He handed the paper to Major Jefferson, who read it eagerly.
“Anything of interest?” Roger asked curiously.
“Very much so,” Jefferson replied dryly. “It’s a statement. I’ll read it to you. ‘To Whom it May Concern. For reasons that concern only myself, I have decided to kill myself.’ And his signature at the bottom.” He twisted the piece of paper thoughtfully in his hand. “But I wish he’d said what his reasons were,” he added in puzzled tones.
“Yes, it’s a remarkably reticent document,” Roger agreed. “But it’s plain enough, isn’t it? May I have a look at it?”
He took it from the other’s outstretched hand and examined it with interest. The paper was slightly creased, and the message itself was typewritten. The signature, Victor Stanworth, was bold and firm; but just above it was another attempt, which had only got as far as V-i-c and looked as if it had been written with a pen insufficiently supplied with ink.
“He must have gone about the business with extraordinary deliberation,” Roger commented. “He goes to the trouble of typing this instead of writing it; and when he finds he hadn’t dipped his pen deep enough in the ink-pot, calmly signs it again. And just look at that signature! Not a trace of nerves in it, is there?”
He handed the paper back, and the Major looked at it again.
“Stanworth was never much troubled with nerves,” he remarked shortly. “And the signature’s genuine enough. I’d take my oath on that.”
Alec could not help feeling that Jefferson’s words had supplied an answer to a question which Roger had purposely refrained from asking.
“Well, I don’t know much about this sort of thing,” Roger observed, “but I suppose one thing’s certain. The body mustn’t be touched before the police come.”