Trent's Last Case

by E. C. Bentley

  CHAPTER VI: Mr. Bunner on the Case

  'Calvin C. Bunner, at your service,' amended the newcomer, with a touchof punctilio, as he removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth. He wasused to finding Englishmen slow and ceremonious with strangers, andTrent's quick remark plainly disconcerted him a little. 'You are MrTrent, I expect,' he went on. 'Mrs. Manderson was telling me a while ago.Captain, good-morning.' Mr. Murch acknowledged the outlandish greetingwith a nod. 'I was coming up to my room, and I heard a strange voice inhere, 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'sall.'

  Mr. Bunner was a thin, rather short young man with a shaven, pale, bony,almost girlish face, and large, dark, intelligent eyes. His waving darkhair was parted in the middle. His lips, usually occupied with a cigar,in its absence were always half open with a curious expression as ofpermanent eagerness. By smoking or chewing a cigar this expression wasbanished, and Mr. Bunner then looked the consummately cool and sagaciousYankee that he was.

  Born in Connecticut, he had gone into a broker's office on leavingcollege, and had attracted the notice of Manderson, whose business withhis firm he had often handled. The Colossus had watched him for sometime, and at length offered him the post of private secretary. Mr. Bunnerwas a pattern business man, trustworthy, long-headed, methodical, andaccurate. Manderson could have found many men with those virtues; but heengaged Mr. Bunner because he was also swift and secret, and had besidesa singular natural instinct in regard to the movements of the stockmarket.

  Trent and the American measured one another coolly with their eyes. Bothappeared satisfied with what they saw. 'I was having it explained tome,' said Trent pleasantly, 'that my discovery of a pistol that mighthave shot Manderson does not amount to very much. I am told it is afavourite weapon among your people, and has become quite popular overhere.'

  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; 'thecaptain is right. This is what we call out home a Little Arthur, and Idare say there are duplicates of it in a hundred thousand hip-pocketsthis minute. I consider it too light in the hand myself,' Mr. Bunner wenton, mechanically feeling under the tail of his jacket, and producing anugly looking weapon. 'Feel of that, now, Mr. Trent--it's loaded, by theway. Now this Little Arthur--Marlowe bought it just before we came overthis year to please the old man. Manderson said it was ridiculous for aman to be without a pistol in the twentieth century. So he went out andbought what they offered him, I guess--never consulted me. Not butwhat 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 thelast month or so, and he's practised until he is pretty good. But henever could get the habit of carrying it around. Why, it's as natural tome as wearing my pants. I have carried one for some years now, becausethere 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 isa lot to do these days, and I have to send off a bunch of cables bigenough to choke a cow.'

  'I must be off too,' said Trent. 'I have an appointment at the "ThreeTuns" inn.'

  Let me give you a lift in the automobile,' said Mr. Bunner cordially. 'Igo right by that joint. Say, cap., are you coming my way too? No? Thencome along, Mr. Trent, and help me get out the car. The chauffeur is outof action, and we have to do 'most everything ourselves except clean thedirt off her.'

  Still tirelessly talking in his measured drawl, Mr. Bunner led Trentdownstairs and through the house to the garage at the back. It stood ata little distance from the house, and made a cool retreat from the blazeof the midday sun.

  Mr. Bunner seemed to be in no hurry to get out the car. He offered Trenta cigar, which was accepted, and for the first time lit his own. Thenhe seated himself on the footboard of the car, his thin hands claspedbetween his knees, and looked keenly at the other.

  'See here, Mr. Trent,' he said, after a few moments. 'There are somethings I can tell you that may be useful to you. I know your record. Youare a smart man, and I like dealing with smart men. I don't know if Ihave that detective sized up right, but he strikes me as a mutt. I wouldanswer 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 minewithout his asking. See?'

  Trent nodded. 'That is a feeling many people have in the presence of ourpolice,' he said. 'It's the official manner, I suppose. But let me tellyou, Murch is anything but what you think. He is one of the shrewdestofficers in Europe. He is not very quick with his mind, but he is verysure. And his experience is immense. My forte is imagination, but Iassure you in police work experience outweighs it by a great deal.'

