Trent's Last Case

by E. C. Bentley

  CHAPTER XVI: The Last Straw

  'What was that you said about our having an appointment at half-pastseven?' asked Mr. Cupples as the two came out of the great gateway of thepile of flats. 'Have we such an appointment?'

  'Certainly we have,' replied Trent. 'You are dining with me. Only onething can properly celebrate this occasion, and that is a dinner forwhich I pay. No, no! I asked you first. I have got right down to thebottom of a case that must be unique--a case that has troubled even mymind for over a year--and if that isn't a good reason for standing adinner, I don't know what is. Cupples, we will not go to my club. Thisis to be a festival, and to be seen in a London club in a state ofpleasurable emotion is more than enough to shatter any man's career.Besides that, the dinner there is always the same, or, at least, theyalways make it taste the same, I know not how. The eternal dinner at myclub hath bored millions of members like me, and shall bore; but tonightlet the feast be spread in vain, so far as we are concerned. We will notgo where the satraps throng the hall. We will go to Sheppard's.'

  'Who is Sheppard?' asked Mr. Cupples mildly, as they proceeded upVictoria Street. His companion went with an unnatural lightness, and apoliceman, observing his face, smiled indulgently at a look of happinesswhich he could only attribute to alcohol.

  'Who is Sheppard?' echoed Trent with bitter emphasis. 'That question, ifyou will pardon me for saying so, Cupples, is thoroughly characteristicof the spirit of aimless enquiry prevailing in this restless day. Isuggest our dining at Sheppard's, and instantly you fold your armsand demand, in a frenzy of intellectual pride, to know who Sheppard isbefore you will cross the threshold of Sheppard's. I am not going topander to the vices of the modern mind. Sheppard's is a place where onecan dine. I do not know Sheppard. It never occurred to me that Sheppardexisted. Probably he is a myth of totemistic origin. All I know is thatyou can get a bit of saddle of mutton at Sheppard's that has made manyan American visitor curse the day that Christopher Columbus was born....Taxi!'

  A cab rolled smoothly to the kerb, and the driver received hisinstructions with a majestic nod.

  'Another reason I have for suggesting Sheppard's,' continued Trent,feverishly lighting a cigarette, 'is that I am going to be married tothe most wonderful woman in the world. I trust the connection of ideasis clear.'

  'You are going to marry Mabel!' cried Mr. Cupples. 'My dear friend, whatgood news this is! Shake hands, Trent; this is glorious! I congratulateyou both from the bottom of my heart. And may I say--I don't want tointerrupt your flow of high spirits, which is very natural indeed, and Iremember being just the same in similar circumstances long ago--butmay I say how earnestly I have hoped for this? Mabel has seen so muchunhappiness, yet she is surely a woman formed in the great purpose ofhumanity to be the best influence in the life of a good man. But I didnot know her mind as regarded yourself. Your mind I have known for sometime,' Mr. Cupples went on, with a twinkle in his eye that would havedone credit to the worldliest of creatures. 'I saw it at once whenyou were both dining at my house, and you sat listening to ProfessorPeppmuller and looking at her. Some of us older fellows have our witsabout us still, my dear boy.'

  'Mabel says she knew it before that,' replied Trent, with a slightlycrestfallen air. 'And I thought I was acting the part of a personwho was not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good atdissembling. I shouldn't wonder if even old Peppmuller noticed somethingthrough his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may have been asan undeclared suitor,' he went on with a return to vivacity, 'I am goingto be much worse now. As for your congratulations, thank you a thousandtimes, because I know you mean them. You are the sort of uncomfortablebrute who would pull a face three feet long if you thought we weremaking a mistake. By the way, I can't help being an ass tonight; I'mobliged to go on blithering. You must try to bear it. Perhaps it wouldbe easier if I sang you a song--one of your old favourites. What wasthat song you used always to be singing? Like this, wasn't it?' Heaccompanied the following stave with a dexterous clog-step on the floorof the cab:

  'There was an old nigger, and he had a wooden leg. He had no tobacco, notobacco could he beg. Another old nigger was as cunning as a fox, And healways had tobacco in his old tobacco-box.

  'Now for the chorus!

