“Worse than that. Far worse! It appears that old Stanworth was never murdered at all! He did commit suicide, after all.”
Alec sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed limply. “But what on earth makes you think that? I thought you were so convinced that it was murder.”
“So I was,” Roger said, leaning against the dressing table. “That’s what makes it all the more extraordinary, because I really am very seldom wrong. I say it in all modesty, but the fact is indisputable. By all the laws of average, Stanworth ought to have been murdered. It really is most inexplicable.”
“But how do you know he wasn’t?” Alec demanded. “What’s happened since I saw you last to make you alter your mind like this?”
“The simple fact that Mrs. Plant received a note from old Stanworth, saying that he was going to kill himself for private reasons of his own or something.”
“Oh!”
“I can tell you, it knocked me upside down for the minute. Anything more unexpected I couldn’t have imagined. And the trouble is that I don’t see how we can possibly get round it. A note like that is a very different matter to that statement.”
“You know, I’m not sure that I’m altogether surprised that something like this has turned up,” Alec said slowly. “I was never quite so convinced by the murder idea as you were. After all, when you come to look at all the facts of the case, although they certainly seemed to be consistent with murder, were no less consistent with suicide, weren’t they?”
“So it appears,” Roger said regretfully.
“It was simply that you’d got the notion of murder into your head—more picturesque, I suppose—and everything had to be construed to fit it, eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“In fact,” Alec concluded wisely, “it was an idée fixe, and everything else was sacrificed to it. Isn’t that right?”
“Alexander, you put me to shame,” Roger murmured.
“Well, anyhow, that shows you what comes of muddling in other people’s affairs,” Alec pointed out severely. “And it’s lucky you hit on the truth before you made a still bigger idiot of yourself.”
“I deserve it all, I know,” Roger remarked contritely to his hairbrush.
It was Alec’s turn to be complacent now, and he was taking full advantage of it. As he lay back leisurely in his chair and smoked away placidly, he presented a perfect picture of “I told you so!” Roger contemplated him in rueful silence.
“And yet—!” he murmured tentatively, after a few moments’ silence.
Alec waved an admonitory pipe.
“Now, then!” he said warningly.
Roger exploded suddenly. “Well, say what you like, Alec,” he burst out, “but the thing is dashed queer! You can’t get away from it. After all, our inquiries haven’t resulted in nothing, have they? We did establish the fact that Stanworth was a blackmailer. I forgot to tell you that, by the way. We were perfectly right; he had been blackmailing Mrs. Plant, the swine, and jolly badly, too. Incidentally, she hadn’t the least idea that his death might be anything else than suicide, and Jefferson didn’t come into the library while she was there; so I was wrong in that particular detail. I’m satisfied she was telling the truth, too. But as for the rest—well, I’m dashed if I know what to think! The more I consider it, the more difficult I find it to believe that it was suicide, after all, and that all those other facts could have been nothing but mere coincidences. It isn’t reasonable.”
“Yes, that’s all very well,” Alec said sagely. “But when a fellow actually goes out of his way to write a letter saying that—”
“By Jove, Alec!” Roger interrupted excitedly. “You’ve given me an idea. Did he write it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, mightn’t it have been typed? I haven’t seen the thing yet, you know, and when she mentioned a letter it never occurred to me that it might not be a handwritten one. If it was typed, then there’s still a chance.” He walked rapidly towards the door.
“Where are you going to now?” Alec asked in surprise.
“To see if I can get a look at this blessed letter,” Roger said, turning the handle. “Mrs. Plant’s room is down this passage, isn’t it?”
With a quick glance up and down the passage, Roger hurried along to Mrs. Plant’s bedroom and tapped on the door.
“Come in,” said a voice inside.
“It’s me, Mrs. Plant,” he replied softly. “Mr. Sheringham. Can I speak to you a minute?”
There came the sound of rapid footsteps crossing the floor and Mrs. Plant’s head appeared at the door.
“Yes?” she asked, not without a certain apprehension. “What is it, Mr. Sheringham?”
“You remember that letter you mentioned this morning? From Mr. Stanworth, I mean. Have you still got it, by any chance, or have you destroyed it?”
He held his breath for her reply.
“Oh, no. Of course I destroyed it at once. Why?”
“Oh, I just wanted to test an idea. Let me see.” He thought rapidly. “It was pushed under your door or something, I suppose?”
“Oh, no. It came by post.”
“Did it?” said Roger eagerly. “You didn’t notice the postmark, did you?”
“As a matter of fact I did. It seemed so funny that he should have taken the trouble to post it. It was posted from the village by the eight-thirty post that morning.”
“The village, was it? Oh! And was it typewritten?”
“Yes.”
Roger held his breath again. “Was the signature written or typewritten?”
Mrs. Plant considered.
“It was typewritten, as far as I remember.”
“Are you sure of that?” Roger asked eagerly.
“Ye-es, I think so. Oh, yes; I remember now. The whole thing was typewritten, signature and all.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Plant,” Roger said gratefully. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
He sped back to his own room.
“Alexander!” he exclaimed dramatically, as soon as he was inside. “Alexander, the game is on again!”
“What’s up now?” Alec asked with a slight frown.
“That letter sounds like a fake, just the same as the confession. It was
