Trent's Last Case

by E. C. Bentley

  CHAPTER IV: Handcuffs in the Air

  A painter and the son of a painter, Philip Trent had while yet in histwenties achieved some reputation within the world of English art.Moreover, his pictures sold. An original, forcible talent and a habitof leisurely but continuous working, broken by fits of strong creativeenthusiasm, were at the bottom of it. His father's name had helped;a patrimony large enough to relieve him of the perilous imputation ofbeing a struggling man had certainly not hindered. But his best aid tosuccess had been an unconscious power of getting himself liked. Goodspirits and a lively, humorous fancy will always be popular. Trentjoined to these a genuine interest in others that gained him somethingdeeper than popularity. His judgement of persons was penetrating, butits process was internal; no one felt on good behaviour with a manwho seemed always to be enjoying himself. Whether he was in a mood forfloods of nonsense or applying himself vigorously to a task, his faceseldom lost its expression of contained vivacity. Apart from a soundknowledge 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 theage of laughter and adventure.

  His rise to a celebrity a hundred times greater than his proper workhad won for him came of a momentary impulse. One day he had taken up anewspaper to find it chiefly concerned with a crime of a sort curiouslyrare in our country--a murder done in a railway train. The circumstanceswere puzzling; two persons were under arrest upon suspicion. Trent, towhom an interest in such affairs was a new sensation, heard the thingdiscussed among his friends, and set himself in a purposeless mood toread up the accounts given in several journals. He became intrigued; hisimagination began to work, in a manner strange to him, upon facts; anexcitement took hold of him such as he had only known before in hisbursts of art-inspiration or of personal adventure. At the end of theday he wrote and dispatched a long letter to the editor of the Record,which he chose only because it had contained the fullest and mostintelligent version of the facts.

  In this letter he did very much what Poe had done in the case of themurder of Mary Rogers. With nothing but the newspapers to guide him,he drew attention to the significance of certain apparently negligiblefacts, and ranged the evidence in such a manner as to throw gravesuspicion upon a man who had presented himself as a witness. Sir JamesMolloy had printed this letter in leaded type. The same evening hewas able to announce in the Sun the arrest and full confession of theincriminated man.

  Sir James, who knew all the worlds of London, had lost no time in makingTrent's acquaintance. The two men got on well, for Trent possessedsome secret of native tact which had the effect of almost abolishingdifferences of age between himself and others. The great rotary pressesin the basement of the Record building had filled him with a newenthusiasm. He had painted there, and Sir James had bought at sight,what he called a machinery-scape in the manner of Heinrich Kley.

  Then a few months later came the affair known as the Ilkley mystery. SirJames had invited Trent to an emollient dinner, and thereafter offeredhim what seemed to the young man a fantastically large sum for histemporary services as special representative of the Record at Ilkley.

  '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 thetechnicalities of a reporter's job in half an hour. And you have a headfor a mystery; you have imagination and cool judgement along with it.Think how it would feel if you pulled it off!'

  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 himback was fear of an unfamiliar task. To react against fear had become afixed moral habit with him, and he had accepted Sir James's offer.

  He had pulled it off. For the second time he had given the authoritiesa start and a beating, and his name was on all tongues. He withdrew andpainted pictures. He felt no leaning towards journalism, and Sir James,who knew a good deal about art, honourably refrained--as other editorsdid not--from tempting him with a good salary. But in the course of afew years he had applied to him perhaps thirty times for his services inthe unravelling of similar problems at home and abroad. SometimesTrent, busy with work that held him, had refused; sometimes he hadbeen forestalled in the discovery of the truth. But the result of hisirregular connection with the Record had been to make his name one ofthe best known in England. It was characteristic of him that his namewas almost the only detail of his personality known to the public. Hehad imposed absolute silence about himself upon the Molloy papers; andthe others were not going to advertise one of Sir James's men.

