What the Settee Had to Tell
Alec stared incredulously. “Back into the _house_? But—but what on
earth would he want to be going back into the house for?”
“Ah, now you’re asking me something. I haven’t the least idea. I don’t
even know that he was going back into the house. All I say is that
that is the only inference I can draw from the fact of these pieces of
vase being where they are. It’s possibly quite wrong.”
“But look here, if he wanted to go into the house again, why on earth
should he have taken the trouble to climb out of the window like that?
Why didn’t he just go out of the library door?”
“Obviously because he wanted to leave all ways into or out of the
library fastened on the inside, in order to further the idea of
suicide.”
“But why should he have gone back into the house at all? That’s what I
can’t understand.”
“Well,” Roger remarked very casually, “supposing he lived there?”
“_What?_”
“I said, supposing he lived there. He’d want to go up to bed, wouldn’t
he?”
“Good Lord, you’re surely not suggesting that somebody in the house
murdered old Stanworth, are you?” Alec asked in horrified tones.
Roger relit his pipe with some care.
“Not necessarily, but you keep asking me why he should want to get
back into the house, and I give you the most obvious explanation. As a
matter of fact, I should say that he probably wanted to communicate
with somebody inside before making his escape.”
“Then you don’t think it was somebody from inside the house who killed
Stanworth?” Alec asked with some relief.
“Heaven only knows,” Roger replied laconically. “No, perhaps on second
thoughts I don’t. We mustn’t forget that Jefferson couldn’t find those
keys this morning. Unless that was a blind, by Jove! I never thought
of that. Or he might have forgotten something important and wanted to
get at the safe again, not realising that he’d put the keys back in
the wrong pocket.”
“I suppose,” Alec said slowly, “that Jefferson is the only person
inside the house that you would suspect of having done it?”
“No, I’m hanged if he is,” Roger retorted with energy.
“Oh! Who else then?”
“I’m suspecting everybody at present; put it like that. Everybody and
everything within these four walls.”
“Well, look here, don’t forget your promise, mind. No decisive steps
to be taken without me, eh?”
“Yes, but look here, Alec,” Roger said seriously, “you really mustn’t
stand out unnecessarily if I might want to take steps that don’t
altogether meet with your approval. We’re playing a very grave game,
you know, and we can’t treat it as a joy-trip and only do the bits we
like and leave out all the nasty part.”
“Yes,” Alec said, a little reluctantly. “I see that. I won’t make a
fuss about anything unnecessarily. But we must go on working
together.”
“Right!” Roger answered promptly. “That’s a bargain, then. Well, look
here, there’s one thing we ought to have done earlier, but it quite
slipped my memory. We must have a look for that possible second
cartridge case. Personally I don’t believe there is one; I think there
was one shot fired from each revolver. But it’s a possibility, and we
ought not to overlook it.”
“Rather a tall order, isn’t it? It might be anywhere in the whole
grounds.”
“Yes, but there’s only one place that it’s any use to search—the
library. If we can’t find it there, we’ll give it up.”
“Very well.”
“Oh, Alexander,” Roger observed unhappily, as they strolled back to
the library. “Alexander, we’re very terribly handicapped in this
little problem, as Holmes would call it.”
“In what way particularly?”
“Not knowing the motive for the murder. If we could only get at that,
it would simplify matters tremendously. Why, I dare say we could put
our hands on the criminal at once. That’s the way all these murder
cases are solved, both in real life and in fiction. Establish your
motive, and work back from that. We’re groping utterly in the dark,
you see, till we’ve found that.”
“And you haven’t any idea of it at all? Not even a guess?”
“Not a one. Or, rather, too many. It’s impossible to say with a man
like Stanworth. After all, what do we know about him, beyond that he
was a cheery old gentleman and kept an excellent cellar? Nothing! He
might have been a lady-killer, and it may be a case of the jealous
husband, with Lady Stanworth and Jefferson in the know after it had
happened, and hushing it up for the sake of the name.”
“I say, that’s a good idea! Do you really think it was that? I
shouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
“It’s possible, but I shouldn’t say it was likely. He was rather too
old to be acting as Lothario, wasn’t he? Or again it might have been
somebody whom he ruined in business (I shouldn’t say his methods were
any too scrupulous) and a somewhat drastic revenge, with the other two
also knowing what had happened and keeping quiet about it for reasons
that we don’t know anything about. But what’s the use? There are a
hundred theories, all equally possible and plausible, to fit the very
meagre array of facts that we’ve got in our possession.”
“We are in a bit of a fog, yes,” Alec agreed as they entered the
library.
“But there’s rather more light I think, already, than an hour or two
ago,” Roger replied cheerfully. “No, when all’s said and done, we
haven’t done so badly as yet, what with luck and certain other things
which modesty forbids me to mention. And now for this cartridge case,
and let’s pray that we shan’t be interrupted.”
For some minutes they searched diligently in silence. Then Alec
scrambled up from his knees beside the little typist’s table and
inspected his hands ruefully.
“No sign of it,” he said, “and I’m in a filthy mess. I don’t think it
can be in here, do you?”
Roger was investigating the cushions of the big settee.
