The porcelain mask A detective story
Haskins pursed his lips thoughtfully and wrinkled his shallow forehead;
after a moment he nodded. "I gotcha; if Gilmore had the low-down on you
he'd have come stormin' in here to have it out with you. Sure he would.
No, I guess Sarbella ain't spilled to him. I guess that ain't his way
of gettin' even with you. Stiletto! That's the way them Eyetalians do
it."
Helen gasped; she hadn't thought of that possibility. She was inclined
to treat the suggestion lightly, but there came back to her the memory
of Victor Sarbella's black eyes flaming into her face, hot with a
stored-up hatred, and she shivered.
"Oh, I--I don't think he would kill me!" she gasped.
"Then you don't know them Eyetalians," Don grunted sagely. "They sure
is strong on the revenge stuff. If I was you I'd keep right here in
this room, while he was on the premises. But that's your trouble, and I
got troubles of my own. When do I get that thousand bucks you was gonna
hand over?"
"But if Sarbella has told Kirklan who I am, what I was before----"
"Then you figger to pass me up, huh? Guess again. Even if Sarbella
does, Gilmore won't squeal to the cops; a guy like him don't want
no family scandal, see! Mebbe he'll show you the gate, but he ain't
gonna send you up the river--not if he's crazy about you like you said
yesterday. But me, that's different. You done me dirty; you throwed me
over, made a bum outta me." His face contorted unpleasantly. "I owe you
one, I do, an' I'm handin' you this on the level; if I get nabbed this
trip I'm goin' to spill. I'm gonna send for the district attorney an'
tell him----"
"I'll try to get the money for you, Don; I'll try my best," broke in
Helen with a quick promise.
Don glared at her triumphantly, as he reached into his pocket for one
of the cigarettes that he had taken from the unconscious taxi driver,
lighted it, and, puffing slowly, began rocking to and fro on his
feet. A silly smile spread over his face, as glancing down, he saw a
bare toe protruding from one sock, where a hole had been rubbed by
friction against the porch post in his climb of a few minutes before.
He remembered that his shoes still swung from around his neck. With a
chagrined exclamation he untied the laces and put the shoes on. Helen
did not smile.
"Yes," she said again, "I'll try to get the money for you to-morrow."
Her hands went out in a nervous gesture, and Don caught the sparkle of
a diamond on her finger. She had not worn it on her visit to Eighth
Avenue Annie's--for good reasons. Haskins stared at the ring and put a
hasty appraisal of four or five hundred dollars on it.
"I'll take that for security," he said, pointing. She drew back against
the wall in a move of refusal, and Don, eyes narrowed, darted toward
her.
"Aw, I guess you will," he growled.
But, when his fingers touched the smooth, white skin of her arm and
seized her in an effort to force the diamond from her, a change came
over him. A fierce return of his old love for her swept through him.
All his hate melted, like ice returned to its first form of water. His
arm tightened about her, drawing closer; his unshaven, stubbly chin
buried against her throat.
"The law says you're mine!" he panted. "You're my wife. I--I guess I
ain't stopped bein' crazy about you even--even when I was wantin' to
kill you--wantin' to choke the life outta you like--like this."
The fingers of one hand raised before her face, writhing, twisting,
like tentacles; they neared her soft throat, toyed against the skin.
Helen dared not scream, but she struggled in silent terror. Her arms
flailed against his sides, and her hand struck against the bulky
automatic in his coat. Her fingers slipped swiftly into his pocket and
seized the butt of the gun.
"You ain't this guy's wife," he went on hoarsely. "You're my wife;
the law says so, and you're goin' with me." He was so beside himself
that he did not feel the tug of the pistol, as it came free from his
pocket. And then there crashed through the stillness of the house the
slam of a closing door. Don's arms dropped limp.
"What was that?" he whispered, returning to the realization that he was
a hunted man, fleeing for his life.
"I think it's Kirklan," she whispered. "His room adjoins this one. Sh!
He'll hear you."
Haskins took a flying leap across the room and switched off the lights;
his hand went to his pocket.
"The gat--it's gone!" he muttered under his breath. "It musta dropped
outta my pocket when I was climbin' up the porch." He groped through
the darkness. "Helen!"
"Sh!"
"You gotta stash me away somewheres. If I get nabbed, what I said
goes--I spill what I know."
Helen in the darkness concealed the automatic beneath the flowing
sleeve of her robe. With the gun she was no longer afraid of Don, but
she still did fear his threats, his power to send her to Auburn prison
on a charge of bigamy. A moment before he had loved her madly; the next
he might hate her again with just as much intensity. She had to aid
him--protect him.
"I'll hide you," she told him, "on the third floor--an old storeroom.
No one ever goes there. I'll bring you food. I'll try to get you the
money; I'll get you money--somehow. I'll see that you get away. Follow
me."
Cautiously she opened the door. The hallway was in friendly darkness.
She groped along the wall, fearful that Don would betray their
presence, but he followed her in stealthy silence.
The third-floor stairway was inclosed, and it was reached through a
door which, since the third floor was seldom used, creaked dismally, as
she swung it open.
"Up there!" she whispered. "The last door at the left; you'll know it.
It's a storeroom. I'll see you--some time to-morrow."
