“No, but I tell you what,” Roger said, wheeling suddenly about. “If you could answer a few more questions for me, I should be more than grateful. Only as a favour, of course, and if you refuse I shall understand perfectly. But you might be able to help me clear up a very tricky state of affairs.” “If it’s anything to do with helping somebody Stanworth got hold of, I’ll answer questions all night,” Jefferson replied with vigour. “Go ahead.” “Thanks, very much. Well, then, in the first place, will you tell me some details regarding your wife’s relations with Stanworth? It doesn’t matter if you object, but I should be very glad if you could see your way to do so.” “But I thought you said you knew that story?” Roger did not think it necessary to explain that the lady to whom he had been referring was not Lady Jefferson. “Oh, I know most of it, I think,” he said airily, “but I should like to hear it all from you, if I could. I know that she was in Stanworth’s power, of course,” he added, making a shot in the twilight, “but I’m not quite clear as to the precise way.” Jefferson shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well, as you seem to know so much, you’d better have the whole lot straight. Stanworth nosed out something about her father. His brother was in love with her, and Stanworth gave her the option of marrying him or having her father shown up. He could have had the old earl put in the dock, I believe. Naturally she chose the brother, who, by the way, didn’t know anything about Stanworth’s activities, so I understand. Quite an amiable, rather weak sort of a fellow.” “And since then, of course, Stanworth had the whip hand over her?” Jefferson winced. “Yes,” he said shortly. “Even after her father died, she wouldn’t want the family shown up.” “I see,” said Roger thoughtfully. So Lady Stanworth had little enough reason to love her brother-in-law. And since Jefferson fell in love with her, her cause would naturally become his. Truly he had motive and to spare for ridding the world of such a man. Yet, although Jefferson and his wife might easily have concocted the story of his whereabouts that night, Roger already felt just as convinced of the former’s innocence as he was before of his guilt. The man’s manner seemed somehow to preclude altogether the idea of subterfuge. Had he really killed Stanworth, Roger was sure that he would have said so by the time that matters had reached this length, bluntly and simply, just as he had told the story of his own downfall. But in spite of his convictions, Roger was not such a fool as not to put the obvious questions that occurred to him. “Why was your marriage secret?” he asked. “Did Stanworth know about it?” “No; he wouldn’t have allowed it. It would have looked like a combination against him. He wanted us separate, for his own ends.” “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.”