The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley Part 29

"Oh, yes," was the offhand answer. "I have every reason to believe that Mr. Winter and I will make an arrest without undue loss of time."

"I am glad to hear it. Thus far your methods have not inspired the confidence I, as a member of the public, was inclined to repose in Scotland Yard. I am going to my rooms now, and dine at a quarter to eight. About nine o'clock I wish to go into matters thoroughly with Mr. Winter and you. At present, I think it only fair to say that I am not satisfied with the measures, whatever they may be, you have seen fit to adopt."

He seemed to await a retort, but none came, so he strode across the hall and hurried up the stairs. Furneaux continued to gaze blankly down the long, straight avenue, nor did he utter a word till a door opened and closed on the first floor in the southeast corner.

Then he spoke.

"Some people are very hard to please," he said plaintively.

Winter beckoned to the footman.

"Do you mind asking Mr. Tomlinson if he can come here for a moment?"

he said. When the man disappeared he muttered--

"Why are you stroking everybody's fur the wrong way, Charles?"

"A useful simile, James. If they resemble cats we may see sparks, and each of those young men has something of the tiger in him."

"But things have gone horribly wrong all day--after a highly promising start, too. I don't see that we are any nearer laying hands on a murderer because we have unearthed various little scandals in the lives of Mortimer Fenley's sons. And what game are you playing with this artist, Trenholme?"

"The supremely interesting problem just now is the game which he is playing with Robert Fenley. If that young a.s.s attacks him he'll get the licking he wants, and if you're in any doubt about my p.r.o.nouns----"

"Oh, dash you and your p.r.o.nouns! Here's Tomlinson. Quick! Have you a plan of any sort?"

"Three! Three separate lines of attack, each deadly. But there are folk whose mental equipment renders them incapable of understanding plain English. Now, my friend Tomlinson will show you what I mean.

I'll ask him a simple question, and he will give you a perfect example of a direct answer. Tomlinson, can you tell me what the extrados of a voussoir is?"

"No, Mr. Furneaux, I can not," said the butler, smiling at what he regarded as the little man's humor.

"There!" cried Furneaux delightedly. "Ain't I a prophet? No evasions about Tomlinson, are there?"

"I think you're cracked," growled Winter, picking up his suitcase. "If I'm to stay here tonight, I shall want a room of some sort. Mr.

Tomlinson, can you----"

"Share mine," broke in Furneaux. "I'm the quietest sleeper living. Our friend here is sure to have at disposal a room with two beds in it."

"The princ.i.p.al guest room is unoccupied," said the butler.

"Where is it?"

"On the first floor, sir, facing south."

"Couldn't be better. The very thing. Ah! Here comes my baggage." And the others saw a policeman bicycling up the avenue, with a small portmanteau balanced precariously between the handlebars and the front b.u.t.tons of his tunic.

"You gentlemen will dine in my room, I hope?" said Tomlinson, when he had escorted them upstairs.

"We are not invited to the family circle, at any rate," said Winter.

"Well, you will not suffer on that account," announced Tomlinson genially. "Of course, I shall not have the pleasure of sharing the meal with you, but dinner will be served at a quarter to eight. Mr.

Furneaux knows his way about the house, so, with your permission, I'll leave you at present. If you're disengaged at nine thirty I'll be glad to see you in my sanctum."

"Isn't he a gem?" cried Furneaux, when the door had closed, and he and Winter were alone.

Winter sat down on the side of a bed. He was worried, and did not strive to hide it. For the first time in his life he felt distrustful of himself, and he suspected, too, that Furneaux was only covering abject failure by a display of high spirits.

"Why so pensive an att.i.tude, James?" inquired the other softly. "Are you still wondering what the extrados of a voussoir is?"

"I don't care a tuppenny d.a.m.n what it is."

"But that's where you're wrong. That's where you're cra.s.s and pig-headed. The extrados of a voussoir----"

"Oh, kill it, and let it die happy----"

"--is the outer curve of a wedge-shaped stone used for building an arch. Now, mark you, those are words of merit. Wedge, arch--wedges of fact which shall construct the arch of evidence. We'll have our man in the dock across that bridge before we are much older."

"Confound it, how? He couldn't be in his bedroom and in the Quarry Wood, four hundred yards away, at one and the same moment."

Furneaux gazed fixedly at his friend's forehead, presumably the seat of reason.

