The Gray Phantom Part 1

The Gray Phantom.

by Herman Landon.

CHAPTER I

A TRAGIC INTERLUDE

Hours afterward, when the tragic spell had broken and sc.r.a.ps and odds of the affair began to throng the memories of those present at the opening performance of "His Soul's Master," several persons remembered that a curious hush had preceded the fateful moment.

No one could tell why, but of a sudden all sounds had ceased. Subdued whispers, the creaking of seats, and the froufrou of garments had stopped as abruptly as if a silencing signal had gone through the little auditorium. The spectators had sat motionless, momentarily holding their breath, and even the voices of the actors had faltered for an appreciable second or two. The stillness had been charged with an uneasy tension, and it seemed as though a telepathic whisper of warning had been communicated to the gathering.

Vivian Tennant, as frivolous as she was delicately molded, declared the following day that the silence during those few moments had been so intense that she was positive she had heard a pin drop from the coiffure of the woman on her left. Alex Hammond, forty and cynical, would have ascribed the spell to a touch of necromancy had he been a believer in such childish things. Mrs. Hungerford Cather, a frail little widow with a melancholy disposition, said she felt just as though she were at a seance and a ghost was expected to appear any moment. The others described their impressions with varying degrees of vividness, but all of them agreed in having felt the creeping approach of a silent and invisible horror.

Only Helen Hardwick, whose fresh young charm and frank brown eyes made her seem strangely out of place in that motley gathering of rouged lips, sophisticated banter and gowns suggestive of the Parisian boulevards, was singularly uncommunicative in regard to what she had experienced during the weird interlude when the Thelma Theater became the scene of one of life's grimly realistic tragedies. And her silence was all the more remarkable because she had seen, heard and felt more than any of the others.

The Thelma, with its walls of common red brick and severely plain architecture, might have suggested anything but the setting of a dark and mysterious crime. Outwardly the building, located in a section of New York largely given over to tenements, unsoaped children and garlicky odors, presented an air of solidity and matter-of-factness that left the imagination untouched and gave no hint of the interior.

The inside was as colorful and fanciful as the outside was unlovely and prosaic, and it was rumored that Vincent Starr, the eccentric owner, had spent a fortune on the decorations.

Like many another rich man, Starr had his hobby. The newspapers and the critics had scoffed and railed when he opened the Thelma and dedicated it to the uplift of dramatic art. He held the Broadway productions in lofty contempt, declaring that they catered only to the vulgar tastes of the rabble. Admission to the Thelma was by invitation only, and the auditorium seated exactly ninety-nine persons, for it was Starr's firm opinion that out of the city's five million only an infinitesimal few were able to appreciate true histrionic art. Members of the daily press were never admitted, and the only critics present at the performances were the representatives of two or three obscure journals who shared Starr's esthetic views.

The owner and director of the Thelma was prejudiced against music at theatrical performances, and where the orchestra pit should have been was an exquisite statue in marble representing Aphrodite springing out of a foaming sea. Along the walls were friezes picturing the nine muses, the work of a famous mural painter, and the domed ceiling showed colorful glimpses of Dionysian festivals. Scattered throughout the auditorium and in niches in the walls were superb vases containing flowers whose fragrance filled the air.

The effect of the whole was sumptuous rather than harmonious, and it was characteristic of Vincent Starr's freakish tastes and clas.h.i.+ng impulses. And among the audience at the _premiere_ of "His Soul's Master" there was not one but thought that the brilliant and fanciful setting lent a touch of incongruity to the tragic byplay enacted off stage.

The moment she stepped into the box reserved for her father and herself, Helen Hardwick felt she was in a strange and somewhat oppressive atmosphere. The faces in the audience were unfamiliar, and everybody stared at her in a way she could not understand until she suddenly remembered that among these people she was something of a celebrity. Vincent Starr, who sneered at the biggest dramatic successes of the year, had not only accepted her play for production at the Thelma, but was himself playing the princ.i.p.al role, and he was indulging in much self-flattery over having discovered a budding genius in the author of "His Soul's Master." That explained the curious glances turned in her direction.

It was both amusing and bewildering, she thought. Nothing but a whim had caused her to enter her play in the prize contest conducted by Starr to obtain suitable material for his theater, and its acceptance had been the greatest surprise of her twenty-three years. Her only other serious attempt had been a sketch produced by a dramatic society at Barnard in her junior year. "His Soul's Master" had been a slightly more ambitious effort, and it had been inspired by vague emotions which she herself could hardly understand, but for all that it was a simple, artless thing with a theme as old as the story of the Garden of Eden. It was nothing more than an allegorical fantasy depicting the forces of evil and good struggling for possession of a man's soul. How a play of that kind could have appealed to an eccentric and highly sophisticated genius like Vincent Starr was beyond her.

