'That's a point,' Roger said thoughtfully. 'But not, I think, in this instance a sound one. The police are bound to investigate in any case, you see; the Great Detective isn't. Though you're right to the extent that the inspector himself did appear a little curious as to why David should have rung up the police station on this particular occasion and never before. Ronald jumped in and explained it all away, by the way. Another confirmation of collusion between those two.' Roger had spoken a little mechanically. He was thinking of someone else who had voiced to him a fear that the police might suspect 'something absolutely preposterous.' And that was before he himself had proved murder at all. But he had suspected it, and probably he had shown that he suspected it. Had this remark been by way of a feeler? Was there by any chance a second accessory after the fact? Roger would have to secure a few tactful words with Mrs. Lefroy some time during the day.
'What? Say that again, Colin. Sorry, I was thinking.'
'I don't believe a word of it,' Colin repeated robustly. 'There was no reason why David shouldn't have rung up the police as an innocent man, with a daft woman about the place like that. No reason at all. And every reason why he should.'
'Well, I disagree, that's all. I think, with the inspector, that it was to say the least curious. Now what else have we got against David?'
'Ach!'
'Supposing him innocent, was it really quite natural for him to come back to the house and search?' Roger asked argumentatively. 'Could he really have thought that she actually was hiding there? I don't know. It seems a little odd. Much more likely that she'd have rushed off to the house of some friend, or hidden herself outside - anywhere rather than in the house of the hated Ronald, wouldn't you think?'
'You're just twisting things.'
'No, I'm not. That's a perfectly sound point. And so is its corollary. In fact, more interesting still.'
'What?'
'Why, don't you see, if David knew she was dead - and Ronald, too, we might say, knew she was dead, either then or later - then they'd have to organize that search just exactly as they did in fact organize it; because neither of them must find the body, or it would look better if neither did, and so we had to be kept at it till one of us did. Don't you think that's rather interesting, Colin?'
'But these are nothings, man - just nothings.'
'No, they're not nothings. I grant you they're not very big somethings, but they are somethings: just tiny little pointers, which all seem to me to indicate guilt more than innocence. Not much separately, of course, but in the mass just a bit formidable, don't you think? And another one is David's anxiety to have the body in his own keeping at the first possible moment. Quite natural, no doubt, if he's innocent; but still more explicable, I should have said, if he's not.'
Colin made a Scottish noise of exasperation, which Roger ignored.
'That's interesting, by the way,' he resumed. 'It shows that the police have no suspicion at all. Otherwise, of course they'd have taken the body off to the mortuary. Well, I can't say I'm sorry.'
'I believe you,' said Colin meaningly.
Roger laughed. 'So I'm still under suspicion, am I?'
'More than that wee David, at any rate,' Colin muttered. 'Why, man, you said yourself last night that he and Chalmers were the only two who were definitely cleared.'
'Yes, but that was before I'd fully realized that the time of death might not be what Chalmers suggested.'
'You can't have it both ways, Roger,' Colin pointed out. 'It wasn't till you were trying to prove that Chalmers was the man that you decided the time of death might be half an hour later than he fixed it, because he might have been deliberately misleading us. It's only if Chalmers is guilty that the time of death might be late enough for David to have done it; and if Chalmers were guilty, David couldn't be. If Chalmers isn't guilty then the time of death must be as he said; and that lets wee David out again. You've no case at all.'
'Time of death is never so rigid as that,' Roger retorted. 'Within two hours, as this was, and in the cold outside air to complicate things, the doctors may well have made a perfectly genuine error of half an hour. Anyhow, you don't agree that I'm building up against David a case quite worth answering?'
'No, I don't,' Colin maintained stoutly. 'I think you've exaggerated all the points against him out of all proportion and not even considered the ones in his favour.'
'That's quite true; I haven't. I'm not concerned with them. I just wanted to see whether there was a case for him to answer. And there is.'
'Ach, you could make out as good a case as that against any of us.'
'Well, it's as good at least as the case you made out against me,' Roger retorted. 'Would you like to lay both of them before the inspector? I'm quite willing.'
'You're not really thinking of stirring up the mud like that, Roger, are you?' Colin asked, in some alarm.
'No, I'm not. But your answer shows what you won't admit: that there is a case against David.' Roger rose and stretched himself. 'Well, I'm quite willing to leave it at that, if you are.'
'Great guns, yes. I don't want to have anything more to do with the business at all.'
'Then that's all right.' Roger bent over his pipe, which had been unable to stand up to this oratory.
'What are you going to do now?' Colin asked.
'Me? Oh, I think I shall stroll back to the house, to see if there's anything doing. I rather liked that inspector fellow. I think I'll have a chat with him. By the way, I suppose you're staying till tomorrow? Ronald seems to want us to.'
'No,' said Colin. 'I don't care about the idea at all. I've told him I'll be pushing off after lunch.'
'Oh. Well, I think I shall stay. But what about the inquest?'
'Ach,' said Colin confidently, 'they won't want me for that. Why should they?'
Roger walked back to the house. If he had not succeeded in convincing Colin, he had convinced himself. He was quite sure now that either David Stratton or Ronald had been responsible for Ena's death, with the other brother as accomplice either before or after. In any case, they were both in it.
On the whole, Roger fancied Ronald as the more probable candidate for the actual deed. Ronald was a man of more decision than David, and he was a man, Roger fancied, who could be fairly ruthless if he had decided that ruthlessness was necessary. Besides, he had the double motive: solicitude for his brother, of whom he was obviously very fond, and the silencing of Ena on his own behalf.
For that matter, however, David had a double motive, too, as a husband and as a lover. 'I should like to know where David went when Colin left him,' Roger thought to himself. 'Did he go up onto the roof then, or didn't he? The time of death does give us that amount of latitude, whatever the doctors say. Now I wonder how I can possibly find that out?'
The more closely he looked at this new solution, the more certain Roger became that it was the right one. He had been led away before by the pretty will - of - the - wisp of Chalmers. But examining the situation with an unprejudiced eye, he saw now that a simple elimination left no one at all but one of the Stratton brothers as the guilty man. Colin, Williamson, and himself were out of the question; Dr. Mitchell, he was sure, had not left the ballroom or his wife's side during that hour; Mike Armstrong equally had been constant in his attendance on Margot; the women were all ruled out as not possessing the necessary physical strength; Chalmers was cleared for the same reason - only David and Ronald remained. And still further against these two, David's alibi was not sound and Ronald's had not even been examined.
Well, good luck to both of them. By the time he reached the house, Roger had decided that he no longer wanted to find out where David had gone when Colin left him. Whether it was he or Ronald who had done the actual deed, Roger had not the least intention of interfering. Murder could seldom be justified, but it was difficult to look on the elimination of a piece of blight like Ena Stratton as murder. And the best thing for Roger was simply not to know who had done it, or anything about it. But as he passed through the front door, Roger could not help smiling.
Did any lingering suspicion still really remain with Colin that he, of all people, Roger Sheringham, had taken it upon himself to string up Ena Stratton? Or was that merely a retort on the part of that obstinate young man to Roger's charges against David?
In either case, Roger could not help feeling amused at the idea of Roger Sheringham being suspected of murder.
