The Woman in Black | Page 8

before the hotel. "Who is
this?" he inquired of the waiter. "Id is der manager," said the young
man listlessly. "He have been to meed a gendleman by der train."
The car drew up and the porter hurried from the entrance. Mr. Cupples
uttered an exclamation of pleasure as a long, loosely-built man, much
younger than himself, stepped from the car and mounted the veranda,
flinging his hat on a chair. His high-boned Quixotic face wore a
pleasant smile, his rough tweed clothes, his hair and short mustache
were tolerably untidy.
"Cupples, by all that's miraculous!" cried the man, pouncing upon Mr.
Cupples before he could rise, and seizing his outstretched hand in a
hard grip. "My luck is serving me to-day," the newcomer went on
spasmodically. "This is the second slice within an hour. How are you,
my best of friends? And why are you here? Why sit'st thou by that
ruined breakfast? Dost thou its former pride recall, or ponder how it
passed away? I am glad to see you!"
"I was half expecting you, Trent," Mr. Cupples replied, his face
wreathed in smiles. "You are looking splendid, my dear fellow. I will
tell you all about it. But you cannot have had your own breakfast yet.
Will you have it at my table here?"
"Rather!" said the man. "An enormous great breakfast, too--with
refined conversation and tears of recognition never dry. Will you get
young Siegfried to lay a place for me while I go and wash? I sha'n't be
three minutes." He disappeared into the hotel, and Mr. Cupples, after a
moment's thought, went to the telephone in the porter's office.
He returned to find his friend already seated, pouring out tea, and
showing an unaffected interest in the choice of food. "I expect this to be
a hard day for me," he said, with the curious jerky utterance which
seemed to be his habit. "I sha'n't eat again till the evening, very likely.
You guess why I'm here, don't you?"
"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Cupples. "You have come down to write

about the murder."
"That is rather a colorless way of stating it," Trent replied, as he
dissected a sole. "I should prefer to put it that I have come down in the
character of avenger of blood, to hunt down the guilty and vindicate the
honor of society. That is my line of business. Families waited on at
their private residences. I say, Cupples, I have made a good beginning
already. Wait a bit, and I'll tell you." There was a silence, during which
the newcomer ate swiftly and abstractedly, while Mr. Cupples looked
on happily.
"Your manager here," said the tall man at last, "is a fellow of
remarkable judgment. He is an admirer of mine. He knows more about
my best cases than I do myself. The Record wired last night to say I
was coming, and when I got out of the train at seven o'clock this
morning, there he was waiting for me with a motor-car the size of a
haystack. He is beside himself with joy at having me here. It is fame."
He drank a cup of tea and continued: "Almost his first words were to
ask me if I would like to see the body of the murdered man--if so, he
thought he could manage it for me. He is as keen as a razor. The body
lies in Dr. Stock's surgery, you know, down in the village, exactly as it
was when found. It's to be post-mortem'd this morning, by the way, so I
was only just in time. Well, he ran me down here to the doctor's, giving
me full particulars about the case all the way. I was pretty well au fait
by the time we arrived. I suppose the manager of a place like this has
some sort of a pull with the doctor. Anyhow, he made no difficulties,
nor did the constable on duty, though he was careful to insist on my not
giving him away in the paper."
"I saw the body before it was removed," remarked Mr. Cupples. "I
should not have said there was anything remarkable about it, except
that the shot in the eye had scarcely disfigured the face at all, and
caused scarcely any effusion of blood, apparently. The wrists were
scratched and bruised. I expect that, with your trained faculties, you
were able to remark other details of a suggestive nature."
"Other details, certainly; but I don't know that they suggest anything.
They are merely odd. Take the wrists, for instance. How is it you could

see bruises and scratches on them? I dare say you saw something of
Manderson down here before the murder?"
"Certainly," Mr. Cupples said.
"Well, did you ever see his wrists?"
Mr. Cupples reflected.