CHAPTER SIX.

"AND so, Superintendent, I felt-all things being considered-that the case would be better in the hands of Scotland Yard," said the chief constable, half wishing that he had someone of real brilliance amongst his own men, half glad to be getting rid of a case that looked like being not only very unpleasant but very difficult to handle into the bargain.

Detective Superintendent Hannasyde, of the C.I.D., nodded understandingly and glanced from the chief constable to Inspector Carlton.

"Local bigwigs, you know," said Colonel Maurice. "Not that that makes any difference, of course; but you know how it is."

Superintendent Hannasyde did know and said so in his deep, pleasant voice.

"Well--" said the colonel. "You've read the inspector's notes on the case. If you'd like to talk it over with us--"

"I should, sir, very much." Hannasyde directed a brief smile up at the inspector, standing at the colonel's elbow. "You've got the advantage of me in knowing the various people concerned, Inspector. I'll be very glad of your help."

"Of course, the Inspector is absolutely at your orders, Superintendent. Pull up a chair, Carlton, and sit down."

While the inspector complied with this order Hannasyde laid a folder down on the table and began to glance through the typewritten pages.

The chief constable started to fill a pipe. "I think it's all there," he said.

"Yes sir; it's perfectly clear. Clement Kane was shot with a .38 bullet, at a range of not less than six feet, the bullet entering the skull-yes--" He flicked over a couple of pages and folded the sheets open at a neat plan. "The inference being that the murderer shot him from outside the window." He laid a square forefinger on the plan and glanced up. "There doesn't seem to be any room for doubt on that point, eh, Carlton?"

"No sir. The desk is set at an angle, a matter of a few feet from the window. Mr. Clement Kane was seated at it, as you see, Superintendent, with his left side to the window, and the bullet entered the left temple. There's no other way out of the room beyond the door into the hall. When the shot was heard the butler and Mrs. Kane's secretary and Mr. Roberts were in the hall, so that no one could have come out of the study by the door without they'd have seen him. According to their stories, the butler and Mr. Roberts ran into the room directly they heard the shot, or, at the most, half a minute later. The butler went straight to the corpse, but Mr. Roberts had the sense to make a dash for the window. He was too late, but his story is that he distinctly heard someone moving amongst the bushes in the shrubbery. You'll see by the plan, Superintendent, that there's a regular thicket of rhododendrons and the like not ten feet from the path by the house. By my reckoning anyone standing outside the study could have got to cover before Mr. Roberts had time to reach the window, coming from the hall as he did." He paused and frowned down at the plan. "What I don't see myself is how it was that Mr. James Kane, coming out of that garden hall immediately, as he stands to it he did, didn't catch so much as a glimpse of anyone."

Hannasyde's finger travelled to the plan of the garden hall, separated from the study only by a lavatory opening out of it. "Mr. James Kane stated that he went out immediately? People sometimes say immediately when they mean within half a minute, you know."

The inspector shook his head. "I thought that myself, Superintendent; but he won't have it that he wasted as much as thirty seconds. Come to think of it, if his story's true, the gun was fired near enough to startle him so much he'd be pretty certain to run out just as he says he did." He rubbed his chin reflectively, eyeing the plan. "But if it all happened like he says, I'm bound to say I don't see how he can have failed to have seen, or at least heard, something."

Hannasyde glanced back through the typescript to refresh his memory. "James Kane-he's the heir, is he?"

"Yes," said the inspector slowly. "He is-and that's another queer point, Superintendent. What we're asked to believe is that he didn't know he was. Well, I was present when old Mrs. Kane came out with it, and in fairness to him I must say that if he was acting he took me in. He looked as dumbfounded as anyone would, coming into close on a quarter of a million without a word of warning, as you might say. But-well, I ask you, Superintendent! Does it seem to you reasonable he shouldn't have had the least idea he stood next to his cousin?"

