Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley (bookreader .txt) 📗
- Author: E. C. Bentley
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“And where did you photograph them? What does it all mean?” asked Mr Cupples, wide-eyed.
“I found them on the inside of the left-hand leaf of the front window in Mrs. Manderson’s bedroom. As I could not bring the window with me, I photographed them, sticking a bit of black paper on the other side of the glass for the purpose. The bowl comes from Manderson’s room. It is the bowl in which his false teeth were placed at night. I could bring that away, so I did.”
“But those cannot be Mabel’s finger-marks.”
“I should think not!” said Trent with decision. “They are twice the size of any print Mrs. Manderson could make.”
“Then they must be her husband’s.”
“Perhaps they are. Now shall we see if we can match them once more? I believe we can.” Whistling faintly, and very white in the face, Trent opened another small squat bottle containing a dense black powder. “Lamp-black,” he explained. “Hold a bit of paper in your hand for a second or two, and this little chap will show you the pattern of your fingers.” He carefully took up with a pair of tweezers one of the leaves cut from his diary, and held it out for the other to examine. No marks appeared on the leaf. He tilted some of the powder out upon one surface of the paper, then, turning it over, upon the other; then shook the leaf gently to rid it of the loose powder. He held it out to Mr. Cupples in silence. On one side of the paper appeared unmistakably, clearly printed in black, the same two finger-prints that he had already seen on the bowl and on the photographic plate. He took up the bowl and compared them. Trent turned the paper over, and on the other side was a bold black replica of the thumb-mark that was printed in grey on the glass in his hand.
“Same man, you see,” Trent said with a short laugh. “I felt that it must be so, and now I know.” He walked to the window and looked out. “Now I know,” he repeated in a low voice, as if to himself. His tone was bitter. Mr. Cupples, understanding nothing, stared at his motionless back for a few moments.
“I am still completely in the dark,” he ventured presently. “I have often heard of this fingerprint business, and wondered how the police went to work about it. It is of extraordinary interest to me, but upon my life I cannot see how in this case Manderson’s fingerprints are going—”
“I am very sorry, Cupples,” Trent broke in upon his meditative speech with a swift return to the table. “When I began this investigation I meant to take you with me every step of the way. You mustn’t think I have any doubts about your discretion if I say now that I must hold my tongue about the whole thing, at least for a time. I will tell you this: I have come upon a fact that looks too much like having very painful consequences if it is discovered by any one else.” He looked at the other with a hard and darkened face, and struck the table with his hand. “It is terrible for me here and now. Up to this moment I was hoping against hope that I was wrong about the fact. I may still be wrong in the surmise that I base upon that fact. There is only one way of finding out that is open to me, and I must nerve myself to take it.” He smiled suddenly at Mr. Cupples’s face of consternation. “All right—I’m not going to be tragic any more, and I’ll tell you all about it when I can. Look here, I’m not half through my game with the powder-bottles yet.”
He drew one of the defamed chairs to the table and sat down to test the broad ivory blade of the paper knife. Mr. Cupples, swallowing his amazement, bent forward in an attitude of deep interest and handed Trent the bottle of lamp-black.
The Wife of Dives
Mrs. Manderson stood at the window of her sitting-room at White Gables gazing out upon a wavering landscape of fine rain and mist. The weather had broken as it seldom does in that part in June. White wreathings drifted up the fields from the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken grey deadness shedding pin-point moisture that was now and then blown against the panes with a crepitation of despair. The lady looked out on the dim and chilling prospect with a woeful face. It was a bad day for a woman bereaved, alone, and without a purpose in life.
There was a knock, and she called “Come in,” drawing herself up with an unconscious gesture that always came when she realized that the weariness of the world had been gaining upon her spirit. Mr. Trent had called, the maid said; he apologized for coming at such an early hour, but hoped that Mrs. Manderson would see him on a matter of urgent importance. Mrs Manderson would see Mr. Trent. She walked to a mirror, looked into the olive face she saw reflected there, shook her head at herself with the flicker of a grimace, and turned to the door as Trent was shown in.
His appearance, she noted, was changed. He had the jaded look of the sleepless, and a new and reserved expression, in which her quick sensibilities felt something not propitious, took the place of his half smile of fixed good-humour.
