The Gray Mask

  CHAPTER IX

  THE PHANTOM ARMY

  Shadows advanced through the shadowy fog, and Garth could define them asno more than shadows. In one place the mist thinned momentarily, and heglimpsed, apparently floating forward, the trunk of a man's figure.Pallid tatters, such as might survive in a mortuary, flapped about bareshoulders, and from a little distance beyond came a sickly gleam--thedoubtful response uncertain moonlight might draw from a bayonet or amusket barrel.

  The fog closed in. There were no more shadows. Garth, eager to follow,forced himself to wait. He told himself that the march of phantomspossessed a meaning which would give direction to his task. Theunveiling of its impulse, he was confident, would unveil the mystery atthe house. Against so many only caution was useful at present.

  He was glad Nora was not with him. He knew how profoundly she would havebeen stirred, how ready she would have been to discard a rationalexplanation for the occult. He could smile a little. In this one respectof vulnerability to superstition he felt himself immeasurably hersuperior. He was glad she had not involved herself in such a case.

  Finally, phantom-like himself, he proceeded through the fog in thedirection the silent shadows had taken. He walked for some distance.

  Without warning he stumbled and pitched forward to his knees. Reachingout to save himself, his fingers touched something wet, cold, andpossessed of a revealing quality which in one breathless moment droveinto his brain the excuse for those at the house, and focussed for himtheir terror of the unexplored world of whose adjacence their solitudemust have convinced them.

  He snatched his hand back, rendered for the moment without purpose bythis silent and singular tryst to which chance had led him in the evilforest. It was necessary, however, to strip the mask of night from theface of the one who lay, defeated and beyond resistance, in the path ofthe shadowy army.

  He took his pocket lamp from his coat and pressed the control. The lightfought through the fog to the face of the old servant who a few hoursago had begged him to get Mrs. Alden away, whose lips had beenincomprehensibly sealed.

  Quickly he searched for the manner of death, for there could be nocoincidence about two such catastrophes in the same spot. In spite ofthe coroner's verdict, murder was the only sensible deduction. Yet hefound no slightest souvenir of violence. The face alone held a record ofan attack--the features were twisted as if from its vehemence, and theeyes appeared to secrete some shocking vision.

  Garth sprang to his feet. Alden's sick fear and his wife's hystericalmisgivings were placed on a basis far sounder than imagination. Adanger, unconformable, but none the less real, skirted their isolatedhouse, had at last, according to the woman, forced an entrance.

  Garth knew his limitations. He must have help, and now Alden must bemade to talk.

  He ran back to the house and stepped through the window. The lamp hadbeen lighted. It shone on Mrs. Alden who bent over the writing-table,her gaze directed hypnotically towards the huddled man in the chair.Garth, since he came from the rear, could not see Alden's face at first.

  "Mrs. Alden," he said, "I found your man, out there--"

  Her hands left the table. She straightened. With a perceptible effortshe raised her eyes from the chair to meet Garth's.

  "Not de--"

  She put her hand to her mouth and crushed back the word.

  Garth nodded.

  "I must have help. Where's the telephone?" he asked.

  He started for the hall.

  "Lock that window," he said. "I've left it open."

  Suddenly he paused and turned. A sound, scarcely human, had come fromthe chair--a hollow, a meaningless vocal attempt, as though there wereno palate behind it, no tongue to shape its intention.

  From where he stood Garth could see Alden distinctly enough. His headwas sunk forward on his chest. His fingers clutched powerlessly at thechair arms. His eyes appeared to have hoarded and just now released allthe strength of which his meager body had been stripped. They flashedwith a passionate purpose which drew Garth magnetically until he wasclose and had stooped and was staring into them with a curiosity almostas pronounced as their eagerness.

  "What is it, Mr. Alden?" he asked.

  The other's fingers continued to stray about the chair arms.

  "You've got to tell me what you know--all you suspect," Garth urged."We've murder on our hands. What do you know?"

  Alden's head rose and fell affirmatively.

  "Out with it."

  But Alden did not answer, although his eyes burned brighter; and Garthguessed.

