They Found Him Dead

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘Hullo, Adrian!’ said Jim, stepping forward to greet the new-comer. ‘Where on earth did you spring from? I thought you were in Scotland!’

  Eight

  Sir Adrian Harte paid the taxi-driver, saw his suitcases safely in the hands of Pritchard, who had appeared as if by magic at the sound of an approaching car, and walked into the house beside his stepson. ‘My dear boy, in this weather?’ he asked plaintively.

  Jim, no fisherman, apologised. ‘I forgot. When did you get back to town?’

  ‘Yesterday evening,’ replied Sir Adrian, ‘I thought I had better come down and see what was happening here.’ He put his monocle into his eye, and glanced at Jim with a pained, faintly inquiring expression. ‘Rather unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is a bit, sir,’ said Jim. ‘Not altogether pleasant, either.’

  ‘Ah, no, I dare say not!’ agreed Sir Adrian. ‘I have never been mixed up in a murder case myself, but I imagine the situation must be very disagreeable. A pity you should have been here at the time. I don’t know what your mother will say.’

  ‘How is mother?’ asked Jim. ‘Have you had any news of her?’

  ‘No,’ said Sir Adrian, preceding him into the library, ‘not a word. I wondered whether you might not have had a letter.’

  ‘Nothing since the card she sent from that illegible address. What do you suppose can have happened to her?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ replied Sir Adrian. ‘If your mother were not such an erratic letter-writer, I should consider it really rather disturbing. However, I’ve no doubt there is some perfectly ordinary explanation for her silence.’ He sank into a chair. ‘Well, my dear boy, you had better tell me all about it. I imagine you are not, at the moment, in a very enviable position.’

  ‘No, not entirely,’ said Jim. ‘The evidence all seems to point my way. I don’t think the police can bring themselves to believe that I really had no idea I was the next heir.’

  ‘I confess I was rather surprised that you were apparently ignorant of the fact,’ remarked Sir Adrian.

  ‘Did you know, sir?’

  ‘Oh yes; I’m sure your mother told me the rights of it years ago. If it is not a vulgar question, how much do you inherit?’

  ‘I’m not altogether sure. Cousin Silas left close on a quarter of a million, but the death duties are colossal.’

  ‘I expect there will be enough left for your simple needs,’ said Sir Adrian.

  Jim grinned. ‘More than enough, I should think. But my needs aren’t going to be quite so simple in the future. I’m engaged to be married.’

  Sir Adrian looked mildly surprised. ‘Dear me, are you? I don’t think you mentioned that in your letter, did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t think it went well, cheek by jowl with the announcement of Clement’s death.’

  ‘Ah, artistic discrimination! Have I the pleasure of knowing the lady?’

  ‘Rather, sir! It’s Patricia Allison, Aunt Emily’s companion.’

  Sir Adrian frowned slightly. ‘I don’t think I’ve met her.’

  ‘Yes, you have, Adrian, the last time you were here.’

  ‘If you say so, no doubt it is so. I find, as I grow older, that people make very little impression on me. Is this what your mother would consider a suitable alliance?’

  ‘Very much so, I assure you.’

  ‘I feel sure you know your own business best,’ said Sir Adrian. ‘By the way, didn’t I send Timothy here?’

  ‘You did, and he’s very much here.’

  ‘Yes, I thought I did. I couldn’t recall, when I got back to town, what arrangements I had made, but it occurred to me on the train that I must have sent him here. To turn to more important matters, have you come across old Mr Kane’s stamp collection?’

  ‘No, had he got one?’

  ‘My dear Jim!’ – Sir Adrian sounded genuinely shocked – ‘he had a unique collection. I have on more than one occasion offered to buy at least three of the specimens from Silas, who, I may say, had no feeling for them other than a purely Kane desire to hold fast to his possessions. I will buy them from you, if you like to sell.’

  ‘Good Lord, Adrian, you can have the whole collection, if you want it! It doesn’t mean a thing to me.’

  ‘I shan’t impose on your innocence as much as that,’ replied Sir Adrian with a faint smile.

