Grey Mask (4 page)

Mr. Hale was considerably annoyed next morning by the arrival of Mr. Egbert Standing and a large leather suit-case full of unsorted papers. One of Mr. Hale’s clerks brought in the suit-case and placed it on the floor, whereupon Egbert with a wave of the hand commanded him to open it.

“It isn’t locked—I never lock things—you just slide back those what-d’you-call-its.”

The clerk slid back the what-d’you-call-its and lifted the top. A mask of crumpled paper met the eye.

“There!” said Egbert. “My man tells me that’s the lot.”

Mr. Hale looked at the suit-case, and Mr. Hale’s clerk looked at Mr. Hale. A large envelope marked Income Tax lay across a pale blue note. Mr. Hale sniffed. A surprisingly vigorous scent of patchouli arose from the suit-case. He suspected the pale blue note—income tax officials do not use patchouli.

“Go on—sort them,” said Egbert in a tone of languid encouragement.

“I should have thought you would prefer to sort them yourself.”

Egbert shook his head.

“I couldn’t be bothered.”

“Your private correspondence—” began Mr. Hale. He eyed the pale blue note.

Egbert yawned.

“I can’t be bothered. Let him get on with it.”

After receiving a nod from Mr. Hale, the clerk proceeded to get on with it. The contents of the suit-case appeared to consist chiefly of unpaid bills. There was a sprinkling of other scented notes—pink, mauve, and brown. There were two sock-suspenders, an artificial flower in a condition of extreme old age, a green satin slipper with a gold heel, and several photographs of damsels in brief skirts and a great many pearls.

“Put the letters on one side, Cassels,” said Mr. Hale. “We’re looking for a letter in the late Mr. Standing’s hand. I don’t know if you remember it.”

“I think I do, sir. Isn’t this his writing?”

Mr. Hale took it, looked at Egbert, and inquired,

“Do you wish me to read this? It seems to be part of a letter from your uncle.”

“Read away—out loud if you like—I’m sure I don’t mind.”

Mr. Hale turned the sheet in his hand, frowning.

“There is nothing about Miss Standing here. I think I will not—er—read it aloud.”

“Is it the one about blackballing me for that club I told you about?”

“No,” said Mr. Hale

Egbert looked slightly puzzled.

“What is it then?”

“Mr. Standing appears to have been refusing a request for a loan.”

“Oh, that one. He’s got a nasty way of putting it—hasn’t he?”

Mr. Cassels unfolded a piece of paper which had been crumpled into a ball. Still on his knees, he turned and laid it on the edge of the writing-table.

“Am I to read this, Mr. Standing?”

“You can read them all—it doesn’t worry me. I can’t be bothered myself.”

The letter was very badly creased indeed. Mr. Hale uttered an exclamation as his eye lighted upon the address and the date. The paper was stamped with the name of a hotel in Majorca, and the date was only a fortnight old. He read the address aloud and repeated the date; then glancing down the sheet, he spoke to the young clerk still rummaging among bills.

“That will do, Cassels. This is the letter we were looking for.”

Mr. Hale turned sharply upon Egbert.

“This letter was written the day before your uncle was drowned. It is, as far as we know, the last letter he ever wrote. It is impossible to over-rate its importance. How could you fail to realize this?”

“I don’t take any interest in business,” said Egbert. “I told you I didn’t. I told you my line was Art.”

Mr. Hale rapped the table.

“You cannot possibly fail to realize the importance of this letter.”

Egbert yawned.

“I don’t know that I read it very carefully. My uncle’s letters don’t interest me, you know.”

“Mr. Standing, I will ask you to listen attentively whilst I read you this letter.”

Egbert sprawled in the big armchair with half-shut eyes. It is possible that he listened attentively; but he had all the appearance of being asleep.

Mr. Hale’s voice was sharp as he read from the crumpled page:—

My dear Egbert,

I will neither lend you any money, nor will I give you any money. Your letter serves to remind me, not for the first time, that I had better make my will and have done with the chances to which Margot’s irregular birth exposes the fortune which I have laboured to build up. Even if she were legitimate, I would not expose her to the risks involved in the possession of so much money. I shall make a will as soon as I return to England, and I advise you not to expect too much from me. What you want is a good hard bout of honest work.

