‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jim. ‘Do you suppose I haven’t grasped what you’re up to? You’re quite obviously hunting for the fatal weapon. Of course it would be concealed in a rain-tub bang on the scene of the crime.’
‘We shall see,’ said Hannasyde. ‘Give me a hand, will you, Sergeant?’
The Sergeant, secretly in sympathy with Mr James Kane’s evident scepticism, stepped into the flood, and assisted his superior to lower the heavy tub off its platform on to the ground, and to tilt it on to its side. A little muddy water trickled out of it, and, as they tilted it still farther, something was heard to slide inside it, grating on the wood.
‘Right up!’ Hannasyde said.
The Sergeant got his hands under the bottom of the tub, and gave it a hoist. A Colt .38 revolver clattered down the side of the tub, and fell into the pool of water with a splash.
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Jim, staring.
‘Sometimes, Mr Kane, the obvious place is the right place,’ said Hannasyde calmly, and bent to pick up the gun.
It was at this somewhat inopportune moment that Mr Harte came wandering round the corner of the house, his whole bearing proclaiming the fact that he was bored, and did not know what to do with himself. At sight of the two detectives the cloud left his brow, and he pranced up to them, full of zeal and curiosity. ‘Hullo, Sarge! What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Golly, what a mess! I say! What have you found?’
The Sergeant, who had been staring at the gun in Hannasyde’s hand like one bemused, recollected himself with a start, and said: ‘Look here, sonny, you trot off and tell yourself an anecdote! We’re busy.’
‘You’ve found the gat!’ cried Mr Harte. ‘Gosh! I say, what’s that weird thing on the end of the barrel?’
Hannasyde raised his eyes from the revolver and glanced thoughtfully at Mr Harte’s eager countenance. The Sergeant was trying to edge him away, but Mr Harte had no intention of leaving. ‘All right, Hemingway,’ said Hannasyde quietly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
The Sergeant sent him a quick, puzzled look, but stopped trying to get rid of Mr Harte.
Jim, frowning at the revolver, said: ‘I don’t understand. Isn’t that thing a silencer?’
‘It is,’ replied Hannasyde.
‘But then, that can’t be the gun you’re looking for,’ Jim objected. ‘It made the hell of a noise! They heard it in the hall.’
‘Very odd, isn’t it?’ said Hannasyde unemotionally. He slid the gun into his pocket, and turned towards the house. His intent, questing gaze fell on the little brick platform built for the tub to stand on, he stepped up to it, and bent, closely scrutinising it. He picked something up very carefully. ‘Now I’m beginning to understand,’ he said.
The three others craned forward to see what lay in the palm of his hand. ‘That’s a bit of burnt-out fuse!’ Jim exclaimed.
‘My lord!’ muttered the Sergeant, and went down on his knees by the platform. ‘Here’s another bit, Chief. That seems to be the lot.’
‘About eighteen inches of it,’ said Hannasyde, measuring the fragments with his eye. ‘Say three minutes’ burning time.’ He glanced up at the pipe which fed the rain-tub. ‘It must have slipped down behind the tub from –’ He paused, and raised a hand to one of the brackets clamping the pipe to the wall, feeling it carefully ‘– from this bracket,’ he concluded, bringing his hand away with another tiny fragment of the mottled fuse in it. ‘There should be a detonator.’ He looked down at Mr Harte, and said with a faint smile: ‘If you want to be useful, see if you can find it.’
‘You bet your life!’ said Mr Harte fervently, and proceeded without any more ado to create havoc amongst the antirrhinums planted thickly in the bed along the wall of the house.
The Sergeant, his eyes fixed on Hannasyde’s face in an expression of shocked inquiry, opened his mouth to speak, encountered a steady look from Hannasyde, and thought better of it. He joined Timothy in the search for the detonator. It was Timothy who presently let out a squeak of triumph, and held up between an earth-stained finger and thumb a brass object like a cartridge which had been pinched at the open end. ‘Look, is this it?’
‘That’s it,’ said Hannasyde, taking it from him.
Jim was still looking bewildered. ‘How did it work?’ he asked.
