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Title: The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley
Author: Louis Tracy
Release Date: August 28, 2008 [EBook #26447]
Language: English
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THE STRANGE CASE OF
MORTIMER FENLEY
BY LOUIS TRACY
AUTHOR OF
THE WINGS OF THE MORNING,
NUMBER SEVENTEEN, ETC.
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
EDWARD J. CLODE
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WATER NYMPHS 1
II. "WHO HATH DONE THIS THING?" 19
III. THE HOUNDS 39
IV. BREAKING COVER 59
V. A FAMILY GATHERING 79
VI. WHEREIN FURNEAUX SEEKS INSPIRATION 101
VII. SOME SIDE ISSUES 123
VIII. COINCIDENCES 145
IX. WHEREIN AN ARTIST BECOMES A MAN OF ACTION 166
X. FURNEAUX STATES SOME FACTS 189
XI. SOME PRELIMINARY SKIRMISHING 211
XII. WHEREIN SCOTLAND YARD IS DINED AND WINED 229
XIII. CLOSE QUARTERS 246
XIV. THE SPREADING OF THE NET 266
XV. SOME STAGE EFFECTS 286
XVI. THE CLOSE OF A TRAGEDY 305
XVII. THE SETTLEMENT 324
THE STRANGE CASE OF MORTIMER FENLEY
CHAPTER I
THE WATER NYMPHS
Does an evil deed cast a shadow in advance? Does premeditated crime
spread a baleful aura which affects certain highly-strung temperaments
just as the sensation of a wave of cold air rising from the spine to
the head may be a forewarning of epilepsy or hysteria? John Trenholme
had cause to think so one bright June morning in 1912, and he has
never ceased to believe it, though the events which made him an
outstanding figure in the "Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley," as the
murder of a prominent man in the City of London came to be known, have
long since been swept into oblivion by nearly five years of war. Even
the sun became a prime agent of the occult that morning. It found a
chink in a blind and threw a bar of vivid light across the face of a
young man lying asleep in the front bedroom of the "White Horse Inn"
at Roxton. It crept onward from a firm, well-molded chin to lips now
tight set, though not lacking signs that they would open readily in a
smile and perhaps reveal two rows of strong, white, even teeth.
Indeed, when that strip of sunshine touched and warmed them, the
smile came; so the sleeper was dreaming, and pleasantly.
But the earth stays not for men, no matter what their dreams. In a few
minutes the radiant line reached the sleeper's eyes, and he awoke.
Naturally, he stared straight at the disturber of his slumbers; and
being a mere man, who emulated not the ways of eagles, was routed at
the first glance.
More than that, he was thoroughly aroused, and sprang out of bed with
a celerity that would have given many another young man a headache
during the remainder of the day.
But John Trenholme, artist by profession, was somewhat of a
light-hearted vagabond by instinct; if the artist was ready to be
annoyed because of an imaginary loss of precious daylight, the
vagabond laughed cheerily when he blinked at a clock and learned that
the hour still lacked some minutes of half past five in the morning.
"By gad," he grinned, pulling up the blind, "I was scared stiff. I
thought the blessed alarm had missed fire, and that I had been lying
here like a hog during the best part of the finest day England has
seen this year."
Evidently he was still young enough to deal in superlatives, for there
had been other fine days that Summer; moreover, in likening himself to
a pig, he was ridiculously unfair to six feet of athletic symmetry in
which it would be difficult to detect any marked resemblance to the
animal whose name is a synonym for laziness.
On the way to the bathroom he stopped to listen for sounds of an
aroused household, but the inmates of the White Horse Inn were still
taking life easily.
"Eliza vows she can hear that alarm in her room," he communed. "Well,
suppose we assist nature, always a laudable thing in itself, and
peculiarly excellent when breakfast is thereby advanced a quarter of
an hour."
Eliza was the inn's stout and voluble cook-housekeeper, and her attic
lay directly above Trenholme's room. He went back for the clock, crept
swiftly upstairs, opened a door a few inches, and put the infernal
machine inside, close to the wall. He was splashing in the bath when a
harsh and penetrating din jarred through the house, and a slight
scream showed that Eliza had been duly "alarmed."
A few minutes later came a heavy thump on the bathroom door.
"All right, Mr. Trenholme!" cried an irate female voice. "You've been
up to your tricks, have you? It'll be my turn when I make your coffee;
I'll pepper an' salt it!"
"Why, what's the matter, Eliza?" he shouted.
"Matter! Frightenin' a body like that! I thought a lot o' suffrigettes
were smashin' the windows of the snug."
Eliza was still touchy when Trenholme ventured to peep into the
kitchen.
"I don't know how you dare show your face," she cried wrathfully. "The
impidence of men nowadays! Just fancy you comin' an' openin' my door!"
"But, _chérie_, what have I done?" he inquired, his brown eyes wide
with astonishment.
"I'm not your cherry, nor your peach, neither. Who put that clock in
my room?"
"What clock, _ma belle_?"
Eliza picked up an egg, and bent so fiery a glance on the intruder
that he dodged out of sight for a second.
"Listen, _carissima_," he pleaded, peering round the jamb of the door
again. "If the alarm found its way upstairs I must have been walking
in my sleep. While you were dreaming of suffragettes I may have been
dreaming of you."
"Stop there a bit longer, chatterin' and callin' me names, an' your
bacon will be frizzled to a cinder," she retorted.
"But I really hoped to save you some trouble by carrying in the
breakfast tray myself. I hate to see a jolly, good-tempered woman of
your splendid physique working yourself to a shadow."
* * * * *
Eliza squared her elbows as a preliminary to another outburst, when
the stairs creaked. Mary, the "help," was arriving hurriedly, in curl
papers.
"Oh, _you_'ve condescended to get up, have you?" was the greeting Mary
received.
"Why, it's on'y ten minutes to six!" cried the astonished girl, gazing
at a grandfather's clock as if it were bewitched.
"You've never had such a shock since you were born," went on the
sarcastic Eliza. "But don't thank _me_, my girl. Thank Mr. Trenholme,
the gentleman stannin' there grinnin' like a Cheshire cat. Talk to him
nicely, an' p'raps he'll paint your picter, an' then your special
butcher boy will see how beautiful you reelly are."
"Jim don't need tellin' anything about that," said the girl, smiling,
for Eliza's bark was notoriously worse than her bite.
"Jim!" came the snorting comment. "The first man who ever axed me to
marry him was called Jim, an' when, like a wise woman, I said 'No,' he
went away an' 'listed in the Royal Artillery an' lost his leg in a
war--that's what Jim did."
"What a piece of luck you didn't accept him!" put on Trenholme.
"An' why, I'd like to know?"
"Because he began by losing his head over you. If a leg was missing,
too, there wasn't much of Jim left, was there?"
Mary giggled, and Eliza seized the egg again; so Trenholme ran to his
sitting-room. Within half an hour he was passing through the High
Street, bidding an affable "Good morning" to such early risers as he
met, and evidently well content with himself and the world in general.
His artist's kit revealed his profession even to the uncritical eye,
but no student of men could have failed to guess his bent were he
habited in the garb of a costermonger. The painter and the poet are
the last of the Bohemians, and John Trenholme was a Bohemian to the
tips of his fingers.
He carried himself like a cavalier, but the divine flame of art
kindled in his eye. He had learned how to paint in Julien's studio,
and that same school had taught him to despise convention. He looked
on nature as a series of exquisite pictures, and regarded men and
women in the mass as creatures that occasionally fitted into the
landscape. He was heart whole and fancy free. At twenty-five he had
already exhibited three times in the Salon, and was spoken of by the
critics as a painter of much promise, which is the critical method of
waiting to see how the cat jumps when an artist of genius and
originality arrests attention.
He had peculiarly luminous brown eyes set well apart in a face which
won the prompt confidence of women, children and dogs. He was
splendidly built for an out-door life, and moved with a long, supple
stride, a gait which people mistook for lounging until they walked
with him, and found that the pace was something over four miles an
hour. Add to these personal traits the fact that he had dwelt in
Roxton exactly two days and a half, and was already on speaking terms
with most of the inhabitants, and you have a fair notion of John
Trenholme's appearance and ways.
There remains but to add that he was commissioned by a magazine to
visit this old-world Hertfordshire village and depict some of its
beauties before a projected railway introduced the jerry-builder and a
sewerage scheme, and his presence in the White Horse Inn is explained.
He had sketched the straggling High Street, the green, the inn itself,
boasting a license six hundred years old, the undulating common, the
church with its lych gate, the ivy-clad ruin known as "The Castle,"
with its square Norman keep still frowning at an English countryside,
and there was left only an Elizabethan mansion, curiously misnamed
"The Towers," to be transferred to his portfolio. Here, oddly enough,
he had been rebuffed. A note to the owner, Mortimer Fenley, banker and
super City man, asking permission to enter the park of an afternoon,
had met with a curt refusal.
Trenholme, of course, was surprised, since he was paying the man a
rare compliment; he had expressed in the inn his full and free opinion
concerning all money grubbers, and the Fenley species thereof in
particular; whereupon the stout Eliza, who classed the Fenley family
as "rubbish," informed him that there was a right of way through the
park, and that from a certain point near a lake he could sketch the
grand old manor house to his heart's content, let the Fenleys and
their keepers scowl as they chose.
The village barber, too, bore out Eliza's statement.
"A rare old row there was in Roxton twenty year ago, when Fenley fust
kem here, an' tried to close the path," said the barber. "But we beat
him, we did, an' well he knows it. Not many folk use it nowadays,
'coss the artful ole dodger opened a new road to the station; but some
of us makes a point of strollin' that way on a Sunday afternoon, just
to look at the pheasants an' rabbits, an' it's a treat to see the head
keeper's face when we go through the lodge gates at the Easton end,
for that is the line the path takes."
Here followed a detailed description, for the Roxton barber, like
every other barber, could chatter like a magpie; it was in this wise
that Trenholme was able to defy the laws forbidding trespass, and
score off the seemingly uncivil owner of a historical dwelling.
He little imagined, that glorious June morning, that he was entering
on a road of strange adventure. He had chosen an early hour purposely.
Not only were the lights and shadows perfect for water color, but it
was highly probable that he would be able to come and go without
attracting attention. He had no wish to annoy Fenley, or quarrel with
the man's myrmidons. Indeed, he would not have visited the estate at
all if the magazine editor had not specially stipulated for a
full-page drawing of the house.
Now, all would have been well had the barber's directions proved as
bald in spirit as they were in letter.
"After passin' 'The Waggoner's Rest,' you'll come to a pair of iron
gates on the right," he had said. "On one side there's a swing gate.
Go through, an' make straight for a clump of cedars on top of a little
hill. There mayn't be much of a path, but that's it. It's reelly a
short cut to the Easton gate on the London road."
Yet who could guess what a snare for an artist's feet lay in those few
words? How could Trenholme realize that "a pair of iron gates" would
prove to be an almost perfect example of Christopher Wren's genius as
a designer of wrought iron? Trenholme's eyes sparkled when he beheld
this prize, with its acanthus leaves and roses beaten out with
wonderful freedom and beauty of curve. A careful drawing was the
result. Another result, uncounted by him, but of singular importance
in its outcome was the delay of forty minutes thus entailed.
He crossed an undulating park, and had no difficulty in tracing an
almost disused path in certain grass-grown furrows leading past the
group of cedars. On reaching this point he obtained a fair view of the
mansion; but the sun was directly behind him, as the house faced
southeast, and he decided to encroach some few yards on private
property. A brier-laden slope fell from the other side of the trees to
a delightful-looking lake fed by a tiny cascade on the east side. An
ideal spot, he thought.
This, then, was the stage setting: Trenholme, screened by black cedars
and luxuriant brushwood, was seated about fifty feet above the level
of the lake and some forty yards from its nearest sedges. The lake
itself, largely artificial, lay at the foot of the waterfall, which
gurgled and splashed down a miniature precipice of moss-covered
bowlders. Here and there a rock, a copper beech, a silver larch, or a
few flowering shrubs cast strong shadows on the dark, pellucid mirror
beneath. On a cunningly contrived promontory of brown rock stood a
white marble statue of Venus Aphrodite, and the ripples from the
cascade seemed to endow with life the shimmering reflection of the
goddess.
Beyond the lake a smooth lawn, dotted with fine old oaks and
chestnuts, rose gently for a quarter of a mile to the Italian gardens
in front of the house. To the left, the park was bounded by woods. To
the right was another wood, partly concealing a series of ravines and
disused quarries. Altogether a charming setting for an Elizabethan
manor, pastoral, peaceful, quite English, and seeming on that placid
June morning so remote from the crowded mart that it was hard to
believe the nearest milestone, with its "London, 30 miles."
Had Trenholme glanced at his watch he would have discovered that the
hour was now half past seven, or nearly an hour later than he had
planned. But Art, which is long-lived, recks little of Time, an
evanescent thing. He was enthusiastic over his subject. He would make
not one sketch, but two. That lake, like the gates, was worthy of
immortality. Of course, the house must come first. He unpacked a
canvas hold-all, and soon was busy.
He worked with the speed and assured confidence of a master. By years
of patient industry he had wrested from Nature the secrets of her
tints and tone values. Quickly there grew into being an exquisitely
bright and well balanced drawing, impressionist, but true; a harmony
of color and atmosphere. Leaving subtleties to the quiet thought of
the studio, he turned to the lake. Here the lights and shadows were
bolder. They demanded the accurate appraisement of the half closed
eye. He was so absorbed in his task that he was blithely unconscious
of the approach of a girl from the house, and his first glimpse of
her was forthcoming when she crossed the last spread of velvet sward
which separated a cluster of rhododendrons in the middle distance from
the farther edge of the lake.
It was not altogether surprising that he had not seen her earlier. She
wore a green coat and skirt and a most curiously shaped hat of the
same hue, so that her colors blended with the landscape. Moreover, she
was walking rapidly, and had covered the intervening quarter of a mile
in four minutes or less.
He thought at first that she was heading straight for his lofty perch,
and was perhaps bent on questioning his right to be there at all. But
he was promptly undeceived. Her mind was set on one object, and her
eyes did not travel beyond it. She no more suspected that an artist
was lurking in the shade of the cedars than she did that the man in
the moon was gazing blandly at her above their close-packed foliage.
She came on with rapid, graceful strides, stood for a moment by the
side of the Venus, and then, while Trenholme literally gasped for
breath, shed coat, skirt and shoes, revealing a slim form clad in a
dark blue bathing costume, and dived into the lake.
Trenholme had never felt more surprised. The change of costume was so
unexpected, the girl's complete ignorance of his presence so obvious,
that he regarded himself as a confessed intruder, somewhat akin to
Peeping Tom of Coventry. He was utterly at a loss how to act. If he
stood up and essayed a hurried retreat, the girl might be frightened,
and would unquestionably be annoyed. It was impossible to creep away
unseen. He was well below the crest of the slope crowned by the trees,
and the nymph now disporting in the lake could hardly fail to discover
him, no matter how deftly he crouched and twisted.
At this crisis, the artistic instinct triumphed. He became aware that
the one element lacking hitherto, the element that lent magic to the
beauty of the lake and its vivid environment of color, was the touch
of life brought by the swimmer. He caught the flash of her limbs as
they moved rhythmically through the dark, clear water, and it seemed
almost as if the gods had striven to be kind in sending this naiad to
complete a perfect setting. With stealthy hands he drew forth a small
canvas. Oil, not mild water color, was the fitting medium to portray
this Eden. Shrinking back under cover of a leafy brier, he began a
third sketch in which the dominant note was the contrast between the
living woman and the marble Venus.
For fifteen minutes the girl disported herself like a dolphin.
Evidently she was a practiced swimmer, and had at her command all the
resources of the art. At last she climbed out, and stood dripping on
the sun-laved rock beside the statue. Trenholme had foreseen this
attitude--had, in fact, painted with feverish energy in anticipation
of it. The comparison was too striking to be missed by an artist. Were
it not for the tightly clinging garments, the pair would have provided
a charming representation of Galatea in stone and Galatea after
Pygmalion's frenzy had warmed her into life.
Trenholme was absolutely deaf now to any consideration save that of
artistic endeavor. With a swift accuracy that was nearly marvelous he
put on the canvas the sheen of faultless limbs and slender neck. He
even secured the spun-gold glint of hair tightly coifed under a
bathing cap--a species of head-dress which had puzzled him at the
first glance--and there was more than a suggestion of a veritable
portrait of the regular, lively and delicately beautiful features
which belonged to a type differing in every essential from the cold,
classic loveliness of the statue, yet vastly more appealing in its
sheer femininity.
Then the spell was broken. The girl slipped on her shoes, dressed
herself in a few seconds, and was hurrying back to the house, almost
before Trenholme dared to breathe normally.
"Well," he muttered, watching the swaying of the green skirt as its
owner traversed the park, "this is something like an adventure! By
Jove, I've been lucky this morning! I've got my picture for next
year's Salon!"
He had got far more, if only he were gifted to peer into the future;
but that is a privilege denied to men, even to artists. Soon, when he
was calmer, and the embryo sketch had assumed its requisite color
notes for subsequent elaboration, he smiled a trifle dubiously.
"If that girl's temperament is as attractive as her looks I'd throw
over the Salon for the sake of meeting her," he mused. "But that's
frankly impossible, I suppose. At the best, she would not forgive me
if she knew I had watched her in this thievish way. I could never
explain it, never! She wouldn't even listen. Well, it's better to have
dreamed and lost than never to have dreamed at all."
And yet he dreamed. His eyes followed the fair unknown while she
entered the garden through a gateway of dense yews, and sped lightly
up the steps of a terrace adorned with other statues in marble and
bronze. No doorway broke the pleasing uniformity of the south front,
but she disappeared through an open window, swinging herself lightly
over the low sill. He went with her in imagination. Now she was
crossing a pretty drawing-room, now running upstairs to her room, now
dressing, possibly in white muslin, which, if Trenholme had the
choosing of it, would be powdered with tiny _fleurs de lys_, now
arranging her hair with keen eye for effect, and now tripping down
again in obedience to a gong summoning the household to breakfast.
He sighed.
"If I had the luck of a decent French poodle, this plutocrat Fenley
would eke have invited me to lunch," he grumbled.
Then his eyes sought the sketch, and he forgot the girl in her
counterfeit. By Jove, this _would_ be a picture! "The Water Nymphs."
But he must change the composition a little--losing none of its
character; only altering its accessories to such an extent that none
would recognize the exact setting.
"Luck!" he chortled, with mercurial rise of spirits. "I'm the luckiest
dog in England today. Happy chance has beaten all the tricks of the
studio. O ye goddesses, inspire me to heights worthy of you!"
His visions were rudely dispelled by a gunshot, sharp, insistent,
a tocsin of death in that sylvan solitude. A host of rooks arose
from some tall elms near the house; a couple of cock pheasants flew
with startled chuckling out of the wood on the right; the white
tails of rabbits previously unseen revealed their owners' whereabouts
as they scampered to cover. But Trenholme was sportsman enough to
realize that the weapon fired was a rifle; no toy, but of high velocity,
and he wondered how any one dared risk its dangerous use in such a
locality. He fixed the sound definitely as coming from the wood to
the right--the cover quitted so hurriedly by the pheasants--and
instinctively his glance turned to the house, in the half formed
thought that some one there might hear the shot, and look out.
The ground floor window by which the girl had entered still remained
open, but now another window, the most easterly one on the first
floor, had been raised slightly. The light was peculiarly strong and
the air so clear that even at the distance he fancied he could
distinguish some one gesticulating, or so it seemed, behind the glass.
This went on for a minute or more. Then the window was closed. At the
same time he noticed a sparkling of glass and brasswork behind the
clipped yew hedge which extended beyond the east wing. After some
puzzling, he made out that a motor car was waiting there.
That was all. The clamor of the rooks soon subsided. A couple of
rabbits skipped from the bushes to resume an interrupted meal on
tender grass shoots. A robin trilled a roundelay from some neighboring
branch. Trenholme looked at his watch. Half past nine! Why, he must
have been mooning there a good half hour!
He gathered his traps, and as the result of seeing the automobile,
which had not moved yet, determined to forego his earlier project of
walking out of the park by the Easton gate.
He had just emerged from the trees when a gruff voice hailed him.
"Hi!" it cried. "Who're you, an' what are you doin' here!"
A man, carrying a shotgun and accompanied by a dog, strode up with
determined air.
Trenholme explained civilly, since the keeper was clearly within
his rights. Moreover, the stranger was so patently a gentleman
that Velveteens adopted a less imperative tone.
"Did you hear a shot fired somewhere?" he asked.
"Yes. Among those trees." And Trenholme pointed. "It was a rifle,
too," he added, with an eye at the twelve-bore.
"So _I_ thought," agreed the keeper.
"Rather risky, isn't it, firing bullets in a place like this?"
"I just want to find out who the ijiot is that did it. Excuse me, sir,
I must be off." And man and dog hurried away.
And Trenholme, not knowing that death had answered the shot, took
his own departure, singing as he walked, his thoughts altogether on
life, and more especially on life as revealed by the limbs of a girl
gleaming in the dark waters of a pool.
CHAPTER II
"WHO HATH DONE THIS THING?"
Trenholme's baritone was strong and tuneful--for the Muses, if
kind, are often lavish of their gifts--so the final refrain of an
impassioned love song traveled far that placid morning. Thus, when he
reached the iron gates, he found the Roxton policeman standing there,
grinning.
"Hello!" said the artist cheerily. Of course he knew the policeman. In
a week he would have known every man and dog in the village by name.
"Good mornin', sir," said the Law, which was nibbling its chin strap
and had both thumbs stuck in its belt. "That's a fine thing you was
singin'. May I arsk wot it was? I do a bit in that line meself."
"It's the _cantabile_ from Saint-Saëns' _Samson et Dalila_," replied
Trenholme. "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix!"
"Is it now? An' wot may that be, sir?"
The policeman's humor was infectious. Trenholme laughed, too.
Realizing that the words and accent of Paris had no great vogue in
Hertfordshire, he explained, and added that he possessed a copy of
the song, which was at the service of the force. The man thanked him
warmly, and promised to call at the inn during the afternoon.
"By the way, sir," he added, when Trenholme had passed through the
wicket, "did you hear a shot fired while you was in the park?"
"Yes."
"Jer see anybody?"
"A keeper, who seemed rather annoyed about the shooting. Some one had
fired a rifle."
"It sounded like that to me, sir, and it's an unusual thing at this
time of the year."
"A heavy-caliber rifle must sound unusual at any time of the year in
an enclosed estate near London," commented Trenholme.
"My idee exactly," said the policeman. "I think I'll go that way. I
may meet Bates."
"If Bates is a bandy-legged person with suspicious eyes, a red tie,
many pockets, brown leggings, and a yellow dog, you'll find him
searching the wood beyond the lake, which is the direction the shot
came from."
The policeman laughed.
"That's Bates, to a tick," he said. "If he was 'wanted,' your
description would do for the _Police Gazette_."
They parted. Since Trenholme's subsequent history is bound up more
closely with the policeman's movements during the next hour than with
his own unhindered return to the White Horse Inn, it is well to trace
the exact course of events as they presented themselves to the ken of
a music-loving member of the Hertfordshire constabulary.
Police Constable Farrow did not hurry. Why should he? A gunshot in a
gentleman's park at half past nine on a June morning might be, as he
had put it, "unusual," but it was obviously a matter capable of the
simplest explanation. Such a sound heard at midnight would be
sinister, ominous, replete with those elements of mystery and dread
which cause even a policeman's heart to beat faster than the
regulation pace. Under the conditions, when he met Bates, he would
probably be told that Jenkins, underkeeper and Territorial lance
corporal, had resolved to end the vicious career of a hoodie crow, and
had not scrupled to reach the wily robber with a bullet.
So Police Constable Farrow took fifteen minutes to cover the ground
which Trenholme's longer stride had traversed in ten. Allow another
fifteen for the artist's packing of his sketching materials, his
conversation with gamekeeper and policeman, and the leisurely progress
of the latter through the wood, and it will be found that Farrow
reached the long straight avenue leading from the lodge at Easton to
the main entrance of the house about forty minutes after the firing of
the shot.
He halted on the grass by the side of the well-kept drive, and looked
at the waiting motor car. The chauffeur was not visible. He had seen
neither Bates nor Jenkins. His passing among the trees had not
disturbed even a pheasant, though the estate was alive with game. The
door of The Towers was open, but no stately manservant was stationed
there. A yellow dog sat in the sunshine. Farrow and the dog exchanged
long-range glances: the policeman consulted his watch, bit his chin
strap, and dug his thumbs into his belt.
"Mr. Fenley is late today," he said to himself. "He catches the nine
forty-five. As a rule, he's as reliable as Greenwich. I'll wait here
till he passes, an' then call round an' see Smith."
Now, Smith was the head gardener; evidently Police Constable Farrow
was not only well acquainted with the various inmates of the mansion,
but could have prepared a list of the out-door employees as well. He
stood there, calm and impassive as Fate, and, without knowing it,
represented Fate in her most inexorable mood; for had he betaken
himself elsewhere, the shrewdest brains of Scotland Yard might have
been defeated by the enigma they were asked to solve before Mortimer
Fenley's murderer was discovered.
Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that if chance had not brought the
village constable to that identical spot, and at that very hour, the
precise method of the crime might never have been revealed. Moreover,
Farrow himself may climb slowly to an inspectorship, and pass into the
dignified ease of a pension, without being aware of the part he played
in a tragedy that morning. Of course, in his own estimation, he filled
a highly important rôle as soon as the hue and cry began, but a great
deal of water would flow under London Bridge before the true effect of
his walk through the wood and emergence into sight in the avenue began
to dawn on other minds.
His appearance there was a vital fact. It changed the trend of
circumstances much as the path of a comet is deflected by encountering
a heavy planet. Presumably, neither comet nor planet is aware of the
disturbance. That deduction is left to the brooding eye of science.
Be that as it may, Police Constable Farrow's serenity was not
disturbed until a doctor's motor car panted along the avenue from
Easton and pulled up with a jerk in front of him. The doctor, frowning
with anxiety, looked out, and recognition was mutual.
"Have you got the man?" he asked, and the words were jerked out rather
than spoken.
"What man, sir?" inquired Farrows, saluting.
"The man who shot Mr. Fenley."
"The man who shot Mr. Fenley!" Farrow could only repeat each word in a
crescendo of amazement. Being a singer, he understood the use of a
crescendo, and gave full scope to it.
"Good Heavens!" cried the doctor. "Haven't you been told? Why are you
here? Mr. Fenley was shot dead on his own doorstep nearly an hour ago.
At least that is the message telephoned by his son. Unfortunately I
was out. Right ahead, Tom!"
The chauffeur threw in the clutch, and the car darted on again. Farrow
followed, a quite alert and horrified policeman now. But it was not
ordained that he should enter the house. He was distant yet a hundred
yards, or more, when three men came through the doorway. They were
Bates, the keeper, Tomlinson, the butler, and Mr. Hilton Fenley, elder
son of the man now reported dead. All were bareheaded. The arrival of
the doctor, at the instant alighting from his car, prevented them from
noticing Farrow's rapid approach. When Hilton Fenley saw the doctor he
threw up his hands with the gesture of one who has plumbed the depths
of misery. Farrow could, and did, fit in the accompanying words quite
accurately.
"Nothing can be done, Stern! My father is dead!"
The two clasped each other's hand, and Hilton Fenley staggered
slightly. He was overcome with emotion. The shock of a terrible crime
had taxed his self-control to its uttermost bounds. He placed a hand
over his eyes and said brokenly to the butler:
"You take Dr. Stern inside, Tomlinson. I'll join you in a few minutes.
I must have a breath of air, or I'll choke!"
Doctor and butler hurried into the house; then, but not until then,
Hilton Fenley and the keeper became aware of Farrow, now within a few
yards. At sight of him, Fenley seemed to recover his faculties; the
mere possibility of taking some definite action brought a tinge of
color to a pallid and somewhat sallow face.
"Ah! Here is the constable," he cried. "Go with him, Bates, and have
that artist fellow arrested!"
"Meaning Mr. Trenholme, sir?" inquired the policeman, startled anew by
this unexpected reference to the man he had parted from so recently.
"I don't know his name; but Bates met him in the park, near the lake,
just after the shot was fired that killed my father."
"But I met him, too, sir. He didn't fire any shot. He hadn't a gun. In
fact, he spoke about the shootin', and was surprised at it."
"Look here, Farrow, I am incapable of thinking clearly; so you must
act for the best. Some one fired that bullet. It nearly tore my father
to pieces. I never saw anything like it. It was ghastly--oh, ghastly!
The murderer must be found. Why are you losing time? Jump into the
car, and Brodie will take you anywhere you want to go. The roads, the
railway stations, must be scoured, searched. Oh, do something, or I
shall go mad!"
Hilton Fenley did, indeed, wear the semblance of a man distraught.
Horror stared from his deep-set eyes and lurked in the corners of his
mouth. His father had been struck dead within a few seconds after they
had separated in the entrance hall, both having quitted the breakfast
room together, and the awful discovery which followed the cry of an
alarmed servant had almost shaken the son's reason.
Farrow was hardly fitted to deal with a crisis of such magnitude, but
he acted promptly and with fixed purpose--qualities which form the
greater part of generalship.
"Bates," he said, turning a determined eye on the keeper, "where was
you when you heard the shot?"
"In the kennels, back of the lodge," came the instant answer.
"And you kem this way at once?"
"Straight. Didn't lose 'arf a minute."
"So no one could have left by the Easton gate without meeting you?"
"That's right."
"And you found Mr. Trenholme--where?"
"Comin' away from the cedars, above the lake."
"What did he say?"
"Tole me about the shot, an' pointed out the Quarry Wood as the place
it kem from."
"Was he upset at all in his manner?"
"Not a bit. Spoke quite nateral-like."
"Well, between the three of us, you an' me an' Mr. Trenholme, we
account for both gates an' the best part of two miles of park. Where
is Jenkins?"
"I left him at the kennels."
"Ah!"
The policeman was momentarily nonplussed. He had formed a theory in
which Jenkins, that young Territorial spark, figured either as a fool
or a criminal.
"What's the use of holding a sort of inquiry on the doorstep?" broke
in Hilton Fenley shrilly. His utterance was nearly hysterical.
Farrow's judicial calm appeared to stir him to frenzy. He clamored for
action, for zealous scouting, and this orderly investigation by mere
words was absolutely maddening.
"I'm not wastin' time, sir," said Farrow respectfully. "It's as
certain as anything can be that the murderer, if murder has been done,
has not got away by either of the gates."
"If murder has been done!" cried Fenley. "What do you mean? Go and
look at my poor father's corpse----"
"Of course, Mr. Fenley is dead, sir, an' sorry I am to hear of it; but
the affair may turn out to be an accident."
"Accident! Farrow, you're talking like an idiot. A man is shot dead at
his own front door, in a house standing in the midst of a big estate,
and you tell me it's an accident!"
"No, sir. I on'y mentioned that on the off chance. Queer things do
happen, an' one shouldn't lose sight of that fact just because it's
unusual. Now, sir, with your permission, I want Brodie, an' Smith, an'
all the men servants you can spare for the next half hour."
"Why?"
"Brodie can motor to the Inspector's office, an' tell him wot he
knows, stoppin' on the way to send Jenkins here. Some of us must
search the woods thoroughly, while others watch the open park, to make
sure no one escapes without bein' seen. It's my firm belief that the
man who fired that rifle is still hidin' among those trees. He may be
sneakin' off now, but we'd see him if we're quick in reachin' the
other side. Will you do as I ask, sir?"
Farrow was already in motion when Fenley's dazed mind recalled
something the policeman ought to know.
"I've telephoned to Scotland Yard half an hour ago," he said.
"That's all right, sir. The main thing now is to search every inch of
the woods. If nothing else, we may find footprints."
"And make plenty of new ones."
"Not if the helpers do as I tell 'em, sir."
"I can't argue. I'm not fit for it. Still, some instinct warns me you
are not adopting the best course. I think you ought to go in the car
and put the police into combined action."
"What are they to do, sir? The murderer won't carry a rifle through
the village, or along the open road. I fancy we'll come across the
weapon itself in the wood. Besides, the Inspector will do all that is
necessary when Brodie sees him. Reelly, sir, I _know_ I'm right."
"But should that artist be questioned?"
"Of course he will, sir. He won't run away. If he does, we'll soon nab
him. He's been stayin' at the White Horse Inn the last two days, an'
is quite a nice-spoken young gentleman. Why should _he_ want to shoot
Mr. Fenley?"
"He is annoyed with my father, for one thing."
"Eh? Wot, sir?"
Farrow, hitherto eager to be off on the hunt, stopped as if he heard a
statement of real importance.
Hilton Fenley pressed a hand to his eyes.
"It was nothing to speak of," he muttered. "He wrote asking permission
to sketch the house, and my father refused--just why I don't know;
some business matter had vexed him that day, I fancy, and he dashed
off the refusal on the spur of the moment. But a man does not commit a
terrible crime for so slight a cause.... Oh, if only my head would
cease throbbing!... Do as you like. Bates, see that every assistance
is given."
Fenley walked a few paces unsteadily. Obviously he was incapable of
lucid thought, and the mere effort at sustained conversation was a
torture. He turned through a yew arch into the Italian garden, and
threw himself wearily into a seat.
"Poor young fellow! He's fair off his nut," whispered Bates.
"What can one expect?" said Farrow. "But we must get busy. Where's
Brodie? Do go an' find him."
Bates jerked a thumb toward the house.
"He's in there," he said. "He helped to carry in the Gov'nor. Hasn't
left him since."
"He must come at once. He can't do any good now, an' we've lost nearly
an hour as it is."
The chauffeur appeared, red-eyed and white-faced. But he understood
the urgency of his mission, and soon had the car in movement. Others
came--the butler, some gardeners, and men engaged in stables and
garage, for the dead banker maintained a large establishment. Farrow
explained his plan. They would beat the woods methodically, and the
searcher who noted anything "unusual"--the word was often on the
policeman's lips--was not to touch or disturb the object or sign in
any way, but its whereabouts should be marked by a broken branch
stuck in the ground. Of course, if a stranger was seen, an alarm
should be raised instantly.
The little party was making for the Quarry Wood, when Jenkins arrived
on a bicycle. The first intimation he had received of the murder was
the chauffeur's message. There was a telephone between house and
lodge, but no one had thought of using it.
"Now, Bates," said Farrow, when the squad of men had spread out in
line, "you an' me will take the likeliest line. You ought to know
every spot in the covert where it's possible to aim a gun at any one
stannin' on top of the steps at The Towers. There can't be many such
places. Is there even one? I don't suppose the barefaced scoundrel
would dare come out into the open drive. Brodie said Mr. Fenley was
shot through the right side while facin' the car, so he bears out both
your notion an' Mr. Trenholme's that the bullet kem from the Quarry
Wood. What's _your_ idea about it? Have you one, or are you just as
much in the dark as the rest of us?"
Bates was sour-faced with perplexity. The killing of his employer was
already crystallizing in his thoughts into an irrevocable thing, for
the butler had lifted aside the dead man's coat and waistcoat, and
this had shown him the ghastly evidences of a wound which must have
been instantly fatal. Now, a shrewd if narrow intelligence was
concentrated on the one tremendous question, "Who hath done this
thing?" He looked so worried that the yellow dog, watching him, and
quick to interpret his moods, slouched warily at heel; and Farrow,
though agog with excitement, saw that his crony was ill at ease
because of some twinge of fear or suspicion.
"Speak out, Jim," he urged, dropping his voice to a confidential
pitch, lest one of the others might overhear. "Gimme the straight tip,
if you can. It need never be known that it kem from you."
"I've a good berth here," muttered the keeper, with seeming
irrelevance.
"Tell me something fresh," said Farrow, quickening with grateful
memories of many a pheasant and brace of rabbits reposing a brief
space in his modest larder.
"So, if I tell you things in confidence like----"
"I've heard 'em from any one but you."
Bates drew a deep breath, only to expel it fiercely between puffed
lips.
"It's this way," he growled. "Mr. Robert an' the ol' man didn't hit
off, an' there was a deuce of a row between 'em the other day,
Saturday it was. My niece, Mary, was a-dustin' the banisters when the
two kem out from breakfast, an' she heerd the Gov'nor say: 'That's my
last word on the subjec'. I mean to be obeyed this time.'
"'But, look here, pater,' said Mr. Robert--he always calls his father
pater, ye know--'I reelly can't arrange matters in that offhand way.
You must give me time.' 'Not another minute,' said Mr. Fenley. 'Oh,
dash it all,' said Mr. Robert, 'you're enough to drive a fellow crazy.
At times I almost forget that I'm your son. Some fellows would be
tempted to blow their brains out, an' yours, too.'
"At that, Tomlinson broke in, an' grabbed Mr. Robert's arm, an' the
Gov'nor went off in the car in a fine ol' temper. Mr. Robert left The
Towers on his motor bike soon afterward, an' he hasn't been back
since."
Although the fount of information temporarily ran dry, Farrow felt
that there was more to come if its secret springs were tapped.
"Did Mary drop a hint as to what the row was about?" he inquired.
"She guessed it had something to do with Miss Sylvia."
"Why Miss Sylvia?"
"She an' Mr. Robert are pretty good friends, you see."
"I see." The policeman saw little, but each scrap of news might fit
into its place presently.
"Is that all?" he went on. They were nearing that part of the wood
where care must be exercised, and he wanted Bates to talk while in
the vein.
"No, not by a long way," burst out the keeper, seemingly unable to
contain any longer the deadly knowledge weighing on his conscience.
"Don't you try an' hold me to it, Farrow, or I'll swear black an' blue
I never said it; but I knew the ring of the shot that killed my poor
ol' guv'nor. It was fired from an express rifle, an' there's on'y one
of the sort in Roxton, so far as _I've_ ever seen. An' it is, or ought
to be, in Mr. Robert's sittin'-room at this very minute. There! Now
you've got it. Do as you like. Get Tomlinson to talk, or anybody else,
but keep me out of it--d'ye hear?"
"I hear," said Farrow, thrilling with the consciousness that when some
dandy detective arrived from the "Yard," he would receive an
eye-opener from a certain humble member of the Hertfordshire
constabulary. Not that he quite brought himself to believe Robert
Fenley his father's murderer. That was going rather far. That would,
indeed, be a monstrous assumption as matters stood. But as clues the
quarrel and the rifle were excellent, and Scotland Yard must recognize
them in that light.
Certainly, this _was_ an unusual case; most unusual. He was well aware
of the reputation attached to Robert Fenley, the banker's younger son,
who differed from his brother in every essential. Hilton was
steady-going, business-like, his father's secretary and right hand in
affairs, both in the bank and in matters affecting the estate. Robert,
almost unmanageable as a youth, had grown into an exceedingly rapid
young man about town. But Roxton folk feared Hilton and liked Robert;
and local gossip had deplored Robert's wildness, which might erect an
insurmountable barrier against an obviously suitable match between him
and Mr. Mortimer Fenley's ward, the rich and beautiful Sylvia Manning.
These things were vivid in the policeman's mind, and he was wondering
how the puzzle would explain itself in the long run, when an
exclamation from Bates brought his vagrom speculations sharply back to
the problem of the moment.
The keeper, of course, as Farrow had said, was making straight for the
one place in the Quarry Wood which commanded a clear view of the
entrance to the mansion. The two men were skirting the disused quarry,
now a rabbit warren, which gave the locality its name; they followed
the rising edge of the excavation, treading on a broad strip of turf,
purposely freed of encroaching briers lest any wandering stranger
might plunge headlong into the pit. Near the highest part of the rock
wall there was a slight depression in the ground; and here, except
during the height of a phenomenally dry Summer, the surface was always
moist.
Bates, who was leading, had halted suddenly. He pointed to three well
marked footprints.
"Who's been here, an' not so long ago, neither?" he said, darting
ferret eyes now at the telltale marks and now into the quarry beneath
or through the solemn aisle of trees.
"Stick in some twigs, an' let's hurry on," said Farrow. "Footprints
are first rate, but they'll keep for an hour or two."
Thirty yards away, and somewhat to the right, a hump of rock formed
the Mont Blanc of that tiny Alp. From its summit, and from no other
part of the wood, they could see the east front of The Towers. In
fact, while perched there, having climbed its shoulder with great
care lest certain definite tokens of a recent intruder should be
obliterated, they discovered a dusty motor car ranged between the
doctor's runabout and the Fenley limousine, which had returned.
The doctor and Miss Sylvia Manning were standing on the broad mosaic
which adorned the landing above the steps, standing exactly where
Mortimer Fenley had stood when he was stricken to death. With them
were two strangers: one tall, burly and official-looking; the other a
shrunken little man, whose straw hat, short jacket, and clean-shaven
face conveyed, at the distance, a curiously juvenile aspect.
Halfway down the steps were Hilton Fenley and Brodie, and all were
gazing fixedly at that part of the wood where the keeper and the
policeman had popped into view.
"Hello!" said Bates. "Who is that little lot?"
Clearly, he meant the big man and his diminutive companion. Farrow
coughed importantly.
"That's Scotland Yard," he said.
"Who?"
"Detectives from the Yard. Mr. Hilton telephoned for 'em. An' wot's
more, they're signalin' to us."
"They want us to go back," said Bates.
"Mebbe."
"There can't be any doubt about it." And, indeed, only a blind man
could have been skeptical as to the wishes of the group near the door.
"I'm goin' through this wood first," announced Farrow firmly. "Mind
how you get down. Them marks may be useful. I'm almost sure the
scoundrel fired from this very spot."
"Looks like it," agreed Bates, and they descended.
Five minutes later they were in the open park, where their assistant
scouts awaited them. None of the others had found any indication of a
stranger's presence, and Farrow led them to the house in Indian file,
by a path.
"Scotland Yard is on the job," he announced. "Now we'll be told just
wot we reelly ought to have done!"
He did not even exchange a furtive glance with Bates, but, for the
life of him he could not restrain a note of triumph from creeping into
his voice. He noticed, too, that Tomlinson, the butler, not only
looked white and shaken, which was natural under the circumstances,
but had the haggard aspect of a stout man who may soon become thin by
stress of fearsome imaginings.
Farrow did not put it that way.
"Bates is right," he said to himself. "Tomlinson has something on his
chest. By jingo, this affair _is_ a one-er an' no mistake!"
At any rate, local talent had no intention of kowtowing too deeply
before the majesty of the "Yard," for the Chief of the Criminal
Investigation Department himself could have achieved no more in the
time than Police Constable Farrow.
CHAPTER III
THE HOUNDS
Superintendent James Leander Winter, Chief of the Criminal
Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, had just opened the
morning's letters, and was virtuously resisting the placid charms of
an open box of cigars, when the telephone bell rang. The speaker was
the Assistant Commissioner.
"Leave everything else, and motor to Roxton," said the calm voice of
authority. "Mr. Mortimer Fenley, a private banker in the City, was
shot dead about nine thirty at his own front door. His place is The
Towers, which stands in a park between the villages of Roxton and
Easton, in Hertfordshire. His son, who has just telephoned here,
believes that a rifle was fired from a neighboring wood, but several
minutes elapsed before any one realized that the banker was shot, the
first impression of the servants who ran to his assistance when he
staggered and fell being that he was suffering from apoplexy. By the
time the cause of death was discovered the murderer could have
escaped, so no immediate search was organized. Mr. Hilton Fenley, a
son, who spoke with difficulty, explained that he thought it best to
'phone here after summoning a doctor. The dead man is of some
importance in the City, so I want you to take personal charge of the
inquiry."
The voice ceased. Mr. Winter, while listening, had glanced at a clock.
"Nine thirty this morning, sir?" he inquired.
"Yes. The son lost no time. The affair happened a quarter of an hour
ago."
"I'll start in five minutes."
"Good. By the way, who will go with you?"
"Mr. Furneaux."
"Excellent. I leave matters in your hands, Superintendent. Let me hear
the facts if you return to town before six."
Evidently the Roxton murder was one of the year's big events. It
loomed large already in the official mind. Winter called up various
departments in quick succession, gave a series of orders, sorted his
letters hastily, thrusting some into a drawer and others into a basket
on the table, and was lighting a cigar when the door opened and his
trusted aide, Detective Inspector Furneaux, entered.
"Ha!" cackled the newcomer; for Winter had confided to him, only the
day before, certain reasons why the habit of smoking to excess was
injurious, and his (Winter's) resolve to cut down the day's cigars to
three, one after each principal meal.
"Circumstances alter cases," said the Superintendent blandly,
scrutinizing the Havana to make sure that the outer leaf was burning
evenly. "You and I are off for a jaunt in the country, Charles, and
the sternest disciplinarian unbends during holiday time."
"Scotland Yard, as well as the other place, is paved with good
intentions," said Furneaux.
Winter stooped, and took a couple of automatic pistols from a drawer
in the desk at which he was seated.
"Put one of those in your pocket," he said.
Again did his colleague smile derisively.
"So it is only a 'bus driver's holiday?" he cried.
"One never knows. Some prominent banker, name of Fenley, has been
shot. There may be more shooting."
"Fenley? Not Mortimer Fenley?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"Better than I know you; because you often puzzle me, whereas he
struck me as a respectable swindler. Don't you remember those bonds
which disappeared so mysteriously two months ago from the safe of the
Mortgage and Discount Bank, and were all sold in Paris before the loss
was discovered?"
"By Jove! Is that the Fenley?"
"None other. Of course, you were hob-nobbing with royalty at the time,
so such a trifle as the theft of ten thousand pounds' worth of
negotiable securities didn't trouble you a bit. I see you're wearing
the pin today."
"So would you wear it, if an Emperor deigned to take notice of such a
shrimp."
"Shrimp you call me! Imagine a lobster sticking rubies and diamonds
into a heliotrope tie!"
Winter winked solemnly.
