The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

by Louis Tracy

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	The Water Nymphs	[1]
II.	"Who Hath Done This Thing?"	[19]
III.	The Hounds	[39]
IV.	Breaking Cover	[59]
V.	A Family Gathering	[79]
VI.	Wherein Furneaux Seeks Inspiration	[101]
VII.	Some Side Issues	[123]
VIII.	Coincidences	[145]
IX.	Wherein an Artist Becomes a Man of Action	[166]
X.	Furneaux States Some Facts	[189]
XI.	Some Preliminary Skirmishing	[211]
XII.	Wherein Scotland Yard Is Dined and Wined	[229]
XIII.	Close Quarters	[246]
XIV.	The Spreading of the Net	[266]
XV.	Some Stage Effects	[286]
XVI.	The Close of a Tragedy	[305]
XVII.	The Settlement	[324]

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THE STRANGE CASE OF MORTIMER FENLEY

CHAPTER I

The Water Nymphs

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. Indeed, when that strip of sunshine touched and warmed them, the smile came; so the sleeper was dreaming, and pleasantly.