The Golf Course Mystery

Chapter 1

THERE WAS NOTHING IN that clear, calm day, with its blue sky and its flooding sunshine, to suggest in the slightest degree the awful tragedy so close at hand—that tragedy which so puzzled the authorities and which came so close to wrecking the happiness of several innocent people.

The waters of the inlet sparkled like silver, and over those waters poised the osprey, his rapidly moving wings and fan-spread tail suspending him almost stationary in one spot, while, with eager and far-seeing eyes, he peered into the depths below. The bird was a dark blotch against the perfect blue sky for several seconds, and then, suddenly folding his pinions and closing his tail, he darted downward like a bomb dropped from an airplane.

There was a splash in the water, a shower of sparkling drops as the osprey arose, a fish vainly struggling in its talons, and from a dusty gray roadster, which had halted along the highway while the occupant watched the hawk, there came an exclamation of satisfaction.

“Did you see that, Harry?” called the occupant of the gray car to a slightly built, bronzed companion in a machine of vivid yellow, christened by some who had ridden in it the “Spanish Omelet.” “Did you see that kill? As clean as a hound’s tooth, and not a lost motion of a feather. Some sport, that fish-hawk! Gad!”

“Yes, it was a neat bit of work, Gerry. But rather out of keeping with the day.”

“Out of keeping? What do you mean?”

“Well, out of tune, if you like that better. It’s altogether too perfect a day for a killing of any sort, seems to me.”

“Oh, you’re getting sentimental all at once, aren’t you, Harry?” asked Captain Gerry Poland, with just the trace of a covert sneer in his voice. “I suppose you wouldn’t have even a fish-hawk get a much needed meal on a bright, sunshiny day, when, if ever, he must have a whale of an appetite. You’d have him wait until it was dark and gloomy and rainy, with a north-east wind blowing, and all that sort of thing. Now for me, a kill is a kill, no matter what the weather.”

“The better the day the worse the deed, I suppose,” and Harry Bartlett smiled as he leaned forward preparatory to throwing the switch of his machine’s self-starter, for both automobiles had come to a stop to watch the osprey.

“Oh, well, I don’t know that the day has anything to do with it,” said the captain—a courtesy title, bestowed because he was president of the Maraposa Yacht Club. “I was just interested in the clean way the beggar dived after that fish. Flounder, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, though usually the birds are glad enough to get a moss-bunker. Well, the fish will soon be a dead one, I suppose.”

“Yes, food for the little ospreys, I imagine. Well, it’s a good death to die—serving some useful purpose, even if it’s only to be eaten. Gad! I didn’t expect to get on such a gruesome subject when we started out. By the way, speaking of killings, I expect to make a neat one today on this cup-winners’ match.”

“How? I didn’t know there was much betting.”

“Oh, but there is; and I’ve picked up some tidy odds against our friend Carwell. I’m taking his end, and I think he’s going to win.”

“Better be careful, Gerry. Golf is an uncertain game, especially when there’s a match on among the old boys like Horace Carwell and the crowd of past-performers and cup-winners he trails along with. He’s just as likely to pull or slice as the veriest novice, and once he starts to slide he’s a goner. No reserve comeback, you know.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. He’ll be all right if he’ll let the champagne alone before he starts to play. I’m banking on him. At the same time I haven’t bet all my money. I’ve a ten spot left that says I can beat you to the clubhouse, even if one of my cylinders has been missing the last two miles. How about it?”

“You’re on!” said Harry Bartlett shortly.

There was a throb from each machine as the electric motors started the engines, and then they shot down the wide road in clouds of dust—the sinister gray car and the more showy yellow—while above them, driving its talons deeper into the sides of the fish it had caught, the osprey circled off toward its nest of rough sticks in a dead pine tree on the edge of the forest.

And on the white of the flounder appeared bright red spots of blood, some of which dripped to the ground as the cruel talons closed until they met inside.

It was only a little tragedy, such as went on every day in the inlet and adjacent ocean, and yet, somehow, Harry Bartlett, as he drove on with ever-increasing speed in an endeavor to gain a length on his opponent, could not help thinking of it in contrast to the perfect blue of the sky, in which there was not a cloud. Was it prophetic?

Ruddy-faced men, bronze-faced men, pale-faced men; young women, girls, matrons and “flappers”; caddies burdened with bags of golf clubs and pockets bulging with cunningly found balls; skillful waiters hurrying here and there with trays on which glasses of various shapes, sizes, and of diversified contents tinkled musically-such was the scene at the Maraposa Club on this June morning when Captain Gerry Poland and Harry Bartlett were racing their cars toward it.

It was the chief day of the year for the Maraposa Golf Club, for on it were to be played several matches, not the least in importance being that of the cup-winners, open only to such members as had won prizes in hotly contested contests on the home links.

In spite of the fact that on this day there were to be played several matches, in which visiting and local champions were to try their skill against one another, to the delight of a large gallery, interest centered in the cup-winners’ battle. For it was rumored, and not without semblance of truth, that large sums of money would change hands on the result.

Not that it was gambling-oh, my no! In fact any laying of wagers was strictly prohibited by the club’s constitution. But there are ways and means of getting cattle through a fence without taking down the bars, and there was talk that Horace Carwell had made a pretty stiff bet with Major Turpin Wardell as to the outcome of the match, the major and Mr. Carwell being rivals of long standing in the matter of drives and putts.

