The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black Page 15

by E. C. Bentley

  CHAPTER XIV

  DOUBLE CUNNING

  An old oaken desk with a deep body stood by the window in a room thatoverlooked St. James's Park from a height. The room was large, furnishedand decorated in the mode by someone who had brought taste to the work;but the hand of the bachelor lay heavy upon it. John Marlowe unlockedthe desk and drew a long, stout envelop from the back of the well.

  "I understand," he said to Mr. Cupples, "that you have read this."

  "I read it for the first time two days ago," replied Mr. Cupples, who,seated on a sofa, was peering about the room with a benignant face. "Wehave discussed it fully."

  Marlowe turned to Trent. "There is your manuscript," he said, laying theenvelop on the table. "I have gone over it three times. I do not believethere is another man who could have got at as much of the truth as youhave set down there."

  Trent ignored the compliment. He sat by the table gazing stonily at thefire, his long legs twisted beneath his chair. "You mean, of course," hesaid, drawing the envelop towards him, "that there is more of the truthto be disclosed now. We are ready to hear you as soon as you like. Iexpect it will be a long story, and the longer the better, so far as Iam concerned; I want to understand thoroughly. What we should both like,I think, is some preliminary account of Manderson and your relationswith him. It seemed to me from the first that the character of the deadman must be somehow an element in the business."

  "You were right," Marlowe answered grimly. He crossed the room andseated himself on a corner of the tall cushion-topped fender. "I willbegin as you suggest."

  "I ought to tell you beforehand," said Trent, looking him in the eyes,"that although I am here to listen to you, I have not as yet any reasonto doubt the conclusions I have stated here." He tapped the envelop. "Itis a defense that you will be putting forward--you understand that?"

  "Perfectly." Marlowe was cool and in complete possession of himself, aman different indeed from the worn-out, nervous being Trent rememberedat Marlstone a year and a half ago. His tall, lithe figure was held withthe perfection of muscular tone. His brow was candid, his blue eyes wereclear, though they still had, as he paused collecting his ideas, thelook that had troubled Trent at their first meeting. Only the lines ofhis mouth showed that he knew himself in a position of difficulty, andmeant to face it.

  "Sigsbee Manderson was not a man of normal mind," Marlowe began in hisquiet voice. "Most of the very rich men I met with in America had becomeso by virtue of abnormal greed, or abnormal industry, or abnormalpersonal force, or abnormal luck. None of them had remarkableintellects. Manderson delighted too in heaping up wealth; he workedincessantly at it; he was a man of dominant will; he had quite his shareof luck; but what made him singular was his brain-power. In his owncountry they would perhaps tell you that it was his ruthlessness inpursuit of his aims that was his most striking characteristic; but thereare hundreds of them who would have carried out his plans with just aslittle consideration for others if they could have formed the plans.

  "I used to think that his strain of Indian blood, remote as it was,might have something to do with the cunning and pitilessness of the man.Strangely enough, the existence of that strain was unknown to anyone buthimself and me. It was when he asked me to apply my taste forgenealogical work to his own obscure family history that I made thediscovery that he had in him a share of the blood of the Iroquois chiefMontour and his French wife, a terrible woman who ruled the savagepolitics of the tribes of the Wilderness two hundred years ago. TheMandersons were active in the fur trade on the Pennsylvania border inthose days, and more than one of them married Indian women. Other Indianblood than Montour's may have descended to Manderson, for all I can say,through previous and subsequent unions; some of the wives' antecedentswere quite untraceable, and there were so many generations of pioneeringbefore the whole country was brought under civilization. Manderson wasthunderstruck at what I told him, and was anxious to conceal it fromevery soul. Of course I never gave it away while he lived, and I don'tthink he supposed I would; but I have thought since that his mind took aturn against me from that time onward. It happened about a year beforehis death."

  "Had Manderson," asked Mr. Cupples, so unexpectedly that the otherstarted, "any definable religious attitude?"

  Marlowe considered a moment. "None that I ever heard of," he said."Worship and prayer were quite unknown to him, so far as I could see,and I never heard him mention religion. I should doubt if he had anyreal sense of God at all, or if he was capable of knowing God throughthe emotions. But I understood that as a child he had had a religiousup-bringing with a strong moral side to it. His private life was, in theusual limited sense, blameless. He was almost ascetic in his habits,except as to smoking. I lived with him five years without ever knowinghim to tell a direct verbal falsehood, constantly as he used to practisedeceit in other forms. Can you understand the soul of a man who neverhesitated to take steps that would have the effect of hoodwinkingpeople, who would use every trick of the markets to mislead, and who wasat the same time scrupulous never to utter a direct lie on the mostinsignificant matter? Manderson was like that, and he was not the onlyone. I suppose you might compare the state of mind to that of a soldierwho is personally a truthful man, but who will stick at nothing todeceive the enemy. The rules of the game allow it; and the same may besaid of business as many business men regard it. Only with them it isalways war-time."

  "It is a sad world," observed Mr. Cupples.

  "As you say," Marlowe agreed. "Now I was saying that one could alwaystake Manderson's word if he gave it in a definite form. The first time Iever heard him utter a downright lie was on the night he died; andhearing it, I believe, saved me from being hanged as his murderer."

  Marlowe stared at the light above his head, and Trent moved impatientlyin his chair. "Before we come to that," he said, "will you tell usexactly on what footing you were with Manderson during the years youwere with him."

  "We were on very good terms from beginning to end," answered Marlowe."Nothing like friendship--he was not a man for making friends--but thebest of terms as between a trusted employee and his chief. I went to himas private secretary just after getting my degree at Oxford. For a longtime I liked the position greatly. When one is attached to an activeAmerican plutocrat in the prime of life one need not have many dullmoments. Besides, it made me independent. My father had some seriousbusiness reverses about that time, and I was glad to be able to dowithout an allowance from him. At the end of the first year Mandersondoubled my salary. 'It's big money,' he said, 'but I guess I don'tlose.'

  "You see, by that time I was doing a great deal more than accompany himon horseback in the morning and play chess in the evening, which wasmainly what he had required. I was attending to his houses, his farm inOhio, his shooting in Maine, his horses, his cars and his yacht. I hadbecome a walking railway-guide and an expert cigar-buyer. I was alwayslearning something.

  "Well, now you understand what my position was in regard to Mandersonduring the last few years of my connection with him. It was a happy lifefor me on the whole. I was busy, my work was varied and interesting. Ihad time to amuse myself, too, and money to spend. At one time I made afool of myself about a girl, and that was not a happy time; but ittaught me to understand the great goodness of Mrs. Manderson." Marloweinclined his head to Mr. Cupples as he said this. "She may choose totell you about it. As for her husband, he had never varied in hisattitude towards me, in spite of the change that came over him in thelast months of his life, as you know. He treated me well and generouslyin his unsympathetic way, and I never had a feeling that he was lessthan satisfied with his bargain--that was the sort of footing we livedupon. And it was that continuance of his attitude right up to the endthat made the revelation so shocking when I was suddenly shown, on thenight on which he met his end, the depth of crazy hatred of myself thatwas in Manderson's soul."

  The eyes of Trent and Mr. Cupples met for an instant.

  "You never suspected that he hated you before that time?" asked Trent,
and Mr. Cupples asked at the same moment: "To what did you attributeit?"

