The Rest Hollow Mystery

by Rebecca N. Porter

  CHAPTER XV

  In the twelve hours that intervened between Roger Kenwick's arrest andhis transference to the authorities at Mont-Mer, he was not allowed tosee any one. As rigid a watch was kept beside his cell as though he werea hardened criminal who had on previous occasions escaped the clutchesof justice. Even reporters were denied admittance, but he was permitted,in courtesy to his former position as journalist, to read the papers. Inthese he found, spread large upon the front pages, highly coloredstories concerning his manoeuvers and final capture. Only the"Clarion's" story was conservative and hinted at a colossal mistakewhich would lead later to more sensational developments.

  When he left San Francisco, heavily hand-cuffed, a crowd followed to thedepot. The trip down the coast was uneventful, and he sat staring out ofthe window, recalling his former ride through that same country when thepruners had waved their shears to him in a sort of voiceless Godspeed.There were no pruners visible from the car-window now, and the starkstretches of orchard looked bleak and desolate. The bare, tangledbranches of the roadside poplars showed against the dull January skylike intricate designs of lacework. They seemed to Kenwick to have lostthe comforting warmth of their leaves just when they needed them most.

  It was almost dusk when the train drew into Mont-Mer, and here anothercrowd was waiting. The engine appeared to plow its way through them.Never had the quiet little city been so stirred. Never in all itsdecorous history had the white spot-light of sensationalism played uponit. It knew that its name was featured in every newspaper of thecountry.

  And Kenwick found the Mont-Mer papers even more lavish in descriptivedetail than those of the city had been. There was a picture of themurdered man and one of himself spread upon the front page of theevening sheet, and below, a cut of Rest Hollow, with the inevitableblack cross marking the spot under the dining-room window where the bodyof Ralph Regan had been found. The morning daily matched this with apicture of the handsome Kenwick home in New York, and an account of thedeath, the previous spring, of Everett Kenwick and his wife, victims ofinfluenza. As he read, Kenwick reflected that Richard Glover must havebeen very busy, very busy indeed since the night that they hadencountered each other at the theater.

  And outside the county jail the city buzzed with comment andspeculation. Mont-Mer real estate men were elated over this unexpectedscandal in high society which had resulted in putting their town "on themap." Better a gruesome publicity, they told each other, than nopublicity at all. Tourists from Los Angeles and the near-by townsmotored up during the week-end and made futile attempts to gain accessto Rest Hollow. The old conservative residents of the aristocraticlittle city were horrified, and the colony of Eastern capitalists, whomade up a large part of the suburban population, were hotly resentful ofthe hideous notoriety which had invaded their retreat by the sea. Thetwo country estates that bordered Rest Hollow were put on the market atwhat the local realty dealers advertised as "spectacular bargains."

  After the body of Ralph Regan had been exhumed and identified by thegrief-stricken little woman who was his sister, the links of the chainwhich incriminated Kenwick seemed to fall of their own volition intoplace. He reviewed them himself, sitting alone in Mont-Mer's bleaklittle jail.

  There would be first the testimony of the coroner who would describe thegunshot wound. And then the evidence that he, Kenwick, had been armed onthat fatal night. The woman, or whoever it was that occupied the rightwing of the house, would narrate in detail all that he had said aboutbeing a good shot and would doubtless follow this with the testimonythat he was obviously looking for trouble. The revolver, which he hadleft on the table in the den, would add its mute confirmation of theseassertions. And his own mode of departure from that house, under suchcircumstances, was sufficient in itself to send him to the electricchair without any further testimony. Glover would be, of course, thestar witness for the State, and against his glib and convincing storywould be pitted the word of a man known to have been of an unsound stateof mind and never proved to have recovered from it. It was this lastevidence, he knew, that would acquit him. With the brand of Cain uponhis forehead he would be set free. The ghastly notoriety which he hadstriven, with the difficult patience of the impatient temperament, toavoid, had struck him with the force of a bomb and blown him skyward tobe the cynosure of every eye. Never while the world stood could he askMarcreta Morgan to take the name of Kenwick. Acquittal on any terms wasall that most men would have asked of fate. But Kenwick was made offiner stuff. And so far as his future was concerned, he was alreadytried, convicted, and sentenced.

