They Found Him Dead (32 page)

This was a rite enjoyed only by Betty, but her deep-seated conviction that her mother, her husband, and any afternoon visitor who might have been unwise enough to call at the Cedars during her stay there were all filled with an overpowering desire to see the children made it impossible even for so forthright a lady as Agatha Mansell to protest against the daily invasion of her drawing room. It would have hurt Mrs. Pemble's feelings too much. So the children, washed, brushed and dressed in their best clothes, burst into the drawing room regularly at five o'clock every day, loudly and insistently demanding sweetmeats and entertainment.

When Superintendent Hannasyde sent in his card, with a request for a few moments' speech with Mrs. Pemble, Jennifer and Peter, having been coaxed into shaking hands with two visitors and prompted to reply civilly to a number of the fatuous questions invariably addressed to the young by strangers, were engaged in the simple but enjoyable game of launching themselves bodily upon the sofa, mauling the cushions, scrambling off again, and repeating the performance. Their mother at first exclaimed in a shocked voice: "Oh, I can't come now!" but upon reflection consented to tear herself away from her offspring "just for a minute, sweethearts!"

This time limit, if adhered to, would have suited Hannasyde very well. He had not anticipated that his interview would occupy more than five minutes at the maximum, but he realised, within thirty seconds of making Mrs. Pemble's acquaintance, that she was not one of those who could give a plain answer to a plain question. It was indeed some time before he was given an opportunity of asking his question. He had first to gather as best he might from a confused rush of words that Mrs. Pemble had been playing with her children; that she always played with them after tea, and of course at other times too; that she simply couldn't imagine why he should wish to see her; that she knew simply nothing about anything; that she could only spare him a minute; that she thought the whole affair simply too frightful for words; that she was simply trying to put it out of her mind; and, finally, that she was terribly highly strung, though she made a point of simply never talking about herself.

Superintendent Hannasyde, who had not had any tea, felt a trifle dazed by these eager confidences but managed to break in on them and to put his question.

Did Mrs. Pemble recall what her brother had done with his tennis racket upon the last occasion when he had played tennis at Cliff House, the day before Silas Kane's death?

By the time Betty had succeeded in recalling the occasion, which she did by the employment of such landmarks as the-day-Jennifer-had-a-bilious-attack, or the-day-Peter-fell-downstairs, her husband had come into the room and was able to give Hannasyde a prompt answer, "Yes, rather!" he said. "He left it in the summerhouse. I remember his saying so on the way home."

This firmness had the effect of sobering Mrs. Pemble. She said: "Oh yes, of course! I remember perfectly! We couldn't go back for it, because I'd promised the children I'd be home in time to tuck them up in bed, hadn't I, Clive?"

"Thank you," said Hannasyde. "That is all I wanted to know."

"If only there was anything else I could tell you I should be simply delighted," said Betty earnestly. "I mean, I think it's so appalling—it worries me frightfully, doesn't it, Clive?"

"Yes, rather!" said her dutiful helpmate.

Hannasyde thanked her, evaded an invitation to tell her what he had discovered, and departed. Mr. and Mrs. Pemble returned to the drawing room, and in the intervals of playing with her children Mrs. Pemble discussed exhaustively the various causes which might account for the superintendent's strange question. When the children had been removed, under protest, by their nurse, she went away to invite Rosemary Kane, over the telephone, to motor to the Cedars after dinner for a nice, cosy talk.

Rosemary, undeterred by her oft-stated conviction that Joseph or Paul Mansell had murdered her husband, at once accepted this invitation, with the result that the rest of the party at Cliff House were able to spend an evening of comparative peace. Lady Harte showed Emily the snapshots she had taken in the Congo; Sir Adrian read a book; Jim and Patricia played billiards; and Timothy vanished on secret business of his own.

When Rosemary returned she found that Emily had already been carried up to bed, and that the others were on the point of following her. Asked whether she had spent a pleasant evening, she said that it had been a relief to get away from the atmosphere of Cliff House, but that she and Betty Pemble were on different planes.

