The Woman in Black

  CHAPTER X

  "HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED"

  (_Being the report which was not sent to the Record._)

  _Marlstone, June 16th._

  My Dear Molloy: This is in case I don't find you at your office. I have found out who killed Manderson, as this despatch will show. That was my problem; yours is to decide what use to make of it. It definitely charges an unsuspected person with having a hand in the crime, and practically accuses him of being the murderer, so I don't suppose you will publish it before his arrest, and I believe it is illegal to do so afterwards until he has been tried and found guilty. You may decide to publish it then; and you may find it possible to make some use or other before then of the facts I have given. That is your affair. Meanwhile, will you communicate with Scotland Yard, and let them see what I have written? I have done with the Manderson mystery, and I wish to God I had never touched it. Here follows my despatch.

  P. T.

  I begin this, my third and probably my final despatch to the _Record_upon the Manderson murder, with conflicting feelings. I have a strongsense of relief, because in my two previous despatches I was obliged, inthe interests of justice, to withhold facts ascertained by me whichwould, if published then, have put a certain person upon his guard andpossibly have led to his escape; for he is a man of no common boldnessand resource. Those facts I shall now set forth. But I have, I confess,no liking for the story of treachery and perverted cleverness which Ihave to tell. It leaves an evil taste in the mouth, a savor of somethingrevolting in the deeper puzzle of motive underlying the puzzle of thecrime itself, which I believe I have solved.

  It will be remembered that in my first despatch I described thesituation as I found it on reaching this place early on Tuesday morning.I told how the body was found, and in what state; dwelt upon thecomplete mystery surrounding the crime and mentioned one or two localtheories about it; gave some account of the dead man's domesticsurroundings; and furnished a somewhat detailed description of hismovements on the evening before his death. I gave, too, a little factwhich may or may not have seemed irrelevant: that a quantity of whiskymuch larger than Manderson habitually drank at night had disappearedfrom his private decanter since the last time he was seen alive. On thefollowing day, the day of the inquest, I wired little more than anabstract of the proceedings in the coroner's court, of which a verbatimreport was made at my request by other representatives of the _Record_;and it will be remembered that the police evidence showed that tworevolvers, with either of which the crime might have been committed, hadbeen found--one in Manderson's bureau and the other in the room of thesecretary, Marlowe; but that no importance could be attached to this, asthe weapons were of an extremely popular make. I write these lines inthe last hours of the same day; and I have now completed aninvestigation which has led me directly to the man who must be calledupon to clear himself of the guilt of the death of Manderson.

  Apart from the central mystery of Manderson's having arisen long beforehis usual hour to go out and meet his death, there were two minor pointsof oddity about this affair which, I suppose, must have occurred tothousands of those who have read the accounts in the newspapers; pointsapparent from the very beginning. The first of these was that, whereasthe body was found at a spot not thirty yards from the house, all thepeople of the house declared that they had heard no cry or other noisein the night. Manderson had not been gagged; the marks on his wristspointed to a struggle with his assailant; and there had been at leastone pistol-shot. (I say at least one, because it is the fact that inmurders with firearms, especially if there has been a struggle, thecriminal commonly misses his victim at least once.) This odd fact seemedall the more odd to me when I learned that Martin, the butler, was a badsleeper, very keen of hearing, and that his bedroom, with the windowopen, faced almost directly toward the shed by which the body was found.

  The second odd little fact that was apparent from the outset wasManderson's leaving his dental plate by the bedside. It appeared that hehad risen and dressed himself fully, down to his necktie and watch andchain, and had gone out-of-doors without remembering to put in thisplate, which he had carried in his mouth every day for years, and whichcontained all the visible teeth of the upper jaw. It had evidently notbeen a case of frantic hurry; and even if it had been, he would havebeen more likely to forget almost anything than this denture. Any onewho wears such a removable plate will agree that the putting it in onrising is a matter of second nature. Speaking as well as eating, to saynothing of appearances, depend upon it.

  Neither of these queer details, however, seemed to lead to anything atthe moment. They only awakened in me a suspicion of something lurking inthe shadows, something that lent more mystery to the already mysteriousquestion how and why and through whom Manderson met his end.