  "Speak, Mr. Alden," he begged.

  Alden's lips moved. His throat worked. His face set in a grotesquegrimace.

  "There's danger for all of us," Garth cried. "The time for silence haspassed."

  Then Alden answered, but it was only with that helpless, futilesound--such a whimper as escapes unintelligibly from the fanciedfatality of a nightmare.

  Garth drew back. Now when it was too late Alden wanted to talk. Now whenhe had been robbed of the power he craved the abandonment of words.

  "Mrs. Alden," Garth whispered. "You know your husband can't speak! Lookat him!"

  About her advance there was that hypnotic quality Garth had noticedbefore. He read in her face, moreover, a sympathy and a love that madeit as difficult of unmoved contemplation as the helpless suffering inAlden's.

  Alden smiled sorrowfully as his wife came close and stooped to him. Hishands ceased their straying about the chair arms. They rose with a quickmotion, an unsuspected strength, and closed about her white andbeautiful throat.

  She did not cry out. Perhaps there was no time. Her eyes closed. Herlips were wistful.

  Garth tore at the man's fingers. It took all his force to break theirhold. And as he fought the answer to a great deal came to him. Alden wasclearly insane, and his wife's fear and John's doubt of her safety wereaccounted for. Yet it didn't answer all. What was the share of theshrouded army in the forest? What was the connection of the death thathad struck there twice?

  Alden's vise-like grip was broken. Mrs. Alden swayed against thewriting-table, gasping. Alden's whimpering had recommenced.

  Garth looked from one to the other.

  "Good God!" he said.

  She turned on him.

  "Why did you come? It is your fault."

  Garth pointed at the cabinet where the medicine was kept. The nightmarewhimpering did not cease.

  "Get him something," Garth directed. "The doctor must have left you anarcotic."

  She walked with a pronounced lurch to the cabinet where Garth heard herfumbling among the bottles, but he did not turn away from Alden. Theimbecile sounds stopped, but the lips worked ineffectively again. One ofthe hands moved slowly with an apparent sanity of purpose. Garthrealized that it was motioning him back. Alden started to rise. Garthsaw his veins swell and the emaciated muscles strain as he literallydragged himself out of the chair and braced his elbows against thewriting-table. He grasped a pencil and wrote rapidly on a piece ofpaper. Garth understood, and he reached out for the sheet on which Aldenhad written the words--perhaps a warning, perhaps the truth--which histongue had been unable to form.

  "Don't touch that paper."

  There was a new quality about the voice Garth could not deny. There wasno more tinkling of glass at the cabinet. He found it difficult tocredit Mrs. Alden with that clear, authoritative command. He turnedwarily and looked into the muzzle of his own revolver. Mrs. Alden'soutstretched hand, he noticed, did not waver.

  "What does this mean?" he cried.

  "It means," she answered in a tired voice, "that if you read what is onthat paper you'll leave me no choice. I shall have to shoot."

  Alden whimpered again. The paper fluttered to the floor and rested,white and uncommunicative, beneath the table. His face set. He pointedaccusingly towards the rear window.

  The gesture was clear to Garth. He knew what it meant before his eyesfollowed its direction. Before he had seen, he appreciated almostpalpably the new prese
nce in the room. At the moment it seemedinevitable to him that the tense group should be joined by a strongerforce, the inspiration, probably, of the mysteries that had posed it,and that worked ahead, he could not doubt, to a graver issue for Aldenand himself.

  The newcomer glided from the shadows by the window and moved to Mrs.Alden's side--huge, powerful. The cap, drawn low over his eyes, and thethick growth about the mouth, robbed his face of expression and gave tohis actions a mechanical precision not lightly to be disturbed. He tookthe revolver from the woman.

  "I couldn't," she said. "He hasn't read. It won't be necessary?"

  "Necessary," the man answered, "but you were right. Not in that way. Itleaves too much evidence. As the others went."

  "No more death," she cried. "There has been too much death."

  "These days the world is full of death," he answered. "What are one ortwo here?"

  The voice carried as little expression as the face or the figure, but anaccent, which Garth knew, hindered its flow, and defined the situationwith a brutal clearness.

