The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

"Mr. Hilton Fenley saw Miss Manning and myself, and mistook me for – "

"Saw you? When?"

"About five minutes ago, on the other side of the wood."

"What did he say? Quick!"

"He told us that the shooting was the outcome of your efforts to catch some man hiding among the trees."

"Of my efforts?"

"He didn't mention you by name. The words he used were 'the police.' He was taking part in the chase, I suppose."

"Which way did he go?"

Trenholme hesitated. Not only was he not quite conversant with the locality, but his shrewd wits had reached a certain conclusion, and he did not wish to be too outspoken before Sylvia. Surely she had borne sufficient for one day.

Thereupon the girl herself broke in.

"Hilton went toward the cedars. He may be making for the Easton gate. Have you caught any man?"

"Not yet, Miss Manning," said Winter, assuming control of the situation with a firm hand. "I advise you to go straight to your room, and not stir out again tonight. There will be no more disturbance – I promise you that."

Even the chief of the C. I. D. can err when he prophesies. At that instant the two lines of trees lost their impenetrable blackness. Their foliage sprang into red-tinted life as if the witches of the Brocken had chosen a new meeting-place, and a crackling, tearing sound rent the air.

"Oh!" screamed Sylvia, who chanced to be facing the mansion. "The house is on fire!"

They were standing in a group, almost where Police Constable Farrow had stood at ten minutes past ten the previous morning. Hence they were aware of this addition to the day's horrors before the house servants, who, headed by Tomlinson, were gathered on and near the flight of steps at the entrance. Every female servant in the establishment was there as well, not outside the door, but quaking in the hall. MacBain was the first among the men to realize what was happening. He caught the loud clang of an automatic fire alarm ringing in his room, and at once called the house fire brigade to run out the hose while he dashed upstairs into the north corridor, from which a volume of smoke was pouring.

"Good Heavens!" he cried, on reaching the cross gallery. "It's in Mr. Fenley's rooms!"

Mr. Fenley's rooms! No need to tell the horrified staff which rooms he meant. A fire was raging in the private suite of the dead man!

The residence was singularly well equipped with fire-extinguishing appliances. Mortimer Fenley had seen to that. Hand grenades, producing carbonic acid gas generated by mixing water with acid and alkali, were stored in convenient places, and there was a plentiful supply of water from many hose pipes. The north and south galleries looked on to an internal courtyard, so there was every chance of isolating the outbreak if it were tackled vigorously; and no fault could be found with either the spirit or training of the amateur brigade. Consequently, only two rooms, a bedroom and adjoining dressing-room, were well alight; these were burned out completely. A sitting-room on one side was badly scorched, as was a spare room on the other; but the men soon knew that they had checked the further progress of the flames, and were speculating, while they worked, as to the cause of a fire originating in a set of empty apartments, when Parker, Mrs. Fenley's personal attendant, came sobbing and distraught to Sylvia.

"Oh, miss!" she cried. "Oh, miss! Where is your aunt?"

"Isn't Mrs. Fenley in her room?" asked the girl, yielding to a sense of neglect in not having gone to see if Mrs. Fenley was alarmed, though the older woman was not in the slightest danger. The two main sections of the building were separated by an open space of forty feet, and The Towers had exceedingly thick walls.

"No, miss. I can't find her anywhere!" said the woman, well aware that if any one was at fault it was herself. "You know when I saw you. I went back then, and she was sleeping, so I thought I could leave her safely. Oh, miss, what has become of her? Maybe she was aroused by the shooting!"

All hands that could be spared from the fire-fighting operations engaged instantly in an active search, but there was no clue to Mrs. Fenley's disappearance beyond an open door and a missing night light. The electric current was shut off at the main at midnight, except on a special circuit communicating with the hall, the courtyard, and MacBain's den, where he had control of these things.

High and low they hunted without avail, until MacBain himself stumbled over a calcinated body in the murdered banker's bedroom. The poor creature had waked to some sense of disaster. Vague memories of the morning's horror had led her, night light in hand, to the spot where she fancied she would find the one person on earth in whom she placed confidence, for Mortimer Fenley had always treated her with kindness, even if his methods were not in accord with the commonly accepted moral code.

Presumably, on discovering that the rooms were empty, some further glimmering knowledge had stirred her benumbed consciousness. She may have flung herself on the bed in a paroxysm of weeping, heedless of the overturned night light and the havoc it caused. That, of course, is sheer guesswork, though the glass dish which held the light was found later on the charred floor, which was protected, to some extent, by a thick carpet.

