Grey Mask

CHAPTER XLII

The room was silent. Charles could hear nothing, see nothing. He strained, and heard only the horrid beat of his own pulses.

Margaret’s hands had fallen on the back of the chair by which she stood. It was a heavy mahogany chair with an old-fashioned horse-hair seat. Her hands closed on the smooth mahogany in the hard grip that felt nothing. The pillars of her house had fallen. She stood in the disaster and held blindly to the nearest thing that offered support. The shock was too great for crying out; it struck her dumb. She saw the pistol and the cruelty in Freddy’s eyes. She hoped he would shoot quickly. It was too horrible. She hoped he would shoot quickly.

He did not shoot. He balanced the pistol in his hand and laughed.

“I’m glad you didn’t scream. Marvellous self-control! If you had screamed, I should have had to shoot you at once-and that would have been a pity. I should like”-his voice slipped back into the hesitating voice that she had always known-“I should really like now to have a little talk with you first, my dear-a comfortable talk-what?”

Margaret drew a long, deep, shuddering breath, and he laughed again.

“Not any louder than that please.” It was Grey Mask speaking. “I don’t want to have to put an end to our little party just as we’re all really beginning to enjoy ourselves- but I’m forgetting you’re not aware that it is a party. They say three isn’t company; but it does so depend on the three. Doesn’t it? Now you and I and Charles-”

Margaret said “Oh!” It was a quick involuntary cry.

Freddy Pelham took her by the shoulder. She had not known that there could be so much strength in his fingers.

“You haven’t said how d’you do to Charles,” he said. “Come along and have a look at him. He’s been having a most entertaining time, and so have I. It’s time you had a share in the fun. Let go of that chair!” This last was a sharp command with a sort of snarling fury behind it that was quite sudden and very daunting.

Then in an instant, as Margaret’s rigid fingers still held on to the mahogany rail, he struck her across the knuckles with the little pistol. The blow cut the skin.

Charles heard her gasp and catch her breath. The next moment the sofa was pulled aside. Freddy was grinning at him, and Margaret looking, looking with her bruised hands at her breast and sheer heartbreak in her eyes. She said “Charles” and again “Charles” very faintly; and then “Is he-” and long, long pause before her failing voice said, “dead?”

“Not yet,” said Freddy.

Margaret cried out and wrenched away from him.

“Steady now-steady! If you make a noise, I shall have to shoot him here-and now. You can look, but you mustn’t touch. He’s a lovely sight-isn’t he? You needn’t be alarmed by the blood on the side of his head-it’s a mere scratch and won’t interfere in the least with his enjoyment of the next few days. I’m not going to hurt either of you, you know, unless you positively oblige me to-I’m only going to leave you in a comfortable dry cellar where you may, or may not, be found when the ninety-nine year lease of this house has fallen in, in-let me see, it is seventy or seventy-one years’ time from now-I’m really not quite sure.”

Margaret turned on him with a courage which stirred Charles Moray’s pride.

“Freddy, you’re not well. You-what are you saying? Freddy-think!”

Freddy Pelham let his amused gaze touch first one and then the other of them.

“My dear Margaret, it will save trouble if you will realize that you are not dealing with an amiable step-father who has suddenly gone mad, but with a man of intelligence who has built up a most successful business and is prepared to remove anyone who endangers it. Though I dislike you both acutely, I should never have lifted a finger against either of you if you had not foolishly threatened me with the police. I never mix business and pleasure. It will save time if you realize this. As an illustration, I may tell you that the cellar of which I spoke just now was the reason for my buying this house, and for my continuing to stay here all these years. It has often been-exceedingly useful. It was constructed by the eccentric Sir Joseph Tunney in 1795. I came across a reference in an old book of memoirs which caused me to buy this house when it came into the market. When I say that not even your mother has ever suspected the existence of this extra cellar, you will admit that Sir Joseph Tunney was a highly ingenious person. Why, Mark Dupre was there for a fortnight, with the police scouring the country for him, and not a soul ever suspected where he had been. He was wise enough to pay up, and when we had collected the money, he was found-as perhaps you remember-on the top of Hindhead in his pyjamas without the slightest idea of how he got there.”

