“I tried it. As soon as I found it I went up and fitted it to the lock. I knew where I had left the thing. So do you, I think, Mr. Trent. Don’t you?” There was a faint shade of mockery in Marlowe’s voice.
“Touché,” Trent said, with a dry smile. “I found a large empty letter-case with a burst lock lying with other odds and ends on the dressing-table in Manderson’s room. Your statement is that you put it there. I could make nothing of it.” He closed his lips.
“There was no reason for hiding it,” said Marlowe. “But to get back to my story. I burst the lock of the strap. I opened the case before one of the lamps of the car. The first thing I found in it I ought to have expected, of course, but I hadn’t.” He paused and glanced at Trent.
“It was—” began Trent mechanically, and then stopped himself. “Try not to bring me in any more, if you don’t mind,” he said, meeting the other’s eye. “I have complimented you already in that document on your cleverness. You need not prove it by making the judge help you out with your evidence.”
“All right,” agreed Marlowe. “I couldn’t resist just that much. If you had been in my place you would have known before I did that Manderson’s little pocket-case was there. As soon as I saw it, of course, I remembered his not having had it about him when I asked for money, and his surprising anger. He had made a false step. He had already fastened his notecase up with the rest of what was to figure as my plunder, and placed it in my hands. I opened it. It contained a few notes as usual, I didn’t count them.
“Tucked into the flaps of the big case in packets were the other notes, just as I had brought them from London. And with them were two small wash-leather bags, the look of which I knew well. My heart jumped sickeningly again, for this, too, was utterly unexpected. In those bags Manderson kept the diamonds in which he had been investing for some time past. I didn’t open them; I could feel the tiny stones shifting under the pressure of my fingers. How many thousands of pounds’ worth there were there I have no idea. We had regarded Manderson’s diamond-buying as merely a speculative fad. I believe now that it was the earliest movement in the scheme for my ruin. For anyone like myself to be represented as having robbed him, there ought to be a strong inducement shown. That had been provided with a vengeance.
“Now, I thought, I have the whole thing plain, and I must act. I saw instantly what I must do. I had left Manderson about a mile from the house. It would take him twenty minutes, fifteen if he walked fast, to get back to the house, where he would, of course, immediately tell his story of robbery, and probably telephone at once to the police in Bishopsbridge. I had left him only five or six minutes ago; for all that I have just told you was as quick thinking as I ever did. It would be easy to overtake him in the car before he neared the house. There would be an awkward interview. I set my teeth as I thought of it, and all my fears vanished as I began to savour the gratification of telling him my opinion of him. There are probably few people who ever positively looked forward to an awkward interview with Manderson; but I was mad with rage. My honour and my liberty had been plotted against with detestable treachery. I did not consider what would follow the interview. That would arrange itself.
“I had started and turned the car, I was already going fast toward White Gables, when I heard the sound of a shot in front of me, to the right.
“Instantly I stopped the car. My first wild thought was that Manderson was shooting at me. Then I realized that the noise had not been close at hand. I could see nobody on the road, though the moonlight flooded it. I had left Manderson at a spot just round the corner that was now about a hundred yards ahead of me. After half a minute or so, I started again, and turned the corner at a slow pace. Then I stopped again with a jar, and for a moment I sat perfectly still.
“Manderson lay dead a few steps from me on the turf within the gate, clearly visible to me in the moonlight.”
Marlowe made another pause, and Trent, with a puckered brow, enquired, “On the golf-course?”
“Obviously,” remarked Mr. Cupples. “The eighth green is just there.” He had grown more and more interested as Marlowe went on, and was now playing feverishly with his thin beard.
“On the green, quite close to the flag,” said Marlowe. “He lay on his back, his arms were stretched abroad, his jacket and heavy overcoat were open; the light shone hideously on his white face and his shirtfront; it glistened on his bared teeth and one of the eyes. The other … you saw it. The man was certainly dead. As I sat there stunned, unable for the moment to think at all, I could even see a thin dark line of blood running down from the shattered socket to the ear. Close by lay his soft black hat, and at his feet a pistol.
“I suppose it was only a few seconds that I sat helplessly staring at the body. Then I rose and moved to it with dragging feet; for now the truth had come to me at last, and I realized the fullness of my appalling danger. It was not only my liberty or my honour that the maniac had undermined. It was death that he had planned for me; death with the degradation of the scaffold. To strike me down