"Sometimes, James, you make me gasp with an amazed admiration," he cooed. "You do, really. You arrive at the same conclusion as I, a thinker, without any semblance of thought process on your part. How do you manage it! Is it through a.s.sociation with me? You know, there's such a thing as inductive electricity. A current pa.s.sing through a highly charged wire can excite another wire, even a common iron one, without actual contact."

"I've had a rotten afternoon, and don't feel up to your far-fetched jokes just now; so if you have nothing to report, shut up," said the Superintendent crossly.

"Then I'll cheer your melancholy with a bit of real news brightened by imagination," answered Furneaux promptly. "Hilton Fenley couldn't have fired the rifle himself, except by certain bizarre means which I shall lay before the court later; but he planned and contrived the murder, down to the smallest detail. He wore Brother Robert's boots when available; from appearances Brother Robert is now wearing the identical pair which made those footprints we saw, but I shall know in the morning, for that fiery young sprig obligingly left another well-marked set of prints in the same place twenty minutes ago. When circ.u.mstances compelled Hilton to walk that way in his own boots, he slipped on two roughly made moccasins, which he burned last night, having no further use for them. Therefore, he knew the murder would take place this morning.

"I've secured shreds of the sacking out of which he made the pads to cover his feet; and an under gardener remembers seeing Mr. Hilton making off with an empty potato sack one day last week, and wondering why he wanted it. During some mornings recently Hilton Fenley breakfasted early and went out, but invariably had an excuse for not accompanying his father to the City. He was then studying the details of the crime, making sure that an expert, armed with a modern rifle, could not possibly miss such a target as a man standing outside a doorway, and elevated above the ground level by some five feet or more.

"No servant could possibly observe that Mr. Hilton was wearing Mr.

Robert's boots, because they do not differ greatly in size; but luckily for us, a criminal always commits an error of some sort, and Hilton blundered badly when he made those careful imprints of his brother's feet, as the weather has been fine recently, and the only mud in this locality lies in that hollow of the Quarry Wood. It happens that some particles of that identical mud were imbedded in the carpet of Hilton Fenley's sitting-room. I'm sorry to have to say it, because the housemaid is a nice girl."

"Never mind the housemaid. Go on."

"Exactly what the housemaid would remark if she heard me; only she would giggle, and you look infernally serious. Next item: Hilton Fenley, like most high-cla.s.s scoundrels, has the nerves of a cat, with all a cat's fiendish brutality. He could plan and carry out a callous crime and lay a subtle trail which must lead to that cry baby, Robert, but he was unable to control his emotions when he saw his father's corpse. That is where the murderer nearly always fails. He can never picture in death that which he hated and doomed in life. There is an element in death----"

"Chuck it!" said Winter unfeelingly.

Furneaux winced, and affected to be deeply hurt.

"The worst feature of service in Scotland Yard is its demoralizing effect on the finer sentiments," he said sadly. "Men lose all human instincts when they become detectives or newspaper reporters. Now the ordinary policeman ofttimes remains quite soft-hearted. For instance, Police Constable Farrow, though preening himself on being the pivot on which this case revolves, was much affected by Hilton Fenley's first heart-broken words to him. 'Poor young gentleman,' said Farrow, when we were discussing the affair this afternoon, 'he was cut up somethink orful. I didn't think he had it in him, s'elp me, I didn't. Tole me to act for the best. Said some one had fired a bullet which nearly tore his father to pieces.'

"There was more of the same sort of thing, and I got Farrow to jot down the very words in his notebook. Of course, he doesn't guess why.... Now, I wonder how Hilton Fenley knew the effect of that bullet on his father's body. The doctor had not arrived. There had been only a superficial examination by Tomlinson of the orifice of the wound.

What other mind in Roxton would picture to itself the havoc caused by an expanding bullet? The man who uttered those words _knew_ what sort of bullet had been used. He _knew_ it would tear his father's body to pieces. A neurotic imagination was at work, and that cry of horror was the soul's unconscious protest against the very fiendishness of its own deed....

"Oh, yes. Let these Fenleys quarrel about that girl, and we'll see Hilton marching steadily toward the Old Bailey. Of course, we'll a.s.sist him. We'll make certain he doesn't deviate or falter on the road. But he'll follow it, and of his own accord; and the first long stride will be taken when he goes to the Quarry Wood to retrieve the rifle which lies hidden there."

Winter whistled softly. Then he looked at his watch.

"By Jove! Turned half past seven," he said.