The Rest Hollow Mystery Part 4

"Pretty close call," Kenwick told him. "A fellow in a car bowled me over as I was crossing the street. He went right on, but I doubt if I'll be able to for a while."

"Well, what do you know about that?" the drug clerk challenged, as he helped his visitor into a chair behind the prescription-desk. "Say, this is gettin' to be one of the worst towns on the coast for auto accidents.

Didn't get his number, I suppose?"

"No. And I'm just a stranger pa.s.sing through here. I don't know many people."

"Hard luck." It was evident that the trio were disappointed in the meagerness of his story. One of them stooped and was probing the swollen leg with skilful fingers. Kenwick winced.

"You've got a bad sprain there all right," the doctor told him. "It's swollen a good deal, too, for being so recent. Have you walked far?"

"Yes, rather." Kenwick watched in silence while the physician bound up the injured member in a stout bandage. In spite of his best efforts one sharp moan escaped him.

"Your nerves are badly shaken, I can see that," the doctor decided. "Fix him up a little bromide, Gregson."

Kenwick took the gla.s.s, furious to note that it trembled in his hand.

The druggist attempted to joke him back to normal poise. "A little more of a jolt and you'd have had to pa.s.s him up to Gifford, Doc. Gifford, here," he went on by way of introduction, "is shipping a body north to-night on the twelve-thirty. Bein' two of you, he might have got the railroad to give your folks a special rate if you're goin' his way."

The patient evinced mild interest. "San Francisco?" he inquired. The undertaker nodded.

"That's the train I hoped to make," Kenwick sighed. "But my money seems to have been jolted out of me and----" He went carefully through his pockets as he spoke. And then Gifford came over and stood beside him.

"If you don't mind," he began, "I'd like to know your name."

Kenwick's reply was glibly rea.s.suring. "Kenneth Rogers."

"Oh! You that young Rogers that's been visiting for a few days at the Paddington place, 'Utopia'?" It was the doctor who asked this question.

Kenwick nodded warily.

The physician extended his hand. "I'm Markham. Had an engagement to play golf with you out at the country club this afternoon. Awfully sorry you couldn't make it but I got the message all right from your sister that you were having trouble with your car out near Hillside Inn and you couldn't get away."

As Kenwick wrung his hand with easy cordiality there flashed before his mental vision the picture of the wayfarer in goggles. Could a malign fate have trapped him into taking the name of that visitor to Mont-Mer, or any visitor, who might some day arise and challenge him? He had got to get out of this place before the net that the G.o.ds were weaving about him should bind him hand and foot.

"Say, listen." Gifford forced himself to the front again, speaking with a mixture of eagerness and hesitation. "If you're goin' up to the city to-night, I wonder if----You see, it's like this. I've got a big masonic funeral on here for Thursday morning. It'll be a h.e.l.l of a rush for me to get back in time if I have to make this trip. But I promised a little woman that I'd see personally to this shipment; send a responsible party or go myself. I haven't got a soul to send, but if you----."

Kenwick shook his head. "I won't be able to leave now until to-morrow.

I'll have to wait and get some money."

Gifford waved aside the objection. "Your expenses will be paid, of course, as mine would have been. I'll advance you the funds. And you don't have to _do_ a thing, you know. Wellman's man will meet the train at the other end. Wait and see the casket in his hands and then you're through."

He watched the other man eagerly. For a moment Kenwick didn't trust himself to meet his gaze. He hoped that he was not betraying in his face the jubilant conviction that his guardian angel had suddenly returned from a vacation and had renewed an interest in him. In order not to appear too eagerly acquiescent he asked casually: "Who is the fellow?

Or who was he?"

"Man by the name of Marstan. He wasn't known around here. His wife had to come down from the city to identify him." He glanced at his watch.

"There's just about time to make the train now. I've got my car outside.

It's luck, your stumbling in here like this. Sheer luck."

