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

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 today, 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 sucha 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 awoman 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 buttonhole?”

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 tonight. 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 nigbt. 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