The Gray Mask/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
WHAT HAPPENED AT ELMFORD
THAT night on the edge of winter it was thoroughly dark when Dr. John Randall left New York for his Long Island home. Treving had unexpectedly detained him at the club. The interview had evidently projected more than the unforeseen, for Randall's habitual calm, which carried even to his hours of relaxation a perpetual flavor of the professional, was suddenly destroyed by the color and the lines of a passionate indecision. He crossed the Queensborough bridge and threaded the Long Island city streets with a reckless disregard of traffic which probably went undisciplined only because of the green cross on the radiator of his automobile.
His house, although just within the city limits, had an air, particularly under this wan starlight, remote and depressing. It stood in wide grounds not far from the water. Heavy trees, which clustered near, appeared to shroud it.
The doctor, scarcely slackening speed, swung his car through the gateway and glided up the drive. At the turn the house rose before him, square, frowning, black. It was only after a moment that a nebulous radiance from a curtained window upstairs defined itself as light. Usually there was much light and the companionable racket of a busy household.
Randall's hands trembled while he arranged the levers and shut off the engine. Yet the radiance, at last, was somewhat reassuring.
He sprang out, and nearly running, stumbling a little, climbed the steps, crossed the verandah, and pushed the electric button. From far away the response echoed as through an empty house. No sound of hurrying feet followed it. Randall, after waiting for a moment, took out his latch-key and entered.
Because of his impatience he didn't stop to fumble for the switch. Instead he flung his hat haphazard through the darkness, felt his way across the hall, and climbed the stairs.
"Bella!" he called.
Immediately the relieving answer came:
"Here—in my dressing-room, John. Why are you so late?"
He leant weakly against the wall.
"I was detained. What's the matter?"
"Why don't you come in?" she asked.
He straightened and opened the door. The light, shining upon his face, showed it still scarred by anger and indecision. The relief of finding his wife at home and safe was not, then, wholly curative.
He closed the door behind him and stared at her, lying in a reading-chair, a book open on her knees, her dark and lovely face upraised to him, expectant, questioning, a trifle startled.
"Where are all the servants?" he demanded.
She stirred. The youthful fluency of her body in the mauve dressing gown must have impressed itself upon the excited man by the door.
"I had to let myself in. I—Not a light. It frightened me."
"You've forgotten," she answered. "We talked it over a week or so ago, and I thought you had agreed. Ellen's wedding. Naturally they all wanted to go. I had an early dinner and packed them off. But I counted on you. I was growing afraid, all alone in the house. What kept you?"
"Old Mrs. Hanson—at first. She's very ill. I should really have stayed the night. I went to the club for a bite—"
He broke off. He walked closer, looking down into her eyes which did not quite meet his.
"At the club—I knew I must come home to-night. I—I sent your cousin, Tom Redding, to Mrs. Hanson."
Her eyes wavered even more.
"Why? That isn't like you to—to turn a critical case over to another man. I could have managed. Anyway, you'd forgotten about my maid's wedding. So it wasn't that. What—what happened at the club?"
She shivered for a moment uncontrollably.
"John! What's the matter? Why do you glare at me like that? Why do you look so—so—"
She tried to laugh.
"So—murderous?"
His face worked.
"Bella," he said, "I've not been altogether blind about you and Treving."
She exclaimed impatiently, but her shiver was repeated, and the uncertainty of her voice lingered.
"You're not going to commence on that!"
He brushed her interruption aside.
"But Treving's seemed a decent enough sort in spite of the way he spends his money and his Broadway record, and, you see, Bella, I've always trusted you unquestioningly."
"And now? Tell me what you're driving at, John. I won't put up—"
She sprang to her feet, facing him, wide-eyed, furious, yet, one would have suspected, not completely free from apprehension.
Randall touched her arm.
"Don't work yourself up, Bella. You know. I've told you. It's bad for you."
"What do you expect, when you insinuate—"
"What have I insinuated, provided your conscience's clear?"
He urged her back to the chair.
"It's just this: we must talk it out. I've a right to know how far this folly's gone—what it portends, so that I can take measures of defence for myself and for my wife."
She yielded and sat down, but now she bent forward, her hands clasped at her knees to prevent their trembling.
Randall clearly made an effort to speak normally. His tone had resumed its professional quality. It was, in a sense, soothing, but the power of the words themselves could not be diminished, and, as he went on, her emotions strayed farther and farther from the boundaries she had plainly tried to impose.
"I overheard," he said. "It was Delafield and Ross. I went to Ross. I felt I knew him well enough. My dear! It's common scandal—much worse, I'll do you the credit of saying, than the facts. You've been seen with Treving in cafés of doubtful reputation, and out here on Long Island, at some of these unspeakable road houses—"
He turned away.
"People aren't kind at construing those things. He was a damned scoundrel to take you to such places."
"I'll judge that," she said. "If it's all you have to charge me with!"
"Isn't it enough? Good God! How indiscreet!"
"Then why not tell all this to Freddy Treving?" she asked.
The lines about his mouth tightened.
"Treving," he said with an affectation of simplicity, "came into the club while I was talking with Ross. He had been drinking—a great deal. I didn't realize it at first—it's quite necessary you should hear this—so I took him out in the hall and tried to talk to him reasonably. I told him it must stop—any friendship between him and you."
She glanced up tempestuously.
"I'll not have my friendships questioned."
