Trent turned to her. "Mrs. Manderson will excuse me, I hope," he said. "I really came up this morning in order to look about me here for some indications I thought I might possibly find. I had not thought of attending the--the court just yet." She looked at him with eyes of perfect candor. "Of course, Mr. Trent. Please do exactly as you wish. We are all relying upon you. If you will wait a few moments, Mr. Marlowe, I shall be ready." She entered the house. Her uncle and the American had already strolled towards the gate. Trent looked into the eyes of his companion. "That is a wonderful woman," he said in a lowered voice. "You say so without knowing her," replied Marlowe in a similar tone. "She is more than that." Trent said nothing to this. He stared out over the fields towards the sea. In the silence a noise of hobnailed haste rose on the still air. A little distance down the road a boy appeared trotting towards them from the direction of the hotel. In his hand was the orange envelope, unmistakable afar off, of a telegram. Trent watched him with a carefully indifferent eye as he met and passed the two others. Then he turned to Marlowe. "Apropos of nothing in particular," he said, "were you at Oxford?" "Yes," said the young man. "Why do you ask?" "I just wondered if I was right in my guess. It's one of the things you can very often tell about a man, isn't it?" "I suppose so," Marlowe admitted. "Well, each of us is marked in one way or another, perhaps. I should have said you were an artist, if I hadn't known it." "Why? Does my hair want cutting?" "Oh, no! It's only that you look at things and people as I've seen artists do, with an eye that moves steadily from detail to detail--rather looking them over than looking at them." The boy came up panting. "Telegram for you, sir," he said to Trent. "Just come, sir." Trent tore open the envelop with an apology, and his eyes lighted up so visibly as he read the slip that Marlowe's tired face softened in a smile. "It must be good news," he murmured half to himself. Trent turned on him a glance in which nothing could be read. "Not exactly news," he said. "It only tells me that another little guess of mine was a good one." CHAPTER VII THE INQUEST The coroner, who fully realized that for that one day of his life as a provincial solicitor he was living in the gaze of the world, had resolved to be worthy of the fleeting eminence. He was a large man of jovial temper, with a strong interest in the dramatic aspects of his work, and the news of Manderson's mysterious death within his jurisdiction had made him the happiest coroner in England. A respectable capacity for marshaling facts was fortified in him by a copiousness of impressive language that made juries as clay in his hands and sometimes disguised a doubtful interpretation of the rules of evidence.