  With this much of preamble I come at once to the discovery which, in thefirst few hours of my investigation, set me upon the path which so muchingenuity had been directed to concealing.

  I have already described Manderson's bedroom, the rigorous simplicity ofits furnishings, contrasted so strangely with the multitude of clothesand shoes, and the manner of its communication with Mrs. Manderson'sroom. On the upper of the two long shelves on which the shoes wereranged I found, where I had been told I should find them, the pair ofpatent leather shoes which Manderson had worn on the evening before hisdeath. I had glanced over the row, not with any idea of their giving mea clue, but merely because it happens that I am a judge of shoes, andall these shoes were of the very best workmanship.

  But my attention was at once caught by a little peculiarity in thisparticular pair. They were the lightest kind of lace-up dress shoes,very thin in the sole, without toe-caps, and beautifully made, like allthe rest. These shoes were old and well-worn; but being carefullypolished and fitted, as all the shoes were, upon their trees, theylooked neat enough. What caught my eye was a slight splitting of theleather in that part of the upper known as the vamp, a splitting at thepoint where the two laced parts of the shoe rise from the upper. It isat this point that the strain comes when a tight shoe of this sort isforced upon the foot, and it is usually guarded with a strong stitchingacross the bottom of the opening. In both the shoes I was examining thisstitching had parted, and the leather below had given way. The splittingwas a tiny affair in each case, not an eighth of an inch long, and thetorn edges having come together again on the removal of the strain,there was nothing that a person who was not something of a connoisseurof shoe-leather would have noticed. Even less noticeable, and indeed notto be seen at all unless one were looking for it, was a slight strainingof the stitches uniting the upper to the sole. At the toe and on theouter side of each shoe this stitching had been dragged until it wasvisible on a close inspection of the joining.

  These indications, of course, could mean only one thing. The shoes hadbeen worn by someone for whom they were too small.

  Now it was clear at a glance that Manderson was always thoroughly wellshod and careful, perhaps a little vain, of his small and narrow feet.Not one of the other shoes in the collection, as I soon ascertained,bore similar marks; they had not belonged to a man who squeezed himselfinto tight shoe-leather. Someone who was not Manderson had worn theseshoes, and worn them recently; the edges of the tears were quite fresh.

  The possibility of someone having worn them since Manderson's death wasnot worth considering; the body had only been found about twenty-sixhours when I was examining the shoes; besides, why should any one wearthem? The possibility of someone having borrowed Manderson's shoes andspoiled them for him, while he was alive, seemed about as negligible.With others to choose from he would not have worn these. Besides, theonly men in the place were the butler and the two secretaries. But I donot say that I gave those possibilities even as much consideration asthey deserved; for my thoughts were running away with me; and I havealways found it good policy, in cases of this sort, to let them havetheir heads. Ever since I had got out of the train at Marlstone earl
ythat morning I had been steeped in details of the Manderson affair; thething had not once been out of my head. Suddenly the moment had comewhen the daemon wakes and begins to range.

  Let me put it less fancifully. After all, it is a detail of psychologyfamiliar enough to all whose business or inclination brings them incontact with difficult affairs of any sort. Swiftly and spontaneously,when chance or effort puts one in possession of the key-fact in anysystem of baffling circumstances, one's ideas seem to rush to groupthemselves anew in relation to that fact, so that they are suddenlyrearranged almost before one has consciously grasped the significance ofthe key-fact itself. In the present instance, my brain had scarcelyformulated within itself the thought, 'Somebody who was not Mandersonhas been wearing those shoes,' when there flew into my mind a flock ofideas, all of the same character and all bearing upon this new notion.It was unheard-of for Manderson to drink much whisky at night. It wasvery unlike him to be untidily dressed, as the body was when found--thecuffs dragged up inside the sleeves, the shoes unevenly laced; veryunlike him not to wash, when he rose, and to put on last night's eveningshirt and collar and underclothing; very unlike him to have his watch inthe waistcoat pocket that was not lined with leather for its reception.(In my first despatch I mentioned all these points, but neither I norany one else saw anything significant in them, when examining the body.)It was very strange, in the existing domestic situation, that Mandersonshould be communicative to his wife about his doings, especially at thetime of his going to bed, when he seldom spoke to her at all. It wasextraordinary that Manderson should leave his bedroom without his falseteeth.

