The Layton Court Mystery Read online

  ‘Did you hear the shot that killed him?’ Roger said suddenly.

  ‘No. About two o’clock, wasn’t it? I’d been asleep two hours.’

  ‘You did sleep with your wife then, in spite of the necessity of preserving secrecy?’

  ‘Her maid knew. Used to go back to my room in the early morning. Beastly hole-and-corner business, but no alternative.’

  ‘And only Stanworth’s death could have freed you, so to speak?’ Roger mused. ‘Very opportune, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very,’ Jefferson replied laconically. ‘You think I forced him somehow to shoot himself, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, I – I – ’ Roger stammered, completely taken aback.

  Jefferson smiled grimly. ‘Knew you must have some comic idea in your head. Just seen what you’ve been driving at. Well, you can rest assured I didn’t. For the simple reason that nobody or no threats on earth could have made him do a thing like that. Why he did it, Heaven only knows. Complete mystery to me. Can’t fathom it. Thank God he did, though!’

  ‘You don’t think he might have been – murdered?’ Roger suggested tentatively.

  ‘Murdered? How could he have been? Out of the question under the circumstances. Besides, he took jolly good care of that. I’d have murdered him myself before this – hundreds of times! – if I hadn’t known it would make things worse than before all round.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about that. Kept the evidence addressed to the interested parties, didn’t he? I suppose everyone knew that?’

  ‘You bet they did. He rubbed it in. No, Stanworth never meant to be murdered. But my God, I had a fright when I saw him lying there dead and the safe locked.’

  ‘You were going to try and open it when I interrupted you yesterday morning, of course?’

  ‘Yes, properly caught out then,’ Jefferson smiled ruefully. ‘But even if I’d found the keys, I didn’t know the combination. Lord, what a relief that note of his was. You know about that, I suppose?

  ‘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.’

  ‘I see. Then Graves hadn’t much cause to love him either, I take it?’

  ‘If he hadn’t known what would happen afterwards, I wouldn’t have given Stanworth ten minutes of life in Graves’ presence.’

  Roger whistled again.

  ‘Well, thanks very much, Jefferson. I think that’s all I wanted to know.’

  ‘If you’re trying to look for someone who induced Stanworth to shoot himself, you’re wasting your time,’ Jefferson remarked. ‘Couldn’t be done.’

  ‘Oh, there’s a little more in my quest than that,’ Roger smiled, as he let himself out of the room.

  He hurried upstairs, glancing at his watch as he did so. The time was nearly five minutes to four. He scurried down the passage to Alec’s room.

  ‘Finished packing?’ he asked, putting his head round the door. ‘Good, well come along to my room while I do mine.’

  ‘Well?’ Alec asked sarcastically, when they were once more ensconced in Roger’s bedroom. ‘Has Jefferson written out his confession?’

  Roger paused in the act of laying his suitcase on a chair.

  ‘Alec,’ he said solemnly, ‘I owe friend Jefferson an apology, though I can’t very well tender it. I was hopelessly wrong about him, and you were hopelessly right. He didn’t kill Stanworth at all. It’s extremely annoying of him considering how neatly I solved this little problem of ours; but there’s the fact.’

  ‘Humph!’ Alec observed. ‘I won’t say, “I told you so,” because I know how annoying it would be for you. But I don’t mind telling you that I’m thinking it hard.’

  ‘Yes, and the most irritating part is that you’re fully entitled to do so,’ Roger said, throwing his pyjamas into the case. ‘That’s what I find so irksome.’

  ‘But I suppose you’ve found somebody else to take his place all right?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Isn’t it maddening? But I’ll tell you one significant fact I’ve unearthed. That butler had as much cause as anyone, if not more, to regret the fact that Stanworth was still polluting the earth.’

  ‘Had he? Oh! But look here, how do you know that Jefferson didn’t do it?’

  Roger explained.

  ‘Not much so far as actual hard-and-fast-evidence goes, I’m afraid,’ he concluded, ‘but we greater detectives are above evidence. It’s psychology that we study, and I feel in every single bone in my body that Jefferson was telling the truth.’

  ‘Lady Stanworth!’ Alec commented. ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘Some men are brave, aren’t they? Still, I daresay she’ll make an excellent wife; I believe that’s the right thing to say on this sort of occasion. But seriously, Alec, I’m absolutely baffled again. I think I shall have to turn the case over to you.’

  ‘Well, do,’ Alec retorted with unexpected energy, ‘and I’ll tell you who killed Stanworth.’

  Roger desisted from his efforts to close the lid of his bulging case in order to look up in surprise.

  ‘You will, eh? Well, who did?’

  ‘Some unknown victim of Stanworth’s blackmail, of course. The whole thing stands to reason. We were looking for a mysterious stranger at first, weren’t we? And we thought he might be a burglar. Translate the burglar into the blackmailer’s victim and there you are. And as he burnt the evidence himself, and we haven’t the least idea who was on Stanworth’s blackmailing list, we shall never find out who he was. The whole thing seems as clear as daylight to me.’

