
glimpse of what Simmons hasn't got any more. Why not show him the big
event, Simmons?"

His laugh, scarcely audible, was like the wrath of a gigantic sneer.

Garth's hand crept to his pocket and closed over his revolver. George
drew back.

"Look yourself, Slim, and it ought to be done."

The other swung on him angrily.

"Do you think I'm bringing him here without checking him up. He doesn't
have to take his mask off to show you a scar. The lot of you look like
sudden wealth for a nerve specialist. Sit down. We'll get to business."

He swung on Simmons.

"I know how you feel about that. Now, listen. All you know is that we
wanted a scientific fellow who doesn't use his profession exclusively
for the benefit of humanity. Also one without any nerves. I've always
heard that of you."

Garth nodded, smiling a little to himself. Lack of nerves had been the
inspector's chief requisite. Now the criminals demanded the same
quality. He stood, as it were, between two deadly fires. He wondered if
murder was on the boards. He recalled the slip of white paper in his
pocket, questioning if he would be able to finger it, to scratch upon it
those vital invisible directions before these sharp and overcurious
eyes.

The slender man hurried on, glancing at his watch.

"We're waiting for one more. At first all you have to do is to keep
close to George. We're going to crack a safe."

His voice colored apologetically.

"No jewelry or bags of gold. George falls for that cheap stuff now and
then, but you needn't be ashamed of this job, Simmons. By the way, I
don't have to ask you if you duck your lid every time the band blats
'Oh, say, can you see!'"

Garth shook his head.

"Say, Simmons," George broke in, "you talk yourself to death. That
explosion must have hurt your voice something fierce."

Again Garth tried to approximate the croaking tone he had heard at the
bridge.

"Talk's as cheap and easy as cracking safes."

He risked it for its effect on the others. Moreover it was an antidote
for his nervous strain to give that much rein to the antagonism he
already experienced for the huge, dark fellow.

Secretive laughter greeted his daring. A gesture from the leader halted
George's movement, almost instinctive, to resent the affront physically.
Then three faint and regular splashes came from the water.

They all held their poses of the moment statuesquely until, at a nod
from the leader, the intellectual-looking youth arose and moved towards
the door.

During that moment of waiting Garth tried to fashion what he knew into a
recognizable pattern, but the pieces were incomplete. He could only
wonder why they had sent to Chicago for an anarchistic chemist to
connive with this expert at a task as simple as cracking a safe.

The youth turned the lock and opened the door a little. It was pushed
boisterously against him, and, beyond his amazed back, Garth had a
glimpse of a gaudily colored skirt. The others had risen. The leader,
grasping the youth's elbow, shoved him to one side, and Garth, his view
unobstructed now, gazed incredulously at Nora's blazing, painted face.

His first impulse was to cry out and warn the girl back from this ambush
into which she had unaccountably strayed. He gripped the edge of the
table. He half arose. For a moment the room went black. All at once he
realized that her presence at this unique rendezvous must be without
the slightest ambiguity. Perhaps it was an ill-advised attempt to
rescue him from the net. He waited tensely for some word. His heart
sank. She couldn't recognize him behind the mask.

He wouldn't lie to himself any longer. Nora, whom he had always seen in
black, wore a flashy dress. She had given the conspirators their own
signal. She received from them a welcome of anxiety.

The room darkened again. He sat in a frozen silence. He saw and heard as
from a vast distance.

"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 manoeuvred 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!"

She breathed hard for a moment.

"Since I've known you I've doubted, but I couldn't turn back. You
despise me, Jim, but in a way I have done good. I made them respect me.
I have restrained them. I think, because I have been with them, I have
saved lives. And always I had planned at the end to punish them as they
deserved. But now--in a trap. We're like mice in a trap, Jim. I've done
that to you. They'll find me out now, and what's behind the mask, too.
They'll kill us both. They'll have to. Listen!"

"We'll make a fight of it, Nora," he said grimly. "No matter what I do,
trust me."

"Hush!" she breathed. "I think the door is open."

"I'm going to flash the light," he answered.

"No. I know they are here. I know they are in the room. I hear--"

He snapped the button. The white shaft pierced the darkness. Nora had
been right. Slim and three others with ready revolvers were half way
across the room. Garth put his finger to his lips.

"Sh--h," he said. "Wait! Don't come any closer."

"What's wrong, Simmons?" Slim whipped out. "Who called? That's George.
What--"

"He got fresh with the girl," Garth answered.

Slim waited, taking in the details of the tableau, weighing Garth's
words and manner, studying Nora's collapsed figure and its proximity to
Garth's.

"You're bluffing, Simmons," he said at last. "I'm after facts now. Toss
up your hands."

He raised his revolver, aiming at Garth's body. Nora gave a little cry.
Garth laughed.

"You don't quite understand," he answered slowly, "and you're usually so
observant, Slim. Look around. The safe is open behind us. Your bullets
would clip through Nora and me into those sacks of army destroyers. What
then? So you won't be surprised when I take my hands down."

He lowered them. He took his own revolver from his pocket.

"But," he went on, "there's nothing behind you but a steel wall, and if
one of you comes a step closer I'll shoot."

The four gathered together, whispering, inaudibly to Garth; but this
tense grouping, this excited council warned him of their only possible
answer.

"If you try to rush me," he cried, "or if you try to get out of the
room, I'll turn the revolver on the safe and blow the whole lot of us to
powder in this pleasant steel shell."

Slim turned, white-faced.

"You wouldn't have the nerve," he said. "After all, you're a bull."

"Just to show you," Garth answered quietly, "I'll put the whole pack on
the table. You've called the turn, Slim. I'm that."

He snatched the mask from his face, and took a police whistle from his
pocket. He raised it to his lips. He blew a call which he felt would
penetrate beyond these steel walls. It was the first unrestrained sound
the room had heard that night. It thrilled Garth. It was like a tonic.
He laughed outright.

"No more fighting in the dark. Thank God!"

The four men stared with the helpless rage, the abandoned suffering of
snared animals.




CHAPTER IV

GARTH BUYS A BOUTONNIERE


Garth wondered if relief would ever come. He was afraid that the slip of
frayed white paper must have gone astray. Otherwise, it seemed to him,
it would have brought help even before he had sounded his shrill alarm.

He glanced at Nora. She had placed her hand on his arm. She gazed at the
open door.

"I thought I heard--"

Then Garth heard, too--a tramping in the house, a struggle outside the
door, a voice whose roar betrayed excitement and triumph.

"Where's Garth?"

The door filled with men in uniform.

Nora covered her face with her hands and turned away. With a start Garth
grasped the reason. Planning vaguely, he arose and leaned over the
prostrate figure of George. The man breathed. The wound was in the
shoulder and appeared of little real consequence. He straightened to
find the inspector standing over him with a look of pleasure. It hurt
Garth to think of that expression's vanishing for one of unbelief and
revolt.

"This fellow will stand his trial," he said.

He added gently:

"For the murder of Joe Kridel. It was here, you know."

The inspector puffed.

"Garth, I'm proud of you."

His eye caught the figure of Nora, crouched against the safe. His voice
grew hard and business-like.

"Bring that woman here."

Slim, bound and at the door, laughed.

Garth grasped the inspector's arm.

"Don't," he said. "Don't bother about her. Let her go."

But the inspector strode to the safe, raised Nora, and drew her hands
from her face.

He gasped and leaned heavily against the divan. All at once he appeared
old.

Garth sprang to his side. He knew the inspector must not speak now.

"I'll tell you," he cried. "You have to thank Nora as much as me."

He glanced at the girl.

"That is, we put it over together. It was a winning combination, but we
didn't have the nerve to put you wise."

The color rushed back to Nora's cheeks, but the inspector's face did not
alter. He looked doubtfully from one to the other. At last he seemed to
gather his emotions in a volley of wrath for Garth.

"You dragged a woman in this! You ought to be horsewhipped. Dragging my
daughter into this hell!"

Garth took the girl's hand.

"Cheer up, chief," he said, "because if you and she would only let me
I'd drag her into a lot worse than that."

He turned to her anxiously. There were tears in her eyes. He questioned
if they had sprung from pity for him. She touched his hand. He looked
away, for the quick pressure expressed only thanks, and a friendship
troubled by his persistence.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

During the next few days Garth saw little of Nora, meeting her only once
or twice by chance in her father's office. He was not inclined, indeed,
to urge a more intimate opportunity. He had let her see rather too much
of his heart, and he shrank from an appearance of seeking advantage from
her gratitude.

That gratitude existed abundantly, and the inspector shared it. The
affair of the gray mask had altered a good deal for Garth. It had placed
him all at once apart from his fellows in the bureau. The newspaper
publicity, which, unlike most of his kind, he would have preferred to
avoid, had swept his reputation far beyond the boundaries of his own
city. He acknowledged a benefit in that. Such notoriety might deter the
desire for revenge of any of the friends of Slim and George who remained
at large.

A very real danger for Nora and himself lay there. It created, too, a
tie that the inspector visualized with an increasing friendliness and
confidence.

"If Slim and George go to the chair," the big man said on one of those
mornings when Garth had stumbled into Nora in the office, "you two are
probably safe enough. With those birds salted away the weaker brothers
aren't likely to take any wild chances, at least until the thing has
been pretty well forgotten."

Apprehension clouded his sleepy eyes.

"But, young people, if Slim and George escaped conviction or managed a
getaway, I'd look for a new first-class detective, and--"

He took Nora's hand and studied her face, whose dark beauty remained
unafraid.

"I guess I'd need another daughter, which I couldn't very well have."

He laughed brusquely.

"Slim and George are tight enough now, so why borrow trouble."

Garth saw the foreboding of his chief's eyes turn to curiosity, a trifle
groping.

"Wish you'd kept out of it, daughter."

"Don't scold," she laughed. "You did enough of that the other night."

"I'm not," he grumbled, "I'm only wondering where you got the nerve, and
the brains."

"Some from you, father."

"Not as much as all that. I guess your mother gave you a little that we
hum-drum New Yorkers don't quite understand."

"If," Garth said, "anything develops, you'll have to send Nora away."

"If there's time," the inspector agreed.

He turned back to his papers, shaking his head.

It is, perhaps, as well, when one fears, that the march of routine
brings new and destructive demands. It was only a few days afterwards
that Garth and Nora were involved in events that drove their minds for
the time from the threat, which they should never have quite lost sight
of. Yet the Elmford murder didn't leave room in one's mind for much
else.

On the afternoon before that tragedy Garth, leaving headquarters, made
an unaccustomed purchase. Not long ago such affectation would have
appealed to his sturdy, straightforward mind of a detective as trivial,
possibly unmasculine. He reddened as he handed his ten cents to the
shapeless Italian woman whose fingers about his coat lapel were
confusingly deft. He had no illusions as to the source of this foppish
prompting. The inspector had called him in and told him that Nora would
welcome him at the flat for dinner that evening. The event appeared a
milestone on the amorous path he sought to explore hand in hand with the
girl. He realized his desired destination was not yet in view, but such
progress required a deviation from the familiar--some peculiar
concession to its significance. So he turned away from the cheap
sidewalk stand, wearing, for the first time in his life, a flower in his
button hole--a rose of doubtful future and unaristocratic lineage.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Before following Garth with his blushing decoration it is serviceable to
know what happened at Elmford.




CHAPTER V

WHAT HAPPENED AT ELMFORD


That night on the edge of winter it was thoroughly dark when Dr. John
Randall left New York for his Long Island home. Treving had unexpectedly
detained him at the club. The interview had evidently projected more
than the unforeseen, for Randall's habitual calm, which carried even to
his hours of relaxation a perpetual flavor of the professional, was
suddenly destroyed by the color and the lines of a passionate
indecision. He crossed the Queensborough bridge and threaded the Long
Island city streets with a reckless disregard of traffic which probably
went undisciplined only because of the green cross on the radiator of
his automobile.

His house, although just within the city limits, had an air,
particularly under this wan starlight, remote and depressing. It stood
in wide grounds not far from the water. Heavy trees, which clustered
near, appeared to shroud it.

The doctor, scarcely slackening speed, swung his car through the gateway
and glided up the drive. At the turn the house rose before him, square,
frowning, black. It was only after a moment that a nebulous radiance
from a curtained window upstairs defined itself as light. Usually there
was much light and the companionable racket of a busy household.

Randall's hands trembled while he arranged the levers and shut off the
engine. Yet the radiance, at last, was somewhat reassuring.

He sprang out, and nearly running, stumbling a little, climbed the
steps, crossed the verandah, and pushed the electric button. From far
away the response echoed as through an empty house. No sound of hurrying
feet followed it. Randall, after waiting for a moment, took out his
latch-key and entered.

Because of his impatience he didn't stop to fumble for the switch.
Instead he flung his hat haphazard through the darkness, felt his way
across the hall, and climbed the stairs.

"Bella!" he called.

Immediately the relieving answer came:

"Here--in my dressing-room, John. Why are you so late?"

He leant weakly against the wall.

"I was detained. What's the matter?"

"Why don't you come in?" she asked.

He straightened and opened the door. The light, shining upon his face,
showed it still scarred by anger and indecision. The relief of finding
his wife at home and safe was not, then, wholly curative.

He closed the door behind him and stared at her, lying in a
reading-chair, a book open on her knees, her dark and lovely face
upraised to him, expectant, questioning, a trifle startled.

"Where are all the servants?" he demanded.

She stirred. The youthful fluency of her body in the mauve dressing gown
must have impressed itself upon the excited man by the door.

"I had to let myself in. I--Not a light. It frightened me."

"You've forgotten," she answered. "We talked it over a week or so ago,
and I thought you had agreed. Ellen's wedding. Naturally they all wanted
to go. I had an early dinner and packed them off. But I counted on you.
I was growing afraid, all alone in the house. What kept you?"

"Old Mrs. Hanson--at first. She's very ill. I should really have stayed
the night. I went to the club for a bite--"

He broke off. He walked closer, looking down into her eyes which did not
quite meet his.

"At the club--I knew I must come home to-night. I--I sent your cousin,
Tom Redding, to Mrs. Hanson."

Her eyes wavered even more.

"Why? That isn't like you to--to turn a critical case over to another
man. I could have managed. Anyway, you'd forgotten about my maid's
wedding. So it wasn't that. What--what happened at the club?"

She shivered for a moment uncontrollably.

"John! What's the matter? Why do you glare at me like that? Why do you
look so--so--"

She tried to laugh.

"So--murderous?"

His face worked.

"Bella," he said, "I've not been altogether blind about you and
Treving."

She exclaimed impatiently, but her shiver was repeated, and the
uncertainty of her voice lingered.

"You're not going to commence on that!"

He brushed her interruption aside.

"But Treving's seemed a decent enough sort in spite of the way he spends
his money and his Broadway record, and, you see, Bella, I've always
trusted you unquestioningly."

"And now? Tell me what you're driving at, John. I won't put up--"

She sprang to her feet, facing him, wide-eyed, furious, yet, one would
have suspected, not completely free from apprehension.

Randall touched her arm.

"Don't work yourself up, Bella. You know. I've told you. It's bad for
you."

"What do you expect, when you insinuate--"

"What have I insinuated, provided your conscience's clear?"

He urged her back to the chair.

"It's just this: we must talk it out. I've a right to know how far this
folly's gone--what it portends, so that I can take measures of defence
for myself and for my wife."

She yielded and sat down, but now she bent forward, her hands clasped at
her knees to prevent their trembling.

Randall clearly made an effort to speak normally. His tone had resumed
its professional quality. It was, in a sense, soothing, but the power of
the words themselves could not be diminished, and, as he went on, her
emotions strayed farther and farther from the boundaries she had plainly
tried to impose.

"I overheard," he said. "It was Delafield and Ross. I went to Ross. I
felt I knew him well enough. My dear! It's common scandal--much worse,
I'll do you the credit of saying, than the facts. You've been seen with
Treving in cafes of doubtful reputation, and out here on Long Island, at
some of these unspeakable road houses--"

He turned away.

"People aren't kind at construing those things. He was a damned
scoundrel to take you to such places."

"I'll judge that," she said. "If it's all you have to charge me with!"

"Isn't it enough? Good God! How indiscreet!"

"Then why not tell all this to Freddy Treving?" she asked.

The lines about his mouth tightened.

