The Woman in Black Part 7

"What sort of a woman is she? Has she her wits about her?"

"She's French, sir," replied Martin succinctly; adding after a pause: "She has not been with us long, sir, but I have formed the impression that the young woman knows as much of the world as is good for her--since you ask me."

"You think b.u.t.ter might possibly melt in her mouth, do you?" said Trent.

"Well, I am not afraid. I want to put some questions to her."

"I will send her up immediately, sir." The butler withdrew, and Trent wandered round the little room with his hands at his back. Sooner than he had expected, a small, neat figure in black appeared quietly before him.

The lady's maid, with her large brown eyes, had taken favorable notice of Trent from a window when he had crossed the lawn, and had been hoping desperately that the resolver of mysteries (whose reputation was as great below-stairs as elsewhere) would send for her. For one thing, she felt the need to make a scene; her nerves were overwrought. But her scenes were at a discount with the other domestics, and as for Mr.

Murch, he had chilled her into self-control with his official manner.

Trent, her glimpse of him had told her, had not the air of a policeman, and at a distance he had appeared _sympathetique_.

As she entered the room, however, instinct decided for her that any approach to coquetry would be a mistake, if she sought to make a good impression at the beginning. It was with an air of amiable candor, then, that she said, "Monsieur desire to speak with me?" She added helpfully, "I am called Celestine."

"Naturally," said Trent with businesslike calm. "Now what I want you to tell me, Celestine, is this: when you took tea to your mistress yesterday morning at seven o'clock, was the door between the two bedrooms--this door here--open?"

Celestine became intensely animated in an instant. "Oh, yes," she said, using her favorite English idiom. "The door was open as always, monsieur, and I shut it as always. But it is necessary to explain.

Listen! When I enter the room of madame from the other door in there--ah! but if monsieur will give himself the pain to enter the other room, all explains itself." She tripped across to the door, and urged Trent before her into the larger bedroom with a hand on his arm. "See! I enter the room with the tea like this. I approach the bed. Before I come quite near the bed, here is the door to my right hand--open, always--so!

But monsieur can perceive that I see nothing in the room of Monsieur Manderson. The door opens to the bed, not to me who approach from down there. I shut it without seeing in. It is the order. Yesterday it was as ordinary. I see nothing of the next room. Madame sleep like an angel--she see nothing. I shut the door. I place the plateau--I open the curtains--I prepare the toilette--I retire--voila!" Celestine paused for breath, and spread her hands abroad.

Trent, who had followed her movements and gesticulations with deepening gravity, nodded his head. "I see exactly how it was now," he said.

"Thank you, Celestine. So Mr. Manderson was supposed to be still in his room while your mistress was getting up, and dressing, and having breakfast in her boudoir."

"Oui, monsieur."

"n.o.body missed him, in fact," remarked Trent. "Well, Celestine, I am very much obliged to you." He re-opened the door to the outer bedroom.

"It is nothing, monsieur," said Celestine, as she crossed the small room. "I hope that monsieur will catch the a.s.sa.s.sin of Monsieur Manderson.... But I not regret him too much," she added with sudden and amazing violence, turning round with her hand on the k.n.o.b of the outer door. She set her teeth with an audible sound, and the color rose in her small, dark face. English departed from her. "Je ne le regrette pas du tout, du tout!" she cried with a flood of words. "Madame--ah! je me jetterais au feu pour madame--une femme si charmante, si adorable. Mais un homme comme, monsieur--maussade, boudeur, impa.s.sible! Ah, non!--de ma vie! J'en avais pardessus la tete, de monsieur! Ah! vrai! Est-ce insupportable, tout de meme, qu'il existe des types comme ca? Je vous jure que--"

"Finissez ce chahut, Celestine!" Trent broke in sharply. Celestine's tirade had brought back the memory of his student days in Paris with a rush. "En voila une scene! C'est rasant, vous savez. Faut rentrer ca, mademoiselle. Du reste, c'est bien imprudent, croyez-moi. Hang it! have some common sense! If the inspector downstairs heard you saying that kind of thing, you would get into trouble. And don't wave your fists about so much; you might hit something. You seem," he went on more pleasantly, as Celestine grew calmer under his authoritative eye, "to be even more glad than other people that Mr. Manderson is out of the way. I could almost suspect, Celestine, that Mr. Manderson did not take as much notice of you, as you thought necessary and right."

"A peine s'il m'avait regarde!" Celestine answered simply.

