The Rest Hollow Mystery

by Rebecca N. Porter

  CHAPTER XVI

  On the day set for the trial of the Regan murder case the court-room atMont-Mer was crowded. Long before ten o'clock men and women wereflocking into the building, eager for the most desirable seats.Residents from some of the country districts brought their lunches andprepared to spend the day.

  The court-house was an antique structure heated only by wood stoves, butthe fur-coated and the threadbare rubbed elbows and were oblivious ofdrafts. For it is in the audience chamber of a criminal court that thosewho seek will find the true democracy. One touch of sensation makes thewhole world kin.

  A few hours before the trial Clinton Morgan arrived in town and waspermitted to see the prisoner. The vigilance of the Mont-Mer officialsdid not preclude visitors, rather welcomed them as a possible means ofgaining valuable information from the suspected murderer when he was offhis guard. Dayton, who was in conference with his client when Clintonentered, was immensely relieved by the appearance of this new actor inthe drama. "This thing seems to me to be a little too one-sided,professor," he remarked when introductions were over. "The court-roomover there is jammed with people who expect to see us done to death.It's good to have an ally loom up in the offing."

  He left them alone for a few moments while they waited for the sheriff,and Clinton measured his friend with an anxious eye. "I don't know whatyou could have thought of me for not coming sooner," he said, "but Icouldn't possibly get away. You look all in, man. Haven't they beengiving you anything to eat?"

  "As much as I wanted." As he returned the grip of his hand, Kenwick waswondering if Clinton Morgan suspected that this encounter, in a prisoncell, between himself and the brother of Marcreta filled his cup ofhumiliation to the brim. Her name was not mentioned by either of them.Clinton's whole attention was centered upon the developments in thecase.

  "You're not going to take the stand yourself, are you, Kenwick?" hequestioned, standing with one foot upon the backless chair.

  "I was, but Dayton has advised against it."

  "Absolutely. You'd be at an immense disadvantage."

  "I suppose so. I can furnish proof from Dr. Gregson Bennet, in the city,that I'm perfectly normal now. But after all, that doesn't really countfor much with anybody but myself. It was such an immense comfort to mewhen he made the examination. I came away from his office feeling thatit was going to clear up everything. But no matter what science says,I'll always be at a disadvantage."

  Clinton laid a hand upon his shoulder. Ever since his first sight of himhe had been trying to conceal the fact that Kenwick's altered appearancewas a shock to him. And like the attempts of most straightforward men,the effort had been a failure. "Why, buck up, man," he admonished now."They can't convict you, you know; not under--the circumstances. Youhaven't been thinking that?"

  "I've been thinking a good many things since I came back to Mont-Mer,"Kenwick answered slowly. "You see, Morgan, I know more now than I didwhen I was trying to ferret this thing out up in the city. For onething, I know a little more about my adversary. As I've figured out thisstory now, it goes something like this.

  "After that adventure out at Rest Hollow, Glover found himself in ahole. But there were three ways out of it for him. If he wanted toretain the grip that I think he has upon my estate, he had to choosebetween these. The first one was to make it appear that I was dead. Thisseems, at first thought, to be a hazardous venture, but it was not sodifficult in my case as it would have been under normal circumstances.And when he first decided to take it I think he supposed that I wasdead. He had every reason to think so. The man to whom he had entrustedme had mysteriously disappeared, and he had some strange woman come downand identify as himself a stranger who had been killed in an automobiletragedy; a very easy thing, in reality, you see. When Glover discovered,upon inquiry around town, that there had been such an accident, heconcluded that I had been killed and that the man who was responsiblefor it was afraid to let him know and had made his escape after havinghimself declared dead. I haven't a doubt that Glover thought I was theman who was shipped up to San Francisco in a casket. And believing this,the whole thing seemed to play right into his hands. He knew, of course,that he couldn't keep his hold on my fortune forever, but he wanted toplay the game until he got as much as he could out of it.

  "But suddenly he discovered, by some means, that his whole hypothesiswas wrong. He discovered that I was alive, and what was infinitely moreappalling, that I was apparently restored to competency. He had beenwilling to risk my possible reappearance, you see, for if I were everdiscovered wandering about deranged somewhere, I would have no means ofidentifying myself and, after a medical examination, would simply becommitted to some institution. He would not have to connect himself withthat at all. But since I had come to life mentally as well asphysically, he had to take the second course--prove me irresponsible andhave me sent to an asylum. How he went about this I don't know, but I'msure that he must have attempted it. And I don't know either why hefailed, for as I look back now upon some of my moves I can see that theymight have appeared--erratic."

  "I think," Clinton told him dryly, "that any of us could furnishconvincing proof that we have been, at certain periods of our lives,dangerous to the public safety."

  But Kenwick went on, unheeding this attempted solace.