“Beastly fine day, eh, what?” exclaimed Bruce Garrigan, as he set down on a tray a waiter held out to him a glass he had just emptied with every indication of delight in its contents. “If it had been made to order couldn’t be improved on,” and he flicked from the lapel of Tom Sharwell’s coat some ashes which had blown there from the cigarette which Garrigan had lighted.

“You’re right for once, Bruce, old man,” was the laughing response. “Never mind the ashes now, you’ll make a spot if you rub any harder.”

“Right for once? ‘m always right!” cried Garrigan “And it may interest you to know that the total precipitation, including rain and melted snow in Yuma, Arizona, for the calendar year 1917, was three and one tenth inches, being the smallest in the United States.”

“It doesn’t interest me a bit, Bruce!” laughed Sharwell. “And to prevent you getting any more of those statistics out of your system, come on over and we’ll do a little precipitating on our own account. I can stand another Bronx cocktail.”

“I’m with you! But, speaking of statistics, did you know that from the national forests of the United States in the last year there was cut 840,612,030 board feet of lumber? What the thirty feet were for I don’t know, but—”

“And I don’t care to know,” interrupted Tom. “If you spring any more of those beastly dry figures—Say, there comes something that does interest me, though!” he broke in with. “Look at those cars take that turn!”

“Some speed,” murmured Garrigan. “It’s Bartlett and Poland,” he went on, as a shift of wind blew the dust to one side and revealed the gray roadster and the Spanish Omelet. “The rivals are at it again.”

Bruce Garrigan, who had a name among the golf club members as a human encyclopedia, and who, at times, would inform his companions on almost any subject that chanced to come uppermost, tossed away his cigarette and, with Tom Sharwell, watched the oncoming automobile racers.

“They’re rivals in more ways than one,” remarked Sharwell. “And it looks, now, as though the captain rather had the edge on Harry, in spite of the fast color of Harry’s car.”

“That’s right,” admitted Garrigan. “Is it true what I’ve heard about both of them-that each hopes to place the diamond hoop of proprietorship on the fair Viola?”

“I guess if you’ve heard that they’re both trying for her, it’s true enough,” answered Sharwell. “And it also happens, if that old lady, Mrs. G. 0. 5. Sipp, is to be believed, that there, also, the captain has the advantage.”

“How’s that? I thought Harry had made a tidy sum on that ship-building project he put through.”

“He did, but it seems that he and his family have a penchant for doing that sort of thing, and, some years ago, in one of the big mergers in which his family took a prominent part, they, or someone connected with them, pinched the Honorable Horace Carwell so that he squealed for mercy like a lamb led to the Wall street slaughter house.”

“So that’s the game, is it?”

“Yes. And ever since then, though Viola Carwell has been just as nice to Harry as she has to Gerry—as far as anyone can tell-there has been talk that Harry is persona non grata as far as her father goes. He never forgives any business beat, I understand.”

“Was it anything serious?” asked Garrigan, as they watched the racing automobiles swing around the turn of the road that led to the clubhouse.

“I don’t know the particulars. It was before my time—I mean before I paid much attention to business.”

“Rot! You don’t now. You only think you do. But I’m interested. I expect to have some business dealing with Carwell myself, and if I could get a line—”

“Sorry, but I can’t help you out, old man. Better see Harry. He knows the whole story, and he insists that it was all straight on his relatives’ part. But it’s like shaking a mince pie at a Thanksgiving turkey to mention the matter to Carwell. He hasn’t gone so far as to forbid Harry the house, but there’s a bit of coldness just the same.”

“I see. And that’s why the captain has the inside edge on the love game. Well, Miss Carwell has a mind of her own, I fancy.”

“Indeed she has! She’s more like her mother used to be. I remember Mrs. Carwell when I was a boy. She was a dear, somewhat conventional lady. How she ever came to take up with the sporty Horace, or he with her, was a seven-days’ wonder. But they lived happily, I believe.”

“Then Mrs. Carwell is dead?”

“Oh, yes-some years. Mr. Carwell’s sister, Miss Mary, keeps The Haven up to date for him. You’ve been there?”

“Once, at a reception. I’m not on the regular calling list, though Miss Viola is pretty enough to—”

“Look out!” suddenly cried Sharwell, as though appealing to the two automobilists, far off as they were. For the yellow car made a sudden swerve and seemed about to turn turtle.

But Bartlett skillfully brought the Spanish Omelet back on the road again, and swung up alongside his rival for the home stretch-the broad highway that ran in front of the clubhouse.

The players who were soon to start out on the links; the guests, the gallery, and the servants gathered to see the finish of the impromptu race, murmurs arising as it was seen how close it was likely to be. And close it was, for when the two machines, with doleful whinings of brakes, came to a stop in front of the house, the front wheels were in such perfect alignment that there was scarcely an inch of difference.

“A dead heat!” exclaimed Bartlett, as he leaped out and motioned for one of the servants to take the car around to the garage.

“Yes, you win!” agreed Captain Poland, as he pushed his goggles back on his cap. He held out a bill.

“What’s it for?” asked Bartlett, drawing back.

“Why, I put up a ten spot that I’d beat you. I didn’t, and you win.”

“Buy drinks with your money!” laughed Bartlett. “The race was to be for a finish, not a dead heat. We’ll try it again, sometime.”

“All right-any time you like!” said the captain crisply, as he sat down at a table after greeting some friends. “But you won’t refuse to split a quart with me?”