Mr. Sheringham is Disconcerted
Roger sat through the first part of lunch in a species of minor
trance. It was not until the necessity for consuming a large plateful
of prunes and tapioca pudding, the two things besides Jews that he
detested most in the world, began to impress itself upon his
consciousness, that the power of connected thought returned to him.
Mrs. Plant’s revelation appeared temporarily to have numbed his brain.
The one thing which remained dazzlingly clear to him was that if
Stanworth had written a letter announcing his impending suicide, then
Stanworth could not after all have been murdered; and the whole
imposing structure which he, Roger, had erected, crumbled away into
the sand upon which it had been founded. It was a disturbing
reflection for one so blithely certain of himself as Roger.
As soon as lunch was over and the discussion regarding trains and the
like at an end, he hurried Alec upstairs to his bedroom to talk the
matter over. It is true that Roger felt a certain reluctance to be
compelled thus to acknowledge that he had been busily unearthing
nothing but a mare’s nest; but, on the other hand, Alec must know
sooner or later, and at that moment the one vital necessity from
Roger’s point of view was to talk. In fact, the pent-up floods of talk
in Roger’s bosom that were striving for exit had been causing him
something very nearly approaching physical pain during the last few
minutes.
“Alexander!” he exclaimed dramatically as soon as the door was safely
shut. “Alexander, the game is up!”
“What do you mean?” Alec asked in surprise. “Have the police got on
the trail now?”
“Worse than that. Far worse! It appears that old Stanworth was never
murdered at all! He did commit suicide, after all.”
Alec sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed
limply. “But what on earth makes you think that? I thought you were so
convinced that it was murder.”
“So I was,” Roger said, leaning against the dressing table. “That’s
what makes it all the more extraordinary, because I really am very
seldom wrong. I say it in all modesty, but the fact is indisputable.
By all the laws of average, Stanworth ought to have been murdered. It
really is most inexplicable.”
“But how do you know he wasn’t?” Alec demanded. “What’s happened since
I saw you last to make you alter your mind like this?”
“The simple fact that Mrs. Plant received a note from old Stanworth,
saying that he was going to kill himself for private reasons of his
own or something.”
“Oh!”
“I can tell you, it knocked me upside down for the minute. Anything
more unexpected I couldn’t have imagined. And the trouble is that I
don’t see how we can possibly get round it. A note like that is a very
different matter to that statement.”
“You know, I’m not sure that I’m altogether surprised that something
like this has turned up,” Alec said slowly. “I was never quite so
convinced by the murder idea as you were. After all, when you come to
look at all the facts of the case, although they certainly seemed to
be consistent with murder, were no less consistent with suicide,
weren’t they?”
“So it appears,” Roger said regretfully.
“It was simply that you’d got the notion of murder into your head—more
picturesque, I suppose—and everything had to be construed to fit it,
eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“In fact,” Alec concluded wisely, “it was an _idée fixe_, and
everything else was sacrificed to it. Isn’t that right?”
“Alexander, you put me to shame,” Roger murmured.
“Well, anyhow, that shows you what comes of muddling in other people’s
affairs,” Alec pointed out severely. “And it’s lucky you hit on the
truth before you made a still bigger idiot of yourself.”
“I deserve it all, I know,” Roger remarked contritely to his
hair-brush.
It was Alec’s turn to be complacent now, and he was taking full
advantage of it. As he lay back leisurely in his chair and smoked away
placidly, he presented a perfect picture of “I told you so!” Roger
contemplated him in rueful silence.
“And yet——!” he murmured tentatively, after a few moments’ silence.
Alec waved an admonitory pipe.
“Now, then!” he said warningly.
Roger exploded suddenly. “Well, say what you like, Alec,” he burst
out, “but the thing is dashed queer! You can’t get away from it. After
all, our inquiries haven’t resulted in nothing, have they? We did
establish the fact that Stanworth was a blackmailer. I forgot to tell
you that, by the way. We were perfectly right; he had been
blackmailing Mrs. Plant, the swine, and jolly badly, too.
Incidentally, she hadn’t the least idea that his death might be
anything else than suicide, and Jefferson didn’t come into the library
while she was there; so I was wrong in that particular detail. I’m
satisfied she was telling the truth, too. But as for the rest—well,
I’m dashed if I know what to think! The more I consider it, the more
difficult I find it to believe that it was suicide, after all, and
that all those other facts could have been nothing but mere
coincidences. It isn’t reasonable.”
“Yes, that’s all very well,” Alec said sagely. “But when a fellow
actually goes out of his way to write a letter saying that——”
“By Jove, Alec!” Roger interrupted excitedly. “You’ve given me an
idea. _Did_ he write it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, mightn’t it have been typed? I haven’t seen the thing yet, you
know, and when she mentioned a letter it never occurred to me that it
might not be a hand-written one. If it was typed, then there’s still a
chance.” He walked rapidly towards the door.
“Where are you going to now?” Alec asked in surprise.
“To see if I can get a look at this blessed letter,” Roger said,
turning the handle. “Mrs. Plant’s room is down this passage, isn’t
it?”
