He opened it, and Oscar Roberts stepped over the threshold, saying pleasantly: ‘Good afternoon. I fancy Mr Kane’s expecting me.’
‘Yes, sir. Will you come this way?’ said Pritchard, relieving him of his hat and cane.
Oscar Roberts smiled at Miss Allison, and was about to follow the butler when a sudden report, as from a gun, startled them all into immobility. For an instant no one moved. Then Pritchard muttered: ‘My God, what’s that?’ and almost ran to the study door and flung it open.
Clement Kane lay crumpled across his desk, one arm hanging limply at his side, the other crooked under his fallen head.
Five
Miss Allison did not scream, because she was not in the habit of relieving her feelings by a display of hysterics, but her knees felt suddenly weak, and she grasped a chair-back instinctively.
Pritchard, after one instant’s shocked recoil, had started forward to his master’s side. Miss Allison heard him say in a shaken voice: ‘My God, he’s been shot through the head! Oh, my God!’
Oscar Roberts, with a murmured word of apology, put Miss Allison out of his way and strode into the study. He wasted no time in verifying Pritchard’s statement, but after a quick glance round the room, leapt for the open window, threw a leg over the sill, and the next instant had plunged into the shrubbery on the other side of the narrow gravel-path.
Miss Allison set her teeth and walked into the study. The butler was looking very white, and made a sign to her not to come near his master’s body. ‘Don’t, miss! I wouldn’t –’ he said, wiping his face with his handkerchief.
‘The police. We must telephone to the police,’ Miss Allison said in an unnaturally calm voice, and picked up the receiver from the instrument on the desk, keeping her eyes carefully averted from Clement’s huddled body.
A quick footstep sounded in the hall, and the next moment Jim Kane came into the room. ‘What was that?’ he demanded. ‘I could have sworn I heard a –’ He broke off. ‘Good God!’ he said, and went at once to the desk, and bent over Clement. He straightened himself almost at once, nearly as white as Pritchard. ‘Who did it?’ he said curtly.
The butler shook his head. Miss Allison, connected with the police-station, said baldly: ‘I am speaking from Cliff House. Mr Clement Kane has been shot. Will you please send someone at once?’
Oscar Roberts, rather dishevelled and out of breath, reappeared at the window, and climbed into the room again. ‘Those gosh-darned rhododendrons!’ he said. ‘He’s gotten away, the skunk!’
‘Who?’ said Jim sharply. ‘Do you know who did this? Did you see him?’
‘Not to say saw,’ Roberts replied. ‘I kind of heard a rustle amongst those bushes, and made for it, but it’s like a jungle out there, and he had the start of me. The way I figure it he was making for the front drive. You’ve got all of a twenty-foot bank of those rhododendrons right the way up the drive. It was a cinch for that guy! Through that darned shrubbery to the drive, across it into the rhododendrons. Surest thing you know, he was over the wall with a clean getaway before I reached the drive. Say, did you ring up the police?’
Miss Allison nodded. Jim said: ‘Look here, do you know who did this?’
Roberts bent to brush the leaf mould from his trousers. ‘If I knew who did it I wouldn’t be standing here waiting for your comic police, Mr Kane,’ he replied enigmatically.
Jim stared at him, his brows knit. ‘Any ideas on the subject?’ he said.
‘That’s a large question, Mr Kane. Guess we can all of us have ideas, but believe you me, there’s more harm done spreading them about than by keeping them to yourself.’ His deep-set eyes fell on Miss Allison. He said significantly: ‘Maybe you’d like to take Miss Allison out of this.’
‘I’m all right,’ said Patricia, pressing her handkerchief to her lips.
Timothy’s voice was heard in the garden. ‘I say, what’s up?’ it panted. ‘I swear I heard a shot!’
Oscar Roberts moved swiftly to the window, to block the view, just as young Mr Harte came plunging out on to the path from the shrubbery.
‘Hullo, Mr Roberts!’ said Timothy. ‘Who’s shooting around here?’
Roberts said quickly: ‘Hullo, son! Whereabouts have you been?’
