The Gray Mask

by Wadsworth Camp

The figure did not stir. The sallow face remained as if carved. The only motion in the room was a lazy curling from the water pipe of white smoke which faded in the darkened, perfumed air. Then the curtain moved stealthily at one end, disclosing a dark face of a Levantine cast. This man came through, carefully replacing the curtain behind him, stroked his bony hands, and demanded Garth's desires. The immobility of the cross-legged creature ceased. The stem of the water pipe as he raised it to his mouth writhed in sinuous curves. He commenced to puff. The water bubbled unevenly.

Garth examined the rugs with growing excitement. He was prepared to believe that he had stumbled on a meeting place. And after all wasn't this an ideal rendezvous? The shop had probably been here for years. The town was full of such stores. At any rate his impression of a calculated evil increased. He felt himself the object of suspicion. It was conceivable to him that he might suffer a fate similar to Brown's—perhaps behind that hideous curtain which the Levantine and the cross-legged figure seemed to guard.

Garth started. The unequal bubbling of the pipe had accompanied all his thoughts. Constantly it would pause, then recommence. The idea which had been struggling unconsciously in the detective's brain took shape. That uneven bubbling possessed a significance beyond the pleasures of nicotine. It suggested a means of communication, a code.

While he bargained with the Levantine his confidence in this eccentric explanation increased. It condemned the occupants of the shop. Whether or not the men were connected with the plot Brown had feared against Alsop, they were decidedly objects of interest to the police. Still, if Brown had spied here, the danger was obvious. The Levantine and the man in the fez were sinister opponents. Yet Garth wanted to see behind that grotesque curtain.

For a time, listening to the bubbling, he wondered if they would let him leave the shop at all. He was in no hurry to go until he had made sure of one or two things. While fingering a rug he managed stealthily to examine the wall. It was about what he had hoped, what he had expected. The house was very old. It was one of a row built simultaneously before the fire laws had amounted to much. He was sure that the dividing walls between these basements were not fireproof. As nearly as he could tell from the surface he examined, they would probably be lath-and-plaster, with, perhaps, rubble in the space between. His next step was to measure as accurately as he could with his eye the distance between the entrance and the curtain, which was like a ceremonial background for the man in the fez. Stooping to inspect one of the rugs, he struck the flooring with his fist, as if by accident. He was satisfied. There was no cellar beneath this basement. He dared hope that he would see what lay behind the curtain.

Approximating as nearly as he could the subtleties of a buyer, he promised to make up his mind and return with his decision the next morning. He knew that sharp and angry eyes followed him from the shop.

He had a feeling that the darkened place had become active as soon as he had turned his back.

He walked slowly to the corner, studying the houses on either side of the shop. The one to the right was a cheap boarding house. The one on the other side was evidently a private dwelling.

At the nearest hardware store he bought an auger and a screwdriver. Then he entered the alley that bisected the block, and, counting the houses, knocked at the kitchen door of the one to the right of the Oriental shop. The servant who admitted him verified his hazard. At this hour the occupants were at work. She was, for the present, alone in the house.

Garth showed her his badge, warned her to make no noise, and to stay close to him. The girl, frightened and unable to comprehend, followed him into the basement. He paced from the front of the house along the wall to a point which, according to his calculations, was opposite the hidden portion of the shop. He glanced up then with satisfaction. Against a thin and antiquated partition was suspended one of those heavy and unwieldy gas meters which are found only in very old buildings.