Grey Mask

by Patricia Wentworth

  At a very early stage of this interview his thoughts had dwelt hopefully on the fact, so much deplored by Mr. Packer, that his telephone subscription had been kept going during those four years of absence.

  Twenty-seven had faded-must fade if the other three were to be bagged. It was a pity; but perhaps the police would gather him in later.

  “I’ll get along,” said Charles; and as he said it, he heard the invisible man on his left move again. He moved and he said, in a whispering Cockney voice,

  “Twenty-six is ’ere, guvnor.”

  Grey Mask nodded. He had pushed Twenty-seven’s report across the table, and the other man was straightening the sheets and laying them tidily together.

  “Shall I let ’er in?” The “ ’er” brought Charles’ eye back to the knot-hole again. He had withdrawn it an inch or two preparatory to getting noiselessly on to his feet; but the Cockney’s “Shall I let ’er in?” intrigued him.

  There was the sound of the opening door. The blue serge suit and the khaki muffler bulged into view again, and, passing them, there came a straight black back and a close black cap with a long fold of black gauzy stuff that crossed the cap like a veil and hung down in two floating ends.

  Charles received such a shock that the room went blank for a moment. He saw, and did not see; heard words, and made no sense of what he heard. He was within an ace of lurching sideways, and actually thrust out a hand to save his balance. The hand encountered the panelling against which his mother’s dresses used to hang. He kept it there pressed out against the cold wood, whilst with all his might he stared at the straight black back of Number 26 and told himself with a vehement iteration that this was not, and could not be, Margaret Langton.

  The iteration died; the rushing sound that filled his ears dwindled. His hand pressed the wall. The blackness passed. He saw the room, with its familiar furnishings-the blue curtains, dark and shadowy; the faded carpet with the wreaths of blue flowers on a fawn-coloured ground; the table with the photograph albums and the lamp with its tilted shade. The ray of light crossing the room showed him the edge of the closing door. It passed out of sight and shut without a sound.

  Margaret was standing at the table with her back to him. The light would miss her face because she was standing above it. He needed neither the sight of that face nor any light upon it to be sure that it was Margaret who was standing there. Her hands were in the light. They were ungloved. She was putting down a packet of papers; they looked like letters.

  Charles saw the hands that were more familiar to him than any of the familiar things in the room which he had known ever since he had known anything at all. He looked at Margaret’s hands. He had always thought them the most beautiful hands that he had ever seen-not small or slender, but strong white hands, beautifully formed, cool and alive to the touch. The hands were quite bare. He had made sure that Margaret was married, but there was no wedding ring on the finger that had worn his square emerald.

  As he saw these things he became aware that Margaret was speaking, her voice so very low that the sound barely reached him and the words did not reach him at all. She stood holding the edge of the table and speaking in that low voice; and then with a quick movement she turned and came back along the ray of light to the door, which swung open to pass her through. The light was at her back. The scarf with the floating ends veiled her face. She moved with her old free step and the little swing of the shoulders that he knew by heart. She held up her head. The ends of the scarf moved behind her. She passed through the door and was gone. The door shut.

  Charles drew a very long breath. He had not seen her face.

  CHAPTER III

  Charles continued to look into the room. The place where Margaret had stood was just at the edge of where the thick double wreath of fat blue flowers began to twine itself about a central medallion. There was a little worn place just to the right of where she had stood. He stared at the worn place. Margaret had been here and was gone again-Margaret. Well, that put the lid on telephoning to the police. Yes, by gum it did!

  A quick spasm of laughter shook him. He had said that it would be interesting to meet Margaret again-interesting.

  “Oh, my hat!” said Charles to himself.

  Interesting enough-yes, and a bit to spare if he and Margaret were to meet in a crowded police court. A very pretty romantic scene. “Do you recognise this woman?”

  “Oh, yes, I almost married her once.” Headlines from the evening paper rose luridly: “Parted Lovers meet in Police Court.”