  He turned at a slipping behind him, a heavy fall. Alden lay on thefloor, his hand stretched towards the futile spot of white beneath thetable. His wife stumbled across and knelt beside him, restlesslyfingering his shoulders.

  "Andrew!" she cried. "You don't understand. Look at me. You have tounderstand. I love you. Nothing changes that."

  The newcomer moved to her, and, without relaxing his vigilance, graspedher arm.

  "There's too much to be done to-night for tears. Keep your watch."

  He indicated Garth.

  "I'll come back and attend to him later."

  She continued to stare at her husband's closed eyes.

  "He knows now, but you shan't kill him. I tell you you shan't kill him."

  "When the occasion arises you will follow your duty," he said.

  He turned to Garth, pointing to the oak door in the rear corner.

  "You will go in there."

  A flashing recollection of Nora decided Garth. Resistance now, he knew,as he studied the great figure, would mean the end, whereas, if hewaited and obeyed, the knife, secreted in his felt, offered a possibleescape.

  "Wait!" the man snapped.

  He thrust the revolver in Mrs. Alden's hand while he ran quickly overGarth's clothing. The thickness of the belt escaped him. He found onlythe pocket lamp.

  "The telephone is disconnected," he said, evidently to reassure thewoman. "Your husband is too weak to leave the house, and no one willcome near it until daylight. We won't cross that bridge before we reachit."

  She shuddered.

  The other opened the oak door and motioned Garth to enter. He wentthrough, simulating a profound dejection, but actually reaching outagain to confidence. For the man would come back to visit him with thesilent, undemonstrative violence that had done for the two men in thewoods, but Garth would be waiting for him, behind the door, with hisknife. Therefore, when the door was locked, he commenced hopefully toexamine his prison.

  The night, he found after a moment, was not complete in here. Itpossessed a quality, milky but lustreless, reminiscent of the shroudthrough which the shadowy figures had paraded. It retained, however, theobscurity of thorough darkness. He had a feeling, indeed, of standing ina darkness that was white.

  There must be windows over there, many windows. He felt his way across.The wall, as well as the interior face of the door, was lined with sheettin, suggesting immediately the nature of his prison--a dismantledconservatory. The glazed end was of small panes, heavily leaded. Theframes in themselves offered a resistance to escape as efficacious asprison bars.

  The arrangement, nevertheless, gave him one advantage. A single door toguard removed the threat of a surprise.

  In the centre of the floor he found a considerable heap of wood,probably the fittings of the place. He scarcely dared pause to examineit. He hurried back to his post at the doorway, removed the knife fromhis belt, jointed it, and tested the point against his finger. He didn'tknow how long his respite would last. He couldn't hazard a guess as tothe nature of the big man's occupation. He could only estimate itsimportance by the fact that it had prevented the other's dealingsummarily with him.

  He had entered the case with too little light. Nora had been right. Onecan not follow a straight course through the dark. Only a few dimoutlines offered themselves for his appraisal. Mrs. Alden had made herchoice between an evident, an exceptional affection for her husband andan enterprise directed by the sinister figure who had stepped from theshadows. Of what a vast importance that enterprise must be since it hadprodded her to such a decision, since it had made her acquiesce,however unwillingly, in murder to safeguard its progress! She facedeven the death of her own husband because he had learned too much of itsintention. And she had no slightest amorous tendency--of that Garth wassure--towards the bearded giant to whose will she bent her own with apitiable humility. The lack of that world-wide, easily comprehensiblemotive to wrong, taken with the leader's German accent, directed Garth'slogic to the furnaces, which night after night stained the sky with ascarlet, significant of their feverish industry. Yet the shadowy figuresof the woods were still elusive, unless the place was used as arendezvous and the affair to-night approached a crisis. Could he escape?Would he be in time to prevent a crime of such proportions, of suchdisquieting possibilities?

  He stiffened at a stealthy movement of the key in the lock. The answerlay just ahead. Garth could not doubt that the German was about toenter, to annihilate in his subtle manner an enemy he believed unarmed.

