Death Wears a Mask

by Thérèse Benson

  “Listen, Sam,” said Ed, as solemn as one making a vow: “I’m done with all women, do you hear me? I can’t go away now. Even Connie isn’t likely to be much more’n an hour late, and what she’d do if she came here and didn’t find me waiting for her would be painful in the extreme. Please be a good uncle and find out what’s become of your niece. Honestly, I’m afraid she must be sick. I know she’d taken a lot of pains with her costume.”

  “In that case you certainly ought to go to her, but if you can’t, I suppose I must—“ Still pretending reluctance and disregarding Ed’s thankful relief, Sam made his way to the elevator, past a number of revelers who shouted guesses as to his identity and to whom he made some reply with an attempt at lightness.

  Once more in his own apartment, he hesitated whether to wait and change his shirt, to decide that not only was there no time, but that he did not know what to do with the blood-stained garment. It could not go to the laundry, and Sing must not see it. To attempt to wash the stain out himself would be as incriminating as to leave it...

  He went to the telephone and called Louise’s apartment. It was a relief when she answered, promptly, “Is that you, Ed?”

  “No, it’s Sam. I’m coming to see you at once. I’ll ring three times. Let no one else in. But just in case Ed should call you, you have a headache and didn’t show up at my place. Remember, you were not there at any time this evening.” He was about to hang up when he heard her speaking in puzzled tones:

  “But, Sam, what’s the sense of that? You know I was seen there.”

  With an inward groan he suddenly recalled that ring at the doorbell which he had forgotten, and realized that it had not been Ed’s.

  “Who saw you?” he demanded.

  “Why, what’s the matter with your memory, Sam? Consuela Thorne, of course.”

  For a moment he was too stunned to reply, then he heard his voice saying, automatically, bereft, as it were, of any control by him: “That’s of no consequence. You were not there.” This time he did hang up and clasped his hands over his forehead. He felt as if he had been struck a heavy blow between the eyes.

  So Louise didn’t do it! She would never have attempted duplicity with him. There was no cunning in her and she would have counted confidently on his help. That white mask. He must take it back to her. What had he done with it? He looked to right and left but it was gone. He even moved some of the furniture and searched underneath, then gave up the quest. He had put it somewhere, his brain was too confused to recall where. If Sing found it, he must explain that he had used it himself at the masquerade. It did not look like a man’s mask. No matter, Sing wouldn’t know that.

  Suddenly he straightened up. Since Louise had not committed the murder, who had? And the answer came all too readily—Harvey Thorne.

  If Harvey were guilty, where did his duty lie? Could he give him up, turn over to public justice that soul who must now be on the rack? And was he himself free of blame in the matter since he had given him a due to Consuela’s whereabouts that night?

  Once again he determined to tell nothing of what he might suspect, and if he was to conceal what he knew the time had come to nerve himself to his last, most horrible task. And he must guard against getting more betraying bloodstains on his clothing.

  He went into the foyer where poor Connie, with her black loup still partially concealing her face, was poised in the corner of the bench.

  He had yet to learn how she had been killed. The bloodstains on his chest pointed to a stab in the back. He could no longer put off examining.

  Thank God, there was almost no blood. At the base of the skull where the vertebrae joined it, a diamond-hilted dagger had been driven home and, as a crowning shock to Sam, it was a trinket he himself had given her years before during their courtship.

  He did not disturb it.

  The lights extinguished, he brought up the elevator. It was the work of only a moment to carry Connie to it and descend to the floor below. There he opened the door cautiously. Had there been a light he would have closed it again and gone down to the next floor. As the vestibule was in darkness, he placed Connie against the wall on the marble paving. Then, without an instant’s delay, he continued onward to the ground floor, passing on his way out several latecomers to the masquerade, excited, hurrying, gaily clad and careful of their disguises, as well as Thady Keogh, the doorman, who was greatly diverted by the party.

  Staying to speak to no one, although several recognized him, Sam hurried out into the night.

  Chapter IV

  When Sam Mellon emerged on the street he walked for several blocks before he realized that it was snowing. The distance from his apartment overlooking Beekman Place to Louise’s on East Fifty-Seventh Street was short and he needed a period in which to collect his thoughts, so he ignored the solicitation of passing taxis and strolled slowly on in the driving storm.