  The door opened at this moment to admit Timothy, who bounced in, saying: ‘I say, Jim, I’ve asked Mr Roberts – oh, hullo, father! I didn’t see you.’ He went up to shake his parent by the hand. ‘I quite thought you’d gone to Scotland. How did you get here?’

  ‘My arrival seems to cause you and Jim a great deal of quite unmerited surprise,’ said Sir Adrian. ‘I had five days of unbroken sunshine, and then came home.’

  ‘Oh, I see! I say, Jim, I’ve asked Mr Roberts in to tea. Is it all right? I met him outside the cinema, and he asked whether I thought you’d mind him coming up to see you some time. You don’t, do you? I told him I knew you wouldn’t.’

  ‘And, as you see, I took him at his word and ventured to come,’ said Oscar Roberts, from the open doorway. ‘But you’ve only to say the word and I’ll catch the next bus back to Portlaw.’

  ‘Of course not! Do come in!’ said Jim. ‘Adrian, may I introduce Mr Roberts? My stepfather, Sir Adrian Harte, sir.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Sir Adrian. Your son and I have been getting along fine together – or rather we were till this durned sergeant from Scotland Yard came and cut me right out of the picture,’ he added with a twinkle.

  ‘Oh, I say, sir, that’s not fair!’ protested Timothy. ‘It was only that I wanted to see how a detective really works.’

  Oscar Roberts dropped a hand on his shoulder and pressed it. ‘Sure you did, sonny. I was only kidding. Well, I fancy you don’t want a stranger butting in on your family party, Mr Kane. Maybe if I came along tomorrow –’

  Sir Adrian said: ‘I seem to be in the way. I’m sure you would like some private conversation with my stepson, Mr Roberts. I was just about to go up to my room. You may come with me, Timothy.’

  He bore Timothy off with him. Oscar Roberts took the chair his host pushed forward, and said: ‘I’ve not come to persuade you into falling in with my proposition.’

  Jim laughed. ‘Thank God for that!’

  ‘Yes, I thought you’d perhaps be receiving a visit from one or other of your partners.’ He accepted a cigar from the box Jim held out to him, and sought in his pocket for his cutter. As he lit the cigar he said, peering at Jim through the smoke: ‘Say, I’d like us to be frank, Kane.’

  ‘By all means.’

  Roberts leaned forward to lay his dead match in the ash-tray on the table. ‘That certainly makes it easier to say what I want to. I wouldn’t like you to get me wrong over this little business deal I’m trying to put through. If I can get them, I want Kane and Mansell’s nets for my firm to handle down under. But I’m not out to start a general holocaust all to get the best when the next best will suit pretty near as well.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Jim stiffened a little.

  The cool, calculating eyes did not waver. ‘Guess we’ll leave it at that, Kane. There’s been some mighty queer happenings in this house, and I’m bound to admit they seem to hang together a piece with my coming on to the scene. Maybe that’s just a coincidence; maybe it’s not. But I’d like to have you know that I’m not pressing your partners for an answer. I’ve a notion they’ll try to put the screw on you. Well, I’m not turning it. I certainly shall be glad to get the matter settled one way or the other, but I appreciate your position, and I wouldn’t be the one to push you into a deal you don’t properly understand, and might regret. That’s no way to do business. I’d like to have you think it over, and get some impartial advice. You won’t keep me waiting any longer than is reasonable
. I’ll treat myself to a little vacation.’

  ‘It’s extraordinarily decent of you,’ said Jim. ‘I do want time to find my feet; but isn’t it asking rather a lot of you to keep you kicking your heels while I try to get abreast of this infernal net-business?’

  ‘If I see a chance of putting the deal through, I’ll be content to kick my heels for a space.’ He regarded the tip of his cigar inscrutably. ‘It’s not uninteresting – kicking my heels in Portlaw.’

  ‘You’re interested in my cousin’s murder?’ said Jim bluntly.

  ‘Well’ – Roberts glanced at him with a slight look of amusement – ‘I feel I might be responsible in a roundabout way. You’ll admit it’s a fairly cute little problem the police are up against.’

