Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was made using scans of public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.) THE WOMAN IN BLACK BY EDMUND CLERIHEW BENTLEY Copyright, 1913, by The Century Co. NEW YORK _Published, March, 1913_ "... So shall you hear Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventors' heads ..." --_Hamlet_. TO GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON _My dear Gilbert_: I dedicate this story to you. First: because the only really noble motive I had in writing it was the hope that you would enjoy it. Second: because I owe you a book in return for "The Man Who Was Thursday." Third: because I said I would when I unfolded the plan of it to you, surrounded by Frenchmen, two years ago. Fourth: because I remember the past. I have been thinking again to-day of those astonishing times when neither of us ever looked at a newspaper; when we were purely happy in the boundless consumption of paper, pencils, tea and our elders' patience; when we embraced the most severe literature, and ourselves produced such light reading as was necessary; when (in the words of Canada's poet) we studied the works of nature, also those little frogs; when, in short, we were extremely young. For the sake of that age I offer you this book. Yours always, E. C. BENTLEY. CONTENTS Prologue I Knocking the Town Endways II Breakfast III Handcuffs in the Air IV Poking About V Mr. Brunner on the Case VI The Lady in Black VII The Inquest VIII A Hot Scent IX The Wife of Dives X Hitherto Unpublished XI Evil Days XII Eruption XIII Writing a Letter XIV Double Cunning XV The Last Straw THE WOMAN IN BLACK PROLOGUE Between what matters and what seems to matter,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 honor. 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.