The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley Part 41

The Roxton telephonic system was temporarily useless in so far as it affected his movements; for a fire had broken out at The Towers, and the flames of the burning roof had been as a beacon for miles around during the whole of the time consumed by the run to London.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CLOSE OF A TRAGEDY

Winter was in the Quarry Wood and feeling his way but trusting to hands and feet when he heard, and soon saw, Furneaux and the two constables coming toward him. The little detective held the electric torch above his head, and was striding on without looking to right or left. The bitterness of defeat was in his face. Life had turned to gall and wormwood. As the expressive American phrase has it, he was chewing mud.

The Superintendent smiled. He knew what torment his friend was suffering.

"h.e.l.lo, there!" he said gruffly, and the three men jumped, for their nerves were on edge.

"Oh, it's you, Napoleon," yelped Furneaux. "Behold Soult and his army corps, come to explain how Sir John Moore dodged him at Corunna."

"You've lost your man, then?"

"Botched the job at the moment of victory. And all through a rope end."

"Tush! That isn't in your line."

"Must I be lashed by your wit, too? The rope was applied to me, not to Fenley."

"You don't mean to say, sir," broke in one of the astounded policemen, "that you think Mr. Hilton killed his own father!"

"Was it you who got that punch in the tummy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, save your breath. You'll want it when the muscles stiffen.

_'Cre nom d'un pipe!_ To think that I, Furneaux of the Yard, should queer the finest pitch I ever stood on."

"Oh, come now, Charles," said Winter. "Don't cry over spilt milk.

You'll catch Fenley all right before the weather changes. What really happened?"

Aware of the paramount necessity of suppressing his personal woes, Furneaux at once gave a graphic and succinct account of Fenley's imminent capture and escape. He was scrupulously fair, and exonerated his a.s.sistants from any share of the blame--if indeed any one could be held accountable for the singular accident which precipitated matters by a few vital seconds.

Had Fenley reached the ground before the torch revealed the detective's presence, the latter would have closed with him instantly, throwing the torch aside, and thus taking the prisoner at the disadvantage which the fortune of war had brought to bear against the law. Furneaux was wiry though slight, and he could certainly have held his man until reenforcements came; nor would the constables' lamps have been extinguished during the _melee_.

"Then he has vanished, rifle and all," said Winter, when Furneaux had made an end.

"As though the earth had swallowed him. A thousand years ago it would have done so," was the humiliated confession.

"None of you have any notion which direction he took?"

"_I_ received such a whack on the skull that I believe he disappeared in fire," said Furneaux. "My friend here," turning to the policeman who had voiced his amazement at the suggestion that Hilton Fenley was a murderer, "was in the position of Bret Harte's negro lecturer on geology, while this other stalwart thought he had been kicked by a horse. We soon recovered, but had to grope for each other. Then I called the heavens to witness that I was dished."

"That gave us a chance of salvage, anyhow," said Winter. "I 'phoned the Roxton Inspector, and he will block the roads. When he has communicated with St. Albans and some other centers we should have a fairly wide net spread. Bates is coming from the lodge to take charge of a search party to scour the woods. We want that rifle. He must have dropped it somewhere. He'll make for a station in the early morning.

He daren't tramp the country without a hat and in a black suit."

Winter was trying to put heart into his colleague, but Furneaux was not to be comforted. The truth was that the blow on the head had been a very severe one. Unfortunately, he had changed his hard straw hat for a soft cap which gave hardly any protection. Had Fenley's perch been a few inches lower when he delivered that vindictive thrust, Scotland Yard would probably have lost one of its most zealous officers.

So the Jerseyman said nothing, having nothing to say that was fit for the ears of the local constabulary, and Winter suggested that they should return to the mansion and give Bates instructions. Then he, Winter, would telephone Headquarters, have the main roads watched, and the early Continental trains kept under surveillance.

Furneaux, torch in hand, at once led the way. Thus the party was visible before it entered the avenue, and two young people who had bridged months of ordinary acquaintance in one moment of tragedy, being then on the roadway, saw the gleam of light and waited.

"Good!" cackled the little detective when his glance fell on them.

"I'm glad to see there's one live man in the bunch. I presume you've disposed of Mr. Robert Fenley, Mr. Trenholme?"

"Yes," said the artist. "His affairs seem to be common property. His brother evidently knew he was out of doors, and now you----"

Furneaux woke up at that.

"His brother! How can _you_ know what his brother knew?"

"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, a.s.suming 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.