  "At any rate, Glover apparently failed in this attempt. So in order toget himself out of this mess, there is only one thing now for him todo." He broke off, eying his visitor with somber eyes. "You know whatthat is, Morgan. In order to save himself, he must prove me to be acold-blooded murderer. Can he do it? Why shouldn't he? I'm certainly notin a position to offer any convincing opposition. A contemptuous pity iswhat I have read in the eyes of every person whom I've seen since thisthing came to light. I don't suppose there is a person in this town whothinks I am innocent. I don't know whether Dayton himself does."

  "But what motive could you have had for murder, Kenwick? You say thatyou never saw this Regan in your life."

  "_I_ say so, but what does my testimony amount to? And especially whatdoes it amount to when I am trying to save my own skin? I told you once,Morgan, and I tell you again that it's impossible for a man to live downmy sort of a past. He may get his eyes back out of the bramble-bush, buthe'll never be able to make the world believe that he can really seewith them. I feel sorry for Dayton. He's working day and night on thiscase, and he's a nice fellow. But he hasn't got any chance to make goodon it. I feel sorry for him."

  "I have been thinking," Clinton mused, "that there might be somethingout at Rest Hollow that would furnish a clue to help solve the questionto the satisfaction of the jury, as to just when you arrived at thathouse, how long you stayed, and so on."

  "The place is full of clues, of course," Kenwick admitted. "But by thistime they have all been carefully arranged. Dayton went out there, andhe told me that the public are not being admitted to the grounds at all.The place is under guard night and day. There may be danger there forGlover; I don't know anything about that, of course, but he knows. Andwhatever else you may say about him, you can't say that he has beenasleep on this job."

  The door opened to admit the sheriff. He shook hands with Clinton Morganand nodded to Kenwick. In absolute silence the trio walked through thesemitropical grounds to the court-house. As they entered the packedaudience chamber the buzz of conversation stopped, and in deathlysilence Roger Kenwick took his place.

  The barrage of eyes leveled upon him was only partly visible through thehaze that for the first few moments blurred his vision. He told himselfthat it was like that last charge, through blinding smoke, that he hadmade across No-Man's-Land. Then the scene cleared and individual facesemerged from the mist. There were the weather-beaten faces of ranchworkers, the smug, complacent faces of those whom life has petted, theresolute faces of those who have come to see grim justice administered.Among them, here and there, was a scattering of veiled faces; womeneager to see, but ashamed of being seen. Kenwick wondered contemptuouslyif some of the writers of the perfumed n
otes were among these.

  During his dispassionate survey of the spectators he was acutelyconscious of the presence of a man sitting at the far end of the tablearound which the lawyers were assembled. He had felt this personalitywhen he first entered, but had reserved his attention until the blur ofhis surroundings should clear. Now he turned slowly in his chair andlooked straight into the "tiger eyes" of Richard Glover. There wasneither anger nor appeal in his own face; only a curious, questioningexpression. An anthropologist who has stumbled upon some strange humanrelic unknown to his research might wear such an expression. Anyphysiognomist could have read in Kenwick's gaze the question, "What isthis all about?"

  And here again his adversary had him at a disadvantage. For his was notthe mobile temperament which gives visible response to its emotionalexperiences. Life played upon Kenwick as upon a highly strunginstrument, and drew from him whatever notes she needed in the universalsymphony. But Richard Glover permitted no hand but his own to manipulatethe keys of his life-board.

  It was ten o'clock now but the trial seemed long in beginning. The judgehad barely noticed Kenwick's entrance and continued an inaudibleconversation with some one at his high desk. The district attorney, aflorid little man who seemed to find difficulty in keeping on hiseye-glasses, fussed with a mass of papers at the end of the long tableand spoke occasionally to the bald-headed man on his right, who wasevidently his colleague. Dayton leaned back in his chair and tapped thetable impatiently with his pencil. Kenwick was surprised to see that thenervousness which his attorney had shown when he had visited him in jailseemed now to have completely disappeared.

  There was an eminent surgeon among Kenwick's New York acquaintances whosuffered from a nervous malady that was akin to palsy, and yet who, inthe vital crisis of an operation, had a hand as steady as an embeddedrock. He found himself wondering curiously now whether Dayton woulddevelop under pressure an abnormal sagacity. Some miracle would have tointervene if he was to be saved from the ravenous clutches of fate.

  Other persons were entering the court-room now and taking places thathad evidently been reserved for them. Dayton leaned over and presentedthem at long distance to his client. "That fellow that just came in isGifford, the undertaker. He got the jolt of his life when this thingblew up. Don't think he'll be much of a witness. He gets rattled. Thatchap with him is Dr. Markham. Ever see him before?"