"Ca, c'est un comble!" observed Trent. "You are a nice young woman for a small tea-party, I don't think. A star upon your birthday burned, whose fierce, serene, red, pulseless planet never yearned in heaven, Celestine. Mademoiselle, I am busy. Bon jour. You certainly are a beauty!"

Celestine took this as a scarcely-expected compliment. The surprise restored her balance. With a sudden flash of her eyes and teeth at Trent over her shoulder, the lady's maid opened the door and swiftly disappeared.

Trent, left alone in the little bedroom, relieved his mind with two forcible descriptive terms in Celestine's language, and turned to his problem.

He took the pair of shoes which he had already examined, and placed them on one of the two chairs in the room, then seated himself on the other opposite to this. With his hands in his pockets he sat with eyes fixed upon those two dumb witnesses. Now and then he whistled, almost inaudibly, a few bars. It was very still in the room. A subdued twittering came from the trees through the open window. From time to time a breeze rustled in the leaves of the thick creeper about the sill.

But the man in the room, his face grown hard and somber now with his thoughts, never moved.

So he sat for the s.p.a.ce of half an hour. Then he rose quickly to his feet. He replaced the shoes on their shelf with care, and stepped out upon the landing.

Two bedroom doors faced him on the other side of the pa.s.sage. He opened that which was immediately opposite, and entered a bedroom by no means austerely tidy. Some sticks and fishing-rods stood confusedly in one corner, a pile of books in another. The housemaid's hand had failed to give a look of order to the jumble of heterogeneous objects left on the dressing-table and the mantel-shelf--pipes, pen-knives, pencils, keys, golf-b.a.l.l.s, old letters, photographs, small boxes, tins and bottles. Two fine etchings and some water-color sketches hung on the walls; leaning against the end of the wardrobe, unhung, were a few framed engravings. A row of shoes and boots was ranged beneath the window. Trent crossed the room and studied them intently; then he measured some of them with his tape, whistling very softly. This done, he sat on the side of the bed, and his eyes roamed gloomily about the room.

The photographs on the mantel-shelf attracted him presently. He rose and examined one representing Marlowe and Manderson on horseback. Two others were views of famous peaks in the Alps. There was a faded print of three youths--one of them unmistakably his acquaintance of the haggard blue eyes--clothed in tatterdemalion soldier's gear of the sixteenth century.

Another was a portrait of a majestic old lady, slightly resembling Marlowe. Trent, mechanically taking a cigarette from an open box on the mantel-shelf, lit it and stared at the photographs. Next he turned his attention to a flat leathern case that lay by the cigarette-box.

It opened easily. A small and light revolver of beautiful workmanship was disclosed, with a score or so of loose cartridges. On the stock were engraved the initials "J. M."

A step was heard on the stairs, and as Trent opened the breech and peered into the barrel of the weapon, Inspector Murch appeared at the open door of the room. "I was wondering"--he began; then stopped as he saw what the other was about. His intelligent eyes opened slightly.

"Whose is the revolver, Mr. Trent?" he asked in a conversational tone.

"Evidently it belongs to the occupant of the room, Mr. Marlowe," replied Trent with similar lightness, pointing to the initials. "I found this lying about on the mantel-piece. It seems a handy little pistol to me, and it has been very carefully cleaned, I should say, since the last time it was used. But I know little about firearms."

"Well, I know a good deal," rejoined the inspector quietly, taking the revolver from Trent's outstretched hand. "It's a bit of a specialty with me, is firearms, as I think you know, Mr. Trent. But it don't require an expert to tell one thing." He replaced the revolver in its case on the mantel-shelf, took out one of the cartridges, and laid it on the s.p.a.cious palm of one hand; then, taking a small object from his waistcoat pocket, he laid it beside the cartridge. It was a little leaden bullet, slightly battered about the nose, and having upon it some bright new scratches.

"Is that _the_ one?" Trent murmured as he bent over the inspector's hand.

"That's him," replied Mr. Murch. "Lodged in the bone at the back of the skull. Dr. Stock got it out within the last hour, and handed it to the local officer, who has just sent it on to me. These bright scratches you see, were made by the doctor's instruments. These other marks were made by the rifling of the barrel--a barrel like this one." He tapped the revolver. "Same make, same caliber."

With the pistol in its case between them, Trent and the inspector looked into each other's eyes for some moments. Trent was the first to speak.

"This mystery is all wrong," he observed. "It is insanity. The symptoms of mania are very marked. Let us see how we stand. We were not in any doubt, I believe, about Manderson having despatched Marlowe in the car to Southampton, or about Marlowe having gone, returning late last night, many hours after the murder was committed."

