Free Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery by Anthony Berkeley

“Whose?” he asked in a strained voice.
    “It’s a button off a sports coat belonging to Miss Cross.”
    For a moment there was a tense silence. Then Roger asked the question that was burning a hole in his brain.
    “Was Miss Cross wearing the coat when she went out for her walk with Mrs Vane?”
    “She was, sir,” replied the inspector with a more serious air than he had yet displayed. “And when she got back to the house that button was missing from it.”

chapter seven
Sidelights on a Loathsome Lady
    “I tell you I don’t care !” Anthony almost shouted. “To say that girl had anything to do with the wretched woman’s death is too damned silly for words!”
    “But I’m not saying so,” Roger pointed out patiently. “I don’t think she had, in spite of everything. What I am saying is that we can’t dismiss the possibility of it in this cocksure way just because she’s got a pretty face. The inspector isn’t–”
    “Blast the inspector!” observed Anthony savagely.
    “Blast him by all means, but, as I was saying, he isn’t by any means a fool, and it’s quite obvious what his opinion about Mrs Vane’s death is at present. After all, you must face the fact that the evidence is absolutely overwhelming.”
    “If his opinion is that Miss Cross murdered her cousin, then he is a fool,” growled Anthony finally; “and a damned fool at that.”
    It was the following morning, and the two men were walking along the top of the cliffs to keep their appointment with Margaret Cross. The inspector had betaken himself to bed on the previous evening soon after the bursting of his bombshell, and the discussion between Anthony and Roger had lasted well into the small hours of the morning, broken only by an interval of half an hour while Roger telephoned through to the Courier . It was still raging.
    Anthony had refused point-blank to consider even the possibility that Margaret had not spoken the exact truth in every detail or had wilfully suppressed any material fact, while as for the only logical deduction to be drawn from the facts as they were then known, he would rather have been torn in pieces by red-hot pincers than admit it within the category of bare feasibilities. To Roger, who was no less anxious that the girl’s name should be cleared, but had a livelier conception of the difficulties in the way of doing so, this attitude was a little trying. To Anthony’s final remark he forbore to reply, only sighing gently to himself. It required an effort of will, but no good purpose would be served by quarrelling with Anthony, and Anthony was very ready to quarrel with someone. They traversed the rest of the journey in difficult silence.
    Margaret Cross was waiting for them by the little ledge, her face anxious and bearing the marks of a sleepless night.
    “Oh, I am glad to see you!” she exclaimed as she shook hands with Roger. “Really I feel as if you were the only friend I’d got in the world.”
    “Don’t forget me, Miss Cross,” Anthony smiled, shaking hands with her in his turn.
    “No, of course not,” said the girl in a voice that was neither enthusiastic nor chilling – just indifferent; and she snatched away the hand that Anthony was manifestly attempting to press and, turning ostentatiously back to Roger, began to question him eagerly as to whether anything fresh had transpired.
    Over Anthony’s face passed an expression such as might have been seen on the face of a dog which has put out a paw to toy with a fly and discovered it to be a wasp – hurt and yet puzzled. As Margaret Cross continued to display to him only her back the puzzled part of his expression gave way to resentment; as she made no effort to include him in her eager conversation, but on the contrary quite pointedly ignored him, resentment and chagrin alike were swallowed up by sheer annoyance. As ostentatiously as herself, he strolled a few paces away and began to amuse himself by throwing stones over the edge of the