Mr. Sheringham Solves the Mystery
It was past ten o’clock on the following morning, and Roger and Alec
were engaged in taking a constitutional in the rose garden after
breakfast before the inquest proceedings opened. Roger had refused to
say anything further on the previous evening—or, rather, in the small
hours of the same morning. All he had done was to remark that it was
quite time they were in bed, and that he wanted a clear head before
discussing the affair in the light of this new revelation of
Stanworth’s character. He remarked this not once, but many times; and
Alec had perforce to be contented with it.
Now, with pipes in full blast, they were preparing to go further into
the matter.
Roger himself was complacently triumphant.
“Mystery?” he repeated, in answer to a question of Alec’s. “There
isn’t any mystery now. I’ve solved it.”
“Oh, I know the mystery about Stanworth is cleared up,” said Alec
impatiently; to tell the truth, Roger in this mood irritated him not a
little. “That is, if your explanation is the right one, which I’m not
disputing at the moment.”
“Thank you very much.”
“But what about the mystery of his death? You can’t have solved that.”
“On the contrary, Alexander,” Roger rejoined, with a satisfied smile;
“that is exactly what I have done.”
“Oh? Then who killed him?”
“If you want it in a single word,” Roger said, not without a certain
reluctance, “Jefferson.”
“_Jefferson?_” Alec exclaimed. “Oh, rot!”
Roger glanced at him curiously. “Now that’s interesting,” he
commented. “Why do you say ‘rot’ like that?”
“Because——” Alec hesitated. “Oh, I don’t know. It seems such rot to
think of Jefferson committing a murder, I suppose. Why?”
“You mean, you don’t think it’s the sort of thing he would do?”
“I certainly don’t!” Alec returned with emphasis.
“Do you know, Alec, I’m beginning to think you’re a better judge of
character than I am. It’s a humiliating confession, but there you are.
Tell me, have you always thought that about Jefferson, or only just
recently?”
Alec considered. “Ever since this business cropped up, I think. It
always seemed fantastic to me that Jefferson could be mixed up with
it. And the two women as well, for that matter. No, Roger, if you’re
trying to fix it on Jefferson, I’m quite sure you’re making a bad
mistake.”
Roger’s complacency was unshaken.
“If the case were an ordinary one, no doubt,” he replied. “But you’ve
got to remember that this isn’t. Stanworth was a blackmailer, and that
alters everything. You may murder an ordinary man, but you execute a
blackmailer. That is, if you don’t kill him on the spur of the moment,
carried away by madness or exasperation. You’d do that sort of thing
on your own account, wouldn’t you? Well, how much more so are you
going to do it on behalf of a woman, and that a woman with whom you’re
in love? I tell you, Alec, the whole thing is as plain as a
pikestaff.”
“Meaning that Jefferson is in love?”
“Precisely.”
“Who with?”
“Mrs. Plant.”
Alec gasped. “Good Lord, how on earth do you know that?” he asked
incredulously.
“I don’t,” Roger replied with a pleased air. “But he must be. It’s the
only explanation. I deduced it.”
“The devil you did!”
“Yes, I’d arrived at that conclusion even before we discovered the
secret of Stanworth’s hidden life. That clears up absolutely
everything.”
“Does it? I admit it seems to make some of the things more
understandable, but I’m dashed if I can see how it makes you so sure
that Jefferson killed him.”
“I’ll explain,” Roger said kindly. “Jefferson was secretly in love
with Mrs. Plant. For some reason or other Mrs. Plant was being
blackmailed by Stanworth unknown to Jefferson. He has a midnight
interview with her in the library and demands money. She weeps and
implores him (hence the dampness of the handkerchief) and lays a face
on the arm of the couch as women do (hence the powder in that
particular place). Stanworth is adamant; he must have money. She says
she hasn’t got any money. All right, says Stanworth, hand your jewels
over then. She goes and gets her jewels and gives them to him.
