“You have been so kind,” he said, “in allowing me access to the house and every opportunity of studying the case, that I am going to ask leave to put a question or two to yourself—nothing that you would rather not answer, I think. May I?”
She glanced at him wearily. “It would be stupid of me to refuse. Ask your questions, Mr. Trent.”
“It’s only this,” said Trent hurriedly. “We know that your husband lately drew an unusually large sum of ready money from his London bankers, and was keeping it here. It is here now, in fact. Have you any idea why he should have done that?”
She opened her eyes in astonishment. “I cannot imagine,” she said. “I did not know he had done so. I am very much surprised to hear it.”
“Why is it surprising?”
“I thought my husband had very little money in the house. On Sunday night, just before he went out in the motor, he came into the drawing-room where I was sitting. He seemed to be irritated about something, and asked me at once if I had any notes or gold I could let him have until next day. I was surprised at that, because he was never without money; he made it a rule to carry a hundred pounds or so about him always in a notecase. I unlocked my escritoire, and gave him all I had by me. It was nearly thirty pounds.”
“And he did not tell you why he wanted it?”
“No. He put it in his pocket, and then said that Mr. Marlowe had persuaded him to go for a run in the motor by moonlight, and he thought it might help him to sleep. He had been sleeping badly, as perhaps you know. Then he went off with Mr. Marlowe. I thought it odd he should need money on Sunday night, but I soon forgot about it. I never remembered it again until now.”
“It was curious, certainly,” said Trent, staring into the distance. Mr. Cupples began to speak to his niece of the arrangements for the inquest, and Trent moved away to where Marlowe was pacing slowly upon the lawn. The young man seemed relieved to talk about the coming business of the day. Though he still seemed tired out and nervous, he showed himself not without a quiet humour in describing the pomposities of the local police and the portentous airs of Dr. Stock. Trent turned the conversation gradually toward the problem of the crime, and all Marlowe’s gravity returned.
“Bunner has told me what he thinks,” he said when Trent referred to the American’s theory. “I don’t find myself convinced by it, because it doesn’t really explain some of the oddest facts. But I have lived long enough in the United States to know that such a stroke of revenge, done in a secret, melodramatic way, is not an unlikely thing. It is quite a characteristic feature of certain sections of the labour movement there. Americans have a taste and a talent for that sort of business. Do you know Huckleberry Finn?”
“Do I know my own name?” exclaimed Trent.
“Well, I think the most American thing in that great American epic is Tom Sawyer’s elaboration of an extremely difficult and romantic scheme, taking days to carry out, for securing the escape of the nigger Jim, which could have been managed quite easily in twenty minutes. You know how fond they are of lodges and brotherhoods. Every college club has its secret signs and handgrips. You’ve heard of the Know-Nothing movement in politics, I dare say, and the Ku Klux Klan. Then look at Brigham Young’s penny-dreadful tyranny in Utah, with real blood. The founders of the Mormon State were of the purest Yankee stock in America; and you know what they did. It’s all part of the same mental tendency. Americans make fun of it among themselves. For my part, I take it very seriously.”
“It can have a very hideous side to it, certainly,” said Trent, “when you get it in connection with crime—or with vice—or even mere luxury. But I have a sort of sneaking respect for the determination to make life interesting and lively in spite of civilization. To return to the matter in hand, however; has it struck you as a possibility that Manderson’s mind was affected to some extent by this menace that Bunner believes in? For instance, it was rather an extraordinary thing to send you posting off like that in the middle of the night.”
“About ten o’clock, to be exact,” replied Marlowe. “Though, mind you, if he’d actually roused me out of my bed at midnight I shouldn’t have been very much surprised. It all chimes in with what we’ve just been saying. Manderson had a strong streak of the national taste for dramatic proceedings. He was rather fond of his well-earned reputation for unexpected strokes and for going for his object with ruthless directness through every opposing consideration. He had decided suddenly that he wanted to have word from this man Harris—”
“Who is Harris?” interjected Trent.
“Nobody knows. Even Bunner never heard of him, and can’t imagine what the business in hand was. All I know is that when I went up to London last week to attend to various things I booked a deck-cabin, at Manderson’s request, for a Mr. George Harris on the boat that sailed on Monday. It seems that Manderson suddenly found he wanted news from Harris which presumably was of a character too secret for the telegraph; and there was no train that served; so