Shortly before one o'clock Sir Adrian, whose habit it was to read far into the night, laid down his book and sat up in bed, listening intently. After a moment he got up, put on his exotic dressing gown, and went softly out on to the corridor, armed with a torch. The house seemed to be in darkness. He walked down the passage to his stepson's room and very quietly opened the door. He took one step into the room, and suddenly the silence of the room was rent by the shrill ringing of what seemed to be innumerable bells.

"Good God!" exclaimed Sir Adrian, annoyed.

Jim woke with a start and snapped on his bedside light. "What the blazes?—— Hullo, Adrian! What's all the row about?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," replied Sir Adrian. "I came to tell you that I think someone is moving about downstairs, but I imagine whoever it may have been has by this time made good his escape. Will these bells never stop ringing?"

"Blast that infernal boy!" swore Jim, getting out of bed. "You bet this is his doing!"

The noise had by this time roused everyone in the house but Timothy. Lady Harte, Patricia, Rosemary, and a group of sleepy and scared servants all clustered on to the corridor, demanding to know what had happened, and from Emily's room came the sound of her voice calling to Miss Allison. While Patricia went to reassure the old lady, Jim located the cause of the disturbance, which proved to be an ingenious burglar alarm laid under the sheepskin mat before his bedroom door. It did not take him long to still the clamour, and in a few moments Rosemary was able to uncover her ears and to ask in an injured voice who was responsible for making such an unnecessary din.

"Timothy, of course," replied Jim. "And to think I gave him the money for it!"

"Really, I begin to think that boy may go a long way!" cried Lady Harte, her maternal pride aroused. "I call it extremely clever of him—much better than anything the police have done! What set it off?"

"I did," answered Sir Adrian. "I fancied I heard someone moving about under my room and came to wake Jim. It was not my purpose, however, to wake the entire household."

At this moment Ogle came up the front stairs, her hair in two plaits, a red-flannel dressing gown girt about her with a cord, and a steaming cup in her hand. "Who's making this outlandish noise?" she demanded angrily. "Frightening the mistress out of her senses, I'll be bound!"

"Have you been prowling about downstairs?" asked Lady Harte severely.

"No, my lady, I have not! Prowling, indeed! I've been making a cup of Ovaltine for the mistress. She can't sleep, and no wonder, is what I say! Such goings-on!" She swept by the group on the passage and stalked into Emily's room.

"Thank you, Adrian!" said Jim in a broken voice. "I undoubtedly owe my life to you."

Mr. Harte, learning at the breakfast table of the night's happenings, was torn between pride in the success of his invention and disgust at having slept through the disturbance. He thought it excessively funny that his father should have sprung the alarm, and when rebuked by his ungrateful stepbrother for having set such a booby trap outside his door, said indignantly that it was not a booby trap, and how on earth could he have guessed, anyway, that his father would go wandering about the house in the middle of the night?

His mother staunchly supported him and agreed that the alarm should be set every night. Mr. James Kane said that this was what drove a man from home and expressed a desire for the police to make haste and clear up the mystery.

"I must say, I think it's high time they did," said Lady Harte; "I begin to wonder whether they're doing anything at all. Most unsatisfactory!"

She might have been comforted had she known that Sergeant Hemingway was saying much the same thing.

"We get no forrader," he grumbled. "We've got no less than nine suspects for Clement Kane's death, and though this attempt on young Kane seems to whittle the number down a bit at first glance, when you go into it you find it's made the whole thing in a worse muddle than what it was before. Take Pretty Paul. You might have thought we'd got him in a cleft stick when we found out about him being on the premises when Clement was shot, but not a bit of it! He pulls out a highly unconvincing story of what he'd been doing, and those Pembles go and corroborate it. It's disheartening, Chief. Are we looking for one murderer or two murderers, that's what I'd like to know?"

"So should I," said Hannasyde.

