Roger Is Argumentative
Roger dabbled his bare foot in the wave which surged past the rock
upon which he and Anthony were sitting. Lifting it out of the water,
he contemplated his dripping toes with apparently deep interest. “Of
course,” he said slowly, “we must remember that Colin _may_ have been
telling the truth, after all.”
“How can he have been?” demanded his cousin.
It was after breakfast on the following morning. On the plea that
business was business and that if he was to be any use in this affair
at all Anthony must temporarily divest himself of the rôle of
interesting young lover and assume that of the idiot friend, Roger had
managed to restrain his cousin from making a hopeful bee-line,
immediately his last mouthful had been swallowed, along the top of the
cliffs in the direction of a certain small grassy ledge just below
their summit. With tactlessly patent reluctance Anthony had been
persuaded to bring his after-breakfast pipe down to the sea level,
where Roger had insisted upon scrambling out to the very farthest rock
which remained unsubmerged in order, as he carefully explained, to
obtain the necessary privacy for airing his theories. There he had
immediately removed his shoes and socks and proceeded to paddle.
Making the best of a bad business, Anthony had watched with a cold eye
his cousin’s undignified behaviour and unhesitatingly refused to
follow such infantile deportment.
“How can Woodthorpe have been telling the truth?” he repeated, as
Roger showed signs of being less interested in his question than in a
limpet which was sturdily countering all his efforts to dislodge it
from its native rock. “That copy of _London Opinion_ clinches that. If
the inspector’s got any sense at all, he’ll draw the same deduction
from it as we did and arrest the fellow right away, before he bolts.”
Roger abandoned the limpet with a slight sigh. “But supposing,
Anthony, that it wasn’t Woodthorpe who left it there at all?” he said
patiently. “Hadn’t that occurred to you?”
“No, it hadn’t,” Anthony returned, not without scorn. “It’s so dashed
likely, isn’t it? You said yourself that it couldn’t have been Mrs.
Vane. Who else could it have been?”
“Ah!” said Roger thoughtfully. “Who, indeed?” He withdrew his feet
from the water and, hunching his knees, clasped his hands round them
and stared out to sea. “Now just let’s see, for the sake of argument,
what we can deduce from that copy of _London Opinion_, shall we?
Forgetting for the moment all about Woodthorpe, I mean, and our slight
complex about his veracity. Shall we do that, Anthony?”
“Fire ahead, then,” replied his cousin resignedly.
“Well in the first place, and confining ourselves to bare
probabilities, with every likelihood of error, who constitute the
majority of _London Opinion’s_ public, would you say? Men. That’s why
I advanced the unlikelihood of Mrs. Vane having left it there; it
doesn’t sound to me at all the type of paper that we might expect to
find Mrs. Vane reading. Besides, she’s much more likely to have
brought a novel. Do you agree, so far?”
Anthony grunted.
“Very well, then; in all probability that paper was left there some
time since last Saturday morning, by a man. Now what _type_ of man
reads _London Opinion?_ Not the upper classes; they read _Punch_. Not
the lower classes either. The middle classes—upper, middle and lower
middle-classes. Our man, therefore, was probably an upper, middle or
lower middle-class man. Now that doesn’t sound very much like the son
of Sir Henry Woodthorpe, does it?”
“Are you trying to make out that just because a chap’s father is a
baronet, he never reads _London Opinion?_” enquired Anthony with some
sarcasm.
“No, Anthony, I am not. You tend to miss my point. What I am very
brilliantly endeavouring to convey to your moss-covered intelligence
is that if Mr. Colin Woodthorpe, son of Sir Henry Woodthorpe, Bart.,
wanted to take a piece of literature with which to amuse himself while
waiting for the other half of an appointment he’d probably take the
_Sporting Life_, _Punch_, or a detective novel. That he might very
nearly as well have taken _London Opinion_ I readily admit, but only
very nearly. What I’m considering, in fact, is the balance of
probabilities. Now are you there?”
“But how do you know that the chap, whoever he was, did take it to
amuse himself with while waiting for an appointment? How do you know
there was an appointment at all?”
“I don’t, bandicoot,” Roger returned with exemplary patience. “But do
you imagine (a) that he took it to read _during_ the appointment,
fearing lest he should be bored by the lady’s idle prattle; or (b)
that he went down to that ledge all alone and crept into that cave for
the sole purpose of reading _London Opinion_ in the dark?”
“He might just as well have simply happened to have it with him, and
chucked it away because he couldn’t be bothered to carry it home
again.”
“He might,” Roger agreed at once; “but it isn’t nearly so likely. No,
on the balance of probabilities I think we may assume that this man,
probably not Woodthorpe, probably took _London Opinion_ with him to
read on the ledge while waiting for the other half of a probable
appointment in that cave. He might have thrown it away then and there
as soon as she turned up, but with that instinctive inhibition which
most of us have against throwing something away with which we have not
completely finished, he took it with him into the cave when the lady
arrived and then, as you say, left it there because he couldn’t be
bothered to take it home again—psychologically speaking, there is a
large difference between throwing a thing away and leaving it behind.
