The case of the people of the State of California against Roger Kenwick
opened with the testimony of Richard Glover, chief witness for the
prosecution. Glover took the stand quietly and told his story in lucid,
clear-cut sentences, pausing occasionally to recall some obscure detail
or make certain of a date. The court reporter found it easy to take down
his unhurried statements. From time to time the "freckled" eyes of the
narrator rested upon the man in the prisoner's box with an impersonal,
dispassionate glance. And always he met those of Kenwick fixed upon his
face with a sort of awed fascination. Just so might the victim of a
snake-charmer watch him while he disclosed the secret of his power.
Richard Glover told how on the afternoon of February 10, 1918, he had
been summoned to the home of Everett Kenwick in New York and entrusted
with a commission. He was not known to the elder Kenwick, personally, he
said, but had been a boyhood friend of Isabel Kenwick, his wife.
Prompted by her recommendation, Mr. Kenwick had chosen him for the
delicate family confidence which they imparted.
It appeared that the younger brother and only living relative of Everett
had enlisted in the service, and after several months of severe fighting
at the front had been wounded. He had been sent to a convalescent home
in England where his physical health had been almost completely
restored. But the surgeons had discovered that the blow on his head had
caused a pressure upon the brain, which they deemed incurable by means
of surgery, and which they said would ultimately result in some form of
mental aberration. So they had sent him back to New York, diagnosed as a
permanent invalid, and had recommended that a close watch be kept upon
him until such time as it might be necessary to commit him to an
institution.
During the first few weeks after his return it became apparent to the
brother and sister-in-law that this diagnosis of the unfortunate young
man's condition was correct. He was given isolated quarters upon the
third floor of the house and unostentatiously watched. Letters which he
wrote were intercepted and his friends notified that he had become
irresponsible. Valuables and possessions which had been intimately
associated with his past life were removed from his reach, since they
appeared to confuse him and hasten his mental collapse. At the time when
he, Glover, was summoned to the Kenwick home, prominent brain
specialists had been consulted and had agreed that an operation would be
extremely dangerous to the patient and might not succeed in restoring
him to normality. And Mr. Kenwick, after what must have been weeks of
painful pondering, had decided not to risk it but to follow the advice
of the physicians and provide for his brother unremitting guardianship.
Mrs. Kenwick had strongly favored a private sanitarium, but to this her
husband would not consent. He was stricken with grief and was determined
that Roger Kenwick's share of the family estate should be spent upon his
comfort. And he refused to relinquish all hope of his brother's ultimate
recovery. In spite of the consensus of professional opinion to the
contrary, he still clung to the hope that the patient, aided by rest and
youth, would recuperate. And he was a shrewd enough business man to
realize that private sanitariums for the mentally disabled thrive in
proportion to the number of incurables which they maintain. Complete
recovery for his brother was the last thing that he might expect if he
surrendered him to the mercies of such an asylum.
And so he had commissioned the witness to rent for him the California
home of Charles Raeburn, an old family friend, who had built it for his
bride about twelve years before, but had closed it and returned East
following her tragic suicide there a few months after their marriage.
Raeburn had offered it to the Kenwicks with the stipulation that the
apartments which had been his wife's boudoir and sitting-room should not
be used. And Everett Kenwick accepted the suggestion, feeling that if he
were in his brother's position he would wish to be as far away as
possible from the surroundings in which he had grown up, and
particularly from the curious eyes of former acquaintances. Glover had
undertaken the errand and departed immediately for Mont-Mer to open the
house and employ a suitable caretaker.
"Just a moment, Mr. Glover." It was Dayton who interrupted him. "On the
occasion of your call at the Kenwick home, did you see--the patient?"
"I did not. They had particularly chosen a time for the interview when
he was undergoing treatment at a physician's office."
"Why did they object to your seeing him?"
"I don't think they did object, but they felt that it would be unwise
just at that time. The young man was obsessed with the idea that the
house was full of strange people; that there was a constant stream of
guests coming and going. There was no reason why I should see him, so
they planned to avoid a meeting."
"As a matter of fact did you ever see him while he was under your
surveillance?"
"No."
"On what occasion did you first see him?"
"On a street in San Francisco about two months ago."
"On that occasion did he see you?"
"I think not."
"Proceed."
The witness went on to relate how he had departed that same evening from
New York, had opened up the house at Mont-Mer, and secured the services
of a man whom he chanced to meet on the train and who was able to
produce evidence that he had once been head physician at a Los Angeles
sanitarium.
