“Same man, you see,” Trent said with a short laugh. “I felt that it must be so, and now I know.” He walked to the window and looked out. “Now I know,” he repeated in a low voice, as if to himself. His tone was bitter. Mr. Cupples, understanding nothing, stared at his motionless back for a few moments.
“I am still completely in the dark,” he ventured presently. “I have often heard of this fingerprint business, and wondered how the police went to work about it. It is of extraordinary interest to me, but upon my life I cannot see how in this case Manderson’s fingerprints are going—”
“I am very sorry, Cupples,” Trent broke in upon his meditative speech with a swift return to the table. “When I began this investigation I meant to take you with me every step of the way. You mustn’t think I have any doubts about your discretion if I say now that I must hold my tongue about the whole thing, at least for a time. I will tell you this: I have come upon a fact that looks too much like having very painful consequences if it is discovered by anyone else.” He looked at the other with a hard and darkened face, and struck the table with his hand. “It is terrible for me here and now. Up to this moment I was hoping against hope that I was wrong about the fact. I may still be wrong in the surmise that I base upon that fact. There is only one way of finding out that is open to me, and I must nerve myself to take it.” He smiled suddenly at Mr. Cupples’s face of consternation. “All right—I’m not going to be tragic any more, and I’ll tell you all about it when I can. Look here, I’m not half through my game with the powder-bottles yet.”
He drew one of the defamed chairs to the table and sat down to test the broad ivory blade of the paper knife. Mr. Cupples, swallowing his amazement, bent forward in an attitude of deep interest and handed Trent the bottle of lampblack.
X
The Wife of Dives
Mrs. Manderson stood at the window of her sitting-room at White Gables gazing out upon a wavering landscape of fine rain and mist. The weather had broken as it seldom does in that part in June. White wreathings drifted up the fields from the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken grey deadness shedding pinpoint moisture that was now and then blown against the panes with a crepitation of despair. The lady looked out on the dim and chilling prospect with a woeful face. It was a bad day for a woman bereaved, alone, and without a purpose in life.
There was a knock, and she called “Come in,” drawing herself up with an unconscious gesture that always came when she realized that the weariness of the world had been gaining upon her spirit. Mr. Trent had called, the maid said; he apologized for coming at such an early hour, but hoped that Mrs. Manderson would see him on a matter of urgent importance. Mrs. Manderson would see Mr. Trent. She walked to a mirror, looked into the olive face she saw reflected there, shook her head at herself with the flicker of a grimace, and turned to the door as Trent was shown in.
His appearance, she noted, was changed. He had the jaded look of the sleepless, and a new and reserved expression, in which her quick sensibilities felt something not propitious, took the place of his half smile of fixed good-humour.
“May I come to the point at once?” he said, when she had given him her hand. “There is a train I ought to catch at Bishopsbridge at twelve o’clock, but I cannot go until I have settled this thing, which concerns you only, Mrs. Manderson. I have been working half the night and thinking the rest; and I know now what I ought to do.”
“You look wretchedly tired,” she said kindly. “Won’t you sit down? This is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible business and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can properly tell you, Mr. Trent. I know that you won’t make it worse for me than you can help in doing your duty here. If you say you must see me about something, I know it must be because, as you say, you ought to do it.”
“Mrs. Manderson,” said Trent, slowly measuring his words, “I won’t make it worse for you than I can help. But I am bound to make it bad for you—only between ourselves, I hope. As to whether you can properly tell me what I shall ask you, you will decide that; but I tell you this on my word of honour: I shall ask you only as much as will decide me whether to publish or to withhold certain grave things that I have found out about your husband’s death, things not suspected by anyone else, nor, I think, likely to be so. What I have discovered—what I believe that I have practically proved—will be a great shock to you in any case. But it may be worse for you than that; and if you give me reason to think it would be so, then I shall
