“To find the keys of the safe, I suppose. What else could it be? For some reason or other Jefferson is all against having that safe opened. By the police, at any rate. And so is Mrs. Plant. Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Alec helplessly.
“Nor do I! That’s just the annoying part. I hate things I don’t understand. Always have done. It’s a sort of challenge to get to the bottom of them.”
“Are you going to get to the bottom of this?” Alec smiled.
“If there’s a bottom to get to,” said Roger defiantly. “So don’t grin in that infernally sarcastic way. Dash it all, aren’t you curious?”
Alec hesitated. “Yes, I am in a way. But after all, it doesn’t seem to be our business, does it?”
“That remains to be seen. What I want to find out is—whose business is it? At present it seems to be everybody’s.”
“And are you going to tell the police anything?”
“No; I’m hanged if I am,” said Roger with conviction. “I don’t mind whose business it is; but it isn’t theirs. Not yet, anyway,” he added with a touch of grimness.
Alec was plainly startled. “Good Lord! You don’t think it might be eventually, do you?”