  "I never guessed until that night," answered Marlowe, "that he had thesmallest ill-feeling toward me. How long it had existed I do not know. Icannot imagine why it was there. I was forced to think, when Iconsidered the thing in those awful days after his death, that it was acase of a madman's delusion, that he believed me to be plotting againsthim, as they so often do. Some such insane conviction must have been atthe root of it. But who can sound the abysses of a lunatic's fancy? Canyou imagine the state of mind in which a man dooms himself to death withthe object of delivering someone he hates to the hangman?"

  Mr. Cupples moved sharply in his chair. "You say Manderson wasresponsible for his own death?" he asked. Trent glanced at him with aneye of impatience, and resumed his intent watch upon the face ofMarlowe. In the relief of speech it was now less pale and drawn.

  "I do say so," Marlowe answered concisely, and looked his questioner inthe face. Mr. Cupples nodded.

  "Before we proceed to the elucidation of your statement," observed theold gentleman, in the tone of one discussing a point of abstractscience, "it may be remarked that the state of mind which you attributeto Manderson--"

  "Suppose we have the story first," Trent interrupted, gently laying ahand on Mr. Cupples' arm. "You were telling us," he went on, turning toMarlowe, "how things stood between you and Manderson. Now will you tellus the facts of what happened that night?"

  Marlowe flushed at the barely perceptible emphasis which Trent laid uponthe word "facts." He drew himself up.

  "Bunner and myself dined with Mr. and Mrs. Manderson that Sundayevening," he began, speaking carefully. "It was just like other dinnersat which the four of us had been together. Manderson was taciturn andgloomy, as we had latterly been accustomed to see him. We others kept aconversation going. We rose from the table, I suppose, about nine. Mrs.Manderson went to the drawing-room, and Bunner went up to the hotel tosee an acquaintance. Manderson asked me to come into the orchard behindthe house, saying he wished to have a talk. We paced up and down thepathway there, out of earshot from the house, and Manderson, as hesmoked his cigar, spoke to me in his cool, deliberate way. He had neverseemed more sane, or more well-disposed to me.

  "He said he wanted me to do him an important service. There was a bigthing on. It was a secret affair. Bunner knew nothing of it, and theless I knew the better. He wanted me to do exactly as he directed, andnot bother my head about reasons.

  "This, I may say, was quite characteristic of Manderson's method ofgoing to work. If at times he required a man to be a mere tool in hishand, he would tell him so. He had used me in the same kind of way adozen times. I assured him he could rely on me, and said I was ready.'Right now?' he asked. I said, of course I was.

  "He nodded, and said--I tell you his words as well as I can recollectthem--'Well, attend to this. There is a man in England now who is inthis thing with me. He was to have left to-morrow for Paris by the noonboat from Southampton to Havre. His name is George Harris--at leastthat's the name he is going by. Do you remember that name?' 'Yes,' Isaid, 'when I went up to London a week ago you asked me to book a cabinin that name on the boat that goes to-morrow. I gave you the ticket.''Here it is,' he said, producing it from his pocket.

  "'Now,' Manderson said to me, poking his cigar-butt at me with eachsentence in a way he used to have, 'George Harris cannot leave Englandto-morrow. I find I shall want him where he is. And I want Bunner where_he_ is. But somebody has got to go by that boat and take certain papersto Paris. Or else my plan is going to fall to pieces. Will you go?' Isaid, 'Certainly. I am here to obey orders.'

  "He bit his cigar, and said: 'That's all right: but these are not justordinary orders;--not the kind of thing one can ask of a man in theordinary way of his duty to an employer. The point is this. The deal Iam busy with is one in which neither myself nor any one known to beconnected with me must appear as yet. That is vital. But these people Iam up against know your face as well as they know mine. If my secretaryis known in certain quarters to have crossed to Paris at this time andto have interviewed certain people--and that would be known as soon asit happened--then the game is up.' He threw away his cigar-end andlooked at me questioningly.

  "I didn't like it much, but I liked failing Manderson at a pinch stillless. I spoke lightly. I said I supposed I should have to conceal myidentity, and I would do my best. I told him I used to be pretty good atmake-up.

  "He nodded in approval. He said: 'That's good. I judged you would notlet me down.' Then he gave me my instructions--'You take the car rightnow and start for Southampton--there's no train that will fit in. You'llbe driving all night. Barring accidents, you ought to get there by sixin the morning. But whenever you arrive, drive straight to the GrandHotel and ask for George Harris. If he's there, tell him you are to goover instead of him, and ask him to telephone me here. It is veryimportant he should know that at the earliest moment possible. But if heisn't there, that means he has got the instructions I wired to-day, andhasn't gone to Southampton. In that case you don't want to trouble abouthim any more, but just wait for the boat. You can leave the car at agarage under a fancy name--mine must not be given. See about changingyour appearance--I don't care how, so you do it well. Travel by the boatas George Harris. Let on to be anything you like, but be careful, anddon't talk much to anybody. When you arrive, take a room at the HotelSt. Petersburg. You will receive a note or message there, addressed toGeorge Harris, telling you where to take the wallet I shall give you.The wallet is locked, and you want to take good care of it. Have you gotall that clear?'

  "I repeated the instructions. I asked if I should return from Parisafter handing over the wallet. 'As soon as you like,' he said. 'And mindthis--whatever happens, don't communicate with me at any stage of thejourney. If you don't get the message in Paris at once, just wait untilyou do--days, if necessary. But not a line of any sort to me.Understand? Now get ready as quick as you can. I'll go with you in thecar a little way. Hurry!'

  "That is, so far as I can remember, the exact substance of whatManderson said to me that night. I went to my room, changed into dayclothes, and hastily threw a few necessaries into a kit-bag. My mind wasin a whirl, not so much at the nature of the business as at thesuddenness of it. I think I remember telling you the last time wemet"--he turned to Trent--"that Manderson had rather a fondness fordoing things in a story-book style. Other things being equal, hedelighted in a bit of mystification and melodrama, and I told myselfthat this was Manderson all over. I hurried downstairs with my bag andrejoined him in the library. He handed me a stout leather letter-case,about eight inches by six, fastened with a strap with a lock on it. Icould just squeeze it into my side-pocket. Then I went to get out thecar from the garage behind the house.

  "As I was bringing it round to the front a disconcerting thought struckme. I remembered that I had only a few shillings in my pocket.

  "For some time past I had been keeping myself very short of cash, andfor this reason--which I tell you because it is a vital point, as youwill see in a minute. I was living temporarily on borrowed money. I hadalways been careless about money while I was with Manderson, and being agregarious animal I had made many friends, most of them belonging to aNew York set that had little to do but get rid of the large incomesgiven them by their parents. Still, I was very well paid, and I was toobusy even to attempt to go very far with them in that amusingoccupation. I was still well on the right side of the ledger until Ibegan, merely out of curiosity, to play at speculation. It's a very oldstory--particularly in Wall Street. I thought it was easy; I was luckyat first; I would always be prudent--and so on. Then came the day when Iwent out of my depth. In one week I was separated from my roll, asBunner expressed it when I told him; and I owed money, too. I had had mylesson. Now in this pass I went to Manderson and told him what I haddone and how I stood. He heard me with a very grim smile, and then, withthe nearest approach to sympathy I had ever found in him, he advanced mea sum on account of my salary that would clear m
e. 'Don't play themarkets any more,' was all he said.

