Page:Bentley- Trent's Last Case (Nelson, nd).djvu/45

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BREAKFAST.
37

cuffs down. That was why you saw his wrists.'

'Well, I call that suggestive,' observed Mr. Cupples mildly. 'You might infer, perhaps, that when he got up he hurried over his dressing.'

'Yes, but did he? The manager said just what you say. "He was always a bit of a swell in his dress," he told me, and he drew the inference that when Manderson got up in that mysterious way, before the house was stirring, and went out into the grounds, he was in a great hurry. "Look at his shoes," he said to me: "Mr. Manderson was always specially neat about his footwear. But those shoe-laces were tied in a hurry." I agreed. "And he left his false teeth in his room," said the manager. "Doesn't that prove he was flustered and hurried?" I allowed that it looked like it. But I said, "Look here: if he was so very much pressed, why did he part his hair so carefully? That parting is a work of art. Why did he put on so much? for he had on a complete outfit of underclothing, studs in his shirt, sock-suspenders, a watch and chain, money and keys and things in his pockets." That's