‘I quite appreciate that, Mr Kane. You are quite sure no one else could have had access to your car?’
‘No, of course I’m not. While it stood in the yard anyone could have walked in and tinkered with it. But who’d want to?’
‘And at Cliff House?’
‘Well, yes; but again, who’d want to?’ Jim said impatiently. ‘Besides, the chauffeur was washing my great-aunt’s car first thing this morning, and didn’t leave the garage until eleven. I had the car out late last night, and locked the garage when I brought her in, so it can’t have been done yesterday. I went down to the garage myself just after eleven this morning, and found my stepfather there, so I should think that at the most the garage was empty for five minutes.’
There was the slightest of pauses. ‘What was your step-father doing in the garage, Mr Kane?’
‘Filling his cigarette-lighter. Look here, what the devil are you getting at?’ demanded Jim, half starting from his chair.
‘Merely checking up on everyone who was seen near your car,’ replied Hannasyde mildly.
‘Well, please don’t check up on my stepfather!’ said Jim. ‘The idea’s quite absurd. I’m on the best of terms with him, and always have been. You might as well suspect my young half-brother.’
‘I don’t think I suspect anyone, Mr Kane. On the other hand, you must see that I cannot exonerate anyone on your bare word. If I am to go into this attempt on your life, which I understand you wish me to do, you must allow me to make what inquiries I think necessary. You say Sir Adrian was filling his lighter, which strikes me immediately as being a somewhat unusual thing to do. Lighters are generally filled at a tobacconist’s shop.’
Jim smiled. ‘When you know my stepfather a little better, Superintendent, you won’t see anything unusual in that. It’s entirely typical of him.’
Hannasyde inclined his head slightly, as though accepting this statement. ‘And he was the only person you observed anywhere in the vicinity of the garage?’
‘Yes – at least, no; my half-brother blew in while I was there; but as he was very keen to go with me, I don’t somehow think we need consider him as a possible suspect.’
Hannasyde paid no heed to this rather sarcastic speech. ‘He was keen to go with you? You didn’t take him, did you?’
‘No, my stepfather told him –’ Jim broke off, his eyes going swiftly to Hannasyde’s face. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Oh, this is too farcical!’
‘What did your stepfather tell him, Mr Kane?’
‘That I didn’t want to be bothered by him. Which was perfectly true. Seriously, Superintendent, you must leave my stepfather out of this. Incidentally, I fail to see what his motive could possibly be.’
‘I take it you have never had any reason to suspect that he might be jealous of your mother’s affection for you?’
‘Not the slightest,’ said Jim emphatically.
‘Very well,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I promise you I’ll go into it carefully, Mr Kane. And, if possible, refrain from insulting Sir Adrian,’ he added, with the glimmer of a smile.
‘Thanks,’ said Jim, rising and shaking hands. ‘I’ll be getting along, then.’
‘Not got cold feet, Mr Kane?’
‘Oh, not very! There seems to be a providence watching over me, anyway.’
Hannasyde agreed, and saw him off the premises. After that he had a short conference with Inspector Carlton, and went out to meet Sergeant Hemingway for lunch.
The Sergeant, who had failed to elicit anything from Mr James Kane’s old nanny but the most rigid corroboration of her mistress’s story, was feeling disgruntled; but he cheered up when he heard what Hannasyde had to tell him, and pointed out that he had prophesied that no one could tell where the case was going to end. ‘That’s one suspect less, at all events,’ he said briskly. ‘Looks like we can rule out the old lady too, not to mention Lady Harte.’
‘You’re going too fast for me,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I’m not ruling anyone out yet.’
‘What, not James Kane himself, Super?’
‘I don’t think so. I believe he’s telling me the truth, but we can’t leave out of account the possibility that he may have engineered this accident just to put us off the real scent.’
‘Him?’ said the Sergeant incredulously. ‘Don’t you believe it, Super! He’s not that sort!’
‘Hemingway,’ said the Superintendent, ‘you think that if a man plays first-class football, and gets into the semi-final of the Amateur Golf Championship he can’t be a murderer!’
