Trent's Last Case

Sigsbee Manderson, a wealthy American plutocrat, is found shot dead in the grounds of his English country house "White Gables", in the village of Marlstone, on the south-west coast of England. Philip Trent, an artist, freelance journalist, and amateur detective, is commissioned by Sir James Molloy, a Fleet Street press magnate, to investigate and report on the case. Trent receives the cooperation of the police (the investigating officer proves to be Inspector Murch of Scotland Yard, an old acquaintance), and is able to view the body, examine the house and grounds, and interview those involved. Other members of the household include Manderson's wife, Mabel; his two secretaries (Calvin Bunner, an American, and John Marlowe, an Englishman); Martin, a manservant; and Célestine, a lady's maid. Nathaniel Cupples, Mabel Manderson's uncle-by-marriage and another old friend of Trent, is staying at a hotel in the village.

Trent pursues his enquiries, and learns, among other things, that the Mandersons' marriage was in difficulties, and that the couple had grown distant from one another. In the process, he falls in love with Mabel Manderson. The coroner's inquest finds that Manderson was killed by a person or persons unknown: there is a strong suggestion that he was the victim of a business vendetta. Trent, however, concludes that Manderson was shot by Marlowe, who then returned to the house wearing some of Manderson's outer clothing in order to give the impression that Manderson was at that point still alive, before driving to Southampton to provide himself with an alibi. Trent believes that Marlowe's motive was his own love for Mabel, but is unclear as to how far she may have colluded in the affair. He writes down his ideas in the form of a dispatch for Molloy, but before sending it presents it to Mabel and asks whether there had been anything between her and Marlowe. Her reaction persuades him that there had been, and he leaves the dispatch unsent.

Six months later (having spent the intervening period in Latvia as a roving correspondent for Molloy) Trent re-establishes contact with Mabel in London, and finally extracts her version of events. She tells him that there had never been any sort of intimacy between her and Marlowe, but that her husband's suspicions had been the cause of their marital rift, and that in his jealousy he may have plotted an act of revenge. Trent now sends Marlowe his original dispatch, and arranges a meeting, at which Cupples is also present, to allow Marlowe to give his side of the story. Marlowe explains that Manderson had fabricated a web of incriminating evidence to implicate Marlowe in his apparent "murder", and send him to the gallows; and had then shot himself. Having realised what was happening, and having discovered Manderson's body, Marlowe had attempted to cover his tracks and give himself an alibi – this much of Trent's analysis had been correct.

Following this meeting, Trent and Cupples have dinner together, at which Cupples reveals – in the final pages of the book – that, while the majority of Marlowe's story had been accurate, it was in fact he who had fired the fatal shot. He had chanced upon Manderson pointing a pistol at himself, probably meaning only to cause a self-inflicted wound. However, suspecting a suicide attempt, Cupples had intervened, and in the ensuing struggle had shot Manderson in the face.

On the last page, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection.

G. K. Chesterton, author of the Father Brown mysteries, felt that this novel was "The finest detective story of modern times". (Bentley and Chesterton were close personal friends, and Bentley dedicated the book to Chesterton.) Agatha Christie called Trent's Last Case "One of the three best detective stories ever written". Dorothy Sayers wrote that "It is the one detective story of the present century which I am certain will go down to posterity as a classic. It is a masterpiece." Literary critic Jacques Barzun included it in his top ten mystery novels.

In his critique of the mystery genre, The Simple Art of Murder, Raymond Chandler ridiculed some plot points that he considered preposterous: "I have known relatively few international financiers, but I rather think the author of this novel has (if possible) known fewer."

According to Aaron Marc Stein in his introduction to the 1977 edition, published by University Extension of UCSD: "At the risk of bringing down on his memory the wrath of the Baker Street Irregulars it must be recorded that Bentley had reservations about even the Conan Doyle originals. He deplored the great detective's lack of humor and he was irritated by the Sherlockian eccentricities.... Bentley had the idea of doing a detective who would be a human being and who would know how to laugh."

• 1913, UK, Nelson (ISBN NA), Pub date 1913, Hardback (1st edition)
• 1917, UK, Nelson (ISBN NA), Pub date 1917, Hardcover (4th edition)
• 2005, US, Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1-84637-709-9, Pub date October 31, 2005, Paperback
• 2005, US, Echo Library, ISBN 978-1-84637-709-9, October 2005, Paperback

• Binyon, T. J.. Murder Will Out: The Detective in Fiction. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. pp. 56–58, 63–66, 122.

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• Trent's Last Case at Project Gutenberg
• Trent's Last Case at Fantastic Fiction
• Trent's Last Case (1920) at IMDb
• Trent's Last Case (1929) at IMDb
• Trent's Last Case (1952) at IMDb