  'Yes, he always had tobacco in his old tobacco-box.

  'But you're not singing. I thought you would be making the welkin ring.'

  'I never sang that song in my life,' protested Mr. Cupples. 'I neverheard it before.'

  'Are you sure?' enquired Trent doubtfully. 'Well, I suppose I must takeyour word for it. It is a beautiful song, anyhow: not the whole warblinggrove in concert heard can beat it. Somehow it seems to express myfeelings at the present moment as nothing else could; it rises unbiddento the lips. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh, asthe Bishop of Bath and Wells said when listening to a speech of MrBalfour's.'

  'When was that?' asked Mr. Cupples.

  'On the occasion,' replied Trent, 'of the introduction of the CompulsoryNotification of Diseases of Poultry Bill, which ill-fated measure youof course remember. Hullo!' he broke off, as the cab rushed down a sidestreet and swung round a corner into a broad and populous thoroughfare,'we're there already'. The cab drew up.

  'Here we are,' said Trent, as he paid the man, and led Mr. Cupples into along, 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 withthe roses around it. I see there are three bookmakers eating pork at myfavourite table. We will have that one in the opposite corner.'

  He conferred earnestly with a waiter, while Mr. Cupples, in a pleasantmeditation, warmed himself before the great fire. 'The wine here,' Trentresumed, as they seated themselves, 'is almost certainly made out ofgrapes. What shall we drink?'

  Mr. Cupples came out of his reverie. 'I think,' he said, 'I will havemilk and soda water.'

  'Speak lower!' urged Trent. 'The head-waiter has a weak heart, and mighthear you. Milk and soda water! Cupples, you may think you have a strongconstitution, and I don't say you have not, but I warn you that thishabit of mixing drinks has been the death of many a robuster man thanyou. Be wise in time. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine, leave soda tothe Turkish hordes. Here comes our food.' He gave another order to thewaiter, who ranged the dishes before them and darted away. Trent was, itseemed, a respected customer. 'I have sent,' he said, 'for wine that Iknow, and I hope you will try it. If you have taken a vow, then in thename of all the teetotal saints drink water, which stands at your elbow,but don't seek a cheap notoriety by demanding milk and soda.'

  'I have never taken any pledge,' said Mr. Cupples, examining his muttonwith a favourable eye. 'I simply don't care about wine. I bought abottle 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 isyour dinner, and I do assure you, my dear Trent, I should like to dosomething unusual to show how strongly I feel on the present occasion. Ihave not been so delighted for many years. To think,' he reflected aloudas the waiter filled his glass, 'of the Manderson mystery disposed of,the innocent exculpated, and your own and Mabel's happiness crowned--allcoming upon me together! I drink to you, my dear friend.' And Mr. Cupplestook a very small sip of the wine.

  'You have a great nature,' said Trent, much moved. 'Your outwardsemblance doth belie your soul's immensity. I should have expectedas soon to see an elephant conducting at the opera as you drinkingmy health. Dear Cupples! May his beak retain ever that delicaterose-stain!--No, curse it all!' he broke out, surprising a shade ofdiscomfort that flitted over his companion's face as he tasted the wineagain. 'I have no business to meddle with your tastes. I apologize. Youshall have what you want, even if it causes the head-waiter to perish inhis pride.'

  When Mr. Cupples had been supplied with his monastic drink, and thewaiter had retired, Trent looked across the table with significance. 'Inthis babble of many conversations,' he said, 'we can speak as freely asif we were on a bare hillside. The wai
ter is whispering soft nothingsinto the ear of the young woman at the pay-desk. We are alone. What doyou think of that interview of this afternoon?' He began to dine with anappetite.

