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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76592 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                              Murder Mask
+
+                        By EDGAR DANIEL KRAMER
+
+                   _A brief tale about the homicidal
+                  effect of wearing a medieval mask._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                        Weird Tales June 1937.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+With conflicting emotions in his faded eyes, the stooped and wrinkled
+butler bowed Colletti into the sun-flooded drawing-room.
+
+"I will tell the master and mistress you are here, sir," the old
+servitor's cracked voice quavered, as he backed away. "I would as soon
+meet the Devil!" he spat and crossed himself hastily as soon as he was
+out of the visitor's sight. "With his hypocrite's smile and his cruel,
+green eyes!" He shuddered. "Ugh!"
+
+Colletti, tall, dark, slender, prematurely graying at the temples, set
+his hat, gloves and stick on the nearest chair and with the lithe,
+slinking movements of a velvet-footed jungle beast advanced to the
+center table. His inscrutable gaze fastened on the gardenia in his
+lapel, he drew a bit of silk from the inside pocket of his coat. For
+a clock-tick or two he scrutinized it. Then, sucking in his breath
+with a reptilian hiss, he let it slip from his tapering fingers to the
+sun-splashed table top. It lay like a clot of blood on the polished
+mahogany. From a vest pocket he thumbed a rectangle of pasteboard,
+dog-eared and time-yellowed, which bore the badly faded, delicately
+penned legend:
+
+    Who wears this mask
+      Is doomed to slay
+    Whom he loves best,
+      Ere break of day!
+
+As Colletti stood, holding the worn card between his thumb and
+forefinger, a hideous change crept over him. The ghost of a smile
+playing about the corners of his thin-lipped mouth grew sardonic. His
+whole bearing became as deadly, as sinister, as a rattler ready to
+strike. Like a miasma lifting from a fen, he exuded an aura of evil
+that polluted the atmosphere around him and took the warmth from the
+sunlight.
+
+His features grew wolfish and hardened into olive granite, while his
+eyes blazed feverishly, as he thought of his dead grandfather's will,
+that left all the eccentric importer's estate to his ward, Nita Tosca,
+in trust for her children, if she married either of his nephews,
+Antonio Colletti or Tomaso Romani, but divided the income equally among
+the trio if the girl remained single or married somebody else. In such
+a contingency, upon the demise of the last of the three, the principal
+was to be distributed to stipulated charities.
+
+Nita had rejected Colletti's passionate suit and married Romani.
+Hiding his real feelings, Colletti had contrived to act as his
+cousin's best man. After the wedding, feeling cheated, nursing his
+wounded vanity, with hatred of the newly-weds festering in his veins,
+he fled to Europe. That was six months ago. Now he was back in his
+dead grandfather's house with a handful of silk, a frayed card, an
+all-consuming hate, an inexorable determination to get Nita and her
+husband out of the picture and----
+
+"Tony!" A voice like the tinkling of silver bells roused Colletti from
+his devilish introspection.
+
+Thrusting the card away, a quick smile driving the satanic expression
+from his face, he jerked around like an automaton, as a slip of a
+woman, blue-eyed, golden-haired, ivory-skinned, came fluttering toward
+him. Behind her, in the doorway, her husband paused. At first glance
+and to the superficial observer, he was strikingly like Colletti.
+Closer study of the cousins, however, brought out subtle differences.
+Whereas Colletti was soft, hinting of unclean, forbidden things, with
+the unhealthy pallor of a plant too long away from the sun, Romani was
+as hard as a shining rapier, as clean as the salt tang of the sea, as
+frank as the day itself.
+
+"Nita!" Colletti's suave voice was a caress, as he seized the young
+woman's impulsively outstretched hands. "It _is_ good to see you again.
+You are lovelier than ever."
+
+She laughed musically.
+
+"You're looking splendid, Tom." Colletti shook hands with his cousin.
+
+"I've never felt better," Romani answered. "When did you get back?"
+
+"Yesterday," Colletti told him. "On the _Normandie_."
+
+"You'll be coming to our masque tonight, Tony?" Nita queried.
+
+"Just try to keep me away!" Colletti chuckled. He didn't deem it
+necessary to explain that he had deliberately timed his return so
+that he would not miss the masque. "In fact," he went on, "I've just
+arranged for my costume. By the way," he turned back to the table,
+"here's a mask I thought one of you might want to wear tonight. I
+happened to find it, when I was unpacking this morning. It's unique, I
+think."