At any rate, she had not long survived the husband who had given her a pomp and circumstance for which she was ill fitted. They were buried in the same grave, and Hertfordshire sent its thousands to the funeral.

Soon after her fate became known, Winter wanted Furneaux, but his colleague was not in the house. The telephone having broken down, owing to the collapse of a standard, and the necessity of subduing the fire having put a stop to any immediate search being made in the park, Winter thought that the pair of them would be better employed if they transferred their energies to the local police station.

He found Furneaux seated on the lowermost step at the entrance; the Jerseyman was crying as if his heart would break, and Trenholme was trying to comfort him, but in vain.

"What's up now?" inquired the Superintendent, thinking at the moment that his friend and comrade was giving way to hysteria indirectly owing to the blow he had received.

Furneaux looked up. It was the darkest hour of the night, and his chief could not see the distraught features wrung with pain.

"James," he said, mastering his voice by a fierce effort, "my mad antics killed that unfortunate woman! She was aroused by the shots. She would cry for help, and none came. Heavens! I can hear her now! Then she ran for refuge to the man who had been everything to her since she was a barrack room kid in India. I'm done, old fellow. I resign. I can never show my face in the Yard again."

"It'll do you a world of good if you talk," said Winter, meaning to console, but unconsciously wounding by cruel sarcasm.

"I'll be dumb enough after this night's work," said Furneaux, in a tone of such utter dejection that Winter began to take him seriously.

"If you fail me now, Charles," he said, and his utterance was thick with anger at the crassness of things, "I'll consider the advisability of sending in my own papers. Dash it!" He said something quite different, but his friends may read this record, and they would repudiate an exact version with scorn and disbelief. "Are we going to admit ourselves beaten by a half-bred hound like Hilton Fenley? Not if I know it, or I know you. We've got the noose 'round his neck, and you and I will pull it tight if we have to follow him to – "

"Pardon the interruption, gentlemen," said a voice. "I was called out o' bed to come to the fire, an' took a short cut across the park. Blow me if I didn't kick my foot against this!"

And Police Constable Farrow, who had approached unnoticed, held out an object which seemed to be a rifle. Owing to his being seated Furneaux's eyes were on a level with it, and he could see more clearly than the others. He struck a match; then there could be no doubt that the policeman had actually picked up the weapon which had set in motion so many and such varied vicissitudes.

But Farrow had more to say. It had been his happy lot during many hours to figure bravely in the Fenley case, and he carried himself as a valiant man and true to the end.

"I think I heard you mention Mr. Hilton," he went on. "I met Dr. Stern in the village, an' he tol' me Mr. Hilton had borrowed his car."

Furneaux stood up.

"Continue, Solomon," he said, and Winter sighed with relief; the little man was himself again.

"That's all, gentlemen, or practically all. It struck me as unusual, but Dr. Stern said Mr. Hilton's motor was out o' gear, an' he wanted a car in a desp'rit hurry."

"He did, indeed!" growled Furneaux. "You're quite sure there is no mistake?"

"Mistake, sir? How could there be? The doctor was walkin' home. That's an unusual thing. He never walks a yard if he can help it. Mr. Hilton borrowed the car to go to St. Albans."

"Did he, indeed? Just how did he come to find the car waiting for him?"

"Oh, that's the queer part of it. Dr. Stern is lookin' after poor old Joe Bland, who's mighty bad with – there, now, if I haven't gone and forgotten the name; something-itis – and Mr. Hilton must have seen the car standin' outside Bland's house. But what was he doin' in Roxton at arf past twelve? That's wot beats me. And then, just fancy me stubbin' my toe against this!"

Again he displayed the rifle as if it were an exhibit and he were giving evidence.

"Let's go inside and get a light," said Winter, and the four mounted the steps into the hall. Robert Fenley was there – red-faced as ever, for he had helped in putting out the fire, but quite sober, since he had been very sick.

Some lamps and candles gave a fair amount of light, and Robert eyed Trenholme viciously.

"So it was you!" he said. "I thought it was. Well, my father and mother are both dead, and this is no time for settlin' matters; but I'll look you up when this business is all over."

"If you do, you'll get hurt," said Winter brusquely. "Is that your rifle?" and he pointed to the weapon in Farrow's hands.

"Yes. Where was it found?"