E. Standing.

“It’s a rude letter—isn’t it?” said Egbert sleepily. “I remember I nearly tore it up.”

“You would have been tearing up about three million pounds if you had,” said Mr. Hale in his most impressive voice.

Charles Moray walked twenty yards up Sloane Street, and then walked twenty yards down again. He continued to do this. Across the street was a lighted window with one hat on a stand and a piece of gold brocade lying carelessly at the foot of a bright green bowl full of golden fir-cones. Charles was aware that these things were there, because he had stood in front of the window and peered in; all that he could actually see from across the road was a blur of light in the fog. He hoped he would be able to see Margaret when she came out.

He went up close to a street lamp and looked at his watch. It was past six o’clock and the fog was getting thicker every minute. He crossed the street and again began to walk up and down.

It was a quarter past six before Margaret came out. He was only a couple of yards away, and even so, he nearly missed her. There was a shadow that slipped past him in the fog and was gone.

Charles ran after the shadow. He could not have said how he knew that it was Margaret who had passed him; he did not stop to think about it at all. He ran after her, came in sight of the shadow, and kept pace with it, a little behind.

He was in a strange mood. There came first the quick certainty that this was Margaret. And then, like a flood, this sense of her and of her nearness swept over him. She walked before him; but if she had been in his arms, as she once had been, he could not have felt her more near. If he looked, he would see her very thoughts. He told himself that all he had ever seen was a mirage—the real Margaret had never shared a single thought with him.

He had been quite sure that it was going to be immensely interesting to meet her again; it had not entered his head that he would be angry. Yet he had not walked half a dozen yards behind her before he was as angry as he had ever been in his life. He was angry in a new way—angry with Margaret for earning her living, angrier because she had mixed herself up in who knew what ridiculous and criminal conspiracy, and angriest of all because she had made him angry. Mixed with his anger—curiosity. What was at the bottom of it? What did it all mean? The explorer in him was most keenly on the alert. He meant to get to the bottom of the business.

Perhaps his step quickened a little; he was nearer her than he had meant to be when they passed under a street lamp. The light hung above it like a faint white cloud. _ He said, “How d’you do, Margaret?” and said it lightly and pleasantly. To Margaret Langton the voice came out of the fog and out of the past. There was a step that kept pace with her own. And then Charles Moray said her name— Charles. She turned, a ghost in a nimbus. The quick movement was Margaret, the rest a blur.

“Charles!”

Her voice was unbelievably familiar; it might have been some voice of his own speaking to him. It shook him, and a hotter anger than before leapt in him.

“Charles! How dare you frighten me like that!”

“Did I frighten you!” He spoke smoothly and easily.

Margaret caught her breath.

“I thought someone was following me. It’s horrible to be followed in a fog.”

“I was waiting for you, and I nearly missed you. That ass Archie had forgotten your address, so I had to try and catch you here.”

They walked on; the lamp receded. Margaret said,

“Why did you want to—catch me?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve been away. Perhaps you haven’t noticed. One comes back, one sees one’s friend—”

“Friends—are we friends? I shouldn’t have thought you would ever want to see me again.”

This was the old Margaret, fiercely untactful. Charles leapt at the opening. He wanted to hit hard, to hurt her as much as possible. He kept his indifferent tone very successfully.

“Why on earth shouldn’t I want to see you? After all, we were friends for about ten years before we ever thought of getting engaged. Wasn’t it ten years? We were friends for ten years, and then we were engaged for six months, and then—we stopped being engaged. Well, the engagement being only an episode, it can be just wiped out. You see?”

No woman likes to be told that she was only an episode. Charles was pleasantly aware of this; aware too that he had succeeded in piercing some armour of defense.

She said, with a hot resentment, in her voice,

“How can we be friends? How can you possibly want to be friends with me?”

Charles laughed.

“My dear girl, why not? Do let us be modern. These things don’t last, you know. Do you expect me to be tragic after four years? I was naturally a bit peeved at the time. But one doesn’t go on being peeved.” He paused, then struck again and struck hard. “I’ve been looking forward immensely to seeing you—but of course I thought you would be married.”

“Married! I!”

“Well,” said Charles, “I didn’t suppose you turned me down just for the fun of the thing. Naturally there was someone else.”

Margaret turned on him, her head up.

“Did you say that just to hurt? Or did you believe it?”

Charles laughed again.