  Kenwick nodded. "He bandaged my leg that night in the drug-store. He'llremember it, too, for he was a little suspicious at the time that thesprain was older than I admitted. And I think he knew the man whose nameI chanced to give as mine."

  "Yes, that was a bad break, your chancing upon the name of Rogers. Afellow by that name was visiting out at the Paddington place, andalthough the doctor had never seen him, he had an engagement to playgolf with him that afternoon out at the country club. Fortunately theman himself left town the next day so it wasn't as bad as it might havebeen. But it was an unfortunate thing, such a beast of a thing, that youshould have given an assumed name at all."

  "I suppose so. But that one seemed safe enough; it was my own namebackwards. And I'd been through enough during the last twenty-four hoursto make me cautious and secretive. And as it turned out, the taking ofanother name _was_ the thing to do, Dayton. If I had hurled 'RogerKenwick' into that group, I imagine that some one would have madeconnections and turned me over to the lunacy commission. My guardianangel was on the job when I decided to keep my identity a secret thatnight."

  Dayton surveyed him with obvious satisfaction. It was a good sign thatKenwick had thrown off some of his former apathy. And yet there stillremained a cold indifference about him, a sort of contemptuous disregardof the crowded room, that for a man of Kenwick's caliber and socialposition seemed to him inexplicable. He had an uncomfortable convictionthat this inscrutable self-possession would not take well with thejury; that it somehow gave credence to the theory of the prosecutionthat the prisoner was a hardened criminal. The local reporters werealready busy with their pencils. And Dayton could visualize a paragraphin the evening sheet beginning, "Roger Kenwick himself showed a completeindifference to the proceedings which----"

  The conference with the judge had ended and he was rapping for order.The charge against the prisoner was read and the tedious task ofimpaneling the jury began. Dayton paid little attention to the formalprocess of getting the legal machinery into action, except to object ina decisive voice to three or four of the prospective jurymen. Aside fromthese interruptions, he continued to identify the various witnesses tohis client, in an impersonal, entertaining manner, like the officialguide on a personally conducted excursion.

  A short, ruddy man in long overcoat entered and cast impatient eyesabout the room for a seat. One was immediately brought in for him froman adjoining room. "Annisen, ex-coroner," Dayton explained. "He's got afine position now as health officer somewhere in Missouri. He hated likehell to come back and get mixed up in this fracas. You see, he never wasa howling success out here; made the mistake of knocking the climatewhen he first came out, and no southern California town can stand forthat. And then, he had too many irons in the fire all the time, andneglected his official position sometimes. I have a haunting suspicionmyself that he didn't spend any too much of his valuable time over theexamination of your supposed remains. We don't need to fear him; he'llbe a reluctant witness."

  He swung about in his chair to announce himself satisfied with thetwelve men who had been selected to try the case, and then engaged for amoment in conversation with the district attorney.

  Kenwick turned his gaze to the window where he could see the date-palmsfrom a new angle, their curving leaves motionless now in the stillwintry air. The swinging doors of the court-room fanned incessantly backand forth, but he no longer felt any interest in the hostile faces ofthe witnesses. His mind was wandering back along the sun-lighted path ofhis boyhood to the days when he had mother, father, and brother, and hadnever suspected that he would ever lose any of them. It was a goodthing, though, he told himself bitterly, a good thing that they weregone; that the last of the Kenwicks should go down in disgrace withoutspreading the cankerous taint to anyone else of that proud name. Theimminent expose appeared to him all at once in the guise of a mightytree, which was holding its place in the earth only by a singlesupporting root. Now that root was to be chopped away. The house ofKenwick was to fall. But in its fall it would harm no one else. For thetree had long stood alone, solitary and leafless amid the white wastesof life.

  He became aware at last that the buzzing noise of the court-room hadincreased. There seemed to be some new excitement in the air. He broughthis eyes back from the courtyard and glanced inquiringly at Dayton. Buthe had leaned forward in response to a curt signal from the districtattorney. Every one except the jurymen was talking in low tones withsome one else. In their double row of seats the twelve newly-swornjudges sat solemnly silent, freighted with a sense of theirresponsibility.

  Whence the news came Kenwick never knew, for during the moments justpreceding he had been deep in reverie and had lost connection with hissurroundings. But whatever it was, it seemed all at once to be uponevery one's tongue. Those who did not know were eagerly seekinginformation from their neighbors. Kenwick's eyes swept the room,puzzled. Dayton would doubtless tell him when he finished hisconference. But before he had time to gain the knowledge from thissource, it was hurled at the court-room from behind the lawyer's table.The district attorney evidently deemed this the only way to quiet theincreasing tumult. He got to his feet, and flapping the fugitiveeye-glasses between his fingers, faced the judge and made one briefstatement, unembellished by explanation or judicial comment.

  "Your Honor, news has just been received from a reliable source that thehouse at Rest Hollow has burned to the ground!"