"Treving," he said with an affectation of simplicity, "came into the
club while I was talking with Ross. He had been drinking--a great deal.
I didn't realize it at first--it's quite necessary you should hear
this--so I took him out in the hall and tried to talk to him reasonably.
I told him it must stop--any friendship between him and you."

She glanced up tempestuously.

"I'll not have my friendships questioned."

"I'm sorry, Bella. You've placed this one beyond your own control. You
made me speak to Treving. It was the only thing to do. And he was
impertinent, defiant. As I told you, he had been drinking, but that
didn't explain his astounding assurance. I don't want to do you an
injustice, but I couldn't help fearing his confidence was based on an
understanding with you."

"John! You're mad!"

"No. I think it's Treving who's a little mad as well as drunk."

He studied her face morosely.

"I told him, if I heard of his coming near you again or communicating
with you in any way, I would thrash him within an inch of his life.
Bella, he laughed at me."

His eyes left hers. A look of utter discouragement entered them. He
spoke slowly, with unnatural distinctness.

"Treving offered to lay me any stakes he'd spend this evening with you
without my knowing."

His eyes remained averted. Perhaps he didn't dare risk the vital
testimony hers might have yielded.

Her voice was sharp.

"Treving said that?"

He nodded.

"But I don't think he'll succeed. And I warned him as he deserved. You
may as well make up your mind, Bella, that that incident is finished."

"On the contrary," she answered, "it's only begun."

He swung around and bent over her, grasping her shoulders, shaking her
slightly.

"Unless, Bella--unless--"

His hands tightened until she cried out.

"That's why, when I saw the house dark, I was afraid you'd gone. Did you
and he know about old Mrs. Hanson? Have you any arrangement with him for
to-night?"

She pressed her lips together. Blood congested her cheeks.

He shook her more determinedly.

"Answer. You have to answer that."

Her lips parted.

"Take your hands away."

"Bella! You can't keep quiet. See how you're racking me! Answer."

Somewhere in the house a bell commenced to jangle, and continued,
irritatingly, insistently.

She grasped his wrists and pushed his hands aside.

"You've gone rather too far," she whispered.

"I've a right. Answer. Was there an arrangement? Did you expect him here
to-night while I struggled in town?"

The discordant jangling appeared to enter his consciousness. He sprang
back, listening.

"That might--By gad, if it were!"

"It's the telephone," she said, "in the library."

"Why isn't it answered? Oh, yes. You might have kept Thompson at least.
Let it ring. I shan't go down."

"A doctor!" she said scornfully.

She arose with an effort. The lace of the mauve dressing-gown
exaggerated the difficulty of her breathing. His glance, which took all
this in, was not wholly without contrition.

"Answer it," she said. "I shan't fly from the house to any man's arms
while you are in the library."

He half stretched out his hand to her, but the appealing motion resolved
itself into a gesture of despair. He walked out and descended to the
library.

After a moment the discordant bell was silent. The murmur of his voice,
moment by moment interrupted, arose through the quiet house to this
single lighted chamber.

She stood for a time by the door, listening. Once or twice she placed
her hand above her heart. At last she turned back and gazed through the
narrow door to the next room where a yellow ribbon of illumination from
the reading light draped itself across her bed. Her face set in the
cruel distortion that precedes tears, but at the sound of her husband's
returning footsteps it resumed a semblance of control. No tears fell.

"Well?" she asked.

His face was haggard, confessing greater suspense than before.

"The Hansons' butler," he said. "I--I'm afraid the old lady's off this
time. Redding had told him to get me. They sent the chauffeur some time
ago with a fast car. Man said he ought to be here."

He paused, searching her face in an agony of indecision.

"Well?" she repeated.

"Bella," he went on. "Won't you tell me? Won't you promise? That old
woman--for years she's depended on me. I could do more for her than
Redding. I might help her--a little--"

"Of course you'll go," she said.

He spread his arms.

"How can I go, knowing nothing, imagining everything. Tell me. Was there
an arrangement with that beast? Bella, he'd been drinking. He's unfit--"

She raised her hand.

"You only make matters worse. John, you've done your best to make me
despise you, to urge me to Freddy Treving. For, understand, I do care
for him--a great deal. There's been nothing really wrong, but evidently
you're not content it should stop at friendship. We can settle what's to
be done to-morrow. Meantime--you've put me in such a position! What am I
to say?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Go to your work, I've no arrangement with Freddy. I don't expect him
here. If he came I shouldn't let him in. Your honor is safe enough in my
hands for to-night. Does that satisfy you?"

Her tone had a merciless lashing quality. He bowed his head before it.
His words stumbled.

"I trust you, Bella. I'm sorry."

"Then go. In the morning--"

She waved her hand vaguely.

"We'll arrange--something."

His eyes begged, but she offered nothing more. So he went out, closing
the door softly behind him.

Almost immediately he heard the sound of a motor. He couldn't find his
hat. The front door bell rang, and, snatching an ancient cap from the
table, he opened the door. No one stood in the verandah, but the glare
of powerful automobile headlights blinded him.

"You're Mrs. Hanson's chauffeur?" he called.

An indistinct voice came back affirmatively. Randall caught the word
"hurry." Therefore he ran down the steps, and, his eyes still blinded by
the glare, stepped into a large runabout and settled himself by the
driver.

They swung away at a breakneck speed which before long swept Randall's
cap from his head and forced him to cling with both hands to the side of
the car.

The landscape tore up through the glare and disappeared in a dense and
terrifying confusion of darkness.

"Man!" he shouted. "This is dangerous. There's no point in such haste."

He managed to turn, but the other had protected himself against the cold
by rolling his collar up about his face and drawing his slouch hat down
to meet it.

"Slower!" Randall commanded.

The car swerved. The other cried hoarsely:

"Look out! Hold tight!"

Randall clung, but the car kept the road. Its speed was all at once
reduced. With a disconcerting jerk it came to a standstill. As Randall,
trying to recover his balance, started to speak angrily, something soft
and blinding struck his face and enveloped his head. His hands, raised
purposelessly, were caught and pinioned. The cloth suddenly became moist
and a familiar odor arose. The other laughed as he fastened a cord about
the arms and body. Randall gasped. His bound limbs relaxed.

The driver turned the car, and, with one arm around the senseless
doctor, drove in leisurely fashion back towards Elmford.

Hidden among the undergrowth at some distance from the house stood a
small, partly ruined stone building, used once, from the water flowing
nearby, as a spring house. The driver carried Randall to the interior of
this building and placed him on the floor. Lighting a match, he glanced
around.

The unfinished walls were mottled with the melancholy vegetation which
takes hold in places where the sun is forbidden. Drops of water oozed
from the stones. The earth yielded to the pressure of feet soggily.

The man raised his hat higher on his forehead and lowered his coat
collar, exposing a face that was handsome in a weak and flippant way. He
grinned rather foolishly now at his victim, outstretched on the damp
floor. He swayed a trifle, steadied himself with an effort, then, as the
glow of the match expired, bent over and thrust his hand in Randall's
pocket.

He drew out a key ring. He struck another match and ran quickly over the
ring until he had found the key he desired. This he slipped from the
ring into his own pocket and returned the rest to Randall's coat.

On the point of leaving, he hesitated, and with a resolute air stooped
and removed the cloth from Randall's head and the cord from the body.
Afterwards he took a small bottle from his pocket, forced the
unconscious man's lips open and poured a quantity of the fluid down his
throat. Evidently the doctor would sleep thoroughly and for a long time.

When he had gathered up the cloth, the rope, and the bottle, the man
left the stone building, laughing with a satisfaction that was not
wholly vicious. In spite of the anger his face had displayed the
situation for him possessed at least a tiny element of humour.

He secreted the compromising bundle beneath a large stone in the bed of
the stream.

"Put it over," he muttered. "People'll say the old boy was off his head
or's a reason why we had to have prohibition."

His lurch was more pronounced as he walked to the car, and his manner
less confident as he drove on to the house.

He alighted and, steadying himself against the mud-guard, gazed at the
dark, forbidding facade in which that diffused and indeterminate
radiance alone suggested habitation.

After a time he straightened, climbed the steps, and crossed the
verandah. He felt in his pocket for the latch-key he had taken from
Randall, inserted it in the lock, and noiselessly opened the door. He
was very careful to see that the door did not latch behind him. He
placed the key on the hall table. He folded his coat and laid it with
his cap on a chair. Stealthily he advanced along the dark and silent
hall to the stairway.

At the sound of his automobile Bella had half arisen. She waited
attentively, but when for some time no sound followed, she walked to the
window, raised it, and leaned out, striving unsuccessfully to penetrate
the heavy night.

A board creaked in the corridor outside her door.

She swung around, her hand at her throat.

"John!"

Complete silence followed. Unless something out of all reckoning had
occurred, her husband could not be back. None of the servants would have
used an automobile. Then who prowled about the unlighted house and
hesitated in the vicinity of her door?

"John!"

The formlessness of her cry unveiled her fear.

The knob moved. Inch by inch the door opened, and, inch by inch, as if
impelled by a perfectly controlled impulse from the door widening on the
intruder, she retreated until the wall held her.

"Freddy!" she gasped.

He stepped in and closed the door. It could scarcely have been apparent
to her all at once how much he had been drinking, for, although his face
was flushed, the event justified that, and he had evidently forced on
himself for the moment a supreme control. Yet her relief was
short-lived. To be sure she could leave the wall and advance to meet
him, yet, as if the room possessed a phonographic quality, it was still
loud with her husband's anxiety and her own contemptuous promises.

"What are you doing here? How did you get in? Go before--This is out of
the question."

His hand left the knob.

"It's all right, Bella. Needn't be afraid. Randall's out of the way. He
won't bother us to-night."

"Then you know about Mrs. Hanson?" she asked.

He nodded sagely.

"I know a lot."

"You can't stay here," she said. "Go."

He stretched out his hands.

"Then you shall come with me. That's the scheme. Been in the back of my
head all along. We'll show a clean pair of heels. Time something
definite happened. Bella!--you know--how I love you."

A slight impediment, unfamiliar to the startled woman, made itself
noticeable in his voice. His control was limited. Already his true
condition disclosed itself. Fear as powerful as that which had greeted
his stealthy approach returned to her eyes.

"You know I won't come with you, Freddy. Perhaps later things will be
arranged. John and I had a talk to-night."

His face worked evilly.

"He had a talk with me, too," he said. "It's come to a showdown. No use
talking about waiting, Bella. It's now or never. You've held me off too
long. Got to choose. We love each other."

He advanced. She stepped behind the table.

"Don't come any nearer, Freddy. What's the matter with you?"

He laughed.

"Just you."

He tapped the side pocket of his coat.

"By gad! I'd have killed him to-night to get to you if it had been
necessary. That's what you've done to me, Bella."

He reached across and grasped her arm. He held her tight while he glided
around the table. A book fell to the floor, and another. A vase of roses
toppled over and shattered musically. The flowers made brilliant patches
on the dull carpet.

"Let me go. Listen, Freddy! We'll talk it over to-morrow--all three. I
promised John I wouldn't see you to-night."

"Tomorrow!" he laughed. "Too late. You don't know all I've done for
this--a real sportin' proposition. I tell you it's now or never, and I'm
mad about you."

He got his arm around her.

"You've got to let me keep my promise."

Still laughing, he drew her closer. His flaming eyes were near. His
breath was revolting on her cheeks.

She struggled, gasping for words.

"Let me go. You've been drinking. He said--"

"He said!" he cried furiously.

"What are you going to do?" she begged.

As he flung her back against the table the side pocket of his unbuttoned
coat flapped against her hand.

"I'm not going to let you slip now, Bella."

"Freddy! You're killing me!"

She put her hand in his pocket and snatched out an unpolished, stubby,
evil cylinder with a square grip which perfectly fitted her hand.

"Look out, Freddy! You hurt!"

He laughed again. His lips, repulsive and cruel, crushed hers. Her
smothered crying was bitter.

An explosion, slightly muffled, crowded the room with sound. Another
followed.

His lips, a moment ago masterful with unreasoning vitality, no longer
troubled her.

"Freddy!" she sobbed. "I'm sorry--"

He crumpled at her feet.

Near the water, spilled from the vase of roses, a darker stain spread.

She screamed.

"What's the matter? Freddy! I'm sorry--Say something--Pray!"

She stumbled to her knees by the dead man. Her desolate cries fled
ceaselessly through the open window.




CHAPTER VI

A CRYING THROUGH THE SILENCE


Garth the next day did not repeat his floral indiscretion. One
experience had convinced him that practice is necessary to the
successful threading of such by-ways. His rose, in fact, had disclosed
its limitations even before he had reached the inspector's flat. On his
entrance it had not adorned his coat.

He read the brief and scarcely illuminating account of the Elmford
murder in the morning papers. Irritation at his own assignment--an
unimportant case up-town--let it slip through his mind without arousing
any exceptional interest.

When he returned to the central office in the afternoon the doorman
beckoned to him.

"Inspector's been asking after you."

Garth yawned.

"All right. Tell him I'm here, Ed."

After a moment the doorman called:

"Inspector says, walk in."

Garth went, and paused, ill-at-ease, just within the doorway.

The huge man lolled in his chair. His quiet eyes fixed Garth genially.
For once he failed to fidget with his desk paraphernalia. His rumbling
voice was abnormally mild.

Garth appreciated these portents. They connoted favoritism, but he
traced that to the inspector's love for his daughter, because he was too
modest to place in the scales his own conspicuous virtues.

"Come over here and sit down, Garth."

Garth obeyed.

"Thanks, inspector."

The inspector's eyes twinkled.

"Boys tell me you're a little sore on the jobs you've had since you
smashed Slim and George and their favourites."

Garth grew red.

"There are old women everywhere," he said. "Nothing to do but talk."

The inspector guffawed.

"Ain't it so?"

"Incriminating question, chief."

The other leaned forward.

"I can't take chances with such a valuable man."

He cleared his throat.

"Were you thinking of paying your party call to-night? Because I've got
to disappoint you. But I don't want to do that two ways. I can't see
anything particularly dangerous about this job, but I'd like you to look
it over this afternoon. It's the Elmford murder. Suppose you've read
about it."

"I glanced it over in the morning papers," Garth answered. "They were
short on details."

"There doesn't seem much to clear up," the inspector said, "except Dr.
Randall's whereabouts. The men I sent out this morning haven't got a
trace. Nothing's been heard from the ferries or the stations or out of
town. Seems there ought to be some indication at the house for a sharp
pair of eyes."

"There's no doubt then," Garth asked, "that he killed Treving?"

The inspector ran his hand through his hair.

"Those must have been rotten papers you read," he answered. "Ask me if
Cain killed Abel. Treving's goings-on with Randall's wife have been
common gossip. The boys blushed about it in the clubs up town. Listen,
Garth. I've found out things you won't get from any papers. Randall and
Treving met at their club last night. Seems Randall had overheard some
of this conversation. I've had a few of the high-hat crowd down here
to-day, and one of the hall boys who heard what went on between Randall
and Treving. Randall warned Treving away with threats. Treving lost his
head and offered to bet he'd spend last evening with Mrs. Randall."

"Good Lord!" Garth exclaimed. "Was he drunk?"

"Can't tell," the inspector said. "The boy thought he had been drinking,
but he didn't believe he was drunk. That don't mean much. Nothing like a
college education to teach a man how to carry his liquor. Anyway,
Randall came back with his own conviction. Swore he'd shoot Treving if
such a thing came off. Well! Randall found Treving late last night in
the lady's dressing-room."

"Pretty bad," Garth agreed, "but I've never thought threats were very
satisfactory evidence."

"Plenty of other evidence," the inspector answered. "Randall had stayed
late in town. He must have driven up and found Treving's car by the
verandah. They're both there now. Easy to understand how that sight
fixed his resolution to kill. And the signs of the struggle are all over
the room. He left in a hurry after he had shot him. He lost his hat off,
rushing down the stairs. It's lying by the newel post. Mark my words.
When we find Randall he'll have a new hat or none at all. He had enough
sense not to try to make his getaway in his own machine or Treving's.
That's why I'm putting you on the case, Garth. You know what a pipe it
is to round up these amateur criminals. I tell you this fellow's
clever."

Garth considered.

"That's clear enough evidence," he said at last, "if the woman--But I
suppose she refuses to open her mouth."

