CHAPTER II--"MR. SHEI"
CHAPTER III--HELEN EQUIVOCATES
CHAPTER IV--AZURECREST
CHAPTER V--PERPLEXITIES
CHAPTER VI--THE PHANTOM ORCHID
CHAPTER VII--MR. SHEI SHOWS HIS HAND
CHAPTER VIII--THE VOICE ON THE WIRE
CHAPTER IX--THE HOUSE OF LAUGHTER
CHAPTER X--A SHOT
CHAPTER XI--AN EAVESDROPPER
CHAPTER XII--MR. SHEI STRIKES
CHAPTER XIII--A MESSAGE FROM MR. SHEI
CHAPTER XIV--THE ELUSIVE MR. SHEI
CHAPTER XV--DR. TAGALA
CHAPTER XVI--CHECKMATED
CHAPTER XVII--DOCTOR TAGALA'S DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XVIII--THE FIGURE ON THE STAIRS
CHAPTER XIX--A FUTILE SEARCH
CHAPTER XX--TRAPPED
CHAPTER XXI--MR. SHEI'S STRATAGEM
CHAPTER XXII--THE PHANTOM'S RUSE
CHAPTER XXIII--THE END OF THE GRAY PHANTOM
CHAPTER I
A TRAGIC INTERLUDE
Hours afterward, when the tragic spell had broken and scraps and odds
of the affair began to throng the memories of those present at the
opening performance of "His Soul's Master," several persons remembered
that a curious hush had preceded the fateful moment.
No one could tell why, but of a sudden all sounds had ceased. Subdued
whispers, the creaking of seats, and the froufrou of garments had
stopped as abruptly as if a silencing signal had gone through the
little auditorium. The spectators had sat motionless, momentarily
holding their breath, and even the voices of the actors had faltered
for an appreciable second or two. The stillness had been charged with
an uneasy tension, and it seemed as though a telepathic whisper of
warning had been communicated to the gathering.
Vivian Tennant, as frivolous as she was delicately molded, declared
the following day that the silence during those few moments had been
so intense that she was positive she had heard a pin drop from the
coiffure of the woman on her left. Alex Hammond, forty and cynical,
would have ascribed the spell to a touch of necromancy had he been a
believer in such childish things. Mrs. Hungerford Cather, a frail
little widow with a melancholy disposition, said she felt just as
though she were at a seance and a ghost was expected to appear any
moment. The others described their impressions with varying degrees of
vividness, but all of them agreed in having felt the creeping approach
of a silent and invisible horror.
Only Helen Hardwick, whose fresh young charm and frank brown eyes made
her seem strangely out of place in that motley gathering of rouged
lips, sophisticated banter and gowns suggestive of the Parisian
boulevards, was singularly uncommunicative in regard to what she had
experienced during the weird interlude when the Thelma Theater became
the scene of one of life's grimly realistic tragedies. And her silence
was all the more remarkable because she had seen, heard and felt more
than any of the others.
The Thelma, with its walls of common red brick and severely plain
architecture, might have suggested anything but the setting of a dark
and mysterious crime. Outwardly the building, located in a section of
New York largely given over to tenements, unsoaped children and
garlicky odors, presented an air of solidity and matter-of-factness
that left the imagination untouched and gave no hint of the interior.
The inside was as colorful and fanciful as the outside was unlovely
and prosaic, and it was rumored that Vincent Starr, the eccentric
owner, had spent a fortune on the decorations.
Like many another rich man, Starr had his hobby. The newspapers and
the critics had scoffed and railed when he opened the Thelma and
dedicated it to the uplift of dramatic art. He held the Broadway
productions in lofty contempt, declaring that they catered only to the
vulgar tastes of the rabble. Admission to the Thelma was by invitation
only, and the auditorium seated exactly ninety-nine persons, for it
was Starr's firm opinion that out of the city's five million only an
infinitesimal few were able to appreciate true histrionic art. Members
of the daily press were never admitted, and the only critics present
at the performances were the representatives of two or three obscure
journals who shared Starr's esthetic views.
