The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

"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.