‘Could it have been done in a few minutes, do you suppose?’
‘I should think so.’
Roberts gave back the envelope. ‘Well, that certainly is interesting,’ he said. ‘Looks like you’re up against something, Kane. Can’t help blaming myself for this one. I ought to have thought of your car standing in that yard just crying out to be tampered with.’
Emily, who had been listening to him with ill-concealed impatience, said crossly: ‘I don’t know why, I’m sure. You’re not a detective, are you?’
Roberts turned courteously towards her. ‘Mrs Kane, when a man sees murder rife under his very nose, he’s apt to take notice of it.’
‘Scotland Yard has the matter in hand,’ said Emily, in her stiffest voice.
Roberts smiled a little. ‘Sure they have. I expect when it comes to solving problems they’re swell. Maybe they’re not quite so clever at preventing crime.’
At this moment Sir Adrian came out on to the terrace with Superintendent Hannasyde. Jim said at once:
‘My God, sir, has it come to this?’
‘No, not yet,’ replied Sir Adrian calmly. ‘I am still a free man. The Superintendent wishes to have a word with Mrs Kane.’
Emily felt no particular animosity towards Superintendent Hannasyde, who had at their first meeting handled her with consummate tact; but her inevitable reaction towards anyone requiring anything of her was of hostility. She looked him up and down, and said: ‘I don’t know what he thinks I can tell him.’
Patricia got up. ‘I expect you’d like to speak to Mrs Kane alone, Superintendent.’
‘Sit down!’ said Emily sharply. ‘I’ve no secrets. If I knew anything I should have told it in the first place. Well, what do you want?’
Hannasyde took the chair Jim had thrust forward. ‘I take it that you have been informed of the accident to your great-nephew’s car, Mrs Kane?’
‘Yes, I have,’ said Emily; ‘and I’ll thank you to see that nothing of the sort happens again! I don’t know what the police think they’re for.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ promised Hannasyde. ‘I think you may be able to help me.’ He glanced fleetingly round the assembled company. ‘Do you wish me to speak frankly, or would you like to see me alone?’
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ replied Emily.
‘Then I’m going to be very frank indeed,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I have seen the foreman of Lamb’s Garage, and I have seen Mr Kane’s car. I am satisfied that the accident did not occur naturally. It remains for me to discover who tampered with the car. Sir Adrian will, I hope, forgive me if I say that his presence in the garage this morning makes it necessary for me to consider the possibility of his being the guilty person.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ interrupted Emily with a snort.
‘A thought occurs to me,’ said Sir Adrian, disposing himself in a deck-chair. ‘Had I a motive for murdering Clement Kane?’
Hannasyde’s eyes twinkled appreciatively. ‘I have not yet discovered it, sir.’
‘Murder begets murder,’ said Jim. ‘You didn’t murder Clement, Adrian. His murder just put the idea of murdering me into your head.’
Sir Adrian wrinkled his brow. ‘I never take my ideas at second-hand,’ he complained.
‘Waiving you for the moment, sir,’ interposed Hannasyde, ‘I am apparently left with only two suspects.’
‘Joe Mansell wouldn’t murder anyone, if that’s what you mean,’ said Emily. ‘I don’t know anything about his son, and I don’t want to.’
‘We’ll waive him too,’ said Hannasyde. ‘There is one other person who would benefit by Mr Kane’s death, and that is his heir.’
Emily stared at him. ‘Maud? Rubbish, she’s in Australia!’
‘Are you sure of that, Mrs Kane?’
‘I had a letter from her, posted in Sydney. I don’t know what more you want.’
‘May I see that letter?’
For a moment it seemed as though Emily would refuse; then she turned towards Miss Allison, and commanded her to fetch it from the davenport in her sitting-room.
Patricia got up, and went into the house. Hannasyde said: ‘When did you last see your great-niece, Mrs Kane?’
‘When she was a child,’ replied Emily. ‘I don’t know when. I never took any stock in that Australian lot.’
‘Then it is safe to assume that you would not recognise her today?’
‘I’ve no idea. She was a plain child. I remember they dressed her very unsuitably. Just like them! If they had a penny to bless themselves with it went on grand clothes and trips to England. They never got any encouragement from me.’
