“Yes, sir. I always run a brush over the settee and the armchairs of an evening. They get so terribly dusty with all those windows, and that black rep shows the dust up something awful.”
“Well, thank you, Mary. I suppose I must have left it somewhere else, after all. By the way, you haven’t done the library at all today, have you?”
“No, sir,” Mary replied with a little shiver. “Nor wouldn’t like to; not alone, at all events. Creepy, I should call it, sir, with that poor gentleman sitting there all night like a—”
“Yes, yes,” said Roger with mechanical haste. “Shocking! Well, I’m sorry to have brought you all this way for nothing, Mary; but if you ever come across it, you might let me know.”
“Yes, sir,” Mary said with a pleasant smile. “Thank you, sir.”
“And that is that!” Roger murmured confidentially to the closing door.
He completed his changing as rapidly as possible and, hurrying along to Alec’s room, recounted the facts he had just learnt.
“So you see,” he concluded, “that woman must have been in the library some time after dinner. Now who was it? Barbara was with you in the garden, of course; so she’s out of the running. That leaves Mrs. Shannon, Mrs. Plant, and Lady Stanworth—if it was somebody in the house, by the way,” he added thoughtfully. “I never thought of that.”
Alec paused in the act of tying his black tie to look round interrogatively.
“But what’s all this getting at?” he asked. “Is there any particular reason why one of those three shouldn’t have been in the library yesterday evening?”
“No, not exactly. But it rather depends on who it is. If it was Lady Stanworth, for instance, I shouldn’t say there was anything in it; unless she specifically denied that she went into the library at all. On the other hand, if it was someone from outside the household it might be decidedly important. Oh, it’s too vague to explain, but what I feel is that this is the emergence of a new fact—the presence of a woman in the library yesterday evening. And a woman sitting down at that, not just passing through. Therefore, like every other fact in the case, it has got to be investigated. It may turn out to be absolutely in order. On the other hand, it may not. That’s all.”
“It’s certainly vague, as you say,” Alec commented, fastening his waistcoat. “And when do you expect to spot the woman?”
“Possibly the end of dinner. I shall sniff delicately and unobtrusively at Lady Stanworth and Mrs. Plant, and if it isn’t either of them, it may be Mrs. Shannon. If that’s the case, of course there’s no importance to be attached to it at all; but if it isn’t any of them, I don’t know what I shall do. I can’t go dashing all over the county, sniffing at strange women, can I? It might lead to all sorts of awkward complications. Hurry up, Alexander, the bell went at least five minutes ago.”
“I’m ready,” Alec said, glancing at his well-flattened hair in the mirror with approval. “Lead on.”
The others were already waiting for them when they arrived in the drawing room, and the party went in to dinner at once. Lady Stanworth was present, to all appearances unmoved, but even more silent than usual; and her presence laid an added constraint on the little gathering.
Roger tried hard to keep the ball rolling, and both Mrs. Plant and Jefferson did their best in their respective ways to second him, but Alec for some reason was almost as quiet as his hostess. Glancing now and again at his preoccupied face, Roger concluded that the role of amateur detective was proving highly uncongenial to that uncompromisingly straightforward young man. Probably the introduction of this new feminine question regarding the ownership of the handkerchief was upsetting him again.
“Did you notice,” Roger remarked casually, addressing himself to Jefferson, “when the inspector was questioning us this morning, how very difficult it is to remember the things that have occurred, even only twenty-four hours before, if they were not sufficiently important to impress one in any way?”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” Jefferson agreed. “Noticed it often myself.”
Roger glanced at him curiously. It was a strange position, this sort of armed and forced friendliness between Jefferson and himself. If the former had heard much of that conversation by the lattice window, he must know Roger for his enemy; and in any case the disappearance of the footprint showed that he was thoroughly on his guard. Yet not the faintest trace of this appeared in his manner. He behaved towards both of them exactly as he always had done; no more and no less. Roger could not help admiring the man’s nerve.
“Especially as regards movements,” he resumed conversationally. “I often have the very greatest trouble in remembering exactly where I was at a certain time. Last night wasn’t so difficult, because I was in the garden from the end of dinner till I went up to bed. But take your case, for instance, Lady Stanworth. I’m prepared to bet quite a reasonable sum that you couldn’t say, without stopping to think, exactly what rooms you visited yesterday evening between the end of dinner and going up to bed.”
Out of the tail of his eye Roger noticed a quick look flash between Lady Stanworth and Jefferson. It was as if the latter had warned her of the possibility of a trap.
“Then I am afraid you would lose your bet, Mr. Sheringham,” she replied calmly, after a momentary pause. “I remember perfectly. From the dining room I went into the drawing room, where I sat for about half an hour. Then I went into the morning room to discuss certain of the accounts with Major Jefferson, and after that I went upstairs.”
“Oh, that’s altogether too easy,” Roger laughed. “It’s not playing fair. You ought to have visited far more rooms than that to make the game a