And we know the lady _did_ turn up, dear little Anthony, because
otherwise he wouldn’t have gone into the cave at all, but would have
continued to sit outside where he could see to read. Are you with me?”
“Humph!” said Anthony.
“Now who was the other half of this man’s appointment?” Roger
continued in argumentative tones. “Personally, I’m putting my money on
Mrs. Vane. As far as friend Colin knew nobody but himself and Mrs.
Vane had any inkling about that cave. He discovered it himself, he
told us, about a year ago, and was at once struck with its suitability
for the purpose to which he afterward put it. He was quite positive
that he, at any rate, had told nobody else of its existence. To sum up
then—if Colin is telling the truth all through, Mrs. Vane herself
arranged an appointment with an unknown man belonging to the middle
classes for some time since last Saturday morning, to discuss business
of an obviously secret and confidential nature. And to stretch a
point, we’ll add that that appointment resulted in her death, and that
the unknown middle-class man is her murderer.—And how is all that,”
Roger concluded with legitimate pride, “out of just finding a copy of
_London Opinion_ in that little cave, eh?”
“So now I should think you’d better go off and talk it all over with
Moresby,” said Anthony hopefully.
“Anthony, you disgust me. Do you or do you not want to help me save
your young woman from the gallows? No, don’t trouble to reply to that
question; it’s a rhetorical one. You do. Very well, then. Continue, if
you please, to sustain the part of idiot friend which you play so
admirably.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Anthony asked uncomfortably.
“Listen to me while I clarify my own ideas, somewhat nebulous at the
moment, by putting them into speech. Let me go on examining
possibilities. Though by the way, since embarking on this one-sided
discussion I find I appear to have converted myself on one point. I do
_not_ believe it was Colin Woodthorpe who left that copy of _London
Opinion_ in the cave. What have you got to say about that?”
“You made out a pretty useful case against it,” Anthony was forced to
admit.
“Yes; I did. On grounds of pure reason I reject Colin as our unknown
man, but I can easily find that out for certain; I’ve got a little
test in mind for him, which I propose to apply as soon as I leave you.
Well, now, assuming Colin is out of it, can we find anybody else to
take his place? Think hard.”
“Wait a minute, though,” Anthony said after a little pause. “Aren’t
you forgetting those foot-prints? You’ve been saying all the time that
it must have been a woman with Mrs. Vane, not a man. How does that
square in with this idea?”
“No, I’m not forgetting them. They can be worked into this theory all
right. If we assume, you see, that the murder was a premeditated one,
as I think it certainly was, we can assume also that the murderer took
a few elementary precautions to throw the police off his track if ever
anything turned up to make them suspicious about the accident theory.
Well, supposing that Mrs. Vane arrived alone, as we now think she must
have done, what would be easier for the man than to put on a pair of
female shoes he’d brought with him for the purpose, go a little way
along the ledge and then walk back again beside Mrs. Vane’s tracks,
carefully making prints wherever he could and modifying his stride to
suit her smaller steps? That’s perfectly feasible. Footprints and how
to fake them are about the first thing to which your amateur murderer
would turn his attention.”
“Cunning,” commented Anthony.
“Oh, yes; but perfectly intelligible. Well now, having disposed of
that point, let’s get back to where we were before. Can you think of
anyone else to take young Woodthorpe’s place as the villain of the
piece?”
Anthony ruminated. “The only other men in any way mixed up in the show
seem to be Dr. Vane and Russell.”
“Ye-es. And that doesn’t help us much, does it? Dr. Vane we can wash
out right away; there’s no conceivable reason why a wife should want
to make an appointment in an out-of-the-way and thoroughly
uncomfortable place with her own husband when she can much better
interview him from her own drawing-room sofa. But Russell—! What does
Russell give us?”
“If she _had_ been carrying on an intrigue with him as well as
Woodthorpe,” Anthony murmured.
Roger shifted his position so that he could plunge both his legs in
the water up to their knees. “Ah, that’s better. You’re missing a lot,
Anthony, if you only knew it, by being so proud and superior; superior
people always do.—Yes, that’s perfectly true. Russell would then have
almost exactly the same motive for getting rid of her as Colin had,
wouldn’t he? Jealous wife instead of jealous unknown fiancée (I wonder
who friend Colin _is_ meditating an engagement with, by the way, if
Moresby’s right. It ought to be easy enough to find out), _plus_ fear
of jealous husband’s righteous wrath possibly into the bargain, if
she’d been trying the same bluff on with him too. But that does make
the lady a little—how shall I put it?—_promiscuous_, doesn’t it?”
“I shouldn’t think she’d stick at that,” said Anthony sagely.