‘Do you know anything of the man she married, Mrs Kane?’
‘Never saw him in my life. She used to write cadging letters to my son. Of course, we guessed that was at her husband’s instigation. He was no good at all.’
‘You never even saw a photograph of him?’
‘I never saw one, and if I had, I shouldn’t have been interested. If you want to know anything about him, you’d better ask Mr Roberts. He comes from Australia.’
Oscar Roberts had been listening with a slight frown in his cold, intelligent eyes. He said slowly: ‘I’m an Australian sure enough, but I don’t know Sydney very well. What is the man’s name, Mrs Kane?’
‘Leighton,’ she replied. ‘That’s what my great-niece signs herself, anyway.’
‘Leighton?’ His frown grew. ‘The only Leighton I ever knew I met in a bar at Melbourne, and as far as I know, he wasn’t a married man.’
From the recesses of her memory Emily unexpectedly brought a new fact to light. ‘That’s nothing. He left her years ago. I remember her mother – she was an empty little ninny, always whining about something or other – wrote to my son about it. I don’t know what she thought he could do about it. Of course, he did nothing at all. Maud was fool enough to take the man back again, but it didn’t last. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear of him posing as a bachelor in Melbourne, or wherever you say you met him. I’ve no doubt if he had sixpence in his pocket he wouldn’t trouble his head over Maud.’
‘They are not divorced?’ Hannasyde asked.
‘If they are I never heard of it. Maud had no pride at all. Just like her mother.’
Hannasyde turned to Oscar Roberts. ‘How well were you acquainted with the man you met in Melbourne?’
‘Not so well. If he was the Leighton you want, he certainly wasn’t on the up-and-up when I knew him. He was picking up a living doing odd jobs for any firm that would use him. Chicken-feed! The trouble with him was drink. Are you figuring he might be at the bottom of this racket, Superintendent?’
‘He or his wife. Possibly both.’
‘That’s ingenious,’ Roberts admitted. ‘That certainly is ingenious; but I can’t get around to it fitting the hobo I knew.’
‘Would you know that man again if you saw him?’
‘Sure I’d know him, unless he was wearing a wig, or something. Say, you’ve got me thinking, Superintendent. But there’s a couple of snags I can see.’
‘Yes, Mr Roberts?’
‘Well, the first is that, assuming the Leighton I knew is the Leighton you’re after, I doubt whether he’d ever have got himself sobered up enough to tackle a job like this. Maybe we’re not talking of the same man. Let it go. The second snag is the number of murders. It’s too steep, Superintendent. The man who’d set out to commit no fewer than three murders so that his wife could inherit a fortune sure must be a master mind! You can take it from me all that amount of nerve don’t fit my Leighton, and from what Mrs Kane’s been telling us about, the guy her great-niece married, it don’t fit him either. Why, the man who could plan devilry on a scale as grand as that must have brains enough to make a fortune for himself!’
‘It doesn’t always f
ollow that a clever man chooses an honest way to make a fortune, Mr Roberts. I admit the improbability of his planning three murders, and I believe that if he is at the bottom of this case he didn’t plan three. It is far more likely that, in common with Mr Kane, he took it for granted that his wife stood next in succession to Mr Clement Kane.’
Roberts regarded him with a faint smile. ‘You’ve got it fixed in your mind Mr Silas Kane and Mr Clement were murdered by the same man, haven’t you, Superintendent? Does it ever strike you there’s a queer difference in the methods employed?’
‘In my profession, Mr Roberts, we guard against getting fixed ideas. I have as yet no proof that Mr Silas Kane was murdered.’
‘Guess he was murdered, all right; but whether you’ll ever know by whom is another matter. I’ve a hunch that the man who pushed him off that cliff-edge is dead himself now.’ He glanced at Jim. ‘A while back, Kane, you said something that was maybe sounder than you knew. You said: “Murder begets murder.” I believe in this case it did.’
‘You take a great interest in this case, Mr Roberts?’ said Hannasyde.
‘Yes, Superintendent. It’s a dandy little problem.’
‘Have you had much experience of crime?’
