Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley , livre ebook

Pub One Info - Louis Tracy

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

117 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Does an evil deed cast a shadow in advance? Does premeditated crime spread a baleful aura which affects certain highly-strung temperaments just as the sensation of a wave of cold air rising from the spine to the head may be a forewarning of epilepsy or hysteria? John Trenholme had cause to think so one bright June morning in 1912, and he has never ceased to believe it, though the events which made him an outstanding figure in the Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley, as the murder of a prominent man in the City of London came to be known, have long since been swept into oblivion by nearly five years of war. Even the sun became a prime agent of the occult that morning. It found a chink in a blind and threw a bar of vivid light across the face of a young man lying asleep in the front bedroom of the White Horse Inn at Roxton. It crept onward from a firm, well-molded chin to lips now tight set, though not lacking signs that they would open readily in a smile and perhaps reveal two rows of strong, white, even teeth

Informations

Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819905455
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

CHAPTER I
T HE WATERNYMPHS
Does an evil deed cast a shadow in advance? Doespremeditated crime spread a baleful aura which affects certainhighly-strung temperaments just as the sensation of a wave of coldair rising from the spine to the head may be a forewarning ofepilepsy or hysteria? John Trenholme had cause to think so onebright June morning in 1912, and he has never ceased to believe it,though the events which made him an outstanding figure in the"Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley," as the murder of a prominent manin the City of London came to be known, have long since been sweptinto oblivion by nearly five years of war. Even the sun became aprime agent of the occult that morning. It found a chink in a blindand threw a bar of vivid light across the face of a young man lyingasleep in the front bedroom of the "White Horse Inn" at Roxton. Itcrept onward from a firm, well-molded chin to lips now tight set,though not lacking signs that they would open readily in a smileand perhaps reveal two rows of strong, white, even teeth. Indeed,when that strip of sunshine touched and warmed them, the smilecame; so the sleeper was dreaming, and pleasantly.
But the earth stays not for men, no matter whattheir dreams. In a few minutes the radiant line reached thesleeper's eyes, and he awoke. Naturally, he stared straight at thedisturber of his slumbers; and being a mere man, who emulated notthe ways of eagles, was routed at the first glance.
More than that, he was thoroughly aroused, andsprang out of bed with a celerity that would have given manyanother young man a headache during the remainder of the day.
But John Trenholme, artist by profession, wassomewhat of a light-hearted vagabond by instinct; if the artist wasready to be annoyed because of an imaginary loss of preciousdaylight, the vagabond laughed cheerily when he blinked at a clockand learned that the hour still lacked some minutes of half pastfive in the morning. "By gad," he grinned, pulling up the blind, "Iwas scared stiff. I thought the blessed alarm had missed fire, andthat I had been lying here like a hog during the best part of thefinest day England has seen this year."
Evidently he was still young enough to deal insuperlatives, for there had been other fine days that Summer;moreover, in likening himself to a pig, he was ridiculously unfairto six feet of athletic symmetry in which it would be difficult todetect any marked resemblance to the animal whose name is a synonymfor laziness.
On the way to the bathroom he stopped to listen forsounds of an aroused household, but the inmates of the White HorseInn were still taking life easily. "Eliza vows she can hear thatalarm in her room," he communed. "Well, suppose we assist nature,always a laudable thing in itself, and peculiarly excellent whenbreakfast is thereby advanced a quarter of an hour."
Eliza was the inn's stout and volublecook-housekeeper, and her attic lay directly above Trenholme'sroom. He went back for the clock, crept swiftly upstairs, opened adoor a few inches, and put the infernal machine inside, close tothe wall. He was splashing in the bath when a harsh and penetratingdin jarred through the house, and a slight scream showed that Elizahad been duly "alarmed."
A few minutes later came a heavy thump on thebathroom door. "All right, Mr. Trenholme!" cried an irate femalevoice. "You've been up to your tricks, have you? It'll be my turnwhen I make your coffee; I'll pepper an' salt it!" "Why, what's thematter, Eliza?" he shouted. "Matter! Frightenin' a body like that!I thought a lot o' suffrigettes were smashin' the windows of thesnug."
Eliza was still touchy when Trenholme ventured topeep into the kitchen. "I don't know how you dare show your face,"she cried wrathfully. "The impidence of men nowadays! Just fancyyou comin' an' openin' my door!" "But, chérie , what have Idone?" he inquired, his brown eyes wide with astonishment. "I'm notyour cherry, nor your peach, neither. Who put that clock in myroom?" "What clock, ma belle ?"