  All these thoughts, as I say, came flocking into my mind together, drawnfrom various parts of my memory of the morning's inquiries andobservations. They had all presented themselves, in far less time thanit takes to read them as set down here, as I was turning over the shoes,confirming my own certainty on the main point. And yet when I confrontedthe definite idea that had sprung up suddenly and unsupported beforeme,--_It was not Manderson who was in the house that night_--it seemed astark absurdity at the first formulating. It was certainly Manderson whohad dined at the house and gone out with Marlowe in the car. People hadseen him at close quarters. But was it he who returned at ten? Thatquestion too seemed absurd enough. But I could not set it aside. Itseemed to me as if a faint light was beginning to creep over the wholeexpanse of my mind, as it does over land at dawn, and that presently thesun would be rising. I set myself to think over, one by one, the pointsthat had just occurred to me, so as to make out, if possible, why anyman masquerading as Manderson should have done these things thatManderson would not have done.

  I had not to cast about very long for the motive a man might have inforcing his feet into Manderson's narrow shoes. The examination offootmarks is very well understood by the police. But not only was theman concerned to leave no footmarks of his own. He was concerned toleave Manderson's, if any; his whole plan, if my guess was right, musthave been directed to producing the belief that Manderson was in theplace that night. Moreover, his plan did not turn upon leavingfootmarks. He meant to leave the shoes themselves, and he did so. Themaidservant had found them outside the bedroom door, as Manderson alwaysleft his shoes, and had polished them, replacing them on theshoe-shelves later in the morning, after the body had been found.

  When I came to consider in this new light the leaving of the falseteeth, an explanation of what had seemed the maddest part of the affairbroke upon me at once. A dental plate is not inseparable from its owner.If my guess was right, the unknown had brought the denture to the housewith him, and left it in the bedroom, with the same object as he had inleaving the shoes; to make it impossible that any one should doubt thatManderson had been in the house and had gone to bed there. This, ofcourse, led me to the inference that _Manderson was dead before thefalse Manderson came to the house_; and other things confirmed this.

  For instance, the clothing, to which I now turned in my review of theposition: if my guess was right, the unknown in Manderson's shoes hadcertainly had possession of Manderson's trousers, waistcoat and shootingjacket. They were there before my eyes in the bedroom; and Martin hadseen the jacket--which nobody could have mistaken--upon the man who satat the telephone in the library. It was now quite plain (if my guess wasright) that this unmistakable garment was a cardinal feature of theunknown's plan. He knew that Martin would take him for Manderson at thefirst glance.

  And there my thinking was interrupted by the realization of a thing thathad escaped me before. So strong had been the influence of theunquestioned assumption that it was Manderson who was present thatnight, that neither I nor, so far as I know, any one else had noted thepoint. _Martin had not seen the man's face; nor had Mrs. Manderson._

  Mrs. Manderson (judging by her evidence at the inquest, of which, as Ihave said, I had a full report made by the _Record_ stenographers incourt) had not seen the man at all. She hardly could have done, as Ishall show presently. She had merely spoken with him as she lay halfasleep, resuming a conversation which she had had with her livinghusband about an hour before. Martin, I perceived, could only have seenthe man's back, as he sat crouching over the telephone; no doubt acharacteristic pose was imitated there. And the man had worn his hat,Manderson's broad-brimmed hat! There is too much character in the backof a head and neck. The unknown, in fact, supposing him to have been ofabout Manderson's build, had had no need for any disguise, apart fromthe jacket and the hat and his powers of mimicry.

  I paused there to contemplate the coolness and ingenuity of the man. Thething, I now began to see, was so safe and easy, provided that hismimicry was good enough, and that his nerve held. Those two pointsassured, only some wholly unlikely accident could unmask him.

  To come back to my puzzling out of the matter as I sat in the dead man'sbedroom with the tell-tale shoes before me:--the reason for the entranceby the window instead of by the front-door will already have occurred toany one reading this. Entering by the door, the man would almostcertainly have been heard by the sharp-eared Martin in his pantry justacross the hall; he might have met him face to face.