"I picked up some wrinkles in color blends at the Futurist
Exhibition," he said. "But here's Johnston to tell us the car is
ready."
The oddly assorted pair followed the constable in uniform, now
hurrying ahead to ring for the elevator. The big, bluff, bullet-headed
Superintendent was physically well fitted for his responsible
position, though he combined with the official demeanor some of the
easy-going characteristics of a country squire; but Charles François
Furneaux was so unlike the detective of romance and the stage that he
often found it difficult to persuade strangers that he was really the
famous detective inspector they had heard of in connection with many a
celebrated trial.
On the other hand, if one were told that he hailed from the Comédie
Française, the legend would be accepted without demur. He had the
clean-shaven, wrinkled face of the comedian; his black eyes sparkled
with an active intelligence; an expressive mouth bespoke clear and
fluent speech; his quick, alert movements were those of the mimetic
actor. Winter stood six feet in height, and weighed two hundred and
ten pounds; Furneaux was six inches shorter and eighty pounds lighter.
The one was a typical John Bull, the other a Channel Islander of pure
French descent, and never did more curiously assorted couple follow
the trail of a criminal.
Yet, if noteworthy when acting apart, they were almost infallible in
combination. More than one eminent scoundrel had either blown out his
brains or given himself up to the law when he knew that the Big 'Un
and Little 'Un of the Yard were hot on his track. Winter seldom failed
to arrive at the only sound conclusion from ascertained facts, whereas
Furneaux had an almost uncanny knowledge of the kinks and obliquities
of the criminal mind. In the phraseology of logic, Winter applied the
deductive method and Furneaux the inductive; when both fastened on to
the same "suspect" the unlucky wight was in parlous state.
It may be taken for granted, therefore, that the Assistant
Commissioner knew what he was about in uttering his satisfaction at
the Superintendent's choice of an assistant. Possibly he had the
earlier bond robbery in mind, and expected now that another "mystery"
would be solved. Scotland Yard guards many secrets which shirk the
glare of publicity. Some may never be explained; but by far the larger
proportion are cleared up unexpectedly by incidents which may occur
months or years afterward, and whose connection with the original
crime is indiscernible until some chance discovery lays bare the
hidden clue.
One queer feature of the partnership between the two was their habit
of chaffing and bickering at each other during the early stages of a
joint hunt. They were like hounds giving tongue joyously when laid on
the scent; dangerous then, they became mute and deadly when the quarry
was in sight. In private life they were firm friends; officially,
Furneaux was Winter's subordinate, but that fact neither silenced the
Jersey man's sarcastic tongue nor stopped Winter from roasting his
assistant unmercifully if an opportunity offered.
Their chauffeur took the line through the parks to the Edgware Road,
and they talked of anything save "shop" until the speed limit was off
and the car was responding gayly to the accelerator. Then Winter threw
away the last inch of a good cigar, involuntarily put his hand to a
well-filled case for its successor, sighed, and dropped his hand
again.
"Force of habit," he said, finding Furneaux's eye on him.
"I didn't even think evil," was the reply.
"I really mustn't smoke so much," said Winter plaintively.
"Oh, for goodness' sake light up and be happy. If you sit there
nursing your self-righteousness you'll be like a bear with a sore
head before we pass Stanmore. Besides, consider me. I like the smell
of tobacco, though my finer nervous system will not endure its use."
"Finer fiddlesticks," said Winter, cutting the end off a fresh Havana.
"Now tell me about Fenley and the ten thousand. What's his other name?
I forget--Alexander, is it?"
"No, nor Xenophon. Just Mortimer. He ran a private bank in Bishopsgate
Street, and that, as you know, generally hides a company promoter.
Frankly, I was bothered by Fenley at first. I believe he lost the
bonds right enough, for he gave the numbers, and was horribly upset
when it was found they had been sold in Paris. But, to my idea, he
either stole them himself and was relieved of them later or was
victimized by one of his sons.
"The only other person who could have taken them was the cashier, a
hoary-headed old boy who resides at Epping, and has not changed his
method of living since he first wore a silk hat and caught the
eight-forty to the City one morning fifty years ago. I followed him
home on a Saturday afternoon. The bookstall clerk at Liverpool Street
handed him _The Amateur Gardener_, and the old boy read it in the
train. Five minutes after he had reached his house he was out on the
lawn with a daisy fork. No; the cashier didn't arrange the Paris
sale."
"What of the sons?"
"The elder, Hilton Fenley, is a neurotic, like myself, so he
would shine with equal luster as a saint, or a detective, or a
dyed-in-the-wool thief. The younger, Robert, ought to be an explorer,
or a steeplechase jockey, or an airman. In reality, he is a first-rate
wastrel. In my distress I harked back to the old man, to whom the loss
of the bonds represented something considerably less than a year's
expenditure. He is mixed up in all sorts of enterprises--rubber, tea,
picture palaces, breweries and automobile finance. He lent fifty
thousand pounds on five per cent. first mortgage bonds to one firm at
Coventry, and half that amount to a rival show in West London. So he
has the stuff, and plenty of it. Yet----"
Winter nodded.
"I know the sort of man. Dealing in millions today; tomorrow in the
dock at the Old Bailey."
"The point is that Fenley has never dealt in millions, and has
kept his head high for twenty years. Just twenty years, by the way.
Before that he was unknown. He began by the amalgamation of some tea
plantations in Assam. Fine word, 'amalgamation.' It means money, all
the time. Can't we amalgamate something, or somebody?"
"In Fenley's case it led to assassination."
"Perhaps. I have a feeling in my bones that if I knew who touched the
proceeds of those bonds I might understand why some one shot Fenley
this morning."
"I'll soon tell you a trivial thing like that," said Winter, affecting
a close interest in the landscape.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if you did," said Furneaux. "You have
the luck of a Carnegie. Look at the way you bungled that affair of
Lady Morris's diamonds, until you happened to see her maid meeting
Gentleman George at the White City."
Winter smoked complacently.
"Smartest thing I ever did," he chortled. "Fixed on the thief within
half an hour, and never lost touch till I knew how she had worked the
job."
"The Bow Street method."
"Why didn't you try something of the sort with regard to Fenley's
bonds?"
"I couldn't be crude, even with a City financier. I put it gently that
the money was in the family; he blinked at me like an owl, said that
he would give thought to the suggestion, and shut down the inquiry by
telephone before I reached the Yard from his office."
"Oh, he did, did he? It seems to me you've made a pretty good guess in
associating the bonds and the murder. You've seen both sons, of
course?"
"Yes, often."
"Are there other members of the family?"
"An invalid wife, never away from The Towers; and a young lady, Miss
Sylvia Manning--a ward, and worth a pile. By the way, she's twenty.
Mortimer Fenley, had he lived, was appointed her guardian and trustee
till she reached twenty-one."
"Twenty!" mused Winter.
"Yes, twice ten," snapped Furneaux.
"And Fenley has cut a figure in the City for twenty years."
"I was sure your gray matter would be stimulated by its favorite
poison."
"Charles, this should be an easy thing."
"I'm not so sure. Dead men tell no tales, and Fenley himself could
probably supply many chapters of an exciting story. They will be
missing. Look at the repeated failures of eminent authors to complete
'Edwin Drood.' How would they have fared if asked to produce the
beginning?"
"Still, I'm glad you attended to those bonds. Who had charge of the
Paris end?"
"Jacques Faure."
"Ah, a good man."
"Pretty fair, for a Frenchman."
Winter laughed.
"You born frog!" he cried.... "Hello, there's a Roxton sign post. Now
let's compose our features. We are near The Towers."
The estate figured on the county map, so the chauffeur pulled up at
the right gate. A woman came from the lodge to inquire their
business, and admitted the car when told that its occupants had been
summoned by Mr. Hilton Fenley.
"By the way," said Furneaux carelessly, "is Mr. Robert at home?"
"No, sir."
"When did he leave?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir."
Mrs. Bates knew quite well, and Furneaux knew that she knew.
"The country domestic is the detective's aversion," he said as the car
whirred into the avenue. "The lady of the lodge will be a sufficiently
tough proposition if we try to drag information out of her, but the
real tug of war will come when we tackle the family butler."
"Her husband is also the head keeper," said Winter.
"Name of Bates," added Furneaux.
"Oh, you've been here before, then?"
"No. While you were taking stock of the kennels generally, I was
deciphering a printed label on a box of dog biscuit."
"I hardly feel that I've begun this inquiry yet," said Winter airily.
"You'd better pull yourself together. The dead man's limousine is
still waiting at the door, and the local doctor is in attendance."
"Walter J. Stern, M.D."
"Probably. That brass plate on the Georgian house in the center of
the village positively glistened."
They were received by Hilton Fenley himself, all the available men
servants having been transferred to the cohort organized and directed
by Police Constable Farrow.
"Good morning, Mr. Furneaux," said Fenley. "I little thought, when
last we met, that I should be compelled to seek your help so soon
again, and under such dreadful circumstances."
Furneaux, whose face could display at will a Japanese liveliness of
expression or become a mask of Indian gravity, surveyed the speaker
with inscrutable eyes.
"This is Superintendent Winter, Chief of my Department," he said.
"The Assistant Commissioner told me to take charge of the inquiry
without delay, sir," explained Winter. He glanced at his watch. "We
have not been long on the road. It is only twenty minutes to eleven."
Fenley led them through a spacious hall into a dining-room on the
left. On an oak settee at the back of the hall the outline of a white
sheet was eloquent of the grim object beneath. In the dining-room were
an elderly man and a slim, white-faced girl. Had Trenholme been
present he would have noted with interest that her dress was of white
muslin dotted with tiny blue spots--not _fleurs de lys_, but rather
resembling them.
"Dr. Stern, and Miss Sylvia Manning," said Fenley to the newcomers.
Then he introduced the Scotland Yard men in turn. By this time the
young head of the family had schooled himself to a degree of
self-control. His sallow skin held a greenish pallor, and as if to
satisfy some instinct that demanded movement he took an occasional
slow stride across the parquet floor or brushed a hand wearily over
his eyes. Otherwise he had mastered his voice, and spoke without the
gasping pauses which had made distressful his words to Farrow.
"Ours is a sad errand, Mr. Fenley," began Winter, after a hasty glance
at the table, which still bore the disordered array of breakfast.
"But, if you feel equal to the task, you might tell us exactly what
happened."
Fenley nodded.
"Of course, of course," he said quietly. "That is essential. We
three, my father, Miss Manning and myself, breakfasted together. The
second gong goes every morning at eight forty-five, and we were
fairly punctual today. My father and Sylvia, Miss Manning, came in
together--they had been talking in the hall previously. I saw them
entering the room as I came downstairs. During the meal we chatted
about affairs in the East; that is, my father and I did, and Syl--Miss
Manning--gave us some news of a church bazaar in which she is taking
part.
"My father rose first and went to his room, to collect papers brought
from the City overnight. I met him on the stairs, and he gave me some
instructions about a prospectus. (Let me interpolate that I was going
to Victoria by a later train, having an appointment at eleven o'clock
with Lord Ventnor, chairman of a company we are bringing out.) I stood
on the stairs, saying something, while my father crossed the hall and
took his hat and gloves from Harris, the footman. As I passed along
the gallery to my own room I saw him standing on the landing at the
top of the steps.
"He was cutting the end off a cigar, and Harris was just behind him
and a little to the left, striking a match. Every fine morning my
father lighted a cigar there. In rain or high wind he would light up
inside the house. By the way, my mother is an invalid, and dislikes
the smell of tobacco, so unless we have guests we don't smoke indoors.
"Well, I had reached my room, a sitting-room adjoining my bedroom,
when I heard a gunshot. Apparently it came from the Quarry Wood, and I
was surprised, because there is no shooting at this season. A little
later--some few seconds--I heard Sylvia scream. I did not rush out
instantly to discover the cause. Young ladies sometimes scream at
wasps and caterpillars. Then I heard Tomlinson say, 'Fetch Mr. Hilton
at once,' and I ran into Harris, who blurted out, 'Mr. Fenley has been
shot, sir.'
"After that, I scarcely know what I said or how I acted. I remember
running downstairs, and finding my father lying outside the front
door, with Sylvia supporting his head and Tomlinson and Brodie trying
to lift him. I think--in fact, I am sure now from what Dr. Stern tells
me--that my father was dead before I reached him. We all thought at
first that he had yielded to some awfully sudden form of paralysis,
but some one--Tomlinson, I believe--noticed a hole through the right
side of his coat and waistcoat. Then Sylvia--oh, perhaps that is
matterless----"
"Every incident, however slight, is of importance in a case of this
sort," Winter encouraged him.
"Well, she said--what was it, exactly? Do you remember, Sylvia?"
"Certainly," said the girl, unhesitatingly. "I said that I thought I
recognized the sound of Bob's .450. Why shouldn't I say it? Poor Bob
didn't shoot his father."
Her voice, though singularly musical, had a tearful ring which became
almost hysterical in the vehemence of the question and its disclaimer.
Fenley moved uneasily, and raised his right hand to his eyes, while
the left grasped the back of a chair.
"Bob is my brother Robert, who is away from home at this moment," he
said, and his tone deprecated the mere allusion to the rifle owned by
the absentee. "I only mentioned Miss Manning's words to show how
completely at a loss we all were to account for my father's wound. I
helped Tomlinson and Brodie to carry him to the settee in the hall.
Then we--Tomlinson, that is--opened his waistcoat and shirt. Tomlinson
cut the shirt with a scissors, and we saw the wound. Dr. Stern says
there are indications that an expanding bullet was used, so the
injuries must have been something appalling.... Sylvia, don't you
think----"
"I'll not faint, or make a scene, if that is what you are afraid of,
Hilton," said the girl bravely.
"That is all, then, or nearly all," went on Fenley, in the same
dreary, monotonous voice. "I telephoned to Dr. Stern, and to Scotland
Yard, deeming it better to communicate with you than with the local
police. But it seems that Bates, our head keeper hurrying to
investigate the cause of the shot, met some artist coming away from
the other side of the wood. The Roxton police constable too, met and
spoke with the same man, who told both Bates and the policeman that he
heard the shot fired. The policeman, Farrow, refused to arrest the
artist, and is now searching the wood with a number of our men----"
"Can't they be stopped?" broke in Furneaux, speaking for the first
time.
"Yes, of course," and Hilton Fenley became a trifle more animated. "I
wanted Farrow to wait till you came, but he insisted--said the
murderer might be hiding there."
"When did Farrow arrive?"
"Oh, more than half an hour after my father was shot. I forgot to
mention that my mother knows nothing of the tragedy yet. That is why
we did not carry my poor father's body upstairs. She might overhear
the shuffling of feet, and ask the cause."
"One thing more, Mr. Fenley," said Winter, seeing that the other had
made an end. "Have you the remotest reason to believe that any person
harbored a grievance against your father such as might lead to the
commission of a crime of this nature?"
"I've been torturing my mind with that problem since I realized that
my father was dead, and I can say candidly that he had no enemies. Of
course, in business, one interferes occasionally with other men's
projects, but people in the City do not shoot successful opponents."
"No private feud? No dismissed servant, sent off because of theft or
drunkenness?"
"Absolutely none, to my knowledge. The youngest man on the estate has
been employed here five or six years."
"It is a very extraordinary crime, Mr. Fenley."
For answer, the other sank into a chair and buried his face in his
hands.
"How can we get those clodhoppers out of the wood?" said Furneaux. His
thin, high-pitched voice dispelled the tension, and Fenley dropped his
hands.
"Bates is certain to make for a rock which commands a view of the
house," he said. "Perhaps, if we go to the door, we may see them."
He arose with obvious effort, but walked steadily enough. Winter
followed with the doctor, and inquired in an undertone--
"Are you sure about the soft-nosed bullet, doctor?"
"Quite," was the answer. "I was in the Tirah campaign, and saw
hundreds of such wounds."
Furneaux, too, had something to say to Miss Manning.
"How were you seated during breakfast?" he asked.
She showed him. It was a large room. Two windows looked down the
avenue, and three into the garden, with its background of timber and
park. Mr. Mortimer Fenley could have commanded both views; his son sat
with his back to the park; the girl had faced it.
"I need hardly put it to you, but you saw no one in or near the
trees?" said Furneaux.
"Not a soul. I bathe in a little lake below those cedars every
morning, and it is an estate order that the men do not go in that
direction between eight and nine o'clock. Of course, a keeper might
have passed at nine thirty, but it is most unlikely."
"Did you bathe this morning?"
"Yes, soon after eight."
"Did you see the artist of whom Mr. Fenley spoke?"
"No. This is the first I have heard of any artist. Bates must have
mentioned him while I was with Dr. Stern."
When Farrow arrived at the head of his legion he was just in time to
salute his Inspector, who had cycled from Easton after receiving the
news left by the chauffeur at the police station. Farrow was bursting
with impatience to reveal the discoveries he had made, though resolved
to keep locked in his own breast the secret confided by Bates. He was
thoroughly nonplussed, therefore, when Winter, after listening in
silence to the account of the footprints and scratches on the
moss-covered surface of the rock, turned to Hilton Fenley.
"With reference to the rifle which has been mentioned--where is it
kept?" he said.
"In my brother's room. He bought it nearly a year ago, when he was
planning an expedition to Somaliland."
"May I see it?"
Fenley signed to the butler, who was standing with the others at a
little distance.
"You know the .450 Express which is in the gun rack in Mr. Robert's
den?" he said. "Bring it to the Superintendent."
Tomlinson, shaken but dignified, and rather purple of face as the
result of the tramp through the trees, went indoors. Soon he came
back, and the rich tint had faded again from his complexion.
"Sorry, sir," he said huskily, "but the rifle is not there."
"Not there!"
It was Sylvia Manning who spoke; the others received this sinister
fact in silence.
"No, miss."
"Are you quite sure?" asked Fenley.
"It is not in the gun rack, sir, nor in any of the corners."
There was a pause. Fenley clearly forced the next words.
"That's all right. Bates may have it in the gun room. We'll ask him.
Or Mr. Robert may have taken it to the makers. I remember now he spoke
of having the sight fitted with some new appliance."
He called Bates. No, the missing rifle was not in the gun room.
Somehow the notion was forming in certain minds that it could not be
there. Indeed, the keeper's confusion was so marked that Furneaux's
glance dwelt on him for a contemplative second.
CHAPTER IV
BREAKING COVER
Winter drew the local Inspector aside. "This inquiry rests with you in
the first instance," he said. "Mr. Furneaux and I are here only to
assist. Mr. Fenley telephoned to the Commissioner, mainly because
Scotland Yard was called in to investigate a bond robbery which took
place in the Fenley Bank some two months ago. Probably you never heard
of it. Will you kindly explain our position to your Chief Constable?
Of course, we shall work with you and through you, but my colleague
has reason to believe that the theft of the bonds may have some
bearing on this murder, and, as the securities were disposed of in
Paris, it is more than likely that the Yard may be helpful."
"I fully understand, sir," said the Inspector, secretly delighted at
the prospect of joining in the hunt with two such renowned detectives.
The combined parishes of Easton and Roxton seldom produced a crime of
greater magnitude than the theft of a duck. The arrest of a burglar
who broke into a villa, found a decanter of whisky, and got so
hopelessly drunk that he woke up in a cell at the police station, was
an event of such magnitude that its memory was still lively, though
the leading personage was now out on ticket of leave after serving
five years in various penal settlements.
"You will prepare and give the formal evidence at the inquest, which
will be opened tomorrow," went on Winter. "All that is really
necessary is identification and a brief statement by the doctor. Then
the coroner will issue the burial certificate, and the inquiry should
be adjourned for a fortnight. I would recommend discretion in choosing
a jury. Avoid busybodies like the plague. Summons only sensible men,
who will do as they are told and ask no questions."
"Exactly," said the Inspector; he found Machiavellian art in these
simple instructions. How it broadened the horizon to be brought in
touch with London!
Winter turned to look for Furneaux. The little man was standing where
Mortimer Fenley had stood in the last moment of his life. His eyes
were fixed on the wood. He seemed to be dreaming, but his friend well
knew how much clarity and almost supernatural vision was associated
with Furneaux's dreams.
"Charles!" said the Superintendent softly.
Furneaux awoke, and ran down the steps. In his straw hat and light
Summer suit he looked absurdly boyish, but the Inspector, who had
formed an erroneous first impression, was positively startled when he
met those blazing black eyes.
"Mr. Fenley should warn all his servants to speak fully and candidly,"
said Winter. "Then we shall question the witnesses separately. What do
you think? Shall we start now?"
"First, the boots," cried Furneaux, seemingly voicing a thought. "We
want a worn pair of boots belonging to each person in the house and
employed on the estate, men and women, no exceptions, including the
dead man's. Then we'll visit that wood. After that, the inquiry."
Winter nodded. When Furneaux and he were in pursuit of a criminal they
dropped all nice distinctions of rank. If one made a suggestion the
other adopted it without comment unless he could urge some convincing
argument against it.
"Mr. Fenley should give his orders now," added Furneaux.
Winter explained his wishes to the nominal head of the household, and
Fenley's compliance was ready and explicit.
"These gentlemen from Scotland Yard are acting in behalf of Mrs.
Fenley, my brother and myself," he said to the assembled servants.
"You must obey them as you would obey me. I place matters unreservedly
in their hands."
"And our questions should be answered without reserve," put in Winter.
"Yes, of course. I implied that. At any rate, it is clear now."
"Brodie," said Furneaux, seeming to pounce on the chauffeur, "you were
seated at the wheel when the shot was fired?"
"Ye--yes, sir," stuttered Brodie, rather taken aback by the little
man's suddenness.
"Were you looking at the wood?"
"In a sort of a way, sir."
"Did you see any one among the trees?"
"No, sir, that I didn't." This more confidently.
"Place your car where it was stationed then. Take your seat, and try
to imagine that you are waiting for your master. Start the engine, and
behave exactly as though you expected him to enter the car. Don't
watch the wood. I mean that you are not to avoid looking at it, but
just throw yourself back to the condition of mind you were in at nine
twenty-five this morning. Can you manage that?"
"I think so, sir."
"No chatting with others, you know. Fancy you are about to take Mr.
Fenley to the station. If you should happen to see me, wave your hand.
Then you can get down and stop the engine. You understand you are not
to keep a sharp lookout for me?"
"Yes, sir."
The butler thought it would take a quarter of an hour to collect
sample pairs of boots from the house and outlying cottages. Police
Constable Farrow was instructed to bring the butler and the array of
boots to the place where the footprints were found, and Bates led the
detectives and the Inspector thither at once.
Soon the four men were gazing at the telltale marks, and the
Inspector, of course, was ready with a shrewd comment.
"Whoever it was that came this way, he didn't take much trouble to
hide his tracks," he said.
The Scotland Yard experts were so obviously impressed that the
Inspector tried a higher flight.
"They're a man's boots," he continued. "We needn't have worried
Tomlinson to gather the maids' footgear."
Furneaux left two neat imprints in the damp soil.
"Bet you a penny whistle there are at least two women in The Towers
who will make bigger blobs than these," he said.
A penny whistle, as a wager, is what Police Constable Farrow would
term "unusual."
"Quite so," said the Inspector thoughtfully.
Winter caught Furneaux's eye, and frowned. There was nothing to be
gained by taking a rise out of the local constabulary. Still, he gave
one sharp glance at both sets of footprints. Then he looked at
Furneaux again, this time with a smile.
The party passed on to the rock on the higher ground. Bates pointed
out the old scratches, and those made by Farrow and himself.
"Me first!" cried Furneaux, darting nimbly to the summit. He was not
there a second before he signaled to some one invisible from beneath.
Winter joined him, and the east front of the house burst into view.
Brodie was in the act of descending from the car. The doctor had gone.
A small group of men were gazing at the wood, but Hilton Fenley and
Sylvia Manning were not to be seen.
Neither man uttered a word. They looked at the rock under their feet,
at the surrounding trees, oak and ash, elm and larch, all of mature
growth, and towering thirty to forty feet above their heads, while the
rock itself rose some twelve feet from the general level of the
sloping ground.
Bates was watching them.
"The fact is, gentlemen, that if an oak an' a couple o' spruce first
hadn't been cut down you wouldn't see the house even from where you
are," he said. "Mr. Fenley had an idee of buildin' a shelter on this
rock, but he let it alone 'coss o' the birds. Ladies would be comin'
here, an' a-disturbin' of 'em."
The detectives came down. Furneaux, meaning to put the Inspector in
the right frame of mind, said confidentially--
"Brodie saw me instantly."
"Did he, now? It follows that he would have seen any one who fired at
Mr. Fenley from that spot."
"It almost follows. We must guard against assuming a chance as a
certainty."
"Oh, yes."
"And we must also try to avoid fitting facts into preconceived
notions. Now, while the butler is gathering old boots, let us spend a
few profitable minutes in this locality."
After that, any trace of soreness in the inspectorial breast was
completely obliterated.
Both Winter and Furneaux produced strong magnifying-glasses, and
scrutinized the scratches and impressions on the bare rock and moss.
Bates, skilled in wood lore, was quick to note what they had discerned
at a glance.
"Beg pardon, gentlemen both, but may I put in a word?" he muttered
awkwardly.
"As many as you like," Winter assured him.
"Well, these here marks was made by Farrow an' meself, say about ten
forty, or a trifle over an hour after the murder; an' I have no sort
o' doubt as these other marks are a day or two days older."
"You might even put it at three days," agreed Winter.
"Then it follows----" began the Inspector, but checked himself. He was
becoming slightly mixed as to the exact sequence of events.
"Come, now, Bates," said Furneaux, "you can tell us the day Mr. Robert
Fenley left home recently? There is no harm in mentioning his name. It
can't help being in our thoughts, since it was discovered that his gun
was missing."
"He went off on a motor bicycle last Saturday mornin', sir."
"Can you fix the hour?"
"About half past ten."
"You have not seen him since?"
"No, sir."
"You would be likely to know if he had returned?"
"Certain, sir, unless he kem by the Roxton gate."
"Oh, is there another entrance?"
"Yes, but it can't be used, 'cept by people on foot. The big gates are
always locked, and the road has been grassed over, an' not so many
folk know of a right of way. Of course, Mr. Robert knows."
Bates was disturbed. He expected to be cross-examined farther, but, to
his manifest relief, the ordeal was postponed. Winter and Furneaux
commenced a careful scrutiny of the ground behind the rock. They
struck off on different paths, but came together at a little distance.
"The trees," murmured Winter.
"Yes, when we are alone."
"Have you noticed----"
"These curious pads. They mean a lot. It's not so easy, James."
"I'm growing interested, I admit."
They rejoined the others.
"Did you tell me that only you and Police Constable Farrow visited
this part of the wood?" said Furneaux to Bates.
"I don't remember tellin' you, sir, but that's the fact," said the
keeper.
"Well, warn all the estate hands to keep away from this section during
the next few days. You will give orders to Farrow to that effect,
Inspector?"
"Yes. If they go trampling all over, you won't know where you are when
it comes to a close search," was the cheerful answer. "Now, about that
gun--it must be hidden somewhere in the undergrowth. The man who fired
it would never dare to carry it along an open road on a fine morning
like this, when everybody is astir."
"You're undoubtedly right," said Winter. "But here come assorted
boots. They may help us a bit."
Tomlinson was a man of method. He and Farrow had brought two wicker
baskets, such as are used in laundry work. He was rather breathless.
"House--and estate," he wheezed, pointing to each basket in turn.
"Go ahead, Furneaux," said Winter. "Because I ought to stoop, I
don't."
The little man choked back some gibe; the presence of strangers
enforced respect to his chief. He took a thin folding rule of aluminum
from a waistcoat pocket, and applied it to the most clearly defined of
the three footprints. Then beginning at the "house" basket, he ran
over the contents rapidly. One pair of boots he set aside. After
testing the "estate" basket without success, he seized one of the
selected pair, and pressed it into the earth close to an original
print. He looked up at Tomlinson, who was in a violent perspiration.
"Whose boot is this?" he asked.
"God help us, sir, it's Mr. Robert's!" said Tomlinson in an agonized
tone.
The Inspector, Farrow and Bates were visibly thrilled; but Furneaux
only sank back on his heels, and peered at the boot.
"I don't understand why any one should feel upset because these
footprints (which, by the way, were not made by this pair of boots)
happen to resemble marks which may have been made by Mr. Robert
Fenley," he said, apparently talking to himself. "These marks are
three or four days old. Mr. Robert Fenley went away on Saturday. Today
is Wednesday. He may have been here on Saturday morning. What does it
matter if he was? The man who murdered his father must have been here
two hours ago."
Sensation! Tomlinson mopped his forehead with a handkerchief already a
wet rag; Farrow, not daring to interfere, nibbled his chin strap;
Bates scowled with relief. But the Inspector, after a husky cough,
spoke.
"Would you mind telling me, Mr. Furneaux, why you are so sure?" he
said.
"Now, Professor Bates, you tell him," cackled Furneaux.
The keeper dropped on his knees by the side of the detective, and
gazed critically at the marks.
"At this time o' year, gentlemen, things do grow wonderful," he said
slowly. "In this sort o' ground, where there's wet an' shade, there's
a kind o' constant movement. This here new print is clean, an' the
broken grass an' crushed leaves haven't had time to straighten
themselves, as one might say. But, in this other lot, the shoots are
commencin' to perk up, an' insec's have stirred the mold. It's just
the difference atween a new run for rabbits and an old 'un."
"Thank you, Bates," broke in Winter sharply. "Now, we must not waste
any more time in demonstrations. Mr. Furneaux explained this thing
purposely, to show the folly of jumping at conclusions. Innocent men
have been hanged before today on just such evidence as this. We
should deem ourselves lucky that these footprints were found so soon
after the crime was committed. Tomorrow, or next day, there might have
been a doubt in our minds. Luckily there is none. The man who shot Mr.
Fenley this morning--" he paused; Furneaux alone appreciated his
difficulty--"could not possibly have left those marks today."
It was a lame ending, but it sufficed. Four of his hearers took him to
mean that the unknown, whose feet had left their impress in the soil
could not have been the murderer; but Furneaux growled in French--
"You tripped badly that time, my friend. You need another cigar!"
Seemingly, he was soliloquizing, and none understood except the one
person for whose benefit the sarcasm was intended.
Winter felt the spur, but because he was a really great detective it
only stimulated him. Nothing more was said until the little procession
reached the avenue. During their brief disappearance in the leafy
depths two cars and three motor cycles had arrived at The Towers. A
glance sufficed. The newspapers had heard of the murder; this was the
advance guard of an army of reporters and photographers. Winter
buttonholed the Inspector.
"I'll tell you the most valuable service you can render at this
moment," he said. "Arrange that a constable shall mount guard at the
rock till nightfall. Then place two on duty. With four men you can
provide the necessary reliefs, but I want that place watched
continuously, and intruders warned off till further notice. This man
who happens to be here might go on duty immediately. Then you can make
your plans at leisure."
Thus, by the quaint contriving of chance, Police Constable Farrow,
whose stalwart form and stubborn zeal had blocked the path to the
Quarry Wood since a few minutes after ten o'clock, was deputed to
continue that particular duty till a comrade took his place.
His face fell when he heard that he was condemned to solitude, shut
out from all the excitement of the hour, debarred even, as he
imagined, from standing on the rock and watching the comings and
goings at the mansion. But Winter was a kindly if far-seeing student
of human nature.
"It will be a bit slow for you," he said, when the Inspector had given
Farrow his orders. "But you can amuse yourself by an occasional peep
at the landscape, and there is no reason why you shouldn't smoke."
Farrow saluted.
"Do you mean, sir, that I can show myself?"
"Why not? The mere fact that your presence is known will warn off
priers. Remember--no one, absolutely no one except the police, is to
be allowed to pass the quarry, or approach from any side within
hailing distance."
"Not even from the house, sir?"
"Exactly. Mr. Fenley and Miss Manning may be told, if necessary, why
you are there, and I am sure they will respect my wishes."
Farrow turned back. It was not so bad, then. These Scotland Yard
fellows had chosen him for an important post, and that hint about a
pipe was distinctly human. Odd thing, too, that Mr. Robert Fenley was
not expected to put in an appearance, or the Superintendent would have
mentioned him with the others.
On reaching the house there were evidences of disturbance. Hilton
Fenley stood in the doorway, and was haranguing the newspaper men in a
voice harsh with anger. This intrusion was unwarranted, illegal,
impudent. He would have them expelled by force. When he caught sight
of the Inspector he demanded fiercely that names and addresses should
be taken, so that his solicitors might issue summonses for trespass.
All this, of course, made excellent copy, and Winter put an end to the
scene by drawing the reporters aside and giving them a fairly complete
account of the murder. Incidentally, he sent off the Inspector post
haste on his bicycle to station a constable at each gate, and stop the
coming invasion. The house telephone, too, closed the main gate
effectually, so when the earliest scouts had rushed away to connect
with Fleet Street order was restored.
Winter was puzzled by Fenley's display of passion. It was only to be
expected that the newspapers would break out in a rash of black
headlines over the murder of a prominent London financier. By hook or
by crook, journalism would triumph. He had often been amazed at the
extent and accuracy of news items concerning the most secret
inquiries. Of course the reporters sometimes missed the heart of an
intricate case. In this instance, they had never heard of the bond
robbery, though the numbers of the stolen securities had been
advertised widely. Moreover, he was free to admit that if every fact
known to the police were published broadcast, no one would be a penny
the worse; for thus far the crime was singularly lacking in motive.
Meanwhile Furneaux had fastened on to Brodie again.
"You saw me at once?" he began.
"I couldn't miss you, sir," said the chauffeur, a solid, stolid
mechanic, who understood his engine and a road map thoroughly, and
left the rest to Providence. "I wasn't payin' particular attention,
yet I twigged you the minute you popped up."
"So it is reasonable to suppose that if any one had appeared in that
same place this morning and taken steady aim at Mr. Fenley, you would
have twigged him, too."
"It strikes me that way, sir."
"Did you see nothing--not even a puff of smoke? You must certainly
have looked at the wood when you heard the shot."
"I did, sir. Not a leaf moved. Just a couple of pheasants flew out,
and the rooks around the house kicked up such a row that I didn't know
the Guv'nor was down till Harris shouted."
"Where did the pheasants fly from?"
"They kem out a bit below the rock; but they were risin' birds, an'
may have started from the ground higher up."
"No birds were startled before the shot was fired?"
"Not to my knowledge, sir. But June pheasants are very tame, and they
lie marvelous close. A pheasant would just as soon run as fly."
The detectives began a detailed inquiry almost at once. It covered the
ground already traversed, and the only new incident happened when
Hilton Fenley, at the moment repeating his evidence, was called to the
telephone.
"If either of you cares to smoke there are cigars and Virginia
cigarettes on the sideboard," he said. "Or, if you prefer Turkish,
here are some," and he laid a gold case on the table. Furneaux grabbed
it when the door had closed.
"All neurotics use Turkish cigarettes," he said solemnly. "Ah, I
guessed it! A strong, vile, scented brand!"
"Sometimes, my dear Charles, you talk rubbish," sighed Winter.
"Maybe. I never think or smoke it. 'Language was given us to conceal
our thoughts,' said Talleyrand. I have always admired Talleyrand,
'that rather middling bishop but very eminent knave,' as de Quincey
called him. '_Cré nom!_ I wonder what de Quincey meant by 'middling.'
A man who could keep in the front rank under the Bourbons, during the
Revolution, with Napoleon, and back again under the Bourbons, and yet
die in bed, must have been superhuman. St. Peter, in his stead, would
have lost his napper at least four times."
Winter stirred uneasily, and gazed out across the Italian garden and
park, for the detectives were again installed in the dining-room.
"What about that artist, Trenholme?" he said after a pause.
"We'll look him up. Before leaving this house I want to peep into
various rooms. And there's Tomlinson. Tomlinson is a rich mine. Do
leave him to me. I'll dig into him deep, and extract ore of high
percentage--see if I don't."
"Do you know, Charles, I've a notion that we shall get closer to
bed-rock in London than here."
Furneaux pretended to look for an invisible halo surrounding his
chief's close-cropped bullet head.
"Sometimes," he said reverently, "you frighten me when you bring off a
brilliant remark like that. I seem to see lightning zigzagging round
Jove's dome."
Fenley returned.
"It was a call from the bank," he announced. "They have just seen the
newspapers. I told them I would run up to town this afternoon."
"Then you did not telephone Bishopsgate Street earlier?" inquired
Winter, permitting himself to be surprised.
"No. I had other things to bother me."
"Now, Mr. Fenley, can you tell me where your brother is?"
"I can not."
He placed a rather unnecessary emphasis on the negative. The question
seemed to disturb him. Evidently, if he could consult his own wishes,
he would prefer not to discuss his brother.
"I take it he has not been home since leaving here on Saturday?"
persisted Winter.
"That is so."
"Had he quarreled with your father?"
"There was a dispute. Really, Mr. Winter, I must decline to go into
family affairs."
"But the probability is that the more we know the less our knowledge
will affect your brother."
The door opened again. Mr. Winter was wanted on the telephone. Then
there happened one of those strange coincidences which Furneaux's
caustic wit had christened "Winter's Yorkers," being a quaint play on
the lines:
Now is the Winter of our discontent
Made glorious Summer by this sun of York.
For the Superintendent had scarcely squeezed his big body into the
telephone box when he became aware of a mixup on the line; a querulous
voice was saying:
"I insist on being put through. I am speaking from Mr. Fenley's bank,
and it is monstrous that I should be kept waiting. I've been trying
for twenty minutes----"
Buzz. The protest was squelched.
"Are you there?" came the calm accents of the Assistant Commissioner.
"Yes, sir," said Winter.
"Any progress?"
"A little. Oddly enough, you are in the nick of time to help
materially. Will you ring off, and find out from the exchange who
'phoned here two minutes ago? I don't mean Fenley's Bank, which is
just trying to get through. I want to know who made the preceding
call, which was effective."
"I understand. Good-by."
Winter explained in the dining-room that the Assistant Commissioner
was anxious for news. He had hardly finished when the footman
reappeared. A call for Mr. Hilton Fenley.
"Confound the telephone," snapped Fenley. "We won't have a moment's
peace all day, I suppose."
Winter winked heavily at Furneaux. He waited until Fenley's hurried
footsteps across a creaking parquet floor had died away.
"This is the bank's call," he murmured. "The other was from the Lord
knows who. I've put the Yard on the track. I wonder why he lied about
it."
"He's a queer sort of brother, too," said Furneaux. "It strikes me he
wants to put Robert in the cart."
CHAPTER V
A FAMILY GATHERING
Fenley was frowning when he reappeared.
"Another call from the Bank," he said gruffly. "Everything there is at
sixes and sevens since the news was howled through the City. That is
why I really must go to town later. I'm not altogether sorry. The
necessity of bringing my mind to bear on business will leaven the
surfeit of horrors I've borne this morning....
"Now, about my brother, Mr. Winter. While listening to Mr. Brown's
condolences--you remember Brown, the cashier, Mr. Furneaux--I was
thinking of more vital matters. A policy of concealment often defeats
its own object, and I have come to the conclusion that you ought to
know of a dispute between my father and Robert. There's a woman in the
case, of course. It's a rather unpleasant story, too. Poor Bob got
entangled with a married woman some months ago. He was infatuated at
first, but would have broken it off recently were it not for fear of
divorce proceedings."
"Would you make the position a little clearer, sir?" said Winter, who
also was listening and thinking. He was quite certain that when he
met Mr. Brown he would meet the man who had been worrying a telephone
exchange "during the last twenty minutes."
"I--I can't." And Fenley's hand brushed away some imaginary film from
before his eyes. "Bob and I never hit it off very well. We're only
half brothers, you see."
"Was your father married twice?"
"Am I to reopen a forgotten history?"
"Some person, or persons, may not have forgotten it."
"Well, you must have the full story, if at all. My father was not a
well-born man. Thirty years ago he was a trainer in the service of a
rich East Indian merchant, Anthony Drummond, of Calcutta, who owned
racehorses, and one of Drummond's daughters fell in love with him.
They ran away and got married, but the marriage was a failure. She
divorced him--by mutual consent, I fancy. Anyhow, _I_ was left on his
hands.
"He went to Assam, and fell in with a tea planter named Manning, who
had a big estate, but neglected it for racing. My father suddenly
developed business instincts and Manning made him a partner.
Unfortunately--well, that is a hard word, but it applies--my father
married again--a girl of his own class; rather beneath it, in fact.
Then Bob was born.
"The old man made money, heaps of it. Manning married, but lost
his wife when Sylvia came into the world. That broke him up; he
drank himself to death, leaving his partner as trustee and guardian
for the infant. There was a boom in tea estates; my father sold on
the crest of the wave and came to London. He progressed, but Mrs.
Fenley--didn't. She was just a Tommy's daughter, and never seemed to
try and rise above the level of 'married quarters'.
"I had to mind my p's and q's as a boy, I can assure you. My mother
was always thrown in my teeth. Mrs. Fenley called her 'black.' It was
a ---- lie. She was dark-skinned, as I am, but there are Cornish and
Welsh folk of much darker complexion. My father, too, shared something
of the same prejudice. I had to be the good boy of the family.
Otherwise, I should have been turned out, neck and crop.
"As I behaved well, he was forced to depend on me, because Bob did
as he liked, with his mother always ready to aid and abet him. Then
came this scrape I've spoken of. I believe Bob was being blackmailed.
That's the long and the short of it. Now you know the plain, ungarbled
facts. Better that they should come from me than reach you with the
decorations of gossip and servants' tittle-tattle."
The somewhat strained and metallic voice ceased. Fenley was seated at
the corner of the table near the door. Seemingly yielding to that
ever-present desire for movement, he pushed with his foot an armchair
out of its place at the head of the table.
Sylvia Manning had pointed out that chair to Furneaux as the one
occupied by Mortimer Fenley at breakfast.
"Is the first Mrs. Fenley dead?" said Furneaux suddenly.
"I don't think so," said Fenley, after a pause.
"You are not sure?"
"No."
"Have you ever tried to find out?"
"No, I dare not."
"May I ask why?"
"If it were discovered that my mother and I were in communication I
would have been given short shrift in the bank."
"Did she marry again?"
"I don't know."
Again there was silence. Furneaux seemed to be satisfied that he was
following a blind alley, and Winter became the inquisitor.
"What is the name of the woman with whom your brother is mixed up?"
"I can not tell you, but my father knew."
"What leads you to form that opinion?"
"Some words that passed between Bob and him last Saturday morning."
"Where? Here?"
"Yes, in the hall. Tomlinson heard more distinctly than I. I saw there
was trouble brewing, and kept out of it--hung back, on the pretense
of reading a newspaper."
"As to the missing rifle--can you help us there?"
"Not in the least. I wish to Heaven Bob had gone to Africa, as he was
planning. Then all this misery would have been avoided."
"Do you mean your father's death?"
Fenley started. He had not weighed his words.
"Oh, no, no!" he cried hurriedly. "Don't try to trip me into
admissions, Mr. Winter. I can't stand that, damned if I can."
He jumped up, went to the sideboard and mixed himself a weak brandy
and soda, which he swallowed as if his throat were afire with thirst.
"I am not treating you as a hostile witness, sir," answered Winter
calmly. "Mr. Furneaux and I are merely clearing the ground. Soon we
shall know, or believe that we know, what line to avoid and what to
follow."
"Is Miss Sylvia Manning engaged to be married?" put in Furneaux.
Fenley gave him a fiendish look.
"What the devil has Miss Manning's matrimonial prospects got to do
with this inquiry?" he said, and the venom in his tone was hardly to
be accounted for by Furneaux's harmless-sounding query.
"One never knows," said the little man, taking the unexpected attack
with bland indifference. "You don't appreciate our position in this
matter. We are not judges, but guessers. We sit in the stalls of a
theater, watching people on the stage of real life playing four acts
of a tragedy, and it is our business to construct the fifth, which is
produced in court. Let me give you a wildly supposititious version of
that fifth act now. Suppose some neurotic fool was in love with Miss
Manning, or her money, and Mr. Mortimer Fenley opposed the project.
That would supply a motive for the murder. Do you take the point?"
"I'm sorry I blazed out at you. Miss Manning is not engaged to be
married, nor likely to be for many a day."
Now, the obvious question was, "Why, she being such an attractive
young lady?" But Furneaux never put obvious questions. He turned to
Winter with the air of one who had nothing more to say. His colleague
was evidently perplexed, and showed it, but extricated the others from
an awkward situation with the tact for which he was noted.
"I am much obliged to you for your candor in supplying such a clear
summary of the family history, Mr. Fenley," he said. "Of course, we
shall be meeting you frequently during the next few days, and
developments can be discussed as they arise."
His manner, more than his words, conveyed an intimation that when the
opportunity served he would trounce Furneaux for an indiscretion.
Fenley was mollified.
"Command me in every way," he said.
"There is one more question, the last and the gravest," said Winter
seriously. "Do you suspect any one of committing this murder?"
"No! On my soul and honor, no!"
"Thank you, sir. We'll tackle the butler now, if you please."
"I'll send him," said Fenley. Probably in nervous forgetfulness, he
lighted a cigarette and went out, blowing two long columns of smoke
through his nostrils. He might, or might not, have been pleased had he
heard the reprimanding of Furneaux.
"Good stroke, that about the stage, Charles," mumbled Winter. Furneaux
threw out his hands with a gesture of disgust.
"What an actor the man is!" he almost hissed, owing to the need there
was of subduing his piping voice to a whisper. "Every word thought
out, but allowed to be dragged forth reluctantly. Putting brother Bob
into the tureen, isn't he? 'On my soul and honor,' too! Don't you
remember, some French blighter said that when an innocent man was
being made a political scapegoat?... Of course, the mother is a
Eurasian, and he has met her. A nice dish he served up! A salad of
easily ascertainable facts with a dressing of lying innuendo. Name of
a pipe! If Master Hilton hadn't been in the house----"
A knock, and the door opened.
