The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

"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.