Alec shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “This affair’s gone to your head,” he said shortly. “Talk about making mountains out of molehills! Good Lord! You’re making a whole range of them out of a single worm-cast.”
“Very prettily put, Alec,” Roger commented approvingly. “Perhaps I am. But my impression is that old Stanworth was murdered. I might be wrong, of course,” he added candidly. “But I very seldom am.”
“But dash it all, the thing’s out of the question! You’re going the wrong way round once more. Even if there was a second man in the library last night—which I very much doubt!—you can’t get away from the fact that he must have gone before Stanworth locked himself in like that. That being the case, we get back to suicide again. You can’t have it both ways, you know. I’m not saying that this mythical person may not have put pressure of some sort on Stanworth (that is, if he ever existed at all) and forced him to commit suicide. But as for murder——! Why, the idea’s too dashed silly for words!” Alec was getting quite heated at this insult to his logic.
Roger was unperturbed. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “I had an idea it would be a bit of a shock to you. But to tell you the truth I was a bit suspicious about this suicide business almost from the very first. I couldn’t get over the place of the wound, you know. And then all the rest of it, windows and door and confession and what not—well, instead of reassuring me, they made me more suspicious still. I couldn’t help feeling more and more that it was a case of Qui s’excuse, s’accuse. Or to put it in another way, that the whole scene looked like a stage very carefully arranged for the second act after all the débris of the first act had been cleared away. Foolish of me, no doubt, but that’s what I felt.”
Alec snorted. “Foolish! That’s putting it mildly.”
“Don’t be so harsh with me, Alec,” Roger pleaded. “I think I’m being rather brilliant.”
“You always were a chap to let things run away with you,” Alec grunted. “Just because a couple of people act a little queerly and a couple more don’t look as mournful as you think they ought, you dash off and rake up a little murder all to yourself. Going to tell the inspector about this wonderful idea of yours?”
“No, I’m not,” said Roger with decision. “This is my little murder, as you’re good enough to call it, and I’m not going to be done out of it. When I’ve got as far as I can, then I’ll think about telling the police or not.”
“Well, thank goodness you’re not going to make a fool of yourself to that extent,” said Alec with relief.
“You wait, Alexander,” Roger admonished. “You may make a mock of me now, if you like——”