‘Quite simply,’ Hannasyde replied. ‘One end of the fuse was inserted at this end. Then the sides of the cap were very carefully pinched together so that they gripped the fuse. Do you see? It was then hung over that bracket, and the other end split and set light to. Standard fuse, which it is safe to assume this is, being white, burns at the rate of six inches a minute, and I should judge that we’ve found just about eighteen inches of it. What you and the others heard, Mr Kane, was not the shot that killed your cousin, but the detonator going off.’
‘Good God, then that accounts for my not seeing a sign of anyone when I looked out!’ Jim said. ‘My cousin was shot some minutes earlier?’ Hannasyde nodded. ‘Yes, but I still don’t quite get it. I gather that it lets me out, but –’
‘What do you suppose can have been the reason for setting the fuse, Mr Kane?’
‘Alibi!’ gasped Mr Harte, executing a slight war-dance. ‘Whoopee!’
‘Alibi,’ repeated Jim. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry to be so dense. But –’
‘Oh, Jim, you ass!’ said Timothy. ‘You couldn’t have done it, because you didn’t get yourself an alibi! Golly, I do think this is fun!’
‘I’ve grasped that,’ said Jim. ‘But what I don’t immediately perceive is, which of us did benefit by this contraption. Neither of the Mansells established an alibi, nor did Dermort, nor did – in fact, none of us did except Miss Allison, I suppose, and you can’t seriously suspect –’
Mr Harte drew a shuddering breath, and fixed the Sergeant with a glittering and accusing gaze. ‘I told you so!’ he said. ‘I told you you ought to keep an eye on him!’
‘Keep an eye on who?’ demanded the Sergeant.
‘Pritchard, of course! It’s obvious!’
‘Pritchard?’ said Jim. ‘My good lad, what on earth should he have to do with it? He’s only been employed here since old Barker died last year, so he had no expectations of a legacy. Besides –’
Mr Harte danced with impatience. ‘The Hidden Killer! He knew when Cousin Silas went out that night, and of course he followed him! And then he fixed up this affair to give himself an alibi for doing Cousin Clement in, and nobody even bothered to find out where he was before he went to answer the front-door bell, because it looked as though he couldn’t possibly have done it!’
‘But why?’ said Jim.
‘Cousin Maud’s husband!’ hissed Mr Harte.
‘Get out!’ said Jim scornfully.
‘I bet you I’m right! I bet you Mr Roberts will think there’s something in it, even if you don’t. Because the only thing that put him off Pritchard’s scent was his being in the hall when they heard the shot. It’s no use your making that face! It’s perfectly true! I talked to Mr Roberts about it when you first started wondering about this Leighton bloke, and he said it had occurred to him, quite early on, only it led nowhere, because Pritchard had a cast-iron alibi.’
Hannasyde, who had been listening to him with an unmoved countenance, said: ‘You mustn’t mention this to Pritchard, you know, or to any of the servants.’
‘Rather not! Of course I wouldn’t breathe a word to them! I can tell Mr Roberts, can’t I?’
‘Oh yes, you can tell him if you want to,’ replied Hannasyde. ‘Help me to put the tub back, will you, Sergeant?’
Jim said, his brows knit: ‘Do you think he ought to say anything about this to anyone at all, Superintendent? It’s not my affair, I know, but –’
‘It doesn’t matter what he tells Mr Roberts,’ replied Hannasyde. ‘It mustn’t come to the butler’s e
ars, though. But he understands that. All right, Hemingway, that’s all.’
‘Are you going back to Portlaw?’ inquired Timothy, seeing the two detectives preparing to depart. ‘Because if you are, I’ll come with you as far as Victoria Place.’
‘All right,’ said Hannasyde, glancing at his wrist-watch. ‘But we must hurry if we want to catch the ten forty-five bus.’
‘Look here, just a minute!’ said Jim. ‘What are you going to do about this? I mean, it’s all very well for you to waltz off in this airy fashion, but I happen to be rather vitally concerned in the case!’
‘I hadn’t forgotten that,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I am going to the police-station to put through a number of urgent inquiries to Scotland Yard. I may be in a position to tell you the result of those inquiries by this evening, or possibly some time tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m afraid you’ll have to possess your soul in patience.’
‘And what about my precious life?’ asked Jim.
‘Sergeant Trotter will be answerable for that,’ replied Hannasyde with the glimmer of a smile. ‘I don’t think it is in immediate danger.’
