The Gray Mask

  CHAPTER XVI

  A NOTE FROM THE DEAD

  Alsop was around the next day, loud with generosity, and anxious to giveGarth the only form of reward he could understand--large sums of money.Garth, however, didn't care for the man. He preferred to keep theirrelations on a purely business basis.

  "I only did my duty, Mr. Alsop," he said. "Some day I may break awayfrom here and start an office of my own. In that case, if you cared tomention me to your friends I would feel I had been well repaid."

  "Maybe you were a little too proud, Garth," the inspector gruntedafterwards.

  Nora, however, when she heard of it, said simply, "Jim, you didperfectly right. If you had taken money from that man he'd have believedhe owned you body and soul."

  "When you two combine against me I've nothing more to say," theinspector grinned.

  Garth knew that the old man watched, with something like anxietyhimself, the progress of his and Nora's friendship. The detective hadlong since made up his mind not to speak to the inspector on thatsubject until he had received some definite encouragement from the girl.The inspector himself brought up the matter about this time. Probablythe impulse came from the trial of Slim and George which began andthreatened, in spite of its clear evidence, to drag through severalweeks.

  It would be necessary, of course, for both Garth and Nora to testifysooner or later. So they rehearsed all the incidents of that night whenGarth had worn the grey mask. After this exercise one evening theinspector followed Garth to the hall.

  "I don't want my girl to become morbid, Jim."

  Garth nodded.

  "You mean Kridel?"

  "You've said it," the big man answered with an attempt at a whisper."I've thought that maybe you and Nora--See here, Jim, I wouldn't mind abit. You see Nora's mother was Italian. I don't altogether understandher, but I know it isn't natural for her to mourn for this fellowforever, and I mean, if you and she ever hit it off, I won't forbid thebanns. Only maybe you'll let me live with you now and then. You don'tknow what that girl means to me, Jim; but I want to make her happy, andI believe you're the one, for a blind, deaf, and dumb man could see youare in love with her."

  Garth laughed, not altogether comfortably.

  "It's up to Nora, chief, but I don't see how I can ever get alongwithout her."

  It wasn't often that the inspector had used Garth's first name. Itseemed to bring the detective closer to his goal. During the daytime atheadquarters, however, their relations were scarcely altered. Garthoften suffered from lack of work there, probably because the inspectordidn't care to send him out on unimportant matters that the leastimaginative of his men could handle. When he had to assign him to anunpromising task, either to spare him too prolonged idleness, or becauseno other detective was available, the big man always assumed anapologetic air. It was so when he started him on the mystifying Taylorcase.

  "Nothing doing these days," he grumbled. "City must be turning pure,Garth. Anyway I got to give it something for its money. Run up and takea look at this suicide. Seems Taylor was a recluse. Alone with hismother-in-law and the servants. Wife's in California. Suppose you hadother plans, but I don't see why the city should pay you to talkmoonshine to Nora."

  He grinned understandingly, encouragingly.

  So the detective nodded, strolled up town, and with a bored air steppedinto that curious house.

  * * * * * *

  Garth for a long time stared at the pallid features of the dead man.Abruptly his interest quickened. Between the thumb and forefinger of theclenched left hand, which drooped from the side of the bed, a speck ofwhite protruded. The detective stooped swiftly. The hand, he saw,secreted a rough sheet of paper. He drew it free, smoothed the crumpledsurface, and with a vast incredulity read the line scrawled across it inpencil.

  "Don't think it's suicide. I've been killed--"

  There was no more. Until that moment Garth had conceived no doubt of theman's self-destruction. The bullet had entered the left side of thebreast. The revolver lay on the counterpane within an inch of the righthand whose fingers remained crooked. The position of the body did notsuggest the reception or the resistance of an attack. In the room nosouvenir of struggle survived.

  Here was this amazing message from the dead man. Its wording, indeed,offered the irrational impression of having been written after death.

  Garth thought rapidly. Granted its accusation, the note must have beenscrawled between the firing of the shot and the moment of Taylor'sdeath. But a murderer, arranging this appearance of suicide, would havegiven Taylor no opportunity. On the other hand, the theory that Taylorhad written the note before killing himself, perhaps to direct suspicionto some innocent person, broke down before the brief wording, its patentincompleteness. One possibility remained. Garth could imagine no motive,but another person might have prepared the strange message.

