“Sorry!” Alec apologised.
“Well, this is all wrong, don’t you see? It complicates things still more. Here’s a fifth mysterious person to be added to our list of suspicious characters.”
“Then you don’t think it was Mrs. Plant?” Alec said tentatively.
“I know it wasn’t Mrs. Plant. She was playing about with the knob of the safe; she hadn’t got the keys. And in any case, even if she had, there was no possibility of her getting them back again. No, we’ve got to look elsewhere. Now let’s see, when was that library left empty?” He paused for reflection. “Jefferson was there alone while I was in the dining room (I should like to know why Mrs. Plant fainted, by the way; but we’ve got to wait for that till the safe’s opened); but he didn’t find the keys. Then we both went into the garden. Then I met you, and we caught Mrs. Plant almost immediately afterwards. How long was I with Jefferson? Not more than ten minutes or so. Then the keys must have been disturbed in that ten minutes before Mrs. Plant went into the library (there was no opportunity later; you remember we kept the library under inspection after that till the police arrived). Either then, or——” He hesitated and was silent.
“Yes?” said Alec curiously. “Or when else?”
“Nothing!—Well, anyhow, there’s plenty of food for thought there, isn’t there?”
“It does give one something to think about,” Alec agreed, puffing vigorously.
“Oh, and one other thing; possibly of no importance whatever. There was a slight scratch on Stanworth’s right wrist.”
“Rose bush!” replied Alec promptly. “He was always playing about with them, wasn’t he?”
“Ye-es,” Roger replied doubtfully. “That occurred to me, of course. But somehow I don’t think it was a scratch from a rose. It was fairly broad, for instance; not a thin, deep line like a rose’s scratch. However, that’s neither here nor there; probably it’s got nothing to do with anything. Well, that’s the lot. Now—what do you make of it all?”