Twenty-one ROGER ANSWERS A QUESTION
Fortune favoured her, for she fell in with Roger not far from the house.
“Hullo,” he said. “You’re back early from London.”
“I wasn’t in the mood for London,” said Frankie.
“Have you been to the house yet?” he asked. His face grew grave. “Nich-olson, I find, has been telling Sylvia the truth about poor old Henry. Poorgirl, she’s taken it hard. It seems she had absolutely no suspicion.”
“I know,” said Frankie. “They were both together in the library when Icame in. She was—very upset.”
“Look here, Frankie,” said Roger. “Henry has absolutely got to be cured.
It isn’t as though this drug habit had a real hold on him. He hasn’t beentaking it so very long. And he’s got every incentive¹ in the world to makehim keen on being cured—Sylvia, Tommy, his home. He’s got to be madeto see the position clearly. Nicholson is just the man to put the thingthrough. He was talking to me the other day. He’s had some amazing suc-cesses—even with people who have been slaves for years to the beastlystuff. If Henry will only consent to go to the Grange—”
Frankie interrupted.
“Look here,” she said. “There’s something I want to ask you. Just a ques-tion. I hope you won’t think I’m simply frightfully impertinent.”
“What is it?” asked Roger, his attention arrested.
“Do you mind telling me if you took a photograph out of that man’spocket—the one who fell over the cliff at Marchbolt?”
She was studying him closely, watching every detail of his expression.
She was satisfied with what she saw.
Slight annoyance², a trace of embarrassment—no flash of guilt³ or dis-may.
“Now, how on earth did you come to guess that?” he said. “Or did Moiratell you—but, then, she doesn’t know?”
“You did, then?”
“I suppose I’ll have to admit it.”
“Why?”
Roger seemed embarrassed again.
“Well, look at it as I did. Here I am, mounting guard over a strange deadbody. Something is sticking out of his pocket. I look at it. By an amazingcoincidence it’s the photograph of a woman I know—a married woman—and a woman who I guess is not too happily married. What’s going to hap-pen? An inquest.

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