  A number of books littered the reading table at the side of the bed.Garth examined them eagerly. He found a blank page torn from one--thesheet which Taylor had clenched in his fingers. In another was Taylor'ssignature. When Garth had compared it with the message on the crumpledpaper no doubt remained. Taylor himself had written those obscure andprovocative words.

  Garth found the pencil on the floor beneath the bed, as if it had rolledthere when Taylor had dropped it. The place at the moment had nothingelse to offer him beyond an abnormally large array in the bath room ofbottles containing for the most part stimulants and sedatives. Theymerely strengthened, by suggesting that Taylor was an invalid, hisappearance of suicide.

  The coroner and Taylor's doctor, who came together, only added to thepuzzle. The coroner declared unreservedly for suicide, and, in reply toGarth's anxious question, swore that no measurable time could haveelapsed between the firing of the shot, which had pierced the heart, andTaylor's death. The physician was satisfied even after Garthconfidentially had shown him the note.

  "Mr. Taylor," he said then, "understood he had an incurable trouble.Every one knows that his wife, whom he worshipped, had practically lefthim by going to California for so long. It may have appealed to a grimsense of humour, not unusual with chronic invalids, to puzzle us withthat absurdly worded note. I might tell you, too, that Mr. Taylor forsome time had had a fear that he might go out of his head. Perpetuallyhe questioned me about insanity, and wanted to know what treatment Iwould give him if his mind went."

  Garth, however, when they had left, went to the library on the lowerfloor and telephoned headquarters. The inspector agreed that the caseheld a mystery which must be solved.

  Garth walked to the embrasure of a high colonial window. The earlywinter night was already thick above the world. The huge room was toodark. There was a morbid feeling about the house. He had noticed thatcoming in, for the place had offered him one of those contrasts familiarto New York, where some antique street cars still rattle over sonoroussubways. The Taylor home was a large, colonial frame farmhouse which hadeventually been crowded by the modern and extravagant dwellings of afashionable up-town district. In spite of its generous furnishings itprojected even to this successful and materialistic detective a heavyair of the past, melancholy and disturbing.

  Garth sighed. He had made up his mind. The best way to get at the truthwas to accept for the present the dead man's message at its face value.He turned on the single light above the desk in the center of the room.He arranged a chair so that the glare would search its occupant. He satopposite in the shadow and pressed a button. Almost at once he hearddragging footsteps in the hall, then a timid rapping at the door. Thedoor opened slowly. A bent old man in livery shuffled across thethreshold. It was the servant who had admitted Garth on his arrival afew minutes earlier. The detective indicated the chair on which thelight fell.

  "Sit down there, please."

  As the old man obeyed his limbs shook with a sort of palsy. From hissallow and sunken face, restless, bloodshot eyes gleamed.

  "I understand from the doctor," Garth began, "that you are McDonald, M
r.Taylor's trusted servant. The coroner says death occurred last night orearly this morning. Tell me why you didn't find the body until nearlyfour o'clock this afternoon."

  The old servant bent forward, placing the palm of his hand against hisear.

  "Eh? Eh?"

  On a higher key Garth repeated his question. McDonald answered intremulous tones, clearing his throat from time to time as he explainedthat because of his master's bad health his orders had been never todisturb him except in cases of emergency. He drew a telegram from hispocket, passing it across to Garth.

  "Mrs. Taylor is on her way home from California. I don't think Mr.Taylor knew just what connection she would make at Chicago, but heexpected her to-morrow. That telegram sent from the train at Albany saysshe will be in this afternoon on the Western express. I thought it myduty to disturb him and get him up to welcome her, for he was very fondof her, sir. It will be cruel hard for her to find such a welcome asthis."

  "Then," Garth said, "you heard no shot?"

  McDonald indicated his ears. Garth tugged at his watch chain.

  "I must know," he said, "more about the conditions in this house lastnight."

  He had spoken softly, musingly, yet the man, who had displayed thesymptoms of a radical deafness, glanced up, asking without hesitation:

  "You don't suspect anything out of the way, sir?"

  Garth studied him narrowly.

  "I want to know why the shot wasn't heard. You were here and Mr.Taylor's mother-in-law. Who else?"

  The bony hand snapped to McDonald's ear again.

  "Eh? Eh?"