  A week intervened between his arrival at Mont-Mer and the day set forthe trial. During that time he knew himself to be under the mostrelentless surveillance. By day and by night his every act was watched.With his food they brought him neither knife nor fork. On the second dayof this startling omission he smiled grimly at the attendant. "You cantell the jailer," he said, "that he needn't be worried about me to thatextent. You see, I've worn my country's uniform, and that spoils a manfor taking the Dutch route."

  The stolid-faced attendant looked at him without replying. Kenwick felta sudden pity for him. "I suppose he thinks I'm likely to get violentand begin smashing up things at any moment," he reflected. For in thejailer's eyes was that thing for which he had been on the watch foralmost two months. He pushed away his food almost untasted. When he wasleft alone again he walked over to the heavily barred window and stoodlooking down at the court-house garden. Very gently he shook one of theiron rods. "For almost a year," he muttered. "Barred in for almost ayear; and the world has no intention of ever letting me forget it."

  The date-palms in the grounds below swept the wintry air with longgraceful plumes. How helpless they were in the driving force of thewind! And yet they were moored to something, securely rooted. The stormmight buffet but would not utterly destroy them. Down the curving pathwhich they bordered he saw a man approaching with a flat leather caseunder his arm. It was Dayton, the young attorney whom the court hadappointed for his defense. Kenwick, who had taken his intellectualmeasure at their first meeting the day before, had little faith in hislegal ability. But he liked him; liked his buoyant, unspoiledpersonality. And Dayton was undisguisedly elated over this suddenopportunity to try his mettle in so conspicuous a case. It was thechance he had been hoping for during three years of commonplacepractice.

  As the prisoner heard his step in the upper corridor he turned from thewindow. Dayton closed the portal behind him and sat down on the edge ofthe narrow cot. Downstairs he had just held brief parley with thejailer. "Hasn't Kenwick got any family?" he had inquired.

  The official shook his head. "As I understand it, he didn't have anybodybut a brother, and he died last spring, the papers said."

  "No friends either?"

  "Friends? Well, he wouldn't be likely to have any, would he--a fellerthat's been crazy?"

  "It's cursed luck!" Dayton had told him. He was still young enough tofeel resentful of life's contemptuous injustices. "And he's onlytwenty-five; got his whole life before him. He's got to have his chance.He's got to have a fighting chance."

  As he looked at his client now, he was careful to keep anything likecompassion out of his eyes. He removed a cracked pitcher full of purpleasters from its perilous position at the head of the bed and swept hisglance over the crude table littered with envelopes in cream and pastelshades. "Correspondence still growing?" he inquired genially.

  Kenwick stacked the vari-colored missives into a pile. Most of them hadbeen accompanied by flowers, and all were signed by society women ofMont-Mer. A few bore the more guarded signature of "A Friend," or "ASympathizer," with initials underneath. They condoled, they admonished,they even made cautious love.

  "Can you fathom it, Dayton?" the prisoner asked, weighing thecorrespondence in one hand as though the answer to the riddle lay inavoir-dupois. "These women think I'm guilty of murder. They all seem tothink I'm guilty as hell; and yet they send me flowers, andlove-letters." He turned his back contemptuously upon the
purple asters."It comes over me every once in a while, Dayton, that I'm not the onlyperson in this world who has had moments of mental aberration."

  The other man reached over, took up the stack of envelopes, and examinedthem with curious interest. Here and there he recognized a coat of armsor a monogram. "Going to answer any of them?" he queried.

  "Answer them!"

  "Well, most of them seem to expect a reply. You see, you really can'tblame them very much, either. These women are fed up on life. They comeout here every winter seeking a new sensation."

  "And I am a new sensation, am I?"

