The Gray Mask by Charles Wadsworth Camp (best reads txt) 📖

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

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

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

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

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

“Maybe, Nora, you’ll tell us how you got in that dive as a first class housemaid.”

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

“Clever, Nora,” the inspector muttered.

She shook her head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s Mr. Alsop, father,” she said—” Mr. Addington Alsop.”

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

“Nora’s got me wound up like a mummy-”

Alsop broke in rapidly.

“No politeness, inspector. I must speak to you. I’m up against it. They’re after me.”

He sat down heavily. The young man, whom he introduced as his secretary, Arthur Marvin, lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers. Garth watched them both while the inspector explained that they might speak freely before him and Nora. Alsop, he knew, because of his genius for organizing money and industry, and his utter ruthlessness in dealing with those whom necessity had thrown within his power, had made dangerous and active enemies. Garth was aware,