Grey Face/Chapter 22

AREY glanced at the clock on Muir Torrington's mantelpiece, and:

"I look like winning my bet," he said laughingly.

"You do," Torrington admitted. "It is excitingly near to the hour. Where do we stand?"

He strode to the end of the room, paused, and turning, strode back again.

"Suppose my Arcadian does not turn up? Am I, or am I not, entitled to open this mysterious parcel which lies at the present moment upon my table?"

Having thus spoken he began again to pace the room.

"Well," said Carey musingly, "it's a question of ethics. If you had any reason to regard your unknown acquaintance as a criminal, you would undoubtedly be justified in examining the contents of the packet which he left in your possession."

"Ah!" cried Torrington, turning, "you're placing the onus upon me. Very well, I accept it. I do not think that my Arcadian was a criminal; I prefer to believe that he was an Arcadian in peril of some kind. This being so, am I not equally justified in assuming his absence to mean that the danger which he feared has materialized? He selected me, God knows why, as a friend in need. Surely it is my duty to employ every means in my power to aid him in his necessity."

"Quite," Carey agreed—"an aspect of the matter which I had overlooked."

"Therefore," Torrington cried, "if he fails to keep his appointment-for he was a man hard pressed, Carey, I assure you-his failure can only mean that the thing he feared has come about. He counted on me, lad, and I shall not fail him. I give him half an hour. If by twelve-thirty he is not here, I propose to open this parcel. Human curiosity I do not deny, but honestly I consider this to be my duty to the unknown. How else, if he is in danger, can I hope to be of assistance to him? The only clue lies here, upon the table."

Carey helped himself to whisky and soda.

"It's more than a little complex," he confessed. "Your whole life, Torrington, forms an almost unbroken series of odd adventures. Fate seems to have singled you out as a repository of other people's troubles. To me this matter appears trivial, but you met the man face to face. I value your opinion, and therefore, if you assure me that he was really up against some vital problem, why then, yes, I agree with you. We shall serve him best by opening this parcel if he fails to appear to claim it."

"Right!" Torrington shouted, stalking down upon the speaker; " I knew you would agree with me. There go the church clocks." He paused, raising his hand. "It's midnight. I don't think he is coming, lad. Pass that tin of tobacco. We have half an hour to wait. Let's forget my dark horse of the Arcade for the time being, and revert to the other matter which we were discussing."

Torrington raised the lid of the tin and began to fill his briar, staring at Carey the while; then:

"To be blunt," he said, "are you or are you not going down to Low Ketley?"

"I am not," Carey replied, without hesitation.

"Then you're a fool!" Torrington cried. "You are worse than a fool; you are failing in your plain duty."

"What do you mean?" Carey asked, patiently.

"I mean that now I have told you all I know of the matter, all Sir Provost explained to me, all that I have gathered elsewhere—if you are going to hold to your crazy idea that Jasmine Hope has invented all these charges against you, you are failing her, and failing her badly. Wait a minute, Carey! Can't you see that the pair of you are tied in the same web? My lad! My poor, daft laddy! Forget that you are in love and use your ordinary common sense. Has it occurred to you that she may be in danger?"

"In danger?" Carey echoed, incredulously. "What on earth do you mean? How can she be in danger, living with her aunt in peaceful Surrey?"

Muir Torrington, his pipe loaded, replaced the tin upon the table, and carefully forced its lid into place, watching his friend the while with an expression humorously compassionate. Finally:

"Carey," he said, "I hope I never fall in love. I've got the scientific mind and I take pride in knowing that when someone shows me a toadstool I don't mistake it for a mushroom. Man, man, try to see straight. If you can't take the facts from me, go round and see Sir Provost. You have no quarrel with him."

Carey drank silently, and began to knock out his pipe into an ash tray. He was even more anxious than Torrington to put an end to the estrangement. It is characteristic of a man in Carey's frame of mind that whilst, unaided, he can find no means of spanning the ever-widening chasm, any plank, however creaky, offered by a tactful friend, assumes the aspect of a serviceable bridge.

"I know you want to help," he said. "It's decent of you, and I appreciate it. But if you had been called a liar to your face? Oh! damn it!" he groaned. "I don't think you know what it feels like—how one's pride suffers. You see, I had done nothing to deserve it."

"But what you don't see," Torrington shouted, "is that Jasmine had been compelled by apparently undeniable facts to believe that you were a liar! Damn it all, my lad, you still believe that she is one! Why, you told me again only to-night that she must have known of your telephone messages to the house." He raised his voice yet higher. "You are becoming a feminist!" he yelled. "Hell! You argue like a and reason like an ostrich! What we have been taught to regard as natural laws are being turned upside down here in London-and you tootle about your 'pride'!"

"I suppose you are right," Carey admitted, "in fact, it would appear that many people are suffering at present from a similar form of hallucination."