  "You bet you are! Why, man, you're nothing short of a godsend. And mostof these people," he swept a hand over the coterie represented on thetable, "are from New York themselves. They're not writing to a strangerexactly. They know who your family is--or was. They know all about you."

  Kenwick's lips stiffened. "Well, they certainly have that advantage overme."

  "I don't mean to imply, of course, that they've been investigating yourpersonal history," Dayton hastened to explain. "But Kenwick is not aninconspicuous name in the East. And then you've been in the serviceand----"

  "I'm glad you mentioned that," the prisoner cut in. "It reminds me ofsomething I want to say to you. When you get up to talk in court, don'tyou make any plea for me on the grounds that I've been in the service.That's one thing I won't stand for. The man who was in the army is adifferent man from the alleged murderer of Ralph Regan. I'm not going tohave _his_ record smeared with this horrible thing."

  Dayton dropped the letters to the table as though they had bitten him."Why, Mr. Kenwick! You've got a right to the consideration that wouldnaturally----"

  "If I've got a right to it, I've got a right to waive it. This countryis flooded with men who expect to beat their way all through life on theplea that they've been in the service. And there's nothing so despicableon God's earth as that. I use my uniform to fight in, not to hide in.Get me?"

  Dayton was obviously crestfallen. He got up from the hard cot and stoodlooking at his client gravely. Kenwick gathered up the pile ofenvelopes. "Take this junk out of here when you go, please. And don'tlet them send in any more flowers. They can save those for the funeral.But I'm not dead yet."

  "You may be very soon, though, if you don't listen to sense," hisadviser remarked bluntly. "I haven't wanted to get you worked up overthe case, because that's poor policy and it doesn't buy us anything. Butit strikes me, Mr. Kenwick, that you don't realize what a very seriousposition you are in."

  The ghost of a smile appeared upon the prisoner's face. It was aterrible little smile, and he was not even conscious of its existence.He was only conscious that every nerve in his body ached with wearinessand that he felt faint from want of food. Two pictures were stampingthemselves alternately upon his brain; the dim, sinister interior ofRest Hollow, and the fire-lighted room on Pine Street. One of theseincessantly erased and superseded the other. And he knew that therecould be no division of their supremacy. Only one of them might survive.Day and night the memory of them racked his jaded brain. For thehumiliation of his present position, not the ultimate outcome of thetrial, burned him with a consuming flame.

  As he stood now at the barred window, he was doing that thing to which,ever since his arrest, all his energies had been directed. Hour by hour,minute by minute, he was welding together the joints of an armor. With aslow but ceaseless persistence he was girding himself with agraven-faced indifference that must be his shield against the barrage ofthe gaping, curious world. And this man, standing so close beside him,and in reality so far away that their spirits were scarcely discernibleto each other in the distance was telling him that he seemed unaware ofthe peril of his position. That wave of deafening depression whichengulfs the human soul in the moments when it realizes its utterloneliness surged over him like a tidal wave. He stood looking at Daytonand wondering what manner of man he was.

  "I don't want to play up anything now that will sound like dramatics,"the lawyer went on in a soothing voice. "But we've got to face thisthing as it is. You know Glover, don't you?"

  "No. But Glover knows me. He has that immense advantage. And he is usingit to the full. He has been fighting a man who's got both hands tiedbehind him."

  Dayton appeared to take new courage from this summary. "Well, I seeyou've got a line on his methods anyway, and that's something. Thatgives us our starting-point. And besides having both hands free, he'salso got his eyes open. You've been blindfolded a part of the time. Henever has."

  There was a sound of a key grating in the lock. The dialogue endedabruptly and Kenwick turned from the window. On the threshold was ashabby, faded-looking little woman guarded by the relentless sentry.Kenwick advanced to meet her, apologizing for the discomfort of thebackless chair which he offered.