+
+Nita caught up the mask and shook out its deep crimson, almost black,
+folds.
+
+"I'd wear it myself," Colletti added hastily, "but I'm coming as Death
+and it wouldn't go very well with my costume."
+
+"It's lovely!" Nita breathed, her eyes enigmatic. "So rich! So
+lustrous! So soft to the touch! Why, it's actually warm! Like living
+flesh!"
+
+Colletti eyed her narrowly.
+
+"It's been lying in the sunlight, my dear," her husband reminded her.
+
+"I'd wear it, Tony," Nita spoke dreamily, "but I'm attending the masque
+as a Watteau shepherdess and I'm afraid it won't fit into the picture
+at all."
+
+"I'll wear it." Romani relieved his wife of the mask. "As a Florentine
+dandy in the days of the Medici I couldn't ask for anything better.
+It's just the thing to go with my black outfit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The late-afternoon sunlight vanished. The room became a place of
+whispering shadows. Nita shivered.
+
+"What's the matter?" her husband asked anxiously.
+
+"I'm getting jittery, I guess," she laughed nervously. "I've been going
+too fast a pace lately. I'll be glad when tonight's over. We won't
+unmask till we have breakfast at dawn." There was something akin to
+fear in her shifting glances. "After tonight I'll be taking a long
+rest."
+
+Colletti unconsciously tautened.
+
+"Where'd you get this, Tony?" Romani wanted to know, as his long
+fingers stroked the silk.
+
+"In Padua," Colletti replied. "In a little cubbyhole of a shop off
+the beaten track. I figuratively fell into it." He chuckled at the
+recollection. "The mask struck my fancy as soon as I saw it." He
+fingered the card in his vest pocket. "I'll run along now. No need to
+ring for Benito. I'll see you tonight."
+
+They were not hearing him. As though fascinated, hypnotized,
+metamorphosed into stone like those who looked upon the Gorgons, they
+appeared completely absorbed in the mask. Colletti gathered up his hat
+and gloves and stick and silently let himself out.
+
+"After tonight," he chortled his satisfaction, as he strolled down Park
+Avenue, "the house and all the income from the old man's estate will be
+mine. I'll live like a lord and throw some parties that'll knock the
+town's eyes out." He gloated in anticipation. "The poor, blind fools!
+If the mask doesn't work, this will."
+
+He brought a tiny vial to view and cuddled it in his palm.
+
+"If the necessity arises, I will drop this into their wine. It is
+odorless, colorless, tasteless and leaves no traces. Nita and Tom will
+never see another dawn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're beautiful tonight, my dear!" Romani rapturously murmured his
+adoration. "Divinely lovely, Nita mine!"
+
+"You're handsome yourself, Tom!" Her eyes glowed like summer stars.
+
+"I'm mad about you, darling!"
+
+She adjusted her domino. He caught her in his arms and clasped her
+close. Their lips met and clung.
+
+"I couldn't," he muttered thickly, "I wouldn't live without you, dear!"
+
+"Be careful!" She struggled for breath and reluctantly shoved him
+away. "You're crushing me, Tom! You're mussing me, too! Let me go now!
+Please!"
+
+Unwillingly he released her. From below there floated up to them the
+dulcet strains of a stringed ensemble mingled with shrill feminine
+laughter, the hoarser mirth of men, the rustling of garments, the
+shuffling of feet. The air was heady with intoxicating perfumes.
+
+"We must be going down!" she panted through Cupid-bow lips. "Are you
+ready?"
+
+"Just about." He slipped on the mask Colletti had brought. "All set!
+Let's go!"
+
+She started and gasped, while her tiny hands flew to her slender
+throat.
+
+"What are you staring at?" he demanded, cold steel suddenly in his
+voice. "What's the matter, anyway?"
+
+"Your eyes, Tom!" she choked. "They're--they're--they're----" She
+couldn't go on.
+
+"You have a bad case of nerves!" he sneered, as he pulled the lower
+part of the mask away from his face. "This thing persists in pressing
+against my mouth. You'd think it was alive."
+
+"Your eyes are wild!" she managed to gulp. "You never looked at me like
+this, Tom. Oh! Your eyes are hot and cruel! Like Tony's at times!"
+
+"Like Tony's, eh?" he jeered in a voice that had lost all its
+tenderness. "I wish he had stayed on the other side," he continued
+vehemently. "I wish he had broken his neck, when he fell into that shop
+in Padua. If I never saw the beggar again, it would be too soon."