  Without pausing in the task of cutting his mutton into very small piecesMr. 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 hatredof Manderson's which Marlowe found so mysterious. We knew of his jealousobsession; which knowledge we withheld, as was very proper, if only inconsideration of Mabel's feelings. Marlowe will never know of what hewas suspected by that person. Strange! Nearly all of us, I ventureto think, move unconsciously among a network of opinions, often quiteerroneous, which other people entertain about us. I remember, forinstance, discovering quite by accident some years ago that a numberof people of my acquaintance believed me to have been secretly receivedinto the Church of Rome. This absurd fiction was based upon the fact,which in the eyes of many appeared conclusive, that I had expressedmyself in talk as favouring the plan of a weekly abstinence from meat.Manderson's belief in regard to his secretary probably rested upon amuch slighter ground. It was Mr. Bunner, I think you said, who toldyou of his rooted and apparently hereditary temper of suspiciousjealousy.... With regard to Marlowe's story, it appeared to me entirelystraightforward, and not, in its essential features, especiallyremarkable, once we have admitted, as we surely must, that in the caseof Manderson we have to deal with a more or less disordered mind.'

  Trent laughed loudly. 'I confess,' he said, 'that the affair struck meas a little unusual.

  'Only in the development of the details,' argued Mr. Cupples. 'Whatis there abnormal in the essential facts? A madman conceives a crazysuspicion; he hatches a cunning plot against his fancied injurer; itinvolves his own destruction. Put thus, what is there that any man withthe least knowledge of the ways of lunatics would call remarkable? Turnnow to Marlowe's proceedings. He finds himself in a perilous positionfrom which, though he is innocent, telling the truth will not savehim. Is that an unheard-of situation? He escapes by means of a bold andingenious piece of deception. That seems to me a thing that might happenevery day, and probably does so.' He attacked his now unrecognizablemutton.

  'I should like to know,' said Trent, after an alimentary pause in theconversation, 'whether there is anything that ever happened on theface of the earth that you could not represent as quite ordinary andcommonplace by such a line of argument as that.'

  A gentle smile illuminated Mr. Cupples's face. 'You must not suspect meof empty paradox,' he said. 'My meaning will become clearer, perhaps, ifI 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 remarkablething.'

  'I am unable to argue the point,' replied Trent. 'Fair science may havesmiled upon the liver-fluke's humble birth, but I never even heard itmentioned.'

  'It is not, perhaps, an appetizing subject,' said Mr. Cupplesthoughtfully, '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 wewill only see them; and we do our perceptions no credit in regarding asremarkable only those affairs which are surrounded with an accumulationof sensational detail.'

  Trent applauded heartily with his knife-handle on the table, as MrCupples ceased and refreshed himself with milk and soda water. 'I havenot heard you go on like this for years,' he said. 'I believe you mustbe almost as much above yourself as I am. It is a bad case of the unrestwhich men miscall delight. But much as I enjoy it, I am not going to sitstill and hear the Manderson affair dismissed as commonplace. You maysay what you like, but the idea of impersonating Manderson in thosecircumstances was an extraordinarily ingenious idea.'

  'Ingenious--certainly!' replied Mr. Cupples. 'Extraordinarily so--no! Inthose circumstances (your own words) it was really not strange thatit should occur to a clever man. It lay almost on the surface of thesituation. Marlowe was famous for his imitation of Manderson's voice; hehad a talent for acting; he had a chess-player's mind; he knew theways of the establishment intimately. I grant you that the ideawas brilliantly carried out; but everything favoured it. As for theessential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the sameclass with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in adischarged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading.I do, however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect ofdetails the case had unusual features. It developed a high degree ofcomplexity.'

  'Did it really strike you in that way?' enquired Trent with desperatesarcasm.

  'The affair became complicated,' went on Mr. Cupples unmoved, 'becauseafter Marlowe's suspicions were awakened, a second subtle mind camein to interfere with the plans of the first. That sort of duel oftenhappens in business and politics, but less frequently, I imagine, in theworld of crime.'

  'I should say never,' Trent replied; 'and the reason is, that even thecleverest criminals seldom run to strategic subtlety. When they do, theydon't get caught, since clever policemen have if possible less strategicsubtlety than the ordinary clever criminal. But that rather deep qualityseems very rarely to go with the criminal make-up. Look at Crippen. Hewas a very clever criminal as they go. He solved the central problemof every clandestine murder, the disposal of the body, with extremeneatness. But how far did he see through the game? The criminal and thepoliceman are often swift and bold tacticians, but neither of them isgood for more than a quite simple plan. After all, it's a rare facultyin any walk of life.'

