The Gray Mask. Camp Wadsworth

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 assumed 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 knob. 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 muffled clicking of the balls 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.

      Evidently she had yielded to an excess of terror. In spite of George's command she was trying to pass the lamp to Garth. It slipped from her fingers, and the white shaft circled swiftly downwards. She caught the handle before it reached the floor, but now the only light in the room was a narrow circle which bored into the carpet and exposed a dark, irregular stain.

      Nora cried chokingly.

      "Blood! George! That's his blood!"

      Cursing, George reached forward, caught her arm, and swung the light away from this desolate reminder of tragedy.

      "No wonder!" she whispered. "No wonder Slim didn't have the nerve to come back and do those same things. He'd have seen the man he'd killed between him and his work."

      Garth could scarcely catch her voice.

      "If I thought you had that much nerve, George, I might – I believe I might – "

      She broke off abruptly. George stared at her, then turned back and fumbled for the knob.

      "Try to keep the light steady, Nora."

      There was a beseeching, child-like quality in his tone. He worked with difficulty now. His hands were no longer perfect mechanical tools. They wavered about the knob. His lips twitched. Perspiration thickened on his face. Garth saw drops glitter and fall slowly to the stained carpet.

      Garth caught himself paradoxically wishing George to hurry. For a moment he was relieved when a new sound came from the combination, and George with a sigh turned the handle.

      "Ready to open," he said.

      He swung on Nora.

      "Talk about Slim! Crying, Nora? Good Lord – "

      "Don't, George," she said. "If I half close my eyes I can see him through my tears, lying here in the shadows. Can't you?"

      He clasped his arms about her. He hid his eyes in her hair.

      "Hush," he said hoarsely. "And, while Simmons does his work, give me that kiss."

      Garth's fingers reached out, then he thought of the frayed piece of paper possibly in the inspector's hands and already urging the night to a successful climax. This anguish, too, he must suffer. So he drew back profoundly shaken.

      Nora, however, was protecting her lips.

      "You promised – " George began.

      "I said if you had that much nerve. But I know you haven't. Even if you had croaked him you wouldn't dare acknowledge it here. Why, George, you're kneeling where he lay."

      He threw back his shoulders. He laughed demonstratively.

      "What difference does that make? I'm kneeling to you. And let Slim rave. I'll give you your price. You needn't be ashamed to kiss me, Nora. It wasn't Slim. I did it. The cop jumped me from behind that sofa, and I let him have the knife."

      He raised his lips expectantly.

      Garth didn't understand at first. He only realized with a savage joy that their lips did not touch. Yet he questioned why the big man, instead of answering the temptation of that mouth, half-open and inviting, drooped backwards until he lay stretched СКАЧАТЬ