“Afraid not,” he replied. “I hardly expected it, but—— Hullo, what’s
this?”
He drew out a small piece of white material from between two of the
loose cushions and inspected it with interest.
Alec strolled across the room and joined him. “It looks like a woman’s
handkerchief,” he said carefully.
“More than that, Alexander; it _is_ a woman’s handkerchief. Now what
on earth is a woman’s handkerchief doing in Stanworth’s library?”
“I expect she left it here,” Alec remarked wisely.
“Alec, this is positive genius! I see it all now. She must have left
it here. And there was I thinking that she’d sent it by post, with
special instructions for it to be placed between those cushions in
case she ever wanted to find it there!”
“You are funny, aren’t you?” Alec growled wearily.
“Occasionally,” Roger admitted modestly, “quite. But reverting to the
handkerchief, I wonder whether this is going to prove rather
important. What do you think?”
“How could it?”
“I’m not quite sure yet, but I have a sort of feeling. It all depends
on several things. Whose handkerchief it is, for instance, and when
this settee was tidied up last, and when the owner of the handkerchief
admits she was in here last, and—— Oh, quite a large number of
things.” He sniffed at the handkerchief delicately. “H’m! I seem to
know that scent, at all events.”
“You do?” Alec asked eagerly. “Who uses it?”
“That unfortunately I don’t appear to remember for the moment,” Roger
confessed reluctantly. “Still, we ought to be able to find that out
with a few discreet inquiries.”
He put the handkerchief carefully in his breast pocket, crumpling it
into a small ball so as to retain as much of the scent as possible.
“But I think the first thing to do,” he continued, when it was safely
bestowed, “is to examine this settee rather more minutely. You never
know what you’re going to find, apparently.”
Without disturbing the cushions further, he began a careful scrutiny
of the back and arms. It was not long before he found himself
rewarded.
“Look!” he exclaimed suddenly, pointing at a place on the left arm.
“Powder! See? Face powder, for a sovereign. Now I wonder what on earth
that’s got to tell us, if we only know how to read it.”
Alec bent and examined the place. A very faint smudge of white powder
stood out upon the black surface of the cloth.
“You’re sure that’s face powder?” he asked, a little incredulously.
“How can you tell?”
“I can’t,” Roger admitted cheerfully. “It might be French chalk. But
I’m sure it is face powder. Let me see, face powder just on the inner
curve of the arm; what does that mean? Or talking about arms, perhaps
it’s arm powder. They do powder their arms, don’t they?”
“_I_ don’t know. Probably.”
“Well, you ought to,” Roger said severely. “You’re engaged, aren’t
you?”
“No,” Alec replied mournfully. After all, Roger would have to know
some time that the engagement had been broken off.
Roger stared at him in amazement. “_No?_ But you got engaged to
Barbara yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Alec, still more mournfully. “But we broke it off to-day.
Or postponed it, rather, It may be on again in a month or so, I hope.”
“But why, in the name of goodness?”
“Oh, for—for certain reasons,” Alec said lamely. “We decided it was
the best thing to do. Er—private reasons, you know.”
“Good Lord, I’m awfully sorry to hear it, old man,” said Roger
genuinely. “I hope things will come all right for you in the end; and
if there’s anything in the world that I can do, you know you’ve only
got to say the word. There isn’t a couple anywhere that I’d sooner see
fixed up than you and Barbara. You’re quite the nicest two people _I_
know.” Roger was in the habit of disregarding the convention that a
man should never under any circumstances display emotion in the
presence of another man, just as heartily as he violated all other
conventions.
Alec flushed with pleasure. “Thanks awfully, old chap,” he said
gruffly. “I knew I could rely on you. But really, there isn’t anything
you could possibly do. And things will come out all right, I feel
sure.”
“Well, I sincerely hope so, or I’ll wring young Barbara’s neck for
her,” said Roger; and both men knew that the topic was closed, until
or unless Alec himself chose to reopen it.
“And about this powder?” Alec prompted.
“Ah, yes. I hadn’t finished with the settee, had I? Well, let’s see if
there’s anything more to be found first.”
He bent over the couch again, only to look up the next instant.
“See this?” he said, indicating a long fair hair in the angle between
the arm and the back. “There _has_ been a woman sitting here recently.
This confirms the face powder. What an extraordinarily lucky thing
that we thought of searching the place for that cartridge case. It
would never have done to have missed this. I have an idea that this
woman is going to be more useful to us than fifty cartridge cases.”
And taking a letter out of his pocket he drew out the sheet of paper
and carefully placed the hair in the envelope. “They always do this in
books,” he explained, observing Alec’s interested gaze, “so I suppose
it’s the right thing to do.”
“And what are you going to do next?” Alec asked, as the envelope
followed the handkerchief into Roger’s breast pocket. “You’ve only got
about half an hour before dinner time, you know.”
“Yes. I’m going to try and find out if I can when this settee was last
tidied up; that seems to me the point on which everything depends.
After that I’ve got to spot the owner of the handkerchief.”
“By the scent? There are no initials on it.”
“By the scent. This is the sort of occasion when being a dog must come
in so useful,” Roger added reflectively.