The Sergeant blushed, but said defiantly: ‘Psychology!’
‘Rubbish!’ said Hannasyde. ‘However, Carlton’s putting one of his young men on to keep an eye on James Kane, and I’ve promised to investigate the affair. I’m going to see the car and to question the garage-hands immediately after lunch. I shall go on up to Cliff House. I want you to go round to Kane and Mansell’s office, take a careful look at the building with respect to the yard, and see what you can get out of the personnel.’
While the Superintendent and Sergeant Hemingway were discussing the case over the lunch-table, Mrs Kane’s Daimler was bearing Jim home in state. He arrived to find that the rest of the party had started lunch, and realised, as soon as he entered the dining-room, that Miss Allison had not been able to allay his relatives’ suspicions. As he took his seat at the end of the table, with an apology for being late, his mother said in her most business-like and commanding voice: ‘Now, Jim! Without any beating about the bush, what happened this morning?’
‘To the Bentley?’ said Jim, shaking out his table-napkin. ‘The steering went, and we ended up safely but ungracefully in the ditch.’
‘Don’t try to throw dust in my eyes, Jim!’ she said. ‘You needn’t think my nerves won’t stand the truth. I’ve faced too many dangers in my time –’
‘Nerves!’ interrupted Emily fiercely. ‘No one talked of nerves in my young days!’
‘And a very good thing, too!’ said Lady Harte. ‘I don’t know what they are. Never did.’
‘You don’t know how fortunate you are,’ said Rosemary, with a pitying smile.
‘On the contrary, I do know. Jim, I insist upon being answered!’
‘Well, mother, a nut holding one of the ball-joints had worked loose, and it fell off.’
‘That,’ said Sir Adrian, helping himself to salad, ‘of course explains everything. Enlighten our ignorance, my dear boy.’
‘I don’t want to hear anything about nuts and ball-joints,’ announced Emily. ‘If someone’s been tampering with your car, say so!’
Jim looked up to find Miss Allison’s gaze fixed inquiringly on his face.
‘Was it tampered with, Jim?’ she asked.
‘Traitress!’
‘I did try to make out it was an accident, but no one believed me. If it wasn’t an accident we’d all rather know.’
‘Of course it wasn’t an accident!’ declared Timothy scornfully. ‘And now perhaps you’ll believe I did not run the Seamew on the rocks!’
‘I think,’ said Sir Adrian in his tranquil way, ‘that since speculation is so rife, you had better tell us just what did happen, Jim.’
‘Well, sir, it seems fairly obvious the car was tampered with.’
‘That is very disturbing,’ said Sir Adrian. ‘If you have not already done so, you should inform the police.’
‘I have. That’s what made me late for lunch. The Superintendent’s going to look into it.’
‘I should think so indeed!’ snapped Emily. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to!’
‘Of course, what I am waiting for,’ said Rosemary, ‘is for somebody to try to bring it round to Trevor. Or possibly even me.’
No one but Emily paid any attention to this remark, and as she merely said that the least sa
id about that Dermott the better, Rosemary was discouraged from pursuing the subject.
‘I have yet to learn that I am an alarmist,’ said Lady Harte; ‘but it is quite obvious that we must take immediate steps. This is beyond a joke. Whom do the police suspect?’
‘Adrian,’ replied Jim, with a cheerful grin.
Even Emily laughed at this. Norma said: ‘Adrian? Good God, the police must be out of their senses! Adrian doesn’t know one end of a car from the other!’
‘It grieves me to think I made so ill an impression on the Superintendent,’ said Sir Adrian, delicately dropping tarragon over his salad. ‘What, if any, is my motive, Jim?’
‘Oh, stepfather complex, sir! Gnawing jealousy.’
‘Ah yes, of course!’ agreed Sir Adrian. ‘But surely it is a little odd of me to have borne with you all these years, and to choose the moment when you are about to leave my roof for ever to murder you?’
