Trent’s Last Case

when the car started, and a time somewhere about eleven, Manderson was shot⁠—probably at a considerable distance from the house, as no shot was heard; that the body was brought back, left by the shed, and stripped of its outer clothing; that at some time round about eleven o’clock a man who was not Manderson, wearing Manderson’s shoes, hat, and jacket, entered the library by the garden window; that he had with him Manderson’s black trousers, waistcoat, and motor-coat, the denture taken from Manderson’s mouth, and the weapon with which he had been murdered; that he concealed these, rang the bell for the butler, and sat down at the telephone with his hat on and his back to the door; that he was occupied with the telephone all the time Martin was in the room; that on going up to the bedroom floor he quietly entered Marlowe’s room and placed the revolver with which the crime had been committed⁠—Marlowe’s revolver⁠—in the case on the mantelpiece from which it had been taken; and that he then went to Manderson’s room, placed Manderson’s shoes outside the door, threw Manderson’s garments on a chair, placed the denture in the bowl by the bedside, and selected a suit of clothes, a pair of shoes, and a tie from those in the bedroom.

Here I will pause in my statement of this man’s proceedings to go into a question for which the way is now sufficiently prepared:

Who was the false Manderson?

Reviewing what was known to me, or might almost with certainty be surmised, about that person, I set down the following five conclusions:

1. He had been in close relations with the dead man. In his acting before Martin and his speaking to Mrs. Manderson he had made no mistake.

2. He was of a build not unlike Manderson’s, especially as to height and breadth of shoulder, which mainly determine the character of the back of a seated figure when the head is concealed and the body loosely clothed. But his feet were larger, though not greatly larger, than Manderson’s.

3. He had considerable aptitude for mimicry and acting⁠—probably some experience too.

4. He had a minute acquaintance with the ways of the Manderson household.

5. He was under a vital necessity of creating the belief that Manderson was alive and in that house until some time after midnight on the Sunday night.

So much I took as either certain or next door to it. It was as far as I could see. And it was far enough.

I proceed to give, in an order corresponding with the numbered paragraphs above, such relevant facts as I was able to obtain about Mr. John Marlowe, from himself and other sources:

1. He had been Mr. Manderson’s private secretary, upon a footing of great intimacy, for nearly four years.

2. The two men were nearly of the same height, about five feet eleven inches; both were powerfully built and heavy in the shoulder. Marlowe, who was the younger by some twenty years, was rather slighter about the body, though Manderson was a man in good physical condition. Marlowe’s shoes (of which I examined several pairs) were roughly about one shoemaker’s size longer and broader than Manderson’s.

3. In the afternoon of the first day of my investigation, after arriving at the results already detailed, I sent a telegram to a personal friend, a Fellow of a college at Oxford, whom I knew to be interested in theatrical matters, in these terms:

   Please wire John Marlowe’s record in connection with acting at Oxford some time past decade very urgent and confidential.

   My friend replied in the following telegram, which reached me next morning (the morning of the inquest):

   Marlowe was member O.U.D.S for three years and president 19⁠—played Bardolph Cleon and Mercutio excelled in character acting and imitations in great demand at smokers was hero of some historic hoaxes.

   I had been led to send the telegram which brought this very helpful answer by seeing on the mantelshelf in Marlowe’s bedroom a photograph of himself and two others in the costume of Falstaff’s three followers, with an inscription from The Merry Wives, and by noting that it bore the imprint of an Oxford firm of photographers.

4. During his connection with Manderson, Marlowe had lived as one of the family. No other person, apart from the servants, had his opportunities for knowing the domestic life of the Mandersons in detail.

5. I ascertained beyond doubt that Marlowe arrived at a hotel in Southampton on the Monday morning at 6:30, and there proceeded to carry out the commission which, according to his story, and according to the statement made to Mrs. Manderson in the bedroom by the false Manderson, had been entrusted to him by his employer. He had then returned in the car to Marlstone, where he had shown great amazement and horror at the news of the murder.

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These, I say, are the relevant facts about Marlowe. We must now examine fact number 5 (as set out above) in connection with conclusion number 5 about the false Manderson.

I would first draw attention to one important fact. The only person who professed to have heard Manderson mention Southampton at all before he started in the car was Marlowe. His story⁠—confirmed to some extent by what the butler overheard⁠—was that the journey was all arranged in a private talk before they set out, and he could not say, when I put the question to him, why Manderson should have concealed his intentions by giving out that he was going with Marlowe for a moonlight drive. This point, however, attracted no attention. Marlowe had an absolutely airtight alibi in his presence at Southampton by 6:30; nobody thought of him in connection with a murder which must have been committed after 12:30⁠—the hour at which Martin the butler had gone to bed. But it was the Manderson who came back from the drive who went out of his way to mention Southampton openly to two persons. He even went so far as to ring up a hotel at Southampton and ask questions which bore out Marlowe’s story of