acteristic of him that his name
was almost the only detail of his personality known to the public. He
had imposed absolute silence about himself upon the Molloy papers; and
the others were not going to advertise one of Sir James's men.

The Manderson case, he told himself as he walked rapidly up the sloping
road to White Gables, might turn out to be terribly simple. Cupples was
a wise old boy, but it was probably impossible for him to have an
impartial opinion about his niece. Yet it was true that the manager of
the hotel, who had spoken of her beauty in terms that aroused his
attention, had spoken even more emphatically of her goodness. Not an
artist in words, the manager had yet conveyed a very definite idea to
Trent's mind. "There isn't a child about here that don't brighten up at
the sound of her voice," he had said, "nor yet a grown-up, for the
matter of that. Everybody used to look forward to her coming over in the
summer. I don't mean that she's one of those women that are all kind
heart and nothing else. There's backbone with it, if you know what I
mean--pluck--any amount of go. There's nobody in Marlstone that isn't
sorry for the lady in her trouble--not but what some of us may think
she's lucky at the last of it." Trent wanted very much to meet Mrs.
Manderson.

He could see now, beyond a spacious lawn and shrubbery, the front of the
two-storied house of dull red brick, with the pair of great gables from
which it had its name. He had had but a glimpse of it from the car that
morning. A modern house, he saw; perhaps ten years old. The place was
beautifully kept, with that air of opulent peace that clothes even the
smallest houses of the well-to-do in an English country-side. Before it,
beyond the road, the rich meadow-land ran down to the edge of the
cliffs; behind it a woody landscape stretched away across a broad vale
to the moors. That such a place could be the scene of a crime of
violence seemed fantastic; it lay so quiet and well-ordered, so eloquent
of disciplined service and gentle living. Yet there beyond the house,
and near the hedge that rose between the garden and the hot, white road,
stood the gardener's tool-shed, by which the body had been found, lying
tumbled against the wooden wall.

Trent walked past the gate of the drive and along the road until he was
opposite this shed. Some forty yards further along, the road turned
sharply away from the house, to run between thick plantations; and just
b