‘Actually,’ said Rosemary, who had been listening with deep interest, ‘people suffering from inhibitions often behave quite irrationally.’
Emily looked at her with acute dislike. ‘If you’ve nothing to say more worth listening to than that, you’d better hold your tongue,’ she said crushingly.
‘Well, it’s very funny, no doubt; but I’m not going to have such nonsensical things said of my husband!’ announced Lady Harte. ‘It annoys me very much indeed, for no one could have been a better father to Jim than Adrian!’
‘I utterly refuse to subscribe to that,’ said Jim. ‘He never came the father over me in all his life.’
‘Thank you, Jim,’ said Sir Adrian, touched.
‘Something must be done!’ said Norma, in a martial voice. ‘If I had my revolver – well, anyway, this decides it! From now on you’ll carry a gun, Jim.’
‘I haven’t got a gun,’ replied Jim. ‘Besides, from the look of things, I’m to be done in by accident.’
‘The Killer’s failed twice,’ said Timothy. ‘We’ve got to be prepared for absolutely anything now. I say, it’s most frightfully exciting, isn’t it, Jim?’
‘Lovely,’ agreed Jim.
‘The extraordinary thing is, that I had an intuition from the start that it was the Mansells,’ said Rosemary. ‘I was laughed to scorn, of course, but when I get one of my premonitions –’
‘I suppose there’s no doubt it is one of the Mansells?’ interrupted Norma, looking at her son.
Emily unexpectedly demurred at this. ‘Joe Mansell’s a fool, and always was, but there’s no harm in him that ever I saw, and I’ve known him for fifty years and more.’
‘Yes, but what about Paul?’ asked Rosemary. ‘Do you know, I’ve always had a feeling about him? I can’t describe it, but –’
Emily sniffed. ‘If you’re telling me that Paul Mansell murdered my son and Clement, I don’t believe a word of it. A whipper-snapper like him!’
‘If he didn’t, aunt, who did?’ demanded Lady Harte.
‘I’m sure I don’t know. It seems to me people will do anything nowadays. I’ve no patience with it,’ replied Emily.
By the time the party rose from the luncheon-table a great many methods of protecting Jim from his unknown enemy had been put forward and heartily condemned. The news that a plain-clothes man had arrived, and was apparently keeping the house under observation, afforded gratification to no one but Timothy, who at once dashed out to make his acquaintance. Emily, bristling, said that they had had enough of policemen prying about the place and upsetting the servants; Patricia agreed with Lady Harte that to send one man only to guard Jim’s precious person was frivolous; and Rosemary complained that the sight of a detective ‘brought it all back to her.’ Jim, discovering that his bodyguard, a shy but very earnest young man, proposed to accompany him if he left the premises, not unnaturally decided to cancel an expedition to a ruined abbey which Miss Allison had expressed a desire to visit. When Patricia had seen Mrs Kane comfortably bestowed on the couch in her own sitting-room for her customary siesta, she went downstairs again to join Jim in the garden, the edge of her pleasure in this programme being considerably dulled by Rosemary’s saying thoughtfully that it must be rather horrid to reflect that behind any bush or tree a murderer might be lurking. When Mr Harte exercised a simple sense of humour by stalking his half-brother down to the lake, and suddenly commanding him in gruff accents and from behind a rhododendron to ‘Stick ’em up!’ Miss Allison came to the conclusion that two chairs on the terrace would be more agreeable to her shattered nerves than wandering about all too well-wooded grounds.
Mr Harte, roundly cursed by Jim, was quite unabashed. ‘Made you jump, didn’t I?’ he said ghoulishly. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m guarding you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jim. ‘Are you going to guard me the whole afternoon?’
‘Well, while you’re in the garden I shall. Sergeant Trotter – that’s the new detective, you know – said I ought to.’
‘I’ll have a word with Sergeant Trotter,’ said Jim grimly. ‘Come on, Pat, let’s go and sit sedately on the terrace.’