Roberts regarded him with his head slightly on one side. ‘Now, why do you ask me that?’
‘You seem to look upon it almost from a professional standpoint.’
‘You’re trying to flatter me, Superintendent. I’ve been – interested in crime for a good many years; but I don’t aspire to your standards. But in my experience a murderer has only one trick in his repertoire. In this case you have one man killed so neatly you’ll never prove it was murder; and another killed so blatantly there’s no possibility it could have been anything but murder. Unless I’m mistaken, the two methods indicate two very different types of minds. One’s subtle; one ain’t.’
‘Aren’t you rather leaving out of account the attempt upon Mr Kane’s life? Doesn’t it fall into the same category as Mr Silas Kane’s murder?’
‘Why, no, I think not, Superintendent. The accident to the Seamew and the accident to the car were tricks that could easily go wrong, and did go wrong. They look to me like a plain guy trying to be clever. Mr Silas Kane’s murderer thought of a plan where there was no room for mistake. You have to hand it to him.’
‘If you don’t mind, sir, I think we’ve had about enough of this conversation,’ interposed Jim. ‘It isn’t very pleasant for my great-aunt.’
Roberts turned at once, with a swift apology on his lips, but Emily said fiercely: ‘I’ve supposed all along that my son was murdered. Not that the police would ever prove it. The Mansells! They didn’t do it! Who stood to gain by his death?’ She gave a short laugh, and folded her hands closer in her lap. Patricia, coming out on to the terrace through the drawing-room window, thought that for a moment she looked almost terrible, a little stout old lady with a rigid back, and eyes like blue ice.
There was a constrained silence. ‘It can’t be proved, aunt, and – after all, Clement’s dead,’ said Jim uncomfortably.
Her tight mouth relaxed slightly. ‘Yes. He’s dead,’ she answered.
Hannasyde, watching her, said bluntly: ‘Do you seriously believe that he killed your son, Mrs Kane?’
Her stare abolished him; she replied in her curtest, most expressionless voice: ‘What I believe is my own concern. It won’t help you. You’ll never prove anything.’
Fourteen
Patricia, who had been standing quite still just outside the drawing-room window, came forward, relieving a sudden tension. ‘I think this is the letter you want, Mrs Kane.’
Emily glanced at it. ‘I don’t want it. Give it to the Superintendent.’
Hannasyde took it with a word of thanks, and carefully inspected the post-mark on the envelope. He withdrew a folded letter, and gave it back to Miss Allison. ‘If I may keep the envelope, Mrs Kane, that’s all I want.’
‘Keep anything you like,’ said Emily. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Thank you.’ Hannasyde put the envelope in his pocket-book, and got up. ‘That’s all, then, for the present.’
Jim accompanied him through the house to the front door. ‘Thanks for my bodyguard, Superintendent. Between him and my half-brother I ought to be pretty safe.’
‘I hope so,’ Hannasyde answered.
‘They’re a bit of a nuisance,’ said Jim cheerfully; ‘but at least your nice Sergeant Trotter’s presence does augur a certain measure of belief in my story.’
‘I’m sorry if I led you to think that I didn’t believe your story.’
‘Very handsomely said, Superintendent. Do you, by any chance?’
‘Believe you? Why not, Mr Kane?’
Jim laughed. ‘It only dawned on me, after I’d got back here, that you probably suspected me of staging the whole show just to put you off the scent. I can prove my innocence by requesting you to inquire of the personnel at my office whether my hands were dirty or not when I walked in the back entrance.’
‘I’m afraid that’s no proof at all,’ replied Hannasyde with his slow smile. ‘You might have worn a pair of rubber gloves, mightn’t you?’
‘Damn! I never thought of that,’ said Jim. ‘I must remain a suspect. It’s comforting to think that I’m in the best of company.’
Hannasyde returned a light answer, and took his leave, catching the next omnibus back to Portlaw.
He was met at the police-station by Inspector Carlton, who hailed his arrival with satisfaction, announcing, not without pride, that he had news to report. ‘That alibi of Mr Paul Mansell’s,’ he said. ‘Well, we’ve shook it, Superintendent. Your outside chance came off. I’ve got a young fellow here who’s prepared to swear he saw Mr Mansell’s Lagonda drawn up by the tradesmen’s gate at Cliff House at 3.30 p.m. on the day Mr Clement was shot.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Hannasyde, hanging up his hat. ‘Reliable witness?’