But the curtain had been up only a few minutes when she began to understand. In the part of _Marius_, the mortal for whose soul the spirits of light and darkness were contending, Starr had found a role that matched his temperament to perfection. The opening monologue, in which _Marius_ revealed himself as tiring of a life of refined villainy and roguish adventures, had not proceeded far before she saw that the role had so gripped and stirred him that he was living the part rather than acting it. The lines throbbed and sparkled with life and pa.s.sion, and Starr was completely submerging his own emotions in those of the hero.

It did not take Helen long to see that it was the character of _Marius_, rather than the flimsy fancy woven around it, that had caused Starr to accept her play. She had heard he was vain and egotistical, and no doubt he reveled in the opportunity for self-exaltation that the role afforded him. As the play went on from scene to scene, another impression began to take root in her mind.

Here and there in the lines she noted an odd cynical twist or a bit of ambiguous phrasing that she was sure had not been in the ma.n.u.script.

The tempting voices and gestures of the spirits of darkness were more appealing than she had intended, and the exhortations of the spirit of light were correspondingly feebler. She thought she understood why Starr had found excuses for not admitting her to any of the rehearsals.

She was inclined to resent the liberties he had taken with her lines, but again she was carried away by his impa.s.sioned rendition of _Marius_. The very lifeblood of the character seemed to pulse in Starr's veins. _Marius_ had seemed very real to her while she was writing the play, but not so real by far as she now saw him on the stage of the Thelma Theater. She leaned forward and watched him with growing interest and wonder. It was as if a being that had existed only in her thoughts and in her heart had suddenly materialized in flesh and blood.

It was weird. Now and then there came a touch of subtlety, an odd turn of speech, or a telling gesture that she instantly recognized, although she knew it was interpolated by the actor. She had heard and seen them all in imagination, but not clearly enough to reproduce them on paper. The gestures impressed her most. She knew and recognized them all, from the slightest to the most elaborate, although she had visualized only a few of them clearly enough to be able to put them into the play. It seemed as though the actor, in expanding and vivifying his role, had made use of material that had existed only in the playwright's mind.

Impulsively she reached out her hand and placed it over her father's.

Mr. Hardwick, curator of the Cosmopolitan Museum and an authority on a.s.syrian relics, started as if his mind had been roving among prehistoric scenes.

"Why, child, your hand is cold!" he whispered anxiously. "Aren't you well?"

"Yes, dad. I'm all right." Her large brown eyes avoided his searching gaze. "How do you like my play?"

She scarcely heard his answer. For a moment she had turned her eyes from the stage and let them wander over the dimly lighted auditorium, and of a sudden a face in the last row of seats held her glance. It was a striking face, though Helen would not have called it beautiful.

Somehow the curve of the haughtily tilted chin repelled her. The features were perfect in a cold, unalluring way, and the faint curl of the lips and the designing look in the eyes made her think of a Velasquez portrait. The woman sat alone, the seats to right and left of her being unoccupied, and the heavily shaded electric light on the wall at her side drew a thousand flas.h.i.+ng tints from the jewel in her hair.

It was not the face that held Helen Hardwick, but rather the fixed, shrewdly scrutinizing look with which the woman was regarding Vincent Starr. She followed his every motion and gesture with the sly persistence of a cat watching a mouse. Now and then she bent forward, and her lips twitched in a knowing way, as if she were thinking of something that pleased and amused her even while it startled her a little. Helen, studying her with a puzzled look, found herself wondering whether it was the man or the actor that interested the woman so profoundly.

With an effort--for the woman in the rear of the house had already begun to pique her imagination--she once more turned her eyes to the stage. Again she marveled and wondered. She had an odd feeling that something was going on before her eyes which her reason told her could not be quite real. Starr's perfect mastery of the role seemed almost supernatural. The slight, quick motions of the hands, the occasional backward toss of the head, the odd habit of gazing down at the finger tips when in deep thought, the set and swing of the shoulders, the minor but characteristic peculiarities of speech and gesture--all belonged to the _Marius_ she had seen and known, and Starr's re-creation of him struck her as uncanny.

Of a sudden she felt a little dazed. She shot a quick glance over the auditorium. No one but herself and the woman in the rear seemed to have noticed anything unusual. Again her eyes went back to the stage; and then, as if a hazy idea in the back of her mind had all at once leaped into dazzling clarity, she bent abruptly toward her father.

"Dad--look!" she whispered tensely, tugging at his sleeve. "Don't you see? It's----"

She stopped, shrugged a little, and her hand dropped limply to her knee. The fall of the curtain and the flare-up of the lights seemed to have blotted out an illusion. Mr. Hardwick, gray and lean and looking rather uncomfortable in his full-dress suit, adjusted his gla.s.ses on his thin nose, and looked at her gravely.

"My goodness, child! What _is_ the matter?" he murmured.

"Nothing, dad. I forgot that--that you wouldn't understand." She drew the palm of her hand across her forehead. "Isn't the air stifling?"