  "Now on that Sunday night Manderson knew that I was practically withoutany money in the world. He knew that Bunner knew it, too. He may haveknown that I had even borrowed a little more from Bunner forpocket-money until my next check was due, which, owing to myanticipation of my salary, would not have been a large one. Bear thisknowledge of Manderson's in mind.

  "As soon as I had brought the car round I went into the library andstated the difficulty to Manderson.

  "What followed gave me, slight as it was, my first impression ofsomething odd being afoot. As soon as I mentioned the word 'expenses'his hand went mechanically to his left hip-pocket, where he always kepta little case containing notes to the value of about a hundred pounds inour money. This was such a rooted habit in him that I was astonished tosee him check the movement suddenly. Then, to my greater amazement, heswore viciously under his breath. I had never heard him do this before;but Bunner had told me that of late he had often shown irritation inthis way when they were alone. 'Has he mislaid his note-case?' was thequestion that flashed through my mind. But it seemed to me that it couldnot affect his plan at all, and I will tell you why. The week before,when I had gone up to London to carry out various commissions, includingthe booking of a berth for Mr. George Harris, I had drawn a thousandpounds for Manderson from his bankers; and all, at his request, in notesof small amounts. I did not know what this unusually large sum in cashwas for; but I did know that the packets of notes were in his lockeddesk in the library, or had been earlier in the day, when I had seen himfingering them as he sat at the desk.

  "But instead of turning to the desk, Manderson stood looking at me.There was fury in his face, and it was a strange sight to see himgradually master it until his eyes grew cold again. 'Wait in the car,'he said slowly. 'I will get some money.' We both went out, and as I wasgetting into my overcoat in the hall I saw him enter the drawing-room,which, you remember, was on the other side of the entrance hall.

  "I stepped out onto the lawn before the house and smoked a cigarette,pacing up and down. I was asking myself again and again where thatthousand pounds was; whether it was in the drawing-room; and if so, why.Presently, as I passed one of the drawing-room windows, I noticed Mrs.Manderson's shadow on the thin silk curtain. She was standing at herescritoire. The window was open, and as I passed I heard her say: 'Ihave not quite thirty pounds here. Will that be enough?' I did not hearthe answer, but next moment Manderson's shadow was mingled with hers,and I heard the chink of money. Then, as he stood by the window, and asI was moving away, these words of his came to my ears--and these atleast I can repeat exactly, for astonishment stamped them on mymemory--'I'm going out now. Marlowe has persuaded me to go for amoonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it. He says it willhelp me to sleep, and I guess he is right.'

  "I have told you that in the course of four years I had never once heardManderson utter a direct lie about anything great or small. I believedthat I understood the man's queer skin-deep morality, and I could havesworn that if he was firmly pressed with a question that could not beevaded he would either refuse to answer or tell the truth. But what hadI just heard? No answer to any question. A voluntary statement, precisein terms, that was utterly false. The unimaginable had happened. It wasalmost as if one's dearest friend, in a moment of closest sympathy, hadsuddenly struck one in the face. The blood rushed to my head, and Istood still on the grass. I stood there until I heard his step at thefront-door, and then I pulled myself together and stepped quickly to thecar. He handed me a banker's paper bag with gold and notes in it.'There's more than you'll want there,' he said, and I pocketed itmechanically.

  "For a minute or so I stood discussing with Manderson--it was by one ofthose _tours de force_ of which one's mind is capable under greatexcitement--certain points about the route of the long drive before me.I had made the run several times by day, and I believe I spoke quitecalmly and naturally about it. But while I spoke my mind was seething ina flood of suddenly-born suspicion and fear. I did not know what Ifeared. I simply felt fear, somehow--I did not know how--connected withManderson. My soul once opened to it, fear rushed in like an assaultingarmy. I felt--I knew--that something was altogether wrong and sinister,and I felt myself to be the object of it. Yet Manderson was surely noenemy of mine. Then my thoughts reached out wildly for an answer to thequestion why he had told that lie. And all the time the blood hammeredin my ears: 'Where is that money?' Reason struggled hard to set up thesuggestion that the two things were not necessarily connected. Theinstinct of a man in danger would not listen to it. As we started, andthe car took the curve into the road, it was merely the unconscious partof me that steered and controlled it, and that made occasional emptyremarks as we slid along in the moonlight. Within me was a confusion andvague alarm that was far worse than any definite terror I ever felt.

  "About a mile from the house, you remember, one passed on one's left agate on the other side of which was the golf-course. There Mandersonsaid he would get down, and I stopped the car. 'You've got it allclear?' he asked. With a sort of wrench I forced myself to remember andrepeat the directions given me. 'That's O. K.,' he said. 'Good-by, then.Stay with that wallet.' Those were the last words I heard him speak asthe car moved gently away from him."

  Marlowe rose from his chair and pressed his hands to his eyes. He wasflushed with the excitement of his own narrative, and there was in hislook a horror of recollection that held both the listeners silent. Heshook himself with a movement like a dog's, and then, his hands behindhim, stood erect before the fire as he continued his tale.

  "I expect you both know what the back-reflector of a motor-car is."

  Trent nodded quickly, his face alive with anticipation; but Mr. Cupples,who cherished a mild but obstinate prejudice against motor-cars, readilyconfessed to ignorance.

  "It is a small round or more often rectangular mirror," Marloweexplained, "rigged out from the right side of the screen in front of thedriver, and adjusted in such a way that he can see, without turninground, if anything is coming up behind to pass him. It is quite anordinary appliance, and there was one on this car. As the car moved on,and Manderson ceased speaking behind me, I saw in that mirror a thingthat I wish I could forget."

  Marlowe was silent for a moment, staring at the wall before him.

  "Manderson's face," he said in a low tone. "He was standing in the road,looking after me, only a few yards behind, and the moonlight was full onhis face. The mirror happened to catch it for an instant.

  "Physical habit is a wonderful thing. I did not shift hand or foot onthe controlling mechanism of the car. Indeed, I dare say it steadied meagainst the shock to have myself braced to the business of driving. Youhave read in books, I dare say, of hell looking out of a man's eyes, butperhaps you don't know what a good metaphor that is. If I had not knownManderson was there, I should not have recognized the face. It was thatof a madman, distorted, hideous in the imbecility of hate, the teethbared in a simian grin of ferocity and triumph, the eyes--! In thelittle mirror I had this glimpse of the face alone; I saw nothing ofwhatever gesture there may have been as that writhing white mask glaredafter me. And I saw it only for a flash. The car went on, gatheringspeed, and as it went, my brain, suddenly purged of the vapors of doubtand perplexity, was as busy as the throbbing engine before my feet. Iknew.

  "You say something in that manuscript of yours, Mr. Trent, about theswift, automatic way in which one's ideas arrange themselves about somenew, illuminating thought. It is quite true. The awful intensity ofill-will that had flamed after me from those straining eyeballs hadpoured over my mind like a search-light. I was thinking quite clearlynow, and almost coldly, for I knew what--at least I knew whom--I had tofear, and instinct warned me that it was not a time to give room to theemotions that were fighting to possess me. The man hated me insanely.That incredible fact I suddenly knew. But the face had told me--it wouldhave told anybody--more than that. It was a face of hatred gratified, itproclaimed some damnable triumph
. It had gloated over me driving away tomy fate. This too was plain to me. And to what fate?