  'One disturbing reflection was left on my mind,' said Mr. Cupples, whoseemed to have had enough of abstractions for the moment, 'by what welearned today. If Marlowe had suspected nothing and walked into thetrap, he would almost certainly have been hanged. Now how often maynot a plan to throw the guilt of murder on an innocent person have beenpractised successfully? There are, I imagine, numbers of cases in whichthe accused, being found guilty on circumstantial evidence, havedied protesting their innocence. I shall never approve again of adeath-sentence imposed in a case decided upon such evidence.'

  'I never have done so, for my part,' said Trent. 'To hang in suchcases seems to me flying in the face of the perfectly obvious and soundprinciple expressed in the saying that "you never can tell". I agreewith the American jurist who lays it down that we should not hang ayellow dog for stealing jam on circumstantial evidence, not even ifhe has jam all over his nose. As for attempts being made by malevolentpersons to fix crimes upon innocent men, of course it is constantlyhappening. It's a marked feature, for instance, of all systems of ruleby coercion, whether in Ireland or Russia or India or Korea; if thepolice 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 ispeculiarly to the point, because not only was it a case of fastening amurder on innocent people, but the plotter did in effect what Mandersondid; he gave up his own life in order to secure the death of hisvictims. Probably you have heard of the Campden Case.'

  Mr. Cupples confessed his ignorance and took another potato.

  'John Masefield has written a very remarkable play about it,' saidTrent, 'and if it ever comes on again in London, you should go and seeit, if you like having the fan-tods. I have often seen women weeping inan undemonstrative manner at some slab of oleo-margarine sentiment inthe theatre. By George! what everlasting smelling-bottle hysterics theyought to have if they saw that play decently acted! Well, the facts werethat John Perry accused his mother and brother of murdering a man, andswore he had helped them to do it. He told a story full of elaboratedetail, and had an answer to everything, except the curious fact thatthe body couldn't be found; but the judge, who was probably drunk at thetime--this was in Restoration days--made nothing of that. The mother andbrother denied the accusation. All three prisoners were found guilty andhanged, purely on John's evidence. Two years after, the man whom theywere hanged for murdering came back to Campden. He had been kidnapped bypirates and taken to sea. His disappe
arance had given John his idea. Thepoint about John is, that his including himself in the accusation,which amounted to suicide, was the thing in his evidence which convincedeverybody of its truth. It was so obvious that no man would do himselfto death to get somebody else hanged. Now that is exactly the answerwhich the prosecution would have made if Marlowe had told the truth. Notone juryman in a million would have believed in the Manderson plot.'

  Mr. Cupples mused upon this a few moments. 'I have not your acquaintancewith that branch of history,' he said at length; 'in fact, I have noneat all. But certain recollections of my own childhood return to me inconnection with this affair. We know from the things Mabel told you whatmay be termed the spiritual truth underlying this matter; the insanedepth of jealous hatred which Manderson concealed. We can understandthat he was capable of such a scheme. But as a rule it is in the taskof penetrating to the spiritual truth that the administration of justicebreaks down. Sometimes that truth is deliberately concealed, as inManderson's case. Sometimes, I think, it is concealed because simplepeople are actually unable to express it, and nobody else divines it.When I was a lad in Edinburgh the whole country went mad about theSandyford Place murder.'

  Trent nodded. 'Mrs. M'Lachlan's case. She was innocent right enough.'

  'My parents thought so,' said Mr. Cupples. 'I thought so myself when Ibecame old enough to read and understand that excessively sordid story.But the mystery of the affair was so dark, and the task of gettingat the truth behind the lies told by everybody concerned proved sohopeless, that others were just as fully convinced of the innocence ofold James Fleming. All Scotland took sides on the question. It was thesubject of debates in Parliament. The press divided into two camps, andraged with a fury I have never seen equalled. Yet it is obvious, is itnot? for I see you have read of the case--that if the spiritual truthabout that old man could have been known there would have been verylittle room for doubt in the matter. If what some surmised about hisdisposition was true, he was quite capable of murdering Jessie M'Phersonand then casting the blame on the poor feeble-minded creature who cameso near to suffering the last penalty of the law.'