‘Well, I went down to the lodge to meet you, but –’
‘That’s fine. Look, now! Did you see anyone?’
Timothy stared. ‘No, only Mr Dermott. I say, what on earth –’
Miss Allison gave a start, and groped for a chair. ‘Jim! He couldn’t have –’
‘Shut up, of course not!’ said Jim roughly. ‘Keep calm!’
‘Mr Dermott?’ repeated Roberts in his drawling voice. ‘I get you. And what was he doing?’
‘I don’t know. He looked like nothing on earth. He simply bolted for his car and went off at about a hundred miles an hour. Has he had a row with Clement, or something?’
Jim removed his hand from Miss Allison’s grasp, and joined Roberts at the window. ‘I say, Timothy, push off, will you, and keep your mouth shut? There’s been – an accident or something. Clement’s been shot.’
Timothy’s eyes grew round; speechless, he stared at his half-brother. Jim said: ‘Go and keep Aunt Emily company, old thing. Do you mind?’
‘Gosh!’ gasped Timothy, and ducking under Jim’s arm, thrust his head and shoulders into the room. A moment later he withdrew them, started to say something, and ended by vanishing discreetly into the shrubbery. When he reappeared he was rather wan of countenance, and made no further attempt to look into the study. ‘Sorry!’ he said jerkily. ‘Ate something that disagreed with me. Who – who did it?’
‘We don’t know. Clear out, and keep Aunt Emily away. See?’
Mr Harte, unusually subdued, said that he did, and departed.
Jim turned back into the room. ‘Come on, Pat; you can’t do anything here. As far as I can see, there’s nothing to be done till the police turn up. Suppose you clear out?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, getting up. ‘Of course. I’ll go to Mrs Kane. Do you want me to tell her – or – or what?’
‘I should think you’d be the best person. Feel all right?’
‘Perfectly, thanks.’ She moved to the still open door, and went out, and through the drawing-room to the south side of the house, where she had left Emily.
Emily was standing by her chair, leaning on her ebony cane, with her other hand on Timothy’s arm. Ogle was engaged in spreading her rug over the chair for her to sit on, fussily scolding.
‘That’ll do!’ said Emily snappishly. ‘I suppose I can stretch my legs if I choose? Anyone would think I was decrepit. I’ve had a little stroll, and I feel the better for it.’ She sank down into her chair, rather out of breath, and allowed Ogle to fold the ends of the rug over her knees. ‘You can tell Jim that Ogle brought the rug,’ she informed Miss Allison.
Ogle, on her knees and tucking Emily’s feet up tenderly, raised her head, and said pugnaciously: ‘I knew she’d feel the wind chilly. I didn’t want telling to fetch her rug. Left alone like she was!’
A phantasmagoria of nightmarish conjecture for an instant possessed Miss Allison’s brain. She looked from the maid’s dark countenance, upturned to hers, to Emily’s wrinkled one, with the clenched jaw, and the remote eyes staring straight ahead. She said hurriedly: ‘Mrs Kane, there is something I’ve got to tell you. It’s very bad news.’
Emily’s grim mouth twitched sardonically. She glanced up. ‘I dare say I can stand it. What’s the matter now?’
‘Mr Clement has been shot,’ said Miss Allison baldly.
There was a long pause. Ogle’s head was bent over her task; her hands arranged the rug mechanically. ‘What do you mean by that?’ said Emily at last. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes, Mrs Kane.’
‘Murdered!’ said
Timothy.
The old eyes snapped at him. ‘I didn’t suppose it was suicide!’ said Emily sharply.
‘Didn’t you hear the shot? I did!’
‘No. I did not,’ said Emily. Her hands folded themselves together in her lap. ‘So Clement’s dead!’ she said. ‘He’s no loss.’
Miss Allison saw Rosemary coming towards them from the direction of the lake, and realised that she had been forgotten by them all. She said: ‘Oh, good heavens! Mrs Clement – !
Emily looked contemptuous. ‘Well, she won’t break her heart over it.’ She watched Rosemary’s slow approach. ‘Where’s that Dermott?’ she asked abruptly.