  "I stopped the car. It had gone about two hundred and fifty yards, and asharp bend of the road hid the spot where I had set Manderson down. Ilay back in the seat and thought it out. Something was to happen to me.In Paris? Probably--why else should I be sent there, with money and aticket? But why Paris? That puzzled me, for I had no melodramatic ideasabout Paris. I put the point aside for a moment. I turned to the otherthings that had roused my attention that evening. The lie about my'persuading him to go for a moonlight run.' What was the intention ofthat? Manderson, I said to myself, will be returning without me while Iam on my way to Southampton. What will he tell them about me? Howaccount for his returning alone and without the car? As I asked myselfthat sinister question there rushed into my mind the last of mydifficulties: 'Where are the thousand pounds?' And in the same instantcame the answer: 'The thousand pounds are in my pocket.'

  "I got up and stepped from the car. My knees trembled and I felt verysick. I saw the plot now--as I thought. The whole of the story about thepapers and the necessity of their being taken to Paris was a blind. WithManderson's money about me, of which he would declare I had robbed him,I was to all appearance attempting to escape from England, with everyprecaution that guilt could suggest. He would communicate with thepolice at once, and would know how to put them on my track. I should bearrested in Paris--if I got so far--living under a false name, afterhaving left the car under a false name, disguised myself, and traveledin a cabin which I had booked in advance, also under a false name. Itwould be plainly the crime of a man without money, and for some reasondesperately in want of it. As for my account of the affair, it would betoo preposterous.

  "As this ghastly array of incriminating circumstances rose up before me,I dragged the stout letter-case from my pocket. In the intensity of themoment I never entertained the faintest doubt that I was right, and thatthe money was there. It would easily hold the packets of notes. But as Ifelt it and weighed it in my hands it seemed to me there must be morethan this. It was too bulky. What more was to be laid to my charge?After all, a thousand pounds was not much to tempt a man like myself torun the risk of penal servitude. In this new agitation, scarcely knowingwhat I did, I caught the surrounding strap in my fingers just above thefastening and tore the staple out of the lock. These locks, you know,are pretty flimsy as a rule."

  Here Marlowe paused and walked to the oaken desk before the window.Opening a drawer full of miscellaneous objects, he took out a box of oddkeys, and selected a small one distinguished by a piece of pink tape.

  He handed it to Trent. "I keep that by me as a sort of morbid memento.It is the key to the lock I smashed. I might have saved myself thetrouble if I had known that this key was at that moment in the left-handside-pocket of my overcoat. Manderson must have slipped it in, eitherwhile the coat was hanging in the hall or while he sat at my side in thecar. I might not have found the tiny thing there for weeks--as a matterof fact I did find it two days after Manderson was dead--but a policesearch would have found it in five minutes. And then I--I with the caseand its contents in my pocket, my false name and my sham spectacles andthe rest of it--I should have had no explanation to offer but the highlyconvincing one that I didn't know the key was there."

  Trent dangled the key by its tape idly. Then--"How do you know this isthe key of that case?" he asked quickly.

  "I tried it. As soon as I found it I went up and fitted it to the lock.I knew where I had left the thing. So do you, I think, Mr. Trent. Don'tyou?" There was a faint shade of mockery in Marlowe's voice.

  "Touche!" Trent said, with a dry smile. "I found a large emptyletter-case with a burst lock lying with other odds and ends on thedressing-table in Manderson's room. Your statement is that you put itthere. I could make nothing of it." He closed his lips.

  "There was no reason for hiding it," said Marlowe. "But to get back tomy story. I burst the lock of the strap. I opened the case before one ofthe lamps of the car. The first thing I found in it I ought to haveexpected, of course; but I hadn't." He paused and glanced at Trent.

  "It was--" began Trent mechanically; and then stopped himself. "Try notto bring me in any more, if you don't mind," he said, meeting theother's eye. "I have complimented you already in that document on yourcleverness. You need not prove it by making the judge help you out withyour evidence."

  "All right," agreed Marlowe. "I couldn't resist just that much. If _you_had been in my place you would have known before I did that Manderson'slittle pocket case was there. As soon as I saw it, of course, Iremembered his not having had it about him when I asked for money, andhis surprising anger. He had made a false step. He had already fastenedhis note-case up with the rest of what was to figure as my plunder, andplaced it in my hands. I opened it. It contained a few notes as usual--Ididn't count them.

  "Tucked into the flaps of the big case in packets were the other notes,just as I had brought them from London. And with them were two smallwash-leather bags, the look of which I knew well. My heart jumpedsickeningly again, for this too was utterly unexpected. In those bagsManderson kept the diamonds in which he had been investing for some timepast. I didn't open them; I could feel the tiny stones shifting underthe pressure of my fingers. How many thousands of pounds' worth therewere there I have no idea. We had regarded Manderson's diamond-buying asmerely a speculative fad. I believe now that it was the earliestmovement in the scheme for my ruin. For any one like myself to berepresented as having robbed him there ought to be a strong inducementshown. That had been provided with a vengeance.

  "Now, I thought, I have the whole thing plain, and I must act. I sawinstantly what I must do. I had left Manderson about a mile from thehouse. It would take him twenty minutes, fifteen if he walked fast, toget back to the house, where he would of course immediately tell hisstory of robbery, and probably telephone at once to the police inBishopsbridge. I had left him only five or six minutes ago--for all thatI have just told you was as quick thinking as I ever did. It would beeasy to overtake him in the car before he neared the house. There wouldbe an awkward interview--I set my teeth as I thought of it, and all myfears vanished as I began to savor the gratification of telling him myopinion of him. There are probably few people who ever positively lookedforward to an awkward interview with Manderson; but I was mad with rage.My honor and my liberty had been plotted against with detestabletreachery. I did not consider what would follow the interview. Thatwould arrange itself.

  "I had started and turned the car--I was already going fast--when Iheard the sound of a shot in front of me, to the right.

  "Instantly I stopped the car. My first wild thought was that Mandersonwas shooting at me. Then I realized that the noise had not been close athand. I could see nobody on the road, though the moonlight flooded it. Ihad left Manderson at a spot just round a corner that was now some fiftyyards ahead of me. I started again, and turned the corner at a slowpace. Then I stopped again with a jar, and for a moment I sat perfectlystill.

  "Manderson lay dead a few steps from me on the turf within the gate,clearly visible to me in the moonlight."

  Marlowe made another pause, and Trent, with a puckered brow, inquired:"On the golf-course?"

  "Obviously," remarked Mr. Cupples. "The eighth green is just there." Hehad grown more and more interested as Marlowe went on, and was nowplaying feverishly with his thin beard.

  "On the green, quite close to the flag," said Marlowe. "He lay on hisback, his arms were stretched abroad, his jacket and heavy overcoat wereopen; the light shone hideously on his white face and his shirt-front;it glistened on his bared teeth and one of the eyes. The other ... yousaw it. The man was certainly dead. As I sat there stunned, unable forthe moment to think at all, I could even see a thin dark line of bloodrunning down from the shattered socket to the ear. Close by lay his softblack hat, and at his feet a pistol.