Mr Harte accompanied them back to the house, chatting with his usual insouciance. Half-way across the south lawn he stopped, his blue eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘Say, buddy!’ he pronounced. ‘I got a swell idea! Only I must have some dough!’ He planted himself in front of Jim, and raised an eager, beseeching countenance. ‘Have you got any money, Jim? Because if so, could I have some please? There’s something I frightfully want to go and buy in Portlaw, and if you gave me about ten bob – or perhaps a pound, if you can spare it – I could whizz in on my bike.’
‘Look here, is it something devilish?’ asked Jim suspiciously.
‘No, no, honestly it isn’t! As a matter of fact, it’s actually for you, and I know you’ll be pleased!’
‘O God!’ said Jim, with deep misgiving.
Mr Harte danced with impatience. ‘Oh, Jim, don’t be a cad!’
‘Well, if you swear it isn’t anything hellish, and if it really means that you’ll remove yourself till tea-time,’ began Jim, taking out his note-case.
‘Oh, good on you!’ exclaimed Mr Harte, waiting to hear no more. He pocketed a pound note with fervid thanks, and was about to hurry away when a thought occurred to him, and he paused. ‘I say, can I keep the change?’ he asked anxiously.
Jim nodded.
‘Say, you’re a swell guy!’ declared Mr Harte, in a burst of gratitude, and vanished.
Jim and Patricia ensconced themselves on the terrace. They enjoyed peace for nearly an hour, at the end of which time a stately procession issued out of the house. Emily had cut her siesta short, and elected to join the rest of the party. This entailed the summoning of the footman and the chauffeur to carry her downstairs; the butler to bear her favourite chair out on to the terrace; and Ogle to bring up the rear with her rug, her shawl, and her spectacles.
By the time Emily had been settled in her chair, a table placed at her elbow, her ebony cane propped up within her reach, and her sunshade fetched for her, the party had been further augmented by the arrival of Oscar Roberts. He was ushered on to the terrace by Pritchard, and after bowing to Mrs Kane and Patricia, went up to Jim, and shook hands. ‘I met Timothy in the town,’ he said. ‘What he had to say made me feel I’d like to come right on up to see you. Are you still telling me I’m crazy?’
‘I don’t think I ever said that, did I?’ replied Jim, pulling forward a chair. ‘Sit down, won’t you? Cigarette?’
Roberts took one from the case held out to him, and lit it. ‘Might I know just what happened to your car this morning, Kane? I can’t say I made much of my friend Timothy’s story. It sounded mighty lurid.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t lurid at all!’ replied Jim easily. ‘Just something put out of action in the steering. No damage done.’
Roberts smiled. ‘Quit stalling, Kane!’
>
‘Well, we’re not saying too much about it, you know. A nut had worked loose, and came off. We might have crashed badly, but we didn’t.’
‘We?’
‘Miss Allison was with me.’
‘Say, Miss Allison, you’d better stop riding around with this guy: it seems to be kind of dangerous!’ Roberts said humorously. ‘If you take my advice, young man, you’ll leave that car of yours in the garage till this case is cleared up.’
‘As she’s a bit bent I shall probably have to,’ replied Jim. ‘Not that I think anyone would pull the same trick twice.’
‘What was the trick?’
‘The nut holding one of the ball-joints on the track-rod was loosened. The split pin securing it was missing when we inspected the car.’
Roberts interposed. ‘Sorry, Kane, but that doesn’t mean a thing to me. What kind of a steering-system is this?’
‘Quite a usual one. Certain makes of car have it. I can soon show you.’ He produced a pencil and an envelope from his pocket, and drew a rough diagram, elucidating it as he did so.
Roberts watched with knit brows, putting one or two questions as the drawing progressed. He took the envelope from Jim presently and studied it. ‘Guess you’d have to be familiar with the car to be able to pull this one,’ he remarked. ‘Now, this nut, you say, came off; if you knew the car, it wouldn’t be a difficult job to pull that pin out, and loosen the nut?’
‘No. Dead easy, given a spanner and a pair of pliers.’
They Found Him Dead Page 22