"I'm sorry, Bella. You've placed this one beyond your own control. You made me speak to Treving. It was the only thing to do. And he was impertinent, defiant. As I told you, he had been drinking, but that didn't explain his astounding assurance. I don't want to do you an injustice, but I couldn't help fearing his confidence was based on an understanding with you."
"John! You're mad!"
"No. I think it's Treving who's a little mad as well as drunk."
He studied her face morosely.
"I told him, if I heard of his coming near you again or communicating with you in any way, I would thrash him within an inch of his life. Bella, he laughed at me."
His eyes left hers. A look of utter discouragement entered them. He spoke slowly, with unnatural distinctness.
"Treving offered to lay me any stakes he'd spend this evening with you without my knowing."
His eyes remained averted. Perhaps he didn't dare risk the vital testimony hers might have yielded.
Her voice was sharp.
"Treving said that?"
He nodded.
"But I don't think he'll succeed. And I warned him as he deserved. You may as well make up your mind, Bella, that that incident is finished."
"On the contrary," she answered, "it's only begun."
He swung around and bent over her, grasping her shoulders, shaking her slightly.
"Unless, Bella—unless—"
His hands tightened until she cried out.
"That's why, when I saw the house dark, I was afraid you'd gone. Did you and he know about old Mrs. Hanson? Have you any arrangement with him for to-night?"
She pressed her lips together. Blood congested her cheeks.
He shook her more determinedly.
"Answer. You have to answer that."
Her lips parted.
"Take your hands away."
"Bella! You can't keep quiet. See how you're racking me! Answer."
Somewhere in the house a bell commenced to jangle, and continued, irritatingly, insistently.
She grasped his wrists and pushed his hands aside.
"You've gone rather too far," she whispered.
"I've a right. Answer. Was there an arrangement? Did you expect him here to-night while I struggled in town?"
The discordant jangling appeared to enter his consciousness. He sprang back, listening.
"That might— By gad, if it were!"
"It's the telephone," she said, "in the library."
"Why isn't it answered? Oh, yes. You might have kept Thompson at least. Let it ring. I shan't go down."
"A doctor!" she said scornfully.
She arose with an effort. The lace of the mauve dressing-gown exaggerated the difficulty of her breathing. His glance, which took all this in, was not wholly without contrition.
"Answer it," she said. "I shan't fly from the house to any man's arms while you are in the library."
He half stretched out his hand to her, but the appealing motion resolved itself into a gesture of despair. He walked out and descended to the library.
After a moment the discordant bell was silent. The murmur of his voice, moment by moment interrupted, arose through the quiet house to this single lighted chamber.
She stood for a time by the door, listening. Once or twice she placed her hand above her heart. At last she turned back and gazed through the narrow door to the next room where a yellow ribbon of illumination from the reading light draped itself across her bed. Her face set in the cruel distortion that precedes 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. He won't bother us to-night."
"Then you know about Mrs. Hanson?" she asked.
He nodded sagely.
"I know a lot."
"You can't stay here," she said. "Go."
He stretched out his hands.
"Then you shall come with me. That's the scheme. Been in the back of my head all along. We'll show a clean pair of heels. Time something definite happened. Bella!—you know—how I love you."
A slight impediment, unfamiliar to the startled woman, made itself noticeable in his voice. His control was limited. Already his true condition disclosed itself. Fear as powerful as that which had greeted his stealthy approach returned to her eyes.
"You know I won't come with you, Freddy. Perhaps later things will be arranged. John and I had a talk to-night."
His face worked evilly.
"He had a talk with me, too," he said. "It's come to a showdown. No use talking about waiting, Bella. It's now or never. You've held me off too long. Got to choose. We love each other."
He advanced. She stepped behind the table.
"Don't come any nearer, Freddy. What's the matter with you?"
He laughed.
"Just you."
He tapped the side pocket of his coat.
"By gad! I'd have killed him to-night to get to you if it had been necessary. That's what you've done to me, Bella."
He reached across and grasped her arm. He held her tight while he glided around the table. A book fell to the floor, and another. A vase of roses toppled over and shattered musically. The flowers made brilliant patches on the dull carpet.
"Let me go. Listen, Freddy! We'll talk it over to-morrow—all three. I promised John I wouldn't see you to-night."
"Tomorrow!" he laughed. "Too late. You don't know all I've done for this—a real sportin' proposition. I tell you it's now or never, and I'm mad about you."
He got his arm around her.
"You've got to let me keep my promise."
Still laughing, he drew her closer. His flaming eyes were near. His breath was revolting on her cheeks.
She struggled, gasping for words.
"Let me go. You've been drinking. He said—"
"He said!" he cried furiously.
"What are you going to do?" she begged.
As he flung her back against the table the side pocket of his unbuttoned coat flapped against her hand.
"I'm not going to let you slip now, Bella."
"Freddy! You're killing me!"
She put her hand in his pocket and snatched out an unpolished, stubby, evil cylinder with a square grip which perfectly fitted her hand.
"Look out, Freddy! You hurt!"
He laughed again. His lips, repulsive and cruel, crushed hers. Her smothered crying was bitter.
An explosion, slightly muffled, crowded the room with sound. Another followed.
His lips, a moment ago masterful with unreasoning vitality, no longer troubled her.
"Freddy!" she sobbed. "I'm sorry—"
He crumpled at her feet.
Near the water, spilled from the vase of roses, a darker stain spread.
She screamed.
"What's the matter? Freddy! I'm sorry— Say something— Pray!"
She stumbled to her knees by the dead man. Her desolate cries fled ceaselessly through the open window.