The Woman in BlackBentley, E. C. (Edmund Clerihew)
General
The Woman in Black
Bentley, E. C. (Edmund Clerihew)
Detective and mystery stories; Trent, Philip (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
(2) The two men were nearly of the same height, about five feet, eleven
inches; both were powerfully built and heavy in the shoulder; Marlowe,
who was the younger by some twenty years, was slighter about the body,
though Manderson was a man in good physical condition. Marlowe's shoes
(of which I examined several pairs) were roughly about one shoemaker's
size longer and broader than Manderson's.
(3) In the afternoon of the first day of my investigation, after
arriving at the results already detailed, I sent a telegram to a
personal friend, a fellow of a college at Oxford, whom I knew to be
interested in theatrical matters, in these terms:
Please wire John Marlowe's record in connection with acting at
Oxford some time past decade very urgent and confidential.
My friend replied in the following telegram, which reached me next
morning (the morning of the inquest):
Marlowe was member O.U.D.S. for three years and president 19--
played Bardolph Cleon and Mercutio excelled in character acting and
imitations in great demand at smokers was hero of some historic
hoaxes.
I had been led to send the telegram which brought this very helpful
answer by seeing on the mantel-shelf in Marlowe's bedroom a photograph
of himself and two others in the costume of Falstaff's three followers,
with an inscription from _The Merry Wives_, and by noting that it bore
the imprint of an Oxford firm of photographers.
(4) During his connection with Manderson, Marlowe had lived as one of
the family. No other person, apart from the servants, had his
opportunities for knowing the domestic life of the Mandersons in detail.
(5) I ascertained beyond doubt that Marlowe arrived at a hotel in
Southampton on the Monday morning at six-thirty, and there proceeded to
carry out the commission which, according to his story, and to the
statement made to Mrs. Manderson in the bedroom by the false Manderson,
had been entrusted to him by his employer. He had then returned in the
car to Marlstone, where he had shown great amazement and horror at the
news of the murder.
* * * * *
These, I say, are the relevant facts about Marlowe. We must now examine
fact number _five_ (as set out above) in connection with conclusion
number _five_ about the false Manderson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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