The Rest Hollow Mystery

by Rebecca N. Porter

  CHAPTER VII

  Two hours after Roger Kenwick had taken his gruesome departure from thehouse of the iron gate, a mud-spattered car turned in at the sideentrance to the grounds which he had quitted. The man behind the wheeldrove recklessly, careening between the double row of eucalyptus-treeslike some low-flying bird of prey seeking its carrion. At the shallowfront steps he brought the car to an abrupt halt as though he had foundthe thing for which he sought. Tugging at his heavy gloves he sprang upthe steps, two at a time. "Lord! What a handsome place this is!" hemuttered. "What a place for dinners and dancing--and love!"

  He pressed the electric button and heard its buzz pierce the stillnessof the house. "It's a crime!" He was walking up and down before theclosed door, flapping his gloves against his chest. "It's a crime for aman to live in a place like this alone." He pressed the button again,keeping his finger upon it this time until he felt certain that itspersistent summons must tear at the nerves of whoever was within. Butstill there was no response. Then he tried the knob, turned it, and wentinside.

  The house was in complete darkness. He felt his way along the front halluntil his fingers found the switch-button. At the hat-rack he divestedhimself of his heavy coat, hat, and gloves. The face which thediamond-shaped mirror reflected was dark with disapproval and gatheringanger. "Door unlocked at one o'clock at night! Might as well leave achild in charge of things!"

  Walking with noisy, impatient tread, he ascended the stairs, taking theleft flight on the landing, and snapping on the light in the upper hall.The doors were all closed. He turned the knob of the first one and wentin. The sitting-room was in perfect order. He crossed it and entered thealcove beyond. It, too, was in order with fresh linen upon the bed.Having made a tour of the suite he came back and stood beside thecenter-table in the sitting-room. A half-burned cigar caught his eye,and he drew it out of the ash-tray and turned it speculatively betweenhis fingers. Then, still holding it, he visited the other rooms in theleft wing. They were all orderly, silent, deserted. Somewhere in hisprogress from one to another he dropped the cigar stump and did notnotice it. Moving like a man in a dream he found himself at last over inthe right wing, standing outside a heavy mahogany door. His movementswere no longer speculative. They were nervous and jerky as thoughpropelled by a disabled engine.

  He did not at first try to open this door but called in a low uncertainvoice that seemed to dread a reply, "Marstan, are you here?" When therewas no response he tried the door in a futile sort of way as though hewere expecting resistance. When it yielded to his touch and he stoodupon the threshold the desolation of the room seemed to leap out at him.He felt no desire to switch on the light here, but stood motionless inthe open doorway, transfixed, not by a sight but by an odor.

  "Heliotrope!" he muttered at last, and brought the panel shut with ajerk. "Some woman has been in that room!"

  For long moments he stood there in the lighted upper hall. In his facebewilderment struggled with alarm. At last he made his way downstairs tothe living-room and on to the den. Here he stared long at the half-drawnshades and the crumpled cushions of the window-seat. Something was goneout of that room; something that was a vivid, vital part of it. Hecouldn't quite determine what it was.

  Over in the dining-room he examined the bowl of English walnuts withseveral empty shells mixed in among them and the nutcrackers lying askewupon the centerpiece. All at once he dropped these with a crash thatmade an ugly scar upon the polished table-top. His eyes had fallen uponthe wide board nailed across the shattered window. He went over andinvestigated it carefully, his quick eyes taking in every detail of thecrude carpentry. Under his touch the sagging lower board suddenly gaveway and fell with a heavy thud to the gravel walk below.

  The new-comer went back to the front hall, searched for an instant inthe pocket of his overcoat, and then, clutching a black cylindricalobject, he went out of the house and around on the dining-room side. Hishands were trembling now, and the path of light blazing from the littleelectric torch made a zigzag trail across the dank flower-beds. He foundthe dislodged board lying with its twisted nails sprawling upward anddragged it off the path. As he dropped it his eyes fell upon an objectlying beneath a giant oleander bush. At last he knew what it was that hehad missed from the den. It was the Indian blanket. Mystified, he bentdown and picked it up, finding it heavy with the added weight ofdampness. The next moment he gave a startled cry, dropped the blanketand torch, and staggered back against the wall. And the blackness ofnight rushed over him like a tidal wave.