  'Even a commonplace old dotard like Fleming can be an unfathomablemystery to all the rest of the human race,' said Trent, 'and most of allin a court of justice. The law certainly does not shine when it comesto a case requiring much delicacy of perception. It goes wrongeasily enough over the Flemings of this world. As for the people withtemperaments who get mixed up in legal proceedings, they must feel asif they were in a forest of apes, whether they win or lose. Well, I daresay it's good for their sort to have their noses rubbed in reality nowand again. But what would twelve red-faced realities in a jury-box havedone to Marlowe? His story would, as he says, have been a great dealworse than no defence at all. It's not as if there were a singlepiece of evidence in support of his tale. Can't you imagine how theprosecution would tear it to rags? Can't you see the judge simply takingit in his stride when it came to the summing up? And the jury--you'veserved on juries, I expect--in their room, snorting with indignationover the feebleness of the lie, telling each other it was the clearestcase they ever heard of, and that they'd have thought better of him ifhe hadn't lost his nerve at the crisis, and had cleared off with theswag as he intended. Imagine yourself on that jury, not knowingMarlowe, and trembling with indignation at the record unrolled beforeyou--cupidity, murder, robbery, sudden cowardice, shameless, impenitent,desperate lying! Why, you and I believed him to be guilty until--'

  'I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!' interjected Mr. Cupples, layingdown his knife and fork. 'I was most careful, when we talked it all overthe other night, to say nothing indicating such a belief. I was alwayscertain that he was innocent.'

  'You said something of the sort at Marlowe's just now. I wondered whaton earth you could mean. Certain that he was innocent! How can you becertain? You are generally more careful about terms than that, Cupples.'

  'I said "certain",' Mr. Cupples repeated firmly.

  Trent shrugged his shoulders. 'If you really were, after reading mymanuscript and discussing the whole thing as we did,' he rejoined, 'thenI can only say that you must have totally renounced all trust in theoperations of the human reason; an attitude which, while it is badChristianity and also infernal nonsense, is oddly enough bad Positivismtoo, unless I misunderstand that system. Why, man--'

  'Let me say a word,' Mr. Cupples interposed again, folding his handsabove his plate. 'I assure you I am far from abandoning reason. I amcertain he is innocent, and I always was certain of it, because ofsomething that I know, and knew from the very beginning. You asked mejust now to imagine myself on the jury at Marlowe's trial. That wouldbe an unprofitable exercise of the mental powers, because I know that Ishould be present in another capacity. I should be in the witness-box,giving evidence for the defence. You said just now, "If there were asingle piece of evidence in support of his tale." There is, and it ismy evidence. And,' he added quietly, 'it is conclusive.' He took up hisknife and fork and went contentedly on with his dinner.

  The pallor of sudden excitement had turned Trent to marble while MrCupples led laboriously up to this statement. At the last word the bloodrushed to his face again, and he struck the table with an unnaturallaugh. 'It can't be!' he exploded. 'It's something you fancied,something you dreamed after one of those debauches of soda and milk. Youcan't really mean that all the time I was working on the case down thereyou knew Marlowe was innocent.'

  Mr. Cupples, busy with his last mouthful, nodded brightly. He made an endof eating, wiped his sparse moustache, and then leaned forward over thetable. 'It's very simple,' he said. 'I shot Manderson myself.'

  ***

  '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 upwardfor the surface, and with a rigid movement raised his glass. But halfof the wine splashed upon the cloth, and he put it carefully down againuntasted. He drew a deep breath, which was exhaled in a laugh whollywithout merriment. 'Go on,' he said.

  'It was not murder,' began Mr. Cupples, slowly measuring off inches witha fork on the edge of the table. 'I will tell you the whole story. Onthat Sunday night I was taking my before-bedtime constitutional, havingset out from the hotel about a quarter past ten. I went along the fieldpath that runs behind White Gables, cutting off the great curve of theroad, and came out on the road nearly opposite that gate that is just bythe eighth hole on the golf-course. Then I turned in there, meaning towalk along the turf to the edge of the cliff, and go back that way. Ihad only gone a few steps when I heard the car coming, and then I heardit stop near the gate. I saw Manderson at once. Do you remember mytelling you I had seen him once alive after our quarrel in front of thehotel? Well, this was the time. You asked me if I had, and I did notcare to tell a falsehood.'

