Grey Mask

CHAPTER XXIV

When he had finished, Miss Silver laid her knitting in her lap.

“Just a moment, Mr. Moray. I think we want to get things clear. We have a conspiracy, and there are a number of persons whom we suspect of being involved in it. You have the advantage of having seen some of these people. I would like to go back to the night of October 3rd and just see whether any of these people can be identified. You looked into the room where the man in the grey mask was transacting his business. You saw him-”

Charles shrugged his shoulders.

“I saw nothing that anyone could recognise. I can think of no one whom I suspect of being Grey Mask.”

“I have come across him before,” said Miss Silver

“-not as Grey Mask of course; but in the last five or six years I have constantly come across small bits of evidence which have led me to suspect that there is one man behind a number of coordinated criminal enterprises. He pulls a great many strings, and every now and then I have come across one of them. Well-there was a second man sitting with his back to you.”

“In an overcoat and a felt hat,” said Charles.

“You didn’t see his face?”

“Not a glimpse.”

“You heard his voice?”

“A very ordinary one,” said Charles, “no accent.”

“What make of man?”

“Fairly broad in the shoulders. Not tall, from the way he was sitting.”

“It might have been Pullen,” said Miss Silver meditatively.

“It might have been ten thousand other people,” said Charles with impatience.

Miss Silver went on in a placid voice:

“Then there was another man keeping the door. They alluded to him as Forty. Well, we know that Forty is Jaffray, who was Mr. Standing’s valet and on board the yacht when Mr. Standing was drowned. You did not actually hear Mr. Standing’s name mentioned; but you picked up a piece of paper with the last syllable of his name, and you heard one of the men speak of Margot. Grey Mask spoke of Forty having been at sea, and made a number of allusions to his connection with an unnamed man afterwards drowned. It is clear that the late Mr. Standing was meant. Now we pass to the fourth man-Twenty-seven. He came in to report. I think he was William Cole. And I think the man with no number was Pullen. A fifth man, who was described as a jellyfish and as being unwilling to marry the girl, is certainly Egbert Standing.”

Charles nodded.

“I give you Egbert. But as to the rest, it’s the very purest conjecture.” He laughed. “You ask me when I’m going to the police. What do you suppose they would make of those surmises of yours? Pullen is secretary of a criminal conspiracy because Lady Perringham didn’t lose her pearls whilst he buttled for her. You see? William Cole has been in prison; therefore he is Number Twenty-seven, with a roving commission to murder inconvenient heiresses. Good Lord! You ask why I don’t go to the police! What sort of fool should I look if I did? I saw hats, overcoats, a muffler, a mask, and a shirt-front. I should be making a prize ass of myself, and you know it.”

He laughed again. He was fighting desperately for Margaret, and fighting in the dark. They were lovers no more, and friends no more; but the instinct to fight for her survived both love and friendship; it rose up in him hard and stark. He plunged on:

“What beats me is why they should have pitched on my house as a rendezvous.”

“Oh-” said Miss Silver mildly, “I think I can explain that. It is a point I was about to mention. You have a caretaker called Lattery. He is a married man. Do you happen to know Mrs. Lattery’s maiden name?”

“No, I don’t.”

“It was Pullen,” said Miss Silver,-“Eliza Pullen.”

Charles exclaimed.

“Pullen!”

“Pullen the butler is her brother. It would be easy for him to find out just when the house would be empty; and a big empty house would make a very good meeting place. Your house offers peculiar advantages. Thorney Lane is not much frequented, and the alley-way by which access may be had to the garden is very dark and lonely.”

Charles whistled.

Miss Silver waited a moment. Then she said,

“Yes, Mr. Moray. To continue-On the night of October 3rd Miss Langton was in your house, and it would help me very much if you would be frank about this. I know that you were once engaged, and if Miss Langton’s visit was, if I may say so, a personal one, it would of course alter the whole situation-No, Mr. Moray-a moment. I will say nothing that is not necessary; but if Miss Langton had come there to meet you, it would account for a good deal-it would account for your reticence and for your desire to keep the matter out of the hands of the police. It is even possible that Miss Langton was seen by Pullen or one of the others, and that this increases your apprehension on her account-it would be very natural, and, if I may say so, very pardonable.”

She smiled a little deprecating smile. Charles met it with a blank expression.

“And if Miss Langton had come to see me, would there have been anything very strange or compromising in that? She has been free of the house since she was a child. I have known her since she was ten years old, Miss Silver. Will you say there was any reason why we should not have met? Wouldn’t it be perfectly natural in the circumstances?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Silver. Then she coughed. “You really tell lies very badly, Mr. Moray.”

“Do I?”

“Oh, very badly indeed. It would have been better if you had been frank with me-much better. You see, you have told me what I wanted to know. I was not quite sure about Miss Langton.”

Charles pushed back his chair.

“I think we won’t discuss Miss Langton.”

Miss Silver sighed.

“That is foolish of you. You see, I know now that you saw her with Grey Mask, because if you had not done so, you would certainly have denied my suggestion that she came to the house to meet you.”

“Miss Silver!”

Miss Silver shook her head mournfully.

“You would have been very angry indeed if you had not thought I was offering you a way of escape. You know that.”

“Miss Silver!”

“Mr. Moray, have you ever asked Miss Langton for an explanation of what you saw?”

Charles was silent. He felt a sort of horrified fear of this gentle nondescript person.

“Mr. Moray, I am most earnestly anxious to help you. Have you asked Miss Langton for an explanation?”

“Yes,” said Charles, “I have.”

“Did she give you one?”

“No.”

“None at all?”

“No.”

“Will you now tell me where you saw Miss Langton, and in what circumstances?”

“She came into the room, walked up to the table, and put down a package. She said something, and Grey Mask said something. I couldn’t hear what they said. She only stayed a moment. I didn’t see her face.”

“But you were in no doubt as to her identity?”

“No.”

“I see,” said Miss Silver. “Just one more question. Was she announced in any way?”

Charles did not answer. He heard Jaffray’s voice, a little husky, pitched in a Cockney whisper: “Number Twenty-six is ’ere, guvnor.”

Miss Silver asked another question:

“The men had numbers. Was Miss Langton designated by a number?”

Charles was silent.

Miss Silver was silent for a moment too. Then she said very gently,

“I see that she was, Mr. Moray. It must have been a great shock to you. I think it is probable that these people have been blackmailing her. I have come across indications of this sort of thing before. The man you call Grey Mask works by means of blackmail-only instead of money he demands service. That is his method. You see, it gives him a hold over his tools-they are bound to obey.”

Charles lifted his head.

“In Miss Langton’s case there could be no question of blackmail. There could be nothing-”

“There is often something that no one dreams of. Think, Mr. Moray! Go back four years. She broke her engagement a week before her wedding day. Does a girl do that for nothing? Did she ever tell you why she did it?”

Charles Moray turned abruptly and walked out of the room. The door shut behind him. The outer door shut behind him.

Mis Silver put away the brown exercise-book and took up her knitting.