Margaret had been falling slowly back step by step with her hands out before her as if to keep something away. As Freddy finished speaking, she sank down in the chair by the writing-table, flung her arms across the scattered papers, and bowed her head upon them.

“Well now, we’ll go down and look at the cellar-what?”

The reappearance of the old Freddy was the last touch of horror. Margaret cried out and lifted her head.

“Freddy-there’s one thing-Freddy-mother-will you tell me the truth? What happened? Is she-dead?”

He stiffened.

“That’s a very extraordinary thing to say. What makes you ask a thing like that?”

“An old friend-I met an old friend of hers. She said- she said-she’d seen her a fortnight ago in Vienna. I thought-” Her voice died as he looked at her.

“Who is this-friend?”

“I shant tell you. She only saw her for an instant. She didn’t speak to her. Freddy, tell me!” Her fingers clasped and unclasped themselves, tearing a piece of paper to shreds. “Freddy, tell me!”

“Who is this friend?”

She shook her head.

“You don’t know her. She doesn’t know anything. She thinks it was a likeness. Please, please tell me.”

“What does it matter to you now? On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter to me; so, as it happens, I don’t mind telling you. Esther is alive-or was three days ago when her last letter to me was posted.”

“Alive!” The word came with a rash.

“I’ve already told you that it makes no difference to you. It’s very irrational of you to feel any pleasure in a matter which won’t concern you in the least.”

Margaret said “Alive!” again. This time the word was only, a whisper.

Freddy Pelham began to walk up and down the room.

“Yes, she’s alive. If even the strongest of us hadn’t got his weakness, she wouldn’t be alive. She’s been my danger always-always.” He repeated the word with a certain fierce energy. “A man in my line of business should never allow himself a serious affair with a woman-it’s dangerous. You needn’t think of me as a fool who gave way to weakness. No, I always knew that she was my danger point, and I ran the risk deliberately, because she was the only woman I have ever met who was worth it, and because I felt myself strong enough to surmount the danger.”

Margaret’s eyes rested on him with a horrified surprise. Was this Freddy?

He went on talking all the time in a low, hard tone:

“I risked it, and I risked it successfully until six months ago. Then she discovered something. If she had been an ordinary woman, I could have put her off-you know how quick she is. Besides I was not altogether sorry. One gets a little tired of acting the poor fool whose only merit is his capacity for humble adoration. I welcomed the chance of showing myself to Esther as I really was.” He paused, stood in the middle of the room looking down at the pistol in his hand. “I ought to have ended it at once when I found how unreasonable she was. Instead, I went back to my acting-I played the penitent-and ye gods, how women do revel in forgiveness! She produced a plan she considered a stroke of genius-we would go abroad, making her health the excuse. I was to renounce my profession and any profits derived from it. A deliciously feminine piece of impracticability. Well, we went abroad. I allowed Esther to think that she was choosing our route. As a matter of fact, I had a plan of my own. I have for some years possessed a charming estate in eastern Europe. I took Esther there by car. She had no idea of where she was when we got there. Fortune played into my hands; she fell ill after a scene in which I explained my plan to her. Then, I must confess, I displayed weakness. I did not accept what chance offered me. I found myself unable to do so-I found that I could not contemplate life without her. It was a weakness. I temporised. I sent telegrams announcing her death. At one moment I hoped that she would die; at the next I drove three hundred miles to fetch a doctor. In the end she lived. I left her in trustworthy hands and came back. If I found that I could live without her, she could still be removed. If I was unable to conquer this foolish weakness of mine, she could remain in seclusion, and I could so arrange my affairs as to be able to go backwards and forwards. This morning”-He stopped, looked down at the pistol with a cold, furious stare, and then went on quickly: “This morning I heard from her- from Vienna. She had made her way there-how, I shall make it my business to find out. She could not have got away except by treachery-it was impossible. She writes that she is well-that there are things she does not understand- that she is waiting in Vienna for a personal explanation. I propose to give her one that will remove all further danger from my path.”