“May I come to the point at once?” he said, when she had given him her hand. “There is a train I ought to catch at Bishopsbridge at twelve o’clock, but I cannot go until I have settled this thing, which concerns you only, Mrs. Manderson. I have been working half the night and thinking the rest; and I know now what I ought to do.”
“You look wretchedly tired,” she said kindly. “Won’t you sit down? This is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible business and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can properly tell you, Mr. Trent. I know that you won’t make it worse for me than you can help in doing your duty here. If you say you must see me about something, I know it must be because, as you say, you ought to do it.”
“Mrs. Manderson,” said Trent, slowly measuring his words, “I won’t make it worse for you than I can help. But I am bound to make it bad for you—only between ourselves, I hope. As to whether you can properly tell me what I shall ask you, you will decide that; but I tell you this on my word of honour: I shall ask you only as much as will decide me whether to publish or to withhold certain grave things that I have found out about your husband’s death, things not suspected by any one else, nor, I think, likely to be so. What I have discovered—what I believe that I have practically proved—will be a great shock to you in any case. But it may be worse for you than that; and if you give me reason to think it would be so, then I shall suppress this manuscript,” he laid a long envelope on the small table beside him, “and nothing of what it has to tell shall ever be printed. It consists, I may tell you, of a short private note to my editor, followed by a long dispatch for publication in the Record. Now you may refuse to say anything to me. If you do refuse, my duty to my employers, as I see it, is to take this up to London with me today and leave it with my editor to be dealt with at his discretion. My view is, you understand, that I am not entitled to suppress it on the strength of a mere possibility that presents itself to my imagination. But if I gather from you—and I can gather it from no other person—that there is substance in that imaginary possibility I speak of, then I have only one thing to do as a gentleman and as one who”—he hesitated for a phrase—“wishes you well. I shall not publish that dispatch of mine. In some directions I decline to assist the police. Have you followed me so far?” he asked with a touch of anxiety in his careful coldness; for her face, but for its pallor, gave no sign as she regarded him, her hands clasped before her, and her shoulders drawn back in a pose of rigid calm. She looked precisely as she had looked at the inquest.
“I understand quite well,” said Mrs. Manderson in a low voice. She drew a deep breath, and went on: “I don’t know what dreadful thing you have found out, or what the possibility that has occurred to you can be, but it was good, it was honourable of you to come to me about it. Now will you please tell me?”
“I cannot do that,” Trent replied. “The secret is my newspaper’s if it is not yours. If I find it is yours, you shall have my manuscript to read and destroy. Believe me,” he broke out with something of his old warmth, “I detest such mystery-making from the bottom of my soul; but it is not I who have made this mystery. This is the most painful hour of my life, and you make it worse by not treating me like a hound. The first thing I ask you to tell me,” he reverted with an effort to his colourless tone, “is this: is it true, as you stated at the inquest, that you had no idea at all of the reason why your late husband had changed his attitude toward you, and become mistrustful and reserved, during the last few months of his life?”
Mrs. Manderson’s dark brows lifted and her eyes flamed; she quickly rose from her chair. Trent got up at the same moment, and took his envelope from the table; his manner said that he perceived the interview to be at an end. But she held up a hand, and there was colour in her cheeks and quick breathing in her voice as she said: “Do you know what you ask, Mr Trent? You ask me if I perjured myself.”
“I do,” he answered unmoved; and he added after a pause, “you knew already that I had not come here to preserve the polite fictions, Mrs. Manderson. The theory that no reputable person, being on oath, could withhold a part of the truth under any circumstances is a polite fiction.” He still stood as awaiting dismissal, but she was silent. She walked to the window, and he stood miserably watching the slight movement of her shoulders until it subsided. Then with face averted, looking out on the dismal weather, she spoke at last clearly.
“Mr. Trent,” she said, “you inspire confidence in people, and I feel that things which I don’t want known or talked about are safe with you. And I know you must have a very serious reason for doing what you are doing, though I don’t know what it is. I suppose it would be assisting justice in some way if I told you the truth about what you asked just now. To understand that truth you ought to know about what went before—I mean about my marriage. After all, a good many people could tell you as well as I can that it was not... a very successful union. I was only twenty. I admired his force and courage
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