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(Edmund Clerihew) Bentley</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Trent’s Last Case, by E.C. Bentley</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Trent’s Last Case<br /> + The Woman in Black</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 28, 2000 [eBook #2568]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 8, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Stuart E. Thiel and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRENT’S LAST CASE ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Trent’s Last Case</h1> + +<h4>THE WOMAN IN BLACK</h4> + +<h2>By E.C. Bentley</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +To<br /> +GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON. +</p> + +<p> +My dear Gilbert, +</p> + +<p> +I dedicate this story to you. First: because the only really noble motive I had +in writing it was the hope that you would enjoy it. Second: because I owe you a +book in return for “The Man Who Was Thursday.” Third: because I +said I would when I unfolded the plan of it to you, surrounded by Frenchmen, +two years ago. Fourth: because I remember the past. +</p> + +<p> +I have been thinking again to-day of those astonishing times when neither of us +ever looked at a newspaper; when we were purely happy in the boundless +consumption of paper, pencils, tea, and our elders’ patience; when we +embraced the most severe literature, and ourselves produced such light reading +as was necessary; when (in the words of Canada’s poet) we studied the +works of nature, also those little frogs; when, in short, we were extremely +young. For the sake of that age I offer you this book. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Yours always,<br /> +E. C. BENTLEY +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. Bad News</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. Knocking the Town Endways</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. Breakfast</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. Handcuffs in the Air</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. Poking About</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. Mr. Bunner on the Case</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. The Lady in Black</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. The Inquest</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. A Hot Scent</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. The Wife of Dives</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. Hitherto Unpublished</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. Evil Days</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. Eruption</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. Writing a Letter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. Double Cunning</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. The Last Straw</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/01.jpg" width="414" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I.<br /> Bad News</h2> + +<p> +Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know +judge wisely? +</p> + +<p> +When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered by a +shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single tear; it +gained something memorable in a harsh reminder of the vanity of such wealth as +this dead man had piled up—without making one loyal friend to mourn him, +without doing an act that could help his memory to the least honour. But when +the news of his end came, it seemed to those living in the great vortices of +business as if the earth too shuddered under a blow. +</p> + +<p> +In all the lurid commercial history of his country there had been no figure +that had so imposed itself upon the mind of the trading world. He had a niche +apart in its temples. Financial giants, strong to direct and augment the forces +of capital, and taking an approved toll in millions for their labour, had +existed before; but in the case of Manderson there had been this singularity, +that a pale halo of piratical romance, a thing especially dear to the hearts of +his countrymen, had remained incongruously about his head through the years +when he stood in every eye as the unquestioned guardian of stability, the +stamper-out of manipulated crises, the foe of the raiding chieftains that +infest the borders of Wall Street. +</p> + +<p> +The fortune left by his grandfather, who had been one of those chieftains on +the smaller scale of his day, had descended to him with accretion through his +father, who during a long life had quietly continued to lend money and never +had margined a stock. Manderson, who had at no time known what it was to be +without large sums to his hand, should have been altogether of that newer +American plutocracy which is steadied by the tradition and habit of great +wealth. But it was not so. While his nurture and education had taught him +European ideas of a rich man’s proper external circumstance; while they +had rooted in him an instinct for quiet magnificence, the larger costliness +which does not shriek of itself with a thousand tongues; there had been handed +on to him nevertheless much of the Forty-Niner and financial buccaneer, his +forbear. During that first period of his business career which had been called +his early bad manner, he had been little more than a gambler of genius, his +hand against every man’s—an infant prodigy—who brought to the +enthralling pursuit of speculation a brain better endowed than any opposed to +it. At St Helena it was laid down that war is <i>une belle occupation;</i> and +so the young Manderson had found the multitudinous and complicated dog-fight of +the Stock Exchange of New York. +</p> + +<p> +Then came his change. At his father’s death, when Manderson was thirty +years old, some new revelation of the power and the glory of the god he served +seemed to have come upon him. With the sudden, elastic adaptability of his +nation he turned to steady labour in his father’s banking business, +closing his ears to the sound of the battles of the Street. In a few years he +came to control all the activity of the great firm whose unimpeached +conservatism, safety, and financial weight lifted it like a cliff above the +angry sea of the markets. All mistrust founded on the performances of his youth +had vanished. He was quite plainly a different man. How the change came about +none could with authority say, but there was a story of certain last words +spoken by his father, whom alone he had respected and perhaps loved. +</p> + +<p> +He began to tower above the financial situation. Soon his name was current in +the bourses of the world. One who spoke the name of Manderson called up a +vision of all that was broad-based and firm in the vast wealth of the United +States. He planned great combinations of capital, drew together and centralized +industries of continental scope, financed with unerring judgement the large +designs of state or of private enterprise. Many a time when he “took +hold” to smash a strike, or to federate the ownership of some great field +of labour, he sent ruin upon a multitude of tiny homes; and if miners or +steelworkers or cattlemen defied him and invoked disorder, he could be more +lawless and ruthless than they. But this was done in the pursuit of legitimate +business ends. Tens of thousands of the poor might curse his name, but the +financier and the speculator execrated him no more. He stretched a hand to +protect or to manipulate the power of wealth in every corner of the country. +Forcible, cold, and unerring, in all he did he ministered to the national lust +for magnitude; and a grateful country surnamed him the Colossus. +</p> + +<p> +But there was an aspect of Manderson in this later period that lay long unknown +and unsuspected save by a few, his secretaries and lieutenants and certain of +the associates of his bygone hurling time. This little circle knew that +Manderson, the pillar of sound business and stability in the markets, had his +hours of nostalgia for the lively times when the Street had trembled at his +name. It was, said one of them, as if Blackbeard had settled down as a decent +merchant in Bristol on the spoils of the Main. Now and then the pirate would +glare suddenly out, the knife in his teeth and the sulphur matches sputtering +in his hatband. During such spasms of reversion to type a score of tempestuous +raids upon the market had been planned on paper in the inner room of the +offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never carried out. +Blackbeard would quell the mutiny of his old self within him and go soberly +down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of “Spanish +Ladies”, perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the +harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing +out to some Rupert of the markets a coup worth a million to the depredator +might have been made. “Seems to me,” he would say almost wistfully, +“the Street is getting to be a mighty dull place since I quit.” By +slow degrees this amiable weakness of the Colossus became known to the business +world, which exulted greatly in the knowledge. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At the news of his death panic went through the markets like a hurricane; for +it came at a luckless time. Prices tottered and crashed like towers in an +earthquake. For two days Wall Street was a clamorous inferno of pale despair. +All over the United States, wherever speculation had its devotees, went a waft +of ruin, a plague of suicide. In Europe also not a few took with their own +hands lives that had become pitiably linked to the destiny of a financier whom +most of them had never seen. In Paris a well-known banker walked quietly out of +the Bourse and fell dead upon the broad steps among the raving crowd of Jews, a +phial crushed in his hand. In Frankfort one leapt from the Cathedral top, +leaving a redder stain where he struck the red tower. Men stabbed and shot and +strangled themselves, drank death or breathed it as the air, because in a +lonely corner of England the life had departed from one cold heart vowed to the +service of greed. +</p> + +<p> +The blow could not have fallen at a more disastrous moment. It came when Wall +Street was in a condition of suppressed “scare”—suppressed, +because for a week past the great interests known to act with or to be actually +controlled by the Colossus had been desperately combating the effects of the +sudden arrest of Lucas Hahn, and the exposure of his plundering of the Hahn +banks. This bombshell, in its turn, had fallen at a time when the market had +been “boosted” beyond its real strength. In the language of the +place, a slump was due. Reports from the corn-lands had not been good, and +there had been two or three railway statements which had been expected to be +much better than they were. But at whatever point in the vast area of +speculation the shudder of the threatened break had been felt, “the +Manderson crowd” had stepped in and held the market up. All through the +week the speculator’s mind, as shallow as it is quick-witted, as +sentimental as greedy, had seen in this the hand of the giant stretched out in +protection from afar. Manderson, said the newspapers in chorus, was in hourly +communication with his lieutenants in the Street. One journal was able to give +in round figures the sum spent on cabling between New York and Marlstone in the +past twenty-four hours; it told how a small staff of expert operators had been +sent down by the Post Office authorities to Marlstone to deal with the flood of +messages. Another revealed that Manderson, on the first news of the Hahn crash, +had arranged to abandon his holiday and return home by the <i>Lusitania;</i> +but that he soon had the situation so well in hand that he had determined to +remain where he was. +</p> + +<p> +All this was falsehood, more or less consciously elaborated by the +“finance editors”, consciously initiated and encouraged by the +shrewd business men of the Manderson group, who knew that nothing could better +help their plans than this illusion of hero-worship—knew also that no +word had come from Manderson in answer to their messages, and that Howard B. +Jeffrey, of Steel and Iron fame, was the true organizer of victory. So they +fought down apprehension through four feverish days, and minds grew calmer. On +Saturday, though the ground beneath the feet of Mr. Jeffrey yet rumbled now and +then with Etna-mutterings of disquiet, he deemed his task almost done. The +market was firm, and slowly advancing. Wall Street turned to its sleep of +Sunday, worn out but thankfully at peace. +</p> + +<p> +In the first trading hour of Monday a hideous rumour flew round the sixty acres +of the financial district. It came into being as the lightning comes—a +blink that seems to begin nowhere; though it is to be suspected that it was +first whispered over the telephone—together with an urgent selling order +by some employee in the cable service. A sharp spasm convulsed the convalescent +share-list. In five minutes the dull noise of the kerbstone market in Broad +Street had leapt to a high note of frantic interrogation. From within the hive +of the Exchange itself could be heard a droning hubbub of fear, and men rushed +hatless in and out. Was it true? asked every man; and every man replied, with +trembling lips, that it was a lie put out by some unscrupulous +“short” interest seeking to cover itself. In another quarter of an +hour news came of a sudden and ruinous collapse of “Yankees” in +London at the close of the Stock Exchange day. It was enough. New York had +still four hours’ trading in front of her. The strategy of pointing to +Manderson as the saviour and warden of the markets had recoiled upon its +authors with annihilating force, and Jeffrey, his ear at his private telephone, +listened to the tale of disaster with a set jaw. The new Napoleon had lost his +Marengo. He saw the whole financial landscape sliding and falling into chaos +before him. In half an hour the news of the finding of Manderson’s body, +with the inevitable rumour that it was suicide, was printing in a dozen +newspaper offices; but before a copy reached Wall Street the tornado of the +panic was in full fury, and Howard B. Jeffrey and his collaborators were +whirled away like leaves before its breath. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +All this sprang out of nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing in the texture of the general life had changed. The corn had not ceased +to ripen in the sun. The rivers bore their barges and gave power to a myriad +engines. The flocks fattened on the pastures, the herds were unnumbered. Men +laboured everywhere in the various servitudes to which they were born, and +chafed not more than usual in their bonds. Bellona tossed and murmured as ever, +yet still slept her uneasy sleep. To all mankind save a million or two of +half-crazed gamblers, blind to all reality, the death of Manderson meant +nothing; the life and work of the world went on. Weeks before he died strong +hands had been in control of every wire in the huge network of commerce and +industry that he had supervised. Before his corpse was buried his countrymen +had made a strange discovery—that the existence of the potent engine of +monopoly that went by the name of Sigsbee Manderson had not been a condition of +even material prosperity. The panic blew itself out in two days, the pieces +were picked up, the bankrupts withdrew out of sight; the market +“recovered a normal tone”. +</p> + +<p> +While the brief delirium was yet subsiding there broke out a domestic scandal +in England that suddenly fixed the attention of two continents. Next morning +the Chicago Limited was wrecked, and the same day a notable politician was shot +down in cold blood by his wife’s brother in the streets of New Orleans. +Within a week of its rising, “the Manderson story”, to the trained +sense of editors throughout the Union, was “cold”. The tide of +American visitors pouring through Europe made eddies round the memorial or +statue of many a man who had died in poverty; and never thought of their most +famous plutocrat. Like the poet who died in Rome, so young and poor, a hundred +years ago, he was buried far away from his own land; but for all the men and +women of Manderson’s people who flock round the tomb of Keats in the +cemetery under the Monte Testaccio, there is not one, nor ever will be, to +stand in reverence by the rich man’s grave beside the little church of +Marlstone. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>Chapter II.<br />Knocking the Town Endways</h2> + +<p> +In the only comfortably furnished room in the offices of the <i>Record,</i> the +telephone on Sir James Molloy’s table buzzed. Sir James made a motion +with his pen, and Mr. Silver, his secretary, left his work and came over to the +instrument. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that?” he said. “Who?... I can’t hear you.... +Oh, it’s Mr. Bunner, is it?... Yes, but... I know, but he’s +fearfully busy this afternoon. Can’t you... Oh, really? Well, in that +case—just hold on, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +He placed the receiver before Sir James. “It’s Calvin Bunner, +Sigsbee Manderson’s right-hand man,” he said concisely. “He +insists on speaking to you personally. Says it is the gravest piece of news. He +is talking from the house down by Bishopsbridge, so it will be necessary to +speak clearly.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir James looked at the telephone, not affectionately, and took up the +receiver. “Well?” he said in his strong voice, and listened. +“Yes,” he said. The next moment Mr. Silver, eagerly watching him, +saw a look of amazement and horror. “Good God!” murmured Sir James. +Clutching the instrument, he slowly rose to his feet, still bending ear +intently. At intervals he repeated “Yes.” Presently, as he +listened, he glanced at the clock, and spoke quickly to Mr. Silver over the top +of the transmitter. “Go and hunt up Figgis and young Williams. +Hurry.” Mr. Silver darted from the room. +</p> + +<p> +The great journalist was a tall, strong, clever Irishman of fifty, swart and +black-moustached, a man of untiring business energy, well known in the world, +which he understood very thoroughly, and played upon with the half-cynical +competence of his race. Yet was he without a touch of the charlatan: he made no +mysteries, and no pretences of knowledge, and he saw instantly through these in +others. In his handsome, well-bred, well-dressed appearance there was something +a little sinister when anger or intense occupation put its imprint about his +eyes and brow; but when his generous nature was under no restraint he was the +most cordial of men. He was managing director of the company which owned that +most powerful morning paper, the <i>Record,</i> and also that most +indispensable evening paper, the <i>Sun,</i> which had its offices on the other +side of the street. He was, moreover, editor-in-chief of the <i>Record,</i> to +which he had in the course of years attached the most variously capable +personnel in the country. It was a maxim of his that where you could not get +gifts, you must do the best you could with solid merit; and he employed a great +deal of both. He was respected by his staff as few are respected in a +profession not favourable to the growth of the sentiment of reverence. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sure that’s all?” asked Sir James, after a few +minutes of earnest listening and questioning. “And how long has this been +known?... Yes, of course, the police are; but the servants? Surely it’s +all over the place down there by now.... Well, we’ll have a try.... Look +here, Bunner, I’m infinitely obliged to you about this. I owe you a good +turn. You know I mean what I say. Come and see me the first day you get to +town.... All right, that’s understood. Now I must act on your news. +Goodbye.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir James hung up the receiver, and seized a railway timetable from the rack +before him. After a rapid consultation of this oracle, he flung it down with a +forcible word as Mr. Silver hurried into the room, followed by a hard-featured +man with spectacles, and a youth with an alert eye. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to jot down some facts, Figgis,” said Sir James, +banishing all signs of agitation and speaking with a rapid calmness. +“When you have them, put them into shape just as quick as you can for a +special edition of the <i>Sun</i>.” The hard-featured man nodded and +glanced at the clock, which pointed to a few minutes past three; he pulled out +a notebook and drew a chair up to the big writing-table. “Silver,” +Sir James went on, “go and tell Jones to wire our local correspondent +very urgently, to drop everything and get down to Marlstone at once. He is not +to say why in the telegram. There must not be an unnecessary word about this +news until the <i>Sun</i> is on the streets with it—you all understand. +Williams, cut across the way and tell Mr. Anthony to hold himself ready for a +two-column opening that will knock the town endways. Just tell him that he must +take all measures and precautions for a scoop. Say that Figgis will be over in +five minutes with the facts, and that he had better let him write up the story +in his private room. As you go, ask Miss Morgan to see me here at once, and +tell the telephone people to see if they can get Mr. Trent on the wire for me. +After seeing Mr. Anthony, return here and stand by.” The alert-eyed young +man vanished like a spirit. +</p> + +<p> +Sir James turned instantly to Mr. Figgis, whose pencil was poised over the +paper. “Sigsbee Manderson has been murdered,” he began quickly and +clearly, pacing the floor with his hands behind him. Mr. Figgis scratched down +a line of shorthand with as much emotion as if he had been told that the day +was fine—the pose of his craft. “He and his wife and two +secretaries have been for the past fortnight at the house called White Gables, +at Marlstone, near Bishopsbridge. He bought it four years ago. He and Mrs. +Manderson have since spent a part of each summer there. Last night he went to +bed about half-past eleven, just as usual. No one knows when he got up and left +the house. He was not missed until this morning. About ten o’clock his +body was found by a gardener. It was lying by a shed in the grounds. He was +shot in the head, through the left eye. Death must have been instantaneous. The +body was not robbed, but there were marks on the wrists which pointed to a +struggle having taken place. Dr Stock, of Marlstone, was at once sent for, and +will conduct the post-mortem examination. The police from Bishopsbridge, who +were soon on the spot, are reticent, but it is believed that they are quite +without a clue to the identity of the murderer. There you are, Figgis. Mr. +Anthony is expecting you. Now I must telephone him and arrange things.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Figgis looked up. “One of the ablest detectives at Scotland +Yard,” he suggested, “has been put in charge of the case. +It’s a safe statement.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like,” said Sir James. +</p> + +<p> +“And Mrs. Manderson? Was she there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. What about her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Prostrated by the shock,” hinted the reporter, “and sees +nobody. Human interest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t put that in, Mr. Figgis,” said a quiet voice. It +belonged to Miss Morgan, a pale, graceful woman, who had silently made her +appearance while the dictation was going on. “I have seen Mrs. +Manderson,” she proceeded, turning to Sir James. “She looks quite +healthy and intelligent. Has her husband been murdered? I don’t think the +shock would prostrate her. She is more likely to be doing all she can to help +the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something in your own style, then, Miss Morgan,” he said with a +momentary smile. Her imperturbable efficiency was an office proverb. “Cut +it out, Figgis. Off you go! Now, madam, I expect you know what I want.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our Manderson biography happens to be well up to date,” replied +Miss Morgan, drooping her dark eyelashes as she considered the position. +“I was looking over it only a few months ago. It is practically ready for +tomorrow’s paper. I should think the <i>Sun</i> had better use the sketch +of his life they had about two years ago, when he went to Berlin and settled +the potash difficulty. I remember it was a very good sketch, and they +won’t be able to carry much more than that. As for our paper, of course +we have a great quantity of cuttings, mostly rubbish. The sub-editors shall +have them as soon as they come in. Then we have two very good portraits that +are our own property; the best is a drawing Mr. Trent made when they were both +on the same ship somewhere. It is better than any of the photographs; but you +say the public prefers a bad photograph to a good drawing. I will send them +down to you at once, and you can choose. As far as I can see, the Record is +well ahead of the situation, except that you will not be able to get a special +man down there in time to be of any use for tomorrow’s paper.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir James sighed deeply. “What are we good for, anyhow?” he +enquired dejectedly of Mr. Silver, who had returned to his desk. “She +even knows Bradshaw by heart.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Morgan adjusted her cuffs with an air of patience. “Is there +anything else?” she asked, as the telephone bell rang. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, one thing,” replied Sir James, as he took up the receiver. +“I want you to make a bad mistake some time, Miss Morgan—an +everlasting bloomer—just to put us in countenance.” She permitted +herself the fraction of what would have been a charming smile as she went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Anthony?” asked Sir James, and was at once deep in consultation +with the editor on the other side of the road. He seldom entered the <i>Sun</i> +building in person; the atmosphere of an evening paper, he would say, was all +very well if you liked that kind of thing. Mr. Anthony, the Murat of Fleet +Street, who delighted in riding the whirlwind and fighting a tumultuous battle +against time, would say the same of a morning paper. +</p> + +<p> +It was some five minutes later that a uniformed boy came in to say that Mr. +Trent was on the wire. Sir James abruptly closed his talk with Mr. Anthony. +</p> + +<p> +“They can put him through at once,” he said to the boy. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” he cried into the telephone after a few moments. +</p> + +<p> +A voice in the instrument replied, “Hullo be blowed! What do you +want?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is Molloy,” said Sir James. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it is,” the voice said. “This is Trent. He is in the +middle of painting a picture, and he has been interrupted at a critical moment. +Well, I hope it’s something important, that’s all!” +</p> + +<p> +“Trent,” said Sir James impressively, “it is important. I +want you to do some work for us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some play, you mean,” replied the voice. “Believe me, I +don’t want a holiday. The working fit is very strong. I am doing some +really decent things. Why can’t you leave a man alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something very serious has happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sigsbee Manderson has been murdered—shot through the +brain—and they don’t know who has done it. They found the body this +morning. It happened at his place near Bishopsbridge.” Sir James +proceeded to tell his hearer, briefly and clearly, the facts that he had +communicated to Mr. Figgis. “What do you think of it?” he ended. A +considering grunt was the only answer. “Come now,” urged Sir James. +</p> <p> +“Tempter!” +</p> + +<p> +“You will go down?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a brief pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you there?” said Sir James. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Molloy,” the voice broke out querulously, “the +thing may be a case for me, or it may not. We can’t possibly tell. It may +be a mystery; it may be as simple as bread and cheese. The body not being +robbed looks interesting, but he may have been outed by some wretched tramp +whom he found sleeping in the grounds and tried to kick out. It’s the +sort of thing he would do. Such a murderer might easily have sense enough to +know that to leave the money and valuables was the safest thing. I tell you +frankly, I wouldn’t have a hand in hanging a poor devil who had let +daylight into a man like Sig Manderson as a measure of social protest.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir James smiled at the telephone—a smile of success. “Come, my +boy, you’re getting feeble. Admit you want to go and have a look at the +case. You know you do. If it’s anything you don’t want to handle, +you’re free to drop it. By the by, where are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am blown along a wandering wind,” replied the voice +irresolutely, “and hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you get here within an hour?” persisted Sir James. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I can,” the voice grumbled. “How much time have +I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good man! Well, there’s time enough—that’s just the +worst of it. I’ve got to depend on our local correspondent for tonight. +The only good train of the day went half an hour ago. The next is a slow one, +leaving Paddington at midnight. You could have the Buster, if you +like”—Sir James referred to a very fast motor car of +his—“but you wouldn’t get down in time to do anything +tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’d miss my sleep. No, thanks. The train for me. I am quite +fond of railway travelling, you know; I have a gift for it. I am the stoker and +the stoked. I am the song the porter sings.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter,” said the voice sadly. “I +say,” it continued, “will your people look out a hotel near the +scene of action, and telegraph for a room?” +</p> + +<p> +“At once,” said Sir James. “Come here as soon as you +can.” +</p> + +<p> +He replaced the receiver. As he turned to his papers again a shrill outcry +burst forth in the street below. He walked to the open window. A band of +excited boys was rushing down the steps of the <i>Sun</i> building and up the +narrow thoroughfare toward Fleet Street. Each carried a bundle of newspapers +and a large broadsheet with the simple legend: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<b>MURDER OF SIGSBEE MANDERSON</b> +</p> + +<p> +Sir James smiled and rattled the money in his pockets cheerfully. “It +makes a good bill,” he observed to Mr. Silver, who stood at his elbow. +</p> + +<p> +Such was Manderson’s epitaph. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>Chapter III.<br />Breakfast</h2> + +<p> +At about eight o’clock in the morning of the following day Mr. Nathaniel +Burton Cupples stood on the veranda of the hotel at Marlstone. He was thinking +about breakfast. In his case the colloquialism must be taken literally: he +really was thinking about breakfast, as he thought about every conscious act of +his life when time allowed deliberation. He reflected that on the preceding day +the excitement and activity following upon the discovery of the dead man had +disorganized his appetite, and led to his taking considerably less nourishment +than usual. This morning he was very hungry, having already been up and about +for an hour; and he decided to allow himself a third piece of toast and an +additional egg; the rest as usual. The remaining deficit must be made up at +luncheon, but that could be gone into later. +</p> + +<p> +So much being determined, Mr. Cupples applied himself to the enjoyment of the +view for a few minutes before ordering his meal. With a connoisseur’s eye +he explored the beauty of the rugged coast, where a great pierced rock rose +from a glassy sea, and the ordered loveliness of the vast tilted levels of +pasture and tillage and woodland that sloped gently up from the cliffs toward +the distant moor. Mr. Cupples delighted in landscape. +</p> + +<p> +He was a man of middle height and spare figure, nearly sixty years old, by +constitution rather delicate in health, but wiry and active for his age. A +sparse and straggling beard and moustache did not conceal a thin but kindly +mouth; his eyes were keen and pleasant; his sharp nose and narrow jaw gave him +very much of a clerical air, and this impression was helped by his commonplace +dark clothes and soft black hat. The whole effect of him, indeed, was priestly. +He was a man of unusually conscientious, industrious, and orderly mind, with +little imagination. His father’s household had been used to recruit its +domestic establishment by means of advertisements in which it was truthfully +described as a serious family. From that fortress of gloom he had escaped with +two saintly gifts somehow unspoiled: an inexhaustible kindness of heart, and a +capacity for innocent gaiety which owed nothing to humour. In an earlier day +and with a clerical training he might have risen to the scarlet hat. He was, in +fact, a highly regarded member of the London Positivist Society, a retired +banker, a widower without children. His austere but not unhappy life was spent +largely among books and in museums; his profound and patiently accumulated +knowledge of a number of curiously disconnected subjects which had stirred his +interest at different times had given him a place in the quiet, half-lit world +of professors and curators and devotees of research; at their amiable, +unconvivial dinner parties he was most himself. His favourite author was +Montaigne. +</p> + +<p> +Just as Mr. Cupples was finishing his meal at a little table on the veranda, a +big motor car turned into the drive before the hotel. “Who is +this?” he enquired of the waiter. “Id is der manager,” said +the young man listlessly. “He have been to meed a gendleman by der +train.” +</p> + +<p> +The car drew up and the porter hurried from the entrance. Mr. Cupples uttered +an exclamation of pleasure as a long, loosely built man, much younger than +himself, stepped from the car and mounted the veranda, flinging his hat on a +chair. His high-boned, quixotic face wore a pleasant smile; his rough tweed +clothes, his hair and short moustache were tolerably untidy. +</p> + +<p> +“Cupples, by all that’s miraculous!” cried the man, pouncing +upon Mr. Cupples before he could rise, and seizing his outstretched hand in a +hard grip. “My luck is serving me today,” the newcomer went on +spasmodically. “This is the second slice within an hour. How are you, my +best of friends? And why are you here? Why sit’st thou by that ruined +breakfast? Dost thou its former pride recall, or ponder how it passed away? I +<i>am</i> glad to see you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was half expecting you, Trent,” Mr. Cupples replied, his face +wreathed in smiles. “You are looking splendid, my dear fellow. I will +tell you all about it. But you cannot have had your own breakfast yet. Will you +have it at my table here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” said the man. “An enormous great breakfast, +too—with refined conversation and tears of recognition never dry. Will +you get young Siegfried to lay a place for me while I go and wash? I +shan’t be three minutes.” He disappeared into the hotel, and Mr. +Cupples, after a moment’s thought, went to the telephone in the +porter’s office. +</p> + +<p> +He returned to find his friend already seated, pouring out tea, and showing an +unaffected interest in the choice of food. “I expect this to be a hard +day for me,” he said, with the curious jerky utterance which seemed to be +his habit. “I shan’t eat again till the evening, very likely. You +guess why I’m here, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Cupples. “You have come down to write +about the murder.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is rather a colourless way of stating it,” the man called +Trent replied, as he dissected a sole. “I should prefer to put it that I +have come down in the character of avenger of blood, to hunt down the guilty, +and vindicate the honour of society. That is my line of business. Families +waited on at their private residences. I say, Cupples, I have made a good +beginning already. Wait a bit, and I’ll tell you.” There was a +silence, during which the newcomer ate swiftly and abstractedly, while Mr. +Cupples looked on happily. +</p> + +<p> +“Your manager here,” said the tall man at last, “is a fellow +of remarkable judgement. He is an admirer of mine. He knows more about my best +cases than I do myself. The <i>Record</i> wired last night to say I was coming, +and when I got out of the train at seven o’clock this morning, there he +was waiting for me with a motor car the size of a haystack. He is beside +himself with joy at having me here. It is fame.” He drank a cup of tea +and continued: “Almost his first words were to ask me if I would like to +see the body of the murdered man—if so, he thought he could manage it for +me. He is as keen as a razor. The body lies in Dr Stock’s surgery, you +know, down in the village, exactly as it was when found. It’s to be +post-mortem’d this morning, by the way, so I was only just in time. Well, +he ran me down here to the doctor’s, giving me full particulars about the +case all the way. I was pretty well <i>au fait</i> by the time we arrived. I +suppose the manager of a place like this has some sort of a pull with the +doctor. Anyhow, he made no difficulties, nor did the constable on duty, though +he was careful to insist on my not giving him away in the paper.” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw the body before it was removed,” remarked Mr. Cupples. +“I should not have said there was anything remarkable about it, except +that the shot in the eye had scarcely disfigured the face at all, and caused +scarcely any effusion of blood, apparently. The wrists were scratched and +bruised. I expect that, with your trained faculties, you were able to remark +other details of a suggestive nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“Other details, certainly; but I don’t know that they suggest +anything. They are merely odd. Take the wrists, for instance. How was it you +could see bruises and scratches on them? I dare say you saw something of +Manderson down here before the murder.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” Mr. Cupples said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, did you ever see his wrists?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples reflected. “No. Now you raise the point, I am reminded that +when I interviewed Manderson here he was wearing stiff cuffs, coming well down +over his hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“He always did,” said Trent. “My friend the manager says so. +I pointed out to him the fact you didn’t observe, that there were no +cuffs visible, and that they had, indeed, been dragged up inside the +coat-sleeves, as yours would be if you hurried into a coat without pulling your +cuffs down. That was why you saw his wrists.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I call that suggestive,” observed Mr. Cupples mildly. +“You might infer, perhaps, that when he got up he hurried over his +dressing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but did he? The manager said just what you say. ‘He was +always a bit of a swell in his dress,’ he told me, and he drew the +inference that when Manderson got up in that mysterious way, before the house +was stirring, and went out into the grounds, he was in a great hurry. +‘Look at his shoes,’ he said to me: ‘Mr. Manderson was always +specially neat about his footwear. But those shoe-laces were tied in a +hurry.’ I agreed. ‘And he left his false teeth in his room,’ +said the manager. ‘Doesn’t <i>that</i> prove he was flustered and +hurried?’ I allowed that it looked like it. But I said, ‘Look here: +if he was so very much pressed, why did he part his hair so carefully? That +parting is a work of art. Why did he put on so much? for he had on a complete +outfit of underclothing, studs in his shirt, sock-suspenders, a watch and +chain, money and keys and things in his pockets. That’s what I said to +the manager. He couldn’t find an explanation. Can you?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples considered. “Those facts might suggest that he was hurried +only at the end of his dressing. Coat and shoes would come last.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not false teeth. You ask anybody who wears them. And besides, +I’m told he hadn’t washed at all on getting up, which in a neat man +looks like his being in a violent hurry from the beginning. And here’s +another thing. One of his waistcoat pockets was lined with wash-leather for the +reception of his gold watch. But he had put his watch into the pocket on the +other side. Anybody who has settled habits can see how odd that is. The fact +is, there are signs of great agitation and haste, and there are signs of +exactly the opposite. For the present I am not guessing. I must reconnoitre the +ground first, if I can manage to get the right side of the people of the +house.” Trent applied himself again to his breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples smiled at him benevolently. “That is precisely the +point,” he said, “on which I can be of some assistance to +you.” Trent glanced up in surprise. “I told you I half expected +you. I will explain the situation. Mrs. Manderson, who is my +niece—” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” Trent laid down his knife and fork with a clash. +“Cupples, you are jesting with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am perfectly serious, Trent, really,” returned Mr. Cupples +earnestly. “Her father, John Peter Domecq, was my wife’s brother. I +never mentioned my niece or her marriage to you before, I suppose. To tell the +truth, it has always been a painful subject to me, and I have avoided +discussing it with anybody. To return to what I was about to say: last night, +when I was over at the house—by the way, you can see it from here. You +passed it in the car.” He indicated a red roof among poplars some three +hundred yards away, the only building in sight that stood separate from the +tiny village in the gap below them. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I did,” said Trent. “The manager told me all about +it, among other things, as he drove me in from Bishopsbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Other people here have heard of you and your performances,” Mr. +Cupples went on. “As I was saying, when I was over there last night, Mr. +Bunner, who is one of Manderson’s two secretaries, expressed a hope that +the <i>Record</i> would send you down to deal with the case, as the police +seemed quite at a loss. He mentioned one or two of your past successes, and +Mabel—my niece—was interested when I told her afterwards. She is +bearing up wonderfully well, Trent; she has remarkable fortitude of character. +She said she remembered reading your articles about the Abinger case. She has a +great horror of the newspaper side of this sad business, and she had entreated +me to do anything I could to keep journalists away from the +place—I’m sure you can understand her feeling, Trent; it +isn’t really any reflection on that profession. But she said you appeared +to have great powers as a detective, and she would not stand in the way of +anything that might clear up the crime. Then I told her you were a personal +friend of mine, and gave you a good character for tact and consideration of +others’ feelings; and it ended in her saying that, if you should come, +she would like you to be helped in every way.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent leaned across the table and shook Mr. Cupples by the hand in silence. Mr. +Cupples, much delighted with the way things were turning out, resumed: +</p> + +<p> +“I spoke to my niece on the telephone only just now, and she is glad you +are here. She asks me to say that you may make any enquiries you like, and she +puts the house and grounds at your disposal. She had rather not see you +herself; she is keeping to her own sitting-room. She has already been +interviewed by a detective officer who is there, and she feels unequal to any +more. She adds that she does not believe she could say anything that would be +of the smallest use. The two secretaries and Martin, the butler (who is a most +intelligent man), could tell you all you want to know, she thinks.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent finished his breakfast with a thoughtful brow. He filled a pipe slowly, +and seated himself on the rail of the veranda. “Cupples,” he said +quietly, “is there anything about this business that you know and would +rather not tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples gave a slight start, and turned an astonished gaze on the +questioner. “What do you mean?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean about the Mandersons. Look here! Shall I tell you a thing that +strikes me about this affair at the very beginning? Here’s a man suddenly +and violently killed, and nobody’s heart seems to be broken about it, to +say the least. The manager of this hotel spoke to me about him as coolly as if +he’d never set eyes on him, though I understand they’ve been +neighbours every summer for some years. Then you talk about the thing in the +coldest of blood. And Mrs. Manderson—well, you won’t mind my saying +that I have heard of women being more cut up about their husbands being +murdered than she seems to be. Is there something in this, Cupples, or is it my +fancy? Was there something queer about Manderson? I travelled on the same boat +with him once, but never spoke to him. I only know his public character, which +was repulsive enough. You see, this may have a bearing on the case; +that’s the only reason why I ask.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples took time for thought. He fingered his sparse beard and looked out +over the sea. At last he turned to Trent. “I see no reason,” he +said, “why I shouldn’t tell you as between ourselves, my dear +fellow. I need not say that this must not be referred to, however distantly. +The truth is that nobody really liked Manderson; and I think those who were +nearest to him liked him least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” the other interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“Most people found a difficulty in explaining why. In trying to account +to myself for my own sensations, I could only put it that one felt in the man a +complete absence of the sympathetic faculty. There was nothing outwardly +repellent about him. He was not ill-mannered, or vicious, or dull—indeed, +he could be remarkably interesting. But I received the impression that there +could be no human creature whom he would not sacrifice in the pursuit of his +schemes, in his task of imposing himself and his will upon the world. Perhaps +that was fanciful, but I think not altogether so. However, the point is that +Mabel, I am sorry to say, was very unhappy. I am nearly twice your age, my dear +boy, though you always so kindly try to make me feel as if we were +contemporaries—I am getting to be an old man, and a great many people +have been good enough to confide their matrimonial troubles to me; but I never +knew another case like my niece’s and her husband’s. I have known +her since she was a baby, Trent, and I know—you understand, I think, that +I do not employ that word lightly—I <i>know</i> that she is as amiable +and honourable a woman, to say nothing of her other good gifts, as any man +could wish. But Manderson, for some time past, had made her miserable.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he do?” asked Trent, as Mr. Cupples paused. +</p> + +<p> +“When I put that question to Mabel, her words were that he seemed to +nurse a perpetual grievance. He maintained a distance between them, and he +would say nothing. I don’t know how it began or what was behind it; and +all she would tell me on that point was that he had no cause in the world for +his attitude. I think she knew what was in his mind, whatever it was; but she +is full of pride. This seems to have gone on for months. At last, a week ago, +she wrote to me. I am the only near relative she has. Her mother died when she +was a child; and after John Peter died I was something like a father to her +until she married—that was five years ago. She asked me to come and help +her, and I came at once. That is why I am here now.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples paused and drank some tea. Trent smoked and stared out at the hot +June landscape. +</p> + +<p> +“I would not go to White Gables,” Mr. Cupples resumed. “You +know my views, I think, upon the economic constitution of society, and the +proper relationship of the capitalist to the employee, and you know, no doubt, +what use that person made of his vast industrial power upon several very +notorious occasions. I refer especially to the trouble in the Pennsylvania +coal-fields, three years ago. I regarded him, apart from an all personal +dislike, in the light of a criminal and a disgrace to society. I came to this +hotel, and I saw my niece here. She told me what I have more briefly told you. +She said that the worry and the humiliation of it, and the strain of trying to +keep up appearances before the world, were telling upon her, and she asked for +my advice. I said I thought she should face him and demand an explanation of +his way of treating her. But she would not do that. She had always taken the +line of affecting not to notice the change in his demeanour, and nothing, I +knew, would persuade her to admit to him that she was injured, once pride had +led her into that course. Life is quite full, my dear Trent,” said Mr. +Cupples with a sigh, “of these obstinate silences and cultivated +misunderstandings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she love him?” Trent enquired abruptly. Mr. Cupples did not +reply at once. “Had she any love left for him?” Trent amended. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples played with his teaspoon. “I am bound to say,” he +answered slowly, “that I think not. But you must not misunderstand the +woman, Trent. No power on earth would have persuaded her to admit that to any +one—even to herself, perhaps—so long as she considered herself +bound to him. And I gather that, apart from this mysterious sulking of late, he +had always been considerate and generous.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were saying that she refused to have it out with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“She did,” replied Mr. Cupples. “And I knew by experience +that it was quite useless to attempt to move a Domecq where the sense of +dignity was involved. So I thought it over carefully, and next day I watched my +opportunity and met Manderson as he passed by this hotel. I asked him to favour +me with a few minutes’ conversation, and he stepped inside the gate down +there. We had held no communication of any kind since my niece’s +marriage, but he remembered me, of course. I put the matter to him at once and +quite definitely. I told him what Mabel had confided to me. I said that I would +neither approve nor condemn her action in bringing me into the business, but +that she was suffering, and I considered it my right to ask how he could +justify himself in placing her in such a position.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how did he take that?” said Trent, smiling secretly at the +landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable Manderson +to account pleased him. +</p> + +<p> +“Not very well,” Mr. Cupples replied sadly. “In fact, far +from well. I can tell you almost exactly what he said—it wasn’t +much. He said, ‘See here, Cupples, you don’t want to butt in. My +wife can look after herself. I’ve found that out, along with other +things.’ He was perfectly quiet—you know he was said never to lose +control of himself—though there was a light in his eyes that would have +frightened a man who was in the wrong, I dare say. But I had been thoroughly +roused by his last remark, and the tone of it, which I cannot reproduce. You +see,” said Mr. Cupples simply, “I love my niece. She is the only +child that there has been in our—in my house. Moreover, my wife brought +her up as a girl, and any reflection on Mabel I could not help feeling, in the +heat of the moment, as an indirect reflection upon one who is gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“You turned upon him,” suggested Trent in a low tone. “You +asked him to explain his words.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is precisely what I did,” said Mr. Cupples. “For a +moment he only stared at me, and I could see a vein on his forehead +swelling—an unpleasant sight. Then he said quite quietly, ‘This +thing has gone far enough, I guess,’ and turned to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he mean your interview?” Trent asked thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“From the words alone you would think so,” Mr. Cupples answered. +“But the way in which he uttered them gave me a strange and very +apprehensive feeling. I received the impression that the man had formed some +sinister resolve. But I regret to say I had lost the power of dispassionate +thought. I fell into a great rage”—Mr. Cupples’s tone was +mildly apologetic—“and said a number of foolish things. I reminded +him that the law allowed a measure of freedom to wives who received intolerable +treatment. I made some utterly irrelevant references to his public record, and +expressed the view that such men as he were unfit to live. I said these things, +and others as ill-considered, under the eyes, and very possibly within earshot, +of half a dozen persons sitting on this veranda. I noticed them, in spite of my +agitation, looking at me as I walked up to the hotel again after relieving my +mind for it undoubtedly did relieve it,” sighed Mr. Cupples, lying back +in his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“And Manderson? Did he say no more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word. He listened to me with his eyes on my face, as quiet as +before. When I stopped he smiled very slightly, and at once turned away and +strolled through the gate, making for White Gables.