“A bit of both. I believed it all right.”

She made a sound—not a sigh or a sob, but a quick angry breath.

“Look here,” said Charles, “I’ll put nearly all my cards on the table if you like. I propose that we should wash out the episode and revert to the status quo ante. If you won’t do this, I shall naturally conclude that you mind meeting me, that you find it embarrassing or painful.”

Margaret was certainly very angry.

“My dear Charles, doesn’t it occur to you that I might simply be bored?”

“No, it doesn’t. We could fight like fiends, and we could hate each other like poison; but we could never be bored. When can I come and see you?”

“You can’t come and see me.”

“Too embarrassing? Too painful?”

There was no answer. He thought he heard her catch her breath again. He continued in a pleasant social manner:

“I was proposing, you know, to revert to the days before the episode. You were ten, weren’t you, when your people came to George Street? I seem to remember that you didn’t mince your words in those days. Why bother to mince them now? Why not revert—say anything you like?”

Margaret said nothing; she walked without turning her head. Charles walked beside her. He was sorry there was a fog; he would have liked to see her face. He gave her a moment; then he spoke again.

“No words bad enough?”

There were no words at all.

“When can I come and see you?”

Silence—the fog—a black slippery crossing—Basil Street. They crossed, and passed through another patch of hazy light.

“You used not to sulk,” said Charles meditatively.

She flung round on him then like an angry school-girl.

“How dare you?”

Charles was immensely pleased.

“Touché!” he said to himself; and then aloud, “I’m sorry—I haven’t any manners. I’ve been deprived of the refining influence of woman for four years, you see. When can I come and see you?”

They had reached the Knightsbridge pavement, and he stopped instinctively on its dark brink. It was very dark, the lights of the crawling cars only just discernible, the noise of the traffic a bewildering dull sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Charles stopped, but Margaret Langton never hesitated; she walked straight on, and even as he looked round her she was lost in the shuffling, whispering, hooting gloom. Charles plunged after her. Someone swore, a hoarse voice shouted. “Where are you gettin’ to?” The hooter of a car went off right in his ear, and his shoulder collided violently with somebody’s driving-mirror. The next half minute continued to be like that, only more so.

He fetched up on the island in the middle of the road with feelings of relief. The island was crowded. Under the powerful light it was possible to see one’s next door neighbour. Charles annoyed all the rest of the people on the island by being neighbour to each of them in turn. He trod on several toes, was prodded in the ribs by a very powerful umbrella, and a number of people asked him what he thought he was doing. As it was impossible to explain that he was looking for Margaret, he had to say he was sorry a good many times.

Margaret was not on the island. He came to a standstill behind abroad blue serge back. A heavily built man stood just in front of him. He wore a rough blue coat of the pea-jacket style and had about this neck a large khaki muffler—the sort of thing that one’s aunts knitted stacks of during the war. The thought passed through Charles’ mind and then pricked him so sharply that he very nearly cried out. He had made the same comparison before, within the last few days; and he had made it about the same muffler. He had stared at that blue serge back and that khaki comforter before. He had stared through the knot-hole of his mother’s cupboard and seen that lumpy shoulder and that bullet head come into view as Number Forty, the deaf janitor, opened the door to Grey Mask’s visitors.

He pushed against the man, hoping to see his face; and as he did so, he said mechanically,

“I beg your pardon.”

In a moment his interest was dashed. The man turned half round and said,

“Granted.”

Charles saw a square, fresh-coloured face, clean-shaven, and then the man turned again and stepped off the island into the road. Charles stepped off too.

Forty was stone deaf. This man was not stone deaf. He must have heard Charles say “I beg your pardon,” because he immediately turned round and said “Granted.” He might have turned because Charles pushed him; but you don’t say “Granted” when someone barges into you from behind. No, he must have heard. Then he wasn’t Forty, because Forty was deaf. Grey Mask said that Forty was deaf.

Charles considered what he knew of Forty. He was Grey Mask’s janitor—in other words a villain who was trusted by other villains. And Grey Mask said he was deaf. To Charles he was merely a bullet head, a blue serge coat, a pair of broad shoulders, and a khaki muffler.

Charles inclined strongly to the evidence of his own eyes. He followed the muffler. He followed it to the corner and along twenty yards or so of pavement. Then he followed it into a Hammersmith bus.