  With his left hand he braced himself against the door-frame for thestroke, while with his right hand he lifted the knife. The necessity ofstriking without warning sickened him. He had no choice. There was toomuch eager help within ear-shot of an alarm. The stakes loomed toocommandingly to tolerate a sentimental hesitation. It was not only hisown life in the scales. The lives of those who toiled at the furnacesswayed with his. But it was from the recollection of Nora that he drewthe most strength, from the desire to see her again; to watch her quietfigure--a little inscrutable, unconsciously provocative; to hover againon the edge of an avowal, alert for his favorable moment.

  The door hinges responded to a pressure. The lamp had evidently beenextinguished again, for he saw in the uncertain radiance of the embers athing, scarcely definable as human, prone beyond the threshold.

  The empty doorway, the inert object on the floor, the darkness, accentedrather than diminished by the embers, blurred his calculations. Wherewas the one who had opened and for whom his knife was eager?

  Unexpectedly a brilliant light flashed in his eyes and went out.Half-blinded, he sensed the presence of something on the sill, and hestruck downward with all his force. He reached only emptiness. The oneon the sill had sprung through. From somewhere in the house Garth heardthe patter of hastening feet.

  He fought away the effects of the flash, striving to locate the one whohad entered. There beside the heap of rubbish knelt a form darker thanthe white darkness.

  He moved noiselessly over. He reached down and grasped the bentshoulder, and, as the shoulder recoiled from his touch, so he recoiledfrom its quality that revealed the presence in his prison of a woman.

  Through his amazement he heard the door close, but he felt sure ofhimself now. Mrs. Alden was his prisoner--a hostage, if he chose, forhis own escape, unless, indeed, she had finally revolted and come to hisaid.

  "Get up," he said roughly.

  The woman's sigh conveyed relief. Something scraped beneath her hand. Atiny flame was born and entered into the base of the rubbish.

  Then the woman turned slowly, and, in the light of the flame, Garthlooked into Nora's excited eyes and smiling face.

  Incredulous, he grasped her arms, lifted her to her feet, and stared.The growing flame struck a flash from his knife, drove into his brain afull realization of the monstrous misunderstanding which had nearlyinvolved them in unspeakable disaster.

  "Good God, Nora! I nearly--I tried to--"


  Her smile grew.

  "I didn't know what I should find in here. I couldn't afford to takechances."

  "But I left you in New York," he went on uncertainly. "How did you come?Why are you here?"

  "No time for explanations now," she answered quickly. "We must get outof here."

  He recalled the patter of hastening feet, the soft closing of the door.In the growing light he saw its tin-sheeted face flush with the wall.

  "The door has been shut," he said. "I'm afraid--locked. Why did youlight that fire?"

  She ran across, grasped the knob, then commenced to beat with her fistsat the tin. Suddenly she stopped. Her shoulders drooped.

  "No use," she whispered. "She must have come in. She won't open now."

  Garth hurried to her side.

  "I don't understand," he said, "but it's evident we are caught here, andthat fire has been fixed--a signal?"

  She nodded.

  "Why did you light it?"

  "Because," she answered dully, "it had to burn to-night."

  The crisis they faced was clear to him.

  "Nora! In a minute this room will be a furnace."

  He imagined from the excitement still flashing in her eyes that she didnot quite realize, but she spoke without regret, and her words carriedthe shocking fatality of the German's.

  "I'm sorry, Jim, but if I had known we would be caught I would havelighted it just the same. After all, a small price in the long run--onlythe two of us."

  He brushed the rapid perspiration from his face. The fire had reachedthe heart of the pile. The air thickened with a reddish, pungent smoke.He choked.

  "I'm sorry, Jim. I came only to help you, but I found--"

  The vapour cut her voice.

  The sentimental possibilities of their predicament came with a gentlewonder to Garth. They over-weighed the danger, robbed him for the momentof full comprehension. This clearly was his moment, and whatever thenext might bring seemed a fair exchange for her probable response. Hereached blindly towards her through the smoke.

  "Nora!"

  His heart leapt as she swayed a little. Then he heard the grating of thekey in the lock. It impressed him as curious that the saving soundcarried to him a sense of disappointment, the emptiness of a destinyunfulfilled.

