“All the more reason for us to have a look at them, sir,” returned the inspector dryly. “As for anything confidential, that will of course go no farther. That is, unless there is some excellent reason to the contrary,” he added darkly.
Still Jefferson hesitated. “Of course, if you insist,” he said slowly, “there is no more to be said. Still, it seems highly unnecessary to me, I must say.”
“That, sir, is a matter for me to decide,” replied the inspector shortly. “Now, can you tell me where the key would be and what the combination is?”
“I believe that Mr. Stanworth usually kept his key-ring in his right-hand waistcoat pocket,” Jefferson said tonelessly, as if the subject had ceased to interest him. “As for the combination, I have not the least idea what it was. I was not in Mr. Stanworth’s confidence to that extent,” he added with the least possible shade of bitterness in his voice.
The inspector was feeling in the pocket mentioned. “Well, they’re not here now,” he said. With quick, deft movements he searched the other pockets. “Ah! Here they are. In the one above. He must have slipped them into the wrong pocket by mistake. But you say you don’t know the combination? Now I wonder how we can find that.” He weighed the ring of keys thoughtfully in his hand, deliberating.
Roger had strolled round the room with a careless air. If that safe was going to be opened, he wanted a good look at the contents. Now he paused by the fireplace.
“Hullo!” he remarked suddenly. “Somebody’s been burning something here.” He bent and peered into the grate. “Paper! I shouldn’t be surprised if those ashes aren’t all that’s left of your evidence, Inspector.”
The inspector crossed the room hastily and joined him. “I daresay you’re right, Mr. Sheringham,” he said disappointedly. “I ought to have noticed that myself. Thank you. Still, we must get that safe opened as soon as possible in any case.”
Roger rejoined Alec. “One to me,” he smiled. “Now, if he’d been one of the storybook inspectors, he’d have bitten my head off for discovering something that he’d missed. I like this man.”
The inspector put his notebook away. “Well, Doctor,” he said briskly, “I don’t think there’s anything more that you or I can do here, is there?”
“There’s nothing more that I can do,” Doctor Matthewson replied. “I’d like to get away, too, if you can spare me. I’m rather busy today. I’ll let you have that report at once.”
“Thanks. No, I shan’t want you any more, sir. I’ll let you know when the inquest will be. Probably tomorrow.” He turned to Jefferson. “And now, sir, if you’ll let me use the telephone, I’ll ring up the coroner and notify him. And after that, if there’s another room convenient, I’d like to interview these gentlemen and yourself, and the other members of the household also. We may be able to get a little closer to those reasons that Mr. Stanworth mentions.” He folded up the document in question and tucked it carefully away in his pocket.
“Then you won’t be wanting this room any more?” asked Jefferson.
“Not for the present. But I’ll send in the constable I brought with me to take charge in the meantime.”
“Oh!”
Roger looked curiously at the last speaker. Then he turned to Alec.
“Now am I getting a bee in my bonnet,” he said in a low voice, as they followed the others out of the room, “or did Jefferson sound disappointed to you just then?”
“Heaven only knows,” Alec whispered back. “I can’t make out any of them, and you’re as bad as anybody else!”
“Wait till I get you alone. I’m going to talk my head off,” Roger promised.
The inspector was giving his instructions to a large burly countryman, disguised as a policeman, who had been waiting patiently in the hall all this time. While Jefferson led the way to the morning room, the latter ambled portentously into the library. It was the first time he had been placed in charge, however temporary, of a case of this importance, and he respected himself tremendously for it.
Arrived on the scene of the tragedy, he frowned heavily about him, gazed severely at the body for a moment and then very solemnly smelled at the ink-pot. He had once read a lurid story in which what had been thought at first to be a case of suicide had turned out eventually to be a murder carried out by means of a poisoned ink-pot; and he was taking no chances.
V
Mr. Sheringham Asks a Question
“Now, gentlemen,” said the inspector, when the four of them were seated in the morning room, “there is a certain amount of routine work for me to do, though it may strike you as unimportant.” He smiled slightly towards Roger.
“Not a bit,” said that gentleman quickly. “I’m extraordinarily interested in all this. You’ve no idea how useful it will be if I ever want to write a detective novel.”
“Well, the chief thing I want to know,” the inspector resumed, “is who was the last person to see the deceased alive. Now when did you see him last, Major Jefferson?”
“About an hour and a half after dinner. Say ten o’clock. He was smoking in the garden with Mr. Sheringham, and I wanted to ask him something about the arrangements for today.”
“That’s right,” Roger nodded. “I remember. It was a few minutes past ten. The church clock in the village had just struck.”
“And what did you want to ask him?”
“Oh, nothing very important. Only what time he wanted the car in the morning, if at all. But I usually made a point of seeing him about that time every evening, in case he had any instructions to give me for the following day.”
“I see. And what did he tell you?”
“That he wouldn’t be wanting the car this morning at all.”
“And did he seem quite normal? Not agitated or upset in
