Trent's Last Case Read Free Page B

body not being robbed looks interesting, but he may have been outed by some wretched tramp whom he found sleeping in the grounds and tried to kick out. It's the sort of thing he would do. Such a murderer might easily have sense enough to know that to leave the money and valuables was the safest thing. I tell you frankly, I wouldn't have a hand in hanging a poor devil who had let daylight into a man like Sig Manderson as a measure of social protest.'
    Sir James smiled at the telephone—a smile of success. 'Come, my boy, you're getting feeble. Admit you want to go and have a look at the case. You know you do. If it's anything you don't want to handle, you're free to drop it. By the by, where are you?'
    'I am blown along a wandering wind,' replied the voice irresolutely, 'and hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.'
    'Can you get here within an hour?' persisted Sir James.
    'I suppose I can,' the voice grumbled. 'How much time have I?'
    'Good man! Well, there's time enough—that's just the worst of it. I've got to depend on our local correspondent for tonight. The only good train of the day went half an hour ago. The next is a slow one, leaving Paddington at midnight. You could have the Buster, if you like'—Sir James referred to a very fast motor car of his—'but you wouldn't get down in time to do anything tonight.'
    'And I'd miss my sleep. No, thanks. The train for me. I am quite fond of railway traveling, you know; I have a gift for it. I am the stoker and the stoked. I am the song the porter sings.'
    'What's that you say?'
    'It doesn't matter,' said the voice sadly. 'I say,' it continued, 'will your people look out a hotel near the scene of action, and telegraph for a room?'
    'At once,' said Sir James. 'Come here as soon as you can.'
    He replaced the receiver. As he turned to his papers again a shrill outcry burst forth in the street below. He walked to the open window. A band of excited boys was rushing down the steps of the Sun building and up the narrow thoroughfare toward Fleet Street. Each carried a bundle of newspapers and a large broadsheet with the simple legend: MURDER OF SIGSBEE MANDERSON
    Sir James smiled and rattled the money in his pockets cheerfully. 'It makes a good bill,' he observed to Mr. Silver, who stood at his elbow.
    Such was Manderson's epitaph.
     
    CHAPTER III
    Breakfast
    At about eight o'clock in the morning of the following day Mr. Nathaniel Burton Cupples stood on the veranda of the hotel at Marlstone. He was thinking about breakfast. In his case the colloquialism must be taken literally: he really was thinking about breakfast, as he thought about every conscious act of his life when time allowed deliberation. He reflected that on the preceding day the excitement and activity following upon the discovery of the dead man had disorganized his appetite, and led to his taking considerably less nourishment than usual. This morning he was very hungry, having already been up and about for an hour; and he decided to allow himself a third piece of toast and an additional egg; the rest as usual. The remaining deficit must be made up at luncheon, but that could be gone into later.
    So much being determined, Mr. Cupples applied himself to the enjoyment of the view for a few minutes before ordering his meal. With a connoisseur's eye he explored the beauty of the rugged coast, where a great pierced rock rose from a glassy sea, and the ordered loveliness of the vast tilted levels of pasture and tillage and woodland that sloped gently up from the cliffs toward the distant moor. Mr. Cupples delighted in landscape.
    He was a man of middle height and spare figure, nearly sixty years old, by constitution rather delicate in health, but wiry and active for his age. A sparse and straggling beard and moustache did not conceal a thin but kindly mouth; his eyes were keen and pleasant; his sharp nose and narrow jaw gave him very much of a clerical air, and this impression was helped by his commonplace dark clothes and soft