  Nora turned the knob. He pushed against the door. They stumbled into thenext room, breathing deeply the fresh, clean air.

  Alden's prostrate form lay just within. His wife stood across the roomby the hall door, the revolver held listlessly in her hand. Her hair,more than ever disordered, fell about her weary eyes, and gave her facean air of ironical witchery.

  Garth caught the meaning of the tableau. He glanced with admiration atthe sick man, appreciating the bitter obstacle he had overcome, theabhorrent chance he had taken after conquering his physical incapacityand reaching the door. The result, Garth noticed, had carried to Alden avast relief, a shadow of content. The light from the conservatoryflickered about his face, exposing an expression of pride. The silentlips moved as if to frame a boast.

  "So, Mrs. Alden," Garth said, "you left him again. To warn the others?"

  She did not answer. He shrugged his shoulders.

  "Anyway," he went on, "when you came back and found him at the key youdidn't have time to get to him, and you weren't quite as bad as youshould have been. You let him unlock the door. You didn't have the nerveto shoot--your husband."

  "Don't, Jim," Nora warned. "You don't understand."

  Frankly he didn't, but he knew that Mrs. Alden, in a sense, stillcontrolled the situation. Her revolver could compel their movements. Itsexplosion would doubtless bring help swarming to her side.

  "And you see," Nora went on, speaking to her gently, "what a uselesssacrifice it would have been. Everything was finished for you the momentI lighted the beacon."

  Mrs. Alden nodded.

  Garth grinned as the protective feminine instinct expressed itselfthrough this woman in her most intricate hour.

  "It was all arranged," she said. "If you will close that door the housewill be safe enough from the fire."

  She indicated her husband. There were tears in her eyes again.

  "You will take care of him?"

  "Yes," Nora said.

  She turned and closed the door. Through the sudden darkness Garth heardMrs. Alden run into the hall. He sprang after her, but Nora's voice,sharp and commanding, halted him.

  "Let her go, Jim. I'll explain. Light the lamp now."

  "You've earned the right to give the orders," he said.

  He felt his way to the writing-table and lighted the lamp.

  "You know," he said, "that there are many men near here--that they cantrap us in this house?"

  "I don't think," she answered, "that they will come to this houseagain."

  He turned to her.

  "Nora! What is it? Even after all I've seen I can't be sure. Thefurnaces? They are two miles away."

  She shook her head.

  "Not the furnaces, Jim. Come with me and I will show you."

  She led him to an unlighted room across the hall and flung back thecurtains.

  The glare of a conflagration, far vaster than that which had threatenedthem in the conservatory, flashed in their eyes and lighted theneighborhood with a brilliancy fiercer than noonday.

  For the first time Garth could see that the house stood on a high,wooded plateau. The trees had been cleared away between it and thewater, and a slope, bordered with hedges, had been blasted to a beach,small and crescent-shaped. The fire blazed with a destructive violencein a structure on this beach. He recalled the driver's gossip aboutAlden's yacht. He saw a small launch, heavily-laden, making for the opensea.

  "The boat house," he said.

  "Yes," Nora answered. "Look."

  She drew a little back. An explosion tore at their ears. Somewheresupstairs a window broke. The tinkling of glass was like an absurdlyattenuated echo. But Garth's attention was fixed on the boat-house. Thebuilding appeared to disintegrate. Out of its ruins rose a colossalcolumn of muddy smoke. From its summit streaming banners of purple andviolet flame unfurled. They waved their frantic message to Garth. Heturned, gaping, to Nora.

  "That building!" he gasped. "It's crowded with gasolene--oil!"

  "You didn't guess, Jim? You see now I couldn't take chances. I had tolight the signal that made them fire this."

  "And you were right," he agreed. "Only the two of us--"

  He gazed at her wonderingly. There was only pride in his voice.

  "How many lives! How many millions of dollars! You've spared them,Nora."

