The Layton Court Mystery Read online

  Alec snorted again, but with rather less confidence this time. Roger’s glib smoothing away of the impossible had been a little unexpected. He tried a new tack.

  ‘Well, what about motive?’ he asked. ‘You can’t have a murder without motive, you know. What on earth could have been the motive for murdering poor old Stanworth?’

  ‘Robbery!’ returned Roger promptly. ‘That’s one of the things that put me on the idea of murder. That safe’s been opened, or I’m a Dutchman. You remember what I said about the keys. I shouldn’t be surprised if Stanworth kept a large sum of money and other negotiable valuables in there. That’s what the murderer was after. And so you’ll see, when the safe is opened this afternoon.’

  Alec grunted. It was clear that, if not convinced, he was at any rate impressed. Roger was so specious and so obviously sure himself of being on the right track, that even a greater sceptic than Alec might have been forgiven for beginning to doubt the meaning of apparently plain facts.

  ‘Hullo!’ said Roger suddenly. ‘Isn’t that the lunch bell? We’d better nip in and wash. Not a word of this to anyone, of course.’

  They rose and began to saunter towards the house. Suddenly Alec stopped and smote his companion on the shoulder.

  ‘Idiots!’ he exclaimed. ‘Both of us! We’d forgotten all about the confession. At any rate, you can’t get away from that.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Roger thoughtfully. ‘There’s that confession, isn’t there? But no; I hadn’t forgotten that by any means, Alexander.’

  chapter nine

  Mr Sheringham Sees Visions

  They entered the house by the front door, which always stood open whenever a party was in progress. The unspoken thought was in the minds of both that they preferred not to pass through the library. Alec hurried upstairs at once. Roger, noticing that the butler was in the act of sorting the second post and arranging it upon the hall table, lingered to see if there was a letter for him.

  The butler, observing his action, shook his head. ‘Nothing for you, sir. Very small post, indeed.’ He glanced through the letters he still held in his hand. ‘Major Jefferson, Miss Shannon, Mrs Plant. No, sir. Nothing else.’

  ‘Thank you, Graves,’ said Roger, and followed in Alec’s wake.

  Lunch was a silent meal, and the atmosphere was not a little constrained. Nobody liked to mention the subject which was uppermost in the minds of all; and to speak of anything else seemed out of place. What little conversation there was concerned only the questions of packing and trains. Mrs Plant, who appeared a little late for the meal but seemed altogether to have regained her mental poise after her strange behaviour in the morning, was to leave a little after five. This would give her time, she explained, to wait for the safe to be opened so that she could recover her jewels. Roger, pondering furiously over the matter-of-fact air with which she made this statement and trying to reconcile it with the conclusions at which he had already arrived regarding her, was forced to admit himself completely at sea again, in this respect at any rate.

  And this was not the only thing that perplexed him. Major Jefferson, who had appeared during the earlier part of the morning subdued to the point of gloominess, now wore an air of quiet satisfaction which Roger found extremely difficult to explain. Assuming that Jefferson had been extremely anxious that the police should not be the first persons to open the safe – and that was the only conclusion which Roger could draw from what had already transpired – what could have occurred in the meantime to have raised his spirits to this extent? Visions of duplicate keys and opportunities in the empty library which he himself ought to have been on hand to prevent, flashed, in rapid succession, across Roger’s mind. Yet the only possible time in which he had not been either inside the library or overlooking it were the very few minutes while he was washing his hands upstairs before lunch; and it seemed hardly probable that Jefferson would have had the nerve to utilise them in order to carry out what was in effect a minor burglary, and that with the possibility of being interrupted at any minute. It is true that he had come in very late for lunch (several minutes after Mrs Plant, in fact); but Roger could not think this theory in the least degree probable.

  Yet the remarkable fact remained that the two persons who appeared to have been most concerned about the safe and its puzzling contents were now not only not in the least concerned at the prospect of its immediate official opening, but actually quietly jubilant. Or so, at any rate, it seemed to the baffled Roger. Taking it all round, Roger was not sorry that lunch was such a quiet meal. He found that he had quite a lot of thinking to do.

