The nearest outhouse offering a safe refuge, they withdrew hastily and scrutinised their find more closely. After ten minutes’ concentrated effort they found themselves in possession of the following:
“… that brute Prince … this neighbourhood … serious danger … fright of my life this morning on chancing to … be locked up …”
“I think that’s absolutely all that’s decipherable, without a magnifying glass, at any rate,” Roger said at length, folding up the precious paper and stowing it carefully away in his pocketbook. “But it’s plain enough, isn’t it? So forward!” He marched out of the shed and turned in the direction of the drive.
“Where to now?” asked the faithful Alec, hurrying after him.
“To find Master Prince,” Roger returned grimly.
“Ah! You think he’s still about here?”
“I think it’s quite probable. He’s been in communication with Jefferson this morning, hasn’t he? At any rate, we can soon find out.”
“What exactly have you deduced then?”
“Well, there’s precious little deduction needed; the thing speaks for itself. Stanworth, for some reason still unknown to us, had cause to fear a man named Prince. To his surprise and terror he chanced to encounter him unexpectedly one morning about a week ago in this neighbourhood, and knew at once that he was in serious danger. He comes home at once, makes a rough draft of a letter, and then writes off to some other person telling him all about it and asking, probably, for help; at the same time expressing his conviction that Prince ought to be locked up.”
“It’s curious,” Alec mused.
“Fishy, you mean? Yes, but we’ve had a suspicion for some time that there was something fishy going on behind the scenes in all this, haven’t we? Not only with regard to the behaviour of the other people in the house, but even possibly in connection with old Stanworth himself. But we’re hot on the trail this time, I think.”
“What’s your plan of campaign?” Alec asked, as they turned into the drive.
“Well, we must make a few discreet inquiries. In fact, our course will be much the same as we contemplated before, except that our field of action has luckily been narrowed down very considerably. Instead of chasing about after some nebulous stranger, we’ve now got a definite goal. We had a pretty good idea of what he looks like before, but now we even know the blighter’s name. Oh, this is going to be too easy.”
“How do you mean—we had a pretty good idea of what he looks like?”
“Well, haven’t we? We know he must be strong, because of what happened in the library; Stanworth was no weakling, remember. Then the size of his footprints shows that he was a large man, probably tall. I can’t tell you the colour of his hair or how many false teeth he’s got; but we’ve got a good working idea of his appearance for all that.”
“But what are you going to do, if you do succeed in finding him? You can’t go up to him and say, ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Prince. I believe you murdered Mr. Stanworth at two o’clock this morning.’ It—it isn’t done.”
“You leave all that to me,” Roger returned largely. “I’ll think of something to say to him all right.”
“I’m sure you will,” Alec murmured with conviction.
“In the meantime, here’s the lodge. What about seeing if William’s in? He lives here, doesn’t he? Or Mrs. William. They might have opened the gates to this man Prince last night.”
“Right-ho. But be discreet.”
“Really, Alec!” said Roger with dignity, as he tapped on the lodge door.
William’s wife was a round-faced, apple-cheeked old lady with a pair of twinkling blue eyes that looked as if they saw something humorous in most of the things upon which they rested; as no doubt they did, considering that they belonged to the wife of William.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said, with a little old-fashioned bob. “Would it be me you were wanting?”
“Good afternoon,” Roger replied with a smile. “We were wondering if William happened to be at home.”
“Me ’usband? Lor’, no, sir; he’s never at home at this time. He’s got his work to do.”
“Oh, I suppose he’s about the garden somewhere, is he?”
“Yes, sir. Cuttin’ pea-sticks in the orchard, I think he is. Was it anything important?”
“Oh, no; nothing important. I’ll call around and see him later on.”
“Shocking business this, sir; about the master,” Mrs. William began volubly. “Shocking! Such a thing’s never been known at Layton Court before, not in my time it ’asn’t; nor ever before that, so far as I’ve ’eard tell. An’ did you see the corpse, sir? Shot hisself in the ’ead, didn’t he?”
“Yes, shocking,” said Roger hastily. “Shocking! By the way, I was expecting a friend last night rather late, but he never turned up. You didn’t see anything of him here I suppose, did you?”
“About what time would that be, sir?”
“Oh, somewhere about eleven o’clock, I should think; or even later.”
“No, sir; that I didn’t. William an’ me was both on us in bed and asleep before half-past ten.”
“I see. And you close the gates when you lock up for the night, don’t you?”
“That we do, sir. Unless there’s orders come down to the contrary. They was shut near after ten o’clock last night, an’ not opened till Halbert (that’s the showfure) came down early this mornin’. Was your friend coming by motor car, sir?”
“I don’t know. It depended. Why?”
“Because there’s always the little gate at the side left open, which people on foot can come in by. All I can tell you, sir, is that nobody came to my knowledge, which he naturally wouldn’t ’ave done if he never came up to the house, would he? Not without he got lost in the drive, which isn’t very likely in a manner of speaking.”
“No, I’m afraid he can’t have come at all. In any case, you say that, up to the time you went to bed, no stranger at all came in? Absolutely nobody?”
“No, sir. Nobody to my knowledge.”
“Oh, well; that