"Too much excitement for you, I am afraid." He smiled as if his practical sense had found a satisfactory answer. "Your mother was just like that. Whenever she got a bit wrought up, she always said things that I couldn't understand. Now----"

The hangings parted and Vincent Starr stepped inside the box. Helen gave him a swiftly appraising glance. His face was flushed and he looked tired, as if his last ounce of energy had been spent in the emotional tempest of _Marius_, but a swift look of animation brightened his face as she introduced her father. The first thing one usually noticed about Vincent Starr was his pale, placid eyes. They seemed to give the lie to his magnetic smile, his vivacious manners, and his deep and perfectly modulated voice. As once or twice before in his presence, Helen felt fascinated and repelled.

"You are doing my daughter a great honor," murmured Mr. Hardwick.

"Not at all." Starr laughed softly, but Helen thought she detected a slight discord that might have been due to either nervousness or fatigue. "Miss Hardwick has placed me under a very great obligation.

Her play is splendid. The last act is particularly strong, as you will see in a few minutes. You must give me your opinion of----"

Helen heard no more. She had glanced toward the rear of the house just in time to see a mysterious smile on the face of the woman seated in the last row. In vain Helen tried to read and interpret it. Presently the woman took a pencil from her bag and began to write on a page torn from her programme. Finally she summoned an usher, handed him what she had written, and nodded in the direction where Helen was sitting. The attendant glided away, and a few moments later he stood bowing before Starr.

"A lady sent you this, sir," he announced.

Starr murmured an apology to Helen and her father and unfolded the note. His face, dark and almost effeminately smooth--the face of a dreamer rather than a man of action--showed a look of boredom hinting that he was weary of receiving notes from feminine admirers. Then, as he glanced at the writing, his expression suddenly changed. A look of fear crossed his face, but it vanished so quickly that Helen could not be sure she had read its meaning correctly. He crumpled the note in his hand and glanced at his watch.

"It's almost time for the curtain," he murmured, quite himself once more. "I hope to see both of you later."

With that he was gone. Helen stole a glance at the woman in the rear.

Her face bore an expression of amus.e.m.e.nt and sly triumph, but it afforded no clew to what the note had contained. Then the lights faded out and the curtain rose upon the final act. The scene depended for its full effect on almost total darkness, and the only illumination in the house was a smoldering camp fire in one corner of the stage and the small red lights over the exits. _Marius_ stood in the center, almost totally wrapped in shadows, and in the distance were heard the strains of strange, wild singing. The spirits of evil were creeping out of the darkness to make their last sorcerous appeal.

Helen felt herself tingling with suspense. She did not know why, unless it was due to the look of fear she had seen in Starr's face as he read the note. She glanced toward the rear, but the auditorium was now so dark that she could no longer see the mysterious woman, although she imagined her hair ornament was gleaming dully in the gloom.

Of a sudden she opened her eyes wide, straining her pupils against the darkness. She could not be quite sure, but she thought a shadow had emerged from one of the exits and was gliding silently toward the woman in the rear. She sat very still while little s.h.i.+vers ran up and down her back, and she was vaguely wondering at an odd change in Starr's voice. It drooped, grew hoa.r.s.e and uncertain, and there were pauses between the words. She felt he was trying to conquer a sense of unreasoning dread. A feeling of dizziness seized her, but her imagination formed a picture of a dark shape stealing softly, silently toward where the woman sat.

Acting on an irresistible impulse, she rose and hurried from the box, deaf to her father's mild remonstrance. Without volition on her part, her feet seemed to carry her swiftly up the heavily carpeted aisle.

She heard a jumble of noises in her head and felt a tightening at the throat. She rounded the last tier of seats and rushed forward, guided only by a feeble red gleam over one of the exits. A dim shape, a shade darker than the surrounding dusk, was moving a few feet ahead of her.

All at once, as if the hesitancy in Starr's voice had cast a deadening spell over the actors and the audience, an uneasy silence fell upon the house. Helen sensed it as she sped along in the wake of the creeping shadow. A few steps more, and she could make out the woman's figure, vaguely outlined against the gloom, and just behind it stood the shadowy shape whose furtive movements Helen had followed since she left the box.

The happenings of the next few moments were like a swift, horrible dream. Suddenly she felt limp and cold. Within reach of her arm a hand moved, and the motion seemed to strike a hideous note through the surrounding stillness. A cry rose and died in her throat. She staggered back against a post and stood there motionless while a dark shape brushed past her. She recoiled as a hand touched hers in pa.s.sing, and she caught a fleeting but unforgettable glimpse of a face.

It was gone in a moment, but the swarthy features, framed by coa.r.s.e black hair that reached to the shoulders, the flat, short nose, the thick and jutting lower lip, the great eyes with their lambent flames that seemed to send streaks of fire into the darkness, gave her a feeling that something evil and loathsome had pa.s.sed.