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 corpse 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 mustache did not conceal a thin
but kindly mouth; his eyes were keen and pleasant; his sharp nose and
narrow jaw gave him very much the air of a priest, and this impression
was helped by his commonplace dark clothes and soft black hat. He was a
man of unusually conscientious, industrious and orderly mind, with
little imagination. His father's household had been used to recruit its
domestic establishment by means of advertisements in which it was
truthfully described as a serious family. From that fortress of gloom he
had escaped with two saintly gifts somehow unspoiled: an inexhaustible
kindness of heart and a capacity for innocent gaiety which owed nothing
to humor. In an earlier day and with a clerical training he might have
risen to the scarlet hat. He was, in fact, a highly regarded member of
the London Positivist Society, a retired banker, a widower without
children. His austere but not unhappy life was spent largely among books
and in museums; his profound and patiently accumulated knowledge of a
number of curiously disconnected subjects which had stirred his interest
at different times had given him a place in the quiet, half-lit world of
professors and curators and devotees of research; at their amiable,
unconvivial dinner-parties he was most himself. His favorite author was
Montaigne.
Just as Mr. Cupples was finishing his meal at a little table on the
veranda, a big motor-car turned into the drive before the hotel. "Who is
this?" he inquired of the waiter. "Id is der manager," said the young
man listlessly. "He have been to meed a gendleman by der train."
The car drew up and the porter hurried from the entrance. Mr. Cupples
uttered an exclamation of pleasure as a long, loosely-built man, much
younger than himself, stepped from the car and mounted the veranda,
flinging his hat on a chair. His high-boned Quixotic face wore a
pleasant smile, his rough tweed clothes, his hair and short mustache
were tolerably untidy.
"Cupples, by all that's miraculous!" cried the man, pouncing upon Mr.
Cupples before he could rise, and seizing his outstretched hand in a
hard grip. "My luck is serving me to-day," the newcomer went on
spasmodically. "This is the second slice within an hour. How are you, my
best of friends? And why are you here? Why sit'st thou by that ruined
breakfast? Dost thou its former pride recall, or ponder how it passed
away? I _am_ glad to see you!"
"I was half expecting you, Trent," Mr. Cupples replied, his face
wreathed in smiles. "You are looking splendid, my dear fellow. I will
tell you all about it. But you cannot have had your own breakfast yet.
Will you have it at my table here?"
"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 sha'n'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 sha'n'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 colorless way of stating it," 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 honor 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 judgment. 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 is 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 foot-wear. 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 out-fit 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
reconnoiter 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. "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 inquiries 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 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 neighbors 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 traveled 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 honorable 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 economic 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
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 demeanor, 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 inquired 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
favor 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. "You asked him to
explain his words."
"That is precisely what I did," said Mr. Cupples. "For a moment he only
stared at me, and I could see a vein on his forehead swelling--an
unpleasant sight. Then he said quite quietly: 'This thing has gone far
enough, I guess,' and turned to go."
"Did he mean your interview?" Trent asked thoughtfully.
"From the words alone you would think so," Mr. Cupples answered. "But
the way in which he uttered them gave me a strange and very apprehensive
feeling. I received the impression that the man had formed some sinister
resolve. But I regret to say I had lost the power of dispassionate
thought. I fell into a great rage"--Mr. Cupples' tone was mildly
apologetic--"and said a number of foolish things. I reminded him that
the law allowed a measure of freedom to wives who received intolerable
treatment. I made some utterly irrelevant references to his public
record, and expressed the view that such men as he were unfit to live. I
said these things, and others as ill-considered, under the eyes, and
very possibly within earshot, of half a dozen persons sitting on this
veranda. I noticed them, in spite of my agitation, looking at me as I
walked up to the hotel again after relieving my mind--for it undoubtedly
did relieve it," sighed Mr. Cupples, lying back in his chair.
"And Manderson? Did he say no more?"
"Not a word. He listened to me with his eyes on my face, as quiet as
before. When I stopped he smiled very slightly, and at once turned away
and strolled through the gate, making for White Gables."
"And this happened--?"
"On the Sunday morning."
"Then I suppose you never saw him alive again?"
"No," said Mr. Cupples. "Or rather, yes--once. It was later in the day,
on the golf-course. But I did not speak to him. And next morning he was
found dead."
The two regarded each other in silence for a few moments. A party of
guests who had been bathing came up the steps and seated themselves,
with much chattering, at a table near them. The waiter approached. Mr.
Cupples rose, and taking Trent's arm led him to a long tennis-lawn at
the side of the hotel.