  "Speak up," Garth said impatiently. "Who was in the house besidesyourself and Mrs. Taylor's mother?"

  "The cook, Clara, sir--only the cook, Clara."

  "You're sure?"

  "Absolutely, sir. Who else should there be? We've been short of servantslately."

  Garth dismissed him, instructing him to send Mrs. Taylor's mother. Whilehe waited he stared from the window again, jerking savagely at his watchribbon. From McDonald he had received a sharp impression ofsecretiveness. He hadn't cared to arouse the servant's suspicions.Through strategy he might more surely learn whatever the old man hadheld back.

  Garth swung around with a quick intake of breath. He had heard no oneenter. Through the obscurity, accented rather than diminished by thecircular patch of light around the chair, he could see no one. Yetalmost with a sense of vibration there had reached him through the heavyatmosphere of the old house an assurance that he was watched from theshadows. Impulsively he called out:

  "Who's that?"

  He stepped to the desk so that he could see the portion of the roombeyond the light. It was empty. Garth, as such things go, had no nerves,but through his bewilderment a vague uneasiness crept.

  He sprang back, turning. A clear, girlish laugh had rippled through thedusk. A high, girlish voice had challenged him.

  "Here I am! Hide and seek with the policeman!"

  He saw, half hidden in the folds of the curtain at the side of theembrasure in which he had stood, a figure, indistinct, clothed evidentlyin black. He took it for granted McDonald had sent the girl, Clara,first.

  "I wanted Mr. Taylor's mother-in-law," he said. "No matter. Come here,and let me remind you that humor is out of place in a house of death."

  Nevertheless the pleasant laugh rippled again. Slowly the dark figuredetached itself from the shadows and settled in the chair while Garthwatched, his uneasiness drifting into a blank unbelief. He couldn'taccept the girlish laughter, the high, coquettish voice as having comefrom the grey, witch-like hag whom the light now exposed mercilessly.

  "I am Mr. Taylor's mother-in-law," she said laughingly. "Everybody'ssurprised because I'm so youthful. My daughter's coming home thisafternoon. That's why I'm so happy. They wouldn't let me go west withher, but when one's as advanced as I young people don't bother much."

  Garth experienced a quick sympathy, yet behind the mental deteriorationof extreme old age something useful might lurk.

  "You slept in the front part of the house last night," he tried. "Youprobably heard the shot."

  She shook her head. Her sunken mouth twitched in a smile a trifle sly.

  "Once I drop off it would take a cannonade to wake me up."

  For no apparent reason her youthful and atrocious laugh rippled again.

  "Please," Garth said gently. "Mr. Taylor--"

  "At my age," she broke in, "you say when a younger person dies: 'Ha, ha!I stole a march on that one.'"

  She arose and with a curious absence of sound moved towards the door.

  "I must go now. I am knitting a sweater. It was for my son-in-law. Nowthat he's put himself out of the way it might fit you."

  The door closed behind her slender figure, and Garth tugged at his watchribbon, wondering. Her actions had been too determined, her last wordstoo studied. They had seemed to hold a threat. Was she as senile as sheappeared, or had she tried to throw sand in his eyes?

  He rang and sent for the cook Clara, unaware that a new and significantsurprise awaited him in this dreary room. The girl, when she came, wasyoung, and, in a coarse mold, pretty. When she sat down the lightdisclosed a tremulousness as pronounced as McDonald's. Before Garthcould question her she burst out hysterically:

  "I am going to leave this house. I was going to leave to-day, anyway."

  Garth pitched his voice on a cold, even note.

  "For the present you'll stay. Mr. Taylor didn't kill himself. He wasmurdered."

  She covered her face with her hands, shivering.

  "I didn't kill him. I didn't--"

  "But," Garth snapped, "you know who did."

  She shook her head with stubborn vehemence.

  "I don't know anything," she answered, "except that I must leave thishouse."

  "Why? Because you think the old lady's crazy, and she frightens you? Iwant to know about that."

  As Clara lowered her hands the increased fear, rather than the tears inher eyes, held Garth. She shook her head again.

  "I've only been here a week. I haven't seen much of her. She's only beento meals once or twice, and then she's scarcely said a word."

  She glanced about the room with its small paned windows, its deepembrasures, its shallow ceiling.