+
+Blinking her amazement, she seemed on the point of saying something,
+changed her mind and turned to the door.
+
+"Listen, lady!" He seized her arm and roughly yanked her back. "Don't
+be too nice to Tony. Don't encourage him. The rotter has a way with
+women."
+
+"Tom!" She fought vainly to break his hold. "You're bruising my arm!
+Let me go! You're hurting me! Let me go! Please!"
+
+"Not too many dances with Tony!" He glared at her. "Mind, Nita! I don't
+like the way he looked at you this afternoon. Nor the way he held your
+hands. I felt like slamming him."
+
+"What in the world has got into you, Tom?" she almost wailed, as she
+wriggled free. "You never----" Her strained voice broke. "Why--why,"
+she stammered her bewilderment, "I actually believe you're jealous of
+Tony!"
+
+"Jealous of Tony and every other man!" he confessed throatily. "I'd
+kill you, Nita, before I'd let Tony or anybody else have you." His
+hand dropped to the haft of the slender dagger at his waist. "I swear
+it!"
+
+There was no doubting his sincerity. His eyes blazed at her
+challengingly through the thin slits in the mask.
+
+"This thing seems to be blending with my skin." He tugged impatiently
+at the silk that rippled to his agitated breathing like a thing alive.
+"It seems to work convulsively against my mouth."
+
+With a stifled cry, Nita staggered from the room like a stricken thing.
+For a split second her husband stood glowering after her, fighting for
+breath like a spent runner. Then he came to life and darted in her
+wake. He reached the top of the broad stairway, as his wife poised at
+the bottom like a bird on the point of trying out its wings.
+
+The next instant, what appeared to be a skeleton, shrouded from head to
+foot in the habiliments of the grave and wearing a mask in the form of
+a grinning skull, detached itself from the swirling phantasmagoria of
+nymphs, priests, satyrs, ballet dancers, monks, pirates, harlequins,
+tramps, pierrettes, sailors, imps and other bizarre creatures, to bow
+over Nita's hand and whirl her away in a dreamy Strauss waltz.
+
+"Dancing with him already!" Romani growled, as he leisurely descended
+the stairs. "They'd better not drive me too far!" All the while his
+fingers were fondling the hilt of his dagger. "They----" He broke off
+abruptly, while his angry gaze searched the hilarious throng for the
+dainty shepherdess and her gruesome partner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a flood of delirious revelry Nita catapulted through the heavy
+draperies into the dimly lit alcove. Her husband came bursting in after
+her. The curtains trembled into place and the sounds of the frenzied
+merrymaking came to them as though from far away.
+
+"How dare you!" Nita expostulated furiously with a stamp of her foot.
+"How dare you, Tom!"
+
+He stood glaring at her fixedly, breathing hard, his slim hands
+clenched until the knuckles showed like chalk. Her eyes were pools of
+fire. Her breasts heaved tumultuously.
+
+"You have been hateful tonight, Tom!" She dabbed frantically at her
+eyes with a lacy handkerchief. "You have humiliated me terribly!"
+
+He remained silent.
+
+"You actually tore me out of Tony's arms just now!" she went on
+scathingly. "You actually flung me in here!"
+
+Romani swallowed hard.
+
+"You'll have to apologize to Tony."
+
+He dismissed the suggestion with a shrug.
+
+"You'll have to!" she insisted.
+
+"You've been dancing with Tony all night!" he rasped savagely. "Every
+time I looked up, it seemed, he was holding you in his arms with his
+dirty eyes undressing you."
+
+"Tom!"
+
+"I asked you not to dance with him so often."
+
+"You're being ridiculous!"
+
+"You've been acting deliberately contrary to my wishes." He didn't hear
+her. "I pleaded with you but you persisted. It made my blood boil. I
+saw red, while Tony exulted. Finally, I commanded you to dance no more
+with him. After all, you are my wife, you know. You laughed in my face."
+
+She tossed her head like a spoiled child.
+
+"Hear it, Nita!" He eagerly took a step toward her. "The last dance!
+Shall we waltz it together?"
+
+"No!" She meant to punish him for his show of jealousy.
+
+Romani recoiled as though from a slap in the face.
+
+"I shall dance it with Tony," she told him airily. "Let me pass!"
+
+She started to brush past her husband, as the draperies parted and
+Colletti appeared.
