“Then,” said Trent, who had followed this with earnest attention, “we are forced back on two other possibilities, which I had not thought worth much consideration until this moment. Accepting what you say, he might still conceivably have killed in self-defence; or he might have done so by accident.”
The lady nodded. “Of course I thought of those two explanations when I read your manuscript.”
“And I suppose you felt, as I did myself, that in either of those cases the natural thing, and obviously the safest thing, for him to do was to make a public statement of the truth, instead of setting up a series of deceptions which would certainly stamp him as guilty in the eyes of the law, if anything went wrong with them.”
“Yes,” she said wearily, “I thought over all that until my head ached. And I thought somebody else might have done it, and that he was somehow screening the guilty person. But that seemed wild. I could see no light in the mystery, and after a while I simply let it alone. All I was clear about was that Mr. Marlowe was not a murderer, and that if I told what you had found out, the judge and jury would probably think he was. I promised myself that I would speak to you about it if we should meet again; and now I’ve kept my promise.”
Trent, his chin resting on his hand, was staring at the carpet. The excitement of the hunt for the truth was steadily rising in him. He had not in his own mind accepted Mrs. Manderson’s account of Marlowe’s character as unquestionable. But she had spoken forcibly; he could by no means set it aside, and his theory was much shaken.
“There is only one thing for it,” he said, looking up. “I must see Marlowe. It worries me too much to have the thing left like this. I will get at the truth. Can you tell me,” he broke off, “how he behaved after the day I left White Gables?”
“I never saw him after that,” said Mrs. Manderson simply. “For some days after you went away I was ill, and didn’t go out of my room. When I got down he had left and was in London, settling things with the lawyers. He did not come down to the funeral. Immediately after that I went abroad. After some weeks a letter from him reached me, saying he had concluded his business and given the solicitors all the assistance in his power. He thanked me very nicely for what he called all my kindness, and said goodbye. There was nothing in it about his plans for the future, and I thought it particularly strange that he said not a word about my husband’s death. I didn’t answer. Knowing what I knew, I couldn’t. In those days I shuddered whenever I thought of that masquerade in the night. I never wanted to see or hear of him again.”