  "It isn't that," she whispered. "It's because the house is full of queerthings. The servants all felt it. They talked about spirits and left.Five have come and gone in the week I've been here. But I've never beensuperstitious, and I didn't hear anything until last night."

  Garth stirred.

  "What did you hear? When was it?"

  "About midnight," she answered tensely. "I had had company in thekitchen until then, so I was alone downstairs. McDonald had told mebefore he went to bed to make sure the last thing that the library firewas all right. I had looked at it and had put the fender up and was justleaving the room when I heard this sound--like moans, sir. I--I've neverheard such suffering."

  She shuddered.

  "It was like a voice from the grave--like somebody trying to get out ofthe grave."

  "But you heard no shot?"

  "No, sir."

  Garth spoke tolerantly.

  "These sounds must have come from up stairs. You've forgotten that Mr.Taylor was an invalid."

  She cried out angrily.

  "It wasn't like a man's or a woman's voice, and I can't tell where itcame from. I tell you it was like a--a dead voice."

  "You failed to trace it, of course," Garth said. "Describe to me whatyou did."

  "I ran to the kitchen," she answered, "but, as I told you, there was noone there. McDonald had gone to bed, and so had his daughter."

  Garth stooped swiftly forward and grasped her arm.

  "What's that you're saying? His daughter! You mean to tell me McDonaldhas a daughter, and she was in the house last night?"

  She shrank from his excited gesture.

  "Yes. He asked me not to tell you, but I'm frightened. I don't want toget in trouble. She's the housekeeper. She e
ngages all the servants andruns the house."

  "Then where is she now?"

  "She must have gone out early this morning, sir, for I haven't seen herall day. I wanted to be fair. I've only been waiting for her to comeback so I could tell her I was leaving."

  "Send McDonald back to me," Garth said, "unless he's left the house,too."

  The butler had deliberately lied to shield his daughter, and had askedsecrecy of this girl. And all this talk of spirits and of cries! It wasturning out an interesting case after all--possibly an abnormal one.Moreover, he was getting somewheres with it.

  McDonald slipped in. He was more agitated than before. His face wasdistorted. His tongue moistened his lips thirstily. Against his willGarth applied the method he knew would bring the quickest result withsuch a man. He grasped the stooped shoulders. He shouted:

  "Why did you lie when I asked you who was in the house at the time ofthe murder?"

  "Eh? Eh?" the old man quavered.

  "You're not as deaf as that. Where's your daughter now?"

  "My ears!" the old servant whined. "I can't hear, sir."

  "All right," Garth shouted. "If you want to go to the lockup and yourdaughter too, stay as deaf as you please."

  He wasn't prepared for the revolting success that came to him. McDonaldclutched at one of the window curtains and hid his twitching face in itsfolds, while sobs, difficult and sickening, tore from his throat,shaking his bent shoulders.

  "God knows! I haven't seen her since I went to bed last night. I thoughtshe'd gone out."

  He glanced up, his face grimacing.

  "Don't you think she did it. Don't you think--"

  "First of all," Garth said, "I want her picture."

  "I haven't any," McDonald cried.

  But Garth hadn't missed the man's instinctive gesture towards his watchpocket. Then, whether he actually knew anything or not, he suspected hisdaughter and sought to protect her. Against his protests Garth took thewatch and, as he had foreseen, found a photograph in the case. Thepicture was not of a young woman, but the face was still attractive inan uncompromising fashion. It was this hardness, this determinationabout the picture that made Garth decide that the original, undersufficient provocation, would be capable of killing.

  "For her sake and yours, McDonald," Garth said, "answer one thingtruthfully. Did she fancy herself any more than a superior servant? Hadshe formed for Mr. Taylor any silly attachment?"

  McDonald's reply was quick and assured.

  "To Mr. Taylor she was only a trusted servant, sir, and she knew herplace."

  The whirring of a motor suggested that an automobile had drawn up beforethe house. Garth slipped the photograph in his pocket.

  "If that is Mrs. Taylor arriving," he said with an uncomfortable desireto shirk the next few minutes, "the news of her husband's death mightcome easier from you."

  "I telephoned Mr. Reed," McDonald said. "He's an old friend of Mr. andMrs. Taylor's. I told him about the telegram, and he's probably met herand brought her home."

  "I will be here," Garth said, "if she wishes to speak to me."