+
+"Nita," he began, "you----"
+
+With a nerve-tearing snarl, Romani flashed his slender-bladed dagger
+and lunged.
+
+"Oh!" Nita started to scream. "Tom, you----"
+
+Her strangled shriek ended in a gurgling gasp, as the dagger sheathed
+itself to the hilt in her bosom. Blood gushed and bubbled around the
+buried blade. An expression of mingled bewilderment, surprize and
+incredulity flitted over her ghastly, painted face, as Romani caught
+his crumpling wife in his arms.
+
+"Nita!" he croaked, his red rage dropping from him like a discarded
+cloak. "Speak to me, sweet! Nita! Nita! Nita! Good God! What have I
+done?"
+
+"You've killed her, Tom!" Colletti could not keep the oily satisfaction
+from his voice. "You have murdered her!"
+
+"Nita!" Romani was beside himself with grief. "Speak to me, dear! I
+wouldn't hurt you! I wouldn't! I'd die first!"
+
+He covered her face with kisses.
+
+"Nita! Nita! Nita!"
+
+She hung limp in his embrace.
+
+"Speak to me, darling!" he beseeched, as he tore off his mask and flung
+it across the shadowy alcove. "I love you! I love you! Speak to me,
+Nita!"
+
+"It's no use, Tom!" Colletti mocked him. "She's dead!"
+
+Romani seemed to become aware of the other man's presence.
+
+"This means the electric chair for you, Tom," Colletti cruelly reminded
+his cousin. "You have murdered her."
+
+For clock-ticks that seemed eternities Romani stared hard at the
+speaker. Gently he lowered his dead wife to the thick-piled rug.
+Carefully he pulled the dagger from her breast. Tenderly he closed her
+eyes, crossed her hands on her bloody bosom and straightened her limbs.
+
+"Thanks to the mask," Colletti pointed, "you have murdered your wife,
+Tom." He handed the anguished man the time-yellowed card. "Soon you'll
+be walking through that little green door."
+
+"I can't live without you, Nita!" Romani declared brokenly, as he
+deciphered the faded legend. "I won't!"
+
+"The state will attend to that, Tom," Colletti jeered. "You need have
+no worries on that score."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Romani retrieved the discarded mask and, whirling on Colletti, thrust
+it at him.
+
+"Put it on!" he ordered bruskly and tickled his cousin's ribs with his
+blood-smeared dagger. "Put it on or I'll drive this steel into your
+devil's heart!"
+
+Colletti paled and gulped and hesitated.
+
+"Put it on!" Romani reiterated huskily, increasing the pressure of
+the dagger, while with his free hand he tore the death mask from his
+cousin's face. "Hurry!"
+
+With trembling fingers Colletti adjusted the red silk mask over his
+twitching features.
+
+"_Who wears this mask!_" Romani growled, as through the muted strains
+of the waltz the weary revelers chorused _Good-night, Ladies_. "It's
+your turn now, Tony! _Is doomed to slay!_ Murder, Tony! _Whom he loves
+best!_ That's yourself, Tony! You're going to kill yourself! You've
+never loved anybody but yourself! _Ere break of day!_ Which isn't far
+off! You'll have to hurry, Tony! You haven't much time!"
+
+Like a man suffering the tortures of the damned, Colletti's whole body
+was writhing horribly. His palsied hands clawed at his throat. He
+appeared to be wrestling with an invisible antagonist.
+
+"_Whom he loves best!_" Romani repeated hoarsely. "You're taking your
+own worthless life, Tony! Hurry!"
+
+The crimson mask moving to his labored breathing, Colletti fumbled
+inside the hideous grave garments he was wearing. His groping hands
+brought a tiny vial to light.
+
+"_Is doomed to slay!_" Romani hissed, stepping back, for the coercion
+of the dagger was no longer needed. "_Whom he loves best!_"
+
+While Romani watched him balefully, Colletti slowly lifted the
+fluttering mask with his left hand, while with his right he tilted the
+bottle on his mouth. With a hollow gulp he drained its contents. His
+hands dropped like leaden plummets. For a split second he steadied.
+Then a tremor shook him from heels to crown. He swung half-way around,
+recovered, his knees buckled and he collapsed on his face. Romani
+rolled him over, nudged him callously with his foot, stooped and
+listened to his heart.
+
+"Dead!" he mumbled and straightened. "Gone to the hell where he
+belongs!"
+
+He sank on his knees beside his dead wife. Tenderly he kissed her cold
+eyes, her carmined lips, the little hollow at the base of her throat.