"I don't think that's quite fair, Carlton," interposed the colonel. "You must remember that a month ago his chance of inheriting the Kane fortune was very remote. It's true Silas Kane was a bachelor, but Clement wasn't. Moreover, Clement was quite a young man and might very reasonably have been expected to have sons of his own. He hadn't been married so very long-let me see, when was Clement's wedding? I think it was about four years ago. Lots of married couples nowadays don't seem to be in a hurry to start their nurseries. No reason to think there would never be one. Moreover, that will of old Matthew Kane's is a very odd affair. I take it you've read it, Superintendent?"

"Yes sir."

"Well, there's no doubt none of the younger generation was at all familiar with its details. Of course, I don't know about Clement. He may have known, but I don't suppose it would strike him as being particularly important. The clause excluding all female heirs while a male heir was living wouldn't concern him; as far as Jim Kane was concerned, I should doubt very much whether he'd even know that his great-grandfather tied the estate up in the way he did."

"Could you tell me anything about Mr. James Kane, sir?" asked Hannasyde. "I see he works at the Treasury and seems to be in comfortable circ.u.mstances. Nothing known of any debts?"

The colonel jabbed a dead match into the dottle of a pipe in the ashtray beside him. "I've known Jim Kane since he was a boy," he said. "Matter of fact, he was at school with my youngest boy. I should have said he'd be the last person in the world to commit a murder."

Hannasyde nodded, as though satisfied, and turned back to the typescript under his hand. His finger travelled down a list on one page and stopped. "Trevor Dermott," he read out and looked up inquiringly.

The colonel pursed his lips and glanced at the inspector.

"Yes," said the inspector. "That's a queer-looking business all right, Superintendent. There's more to it than comes out in the evidence, if you understand what I mean. He don't admit it, and she don't either, but there's plenty of people in this town to tell you how things were between Mr. Trevor Dermott and Mrs. Clement Kane."

The colonel removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. "I don't listen to scandal; but there's no doubt there's been a lot of talk about Mrs. Clement and Dermott.

May be nothing in it; don't know the fellow myself; he's not a Portlaw man. Big handsome chap, the sort of brute some women fall for. I can only tell you he's been living pretty well in Mrs. Clement's pocket for the past three months."

"Well, sir, but there's a bit more to it than that, isn't there?" said the inspector. "By what Mrs.

Clement's servants say she'd have run off with Dermott if it hadn't been for Clement Kane coming into the property."

"Don't know that I set much store by servants' gossip," said the colonel. "Both under notice too.

But I'm not saying that Dermott isn't badly hit where Mrs. Clement's concerned. I should say he was head over ears in love with her. She's a remarkably beautiful young woman. Mercenary, of course, but I dare say a man like Dermott wouldn't see that. You couldn't picture Rosemary Kane giving up a fortune for the sake of a grande pa.s.sion."

"No sir," agreed the inspector. "What's more, his actions on the day of the murder make it look very much as if Mrs. Clement had told him she wouldn't, down there by the lake. I mean to say, when a man goes off to his hotel and drinks himself silly, and then drives off into the blue and gets pinched for driving a car under the influence of drink at five o'clock in the afternoon, it looks as though he's had a bit of a facer, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I certainly think we want to go rather carefully into Trevor Dermott's movements that afternoon," said Hannasyde. "I see here that Mrs. Clement Kane appeared to be anxious to convey the impression that he was an old friend of hers and of her husband."

"Which I'm ready to swear he was not, Superintendent. He may have known Mrs. Clement before he started coming down here to see her-that I can't say; but he was no friend of Mr. Kane, either old or new."

"Does anyone corroborate this story of the schoolboy's about him driving off at a-oh yes, I see the head gardener's wife at the lodge also saw him. He seemed in a great hurry and looked ever so queer."

Hannasyde smiled slightly. "Yes, that looks to me like someone being wise after the event. If he was driving at a reckless speed I doubt whether the gardener's wife would have had time to notice what he looked like."