"Luck is too mild a word for it," Kenwick a.s.sured himself as he crawled into his Pullman a few moments later. "It's providence, old boy. That's what it is."

The bromide had begun to do its work. And his leg, properly bandaged, gave him no pain. Almost hilarious over the knowledge that daylight would find him among familiar surroundings again, he fell into the delicious slumber that follows sudden surcease of mental strain.

When he awoke the train was speeding through the oak-dotted region of San Mateo. He had refused to accept any expense-money from Gifford except enough for his breakfast, and after a cup of coffee in the diner, he sat gazing out of the window, not caring to open conversation with any of his fellow-travelers, completely absorbed in the business of readjusting himself to this environment that he had loved and from which the war had so abruptly uprooted him.

It was glorious to be back again, to catch up the loose threads of the old life. And in spite of the stark bareness of winter, the landscape had never seemed so appealing. The wide level stretches of pasture, cut by ribbons of asphalt, the prosperous little towns which the Coast Company's fast train ignored on its thunderous dash northward, the children walking to school, the pruners waving their shears to him as he sped by--all these breathed a healthy normal living that made the neurotic adventures of the past day seem remote and unreal.

Under the long shed of the Third and Townsend Depot he lingered only until he had carried out Gifford's instructions. Then he went on down the open corridor to the waiting-rooms. Outside the voices of taxi-drivers and hotel busmen made the radiant winter morning hideous with their cries. The waiting-room was warm and bright. There was no better place, Kenwick reflected, to map out his program. The air was a tonic, crisp and tipped with frost. It was too cold to be without an overcoat and yet, if Everett did not make punctual reply to the message that he was about to send, he might have to part with it for a time.

He found a seat in a corner where he would be out of the draft of incessantly opening doors. For in spite of his good night's sleep he felt weak and a little giddy. Resolving to dismiss the past from his mind and concern himself solely with the present was good logic, but difficult of accomplishment. First, and dominating all his thought, was Marcreta Morgan. The thought of her brought him a dull pain. So many letters he had written her since his return to New York, and not one of them had she ever answered. Once, in vague alarm, he had even written to Clinton, but there had been no reply. And then pride had held him silent. So he couldn't go to the house on Pine Street now. He wouldn't go, he decided fiercely, until he had a decent position and had reestablished himself in civilian life.

Over at the news-stand a girl was fitting picture post-cards into a rack. Kenwick walked over to her and with a part of the change left from his meager breakfast bought a morning paper. While she picked it off the pile he stood twirling the circular rack absently with one hand. The Cliff House, Golden Gate Park, and prominent business blocks whirled past his eyes, but he was not conscious of them. He took his newspaper and turned away.

Halfway to the door he opened it and glanced at the sensational menu spread out for his delectation upon the front page. All at once something inside his brain seemed to crumple up. The Cliff House, Golden Gate Park, and tall office-buildings sped around him in a circle, like a merry-go-round gone mad. Somehow he found his way back to the corner seat and sank into it. And there he sat like a stone man, staring at, but no longer seeing, the front page of his newspaper.

CHAPTER VII

Two hours after Roger Kenwick had taken his gruesome departure from the house of the iron gate, a mud-spattered car turned in at the side entrance to the grounds which he had quitted. The man behind the wheel drove recklessly, careening between the double row of eucalyptus-trees like some low-flying bird of prey seeking its carrion. At the shallow front steps he brought the car to an abrupt halt as though he had found the thing for which he sought. Tugging at his heavy gloves he sprang up the steps, two at a time. "Lord! What a handsome place this is!" he muttered. "What a place for dinners and dancing--and love!"

He pressed the electric b.u.t.ton and heard its buzz pierce the stillness of the house. "It's a crime!" He was walking up and down before the closed door, flapping his gloves against his chest. "It's a crime for a man to live in a place like this alone." He pressed the b.u.t.ton again, keeping his finger upon it this time until he felt certain that its persistent summons must tear at the nerves of whoever was within. But still there was no response. Then he tried the k.n.o.b, turned it, and went inside.