Here Dayton cut in again. "What was the name of this man?"
"Edward Marstan."
"Proceed."
Arrangements having been made with him, the witness communicated with
Everett Kenwick, according to agreement, and the patient was sent West
in care of an attendant, one Thomas Bailey, now deceased. Glover himself
had been in Los Angeles at the time of their arrival, but had received
word from Marstan that the patient was properly installed at the Raeburn
residence, and the attendant returned to New York.
Dayton's voice interposed once more. "Is the Charles Raeburn home known
by any other name, Mr. Glover?"
"Yes--by the name of Rest Hollow."
"Proceed."
"My own concern in the affair was simply that of business manager," the
witness continued, "so I remained in Los Angeles for I could manage the
financial end of it just as well from that short distance."
The district attorney suddenly broke the thread of the story here. "Then
you deliberately avoided an encounter with the patient?"
"I did."
"Why?"
"The maladies which are classed as mental are particularly repugnant to
me. I was under no obligation to see him, and I had a business of my
own to which this was merely a side issue."
"But it is true, is it not," Dayton cut in, "that you received a
generous salary from Mr. Everett Kenwick for this--long distance
supervision?"
"I received from him an allowance to be spent upon the upkeep of the
grounds, the comfort of the patient, the wages of an attendant, and so
on. I sent him a monthly statement of the bills when I had received and
checked them."
"You say you had another business; what was it?"
"Publicity writer for the Golden State Land Co. of Los Angeles."
"They own large mineral spring holdings in our neighboring county on the
south, do they not?"
"Yes."
"And how long had you been interested with them at the time of this
interview at the Kenwick home?"
"About six months, I think."
"Did Mr. Kenwick know of this other business interest?"
"Certainly. That is one thing that led to his choosing me as his agent.
He knew that I was permanently located in southern California and that
I had established myself with a reputable company. It was a guarantee of
permanence--and character."
"One moment longer, Mr. Glover, before you go on. Was the elder Mr.
Kenwick aware of the fact that while you were in his employ you never
visited Rest Hollow but once?"
"I did visit Rest Hollow. I went there every month to see that the place
was properly kept up and the attendant on duty. But I always went at
night. I held my interviews with Dr. Marstan alone."
"Go on."
The narrative skipped now to the following November when the witness
told of having received a communication from Dr. Marstan informing him
that, owing to a mechanical accident, Roger Kenwick had recovered his
sanity; that he, the physician, had carefully tested him and was fully
convinced of this. It had been impossible just at that time for Glover
himself to go to Mont-Mer as he was ill. And before he had had time to
send more than a brief note in reply, the attendant wrote again saying
that his former patient was bitterly opposed to having his brother know
of his recovery, and had threatened him, the doctor, if he betrayed the
news. Kenwick, he said, wished to use his present position to get more
money out of his brother for some investment that he was then planning,
for he knew that in case his recovery were known, it would be a long
time before the court would grant him the control of his property, and
his father's will had provided that he was not to inherit his half of
the estate until he should have reached the age of twenty-five.
The witness had not thought it expedient to notify Dr. Marstan of the
elder Kenwick's death, so that he could not report this to the patient.
They had evidently had hot words upon the subject of the disclosure of
the patient's condition, Marstan being highly scrupulous and not being
willing to retain his position as keeper when it was merely nominal, an
arrangement upon which the young man himself insisted.
In order to prevent the patient from carrying out some sinister threat,
Marstan had locked his charge into the house and gone into town probably
to consult a lawyer upon the proper course for him to pursue. This much
he could surmise from a half-written letter which the witness himself
had found on the evening that he returned to Mont-Mer.
"And that was the state of things when you arrived at Rest Hollow on
the evening of November 21?" Dayton asked.
"That was the state of things."
"Describe the condition of the house and grounds on the evening of the
tragedy."
The witness did so, with the same unhurried attention to detail.
"And when you came upon the body of the dead man under the dining-room
window, why did you conclude that it was your former charge, Roger
Kenwick?"
"Every circumstance seemed to point to it. And I found upon the body
possessions that seemed unmistakable evidence."
"Describe those possessions."
"A wrist-watch with the initials R.K. upon the inside; a silver
match-case with the one initial K.; a linen handkerchief with that
initial."
"But you said, did you not, in the early part of your testimony, that
the patient's personal possessions had been taken from him when he
became incompetent?"
"They had. But all of his things were in Doctor Marstan's possession.