"You want me, gentlemen, I am informed by Mr. Hilton Fenley," said
Tomlinson.
There spoke the butler, discreet, precise, incapable of error.
Tomlinson had recovered his breath and his dignity. He was in his own
domain. The very sight of the Mid-Victorian furniture gave him
confidence. His skilled glance traveled to the decanter and the empty
glass. He knew to a minim how much brandy had evaporated since his
last survey of the sideboard.
"Sit down, Tomlinson," said Winter pleasantly. "You must have been
dreadfully shocked by this morning's occurrence."
Tomlinson sat down. He drew the chair somewhat apart from the table,
knowing better than to place his elbows on that sacred spread of
polished mahogany.
"I was, sir," he admitted. "Indeed, I may say I shall always be
shocked by the remembrance of it."
"Mr. Mortimer Fenley was a kindly employer?"
"One of the best, sir. He liked things done just so, and could be
sharp if there was any laxity, but I have never received a cross word
from him."
"Known him long?"
"Ever since he come to The Towers; nearly twenty years."
"And Mrs. Fenley?"
"Mrs. Fenley leaves the household entirely under my control, sir. She
never interferes."
"Why?"
"She is an invalid."
"Is she so ill that she can not be seen?"
"Practically that, sir."
"Been so for twenty years?"
Tomlinson coughed. He was prepared with an ample statement as to the
catastrophe which took place at nine thirty A. M., but this delving
into bygone decades was unexpected and decidedly distasteful, it would
seem.
"Mrs. Fenley is unhappily addicted to the drug habit, sir," he said
severely, plainly hinting that there were bounds, even for detectives.
"I fancied so," was the dry response. "However, I can understand and
honor your reluctance to reveal Mrs. Fenley's failings. Now, please
tell us exactly what Mr. Fenley and Mr. Robert said to each other in
the hall last Saturday morning."
How poor Farrow, immured in his jungle, would have gloated over
Tomlinson's collapse when he heard those fatal words! To his credit be
it said, the butler had not breathed a word to a soul concerning the
scene between father and son. He knew nothing of an inquisitive
housemaid, and his tortured brain fastened on Hilton Fenley as the
Paul Pry. Unconsciously, he felt bitter against his new master from
that moment.
"Must I go into these delicate matters, sir?" he bleated.
"Most certainly. The man whom you respected so greatly has been
killed, not in the course of a heated dispute, but as the outcome of a
brutal and well-conceived plan. Bear that in mind, and you will see
that concealment of vital facts is not only unwise but disloyal."
Winter rather let himself go in his earnestness. He flushed slightly,
and dared not look at Furneaux lest he should encounter an admiring
glance.
The butler, however, was far too worried to pay heed to his
questioner's florid turn of speech. He sighed deeply. He felt like a
timid swimmer in a choppy sea, knowing he was out of his depth yet
compelled to struggle blindly.
So, with broken utterance, he repeated the words which a rabbit-eared
housemaid had carried to Bates. Nevertheless, even while he labored
on, he fancied that the detectives did not attach such weight to the
recital as he feared. He anticipated that Winter would write each
syllable in a notebook, and show an exceeding gravity of appreciation.
To his great relief, nothing of the kind happened. Winter's comment
was distinctly helpful.
"It must have been rather disconcerting for you to hear father and
son quarreling openly," he said.
"Sir, it was most unpleasant."
"Now, did you form any opinion as to the cause of this bickering? For
instance, did you imagine that Mr. Fenley wished his son to break off
relations with an undesirable acquaintance?"
"I did, sir."
"Is either Mr. Hilton or Mr. Robert engaged to be married? Or, I had
better put it, had their father expressed any views as to either of
his sons marrying suitably?"
"We, in the house, sir, had a notion that Mr. Fenley would like Mr.
Robert to marry Miss Sylvia."
"Exactly. I expected that. Were these two young people of the same way
of thinking?"
"They were friendly, sir, but more like brother and sister. You see,
they were reared together. It often happens that way when a young
gentleman and young lady grow up from childhood in each other's
company. They never think of marriage, whereas the same young
gentleman would probably fall head over heels in love with the same
young lady if he met her elsewhere."
"Good!" broke in Furneaux. "Tomlinson, do you drink port?"
The butler looked his astonishment, but answered readily enough--
"My favorite wine, sir."
"I thought so. Taken in moderation, port induces sound reasoning. I
have some Alto Douro of '61. I'll bring you a bottle."
Tomlinson was mystified, a trifle scandalized perhaps; but he bowed
his acknowledgments.
"Sir, I will appreciate it greatly."
"I know you will. My Alto Douro goes down no gullet but a
connoisseur's."
Even in his agitation, Tomlinson smiled.
What a queer little man this undersized detective was, to be sure, and
how oddly he expressed himself!
"I ask this just as a matter of form, but did Mr. Robert Fenley take
his .450 Express rifle when he went away on Saturday?" said Winter.
"No, sir. He had only a valise strapped to the carrier. But I do
happen to know that the gun was in his room on Friday, because Friday
is my day for house inspection."
"Any cartridges?"
"I can't say, sir. They would be in a drawer, or, more likely, in the
gun room."
"Where is this gun room?"
"Next to the harness room, sir--second door to the right in the
courtyard."
"Speaking absolutely in confidence, have you formed a theory as to
this murder?"
"No, sir. But if any sort of evidence is piled up against Mr. Robert I
shall not credit it. No power on earth could make me believe that he
would kill his father in cold blood. He respected his father, sir.
He's a bit wild, as young men with too much money are apt to be, but
he was good-hearted and genuine."
"Yet he did speak of blowing his own brains out, and his father's."
"That was his silly way of talking, sir. He would say, 'Tomlinson, if
you tell the pater what time I came home last night I'll stab you to
the heart.' When there was a bit of a family squabble he would
threaten to mix a gallon of weed-killer and drink every drop.
Everything was rotten, or beastly, or awfully ripping. He was not so
well educated as he ought to have been--Mrs. Fenley's fault entirely;
and he hadn't the--the words----"
"The vocabulary."
"That's it, sir. I see you understand."
"Tomlinson," interrupted Furneaux, "a famous American writer, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, described adjectives of that class as the blank checks
of intellectual bankruptcy. You have hit on the same great thought."
The butler smiled again. He was beginning to like Furneaux.
"You have never heard, I suppose, of Mr. Fenley receiving any
threatening letters?" continued Winter.
"No, sir. Some stupid postcards were sent when he tried to close a
right of way through the park; but they were merely ridiculous, and
that occurred years ago."
"So you, like the rest of us, feel utterly unable to assign a motive
for this crime?"
"Sir, it's like a thunderbolt from a clear sky."
"Were the brothers, or half brothers, on good terms with each other?"
Tomlinson started at those words, "or half brothers." He was not
prepared for the Superintendent's close acquaintance with the Fenley
records.
"They're as different as chalk and cheese, sir," he said, after a
pause to collect his wits. "Mr. Hilton is clever and well read, and
cares nothing about sport, though he has a wonderful steady nerve.
Yes, I mean that----" for Winter's prominent eyes showed surprise at
the statement. "He's a strange mixture, is Mr. Hilton. He's a fair
nailer with a revolver. I've seen him hit a penny three times straight
off at twelve paces, and, when in the mind, he would bowl over running
rabbits with a rook rifle. Yet he never joined the shooting parties in
October. Said it made him ill to see graceful birds shattered by
clumsy folk. All the same, he would ill-treat a horse something
shameful. I----"
The butler bethought himself, and pulled up with a jerk. But Winter
smiled encouragingly.
"Say what you had in mind," he said. "You are not giving evidence.
You may rely on our discretion."
"Well, sir, he's that sort of man who must have his own way, and when
things went against him at home, he'd take it out of any servant or
animal that vexed him afterwards."
"It was not an ideally happy household, I take it?"
"Things went along very smoothly, sir, all things considered. They
have been rather better since Miss Sylvia came home from Brussels. She
was worried about Mrs. Fenley at first, but gave it up as a bad job;
and Mr. Fenley and the young gentlemen used to hide their differences
before her. That was why Mr. Fenley and Mr. Robert blazed up in the
hall on Saturday. They couldn't say a word in front of Miss Sylvia at
the breakfast table."
"The four always met at breakfast, then?"
"Almost without fail, sir. On Monday and Tuesday mornings Mr. Hilton
breakfasted early, and his father was joking about it, for if any one
was late it would be him--or should I say 'he', sir?"
Furneaux cackled.
"I wouldn't have you alter your speech on any account," he grinned.
"Why did Mr. Hilton turn over these new leaves on Monday and Tuesday?"
"He said he had work to do. What it was I don't know, sir. But he
managed to miss the nine forty-five, and Mr. Fenley was vexed about
it. Of course, I don't know why I am telling you these small things.
Mr. Hilton might be angry----"
Some one knocked. Harris, the footman, entered, a scared look on his
face.
"Can you come a moment, Mr. Tomlinson?" he said. "The undertaker is
here for the body."
"What is that?" cried Winter sharply.
The butler arose.
"Didn't Mr. Hilton mention it, sir?" he said. "Dr. Stern must hold a
post mortem before the inquest, and he suggested that it could be
carried through more easily in the mortuary attached to the Cottage
Hospital. Isn't that all right, sir?"
"Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I didn't understand. Go, by all means. We'll wait
here."
When they were alone, the two detectives remained silent for a long
minute. Winter arose and looked through a window at the scene outside.
A closed hearse had arrived; some men were carrying in a rough coffin
and three trestles. There was none of the gorgeous trappings which
lend dignity to such transits in public. Polished oak and gleaming
brass and rare flowers would add pageantry later; this was the livery
of the dissecting-room.
"Queer case!" growled Winter over his shoulder.
"If only Hilton had breakfasted early _this_ morning!" said Furneaux.
"If the dog hadn't stopped to scratch himself he would have caught the
hare," was the irritable answer.
"Aren't you pleased with Tomlinson, then?"
"The more he opened up the more puzzled I became. By the way, you
hardly asked him a thing, though you were keen on tackling him
yourself."
"James, I'm an artist. You handled him so neatly that I stood by and
appreciated. It would be mean to suggest that the prospect of a bottle
of Alto Douro quickened his imagination. I----"
Winter's hands were crossed behind his back, and his fingers worked in
expressive pantomime. Furneaux was by his side in an instant. Hilton
Fenley was standing on the steps, a little below and to the left of
the window. He was gazing with a curiously set stare at the bust of
Police Constable Farrow perched high among the trees to the right. The
observers in the room had then an excellent opportunity to study him
at leisure.
"More of Asia than of Europe in that face and figure," murmured
Furneaux.
"The odd thing is that he should be more interested in our sentinel
than in the disposal of his father's body," commented Winter.
"A live donkey is always more valuable than a dead lion."
"We shall have to go to that wood soon, Charles."
"Your only failing is that you can't see the forest for the trees."
They were bickering, an ominous sign for some one yet unknown.
Suddenly, far down the avenue, they saw a motor bicycle traveling
fast. Hilton Fenley saw it at the same moment and screened his eyes
with a hand, for he was bareheaded and the sun was now blazing with
noonday intensity.
"Brother Bob!" hissed Furneaux.
Winter thought the other had recognized the man crouched over the
handlebar.
"Gee!" he said. "Your sight must be good."
"I'm not using eyes, but brains. Who else can it be? This is the
psychological moment which never fails. Bet you a new hat I'm right."
"I'm not buying you any new hats," said Winter. "Look at Hilton. He
knows. Now, I wonder if the other one telephoned. No. He'd have told
us. He'd guess it would crop up in talk some time or other. Yes, the
motorist is waving to him. There! You can see his face. It _is_
Robert, isn't it?"
"O sapient one!" snapped Furneaux.
The meeting between the brothers was orthodox in its tragic
friendliness. The onlookers could supply the words they were unable to
hear. Robert Fenley, bigger, heavier, altogether more British in build
and semblance than Hilton, was evidently asking breathlessly if the
news he had read in London was true, and Hilton was volubly explaining
what had happened, pointing to the wood, the doorway, the hearse,
emphasizing with many gestures the painful story he had to tell.
Then the two young men mounted the steps, the inference being that
Robert Fenley wished to see his father's body before it was removed. A
pallor was spreading beneath the glow on the younger Fenley's
perspiring face. He was obviously shocked beyond measure. Grief and
horror had imparted a certain strength to somewhat sullen features. He
might be a ne'er-do-well, a loose liver, a good deal of a fool,
perhaps, but he was learning one of life's sharpest lessons; in time,
it might bring out what was best in his character. The detectives
understood now why the butler, who knew the boy even better than his
own father, deemed it impossible that he should be a parricide. Some
men are constitutionally incapable of committing certain crimes. At
least, the public thinks so; Scotland Yard knows better, and studies
criminology with an open mind.
The brothers had hardly crossed the threshold of the house when an
eldritch scream rang through the lofty hall. The detectives hastened
from the dining-room, and forthwith witnessed a tableau which would
have received the envious approval of a skilled producer of melodrama.
The hall measured some thirty-five feet square, and was nearly as
lofty, its ceiling forming the second floor. The staircase was on the
right, starting from curved steps in the inner right angle and making
a complete turn from a half landing to reach a gallery which ran
around three sides of the first floor. The fourth contained the
doorway, with a window on each hand and four windows above.
The stairs and the well of the hall were of oak, polished as to
parquet and steps, but left to age and color naturally as to wainscot,
balusters and rails. The walls of the upper floor were decorated in
shades of dull gold and amber. The general effect was superb, either
in daylight or when a great Venetian luster in the center of the
ceiling blazed with electric lights.
The body of the unfortunate banker had not been removed from the oaken
settee at the back of the hall, and was still covered with a white
sheet. An enormously stout woman, clothed in a dressing-gown of black
lace, was standing in the cross gallery and resisting the gentle
efforts of Sylvia Manning, now attired in black, to take her away. The
stout woman's face was deathly white, and her distended eyes were
gazing dully at the ominous figure stretched beneath. Two podgy
hands, with rings gleaming on every finger, were clutching the carved
railing, and the tenacity of their grip caused the knuckles to stand
out in white spots on the ivory-tinted skin.
This, then, was Mrs. Fenley, in whom some vague stirring of the spirit
had induced a consciousness that all was not well in the household
with which she "never interfered."
It was she who had uttered that ringing shriek when some flustered
maid blurted out that "the master" was dead, and her dazed brain had
realized what the sheet covered. She lifted her eyes from that
terrifying object when her son entered with Hilton Fenley.
"Oh, Bob!" she wailed. "They've killed your father! Why did you let
them do it?"
Even in the agony of the moment the distraught young man was aware
that his mother was in no fit state to appear thus openly.
"Mother," he said roughly, "you oughtn't to be here, you know. Do go
to your room with Sylvia. I'll come soon, and explain everything."
"Explain!" she wailed. "Explain your father's death! Who killed him?
Tell me that, and I'll tear them with my nails. But is he dead? Did
that hussy lie to me? You all tell me lies because you think I am a
fool. Let me alone, Sylvia. I _will_ go to my husband. Let me alone,
or I'll strike you!"
By sheer weight she forced herself free from the girl's hands, and
tottered down the stairs. At the half landing she fell to her knees,
and Sylvia ran to pick her up. Then Hilton Fenley seemed to arouse
himself from a stupor. Flinging a command at the servants, he rushed
to Sylvia's assistance, and, helped by Tomlinson and a couple of
footmen, half carried the screaming and fighting woman up the stairs
and along a corridor.
Thus it happened that Robert Fenley was left in the hall with the dead
body of his father. He stood stock still, and seemed to follow with
disapproval the manner of the disappearance of the poor creature whom
he called mother. Her shrieks redoubled in volume as she understood
that she would not be allowed to see her husband's corpse, and her son
added to the uproar by shouting loudly:
"Hi, there! Don't ill-treat her, or I'll break all your ---- necks!
Confound you, be gentle with her!"
He listened till a door slammed, and a sudden cessation of the tumult
showed that some one, in sheer self-defense, had given her morphia,
the only sedative that could have any real effect. Then he turned, and
became aware of the presence of the two detectives.
"Well," he said furiously, "who are you, and what the blazes do you
want here? Get out, both of you, or I'll have you chucked out!"
CHAPTER VI
WHEREIN FURNEAUX SEEKS INSPIRATION FROM
LITERATURE AND ART
The head of the Criminal Investigation Department was not the sort of
man to accept meekly whatsoever coarse commands Robert Fenley chose to
fling at him. He met the newcomer's angry stare with a cold and steady
eye.
"You should moderate your language in the presence of death, Mr.
Fenley," he said. "We are here because it is our duty. You, on your
part, would have acted more discreetly had you gone to your mother's
assistance instead of swearing at those who were acting for the best
under trying conditions."
"Damn your eyes, are you speaking to me?" came the wrathful cry.
"Surely you have been told that your father is lying there dead!" went
on Winter sternly. "Mrs. Fenley might have yielded readily to your
persuasion, but your help took the form of threatening people who
adopted the only other course possible. Calm yourself, sir, and try to
remember that the father from whom you parted in anger has been
murdered. My colleague and I represent Scotland Yard; we were brought
here by your brother. See that you meet us in the dining-room in a
quarter of an hour. Come, Furneaux!"
And, stirred for once to a feeling of deep annoyance, the big man
strode out into the open air, with a sublime disregard for either the
anger or the alarm struggling for mastery in Robert Fenley's sullen
face.
"Phew!" he said, drawing a deep breath before descending the steps.
"What an unlicked cub! And they wanted to marry that girl to him!"
"It sha'n't be done, James," said Furneaux.
"I actually lost my temper," puffed the other.
"Tell you what! Let's put the Inspector on to him. Tell the local
sleuths half what we know, and they'll run him in like a shot."
"Pooh! He's all talk. Tomlinson is right. The neurotic Hilton has more
nerve in his little finger than that dolt in the whole of his body."
"What did you think of his boots?"
"I shall be surprised if they don't fit those footprints exactly."
"They will. The left heel is evenly worn, but the right bears on the
outer edge. Let's cool our fevered brows under the greenwood tree till
this hearse is out of the way."
The butler, who had asked the undertaker's assistants to suspend
operations when Robert Fenley arrived, now appeared at the door and
signaled the men that they were free to proceed with their work. The
detectives strolled into the wood, and soon were bending over some
curious blotchy marks which somehow suggested the passage of a
pad-footed animal rather than a human being. Bates, of course, would
have noted them had he not been on the alert for footprints alone, but
they had stared at Winter and Furneaux from the instant their
regularity became apparent. They represented a stride considerably
shorter than the average length of a man's pace, and were strongly
marked when the surface was spongy enough to receive an impression.
Except, however, in the slight hollow already described, the ground
was so dry that traces of every sort were lost. In the vicinity of the
rock, too, the only marks left were the scratches in the moss adhering
to the steep sides of the bowlder itself.
"What do you make of 'em, Charles?" inquired Winter, when both had
puzzled for some minutes over the uncommon signs.
"Some one has thought out the footprint as a clue pretty thoroughly,"
said Furneaux. "He not only took care to leave a working model of one
set, but was extremely anxious not to provide any data as to his own
tootsies, so he fastened a bundle of rags under each boot, and walked
like a cat on walnut shells."
Winter nodded.
"When we find the gun, too--it's somewhere in this wood--you'll see
that the fingerprints won't help," he replied thoughtfully. "The man
who remembered to safeguard his feet would not forget his hands. We're
up against a tough proposition, young fellow-me-lad."
"Your way of thinking reminds me of Herbert Spencer's reason for not
learning Latin grammar as a youth," grinned Furneaux.
"It would be a pity to spoil one of your high-class jokes; so what was
the reason?"
"He refused to accept any statement unaccompanied by proof. The
agreement of an adjective with its noun displeased him, because an
arbitrary rule merely said it was so."
"An ingenious excuse for not learning a lesson, but I don't see----"
"Consider. Mortimer Fenley was shot dead at nine thirty this morning,
and the bullet which killed him came from the neighborhood of the rock
above our heads. One shot was fired. It was so certain, so true of
aim, that the murderer made sure of hitting him--at a fairly long
range, too. How many men were there in Roxton and Easton this
morning--was there even one woman?--capable of sighting a rifle with
such calm confidence of success? Mind you, Fenley had to be killed
dead. No bungling. A severe wound from which he might recover would
not meet the case at all. Again, how many rifles are there in the
united parishes of Roxton and Easton of the type which fires expanding
bullets?"
"Of course, those vital facts narrow down the field, but Hilton Fenley
was unquestionably in the house."
Furneaux cackled shrilly.
"You're in Herbert's class, Charles," he cried, delighted at having
trapped his big friend.
"Pardon me, gentlemen," said a voice from among the leaves, "but I
thought you might like to know that Mr. Robert Fenley is starting off
again on his motor bike."
Even as Police Constable Farrow spoke they heard the loud snorting of
an exhaust, marking the initial efforts of a motor bicycle's engine to
get under way. In a few seconds came the rhythmic beat of the machine
as it gathered speed; the two men looked at each other and laughed.
"Master Robert defies the majesty of the law," said Winter dryly.
"Perhaps, taking one consideration with another, it's the best thing
he could have done."
"He is almost bound to enter London by the Edgware Road," said
Furneaux instantly.
"Just so. I noticed the make and number of his machine. A
plain-clothes man on an ordinary bicycle can follow him easily from
Brondesbury onwards. Time him, and get on the telephone while I keep
Hilton in talk. If we're mistaken we'll ring up Brondesbury again."
Winter was curtly official in tone when Hilton Fenley came downstairs
at his request.
"Why did your brother rush off in such an extraordinary hurry?" he
asked.
"How can I tell you?" was the reply, given offhandedly, as if the
matter was of no importance. "He comes and goes without consulting my
wishes, I assure you."
"But I requested him to meet me here at this very hour. There are
questions he has to answer, and it would have been best in his own
interests had he not shirked them."
"I agree with you fully. I hadn't the least notion he meant going
until I looked out on hearing the bicycle, and saw him racing down the
avenue."
"Do you think, sir, he is making for London?"
"I suppose so. That is where he came from. He says he heard of his
father's death through the newspapers, and it would not surprise me in
the least if I did not see him again until after the funeral."
"Thank you, sir. I'm sorry I bothered you, but I imagined or hoped he
had given you some explanation. His conduct calls for it."
The Superintendent's manner had gradually become more suave. He
realized that these Fenleys were queer folk. Like the Pharisee, "they
were not as other men," but whether the difference between them and
the ordinary mortal arose from pride or folly or fear it was hard to
say.
Hilton Fenley smiled wanly.
"Bob is adopting the supposed tactics of the ostrich when pursued," he
said.
"But no one is pursuing him."
"I am speaking metaphorically, of course. He is in distress, and hides
behind the first bush. He has no moral force--never had. Physically he
doesn't know what fear is, but the specters of the mind loom large in
his eyes. And now, Superintendent, I am just on the point of leaving
for London. I shall return about six thirty. Do you remain?"
"No, sir. I shall return to town almost immediately. Mr. Furneaux will
stop here. Can he have a bedroom in the house?"
"Certainly. Tomlinson will look after him. You are not going cityward,
I suppose?"
"No, sir. But if you care to have a seat in my car----"
"No, thanks. The train is quicker and takes me direct to London
Bridge. Much obliged."
Fenley hurried to the cloakroom, which was situated under the stairs,
but on a lower level than the hall. The telephone box was placed
there, and Furneaux emerged as the other ran down a few steps. The
little man hailed him cheerfully.
"I suppose, now," he said, "that hot headed brother of yours thinks he
has dodged Scotland Yard till it suits his convenience to be
interviewed. Strange how people insist on regarding us as novices in
our own particular line. Now you wouldn't make that mistake, sir."
"What mistake? I wouldn't run away, if that is what you mean."
"I'm sure of that, sir. But Mr. Robert has committed the additional
folly, from his point of view, of letting us know why he was so
desperately anxious to get back to London."
"But he didn't say a word!"
"Ah, words, idle words!
"Words are like leaves; and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
"It is actions that count, sir. Deeds, not words. Now, Mr. Robert has
been kind enough to give us the eloquent facts, because he will be
followed from the suburbs and his whereabouts watched most carefully."
"Dear me! I hadn't thought of that," said Hilton Fenley slowly. Two
ideas were probably warring in his brain at that moment. One classed
Furneaux as a garrulous idiot; the other suggested that there might be
method in such folly.
"That's a clever simile of Pope's about dense leaves betokening
scarcity of fruit," went on Furneaux. "Of course, it might be pushed
too far. Think what a poisonous Dead Sea apple the Quarry Wood
contained. Your father's murder might not have been possible today
but for the cover given by the trees."
Fenley selected a dark overcoat and derby hat. He wore a black tie,
but had made no other change in his costume.
"You are quite a literary detective, Mr. Furneaux," he commented.
"More literal than literary, sir. I have little leisure for reading,
but I own an excellent memory. Nothing to boast of in that. It's
indispensable in my profession."
"Obviously. Well, I must hurry away now. See you later."
He hastened out. His manner seemed to hint an annoyance; it conveyed
indefinitely but subtly a suggestion that his father's death was far
too serious a thing to be treated with such levity.
Furneaux sauntered slowly to the front door. By that time the Fenley
car was speeding rapidly down the avenue.
"With luck," he said to Winter, who had joined him, "with any sort of
luck both brothers should pass their father's body on the way to the
mortuary. Sometimes, O worthy chief, I find myself regretting the ways
and means of the days of old, when men believed in the Judicium Dei.
"Neither of those sons went near his dead father. If one of them had
dared I wonder whether the blood would have liquefied. Do you
remember, in the 'Nibelungenlied,' that Hagen is forced to prove his
innocence by touching Siegfried's corpse--and fails? That is the
point--he fails. Our own Shakespeare knew the dodge. When Henry VI was
being borne to Chertsey in an open coffin, the Lady Anne made Gloster
squirm by her cry:
"O gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh.
"Why then did those sons fight shy of touching their father's body?
Had it been your father or mine who was beaten down by a murderer's
spite, we would surely have given him one fare-well clasp of the
hand."
Winter recognized the symptoms. His diminutive friend was examining
the embryo of a theory already established in his mind. It was a
mere shadow, something vague and dark and uncertain in outline. But
it existed, and would assume recognizable shape when an active
imagination had fitted some shreds of proof to that which was yet
without form and void. At that crisis, contradiction was a tonic.
"I think you're in error in one respect," said Winter quietly. "Hilton
Fenley went to his father's assistance, and we don't know whether or
not Robert did not approach the body."
"You're wrong, most sapient one. Before telephoning Brondesbury I
asked Harris to tell me exactly what happened after the banker dropped
at his feet. Harris shouted and knelt over him. Miss Manning ran and
lifted his head. Tomlinson, Harris and Brodie carried him to the
settee. Hilton Fenley never touched him."
"What of Robert? We cleared out, leaving him there alone."
"I watched him until the undertaker's men were called back. Up to that
time he hadn't moved. Bet you a new hat the men will tell you he never
went nearer."
"You buy your own new hats," said Winter. "Do you want me to stand you
two a day? I'm off to the Yard. I'll look up two lines in town. 'Phone
through if you want help and I'll come. You sleep here tonight if you
care to. Tomlinson will provide. How about the wood?"
"Leave it."
"You'll see that artist, Trenholme?"
"Yes."
"And the bedrooms?"
"Going there now."
"So long! Sorry I must quit, but I'm keen to clear up that telephone
call."
"If you're in the office about six I'll tell you the whole story."
"Charles," said Winter earnestly, placing a hand on his colleague's
shoulder, "we gain nothing by rushing our fences. This is the toughest
job we've handled this year; there's a hard road to travel before we
sit down and prepare a brief for counsel."
"Of course, I meant the story up to the six o'clock instalment."
Winter smiled. He sprang into the car, the chauffeur having already
started the engine in obedience to a word from the Superintendent.
"Stop at the Brondesbury police station," was the order, and Furneaux
was left alone. He reëntered the house and crooked a finger at the
butler, who had not summoned up courage to retire to his own sanctum,
though a midday meal was awaiting him.
"Take me upstairs," said the detective. "I shall not detain you many
minutes. Then you and I will have a snack together and you'll borrow a
bicycle for me, and I sha'n't trouble you any more till a late hour."
"No trouble at all, sir," Tomlinson assured him. "If I could advance
your inquiry in the least degree I'd fast cheerfully all day."
"What I like about you, Tomlinson, is your restraint," said Furneaux.
"Many a man would have offered to fast a week, not meaning to deny
himself a toothful five minutes longer than was avoidable. Now you
really mean what you say----Ah, this is Mr. Robert's den. And that is
his bedroom, with dressing-room adjoining. Very cozy, to be sure. Of
course, the rooms have been dusted regularly since he disappeared on
Saturday?"
"Every day, sir."
"Well, I hate prying into people's rooms. Beastly liberty, I call it.
Now for Mr. Hilton's."
"Is that all, sir?" inquired the butler, manifestly surprised by the
cursory glance which the detective had given around the suite of
apartments.
"All at present, thank you. Like the Danites' messengers, I'm only
spying out the lie of the land. Ah, each brother occupied a corner of
the east wing. Robert, north, Hilton, south--a most equitable
arrangement. Now these rooms show signs of tenancy, eh?"
They were standing in Hilton Fenley's sitting-room, having traversed
the whole of the gallery around the hall to reach it. The remains of a
fire in the grate caught Furneaux's eye, and the butler coughed
apologetically.
"Mr. Hilton won't have his rooms touched, sir, until he leaves home of
a morning," he said. "He likes to find his papers, et cetera, where he
put them overnight. As a rule the housemaid comes here soon after
breakfast, but this morning--naturally----"
"Of course, of course," assented the other promptly. "Everything is at
sixes and sevens. Would you mind sending the girl here? I'd like to
have a word with her."
Tomlinson moved ponderously towards an electric bell.
"No," said Furneaux. "Don't ring. Just ask her to come. Then she can
bring me to your place and we'll nibble something. Meanwhile I'll
enjoy this view."
"Certainly, sir. That will suit me admirably."
Tomlinson walked out with stately tread. His broad back was scarcely
turned before the detective's nimble feet had carried him into the
bedroom, which stood in the southeast angle. He seemed to fly around
the room like one possessed of a fiend of unrest. Picking up a glass
tumbler, he sniffed it and put it in a pocket. He peered at the bed,
the dressing-table, the carpet; opened drawers and wardrobe doors,
examined towels in the bathroom, and stuffed one beneath his
waistcoat.
Running back to the sitting-room, he found a torn envelope, and began
picking up some specks of grit from the carpet, each of which went
into a corner of the envelope, which he folded and stowed away. Then
he bent over the fireplace and rummaged among the cinders. Three
calcined lumps, not wholly consumed, appeared to interest him. A
newspaper was handy; he wrapped the grimy treasure trove in a sheet,
and that small parcel also went into a pocket.
When a swish of skirts on the stairs announced the housemaid he
retreated to the bedroom, and the girl found him standing at a south
window, gazing out over the fair vista of the Italian terraces and the
rolling parkland.
"Yes, sir," said the girl timidly.
He turned, as if he had not heard her approach. She was pale, and her
eyes were red, for the feminine portion of the household was in a
state of collapse.
"I only wanted to ask why a fire is laid in the sitting-room in such
fine weather," he said.
"Mr. Hilton sits up late, sir, and if the evening is at all chilly, he
puts a match to the grate himself."
"Ah, a silly question. Don't tell anybody I spoke of it or they'll
think me a funny detective, won't they?"
He smiled genially, and the girl's face brightened.
"I don't see that, sir," she said. "I don't know why Mr. Hilton wanted
a fire last night. It was quite hot. I slept with my window wide
open."
"A very healthy habit, too. Do you attend to Mr. Robert's suite?"
"Yes, sir."
"Does _he_ have a fire?"
"Never in the summer, sir."
"He's a warmer-blooded creature than Mr. Hilton, I fancy."
"I expect so, sir."
"Well, now, there's nothing here. But we detectives have to nose
around everywhere. I'm sure you are terribly upset by your master's
death. Everybody gives him a good word."
"Indeed, he deserved it, sir. We all liked him. He was strict but very
generous."
Furneaux chatted with her while they descended the stairs and
traversed devious passages till the butler's room was gained. By that
time the housemaid was convinced that Mr. Furneaux was "a very nice
man." When she "did" Hilton Fenley's rooms she missed the glass, but
gave no heed to its absence. Who would bother about a glass in a house
where murder had been done? She simply replaced it by another of the
same pattern.
"May I inquire, sir," said Tomlinson, when Furneaux had washed face
and hands and was seated at a table laid for two, "may I inquire if
you have any preference as to a luncheon wine?"
"I think," said Furneaux with due solemnity, "that a still wine----"
"I agree with you, sir. At this time of the day a Sauterne or a
Johannisberger----"
"To my taste, a Château Yquem, with that delicate flavor which leaves
the palate fresh--Frenchmen call it the _sève_----"
"Sir, I perceive that you have a taste. Singularly enough, I have a
bottle of Château Yquem in my sideboard."
So the meal was a success.
An under gardener lent Furneaux a bicycle. After a chat with Farrow,
to whom he conveyed some sandwiches and a bottle of beer, the
detective rode to Easton. He sent a rather long telegram to his own
quarters, called at a chemist's, and reached the White Horse at Roxton
about two o'clock.
* * * * *
Now the imp of mischance had contrived that John Trenholme should hear
no word of the murder until he came downstairs for luncheon after a
morning's steady work.
The stout Eliza, fearful lest Mary should forestall her with the news,
bounced out from the kitchen when his step sounded on the stairs.
"There was fine goin's on in the park this morning, Mr. Trenholme,"
she began breathlessly.
He reddened at once, and avoided her fiery eye. Of course, it had been
discovered that he had watched that girl bathing. Dash it all, his
action was unintentional! What a bore!
"Mr. Fenley was shot dead on his own doorstep," continued Eliza.
She gave proper emphasis to the concluding words. That a man should
be murdered "on his own doorstep" was a feature of the crime that
enhanced the tragedy in the public mind. The shooting was bad enough
in itself, for rural England is happily free from such horrors; but
swift and brutal death dealt out on one's own doorstep was a thing at
once monstrous and awe-compelling. Eliza, perhaps, wondered why Mr.
Trenholme flushed, but she fully understood the sudden blanching of
his face at her tidings, for all Roxton was shaken to its foundations
when the facts slowly percolated in that direction.
"Good Lord!" cried he. "Could that be the shot I heard?"
"He was killed at half past nine, sir."
"Then it was! A keeper heard it, too--and a policeman--our Roxton
policeman."
"That would be Farrow," said Eliza. "What was _he_ doin', the
lazy-bones, that he couldn't catch the villain?"
"What villain?"
"The man who killed poor Mr. Fenley."
"They know who did it, then?"
"Well, no. There's all sorts o' tales flyin' about, but you can't
believe any of 'em."
"But why are you blaming Farrow? He's a good fellow. He sings. No real
scoundrel can sing. Read any novel, any newspaper report. 'The
prisoner's voice was harsh and unmusical.' You've seen those words
scores of times."
In his relief at learning that his own escapade was not published
broadcast, Trenholme had momentarily forgotten the dreadful nature of
Eliza's statement. She followed him into the dining-room.
"You'll be a witness, I suppose," she said, anxious to secure details
of the shot-firing.
"A witness!" he repeated blankly.
"Yes, sir. There can't be a deal o' folk who heard the gun go off."
"By Jove, Eliza, I believe you're right," he said, gazing at her in
dismay. "Now that I come to think of it, I am probably the only person
in existence who can say where that shot came from. It was a rifle,
too. I spoke of it to the keeper and Farrow."
"I was sure something would happen when I dreamed of suffrigettes this
mornin'. An' that comes of playin' pranks, Mr. Trenholme. If it wasn't
for that alarm clock----"
"Oh, come, Eliza," he broke in. "An alarm clock isn't a Gatling gun.
Your association of ideas is faulty. There is much in common between
the clatter of an alarm clock and the suffragist cause, but all the
ladies promised not to endanger life, you know."
"Anyhow, Mr. Fenley is dead as a doornail," said Eliza firmly.
"Too bad. I take back all the hard things I said about him, and I'm
sure you do the same."
"Me!"
"Yes. Didn't you say all the Fenleys were rubbish? One of them, at any
rate, was wrongly classified."
"Which one?"
Trenholme bethought himself in time.
"This unfortunate banker, of course," he said.
"I'd a notion you meant Miss Sylvia. She's pretty as a
picter--prettier than some picters I've seen--and folk speak well of
her. But she's not a Fenley."
At any other time the artist would have received that thrust _en
tierce_ with a _riposte_; at present, Eliza's facts were more
interesting than her wit.
"Who is the lady you are speaking of?" he asked guardedly.
"Mr. Fenley's ward, Miss Sylvia Manning. They say she's rich. Pore
young thing! Some schemin' man will turn her head, I'll go bail, an'
all for the sake of her brass."
"Most likely a one-legged gunner, name of Jim."
"Well, it won't be a two-legged painter, name of Jack!" And Eliza
bounced out.
Now, Mary of the curl papers, having occasion to go upstairs while
Trenholme was eating, peeped through the open door of the room which
he had converted into a studio. She saw a picture on the easel, and
the insatiable curiosity of her class led her to examine it. Even a
country kitchen maid came under its spell instantly. After a pause of
mingled admiration and shocked prudery, she sped to the kitchen.
"Seein' is believin'," quoted Eliza, mounting the stairs in her turn.
She gazed at the drawing brazenly, with hands resting on hips and head
cocked sidewise like an inquisitive hen's.
"Well, I never did!" was her verdict.
Back in the kitchen again, she announced firmly to Mary--
"_I'll_ take in the cheese."
She put the Stilton on the table with a determined air.
"You don't know anything about Miss Sylvia Manning, don't you?" she
said, with calm guile.
"Never heard the lady's name before you mentioned it," said Trenholme.
"Mebbe not, but it strikes me you've _seen_ more of her than most
folk."
"Eliza," he cried, without any pretense at smiling good humor, "you've
been sneaking!"
"Sneakin', you call it? I 'appened to pass your room, an' who could
help lookin' in? I was never so taken aback in me life. You could ha'
knocked me down with a feather."
"An ostrich feather with an ostrich's leg behind it," was the angry
retort.
Eliza's eyes glinted with the fire of battle.
"The shameless ways of girls nowadays!" she breathed. "To let any
young man gaze at her in them sort of clothes, if you can call 'em
clothes!"
"It was an accident. She didn't know I was there. Anyhow, you dare
utter another word about that picture, even hint at its existence, and
I'll paint you without any clothes at all. I mean that, so beware!"
"Sorry to interrupt," said a high-pitched voice from the doorway.
"You are Mr. John Trenholme, I take it? May I come in? My name's
Furneaux."
"Jim, of the Royal Artillery?" demanded Trenholme angrily.
"No. Charles François, of Scotland Yard."
Eliza fled, completely cowed. She began to weep, in noisy gulps.
"I've dud-dud-done it!" she explained to agitated curl papers. "That
pup-pup-pore Mr. Trenholme. They've cuc-cuc-come for him. He'll be
lul-lul-locked up, an' all along o' my wu-wu-wicked tongue!"
CHAPTER VII
SOME SIDE ISSUES
Trenholme, rather interested than otherwise, did not blanch at mention
of Scotland Yard.
"Walk right in, Mr. Furneaux," he said; he had picked up a few tricks
of speech from Transatlantic brethren of the brush met at Julien's.
"Have you lunched?"
"Excellently," was the reply.
"Not in Roxton. I defy you to produce a cook in this village that
shall compare with our Eliza of the White Horse."
"Sir, my thoughts do not dwell on viands. True, I ate with a butler,
but I drank wine with a connoisseur. It was a Château Yquem of the
eighties."
"Then you should be in expansive mood. Before you demand with a scowl
why I shot Mr. Fenley you might tell me why the headquarters of the
London Police is named Scotland Yard."
"Because it was first housed in a street of that name near Trafalgar
Square. Scotland Yard was a palace at one time, built in a spirit of
mistaken hospitality for the reception of prominent Scots visiting
London. We entertained so many and so lavishly that 'Gang Sooth' has
become a proverb beyond the Tweed."
"There is virtue, I perceive, in a bottle of Château Yquem--or was it
two?"
"In one there is light, but two might produce fireworks. Now, sir, if
you have finished luncheon, kindly take me to your room and show me
the sketches you made this morning."
The artist raised an inquiring eyebrow.
"I have the highest respect for your profession in the abstract, but
it is new to find it dabbling in art criticism," he said.
"I assure you, Mr. Trenholme, that any drawings of yours made in the
neighborhood of The Towers before half past nine o'clock today will be
most valuable pieces of evidence--if nothing more."
Though Furneaux's manner was grave as an owl's, a certain gleam in his
eye gave the requisite sting to the concluding words. Trenholme, at
any other time, would have delighted in him, but dropped his bantering
air forthwith.
"I don't mind exhibiting my work," he said. "It will not be a novel
experience. Come this way."
Watched by two awe-stricken women from the passage leading to the
kitchen, the artist and his visitor ascended the stairs. Trenholme
walked straight to the easel, took off the drawing of Sylvia Manning
and the Aphrodite, placed it on the floor face to the wall, and
staged the sketch of the Elizabethan house. Furneaux screwed his
eyelids to secure a half light; then, making a cylinder of his right
hand, peered through it with one eye.
"Admirable!" he said. "Corot, with some of the breadth of Constable.
Forgive the comparisons, Mr. Trenholme. Of course, the style is your
own, but one uses the names of accepted masters largely as adjectives
to explain one's meaning. You are a true impressionist. You paint
Nature as you see her, not as she is, yet your technique is superb and
your observation just. For instance, every shadow in this lovely
drawing shows that the hour was about eight o'clock. But, in painting
figures, I have no doubt you sink the impressionist in the realist....
The other sketch, please."
"The other sketch is a mere color note for future guidance," said
Trenholme offhandedly.
"It happens also to be a recognizable portrait of Miss Sylvia Manning.
I'm sorry, but I must see it."
"Suppose I refuse?"
"It will be obtained by other methods than a polite request."
"I'm afraid I shall have to run the risk."
"No, you won't." And the detective's tone became eminently friendly.
"You'll just produce it within the next half minute. You are not the
sort of man who would care to drag a lady's name into a police-court
wrangle, which can be the only outcome of present stubbornness on your
part. I know you were hidden among those cedars between, say, eight
o'clock and half past nine. I know that Miss Manning bathed in a lake
well within your view. I know, too, that you sketched her, because I
saw the canvas a moment ago--an oil, not a water color. These things
may or may not be relevant to an inquiry into a crime, but they will
certainly loom large in the public mind if the police have to explain
why they needed a warrant to search your apartments."
Furneaux had gauged the artistic temperament accurately. Without
another word of protest Trenholme placed the disputed canvas on the
easel.
"Do you smoke?" inquired the detective suddenly.
"Yes. What the deuce has my smoking got to do with it?"
"I fancied that, perhaps, you might like to have a pipe while I
examine this gem at leisure. One does not gabble the common-places of
life when in the presence of the supreme in art. I find that a really
fine picture induces a feeling of reverence, an emotion akin to the
influence of a mountain range, or a dim cathedral. Pray burn incense.
I am almost tempted to regret being a non-smoker."
Trenholme had heard no man talk in that strain since last he sat
outside the Café Margery and watched the stream of life flowing along
the Grand Boulevard. Almost unconsciously he yielded to the spell of a
familiar jargon, well knowing he had been inspired in every touch
while striving frenziedly to give permanence to a fleeting vision. He
filled his pipe, and surveyed the detective with a quickened interest.
Furneaux gazed long and earnestly.
"Perfect!" he murmured, after that rapt pause. "Such a portrait, too,
without any apparent effort! Just compare the cold sunlight on the
statue with the same light falling on wet skin. Of course, Mr.
Trenholme, you'll send this to the Salon. Burlington House finds
satiety in Mayors and Masters of Fox Hounds."
"Good, isn't it?" agreed Trenholme. "What a cursed spite that it must
be consumed in flame!"
"But why?" cried Furneaux, unfeignedly horrified.
"Dash it all, man, I can never copy it. And you wouldn't have me
blazon that girl's face in a gallery after today's tragedy!"
The detective snapped his fingers.
"Poof!" he said. "I shall have Mr. Fenley's murderer hanged long
before your picture is hung. London provides one front-rank tragedy a
week, but not another such masterpiece in ten years. Burn it because
of a sentiment! Perish the thought."
"If I had guessed you were coming here so promptly it would have been
in ashes an hour ago," said Trenholme, grimly insistent on sacrifice.
With a disconcerting change of manner the detective promptly assumed a
dryly official attitude.
"A mighty good job for you that nothing of the sort occurred," he
said. "Your picture is your excuse, Mr. Trenholme. What plea could you
have urged for spying on a lady in an open-air bath if deprived of the
only valid one?"
"Look here!" came the angry retort. "You seem to be a pretty fair
judge of a drawing, but you choose your words rather carelessly. Just
now you described me as 'hidden' behind that clump of trees, and again
you accuse me of 'spying.' I won't stand that sort of thing from
Scotland Yard, nor from Buckingham Palace, if it comes to that."
Furneaux instantly reverted to his French vein. His shrug was
eminently Parisian.
"You misunderstand me. I allege neither hiding nor spying on your
part. Name of a good little gray man! The President of the Royal
Academy would hide and spy for a month if he could palliate his
conduct by that picture. But, given no picture, what is the answer?
Reflect calmly, Mr. Trenholme, and you'll see that mine are words of
wisdom. Burn that canvas, and you cut a sorry figure in the witness
box. Moreover, suppose you treat the law with disdain, how do you
propose explaining your actions to Miss Sylvia Manning?"
"In all probability, I shall never meet the lady."
"Oh, won't you, indeed! I have the honor to request you to meet her
tomorrow morning by the shore of that sylvan lake at nine fifteen,
sharp. And kindly bring both sketches with you. Only, for goodness'
sake, keep this one covered with a water-proof wrap if the weather
breaks, which it doesn't look like doing at this moment. Now, Mr.