  "I suppose it was only a few seconds that I sat helplessly staring atthe body. Then I rose and moved to it with dragg
ing feet; for now thetruth had come to me at last, and I realized the fullness of myappalling danger. It was not only my liberty or my honor that the maniachad undermined. It was death that he had planned for me; death with thedegradation of the scaffold. To strike me down with certainty he had nothesitated to end his life--a life which was, no doubt, alreadythreatened by a melancholic impulse to self-destruction; and the lastagony of the suicide had been turned, perhaps, to a devilish joy by thethought that he dragged down my life with his. For, so far as I couldsee at the moment, my situation was utterly hopeless. If it had beendesperate on the assumption that Manderson meant to denounce me as athief, what was it now that his corpse denounced me as a murderer?

  "I picked up the revolver and saw, almost without emotion, that it wasmy own--Manderson had taken it from my room, I suppose, while I wasgetting out the car. At the same moment I remembered that it was byManderson's suggestion that I had had it engraved with my initials, todistinguish it from a precisely similar weapon which he had of his own.

  "I bent over the body and satisfied myself that there was no life leftin it. I must tell you here that I did not notice, then or afterwards,the scratches and marks on the wrists which were taken as evidence of astruggle with an assailant. But I have no doubt that Mandersondeliberately injured himself in this way before firing the shot; it wasa part of his plan.

  "Though I never perceived that detail, however, it was evident enough asI looked at the body that Manderson had not forgotten, in his last acton earth, to tie me tighter by putting out of court the question ofsuicide. He had clearly been at pains to hold the pistol at arm'slength, and there was not a trace of smoke or of burning on the face.The wound was absolutely clean, and was already ceasing to bleedoutwardly. I rose and paced the green, reckoning up the points in thecrushing case against me.

  "I was the last to be seen with Manderson. I had persuaded him--so hehad lied to his wife and, as I afterwards knew, to the butler--to gowith me for the drive from which he never returned. My pistol had killedhim. It was true that by discovering his plot I had saved myself fromheaping up further incriminating facts--flight, concealment, thepossession of the treasure. But what need of them, after all? As Istood, what hope was there? What could I do?"

  Marlowe came to the table and leaned forward with his hands upon it. "Iwant," he said very earnestly, "to try to make you understand what wasin my mind when I decided to do what I did. I hope you won't be bored,because I must do it. You may both have thought I acted like a fool. Butafter all the police never suspected me. I walked that green for aquarter of an hour, I suppose, thinking the thing out like a game ofchess. I had to think ahead and think coolly; for my safety depended onupsetting the plans of one of the longest-headed men who ever lived. Andremember that, for all I knew, there were details of the scheme stillhidden from me, waiting to crush me.

  "Two plain courses presented themselves at once. Either of them, Ithought, would certainly prove fatal. I could, in the first place, dothe completely straightforward thing: take back the dead man, tell mystory, hand over the notes and diamonds, and trust to the saving powerof truth and innocence. I could have laughed as I thought of it. I sawmyself bringing home the corpse and giving an account of myself,boggling with sheer shame over the absurdity of my wholly unsupportedtale as I brought a charge of mad hatred and fiendish treachery againsta man who had never, so far as I knew, had a word to say against me. Atevery turn the cunning of Manderson had forestalled me. His carefulconcealment of such a hatred was a characteristic feature of thestratagem; only a man of his iron self-restraint could have done it. Youcan see for yourselves how every fact in my statement would appear, inthe shadow of Manderson's death, a clumsy lie. I tried to imagine myselftelling such a story to the counsel for my defense. I could see the facewith which he would listen to it; I could read in the lines of it histhought, that to put forward such an impudent farrago would mean merelythe disappearance of any chance there might be of a commutation of thecapital sentence.

  "True, I had not fled; I had brought back the body; I had handed overthe property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I hadyielded to a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve left toclutch at the fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, that I hadnot set out to kill but only to threaten, and that, when I found that Ihad done murder, the heart went out of me. Turn it which way I would, Icould see no hope of escape by this plan of action.

  "The second of the obvious things that I might do was to take the hintoffered by the situation, and to fly at once. That too must prove fatal.There was the body. I had no time to hide it in such a way that it wouldnot be found at the first systematic search. But whatever I should dowith the body, Manderson's not returning to the house would causeuneasiness in two or three hours at most. Martin would suspect anaccident to the car, and would telephone to the police. At daybreak theroads would be scoured and inquiries telegraphed in every direction. Thepolice would act on the possibility of there being foul play. They wouldspread their nets with energy in such a big business as thedisappearance of Manderson. Ports and railway termini would be watched.Within twenty-four hours the body would be found, and the whole countrywould be on the alert for me--all Europe scarcely less; I did notbelieve there was a spot in Christendom where the man accused ofManderson's murder could pass unchallenged, with every newspaper cryingthe fact of his death into the ears of all the world. Every strangerwould be suspected; every man, woman and child would be a detective. Thecar, wherever I should abandon it, would put people on my track. If Ihad to choose between two utterly hopeless courses, I decided, I wouldtake that of telling the preposterous truth.

  "But now I cast about desperately for some tale that would seem moreplausible than the truth. Could I save my neck by a lie? One afteranother came into my mind; I need not trouble to remember them now. Eachhad its own futilities and perils; but every one split upon the fact--orwhat would be taken for fact--that I had induced Manderson to go outwith me, and the fact that he had never returned alive. Notion afternotion I swiftly rejected as I paced there by the dead man, and doomseemed to settle down upon me more heavily as the moments passed. Then astrange thought came to me.

  "Several times I had repeated to myself half-consciously, as a sort ofrefrain, the words in which I had heard Manderson tell his wife that Ihad induced him to go out. 'Marlowe has persuaded me to go for amoonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it.' All at once itstruck me that, without meaning to do so, I was saying this inManderson's voice.

  "As you found out for yourself, Mr. Trent, I have a natural gift ofmimicry. I had imitated Manderson's voice many times so successfully asto deceive even Bunner, who had been much more in his company than hisown wife. It was, you remember,"--Marlowe turned to Mr. Cupples--"astrong, metallic voice, of great carrying power, so unusual as to makeit a very fascinating voice to imitate, and at the same time very easy.I said the words carefully to myself again, like this--" he utteredthem, and Mr. Cupples opened his eyes in amazement--"and then I struckmy hand upon the low wall beside me. 'Manderson never returned alive?' Isaid aloud. 'But Manderson _shall_ return alive!'

  "In thirty seconds the bare outline of the plan was complete in my mind.I did not wait to think over details. Every instant was precious now; Ilifted the body and laid it on the floor of the car, covered with a rug.I took the hat and the revolver. Not one trace remained on the green, Ibelieve, of that night's work. As I drove back to White Gables my designtook shape before me with a rapidity and ease that filled me with a wildexcitement. I should escape yet! It was all so easy if I kept my pluck.Putting aside the unusual and unlikely, I should not fail. I wanted toshout, to scream! Nearing the house I slackened speed, and carefullyreconnoitered the road. Nothing was moving. I turned the car into theopen field on the other side of the road, about twenty paces short ofthe little door at the extreme corner of the grounds. I brought it torest behind a stack. When, with Manderson's hat on my head and thepistol in my pocket, I had staggered with the bod
y across the moonlitroad and through that door, I left much of my apprehension behind me.With swift action and an unbroken nerve, I thought I ought to succeed."

