Trent's Last Case Part 4

'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 ill.u.s.trated 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 const.i.tuents 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 b.u.t.tering 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.'

'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 mult.i.tudes 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.'

'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.

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.

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.

'I hope you will succeed,' she said earnestly. 'Do you think you will succeed?'

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.'

She looked puzzled, and distress showed for an instant in her eyes. 'If it is necessary, of course you shall do so,' she said.

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.

'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?'

She glanced at him wearily. 'It would be stupid of me to refuse, Ask your questions, Mr Trent.' '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?'

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.'

'Why is it surprising?'

'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.'

'And he did not tell you why he wanted it?'

'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.'

'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.

'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 Huckleberry Finn?'

'Do I know my own name?' exclaimed Trent.

'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 n.i.g.g.e.r 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.'

'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.'

'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-'

'Who is Harris?' interjected Trent.

'n.o.body 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.'

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.'

Marlowe shook his head. 'I know nothing, indeed. I'm not easily offended, and your question is quite fair. What pa.s.sed 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.'

'That talk took place before he told his wife that you were taking him for a moonlight run. Why did he conceal your errand in that way, I wonder.'

The young man made a gesture of helplessness. 'Why? I can guess no better than you.'

'Why,' muttered Trent as if to himself, gazing on the ground, 'did he conceal it-from Mrs Manderson?' He looked up at Marlowe.

'And from Martin,' the other amended coolly. 'He was told the same thing.'

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.

'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.

'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. n.o.body here has any such diary so far as I know. What about them?'

'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.'

He stopped speaking as Mrs Manderson came towards them. 'My uncle thinks we should be going now,' she said.

'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.'

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.'

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.'

She entered the house. Her uncle and the American had already strolled towards the gate.

Trent looked into the eyes of his companion. 'That is a wonderful woman,' he said in a lowered voice.

'You say so without knowing her,' replied Marlowe in a similar tone. 'She is more than that.'

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 pa.s.sed the two others. Then he turned to Marlowe. 'A propos of nothing in particular,' he said, 'were you at Oxford?'

'Yes,' said the young man. 'Why do you ask?'

'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?'

'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.'

'Why? Does my hair want cutting?'

'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.'

The boy came up panting. 'Telegram for you, sir,' he said to Trent. 'Just come, sir.'

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.

'It must be good news,' he murmured half to himself.

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.'

CHAPTER VIII: The Inquest

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.

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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.sured the rest that he was not in the court.

The ident.i.ty of the dead man was proved by his wife, the first witness called, from whom the coroner, after some enquiry into the health and circ.u.mstances 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.

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 pa.s.sage. 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.

'Did he say why?' the coroner asked.

'Yes,' replied the lady, 'he did explain why. I remember very well what he said, because-' she stopped with a little appearance of confusion.

'Because-' the coroner insisted gently.

'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.'

'Did he say any more?'

'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.'

'And you heard nothing in the night?'

'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.

But it was not to be yet.

'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 circ.u.mstances, 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?'

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 att.i.tude 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.

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?'

'Never.' The word was colourlessly spoken; but every one felt that a cra.s.s misunderstanding of the possibilities of conduct in the case of a person like Mrs Manderson had been visited with some severity.

Did she know, the coroner asked, of any other matter which might have been preying upon her husband's mind recently?

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.

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.

'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.

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 grat.i.tude 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.

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.

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.

'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.

'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.'

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.

CHAPTER IX: A Hot Scent

'Come in!' called Trent.

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 p.r.o.nounced 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.

'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.'

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.

'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 gla.s.s 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.'

'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 a.s.sist her, and she is most grateful. She is quite herself again now.'

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-cla.s.s 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.

'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?'

'Certainly I can,' said Mr Cupples, peering at it with great interest. 'It is an ordinary gla.s.s bowl. It looks like a finger-bowl. I see nothing odd about it,' he added after some moments of close scrutiny.

'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.'