THE REST HOLLOW MYSTERY
BY REBECCA N. PORTER
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Printed in U. S. A.
TO MY BROTHER
WILLIAM STRATTON PORTER
That ideal reader of mystery stories--with
the ardor to pursue, the faith to believe
and the magnanimity to guess wrong
THE REST HOLLOW MYSTERY
CHAPTER I
Kenwick himself had no recollection of the accident. But he knew that
there must have been one, for when he recovered consciousness, his
clothes were full of burrs, his hat was badly crushed, and there was a
violent throbbing in one of his legs.
With both hands gripping the aching thigh in a futile effort to soothe
its pain, he dragged himself into the clearing and looked about. It was
one of those narrow, wooded mountain ravines that in the West are
classed as cañons. Back of him rose a succession of sage-covered slopes,
bleak, wintry, hostile. In front was a precipitous cliff studded with
dwarf madrone trees and the twisted manzanita. Overhead the bare
distorted sycamore boughs lashed themselves together and moaned a dreary
monotone to the accompaniment of a keen November wind. No sign of autumn
lingered on the landscape, and the shed leaves formed a moldy carpet
underfoot. The cañon was redolent with the odor of damp timber and
decaying vegetation.
Kenwick buttoned his heavy overcoat about him and limped painfully
toward the cliff, keeping as nearly as possible a straight line from his
starting-point. Although his surroundings were totally unfamiliar his
mind was clear. But he had that curious sensation of a man who has slept
all night in a strange bed, and in the first moment of wakening is
unable to adjust himself to his environment. While he groped his way
through the tangled underbrush his memory struggled to clear a passage
back to the present.
At the foot of the cliff he stopped short, staring in horror at a spot a
few paces ahead of him. A scrub madrone had been torn from the side of
the ravine and had fallen to the bottom of the cañon, its mutilated
roots stretching skyward like the grotesque claws of some prehistoric
animal. The force which had torn it from its moorings had scarred the
slope with other evidences of disaster; a limb lopped off here, a mass
of brush ripped away there. A glistening object caught his eye. He
stooped laboriously and picked it up, then dropped it, shuddering. It
was a triangle of broken glass spattered with blood.
For half an hour he poked around in the brush searching for, yet
dreading to find, a more gruesome object. Perhaps the driver had not
been killed after all, he reassured himself. As he dimly remembered him,
he was a friendly sort of fellow whom he had engaged to drive him out to
the Raeburn place. As he climbed the steep hill now Kenwick tried to
remember what they had been talking about just before this thing
happened, but the effort made his head ache and landed him nowhere. A
more vital conjecture was concerned with how long he had been lying at
the foot of the ravine and why no one had come to his rescue.
When he gained the road there was nobody in sight. It was a splendidly
paved bit of country boulevard curving out of sight into what Kenwick
told himself must be the land of dreams and romance. He turned to the
left and started to walk, aimlessly, hopping part of the time to save
his aching leg. Surely some one would overtake him in a car soon and
offer assistance. He had dragged himself over half a mile, stimulated by
this hope, when he sighted a house set far back from the highway behind
a vista of date-palms. He struggled up to the entrance and gazed through
the bars of a tall iron gate. It was locked. And, as an extra
precaution against intrusion, a heavy iron chain was swung across the
outside. Through the trees the house was plainly visible, a colossal
concrete structure with stone trimmings flanked on one side by a sturdy
combination tank-house and garage. About the whole place there was an
aristocratic, exclusive dignity that reminded Kenwick of one of the
great English estates that he had once visited during a convalescent
furlough spent near London. It was more like a castle than a private
residence, with its high stone wall covered by dank clinging vines. The
very trees that bordered the driveway had an air of aloofness as though
they had severed all relationship with the rest of nature's family. It
was inconceivable, Kenwick told himself, that guests had ever been
entertained, unbidden, in that mansion. And yet it was here that he must
apply for help.
Strength had deserted him. Courage had deserted him. Even self-respect
was fast slipping away. Desperation alone remained; desperation lashed
almost to fury by the agony in his throbbing leg. He or his companion
must have been drunk, hideously drunk, to have met with such a
mischance. And yet where could they have purchased a drink? He himself
hated liquor, and he had no recollection of having been persuaded into
illicit conviviality. As he searched for an opening in the stone wall,
he took hasty stock of himself. The fur-collared overcoat would give him
a certain social status in the eyes of this householder. His hat, though
bearing the mark of riotous adventure, was obviously the hat of a
gentleman. His shoes subscribed liberally to this classification and his
dark broadcloth suit was conclusive. He felt in his pocket. There was
neither watch nor money. But he could mention Raeburn's name. The
wealthy New Yorker who was to have been his host undoubtedly stood high
in this community.
His search along the wall brought him at last to a broken ledge of rock
which might serve as a stepping-stone. He drew in his breath sharply,
dreading the pain of the stupendous effort that he was about to make.
Then he placed his sound foot on the ledge and dragged himself over the
enclosure.
If the place had looked inhospitable from the outside it was even more
formidable viewed from within. Only that portion of the acreage which
immediately surrounded the house was under cultivation. On either side
of this a wide expanse of eucalyptus forest sloped away from the road.
They were half-grown saplings and the blue-gray of their foliage blended
with subtle harmony into the somber winter landscape.
"Lord! What a lonely spot!" Kenwick muttered as he followed the driveway
around to the side of the house. "Good God! Anything could happen in a
place like this!"
The shallow stone steps echoed beneath his feet, and the door-bell,
tinkling in some remote region, gave back a ghostly, deserted sound. Two
more trials with the electric button convinced Kenwick that the place
was untenanted. He made a shade of his two hands and peered into the
plate-glass window that gave on the front porch.
What he saw was an elegantly appointed dining-room furnished in old
mahogany and dull blue hangings. There were carved candlesticks on the
sideboard, and in the center of the bare dining-table a cut-glass bowl
full of English walnuts. The somber high-backed chairs ranged along the
wall seemed to the man outside to be guarding the room like a body of
solemn gendarmes. Slowly he turned, descended the shallow steps, and
started around to the rear of the house. There must be some servant, he
reasoned, some caretaker or gardener who could administer temporary
relief and direct him to his destination. The ache in his leg was
becoming unbearable. It was impossible for him to go on unaided. However
reluctant this exclusive home might be to admit a stranger within its
gates, it must conform to the laws of decency and bind up his wounds.
On the side path, bordered with monster oleanders and dusty miller, he
stopped. The door of the garage was open. It seemed safe to assume that
the chauffeur or caretaker lived in the commodious quarters overhead.
Hope glimmered at last through the night of black despair. Almost blind
with pain now Kenwick staggered toward that open door. In the dim light
of late afternoon he made out a small room filled with garden tools.
Beyond, through an inside window, was revealed a handsome black
limousine standing motionless in the gathering darkness.
But the building was deserted. It was when he realized this that the
dusk suddenly enveloped the man peering desperately in at the threshold.
Through a bleak mist he saw the lawn-mower, garden hose, and
beetle-black car dance together in hideous nightmare. And then the room
full of garden tools rushed toward him. He felt the wheels of that
sinister black car grinding into his neck, and he knew no more.