“And that was the last you saw and heard of him alive?”
“No, sir. A little later, at half-past eleven, when I had settled down in my pantry with the door ajar, and a book to pass the time, I heard Mr. Manderson go upstairs to bed. I immediately went to close the library window, and slipped the lock of the front door. I did not hear anything more.”
Trent considered. “I suppose you didn’t doze at all,” he said tentatively, “while you were sitting up waiting for the telephone message?”
“Oh no, sir. I am always very wakeful about that time. I’m a bad sleeper, especially in the neighbourhood of the sea, and I generally read in bed until somewhere about midnight.”
“And did any message come?”
“No, sir.”
“No. And I suppose you sleep with your window open, these warm nights?”
“It is never closed at night, sir.”
Trent added a last note; then he looked thoughtfully through those he had taken. He rose and paced up and down the room for some moments with a downcast eye. At length he paused opposite Martin.
“It all seems perfectly ordinary and simple,” he said. “I just want to get a few details clear. You went to shut the windows in the library before going to bed. Which windows?”
“The French window, sir. It had been open all day. The windows opposite the door were seldom opened.”
“And what about the curtains? I am wondering whether anyone outside the house could have seen into the room.”
“Easily, sir, I should say, if he had got into the grounds on that side. The curtains were never drawn in the hot weather. Mr. Manderson would often sit right in the doorway at nights, smoking and looking out into the darkness. But nobody could have seen him who had any business to be there.”
“I see. And now tell me this. Your hearing is very acute, you say, and you heard Mr. Manderson enter the house when he came in after dinner from the garden. Did you hear him re-enter it after returning from the motor drive?”
Martin paused. “Now you mention it, sir, I remember that I did not. His ringing the bell in this room was the first I knew of his being back. I should have heard him come in, if he had come in by the front. I should have heard the door go. But he must have come in by the window.” The man reflected for a moment, then added, “As a general rule, Mr. Manderson would come in by the front, hang up his hat and coat in the hall, and pass down the hall into the study. It seems likely to me that he was in a great hurry to use the telephone, and so went straight across the lawn to the window. He was like that, sir, when there was anything important to be done. He had his hat on, now I remember, and had thrown his greatcoat over the end of the table. He gave his order very sharp, too, as he always did when busy. A very precipitate man indeed was Mr. Manderson; a hustler, as they say.”
“Ah! he appeared to be busy. But didn’t you say just now that you noticed nothing unusual about him?”
A melancholy smile flitted momentarily over Martin’s face. “That observation shows that you did not know Mr. Manderson, sir, if you will pardon my saying so. His being like that was nothing unusual; quite the contrary. It took me long enough to get used to it. Either he would be sitting quite still and smoking a cigar, thinking or reading, or else he would be writing, dictating, and sending off wires all at the same time, till it almost made one dizzy to see it, sometimes for an hour or more at a stretch. As for being in a hurry over a telephone message, I may say it wasn’t in him to be anything else.”
Trent turned to the inspector, who met his eye with a look of answering intelligence. Not sorry to show his understanding of the line of inquiry opened by Trent, Mr. Murch for the first time put a question.
“Then you left him telephoning by the open window, with the lights on, and the drinks on the table; is that it?”
“That is so, Mr. Murch.” The delicacy of the change in Martin’s manner when called upon to answer the detective momentarily distracted Trent’s appreciative mind. But the big man’s next question brought it back to the problem at once.
“About those drinks. You say Mr. Manderson often took no whisky before going to bed. Did he have any that night?”
“I could not say. The room was put to rights in the morning by one of the maids, and the glass washed, I presume, as usual. I know that the decanter was nearly full that evening. I had refilled it a few days before, and I glanced at it when I brought the fresh syphon, just out of habit, to make sure there was a decent-looking amount.”
The inspector went to the tall corner-cupboard and opened it. He took out a decanter of cut glass and set it on the table before Martin. “Was it fuller than that?” he asked quietly. “That’s how I found it this morning.” The decanter was more than half empty.
For the first time Martin’s self-possession wavered. He took up the decanter quickly, tilted it before his eyes, and then stared amazedly at the others. He said slowly: “There’s not much short of half a bottle gone out of this since I last set eyes on it—and that was that Sunday night.”
“Nobody in the house, I suppose?” suggested Trent discreetly.
“Out of the question!” replied Martin briefly; then