  ***

  The Manderson case, he told himself as he walked rapidly up the slopingroad to White Gables, might turn out to be terribly simple. Cuppleswas a wise old boy, but it was probably impossible for him to have animpartial opinion about his niece. But it was true that the managerof the hotel, who had spoken of her beauty in terms that aroused hisattention, had spoken even more emphatically of her goodness. Not anartist in words, the manager had yet conveyed a very definite idea toTrent's mind. 'There isn't a child about here that don't brighten upat the sound of her voice,' he had said, 'nor yet a grown-up, for thematter of that. Everybody used to look forward to her coming over inthe summer. I don't mean that she's one of those women that are all kindheart and nothing else. There's backbone with it, if you know what Imean--pluck any amount of go. There's nobody in Marlstone that isn'tsorry for the lady in her trouble--not but what some of us may thinkshe's lucky at the last of it.' Trent wanted very much to meet Mrs.Manderson.

  He could see now, beyond a spacious lawn and shrubbery, the front of thetwo-storied house of dull-red brick, with the pair of great gables fromwhich it had its name. He had had but a glimpse of it from the car thatmorning. A modern house, he saw; perhaps ten years old. The place wasbeautifully kept, with that air of opulent peace that clothes even thesmallest houses of the well-to-do in an English countryside. Beforeit, beyond the road, the rich meadow-land ran down to the edge of thecliffs; behind it a woody landscape stretched away across a broadvale to the moors. That such a place could be the scene of a crime ofviolence seemed fantastic; it lay so quiet and well ordered, so eloquentof 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, lyingtumbled against the wooden wall, Trent walked past the gate of the driveand along the road until he was opposite this shed. Some forty yardsfurther along the road turned sharply away from the house, to runbetween thick plantations; and just before the turn the grounds of thehouse 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 andthe service of the establishment. It swung easily on its hinges, and hepassed slowly up a path that led towards the back of the house, betweenthe outer hedge and a tall wall of rhododendrons. Through a gap in thiswall a track led him to the little neatly built erection of wood, whichstood among trees that faced a corner of the front. The body had lain onthe side away from the house; a servant, he thought, looking out ofthe nearer windows in the earlier hours of the day before, might haveglanced unseeing at the hut, as she wondered what it could be like to beas rich as the master.

  He examined the place carefully and ransacked the hut within, but hecould note no more than the trodden appearance of the uncut grass wherethe body had lain. Crouching low, with keen eyes and feeling fingers,he searched the ground minutely over a wide area; but the search wasfruitless.

  It was interrupted by the sound--the first he had heard from thehouse--of the closing of the front door. Trent unbent his long legs andstepped to the edge of the drive. A man was walking quickly away fromthe house in the direction of the great gate.

  At the noise of a footstep on the gravel, the man wheeled with nervousswiftness and looked earnestly at Trent. The sudden sight of his facewas almost terrible, so white and worn it was. Yet it was a young man'sface. There was not a wrinkle about the haggard b
lue eyes, for all theirtale 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; inhis handsome, regular features; in his short, smooth, yellow hair; andin his voice as he addressed Trent, the influence of a special sort oftraining was confessed. 'Oxford was your playground, I think, my youngfriend,' said Trent to himself.

  'If you are Mr. Trent,' said the young man pleasantly, 'you areexpected. Mr. Cupples telephoned from the hotel. My name is Marlowe.'

  'You were secretary to Mr. Manderson, I believe,' said Trent. He wasmuch inclined to like young Mr. Marlowe. Though he seemed so near aphysical breakdown, he gave out none the less that air of clean livingand inward health that is the peculiar glory of his social type at hisyears. But there was something in the tired eyes that was a challengeto Trent's penetration; an habitual expression, as he took it to be, ofmeditating and weighing things not present to their sight. It was a looktoo intelligent, too steady and purposeful, to be called dreamy. Trentthought 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 youcompletely, Mr. Marlowe.'

  'A little limp, that's all,' replied the young man wearily. 'I wasdriving the car all Sunday night and most of yesterday, and I didn'tsleep last night after hearing the news--who would? But I have anappointment now, Mr. Trent, down at the doctor's--arranging about theinquest. I expect it'll be tomorrow. If you will go up to the house andask for Mr. Bunner, you'll find him expecting you; he will tell you allabout 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.'

  'Murch!' Trent exclaimed. 'But he and I are old friends. How under thesun did he get here so soon?'

  'I have no idea,' Mr. Marlowe answered. 'But he was here last evening,before I got back from Southampton, interviewing everybody, andhe's been about here since eight this morning. He's in the librarynow--that's where the open French window is that you see at the endof the house there. Perhaps you would like to step down there and talkabout things.'