+
+"Coming, Nita!" he spoke as though replying to an urgent summons and
+plunged the dagger into his own heart. "Com----"
+
+He pitched forward over the dead woman. The music and the singing
+ceased. The gray dawning peered in at the window.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76592 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76592 ***</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>Murder Mask</h1>
+
+<p class="ph1">By EDGAR DANIEL KRAMER</p>
+
+<p><i>A brief tale about the homicidal<br>
+effect of wearing a medieval mask.</i></p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br>
+Weird Tales June 1937.<br>
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br>
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>With conflicting emotions in his faded eyes, the stooped and wrinkled
+butler bowed Colletti into the sun-flooded drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell the master and mistress you are here, sir," the old
+servitor's cracked voice quavered, as he backed away. "I would as soon
+meet the Devil!" he spat and crossed himself hastily as soon as he was
+out of the visitor's sight. "With his hypocrite's smile and his cruel,
+green eyes!" He shuddered. "Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>Colletti, tall, dark, slender, prematurely graying at the temples, set
+his hat, gloves and stick on the nearest chair and with the lithe,
+slinking movements of a velvet-footed jungle beast advanced to the
+center table. His inscrutable gaze fastened on the gardenia in his
+lapel, he drew a bit of silk from the inside pocket of his coat. For
+a clock-tick or two he scrutinized it. Then, sucking in his breath
+with a reptilian hiss, he let it slip from his tapering fingers to the
+sun-splashed table top. It lay like a clot of blood on the polished
+mahogany. From a vest pocket he thumbed a rectangle of pasteboard,
+dog-eared and time-yellowed, which bore the badly faded, delicately
+penned legend:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Who wears this mask</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent2"><i>Is doomed to slay</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Whom he loves best,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent2"><i>Ere break of day!</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As Colletti stood, holding the worn card between his thumb and
+forefinger, a hideous change crept over him. The ghost of a smile
+playing about the corners of his thin-lipped mouth grew sardonic. His
+whole bearing became as deadly, as sinister, as a rattler ready to
+strike. Like a miasma lifting from a fen, he exuded an aura of evil
+that polluted the atmosphere around him and took the warmth from the
+sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>His features grew wolfish and hardened into olive granite, while his
+eyes blazed feverishly, as he thought of his dead grandfather's will,
+that left all the eccentric importer's estate to his ward, Nita Tosca,
+in trust for her children, if she married either of his nephews,
+Antonio Colletti or Tomaso Romani, but divided the income equally among
+the trio if the girl remained single or married somebody else. In such
+a contingency, upon the demise of the last of the three, the principal
+was to be distributed to stipulated charities.</p>
+
+<p>Nita had rejected Colletti's passionate suit and married Romani.
+Hiding his real feelings, Colletti had contrived to act as his
+cousin's best man. After the wedding, feeling cheated, nursing his
+wounded vanity, with hatred of the newly-weds festering in his veins,
+he fled to Europe. That was six months ago. Now he was back in his
+dead grandfather's house with a handful of silk, a frayed card, an
+all-consuming hate, an inexorable determination to get Nita and her
+husband out of the picture and——</p>
+
+<p>"Tony!" A voice like the tinkling of silver bells roused Colletti from
+his devilish introspection.</p>
+
+<p>Thrusting the card away, a quick smile driving the satanic expression
+from his face, he jerked around like an automaton, as a slip of a
+woman, blue-eyed, golden-haired, ivory-skinned, came fluttering toward
+him. Behind her, in the doorway, her husband paused. At first glance
+and to the superficial observer, he was strikingly like Colletti.
+Closer study of the cousins, however, brought out subtle differences.
+Whereas Colletti was soft, hinting of unclean, forbidden things, with
+the unhealthy pallor of a plant too long away from the sun, Romani was
+as hard as a shining rapier, as clean as the salt tang of the sea, as
+frank as the day itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Nita!" Colletti's suave voice was a caress, as he seized the young
+woman's impulsively outstretched hands. "It <i>is</i> good to see you again.