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this happened—?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the Sunday morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I suppose you never saw him alive again?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mr. Cupples. “Or rather yes—once. It was +later in the day, on the golf-course. But I did not speak to him. And next +morning he was found dead.” +</p> + +<p> +The two regarded each other in silence for a few moments. A party of guests who +had been bathing came up the steps and seated themselves, with much chattering, +at a table near them. The waiter approached. Mr. Cupples rose, and, taking +Trent’s arm, led him to a long tennis-lawn at the side of the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a reason for telling you all this,” began Mr. Cupples as +they paced slowly up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“Trust you for that,” rejoined Trent, carefully filling his pipe +again. He lit it, smoked a little, and then said, “I’ll try and +guess what your reason is, if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples’s face of solemnity relaxed into a slight smile. He said +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“You thought it possible,” said Trent meditatively—“may +I say you thought it practically certain?—that I should find out for +myself that there had been something deeper than a mere conjugal tiff between +the Mandersons. You thought that my unwholesome imagination would begin at once +to play with the idea of Mrs. Manderson having something to do with the crime. +Rather than that I should lose myself in barren speculations about this, you +decided to tell me exactly how matters stood, and incidentally to impress upon +me, who know how excellent your judgement is, your opinion of your niece. Is +that about right?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is perfectly right. Listen to me, my dear fellow,” said Mr. +Cupples earnestly, laying his hand on the other’s arm. “I am going +to be very frank. I am extremely glad that Manderson is dead. I believe him to +have done nothing but harm in the world as an economic factor. I know that he +was making a desert of the life of one who was like my own child to me. But I +am under an intolerable dread of Mabel being involved in suspicion with regard +to the murder. It is horrible to me to think of her delicacy and goodness being +in contact, if only for a time, with the brutalities of the law. She is not +fitted for it. It would mark her deeply. Many young women of twenty-six in +these days could face such an ordeal, I suppose. I have observed a sort of +imitative hardness about the products of the higher education of women today +which would carry them through anything, perhaps. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not prepared to say it is a bad thing in the conditions of feminine +life prevailing at present. Mabel, however, is not like that. She is as unlike +that as she is unlike the simpering misses that used to surround me as a child. +She has plenty of brains; she is full of character; her mind and her tastes are +cultivated; but it is all mixed up”—Mr. Cupples waved his hands in +a vague gesture—“with ideals of refinement and reservation and +womanly mystery. I fear she is not a child of the age. You never knew my wife, +Trent. Mabel is my wife’s child.” +</p> + +<p> +The younger man bowed his head. They paced the length of the lawn before he +asked gently, “Why did she marry him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Mr. Cupples briefly. +</p> + +<p> +“Admired him, I suppose,” suggested Trent. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples shrugged his shoulders. “I have been told that a woman will +usually be more or less attracted by the most successful man in her circle. Of +course we cannot realize how a wilful, dominating personality like his would +influence a girl whose affections were not bestowed elsewhere; especially if he +laid himself out to win her. It is probably an overwhelming thing to be courted +by a man whose name is known all over the world. She had heard of him, of +course, as a financial great power, and she had no idea—she had lived +mostly among people of artistic or literary propensities—how much +soulless inhumanity that might involve. For all I know, she has no adequate +idea of it to this day. When I first heard of the affair the mischief was done, +and I knew better than to interpose my unsought opinions. She was of age, and +there was absolutely nothing against him from the conventional point of view. +Then I dare say his immense wealth would cast a spell over almost any woman. +Mabel had some hundreds a year of her own; just enough, perhaps, to let her +realize what millions really meant. But all this is conjecture. She certainly +had not wanted to marry some scores of young fellows who to my knowledge had +asked her; and though I don’t believe, and never did believe, that she +really loved this man of forty-five, she certainly did want to marry him. But +if you ask me why, I can only say I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent nodded, and after a few more paces looked at his watch. +“You’ve interested me so much,” he said, “that I had +quite forgotten my main business. I mustn’t waste my morning. I am going +down the road to White Gables at once, and I dare say I shall be poking about +there until midday. If you can meet me then, Cupples, I should like to talk +over anything I find out with you, unless something detains me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going for a walk this morning,” Mr. Cupples replied. “I +meant to have luncheon at a little inn near the golf-course, The Three Tuns. +You had better join me there. It’s further along the road, about a +quarter of a mile beyond White Gables. You can just see the roof between those +two trees. The food they give one there is very plain, but good.” +</p> + +<p> +“So long as they have a cask of beer,” said Trent, “they are +all right. We will have bread and cheese, and oh, may Heaven our simple lives +prevent from luxury’s contagion, weak and vile! Till then, +goodbye.” He strode off to recover his hat from the veranda, waved it to +Mr. Cupples, and was gone. +</p> + +<p> +The old gentleman, seating himself in a deck-chair on the lawn, clasped his +hands behind his head and gazed up into the speckless blue sky. “He is a +dear fellow,” he murmured. “The best of fellows. And a terribly +acute fellow. Dear me! How curious it all is!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>Chapter IV.<br />Handcuffs in the Air</h2> + +<p> +A painter and the son of a painter, Philip Trent had while yet in his twenties +achieved some reputation within the world of English art. Moreover, his +pictures sold. An original, forcible talent and a habit of leisurely but +continuous working, broken by fits of strong creative enthusiasm, were at the +bottom of it. His father’s name had helped; a patrimony large enough to +relieve him of the perilous imputation of being a struggling man had certainly +not hindered. But his best aid to success had been an unconscious power of +getting himself liked. Good spirits and a lively, humorous fancy will always be +popular. Trent joined to these a genuine interest in others that gained him +something deeper than popularity. His judgement of persons was penetrating, but +its process was internal; no one felt on good behaviour with a man who seemed +always to be enjoying himself. Whether he was in a mood for floods of nonsense +or applying himself vigorously to a task, his face seldom lost its expression +of contained vivacity. Apart from a sound knowledge of his art and its history, +his culture was large and loose, dominated by a love of poetry. At thirty-two +he had not yet passed the age of laughter and adventure. +</p> + +<p> +His rise to a celebrity a hundred times greater than his proper work had won +for him came of a momentary impulse. One day he had taken up a newspaper to +find it chiefly concerned with a crime of a sort curiously rare in our +country—a murder done in a railway train. The circumstances were +puzzling; two persons were under arrest upon suspicion. Trent, to whom an +interest in such affairs was a new sensation, heard the thing discussed among +his friends, and set himself in a purposeless mood to read up the accounts +given in several journals. He became intrigued; his imagination began to work, +in a manner strange to him, upon facts; an excitement took hold of him such as +he had only known before in his bursts of art-inspiration or of personal +adventure. At the end of the day he wrote and dispatched a long letter to the +editor of the <i>Record</i>, which he chose only because it had contained the +fullest and most intelligent version of the facts. +</p> + +<p> +In this letter he did very much what Poe had done in the case of the murder of +Mary Rogers. With nothing but the newspapers to guide him, he drew attention to +the significance of certain apparently negligible facts, and ranged the +evidence in such a manner as to throw grave suspicion upon a man who had +presented himself as a witness. Sir James Molloy had printed this letter in +leaded type. The same evening he was able to announce in the Sun the arrest and +full confession of the incriminated man. +</p> + +<p> +Sir James, who knew all the worlds of London, had lost no time in making +Trent’s acquaintance. The two men got on well, for Trent possessed some +secret of native tact which had the effect of almost abolishing differences of +age between himself and others. The great rotary presses in the basement of the +<i>Record</i> building had filled him with a new enthusiasm. He had painted +there, and Sir James had bought at sight, what he called a machinery-scape in +the manner of Heinrich Kley. +</p> + +<p> +Then a few months later came the affair known as the Ilkley mystery. Sir James +had invited Trent to an emollient dinner, and thereafter offered him what +seemed to the young man a fantastically large sum for his temporary services as +special representative of the <i>Record</i> at Ilkley. +</p> + +<p> +“You could do it,” the editor had urged. “You can write good +stuff, and you know how to talk to people, and I can teach you all the +technicalities of a reporter’s job in half an hour. And you have a head +for a mystery; you have imagination and cool judgement along with it. Think how +it would feel if you pulled it off!” +</p> + +<p> +Trent had admitted that it would be rather a lark. He had smoked, frowned, and +at last convinced himself that the only thing that held him back was fear of an +unfamiliar task. To react against fear had become a fixed moral habit with him, +and he had accepted Sir James’s offer. +</p> + +<p> +He had pulled it off. For the second time he had given the authorities a start +and a beating, and his name was on all tongues. He withdrew and painted +pictures. He felt no leaning towards journalism, and Sir James, who knew a good +deal about art, honourably refrained—as other editors did not—from +tempting him with a good salary. But in the course of a few years he had +applied to him perhaps thirty times for his services in the unravelling of +similar problems at home and abroad. Sometimes Trent, busy with work that held +him, had refused; sometimes he had been forestalled in the discovery of the +truth. But the result of his irregular connection with the <i>Record</i> had +been to make his name one of the best known in England. It was characteristic +of him that his name was almost the only detail of his personality known to the +public. He had imposed absolute silence about himself upon the Molloy papers; +and the others were not going to advertise one of Sir James’s men. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The Manderson case, he told himself as he walked rapidly up the sloping road to +White Gables, might turn out to be terribly simple. Cupples was a wise old boy, +but it was probably impossible for him to have an impartial opinion about his +niece. But it was true that the manager of the hotel, who had spoken of her +beauty in terms that aroused his attention, had spoken even more emphatically +of her goodness. Not an artist in words, the manager had yet conveyed a very +definite idea to Trent’s mind. “There isn’t a child about +here that don’t brighten up at the sound of her voice,” he had +said, “nor yet a grown-up, for the matter of that. Everybody used to look +forward to her coming over in the summer. I don’t mean that she’s +one of those women that are all kind heart and nothing else. There’s +backbone with it, if you know what I mean—pluck— any amount of go. +There’s nobody in Marlstone that isn’t sorry for the lady in her +trouble—not but what some of us may think she’s lucky at the last +of it.” Trent wanted very much to meet Mrs. Manderson. +</p> + +<p> +He could see now, beyond a spacious lawn and shrubbery, the front of the +two-storied house of dull-red brick, with the pair of great gables from which +it had its name. He had had but a glimpse of it from the car that morning. A +modern house, he saw; perhaps ten years old. The place was beautifully kept, +with that air of opulent peace that clothes even the smallest houses of the +well-to-do in an English countryside. Before it, beyond the road, the rich +meadow-land ran down to the edge of the cliffs; behind it a woody landscape +stretched away across a broad vale to the moors. That such a place could be the +scene of a crime of violence seemed fantastic; it lay so quiet and well +ordered, so eloquent of disciplined service and gentle living. Yet there beyond +the house, and near the hedge that rose between the garden and the hot, white +road, stood the gardener’s toolshed, by which the body had been found, +lying tumbled against the wooden wall, Trent walked past the gate of the drive +and along the road until he was opposite this shed. Some forty yards further +along the road turned sharply away from the house, to run between thick +plantations; and just before the turn the grounds of the house ended, with a +small white gate at the angle of the boundary hedge. He approached the gate, +which was plainly for the use of gardeners and the service of the +establishment. It swung easily on its hinges, and he passed slowly up a path +that led towards the back of the house, between the outer hedge and a tall wall +of rhododendrons. Through a gap in this wall a track led him to the little +neatly built erection of wood, which stood among trees that faced a corner of +the front. The body had lain on the side away from the house; a servant, he +thought, looking out of the nearer windows in the earlier hours of the day +before, might have glanced unseeing at the hut, as she wondered what it could +be like to be as rich as the master. +</p> + +<p> +He examined the place carefully and ransacked the hut within, but he could note +no more than the trodden appearance of the uncut grass where the body had lain. +Crouching low, with keen eyes and feeling fingers, he searched the ground +minutely over a wide area; but the search was fruitless. +</p> + +<p> +It was interrupted by the sound—the first he had heard from the +house—of the closing of the front door. Trent unbent his long legs and +stepped to the edge of the drive. A man was walking quickly away from the house +in the direction of the great gate. +</p> + +<p> +At the noise of a footstep on the gravel, the man wheeled with nervous +swiftness and looked earnestly at Trent. The sudden sight of his face was +almost terrible, so white and worn it was. Yet it was a young man’s face. +There was not a wrinkle about the haggard blue eyes, for all their tale of +strain and desperate fatigue. As the two approached each other, Trent noted +with admiration the man’s breadth of shoulder and lithe, strong figure. +In his carriage, inelastic as weariness had made it; in his handsome, regular +features; in his short, smooth, yellow hair; and in his voice as he addressed +Trent, the influence of a special sort of training was confessed. “Oxford +was your playground, I think, my young friend,” said Trent to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“If you are Mr. Trent,” said the young man pleasantly, “you +are expected. Mr. Cupples telephoned from the hotel. My name is Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were secretary to Mr. Manderson, I believe,” said Trent. He +was much inclined to like young Mr. Marlowe. Though he seemed so near a +physical breakdown, he gave out none the less that air of clean living and +inward health that is the peculiar glory of his social type at his years. But +there was something in the tired eyes that was a challenge to Trent’s +penetration; an habitual expression, as he took it to be, of meditating and +weighing things not present to their sight. It was a look too intelligent, too +steady and purposeful, to be called dreamy. Trent thought he had seen such a +look before somewhere. He went on to say: “It is a terrible business for +all of you. I fear it has upset you completely, Mr. Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“A little limp, that’s all,” replied the young man wearily. +“I was driving the car all Sunday night and most of yesterday, and I +didn’t sleep last night after hearing the news—who would? But I +have an appointment now, Mr. Trent, down at the doctor’s—arranging +about the inquest. I expect it’ll be tomorrow. If you will go up to the +house and ask for Mr. Bunner, you’ll find him expecting you; he will tell +you all about things and show you round. He’s the other secretary; an +American, and the best of fellows; he’ll look after you. There’s a +detective here, by the way—Inspector Murch, from Scotland Yard. He came +yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Murch!” Trent exclaimed. “But he and I are old friends. How +under the sun did he get here so soon?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no idea,” Mr. Marlowe answered. “But he was here last +evening, before I got back from Southampton, interviewing everybody, and +he’s been about here since eight this morning. He’s in the library +now—that’s where the open French window is that you see at the end +of the house there. Perhaps you would like to step down there and talk about +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I will,” said Trent. Marlowe nodded and went on his way. +The thick turf of the lawn round which the drive took its circular sweep made +Trent’s footsteps as noiseless as a cat’s. In a few moments he was +looking in through the open leaves of the window at the southward end of the +house, considering with a smile a very broad back and a bent head covered with +short grizzled hair. The man within was stooping over a number of papers laid +out on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas ever thus,” said Trent in a melancholy tone, at the +first sound of which the man within turned round with startling swiftness. +“From childhood’s hour I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay. I +did think I was ahead of Scotland Yard this time, and now here is the hugest +officer in the entire Metropolitan force already occupying the position.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective smiled grimly and came to the window. “I was expecting you, +Mr. Trent,” he said. “This is the sort of case that you +like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since my tastes were being considered,” Trent replied, stepping +into the room, “I wish they had followed up the idea by keeping my hated +rival out of the business. You have got a long start, too—I know all +about it.” His eyes began to wander round the room. “How did you +manage it? You are a quick mover, I know; the dun deer’s hide on fleeter +foot was never tied; but I don’t see how you got here in time to be at +work yesterday evening. Has Scotland Yard secretly started an aviation corps? +Or is it in league with the infernal powers? In either case the Home Secretary +should be called upon to make a statement.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s simpler than that,” said Mr. Murch with professional +stolidity. “I happened to be on leave with the missus at Havley, which is +only twelve miles or so along the coast. As soon as our people there heard of +the murder they told me. I wired to the Chief, and was put in charge of the +case at once. I bicycled over yesterday evening, and have been at it since +then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Arising out of that reply,” said Trent inattentively, “how +is Mrs. Inspector Murch?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never better, thank you,” answered the inspector, “and +frequently speaks of you and the games you used to have with our kids. But +you’ll excuse me saying, Mr. Trent, that you needn’t trouble to +talk your nonsense to me while you’re using your eyes. I know your ways +by now. I understand you’ve fallen on your feet as usual, and have the +lady’s permission to go over the place and make enquiries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Such is the fact,” said Trent. “I am going to cut you out +again, inspector. I owe you one for beating me over the Abinger case, you old +fox. But if you really mean that you’re not inclined for the social +amenities just now, let us leave compliments and talk business.” He +stepped to the table, glanced through the papers arranged there in order, and +then turned to the open roll-top desk. He looked into the drawers swiftly. +“I see this has been cleared out. Well now, inspector, I suppose we play +the game as before.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent had found himself on a number of occasions in the past thrown into the +company of Inspector Murch, who stood high in the councils of the Criminal +Investigation Department. He was a quiet, tactful, and very shrewd officer, a +man of great courage, with a vivid history in connection with the more +dangerous class of criminals. His humanity was as broad as his frame, which was +large even for a policeman. Trent and he, through some obscure working of +sympathy, had appreciated one another from the beginning, and had formed one of +those curious friendships with which it was the younger man’s delight to +adorn his experience. The inspector would talk more freely to him than to any +one, under the rose, and they would discuss details and possibilities of every +case, to their mutual enlightenment. There were necessarily rules and limits. +It was understood between them that Trent made no journalistic use of any point +that could only have come to him from an official source. Each of them, +moreover, for the honour and prestige of the institution he represented, openly +reserved the right to withhold from the other any discovery or inspiration that +might come to him which he considered vital to the solution of the difficulty. +Trent had insisted on carefully formulating these principles of what he called +detective sportsmanship. Mr. Murch, who loved a contest, and who only stood to +gain by his association with the keen intelligence of the other, entered very +heartily into “the game”. In these strivings for the credit of the +press and of the police, victory sometimes attended the experience and method +of the officer, sometimes the quicker brain and livelier imagination of Trent, +his gift of instinctively recognizing the significant through all disguises. +</p> + +<p> +The inspector then replied to Trent’s last words with cordial agreement. +Leaning on either side of the French window, with the deep peace and hazy +splendor of the summer landscape before them, they reviewed the case. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Trent had taken out a thin notebook, and as they talked he began to make, with +light, secure touches, a rough sketch plan of the room. It was a thing he did +habitually on such occasions, and often quite idly, but now and then the habit +had served him to good purpose. +</p> + +<p> +This was a large, light apartment at the corner of the house, with generous +window-space in two walls. A broad table stood in the middle. As one entered by +the window the roll-top desk stood just to the left of it against the wall. The +inner door was in the wall to the left, at the farther end of the room; and was +faced by a broad window divided into openings of the casement type. A +beautifully carved old corner-cupboard rose high against the wall beyond the +door, and another cupboard filled a recess beside the fireplace. Some coloured +prints of Harunobu, with which Trent promised himself a better acquaintance, +hung on what little wall-space was unoccupied by books. These had a very +uninspiring appearance of having been bought by the yard and never taken from +their shelves. Bound with a sober luxury, the great English novelists, +essayists, historians, and poets stood ranged like an army struck dead in its +ranks. There were a few chairs made, like the cupboard and table, of old carved +oak; a modern armchair and a swivel office-chair before the desk. The room +looked costly but very bare. Almost the only portable objects were a great +porcelain bowl of a wonderful blue on the table, a clock and some cigar boxes +on the mantelshelf, and a movable telephone standard on the top of the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Seen the body?” enquired the inspector. +</p> + +<p> +Trent nodded. “And the place where it lay,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“First impressions of this case rather puzzle me,” said the +inspector. “From what I heard at Halvey I guessed it might be common +robbery and murder by some tramp, though such a thing is very far from common +in these parts. But as soon as I began my enquiries I came on some curious +points, which by this time I dare say you’ve noted for yourself. The man +is shot in his own grounds, quite near the house, to begin with. Yet +there’s not the slightest trace of any attempt at burglary. And the body +wasn’t robbed. In fact, it would be as plain a case of suicide as you +could wish to see, if it wasn’t for certain facts. Here’s another +thing: for a month or so past, they tell me, Manderson had been in a queer +state of mind. I expect you know already that he and his wife had some trouble +between them. The servants had noticed a change in his manner to her for a long +time, and for the past week he had scarcely spoken to her. They say he was a +changed man, moody and silent—whether on account of that or something +else. The lady’s maid says he looked as if something was going to arrive. +It’s always easy to remember that people looked like that, after +something has happened to them. Still, that’s what they say. There you +are again, then: suicide! Now, why wasn’t it suicide, Mr. Trent?” +</p> + +<p> +“The facts so far as I know them are really all against it,” Trent +replied, sitting on the threshold of the window and clasping his knees. +“First, of course, no weapon is to be found. I’ve searched, and +you’ve searched, and there’s no trace of any firearm anywhere +within a stone’s throw of where the body lay. Second, the marks on the +wrists, fresh scratches and bruises, which we can only assume to have been done +in a struggle with somebody. Third, who ever heard of anybody shooting himself +in the eye? Then I heard from the manager of the hotel here another fact, which +strikes me as the most curious detail in this affair. Manderson had dressed +himself fully before going out there, but he forgot his false teeth. Now how +could a suicide who dressed himself to make a decent appearance as a corpse +forget his teeth?” +</p> + +<p> +“That last argument hadn’t struck me,” admitted Mr. Murch. +“There’s something in it. But on the strength of the other points, +which had occurred to me, I am not considering suicide. I have been looking +about for ideas in this house, this morning. I expect you were thinking of +doing the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is so. It is a case for ideas, it seems to me. Come, Murch, let us +make an effort; let us bend our spirits to a temper of general suspicion. Let +us suspect everybody in the house, to begin with. Listen: I will tell you whom +I suspect. I suspect Mrs. Manderson, of course. I also suspect both the +secretaries—I hear there are two, and I hardly know which of them I +regard as more thoroughly open to suspicion. I suspect the butler and the +lady’s maid. I suspect the other domestics, and especially do I suspect +the boot-boy. By the way, what domestics are there? I have more than enough +suspicion to go round, whatever the size of the establishment; but as a matter +of curiosity I should like to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“All very well to laugh,” replied the inspector, “but at the +first stage of affairs it’s the only safe principle, and you know that as +well as I do, Mr. Trent. However, I’ve seen enough of the people here, +last night and today, to put a few of them out of my mind for the present at +least. You will form your own conclusions. As for the establishment, +there’s the butler and lady’s maid, cook, and three other maids, +one a young girl. One chauffeur, who’s away with a broken wrist. No +boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about the gardener? You say nothing about that shadowy and sinister +figure, the gardener. You are keeping him in the background, Murch. Play the +game. Out with him—or I report you to the Rules Committee.” +</p> + +<p> +“The garden is attended to by a man in the village, who comes twice a +week. I’ve talked to him. He was here last on Friday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I suspect him all the more,” said Trent. “And now as to +the house itself. What I propose to do, to begin with, is to sniff about a +little in this room, where I am told Manderson spent a great deal of his time, +and in his bedroom; especially the bedroom. But since we’re in this room, +let’s start here. You seem to be at the same stage of the inquiry. +Perhaps you’ve done the bedrooms already?” +</p> + +<p> +The inspector nodded. “I’ve been over Manderson’s and his +wife’s. Nothing to be got there, I think. His room is very simple and +bare, no signs of any sort—that <i>I</i> could see. Seems to have +insisted on the simple life, does Manderson. Never employed a valet. The +room’s almost like a cell, except for the clothes and shoes. You’ll +find it all exactly as I found it; and they tell me that’s exactly as +Manderson left it, at we don’t know what o’clock yesterday morning. +Opens into Mrs. Manderson’s bedroom—not much of the cell about +that, I can tell you. I should say the lady was as fond of pretty things as +most. But she cleared out of it on the morning of the discovery—told the +maid she could never sleep in a room opening into her murdered husband’s +room. Very natural feeling in a woman, Mr. Trent. She’s camping out, so +to say, in one of the spare bedrooms now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, my friend,” Trent was saying to himself, as he made a few +notes in his little book. “Have you got your eye on Mrs. Manderson? Or +haven’t you? I know that colourless tone of the inspectorial voice. I +wish I had seen her. Either you’ve got something against her and you +don’t want me to get hold of it; or else you’ve made up your mind +she’s innocent, but have no objection to my wasting my time over her. +Well, it’s all in the game; which begins to look extremely interesting as +we go on.” To Mr. Murch he said aloud: “Well, I’ll draw the +bedroom later on. What about this?” +</p> + +<p> +“They call it the library,” said the inspector. “Manderson +used to do his writing and that in here; passed most of the time he spent +indoors here. Since he and his wife ceased to hit it off together, he had taken +to spending his evenings alone, and when at this house he always spent +’em in here. He was last seen alive, as far as the servants are +concerned, in this room.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent rose and glanced again through the papers set out on the table. +“Business letters and documents, mostly,” said Mr. Murch. +“Reports, prospectuses, and that. A few letters on private matters, +nothing in them that I can see. The American secretary—Bunner his name +is, and a queerer card I never saw turned—he’s been through this +desk with me this morning. He had got it into his head that Manderson had been +receiving threatening letters, and that the murder was the outcome of that. But +there’s no trace of any such thing; and we looked at every blessed paper. +The only unusual things we found were some packets of banknotes to a +considerable amount, and a couple of little bags of unset diamonds. I asked Mr. +Bunner to put them in a safer place. It appears that Manderson had begun buying +diamonds lately as a speculation—it was a new game to him, the secretary +said, and it seemed to amuse him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about these secretaries?” Trent enquired. “I met one +called Marlowe just now outside; a nice-looking chap with singular eyes, +unquestionably English. The other, it seems, is an American. What did Manderson +want with an English secretary?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Marlowe explained to me how that was. The American was his +right-hand business man, one of his office staff, who never left him. Mr. +Marlowe had nothing to do with Manderson’s business as a financier, knew +nothing of it. His job was to look after Manderson’s horses and motors +and yacht and sporting arrangements and that—make himself generally +useful, as you might say. He had the spending of a lot of money, I should +think. The other was confined entirely to the office affairs, and I dare say he +had his hands full. As for his being English, it was just a fad of +Manderson’s to have an English secretary. He’d had several before +Mr. Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“He showed his taste,” observed Trent. “It might be more than +interesting, don’t you think, to be minister to the pleasures of a modern +plutocrat with a large P. Only they say that Manderson’s were exclusively +of an innocent kind. Certainly Marlowe gives me the impression that he would be +weak in the part of Petronius. But to return to the matter in hand.” He +looked at his notes. “You said just now that he was last seen alive here, +‘so far as the servants were concerned’. That meant—?” +</p> + +<p> +“He had a conversation with his wife on going to bed. But for that, the +manservant, Martin by name, last saw him in this room. I had his story last +night, and very glad he was to tell it. An affair like this is meat and drink +to the servants of the house.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent considered for some moments, gazing through the open window over the +sun-flooded slopes. “Would it bore you to hear what he has to say +again?” he asked at length. For reply, Mr. Murch rang the bell. A spare, +clean-shaven, middle-aged man, having the servant’s manner in its most +distinguished form, answered it. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Mr. Trent, who is authorized by Mrs. Manderson to go over the +house and make enquiries,” explained the detective. “He would like +to hear your story.” Martin bowed distantly. He recognized Trent for a +gentleman. Time would show whether he was what Martin called a gentleman in +every sense of the word. +</p> + +<p> +“I observed you approaching the house, sir,” said Martin with +impassive courtesy. He spoke with a slow and measured utterance. “My +instructions are to assist you in every possible way. Should you wish me to +recall the circumstances of Sunday night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please,” said Trent with ponderous gravity. Martin’s style +was making clamorous appeal to his sense of comedy. He banished with an effort +all vivacity of expression from his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I last saw Mr. Manderson—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not that yet,” Trent checked him quietly. “Tell me all +you saw of him that evening—after dinner, say. Try to recollect every +little detail.” +</p> + +<p> +“After dinner, sir?—yes. I remember that after dinner Mr. Manderson +and Mr. Marlowe walked up and down the path through the orchard, talking. If +you ask me for details, it struck me they were talking about something +important, because I heard Mr. Manderson say something when they came in +through the back entrance. He said, as near as I can remember, ‘If Harris +is there, every minute is of importance. You want to start right away. And not +a word to a soul.’ Mr. Marlowe answered, ‘Very well. I will just +change out of these clothes and then I am ready’—or words to that +effect. I heard this plainly as they passed the window of my pantry. Then Mr. +Marlowe went up to his bedroom, and Mr. Manderson entered the library and rang +for me. He handed me some letters for the postman in the morning and directed +me to sit up, as Mr. Marlowe had persuaded him to go for a drive in the car by +moonlight.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was curious,” remarked Trent. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so, sir. But I recollected what I had heard about ‘not a +word to a soul’, and I concluded that this about a moonlight drive was +intended to mislead.” +</p> + +<p> +“What time was this?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be about ten, sir, I should say. After speaking to me, Mr. +Manderson waited until Mr. Marlowe had come down and brought round the car. He +then went into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Manderson was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did that strike you as curious?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin looked down his nose. “If you ask me the question, sir,” he +said with reserve, “I had not known him enter that room since we came +here this year. He preferred to sit in the library in the evenings. That +evening he only remained with Mrs. Manderson for a few minutes. Then he and Mr. +Marlowe started immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +“You saw them start?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. They took the direction of Bishopsbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you saw Mr. Manderson again later?” +</p> + +<p> +“After an hour or thereabouts, sir, in the library. That would have been +about a quarter past eleven, I should say; I had noticed eleven striking from +the church. I may say I am peculiarly quick of hearing, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Manderson had rung the bell for you, I suppose. Yes? And what passed +when you answered it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Manderson had put out the decanter of whisky and a syphon and glass, +sir, from the cupboard where he kept them—” +</p> + +<p> +Trent held up his hand. “While we are on that point, Martin, I want to +ask you plainly, did Mr. Manderson drink very much? You understand this is not +impertinent curiosity on my part. I want you to tell me, because it may +possibly help in the clearing up of this case.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly, sir,” replied Martin gravely. “I have no +hesitation in telling you what I have already told the inspector. Mr. Manderson +was, considering his position in life, a remarkably abstemious man. In my four +years of service with him I never knew anything of an alcoholic nature pass his +lips, except a glass or two of wine at dinner, very rarely a little at +luncheon, and from time to time a whisky and soda before going to bed. He never +seemed to form a habit of it. Often I used to find his glass in the morning +with only a little soda water in it; sometimes he would have been having whisky +with it, but never much. He never was particular about his drinks; ordinary +soda was what he preferred, though I had ventured to suggest some of the +natural minerals, having personally acquired a taste for them in my previous +service. He used to keep them in the cupboard here, because he had a great +dislike of being waited on more than was necessary. It was an understood thing +that I never came near him after dinner unless sent for. And when he sent for +anything, he liked it brought quick, and to be left alone again at once. He +hated to be asked if he required anything more. Amazingly simple in his tastes, +sir, Mr. Manderson was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; and he rang for you that night about a quarter past eleven. +Now can you remember exactly what he said?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I can tell you with some approach to accuracy, sir. It was not +much. First he asked me if Mr. Bunner had gone to bed, and I replied that he +had been gone up some time. He then said that he wanted some one to sit up +until 12.30, in case an important message should come by telephone, and that +Mr. Marlowe having gone to Southampton for him in the motor, he wished me to do +this, and that I was to take down the message if it came, and not disturb him. +He also ordered a fresh syphon of soda water. I believe that was all, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“You noticed nothing unusual about him, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, nothing unusual. When I answered the ring, he was seated at the +desk listening at the telephone, waiting for a number, as I supposed. He gave +his orders and went on listening at the same time. “When I returned with +the syphon he was engaged in conversation over the wire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember anything of what he was saying?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little, sir; it was something about somebody being at some +hotel—of no interest to me. I was only in the room just time enough to +place the syphon on the table and withdraw. As I closed the door he was saying, +‘You’re sure he isn’t in the hotel?’ or words to that +effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that was the last you saw and heard of him alive?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. A little later, at half-past eleven, when I had settled down in +my pantry with the door ajar, and a book to pass the time, I heard Mr. +Manderson go upstairs to bed. I immediately went to close the library window, +and slipped the lock of the front door. I did not hear anything more.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent considered. “I suppose you didn’t doze at all,” he said +tentatively, “while you were sitting up waiting for the telephone +message?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, sir. I am always very wakeful about that time. I’m a bad +sleeper, especially in the neighbourhood of the sea, and I generally read in +bed until somewhere about midnight.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did any message come?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. And I suppose you sleep with your window open, these warm +nights?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is never closed at night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent added a last note; then he looked thoughtfully through those he had +taken. He rose and paced up and down the room for some moments with a downcast +eye. At length he paused opposite Martin. +</p> + +<p> +“It all seems perfectly ordinary and simple,” he said. “I +just want to get a few details clear. You went to shut the windows in the +library before going to bed. Which windows?” +</p> + +<p> +“The French window, sir. It had been open all day. The windows opposite +the door were seldom opened.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about the curtains? I am wondering whether any one outside the +house could have seen into the room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Easily, sir, I should say, if he had got into the grounds on that side. +The curtains were never drawn in the hot weather. Mr. Manderson would often sit +right in the doorway at nights, smoking and looking out into the darkness. But +nobody could have seen him who had any business to be there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. And now tell me this. Your hearing is very acute, you say, and +you heard Mr. Manderson enter the house when he came in after dinner from the +garden. Did you hear him re-enter it after returning from the motor +drive?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin paused. “Now you mention it, sir, I remember that I did not. His +ringing the bell in this room was the first I knew of his being back. I should +have heard him come in, if he had come in by the front. I should have heard the +door go. But he must have come in by the window.” The man reflected for a +moment, then added, “As a general rule, Mr. Manderson would come in by +the front, hang up his hat and coat in the hall, and pass down the hall into +the study. It seems likely to me that he was in a great hurry to use the +telephone, and so went straight across the lawn to the window. He was like +that, sir, when there was anything important to be done. He had his hat on, now +I remember, and had thrown his greatcoat over the end of the table. He gave his +order very sharp, too, as he always did when busy. A very precipitate man +indeed was Mr. Manderson; a hustler, as they say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! he appeared to be busy. But didn’t you say just now that you +noticed nothing unusual about him?” +</p> + +<p> +A melancholy smile flitted momentarily over Martin’s face. “That +observation shows that you did not know Mr. Manderson, sir, if you will pardon +my saying so. His being like that was nothing unusual; quite the contrary. It +took me long enough to get used to it. Either he would be sitting quite still +and smoking a cigar, thinking or reading, or else he would be writing, +dictating, and sending off wires all at the same time, till it almost made one +dizzy to see it, sometimes for an hour or more at a stretch. As for being in a +hurry over a telephone message, I may say it wasn’t in him to be anything +else.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent turned to the inspector, who met his eye with a look of answering +intelligence. Not sorry to show his understanding of the line of inquiry opened +by Trent, Mr. Murch for the first time put a question. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you left him telephoning by the open window, with the lights on, +and the drinks on the table; is that it?” “That is so, Mr. +Murch.” The delicacy of the change in Martin’s manner when called +upon to answer the detective momentarily distracted Trent’s appreciative +mind. But the big man’s next question brought it back to the problem at +once. +</p> + +<p> +“About those drinks. You say Mr. Manderson often took no whisky before +going to bed. Did he have any that night?” +</p> + +<p> +“I could not say. The room was put to rights in the morning by one of the +maids, and the glass washed, I presume, as usual. I know that the decanter was +nearly full that evening. I had refilled it a few days before, and I glanced at +it when I brought the fresh syphon, just out of habit, to make sure there was a +decent-looking amount.” +</p> + +<p> +The inspector went to the tall corner-cupboard and opened it. He took out a +decanter of cut glass and set it on the table before Martin. “Was it +fuller than that?” he asked quietly. “That’s how I found it +this morning.” The decanter was more than half empty. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time Martin’s self-possession wavered. He took up the +decanter quickly, tilted it before his eyes, and then stared amazedly at the +others. He said slowly: “There’s not much short of half a bottle +gone out of this since I last set eyes on it—and that was that Sunday +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody in the house, I suppose?” suggested Trent discreetly. +</p> + +<p> +“Out of the question!” replied Martin briefly; then he added, +“I beg pardon, sir, but this is a most extraordinary thing to me. Such a +thing never happened in all my experience of Mr. Manderson. As for the +women-servants, they never touch anything, I can answer for it; and as for me, +when I want a drink I can help myself without going to the decanters.” He +took up the decanter again and aimlessly renewed his observation of the +contents, while the inspector eyed him with a look of serene satisfaction, as a +master contemplates his handiwork. +</p> + +<p> +Trent turned to a fresh page of his notebook, and tapped it thoughtfully with +his pencil. Then he looked up and said, “I suppose Mr. Manderson had +dressed for dinner that night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir. He had on a suit with a dress-jacket, what he used to +refer to as a Tuxedo, which he usually wore when dining at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he was dressed like that when you saw him last?” +</p> + +<p> +“All but the jacket, sir. When he spent the evening in the library, as +usually happened, he would change it for an old shooting-jacket after dinner, a +light-coloured tweed, a little too loud in pattern for English tastes, perhaps. +He had it on when I saw him last. It used to hang in this cupboard +here”—Martin opened the door of it as he spoke—“along +with Mr. Manderson’s fishing-rods and such things, so that he could slip +it on after dinner without going upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leaving the dinner-jacket in the cupboard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. The housemaid used to take it upstairs in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the morning,” Trent repeated slowly. “And now that we are +speaking of the morning, will you tell me exactly what you know about that? I +understand that Mr. Manderson was not missed until the body was found about ten +o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is so, sir. Mr. Manderson would never be called, or have anything +brought to him in the morning. He occupied a separate bedroom. Usually he would +get up about eight and go round to the bathroom, and he would come down some +time before nine. But often he would sleep till nine or ten o’clock. Mrs. +Manderson was always called at seven. The maid would take in tea to her. +Yesterday morning Mrs. Manderson took breakfast about eight in her sitting-room +as usual, and every one supposed that Mr. Manderson was still in bed and +asleep, when Evans came rushing up to the house with the shocking +intelligence.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Trent. “And now another thing. You say you +slipped the lock of the front door before going to bed. Was that all the +locking-up you did?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the front door, sir, yes; I slipped the lock. No more is considered +necessary in these parts. But I had locked both the doors at the back, and seen +to the fastenings of all the windows on the ground floor. In the morning +everything was as I had left it.” +</p> + +<p> +“As you had left it. Now here is another point—the last, I think. +Were the clothes in which the body was found the clothes that Mr. Manderson +would naturally have worn that day?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin rubbed his chin. “You remind me how surprised I was when I first +set eyes on the body, sir. At first I couldn’t make out what was unusual +about the clothes, and then I saw what it was. The collar was a shape of collar +Mr. Manderson never wore except with evening dress. Then I found that he had +put on all the same things that he had worn the night before—large +fronted shirt and all—except just the coat and waistcoat and trousers, +and the brown shoes, and blue tie. As for the suit, it was one of half a dozen +he might have worn. But for him to have simply put on all the rest just because +they were there, instead of getting out the kind of shirt and things he always +wore by day; well, sir, it was unprecedented. It shows, like some other things, +what a hurry he must have been in when getting up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Trent. “Well, I think that’s all I +wanted to know. You have put everything with admirable clearness, Martin. If we +want to ask any more questions later on, I suppose you will be somewhere +about.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be at your disposal, sir.” Martin bowed, and went out +quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Trent flung himself into the armchair and exhaled a long breath. “Martin +is a great creature,” he said. “He is far, far better than a play. +There is none like him, none, nor will be when our summers have deceased. +Straight, too; not an atom of harm in dear old Martin. Do you know, Murch, you +are wrong in suspecting that man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never said a word about suspecting him.” The inspector was taken +aback. “You know, Mr. Trent, he would never have told his story like that +if he thought I suspected him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say he doesn’t think so. He is a wonderful creature, a +great artist; but, in spite of that, he is not at all a sensitive type. It has +never occurred to his mind that you, Murch, could suspect him, Martin, the +complete, the accomplished. But I know it. You must understand, inspector, that +I have made a special study of the psychology of officers of the law. It is a +grossly neglected branch of knowledge. They are far more interesting than +criminals, and not nearly so easy. All the time I was questioning him I saw +handcuffs in your eye. Your lips were mutely framing the syllables of those +tremendous words: ‘It is my duty to tell you that anything you now say +will be taken down and used in evidence against you.’ Your manner would +have deceived most men, but it could not deceive me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Murch laughed heartily. Trent’s nonsense never made any sort of +impression on his mind, but he took it as a mark of esteem, which indeed it +was; so it never failed to please him. “Well, Mr. Trent,” he said, +“you’re perfectly right. There’s no point in denying it, I +have got my eye on him. Not that there’s anything definite; but you know +as well as I do how often servants are mixed up in affairs of this kind, and +this man is such a very quiet customer. You remember the case of Lord William +Russell’s valet, who went in as usual, in the morning, to draw up the +blinds in his master’s bedroom, as quiet and starchy as you please, a few +hours after he had murdered him in his bed. I’ve talked to all the women +of the house, and I don’t believe there’s a morsel of harm in one +of them. But Martin’s not so easy set aside. I don’t like his +manner; I believe he’s hiding something. If so, I shall find it +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cease!” said Trent. “Drain not to its dregs the urn of +bitter prophecy. Let us get back to facts. Have you, as a matter of evidence, +anything at all to bring against Martin’s story as he has told it to +us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing whatever at present. As for his suggestion that Manderson came +in by way of the window after leaving Marlowe and the car, that’s right +enough, I should say. I questioned the servant who swept the room next morning, +and she tells me there were gravelly marks near the window, on this plain +drugget that goes round the carpet. And there’s a footprint in this soft +new gravel just outside.” The inspector took a folding rule from his +pocket and with it pointed out the traces. “One of the patent shoes +Manderson was wearing that night exactly fits that print; you’ll find +them,” he added, “on the top shelf in the bedroom, near the window +end, the only patents in the row. The girl who polished them in the morning +picked them out for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent bent down and studied the faint marks keenly. “Good!” he +said. “You have covered a lot of ground, Murch, I must say. That was +excellent about the whisky; you made your point finely. I felt inclined to +shout ‘Encore!’ It’s a thing that I shall have to think +over.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you might have fitted it in already,” said Mr. Murch. +“Come, Mr. Trent, we’re only at the beginning of our enquiries, but +what do you say to this for a preliminary theory? There’s a plan of +burglary, say a couple of men in it and Martin squared. They know where the +plate is, and all about the handy little bits of stuff in the drawing-room and +elsewhere. They watch the house; see Manderson off to bed; Martin comes to shut +the window, and leaves it ajar, accidentally on purpose. They wait till Martin +goes to bed at twelve-thirty; then they just walk into the library, and begin +to sample the whisky first thing. Now suppose Manderson isn’t asleep, and +suppose they make a noise opening the window, or however it might be. He hears +it; thinks of burglars; gets up very quietly to see if anything’s wrong; +creeps down on them, perhaps, just as they’re getting ready for work. +They cut and run; he chases them down to the shed, and collars one; +there’s a fight; one of them loses his temper and his head, and makes a +swinging job of it. Now, Mr. Trent, pick that to pieces.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Trent; “just to oblige you, Murch, +especially as I know you don’t believe a word of it. First: no traces of +any kind left by your burglar or burglars, and the window found fastened in the +morning, according to Martin. Not much force in that, I allow. Next: nobody in +the house hears anything of this stampede through the library, nor hears any +shout from Manderson either inside the house or outside. Next: Manderson goes +down without a word to anybody, though Bunner and Martin are both at hand. +Next: did you ever hear, in your long experience, of a householder getting up +in the night to pounce on burglars, who dressed himself fully, with +underclothing, shirt; collar and tie, trousers, waistcoat and coat, socks and +hard leather shoes; and who gave the finishing touches to a somewhat dandified +toilet by doing his hair, and putting on his watch and chain? Personally, I +call that over-dressing the part. The only decorative detail he seems to have +forgotten is his teeth.” +</p> + +<p> +The inspector leaned forward thinking, his large hands clasped before him. +“No,” he said at last. “Of course there’s no help in +that theory. I rather expect we have some way to go before we find out why a +man gets up before the servants are awake, dresses himself awry, and is +murdered within sight of his house early enough to be “cold and stiff by +ten in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent shook his head. “We can’t build anything on that last +consideration. I’ve gone into the subject with people who know. I +shouldn’t wonder,” he added, “if the traditional notions +about loss of temperature and rigour after death had occasionally brought an +innocent man to the gallows, or near it. Dr. Stock has them all, I feel sure; +most general practitioners of the older generation have. That Dr. Stock will +make an ass of himself at the inquest, is almost as certain as that +tomorrow’s sun will rise. I’ve seen him. He will say the body must +have been dead about so long, because of the degree of coldness and <i>rigor +mortis</i>. I can see him nosing it all out in some textbook that was out of +date when he was a student. Listen, Murch, and I will tell you some facts which +will be a great hindrance to you in your professional career. There are many +things that may hasten or retard the cooling of the body. This one was lying in +the long dewy grass on the shady side of the shed. As for rigidity, if +Manderson died in a struggle, or labouring under sudden emotion, his corpse +might stiffen practically instantaneously; there are dozens of cases noted, +particularly in cases of injury to the skull, like this one. On the other hand, +the stiffening might not have begun until eight or ten hours after death. You +can’t hang anybody on <i>rigor mortis</i> nowadays, inspector, much as +you may resent the limitation. No, what we <i>can</i> say is this. If he had +been shot after the hour at which the world begins to get up and go about its +business, it would have been heard, and very likely seen too. In fact, we must +reason, to begin with, at any rate, on the assumption that he wasn’t shot +at a time when people might be awake; it isn’t done in these parts. Put +that time at 6.30 a.m. Manderson went up to bed at 11 p.m., and Martin sat up +till 12.30. Assuming that he went to sleep at once on turning in, that leaves +us something like six hours for the crime to be committed in; and that is a +long time. But whenever it took place, I wish you would suggest a reason why +Manderson, who was a fairly late riser, was up and dressed at or before 6.30; +and why neither Martin, who sleeps lightly, nor Bunner, nor his wife heard him +moving about, or letting himself out of the house. He must have been careful. +He must have crept about like a cat. Do you feel as I do, Murch, about all +this; that it is very, very strange and baffling?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s how it looks,” agreed the inspector. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said Trent, rising to his feet, “I’ll leave +you to your meditations, and take a look at the bedrooms. Perhaps the +explanation of all this will suddenly burst upon you while I am poking about up +there. But,” concluded Trent in a voice of sudden exasperation, turning +round in the doorway, “if you can tell me at any time, how under the sun +a man who put on all those clothes could forget to put in his teeth, you may +kick me from here to the nearest lunatic asylum, and hand me over as an +incipient dement.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>Chapter V.<br />Poking About</h2> + +<p> +There are moments in life, as one might think, when that which is within us, +busy about its secret affair, lets escape into consciousness some hint of a +fortunate thing ordained. Who does not know what it is to feel at times a wave +of unaccountable persuasion that it is about to go well with him?—not the +feverish confidence of men in danger of a blow from fate, not the persistent +illusion of the optimist, but an unsought conviction, springing up like a bird +from the heather, that success is at hand in some great or fine thing. The +general suddenly knows at dawn that the day will bring him victory; the man on +the green suddenly knows that he will put down the long putt. As Trent mounted +the stairway outside the library door he seemed to rise into certainty of +achievement. A host of guesses and inferences swarmed apparently unsorted +through his mind; a few secret observations that he had made, and which he felt +must have significance, still stood unrelated to any plausible theory of the +crime; yet as he went up he seemed to know indubitably that light was going to +appear. +</p> + +<p> +The bedrooms lay on either side of a broad carpeted passage, lighted by a tall +end window. It went the length of the house until it ran at right angles into a +narrower passage, out of which the servants’ rooms opened. Martin’s +room was the exception: it opened out of a small landing half-way to the upper +floor. As Trent passed it he glanced within. A little square room, clean and +commonplace. In going up the rest of the stairway he stepped with elaborate +precaution against noise, hugging the wall closely and placing each foot with +care; but a series of very audible creaks marked his passage. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that Manderson’s room was the first on the right hand when the +bedroom floor was reached, and he went to it at once. He tried the latch and +the lock, which worked normally, and examined the wards of the key. Then he +turned to the room. +</p> + +<p> +It was a small apartment, strangely bare. The plutocrat’s toilet +appointments were of the simplest. All remained just as it had been on the +morning of the ghastly discovery in the grounds. The sheets and blankets of the +unmade bed lay tumbled over a narrow wooden bedstead, and the sun shone +brightly through the window upon them. It gleamed, too, upon the gold parts of +the delicate work of dentistry that lay in water in a shallow bowl of glass +placed on a small, plain table by the bedside. On this also stood a +wrought-iron candlestick. Some clothing lay untidily over one of the two +rush-bottomed chairs. Various objects on the top of a chest of drawers, which +had been used as a dressing-table, lay in such disorder as a hurried man might +make. Trent looked them over with a questing eye. He noted also that the +occupant of the room had neither washed nor shaved. With his finger he turned +over the dental plate in the bowl, and frowned again at its incomprehensible +presence. +</p> + +<p> +The emptiness and disarray of the little room, flooded by the sunbeams, were +producing in Trent a sense of gruesomeness. His fancy called up a picture of a +haggard man dressing himself in careful silence by the first light of dawn, +glancing constantly at the inner door behind which his wife slept, his eyes +full of some terror. +</p> + +<p> +Trent shivered, and to fix his mind again on actualities, opened two tall +cupboards in the wall on either side of the bed. They contained clothing, a +large choice of which had evidently been one of the very few conditions of +comfort for the man who had slept there. +</p> + +<p> +In the matter of shoes, also, Manderson had allowed himself the advantage of +wealth. An extraordinary number of these, treed and carefully kept, was ranged +on two long low shelves against the wall. No boots were among them. Trent, +himself an amateur of good shoe-leather, now turned to these, and glanced over +the collection with an appreciative eye. It was to be seen that Manderson had +been inclined to pride himself on a rather small and well-formed foot. The +shoes were of a distinctive shape, narrow and round-toed, beautifully made; all +were evidently from the same last. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly his eyes narrowed themselves over a pair of patent-leather shoes on +the upper shelf. +</p> + +<p> +These were the shoes of which the inspector had already described the position +to him; the shoes worn by Manderson the night before his death. They were a +well-worn pair, he saw at once; he saw, too, that they had been very recently +polished. Something about the uppers of these shoes had seized his attention. +He bent lower and frowned over them, comparing what he saw with the appearance +of the neighbouring shoes. Then he took them up and examined the line of +junction of the uppers with the soles. +</p> + +<p> +As he did this, Trent began unconsciously to whistle faintly, and with great +precision, an air which Inspector Murch, if he had been present, would have +recognized. +</p> + +<p> +Most men who have the habit of self-control have also some involuntary trick +which tells those who know them that they are suppressing excitement. The +inspector had noted that when Trent had picked up a strong scent he whistled +faintly a certain melodious passage; though the inspector could not have told +you that it was in fact the opening movement of Mendelssohn’s <i>Lied +ohne Worter</i> in A Major. +</p> + +<p> +He turned the shoes over, made some measurements with a marked tape, and looked +minutely at the bottoms. On each, in the angle between the heel and the instep, +he detected a faint trace of red gravel. +</p> + +<p> +Trent placed the shoes on the floor, and walked with his hands behind him to +the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with eyes that saw +nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the Englishman’s +expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to the shelves again, +and swiftly but carefully examined every one of the shoes there. +</p> + +<p> +This done, he took up the garments from the chair, looked them over closely and +replaced them. He turned to the wardrobe cupboards again, and hunted through +them carefully. The litter on the dressing-table now engaged his attention for +the second time. Then he sat down on the empty chair, took his head in his +hands, and remained in that attitude, staring at the carpet, for some minutes. +He rose at last and opened the inner door leading to Mrs. Manderson’s +room. +</p> + +<p> +It was evident at a glance that the big room had been hurriedly put down from +its place as the lady’s bower. All the array of objects that belong to a +woman’s dressing-table had been removed; on bed and chairs and smaller +tables there were no garments or hats, bags or boxes; no trace remained of the +obstinate conspiracy of gloves and veils, handkerchiefs and ribbons, to break +the captivity of the drawer. The room was like an unoccupied guest-chamber. Yet +in every detail of furniture and decoration it spoke of an unconventional but +exacting taste. Trent, as his expert eye noted the various perfection of colour +and form amid which the ill-mated lady dreamed her dreams and thought her +loneliest thoughts, knew that she had at least the resources of an artistic +nature. His interest in this unknown personality grew stronger; and his brows +came down heavily as he thought of the burdens laid upon it, and of the deed of +which the history was now shaping itself with more and more of substance before +his busy mind. +</p> + +<p> +He went first to the tall French window in the middle of the wall that faced +the door, and opening it, stepped out upon a small balcony with an iron +railing. He looked down on a broad stretch of lawn that began immediately +beneath him, separated from the house-wall only by a narrow flower-bed, and +stretched away, with an abrupt dip at the farther end, toward the orchard. The +other window opened with a sash above the garden-entrance of the library. In +the farther inside corner of the room was a second door giving upon the +passage; the door by which the maid was wont to come in, and her mistress to go +out, in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Trent, seated on the bed, quickly sketched in his notebook a plan of the room +and its neighbour. The bed stood in the angle between the communicating-door +and the sash-window, its head against the wall dividing the room from +Manderson’s. Trent stared at the pillows; then he lay down with +deliberation on the bed and looked through the open door into the adjoining +room. +</p> + +<p> +This observation taken, he rose again and proceeded to note on his plan that on +either side of the bed was a small table with a cover. Upon that furthest from +the door was a graceful electric-lamp standard of copper connected by a free +wire with the wall. Trent looked at it thoughtfully, then at the switches +connected with the other lights in the room. They were, as usual, on the wall +just within the door, and some way out of his reach as he sat on the bed. He +rose, and satisfied himself that the lights were all in order. Then he turned +on his heel, walked quickly into Manderson’s room, and rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“I want your help again, Martin,” he said, as the butler presented +himself, upright and impassive, in the doorway. “I want you to prevail +upon Mrs. Manderson’s maid to grant me an interview.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir,” said Martin. +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of a woman is she? Has she her wits about her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s French, sir,” replied Martin succinctly; adding after +a pause: “She has not been with us long, sir, but I have formed the +impression that the young woman knows as much of the world as is good for +her—since you ask me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think butter might possibly melt in her mouth, do you?” said +Trent. “Well, I am not afraid. I want to put some questions to +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will send her up immediately, sir.” The butler withdrew, and +Trent wandered round the little room with his hands at his back. Sooner than he +had expected, a small neat figure in black appeared quietly before him. +</p> + +<p> +The lady’s maid, with her large brown eyes, had taken favourable notice +of Trent from a window when he had crossed the lawn, and had been hoping +desperately that the resolver of mysteries (whose reputation was as great +below-stairs as elsewhere) would send for her. For one thing, she felt the need +to make a scene; her nerves were overwrought. But her scenes were at a discount +with the other domestics, and as for Mr. Murch, he had chilled her into +self-control with his official manner. Trent, her glimpse of him had told her, +had not the air of a policeman, and at a distance he had appeared +<i>sympathique</i>. +</p> + +<p> +As she entered the room, however, instinct decided for her that any approach to +coquetry would be a mistake, if she sought to make a good impression at the +beginning. It was with an air of amiable candour, then, that she said, +“Monsieur desire to speak with me.” She added helpfully, “I +am called Célestine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally,” said Trent with businesslike calm. “Now what I +want you to tell me, Célestine, is this. When you took tea to your mistress +yesterday morning at seven o’clock, was the door between the two +bedrooms—this door here—open?” +</p> + +<p> +Célestine became intensely animated in an instant. “Oh yes!” she +said, using her favourite English idiom. “The door was open as always, +monsieur, and I shut it as always. But it is necessary to explain. Listen! When +I enter the room of madame from the other door in there—ah! but if +monsieur will give himself the pain to enter the other room, all explains +itself.” She tripped across to the door, and urged Trent before her into +the larger bedroom with a hand on his arm. “See! I enter the room with +the tea like this. I approach the bed. Before I come quite near the bed, here +is the door to my right hand—open always—so! But monsieur can +perceive that I see nothing in the room of Monsieur Manderson. The door opens +to the bed, not to me who approach from down there. I shut it without seeing +in. It is the order. Yesterday it was as ordinary. I see nothing of the next +room. Madame sleep like an angel—she see nothing. I shut the door. I +place the <i>plateau</i>—I open the curtains—I prepare the +toilette—I retire—voilà!” Célestine paused for breath and +spread her hands abroad. +</p> + +<p> +Trent, who had followed her movements and gesticulations with deepening +gravity, nodded his head. “I see exactly how it was now,” he said. +“Thank you, Célestine. So Mr. Manderson was supposed to be still in his +room while your mistress was getting up, and dressing, and having breakfast in +her boudoir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oui, monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody missed him, in fact,” remarked Trent. “Well, +Célestine, I am very much obliged to you.” He reopened the door to the +outer bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing, monsieur,” said Célestine, as she crossed the small +room. “I hope that monsieur will catch the assassin of Monsieur +Manderson. But I not regret him too much,” she added with sudden and +amazing violence, turning round with her hand on the knob of the outer door. +She set her teeth with an audible sound, and the colour rose in her small dark +face. English departed from her. “Je ne le regrette pas du tout, du +tout!” she cried with a flood of words. “Madame—ah! je me +jetterais au feu pour madame—une femme si charmante, si adorable! Mais un +homme comme monsieur—maussade, boudeur, impassible! Ah, non!—de ma +vie! J’en avais par-dessus la tête, de monsieur! Ah! vrai! Est-ce +insupportable, tout de même, qu’il existe des types comme ça? Je vous +jure que—” +</p> + +<p> +“Finissez ce chahut, Célestine!” Trent broke in sharply. +Célestine’s tirade had brought back the memory of his student days with a +rush. “En voilà une scène! C’est rasant, vous savez. Faut rentret +ça, mademoiselle. Du reste, c’est bien imprudent, croyez-moi. Hang it! +Have some common sense! If the inspector downstairs heard you saying that kind +of thing, you would get into trouble. And don’t wave your fists about so +much; you might hit something. You seem,” he went on more pleasantly, as +Célestine grew calmer under his authoritative eye, “to be even more glad +than other people that Mr. Manderson is out of the way. I could almost suspect, +Célestine, that Mr. Manderson did not take as much notice of you as you thought +necessary and right.” +</p> + +<p> +“A peine s’il m’avait regardé!” Célestine answered +simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Ça, c’est un comble!” observed Trent. “You are a nice +young woman for a small tea-party, I don’t think. A star upon your +birthday burned, whose fierce, serene, red, pulseless planet never yearned in +heaven, Célestine. Mademoiselle, I am busy. Bon jour. You certainly are a +beauty!” +</p> + +<p> +Célestine took this as a scarcely expected compliment. The surprise restored +her balance. With a sudden flash of her eyes and teeth at Trent over her +shoulder, the lady’s maid opened the door and swiftly disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Trent, left alone in the little bedroom, relieved his mind with two forcible +descriptive terms in Célestine’s language, and turned to his problem. He +took the pair of shoes which he had already examined, and placed them on one of +the two chairs in the room, then seated himself on the other opposite to this. +With his hands in his pockets he sat with eyes fixed upon those two dumb +witnesses. Now and then he whistled, almost inaudibly, a few bars. It was very +still in the room. A subdued twittering came from the trees through the open +window. From time to time a breeze rustled in the leaves of the thick creeper +about the sill. But the man in the room, his face grown hard and sombre now +with his thoughts, never moved. +</p> + +<p> +So he sat for the space of half an hour. Then he rose quickly to his feet. He +replaced the shoes on their shelf with care, and stepped out upon the landing. +</p> + +<p> +Two bedroom doors faced him on the other side of the passage. He opened that +which was immediately opposite, and entered a bedroom by no means austerely +tidy. Some sticks and fishing-rods stood confusedly in one corner, a pile of +books in another. The housemaid’s hand had failed to give a look of order +to the jumble of heterogeneous objects left on the dressing-table and on the +mantelshelf—pipes, penknives, pencils, keys, golf-balls, old letters, +photographs, small boxes, tins, and bottles. Two fine etchings and some +water-colour sketches hung on the walls; leaning against the end of the +wardrobe, unhung, were a few framed engravings. A row of shoes and boots was +ranged beneath the window. Trent crossed the room and studied them intently; +then he measured some of them with his tape, whistling very softly. This done, +he sat on the side of the bed, and his eyes roamed gloomily about the room. +</p> + +<p> +The photographs on the mantelshelf attracted him presently. He rose and +examined one representing Marlowe and Manderson on horseback. Two others were +views of famous peaks in the Alps. There was a faded print of three +youths—one of them unmistakably his acquaintance of the haggard blue +eyes—clothed in tatterdemalion soldier’s gear of the sixteenth +century. Another was a portrait of a majestic old lady, slightly resembling +Marlowe. Trent, mechanically taking a cigarette from an open box on the +mantel-shelf, lit it and stared at the photographs. Next he turned his +attention to a flat leathern case that lay by the cigarette-box. +</p> + +<p> +It opened easily. A small and light revolver, of beautiful workmanship, was +disclosed, with a score or so of loose cartridges. On the stock were engraved +the initials “J. M.” +</p> + +<p> +A step was heard on the stairs, and as Trent opened the breech and peered into +the barrel of the weapon, Inspector Murch appeared at the open door of the +room. “I was wondering—” he began; then stopped as he saw +what the other was about. His intelligent eyes opened slightly. “Whose is +the revolver, Mr. Trent?” he asked in a conversational tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Evidently it belongs to the occupant of the room, Mr. Marlowe,” +replied Trent with similar lightness, pointing to the initials. “I found +this lying about on the mantelpiece. It seems a handy little pistol to me, and +it has been very carefully cleaned, I should say, since the last time it was +used. But I know little about firearms.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I know a good deal,” rejoined the inspector quietly, taking +the revolver from Trent’s outstretched hand. “It’s a bit of a +speciality with me, is firearms, as I think you know, Mr. Trent. But it +don’t require an expert to tell one thing.” He replaced the +revolver in its case on the mantel-shelf, took out one of the cartridges, and +laid it on the spacious palm of one hand; then, taking a small object from his +waistcoat pocket, he laid it beside the cartridge. It was a little leaden +bullet, slightly battered about the nose, and having upon it some bright new +scratches. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that <i>the</i> one?” Trent murmured as he bent over the +inspector’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s him,” replied Mr. Murch. “Lodged in the bone at +the back of the skull. Dr Stock got it out within the last hour, and handed it +to the local officer, who has just sent it on to me. These bright scratches you +see were made by the doctor’s instruments. These other marks were made by +the rifling of the barrel—a barrel like this one.” He tapped the +revolver. “Same make, same calibre. There is no other that marks the +bullet just like this.” +</p> + +<p> +With the pistol in its case between them, Trent and the inspector looked into +each other’s eyes for some moments. Trent was the first to speak. +“This mystery is all wrong,” he observed. “It is insanity. +The symptoms of mania are very marked. Let us see how we stand. We were not in +any doubt, I believe, about Manderson having dispatched Marlowe in the car to +Southampton, or about Marlowe having gone, returning late last night, many +hours after the murder was committed.” +</p> + +<p> +“There <i>is</i> no doubt whatever about all that,” said Mr. Murch, +with a slight emphasis on the verb. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” pursued Trent, “we are invited by this polished +and insinuating firearm to believe the following line of propositions: that +Marlowe never went to Southampton; that he returned to the house in the night; +that he somehow, without waking Mrs. Manderson or anybody else, got Manderson +to get up, dress himself, and go out into the grounds; that he then and there +shot the said Manderson with his incriminating pistol; that he carefully +cleaned the said pistol, returned to the house and, again without disturbing +any one, replaced it in its case in a favourable position to be found by the +officers of the law; that he then withdrew and spent the rest of the day in +hiding—<i>with</i> a large motor car; and that he turned up, feigning +ignorance of the whole affair, at—what time was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little after 9 p.m.” The inspector still stared moodily at +Trent. “As you say, Mr. Trent, that is the first theory suggested by this +find, and it seems wild enough—at least it would do if it didn’t +fall to pieces at the very start. When the murder was done Marlowe must have +been fifty to a hundred miles away. He <i>did</i> go to Southampton.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I questioned him last night, and took down his story. He arrived in +Southampton about 6.30 on the Monday morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come off” exclaimed Trent bitterly. “What do I care about +his story? What do you care about his story? I want to know how you <i>know</i> +he went to Southampton.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Murch chuckled. “I thought I should take a rise out of you, Mr. +Trent,” he said. “Well, there’s no harm in telling you. After +I arrived yesterday evening, as soon as I had got the outlines of the story +from Mrs. Manderson and the servants, the first thing I did was to go to the +telegraph office and wire to our people in Southampton. Manderson had told his +wife when he went to bed that he had changed his mind, and sent Marlowe to +Southampton to get some important information from some one who was crossing by +the next day’s boat. It seemed right enough, but, you see, Marlowe was +the only one of the household who wasn’t under my hand, so to speak. He +didn’t return in the car until later in the evening; so before thinking +the matter out any further, I wired to Southampton making certain enquiries. +Early this morning I got this reply.” He handed a series of telegraph +slips to Trent, who read: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Person answering description in motor answering description arrived Bedford +Hotel here 6.30 this morning gave name Marlowe left car hotel garage told +attendant car belonged Manderson had bath and breakfast went out heard of later +at docks inquiring for passenger name Harris on Havre boat inquired repeatedly +until boat left at noon next heard of at hotel where he lunched about 1.15 left +soon afterwards in car company’s agents inform berth was booked name +Harris last week but Harris did not travel by boat Burke Inspector. +</p> + +<p> +“Simple and satisfactory,” observed Mr. Murch as Trent, after twice +reading the message, returned it to him. “His own story corroborated in +every particular. He told me he hung about the dock for half an hour or so on +the chance of Harris turning up late, then strolled back, lunched, and decided +to return at once. He sent a wire to Manderson—‘Harris not turned +up missed boat returning Marlowe,’ which was duly delivered here in the +afternoon, and placed among the dead man’s letters. He motored back at a +good rate, and arrived dog-tired. When he heard of Manderson’s death from +Martin, he nearly fainted. What with that and the being without sleep for so +long, he was rather a wreck when I came to interview him last night; but he was +perfectly coherent.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent picked up the revolver and twirled the cylinder idly for a few moments. +“It was unlucky for Manderson that Marlowe left his pistol and cartridges +about so carelessly,” he remarked at length, as he put it back in the +case. “It was throwing temptation in somebody’s way, don’t +you think?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Murch shook his head. “There isn’t really much to lay hold of +about the revolver, when you come to think. That particular make of revolver is +common enough in England. It was introduced from the States. Half the people +who buy a revolver today for self-defence or mischief provide themselves with +that make, of that calibre. It is very reliable, and easily carried in the +hip-pocket. There must be thousands of them in the possession of crooks and +honest men. For instance,” continued the inspector with an air of +unconcern, “Manderson himself had one, the double of this. I found it in +one of the top drawers of the desk downstairs, and it’s in my overcoat +pocket now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aha! so you were going to keep that little detail to yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was,” said the inspector; “but as you’ve found one +revolver, you may as well know about the other. As I say, neither of them may +do us any good. The people in the house—” +</p> + +<p> +Both men started, and the inspector checked his speech abruptly, as the +half-closed door of the bedroom was slowly pushed open, and a man stood in the +doorway. His eyes turned from the pistol in its open case to the faces of Trent +and the inspector. They, who had not heard a sound to herald this entrance, +simultaneously looked at his long, narrow feet. He wore rubber-soled tennis +shoes. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be Mr. Bunner,” said Trent. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>Chapter VI.<br />Mr. Bunner on the Case</h2> + +<p> +“Calvin C. Bunner, at your service,” amended the newcomer, with a +touch of punctilio, as he removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth. He was +used to finding Englishmen slow and ceremonious with strangers, and +Trent’s quick remark plainly disconcerted him a little. “You are +Mr. Trent, I expect,” he went on. “Mrs. Manderson was telling me a +while ago. Captain, good-morning.” Mr. Murch acknowledged the outlandish +greeting with a nod. “I was coming up to my room, and I heard a strange +voice in here, so I thought I would take a look in.” Mr. Bunner laughed +easily. “You thought I might have been eavesdropping, perhaps,” he +said. “No, sir; I heard a word or two about a pistol—this one, I +guess—and that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner was a thin, rather short young man with a shaven, pale, bony, almost +girlish face, and large, dark, intelligent eyes. His waving dark hair was +parted in the middle. His lips, usually occupied with a cigar, in its absence +were always half open with a curious expression as of permanent eagerness. By +smoking or chewing a cigar this expression was banished, and Mr. Bunner then +looked the consummately cool and sagacious Yankee that he was. +</p> + +<p> +Born in Connecticut, he had gone into a broker’s office on leaving +college, and had attracted the notice of Manderson, whose business with his +firm he had often handled. The Colossus had watched him for some time, and at +length offered him the post of private secretary. Mr. Bunner was a pattern +business man, trustworthy, long-headed, methodical, and accurate. Manderson +could have found many men with those virtues; but he engaged Mr Bunner because +he was also swift and secret, and had besides a singular natural instinct in +regard to the movements of the stock market. +</p> + +<p> +Trent and the American measured one another coolly with their eyes. Both +appeared satisfied with what they saw. “I was having it explained to +me,” said Trent pleasantly, “that my discovery of a pistol that +might have shot Manderson does not amount to very much. I am told it is a +favourite weapon among your people, and has become quite popular over +here.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner stretched out a bony hand and took the pistol from its case. +“Yes, sir,” he said, handling it with an air of familiarity; +“the captain is right. This is what we call out home a Little Arthur, and +I dare say there are duplicates of it in a hundred thousand hip-pockets this +minute. I consider it too light in the hand myself,” Mr. Bunner went on, +mechanically feeling under the tail of his jacket, and producing an ugly +looking weapon. “Feel of that, now, Mr. Trent—it’s loaded, by +the way. Now this Little Arthur—Marlowe bought it just before we came +over this year to please the old man. Manderson said it was ridiculous for a +man to be without a pistol in the twentieth century. So he went out and bought +what they offered him, I guess—never consulted me. Not but what +it’s a good gun,” Mr. Bunner conceded, squinting along the sights. +“Marlowe was poor with it at first, but I’ve coached him some in +the last month or so, and he’s practised until he is pretty good. But he +never could get the habit of carrying it around. Why, it’s as natural to +me as wearing my pants. I have carried one for some years now, because there +was always likely to be somebody laying for Manderson. And now,” Mr. +Bunner concluded sadly, “they got him when I wasn’t around. Well, +gentlemen, you must excuse me. I am going into Bishopsbridge. There is a lot to +do these days, and I have to send off a bunch of cables big enough to choke a +cow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must be off too,” said Trent. “I have an appointment at +the ‘Three Tuns’ inn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me give you a lift in the automobile,” said Mr. Bunner +cordially. “I go right by that joint. Say, cap., are you coming my way +too? No? Then come along, Mr. Trent, and help me get out the car. The chauffeur +is out of action, and we have to do ’most everything ourselves except +clean the dirt off her.” +</p> + +<p> +Still tirelessly talking in his measured drawl, Mr. Bunner led Trent downstairs +and through the house to the garage at the back. It stood at a little distance +from the house, and made a cool retreat from the blaze of the midday sun. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner seemed to be in no hurry to get out the car. He offered Trent a +cigar, which was accepted, and for the first time lit his own. Then he seated +himself on the footboard of the car, his thin hands clasped between his knees, +and looked keenly at the other. +</p> + +<p> +“See here, Mr. Trent,” he said, after a few moments. “There +are some things I can tell you that may be useful to you. I know your record. +You are a smart man, and I like dealing with smart men. I don’t know if I +have that detective sized up right, but he strikes me as a mutt. I would answer +any questions he had the gumption to ask me—I have done so, in +fact—but I don’t feel encouraged to give him any notions of mine +without his asking. See?” +</p> + +<p> +Trent nodded. “That is a feeling many people have in the presence of our +police,” he said. “It’s the official manner, I suppose. But +let me tell you, Murch is anything but what you think. He is one of the +shrewdest officers in Europe. He is not very quick with his mind, but he is +very sure. And his experience is immense. My forte is imagination, but I assure +you in police work experience outweighs it by a great deal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Outweigh nothing!” replied Mr. Bunner crisply. “This is no +ordinary case, Mr. Trent. I will tell you one reason why. I believe the old man +knew there was something coming to him. Another thing: I believe it was +something he thought he couldn’t dodge.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent pulled a crate opposite to Mr. Bunner’s place on the footboard and +seated himself. “This sounds like business,” he said. “Tell +me your ideas.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say what I do because of the change in the old man’s manner this +last few weeks. I dare say you have heard, Mr. Trent, that he was a man who +always kept himself well in hand. That was so. I have always considered him the +coolest and hardest head in business. That man’s calm was just +deadly—I never saw anything to beat it. And I knew Manderson as nobody +else did. I was with him in the work he really lived for. I guess I knew him a +heap better than his wife did, poor woman. I knew him better than Marlowe +could—he never saw Manderson in his office when there was a big thing on. +I knew him better than any of his friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“Had he any friends?” interjected Trent. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner glanced at him sharply. “Somebody has been putting you next, I +see that,” he remarked. “No: properly speaking, I should say not. +He had many acquaintances among the big men, people he saw, most every day; +they would even go yachting or hunting together. But I don’t believe +there ever was a man that Manderson opened a corner of his heart to. But what I +was going to say was this. Some months ago the old man began to get like I +never knew him before—gloomy and sullen, just as if he was everlastingly +brooding over something bad, something that he couldn’t fix. This went on +without any break; it was the same down town as it was up home, he acted just +as if there was something lying heavy on his mind. But it wasn’t until a +few weeks back that his self-restraint began to go; and let me tell you this, +Mr. Trent”—the American laid his bony claw on the other’s +knee—“I’m the only man that knows it. With every one else he +would be just morose and dull; but when he was alone with me in his office, or +anywhere where we would be working together, if the least little thing went +wrong, by George! he would fly off the handle to beat the Dutch. In this +library here I have seen him open a letter with something that didn’t +just suit him in it, and he would rip around and carry on like an Indian, +saying he wished he had the man that wrote it here, he wouldn’t do a +thing to him, and so on, till it was just pitiful. I never saw such a change. +And here’s another thing. For a week before he died Manderson neglected +his work, for the first time in my experience. He wouldn’t answer a +letter or a cable, though things looked like going all to pieces over there. I +supposed that this anxiety of his, whatever it was, had got on to his nerves +till they were worn out. Once I advised him to see a doctor, and he told me to +go to hell. But nobody saw this side of him but me. If he was having one of +these rages in the library here, for example, and Mrs. Manderson would come +into the room, he would be all calm and cold again in an instant.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you put this down to some secret anxiety, a fear that somebody had +designs on his life?” asked Trent. +</p> + +<p> +The American nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” Trent resumed, “you had considered the idea of +there being something wrong with his mind—a break-down from overstrain, +say. That is the first thought that your account suggests to me. Besides, it is +what is always happening to your big business men in America, isn’t it? +That is the impression one gets from the newspapers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let them slip you any of that bunk,” said Mr. Bunner +earnestly. “It’s only the ones who have got rich too quick, and +can’t make good, who go crazy. Think of all our really big men—the +men anywhere near Manderson’s size: did you ever hear of any one of them +losing his senses? They don’t do it—believe <i>me</i>. I know they +say every man has his loco point,” Mr. Bunner added reflectively, +“but that doesn’t mean genuine, sure-enough craziness; it just +means some personal eccentricity in a man ... like hating cats ... or my own +weakness of not being able to touch any kind of fish-food.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what was Manderson’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was full of them—the old man. There was his objection to all +the unnecessary fuss and luxury that wealthy people don’t kick at much, +as a general rule. He didn’t have any use for expensive trifles and +ornaments. He wouldn’t have anybody do little things for him; he hated to +have servants tag around after him unless he wanted them. And although +Manderson was as careful about his clothes as any man I ever knew, and his +shoes—well, sir, the amount of money he spent on shoes was +sinful—in spite of that, I tell you, he never had a valet. He never liked +to have anybody touch him. All his life nobody ever shaved him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard something of that,” Trent remarked. “Why +was it, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” Mr. Bunner answered slowly, “it was the Manderson +habit of mind, I guess; a sort of temper of general suspicion and jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +“They say his father and grandfather were just the same.... Like a dog +with a bone, you know, acting as if all the rest of creation was laying for a +chance to steal it. He didn’t really <i>think</i> the barber would start +in to saw his head off; he just felt there was a possibility that he +<i>might</i>, and he was taking no risks. Then again in business he was always +convinced that somebody else was after his bone—which was true enough a +good deal of the time; but not all the time. The consequence of that was that +the old man was the most cautious and secret worker in the world of finance; +and that had a lot to do with his success, too.... But that doesn’t +amount to being a lunatic, Mr. Trent; not by a long way. You ask me if +Manderson was losing his mind before he died. I say I believe he was just worn +out with worrying over something, and was losing his nerve.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent smoked thoughtfully. He wondered how much Mr. Bunner knew of the domestic +difficulty in his chief’s household, and decided to put out a feeler. +“I understood that he had trouble with his wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” replied Mr. Bunner. “But do you suppose a thing like +that was going to upset Sig Manderson that way? No, sir! He was a sight too big +a man to be all broken up by any worry of that kind.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent looked half-incredulously into the eyes of the young man. But behind all +their shrewdness and intensity he saw a massive innocence. Mr. Bunner really +believed a serious breach between husband and wife to be a minor source of +trouble for a big man. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>was</i> the trouble between them, anyhow?” Trent inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“You can search me,” Mr. Bunner replied briefly. He puffed at his +cigar. “Marlowe and I have often talked about it, and we could never make +out a solution. I had a notion at first,” said Mr. Bunner in a lower +voice, leaning forward, “that the old man was disappointed and vexed +because he had expected a child; but Marlowe told me that the disappointment on +that score was the other way around, likely as not. His idea was all right, I +guess; he gathered it from something said by Mrs. Manderson’s French +maid.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent looked up at him quickly. “Célestine!” he said; and his +thought was, “So that was what she was getting at!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner misunderstood his glance. “Don’t you think I’m +giving a man away, Mr. Trent,” he said. “Marlowe isn’t that +kind. Célestine just took a fancy to him because he talks French like a native, +and she would always be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite +unlike English that way. And servant or no servant,” added Mr. Bunner +with emphasis, “I don’t see how a woman could mention such a +subject to a man. But the French beat me.” He shook his head slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“But to come back to what you were telling me just now,” Trent +said. “You believe that Manderson was going in terror of his life for +some time. Who should threaten it? I am quite in the dark.” +</p> + +<p> +“Terror—I don’t know,” replied Mr. Bunner meditatively. +“Anxiety, if you like. Or suspense—that’s rather my idea of +it. The old man was hard to terrify, anyway; and more than that, he +wasn’t taking any precautions—he was actually avoiding them. It +looked more like he was asking for a quick finish—supposing there’s +any truth in my idea. Why, he would sit in that library window, nights, looking +out into the dark, with his white shirt just a target for anybody’s gun. +As for who should threaten his life well, sir,” said Mr. Bunner with a +faint smile, “it’s certain you have not lived in the States. To +take the Pennsylvania coal hold-up alone, there were thirty thousand men, with +women and children to keep, who would have jumped at the chance of drilling a +hole through the man who fixed it so that they must starve or give in to his +terms. Thirty thousand of the toughest aliens in the country, Mr. Trent. +There’s a type of desperado you find in that kind of push who has been +known to lay for a man for years, and kill him when he had forgotten what he +did. They have been known to dynamite a man in Idaho who had done them dirt in +New Jersey ten years before. Do you suppose the Atlantic is going to stop +them?... It takes some sand, I tell you, to be a big business man in our +country. No, sir: the old man knew—had always known—that there was +a whole crowd of dangerous men scattered up and down the States who had it in +for him. My belief is that he had somehow got to know that some of them were +definitely after him at last. What licks me altogether is why he should have +just laid himself open to them the way he did—why he never tried to +dodge, but walked right down into the garden yesterday morning to be shot +at.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner ceased to speak, and for a little while both men sat with wrinkled +brows, faint blue vapours rising from their cigars. Then Trent rose. +“Your theory is quite fresh to me,” he said. “It’s +perfectly rational, and it’s only a question of whether it fits all the +facts. I mustn’t give away what I’m doing for my newspaper, Mr. +Bunner, but I will say this: I have already satisfied myself that this was a +premeditated crime, and an extraordinarily cunning one at that. I’m +deeply obliged to you. We must talk it over again.” He looked at his +watch. “I have been expected for some time by my friend. Shall we make a +move?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two o’clock,” said Mr. Bunner, consulting his own, as he got +up from the foot-board. “Ten a.m. in little old New York. You don’t +know Wall Street, Mr. Trent. Let’s you and I hope we never see anything +nearer hell than what’s loose in the Street this minute.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Chapter VII.