They were in his apartments, and any normal person could easily have
found them, and naturally Kenwick would have demanded them."
"Had you ever seen a picture of Roger Kenwick to aid you in your
identification of his body?"
"No. But I knew his age, and it seemed to correspond exactly with that
of the dead man. Furthermore he looked like a person who was wasted by
ill health. I hadn't a doubt that it was he."
"How did you think that he had met his death?"
"By suicide. I believed then that the doctor had been mistaken and that
he had not made a complete recovery."
"When did you begin to suspect, Mr. Glover, that instead of being dead,
the prisoner was a deliberate murderer?"
"Not until I discovered that he had made his escape from Rest Hollow. I
saw his name on a hotel register in San Francisco and I became alarmed
and put a detective on his track, for I felt responsible for him and was
not convinced that he should be at large. But the detective reported to
me that Kenwick showed absolutely no signs of abnormality. Then I came
down here and followed the back trail. And I discovered that Marstan had
been killed in an automobile accident on the day when he had come into
town for legal aid. By inquiring of the gardener at Rest Hollow I
learned that he had seen a young man out under the dining-room window
talking to Kenwick early in the afternoon. The prisoner was entreating
this stranger to let him out and----"
"Let that witness give his own testimony. That will do, Mr. Glover."
Then, as he was about to leave the stand, "No, just a minute. You say it
was about midnight when you discovered the body. Did you notify the
coroner?"
"That was my first impulse; but I found that the telephone was out of
order, so I decided to wait until it was light before going in for him.
But in the morning, just as I finished dressing, he came. He told me
that he had been notified by some one else."
"By whom?"
"I don't know. He said that he was out of town when the message came in,
and found it awaiting him when he returned. I got the impression that he
didn't know himself who had reported the tragedy."
This last testimony corresponded in every detail with that given by
Annisen, who described minutely his findings upon the body, the
discovery, a short distance away, of the loaded revolver with a shot
fired out of it, and the haggard condition of the face, indicating long
invalidism. The body, he said, had lain in the morgue until the
following afternoon and been viewed by scores of the morbidly curious.
Not one person had recognized it, nor apparently entertained the
slightest suspicion that it was not the unfortunate inmate of Rest
Hollow. And so he had felt justified in accepting Richard Glover's
declaration of the dead man's identity. He knew that the patient's
keeper had been killed in an automobile accident the day before, and
every circumstance seemed to point to a suicidal frenzy.
His story was followed by that of a gawky, frightened-looking boy who
kept his eyes riveted upon the prosecution's chief witness while he
talked. He disclaimed all knowledge of the arrangements concerning the
patient's guardianship, his business being merely to care for the garden
and furnace. He had never come into close contact with the patient
himself; had only seen him at a distance sometimes, wandering about the
grounds alone. He had always seemed perfectly quiet and harmless, but
he, the gardener, had been afraid that he might some time have a "spell"
such as he had heard of in similar cases, and so had kept carefully out
of his way.
In the late afternoon of November 21, he reported, when he returned from
a far corner of the place where he had been pruning, he had found the
patient lying in a faint on the floor of the garage. With some effort he
had dragged him into the house and left him in the drawing-room, after
bandaging his swollen leg as well as he could and forcing part of a
glass of whisky down his throat. Then he had departed, after first
making sure that the doors and windows on the ground floor were securely
fastened. Late the following afternoon he had seen the prisoner standing
at the dining-room window and had heard him call out in a threatening
way to him. A moment afterward, without the slightest warning, the
patient had doubled his fist and smashed the pane of glass to fragments.
Convinced that this was one of the "spells" which he had dreaded, he had
waited until he thought the patient was in bed and had then returned and
boarded up the window.
Here Dayton interrupted. "And you believed the man in the house to be
ill and alone, and yet you felt no concern about his care?"
"I didn't think he was alone. I had seen a woman around the place that
afternoon, and I thought she was his nurse."
A murmur swept around the breathless court-room. Everybody in the
audience made some comment to his neighbor upon this new development.
The judge rapped sharply for order. "Go on," commanded the district
attorney.
The witness proceeded to relate that he had gone to bed that night
feeling nervous over the patient's conduct and had resolved to give up
his employment at Rest Hollow. About eleven o'clock he had been roused
from a fitful sleep by a knock at his door. Upon opening it he had found
Gifford, the undertaker, standing on the threshold. Here he endeavored
to recollect the exact words of the night caller, and after a moment's
pause, produced the greeting: "Get up, boy. Do you know that there's
been murder committed on this place to-night?" With Gifford he had
hurried around to the dining-room side of the house and had discovered
the dead body lying there under an oleander bush, near the very window
which the patient had so unaccountably broken that same afternoon.
