Trent's Last Case, E. C. Bentley [parable of the sower read online .txt] 📗

pressed, why did he part his hair so carefully? That parting is a work of art. Why did he put on so much? for he had on a complete outfit of underclothing, studs in his shirt, sock-suspenders, a watch and chain, money and keys and things in his pockets. That’s what I said to the manager. He couldn’t find an explanation. Can you?’

Mr. Cupples considered. “Those facts might suggest that he was hurried only at the end of his dressing. Coat and shoes would come last.”

“But not false teeth. You ask anybody who wears them. And besides, I’m told he hadn’t washed at all on getting up, which in a neat man looks like his being in a violent hurry from the beginning. And here’s another thing. One of his waistcoat pockets was lined with wash-leather for the reception of his gold watch. But he had put his watch into the pocket on the other side. Anybody who has settled habits can see how odd that is. The fact is, there are signs of great agitation and haste, and there are signs of exactly the opposite. For the present I am not guessing. I must reconnoitre the ground first, if I can manage to get the right side of the people of the house.” Trent applied himself again to his breakfast.

Mr. Cupples smiled at him benevolently. “That is precisely the point,” he said, “on which I can be of some assistance to you.” Trent glanced up in surprise. “I told you I half expected you. I will explain the situation. Mrs. Manderson, who is my niece—”

“What!” Trent laid down his knife and fork with a clash. “Cupples, you are jesting with me.”

“I am perfectly serious, Trent, really,” returned Mr. Cupples earnestly. “Her father, John Peter Domecq, was my wife’s brother. I never mentioned my niece or her marriage to you before, I suppose. To tell the truth, it has always been a painful subject to me, and I have avoided discussing it with anybody. To return to what I was about to say: last night, when I was over at the house—by the way, you can see it from here. You passed it in the car.” He indicated a red roof among poplars some three hundred yards away, the only building in sight that stood separate from the tiny village in the gap below them.

“Certainly I did,” said Trent. “The manager told me all about it, among other things, as he drove me in from Bishopsbridge.”

“Other people here have heard of you and your performances,” Mr. Cupples went on. “As I was saying, when I was over there last night, Mr. Bunner, who is one of Manderson’s two secretaries, expressed a hope that the Record would send you down to deal with the case, as the police seemed quite at a loss. He mentioned one or two of your past successes, and Mabel—my niece—was interested when I told her afterwards. She is bearing up wonderfully well, Trent; she has remarkable fortitude of character. She said she remembered reading your articles about the Abinger case. She has a great horror of the newspaper side of this sad business, and she had entreated me to do anything I could to keep journalists away from the place—I’m sure you can understand her feeling, Trent; it isn’t really any reflection on that profession. But she said you appeared to have great powers as a detective, and she would not stand in the way of anything that might clear up the crime. Then I told her you were a personal friend of mine, and gave you a good character for tact and consideration of others’ feelings; and it ended in her saying that, if you should come, she would like you to be helped in every way.”

Trent leaned across the table and shook Mr. Cupples by the hand in silence. Mr. Cupples, much delighted with the way things were turning out, resumed:

“I spoke to my niece on the telephone only just now, and she is glad you are here. She asks me to say that you may make any enquiries you like, and she puts the house and grounds at your disposal. She had rather not see you herself; she is keeping to her own sitting-room. She has already been interviewed by a detective officer who is there, and she feels unequal to any more. She adds that she does not believe she could say anything that would be of the smallest use. The two secretaries and Martin, the butler (who is a most intelligent man), could tell you all you want to know, she thinks.”

Trent finished his breakfast with a thoughtful brow. He filled a pipe slowly, and seated himself on the rail of the veranda. “Cupples,” he said quietly, “is there anything about this business that you know and would rather not tell me?”

Mr. Cupples gave a slight start, and turned an astonished gaze on the questioner. “What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean about the Mandersons. Look here! Shall I tell you a thing that strikes me about this affair at the very beginning? Here’s a man suddenly and violently killed, and nobody’s heart seems to be broken about it, to say the least. The manager of this hotel spoke to me about him as coolly as if he’d never set eyes on him, though I understand they’ve been neighbours every summer for some years. Then you talk about the thing in the coldest of blood. And Mrs. Manderson—well, you won’t mind my saying that I have heard of women being more cut up about their husbands being murdered than she seems to be. Is there something in this, Cupples, or is it my fancy? Was there something queer about Manderson? I travelled on the same boat with him once, but never spoke to him. I only know his public character, which was repulsive enough. You see, this may have a bearing on the case; that’s the only reason why I ask.”

Mr. Cupples took time for thought. He fingered his sparse beard and looked out over the sea. At last he turned to Trent. “I see no reason,” he said, “why I shouldn’t tell you as between ourselves, my dear fellow. I need not say that this must not be referred to, however distantly. The truth is that nobody really liked Manderson; and I think those who were nearest to him liked him least.”