  Then there was the problem of the whisky. I had not attached muchimportance to it; whisky will sometimes vanish in very queer ways in ahousehold of eight or nine persons; but it had seemed strange that itshould go in that way on that evening. Martin had been plainly quitedumfounded by the fact. It seemed to me now that many a man--fresh, asthis man in all likelihood was, from a bloody business, from theunclothing of a corpse, and with a desperate part still to play--wouldturn to that decanter as to a friend. No doubt he had a drink beforesending for Martin; after making that trick with ease and success, heprobably drank more.

  But he had known when to stop. The worst part of the enterprise wasbefore him, the business--clearly of such vital importance to him, forwhatever reason--of shutting himself in Manderson's room and preparing amass of convincing evidence of its having been occupied by Manderson;and this with the risk--very slight, as no doubt he understood, but howunnerving!--of the woman on the other side of the half-open door awakingand somehow discovering him. True, if he kept out of her limited fieldof vision from the bed, she could only see him by getting up and goingto the door. I found that to a person lying in her bed, which stood withits head to the wall a little beyond the door, nothing was visiblethrough the doorway but one of the cupboards by Manderson's bed-head.Moreover, since this man knew the ways of the household, he would thinkit most likely that Mrs. Manderson was asleep. Another point with him, Iguessed, might have been the estrangement between the husband and wife,which they had tried to cloak by keeping up, among other things, theirusual practice of sleeping in connected rooms, but which was well knownto all who had anything to do with them. He would hope from this that ifMrs. Manderson heard him, she would take no notice of the supposedpresence of her husband.

  So, pursuing my hypothesis, I followed the unknown up to the bedroom,and saw him setting about his work. And it was with a catch in my ownbreath that I thought of the hid
eous shock with which he must have heardthe sound of all others he was dreading most: the drowsy voice from theadjoining room.

  What Mrs. Manderson actually said, she was unable to recollect at theinquest. She thinks she asked her supposed husband whether he had had agood run in the car. And now what does the unknown do? Here, I think, wecome to a supremely significant point. Not only does he--standing rigidthere, as I picture him, before the dressing-table, listening to thesound of his own leaping heart--not only does he answer the lady in thevoice of Manderson; he volunteers an explanatory statement. He tells herthat he has, on a sudden inspiration, sent Marlowe in the car toSouthampton; that he has sent him to bring back some importantinformation from a man leaving for Paris by the steamboat that morning.Why these details from a man who had long been uncommunicative to hiswife, and that upon a point scarcely likely to interest her? Why thesedetails _about Marlowe_?

  Having taken my story so far, I now put forward the following definitepropositions: that between a time somewhere about ten, when the carstarted, and a time somewhere about eleven, Manderson was shot--probablyat a considerable distance from the house, as no shot was heard; thatthe body was brought back, left by the shed, and stripped of its outerclothing, while the car was left in hiding somewhere at hand; that atsome time round about eleven o'clock a man who was not Manderson,wearing Manderson's shoes, hat and jacket, entered the library by thegarden-window; that he had with him Manderson's black trousers,waistcoat and motor-coat, the denture taken from Manderson's mouth, andthe 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 haton and his back to the door; that he was occupied with the telephone allthe time Martin was in the room; that on going up to the bedroom-floorhe quietly entered Marlowe's room and placed the revolver with which thecrime had been committed--Marlowe's revolver--in the case on themantel-piece from which it had been taken; and that he then went toManderson's room, placed Manderson's shoes outside the door, threwManderson's garments on a chair, placed the denture in the bowl by thebedside, and selected a suit of clothes, a pair of shoes and a tie fromthose in the bedroom.

  Here I will pause in my statement of this man's proceedings to go into aquestion for which the way is now sufficiently prepared.

  _Who was the false Manderson?_

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

  (1) He had been in close relations with the dead man. In his actingbefore 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 heightand breadth of shoulder, which mainly determine the character of theback of a seated figure when the head is concealed and the body looselyclothed. But his feet were larger, though not greatly larger, thanManderson's.

  (3) He had considerable aptitude for mimicry and acting--probably someexperience too.