  "No, I don't want to sit down, thanks," she told him hurriedly. "I'm notgoin' to stay but a minute." She twisted her ungloved hands nervouslytogether under a scrawny wool scarf. "It's just this, Mr. Kenwick; Iasked them to let me come just to tell you this----"

  The prisoner stood waiting. The realization came to him that she wasafraid of him, and he tried to help her to begin. "You are Mrs. Fanwell,aren't you?"

  "Yes. But--you don't know me, do you?"

  "No, I just guessed at who you were." His eyes rested compassionatelyupon her thin, eager face, her poverty-stricken mourning. She wasobviously relieved at his quiet composure. "I just wanted to tell youthis; that it's not revenge that I'm after. I've had a hard life, anyway you look at it. But I'm in Science now and I'm tryin' to tear hateout of my heart. I haven't got any hard feelin's against you, for Idon't believe, I never will believe that you really meant to do it."

  "Won't you sit down?" Kenwick suggested, and forced her gently into thechair. Then he stood beside her, one hand resting upon thepaper-littered table. "You believe, do you, that I--am responsible foryour brother's death?"

  She was looking past him, through the narrow window where Dayton stoodwatching her curiously. "I don't know just what to think. But I wantedyou to know that I'm not wishin' you--any violent end. I never dreamedthere was anything so horrible connected with his death when I came outhere. But I felt that I had to know about him; I had to find out."

  "Of course you had to find out," Kenwick agreed earnestly. "This thingmust be cleared up in your mind--in everybody's mind. May I ask you apersonal question, Mrs. Fanwell, to help me clear up a part of itmyself? Were you dependent upon your brother to any degree for yoursupport?"

  "Dependent on _Ralph_?" The astonishment in her tone was sufficientreply in itself. "Oh, no. I was tryin' to help Ralph out, as much as Icould without lettin' my husband know. It was hard, havin' always tostand between them. But I couldn't blame my husband either. He wasalways hard-workin' himself and he hadn't any patience with poor Ralph.He thought he ought to get a steady job at carpentry; that was histrade, and he made good at it till he got sick and began takin' thatterrible stuff. It was the ruin of him."

  "You mean that he took--drugs?"

  She nodded. And Kenwick hastened to cover the pitiful little secretwhich he had laid bare.

  "It was only for this reason that I asked, Mrs. Fanwell. If I am provedguilty of this crime, you shall receive whatever money recompense it isin my power to give. This is not an attempt to pay for it, but only toease my own conscience."

  The woman's eyes filled with tears. She leaned beseechingly across thetable, clutching, with strange incongruity, one of the perfumedenvelopes. "Then you _are_ guilty!" she cried. "Oh, Mr. Kenwick, whydon't you confess? All the lawyers have told me that if you confess,they can't give you the death sentence. And you hadn't ought to bein--in a place like this. Now that I've seen you I know that what theothers say isn't so. You did it when you was crazy. You never would havedone it if you had been in your right mind."

  She rose and moved slowly toward the door, her gaze still fixed upon himwith a mixture of pleading and horror. He followed, and opened the doorhimself. "I'm glad you came, Mrs. Fa
nwell. It was very kind indeed ofyou to come."

  She stopped with her hand upon the knob. "I don't care what he says,"she told him tremulously. "I don't care what anybody says; they can'tnone of them make me believe that you would have done it if you'd knownwhat you was about."

  When she had gone Kenwick drew a long sigh. The thing had come near toshattering his laboriously constructed mask. He spoke sharply to the manat the window. "What in the world did she mean by that, Dayton? They'recertainly not trying to make her believe that I killed her brother whenI was in my right mind?"

  Dayton took a few slow steps toward him. "I was trying to lead up tothat when she came in. But it's just as well to have had you get it fromher. Now maybe you'll take more stock in it. That is exactly whatthey're trying to make her think; what they'll try to make the courtthink. Glover is going to try to prove (and he'll come within an ace ofdoing it, too) that when you were in your right mind you deliberatelyplotted to kill that man. He has the witnesses and the motive, and thething that he's going to attempt to saddle upon you, Mr. Kenwickis--murder in the first degree."