Mr. Sheringham is Dramatic
Long after Alec’s not altogether willing departure, Roger sat smoking
and thinking. On the whole, he was not sorry to be alone. Alec was
proving a somewhat discouraging companion in this business. Evidently
his heart was not in it; and for one so situated the ferreting out of
facts and the general atmosphere of suspicion and distrust that is
inevitably attendant on such a task, must be singularly distasteful.
Roger could not blame Alec for his undisguised reluctance to see the
thing through, but he also could not help thinking somewhat wistfully
of the enthusiastic and worshipping prototypes whose mantle Alec was
at first supposed to have inherited. Roger felt that he could have
welcomed a little enthusiasm and worshipping at the end of this
eventful and very strenuous day.
He began to try to arrange methodically in his mind the data they had
collected. First with regard to the murderer. He had made an effective
escape from the house only, in all probability as it seemed, to enter
it again by another way. Why? Either because he lived there, or
because he wished to communicate with somebody who did. Which of
these? Heaven only knew!
He tried another line of attack. Which of the minor puzzles still
remained unsolved? Chiefly, without doubt, the sudden change of
attitude on the part of Mrs. Plant and Jefferson before lunch. But why
need they have been apprehensive at all, if the murderer had been able
to communicate with them after the crime had been committed? Perhaps
the interview had been a hurried one, and he had forgotten to reassure
them on some particularly vital point. Yet he had been able to do so
in the course of the next morning. This meant that, up till lunch time
at any rate, he had still been in the neighbourhood. More than that,
actually on the premises, as it seemed. Did this point more definitely
to the probability of his being one of the household? It seemed
feasible; but who? Jefferson? Possibly, though there were several
difficult points to get over if this were the case. The women were
obviously out of the question. The butler? Again possibly; but why on
earth should the man want to murder his master?
Yet the butler was a strange figure, there was no getting away from
that. And as far as Roger could judge, there had been no love lost
between him and Stanworth. Yes, there was undoubtedly a mystery of
some kind connected with that butler. Jefferson’s explanation of why
Mr. Stanworth should have employed a prize-fighting butler did not
strike one as quite satisfactory.
Then why had Mrs. Plant been crying in the library? Roger strove to
remember some scenes in which she and Stanworth had been thrown into
contact. How had they behaved towards each other? Had they seemed
friendly, or the reverse? As far as he could recollect, Stanworth had
treated her with the same casual good-fellowship which he showed to
everybody; while she—— Yes, now he came to think of it, she had never
appeared to be on particularly good terms with him. She had been quiet
and reserved when he was in the room. Not that she was really ever
anything else but quiet and reserved under any circumstances; but yes,
there had been a subtle change in her manner when he was about.
Obviously she had disliked him.
Clearly there was only one hope for finding the answer to these
riddles, and that was to investigate Stanworth’s affairs. In all
probability even that would prove futile; but as far as Roger could
see there was no other way to try with even a moderate chance of
success. And while he was racking his brains out here, Jefferson was
sitting in the morning room surrounded by documents which Roger would
give anything to see.
A sudden idea occurred to him. Why not beard the lion in his den and
offer to give Jefferson a hand with his task? In any case, that would
form a direct challenge, the answer to which could not fail to be
interesting.
With Roger to think was, in nine cases out of ten, to leap into
precipitate action. Almost before the thought had completed its
passage through his mind, he was on his feet and striding eagerly
towards the house.
Without troubling to knock he burst open the door of the morning room
and walked in. Jefferson was seated in front of the table in the
centre of the room, surrounded, as Roger’s mind’s eye had seen him,
with papers and documents. Lady Stanworth was not present.
He glanced up as Roger entered.
“Hullo, Sheringham,” he said in some surprise. “Anything I can do for
you?”
“Well, I was smoking out there in the garden with nothing to do,”
Roger remarked with a friendly smile, “when it occurred to me that
instead of wasting my time like that I might be giving you a hand
here; you said you were up to the eyes in it. Is there anything I can
do to help?”
“Damned good of you,” Jefferson replied, a little awkwardly, “but I
don’t really think there’s anything. I’m trying to tabulate a
statement of his financial position. Something like that is sure to be
wanted when the will’s proved, or whatever the rigmarole is.”
“Well, surely there’s something I can do to help you out, isn’t
there?” Roger asked, sitting on a corner of the table. “Add up
tremendous columns of figures, or something like that?”
Jefferson hesitated and glanced round at the papers in front of him.
“Well,” he said slowly.
“Of course if there’s anything particularly private in Stanworth’s
affairs——!” Roger remarked airily.
Jefferson looked up quickly. “Private? There’s nothing particularly
private about them. Why should there be?”
“Then make use of me by all means, my dear chap. I’m at a loose end,
and only too glad to give you a hand.”
“Of course if you put it like that, I should be only too pleased,”
Jefferson replied, though not without a certain reluctance. “H’m! I
was just wondering what would be the best job for you to tackle.”
“Oh, anything that comes along, you know.”
“Well, look here, I tell you what you might do,” Jefferson said
suddenly. “I want a statement made out showing his holdings in the
various companies of which he was a director, with the approximate
value of the shares, their yield for the last financial year, his
director’s fees, and all the rest of it. Manage that, could you?”