+You are lovelier than ever."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed musically.</p>
+
+<p>"You're looking splendid, Tom." Colletti shook hands with his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"I've never felt better," Romani answered. "When did you get back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday," Colletti told him. "On the <i>Normandie</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be coming to our masque tonight, Tony?" Nita queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Just try to keep me away!" Colletti chuckled. He didn't deem it
+necessary to explain that he had deliberately timed his return so
+that he would not miss the masque. "In fact," he went on, "I've just
+arranged for my costume. By the way," he turned back to the table,
+"here's a mask I thought one of you might want to wear tonight. I
+happened to find it, when I was unpacking this morning. It's unique, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>Nita caught up the mask and shook out its deep crimson, almost black,
+folds.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd wear it myself," Colletti added hastily, "but I'm coming as Death
+and it wouldn't go very well with my costume."</p>
+
+<p>"It's lovely!" Nita breathed, her eyes enigmatic. "So rich! So
+lustrous! So soft to the touch! Why, it's actually warm! Like living
+flesh!"</p>
+
+<p>Colletti eyed her narrowly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been lying in the sunlight, my dear," her husband reminded her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd wear it, Tony," Nita spoke dreamily, "but I'm attending the masque
+as a Watteau shepherdess and I'm afraid it won't fit into the picture
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wear it." Romani relieved his wife of the mask. "As a Florentine
+dandy in the days of the Medici I couldn't ask for anything better.
+It's just the thing to go with my black outfit."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The late-afternoon sunlight vanished. The room became a place of
+whispering shadows. Nita shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" her husband asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm getting jittery, I guess," she laughed nervously. "I've been going
+too fast a pace lately. I'll be glad when tonight's over. We won't
+unmask till we have breakfast at dawn." There was something akin to
+fear in her shifting glances. "After tonight I'll be taking a long
+rest."</p>
+
+<p>Colletti unconsciously tautened.</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd you get this, Tony?" Romani wanted to know, as his long
+fingers stroked the silk.</p>
+
+<p>"In Padua," Colletti replied. "In a little cubbyhole of a shop off
+the beaten track. I figuratively fell into it." He chuckled at the
+recollection. "The mask struck my fancy as soon as I saw it." He
+fingered the card in his vest pocket. "I'll run along now. No need to
+ring for Benito. I'll see you tonight."</p>
+
+<p>They were not hearing him. As though fascinated, hypnotized,
+metamorphosed into stone like those who looked upon the Gorgons, they
+appeared completely absorbed in the mask. Colletti gathered up his hat
+and gloves and stick and silently let himself out.</p>
+
+<p>"After tonight," he chortled his satisfaction, as he strolled down Park
+Avenue, "the house and all the income from the old man's estate will be
+mine. I'll live like a lord and throw some parties that'll knock the
+town's eyes out." He gloated in anticipation. "The poor, blind fools!
+If the mask doesn't work, this will."</p>
+
+<p>He brought a tiny vial to view and cuddled it in his palm.</p>
+
+<p>"If the necessity arises, I will drop this into their wine. It is
+odorless, colorless, tasteless and leaves no traces. Nita and Tom will
+never see another dawn."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"You're beautiful tonight, my dear!" Romani rapturously murmured his
+adoration. "Divinely lovely, Nita mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're handsome yourself, Tom!" Her eyes glowed like summer stars.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm mad about you, darling!"</p>
+
+<p>She adjusted her domino. He caught her in his arms and clasped her
+close. Their lips met and clung.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't," he muttered thickly, "I wouldn't live without you, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful!" She struggled for breath and reluctantly shoved him
+away. "You're crushing me, Tom! You're mussing me, too! Let me go now!
+Please!"</p>
+
+<p>Unwillingly he released her. From below there floated up to them the
+dulcet strains of a stringed ensemble mingled with shrill feminine
+laughter, the hoarser mirth of men, the rustling of garments, the
+shuffling of feet. The air was heady with intoxicating perfumes.</p>
+
+<p>"We must be going down!" she panted through Cupid-bow lips. "Are you
+ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just about." He slipped on the mask Colletti had brought. "All set!
+Let's go!"</p>
+
+<p>She started and gasped, while her tiny hands flew to her slender
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you staring at?" he demanded, cold steel suddenly in his
+voice. "What's the matter, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your eyes, Tom!" she choked. "They're—they're—they're——" She
+couldn't go on.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a bad case of nerves!" he sneered, as he pulled the lower
+part of the mask away from his face. "This thing persists in pressing
+against my mouth. You'd think it was alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Your eyes are wild!" she managed to gulp. "You never looked at me like
+this, Tom. Oh! Your eyes are hot and cruel! Like Tony's at times!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like Tony's, eh?" he jeered in a voice that had lost all its
+tenderness. "I wish he had stayed on the other side," he continued
+vehemently. "I wish he had broken his neck, when he fell into that shop
+in Padua. If I never saw the beggar again, it would be too soon."</p>
+
+<p>Blinking her amazement, she seemed on the point of saying something,
+changed her mind and turned to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, lady!" He seized her arm and roughly yanked her back. "Don't
+be too nice to Tony. Don't encourage him. The rotter has a way with
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom!" She fought vainly to break his hold. "You're bruising my arm!