  With a long sigh Marlowe threw himself into one of the deep chairs atthe fireside, and passed his handkerchief over his damp forehead. Eachof his hearers, too, drew a deep breath, but not audibly.

  "Everything else you know," he said. He took a cigarette from a boxbeside him and lighted it. Trent watched the very slight quiver of thehand that held the match, and privately noted that his own at the momentwas not so steady.

  "The shoes that betrayed me to you," pursued Marlowe after a shortsilence, "were painful all the time I wore them, but I never dreamedthat they had given anywhere. I knew that no footstep of mine mustappear by any accident in the soft ground about the hut where I laid thebody, or between the hut and the house, so I took the shoes off andcrammed my feet into them as soon as I was inside the little door. Ileft my own shoes, with my own jacket and overcoat, near the body, readyto be resumed later. I made a clear footmark on the soft gravel outsidethe French window, and several on the drugget round the carpet. Thestripping off of the outer clothing of the body and the dressing of itafterwards in the brown suit and shoes, and putting the things into thepockets, was a horrible business; and getting the teeth out of the mouthwas worse. The head ... but you don't want to hear about it. I didn'tfeel it much at the time. I was wriggling my own head out of a noose,you see. I wish I had thought of pulling down the cuffs, and had tiedthe shoes more neatly. And putting the watch in the wrong pocket was abad mistake. It had all to be done so hurriedly.

  "You were wrong, by the way, about the whisky. After one stiffish drinkI had no more; but I filled up a flask that was in the cupboard, andpocketed it. I had a night of peculiar anxiety and effort in front ofme, and I didn't know how I should stand it. I had to take some once ortwice during the drive. Speaking of that, you give rather a generousallowance of time in your document for doing that run by night. You saythat to get to Southampton by half-past six in that car under theconditions, a man must, even if he drove like a demon, have leftMarlstone by twelve at latest. I had not got the body dressed inthe other suit, with tie and watch-chain and so forth, until nearlyten minutes past; and then I had to get to the car and start itgoing.... But then I don't suppose any demon would have taken the risksI did in that car at night, without a head-light. It turns me cold tothink of it now.

  "There's nothing much to say about what I did in the house. I spent thetime after Martin had left me in carefully thinking over the remainingsteps in my plan, while I unloaded and thoroughly cleaned the revolver,using my handkerchief and a penholder from the desk. I also placed thepackets of notes, the note-case and the diamonds in the roll-top desk,which I opened and re-locked with Manderson's key. When I went upstairsit was a trying moment, for though I was safe from the eyes of Martin ashe sat in his pantry, there was a faint possibility of somebody beingabout on the bedroom floor. I had sometimes found the French maidwandering about there when the other servants were in bed. Bunner, Iknew, was a deep sleeper. Mrs. Manderson, I had gathered from things Ihad heard her say, was usually asleep by eleven; I had thought itpossible that her gift of sleep had helped her to retain all her beautyand vitality in spite of a marriage which we all knew was an unhappyone. Still, it was uneasy work mounting the stairs and holding myselfready to retreat to the library again at the least sound from above. Butnothing happened.

  "The first thing I did on reaching the corridor was to enter my room andput the revolver and cartridges back in the case. Then I turned off thelight and went quietly into Manderson's room.

  "What I had to do there you know. I had to take off the shoes and putthem outside the door, leave Manderson's jacket, waistcoat, trousers andblack tie, after taking everything out of the pockets, select a suit andtie and shoes for the body, and place the dental plate in the bowl,which I moved from the washing-stand to the bedside, leaving thoseruinous finger-marks as I did so. The marks on the drawer must have beenmade when I shut it after taking out the tie. Then I had to lie down inthe bed and tumble it. You know all about it--all except my state ofmind, which you couldn't imagine, and I couldn't describe.

  "The worst came when I had hardly begun my operations; the moment whenMrs. Manderson spoke from the room where I supposed her asleep. I wasprepared for it happening; it was a possibility; but I nearly lost mynerve all the same. However....

  "By the way, I may tell you this: in the extremely unlikely contingencyof Mrs. Manderson remaining awake and so putting out of the question myescape by way of her window, I had planned simply to remain where I wasa few hours, and then, not speaking to her, to leave the house quicklyand quietly by the ordinary way. Martin would have been in bed by thattime. I might have been heard to leave, but not seen. I should have donejust as I had planned with the body, and then made the best time I couldin the car to Southampton. The difference would have been that Icouldn't have furnished an unquestionable alibi by turning up at thehotel at six-thirty. I should have made the best of it by drivingstraight to the docks and making my ostentatious inquiries there. Icould in any case have got there long before the boat left at noon. Icouldn't see that anybody could suspect me of the supposed murder in anycase; but if any one had, and if I hadn't arrived until ten o'clock,say, I shouldn't have been able to answer: 'It is impossible for me tohave got to Southampton so soon after shooting him.' I should simplyhave had to say I was delayed by a break-down after leaving Manderson athalf-past ten, and challenged any one to produce any fact connecting mewith the crime. They couldn't have done it. The pistol, left openly inmy room, might have been used by anybody, even if it could be provedthat that particular pistol was used. Nobody could reasonably connect mewith the shooting so long as it was believed that it was Manderson whohad returned to the house. The suspicion could not, I was confident,enter any one's mind. All the same, I wanted to introduce the element ofabsolute physical impossibility; I knew I should feel ten times as safewith that.

  "So when I knew from the sound of her breathing that Mrs. Manderson wasasleep again I walked quickly across her room in my stocking feet andwas on the grass with my bundle in ten seconds. I don't think I made theleast noise. The curtain before the window was of soft, thick stuff anddidn't rustle, and when I pushed the glass doors further open there wasnot a sound."

  "Tell me," said Trent as the other stopped to light a new cigarette,"why you took the risk of going through Mrs. Manderson's room to escapefrom the house? I could see when I looked into the thing on the spot whyit had to be on that side of the house; there was a danger of being seenby Martin or by some servant at a bedroom window if you got out by awindow on one of the other sides. But there were three unoccupied roomson that side: two spare bedrooms and Mrs. Manderson's sitting-room. Ishould have thought it would have been safer, after you had done whatwas necessary to your plan in Manderson's room, to leave it quietly andescape through one of those three rooms.... The fact that you wentthrough her window, you know," he added coldly, "might have suggested,if it became known, a certain suspicion in regard to the lady herself. Ithink you understand me."

  Marlowe turned upon him with a glowing face. "And I think you willunderstand me, Mr. Trent," he said in a voice that shook a little, "whenI say that if such a possibility had occurred to me then, I would havetaken any risk rather than make my escape by that way.... Oh, well!" hewent on more coolly, "I suppose that to any one who didn't know her theidea of her being privy to her husband's murder might not seem soindescribably fatuous. Forgive the expression." He looked attentively atthe burning end of his cigarette, studiously unconscious of the red flagthat flew in Trent's eyes for an instant at his words and the tone ofthem.