Terrified, he had not paused to give the body even a fleeting glance,
but had stumbled back to his room and made a hasty bundle of his
clothes, determined not to pass another hour on that place. He
remembered Gifford calling after him that he was not going to touch the
body until the coroner had seen it. Ten minutes later he had fled,
leaving his door unlocked behind him.
He was dismissed from the stand, and after a moment of whispered parley,
came the demand, "Call Arnold Rogers."
A young man wearing heavy-rimmed glasses took the stand and told of his
encounter with the prisoner on the evening of November 21. He described
the scene at the gate in careful detail, halting frequently to correct
himself. The district attorney interrupted him in mid-sentence.
"Did it strike you at any time during the dialogue, Mr. Rogers, that the
man inside the grounds might be--irrational?"
"Yes, but that idea did not occur to me until the end of the interview.
Being a complete stranger in the community, I knew nothing about him, of
course, but his voice and method of appeal struck me as being a little
abnormal, and when I was starting away and he stretched a letter through
the gate and asked me to mail it for him I was convinced that he was not
rational. I was formerly a director at one our State hospitals for the
insane and I know that the mania of patients to write letters and ask
visitors to mail them is one of the commonest symptoms of their
affliction."
"And so you paid no attention to that appeal?"
"I was escorting a lady. I planned to take her home first and then
return or send somebody. My car was disabled and I felt responsible for
my companion."
"Who was the lady?"
"My sister, Mrs. Paddington. I was visiting at her home. And when we had
gone on our way she told me, what I had already begun to suspect, that
the inmate of Rest Hollow was a mental invalid; that he was well cared
for, and although the case was pathetic, we need feel under no
obligation to return. His attendant, we reasoned, had already discovered
him by that time and taken him back to the house. We had both dismissed
him from our minds when about half an hour later a woman rushed up to
our door, breathless from a long trip by foot, and told us that the
inmate of Rest Hollow had killed himself; that she had found him lying
dead under the dining-room window. I don't remember just who 'phoned the
news in to the proper authorities, but I think it was she. My sister
offered to send her into town in one of her cars, and did so. We never
knew her name nor saw her again."
"And you credited the woman's story as it stood?"
"We saw no reason to doubt it. It fitted exactly with our encounter at
the gate. The time was a coincidence, too. We assumed that the young
man's attendant had not arrived in time to save him from suicide. And
there was another reason, too, why we did not care to give the matter
more intensive investigation." He stopped and glanced appealingly at his
questioner, but there was no relenting in the lawyer's eyes. "My sister
had a guest visiting her to whom the name of Roger Kenwick
brought--unhappy associations. She was unfortunately present at the
arrival of the woman from Rest Hollow, and after the shock of the
announcement was over we carefully avoided all further discussion of the
tragedy. The following morning, in courtesy to our guest, I went over to
the Raeburn house with some flowers from the Utopia gardens, and
verified the report that the patient was dead. The next day my sister's
friend left for her home in San Francisco and we considered the affair a
closed incident."
The testimony of the other witnesses for the prosecution was given in
due order, and the case summed up against Roger Kenwick charged him
with having laid a deliberate plot to murder Marstan, his former keeper,
he being the only man, he thought, who could interfere with his
financial plans, and prevent him from playing upon his brother's
chivalric affection.
It was pointed out that only a month before his recovery the Kenwick
estate had trebled its value, owing to the fact that leather goods,
which were the source of the Kenwick income, had trebled in value since
the beginning of the war. From newspaper accounts and discussions with
Marstan himself, the recovered patient had shrewdly sized up the
situation and laid his plans. It was previously stated that the elder
Kenwick had, before his brother's misfortune, kept a jealous grip upon
the family purse, and that during his college days at the State
University, Roger Kenwick had been obliged to eke out his allowance by
doing newspaper work on one of the San Francisco dailies. Only in his
softened mood was Everett Kenwick to be counted upon for continued
generosity.
On the day of the tragedy, the ward had watched Marstan closely and had
seen him depart for town. Earlier in the afternoon he had himself shown
signs of violence in order to sustain the impression that he was still
irresponsible. Kenwick's plan to kill his warden was perfectly safe,
for he knew that if the crime ever came to light he could be cleared on
an insanity charge. His worse punishment would be commitment to an
institution, from which he could later be released by proving himself
cured.
