Part 1 (1/2)
The Rest Hollow Mystery.
by Rebecca N. Porter.
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 cla.s.sed as canons. 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 canon was redolent with the odor of damp timber and decaying vegetation.
Kenwick b.u.t.toned 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 pa.s.sage 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 canon, 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 ma.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 rea.s.sured 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sistance. 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs flanked on one side by a st.u.r.dy 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.sification 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 G.o.d! 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 b.u.t.ton convinced Kenwick that the place was untenanted. He made a shade of his two hands and peered into the plate-gla.s.s 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-gla.s.s 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 a.s.sume 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.
CHAPTER II
When Kenwick came to himself he was lying on a cavernous divan with a gorgeous Indian blanket over him and a tabouret drawn close to his side.
In a far corner of the room a rose-shaded lamp was burning. It gave to the handsome drawing-room a rosy glow that seemed to envelop its every object in subtle mystery. For long minutes the sick man stared about the apartment without trying to move. Slowly the events of the last few hours came back to him. Very cautiously, like a man who has just recovered his sight after prolonged blindness, he felt his way back along the path that he had just traveled. It brought him at last to the door of the garage and the beetle-black limousine grinding over his neck.
He reached out and touched the spindle-legged table at his side. On it were his collar, tie, and a long-stemmed gla.s.s partly full of whisky.
Very slowly he drained the remaining contents. Then he sat upright and gently touched his injured leg. It felt hard and tight. Whoever had done the bandaging had made up in force what he had lacked in skill, but the numbness of a too tight wrapping was an intense relief after his hour of agony. He limped across the long room to the entrance-hall and stood at length in the doorway of the mahogany-furnished dining-room guarded by the row of gendarme chairs.
This last evidence was conclusive. In some way he had gained admittance to the house with the barred gate. Evidently there had been some one close at hand when he fainted; some one who had authority to carry him through those impregnable doors. The thought gave him an uncanny feeling. But where was this gum-shod combination of mystery and mercy?
In the curious way that the senses convey such intelligence he felt that the house was empty.