Mrs. Plant Talks
The inquest, in spite of the snail-like deliberation demanded by all
legal processes, did not occupy more than an hour and a half. The
issue was never in the least doubt, and the proceedings were more or
less perfunctory. Fortunately the coroner was not of a particularly
inquisitive disposition and was quite satisfied with the facts as they
stood; he did not waste very much time, beyond what was absolutely
necessary, in probing into such matters as motive. Only the minimum
possible number of witnesses were called, and though Roger listened
carefully, no new facts of any description came to light.
Mrs. Plant gave her evidence clearly and without a tremor; Lady
Stanworth’s statuesque calm was as unshaken as ever. Jefferson was in
the witness box longer than anyone else, and told his story in his
usual abrupt, straightforward manner.
“You’d never think, to see and hear him, that his whole evidence is
nothing but a pack of lies, would you?” Roger whispered to Alec.
“No, I wouldn’t; and what’s more I don’t,” retorted that gentleman
behind his hand. “It’s my belief that he thinks he’s telling the
truth.”
Roger groaned gently.
As far as minor witnesses went, Graves, the butler, and Roger were
both called to corroborate Jefferson’s tale of the breaking down of
the door; and the former was questioned regarding his discovery of the
confession, while Roger told of the locked windows. Alec was not even
called at all.
The verdict, “Suicide during temporary insanity,” was inevitable.
As they left the morning room Roger caught Alec’s arm.
“I’m going to try and get hold of Mrs. Plant now, before lunch,” he
said in a low voice. “Do you want to be present, or not?”
Alec hesitated. “What exactly are you going to do?” he asked.
“Tax her with having been blackmailed by Stanworth, and invite her to
tell me the truth about the night before last.”
“Then I don’t want to be there,” Alec said with decision. “The whole
thing absolutely sickens me.”
Roger nodded approvingly. “I think it’s better that you shouldn’t be,
I’m bound to say. And I can tell you afterwards what happened.”
“When shall I see you, then?”
“After lunch. I’ll have a word with you before I tackle Jefferson.”
He edged away from Alec and intercepted Mrs. Plant, who was on the
point of ascending the staircase. Jefferson and Lady Stanworth were
still talking with the coroner in the morning room.
“Mrs. Plant,” he said quietly, “can you spare me a few minutes? I want
to have a little chat with you.”
Mrs. Plant glanced at him sharply.
“But I’m just going up to finish my packing,” she objected.
“What I have to say is very much more important than packing,” Roger
returned weightily, unconsciously regarding her from beneath lowered
brows.
Mrs. Plant laughed nervously. “Dear me, Mr Sheringham, you sound very
impressive. What is it that you want to speak to me about?”
“If you will come out into the garden where we shall not be overheard,
I will tell you.”
For a moment she hesitated, with a longing glance up the staircase as
if she wished to escape from something peculiarly unwelcome. Then with
a little shrug of her shoulders she turned into the hall.
“Oh, very well,” she said, with an assumption of lightness. “If you
really make such a point of it.”
Roger piloted her out through the front door, picking up a couple of
folding garden chairs as he passed through the hall. He led the way
into a deserted corner of the rose garden that could not be overlooked
from the house, and set up his chairs so that they faced one another.
“Will you sit down, Mrs. Plant?” he said gravely.
If he had been trying to work up an atmosphere with a view to
facilitating further developments, Roger appeared to have succeeded.
Mrs. Plant seated herself without a word and looked at him
apprehensively.
Roger sat down with deliberation and gazed at her for a moment in
silence. Then:
“It has come to my knowledge that you were not speaking the truth to
me yesterday about your visit to the library, Mrs. Plant,” he said
slowly.
Mrs. Plant started. “Really, Mr. Sheringham!” she exclaimed, flushing
with indignation and rising hurriedly to her feet. “I fail to
understand what right you have to insult me in this gross way. This is
the second time you have attempted to question me, and you will allow
me to say that I consider your conduct presumptuous and impertinent in
the highest degree. I should be obliged if you would kindly refrain
from making me the target for your abominable lack of manners in
future.”
Roger gazed up at her unperturbed.
“You were really there,” he continued impressively, “for the purpose
of being blackmailed by Mr. Stanworth.”
Mrs. Plant sat down so suddenly that it seemed as if her knees had
collapsed beneath her. Her hands gripped the sides of her chair till
the knuckles were as white as her face.
“Now look here, Mrs. Plant,” Roger said, leaning forward and speaking
rapidly, “there’s been something very funny going on here, and I mean
to get to the bottom of it. Believe me, I don’t mean you any harm. I’m
absolutely on your side, if things are as I believe them to be. But I
must know the truth. As a matter of fact, I think I know pretty well
everything already; but I want you to confirm it for me with your own
lips. I want you to tell me the plain, unvarnished truth of what
happened in Stanworth’s library the night before last.”