Muir Torrington began to stride up and down the room again, and:

"You mean the grey face?" he suggested, jerking his head aside and glancing back at Carey over his shoulder.

"What else?" said Carey. "It's a relief, of course, to know that I am not the only victim, but"

"Ah!" Torrington whirled around. "That is a very big 'but,' my lad. We don't view this thing from quite the same angle, but just consider-consider."

He paused in front of his friend, raising the outstretched fingers of his left hand and ticking off points upon them.

"First case: you dream of the grey face, and the dream corresponds with an unaccountable loss of consciousness and an even more serious personal loss—that of your report. Second: a half-caste woman, a woman, so far as we are aware, of no importance whatever in the scheme of things, dreams of the grey face (for this can- not have been a coincidence, Carey), and her dream corresponds with her death. Third"—he took a step nearer, his third finger rigidly upheld, his thumb pressed upon it—"giving an account of these matters to Sir John Nevinson, your reference to the phenomenon of the grey face suddenly awoke a memory lying dormant, and what did you learn? That he, too, had suffered this dream! Now, then, it's time your brains woke up. They have been in bed long enough. Carry on."

"Between the half-caste woman and myself or Sir John Nevinson," said Carey dully, "there is no possible link, or there would seem to be none. Between myself and Sir John the case is different; we are linked by a common interest in this super-criminal who steals Foreign Office despatches but does not overlook diamonds."

Torrington nodded vigorously, turned, and set off walking again.

"The figure of Buddha appears to have been the cause of my own lapse," Carey continued; "therefore the figure of Buddha was the link between me and the enemy. It is evident. Since it was swallowed up in a bank strongroom I have experienced no recurrence of the trouble. Therefore the figure was a link between me and—whom?"

Torrington shot out a pointing finger.

"My dear lad," he shouted, "it's as plain as a flagstaff on a hilltop: Madame Sabinov!"

"I agree," Carey replied, continuing to speak in the same dull voice. "She is a dangerous woman. I believe she possesses some kind of hypnotic power."

"Ah!" Torrington cried triumphantly, "now we are in sight of land! Why do you believe that she possesses some kind of hypnotic power?"

Carey laughed in a rather embarrassed fashion.

"Because I recently called upon her," he replied, "or, rather, I saw her home from Trepniak's place, and" he paused. "Well, it's amazing, Torrington, and thinking of it in cold blood, I know that the explanation is not so obvious as some might suppose: Briefly, I lost my head. I have been waiting for an opportunity to tell you. It happened on Sunday; and on Sunday I had another experience, too, which was phenomenal."

"Where?" Torrington asked. "At Madame's?"

"No; at Trepniak's house."

"Then you succeeded in getting in?" Torrington cried eagerly. "Did you find it correspond to my description?"

"Very closely," Carey replied. "Of course, it's the house of a madman, of a very dangerous madman."

"Very dangerous," Torrington agreed. "Has it occurred to you, Carey, to advise the authorities to look up this alien's record?"

Carey started, and:

"No, for some reason it had not occurred to me," he confessed.

"To me," said Torrington, "it occurred at once. But I am rapidly coming to the conclusion, lad, that I was born to be a detective, and not a physician. My income would be even less, if possible, but then, so would my expenses. Now you"—he pointed again in his vigorous fashion—"whilst admittedly excellent with a midnight lamp and an efficient service of wet towels, are less successful as the Man on the Spot. I admit it isn't your job; it isn't mine, and my attempts so far, as I have mentioned, have been slightly under par. Nevertheless, I have a growing confidence in myself."

He suddenly burst out laughing and began to rap his pipe upon the heel of his shoe, regardless of the welfare of the carpet.

"And now," he added, "tell me what took place at Trepniak's and at Madame Sabinov's. But wait—wait!"

He stood, empty pipe in hand, staring at the clock upon the mantelpiece.

"Yes," Carey nodded. "The time is up! What shall we do?"

"I reply without a moment's hesitation," said Torrington. "Open the parcel! Here are mysteries enough, some of them dangerous. You and I would be twin fools to allow ourselves to become involved in another, blindfolded."

At that he swooped down upon the little packet, untied the string with which it was fastened, and revealed a cardboard box which at some time had contained twenty cigarettes of a popular brand. He was about to lift the lid when he paused again, listening.

"You see," he said, "we are punctilious."

A neighbouring church clock was chiming the half-hour after midnight.

"Now!" Torrington cried, and threw back the lid.

Within, wrapped in tissue paper, was something hard, having the feel of half a small walnut shell. In a moment Torrington had unwrapped the paper; whereupon:

"Good God!" Carey cried.

Torrington's surprise was equally great, or even greater, so that he dropped the glittering object from his fingers; and, throwing out many-hued sparks in the lamplight, it rolled a little way across the carpet—the largest diamond which either of these two had ever set eyes upon!