The Gray Mask Part 6

Although the water streamed from George's face, he saw the man shiver.

It started an expository train of thought. The last time this job had been attempted Kridel had been killed--in this house, almost certainly in this room. He recalled the superst.i.tious fears of many criminals.

Perhaps that accounted in a degree for the other's bared nerves.

"May take time," George jerked out again. "If I could only use a drill and a touch of nitro."

He whistled softly.

"None of that rough business here. Good Lord, Simmons, don't let that stuff go off."

Nora leaned forward.

"Scared, George?"

The question brought fire.

"Show me anybody else who'd do this stunt with more nerve."

"Slim must think a lot of you to put you at it twice."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Didn't you fall down on it last time?"

"Ask Slim," he said shortly. "This is the time I'm interested in, and if we pull it off--"

He reached over, tapping the mahogany with ritual precaution.

"If we pull it off, Nora, you're going to quit fooling with me. I've dangled a long time, and we'll have plenty of money then."

Physical greed for a moment drove the uneasiness from his eyes.

"Maybe, when I get the door open, you'll give me that kiss I've been waiting for."

Garth felt shame that he had the impulse to risk his mission for this woman he should have loathed. He wanted to take the burly, glistening throat between his hands. He controlled himself with an effort. But he could not experience for the girl that just loathing.

She had altered subtly. At George's question her form had lost its alertness and had a.s.sumed the unyielding lines of a somnambulist; and her voice had the colorless tone of one who speaks out of a dream.

"Maybe when you get it open, George. Time enough to think of that then.

I'm not so sure you'll open it. I'm not so sure of your nerve."

"Wait and see," he said. "You're a pretty one to talk about nerve. You look as though you'd seen a ghost."

She sank back in a heap. She screened her face with her hands. George stared.

"Now what--"

"Don't say that, George," she whispered. "Not here. Ever since I've been in this room--it--it doesn't feel right."

She trembled.

"Hurry! I'm afraid here."

"Hold the light up," he said roughly. "What's the matter with you? This isn't a graveyard."

He resumed his manipulation of the k.n.o.b. Garth noticed that from time to time he glanced quickly over his shoulder at the somber corners of the room.

Nora had, to a certain extent, startled Garth. Her barely audible words still breathed disquietingly in his ears. They had been like a bow drawn across a string too tightly stretched.

She kept her face hidden now while George worked. The only sound was the m.u.f.fled clicking of the b.a.l.l.s in the combination; the only light, the shaft from the lamp which she held unsteadily. The thought of the steel walls added to the oppression of the air. Garth breathed with difficulty. He fancied once that something moved behind the divan.

George caught his start and demanded an explanation. He scolded querulously.

"Well," Garth croaked, "I agree with the lady. I don't like the room."

"I looked around," George said.

Nora lowered her arms.

"George," she said, "sometimes you can't see everything."

She straightened. That disquieting, colorless whisper came again.

"I know what it is. That cop was killed here, wasn't he?"

"What do I know about it?" he asked angrily.

She leaned closer and grasped his arm.

"Right here, George. And if he--It must have been just like this--this time of night--when he--George! Can't we turn on the lights?"

He swallowed hard.

"Why not send out a call for the patrol? What do you mean, if he--"

She shivered.

"I don't like places where people have died hard. That's what I felt when I came in here. But you--you're not afraid?"

He turned momentarily from his work. He tried with indifferent success to fill his voice with challenge. Afterwards he looked up expectantly as though he was far from certain the challenge might not be accepted.

"Afraid! A man with a red heart afraid of dead ones! They never come back."

"Don't say that. I know. My mother told me such things. She was Italian.

She knew. She saw. George, don't say that. It's like cursing the dead.

And he lay right there, didn't he, George, between you and the safe?

That's why Slim stayed outside. Maybe Slim killed him. I want to go, too. Let Simmons hold the lamp."

"No," George said. "That thing he wears isn't human company. You stay."

Garth wondered that in that fantastic light the girl's manner should set a cold anxiety rippling along his own nerves. He looked with an unnatural curiosity at the place which she had indicated.