Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

conspiracy carrying on like a house of fire in my mother’s sitting-room.”
    “I say, is this a joke?”
    “No, it isn’t. I saw a light under the door, and I heard voices. You remember the cupboard where we used to play, across the room of the passage between the bedroom and sitting-room?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “I got in there and looked through the hole we used to keep corked up, and there was a gentleman in a grey rubber mask and gloves giving orders to a very pretty lot of scoundrels.”
    “Charles, you are jokin’.”
    “I’m not—it happened.”
    “What were they doin’—”
    “Well, I rather gathered they’d destroyed a will, and it wouldn’t very much surprise me to hear that they’d made away with the man who’d made it. They seemed to be thinking about murdering his daughter if another will turned up, or some certificate—I didn’t quite understand about that.”
    “Charles, you don’t mean to say you’re serious?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “You weren’t drunk, and you weren’t dreamin’?”
    “I was not.”
    Archie heaved a sigh.
    “Why on earth wasn’t I there? What did you do?—bound from your place of concealment, hissin’ ‘All is discovered,’ or what?”
    “I went on listening,” said Charles. He proceeded to give Archie a very accurate account of the things he had listened to and the things he had seen. He left Margaret Langton out of the story, and in consequence found himself making rather a poor figure at the finish.
    “You didn’t bound from your place of concealment!” Archie’s tone was incredulous.
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “You let them get away and just trickled round to the police station?”
    “Well—no,” said Charles, “I didn’t go to the police station.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “Because I didn’t want to.” He paused. “As a matter of fact I used to know one of the crowd pretty well, and I thought I’d keep the police out of it if I could.”
    Archie considered this.
    “I say, that’s bad! I mean destroyin’ wills and plannin’ to murder people isn’t the sort of game you expect to find your pals mixed up in—is it? Did you know the fellow well?”
    “Fairly well,” said Charles.
    “Well, d’you know him well enough to put it to him that it isn’t exactly the sort of show to be mixed up in?”
    “That’s what I was thinking of doing.”
    “I see. Then there’s the girl. They won’t be getting up to any murderin’ games for the moment, I take it.”
    “No,” said Charles, “that was only if this certificate turned up.”
    “And you don’t know what it is? And for all you now it may be turnin’ up any day of the week. Pity you don’t know her name—isn’t it?”
    “Her Christian name is Margot. I heard that.”
    Archie upset his coffee.
    “Charles, you’ve been pullin’ my leg.”
    “I haven’t.”
    “Honest Injun?”
    “Honest Injun.”
    “Not about the name? You swear you’re not pullin’ my leg about that?”
    “No, I’m not. Why should you think I am?”
    Archie leaned across the table and dropped his voice.
    “You swear the girl was called Margot? You’re sure?”
    “Positive. Why?”
    “Because that’s the name of the girl I was talkin’ about— the Standing girl—old Standing’s daughter.”
    “Margot?”
    “Margot Standing,” said Archie in a solemn whisper.
    CHAPTER VIII
    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