The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

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 takeThe 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.