The inspector's rapid fingering of his paper-cutter confessed his
annoyance. His small eyes narrowed.

"Wish I knew if she's acting. She's been practically off her head ever
since that motor cop found her kneeling over the body, screaming fit
to--to wake the dead. Nothing but hysterics all night and day. Jones
reports she's had some nervous trouble--something about the heart. Her
cousin, another doctor, is with her. You know I hate to make a wife
testify. Got to be done though when she comes around. That's about all,
Garth. Run out there and see if you can hit Randall's trail."

Garth arose.

"Seems simple, chief. Any dope on the gun?"

The inspector shook his head.

"One of these deadly automatics it ought to be a felony to have around.
Natural enough for a doctor to carry one."

He grinned.

"Got to kill their patients one way or another."

"Nothing been disturbed?" Garth asked.

"No. They've taken Treving away, but the room's just as it was when they
were found."

Garth moved towards the door.

"I know you'll bring Randall in," the inspector called.

"I'll do my best," Garth answered.

He hurried through the outer office. Perhaps the inspector was right and
the case promised no unusual excitement, but at least it possessed
interest.

It was late in the afternoon when he reached the station near Elmford.
He inquired the way from the agent.

"It's about ten minutes' walk," the man replied. "Maybe you're a
reporter or a cop? Say, there's no mystery about that case. Any word of
the doctor?"

Garth smiled discreetly. He disentangled himself from the agent's
curiosity and set off along a road bordered by unlovely suburban
dwellings.

These soon gave way to fields and hedges which in turn straggled into a
miniature forest. Just beyond that the gateway opened to the left. Garth
walked through and up to the secluded house. He glanced at the two
automobiles, near each other in the drive.

A tired-looking man in plain clothes lounged in the verandah. Another
with a languid air paced up and down at the side. They became animated
and converged on Garth, anxious to know if the inspector had got any
word of Randall.

While he was talking to them Garth first became aware of a mournful
undertone, sometimes punctuated by a shrill, despairing note, now
smothered in a heavy silence.

"What's that?" he asked sharply.

The men moved restlessly.

"Been listening to that music all day," one of them answered. "Lonely
hole! Who'd want to live here?"

"I see. Mrs. Randall," Garth said. "I'd hoped she'd be able to stand a
little talk by this time."

"Swell chance!" the man answered. "There's a high and mighty sawbones
with her who'd do murder himself before he'd let you get within a mile
of her. I'm sick of the rotten case. Nothing to it anyway."

"I'm going in, boys," Garth said. "Inspector told me everything had been
left."

One of the detectives handed him a key.

"Room's locked. This lets in from the corridor. Key to her bedroom
door's in the lock."

Garth entered the hall. Randall's hat lay as the inspector had described
it. Its gilt initials stared up at Garth with an odd air of appeal. He
saw Treving's coat and hat--another tragic excitation for the doctor if
he had chanced to notice them--on a chair by the table. A key, which
Garth found fitted the front door, lay at the table's edge. Garth
replaced it there and continued up the stairs.

Mrs. Randall's cries were quieter. Garth, inured as he was to unbridled
suffering, was grateful. He unlocked the door of the dressing-room and
paused just across the sill while he made a quick survey of the scene of
the murder. There was plenty of light and air here, for the curtains
were thrown back and the window was open. Since the doctor had
unquestionably left by the front door he could not understand why the
window had been opened on such a chilly night. He mused. Before
bothering with Randall's course from the verandah it would be useful to
examine the source of everything.

The table cover was awry. One or two books lay on the floor beneath.
Half a dozen long-stemmed roses, faded as they were, still splashed
color across the carpet of a neutral tint. As his eyes took them in
Garth smiled, shame-facedly reminiscent.

He started. The formless, agonized cry of a woman arose and seemed to
set in violent motion the atmosphere of this tragic chamber.

The cry was repeated. Garth shivered. He had a quick uncomfortable fancy
that the woman was making horrid and superhuman efforts to overcome some
obstacle to expression.

"I wish she'd keep quiet," he thought. "Confound it! There's no acting
about that. She wants to talk and can't."

He returned to his scrutiny of the room. Its disordered condition
suggested a struggle before Randall had fired the shots and dropped the
revolver there at the end of the table.

A circle of no great radius would have enclosed the scattered and faded
roses. No--not all. One bud lay farther off, nearer the bedroom door.

Garth tiptoed to it, stooped, and picked it up, examining it curiously
while he tried to reconstruct from it an active picture of the tragedy.
The stem had been broken away, indicating, since Treving or Randall had
probably worn it, the close and desperate nature of their struggle. For
it was not like the roses from the vase. They were of a larger variety
and wider open, and this lay, he estimated, near the spot where Treving,
conquered and killed, had fallen.

As he stooped there, reflecting, constantly troubled by the impotent
sounds from the next room, a ray of late sunlight penetrated the
foliage, entered the open window, and gleamed upon a silvery thread
apparently in the carpet. In his haste to reach this thread Garth
stumbled noisily against a chair, and, as if in response, while he
detached the thread from the carpet, a gentle knocking reached him from
the bedroom door.

A little ashamed of his racket, he thrust the thread in his pocket,
arose, and opened the door. A tall man with iron-gray hair entered,
closing the door gently behind him. His tone was repressed, but Garth
did not miss its annoyance.

"Do you want to kill that woman?"

"I see. The chair," Garth said.

"Every sound from this room," the man explained, "must be torture to
her. I suppose you policemen think all this fuss and feathers necessary.
You'd do better to get after Randall."

Garth curbed his own irritation.

"When do you think we'll be able to question her?"

"God knows! If this keeps up. She's in a bad way. Do you suppose I'd
waste my time here otherwise. I tell you quiet is essential."

Garth rested his hands against the table. The knotted veins testified to
his anxiety, but his tone was casual.

"By the way, doctor, since you're Mrs. Randall's cousin, you must have
known the doctor pretty well."

"Yes, yes, very well."

"Did you ever notice--was he in the habit of wearing a flower in his
button-hole?"

The other glanced at him suspiciously.

"What are you driving at?"

"Answer me, please," Garth insisted.

"I never saw him with one. He was a very masculine type--no
affectations."

Garth flushed.

"And Mr. Treving?" he asked. "You knew him, too?"

"Slightly."

"Did he?"

"What? Wear a flower? I'm sure I don't know. Never noticed. But I think
it likely enough."

Garth's hands relaxed. He straightened.

"Thank you, doctor. There'll be no more noise here to-night. I'm sorry
about the chair. I'd rather you didn't say anything about those
questions."

The doctor's face, which had shown suffering all through, broke into a
derisive smile.

"About the flowers! I understand. One must appear wise, even if there's
nothing to be wise about."

"Quite so," Garth said gravely.

The other returned to the bedroom and Garth went downstairs. He paused
in the hall long enough to take the latch-key from the table and slip it
in his pocket. Then he walked to the back of the house where the
servants were collected in an uneasy group. There was a chauffeur, he
found, a butler, a cook, and a maid. Another maid, they told him, was
with Mrs. Randall.

Garth questioned them about last night's wedding and the hour of their
return, but they were an incoherent lot, all talking at once, and saying
nothing useful. Therefore he returned to the verandah where he stood,
trying to put himself in Randall's place, casting about for his likely
course when he had sensibly decided not to use his automobile.

The sun had set. The dusk had already rendered objects at a distance
indistinct. A decided chill heralded the night. The two detectives sat
disconsolately on the steps. Mrs. Randall's voice continued its pitiful
monotone, now and then torn by unavailing and demoralizing cries.

Garth started. He stared at a patch of shrubbery on the hillside to the
right. Certainly something had moved there. It occurred to him that to a
man in the shrubbery the three forms under the verandah roof would be in
this light invisible. Again he was sure there was movement over there.
If it were Randall, come back! His experience had taught him that such a
return was psychologically conformable.

Without speaking to the others he walked to the end of the verandah and
dropped over the rail. Aiding the friendly dusk by keeping behind trees
and bushes as far as possible, he approached the patch of shrubbery.
After a moment there was no question. The foliage did not wholly secrete
the figure of a man. The man appeared to listen. Garth's hand tightened
on his revolver. The description fitted, but that was scarcely
necessary, for on this cold evening the man was hatless.

Garth appraised the fugitive's damp and stained clothing. He could
picture him hiding all night and day--perhaps in that small, half-ruined
stone building which showed dimly from here--until the necessities of
hunger or the impulse to return to the scene of his crime and learn its
denouement had driven him from cover. The haggard face seemed eloquent
of guilt.

Garth sprang up and, his revolver ready, faced the man.

"Dr. Randall! I've plenty of help near."

Randall stepped back.

"And what about Treving?" he asked in a husky voice.

Garth watched him warily.

"I'm sorry," he answered, "but I've got to take you for his murder."

Randall's face whitened. He held himself rigidly. After a time he
relaxed and laughed. His words came with difficulty as if his mouth held
no moisture.

"I'm wanted for Treving's murder!"

"You'll come quietly?"

"Yes. What's that noise? I thought I heard some one scream, a--a woman."

"Dr. Randall," Garth began steadily, "did you ever--"

"See here," Randall interrupted, "I'll answer no questions until I've
seen my lawyer. Where's my wife? What about my wife?"

Garth cleared his throat.

"She's been hysterical--well--practically out of her head."

Garth could not fathom Randall's expression as he walked at his side
towards the house.

"Of course," he said, "she'll be called as a witness against you--in
fact the only human witness of the crime itself."

The doctor smiled contentedly.

"Yes," he said. "I should like to see her."

"Dr. Redding's with her," Garth explained, "but if it's in my presence
I've no objection if he hasn't."

Garth waved the two excited detectives away. As he led Randall across
the verandah he was provokingly conscious of something missing. When he
had opened the door and taken his captive into the hall, he realized all
at once what it was. Mrs. Randall's pitiful and chaotic crying no longer
disturbed the quiet house. He noticed, too, that Dr. Redding had
descended the stairs and leant against the newel post.

"Who's that?" Redding asked.

"Hello, Redding!" Randall said easily.

"Randall! They've got you!"

Randall's contented smile persisted.

"Mrs. Randall?" Garth asked in a low tone. "She's quieter now? Dr.
Randall would like to see her."

Redding stepped forward swiftly.

"He can see her," he sneered, "if he's got the courage. She's dead."

He swung in a fury on Randall.

"Two murders on your soul! That's what it comes to. What were you
thinking of, man? You'll go to the chair for this."

Randall staggered against the wall where he leant, covering his face
with his hands.

"My only human witness!" he mumbled.

Garth knew it would be a kindness to get him out of this house, but
first he did his duty with a strong distaste.

"You'd better tell us," he said. "Say something. It might help you in
the end."

Randall lowered his hands. His face worked.

"I'll say nothing--nothing," he cried fiercely.

He stretched out his hands to Garth.

"No handcuffs," Garth said gruffly. "We might go in one of those
automobiles."

Randall stumbled forward. He groped about the hat-rack.

"My hat! Where's my hat? Do as you wish. But not Treving's car. Good
God! You wouldn't take me to jail in Treving's car!"

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Garth was restless the next day. The public, in common with the police
department and the district attorney's office, looked upon the case
against Randall as proved and, to all purposes, disposed of. But Garth,
walking along upper Fifth Avenue in the afternoon, could not resist
stopping at an expensive florist's and demanding a rose for his
button-hole. When it was brought he asked the price, and, a good deal
disconcerted, handed over the money.

For some time he gazed at the colorful, fragrant flower which swayed on
its graceful stem. Then, with an absent air, he placed it on the marble
stand and moved towards the door.

The clerks glanced at each other, amused.

"You've forgotten your rose, sir," one of them said.

"No matter," Garth replied. "I've had my money's worth."

He called at the inspector's flat after dinner. The inspector was still
at the office, but Nora commented on his restlessness immediately.

"What are you working on, Jim? Of course you're through with the Elmford
case."

"Not quite."

He faced her, fighting back the quick emotions in which her proximity
always involved him. He loved her too much to risk demanding at random a
fixed understanding. Moreover, with this case on his mind, it was
clearly not the hour.

"I've arranged for a number of subpoenas to be served in the morning,"
he said. "The servants have left the house. Your father has arranged to
call his men in. In an hour or so the house will be empty.
Nora--I--can't stay long this evening."

"Jim! What's on your mind? It's a clear case."

"Yes," he answered. "That's why Jones and the other flat-foot your
father sent out yesterday didn't search the neighborhood far enough to
find the stone building where Randall hid. It's why when I arrested him
I didn't look it over either. The arrest at the time seemed enough. But
he didn't act like a man caught with the goods. Your father says he's
clever. Maybe he is, but I wonder if he is to that extent. It's been the
trouble all along. It's too clear a case. I talked to his lawyers this
afternoon. He's refused to put in any defence."

"Isn't that proof, Jim, that he knows he hasn't a chance?"

He fumbled, almost unconsciously, with the button-hole in the lapel of
his coat.

"It might mean," he answered, "that he was protecting somebody else, and
that makes one wonder if there mightn't be something in the
house--letters, perhaps, in that bedroom I've never had a chance to
explore--something he would like to have destroyed."

"Trust your instinct, Jim."

He arose smiling.

"That's what I've arranged to do."

"Then you're going out there to-night?"

"Yes."

He hesitated, but the temptation was too strong.

"How would you like a taxi-ride to Elmford?"

"Jim, you talk like a millionaire."

"If anything comes of it," he said, "the city will pay. If nothing does
I'll look an awful fool, so I'd rather you didn't ask any questions now.
But if you want to come--I know you're game."

She laughed and got her hat and coat.

So they drove to the lonely patch of woods near the Elmford gate where
Garth instructed the driver to wait for them. He led Nora, warning her
not to speak, through the obscurity to the entrance. There he paused,
and, after a moment, whistled on a low, prolonged note.

Almost immediately the sound of voices came to them and the scraping of
feet in the gravel. Two blacker patches scarcely outlined themselves
against the black shrubbery.

"Jones!" Garth called softly.

The men approached.

"All right," Garth said. "Go along home. When did they take Mrs. Randall
away?"

"Over an hour ago. Thought you were never coming. Spooky hole!"

"No alarms?" Garth asked.

"No," Jones replied, "but I can hear that woman yelling yet."

Garth laughed, uneasily.

"Well, good-night. There's no secret about your leaving, but don't
mention at the station that I'm here."

The men merged into the darkness by the gate.

Garth took Nora's arm, and, circling the house at a distance, reached
the stone building by the stream. He entered, sniffing suspiciously.
When he had closed the door he took his flashlight from his pocket and
pressed the control.

"Don't move around, Nora."

Quickly he examined the confusion of footprints. It impressed him at
once as significant that none strayed far from the threshold. The damp
floor farther in was disturbed only by a long, irregular depression
modelled, he knew, by a body, lying prone.

"Think of lying there, Nora," he said. "I'd have preferred standing
indefinitely. And why didn't he move around?"

Nora's teeth chattered.

"It's bitter cold in here."

Garth's face set.

"And a fastidious man like the doctor lies here all night and most of
the day. Then let's see."

He went outside and ran his light over the lines of footprints which
converged at the door. One set straggled unevenly up the stream. With an
exclamation he followed it along the bank until it swung close to the
water. He stooped. His lamp moved searchingly about the bottom of the
shallow creek. Nora bent over his shoulder.

"Jim! Do you see that stone? There. Hold your light steady. It's been
moved. Look at the dark stain on this side."

Garth reached over, rolling the stone away. He drew from the water a
stout, slender rope and a black cloth. As he raised the cloth a tiny
bottle fell from its folds and splintered on the rock.

Nora's eyes sparkled.

"Does it fit, Jim?"

"It suggests a lot," he answered, "and it explains something, but it's
little use unless--"

He caught his breath.

"He might be that kind of a fool."

He sprang upright.

"Come along. We've got to turn up something in the house that will make
Randall talk. Nora! If there had been letters do you think she would
have destroyed them one by one? You see there was no chance after the
murder, and don't women cling to such things?"

"She'd probably keep them," Nora said.

They climbed the hill. The unlighted house, like a thing dead itself and
surrendered to decay, arose before them forbiddingly.

"Jones was right," Nora said. "It's spooky."

Garth crossed the verandah on tip-toe and silently opened the door.

"No lights," he breathed.

Nora shivered.