<br />The Lady in Black</h2> + +<p> +The sea broke raging upon the foot of the cliff under a good breeze; the sun +flooded the land with life from a dappled blue sky. In this perfection of +English weather Trent, who had slept ill, went down before eight o’clock +to a pool among the rocks, the direction of which had been given him, and dived +deep into clear water. Between vast grey boulders he swam out to the tossing +open, forced himself some little way against a coast-wise current, and then +returned to his refuge battered and refreshed. Ten minutes later he was scaling +the cliff again, and his mind, cleared for the moment of a heavy disgust for +the affair he had in hand, was turning over his plans for the morning. +</p> + +<p> +It was the day of the inquest, the day after his arrival in the place. He had +carried matters not much further after parting with the American on the road to +Bishopsbridge. In the afternoon he had walked from the inn into the town, +accompanied by Mr. Cupples, and had there made certain purchases at a +chemist’s shop, conferred privately for some time with a photographer, +sent off a reply-paid telegram, and made an enquiry at the telephone exchange. +He had said but little about the case to Mr. Cupples, who seemed incurious on +his side, and nothing at all about the results of his investigation or the +steps he was about to take. After their return from Bishopsbridge, Trent had +written a long dispatch for the <i>Record</i> and sent it to be telegraphed by +the proud hands of the paper’s local representative. He had afterwards +dined with Mr. Cupples, and had spent the rest of the evening in meditative +solitude on the veranda. +</p> + +<p> +This morning as he scaled the cliff he told himself that he had never taken up +a case he liked so little, or which absorbed him so much. The more he +contemplated it in the golden sunshine of this new day, the more evil and the +more challenging it appeared. All that he suspected and all that he almost knew +had occupied his questing brain for hours to the exclusion of sleep; and in +this glorious light and air, though washed in body and spirit by the fierce +purity of the sea, he only saw the more clearly the darkness of the guilt in +which he believed, and was more bitterly repelled by the motive at which he +guessed. But now at least his zeal was awake again, and the sense of the hunt +quickened. He would neither slacken nor spare; here need be no compunction. In +the course of the day, he hoped, his net would be complete. He had work to do +in the morning; and with very vivid expectancy, though not much serious hope, +he awaited the answer to the telegram which he had shot into the sky, as it +were, the day before. +</p> + +<p> +The path back to the hotel wound for some way along the top of the cliff, and +on nearing a spot he had marked from the sea level, where the face had fallen +away long ago, he approached the edge and looked down, hoping to follow with +his eyes the most delicately beautiful of all the movements of water—the +wash of a light sea over broken rock. But no rock was there. A few feet below +him a broad ledge stood out, a rough platform as large as a great room, thickly +grown with wiry grass and walled in steeply on three sides. There, close to the +verge where the cliff at last dropped sheer, a woman was sitting, her arms +about her drawn-up knees, her eyes fixed on the trailing smoke of a distant +liner, her face full of some dream. +</p> + +<p> +This woman seemed to Trent, whose training had taught him to live in his eyes, +to make the most beautiful picture he had ever seen. Her face of southern +pallor, touched by the kiss of the wind with colour on the cheek, presented to +him a profile of delicate regularity in which there was nothing hard; +nevertheless the black brows bending down toward the point where they almost +met gave her in repose a look of something like severity, strangely redeemed by +the open curves of the mouth. Trent said to himself that the absurdity or +otherwise of a lover writing sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow depended +after all on the quality of the eyebrow. Her nose was of the straight and fine +sort, exquisitely escaping the perdition of too much length, which makes a +conscientious mind ashamed that it cannot help, on occasion, admiring the +tip-tilted. Her hat lay pinned to the grass beside her, and the lively breeze +played with her thick dark hair, blowing backward the two broad bandeaux that +should have covered much of her forehead, and agitating a hundred tiny curls +from the mass gathered at her nape. Everything about this lady was black, from +her shoes of suede to the hat that she had discarded; lustreless black covered +her to her bare throat. All she wore was fine and well put on. Dreamy and +delicate of spirit as her looks declared her, it was very plain that she was +long-practised as only a woman grown can be in dressing well, the oldest of the +arts, and had her touch of primal joy in the excellence of the body that was so +admirably curved now in the attitude of embraced knees. With the suggestion of +French taste in her clothes, she made a very modern figure seated there, until +one looked at her face and saw the glow and triumph of all vigorous beings that +ever faced sun and wind and sea together in the prime of the year. One saw, +too, a womanhood so unmixed and vigorous, so unconsciously sure of itself, as +scarcely to be English, still less American. +</p> + +<p> +Trent, who had halted only for a moment in the surprise of seeing the woman in +black, had passed by on the cliff above her, perceiving and feeling as he went +the things set down. At all times his keen vision and active brain took in and +tasted details with an easy swiftness that was marvellous to men of slower +chemistry; the need to stare, he held, was evidence of blindness. Now the +feeling of beauty was awakened and exultant, and doubled the power of his +sense. In these instants a picture was printed on his memory that would never +pass away. +</p> + +<p> +As he went by unheard on the turf the woman, still alone with her thoughts, +suddenly moved. She unclasped her long hands from about her knees, stretched +her limbs and body with feline grace, then slowly raised her head and extended +her arms with open, curving fingers, as if to gather to her all the glory and +overwhelming sanity of the morning. This was a gesture not to be mistaken: it +was a gesture of freedom, the movement of a soul’s resolution to be, to +possess, to go forward, perhaps to enjoy. +</p> + +<p> +So he saw her for an instant as he passed, and he did not turn. He knew +suddenly who the woman must be, and it was as if a curtain of gloom were drawn +between him and the splendour of the day. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +During breakfast at the hotel Mr. Cupples found Trent little inclined to talk. +He excused himself on the plea of a restless night. Mr. Cupples, on the other +hand, was in a state of bird-like alertness. The prospect of the inquest seemed +to enliven him. He entertained Trent with a disquisition upon the history of +that most ancient and once busy tribunal, the coroner’s court, and +remarked upon the enviable freedom of its procedure from the shackles of rule +and precedent. From this he passed to the case that was to come before it that +morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Young Bunner mentioned to me last night,” he said, “when I +went up there after dinner, the hypothesis which he puts forward in regard to +the crime. A very remarkable young man, Trent. His meaning is occasionally +obscure, but in my opinion he is gifted with a clearheaded knowledge of the +world quite unusual in one of his apparent age. Indeed, his promotion by +Manderson to the position of his principal lieutenant speaks for itself. He +seems to have assumed with perfect confidence the control at this end of the +wire, as he expresses it, of the complicated business situation caused by the +death of his principal, and he has advised very wisely as to the steps I should +take on Mabel’s behalf, and the best course for her to pursue until +effect has been given to the provisions of the will. I was accordingly less +disposed than I might otherwise have been to regard his suggestion of an +industrial vendetta as far-fetched. When I questioned him he was able to +describe a number of cases in which attacks of one sort or another—too +often successful—had been made upon the lives of persons who had incurred +the hostility of powerful labour organizations. This is a terrible time in +which we live, my dear boy. There is none recorded in history, I think, in +which the disproportion between the material and the moral constituents of +society has been so great or so menacing to the permanence of the fabric. But +nowhere, in my judgement, is the prospect so dark as it is in the United +States.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought,” said Trent listlessly, “that Puritanism was +about as strong there as the money-getting craze.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your remark,” answered Mr. Cupples, with as near an approach to +humour as was possible to him, “is not in the nature of a testimonial to +what you call Puritanism—a convenient rather than an accurate term; for I +need not remind you that it was invented to describe an Anglican party which +aimed at the purging of the services and ritual of their Church from certain +elements repugnant to them. The sense of your observation, however, is none the +less sound, and its truth is extremely well illustrated by the case of +Manderson himself, who had, I believe, the virtues of purity, abstinence, and +self-restraint in their strongest form. No, Trent, there are other and more +worthy things among the moral constituents of which I spoke; and in our finite +nature, the more we preoccupy ourselves with the bewildering complexity of +external apparatus which science places in our hands, the less vigour have we +left for the development of the holier purposes of humanity within us. +Agricultural machinery has abolished the festival of the Harvest Home. +Mechanical travel has abolished the inn, or all that was best in it. I need not +multiply instances. The view I am expressing to you,” pursued Mr. +Cupples, placidly buttering a piece of toast, “is regarded as +fundamentally erroneous by many of those who think generally as I do about the +deeper concerns of life, but I am nevertheless firmly persuaded of its +truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“It needs epigrammatic expression,” said Trent, rising from the +table. “If only it could be crystallized into some handy formula, like +‘No Popery’, or ‘Tax the Foreigner’, you would find +multitudes to go to the stake for it. But you were planning to go to White +Gables before the inquest, I think. You ought to be off if you are to get back +to the court in time. I have something to attend to there myself, so we might +walk up together. I will just go and get my camera.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” Mr. Cupples answered; and they set off at once in +the ever-growing warmth of the morning. The roof of White Gables, a surly patch +of dull red against the dark trees, seemed to harmonize with Trent’s +mood; he felt heavy, sinister, and troubled. If a blow must fall that might +strike down that creature radiant of beauty and life whom he had seen that +morning, he did not wish it to come from his hand. An exaggerated chivalry had +lived in Trent since the first teachings of his mother; but at this moment the +horror of bruising anything so lovely was almost as much the artist’s +revulsion as the gentleman’s. On the other hand, was the hunt to end in +nothing? The quality of the affair was such that the thought of forbearance was +an agony. There never was such a case; and he alone, he was confident, held the +truth of it under his hand. At least, he determined, that day should show +whether what he believed was a delusion. He would trample his compunction +underfoot until he was quite sure that there was any call for it. That same +morning he would know. +</p> + +<p> +As they entered at the gate of the drive they saw Marlowe and the American +standing in talk before the front door. In the shadow of the porch was the lady +in black. +</p> + +<p> +She saw them, and came gravely forward over the lawn, moving as Trent had known +that she would move, erect and balanced, stepping lightly. When she welcomed +him on Mr. Cupples’s presentation her eyes of golden-flecked brown +observed him kindly. In her pale composure, worn as the mask of distress, there +was no trace of the emotion that had seemed a halo about her head on the ledge +of the cliff. She spoke the appropriate commonplace in a low and even voice. +After a few words to Mr. Cupples she turned her eyes on Trent again. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you will succeed,” she said earnestly. “Do you think +you will succeed?” +</p> + +<p> +He made his mind up as the words left her lips. He said, “I believe I +shall do so, Mrs. Manderson. When I have the case sufficiently complete I shall +ask you to let me see you and tell you about it. It may be necessary to consult +you before the facts are published.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked puzzled, and distress showed for an instant in her eyes. “If +it is necessary, of course you shall do so,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +On the brink of his next speech Trent hesitated. He remembered that the lady +had not wished to repeat to him the story already given to the +inspector—or to be questioned at all. He was not unconscious that he +desired to hear her voice and watch her face a little longer, if it might be; +but the matter he had to mention really troubled his mind, it was a queer thing +that fitted nowhere into the pattern within whose corners he had by this time +brought the other queer things in the case. It was very possible that she could +explain it away in a breath; it was unlikely that any one else could. He +summoned his resolution. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been so kind,” he said, “in allowing me access to +the house and every opportunity of studying the case, that I am going to ask +leave to put a question or two to yourself—nothing that you would rather +not answer, I think. May I?” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him wearily. “It would be stupid of me to refuse. Ask your +questions, Mr. Trent.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only this,” said Trent hurriedly. “We know that +your husband lately drew an unusually large sum of ready money from his London +bankers, and was keeping it here. It is here now, in fact. Have you any idea +why he should have done that?” +</p> + +<p> +She opened her eyes in astonishment. “I cannot imagine,” she said. +“I did not know he had done so. I am very much surprised to hear +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why is it surprising?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought my husband had very little money in the house. On Sunday +night, just before he went out in the motor, he came into the drawing-room +where I was sitting. He seemed to be irritated about something, and asked me at +once if I had any notes or gold I could let him have until next day. I was +surprised at that, because he was never without money; he made it a rule to +carry a hundred pounds or so about him always in a note-case. I unlocked my +escritoire, and gave him all I had by me. It was nearly thirty pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he did not tell you why he wanted it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He put it in his pocket, and then said that Mr. Marlowe had +persuaded him to go for a run in the motor by moonlight, and he thought it +might help him to sleep. He had been sleeping badly, as perhaps you know. Then +he went off with Mr. Marlowe. I thought it odd he should need money on Sunday +night, but I soon forgot about it. I never remembered it again until +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was curious, certainly,” said Trent, staring into the distance. +Mr Cupples began to speak to his niece of the arrangements for the inquest, and +Trent moved away to where Marlowe was pacing slowly upon the lawn. The young +man seemed relieved to talk about the coming business of the day. Though he +still seemed tired out and nervous, he showed himself not without a quiet +humour in describing the pomposities of the local police and the portentous +airs of Dr Stock. Trent turned the conversation gradually toward the problem of +the crime, and all Marlowe’s gravity returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunner has told me what he thinks,” he said when Trent referred to +the American’s theory. “I don’t find myself convinced by it, +because it doesn’t really explain some of the oddest facts. But I have +lived long enough in the United States to know that such a stroke of revenge, +done in a secret, melodramatic way, is not an unlikely thing. It is quite a +characteristic feature of certain sections of the labour movement there. +Americans have a taste and a talent for that sort of business. Do you know +<i>Huckleberry Finn?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I know my own name?” exclaimed Trent. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think the most American thing in that great American epic is Tom +Sawyer’s elaboration of an extremely difficult and romantic scheme, +taking days to carry out, for securing the escape of the nigger Jim, which +could have been managed quite easily in twenty minutes. You know how fond they +are of lodges and brotherhoods. Every college club has its secret signs and +handgrips. You’ve heard of the Know-Nothing movement in politics, I dare +say, and the Ku Klux Klan. Then look at Brigham Young’s penny-dreadful +tyranny in Utah, with real blood. The founders of the Mormon State were of the +purest Yankee stock in America; and you know what they did. It’s all part +of the same mental tendency. Americans make fun of it among themselves. For my +part, I take it very seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“It can have a very hideous side to it, certainly,” said Trent, +“when you get it in connection with crime—or with vice—or +even mere luxury. But I have a sort of sneaking respect for the determination +to make life interesting and lively in spite of civilization. To return to the +matter in hand, however; has it struck you as a possibility that +Manderson’s mind was affected to some extent by this menace that Bunner +believes in? For instance, it was rather an extraordinary thing to send you +posting off like that in the middle of the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“About ten o’clock, to be exact,” replied Marlowe. +“Though, mind you, if he’d actually roused me out of my bed at +midnight I shouldn’t have been very much surprised. It all chimes in with +what we’ve just been saying. Manderson had a strong streak of the +national taste for dramatic proceedings. He was rather fond of his well-earned +reputation for unexpected strokes and for going for his object with ruthless +directness through every opposing consideration. He had decided suddenly that +he wanted to have word from this man Harris—” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Harris?” interjected Trent. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody knows. Even Bunner never heard of him, and can’t imagine +what the business in hand was. All I know is that when I went up to London last +week to attend to various things I booked a deck-cabin, at Manderson’s +request, for a Mr. George Harris on the boat that sailed on Monday. It seems +that Manderson suddenly found he wanted news from Harris which presumably was +of a character too secret for the telegraph; and there was no train that +served; so I was sent off as you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent looked round to make sure that they were not overheard, then faced the +other gravely, “There is one thing I may tell you,” he said +quietly, “that I don’t think you know. Martin the butler caught a +few words at the end of your conversation with Manderson in the orchard before +you started with him in the car. He heard him say, ‘If Harris is there, +every moment is of importance.’ Now, Mr. Marlowe, you know my business +here. I am sent to make enquiries, and you mustn’t take offence. I want +to ask you if, in the face of that sentence, you will repeat that you know +nothing of what the business was.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe shook his head. “I know nothing, indeed. I’m not easily +offended, and your question is quite fair. What passed during that conversation +I have already told the detective. Manderson plainly said to me that he could +not tell me what it was all about. He simply wanted me to find Harris, tell him +that he desired to know how matters stood, and bring back a letter or message +from him. Harris, I was further told, might not turn up. If he did, +‘every moment was of importance’. And now you know as much as I +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“That talk took place <i>before</i> he told his wife that you were taking +him for a moonlight run. Why did he conceal your errand in that way, I +wonder.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man made a gesture of helplessness. “Why? I can guess no better +than you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” muttered Trent as if to himself, gazing on the ground, +“did he conceal it—from Mrs. Manderson?” He looked up at +Marlowe. +</p> + +<p> +“And from Martin,” the other amended coolly. “He was told the +same thing.” +</p> + +<p> +With a sudden movement of his head Trent seemed to dismiss the subject. He drew +from his breast-pocket a letter-case, and thence extracted two small leaves of +clean, fresh paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Just look at these two slips, Mr. Marlowe,” he said. “Did +you ever see them before? Have you any idea where they come from?” he +added as Marlowe took one in each hand and examined them curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“They seem to have been cut with a knife or scissors from a small diary +for this year from the October pages,” Marlowe observed, looking them +over on both sides. “I see no writing of any kind on them. Nobody here +has any such diary so far as I know. What about them?” +</p> + +<p> +“There may be nothing in it,” Trent said dubiously. “Any one +in the house, of course, might have such a diary without your having seen it. +But I didn’t much expect you would be able to identify the +leaves—in fact, I should have been surprised if you had.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped speaking as Mrs. Manderson came towards them. “My uncle thinks +we should be going now,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I will walk on with Mr. Bunner,” Mr. Cupples said as he +joined them. “There are certain business matters that must be disposed of +as soon as possible. Will you come on with these two gentlemen, Mabel? We will +wait for you before we reach the place.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent turned to her. “Mrs. Manderson will excuse me, I hope,” he +said. “I really came up this morning in order to look about me here for +some indications I thought I might possibly find. I had not thought of +attending the—the court just yet.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with eyes of perfect candour. “Of course, Mr. Trent. +Please do exactly as you wish. We are all relying upon you. If you will wait a +few moments, Mr. Marlowe, I shall be ready.” +</p> + +<p> +She entered the house. Her uncle and the American had already strolled towards +the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Trent looked into the eyes of his companion. “That is a wonderful +woman,” he said in a lowered voice. +</p> + +<p> +“You say so without knowing her,” replied Marlowe in a similar +tone. “She is more than that.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent said nothing to this. He stared out over the fields towards the sea. In +the silence a noise of hobnailed haste rose on the still air. A little distance +down the road a boy appeared trotting towards them from the direction of the +hotel. In his hand was the orange envelope, unmistakable afar off, of a +telegram. Trent watched him with an indifferent eye as he met and passed the +two others. Then he turned to Marlowe. “A propos of nothing in +particular,” he said, “were you at Oxford?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the young man. “Why do you ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“I just wondered if I was right in my guess. It’s one of the things +you can very often tell about a man, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” Marlowe said. “Well, each of us is marked in +one way or another, perhaps. I should have said you were an artist, if I +hadn’t known it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Does my hair want cutting?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! It’s only that you look at things and people as I’ve +seen artists do, with an eye that moves steadily from detail to +detail—rather looking them over than looking at them.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy came up panting. “Telegram for you, sir,” he said to Trent. +“Just come, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent tore open the envelope with an apology, and his eyes lighted up so +visibly as he read the slip that Marlowe’s tired face softened in a +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be good news,” he murmured half to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Trent turned on him a glance in which nothing could be read. “Not exactly +news,” he said. “It only tells me that another little guess of mine +was a good one.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>Chapter VIII.<br />The Inquest</h2> + +<p> +The coroner, who fully realized that for that one day of his life as a +provincial solicitor he was living in the gaze of the world, had resolved to be +worthy of the fleeting eminence. He was a large man of jovial temper, with a +strong interest in the dramatic aspects of his work, and the news of +Manderson’s mysterious death within his jurisdiction had made him the +happiest coroner in England. A respectable capacity for marshalling facts was +fortified in him by a copiousness of impressive language that made juries as +clay in his hands, and sometimes disguised a doubtful interpretation of the +rules of evidence. +</p> + +<p> +The court was held in a long, unfurnished room lately built on to the hotel, +and intended to serve as a ballroom or concert-hall. A regiment of reporters +was entrenched in the front seats, and those who were to be called on to give +evidence occupied chairs to one side of the table behind which the coroner sat, +while the jury, in double row, with plastered hair and a spurious ease of +manner, flanked him on the other side. An undistinguished public filled the +rest of the space, and listened, in an awed silence, to the opening +solemnities. The newspaper men, well used to these, muttered among themselves. +Those of them who knew Trent by sight assured the rest that he was not in the +court. +</p> + +<p> +The identity of the dead man was proved by his wife, the first witness called, +from whom the coroner, after some enquiry into the health and circumstances of +the deceased, proceeded to draw an account of the last occasion on which she +had seen her husband alive. Mrs. Manderson was taken through her evidence by +the coroner with the sympathy which every man felt for that dark figure of +grief. She lifted her thick veil before beginning to speak, and the extreme +paleness and unbroken composure of the lady produced a singular impression. +This was not an impression of hardness. Interesting femininity was the first +thing to be felt in her presence. She was not even enigmatic. It was only clear +that the force of a powerful character was at work to master the emotions of +her situation. Once or twice as she spoke she touched her eyes with her +handkerchief, but her voice was low and clear to the end. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband, she said, had come up to his bedroom about his usual hour for +retiring on Sunday night. His room was really a dressing-room attached to her +own bedroom, communicating with it by a door which was usually kept open during +the night. Both dressing-room and bedroom were entered by other doors giving on +the passage. Her husband had always had a preference for the greatest +simplicity in his bedroom arrangements, and liked to sleep in a small room. She +had not been awake when he came up, but had been half-aroused, as usually +happened, when the light was switched on in her husband’s room. She had +spoken to him. She had no clear recollection of what she had said, as she had +been very drowsy at the time; but she had remembered that he had been out for a +moonlight run in the car, and she believed she had asked whether he had had a +good run, and what time it was. She had asked what the time was because she +felt as if she had only been a very short time asleep, and she had expected her +husband to be out very late. In answer to her question he had told her it was +half-past eleven, and had gone on to say that he had changed his mind about +going for a run. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he say why?” the coroner asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied the lady, “he did explain why. I remember very +well what he said, because—” she stopped with a little appearance +of confusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Because—” the coroner insisted gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Because my husband was not as a rule communicative about his business +affairs,” answered the witness, raising her chin with a faint touch of +defiance. “He did not—did not think they would interest me, and as +a rule referred to them as little as possible. That was why I was rather +surprised when he told me that he had sent Mr. Marlowe to Southampton to bring +back some important information from a man who was leaving for Paris by the +next day’s boat. He said that Mr. Marlowe could do it quite easily if he +had no accident. He said that he had started in the car, and then walked back +home a mile or so, and felt all the better for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he say any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, as well as I remember,” the witness said. “I was +very sleepy, and I dropped off again in a few moments. I just remember my +husband turning his light out, and that is all. I never saw him again +alive.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you heard nothing in the night?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: I never woke until my maid brought my tea in the morning at seven +o’clock. She closed the door leading to my husband’s room, as she +always did, and I supposed him to be still there. He always needed a great deal +of sleep. He sometimes slept until quite late in the morning. I had breakfast +in my sitting-room. It was about ten when I heard that my husband’s body +had been found.” The witness dropped her head and silently waited for her +dismissal. +</p> + +<p> +But it was not to be yet. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Manderson.” The coroner’s voice was sympathetic, but it +had a hint of firmness in it now. “The question I am going to put to you +must, in these sad circumstances, be a painful one; but it is my duty to ask +it. Is it the fact that your relations with your late husband had not been, for +some time past, relations of mutual affection and confidence? Is it the fact +that there was an estrangement between you?” +</p> + +<p> +The lady drew herself up again and faced her questioner, the colour rising in +her cheeks. “If that question is necessary,” she said with cold +distinctness, “I will answer it so that there shall be no +misunderstanding. During the last few months of my husband’s life his +attitude towards me had given me great anxiety and sorrow. He had changed +towards me; he had become very reserved, and seemed mistrustful. I saw much +less of him than before; he seemed to prefer to be alone. I can give no +explanation at all of the change. I tried to work against it; I did all I could +with justice to my own dignity, as I thought. Something was between us, I did +not know what, and he never told me. My own obstinate pride prevented me from +asking what it was in so many words; I only made a point of being to him +exactly as I had always been, so far as he would allow me. I suppose I shall +never know now what it was.” The witness, whose voice had trembled in +spite of her self-control over the last few sentences, drew down her veil when +she had said this, and stood erect and quiet. +</p> + +<p> +One of the jury asked a question, not without obvious hesitation. “Then +was there never anything of the nature of what they call Words between you and +your husband, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” The word was colourlessly spoken; but every one felt that +a crass misunderstanding of the possibilities of conduct in the case of a +person like Mrs. Manderson had been visited with some severity. +</p> + +<p> +Did she know, the coroner asked, of any other matter which might have been +preying upon her husband’s mind recently? +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson knew of none whatever. The coroner intimated that her ordeal was +at an end, and the veiled lady made her way to the door. The general attention, +which followed her for a few moments, was now eagerly directed upon Martin, +whom the coroner had proceeded to call. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that Trent appeared at the doorway and edged his way into +the great room. But he did not look at Martin. He was observing the +well-balanced figure that came quickly toward him along an opening path in the +crowd, and his eye was gloomy. He started, as he stood aside from the door with +a slight bow, to hear Mrs. Manderson address him by name in a low voice. He +followed her a pace or two into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to ask you,” she said in a voice now weak and oddly +broken, “if you would give me your arm a part of the way to the house. I +could not see my uncle near the door, and I suddenly felt rather faint.... I +shall be better in the air.... No, no; I cannot stay here—please, Mr. +Trent!” she said, as he began to make an obvious suggestion. “I +must go to the house.” Her hand tightened momentarily on his arm as if, +for all her weakness, she could drag him from the place; then again she leaned +heavily upon it, and with that support, and with bent head, she walked slowly +from the hotel and along the oak-shaded path toward White Gables. +</p> + +<p> +Trent went in silence, his thoughts whirling, dancing insanely to a chorus of +“Fool! fool!” All that he alone knew, all that he guessed and +suspected of this affair, rushed through his brain in a rout; but the touch of +her unnerved hand upon his arm never for an instant left his consciousness, +filling him with an exaltation that enraged and bewildered him. He was still +cursing himself furiously behind the mask of conventional solicitude that he +turned to the lady when he had attended her to the house and seen her sink upon +a couch in the morning-room. Raising her veil, she thanked him gravely and +frankly, with a look of sincere gratitude in her eyes. She was much better now, +she said, and a cup of tea would work a miracle upon her. She hoped she had not +taken him away from anything important. She was ashamed of herself; she thought +she could go through with it, but she had not expected those last questions. +“I am glad you did not hear me,” she said when he explained. +“But of course you will read it all in the reports. It shook me so to +have to speak of that,” she added simply; “and to keep from making +an exhibition of myself took it out of me. And all those staring men by the +door! Thank you again for helping me when I asked you.... I thought I +might,” she ended queerly, with a little tired smile; and Trent took +himself away, his hand still quivering from the cool touch of her fingers. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The testimony of the servants and of the finder of the body brought nothing new +to the reporters’ net. That of the police was as colourless and cryptic +as is usual at the inquest stage of affairs of the kind. Greatly to the +satisfaction of Mr. Bunner, his evidence afforded the sensation of the day, and +threw far into the background the interesting revelation of domestic difficulty +made by the dead man’s wife. He told the court in substance what he had +already told Trent. The flying pencils did not miss a word of the young +American’s story, and it appeared with scarcely the omission of a +sentence in every journal of importance in Great Britain and the United States. +</p> + +<p> +Public opinion next day took no note of the faint suggestion of the possibility +of suicide which the coroner, in his final address to the jury, had thought it +right to make in connection with the lady’s evidence. The weight of +evidence, as the official had indeed pointed out, was against such a theory. He +had referred with emphasis to the fact that no weapon had been found near the +body. +</p> + +<p> +“This question, of course, is all-important, gentlemen,” he had +said to the jury. “It is, in fact, the main issue before you. You have +seen the body for yourselves. You have just heard the medical evidence; but I +think it would be well for me to read you my notes of it in so far as they bear +on this point, in order to refresh your memories. Dr Stock told you—I am +going to omit all technical medical language and repeat to you merely the plain +English of his testimony—that in his opinion death had taken place six or +eight hours previous to the finding of the body. He said that the cause of +death was a bullet wound, the bullet having entered the left eye, which was +destroyed, and made its way to the base of the brain, which was quite +shattered. The external appearance of the wound, he said, did not support the +hypothesis of its being self-inflicted, inasmuch as there were no signs of the +firearm having been pressed against the eye, or even put very close to it; at +the same time it was not physically impossible that the weapon should have been +discharged by the deceased with his own hand, at some small distance from the +eye. Dr Stock also told us that it was impossible to say with certainty, from +the state of the body, whether any struggle had taken place at the time of +death; that when seen by him, at which time he understood that it had not been +moved since it was found, the body was lying in a collapsed position such as +might very well result from the shot alone; but that the scratches and bruises +upon the wrists and the lower part of the arms had been very recently +inflicted, and were, in his opinion, marks of violence. +</p> + +<p> +“In connection with this same point, the remarkable evidence given by Mr +Bunner cannot be regarded, I think, as without significance. It may have come +as a surprise to some of you to hear that risks of the character described by +this witness are, in his own country, commonly run by persons in the position +of the deceased. On the other hand, it may have been within the knowledge of +some of you that in the industrial world of America the discontent of labour +often proceeds to lengths of which we in England happily know nothing. I have +interrogated the witness somewhat fully upon this. At the same time, gentlemen, +I am by no means suggesting that Mr. Bunner’s personal conjecture as to +the cause of death can fitly be adopted by you. That is emphatically not the +case. What his evidence does is to raise two questions for your consideration. +First, can it be said that the deceased was to any extent in the position of a +threatened man—of a man more exposed to the danger of murderous attack +than an ordinary person? Second, does the recent alteration in his demeanour, +as described by this witness, justify the belief that his last days were +overshadowed by a great anxiety? These points may legitimately be considered by +you in arriving at a conclusion upon the rest of the evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +Thereupon the coroner, having indicated thus clearly his opinion that Mr Bunner +had hit the right nail on the head, desired the jury to consider their verdict. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>Chapter IX.<br />A Hot Scent</h2> + +<p> +“Come in!” called Trent. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples entered his sitting-room at the hotel. It was the early evening of +the day on which the coroner’s jury, without leaving the box, had +pronounced the expected denunciation of a person or persons unknown. Trent, +with a hasty glance upward, continued his intent study of what lay in a +photographic dish of enamelled metal, which he moved slowly about in the light +of the window. He looked very pale, and his movements were nervous. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit on the sofa,” he advised. “The chairs are a job lot +bought at the sale after the suppression of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. This +is a pretty good negative,” he went on, holding it up to the light with +his head at the angle of discriminating judgement. “Washed enough now, I +think. Let us leave it to dry, and get rid of all this mess.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples, as the other busily cleared the table of a confusion of basins, +dishes, racks, boxes, and bottles, picked up first one and then another of the +objects and studied them with innocent curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“That is called hypo-eliminator,” said Trent, as Mr. Cupples +uncorked and smelt at one of the bottles. “Very useful when you’re +in a hurry with a negative. I shouldn’t drink it, though, all the same. +It eliminates sodium hypophosphite, but I shouldn’t wonder if it would +eliminate human beings too.” He found a place for the last of the litter +on the crowded mantel-shelf, and came to sit before Mr. Cupples on the table. +“The great thing about a hotel sitting-room is that its beauty does not +distract the mind from work. It is no place for the mayfly pleasures of a mind +at ease. Have you ever been in this room before, Cupples? I have, hundreds of +times. It has pursued me all over England for years. I should feel lost without +it if, in some fantastic, far-off hotel, they were to give me some other +sitting-room. Look at this table-cover; there is the ink I spilt on it when I +had this room in Halifax. I burnt that hole in the carpet when I had it in +Ipswich. But I see they have mended the glass over the picture of ‘Silent +Sympathy’, which I threw a boot at in Banbury. I do all my best work +here. This afternoon, for instance, since the inquest, I have finished several +excellent negatives. There is a very good dark room downstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“The inquest—that reminds me,” said Mr. Cupples, who knew +that this sort of talk in Trent meant the excitement of action, and was +wondering what he could be about. “I came in to thank you, my dear +fellow, for looking after Mabel this morning. I had no idea she was going to +feel ill after leaving the box; she seemed quite unmoved, and, really, she is a +woman of such extraordinary self-command, I thought I could leave her to her +own devices and hear out the evidence, which I thought it important I should +do. It was a very fortunate thing she found a friend to assist her, and she is +most grateful. She is quite herself again now.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent, with his hands in his pockets and a slight frown on his brow, made no +reply to this. “I tell you what,” he said after a short pause, +“I was just getting to the really interesting part of the job when you +came in. Come; would you like to see a little bit of high-class police work? +It’s the very same kind of work that old Murch ought to be doing at this +moment. Perhaps he is; but I hope to glory he isn’t.” He sprang off +the table and disappeared into his bedroom. Presently he came out with a large +drawing-board on which a number of heterogeneous objects was ranged. +</p> + +<p> +“First I must introduce you to these little things,” he said, +setting them out on the table. “Here is a big ivory paper-knife; here are +two leaves cut out of a diary—my own diary; here is a bottle containing +dentifrice; here is a little case of polished walnut. Some of these things have +to be put back where they belong in somebody’s bedroom at White Gables +before night. That’s the sort of man I am—nothing stops me. I +borrowed them this very morning when every one was down at the inquest, and I +dare say some people would think it rather an odd proceeding if they knew. Now +there remains one object on the board. Can you tell me, without touching it, +what it is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I can,” said Mr. Cupples, peering at it with great +interest. “It is an ordinary glass bowl. It looks like a finger-bowl. I +see nothing odd about it,” he added after some moments of close scrutiny. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see much myself,” replied Trent, “and that is +exactly where the fun comes in. Now take this little fat bottle, Cupples, and +pull out the cork. Do you recognize that powder inside it? You have swallowed +pounds of it in your time, I expect. They give it to babies. Grey powder is its +ordinary name—mercury and chalk. It is great stuff. Now, while I hold the +basin sideways over this sheet of paper, I want you to pour a little powder out +of the bottle over this part of the bowl—just here.... Perfect! Sir +Edward Henry himself could not have handled the powder better. You have done +this before, Cupples, I can see. You are an old hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I really am not,” said Mr. Cupples seriously, as Trent returned +the fallen powder to the bottle. “I assure you it is all a complete +mystery to me. What did I do then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I brush the powdered part of the bowl lightly with this camel-hair +brush. Now look at it again. You saw nothing odd about it before. Do you see +anything now?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples peered again. “How curious!” he said. “Yes, there +are two large grey finger-marks on the bowl. They were not there before.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am Hawkshaw the detective,” observed Trent. “Would it +interest you to hear a short lecture on the subject of glass finger-bowls? When +you take one up with your hand you leave traces upon it, usually practically +invisible, which may remain for days or months. You leave the marks of your +fingers. The human hand, even when quite clean, is never quite dry, and +sometimes—in moments of great anxiety, for instance, Cupples—it is +very moist. It leaves a mark on any cold smooth surface it may touch. That bowl +was moved by somebody with a rather moist hand quite lately.” He +sprinkled the powder again. “Here on the other side, you see, is the +thumb-mark—very good impressions all of them.” He spoke without +raising his voice, but Mr. Cupples could perceive that he was ablaze with +excitement as he stared at the faint grey marks. “This one should be the +index finger. I need not tell a man of your knowledge of the world that the +pattern of it is a single-spiral whorl, with deltas symmetrically disposed. +This, the print of the second finger, is a simple loop, with a staple core and +fifteen counts. I know there are fifteen, because I have just the same two +prints on this negative, which I have examined in detail. Look!”—he +held one of the negatives up to the light of the declining sun and demonstrated +with a pencil point. “You can see they’re the same. You see the +bifurcation of that ridge. There it is in the other. You see that little scar +near the centre. There it is in the other. There are a score of +ridge-characteristics on which an expert would swear in the witness-box that +the marks on that bowl and the marks I have photographed on this negative were +made by the same hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“And where did you photograph them? What does it all mean?” asked +Mr Cupples, wide-eyed. +</p> + +<p> +“I found them on the inside of the left-hand leaf of the front window in +Mrs. Manderson’s bedroom. As I could not bring the window with me, I +photographed them, sticking a bit of black paper on the other side of the glass +for the purpose. The bowl comes from Manderson’s room. It is the bowl in +which his false teeth were placed at night. I could bring that away, so I +did.” +</p> + +<p> +“But those cannot be Mabel’s finger-marks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think not!” said Trent with decision. “They are +twice the size of any print Mrs. Manderson could make.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then they must be her husband’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps they are. Now shall we see if we can match them once more? I +believe we can.” Whistling faintly, and very white in the face, Trent +opened another small squat bottle containing a dense black powder. +“Lamp-black,” he explained. “Hold a bit of paper in your hand +for a second or two, and this little chap will show you the pattern of your +fingers.” He carefully took up with a pair of tweezers one of the leaves +cut from his diary, and held it out for the other to examine. No marks appeared +on the leaf. He tilted some of the powder out upon one surface of the paper, +then, turning it over, upon the other; then shook the leaf gently to rid it of +the loose powder. He held it out to Mr. Cupples in silence. On one side of the +paper appeared unmistakably, clearly printed in black, the same two +finger-prints that he had already seen on the bowl and on the photographic +plate. He took up the bowl and compared them. Trent turned the paper over, and +on the other side was a bold black replica of the thumb-mark that was printed +in grey on the glass in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Same man, you see,” Trent said with a short laugh. “I felt +that it must be so, and now I know.” He walked to the window and looked +out. “Now I know,” he repeated in a low voice, as if to himself. +His tone was bitter. Mr. Cupples, understanding nothing, stared at his +motionless back for a few moments. +</p> + +<p> +“I am still completely in the dark,” he ventured presently. +“I have often heard of this fingerprint business, and wondered how the +police went to work about it. It is of extraordinary interest to me, but upon +my life I cannot see how in this case Manderson’s fingerprints are +going—” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very sorry, Cupples,” Trent broke in upon his meditative +speech with a swift return to the table. “When I began this investigation +I meant to take you with me every step of the way. You mustn’t think I +have any doubts about your discretion if I say now that I must hold my tongue +about the whole thing, at least for a time. I will tell you this: I have come +upon a fact that looks too much like having very painful consequences if it is +discovered by any one else.” He looked at the other with a hard and +darkened face, and struck the table with his hand. “It is terrible for me +here and now. Up to this moment I was hoping against hope that I was wrong +about the fact. I may still be wrong in the surmise that I base upon that fact. +There is only one way of finding out that is open to me, and I must nerve +myself to take it.” He smiled suddenly at Mr. Cupples’s face of +consternation. “All right—I’m not going to be tragic any +more, and I’ll tell you all about it when I can. Look here, I’m not +half through my game with the powder-bottles yet.” +</p> + +<p> +He drew one of the defamed chairs to the table and sat down to test the broad +ivory blade of the paper knife. Mr. Cupples, swallowing his amazement, bent +forward in an attitude of deep interest and handed Trent the bottle of +lamp-black. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>Chapter X.<br />The Wife of Dives</h2> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson stood at the window of her sitting-room at White Gables gazing +out upon a wavering landscape of fine rain and mist. The weather had broken as +it seldom does in that part in June. White wreathings drifted up the fields +from the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken grey deadness shedding pin-point +moisture that was now and then blown against the panes with a crepitation of +despair. The lady looked out on the dim and chilling prospect with a woeful +face. It was a bad day for a woman bereaved, alone, and without a purpose in +life. +</p> + +<p> +There was a knock, and she called “Come in,” drawing herself up +with an unconscious gesture that always came when she realized that the +weariness of the world had been gaining upon her spirit. Mr. Trent had called, +the maid said; he apologized for coming at such an early hour, but hoped that +Mrs. Manderson would see him on a matter of urgent importance. Mrs Manderson +would see Mr. Trent. She walked to a mirror, looked into the olive face she saw +reflected there, shook her head at herself with the flicker of a grimace, and +turned to the door as Trent was shown in. +</p> + +<p> +His appearance, she noted, was changed. He had the jaded look of the sleepless, +and a new and reserved expression, in which her quick sensibilities felt +something not propitious, took the place of his half smile of fixed +good-humour. +</p> + +<p> +“May I come to the point at once?” he said, when she had given him +her hand. “There is a train I ought to catch at Bishopsbridge at twelve +o’clock, but I cannot go until I have settled this thing, which concerns +you only, Mrs. Manderson. I have been working half the night and thinking the +rest; and I know now what I ought to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look wretchedly tired,” she said kindly. “Won’t +you sit down? This is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible +business and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can +properly tell you, Mr. Trent. I know that you won’t make it worse for me +than you can help in doing your duty here. If you say you must see me about +something, I know it must be because, as you say, you ought to do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Manderson,” said Trent, slowly measuring his words, “I +won’t make it worse for you than I can help. But I am bound to make it +bad for you—only between ourselves, I hope. As to whether you can +properly tell me what I shall ask you, you will decide that; but I tell you +this on my word of honour: I shall ask you only as much as will decide me +whether to publish or to withhold certain grave things that I have found out +about your husband’s death, things not suspected by any one else, nor, I +think, likely to be so. What I have discovered—what I believe that I have +practically proved—will be a great shock to you in any case. But it may +be worse for you than that; and if you give me reason to think it would be so, +then I shall suppress this manuscript,” he laid a long envelope on the +small table beside him, “and nothing of what it has to tell shall ever be +printed. It consists, I may tell you, of a short private note to my editor, +followed by a long dispatch for publication in the <i>Record</i>. Now you may +refuse to say anything to me. If you do refuse, my duty to my employers, as I +see it, is to take this up to London with me today and leave it with my editor +to be dealt with at his discretion. My view is, you understand, that I am not +entitled to suppress it on the strength of a mere possibility that presents +itself to my imagination. But if I gather from you—and I can gather it +from no other person—that there is substance in that imaginary +possibility I speak of, then I have only one thing to do as a gentleman and as +one who”—he hesitated for a phrase—“wishes you well. I +shall not publish that dispatch of mine. In some directions I decline to assist +the police. Have you followed me so far?” he asked with a touch of +anxiety in his careful coldness; for her face, but for its pallor, gave no sign +as she regarded him, her hands clasped before her, and her shoulders drawn back +in a pose of rigid calm. She looked precisely as she had looked at the inquest. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand quite well,” said Mrs. Manderson in a low voice. She +drew a deep breath, and went on: “I don’t know what dreadful thing +you have found out, or what the possibility that has occurred to you can be, +but it was good, it was honourable of you to come to me about it. Now will you +please tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot do that,” Trent replied. “The secret is my +newspaper’s if it is not yours. If I find it is yours, you shall have my +manuscript to read and destroy. Believe me,” he broke out with something +of his old warmth, “I detest such mystery-making from the bottom of my +soul; but it is not I who have made this mystery. This is the most painful hour +of my life, and you make it worse by not treating me like a hound. The first +thing I ask you to tell me,” he reverted with an effort to his colourless +tone, “is this: is it true, as you stated at the inquest, that you had no +idea at all of the reason why your late husband had changed his attitude toward +you, and become mistrustful and reserved, during the last few months of his +life?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson’s dark brows lifted and her eyes flamed; she quickly rose +from her chair. Trent got up at the same moment, and took his envelope from the +table; his manner said that he perceived the interview to be at an end. But she +held up a hand, and there was colour in her cheeks and quick breathing in her +voice as she said: “Do you know what you ask, Mr Trent? You ask me if I +perjured myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” he answered unmoved; and he added after a pause, “you +knew already that I had not come here to preserve the polite fictions, Mrs. +Manderson. The theory that no reputable person, being on oath, could withhold a +part of the truth under any circumstances is a polite fiction.” He still +stood as awaiting dismissal, but she was silent. She walked to the window, and +he stood miserably watching the slight movement of her shoulders until it +subsided. Then with face averted, looking out on the dismal weather, she spoke +at last clearly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Trent,” she said, “you inspire confidence in people, and +I feel that things which I don’t want known or talked about are safe with +you. And I know you must have a very serious reason for doing what you are +doing, though I don’t know what it is. I suppose it would be assisting +justice in some way if I told you the truth about what you asked just now. To +understand that truth you ought to know about what went before—I mean +about my marriage. After all, a good many people could tell you as well as I +can that it was not... a very successful union. I was only twenty. I admired +his force and courage and certainty; he was the only strong man I had ever +known. But it did not take me long to find out that he cared for his business +more than for me, and I think I found out even sooner that I had been deceiving +myself and blinding myself, promising myself impossible things and wilfully +misunderstanding my own feelings, because I was dazzled by the idea of having +more money to spend than an English girl ever dreams of. I have been despising +myself for that for five years. My husband’s feeling for me... well, I +cannot speak of that... what I want to say is that along with it there had +always been a belief of his that I was the sort of woman to take a great place +in society, and that I should throw myself into it with enjoyment, and become a +sort of personage and do him great credit—that was his idea; and the idea +remained with him after other delusions had gone. I was a part of his ambition. +That was his really bitter disappointment, that I failed him as a social +success. I think he was too shrewd not to have known in his heart that such a +man as he was, twenty years older than I, with great business responsibilities +that filled every hour of his life, and caring for nothing else—he must +have felt that there was a risk of great unhappiness in marrying the sort of +girl I was, brought up to music and books and unpractical ideas, always +enjoying myself in my own way. But he had really reckoned on me as a wife who +would do the honours of his position in the world; and I found I +couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson had talked herself into a more emotional mood than she had yet +shown to Trent. Her words flowed freely, and her voice had begun to ring and +give play to a natural expressiveness that must hitherto have been dulled, he +thought, by the shock and self-restraint of the past few days. Now she turned +swiftly from the window and faced him as she went on, her beautiful face +flushed and animated, her eyes gleaming, her hands moving in slight emphatic +gestures, as she surrendered herself to the impulse of giving speech to things +long pent up. +</p> + +<p> +“The people,” she said. “Oh, those people! Can you imagine +what it must be for any one who has lived in a world where there was always +creative work in the background, work with some dignity about it, men and women +with professions or arts to follow, with ideals and things to believe in and +quarrel about, some of them wealthy, some of them quite poor; can you think +what it means to step out of that into another world where you <i>have</i> to +be very rich, shamefully rich, to exist at all—where money is the only +thing that counts and the first thing in everybody’s thoughts—where +the men who make the millions are so jaded by the work, that sport is the only +thing they can occupy themselves with when they have any leisure, and the men +who don’t have to work are even duller than the men who do, and vicious +as well; and the women live for display and silly amusements and silly +immoralities; do you know how awful that life is? Of course I know there are +clever people, and people of taste in that set, but they’re swamped and +spoiled, and it’s the same thing in the end; empty, empty! Oh! I suppose +I’m exaggerating, and I did make friends and have some happy times; but +that’s how I feel after it all. The seasons in New York and +London—how I hated them! And our house-parties and cruises in the yacht +and the rest—the same people, the same emptiness. +</p> + +<p> +“And you see, don’t you, that my husband couldn’t have an +idea of all this. <i>His</i> life was never empty. He did not live it in +society, and when he was in society he had always his business plans and +difficulties to occupy his mind. He hadn’t a suspicion of what I felt, +and I never let him know; I couldn’t, it wouldn’t have been fair. I +felt I must do <i>something</i> to justify myself as his wife, sharing his +position and fortune; and the only thing I could do was to try, and try, to +live up to his idea about my social qualities... I did try. I acted my best. +And it became harder year by year... I never was what they call a popular +hostess, how could I be? I was a failure; but I went on trying... I used to +steal holidays now and then. I used to feel as if I was not doing my part of a +bargain—it sounds horrid to put it like that, I know, but it <i>was</i> +so—when I took one of my old school-friends, who couldn’t afford to +travel, away to Italy for a month or two, and we went about cheaply all by +ourselves, and were quite happy; or when I went and made a long stay in London +with some quiet people who had known me all my life, and we all lived just as +in the old days, when we had to think twice about seats at the theatre, and +told each other about cheap dressmakers. Those and a few other expeditions of +the same sort were my best times after I was married, and they helped me to go +through with it the rest of the time. But I felt my husband would have hated to +know how much I enjoyed every hour of those returns to the old life. +</p> + +<p> +“And in the end, in spite of everything I could do, he came to know.... +He could see through anything, I think, once his attention was turned to it. He +had always been able to see that I was not fulfilling his idea of me as a +figure in the social world, and I suppose he thought it was my misfortune +rather than my fault. But the moment he began to see, in spite of my +pretending, that I wasn’t playing my part with any spirit, he knew the +whole story; he divined how I loathed and was weary of the luxury and the +brilliancy and the masses of money just because of the people who lived among +them—who were made so by them, I suppose.... It happened last year. I +don’t know just how or when. It may have been suggested to him by some +woman—for <i>they</i> all understood, of course. He said nothing to me, +and I think he tried not to change in his manner to me at first; but such +things hurt—and it was working in both of us. I knew that he knew. After +a time we were just being polite and considerate to each other. Before he found +me out we had been on a footing of—how can I express it to you?—of +intelligent companionship, I might say. We talked without restraint of many +things of the kind we could agree or disagree about without its going very +deep... if you understand. And then that came to an end. I felt that the only +possible basis of our living in each other’s company was going under my +feet. And at last it was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“It had been like that,” she ended simply, “for months before +he died.” She sank into the corner of a sofa by the window, as though +relaxing her body after an effort. For a few moments both were silent. Trent +was hastily sorting out a tangle of impressions. He was amazed at the frankness +of Mrs. Manderson’s story. He was amazed at the vigorous expressiveness +in her telling of it. In this vivid being, carried away by an impulse to speak, +talking with her whole personality, he had seen the real woman in a temper of +activity, as he had already seen the real woman by chance in a temper of +reverie and unguarded emotion. In both she was very unlike the pale, +self-disciplined creature of majesty that she had been to the world. With that +amazement of his went something like terror of her dark beauty, which +excitement kindled into an appearance scarcely mortal in his eyes. +Incongruously there rushed into his mind, occupied as it was with the affair of +the moment, a little knot of ideas... she was unique not because of her beauty +but because of its being united with intensity of nature; in England all the +very beautiful women were placid, all the fiery women seemed to have burnt up +the best of their beauty; that was why no beautiful woman had ever cast this +sort of spell on him before; when it was a question of wit in women he had +preferred the brighter flame to the duller, without much regarding the lamp. +“All this is very disputable,” said his reason; and instinct +answered, “Yes, except that I am under a spell”; and a deeper +instinct cried out, “Away with it!” He forced his mind back to her +story, and found growing swiftly in him an irrepressible conviction. It was all +very fine; but it would not do. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel as if I had led you into saying more than you meant to say, or +than I wanted to learn,” he said slowly. “But there is one brutal +question which is the whole point of my enquiry.” He braced his frame +like one preparing for a plunge into cold waters. “Mrs. Manderson, will +you assure me that your husband’s change toward you had nothing to do +with John Marlowe?” +</p> + +<p> +And what he had dreaded came. “Oh!” she cried with a sound of +anguish, her face thrown up and open hands stretched out as if for pity; and +then the hands covered the burning face, and she flung herself aside among the +cushions at her elbow, so that he saw nothing but her heavy crown of black +hair, and her body moving with sobs that stabbed his heart, and a foot turned +inward gracelessly in an abandonment of misery. Like a tall tower suddenly +breaking apart she had fallen in ruins, helplessly weeping. +</p> + +<p> +Trent stood up, his face white and calm. With a senseless particularity he +placed his envelope exactly in the centre of the little polished table. He +walked to the door, closed it noiselessly as he went out, and in a few minutes +was tramping through the rain out of sight of White Gables, going nowhere, +seeing nothing, his soul shaken in the fierce effort to kill and trample the +raving impulse that had seized him in the presence of her shame, that clamoured +to him to drag himself before her feet, to pray for pardon, to pour out +words—he knew not what words, but he knew that they had been straining at +his lips—to wreck his self-respect for ever, and hopelessly defeat even +the crazy purpose that had almost possessed him, by drowning her wretchedness +in disgust, by babbling with the tongue of infatuation to a woman with a +husband not yet buried, to a woman who loved another man. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the magic of her tears, quickening in a moment the thing which, as his +heart had known, he must not let come to life. For Philip Trent was a young +man, younger in nature even than his years, and a way of life that kept his +edge keen and his spirit volcanic had prepared him very ill for the meeting +that comes once in the early manhood of most of us, usually—as in his +case, he told himself harshly—to no purpose but the testing of virtue and +the power of the will. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Chapter XI.<br />Hitherto Unpublished</h2> + +<p> +My Dear Molloy:—This is in case I don’t find you at your office. I +have found out who killed Manderson, as this dispatch will show. This was my +problem; yours is to decide what use to make of it. It definitely charges an +unsuspected person with having a hand in the crime, and practically accuses him +of being the murderer, so I don’t suppose you will publish it before his +arrest, and I believe it is illegal to do so afterwards until he has been tried +and found guilty. You may decide to publish it then; and you may find it +possible to make some use or other before then of the facts I have given. That +is your affair. Meanwhile, will you communicate with Scotland Yard, and let +them see what I have written? I have done with the Manderson mystery, and I +wish to God I had never touched it. Here follows my dispatch. P.T. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Marlstone, <i>June</i> 16<i>th</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I begin this, my third and probably my final dispatch to the <i>Record</i> upon +the Manderson murder, with conflicting feelings. I have a strong sense of +relief, because in my two previous dispatches I was obliged, in the interests +of justice, to withhold facts ascertained by me which would, if published then, +have put a certain person upon his guard and possibly have led to his escape; +for he is a man of no common boldness and resource. These facts I shall now set +forth. But I have, I confess, no liking for the story of treachery and +perverted cleverness which I have to tell. It leaves an evil taste in the +mouth, a savour of something revolting in the deeper puzzle of motive +underlying the puzzle of the crime itself, which I believe I have solved. +</p> + +<p> +It will be remembered that in my first dispatch I described the situation as I +found it on reaching this place early on Tuesday morning. I told how the body +was found, and in what state; dwelt upon the complete mystery surrounding the +crime, and mentioned one or two local theories about it; gave some account of +the dead man’s domestic surroundings; and furnished a somewhat detailed +description of his movements on the evening before his death. I gave, too, a +little fact which may or may not have seemed irrelevant: that a quantity of +whisky much larger than Manderson habitually drank at night had disappeared +from his private decanter since the last time he was seen alive. On the +following day, the day of the inquest, I wired little more than an abstract of +the proceedings in the coroner’s court, of which a verbatim report was +made at my request by other representatives of the <i>Record</i>. That day is +not yet over as I write these lines; and I have now completed an investigation +which has led me directly to the man who must be called upon to clear himself +of the guilt of the death of Manderson. +</p> + +<p> +Apart from the central mystery of Manderson’s having arisen long before +his usual hour to go out and meet his death, there were two minor points of +oddity about this affair which, I suppose, must have occurred to thousands of +those who have read the accounts in the newspapers: points apparent from the +very beginning. The first of these was that, whereas the body was found at a +spot not thirty yards from the house, all the people of the house declared that +they had heard no cry or other noise in the night. Manderson had not been +gagged; the marks on his wrists pointed to a struggle with his assailant; and +there had been at least one pistol-shot. (I say at least one, because it is the +fact that in murders with firearms, especially if there has been a struggle, +the criminal commonly misses his victim at least once.) This odd fact seemed +all the more odd to me when I learned that Martin the butler was a bad sleeper, +very keen of hearing, and that his bedroom, with the window open, faced almost +directly toward the shed by which the body was found. +</p> + +<p> +The second odd little fact that was apparent from the outset was +Manderson’s leaving his dental plate by the bedside. It appeared that he +had risen and dressed himself fully, down to his necktie and watch and chain, +and had gone out of doors without remembering to put in this plate, which he +had carried in his mouth every day for years, and which contained all the +visible teeth of the upper jaw. It had evidently not been a case of frantic +hurry; and even if it had been, he would have been more likely to forget almost +anything than this denture. Any one who wears such a removable plate will agree +that the putting it in on rising is a matter of second nature. Speaking as well +as eating, to say nothing of appearances, depend upon it. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of these queer details, however, seemed to lead to anything at the +moment. They only awakened in me a suspicion of something lurking in the +shadows, something that lent more mystery to the already mysterious question +how and why and through whom Manderson met his end. +</p> + +<p> +With this much of preamble I come at once to the discovery which, in the first +few hours of my investigation, set me upon the path which so much ingenuity had +been directed to concealing. +</p> + +<p> +I have already described Manderson’s bedroom, the rigorous simplicity of +its furnishing, contrasted so strangely with the multitude of clothes and +shoes, and the manner of its communication with Mrs. Manderson’s room. On +the upper of the two long shelves on which the shoes were ranged I found, where +I had been told I should find them, the pair of patent leather shoes which +Manderson had worn on the evening before his death. I had glanced over the row, +not with any idea of their giving me a clue, but merely because it happens that +I am a judge of shoes, and all these shoes were of the very best workmanship. +But my attention was at once caught by a little peculiarity in this particular +pair. They were the lightest kind of lace-up dress shoes, very thin in the +sole, without toe-caps, and beautifully made, like all the rest. These shoes +were old and well worn; but being carefully polished, and fitted, as all the +shoes were, upon their trees, they looked neat enough. What caught my eye was a +slight splitting of the leather in that part of the upper known as the +vamp—a splitting at the point where the two laced parts of the shoe rise +from the upper. It is at this point that the strain comes when a tight shoe of +this sort is forced upon the foot, and it is usually guarded with a strong +stitching across the bottom of the opening. In both the shoes I was examining +this stitching had parted, and the leather below had given way. The splitting +was a tiny affair in each case, not an eighth of an inch long, and the torn +edges having come together again on the removal of the strain, there was +nothing that a person who was not something of a connoisseur of shoe-leather +would have noticed. Even less noticeable, and indeed not to be seen at all +unless one were looking for it, was a slight straining of the stitches uniting +the upper to the sole. At the toe and on the outer side of each shoe this +stitching had been dragged until it was visible on a close inspection of the +join. +</p> + +<p> +These indications, of course, could mean only one thing—the shoes had +been worn by some one for whom they were too small. +</p> + +<p> +Now it was clear at a glance that Manderson was always thoroughly well shod, +and careful, perhaps a little vain, of his small and narrow feet. Not one of +the other shoes in the collection, as I soon ascertained, bore similar marks; +they had not belonged to a man who squeezed himself into tight shoe-leather. +Someone who was not Manderson had worn these shoes, and worn them recently; the +edges of the tears were quite fresh. +</p> + +<p> +The possibility of some one having worn them since Manderson’s death was +not worth considering; the body had only been found about twenty-six hours when +I was examining the shoes; besides, why should any one wear them? The +possibility of some one having borrowed Manderson’s shoes and spoiled +them for him while he was alive seemed about as negligible. With others to +choose from he would not have worn these. Besides, the only men in the place +were the butler and the two secretaries. But I do not say that I gave those +possibilities even as much consideration as they deserved, for my thoughts were +running away with me, and I have always found it good policy, in cases of this +sort, to let them have their heads. Ever since I had got out of the train at +Marlstone early that morning I had been steeped in details of the Manderson +affair; the thing had not once been out of my head. Suddenly the moment had +come when the daemon wakes and begins to range. +</p> + +<p> +Let me put it less fancifully. After all, it is a detail of psychology familiar +enough to all whose business or inclination brings them in contact with +difficult affairs of any kind. Swiftly and spontaneously, when chance or effort +puts one in possession of the key-fact in any system of baffling circumstances, +one’s ideas seem to rush to group themselves anew in relation to that +fact, so that they are suddenly rearranged almost before one has consciously +grasped the significance of the key-fact itself. In the present instance, my +brain had scarcely formulated within itself the thought, “Somebody who +was not Manderson has been wearing these shoes,” when there flew into my +mind a flock of ideas, all of the same character and all bearing upon this new +notion. It was unheard-of for Manderson to drink much whisky at night. It was +very unlike him to be untidily dressed, as the body was when found—the +cuffs dragged up inside the sleeves, the shoes unevenly laced; very unlike him +not to wash when he rose, and to put on last night’s evening shirt and +collar and underclothing; very unlike him to have his watch in the waistcoat +pocket that was not lined with leather for its reception. (In my first dispatch +I mentioned all these points, but neither I nor any one else saw anything +significant in them when examining the body.) It was very strange, in the +existing domestic situation, that Manderson should be communicative to his wife +about his doings, especially at the time of his going to bed, when he seldom +spoke to her at all. It was extraordinary that Manderson should leave his +bedroom without his false teeth. +</p> + +<p> +All these thoughts, as I say, came flocking into my mind together, drawn from +various parts of my memory of the morning’s enquiries and observations. +They had all presented themselves, in far less time than it takes to read them +as set down here, as I was turning over the shoes, confirming my own certainty +on the main point. And yet when I confronted the definite idea that had sprung +up suddenly and unsupported before me—“<i>It was not Manderson who +was in the house that night</i>”—it seemed a stark absurdity at the +first formulating. It was certainly Manderson who had dined at the house and +gone out with Marlowe in the car. People had seen him at close quarters. But +was it he who returned at ten? That question too seemed absurd enough. But I +could not set it aside. It seemed to me as if a faint light was beginning to +creep over the whole expanse of my mind, as it does over land at dawn, and that +presently the sun would be rising. I set myself to think over, one by one, the +points that had just occurred to me, so as to make out, if possible, why any +man masquerading as Manderson should have done these things that Manderson +would not have done. +</p> + +<p> +I had not to cast about very long for the motive a man might have in forcing +his feet into Manderson’s narrow shoes. The examination of footmarks is +very well understood by the police. But not only was the man concerned to leave +no footmarks of his own: he was concerned to leave Manderson’s, if any; +his whole plan, if my guess was right, must have been directed to producing the +belief that Manderson was in the place that night. Moreover, his plan did not +turn upon leaving footmarks. He meant to leave the shoes themselves, and he did +so. The maidservant had found them outside the bedroom door, as Manderson +always left his shoes, and had polished them, replacing them on the +shoe-shelves later in the morning, after the body had been found. +</p> + +<p> +When I came to consider in this new light the leaving of the false teeth, an +explanation of what had seemed the maddest part of the affair broke upon me at +once. A dental plate is not inseparable from its owner. If my guess was right, +the unknown had brought the denture to the house with him, and left it in the +bedroom, with the same object as he had in leaving the shoes: to make it +impossible that any one should doubt that Manderson had been in the house and +had gone to bed there. This, of course, led me to the inference that +<i>Manderson was dead before the false Manderson came to the house</i>; and +other things confirmed this. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, the clothing, to which I now turned in my review of the position. +If my guess was right, the unknown in Manderson’s shoes had certainly had +possession of Manderson’s trousers, waistcoat, and shooting jacket. They +were there before my eyes in the bedroom; and Martin had seen the +jacket—which nobody could have mistaken—upon the man who sat at the +telephone in the library. It was now quite plain (if my guess was right) that +this unmistakable garment was a cardinal feature of the unknown’s plan. +He knew that Martin would take him for Manderson at the first glance. +</p> + +<p> +And there my thinking was interrupted by the realization of a thing that had +escaped me before. So strong had been the influence of the unquestioned +assumption that it was Manderson who was present that night, that neither I +nor, as far as I know, any one else had noted the point. <i>Martin had not seen +the man’s face, nor had Mrs. Manderson.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson (judging by her evidence at the inquest, of which, as I have +said, I had a full report made by the <i>Record</i> stenographers in court) had +not seen the man at all. She hardly could have done, as I shall show presently. +She had merely spoken with him as she lay half asleep, resuming a conversation +which she had had with her living husband about an hour before. Martin, I +perceived, could only have seen the man’s back, as he sat crouching over +the telephone; no doubt a characteristic pose was imitated there. And the man +had worn his hat, Manderson’s broad-brimmed hat! There is too much +character in the back of a head and neck. The unknown, in fact, supposing him +to have been of about Manderson’s build, had had no need for any +disguise, apart from the jacket and the hat and his powers of mimicry. +</p> + +<p> +I paused there to contemplate the coolness and ingenuity of the man. The thing, +I now began to see, was so safe and easy, provided that his mimicry was good +enough, and that his nerve held. Those two points assured, only some wholly +unlikely accident could unmask him. +</p> + +<p> +To come back to my puzzling out of the matter as I sat in the dead man’s +bedroom with the tell-tale shoes before me. The reason for the entrance by the +window instead of by the front door will already have occurred to any one +reading this. Entering by the door, the man would almost certainly have been +heard by the sharp-eared Martin in his pantry just across the hall; he might +have met him face to face. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was the problem of the whisky. I had not attached much importance to +it; whisky will sometimes vanish in very queer ways in a household of eight or +nine persons; but it had seemed strange that it should go in that way on that +evening. Martin had been plainly quite dumbfounded by the fact. It seemed to me +now that many a man—fresh, as this man in all likelihood was, from a +bloody business, from the unclothing of a corpse, and with a desperate part +still to play—would turn to that decanter as to a friend. No doubt he had +a drink before sending for Martin; after making that trick with ease and +success, he probably drank more. +</p> + +<p> +But he had known when to stop. The worst part of the enterprise was before him: +the business—clearly of such vital importance to him, for whatever +reason—of shutting himself in Manderson’s room and preparing a body +of convincing evidence of its having been occupied by Manderson; and this with +the risk—very slight, as no doubt he understood, but how +unnerving!—of the woman on the other side of the half-open door awaking +and somehow discovering him. True, if he kept out of her limited field of +vision from the bed, she could only see him by getting up and going to the +door. I found that to a person lying in her bed, which stood with its head to +the wall a little beyond the door, nothing was visible through the doorway but +one of the cupboards by Manderson’s bed-head. Moreover, since this man +knew the ways of the household, he would think it most likely that Mrs. +Manderson was asleep. Another point with him, I guessed, might have been the +estrangement between the husband and wife, which they had tried to cloak by +keeping up, among other things, their usual practice of sleeping in connected +rooms, but which was well known to all who had anything to do with them. He +would hope from this that if Mrs. Manderson heard him, she would take no notice +of the supposed presence of her husband. +</p> + +<p> +So, pursuing my hypothesis, I followed the unknown up to the bedroom, and saw +him setting about his work. And it was with a catch in my own breath that I +thought of the hideous shock with which he must have heard the sound of all +others he was dreading most: the drowsy voice from the adjoining room. +</p> + +<p> +What Mrs. Manderson actually said, she was unable to recollect at the inquest. +She thinks she asked her supposed husband whether he had had a good run in the +car. And now what does the unknown do? Here, I think, we come to a supremely +significant point. Not only does he—standing rigid there, as I picture +him, before the dressing-table, listening to the sound of his own leaping +heart—not only does he answer the lady in the voice of Manderson; he +volunteers an explanatory statement. He tells her that he has, on a sudden +inspiration, sent Marlowe in the car to Southampton; that he has sent him to +bring back some important information from a man leaving for Paris by the +steamboat that morning. Why these details from a man who had long been +uncommunicative to his wife, and that upon a point scarcely likely to interest +her? Why these details <i>about Marlowe?</i> +</p> + +<p> +Having taken my story so far, I now put forward the following definite +propositions: that between a time somewhere about ten, when the car started, +and a time somewhere about eleven, Manderson was shot—probably at a +considerable distance from the house, as no shot was heard; that the body was +brought back, left by the shed, and stripped of its outer clothing; that at +some time round about eleven o’clock a man who was not Manderson, wearing +Manderson’s shoes, hat, and jacket, entered the library by the garden +window; that he had with him Manderson’s black trousers, waistcoat, and +motor-coat, the denture taken from Manderson’s mouth, and the weapon with +which he had been murdered; that he concealed these, rang the bell for the +butler, and sat down at the telephone with his hat on and his back to the door; +that he was occupied with the telephone all the time Martin was in the room; +that on going up to the bedroom floor he quietly entered Marlowe’s room +and placed the revolver with which the crime had been +committed—Marlowe’s revolver—in the case on the mantelpiece +from which it had been taken; and that he then went to Manderson’s room, +placed Manderson’s shoes outside the door, threw Manderson’s +garments on a chair, placed the denture in the bowl by the bedside, and +selected a suit of clothes, a pair of shoes, and a tie from those in the +bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +Here I will pause in my statement of this man’s proceedings to go into a +question for which the way is now sufficiently prepared: +</p> + +<p> +<i>Who was the false Manderson?</i> +</p> + +<p> +Reviewing what was known to me, or might almost with certainty be surmised, +about that person, I set down the following five conclusions: +</p> + +<p> +(1.) He had been in close relations with the dead man. In his acting before +Martin and his speaking to Mrs. Manderson he had made no mistake. +</p> + +<p> +(2.) He was of a build not unlike Manderson’s, especially as to height +and breadth of shoulder, which mainly determine the character of the back of a +seated figure when the head is concealed and the body loosely clothed. But his +feet were larger, though not greatly larger, than Manderson’s. +</p> + +<p> +(3.) He had considerable aptitude for mimicry and acting—probably some +experience too. +</p> + +<p> +(4.) He had a minute acquaintance with the ways of the Manderson household. +</p> + +<p> +(5.) He was under a vital necessity of creating the belief that Manderson was +alive and in that house until some time after midnight on the Sunday night. +</p> + +<p> +So much I took as either certain or next door to it. It was as far as I could +see. And it was far enough. +</p> + +<p> +I proceed to give, in an order corresponding with the numbered paragraphs +above, such relevant facts as I was able to obtain about Mr. John Marlowe, from +himself and other sources: +</p> + +<p> +(1.) He had been Mr. Manderson’s private secretary, upon a footing of +great intimacy, for nearly four years. +</p> + +<p> +(2.) The two men were nearly of the same height, about five feet eleven inches; +both were powerfully built and heavy in the shoulder. Marlowe, who was the +younger by some twenty years, was rather slighter about the body, though +Manderson was a man in good physical condition. Marlowe’s shoes (of which +I examined several pairs) were roughly about one shoemaker’s size longer +and broader than Manderson’s. +</p> + +<p> +(3.) In the afternoon of the first day of my investigation, after arriving at +the results already detailed, I sent a telegram to a personal friend, a Fellow +of a college at Oxford, whom I knew to be interested in theatrical matters, in +these terms: +</p> + +<p> +<i>Please wire John Marlowe’s record in connection with acting at Oxford +some time past decade very urgent and confidential.</i> +</p> + +<p> +My friend replied in the following telegram, which reached me next morning (the +morning of the inquest): +</p> + +<p> +<i>Marlowe was member O.U.D.S for three years and president 19— played +Bardolph Cleon and Mercutio excelled in character acting and imitations in +great demand at smokers was hero of some historic hoaxes.</i> +</p> + +<p> +I had been led to send the telegram which brought this very helpful answer by +seeing on the mantel-shelf in Marlowe’s bedroom a photograph of himself +and two others in the costume of Falstaff’s three followers, with an +inscription from <i>The Merry Wives</i>, and by noting that it bore the imprint +of an Oxford firm of photographers. +</p> + +<p> +(4.) During his connection with Manderson, Marlowe had lived as one of the +family. No other person, apart from the servants, had his opportunities for +knowing the domestic life of the Mandersons in detail. +</p> + +<p> +(5.) I ascertained beyond doubt that Marlowe arrived at a hotel in Southampton +on the Monday morning at 6.30, and there proceeded to carry out the commission +which, according to his story, and according to the statement made to Mrs. +Manderson in the bedroom by the false Manderson, had been entrusted to him by +his employer. He had then returned in the car to Marlstone, where he had shown +great amazement and horror at the news of the murder. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +These, I say, are the relevant facts about Marlowe. We must now examine fact +number 5 (as set out above) in connection with conclusion number 5 about the +false Manderson. +</p> + +<p> +I would first draw attention to one important fact. <i>The only person who +professed to have heard Manderson mention Southampton at all before he started +in the car was Marlowe</i>. His story—confirmed to some extent by what +the butler overheard—was that the journey was all arranged in a private +talk before they set out, and he could not say, when I put the question to him, +why Manderson should have concealed his intentions by giving out that he was +going with Marlowe for a moonlight drive. This point, however, attracted no +attention. Marlowe had an absolutely air-tight alibi in his presence at +Southampton by 6.30; nobody thought of him in connection with a murder which +must have been committed after 12.30—the hour at which Martin the butler +had gone to bed. But it was the Manderson who came back from the drive who went +out of his way to mention Southampton openly to two persons. <i>He even went so +far as to ring up a hotel at Southampton and ask questions which bore out +Marlowe’s story of his errand.</i> This was the call he was busy with +when Martin was in the library. +</p> + +<p> +Now let us consider the alibi. If Manderson was in the house that night, and if +he did not leave it until some time after 12.30, Marlowe could not by any +possibility have had a direct hand in the murder. It is a question of the +distance between Marlstone and Southampton. If he had left Marlstone in the car +at the hour when he is supposed to have done so—between 10 and +10.30—with a message from Manderson, the run would be quite an easy one +to do in the time. But it would be physically impossible for the car—a 15 +h.p. four-cylinder Northumberland, an average medium-power car—to get to +Southampton by half-past six unless it left Marlstone by midnight at latest. +Motorists who will examine the road-map and make the calculations required, as +I did in Manderson’s library that day, will agree that on the facts as +they appeared there was absolutely no case against Marlowe. +</p> + +<p> +But even if they were not as they appeared; if Manderson was dead by eleven +o’clock, and if at about that time Marlowe impersonated him at White +Gables; if Marlowe retired to Manderson’s bedroom—how can all this +be reconciled with his appearance next morning at Southampton? <i>He had to get +out of the house, unseen and unheard, and away in the car by midnight.</i> And +Martin, the sharp-eared Martin, was sitting up until 12.30 in his pantry, with +the door open, listening for the telephone bell. Practically he was standing +sentry over the foot of the staircase, the only staircase leading down from the +bedroom floor. +</p> + +<p> +With this difficulty we arrive at the last and crucial phase of my +investigation. Having the foregoing points clearly in mind, I spent the rest of +the day before the inquest in talking to various persons and in going over my +story, testing it link by link. I could only find the one weakness which seemed +to be involved in Martin’s sitting up until 12.30; and since his having +been instructed to do so was certainly a part of the plan, meant to clinch the +alibi for Marlowe, I knew there must be an explanation somewhere. If I could +not find that explanation, my theory was valueless. I must be able to show that +at the time Martin went up to bed the man who had shut himself in +Manderson’s bedroom might have been many miles away on the road to +Southampton. +</p> + +<p> +I had, however, a pretty good idea already—as perhaps the reader of these +lines has by this time, if I have made myself clear—of how the escape of +the false Manderson before midnight had been contrived. But I did not want what +I was now about to do to be known. If I had chanced to be discovered at work, +there would have been no concealing the direction of my suspicions. I resolved +not to test them on this point until the next day, during the opening +proceedings at the inquest. This was to be held, I knew, at the hotel, and I +reckoned upon having White Gables to myself so far as the principal inmates +were concerned. +</p> + +<p> +So in fact it happened. By the time the proceedings at the hotel had begun I +was hard at work at White Gables. I had a camera with me. I made search, on +principles well known to and commonly practised by the police, and often enough +by myself, for certain indications. Without describing my search, I may say at +once that I found and was able to photograph two fresh fingerprints, very large +and distinct, on the polished front of the right-hand top drawer of the chest +of drawers in Manderson’s bedroom; five more (among a number of smaller +and less recent impressions made by other hands) on the glasses of the French +window in Mrs. Manderson’s room, a window which always stood open at +night with a curtain before it; and three more upon the glass bowl in which +Manderson’s dental plate had been found lying. +</p> + +<p> +I took the bowl with me from White Gables. I took also a few articles which I +selected from Marlowe’s bedroom, as bearing the most distinct of the +innumerable fingerprints which are always to be found upon toilet articles in +daily use. I already had in my possession, made upon leaves cut from my pocket +diary, some excellent fingerprints of Marlowe’s which he had made in my +presence without knowing it. I had shown him the leaves, asking if he +recognized them; and the few seconds during which he had held them in his +fingers had sufficed to leave impressions which I was afterwards able to bring +out. +</p> + +<p> +By six o’clock in the evening, two hours after the jury had brought in +their verdict against a person or persons unknown, I had completed my work, and +was in a position to state that two of the five large prints made on the +window-glasses, and the three on the bowl, were made by the left hand of +Marlowe; that the remaining three on the window and the two on the drawer were +made by his right hand. +</p> + +<p> +By eight o’clock I had made at the establishment of Mr. H. T. Copper, +photographer, of Bishopsbridge, and with his assistance, a dozen enlarged +prints of the finger-marks of Marlowe, clearly showing the identity of those +which he unknowingly made in my presence and those left upon articles in his +bedroom, with those found by me as I have described, and thus establishing the +facts that Marlowe was recently in Manderson’s bedroom, where he had in +the ordinary way no business, and in Mrs Manderson’s room, where he had +still less. I hope it may be possible to reproduce these prints for publication +with this dispatch. +</p> + +<p> +At nine o’clock I was back in my room at the hotel and sitting down to +begin this manuscript. I had my story complete. I bring it to a close by +advancing these further propositions: that on the night of the murder the +impersonator of Manderson, being in Manderson’s bedroom, told Mrs +Manderson, as he had already told Martin, that Marlowe was at that moment on +his way to Southampton; that having made his dispositions in the room, he +switched off the light, and lay in the bed in his clothes; that he waited until +he was assured that Mrs. Manderson was asleep; that he then arose and +stealthily crossed Mrs. Manderson’s bedroom in his stocking feet, having +under his arm the bundle of clothing and shoes for the body; that he stepped +behind the curtain, pushing the doors of the window a little further open with +his hands, strode over the iron railing of the balcony, and let himself down +until only a drop of a few feet separated him from the soft turf of the lawn. +</p> + +<p> +All this might very well have been accomplished within half an hour of his +entering Manderson’s bedroom, which, according to Martin, he did at about +half-past eleven. +</p> + +<p> +What followed your readers and the authorities may conjecture for themselves. +The corpse was found next morning clothed—rather untidily. Marlowe in the +car appeared at Southampton by half-past six. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +I bring this manuscript to an end in my sitting-room at the hotel at Marlstone. +It is four o’clock in the morning. I leave for London by the noon train +from Bishopsbridge, and immediately after arriving I shall place these pages in +your hands. I ask you to communicate the substance of them to the Criminal +Investigation Department. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +P<small>HILIP</small> T<small>RENT</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>Chapter XII.<br />Evil Days</h2> + +<p> +“I am returning the cheque you sent for what I did on the Manderson +case,” Trent wrote to Sir James Molloy from Munich, whither he had gone +immediately after handing in at the <i>Record</i> office a brief dispatch +bringing his work on the case to an unexciting close. “What I sent you +wasn’t worth one-tenth of the amount; but I should have no scruple about +pocketing it if I hadn’t taken a fancy—never mind why—not to +touch any money at all for this business. I should like you, if there is no +objection, to pay for the stuff at your ordinary space-rate, and hand the money +to some charity which does not devote itself to bullying people, if you know of +any such. I have come to this place to see some old friends and arrange my +ideas, and the idea that comes out uppermost is that for a little while I want +some employment with activity in it. I find I can’t paint at all: I +couldn’t paint a fence. Will you try me as your Own Correspondent +somewhere? If you can find me a good adventure I will send you good accounts. +After that I could settle down and work.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir James sent him instructions by telegram to proceed at once to Kurland and +Livonia, where Citizen Browning was abroad again, and town and countryside +blazed in revolt. It was a roving commission, and for two months Trent followed +his luck. It served him not less well than usual. He was the only correspondent +who saw General Dragilew killed in the street at Volmar by a girl of eighteen. +He saw burnings, lynchings, fusillades, hangings; each day his soul sickened +afresh at the imbecilities born of misrule. Many nights he lay down in danger. +Many days he went fasting. But there was never an evening or a morning when he +did not see the face of the woman whom he hopelessly loved. +</p> + +<p> +He discovered in himself an unhappy pride at the lasting force of this +infatuation. It interested him as a phenomenon; it amazed and enlightened him. +Such a thing had not visited him before. It confirmed so much that he had found +dubious in the recorded experience of men. +</p> + +<p> +It was not that, at thirty-two, he could pretend to ignorance of this world of +emotion. About his knowledge let it be enough to say that what he had learned +had come unpursued and unpurchased, and was without intolerable memories; +broken to the realities of sex, he was still troubled by its inscrutable +history. He went through life full of a strange respect for certain feminine +weakness and a very simple terror of certain feminine strength. He had held to +a rather lukewarm faith that something remained in him to be called forth, and +that the voice that should call would be heard in its own time, if ever, and +not through any seeking. +</p> + +<p> +But he had not thought of the possibility that, if this proved true some day, +the truth might come in a sinister shape. The two things that had taken him +utterly by surprise in the matter of his feeling towards Mabel Manderson were +the insane suddenness of its uprising in full strength and its extravagant +hopelessness. Before it came, he had been much disposed to laugh at the +permanence of unrequited passion as a generous boyish delusion. He knew now +that he had been wrong, and he was living bitterly in the knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +Before the eye of his fancy the woman always came just as she was when he had +first had sight of her, with the gesture which he had surprised as he walked +past unseen on the edge of the cliff; that great gesture of passionate joy in +her new liberty which had told him more plainly than speech that her widowhood +was a release from torment, and had confirmed with terrible force the +suspicion, active in his mind before, that it was her passport to happiness +with a man whom she loved. He could not with certainty name to himself the +moment when he had first suspected that it might be so. The seed of the thought +must have been sown, he believed, at his first meeting with Marlowe; his mind +would have noted automatically that such evident strength and grace, with the +sort of looks and manners that the tall young man possessed, might go far with +any woman of unfixed affections. And the connection of this with what Mr. +Cupples had told him of the Mandersons’ married life must have formed +itself in the unconscious depths of his mind. Certainly it had presented itself +as an already established thing when he began, after satisfying himself of the +identity of the murderer, to cast about for the motive of the crime. Motive, +motive! How desperately he had sought for another, turning his back upon that +grim thought, that Marlowe—obsessed by passion like himself, and privy +perhaps to maddening truths about the wife’s unhappiness—had taken +a leaf, the guiltiest, from the book of Bothwell. But in all his investigations +at the time, in all his broodings on the matter afterwards, he had been able to +discover nothing that could prompt Marlowe to such a deed—nothing but +that temptation, the whole strength of which he could not know, but which if it +had existed must have pressed urgently upon a bold spirit in which scruple had +been somehow paralysed. If he could trust his senses at all, the young man was +neither insane nor by nature evil. But that could not clear him. Murder for a +woman’s sake, he thought, was not a rare crime, Heaven knew! If the +modern feebleness of impulse in the comfortable classes, and their respect for +the modern apparatus of detection, had made it rare among them, it was yet far +from impossible. It only needed a man of equal daring and intelligence, his +soul drugged with the vapours of an intoxicating intrigue, to plan and perform +such a deed. +</p> + +<p> +A thousand times, with a heart full of anguish, he had sought to reason away +the dread that Mabel Manderson had known too much of what had been intended +against her husband’s life. That she knew all the truth after the thing +was done he could not doubt; her unforgettable collapse in his presence when +the question about Marlowe was suddenly and bluntly put, had swept away his +last hope that there was no love between the pair, and had seemed to him, +moreover, to speak of dread of discovery. In any case, she knew the truth after +reading what he had left with her; and it was certain that no public suspicion +had been cast upon Marlowe since. She had destroyed his manuscript, then, and +taken him at his word to keep the secret that threatened her lover’s +life. +</p> + +<p> +But it was the monstrous thought that she might have known murder was brewing, +and guiltily kept silence, that haunted Trent’s mind. She might have +suspected, have guessed something; was it conceivable that she was aware of the +whole plot, that she connived? He could never forget that his first suspicion +of Marlowe’s motive in the crime had been roused by the fact that his +escape was made through the lady’s room. At that time, when he had not +yet seen her, he had been ready enough to entertain the idea of her equal guilt +and her co-operation. He had figured to himself some passionate +<i>hystérique</i>, merciless as a cat in her hate and her love, a zealous +abettor, perhaps even the ruling spirit in the crime. +</p> + +<p> +Then he had seen her, had spoken with her, had helped her in her weakness; and +such suspicions, since their first meeting, had seemed the vilest of infamy. He +had seen her eyes and her mouth; he had breathed the woman’s atmosphere. +Trent was one of those who fancy they can scent true wickedness in the air. In +her presence he had felt an inward certainty of her ultimate goodness of heart; +and it was nothing against this that she had abandoned herself a moment, that +day on the cliff, to the sentiment of relief at the ending of her bondage, of +her years of starved sympathy and unquickened motherhood. That she had turned +to Marlowe in her destitution he believed; that she had any knowledge of his +deadly purpose he did not believe. