me that's exactly as Manderson left it, at we don't know what o'clock
yesterday morning. Opens into Mrs. Manderson's bedroom--not much of the cell
about that, I can tell you. I should say the lady was as fond of pretty things
as most. But she cleared out of it on the morning of the discovery--told the
maid she could never sleep in a room opening into her murdered husband's room.
Very natural feeling in a woman, Mr. Trent. She's camping out, so to say, in
one of the spare bedrooms now.'

'Come, my friend,' Trent was saying to himself, as he made a few notes in his
little book. 'Have you got your eye on Mrs. Manderson? Or haven't you? I know
that colourless tone of the inspectorial voice. I wish I had seen her. Either
you've got something against her and you don't want me to get hold of it; or
else you've made up your mind she's innocent, but have no objection to my
wasting my time over her. Well, it's all in the game; which begins to look
extremely interesting as we go on.' To Mr. Murch he said aloud: 'Well, I'll
draw the bedroom later on. What about this?'

'They call it the library,' said the inspector. 'Manderson used to do his
writing and that in here; passed most of the time he spent indoors here. Since
he and his wife ceased to hit it off together, he had taken to spending his
evenings alone, and when at this house he always spent 'em in here. He was
last seen alive, as far as the servants are concerned, in this room.'

Trent rose and glanced again through the papers set out on the table.
'Business letters and documents, mostly,' said Mr. Murch. 'Reports,
prospectuses, and that. A few letters on private matters, noth-in4g in them
that I can see. The American secretary--Bunner his name is, and a queerer card
I never saw turned-- he's been through this desk with me this morning. He had
got it into his head that Manderson had been receiving threatening letters,
and that the murder was the outcome of that. But there's no trace of any such