The Gray Mask Part 29

"Dead!" Garth echoed.

"Yup. Must have done it right after you left. Choked himself to heaven with his bloomin' queue. Now if he'd had it cut off proper--"

CHAPTER XI

NORA DISAPPEARS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE

For the first time Garth entered the inspector's office with the discomfort of a culprit. Yet he could not accuse himself justly of blundering. Nevertheless the brief telephone conversation with the doorman had informed him that the inspector attached an uncommon importance to the chance capture of the Chinaman. Because of it he would place the blame for the suicide where it fell most conveniently.

When he opened the door he appreciated that there was more than that out of the way at headquarters this morning. A woman bent, ancient, poor, sat in a chair to the right of the inspector's desk. He could hazard no more concerning her, because of an intricately-patterned shawl which was draped over her head and nearly covered her face. Her presence was less astonishing than her bearing in this room, terrible alike to wrong-doers and to the reluctant witnesses of crime. Her att.i.tude, indeed, was expectant. Her lack of distrust impressed him as aggressive. Moreover, its customary rumble had left the inspector's voice which had flowed, Garth had remarked, with a conciliatory blandness.

It paused shortly as Garth entered. The huge man turned slowly in his chair. His eyes, somnolent as a rule, fixed Garth with a lively reproach.

"Shut the door," he grumbled.

Garth obeyed.

"Here's a pretty mess! Why did you bring him in at all?"

"The c.h.i.n.k?" Garth asked mildly.

"No," the inspector roared. "Queen Lilliokulani! Who do you suppose I mean? How many mugs have you brought in since I saw you last? Maybe you thought the big Chinese population was unhealthy."

"I never dreamed he'd do that," Garth protected himself.

"Why didn't you warn the boys to keep an eye on him?" the inspector demanded.

Garth threw up his hands.

"How could I tell? I only brought him in on a chance. I knew you were after the funny medicine crowd. He was up to some queer business last night, and I thought he looked the type."

"Yes," the inspector agreed drily, "he certainly looked the type, so much so that I'd gamble that wizzened brain of his held all I want to know."

He seized a paper weight and commenced to toss it ponderously from fist to fist.

"That's what you've let get away from you. Maybe you'll be accommodating enough to tell me how you happened to pick him up."

Garth glanced questioningly at the woman.

"Don't fret," the inspector said scornfully. "She won't give you away even if you have made an a.s.s of yourself."

Garth reddened. Impulsively he turned on his heel. Later he would be ashamed, since he understood the inspector thoroughly. But for the moment he surrendered himself to pride. The sound of the chair shoved back by the inspector was not unexpected, nor did he fail to catch the note of apology, the appeal for terms in the gruff voice.

"Come back here. Where are you going?"

But it was another voice that swung him sharply.

"Jim! Don't lose your temper."

The inspector's fist scattered the papers on his desk top.

"Who's running this office?"

Garth scarcely heard. He strode to the woman. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the intricately-patterned shawl from her head. The face beneath was old, stained, and wrinkled; but there was no disguising the dark, young eyes which smiled up at him.

"So that's why?" he gasped. "You've done it well, Nora. Now maybe I can know something about it."

She laughed.

"Not if you resign. So much dignity!"

He laughed back.

"Nor if I'm fired."

The inspector grinned.

"I'm glad you let me in this on some basis."

The disclosure of the girl's personality had scattered Garth's revolt, and her eyes, now that they were no longer concealed, seemed to have rebuked the inspector to a milder humour.

"Understand," he said, "Nora doesn't tell me any too much how she's working, and she's been at this off and on for a long time. It's only the last two weeks that it's gotten serious. She had to see me to-day.

That's why I'm on my ear about the Chinaman. He might have saved her a good deal. You see, she's working on that case."

Garth's heart sank.

"Dope!" he cried. "It isn't safe. I tell you she's fighting desperate people, inspector. Look at that Chinaman, whether he's mixed up with the traffic or not, if a brute like him suspected her!"

The inspector returned to his chair. He waved his hands helplessly.

"Talk to Nora. I've told her all that. Once or twice I've wanted her to use her brain in cases where there wasn't any risk. Nothing doing. When this rotten business came up she would go into it on her own hook. I guess that's because she knows Manford and his high-brow, meddling society have got the district attorney behind them, and they've put it up to me hard."

Nora shook her head, smiling a trifle wistfully.

"No, father, I did it to save souls and bodies. You see, Jim, they can handle the little fellows under the new laws, but everybody knows there's this one place up-town, marvelously hidden and guarded--a distributing center, the heart of the whole surviving drug traffic.

When I found out from father that everybody else had failed I just had to try. My conscience kept at me. Success would turn so much misery into happiness, so much sickness into health, so much crime into usefulness.

And to-night, I believe, if we're lucky--Jim! I want you to be there."

"She thinks she's spotted the house," the inspector said softly. "That's what she had to see me about. She wants a raid arranged for to-night."

Garth's voice was anxious.

"How are you working, Nora? I don't like it. I wish you were out of it."

But Nora would tell him nothing, and he realized instinctively that in her crusade she had taken desperate chances and would face more, probably the worst, to-night.