"It's as cold and damp here as the stone house. Can you find your way?"

"Yes. Sh-h."

He led her across the hall, up the staircase, and down the corridor to
the dressing-room. The window had been closed in there, and there was no
escape for a humid and depressing chill which enveloped them with
discomfort.

He found the easy chair and told Nora to sit down. He drew another one
close.

"But why not lights, Jim?"

"It's logic to wait awhile," he said. "The letters, you know."

She gasped.

"I begin to see."

"Maybe I shouldn't have brought you," he whispered.

"But who--"

"Sh-h!"

"Did you hear anything?" she asked.

"No. If Randall never wore a rose--"

"Jim! I've never--felt such darkness."

"I must think," he said.

But his brain refused to enter the new country of speculation whose
gates the discovery in the stream had opened. The dank air of the room
where Treving had been murdered was thick with imminence. A formless
anticipation possessed Garth's mind. He had a quick instinct to turn on
the lights and proceed with his search, abandoning this course which
logic had suggested, but which was fraught, he had no doubt, with
positive apprehension to Nora. Why not, indeed, satisfy her curiosity
now? But his pride denied the impulse. He wanted first something more
tangible, something more provocative of her praise.

"It frightens me here," Nora breathed. "I've the queerest desire to--to
scream."

Her laugh was scarcely audible.

Her words had set Garth's memory to work. He knew again what he missed
in this silent house--the amorphous screams of a woman in an agony
powerless to express itself. How she must have wanted to speak! How
horribly she had tried until the supreme, the enduring silence had
clutched about her throat! The sullen and sepulchral air of the room
seemed to vibrate with the wraiths of those efforts.

Was the door open to the next room where she had struggled and died?

Garth stirred uneasily.

Nora spoke.

"How long?"

"Not long," Garth whispered, "or I'll turn the lights on. I'll look."

His thoughts swung back to the next room and the despair it had
harbored. Could such passionate resistance to circumstance perish
utterly? Could the violent will behind it accept silence and pass with
the body into nothingness?

What had she wanted to say?

A movement, scarcely audible, reached him from the next room.

Nora's hand touched his arm. He was aware of the trembling of her
fingers. He leant forward, listening. He scarcely caught Nora's voice.

"You heard--that?"

The movement was repeated--somebody--something stirred in the dark room
where the woman had died.

Nora swayed against him. Her other hand touched his shoulder. His heart
leapt, but he realized that this contact was only an impersonal appeal
for protection. So he drew his arms back, but his brain was clearer. He
no longer answered to the fancy that the echoes of those screams
tortured his ears.

"Stay here quietly," he whispered.

"Don't go in there, Jim."

He pushed her hands gently away. His movements as he crossed the floor
were stealthier than those which still persisted in the bedroom. He
paused in the doorway. The darkness was complete, yet he could locate
the movements now against the farther wall.

He drew out his revolver and his flashlight. He pressed the button. The
glare splintered the blackness and centered on the figure of a man who
bent over the open drawer of a desk.

"Throw your hands up!" Garth said.

In the dressing-room Nora cried out.

The man at the desk swung around, lifting his hands and exposing the
white and contorted face of the butler, Thompson.

Garth laughed nervously.

"I've got him, Nora."

"Wh--what do you mean?" the man asked. "I came back--Who are you? What
do you want of me?"

Garth stepped forward aggressively. His conscience troubled him not at
all.

"I want you for the murder of Frederick Treving--there in the next
room."

The fellow's jaw dropped.

"No--no. I had nothing to do with it. I swear."

Garth raised his hand to the lapel of the butler's coat.

"I thought so," he said. "No question about you, my man. You wore the
rose I found where Treving's body lay. Got it at the wedding, didn't
you?"

The man sank on the unmade bed.

"What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with it."

"Tell that to the judge who'll send you to the chair," he said.

The butler shook. He raised his uncertain hands to his face. He
shuddered.

"No, no. I tell you I had nothing to do with it. It was Mrs. Randall. He
attacked her, and she shot him."

Garth relaxed.

"You heard that, Nora?"

Nora came to the door.

"Yes."

"Then," Garth said, "I am about through with the case."

He turned back to Thompson.

"But you're not clear yet. How did you happen to be here? I know you
went to the wedding with the rest."

"Yes, but Mrs. Randall got me on the telephone--said the doctor had been
called back to town and she was nervous and I'd have to come home. As I
let myself in the back way I heard her scream. I ran up and through
this room. I got to the door just in time to see her shoot him. But when
I rushed in and tried to lift her up she screamed. I couldn't do
anything with her. And I got frightened. When I heard the motorcycle and
guessed it was a policeman who had heard her screaming, I ran out the
servants' entrance and went back to the wedding and came home with the
rest. I was afraid they would take me, and she couldn't say anything to
clear me. That's the truth."

Garth looked him over contemptuously.

"And, knowing the truth, you'd have let Dr. Randall go to trial."

Thompson uncovered his face. Through his tears his eyes glowed with an
exceptional devotion.

"I worked for her, sir. I had been with her family ever since she was
born. Besides, if he didn't want to give her away, what business was it
of mine? He sent for me to-day, and when I told him I had seen her shoot
him, he made me promise to keep my mouth shut."

"I know he sent for you," Garth said. "That's why I hoped to find you
here to-night. He suspected you were a go-between and that there might
be letters or something here to incriminate her with Treving."

Thompson nodded.

"I told the doctor, a few letters and trinkets. He said I must get them
as soon as the detectives had left and the house was clear. But I can
say, sir, there was never anything really out of the way. She wasn't
quite happy with the doctor. It would be a kindness to the dead--"

Garth smiled, turning to Nora.

"You wouldn't give me away, would you? All right, Thompson. Do what you
came to do."

Thompson shot him a grateful glance and returned to his obliterating
task at the desk. Garth snapped on the light.

"But, Jim," Nora asked, "how did you know that man had been a witness?
Was it a guess?"

Garth shook his head.

"Simple enough," he said.

He took a short, slender, silvery thread from his pocket. With a
shame-faced look he handed it to Nora.

"You'd know more about such things than I. It's a wire that made a
broken, worn-out rose look a whole lot better than it was. I found it
and the rose in the next room. I recognized it, because, Nora, when I
came to dinner the other night I stopped at a sidewalk stand and bought
a rose for my button-hole. Silly, wasn't it? But it was a good thing,
because I got stung with one of those. That's why I knew what the broken
stem and the wire meant. I learned that Randall didn't wear flowers, and
I made sure this afternoon what kind of a rose Treving would have worn.
Therefore, somebody else had been in that room, wearing a cheap rose
which he had almost certainly got at that cheap wedding. When I heard
Randall had sent for this man I decided to hold over my subpoenas for
the servants until to-morrow, and run out here myself as soon as the
detectives were called in--maybe get my man when he wouldn't lie."

Her eyes sparkled.

"And you guessed Randall didn't know about the murder when you caught
him?"

"After I had landed him in jail, his manner, taken with the rest of it,
worried me. If he wasn't guilty, why had he hidden all night and day?
What we found in the stone house answered that, and almost certainly put
it up to Mrs. Randall. Of course he guessed she had done it, and that
cleared her in his eyes. It's why he's been so sentimental about
protecting her memory. He didn't want it stained with murder, and he's
probably figured he could tell some story on the stand that would clear
her of the scandal, provided Thompson gathered up these little souvenirs
of her indiscretion."

"Jim, I'm proud of you," Nora said. "But will Dr. Randall thank you for
interfering?"

"I think so, when he's got over this first mistaken idea of what he owes
her for protecting his honor and her own even to the point of murder.
He'll soon be clear-headed enough to weigh both sides. He'll appreciate
then that there isn't much disgrace about such a crime for her,
particularly since it's the strongest proof the world could have that
Thompson's opinion is right."

He turned to the butler.

"Surely, Thompson, there isn't as much evidence as all that. Come. We
ought to get back to town."

As they went down the stairs Garth wondered that his success borrowed
its chief value from its effect on Nora. As large as the satisfaction of
clearing an innocent and harassed man, loomed the fact that he had,
indeed, provoked her praise.

At the turn their hands met in the darkness. He rejoiced that the warmth
of her fingers lingered momentarily in his.




CHAPTER VII

NORA FEARS FOR GARTH


From the moment of his solution of the Elmford affair Garth was
recognized at headquarters as the man for the big jobs--the city's most
serviceable detective. For one who accepted his success so modestly it
was difficult to breed jealous enemies. There was, to be sure, some
speculation as to how long such a man would chain his abilities by the
modest pay of the department, and a wish here and there that he would
find it convenient to free himself for broader fields in the near
future.

Garth realized that it was the inspector's attitude that had determined
his new standing. Under other circumstances things might have progressed
more slowly. The tie formed the night of the arrest of Slim and George
was still strong.

Garth arranged, when he went to bear the news of his discovery to Dr.
Randall in the Tombs, to catch a glimpse of the two. Their greeting
sufficiently defined the threat he had always known existed. In their
faces he read an intention from which he shrank, more for Nora's sake
than for his own. He didn't stay to argue. He walked on to Randall's
cell and told the stricken man that in a few minutes he would be free.

Garth had been a good prophet. Randall's first resentment gave way to a
gratitude, expressed with difficulty but genuine.

"It--it was exceptionally fine of you to let Thompson destroy those
things."

"I would want someone to do as much for me," he answered, "that is, if I
ever had the nerve to do what you did. That was the fine thing, doctor."

And Garth went away, aware that he had made a staunch friend.

The inspector was troubled when he heard of Slim and George's open
hatred. He saw the district attorney, and others whose ears he had. On
his return he sent for Garth.

"The district attorney tells me," he said, "that there isn't a loophole.
They'll be convicted and go to the chair as certain as that when the
moon shines lovers kiss. If they don't escape. Without suggesting that
every crook doesn't get the same attention, I've seen to it that those
chair warmers will be watched closer than Fido watches the butcher."

So again Garth put the matter out of his mind, and was aided by an
unexpected threat, apparently just as serious, that faced him a very
short time after.

On that fall morning he paused on the threshold of the inspector's
office, and, surprised and curious, glanced quickly within. It was not
so much that Nora sat by the window, clothed in her habitual black, nor
was his interest quickened by the fact that she knitted deftly on some
heavy, gray garment. Rather his concern centered on the inspector who
had left his desk and whose corpulent, lethargic figure moved about the
room with an exceptional and eccentric animation.

At Garth's step Nora glanced up, smiling. The inspector retarded his
heated walk. To ease the perceptible strain Garth spoke to Nora.

"Seems to me you knit no matter where you are."

"When one knits for the hospitals," she answered, "any place will do. I
had hoped my example might quiet father. I only dropped in for a chat,
and look at him. What a welcome! I'm afraid, Jim, he has something
disagreeable for you."

The inspector paused and sat on the edge of his desk.

"Maybe so. Maybe not," he rumbled. "I don't like working through the
dark, so I don't like to ask anybody else to do it. I've got to, though.
Cheer up, Garth. I'm asking you."

He raised his paper cutter and jabbed at the desk with a massive
petulance.

"Ever since I got down this morning," he went on, "I've been hounded by
telegrams and long-distance calls. Well? Do you want a holiday? It's apt
to be a hell of a holiday. Excuse me, Nora."

"I see," Garth said. "Something out of town."

The inspector's manner warned him. After long experience he knew it
veiled a grave distrust.

"Why," Nora asked, "don't you tell us what the case is?"

The inspector walked around the desk and with a sigh settled himself in
his easy chair.

"That's the rumpus," he answered, and Garth saw that his eyes were not
quite steady. "Don't know anything about it myself unless they'd like
Garth to chase a few spooks. Here's the lay-out. It's a man who's done
me a good many favors. There's no secret--political ones. I'm in his
debt, and he's asked me for a good detective to go up to his place in
New England--not as a detective, mind you, Garth. That's the queer side,
the side I don't like. He insists on his man's showing up as a guest,
knowing no more than a random guest would know. Sounds like tommy-rot,
but he isn't sure himself there's anything out of the way. He wants you,
if you take it up, to live quietly in the house, keeping your eyes
peeled. He expects you to put him wise to the trouble or to stake your
reputation that there isn't any trouble at all. Are you willing to jump
into a chase blindly that way? He'd like the fellow that swung the
Hennion job, but if you turned it down cold I couldn't help it, could
I?"

"Nonsense, chief," Garth answered. "Never heard of such a thing, but it
sounds interesting. I'll take a shot at it."

The inspector wrote hurriedly on a piece of paper.

"Here's his name and address. Catch the ten o'clock from the Grand
Central and you'll get up there to-night."

Garth took the slip. Before placing it in his pocket he glanced it over.

"Andrew Alden," he saw. "Leave Boston from North Station on four o'clock
train and get off at Deacon's Bay."

"I've heard of Mr.--" Garth began.

The inspector's quick, angry shake of the head in Nora's direction
brought him to an abrupt pause. He walked to Nora and took her hand.

"Then I won't see you until after my holiday," he said with a smile.

Her eyes were vaguely uneasy.

"I agree with father," she said. "It isn't safe to walk through the
dark. Won't you tell me where you're going?"

Garth's laugh was uncomfortable. He didn't pretend to understand, but
his course had been clearly enough indicated.

"I'll leave that for the inspector," he answered. "I have to rush to
pick up my things on the way to the train."

The uneasiness in her eyes increased.

"You know, Jim, as father says, you can turn it down. It might be
wiser."

His heart responded to her anxiety. In view of her fear it was a trifle
absurd that their farewell should project nothing more impulsive than a
hand-clasp. Its only compensation, indeed, was the reluctance with which
she let his fingers go.

When Garth had left, Nora arose and faced her father.

"What's all this mystery?" she demanded. "It's easy enough to guess
there's danger for Jim, and you know a lot more than you pretend."

"See here, Nora," the inspector grumbled, "I usually give the third
degree myself in this place."

She rested her hands on the desk, studying his uncertain eyes.

"Why," she asked, "wouldn't you let Jim tell me the man's name?"

His bluster was too apparently simulated.

"What did you come down for this morning anyway? No sense in your
getting upset. A detective bureau isn't a nursery."

She straightened slowly, her face recording an unwelcome assurance.

"Politics!" she cried. "And Jim's leaving from the Grand Central. I
know. He's going to Mr. Alden's at Deacon's Bay. I see why you wouldn't
let him tell me."

"Place is all right," the inspector said stubbornly. "You've seen it.
You were there with me two summers ago. What's the matter with the
place?"

"No use trying to pull the wool over my eyes," Nora answered. "It's the
loneliest place I've ever seen, and you ought to know I'd remember Mr.
Alden's big furnaces and machine-shop. I read the papers, father. He's
staying up so late this year on account of the enormous war orders he's
taken. You know as well as I do that that may mean real danger for Jim.
What did Mr. Alden tell you?"

The inspector spread his hands helplessly.

"I sometimes think, Nora, you'd make a better detective than any of us.
Alden's sick and nervous. I guess that's all it amounts to. He's
probably scared some German sympathizer may take a pot shot at him for
filling these contracts. And he's worried about his wife. She won't
leave him there alone, and it seems all their servants, except old John,
have cleared out."

"You said something to Jim about spooks," Nora prompted.

"Thought you'd come to that," the inspector said. "You're like your
mother was, Nora--always on the look-out for the supernatural."

"So, I gather, were the servants," she answered drily.

"Silly talk, Alden says, about the woods back of his house. You
remember. There was some kind of a fight there during the Revolution--a
lot of men ambushed and massacred. I guess you saw the bayonets and
gun-locks Alden had dug up. Servants got talking--said they saw things
there on foggy nights."

The inspector lowered his voice to a more serious key.

"The angle I don't like is that Alden's valet was found dead in those
woods yesterday morning. Not a mark on him. Coroner, I believe, says
apoplexy, but Alden's nervous, and the rest of the help cleared out. I
suppose they'll get somebody else up as soon as they can. Meantime Alden
and his wife are alone with old John. Confound it, Nora, I had to send
him somebody."

"But without a word of this!"

"I tell you I don't like it. I didn't want to do it. It was Alden's
idea--would have it that way. Frankly I don't make it out, but maybe,
being on the spot, he knows best."

"There's something here," she said, "that we can't understand--maybe
something big. It isn't fair to Jim."

The inspector looked up slyly.