“And if I refuse?” almost whispered Mrs. Plant, through bloodless
lips.
Roger shrugged his shoulders. “You leave me with absolutely no
alternative. I shall have to tell the police what I know and leave the
rest in their hands.”
“The _police_?”
“Yes. And I assure you I am not bluffing. As I said, I think I know
almost everything already. I know, for instance, that you sat on the
couch and begged Mr. Stanworth to let you off; that you cried, in
fact, when he refused to do so. Then you said you hadn’t any money,
didn’t you? And he offered to take your jewels instead. Then—— Oh, but
you see. I’m not pretending to know what I don’t.”
Roger’s bow, drawn thus at a venture, had found its target. Mrs. Plant
acknowledged the truth of his deductions by crying incredulously, “But
how do you know all this, Mr. Sheringham? How can you possibly have
found it out?”
“We won’t go into that at the moment, if you don’t mind,” Roger
replied complacently. “Let it suffice that I do know. Now I want you
to tell me in your own words the whole truth about that night. Please
leave out nothing at all; you must understand that I can check you if
you do so, and if you deceive me again——!” He paused eloquently.
For a few moments Mrs. Plant sat motionless, gazing into her lap. Then
she raised her head and wiped her eyes.
“Very well,” she said in a low voice. “I will tell you. You understand
that I am placing not only my happiness, but literally my whole future
in your hands by doing so?”
“I do, Mrs. Plant,” Roger said earnestly. “And I assure you I will not
abuse your confidence, although I am forcing it in this way.”
Mrs. Plant’s eyes rested on a bed of roses close at hand. “You know
that Mr. Stanworth was a blackmailer?” she said.
Roger nodded. “On a very large scale, indeed.”
“Is that so? I did not know it; but it does not surprise me in the
least.” Her voice sank. “He found out somehow that before I was
married I—I——”
“There’s not the least need to go into that sort of detail, Mrs.
Plant,” Roger interposed quickly. “All that concerns me is that he
_was_ blackmailing you; I don’t want to know why.”
Mrs. Plant flashed a grateful look at him.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Well, I will just say that it was in
connection with an incident which happened before I was married. I
have never told my husband about it (it was all past and done with
before I ever met him), because I knew that it would break his heart.
And we are devotedly in love with each other,” she added simply.
“I understand,” Roger murmured sympathetically.
“Then that devil found out about it! For he was a devil, Mr.
Sheringham,” Mrs. Plant said, looking at Roger with wide eyes, in
which traces of horror still lingered. “I could never have imagined
that anyone could be so absolutely inhuman. Oh! It was hell!” She
shuddered involuntarily.
“He demanded money, of course,” she went on after a minute in a calmer
voice; “and I paid him every penny I could. You must understand that I
was willing to face any sacrifice rather than that my husband should
be told. The other night I had to tell him that I had no more money
left. I lied when I told you what time I went into the library. He
stopped me in the hall to tell me that he wanted to see me there at
half-past twelve. That would be when everyone else was in bed, you
see. Mr. Stanworth always preserved the greatest secrecy about these
meetings.”
“And you went at half-past twelve?” Roger prompted sympathetically.
“Yes, taking my jewels with me. I told him that I had no more money.
He wasn’t angry. He never was. Just cold and sneering and horrible. He
said he’d take the jewels for that time, but I must bring him the
money he wanted—two hundred and fifty pounds—in three months’ time.”
“But how could you, if you hadn’t got it?”
Mrs. Plant was silent. Then gazing unseeingly at the rose bed, as if
living over again that tragic interview, she said in a curiously
toneless voice, “He said that a pretty woman like me could always
obtain money if it was necessary. He said he would introduce me to a
man out of whom I—I could get it, if I played my cards properly. He
said if I wasn’t ready with the two hundred and fifty pounds within
three months he would tell my husband everything.”
“My God!” said Roger softly, appalled.
Mrs. Plant looked him suddenly straight in the face.
“That will show you what sort of a man Mr. Stanworth was, if you
didn’t know,” she said quietly.
“I didn’t,” Roger answered. “This explains a good deal,” he added to
himself. “And then, I suppose, Jefferson came in?”
“Major Jefferson?” Mrs. Plant repeated, in unmistakable astonishment.
“Yes. Wasn’t that when he came in?”
Mrs. Plant stared at him in amazement.
“But Major Jefferson never came in at all!” she exclaimed. “What ever
makes you think that?”
