The Gray Mask Part 19

Garth smiled, turning to Nora.

"You wouldn't give me away, would you? All right, Thompson. Do what you came to do."

Thompson shot him a grateful glance and returned to his obliterating task at the desk. Garth snapped on the light.

"But, Jim," Nora asked, "how did you know that man had been a witness?

Was it a guess?"

Garth shook his head.

"Simple enough," he said.

He took a short, slender, silvery thread from his pocket. With a shame-faced look he handed it to Nora.

"You'd know more about such things than I. It's a wire that made a broken, worn-out rose look a whole lot better than it was. I found it and the rose in the next room. I recognized it, because, Nora, when I came to dinner the other night I stopped at a sidewalk stand and bought a rose for my b.u.t.ton-hole. Silly, wasn't it? But it was a good thing, because I got stung with one of those. That's why I knew what the broken stem and the wire meant. I learned that Randall didn't wear flowers, and I made sure this afternoon what kind of a rose Treving would have worn.

Therefore, somebody else had been in that room, wearing a cheap rose which he had almost certainly got at that cheap wedding. When I heard Randall had sent for this man I decided to hold over my subpoenas for the servants until to-morrow, and run out here myself as soon as the detectives were called in--maybe get my man when he wouldn't lie."

Her eyes sparkled.

"And you guessed Randall didn't know about the murder when you caught him?"

"After I had landed him in jail, his manner, taken with the rest of it, worried me. If he wasn't guilty, why had he hidden all night and day?

What we found in the stone house answered that, and almost certainly put it up to Mrs. Randall. Of course he guessed she had done it, and that cleared her in his eyes. It's why he's been so sentimental about protecting her memory. He didn't want it stained with murder, and he's probably figured he could tell some story on the stand that would clear her of the scandal, provided Thompson gathered up these little souvenirs of her indiscretion."

"Jim, I'm proud of you," Nora said. "But will Dr. Randall thank you for interfering?"

"I think so, when he's got over this first mistaken idea of what he owes her for protecting his honor and her own even to the point of murder.

He'll soon be clear-headed enough to weigh both sides. He'll appreciate then that there isn't much disgrace about such a crime for her, particularly since it's the strongest proof the world could have that Thompson's opinion is right."

He turned to the butler.

"Surely, Thompson, there isn't as much evidence as all that. Come. We ought to get back to town."

As they went down the stairs Garth wondered that his success borrowed its chief value from its effect on Nora. As large as the satisfaction of clearing an innocent and hara.s.sed man, loomed the fact that he had, indeed, provoked her praise.

At the turn their hands met in the darkness. He rejoiced that the warmth of her fingers lingered momentarily in his.

CHAPTER VII

NORA FEARS FOR GARTH

From the moment of his solution of the Elmford affair Garth was recognized at headquarters as the man for the big jobs--the city's most serviceable detective. For one who accepted his success so modestly it was difficult to breed jealous enemies. There was, to be sure, some speculation as to how long such a man would chain his abilities by the modest pay of the department, and a wish here and there that he would find it convenient to free himself for broader fields in the near future.

Garth realized that it was the inspector's att.i.tude that had determined his new standing. Under other circ.u.mstances things might have progressed more slowly. The tie formed the night of the arrest of Slim and George was still strong.

Garth arranged, when he went to bear the news of his discovery to Dr.

Randall in the Tombs, to catch a glimpse of the two. Their greeting sufficiently defined the threat he had always known existed. In their faces he read an intention from which he shrank, more for Nora's sake than for his own. He didn't stay to argue. He walked on to Randall's cell and told the stricken man that in a few minutes he would be free.

Garth had been a good prophet. Randall's first resentment gave way to a grat.i.tude, expressed with difficulty but genuine.

"It--it was exceptionally fine of you to let Thompson destroy those things."

"I would want someone to do as much for me," he answered, "that is, if I ever had the nerve to do what you did. That was the fine thing, doctor."

And Garth went away, aware that he had made a staunch friend.

The inspector was troubled when he heard of Slim and George's open hatred. He saw the district attorney, and others whose ears he had. On his return he sent for Garth.

"The district attorney tells me," he said, "that there isn't a loophole.

They'll be convicted and go to the chair as certain as that when the moon s.h.i.+nes lovers kiss. If they don't escape. Without suggesting that every crook doesn't get the same attention, I've seen to it that those chair warmers will be watched closer than Fido watches the butcher."

So again Garth put the matter out of his mind, and was aided by an unexpected threat, apparently just as serious, that faced him a very short time after.

On that fall morning he paused on the threshold of the inspector's office, and, surprised and curious, glanced quickly within. It was not so much that Nora sat by the window, clothed in her habitual black, nor was his interest quickened by the fact that she knitted deftly on some heavy, gray garment. Rather his concern centered on the inspector who had left his desk and whose corpulent, lethargic figure moved about the room with an exceptional and eccentric animation.

At Garth's step Nora glanced up, smiling. The inspector r.e.t.a.r.ded his heated walk. To ease the perceptible strain Garth spoke to Nora.

"Seems to me you knit no matter where you are."

"When one knits for the hospitals," she answered, "any place will do. I had hoped my example might quiet father. I only dropped in for a chat, and look at him. What a welcome! I'm afraid, Jim, he has something disagreeable for you."

The inspector paused and sat on the edge of his desk.

"Maybe so. Maybe not," he rumbled. "I don't like working through the dark, so I don't like to ask anybody else to do it. I've got to, though.

Cheer up, Garth. I'm asking you."

He raised his paper cutter and jabbed at the desk with a ma.s.sive petulance.

"Ever since I got down this morning," he went on, "I've been hounded by telegrams and long-distance calls. Well? Do you want a holiday? It's apt to be a h.e.l.l of a holiday. Excuse me, Nora."

"I see," Garth said. "Something out of town."

The inspector's manner warned him. After long experience he knew it veiled a grave distrust.

"Why," Nora asked, "don't you tell us what the case is?"

The inspector walked around the desk and with a sigh settled himself in his easy chair.

"That's the rumpus," he answered, and Garth saw that his eyes were not quite steady. "Don't know anything about it myself unless they'd like Garth to chase a few spooks. Here's the lay-out. It's a man who's done me a good many favors. There's no secret--political ones. I'm in his debt, and he's asked me for a good detective to go up to his place in New England--not as a detective, mind you, Garth. That's the queer side, the side I don't like. He insists on his man's showing up as a guest, knowing no more than a random guest would know. Sounds like tommy-rot, but he isn't sure himself there's anything out of the way. He wants you, if you take it up, to live quietly in the house, keeping your eyes peeled. He expects you to put him wise to the trouble or to stake your reputation that there isn't any trouble at all. Are you willing to jump into a chase blindly that way? He'd like the fellow that swung the Hennion job, but if you turned it down cold I couldn't help it, could I?"

"Nonsense, chief," Garth answered. "Never heard of such a thing, but it sounds interesting. I'll take a shot at it."

The inspector wrote hurriedly on a piece of paper.