Page:Bentley- Trent's Last Case (Nelson, nd).djvu/378

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370
TRENT'S LAST CASE.

gate that is just by the eighth hole on the golf-course. Then I turned in there, meaning to walk along the turf to the edge of the cliff, and go back that way. I had only gone a few steps when I heard the car coming, and then I heard it stop near the gate. I saw Manderson at once. Do you remember my telling you I had seen him once alive after our quarrel in front of the hotel? Well, this was the time. You asked me if I had, and I did not care to tell a falsehood.'

A slight groan came from Trent. He drank a little wine, and said stonily, 'Go on, please.'

'It was, as you know,' pursued Mr. Cupples, 'a moonlight night, but I was in shadow under the trees by the stone wall, and anyhow they could not suppose there was any one near them. I heard all that passed just as Marlowe has narrated it to us, and I saw the car go off towards Bishopsbridge. I did not see Manderson's face as it went, because his back was to me, but he shook the back of his left hand at the car with extraordinary violence, greatly to my amazement. Then I waited for him to go back to White Gables, as I did not want to meet him again. But he did not go. He opened the gate through which I had just passed, and he stood there on