It was Roger’s turn to be astonished.
“Do I understand you to say that Jefferson never came in at all while
you were in the library with Stanworth?” he asked.
“Good gracious, no,” Mrs. Plant replied emphatically. “I should hope
not! Why ever should he?”
“I—I don’t really know,” Roger said lamely. “I thought he did. I must
have been mistaken.” In spite of the unexpectedness of her denial, he
was convinced that Mrs. Plant was telling the truth; her surprise was
far too genuine to have been assumed. “Well, what happened?”
“Nothing. I—I implored him not to be so hard and to be content with
what I had paid him and give me back the evidence he’d got, but——”
“Where did he keep the evidence, by the way? In the safe?”
“Yes. He always carried the safe about with him. It was supposed to be
burglar-proof.”
“Was it open while you were there?”
“He opened it to put my jewels in before I went.”
“And did he leave it open, or did he lock it up again?”
“He locked it before I left the room.”
“I see. When would that be?”
“Oh, past one o’clock, I should say. I didn’t notice the time very
particularly. I was feeling too upset.”
“Naturally. And nothing of any importance occurred between his—his
ultimatum and your departure upstairs?”
“No. He refused to give way an inch, and at last I left off trying to
persuade him and went up to bed. That is all.”
“And nobody else came in at all? Not a sign of anybody else?”
“No; nobody.”
“Humph!” said Roger thoughtfully. This was decidedly disappointing;
yet somehow it was impossible to disbelieve Mrs. Plant’s story. Still,
Jefferson might have come in later, having heard something of what had
taken place from outside the room. At any rate, it appeared that Mrs.
Plant herself could have had no hand in the actual murder, whatever
provocation she might have received.
He decided to sound her a little farther.
“In view of what you’ve told me, Mrs. Plant,” he remarked rather more
casually, “it seems very extraordinary that Stanworth should have
committed suicide, doesn’t it? Can you account for it in any way?”
“No, I certainly can’t. It’s inexplicable to me. But, Mr. Sheringham,
I am so thankful! No wonder I fainted when you told us after
breakfast. I suddenly felt as if I had been let out of prison. Oh,
that dreadful, terrible feeling of being in that man’s power! You
can’t imagine it; or what an overwhelming relief it was to hear of his
death.”
“Indeed I can, Mrs. Plant,” Roger said with intense sympathy. “In
fact, what surprises me is that nobody should ever have killed him
before this.”
“Do you imagine that people never thought of that?” Mrs. Plant
retorted passionately. “I did myself. Hundreds of times! But what
would have been the use? Do you know what he did—in my case, at any
rate, and so in everyone else’s, I suppose? He kept the documentary
evidence against me in a sealed envelope addressed to my husband! He
knew that if ever he met with a violent death the safe would be opened
by the police, you see; and in that case they would take charge of the
envelope, and presumably many other similar ones, and forward them all
to their destinations. Just imagine that! Naturally nobody dared kill
him; it would only make things worse than before. He used to gloat
over it to me. Besides, he had always a loaded revolver in his hand
when he opened the safe, in my presence at any rate. I can tell you,
he took no chances. Oh, Mr. Sheringham, that man was a fiend! Whatever
can have induced him to take his own life, I can’t conceive; but
believe me, I shall thank God for it on my bended knees every night as
long as I live!”
She sat biting her lip and breathing heavily in the intensity of her
feelings.
“But if you knew the evidence was kept in the safe, why weren’t you
frightened when it was being opened by the inspector?” Roger asked
curiously. “I remember glancing at you, and you certainly didn’t seem
to be in the least perturbed about it.”
“Oh, that was after I’d had his letter, you see,” Mrs. Plant explained
readily. “I was before, of course; terribly frightened. But not
afterwards, though it did seem almost too good to be true. Hullo!
isn’t that the lunch bell? We had better be going indoors, hadn’t we?
I think I have told you all you can want to know.” She rose to her
feet and turned towards the house.
Roger fell into step with her.
“Letter?” he said eagerly. “What letter?”
Mrs. Plant glanced at him in surprise. “Oh, don’t you know about that?
I thought you must do, as you seemed to know everything. Yes, I got a
letter from him saying that for certain private reasons he had decided
to take his own life, and that before doing so he wished to inform me
that I need have no fears about anything, as he had burnt the evidence
he held against me. You can imagine what a relief it was!”
“Jumping Moses!” Roger exclaimed blankly. “That appears to bash me
somewhat sideways!”
“_What_ did you say, Mr. Sheringham?” asked Mrs. Plant curiously.
Roger’s dazed and slightly incoherent reply is not recorded.