Trenholme, take the advice of a dried-up chip of experience like me,
and be sensible. One word as to actualities. I'm told you didn't see
anything in the park which led you to believe that a crime had been
committed?"
"Not a thing. I heard the gunshot, and noted where it came from, but
so far as I could ascertain, the only creatures it disturbed were some
rabbits, rooks and pheasants."
"Ah! Where did the pheasants show up?"
"Out of the wood, close to the spot where the rifle was fired."
"How many?"
"How many what?"
"Pheasants."
"A brace. They flew right across the south front of the house to a
covert on the west side. Is that an important detail?"
"When you hear the evidence you may find it so," commented Furneaux.
"Why do you say 'rifle'? Why not plain 'gun'?"
"Because any one who has handled both a rifle and a shotgun can
recognize the difference in sound. The explosive force of the one is
many times greater than that of the other."
"Are you, too, an expert marksman?"
"I can shoot a bit. Hardly an expert, perhaps, seeing that I haven't
used a gun during the past five years. If you know France, Mr.
Furneaux, you'll agree that British ideas of sport----"
"I do know France," broke in the detective. "There isn't a cock robin
or a jenny wren left in the country.... As a mere formality, what
magazine are you working for?"
Trenholme told him, and Furneaux hurried away, halting for an instant
in the doorway to raise a warning finger.
"Tomorrow, at the cedars, nine fifteen," he said. "And, mind you, no
holocausts, or you're up a gum tree. You were either painting a pretty
girl or gloating over her. Prove the one and people won't think the
other, which they will be only too ready to do, this being a cynical
and suspicious world."
He left a bewildered artist glaring after him. Trenholme's
acquaintance with the police, either of England or France, was of the
slightest. Sometimes, when overexcited by the discovery of some new
and entrancing upland in the domain of art, he had bought or borrowed
a volume of light fiction in order to read himself to sleep, and a
detective figured occasionally in such pages. Usually, the official
was a pig-headed idiot, whose blunders and narrow-mindedness served as
admirable whetstones for the preternaturally sharp intelligence of an
amateur investigator of crime.
Trenholme, like the average reader, did not know that such
self-appointed sleuths are snubbed and despised by Scotland Yard, that
they seldom or never base their fantastic theories on facts, or that,
in fiction, they act in a way which would entail their own speedy
appearance in the dock if practiced in real life. Furneaux came as a
positive revelation. A small, wiry individual who looked like a
comedian and spouted the truisms of the studio, a wizened little
whippersnapper who put hardly one direct question to a prospective
witness, but whose caustic comments had placed a new and vastly
disagreeable aspect on the morning's adventure--such a man to be the
representative of staid and heavy-footed Scotland Yard! Well, wonders
would never cease. It was not for a bewildered artist yet to know that
Furneaux's genius alone excused his eccentricities.
And he, Trenholme, was to meet the girl! He turned to the easel and
looked at the picture. A few hours ago he had reviled the fate that
seemed to forbid their meeting. Now he was to be brought to her,
though somewhat after the fashion of a felon with gyves on his wrists,
since Furneaux's request for the morrow's rendezvous rang ominously
like a command. Indeed, indeed, it was a mad world!
At any rate, he did not, as he had intended, tear the canvas from its
stretcher and apply a match to it in the grate. Thus far, then, had
Furneaux's queer method been justified. He had hit on the one certain
means of restraint on an act of vandalism. The picture now stood
between Trenholme and the scoffing multitude. It was his buckler
against the shafts of innuendo. Rather than lose it before his actions
were vindicated he would suffer the depletion to the last penny of a
not altogether meager bank account.
Of course, this open-souled youngster never dreamed that the detective
had read his style and attributes in one lightning-swift glance of
intuition. Before ever Trenholme was aware of a stranger standing in
the open doorway of the dining-room Furneaux had taken his measure.
"English, a gentleman, art-trained in Paris. Thinks the loss of La
Giaconde a far more serious event than a revolution, and regards the
Futurist school pretty much as the Home Secretary regards the militant
suffragists. Knows as much about the murder as I do about the rings of
Saturn. But he ought to provide a touch of humor in an affair that
promises little else than heavy tragedy. And it will do Miss Sylvia
Manning some good if she is made to see that there are others than
Fenleys in the world. So, have at him!"
While going downstairs, the detective became aware of some sniffing in
the back passage. Eliza red-eyed now from distress, stood there,
dabbing her cheeks with a corner of her apron.
"Pup-pup-please, sir," she began, but quailed under a sudden and
penetrating look from those beady eyes.
"Well, what is it?" inquired Furneaux.
A violent nudge from curl papers stirred the cook's wits.
"I do hope you dud-dud-didn't pay any heed to anythink I was a-sayin'
of," she stammered. "Mr. Trenholme wouldn't hurt a fuf-fuf-fly. I
sus-sus-saw the picter, an' was on'y a-teasin' of 'im, like a
sus-sus-silly woman."
"Exactly. Yet he heaps coals of fire on your head by declaring that
you are the best cook in Hertfordshire! Is that true?"
Furneaux's impish grin was a tonic in itself. Eliza dropped the apron
and squared her elbows.
"I don't know about bein' the best in Hertfordshire," she cried, "but
I can hold me own no matter where the other one comes from, provided
we start fair."
"Take warning, then, that if I bring a man here tomorrow evening--a
big man, with a round head and bulging blue eyes--a man who looks as
though he can use a carving-knife with discretion--you prepare a
dinner worthy of the reputation of the White Horse! In that way, and
in none other, can you rehabilitate your character."
Furneaux was gone before Eliza recovered her breath. Then she turned
on the kitchen maid.
"Wot was it he said about my char-ac-ter?" she demanded warmly. "An'
wot are _you_ grinnin' at? If it wasn't for _your_ peepin' an' pryin'
I'd never ha' set eyes on that blessed picter. You go an' put on a
black dress, an' do yer hair respectable, an' mind yer don't spend
half an hour perkin' an' preenin' in front of a lookin'-glass."
Mary fled, and Eliza bustled into the kitchen.
"A big man, with a round head an' bulgin' blue eyes!" she muttered
wrathfully. "Does he think I'm afraid of that sort of brewer's
drayman, or of a little man with eyes like a ferret, either? If he
does, he's very much mistaken. I don't believe he's a real 'tec. I
wouldn't be a bit surprised if he wasn't a reporter. They've cheek
enough for ten, as a rule. Talkin' about my char-ac-ter, an' before
that hussy of a girl, too! Wait till I see him tomorrow, that's all."
Meanwhile, Furneaux had not held the second glass of Château Yquem to
the light in Tomlinson's sanctum before Winter's car was halting
outside Brondesbury police station. An Inspector assured the
Superintendent that a constable was on the track of Robert Fenley, and
had instructions to report direct to Scotland Yard. Then Winter
reëntered the car, and was driven to Headquarters.
He was lunching in his own room, frugally but well, on bread and
cheese and beer, when the Assistant Commissioner came in.
"Ah, Mr. Winter," he said. "I was told you had returned. That
telephone call came from a call office in Shaftesbury Avenue. A lady,
name unknown, but the youth in charge knows her well by sight, and
thinks she lives in a set of flats near by. I thought the information
sufficient for your purpose, so suspended inquiries till I heard from
you."
"Just what I wanted, sir," said Winter. "There may be nothing in it,
but I was curious to know why Hilton Fenley took the trouble to fib
about such a trivial matter. His brother, too, is behaving in a way
that invites criticism. I don't imagine that either of the sons shot
his father--most certainly, Hilton Fenley could not have done it, and
Robert, I think, was in London at the time----"
"Dear me!" broke in the other, a man of quiet, self-contained manner,
on whose lips that mild exclamation betokened the maximum of
surprise. "Is there any reason whatsoever for believing that one of
these young men may be a parricide?"
"So many reasons, sir, and so convincing in some respects, that the
local police would be seriously considering the arrest of Robert
Fenley if they had the ascertained facts in their possession."
The Assistant Commissioner sat down.
"I hear you keep a sound brand of cigars here, Mr. Winter," he said.
"I've just lunched in the St. Stephen's Club, so, if you can spare the
time----"
At the end of the Superintendent's recital the Chief offered no
comment. He arose, went to the window, and seemed to seek inspiration
from busy Westminster Bridge and a river dancing in sunshine. After a
long pause he turned, and threw the unconsumed half of a cigar into
the fireplace.
"It's a pity to waste such a perfect Havana," he said mournfully, "but
I make it a rule not to smoke while passing along the corridors.
And--you'll be busy. Keep me posted."
Winter smiled. When the door had closed on his visitor he even
laughed.
"By Jove!" he said to himself. "A heart to heart talk with the guv'nor
is always most illuminative. Now many another boss would have said he
was puzzled, or bothered, or have given me some silly advice such as
that I must be discreet, look into affairs closely, and not act
precipitately. Not so our excellent A. C. He's clean bowled, and
admits it, without speaking a word. He's a tonic; he really is!"
He touched an electric bell. When the policeman attendant, Johnston,
appeared, he asked if Detective Sergeant Sheldon was in the building,
and Sheldon came. The Superintendent had met him in a Yorkshire town
during a protracted and difficult inquiry into the death of a wealthy
recluse; although the man was merely an ordinary constable he had
shown such resourcefulness, such ability of a rare order, that he was
invited to join the staff of the Criminal Investigation Department,
and had warranted Winter's judgment by earning rapid promotion.
Though tall, and of athletic build, he had none of the distinctive
traits of the average policeman. He dressed quietly and in good taste,
and carried himself easily; a peculiarity of his thoughtful, somewhat
lawyer-like face was that the left eye was noticeably smaller than the
right. Among other qualifications, he ranked as the best amateur
photographer in the "Yard," and was famous as a rock climber in the
Lake District.
Winter plunged at once into the business in hand.
"Sheldon," he said, "I'm going out, and may be absent an hour or
longer. If a telephone message comes through from Mr. Furneaux tell
him I have located the doubtful call made to The Towers this morning.
Have you read the report of the Fenley murder in the evening papers?"
"Yes, sir. _Is_ it a murder?"
"What else could it be?"
"An extraordinary accident."
Winter weighed the point, which had not occurred to him previously.
"No," he said. "It was no accident. I incline to the belief that it
was the best-planned crime I've tackled during the past few years.
That is my present opinion, at any rate. Now, a man from the
Brondesbury police station is following one of the dead man's sons, a
Mr. Robert Fenley, who bolted back to London on a motor cycle as soon
as I threatened to question him.
"Robert Fenley is twenty-four, fresh-complexioned, clean-shaven, about
five feet nine inches in height, stoutish, and of sporty appearance.
He had his hair cut yesterday or the day before. His hands and feet
are rather small. He talks aggressively, and looks what he is, a
pampered youth, very much spoiled by his parents. His clothes--all
that I have seen--are a motorist's overalls. If the Brondesbury man
reports here during my absence act as you think fit. I want Robert
Fenley located, followed, and watched unobtrusively, especially in
such matters as the houses he visits and the people he meets. If you
need help get it."
"Till what time, sir?" was the laconic question.
"That depends. Try and 'phone me here about five o'clock. But if you
are otherwise engaged let the telephone go. Should Fenley seem to
leave London by the Edgware Road, which leads to Roxton, have him
checked on the way. Here is the number of his cycle," and Winter
jotted a memorandum on the back of an envelope.
"What about Mr. Furneaux if I am called out almost immediately?"
"Give the message to Johnston."
Then Winter hurried away, and, repressing the inclination to hail a
taxi, walked up Whitehall and crossed Trafalgar Square _en route_ to
the Shaftesbury Avenue address supplied by the Assistant Commissioner.
He found a sharp-featured youth in charge of the telephone, which was
lodged in an estate agent's office. The boy grinned when the
Superintendent explained his errand.
"Excuse _me_," he said, with the pert assurance of the born Cockney,
"but we aren't allowed to give information about customers."
"You've broken your rules already, young man," said Winter. "You
answered a similar inquiry made by Scotland Yard some hours since."
"Oh, was _that_ it? Gerrard rang me up, and I thought there was
something funny going on. Are you from Scotland Yard, sir?"
Winter proffered a card, and the boy's eyes opened wide.
"Crikey!" he said. "I've read about you, sir. Well, I've been doing a
bit of detective work of my own. At lunch time I strolled past the set
of flats where I thought the lady lived, and had the luck to see her
getting out of a cab at the door. I followed her upstairs, pretending
I had business somewhere, and saw her go into No. Eleven. Her name is
Miss Eileen Garth--at least, that's the name opposite No. Eleven in
the list in the hall."
"When you're a bit older you'll make a detective," said Winter.
"You've learned the first trick of the job, and that is to keep your
eyes open. Now, to encourage you, I'll tell you the second. Keep your
mouth shut. If this lady is Miss Garth she is not the person we want,
but it would annoy her if she heard the police were inquiring about
her; so here is half a crown for your trouble."
"Can I do anything else for you, sir?" came the eager demand.
"Nothing. I'm on the wrong scent, evidently, but you have saved me
from wasting time. This Miss Eileen Garth is English, of course?"
"Yes, sir; very good-looking, but rather snappy."
Winter sighed.
"That just shows how easy it is to blunder," he said. "I'm looking for
a Polish Jewess, whose chief feature is her nose, and who wears big
gold earrings."
"Oh, Miss Garth is quite different," said the disappointed youth.
"She's tall and slim--a regular dasher, big black hat, swell togs,
black and white, and smart boots with white spats. She wore pearls in
her ears, too, because I noticed 'em."
Winter sighed again.
"Another half day lost," he murmured, and went out.
Knowing well that the boy would note the direction he took, he turned
away from the block of flats and made for Soho, where he smoked a
thin, raffish Italian cigar with an Anarchist of his acquaintance who
kept a restaurant famous for its _risotto_. Then, by other streets, he
approached Gloucester Mansions, and soon was pressing the electric
bell of No. Eleven.
"Miss Garth in?" he said to an elderly, hatchet-faced woman who opened
the door.
"Why do you want Miss Garth?" was the non-committal reply, given in
the tone of one who meant the stranger to understand that he was not
addressing a servant.
"I shall explain my errand to the lady herself," said Winter civilly.
"Kindly tell her that Superintendent Winter, of the Criminal
Investigation Department, Scotland Yard, wishes to see her."
To him it was no new thing that his name and description should bring
dismay, even terror, to the cheeks of one to whom he made himself
known professionally, but unless he was addressing some desperate
criminal, he did not expect to be assaulted. For once, therefore, he
was thoroughly surprised when a bony hand shot out and pushed him
backward; the door was slammed in his face; the latch clicked, and he
was left staring at a small brass plate bearing the legend: "Ring. Do
not knock."
Naturally, this bold maneuver could not have succeeded had he a right
of entry. A woman's physical strength was unequal to the task of
disturbing his burly frame, and a foot thrust between door and jamb
would have done the rest. As matters stood, however, he was obliged to
abandon any present hope of an interview with the mysterious Miss
Eileen Garth.
He remained stock still for some seconds, listening to the retreating
footsteps of the strong-minded person who had beaten him. It was his
habit to visualize for future reference the features and demeanor of
people in whom he was interested, and of whom circumstances permitted
only the merest glimpse. This woman's face had revealed annoyance
rather than fear. "Scotland Yard" was not an ogre but a nuisance. She
held, or, at any rate, she had exercised, a definite power of
rejecting visitors whom she considered undesirable. Therefore, she was
a relative, probably Eileen Garth's mother or aunt.
Eileen Garth was "tall and slim," "good-looking, but rather snappy."
Well, twenty years ago, the description would have applied to the
woman he had just seen. Her voice, heard under admittedly adverse
conditions, was correct in accent and fairly cultured. Before the
world had hardened it its tones might have been soft and dulcet. But
above all, there was the presumable discovery that Eileen Garth was as
decidedly opposed as Robert Fenley to full and free discussion of that
morning's crime.
"Furneaux will jeer at me when he hears of this little episode,"
thought Winter, smiling as he turned to descend the stairs. Furneaux
did jeer, but it was at his colleague's phenomenal luck.
The door of No. Twelve, the only other flat on the same landing,
opened, and a man appeared. Recognition was prompt on Winter's side.
"Hello, Drake!" he said genially. "Are _you_ Signor Maselli? Well met,
anyhow! Can you give me a friendly word?"
The occupant of flat No. Twelve, an undersized, slightly built man of
middle age, seemed to have received the shock of his life. His
sallow-complexioned face assumed a greenish-yellow tint, and his
deep-set eyes glistened like those of a hunted animal.
"Friendly?" he contrived to gasp, giving a ghastly look over his
shoulder to ascertain whether any one in the interior of the flat had
heard that name "Drake."
"Yes. I mean it. Strictly on the q. t.," said Winter, sinking his
voice to a confidential pitch. Signor Giovanni Maselli, since that was
the name modestly displayed on No. Twelve's card in the hall beneath,
closed the door carefully. He appeared to trust Winter, up to a point,
but evidently found it hard to regain self-control.
"Not here!" he whispered. "In five minutes--at the Regency Café,
Piccadilly. Let me go alone."
Winter nodded, and the other darted downstairs. The detective followed
slowly. Crossing the street at an angle, he looked up at the
smoke-stained elevation of Gloucester Mansions.
"A well-filled nest," he communed, "and a nice lot of prize birds in
it, upon my word!"
The last time he had set eyes on a certain notably expert forger and
counterfeiter a judge was passing sentence of five years' penal
servitude and three years' police supervision on a felon; and the
judge had not addressed the prisoner as Giovanni Maselli, but as John
Christopher Drake!
CHAPTER VIII
COINCIDENCES
Winter was blessed with an unfailing memory for dates and faces.
Before he had emerged from the main exit of Gloucester Mansions he had
fixed Drake as committed from the Old Bailey during the Summer assizes
four years earlier, released from Portland on ticket of leave at the
beginning of the current year, and marked in the "failure to report"
list.
"Poor devil!" he said to himself. "The very man for my purpose!"
Therefore, seeing his way clearly, his glance was not so encouraging
nor his voice so pleasant when he found the ex-convict awaiting him in
the Regency Café. Nevertheless, obeying the curious code which links
the police and noted criminals in a sort of _camaraderie_, he asked
the man what he would drink, and ordered cigarettes as well.
"Now, Maselli," he said, when they were seated at a marble-topped
table in a corner of a well-filled room, "since we know each other so
well we can converse plainly, eh?"
"Yes, sir, but I'm done for now. I've been trying to earn an honest
living, and have succeeded, but now----"
The man spoke brokenly. His spirit was crushed. He saw in his mind's
eye the frowning portals of a convict settlement, and heard the boom
of a giant knocker reverberating through gaunt aisles of despair.
"If you reflect that I am calling you Maselli, you'll drink that
whisky and soda, and listen to what I have to say," broke in Winter
severely.
The other looked up at him, and a gleam of hope illumined the pallid
cheeks. He drank eagerly, and lighted a cigarette with trembling
fingers.
"If only I am given a chance----" he began, but the detective
interfered again.
"If only you would shut up!" he said emphatically. "I want your help,
and I'm not in the habit of rewarding my assistants by sending them
back to prison."
Maselli (as he may remain in this record) was so excited that he
literally could not obey.
"I've cut completely adrift from the old crowd, sir," he pleaded
wistfully. "I'm an engraver now, and in good work. Heaven help me, I'm
married, too. She doesn't know. She thinks I was stranded in America,
and that I changed my name because Italians are thought more of than
Englishmen in my line."
"Giovanni Maselli, may I ask what you are talking about?" said Winter,
stiffening visibly.
At last the hunted and haunted wretch persuaded himself that "the
Yard" meant to be merciful. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he
finished the whisky and soda and remained silent.
"Good!" said Winter more cheerfully. "I sha'n't call you Maselli again
if you don't behave. Now, how long have you lived in Gloucester
Mansions?"
"Four months, sir. Ever since my marriage."
Winter smiled. The man had gone straight from the gates of Portland to
some woman who was waiting for him! He was an old offender, but had
proved slippery as an eel--hence a stiff sentence when caught; but
penal servitude had conquered him.
"Has Miss Eileen Garth lived in No. Eleven during those four months?"
was the next question.
"Yes, sir--two years or more, I believe. Her mother mentioned
something of it to my wife one day."
"Her mother? Same name?"
"Yes, Mrs. Garth."
"How do they live?"
"The daughter was learning to be a stage dancer; but they've come into
a settled income, and that idea is given up."
"Any male relations?"
"None that I know of, sir. Eileen is engaged to be married. I haven't
heard the gentleman's name, but I've seen him scores of times."
"Scores of times--in four months?"
"Yes, sir, every second or third day. That is, I either meet him or
know he is there because Mrs. Maselli and Mrs. Garth are friendly, and
there is constant coming and going across the landing."
"Is he a man of about thirty, middle height, lanky black hair, smooth
dark face, sunken eyes, high cheek bones--rather, shall I say, Italian
in appearance?"
Maselli was surprised, and showed it.
"Why, sir, you've described him to a nicety," he said.
"Very well. Next time he is there to your absolute knowledge, slip out
and telephone the fact to me at Scotland Yard. If I'm not in, ask for
Mr. Furneaux. You remember Mr. Furneaux?"
A sickly smile admitted the acquaintance. Furneaux had recognized the
same artist's hand in each of many realistic forgeries, and it was
this fact which led to the man's capture and conviction.
"If neither of us is at home, inquire for Mr. Sheldon," went on
Winter. "Note him. He's a stranger to you. If you fail to get hold of
any of us, say simply that Signor Maselli would like to have a word at
our convenience. It will be understood. We sha'n't bother you. Give
another call next time the visitor is in Mrs. Garth's flat, and keep
on doing this until you find one of the three on the line. Don't use
the telephone in Shaftesbury Avenue near the Mansions, because the boy
in charge there might be suspicious, and blab. That is all. You are
not doing Mrs. Garth or her daughter an ill turn, so far as I can
judge. Keep a still tongue. Silence on your part will meet with
silence on mine.... Oh, dash it, have another drink! Where's your
nerve?"
Signor Giovanni Maselli was crying. A phantom had brushed close, but
was passing; nevertheless, its shadow had chilled him to the bone.
Winter walked back to Scotland Yard, and found that Sheldon had gone,
leaving a note which read: "Mr. Robert Fenley is at 104, Hendon Road,
Battersea Park." He was tempted to have a word with Furneaux, but
forbore, and tackled some other departmental business. It was a day
fated, however, to evolve the unexpected. About a quarter to four the
telephone bell rang, and Maselli informed him that Miss Garth's fiancé
had just arrived at Gloucester Mansions.
"Excellent," said Winter. "In future, devote your energies to
legitimate engraving. Good-by!"
He rushed out and leaped into a taxi; within five minutes he was at
the door of No. Eleven once more. Let it not be imagined that he had
not weighed the possible consequences of thrusting himself in this
fashion into Hilton Fenley's private affairs. Although the man had
summoned the assistance of Scotland Yard to elucidate the mystery of
his father's death, that fact alone could not secure him immunity from
the law's all-embracing glance. Winter agreed with Furneaux that the
profession of a private banker combined with company promotion is too
often a cloak for roguery in the City of London, and the little he
knew of the Fenley history did not tend to dissipate a certain
nebulous suspicion that their record might not be wholly clean.
The theft of the bonds had been hushed up in a way that savored of
unwillingness on Mortimer Fenley's part to permit the police to take
action. The man's tragic death might well be a sequel to the robbery,
and, granted the impossibility of his elder son having committed the
murder, there was nothing fantastic in the notion that he might be a
party to it.
Again, Hilton Fenley had deliberately misled Scotland Yard in regard
to the seemingly trivial incident of the telephone call. Had he told
the truth, and grumbled at the lack of discretion on some woman's part
in breaking in on a period of acute distress in the household,
Winter's subsequent discovery would have lost its point. As matters
stood, however, it was one of a large number of minor circumstances
which demanded full examination, and the Superintendent decided that
the person really responsible for any seeming excess of zeal on his
part should be given an opportunity to clear the air in the place best
fitted for the purpose; namely, the address from which the call
emanated.
Therefore, when the door was opened again by Mrs. Garth, she found
that the Napoleonic tactics of an earlier hour were no longer
practicable, for the enemy instantly occupied the terrain by leaning
inward.
"I want to see Mr. Hilton Fenley," he said suavely. "You know my name
already, Mrs. Garth, so I need not repeat it."
The sharp-featured woman was evidently sharp-witted also. Finding that
the door might not be closed, she threw it wide.
"I have no objection to your seeing Mr. Fenley," she said. "I am at a
loss to understand why you follow him here, but that does not concern
me in the least. Come this way."
Latching the door, she led him to a room on the right of the entrance
hall, which formed the central artery of the flat. The place had no
direct daylight. At night, when an electric lamp was switched on, its
contents would be far more distinct than at this hour, when the only
light came from a transverse passage at the end, or was borrowed
through any door that happened to remain open. Still, Winter could
use his eyes, even in the momentary gloom, and he used them so well
on this occasion that he noted two trunks, one on top of the other,
and standing close to the wall.
They were well plastered with hotel and railway labels, and when a
flood of light poured in from the room to which Mrs. Garth ushered
him, he deciphered two of the freshest, and presumably the most
recent. They were "Hotel d'Italie, Rue Caumartin, Paris," and a
baggage number, "517." Not much, perhaps, in the way of information,
but something; and Winter could trust his memory.
He found himself in a well-furnished room, and hoped that Mrs. Garth
might leave him there, even for a few seconds, when he would be free
to examine the apartment without her supervision. But she treated him
as if he might steal the spoons. Remaining in the doorway, she called
loudly:
"Mr. Fenley! The person I told you of is here again. Will you kindly
come? He is in the dining-room."
A door opened, a hurried step sounded on a linoleum floor-covering,
and Hilton Fenley appeared.
"Mr.--Mr. Winter, isn't it?" he said, with a fine air of surprise.
"Yes," said the Superintendent composedly. "You hardly expected to
meet me here, I suppose?"
"Well, Mrs. Garth mentioned your earlier visit, but I am at a loss to
understand----"
"Oh, it is easily explained. We of the Yard take nothing for granted,
Mr. Fenley. I learned by chance that a young lady who lives here rang
you up at Roxton this morning, and knowing that you took the trouble
to conceal the fact, I thought it advisable----"
Mrs. Garth was a woman of discretion. She closed the door on the two
men. Fenley did not wait for Winter to conclude.
"That was foolish of me, I admit," he said, readily enough. "One does
not wish all one's private affairs to be canvassed, even by the
police. The moment Mrs. Garth mentioned your name I saw my error. You
checked the telephone calls to The Towers, I suppose, and thus learned
I had misled you."
"Something of the sort. Miss Garth is a lady not difficult of
recognition."
"She and her mother are very dear friends. It was natural they should
be shocked by the paragraphs in the newspapers and wish to ascertain
the truth."
"Quite so. I'm sorry if my pertinacity has annoyed them, or you."
"I think they will rather be pleased by such proof of your
thoroughness. Certainly I, for my part, do not resent it."
"Very well, sir. Since I am here, I may inquire if you know any one
living at 104, Hendon Road, Battersea Park?"
"Now that you mention the address, I recall it as the residence of the
lady in whom my brother is interested. This morning I had forgotten
it, but you have refreshed my memory."
"You're a tolerably self-possessed person," was the detective's
unspoken thought, for Fenley was a different man now from the nervous,
distrait son who had clamored for vengeance on his father's murderer.
"You own up to the facts candidly when it is useless to do anything
else, and you never fail to hammer a nail into Robert's coffin when
the opportunity offers."
But aloud he said--
"You really don't know the lady's name, I suppose?"
Fenley hesitated a fraction of a second.
"Yes, I do know it, though I withheld the information this morning,"
he replied. "But, I ask you, is it quite fair to make me a witness
against my brother?"
"Some one must explain Mr. Robert's movements, and, since he declines
the task, I look to you," was the straightforward answer.
"She is a Mrs. Lisle," said Fenley, after another pause--a calculated
pause this time.
"Have you visited your City office today?"
"I went straight there from The Towers. I told you I was going there.
What object could I have in deceiving you?"
"None that I can see, Mr. Fenley. But I have been wondering if any new
light has been shed on the motive which might have led to the crime.
Have you examined Mr. Mortimer Fenley's papers, for instance? There
may be documents, letters, memoranda secreted in some private drawer
or dispatch case."
The other shook his head. He appeared not to resent the detective's
tone. It seemed as if regret for the morning's lack of confidence had
rendered him apologetic.
"No," he said. "I have not had time yet to go through my father's
papers. This afternoon I was taken up wholly with business. You see,
Mr. Winter, I can not allow my personal suffering to cost other men
thousands of pounds, and that must be the outcome if certain
undertakings now in hand are not completed. But my father was most
methodical, and his affairs are sure to be thoroughly in order. Within
the next few days, when I have time to make a proper search, I'll do
it. Meanwhile, I can practically assure you that he had no reason to
anticipate anything in the nature of a personal attack from any
quarter whatsoever."
"Do you care to discuss your brother's extraordinary behavior?"
"In what respect?"
"Well, he virtually bolted from Roxton today, though I had warned him
that his presence was imperative."
"My brother is self-willed and impetuous, and he was dreadfully
shocked at finding his father dead."
"Did he tell you he meant returning to London at once?"
"No. When I came downstairs, after the distressing scene with Mrs.
Fenley, he had gone."
The Superintendent was aware already that he was dealing with a man
cast in no ordinary mold, but he did not expect this continued
meekness. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have grown restive
under such cross-examination, and betrayed their annoyance by word or
look; not so Hilton Fenley, who behaved as if it were the most natural
thing in the world that he should be tracked to his friends' residence
and made to explain his comings and goings during the day. Swayed by a
subconscious desire to nettle his victim into protest, Winter tried a
new tack.
"I suppose, Mr. Fenley, you have seen your father's solicitors today?"
he said suddenly.
"If you mean that question in the ordinary sense, I must tell you that
my father employed no firm of solicitors for family purposes. Of
course, at one time or another, he has availed himself of the services
of nearly every leading firm of lawyers in the City, but each
transaction was complete in itself. For instance, his will is a
holograph will, if that is what you are hinting at. He told me its
provisions at the time it was signed and witnessed, and I shall
surely find it in his private safe at the office."
"You have not looked for it today?"
"No. Why should I?"
Feeling distinctly nonplussed, for there was no denying that Fenley
had chosen the best possible way of carrying off a delicate situation,
Winter turned, walked slowly to a window and gazed down into the
street. He was perturbed, almost irritated, by a novel sense of
failure not often associated with the day's work. He had to confess
now that he had made no material stride in an inquiry the solution of
which did not seem, at the outset, to offer any abnormal difficulty.
True, there were circumstances which might serve to incriminate Robert
Fenley; but if that young man were really responsible for the crime,
he was what "the Yard" classes privately as a monumental idiot, since
his subsequent conduct was well calculated to arouse the suspicion
which the instinct of self-preservation would try to avert. A long
experience of the methods of criminals warned Winter of the folly of
jumping at conclusions, but he would be slow to admit and hard to be
convinced that Robert Fenley took any active part in his father's
murder.
Of course, it was not with a view toward indulging in a reverie that
he approached the window. He was setting a simple trap, into which
many a man and woman had fallen. Any one of moderately strong
character can control face and eyes when the need of such discipline
is urgent, but howsoever impregnable the mask, the strain of wearing
it is felt, and relief shows itself in an unguarded moment. At the
farther end of the room there was a mirror above the fireplace, and as
he turned his back on Fenley, by a hardly perceptible inclination of
his head he could catch the reflection of his companion's face.
The maneuver succeeded, but its result was negative. Hilton Fenley's
eyes were downcast. He had lifted a hand to his chin in one of those
nervous gestures which had been so noticeable during the morning's
tumult. His face wore an expression of deep thought. Indeed, he might
be weighing each word he had heard and uttered, and calculating its
effect on his own fortunes.
Still obeying that unworthy instinct which bade him sting Fenley into
defiance, Winter tossed a question over his shoulder.
"May I have a word with Miss Garth?" he said suddenly.
"Why?" was the calm answer.
"Just to settle that telephone incident once and for all."
"But if you imagine it might not have been Miss Garth who made the
call, why are you here?"
Then the detective laughed. His wonted air of cheerful good humor
smoothed the wrinkles from his forehead. He was beaten, completely
discomfited, and he might as well confess it and betake himself to
some quarter where a likelier trail could be followed.
"True," he said affably. "I need not bother the young lady. Perhaps
you will make my excuses and tell her that I ran you to earth in
Gloucester Mansions merely to save time. By the way, I led the youth
at the call office to believe that I was searching for an undersized
Polish Jewess, all nose and gold earrings, a description which hardly
applies to Miss Garth. And one last question--do you return to Roxton
tonight?"
"Within the hour."
So Winter descended the stone stairs a second time, a prey to a
feeling of failure. What had he gained by his impetuous actions? He
had ascertained that Hilton Fenley was on terms of close intimacy with
a pretty girl and her mother. Nothing very remarkable in that. He had
secured a Paris address and the number of a baggage registration
label. But similar information might be gleaned from a hundred
thousand boxes and portmanteaux in London that day. He had been told
that Mortimer Fenley had made a holograph will. Such procedure was by
no means rare. Millions sterling have been disposed of on half sheets
of note paper. Even his Majesty's judges have written similar wills,
and blundered, with the result that a brother learned in the law has
had to decide what the testator really meant. He wondered whether or
not Mortimer Fenley had committed some technical error, such as the
common one of creating a trust without appointing trustees. That would
be seen in due course, when the will was probated.
At any rate, he grinned at his own expense.
"The only individual who has scored today," he said to himself, "is
John Christopher Drake, alias Giovanni Maselli. I must keep mum about
him. By gad, I believe I've compounded a felony!"
But because he had not scored inside Gloucester Mansions there was no
valid reason why he should not accomplish something in their immediate
neighborhood. For instance, who and what were the Garths, mother and
daughter? He looked in on a well-known dramatic agent, and raised the
point. Reference to a ledger showed that Eileen Garth, age eighteen,
tall, good-looking, no previous experience, had been a candidate for
musical comedy, London engagement alone accepted; the almost certain
sequel being that she had kept her name six months on the books
without an offer to secure her valuable services.
"I remember the girl well," said the agent. "She had the makings of a
coryphée, but lacked training. She could sing a little, so I advised
her to take dancing lessons. I believe she began them, with a teacher
I recommended, but I've seen nothing of her for a year or more."
"Again has Giovanni filled the bill," mused Winter as he made for his
office. "I wish now I had curbed my impulsiveness and kept away from
Gloucester Mansions--the second time, anyhow."
Though chastened in spirit, the fact that no news of any sort awaited
him at Scotland Yard, did not help to restore his customary poise.
"Dash it all!" he growled. "I'm losing grip. The next thing I'll hear
is that Sheldon is enjoying himself at Earl's Court and that Furneaux
has gone fishing."
Restless and ill at ease, he decided to ring up The Towers, Roxton. A
footman answered the telephone, and announced that Mr. Furneaux had
"just come in."
"Hello, Charles," said Winter, when a thin voice squeaked along the
line. "Any luck?"
"Superb!"
"Good! I've drawn blanks, regular round O's, except three probably
useless addresses."
"Addresses are never useless, friend. The mere knowing of a number in
a street picks out that street from all the other streets where one
knows no numbers."
"Tell me things, you rat, if conditions permit."
"Well, I've hit on two facts of profound importance. First, Roxton
contains an artist of rare genius, and, second, it holds a cook of
admitted excellence."
"Look here----"
"I'm listening here, which is all that science can achieve at
present."
"I'm in no mood for ill timed pleasantries."
"But I'm not joking, 'pon me honor. The cook, name of Eliza, does
really exist, and is sworn to surprise even your jaded appetite. The
artist is John Trenholme. In years to come you'll boast of having met
him before he was famous."
"So you, like me, have done nothing?"
"Ah, I note the bitterness of defeat in your tone. It has warped your
judgment, too, as you will agree when a certain dinner I have arranged
for tomorrow night touches the spot."
"Can't you put matters more plainly?"
"I'm guessing and planning and contriving. Like Galileo, I am
convinced that the world moves." Then Furneaux broke into French.
"Regarding those addresses you speak of, what are they?"
Using the same language, Winter told him, substituting "the Eurasian"
and "the motorcyclist" for names, and adding that he was writing
Jacques Faure, the Paris detective, with reference to the hotel and
the label, the figures on the latter being of the long, thin, French
variety.
"Are you coming here tonight?" went on Furneaux.
"Do you want me?"
"I'm only a little chap, and I'd like to have you near when it is
dark."
Winter sighed, but it was with relief. He knew now that Furneaux had
not failed.
"Very well," he said. "I'll arrive by the next convenient train."
"The point is," continued Furneaux, who delighted in keeping his chief
on tenterhooks when some new development in the chase was imminent,
"that the position here requires handling by a man of your weight and
authority. The motor cyclist came back an hour ago, and is now walking
in the garden with the girl."
"The deuce! Why hasn't Sheldon reported?" blurted out Winter.
"Because, in all likelihood, he is watching the other girl. Isn't that
what you were doing? Isn't half the battle won when we find the
woman?"
"I haven't set eyes on _my_ woman."
"You surprise me. That kind of modest self-effacement isn't your usual
style, at all, at all, as they say in Cork."
"Probably you're right about Sheldon. He is a worker, not a talker
like some people I know," retorted Winter.
"What very dull acquaintances you must possess! Workers are the small
fry who put spouters into Parliament, and pay them £400 a year, and
make them Cabinet Ministers."
"Evidently things have happened at Roxton, or you wouldn't be so
chirpy. Well, so long! See you later."
Having ascertained that an express train was timed to leave St.
Pancras for Roxton at six P. M., he was packing a suitcase when a
telegram arrived. It had been handed in at Folkestone at four thirty,
and read:
Decided to follow lady instead of motor cyclist. Will explain
reasons verbally. Reaching London seven o'clock.
SHELDON.
"I'm the only one of the three who has accomplished nothing," was
Winter's rueful comment. Nor could any critic have gainsaid him, for
he seemed to have been wasting precious hours while his subordinates
were making history in the Fenley case.
He left instructions with Johnston that Mr. Sheldon was to write
fully, care of the Roxton police station, and took a cab for St.
Pancras. He was passing along the platform when he caught sight of
Hilton Fenley seated on the far side of a first-class carriage, which
was otherwise untenanted. An open dispatch box lay beside him, and he
was so engrossed in the perusal of some document that he gave no heed
to externals. Winter threw wide the door, and entered.
"We are fated to meet today, Mr. Fenley," he said pleasantly. "First,
you send for me; then I hunt you, and now we come together by chance.
I don't think coincidence can arrange any fourth way of bringing us in
touch today."
But he was mistaken. Coincidence had already done far more than he
imagined in providing unseen clues to the ultimate clearing up of a
ghastly crime, and the same subtle law of chance was fated to assist
the authorities once more before the sun rose again over the trees
from whose cover Mortimer Fenley's murderer had fired the fatal shot.
CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN AN ARTIST BECOMES A MAN OF ACTION
Furneaux's visit left Trenholme in no happy frame of mind. The man who
that morning had not a care in the world was now a prey to disquieting
thought. The knowledge that he had been close to the scene of a
dastardly murder at the moment it was committed, that he was in a
sense a witness of the crime, was depressing in itself, for his was a
kindly nature; and the mere fact that circumstances had rendered him
impotent when his presence might have acted as a deterrent was
saddening.
Then, again, he was worried by the reflection that, no matter how
discriminating the police might prove with regard to his sketch of
Sylvia Manning, he would undoubtedly be called as a witness, both at
the inquest and at the trial of any person arrested for the crime. It
was asking too much of editorial human nature to expect that the
magazine which had commissioned the illustrated article on Roxton
would not make capital of the fact that its special artist was
actually sketching the house while Mr. Fenley's murderer was skulking
among the trees surrounding it. Thus there was no escape for John
Trenholme. He was doomed to become notorious. At any hour the evening
newspapers might be publishing his portrait and biography!
On going downstairs he was cheered a little by meeting an apologetic
Eliza.
"I hope I didn't do any reel 'arm, sir," she said, dropping an
aspirate in sheer emphasis.
"Any harm to whom, or what?" he asked.
"By talkin' as I did afore that 'tec, sir."
"All depends on what you said to him. If you told him, for instance,
that I carry Browning pistols in each pocket, and that my easel is a
portable Maxim gun, of course----"
"Oh, sir, I never try to be funny. I mean about the picter."
"Good Heavens! You, too!"
Eliza failed to understand this, but she was too subdued to inquire
his meaning.
"You see, sir, he must ha' heerd what I said about it, an' him
skulkin' there in the passage. Do you reelly think a hop-o'-me-thumb
like that can be a Scotland Yard man? It's my belief he's a
himpostor."
It had not dawned on Trenholme that Furneaux's complete fund of
information regarding the sketches had been obtained so recently. He
imagined that Police Constable Farrow and Gamekeeper Bates had
supplied details, so his reply cheered Eliza.
"Don't worry about unnecessary trifles," he said. "Mr. Furneaux is
not only a genuine detective, but a remarkably clever one. You ought
to have heard him praising the picture you despised."
"I never did," came the vehement protest. "The picter is fine. It was
the young lady's clothes, or the want of 'em, that I was condemnin'."
"I've seen four thousand ladies walking about the sands at Trouville
in far scantier attire."
"That's in France, isn't it?" inquired Eliza.
"Yes, but France is a more civilized country than England."
Eliza sniffed, sure sign of battle.
"Not it," she vowed. "I've read things about the carryin' on there as
made me blood boil. Horse-racin' on Sundays, an' folks goin' to
theaters instead of church. France more civilized than England,
indeed! What'll you be sayin' next?"
"I'll be saying that if our little friend behaves himself I shall ask
him to dine here tomorrow."
"He's axed himself, Mr. Trenholme, an' he's bringing another one, a
big fellow, who knows how to use a carvin'-knife, he says. What would
you like for dinner?"
Trenholme fled. That question was becoming a daily torment. The
appearance of Furneaux had alone saved him from being put on the
culinary rack after luncheon; having partaken of one good meal, he
never had the remotest notion as to his requirements for the next.
He wandered through the village, calling at a tobacconist's, and
looking in on his friend the barber. All tongues were agog with
wonder. The Fenley family, known to that district of Hertfordshire
during the greater part of a generation, was subjected to merciless
criticism. He heard gossip of Mr. Robert, of Mr. Hilton, even of the
recluse wife, now a widow; but every one had a good word for "Miss
Sylvia."
"We don't see enough of her, an' that's a fact," said the barber. "She
must find life rather dull, cooped up there as she is, for all that
it's a grand house an' a fine park. They never had company like the
other big houses. A few bald-headed City men an' their wives for an
occasional week end in the summer or when the coverts were shot in
October--never any nice young people. Miss Sylvia wept when the
rector's daughter got married last year, an' well I knew why--she was
losin' her only chum."
"Surely there are scores of good families in this neighborhood?"
"Plenty, sir, but nearly all county. The toffs never did take on the
Fenleys, an', to be fair, I don't believe the poor man who's dead ever
bothered his head about them."
"But Miss Manning can not have lived here all her life? She must have
been abroad, at school, for instance?"
"Well, yes, sir. I remember her comin' home from Brussels two years
ago. But school ain't society. The likes of her, with all her money,
should mix with her own sort."
"Is she so wealthy, then?"
"She's Mr. Fenley's ward, an' the servants at The Towers say she'll
come in for a heap when she's twenty-one, which will be next year."
Somehow, this item of gossip, confirming Eliza's statement, was
displeasing. Sylvia Manning, nymph of the lake, receded to some dim
altitude where the high and mighty are enthroned. Biting his pipe
viciously, Trenholme sought the solitude of a woodland footpath, and
tried to find distraction in studying the effects of diffused light.
Returning to the inn about tea time, he was angered anew by a telegram
from the magazine editor. It read:
_News in Pictures_ wants sketches and photographs of Fenley case
and surroundings. Have suggested you for commission. Why not pick
up a tenner? Rush drawings by train.
"That's the last straw," growled Trenholme fiercely. He raced out,
bought a set of picture postcards showing the village and the Tudor
mansion, and dispatched them to the editor of _News in Pictures_ with
his compliments. Coming back from the station, he passed the Easton
lodge of The Towers. A daring notion seized him, and he proceeded to
put it into practice forthwith. He presented himself at the gate, and
was faced by Mrs. Bates and a policeman. Taught by experience to
beware of strangers that day, the keeper's wife gazed at him through
an insurmountable iron palisade. The constable merely surveyed him
with a professional air, as one who would interfere if needful.
"I am calling on Miss Sylvia Manning," announced Trenholme promptly.
"By appointment, sir?"
"No, but I have reason to believe that she would wish to see me."
"My orders are that nobody is to be admitted to the house without
written instructions, sir."
"How can Miss Manning give written instructions unless she knows I am
here?"
"Them's my orders," said Mrs. Bates firmly.
"But," he persisted, "it really amounts to this--that you decide
whether or not Miss Manning wishes to receive me, or any other
visitor."
Mrs. Bates found the point of view novel. Moreover, she liked this
young man's smile. She hesitated, and temporized.
"If you don't mind waitin' a minute till I telephone----" she said.
"Certainly. Say that Mr. John Trenholme, who was sketching in the
park this morning, asks the favor of a few words."
The guardian of the gate disappeared; soon she came out again, and
unlocked the gate.
"Miss Manning is just leavin' the house," she said. "If you walk up
the avenue you'll meet her, sir."