  'I think I will,' said Trent. Marlowe nodded and went on his way. Thethick turf of the lawn round which the drive took its circular sweepmade Trent's footsteps as noiseless as a cat's. In a few moments he waslooking in through the open leaves of the window at the southward endof the house, considering with a smile a very broad back and a bent headcovered with short grizzled hair. The man within was stooping over anumber of papers laid out on the table.

  ''Twas ever thus,' said Trent in a melancholy tone, at the first soundof which the man within turned round with startling swiftness. 'Fromchildhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes decay. I did think I wasahead of Scotland Yard this time, and now here is the hugest officer inthe entire Metropolitan force already occupying the position.'

  The detective smiled grimly and came to the window. 'I was expectingyou, Mr. Trent,' he said. 'This is the sort of case that you like.'

  'Since my tastes were being considered,' Trent replied, stepping intothe room, 'I wish they had followed up the idea by keeping my hatedrival out of the business. You have got a long start, too--I know allabout it.' His eyes began to wander round the room. 'How did you manageit? You are a quick mover, I know; the dun deer's hide on fleeter footwas never tied; but I don't see how you got here in time to be at workyesterday evening. Has Scotland Yard secretly started an aviation corps?Or is it in league with the infernal powers? In either case the HomeSecretary should be called upon to make a statement.'

  'It's simpler than that,' said Mr. Murch with professional stolidity. 'Ihappened to be on leave with the missus at Havley, which is only twelvemiles or so along the coast. As soon as our people there heard of themurder they told me. I wired to the Chief, and was put in charge of thecase at once. I bicycled over yesterday evening, and have been at itsince then.'

  'Arising out of that reply,' said Trent inattentively, 'how is Mrs.Inspector Murch?'

  'Never better, thank you,' answered the inspector, 'and frequentlyspeaks of you and the games you used to have with our kids. But you'llexcuse me saying, Mr. Trent, that you needn't trouble to talk yournonsense 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'spermission to go over the place and make enquiries.'

  '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 oldfox. But if you really mean that you're not inclined for the socialamenities just now, let us leave compliments and talk business.' Hestepped to the table, glanced through the papers arranged there inorder, and then turned to the open roll-top desk. He looked into thedrawers swiftly. 'I see this has been cleared out. Well now, inspector,I suppose we play the game as before.'

  Trent had found himself on a number of occasions in the past thrown intothe company of Inspector Murch, who stood high in the councils of theCriminal Investigation Department. He was a quiet, tactful, andvery shrewd officer, a man of great courage, with a vivid history inconnection with the more dangerous class of criminals. His humanity wasas broad as his frame, which was large even for a policeman. Trentand he, through some obscure working of sympathy, had appreciatedone another from the beginning, and had formed one of those curiousfriendships with which it was the younger man's delight to adorn hisexperience. The inspector would talk more freely to him than to anyone, under the rose, and they would discuss details and possibilities ofevery case, to their mutual enlightenment. There were necessarilyrules and limits. It was understood between them that Trent made nojournalistic use of any point that could only have come to him from anofficial source. Each of them, moreover, for the honour and prestige ofthe institution he represented, openly reserved the right to withholdfrom the other any discovery or inspiration that might come to himwhich he considered vital to the solution of the difficulty. Trent hadinsisted on carefully formulating these principles of what he calleddetective sportsmanship. Mr. Murch, who loved a contest, and who onlystood to gain by his association with the keen intelligence of theother, entered very heartily into 'the game'. In these strivings for thecredit of the press and of the police, victory sometimes attended theexperience and method of the officer, sometimes the quicker brain andlivelier imagination of Trent, his gift of instinctively recognizing thesignificant through all disguises.

  The inspector then replied to Trent's last words with cordial agreement.Leaning on either side of the French window, with the deep peace andhazy splendor of the summer landscape before them, they reviewed thecase.

  ***

  Trent had taken out a thin notebook, and as they talked he began tomake, with light, secure touches, a rough sketch plan of the room. Itwas a thing he did habitually on such occasions, and often quite idly,but now and then the habit had served him to good purpose.