“Like a shot,” said Roger with great cheerfulness, concealing his
disappointment at the comparative unimportance of the task allotted to
him. Such details as these could be obtained from any work of
reference on the subject; he had hoped for a little insight into
something that was rather less public property.
Still, half a bun was better than no cake, and he settled down at the
opposite side of the table and set to work willingly enough on the
data with which Jefferson supplied him. From time to time he tried to
peep surreptitiously at some of the documents in which the latter was
immersed, but Jefferson was guarding them too jealously and Roger
could obtain no clear idea of their contents.
An hour later he sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief.
“There you are! And a very charming and comprehensive statement, too.”
“Thanks very much,” Jefferson said, taking the statement which Roger
was holding out to him. “Damned good of you, Sheringham. Saved me a
lot of trouble. And you’ve done it in about a quarter of the time I
should have taken. Not my sort of line, this game.”
“So I should imagine,” Roger observed with studied carelessness. “In
fact, it’s always surprised me that you should have taken a job like
this secretaryship on at all. I should have put you down as a typical
open-air man, if you’ll allow me to say so. The type of Englishman
that won our colonies for us, you know.”
“No option,” Jefferson said, with a return to his usual curt manner.
“Not my choice, I assure you. Had to take what I could jolly well
get.”
“Rotten, I know,” Roger replied sympathetically, watching the other
curiously. In spite of himself and what he felt he knew he could not
help a mild liking for this abrupt, taciturn person; a typical soldier
of the wordless, unsocial school. It struck Roger at that moment that
Jefferson, whom he had been inclined to regard at first as something
of a sinister figure, was in reality nothing of the sort. The man was
shy, exceedingly shy, and he endeavoured to hide this shyness behind a
brusque, almost rude manner; and as always in such a case, this had
produced an entirely mistaken first impression of the man himself
behind the manner. Jefferson was downright; but it was the
downrightness of honesty, Roger felt, not of villainy.
Roger began, half unconsciously, to rearrange some of his ideas. If
Jefferson was concerned in Stanworth’s death, then it would be because
there was a very excellent reason for that death. All the more reason
to probe into Stanworth’s affairs.
“Going to stay down here long, Jefferson?” he asked, with an obvious
yawn.
“Not very. Just got to finish off this job I’m on now. You turn in.
Must be getting pretty late.”
Roger glanced at his watch. “Close on twelve. Right, I think I will,
if you’re sure there’s nothing else I can do?”
“Nothing, thanks. I shall have a go at it before breakfast myself. Got
to get cleared up in here by eleven. Well, good-night, Sheringham, and
many thanks.”
Roger sought his room in a state of some perplexity. This new
conclusion of his with regard to Jefferson was going to make things
very much more complicated instead of more simple. He felt a strong
sympathy with Jefferson all of a sudden. He was not a clever man;
certainly he was not the brains of the conspiracy. What must his
feelings be when he knew, as indeed he must know, that Roger was
tracking out things that would, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
and with only very ordinary luck, have remained undiscovered for ever?
How must he regard the net which he could see spread to catch him, and
with him—whom?
Roger dragged a chair up to the open window, and sat down with his
feet on the sill. He felt he was getting maudlin. This had every
appearance of a thoroughly cold-blooded crime, and here he was feeling
sorry already for one of its chief participants. Yet it was because
Jefferson, as he saw now that the scales had suddenly fallen from his
eyes, was such a fine type of man—the tall, thin, small-headed type
that is the real pioneer of our race—and because he himself genuinely
liked all three members of that suspicious trio, that Roger, without
necessarily giving way to maudlin sentiment, was yet unable to stifle
his very real regret that everything should point so decisively to
their guilt.
Still, it was too late to back out now. He owed it to himself, if not
even to them, to see the thing through. Roger could sympathise more
fully now with Alec’s feelings on the matter. Curious that he should
after all have come round in the end to that much-derided point of
view of Alec’s!
He began to review the personal element in the light of this new
revelation. How did it help? If Jefferson was an honest man and would
only kill because nothing short of killing would meet some unknown
case, then what was most likely to have produced such a state of
affairs? What is the mainspring that actuates three quarters of such
drastic deeds? Well, the answer to that was obvious enough. A woman.
How did that apply in this case? Could Jefferson be in love with some
woman, whose happiness or peace had been threatened in some mysterious
way by Stanworth himself, and if so, who was the woman? Lady
Stanworth? Mrs. Plant? Roger uttered an involuntary exclamation. Mrs.
Plant!
That, at any rate, would fit in with some of the puzzling facts. The
powder on the arm of the couch, for instance, and the wet
handkerchief.
Roger’s imagination began to ride free. Mrs. Plant was in the library
with Stanworth; he was bullying her, or something. Perhaps he was
trying to force some course of action upon her which was repugnant to
her. In any case, she weeps and implores him. He is adamant. She hides
her face against the arm of the couch and goes on weeping. Jefferson
enters, sees at a glance what is happening and kills Stanworth in the
madness of his passion with as little compunction as one would feel
towards a rat. Mrs. Plant looks on in horror; tries to interfere,
perhaps, but without effect. As soon as the thing is done she becomes
as cool as ice and sets the stage for suicide.