"Jim," he said, "can take care of himself if anybody can. Seems to me
you're pretty anxious. Sure you haven't anything to tell me about you
and him? If you had, I might make a place for him watching these
ten-cent lunch joints to see that customers didn't carry away the
hardware and crockery. Then all the danger you'd have to worry about
would be that he might eat the food."

But Nora failed to smile. She glanced away, shaking her head.

"I've nothing to tell you, father," she answered. "Nothing now. I don't
know. Honestly I don't know. I only know I've been through one such
experience, and if anything happened to Jim that I could help, I'd never
forgive myself."




CHAPTER VIII

THROUGH THE DARK


The night had gathered swiftly behind a curtain of rain. Garth, glancing
out the window of the train, saw that darkness was already close upon a
somber and resentful world. Pines, hemlocks, and birches stretched
limitlessly. The rain clung to their drooping branches like tears, so
that they expressed an attitude of mourning which their color clothed
convincingly. The roaring of the train was subdued, as if it hesitated
to disturb the oppressive silence through which it passed.

The car, nearly empty, was insufficiently lighted. Garth answered to the
growing depression of his surroundings. His paper, already
well-explored, no longer held him. He continued to gaze from the window,
speculating on the goal towards which he was hurrying through this bleak
desolation. The inspector's phrase was suddenly informed with meaning.
He was, in every sense, advancing through the dark. The realization left
him with a troublesome restlessness, a desire to be actively at work.

The last streak of gray had long faded when the train drew up at
Deacon's Bay station--a small building with a shed like an exaggerated
collar about its throat. At this hour there was no operator on duty.
Only one or two oil lamps maintained an indifferent resistance to the
mist. Garth saw a horse and carriage at the rear. He walked to it.

"Could you drive me to Mr. Andrew Alden's place?" he asked.

From the depths of the carriage a native's voice replied:

"Probably you're the party I'm looking for. If you're Mr. Garth from New
York, step in."

Garth obeyed, and they drove off along a road for the most part flanked
by thick woods.

Without warning, through an open space, Garth saw a flame spring upward,
tearing the mist and splashing the sky with wanton scarlet.

"What's that?" he asked sharply.

The glare diminished and died. The native clucked to his horse.

"Mr. Alden's furnaces," he answered.

Garth stirred.

"I see. Iron. Steel. And now it works night and day?"

"On war orders," the native answered. "Now you wouldn't think we'd ever
have got in the war, would you? There's a whole town--board shacks--to
take care of the men--more'n fifteen hundred of them."

Garth nodded thoughtfully. Here at the start was a condition that might
make the presence of a detective comforting to his host.

As they penetrated deeper into the woods the driver exhibited an
increasing desire to talk, and from time to time, Garth remarked, he
glanced over his shoulder.

"None of my business," the man said, "but it's funny Mr. Alden's having
company now."

Garth smiled. He was certainly on the threshold of a case he had been
asked to enter wholly unprepared.

"Maybe you'll tell me why," he encouraged.

"Because," the driver answered, "although Mr. Alden stands to make a
pile of money, he's paying for it in some ways. You didn't hear about
his yacht?"

Garth shook his head.

"Maybe some of these rough workmen he's got up from the city, or maybe
somebody wanted to pay him out. Took it out of his boat-house a few
nights ago, started on a joy-ride, I suppose, and ran it on the rocks."

"Much loss?" Garth asked.

"Total, except for the furnishings."

"Are you one of Mr. Alden's servants?"

The driver's laugh was uncomfortable.

"That's what I meant about his having company. There aren't any servants
except the old butler. A woman from the village goes to get breakfast
and lunch for them, but she won't stay after dark."

Garth grinned, recalling the inspector's comment about spooks.

"Why did the servants quit?"

The driver glanced over his shoulder again. He hurried his horse.

"Laughing's cheap," he said, "but you can judge for yourself how lonely
it is, and Mr. Alden's right on the ocean--only house for two miles. You
see he owns a big piece of this coast--woods right down to the water.
They've always told about a lot of soldiers being killed in those woods
during the Revolution. All my life I've heard talk about seeing things
there. Servants got talking a few days ago--said they saw shadows in
grave clothes going through the woods. I laughed at that, too. But I
didn't laugh when they found Mr. Alden's valet yesterday morning, dead
as a door nail."

Garth whistled.

"Violence?"

"Not a sign. Coroner says apoplexy, but that doesn't convince anybody
that doesn't want to be."

"Curious," Garth mused.

For some time a confused murmuring had increased in his ears--the
persistent fury of water turned back by a rocky coast.

They turned through a gateway, and, across a broad lawn, he caught a
glimpse of lights, dim, unreal, as one might picture will-o-the-wisps.
But the night and the mist could not hide from Garth the size of the
house, significant of wealth and a habit of comfort. That such an
establishment should be practically bereft of service was sufficient
proof that there was, indeed, something here to combat. Yet from the
driver he could draw nothing more ponderable than the fancied return of
the dead to their battlefield, and a distrust, natural enough in a
native, of the horde of new men gathered for the furnaces.

When he had stepped from the carriage he saw that the lights were
confined to the lower hall and one room to the left. The rest of the
great house stretched away with an air of decay and abandonment.

In response to his ring he heard a step drag across the floor, but the
door was not opened at once. Instead a quavering voice demanded his
identity.

With some impatience Garth grasped the knob, and as he heard the
carriage retreat towards the town, called out:

"My name is Garth. I'm expected."

The door was swung back almost eagerly, and Garth stepped across the
threshold of the lonely house.

An old man faced him, white-haired, bent at the shoulders, unkempt and
so out of key with the neat hard-wood floor, the hangings, and the
wainscot of the hall--a witness to an abrupt relaxation of discipline.

"Thank heavens you've come, sir," the old man said.

"Then you know," Garth answered. "What's wrong here?"

But before the other could reply a man's voice, uncertain, barely
audible, came from the lighted room to the left.

"Who is that? If it is Mr. Garth bring him to me at once."

Garth became aware of the rustling of skirts. He stepped into the room,
and, scarcely within the doorway, met a young woman whose unquestionable
beauty impressed him less than the trouble which, to an extent,
distorted it. Her greeting, too, almost identical with the old
servant's, disturbed him more than his. It was reminiscent of the
desolate landscape he had seen from the train, of the forest loneliness
through which he had just driven, of the gaping scarlet that had torn
across the cloud-filled sky.

"I'm glad you've come. I--I was afraid you mightn't make it."

Garth's glance appraised the room. It was a huge apartment, running the
width of the house. Casement windows rose from the floor to the ceiling.
An oak door in the farther wall, towards the rear, was closed. There
were many book-cases. A fire burned drowsily in a deep hearth. Before it
stood a writing-table with an inefficient lamp, and at its side--the
point where Garth's eyes halted--a man sat--huddled.

The man wore a dressing gown and slippers. His hair was untidy. From his
cadaverous face eyes gleamed as if with a newly-born hope. He put his
hands on the chair arms and started to rise, then, with a sigh, he sank
back again.

"You'll excuse me," he said. "I've not been myself lately. It is an
effort for me to get up, but I am glad to see you, Mr. Garth--very
glad."

Garth understood now why the voice had barely carried to the hall. It
lacked body. It left the throat reluctantly. It crowded the room with a
scarcely vibrating atmosphere of dismay. Garth asked himself hotly if he
had been summoned as an antidote to the airy delusions of an invalid.

A stifled sound behind him caused him to turn swiftly. He was in time to
see the distortion of the woman's features increase, to watch the
resistless tears sparkle in her eyes and fall, to be shamed by the
laborious sobs which, after she had covered her face, shook her in
freeing themselves.

He advanced, at a loss, shocked by this unforeseen breakdown. He took
Alden's hand, but the other appeared to have forgotten his presence.

"Don't, Cora," he mumbled. "You mustn't do that any more. We are no
longer--alone."

Garth glanced from one to the other, answering to the atmosphere of
dismay, which moment by moment became more unavoidable. Yet what could
there be here beyond loneliness, and, perhaps, threats from those
against whose cherished principles Alden's furnaces were busy night and
day? The loneliness, Garth acknowledged even then, could account for a
lot, but, he decided, a doctor was needed here as much as a detective.

At last Mrs. Alden resumed her control. She faced Garth apologetically.

"It's because I can't get him away," she said wistfully. "And he's sick.
Anybody can see that."

"A week or two more," Alden said, "until the works are running right.
Then we'll go back to New York. I've had trouble replacing
unsatisfactory workmen, and I can't make the government wait."

"New York!" the woman echoed.

"You've a doctor?" Garth asked.

"From the village," Alden answered. "I'm afraid he doesn't understand
me."

"Then," Garth said firmly, "I should let the works go to blazes until
I'd looked after myself."

Alden moved his hand vaguely.

"It's nothing--cold, maybe a touch of the gout. I sometimes suffer, and
my nerves are a little under. Too much involved here, Mr. Garth. You
couldn't afford to take chances with that."

Garth glanced at the room's luxurious furnishing.

"I couldn't," he answered captiously. "I'm not so sure about you."

It annoyed him that the lamp on the table failed to drive the shadows
from the corners.

Mrs. Alden approached him timidly.

"You'll forgive our welcome? You'll try to understand? You may have
noticed something about the fall in a remote place. It is very
depressing here. If only you could persuade him to leave. You see we've
no servants but old John. Shall I tell him to get you something--a
whiskey and soda?"

Garth shook his head.

"I never drink when I'm at work."

"But you are our guest," she said.

"Our guest," came in her husband's difficult voice.

In neither of their faces could Garth read the reproof their tones had
suggested. What point could there be in this abnormal masquerade?

He glanced at his watch. Mrs. Alden caught the gesture. She walked to a
cabinet and measured her husband's medicine.

"It's time," she said as she gave it to him, "that we all were in bed.
Shall I ring for John?"

"I'll ring," Garth answered, "a little later. I should be glad of a word
with your husband."

When Mrs. Alden had gone he tried to talk sanely to the sick and
melancholy man, urging him to seek more cheerful surroundings. Alden
merely shook his head.

"See here," Garth exploded at last. "There's no point in your closing
your confidence to me. It only makes matters a thousand times more
difficult. You're afraid. Of what?"

The other answered with a difficulty that was not wholly physical. He
had hit upon this incomprehensible plan and he would carry it through.

"Then it's only fair to tell you," Garth said, "that the man who drove
me out talked a little. I've heard about your boat, of why your servants
ran, of the strange men with whom you've crowded the village. Tell me
one thing. Have you had threatening letters about your contracts?"

"Several."

The deep lines in Alden's face tightened.

"Don't think," he managed to get out, "that I'm a coward. I'll stay. My
contracts will be carried through."

"No," Garth answered, "you're not that kind of a coward, but there's
something else. Don't deny, Mr. Alden. You're more than sick. You're
afraid. What is it?"

Alden shuddered.

"A--a coward."

The words stumbled out of his mouth.

"But I don't know what it is. You're to tell me, Mr. Garth, if it's
anything."

"This rot about the woods and the spirits of dead soldiers?" Garth
asked.

Alden stirred. He nodded in the direction of the rear casement windows.

"Just across the lawn."

"You haven't seen?" Garth asked sharply.

"But," Alden said, "the servants--"

This, then, Garth decided, must be the source of the fear the other's
appearance recorded.

"Nonsense, Mr. Alden. That's one of the commonest superstitions the
world over, that soldiers come back to the battlefields where they have
died, and in time of war--"

"If there's nothing in it," Alden whispered, "why is it so common? Why
did my servants swear they had seen? And the fog! We've had too much
fog lately--every night for a week. My man died in the fog."

Garth whistled.

"Could they have mistaken him for you?"

"There were no marks on the body."

Alden looked up. His voice thickened.

"We are talking too much. I--I want you to stay and judge for yourself."

Garth arose and walked to the rear window, but he could see nothing for
the mist. He stood there, nevertheless, for some time, puzzled and half
angry. The mental and physical condition of his host, Mrs. Alden's
shattered nerves, the extreme loneliness, impressed on him a sense of
uncharted adventuring.

"Why," he asked himself, "won't these people talk? What do they expect
me to find in this house?"

When he turned back he saw that Alden's eyes were closed. The regular
rising and falling of his chest warned Garth to quietness. He would not
disturb the worn-out man. So he pressed the electric bell and walked to
the hall. He met John there.

"Please show me to my room," he said. "Mr. Alden's asleep. Perhaps you'd
better speak to his wife before you disturb him."

John bowed and led him upstairs.

"Good-night, sir," he said, opening the door. "May you sleep well. It's
a little hard here lately."

He hesitated. He cleared his throat.

"You couldn't persuade him to send his wife away?" he went on at last.
"She's not strong, sir. It's pitiful."

"See here, John," Garth said impulsively. "I know it's against the
rules, but tell me what's wrong here. What are you all afraid of?"

The old man's lips moved. His eyes sought Garth's urgently. With a
visible effort he backed out of the room. His glance left Garth. When he
opened his lips all he said was:

"Good-night, sir."

Garth closed the door, shrugging his shoulders. Of what a delicacy the
threat must be to require such scrupulous handling! "If there is
anything," Alden had said. Garth brought his hands together.

"There is something," he muttered, "something as dangerous as the death
Alden is manufacturing back there."

He went to bed, but the restlessness of the train returned to him.
Reviewing Alden's exhaustion and the old servant's significant comment,
he wondered half seriously if sleep refused to enter this house. The
place, even for his splendidly controlled emotions, possessed a
character, depressive, unhealthy, calmly malevolent.

He had lost account of time. He had been, perhaps, on the frontier of
sleep, for, as he sprang upright, he could not be all at once sure what
had aroused him. A man's groan, he thought. Suddenly, tearing through
the darkness, came the affirmation--a feminine scream, full of terror,
abruptly ended.

He threw on his clothes, grasped his revolver, dashed down the stairs,
and burst into the living-room. There was no light now beyond the wan
glow of the fire, but it was still sufficient to show him Alden, huddled
more than ever in the chair, and the terror that had quivered through
the cry, persisted now in Alden's face.

His wife, in a dressing gown, knelt at his side, her arm around his
knees. At Garth's entrance she sprang erect, facing him.

"It came," she gasped. "Oh, I knew it would. All along I've known."

"Tell me what's happened," Garth commanded.

The woman's voice was scarcely intelligible.

"I let him sleep here. Just now he groaned. I ran in.
Somebody--something had attacked him. I ran in. I--I saw it."

"Where?"

She pointed to the rear window.

"I saw it going out there. It was foggy. It went in the fog. I
couldn't--"

Garth sprang to the window. It was, in fact, half open. Before he could
get through Mrs. Alden had caught his arm.

"Don't follow. It isn't safe out there."

"I want that man," he said.

She leaned weakly against the casement.

"But out there," she whispered, "they are not men."

Again she caught his arm.

"Don't leave me alone now that they can come in."

She pointed at her husband.

"Look at him. He saw it in the fog that came through the window. It is
all fog out there. Don't leave me alone."

He thrust the revolver impatiently in her hand.

"Then take this. Not much use outside on such a night."

He jumped to the lawn and started swiftly across. Since the intruder had
fled this way he might hear him in the woods, might grapple with him. He
regretted the loss of his revolver, although he realized it would be
useless to-night except at close quarters, and for that he possessed a
cleverly-devised reserve, which he had arranged on first joining the
force--a folding knife, hidden in his belt, sharp, well-tested, deadly.

At the edge of the woods he paused, straining his ears, trying to get
his bearings, for he was on unfamiliar ground and the fog was very dense
here. It lowered a white, translucent shroud over the nocturnal
landscape. Beneath its folds he could make out only one or two tree
trunks and a few drooping branches. These, as he stared, gave him the
illusion of moving surreptitiously.

The moon, he knew, was at the full, but its golden rotundity was heavily
veiled to-night, so that it had the forlorn, the sorrowful appearance of
a lamp, once brilliant, whose flame has gradually diminished and is
about to expire.

Garth could hear nothing, but he waited breathlessly, still straining
his ears. This, he mused, was the place where many soldiers had died in
battle, the setting for ghostly legends, the spot where the servants had
fancied a terrifying and bodiless re-animation, the death-bed of Alden's
valet.

Now that he had time to weigh it, Mrs. Alden's manner puzzled him. She
had said _it_ had been in the house, that now _they_ could come in, and
that out here _they_ were not men. Had the loneliness imposed upon her
intelligence such a repulsive credulity?

