CHAPTER XXII.Mr. Sheringham Solves the MysteryIt 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 inhispocket. 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 theywereimportant. Now I see that I was mistaken, and theyaren’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.”“Butwhy?”“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 thatIwouldn’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 actuallyknow. 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.
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 inhispocket. 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 theywereimportant. Now I see that I was mistaken, and theyaren’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.”
“Butwhy?”
“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 thatIwouldn’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 actuallyknow. 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.