‘There’s nothing like going straight to the fountain-head,’ he said. ‘Nobody in Wychford can tell us so much of what we want to know as Mrs Bentley’s solicitors, so to Mrs Bentley’s solicitors I’m going first of all.’
‘How are you going to find out who they are? Bound to be several solicitors in a place this size.’
‘That simple point,’ Roger said not without pride, ‘I have already attended to. Three minutes’ conversation with the chambermaid gave me the information I wanted.’
‘I see. What do you want me to do? Come with you, or stay here?’
‘Neither. I want you to go and call on your admirable cousin and see if you can wangle an invitation to some meal in the very near future for both of us. Not tea, because I want the husband to be present as well and doctors’ hours for tea are a little uncertain. Don’t say why we’ve come; just tell her that we expect to be here for a few days. You can say that I’ve come to inspect the local Roman remains, if you like.’
‘Are there any Roman remains here?’
‘Not that I know of. But it’s a pretty safe remark. Every town of any size must have Roman remains: its a sort of guarantee of respectability. And use the cunning of the serpent and the guilelessness of a dove. Can I rely on you for that?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Spoken like a Briton!’ approved Roger warmly. ‘And after all, who can do more than that? Answer, almost anybody. But don’t ask me to explain that because—’
‘I won’t!’ said Alec hastily.
Roger looked at his friend with reproach. ‘I think,’ he said in a voice of gentle suffering, ‘that I’ll be getting along now.’
‘So long, then!’ said Alec very heartily.
Roger went.
He was back again in less than half an hour, but it was after six before Alec returned. Roger, smoking his pipe in the lounge with growing impatience, jumped up eagerly as the other’s burly form appeared in the doorway (Alec had got a rugger blue at Oxford for leading the scrum, and he looked it) and waved him over to the corner-table he had secured. The lounge was fairly full by this time, and Roger had been at some pains to keep a table as far away from any other as possible.
‘Well?’ he asked in a low voice as Alec joined him. ‘Any luck?’
‘Yes. Molly wants us to go to dinner there tonight. Just pot-luck, you know.’
‘Good! Well done, Alec.’
‘She seemed quite impressed to hear I was down with you,’ Alec went on with pretended astonishment. ‘In fact, she seems quite keen about meeting you. Extraordinary! I can’t imagine why, can you?’
But Roger was too excited for the moment even to wax facetious. He leaned across the little table with sparkling eyes, making no attempt to conceal his elation.
‘I’ve seen her solicitor!’ he said.
‘Have you? Good. Surely you didn’t get anything out of him, did you?’
‘Didn’t I just! Roger exclaimed softly. ‘I got everything.’
‘Everything?’ repeated Alec startled. ‘Great Scott, how did you manage that?’
‘Oh, no details. Nothing like that. I was only with him for a couple of minutes. He was a dry, precise little man, typical stage solicitor; and he wasn’t giving away if he knew it. Oh, nothing at all. But he didn’t know it, you see, Alexander. He didn’t know it!’
‘What happened, then?’
‘Oh, I told him the same sort of yarn as I told Burgoyne, and asked him point-blank if he could see his way to giving me any information as to whether Mrs Bentley had a complete answer to the charges against her, or not. Of course I had him a bit off his guard, you must remember. It’d be the last thing any solicitor would expect, wouldn’t it? A chap to blow into his office and ask him questions about another client like that. He was a good deal taken aback. In fact he probably thought I was quite mad. In any case, he shut up like a little black oyster, said he regretted he had no information to give me and had me shown out. That’s all that happened.’
‘What do you mean, then? You haven’t found anything out!’
‘Oh, yes, I have,’ Roger returned happily. ‘I’ve found out that we haven’t come down to Wychford in vain. Alec, in spite of his care, that little man gave himself away to me ten times over. There isn’t a shadow of doubt about it—he’s quite sure that Mrs Bentley is guilty!’
FOR a moment Alec looked bewildered. Then he nodded.
‘I see what you’re driving at,’ he said slowly. ‘You mean, if Mrs Bentley’s own solicitor thinks she’s guilty, then her explanation of the evidence can’t be a particularly convincing one?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And according to what you were saying yesterday morning, that makes you yourself still more convinced of her innocence?’
‘Well, don’t put it as strongly as all that. Say that it makes me still more inclined to think she may be innocent.’
‘Contrary to the opinion of everyone else who is most competent to judge. Humph!’ Alec smoked in silence for a minute. ‘Roger, that Layton Court affair hasn’t gone to your head, has it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, just because you hit on the truth there and nobody else did, you’re not looking on yourself as infallible, are you?’
‘Hit on the truth!’ exclaimed Roger with much pain. ‘After I’d reasoned out every single step in the case and drawn the most brilliant deductions from the most inadequate data! Hit on the truth, indeed!’
‘Well, arrived at the truth, then,’ Alec said patiently. ‘I’m not a word-fancier like you. Anyhow, you haven’t answered my question. You’re not beginning to look on yourself as a story-book detective, and all the rest of the world as the Scotland Yard specimen to match, are you?’
‘No, Alec, I am not,’ Roger replied coldly. ‘The point I made about the unnaturalness of that large quantity of arsenic was a perfectly legitimate one, and I’m only surprised that nobody else seems to have noticed it, instead of promptly drawing the diametrically opposite conclusion. As to whether I’m right or wrong in the explanation I gave you, that remains to be seen; but you’ll kindly remember that I only put it forward as an interesting possibility, not a cast-iron fact, and I merely pointed out that it was just enough to cast a small doubt on the absolute certainty of Mrs Bentley’s guilt.’
‘All right,’ Alec said soothingly. ‘Keep your wool on. What about all that chit-chat about mysterious unknowns?’
Roger affected a slight re-arrangement of his ruffled plumes. ‘There I’m quite ready to admit that I was using my imagination, and plenty of it too. But it was plausible enough for all that. And if Mrs Bentley by any weird chance is innocent it must be true. In any case, isn’t that just what we’re supposed to have come down here to find out?’
‘I suppose it is,’ Alec admitted.
Roger regarded his stolid companion for a moment with a lukewarm eye. Then he broke into a sudden laugh and the plumage was smoothly preened once more.
‘You’re really a bit of an old ass at times, you know, Alec!’
‘So