He had to admit that imagination in such a medium could precipitate
shameful and deceptive fancies.

Then, without realizing at first why, Garth knew he had been unjust. He
found his eyes striving to penetrate the night to the left. Surely it
was not the old illusion of moving trees and branches that had set the
fog in lazy motion over there. He stepped cautiously behind a pine tree.
The chill increased. A charnal atmosphere had crept into the woods. As
he shivered he realized that this sepulchral place had filled with
plausible inhabitants--shapes as restless and unsubstantial as if sprung
solely from a morbid somnambulism.




CHAPTER IX

THE PHANTOM ARMY


Shadows advanced through the shadowy fog, and Garth could define them as
no more than shadows. In one place the mist thinned momentarily, and he
glimpsed, apparently floating forward, the trunk of a man's figure.
Pallid tatters, such as might survive in a mortuary, flapped about bare
shoulders, and from a little distance beyond came a sickly gleam--the
doubtful response uncertain moonlight might draw from a bayonet or a
musket barrel.

The fog closed in. There were no more shadows. Garth, eager to follow,
forced himself to wait. He told himself that the march of phantoms
possessed a meaning which would give direction to his task. The
unveiling of its impulse, he was confident, would unveil the mystery at
the house. Against so many only caution was useful at present.

He was glad Nora was not with him. He knew how profoundly she would have
been stirred, how ready she would have been to discard a rational
explanation for the occult. He could smile a little. In this one respect
of vulnerability to superstition he felt himself immeasurably her
superior. He was glad she had not involved herself in such a case.

Finally, phantom-like himself, he proceeded through the fog in the
direction the silent shadows had taken. He walked for some distance.

Without warning he stumbled and pitched forward to his knees. Reaching
out to save himself, his fingers touched something wet, cold, and
possessed of a revealing quality which in one breathless moment drove
into his brain the excuse for those at the house, and focussed for him
their terror of the unexplored world of whose adjacence their solitude
must have convinced them.

He snatched his hand back, rendered for the moment without purpose by
this silent and singular tryst to which chance had led him in the evil
forest. It was necessary, however, to strip the mask of night from the
face of the one who lay, defeated and beyond resistance, in the path of
the shadowy army.

He took his pocket lamp from his coat and pressed the control. The light
fought through the fog to the face of the old servant who a few hours
ago had begged him to get Mrs. Alden away, whose lips had been
incomprehensibly sealed.

Quickly he searched for the manner of death, for there could be no
coincidence about two such catastrophes in the same spot. In spite of
the coroner's verdict, murder was the only sensible deduction. Yet he
found no slightest souvenir of violence. The face alone held a record of
an attack--the features were twisted as if from its vehemence, and the
eyes appeared to secrete some shocking vision.

Garth sprang to his feet. Alden's sick fear and his wife's hysterical
misgivings were placed on a basis far sounder than imagination. A
danger, unconformable, but none the less real, skirted their isolated
house, had at last, according to the woman, forced an entrance.

Garth knew his limitations. He must have help, and now Alden must be
made to talk.

He ran back to the house and stepped through the window. The lamp had
been lighted. It shone on Mrs. Alden who bent over the writing-table,
her gaze directed hypnotically towards the huddled man in the chair.
Garth, since he came from the rear, could not see Alden's face at first.

"Mrs. Alden," he said, "I found your man, out there--"

Her hands left the table. She straightened. With a perceptible effort
she raised her eyes from the chair to meet Garth's.

"Not de--"

She put her hand to her mouth and crushed back the word.

Garth nodded.

"I must have help. Where's the telephone?" he asked.

He started for the hall.

"Lock that window," he said. "I've left it open."

Suddenly he paused and turned. A sound, scarcely human, had come from
the chair--a hollow, a meaningless vocal attempt, as though there were
no palate behind it, no tongue to shape its intention.

From where he stood Garth could see Alden distinctly enough. His head
was sunk forward on his chest. His fingers clutched powerlessly at the
chair arms. His eyes appeared to have hoarded and just now released all
the strength of which his meager body had been stripped. They flashed
with a passionate purpose which drew Garth magnetically until he was
close and had stooped and was staring into them with a curiosity almost
as pronounced as their eagerness.

"What is it, Mr. Alden?" he asked.

The other's fingers continued to stray about the chair arms.

"You've got to tell me what you know--all you suspect," Garth urged.
"We've murder on our hands. What do you know?"

Alden's head rose and fell affirmatively.

"Out with it."

But Alden did not answer, although his eyes burned brighter; and Garth
guessed.

"Speak, Mr. Alden," he begged.

Alden's lips moved. His throat worked. His face set in a grotesque
grimace.

"There's danger for all of us," Garth cried. "The time for silence has
passed."

Then Alden answered, but it was only with that helpless, futile
sound--such a whimper as escapes unintelligibly from the fancied
fatality of a nightmare.

Garth drew back. Now when it was too late Alden wanted to talk. Now when
he had been robbed of the power he craved the abandonment of words.

"Mrs. Alden," Garth whispered. "You know your husband can't speak! Look
at him!"

About her advance there was that hypnotic quality Garth had noticed
before. He read in her face, moreover, a sympathy and a love that made
it as difficult of unmoved contemplation as the helpless suffering in
Alden's.

Alden smiled sorrowfully as his wife came close and stooped to him. His
hands ceased their straying about the chair arms. They rose with a quick
motion, an unsuspected strength, and closed about her white and
beautiful throat.

She did not cry out. Perhaps there was no time. Her eyes closed. Her
lips were wistful.

Garth tore at the man's fingers. It took all his force to break their
hold. And as he fought the answer to a great deal came to him. Alden was
clearly insane, and his wife's fear and John's doubt of her safety were
accounted for. Yet it didn't answer all. What was the share of the
shrouded army in the forest? What was the connection of the death that
had struck there twice?

Alden's vise-like grip was broken. Mrs. Alden swayed against the
writing-table, gasping. Alden's whimpering had recommenced.

Garth looked from one to the other.

"Good God!" he said.

She turned on him.

"Why did you come? It is your fault."

Garth pointed at the cabinet where the medicine was kept. The nightmare
whimpering did not cease.

"Get him something," Garth directed. "The doctor must have left you a
narcotic."

She walked with a pronounced lurch to the cabinet where Garth heard her
fumbling among the bottles, but he did not turn away from Alden. The
imbecile sounds stopped, but the lips worked ineffectively again. One of
the hands moved slowly with an apparent sanity of purpose. Garth
realized that it was motioning him back. Alden started to rise. Garth
saw his veins swell and the emaciated muscles strain as he literally
dragged himself out of the chair and braced his elbows against the
writing-table. He grasped a pencil and wrote rapidly on a piece of
paper. Garth understood, and he reached out for the sheet on which Alden
had written the words--perhaps a warning, perhaps the truth--which his
tongue had been unable to form.

"Don't touch that paper."

There was a new quality about the voice Garth could not deny. There was
no more tinkling of glass at the cabinet. He found it difficult to
credit Mrs. Alden with that clear, authoritative command. He turned
warily and looked into the muzzle of his own revolver. Mrs. Alden's
outstretched hand, he noticed, did not waver.

"What does this mean?" he cried.

"It means," she answered in a tired voice, "that if you read what is on
that paper you'll leave me no choice. I shall have to shoot."

Alden whimpered again. The paper fluttered to the floor and rested,
white and uncommunicative, beneath the table. His face set. He pointed
accusingly towards the rear window.

The gesture was clear to Garth. He knew what it meant before his eyes
followed its direction. Before he had seen, he appreciated almost
palpably the new presence in the room. At the moment it seemed
inevitable to him that the tense group should be joined by a stronger
force, the inspiration, probably, of the mysteries that had posed it,
and that worked ahead, he could not doubt, to a graver issue for Alden
and himself.

The newcomer glided from the shadows by the window and moved to Mrs.
Alden's side--huge, powerful. The cap, drawn low over his eyes, and the
thick growth about the mouth, robbed his face of expression and gave to
his actions a mechanical precision not lightly to be disturbed. He took
the revolver from the woman.

"I couldn't," she said. "He hasn't read. It won't be necessary?"

"Necessary," the man answered, "but you were right. Not in that way. It
leaves too much evidence. As the others went."

"No more death," she cried. "There has been too much death."

"These days the world is full of death," he answered. "What are one or
two here?"

The voice carried as little expression as the face or the figure, but an
accent, which Garth knew, hindered its flow, and defined the situation
with a brutal clearness.

He turned at a slipping behind him, a heavy fall. Alden lay on the
floor, his hand stretched towards the futile spot of white beneath the
table. His wife stumbled across and knelt beside him, restlessly
fingering his shoulders.

"Andrew!" she cried. "You don't understand. Look at me. You have to
understand. I love you. Nothing changes that."

The newcomer moved to her, and, without relaxing his vigilance, grasped
her arm.

"There's too much to be done to-night for tears. Keep your watch."

He indicated Garth.

"I'll come back and attend to him later."

She continued to stare at her husband's closed eyes.

"He knows now, but you shan't kill him. I tell you you shan't kill him."

"When the occasion arises you will follow your duty," he said.

He turned to Garth, pointing to the oak door in the rear corner.

"You will go in there."

A flashing recollection of Nora decided Garth. Resistance now, he knew,
as he studied the great figure, would mean the end, whereas, if he
waited and obeyed, the knife, secreted in his felt, offered a possible
escape.

"Wait!" the man snapped.

He thrust the revolver in Mrs. Alden's hand while he ran quickly over
Garth's clothing. The thickness of the belt escaped him. He found only
the pocket lamp.

"The telephone is disconnected," he said, evidently to reassure the
woman. "Your husband is too weak to leave the house, and no one will
come near it until daylight. We won't cross that bridge before we reach
it."

She shuddered.

The other opened the oak door and motioned Garth to enter. He went
through, simulating a profound dejection, but actually reaching out
again to confidence. For the man would come back to visit him with the
silent, undemonstrative violence that had done for the two men in the
woods, but Garth would be waiting for him, behind the door, with his
knife. Therefore, when the door was locked, he commenced hopefully to
examine his prison.

The night, he found after a moment, was not complete in here. It
possessed a quality, milky but lustreless, reminiscent of the shroud
through which the shadowy figures had paraded. It retained, however, the
obscurity of thorough darkness. He had a feeling, indeed, of standing in
a darkness that was white.

There must be windows over there, many windows. He felt his way across.
The wall, as well as the interior face of the door, was lined with sheet
tin, suggesting immediately the nature of his prison--a dismantled
conservatory. The glazed end was of small panes, heavily leaded. The
frames in themselves offered a resistance to escape as efficacious as
prison bars.

The arrangement, nevertheless, gave him one advantage. A single door to
guard removed the threat of a surprise.

In the centre of the floor he found a considerable heap of wood,
probably the fittings of the place. He scarcely dared pause to examine
it. He hurried back to his post at the doorway, removed the knife from
his belt, jointed it, and tested the point against his finger. He didn't
know how long his respite would last. He couldn't hazard a guess as to
the nature of the big man's occupation. He could only estimate its
importance by the fact that it had prevented the other's dealing
summarily with him.

He had entered the case with too little light. Nora had been right. One
can not follow a straight course through the dark. Only a few dim
outlines offered themselves for his appraisal. Mrs. Alden had made her
choice between an evident, an exceptional affection for her husband and
an enterprise directed by the sinister figure who had stepped from the
shadows. Of what a vast importance that enterprise must be since it had
prodded her to such a decision, since it had made her acquiesce,
however unwillingly, in murder to safeguard its progress! She faced
even the death of her own husband because he had learned too much of its
intention. And she had no slightest amorous tendency--of that Garth was
sure--towards the bearded giant to whose will she bent her own with a
pitiable humility. The lack of that world-wide, easily comprehensible
motive to wrong, taken with the leader's German accent, directed Garth's
logic to the furnaces, which night after night stained the sky with a
scarlet, significant of their feverish industry. Yet the shadowy figures
of the woods were still elusive, unless the place was used as a
rendezvous and the affair to-night approached a crisis. Could he escape?
Would he be in time to prevent a crime of such proportions, of such
disquieting possibilities?

He stiffened at a stealthy movement of the key in the lock. The answer
lay just ahead. Garth could not doubt that the German was about to
enter, to annihilate in his subtle manner an enemy he believed unarmed.

With his left hand he braced himself against the door-frame for the
stroke, while with his right hand he lifted the knife. The necessity of
striking without warning sickened him. He had no choice. There was too
much eager help within ear-shot of an alarm. The stakes loomed too
commandingly to tolerate a sentimental hesitation. It was not only his
own life in the scales. The lives of those who toiled at the furnaces
swayed with his. But it was from the recollection of Nora that he drew
the most strength, from the desire to see her again; to watch her quiet
figure--a little inscrutable, unconsciously provocative; to hover again
on the edge of an avowal, alert for his favorable moment.

The door hinges responded to a pressure. The lamp had evidently been
extinguished again, for he saw in the uncertain radiance of the embers a
thing, scarcely definable as human, prone beyond the threshold.

The empty doorway, the inert object on the floor, the darkness, accented
rather than diminished by the embers, blurred his calculations. Where
was the one who had opened and for whom his knife was eager?

Unexpectedly a brilliant light flashed in his eyes and went out.
Half-blinded, he sensed the presence of something on the sill, and he
struck downward with all his force. He reached only emptiness. The one
on the sill had sprung through. From somewhere in the house Garth heard
the patter of hastening feet.

He fought away the effects of the flash, striving to locate the one who
had entered. There beside the heap of rubbish knelt a form darker than
the white darkness.

He moved noiselessly over. He reached down and grasped the bent
shoulder, and, as the shoulder recoiled from his touch, so he recoiled
from its quality that revealed the presence in his prison of a woman.

Through his amazement he heard the door close, but he felt sure of
himself now. Mrs. Alden was his prisoner--a hostage, if he chose, for
his own escape, unless, indeed, she had finally revolted and come to his
aid.

"Get up," he said roughly.

The woman's sigh conveyed relief. Something scraped beneath her hand. A
tiny flame was born and entered into the base of the rubbish.

Then the woman turned slowly, and, in the light of the flame, Garth
looked into Nora's excited eyes and smiling face.

Incredulous, he grasped her arms, lifted her to her feet, and stared.
The growing flame struck a flash from his knife, drove into his brain a
full realization of the monstrous misunderstanding which had nearly
involved them in unspeakable disaster.

"Good God, Nora! I nearly--I tried to--"

Her smile grew.

"I didn't know what I should find in here. I couldn't afford to take
chances."

"But I left you in New York," he went on uncertainly. "How did you come?
Why are you here?"

"No time for explanations now," she answered quickly. "We must get out
of here."

He recalled the patter of hastening feet, the soft closing of the door.
In the growing light he saw its tin-sheeted face flush with the wall.

"The door has been shut," he said. "I'm afraid--locked. Why did you
light that fire?"

She ran across, grasped the knob, then commenced to beat with her fists
at the tin. Suddenly she stopped. Her shoulders drooped.

"No use," she whispered. "She must have come in. She won't open now."

Garth hurried to her side.

"I don't understand," he said, "but it's evident we are caught here, and
that fire has been fixed--a signal?"

She nodded.

"Why did you light it?"

"Because," she answered dully, "it had to burn to-night."

The crisis they faced was clear to him.

"Nora! In a minute this room will be a furnace."

He imagined from the excitement still flashing in her eyes that she did
not quite realize, but she spoke without regret, and her words carried
the shocking fatality of the German's.

"I'm sorry, Jim, but if I had known we would be caught I would have
lighted it just the same. After all, a small price in the long run--only
the two of us."

He brushed the rapid perspiration from his face. The fire had reached
the heart of the pile. The air thickened with a reddish, pungent smoke.
He choked.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I came only to help you, but I found--"

The vapour cut her voice.

The sentimental possibilities of their predicament came with a gentle
wonder to Garth. They over-weighed the danger, robbed him for the moment
of full comprehension. This clearly was his moment, and whatever the
next might bring seemed a fair exchange for her probable response. He
reached blindly towards her through the smoke.

"Nora!"

His heart leapt as she swayed a little. Then he heard the grating of the
key in the lock. It impressed him as curious that the saving sound
carried to him a sense of disappointment, the emptiness of a destiny
unfulfilled.

