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

AT a gesture from Slim, George cut the cords that bound Garth’s ankles. The detective rose. With a nod Slim motioned George towards the oak door which opened on Marlowe’s cellar.

“Get to the ‘phone,” he whispered. “Pass the fair word, and bring the wheels here on the minute.”

He swung on the detective.

“If you see anybody upstairs, just keep your back turned so they won’t notice your pretty bracelets.”

Garth shivered, aware that a new and disquieting element had entered the situation.

Slim indicated the revolver, held ready in his coat pocket.

“After George, and in front of me. Always like that from now on.”

He touched the bottle of acid which he had taken from George.

“Remember this will be behind you like my gun, but I don’t want to shoot to kill with either. Just a little in the face is better if you try to cut up.”

“You heard my promise,” Garth said.

He followed George through the doorway, resisting continually the impulse to turn around, to assure himself of what he already knew, that Slim was actually alert each moment to discipline his slightest effort at escape.

They crossed the damp spaces of the cellar and climbed the stairs, pausing at the head until they could be certain Marlowe’s evil figure still faced a bar-room, significantly empty.

George hurried to the telephone booth, fastening the door behind him so that Garth could hear nothing. Marlowe wiped his hands on his apron. A sly smile twitched at the corners of his colorless lips.

“Well! Well! Who’s rented the warehouse? Who are your pals, Mr. Garth?”

Garth kept his back turned. The glasses tinkled musically under Marlowe’s nervous fingers.

“Maybe you’ll name your pleasure, gentlemen.”

“Nothing but a little quiet,” Slim grunted.

Marlowe flung up his hands, indicating a profound disapproval.

“Then what you mean coming through my cellar? That might get me in bad with the cops. Or maybe you’re detectives like Mr. Garth?”

Slim responded to the strain of this waiting. He turned angrily on the man.

“How often have I told you, Papa Marlowe, to keep your fat mouth shut?”

For Garth that outburst pitilessly defined the new element. Slim’s anger had let slip real evidence of the proprietor’s lawless connection with the gang;and Slim, Garth knew, was unlikely to make blunders he couldn’t retrieve. This one dovetailed into the fact that the detective could still identify the four confederates he had seen down stairs—that is, if he kept his eyes. Slim, then, had no intention of holding to his bargain with Nora. He would use Garth as far as the border, then he would protect his own through the unspeakable punishment his twisted soul craved. Nor could Garth see any way to save himself. Moreover, he knew Nora too well to cast lightly aside the promise she had drawn from him on a note of command.

George emerged from the booth. The four men stared at each other without words. Once or twice Marlowe started to speak, but at a frown from Slim he smothered the impulse in a busy attention to his bar cloth.

Faintly the whirring of a motor reached them. George sprang for the door. Slim motioned Garth ahead and followed him to the sidewalk where an automobile had drawn up. It exposed, in the vague light, an air of smug respectability in itself protective.

The driver wore a fur coat with a voluminous cape, of a common chauffeur pattern. Its collar was turned up so that it completely hid the lower part of the wearer’s face. Garth didn’t understand at first when Slim took a smaller coat from the car, stooped, and whispered in the driver’s ear. The other stepped obediently to the sidewalk, removed his great coat, handed it to Slim, and slipped onthe smaller one. Slim motioned George and Garth into the car, followed them, and, while he jerked out his instructions, drew down the side curtains. Garth was to sit on the back seat with George, who would keep one hand conveniently on his automatic. Slim would be opposite, his gun handy, and the bottle of acid ready at his side.

“And that isn’t all,” he leered. “You’re too precious to take chances with. Here! Lean forward.”

He flung the chauffeur’s great coat across Garth’s shoulders, and, over his chained wrists, buttoned it tight about him. He chuckled as the car started.

“The cape, George, makes it look as if our friend kept his hands out of sight for warmth. Let’s hope the train’ll be a little chilly, too. Your arms are going to sleep and get a nice rest, Garth.”

He chuckled again. He took his own handkerchief and borrowed George’s. With the two he improvised a gag which he fastened skillfully in the prisoner’s mouth. Then he turned the great collar up so that the gag was hidden.

“You’ve a swell chance to make trouble now, Garth. That’s how I check up on a bull’s promises. If anybody tries to stop us or to snitch you free you’ll get the acid in those shining peepers without being able to move. You’d better pray everybody keeps straight.”

Enough light entered from the front to draw an ashen glow from the acid which he held at his side perpetually ready.

Beyond the driver’s back Garth could follow their route among tortuous downtown thoroughfares into lower Broadway. They went then at a discreet pace straight through the heart of the city. He watched the lights flash by, the impatient traffic, the crowds, hurrying and voluble. Such things, taken with the grim man opposite and his unique threat, became like one of those dreams which project against a familiar background incredible and grotesque details.

The car at last drew a hollow response from the pavement of the Broadway bridge. Slim moved restlessly.

“The first toll-gate, Garth! Who pays the bill?”

And Garth struggled, and could not move his hands, for George cried out, and Slim started to raise the bottle as the horse of a mounted policeman halted across their path. The car stopped.

Swiftly the policeman bent down,