  In this respect he was no less busy when lunch was over. Alec disappeared directly after the meal, and as Barbara disappeared at the same time, Roger was glad to find one problem at least that did not seem to be beyond the scope of his deductive powers. He solved it with some satisfaction and, by looking at his watch, was able to arrive at the conclusion that he would have at least half an hour to himself before his fellow-sleuth would be ready for the trail again. Somewhat thankfully he betook himself to the friendly cedar once more, and lit his pipe preparatory to embarking upon the most concentrated spell of hard thinking he had ever faced in his life.

  For in spite of the confidence he had shown to Alec, Roger was in reality groping entirely in the dark. The suggestion of murder, which he had advanced with such assurance, had appeared to him at the time not a little far-fetched; and the fact that he had put it forward at all was due as much as anything to the overwhelming desire to startle the stolid Alec out of some of his complacency. Several times Roger had found himself on the verge of becoming really exasperated with Alec that morning. He was not usually so slow in the uptake, almost dull, as he had been in this affair; yet just now, when Roger was secretly not a little pleased with himself, all he had done was to throw cold water upon everything. It was a useful check to his own exuberance, no doubt; but Roger could wish that his audience, limited by necessity to so small a number, had been a somewhat more appreciative one.

  His thoughts returned to the question of murder. Was it so far-fetched, after all? He had been faintly suspicious even before his discovery of the broken vase and that mysterious second shot. Now he was very much more so. Only suspicious, it is true; there was no room as yet for conviction. But suspicion was very strong.

  He tried to picture the scene that might have taken place in the library. Old Stanworth, sitting at his table with, possibly, the French windows open, suddenly surprised by the entrance of some unexpected visitor. The visitor either demands money or attacks at once. Stanworth whips a revolver out of the drawer at his side and fires, missing the intruder but hitting the vase. And then – what?

  Presumably the two would close then and fight it out in silence. But there had been no signs of a struggle when they broke in, nothing but that still figure lying so calmly in his chair. Still, did that matter very much? If the unknown could collect those fragments of vase so carefully in order to conceal any trace of his presence, he could presumably clear away any evidence of a struggle. But before that there was that blank wall to be surmounted – how did the struggle end?

  Roger closed his eyes and gave his imagination full rein. He saw Stanworth, the revolver still in his hand, swaying backwards and forwards in the grip of his adversary. He saw the latter (a big powerful man, as he pictured him) clasp Stanworth’s wrist to prevent him pointing the revolver at himself. There had been a scratch on the dead man’s wrist, now he came to think of it; could this be how he had acquired it? He saw the intruder’s other hand dart to his pocket and pull out his own revolver. And then – !

  Roger slapped his knee in his excitement. Then, of course, the unknown had simply clapped his revolver to Stanworth’s forehead and pulled the trigger!

  He leant back in his chair and smoked furiously. Yes, if there had been a murder, that must have been how it was committed. And that accounted for three, at any rate, of the puzzling circumstances – the place of the wound, the fact that only one empt
y shell had been found in Stanworth’s revolver although two shots had been fired that night, and the fact of the dead man’s grip upon the revolver being properly adjusted. It was only conjecture, of course, but it seemed remarkably convincing conjecture.

  Yet was it not more than counterbalanced by the facts that still remained? That the windows and door could be fastened, as they certainly had been, appeared to argue irresistibly that the midnight visitor had left the library while Mr Stanworth was still alive. The confession, signed with his own hand, pointed equally positively to suicide. Could there be any way of explaining these two things so as to bring them into line with the rest? If not, this brilliant theorising must fall to the ground.

  Shelving the problem of the visitor’s exit for the time being, Roger began to puzzle over that laconically worded document.