  That emotion, however, was conquered at once. "Your remark is perfectlyjust," Trent said with answering coolness. "I can quite believe, too,that at the time you didn't think of the possibility I mentioned. Butsurely, apart from that, it would have been safer to do as I said: go bythe window of an unoccupied room." />
  "Do you think so?" said Marlowe. "All I can say is I hadn't the nerve todo it. I tell you, when I entered Manderson's room I shut the door of iton more than half my terrors. I had the problem confined before me in aclosed space, with only one danger in it, and that a _known_ danger: thedanger of Mrs. Manderson. The thing was almost done: I had only to waituntil she was certainly asleep after her few moments of waking up, forwhich, as I told you, I was prepared as a possibility. Barringaccidents, the way was clear. But now suppose that I, carryingManderson's clothes and shoes, had opened that door again and gone in myshirt-sleeves and socks to enter one of the empty rooms. The moonlightwas flooding the corridor through the end-window. Even if my face wereconcealed, nobody could mistake my standing figure for Manderson's.Martin might be going about the house in his silent way. Bunner mightcome out of his bedroom. One of the servants who were supposed to be inbed might come round the corner from the other passage--I had foundCelestine prowling about quite as late as it was then. None of thesethings was very likely; but they were all too likely for me. They wereuncertainties. Shut off from the household in Manderson's room I knewexactly what I had to face. As I lay in my clothes in Manderson's bedand listened for the almost inaudible breathing through the open door Ifelt far more ease of mind, terrible as my anxiety was, than I had feltsince I saw the dead body on the turf. I even congratulated myself thatI had had the chance, through Mrs. Manderson's speaking to me, oftightening one of the screws in my scheme by repeating the statementabout my having been sent to Southampton."

  Marlowe looked at Trent, who nodded as who should say that his point wasmet.

  "As for Southampton," pursued Marlowe, "you know what I did when I gotthere, I have no doubt. I had decided to take Manderson's story aboutthe mysterious Harris and act it out on my own lines. It was a carefullyprepared lie, better than anything I could improvise. I even went so faras to get through a trunk call to the hotel at Southampton from thelibrary before starting, and ask if Harris was there. As I expected, hewasn't."

  "Was that why you telephoned?" Trent inquired quickly.

  "The reason for telephoning was to get myself into an attitude in whichMartin couldn't see my face or anything but the jacket and hat, yetwhich was a natural and familiar attitude. But while I was about it, itwas obviously better to make a genuine call. If I had simply pretendedto be telephoning, the people at the exchange could have told you atonce that there hadn't been a call from White Gables that night."

  "One of the first things I did was to make that inquiry," said Trent."That telephone call, and the wire you sent from Southampton to the deadman, to say Harris hadn't turned up and you were returning--both thoseappealed to me."

  A constrained smile lighted Marlowe's face for a moment. "I don't knowthat there's anything more to tell. I returned to Marlstone, and facedyour friend the detective with such nerve as I had left. The worst waswhen I heard you had been put on the case--no, that wasn't the worst.The worst was when I saw you walk out of the shrubbery the next day,coming away from the shed where I had laid the body. For one ghastlymoment I thought you were going to give me in charge on the spot. NowI've told you everything, you don't look so terrible."

  He closed his eyes, and there was a short silence. Then Trent gotsuddenly to his feet.

  "Cross-examination?" inquired Marlowe, looking at him gravely.

  "Not at all," said Trent, stretching his long limbs. "Only stiffness ofthe legs. I don't want to ask any questions. I believe what you havetold us. I don't believe it simply because I always liked your face, orbecause it saves awkwardness, which are the most usual reasons forbelieving a person, but because my vanity will have it that no man couldlie to me steadily for an hour without my perceiving it. Your story isan extraordinary one; but Manderson was an extraordinary man, and so areyou. You acted like a lunatic in doing what you did; but I quite agreewith you that if you had acted like a sane man you wouldn't have had thehundredth part of a dog's chance with a judge and jury. One thing isbeyond dispute on any reading of the affair: you are a man of courage."

  The color rushed into Marlowe's face, and he hesitated for words. Beforehe could speak Mr. Cupples arose with a dry cough.

  "For my part," he said, "I never supposed you guilty for a moment."Marlowe turned to him in grateful amazement, Trent with an incredulousstare. "But," pursued Mr. Cupples, holding up his hand, "there is onequestion which I should like to put."

  Marlowe bowed, saying nothing.

  "Suppose," said Mr. Cupples, "that someone else had been suspected ofthe crime and put upon trial. What would you have done?"

  "I think my duty was clear. I should have gone with my story to thelawyers for the defense, and put myself in their hands."

  Trent laughed aloud. Now that the thing was over his spirits wererapidly becoming ungovernable. "I can see their faces!" he said. "As amatter of fact, though, nobody else was ever in danger. There wasn't ashred of evidence against any one. I looked up Murch at the Yard thismorning, and he told me he had come round to Bunner's view, that it wasa case of revenge on the part of some American black-hand gang. Sothere's the end of the Manderson case. Holy, suffering Moses! _What_ anass a man can make of himself when he thinks he's being preternaturallyclever!" He seized the bulky envelop from the table, and stuffed it intothe heart of the fire. "There's for you, old friend! For want of you theworld's course will not fail. But look here! It's getting late--nearlyseven, and Cupples and I have an appointment at half-past. We must go.Mr. Marlowe, good-by." He looked into the other's eyes. "I am a man whohas worked hard to put a rope round your neck. Considering thecircumstances I don't know whether you will blame me. Will you shakehands?"

  CHAPTER XV

  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 ofthe pile 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; butto-night let the feast be spread in vain, so far as we are concerned. Wewill not go where the satraps throng the hall. We will go toSheppard'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 inquiry prevailing in this restless day. Isuggest our dining at Sheppard's and instantly you fold your arms anddemand, 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 wasborn.... Taxi!"

  A cab rolled smoothly to the curb, and the driver received hisinstruction 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--but mayI 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 forsome time," Mr. Cupples went on, with a twinkle in his eye that wouldhave done credit to the worldliest of creatures. "I saw it at once whenyou were both dining at my house, and you sat listening to ProfessorPeppmueller 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 person whowas not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good atdissembling. I shouldn't wonder if even old Peppmueller noticed somethingthrough his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may have been asan undeclared suitor, I am going to be much worse now. Here's theplace," he broke off, as the cab rushed down a side-street and swunground a corner into a broad and populous thoroughfare. "We're therealready." The cab drew up.