  This was a large, light apartment at the corner of the house, withgenerous 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 ofit against the wall. The inner door was in the wall to the left, at thefarther end of the room; and was faced by a broad window divided intoopenings of the casement type. A beautifully carved old corner-cupboardrose high against the wall beyond the door, and another cupboard filleda recess beside the fireplace. Some coloured prints of Harunobu, withwhich Trent promised himself a better acquaintance, hung on whatlittle wall-space was unoccupied by books. These had a very uninspiringappearance of having been bought by the yard and never taken fromtheir shelves. Bound with a sober luxury, the great English novelists,essayists, historians, and poets stood ranged like an army struck deadin 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 beforethe desk. The room looked costly but very bare. Almost the only portableobjects were a great p
orcelain bowl of a wonderful blue on the table, aclock and some cigar boxes on the mantelshelf, and a movable telephonestandard on the top of the desk.

  'Seen the body?' enquired the inspector.

  Trent nodded. 'And the place where it lay,' he said.

  'First impressions of this case rather puzzle me,' said the inspector.'From what I heard at Halvey I guessed it might be common robbery andmurder by some tramp, though such a thing is very far from common inthese parts. But as soon as I began my enquiries I came on some curiouspoints, which by this time I dare say you've noted for yourself. Theman is shot in his own grounds, quite near the house, to begin with. Yetthere's not the slightest trace of any attempt at burglary. And the bodywasn't robbed. In fact, it would be as plain a case of suicide as youcould 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 queerstate of mind. I expect you know already that he and his wife had sometrouble between them. The servants had noticed a change in his mannerto her for a long time, and for the past week he had scarcely spoken toher. They say he was a changed man, moody and silent--whether onaccount of that or something else. The lady's maid says he looked as ifsomething was going to arrive. It's always easy to remember that peoplelooked like that, after something has happened to them. Still, that'swhat they say. There you are again, then: suicide! Now, why wasn't itsuicide, Mr. Trent?'

  'The facts so far as I know them are really all against it,' Trentreplied, 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'vesearched, and there's no trace of any firearm anywhere within a stone'sthrow of where the body lay. Second, the marks on the wrists, freshscratches and bruises, which we can only assume to have been done ina struggle with somebody. Third, who ever heard of anybody shootinghimself in the eye? Then I heard from the manager of the hotel hereanother fact, which strikes me as the most curious detail in thisaffair. Manderson had dressed himself fully before going out there, buthe forgot his false teeth. Now how could a suicide who dressed himselfto make a decent appearance as a corpse forget his teeth?'

  'That last argument hadn't struck me,' admitted Mr. Murch. 'There'ssomething in it. But on the strength of the other points, which hadoccurred to me, I am not considering suicide. I have been looking aboutfor ideas in this house, this morning. I expect you were thinking ofdoing the same.'

  'That is so. It is a case for ideas, it seems to me. Come, Murch, letus make an effort; let us bend our spirits to a temper of generalsuspicion. Let us suspect everybody in the house, to begin with. Listen:I will tell you whom I suspect. I suspect Mrs. Manderson, of course. Ialso suspect both the secretaries--I hear there are two, and I hardlyknow which of them I regard as more thoroughly open to suspicion. Isuspect 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 arethere? I have more than enough suspicion to go round, whatever the sizeof the establishment; but as a matter of curiosity I should like toknow.'

  'All very well to laugh,' replied the inspector, 'but at the first stageof affairs it's the only safe principle, and you know that as well as Ido, Mr. Trent. However, I've seen enough of the people here, last nightand 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'sthe butler and lady's maid, cook, and three other maids, one a younggirl. One chauffeur, who's away with a broken wrist. No boy.'

  'What about the gardener? You say nothing about that shadowy andsinister figure, the gardener. You are keeping him in the background,Murch. Play the game. Out with him--or I report you to the RulesCommittee.'

  'The garden is attended to by a man in the village, who comes twice aweek. I've talked to him. He was here last on Friday.'

  'Then I suspect him all the more,' said Trent. 'And now as to the houseitself. What I propose to do, to begin with, is to sniff about a littlein 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 thisroom, let's start here. You seem to be at the same stage of the inquiry.Perhaps you've done the bedrooms already?'

