The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

"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.