The owner and director of the Thelma was prejudiced against music at
theatrical performances, and where the orchestra pit should have been
was an exquisite statue in marble representing Aphrodite springing out
of a foaming sea. Along the walls were friezes picturing the nine
muses, the work of a famous mural painter, and the domed ceiling
showed colorful glimpses of Dionysian festivals. Scattered throughout
the auditorium and in niches in the walls were superb vases containing
flowers whose fragrance filled the air.
The effect of the whole was sumptuous rather than harmonious, and it
was characteristic of Vincent Starr's freakish tastes and clashing
impulses. And among the audience at the _premiere_ of "His Soul's
Master" there was not one but thought that the brilliant and fanciful
setting lent a touch of incongruity to the tragic byplay enacted off
stage.
The moment she stepped into the box reserved for her father and
herself, Helen Hardwick felt she was in a strange and somewhat
oppressive atmosphere. The faces in the audience were unfamiliar, and
everybody stared at her in a way she could not understand until she
suddenly remembered that among these people she was something of a
celebrity. Vincent Starr, who sneered at the biggest dramatic
successes of the year, had not only accepted her play for production
at the Thelma, but was himself playing the principal role, and he was
indulging in much self-flattery over having discovered a budding
genius in the author of "His Soul's Master." That explained the
curious glances turned in her direction.
It was both amusing and bewildering, she thought. Nothing but a whim
had caused her to enter her play in the prize contest conducted by
Starr to obtain suitable material for his theater, and its acceptance
had been the greatest surprise of her twenty-three years. Her only
other serious attempt had been a sketch produced by a dramatic society
at Barnard in her junior year. "His Soul's Master" had been a slightly
more ambitious effort, and it had been inspired by vague emotions
which she herself could hardly understand, but for all that it was a
simple, artless thing with a theme as old as the story of the Garden
of Eden. It was nothing more than an allegorical fantasy depicting the
forces of evil and good struggling for possession of a man's soul. How
a play of that kind could have appealed to an eccentric and highly
sophisticated genius like Vincent Starr was beyond her.
But the curtain had been up only a few minutes when she began to
understand. In the part of _Marius_, the mortal for whose soul the
spirits of light and darkness were contending, Starr had found a role
that matched his temperament to perfection. The opening monologue, in
which _Marius_ revealed himself as tiring of a life of refined
villainy and roguish adventures, had not proceeded far before she saw
that the role had so gripped and stirred him that he was living the
part rather than acting it. The lines throbbed and sparkled with life
and passion, and Starr was completely submerging his own emotions in
those of the hero.
It did not take Helen long to see that it was the character of
_Marius_, rather than the flimsy fancy woven around it, that had
caused Starr to accept her play. She had heard he was vain and
egotistical, and no doubt he reveled in the opportunity for
self-exaltation that the role afforded him. As the play went on from
scene to scene, another impression began to take root in her mind.
Here and there in the lines she noted an odd cynical twist or a bit of
ambiguous phrasing that she was sure had not been in the manuscript.
The tempting voices and gestures of the spirits of darkness were more
appealing than she had intended, and the exhortations of the spirit of
light were correspondingly feebler. She thought she understood why
Starr had found excuses for not admitting her to any of the
rehearsals.
She was inclined to resent the liberties he had taken with her lines,
but again she was carried away by his impassioned rendition of
_Marius_. The very lifeblood of the character seemed to pulse in
Starr's veins. _Marius_ had seemed very real to her while she was
writing the play, but not so real by far as she now saw him on the
stage of the Thelma Theater. She leaned forward and watched him with
growing interest and wonder. It was as if a being that had existed
only in her thoughts and in her heart had suddenly materialized in
flesh and blood.
It was weird. Now and then there came a touch of subtlety, an odd turn
of speech, or a telling gesture that she instantly recognized,
although she knew it was interpolated by the actor. She had heard and
seen them all in imagination, but not clearly enough to reproduce them
on paper. The gestures impressed her most. She knew and recognized
them all, from the slightest to the most elaborate, although she had
visualized only a few of them clearly enough to be able to put them
into the play. It seemed as though the actor, in expanding and
vivifying his role, had made use of material that had existed only in
the playwright's mind.
