The Gray Mask Part 20

"Here's his name and address. Catch the ten o'clock from the Grand Central and you'll get up there to-night."

Garth took the slip. Before placing it in his pocket he glanced it over.

"Andrew Alden," he saw. "Leave Boston from North Station on four o'clock train and get off at Deacon's Bay."

"I've heard of Mr.--" Garth began.

The inspector's quick, angry shake of the head in Nora's direction brought him to an abrupt pause. He walked to Nora and took her hand.

"Then I won't see you until after my holiday," he said with a smile.

Her eyes were vaguely uneasy.

"I agree with father," she said. "It isn't safe to walk through the dark. Won't you tell me where you're going?"

Garth's laugh was uncomfortable. He didn't pretend to understand, but his course had been clearly enough indicated.

"I'll leave that for the inspector," he answered. "I have to rush to pick up my things on the way to the train."

The uneasiness in her eyes increased.

"You know, Jim, as father says, you can turn it down. It might be wiser."

His heart responded to her anxiety. In view of her fear it was a trifle absurd that their farewell should project nothing more impulsive than a hand-clasp. Its only compensation, indeed, was the reluctance with which she let his fingers go.

When Garth had left, Nora arose and faced her father.

"What's all this mystery?" she demanded. "It's easy enough to guess there's danger for Jim, and you know a lot more than you pretend."

"See here, Nora," the inspector grumbled, "I usually give the third degree myself in this place."

She rested her hands on the desk, studying his uncertain eyes.

"Why," she asked, "wouldn't you let Jim tell me the man's name?"

His bl.u.s.ter was too apparently simulated.

"What did you come down for this morning anyway? No sense in your getting upset. A detective bureau isn't a nursery."

She straightened slowly, her face recording an unwelcome a.s.surance.

"Politics!" she cried. "And Jim's leaving from the Grand Central. I know. He's going to Mr. Alden's at Deacon's Bay. I see why you wouldn't let him tell me."

"Place is all right," the inspector said stubbornly. "You've seen it.

You were there with me two summers ago. What's the matter with the place?"

"No use trying to pull the wool over my eyes," Nora answered. "It's the loneliest place I've ever seen, and you ought to know I'd remember Mr.

Alden's big furnaces and machine-shop. I read the papers, father. He's staying up so late this year on account of the enormous war orders he's taken. You know as well as I do that that may mean real danger for Jim.

What did Mr. Alden tell you?"

The inspector spread his hands helplessly.

"I sometimes think, Nora, you'd make a better detective than any of us.

Alden's sick and nervous. I guess that's all it amounts to. He's probably scared some German sympathizer may take a pot shot at him for filling these contracts. And he's worried about his wife. She won't leave him there alone, and it seems all their servants, except old John, have cleared out."

"You said something to Jim about spooks," Nora prompted.

"Thought you'd come to that," the inspector said. "You're like your mother was, Nora--always on the look-out for the supernatural."

"So, I gather, were the servants," she answered drily.

"Silly talk, Alden says, about the woods back of his house. You remember. There was some kind of a fight there during the Revolution--a lot of men ambushed and ma.s.sacred. I guess you saw the bayonets and gun-locks Alden had dug up. Servants got talking--said they saw things there on foggy nights."

The inspector lowered his voice to a more serious key.

"The angle I don't like is that Alden's valet was found dead in those woods yesterday morning. Not a mark on him. Coroner, I believe, says apoplexy, but Alden's nervous, and the rest of the help cleared out. I suppose they'll get somebody else up as soon as they can. Meantime Alden and his wife are alone with old John. Confound it, Nora, I had to send him somebody."

"But without a word of this!"

"I tell you I don't like it. I didn't want to do it. It was Alden's idea--would have it that way. Frankly I don't make it out, but maybe, being on the spot, he knows best."

"There's something here," she said, "that we can't understand--maybe something big. It isn't fair to Jim."

The inspector looked up slyly.

"Jim," he said, "can take care of himself if anybody can. Seems to me you're pretty anxious. Sure you haven't anything to tell me about you and him? If you had, I might make a place for him watching these ten-cent lunch joints to see that customers didn't carry away the hardware and crockery. Then all the danger you'd have to worry about would be that he might eat the food."

But Nora failed to smile. She glanced away, shaking her head.

"I've nothing to tell you, father," she answered. "Nothing now. I don't know. Honestly I don't know. I only know I've been through one such experience, and if anything happened to Jim that I could help, I'd never forgive myself."

CHAPTER VIII

THROUGH THE DARK

The night had gathered swiftly behind a curtain of rain. Garth, glancing out the window of the train, saw that darkness was already close upon a somber and resentful world. Pines, hemlocks, and birches stretched limitlessly. The rain clung to their drooping branches like tears, so that they expressed an att.i.tude of mourning which their color clothed convincingly. The roaring of the train was subdued, as if it hesitated to disturb the oppressive silence through which it pa.s.sed.

The car, nearly empty, was insufficiently lighted. Garth answered to the growing depression of his surroundings. His paper, already well-explored, no longer held him. He continued to gaze from the window, speculating on the goal towards which he was hurrying through this bleak desolation. The inspector's phrase was suddenly informed with meaning.

He was, in every sense, advancing through the dark. The realization left him with a troublesome restlessness, a desire to be actively at work.

The last streak of gray had long faded when the train drew up at Deacon's Bay station--a small building with a shed like an exaggerated collar about its throat. At this hour there was no operator on duty.

Only one or two oil lamps maintained an indifferent resistance to the mist. Garth saw a horse and carriage at the rear. He walked to it.

"Could you drive me to Mr. Andrew Alden's place?" he asked.