“You’re right. There wasn’t. I shouldn’t mind going farther than that and saying that she absolutely hated old Stanworth. I noticed it lots of times these last three days, and it puzzled me even then. Now—” He paused and sucked at his pipe once or twice. “Now it puzzles me a good deal more,” he concluded softly, almost as if speaking to himself.
“Go on,” Alec prompted interestedly.
“Well, that’s four people; two whose behaviour has not been quite what you’d expect under the circumstances, and two who are downright suspicious. Anyhow, you can say four curious people.”
Alec nodded in silence. He was thinking of a fifth person whose conduct early that morning had been something more than curious. With an effort he thrust the thought from him abruptly. At any rate, Roger was going to know nothing about that.
“And now we come to facts, and the Lord knows these are curious enough, too. First of all, we’ve got the place of the wound and the extreme unlikelihood (as one would have said if one hadn’t actually seen it) of anyone committing suicide by shooting himself in that particular way. About that I’m not going to say any more for the moment. But there are plenty of things to talk about without that.”
“There would be, with you anywhere about,” Alec murmured irreverently.
“You wait. This is serious. Now according to what they say, people went to bed in pretty decent time, last night, didn’t they? Mrs. Plant after meeting Stanworth in the hall; Barbara and her mother soon after you came in from the garden; and Jefferson and you after you’d finished playing billiards?”
“That’s right,” Alec nodded. “Eleven thirtyish.”
“Well,” said Roger triumphantly. “Somebody’s lying! I was working in my room till past one, and I heard footsteps in the corridor not once but two or three times between midnight and then—the last time just as I was knocking off! Of course I didn’t pay any particular attention to them at the time; but I know I’m not mistaken. So if everyone says that they were in their rooms by eleven-thirty (except Stanworth, who was presumably locked in the library), then I repeat—somebody’s lying! Now what do you make of that?”
“Heaven only knows,” said Alec helplessly, puffing vigorously at his pipe. “What do you?”
“Beyond the bare fact that somebody’s lying, nothing—yet! But that’s quite enough for the present. Then there’s another thing. You remember where those keys were? In the waistcoat pocket above the one in which he usually kept them. The inspector just remarked that he must have put them in the wrong pocket. Now, do you think that’s likely?”
“Might be done. I don’t see anything wildly improbable in it.”
“Oh, no; not wildly improbable. But improbable enough, for all that. Have you ever done it, for instance?”
“Put a thing in the wrong pocket? Lord, yes; heaps of times.”
“No, you idiot. Not just in any wrong pocket. In the upper pocket of a waistcoat instead of the lower.”
Alec considered. “I don’t know. Haven’t I!”
“Probably not. Once again, it’s an unnatural mistake. One doesn’t use the upper pockets of a waistcoat much. They’re not easy to get at. But consider this. When you want to slip a thing into the lower pocket of a waistcoat that’s hanging on a chair, it’s the easiest thing in the world to put it in the upper pocket by mistake. Done it myself hundreds of times.”
Alec whistled softly. “I see what you’re getting at. You mean—”
“Absolutely! A waistcoat worn by somebody else is in the same category as a waistcoat hanging on a chair. If we’re to go by probabilities, then the most likely thing is that somebody else put those keys in that pocket. Not Stanworth himself at all.”
“But who on earth do you imagine did it? Jefferson?”
“Jefferson!” Roger repeated scornfully. “Of course not Jefferson! That’s the whole point. Jefferson was looking for those keys; and it’s just because they were in the wrong pocket and he didn’t know it, that he couldn’t find them. That’s plain enough.”
“Sorry!” Alec apologised.
“Well, this is all wrong, don’t you see? It complicates things still more. Here’s a fifth mysterious person to be added to our list of suspicious characters.”
“Then you don’t think it was Mrs. Plant?” Alec said tentatively.
“I know it wasn’t Mrs. Plant. She was playing about with the knob of the safe; she hadn’t got the keys. And in any case, even if she had, there was no possibility of her getting them back again. No, we’ve got to look elsewhere. Now let’s see, when was that library left empty?” He paused for reflection. “Jefferson was there alone while I was in the dining room (I should like to know why Mrs. Plant fainted, by the way; but we’ve got to wait for that till the safe’s opened); but he didn’t find the keys. Then we both went into the garden. Then I met you, and we caught Mrs. Plant almost immediately afterwards. How long was I with Jefferson? Not more than ten minutes or so. Then the keys must have been disturbed in that ten minutes before Mrs. Plant went into the library (there was no opportunity later; you remember we kept the library under inspection after that till the police arrived). Either then, or—” He hesitated and was silent.
“Yes?” said Alec curiously. “Or when else?”
“Nothing!—Well, anyhow, there’s plenty of food for thought there, isn’t there?”
“It does give one something to think about,” Alec agreed, puffing vigorously.
“Oh, and one other thing; possibly of no importance whatever. There was a slight scratch on Stanworth’s right wrist.”
“Rose bush!” replied Alec promptly. “He was always playing about with them, wasn’t he?”
“Ye-es,” Roger replied doubtfully. “That occurred to me, of course. But somehow I don’t think it was a scratch from a rose. It was fairly broad, for instance; not a thin, deep line like a rose’s scratch. However,