Impulsively she reached out her hand and placed it over her father's.
Mr. Hardwick, curator of the Cosmopolitan Museum and an authority on
Assyrian relics, started as if his mind had been roving among
prehistoric scenes.
"Why, child, your hand is cold!" he whispered anxiously. "Aren't you
well?"
"Yes, dad. I'm all right." Her large brown eyes avoided his searching
gaze. "How do you like my play?"
She scarcely heard his answer. For a moment she had turned her eyes
from the stage and let them wander over the dimly lighted auditorium,
and of a sudden a face in the last row of seats held her glance. It
was a striking face, though Helen would not have called it beautiful.
Somehow the curve of the haughtily tilted chin repelled her. The
features were perfect in a cold, unalluring way, and the faint curl of
the lips and the designing look in the eyes made her think of a
Velasquez portrait. The woman sat alone, the seats to right and left
of her being unoccupied, and the heavily shaded electric light on the
wall at her side drew a thousand flashing tints from the jewel in her
hair.
It was not the face that held Helen Hardwick, but rather the fixed,
shrewdly scrutinizing look with which the woman was regarding Vincent
Starr. She followed his every motion and gesture with the sly
persistence of a cat watching a mouse. Now and then she bent forward,
and her lips twitched in a knowing way, as if she were thinking of
something that pleased and amused her even while it startled her a
little. Helen, studying her with a puzzled look, found herself
wondering whether it was the man or the actor that interested the
woman so profoundly.
With an effort--for the woman in the rear of the house had already
begun to pique her imagination--she once more turned her eyes to the
stage. Again she marveled and wondered. She had an odd feeling that
something was going on before her eyes which her reason told her could
not be quite real. Starr's perfect mastery of the role seemed almost
supernatural. The slight, quick motions of the hands, the occasional
backward toss of the head, the odd habit of gazing down at the finger
tips when in deep thought, the set and swing of the shoulders, the
minor but characteristic peculiarities of speech and gesture--all
belonged to the _Marius_ she had seen and known, and Starr's
re-creation of him struck her as uncanny.
Of a sudden she felt a little dazed. She shot a quick glance over the
auditorium. No one but herself and the woman in the rear seemed to
have noticed anything unusual. Again her eyes went back to the stage;
and then, as if a hazy idea in the back of her mind had all at once
leaped into dazzling clarity, she bent abruptly toward her father.
"Dad--look!" she whispered tensely, tugging at his sleeve. "Don't you
see? It's----"
She stopped, shrugged a little, and her hand dropped limply to her
knee. The fall of the curtain and the flare-up of the lights seemed to
have blotted out an illusion. Mr. Hardwick, gray and lean and looking
rather uncomfortable in his full-dress suit, adjusted his glasses on
his thin nose, and looked at her gravely.
"My goodness, child! What _is_ the matter?" he murmured.
"Nothing, dad. I forgot that--that you wouldn't understand." She drew
the palm of her hand across her forehead. "Isn't the air stifling?"
"Too much excitement for you, I am afraid." He smiled as if his
practical sense had found a satisfactory answer. "Your mother was just
like that. Whenever she got a bit wrought up, she always said things
that I couldn't understand. Now----"
The hangings parted and Vincent Starr stepped inside the box. Helen
gave him a swiftly appraising glance. His face was flushed and he
looked tired, as if his last ounce of energy had been spent in the
emotional tempest of _Marius_, but a swift look of animation
brightened his face as she introduced her father. The first thing one
usually noticed about Vincent Starr was his pale, placid eyes. They
seemed to give the lie to his magnetic smile, his vivacious manners,
and his deep and perfectly modulated voice. As once or twice before in
his presence, Helen felt fascinated and repelled.
"You are doing my daughter a great honor," murmured Mr. Hardwick.
"Not at all." Starr laughed softly, but Helen thought she detected a
slight discord that might have been due to either nervousness or
fatigue. "Miss Hardwick has placed me under a very great obligation.
