Four People Behave Remarkably
Alec started, and his broad, good-humoured face paled a little.
“Good Lord!” he ejaculated in startled tones. “What on earth do you
mean?”
“Simply what I say,” returned Roger. “Why did Stanworth go out of his
way to shoot himself in such a remarkably difficult manner? Don’t you
see what I mean? It isn’t natural.”
Alec was staring up the drive. “Isn’t it? But he did it all right,
didn’t he?”
“Oh, of course he did it,” said Roger in a voice that was curiously
lacking in conviction. “But what I can’t understand is this. Why, when
he could have done it so easily, did he go about it in such a
roundabout way? I mean, a revolver isn’t such an easy thing to
manipulate unhandily; and the attitude he used must have twisted his
wrist most uncomfortably. Just try pointing your forefinger in a
straight line at the middle of your forehead, and you’ll see what I
mean.”
He suited his action to his words, and there was no doubt about the
constraint of his attitude. Alec looked at him attentively.
“Yes, it does look awkward,” he commented.
“It is. Infernally awkward. And you saw where the doctor took the
bullet from. Almost at the very back. That means the revolver must
have been nearly in a dead straight line. You try and see how
difficult it is. It almost dislocates your elbow.”
Alec copied the action. “You’re quite right,” he said with interest.
“It is uncomfortable.”
“I should call it more than that. It’s so unnatural as to be highly
improbable. Yet there’s the fact.”
“Can’t get away from facts, you know,” observed Alec sagely.
“No, but you can explain them. And I’m dashed if I can see the
explanation for this one.”
“Well, what’s the idea?” Alec asked curiously. “You’re being
infernally mysterious.”
“Me? I like that. It isn’t I who am being mysterious. It’s everything
else. Facts and people and everything. Look here, we won’t go in for a
moment. Let’s find a seat somewhere and try and get a grip on things.
I’m getting out of my depth, and I don’t like it.”
He led the way to where a few garden chairs were scattered beneath a
big cedar at one of the corners of the lawn, and threw himself into
one of them. Alec followed suit, somewhat more cautiously. Alec was a
big person, and he had met garden chairs before.
“Proceed,” he said, fishing for his pipe. “You interest me strangely.”
Nothing loth, Roger took up his tale.
“Well, then, in the first place let’s consider the human side of
things. Hasn’t it struck you that there are four separate and distinct
people here whose conduct during the last few hours has been, to say
the least of it, remarkable?”
“No,” said Alec candidly, “it hasn’t. Two have, I know. Who are the
other two?”
“Well, the butler is one. He didn’t seem particularly cut up over
Stanworth’s death, did he? Not that you look for a tremendous display
of emotion from a great hulking brute like that, true. But you do look
for some.”
“He wasn’t vastly upset,” Alec admitted.
“And then there is his position in the household. Why should an
ex-prize-fighter turn butler? The two professions don’t seem to
harmonise somehow. And why should Stanworth want to employ an
ex-prize-fighting butler for that matter? It’s not what you’d expect
from him. He always seemed to me particularly meticulous over points
of etiquette. I wouldn’t have called him a snob exactly; he was too
nice and jolly for that. But he did like to be taken for a gentleman.
And gentlemen don’t employ prize-fighting butlers, do they?”
“I’ve never heard of it being done before,” Alec conceded cautiously.
“Precisely. My point exactly. Alec, you’re positively sparkling this
morning.”
“Thanks,” Alec growled, lighting his pipe. “But apparently not enough
so to make out who the fourth of your suspicious people is. Get on
with it.”
“After you with that match. Why, didn’t it strike you that somebody
else took the news of Stanworth’s death with remarkable fortitude? And
that after it had been broken to her with a bluntness that verged on
brutality.”
Alec paused in the act of applying a second match to his refractory
pipe. “By Jove! You mean Lady Stanworth?”
“I do,” said Roger complacently.
“Yes, I did notice that,” Alec remarked, staring over his pipe at his
companion. “But I don’t think there was much love lost between those
two, was there?”
“You’re right. There wasn’t. I shouldn’t mind going farther than that
and saying that she absolutely hated old Stanworth. I noticed it lots
of times these last three days, and it puzzled me even then. Now——” He
paused and sucked at his pipe once or twice. “Now it puzzles me a good
deal more,” he concluded softly, almost as if speaking to himself.