The door closed again whiningly, inclosing Don Haskins within the
stairway. He considered it safe to light a match and did so to
illuminate the upward climb. He saw accumulated dust, evidence of
disuse; Greenacres servants were not good housekeepers above the second
floor, it seemed. Without any difficulty he found the storeroom and,
striking another match, discovered that a kindly circumstance had
left a discarded couch for him to rest upon. He sat down on the edge
of it and felt in his pocket for his package of cigarettes, and then
something dawned upon him. The gun had been in his pocket after he had
got inside the house; he remembered the touch of it, as he had sought
out a cigarette.
"Curse her!" he gritted. "She took that gat outta my pocket. What did
she want with it, anyhow? I got a good notion to go back down there
an'----" He lighted a fag and smoked nervously, indecisively. He wanted
his gun. A desperate man feels safer with something to shoot with, but
he could not quite make up his mind to risk a return to the second
floor.
Helen had returned to her room without detection. She switched on the
lights again, but in her agitation forgot to lock the door behind her.
Stunned, nervously exhausted by this new-conspiring circumstance, the
appearance of Don, she sank down into a chair, and, as her arms dropped
listlessly down, the gun which a few brief hours before had been the
property of Detective Sergeant John Henry Tish of the New York police
department slid down to the rug with a faint thud and lay at her feet.
She made no move to pick it up.
She faced the door, her eyes fixed vacantly upon nothing; hopelessness
engulfed her. Don--her legal husband--here. Sarbella here, too. Both of
them here with her under the same roof. No wonder that she was stunned,
dazed; at times she felt that she must be in the midst of a terrible
nightmare, that she would wake up with the grateful realization that it
wasn't true.
For perhaps ten minutes she sat motionless, surrendering any attempt to
think coherently. Suddenly her lax nerves snapped taut, a gasp escaped
her lips, her eyes widened. There had been no sound of a footstep in
the hall, there had been no rap at the door, but the knob was turning
slowly, silently, and the door began to move.
CHAPTER IX
THE OPEN DOOR
The butler at Greenacres occupied a small room on the ground floor near
the kitchen. He had been asleep for some time when the ringing of the
doorbell sounded, a loud jangling in the night's stillness; he stirred,
muttered grumblingly, and was about to tell himself that it must be a
mistake, when the ring was insistently repeated.
"There ought to be a law against it," he declared, as he slid his thin
old legs out from beneath the sheets, and, not more than partly awake,
fumbled groggily for the light. The clock on the bureau told him that
it was half an hour past midnight. "Fine time of night for people to
go around ringing bells at respectable houses!" Again the bell started
its clatter. "Maybe it's an automobile accident out on the road," he
said, but he did not hurry. Bates was not the hurrying kind. He reached
under the pillow for his false teeth, clicked them into his toothless
gums, and then began to pull his trousers on over the old-fashioned
nightshirt that flapped about his skinny legs.
Still grumbling under his breath, he shambled down the hall, switched
on another light, and went to the front door, making sure that the
safety chain was in place before he opened it. Bates did not have good
eyesight even in the daytime, and at night he was little better than
blind; squintingly he stared through the narrow crack at the form of
the man out on the porch.
"What's wanted?" he snapped complainingly.
"It's me, Bates," came the answer.
"Heaven bless us, it's Mr. Kirklan!" gasped the butler, making haste
to unfasten the chain and admit the master of Greenacres. "Was it you,
sir, doing all that ringing?"
Kirklan Gilmore, still wearing his disheveled dinner coat, entered the
house with a slow, dragging step. His face, as it had been all day, was
haggard and drawn.
"Yes, I rang," he answered; "sorry to rout you out of bed, but I must
have forgotten my keys when I dressed for dinner. It was the only way I
could get in, and I didn't want to spend the night in the studio."
"Oh, certainly not, sir," Bates agreed hastily. "You mustn't think I am
objecting to getting up to let you in. It's quite all right, sir--quite
all right. But you gave me a surprise; I thought you were in bed hours
ago. Have you been at your writing so late?" As an author, Kirklan
Gilmore was one of those methodical fellows who worked just so many
hours a day, usually eight, and at the most ten.
He laughed mirthlessly. "Writing? Man, I can't think, much less write."
"You are ill, sir," Bates murmured solicitously. "I noticed at dinner
that you did not look well. I thought----" He broke off abruptly,
realizing that thinking, especially as regards family affairs, was not
one of his offices as butler.
"You thought--what?"
"Er--nothing, sir; I beg your pardon very humbly. Is there anything I
can do for you before you turn in?"
Kirklan Gilmore's lips twitched.
"Thanks for offering, Bates; as a matter of fact, I was thinking of
asking you to make me one of those old-fashioned toddies that you once
were so good at in my father's day. With a dash of stomach bitters in
it, you know. My nerves are all shot to pieces, Bates. You can see
that; probably liquor won't do any good, but perhaps a good, long drink
will help me get to sleep."
Bates' head wagged approvingly on its slender neck.
"Your father, Mr. Kirklan, always found them beneficial after a hard
day at court. I remember one time when----But I mustn't be gabbing,
when your nerves are jumping like that. I'll mix the toddy for you
right off, sir."
"And I'll go with you," said Gilmore. "You know, as many of 'em as I've
had, I don't think I ever saw you make one."