The Gray Mask Part 21

From the depths of the carriage a native's voice replied:

"Probably you're the party I'm looking for. If you're Mr. Garth from New York, step in."

Garth obeyed, and they drove off along a road for the most part flanked by thick woods.

Without warning, through an open s.p.a.ce, Garth saw a flame spring upward, tearing the mist and splas.h.i.+ng the sky with wanton scarlet.

"What's that?" he asked sharply.

The glare diminished and died. The native clucked to his horse.

"Mr. Alden's furnaces," he answered.

Garth stirred.

"I see. Iron. Steel. And now it works night and day?"

"On war orders," the native answered. "Now you wouldn't think we'd ever have got in the war, would you? There's a whole town--board shacks--to take care of the men--more'n fifteen hundred of them."

Garth nodded thoughtfully. Here at the start was a condition that might make the presence of a detective comforting to his host.

As they penetrated deeper into the woods the driver exhibited an increasing desire to talk, and from time to time, Garth remarked, he glanced over his shoulder.

"None of my business," the man said, "but it's funny Mr. Alden's having company now."

Garth smiled. He was certainly on the threshold of a case he had been asked to enter wholly unprepared.

"Maybe you'll tell me why," he encouraged.

"Because," the driver answered, "although Mr. Alden stands to make a pile of money, he's paying for it in some ways. You didn't hear about his yacht?"

Garth shook his head.

"Maybe some of these rough workmen he's got up from the city, or maybe somebody wanted to pay him out. Took it out of his boat-house a few nights ago, started on a joy-ride, I suppose, and ran it on the rocks."

"Much loss?" Garth asked.

"Total, except for the furnis.h.i.+ngs."

"Are you one of Mr. Alden's servants?"

The driver's laugh was uncomfortable.

"That's what I meant about his having company. There aren't any servants except the old butler. A woman from the village goes to get breakfast and lunch for them, but she won't stay after dark."

Garth grinned, recalling the inspector's comment about spooks.

"Why did the servants quit?"

The driver glanced over his shoulder again. He hurried his horse.

"Laughing's cheap," he said, "but you can judge for yourself how lonely it is, and Mr. Alden's right on the ocean--only house for two miles. You see he owns a big piece of this coast--woods right down to the water.

They've always told about a lot of soldiers being killed in those woods during the Revolution. All my life I've heard talk about seeing things there. Servants got talking a few days ago--said they saw shadows in grave clothes going through the woods. I laughed at that, too. But I didn't laugh when they found Mr. Alden's valet yesterday morning, dead as a door nail."

Garth whistled.

"Violence?"

"Not a sign. Coroner says apoplexy, but that doesn't convince anybody that doesn't want to be."

"Curious," Garth mused.

For some time a confused murmuring had increased in his ears--the persistent fury of water turned back by a rocky coast.

They turned through a gateway, and, across a broad lawn, he caught a glimpse of lights, dim, unreal, as one might picture will-o-the-wisps.

But the night and the mist could not hide from Garth the size of the house, significant of wealth and a habit of comfort. That such an establishment should be practically bereft of service was sufficient proof that there was, indeed, something here to combat. Yet from the driver he could draw nothing more ponderable than the fancied return of the dead to their battlefield, and a distrust, natural enough in a native, of the horde of new men gathered for the furnaces.

When he had stepped from the carriage he saw that the lights were confined to the lower hall and one room to the left. The rest of the great house stretched away with an air of decay and abandonment.

In response to his ring he heard a step drag across the floor, but the door was not opened at once. Instead a quavering voice demanded his ident.i.ty.

With some impatience Garth grasped the k.n.o.b, and as he heard the carriage retreat towards the town, called out:

"My name is Garth. I'm expected."

The door was swung back almost eagerly, and Garth stepped across the threshold of the lonely house.

An old man faced him, white-haired, bent at the shoulders, unkempt and so out of key with the neat hard-wood floor, the hangings, and the wainscot of the hall--a witness to an abrupt relaxation of discipline.

"Thank heavens you've come, sir," the old man said.

"Then you know," Garth answered. "What's wrong here?"

But before the other could reply a man's voice, uncertain, barely audible, came from the lighted room to the left.

"Who is that? If it is Mr. Garth bring him to me at once."

Garth became aware of the rustling of skirts. He stepped into the room, and, scarcely within the doorway, met a young woman whose unquestionable beauty impressed him less than the trouble which, to an extent, distorted it. Her greeting, too, almost identical with the old servant's, disturbed him more than his. It was reminiscent of the desolate landscape he had seen from the train, of the forest loneliness through which he had just driven, of the gaping scarlet that had torn across the cloud-filled sky.

"I'm glad you've come. I--I was afraid you mightn't make it."

Garth's glance appraised the room. It was a huge apartment, running the width of the house. Cas.e.m.e.nt windows rose from the floor to the ceiling.

An oak door in the farther wall, towards the rear, was closed. There were many book-cases. A fire burned drowsily in a deep hearth. Before it stood a writing-table with an inefficient lamp, and at its side--the point where Garth's eyes halted--a man sat--huddled.

The man wore a dressing gown and slippers. His hair was untidy. From his cadaverous face eyes gleamed as if with a newly-born hope. He put his hands on the chair arms and started to rise, then, with a sigh, he sank back again.

"You'll excuse me," he said. "I've not been myself lately. It is an effort for me to get up, but I am glad to see you, Mr. Garth--very glad."

Garth understood now why the voice had barely carried to the hall. It lacked body. It left the throat reluctantly. It crowded the room with a scarcely vibrating atmosphere of dismay. Garth asked himself hotly if he had been summoned as an antidote to the airy delusions of an invalid.