Now, it happened that Trenholme's request for an interview reached
Sylvia Manning at a peculiar moment. She had been shocked and
distressed beyond measure by the morning's tragedy. Mortimer Fenley
was one of those men whom riches render morose, but his manner had
always been kind to his ward. A pleasant fiction enabled the girl to
regard Mr. and Mrs. Fenley as her "uncle" and "aunt," and the tacit
relationship thus established served to place the financier and his
"niece" on a footing of affectionate intimacy. Of late, however,
Sylvia had been aware of a splitting up of the family into armed
camps, and the discovery, or intuition, that she was the cause of the
rupture had proved irksome and even annoying.
Mortimer Fenley had made no secret of his desire that she should marry
his younger son. When both young people, excellent friends though they
were, seemed to shirk the suggestion, though by no means actively
opposing it, Fenley was angered, and did not scruple to throw out
hints of coercion. Again, the girl knew that Hilton Fenley was a rival
suitor, and meant to defy his father's intent with regard to Robert.
Oddly enough, neither of the young men had indulged in overt
love-making. According to their reckoning, Sylvia's personal choice
counted for little in the matter. Robert seemed to assume that his
"cousin" was merely waiting to be asked, while Hilton's attitude was
that of a man biding his time to snatch a prize when opportunity
served.
Sylvia herself hated the very thought of matrimony. The only married
couples of her acquaintance were either hopelessly detached, like
Fenley and his wife, or uninteresting people of the type which the
village barber had etched so clearly for Trenholme's benefit.
Whatsoever quickening of romance might have crept into such lives had
long yielded to atrophy. Marriage, to the girl's imaginative mind, was
synonymous with a dull and prosy middle age. Most certainly the vague
day-dreams evoked by her reading of books and converted into alluring
vistas by an ever-widening horizon were not sated by the prospect of
becoming the wife of either of the only two young men she knew.
There was a big world beyond the confines of Roxton Park. There were
interests in life that called with increasing insistence. In her heart
of hearts she had decided, quite unmistakably, to decline any
matrimonial project for several years, and while shrinking from a
downright avowal of her intentions, which her "uncle" would have
resented very strongly, the fact that father and sons were at daggers
drawn concerning her was the cause of no slight feeling of dismay,
even of occasional moments of unhappiness.
She had no one to confide in. For reasons beyond her ken Mortimer
Fenley had set his face against any of her school friends being
invited to the house, while Mrs. Fenley, by reason of an unfortunate
failing, was a wretched automaton that ate and drank and slept, and
alternated between brief fits of delirium and prolonged periods of
stupor induced by drugs.
Still, until a murderous gunshot had torn away the veil of unreality
which enshrouded the household, Sylvia had contrived to avoid a
crisis. All day, during six days of the week, she was free in her own
realm. She had books and music, the woods, the park, and the gardens
to occupy busy hours. Unknown to any, her favorite amusement was the
planning of extensive foreign tours by such simple means as an atlas
and a set of guide books. She had a talent for sketching in water
color, and her own sanctum contained a dozen or more copious records
of imaginary journeys illustrated with singular accuracy of detail.
She was athletic in her tastes, too. She had fitted up a small
gymnasium, which she used daily. At her request, Mortimer Fenley
had laid out a nine-hole links in the park, and in her second golfing
year (the current one) Sylvia had gone around in bogey. She would
have excelled in tennis, but Robert Fenley was so much away from home
that she seldom got a game, while Hilton professed to be too tired
for strenuous exercise after long days in the City. She could ride
and drive, though forbidden to follow any of the local packs of
fox-hounds, and it has been seen that she was a first-rate swimmer.
Brodie, too, had taught her to drive a motor car, and she could
discourse learnedly on silencers and the Otto cycle.
On the whole, then, she was content, and hugged the conceit that when
she came of age she would be her own mistress and order her life as
she chose. The solitary defect of any real importance in the scheme of
things was Mortimer Fenley's growing insistence on her marriage to
Robert.
It was astounding, therefore, and quite bewildering, that Robert
Fenley should have hit on the day of his father's death to declare his
prosaic passion. He had motored back from London about four o'clock.
Hurrying to change his clothing for the attire demanded by convention
in hours of mourning, he sent a message to Sylvia asking her to meet
him at tea. Afterwards he took her into the garden, on the pretext
that she was looking pale and needed fresh air. There, without the
least preamble, he informed her that the day's occurrences had caused
him to fall in unreservedly with his father's wishes. He urged her to
agree to a quiet wedding at the earliest possible date, and pointed
out that a prompt announcement of their pact would stifle any
opposition on Hilton's part.
Evidently he took it for granted that if Barkis was willing, Peggotty
had no option in the matter. He forgot to mention such a trivial
element as love. Their marriage had been planned by the arbiter of
their destinies, and who were they that they should gainsay that
august decision? Why, his father's death had made it a duty that they
owed to a sacred memory!
Though Sylvia's experience of the world was slight, and knowledge of
her fellow creatures rather less, Cousin Robert's eagerness, as
compared with his deficiencies as a wooer, warned her that some hidden
but powerful motive was egging him on now. She tried to temporize, but
the more she eluded him the more insistent he became.
At last, she spoke plainly, and with some heat.
"If you press for my answer today it is 'No,'" she said, and a wave of
color flooded her pale cheeks. "I think you can hardly have considered
your actions. It is monstrous to talk of marriage when my uncle has
only been dead a few hours. I refuse to listen to another word."
Perforce, Robert had left it at that. He had the sense to bottle up
his anger, at any rate in her hearing; perhaps he reflected that the
breaking of the ice would facilitate the subsequent plunge.
Far more disturbed in spirit than her dignified repulse of Fenley had
shown, Sylvia reëntered the house, passing the odd-looking little
detective as she crossed the hall. She took refuge in her own suite,
but determined forthwith to go out of doors again and seek shelter
among her beloved trees. Through a window, as her rooms faced south,
she saw Robert Fenley pacing moodily in the garden, where he was
presently joined by the detective.
Apparently, Fenley was as ungracious and surly of manner as he knew
how to be, but Furneaux continued to chat with careless affability;
soon the two walked off in the direction of the lake. That was
Sylvia's chance. She ran downstairs and was at the door when a footman
came and said that Mrs. Bates wanted her on the telephone.
At first she was astounded by Trenholme's message. Then sheer
irritation at the crassness of things, and perhaps some spice of
feminine curiosity, led her to give the order which opened the gates
of Roxton Park to a man she had never seen.
The two met a few hundred yards down the avenue. Police Constable
Farrow, who had been replaced by another constable while he went home
for a meal, was on guard in the Quarry Wood again until the night men
came on duty, and noticed Miss Manning leaving the house. He descended
from his rock and strolled toward the avenue, with no other motive
than a desire to stretch his legs; his perplexity was unbounded when
he discovered Mortimer Fenley's ward deep in conversation with the
artist.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" he said, dodging behind a giant rhododendron.
Whipping out a notebook and consulting his watch, he solemnly noted
time and names in a laboriously accurate round hand. Then he nibbled
his chin strap and dug both thumbs into his belt. His luck was in that
day. He knew something now that was withheld from the Scotland Yard
swells. Sylvia Manning and John Trenholme were acquaintances. Nay,
more; they must be old friends; under his very eyes they went off
together into the park.
Back to his rock went Police Constable Farrow, puzzled but elated. Was
he not a repository of secrets? And that funny little detective had
betaken himself in the opposite direction! Fate was kind indeed.
He would have been still more surprised had Fate permitted him to be
also an eavesdropper, if listeners ever do drop from eaves.
Sylvia was by no means flurried when she came face to face with
Trenholme. The female of the species invariably shows her superiority
on such occasions. Trenholme knew he was blushing and rather
breathless. Sylvia was cool and distant.
"You are Mr. Trenholme, I suppose?" she said, her blue eyes meeting
his brown ones in calm scrutiny.
"Yes," he said, trying desperately to collect his wits. The
well-balanced phrases conned while walking up the avenue had vanished
in a hopeless blur at the instant they were needed. His mind was in a
whirl.
"I am Miss Manning," she continued. "It is hardly possible to receive
visitors at the house this afternoon, and as I happened to be coming
out when Mrs. Bates telephoned from the lodge, I thought you would
have no objection to telling me here why you wish to see me."
"I have come to apologize for my action this morning," he said.
"What action?"
"I sketched you without your knowledge, and, of course, without your
permission."
"You sketched me? Where?"
"When you were swimming in the lake."
"You didn't dare!"
"I did. I'm sorry now, though you inspired the best picture I have
ever painted, or shall ever paint."
For an instant Sylvia forgot her personal troubles in sheer
wonderment, and a ghost of a smile brightened her white cheeks. John
Trenholme was a person who inspired confidence at sight, and her first
definite emotion was one of surprise that he should look so
disconsolate.
"I really don't understand," she said. "The quality of your picture
has no special interest for me. What I fail to grasp is your motive in
trespassing in a private park and watching me, or any lady, bathing."
"Put that way, my conduct needs correcting with a horsewhip; but
happily there are other points of view. That is--I mean----Really,
Miss Manning, I am absurdly tongue-tied, but I do beg of you to hear
my explanation."
"Have you one?"
"Yes. It might convince any one but you. You will be a severe judge,
and I hardly know how to find words to seek your forgiveness, but I--I
was the victim of circumstances."
"Please don't regard me as a judge. At present, I am trying to guess
what happened."
Then John squared his shoulders and tackled the greatest difficulty he
had grappled with for years.
"The simple truth should at least sound convincing," he said. "I came
to Roxton three days ago on a commission to sketch the village and
its environment. This house and grounds are historical, and I applied
for permission to visit them, but was refused. By chance, I heard of a
public footpath which crosses the park close to the lake----"
Sylvia nodded. She, too, had heard much of that footpath. Its
existence had annoyed Mortimer Fenley as long as she could remember
anything. That friendly little nod encouraged Trenholme. His voice
came under better control, and he contrived to smile.
"I was told it was a bone of contention," he said, "but that didn't
trouble me a bit, since the right of way opened the forbidden area. I
meant no disturbance or intrusion. I rose early this morning, and
would have made my sketches and got away without seeing you if it were
not for a delightful pair of wrought iron gates passed _en route_.
They detained me three quarters of an hour. Instead of reaching the
clump of cedars at a quarter to seven or thereabouts, I arrived at
half past seven.
"I sketched the house and lawns and then turned to the lake. When you
appeared I imagined at first you were coming to pitch into me for
entering your domain. But, as I was partly hidden by some briers
beneath the cedars, you never saw me, and, before I realized what was
taking place, you threw off your wraps and were in the water."
"Oh!" gasped Sylvia.
"Now, I ask you to regard the situation impersonally," said Trenholme,
sinking his eyes humbly to the ground and keeping them there. "I had
either to reveal my presence and startle you greatly, or remain where
I was and wait until you went off again.
"Whether it was wise or not, I elected for the easier course. I think
I would act similarly if placed in the like predicament tomorrow or
next day. After all, there is nothing so very remarkable in a lady
taking a morning swim that an involuntary onlooker should be shocked
or scandalized by it. You and I were strangers to each other. Were we
friends, we might have been swimming in company."
Sylvia uttered some incoherent sound, but Trenholme, once launched in
his recital, meant to persevere with it to the bitter end.
"I still hold that I chose the more judicious way out of a difficult
situation," he said. "Had I left it at that, all would have been well.
But the woman tempted me, and I did eat."
"Indeed, the woman did nothing of the sort," came the vehement
protest.
"I speak in the artistic sense. You can not imagine, you will never
know, what an exquisite picture you and the statue of Aphrodite made
when mirrored in that shining water. I forgot every consideration but
the call of art, which, when it is genuine, is irresistible,
overwhelming. Fearing only that you might take one plunge and go, I
grabbed my palette and a canvas and began to work.
"I used pure color, and painted as one reads of the fierce labor of
genius. For once in my life I was inspired. I had caught an effect
which I might have sought in vain during the remainder of my life. I
painted real flesh, real water. Even the reeds and shrubs by the side
of the lake were veritable glimpses of actuality. Then, when I had
given some species of immortality to a fleeting moment, you returned
to the house, and I was left alone with a dream made permanent, a
memory transfixed on canvas, a picture which would have created a
sensation in the Salon----"
"Oh, surely, you would not exhibit me--it----" breathed the girl.
"No," he said grimly. "That conceit is dead and buried. But I want you
to realize that during those few minutes I was not John Trenholme, an
artist struggling for foothold on the steep crags of the painter's
rock of endeavor, but a master of the craft gazing from some high
pinnacle at a territory he had won. If you know anything of painting,
Miss Manning, you will go with me so far as to admit that my
indiscretion was impersonal. I, a poet who expressed his emotions in
terms of color, was alone with Aphrodite and a nymph, on a June
morning, in a leafy English park. I don't think I should be blamed,
but envied. I should not be confessing a fault, but claiming
recognition as one favored of the gods."
Trenholme was speaking in earnest now, and Sylvia thrilled to the
music of his voice. But if her heart throbbed and a strange fluttering
made itself felt in her heart, her utterance, by force of repression,
was so cold and unmoved that Trenholme became more downcast than ever.
"I do paint a little," she said, "and I can understand that
the--er--statue and the lake offer a charming subject; but I am still
at a loss to know why you have thought fit to come here and tell me
these things."
"It is my wretched task to make that clear, at least," he cried
contritely, forcing himself to turn and look through the trees at a
landscape now glowing in the mellow light of a declining sun. "When
you had gone I sat there, working hard for a time, but finally
yielding to the spell of an unexpected and, therefore, a most
delightful romance. A vision of rare beauty had come into my life and
gone from it, all in the course of a magic hour. Is it strange that I
should linger in the shrine?
"I was aroused by a gunshot, but little dreamed that grim Death was
stalking through Fairyland. Still, I came to my everyday senses,
packed up my sketches and color box, and tramped off to Roxton,
singing as I went. Hours afterward, I learned of the tragedy which
had taken place so near the place where I had snatched a glimpse of
the Hesperides. It was known that I had been in the park at the time.
I had met and spoken to Bates, your head keeper, and the local
policeman, Farrow.
"A detective came, a man named Furneaux; a jolly clever chap, too, but
a most disturbing reasoner. He showed me that my drawings--the one
sketch, at any rate, which I held sacred--would prove my sheet anchor
when I was brought into the stormy waters of inquest and law courts.
It is obvious that every person who was in that locality at half past
nine this morning must explain his or her presence beyond all doubt or
questioning. I shall be obliged to say, of course, that I was in the
park fully two hours, from seven thirty A. M. onward. What was I
doing? Painting. Very well; where is the result? Is it such that any
artist will testify that I was busily engaged? Don't you see, Miss
Manning? I must either produce that sketch or stand convicted of the
mean offense you yourself imputed to me instantly when you heard of my
whereabouts."
"Oh, I didn't really imply that," said Sylvia, and a new note of
sympathy crept into her voice. "It would be horrid if--if you couldn't
explain; and--it seems to me that the sketches--you made more than
one, didn't you?--should be shown to the authorities."
Trenholme's face lit with gratitude because of her ready tact. He was
sorely impelled to leave matters on their present footing, but whipped
himself to the final stage.
"There is worse to come," he said miserably.
"Goodness me! What else _can_ there be?"
"Mr Furneaux has asked me--ordered me, in fact--to meet you by the
side of the lake tomorrow morning at a quarter past nine and bring the
drawings. Now you know why I have ventured to call this afternoon. I
simply could not wait till I was brought before you like a collared
thief with the loot in his possession. I _had_ to meet you without the
intervention of a grinning policeman. When you heard my plea I
thought, I hoped, that you might incline to a less severe view than
would be possible if the matter came to your notice without warning."
He stopped abruptly. A curiously introspective look had come into the
girl's eyes, for he had summoned up courage to glance at her again,
and snatch one last impression of her winsome loveliness before she
bade him be gone.
"Where are you staying in Roxton, Mr. Trenholme?" she asked. The
unexpected nature of the question almost took his breath away.
"At the White Horse Inn," he said.
She pointed across the park.
"That farm there, Mr. Jackson's, lies nearly opposite the inn. I
suppose the detective has not impounded your sketch?"
"No," he murmured, quite at a loss to follow her intent.
"Well, Mr. Jackson will let you go and come through his farmyard to
oblige me. It will be a short cut for you, too. If you have no
objection, I'll walk with you to the boundary wall, which you can
climb easily.
"Then you might bring this debatable picture, and let me see it--the
others as well, if you wish. Wouldn't that be a good idea? I mightn't
get quite such a shock in the morning, when the detective man parades
you before me. It is not very late. I have plenty of time to stroll
that far before dinner."
Hardly believing his ears, Trenholme walked off by her side. No wonder
Police Constable Farrow was surprised. And still less room was there
for wonder that Hilton Fenley, driving with Winter from the station,
should shout an imperative order to Brodie to stop the car when he saw
the couple in the distance.
"Isn't that Miss Sylvia?" he said harshly, well knowing there could be
only one answer.
"Yes, sir," said the chauffeur.
"Who is the man with her?"
"Mr. Trenholme, the artist, from the White Horse, sir."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir. I've seen him several times hereabouts."
Fenley was in a rare temper already, for Winter had told him Brother
Robert was at home, a development on which he had by no means counted.
Now his sallow face darkened with anger.
"Drive on!" he said. "I gave orders, at your request, Mr Winter, that
no strangers were to be admitted. I must see to it that I am obeyed in
future. It is surprising, too, that the police are so remiss in such
an important matter."
For once, Winter was perforce silent. In his heart of hearts he blamed
Detective Inspector Furneaux.
CHAPTER X
FURNEAUX STATES SOME FACTS AND CERTAIN FANCIES
This record of a day remarkable beyond any other in the history of
secluded Roxton might strike a more cheerful note if it followed the
two young people across the park. It is doubtful whether or not Sylvia
Manning's unpremeditated action in accompanying Trenholme was inspired
by a sudden interest in art or by revolt against the tribulations
which had befallen her. Of course there is some probability that a
full and true account of the conversation between man and maid as they
walked the half mile to Jackson's farm might throw a flood of light on
this minor problem. Be that as it may, stern necessity demands that
the chronicle should revert for a time to the sayings and doings of
the Fenleys and the detectives.
Despite a roundabout route, Furneaux had merely led Robert Fenley
through the gardens to the Quarry Wood. Somewhat to the detective's
surprise, the rock was unguarded. The two were standing there,
discussing the crime, when Police Constable Farrow returned to his
post. Furneaux said nothing--for some reason he did not emphasize the
fact to his companion that a sentry should have been found stationed
there--but a sharp glance at the policeman warned the latter that he
ran considerable risk of a subsequent reprimand.
Conscious of rectitude, Farrow saluted, and produced his notebook.
"I've just made a memo of this, sir," he said, pointing to an entry.
Furneaux read:
Miss Sylvia Manning left home 6.45 P. M. Met Mr. John Trenholme,
artist, White Horse Inn, in avenue 6.47 P. M. The two held close
conversation, and went off together across park in direction of
Roxton 6.54 P. M. Lady wore no hat. Regarded incident as unusual,
so observed exact times.
"I note what the Inspector says, and will discuss the point later,"
said Furneaux, returning the book. The policeman grinned. As between
Scotland Yard and himself a complete understanding was established.
"Have the local police discovered anything of importance?" inquired
Fenley, who, now that his own affairs called for no immediate
attention, seemed to give more heed to the manner of his father's
death. At first, his manner to Furneaux had been churlish in the
extreme. Evidently he thought he could treat the representative of the
Criminal Investigation Department just as he pleased. At this moment
he elected to be gruffly civil in tone.
"They are making full inquiries, of course," replied the detective,
"but I think the investigation will be conducted in the main by my
Department----As I was saying, Mr. Fenley, undoubtedly the shot was
fired from this locality. Dr. Stern, who is an authority on bullet
wounds, is convinced of that, even if there was no other evidence,
such as the chauffeur's and the artist's I told you of, together with
the impressions formed by Bates and others."
"Were there no footprints?" was the next question, and Fenley eyed the
ground critically. He deemed those Scotland Yard Johnnies thickheaded
chaps, at the best.
"None of any value. Since ten o'clock, however, dozens of new ones
have been made. That is why the policeman is keeping an eye on the
place--chiefly to warn off intruders. Shall we return to the house?"
"It's a strange business," said Fenley, striding down the slope by
Furneaux's side. "Why in the world should any one want to shoot my
poor old guv'nor? He was straight as a die, and I don't know a soul
who had any real grievance against him."
Furneaux did not appear to be listening. The two were approaching the
patch of moist earth which bore the impress of Robert Fenley's boots.
"By the way," he said suddenly, "are you aware that there is a sort of
a theory that your father was shot by a rifle belonging to you?"
"What?" roared the other, and it was hard to say whether rage or
astonishment predominated in his voice. "Is that one of Hilton's
dodges to get me into trouble?"
"But you do own an Express rifle, which you keep in your sitting-room.
Where is it now?"
"In the place where it always is. Standing in a corner behind the
bookcase."
"When did you see it last, Mr. Fenley?"
"How the deuce do I know? I give it a run through with an oiled rag
about once a month. It must be nearly a month since I cleaned it."
"It has gone."
"Gone where?"
"I wish I knew."
"But who the devil could have taken it?"
If ever a man was floundering in a morass of wrath and amazement it
was this loud-voiced youngster. He was a slow-witted lout, but the
veriest dullard must have perceived that the disappearance of the
weapon which presumably killed his father was a serious matter for its
owner.
In order to grasp this new phase of the tragedy in its proper bearings
he stood stock still, and gazed blankly into the serious face of the
detective. Furneaux knew he would do that. It was a mannerism. Some
men can not think and move at the same moment, and Robert Fenley was
one.
Naturally, young Fenley did not know that he was leaving a new set of
footprints by the side of the others already attributed to him. Having
done that, he was no longer wanted.
"We'll solve every part of the puzzle in time," said Furneaux slowly,
moistening his thin lips with his tongue as if he were about to taste
another glass of rare old-vintage wine.
"I mentioned the fact of the gun being missing to show you how unwise
you were this morning. You shouldn't have bolted off as you did when
Mr. Winter requested you to remain. I haven't the least doubt, Mr.
Fenley, that you can prove you were in London at the time the murder
was committed, and during some days prior to it, but the police like
these matters to be cleared up; if I may give you a hint, you'll tell
the Superintendent that you regret your behavior, and show you mean
what you say by giving him all the information he asks for. Here he is
now. I hear Mr. Hilton's car, and Mr. Winter is coming with him from
town."
"Mr. Hilton's car? It's no more his car than mine. You mark my words,
there will be trouble in the family if my brother starts bossing
things. He hates me, and would do me an ill turn if he could. Was it
Hilton who spread this story about my gun?"
"No. Rather the reverse. He kept your name studiously out of it."
"Who was it, then? I have a right to know."
"I fail to recollect just how the matter cropped up. It was the
direct outcome of the common observation of several persons who heard
the report, and who were able to discriminate between one class of gun
and another. Anyhow, there is no occasion for you to squeal before you
are hurt. You acted like a fool this morning. Try and behave yourself
more reputably now."
The prophet Balaam was not more taken aback when rebuked by his ass
than Robert Fenley when Furneaux turned and rent him in this fashion.
Hitherto the detective's manner had been mildness itself, so this
change of front was all the more staggering.
"Oh, I say!" came the blustering protest. "I don't allow any of you
fellows to talk to me like that. I----"
"You'll hear worse in another second if you really annoy me," said
Furneaux. "Heretofore no one seems to have troubled to inform you what
a special sort of idiot you are. Though your last words to your father
were a threat that you were inclined to shoot him and your precious
self, when you saw him lying dead you thought of nothing but your own
wretched follies, and bolted off to Hendon Road, Battersea, instead of
remaining here and trying to help the police.
"When I tell you your gun is missing you yelp about your brother's
animosity. Before your father is laid in his grave you threaten
to upset the household because your brother acts as its master.
Why shouldn't he? Are you fitted to take the reins or share his
responsibility? If you were at your right job, Robert Fenley, you'd
be carrying bricks and mortar in a hod; for you haven't brains enough
to lay a brick or use a trowel."
The victim of this outburst thought that the little detective had gone
mad, though the reference to Hendon Road had startled him, and a
scared expression had come into his eyes.
"Look here----" he began, but Furneaux checked him again instantly.
"I've looked at you long enough to sum you up as a sulky puppy," he
said. "If you had any sort of gumption you would realize that you
occupy a singularly precarious position. Were it not for the lucky
accident that my colleague and I were on the spot this morning it is
more than likely that the county police would have arrested you at
sight. Don't give us any more trouble, or you'll be left to stew in
your own juice. I have warned you, once and for all. If you care to
swallow your spleen and amend your manners, I shall try to believe you
are more idiot than knave. At present I am doubtful which way the
balance tips."
Furneaux stalked off rapidly, leaving the other to fume with
indignation as he followed. With his almost uncanny gift of
imaginative reasoning, the Jersey man had guessed the purport of
Fenley's talk with Sylvia in the garden. He had watched the two from
a window of the dining-room, and had read correctly the girl's
ill-concealed scorn, not quite devoid of dread, as revealed by face
and gesture. To make sure, he waylaid her in the hall while she was
hurrying to her own apartments. Then he sauntered after Robert Fenley,
and only bided his time to empty upon him the vials of his wrath.
He had taken the oaf's measure with a nice exactitude. To trounce him
without frightening him also was only inviting a complaint to the
Commissioner, but Furneaux was well aware that the longer Robert
Fenley's dull brain dwelt on the significance of that address in
Battersea being known to the police, the less ready would he be
to stir a hornets' nest into activity by showing his resentment.
Obviously, Furneaux's methods were not those advocated in the Police
Manual. Any other man who practiced them would risk dismissal, but the
"Little 'Un" of the Yard was a law unto himself.
Meanwhile, he was hurrying after the "Big 'Un," (such, it will be
recalled, were the respective nicknames Furneaux and Winter had
received in the Department) who had alighted from the car, and was
listening to Hilton Fenley berating a servant for having permitted
Trenholme to make known his presence to Miss Manning. The man,
however, protested that he had done nothing of the sort. Miss Sylvia
had been called to the lodge telephone, and the footman's acquaintance
with the facts went no farther. Smothering his annoyance as best he
could, Fenley rang up Mrs. Bates and asked for particulars. When the
woman explained what had happened, he rejoined Winter in the hall,
paying no heed to Furneaux, who was entering at the moment.
"That artist fellow who was trespassing in the park this morning--if
nothing worse is proved against him--must have a superb cheek," he
said angrily. "He actually had the impertinence to ask Miss Manning to
meet him, no doubt offering some plausible yarn as an excuse. I hope
you'll test his story thoroughly, Mr. Winter. At the least, he should
be forced to say what he was doing in these grounds at such an unusual
hour."
"He is putting himself right with Miss Manning now," broke in
Furneaux.
"Putting himself right with Miss Manning? What the deuce do you mean,
sir?" Fenley could snarl effectively when in the mood, and none might
deny his present state of irritation, be the cause what it might.
"That young lady is the only person to whom he owes an explanation. He
is giving it to her now."
"Will you kindly be more explicit?"
Furneaux glanced from his infuriated questioner to Winter, his face
one note of mild interrogation and non-comprehension.
"Really, Mr. Fenley, I have said the same thing in two different
ways," he cried. "As a rule I contrive to be tolerably lucid in my
remarks--don't I, Mr. Robert?" for the younger Fenley had just come
in.
"What's up now?" was Robert's non-committal answer.
For some reason his brother did not reply, but Furneaux suddenly grew
voluble.
"Of course, you haven't heard that an artist named Trenholme was
painting near the lake this morning when your father was killed," he
said. "Fortunately, he was there before and after the shot was fired.
He can prove, almost to a yard, the locality where the murderer was
concealed. In fact, he is coming here tomorrow, at my request, to go
over the ground with me.
"An interesting feature of the affair is that Mr. Trenholme is a
genius. I have never seen better work. One of his drawings, a water
color, has all the brilliancy and light of a David Cox, but another,
in oil, is a positive masterpiece. It must have been done in a few
minutes, because Miss Manning did not know he was sitting beneath the
cedars, and it is unreasonable to suppose that she would preserve the
same pose for any length of time--sufficiently long, that is----"
"Did the bounder paint a picture of Sylvia bathing?" broke in Robert,
his red face purple with rage.
"Allow me to remind you that you are speaking of a painter of
transcendent merit," said Furneaux suavely.
"When _I_ meet him I'll give him a damned good hiding."
"He's rather tall and strongly built."
"I don't care how big he is, I'll down him."
"Oh, stop this pothouse talk," put in Hilton, giving the blusterer a
contemptuous glance. "Mr. Furneaux, you seem primed with information.
Why should Mr. Trenholme, if that is his name, have the audacity to
call on Miss Manning? He might have the impudence to skulk among the
shrubs and watch a lady bathing, but I fail to see any motive for his
visit to The Towers this evening."
Furneaux shook his head. Evidently the point did not appeal to him.
"There is no set formula that expresses the artistic temperament," he
said. "The man who passes whole years in studying the nude is often
endowed with a very high moral sense. Mr. Trenholme, though carried
away by enthusiasm this morning, may be consumed with remorse tonight
if he imagines that the lady who formed the subject of his sketch is
likely to be distressed because of it.
"I fear I am to blame. I stopped Mr. Trenholme from destroying the
picture today. He meant burning it, since he had the sense to realize
that he would be summoned as a witness, not only at tomorrow's
inquest, but when the affair comes before the courts. I was bound
to point out that the drawings supplied his solitary excuse for being
in the locality at all. He saw that--unwillingly, it is true, but
with painful clearness--so I assume that his visit to Miss Manning
was expiatory, a sort of humble obeisance to a goddess whom he had
offended unwittingly. I assume, too, that his plea for mercy has not
proved wholly unsuccessful or Miss Manning would not now be walking
with him across the park."
"What!" roared Robert. He turned to the gaping footman, for the whole
conversation had taken place in the hall. "Which way did Miss Sylvia
go?" he cried.
"Down the avenue, sir," said the man. "I saw Miss Sylvia meet the
gentleman, and after some talk they went through the trees to the
right."
Robert raced off. Winter, who had not interfered hitherto, because
Furneaux always had a valid excuse for his indiscretions, made as if
he would follow and restrain the younger Fenley; but Furneaux caught
his eye and winked. That sufficed. The Superintendent contented
himself with gazing after Robert Fenley, who ran along the avenue
until clear of the Quarry Wood, when he, too, plunged through the
line of elms and was lost to sight.
Hilton watched his impetuous brother with a brooding underlook. He
still held in his hand a leather portfolio bulging with papers, some
of which he had placed there when Winter opened the door of the
railway coach in St. Pancras station. The footman offered to relieve
him of it, but was swept aside with a gesture.
"I have never known Robert so excited and erratic in his movements as
he has been today," he said at last. "I hope he will not engage in a
vulgar quarrel with this Mr. Trenholme, especially in Miss Manning's
presence."
Apparently he could not quite control his voice, in which a sense of
unctuous amusement revealed itself. Furneaux could not resist such an
opportunity. He had pierced Robert's thick skin; now he undertook a
more delicate operation.
"That would be doubly unfortunate," he said, chuckling quietly. "If I
am any judge of men, Mr. Robert Fenley would meet more than his match
in our artist friend, while he would certainly undo all the good
effect of an earlier and most serious and convincing conversation with
the young lady."
Hilton swung around on him.
"When did my brother return from London?" he asked.
"Shortly before five o'clock. He and Miss Manning had tea together,
and afterward strolled in the gardens. I don't wonder at any artist
wishing to sketch Miss Manning? Do you? If I may be allowed to say it,
I have never seen a more graceful and charming girl."
"May I inquire if you have made any progress in the particular inquiry
for which I brought you here?"
Hilton Fenley spoke savagely. He meant to be offensive, since the
innuendo was unmistakable. Apparently Furneaux's remarks had achieved
some hypodermic effect.
"Oh, yes," was the offhand answer. "I have every reason to believe
that Mr. Winter and I will make an arrest without undue loss of time."
"I am glad to hear it. Thus far your methods have not inspired the
confidence I, as a member of the public, was inclined to repose in
Scotland Yard. I am going to my rooms now, and dine at a quarter to
eight. About nine o'clock I wish to go into matters thoroughly with
Mr. Winter and you. At present, I think it only fair to say that I am
not satisfied with the measures, whatever they may be, you have seen
fit to adopt."
He seemed to await a retort, but none came, so he strode across the
hall and hurried up the stairs. Furneaux continued to gaze blankly
down the long, straight avenue, nor did he utter a word till a door
opened and closed on the first floor in the southeast corner.
Then he spoke.
"Some people are very hard to please," he said plaintively.
Winter beckoned to the footman.
"Do you mind asking Mr. Tomlinson if he can come here for a moment?"
he said. When the man disappeared he muttered--
"Why are you stroking everybody's fur the wrong way, Charles?"
"A useful simile, James. If they resemble cats we may see sparks, and
each of those young men has something of the tiger in him."
"But things have gone horribly wrong all day--after a highly promising
start, too. I don't see that we are any nearer laying hands on a
murderer because we have unearthed various little scandals in the
lives of Mortimer Fenley's sons. And what game are you playing with
this artist, Trenholme?"
"The supremely interesting problem just now is the game which he is
playing with Robert Fenley. If that young ass attacks him he'll get
the licking he wants, and if you're in any doubt about my
pronouns----"
"Oh, dash you and your pronouns! Here's Tomlinson. Quick! Have you a
plan of any sort?"
"Three! Three separate lines of attack, each deadly. But there are
folk whose mental equipment renders them incapable of understanding
plain English. Now, my friend Tomlinson will show you what I mean.
I'll ask him a simple question, and he will give you a perfect example
of a direct answer. Tomlinson, can you tell me what the extrados of a
voussoir is?"
"No, Mr. Furneaux, I can not," said the butler, smiling at what he
regarded as the little man's humor.
"There!" cried Furneaux delightedly. "Ain't I a prophet? No evasions
about Tomlinson, are there?"
"I think you're cracked," growled Winter, picking up his suitcase. "If
I'm to stay here tonight, I shall want a room of some sort. Mr.
Tomlinson, can you----"
"Share mine," broke in Furneaux. "I'm the quietest sleeper living. Our
friend here is sure to have at disposal a room with two beds in it."
"The principal guest room is unoccupied," said the butler.
"Where is it?"
"On the first floor, sir, facing south."
"Couldn't be better. The very thing. Ah! Here comes my baggage." And
the others saw a policeman bicycling up the avenue, with a small
portmanteau balanced precariously between the handlebars and the front
buttons of his tunic.
"You gentlemen will dine in my room, I hope?" said Tomlinson, when he
had escorted them upstairs.
"We are not invited to the family circle, at any rate," said Winter.
"Well, you will not suffer on that account," announced Tomlinson
genially. "Of course, I shall not have the pleasure of sharing the
meal with you, but dinner will be served at a quarter to eight. Mr.
Furneaux knows his way about the house, so, with your permission, I'll
leave you at present. If you're disengaged at nine thirty I'll be glad
to see you in my sanctum."
"Isn't he a gem?" cried Furneaux, when the door had closed, and he and
Winter were alone.
Winter sat down on the side of a bed. He was worried, and did not
strive to hide it. For the first time in his life he felt distrustful
of himself, and he suspected, too, that Furneaux was only covering
abject failure by a display of high spirits.
"Why so pensive an attitude, James?" inquired the other softly. "Are
you still wondering what the extrados of a voussoir is?"
"I don't care a tuppenny damn what it is."
"But that's where you're wrong. That's where you're crass and
pig-headed. The extrados of a voussoir----"
"Oh, kill it, and let it die happy----"
"--is the outer curve of a wedge-shaped stone used for building an
arch. Now, mark you, those are words of merit. Wedge, arch--wedges of
fact which shall construct the arch of evidence. We'll have our man
in the dock across that bridge before we are much older."
"Confound it, how? He couldn't be in his bedroom and in the Quarry
Wood, four hundred yards away, at one and the same moment."
Furneaux gazed fixedly at his friend's forehead, presumably the seat
of reason.
"Sometimes, James, you make me gasp with an amazed admiration," he
cooed. "You do, really. You arrive at the same conclusion as I, a
thinker, without any semblance of thought process on your part. How do
you manage it! Is it through association with me? You know, there's
such a thing as inductive electricity. A current passing through a
highly charged wire can excite another wire, even a common iron one,
without actual contact."
"I've had a rotten afternoon, and don't feel up to your far-fetched
jokes just now; so if you have nothing to report, shut up," said the
Superintendent crossly.
"Then I'll cheer your melancholy with a bit of real news brightened
by imagination," answered Furneaux promptly. "Hilton Fenley couldn't
have fired the rifle himself, except by certain bizarre means which I
shall lay before the court later; but he planned and contrived the
murder, down to the smallest detail. He wore Brother Robert's boots
when available; from appearances Brother Robert is now wearing the
identical pair which made those footprints we saw, but I shall know
in the morning, for that fiery young sprig obligingly left another
well-marked set of prints in the same place twenty minutes ago. When
circumstances compelled Hilton to walk that way in his own boots, he
slipped on two roughly made moccasins, which he burned last night,
having no further use for them. Therefore, he knew the murder would
take place this morning.
"I've secured shreds of the sacking out of which he made the pads to
cover his feet; and an under gardener remembers seeing Mr. Hilton
making off with an empty potato sack one day last week, and wondering
why he wanted it. During some mornings recently Hilton Fenley
breakfasted early and went out, but invariably had an excuse for not
accompanying his father to the City. He was then studying the details
of the crime, making sure that an expert, armed with a modern rifle,
could not possibly miss such a target as a man standing outside a
doorway, and elevated above the ground level by some five feet or
more.
"No servant could possibly observe that Mr. Hilton was wearing Mr.
Robert's boots, because they do not differ greatly in size; but
luckily for us, a criminal always commits an error of some sort, and
Hilton blundered badly when he made those careful imprints of his
brother's feet, as the weather has been fine recently, and the only
mud in this locality lies in that hollow of the Quarry Wood. It
happens that some particles of that identical mud were imbedded in the
carpet of Hilton Fenley's sitting-room. I'm sorry to have to say it,
because the housemaid is a nice girl."
"Never mind the housemaid. Go on."
"Exactly what the housemaid would remark if she heard me; only she
would giggle, and you look infernally serious. Next item: Hilton
Fenley, like most high-class scoundrels, has the nerves of a cat, with
all a cat's fiendish brutality. He could plan and carry out a callous
crime and lay a subtle trail which must lead to that cry baby, Robert,
but he was unable to control his emotions when he saw his father's
corpse. That is where the murderer nearly always fails. He can never
picture in death that which he hated and doomed in life. There is an
element in death----"
"Chuck it!" said Winter unfeelingly.
Furneaux winced, and affected to be deeply hurt.
"The worst feature of service in Scotland Yard is its demoralizing
effect on the finer sentiments," he said sadly. "Men lose all human
instincts when they become detectives or newspaper reporters. Now the
ordinary policeman ofttimes remains quite soft-hearted. For instance,
Police Constable Farrow, though preening himself on being the pivot on
which this case revolves, was much affected by Hilton Fenley's first
heart-broken words to him. 'Poor young gentleman,' said Farrow, when
we were discussing the affair this afternoon, 'he was cut up somethink
orful. I didn't think he had it in him, s'elp me, I didn't. Tole me to
act for the best. Said some one had fired a bullet which nearly tore
his father to pieces.'
"There was more of the same sort of thing, and I got Farrow to jot
down the very words in his notebook. Of course, he doesn't guess
why.... Now, I wonder how Hilton Fenley knew the effect of that bullet
on his father's body. The doctor had not arrived. There had been only
a superficial examination by Tomlinson of the orifice of the wound.
What other mind in Roxton would picture to itself the havoc caused by
an expanding bullet? The man who uttered those words _knew_ what sort
of bullet had been used. He _knew_ it would tear his father's body to
pieces. A neurotic imagination was at work, and that cry of horror was
the soul's unconscious protest against the very fiendishness of its
own deed....
"Oh, yes. Let these Fenleys quarrel about that girl, and we'll see
Hilton marching steadily toward the Old Bailey. Of course, we'll
assist him. We'll make certain he doesn't deviate or falter on the
road. But he'll follow it, and of his own accord; and the first long
stride will be taken when he goes to the Quarry Wood to retrieve the
rifle which lies hidden there."
Winter whistled softly. Then he looked at his watch.
"By Jove! Turned half past seven," he said.
"Ha!" cackled Furneaux. "James is himself again. We have hardly a
scrap of evidence, but that doesn't trouble our worthy Superintendent
a little bit, and he'll enjoy his dinner far better than he thought
possible ten minutes ago. _Sacré nom d'une pipe!_ By the time you've
tasted a bottle from Tomlinson's favorite bin you'll be preparing a
brief for the Treasury solicitor!"
CHAPTER XI
SOME PRELIMINARY SKIRMISHING
Now, perhaps, taking advantage of an interval while the
representatives of Scotland Yard sought the aid of soap and water as
a preliminary to a meal, it is permissible to wander in the gloaming
with Sylvia Manning and her escort. To speak of the gloaming is a
poetic license, it is true. Seven o'clock on a fine summer evening in
England is still broad daylight, but daylight of a quality that lends
itself admirably to the exigencies of romance. There is a species of
dreaminess in the air. The landscape assumes soft tints unknown to
a fiery sun. Tender shadows steal from undiscovered realms. It is
permissible to believe that every night on Parnassus is a night in
June.
At first these two young people were at a loss to know what to talk
about. By tacit consent they ignored the morning's tragedy, yet they
might not indulge in the irresponsible chatter which would have
provided a ready resource under normal conditions. Luckily Trenholme
remembered that the girl said she painted.
"It is a relief to find that you also are of the elect," he said. "An
artist will look at my pictures with the artist's eye. There are
other sorts of eyes--Eliza's, for instance. Do you know Eliza, of the
White Horse?"
Sylvia collected her wits, which were wool-gathering.
"I think I have met her at village bazaars and tea fights," she said.
"Is she a stout, red-faced woman?"
"Both, to excess; but her chief attribute is her tongue, which has
solved the secret of perpetual motion. Had it kept silent even for
a few seconds at lunch time today, that sharp-eyed and rabbit-eared
detective would never have known of the second picture--your
picture--because I can eke out my exhibits by a half finished sketch
of the lake and a pencil note of the gates. But putting the bits of
the puzzle together afterwards, I came to the conclusion that Mary,
our kitchen maid, passed my room, saw the picture on the easel and was
scandalized. She of course told Eliza, who went to be shocked on her
own account, and then came downstairs and pitched into me. At that
moment the Scotland Yard man turned up."
"Is it so very--dreadful, then?"
"Dreadful! It may fall far short of the standard set by my own vanity;
but given any sort of skill in the painter, how can a charming study
of a girl in a bathing costume, standing by the side of a statue of
Aphrodite, be dreadful? Of course, Miss Manning, you can hardly
understand the way in which a certain section of the public regards
art. In studio jargon we call it the 'Oh, ma!' crowd, that being the
favorite exclamation of the young ladies who peep and condemn. These
people are the hopeless Philistines who argue about the sex of angels,
and demand that nude statues shall be draped. But my picture must
speak for itself. Tell me something about your own work. Are you
taking up painting seriously?"
Now, to be candid, Sylvia herself was not wholly emancipated from the
state of Philistinism which Trenholme was railing at. Had he been less
eager to secure a favorable verdict, or even less agitated by the
unlooked-for condescension she was showing, he would have seen the
absurdity of classing a girl of twenty with the lovers of art for
art's sake, those earnest-eyed enthusiasts who regard a perfect curve
or an inimitable flesh tint as of vastly greater importance than the
squeamishness of the young person. Painters have their limitations as
well as Mrs. Grundy, and John Trenholme did not suffer a fool gladly.
Sylvia, however, had the good sense to realize that she was listening
to a man whose finer instincts had never been trammeled by conventions
which might be wholesome in an academy for young ladies. Certainly she
wondered what sort of figure she cut in this much debated picture, but
that interesting point would be determined shortly. Meanwhile she
answered demurely enough:
"I'm afraid you have taken me too seriously. I have hardly progressed
beyond the stage where one discovers, with a sort of gasp, that trees
may be blue or red, and skies green. Though I am going to look at your
pictures, Mr. Trenholme, it by no means follows that I shall ever dare
to show you any of mine."
"Still, I think you must have the artistic soul," he said
thoughtfully.
"Why?"
"There was more than mere physical delight in your swimming this
morning. You reveled in the sunlight, in the golden air, in the scents
of trees and shrubs and flowering grass. First-rate swimmer as you
are, you would not have enjoyed that dip half as much if it were taken
in a covered bath, where your eyes dwelt only on white tiles and
dressing-booths."
The girl, subtly aware of a new element in life, was alarmed by its
piercing sweetness, and with ruthless logic brought their talk back to
a commonplace level.
"Roxton seems to be a rather quaint place to find you in, Mr.
Trenholme," she said. "How did you happen on our tiny village? Though
so far from London, we are quite a byway. Why did you pay us a visit?"
So Trenholme dropped to earth again, and they spoke of matters of
slight import till the boundary wall was reached.
Sylvia hailed a man attending cattle in the farmyard, and the artist
vaulted the wall, which was breast high. The girl wondered if she
could do that. When opportunity served she would try. Resting her
elbows on the coping-stones, she watched Trenholme as he hurried away
among the buildings and made for the village. She had never before met
such a man or any one even remotely like him. He differed essentially
from the Fenleys, greatly as the brothers themselves differed. Without
conscious effort to please, he had qualities that appealed strongly to
women, and Sylvia knew now that no consideration would induce her to
marry either of her "cousins."
If asked to put her thought into words, she would have boggled at the
task, for intuition is not to be defined in set speech. In her own
way, she had summed up the characteristics of the two men with one of
whom marriage had been at least a possibility. Hilton she feared and
Robert she despised, so if either was to become her husband, it would
be Hilton. But five minutes of John Trenholme's companionship had
given her a standard by which to measure her suitors, and both fell
wofully short of its demands. She saw with startling clearness of
vision that Hilton, the schemer, and Robert, the wastrel, led selfish
lives. Souls they must possess, but souls starved by lack of
spirituality, souls pent in dun prisons of their own contriving.