“Go on,” Alec prompted interestedly.
“Well, that’s four people; two whose behaviour has not been quite what
you’d expect under the circumstances, and two who are downright
suspicious. Anyhow, you can say four curious people.”
Alec nodded in silence. He was thinking of a fifth person whose
conduct early that morning had been something more than curious. With
an effort he thrust the thought from him abruptly. At any rate, Roger
was going to know nothing about that.
“And now we come to facts, and the Lord knows these are curious
enough, too. First of all, we’ve got the place of the wound and the
extreme unlikelihood (as one would have said if one hadn’t actually
seen it) of anyone committing suicide by shooting himself in that
particular way. About that I’m not going to say any more for the
moment. But there are plenty of things to talk about without that.”
“There would be, with you anywhere about,” Alec murmured irreverently.
“You wait. This is serious. Now according to what they say, people
went to bed in pretty decent time, last night, didn’t they? Mrs. Plant
after meeting Stanworth in the hall; Barbara and her mother soon after
you came in from the garden; and Jefferson and you after you’d
finished playing billiards?”
“That’s right,” Alec nodded. “Eleven thirtyish.”
“Well,” said Roger triumphantly. “Somebody’s lying! I was working in
my room till past one, and I heard footsteps in the corridor not once
but two or three times between midnight and then—the last time just as
I was knocking off! Of course I didn’t pay any particular attention to
them at the time; but I know I’m not mistaken. So if everyone says
that they were in their rooms by eleven-thirty (except Stanworth, who
was presumably locked in the library), then I repeat—somebody’s lying!
Now what do you make of that?”
“Heaven only knows,” said Alec helplessly, puffing vigorously at his
pipe. “What do you?”
“Beyond the bare fact that somebody’s lying, nothing—yet! But that’s
quite enough for the present. Then there’s another thing. You remember
where those keys were? In the waistcoat pocket above the one in which
he usually kept them. The inspector just remarked that he must have
put them in the wrong pocket. Now, do you think that’s likely?”
“Might be done. I don’t see anything wildly improbable in it.”
“Oh, no; not wildly improbable. But improbable enough, for all that.
Have you ever done it, for instance?”
“Put a thing in the wrong pocket? Lord, yes; heaps of times.”
“No, you idiot. Not just in any wrong pocket. In the upper pocket of a
waistcoat instead of the lower.”
Alec considered. “I don’t know. Haven’t I!”
“Probably not. Once again, it’s an unnatural mistake. One doesn’t use
the upper pockets of a waistcoat much. They’re not easy to get at. But
consider this. When you want to slip a thing into the lower pocket of
a waistcoat that’s hanging on a chair, it’s the easiest thing in the
world to put it in the upper pocket by mistake. Done it myself
hundreds of times.”
Alec whistled softly. “I see what you’re getting at. You mean——”
“Absolutely! A waistcoat worn by somebody else is in the same category
as a waistcoat hanging on a chair. If we’re to go by probabilities,
then the most likely thing is that somebody else put those keys in
that pocket. Not Stanworth himself at all.”
“But who on earth do you imagine did it? Jefferson?”
“Jefferson!” Roger repeated scornfully. “Of course not Jefferson!
That’s the whole point. Jefferson was looking for those keys; and it’s
just because they were in the wrong pocket and he didn’t know it, that
he couldn’t find them. That’s plain enough.”
“Sorry!” Alec apologised.
“Well, this is all wrong, don’t you see? It complicates things still
more. Here’s a fifth mysterious person to be added to our list of
suspicious characters.”
“Then you don’t think it was Mrs. Plant?” Alec said tentatively.
“I _know_ it wasn’t Mrs. Plant. She was playing about with the knob of
the safe; she hadn’t got the keys. And in any case, even if she had,
there was no possibility of her getting them back again. No, we’ve got
to look elsewhere. Now let’s see, when was that library left empty?”
He paused for reflection. “Jefferson was there alone while I was in
the dining room (I should like to know why Mrs. Plant fainted, by the
way; but we’ve got to wait for that till the safe’s opened); but he
didn’t find the keys. Then we both went into the garden. Then I met
you, and we caught Mrs. Plant almost immediately afterwards. How long
was I with Jefferson? Not more than ten minutes or so. Then the keys
must have been disturbed in that ten minutes before Mrs. Plant went
into the library (there was no opportunity later; you remember we kept
the library under inspection after that till the police arrived).
