Grey Face/Chapter 1

T WAS there again, the deathly grey face, sometimes formless-sometimes resembling a mask of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of Egypt! But always, though at one moment veiled and in the next blazing brilliantly, malignantly—always those strange, compelling eyes looked out from the mask.

Carey was dreaming, of course; yet even so he could not account for these impressions. It was a long time since he had delved into Egyptian studies, although possibly recent publicity given to the opening up of Tut-ankh-amen's tomb might have revived old memories. But the thing was becoming a nightmare. He realized before it became an obsession that he must trace this phenomenon to its origin and deal with it according to the theories of modern science. It was absurd that his sleep should be disturbed night after night in this fashion by dreams of the ghostly grey face of Anubis.

So thinking, Douglas Carey awoke and found himself staring intently at a queer little ebony figure. It was a figure of the Buddha, but not a conventional figure. It represented Gautama holding in his lap a crystal globe which he contemplated dreamily.

"Good God!" said Carey, now widely awake.

He stared about his room in a dazed fashion. To one watching him he must have seemed bemused, a man but half commanding his senses—and, indeed, this was the case.

"I am not in bed!" he muttered, and raised his hand to his forehead.

He turned again to the little figure. It was no more than three inches high and it sat upon the red leather of his writing table immediately to the left of the polished brass inkstand. It was real enough, although it almost seemed to have figured in his dream. Left of it again was an ancient Korean bowl, the present of a friend who collected rare porcelain. In the bowl rested three pipes.

Carey remembered having laid the third there. He touched it, expecting to find it hot. It was cold. He looked down at the decanter and siphon which Ecko had placed upon the coffee-table beside him, and here was evidence that he was no victim of over-indulgence in pre-war Scotch whisky; for the decanter showed that at most he could not have taken more than two pegs.

Attracted by the hissing of the gas fire, he stared at it, and, gradually recovering command of his senses, noted that the water in a brass bowl set in the hearth was now nearly all evaporated. His glance wandered along to where, through half-drawn curtains, the outer room was visible, dimly lighted by one lamp. It was empty. Carey wondered why this fact surprised him.

Bruton Street was very silent, and no sound came from the cabaret club, one wing of which he overlooked from his study window. Often enough, the merry-makers had disturbed him at his late toil. To-night he would have welcomed music, laughter, and the nearness of happy company; for—yes! fully awake now, he looked up at the Moorish lamp swung from the centre of his ceiling—he was frightened: childishly, superstitiously frightened. But he was in full command of his senses and accordingly he raised his eyes to the clock upon the mantelpiece.

Three

In the name of sanity, what had overcome him? At half an hour before midnight he had sat down to his report … his report! Now came the truth greyly dawning. This was no repetition of a dream. It was a recurrence of an experience of the previous night-hitherto inexplicably forgotten!

He turned feverishly to the writing pad upon his table. His pencil lay beside it. The pad was blank.

"Good God!" Carey muttered, and raised his hand again to his head. "Am I—am I going mad?"

Entrusted by the highest authorities with a task of great delicacy, he had on two occasions sat down to make his report-a report containing almost incredible facts, facts pointing to a conspiracy of dimensions hitherto unheard of, to the existence of some central control, combining criminal and political ambitions so ramified yet interwoven as to defy analysis—and on both occasions, it would appear, he had fallen asleep! Twice he had awakened to find his writing pad blank. And the grey face—the deathly grey face: why did it linger, phantomesque, in his memory?

"Who's there?"

Carey turned sharply, staring into the dimness of the outer room.

He had become aware of a faint sound. It was vague, difficult to define, but yet, not quite of the kind to which he was used. This old house, of which his rooms occupied a part, was paraded nightly by mice and possibly larger rodents, for there was a provision dealer's establishment not far away. The walls had been catacombed by successive generations of long-tailed hermits; but this sound was not occasioned by mice, nor even by that unaccountable creaking which old buildings and old furniture emit when all else is still. It seemed at once near and remote.

"Who's there?" cried Carey, springing up and thrusting his chair back.

None answered, and he ran through to the outer room and to the door. The lobby was in darkness. He switched up the light and observed that the chain had not been put in place. He paused. The noise now proclaimed itself unmistakably to come from the lower stair. He pressed another switch and the stairs became lighted. Then, throwing open the door, he started back.

"Ecko!" he said sharply.

His Japanese servant, wearing a blue kimono over his night gear, and having his bare feet thrust into red slippers, was standing three stairs down.

Ecko smiled apologetically.

"I very sorry if I p'raps disturbing you," he said.

"Disturbing me!" Carey cried angrily. "What the devil are you doing out at this time of night and dressed like that?"

"No, I don't go out," explained Ecko, mounting to the lobby. "I creepa down all quiet and no light—no light. I t'ink you working and I don't try disturbing you."

Carey watched almost stupidly as the unmoved Japanese closed and chained the door, methodically turning off the lamps upon the stair; then:

"I am afraid I don't understand," he said. "Come in here for a moment, Ecko."

"Yes."

Carey entered the outer room, which served as a drawing room when he had guests, and standing by the piano, he stared grimly at his Japanese servant.

Ecko smiled apologetically, and there was so much faith in the dark eyes that Carey's suspicions became almost stifled.

"Ecko," he continued, "I don't understand. What were you doing on the stair?"

Ecko extended his hands in a characteristic gesture.

"You see," he explained, fumbling for words, "lasta night I hear noise while you working."

"What sort of noise?" Carey demanded.

"Lika—lika someone who come in and go out."

"Someone who came in? Last night? What! Do you mean into the study?"

"Yes. But I don't hear your speak, and so I come down."