"No, I don't suppose she did have," said the inspector. "But the boy, Timothy Harte, met him on foot, making for his car, and told Mr. Roberts he looked like 'nothing on earth' before he even knew of his cousin having been murdered."

"What about this boy?" inquired Hannasyde. "Fourteen-seem to you reliable?"

The inspector grinned. "Well, I couldn't say, Superintendent, not for certain. He's as sharp as a sackful of monkeys, but by the way he talks he's got crime on the brain. American gangster stuff, you know. It seems he would have it all along that Mr. Silas Kane was murdered."

"Mm, yes," said Hannasyde. "I'd very much like to look over the police record of that case if I may. Accidental death, wasn't it?"

"That's what it was brought in," replied the inspector rather guardedly. "There wasn't any evidence-nothing to make a case on. He was an old man, and not a good life, either. If he was murdered, the likeliest person to have done him in was Clement Kane-you might say the only person who had what you could call a real motive. But we established the fact that Clement drove from Cliff House to his own home that night, and he could hardly have got back to Cliff House in time to catch Mr. Kane on his walk. But I'm bound to say that that case looks different in the light of this fresh one. I'll send for the records."

While these were being fetched Hannasyde continued to run down the list of suspected persons.

He said after a moment: "I see you've put a query against Jane Ogle's name. She's the old lady's maid, isn't she?"

"That's right," said the inspector. "She's been in service up at Cliff House for a matter of forty years. She fair dotes on Mrs. Kane. You know the style, I dare say. Well, it's hard to know how to take her. She's one of those who can't answer a simple question without thinking you're trying to trap her into saying something she doesn't mean to. On the face of it, her way of carrying on is highly suspicious, but at the same time I know she's an eccentric old maid, and it doesn't do to set too much store by the silly way she acts. You'll see by my notes she was in the garden at the time of the murder.

According to what I've been able to get out of her, she thought the old lady ought to have her rug and took it down to her before ever Mr. James Kane went to ask her for it. She says she carried a tray down to the pantry at the same time, thus accounting for having gone out into the garden by way of the back door. By the time she reached the terrace, where Mrs. Kane should have been sitting, James Kane had gone into the house after the rug, and there was no sign of the old lady."

Hannasyde looked up. "I thought Mrs. Kane was supposed to be very infirm?"

The inspector smiled wryly. "Well, she is and she isn't, Superintendent, if you take my meaning.

Some days she'll be carried pretty well everywhere, or at the best creep about with a stick and someone's arm to lean on, and others she'll get taken with a fit of energy and move without anyone's help. She says she went for a stroll towards the lake, and I'm bound to admit I shouldn't be surprised if she did. The way she has it in for Mrs. Clement it's quite likely she'd go to spy out what young Madam was up to with her fancy boy. What's more, if her story's true, she'd be out of sight of the terrace in about three minutes, even walking at her pace. She'd go through the rose garden, and that's surrounded by a big yew hedge, as you'll see when you go up to Cliff House."

"And the maid went to look for her through the gardens?"

"She says she did. She says she found her, beyond the rose garden, by the potting-shed and the gla.s.shouses. Well, that's certainly on the east side of the house, same as the shrubbery-call it southeast-but it's far enough away from the study for a deaf person not to have heard the shot. But it's only their word for it that we've got, Superintendent. By the time anyone else got out to the terrace Mrs. Kane had got back there. Mind, I don't say her story isn't true; but what I do say is that it wouldn't make a bit of difference to Jane Ogle if it wasn't. She'd lie herself black in the face to protect the old lady, and the impression she gives me is that that's just what she is doing. That, or she was up to something herself."

"Oh!" Hannasyde considered for a moment. "A bit far-fetched, isn't it?"

"Exactly what I say," nodded the colonel. "I'm ready to admit Emily Kane's a ruthless old woman-to tell you the truth, I'm scared stiff of her!-and she never made any secret of the fact that she detested Clement. But somehow I don't see an old lady of eighty being able to commit that murder, get to cover before Jim Kane could see her--"

"If we are going to consider the possibility of Mrs. Kane's having committed the murder, sir, mustn't we also take into consideration that James Kane would be very unlikely to give his great-aunt away?" interposed Hannasyde.

