CHAPTER XXII.
Mr. Sheringham Solves the Mystery
It was past ten o’clock on the following morning, and Roger and Alec were engaged in taking a constitutional in the rose garden after breakfast before the inquest proceedings opened. Roger had refused to say anything further on the previous evening—or, rather, in the small hours of the same morning. All he had done was to remark that it was quite time they were in bed, and that he wanted a clear head before discussing the affair in the light of this new revelation of Stanworth’s character. He remarked this not once, but many times; and Alec had perforce to be contented with it.
Now, with pipes in full blast, they were preparing to go further into the matter.
Roger himself was complacently triumphant.
“Mystery?” he repeated, in answer to a question of Alec’s. “There isn’t any mystery now. I’ve solved it.”
“Oh, I know the mystery about Stanworth is cleared up,” said Alec impatiently; to tell the truth, Roger in this mood irritated him not a little. “That is, if your explanation is the right one, which I’m not disputing at the moment.”
“Thank you very much.”
“But what about the mystery of his death? You can’t have solved that.”
“On the contrary, Alexander,” Roger rejoined, with a satisfied smile; “that is exactly what I have done.”
“Oh? Then who killed him?”