  But his was the temperament which recuperates quickly from a shock.Resourcefulness, the key-note of his character, impelled him always toseek relief in action. Cursing the sudden weakness in his knees whichretarded haste, he strode, with the aid of the recovered torch, toward asmall frame cottage in the rear of the garage. Here he rapped sharplyupon the closed door, then pushed it open. This room, too, was empty.Pointing the torch, like the unblinking eye of a cyclops, into everycorner of the apartment, he made certain of this. Then he drew asolitary chair close to the door and sat down, the torch across hisknees.

  More slowly now his glance traveled around the room. The blankets uponthe bed were in a disheveled heap. There were some soiled dishes uponthe table, a cup half full of cold tea, and under the small stove a potof sticky-looking rice. The fire had gone out. He crossed the room andlifted the lid of the stove. Under the white ashes a few coals gloweddully. There were no clothes in the closet. It was easily apparent tohim that the former inmate of the room had left unexpectedly but did notintend to return.

  For half an hour he sat there motionless. Then he rose, pushed back thechair, and went out, closing the door behind him. Very deliberately hefollowed the side path back to the dining-room window. This time heretained the light, pressing one end of it firmly with his thumb. Thesoggy Indian blanket he folded back, and, stooping close to the ground,examined intently the dead cold face which it had sheltered.

  It was the face of a man, young but haggard. The cheeks were sunken, andthrough the skin of his clenched hands the knuckles showed white andknotted. His hair was in wild disorder, but it seemed more the disorderof long neglect than of violent death. The helpless shrunken figurepresented a pitiful contrast to that of the man who knelt beside it.

  His was a large, well-proportioned frame that suggested, not corpulencebut physical power. His hands were powerful but not thick. His wholebearing was self-assured, almost haughty. But it was the eyes, not thecarriage, that gave the impression of arrogance. They were the clearestamber color with a mere dot of black pupil. Here and there tiny speckswere visible showing like dark grains of sand in a sea of brown. A womanhad once called them "tiger eyes," and he had been pleased. A child hadonce described them as "freckled" eyes, and he had been annoyed. As heknelt there now, searching the face of the dead man, his eyes, undertheir drooping lids, narrowed to the merest slits. When at last he roseand drew the blanket back over the still form, he moved with the briskeffectiveness of one animated by definite purpose.

  First, he drove the mud-spattered roadster into the garage and left itthere beside the beetle-black limousine. Then he let himself into thedeserted house again, went up to the second bedroom in the left wing,and began sorting over some miscellaneous objects from one of thechiffonier drawers. "Ghastly!" he muttered once. "Ghastly! I'll have totake something to brace me up."

  Back in the dining-room he took one of the long-stemmed glasses from thesideboard and poured himself a drink from a bottle in the cupboardunderneath. But first he scrutinized its contents under the light. "Whydidn't you take it all?" he inquired sardonically of some invisiblebeing.

  For a few hours he slept with a sort of determined tranquillity. But byeight o'clock he was up and dressed, and a few minutes later he answereda summons at the front door. Swinging it open he admitted a short sandyman with the ruddy complexion of the Norsemen. "I'm Annisen, thecoroner," this visitor announced.

  "Yes. I was expecting you. Come in." The other man swung the portalw
ider. "Doctor Annisen, is it?"

  The visitor nodded and stepped into the hall that was still dim in thecold light of the winter morning. He unwound a black silk muffler fromabout his throat. "Devilish cold," he commented. "Devilish cold for aplace that advertises summer all the year round."

  His host smiled with sympathetic appreciation. "California publicity,"he commented, "is far and away ahead of anything that we have in theunimaginative East. My furnace-man left me yesterday and I haven't gotaround to making the fires myself yet. But let me give you something towarm you up, doctor."

  While he filled one of the small glasses on the buffet, his guest eyedhim stolidly. "Still got some on hand, have you?" he said with a heavyattempt at the amenities. "Well, this wouldn't be a bad place formoonshining out here. Guess you could put almost anything over withoutfearing a visit from the authorities."

  There was a moment of silence. "You've got a beautiful place though," hewent on at last. "But Rest Hollow! What a name for it! Rest! Lord!Anything might happen out here, and I guess most everything has. Iwasn't much surprised at the message I found waiting me when I got backto town this morning. I've always said that this place fairly yells fora suicide."