The colonel was silent for a frowning moment. "Yes, I suppose you're right there. But d.a.m.n it all, the idea's preposterous!"

"Yes sir; I can't get round to it myself that it was the old lady," agreed the inspector. "My idea is the maid might have shot Clement Kane, either with Mrs. Kane's knowledge or without it." He saw a sceptical look in Hannasyde's eye and added: "I'm not saying it doesn't sound crazy, Superintendent, but the point is, Jane Ogle is crazy where her mistress is concerned. Ever since Clement Kane came into the fortune, and Miss Allison got herself engaged to young Kane, she's been going about saying how there's no one cares about the old lady but her, and a lot of silly talk about her seeing to it no one should make her mistress's last days a misery to her."

"What about the gun?" asked Hannasyde. "I see the bullet was a .38. Any line on it?"

"Yes, Superintendent, there is a line on it. We've established the fact that old John Kane-that's Emily Kane's husband that was-once owned a .38 Smith and Wesson."

"That's interesting," Hannasyde said. "Has that gun been produced?"

"No, it hasn't, sir; and it doesn't look as though it will be. No one's seen it for years, according to the evidence. I've asked for it to be found, but you know what a big household like that is. If the gun's really lost, it would take anyone a month of Sundays to look for it through all the chests, and lumber rooms, and cupboards full of junk, that there are in the place. But if it wasn't lost, anyone living in the house-and James Kane, too, for that matter-might have known where to put their hands on it any time they wanted."

"I see." Again Hannasyde seemed to be considering the point. He glanced down at the typescript and said after a slight pause: "Some dissension in the firm of Kane and Mansell, apparently. Can you give me any line on these Mansells?"

The inspector glanced at Colonel Maurice. "Nothing known against them, is there, sir? They do say Paul Mansell's a bit sharp, but you might say the same about a lot of businessmen. Mr. Mansell's well spoken of, but people don't like the young one much. Bit of scandal there, on account of him being divorced. Nothing relevant to the case."

"Paul Mansell's a flashy young bounder," stated the colonel suddenly. "Old Mansell's all right, but I don't like what I know of his son. I don't see Joe murdering his partner for the sake of putting through a deal that would ease his finances; but, frankly, I wouldn't put it above Paul-if he had the courage to do it. Mind, that's nothing but prejudice on my part."

Hannasyde nodded. "This man, Oscar Roberts-he's representing the agency in Australia?"

"That's right. By what I can make out," said the inspector, "he was very anxious to come to terms with the firm. Of course, they've got a name."

Hannasyde wrinkled his brow. "Yes, but so have several other firms. I can't see that he had the least motive."

"No sir, nor me. What's more, even though he might have murdered Silas Kane-if he was murdered, that is-we know he couldn't have murdered Clement. He was in the hall with the butler and Miss Allison when the shot was heard."

"Oh yes, I wasn't seriously considering him," Hannasyde replied.

He looked up as the door opened to admit a constable who came in with a folder which he laid on the desk at the inspector's elbow. The inspector picked it up and handed it to Hannasyde. "You'll find all the facts concerning Silas Kane's death there, Superintendent."

Hannasyde took the folder and opened it. While he read through the notes on the case the colonel and the inspector sat in silence, waiting for him to finish. When he at length laid the folder down the colonel said: "Well, Superintendent, what do you make of it?"

"I should like to go into it again, sir."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose so. Now Clement's been murdered, it does look suspicious. You think the two deaths hang together?"

"There's a big fortune at stake, sir. At the same time the methods employed-a.s.suming Silas Kane's death was contrived-are very different. In the first instance, you have the murder made to look like an accident; in the second, there's no attempt at camouflage. One point strikes me: I see that James Kane was present at Silas' birthday-party and left shortly after eleven o'clock to motor back to London."

