Patricia Wentworth: Grey Mask

Through the open door there came a man who looked like a commercial traveller. He wore a large overcoat and a bowler hat. Charles never got a glimpse of his face. He walked up to the table with an air of assurance and looked about him for a chair.

There was no chair within reach, and under Grey Mask’s silent, unmoving stare some of the assurance seemed to evaporate. The stare was a very curious one, for the holes in the smooth grey face were not eye-shaped but square- small square holes like dark dice on a grey ground. They gave Charles himself an indescribable feeling of being watched.

“Twenty-seven-” said Grey Mask.

“Come to report.”

Grey Mask tapped the sheets of the written report sharply.

“Your report is too long. It leaves out essentials. There’s too much about you-not enough about the facts. For instance, you say the lawyer took care of the will. Did he destroy it?”

Twenty-seven hesitated. Charles suspected him of a desire to hedge.

“Did he?”

“Well-yes, he did.”

“How?”

“Burnt it.”

“Witnesses?”

“One’s dead. The other--”

“Well?”

“I don’t know. It’s a woman.”

“Her name?”

“Mary Brown-spinster.”

“Know who she was?”

“No.”

“Find out and report again. That’s essential. Then there’s another point. There was no certificate?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“I couldn’t find one. The lawyer doesn’t know of one. I don’t believe there is one-I don’t believe there was a marriage.”

“Too much ‘you,’ ” said Grey Mask. “Find out about that witness. You can go now.”

The man went, looking over his shoulder as if he were expecting to be called back.

Charles did not see his face at all. He was cursing himself for a fool. He ought to have got downstairs before Twenty-seven. He had his plan all made, and he ought to have been attending to it instead of listening to the gentleman confessing his criminal activities. Twenty-seven would now get away, whereas if Charles had cut along the corridor and locked the door at the end of it, he might very well have had a bag of four waiting for the police.

At a very early stage of this interview his thoughts had dwelt hopefully on the fact, so much deplored by Mr. Packer, that his telephone subscription had been kept going during those four years of absence.

Twenty-seven had faded-must fade if the other three were to be bagged. It was a pity; but perhaps the police would gather him in later.

“I’ll get along,” said Charles; and as he said it, he heard the invisible man on his left move again. He moved and he said, in a whispering Cockney voice,

“Twenty-six is ’ere, guvnor.”

Grey Mask nodded. He had pushed Twenty-seven’s report across the table, and the other man was straightening the sheets and laying them tidily together.

“Shall I let ’er in?” The “ ’er” brought Charles’ eye back to the knot-hole again. He had withdrawn it an inch or two preparatory to getting noiselessly on to his feet; but the Cockney’s “Shall I let ’er in?” intrigued him.

There was the sound of the opening door. The blue serge suit and the khaki muffler bulged into view again, and, passing them, there came a straight black back and a close black cap with a long fold of black gauzy stuff that crossed the cap like a veil and hung down in two floating ends.

Charles received such a shock that the room went blank for a moment. He saw, and did not see; heard words, and made no sense of what he heard. He was within an ace of lurching sideways, and actually thrust out a hand to save his balance. The hand encountered the panelling against which his mother’s dresses used to hang. He kept it there pressed out against the cold wood, whilst with all his might he stared at the straight black back of Number 26 and told himself with a vehement iteration that this was not, and could not be, Margaret Langton.

The iteration died; the rushing sound that filled his ears dwindled. His hand pressed the wall. The blackness passed. He saw the room, with its familiar furnishings-the blue curtains, dark and shadowy; the faded carpet with the wreaths of blue flowers on a fawn-coloured ground; the table with the photograph albums and the lamp with its tilted shade. The ray of light crossing the room showed him the edge of the closing door. It passed out of sight and shut without a sound.

Margaret was standing at the table with her back to him. The light would miss her face because she was standing above it. He needed neither the sight of that face nor any light upon it to be sure that it was Margaret who was standing there. Her hands were in the light. They were ungloved. She was putting down a packet of papers; they looked like letters.

Charles saw the hands that were more familiar to him than any of the familiar things in the room which he had known ever since he had known anything at all. He looked at Margaret’s hands. He had always thought them the most beautiful hands that he had ever seen-not small or slender, but strong white hands, beautifully formed, cool and alive to the touch. The hands were quite bare. He had made sure that Margaret was married, but there was no wedding ring on the finger that had worn his square emerald.

As he saw these things he became aware that Margaret was speaking, her voice so very low that the sound barely reached him and the words did not reach him at all. She stood holding the edge of the table and speaking in that low voice; and then with a quick movement she turned and came back along the ray of light to the door, which swung open to pass her through. The light was at her back. The scarf with the floating ends veiled her face. She moved with her old free step and the little swing of the shoulders that he knew by heart. She held up her head. The ends of the scarf moved behind her. She passed through the door and was gone. The door shut.

Charles drew a very long breath. He had not seen her face.

Charles continued to look into the room. The place where Margaret had stood was just at the edge of where the thick double wreath of fat blue flowers began to twine itself about a central medallion. There was a little worn place just to the right of where she had stood. He stared at the worn place. Margaret had been here and was gone again-Margaret. Well, that put the lid on telephoning to the police. Yes, by gum it did!

A quick spasm of laughter shook him. He had said that it would be interesting to meet Margaret again-interesting.

“Oh, my hat!” said Charles to himself.

Interesting enough-yes, and a bit to spare if he and Margaret were to meet in a crowded police court. A very pretty romantic scene. “Do you recognise this woman?”

“Oh, yes, I almost married her once.” Headlines from the evening paper rose luridly: “Parted Lovers meet in Police Court.”

“Jilted Explorer and Lost Bride.”

“Should Women become Criminals?” No, the police were off.

He came back from the headlines at the sound of a name:

“Margot.” It was the man sitting at the table with his back to him who had spoken.

Charles withdrew his hand from the wall and listened intently. He had thought for a moment that the fellow was going to say Margaret. Then he heard the man say,

“Thirty-two is kicking.”

Grey Mask moved one of the smooth gloved hands; the gesture indicated that Thirty-two and any possible protest he might make were equally negligible.

“He is kicking all the same.”

Grey Mask spoke; the purr was a sneer.

“Can a jelly-fish kick? What’s it all about?”

The man with his back to Charles shrugged his shoulders.

“Says ten per cent isn’t worth the risk.”