Stanworth opens the safe and tells her that is where he keeps his
evidence against her. Then he locks the jewels up and tells her she
can go. Enter Jefferson unexpectedly, takes in the situation at a
glance, and goes for Stanworth bald-headed. Stanworth fires at him and
misses, hitting the vase. Jefferson grabs his wrist, forces the
revolver round and pulls the trigger, thus shooting Stanworth with his
own revolver without relaxing the other’s grip on it. Mrs. Plant is
horror-struck; but, seeing that the thing is done, she takes command
of the situation and arranges the rest. And that,” Roger concluded,
with a metaphorical pat on his own back, “is the solution of the
peculiar events at Layton Court.”
“Is it?” Alec said, with less certainty. “It’s a very pretty little
story, no doubt, and does great credit to your imagination. But as to
being the solution—well, I’m not so sure about that.”
“It seems to me to account for pretty well everything,” Roger
retorted. “But you always were difficult to please, Alec. Think. The
broken vase and the second bullet; how the murder was committed; the
fact that the murderer went back into the house again; the agitation
about the safe being opened; Mrs. Plant’s behaviour in the morning,
her reluctance to give evidence (in case she let out anything of what
really happened, you see), and her fright when I sprang on her the
fact that I knew she’d been in the library, after all; the
disappearance of the footprints; the presence of the powder and the
dampness of the handkerchief; Lady Stanworth’s indifference to her
brother-in-law’s death (I expect he had some hold over her, too, if
the truth were known); the employment of a prize-fighter as a butler,
obviously a measure of self-protection; the fact that I heard people
moving about late that night; everything! All cleared up and
explained.”
“Humph!” said Alec noncommittally.
“Well, can you find a single flaw in it?” Roger asked, in some
exasperation.
“If it comes to that,” Alec replied slowly, “why was it that both Mrs.
Plant and Jefferson suddenly had no objection to the safe being
opened, after they’d both shown that they were anxious to prevent it?”
“Easy!” Roger retorted. “While we were upstairs, Jefferson opened the
safe and took out the documents. It would only take a minute, after
all. Any objection to that?”
“Did the inspector leave the keys behind? I thought he put them in his
pocket.”
“No, he left them on the table, and Jefferson put them in _his_
pocket. I remember noticing that at the time, and wondering why he did
it. Now it’s obvious, of course.”
“Well, what about that little pile of ashes in the library hearth? You
suggested that it might be the remains of some important documents,
and you thought that Jefferson looked uncommonly relieved at the
idea.”
“My mistake at the time,” Roger said promptly. “As for the ashes, they
might have been anything. I don’t attach any importance to them.”
“But you did!” Alec persisted obstinately.
“Yes, excellent but sponge-headed Alexander,” Roger explained
patiently, “because I thought at first that they _were_ important. Now
I see that I was mistaken, and they _aren’t_. Are you beginning to
grasp the idea?”
“Well, tell me this, then,” Alec said suddenly. “Why the dickens
didn’t Jefferson get the documents out of the safe directly after
Stanworth’s death, instead of waiting till the next morning and
getting so agitated about it?”
“Yes, I thought of that. Presumably because they were both so
flustered at what had happened that they forgot all about the
documents in their anxiety to cover up their traces and get away.”
Alec sniffed slightly. “Rather unlikely that, isn’t it? Not natural,
as you’re always so fond of saying.”
“Unlikely things do happen sometimes, however. This one did, for
instance.”
“Then you’re absolutely convinced that Jefferson killed Stanworth, and
that’s how it all happened, are you?”
“I am, Alexander.”
“Oh!”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“No,” Alec said uncompromisingly. “I’m not.”
“But dash it all, I’ve proved it to you. You can’t shove all my proofs
on one side in that off-hand way. The whole thing stands to reason.
You can’t get away from it.”
“If you say that Jefferson killed Stanworth,” Alec proceeded with
obstinate deliberation, “then I’m perfectly sure you’re wrong. That’s
all.”
“But _why_?”
“Because I don’t believe he did,” said Alec, with an air of great
wisdom. “He’s not the sort of fellow to do a thing like that. I
suppose I’ve got a sort of intuition about it,” he added modestly.
“Intuition be hanged!” Roger retorted, with a not unjustified
irritation. “You can’t back your blessed intuition against proofs like
the ones I’ve just given you.”
“But I do,” Alec said simply. “Every time,” he added, with a careful
attention to detail.
