Trent’s Last Case. E. C. Bentley

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      ‘Rather!’ said the man. ‘An enormous great breakfast, too—with refined conversation and tears of recognition never dry. Will you get young Siegfried to lay a place for me while I go and wash? I shan’t be three minutes.’ He disappeared into the hotel, and Mr Cupples, after a moment’s thought, went to the telephone in the porter’s office.

      He returned to find his friend already seated, pouring out tea, and showing an unaffected interest in the choice of food. ‘I expect this to be a hard day for me,’ he said, with the curious jerky utterance which seemed to be his habit. ‘I shan’t eat again till the evening, very likely. You guess why I’m here, don’t you?’

      ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Mr Cupples. ‘You have come down to write about the murder.’

      ‘That is rather a colourless way of stating it,’ the man called Trent replied, as he dissected a sole. ‘I should prefer to put it that I have come down in the character of avenger of blood, to hunt down the guilty, and vindicate the honour of society. That is my line of business. Families waited on at their private residences. I say, Cupples, I have made a good beginning already. Wait a bit, and I’ll tell you.’ There was a silence, during which the newcomer ate swiftly and abstractedly, while Mr Cupples looked on happily.

      ‘Your manager here,’ said the tall man at last, ‘is a fellow of remarkable judgement. He is an admirer of mine. He knows more about my best cases than I do myself. The Record wired last night to say I was coming, and when I got out of the train at seven o’clock this morning, there he was waiting for me with a motor car the size of a haystack. He is beside himself with joy at having me here. It is fame.’ He drank a cup of tea and continued: ‘Almost his first words were to ask me if I would like to see the body of the murdered man—if so, he thought he could manage it for me. He is as keen as a razor. The body lies in Dr Stock’s surgery, you know, down in the village, exactly as it was when found. It’s to be post-mortem’d this morning, by the way, so I was only just in time. Well, he ran me down here to the doctor’s, giving me full particulars about the case all the way. I was pretty well au fait by the time we arrived. I suppose the manager of a place like this has some sort of a pull with the doctor. Anyhow, he made no difficulties, nor did the constable on duty, though he was careful to insist on my not giving him away in the paper.’

      ‘I saw the body before it was removed,’ remarked Mr Cupples. ‘I should not have said there was anything remarkable about it, except that the shot in the eye had scarcely disfigured the face at all, and caused scarcely any effusion of blood, apparently. The wrists were scratched and bruised. I expect that, with your trained faculties, you were able to remark other details of a suggestive nature.’

      ‘Other details, certainly; but I don’t know that they suggest anything. They are merely odd. Take the wrists, for instance. How was it you could see bruises and scratches on them? I dare say you saw something of Manderson down here before the murder.’

      ‘Certainly,’ Mr Cupples said.

      ‘Well, did you ever see his wrists?’

      Mr Cupples reflected. ‘No. Now you raise the point, I am reminded that when I interviewed Manderson here he was wearing stiff cuffs, coming well down over his hands.’

      ‘He always did,’ said Trent. ‘My friend the manager says so. I pointed out to him the fact you didn’t observe, that there were no cuffs visible, and that they had, indeed, been dragged up inside the coat-sleeves, as yours would be if you hurried into a coat without pulling your cuffs down. That was why you saw his wrists.’

      ‘Well, I call that suggestive,’ observed Mr Cupples mildly. ‘You might infer, perhaps, that when he got up he hurried over his dressing.’

      ‘Yes, but did he? The manager said just what you say. “He was always a bit of a swell in his dress,” he told me, and he drew the inference that when Manderson got up in that mysterious way, before the house was stirring, and went out into the grounds, he was in a great hurry. “Look at his shoes,” he said to me: “Mr Manderson was always specially neat about his footwear. But those shoe-laces were tied in a hurry.” I agreed. “And he left his false teeth in his room,” said the manager. “Doesn’t that prove he was flustered and hurried?” I allowed that it looked like it. But I said, “Look here: if he was so very much 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:

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