  Roger turned to his refractory case again. ‘But why did we give up the burglar idea?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you rather overlooking that? Chiefly because of the disappearance of those footprints. That must mean either that the murderer came from inside the house or that he had an accomplice there.’

  ‘I don’t agree with you. We don’t know how or why the footprints disappeared. It might have been pure chance. William might have raked the bed over, somebody might have noticed it and smoothed it out; there are plenty of possible explanations for that.’

  With a heave Roger succeeded in clicking the lock with which he was struggling. He straightened his bent back and drew his pipe out of his pocket.

  ‘I’ve talked enough for a bit,’ he announced.

  ‘Oh, rot!’ Alec exclaimed incredulously.

  ‘And it’s about time I put in a little thinking,’ Roger went on, disregarding the interruption. ‘You run along down to tea, Alexander; you’re ten minutes late as it is.’

  ‘And what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to spend my last twenty minutes here doing some high-speed cogitating in the back garden. Then I shall be ready to chat with you in the train.’

  ‘Yes, I have a kind of idea that you’ll be quite ready to do that,’ said Alec rudely, as they went out into the passage.

  chapter twenty – seven

  Mr Sheringham Hits the Mark


  Roger did not reappear until the car was at the front door and the other members of the party already making their farewells on the steps. His leave-taking was necessarily a little hurried; but perhaps this was not altogether without design. Roger did not feel at all inclined to linger in the society of Lady Jefferson.

  He shook hands warmly enough with her husband, however, and the manner of their parting was sufficient to assure the latter, without the necessity of any words being spoken on the subject, that his confidences would be regarded as inviolate. The taciturn Jefferson became almost effusive in return.

  Arrived at the station, Roger personally superintended the purchase of the tickets and deftly shepherded Mrs Plant into a non-smoking carriage explaining that the cigars which he and Alec proposed to smoke would spell disaster to the subtleties of Parfum Jasmine. A short but interesting conversation with the guard, followed by the exchange of certain pieces of silver, ensured the locking of the door of their own first-class smoker.

  ‘And so ends an extremely interesting little visit,’ Roger observed as soon as the train started, leaning back luxuriously in his corner and putting his feet on the seat. ‘Well, I shan’t be sorry to get back to London, on the whole, I must say, though the country is all very well in its way. I always think you ought to take the country in small doses to appreciate it properly, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Alec.

  ‘Or look at it in comfort from the windows of a train,’ Roger went on, waving an appreciative hand towards the countryside through which they were passing. ‘Fields, woods, streams, barley – ’

  ‘That isn’t barley. It’s wheat.’

  ‘ – barley, trees – delightful, my dear Alexander! But how much more delightful seen like this in one charming flash, that leaves a picture printed on the brain only to give way the next instant to another equally charming one, than stuck down in the middle, for instance, of one of those fields of barley – ’

  ‘Wheat.’

  ‘ – of barley, with the prospect of a ten-mile walk in this blazing sunshine between you and the next long drink. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t. But reflect. Sunshine, considered from the purely aesthetic point of view, is, I am quite willing to grant you, a thing of – ’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Alec asked despairingly.

  ‘Sunshine, Alexander,’ returned Roger blandly.

  ‘Well, for goodness’ sake stop talking about sunshine. What I want to know is, have you got any farther?’

  Roger was evidently in one of his maddening moods.

  ‘What with?’ he asked blankly.

  ‘The Stanworth affair of course, you idiot!’ shouted the exasperated Alec.

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. The Stanworth affair,’ Roger replied innocently. ‘Did I do that bit well, Alec?’ he asked with a sudden change of tone.

  ‘What bit?’

  ‘When I said, “What with?” Did I say it with an air of bland innocence? The best detectives always do, you know. When they reach this stage of the proceedings they always pretend to have forgotten all about the case in hand. Why they do so, I’ve never been able to imagine; but it’s evidently the correct etiquette for the job. By the way, Alec,’ he added kindly, ‘you did your part very well. The idiot friend always shouts in an irritated and peevish way like that. I really think we make quite a model pair, don’t you?’

  ‘Will you stop yapping and tell me whether you’ve got any farther with Stanworth’s murder?’ Alec demanded doggedly.

  ‘Oh, that?’ said Roger with studied carelessness. ‘I solved that exactly forty-three minutes ago.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said that I solved the mystery exactly forty-three minutes ago. And a few odd seconds, of course. It was an interesting little problem in its way, my dear Alexander Watson, but absurdly simple once one had grasped the really vital factor in the case. For some extraordinary reason I appeared to have overlooked it before; hence the delay. But don’t put that bit in when you come to write up the case, or I shall never land the next vacancy for a stolen-crown-jewels recoverer to an influential emperor.’

  ‘You’ve solved it, have you?’ Alec growled sceptically. ‘I seem to have heard something like that before.’

  ‘Meaning Jefferson? Yes, I admit I backed the wrong horse there. But this is a very different matter. I’ve really solved it this time.’

