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

THE shadowy figures stood in front of him, holding flashlights. Behind the blinding barrier he could make out Nora, crouched against a stained and rugged wall. And the brute,

George, was at her side, his muscular hands on her arm. Slim stepped out of the obscurity, moving for Garth with a stealth and an evenness nearly cat-like.

Garth raised his revolver, strengthened by the knowledge that the inspector with many men would soon be tearing through the cellar doors. If only he could postpone the issue for himself—fight for time until that saving moment! There lay Nora’s best chance, but her ignorance of such a possibility couldn’t account for the horror in her customarily expressionless face.

“It’s no use,” she screamed. “Get back, Jim! Quick! Through the door!”

Slim was so close that Garth could see the automatic held at his hip.

“You’ll stick here, Garth,” came the smooth tones. “And you might’s well drop your gun.”

Garth saw George’s hands tighten on Nora’s arm. He understood then the real threat by which they would control him.

“Hands off the girl!” he said.

But George smiled, and pressed tighter until Nora cried out involuntarily.

“That means, drop your gun. For any little damage you do here Nora’ll foot the bill.”

She shook her head, but her face recorded an insufferable pain. Garth knew that the one shot for which he would have time would spare her nothing.

“I never expected to see the pride of your gang slinking behind a woman’s skirts,” he sneered. “I suppose those are four of the rats who helped put your breakaway over. Six against one, and a woman for a shield!”

It chilled him that the four strangers exposed their faces to his glance with a contemptuous indifference. He laughed, however, as Slim took his revolver.

“You giants must know that you haven’t the chance of a pretzel at a Dutch wedding.”

Slim affected not to have heard, but his gestures lacked smoothness.

“Let’s see how you enjoy your own jewelry, Garth.”

And he reached in Garth’s pocket and drew out the pair of handcuffs he had been certain to find there. He snapped them on the detective’s wrists. The four confederates lounged forward, produced stout cords, and bound them about Garth’s ankles. His momentary resistance was smothered by Nora’s sharp cry:

“Don’t fight, Jim!”

His sense of utter helplessness increased, while the men, in obedience to Slim’s gestures, stretched him on the floor. The surface was wet, as if the ooze of the river had penetrated this far. Slim stooped and glared at him, his eyes exposing a measureless resentment.

“Thanks for walking into our parlor, you fly cop. We heard how you and the skirt had fallen for each other. We guessed if we gave you a lead with some of her trinklets, you’d play the busy sleuth hound.”

Nora’s voice held the quality of a sob.

“Jim! Why did you come?”

He shrugged his shoulders. He forced on himself a semblance of confidence.

“Planted or not, the trail was my best chance.”

Slim beckoned to George.

“Straight you’ve come to the place where I’ve dreamed for months of getting you.”

Garth managed a grin.

“Cut out the bum acting, Slim. Let’s hear what you’ve got on your mind.”

He shrank from a reply. More and more he was impressed by the indifference with which these confederates constantly revealed their faces. He knew, if the inspector did not arrive quickly, he must suffer an eccentric and barbarous punishment. He tried to forecast the penalty, but his imaginationwas insufficient and his appraisal of Slim’s cruelty too conservative. It wasn’t until George stepped forward and Nora screamed that he guessed why the others were unafraid of his identification, that he understood how his situation might involve more than life and death. And, perhaps, the shambling creature outside had put the inspector’s party on the wrong track.

George placed a pint bottle in Slim’s hand. A smoky liquid did not quite fill it. Slim turned to the others, assuming an attitude of mockery.

“This is the brave guy that sidetracked Simmons last summer and wore the gray mask just as if he had something, too, that would frighten women and children. He’s the bull that steered us against the black cap yesterday. Let’s see how he likes hearing the sentence read himself. Only he isn’t going to get anything as comfortable as the electric chair.”

A laugh sneered through the cellar.

“Better speed it up, Slim,” George advised.

Slim drew the cork from the bottle while his thin lips ceased to smile.

“Since you found a gray mask so becoming, Garth,” he snarled, “it’s only fair to give you honest cause to wear one. But you’ll go poor Simmons one better. Your mask won’t need any eye holes.”

Nora cried out again.

“You couldn’t do it,” Garth muttered.

Beneath his rage lurked a fear of which he had never dreamed himself capable. To face death would have been so much simpler.

“What’s in that bottle, Slim?”

“A black cap for you, damn you! Pure vitriol!”

He bent closer.

“Squirm! Those ropes and your own handcuffs will hold you. You’ll beg me for a bullet before I’m through.”

George twisted the girl so she had to watch.

