For a moment Jim stared at Patricia, then he put his arm round her and drew her close to him. "Of all the lurid ideas! Darling, I'm sorry to have to say it, but you're definitely batty."
"No, she isn't," said Timothy. "Everyone knows you've entered for the race next week, and I should think a whole lot of people knew you were going to try the Seamew out tomorrow."
"Do try and pull yourself together," begged Jim. "I was out in her this morning! Who on earth could have had a chance to monkey about with her between the time I came in and the time you went out?"
"Anybody!" replied Timothy promptly. "It was a safe bet you wouldn't go out again today. You brought her in just after Mum arrived, which must have been just after eleven, and I didn't go down to the landing stage till three o'clock. There was loads of time."
"But, my good lad, nobody would dare tamper with my boat in broad daylight!"
Patricia sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. "I don't see why not. Nobody ever comes along this side of the bay. There's no sand to attract the Portlaw gang. Besides, you know what those mud flats are like between us and Portlaw if you walk round the bay at low tide. Supposing someone did something or other to the Seamew between one o'clock and two o'clock? None of us would have been on the shore, because we were having lunch. I call it a pretty good time."
"Well, I don't," said Jim. "If I were going to put someone else's boat out of action, I should choose a nice dark night for the job."
"No, you wouldn't, because you couldn't see to do it," said Timothy instantly. "You'd have to have a lantern, and that might attract attention. Golly, I bet Pat's right, and someone is trying to do you in!"
"You needn't sound so darned pleased about it, viper!"
"I'm not, but I do think it's jolly exciting."
Jim grinned his appreciation of this point of view but said: "I suppose I should be unpopular if I suggested that the bottom might have been ripped off the Seamew by a floating spar or something of that nature?"
Patricia gave a little shiver. "I've got a feeling—" she began, and then stopped and laughed.
Jim looked at her with deep foreboding. "Are you also—whatever else you may be—honest with yourself, darling?"
"Shut up!" said Patricia. "This isn't a joke."
"My error," murmured Jim.
"Jim, Mr. Roberts warned you only yesterday you might be the next victim."
Timothy, who had relaxed upon his pillows, bounced up at this, his blue eyes sparkling with pleasurable anticipation. "Did he? I say, do you think there's a Hidden Killer in the house!"
"Timothy!" gasped Miss Allison, instinctively clasping Mr. Kane's arm.
"Well, if you come to think about it, this is just the sort of house where you might have a Hidden Killer lurking, 'cept that it isn't really old enough, and I shouldn't think there's a secret passage or anything. But it's got two wings, and three staircases, and lots of attics leading out of one another and—"
"Stop!" commanded Miss Allison, pale with fright. "I know it's nonsense; but if you go on like that I shan't be able to sleep a wink all night."
"Calm yourself, my love," said Mr. Kane. "If the Hidden Killer tried to do me in by tampering with the Seamew , there doesn't seem to be much point in him lurking in the house."
"No, of course not," said Patricia. "Let's get back to the point. You're the only one of us who knows anything about boats, Jim. Would it be possible for anyone to do something to the speedboat that wouldn't show at first—I mean, if you simply knocked a hole in it it would fill with water at once, and the Seamew didn't."
"I suppose you could plug your hole," replied Jim.
"How?"
Jim reached out a hand for the pencil and Timothy's notebook. "Well, imagine this is one of your bottom strakes. If you cut a wedge-shaped hole, and plugged it so that the broad end of your plug stuck out a bit, presumably it would stay put until you got some way on the boat. It would work loose, and of course as soon as you were going full-speed it would be bound to come out, and the force of the water would be enough to rip the strake right off."
"I see. Do you think that's what was done?"
"No," said Jim cheerfully.
"Why not?" demanded Mr. Harte.
"Probably because I haven't got that kind of mind. Moreover, to do that job you'd have to have the boat out of the water, come armed with a bit and a brace, a pad saw, and a bit of putty to fill up the gaps—it's too darned silly!"
"When was low tide today?" asked Patricia. "Lunchtime, wasn't it?"
"Twelve forty-five," said Jim.