‘He’s gone,’ Patricia answered, before Timothy could speak.
‘I think, if you don’t mind,’ said Timothy, ‘that I’ll go and see what’s happening indoors.’
‘I don’t think they really want you,’ said Patricia, sympathising with his evident desire to escape from what promised to be a highly emotional scene.
‘I like their darned cheek!’ Timothy said indignantly. ‘Who was it who said all along it was murder? You know jolly well it was me! I bet some people are feeling pretty silly now, that’s all!’
‘He’s probably right,’ said Emily, as he disappeared into the house. ‘I don’t know where he gets his wits from. His mother never had any, and his father always seems to me a fool. You needn’t stand about, Ogle; I don’t want you.’
‘You don’t – surely you don’t connect this with Mr Kane’s death?’ said Patricia.
‘I never said so, did I?’ retorted Emily. She waited for Rosemary to mount the shallow steps on to the terrace, and then nodded an imperious summons to her. Rosemary, whose air of wistful renunciation proclaimed unmistakably to those who knew the circumstances that she had given Trevor Dermott his congé, came up to her, and said: ‘Do you want me, Aunt Emily? I was just going up to my room. I want to be alone just for a little while.’
This speech clearly invited question, but Emily replied in her flattest tone: ‘You’d better know before you go any farther that your husband’s been shot.’
Rosemary looked blankly down at her. ‘My husband? Clement?’
‘You’ve only one as far as I know,’ said Emily testily.
Under her delicate make-up Rosemary had turned very pale. There was fright in her eyes, fixed painfully on Emily’s face. She faltered: ‘When?’
‘Just now – or so I imagine,’ replied Emily. She looked up over her shoulder at Patricia. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. About twenty minutes ago, I suppose. Will you sit down, Mrs – I mean, Rosemary?’
Rosemary shook her head, moistening her lips. ‘No, I’m all right. I don’t seem able to grasp it, quite. My mind feels numb. It’s the oddest sensation. As though –’
Emily interrupted with her usual ruthlessness: ‘There’s no need to tell me what you feel like. I’ve never been interested in your sensations yet, and I never shall be, what’s more.’
‘It’s too terrible, too ghastly!’ Rosemary said. ‘How – how did it happen?’
She looked at Patricia, but it was Emily who replied: ‘That’s for the police to discover.’
Rosemary looked as though she were going to faint. Patricia moved quickly to her side, and took her arm. ‘I’ll take you up to your room,’ she said. ‘It’s a dreadful shock for you.’
Rosemary made a vague gesture. ‘Everything seems black! I can’t realise it. I simply don’t seem to be able to take it in.’
Emily gave a short laugh under her breath, but said nothing more. Miss Allison led Rosemary in through the drawing-room to the hall. Here they were checked by the sight of a uniformed police-sergeant, and a man in plain clothes who was speaking to Oscar Roberts.
Rosemary gave an uncontrollable start; her long, pointed fingernails dug into Miss Allison’s arm; Patricia heard the quick intake of her breath, and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
Jim Kane turned. ‘Oh – ! Just a moment, Rosemary. Take her into the morning-room, Pat. The Inspector wants to ask her one or two questions.’
Miss Allison could not help thinking that he seemed to have changed from the man she knew into a rather forbidding stranger. He gave her a brief hint of a smile, and walked across the hall to open the door into the morning-room.
‘I don’t know anything!’ Rosemary said rather too loudly. ‘I feel utterly dazed. I can’t think! For God’s sake, don’t leave me, Patricia!’
‘It’s all right; I won’t go,’ Patricia said soothingly.
Jim shut the door on them. Rosemary sank into a chair, shivering. ‘O God, I feel most frightfully sick!’ she said, pressing her hands to her temples. ‘What does he want to see me for? I wasn’t even in the house. I can’t tell him anything. I don’t know anything. Where are you going?’ Her voice rose on a note of panic.
‘Only to get you something to help you pull yourself together. I won’t be a minute.’
‘No, no, don’t! I simply can’t bear it. He might come in at any moment!’
