Roger snorted.
There was a little silence.
“You seem very put out on her behalf,” the inspector ventured, curiosity overcoming discretion. “Considering how she’s been treating your cousin, I mean.”
“She was a minx, I admit,” Roger said, with a little laugh. “I also admit that she took me in properly; I really thought she was quite fond of Anthony. But after all, I suppose she had some justification. If she was engaged to friend Colin all the time, the position must have been a very difficult one for her, both before Mrs. Vane’s death and afterward, whether she knew anything about her fiancé’s intrigue with that lady or not. She couldn’t admit the engagement while she was under that cloud, you see, and all her energies must have been concentrated on clearing her name. I don’t say she behaved very nicely, but that must be the explanation. Having had it forcibly impressed on her that not only public opinion but the official police as well were dead against her, she deliberately set out to attach Anthony to her in order to make sure of getting him and me on her side and enlisting our energies on her behalf. Don’t you think that’s the truth of the matter?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir,” agreed the inspector heartily. “That’s the truth of that all right.”
“And very well she succeeded,” added Roger modestly. “Well, now that the whole thing’s at an end, so to speak, Inspector, what about a little bed?”
The inspector’s answer was not a direct one. “So you think the whole thing’s at an end, do you, Mr. Sheringham?” he said, with a return to his quizzical expression.
“I do, yes,” said Roger, surprised. “Don’t you?”
“I’m very much afraid it is,” the inspector agreed.
Roger looked at him. “What are you driving at, Inspector? Have you still got a card or two up your sleeve? You surely don’t mean to say you don’t accept my solution of the mystery?”