“You got a note by the post before lunch, did you?”
“That’s right. Saying he was going to kill himself. Rum business. Can’t explain it. Almost too good to be true. I feel another man.”
“And so are a good many other people, I imagine,” Roger said softly. “And women, too. His activities were fairly widespread, weren’t they?”
“Very, I believe. Never knew much about it, though. He kept all that sort of thing to himself.”
“That butler now,” Roger hazarded. “He looks a pretty tough customer. I suppose Stanworth employed him as a sort of bodyguard?”
“Yes, something like that. But I don’t know about ‘employed.’ ”
“What do you mean?”
“He was no more employed than I was. That is to say, we got a salary and we did our work, but it wasn’t a sort of employment either of us could leave.”
Roger whistled softly. “Oho! So friend Graves was another victim, was he? What’s his story?”
“Don’t know all the details, but Stanworth could have had that man hanged, I believe,” Jefferson said coolly. “Instead he preferred to use him as a sort of bodyguard, as you say.”