Patricia came back to her side, but said sensibly: ‘Well, you must try and calm yourself. The Inspector won’t eat you. Don’t you see that you’re one of the first people he’s bound to want to talk to? Honestly, there’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Oh, I know, but when one’s nerves have had a frightful shock, one simply isn’t oneself! I really do feel as though I were going to be sick, or faint, or something.’
At this moment Jim came into the room with a glass in his hand. Rosemary was rocking herself slightly, giving little dry sobs. He went to her, and, putting his arm round her shoulders, held the glass to her lips. ‘It’s only brandy… Come along!’
Her teeth chattered against the glass, but she swallowed the spirit, and said chokingly: ‘Thanks. What does that awful man want with me?’
‘He isn’t awful. Quite human,’ Jim replied.
‘There’s something about policemen that makes one’s inside turn upside-down,’ said Rosemary. ‘I can’t help it. I shall be all right in a minute.’
‘Have they found out anything, Jim?’ asked Miss Allison in a low voice.
Over Rosemary’s head his eyes met hers for a moment. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘What’s going to happen?’
‘I don’t know. Looks like a nasty mess. Do you feel fit enough to see Inspector Carlton now, Rosemary?’
‘As long as he doesn’t expect me to think!’ said Rosemary unpromisingly.
Jim went out again, and in a few minutes the Inspector came into the room.
His initial speech of sympathy for the murdered man’s widow, and his apology for being obliged to disturb her at such a time did much to restore Rosemary’s poise. She stopped rocking herself to and fro, and achieving a wan smile explained that she was one of those excessively highly strung people whose nerves were simply unequal to the task of bearing her up in the face of disaster.
The Inspector said that he quite understood.
‘Everything seems to be a blank,’ added Rosemary, passing a hand across her eyes.
‘I am sure no one could be surprised that you should feel like that, madam. It must be a terrible shock. I understand you were not in the house when it happened.’
‘Thank God, no!’ answered Rosemary with a strong shudder. ‘I think I should have gone quite, quite mad.’
‘Yes, indeed, madam. I wonder if you would mind telling me just where you were at the time?’
‘I think I must have been down by the lake. I went there – oh, at about three, I should think. Miss Allison saw me go, didn’t you, Patricia?’
Miss Allison corroborated this, and found herself favoured by the Inspector with a long, searching look. ‘Miss Allison?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘You are Mrs John Kane’s secretary
, I understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were in the house at the time of the murder?’
‘Yes. I was in the room next to this.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Inspector, making an entry in his note-book. He glanced at Rosemary again. ‘Was anyone with you in the garden this afternoon, madam?’
‘Oh yes!’ replied Rosemary nervously. ‘A friend of ours called. I was sitting talking to him by the lake for quite some time.’
‘His name?’ asked the Inspector, pencil poised.
‘Dermott – Mr Trevor Dermott. A very old friend of ours.’
The Inspector looked up. ‘Is Mr Dermott on the premises now?’
‘No, oh no! He left some time ago. I mean, before I’d the least idea of this frightful thing having happened.’
‘Mr Dermott did not, to your knowledge, see your husband this afternoon, madam?’
‘No, I know he didn’t. He never came up to the house at all. My husband had a business appointment, and I walked down the drive to meet Mr Dermott. He simply left his car down the drive, and we sat by the lake till he had to go.’
The Inspector looked at her. ‘You were expecting Mr Dermott this afternoon?’
‘Well, yes, in a way I was. I mean, he said he might look me up today if he got back from town.’
‘I see.’ The Inspector closed his note-book. ‘Had your husband, to your knowledge, any enemies, madam?’
Rosemary did not answer for a moment. Miss Allison watched her with misgiving. Rosemary raised her eyes to the Inspector’s face and said hesitantly: ‘I hardly know what to say. As a matter of fact, I do happen to know that he was having a good deal of trouble at the office with his partners. I don’t really understand business – I simply don’t pretend to – but I know his partners were absolutely set on doing something my husband wouldn’t agree to.’
‘Mr Clement Kane was, I understand, the senior partner in the firm?’
‘Yes, he was; that’s just it.’