"This happened last night, you say?"

"Yes," Ecko affirmed, "lasta night. I reading book, as you know at night—you allowing me, t'ank you—and lasta night I t'ink to hear someone come in. I t'ink it is a friend and all right. Then, I t'ink to hear someone go and door close. So-I come down and all quiet, so—I knock on door, and no answer."

"On this door?" Carey interjected amazedly.

"Yes, here. I come in, all quiet, and look, and you asleep in chair."

"Why the devil didn't you wake me?"

"I don't know," declared Ecko, smiling in his naïve fashion. "But I go down to door, and look."

"Yes?" Carey prompted eagerly.

"Along—this way"—Ecko's gestures indicated the direction of Berkeley Square—"I see a lady go in a car. It move off, and" Ecko paused.

"Well? Go on. What time was this?"

"About"—he closed his eyes reflectively—"one."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes—sure." Ecko nodded most emphatically.

"Well, Ecko?"

"Yes," Ecko continued obediently. "So I don't know how to t'ink and I go back to bed. I only t'ink p'r'aps somet'ing not all right. So to-night, I listen."

"Well," said Carey, keenly interested, "and what did you hear?"

"About half-past two"

"Half-past two," Carey muttered. "What then?"

"Then," continued Ecko, "I hear like someone come in."

"But," Carey interrupted, "did you hear me go down to the door?"

"No. Lika no one go down. Someone, I t'ink, come in."

"But how?"

"I don't know. So, I wait, and then, two, t'ree minute I hear on the stair like creaking. So, I come down—all quiet. I t'ink it is not all right—and I go down to door, and look."

"You are not going to tell me," cried Carey, "that you saw a woman getting into a car again on the corner of Berkeley Square?"

Ecko smiled, nodding vigorously.

"Yes," he declared; "about half, quarter, minute ago. I t'ink the same, but I don't know."

"Did you knock on my door to-night?"

"Yes."

"Did you come in?"

"Yes, I come in, and you asleep, lika last night. It is for that I go down to look. I t'ink, very funny."

"Funny!" Carey muttered. "It is far from funny."

There was a challenge in his glance as he stared at the Japanese. But Ecko inclined his head and extended his hands.

"I wanting only to do"—he searched for words—"to make sure, ev'ryt'ing right. I t'ink, very funny."

"Good enough," said Carey. "I don't doubt your word. You can go to bed now. I sha'n't want you again to-night."

"All right!" Ecko smiled. "Good-night. T'ank you.

"Good-night."

Carey for a while watched the man mounting the stairs, and:

"Thank you, Ecko," he said.

He crossed and closed the door. Then he turned and walked slowly back to his writing table. Seating himself, he stared at the blank pad. And as he stared, his eyes narrowed, and he bent forward, touching the paper. He ran his thumb along the edge of the pages, and:

"Good God!" he muttered. "What have I been writing?—and where has it gone?"

Quite clearly he could recall the last time he had, consciously, written on the pad. The bulk of the pad had appreciably decreased. Fully twenty sheets were missing!

Very still he sat, striving to muster his mental resources—to pluck out of a horrible forgetfulness even one little memory of those vanished hours. And all that he could recover was the image of a smoke-grey face floating mistily in some unexplored and unexplorable cavern of his subconscious mind.

He was in the presence of a phenomenon striking at the very roots of sanity; calculated not only to ruin his own career but also to involve others in nameless peril. He bent over the blank page, studying it with an almost feverish intensity.

It was his custom to draft all his work in pencil, to make a final copy in ink and then, in the case of a confidential report, to type it out with his own hand. Last night and to-night he had sat down to draft a report to Sir John Nevinson.

He now began automatically to fill a pipe. His nerve must be steady; his brain must be cool. And before he had finished loading the tobacco he had penetrated a little way into that cavernous greyness and had recaptured two definite memories. Last night, and again to-night, he remembered having written the words: "Confidential Report to Sir John Nevinson, K. C. B."

Douglas Carey's association with the Commissioner of Police was of a peculiar nature; it was an association not even suspected by Carey's most intimate friends. But during the final phases of the war he had displayed such uncanny genius for a form of analytical reasoning, that he had been recalled from his unit and appointed to the department of the War Office over which at that time General Sir John Nevinson presided.

With the coming of peace Carey had returned to his long-interrupted literary work, and Sir John had stepped across from Whitehall to New Scotland Yard. His faith in his brilliant young subordinate had never wavered; and the first big problem of Sir John's administration—a matter connected with Ireland—had led to Carey's receiving a flattering offer from his old chief. He had accepted without hesitation; and from a bewildering chaos of reports, diagrams, photographs, finger-prints and statistics, had unerringly extracted the key to the mystery. On three subsequent occasions Sir John had employed him, and Carey had been uniformly successful. Now, when the Commissioner had again called upon him, to analyze a mass of data touching this new, stupendous conspiracy—was he to fail? Worse—had he failed already?

Carey lighted his pipe and almost fearfully bent his gaze once more upon the blank page. For three parts of the way down it was deeply indented. Beyond doubt, this was an impression of the writing upon the preceding page—which had been torn off!

"It is," Carey muttered, "it is! But I must make sure—I must make sure."

In a little bronze tray lay a heap of cigarette and pipe ash. Lightly dipping his finger into the ash, he rubbed it gently over the indented marks on the page, line by line, until the whole was covered. Whereupon, clearly legible except at points where the pencil pressure had been relaxed, the following proclaimed itself:

""

Here the writing finished.

"God help me!" Carey groaned. "I had nearly completed my report. Yet I cannot remember having written one word of it!"