  "Here we are," said Trent as he paid the man and led Mr. Cupples into along paneled room set with many tables and filled with a hum of talk."This is the house of fulfilment of craving, this is the bower with theroses around it. I see there are three bookmakers eating pork at myfavorite 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 hemight hear you. Milk and soda-water! Cupples, you may think you have astrong constitution, and I don't say you have not, but I warn you thatthis habit of mixing drinks has been the death of many a robuster manthan you. Be wise in time. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine; leavesoda to the Turkish hordes. Here comes our food." He gave another orderto the waiter, who ranged the dishes before them and darted away. Trentwas, it seemed, a respected customer. "I have sent," he said, "for winethat I know, and I hope you will try it. If you have taken a vow, thenin the name of all the teetotal saints drink water, which stands at yourelbow, 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 favorable eye. "I simply don't care about wine. I bought a bottleonce and drank it to see what it was like, and it made me ill. But verylikely it was bad wine. I will taste some of yours, as it is yourdinner, 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.Cupples took 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 expected assoon to see an elephant conducting at the opera as you drinking myhealth. Dear Cupples! May his beak retain ever that delicaterose-stain!--No, curse it all!" he broke out, surprising a shade ofdiscomfort that fitted 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 hill-side. The waiter 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 judgment,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 venture tothink, move unconsciously among a network of opinions, often quiteerroneous, which other people entertain about us. With regard toMarlowe's story, it appeared to me entirely straightforward, and not, inits essential features, especially remarkable, once we have admitted, aswe surely must, that in the case of Manderson we have to deal with amore or less disordered mind. It was Mr. Bunner, I think you said, whotold you of his rooted and apparently hereditary temper of suspiciousjealousy. When the pressure of his business labors brought on mentalderangement, that abnormality increased until it dominated himentirely."

  Trent laughed loudly. "Not especially remarkable!" he said. "I confessthat the affair struck me as a little unusual."

  "Only in the development of the details," argued Mr. Cupples. "What isthere 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 save him.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 the faceof the earth that you could not represent as quite ordinary andcommonplace, by such a line of argument as that. You may say what youlike, but the idea of impersonating Manderson in those circumstances wasan extraordinarily ingenious idea."

  "Ingenious--certainly!" replied Mr. Cupples. "Extraordinarily so--no! Inthose circumstances (your own words) it was really not strange that itshould 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 knew the ways of the establishmentintimately. I grant you that the idea was brilliantly carried out; buteverything favored it. As for the essential idea, I do not place it, asregards ingenuity, in the same class with, for example, the idea ofutilizing the force of recoil in a discharged firearm to actuate themechanism of ejecting and reloading. I do, however, admit, as I did atthe outset, that in respect of details the case had unusual features. Itdeveloped a high degree of complexity."

  "Did it really strike you in that way?" inquired Trent with desperatesarcasm.

  "The affair became complicated," proceeded Mr. Cupples quite unmoved,"because after Marlowe's suspicions were awakened a second subtle mindcame in to interfere with the plans of the first. That sort of dueloften happens in business and politics, but less frequently, I imagine,in the world of crime. One disturbing reflection was left on my mind bywhat we learned to-day. If Marlowe had suspected nothing and walked intothe trap, 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, have diedprotesting 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 T
rent. "To hang in such casesseems 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 if hehas jam all over his nose. As for attempts being made by malevolentpersons to fix crimes upon innocent men, of course it is constantlyhappening."

  Mr. Cupples mused a few moments. "We know," he said, "from the thingsMabel and Mr. Bunner told you what may be termed the spiritual truthunderlying this matter: the insane depth of jealous hatred whichManderson concealed. We can understand that he was capable of such ascheme. But as a rule it is in the task of penetrating to the spiritualtruth that the administration of justice breaks down. Sometimes thattruth is deliberately concealed, as in Manderson's case. Sometimes, Ithink, it is concealed because simple people are actually unable toexpress it, and nobody else divines it."

  "The law certainly does not shine when it comes to a case requiring muchdelicacy of perception," said Trent. "It goes wrong easily enough overthe commonplace criminal. As for the people with temperaments who getmixed up in legal proceedings, they must feel as if they were in aforest of apes, whether they win or lose. Well, I dare say it's good forthem and their sort to have their noses rubbed in reality now and again.But what would twelve red-faced realities in a jury-box have done toMarlowe? His story would, as he says, have been a great deal worse thanno defense at all. It's not as if there were a single piece of evidencein support of his tale. Can't you imagine how the prosecution would tearit to rags? Can't you see the judge simply taking it in his stride whenit came to the summing up? And the jury--you've served on juries, Iexpect--in their room, snorting with indignation over the feebleness ofthe lie, telling each other it was the clearest case they ever heard of,and that they'd have thought better of him if he hadn't lost his nerveat the crisis, and had cleared off with the swag as he intended. Imagineyourself on that jury, not knowing Marlowe, and trembling withindignation at the record unrolled before you--cupidity, murder,robbery, sudden cowardice, shameless, impenitent, desperate lying! Why,you and I believed him to be guilty until--"

  "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 would bean 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 defense. You said just now, 'If there were asingle piece of evidence in support of his tale.' There is, and it is myevidence. And," he added quietly, "it is conclusive." He took up hisknife and fork and went contentedly on with his dinner.

  The pallor of excitement had turned Trent to marble while Mr. Cupplesled laboriously up to this statement. At the last word the blood rushedto his face again and he struck the table with an unnatural laugh. "Itcan't be!" he exploded. "It's something you fancied, something youdreamed after one of those debauches of soda-and-milk. You can't reallymean that all the time I was working on the case down there you knewMarlowe was innocent."

  Mr. Cupples, busy with his last mouthful, nodded brightly. He made anend of eating, wiped his sparse mustache, and then leaned forward overthe table. "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 half ofthe 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 thefield-path that runs behind White Gables, cutting off the great curve ofthe road, and came out on the road nearly opposite that gate that isjust by the eighth hole on the golf-course. Then I turned in there,meaning to walk along the turf to the edge of the cliff, and go backthat way. I had only gone a few steps when I heard the car coming, andthen I heard it stop near the gate. I saw Manderson at once. Do youremember my telling you I had seen him once alive after our quarrel infront of the hotel? Well, this was the time. You asked me if I had, andI did not care 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 Iwas in shadow under the trees by the stone wall, and anyhow they couldnot suppose there was any one near them. I heard all that passed just asMarlowe 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 his left hand at the car with extraordinaryviolence, greatly to my amazement. Then I waited for him to go back toWhite Gables, as I did not want to meet him again. But he did not go. Heopened the gate through which I had just passed, and he stood there onthe turf of the green, quite still. His head was bent, his arms hung athis sides, and he looked somehow ... rigid. For a few moments heremained in this tense attitude; then all of a sudden his right armmoved swiftly, and his hand was at the pocket of his overcoat. I saw hisface raised in the moonlight, the teeth bared and the eyes glittering,and all at once I knew that the man was mad. Almost as quickly as thatflashed across my mind, something else flashed in the moonlight. He heldthe pistol before him, pointing at his breast.

  "Now I may say here I shall always be doubtful whether Mandersonintended to kill himself then. Marlowe naturally thinks so, knowingnothing of my intervention. But I think it quite likely he only meant towound himself, 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 shook meoff with a furious snarling noise, giving me a terrific blow in thechest, and presented 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 grip onthe 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, Isuppose. 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 motion ceasedunder my hand. I knelt there staring, struck mot
ionless; 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 not showmyself. 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 everyone howhe had found the body. I knew he would suppose it was suicide; I thoughteveryone 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 club-house, 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 comeby, that runs to the hotel behind White Gables. I got back to the hotelvery much out of breath."

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

  "I had had a sharp run," said Mr. Cupples. "Well, approaching the hotelfrom the back I could see into the writing-room through the open window.There was nobody in there, so I climbed over the sill, walked to thebell 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 _you_shall pay for the dinner."

  THE END

 

‹ Prev Next ›