Margaret turned her eyes from his face. Another moment, and she would have screamed aloud. She caught at the arm of her chair and stood up. She was trembling very much. As Freddy came towards her, she went back step by step, her hands behind her, until she reached the window. She touched the edge of the blind.

Freddy levelled his pistol.

“If you lift that blind or call out, I’ll shoot.”

She shook her head, leaning there with half-closed eyes as if she were about to faint.

“Come away from that window at once! Do you hear! One”-he wheeled suddenly and aimed at Charles- “two-”

Margaret ran forward sobbing and catching her breath.

“No-no-no!”

He caught her roughly by the arm.

“We’ve had enough of this. Come along! Walk in front of me to the door and open it! Remember if you make one sound, it’ll be your last.”

He turned and took an electric torch from a shelf.

Charles saw the door opened. As Margaret passed through it, he thought, with a frightful stab of pain, that he had seen her face for the last time. She looked over her shoulder just before the door swung in and hid her from his sight. He strained with all his might against his bonds, only to realize that he was exhausting himself uselessly. He lay still, and suffered for Margaret. The sudden break in her self-control, the pitiful sobbing-if only she had not broken down-if only her fine pride had held to the last. Charles Moray remembered that he had wished to see it broken.

He remembered all the times she had looked pale, and he had been angry, and all the times she had been sad and he had been cruel. And he remembered that he might have comforted her, and he had not. And now it was too late. He could not tell her now that he had loved her all the time-he could never tell her now. He had meant to tell her. He had meant to kiss the sorrow from her eyes and the sadness from her lips. He had meant to hold her close and hear her say, “Forgive-forgive the years I stole.”…It was too late.

Half way down the stairs Margaret sank down. The hand on her shoulder closed in a bruising grip and jerked her to her feet. They passed out of the hall and through the door leading to the basement. Margaret’s steps faltered; she had to lean against the wall. The hand on her shoulder forced her on and down.

In the basement, the empty kitchen and other offices; and at the back, a small flight of steps that led to the cellars, three in number-one for coal, one full of packing-cases, and the third a locked wine-cellar.

Freddy Pelham unlocked the door. There was a good deal of wine in the bins, and at the far end, a cask or two and some more packing-cases. He shut and locked the door on the inside, and then proceeded to shift one of the casks and to move the packing-cases.

A low, stout wooden door barred with iron came into view behind them. It was barely three feet high, and was secured by three strong bolts.

Freddy shot them back.

“When I bought this house, all this was very cleverly hidden-match-boarding and whitewash-very clever indeed. Without the information which I had extracted from an otherwise extraordinarily dry book of memoirs I should never have found it, and you wouldn’t be here. Let us praise the pious memory of Sir Joseph Tunney.”

He pushed the door, which opened inwards. A horrible darkness showed beyond. He stood back with the mockery of a bow.

“It’s perfectly dry, and on the warm side. Your last hours should be quite comfortable.”

Margaret leaned against the packing-cases.

“And if I won’t?”

“I shoot you here and push you into that most convenient vault. In with you!”

“Freddy-” The word died on her lips. There was nothing to appeal to. There wasn’t any Freddy. There was only Grey Mask.

She had to bend almost double to pass that horrible low door. Freddy’s torch threw a dancing ray beyond her into the darkness. Her head swam as she watched it flicker. The rough floor seemed to tilt and tremble. Her foot slipped and she fell forward. Behind her the door slammed and she heard the bolts go home. The flickering ray was gone. It was dark.