  The snow brought Connie poignantly to his mind. She had always loved snow. She was as excited as a child over the first flakes. Dining their engagement a snowstorm was always the signal for a long tramp. In the country, if he had time; if not, in Central Park. The picture in his mind was vivid. Erect and sparkling she danced at his side, her cheeks glowing, her bright hair blowing from under her beret, wearing usually a sweater of some brilliant hue that no other red-head would have dared but which suited her in fact and fancy. Connie, a law unto herself, a joy to the beholder—God! now that she was dead and gone from him, was he fated to fall in love with her all over again? No, no—for there was Alix. Generous, where Connie was frankly grasping; gentle, where she was gaily impervious to any sentiment. Harvey Thorne had been right when he had compared her to the reflection of flame on ice, crystal clear and dazzling yet without warmth. There was nothing in Connie’s nature to light the fires on the hearth of a home.

  Sam wondered where Harvey was. Would this death prove a release for him from the spell his wife had thrown over him? He wished sincerely, whether he was guilty or not, that Thorne would have sailed on his proposed yachting trip before the sensation of this tragedy burst upon the city. That, however, was unlikely. He could not recall Harvey’s exact words, but the impression he had received was that the start was to be made some days later, and he hoped against hope that the reporters, who would respect no man’s grief, would not learn that Mrs. Thorne’s divorced husband was in the city.

  Since Louise was not involved, it might have been better if he had followed the routine procedure and called in the police at once. It was too late to do that now, when he had probably destroyed the dues they would have found, besides hopelessly confusing the issue by removing the body.

  He went over all the details again and again and could reach no other conclusion. If the murderer escaped, he would certainly have aided and abetted that escape, yet if Harvey were the guilty party he could not bring himself to fed sorry for this dereliction from duty.

  A sleepy doorman who knew him admitted him in Fifty-Seventh Street, and Sam thought it as well to give an explanation of his presence at that unusual hour.

  “Mr. Harris was worried because Mrs. Harris left the party feeling ill,” he said, speaking the truth with forced geniality. “He couldn’t come, himself, so I’m going up to make sure it’s not serious.”

  “I was surprised to see her back so soon,” the man said, sympathetically. “Usually, from suchlike parties, they come in about breakfast-time. Mrs. Harris she said she had a bad headache.”

  “Yes, she’s always been subject to them—and with so much grippe about——”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll run you up, sir.” He locked the front door as he spoke. “We’re short-handed here for that very reason. One of our boys on the night shift is home sick.”

  Sam’s three rings brought Louise at once. She had taken off her elaborate costume and was looking very much more at her ease in a rose-colored hostess gown.

  “Your insinuation was scandalous,” she began, jocularly. “Who did you think would be calling on me at this ung
odly hour that you warned me to let no one else in?”

  Sam could not respond to ibis mood.

  “I want to know exactly what happened when I went out to shake those cocktails,” he said.

  “Well, take off your overcoat and come in,”

  Louise rejoined. “It’s certainly no secret, since absolutely nothing happened. Did you think I’d bite your precious Connie?”

  Take off his overcoat! How could he until he had explained the situation?

  “I’ve no time to stop, Louise. I must know why you went away without that drink.”

  “Oh,” Louise exclaimed, “so that’s what upset you! Nothing happened, I tell you. Didn’t I promise to hold myself in check? You can trust me, Sam. I didn’t ask for that cocktail and I decided that I didn’t want Ed to see me in competition with Mrs. Thorne. To be quite open with you, she fairly took my breath away. For the first time I saw her as a man must. She was dazzling, fascinating; there was a glamour about her; she commonized me in my own eyes. Instead of feeling myself a personage of a period I realized that I had made a mistake in selecting Lillian Russell to impersonate. Her day was too recent. I only looked dowdy and overdressed. So I invented a migraine and walked out just as the bell rang—“ She stopped short, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Sam, I forgot her. It was Alix Ruland. She saw me, too. But why must I hide that I was there? You’re my uncle——”

  “Sit down and don’t dare faint. Something terrible happened after you left. When I came back with the cocktails no one else was in the whole apartment. So I drank one, cursing all women. Then I decided to go to the Club. Out in the elevator vestibule Connie sat. Dead. Murdered. Stabbed in the back.”