"Well?" said the colonel rather curtly.

Hannasyde looked at him. "Doesn't it seem rather a long way to come, just to attend a dinner party, sir?"

"Oh, Jim wouldn't make anything of a three-hour motor run! Besides, he didn't come only to see Silas. He brought his stepbrother down-Timothy Harte. Really, I don't think there's anything in that, Superintendent."

"You know him, of course, sir," said Hannasyde in a noncommittal voice. "The rest of the servants-and Miss Allison: nothing there?"

"No possible motive," said the inspector. "Of course, I suppose you could say that Miss Allison had a motive, since she's engaged to be married to James Kane; but she was with Mrs. Kane at the time Silas must have met his death, and in the hall along with Roberts and the butler when Clement was shot." He paused and added hopefully: "Do you get any sort of line on it, Superintendent?"

"Well, no, not at present," replied Hannasyde. "One or two points seem to stand out. I'd like to keep the notes on Silas Kane's death, if I may. I'll go up to Cliff House and take a look round and have a talk with all these people."

"I don't know about the rest of them, but you can be sure of getting a welcome from Master Timothy Harte," said the inspector with a grin.

This prophecy was fulfilled. From the moment of hearing that a superintendent from Scotland Yard had taken charge of the case, Mr. Harte's spirits, a little quenched by this first sight of violent death, rose to dizzy heights. His elders might look upon the affair with anxiety, but Mr. Harte antic.i.p.ated nothing but the keenest enjoyment to be derived from a.s.sociation with a member of the C.I.D. Superintendent Hannasyde, who was a large thick-set man with a square, good-humoured countenance and little conversation, he regarded with awe, not altogether unmixed with disappointment; but the superintendent's satellite, a birdlike sergeant, with bright eyes and a flow of small talk, at once took his fancy. Realising instinctively that there was little to be got from Hannasyde (who annoyed him by regarding him with a palpable twinkle in his eye), he attached himself firmly to Sergeant Hemingway, while the superintendent pursued his investigations in peace.

Finding his footsteps dogged by Mr. Harte, the sergeant suggested that he would be better employed in the pursuit of his usual avocations. Timothy said simply: "I'd rather watch you, thanks."

"Oh!" said the sergeant. "You would, would you? You take care I don't have you up for obstructing me in the execution of my duty."

This piece of facetiousness did not please. Timothy said somewhat severely: "You must think I'm a pretty good a.s.s to swallow that. Besides, I'm not obstructing. I bet I can help you a lot more than you know."

"Well, what I don't know I shan't grieve over, see?"

"All right!" said Timothy with an air of veiled menace and left him.

Twenty minutes later the sergeant, pursuing investigations in the shrubbery, discovered that Mr.

Harte was once more with him.

"Say, Sarge," quoth Mr. Harte cheerfully, "if you're looking for the gat I reckon you've got another guess coming to you."

The sergeant looked at him with a.s.sumed ferocity. "Scram!" he said.

"Nothing doing," replied Mr. Harte. "Whose garden is this, anyway?"

"Well, if it's yours, it's the first I've heard of it," said the sergeant, allowing himself to be led into argument.

"It isn't. As a matter of fact, it belongs to my stepbrother now, so it's all the same. Besides, he told me to come out here."

"Told you to come out and pester me?" demanded the sergeant, revising his first favourable impressions of Mr. James Kane's character.

"No, of course not!" said Mr. Harte impatiently. "He said I was to clear out into the garden, and I have."

"I don't blame him," said the sergeant.

"Well, can't I help?" said Timothy, suddenly adopting an ingratiating tone. "Honestly, I won't bother you; but I do most frightfully want to see how a real detective works!"

Sergeant Hemingway met the appeal in the worshipful blue eyes upturned to his and felt himself weakening.

He explained afterwards to his superior that he had always been a softy with kids. "I don't mind you trotting round after me as long as you don't get in my way," he conceded. "But mind, now, if I tell you to scram, you scram double-quick!"