“Oh, that was after I’d had his letter, you see,” Mrs. Plant explained readily. “I was before, of course; terribly frightened. But not afterwards, though it did seem almost too good to be true. Hullo! isn’t that the lunch bell? We had better be going indoors, hadn’t we? I think I have told you all you can want to know.” She rose to her feet and turned towards the house. Roger fell into step with her. “Letter?” he said eagerly. “What letter?” Mrs. Plant glanced at him in surprise. “Oh, don’t you know about that? I thought you must do, as you seemed to know everything. Yes, I got a letter from him saying that for certain private reasons he had decided to take his own life, and that before doing so he wished to inform me that I need have no fears about anything, as he had burnt the evidence he held against me. You can imagine what a relief it was!” “Jumping Moses!” Roger exclaimed blankly. “That appears to bash me somewhat sideways!” “_What_ did you say, Mr. Sheringham?” asked Mrs. Plant curiously. Roger’s dazed and slightly incoherent reply is not recorded. Chapter XXIV Mr. Sheringham is Disconcerted Roger sat through the first part of lunch in a species of minor trance. It was not until the necessity for consuming a large plateful of prunes and tapioca pudding, the two things besides Jews that he detested most in the world, began to impress itself upon his consciousness, that the power of connected thought returned to him. Mrs. Plant’s revelation appeared temporarily to have numbed his brain. The one thing which remained dazzlingly clear to him was that if Stanworth had written a letter announcing his impending suicide, then Stanworth could not after all have been murdered; and the whole imposing structure which he, Roger, had erected, crumbled away into the sand upon which it had been founded. It was a disturbing reflection for one so blithely certain of himself as Roger. As soon as lunch was over and the discussion regarding trains and the like at an end, he hurried Alec upstairs to his bedroom to talk the matter over. It is true that Roger felt a certain reluctance to be compelled thus to acknowledge that he had been busily unearthing nothing but a mare’s nest; but, on the other hand, Alec must know sooner or later, and at that moment the one vital necessity from Roger’s point of view was to talk. In fact, the pent-up floods of talk in Roger’s bosom that were striving for exit had been causing him something very nearly approaching physical pain during the last few minutes. “Alexander!” he exclaimed dramatically as soon as the door was safely shut. “Alexander, the game is up!” “What do you mean?” Alec asked in surprise. “Have the police got on the trail now?” “Worse than that. Far worse! It appears that old Stanworth was never murdered at all! He did commit suicide, after all.”