He and Sergeant Hemingway, with Mr Harte between them, walked off at a brisk pace down the avenue, and arrived at the lodge-gates just in time to catch the omnibus into Portlaw. The omnibus being empty, Mr Harte was able to beguile the tedium of the journey by speculating on the case, and trying to coax information out of his two companions. At Victoria Place, in Portlaw, he left them, promising to conduct himself with the utmost circumspection.
No sooner had he alighted from the omnibus than the Sergeant drew a deep breath, and said: ‘Well, I never thought I’d live to see this day, that’s certain!’
‘Pleasant surprise for you,’ said Hannasyde.
‘Super, what’s come over you? If anyone had told me you’d go pursuing investigations with a couple of people looking on, and, what’s more, explain it all to them on top of it I’d have laughed in their face!’
‘Would you?’ said Hannasyde, not paying much heed to him.
‘I would,’ said the Sergeant emphatically. ‘You told me not to get rid of Terrible Timothy, and I didn’t. But what’s your game?’
‘Think it out,’ replied Hannasyde.
The Sergeant made a sound suspiciously like a snort. ‘What do we do now?’ he asked.
‘Telephone to the Yard first, and get them to put through an inquiry to Colt’s, in America. We must know where this gun was bought.’
‘Well, I’m not surprised young James Kane wonders what you’re up to,’ said the Sergeant.
James Kane, however, assuming that Superintendent Hannasyde knew his own business best, did not waste much time in idle speculation. He decided to say nothing either to his fiancée or to his relatives about the discovery of the gun, a resolve that he was soon forced to break, Ogle having informed her mistress of the ravages done to the garden, and Emily, as soon as she came downstairs, dressed for her morning drive, demanded to be told instantly what such conduct meant. As she chose to address Jim in the presence of Miss Allison and of Lady Harte, both of whom immediately joined with her in wanting to know the truth, Jim thought it best to disclose the bare fact of Hannasyde’s having found the gun in the rain-tub.
When Timothy came in an hour later, the first person he encountered was his mother, and he straightway poured the whole story into her ears. By lunch-time everyone but the servants was in possession of all the facts, and Miss Allison, knowing the strength of the bond between Mrs Kane and Ogle, had little doubt that it would not be long before the news spread to the servants’ hall.
‘I told you Mr Roberts would listen to me!’ Timothy said triumphantly.
‘Well, I think it’s the most crack-brained idea I ever heard,’ replied Jim. ‘I can quite easily imagine Roberts lapping it up, because he’s been full of crack-brained ideas from the start, but I did not expect the Superintendent to run amok over it. What’s he up to now? Do you know?’
‘No, but I know Mr Roberts has gone to the police-station to see him, because as soon as I told him about the silencer and the fuse, he said it put an entirely new complexion on the affair, and he’d have to go and see the Superintendent at once. So I came home. Gosh, I do wonder what’s happening, don’t you? Do you suppose they’ll come and arrest Pritchard?’
‘No, I don’t, and for God’s sake be careful what you say! We shall find ourselves had up for libel, or something, if Pritchard hears this sort of chat going on.’
As the day wore on without news from Hannasyde, Timothy found it increasingly hard to bear the suspense with anything approaching equanimity. He wandered about the house and grounds, propounding theories to anyone whom he encountered until, in desperation, Jim bore him off to the nearest golf-course, and gave him an hour’s coaching in approach shots. When they returned it was time to change for dinner. During the meal Pritchard’s presence precluded any mention being made of the affair, but when the party assembled in the drawing-room for coffee afterwards, it was not Timothy only who evinced a strong desire to discuss the subject ad nauseam. So persistent were the comments and surmises made, that Sir Adrian, aloof from the discussion behind the evening paper, presently lowered it to say in a bored voice that, since the matter seemed to have become such an obsession with the family, he personally would feel extremely grateful to Hannasyde for solving the mystery.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Pritchard entered the room to inform Jim that Superintendent Hannasyde had called, and would like to see him.
Jim got up, but was checked by an indignant outcry from his mother, his half-brother, and his fiancée. Emily Kane, immovable in the winged arm-chair by the fireplace, said: ‘If he wants to see you he can see you here. I’ve no patience with all this hole-and-corner business.’ She nodded at Pritchard. ‘Show him in!’