‘I’d say so. Garage-hand. He’s waiting in my office.’
‘Right, I’ll see him at once.’
The witness, a tall youth with a shock of resilient brown hair, was quite clear in his evidence. He told Hannasyde that, having Saturday afternoon leave from Jones’s Garage in Portlaw, he had taken his young lady for a spin on his motorbike, and had passed along the coast road by Cliff House at about half-past three, the time being fixed in his mind by the fact of the said young lady having kept him hanging about in Portlaw till it was a question whether they could reach Bransome, farther down the coast, in time for tea or not.
‘Yes, I see,’ said Hannasyde. ‘You say you saw Mr Mansell’s car outside Cliff House?’
‘That’s right, sir. A four-and-a-half litre Lagonda, it is.’
‘Did you notice its number?’
Mr Bert Wilson scratched his head reflectively. ‘Well, I don’t know as I actually noticed it, so to speak. I know the car, see? Come to that, I know the number of it too, which is –’
‘No, that isn’t what I mean,’ interrupted Hannasyde. ‘There are many Lagondas on the road, after all. Are you quite sure that this one belonged to Mr Paul Mansell?’
Mr Wilson had no doubt of this. He offered to take his dying oath it was Mr Mansell’s car, adding: ‘I work at Jones’s Garage, see? ’Smatter of fact, when I saw the car parked there, outside Cliff House, I passed the remark to my young lady, That’s one of our cars, that is, I said. Well, what I mean is, we had her in for oil and grease only two days before. We do all Mr Paul Mansell’s work for him. Why, I know that Lagonda backwards, as you might say.’
‘Was anyone with the car when you passed it?’
‘No, sir. Parked with her rear wheels just off the road, she was, just by the tradesmen’s entrance, as my young lady will bear me out.’
Hannasyde favoured him with one of
his long, searching looks. ‘Do you know what happened at Cliff House on Saturday, August 10th?’ he asked.
‘What, Mr Clement Kane being done in like he was, sir? Yes, sir, of course. Caused quite a bit of talk in the town it has. Well, what I mean is –’
‘Why have you waited till now to come forward with this information?’
Mr Wilson shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and looked embarrassed. ‘It’s like this, you see, sir. I didn’t make nothing of it, not at first. Kind of slipped my mind, if you know what I mean. Then I see the notice about anyone being able to give information, and I shows it to my young lady, and she says at once, “Bert,” she says, “do you know what?” “No,” I says; “what?” “You ought to tell the police about Mr Paul Mansell’s car,” she says, “that’s what.” “Oh, all right, Doris,” I says – that being her name – not that I’m one to go poking into what don’t concern me, because it’s what I don’t hold with, and never did. So I tells Mr Jones, see? and he says as how I ought to come round to the police-station right off, which I done.’
‘And now let’s see Pretty Paul talk himself out of that one!’ remarked Sergeant Hemingway, when he heard of this interlude.
‘You’re more prejudiced against Paul Mansell than I’ve ever known you to be against anyone,’ said Hannasyde.
‘Not prejudiced,’ said the Sergeant firmly. ‘I never let myself get prejudiced. All I say is, that he’s a nasty, slimy, double-faced tick who’d murder his own grandmother if he saw a bit of money to be got out of it.’
‘Very moderate,’ said Hannasyde, smiling.
‘Well,’ said the Sergeant, nettled; ‘it stands out a mile, doesn’t it? Now, if you weren’t my superior officer –’
Hannasyde sighed. ‘Never mind that bit: I’ve got it off by heart. What would you say if I weren’t your superior officer?’
‘I’d say,’ replied the Sergeant promptly, ‘that you must be nuts to go round suspecting a decent young fellow like Jim Kane when you’ve got an out-and-out dirty swine like Paul Mansell fair stinking under your very nose. Of course,’ he added, ‘that’s only what I’d say if you weren’t my superior officer. As it is –’