  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 could see. Seems to have insisted on thesimple life, does Manderson. Never employed a valet. The room's almostlike a cell, except for the clothes and shoes. You'll find it allexactly as I found it; and they tell me that's exactly as Manderson leftit, 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 shecleared out of it on the morning of the discovery--told the maid shecould 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 tosay, in one of the spare bedrooms now.'

  'Come, my friend,' Trent was saying to himself, as he made a few notesin his little book. 'Have you got your eye on Mrs. Manderson? Or haven'tyou? I know that colourless tone of the inspectorial voice. I wish I hadseen her. Either you've got something against her and you don't want meto get hold of it; or else you've made up your mind she's innocent, buthave no objection to my wasting my time over her. Well, it's all in thegame; 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 aboutthis?'

  'They call it the library,' said the inspector. 'Manderson used to dohis writing and that in here; passed most of the time he spent indoorshere. Since he and his wife ceased to hit it off together, he had takento spending his evenings alone, and when at this house he alwaysspent 'em in here. He was last seen alive, as far as the servants areconcerned, in this room.'

  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 inthem that I can see. The American secretary--Bunner his name is, anda queerer card I never saw turned--he's been through this desk withme this morning. He had got it into his head that Manderson had beenreceiving threatening letters, and that the murder was the outcome ofthat. But there's no trace of any such thing; and we looked at everyblessed paper. The only unusual things we found were some packets ofbanknotes to a considerable amount, and a couple of little bags of unsetdiamonds. I asked Mr. Bunner to put them in a safer place. It appearsthat Manderson had begun buying diamonds lately as a speculation--it wasa new game to him, the secretary said, and it seemed to amuse him.'

  'What about these secretaries?' Trent enquired. 'I met one calledMarlowe just now outside; a nice-looking chap with singular eyes,unquestionably English. The other, it seems, is an American. What didManderson want with an English secretary?'

  'Mr. Marlowe explained to me how that was. The American was hisright-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 andmotors and yacht and sporting arrangements and that--make himselfgenerally useful, as you might say. He had the spending of a lot ofmoney, I should think. The other was confined entirely to the officeaffairs, 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 hadseveral before Mr. Marlowe.'

  'He showed his taste,' observed Trent. 'It might be more thaninteresting, don't you think, to be minister to the pleasures of amodern plutocrat with a large P. Only they say that Manderson'swere exclusively of an innocent kind. Certainly Marlowe gives me theimpression that he would be weak in the part of Petronius. But to returnto the matter in hand.' He looked at his notes. 'You said justnow that he was last seen alive here, "so far as the servants wereconcerned". That meant--?'

  'He had a conversation with his wife on going to bed. But for t
hat, themanservant, Martin by name, last saw him in this room. I had his storylast night, and very glad he was to tell it. An affair like this is meatand drink to the servants of the house.'

  Trent considered for some moments, gazing through the open window overthe sun-flooded slopes. 'Would it bore you to hear what he has to sayagain?' 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 mostdistinguished form, answered it.

  'This is Mr. Trent, who is authorized by Mrs. Manderson to go over thehouse and make enquiries,' explained the detective. 'He would like tohear your story.' Martin bowed distantly. He recognized Trent for agentleman. Time would show whether he was what Martin called a gentlemanin every sense of the word.

  'I observed you approaching the house, sir,' said Martin with impassivecourtesy. He spoke with a slow and measured utterance. 'My instructionsare to assist you in every possible way. Should you wish me to recallthe circumstances of Sunday night?'

  'Please,' said Trent with ponderous gravity. Martin's style was makingclamorous appeal to his sense of comedy. He banished with an effort allvivacity of expression from his face.

  'I last saw Mr. Manderson--'

  'No, not that yet,' Trent checked him quietly. 'Tell me all you sawof him that evening--after dinner, say. Try to recollect every littledetail.'

  'After dinner, sir?--yes. I remember that after dinner Mr. Manderson andMr. Marlowe walked up and down the path through the orchard, talking. Ifyou ask me for details, it struck me they were talking about somethingimportant, because I heard Mr. Manderson say something when they camein through the back entrance. He said, as near as I can remember, "IfHarris is there, every minute is of importance. You want to start rightaway. And not a word to a soul." Mr. Marlowe answered, "Very well. Iwill just change out of these clothes and then I am ready"--or wordsto that effect. I heard this plainly as they passed the window of mypantry. Then Mr. Marlowe went up to his bedroom, and Mr. Mandersonentered the library and rang for me. He handed me some letters for thepostman in the morning and directed me to sit up, as Mr. Marlowe hadpersuaded him to go for a drive in the car by moonlight.'