Nora turned the knob. He pushed against the door. They stumbled into the
next room, breathing deeply the fresh, clean air.

Alden's prostrate form lay just within. His wife stood across the room
by the hall door, the revolver held listlessly in her hand. Her hair,
more than ever disordered, fell about her weary eyes, and gave her face
an air of ironical witchery.

Garth caught the meaning of the tableau. He glanced with admiration at
the sick man, appreciating the bitter obstacle he had overcome, the
abhorrent chance he had taken after conquering his physical incapacity
and reaching the door. The result, Garth noticed, had carried to Alden a
vast relief, a shadow of content. The light from the conservatory
flickered about his face, exposing an expression of pride. The silent
lips moved as if to frame a boast.

"So, Mrs. Alden," Garth said, "you left him again. To warn the others?"

She did not answer. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyway," he went on, "when you came back and found him at the key you
didn't have time to get to him, and you weren't quite as bad as you
should have been. You let him unlock the door. You didn't have the nerve
to shoot--your husband."

"Don't, Jim," Nora warned. "You don't understand."

Frankly he didn't, but he knew that Mrs. Alden, in a sense, still
controlled the situation. Her revolver could compel their movements. Its
explosion would doubtless bring help swarming to her side.

"And you see," Nora went on, speaking to her gently, "what a useless
sacrifice it would have been. Everything was finished for you the moment
I lighted the beacon."

Mrs. Alden nodded.

Garth grinned as the protective feminine instinct expressed itself
through this woman in her most intricate hour.

"It was all arranged," she said. "If you will close that door the house
will be safe enough from the fire."

She indicated her husband. There were tears in her eyes again.

"You will take care of him?"

"Yes," Nora said.

She turned and closed the door. Through the sudden darkness Garth heard
Mrs. Alden run into the hall. He sprang after her, but Nora's voice,
sharp and commanding, halted him.

"Let her go, Jim. I'll explain. Light the lamp now."

"You've earned the right to give the orders," he said.

He felt his way to the writing-table and lighted the lamp.

"You know," he said, "that there are many men near here--that they can
trap us in this house?"

"I don't think," she answered, "that they will come to this house
again."

He turned to her.

"Nora! What is it? Even after all I've seen I can't be sure. The
furnaces? They are two miles away."

She shook her head.

"Not the furnaces, Jim. Come with me and I will show you."

She led him to an unlighted room across the hall and flung back the
curtains.

The glare of a conflagration, far vaster than that which had threatened
them in the conservatory, flashed in their eyes and lighted the
neighborhood with a brilliancy fiercer than noonday.

For the first time Garth could see that the house stood on a high,
wooded plateau. The trees had been cleared away between it and the
water, and a slope, bordered with hedges, had been blasted to a beach,
small and crescent-shaped. The fire blazed with a destructive violence
in a structure on this beach. He recalled the driver's gossip about
Alden's yacht. He saw a small launch, heavily-laden, making for the open
sea.

"The boat house," he said.

"Yes," Nora answered. "Look."

She drew a little back. An explosion tore at their ears. Somewheres
upstairs a window broke. The tinkling of glass was like an absurdly
attenuated echo. But Garth's attention was fixed on the boat-house. The
building appeared to disintegrate. Out of its ruins rose a colossal
column of muddy smoke. From its summit streaming banners of purple and
violet flame unfurled. They waved their frantic message to Garth. He
turned, gaping, to Nora.

"That building!" he gasped. "It's crowded with gasolene--oil!"

"You didn't guess, Jim? You see now I couldn't take chances. I had to
light the signal that made them fire this."

"And you were right," he agreed. "Only the two of us--"

He gazed at her wonderingly. There was only pride in his voice.

"How many lives! How many millions of dollars! You've spared them,
Nora."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Garth had lifted Alden to the sofa and had left Nora hovering over the
man who, they knew now, had been systematically drugged for days. After
reconnecting the telephone and notifying the federal authorities he had
returned to the living-room. Nora arose, and, with her finger at her
lips, joined him by the fireplace.

"He's asleep," she said. "You know, Jim, there wasn't much point in your
telephoning. They've destroyed the evidence. They've gone."

She sat down. Garth drew a chair close to her. Their voices were low in
order that Alden might not be disturbed.

"Was it near?" he asked. "The fact that they took the launch--yet they
might put in at some lonely cove and scatter."

"It must have been expected soon," she answered. "They were working
desperately. They were very anxious to-night."

"You must have guessed, Nora, as soon as I left New York. How?"

"By giving father a scolding," she answered with a smile. "I knew that
Mrs. Alden had been born in Berlin, and that her family was still
prominent there where Mr. Alden had married her. Even since her marriage
she's spent much time abroad. I wondered what these shadowy figures were
doing in the woods on foggy nights unless they were transporting
something or working about some building. But Mr. Alden would know if it
had anything to do with the house or the stable. Since he was sick, the
boat-house might be their objective without his knowing it. I suspected
the truth then. Such an opportunity! No one would doubt the property of
a man who manufactured ammunition for the government. The natural
thought was that any attempts by Germans here would be directed against
the furnaces or Alden personally. It was ideal. All that was necessary
was to scare the servants away and keep Alden in the house while his
wife and the rest made ready for it."

"Still those men in the woods?" Garth asked.

"They were probably working at the furnaces. When you saw them they were
on their way to the boat-house to make the necessary alterations. And,
of course, they carried all the supplies there. You see, I went to the
freight agent of the only railroad that runs to Deacon's Bay. He helped
me a lot. We found that a large number of heavy cases had been sent here
and to nearby stations, falsely invoiced and labelled to be called for.
He had suspected gasolene in one of them and was about to hold up
further shipments. That settled it for me. I knew you were going
blindly, so I took the next train."

"How did you learn about the signal?" he asked.

"I came very quietly," she answered, "a little like a sneak-thief, I'm
afraid. That front window is a little open. I overheard Mrs. Alden and a
huge man. Of course she was only to light that signal if the game was
wholly up. It meant to them that there was a party big enough to handle
the lot of them. So I made up my mind I must slip in and burn it
to-night, in case it was near by. I knew then they would burn the
evidence, escape themselves, while the submarine would turn back,
believing that the game was up."

"What a base!" he muttered. "With the trans-atlantic lanes at its mercy.
All those transports and freighters marked for destruction! Alden saved
the fat."

"Yes," Nora answered, "I gathered from what they said that he made sure
to-night somehow and faced her with it. That was when she screamed and
tried to send you out. Then her courage failed her and she called you
back. She wasn't strong enough for murder. And from her point of view
what she did was pure patriotism."

"It was because he suspected his wife, poor devil," Garth answered,
"that he'd tell me nothing. I guess he hoped I'd convince him he was
wrong."

He had been staring at the fire. He looked up now to find that Nora was
knitting complacently on something heavy and comfortable and grey. Her
eyes were thoughtful.

"Wife against husband," she mused. "Such tragedies are common in war.
And she loved him. Have you noticed the conservatory door?"

It stood open. Through the glass Garth could see the far sea, still
ruddy from the fire, and there entered again into his consciousness the
restless clamor of water.

"He made me open it," Nora went on. "He looked out there until he went
to sleep--a sort of farewell, a welcome if she should come back.
Perhaps she will some day."

Such devotion stirred anew in Garth the sensations he had experienced in
the conservatory. He watched Nora as her fingers moved with their
accustomed deftness about her knitting. She made the old picture,
lovable and tempting, of quiet, house-wifely efficiency.

"You always knit," he said in an uncertain voice.

"Another winter is very close," she answered gravely, "and if the peace
should be delayed there would be so much suffering--"

He stretched out his hand.

"Nora," he said huskily, "you've saved my life to-night. It's yours.
What will you do with it?"

She glanced up. She smiled a little.

"You very nearly took mine, Jim, so aren't we quits?"




CHAPTER X

THE COINS AND THE CHINAMAN


On their way to the station, and during their long journey to New York,
Nora drew back from any attempt of Garth's in the direction of
sentiment. Frequently he stared at her with a whimsical despair. It was
clear enough that he was not distasteful to her. He fancied, moreover,
that he had through his very persistence softened perceptibly the girl's
regret for Kridel; had remodeled to an extent her earlier attitude of a
widow. Would he, however, he asked himself, be able to go the whole way?

Now she wished to talk of trivial things, to make a lark of their
luncheon in Boston, to get as far away as she could from the dangerous
and uncertain profession which had taken Kridel from her, and which
might, even before she could resolve her own feelings, involve Garth in
some fatal accident. Once he recurred to the gray mask, and spoke of
Slim and George, whose trial would soon begin. She trembled slightly, he
thought. She wouldn't let him go on. Her fear, he was certain, was not
for herself. That much encouraged. Yet this rivalry with one who had
been for some time dead often brought him a sensation of complete
helplessness; for Nora was not one to pose. She was honest with herself,
with Garth, with the dead man. Perhaps some grave sacrifice would
resolve her doubts. He felt himself capable of that. He fell into her
mood at last, and found the journey home too short. In retrospect it
assumed an increased value. During a long period he saw practically
nothing of Nora.

For a month or more he found no comfort in his work. Headquarters, he
remarked many times, was a rest cure for anybody who wanted one.

All at once that altered, as such things happen, without warning. He had
spent an hour or so on an unimpressive case, and it was nearly midnight
when he turned south from the frontier of Harlem.

From time to time a light snow fell, and always there was a vaporous
quality about the cold night air which added to the waywardness of his
unexpected experience.

He walked for a long time, scarcely aware of the landmarks of the
neighbourhood, rehearsing thoughts which, these last few weeks, had
grown familiar and unpalatable. Now, as always, they failed to guide him
to any explanation of Nora's abrupt abandonment of her routine. His
recent visits at the flat had thrown him into the hospitable hands of
the inspector, who, however, had maintained an incomprehensible silence
as to his daughter's whereabouts. Garth could read in this attitude no
antagonism to his own ambitions. He was confident that the result of
his campaign for Nora's heart depended wholly on the girl herself.

He realized it was growing late. Absent-mindedly he turned into a side
street, intending to reach Third Avenue and climb the steps of the
nearest elevated station.

It was the discreet murmuring of a motor that routed finally his
preoccupation. A limousine of an extravagant type had halted close to
the curb at the end of the block. It pointed a contrast which stirred
the detective's curiosity. The street, he noticed now, in common with
many this far up-town, was inadequately lighted, but, in spite of the
veils placed by the snow and the haze over the few gas lamps, a glance
informed him that fashion had not invaded this far. The buildings, with
high stoops and sunken areaways, were of a depressing, tasteless
similarity--doubtless cheap boarding-houses or dreary converted
apartments. He wondered what such an automobile did here, unless,
perhaps, the chauffeur, alone, had some object. But he saw that, while
the chauffeur retained his seat, the door was opened from the inside and
a tall man, in a high hat and a fur coat, which exposed an evening
shirt, stepped with nervous haste to the sidewalk.

Garth slackened his pace. He kept to the shadows near the house line. He
watched with increasing interest while the man crossed the pavement,
and, instead of climbing the steps, stooped to place an object on the
ground. He saw him rise then and take something from his pocket which he
tossed in the air. He was not surprised when the man failed to catch
it. He heard it, whatever it was, strike the sidewalk, clicking
metallically.

The man dropped to his knees and with wide gestures searched
the flagging and the gutter. After a moment the chauffeur
exclaimed--angrily, Garth fancied--then descended from his seat and
joined the hunt.

Garth, speculating on this unconventional performance, stepped casually
into an areaway, as if, indeed, it was his destination. From this
shelter he observed the outcome.

The chauffeur picked up something which he thrust into the other's hand.
After glancing quickly around he sprang to his seat while the man in
evening clothes straightened, returned to the limousine, and closed the
door. The car rolled almost silently up the street.

What, Garth questioned, had been left with such care on the sidewalk in
front of the corner house? What object, probably similar, had occasioned
the search?

When the car was nearly opposite him the man inside tapped on the pane.
On a subdued note the chauffeur exclaimed again, then pulled the car to
the curb and stopped it.

Once more the well-dressed man left the limousine and crossed the
sidewalk. For the second time he bent and placed something carefully on
the ground. It lay within Garth's reach, but just outside his line of
vision. In fact, Garth could have grasped the other, so close was he;
and he could see, in spite of the inefficient light, that he was young
and probably good-looking. His inspection, however, was limited, for the
other arose, breathing harshly, as if he were labouring under an
unfamiliar excitement, and returned to the car.

As the driver set his gears and let the clutch in Garth reached through
the areaway railing and fumbled about the sidewalk for the object. His
fingers found it--round, flat, hard--not at all puzzling in itself, yet
completely unintelligible as a clue to the young man's motive in placing
it there. It was a piece of money.

Garth slipped from the areaway. He held his find up to the nearest lamp.
The piece of money was a five dollar gold piece. He glanced along the
street. The automobile had just swung from sight. He started quickly
after it, because it had occurred to him that if such a performance were
repeated in Park Avenue, his curiosity would make him stop the machine,
would suggest a number of questions to the young man in the fur coat,
would seek an explanation of the chauffeur's furtive impatience.

When he turned the corner he was not surprised to find the limousine
halted again, to see the young man returning from a third excursion to
the house line where, doubtless, he had with an extreme anxiety placed
another piece of money.

Garth broke into a run. The chauffeur glanced over his shoulder and
muttered quickly to the man, who sprang in. As soon as the door was
closed the car started with a speed almost affirmative of flight.

Garth held up his hand with the gold piece and shouted. The car went
faster. He hastened to read the license number on its rear. As he wrote
it in his pocket book he watched the red of the tail light diminish and
disappear.

He walked over and picked up a twenty-five cent piece. Why then had the
young man left five dollars around the corner? He stared at the two
coins, his bewilderment growing. What could be the explanation of this
trail of money, left with a scrupulous care on New York pavements? Of
what abnormal diligence could such an eccentricity be an echo? How
pronounced was its significance?

Almost certainly another coin lay close to Lexington Avenue where the
car had first stopped. It was not probable that a third exhibit would
reflect any light on the affair, still he wanted to learn the
denomination of that coin, and evidently it was the final goal of his
curiosity to-night.

As soon as he turned the corner he saw that he would be too late. The
discovery heightened his interest. Breathlessly, he slipped into an
areaway and watched.

A singularly small figure of a man shuffled across Lexington Avenue and,
as if with an assured purpose, made for the corner stoop. The arc light
down there, while it emphasized few details, sharpened Garth's wonder at
the size and shape of the newcomer. He was inclined to explain him as a
small boy, masquerading in mature clothing. Yet there was about the
shoulders a thickness and a curve which did not belong to youth. The
face was concealed by the turned-up collar of a diminutive overcoat and
by a felt hat, drawn low over the eyes. Even at a distance the figure
projected an air of the lawless and sinister.

The man bent and picked up the coin. Afterwards he continued towards
Garth, not, however, in a straight line. He shuffled stealthily, his
feet scarcely leaving the ground, in a series of zig-zags across the
sidewalk. And always his shoulders remained bowed, the eyes lowered, as
if he examined with a vital solicitude every inch of his path.

It was obvious to Garth that there was some connection between the young
man in the limousine and this stunted, clandestine figure who followed
his trail with such anxious vigilance. Therefore he felt justified in
setting a small trap. If its issue involved him in a mistake a laugh
would extricate him. But he foresaw no mistake. The deformed thing
approaching was not to be explained as a peaceful, if tipsy, citizen,
bound for home. So he placed the five dollar gold piece just outside the
railing. He removed his gloves. He took his pocket lamp from his coat
and held it ready. If the other saw the money and tried to pick it up he
would be quite at the mercy of Garth's lamp and hands.

That would happen, for the man had evidently caught the pallid gleaming
of the gold. Without increasing his pace he shuffled across and
stooped, stretching out his hand. Up to this point the other's activity
had worn an established air. Garth proceeded to rout its complacence. He
reached through the railing, and as the hand was about to close over the
money grasped it with all his strength.

He had been prepared for fright, for a struggle, but scarcely for the
shrill, animal cry that greeted his surprise, nor for the violent and
unnatural strength that quivered through the little body as it tried to
break away.

And at first Garth combatted a quick impulse to let go. The quality of
the bare hand in his own revolted him. The fingers were long, slender,
and hard. The skin was dry. It gave him an impression that there was no
flesh between it and the bones it covered.