She was so lost in thought, thought that strayed from crystal-bright
imageries to nebulous shapes at once dark and terrifying, that the
first intimation she received of Robert Fenley's approach was his
stertorous breathing. From a rapid walk he had broken into a jog trot
when he saw Trenholme vanish over the wall. Of late he seldom walked
or rode a horse, and he was slightly out of condition, so his heavy
face was flushed and perspiring, and his utterance somewhat labored
when the girl turned at his cry:
"I say, Sylvia--you've given me such a chase! Who the deuce is that
fellow, an' what are you doing here?"
Robert had appeared at an inauspicious moment. Sylvia eyed him with a
new disfavor. He was decidedly gross, both in manner and language. She
was sure he could not have vaulted the wall.
"I'm not aware that I called for any chasing on your part," she said,
with an aloofness perilously akin to disdain.
He halted, panting, and eyed her sulkily.
"No, but dash it all! You can't go walking around with any rotten
outsider who forces himself into your company," was the most amiable
reply he could frame on the spur of the moment.
"You are short of breath," she said, smiling in a curiously impersonal
way. "Run back to the house. It will do you good."
"All right. You run with me. The first gong will go any minute, and
we've got to eat, you know, even though the pater _is_ dead."
It was an unhappy allusion. Sylvia stiffened.
"My poor uncle's death did not seem to trouble you greatly this
morning," she said. "Kindly leave me now. I'll follow soon. I am
waiting for Mr. Trenholme, who wants to show me some sketches."
"A nice time to look at sketches, upon my word! And who's Trenholme,
I'd like to know?"
Sylvia bethought herself. Certainly an explanation was needful, and
her feminine wit supplied one instantly.
"Mr. Trenholme was sent here by the Scotland Yard people," she said,
a trifle less frigidly. "I suppose we shall all be mixed up in the
inquiry the detectives are holding, and it seems that Mr. Trenholme
was at work in the park this morning when that awful affair took
place. Unknown to me, I was near the spot where he was sketching
before breakfast, and one of the detectives, the little one, says it
is important that--that the fact should be proved. Mr. Trenholme
called to tell me just what happened. So you see there is nothing in
his action that should annoy any one--you least of any, since you
were away from home at the time."
"But why has he mizzled over the wall?"
"He is staying at the White Horse Inn, and has gone to fetch the
drawings."
"Oh, I didn't understand. If that's it, I'll wait till he turns up.
You'll soon get rid of him."
Sylvia had no valid reason to urge against this decision, but she did
not desire Robert's company, and chose a feminine method of resenting
it.
"I don't think Mr. Trenholme will be anxious to meet you," she said
coolly.
"Why not?"
"You are such a transparent person in your likes and dislikes. You
have never even seen him, in the ordinary sense of the word, yet you
speak of him in a way so unwarranted, so ridiculously untrue, that
your manner might annoy him."
"My manner, indeed! Is he so precious then? By gad, it'll be
interesting to look this rare bird over."
She turned her back on him and leaned on the wall again. Her slight,
lissome figure acquired a new elegance from her black dress. Robert
had never set eyes on Sylvia in such a costume before that day.
Hitherto she had been a schoolgirl, a flapper, a straight-limbed,
boyish young person in long frocks; but today she seemed to have put
on a new air of womanliness, and he found it strangely attractive.
"There's no sense in our quarreling about the chap anyhow," he said
with a gruff attempt to smooth away difficulties. "Of course, I
sh'an't let on I followed you. Just spotted you in the distance and
joined you by chance, don't you know."
Sylvia did not answer. She was comparing Robert Fenley's
conversational style with John Trenholme's, and the comparison was
unflattering to Robert.
So he, too, came and leaned on the wall.
"I'm sorry if I annoyed you just now, Syl," he said. "That dashed
little detective is to blame. He does put things in such a beastly
unpleasant way."
"What things?"
"Why, about you and me and all of us. Gave me a regular lecture
because I went back to town this morning. I couldn't help it, old
girl. I really couldn't. I had to settle some urgent business, but
that's all ended now. The pater's death has steadied me. No more
gallivanting off to London for me. Settle down in Roxton, Board of
Guardians on Saturdays, church on Sunday, tea and tennis at the
vicarage, and 'you-come-to-our-place-tomorrow.' You know the sort of
thing--old-fashioned, respectable and comfy. I'll sell my motor bike
and start a car. Motor bikes make a fellow a bit of a vagabond--eh,
what? They _will_ go the pace. You can't stop 'em. Fifty per, and be
hanged to the police, that's their motto."
"It sounds idyllic," the girl forced herself to say lightly, but her
teeth met with a snap, and her fingers gripped the rough surface of
the stones, for she remembered how Trenholme had said of her that she
"reveled in the sunlight, in the golden air, in the scents of trees
and shrubs and flowering grasses."
There was a musical cadence in her voice that restored Robert's surly
good humor; he was of that peculiar type of spoiled youth whose laugh
is a guffaw and whose mirth ever holds a snarl.
"Here comes your paint slinger," he said. "Wonder if he really can
stage a decent picture. If so, when the present fuss is ended we'll
get him to do a group. You and me and the keepers and dogs in front
of the Warren Covert, next October, after a big drive. How would that
be?"
"I'm sure Mr. Trenholme will feel flattered."
When Trenholme approached he was not too well pleased to find Miss
Manning in charge of a new cavalier.
From items gathered earlier in the village he guessed the newcomer's
identity. Perhaps he expected that the girl would offer an
introduction, but she only smiled pleasantly and said:
"You must have hurried. I do hope I haven't put you to any
inconvenience?"
"Eliza informed me that she had just popped my chicken in the oven,
so there is plenty of time," he said. "I suppose it makes one hot
to be constantly popping things into ovens. In the course of years
one should become a sort of salamander. Have you ever read the
autobiography of that great artist and very complete rascal, Benvenuto
Cellini? He is the last person reputed to have seen a real salamander
in the fire, and he only remembered the fact because his father beat
him lest he should forget it."
"Ben who?" broke in Robert cheerfully.
"Benvenuto Cellini."
"Never heard of him.... Well, let's have a peep-o. Miss Manning and I
dine at a quarter to eight. You've been taking some snapshots in the
park, I'm told. If they've got any ginger in them----"
"Probably you will describe them as hot stuff," said Trenholme, laying
a portfolio on the wall in front of Sylvia and opening it.
"This is a pencil drawing of the great gates," he went on, ignoring
Fenley. "Of course, they're Wren's, and therefore beautiful. Roxton
Park holds a real treasure in those gates, Miss Manning. Here is a
water-color sketch of the house and grounds. Do you like it?"
"Oh, it is exquisite! Why, you have caught the very glint of sunshine
on the walls and roofs, and it is shimmering in the leaves of that
copper beech. Ah me! It looks so easy."
Robert peered over her shoulder. Sylvia's gasp of admiration annoyed
him; but he looked and said nothing.
"This," continued Trenholme, "is an unfinished study of the lake. I
was so busily occupied that I was not aware of your presence until you
were quite near at hand. Then when you dived into the water I grabbed
a canvas and some tubes of paint. Here is the result--completed, to a
large extent, in my room at the inn."
He took a picture out of a compartment of the portfolio specially
constructed to protect an undried surface, and placed it at an angle
that suited the light. His tone was unconcerned, for he had steeled
himself against this crucial moment. Would she be angered? Would those
limpid blue eyes, violet now in shadow, be raised to his in protest
and vexed dismay? During the brief walk to and from the inn he had
recollected the girl's age, her surroundings, the cramping influences
of existence in a society of middle-class City folk. He felt like a
prisoner awaiting a verdict when the issue was doubtful, and a wave of
impulse might sway the jury one way or the other.
But he held his head high, and his face flushed slightly, for there
could be no gainsaying the message glowing from that cunning brush
work. There were two goddesses, one in marble and one palpitating with
life. The likeness, too, was undeniable. If one was a replica of Greek
art at its zenith, the other was unmistakably Sylvia Manning.
The girl gazed long and earnestly. Her pale cheeks had reddened for an
instant, but the flood of surprise and emotion ebbed as quickly as it
flowed, and left her wan, with parted lips.
At last she looked at Trenholme and spoke.
"Thank you!" she said, and their eyes met.
The artist understood; and he in turn, blanched somewhat. Rather
hastily he replaced the picture in its receptacle.
Robert Fenley coughed and grinned, and the spell was broken.
"You said I'd call it hot stuff," he said. "Well, you sized my opinion
up to a T. Of course, it's jolly clever--any fellow can see that----"
"Good night, Mr. Trenholme," said Sylvia, and she made off at a rapid
pace. Robert grinned again.
"No young lady would stand that sort of thing," he chuckled. "You
didn't really think she would--eh, what? But look here, I'll buy it.
Send me a line later."
He hurried after Sylvia, running to overtake her. Trenholme stood
there a long time; in fact, until the two were hidden by the distant
line of trees. Then he smiled.
"So you are Robert Fenley," he communed, packing the portfolio
leisurely. "Well, if Sylvia Manning marries you, I'll be a bachelor
all my days, for I'll never dare imagine I know anything about a
woman's soul; though I'm prepared at this hour of grace to stake my
career that that girl's soul is worthy of her very perfect body."
Puffing a good deal, Fenley contrived to overhaul his "cousin."
"By jing, Sylvia, you can step out a bit," he said. "And you change
your mind mighty quick. Five minutes ago you were ready to wait any
length of time till that Johnny turned up, and now you're doing more
than five per. What's the rush? It's only half past seven, and we
don't dress tonight."
"I'm not dining downstairs," she answered.
"Oh, I say, I can't stand Hilton all alone."
"Nor can I stand either of you," she was tempted to retort, but
contented herself by saying that she had arranged for a meal to be
served in her aunt's room. Grumble and growl as he might, Robert could
not shake her resolve; he was in a vile temper when he reached the
dining-room.
His brother had not arrived, so he braced himself for an ordeal by
drinking a stiff whisky and soda. When Hilton came in the pair nodded
to each other but ate in silence. At last Robert glanced up at
Tomlinson.
"Just shove the stuff on the table and clear out," he said. "We'll
help ourselves. Mr. Hilton and I want to have a quiet talk."
Hilton gave him a quick underlook but did not interfere. Perhaps
purposely, when the servants had left the room he opened the battle
with a sneer.
"I hope you didn't make a fool of yourself this evening," he said.
"As how?" queried Robert, wondrously subdued to all appearance, though
aching to give the other what he called "a bit of his mind."
"I understand you made after Sylvia and the artist, meaning to
chastise somebody."
"You were wrong," said Robert slowly. "You nearly always are. I make
mistakes myself, but I own up handsomely. You don't. That's where we
differ, see?"
"I see differences," and Hilton helped himself to a glass of claret.
"Trenholme, the artist Johnny, is a clever chap--slightly cracked, as
they all are, but dashed clever. By gad, you ought to see the picture
he's painted of Sylvia. Anyhow, you _will_ see it. I've bought it."
"Really?"
"I said I'd buy it--same thing. He'll jump at the offer. It'll hang in
my dressing-room. I don't suppose Sylvia will kick about a trifle
like that when we're married."
Hilton was holding the glass of wine to his lips. His hand shook, and
he spilled a little, but he drank the remainder.
"When did you decide to marry Sylvia?" he inquired, after a pause
which might have been needed to gain control of his voice.
"It's been decided for a long time," said Robert doggedly, himself
showing some signs of enforced restraint. "It was the pater's wish, as
you know. I'm sorry now I didn't fix matters before he died; but
'better late than never.' I asked Sylvia today, and we've arranged to
get married quite soon."
"Are you by any chance telling the truth?"
"What the blazes do you mean?" and Robert's fist pounded the table
heavily.
"Exactly what I say. You say that you and Sylvia have arranged to get
married quite soon. Those were your words. Is that true?"
"Confound you, of course it is."
"Sylvia has actually agreed to that?"
"I asked her. What more do you want?"
"I am merely inquiring civilly what she said."
"Dash it, you know what girls are like. You ought to. Isn't Eileen
Garth a bit coy at times?"
"One might remark that Mrs. Lisle also was coy."
"Look here----" began the other furiously, but the other checked him.
"Let us stop bickering like a couple of counter jumpers," he said, and
a shrewder man than Robert might have been warned by the slow,
incisive utterance. "You make an astonishing announcement on an
occasion when it might least be expected, yet resent any doubt being
thrown on its accuracy. Did or did not Sylvia accept you?"
"Well, she said something about not wishing to talk of marriage so
soon after the old man's death, but that was just her way of putting
it. I mean to marry her; and when a fellow has made up his mind on a
thing like that it's best to say so and have done with it. Sylvia's a
jolly nice girl, and has plenty of tin. I'm first in the field, so I'm
warning off any other candidates. See?"
"Yes, I see," said Hilton, pouring out another glass of wine. This
time his hand was quite steady, and he drank without mishap.
"Ain't you going to wish me luck?" said Robert, eying him viciously.
"I agree with Sylvia. The day we have lost our father is hardly a
fitting time for such a discussion; or shall I say ceremony?"
"You can say what the devil you like. And you can do what you like.
Only keep off my corns and I won't tread on yours."
Having, as he fancied, struck a decisive blow in the struggle for
that rare prize, Sylvia, Robert Fenley pushed back his chair, arose,
waited a second for an answer which came not, and strode out,
muttering something about being "fed up."
Hilton's face was lowered, and one nervous hand shaded his brows.
Robert thought he had scored, but he could not see the inhuman rage
blazing in those hidden eyes. The discovery, had he made it, might not
have distressed him, but he would surely have been puzzled by the
strange smile which wrinkled Hilton's sallow cheeks when the door
closed and the Eurasian was left alone in the dining-room.
CHAPTER XII
WHEREIN SCOTLAND YARD IS DINED AND WINED
Three dinners for two were in progress in The Towers at one and the
same hour. One feast had been shortened by the ill-concealed hatred of
each brother for the other. At the second, brooding care found
unwonted lodging in the charming personality of Sylvia Manning--care,
almost foreboding, heightened by the demented mutterings of her
"aunt." At the third, with the detectives, sat responsibility; but
light-heartedly withal, since these seasoned man-hunters could cast
off their day's work like a garment.
The first and second meals were of the high quality associated with
English country houses of a superior class; the third was a spread for
epicures. Tomlinson saw to that. He was catering for a gourmet in
Furneaux, and rose to the requisite height.
The little man sighed as he tasted the soup.
"What is it now?" inquired Winter, whose glance was dwelling
appreciatively on a dusty bottle labeled "Clos Vosgeot, 1879."
"I hate eating the food of a man whom I mean to produce as a star
turn at the Old Bailey," was the despondent answer.
"So do I, if it comes to that," said Winter briskly. "But this
appetizing menu comes out of another larder. I shall be vastly
mistaken if we're not actually the guests of a certain pretty young
lady. Finance of the Fenley order is not in good odor in the City.
"Have no scruples, my boy. We may be vultures at the feast; but before
we see the end of the Fenley case there'll be a smash in Bishopsgate
Street, and Miss Sylvia Manning will be lucky if some sharp lawyer is
able to grab some part of the wreckage for her benefit."
"Clear logic, at any rate." And Furneaux brightened visibly.
"I'll tell you what it's based on. Our swarthy friend was examining
lists of securities in the train. He didn't lift his head quickly
enough--took me for a ticket puncher, I expect--so I had time to twig
what he was doing. I'd like to run my eye over the papers in that
leather portfolio."
"You may manage it. You're the luckiest fellow breathing. Such
opportunities come your way. _I_ have to make them."
After an interlude played by sole Colbert, Winter shot an amused
question at his companion.
"What's at the back of your head with regard to the artist and Miss
Sylvia?" he said.
"It's high time she spoke to a real man. These Fenleys are animals,
all of 'em. John Trenholme is a genius, and a good-looking one."
"I met the girl in a corridor a while ago, and she was rather
disconsolate, I thought."
"And with good reason. You've noticed how each brother eyes her.
They'll fight like jackals before this night is out. I hope Sylvia
will indulge in what women call a good cry. That will be Trenholme's
golden hour. Some Frenchman--of course he was clever, being
French--says that a man should beware when a woman smiles but he may
dare all when she weeps."
"Are we marriage brokers, then?"
"We must set the Fenleys at each other's throats."
"Yes," mused Winter aloud, when a _ris de veau bonne maman_ had passed
like a dream, "this affair is becoming decidedly interesting. But
every why hath a wherefore, according to Shakespeare. Tell me"--and
his voice sank to a whisper--"tell me why you believe Hilton Fenley
killed his father."
"You nosed your way into that problem this afternoon. Between his
mother and that girl, Eileen Garth, he was in a tight place. He stole
those bonds. I fancied it at the time, but I know it now. They were
negotiated in Paris by a woman who occupied a room in the Hotel
d'Italie, Rue Caumartin, Paris, and one of her registered boxes bore
the rail number, 517."
"You little devil!" blazed out Winter. "And you never said a word when
I told you!"
"Astonishment has rendered you incoherent. You mean, of course, when
you told me you had seen in Gloucester Mansions a box labeled in
accordance with the facts I have just retailed. But I yield that minor
point. It is a purist's, at the best. I have supplied a motive, one
motive, for the crime; the plotter feared discovery. But there are
dozens of others. He was impatient of the old man's rigid control.
Hilton is sharp and shrewd, and he guessed things were going wrong
financially. He knew that his father's methods were out of date, and
believed he could straighten the tangle if the reins of power were not
withheld too long.
"He saw that Sylvia Manning's gold was in the melting-pot, and
appreciated precisely the cause of the elder Fenley's anxiety that she
should marry Robert. Once in the family, you know, her fortunes were
bound up with theirs; while any 'cute lawyer could dish her in the
marriage settlements if sufficiently well paid for a nasty job. When
Sylvia was Mrs. Robert Fenley, and perhaps mother of a squalling
Fenley, the head of the business could face the future if not with
confidence, at least with safety. But where would Hilton be then? The
girl lost, the money in jeopardy, and he himself steadily elbowed
out. _'Cré nom!_ I've known men murdered for less convincing
reasons."
"Men, yes; not fathers."
"Some sons are the offspring of Beelzebub. Consider the parentage in
this instance. Fenley, a groom and horse coper on the one hand, and
the dark daughter of a Calcutta merchant on the other. If the progeny
of such a union escaped a hereditary taint it would be a miracle.
Cremate Hilton Fenley and his very dust will contain evil germs."
"You're strong in theory but weak in proof."
That style of argument invariably nettled Furneaux.
"You must butt into a few more mysterious suites of apartments in
London and elsewhere, and you'll supply proof in bucketfuls," he
snapped.
"But was there an accomplice? Squirm as you like, you can't get over
the fact that Hilton was in his room when the bullet that killed his
father came from the wood."
"He is not the sort of person likely to trust his liberty, his
life even, to the keeping of any other human being. I start from
the hypothesis that he alone planned and carried out the crime,
so I do not lift my hand and cry 'Impossible,' but I ask myself,
'How was it done?' Well, there are several methods worthy of
consideration--clockwork, electricity, even a time fuse attached
to the proper mechanism. I haven't really bothered myself yet to
determine the means, because when that knowledge becomes indispensable
we must have our man under lock and key."
"Of course, the rifle is securely fixed in that----"
The door opened. Tomlinson came in, smiling blandly.
"I hope you are enjoying your dinner, gentlemen both?" he said.
"You have made your cook an artist," said Furneaux.
"I suppose you are happier here than in a big London restaurant," said
Winter.
The butler appreciated such subtle compliments, and beamed on them.
"With a little encouragement and advice, our chef can prepare a very
eatable dinner," he said. "As for my own ambitions, I have had them,
like every man worth his salt; but I fill a comfortable chair here--no
worry, no grumbling, not a soul to say _nem_ or _con_, so long as
things go smoothly."
"It must have been _nem_ all the time," giggled Furneaux, and Winter
was so afflicted by a desire to sneeze that he buried his face in a
napkin.
"And how was the wine?" went on Tomlinson, with an eye on the little
man. Furneaux's features were crinkled in a Japanese smile. He wanted
to kick Winter, who was quivering with suppressed laughter.
"I never expected to find such vintages in a house of the _mauvais
riches_," he said. "Perhaps you don't speak French, Mr. Tomlinson, so
allow me to explain that I am alluding to men of wealth not born in
the purple."
"Precisely--self-made. Well sir, poor Mr. Fenley left the stocking of
his cellar entirely to me. I gave the matter much thought. When my
knowledge was at fault I consulted experts, and the result----"
"That is the result," cried Furneaux, seizing the empty claret bottle,
and planting it so firmly on the table that the cutlery danced.
A shoulder of lamb, served _à la Soubise_, appeared; and Tomlinson,
announcing that his presence in the dining-room had been dispensed
with, thought he would join them in a snack. Being a hospitable
creature, he opened another bottle of the Clos Vosgeot, but his guests
were not to be tempted.
"Well, then," he said, "in a few minutes you must try our port. It is
not Alto Douro, Mr. Furneaux, but it has body and bowket."
Winter was better prepared this time. Moreover he was carving, and
aware of a master's criticism, and there are occult problems connected
with even such a simple joint as a shoulder of lamb. Furneaux, too,
was momentarily subdued. He seemed to be reflecting sadly that statues
of gold, silver and bronze may have feet of clay.
"I have often thought, gentlemen," said the butler, "that yours must
be a most interesting profession. You meet all sorts and conditions of
men and women."
"We consort with the noblest malefactors," agreed Furneaux.
"Dear me, sir, you do use the queerest words. Now, I should never
dream of describing a criminal as noble."
"Not in the generally accepted sense, perhaps. But you, I take it,
have not had the opportunity of attending a really remarkable trial,
when, say, some intellectual giant among murderers is fighting for his
life. Believe me, no drama of the stage can rival that tragedy.
"The chief actor, remote, solitary, fenced away from the world he is
hoping to reënter, sits there in state. Every eye is on him, yet he
faces judge, jury, counsel, witnesses and audience with a calm dignity
worthy of an emperor. He listens imperturbably to facts which may hang
him, to lies which may lend color to the facts, to well-meaning
guesses which are wide of the mark. Truthful and false evidence is
equally prone to err when guilt or innocence must be determined by
circumstances alone.
"But the prisoner _knows_. He is the one man able to discriminate
between truth and falsity, yet he must not reveal the cruel stab
of fact or the harmless buffet of fiction by so much as a flicker
of an eyelid. He surveys the honest blunderer and the perjured
ruffian--I mean the counsel for the defense and the prosecution
respectively--with impartial scrutiny. If he is a sublime villain,
he will call on Heaven to testify that he is innocent with a
solemnity not surpassed by the judge who sentences him to death....
Yes, please, a bit off the knuckle end."
The concluding words were addressed to Winter, and Tomlinson started,
for he was wrapped up in the scene Furneaux was depicting.
"That point of view had not occurred to me," he admitted.
"You'll appreciate it fully when you see Mr. Fenley's murderer in the
dock," said Furneaux.
"Ah, sir. That brings your illustration home, indeed. But shall we
ever know who killed him?"
"Certainly. Look at that high dome of intelligence glistening at you
across the table. But that it is forbid to tell the secrets of the
prison house, it could a tale unfold whose slightest word would harrow
up thy soul----"
Harris, the footman, entered, carrying a decanter.
"Mr. Hilton Fenley's compliments, gentlemen, and will you try this
port? He says Mr. Tomlinson will recommend it, because Mr. Fenley
himself seldom takes wine. Mr. Fenley will not trouble you to meet him
again this evening. Mr. Tomlinson, Mr. Fenley wants you for a
moment."
The butler rose.
"That is the very wine I spoke of," he said. "If Mr. Hilton did not
touch it, Mr. Robert evidently appreciated it."
He glanced at Harris, but the footman did not even suspect that his
character was at stake. The decanter was nearly full when placed on
the sideboard; now it was half empty.
Singularly enough, both Winter and Furneaux had intercepted that
questioning glance, and had acquitted Harris simultaneously.
"Are the gentlemen still in the dining-room?" inquired Winter.
"Mr. Hilton is there, sir, but Mr. Robert went out some time since."
"Please convey our thanks to Mr. Hilton. I'm sure we shall enjoy the
wine."
When Tomlinson and Harris had gone, the eyes of the two detectives
met. They said nothing at first, and it may be remembered that they
were reputedly most dangerous to a pursued criminal when working
together silently. Winter took the decanter, poured out a small
quantity into two glasses, and gave Furneaux one. Then they smelled,
and tasted, and examined the wine critically. The rich red liquid
might have been a poisonous decoction for the care they devoted to its
analysis.
Furneaux began.
"I have so many sleepless nights that I recognize bromide, no matter
how it is disguised," he murmured.
"Comparatively harmless, though a strong dose," said Winter.
"If one has to swallow twenty grains or so of potassium bromide I can
not conceive any pleasanter way of taking them than mixed with a sound
port."
Winter filled one of the glasses four times, pouring each amount into
a tumbler. Furneaux looked into a cupboard, and found an empty beer
bottle, which he rinsed with water. Meanwhile Winter was fashioning a
funnel out of a torn envelope, and in a few seconds the tumblerful of
wine was in the bottle, and the bottle in Winter's pocket. This done,
the big man lit a cigar and the little one sniffed the smoke, which
was his peculiar way of enjoying the weed.
"It was most thoughtful of Mr. Hilton Fenley to try and secure us a
long night's uninterrupted sleep," said Winter between puffs.
"But what a vitiated taste in wine he must attribute to Scotland
Yard," said Furneaux bitterly.
"Still, we should be grateful to him for supplying a gill of real
evidence."
"I may forgive him later. At present, I want to dilate his eyes with
atropine, so that he may see weird shapes and be tortured of ghouls."
"Poor devil! He won't need atropine for that."
"Don't believe it, James. In some respects he's cold-blooded as a
fish. Besides, he carries bromide tablets for his own use. He simply
couldn't have arranged beforehand to dope us."
"He's getting scared."
"I should think so, indeed--in the Fenley sense, that is. His plot
against Robert has miscarried in one essential. The rifle has not been
found in the wood. Now, I'm in chastened mood, because the hour for
action approaches; so I'll own up. I've been keeping something up my
sleeve, just for the joy of watching you floundering 'midst deep
waters. Of course, you chose the right channel. I knew you would, but
it's a treat to see your elephantine struggles. For all that, it's a
sheer impossibility that you should guess who put a sprag in the wheel
of Hilton's chariot. Give you three tries, for a new hat."
"You're desperately keen today on touching me for a new hat."
"Well, this time you have an outside chance. The others were
certs--for me."
Winter smoked in silence for a space.
"I'll take you," he said. "The artist?"
"No." The Jerseyman shook his head.
"Police Constable Farrow?" ventured Winter again.
Furneaux's dismay was so comical that his colleague shook with mirth.
"I wanted a new silk topper," wheezed Winter.
"Silk topper be hanged. I meant a straw, and that's what you'll get.
But how the deuce did you manage to hit upon Farrow?"
"He closed the Quarry Wood at the psychological moment."
"You're sucking my brains, that's what you're doing," grumbled
Furneaux. "Anyhow, you're right. Hilton had the scheme perfected to
the last detail, but he didn't count on Farrow. After a proper display
of agitation--not all assumed, either, because he was more shaken than
he expected to be--he 'phoned the Yard and the doctor. We couldn't
arrive for nearly an hour, and the doctor starts on his rounds at nine
o'clock sharp. What so easy, therefore, as to wander out in a welter
of grief and anger, and search the wood for the murderer on his own
account? One solitary minute would enable him to put the rifle in a
hiding-place where it would surely be discovered.
"But Farrow stopped him. I wormed the whole thing out of our sentry
this afternoon. Fenley tried hard to send Farrow and Bates off on a
wild-goose chase, but Farrow, quite mistakenly, saw the chance of his
life and clung on to it. Had Farrow budged we could never have hanged
Hilton. Don't you see how the scheme works? He had some reason for
believing that Robert will refuse to give a full account of his
whereabouts this morning. Therefore, he must contrive that the rifle
shall be found. Put the two damning facts together, and Robert is tied
in a knot. Of course, he would be forced to prove an alibi, but by
that time all England would be yelping, 'Thou art the man.' In any
event, Hilton's trail would be hopelessly lost."
"The true bowket of our port and bromide begins to tickle my
nostrils."
A good-looking maid brought coffee, and Furneaux grinned at her.
"How do you think he'd look in a nice straw hat?" he asked, jerking
his head toward Winter. The girl smiled. The little man's reputation
had reached the kitchen. She glanced demurely at the Superintendent's
bullet head.
"Not an ordinary straw. You mean a Panama," she said.
"Certainly," laughed Winter.
"Nothing of the sort," howled Furneaux. "Just run your eye over him.
He isn't an isthmus--he's a continent."
"A common straw wouldn't suit him," persisted the girl. "He's too big
a gentleman."
"How little you know him!" said Furneaux.
The girl blushed and giggled.
"Go on!" she said, and bounced out.
"This inquiry will cost you a bit, my boy, if you're not careful,"
sniggered Winter. "I'll compound on a straw; but take my advice, and
curb your sporting propensities. Now, if this coffee isn't doctored,
let's drink it, and interview Robert before the bromide begins to
act."
Robert Fenley received them in his own room. He strove to appear at
ease and business-like, but, as Furneaux had surmised, was emphatic in
his refusal to give any clear statement as to his proceedings in
London. He admitted the visit to Hendon Road, which, he said, was
necessitated by a promise to a friend who was going abroad, but he
failed to see why the police should inquire into his private affairs.
Winter did not press him. There was no need. A scapegrace's record
could always be laid bare when occasion served. But one question he
was bound to put.
"Have you any theory, however remote or far-fetched, that will account
for your father's death in such a way?" he inquired.
The younger Fenley was smoking a cigarette. A half consumed whisky and
soda stood on a table; a bottle of whisky and a siphon promised
refreshers. He was not quite sober, but could speak lucidly.
"Naturally, I've been thinking a lot about that," he said, wrinkling
his forehead in the effort to concentrate his mind and express himself
with due solemnity. "It's funny, isn't it, that my rifle should be
missing?"
"Well, yes."
Some sarcastic inflection in Winter's voice seemed to reach a rather
torpid brain. Fenley looked up sharply.
"Of course, funny isn't the right word," he said. "I mean it's odd, a
bit of a mystery. Why should anybody take my gun if they wanted to
shoot my poor old guv'nor? That beats me. It's a licker--eh, what?"
"It is more important to know why any one should want to shoot your
father."
"That's it. Who benefits? Well, I suppose Hilton and I will be better
off--no one else. And I didn't do it. It's silly even to say so."
"But there is only your brother left in your summary."
"By Jove, yes. That's been runnin' in my head. It's nonsense, anyhow,
because Hilton was in the house. I wouldn't believe a word he said,
but Sylvia, and Tomlinson, and Brodie, and Harris all tell the same
yarn. No; Hilton couldn't have done it. He's ripe for any mischief, is
Hilton, but he can't be in this hole; now, can he?"
They could extract nothing of value out of Robert, and left him after
a brief visit.
In the interim, Hilton Fenley had kept Tomlinson talking about the
crime. The dining-room door was ajar, and he knew when the detectives
had gone to Robert's room. Then he glanced around the table, and
affected to remember the decanter of port.
"By the way," he said, "I feel as if a glass of that wine would be a
good notion tonight. I don't suppose the Scotland Yard men have
finished the lot. Just send for it, will you?"
Harris brought the decanter, and Tomlinson was gratified by seeing
that his favorite beverage had been duly appraised.
"Sorry if I've detained you," said Fenley, and the butler went out.
Rising, Fenley strolled to the door and closed it. Instantly he became
energetic, and his actions bore a curious similitude to those of
Winter a little while earlier. Pouring the wine into a tumbler, he
rinsed the decanter with water, and partly refilled it with the
contents of another tumbler previously secreted in the sideboard,
stopping rather short of the amount of wine returned from the butler's
room. He drank the remainder, washed the glass, and put a few drops of
whisky into it.
Carrying the other tumbler to an open window, he threw the medicated
wine into a drain under a water spout, and making assurance doubly
sure, douched the same locality with water; also, he rinsed this
second glass. He seemed to be rather pleased at his own thoroughness.
As Furneaux had said, Hilton Fenley was cold-blooded as a fish.
CHAPTER XIII
CLOSE QUARTERS
Human affairs are peculiarly dependent on the weather. It is not easy
to lay down a law governing this postulate, which, indeed, may be
scoffed at by the superficial reasoner, and the progression from cause
to effect is often obscured by contradictory facts. For instance, a
fine summer means a good harvest, much traveling, the prolongation of
holiday periods, a free circulation of money, and the consequent
enhanced prosperity and happiness of millions of men and women. But
there are more suicides in June and July than in December and January.
On the one hand, fine weather improves humanity's lot; on the other,
it depresses the individual.
Let the logician explain these curiously divergent issues as he may;
there can be no question that the quality of the night which closed a
day eventful beyond any other in the annals of Roxton exercised a
remarkable influence on the lives of five people. It was a perfect
night in June. There was no moon; the stars shone dimly through a
slight haze; but the sun had set late and would rise early, and his
complete disappearance followed so small a chord of the diurnal
circle that his light was never wholly absent. A gentle westerly
breeze was so zephyr-like that it hardly stirred the leaves of the
trees, but it wafted the scent of flowers and meadow land into open
windows, and was grateful alike to the just and the unjust.
Thus to romantic minds it was redolent of romance; and as Sylvia
Manning's room faced south and John Trenholme's faced north, and lay
nearly opposite each other, though separated by a rolling mile of
park, woodland, tillage and pasture, it is not altogether incredible
that those two, gazing out at the same hour, should bridge the void
with the eyes of the soul.
It was a night, too, that invited to the open.
In some favored lands, where the almanac is an infallible Clerk of the
Weather, fine nights succeed each other with the monotonous regularity
of kings in an Amurath dynasty. But the British climate, a slave to no
such ordered sequence, scatters or withholds these magic hours almost
impartially throughout the seasons, so that June may demand overcoats
and umbrellas, and October invite Summer raiment.
Hence this superb Summer's night found certain folk in Roxton
disinclined to forego its enchantments. Trenholme, trying to persuade
himself that his brooding gaze rested on the Elizabethan roofs and
gables rising above the trees because of some rarely spiritual quality
in the atmosphere, suddenly awoke to the fact that the hour was
eleven.
Some men issued from the bar parlor and "snug" beneath, and there were
sounds of bolts being shot home and keys turned in recognition of the
curfew imposed by the licensing laws. Then the artistic temperament
arose in revolt. Chafing already against the narrow confines of the
best room the White Horse Inn could provide, it burst all bounds when
a tired potman attempted unconsciously to lock it in.
Grabbing a pipe and tobacco pouch, Trenholme ran downstairs, meeting
the potman in the passage.
"Get me a key, Bill," he said. "I simply can't endure the notion of
bed just yet, so I'm off for a stroll. I don't want to keep any one
waiting up, and I suppose I can have a key of sorts."
Now it happened that the proprietor of the inn was absent at a race
meeting, and Eliza was in charge. Trenholme's request was passed on to
her, and a key was forthcoming.
Hatless, pipe in mouth, and hands in pockets, Trenholme sauntered into
the village street. Romance was either a dull jade or growing old and
sedate in Roxton. Nearly every house was in darkness, and more than
one dog barked because of a passing footstep.
About half past eleven, Sylvia Manning, sitting in melancholy near her
window after an hour of musing, heard a light tap on the door.
"Come in," she said, recognizing the reason of this late intrusion. An
elderly woman entered. She was an attendant charged with special care
of Mrs. Fenley. A trained nurse would have refused to adopt the
lenient treatment of the patient enjoined by the late head of the
family, so this woman was engaged because she was honest, faithful,
rather stupid and obeyed orders.
"She has quieted down now, miss, and is fast asleep," she said in a
low tone. "You may feel sure she won't wake before six or seven. She
never does."
The "she" of this message was Mrs. Fenley. Rural England does not
encourage unnecessary courtesy nor harbor such foreign intruders as
"madam." The reiterated pronoun grated on Sylvia; she was disinclined
for further talk.
"Thank you, Parker," she said. "I am glad to know that. Good night."
But Parker had something to say, and this was a favorable opportunity.
"She's been awful bad today, miss. It can't go on."
"That is hardly surprising, taking into account the shock Mrs. Fenley
received this morning."
"That's what I have in me mind, miss. She's changed."
"How changed? You need not close the door. Never mind the light. It is
hardly dark when the eyes become used to the gloom."
Parker drew nearer. Obeying the instincts of her class, she assumed a
confidential tone.
"Well, miss, you know why you went out?"
"Yes," said Sylvia rather curtly. She had left the invalid when the
use of a hypodermic syringe became essential if an imminent outburst
of hysteria was to be prevented. The girl had no power to interfere,
and was too young and inexperienced to make an effective protest; but
she was convinced that to encourage a vice was not the best method of
treating it. More than once she had spoken of the matter to Mortimer
Fenley; but he merely said that he had tried every known means to cure
his wife, short of immuring her in an asylum, and had failed. "She is
happy in a sort of a way," he would add, with a certain softening of
voice and manner. "Let her continue so." Thus a minor tragedy was
drifting to its close when Fenley himself was so rudely robbed of
life.
"As a rule, miss," went on the attendant, "she soon settles after a
dose, but this time she seemed to pass into a sort of a trance.
Gen'rally her words are broken-like an' wild, an' I pays no heed to
'em; but tonight she talked wonderful clear, all about India at first,
an' of a band playin', with sogers marchin' past. Then she spoke about
some people called coolies. There was a lot about them, in lines an'
tea gardens. An' she seemed to be speakin' to another Mrs. Fenley."
The woman's voice sank to an awe-stricken whisper, and Sylvia shivered
somewhat in sympathy. "Another Mrs. Fenley!" It was common knowledge
in the household that Fenley had married a second time, but the belief
was settled that the first wife was dead; Parker, by an unrehearsed
dramatic touch, conveyed the notion that the unhappy creature in a
neighboring room had been conversing with a ghost.
Somewhat shaken and perturbed, Sylvia wished more than ever to be
alone, so she brought her informant back to the matter in hand.
"I don't see that Mrs. Fenley's rambling utterances give rise to any
fear of immediate collapse," she said, striving to speak composedly.
"No, miss. That isn't it at all. I was just tellin' you what happened.
There was a lot more. She might ha' been givin' the story of her life.
But--please forgive me, miss, for what I'm goin' to say. I think some
one ought to know--I do, reelly--an' you're the only one I dare tell
it to."
"Oh, what is it?"
The cry was wrung from the girl's heart. She had borne a good deal
that day, and feared some sinister revelation now.
"She remembered that poor Mr. Fenley was dead, but didn't appear so
greatly upset. She was more puzzled-like--kep' on mutterin': 'Who did
it? Who could have the cool darin' to shoot him dead in broad
daylight, at his own door, before his servants?' She was sort of
forcin' herself to think, to find out, just as if it was a riddle, an'
the right answer was on the tip of her tongue. An' then, all at once,
she gev a queer little laugh. 'Why, of course, it was Hilton,' she
said."
Sylvia, relieved and vastly indignant, rose impetuously.
"Why do you trouble to bring such nonsense to my ears?" she cried.
But Parker was stolid and dogged.
"I had to tell some one," she vowed, determined to put herself
straight with one of her own sex. "I know her ways. If that's in her
mind she'll be shoutin' it out to every maid who comes near her
tomorrow; an' I reelly thought, miss, it was wise to tell you tonight,
because such a thing would soon cause a scandal, an' it should be
stopped."
"Perhaps you are right, and I ought to be obliged to you for being so
considerate. But no one would pay heed to my aunt's ravings. Every
person in the house knows that the statement is absurd. Mr. Hilton was
in his room. I myself saw him go upstairs after exchanging a few words
with his father in the hall, and he came down again instantly when
Harris ran to fetch him."
"I understand that, miss, an' I'm not so silly as to think there is
any sense in her blamin' Mr. Hilton. But it made my flesh creep to
hear all the rest so clear an' straightforward, an' then that she
should say: 'Hilton did it, the black beast. He always hated Bob an'
me, because we were white, an' the jungle strain has come out at
last.' Oh, it was somethink dreadful to hear her laughin' at her
cleverness. I----"
"Please, please, don't repeat any more of these horrible things,"
cried the girl, for the strain was becoming unbearable.
"I agree with you, miss. They aren't fit to be spoke of; an' I say,
with all due respec', that they shouldn't be allowed to leak out. You
know what young maid servants are like. They're bound to chatter. My
idee is that another nurse should be engaged tomorrow, a woman old
enough to hold her tongue an' mind her own business; then the two of
us can take turns at duty, so as to keep them housemaids out of the
way altogether."
"Yes, I'm sure you are right. I'll speak to Mr. Hilton in the morning.
Thank you, Parker. I see now that you meant well, and I'm sorry if I
spoke sharply."
"I'm not surprised, miss. It was not a pleasant thing to have to say,
nor for you to hear, but duty is duty. Good night, miss, I hope
you'll sleep well."
Sleep! Parker should not have conjured up a new apparition if Sylvia
were to seek the solace of untroubled rest. At present the girl felt
that she had never before been so distressfully awake. Splendidly
vital in mind and body as she was, she almost yielded now to a morbid
horror of her environment. Generations of men and women had lived and
died in that ancient house, and tonight dim shapes seemed to throng
its chambers and corridors. Physically fearless, she owned to a
feminine dread of the unknown. It would be a relief to get away from
this abode of grief and mystery. The fantastic dreaming of the unhappy
creature crooning memories of a past life and a lost husband had
unnerved her. She resolved to seek the fresh air, and wander through
gardens and park until the fever in her mind had abated.
Now a rule of the house ordained that all doors should be locked and
lower windows latched at midnight. A night watchman made certain
rounds each hour, pressing a key into indicating-clocks at various
points to show that he had been alert. Mortimer Fenley had been afraid
of fire; there was so much old woodwork in the building that it would
burn readily, and a short circuit in the electrical installation was
always possible, though every device had been adopted to render it not
only improbable but harmless. After midnight the door bells and
others communicated with a switchboard in the watchman's room; and a
burglary alarm, which the man adjusted during his first round, rang
there continuously if disturbed.
Sylvia, leaving the door of her bedroom ajar, went to the servants'
quarters by a back staircase. There she found MacBain, the watchman,
eating his supper.
"I don't feel as though I could sleep," she explained, "so I am going
out into the park for a while. I'll unlatch one of the drawing-room
windows and disconnect the alarm; and when I come in again I'll tell
you."
"Very well, miss," said MacBain. "It's a fine night, and you'll take
no harm."
"I'm not afraid of rabbits, if that is what you mean," she said
lightly, for the very sound of the man's voice had dispelled vapors.
"Oh, there's more than rabbits in the park tonight, miss. Two
policemen are stationed in the Quarry Wood."
"Why?" she said, with some surprise.
"They don't know themselves, miss. The Inspector ordered it. I met
them coming on duty at ten o'clock. They'll be relieved at four. They
have instructions to allow no one to enter the wood. That's all they
know."
"If I go there, then, shall I be locked up?"
"Not so bad as that, miss," smiled MacBain. "But I'd keep away from
it if I was you. 'Let sleeping dogs lie' is a good motto."
"But these are not sleeping dogs. They're wide-awake policemen."
"Mebbe, miss. They have a soft job, I'm thinking. Of course----"
The man checked himself, but Sylvia guessed what was passing in his
mind.
"You were going to say that the wretch who killed my uncle hid in that
wood?" she prompted him.
"Yes, miss, I was."
"He is not there now. He must have run away while we were too
terrified to take any steps to capture him. Who in the world could
have wished to kill Mr. Fenley?"
"Ah, miss, there's no knowing. Those you'd least suspect are often the
worst."
MacBain shook his head over this cryptic remark; he glanced at a
clock. It was five minutes to twelve.
"It's rather late, miss," he hinted. Sylvia agreed with him, but she
was young enough to be headstrong.
"I sha'n't remain out very long," she said. "I ought to feel tired,
but I don't; and I hope the fresh air will make me sleepy."
To reach the drawing-room, she had to cross the hall. Its parquet
floor creaked under her rapid tread. A single lamp among a cluster in
the ceiling burned there all night, and she could not help giving one
quick look at the oaken settle which stood under the cross gallery;
she was glad when the drawing-room door closed behind her.
She had no difficulty with the window, but the outer shutters creaked
when she opened them. Then she passed on to the first of the Italian
terraces, and stood there irresolutely a few minutes, gazing
alternately at the sky and the black masses of the trees. At first she
was a trifle nervous. The air was so still, the park so solemn in its
utter quietude, that the sense of adventure was absent, and the
funeral silence that prevailed was almost oppressive.
Half inclined to go back, woman-like she went forward. Then the sweet,
clinging scent of a rose bed drew her like a magnet. She descended a
flight of steps and gained the second terrace. She thought of
Trenholme and the picture, and the impulse to stroll as far as the
lake seized her irresistibly. Why not! The grass was short, and the
dew would not be heavy. Even if she wetted her feet, what did it
matter, as she would undress promptly on returning to her room?
Besides, she had never seen the statue on just such a night, though
she had often visited it by moonlight.
La Rochefoucauld is responsible for the oft quoted epigram that the
woman who hesitates is lost, and Sylvia had certainly hesitated. At
any rate, after a brief debate in which the arguments were distinctly
one-sided, she resolved that she might as well have an object in view
as stroll aimlessly in any other direction; so, gathering her skirts
to keep them dry, she set off across the park.
She might have been halfway to the lake when a man emerged from the
same window of the drawing-room, ran to the terrace steps, stumbled
down them so awkwardly that he nearly fell, and swore at his own
clumsiness in so doing. He negotiated the next flight more carefully,
but quickened his pace again into a run when he reached the open. The
girl's figure was hardly visible, but he knew she was there, and the
distance between pursued and pursuer soon lessened.