“Oh, nor should I. Not for a moment. Especially if she’d got a little
game on with both of them, to her own ultimate advantage. But if that
were the case, I can’t help thinking it somewhat imprudent to meet
them both in the same very compromising spot. _That_ doesn’t sound
like Mrs. Vane at all to me.”
“But she _did_ meet the second man in the same place for all that,”
Anthony pointed out, “whether it was Russell or not.”
“Yes, that’s true enough. Of course, this may have been an isolated
assignation, made with the knowledge that Colin would be busy at that
time elsewhere. But Colin hasn’t an alibi for the time of Mrs. Vane’s
death, we discovered, whereas the inspector says that Russell himself
has, a cast-iron one. No, it’s a pure guess of mine, Anthony, but I
feel instinctively that this mysterious man is somebody who hasn’t
cropped up in the case at all yet.”
“Oh! That’s rather vague. And you haven’t the slightest notion who it
could be?”
“Yes, I have,” Roger replied thoughtfully. “Just the slightest notion.
It’s my opinion that this man will prove to be somebody out of Mrs.
Vane’s murky past. Quite possibly her real husband.”
“By Jove, that’s an idea,” Anthony concurred with enthusiasm. “Good
for you, Roger!”
“Thank you, Anthony,” Roger returned gratefully.
They discussed this interesting possibility for a short time, and then
Roger began to put on his shoes and socks.
“I think that’s really all there is to go into at present,” he said,
“so you can have leave of absence for the rest of the morning. You can
tell Margaret about our discovery last night and this new visitor Mrs.
Vane may have had recently. With any luck she ought to be able to give
us a pointer to the gent.”
Anthony rose to his feet. “If I happen to see her, I will,” he said a
little stiffly.
“‘If I happen to see her, I will!’” Roger scoffed. “Oh, very good,
Anthony; very good indeed. I must try you with the butter test at
lunch. If half-a-pound of butter, placed in the patient’s mouth, shows
no sign of melting within——”
“What are _you_ going to do?” Anthony asked hurriedly.
“Me? Oh, I’ve got to be busy. I’ve got to lay my trap for young Colin
first of all; then I want to have a word with Moresby and hear exactly
what he’s made of that _London Opinion_, if anything (he’s probably
concealing it from me in his breast-pocket at this very moment); and
lastly I want to tackle this business of the mysterious stranger from
the other end. I’m going to cross-examine every inhabitant of the
place within a square mile of that ledge to try and find someone who
was within sight of it early on Tuesday afternoon. I’m convinced I’m
on the right tack; if Margaret can’t help us, I’m going to exhaust the
possibilities of that line of information if it takes me a month.”
“But I thought everybody had been questioned about that already?”
“Not so,” Roger replied cunningly. “They were questioned before about
seeing Mrs. Vane. There was no word mentioned about a strange man.”
“I see,” said Anthony, balancing irresolutely on each foot in turn.
“Yes, that’s a sound scheme.—Well, I’ll be strolling along now, I
think, if you don’t want me any more.”
Roger waved a paternal farewell with an Oxford brogue.
After Anthony had departed Roger did not follow him immediately. For
quite a long time he sat on his rock, oblivious of the fact that other
and even tempting ones were being uncovered by the receding tide
straight in front of him. This talk with Anthony certainly had
clarified his ideas very considerably—had, indeed, presented him with
some highly interesting brand-new ones. The case had suddenly taken on
an entirely different aspect. From being merely complex it had become
downright complicated. He wondered what Inspector Moresby, with his
very much more conventional methods, would have to say about his
deductions from that copy of _London Opinion_, a piece of constructive
reasoning which Roger had not the slightest hesitation in
characterising in his own mind as brilliant.
There are some people who are said to know instinctively whether they
are in the right or wrong, without the aid of any extraneous evidence.
Roger had not the least doubt that he possessed this sixth sense, and
as he rose at last to his feet and began his scramble back to the foot
of the cliffs every instinct was busy telling him that he had got his
finger poised above the very heart of the problem. In some new actor,
not yet appeared on the stage, would the ultimate solution be found.
To lay his hands on him should only prove a matter of time and
patience.
Humming blithely, he clambered up the uneven ascent and hoisted
himself on the ledge. Well, first of all he would have to——
“Ah, _there_ you are, Mr. Sheringham! Do you know, I had quite an idea
I should find you here. I’ve been so anxious to see you again, after
our very brief conversation yesterday morning. I want to ask you what
you think of this terrible crime in our midst, and whether you have
formed a theory yet. I hope—I do so hope it will not prove to have
been committed by—ah, dear me, a terrible affair!”
Roger wheeled about. From above a boulder at the back of the ledge a
face like that of a benign and beardless goat was regarding him
benevolently through an enormous pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.
“Oh, hell!” confided Roger Sheringham to his immortal soul.