Page:Bentley- Trent's Last Case (Nelson, nd).djvu/373

Rh Trent nodded. 'Mrs. M'Lachlan's case. She was innocent right enough.'

'My parents thought so,' said Mr. Cupples. 'I thought so myself when I became old enough to read and understand that excessively sordid story. But the mystery of the affair was so dark, and the task of getting at the truth behind the lies told by everybody concerned proved so hopeless, that others were just as fully convinced of the innocence of old James Fleming. All Scotland took sides on the question. It was the subject of debates in Parliament. The press divided into two camps, and raged with a fury I have never seen equalled. Yet it is obvious, is it not?–for I see you have read of the case–that if the spiritual truth about that old man could have been known there would have been very little room for doubt in the matter. If what some surmised about his disposition was true, he was quite capable of murdering Jessie M'Pherson and then casting the blame on the poor feeble-minded creature who came so near to suffering the last penalty of the law.'

'Even a commonplace old dotard like Fleming can be an unfathomable mystery to all the rest of the human race,' said Trent, 'and most of