A couple of minutes later Pritchard ushered Hannasyde into the room. To Mr Harte’s chagrin the Superintendent made no effort even to detain him. As the door closed softly behind him, Mr Harte, unable to contain himself, blurted out: ‘I say, aren’t you going to arrest him after all?’
For the first time during their dealings with Superintendent Hannasyde the family heard him laugh. ‘No, I’m afraid I’m not,’ he answered. ‘I’m sorry to have to disappoint you about that.’
‘Didn’t he do it?’ asked Timothy, greatly cast down.
Hannasyde shook his head. Jim said: ‘Won’t you sit down? Is the case still in the air, or have you cleared it up?’
‘I haven’t finished with it yet, but there’s so little doubt that it will be cleared up that I came to set your mind at rest, Mr Kane. You’re no longer in danger of being murdered.’
‘Was he ever in danger?’ said Lady Harte, laying down her Patience cards, and removing the horn-rimmed spectacles from her nose.
‘Yes, I think almost certainly.’
‘You didn’t think so at the time.’
‘You will have to forgive me, Lady Harte, if I – reserved judgment. I did give him a bodyguard, you know,’ said Hannasyde, recognising the signs of tigress-in-defence-of-her-young.
Emily thumped her ebony stick on the floor. ‘That’s enough beating about the bush!’ she said sharply. ‘Do you know who murdered my son?’
‘I have no proof that your son was murdered, Mrs Kane. I know who murdered your great-nephew, Clement Kane.’
‘Who?’ demanded Timothy. ‘Did Mr Roberts put you on to him?’
Hannasyde looked at him rather gravely. ‘Not quite in the way you mean.’
Sir Adrian, rising from his chair, wandered across the room to take a cigarette from a box on one of the tables. ‘Ah, so it was Roberts himself, was it?’ he said, mildly interested.
Hannasyde nodded. A stunned silence reigned for perhaps half a minute. Timothy had gone white, and was staring at Hannasyde with his lips very firmly set
. Sir Adrian offered the cigarette-box to Hannasyde. ‘Edwin Leighton?’ he inquired.
‘Yes,’ replied Hannasyde. ‘I don’t think there’s much room for doubt about that. We can’t identify him for certain until we get his finger-prints from Melbourne, of course; but they’ll be through almost any day now.’
‘Roberts?’ Jim ejaculated. ‘But that’s fantastic! Are you seriously suggesting that it was he who cut the hole in the Seamew and loosened the nut on my car?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Hannasyde.
‘But, good lord, Superintendent, it was he who first warned me my life might be in danger!’
‘Clever, wasn’t it?’ agreed Hannasyde.
Lady Harte got up from the card-table, and came to sit down in a chair opposite Hannasyde. ‘I insist upon being told the whole story!’ she announced. ‘I freely admit I never suspected the man. How long have you known it?’
‘I’ve had my suspicions ever since I first considered the Leightons as possible factors in the case, Lady Harte. I wasn’t sure till this morning, when we found the gun with the silencer fitted to it, and the length of fuse. That seemed to me to be fairly conclusive. I’ve been busy all the rest of the day collecting proof that the gun did belong to him.’
‘Tall order, that,’ said Lady Harte professionally. ‘A Colt .38, wasn’t it? Did you manage to trace it?’
‘Yes, we did, after a good deal of trouble. Scotland Yard got an answer from the States at 5 p.m. The American police cabled that the makers had sold that gun to their agents in Melbourne. The Yard then put through a radiogram to Australia. I’ve just heard the result. The gun was supplied to a retail shop in Melbourne, and was bought by a man calling himself Oscar Roberts six months ago.’
‘Really, I call that marvellous!’ said Lady Harte. ‘Here we are at ten-thirty p.m., and since ten-thirty this morning you’ve been in touch, not only with America, but with Australia as well. When one considers the difference in time it seems hardly possible!’
‘Well, you see, our cable reached the Melbourne police in the small hours, and they probably got the information we wanted as early as they could. As soon as the business houses were open, in fact. There was obviously no difficulty in tracing the gun, for Scotland Yard received the answer by radiogram just on ten o’clock. They rang me up at once, and I caught the ten-fifteen bus out here.’