  “Jilted Explorer and Lost Bride.”

  “Should Women become Criminals?” No, the police were off.

  He came back from the headlines at the sound of a name:

  “Margot.” It was the man sitting at the table with his back to him who had spoken.

  Charles withdrew his hand from the wall and listened intently. He had thought for a moment that the fellow was going to say Margaret. Then he heard the man say,

  “Thirty-two is kicking.”

  Grey Mask moved one of the smooth gloved hands; the gesture indicated that Thirty-two and any possible protest he might make were equally negligible.

  “He is kicking all the same.”

  Grey Mask spoke; the purr was a sneer.

  “Can a jelly-fish kick? What’s it all about?”

  The man with his back to Charles shrugged his shoulders.

  “Says ten per cent isn’t worth the risk.”

  “Where’s the risk? He gets the money quite legally.”

  “Says he ought to get more than ten per cent-says he doesn’t want to marry the girl-says he’ll be hanged if he marries her.”

  Grey Mask leaned a little forward.

  “Well, he won’t be hanged if he doesn’t do what he’s told, but he’ll go down for a seven years’ stretch. Tell him so.” He scribbled on a piece of paper and pushed it over. “Give him this. If he doesn’t prefer liberty, ten per cent, and a pretty wife to seven years hard, he can have the seven years. He won’t like it.”

  The other man took up the paper.

  “He says he doesn’t know why he should marry the girl. I told him I’d put that to you. Why should he?”

  “Provides for her-looks well-keeps her quiet-keeps her friends quiet.”

  The other man spoke quickly:

  “Then you think there might be a certificate?”

  “I’m not taking risks. Tell Thirty-two he’s to use the letter as we arranged.”

  “Then you do think-”

  There was no answer. The other man spoke again:

  “There’s nothing at Somerset House. Isn’t that good enough?”

  “Not quite. Everyone doesn’t get married at their parish church or the nearest registry office-everyone doesn’t even get married in England.”

  “Was he married?”

  Grey Mask straightened the shade of the reading lamp; the lane of light that had led to the door disappeared.

  “If Forty there had ears, he could answer that question.”

  “Forty-”

  “Perhaps. Forty says he used to walk up and down the deck. He says he talked. Perhaps he said something; perhaps he talked of things he wouldn’t have talked about if he hadn’t known that Forty would be none the wiser. In the end the sea got him and none of us are any the wiser. Pity Forty there never learned lip-reading.”

  He lifted his hand and signalled with it. Forty then, was the janitor. And he was stone-deaf-useful in a way of course, but awkward too. Charles wondered how he knew when there was anyone on the other side of the door. Of course if he had his hand on the panel and anyone knocked, he would feel the vibration. Yes, it could be done that way-a code of signals too.

  He had just reached this point, when the light went out. The door had begun to open, and then Grey Mask put his hand to the switch of the lamp, and the room went dark, with just one blur of greenish dusk which faded and was gone in the gloom.

  Charles got up. He was rather stiff. He got back into his moth
er’s room without making any noise, and before he put his hand on the door, he stood for an instant listening, and could hear no sound. He would have liked to rush them from behind, catch them perhaps at the head of the stairs and send them sprawling, a loud war-whoop and their own bad consciences to aid. It might have been a very pleasant affair. He liked to think of Forty’s square bulk coming down with a good resounding thud upon the wild writhings of the other two.

  Hang Margaret! If she hadn’t come butting into heaven knew what of a dirty criminal conspiracy, he might have been really enjoying himself. Instead, he must mark time, must tiptoe through his own house after a pack of scallywags.

  Charles tiptoed. He reached the head of the stairs and looked down into the hall. Someone moved in the twilight; a light went on. Lattery, the caretaker, crossed the lighted space whistling “Way Down Upon the Swanee River.” He whistled flat.

  Charles charged down the stairs and arrived like an exploding bomb.

  “Where the devil have you been, and what the devil have you been doing?”