"I have a reason for telling you all this," began Mr. Cupples as they
paced slowly up and down.
"Trust you for that," rejoined Trent, carefully filling his pipe again.
He lit it, smoked a little and then said: "I'll try and guess what your
reason is, if you like."
Mr. Cupples' face of solemnity relaxed into a slight smile. He said
nothing.
"You thought it possible," said Trent meditatively, "may I say you
thought it practically certain?--that I should find out for myself that
there had been something deeper than a mere conjugal tiff between the
Mandersons. You thought that my unwholesome imagination would begin at
once to play with the idea of Mrs. Manderson having something to do with
the crime. Rather than that I should lose myself in barren speculations
about this, you decided to tell me exactly how matters stood, and
incidentally to impress upon me, who know how excellent your judgment
is, your opinion of your niece. Is that about right?"
"It is perfectly right. Listen to me, my dear fellow," said Mr. Cupples
earnestly, laying his hand on the other's arm. "I am going to be very
frank. I am extremely glad that Manderson is dead. I believe him to have
done nothing but harm in the world as an economic factor. I know that he
was making a desert of the life of one who was like my own child to me.
But I am under an intolerable dread of Mabel being involved in suspicion
with regard to the murder. It is horrible to me to think of her delicacy
and goodness being in contact, if only for a time, with the brutalities
of the law. She is not fitted for it. It would mark her deeply. Many
young women of twenty-five in these days could face such an ordeal, I
suppose. I have observed a sort of imitative hardness about the products
of the higher education of women to-day which would carry them through
anything, perhaps. I am not prepared to say it is a bad thing in the
conditions of feminine life prevailing at present. Mabel, however, is
not like that. She is as unlike that as she is unlike the simpering
misses that used to surround me as a child. She has plenty of brains;
she is full of character; her mind and her tastes are cultivated; but it
is all mixed up"--Mr. Cupples waved his hands in a vague gesture--"with
ideals of refinement and reservation and womanly mystery. I fear she is
not a child of the age. You never knew my wife, Trent. Mabel is my
wife's child."
The younger man bowed his head. They paced the length of the lawn before
he asked gently: "Why did she marry him?"
"I don't know," said Mr. Cupples briefly.
"Admired him, I suppose," suggested Trent.
Mr. Cupples shrugged his shoulders. "I have been told that a woman will
usually be more or less attracted by the most successful man in her
circle. Of course we cannot realize how a wilful, dominating personality
like his would influence a girl whose affections were not bestowed
elsewhere; especially if he laid himself out to win her. It is probably
an overwhelming thing to be courted by a man whose name is known all
over the world. She had heard of him, of course, as a financial great
power, and she had no idea--she had lived mostly among people of
artistic or literary propensities--how much soulless inhumanity that
might involve. For all I know, she has no adequate idea of it to this
day. When I first heard of the affair the mischief was done, and I knew
better than to interpose my unsought opinions. She was of age, and there
was absolutely nothing against him from the conventional point of view.
Then I dare say his immense wealth would cast a spell over almost any
woman. Mabel had some hundreds a year of her own; just enough, perhaps,
to let her realize what millions really meant. But all this is
conjecture. She certainly had not wanted to marry some scores of young
fellows who, to my knowledge, had asked her; and though I don't believe,
and never did believe, that she really loved this man of forty-five, she
certainly did want to marry him. But if you ask me why, I can only say I
don't know."
Trent nodded, and after a few more paces looked at his watch. "You've
interested me so much," he said, "that I had quite forgotten my main
business. I mustn't waste my morning. I am going down the road to White
Gables at once, and I dare say I shall be poking about there until
mid-day. If you can meet me then, Cupples, I should like to talk over
anything I find out with you, unless something detains me."
"I am going for a walk this morning," Mr. Cupples replied. "I meant to
have luncheon at a little inn near the golf-course, the Three Tuns. You
had better join me there. It's further along the road, about a quarter
of a mile beyond White Gables. You can just see the roof between those
two trees. The food they give one there is very plain, but good."
"So long as they have a cask of beer," said Trent, "they are all right.
We will have bread and cheese, and oh, may Heaven our simple lives
prevent from luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Till then, good-by." He
strode off to recover his hat from the veranda, waved it to Mr. Cupples,
and was gone.
The old gentleman, seating himself in a deck-chair on the lawn, clasped
his hands behind his head and gazed up into the speckless blue sky. "He
is a dear fellow," he murmured. "The best of fellows. And a terribly
acute fellow. Dear me! How curious it all is!"