Either then, or——” He hesitated and was silent.
“Yes?” said Alec curiously. “Or when else?”
“Nothing!—Well, anyhow, there’s plenty of food for thought there,
isn’t there?”
“It does give one something to think about,” Alec agreed, puffing
vigorously.
“Oh, and one other thing; possibly of no importance whatever. There
was a slight scratch on Stanworth’s right wrist.”
“Rose bush!” replied Alec promptly. “He was always playing about with
them, wasn’t he?”
“Ye-es,” Roger replied doubtfully. “That occurred to me, of course.
But somehow I don’t think it was a scratch from a rose. It was fairly
broad, for instance; not a thin, deep line like a rose’s scratch.
However, that’s neither here nor there; probably it’s got nothing to
do with anything. Well, that’s the lot. Now—what do you make of it
all?”
“If you want my candid opinion,” said Alec carefully, after a little
pause, “I think that you’re making mountains out of molehills. In
other words, attaching too much importance to trifles. After all, when
you come to think of it there’s nothing particularly serious in any of
the things you mentioned, is there? And you can’t tell; there may be a
perfectly innocent explanation even for Jefferson and Mrs. Plant.”
Roger smoked thoughtfully for a minute or two.
“There may be, of course,” he said at length; “in fact, I hope to
goodness there is. But as for the rest, I agree with you that they’re
only molehills in themselves; but don’t forget that if you pile
sufficient molehills on top of each other you get a mountain. And
that’s what I can’t help thinking is the case here. Separately these
little facts are nothing; but collectively they make me wonder rather
furiously.”
Alec shrugged his shoulders. “Curiosity killed the cat,” he remarked
pointedly.
“Possibly,” Roger laughed. “But I’m not a cat, and I thrive on it.
Anyway, my mind’s made up on one point. I’m going to nose round and
just see whether there isn’t any more to be found out. I liked old
Stanworth, and as long as it seems to me that there’s the least
possibility of his having been——” He checked himself abruptly. “Of all
not being quite as it should,” he resumed after a momentary pause.
“Well, I’m going to make it my business to look into it. Now, what I
want to ask you is—will you help me?”
Alec regarded his friend silently for a minute or two, his hand
cradling the bowl of the pipe he was smoking.
“Yes,” he announced at length; “on one condition. That whatever you
may find out, you won’t take any important steps without telling me.
You see, I don’t know that I consider this absolutely playing the game
in a way; and I want——”
“You can make yourself easy on that score,” Roger smiled. “If we go
into it, we go in together; and I won’t do anything, not only without
telling you, but even without your consent. That’s only fair.”
“And you’ll let me know anything you may find out as you go along?”
asked Alec suspiciously. “Not keep things up your sleeve, like Holmes
did to old Watson?”
“Of course not, my dear chap! If it comes to that, I don’t suppose I
could if I wanted to. I must have somebody to confide in.”
“You’ll make a rotten detective, Roger,” Alec grinned. “You gas too
much. The best detectives are thin-lipped, hatchet-faced devils who
creep about the place not saying a word to anybody.”
“In the story-books. You bet they don’t in real life. I expect they
talk their heads off to their seconds-in-command. It’s so jolly
helpful. Holmes must have missed an awful lot by not letting himself
go to Watson. For one thing, the very act of talking helps one to
clarify one’s own ideas and suggests further ones.”
“Your ideas ought to be pretty clear then,” said Alec rudely.
“And besides,” Roger went on unperturbed, “I’d bet anything that
Watson was jolly useful to Holmes. Those absurd theories of the poor
old chap’s that Holmes always ridiculed so mercilessly (I wish Watson
had been allowed to hit on the truth just once; it would have pleased
him so tremendously)—why, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if they
didn’t suggest the right idea to Holmes time and time again; but of
course, he would never have acknowledged it. Anyhow, the moral is, you
talk away for all you’re worth and I’ll do the same. And if we don’t
manage to find something out between us, you can write me down an ass.
And yourself, too, Alexander!”