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, morning and evening the sickening doubts returned, and he recalled +again that it was almost in her presence that Marlowe had made his preparations +in the bedroom of the murdered man, that it was by the window of her own +chamber that he had escaped from the house. Had he forgotten his cunning and +taken the risk of telling her then? Or had he, as Trent thought more likely, +still played his part with her then, and stolen off while she slept? He did not +think she had known of the masquerade when she gave evidence at the inquest; it +read like honest evidence. Or—the question would never be silenced, +though he scorned it—had she lain expecting the footsteps in the room and +the whisper that should tell her that it was done? Among the foul possibilities +of human nature, was it possible that black ruthlessness and black deceit as +well were hidden behind that good and straight and gentle seeming? +</p> + +<p> +These thoughts would scarcely leave him when he was alone. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Trent served Sir James, well earning his pay for six months, and then returned +to Paris where he went to work again with a better heart. His powers had +returned to him, and he began to live more happily than he had expected among a +tribe of strangely assorted friends, French, English, and American, artists, +poets, journalists, policemen, hotel-keepers, soldiers, lawyers, business men, +and others. His old faculty of sympathetic interest in his fellows won for him, +just as in his student days, privileges seldom extended to the Briton. He +enjoyed again the rare experience of being taken into the bosom of a +Frenchman’s family. He was admitted to the momentous confidence of <i>les +jeunes</i>, and found them as sure that they had surprised the secrets of art +and life as the departed <i>jeunes</i> of ten years before had been. +</p> + +<p> +The bosom of the Frenchman’s family was the same as those he had known in +the past, even to the patterns of the wallpaper and movables. But the +<i>jeunes</i>, he perceived with regret, were totally different from their +forerunners. They were much more shallow and puerile, much less really clever. +The secrets they wrested from the Universe were not such important and +interesting secrets as had been wrested by the old <i>jeunes</i>. This he +believed and deplored until one day he found himself seated at a restaurant +next to a too well-fed man whom, in spite of the ravages of comfortable living, +he recognized as one of the <i>jeunes</i> of his own period. This one had been +wont to describe himself and three or four others as the Hermits of the New +Parnassus. He and his school had talked outside cafes and elsewhere more than +solitaries do as a rule; but, then, rules were what they had vowed themselves +to destroy. They proclaimed that verse, in particular, was free. The Hermit of +the New Parnassus was now in the Ministry of the Interior, and already +decorated: he expressed to Trent the opinion that what France needed most was a +hand of iron. He was able to quote the exact price paid for certain betrayals +of the country, of which Trent had not previously heard. +</p> + +<p> +Thus he was brought to make the old discovery that it was he who had changed, +like his friend of the Administration, and that <i>les jeunes</i> were still +the same. Yet he found it hard to say what precisely he had lost that so +greatly mattered; unless indeed it were so simple a thing as his high spirits. +</p> + +<p> +One morning in June, as he descended the slope of the Rue des Martyrs, he saw +approaching a figure that he remembered. He glanced quickly round, for the +thought of meeting Mr. Bunner again was unacceptable. For some time he had +recognized that his wound was healing under the spell of creative work; he +thought less often of the woman he loved, and with less pain. He would not have +the memory of those three days reopened. +</p> + +<p> +But the straight and narrow thoroughfare offered no refuge, and the American +saw him almost at once. +</p> + +<p> +His unforced geniality made Trent ashamed, for he had liked the man. They sat +long over a meal, and Mr. Bunner talked. Trent listened to him, now that he was +in for it, with genuine pleasure, now and then contributing a question or +remark. Besides liking his companion, he enjoyed his conversation, with its +unending verbal surprises, for its own sake. +</p> + +<p> +Bunner was, it appeared, resident in Paris as the chief Continental agent of +the Manderson firm, and fully satisfied with his position and prospects. He +discoursed on these for some twenty minutes. This subject at length exhausted, +he went on to tell Trent, who confessed that he had been away from England for +a year, that Marlowe had shortly after the death of Manderson entered his +father’s business, which was now again in a flourishing state, and had +already come to be practically in control of it. They had kept up their +intimacy, and were even now planning a holiday for the summer. Mr. Bunner spoke +with generous admiration of his friend’s talent for affairs. “Jack +Marlowe has a natural big head,” he declared, “and if he had more +experience, I wouldn’t want to have him up against me. He would put a +crimp in me every time.” +</p> + +<p> +As the American’s talk flowed on, Trent listened with a slowly growing +perplexity. It became more and more plain that something was very wrong in his +theory of the situation; there was no mention of its central figure. Presently +Mr. Bunner mentioned that Marlowe was engaged to be married to an Irish girl, +whose charms he celebrated with native enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +Trent clasped his hands savagely together beneath the table. What could have +happened? His ideas were sliding and shifting. At last he forced himself to put +a direct question. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunner was not very fully informed. He knew that Mrs. Manderson had left +England immediately after the settlement of her husband’s affairs, and +had lived for some time in Italy. She had returned not long ago to London, +where she had decided not to live in the house in Mayfair, and had bought a +smaller one in the Hampstead neighbourhood; also, he understood, one somewhere +in the country. She was said to go but little into society. “And all the +good hard dollars just waiting for some one to spraddle them around,” +said Mr. Bunner, with a note of pathos in his voice. “Why, she has money +to burn—money to feed to the birds—and nothing doing. The old man +left her more than half his wad. And think of the figure she might make in the +world. She is beautiful, and she is the best woman I ever met, too. But she +couldn’t ever seem to get the habit of spending money the way it ought to +be spent.” +</p> + +<p> +His words now became a soliloquy: Trent’s thoughts were occupying all his +attention. He pleaded business soon, and the two men parted with cordiality. +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour later Trent was in his studio, swiftly and mechanically +“cleaning up”. He wanted to know what had happened; somehow he must +find out. He could never approach herself, he knew; he would never bring back +to her the shame of that last encounter with him; it was scarcely likely that +he would even set eyes on her. But he must get to know!... Cupples was in +London, Marlowe was there.... And, anyhow, he was sick of Paris. +</p> + +<p> +Such thoughts came and went; and below them all strained the fibres of an +unseen cord that dragged mercilessly at his heart, and that he cursed bitterly +in the moments when he could not deny to himself that it was there. The folly, +the useless, pitiable folly of it! +</p> + +<p> +In twenty-four hours his feeble roots in Paris had been torn out. He was +looking over a leaden sea at the shining fortress-wall of the Dover cliffs. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +But though he had instinctively picked out the lines of a set purpose from +among the welter of promptings in his mind, he found it delayed at the very +outset. +</p> + +<p> +He had decided that he must first see Mr. Cupples, who would be in a position +to tell him much more than the American knew. But Mr. Cupples was away on his +travels, not expected to return for a month; and Trent had no reasonable excuse +for hastening his return. Marlowe he would not confront until he had tried at +least to reconnoitre the position. He constrained himself not to commit the +crowning folly of seeking out Mrs. Manderson’s house in Hampstead; he +could not enter it, and the thought of the possibility of being seen by her +lurking in its neighbourhood brought the blood to his face. +</p> + +<p> +He stayed at an hotel, took a studio, and while he awaited Mr. Cupples’s +return attempted vainly to lose himself in work. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of a week he had an idea that he acted upon with eager precipitancy. +She had let fall some word at their last meeting, of a taste for music. Trent +went that evening, and thenceforward regularly, to the opera. He might see her; +and if, in spite of his caution, she caught sight of him, they could be blind +to each other’s presence—anybody might happen to go to the opera. +</p> + +<p> +So he went alone each evening, passing as quickly as he might through the +people in the vestibule; and each evening he came away knowing that she had not +been in the house. It was a habit that yielded him a sort of satisfaction along +with the guilty excitement of his search; for he too loved music, and nothing +gave him so much peace while its magic endured. +</p> + +<p> +One night as he entered, hurrying through the brilliant crowd, he felt a touch +on his arm. Flooded with an incredible certainty at the touch, he turned. +</p> + +<p> +It was she: so much more radiant in the absence of grief and anxiety, in the +fact that she was smiling, and in the allurement of evening dress, that he +could not speak. She, too, breathed a little quickly, and there was a light of +daring in her eyes and cheeks as she greeted him. +</p> + +<p> +Her words were few. “I wouldn’t miss a note of +<i>Tristan</i>,” she said, “nor must you. Come and see me in the +interval.” She gave him the number of the box. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>Chapter XIII.<br />Eruption</h2> + +<p> +The following two months were a period in Trent’s life that he has never +since remembered without shuddering. He met Mrs. Manderson half a dozen times, +and each time her cool friendliness, a nicely calculated mean between mere +acquaintance and the first stage of intimacy, baffled and maddened him. At the +opera he had found her, to his further amazement, with a certain Mrs. Wallace, +a frisky matron whom he had known from childhood. Mrs. Manderson, it appeared, +on her return from Italy, had somehow wandered into circles to which he +belonged by nurture and disposition. It came, she said, of her having pitched +her tent in their hunting-grounds; several of his friends were near neighbours. +He had a dim but horrid recollection of having been on that occasion unlike +himself, ill at ease, burning in the face, talking with idiot loquacity of his +adventures in the Baltic provinces, and finding from time to time that he was +addressing himself exclusively to Mrs. Wallace. The other lady, when he joined +them, had completely lost the slight appearance of agitation with which she had +stopped him in the vestibule. She had spoken pleasantly to him of her travels, +of her settlement in London, and of people whom they both knew. +</p> + +<p> +During the last half of the opera, which he had stayed in the box to hear, he +had been conscious of nothing, as he sat behind them, but the angle of her +cheek and the mass of her hair, the lines of her shoulder and arm, her hand +upon the cushion. The black hair had seemed at last a forest, immeasurable, +pathless and enchanted, luring him to a fatal adventure.... At the end he had +been pale and subdued, parting with them rather formally. +</p> + +<p> +The next time he saw her—it was at a country house where both were +guests—and the subsequent times, he had had himself in hand. He had +matched her manner and had acquitted himself, he thought, decently, +considering— +</p> + +<p> +Considering that he lived in an agony of bewilderment and remorse and longing. +He could make nothing, absolutely nothing, of her attitude. That she had read +his manuscript and understood the suspicion indicated in his last question to +her at White Gables was beyond the possibility of doubt. Then how could she +treat him thus and frankly, as she treated all the world of men who had done no +injury? +</p> + +<p> +For it had become clear to his intuitive sense, for all the absence of any +shade of differentiation in her outward manner, that an injury had been done, +and that she had felt it. Several times, on the rare and brief occasions when +they had talked apart, he had warning from the same sense that she was +approaching this subject; and each time he had turned the conversation with the +ingenuity born of fear. Two resolutions he made. The first was that when he had +completed a commissioned work which tied him to London he would go away and +stay away. The strain was too great. He no longer burned to know the truth; he +wanted nothing to confirm his fixed internal conviction by faith, that he had +blundered, that he had misread the situation, misinterpreted her tears, written +himself down a slanderous fool. He speculated no more on Marlowe’s motive +in the killing of Manderson. Mr. Cupples returned to London, and Trent asked +him nothing. He knew now that he had been right in those words—Trent +remembered them for the emphasis with which they were spoken—“So +long as she considered herself bound to him... no power on earth could have +persuaded her.” He met Mrs. Manderson at dinner at her uncle’s +large and tomb-like house in Bloomsbury, and there he conversed most of the +evening with a professor of archaeology from Berlin. +</p> + +<p> +His other resolution was that he would not be with her alone. +</p> + +<p> +But when, a few days after, she wrote asking him to come and see her on the +following afternoon, he made no attempt to excuse himself. This was a formal +challenge. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +While she celebrated the rites of tea, and for some little time thereafter, she +joined with such natural ease in his slightly fevered conversation on matters +of the day that he began to hope she had changed what he could not doubt had +been her resolve, to corner him and speak to him gravely. She was to all +appearance careless now, smiling so that he recalled, not for the first time +since that night at the opera, what was written long ago of a Princess of +Brunswick: “Her mouth has ten thousand charms that touch the soul.” +She made a tour of the beautiful room where she had received him, singling out +this treasure or that from the spoils of a hundred bric-à-brac shops, laughing +over her quests, discoveries, and bargainings. And when he asked if she would +delight him again with a favourite piece of his which he had heard her play at +another house, she consented at once. +</p> + +<p> +She played with a perfection of execution and feeling that moved him now as it +had moved him before. “You are a musician born,” he said quietly +when she had finished, and the last tremor of the music had passed away. +“I knew that before I first heard you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have played a great deal ever since I can remember. It has been a +great comfort to me,” she said simply, and half-turned to him smiling. +“When did you first detect music in me? Oh, of course: I was at the +opera. But that wouldn’t prove much, would it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said abstractedly, his sense still busy with the music +that had just ended. “I think I knew it the first time I saw you.” +Then understanding of his own words came to him, and turned him rigid. For the +first time the past had been invoked. +</p> + +<p> +There was a short silence. Mrs. Manderson looked at Trent, then hastily looked +away. Colour began to rise in her cheeks, and she pursed her lips as if for +whistling. Then with a defiant gesture of the shoulders which he remembered she +rose suddenly from the piano and placed herself in a chair opposite to him. +</p> + +<p> +“That speech of yours will do as well as anything,” she began +slowly, looking at the point of her shoe, “to bring us to what I wanted +to say. I asked you here today on purpose, Mr. Trent, because I couldn’t +bear it any longer. Ever since the day you left me at White Gables I have been +saying to myself that it didn’t matter what you thought of me in that +affair; that you were certainly not the kind of man to speak to others of what +you believed about me, after what you had told me of your reasons for +suppressing your manuscript. I asked myself how it could matter. But all the +time, of course, I knew it did matter. It mattered horribly. Because what you +thought was not true.” She raised her eyes and met his gaze calmly. +Trent, with a completely expressionless face, returned her look. +</p> + +<p> +“Since I began to know you,” he said, “I have ceased to think +it.” “Thank you,” said Mrs. Manderson; and blushed suddenly +and deeply. Then, playing with a glove, she added, “But I want you to +know what <i>was</i> true. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not know if I should ever see you again,” she went on in a +lower voice, “but I felt that if I did I must speak to you about this. I +thought it would not be hard to do so, because you seemed to me an +understanding person; and besides, a woman who has been married isn’t +expected to have the same sort of difficulty as a young girl in speaking about +such things when it is necessary. And then we did meet again, and I discovered +that it was very difficult indeed. You made it difficult.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” he asked quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said the lady. “But yes—I do +know. It was just because you treated me exactly as if you had never thought or +imagined anything of that sort about me. I had always supposed that if I saw +you again you would turn on me that hard, horrible sort of look you had when +you asked me that last question—do you remember?—at White Gables. +Instead of that you were just like any other acquaintance. You were +just”—she hesitated and spread out her hands—“nice. You +know. After that first time at the opera when I spoke to you I went home +positively wondering if you had really recognized me. I mean, I thought you +might have recognized my face without remembering who it was.” +</p> + +<p> +A short laugh broke from Trent in spite of himself, but he said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled deprecatingly. “Well, I couldn’t remember if you had +spoken my name; and I thought it might be so. But the next time, at the +Iretons’, you did speak it, so I knew; and a dozen times during those few +days I almost brought myself to tell you, but never quite. I began to feel that +you wouldn’t let me, that you would slip away from the subject if I +approached it. Wasn’t I right? Tell me, please.” He nodded. +“But why?” He remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she said, “I will finish what I had to say, and then +you will tell me, I hope, why you had to make it so hard. When I began to +understand that you wouldn’t let me talk of the matter to you, it made me +more determined than ever. I suppose you didn’t realize that I would +insist on speaking even if you were quite discouraging. I dare say I +couldn’t have done it if I had been guilty, as you thought. You walked +into my parlour today, never thinking I should dare. Well, now you see.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson had lost all her air of hesitancy. She had, as she was wont to +say, talked herself enthusiastic, and in the ardour of her purpose to +annihilate the misunderstanding that had troubled her so long she felt herself +mistress of the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to tell you the story of the mistake you made,” she +continued, as Trent, his hands clasped between his knees, still looked at her +enigmatically. “You will have to believe it, Mr. Trent; it is utterly +true to life, with its confusions and hidden things and cross-purposes and +perfectly natural mistakes that nobody thinks twice about taking for facts. +Please understand that I don’t blame you in the least, and never did, for +jumping to the conclusion you did. You knew that I was estranged from my +husband, and you knew what that so often means. You knew before I told you, I +expect, that he had taken up an injured attitude towards me; and I was silly +enough to try and explain it away. I gave you the explanation of it that I had +given myself at first, before I realized the wretched truth; I told you he was +disappointed in me because I couldn’t take a brilliant lead in society. +Well, that was true; he was so. But I could see you weren’t convinced. +You had guessed what it took me much longer to see, because I knew how +irrational it was. Yes; my husband was jealous of John Marlowe; you divined +that. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I behaved like a fool when you let me see you had divined it; it +was such a blow, you understand, when I had supposed all the humiliation and +strain was at an end, and that his delusion had died with him. You practically +asked me if my husband’s secretary was not my lover, Mr. Trent—I +<i>have</i> to say it, because I want you to understand why I broke down and +made a scene. You took that for a confession; you thought I was guilty of that, +and I think you even thought I might be a party to the crime, that I had +consented.... That did hurt me; but perhaps you couldn’t have thought +anything else—I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent, who had not hitherto taken his eyes from her face, hung his head at the +words. He did not raise it again as she continued. “But really it was +simple shock and distress that made me give way, and the memory of all the +misery that mad suspicion had meant to me. And when I pulled myself together +again you had gone.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose and went to an escritoire beside the window, unlocked a drawer, and +drew out a long, sealed envelope. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the manuscript you left with me,” she said. “I have +read it through again and again. I have always wondered, as everybody does, at +your cleverness in things of this kind.” A faintly mischievous smile +flashed upon her face, and was gone. “I thought it was splendid, Mr. +Trent—I almost forgot that the story was my own, I was so interested. And +I want to say now, while I have this in my hand, how much I thank you for your +generous, chivalrous act in sacrificing this triumph of yours rather than put a +woman’s reputation in peril. If all had been as you supposed, the facts +must have come out when the police took up the case you put in their hands. +Believe me, I understood just what you had done, and I never ceased to be +grateful even when I felt most crushed by your suspicion.” +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke her thanks her voice shook a little, and her eyes were bright. +Trent perceived nothing of this. His head was still bent. He did not seem to +hear. She put the envelope into his hand as it lay open, palm upwards, on his +knee. There was a touch of gentleness about the act which made him look up. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you—” he began slowly. +</p> + +<p> +She raised her hand as she stood before him. “No, Mr. Trent; let me +finish before you say anything. It is such an unspeakable relief to me to have +broken the ice at last, and I want to end the story while I am still feeling +the triumph of beginning it.” She sank down into the sofa from which she +had first risen. “I am telling you a thing that nobody else knows. +Everybody knew, I suppose, that something had come between us, though I did +everything in my power to hide it. But I don’t think any one in the world +ever guessed what my husband’s notion was. People who know me don’t +think that sort of thing about me, I believe. And his fancy was so ridiculously +opposed to the facts. I will tell you what the situation was. Mr. Marlowe and I +had been friendly enough since he came to us. For all his cleverness—my +husband said he had a keener brain than any man he knew—I looked upon him +as practically a boy. You know I am a little older than he is, and he had a +sort of amiable lack of ambition that made me feel it the more. One day my +husband asked me what I thought was the best thing about Marlowe, and not +thinking much about it I said, ‘His manners.’ He surprised me very +much by looking black at that, and after a silence he said, ‘Yes, Marlowe +is a gentleman; that’s so’, not looking at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing was ever said about that again until about a year ago, when I +found that Mr. Marlowe had done what I always expected he would do—fallen +desperately in love with an American girl. But to my disgust he had picked out +the most worthless girl, I do believe, of all those whom we used to meet. She +was the daughter of wealthy parents, and she did as she liked with them; very +beautiful, well educated, very good at games—what they call a +woman-athlete—and caring for nothing on earth but her own amusement. She +was one of the most unprincipled flirts I ever knew, and quite the cleverest. +Every one knew it, and Mr. Marlowe must have heard it; but she made a complete +fool of him, brain and all. I don’t know how she managed it, but I can +imagine. She liked him, of course; but it was quite plain to me that she was +playing with him. The whole affair was so idiotic, I got perfectly furious. One +day I asked him to row me in a boat on the lake—all this happened at our +house by Lake George. We had never been alone together for any length of time +before. In the boat I talked to him. I was very kind about it, I think, and he +took it admirably, but he didn’t believe me a bit. He had the impudence +to tell me that I misunderstood Alice’s nature. When I hinted at his +prospects—I knew he had scarcely anything of his own—he said that +if she loved him he could make himself a position in the world. I dare say that +was true, with his abilities and his friends—he is rather well connected, +you know, as well as popular. But his enlightenment came very soon after that. +</p> + +<p> +“My husband helped me out of the boat when we got back. He joked with Mr +Marlowe about something, I remember; for through all that followed he never +once changed in his manner to him, and that was one reason why I took so long +to realize what he thought about him and myself. But to me he was reserved and +silent that evening—not angry. He was always perfectly cold and +expressionless to me after he took this idea into his head. After dinner he +only spoke to me once. Mr. Marlowe was telling him about some horse he had +bought for the farm in Kentucky, and my husband looked at me and said, +‘Marlowe may be a gentleman, but he seldom quits loser in a +horse-trade.’ I was surprised at that, but at that time—and even on +the next occasion when he found us together—I didn’t understand +what was in his mind. That next time was the morning when Mr Marlowe received a +sweet little note from the girl asking for his congratulations on her +engagement. It was in our New York house. He looked so wretched at breakfast +that I thought he was ill, and afterwards I went to the room where he worked, +and asked what was the matter. He didn’t say anything, but just handed me +the note, and turned away to the window. I was very glad that was all over, but +terribly sorry for him too, of course. I don’t remember what I said, but +I remember putting my hand on his arm as he stood there staring out on the +garden and just then my husband appeared at the open door with some papers. He +just glanced at us, and then turned and walked quietly back to his study. I +thought that he might have heard what I was saying to comfort Mr. Marlowe, and +that it was rather nice of him to slip away. Mr. Marlowe neither saw nor heard +him. My husband left the house that morning for the West while I was out. Even +then I did not understand. He used often to go off suddenly like that, if some +business project called him. +</p> + +<p> +“It was not until he returned a week later that I grasped the situation. +He was looking white and strange, and as soon as he saw me he asked me where +Mr. Marlowe was. Somehow the tone of his question told me everything in a +flash. +</p> + +<p> +“I almost gasped; I was wild with indignation. You know, Mr. Trent, I +don’t think I should have minded at all if any one had thought me capable +of openly breaking with my husband and leaving him for somebody else. I dare +say I might have done that. But that coarse suspicion... a man whom he +trusted... and the notion of concealment. It made me see scarlet. Every shred +of pride in me was strung up till I quivered, and I swore to myself on the spot +that I would never show by any word or sign that I was conscious of his having +such a thought about me. I would behave exactly as I always had behaved, I +determined—and that I did, up to the very last. Though I knew that a wall +had been made between us now that could never be broken down—even if he +asked my pardon and obtained it—I never once showed that I noticed any +change. +</p> + +<p> +“And so it went on. I never could go through such a time again. My +husband showed silent and cold politeness to me always when we were +alone—and that was only when it was unavoidable. He never once alluded to +what was in his mind; but I felt it, and he knew that I felt it. Both of us +were stubborn in our different attitudes. To Mr. Marlowe he was more friendly, +if anything, than before—Heaven only knows why. I fancied he was planning +some sort of revenge; but that was only a fancy. Certainly Mr. Marlowe never +knew what was suspected of him. He and I remained good friends, though we never +spoke of anything intimate after that disappointment of his; but I made a point +of seeing no less of him than I had always done. Then we came to England and to +White Gables, and after that followed—my husband’s dreadful +end.” +</p> + +<p> +She threw out her right hand in a gesture of finality. “You know about +the rest—so much more than any other man,” she added, and glanced +up at him with a quaint expression. +</p> + +<p> +Trent wondered at that look, but the wonder was only a passing shadow on his +thought. Inwardly his whole being was possessed by thankfulness. All the +vivacity had returned to his face. Long before the lady had ended her story he +had recognized the certainty of its truth, as from the first days of their +renewed acquaintance he had doubted the story that his imagination had built up +at White Gables, upon foundations that seemed so good to him. +</p> + +<p> +He said, “I don’t know how to begin the apologies I have to make. +There are no words to tell you how ashamed and disgraced I feel when I realize +what a crude, cock-sure blundering at a conclusion my suspicion was. Yes, I +suspected—you! I had almost forgotten that I was ever such a fool. +Almost—not quite. Sometimes when I have been alone I have remembered that +folly, and poured contempt on it. I have tried to imagine what the facts were. +I have tried to excuse myself.” +</p> + +<p> +She interrupted him quickly. “What nonsense! Do be sensible, Mr. Trent. +You had only seen me on two occasions in your life before you came to me with +your solution of the mystery.” Again the quaint expression came and was +gone. “If you talk of folly, it really is folly for a man like you to +pretend to a woman like me that I had innocence written all over me in large +letters—so large that you couldn’t believe very strong evidence +against me after seeing me twice.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by ‘a man like me’?” he demanded with +a sort of fierceness. “Do you take me for a person without any normal +instincts? I don’t say you impress people as a simple, transparent sort +of character—what Mr. Calvin Bunner calls a case of open-work; I +don’t say a stranger might not think you capable of wickedness, if there +was good evidence for it: but I say that a man who, after seeing you and being +in your atmosphere, could associate you with the particular kind of abomination +I imagined, is a fool—the kind of fool who is afraid to trust his +senses.... As for my making it hard for you to approach the subject, as you +say, it is true. It was simply moral cowardice. I understood that you wished to +clear the matter up; and I was revolted at the notion of my injurious blunder +being discussed. I tried to show you by my actions that it was as if it had +never been. I hoped you would pardon me without any words. I can’t +forgive myself, and I never shall. And yet if you could know—” He +stopped short, and then added quietly, “Well, will you accept all that as +an apology? The very scrubbiest sackcloth made, and the grittiest ashes on the +heap.... I didn’t mean to get worked up,” he ended lamely. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson laughed, and her laugh carried him away with it. He knew well by +this time that sudden rush of cascading notes of mirth, the perfect expression +of enjoyment; he had many times tried to amuse her merely for his delight in +the sound of it. +</p> + +<p> +“But I love to see you worked up,” she said. “The bump with +which you always come down as soon as you realize that you are up in the air at +all is quite delightful. Oh, we’re actually both laughing. What a +triumphant end to our explanations, after all my dread of the time when I +should have it out with you. And now it’s all over, and you know; and +we’ll never speak of it any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not,” Trent said in sincere relief. “If you’re +resolved to be so kind as this about it, I am not high-principled enough to +insist on your blasting me with your lightnings. And now, Mrs. Manderson, I had +better go. Changing the subject after this would be like playing +puss-in-the-corner after an earthquake.” He rose to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” she said. “But no! Wait. There is another +thing—part of the same subject; and we ought to pick up all the pieces +now while we are about it. Please sit down.” She took the envelope +containing Trent’s manuscript dispatch from the table where he had laid +it. “I want to speak about this.” +</p> + +<p> +His brows bent, and he looked at her questioningly. “So do I, if you +do,” he said slowly. “I want very much to know one thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since my reason for suppressing that information was all a fantasy, why +did you never make any use of it? When I began to realize that I had been wrong +about you, I explained your silence to myself by saying that you could not +bring yourself to do a thing that would put a rope round a man’s neck, +whatever he might have done. I can quite understand that feeling. Was that what +it was? Another possibility I thought of was that you knew of something that +was by way of justifying or excusing Marlowe’s act. Or I thought you +might have a simple horror, quite apart from humanitarian scruples, of +appearing publicly in connection with a murder trial. Many important witnesses +in such cases have to be practically forced into giving their evidence. They +feel there is defilement even in the shadow of the scaffold.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson tapped her lips with the envelope without quite concealing a +smile. “You didn’t think of another possibility, I suppose, Mr. +Trent,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” He looked puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean the possibility of your having been wrong about Mr. Marlowe as +well as about me. No, no; you needn’t tell me that the chain of evidence +is complete. I know it is. But evidence of what? Of Mr. Marlowe having +impersonated my husband that night, and having escaped by way of my window, and +built up an alibi. I have read your dispatch again and again, Mr. Trent, and I +don’t see that those things can be doubted.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent gazed at her with narrowed eyes. He said nothing to fill the brief pause +that followed. Mrs. Manderson smoothed her skirt with a preoccupied air, as one +collecting her ideas. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not make any use of the facts found out by you,” she slowly +said at last, “because it seemed to me very likely that they would be +fatal to Mr. Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I agree with you,” Trent remarked in a colourless tone. +</p> + +<p> +“And,” pursued the lady, looking up at him with a mild +reasonableness in her eyes, “as I knew that he was innocent I was not +going to expose him to that risk.” +</p> + +<p> +There was another little pause. Trent rubbed his chin, with an affectation of +turning over the idea. Inwardly he was telling himself, somewhat feebly, that +this was very right and proper; that it was quite feminine, and that he liked +her to be feminine. It was permitted to her—more than permitted—to +set her loyal belief in the character of a friend above the clearest +demonstrations of the intellect. Nevertheless, it chafed him. He would have had +her declaration of faith a little less positive in form. It was too irrational +to say she “knew”. In fact (he put it to himself bluntly), it was +quite unlike her. If to be unreasonable when reason led to the unpleasant was a +specially feminine trait, and if Mrs. Manderson had it, she was accustomed to +wrap it up better than any woman he had known. +</p> + +<p> +“You suggest,” he said at length, “that Marlowe constructed +an alibi for himself, by means which only a desperate man would have attempted, +to clear himself of a crime he did not commit. Did he tell you he was +innocent?” +</p> + +<p> +She uttered a little laugh of impatience. “So you think he has been +talking me round. No, that is not so. I am merely sure he did not do it. Ah! I +see you think that absurd. But see how unreasonable you are, Mr Trent! Just now +you were explaining to me quite sincerely that it was foolishness in you to +have a certain suspicion of me after seeing me and being in my atmosphere, as +you said.” Trent started in his chair. She glanced at him, and went on: +“Now, I and my atmosphere are much obliged to you, but we must stand up +for the rights of other atmospheres. I know a great deal more about Mr. +Marlowe’s atmosphere than you know about mine even now. I saw him +constantly for several years. I don’t pretend to know all about him; but +I do know that he is incapable of a crime of bloodshed. The idea of his +planning a murder is as unthinkable to me as the idea of your picking a poor +woman’s pocket, Mr. Trent. I can imagine you killing a man, you know... +if the man deserved it and had an equal chance of killing you. I could kill a +person myself in some circumstances. But Mr. Marlowe was incapable of doing it, +I don’t care what the provocation might be. He had a temper that nothing +could shake, and he looked upon human nature with a sort of cold magnanimity +that would find excuses for absolutely anything. It wasn’t a pose; you +could see it was a part of him. He never put it forward, but it was there +always. It was quite irritating at times.... Now and then in America, I +remember, I have heard people talking about lynching, for instance, when he was +there. He would sit quite silent and expressionless, appearing not to listen; +but you could feel disgust coming from him in waves. He really loathed and +hated physical violence. He was a very strange man in some ways, Mr. Trent. He +gave one a feeling that he might do unexpected things—do you know that +feeling one has about some people? What part he really played in the events of +that night I have never been able to guess. But nobody who knew anything about +him could possibly believe in his deliberately taking a man’s +life.” Again the movement of her head expressed finality, and she leaned +back in the sofa, calmly regarding him. +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Trent, who had followed this with earnest attention, +“we are forced back on two other possibilities, which I had not thought +worth much consideration until this moment. Accepting what you say, he might +still conceivably have killed in self-defence; or he might have done so by +accident.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady nodded. “Of course I thought of those two explanations when I +read your manuscript.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I suppose you felt, as I did myself, that in either of those cases +the natural thing, and obviously the safest thing, for him to do was to make a +public statement of the truth, instead of setting up a series of deceptions +which would certainly stamp him as guilty in the eyes of the law, if anything +went wrong with them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said wearily, “I thought over all that until my +head ached. And I thought somebody else might have done it, and that he was +somehow screening the guilty person. But that seemed wild. I could see no light +in the mystery, and after a while I simply let it alone. All I was clear about +was that Mr. Marlowe was not a murderer, and that if I told what you had found +out, the judge and jury would probably think he was. I promised myself that I +would speak to you about it if we should meet again; and now I’ve kept my +promise.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent, his chin resting on his hand, was staring at the carpet. The excitement +of the hunt for the truth was steadily rising in him. He had not in his own +mind accepted Mrs. Manderson’s account of Marlowe’s character as +unquestionable. But she had spoken forcibly; he could by no means set it aside, +and his theory was much shaken. +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one thing for it,” he said, looking up. “I +must see Marlowe. It worries me too much to have the thing left like this. I +will get at the truth. Can you tell me,” he broke off, “how he +behaved after the day I left White Gables?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw him after that,” said Mrs. Manderson simply. +“For some days after you went away I was ill, and didn’t go out of +my room. When I got down he had left and was in London, settling things with +the lawyers. He did not come down to the funeral. Immediately after that I went +abroad. After some weeks a letter from him reached me, saying he had concluded +his business and given the solicitors all the assistance in his power. He +thanked me very nicely for what he called all my kindness, and said goodbye. +There was nothing in it about his plans for the future, and I thought it +particularly strange that he said not a word about my husband’s death. I +didn’t answer. Knowing what I knew, I couldn’t. In those days I +shuddered whenever I thought of that masquerade in the night. I never wanted to +see or hear of him again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t know what has become of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but I dare say Uncle Burton—Mr. Cupples, you know—could +tell you. Some time ago he told me that he had met Mr. Marlowe in London, and +had some talk with him. I changed the conversation.” She paused and +smiled with a trace of mischief. “I rather wonder what you supposed had +happened to Mr. Marlowe after you withdrew from the scene of the drama that you +had put together so much to your satisfaction.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent flushed. “Do you really want to know?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask you,” she retorted quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“You ask me to humiliate myself again, Mrs. Manderson. Very well. I will +tell you what I thought I should most likely find when I returned to London +after my travels: that you had married Marlowe to live abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +She heard him with unmoved composure. “We certainly couldn’t have +lived very comfortably in England on his money and mine,” she observed +thoughtfully. “He had practically nothing then.” +</p> + +<p> +He stared at her—“gaped”, she told him some time afterwards. +At the moment she laughed with a little embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me, Mr. Trent! Have I said anything dreadful? You surely must +know.... I thought everybody understood by now.... I’m sure I’ve +had to explain it often enough... if I marry again I lose everything that my +husband left me.” +</p> + +<p> +The effect of this speech upon Trent was curious. For an instant his face was +flooded with the emotion of surprise. As this passed away he gradually drew +himself together, as he sat, into a tense attitude. He looked, she thought as +she saw his knuckles grow white on the arms of the chair, like a man prepared +for pain under the hand of the surgeon. But all he said, in a voice lower than +his usual tone, was, “I had no idea of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is so,” she said calmly, trifling with a ring on her finger. +“Really, Mr. Trent, it is not such a very unusual thing. I think I am +glad of it. For one thing, it has secured me—at least since it became +generally known—from a good many attentions of a kind that a woman in my +position has to put up with as a rule.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt,” he said gravely. “And... the other kind?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him questioningly. “Ah!” she laughed. “The +other kind trouble me even less. I have not yet met a man silly enough to want +to marry a widow with a selfish disposition, and luxurious habits and tastes, +and nothing but the little my father left me.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, and something in the gesture shattered the last remnants of +Trent’s self-possession. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you, by Heaven!” he exclaimed, rising with a violent +movement and advancing a step towards her. “Then I am going to show you +that human passion is not always stifled by the smell of money. I am going to +end the business—my business. I am going to tell you what I dare say +scores of better men have wanted to tell you, but couldn’t summon up what +I have summoned up—the infernal cheek to do it. They were afraid of +making fools of themselves. I am not. You have accustomed me to the feeling +this afternoon.” He laughed aloud in his rush of words, and spread out +his hands. “Look at me! It is the sight of the century! It is one who +says he loves you, and would ask you to give up very great wealth to stand at +his side.” +</p> + +<p> +She was hiding her face in her hands. He heard her say brokenly, +“Please... don’t speak in that way.” +</p> + +<p> +He answered: “It will make a great difference to me if you will allow me +to say all I have to say before I leave you. Perhaps it is in bad taste, but I +will risk that; I want to relieve my soul; it needs open confession. This is +the truth. You have troubled me ever since the first time I saw you—and +you did not know it—as you sat under the edge of the cliff at Marlstone, +and held out your arms to the sea. It was only your beauty that filled my mind +then. As I passed by you it seemed as if all the life in the place were crying +out a song about you in the wind and the sunshine. And the song stayed in my +ears; but even your beauty would be no more than an empty memory to me by now +if that had been all. It was when I led you from the hotel there to your house, +with your hand on my arm, that—what was it that happened? I only knew +that your stronger magic had struck home, and that I never should forget that +day, whatever the love of my life should be. Till that day I had admired as I +should admire the loveliness of a still lake; but that day I felt the spell of +the divinity of the lake. And next morning the waters were troubled, and she +rose—the morning when I came to you with my questions, tired out with +doubts that were as bitter as pain, and when I saw you without your pale, sweet +mask of composure—when I saw you moved and glowing, with your eyes and +your hands alive, and when you made me understand that for such a creature as +you there had been emptiness and the mere waste of yourself for so long. +Madness rose in me then, and my spirit was clamouring to say what I say at last +now: that life would never seem a full thing again because you could not love +me, that I was taken for ever in the nets of your black hair and by the +incantation of your voice—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, stop!” she cried, suddenly throwing back her head, her face +flaming and her hands clutching the cushions beside her. She spoke fast and +disjointedly, her breath coming quick. “You shall not talk me into +forgetting common sense. What does all this mean? Oh, I do not recognize you at +all—you seem another man. We are not children; have you forgotten that? +You speak like a boy in love for the first time. It is foolish, unreal—I +know that if you do not. I will not hear it. What has happened to you?” +She was half sobbing. “How can these sentimentalities come from a man +like you? Where is your self-restraint?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone!” exclaimed Trent, with an abrupt laugh. “It has got +right away. I am going after it in a minute.” He looked gravely down into +her eyes. “I don’t care so much now. I never could declare myself +to you under the cloud of your great fortune. It was too heavy. There’s +nothing creditable in that feeling, as I look at it; as a matter of simple fact +it was a form of cowardice—fear of what you would think, and very likely +say—fear of the world’s comment too, I suppose. But the cloud being +rolled away, I have spoken, and I don’t care so much. I can face things +with a quiet mind now that I have told you the truth in its own terms. You may +call it sentimentality or any other nickname you like. It is quite true that it +was not intended for a scientific statement. Since it annoys you, let it be +extinguished. But please believe that it was serious to me if it was comedy to +you. I have said that I love you, and honour you, and would hold you dearest of +all the world. Now give me leave to go.” +</p> + +<p> +But she held out her hands to him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>Chapter XIV.<br />Writing a Letter</h2> + +<p> +“If you insist,” Trent said, “I suppose you will have your +way. But I had much rather write it when I am not with you. However, if I must, +bring me a tablet whiter than a star, or hand of hymning angel; I mean a sheet +of note-paper not stamped with your address. Don’t underestimate the +sacrifice I am making. I never felt less like correspondence in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +She rewarded him. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I say?” he enquired, his pen hovering over the paper. +“Shall I compare him to a summer’s day? What <i>shall</i> I +say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say what you want to say,” she suggested helpfully. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. “What I want to say—what I have been wanting for +the past twenty-four hours to say to every man, woman, and child I met—is +‘Mabel and I are betrothed, and all is gas and gaiters.’ But that +wouldn’t be a very good opening for a letter of strictly formal, not to +say sinister, character. I have got as far as ‘Dear Mr. Marlowe.’ +What comes next?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sending you a manuscript,” she prompted, “which I +thought you might like to see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you realize,” he said, “that in that sentence there are +only two words of more than one syllable? This letter is meant to impress, not +to put him at his ease. We must have long words.