Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE STRANGE CASE OF MORTIMER FENLEY BY LOUIS TRACY AUTHOR OF THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, NUMBER SEVENTEEN, ETC. GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made in the United States of America COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY EDWARD J. CLODE PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 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 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.