+Let me go! You're hurting me! Let me go! Please!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not too many dances with Tony!" He glared at her. "Mind, Nita! I don't
+like the way he looked at you this afternoon. Nor the way he held your
+hands. I felt like slamming him."</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world has got into you, Tom?" she almost wailed, as she
+wriggled free. "You never——" Her strained voice broke. "Why—why,"
+she stammered her bewilderment, "I actually believe you're jealous of
+Tony!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jealous of Tony and every other man!" he confessed throatily. "I'd
+kill you, Nita, before I'd let Tony or anybody else have you." His
+hand dropped to the haft of the slender dagger at his waist. "I swear
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubting his sincerity. His eyes blazed at her
+challengingly through the thin slits in the mask.</p>
+
+<p>"This thing seems to be blending with my skin." He tugged impatiently
+at the silk that rippled to his agitated breathing like a thing alive.
+"It seems to work convulsively against my mouth."</p>
+
+<p>With a stifled cry, Nita staggered from the room like a stricken thing.
+For a split second her husband stood glowering after her, fighting for
+breath like a spent runner. Then he came to life and darted in her
+wake. He reached the top of the broad stairway, as his wife poised at
+the bottom like a bird on the point of trying out its wings.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant, what appeared to be a skeleton, shrouded from head to
+foot in the habiliments of the grave and wearing a mask in the form of
+a grinning skull, detached itself from the swirling phantasmagoria of
+nymphs, priests, satyrs, ballet dancers, monks, pirates, harlequins,
+tramps, pierrettes, sailors, imps and other bizarre creatures, to bow
+over Nita's hand and whirl her away in a dreamy Strauss waltz.</p>
+
+<p>"Dancing with him already!" Romani growled, as he leisurely descended
+the stairs. "They'd better not drive me too far!" All the while his
+fingers were fondling the hilt of his dagger. "They——" He broke off
+abruptly, while his angry gaze searched the hilarious throng for the
+dainty shepherdess and her gruesome partner.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>On a flood of delirious revelry Nita catapulted through the heavy
+draperies into the dimly lit alcove. Her husband came bursting in after
+her. The curtains trembled into place and the sounds of the frenzied
+merrymaking came to them as though from far away.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you!" Nita expostulated furiously with a stamp of her foot.
+"How dare you, Tom!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood glaring at her fixedly, breathing hard, his slim hands
+clenched until the knuckles showed like chalk. Her eyes were pools of
+fire. Her breasts heaved tumultuously.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been hateful tonight, Tom!" She dabbed frantically at her
+eyes with a lacy handkerchief. "You have humiliated me terribly!"</p>
+
+<p>He remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You actually tore me out of Tony's arms just now!" she went on
+scathingly. "You actually flung me in here!"</p>
+
+<p>Romani swallowed hard.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to apologize to Tony."</p>
+
+<p>He dismissed the suggestion with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to!" she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been dancing with Tony all night!" he rasped savagely. "Every
+time I looked up, it seemed, he was holding you in his arms with his
+dirty eyes undressing you."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom!"</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you not to dance with him so often."</p>
+
+<p>"You're being ridiculous!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've been acting deliberately contrary to my wishes." He didn't hear
+her. "I pleaded with you but you persisted. It made my blood boil. I
+saw red, while Tony exulted. Finally, I commanded you to dance no more
+with him. After all, you are my wife, you know. You laughed in my face."</p>
+
+<p>She tossed her head like a spoiled child.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear it, Nita!" He eagerly took a step toward her. "The last dance!
