The Layton Court Mystery

by Anthony Berkeley

  ‘Up till then, mind, it had never occurred to me that the case would ever appear to be anything but murder; and if it was traced back to me, I should simply say that I had shot him in self-defence, after he had first shot at me. I would have gone to the police straight away and told them the whole thing, if it wasn’t that that would have given away the facts of blackmail, which it was of course essential to hush up. Then I glanced at the chair in which he was lying, and it struck me that he looked exactly as if he had shot himself, so I began to wonder if I couldn’t make the whole thing look like suicide.

  ‘I knew you weren’t such a blithering fool as you’ve been trying to make yourself out to be for the last forty-eight hours – ’

  Roger interjected, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, the whole finished effect didn’t occur to me at once. I started off by shutting the safe and putting the keys back in his waistcoat pocket; the wrong pocket, as it turned out afterwards. Then I cleared up the bits of vase and shoved them into my pocket for the time being, and examined the revolver in Stanworth’s hand. To my joy, I found that I could get at the chamber and extract the first shell without loosening his grip, which I proceeded to do. You were right about my knowledge of lattice windows. I knew that trick with the handle when I was a boy, and patted myself on the back when I realised how I could get out of the room and leave everything locked behind me. Lord, I never thought anyone would spot that!’

  ‘You weren’t reckoning for me to be on the trail, my boy,’ Roger said with modest pride.

  ‘Well, you certainly made me jump when you discovered it. Let’s see now, what did I do next? Oh, yes, the letters. I knew that all these people would be scared to death at the idea of Stanworth having shot himself with the safe still locked, as even if they had the keys nobody could open it without the combination; and I thought that in the agitation of the moment Mrs Plant or somebody might give some vital point away. So I sat down and hammered out letters to the three of them on the typewriter, for I knew by what I’d seen in the safe that both Jefferson and Lady Stanworth were involved in it also. You know what I said in the letters, of course. Well, then, I had a final look round and just by chance thought I’d better glance into the waste-paper basket. The very first thing I saw there was a sheet of paper, only very slightly crumpled, that bore Stanworth’s signature. Instantly I thought to myself – why not rig up a statement of suicide just to clinch things? And I typed one out above the signature.

  ‘Of course all this took a devil of a time. In fact, it was about four o’clock by now. I’d been as cool as a cucumber for two hours, but I was getting so tired that I made one or two mistakes after that. I never searched the waste-paper basket, for instance, and so left that other piece of paper with the signature there for you to find; and I forgot to smooth over that footprint on the bed. I did curse myself for that when you found it! Also I ought not to have thrown those bits of vase into the shrubbery between the library and the dining room, I suppose.’

  ‘But how did you get back into the house?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Oh, before I locked up the library I went through and opened the dining-room windows. Then I just walked round from the lattice window and in through the dining room, locked the dining-room door, and went up to bed. And that’s all.’

  ‘And very nicely timed,’ Roger remarked, glancing out of the window. ‘We shall be at Victoria in five minutes. Well, thanks very much for telling me like that, Alec. And now let us proceed madly to forget all about it, shall we?’

  ‘There’s one thing that’s been worrying me rather,’ Alec said slowly. ‘Do you think I ought to tell Barbara?’

  ‘Good heavens above, no!’ Roger shouted, staring at his companion in dismay. ‘What on earth would you want to tell her for? She’d only be overcome with shame that you knew anything about her mother’s shortcomings; and the fact that you’d killed a man more or less on account of her would simply make her wretchedly miserable. Of course you mustn’t dream of telling her, you goop!’

  ‘I think you’re probably right,’ Alec said, gazing out of the window.

  The train began to slacken speed, and the long, snaky Victoria platforms appeared in sight. Roger stood up and began to lift his suitcase off the rack.

  ‘I think we might stay up in town this evening and do a dinner and a show, don’t you?’ he said cheerfully. ‘I feel as if I want a little relaxation after my strenuous mental efforts of the last two days.’

  Something seemed to be troubling Alec.

  ‘You know,’ he said awkwardly, ‘somehow I can’t help wondering. Are you really sure, Roger, that it wouldn’t be best for me to go and tell the police? I mean, it isn’t as if they’d have me up for a murder or anything like that; nothing worse than manslaughter, I should imagine. And I daresay I should get off altogether on the self-defence idea. But are you sure it isn’t really the right thing to do?’

  Roger gazed down at his companion with disfavour.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Alec, do try sometimes not to be so disgustingly conventional!’ he said scornfully.