“Then I wash my hands of you,” said Roger shortly.
For a time they paced side by side in silence. Alec appeared to be
pondering deeply, and Roger was undisguisedly huffy. After all, it is
a little irksome to solve in so ingenious yet so convincing a way a
problem of such apparently mysterious depth, only to be brought up
against a blank wall of disbelief founded on so unstable a foundation
as mere intuition. One’s sympathy is certainly with Roger at that
moment.
“Well, anyhow, what are you going to do about it?” Alec asked, after
some minutes’ reflection. “Surely you’re not going to tell the police
without troubling to verify anything further, are you?”
“Of course not. In fact, I haven’t made up my mind whether I shall
tell the police at all yet.”
“Oh!”
“It depends largely on what the two of them—Jefferson and Mrs.
Plant—have to tell me.”
“So you’re going to tackle them about it, are you?”
“Of course.”
There was another short silence.
“Are you going to see them together?” Alec asked.
“No, I shall speak to Mrs. Plant first, I think. There are one or two
minor points I want to clear up before I see Jefferson.”
Alec reflected again. “I shouldn’t, Roger, if I were you,” he said
quite earnestly.
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Speak to either of them about it. You’re not at all sure whether
you’re really right or not; after all, it’s only guesswork from
beginning to end, however brilliant guesswork.”
“Guesswork!” Roger repeated indignantly. “There isn’t any guesswork
about it! It’s——”
“Yes, I know; you’re going to say it’s deduction. Well, you may be
right or you may not; the thing’s too deep for me. But shall I tell
you what I think about it? I think you’d be wise to drop the whole
thing just as it is. You think you’ve solved it; and perhaps you have.
Why not be content with that?”
“But why this change of mind, Alexander?”
“It isn’t a change of mind. You know I’ve never been keen on it from
the very beginning. But now that Stanworth’s turned out to be such a
skunk, why——”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” Roger said softly. “You mean that if
Jefferson did kill Stanworth, he was perfectly right to do so and we
ought to let him get away with it, don’t you?”
“Well,” Alec said awkwardly, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,
but——”
“But I don’t know that _I_ wouldn’t,” Roger interrupted. “That’s why I
said just now that I hadn’t decided whether I’d tell the police or
not. It all depends on whether things did happen as I imagine, or not.
But the thing is, I must find out.”
“But must you?” Alec said slowly. “As things are at present, whatever
you may think, you don’t actually _know_. And if you do find out for
certain, it seems to me that you’ll be deliberately saddling yourself
with a responsibility which you might wish then that you hadn’t been
so jolly eager to adopt.”
“If it comes to that, Alec,” Roger retorted, “I should have said that
to take no steps to find out the truth now we’re so near it is
deliberately to shirk that very responsibility. Wouldn’t you?”
Alec was silent for a moment.
“Hang that!” he said with sudden energy. “Leave things as they are,
Roger. There are some things of which it’s better that everyone should
remain in ignorance. Don’t go and find out a lot of things that you’d
give anything afterwards not to have discovered.”
Roger laughed lightly. “Oh, I know it’s the right thing to say, ‘Who
am I to take the responsibility of judging you? No, it is not for me
to do so. I will hand you over to the police, which means that you
will inevitably be hanged. It’s a pity, because my personal opinion is
that your case is not murder, but justifiable homicide; and I know
that a jury, directed by a judge with his eye on the asinine side of
the law, would never be allowed to take that view. That’s why I so
much regret having myself to place a halter round your neck by handing
you over to the police. But how is such a one as me to judge you?’
That’s what they always say in storybooks, isn’t it? But don’t you
worry, Alec. I’m not a spineless nincompoop like that, and I’m not in
the least afraid of taking the responsibility of judging a case on its
own merits; in fact, I consider that I’m very much more competent to
do so than are twelve thick-headed rustics, presided over by a
somnolent and tortuous-minded gentleman in an out-of-date wig. No, I’m
going to follow this up to the bitter end, and when I’ve got there
I’ll take counsel with you as to what we’re going to do about it.”
“I wish to goodness you’d leave it alone, Roger,” said Alec, almost
plaintively.