Eliza picked up an egg, and bent so fiery a glanceon the intruder that he dodged out of sight for a second. "Listen, carissima ," he pleaded, peering round the jamb of the dooragain. "If the alarm found its way upstairs I must have beenwalking in my sleep. While you were dreaming of suffragettes I mayhave been dreaming of you." "Stop there a bit longer, chatterin'and callin' me names, an' your bacon will be frizzled to a cinder,"she retorted. "But I really hoped to save you some trouble bycarrying in the breakfast tray myself. I hate to see a jolly,good-tempered woman of your splendid physique working yourself to ashadow." * * * * *
Eliza squared her elbows as a preliminary to anotheroutburst, when the stairs creaked. Mary, the "help," was arrivinghurriedly, in curl papers. "Oh, you 've condescended to getup, have you?" was the greeting Mary received. "Why, it's on'y tenminutes to six!" cried the astonished girl, gazing at agrandfather's clock as if it were bewitched. "You've never had sucha shock since you were born," went on the sarcastic Eliza. "Butdon't thank me , my girl. Thank Mr. Trenholme, the gentlemanstannin' there grinnin' like a Cheshire cat. Talk to him nicely,an' p'raps he'll paint your picter, an' then your special butcherboy will see how beautiful you reelly are." "Jim don't need tellin'anything about that," said the girl, smiling, for Eliza's bark wasnotoriously worse than her bite. "Jim!" came the snorting comment."The first man who ever axed me to marry him was called Jim, an'when, like a wise woman, I said 'No,' he went away an' 'listed inthe Royal Artillery an' lost his leg in a war – that's what Jimdid." "What a piece of luck you didn't accept him!" put onTrenholme. "An' why, I'd like to know?" "Because he began by losinghis head over you. If a leg was missing, too, there wasn't much ofJim left, was there?"
Mary giggled, and Eliza seized the egg again; soTrenholme ran to his sitting-room. Within half an hour he waspassing through the High Street, bidding an affable "Good morning"to such early risers as he met, and evidently well content withhimself and the world in general. His artist's kit revealed hisprofession even to the uncritical eye, but no student of men couldhave failed to guess his bent were he habited in the garb of acostermonger. The painter and the poet are the last of theBohemians, and John Trenholme was a Bohemian to the tips of hisfingers.
He carried himself like a cavalier, but the divineflame of art kindled in his eye. He had learned how to paint inJulien's studio, and that same school had taught him to despiseconvention. He looked on nature as a series of exquisite pictures,and regarded men and women in the mass as creatures thatoccasionally fitted into the landscape. He was heart whole andfancy free. At twenty-five he had already exhibited three times inthe Salon, and was spoken of by the critics as a painter of muchpromise, which is the critical method of waiting to see how the catjumps when an artist of genius and originality arrestsattention.
He had peculiarly luminous brown eyes set well apartin a face which won the prompt confidence of women, children anddogs. He was splendidly built for an out-door life, and moved witha long, supple stride, a gait which people mistook for lounginguntil they walked with him, and found that the pace was somethingover four miles an hour. Add to these personal traits the fact thathe had dwelt in Roxton exactly two days and a half, and was alreadyon speaking terms with most of the inhabitants, and you have a fairnotion of John Trenholme's appearance and ways.
There remains but to add that he was commissioned bya magazine to visit this old-world Hertfordshire village and depictsome of its beauties before a projected railway introduced thejerry-builder and a sewerage scheme, and his presence in the WhiteHorse Inn is explained. He had sketched the straggling High Street,the green, the inn itself, boasting a license six hundred yearsold, the undulating common, the church with its lych gate, theivy-clad ruin known as "The Castle," with its square Norman keepstill frowning at an English countryside, and there was left onlyan Elizabethan mansion, curiously misnamed "The Towers," to betransferred to his portfolio. Here, oddly enough, he had beenrebuffed. A note to the owner, Mortimer Fenley, banker and superCity man, asking permission to enter the park of an afternoon, hadmet with a curt refusal.
Trenholme, of course, was surprised, since he waspaying the man a rare compliment; he had expressed in the inn hisfull and free opinion concerning all money grubbers, and the Fenleyspecies thereof in particular; whereupon the stout Eliza, whoclassed the Fenley family as "rubbish," informed him that there wasa right of way through the park, and that from a certain point neara lake he could sketch the grand old manor house to his heart'scontent, let the Fenleys and their keepers scowl as they chose.
The village barber, too, bore out Eliza's statement."A rare old row there was in Roxton twenty year ago, when Fenleyfust kem here, an' tried to close the path," said the barber. "Butwe beat him, we did, an' well he knows it. Not many folk use itnowadays, 'coss the artful ole dodger opened a new road to thestation; but some of us makes a point of strollin' that way on aSunday afternoon, just to look at the pheasants an' rabbits, an'it's a treat to see the head keeper's face when we go through thelodge gates at the Easton end, for that is the line the pathtakes."
Here followed a detailed description, for the Roxtonbarber, like every other barber, could chatter like a magpie; itwas in this wise that Trenholme was able to defy the lawsforbidding trespass, and score off the seemingly uncivil owner of ahistorical dwelling.
He little imagined, that glorious June morning, thathe was entering on a road of strange adventure. He had chosen anearly hour purposely. Not only were the lights and shadows per