"That means that the Seamew must have been lying on the slipway then, doesn't it?"
"Yes," he agreed reluctantly.
"Jim, don't you see how it all fits in? You tied her up just after eleven, she was high and dry an hour later, and floating again by the time Timothy got to her. It was all thought out, and the time calculated!"
"Rot!" said Jim.
"It isn't rot! It's jolly sensible!" retorted Mr. Harte. "Only, who's the Killer? I rather thought Mr. Dermott was the person who did Cousin Clement in, but I don't see why he wants to do you in too."
"Nor anyone else. I do wish you'd get this silly idea out of your heads."
"Jim, I shouldn't have thought anything of it if it weren't for what Mr. Roberts said to you. But in face of that—"
"My dear girl, Roberts was talking through his hat. In any case, he saw the whole thing happen, and if there were anything in your theory, he'd presumably be the first to suspect there'd been some dirty work done on the Seamew . But he didn't even suggest it."
"It looks to me," said Mr. Harte, pursuing his own line of thought, "as though it must be one of the Mansells. The only other person I can think of who might want to get rid of you is the next heir—Cousin Maud, I mean."
"Who is living in Sydney," said Jim. "Try again."
"Perhaps she isn't!" said Timothy, loath to abandon this original idea. "Perhaps she's been here all the time, in disguise!"
"Very likely, I should think. Now explain how she managed to post a letter to Aunt Emily from Australia when she was in England at the time, and we shall be all set."
"Say, wise guy!" said Mr. Harte, suddenly becoming transatlantic. "You ever heard of a Blind?"
"Often," replied Jim. "I've even been on one."
"Not that kind, you ass! The other! Get a load of this, now. What if she wrote the letter before she came to England and left it with someone to post on a certain date?"
Jim sighed. "Now I'll tell one!"
"No, but—"
"'The Idiot Boy,' by William Wordsworth!" said Jim. "I suppose she knew by instinct that Cousin Silas always went for a walk after dinner, and which night there'd be a fog, and a few other little details like that? Had the whole thing mapped out to the minute two months before she did the deed. You make me tired!"
"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Mr. Harte.
"Well, while you are thinking of it you might also ask yourself whether cutting holes in speedboats is really a womanly trick," said Jim, getting up.
Timothy relinquished his theory, though reluctantly. "Oh, all right! It was only an idea. Actually, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it turned out to be someone we've never even suspected. Pritchard, or someone like that. I say, I wonder if Cousin Silas possessed some frightfully valuable thing which someone else wants? You needn't look like that! I know I've heard of it happening. Something you don't know about. A priceless manuscript or—or—good Lord, if that's it, there probably is a Hidden Killer in the house!"
"I don't quite see why killing Jim should help him to get hold of the Stolen Treasure," objected Miss Allison.
"I expect there's some frightfully complicated reason," said Mr. Harte wisely.
"Well, we'll leave you to think it out," said Jim. "Come on, Pat!"
"You go down. I'll join you in a minute," she replied. "I'm just going along to my room."
She did not go to her room immediately, however.
As soon as Jim had gone downstairs she returned to Mr. Harte and said: "Timothy, I wish you'd tell Superintendent Hannasyde what happened today. I know Jim thinks it's all nonsense; but I can't rid myself of the feeling that he is in danger."
"All right, I will," promised Timothy. "Not," he added gloomily, "that they'll believe a word I say, because I know jolly well they won't. No one ever does."
Telling him to comfort himself with the reflection that she at least had believed his story, Miss Allison withdrew, leaving him to occupy himself until sleep overtook him in evolving a highly elaborate theory to account for the presence in their midst of an Unknown Killer. She went along the passage towards the west wing, where, next to Mrs. Kane's, her room was situated. For the first time she thought the passage very inadequately lit, and when she encountered Ogle not two steps from Timothy's door, she gave an uncontrollable start of sheer nerves.
