“Is it?” asked Roger quickly. “Why?”
“Well, because of the circumstances of—” Mrs. Plant broke off abruptly and bit her lip. “Because of the blood and water idea, I suppose. They were utterly unlike each other in every way.”
“That isn’t what you were going to say. What had you got in mind when you corrected yourself?”
Mrs. Plant flushed slightly.
“Really, Mr. Sheringham, I—”
Alec rose suddenly from his chair. “I say, it’s awfully hot in this room,” he remarked abruptly. “Come into the garden and get some air, Roger, I’m sure Mrs. Plant will excuse us.”
Mrs. Plant flashed a grateful look at him.
“Certainly,” she said, in somewhat agitated tones. “I—I think I shall go upstairs and lie down for a little myself. I have rather a headache.”
The two men watched her go out of the room in silence. Then Alec turned to Roger.
“Look here,” he said heatedly, “I’m not going to let you bully that poor little woman like this. It’s a bit too thick. You get a lot of damned silly notions into your head about her, and then you try to bully her into confirming them. I’m not going to stand for it.”
Roger shook his head in mock despair.
“Really, Alexander,” he said tragically, “you are a difficult person, you know. Extraordinarily difficult.”
“Well, it’s getting past a joke,” Alec retorted a little more calmly, though his face was still flushed with anger. “We can do what we want without bullying women.”
“And just when I was getting along so nicely!” Roger mourned. “You make a rotten Watson, Alec. I can’t think why I ever took you on in the part.”
“A jolly good thing for you that you did,” Alec said grimly. “I can see fair play, at any rate. And trying to trick a woman who’s got nothing to do with the thing at all into a lot of silly admissions is not playing the game.”
Roger took the other’s arm and led him gently into the garden.
“All right, all right,” he said in the tones of one soothing a fractious child. “We’ll try other tactics, if you’re so set on it. In any case, there’s no need to get excited. The trouble is that you’ve mistaken your century, Alec. You ought to have lived four or five hundred years ago. As a heavyweight succourer of ladies in distress you could have challenged all comers with one lance tied behind your back. There, there!”
“Oh, it’s all very well for you to laugh,” returned the slightly mollified Alec, “but I’m perfectly right, and you know it. If we’re going on with this thing, we’re not going to make use of any dashed underhand sneaky little detective tricks. If it comes to that, why don’t you tackle Jefferson, if you’re so jolly keen on tackling someone?”
“For the simple reason that the excellent Jefferson would certainly not give anything away, my dear Alec; whereas there’s always the chance that a woman will. But enough! We’ll confine ourselves to sticks and stones, and leave the human element out of account; or the feminine part of it, at any rate. But for all that,” Roger added wistfully, “I would like to know what’s going on amongst that trio!”
“Humph!” Alec grunted disapprovingly.
They paced for a time in silence up and down the edge of the lawn, which ran parallel with the back of the house.
Roger’s thoughts were racing. The disappearance of the footprints had caused him drastically to rearrange his ideas. He had now no doubt at all that Jefferson not only knew all about the crime itself, but that he was in all probability an actual participator in it. Whether his part had been an active one and he had been present in the library at the time, was impossible to say; probably not, Roger inclined to think. But that he had helped to plan it and was now actively concerned in endeavouring to destroy all traces of it was surely beyond all disbelief. That meant one accomplice, at least, within the house.
But what was really worrying Roger far more than the question of Jefferson’s share in the affair was the possible inclusion of the two women who seemed somehow to be mixed up with it. On the face of things no doubt it was, as Alec so strongly held, almost incredible that either Mrs. Plant or Lady Stanworth could be a party to a murder. Yet it was impossible to dispute the facts. That there was a distinct understanding between Jefferson and Lady Stanworth seemed as certain to Roger as that there had been a murder in the house instead of a suicide. And a similar understanding between Mrs. Plant and Jefferson appeared to be even more strongly established. Added to which there was her suspicious behaviour in the library that morning; for in spite of the fact that her jewels had been in the safe, after all, Roger was still no less firmly convinced that this excuse for her presence in the library was a lie. Furthermore, Mrs. Plant certainly knew very much more about Stanworth and his relations with his secretary and sister-in-law than she was willing to admit; it was a pity that she had checked herself just in time after tea, when she appeared to have been on the point of allowing something of real importance to slip past her guard.
Yes; though he was no more willing to believe it than was Alec himself, Roger could see no loophole through which to escape from the assumption that both Mrs. Plant and Lady Stanworth were as deeply implicated as Jefferson himself. It was most unfortunate that Alec should have chosen to adopt such a highly prejudiced view of the matter; this was just the sort of thing for which nothing was required so much as impartial discussion. Roger covertly eyed the face of his taciturn companion and sighed softly.
The back of the house did not run in a single straight line. Between the library and the dining room, where was the
