“I expect that’s the doctor,” Jefferson remarked, moving towards the door. “I’ll go and see.”
“That man’s badly on the jump,” Roger commented to himself. Aloud he took the opportunity of remarking, “I dare say you’ll find some private papers in that safe which may throw some light on the business.” Roger badly wanted to know what was inside that safe. And what wasn’t!
“Safe, sir?” said the inspector sharply. “What safe?”
Roger pointed out where the safe stood. “I understand that Mr. Stanworth always carried it about with him,” he remarked casually. “That seems to point to the fact of there being something helpful inside, I should say.”
The inspector glanced round. “You never know with these suicides, sir,” he said in confidential tones. “Sometimes the reason’s plain enough; but often there doesn’t seem any reason for it at all. Either they’ve kept it to themselves, or else they’ve gone suddenly dotty. ‘Temporary Insanity’ is more often true than you’d say. Melancholia and suchlike. The doctor may be able to help us there.”
“And here he comes, if I’m not very much mistaken,” Roger observed, as the sound of approaching voices reached their ears.
The next moment Jefferson reappeared, showing a tall, thin man with a small bag in his hand into the room.
“This is Doctor Matthewson,” he said.
The doctor and the inspector exchanged nods of acquaintance. “There’s the body, Doctor,” remarked the latter, waving his hand towards the chair. “Nothing very remarkable about the case; but of course you know the coroner will want a detailed report.”
Dr. Matthewson nodded again and, setting his bag upon the table, bent over the still figure in the chair and proceeded to make his examination.
It did not take him many minutes.
“Been dead about eight hours,” he remarked briefly to the inspector, as he straightened up again. “Let’s see. It’s just past ten now, isn’t it? I should say he died at somewhere round two o’clock this morning. The revolver must have been within a couple of inches of his forehead when he fired. The bullet may be—” He felt carefully at the back of the dead man’s head, and, whipping a lancet out of his pocket, made an incision in the skull. “Here it is,” he added, extracting a small object of shining metal from the skin. “Lodged just under the scalp.”
The inspector made a few brief notes in his pocketbook.
“Obviously self-inflicted, of course?” he observed.
The doctor raised the dangling hand and scrutinised the fingers that held the revolver. “Obviously. The grip is properly adjusted and must have been applied during life.” With an effort he loosened the clasp of the dead fingers and handed the weapon across the table to the inspector.
The latter twirled the chamber thoughtfully before opening it. “Not fully loaded, but only one chamber fired,” he announced, and made another note.
“Edges of wound blackened and traces of powder on surrounding skin,” supplied the doctor.
The inspector extracted the empty shell and fitted the bullet carefully into it, comparing the latter with the bullets of the unfired cartridges.
“Why do you do that?” Roger asked with interest. “You know the bullet must have been fired from that revolver.”
“It’s not my job to know anything, sir,” returned the inspector, a little huffily. “My job is to collect evidence.”
“Oh, I wasn’t meaning that you weren’t acting perfectly correctly,” Roger said hastily. “But I’ve never seen anything of this sort before, and I was wondering why you were taking such pains to collect evidence when the cause of death is so obvious.”
“Well, sir, it isn’t my business to determine the cause of death,” the inspector explained, unbending slightly before the other’s obvious interest. “That’s the coroner’s job. All I have to do is to assemble all the available evidence that I can find, however trivial it may seem. Then I lay it before him, and he directs the jury accordingly. That is the correct procedure.”
Roger retired into the background. “I said there weren’t any flies on this bird,” he muttered to Alec, who had been a silent but none the less interested spectator of the proceedings. “That’s the third time he’s wiped the floor with me.”
“By the way, sir,” the inspector was saying to Doctor Matthewson, “I take it that as Lady Stanworth sent for you, you have been called in here before since they arrived?”
“That’s right, Inspector,” nodded the doctor. “Mr. Stanworth called me in himself. He had a slight attack of hay fever.”
“Ah!” remarked the inspector with interest. “And I suppose you examined him more or less.”
The doctor smiled faintly. He was remembering a somewhat strenuous half hour he had spent with his patient in this very room. “As a matter of fact, I examined him very thoroughly indeed. At his own request, of course. He said that it was the first time he had seen a doctor for fifteen years, and he’d like to be properly overhauled while he was about it.”
“And how did you find him?” the inspector asked with interest. “Anything much wrong with him? Heart, or anything like that?”
“See what he’s getting at?” Roger whispered to Alec. “Wants to find out if he was suffering from any incurable disease that might have led to suicide.”
“There was nothing wrong with him at all,” the doctor said with finality. “He was as sound as the proverbial bell. In fact, for a man of his years he was in a really remarkably healthy condition.”
“Oh!” The inspector was clearly a little disappointed. “Well, what about this safe, then?”
“The safe?” Major Jefferson repeated in startled tones.
“Yes, sir; I think I should like to have a look at the contents, if you please. They may throw some light on the affair.”
“But—but—” Major Jefferson hesitated, and it seemed to the interested Roger that his usually impassive face showed traces of real alarm. “But is that necessary?” he asked more calmly. “There may be private papers in there of a highly confidential nature. Not that I know anything about it,” he added somewhat hastily; “but
