The Rest Hollow Mystery

by Rebecca N. Porter

  CHAPTER XIII

  It was seven o'clock on a rainy evening, and Kenwick turned up thecollar of his coat as he left the St. Germaine. Inside the HartshireBuilding there was a cheerful warmth that promised well for the evening.He ignored the elevator and walked up the three flights of stairs to thefloor where the photographer had his rooms. On the way, he tried topersuade himself that he was not doing this in order to gain time. Butthere was a good hour intervening between now and time to start for thetheater, and at the end of that hour, he reflected Jarvis might not careto keep the engagement.

  As he toiled upward Kenwick considered every possible detail of thescene that was before him, and then wearily discarded them all. "Why doI do it?" he challenged himself, as he reached the last landing. "How doI dare to do it? My God! I can't afford to do it; I've got to have onefriend left!"

  But as he had once told Jarvis, those scenes of life whose settings arescrupulously ordered usually lack dramatic climax. At the end of what hewas pleased to characterize as his "confession," the photographersurveyed him with sympathetic but unastonished eyes.

  "I'd begun to think that there might be something personal in it," hecommented. "I could see that there was something lying heavy on yourchest. It's a devilish mess, isn't it?"

  The other man was looking at him with a disconcerting sharpness. But thething for which he probed was not in Granville Jarvis's eyes.

  "I seem to be such a helpless sort of brute," his host went on, andpushed a box of cigars across the table as though in an unconsciouseffort to make up with tobacco what he lacked in counsel. "I never canthink of the right thing to do just on the spur of the minute.Inspiration has an uncomfortable habit of failing to keep herengagements with me."

  "I didn't expect any advice," Kenwick told him. "But it's a relief totell you and get it off my mind; to tell you and yet not have you thinkthat I ought to be locked up."

  "Somebody ought to be locked up," Jarvis remarked grimly. "And it's yourjob to find that person. Why don't you go East?"

  "I am going East. I've decided to go next week. It would be hard to makeyou understand why I haven't done it before, but----Well, this sort ofan--illness does a terrible thing to a man's soul, Jarvis. It paralyzeshis initiative. It gives him the most deadly thing in this world; thepatience of despair. I'm constantly _waiting_ for things to clear upinstead of going at them hammer and tongs."

  His companion nodded. "I think I understand. It would be the hell of asituation for you back there among people you've always known, and whopresumably know all about you, and not being able to bridge the gap. Ican see why you wanted to get a line on yourself first, and you'reright, too. After all, a man owes something to his nervous system. Butsince you've decided to go and brave it out back there I think I'd letthings rest the way they are till you go. Sometimes life works itselfout better if we don't interfere too much. Somebody is bound to make afoolish play if you let them all manage their own hands."

  "And yet somebody told me the other day, Jarvis, that I was too passivein the crutches of fate; that I ought to be more combative, moreaggressive."

  Jarvis laughed. "I'd be willing to bet that it was a woman who told youthat."

  "Yes, a woman did tell me. It was that trance medium."

  "I might have guessed it. By the way, I went to see her myself the otherday. Your story got me interested. She ought to have paid you a liberalcommission for that yarn. But I suppose she doesn't even know you wroteit. She struck me as being a mighty clever little woman. Well, it'safter eight o'clock. Let's go."

  They found their seats in the first row of the balcony. The house wasbrilliantly lighted and filling up rapidly. But although Jarvis hadurged his companion to forget for a time the tangle in which he wasenmeshed, it was he who returned to the theme while they sat waiting forthe curtain to rise.

  "The trouble is, there's a missing link in the chain somewhere. I don'tmean an event, but a person. Somebody dealt those cards, of course, andwhoever did it knows where the marked one is. The New York trip may be awild goose chase after all. Did you ever think of hiring a detective tohelp you out?"

  "Yes, I've thought of it a lot. But somehow I don't want to do it. Idon't want to have anybody mixed up in my affairs as intimately asthat. I can't explain my feeling about it. But there is so much noiseabout this sort of thing if it once rises to the surface, and if there'sany graft connected with my name, I'd like to keep the scandal private.Besides," he laughed with a tolerant self-indulgence, "I don't supposethe person lives, Jarvis, who doesn't believe that way down inside ofhim somewhere, sleeping but never dead, is the genius of the detective.I've made a sort of a covenant with myself that I and no other shall runthis thing to cover, and do it without kicking up a noise."