  ‘Oh? Well, let’s hear it.’

  ‘With the greatest pleasure,’ Roger responded heartily. ‘Let me see now. Where shall I begin? Well, I think I’ve told you all the really important things that I managed to elicit from Mrs Plant and Jefferson, haven’t I? Except one.’ Roger dropped his bantering manner with startling suddenness. ‘Alec,’ he said seriously, ‘that man Stanworth was as choice a scoundrel as I’ve ever heard of. What I didn’t tell you is that he gave Mrs Plant three months in which to find two hundred and fifty pounds for him; and hinted that if she hadn’t got it already, a pretty woman like her would have no difficulty in laying her hands on it.’

  ‘Good God!’ Alec breathed.

  ‘He even went farther than that and offered to introduce her to a rich man out of whom she would be able to wheedle it, if she played her cards properly. Oh, I tell you, shooting was much too easy a death for friend Stanworth. And the person who did it ought to be acclaimed as a public benefactor, instead of being hanged by a grateful country; as he certainly would be, if all this had got into the hands of the police.’

  ‘You can hardly expect the law to recognise the principle of poetic justice for all that,’ Alec objected.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Roger retorted. ‘However, we won’t go into that at present. Well, to my mind there were two chief difficulties in this Stanworth business. The first one was that at the beginning there didn’t seem to be any definite motive for killing him; and afterwards, when we’d found out about him, there were far too many. All those people in the house, Mrs Plant, Jefferson, Lady Stanworth, the butler (who, by the way, appears to be a murderer in a small way already, as I gather from Jefferson; that was the hold which Stanworth had over him) – all of them had every reason to kill him; and the case began to take on the aspect not so much of proving who did it, but, by a process of elimination, of finding out who didn’t. In that way I managed eventually to dismiss Mrs Plant, Jefferson, and Lady Stanworth. But besides the people actually under our noses in the house, there were all the others – goodness only knows how many of them! – of whose very existence we knew nothing; all his other victims.’

  ‘Were there many of them, then?’

  ‘I understand that Stanworth’s practice was a fairly extensive one,’ Roger replied ironically. ‘Anyhow, I was able to narrow down the field to a certain extent. Then I began to go over once more the evidence we had collected. The question I kept asking myself was – is there a single item that gives a definite pointer towards any certain person, male or female?’

  ‘Female?’ Roger repeated surprisedly.

  ‘Certainly. In spite of everything – the footprint in the flower bed, for example – I was still keeping before me the possibility of a woman being mixed up in it. It didn’t seem altogether probable, but I couldn’t afford to lose sight of the bare possibility. And it’s lucky I did, for it was just that which finally put me on the right track.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘Yes; I admit I was slow in the uptake, for the fact had been staring me in the face the whole time, and I never spotted it. You see, the key to the whole mystery was that there was a second woman in the library that night.’

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’ Alec asked in consternation.

  ‘By the hair we found on the settee. I put it away in the envelope, you remember, and promptly forgot all about it, assuming it to have been one of Mrs Plant’s. It struck me suddenly in the garden just now that it wasn’t anything of the sort; Mrs Plant’s hair is very much darker. Of course that opened up an entirely new
field for speculation.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘Yes, it is rather surprising, isn’t it?’ Roger continued equably. ‘That set my brain galloping away like wildfire, I need hardly tell you; and five minutes later the whole thing became absolutely plain to me. I’m a little hazy about some of the details, of course, but the broad lines are clear enough.’

  ‘You mean you guessed who the second woman was?’

  ‘Hardly guessed. I knew at once who she must be.’

  ‘Who?’ Alec asked, with unconcealed eagerness.

  ‘Wait a bit. I’m coming to that. Well, then I began to put two and two together. I’d got a pretty shrewd idea already of the personal appearance of the man himself.’

  ‘Oh, it was a man then?’

  ‘Yes, it was a man right enough. There was never any doubt that a man must have done the actual killing. No woman would have been strong enough for the struggle that must have taken place. Stanworth was no weakling, so that gives us the fact that the man must have been a strong, burly sort of person. From the footprint and the length of those strides across the bed he was evidently both tall and largely built; from the clever way in which everything was left he must have been possessed of a fund of cunning; from the manner in which he left that window fastened behind him it was clear that he was thoroughly accustomed to handling lattice windows. Well, what does all that give us? It looked obvious to me.’

  Alec was staring intently at the speaker, following every word with eager attention. ‘I think I see what you’re getting at,’ he said slowly.

  ‘I thought you would,’ said Roger cheerfully. ‘Of course there were other things that clinched it. The disappearance of that footprint, for instance. That must have been done by somebody who knew what he was doing. And somebody who heard me say that I was going to fit every male boot in the house into the mark, you remember. Of course it was that which made me so sure at first about Jefferson, because I jumped to the conclusion that it must have been Jefferson whom we saw edging out of the library door. After that I more or less had Jefferson on the brain.’