“Afraid not,” he replied. “I hardly expected it, but—— Hullo, what’s this?”
He drew out a small piece of white material from between two of the loose cushions and inspected it with interest.
Alec strolled across the room and joined him. “It looks like a woman’s handkerchief,” he said carefully.
“More than that, Alexander; it is a woman’s handkerchief. Now what on earth is a woman’s handkerchief doing in Stanworth’s library?”
“I expect she left it here,” Alec remarked wisely.
“Alec, this is positive genius! I see it all now. She must have left it here. And there was I thinking that she’d sent it by post, with special instructions for it to be placed between those cushions in case she ever wanted to find it there!”
“You are funny, aren’t you?” Alec growled wearily.
“Occasionally,” Roger admitted modestly, “quite. But reverting to the handkerchief, I wonder whether this is going to prove rather important. What do you think?”
“How could it?”
“I’m not quite sure yet, but I have a sort of feeling. It all depends on several things. Whose handkerchief it is, for instance, and when this settee was tidied up last, and when the owner of the handkerchief admits she was in here last, and—— Oh, quite a large number of things.” He sniffed at the handkerchief delicately. “H’m! I seem to know that scent, at all events.”