• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He conferred earnestly with a waiter, while Mr Cupples, in a pleasant meditation, warmed himself before the great fire. 'The wine here,' Trent resumed, as they seated themselves, 'is almost certainly made out of grapes. What shall we drink?'

Mr Cupples came out of his reverie. 'I think,' he said, 'I will have milk and soda water.'

'Speak lower!' urged Trent. 'The head-waiter has a weak heart, and might hear you. Milk and soda water! Cupples, you may think you have a strong constitution, and I don't say you have not, but I warn you that this habit of mixing drinks has been the death of many a robuster man than you. Be wise in time. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine, leave soda to the Turkish hordes. Here comes our food.' He gave another order to the waiter, who ranged the dishes before them and darted away. Trent was, it seemed, a respected customer. 'I have sent,' he said, 'for wine that I know, and I hope you will try it. If you have taken a vow, then in the name of all the teetotal saints drink water, which stands at your elbow, but don't seek a cheap notoriety by demanding milk and soda.'

'I have never taken any pledge,' said Mr Cupples, examining his mutton with a favourable eye. 'I simply don't care about wine. I bought a bottle once and drank it to see what it was like, and it made me ill. But very likely it was bad wine. I will taste some of yours, as it is your dinner, and I do assure you, my dear Trent, I should like to do something unusual to show how strongly I feel on the present occasion. I have not been so delighted for many years. To think,' he reflected aloud as the waiter filled his glass, 'of the Manderson mystery disposed of, the innocent exculpated, and your own and Mabel's happiness crowned--all coming upon me together! I drink to you, my dear friend.' And Mr Cupples took a very small sip of the wine.

'You have a great nature,' said Trent, much moved. 'Your outward semblance doth belie your soul's immensity. I should have expected as soon to see an elephant conducting at the opera as you drinking my health. Dear Cupples! May his beak retain ever that delicate rose-stain!--No, curse it all!' he broke out, surprising a shade of discomfort that flitted over his companion's face as he tasted the wine again. 'I have no business to meddle with your tastes. I apologize. You shall have what you want, even if it causes the head-waiter to perish in his pride.'

When Mr Cupples had been supplied with his monastic drink, and the waiter had retired, Trent looked across the table with significance. 'In this babble of many conversations,' he said, 'we can speak as freely as if we were on a bare hillside. The waiter is whispering soft nothings into the ear of the young woman at the pay-desk. We are alone. What do you think of that interview of this afternoon?' He began to dine with an appetite.

Without pausing in the task of cutting his mutton into very small pieces Mr Cupples replied: 'The most curious feature of it, in my judgement, was the irony of the situation. We both held the clue to that mad hatred of Manderson's which Marlowe found so mysterious. We knew of his jealous obsession; which knowledge we withheld, as was very proper, if only in consideration of Mabel's feelings. Marlowe will never know of what he was suspected by that person. Strange! Nearly all of us, I venture to think, move unconsciously among a network of opinions, often quite erroneous, which other people entertain about us. I remember, for instance, discovering quite by accident some years ago that a number of people of my acquaintance believed me to have been secretly received into the Church of Rome. This absurd fiction was based upon the fact, which in the eyes of many appeared conclusive, that I had expressed myself in talk as favouring the plan of a weekly abstinence from meat. Manderson's belief in regard to his secretary probably rested upon a much slighter ground. It was Mr Bunner, I think you said, who told you of his rooted and apparently hereditary