  ‘A filthy case. They’ve called in Scotland Yard now.’

  ‘Yes, I’d the pleasure of receiving a call from Superintendent Hannasyde this morning.’

  ‘I believe he’s pretty good. Rather a nice chap, I thought.’

  ‘Sure. I reckon he’s the competent type they breed up at Scotland Yard. He’s smart enough to get right on to Silas Kane’s death. The trouble is, he’s got mighty little to go on. Somebody certainly handled that business well. You have to hand it to them.’

  ‘You’ve always thought my cousin Silas was murdered, haven’t you?’ Jim asked curiously.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. I thought maybe his death would bear some more investigating than it got.’

  ‘Yes, it looks like that now; but at the time, I don’t think any of us suspected there might have been foul play. It’s going to be investigated now all right.’

  ‘That’s so; but when you get a kind of family affair like this, it always seems to me the police have to work under a big handicap. This Superintendent from London’s no fool, but he doesn’t know the folks he’s dealing with. He can find out a lot through asking questions, but he can’t get to know them the way a man moving amongst them like I am can. They’re just naturally on their guard with him.’

  ‘You ought to have been a detective,’ said Jim, laughing.

  Oscar Roberts smiled, but said nothing.

  ‘Do you mind telling me,’ said Jim; ‘have you got hold of something the police haven’t?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Why, no, I wouldn’t say that,’ replied Roberts in his measured way. ‘I’m not holding out on the police. Maybe I’ve got a hunch. I don’t want you to feel sore at my chiselling in on what isn’t, strictly speaking, any of my business. You’ve got to remember I was one of the first to see your cousin after he’d been shot. What’s more, it sticks a bit in my head that I was to get Mr Clement Kane’s answer to my proposition that day. It looked a cinch he was going to turn me down flat. Well, he didn’t get a chance to do it. Someone bumped him off first. Guess that gives me an excuse for taking an interest in the case, Kane.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no objection!’ Jim said. ‘Good luck to you!’

  ‘Thanks.’ Roberts uncrossed his long legs, and prepared to get up. ‘There’s just one other thing I’d like to say.’ He rose, and hesitated for a moment. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Kane: I’m going on a hunch only. But I’m bound to say that, if I stood in your shoes, I’d watch out for trouble.’

  Jim got up, a spark of anger in his eyes. ‘I think your hunch is fantastic, sir; but, by God, if the Mansells think they can frighten me into falling in with their damned schemes, they’ve got another guess coming to them!’

  Oscar Roberts chuckled. ‘That’s the spirit. But all the same, I wouldn’t sit around by open windows all by yourself, Kane. An easy target’s kind of tempting.’

  Jim’s chin jutted mulishly. ‘If I thought there was a word of truth in it, damn it, I’d turn the whole Australian project down now!’

  ‘Now, that’s not what I want at all!’ said Roberts. ‘I appreciate the way you feel, but I certainly didn’t come here to put you right against my proposition.’

  Jim gave a reluctant laugh. ‘I’ll try to keep an impartial mind. And thanks for the warning! Come out and join the tea-party now.’

  Roberts demurred a little, but allowed himself to be over-persuaded. Tea had been taken out on to the terrace some minutes before, and quite a large party was already gathered there. Emily, hearing of Sir Adrian’s arrival, had come down in her best black silk dress, an honour not accorded by her to many, and was sitting with him beside her, listening to his cultured, rather languid voice with a less forbidding air than usual. Sir Adrian to every Kane but Jim was the unknown quantity. Kane instinct bade Emily despise him for a fool who had never done a stroke of work in his life; Kane sense told her that, though he might be vague and impractical, he was no fool. His conversation was strange to her, but gave her pleasure; his point of view nearly always clashed with her own, but though she might pour scorn on it, secretly she respected his judgment.

