Trent's Last Case Book

CONTENTS. I. BAD NEWS . 11. KNOCKIN T G H E TOWNE NDWAYS . 111. BREAKFAS . T IV. HANDCUFF IN S THE AIR V. POKINGA BOUT . VI. MR. BUNNER ON THE CASE . VII. THE LADY IN BLACK . VIII. THE INQUEST . IX. A HOT SCENT . X. THE WIFE OF DIVES . XI. HITHERTOU NPUBLISHED . XII. EVIL DAYS . XIII. ERUPTION . XIV. WRITING A LETTER . XV. DOUBLEC UNNING XVI. THE LAST STRAW TRENTS LAST CASE. CHAPTER I. BAD NEWS. B ETWEEN what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered by a shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single tear it gained something memorable in a harsh reminder of the vanity of such wealth as this dead man had piled up-without making one loyal friend to mourn him, without doing an act that could help his memory to the least honour. But when the news of his end came, it seemed to those living in the great vortices of business as if the earth too shuddered under a blow. In all the lurid commercial history of his country there had been no figure that had so imposed itself upon the mind of the trading world. He had a niche apart in its temples. Financial giants, strong to direct and augment the forces of capital, and taking an approved toll in millions for their labour, had existed before but in the case of Manderson there had been this singularity, that a pale halo of piratical romance, a thing especially dear to the hearts of his countrymen, had remained incongruously about his head through the years when he stood in every eye as the unquestioned guardian of stability, the stamper-out of manipulated crises, the foe of the raiding chieftains that infest the borders of Wall Street. The fortune left by his grandfather, who had been one of those chieftains on the smaller scale of his day, had descended to him with accretion through his father, who during a long lif had quietly continued to lend money and never had margined a stock. Manderson, who had at no time known what it was to be without large sums to his hand, should have been altogether of that. newer American plutocracy which is steadied by the tradition and habit of great wealth. But it was not so. While his nurtdte and education had taught him European ideas of a rich mans proper external circumstance while they had rooted in him an instinct foj quiet magnificence the larger costliness which does not shriek of itself with a thousand tongues there had been handed on to him nevertheless much of the Forty-Niner and financial buccaneer, his forbear...Read More