  During the next quarter of an hour Roger himself might have presented a problem to an acute observer, had there been one about, which, though not very difficult of solution, was nevertheless not entirely without interest. To smoke furiously, with one’s pipe in full blast, betokens no small a degree of mental excitement; to sit like a stone image and allow that same pipe to go out in one’s mouth is evidence of still greater prepossession; but what are we to say of a man who, after passing through these successive stages, smokes away equally furiously at a perfectly cold pipe under the obvious impression that it is in as full blast as before? And that is what Roger was doing for fully three minutes before he finally jumped suddenly to his feet and hurried off once again to that happy hunting ground of his, the library.

  There Alec found him twenty minutes later, when the car had departed irrevocably for the station. A decidedly more cheerful Alec than that of the morning, one might note in passing; and not looking in the least like a young man who has just parted with his lady for a whole month. It is a reasonable assumption that Alec had not been wasting the last half hour.

  ‘Still at it?’ he grinned from the doorway. ‘I had a sort of idea I should find you here.’

  Roger was a-quiver with excitement. He scrambled up from his knees beside the waste-paper basket, into which he had been peering, and flourished a piece of paper in the other’s face.

  ‘I’m on the track!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m on the track, Alexander, in spite of your miserable sneers. Nobody around, is there?’

  Alec shook his head. ‘Well? What have you discovered now?’ he asked tolerantly.

  Roger gripped his arm and drew him towards the writing table. With an eager finger he stubbed at the blotter.

  ‘See that?’ he demanded.

  Alec bent and scrutinised the blotter attentively. Just in front of Roger’s finger were a number of short lines not more than an inch or so long. The ones at the left-hand end were little more than scratches on the surface, not inked at all; those in the middle bore faint traces of ink; while towards the right end the ink was bold and the lines thick and decided. Beyond these were a few circular blots of ink. Apart from these markings, the sheet of white blotting paper, clearly fresh within the last day or two, had scarcely been used.

  ‘Well?’ said Roger triumphantly. ‘Make anything of it?’

  ‘Nothing in particular,’ Alec confessed, straightening up again. ‘I should say that somebody had been cleaning his pen on it.’

  ‘In that case,’ Roger returned with complacency, ‘it would become my painful duty to inform you that you were completely wrong.’

  ‘Why? I don’t see it.’

  ‘Then look again. If he had been cleaning his pen, Alexander Watson, the change from ink to the lack of it would surely be from left to right, wouldn’t it? Not from right to left?’

  ‘Would it? He might have moved from right to left.’

  ‘It isn’t natural. Besides, look at these little strokes. Nearly all of them have a slight curve in the tail towards the right. That means they must have been made from left to right. Guess again.’

  ‘Oh, well, let’s try the reverse,’ said Alec, nettled into irony. ‘He wasn’t cleaning his pen at all; he was dirtying it.’

  ‘Meaning that he had dipped it in the ink and was just trying it out? Nearer. But take another look, especially at this left-hand end. Don’t you see where the nib has split in the centre to make these two parallel furrows? Well, just observe not only how far apart those furrows are, but also the fact that, though pretty deep, there isn’t a sign of a scratch. Now, then, what does all that tell you? There’s only one sort of pen that could have made those marks, and the answer to that tells you what the marks are.’

  Alec pondered dutifully. ‘A fountain pen! And he was trying to make it write.’

  ‘Wonderful! Alec, I can see you’re going to be a tremendous help in this little game.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see anything to make such a fuss about, even if they were made by a fountain pen. I mean, it doesn’t seem to take us any forrader.’

  ‘Oh, doesn’t it?’ Roger had an excellent though somewhat irritating sense of the dramatic. He paused impressively.

  ‘Well?’ asked Alec impatiently. ‘You’ve got something up your sleeve, I know, and you’re aching to get it out. Let’s have it. What do these wonderful marks of yours show you?’

  ‘Simply that the confession is a fake,’ retorted Roger happily. ‘And now let’s go out in the garden.’

  He turned on his heel and walked rapidly out on to the sun-drenched lawn. One must admit that Roger had his annoying moments.

  The justly exasperated Alec trotted after him. ‘Talk about Sherlock Holmes!’ he growled, as he caught him up. ‘You’re every bit as maddening yourself. Why can’t you tell me all about it straight out if you really have discovered something, instead of beating about the bush like this?’