“Why?” the other interjected.

“Most people found a difficulty in explaining why. In trying to account to myself for my own sensations, I could only put it that one felt in the man a complete absence of the sympathetic faculty. There was nothing outwardly repellent about him. He was not ill-mannered, or vicious, or dull—indeed, he could be remarkably interesting. But I received the impression that there could be no human creature whom he would not sacrifice in the pursuit of his schemes, in his task of imposing himself and his will upon the world. Perhaps that was fanciful, but I think not altogether so. However, the point is that Mabel, I am sorry to say, was very unhappy. I am nearly twice your age, my dear boy, though you always so kindly try to make me feel as if we were contemporaries—I am getting to be an old man, and a great many people have been good enough to confide their matrimonial troubles to me; but I never knew another case like my niece’s and her husband’s. I have known her since she was a baby, Trent, and I know—you understand, I think, that I do not employ that word lightly—I know that she is as amiable and honourable a woman, to say nothing of her other good gifts, as any man could wish. But Manderson, for some time past, had made her miserable.”

“What did he do?” asked Trent, as Mr. Cupples paused.

“When I put that question to Mabel, her words were that he seemed to nurse a perpetual grievance. He maintained a distance between them, and he would say nothing. I don’t know how it began or what was behind it; and all she would tell me on that point was that he had no cause in the world for his attitude. I think she knew what was in his mind, whatever it was; but she is full of pride. This seems to have gone on for months. At last, a week ago, she wrote to me. I am the only near relative she has. Her mother died when she was a child; and after John Peter died I was something like a father to her until she married—that was five years ago. She asked me to come and help her, and I came at once. That is why I am here now.”

Mr. Cupples paused and drank some tea. Trent smoked and stared out at the hot June landscape.

“I would not go to White Gables,” Mr. Cupples resumed. “You know my views, I think, upon the economic constitution of society, and the proper relationship of the capitalist to the employee, and you know, no doubt, what use that person made of his vast industrial power upon several very notorious occasions. I refer especially to the trouble in the Pennsylvania coal-fields, three years ago. I regarded him, apart from an all personal dislike, in the light of a criminal and a disgrace to society. I came to this hotel, and I saw my niece here. She told me what I have more briefly told you. She said that the worry and the humiliation of it, and the strain of trying to keep up appearances before the world, were telling upon her, and she asked for my advice. I said I thought she should face him and demand an explanation of his way of treating her. But she would not do that. She had always taken the line of affecting not to notice the change in his demeanour, and nothing, I knew, would persuade her to admit to him that she was injured, once pride had led her into that course. Life is quite full, my dear Trent,” said Mr. Cupples with a sigh, “of these obstinate silences and cultivated misunderstandings.”

“Did she love him?” Trent enquired abruptly. Mr. Cupples did not reply at once. “Had she any love left for him?” Trent amended.

Mr. Cupples played with his teaspoon. “I am bound to say,” he answered slowly, “that I think not. But you must not misunderstand the woman, Trent. No power on earth would have persuaded her to admit that to any one—even to herself, perhaps—so long as she considered herself bound to him. And I gather that, apart from this mysterious sulking of late, he had always been considerate and generous.”

“You were saying that she refused to have it out with him.”

“She did,” replied Mr. Cupples. “And I knew by experience that it was quite useless to attempt to move a Domecq where the sense of dignity was involved. So I thought it over carefully, and next day I watched my opportunity and met Manderson as he passed by this hotel. I asked him to favour me with a few minutes’ conversation, and he stepped inside the gate down there. We had held no communication of any kind since my niece’s marriage, but he remembered me, of course. I put the matter to him at once and quite definitely. I told him what Mabel had confided to me. I said that I would neither approve nor condemn her action in bringing me into the business, but that she was suffering, and I considered it my right to ask how he could justify himself in placing her in such a position.”

“And how did he take that?” said Trent, smiling secretly at the landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable Manderson to account pleased him.

“Not very well,” Mr. Cupples replied sadly. “In fact, far from well. I can tell you almost exactly what he said—it wasn’t much. He said, ‘See here, Cupples, you don’t want to butt in. My wife can look after herself. I’ve found that out, along with other things.’ He was perfectly quiet—you know he was said never to lose control of himself—though there was a light in his eyes that would have frightened a man who was in the wrong, I dare say. But I had been thoroughly roused by his last remark, and the tone of it, which I cannot reproduce. You see,” said Mr. Cupples simply, “I love my niece. She is the only child that there has been in our—in my house. Moreover, my wife brought her up as a girl, and any reflection on Mabel I could not help feeling, in the heat of the moment, as an indirect reflection upon one who is gone.”

“You turned upon him,” suggested Trent in a low tone.