The house was in complete darkness. He felt his way along the front hall until his fingers found the switch-b.u.t.ton. At the hat-rack he divested himself of his heavy coat, hat, and gloves. The face which the diamond-shaped mirror reflected was dark with disapproval and gathering anger. "Door unlocked at one o'clock at night! Might as well leave a child in charge of things!"

Walking with noisy, impatient tread, he ascended the stairs, taking the left flight on the landing, and snapping on the light in the upper hall.

The doors were all closed. He turned the k.n.o.b of the first one and went in. The sitting-room was in perfect order. He crossed it and entered the alcove 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 the center-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 between his fingers. Then, still holding it, he visited the other rooms in the left wing. They were all orderly, silent, deserted. Somewhere in his progress from one to another he dropped the cigar stump and did not notice it. Moving like a man in a dream he found himself at last over in the right wing, standing outside a heavy mahogany door. His movements were no longer speculative. They were nervous and jerky as though propelled by a disabled engine.

He did not at first try to open this door but called in a low uncertain voice that seemed to dread a reply, "Marstan, are you here?" When there was no response he tried the door in a futile sort of way as though he were expecting resistance. When it yielded to his touch and he stood upon 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 in the open doorway, transfixed, not by a sight but by an odor.

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

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

Over in the dining-room he examined the bowl of English walnuts with several empty sh.e.l.ls mixed in among them and the nutcrackers lying askew upon the centerpiece. All at once he dropped these with a crash that made an ugly scar upon the polished table-top. His eyes had fallen upon the wide board nailed across the shattered window. He went over and investigated it carefully, his quick eyes taking in every detail of the crude carpentry. Under his touch the sagging lower board suddenly gave way and fell with a heavy thud to the gravel walk below.

The new-comer went back to the front hall, searched for an instant in the pocket of his overcoat, and then, clutching a black cylindrical object, he went out of the house and around on the dining-room side. His hands were trembling now, and the path of light blazing from the little electric torch made a zigzag trail across the dank flower-beds. He found the dislodged board lying with its twisted nails sprawling upward and dragged it off the path. As he dropped it his eyes fell upon an object lying beneath a giant oleander bush. At last he knew what it was that he had missed from the den. It was the Indian blanket. Mystified, he bent down and picked it up, finding it heavy with the added weight of dampness. The next moment he gave a startled cry, dropped the blanket and torch, and staggered back against the wall. And the blackness of night 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 to seek relief in action. Cursing the sudden weakness in his knees which r.e.t.a.r.ded haste, he strode, with the aid of the recovered torch, toward a small frame cottage in the rear of the garage. Here he rapped sharply upon the closed door, then pushed it open. This room, too, was empty.

Pointing the torch, like the unblinking eye of a cyclops, into every corner of the apartment, he made certain of this. Then he drew a solitary chair close to the door and sat down, the torch across his knees.

More slowly now his glance traveled around the room. The blankets upon the bed were in a disheveled heap. There were some soiled dishes upon the table, a cup half full of cold tea, and under the small stove a pot of sticky-looking rice. The fire had gone out. He crossed the room and lifted the lid of the stove. Under the white ashes a few coals glowed dully. There were no clothes in the closet. It was easily apparent to him that the former inmate of the room had left unexpectedly but did not intend to return.

For half an hour he sat there motionless. Then he rose, pushed back the chair, and went out, closing the door behind him. Very deliberately he followed the side path back to the dining-room window. This time he retained the light, pressing one end of it firmly with his thumb. The soggy 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, and through the skin of his clenched hands the knuckles showed white and knotted. His hair was in wild disorder, but it seemed more the disorder of long neglect than of violent death. The helpless shrunken figure presented a pitiful contrast to that of the man who knelt beside it.