The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley. Tracy Louis
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