Her play is splendid. The last act is particularly strong, as you will
see in a few minutes. You must give me your opinion of----"
Helen heard no more. She had glanced toward the rear of the house just
in time to see a mysterious smile on the face of the woman seated in
the last row. In vain Helen tried to read and interpret it. Presently
the woman took a pencil from her bag and began to write on a page torn
from her programme. Finally she summoned an usher, handed him what she
had written, and nodded in the direction where Helen was sitting. The
attendant glided away, and a few moments later he stood bowing before
Starr.
"A lady sent you this, sir," he announced.
Starr murmured an apology to Helen and her father and unfolded the
note. His face, dark and almost effeminately smooth--the face of a
dreamer rather than a man of action--showed a look of boredom hinting
that he was weary of receiving notes from feminine admirers. Then, as
he glanced at the writing, his expression suddenly changed. A look of
fear crossed his face, but it vanished so quickly that Helen could not
be sure she had read its meaning correctly. He crumpled the note in
his hand and glanced at his watch.
"It's almost time for the curtain," he murmured, quite himself once
more. "I hope to see both of you later."
With that he was gone. Helen stole a glance at the woman in the rear.
Her face bore an expression of amusement and sly triumph, but it
afforded no clew to what the note had contained. Then the lights faded
out and the curtain rose upon the final act. The scene depended for
its full effect on almost total darkness, and the only illumination in
the house was a smoldering camp fire in one corner of the stage and
the small red lights over the exits. _Marius_ stood in the center,
almost totally wrapped in shadows, and in the distance were heard the
strains of strange, wild singing. The spirits of evil were creeping
out of the darkness to make their last sorcerous appeal.
Helen felt herself tingling with suspense. She did not know why,
unless it was due to the look of fear she had seen in Starr's face as
he read the note. She glanced toward the rear, but the auditorium was
now so dark that she could no longer see the mysterious woman,
although she imagined her hair ornament was gleaming dully in the
gloom.
Of a sudden she opened her eyes wide, straining her pupils against the
darkness. She could not be quite sure, but she thought a shadow had
emerged from one of the exits and was gliding silently toward the
woman in the rear. She sat very still while little shivers ran up and
down her back, and she was vaguely wondering at an odd change in
Starr's voice. It drooped, grew hoarse and uncertain, and there were
pauses between the words. She felt he was trying to conquer a sense of
unreasoning dread. A feeling of dizziness seized her, but her
imagination formed a picture of a dark shape stealing softly, silently
toward where the woman sat.
Acting on an irresistible impulse, she rose and hurried from the box,
deaf to her father's mild remonstrance. Without volition on her part,
her feet seemed to carry her swiftly up the heavily carpeted aisle.
She heard a jumble of noises in her head and felt a tightening at the
throat. She rounded the last tier of seats and rushed forward, guided
only by a feeble red gleam over one of the exits. A dim shape, a shade
darker than the surrounding dusk, was moving a few feet ahead of her.
All at once, as if the hesitancy in Starr's voice had cast a deadening
spell over the actors and the audience, an uneasy silence fell upon
the house. Helen sensed it as she sped along in the wake of the
creeping shadow. A few steps more, and she could make out the woman's
figure, vaguely outlined against the gloom, and just behind it stood
the shadowy shape whose furtive movements Helen had followed since she
left the box.
The happenings of the next few moments were like a swift, horrible
dream. Suddenly she felt limp and cold. Within reach of her arm a hand
moved, and the motion seemed to strike a hideous note through the
surrounding stillness. A cry rose and died in her throat. She
staggered back against a post and stood there motionless while a dark
shape brushed past her. She recoiled as a hand touched hers in
passing, and she caught a fleeting but unforgettable glimpse of a
face.
It was gone in a moment, but the swarthy features, framed by coarse
black hair that reached to the shoulders, the flat, short nose, the
thick and jutting lower lip, the great eyes with their lambent flames
that seemed to send streaks of fire into the darkness, gave her a
feeling that something evil and loathsome had passed.