The Gray Mask. Camp Wadsworth
tears, but at the sound of her husband's returning footsteps it resumed a semblance of control. No tears fell.
"Well?" she asked.
His face was haggard, confessing greater suspense than before.
"The Hansons' butler," he said. "I – I'm afraid the old lady's off this time. Redding had told him to get me. They sent the chauffeur some time ago with a fast car. Man said he ought to be here."
He paused, searching her face in an agony of indecision.
"Well?" she repeated.
"Bella," he went on. "Won't you tell me? Won't you promise? That old woman – for years she's depended on me. I could do more for her than Redding. I might help her – a little – "
"Of course you'll go," she said.
He spread his arms.
"How can I go, knowing nothing, imagining everything. Tell me. Was there an arrangement with that beast? Bella, he'd been drinking. He's unfit – "
She raised her hand.
"You only make matters worse. John, you've done your best to make me despise you, to urge me to Freddy Treving. For, understand, I do care for him – a great deal. There's been nothing really wrong, but evidently you're not content it should stop at friendship. We can settle what's to be done to-morrow. Meantime – you've put me in such a position! What am I to say?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Go to your work, I've no arrangement with Freddy. I don't expect him here. If he came I shouldn't let him in. Your honor is safe enough in my hands for to-night. Does that satisfy you?"
Her tone had a merciless lashing quality. He bowed his head before it. His words stumbled.
"I trust you, Bella. I'm sorry."
"Then go. In the morning – "
She waved her hand vaguely.
"We'll arrange – something."
His eyes begged, but she offered nothing more. So he went out, closing the door softly behind him.
Almost immediately he heard the sound of a motor. He couldn't find his hat. The front door bell rang, and, snatching an ancient cap from the table, he opened the door. No one stood in the verandah, but the glare of powerful automobile headlights blinded him.
"You're Mrs. Hanson's chauffeur?" he called.
An indistinct voice came back affirmatively. Randall caught the word "hurry." Therefore he ran down the steps, and, his eyes still blinded by the glare, stepped into a large runabout and settled himself by the driver.
They swung away at a breakneck speed which before long swept Randall's cap from his head and forced him to cling with both hands to the side of the car.
The landscape tore up through the glare and disappeared in a dense and terrifying confusion of darkness.
"Man!" he shouted. "This is dangerous. There's no point in such haste."
He managed to turn, but the other had protected himself against the cold by rolling his collar up about his face and drawing his slouch hat down to meet it.
"Slower!" Randall commanded.
The car swerved. The other cried hoarsely:
"Look out! Hold tight!"
Randall clung, but the car kept the road. Its speed was all at once reduced. With a disconcerting jerk it came to a standstill. As Randall, trying to recover his balance, started to speak angrily, something soft and blinding struck his face and enveloped his head. His hands, raised purposelessly, were caught and pinioned. The cloth suddenly became moist and a familiar odor arose. The other laughed as he fastened a cord about the arms and body. Randall gasped. His bound limbs relaxed.
The driver turned the car, and, with one arm around the senseless doctor, drove in leisurely fashion back towards Elmford.
Hidden among the undergrowth at some distance from the house stood a small, partly ruined stone building, used once, from the water flowing nearby, as a spring house. The driver carried Randall to the interior of this building and placed him on the floor. Lighting a match, he glanced around.
The unfinished walls were mottled with the melancholy vegetation which takes hold in places where the sun is forbidden. Drops of water oozed from the stones. The earth yielded to the pressure of feet soggily.
The man raised his hat higher on his forehead and lowered his coat collar, exposing a face that was handsome in a weak and flippant way. He grinned rather foolishly now at his victim, outstretched on the damp floor. He swayed a trifle, steadied himself with an effort, then, as the glow of the match expired, bent over and thrust his hand in Randall's pocket.
He drew out a key ring. He struck another match and ran quickly over the ring until he had found the key he desired. This he slipped from the ring into his own pocket and returned the rest to Randall's coat.
On the point of leaving, he hesitated, and with a resolute air stooped and removed the cloth from Randall's head and the cord from the body. Afterwards he took a small bottle from his pocket, forced the unconscious man's lips open and poured a quantity of the fluid down his throat. Evidently the doctor would sleep thoroughly and for a long time.
When he had gathered up the cloth, the rope, and the bottle, the man left the stone building, laughing with a satisfaction that was not wholly vicious. In spite of the anger his face had displayed the situation for him possessed at least a tiny element of humour.
He secreted the compromising bundle beneath a large stone in the bed of the stream.
"Put it over," he muttered. "People'll say the old boy was off his head or's a reason why we had to have prohibition."
His lurch was more pronounced as he walked to the car, and his manner less confident as he drove on to the house.
He alighted and, steadying himself against the mud-guard, gazed at the dark, forbidding façade in which that diffused and indeterminate radiance alone suggested habitation.
After a time he straightened, climbed the steps, and crossed the verandah. He felt in his pocket for the latch-key he had taken from Randall, inserted it in the lock, and noiselessly opened the door. He was very careful to see that the door did not latch behind him. He placed the key on the hall table. He folded his coat and laid it with his cap on a chair. Stealthily he advanced along the dark and silent hall to the stairway.
At the sound of his automobile Bella had half arisen. She waited attentively, but when for some time no sound followed, she walked to the window, raised it, and leaned out, striving unsuccessfully to penetrate the heavy night.
A board creaked in the corridor outside her door.
She swung around, her hand at her throat.
"John!"
Complete silence followed. Unless something out of all reckoning had occurred, her husband could not be back. None of the servants would have used an automobile. Then who prowled about the unlighted house and hesitated in the vicinity of her door?
"John!"
The formlessness of her cry unveiled her fear.
The knob moved. Inch by inch the door opened, and, inch by inch, as if impelled by a perfectly controlled impulse from the door widening on the intruder, she retreated until the wall held her.
"Freddy!" she gasped.
He stepped in and closed the door. It could scarcely have been apparent to her all at once how much he had been drinking, for, although his face was flushed, the event justified that, and he had evidently forced on himself for the moment a supreme control. Yet her relief was short-lived. To be sure she could leave the wall and advance to meet him, yet, as if the room possessed a phonographic quality, it was still loud with her husband's anxiety and her own contemptuous promises.
"What are you doing here? How did you get in? Go before – This is out of the question."
His hand left the knob.
"It's all right, Bella. Needn't be afraid. Randall's out of the way.