“It’s no use, Alec,” Roger said gently. “We’ve got to clear this up. It may be innocent enough; I only hope it is! On the other hand, it may be exceedingly important for us to find out just exactly why Mrs. Plant was in that library, and what she was doing there. You must see that we can’t leave it as it is.”
“But what do you propose to do? Tackle her about it?”
“Yes. I’m going to ask her point-blank if she was in the library last night or not, and see what she says.”
“And if she denies it?”
Roger shrugged his shoulders. “That remains to be seen,” he said shortly.
“I don’t like it,” Alec frowned. “In fact, I hate it. It’s a beastly position. Look here, Roger,” he said with sudden earnestness, “let’s chuck the whole thing! Let’s assume, as the police are doing, that old Stanworth committed suicide and leave it at that. Shall we?”
“You bet we won’t!” Roger said grimly. “I’m not going to leave a thing half threshed out like that; especially not such an interesting thing as this. You can back out if you like; there’s no reason for you to be mixed up with it if you don’t want. But I’m most decidedly going on with it.”
“Oh, if you do, I shall, too,” Alec replied gloomily. “But I’d much rather we both chucked it.”
“That’s out of the question,” Roger said briskly. “Couldn’t dream of it. Well, if you’re going to stick to it with me, you’d better be present at my chat with Mrs. Plant. Let’s stroll round to the drawing room and see if we can find an excuse to speak with her alone.”
“All right, then,” Alec agreed unhappily. “If we must.”