  (4) He had a minute acquaintance with the ways of the Mandersonhousehold.

  (5) He was under a vital necessity of creating the belief that Mandersonwas alive and in that house until some time after midnight on the Sundaynight.

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

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

  (1) He had been Manderson's private secretary, upon a footing of greatintimacy, for nearly three years.

  (2) The two men were nearly of the same height, about five feet, eleveninches; both were powerfully built and heavy in the shoulder; Marlowe,who was the younger by some twenty years, was 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'ssize longer and broader than Manderson's.

  (3) In the afternoon of the first day of my investigation, afterarriving at the results already detailed, I sent a telegram to apersonal friend, a fellow of a college at Oxford, whom I knew to beinterested 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 nextmorning (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 helpfulanswer by seeing on the mantel-shelf in Marlowe's bedroom a photographof himself and two others in the costume of Falstaff's three followers,with an inscription from _The Merry Wives_, and by noting that it borethe imprint of an Oxford firm of photographers.

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

  (5) I ascertained beyond doubt that Marlowe arrived at a hotel inSouthampton on the Monday morning at six-thirty, and there proceeded tocarry out the commission which, according to his story, and to thestatement made to Mrs. Manderson in the bedroom by the false Manderson,had been entrusted to him by his employer. He had then returned in thecar to Marlstone, where he had shown great amazement and horror at thenews of the murder.

  * * * * *

  These, I say, are the relevant facts about Marlowe. We must now examinefact number _five_ (as set out above) in connection with conclusionnumber _five_ about the false Manderson.

  I would first draw attention to one important fact. _The only person whoprofessed to have heard Manderson mention Southampton at all before hestarted in the car was Marlowe._ His story--confirmed to some extent bywhat the butler overheard--was that the journey was all arranged in aprivate talk before they set out, and he could not say, when I put thequestion to him, why Manderson should have concealed his intentions bygiving out that he was going with Marlowe for a moonlight drive. Thispoint, however, attracted no attention. Marlowe had an absolutelyair-tight alibi in his presence at Southampton by six-thirty; nobodythought of him in connection with a murder which must have beencommitted after twelve-thirty--the hour at which Martin, the butler, hadgone to bed. But it was the Manderson who came back from the drive whowent out of his way to mention Southampton openly to two persons. _Heeven went so far as to ring up a hotel at Southampton and ask questionswhich bore out Marlowe's story of his errand._ This was the call he wasbusy with when Martin was in the library.

  Now let us consider the alibi. If Manderson was in the house that night,and if he did not leave it until some time after twelve-thirty, Marlowecould not by any possibility have had a direct hand in the murder. It isa question of the distance between Marlstone and Southampton. If he hadleft Marlstone in the car at the hour when he is supposed to have doneso--between ten and ten-thirty--with a message from Manderson, the runwould be quite an easy one to do in the time. But it would be physicallyimpossible for the car--a fifteen horse-power four-cylinderNorthumberland, an average medium-power car--to get to Southampton byhalf-past six unless it left Marlstone by midnight at latest. Motoristswho will examine the road-map and make the calculations required, as Idid in Manderson's library that day, will agree that on the facts asthey appeared there was absolutely no case against Marlowe.

  But even if they were not as they appeared; if Manderson was dead byeleven o'clock, and if at about that time Marlowe impersonated him atWhite Gables; if Marlowe retired to Manderson's bedroom--how can allthis be reconciled with his appearance next morning at Southampton? _Hehad to get out of the house, unseen and unheard, and away in the car bymidnight._ And Martin, the sharp-eared Martin, was sitting up untiltwelve-thirty in his pantry, with th
e door open, listening for thetelephone bell. Practically he was standing sentry over the foot of thestaircase, the only staircase leading down from the bedroom floor.

  With this difficulty we arrive at the last and crucial phase of myinvestigation. Having the foregoing points clearly in mind, I spent therest of the day before the inquest in talking to various persons and ingoing over my story, testing it link by link. I could only find the oneweakness which seemed to be involved in Martin's sitting up untiltwelve-thirty; and since his having been instructed to do so wascertainly a part of the plan, meant to clinch the alibi for Marlowe, Iknew there must be an explanation somewhere. If I could not find thatexplanation my theory was valueless. I must be able to show that at thetime Martin went up to bed, the man who had shut himself in Manderson'sbedroom might have been many miles away on the road to Southampton.