  'Outweigh nothing!' replied Mr. Bunner crisply. 'This is no ordinarycase, Mr. Trent. I will tell you one reason why. I believe the old manknew there was something coming to him. Another thing: I believe it wassomething he thought he couldn't dodge.'

  Trent pulled a crate opposite to Mr. Bunner's place on the footboardand seated himself. 'This sounds like business,' he said. 'Tell me yourideas.'

  'I say what I do because of the change in the old man's manner this lastfew weeks. I dare say you have heard, Mr. Trent, that he was a man whoalways kept himself well in hand. That was so. I have always consideredhim the coolest and hardest head in business. That man's calm was justdeadly--I never saw anything to beat it. And I knew Manderson as nobodyelse did. I was with him in the work he really lived for. I guess I knewhim a heap better than his wife did, poor woman. I knew him better thanMarlowe could--he never saw Manderson in his office when there was a bigthing on. I knew him better than any of his friends.'

  'Had he any friends?' interjected Trent.

  Mr. Bunner glanced at him sharply. 'Somebody has been putting you next, Isee that,' he remarked. 'No: properly speaking, I should say not. Hehad many acquaintances among the big men, people he saw, most every day;they would even go yachting or hunting together. But I don't believethere ever was a man that Manderson opened a corner of his heart to. Butwhat I was going to say was this. Some months ago the old man began toget like I never knew him before--gloomy and sullen, just as if he waseverlastingly brooding over something bad, something that he couldn'tfix. This went on without any break; it was the same down town as itwas up home, he acted just as if there was something lying heavy on hismind. But it wasn't until a few weeks back that his self-restraint beganto go; and let me tell you this, Mr. Trent'--the American laid his bonyclaw on the other's knee--'I'm the only man that knows it. With everyone else he would be just morose and dull; but when he was alone withme in his office, or anywhere where we would be working together, if theleast little thing went wrong, by George! he would fly off the handle tobeat the Dutch. In this library here I have seen him open a letter withsomething that didn't just suit him in it, and he would rip around andcarry on like an Indian, saying he wished he had the man that wroteit here, he wouldn't do a thing to him, and so on, till it was justpitiful. I never saw such a change. And here's another thing. For a weekbefore he died Manderson neglected his work, for the first time in myexperience. He wouldn't answer a letter or a cable, though things lookedlike going all to pieces over there. I supposed that this anxiety ofhis, 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. Butnobody saw this side of him but me. If he was having one of these ragesin the library here, for example, and Mrs. Manderson would come into theroom, he would be all calm and cold again in an instant.'

  'And you put this down to some secret anxiety, a fear that somebody haddesigns on his life?' asked Trent.

  The American nodded.

  'I suppose,' Trent resumed, 'you had considered the idea of there beingsomething wrong with his mind--a break-down from overstrain, say. Thatis the first t
hought that your account suggests to me. Besides, it iswhat is always happening to your big business men in America, isn't it?That is the impression one gets from the newspapers.'

  '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 nearManderson's size: did you ever hear of any one of them losing hissenses? They don't do it--believe me. I know they say every man hashis loco point,' Mr. Bunner added reflectively, 'but that doesn't meangenuine, sure-enough craziness; it just means some personal eccentricityin a man ... like hating cats ... or my own weakness of not being able totouch any kind of fish-food.'

  'Well, what was Manderson's?'

  'He was full of them--the old man. There was his objection to all theunnecessary fuss and luxury that wealthy people don't kick at much, asa general rule. He didn't have any use for expensive trifles andornaments. He wouldn't have anybody do little things for him; hehated to have servants tag around after him unless he wanted them. Andalthough Manderson was as careful about his clothes as any man I everknew, and his shoes--well, sir, the amount of money he spent on shoeswas sinful--in spite of that, I tell you, he never had a valet. He neverliked to have anybody touch him. All his life nobody ever shaved him.'

  'I've heard something of that,' Trent remarked. 'Why was it, do youthink?'

  'Well,' Mr. Bunner answered slowly, 'it was the Manderson habit of mind,I guess; a sort of temper of general suspicion and jealousy.