  ‘But I have told you, Alexander,’ said Roger, with an air of bland innocence. ‘That confession is a fake.’

  ‘But why?’

  Roger hooked his arm through that of the other and piloted him in the direction of the rose garden.

  ‘I want to stick around here,’ he explained, ‘so as to see the inspector when he comes up the drive. I’m not going to miss the opening of that safe for anything.’

  ‘Why do you think that confession’s a fake?’ repeated Alec doggedly.

  ‘That’s better, Alexander,’ commented Roger approvingly. ‘You seem to be showing a little interest in my discoveries at last. You haven’t been at all a good Watson up to now, you know. It’s your business to be thrilled to the core whenever I announce a farther step forward. You’re a rotten thriller, Alec.’

  A slight smile appeared on Alec’s face. ‘You do all the thrilling needed yourself, I fancy. Besides, old Holmes went a bit slower than you. He didn’t jump to conclusions all in a minute, and I doubt if ever he was as darned pleased with himself all the time as you are.’

  ‘Don’t be harsh with me, Alec,’ Roger murmured.

  ‘I admit you haven’t done so badly so far,’ Alec pursued candidly; ‘though when all’s said and done most of it’s guesswork. But if I grovelled in front of you, as you seem to want, and kept telling you what a dashed fine fellow you are, you’d probably have arrested Jefferson and Mrs Plant by this time, and had Lady Stanworth committed for contempt of court or something.’ He paused and considered. ‘In fact, what you want, old son,’ he concluded weightily, ‘is a brake, not a blessed accelerator.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Roger said with humility. ‘I’ll remember in future. But if you won’t compliment me, at least let me compliment you. You’re a jolly good brake.’

  ‘And after that, Detective Sheringham, perhaps you’ll kindly tell me how you deduce that the confession is a fake from the fact that old Stanworth’s pen wouldn’t write.’

  Roger’s air changed and his face became serious.

  ‘Yes, this really is rather important. It clinches the fact of murder, which was certainly a shot in the dark of mine before. Here’s the thing that gives it away.’

  He produced from his pocket the piece of paper w
hich he had waved in Alec’s face in the library and, unfolding it carefully, handed it to the other. Alec looked at it attentively. It bore numerous irregular folds, as if it had been considerably crumpled, and in the centre, somewhat smudged, were the words ‘Victor St—,’ culminating in a large blot. The writing was very thickly marked. The right-hand side of the paper was spattered with a veritable shower of blots. Beyond these there was nothing upon its surface.

  ‘Humph!’ observed Alec, handing it back. ‘Well, what do you make of it?’

  ‘I think it’s pretty simple,’ Roger said, folding the paper and stowing it carefully away again. ‘Stanworth had just filled his fountain pen, or it wouldn’t work or something. You know what one does with a fountain pen that doesn’t want to write. Make scratches on the nearest piece of paper, and as soon as the ink begins to flow – ’

  ‘Sign one’s name!’ Alec broke in, with the nearest approach to excitement that he had yet shown.

  ‘Precisely! On the blotting pad are the preliminary scratches to bring the ink down the pen. What happens in nine cases out of ten after that? The ink flows too freely and the pen floods. This bit of paper shows that it happened in this case, too. Stanworth was rather an impatient sort of man, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he was. Fairly.’

  ‘Well, the scene’s easy enough to reconstruct. He tries the pen out on the blotting pad. As soon as it begins to write he grabs a sheet from the top of that pile of fellow-sheets on his desk (did you notice them, by the way?) and signs his name. Then the pen floods, and he shakes it violently, crumples up the sheet of paper, throws it into the waste-paper basket and takes another. This time the pen, after losing so much ink in blots, is a little faint at first; so he only gets as far as the C in Victor before starting again, just below the last attempt. Then at last it writes all right, and his signature is completed, with the usual flourish. He picks up the piece of paper, crumples it slightly, but not so violently as before, and throws it also into the waste-paper basket. How’s that?’