  'That was curious,' remarked Trent.

  'I thought so, sir. But I recollected what I had heard about "not aword to a soul", and I concluded that this about a moonlight drive wasintended to mislead.'

  'What time was this?'

  '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 thecar. He then went into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Manderson was.'

  'Did that strike you as curious?'

  Martin looked down his nose. 'If you ask me the question, sir,' he saidwith reserve, 'I had not known him enter that room since we came herethis year. He preferred to sit in the library in the evenings. Thatevening he only remained with Mrs. Manderson for a few minutes. Then heand Mr. Marlowe started immediately.'

  'You saw them start?'

  'Yes, sir. They took the direction of Bishopsbridge.'

  'And you saw Mr. Manderson again later?'

  'After an hour or thereabouts, sir, in the library. That would have beenabout a quarter past eleven, I should say; I had noticed eleven strikingfrom the church. I may say I am peculiarly quick of hearing, sir.'

  'Mr. Manderson had rung the bell for you, I suppose. Yes? And whatpassed when you answered it?'

  'Mr. Manderson had put out the decanter of whisky and a syphon andglass, sir, from the cupboard where he kept them--'

  Trent held up his hand. 'While we are on that point, Martin, I want toask you plainly, did Mr. Manderson drink very much? You understand thisis not impertinent curiosity on my part. I want you to tell me, becauseit may possibly help in the clearing up of this case.'

  'Perfectly, sir,' replied Martin gravely. 'I have no hesitation intelling you what I have already told the inspector. Mr. Manderson was,considering his position in life, a remarkably abstemious man. In myfour years of service with him I never knew anything of an alcoholicnature pass his lips, except a glass or two of wine at dinner, veryrarely a little at luncheon, and from time to time a whisky and sodabefore going to bed. He never seemed to form a habit of it. Often I usedto 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 whathe preferred, though I had ventured to suggest some of the naturalminerals, having personally acquired a taste for them in my previousservice. He used to keep them in the cupboard here, because he had agreat dislike of being waited on more than was necessary. It was anunderstood thing that I never came near him after dinner unless sentfor. And when he sent for anything, he liked it brought quick, and to beleft alone again at once. He hated to be asked if he required anythingmore. Amazingly simple in his tastes, sir, Mr. Manderson was.'

  'Very well; and he rang for you that night about a quarter past eleven.Now can you remember exactly what he said?'

  'I think I can tell you with some approach to accuracy, sir. It was notmuch. First he asked me if Mr. Bunner had gone to bed, and I repliedthat he had been gone up some time. He then said that he wanted someone to sit up until 12.30, in case an important message should come bytelephone, and that Mr. Marlowe having gone to Southampton for him inthe motor, he wished me to do this, and that I was to take down themessage if it came, and not disturb him. He also ordered a fresh syphonof soda water. I believe that was all, sir.'

  'You noticed nothing unusual about him, I suppose?'

  'No, sir, nothing unusual. When I answered the ring, he was seatedat the desk listening at the telephone, waiting for a number, as Isupposed. He gave his orders and went on listening at the same time.'When I returned with the syphon he was engaged in conversation over thewire.'

  'Do you remember anything of what he was saying?'

  'Very little, sir; it was something about somebody being at somehotel--of no interest to me. I was only in the room just time enough toplace the syphon on the table and withdraw. As I closed the door he wassaying, "You're sure he isn't in the hotel?" or words to that effect.'

  'And that was the last you saw and heard of him alive?'

  'No, sir. A little later, at half-past eleven, when I had settled downin my pantry with the door ajar, and a book to pass the time, I heardMr. Manderson go upstairs to bed. I immediately went to close thelibrary window, and slipped the lock of the front door. I did not hearanything more.'

  Trent considered. 'I suppose you didn't doze at all,' he saidtentatively, 'while you were sitting up waiting for the telephonemessage?'

  'Oh no, sir. I am always very wakeful about that time. I'm a badsleeper, especially in the neighbourhood of the sea, and I generallyread in bed until somewhere about midnight.'