With a quick glance up and down the passage, Roger hurried along to
Mrs. Plant’s bedroom and tapped on the door.
“Come in,” said a voice inside.
“It’s me, Mrs. Plant,” he replied softly. “Mr. Sheringham. Can I speak
to you a minute?”
There came the sound of rapid footsteps crossing the floor and Mrs.
Plant’s head appeared at the door.
“Yes?” she asked, not without a certain apprehension. “What is it, Mr.
Sheringham?”
“You remember that letter you mentioned this morning? From Mr.
Stanworth, I mean. Have you still got it, by any chance, or have you
destroyed it?”
He held his breath for her reply.
“Oh, no. Of course I destroyed it at once. Why?”
“Oh, I just wanted to test an idea. Let me see.” He thought rapidly.
“It was pushed under your door or something, I suppose?”
“Oh, no. It came by post.”
“Did it?” said Roger eagerly. “You didn’t notice the postmark, did
you?”
“As a matter of fact I did. It seemed so funny that he should have
taken the trouble to post it. It was posted from the village by the
eight-thirty post that morning.”
“The village, was it? Oh! And was it typewritten?”
“Yes.”
Roger held his breath again. “Was the signature written or
typewritten?”
Mrs. Plant considered.
“It was typewritten, as far as I remember.”
“Are you sure of that?” Roger asked eagerly.
“Ye-es, I think so. Oh, yes; I remember now. The whole thing was
typewritten, signature and all.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Plant,” Roger said gratefully. “That’s all
I wanted to know.”
He sped back to his own room.
“Alexander!” he exclaimed dramatically, as soon as he was inside.
“Alexander, the game is on again!”
“What’s up now?” Alec asked with a slight frown.
“That letter sounds like a fake, just the same as the confession. It
was all typewritten, even the signature, and it was posted from the
village. Can you imagine a man in his sane senses deliberately going
down to the village to post his letter, when all he had to do was to
push it under her door?”
“He might have had others to post as well,” Alec hazarded, blowing out
a great cloud of smoke. “Would Mrs. Plant’s be the only one?”
“H’m! I never thought of that. Yes, he would. But still, it’s rather
unlikely that he should have posted hers as well, I should say. By the
way, it was that letter which accounted for her change of attitude
before lunch. She knew then that she had nothing to fear from the
opening of the safe, you see.”
“Well, how do matters stand now?”
“Exactly as they did before. I don’t see that this really affects it
either way. It’s only another instance of the murderer’s cunning. Mrs.
Plant, and possibly, as you say, one or two others, might raise
awkward questions at Stanworth’s sudden death; therefore their
apprehensions must be allayed. All that it really does as far as we
are concerned, is to confirm the idea that the murderer must have a
very intimate knowledge of Stanworth’s private affairs. Of course it
shows that the safe _was_ opened that night, and it brings our old
friends, the ashes in the hearth, into prominence once more as being
in all probability the remains of the blackmailer’s evidence. Curious
that that first guess of mine should have turned out to be so near the
truth, isn’t it?”
“And what about Jefferson?” Alec asked quietly.
“Ah, yes, Jefferson. Well, I suppose this affair of the letter and the
fact that he did not break in on Mrs. Plant and Stanworth in the
library that night and consequently was not helped by that lady—I
suppose all this gives him credit for rather more brains than I had
been willing to concede him; but otherwise I don’t see that his
position is affected.”
“You mean, you still think he killed Stanworth?”
“If he didn’t, can you tell me who did?”
Alec shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve told you I’m convinced you’re
barking up the wrong tree. It’s no good going on repeating it.”
“Not a bit,” Roger said cheerfully.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Exactly what I was before. Have a little chat with him.”
“Rather ticklish business, isn’t it? I mean, when you’re so very
uncertain of your ground.”
“Possibly. But so was Mrs. Plant for that matter. I think I shall be
able to handle friend Jefferson all right. I shall be perfectly candid
with him, and I’m willing to wager a small sum that I shall be back
here within half an hour with his confession in my pocket.”
“Humph!” Alec observed sceptically. “Are you going to accuse him
directly of the murder?”
“My dear Alec! Nothing so crude as that. I shan’t even say in so many
words that I know a murder has been committed. I shall simply ask him
a few pointed and extremely pertinent questions. He’ll see the drift
of them all right; Master Jefferson is no fool, as we have every
reason to know. Then we shall be able to get down to things.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake do bear in mind the possibility (I won’t put
it any stronger than that) that Jefferson never did kill Stanworth at
all, and walk warily.”
“Trust me for that,” Roger replied complacently. “By the way, did I
tell you that Mrs. Plant received that letter just before going into
lunch? It caught the eight-thirty post from the village.”
“Did it?” Alec said without very much interest.
“By Jove!” Roger exclaimed suddenly. “What an idiot I am! That’s
conclusive proof that Stanworth couldn’t have posted it himself, isn’t
it? Fancy my never spotting that point before!”
“What point?”
“Why, the first post out from the village is five o’clock. That letter
must have been posted between five and eight-thirty—four hours or more
after Stanworth was dead!”