  * * * * * *

  Garth had lifted Alden to the sofa and had left Nora hovering over theman who, they knew now, had been systematically drugged for days. Afterreconnecting the telephone and notifying the federal authorities he hadreturned to the living-room. Nora arose, and, with her finger at herlips, joined him by the fireplace.

  "He's asleep," she said. "You know, Jim, there wasn't much point in yourtelephoning. They've destroyed the evidence. They've gone."

  She sat down. Garth drew a chair close to her. Their voices were low inorder that Alden might not be disturbed.

  "Was it near?" he asked. "The fact that they took the launch--yet theymight put in at some lonely cove and scatter."

  "It must have been expected soon," she answered. "They were workingdesperately. They were very anxious to-night."

  "You must have guessed, Nora, as soon as I left New York. How?"

  "By giving father a scolding," she answered with a smile. "I knew thatMrs. Alden had been born in Berlin, and that her family was stillprominent there where Mr. Alden had married her. Even since her marriageshe's spent much time abroad. I wondered what these shadowy figures weredoing in the woods on foggy nights unless they were transportingsomething or working about some building. But Mr. Alden would know if ithad anything to do with the house or the stable. Since he was sick, theboat-house might be their objective without his
knowing it. I suspectedthe truth then. Such an opportunity! No one would doubt the property ofa man who manufactured ammunition for the government. The naturalthought was that any attempts by Germans here would be directed againstthe furnaces or Alden personally. It was ideal. All that was necessarywas to scare the servants away and keep Alden in the house while hiswife and the rest made ready for it."

  "Still those men in the woods?" Garth asked.

  "They were probably working at the furnaces. When you saw them they wereon their way to the boat-house to make the necessary alterations. And,of course, they carried all the supplies there. You see, I went to thefreight agent of the only railroad that runs to Deacon's Bay. He helpedme a lot. We found that a large number of heavy cases had been sent hereand to nearby stations, falsely invoiced and labelled to be called for.He had suspected gasolene in one of them and was about to hold upfurther shipments. That settled it for me. I knew you were goingblindly, so I took the next train."

  "How did you learn about the signal?" he asked.

  "I came very quietly," she answered, "a little like a sneak-thief, I'mafraid. That front window is a little open. I overheard Mrs. Alden and ahuge man. Of course she was only to light that signal if the game waswholly up. It meant to them that there was a party big enough to handlethe lot of them. So I made up my mind I must slip in and burn itto-night, in case it was near by. I knew then they would burn theevidence, escape themselves, while the submarine would turn back,believing that the game was up."

  "What a base!" he muttered. "With the trans-atlantic lanes at its mercy.All those transports and freighters marked for destruction! Alden savedthe fat."

  "Yes," Nora answered, "I gathered from what they said that he made sureto-night somehow and faced her with it. That was when she screamed andtried to send you out. Then her courage failed her and she called youback. She wasn't strong enough for murder. And from her point of viewwhat she did was pure patriotism."

  "It was because he suspected his wife, poor devil," Garth answered,"that he'd tell me nothing. I guess he hoped I'd convince him he waswrong."

  He had been staring at the fire. He looked up now to find that Nora wasknitting complacently on something heavy and comfortable and grey. Hereyes were thoughtful.

  "Wife against husband," she mused. "Such tragedies are common in war.And she loved him. Have you noticed the conservatory door?"

  It stood open. Through the glass Garth could see the far sea, stillruddy from the fire, and there entered again into his consciousness therestless clamor of water.

  "He made me open it," Nora went on. "He looked out there until he wentto sleep--a sort of farewell, a welcome if she should come back.Perhaps she will some day."

  Such devotion stirred anew in Garth the sensations he had experienced inthe conservatory. He watched Nora as her fingers moved with theiraccustomed deftness about her knitting. She made the old picture,lovable and tempting, of quiet, house-wifely efficiency.

  "You always knit," he said in an uncertain voice.

  "Another winter is very close," she answered gravely, "and if the peaceshould be delayed there would be so much suffering--"

  He stretched out his hand.

  "Nora," he said huskily, "you've saved my life to-night. It's yours.What will you do with it?"

  She glanced up. She smiled a little.

  "You very nearly took mine, Jim, so aren't we quits?"