Roger jumped to his feet and leaned out over the sill.
“It fits!” he murmured excitedly. “It all fits in!”
Glancing downwards, he noticed that the morning-room light had been
extinguished and made a note of the time. It was past one. He sank
back in his chair and began to consider whether the other pieces of
the puzzle would slip as neatly into this general scene—the safe
incident, the change of attitude, Lady Stanworth, and so on. No, this
was not going to be quite so easy.
At the end of the hour he was still uncertain. The main outline still
seemed convincing enough, but all the details appeared hardly so glib.
“I’m getting addled,” he murmured aloud, as he rose from the chair.
“Better give this side of it a rest for a little.”
He made his way softly out of the room and crept along the passage to
Alec’s bedroom.
Alec sat abruptly up in bed as the door opened.
“That you, Roger?” he demanded.
“No, this is Jefferson,” Roger said, hastily shutting the door behind
him. “And very nicely you’d have given things away if it had been,
Alexander Watson. And you might try and moderate your voice a bit. The
sound of a foghorn in the middle of the night is bound to make people
wonder. Ready?”
Alec got out of bed and put on his dressing-gown.
“Right-ho.”
As quietly as possible they stole downstairs and into the morning
room. Roger drew the thick curtains together carefully before
switching on the light.
“Now for it!” he breathed excitedly, eyeing the crowded table with
eagerness. “That little pile there I’ve already been through, so you
needn’t bother about those.”
“Already?” Alec asked in surprise.
“Yes, in company with my excellent friend, Major Jefferson,” Roger
grinned, and proceeded to explain what he had been doing.
“You’ve got some cheek,” Alec commented with a smile.
“Yes, and I’ve got something more than that,” Roger retorted. “I’ve
got a thoroughly sound working idea as to who killed Stanworth and
under what circumstances. I can tell you, friend Alec, I’ve been
uncommonly busy these last two hours or so.”
“You have?” said Alec eagerly. “Tell me.”
Roger shook his head. “Not at the moment,” he said, sitting down in
Jefferson’s chair. “Let’s get this little job safely done first. Now
look here, you go through these miscellaneous documents, will you? I
want to study the passbooks first of all. And I’ll tell you one thing
I’ve discovered. The income from those various businesses of his
didn’t amount to a quarter of what he must have been spending. He
cleared just over two thousand out of all five of them last year, and
I should say that he’s been living at the rate of at least ten
thousand a year. And besides all that, he’s been investing heavily as
well. Where does all the extra cash come from? That’s what I want to
find out.”
Alec began to wade obediently through the sheaf of papers that Roger
had indicated, while the latter picked out the passbooks and glanced
at them.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Two of these accounts are in his own
name, and the other three appear to be in three different names.
Jefferson never said anything about that. Now I wonder what the devil
that means?”
He began to pore over them methodically, and for some time there was
silence in the room. Then Roger looked up with a frown.
“I don’t understand these at all,” he said slowly. “The dividends are
all shown in his own two passbooks, and various checks and so on; but
the other three seem to be made up entirely of cash payments, on the
credit side at any rate. Listen to this: Feb. 9th, £100; Feb. 17th,
£500; Mar. 12th, £200; Mar. 28th, £350; and then April 9th, £1,000.
What on earth do you make of that? All in cash, and such nice round
sums. Why a thousand pounds in cash?”
“Seems funny, certainly,” Alec agreed.
Roger picked up another of the books, and flicked the pages through
carefully.
“This is just the same sort of thing. Hullo, here’s an entry of £5,000
paid in cash. £5,000 in cash! Now why? What does it mean? Does your
pile throw any light on it?”
“No, these are only business letters. There doesn’t appear to be
anything out of the ordinary here at all.”
Roger still held the book mechanically in his hand, but he was staring
blankly at the wall.
“Nothing but cash,” he murmured softly; “all sorts of sums between £10
and £5,000; each sum a multiple of ten, or some other round figure; no
shillings or pence; and _cash!_ That’s what worries me. Why cash? I
can’t find a single check marked on the credit side of these three
books. And where in the name of goodness did all this cash come from?
There’s absolutely nothing to account for it, as far as I can make
out. It’s not the proceeds of any sort of business, apparently.
Besides, the debit side shows nothing but checks drawn to self. He
paid it in as cash and he drew it out himself. Now what on earth does
all this mean?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Alec helplessly.
Roger stared at the wall in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly, his
mouth opened, and he whistled softly.
“By—Jove!” he exclaimed, transferring his gaze to Alec. “I believe
I’ve got it. And doesn’t it simplify things, too? Yes, it _must_ be
right. It makes everything as clear as daylight. Good lord! Well, I’m
damned!”
“Out with it, then!”
Roger paused impressively. This was the most dramatic moment he had
yet encountered, and he was not going to spoil it by any undue
precipitation.
He smote the table softly with his fist by way of preparation. Then:
“Old Stanworth was a professional blackmailer!” he said in vibrant
tones.