The Gray Mask — Story, Setting & Ideas

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."

"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.

"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?"

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.

"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.

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."

"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.