  I had, however, a pretty good idea already--as perhaps the reader ofthese lines has by this time, if I have made myself clear--of how theescape of the false Manderson before midnight had been contrived. But Idid not want what I was now about to do to be known. If I had chanced tobe discovered at work, there would have been no concealing the directionof my suspicions. I resolved not to test them on this point until thenext day, during the opening proceedings at the inquest. This was to beheld, I knew, at the hotel, and I reckoned upon having White Gables tomyself so far as the principal inmates were concerned.

  So in fact it happened. By the time the proceedings at the hotel hadbegun, I was hard at work at White Gables. I had a camera with me. Imade search, on principles well known to and commonly practised by thepolice, and often enough by myself, for certain indications. Withoutdescribing my search, I may say at once that I found and was able tophotograph two fresh finger-prints, very large and distinct, on thepolished front of the right-hand top drawer of the chest of drawers inManderson's bedroom; five more (among a number of smaller and lessrecent impressions made by other hands) on the glasses of the Frenchwindow in Mrs. Manderson's room, a window which always stood open atnight with a curtain before it; and three more upon the glass bowl inwhich Manderson's dental plate had been found lying.

  I took the bowl with me from White Gables. I took also a few articleswhich I selected from Marlowe's bedroom, as bearing the most distinct ofthe innumerable finger-prints which are always to be found upontoilet-articles in daily use. I already had in my possession, made uponleaves cut from my pocket diary, some excellent finger-prints ofMarlowe's, which he had made in my presence without knowing it. I hadshown him the leaves, asking if he recognized them; and the few secondsduring which he had held them in his fingers had sufficed to leaveimpressions which I was afterward able to bring out.

  By six o'clock in the evening, two hours after the jury had brought intheir verdict against a person or persons unknown, I had completed mywork, and was in a position to state that two of the five large printsmade on the window-glasses, and the three on the bowl, were made by theleft hand of Marlowe; that the remaining three on the window and the twoon the drawer were made by his right hand.

  By eight o'clock I had made at the establishment of Mr. H. T. Copper,photographer, of Bishopsbridge, and with his assistance, a dozenenlarged prints of the finger-marks of Marlowe, clearly showing theidentity of those which he unknowingly made in my presence and thoseleft upon articles in his bedroom, with those found by me as I havedescribed, and thus establishing the facts that Marlowe was recently inManderson's bedroom, where he had in the ordinary way no business, andin Mrs. Manderson's room, where he had still less. I hope it may bepossible to reproduce these prints for publication with this despatch.

  At nine o'clock I was back in my room at the hotel and sitting down tobegin this manuscript. I had my story complete.

  I bring it to a close by advancing these further propositions: that onthe night of the murder the impersonator of Manderson, being inManderson's bedroom, told Mrs. Manderson, as he had already told Martin,that Marlowe was at that moment on his way to Southampton; that havingmade his dispositions in the room, he switched off the light, and lay inthe bed in his clothes; that he waited until he was assured that Mrs.Manderson was asleep; that he then arose and stealthily crossed Mrs.Manderson's bedroom in his stocking feet, having under his arm thebundle of clothing and shoes for the body; that he stepped behind thecurtain, pushing the doors of the window a little further open with hishands, strode over the iron railing of the balcony, and let himself downuntil only a drop of a few feet separated him from the soft turf of thelawn.

  All this might very well have been accomplished within half an hour ofhis entering Manderson's bedroom, which according to Martin he did atabout half-past eleven.

  What followed your readers and the authorities may conjecture forthemselves. The corpse was found next morning clothed--rather untidily.Marlowe in the car appeared at Southampton by half-past six.

  * * * * *

  I bring this manuscript to an end in my sitting-room at the hotel atMarlstone. It is four o'clock in the morning. I leave for London by thenoon train from Bishopsbridge. By this evening these pages will be inyour hands, and I ask you to communicate the substance of them to theCriminal Investigation Department.

  PHILIP TRENT.