"There _is_ no doubt whatever about all that," said Mr. Murch, with a slight emphasis on the verb.

"And now," pursued Trent, "we are invited by this polished and insinuating firearm to believe the following line of propositions: that Marlowe never went to Southampton; that he returned to the house in the night; that he somehow, without waking Mrs. Manderson or anybody else, got Manderson to get up, dress himself, and go out into the grounds; that he then and there shot the said Manderson with his incriminating pistol; that he carefully cleaned the said pistol, returned to the house and, again without disturbing any one, replaced it in its case in a favorable position to be found by the officers of the law; that he then withdrew and spent the rest of the day in hiding--_with_ a large motor-car; and that he turned up, feigning ignorance of the whole affair, at--what time was it?"

"A little after nine P. M." The inspector still stared moodily at Trent. "As you say, Mr. Trent, that is the first theory suggested by this find, and it seems wild enough--at least it would do, if it didn't fall to pieces at the very start. When the murder was done Marlowe must have been fifty to a hundred miles away. He _did_ go to Southampton."

"How do you know?"

"I questioned him last night, and took down his story. He arrived in Southampton about six-thirty on the Monday morning."

"Come off!" exclaimed Trent bitterly. "What do I care about his story?

What do you care about his story? I want to know how you _know_ he went to Southampton."

Mr. Murch chuckled. "I thought I should take a rise out of you, Mr.

Trent," he said. "Well, there's no harm in telling you. After I arrived yesterday evening, as soon as I had got the outlines of the story from Mrs. Manderson and the servants, the first thing I did was to go to the telegraph office and wire to our people in Southampton. Manderson had told his wife when he went to bed that he had changed his mind, and sent Marlowe to Southampton to get some important information from someone who was crossing by the next day's boat. It seemed right enough; but you see, Marlowe was the only one of the household who wasn't under my hand, so to speak; he didn't return in the car until later in the evening; so before thinking the matter out any further, I wired to Southampton making certain inquiries. Early this morning I got this reply." He handed a series of telegraph slips to Trent, who read:

Person answering description in motor answering description arrived Bedford Hotel here 6:30 this morning gave name Marlowe left car hotel garage told attendant car belonged Manderson had bath and breakfast went out heard of later at docks inquiring for pa.s.senger name Harris on Havre boat inquired repeatedly until boat left at noon next heard of at hotel where he lunched about 1:15, left soon afterwards in car company's agents inform berth was booked name Harris last week but Harris did not travel by boat. Burke Inspector.

"Simple and satisfactory," observed Mr. Murch as Trent, after twice reading the message, returned it to him. "His own story corroborated in every particular. He told me he hung about the dock for half an hour or so on the chance of Harris turning up late, then strolled back, lunched and decided to return at once. He sent a wire to Manderson: 'Harris not turned up missed boat returning Marlowe,' which was duly delivered here in the afternoon, and placed among the dead man's letters. He motored back at a good rate, and arrived dog-tired. When he heard of Manderson's death from Martin, he nearly fainted. What with that and the being without sleep for so long, he was rather a wreck when I came to interview him last night; but he was perfectly coherent."

Trent picked up the revolver and twirled the cylinder idly for a few moments. "It was unlucky for Manderson that Marlowe left his pistol and cartridges about so carelessly," he remarked at length, as he put it back in the case. "It was throwing temptation in somebody's way, don't you think?"

Mr. Murch shook his head. "There isn't really much to lay hold of about the revolver, when you come to think. That particular make of revolver is common enough in England. It was introduced from the States. Half the people who buy a revolver to-day for self-defense or mischief provide themselves with that make, of that caliber. It is very reliable, and easily carried in the hip-pocket. There must be thousands of them in the possession of crooks and honest men. For instance," continued the inspector with an air of unconcern, "Manderson himself had one, the double of this. I found it in one of the top drawers of the desk downstairs, and it's in my overcoat pocket now."

"Aha! so you were going to keep that little detail to yourself."

"I was," said the inspector, "but as you've found one revolver, you may as well know about the other. As I say, neither of them may do us any good. The people in the house--"

Both men started, and the inspector checked his speech abruptly, as the half-closed door of the bedroom was slowly pushed open, and a man stood in the doorway. His eyes turned from the pistol in its open case to the faces of Trent and the inspector. They, who had not heard a sound to herald this entrance, simultaneously looked at his long, narrow feet. He wore rubber-soled tennis shoes.

"You must be Mr. Bunner," said Trent.