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 button 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 button 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 knob, 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-button. 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 knob 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 shells 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
retarded 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.
His was a large, well-proportioned frame that suggested, not corpulence
but physical power. His hands were powerful but not thick. His whole
bearing was self-assured, almost haughty. But it was the eyes, not the
carriage, that gave the impression of arrogance. They were the clearest
amber color with a mere dot of black pupil. Here and there tiny specks
were visible showing like dark grains of sand in a sea of brown. A woman
had once called them "tiger eyes," and he had been pleased. A child had
once described them as "freckled" eyes, and he had been annoyed. As he
knelt there now, searching the face of the dead man, his eyes, under
their drooping lids, narrowed to the merest slits. When at last he rose
and drew the blanket back over the still form, he moved with the brisk
effectiveness of one animated by definite purpose.
First, he drove the mud-spattered roadster into the garage and left it
there beside the beetle-black limousine. Then he let himself into the
deserted house again, went up to the second bedroom in the left wing,
and began sorting over some miscellaneous objects from one of the
chiffonier drawers. "Ghastly!" he muttered once. "Ghastly! I'll have to
take something to brace me up."
Back in the dining-room he took one of the long-stemmed glasses from the
sideboard and poured himself a drink from a bottle in the cupboard
underneath. But first he scrutinized its contents under the light. "Why
didn't you take it all?" he inquired sardonically of some invisible
being.
For a few hours he slept with a sort of determined tranquillity. But by
eight o'clock he was up and dressed, and a few minutes later he answered
a summons at the front door. Swinging it open he admitted a short sandy
man with the ruddy complexion of the Norsemen. "I'm Annisen, the
coroner," this visitor announced.
"Yes. I was expecting you. Come in." The other man swung the portal
wider. "Doctor Annisen, is it?"
The visitor nodded and stepped into the hall that was still dim in the
cold light of the winter morning. He unwound a black silk muffler from
about his throat. "Devilish cold," he commented. "Devilish cold for a
place that advertises summer all the year round."
His host smiled with sympathetic appreciation. "California publicity,"
he commented, "is far and away ahead of anything that we have in the
unimaginative East. My furnace-man left me yesterday and I haven't got
around to making the fires myself yet. But let me give you something to
warm you up, doctor."
While he filled one of the small glasses on the buffet, his guest eyed
him stolidly. "Still got some on hand, have you?" he said with a heavy
attempt at the amenities. "Well, this wouldn't be a bad place for
moonshining out here. Guess you could put almost anything over without
fearing a visit from the authorities."
There was a moment of silence. "You've got a beautiful place though," he
went on at last. "But Rest Hollow! What a name for it! Rest! Lord!
Anything might happen out here, and I guess most everything has. I
wasn't much surprised at the message I found waiting me when I got back
to town this morning. I've always said that this place fairly yells for
a suicide."
The other man's eyes were fixed upon his face with a curious intentness.
It was as though he were deaf and were reading the words from his
companion's lips. The coroner had raised his glass and was waiting. "No,
I don't drink," his host explained. "Very seldom touch anything. I can't
and do my kind of work."
Annisen set down his empty glass. "I shouldn't think you could do your
kind of work and not drink," he remarked. "Well, let's get this over. I
suppose you left everything just as you found it?"
There was the ghost of a smile in his host's eyes. "Glad he didn't put
that question the other way around," he was thinking. "It would have
been an embarrassment if he had asked if I found everything just as I
left it." And then aloud, "Certainly. I haven't touched anything. The
body is out here."
"Good. Gifford sent his wagon out last night, but fortunately his man
knew enough not to disturb anything until I'd been out. Were you here
when he came last night?"
"No. I didn't get here till later."
The two men crawled out through the broken window and in the gray light
of the November morning knelt together beside the still form under the
Indian blanket. Mechanically the coroner examined it and the empty
revolver which they discovered a few feet away. But he offered no
comment until he had finished. Then his verdict was curt. "Gunshot wound
in the head, self-inflicted. When did this happen?" He took out a small
book and noted down the answers to this and a variety of other
questions. Then he stood for a moment staring down at the white, drawn
face of the dead man.
"Young, too," he murmured. "But I suppose it's a merciful thing. There
was no life ahead for him, poor devil."
They followed the path around to the front of the house where Annisen's
car was waiting. "Be in to the inquest about two o'clock this
afternoon," he instructed. "That hour suit you all right, Mr.----? Don't
believe I know your name."
"Glover. Richard Glover. I'll be there at two, doctor."
Late that morning the hearse made its second trip out of the side
entrance of Rest Hollow. A mud-splashed roadster followed it. The
cortège had just passed the last gaunt eucalyptus-tree and turned out
upon the public highway when it was halted. A man in heavy-rimmed
goggles got out of his car and made his way across the road. His glance
wavered uncertainly between the driver of the hearse and the man in the
muddy roadster. He decided to address the latter.
"I heard the news last night. It got around the neighborhood. But I
thought----I didn't know----Those rumors get started sometimes with no
foundation of fact. But it's true then--that he is dead."
"That who is dead?"
The question seemed to be shot back at him. And he had the uncanny
conviction that it emanated, not from the lips, but from the amber eyes
of the man in the roadster. He stammered out his reply.
"Why--I think his name----He told me his name was Kenwick; Roger
Kenwick, I think."
The roadster started again. "Yes, that's the name. Did you know him?"
"No. But wait a minute, please." The goggle-eyed man hurried back to his
own car and returned with a handsome spray of white chrysanthemums. They
were tied with a broad white ribbon bordered with heliotrope. "I'd like
to have you take these if you will." He handed them up to the
hearse-driver.
The man in the roadster fired another question. "Your name, please?"
"They are not from me. One of the ladies in the neighborhood sent them.
She felt it was too sad--having him go away this way, all alone." He
went back to his machine and was soon lost in the distance. And the
funeral procession proceeded on its way to Mont-Mer.
The coroner's inquest was brief and perfunctory. Annisen was on the eve
of retiring from office and seeking a more lucrative position in a
Middle Western city where the inhabitants, as he contemptuously
remarked, "were not afflicted like this place is with a chronic
sleeping-sickness."
The jury returned the verdict that "the deceased came to his death by
shooting himself in the head." After they had departed, Gifford held
brief parley with the chief witness. "I suppose you'll attend to
notifying the family?"
Richard Glover nodded. And at his direction the haggard body was removed
from the cheap black coffin in which it had made the trip from Rest
Hollow. Following Richard Glover's instructions, it was embalmed for the
trip across the continent. But just as it was ready for the long
journey, he announced to Gifford that he had received orders from the
family to inter the body in the little cemetery of Mont-Mer. And so, on
the following day, it was taken to the quiet resting-place overlooking
the sea. In the presence of no one except the undertaker's assistants
and Richard Glover there was lowered into the lonely grave a handsome
gray casket with silver handles and a frosted silver plate on which was
inscribed the name "Roger Kenwick."