  A slight groan came from Trent. He drank a little wine, and saidstonily, 'Go on, please.'

  'It was, as you know,' pursued Mr. Cupples, 'a moonlight night, but I wasin shadow under the trees by the stone wall, and anyhow they could notsuppose there was any one near them. I heard all that passed justas Marlowe has narrated it to us, and I saw the car go off towardsBishopsbridge. I did not see Manderson's face as it went, because hisback was to me, but he shook the back of his left hand at the car withextraordinary violence, greatly to my amazement. Then I waited for himto go back to White Gables, as I did not want to meet him again. But hedid not go. He opened the gate through which I had just passed, and hestood there on the turf of the green, quite still. His head was bent,his arms hung at his sides, and he looked some-how--rigid. For a fewmoments he remained in this tense attitude, then all of a sudden hisright 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 eyesglittering, and all at once I knew that the man was not sane. Almost asquickly as that flashed across my mind, something else flashed in themoonlight. He held the pistol before him, pointing at his breast.

  'Now I may say here I
shall always be doubtful whether Manderson reallymeant to kill himself then. Marlowe naturally thinks so, knowing nothingof my intervention. But I think it quite likely he only meant to woundhimself, and to charge Marlowe with attempted murder and robbery.

  'At that moment, however, I assumed it was suicide. Before I knew what Iwas doing I had leapt out of the shadows and seized his arm. He shookme off with a furious snarling noise, giving me a terrific blow in thechest, and presenting the revolver at my head. But I seized his wristsbefore he could fire, and clung with all my strength--you remember howbruised and scratched they were. I knew I was fighting for my own lifenow, for murder was in his eyes. We struggled like two beasts, withoutan articulate word, I holding his pistol-hand down and keeping a gripon the other. I never dreamed that I had the strength for such anencounter. Then, with a perfectly instinctive movement--I never knew Imeant to do it--I flung away his free hand and clutched like lightningat the weapon, tearing it from his fingers. By a miracle it did not gooff. 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 theturf.

  'I flung the pistol down and bent over him. The heart's action ceasedunder my hand. I knelt there staring, struck motionless; and I don'tknow how long it was before I heard the noise of the car returning.

  'Trent, all the time that Marlowe paced that green, with the moonlighton 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 notshow myself. I was thinking. My public quarrel with Manderson the samemorning was, I suspected, the talk of the hotel. I assure you that everyhorrible possibility of the situation for me had rushed across my mindthe moment I saw Manderson fall. I became cunning. I knew what I mustdo. I must get back to the hotel as fast as I could, get in somehowunperceived, and play a part to save myself. I must never tell a word toany one. Of course I was assuming that Marlowe would tell every one howhe had found the body. I knew he would suppose it was suicide; I thoughtevery one would suppose so.

  'When Marlowe began at last to lift the body, I stole away down the walland 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 thefence, and ran across the meadow to pick up the field path I had come bythat runs to the hotel behind White Gables. I got back to the hotel verymuch out of breath.'

  'Out of breath,' repeated Trent mechanically, still staring at hiscompanion as if hypnotized.

  'I had had a sharp run,' Mr. Cupples reminded him. 'Well, approaching thehotel from the back I could see into the writing-room through the openwindow. There was nobody in there, so I climbed over the sill, walked tothe bell and rang it, and then sat down to write a letter I had meant towrite 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 apostage stamp. Soon afterwards I went up to bed. But I could not sleep.'

  Mr. Cupples, having nothing more to say, ceased speaking. He looked inmild surprise at Trent, who now sat silent, supporting his bent head inhis hands.

  'He could not sleep,' murmured Trent at last in a hollow tone. 'Afrequent result of over-exertion during the day. Nothing to be alarmedabout.' He was silent again, then looked up with a pale face. 'Cupples,I am cured. I will never touch a crime-mystery again. The Mandersonaffair shall be Philip Trent's last case. His high-blown pride at lengthbreaks under him.' Trent's smile suddenly returned. 'I could have borneeverything but that last revelation of the impotence of human reason.Cupples, I have absolutely nothing left to say, except this: you havebeaten me. I drink your health in a spirit of self-abasement. And youshall pay for the dinner.'