Sylvia, wholly unaware of being followed, did not hurry; but she was
constitutionally incapable of loitering, and moved over the rustling
grass with a swiftness that brought her to the edge of the lake while
the second inmate of The Towers abroad that night was yet a couple of
hundred yards distant.
In the dim light the statue assumed a lifelike semblance that was at
once startling and wonderful. Color flies with the sun, and the white
marble did not depend now on tint alone to differentiate it from flesh
and blood. Seen thus indistinctly, it might almost be a graceful and
nearly nude woman standing there, and some display of will power on
the girl's part was called for before she approached nearer and
stifled the first breath of apprehension. Then, delighted by the vague
beauty of the scene, with senses soothed by the soft plash of the
cascade, she decided to walk around the lake to the spot where
Trenholme must have been hidden when he painted that astonishingly
vivid picture. Its bold treatment and simplicity of note rendered it
an easy subject to carry in the mind's eye, and Sylvia thought it
would be rather nice to conjure up the same effect in the prevailing
conditions of semi-darkness and mystery. She need not risk tearing her
dress among the briers which clung to the hillside. Knowing every inch
of the ground, she could follow the shore of the lake until nearly
opposite the statue, and then climb a few feet among the bushes at a
point where a zigzag path, seldom used and nearly obliterated by
undergrowth, led to the clump of cedars.
She was still speeding along the farther bank when a man's form loomed
in sight in the park, and her heart throbbed tumultuously with a new
and real terror. Who could it be? Had some one seen her leaving the
house? That was the explanation she hoped for at first, but her breath
came in sharp gusts and her breast heaved when she remembered how one
deadly intruder at least had broken into that quiet haven during the
early hours of the past day.
Whoever the oncomer might prove to be, he was losing no time, and he
was yet some twenty yards or more away from the statue--itself
separated from Sylvia by about the same width of water--when she
recognized, with a sigh of relief, the somewhat cumbrous form and
grampus-like puffing of Robert Fenley.
Evidently he was rather blear-eyed, since he seemed to mistake the
white marble Aphrodite for a girl in a black dress; or perhaps he
assumed that Sylvia was there, and thought he would see her at any
moment.
"I say, Sylvia!" he cried. "I say, old girl, what the deuce are you
doin'--in the park--at this time o' night?"
The words were clear enough, but there was a suspicious thickness in
the voice. Robert had been drinking, and Sylvia had learned already to
abhor and shun a man under the influence of intoxicants more than
anything else in the wide world. She did not fear her "cousin." For
years she had tolerated him, and that day she had come to dislike him
actively, but she had not the least intention of entering into an
explanation of her actions with him at that hour and under existing
circumstances. She had recovered from her sudden fright, and was
merely annoyed now, and bent her wits to the combined problems of
escape and regaining the house unseen.
Remembering that her white face and hands might reveal her whereabouts
she turned, bent and crept up the slope until a bush afforded welcome
concealment. Some thorns scratched her ankles, but she gave no heed to
such trivial mishaps. A rabbit jumped out from under her feet, and it
cost something of an effort to repress a slight scream; but--to her
credit be it said--she set her lips tightly, and was almost amused by
the game of hide and seek thus unexpectedly thrust on her.
Meanwhile Robert had reached the little promontory on which the statue
was poised, and no Sylvia was in sight.
"Sylvia!" he cried again. "Where are you? No use hidin', because I
know you're here! Dash it all, if you wanted a bit of a stroll why
didn't you send for me? You knew I'd come like a shot--eh, what?"
He listened and peered, but might as well have been deaf and blind for
aught he could distinguish of the girl he sought.
Then he laughed; and a peculiar quality in that chuckle of mirth
struck a new note of anxiety, even of fear, in Sylvia's laboring
heart.
"So you won't be good!" he guffawed thickly. "Playin' Puss in the
Corner, I suppose? Very well, I give you fair warnin'. I mean to catch
you, an' when I do I'll claim forfeit.... _I_ don't mind. Fact is, I
like it. It's rather fun chasin' one's best girl in the dark....
Dashed if it isn't better'n a bit out of a French farce.... Puss!
Puss!... I see you.... Hidin' there among the bushy bushes.... Gad!
How's that for a test after a big night? Bushy bushes! I must not
forget that. Try it on one of the b-boys.... Now, come out of it!...
Naughty puss! I'll get you in a tick, see if I don't!"
He was keeping to the track Sylvia herself had taken, since the lie of
the land was familiar to him as to her. Talking to himself, cackling
at his own flashes of wit, halting after each few paces to search the
immediate neighborhood and detect any guiding sound, he was now on the
same side of the lake as the girl, and coming perilously near. At each
step, apparently, he found the growing obscurity more tantalizing. He
still continued calling aloud: "Sylvia! Sylvia, I say! Chuck it, can't
you? You must give in, you know. I'll be grabbin' you in a minute."
There were not lacking muttered ejaculations, which showed that he was
losing his temper.
Once he swore so emphatically that she thought he was acknowledging
himself beaten; but some glimmering notion that she was crouching
almost within reach, and would have the laugh of him in the morning,
flogged him to fresh endeavor. Now he was within ten yards, eight,
five! In another few seconds his hand might touch her, and she
quivered at the thought. If concealment could not save her she must
seek refuge in flight, since therein lay a sure means of escape. Not
daring to delay, she tried to stand upright, but felt a pull on her
dress as if a hand were detaining her. It was only a brier,
insidiously entangled in a fold of her skirt; but she was rather
excited now, and there was little to be gained by excess of caution,
for any rapid movement must betray her. Stooping, she caught the
thorn-laden branch and tore it out of the soft material.
Fenley heard the ripping sound instantly.
"Ha! There you are, my beauty! Got you this time!" he cried, and
plunged forward.
Sylvia sprang from her hiding-place like a frightened fawn and
valiantly essayed the steep embankment. Therein she erred. She would
have succeeded in evading her pursuer had she leaped down to the open
strip of turf close to the water, dodging him before he realized what
was happening. As it was, the briers spread a hundred cruel claws
against her; with each upward step she encountered greater resistance;
desperation only added to her panic, and she struggled frenziedly.
The man, unhampered by garments such as clogged each inch of Sylvia's
path, pushed on with renewed ardor. He no longer spoke, for his
hearing alone could help him now, the girl's black-robed form being
utterly merged in the dense shadow cast by brushwood and cedars. He,
however, was silhouetted against the luminous gray of the park, and
Sylvia, casting a frantic glance over her shoulder, saw him
distinctly. In her distress she fancied she could feel his hot breath
on her neck; and when some unusually venomous branch clutched her
across the knees, and rendered farther movement impossible until her
dress was extricated, she wailed aloud in anger and dismay.
"How dare you!" she cried, and her voice was tremulous and broken. "I
warn you that if you persist in following me I shall strike you!"
"Will you, by Jove!" cried Robert elatedly. "I'd risk more than that,
my dear! A kiss for every blow! Only fair, you know! Eh, what!"
On he came. He was so near that in one active bound he would be upon
her, but he advanced warily, with hands outstretched.
"Oh, what shall I do!" she sobbed. "Go back, you brute! I--I hate you.
There are policemen in the wood. I'll scream for help!"
"No need, Miss Manning," said a calm voice which seemed to come from
the circumambient air. "Don't cry out or be alarmed, no matter what
happens!"
A hand, not Robert Fenley's caught her shoulder in a reassuring grip.
A tall figure brushed by, and she heard a curious sound that had a
certain smack in it--a hard smack, combined with a thudding effect, as
if some one had smitten a pillow with a fist. A fist it was assuredly,
and a hard one; but it smote no pillow. With a gurgling cough, Robert
Fenley toppled headlong to the edge of the lake, and lay there
probably some minutes, for the man who had hit him knew how and where
to strike.
Sylvia did not scream. She had recognized Trenholme's voice, but she
felt absurdly like fainting. Perhaps she swayed slightly, and her
rescuer was aware of it, for he gathered her up in his arms as he
might carry a scared child, nor did he set her on her feet when they
were clear of the trees and in the open park.
"You are quite safe now," he said soothingly. "You are greatly upset,
of course, and you need a minute or two to pull yourself together; but
no one will hurt you while I am here. When you feel able to speak,
you'll tell me where to take you, and I'll be your escort."
"I can speak now, thank you," said Sylvia, with a composure that was
somewhat remarkable. "Please put me down!"
He obeyed, but she imagined he gave her a silent hug before his clasp
relaxed. Even then his left hand still rested on her shoulder in a
protective way.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SPREADING OF THE NET
That John Trenholme should be in the right place at the right
moment, and that the place should happen to be one where his presence
was urgently required in Sylvia Manning's behalf, was not such a
far-fetched coincidence as it might be deemed, for instance, by a
jury. Juries are composed mainly of bald-headed men, men whose shining
pates have been denuded of hair by years and experience, and these
factors dry the heart as surely as they impoverish the scalp.
Consequently, juries (in bulk, be it understood; individual jurors
may, perhaps, retain the emotional equipment of a Chatterton) are
skeptical when asked to accept the vagaries of the artistic
temperament in extenuation of some so-called irrational action.
In the present case counsel for the defense would plead that his
clients (Sylvia would undoubtedly figure in the charge) were moved by
an overwhelming impulse shared in common. It was a glorious night, he
might urge; each had been thinking of the other; each elected to
stroll forth under the stars; their sympathies were linked by the
strange circumstances which had led to the production of a noteworthy
picture--what more likely than that they should visit the scene to
which that picture owed its genesis?
Trenholme, it might be held, had not knowingly reached that stage of
soul-sickness which brings the passionate cry to _Valentine's_ lips:
Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Sylvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.
"But, gentlemen," the wily one would continue, "that indefinable
excitation of the nervous system which is summed up in the one small
word 'love' must have a beginning; and whether that beginning springs
from spore or germ, it is admittedly capable of amazingly rapid
growth. The male defendant may not even have been aware of its
existence, but subsequent events establish the diagnosis beyond cavil;
and I would remind you that the melodious lines I have just quoted
could not have been written by our immortal bard, Shakespeare, if two
gentlemen of Verona, and two Veronese ladies as well, had not yielded
to influences not altogether unlike those which governed my clients on
this memorable occasion."
Juries invariably treat Shakespeare's opinions with profound respect.
They know they ought to be well acquainted with his "works," but they
are not, and hope to conceal their ignorance by accepting the poet's
philosophy without reservation.
If, however, owing to the forensic skill of an advocate, romance might
be held accountable for the wanderings of John and Sylvia, what of
Robert? He, at least, was not under its magic spell. He, when the
fateful hour struck, was merely drinking himself drowsy. To explain
_him_, witnesses would be needed, and who more credible than a
Superintendent and Detective Inspector of the Criminal Investigation
Department?
When Winter had smoked, and Furneaux had contributed some personal
reminiscences the whole aim and object of which was the perplexing
and mystification of that discreet person, Tomlinson, the two retired
to their room at an early hour. The butler pressed them hospitably
to try the house's special blend of Scotch whisky, but they had
declined resolutely. Both acknowledged to an unwonted lassitude and
sleepiness--symptoms which Hilton Fenley might expect and inquire
about. When they were gone, the major domo sat down to review the
day's doings.
His master's death at the hands of a murderer had shocked and saddened
him far more than his manner betrayed. If some fantastic chain of
events brought Tomlinson to the scaffold he would still retain the
demeanor of an exemplary butler. But beneath the externals of his
office he had a heart and a brain; and his heart grieved for a
respected employer, and his brain told him that Scotland Yard was no
wiser than he when it came to suspecting a likely person of having
committed the crime, let alone arresting the suspect and proving his
guilt.
Of course, therein Tomlinson was in error. Even butlers of renown have
their limitations, and his stopped far short of the peculiar science
of felon-hunting in which Winter and Furneaux were geniuses, each in
his own line.
Assuredly he would have been vastly astonished could he have seen
their movements when the bedroom door closed on them. In fact, his
trained ear might have found some new quality in such a commonplace
thing as the closing of the door. Every lock and bolt and catch in The
Towers was in perfect working order, yet the lock of this door failed
to click, for the excellent reason that it was jammed by a tiny wedge.
Hence, it could be opened noiselessly if need be; and lest a hinge
might squeak each hinge was forthwith drenched with vaseline. Further,
a tiny circlet of India rubber, equipped with a small spike, was
placed between door and jamb.
Then, murmuring in undertones when they spoke, the detectives unpacked
their portmanteaux. Winter produced no article out of the ordinary
run, but Furneaux unrolled a knotted contrivance which proved to be a
rope ladder.
"One or both of us may have to go out by the window," he said. "At any
rate, we have Wellington's authority for the military axiom that a
good leader always provides a line of retreat."
"I wonder what became of the rest of that wine?" said Winter, rolling
the beer bottle in a shirt and stowing it away.
"I didn't dare ask. Tomlinson can put two and two together rather
cleverly. He _almost_ interfered when Harris brought the decanter, so
I dropped the wine question like a hot potato."
"It had gone, though, when we came back from Robert's room. Hilton
sent for it. Bet you another new hat he emptied----"
"You'll get no more new hats out of me," growled Furneaux savagely,
giving an extra pressure to a pair of sharp hooks which gripped the
window sill, and from which the rope ladder could be dropped to the
ground instantly.
"Sorry. Where did you retrieve that dirty towel?" For the little man
had taken from a pocket an object which merited the description, and
was placing it in his bag.
"It's one of Hilton's. He used it to wipe bark moss off his clothes.
Queer thing that such rascals always omit some trivial precaution. He
should have burned the towel with the moccasins; but he don't. This
towel will help to strangle him."
"You're becoming a bloodthirsty detective," mused Winter aloud. "I've
seldom seen you so vindictive. Why is it?"
"I dislike snakes, and this fellow is a poisonous specimen. If there
were no snakes in the world, we should all be so happy!"
"Blessed if I see that."
"I have always suspected that your religious education had been
neglected. Read the Bible and Milton. Then you'll understand; and
incidentally speak and write better English."
"Can you suggest any means whereby I can grasp your jokes without
being bored to weariness? They're more soporific than bromide. Anyhow,
it's time we undressed."
Though the blind was drawn the window was open; there was no knowing
who might be watching from the garden, so they went through all the
motions of undressing and placed their boots outside the door.
Then the light was switched off, the blind raised, and they dressed
again rapidly, donning other boots. Each pocketed an automatic pistol
and an electric torch and, by preconcerted plan, Winter sat by the
window and Furneaux by the door. It was then a quarter to eleven, and
they hardly looked for any developments until a much later hour, but
they neglected no precaution. Unquestionably it would be difficult for
any one to move about in that part of the house, or cross the gardens
without attracting their attention.
Their room was situated on the south front, two doors from Sylvia's,
and two from Hilton Fenley's bedroom. The door lay in shadow beyond
the range of the light burning in the hall. Sylvia's room was farther
along the corridor. The door of Hilton's bedroom occupied the same
plane; the door of his sitting-room faced the end of the corridor.
The walls were massive, as in all Tudor houses, and the doors so
deeply recessed that there was space for a small mat in front of each.
Ordinarily boots placed there were not visible in the line of the
corridor, but the detectives' footgear stood well in view. There were
two reasons for this. In the first place, Hilton Fenley might like to
see them, so his highly probable if modest desire was gratified;
secondly, when Parker visited Sylvia and quitted her, and when Sylvia
went downstairs, Furneaux's head, lying between two pairs of boots,
could scarcely be distinguished, while his scope of vision was only
slightly, if at all, diminished.
Soon the girl's footsteps could be heard crossing the hall, and the
raising of the drawing-room window and opening of the shutters were
clearly audible. Winter, whose office had been a sinecure hitherto,
now came into the scheme.
He saw Sylvia's slight form standing beneath, marked her hesitancy,
and watched her slow progress down the terraces and into the park.
This nocturnal enterprise on her part was rather perplexing, and he
was in two minds whether or not to cross the room and consult with
Furneaux, when the latter suddenly withdrew his head, closed the door,
and hissed "Snore!"
Winter crept to a bed, and put up an artistic performance, a duet,
musical, regular, not too loud. In a little while his colleague's
"S-s-t!" stopped him, and a slight crack of a finger against a thumb
called him to the door, which was open again.
Explanation was needless. Hilton Fenley, like the other watchers,
hearing the creaking of window and shutters, had looked out from his
own darkened room. In all likelihood, thanking his stars for the happy
chance given thus unexpectedly, he noted the direction the girl was
taking, and acted as if prepared for this very development; the truth
being, of course, that he was merely adapting his own plans to
immediate and more favorable conditions.
Coming out into the corridor, he consulted his watch. Then he glanced
in the direction of the room which held the two men he had cause to
fear--such ample cause as he little dreamed of at that moment. To make
assurance doubly sure, he walked that way, not secretly, but boldly,
since it was part of his project now to court observation--by others,
at any rate, if not by the drugged emissaries of Scotland Yard. He
waited outside the closed door and heard what he expected to hear,
the snoring of two men sound asleep.
Returning, he did not reënter his own room, but crossed the head of
the staircase to Robert's. He knocked lightly, and his brother's
"Hello, there! Come in!" reached Furneaux's ears. Not a word of the
remainder of the colloquy that ensued was lost on either of the
detectives.
"Sorry to disturb you, Bob," said Hilton, speaking from the doorway,
"but I thought you might not be in bed, and I've come to tell you that
Sylvia has just gone out by way of the drawing-room and is wandering
about the park."
"Sylvia! On her lonesome?" was Robert's astounded cry.
"Yes. It isn't right. I can't understand her behavior. I would have
followed her myself; but in view of your statement at dinner tonight,
I fancied it would save some annoyance if I entrusted that duty to
you."
"Look here, Hilton, old chap, are you really in earnest?"
"About Sylvia? Yes. I actually saw her. At this moment she is heading
for the lake. If you hurry you'll see her yourself."
"I say, it's awfully decent of you ... I take back a lot of what I
said tonight.... Of course, as matters stand, this is _my_ job....
Tell MacBain not to lock us out."
"I'll attend to that, if necessary. But don't mention me to Sylvia.
She might resent the notion of being spied on. Say that you, too, were
strolling about. You see, I heard the window being opened, and looked
out, naturally. Anyhow, drop me, and run this affair on your own."
Robert was slightly obfuscated--the fresh air quickly made him
worse--but he was sensible of having grossly misjudged Hilton.
"Right-O," he said, hurrying downstairs. "We'll have a talk in the
mornin'. Dash it! It's twelve o'clock. That silly kid! What's she
after, I'd like to know?"
Robert gone, Hilton returned to his own room and rang a bell. MacBain
came, and was asked if he was aware that Miss Sylvia had quitted the
house. MacBain gave his version of the story, and Fenley remarked that
he might leave the window unfastened until he made his rounds at one
o'clock.
Seemingly as an afterthought, Hilton mentioned his brother's open
door, and MacBain discovered that Mr. Robert was missing also.
By that time the detectives, without exchanging a word, had each
arrived at the same opinion as to the trend of events. Hilton Fenley
was remodeling his projects to suit an unforeseen development. No
matter what motive inspired Sylvia Manning's midnight ramble, there
could be no disputing the influence which dominated Robert Fenley. He
was his brother's catspaw. When his rifle was found next day MacBain's
testimony would be a tremendous addition to the weight of evidence
against him, since any unprejudiced judgment must decide that the
pursuit of his "cousin" was a mere pretense to enable him to go out
and search for the weapon he had foolishly left in the wood.
Hilton might or might not admit that he told Robert of the girl's
escapade. If he did admit it, he might be trusted to give the incident
the requisite kink to turn the scale against Robert. Surveying the
facts with cold impartiality afterwards, Scotland Yard decided that
while Hilton could not hope that Robert would be convicted of the
murder, the latter would assuredly be suspected of it, perhaps
arrested and tried; and in any event his marriage with Sylvia Manning
would become a sheer impossibility.
Moreover, once the rifle was found by the police, the only reasonable
prospect of connecting Hilton himself with the crime would have
vanished into thin air. If that weapon were picked up in the Quarry
Wood, or for that matter in any other part of the estate, the hounds
of the law were beaten. Winter's level-headed shrewdness and
Furneaux's almost uncanny intuition might have saddled Hilton with
blood guiltiness, but a wide chasm must be bridged before they could
provide the requisite proof of their theory.
In fact, thus far they dared not even hint at bringing a charge
against him. To succeed, they had to show that the incredible was
credible, that a murderer could be in a room within a few feet of his
victim and in a wood distant fully four hundred yards. It was a
baffling problem, not wholly incapable of solution by circumstantial
evidence, but best left to be elucidated by Hilton Fenley himself.
They believed now that he was about to oblige them by supplying that
corroborative detail which, in the words of Poohbah, "lends artistic
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
Winter drew Furneaux into the room, and breathed the words into his
ear:
"You go. You stand less chance of being seen. I'll search his room."
"If there is a misfire, show a signal after five minutes."
"Right!"
Furneaux, standing back from the window, but in such a position that a
light would be visible to any one perched on the rock in the wood,
pressed the button of an electric torch three times rapidly. Then he
lowered the rope ladder and clambered down with the nimbleness of a
sailor. In all probability, Hilton Fenley was still talking to MacBain
and creating the illusion that the last thing he would think of was a
stroll out of doors at that late hour. But the little man took no
chances. Having surveyed the ground carefully during the day, he was
not bothered now by doubts as to the most practicable path.
Creeping close to the house till he reached the yew hedge, and then
passing through an arch, he remained in the shadow of the hedge till
it turned at a right angle in front of the Italian garden. From that
point to the edge of the Quarry Wood was not a stone's throw, and
clumps of rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs gave shelter in
plenty. Arrived at the mouth of the footpath, which he had marked by
counting the trees in the avenue, he halted and listened intently.
There was no sound of rustling grass or crunched gravel. Hilton was
taking matters leisurely. Fifteen minutes would give him ample time
for the business he had in hand. Even if Robert and Sylvia reached
home before him, which was unlikely--far more unlikely even than he
imagined--he could say that he thought it advisable to follow his
brother and help in the search for the girl. The same excuse would
serve if he met any of those pestilential police prowling about the
grounds. Indeed, he could dispatch the alert and intelligent ones on
the trail of the wanderers, especially on Robert's. In a word, matters
were going well for Hilton, so well that Furneaux laughed as he turned
into the wood.
Here the detective had to advance with care. Beneath the trees the
darkness was now so complete that it had that peculiar quality of
density which everyday speech likens to a wall. Cats, gamekeepers,
poachers, and other creatures of predatory and nocturnal habits can
find and follow a definite track under such conditions; but detectives
are nearly human, and Furneaux was compelled to use the torch more
than once. He ran no risk in doing this. Hilton Fenley could not yet
be in a position to catch the gleam of light among the trees. The one
thing to avoid was delay, and Furneaux had gained rather than lost
time, unless Fenley was running at top speed.
After crossing the damp hollow the Jerseyman had no further
difficulty; he breasted the hill and kept a hand extended so as to
avoid colliding with a tree trunk. Expecting at any instant to have a
bull's-eye lantern flashed in his eyes, which he did not want to
happen, he said softly:
"Hi! You two! Don't show a light! How near are you?"
"Oh, it's you, sir!" said a voice. "We thought it would be. We saw the
signal, and you said you might be the first to arrive."
"Any second signal?"
"No, sir."
Furneaux recognized the pungent scent of the colza oil used in
policemen's lamps.
"By gad," he said, "if the average criminal had the nose of the
veriest cur dog he'd smell that oil a mile away. Now, where are
you? There." He had butted into a constable's solid bulk. "Take me
to the rock--quick. We must hide behind it, on the lower side.... Is
this the place? Right! Squat down, both of you, and make yourselves
comfortable, so that you won't feel your position irksome, and move
perhaps at the wrong moment. When you feel me crawling away, follow to
the upper foot of the rock--no farther.
"Stand upright then, and try to keep your joints from cracking. There
must be no creaking of belts or boots. Absolute silence is the order.
Not a word spoken. No matter what you hear, don't move again until you
see the light of my electric torch. Then run to me, turning on your
own lamps, and help in arresting any one I may be holding. Use your
handcuffs if necessary, and don't hesitate to grab hard if there is a
struggle. Remember, you are to arrest _any one_, no matter who it may
be. Got that?"
"Yes, sir," came two eager voices.
"Don't be excited. It will be an easy thing. If we make a mistake, I
bear the responsibility. Now, keep still as mice when they hear a
cat."
One of the men giggled. Both constables had met Furneaux in the local
police station that afternoon, as he had asked the Inspector to parade
the pair who would be on duty during the night. It was then that he
had arranged a simple code of flash signals, and warned them to look
out for Winter or himself during the night. Any other person who
turned up was not to be challenged until he reached the higher ground
beyond the rock, but that instruction was to be acted on only in the
unavoidable absence of one of the Scotland Yard officers. Privately,
the constables hoped Furneaux would be their leader. They deemed him
"a funny little josser," and marveled greatly at his manner and
appearance. Still, they had heard of his reputation; the Inspector, in
an expansive moment, had observed that "Monkey Face was sharper than
he looked."
Thinking example better than precept, Furneaux did not reprove the
giggler. Lying there, screened even in broad daylight by the bulk of
the rock and some hazels growing vigorously in that restricted area
owing to the absence of foliage overhead, he listened to the voices of
the night, never dumb in a large wood. Birds fluttered uneasily on the
upper branches of the trees--indeed, Furneaux was lucky in that the
occasional gleam of the torch had not sent a pheasant hurtling off
with frantic clamor ere ever the rendezvous was reached--and some
winged creature, probably an owl, swept over the rock in stealthy
flight. The rabbits were all out in the open, nibbling grass and crops
at leisure, but there were other tiny forms rustling among the shrubs
and scampering across the soft carpet of fallen leaves.
Twitterings, and subdued squeaks, and sudden rushes of pattering feet,
the murmuring of myriad fronds in the placid breeze, the whispering
of the neighboring elms, even the steady chant of the distant
cascade--all swelled into a soft and continuous chorus, hardly heard
by the country policemen, accustomed as they were to the sounds of a
woodland at night, but of surprising volume and variety to the man
whose forests lay in the paved wilderness of London.
Suddenly a twig cracked sharply and a match was struck. It was of the
safety type and made little noise, but it was too much for the nerves
of a bird, which flew away noisily. Furneaux pursed his lips and
wanted to whistle. He realized now what an escape he had earlier. But
the intruder seemed to care less about attracting attention than
making rapid progress. He came on swiftly, striking other matches when
required, until he stood on the bare ground near the rock. Not daring
to lift a head, none of the three watchers could see the newcomer, and
in that respect their hiding-place was almost too well chosen. Whoever
it was, he needed no more matches to guide his footsteps. They heard
him advancing a few paces; then he halted again. After a marked
interval, punctuated by a soft, whirring noise hard to interpret,
there were irregular scrapings and the creaking of a branch.
Furneaux arose. Keeping a hand on the rock until he was clear of the
shrubs, he crept forward on thievish feet. His assistants, moving more
clumsily to their allotted station, were audible enough to him, but to
a man unconscious of their presence, and actively climbing a tree,
they were remote and still as Uranus and Saturn.
The scraping of feet and heavy breathing, to say nothing of the prompt
flight of several birds, led the detective unerringly to the trunk of
a lofty chestnut which he had already fixed on as the cover whence the
shot that killed Mortimer Fenley was fired. He was convinced also that
the rifle was yet hidden there, and his thin lips parted in a smile
now that his theory was about to be justified.
He could follow the panting efforts of the climber quite easily. He
knew when the weapon was unlashed from the limb to which it was bound,
and when the descent was begun. He could measure almost the exact
distance of his prey from the ground, and was awaiting the final drop
before flashing the torch on his prisoner, when something rapped him
smartly on the forehead. It was a rope, doubled and twisted, and
subsequent investigation showed that it must have been thrown in a
coil over the lowermost branch in order to facilitate the only
difficult part of the climb offered by ten feet of straight bole.
That trivial incident changed the whole course of events. Taken by
surprise, since he did not know what had struck him, Furneaux pressed
the governor of the torch a second too soon, and his eyes, raised
instantaneously, met those of Hilton Fenley, who was on the point of
letting go the branch and swinging himself down.
During a thrilling moment they gazed at each other, the detective cool
and seemingly unconcerned, the self-avowed murderer livid with mortal
fear. Then Furneaux caught the rope and held it.
"I thought you'd go climbing tonight, Fenley," he said. "Let me assist
you. Tricky things, ropes. You're at the wrong end of this one."
Even Homer nods, but Furneaux had erred three times in as many
seconds. He had switched on the light prematurely, and his ready
banter had warned the parricide that a well-built scheme was crumbling
to irretrievable ruin. Moreover, he had underrated the nervous forces
of the man thus trapped and outwitted. Fenley knew that when his feet
touched the earth he would begin a ghastly pilgrimage to the scaffold.
Two yellow orbs of light were already springing up the slight incline
from the rock, betokening the presence of captors in overwhelming
number. What was to be done? Nothing, in reason, yet Furneaux had
likened him to a snake, and he displayed now the primal instinct of
the snake to fight when cornered. Thrusting the heavy gun he was
carrying straight downward, he delivered a vicious and unerring blow.
The stock caught the detective on the crown of the head, and he fell
to his knees, dropping the torch, which of course went out as soon as
the thumb relaxed its pressure.
CHAPTER XV
SOME STAGE EFFECTS
Fenley himself dropped almost simultaneously with the rifle, landing
with both feet on Furneaux's back, and thus completing the little
man's discomfiture. By that time the two policemen were nearly upon
him, but he was lithe and fierce as a cobra, and had seized the rifle
again before they could close with him. Jabbing the nearer adversary
with the muzzle, he smashed a lamp and sent its owner sprawling
backward. Then, swinging the weapon, he aimed a murderous blow at the
second constable.
The man contrived to avoid it to a certain extent, but it glanced off
his left arm and caught the side of his head; and he, too, measured
his length. All three, detective and police, were on their feet
promptly, for none was seriously injured; but Furneaux was dazed and
had to grope for the torch, and the second constable's lamp had gone
out owing to a rush of oil from the cistern. Thus, during some
precious seconds, they were in total darkness.
Meanwhile Fenley had escaped. Luck, after deserting him, had come to
his rescue in the nick of time. He had blundered into the path, and
managed to keep to it, and the somewhat strong language in which
Furneaux expressed his feelings anent the Hertfordshire Constabulary,
and the no less lurid comments of two angry members of the force,
helped to conceal the sounds which would otherwise have indicated the
direction taken by the fugitive.
At last, having found the torch, Furneaux collected his scattered
wits.
"Now don't be scared and run away, you two," he said sarcastically,
producing an automatic pistol. "I'm only going to tell Mr. Winter that
we've bungled the job."
He fired twice in the air, and two vivid spurts of flame rose high
among the branches of the chestnut; but the loud reports of the
shooting were as nothing compared with the din that followed. Every
rook within a mile flew from its eyrie and cawed strenuously.
Pheasants clucked and clattered in all directions, owls hooted, and
dogs barked in the kennels, in the stable yard, and in nearly every
house of the two neighboring villages.
"I don't see what good that'll do, sir," was the rueful comment of the
policeman who had, in his own phrase, "collected a thick ear," and was
now feeling the spot tenderly. "He hasn't shinned up the tree again;
that's a positive certainty."
"I should have thought that a really clever fellow like you would
guess that I wanted to raise a row," said Furneaux. "Have you breath
enough left to blow your whistles?"
"But, sir, your orders were----"
"Blow, and be damned to you. Don't I know the fault is mine! Blow, and
crack your cheeks! Blow wild peals, my Roberts, else we are copped
coppers!"
The mild radiance of the torch showed that the detective's face was
white with fury and his eyes gleaming red. To think that a dangling
rope's end should have spoiled his finest capture, undone a flawless
piece of imaginative reasoning which his own full record had never
before equaled! It was humiliating, maddening. No wonder the policemen
thought him crazy!
But they whistled with a will. Winter heard them, and was stirred to
strange activities. Robert Fenley, recovering from an ague and
sickness, heard and marveled at the pandemonium which had broken loose
in the park. The household at The Towers was aroused, heads were
craned out of windows, women screamed, and men dressed hastily.
Keepers, estate hands, and stablemen tumbled into their garments and
hurried out, armed with guns and cudgels. An unhappy woman, tossing in
the fitful dreams of drug-induced sleep, was awakened by the pistol
shots and terrified by the noise of slamming doors and hurrying feet.
She struggled out of bed and screamed for an attendant, but none came.
She pressed an electric bell, which rang continuously in the night
watchman's room; but he had run to the front of the house and was
unlocking the front door, where a squad of willing men soon awaited
Winter's instructions. For the Superintendent, after rushing to the
telephone, had shouted an order to MacBain before he made off in the
direction of the Quarry Wood.
The one tocsin which exercises a dread significance in a peaceful and
law-abiding English community at the present day struck a new and
awful note in Hilton Fenley's brain. Fool that he was, why had he
fought? Why was he flying? Had he brazened it out, the police would
not have dared arrest him. His brain was as acute as the best of
theirs. He could have evolved a theory of the crime as subtle as any
detective's, and who so keen-witted as a son eager to avenge a
father's murder? But he had thrown away a gambler's chance by a moment
of frenzied struggle. He was doomed now. No plausible explanation
would serve his need. He was hunted. The pack was after him. The fox
had broken cover, and the hounds were in full cry.
Whither should he go? He knew not. Still clutching the empty gun--for
which he had not even one cartridge in his pockets--he made hopelessly
for the open park. Already some glimmer of light showed that he was
winning free of these accursed trees, which had stretched forth a
thousand hands to tear his flesh and trip his uncertain feet. That
way, at least, lay the world. In the wood he might have circled
blindly until captured.
Now a drawback of such roaring maelstroms of alarm and uncertainty is
their knack of submerging earlier and less dramatic passages in the
lives of those whom Fate drags into their sweeping currents. Lest,
therefore, the strangely contrived meeting between Sylvia and her
knight errant should be neglected by the chronicler, it is well to
return to those two young people at the moment when Sylvia was
declaring her unimpaired power of standing without support.
Trenholme was disposed to take everything for the best in a magic
world. "Whatever is, is right" is a doctrine which appeals to the
artistic temperament, inasmuch as it blends fatalism and the action of
Providence in proportions so admirably adjusted that no philosopher
yet born has succeeded in reducing them to a formula. But Eve did not
bite the apple in that spirit. It was forbidden: she wanted to know
why. Sylvia's first thought was to discover a reasonable reason for
Trenholme's presence. Of course, there was one that jumped to the eye,
but it was too absurd to suppose that he had come to the tryst in
obedience to the foolish vagaries which accounted for her own
actions. She blushed to the nape of her neck at the conceit, which
called for instant and severe repression, and her voice reflected the
passing mood.
"I don't wish to underrate the great service you have rendered me,"
she said coldly, "and I shall always be your debtor for it; but I can
not help asking how you came to be standing under the cedars at this
hour of the night?"
"I wonder," he said.
She wriggled her shoulder slightly, as a polite intimation that his
hand need not rest there any longer, but he seemed to misinterpret the
movement, and drew her an inch or so nearer, whereupon the wriggling
ceased.
"But that is no answer at all," she murmured, aware of a species of
fear of this big, masterful man: a fear rather fascinating in its
tremors, like a novice's cringing to the vibration of electricity in a
mildly pleasant form; a fear as opposed to her loathing of Robert
Fenley as the song of a thrush to the purr of a tiger.
"I can tell you, in a disconnected sort of way," he said, evidently
trying to focus his thoughts on a problem set by the gods, and which,
in consequence, was incapable of logical solution by a mere mortal.
"It was a fine night. I felt restless. The four walls of a room were
prison-like. I strolled out. I was thinking of you. I am here."
She trembled a little. Blushing even more deeply than before, she
fancied he must be able to feel her skin hot through silk and linen.
For all that, she contrived to laugh.
"It sounds convincing, but there is something missing in the
argument," she said.
"Most likely," he admitted. "A woman analyzes emotion far more
intimately than a man. Perhaps, if you were to tell me why _you_ were
drawn to cross the park at midnight, you might supply a clue to my own
moon madness."
"But there isn't any moon, and I think I ought to be returning to the
house."
He knew quite well that she had evaded his question, and, so readily
does the heart respond to the whisperings of hope, he was aware of a
sudden tumult in that which doctors call the cardiac region. She, too,
had come forth to tell her longings to the stars! That thrice blessed
picture had drawn them together by a force as unseen and irresistible
as the law of gravitation! Then he became aware of a dreadful qualm.
Had he any right to place on her slim shoulders the weight of an
avowal from which he had flinched? He dropped that protecting hand as
if it had been struck sharply.
"I have annoyed you by my stupid word-fencing," he said contritely.
"No, indeed," she said, and, reveling in a new sense of power, her
tone grew very gentle. "Why should we seek far-fetched theories for so
simple a thing as a stroll out of doors on a night like this? I am not
surprised that you, at any rate, should wish to visit the place where
that delightful picture sprang into being. It was my exceeding good
fortune that you happened to be close at hand when I needed help. I
must explain that----"
"My explanation comes first," he broke in. "I saw you crossing the
park. A second time in the course of one day I had to decide whether
to remain hidden or make a bolt for it. Again I determined to stand
fast; for had you seen and heard a man vanishing among the trees you
would certainly have been alarmed, not only because of the hour but
owing to today's extraordinary events. Moreover, I felt sure you were
coming to the lake, and I did not wish to stop you. That was a bit of
pure selfishness on my part. I wanted you to come. If ever a man was
vouchsafed the realization of an unspoken prayer, I am that man
tonight."
Trenholme had never before made love to any woman, but lack of
experience did not seem to trouble him greatly. Sylvia, however,
though very much alive to that element in his words, bethought herself
of something else which they implied.
"Then you heard what my cousin Robert said?" she commented.
"Every syllable. When the chance of an effectual reply offered, I
recalled his disjointed remarks collectively."
"Did you hit him very hard?"
"Just hard enough to stop him from annoying you further tonight."
"I suppose he deserved it. He was horrid. But I don't wish you to meet
him again just now. He is no coward, and he might attack you."
"That would be most unfortunate," he agreed.
"So, if you don't mind, we'll take a roundabout way. By skirting the
Quarry Wood we can reach the avenue, near the place where we met this
evening. Do you remember?"
"Perfectly. I shall be very old before I forget."
"But I mean the place where we met. Of course, you could hardly
pretend that you had forgotten meeting me."
"As soon would the daffodil forget where last it bloomed.
"Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.
"Not that I should quote you 'A Winter's Tale,' but rather search my
poor store for apter lines from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream':
"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luxurious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania.
"Believe me, I have an excellent memory--for some things."
They walked together in silence a little way, and dreamed, perchance,
that they were wandering in Oberon's realm with Hermia and Lysander.
Then Sylvia, stealing a shy glance at the tall figure by her side,
acknowledged that once she filled the rôle of Titania in a schoolroom
version of the play.
"We had no man," she said, "but the masks and costumes served us well.
After a day's study I could be a Fairy Queen once more.
"I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again;
Mine ear is much enraptured of thy note----"
She stopped suddenly. The next lines were distinctly amorous. He
laughed with ready appreciation of her difficulty, but generously
provided a way out.
"Poor mortal!" he tittered. "And must I wear an ass's head to be in
character?"
A loud report, and then another, brought them back rudely from a
make-believe wood near Athens to a peril-haunted park in an English
county. For the second time that night Sylvia knew what fear meant.
Intuitively, she shrank close to the strong man who seemed destined
to be her protector; and when an arm clasped her again, she cowered
close to its sheltering embrace.
"Oh, what is it?" she wailed in terror.
"It is hard to say," he answered quietly, and the confidence in his
voice was the best assurance of safety he could have given. "Those
shots were fired from some sort of rifle, not of the same caliber as
that which was used this morning, but unquestionably a rifle. Perhaps
it is one of these modern pistols. I don't wish to alarm you
needlessly, Miss Manning, but there is some probability that the
police have discovered the man who killed Mr. Fenley, and there is a
struggle going on. At any rate, let us remain out here in the open. We
shall be as safe here as anywhere."
Sylvia, who had not been afraid to venture alone into the park at
midnight, was now in a quite feminine state of fright. She clung to
Trenholme without any pretense of other feeling than one of unbounded
trust. Her heart was pounding frantically, and she was trembling from
head to foot.
The police whistles were shrilling their insistent summons for help,
and Trenholme knew that the commotion had arisen in the exact part of
the Quarry Wood whence the murderous bullet had sped that morning. He
was unarmed, of course, being devoid of even such a mildly aggressive
weapon as a walking-stick, but there was doubt in his mind that the
best thing to do was to stand fast. He was not blind to the
possibility of imminent danger, for the very spot they had reached lay
in a likely line of retreat for any desperado whom the police might
have discovered and be pursuing. Naturally he took it for granted that
the criminal had fired the two shots, and the fact that the whistles
were still in full blast showed that the chase had not been abandoned.
Still, the only course open was to take such chances as came their
way. He could always shield the girl with his own body, or tell her to
lie flat on the ground while he closed with an assailant if
opportunity served. Being a level-headed, plucky youngster, he was by
no means desirous of indulging in deeds of derring-do. The one
paramount consideration was the safe conduct of Sylvia to the house,
and he hoped sincerely that if a miscreant were trying to escape, he
would choose any route save that which led from the wood to Roxton
village.
"Don't hesitate if I bid you throw yourself down at full length," he
said, unconsciously stroking Sylvia's hair with his free hand. "In a
minute or two we'll make for the avenue. Meanwhile, let us listen. If
any one is coming in this direction we ought to hear him, and
forewarned is forearmed."
Choking back a broken question, she strove submissively to check her
distressed sobbing. Were it not for the hubbub of thousands of rooks
and pheasants they would assuredly have caught the sounds of Hilton
Fenley's panic-stricken onrush through the trees. As it was, he saw
them first, and, even in his rabid frenzy, recognized Sylvia. It was
only to be expected that he should mistake Trenholme for his brother,
and in a new spasm of fright, he recollected he was carrying the
rifle. Robert Fenley, of course, would identify it at a glance, and
could hardly fail to be more than suspicious at sight of it. With an
oath, he threw the telltale weapon back among the undergrowth, and,
summoning the last shreds of his shattered nerves to lend some degree
of self-control, walked rapidly out into the open park.
Sylvia saw him and shrieked. Trenholme was about to thrust her behind
him, when some familiar attribute about the outline of the approaching
figure caused her to cry--
"Why, it's Hilton!"
"Yes, Sylvia," came the breathless answer. "You heard the firing, of
course? The police have found some fellow in the wood. You and Bob
make for the avenue. I'm going this way in case he breaks cover for
the Roxton gate. Hurry! You'll find some of the men there. Never mind
about me. I'll be all right!"
He was running while he talked, edging away toward the group of
cedars; and, under the conditions, it was not for Trenholme to
undeceive him as to the mistake in regarding the artist as Robert
Fenley. In any event, the appearance of Hilton from that part of the
wood seemed to prove that the man whom the law was seeking could not
be in the same locality, so Trenholme did not hesitate to urge Sylvia
to fall in with her "cousin's" instructions.
For the time, then, they may be left to progress uninterruptedly
to safety and not very prompt enlightenment; the flight of the
self-confessed murderer calls for more immediate attention. Probably,
after the first moment of suspense, and when he was sure that escape
was still not utterly impracticable, he intended to cross the park to
the northwest and climb the boundary wall. But a glimpse of the black
line of trees daunted him. He simply dared not face those pitiless
sentinels again. He pictured himself forcing a way through the
undergrowth in the dense gloom and failing perhaps; for the vegetation
was wilder there than in any other portion of the estate. So, making a
détour, he headed for the unencumbered parkland once more, and gained
the wall near Jackson's farm about the time that Trenholme and Sylvia
entered the avenue.
He was unquestionably in a parlous state. Bare-headed, unarmed, he
could not fail to attract attention in a district where every resident
knew the other, nor could he resist capture when the hue and cry went
forth. What to do he knew not. Even if he managed to reach the railway
station unchallenged, the last train of the day had left for London
soon after eleven, and the earliest next morning was timed for five
o'clock, too late by many hours to serve his desperate need.
Could he hire a motor car or bicycle? The effort was fraught with
every variety of risk. There was a small garage at Easton, but those
cunning detectives would be raising the countryside already, and the
telephone would close every outlet. For the first time in his life
Hilton Fenley realized that the world is too small to hold a murderer.
He was free, would soon have the choice of a network of main roads and
lanes in a rural district at the dead hour of the night, yet he felt
himself securely caged as some creature of the jungle trapped in a
pit.
Crossing Jackson's farmyard, not without disturbing a dog just
quieting down after the preceding racket, he hurried into the village
street, having made up his mind to face the inevitable and arouse the
garage keeper. By the irony of fate he passed the cottage in which
Police Constable Farrow was lying asleep and utterly unaware of the
prevalent excitement, to join in which he would have kept awake all
that night and the next.
Then the turn of Fortune's wheel befriended Fenley again. Outside a
house stood Dr. Stern's car, a closed-in runabout in which both the
doctor and his chauffeur were sheltered from inclement weather. The
chauffeur was lounging on the pavement, smoking a cigarette, and
Fenley, of course, recognized him. His heart leaped. Let him be bold
now, and he might win through. A handkerchief wiped some of the blood
off his face where the skin had been broken by the trees, and he
avoided the glare of the lamps.
"Hello, Tom," he said, "where is the doctor?"
"Inside, sir," with a glance toward an upper room where a light shone.
"What's happened at The Towers, sir? Was it shooting I heard a while
since?"
"Yes. A false alarm, though. The police thought they had found some
suspicious character in the grounds."
"By jing, sir, did they fire at him?"
Fenley saw that the story was weak, and hastened to correct it.