  Lattery stared, and his knees shook under him; his big, stupid face took on a greenish hue.

  Charles ran to the garden door. It was still open. He ran up the garden, and heard the door in the wall fall to with a slam. By the time he got it open and burst into the alley, someone was disappearing round the corner into Thorney Lane. He sprinted to the corner and round it. The someone was a whistling errand boy with a crop of red hair that showed pure ginger under the street lamp.

  At the bottom of Thorney Lane there was a woman.

  He ran after her. When he reached the roaring thoroughfare, there were half a dozen women on every couple of yards of pavement. The two big cinemas at either end of the street had just come out.

  He went back to the house in a black bad temper.

  CHAPTER IV

  He interviewed Lattery, and could not determine whether he had to do with an unfaithful steward or a great stupid oaf who was scared to death by the sudden apparition of a gentleman whom he believed to be some thousands of miles away.

  “Where had you been?”

  “Seeing it was Thursday,” said Lattery in his slow perplexed voice.

  “Where had you been?”

  “Seeing it was Thursday, Mr. Charles-I beg your pardon, sir-seeing it was Thursday and the day I take my pay from the lawyer same as he arranged-and I put it to him fair and square, and so he’ll tell you. I put it to him, sir, wouldn’t it be convenient for to fix on Thursday for me to take the evening off like? And the lawyer he says to me-and one of his clerks was in the room and could tell you the same-he says to me as how there wasn’t any objection.”

  “Thursday’s your evening off?”

  “Yes, Mr. Charles-I beg your pardon-sir.”

  “You always go out on Thursday?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lattery’s face had regained its florid colour, but his round eyes dwelt anxiously on Charles.

  “Do you always leave the garden door open?” Charles shot the question at him suddenly.

  “The garden door, sir?”

  “The door from the little passage into the garden. Do you generally leave it open?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why did you leave it open to-night?”

  “Was it open, sir?”

  “Don’t you know it was? Didn’t you come in that way?”

  “I come in through the front door,” said Lattery, staring.

  They were in the study, which opened out of the hall. Charles crossed to the door, flung it open wide, and looked across.

  “If you came in through the front door, who bolted it and put up the chain?”

  “Please, sir, I did.”

  Charles felt a little ridiculous. He banged the door and came back to his seat.

  “When I reached this house an hour ago,” he said, “the door on the alley-way was open. I came in by it. The garden door was open, and I came into the house by that. I went upstairs, and there was a light in my mother’s sitting room.”

  “Someone must have left it on, sir.”

  “The people who left it on were still in the room,” said Charles drily. “They were men-three of them. And they got away down the stair just before me. Are you going to tell me you didn’t see anything?”

  “I take my oath I didn’t see anything.”

  “Or hear anything?”

  Lattery hesitated.

  “I sort of thought I heard a door bang-yes, I certainly thought I heard a door, for it come into my mind that the missus was early.”

  CHAPTER V

  Miss Standing sighed, sniffed, dabbed her eyes with rather a tired-looking handkerchief, and plunged an experienced finger and thumb into the depths of a large box of Fuller’s chocolates. Having selected a luscious and melting chocolate cream, she sighed again and continued the letter which she had just begun. She wrote on a pad propped against her knee, and she addressed the bosom friend whom she left behind only two days before at Madame Mardon’s very select and expensive Swiss Academy. The words, “My darling angel Stephanie,” were scrawled across the pale blue page.