  Rosemary and Betty Pemble were next to each other. Betty, having spent an hour alternately sympathising with Rosemary for having been left only Clement’s private fortune, and agreeing with her that it wasn’t as though Jim had ever done anything to deserve the inheritance of the Kane estate, and that there was a hard streak in Patricia Allison, due undoubtedly to her spinsterhood, had leapt into the front rank of Rosemary’s close friends. With the reappearance of her children upon the scene, however, Betty’s attention had become necessarily diverted from Rosemary. She had settled them at a small table at a discreet distance from the rest of the party, and was engaged, when Jim Kane and Oscar Roberts came out on to the terrace, in hushing them whenever their voices rose to obtrusive heights, which was often, and in remonstrating with them on the size of the portions they saw fit to cram into their mouths. Occasionally she explained apologetically to Rosemary that they weren’t usually a bit like this. Timothy had ensconced himself beside Patricia at the tea-table. Whenever the children offended his sense of propriety, he glared at his plate, and muttered: ‘Gosh!’ in accents of repulsion.

  Emily greeted Oscar Roberts without much cordiality. She was not in the habit of attempting to overcome her prejudices, and saw no reason to make an exception in this case. Roberts’s way of drawing his heels together and bowing as he took her hand she condemned as foreign. She knew no more disparaging adjective. She gave him a curt ‘How-de-do?’ and immediately turned again to Sir Adrian, and requested him to tell her what his wife was doing, gallivanting about Africa at her age.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ replied Sir Adrian.

  ‘Then you ought to know!’ said Emily tartly.

  He smiled, but merely said that he never presumed to question Norma’s activities.

  This was the kind of remark which Emily found baffling. In her opinion men ought to question their wives’ activities. She would have said as much to most people, but had just enough respect for Sir Adrian to refrain. She said instead: ‘She’ll get eaten by cannibals one of these days.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so!’ replied Sir Adrian, with easy optimism. ‘She’s very capable, you know. An amazing woman! I find myself quite unable to keep pace with her extraordinary vitality.’ His glance wandered to Timothy’s face, and from his to Jim’s. ‘I fancy neither of her sons has inherited her forceful character.’

  ‘A good thing too!’ said Emily. ‘What do you mean to do with that boy of yours?’

  Sir Adrian looked rather alarmed. ‘Do with him?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ said Emily, impatiently. ‘What are you going to put him into?’

  ‘Oh – ah! Well, it is rather too soon to think about that. He seems to me singularly ill-suited to any profession which I can at the moment call to mind.’

  Emily gave one of her croaks of laughter, and said after a moment: ‘I suppose you know the police suspect Jim?’

  ‘I imagine they would be very likely to do so,’ he replied, gently polishing his eyeglass.

 
‘A lot of nonsense! I’ve no patience with it.’

  Sir Adrian got up to take his cup to Miss Allison, and as Oscar Roberts began to talk to Emily, remained standing by the tea-table, sipping his tea, and exchanging a few commonplaces with Patricia. He presently drifted away to a vacant chair beside Betty Pemble’s, who at once engaged him in conversation. Her children, having finished their tea, had gone off in search of their new friend the gardener, so that Betty was able to give her undivided attention to Sir Adrian. She thought him a most distinguished-looking man, and was only too glad to be given the opportunity of telling him how much she felt for the family, and how she wished there was something she could do to help. Sir Adrian replied courteously but in a rather bored voice, and when Betty said that she expected he felt as though Jim were his own son, he said: ‘Dear me, no! Not in the least,’ with a good deal of mild surprise. He might have added that he had little or no parental feeling for Timothy either; but happily for Betty’s opinion of him, he was not in the habit of talking about himself, and so did not. He had, however, said enough to make Betty confide later to her husband that charming though he was, she could not help feeling that there was something rather sinister about Sir Adrian.

  Miss Allison did not find him sinister, but he seemed to her unapproachable. It was quite impossible to discover whether one were making a good or a bad impression upon him, for his manner was the same towards everyone. She could fancy that one saw him through a mist, which he had carefully wrapped round himself, and behind which he dwelt, blissfully aloof. He seemed to take more interest in the whereabouts of old John Kane’s stamp collection than in Clement’s murder, and when Jim, in the privacy of his own bedroom, recounted his interview with Roberts to him, he said with a faint look of distaste: ‘Rather lurid, don’t you think?’