“I deserve it all, I know,” Roger remarked contritely to his hair-brush.
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 hand-written one. If it was typed, then there’s still a chance.” He walked rapidly towards the door.