  Louise did not scream. Instead she looked at him blankly, repeating his words parrot-like. “Dead, murdered?” As if unable to comprehend what was stated so uncompromisingly. Then, galvanized into action by a suspicion, she seized Sam’s arm and shook it. “Ed did it. You can’t hide it from me. Oh, save him, Sam. Save him!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” her uncle said, roughly, his intention to discourage hysterics. “Ed had nothing to do with it. He didn’t get there till half an hour later, ripe from the Princeton Club, accompanied by two other brandy peaches. But I had the scare of my life, because just under the body, which was seated on the bench against the wall, I found your white satin loup.”

  “And thought I did it!” Louise’s enlightment was instant. “Oh, poor Sammie, what did you do? You couldn’t call the police after that.”

  “I certainly wasn’t going to send you to prison for life,” he began, and in rapid detail sketched for her the course of his reasoning and his actions, omitting any mention of Harvey Thorne.

  Louise nodded understandingly.

  “There’s just one point I don’t see through. How could you find my mask when I have it here?” She picked it up from the table where she had thrown it and dangled it from one finger, while Sam stared at it, horror dawning in his eyes.

  “Alix?” he commenced in a strangled voice, then cleared his throat. “What did she have on, Lou?”

  “She wasn’t masked,” Louise said, “although she was in costume. She looked lovely as the Empress Josephine and she was awfully happy. She stopped me long enough to tell me that Gorman, her manager, had consented at last to pay the price demanded for the play she wanted to star in. It made a great hit in London and he cabled to his agent there this morning. It’s called ‘This Business of Being a Woman.’ I can’t tell you how sorry I was for her when I came home and read the evening paper.”

  That paper again!

  “What was in that blasted paper?” Sam demanded.

  “Come sit down.” This time Louise commanded. ‘

  “I’m wet,” Sam protested. “I’d ruin your furniture.”

  “Take off that coat.”

  “My shirt is—soiled.”

  Louise strove to hide a shudder.

  “Never mind that——”

  Sam obeyed her and entered the room to find her pouring him out a Scotch and soda.

  “Drink that,” she ordered, briefly. “You’ll need it. Because, you see, Sam, what’s in the paper supplies a motive.”

  Sam set down the glass untasted.

  “Let me see it. I’m not a weakling.” Without another word Louise handed him the paper, and the two who bent their heads over it were conscious of the same thought. Poor Connie Thorne had at least had the fun to be derived from making a front page sensation while she was alive, and Connie loved to make a sensation.

  There was a picture of her, an amazingly beautiful picture for a newsprint, and opposite to it a cut of a morosely handsome man.

  “He doesn’t look any too resigned to his lot,” had been Louise’s first thought on seeing it, a conclusion she now kept to herself. Between the two, in large type:

  FUTURE STAR ANNOUNCES

  ENGAGEMENT IN TWO FIELDS

  The Beautiful Mrs. Thorne to Reenter

  the Theatrical Arena under the

  Management of Her Future Husband

  There followed several columns recounting Connie’s varied activities and triumphs and the fact that Hugh Oliver, well known as a polo-player, had secured for her the great British theatrical sensation, “This Business of Being a Woman,” in which he proposed to reintroduce her to the New York public after the termination of their honeymoon.

  It was vulgar, blatant publicity, although doubtless priceless as advance advertising.

  Having read it through to the last word, Sam picked up his glass and drained it thirstily.

  “More?” Louise asked, reaching for the Scotch.

  He shook his head in the negative.

  “Was that mask Alix’s?” he demanded.

  “Possibly,” Louise confessed, and added, in instant defense: “Certainly it proves nothing. She might have dropped it on leaving the elevator.”

  “How did it get ‘way off to the side under that bench?”