+Shall we waltz it together?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" She meant to punish him for his show of jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>Romani recoiled as though from a slap in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall dance it with Tony," she told him airily. "Let me pass!"</p>
+
+<p>She started to brush past her husband, as the draperies parted and
+Colletti appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Nita," he began, "you——"</p>
+
+<p>With a nerve-tearing snarl, Romani flashed his slender-bladed dagger
+and lunged.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Nita started to scream. "Tom, you——"</p>
+
+<p>Her strangled shriek ended in a gurgling gasp, as the dagger sheathed
+itself to the hilt in her bosom. Blood gushed and bubbled around the
+buried blade. An expression of mingled bewilderment, surprize and
+incredulity flitted over her ghastly, painted face, as Romani caught
+his crumpling wife in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Nita!" he croaked, his red rage dropping from him like a discarded
+cloak. "Speak to me, sweet! Nita! Nita! Nita! Good God! What have I
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've killed her, Tom!" Colletti could not keep the oily satisfaction
+from his voice. "You have murdered her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nita!" Romani was beside himself with grief. "Speak to me, dear! I
+wouldn't hurt you! I wouldn't! I'd die first!"</p>
+
+<p>He covered her face with kisses.</p>
+
+<p>"Nita! Nita! Nita!"</p>
+
+<p>She hung limp in his embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak to me, darling!" he beseeched, as he tore off his mask and flung
+it across the shadowy alcove. "I love you! I love you! Speak to me,
+Nita!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use, Tom!" Colletti mocked him. "She's dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Romani seemed to become aware of the other man's presence.</p>
+
+<p>"This means the electric chair for you, Tom," Colletti cruelly reminded
+his cousin. "You have murdered her."</p>
+
+<p>For clock-ticks that seemed eternities Romani stared hard at the
+speaker. Gently he lowered his dead wife to the thick-piled rug.
+Carefully he pulled the dagger from her breast. Tenderly he closed her
+eyes, crossed her hands on her bloody bosom and straightened her limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to the mask," Colletti pointed, "you have murdered your wife,
+Tom." He handed the anguished man the time-yellowed card. "Soon you'll
+be walking through that little green door."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't live without you, Nita!" Romani declared brokenly, as he
+deciphered the faded legend. "I won't!"</p>
+
+<p>"The state will attend to that, Tom," Colletti jeered. "You need have
+no worries on that score."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Romani retrieved the discarded mask and, whirling on Colletti, thrust
+it at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it on!" he ordered bruskly and tickled his cousin's ribs with his
+blood-smeared dagger. "Put it on or I'll drive this steel into your
+devil's heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Colletti paled and gulped and hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it on!" Romani reiterated huskily, increasing the pressure of
+the dagger, while with his free hand he tore the death mask from his
+cousin's face. "Hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>With trembling fingers Colletti adjusted the red silk mask over his
+twitching features.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who wears this mask!</i>" Romani growled, as through the muted strains
+of the waltz the weary revelers chorused <i>Good-night, Ladies</i>. "It's
+your turn now, Tony! <i>Is doomed to slay!</i> Murder, Tony! <i>Whom he loves
+best!</i> That's yourself, Tony! You're going to kill yourself! You've
+never loved anybody but yourself! <i>Ere break of day!</i> Which isn't far
+off! You'll have to hurry, Tony! You haven't much time!"</p>
+
+<p>Like a man suffering the tortures of the damned, Colletti's whole body
+was writhing horribly. His palsied hands clawed at his throat. He
+appeared to be wrestling with an invisible antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Whom he loves best!</i>" Romani repeated hoarsely. "You're taking your
+own worthless life, Tony! Hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>The crimson mask moving to his labored breathing, Colletti fumbled
+inside the hideous grave garments he was wearing. His groping hands
+brought a tiny vial to light.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Is doomed to slay!</i>" Romani hissed, stepping back, for the coercion
+of the dagger was no longer needed. "<i>Whom he loves best!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>While Romani watched him balefully, Colletti slowly lifted the
+fluttering mask with his left hand, while with his right he tilted the
+bottle on his mouth. With a hollow gulp he drained its contents. His
+hands dropped like leaden plummets. For a split second he steadied.
+Then a tremor shook him from heels to crown. He swung half-way around,
+recovered, his knees buckled and he collapsed on his face. Romani
+rolled him over, nudged him callously with his foot, stooped and
+listened to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" he mumbled and straightened. "Gone to the hell where he
+belongs!"</p>
+
+<p>He sank on his knees beside his dead wife. Tenderly he kissed her cold
+eyes, her carmined lips, the little hollow at the base of her throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Coming, Nita!" he spoke as though replying to an urgent summons and
+plunged the dagger into his own heart. "Com——"</p>
+
+<p>He pitched forward over the dead woman. The music and the singing
+ceased. The gray dawning peered in at the window.
+</p>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76592 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #76592
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76592)