"No, no," he said. "The police don't shoot first. That was my brother,
Robert. You know what a harebrained fellow he is. Said he fired in
order to make the man double back. But that is a small matter. Can I
have one word with Dr. Stern?"
"I'll see, sir," and the chauffeur went to the house.
Furneaux had estimated Hilton Fenley correctly in ascribing to him
the quality of cold-bloodedness. Ninety-nine men among a hundred would
have appropriated the motor car then and there, but Fenley saw by
waiting a minute and displaying the requisite coolness he might
succeed in throwing his pursuers off the trail for some hours.
Stern came. It chanced that he was watching a good patient through a
crisis, and would be detained until daybreak.
"Hello, Hilton," he cried. "What's up now, and what's the racket in
the park?"
Fenley explained, but hurried to the vital matter.
"My car is out of action," he said. "I was going to the Easton garage
to hire one when I saw yours standing here. Lend it to me for a couple
of hours; there's a good fellow. I'll pay well for the use of it."
"Pay? Nonsense! Jump in! Take Mr. Fenley where he wants to go, Tom.
Where to first, Hilton?"
"St. Albans. I'm exceedingly obliged. And look here, Stern, I insist
on paying."
"We can settle that afterwards. Off with you. I'll walk home, Tom."
Away sped the car. Running through Easton, Fenley saw two policemen
stationed at a cross-road. They signaled the car to stop, and his
blood curdled, but, in the same instant, they saw the chauffeur's
face; the other occupant was cowering as far back in the shadow as
possible.
"Oh, it's Dr. Stern," said one. "Right, Tom. By the way, have you seen
anything of----"
"Go on, do!" growled Fenley, drowning the man's voice. "I'm in a vile
hurry."
That was his last real hairbreadth escape--for that night, at any
rate, though other thrills were in store. The chauffeur was greatly
surprised when bidden to go on from St. Albans to London, and take the
High Barnet road to the City; but Fenley produced a five-pound note at
the right moment, and the man reflected that his master would not
hesitate to oblige a wealthy client, who evidently meant to make good
the wear and tear on the car.
In about an hour Fenley alighted on the pavement opposite the firm's
premises in Bishopsgate Street. If a policeman had chanced to be
standing there the fugitive would have known that the game was up, but
the only wayfarers in that part of the thoroughfare were some street
cleaners.
Now that he saw a glimmer of light where hitherto all was darkness, he
was absolutely clear-brained and cool in manner.
"Wait five minutes," he said. "I sha'n't detain you longer."
He let himself in with a master key, taken from his dead father's
pockets earlier by Tomlinson. Going to the banker's private office,
he ransacked a safe and a cabinet with hasty method. He secured a hat,
an overcoat, an umbrella and a packed suitcase, left there for
emergency journeys in connection with the business, and was back in
the street again within less than the specified time.
His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth when he found a policeman
chatting with the chauffeur, but the man saluted him with a civil
"Good morning!"
In the City of London, which is deserted as a cemetery from ten
o'clock at night till six in the morning, the police keep a sharp eye
on waiting cabs and automobiles between these hours, and invariably
inquire their business.
This constable was quite satisfied that all was well when he saw Mr.
Hilton Fenley, whom he knew by sight. In any event, the flying
murderer was safer than he dared hope in that place and at that time.
The Roxton telephonic system was temporarily useless in so far as it
affected his movements; for a fire had broken out at The Towers, and
the flames of the burning roof had been as a beacon for miles around
during the whole of the time consumed by the run to London.
CHAPTER XVI
THE CLOSE OF A TRAGEDY
Winter was in the Quarry Wood and feeling his way but trusting to
hands and feet when he heard, and soon saw, Furneaux and the two
constables coming toward him. The little detective held the electric
torch above his head, and was striding on without looking to right or
left. The bitterness of defeat was in his face. Life had turned to
gall and wormwood. As the expressive American phrase has it, he was
chewing mud.
The Superintendent smiled. He knew what torment his friend was
suffering.
"Hello, there!" he said gruffly, and the three men jumped, for their
nerves were on edge.
"Oh, it's you, Napoleon," yelped Furneaux. "Behold Soult and his army
corps, come to explain how Sir John Moore dodged him at Corunna."
"You've lost your man, then?"
"Botched the job at the moment of victory. And all through a rope
end."
"Tush! That isn't in your line."
"Must I be lashed by your wit, too? The rope was applied to me, not to
Fenley."
"You don't mean to say, sir," broke in one of the astounded policemen,
"that you think Mr. Hilton killed his own father!"
"Was it you who got that punch in the tummy?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, save your breath. You'll want it when the muscles stiffen.
_'Cré nom d'un pipe!_ To think that I, Furneaux of the Yard, should
queer the finest pitch I ever stood on."
"Oh, come now, Charles," said Winter. "Don't cry over spilt milk.
You'll catch Fenley all right before the weather changes. What really
happened?"
Aware of the paramount necessity of suppressing his personal woes,
Furneaux at once gave a graphic and succinct account of Fenley's
imminent capture and escape. He was scrupulously fair, and exonerated
his assistants from any share of the blame--if indeed any one could be
held accountable for the singular accident which precipitated matters
by a few vital seconds.
Had Fenley reached the ground before the torch revealed the
detective's presence, the latter would have closed with him instantly,
throwing the torch aside, and thus taking the prisoner at the
disadvantage which the fortune of war had brought to bear against the
law. Furneaux was wiry though slight, and he could certainly have held
his man until reënforcements came; nor would the constables' lamps
have been extinguished during the _mêlée_.
"Then he has vanished, rifle and all," said Winter, when Furneaux had
made an end.
"As though the earth had swallowed him. A thousand years ago it would
have done so," was the humiliated confession.
"None of you have any notion which direction he took?"
"_I_ received such a whack on the skull that I believe he disappeared
in fire," said Furneaux. "My friend here," turning to the policeman
who had voiced his amazement at the suggestion that Hilton Fenley was
a murderer, "was in the position of Bret Harte's negro lecturer on
geology, while this other stalwart thought he had been kicked by a
horse. We soon recovered, but had to grope for each other. Then I
called the heavens to witness that I was dished."
"That gave us a chance of salvage, anyhow," said Winter. "I 'phoned
the Roxton Inspector, and he will block the roads. When he has
communicated with St. Albans and some other centers we should have a
fairly wide net spread. Bates is coming from the lodge to take charge
of a search party to scour the woods. We want that rifle. He must have
dropped it somewhere. He'll make for a station in the early morning.
He daren't tramp the country without a hat and in a black suit."
Winter was trying to put heart into his colleague, but Furneaux was
not to be comforted. The truth was that the blow on the head had been
a very severe one. Unfortunately, he had changed his hard straw hat
for a soft cap which gave hardly any protection. Had Fenley's perch
been a few inches lower when he delivered that vindictive thrust,
Scotland Yard would probably have lost one of its most zealous
officers.
So the Jerseyman said nothing, having nothing to say that was fit for
the ears of the local constabulary, and Winter suggested that they
should return to the mansion and give Bates instructions. Then he,
Winter, would telephone Headquarters, have the main roads watched, and
the early Continental trains kept under surveillance.
Furneaux, torch in hand, at once led the way. Thus the party was
visible before it entered the avenue, and two young people who had
bridged months of ordinary acquaintance in one moment of tragedy,
being then on the roadway, saw the gleam of light and waited.
"Good!" cackled the little detective when his glance fell on them.
"I'm glad to see there's one live man in the bunch. I presume you've
disposed of Mr. Robert Fenley, Mr. Trenholme?"
"Yes," said the artist. "His affairs seem to be common property. His
brother evidently knew he was out of doors, and now you----"
Furneaux woke up at that.
"His brother! How can _you_ know what his brother knew?"
"Mr. Hilton Fenley saw Miss Manning and myself, and mistook me
for----"
"Saw you? When?"
"About five minutes ago, on the other side of the wood."
"What did he say? Quick!"
"He told us that the shooting was the outcome of your efforts to catch
some man hiding among the trees."
"Of my efforts?"
"He didn't mention you by name. The words he used were 'the police.'
He was taking part in the chase, I suppose."
"Which way did he go?"
Trenholme hesitated. Not only was he not quite conversant with the
locality, but his shrewd wits had reached a certain conclusion, and he
did not wish to be too outspoken before Sylvia. Surely she had borne
sufficient for one day.
Thereupon the girl herself broke in.
"Hilton went toward the cedars. He may be making for the Easton gate.
Have you caught any man?"
"Not yet, Miss Manning," said Winter, assuming control of the
situation with a firm hand. "I advise you to go straight to your
room, and not stir out again tonight. There will be no more
disturbance--I promise you that."
Even the chief of the C. I. D. can err when he prophesies. At that
instant the two lines of trees lost their impenetrable blackness.
Their foliage sprang into red-tinted life as if the witches of the
Brocken had chosen a new meeting-place, and a crackling, tearing sound
rent the air.
"Oh!" screamed Sylvia, who chanced to be facing the mansion. "The
house is on fire!"
They were standing in a group, almost where Police Constable Farrow
had stood at ten minutes past ten the previous morning. Hence they
were aware of this addition to the day's horrors before the house
servants, who, headed by Tomlinson, were gathered on and near the
flight of steps at the entrance. Every female servant in the
establishment was there as well, not outside the door, but quaking in
the hall. MacBain was the first among the men to realize what was
happening. He caught the loud clang of an automatic fire alarm ringing
in his room, and at once called the house fire brigade to run out the
hose while he dashed upstairs into the north corridor, from which a
volume of smoke was pouring.
"Good Heavens!" he cried, on reaching the cross gallery. "It's in Mr.
Fenley's rooms!"
Mr. Fenley's rooms! No need to tell the horrified staff which rooms he
meant. A fire was raging in the private suite of the dead man!
The residence was singularly well equipped with fire-extinguishing
appliances. Mortimer Fenley had seen to that. Hand grenades, producing
carbonic acid gas generated by mixing water with acid and alkali,
were stored in convenient places, and there was a plentiful supply of
water from many hose pipes. The north and south galleries looked on
to an internal courtyard, so there was every chance of isolating
the outbreak if it were tackled vigorously; and no fault could be
found with either the spirit or training of the amateur brigade.
Consequently, only two rooms, a bedroom and adjoining dressing-room,
were well alight; these were burned out completely. A sitting-room on
one side was badly scorched, as was a spare room on the other; but the
men soon knew that they had checked the further progress of the
flames, and were speculating, while they worked, as to the cause of a
fire originating in a set of empty apartments, when Parker, Mrs.
Fenley's personal attendant, came sobbing and distraught to Sylvia.
"Oh, miss!" she cried. "Oh, miss! Where is your aunt?"
"Isn't Mrs. Fenley in her room?" asked the girl, yielding to a sense
of neglect in not having gone to see if Mrs. Fenley was alarmed,
though the older woman was not in the slightest danger. The two main
sections of the building were separated by an open space of forty
feet, and The Towers had exceedingly thick walls.
"No, miss. I can't find her anywhere!" said the woman, well aware that
if any one was at fault it was herself. "You know when I saw you. I
went back then, and she was sleeping, so I thought I could leave her
safely. Oh, miss, what has become of her? Maybe she was aroused by the
shooting!"
All hands that could be spared from the fire-fighting operations
engaged instantly in an active search, but there was no clue to Mrs.
Fenley's disappearance beyond an open door and a missing night light.
The electric current was shut off at the main at midnight, except on a
special circuit communicating with the hall, the courtyard, and
MacBain's den, where he had control of these things.
High and low they hunted without avail, until MacBain himself stumbled
over a calcinated body in the murdered banker's bedroom. The poor
creature had waked to some sense of disaster. Vague memories of the
morning's horror had led her, night light in hand, to the spot where
she fancied she would find the one person on earth in whom she placed
confidence, for Mortimer Fenley had always treated her with kindness,
even if his methods were not in accord with the commonly accepted
moral code.
Presumably, on discovering that the rooms were empty, some further
glimmering knowledge had stirred her benumbed consciousness. She may
have flung herself on the bed in a paroxysm of weeping, heedless of
the overturned night light and the havoc it caused. That, of course,
is sheer guesswork, though the glass dish which held the light was
found later on the charred floor, which was protected, to some extent,
by a thick carpet.
At any rate, she had not long survived the husband who had given her a
pomp and circumstance for which she was ill fitted. They were buried
in the same grave, and Hertfordshire sent its thousands to the
funeral.
Soon after her fate became known, Winter wanted Furneaux, but his
colleague was not in the house. The telephone having broken down,
owing to the collapse of a standard, and the necessity of subduing the
fire having put a stop to any immediate search being made in the park,
Winter thought that the pair of them would be better employed if they
transferred their energies to the local police station.
He found Furneaux seated on the lowermost step at the entrance; the
Jerseyman was crying as if his heart would break, and Trenholme was
trying to comfort him, but in vain.
"What's up now?" inquired the Superintendent, thinking at the moment
that his friend and comrade was giving way to hysteria indirectly
owing to the blow he had received.
Furneaux looked up. It was the darkest hour of the night, and his
chief could not see the distraught features wrung with pain.
"James," he said, mastering his voice by a fierce effort, "my mad
antics killed that unfortunate woman! She was aroused by the shots.
She would cry for help, and none came. Heavens! I can hear her now!
Then she ran for refuge to the man who had been everything to her
since she was a barrack room kid in India. I'm done, old fellow. I
resign. I can never show my face in the Yard again."
"It'll do you a world of good if you talk," said Winter, meaning to
console, but unconsciously wounding by cruel sarcasm.
"I'll be dumb enough after this night's work," said Furneaux, in a
tone of such utter dejection that Winter began to take him seriously.
"If you fail me now, Charles," he said, and his utterance was thick
with anger at the crassness of things, "I'll consider the advisability
of sending in my own papers. Dash it!" He said something quite
different, but his friends may read this record, and they would
repudiate an exact version with scorn and disbelief. "Are we going to
admit ourselves beaten by a half-bred hound like Hilton Fenley? Not
if I know it, or I know you. We've got the noose 'round his neck, and
you and I will pull it tight if we have to follow him to----"
"Pardon the interruption, gentlemen," said a voice. "I was called out
o' bed to come to the fire, an' took a short cut across the park. Blow
me if I didn't kick my foot against this!"
And Police Constable Farrow, who had approached unnoticed, held out
an object which seemed to be a rifle. Owing to his being seated
Furneaux's eyes were on a level with it, and he could see more clearly
than the others. He struck a match; then there could be no doubt that
the policeman had actually picked up the weapon which had set in
motion so many and such varied vicissitudes.
But Farrow had more to say. It had been his happy lot during many
hours to figure bravely in the Fenley case, and he carried himself
as a valiant man and true to the end.
"I think I heard you mention Mr. Hilton," he went on. "I met Dr. Stern
in the village, an' he tol' me Mr. Hilton had borrowed his car."
Furneaux stood up.
"Continue, Solomon," he said, and Winter sighed with relief; the
little man was himself again.
"That's all, gentlemen, or practically all. It struck me as unusual,
but Dr. Stern said Mr. Hilton's motor was out o' gear, an' he wanted
a car in a desp'rit hurry."
"He did, indeed!" growled Furneaux. "You're quite sure there is no
mistake?"
"Mistake, sir? How could there be? The doctor was walkin' home. That's
an unusual thing. He never walks a yard if he can help it. Mr. Hilton
borrowed the car to go to St. Albans."
"Did he, indeed? Just how did he come to find the car waiting for
him?"
"Oh, that's the queer part of it. Dr. Stern is lookin' after poor old
Joe Bland, who's mighty bad with--there, now, if I haven't gone and
forgotten the name; something-itis--and Mr. Hilton must have seen the
car standin' outside Bland's house. But what was he doin' in Roxton at
arf past twelve? That's wot beats me. And then, just fancy me stubbin'
my toe against this!"
Again he displayed the rifle as if it were an exhibit and he were
giving evidence.
"Let's go inside and get a light," said Winter, and the four mounted
the steps into the hall. Robert Fenley was there--red-faced as ever,
for he had helped in putting out the fire, but quite sober, since he
had been very sick.
Some lamps and candles gave a fair amount of light, and Robert eyed
Trenholme viciously.
"So it was you!" he said. "I thought it was. Well, my father and
mother are both dead, and this is no time for settlin' matters; but
I'll look you up when this business is all over."
"If you do, you'll get hurt," said Winter brusquely. "Is that your
rifle?" and he pointed to the weapon in Farrow's hands.
"Yes. Where was it found?"
"In the Quarry Wood, sir, but a'most in the park," said the policeman.
"Has it been used recently?"
Fenley could hardly have put a question better calculated to prove his
own innocence of any complicity in the crime.
Winter took the gun, meaning to open the breech, but he and Furneaux
simultaneously noticed a bit of black thread tied to one of the
triggers. It had been broken, and the two loose ends were some inches
in length.
"That settles it," muttered Furneaux. "The scoundrel fixed it to a
thick branch, aimed it carefully on more than one occasion--look at
the sights, set for four hundred yards--and fired it by pulling a cord
from his bedroom window when he saw his father occupying the exact
position where the sighting practiced on Monday and Tuesday showed
that a fatal wound would be inflicted. The remaining length of cord
was stronger than this packing thread, which was bound to give way
first when force was applied.... Well, that side of the question
didn't bother us much, did it, Winter?"
"May I ask who you're talking about?" inquired Robert Fenley hoarsely.
"About that precious rogue, your half brother," was the answer. "That
is why he went to his bedroom, one window of which looks out on the
park and the other on the east front, where he watched his father
standing to light a cigar before entering the motor. He laid the cord
before breakfast, knowing that Miss Manning's habit of bathing in the
lake would keep gardeners and others from that part of the grounds.
When the shot was fired he pulled in the cord----"
"I saw him doing that," interrupted Trenholme, who, after one glance
at the signs of his handiwork on Robert Fenley's left jaw, had devoted
his attention to the extraordinary story revealed by the detectives.
"You _saw_ him!" And Furneaux wheeled round in sudden wrath. "Why the
deuce didn't you tell me that?"
"You never asked me."
"How could I ask you such a thing? Am I a necromancer, a wizard, or
eke a thought reader?"
Trenholme favored the vexed little man with a contemplative look.
"I think you are all those, and a jolly clever art critic as well," he
said.
Furneaux was discomfited, and Winter nearly laughed. But the matter at
issue was too important to be treated with levity.
"Tell us now what you saw, Mr. Trenholme," he said.
"When the shot was fired, I recognized it as coming from a
high-velocity rifle," said the artist. "I was surprised that such a
weapon should be used in an enclosed park of this nature, and looked
toward the house to discover whether or not any heed would be given to
the incident there. From where I was seated I could see the whole of
the south front, but not the east side, where the brass fittings of
the automobile alone were visible, glinting through and slightly above
a yew hedge.
"Now, when Miss Manning returned to the house and entered by way of a
window on the ground floor, I noticed that no other window was open.
But after the report of the gun, I saw the end window of the first
floor on the southeast side slightly raised--say six inches; and some
one in the room was, as I regarded it, gesticulating, or making signs.
That continued nearly half a minute and then ceased. I don't know
whether the person behind the glass was a man or a woman, but some one
was there, and engaged in the way I have described. If your theory is
correct, the motions would be precisely those you suggest, similar to
those of a fisherman reeling in a line."
"Your simile happens to be exact," said Winter. "While Hilton Fenley
and my friend here were having a dust-up in the Quarry Wood I searched
his rooms; and among other things I came upon a salmon reel carrying
an exceptional quantity of line. So our case is fairly complete. I'm
sorry to have to inform you, Mr. Fenley, that not only did your half
brother kill your father, but he tried his level best to put the crime
on your shoulders.
"He overreached himself in sending for Scotland Yard men. We have seen
too much of the seamy side of life to accept as Gospel truth the first
story we hear. The very fact that Hilton Fenley was attacking you in
your absence prejudiced us against him at the outset. There were other
matters, which I need not go into now, which converted our dislike
into active suspicion.
"But it is only fair that you should understand how narrow was your
escape from arrest. Had the local police been in sole charge I am
bound to say you would have passed this night in a cell. Luckily for
you, Mr. Furneaux and I set our faces against the notion of your guilt
from the beginning. Long before we saw you, we were keeping an eye on
the real criminal. When you did appear, your conduct only confirmed
our belief in your innocence."
"I told you why, you will remember," piped Furneaux.
But Robert Fenley said no word. He was stunned. He began to feel ill
again, and made for his room. Sylvia had not been seen since she heard
of Mrs. Fenley's death. The detectives collected their belongings,
which with the gun and a bag packed with various articles taken from
Hilton Fenley's suite--the reel, for instance, a suit of clothes
bearing marks, possibly of moss, and the leather portfolio of
papers--were entrusted to Farrow and another constable for safe
conveyance. Accompanied by Trenholme, they walked to Easton. On the
way the artist supplied sufficient details of his two meetings with
Sylvia to put them in possession of the main incidents. Furneaux,
though suffering from a splitting headache, had recovered the use of a
vinegary tongue.
"I was mistaken in you," he chuckled. "You're a rank impressionist.
Indeed, you're a neo-impressionist, a get-busy-and-do-it-now master of
art.... But she's a mighty nice girl, isn't she?"
"Meaning Miss Manning?" said Trenholme coldly.
"No. Eliza."
"Sorry. I misunderstood."
"_'Cré nom!_ You've got it bad."
"Got what bad?"
"The matrimonial measles. You're sickening for them now. One of the
worst symptoms in the man is his curt refusal to permit anybody else
to admire one bright particular star of womanhood. If the girl hears
another girl gushing over the young man, she's ready to scratch her
eyes out. By Jove! It'll be many a day before you forget your visit to
Roxton Park this morning, or yesterday morning, or whenever it was.
"I'm mixed. Life has been very strenuous during the past fifteen
hours. If you love me, James, put my poor head under a pump, or I'll
be dreaming that our lightning sketch performer here, long John
Trenholme, late candidate for the P. R. A., but now devoted to the
cult of Hymen, is going to marry Eliza, of the White Horse, and that
the fair Sylvia is pledged to cook us a dinner tomorrow night--or is
it tonight? Oh, Gemini, how my head aches!"
"Don't mind a word he's saying, Mr. Trenholme," put in Winter. "Hilton
Fenley hit him a smack with that rifle, and it developed certain
cracks already well marked. But he's a marvelously 'cute little codger
when you make due allowance for his peculiar ways, and he has a queer
trick of guessing at future events with an accuracy which has
surprised me more times than I can keep track of."
Trenholme was too good a fellow not to put up with a little mild chaff
of that sort. He looked at the horizon, where the faint streaks of
another dawn were beginning to show in the northeast.
"Please God," he said piously, "if I'm deemed worthy of such a boon,
I'll marry Sylvia Manning, or no other woman. And, when the chance
offers, Eliza of the White Horse shall cook you a dinner to make your
mouth water. Thus will Mr. Furneaux's dream come true, because dreams
go by contraries!"
CHAPTER XVII
THE SETTLEMENT
Winter tried to persuade his mercurial-spirited friend to snatch a few
hours' rest. The Police Inspector obligingly offered a bed; but short
of a positive order, which the Superintendent did not care to give,
nothing would induce Furneaux to let go his grip on the Fenley case.
"Wait till the doctor's car comes back," he urged. "The chauffeur will
carry the story a few pages farther. At any rate, we shall know where
he dropped Fenley, and that is something."
Winter produced a big cigar, and Trenholme felt in his pockets for
pipe and tobacco.
"No, you don't, young man," said the big man firmly. "You're going
straight to your room in the White Horse. And I'll tell you why. From
what I have heard about the Fenleys, they were a lonely crowd. Their
friends were business associates and they seem to own no relatives;
while Miss Manning, if ever she possessed any, has been carefully shut
away from them. The position of affairs in The Towers will be strained
tomorrow. The elder Fenleys are dead; one son may be in jail--or, if
he isn't, might as well be--and the other, as soon as he feels his
feet, will be giving himself airs. Now, haven't you a mother or an
aunt who would come to Roxton and meet Miss Manning, and perhaps help
her to get away from a house which is no fit place for her to live in
at present?"
"My mother can be here within an hour of the opening of the telegraph
office," said Trenholme.
"Write the telegram now, and the constable on night duty will attend
to it. When your mother arrives, tell her the whole story, and send
her to Miss Manning. Don't go yourself. You might meet Robert Fenley,
and he would certainly be cantankerous. If your mother resembles you,
she will have no difficulty in arranging matters with the young lady."
"If I resemble my mother, I am a very fortunate man," said the artist
simply.
"I thought it would be that way," was the smiling comment. "One other
thing: I don't suppose for a minute that Miss Manning is acquainted
with a reputable firm of solicitors. If she is, tell her to consult
them, and get them to communicate with Scotland Yard, where I shall
supply or leave with others certain information which should be acted
on promptly in her behalf. If, as I expect, she knows no lawyer, see
that she takes this card to the address on it and give Messrs. Gibb,
Morris & Gibb my message. You understand?"
"Yes."
"Finally, she must be warned to say nothing of this to Robert Fenley.
In fact, the less that young spark knows about her affairs the better.
After tonight's adventure that hint is hardly needed, perhaps; but it
is always well to be explicit. Now off with you."
"I'm not tired. Can I be of any service?"
"Yes. I want you to be ready for a long day's work in Miss Manning's
interests. Mr. Furneaux and I may be busy elsewhere. Unquestionably we
shall not be in Roxton; we may even be far from London. Miss Manning
will want a friend. See to it that you start the day refreshed by some
hours of sleep."'
"Good-by," said Trenholme promptly. "Sorry you two will miss Eliza's
dinner. But that is only a feast deferred. By the way, if I leave
Roxton I'll send you my address."
"Don't worry about that," smiled the Superintendent. "Our friend the
Inspector here will keep tab on you. Before you're finished with
inquests, police courts and assizes you'll wish you'd never heard the
name of Fenley.... By Jove, I nearly forgot to caution you. Not a word
to the press.... Phi-ew!" he whistled. "If they get on to this story
in its entirety, won't they publish chapter and verse!"
So Trenholme went out into the village street and walked to his
quarters in the White Horse Inn. It was not yet two o'clock, but dawn
had already silvered the northeast arc of the horizon. Just twenty
hours earlier an alarm clock had waked him into such a day as few have
experienced. Many a man has been brought unexpectedly into intimate
touch with a tragedy of no personal concern, but seldom indeed do the
Fates contrive that death and love and high adventure should be so
closely bound, and packed pellmell into one long day.
Only to think of it! When he stole upstairs with the clock to play a
trick on Eliza, he had never seen Sylvia nor so much as heard her name
spoken. When he sang of love and the dawn while striding homeward
through the park, he had seen her, yet did not know her, and had no
hope of ever seeing her again. When he worked at her picture, he had
labored at the idealization of a dream which bade fair to remain a
dream. And now by some magic jugglery of ordinary events, each well
within the bounds of credibility, yet so overwhelmingly incredible in
their sequence and completeness, he was Sylvia's lover, her defender,
her trusted knight-errant.
Even the concluding words of that big, round-headed, sensible
detective had brought a fantasy nearer attainment. If Sylvia were
rich, why then a youngster who painted pictures for a living would
hardly dare think of marrying her. But if Sylvia were poor--and
Winter's comments seemed to show that these financiers had been
financing themselves at her expense--what earthly reason was there
that she should not become Mrs. John Trenholme at the earliest
practicable date? None that he could conceive. Why, a fellow would
have to be a fool indeed who did not know when he had met the one
woman in the world! He had often laughed at other fellows who spoke in
that way about the chosen one. Now he understood that they had been
wise and he foolish.
But suppose Sylvia--oh, dash it, no need to spoil one's brief rest by
allowing a beastly doubt like that to rear its ugly head! One thing he
was sure of--Robert Fenley could never be a rival; and Fenley, churl
that he was, had known her for years, and could hardly be pestering
her with his attentions if she were pledged to another man. Moreover
he, John, newly in love and tingling with the thrill of it, fancied
that Sylvia would not have clung to him with such complete confidence
when the uproar arose in the park if----Well, well--the history of the
Fenley case will never be brought to an end if any attempt is made to
analyze the effects of love's first vigorous growth in the artistic
temperament.
About a quarter past three Dr. Stern's little landaulet was halted at
the same cross-road where a policeman had stopped it nearly three
hours earlier.
"That you, Tom?" said the constable. "You're wanted at the station."
"What station?" inquired the chauffeur.
"The police station."
"Am I, by gum? What's up?"
"The Scotland Yard men want you."
"But what for? I haven't run over so much as a hen."
"Oh, it's all right. You're wanted as a witness. Never mind why.
_They_'ll tell you. The doctor is there, smoking a cigar till you turn
up."
"I left him at Joe Bland's."
"Joe Bland has left Boxton for Kingdom Come. And The Towers is half
burnt down. Things haven't been happening while you were away, have
they?"
"Not half," said Tom.
"No, nor quarter," grinned the policeman to himself when the car moved
on. "Wait till you know who you took on that trip, and why, and _your_
sparkin'-plug'll be out of order for a week."
It was as well that the chauffeur had not the slightest notion that
he had conveyed a murderer to London when he began to tell his tale
to his employer and the detectives. They wanted a plain, unvarnished
story, and got it. On leaving the offices in Bishopsgate Street,
Fenley asked to be driven to Gloucester Mansions, Shaftesbury Avenue.
Tom had seen the last of him standing on the pavement, with a suitcase
on the ground at his feet. He was wearing an overcoat and a derby hat,
and was pressing an electric bell.
"He tol' me I needn't wait, so I made for the Edgware Road; an' that's
all," said Tom.
"Cool as a fish!" commented Furneaux.
"Well, sir, I didn't get hot over it," said the surprised chauffeur.
"I'm not talking about you. Could you manage another run to town? Are
you too tired?"
The mystified Tom looked at his employer. Dr. Stern laughed.
"Go right ahead!" he cried. "I'm thinking of buying a new car. A
hundred and twenty miles in one night should settle the matter so
far as this old rattletrap is concerned."
"Of course we'll pay you, doctor," said Winter.
"That's more than Hilton Fenley will ever do, I'm afraid."
Tom tickled his scalp under his cap.
"Mr. Hilton gemme a fiver," he said rather sheepishly. There was
something going on that he did not understand, but he thought it
advisable to own up with regard to that lordly tip.
"You're a lucky fellow," said the doctor. "What about petrol? And do
you feel able to take these gentlemen to London?"
Tom was a wiry person. In five minutes he was on the road again bound
for Scotland Yard this time. As a matter of form a detective was sent
to Gloucester Mansions, and came back with the not unforeseen news
that Mrs. Garth was very angry at being disturbed at such an unearthly
hour. No; she had seen nothing of Mr. Hilton Fenley since the
preceding afternoon. Some one had rung the bell about two o'clock that
morning, but the summons was not repeated; and she had not inquired
into it, thinking that a mistake had been made and discovered by the
blunderer.
Sheldon was brought from his residence. He had a very complete report
concerning Mrs. Lisle; but that lady's shadowy form need not flit
across the screen, since Robert Fenley's intrigues cease to be of
interest. He had dispatched her to France, urging that he must be
given a free hand until the upset caused by his father's death was put
straight. Suffice it to say that when he secured some few hundreds a
year out of the residue of the estate, he married Mrs. Lisle, and
possibly became a henpecked husband. The Garths, too, mother and
daughter, may be dropped. There was no getting any restitution by them
of any share of the proceeds of the robbery. They vowed they were
innocent agents and received no share of the plunder. Miss Eileen
Garth has taken up musical comedy, if not seriously at least
zealously, and commenced in the chorus with quite a decent show of
diamonds.
London was scoured next morning for traces of Hilton Fenley, but with
no result. This again fell in with anticipation. The brain that could
plan the brutal murder of a father was not likely to fail when
contriving its own safety. Somehow both Winter and Furneaux were
convinced that Fenley would make for Paris, and that once there it
would be difficult to lay hands on him. Furneaux, be it remembered,
had gone very thoroughly into the bond robbery, and had reached
certain conclusions when Mortimer Fenley stopped the inquiry.
In pursuance of this notion they resolved to watch the likeliest
ports. Furneaux took Dover, Winter Newhaven and Sheldon Folkestone.
They did not even trouble to search the outgoing trains at the London
termini, though a detailed description of the fugitive was circulated
in the ordinary way. Each man traveled by the earliest train to his
destination and, having secured the aid of the local police, mounted
guard over the gangways.
Furneaux drew the prize, which was only a just compensation for a sore
head and sorer feelings. He had changed his clothing, but adopted no
other disguise than a traveling-cap pulled well down over his eyes.
He took it for granted that Fenley, like every other intelligent
person going abroad, was aware that all persons leaving the country
are subjected to close if unobtrusive scrutiny as they step from pier
to ship. Fenley, therefore, would have a sharp eye for the quietly
dressed men who stand close to the steamer officials at the head of
the gangway, but would hardly expect to find Nemesis hidden in the
purser's cabin. Through a porthole Furneaux saw every face and, on the
third essay, while the fashionable crowd which elects to pay higher
rates for the eleven o'clock express from Victoria was struggling like
less exalted people to be on board quickly, he found his man in the
thick of the press.
Fenley had procured a new suit, a Homburg hat, and some baggage. In
fact, it was learned afterwards that he hired a taxi at Charing Cross,
breakfasted at Canterbury, and made his purchases there at leisure,
before driving on to Dover.
He passed between two uniformed policemen with the utmost
self-possession, even pausing there momentarily to give some
instruction to a porter about the disposition of his portmanteaux.
That was a piece of pure bravado, perhaps a final test of his own
highly strung nerves. The men, of course, were not watching him or any
other individual in the hurrying throng. They had a sharp eye for
Furneaux, however, and when he nodded and hurried from his lair one of
them grabbed Fenley by the shoulder.
At that instant a burly German, careless of any one's comfort but
his own, and somewhat irritated by Fenley's halt at the mouth of
the gangway, brushed forward. His weight, and Fenley's quick flinching
from that ominous clutch, loosed the policeman's hold, and the
murderer was free once more for a few fleeting seconds.
The constable pressed on, shoving the other man against the rail.
"Here. I want you," he said, and the quietly spoken words rang in
Fenley's ears as if they had been bellowed through a megaphone. Owing
to his own delay, there was a clear space in front. He took that way
of escape instinctively, though he knew he was doomed, since the
ship's officers would seize him at the policeman's call.
Then he saw Furneaux, whose foot was already on the lower end of the
gangway. That, then, was the end! He was done for now. All that was
left of life was the ghastly progress of the law's ceremonial until
he was brought to the scaffold and hanged amidst a whole nation's
loathing. His eyes met Furneaux's in a glare of deadly malice. Then he
looked into eternity with daring despair, and dived headlong over the
railing into the sea.
That awesome plunge created tremendous excitement among the bystanders
on quay and ship. It was seen by hundreds. Men shouted, women
screamed, not a few fainted. A sailor on the lower deck ran with a
life belt, but Fenley never rose. His body was carried out by the
tide, and was cast ashore some days later at the foot of Shakespeare's
Cliff. Then the poor mortal husk made some amends for the misdeeds of
a warped soul. In the pockets were found a large amount of negotiable
scrip, and no small sum in notes and gold, with the result that
Messrs. Gibb, Morris & Gibb were enabled to recover the whole of
Sylvia Manning's fortune, while the sale of the estate provided
sufficiently for Robert Fenley's future.
The course of true love never ran smoother than for John and Sylvia.
They were so obviously made for each other, they had so determinedly
flown to each other's arms, that it did not matter tuppence to either
whether Sylvia were rich or poor. But it mattered a great deal when
they came to make plans for a glorious future. What a big, grand
world it was, to be sure! And how much there was to see in it! The
Continent, America, the gorgeous East! They mapped out tours that
would find them middle-aged before they neared England again. Does
life consist then, in flitting from hotel to hotel, from train to
steamship? Not it. German Kultur took care to upset that theory. John
Trenholme is now a war-worn major in the Gunners, and Sylvia has only
recently returned to her home nest after four years' service with the
Red Cross in France.
But these things came later. One evening in the Autumn, Winter and
Furneaux took Sheldon over to Roxton and dined with Dr. Stern and
Tomlinson at the White Horse. Tomlinson had bought the White Horse
and secured Eliza with the fixtures. Of course, there was talk of
the Fenleys, and Winter told how Hilton Fenley's mother had been
unearthed in Paris. She was a spiteful and wizened half-caste; but she
held her son dear, as mothers will, be they black or white or
chocolate-colored, and it was to maintain her in an establishment of
some style that he had begun to steal. She had married again, and the
man had gone through all her money, dying when there was none left.
She retained his name, however, and Fenley adopted it, too, during
frequent visits to Paris. Hence he was known there by a good many
people, and could have sunk his own personality had he made good
his escape. The mother's hatred of Mortimer Fenley had probably
communicated itself to her son. When she was told of Hilton's suicide
and its cause, she said that if anything could console her for his
death it was the fact that he had avenged her wrongs on his father.
"What was her grievance against poor Mortimer Fenley?" inquired the
doctor. "I knew him well, and he was a decent sort of fellow--rather
blustering and dictatorial but not bad-hearted."
"His success, I believe," said Winter. "They disagreed, and she
divorced him, thinking he would remain poor. The whirligig of time
changed their relative positions, and to a jealous-minded woman that
was unforgivable."
"The affair made a rare stir here anyhow," went on the doctor. "The
people who have taken The Towers have not only changed the name of the
place, but they have commissioned a friend of mine, an architect, to
alter the entrance. There will be two flights of steps and a covered
porch, so the exact spot where Fenley fell dead will be built over."
"Gentlemen," said Tomlinson, "talking is dry work. I haven't my old
cellar to select from, but I can recommend the brands you see on the
table. Mr. Furneaux, I'm sure you have not forgotten that Château
Yquem?"
Then, and not until then, did the ex-butler hear that the detectives
had never tasted his famous port. His benign features were wrung with
pain, for it was a wine of rare "bowket," and hard to replace.
But Furneaux restored his wonted geniality by opening a parcel
hitherto reposing on the sideboard.
"I never sent you that bottle of Alto Douro," he cried. "Here it is--a
crusted quart for your own drinking. Lest you should be tempted to be
too generous tonight, I've brought another. Now--a cradle and a
corkscrew!"
So, after a dirge, and before the world shook in war, the story ends
on a lively note, for what is there to compare with good wine and good
cheer, each in moderation? And one bottle among five is reasonable
enough in all conscience.
_"The Books You Like to Read at the Price You Like to Pay"_
_There Are Two Sides to Everything--_
--including the wrapper which covers every Grosset & Dunlap book. When
you feel in the mood for a good romance, refer to the carefully
selected list of modern fiction comprising most of the successes by
prominent writers of the day which is printed on the back of every
Grosset & Dunlap book wrapper.
You will find more than five hundred titles to choose from--books for
every mood and every taste and every pocketbook.
_Don't forget the other side, but in case the wrapper is lost, write
to the publishers for a complete catalog._
_There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book for every mood and for every taste_
DETECTIVE STORIES BY J. S. FLETCHER
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
=THE SECRET OF THE BARBICAN=
=THE ANNEXATION SOCIETY=
=THE WOLVES AND THE LAMB=
=GREEN INK=
=THE KING versus WARGRAVE=
=THE LOST MR. LINTHWAITE=
=THE MILL OF MANY WINDOWS=
=THE HEAVEN-KISSED HILL=
=THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER=
=RAVENSDENE COURT=
=THE RAYNER-SLADE AMALGAMATION=
=THE SAFETY PIN=
=THE SECRET WAY=
=THE VALLEY OF HEADSTRONG MEN=
_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
RAFAEL SABATINI'S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
Jesi, a diminutive city of the Italian Marches, was the birthplace of
Rafael Sabatini, and here he spent his early youth. The city is
glamorous with those centuries the author makes live again in his
novels with all their violence and beauty.
Mr. Sabatini first went to school in Switzerland and from there to
Lycee of Oporto, Portugal, and like Joseph Conrad, he has never
attended an English school. But English is hardly an adopted language
for him, as he learned it from his mother, an English woman who
married the Maestro-Cavaliere Vincenzo Sabatini.
Today Rafael Sabatini is regarded as "The Alexandre Dumas of Modern
Fiction."
=MISTRESS WILDING=
A romance of the days of Monmouth's rebellion. The action is rapid,
its style is spirited, and its plot is convincing.
=FORTUNE'S FOOL=
All who enjoyed the lurid lights of the French Revolution with
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a turn in Restoration London with the always masterful Col. Randall
Holles.
=BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT=
An absorbing story of love and adventure in France of the early
seventeenth century.
=THE SNARE=
It is a story in which fact and fiction are delightfully blended and
one that is entertaining in high degree from first to last.
=CAPTAIN BLOOD=
The story has glamor and beauty, and it is told with an easy
confidence. As for Blood himself, he is a superman, compounded of
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man are masterpieces. A great figure, a great epoch, a great story.
=THE SEA-HAWK=
"The Sea-Hawk" is a book of fierce bright color and amazing adventure
through which stalks one of the truly great and masterful figures of
romance.
=SCARAMOUCHE=
Never will the reader forget the sardonic Scaramouche, who fights
equally well with tongue and rapier, who was "born with the gift of
laughter and a sense that the world was mad."
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
EDGAR RICE BURROUGH'S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
THE MAD KING
THE MOON MAID
THE ETERNAL LOVER
BANDIT OF HELL'S BEND, THE
CAVE GIRL, THE
LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, THE
TARZAN OF THE APES
TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR
TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN
TARZAN THE TERRIBLE
TARZAN THE UNTAMED
BEASTS OF TARZAN, THE
RETURN OF TARZAN, THE
SON OF TARZAN, THE
JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN
AT THE EARTH'S CORE
PELLUCIDAR
THE MUCKER
A PRINCESS OF MARS
GODS OF MARS, THE
WARLORD OF MARS, THE
THUVIA, MAID OF MARS
CHESSMEN OF MARS, THE
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S
STORIES OF ADVENTURE
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
=A GENTLEMAN OF COURAGE=
=THE ALASKAN=
=THE COUNTRY BEYOND=
=THE FLAMING FOREST=
=THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN=
=THE RIVER'S END=
=THE GOLDEN SNARE=
=NOMADS OF THE NORTH=
=KAZAN=
=BAREE, SON OF KAZAN=
=THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM=
=THE DANGER TRAIL=
=THE HUNTED WOMAN=
=THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH=
=THE GRIZZLY KING=
=ISOBEL=
=THE WOLF HUNTERS=
=THE GOLD HUNTERS=
=THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE=
=BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY=
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
ZANE GREY'S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
TAPPAN'S BURRO
THE VANISHING AMERICAN
THE THUNDERING HERD
THE CALL OF THE CANYON
WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND
TO THE LAST MAN
THE MYSTERIOUS RIDER
THE MAN OF THE FOREST
THE DESERT OF WHEAT
THE U.P. TRAIL
WILDFIRE
THE BORDER LEGION
THE RAINBOW TRAIL
THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT
RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE
THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS
THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN
THE LONE STAR RANGER
DESERT GOLD
BETTY ZANE
THE DAY OF THE BEAST
* * * * *
LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS
The life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sister Helen Cody Wetmore,
with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey.
ZANE GREY'S BOOKS FOR BOYS
ROPING LIONS IN THE GRAND CANYON
KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE
THE YOUNG LION HUNTER
THE YOUNG FORESTER
THE YOUNG PITCHER
THE SHORT STOP
THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
JACKSON GREGORY'S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
=THE MAID OF THE MOUNTAIN=
A thrilling story, centering about a lovely and original girl who
flees to the mountains to avoid an obnoxious suitor--and finds herself
suspected of murder.
=DAUGHTER OF THE SUN=
A tale of Aztec treasure--of American adventurers who seek it--of
Zoraida, who hides it.
=TIMBER-WOLF=
This is a story of action and of the wide open, dominated always by
the heroic figure of Timber-Wolf.
=THE EVERLASTING WHISPER=
The story of a strong man's struggle against savage nature and
humanity, and of a beautiful girl's regeneration from a spoiled child
of wealth into a courageous strong-willed woman.
=DESERT VALLEY=
A college professor sets out with his daughter to find gold. They meet
a rancher who loses his heart, and becomes involved in a feud.
=MAN TO MAN=
How Steve won his game and the girl he loved, is a story filled with
breathless situations.
=THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN=
Dr. Virginia Page is forced to go with the sheriff on a night journey
into the strongholds of a lawless band.
=JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH=
Judith Sanford part owner of a cattle ranch realizes she is being
robbed by her foreman. With the help of Bud Lee, she checkmates
Trevor's scheme.
=THE SHORT CUT=
Wayne is suspected of killing his brother after a quarrel. Financial
complications, a horse-race and beautiful Wanda, make up a thrilling
romance.
=THE JOYOUS TROUBLE MAKER=
A reporter sets up housekeeping close to Beatrice's Ranch much to her
chagrin. There is "another man" who complicates matters.
=SIX FEET FOUR=
Beatrice Waverly is robbed of $5,000 and suspicion fastens upon Buck
Thornton, but she soon realizes he is not guilty.
=WOLF BREED=
No Luck Drennan, a woman hater and sharp of tongue, finds a match in
Ygerne whose clever fencing wins the admiration and love of the "Lone
Wolf."
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
EMERSON HOUGH'S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
=THE SHIP OF SOULS=
=MOTHER OF GOLD=
=THE COVERED WAGON=
=NORTH OF 36=
=THE WAY OF A MAN=
=THE SAGEBRUSHER=
=THE GIRL AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE=
=THE WAY OUT=
=THE MAN NEXT DOOR=
=THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE=
=THE BROKEN GATE=
=THE STORY OF THE COWBOY=
=54-40 OR FIGHT=
=THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE=
=THE PURCHASE PRICE=
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;
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author's words and intent.
2. In the advertising pages at the end of the book, many of the book
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