  Jarvis was staring speculatively at the foot-lights. "It's one of themost curious cases I ever knew. I'll tell you what, Kenwick. You're theoriginal 'Wise Man from Our Town.' Remember him?

  "And when he found his eyes were out, With all his might and main, He jumped into the bramble-bush And scratched them back again."

  "A dangerous experiment, I always thought," Kenwick remarked.

  "So is dynamite, but sometimes we have to use it, and nothing else willtake its place."

  "Are you advising me to put a bomb under somebody on the chance that itmight be the man who shuffled the deck?"

  "No. I'm advising you to do the bramble-bush stunt. Don't jump forward;jump back."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why, the more I think of it the more I believe that the solution ofthis mystery is to be found in the place where it began."

  "But where did it begin?"

  "So far as your knowledge of it extends, it began in the canon or ravineor whatever place it was that you had the accident. If I'm not mistaken,Kenwick, that place is your bramble-bush."

  The curtain rose upon the first act and there was no opportunity forfurther conversation. It was during the intermission between the secondand third acts that Jarvis, leaning over the balcony, said suddenly,"There's a friend of yours; fourth row on the right."

  Kenwick made a cursory examination of the seats and shook his head."Don't see him. Don't see anybody I know here to-night except Aiken, ourdramatic critic."

  "This is a woman. Count seven seats over in the fourth row. Isn't thatlady in the garnet-colored coat your Madame Rosalie?"

  "You're right; it is."

  "I thought I couldn't be mistaken. There's a certain air of distinctionabout that woman in spite of----" Jarvis stopped, for he saw that hiscompanion was not listening. For a moment Kenwick sat there staring downat the fourth row like a man in a dream. Then he gripped Jarvis's arm."Look!" he cried. "Down there with Madame Rosalie."

  "What's the matter? You're such an excitable cuss, Kenwick."

  "That fellow who's with her. Look! Jarvis, _that's_ the man!"

  "What man?"

  "The man we've been talking about--my Missing Link."

  Together they leaned over the balcony and scrutinized, with the intentgaze of a pair of detectives, the couple in the fourth row right. It mayhave been coincidence, or it may have been that species of visualhypnotism known to us all, which suddenly impelled Madame Rosalie'sescort to turn in his seat. His eyes swept the house with a casualglance, then lifted to the balcony. Slowly they surveyed the arc offaces above the lights. The two men leaning toward him did not move. Inanother instant he had found them, and for a full minute he and RogerKenwick held each other. And then the theater went black as the curtainrose on the last act.

  Just before it was over Kenwick bade his companion a hurried farewell."I'm going down and introduce myself to that fellow. I know I've seenhim before somewhere, and he may be able to give me my clue. You don'tmind if I break away? I want to catch him before he is lost in thecrowd."

  But this hope was thwarted. For hurrying down the aisle in that momentbefore the rush of exit, while the audience was finding its wraps, hefound two seats in the fourth row empty. Slowly he walked back
to theSt. Germaine, his thoughts in a tumult. Why should they have wanted toleave before the end of as good a performance as that? Something musthave happened. Could it be that they had wanted to escape him? At suchlong range it hadn't been possible for him to determine whether or notthere was a flash of recognition in the other man's eyes, but hismysterious disappearance was haunting. On the following morning, beforegoing to the "Clarion" office he took a car out to Fillmore Street.

  At Madame Rosalie's shabby home a man in shirt sleeves opened the door."Oh, she don't live here any more," he explained to the caller. "Shemoved a week ago. I'm gettin' the place ready for a new tenant."

  "Do you know where she went?"

  The man grinned. "Them mediums don't generally leave no forwardin'address. Their motto is 'Keep Movin'.' I will say, though, that theRosalie woman was a perfect lady and paid her rent regular in advance."

  Kenwick walked away, turning this latest development slowly in his mind,looking at it from every angle. At his office he worked mechanically,scarcely conscious of what he wrote. He was in two minds now about theEastern trip. Perhaps it would be better to take Jarvis's advice and letthings have their head a bit longer. And he was certain of some of hisfacts now. The face of the man in the fourth row had been like the flashof a torch at midnight. For most of the night he had been awake, goingback over the painful trail of the past, fitting some of its previouslyincomprehensible details into their places. What a curious mosaic hislife had been! What contrasts of light and shade! But as for going backto Mont-Mer----The idea made him shudder. No, that was one thing hewould not do. It would be like courting the return of a nightmare.