  The other man's eyes were fixed upon his face with a curious intentness.It was as though he were deaf and were reading the words from hiscompanion's lips. The coroner had raised his glass and was waiting. "No,I don't drink," his host explained. "Very seldom touch anything. I can'tand do my kind of work."

  Annisen set down his empty glass. "I shouldn't think you could do yourkind of work and not drink," he remarked. "Well, let's get this over. Isuppose you left everything just as you found it?"

  There was the ghost of a smile in his host's eyes. "Glad he didn't putthat question the other way around," he was thinking. "It would havebeen an embarrassment if he had asked if I found everything just as Ileft it." And then aloud, "Certainly. I haven't touched anything. Thebody is out here."

  "Good. Gifford sent his wagon out last night, but fortunately his manknew enough not to disturb anything until I'd been out. Were you herewhen he came last night?"

  "No. I didn't get here till later."

  The two men crawled out through the broken window and in the gray lightof the November morning knelt together beside the still form under theIndian blanket. Mechanically the coroner examined it and the emptyrevolver which they discovered a few feet away. But he offered nocomment until he had finished. Then his verdict was curt. "Gunshot woundin the head, self-inflicted. When did this happen?" He took out a smallbook and noted down the answers to this and a variety of otherquestions. Then he stood for a moment staring down at the white, drawnface of the dead man.

  "Young, too," he murmured. "But I suppose it's a merciful thing. Therewas no life ahead for him, poor devil."

  They followed the path around to the front of the house where Annisen'scar was waiting. "Be in to the inquest about two o'clock thisafternoon," he instructed. "That hour suit you all right, Mr.----? Don'tbelieve I know your name."

  "Glover. Richard Glover. I'll be there at two, doctor."

  Late that morning the hearse made its second trip out of the sideentrance of Rest Hollow. A mud-splashed roadster followed it. Thecortege had just passed the last gaunt eucalyptus-tree and turned outupon the public highway when it was halted. A man in heavy-rimmedgoggles got out of his car and made his way across the road. His glancewavered uncertainly between the driver of the hearse and the man in themuddy roadster. He decided to address the latter.

  "I heard the news last night. It got around the neighborhood. But Ithought----I didn't know----Those rumors get started sometimes with nofoundation of fact. But it's true then--that he is dead."

  "That who is dead?"

  The question seemed to be shot back at him. And he had the uncannyconviction that it emanated, not from the lips, but from the amber eyesof the man in the roadster. He stammered out his reply.

  "Why--I think his name----He told me his name was Kenwick; RogerKenwick, I think."

  The roadster started again. "Yes, that's the name. Did you know him?"

  "No. But wait a minute, please." The goggle-eyed man hurried back to hisown car and returned with a handsome spray of white chrysanthemums. Theywere tied with a broad white ribbon bordered with heliotrope. "I'd liketo have you take these if you will." He handed them up to thehearse-driver.

  The man in the roadster fired another question. "Your name, please?"

  "They are not from me. One of the ladies in the neighborhood sent them.She felt it was too sad--having him go away this way, all alone." Hewent back to his machine and was soon lost in the distance. And thefuneral procession proceeded on its way to Mont-Mer.

  The coroner's inquest was brief and perfunctory. Annisen was on the eveof retiring from office and seeking a more lucrative position in aMiddle Western city where the inhabitants, as he contemptuouslyremarked, "were not afflicted like this place is with a chronicsleeping-sickness."

  The jury returned the verdict that "the deceased came to his death byshooting himself in the head." After they had departed, Gifford heldbrief parley with the chief witness. "I suppose you'll attend tonotifying the family?"

  Richard Glover nodded. And at his direction the haggard body was removedfrom the cheap black coffin in which it had made the trip from RestHollow. Following Richard Glover's instructions, it was embalmed for thetrip across the continent. But just as it was ready for the longjourney, he announced to Gifford that he had received orders from thefamily to inter the body in the little cemetery of Mont-Mer. And so, onthe following day, it was taken to the quiet resting-place overlookingthe sea. In the presence of no one except the undertaker's assistantsand Richard Glover there was lowered into the lonely grave a handsomegray casket with silver handles and a frosted silver plate on which wasinscribed the name "Roger Kenwick."