"Well, to my way of thinking, there's just one person behind the whole show, and I've a strong notion it's Paul Mansell. Myself, I don't fancy Jim Kane. If he was clever enough to make away with two cousins without leaving a single clue behind him, I can't see what he wants with a couple of faked attempts on himself. We hadn't got a thing on him, which he must have known. What's more, if he loosened that nut on his car, he was taking a tidy risk. Suppose it had come off in the middle of the town, and he'd sailed into an omnibus, or something? Nice mess he'd have made of himself! Suppose there'd been another car coming towards him when the nut did come off? He fits the first two murders—I give you that; but he doesn't fit this latest denouement. If we're after someone who fits the two murders and the two attempts, all we've got is a couple of Mansells—and of the two I'd put my money on Paul—and this Leighton, whom we haven't seen. For the life of me, Super, I can't see why you're so shy of thinking it might be Pretty Paul."

"I don't like his motive," replied Hannasyde. "The stake isn't big enough."

"Well, I don't know," said the sergeant. "I've known a man to murder his own mother for the sake of a few hundred pounds' insurance money."

"We're not dealing with a criminal of the poorer classes, nor have I known a man to murder three people for the sake of a few hundred pounds."

"Dare say he expects to make a few thousands."

"No doubt. But there's a difference between expectation and certainty. There's also another factor which you're leaving out of account. When Clement Kane was shot, James Kane, standing in the garden hall, saw nothing. Not so much as an agitation in the bushes. You may contend, if you like, that it would have been possible for the murderer to have shot Clement through the study window and to have dashed into the cover of the shrubbery in a very few seconds. But I've seen that garden hall. James Kane states that the door into the garden was open; if it had been shut he could still have seen out, because the upper panels are glazed. The sound of a shot so near at hand must have had the effect of making him look round immediately. An involuntary reaction. He says he did look round and stepped out at once through the open door. I've stood in that garden hall, Hemingway, and I've seen that it commands a view of the shrubbery. I can't understand how James Kane could have failed to observe any movement at all in the garden. If the murderer escaped, not into the shrubbery but by the path running along the side of the house to the front avenue, it is incredible that Kane should not have caught a glimpse of him when he looked out. He heard no footsteps on the gravel, either before or after the shot. One can argue that, as he had only just entered the garden hall when the shot was fired, he need not necessarily have heard anyone approaching the study. But surely he must have heard a hasty retreat? If we are to exonerate James Kane himself, we look like being faced with a far more fantastic possibility, which is that old Mrs. Kane murdered Clement, and James Kane knows it."

"Revenge?" inquired the sergeant.

"That, and dislike of having him and his wife firmly established at Cliff House. She believes that Clement killed her son: that much seems to be certain. One of the doubts in my mind is whether she could have handled as heavy a gun as a .38."

"Yes, but if she did it, and Jim Kane knows it, what about the attempts on him?" objected the sergeant. "Are you making Sir Adrian responsible for them?"

"It's a possibility. They may, on the other hand, have been faked by himself, partly to throw me off Mrs. Kane's scent, partly to protect himself. Tortuous, I know, but the human brain is tortuous."

The sergeant sighed. "You're making it sound worse than ever, Chief. I'm blowed if I see where we are now."

"On the wrong track," replied Hannasyde promptly. "We've got to find the gun which shot Clement Kane."

"What you might call a tall order," remarked the sergeant. "If it was James Kane who did it, the odds are he took it out to sea in that boat of his and dropped it overboard. If it was Dermott, after all, we might find it at the bottom of the lake, but more likely he disposed of it miles from here. If it was young Mansell, there's no saying where he got rid of it. Of course, I had a look in the shrubbery, but there was no sign of the ground having been disturbed, and I can't say I expected any. It isn't in human nature to leave the weapon close to the scene of the crime, now, is it?"

"That's a ready-made argument which won't stand investigation," answered Hannasyde. "I agree that in nine cases out of ten you won't find the weapon near the scene of the crime, except of course in those instances where the murder has been faked to look like suicide. But the more I go into this case the more I feel convinced that we're up against a very astute mind. Moreover, unless the murderer was either Paul Mansell or Trevor Dermott, we have to remember that he had very little time in which to dispose of the gun before confronting Inspector Carlton. It's true Carlton didn't search anyone, but I hardly think the murderer would have been foolhardy enough to have run the risk of being found with the weapon on his person. Instinct would urge him to get rid of it immediately."