  At four o'clock he left the office and went to keep an appointment withDr. Gregson Bennet in the Physicians' Building. Dr. Bennet belonged tothat class of specialists who designate their business quarters inplural terms. His offices comprised a suite of four rooms. The sign onthe door of the first one invited the caller to enter, unheralded.Complying with this injunction, Kenwick found himself in a well-lightedchamber containing a massive collection of light-green upholstery and anassortment of foreign-looking pictures artfully selected to convey theimpression that their owner was on chummy terms with the capitals ofEurope.

  As the door closed automatically behind him, a white-uniformed figureappeared, like a perfectly trained cuckoo, from the adjoining room andannounced in level tones, "The-doctor-will-see-you-in-just-a-minute."Kenwick accepted this assurance with the grave credulity that onefiction-maker accords another. He glanced at the five other patientsalready awaiting their turns and picked up a magazine.

  By four-thirty he had read the jokes in the back of "Anybody's Magazine"for the preceding six months. No physician in reputable standing everremoves old numbers of periodicals from his files. For what bettertestimony can he offer in support of his claim upon a long-establishedpractice? As Kenwick read, he was aware that his companions were beingsummoned one by one to embark upon that mysterious journey from whosebourne no traveler returns, departure having been arranged for aroundsome obscure corner, to prevent exchange between arriving and retreatingpatient of a "Look! Stop! Listen!" signal.

  By five o'clock only one other patient besides himself remained; alittle woman in shiny serge suit and passee summer hat. Kenwick put downhis magazine with a long-drawn sigh, and she smiled in patient sympathy."Gets pretty tiresome waitin', doesn't it?" she ventured.

  His quick eyes took in her shabby suit and the knotted ungloved hands.She was probably the mother of a growing family, he reflected, and wouldnot get home in time now to prepare dinner. His easy sympathy flaredinto words.

  "It's an outrage to keep people waiting like this when they have anappointment for a definite hour. They tell me Bennet's a nervespecialist, and I believe it."

  She smiled wanly, but there was an eager championship in her response."Oh, but he's wonderful! When he once begins to talk to you, you forgetall about bein' mad at him. Seems like he sees right through your headto tell what's the matter with you."

  The white uniform appeared and pronounced a name: "Mr. Kenwick." He roseand followed her through the door. The second room was like the first,minus reading-matter and plus wall-charts. Here he sat, gazing at thefire-escapes on the opposite building, while the white uniform made anot completely satisfying attempt to collect family statistics. Andthen, at last, the door of the third room opened and Dr. Bennet himselfemerged. He was enveloped in a heavy white apron that recalled toKenwick's mind the pictures he had seen in the agricultural magazinesfeaturing model dairying.

  But if the specialist had been slow to admit him, he was equallyreluctant to let him go. When he had finished his examination, Kenwickstood beside the couch in the fourth and last room pulling on his coat."Then you think I'm in pretty good condition, doctor?" Through thehalf-open door he could see the white uniform hovering, like an emblemof peace, above a steaming basin of warlike instruments.

  "I should say," the physician told him slowly, "that you are absolutelysound. Your nerves are a bit too highly charged, but I imagine that ismore a matter of temperament than overstrain."

  "Is that all?"

  "No, that isn't all. The history of your case, as you have given it tome, is a most interesting one. And you were right to let me make theexamination and form my own conclusions before telling me anything aboutyour history. I wish it were possible for you to recall the name of thephysician who handled your case in France. I'd like to get thescientific beginning of the story. Without it I can only make a guess,and guessing is not satisfactory. But I think that in his place I shouldhave taken the chance and operated. However, you can't judge; he may nothave had the proper equipment. I wish you would come around nextSaturday when the office is closed, and let me make some X-ray plates.I'd like to display them at the medical convention in April."

  "And what do you advise me to do for my--my mental health?"

  "Forget your mental health. Take some regular out-of-door exercise andmix with your friends. I can't give you any better prescription thanthat. If it were something done up in pink paper you'd be more apt totake it, I know."

