The Gray Mask Part 18

Her laugh was scarcely audible.

Her words had set Garth's memory to work. He knew again what he missed in this silent house--the amorphous screams of a woman in an agony powerless to express itself. How she must have wanted to speak! How horribly she had tried until the supreme, the enduring silence had clutched about her throat! The sullen and sepulchral air of the room seemed to vibrate with the wraiths of those efforts.

Was the door open to the next room where she had struggled and died?

Garth stirred uneasily.

Nora spoke.

"How long?"

"Not long," Garth whispered, "or I'll turn the lights on. I'll look."

His thoughts swung back to the next room and the despair it had harbored. Could such pa.s.sionate resistance to circ.u.mstance perish utterly? Could the violent will behind it accept silence and pa.s.s with the body into nothingness?

What had she wanted to say?

A movement, scarcely audible, reached him from the next room.

Nora's hand touched his arm. He was aware of the trembling of her fingers. He leant forward, listening. He scarcely caught Nora's voice.

"You heard--that?"

The movement was repeated--somebody--something stirred in the dark room where the woman had died.

Nora swayed against him. Her other hand touched his shoulder. His heart leapt, but he realized that this contact was only an impersonal appeal for protection. So he drew his arms back, but his brain was clearer. He no longer answered to the fancy that the echoes of those screams tortured his ears.

"Stay here quietly," he whispered.

"Don't go in there, Jim."

He pushed her hands gently away. His movements as he crossed the floor were stealthier than those which still persisted in the bedroom. He paused in the doorway. The darkness was complete, yet he could locate the movements now against the farther wall.

He drew out his revolver and his flashlight. He pressed the b.u.t.ton. The glare splintered the blackness and centered on the figure of a man who bent over the open drawer of a desk.

"Throw your hands up!" Garth said.

In the dressing-room Nora cried out.

The man at the desk swung around, lifting his hands and exposing the white and contorted face of the butler, Thompson.

Garth laughed nervously.

"I've got him, Nora."

"Wh--what do you mean?" the man asked. "I came back--Who are you? What do you want of me?"

Garth stepped forward aggressively. His conscience troubled him not at all.

"I want you for the murder of Frederick Treving--there in the next room."

The fellow's jaw dropped.

"No--no. I had nothing to do with it. I swear."

Garth raised his hand to the lapel of the butler's coat.

"I thought so," he said. "No question about you, my man. You wore the rose I found where Treving's body lay. Got it at the wedding, didn't you?"

The man sank on the unmade bed.

"What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with it."

"Tell that to the judge who'll send you to the chair," he said.

The butler shook. He raised his uncertain hands to his face. He shuddered.

"No, no. I tell you I had nothing to do with it. It was Mrs. Randall. He attacked her, and she shot him."

Garth relaxed.

"You heard that, Nora?"

Nora came to the door.

"Yes."

"Then," Garth said, "I am about through with the case."

He turned back to Thompson.

"But you're not clear yet. How did you happen to be here? I know you went to the wedding with the rest."

"Yes, but Mrs. Randall got me on the telephone--said the doctor had been called back to town and she was nervous and I'd have to come home. As I let myself in the back way I heard her scream. I ran up and through this room. I got to the door just in time to see her shoot him. But when I rushed in and tried to lift her up she screamed. I couldn't do anything with her. And I got frightened. When I heard the motorcycle and guessed it was a policeman who had heard her screaming, I ran out the servants' entrance and went back to the wedding and came home with the rest. I was afraid they would take me, and she couldn't say anything to clear me. That's the truth."

Garth looked him over contemptuously.

"And, knowing the truth, you'd have let Dr. Randall go to trial."

Thompson uncovered his face. Through his tears his eyes glowed with an exceptional devotion.

"I worked for her, sir. I had been with her family ever since she was born. Besides, if he didn't want to give her away, what business was it of mine? He sent for me to-day, and when I told him I had seen her shoot him, he made me promise to keep my mouth shut."

"I know he sent for you," Garth said. "That's why I hoped to find you here to-night. He suspected you were a go-between and that there might be letters or something here to incriminate her with Treving."

Thompson nodded.

"I told the doctor, a few letters and trinkets. He said I must get them as soon as the detectives had left and the house was clear. But I can say, sir, there was never anything really out of the way. She wasn't quite happy with the doctor. It would be a kindness to the dead--"