The Gray Mask

Garth, in response to the unforeseen summons, hurried along the hallway and opened the inspector's door. As he faced the rugged figure behind the desk, and gazed into those eyes whose somnolence concealed a perpetual vigil, his heart quickened.

He had been assigned to the detective bureau less than six months. That brief period, however, had revealed a thousand eccentricities of his chief. The pudgy hand beating a tattoo on the table desk, the lips working at each other thirstily, the doubt that slipped from behind the veil of the sleepy eyes, were all like largely printed letters to Garth--letters that spelled delicate work for him, possibly an exceptional danger.

"Where were you going, Garth?"

"Home. That is--"

Garth hesitated and cleared his throat.

"First--I thought I might drop in on Nora for a minute."

With a quick gesture the inspector brushed the mention of his daughter aside. Abruptly he verified Garth's hazard.

"How much do you love your life?"

The inspector's voice possessed the growling quality of an animal. A warning rather than an aggressive roar, it issued from a throat remotely surviving behind great masses of flesh. Garth had rarely heard it raised, nor, for that matter, had it ever deceived him as to the other's amiability and gentleness of soul. Its present tone of apologetic regret startled him.

"On the whole I value my life rather highly just now," he answered, trying to smile.

"Then turn this down and nothing said," the inspector went on. "It's volunteer's work. No gilt-edged prophecies. It's touch and go whether whoever tackles it eats bacon and eggs to-morrow morning."

"What's the job?" Garth asked.

The inspector glanced up.

"You've heard of that fellow without a face?"

Garth stared until he thought he understood.

"One of those Bellevue cases? Awful burns?"

The heavy head shook impatiently.

"No. This fellow Simmons in Chicago--several years ago now--experimenting with some new explosive in a laboratory. He got his arm up in time to save his eyes."

"Seems to me I remember," Garth began.

"Worn a gray mask ever since," the inspector said.

He drew a telegram from a pile of papers at his elbow, spread it on the writing-pad, and tapped it with his thick forefinger. Garth wondered what was coming. A feeling of uneasiness compelled him to lower his eyes before the other's steady gaze. There was something uncanny about this thought of a mask, worn always to hide a horror.

The inspector's tapping quickened to an expression of anger. His voice exposed a cherished resentment.

"No doubt about your having heard of our friend Hennion?"

Garth started forward, resting his closed fists on the desk top. His face was excited, unbelieving.

"Mean to say there's a chance--"

The inspector ceased his tapping. He looked up slyly.

"A real one at last. You know what that means. It's the job. Take it or leave it. I won't ask you to go where I mightn't have cared to go myself at your age."

Garth thought rapidly. His chief had been right. The man who tried to trip Hennion needn't worry about to-morrow's breakfast until his eyes greeted the sun in the east.

He, with the rest of the bureau, could point to half a dozen men as vassals of this almost mythical figure. He, like the rest, had frequently diagnosed obscure crimes as the workmanship of the Hennion group. But he knew also that nothing had ever been proved against this organization of criminals, which was unique, because, in addition to prosaic brutality, it appeared to be informed by brains of a brilliant and inscrutable character.

"How much of a chance?" Garth asked.