  'They say his father and grandfather were just the same.... Like a dogwith a bone, you know, acting as if all the rest of creation was layingfor a chance to steal it. He didn't really think the barber would startin to saw his head off; he just felt there was a possibility that hemight, and he was taking no risks. Then again in business he was alwaysconvinced that somebody else was after his bone--which was true enough agood deal of the time; but not all the time. The consequence of that wasthat the old man was the most cautious and secret worker in the worldof finance; and that had a lot to do with his success, too.... But thatdoesn't amount to being a lunatic, Mr. Trent; not by a long way. You askme if Manderson was losing his mind before he died. I say I believehe was just worn out with worrying over something, and was losing hisnerve.'

  Trent smoked thoughtfully. He wondered how much Mr. Bunner knew of thedomestic difficulty in his chief's household, and decided to put out afeeler. 'I understood that he had trouble with his wife.'

  'Sure,' replied Mr. Bunner. 'But do you suppose a thing like that wasgoing to upset Sig Manderson that way? No, sir! He was a sight too big aman to be all broken up by any worry of that kind.'

  Trent looked half-incredulously into the eyes of the young man. Butbehind all their shrewdness and intensity he saw a massive innocence. MrBunner really believed a serious breach between husband and wife to be aminor source of trouble for a big man.

  'What was the trouble between them, anyhow?' Trent enquired.

  '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 outa solution. I had a notion at first,' said Mr. Bunner in a lower voice,leaning forward, 'that the old man was disappointed and vexed becausehe had expected a child; but Marlowe told me that the disappointmenton that score was the other way around, likely as not. His idea was allright, I guess; he gathered it from something said by Mrs. Manderson'sFrench maid.'

  Trent looked up at him quickly. 'Celestine!' he said; and his thoughtwas, 'So that was what she was getting at!'

  Mr. Bunner misunderstood his glance. 'Don't you think I'm giving a manaway, Mr. Trent,' he said. 'Marlowe isn't that kind. Celestine just tooka fancy to him because he talks French like a native, and she wouldalways be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite unlikeEnglish that way. And servant or no servant,' added Mr. Bunner withemphasis, 'I don't see how a woman could mention such a subject to aman. But the French beat me.' He shook his head slowly.

  '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 sometime. Who should threaten it? I am quite in the dark.'

  'Terror--I don't know,' replied Mr. Bunner meditatively. 'Anxiety, if youlike. Or suspense--that's rather my idea of it. The old man was hardto terrify, anyway; and more than that, he wasn't taking anyprecautions--he was actually avoiding them. It looked more like he wasasking 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 shouldthreaten his life well, sir,' said Mr. Bunner with a faint smile, 'it'scertain you have not lived in the States. To take the Pennsylvania coalhold-up alone, there were thirty thousand men, with women and childrento keep, who would have jumped at the chance of drilling a hole throughthe 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'sa type of desperado you find in that kind of push who has been known tolay 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 dirtin New Jersey ten years before. Do you suppose the Atlantic is going tostop them?... It takes some sand, I tell you, to be a big business manin our country. No, sir: the old man knew--had always known--that therewas a whole crowd of dangerous men scattered up and down the States whohad it in for him. My belief is that he had somehow got to know thatsome of them were definitely after him at last. What licks me altogetheris why he should have just laid himself open to them the way he did--whyhe never tried to dodge, but walked right down into the garden yesterdaymorning to be shot at.'

  Mr. Bunner ceased to speak, and for a little while both men sat withwrinkled brows, faint blue vapours rising from their cigars. Then Trentrose. 'Your theory is quite fresh to me,' he said. 'It's perfectlyrational, and it's only a question of whether it fits all the facts. Imustn't give away what I'm doing for my newspaper, Mr. Bunner, but I willsay this: I have already satisfied myself that this was a premeditatedcrime, and an extraordinarily cunning one at that. I'm deeply obliged toyou. We must talk it over again.' He looked at his watch. 'I have beenexpected for some time by my friend. Shall we make a move?'

  'Two o'clock,' said Mr. Bunner, consulting his own, as he got up fromthe foot-board. 'Ten a.m. in little old New York. You don't know WallStreet, Mr. Trent. Let's you and I hope we never see anything nearer hellthan what's loose in the Street this minute.'