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why,” she answered. “I know it is usual, +but why is it? I have had a great many letters from lawyers and business +people, and they always begin, ‘with reference to our +communication’, or some such mouthful, and go on like that all the way +through. Yet when I see them they don’t talk like that. It seems +ridiculous to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not at all ridiculous to them.” Trent laid aside the pen +with an appearance of relief and rose to his feet. “Let me explain. A +people like our own, not very fond of using its mind, gets on in the ordinary +way with a very small and simple vocabulary. Long words are abnormal, and like +everything else that is abnormal, they are either very funny or tremendously +solemn. Take the phrase ‘intelligent anticipation’, for instance. +If such a phrase had been used in any other country in Europe, it would not +have attracted the slightest attention. With us it has become a proverb; we all +grin when we hear it in a speech or read it in a leading article; it is +considered to be one of the best things ever said. Why? Just because it +consists of two long words. The idea expressed is as commonplace as cold +mutton. Then there’s ‘terminological inexactitude’. How we +all roared, and are still roaring, at that! And the whole of the joke is that +the words are long. It’s just the same when we want to be very serious; +we mark it by turning to long words. When a solicitor can begin a sentence +with, ‘pursuant to the instructions communicated to our +representative,’ or some such gibberish, he feels that he is earning his +six-and-eightpence. Don’t laugh! It is perfectly true. Now Continentals +haven’t got that feeling. They are always bothering about ideas, and the +result is that every shopkeeper or peasant has a vocabulary in daily use that +is simply Greek to the vast majority of Britons. I remember some time ago I was +dining with a friend of mine who is a Paris cabman. We had dinner at a dirty +little restaurant opposite the central post office, a place where all the +clients were cabmen or porters. Conversation was general, and it struck me that +a London cabman would have felt a little out of his depth. Words like +‘functionary’ and ‘unforgettable’ and +‘exterminate’ and ‘independence’ hurtled across the +table every instant. And these were just ordinary, vulgar, jolly, red-faced +cabmen. Mind you,” he went on hurriedly, as the lady crossed the room and +took up his pen, “I merely mention this to illustrate my point. I’m +not saying that cab-men ought to be intellectuals. I don’t think so; I +agree with Keats—happy is England, sweet her artless cabmen, enough their +simple loveliness for me. But when you come to the people who make up the +collective industrial brain-power of the country.... Why, do you +know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no, no!” cried Mrs. Manderson. “I don’t know +anything at the moment, except that your talking must be stopped somehow, if we +are to get any further with that letter to Mr. Marlowe. You shall not get out +of it. Come!” She put the pen into his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Trent looked at it with distaste. “I warn you not to discourage my +talking,” he said dejectedly. “Believe me, men who don’t talk +are even worse to live with than men who do. O have a care of natures that are +mute. I confess I’m shirking writing this thing. It is almost an +indecency. It’s mixing two moods to write the sort of letter I mean to +write, and at the same time to be sitting in the same room with you.” +</p> + +<p> +She led him to his abandoned chair before the escritoire and pushed him gently +into it. “Well, but please try. I want to see what you write, and I want +it to go to him at once. You see, I would be contented enough to leave things +as they are; but you say you must get at the truth, and if you must, I want it +to be as soon as possible. Do it now—you know you can if you +will—and I’ll send it off the moment it’s ready. Don’t +you ever feel that—the longing to get the worrying letter into the post +and off your hands, so that you can’t recall it if you would, and +it’s no use fussing any more about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will do as you wish,” he said, and turned to the paper, which he +dated as from his hotel. Mrs. Manderson looked down at his bent head with a +gentle light in her eyes, and made as if to place a smoothing hand upon his +rather untidy crop of hair. But she did not touch it. Going in silence to the +piano, she began to play very softly. It was ten minutes before Trent spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“If he chooses to reply that he will say nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Manderson looked over her shoulder. “Of course he dare not take that +line. He will speak to prevent you from denouncing him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’m not going to do that anyhow. You wouldn’t allow +it—you said so; besides, I won’t if you would. The thing’s +too doubtful now.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” she laughed, “poor Mr. Marlowe doesn’t know you +won’t, does he?” +</p> + +<p> +Trent sighed. “What extraordinary things codes of honour are!” he +remarked abstractedly. “I know that there are things I should do, and +never think twice about, which would make you feel disgraced if you did +them—such as giving any one who grossly insulted me a black eye, or +swearing violently when I barked my shin in a dark room. And now you are calmly +recommending me to bluff Marlowe by means of a tacit threat which I don’t +mean; a thing which hell’s most abandoned fiend did never, in the +drunkenness of guilt—well, anyhow, I won’t do it.” He resumed +his writing, and the lady, with an indulgent smile, returned to playing very +softly. +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes more, Trent said: “At last I am his faithfully. Do you +want to see it?” She ran across the twilight room, and turned on a +reading lamp beside the escritoire. Then, leaning on his shoulder, she read +what follows: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> M<small>R</small>. M<small>ARLOWE</small>,—<i>You +will perhaps remember that we met, under unhappy circumstances, in June of last +year at Marlstone.</i><br /> + <i>On that occasion it was my duty, as representing a newspaper, to make an +independent investigation of the circumstances of the death of the late Sigsbee +Manderson. I did so, and I arrived at certain conclusions. You may learn from +the enclosed manuscript, which was originally written as a dispatch for my +newspaper, what those conclusions were. For reasons which it is not necessary +to state I decided at the last moment not to make them public, or to +communicate them to you, and they are known to only two persons beside +myself.</i> +</p> + +<p> +At this point Mrs. Manderson raised her eyes quickly from the letter. Her dark +brows were drawn together. “Two persons?” she said with a note of +enquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“Your uncle is the other. I sought him out last night and told him the +whole story. Have you anything against it? I always felt uneasy at keeping it +from him as I did, because I had led him to expect I should tell him all I +discovered, and my silence looked like mystery-making. Now it is to be cleared +up finally, and there is no question of shielding you, I wanted him to know +everything. He is a very shrewd adviser, too, in a way of his own; and I should +like to have him with me when I see Marlowe. I have a feeling that two heads +will be better than one on my side of the interview.” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed. “Yes, of course, uncle ought to know the truth. I hope there +is nobody else at all.” She pressed his hand. “I so much want all +that horror buried—buried deep. I am very happy now, dear, but I shall be +happier still when you have satisfied that curious mind of yours and found out +everything, and stamped down the earth upon it all.” She continued her +reading. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Quite recently, however [the letter went on], facts have come to my +knowledge which have led me to change my decision. I do not mean that I shall +publish what I discovered, but that I have determined to approach you and ask +you for a private statement. If you have anything to say which would place the +matter in another light, I can imagine no reason why you should withhold +it.</i><br /> + <i>I expect, then, to hear from you when and where I may call upon you; +unless you prefer the interview to take place at my hotel. In either case I +desire that Mr. Cupples whom you will remember, and who has read the enclosed +document, should be present also.—Faithfully yours,</i> +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Philip Trent.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“What a very stiff letter!” she said. “Now I am sure you +couldn’t have made it any stiffer in your own rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent slipped the letter and enclosure into a long envelope. “Yes,” +he said, “I think it will make him sit up suddenly. Now this thing +mustn’t run any risk of going wrong. It would be best to send a special +messenger with orders to deliver it into his own hands. If he’s away it +oughtn’t to be left.” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. “I can arrange that. Wait here for a little.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +When Mrs. Manderson returned, he was hunting through the music cabinet. She +sank on the carpet beside him in a wave of dark brown skirts. “Tell me +something, Philip,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“If it is among the few things that I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you saw uncle last night, did you tell him about—about +us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not,” he answered. “I remembered you had said nothing +about telling any one. It is for you—isn’t it?—to decide +whether we take the world into our confidence at once or later on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then will you tell him?” She looked down at her clasped hands. +“I wish you to tell him. Perhaps if you think you will guess why.... +There! that is settled.” She lifted her eyes again to his, and for a time +there was silence between them. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He leaned back at length in the deep chair. “What a world!” he +said. “Mabel, will you play something on the piano that expresses mere +joy, the genuine article, nothing feverish or like thorns under a pot, but joy +that has decided in favour of the universe? It’s a mood that can’t +last altogether, so we had better get all we can out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +She went to the instrument and struck a few chords while she thought. Then she +began to work with all her soul at the theme in the last movement of the Ninth +Symphony which is like the sound of the opening of the gates of Paradise. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>Chapter XV.<br />Double Cunning</h2> + +<p> +An old oaken desk with a deep body stood by the window in a room that +overlooked St. James’s Park from a height. The room was large, furnished +and decorated by some one who had brought taste to the work; but the hand of +the bachelor lay heavy upon it. John Marlowe unlocked the desk and drew a long, +stout envelope from the back of the well. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” he said to Mr. Cupples, “that you have read +this.” +</p> + +<p> +“I read it for the first time two days ago,” replied Mr. Cupples, +who, seated on a sofa, was peering about the room with a benignant face. +“We have discussed it fully.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe turned to Trent. “There is your manuscript,” he said, +laying the envelope on the table. “I have gone over it three times. I do +not believe there is another man who could have got at as much of the truth as +you have set down there.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent ignored the compliment. He sat by the table gazing stonily at the fire, +his long legs twisted beneath his chair. “You mean, of course, he said, +drawing the envelope towards him, “that there is more of the truth to be +disclosed now. We are ready to hear you as soon as you like. I expect it will +be a long story, and the longer the better, so far as I am concerned; I want to +understand thoroughly. What we should both like, I think, is some preliminary +account of Manderson and your relations with him. It seemed to me from the +first that the character of the dead man must be somehow an element in the +business.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were right, Marlowe answered grimly. He crossed the room and seated +himself on a corner of the tall cushion-topped fender. “I will begin as +you suggest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to tell you beforehand,” said Trent, looking him in the +eyes, “that although I am here to listen to you, I have not as yet any +reason to doubt the conclusions I have stated here.” He tapped the +envelope. “It is a defence that you will be putting forward—you +understand that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly.” Marlowe was cool and in complete possession of +himself, a man different indeed from the worn-out, nervous being Trent +remembered at Marlstone a year and a half ago. His tall, lithe figure was held +with the perfection of muscular tone. His brow was candid, his blue eyes were +clear, though they still had, as he paused collecting his ideas, the look that +had troubled Trent at their first meeting. Only the lines of his mouth showed +that he knew himself in a position of difficulty, and meant to face it. +</p> + +<p> +“Sigsbee Manderson was not a man of normal mind,” Marlowe began in +his quiet voice. “Most of the very rich men I met with in America had +become so by virtue of abnormal greed, or abnormal industry, or abnormal +personal force, or abnormal luck. None of them had remarkable intellects. +Manderson delighted too in heaping up wealth; he worked incessantly at it; he +was a man of dominant will; he had quite his share of luck; but what made him +singular was his brainpower. In his own country they would perhaps tell you +that it was his ruthlessness in pursuit of his aims that was his most striking +characteristic; but there are hundreds of them who would have carried out his +plans with just as little consideration for others if they could have formed +the plans. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not saying Americans aren’t clever; they are ten times +cleverer than we are, as a nation; but I never met another who showed such a +degree of sagacity and foresight, such gifts of memory and mental tenacity, +such sheer force of intelligence, as there was behind everything Manderson did +in his money-making career. They called him the ‘Napoleon of Wall +Street’ often enough in the papers; but few people knew so well as I did +how much truth there was in the phrase. He seemed never to forget a fact that +might be of use to him, in the first place; and he did systematically with the +business facts that concerned him what Napoleon did, as I have read, with +military facts. He studied them in special digests which were prepared for him +at short intervals, and which he always had at hand, so that he could take up +his report on coal or wheat or railways, or whatever it might be, in any +unoccupied moment. Then he could make a bolder and cleverer plan than any man +of them all. People got to know that Manderson would never do the obvious +thing, but they got no further; the thing he did do was almost always a +surprise, and much of his success flowed from that. The Street got rattled, as +they used to put it, when it was known that the old man was out with his gun, +and often his opponents seemed to surrender as easily as Colonel +Crockett’s coon in the story. The scheme I am going to describe to you +would have occupied most men long enough. Manderson could have plotted the +thing, down to the last detail, while he shaved himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I used to think that his strain of Indian blood, remote as it was, might +have something to do with the cunning and ruthlessness of the man. Strangely +enough, its existence was unknown to any one but himself and me. It was when he +asked me to apply my taste for genealogical work to his own obscure family +history that I made the discovery that he had in him a share of the blood of +the Iroquois chief Montour and his French wife, a terrible woman who ruled the +savage politics of the tribes of the Wilderness two hundred years ago. The +Mandersons were active in the fur trade on the Pennsylvanian border in those +days, and more than one of them married Indian women. Other Indian blood than +Montour’s may have descended to Manderson, for all I can say, through +previous and subsequent unions; some of the wives’ antecedents were quite +untraceable, and there were so many generations of pioneering before the whole +country was brought under civilization. My researches left me with the idea +that there is a very great deal of the aboriginal blood present in the +genealogical make-up of the people of America, and that it is very widely +spread. The newer families have constantly intermarried with the older, and so +many of them had a strain of the native in them—and were often rather +proud of it, too, in those days. But Manderson had the idea about the +disgracefulness of mixed blood, which grew much stronger, I fancy, with the +rise of the negro question after the war. He was thunderstruck at what I told +him, and was anxious to conceal it from every soul. Of course I never gave it +away while he lived, and I don’t think he supposed I would; but I have +thought since that his mind took a turn against me from that time onward. It +happened about a year before his death.” +</p> + +<p> +“Had Manderson,” asked Mr. Cupples, so unexpectedly that the others +started, “any definable religious attitude?” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe considered a moment. “None that ever I heard of,” he said. +“Worship and prayer were quite unknown to him, so far as I could see, and +I never heard him mention religion. I should doubt if he had any real sense of +God at all, or if he was capable of knowing God through the emotions. But I +understood that as a child he had had a religious upbringing with a strong +moral side to it. His private life was, in the usual limited sense, blameless. +He was almost ascetic in his habits, except as to smoking. I lived with him +four years without ever knowing him to tell a direct verbal falsehood, +constantly as he used to practise deceit in other forms. Can you understand the +soul of a man who never hesitated to take steps that would have the effect of +hoodwinking people, who would use every trick of the markets to mislead, and +who was at the same time scrupulous never to utter a direct lie on the most +insignificant matter? Manderson was like that, and he was not the only one. I +suppose you might compare the state of mind to that of a soldier who is +personally a truthful man, but who will stick at nothing to deceive the enemy. +The rules of the game allow it; and the same may be said of business as many +business men regard it. Only with them it is always wartime.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a sad world,” observed Mr. Cupples. +</p> + +<p> +“As you say,” Marlowe agreed. “Now I was saying that one +could always take Manderson’s word if he gave it in a definite form. The +first time I ever heard him utter a downright lie was on the night he died; and +hearing it, I believe, saved me from being hanged as his murderer.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe stared at the light above his head and Trent moved impatiently in his +chair. “Before we come to that,” he said, “will you tell us +exactly on what footing you were with Manderson during the years you were with +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“We were on very good terms from beginning to end,” answered +Marlowe. “Nothing like friendship—he was not a man for making +friends—but the best of terms as between a trusted employee and his +chief. I went to him as private secretary just after getting my degree at +Oxford. I was to have gone into my father’s business, where I am now, but +my father suggested that I should see the world for a year or two. So I took +this secretaryship, which seemed to promise a good deal of varied experience, +and I had let the year or two run on to four years before the end came. The +offer came to me through the last thing in the world I should have put forward +as a qualification for a salaried post, and that was chess.” +</p> + +<p> +At the word Trent struck his hands together with a muttered exclamation. The +others looked at him in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Chess!” repeated Trent. “Do you know,” he said, rising +and approaching Marlowe, “what was the first thing I noted about you at +our first meeting? It was your eye, Mr. Marlowe. I couldn’t place it +then, but I know now where I had seen your eyes before. They were in the head +of no less a man than the great Nikolay Korchagin, with whom I once sat in the +same railway carriage for two days. I thought I should never forget the chess +eye after that, but I could not put a name to it when I saw it in you. I beg +your pardon,” he ended suddenly, resuming his marmoreal attitude in his +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I have played the game from my childhood, and with good players,” +said Marlowe simply. “It is an hereditary gift, if you can call it a +gift. At the University I was nearly as good as anybody there, and I gave most +of my brains to that and the O.U.D.S. and playing about generally. At Oxford, +as I dare say you know, inducements to amuse oneself at the expense of +one’s education are endless, and encouraged by the authorities. Well, one +day toward the end of my last term, Dr. Munro of Queen’s, whom I had +never defeated, sent for me. He told me that I played a fairish game of chess. +I said it was very good of him to say so. Then he said, ‘They tell me you +hunt, too.’ I said, ‘Now and then.’ He asked, ‘Is there +anything else you can do?’ ‘No,’ I said, not much liking the +tone of the conversation—the old man generally succeeded in putting +people’s backs up. He grunted fiercely, and then told me that enquiries +were being made on behalf of a wealthy American man of business who wanted an +English secretary. Manderson was the name, he said. He seemed never to have +heard it before, which was quite possible, as he never opened a newspaper and +had not slept a night outside the college for thirty years. If I could rub up +my spelling—as the old gentleman put it—I might have a good chance +for the post, as chess and riding and an Oxford education were the only +indispensable points. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I became Manderson’s secretary. For a long time I liked the +position greatly. When one is attached to an active American plutocrat in the +prime of life one need not have many dull moments. Besides, it made me +independent. My father had some serious business reverses about that time, and +I was glad to be able to do without an allowance from him. At the end of the +first year Manderson doubled my salary. ‘It’s big money,’ he +said, ‘but I guess I don’t lose.’ You see, by that time I was +doing a great deal more than accompany him on horseback in the morning and play +chess in the evening, which was mainly what he had required. I was attending to +his houses, his farm in Ohio, his shooting in Maine, his horses, his cars, and +his yacht. I had become a walking railway-guide and an expert cigar-buyer. I +was always learning something. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now you understand what my position was in regard to Manderson +during the last two or three years of my connection with him. It was a happy +life for me on the whole. I was busy, my work was varied and interesting; I had +time to amuse myself too, and money to spend. At one time I made a fool of +myself about a girl, and that was not a happy time; but it taught me to +understand the great goodness of Mrs. Manderson.” Marlowe inclined his +head to Mr. Cupples as he said this. “She may choose to tell you about +it. As for her husband, he had never varied in his attitude towards me, in +spite of the change that came over him in the last months of his life, as you +know. He treated me well and generously in his unsympathetic way, and I never +had a feeling that he was less than satisfied with his bargain—that was +the sort of footing we lived upon. And it was that continuance of his attitude +right up to the end that made the revelation so shocking when I was suddenly +shown, on the night on which he met his end, the depth of crazy hatred of +myself that was in Manderson’s soul.” +</p> + +<p> +The eyes of Trent and Mr. Cupples met for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“You never suspected that he hated you before that time?” asked +Trent; and Mr. Cupples asked at the same moment, “To what did you +attribute it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never guessed until that night,” answered Marlowe, “that +he had the smallest ill-feeling toward me. How long it had existed I do not +know. I cannot imagine why it was there. I was forced to think, when I +considered the thing in those awful days after his death, that it was a case of +a madman’s delusion, that he believed me to be plotting against him, as +they so often do. Some such insane conviction must have been at the root of it. +But who can sound the abysses of a lunatic’s fancy? Can you imagine the +state of mind in which a man dooms himself to death with the object of +delivering some one he hates to the hangman?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples moved sharply in his chair. “You say Manderson was +responsible for his own death?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Trent glanced at him with an eye of impatience, and resumed his intent watch +upon the face of Marlowe. In the relief of speech it was now less pale and +drawn. +</p> + +<p> +“I do say so,” Marlowe answered concisely, and looked his +questioner in the face. Mr. Cupples nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Before we proceed to the elucidation of your statement,” observed +the old gentleman, in a tone of one discussing a point of abstract science, +“it may be remarked that the state of mind which you attribute to +Manderson—” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose we have the story first,” Trent interrupted, gently laying +a hand on Mr. Cupples’s arm. “You were telling us,” he went +on, turning to Marlowe, “how things stood between you and Manderson. Now +will you tell us the facts of what happened that night?” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe flushed at the barely perceptible emphasis which Trent laid upon the +word “facts”. He drew himself up. +</p> + +<p> +“Bunner and myself dined with Mr. and Mrs. Manderson that Sunday +evening,” he began, speaking carefully. “It was just like other +dinners at which the four of us had been together. Manderson was taciturn and +gloomy, as we had latterly been accustomed to see him. We others kept a +conversation going. We rose from the table, I suppose, about nine. Mrs. +Manderson went to the drawing-room, and Bunner went up to the hotel to see an +acquaintance. Manderson asked me to come into the orchard behind the house, +saying he wished to have a talk. We paced up and down the pathway there, out of +earshot from the house, and Manderson, as he smoked his cigar, spoke to me in +his cool, deliberate way. He had never seemed more sane, or more well-disposed +to me. He said he wanted me to do him an important service. There was a big +thing on. It was a secret affair. Bunner knew nothing of it, and the less I +knew the better. He wanted me to do exactly as he directed, and not bother my +head about reasons. +</p> + +<p> +“This, I may say, was quite characteristic of Manderson’s method of +going to work. If at times he required a man to be a mere tool in his hand, he +would tell him so. He had used me in the same kind of way a dozen times. I +assured him he could rely on me, and said I was ready. ‘Right now?’ +he asked. I said of course I was. +</p> + +<p> +“He nodded, and said—I tell you his words as well as I can +recollect them—attend to this. ‘There is a man in England now who +is in this thing with me. He was to have left tomorrow for Paris by the noon +boat from Southampton to Havre. His name is George Harris—at least +that’s the name he is going by. Do you remember that name?’ +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘when I went up to London a week ago you asked +me to book a cabin in that name on the boat that goes tomorrow. I gave you the +ticket.’ ‘Here it is,’ he said, producing it from his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Now,’ Manderson said to me, poking his cigar-butt at me +with each sentence in a way he used to have, ‘George Harris cannot leave +England tomorrow. I find I shall want him where he is. And I want Bunner where +he is. But somebody has got to go by that boat and take certain papers to +Paris. Or else my plan is going to fall to pieces. Will you go?’ I said, +‘Certainly. I am here to obey orders.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He bit his cigar, and said, ‘That’s all right; but these are +not just ordinary orders. Not the kind of thing one can ask of a man in the +ordinary way of his duty to an employer. The point is this. The deal I am busy +with is one in which neither myself nor any one known to be connected with me +must appear as yet. That is vital. But these people I am up against know your +face as well as they know mine. If my secretary is known in certain quarters to +have crossed to Paris at this time and to have interviewed certain +people—and that would be known as soon as it happened—then the game +is up.’ He threw away his cigar-end and looked at me questioningly. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t like it much, but I liked failing Manderson at a pinch +still less. I spoke lightly. I said I supposed I should have to conceal my +identity, and I would do my best. I told him I used to be pretty good at +make-up. +</p> + +<p> +“He nodded in approval. He said, ‘That’s good. I judged you +would not let me down.’ Then he gave me my instructions. ‘You take +the car right now,’ he said, ‘and start for +Southampton—there’s no train that will fit in. You’ll be +driving all night. Barring accidents, you ought to get there by six in the +morning. But whenever you arrive, drive straight to the Bedford Hotel and ask +for George Harris. If he’s there, tell him you are to go over instead of +him, and ask him to telephone me here. It is very important he should know that +at the earliest moment possible. But if he isn’t there, that means he has +got the instructions I wired today, and hasn’t gone to Southampton. In +that case you don’t want to trouble about him any more, but just wait for +the boat. You can leave the car at a garage under a fancy name—mine must +not be given. See about changing your appearance—I don’t care how, +so you do it well. Travel by the boat as George Harris. Let on to be anything +you like, but be careful, and don’t talk much to anybody. When you +arrive, take a room at the Hotel St Petersbourg. You will receive a note or +message there, addressed to George Harris, telling you where to take the wallet +I shall give you. The wallet is locked, and you want to take good care of it. +Have you got that all clear?’ +</p> + +<p> +“I repeated the instructions. I asked if I should return from Paris after +handing over the wallet. ‘As soon as you like,’ he said. ‘And +mind this—whatever happens, don’t communicate with me at any stage +of the journey. If you don’t get the message in Paris at once, just wait +until you do—days, if necessary. But not a line of any sort to me. +Understand? Now get ready as quick as you can. I’ll go with you in the +car a little way. Hurry.’ +</p> + +<p> +“That is, as far as I can remember, the exact substance of what Manderson +said to me that night. I went to my room, changed into day clothes, and hastily +threw a few necessaries into a kit-bag. My mind was in a whirl, not so much at +the nature of the business as at the suddenness of it. I think I remember +telling you the last time we met”—he turned to +Trent—“that Manderson shared the national fondness for doings +things in a story-book style. Other things being equal, he delighted in a bit +of mystification and melodrama, and I told myself that this was Manderson all +over. I hurried downstairs with my bag and rejoined him in the library. He +handed me a stout leather letter-case, about eight inches by six, fastened with +a strap with a lock on it. I could just squeeze it into my side-pocket. Then I +went to get the car from the garage behind the house. +</p> + +<p> +“As I was bringing it round to the front a disconcerting thought struck +me. I remembered that I had only a few shillings in my pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“For some time past I had been keeping myself very short of cash, and for +this reason—which I tell you because it is a vital point, as you shall +see in a minute. I was living temporarily on borrowed money. I had always been +careless about money while I was with Manderson, and being a gregarious animal +I had made many friends, some of them belonging to a New York set that had +little to do but get rid of the large incomes given them by their parents. +Still, I was very well paid, and I was too busy even to attempt to go very far +with them in that amusing occupation. I was still well on the right side of the +ledger until I began, merely out of curiosity, to play at speculation. +It’s a very old story—particularly in Wall Street. I thought it was +easy; I was lucky at first; I would always be prudent—and so on. Then +came the day when I went out of my depth. In one week I was separated from my +toll, as Bunner expressed it when I told him; and I owed money too. I had had +my lesson. Now in this pass I went to Manderson and told him what I had done +and how I stood. He heard me with a very grim smile, and then, with the nearest +approach to sympathy I had ever found in him, he advanced me a sum on account +of my salary that would clear me. ‘Don’t play the markets any +more,’ was all he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Now on that Sunday night Manderson knew that I was practically without +any money in the world. He knew that Bunner knew it too. He may have known that +I had even borrowed a little more from Bunner for pocket-money until my next +cheque was due, which, owing to my anticipation of my salary, would not have +been a large one. Bear this knowledge of Manderson’s in mind. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as I had brought the car round I went into the library and +stated the difficulty to Manderson. +</p> + +<p> +“What followed gave me, slight as it was, my first impression of +something odd being afoot. As soon as I mentioned the word +‘expenses’ his hand went mechanically to his left hip-pocket, where +he always kept a little case containing notes to the value of about a hundred +pounds in our money. This was such a rooted habit in him that I was astonished +to see him check the movement suddenly. Then, to my greater amazement, he swore +under his breath. I had never heard him do this before; but Bunner had told me +that of late he had often shown irritation in this way when they were alone. +‘Has he mislaid his note-case?’ was the question that flashed +through my mind. But it seemed to me that it could not affect his plan at all, +and I will tell you why. The week before, when I had gone up to London to carry +out various commissions, including the booking of a berth for Mr. George +Harris, I had drawn a thousand pounds for Manderson from his bankers, and all, +at his request, in notes of small amounts. I did not know what this unusually +large sum in cash was for, but I did know that the packets of notes were in his +locked desk in the library, or had been earlier in the day, when I had seen him +fingering them as he sat at the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“But instead of turning to the desk, Manderson stood looking at me. There +was fury in his face, and it was a strange sight to see him gradually master it +until his eyes grew cold again. ‘Wait in the car,’ he said slowly. +‘I will get some money.’ We both went out, and as I was getting +into my overcoat in the hall I saw him enter the drawing-room, which, you +remember, was on the other side of the entrance hall. +</p> + +<p> +“I stepped out on to the lawn before the house and smoked a cigarette, +pacing up and down. I was asking myself again and again where that thousand +pounds was; whether it was in the drawing-room, and if so, why. Presently, as I +passed one of the drawing-room windows, I noticed Mrs Manderson’s shadow +on the thin silk curtain. She was standing at her escritoire. The window was +open, and as I passed I heard her say, ‘I have not quite thirty pounds +here. Will that be enough?’ I did not hear the answer, but next moment +Manderson’s shadow was mingled with hers, and I heard the chink of money. +Then, as he stood by the window, and as I was moving away, these words of his +came to my ears—and these at least I can repeat exactly, for astonishment +stamped them on my memory—‘I’m going out now. Marlowe has +persuaded me to go for a moonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it. +He says it will help me to sleep, and I guess he is right.’ +</p> + +<p> +I have told you that in the course of four years I had never once heard +Manderson utter a direct lie about anything, great or small. I believed that I +understood the man’s queer, skin-deep morality, and I could have sworn +that if he was firmly pressed with a question that could not be evaded he would +either refuse to answer or tell the truth. But what had I just heard? No answer +to any question. A voluntary statement, precise in terms, that was utterly +false. The unimaginable had happened. It was almost as if some one I knew well, +in a moment of closest sympathy, had suddenly struck me in the face. The blood +rushed to my head, and I stood still on the grass. I stood there until I heard +his step at the front door, and then I pulled myself together and stepped +quickly to the car. He handed me a banker’s paper bag with gold and notes +in it. ‘There’s more than you’ll want there,’ he said, +and I pocketed it mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“For a minute or so I stood discussing with Manderson—it was by one +of those <i>tours de force</i> of which one’s mind is capable under great +excitement—points about the route of the long drive before me. I had made +the run several times by day, and I believe I spoke quite calmly and naturally +about it. But while I spoke my mind was seething in a flood of suddenly born +suspicion and fear. I did not know what I feared. I simply felt fear, +somehow—I did not know how—connected with Manderson. My soul once +opened to it, fear rushed in like an assaulting army. I felt—I +knew—that something was altogether wrong and sinister, and I felt myself +to be the object of it. Yet Manderson was surely no enemy of mine. Then my +thoughts reached out wildly for an answer to the question why he had told that +lie. And all the time the blood hammered in my ears, ‘Where is that +money?’ Reason struggled hard to set up the suggestion that the two +things were not necessarily connected. The instinct of a man in danger would +not listen to it. As we started, and the car took the curve into the road, it +was merely the unconscious part of me that steered and controlled it, and that +made occasional empty remarks as we slid along in the moonlight. Within me was +a confusion and vague alarm that was far worse than any definite terror I ever +felt. +</p> + +<p> +“About a mile from the house, you remember, one passed on one’s +left a gate, on the other side of which was the golf-course. There Manderson +said he would get down, and I stopped the car. ‘You’ve got it all +clear?’ he asked. With a sort of wrench I forced myself to remember and +repeat the directions given me. ‘That’s OK,’ he said. +‘Goodbye, then. Stay with that wallet.’ Those were the last words I +heard him speak, as the car moved gently away from him.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe rose from his chair and pressed his hands to his eyes. He was flushed +with the excitement of his own narrative, and there was in his look a horror of +recollection that held both the listeners silent. He shook himself with a +movement like a dog’s, and then, his hands behind him, stood erect before +the fire as he continued his tale. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect you both know what the back-reflector of a motor car is.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent nodded quickly, his face alive with anticipation; but Mr. Cupples, who +cherished a mild but obstinate prejudice against motor cars, readily confessed +to ignorance. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a small round or more often rectangular mirror,” Marlowe +explained, “rigged out from the right side of the screen in front of the +driver, and adjusted in such a way that he can see, without turning round, if +anything is coming up behind to pass him. It is quite an ordinary appliance, +and there was one on this car. As the car moved on, and Manderson ceased +speaking behind me, I saw in that mirror a thing that I wish I could +forget.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe was silent for a moment, staring at the wall before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Manderson’s face,” he said in a low tone. “He was +standing in the road, looking after me, only a few yards behind, and the +moonlight was full on his face. The mirror happened to catch it for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“Physical habit is a wonderful thing. I did not shift hand or foot on the +controlling mechanism of the car. Indeed, I dare say it steadied me against the +shock to have myself braced to the business of driving. You have read in books, +no doubt, of hell looking out of a man’s eyes, but perhaps you +don’t know what a good metaphor that is. If I had not known Manderson was +there, I should not have recognized the face. It was that of a madman, +distorted, hideous in the imbecility of hate, the teeth bared in a simian grin +of ferocity and triumph; the eyes.... In the little mirror I had this glimpse +of the face alone. I saw nothing of whatever gesture there may have been as +that writhing white mask glared after me. And I saw it only for a flash. The +car went on, gathering speed, and as it went, my brain, suddenly purged of the +vapours of doubt and perplexity, was as busy as the throbbing engine before my +feet. I knew. +</p> + +<p> +“You say something in that manuscript of yours, Mr. Trent, about the +swift automatic way in which one’s ideas arrange themselves about some +new illuminating thought. It is quite true. The awful intensity of ill-will +that had flamed after me from those straining eyeballs poured over my mind like +a searchlight. I was thinking quite clearly now, and almost coldly, for I knew +what—at least I knew whom—I had to fear, and instinct warned me +that it was not a time to give room to the emotions that were fighting to +possess me. The man hated me insanely. That incredible fact I suddenly knew. +But the face had told me, it would have told anybody, more than that. It was a +face of hatred gratified, it proclaimed some damnable triumph. It had gloated +over me driving away to my fate. This too was plain to me. And to what fate? +</p> + +<p> +“I stopped the car. It had gone about two hundred and fifty yards, and a +sharp bend of the road hid the spot where I had set Manderson down. I lay back +in the seat and thought it out. Something was to happen to me. In Paris? +Probably—why else should I be sent there, with money and a ticket? But +why Paris? That puzzled me, for I had no melodramatic ideas about Paris. I put +the point aside for a moment. I turned to the other things that had roused my +attention that evening. The lie about my ‘persuading him to go for a +moonlight run’. What was the intention of that? Manderson, I said to +myself, will be returning without me while I am on my way to Southampton. What +will he tell them about me? How account for his returning alone, and without +the car? As I asked myself that sinister question there rushed into my mind the +last of my difficulties: ‘Where are the thousand pounds?’ And in +the same instant came the answer: ‘The thousand pounds are in my +pocket.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I got up and stepped from the car. My knees trembled and I felt very +sick. I saw the plot now, as I thought. The whole of the story about the papers +and the necessity of their being taken to Paris was a blind. With +Manderson’s money about me, of which he would declare I had robbed him, I +was, to all appearance, attempting to escape from England, with every +precaution that guilt could suggest. He would communicate with the police at +once, and would know how to put them on my track. I should be arrested in +Paris, if I got so far, living under a false name, after having left the car +under a false name, disguised myself, and travelled in a cabin which I had +booked in advance, also under a false name. It would be plainly the crime of a +man without money, and for some reason desperately in want of it. As for my +account of the affair, it would be too preposterous. +</p> + +<p> +“As this ghastly array of incriminating circumstances rose up before me, +I dragged the stout letter-case from my pocket. In the intensity of the moment, +I never entertained the faintest doubt that I was right, and that the money was +there. It would easily hold the packets of notes. But as I felt it and weighed +it in my hands it seemed to me there must be more than this. It was too bulky. +What more was to be laid to my charge? After all, a thousand pounds was not +much to tempt a man like myself to run the risk of penal servitude. In this new +agitation, scarcely knowing what I did, I caught the surrounding strap in my +fingers just above the fastening and tore the staple out of the lock. Those +locks, you know, are pretty flimsy as a rule.” +</p> + +<p> +Here Marlowe paused and walked to the oaken desk before the window. Opening a +drawer full of miscellaneous objects, he took out a box of odd keys, and +selected a small one distinguished by a piece of pink tape. +</p> + +<p> +He handed it to Trent. “I keep that by me as a sort of morbid memento. It +is the key to the lock I smashed. I might have saved myself the trouble, if I +had known that this key was at that moment in the left-hand side-pocket of my +overcoat. Manderson must have slipped it in, either while the coat was hanging +in the hall or while he sat at my side in the car. I might not have found the +tiny thing there for weeks: as a matter of fact I did find it two days after +Manderson was dead, but a police search would have found it in five minutes. +And then I—I with the case and its contents in my pocket, my false name +and my sham spectacles and the rest of it—I should have had no +explanation to offer but the highly convincing one that I didn’t know the +key was there.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent dangled the key by its tape idly. Then: “How do you know this is +the key of that case?” he asked quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“I tried it. As soon as I found it I went up and fitted it to the lock. I +knew where I had left the thing. So do you, I think, Mr. Trent. Don’t +you?” There was a faint shade of mockery in Marlowe’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Touché</i>,” Trent said, with a dry smile. “I found a +large empty letter-case with a burst lock lying with other odds and ends on the +dressing-table in Manderson’s room. Your statement is that you put it +there. I could make nothing of it.” He closed his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“There was no reason for hiding it,” said Marlowe. “But to +get back to my story. I burst the lock of the strap. I opened the case before +one of the lamps of the car. The first thing I found in it I ought to have +expected, of course, but I hadn’t.” He paused and glanced at Trent. +</p> + +<p> +“It was—” began Trent mechanically, and then stopped himself. +“Try not to bring me in any more, if you don’t mind,” he +said, meeting the other’s eye. “I have complimented you already in +that document on your cleverness. You need not prove it by making the judge +help you out with your evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” agreed Marlowe. “I couldn’t resist just +that much. If <i>you</i> had been in my place you would have known before I did +that Manderson’s little pocket-case was there. As soon as I saw it, of +course, I remembered his not having had it about him when I asked for money, +and his surprising anger. He had made a false step. He had already fastened his +note-case up with the rest of what was to figure as my plunder, and placed it +in my hands. I opened it. It contained a few notes as usual, I didn’t +count them. +</p> + +<p> +“Tucked into the flaps of the big case in packets were the other notes, +just as I had brought them from London. And with them were two small +wash-leather bags, the look of which I knew well. My heart jumped sickeningly +again, for this, too, was utterly unexpected. In those bags Manderson kept the +diamonds in which he had been investing for some time past. I didn’t open +them; I could feel the tiny stones shifting under the pressure of my fingers. +How many thousands of pounds’ worth there were there I have no idea. We +had regarded Manderson’s diamond-buying as merely a speculative fad. I +believe now that it was the earliest movement in the scheme for my ruin. For +any one like myself to be represented as having robbed him, there ought to be a +strong inducement shown. That had been provided with a vengeance. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I thought, I have the whole thing plain, and I must act. I saw +instantly what I must do. I had left Manderson about a mile from the house. It +would take him twenty minutes, fifteen if he walked fast, to get back to the +house, where he would, of course, immediately tell his story of robbery, and +probably telephone at once to the police in Bishopsbridge. I had left him only +five or six minutes ago; for all that I have just told you was as quick +thinking as I ever did. It would be easy to overtake him in the car before he +neared the house. There would be an awkward interview. I set my teeth as I +thought of it, and all my fears vanished as I began to savour the gratification +of telling him my opinion of him. There are probably few people who ever +positively looked forward to an awkward interview with Manderson; but I was mad +with rage. My honour and my liberty had been plotted against with detestable +treachery. I did not consider what would follow the interview. That would +arrange itself. +</p> + +<p> +“I had started and turned the car, I was already going fast toward White +Gables, when I heard the sound of a shot in front of me, to the right. +</p> + +<p> +“Instantly I stopped the car. My first wild thought was that Manderson +was shooting at me. Then I realized that the noise had not been close at hand. +I could see nobody on the road, though the moonlight flooded it. I had left +Manderson at a spot just round the corner that was now about a hundred yards +ahead of me. After half a minute or so, I started again, and turned the corner +at a slow pace. Then I stopped again with a jar, and for a moment I sat +perfectly still. +</p> + +<p> +“Manderson lay dead a few steps from me on the turf within the gate, +clearly visible to me in the moonlight.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe made another pause, and Trent, with a puckered brow, enquired, +“On the golf-course?” +</p> + +<p> +“Obviously,” remarked Mr. Cupples. “The eighth green is just +there.” He had grown more and more interested as Marlowe went on, and was +now playing feverishly with his thin beard. +</p> + +<p> +“On the green, quite close to the flag,” said Marlowe. “He +lay on his back, his arms were stretched abroad, his jacket and heavy overcoat +were open; the light shone hideously on his white face and his shirt-front; it +glistened on his bared teeth and one of the eyes. The other... you saw it. The +man was certainly dead. As I sat there stunned, unable for the moment to think +at all, I could even see a thin dark line of blood running down from the +shattered socket to the ear. Close by lay his soft black hat, and at his feet a +pistol. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it was only a few seconds that I sat helplessly staring at the +body. Then I rose and moved to it with dragging feet; for now the truth had +come to me at last, and I realized the fullness of my appalling danger. It was +not only my liberty or my honour that the maniac had undermined. It was death +that he had planned for me; death with the degradation of the scaffold. To +strike me down with certainty, he had not hesitated to end his life; a life +which was, no doubt, already threatened by a melancholic impulse to +self-destruction; and the last agony of the suicide had been turned, perhaps, +to a devilish joy by the thought that he dragged down my life with his. For as +far as I could see at the moment my situation was utterly hopeless. If it had +been desperate on the assumption that Manderson meant to denounce me as a +thief, what was it now that his corpse denounced me as a murderer? +</p> + +<p> +“I picked up the revolver and saw, almost without emotion, that it was my +own. Manderson had taken it from my room, I suppose, while I was getting out +the car. At the same moment I remembered that it was by Manderson’s +suggestion that I had had it engraved with my initials, to distinguish it from +a precisely similar weapon which he had of his own. +</p> + +<p> +“I bent over the body and satisfied myself that there was no life left in +it. I must tell you here that I did not notice, then or afterwards, the +scratches and marks on the wrists, which were taken as evidence of a struggle +with an assailant. But I have no doubt that Manderson deliberately injured +himself in this way before firing the shot; it was a part of his plan. +</p> + +<p> +“Though I never perceived that detail, however, it was evident enough as +I looked at the body that Manderson had not forgotten, in his last act on +earth, to tie me tighter by putting out of court the question of suicide. He +had clearly been at pains to hold the pistol at arm’s length, and there +was not a trace of smoke or of burning on the face. The wound was absolutely +clean, and was already ceasing to bleed outwardly. I rose and paced the green, +reckoning up the points in the crushing case against me. +</p> + +<p> +“I was the last to be seen with Manderson. I had persuaded him—so +he had lied to his wife and, as I afterwards knew, to the butler—to go +with me for the drive from which he never returned. My pistol had killed him. +It was true that by discovering his plot I had saved myself from heaping up +further incriminating facts—flight, concealment, the possession of the +treasure. But what need of them, after all? As I stood, what hope was there? +What could I do?” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe came to the table and leaned forward with his hands upon it. “I +want,” he said very earnestly, “to try to make you understand what +was in my mind when I decided to do what I did. I hope you won’t be +bored, because I must do it. You may both have thought I acted like a fool. But +after all the police never suspected me. I walked that green for a quarter of +an hour, I suppose, thinking the thing out like a game of chess. I had to think +ahead and think coolly; for my safety depended on upsetting the plans of one of +the longest-headed men who ever lived. And remember that, for all I knew, there +were details of the scheme still hidden from me, waiting to crush me. +</p> + +<p> +“Two plain courses presented themselves at once. Either of them, I +thought, would certainly prove fatal. I could, in the first place, do the +completely straightforward thing: take back the dead man, tell my story, hand +over the notes and diamonds, and trust to the saving power of truth and +innocence. I could have laughed as I thought of it. I saw myself bringing home +the corpse and giving an account of myself, boggling with sheer shame over the +absurdity of my wholly unsupported tale, as I brought a charge of mad hatred +and fiendish treachery against a man who had never, as far as I knew, had a +word to say against me. At every turn the cunning of Manderson had forestalled +me. His careful concealment of such a hatred was a characteristic feature of +the stratagem; only a man of his iron self-restraint could have done it. You +can see for yourselves how every fact in my statement would appear, in the +shadow of Manderson’s death, a clumsy lie. I tried to imagine myself +telling such a story to the counsel for my defence. I could see the face with +which he would listen to it; I could read in the lines of it his thought, that +to put forward such an impudent farrago would mean merely the disappearance of +any chance there might be of a commutation of the capital sentence. +</p> + +<p> +“True, I had not fled. I had brought back the body; I had handed over the +property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I had yielded to +a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve left to clutch at the +fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, that I had not set out to kill +but only to threaten, and that when I found that I had done murder the heart +went out of me. Turn it which way I would, I could see no hope of escape by +this plan of action. +</p> + +<p> +“The second of the obvious things that I might do was to take the hint +offered by the situation, and to fly at once. That too must prove fatal. There +was the body. I had no time to hide it in such a way that it would not be found +at the first systematic search. But whatever I should do with the body, +Manderson’s not returning to the house would cause uneasiness in two or +three hours at most. Martin would suspect an accident to the car, and would +telephone to the police. At daybreak the roads would be scoured and enquiries +telegraphed in every direction. The police would act on the possibility of +there being foul play. They would spread their nets with energy in such a big +business as the disappearance of Manderson. Ports and railway termini would be +watched. Within twenty-four hours the body would be found, and the whole +country would be on the alert for me—all Europe, scarcely less; I did not +believe there was a spot in Christendom where the man accused of +Manderson’s murder could pass unchallenged, with every newspaper crying +the fact of his death into the ears of all the world. Every stranger would be +suspect; every man, woman, and child would be a detective. The car, wherever I +should abandon it, would put people on my track. If I had to choose between two +utterly hopeless courses, I decided, I would take that of telling the +preposterous truth. +</p> + +<p> +“But now I cast about desperately for some tale that would seem more +plausible than the truth. Could I save my neck by a lie? One after another came +into my mind; I need not trouble to remember them now. Each had its own +futilities and perils; but every one split upon the fact—or what would be +taken for fact—that I had induced Manderson to go out with me, and the +fact that he had never returned alive. Notion after notion I swiftly rejected +as I paced there by the dead man, and doom seemed to settle down upon me more +heavily as the moments passed. Then a strange thought came to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Several times I had repeated to myself half-consciously, as a sort of +refrain, the words in which I had heard Manderson tell his wife that I had +induced him to go out. ‘Marlowe has persuaded me to go for a moonlight +run in the car. He is very urgent about it.’ All at once it struck me +that, without meaning to do so, I was saying this in Manderson’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“As you found out for yourself, Mr. Trent, I have a natural gift of +mimicry. I had imitated Manderson’s voice many times so successfully as +to deceive even Bunner, who had been much more in his company than his own +wife. It was, you remember”—Marlowe turned to Mr. +Cupples—“a strong, metallic voice, of great carrying power, so +unusual as to make it a very fascinating voice to imitate, and at the same time +very easy. I said the words carefully to myself again, like this—” +he uttered them, and Mr. Cupples opened his eyes in amazement—“and +then I struck my hand upon the low wall beside me. ‘Manderson never +returned alive?’ I said aloud. ‘But Manderson <i>shall</i> return +alive!’” +</p> + +<p> +“In thirty seconds the bare outline of the plan was complete in my mind. +I did not wait to think over details. Every instant was precious now. I lifted +the body and laid it on the floor of the car, covered with a rug. I took the +hat and the revolver. Not one trace remained on the green, I believe, of that +night’s work. As I drove back to White Gables my design took shape before +me with a rapidity and ease that filled me with a wild excitement. I should +escape yet! It was all so easy if I kept my pluck. Putting aside the unusual +and unlikely, I should not fail. I wanted to shout, to scream! +</p> + +<p> +“Nearing the house I slackened speed, and carefully reconnoitred the +road. Nothing was moving. I turned the car into the open field on the other +side of the road, about twenty paces short of the little door at the extreme +corner of the grounds. I brought it to rest behind a stack. When, with +Manderson’s hat on my head and the pistol in my pocket, I had staggered +with the body across the moonlit road and through that door, I left much of my +apprehension behind me. With swift action and an unbroken nerve I thought I +ought to succeed.” +</p> + +<p> +With a long sigh Marlowe threw himself into one of the deep chairs at the +fireside and passed his handkerchief over his damp forehead. Each of his +hearers, too, drew a deep breath, but not audibly. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything else you know,” he said. He took a cigarette from a box +beside him and lighted it. Trent watched the very slight quiver of the hand +that held the match, and privately noted that his own was at the moment not so +steady. +</p> + +<p> +“The shoes that betrayed me to you,” pursued Marlowe after a short +silence, “were painful all the time I wore them, but I never dreamed that +they had given anywhere. I knew that no footstep of mine must appear by any +accident in the soft ground about the hut where I laid the body, or between the +hut and the house, so I took the shoes off and crammed my feet into them as +soon as I was inside the little door. I left my own shoes, with my own jacket +and overcoat, near the body, ready to be resumed later. I made a clear footmark +on the soft gravel outside the French window, and several on the drugget round +the carpet. The stripping off of the outer clothing of the body, and the +dressing of it afterwards in the brown suit and shoes, and putting the things +into the pockets, was a horrible business; and getting the teeth out of the +mouth was worse. The head—but you don’t want to hear about it. I +didn’t feel it much at the time. I was wriggling my own head out of a +noose, you see. I wish I had thought of pulling down the cuffs, and had tied +the shoes more neatly. And putting the watch in the wrong pocket was a bad +mistake. It had all to be done so hurriedly. +</p> + +<p> +“You were wrong, by the way, about the whisky. After one stiffish drink I +had no more; but I filled up a flask that was in the cupboard, and pocketed it. +I had a night of peculiar anxiety and effort in front of me and I didn’t +know how I should stand it. I had to take some once or twice during the drive. +Speaking of that, you give rather a generous allowance of time in your document +for doing that run by night. You say that to get to Southampton by half-past +six in that car, under the conditions, a man must, even if he drove like a +demon, have left Marlstone by twelve at latest. I had not got the body dressed +in the other suit, with tie and watch-chain and so forth, until nearly ten +minutes past; and then I had to get to the car and start it going. But then I +don’t suppose any other man would have taken the risks I did in that car +at night, without a headlight. It turns me cold to think of it now. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing much to say about what I did in the house. I spent +the time after Martin had left me in carefully thinking over the remaining +steps in my plan, while I unloaded and thoroughly cleaned the revolver using my +handkerchief and a penholder from the desk. I also placed the packets of notes, +the note-case, and the diamonds in the roll-top desk, which I opened and +relocked with Manderson’s key. When I went upstairs it was a trying +moment, for though I was safe from the eyes of Martin, as he sat in his pantry, +there was a faint possibility of somebody being about on the bedroom floor. I +had sometimes found the French maid wandering about there when the other +servants were in bed. Bunner, I knew, was a deep sleeper. Mrs. Manderson, I had +gathered from things I had heard her say, was usually asleep by eleven; I had +thought it possible that her gift of sleep had helped her to retain all her +beauty and vitality in spite of a marriage which we all knew was an unhappy +one. Still it was uneasy work mounting the stairs, and holding myself ready to +retreat to the library again at the least sound from above. But nothing +happened. +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing I did on reaching the corridor was to enter my room and +put the revolver and cartridges back in the case. Then I turned off the light +and went quietly into Manderson’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“What I had to do there you know. I had to take off the shoes and put +them outside the door, leave Manderson’s jacket, waistcoat, trousers, and +black tie, after taking everything out of the pockets, select a suit and tie +and shoes for the body, and place the dental plate in the bowl, which I moved +from the washing-stand to the bedside, leaving those ruinous finger-marks as I +did so. The marks on the drawer must have been made when I shut it after taking +out the tie. Then I had to lie down in the bed and tumble it. You know all +about it—all except my state of mind, which you couldn’t imagine +and I couldn’t describe. +</p> + +<p> +“The worst came when I had hardly begun my operations: the moment when +Mrs Manderson spoke from the room where I supposed her asleep. I was prepared +for it happening; it was a possibility; but I nearly lost my nerve all the +same. However.... +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, I may tell you this: in the extremely unlikely contingency +of Mrs. Manderson remaining awake, and so putting out of the question my escape +by way of her window, I had planned simply to remain where I was a few hours, +and then, not speaking to her, to leave the house quickly and quietly by the +ordinary way. Martin would have been in bed by that time. I might have been +heard to leave, but not seen. I should have done just as I had planned with the +body, and then made the best time I could in the car to Southampton. The +difference would have been that I couldn’t have furnished an +unquestionable alibi by turning up at the hotel at 6.30. I should have made the +best of it by driving straight to the docks, and making my ostentatious +enquiries there. I could in any case have got there long before the boat left +at noon. I couldn’t see that anybody could suspect me of the supposed +murder in any case; but if any one had, and if I hadn’t arrived until ten +o’clock, say, I shouldn’t have been able to answer, ‘It is +impossible for me to have got to Southampton so soon after shooting him.’ +I should simply have had to say I was delayed by a breakdown after leaving +Manderson at half-past ten, and challenged any one to produce any fact +connecting me with the crime. They couldn’t have done it. The pistol, +left openly in my room, might have been used by anybody, even if it could be +proved that that particular pistol was used. Nobody could reasonably connect me +with the shooting so long as it was believed that it was Manderson who had +returned to the house. The suspicion could not, I was confident, enter any +one’s mind. All the same, I wanted to introduce the element of absolute +physical impossibility; I knew I should feel ten times as safe with that. So +when I knew from the sound of her breathing that Mrs. Manderson was asleep +again, I walked quickly across her room in my stocking feet, and was on the +grass with my bundle in ten seconds. I don’t think I made the least +noise. The curtain before the window was of soft, thick stuff and didn’t +rustle, and when I pushed the glass doors further open there was not a +sound.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” said Trent, as the other stopped to light a new +cigarette, “why you took the risk of going through Mrs. Manderson’s +room to escape from the house. I could see when I looked into the thing on the +spot why it had to be on that side of the house; there was a danger of being +seen by Martin, or by some servant at a bedroom window, if you got out by a +window on one of the other sides. But there were three unoccupied rooms on that +side; two spare bedrooms and Mrs. Manderson’s sitting-room. I should have +thought it would have been safer, after you had done what was necessary to your +plan in Manderson’s room, to leave it quietly and escape through one of +those three rooms.... The fact that you went through her window, you +know,” he added coldly, “would have suggested, if it became known, +various suspicions in regard to the lady herself. I think you understand +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe turned upon him with a glowing face. “And I think you will +understand me, Mr. Trent,” he said in a voice that shook a little, +“when I say that if such a possibility had occurred to me then, I would +have taken any risk rather than make my escape by that way.... Oh well!” +he went on more coolly, “I suppose that to any one who didn’t know +her, the idea of her being privy to her husband’s murder might not seem +so indescribably fatuous. Forgive the expression.” He looked attentively +at the burning end of his cigarette, studiously unconscious of the red flag +that flew in Trent’s eyes for an instant at his words and the tone of +them. +</p> + +<p> +That emotion, however, was conquered at once. “Your remark is perfectly +just,” Trent said with answering coolness. “I can quite believe, +too, that at the time you didn’t think of the possibility I mentioned. +But surely, apart from that, it would have been safer to do as I said; go by +the window of an unoccupied room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” said Marlowe. “All I can say is, I +hadn’t the nerve to do it. I tell you, when I entered Manderson’s +room I shut the door of it on more than half my terrors. I had the problem +confined before me in a closed space, with only one danger in it, and that a +known danger: the danger of Mrs. Manderson. The thing was almost done; I had +only to wait until she was certainly asleep after her few moments of waking up, +for which, as I told you, I was prepared as a possibility. Barring accidents, +the way was clear. But now suppose that I, carrying Manderson’s clothes +and shoes, had opened that door again and gone in my shirt-sleeves and socks to +enter one of the empty rooms. The moonlight was flooding the corridor through +the end window. Even if my face was concealed, nobody could mistake my standing +figure for Manderson’s. Martin might be going about the house in his +silent way. Bunner might come out of his bedroom. One of the servants who were +supposed to be in bed might come round the corner from the other +passage—I had found Célestine prowling about quite as late as it was +then. None of these things was very likely; but they were all too likely for +me. They were uncertainties. Shut off from the household in Manderson’s +room I knew exactly what I had to face. As I lay in my clothes in +Manderson’s bed and listened for the almost inaudible breathing through +the open door, I felt far more ease of mind, terrible as my anxiety was, than I +had felt since I saw the dead body on the turf. I even congratulated myself +that I had had the chance, through Mrs Manderson’s speaking to me, of +tightening one of the screws in my scheme by repeating the statement about my +having been sent to Southampton.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe looked at Trent, who nodded as who should say that his point was met. +</p> + +<p> +“As for Southampton,” pursued Marlowe, “you know what I did +when I got there, I have no doubt. I had decided to take Manderson’s +story about the mysterious Harris and act it out on my own lines. It was a +carefully prepared lie, better than anything I could improvise. I even went so +far as to get through a trunk call to the hotel at Southampton from the library +before starting, and ask if Harris was there. As I expected, he +wasn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was that why you telephoned?” Trent enquired quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“The reason for telephoning was to get myself into an attitude in which +Martin couldn’t see my face or anything but the jacket and hat, yet which +was a natural and familiar attitude. But while I was about it, it was obviously +better to make a genuine call. If I had simply pretended to be telephoning, the +people at the exchange could have told at once that there hadn’t been a +call from White Gables that night.” +</p> + +<p> +“One of the first things I did was to make that enquiry,” said +Trent. “That telephone call, and the wire you sent from Southampton to +the dead man to say Harris hadn’t turned up, and you were +returning—I particularly appreciated both those.” +</p> + +<p> +A constrained smile lighted Marlowe’s face for a moment. “I +don’t know that there’s anything more to tell. I returned to +Marlstone, and faced your friend the detective with such nerve as I had left. +The worst was when I heard you had been put on the case—no, that +wasn’t the worst. The worst was when I saw you walk out of the shrubbery +the next day, coming away from the shed where I had laid the body. For one +ghastly moment I thought you were going to give me in charge on the spot. Now +I’ve told you everything, you don’t look so terrible.” +</p> + +<p> +He closed his eyes, and there was a short silence. Then Trent got suddenly to +his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Cross-examination?” enquired Marlowe, looking at him gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Trent, stretching his long limbs. “Only +stiffness of the legs. I don’t want to ask any questions. I believe what +you have told us. I don’t believe it simply because I always liked your +face, or because it saves awkwardness, which are the most usual reasons for +believing a person, but because my vanity will have it that no man could lie to +me steadily for an hour without my perceiving it. Your story is an +extraordinary one; but Manderson was an extraordinary man, and so are you. You +acted like a lunatic in doing what you did; but I quite agree with you that if +you had acted like a sane man you wouldn’t have had the hundredth part of +a dog’s chance with a judge and jury. One thing is beyond dispute on any +reading of the affair: you are a man of courage.” +</p> + +<p> +The colour rushed into Marlowe’s face, and he hesitated for words. Before +he could speak Mr. Cupples arose with a dry cough. +</p> + +<p> +“For my part,” he said, “I never supposed you guilty for a +moment.” Marlowe turned to him in grateful amazement, Trent with an +incredulous stare. “But,” pursued Mr. Cupples, holding up his hand, +“there is one question which I should like to put.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe bowed, saying nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose,” said Mr. Cupples, “that some one else had been +suspected of the crime and put upon trial. What would you have done?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think my duty was clear. I should have gone with my story to the +lawyers for the defence, and put myself in their hands.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent laughed aloud. Now that the thing was over, his spirits were rapidly +becoming ungovernable. “I can see their faces!” he said. “As +a matter of fact, though, nobody else was ever in danger. There wasn’t a +shred of evidence against any one. I looked up Murch at the Yard this morning, +and he told me he had come round to Bunner’s view, that it was a case of +revenge on the part of some American black-hand gang. So there’s the end +of the Manderson case. Holy, suffering Moses! <i>What</i> an ass a man can make +of himself when he thinks he’s being preternaturally clever!” He +seized the bulky envelope from the table and stuffed it into the heart of the +fire. “There’s for you, old friend! For want of you the +world’s course will not fail. But look here! It’s getting +late—nearly seven, and Cupples and I have an appointment at half-past. We +must go. Mr. Marlowe, goodbye.” He looked into the other’s eyes. +“I am a man who has worked hard to put a rope round your neck. +Considering the circumstances, I don’t know whether you will blame me. +Will you shake hands?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>Chapter XVI.<br />The Last Straw</h2> + +<p> +“What was that you said about our having an appointment at half-past +seven?” asked Mr. Cupples as the two came out of the great gateway of the +pile of flats. “Have we such an appointment?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly we have,” replied Trent. “You are dining with me. +Only one thing can properly celebrate this occasion, and that is a dinner for +which I pay. No, no! I asked you first. I have got right down to the bottom of +a case that must be unique—a case that has troubled even my mind for over +a year—and if that isn’t a good reason for standing a dinner, I +don’t know what is. Cupples, we will not go to my club. This is to be a +festival, and to be seen in a London club in a state of pleasurable emotion is +more than enough to shatter any man’s career. Besides that, the dinner +there is always the same, or, at least, they always make it taste the same, I +know not how. The eternal dinner at my club hath bored millions of members like +me, and shall bore; but tonight let the feast be spread in vain, so far as we +are concerned. We will not go where the satraps throng the hall. We will go to +Sheppard’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Sheppard?” asked Mr. Cupples mildly, as they proceeded up +Victoria Street. His companion went with an unnatural lightness, and a +policeman, observing his face, smiled indulgently at a look of happiness which +he could only attribute to alcohol. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Sheppard?” echoed Trent with bitter emphasis. “That +question, if you will pardon me for saying so, Cupples, is thoroughly +characteristic of the spirit of aimless enquiry prevailing in this restless +day. I suggest our dining at Sheppard’s, and instantly you fold your arms +and demand, in a frenzy of intellectual pride, to know who Sheppard is before +you will cross the threshold of Sheppard’s. I am not going to pander to +the vices of the modern mind. Sheppard’s is a place where one can dine. I +do not know Sheppard. It never occurred to me that Sheppard existed. Probably +he is a myth of totemistic origin. All I know is that you can get a bit of +saddle of mutton at Sheppard’s that has made many an American visitor +curse the day that Christopher Columbus was born.... Taxi!” +</p> + +<p> +A cab rolled smoothly to the kerb, and the driver received his instructions +with a majestic nod. +</p> + +<p> +“Another reason I have for suggesting Sheppard’s,” continued +Trent, feverishly lighting a cigarette, “is that I am going to be married +to the most wonderful woman in the world. I trust the connection of ideas is +clear.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to marry Mabel!” cried Mr. Cupples. “My dear +friend, what good news this is! Shake hands, Trent; this is glorious! I +congratulate you both from the bottom of my heart. And may I say—I +don’t want to interrupt your flow of high spirits, which is very natural +indeed, and I remember being just the same in similar circumstances long +ago—but may I say how earnestly I have hoped for this? Mabel has seen so +much unhappiness, yet she is surely a woman formed in the great purpose of +humanity to be the best influence in the life of a good man. But I did not know +her mind as regarded yourself. <i>Your</i> mind I have known for some +time,” Mr. Cupples went on, with a twinkle in his eye that would have +done credit to the worldliest of creatures. “I saw it at once when you +were both dining at my house, and you sat listening to Professor Peppmuller and +looking at her. Some of us older fellows have our wits about us still, my dear +boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mabel says she knew it before that,” replied Trent, with a +slightly crestfallen air. “And I thought I was acting the part of a +person who was not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good at +dissembling. I shouldn’t wonder if even old Peppmuller noticed something +through his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may have been as an +undeclared suitor,” he went on with a return to vivacity, “I am +going to be much worse now. As for your congratulations, thank you a thousand +times, because I know you mean them. You are the sort of uncomfortable brute +who would pull a face three feet long if you thought we were making a mistake. +By the way, I can’t help being an ass tonight; I’m obliged to go on +blithering. You must try to bear it. Perhaps it would be easier if I sang you a +song—one of your old favourites. What was that song you used always to be +singing? Like this, wasn’t it?” He accompanied the following stave +with a dexterous clog-step on the floor of the cab: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“There was an old nigger, and he had a wooden leg.<br /> +He had no tobacco, no tobacco could he beg.<br /> +Another old nigger was as cunning as a fox,<br /> +And he always had tobacco in his old tobacco-box. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Now for the chorus! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Yes, he always had tobacco in his old tobacco-box. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But you’re not singing. I thought you would be making the welkin +ring.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never sang that song in my life,” protested Mr. Cupples. +“I never heard it before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure?” enquired Trent doubtfully. “Well, I suppose I +must take your word for it. It is a beautiful song, anyhow: not the whole +warbling grove in concert heard can beat it. Somehow it seems to express my +feelings at the present moment as nothing else could; it rises unbidden to the +lips. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh, as the Bishop of +Bath and Wells said when listening to a speech of Mr. Balfour’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“When was that?” asked Mr. Cupples. +</p> + +<p> +“On the occasion,” replied Trent, “of the introduction of the +Compulsory Notification of Diseases of Poultry Bill, which ill-fated measure +you of course remember. Hullo!” he broke off, as the cab rushed down a +side street and swung round a corner into a broad and populous thoroughfare, +“we’re there already”. The cab drew up. +</p> + +<p> +“Here we are,” said Trent, as he paid the man, and led Mr. Cupples +into a long, panelled room set with many tables and filled with a hum of talk. +“This is the house of fulfilment of craving, this is the bower with the +roses around it. I see there are three bookmakers eating pork at my favourite +table. We will have that one in the opposite corner.” +</p> + +<p> +He conferred earnestly with a waiter, while Mr. Cupples, in a pleasant +meditation, warmed himself before the great fire. “The wine here,” +Trent resumed, as they seated themselves, “is almost certainly made out +of grapes. What shall we drink?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples came out of his reverie. “I think,” he said, “I +will have milk and soda water.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak lower!” urged Trent. “The head-waiter has a weak +heart, and might hear you. Milk and soda water! Cupples, you may think you have +a strong constitution, and I don’t say you have not, but I warn you that +this habit of mixing drinks has been the death of many a robuster man than you. +Be wise in time. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine, leave soda to the Turkish +hordes. Here comes our food.” He gave another order to the waiter, who +ranged the dishes before them and darted away. Trent was, it seemed, a +respected customer. “I have sent,” he said, “for wine that I +know, and I hope you will try it. If you have taken a vow, then in the name of +all the teetotal saints drink water, which stands at your elbow, but +don’t seek a cheap notoriety by demanding milk and soda.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have never taken any pledge,” said Mr. Cupples, examining his +mutton with a favourable eye. “I simply don’t care about wine. I +bought a bottle once and drank it to see what it was like, and it made me ill. +But very likely it was bad wine. I will taste some of yours, as it is your +dinner, and I do assure you, my dear Trent, I should like to do something +unusual to show how strongly I feel on the present occasion. I have not been so +delighted for many years. To think,” he reflected aloud as the waiter +filled his glass, “of the Manderson mystery disposed of, the innocent +exculpated, and your own and Mabel’s happiness crowned—all coming +upon me together! I drink to you, my dear friend.” And Mr. Cupples took a +very small sip of the wine. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a great nature,” said Trent, much moved. “Your +outward semblance doth belie your soul’s immensity. I should have +expected as soon to see an elephant conducting at the opera as you drinking my +health. Dear Cupples! May his beak retain ever that delicate +rose-stain!—No, curse it all!” he broke out, surprising a shade of +discomfort that flitted over his companion’s face as he tasted the wine +again. “I have no business to meddle with your tastes. I apologize. You +shall have what you want, even if it causes the head-waiter to perish in his +pride.” +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Cupples had been supplied with his monastic drink, and the waiter had +retired, Trent looked across the table with significance. “In this babble +of many conversations,” he said, “we can speak as freely as if we +were on a bare hillside. The waiter is whispering soft nothings into the ear of +the young woman at the pay-desk. We are alone. What do you think of that +interview of this afternoon?” He began to dine with an appetite. +</p> + +<p> +Without pausing in the task of cutting his mutton into very small pieces Mr. +Cupples replied: “The most curious feature of it, in my judgement, was +the irony of the situation. We both held the clue to that mad hatred of +Manderson’s which Marlowe found so mysterious. We knew of his jealous +obsession; which knowledge we withheld, as was very proper, if only in +consideration of Mabel’s feelings. Marlowe will never know of what he was +suspected by that person. Strange! Nearly all of us, I venture to think, move +unconsciously among a network of opinions, often quite erroneous, which other +people entertain about us. I remember, for instance, discovering quite by +accident some years ago that a number of people of my acquaintance believed me +to have been secretly received into the Church of Rome. This absurd fiction was +based upon the fact, which in the eyes of many appeared conclusive, that I had +expressed myself in talk as favouring the plan of a weekly abstinence from +meat. Manderson’s belief in regard to his secretary probably rested upon +a much slighter ground. It was Mr Bunner, I think you said, who told you of his +rooted and apparently hereditary temper of suspicious jealousy.... With regard +to Marlowe’s story, it appeared to me entirely straightforward, and not, +in its essential features, especially remarkable, once we have admitted, as we +surely must, that in the case of Manderson we have to deal with a more or less +disordered mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent laughed loudly. “I confess,” he said, “that the affair +struck me as a little unusual. +</p> + +<p> +“Only in the development of the details,” argued Mr. Cupples. +“What is there abnormal in the essential facts? A madman conceives a +crazy suspicion; he hatches a cunning plot against his fancied injurer; it +involves his own destruction. Put thus, what is there that any man with the +least knowledge of the ways of lunatics would call remarkable? Turn now to +Marlowe’s proceedings. He finds himself in a perilous position from +which, though he is innocent, telling the truth will not save him. Is that an +unheard-of situation? He escapes by means of a bold and ingenious piece of +deception. That seems to me a thing that might happen every day, and probably +does so.” He attacked his now unrecognizable mutton. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to know,” said Trent, after an alimentary pause in +the conversation, “whether there is anything that ever happened on the +face of the earth that you could not represent as quite ordinary and +commonplace by such a line of argument as that.” +</p> + +<p> +A gentle smile illuminated Mr. Cupples’s face. “You must not +suspect me of empty paradox,” he said. “My meaning will become +clearer, perhaps, if I mention some things which do appear to me essentially +remarkable. Let me see .... Well, I would call the life history of the +liver-fluke, which we owe to the researches of Poulton, an essentially +remarkable thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am unable to argue the point,” replied Trent. “Fair +science may have smiled upon the liver-fluke’s humble birth, but I never +even heard it mentioned.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not, perhaps, an appetizing subject,” said Mr. Cupples +thoughtfully, “and I will not pursue it. All I mean is, my dear Trent, +that there are really remarkable things going on all round us if we will only +see them; and we do our perceptions no credit in regarding as remarkable only +those affairs which are surrounded with an accumulation of sensational +detail.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent applauded heartily with his knife-handle on the table, as Mr. Cupples +ceased and refreshed himself with milk and soda water. “I have not heard +you go on like this for years,” he said. “I believe you must be +almost as much above yourself as I am. It is a bad case of the unrest which men +miscall delight. But much as I enjoy it, I am not going to sit still and hear +the Manderson affair dismissed as commonplace. You may say what you like, but +the idea of impersonating Manderson in those circumstances was an +extraordinarily ingenious idea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ingenious—certainly!” replied Mr. Cupples. +“Extraordinarily so—no! In those circumstances (your own words) it +was really not strange that it should occur to a clever man. It lay almost on +the surface of the situation. Marlowe was famous for his imitation of +Manderson’s voice; he had a talent for acting; he had a +chess-player’s mind; he knew the ways of the establishment intimately. I +grant you that the idea was brilliantly carried out; but everything favoured +it. As for the essential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the +same class with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in a +discharged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading. I do, +however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect of details the case had +unusual features. It developed a high degree of complexity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did it really strike you in that way?” enquired Trent with +desperate sarcasm. +</p> + +<p> +“The affair became complicated,” went on Mr. Cupples unmoved, +“because after Marlowe’s suspicions were awakened, a second subtle +mind came in to interfere with the plans of the first. That sort of duel often +happens in business and politics, but less frequently, I imagine, in the world +of crime.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say never,” Trent replied; “and the reason is, that +even the cleverest criminals seldom run to strategic subtlety. When they do, +they don’t get caught, since clever policemen have if possible less +strategic subtlety than the ordinary clever criminal. But that rather deep +quality seems very rarely to go with the criminal make-up. Look at Crippen. He +was a very clever criminal as they go. He solved the central problem of every +clandestine murder, the disposal of the body, with extreme neatness. But how +far did he see through the game? The criminal and the policeman are often swift +and bold tacticians, but neither of them is good for more than a quite simple +plan. After all, it’s a rare faculty in any walk of life.” +</p> + +<p> +“One disturbing reflection was left on my mind,” said Mr. Cupples, +who seemed to have had enough of abstractions for the moment, “by what we +learned today. If Marlowe had suspected nothing and walked into the trap, he +would almost certainly have been hanged. Now how often may not a plan to throw +the guilt of murder on an innocent person have been practised successfully? +There are, I imagine, numbers of cases in which the accused, being found guilty +on circumstantial evidence, have died protesting their innocence. I shall never +approve again of a death-sentence imposed in a case decided upon such +evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never have done so, for my part,” said Trent. “To hang in +such cases seems to me flying in the face of the perfectly obvious and sound +principle expressed in the saying that ‘you never can tell’. I +agree with the American jurist who lays it down that we should not hang a +yellow dog for stealing jam on circumstantial evidence, not even if he has jam +all over his nose. As for attempts being made by malevolent persons to fix +crimes upon innocent men, of course it is constantly happening. It’s a +marked feature, for instance, of all systems of rule by coercion, whether in +Ireland or Russia or India or Korea; if the police cannot get hold of a man +they think dangerous by fair means, they do it by foul. But there’s one +case in the State Trials that is peculiarly to the point, because not only was +it a case of fastening a murder on innocent people, but the plotter did in +effect what Manderson did; he gave up his own life in order to secure the death +of his victims. Probably you have heard of the Campden Case.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples confessed his ignorance and took another potato. +</p> + +<p> +“John Masefield has written a very remarkable play about it,” said +Trent, “and if it ever comes on again in London, you should go and see +it, if you like having the fan-tods. I have often seen women weeping in an +undemonstrative manner at some slab of oleo-margarine sentiment in the theatre. +By George! what everlasting smelling-bottle hysterics they ought to have if +they saw that play decently acted! Well, the facts were that John Perry accused +his mother and brother of murdering a man, and swore he had helped them to do +it. He told a story full of elaborate detail, and had an answer to everything, +except the curious fact that the body couldn’t be found; but the judge, +who was probably drunk at the time—this was in Restoration +days—made nothing of that. The mother and brother denied the accusation. +All three prisoners were found guilty and hanged, purely on John’s +evidence. Two years after, the man whom they were hanged for murdering came +back to Campden. He had been kidnapped by pirates and taken to sea. His +disappearance had given John his idea. The point about John is, that his +including himself in the accusation, which amounted to suicide, was the thing +in his evidence which convinced everybody of its truth. It was so obvious that +no man would do himself to death to get somebody else hanged. Now that is +exactly the answer which the prosecution would have made if Marlowe had told +the truth. Not one juryman in a million would have believed in the Manderson +plot.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples mused upon this a few moments. “I have not your acquaintance +with that branch of history,” he said at length; “in fact, I have +none at all. But certain recollections of my own childhood return to me in +connection with this affair. We know from the things Mabel told you what may be +termed the spiritual truth underlying this matter; the insane depth of jealous +hatred which Manderson concealed. We can understand that he was capable of such +a scheme. But as a rule it is in the task of penetrating to the spiritual truth +that the administration of justice breaks down. Sometimes that truth is +deliberately concealed, as in Manderson’s case. Sometimes, I think, it is +concealed because simple people are actually unable to express it, and nobody +else divines it. When I was a lad in Edinburgh the whole country went mad about +the Sandyford Place murder.” +</p> + +<p> +Trent nodded. “Mrs. M’Lachlan’s case. She was innocent right +enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“My parents thought so,” said Mr. Cupples. “I thought so +myself when I became old enough to read and understand that excessively sordid +story. But the mystery of the affair was so dark, and the task of getting at +the truth behind the lies told by everybody concerned proved so hopeless, that +others were just as fully convinced of the innocence of old James Fleming. All +Scotland took sides on the question. It was the subject of debates in +Parliament. The press divided into two camps, and raged with a fury I have +never seen equalled. Yet it is obvious, is it not? for I see you have read of +the case—that if the spiritual truth about that old man could have been +known there would have been very little room for doubt in the matter. If what +some surmised about his disposition was true, he was quite capable of murdering +Jessie M’Pherson and then casting the blame on the poor feeble-minded +creature who came so near to suffering the last penalty of the law.” +</p> + +<p> +“Even a commonplace old dotard like Fleming can be an unfathomable +mystery to all the rest of the human race,” said Trent, “and most +of all in a court of justice. The law certainly does not shine when it comes to +a case requiring much delicacy of perception. It goes wrong easily enough over +the Flemings of this world. As for the people with temperaments who get mixed +up in legal proceedings, they must feel as if they were in a forest of apes, +whether they win or lose. Well, I dare say it’s good for their sort to +have their noses rubbed in reality now and again. But what would twelve +red-faced realities in a jury-box have done to Marlowe? His story would, as he +says, have been a great deal worse than no defence at all. It’s not as if +there were a single piece of evidence in support of his tale. Can’t you +imagine how the prosecution would tear it to rags? Can’t you see the +judge simply taking it in his stride when it came to the summing up? And the +jury—you’ve served on juries, I expect—in their room, +snorting with indignation over the feebleness of the lie, telling each other it +was the clearest case they ever heard of, and that they’d have thought +better of him if he hadn’t lost his nerve at the crisis, and had cleared +off with the swag as he intended. Imagine yourself on that jury, not knowing +Marlowe, and trembling with indignation at the record unrolled before +you—cupidity, murder, robbery, sudden cowardice, shameless, impenitent, +desperate lying! Why, you and I believed him to be guilty until—” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!” interjected Mr. Cupples, +laying down his knife and fork. “I was most careful, when we talked it +all over the other night, to say nothing indicating such a belief. <i>I</i> was +always certain that he was innocent.” +</p> + +<p> +“You said something of the sort at Marlowe’s just now. I wondered +what on earth you could mean. Certain that he was innocent! How can you be +certain? You are generally more careful about terms than that, Cupples.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said ‘certain’,” Mr. Cupples repeated firmly. +</p> + +<p> +Trent shrugged his shoulders. “If you really were, after reading my +manuscript and discussing the whole thing as we did,” he rejoined, +“then I can only say that you must have totally renounced all trust in +the operations of the human reason; an attitude which, while it is bad +Christianity and also infernal nonsense, is oddly enough bad Positivism too, +unless I misunderstand that system. Why, man—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me say a word,” Mr. Cupples interposed again, folding his +hands above his plate. “I assure you I am far from abandoning reason. I +am certain he is innocent, and I always was certain of it, because of something +that I know, and knew from the very beginning. You asked me just now to imagine +myself on the jury at Marlowe’s trial. That would be an unprofitable +exercise of the mental powers, because I know that I should be present in +another capacity. I should be in the witness-box, giving evidence for the +defence. You said just now, ‘If there were a single piece of evidence in +support of his tale.’ There is, and it is my evidence. And,” he +added quietly, “it is conclusive.” He took up his knife and fork +and went contentedly on with his dinner. +</p> + +<p> +The pallor of sudden excitement had turned Trent to marble while Mr Cupples led +laboriously up to this statement. At the last word the blood rushed to his face +again, and he struck the table with an unnatural laugh. “It can’t +be!” he exploded. “It’s something you fancied, something you +dreamed after one of those debauches of soda and milk. You can’t really +mean that all the time I was working on the case down there you knew Marlowe +was innocent.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples, busy with his last mouthful, nodded brightly. He made an end of +eating, wiped his sparse moustache, and then leaned forward over the table. +“It’s very simple,” he said. “I shot Manderson +myself.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I am afraid I startled you,” Trent heard the voice of Mr. Cupples +say. He forced himself out of his stupefaction like a diver striking upward for +the surface, and with a rigid movement raised his glass. But half of the wine +splashed upon the cloth, and he put it carefully down again untasted. He drew a +deep breath, which was exhaled in a laugh wholly without merriment. “Go +on,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It was not murder,” began Mr. Cupples, slowly measuring off inches +with a fork on the edge of the table. “I will tell you the whole story. +On that Sunday night I was taking my before-bedtime constitutional, having set +out from the hotel about a quarter past ten. I went along the field path that +runs behind White Gables, cutting off the great curve of the road, and came out +on the road nearly opposite that gate that is just by the eighth hole on the +golf-course. Then I turned in there, meaning to walk along the turf to the edge +of the cliff, and go back that way. I had only gone a few steps when I heard +the car coming, and then I heard it stop near the gate. I saw Manderson at +once. Do you remember my telling you I had seen him once alive after our +quarrel in front of the hotel? Well, this was the time. You asked me if I had, +and I did not care to tell a falsehood.” +</p> + +<p> +A slight groan came from Trent. He drank a little wine, and said stonily, +“Go on, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was, as you know,” pursued Mr. Cupples, “a moonlight +night, but I was in shadow under the trees by the stone wall, and anyhow they +could not suppose there was any one near them. I heard all that passed just as +Marlowe has narrated it to us, and I saw the car go off towards Bishopsbridge. +I did not see Manderson’s face as it went, because his back was to me, +but he shook the back of his left hand at the car with extraordinary violence, +greatly to my amazement. Then I waited for him to go back to White Gables, as I +did not want to meet him again. But he did not go. He opened the gate through +which I had just passed, and he stood there on the turf of the green, quite +still. His head was bent, his arms hung at his sides, and he looked +somehow—rigid. For a few moments he remained in this tense attitude, +then all of a sudden his right arm moved swiftly, and his hand was at the +pocket of his overcoat. I saw his face raised in the moonlight, the teeth +bared, and the eyes glittering, and all at once I knew that the man was not +sane. Almost as quickly as that flashed across my mind, something else flashed +in the moonlight. He held the pistol before him, pointing at his breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I may say here I shall always be doubtful whether Manderson really +meant to kill himself then. Marlowe naturally thinks so, knowing nothing of my +intervention. But I think it quite likely he only meant to wound himself, and +to charge Marlowe with attempted murder and robbery. +</p> + +<p> +“At that moment, however, I assumed it was suicide. Before I knew what I +was doing I had leapt out of the shadows and seized his arm. He shook me off +with a furious snarling noise, giving me a terrific blow in the chest, and +presenting the revolver at my head. But I seized his wrists before he could +fire, and clung with all my strength—you remember how bruised and +scratched they were. I knew I was fighting for my own life now, for murder was +in his eyes. We struggled like two beasts, without an articulate word, I +holding his pistol-hand down and keeping a grip on the other. I never dreamed +that I had the strength for such an encounter. Then, with a perfectly +instinctive movement—I never knew I meant to do it—I flung away his +free hand and clutched like lightning at the weapon, tearing it from his +fingers. By a miracle it did not go off. I darted back a few steps, he sprang +at my throat like a wild cat, and I fired blindly in his face. He would have +been about a yard away, I suppose. His knees gave way instantly, and he fell in +a heap on the turf. +</p> + +<p> +“I flung the pistol down and bent over him. The heart’s action +ceased under my hand. I knelt there staring, struck motionless; and I +don’t know how long it was before I heard the noise of the car returning. +</p> + +<p> +“Trent, all the time that Marlowe paced that green, with the moonlight on +his white and working face, I was within a few yards of him, crouching in the +shadow of the furze by the ninth tee. I dared not show myself. I was thinking. +My public quarrel with Manderson the same morning was, I suspected, the talk of +the hotel. I assure you that every horrible possibility of the situation for me +had rushed across my mind the moment I saw Manderson fall. I became cunning. I +knew what I must do. I must get back to the hotel as fast as I could, get in +somehow unperceived, and play a part to save myself. I must never tell a word +to any one. Of course I was assuming that Marlowe would tell every one how he +had found the body. I knew he would suppose it was suicide; I thought every one +would suppose so. +</p> + +<p> +“When Marlowe began at last to lift the body, I stole away down the wall +and got out into the road by the clubhouse, where he could not see me. I felt +perfectly cool and collected. I crossed the road, climbed the fence, and ran +across the meadow to pick up the field path I had come by that runs to the +hotel behind White Gables. I got back to the hotel very much out of +breath.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of breath,” repeated Trent mechanically, still staring at his +companion as if hypnotized. +</p> + +<p> +“I had had a sharp run,” Mr. Cupples reminded him. “Well, +approaching the hotel from the back I could see into the writing-room through +the open window. There was nobody in there, so I climbed over the sill, walked +to the bell and rang it, and then sat down to write a letter I had meant to +write the next day. I saw by the clock that it was a little past eleven. When +the waiter answered the bell I asked for a glass of milk and a postage stamp. +Soon afterwards I went up to bed. But I could not sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cupples, having nothing more to say, ceased speaking. He looked in mild +surprise at Trent, who now sat silent, supporting his bent head in his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“He could not sleep,” murmured Trent at last in a hollow tone. +“A frequent result of over-exertion during the day. Nothing to be alarmed +about.” He was silent again, then looked up with a pale face. +“Cupples, I am cured. I will never touch a crime-mystery again. The +Manderson affair shall be Philip Trent’s last case. His high-blown pride +at length breaks under him.” Trent’s smile suddenly returned. +“I could have borne everything but that last revelation of the impotence +of human reason. Cupples, I have absolutely nothing left to say, except this: +you have beaten me. I drink your health in a spirit of self-abasement. And +<i>you</i> shall pay for the dinner.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRENT’S LAST CASE ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 2568-h.htm or 2568-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/2568/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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