  Miss Standing sucked at her chocolates and wrote on:

  It’s all too perfectly horrid and beastly for words. All the way across M’amselle could only tell me that poor papa had died suddenly. She said there was only that in the telegram, and that I was to come home. And when I got here last night, there wasn’t any Mrs. Beauchamp like there always is in the holidays, and the servants looked odd. And M’amselle went off this morning, and I don’t really know what’s happened, except that Papa was at sea in his yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean. So there isn’t any funeral or anything, and of course I haven’t got any black-only just the things I came away with. And it’s all frightfully miserable. If you don’t write to me, I shall die. It’s frightful not to have anyone to talk to. The lawyer- Papa’s lawyer-is coming to talk to me this morning. He telephoned to say he was coming. I suppose I shall be simply frightfully rich. But it’s so depressing. It makes me wish I’d got some relations, even frightfully dull ones like Sophy Weir’s. Do you remember her aunt’s hat? I haven’t any relations at all except my cousin Egbert, and I’d rather have no relations than him-so would anyone. He’s the most appalling mug you ever saw.

  Miss Standing frowned at the word appalling, which she had written with one p and two l’s. It didn’t look quite right. She took another chocolate, struck out one of the l’s, put in another p, and continued;

  I shan’t come back to school of course. After all, I am eighteen, and they can’t make me. I do wonder if I shall have a guardian. In books the girl always marries her guardian, which I think is too frightfully dull for words. You’ll have to come and stay with me, and we’ll have a frightfully good time.

  She stopped and heaved a sigh, because of course Stephanie wouldn’t be able to come till Christmas, and Christmas, to use Miss Standing’s own simple vocabulary, was a frightfully long way off-nearly three months.

  She stared gloomily into the rich and solemn room. It was a very large room, running from front to back of the big London house, and it had the ordered richness of a shrine rather than any air of everyday comfort. There were priceless Persian rugs upon the floor, dim with the exquisite colouring of a bygone age. The curtains were of historic brocade, woven at Lyons before Lyons ran blood in the days of the Terror. The panelling on the walls had come from a house in the Netherlands, a house in which the great Duke of Alba had lived. On this panelling hung the Standing Collection; each picture a fortune and a collector’s prize- Gainsborough; Sir Joshua; Van Dyck; Lely; Franz Hals; Turner. No moderns.

  Miss Standing frowned at the pictures; she thought them hideous and gloomy and depressing. She hated the whole room. But when she began to think of what she would do to it to make it look different, she got the sort of feeling that there would be something almost sacrilegious about doing anything with it at all. A pink carpet now, and a white wall-paper to cover up all that dark wood
. It was silly to feel as if she had laughed in church; but it was the sort of feeling she got.

  She consoled herself with a very succulent chocolate. It had a nougat centre. The very sofa on which she was sitting was like a sort of stage funeral pyre, all purple and gold and silver.

  “I wonder what I shall look like in black. Some people look so frightful in it. But that silly man who came to the fete with the De Chauvignys said I ought to wear it-he said it would flatter me very much. And of course people always do say that fair women look nicer in black than in anything else. It’s a frightfully dull thing to look nice in.” Miss Standing opened a little leather vanity case which lay beside the box of chocolates. She took out a powder puff and a tiny mirror and began to powder her nose. The powder had a very strong scent of carnations. A glance in the mirror never failed to have a cheering effect. It is very difficult to go on being unhappy when you can see that you have a skin of milk and roses, golden brown hair with a natural wave, and eyes that are much larger and bluer than those of any other girl you know.

  Margot Standing’s eyes really were rather remarkable. They were of a very pale blue, and if they had not been surrounded by ridiculously long black lashes, they might have spoilt her looks; as it was, the contrast of dark lashes and pale bright eyes gave her prettiness a touch of exotic beauty. She was of middle height, with a pretty, rather plump figure, and a trick of falling from one graceful pose into another. She wore a pleated skirt of blue serge and a white woolen jumper, both very plain; but the white wool was the softest Angora, and the serge skirt had come from a famous house in Paris.

  A door at the far end of the room was opened, William, the stupidest of the footmen, murmured something inarticulate, and Mr. James Hale came slowly across the Persian carpet. Margot had never seen him before. He was her father’s lawyer and that sounded dull enough; but she thought he looked even duller than that-so very stiff, so very tall, so narrow in the shoulder, and so hairless about the brow. She said “Ouf!” to herself as she got up rather languidly to meet him.