"Steady, my friend," he muttered. "That's my money in your claw. Let's
have a look at you."

The other's squirming increased. The scream was not repeated. Only a
difficult, sobbing sound came recurrently from the man's throat.

At last Garth managed to twist the small wrist so that practically he
controlled the fellow's movements. Then he pressed the button of his
lamp. The light shone mercilessly upon an abhorrent face.

The skin was yellow, and tight, like parchment, across the high cheek
bones. The tiny eyes lay far back in rounded sockets. In the lamplight
they were deceptively reminiscent of the eyes of a cat. But it was on
the head, from which the hat had fallen, that Garth's glance lingered
with the most distaste. A queue was curled about it. It gave the last
touch to the fantasy of the snow, the mist, the deserted street of old
houses--a fitting setting for the night's vagaries.

For him the coil of hair gleamed like a serpent, carefully poised and
awaiting the most favorable moment for its stroke. As the yellow head
moved spasmodically the coil appeared to writhe. It provoked Garth's
imagination. With quiet eloquence it symbolized a vicious conservatism,
publicly dead. It suggested secret ceremonials in forbidden shrines. In
a broader sense it was the outward survival, properly snake-like, of
unconquerable and scarcely apprehended customs.

Garth shuddered. He found it more difficult than before to cling to that
bony hand. He arose, snapped off the light, and grasped the Oriental by
the shoulder.

"How did you know you'd find this money on the sidewalk?" he asked.

The other shivered, as if for the first time the cold had reached him.

"Talk up," Garth ordered. "Who's the fashion-plate that left it?"

The Chinaman made a last effort to escape. Garth subdued him.

"No talk-ee, eh? All right, little one. Then you'll have a nice free
ride downtown--just as a suspicious character."

For a possibility had occurred to him from which he shrank. Still,
since it existed, it dictated a clear enough duty. He stepped from the
areaway.

"Hustle along, sonny."

The other exploded into a torrent of Chinese. Garth understood not a
word, yet the shrill voice, rising and falling, cried to him a fear and
a despair that were tragic.

"Bluff away," he muttered, "though I don't see what good it will do you.
Plenty of interpreters at headquarters. Point is, are you coming
peaceably, or will I have to wake up a patrolman to get a wagon?"

The Chinaman was on the point of collapse. Garth practically carried him
to the corner. He experienced a feeling of remorse, which, however,
vanished before the recollection of the queue, glistening, serpent-like.

He was relieved to turn his man over at headquarters. He saw him placed
in an empty detention cell.

"Sleep tight," he called as the key turned. "Maybe you'll learn English
by morning."

His own sleep was untroubled, save by his persistent uneasiness about
Nora.

As soon as he was up the next morning he telephoned the Bureau of
Licenses and apparently ran his one clue into a dead wall. The
limousine, he found, belonged to Thomas Black, a young man of more than
ordinary wealth and position. Garth flushed uncomfortably. He began to
suspect that he had been guilty of an indiscretion, for Black, some
years ago, had married the sister of Rufus Manford, whose recent
selection as head of the Society for Social Justice had set in motion a
cumbersome amount of self-satisfied and unusually ill-designed activity
against crime. Still Garth knew that Manford was working with the
inspector now on some urgent cases about which little was said at
headquarters. It was possible, then, that the trail of coins had been
arranged by Manford in the society's office for a purpose which his
interference might have destroyed.

But the growing day diminished the importance of the whole adventure.
That returned to it only when the telephone summoned him as he was about
to leave his rooms.

"Hello!" he called.

The voice that answered was gruff, disapproving, almost reproachful, he
would have said.

"It's Ed, at headquarters. Say, you've got me in bad. Hustle on down.
Inspector's on his ear and wants you."

"What's up, Ed?"

"That pigtail of yours. Can't make out the chief. Might be a member of
his own family."

"What are you driving at, Ed? What's the matter with the pigtail?"

"Dead--that's all."

"Dead!" Garth echoed.

"Yup. Must have done it right after you left. Choked himself to heaven
with his bloomin' queue. Now if he'd had it cut off proper--"




CHAPTER XI

NORA DISAPPEARS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE


For the first time Garth entered the inspector's office with the
discomfort of a culprit. Yet he could not accuse himself justly of
blundering. Nevertheless the brief telephone conversation with the
doorman had informed him that the inspector attached an uncommon
importance to the chance capture of the Chinaman. Because of it he would
place the blame for the suicide where it fell most conveniently.

When he opened the door he appreciated that there was more than that out
of the way at headquarters this morning. A woman bent, ancient, poor,
sat in a chair to the right of the inspector's desk. He could hazard no
more concerning her, because of an intricately-patterned shawl which was
draped over her head and nearly covered her face. Her presence was less
astonishing than her bearing in this room, terrible alike to wrong-doers
and to the reluctant witnesses of crime. Her attitude, indeed, was
expectant. Her lack of distrust impressed him as aggressive. Moreover,
its customary rumble had left the inspector's voice which had flowed,
Garth had remarked, with a conciliatory blandness.

It paused shortly as Garth entered. The huge man turned slowly in his
chair. His eyes, somnolent as a rule, fixed Garth with a lively
reproach.

"Shut the door," he grumbled.

Garth obeyed.

"Here's a pretty mess! Why did you bring him in at all?"

"The chink?" Garth asked mildly.

"No," the inspector roared. "Queen Lilliokulani! Who do you suppose I
mean? How many mugs have you brought in since I saw you last? Maybe you
thought the big Chinese population was unhealthy."

"I never dreamed he'd do that," Garth protected himself.

"Why didn't you warn the boys to keep an eye on him?" the inspector
demanded.

Garth threw up his hands.

"How could I tell? I only brought him in on a chance. I knew you were
after the funny medicine crowd. He was up to some queer business last
night, and I thought he looked the type."

"Yes," the inspector agreed drily, "he certainly looked the type, so
much so that I'd gamble that wizzened brain of his held all I want to
know."

He seized a paper weight and commenced to toss it ponderously from fist
to fist.

"That's what you've let get away from you. Maybe you'll be accommodating
enough to tell me how you happened to pick him up."

Garth glanced questioningly at the woman.

"Don't fret," the inspector said scornfully. "She won't give you away
even if you have made an ass of yourself."

Garth reddened. Impulsively he turned on his heel. Later he would be
ashamed, since he understood the inspector thoroughly. But for the
moment he surrendered himself to pride. The sound of the chair shoved
back by the inspector was not unexpected, nor did he fail to catch the
note of apology, the appeal for terms in the gruff voice.

"Come back here. Where are you going?"

But it was another voice that swung him sharply.

"Jim! Don't lose your temper."

The inspector's fist scattered the papers on his desk top.

"Who's running this office?"

Garth scarcely heard. He strode to the woman. He snatched the
intricately-patterned shawl from her head. The face beneath was old,
stained, and wrinkled; but there was no disguising the dark, young eyes
which smiled up at him.

"So that's why?" he gasped. "You've done it well, Nora. Now maybe I can
know something about it."

She laughed.

"Not if you resign. So much dignity!"

He laughed back.

"Nor if I'm fired."

The inspector grinned.

"I'm glad you let me in this on some basis."

The disclosure of the girl's personality had scattered Garth's revolt,
and her eyes, now that they were no longer concealed, seemed to have
rebuked the inspector to a milder humour.

"Understand," he said, "Nora doesn't tell me any too much how she's
working, and she's been at this off and on for a long time. It's only
the last two weeks that it's gotten serious. She had to see me to-day.
That's why I'm on my ear about the Chinaman. He might have saved her a
good deal. You see, she's working on that case."

Garth's heart sank.

"Dope!" he cried. "It isn't safe. I tell you she's fighting desperate
people, inspector. Look at that Chinaman, whether he's mixed up with the
traffic or not, if a brute like him suspected her!"

The inspector returned to his chair. He waved his hands helplessly.

"Talk to Nora. I've told her all that. Once or twice I've wanted her to
use her brain in cases where there wasn't any risk. Nothing doing. When
this rotten business came up she would go into it on her own hook. I
guess that's because she knows Manford and his high-brow, meddling
society have got the district attorney behind them, and they've put it
up to me hard."

Nora shook her head, smiling a trifle wistfully.

"No, father, I did it to save souls and bodies. You see, Jim, they can
handle the little fellows under the new laws, but everybody knows
there's this one place up-town, marvelously hidden and guarded--a
distributing center, the heart of the whole surviving drug traffic.
When I found out from father that everybody else had failed I just had
to try. My conscience kept at me. Success would turn so much misery into
happiness, so much sickness into health, so much crime into usefulness.
And to-night, I believe, if we're lucky--Jim! I want you to be there."

"She thinks she's spotted the house," the inspector said softly. "That's
what she had to see me about. She wants a raid arranged for to-night."

Garth's voice was anxious.

"How are you working, Nora? I don't like it. I wish you were out of it."

But Nora would tell him nothing, and he realized instinctively that in
her crusade she had taken desperate chances and would face more,
probably the worst, to-night.

"You must tell us," she said, "how you found the Chinaman. I've no doubt
he was one of them. In itself his death was a confession--a pitifully
silent one."

Garth told his story of the man in the limousine, of the trailing
Oriental, of what he had learned at the Bureau of Licenses. Nora offered
no interpretation, but she smiled sympathetically at the inspector's
rage. He saw in the affair more than Garth. To him it meant an
underhanded attempt on the part of the society to trap a material
witness.

"They put it up to me," he grumbled, "then they want to put it over me.
Manford gets a line of his own and keeps it to himself. Out for a little
glory and advertising! What happens every time I work with these
silk-stockinged, fur-coated societies that think they know more about
vice than the police. And to think, Garth, you snitched him away from
them, then let him croak!"

Nora arose.

"No use crying over spilt milk, father."

She prepared to leave. Garth followed her to the hallway. He urged her
to let him share her plans, to give him a more pronounced part in the
risks. She shook her head.

"It's best to let me work this alone until the last minute, Jim."

His one grain of comfort was her insistence that he should be in the van
of the raiding party. So he watched her leave, her grace and beauty
transformed by an inspired ingenuity into the bent lines and the haggard
distortion of a crone.

The day lingered interminably. Whatever Nora had told her father he
guarded with an unqualified stubbornness. Aside from the fact that he
was to join the inspector in an up-town precinct house at ten o'clock,
Garth walked into the affair wholly ignorant of plans or probabilities.

When finally the hour struck and he kept the appointment, he found
Manford, in evening clothes, leaning against the desk while he tested
the inspector's temper with a smiling face and an insinuating
conversation.

Garth had never before seen this amateur in social justice. His first
glance furnished him a share in the inspector's resentment, for clearly
Manford's illusions as to his importance were all of a happy character.
His moustache, arranged with a studied precision, his ruddy complexion,
his eyes, noticeably sarcastic, testified to measureless pride in a
success which, Garth knew, had arisen almost of its own power from his
inheritance. It was not to be doubted that his selection as its head had
given the society in his eyes a majestic and peculiar value.

The fact that the inspector failed to counter impressed Garth. Probably
it would be a sufficient revenge for him to accomplish the raid and
smash the gang with Manford as a witness, yet without his active
assistance.

A number of detectives and some men in uniform were grouped about the
two. The inspector's commands were brief and delivered with an excited
anticipation which he could not conceal. At last he announced the number
of the house. It was in the centre of the block east of that in which
Garth had captured the Chinaman. Some of the men were to reach the back
yard. Others were to guard the roof. The remainder would form the
attacking party at the front.

"When these people find they can't get through," the inspector warned,
"it's a good bet they'll show fight. So look out for yourselves, and
impress on them that your guns aren't watch charms."

Garth, Manford, and the inspector led the way. Garth's misgivings were
far more profound than if the chief risk had been his own. Where was
Nora now? What would such conscienceless men do to her if they found at
the last moment she was responsible for their hopeless predicament?

They walked slowly to give the others time to reach their posts. At last
the inspector glanced at his watch, snapped it shut, and quickened his
pace.

"Come on, boys," he muttered. "The season's open."

The house presented an uncommunicative front. They climbed the steps. No
lights showed in the hall. The windows appeared to be shuttered. The
inspector pulled the old-fashioned bell handle. After an undisturbed
wait he tried again.

"Guess we haven't got the combination, Chief," Garth whispered.

"No time for experiments," the inspector said. He put his shoulder to
the door.

"Give a hand here, boys. Bring that ax."

The lock snapped under their assault. They stumbled through into the
vestibule. Garth choked. He was aware of fine particles of dust in his
nose and his throat. The inspector had been similarly affected.

"Filthy lot!" he sneered. "One more door."

They attacked the inner door. They burst through into a black hallway.
The dust rose in clouds. The inspector snapped his flashlight and fell
back with an exclamation, disappointed and surprised.

The light shone on bare floors and walls. Its power was radically
diminished by the long accumulated dust their entrance had disturbed. As
far as the first floor was concerned they stood in an empty house.

Manford sneered.

"A fine plan of yours, inspector!"

The inspector glared his dislike.

"I'm beginning to think you were jealous a minute ago, young man."

"Then you've quite disarmed my unworthy emotion," Manford laughed.

Garth had read more than dislike in the inspector's manner. It had
veiled, he was sure, a positive, an increasing fear; and the scorn of
his voice had not thoroughly cloaked its uncertainty.

"Get up stairs," he snarled to his men. "Scour every inch of this
place."

He turned back to Manford.

"I'll swear they were here this afternoon. This house was used as a dive
no later than this afternoon."

Manford chuckled, indicating the dust which still whirled in the rays of
the flash light.

The plain-clothes men returned almost at once. There was not a person in
the house--not a piece of furniture. The grime on the walls, the thick
dust testified to its long disuse.

Manford's superior wisdom appeared justified. The intolerance of a
position and a success, both inherited, shone in his eyes, expressed
itself in his voice. He drew his coat closer about him. He touched his
hat. It assumed a jauntier air.

"Good night, inspector," he drawled. "I cut the opera to take in this
example of police efficiency. I hope my society, on its own initiative,
will be able to make more progress with the case. Maybe I'll find some
amusement chatting with the lieutenant at the station house. At least I
can learn from the police what sins to omit."

The inspector strangely, did not answer. Manford lighted a cigarette,
grinning, and strolled down the steps.

Garth marvelled at the inspector's lack of belligerency. He looked at
him more closely. The big man's jaw had fallen. He stared without
purpose at the blank walls. The picture made Garth afraid. He grasped
the inspector's arm. He drew him to one side.

"How were you so sure?" he asked under his breath. "Because Nora gave
you this number?"

The inspector shook his head. His great shoulders trembled.

"No. She had no number to give me. But this afternoon I saw her enter
this house. I watched the door close behind her, and, Garth--she has
never come out."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Garth with frantic haste explored the place himself from roof to cellar.
There was no question. It had remained uninhabited for many months,
perhaps years. Yet Nora had told her father that, while its location had
been kept from her, she had arranged a certain entry to the evil house
that afternoon. She had told him to follow her. He had seen the door
close behind her.

Garth scarcely dared open his mind to full comprehension. If Nora had
been directed to this deserted building and admitted, it was clear that
her connection with the police had been discovered. It was logically
certain that she had walked into an elaborately plotted ambush.

He hurried to the sidewalk where he found the inspector braced heavily
against the rail.

"What can I do, Garth?" the big man asked hoarsely.

What to do, indeed! Garth thrust his hands in his pockets. He stared
helplessly up the street. His glance rested on the corner house of the
next block where last night the man in the fur coat had left the first
coin. Suddenly his breath sharpened. His mind, planning blindly, paused,
drew back, dared again to face the single chance that had risen from the
shadows of the corner house.

He wet his lips. He touched the inspector's shoulder. He understood that
on a bare possibility he would place his entire career in the scales.
Since, however, it balanced Nora's rescue from such unspeakable hands,
he did not hesitate.

"Chief," he whispered, "take your men back to the station house and keep
them ready. I'll telephone you there in a few minutes, fifteen or twenty
at the outside."

"What are you going to do, Garth?"

"Take one chance to get Nora back," he answered quickly, "probably say
good-bye to New York. It was something I thought of last night. It
seemed common sense to forget it this morning. Now I'm going to make
sure. No time to talk."




CHAPTER XII

THE HIDDEN DOOR

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