  Kenwick walked back through the darkening streets with a feeling ofexultation. The pendulum of his despair was swinging backward to aheight only attained by those who can plumb the depths of wretchedness.For the first time in six weeks he felt his old defiance of life. Andrecalling the pale ghost of a former prayer, he was ashamed of itscowardice. "_That_ never happens to the desperate and the lonely," hereminded himself grimly. "The best security on earth for a prolongedlife is to express a sincere desire to die. After that, you lead acharmed existence. Houses burn to the ground and not one inmate escapes;ships go down with everybody aboard; pedestrians are run over by carsand shot by thugs, but none of these things come near the man who courtsthem. They overtake those whom others find it hard to spare, those whoselives are vivid with purpose."

  As he walked back to the hotel he found himself thinking of Marcretaagain. Had he ever really made a place for himself in her life? Whetherhe had or not, he knew that he had never, even in his blackest moments,given her up. All the plans for his future centered still about her.Well, he had a fight before him now, and not until he won it would hemake himself known at the house on Pine Street.

  On the corner a newsboy thrust a paper under his face. He waved itaside. "I can read all that bunk for nothing, sonny," he told himcheerfully. The huge head-lines filled him with a spiritual nausea. Thechronicle of the day's tragedies for the public to batten upon! Wasthere never to be an end to America's greed for the sensational?

  At the St. Germaine the clerk handed him a telephone call. It was fromJarvis and urged him to call him up immediately. In his own room Kenwickcomplied with this request. The voice of the Southerner came to him,sharply commanding, over the wire. "Can you come around right away? Iwant to talk it over with you."

  "Talk what over?" Kenwick's voice was almost defiant.

  "Why, haven't you seen it? Well, come around anyway. I'll be here forthe next ho
ur."

  When Kenwick arrived at the Hartshire he found the photographer sortingover a pile of films. But as his guest entered, he swept these into apasteboard box, and cleared off a chair for him. "Where have you been?"he demanded. "I called you at the hotel and the 'Clarion' office twice."

  Kenwick gave him a brief account of the last two hours. Jarvis grunted."Well, I don't blame you for wanting to get the seal of scientificapproval but--I can't believe that you haven't read the 'Record' yet.And you a newspaper man!"

  He fished the paper out from under a stack of developing-trays andsearched the columns of the second page. "Remember what I suggested toyou last night, that you let things take their own course for a while?Well, it seems that they've been taking them in rather a headlongfashion." He creased back the page and handed the paper to Kenwick."Read that and see if it doesn't give you something of a jolt."

  He took the paper. The head-lines at the top of the third page rivetedthemselves upon his brain.

  RELATIVE SEEKS MISSING MAN

  Body of Roger Kenwick to Be Exhumed at Mont-Mer

  The body of Roger Kenwick, son of the late Charles Kenwick, of New York, who died at Rest Hollow last November, is to be exhumed for examination on the demand of Mrs. Hilda Fanwell, of Reno, Nevada. Mrs. Fanwell, a widow, arrived from her home last week in search of her brother, Ralph Regan, who has been a resident of Mont-Mer for the last two years. A letter received from him in the early part of November indicated, according to the sister's statement, that he was in failing health. Being unable to come to him then, owing to the illness of her husband, Mrs. Fanwell wrote several letters, none of which were answered. The description of her brother, which she furnished the police, has resulted in a demand to the authorities to have the body of Roger Kenwick exhumed.

  Kenwick let the paper slide to the table. "My Lord!" he murmured."Jarvis, what would you do about it?"

  "Why should _you_ do anything about it? This Fanwell woman is apparentlythe oldest Gold Dust twin. Let her do your work."

  But Kenwick's eyes were still fixed upon the paper. Over it a drop ofacid from the developing-tray was eating a slow passage. "But to see myname tied up to a gruesome thing like that----Why, you can't imaginehow it----It gives me the feeling that--that I've just begun on thisthing. And I thought when I came in here that I had all the cards in myhands."

  He got up from the table slowly, like a hospital patient testing hisstrength on the first day out of bed. And Jarvis, after one glance athis pale face, rose too. "You've got nothing to worry about----," hebegan. But Kenwick waved the soothing aside with a fierce impatience.

  "Nothing to worry about?" he cried hotly. "Don't offer me that stuff,Jarvis. How do I know--how _can_ I ever know what I may have done duringthose ghastly ten months?"