“Pipe your handsome beau, Nora! You’ll think I’m more your style in about ten seconds.”

She shuddered.

“You’re not bad enough to do that, Slim!”

“Watch me,” he answered.

A complete satisfaction blotted from his eyes the fear he had hitherto never quite concealed—the quiet fear of a strong man who acknowledges his own inevitable destiny. Garth reminded him of that. It was his last weapon.

“They’ll get you, Slim. They’re keeping the chair warm for you. Will this help then?”

Slim laughed.

“Will it hurt? I’ve waited for this moment ever since you and she sent me to rot in the Tombs. I’ll pay old scores while I can.”

With an extreme deliberation he commenced to tip the bottle. The fluid, almost imperceptibly approaching the mouth, exercised for Garth a dreadful fascination. It was easy to estimate its progress. George had been right. In about ten seconds! And he couldn’t get his chained hands to his eyes. He tried to tell himself it was impossible that that innocent-appearing fluid in the control ofthis criminal could condemn him to an unrelieved blackness through which, hideously scarred, he must grope henceforth, a thing repellent and past use.

The lights were centred upon his face. It struck him as ironic that their glare should hurt his eyes.

Suddenly Nora sprang forward. She stretched her hand towards Slim, but she didn’t touch the bottle or his wrist, for the fluid filled the neck; was so close to the edge that a quick contact might have spilled it. George looked on, his hands in his pockets, his attitude expressing satisfaction at a just and long-deferred punishment.

Slim smiled at Nora. He moved the bottle a little. A drop fell. Something tortured the skin of Garth’s cheek. It was as if an iron at white heat had been applied against his flesh with a strong pressure. The stuff was real enough.

Again Slim moved the bottle sluggishly, so that the liquid, ready to trickle out, was directly above Garth’s eyes. Nora reached and closed her hands about the mouth.

“Look out!” George warned. “You’ll get burnt.”

“You see, George won’t stand for that,” Slim said slily.

“No, no, Slim!” Nora whispered. “I’ll bargain.”

” You’re in a swell position to bargain,” George scoffed.

The handcuffs cut into Garth’s wrists.

“You don’t think,” he muttered, “that I was fool enough to follow that trail without covering myself?”

“That doesn’t affect me,” Slim grinned. “There’s a getaway from this place no cop will ever find. Now, Nora! Hands off!”

But she resisted him.

“Slim,” she said breathlessly. “You’re not a fool. You must know that I can bargain. Suppose you got clear—across the border—into Canada? Couldn’t you keep out of trouble once you were there?”

Slim ceased pulling at her hands. He stared at her, amazed, casting aside his last pretence.

“What you talking about, Nora? I know you’re clever, but there aren’t any more miracles. There’s no way out of this town for us.”

Her voice was barely audible.

“Unless my father unlocked the gates.”

Slim started. Garth, too, answered to a desire almost violent. Surely Slim would realize the hopelessness of securing the inspector’s complicity, or, failing that, would seek, as Garth did, for the stratagem behind her plan. Slim, nevertheless, continued to study her, and the narrow face no longer hid his greed for life.

“There’s no way under heaven to get the old man to stand for that.”

She took her hands from the bottle. Her eyes did not waver.

“No one else could do it, but you know how heloves me. I could make him do it as the price for myself and Jim.”

Slim laughed shortly.

“One thing’s certain,” he mused. “If you did get away with it, I could keep you and the inspector straight. I’d take Garth, bound tight, some guns, and the acid along as gilt-edge securities. Hadn’t thought of that, eh? Expected to trip me, didn’t you? Well, Nora, you have let yourself in for a dicker, and, by gad I’m inclined to think it over, because I’ve got you this far: the minute you played queer Garth would go blind and burnt.”

Nora conquered her disappointment.

“You’d swear to let Jim go at the border?”

“On my oath I’d let him go clean.”

“Not for a million,” George broke in angrily. “She gets herself away, then she throws Garth down to see us roast in the chair. You ought to know the skirt. She’d double cross the devil himself.”

Garth waited for Slim’s answer, his gaze controlled again by the acid.

“George,” Slim said slowly, “any chance is worth playing now, for we’re as good as in the chair already. And I don’t believe she’d throw Garth down. You know what she went through with for the sake of a dead lover.”

“You’ve got to show me,” George sneered, “that she’s forgotten the dead one to take on Garth.”

“We heard in the Tombs,” Slim said drily, “that these pigeons wanted to roost on the same stool.”

With a growing wonder Garth watched Nora flingaside her reserve. She turned on George, raising her hands in an attitude of fury, as if inspired by a passion beyond her control.

“And that’s true. If you think I’d let him take that acid give