On the way out from town the doctor's car had pitched over a cliff,
killing him instantly. Kenwick, ignorant of the tragedy and lying in
wait for his victim, saw a man steal in late at night through the side
entrance. No callers ever came to the place, so having no doubt that it
was the returning warden, he had crept up behind him in the darkness and
shot him in the head with the revolver which his attendant always kept
loaded for an emergency, and which the patient by spying upon his warden
one night, had discovered.
A few minutes previous to the murder he had played a skilful part at the
front gate, holding up the first person who passed and telling an
incoherent story which he knew, coming from him, would not be believed,
and which would be of valuable assistance in case it were ever necessary
to prove an insanity charge.
When he discovered that he had killed the wrong man, he adopted a plan
which proved him not only rational but unusually astute. From a
previous conversation with the dead man, whom he now recognized as a
fellow who had once come in to assist with some work on the car, he knew
him to be a stranger in the community. He knew himself to be equally
unknown, except by name, and it was an easy matter to exchange
identities. So Kenwick had transferred to the dead man certain of his
own personal possessions which he discovered after his mental recovery.
He had selected these carefully and with diabolical cunning, placed them
in the other man's pockets, and then made his escape from the place
either by foot or in the wagon of the undertaker, which must by this
time have arrived.
When he reached Mont-Mer, the testimony continued, he had given a
fictitious name, gained the sympathy and credence of the doctor and
undertaker, and finally, by a clever ruse, escaped from town as
custodian of the body of the very man whom he had planned to kill.
Knowing that Marstan was dead, he felt himself completely secure and
foot-free to carry out his designs. The only person upon whom he did not
reckon, because he didn't know of his existence, was Richard Glover.
The one missing link in the story was supplied by evidence which,
although circumstantial, seemed undeniably convincing to the jury. The
woman who had notified the coroner must also have been an inmate of Rest
Hollow, the mistress of Marstan, who had lived in ease and luxury,
unknown to the physician's employer or any one else. She knew that her
reputation lay in Kenwick's hands. She was tired of Marstan and was
eager but afraid to escape. The criminal had supplied her with the means
at small cost. The time of the disclosure of the crime had been
skilfully worked out between them. And it had been executed with a
masterly skill. Depot authorities had reported later that a woman
traveling alone had bought a ticket on the late train for San Francisco
that evening. The station-agent remembered the incident perfectly. By
good luck Kenwick had caught the same train. They had traveled to the
city together.
Glover, who had been recalled to the stand and was giving this
testimony, stated that upon dismissing the detective from his employ he
had followed the case himself and was certain that Kenwick and his
accomplice had lived together intermittently in San Francisco, and that
he had been supplying her with funds.
It was at this point that Roger Kenwick, who had been sitting like a man
frozen to his chair, suddenly electrified the court-room by springing
to his feet. He had forgotten his surroundings, was contemptuous of the
formalities, oblivious to everything save the insolent assurance in
Richard Glover's eyes, and the steady gaze with which Marcreta Morgan's
brother was regarding him. His sensitive nostrils quivered like those of
a highly strung race-horse. His hands, those hands so impatient of
delay, were clenched till the knuckles showed through the drawn skin
like knobs of ivory. He struggled to speak but no words came. Then he
became aware of the fact that the sheriff was forcing him back into his
seat. Dayton leaned over and whispered sharply to him. "Sit down, man.
You'll kill your case. What do you want them to think of you?"
The words recalled him to his surroundings. From sheer physical weakness
he sank back into his chair. Another moment intervened while the
auditors relaxed from the moment of tension. Then out of the deathly
silence came Dayton's voice again, calm and with no trace of excitement.
"You say that when you first discovered the prisoner in San Francisco
you employed a detective to help you on his case, Mr. Glover. Look
around the court-room. Is that man present?"
"He is." There was a shade of reluctance in the reply.
"What is his name?"
"Granville Jarvis."
The next moment Glover had stepped down from the stand and resumed his
place at the far end of the long table. Dayton leaned across to his
client. "Jarvis?" he inquired, his pencil poised above his pad.
"Granville Jarvis; is that the name?"
The light had gone out of Kenwick's eyes and the fire out of his voice.
He had crumpled down in his chair like a man suddenly overcome with a
spinal disease. He looked at Dayton with dead eyes.
"The name," he said bitterly, "is Judas Iscariot!"