  “Kicked there, or dragged under Mrs. Thorne’s skirts.” Louise frowned, concentrating on the problem. “If she was stabbed in the back, it couldn’t have been done while she was leaning against the wall. She was placed there afterward.”

  “Louise,” Sam spoke with an effort, “as a woman, do you judge Alix to be capable of such a deed?”

  “I wonder if one can conceive of anyone she knows and likes—and likes, remember, Sam, I’m awfully fond of Alix—committing a—murder.” Louise brought out the last word with an effort. “Actresses must be emotional. If she did it, I’m sure it was in a moment of—exaltation, can we say? I mean a moment such as an actress must reach in a great part on the stage. And once the thing was done, the dreadful thing, I’m sure she would come to herself and expect, exactly as on the stage, to find that it was not real. Don’t be hard on her, Sam. Help her as you meant to help me.”

  Sam groaned.

  “And what becomes of my fine promises to uphold the cause of justice at any cost? I’ll resign, of course, the first moment it’s feasible.”

  Louise, all sympathy, put a hand chi his arm.

  “There’s something greater than justice, Sam dear.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, curtly.

  “Mercy,” she returned, her voice modulated to a new sweetness.

  Sam made no comment.

  “Well, I must be getting along,” he said. “Do you know, I’m in more of a quandary over how to dispose of a blood-stained shirt than I was over the body of the victim. I don’t care for Sing to see it——”

  “Certainly not,” Louise cut in, sharply. “Don’t trust Sing, ever. And that shirt ought to tell you something of the value of circumstantial evidence. You must know that it might have been used against you if you had been caught with—“ She left the rest to his imagination.

  “Add to that that I supplied the weapon, even if it was ten years ago, and I agree my position looks precarious,” Sam said.

  Louise shivered, his real danger brought home to her, and he went on: �
�In fact I’ve been afraid to ask myself whether cowardice played any part in my determination to suppress the facts in this case.”

  His niece, concerned with actualities, prevented an elaboration of this self-searching.

  “Come into Ed’s dressing-room. I’ll find you a shirt. Throw me out that one. I’d like to burn it at once, but I’m afraid of the smell.” Soon she was busily cutting it apart. The rags she put in her rag-bag, mixing them with its contents. The bosom, its tell-tale stain cut away, she rolled tightly, confined it with a rubber band, and hid it under the beginning of a layette in the drawer of a highboy. When Sam came out she had cleared away all traces of the operation.

  “I’ve read my detective stories,” she announced cheerfully. “The laundry marks I cut into fine shreds and put under the coals. I’ll look later and make sure they’ve been entirely destroyed. Now what’s the next step?”

  “I’m going back to Mutt and Jeff’s to assure Ed that your headache has yielded to aspirin and that you have gone to bed. Meanwhile you can do something for me. Call up Alix——”

  “She’ll be at the party——”

  “Without a mask? I don’t think it. Anyhow, call and keep on calling at intervals until you get her. Tell her what I told you. That she was not in my rooms tonight. Tell her nothing more than that over the phone. I’ll see her the first chance I find.”

  “Sam,” Louise hesitated, “mightn’t it make a lot of trouble? Do you know in whose vestibule you left——”

  “Sure,” said Sam. “The floor below mine. You realize that each apartment to be passed was an additional risk for me. And a haughty old dame lives there who can’t possibly be connected in any way with Connie.”

  To his amazement Louise began to shake with laughter.

  “Oh, forgive me!” She choked over the words hysterically. “I didn’t think I’d ever want to laugh again, only this is so funny. I remember now that Miss Lucilla Livingston lives there, the arbiter and champion of everything correct; the most ultra-conservative, censorious woman in all New York. She makes a business of her social position, a very paying business, requiring an office and a force of trained assistants. She’s as sharp as a needle, carries her years gallantly, rather accentuating than disguising them, knowing that an appearance of youthful artifice would be against her interests. She keeps the lists of those socially eligible, introduces a girl now and then or receives if a hostess falls ill, arranges dates for parties and is in general the watchdog of the ‘Four Hundred.’ Well-born, the perfect snob, a genuine believer in social privilege and resultant duties, I can imagine nothing more incongruous than for her to find herself mixed up in front-page crime.”