The Rest Hollow Mystery Part 19

"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 circ.u.mstance 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 ident.i.ty. He knew that the patient's keeper had been killed in an automobile accident the day before, and every circ.u.mstance 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 guardians.h.i.+p, 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 gla.s.ses 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?"