Ogle, though Miss Allison had not questioned her presence in the passage, immediately began to justify it, so that Miss Allison, knowing her to be extremely inquisitive, guessed that she had been listening outside Timothy's room. She could hardly blame her, for it was one of Emily Kane's least agreeable traits to cull all the information she could from Ogle's expert spying upon the rest of the household. Not unnaturally there had been a good deal of incentive during the past fortnight for Ogle to listen at doors. Miss Allison, accustomed to this unamiable habit, merely smiled and said: "All right, Ogle, don't apologise!"
The maid's sallow cheeks flushed; she said somewhat naively: "The less the police come nosing round here the better it will be, miss. What's done can't be undone. You will pardon me, but if Master Timothy sank Mr. James' boat, it was only what anyone would have expected, and there's no call to drag the police into it."
Miss Allison raised her brows. "Why not?" she asked.
"They're not wanted here," Ogle said sullenly. "They won't find out anything, any more than they did over Mr. Clement. They only worrit the mistress."
"The case of Mr. Clement isn't finished," said Miss Allison "I told you before, the inquest was merely adjourned."
"They won't find out anything," Ogle repeated. "No more they're not wanted to. The impudence of them asking the mistress questions! Well, they didn't get anything out of me, that's one thing."
Miss Allison did not think this worthy of being replied to. She passed on to her bedroom and presently rejoined the party in the drawing room.
As usual, she took Emily up to bed at ten o'clock, but when she had delivered her into Ogle's care, she went downstairs again and permitted Mr. James Kane to take her for a moonlight stroll through the gardens.
The night was fine and very warm, but a rustle heard in a cluster of flowering shrubs quite destroyed Miss Allison's pleasure in being alone with her betrothed.
She was reasonable enough to admit that the noise had probably been caused by a cat or a night bird, but it put her in mind of the dangers threatening Jim, and she very soon made an excuse to go back into the house.
Norma and Rosemary were the sole occupants of the drawing room, Sir Adrian having drifted away to the library. When Jim and Patricia came in through the French windows Norma was seated bolt upright at a card table, energetically playing a complicated Patience and telling Rosemary at the same time how much happier she would be if she found an Object in life.
Rosemary was quite in agreement with this but explained that her Russian blood made it impossible for her to remain constant to any one Object for longer than a few months at a stretch.
"My dear girl, don't talk nonsense to me!" said Norma bracingly. "You're lazy, that's all that's wrong with you. Why don't you take up social work?"
"I don't think my health would stand it," replied Rosemary. "I'm one of those unfortunate people whose nerves simply go to pieces as soon as they're bored."
"Thank God I don't know what it is to have nerves!" said Norma.
"Yes, you're lucky. I don't suppose you even feel the atmosphere in this awful house," said Rosemary shuddering.
"All imagination!" declared Norma, briskly shuffling the cards.
"Of course, I knew you would say that. All the same, there is a dreadful atmosphere here. I expect you have to be rather sensitive to it."
Lady Hart raised her eyes from the cards. "I do not in the least mind being thought insensitive, Rosemary; but as I fancy you meant that remark as a slur on my character, I can only say that it was extremely rude of you," she said severely.
This rejoinder was so unexpected that Rosemary, colouring hotly, was for the moment bereft of speech.
Lady Harte, laying her cards out with a firm hand, took advantage of her silence to add: "The sensitiveness you vaunt so incessantly, my good girl, does not seem to take other people's feelings into account. If you talked less about yourself and thought more of others, you would not only be a happier woman but a great deal pleasanter to live with into the bargain."
"Of course, I know I'm very selfish," replied Rosemary with the utmost calm. "You mustn't think I don't know myself through and through, because I do. I'm selfish and terribly temperamental and fickle."
"You are not only selfish," said Lady Harte; "you are indolent, shallow, parasitic and remarkably stupid."
Rosemary got up, roused at last to anger. She said in a trembling voice: "How very funny! Really, I can hardly help laughing!"
"Laugh away," advised Lady Harte, her attention on Miss Milligan.
"When you have seen your husband shot before your very eyes," said Rosemary, a trifle inaccurately, "perhaps you will have some comprehension of what it means to suffer."
Lady Harte raised her eyes and looked steadily up at the outraged beauty. "My husband, as I think you are aware, died of his wounds twenty years ago. I saw him die. If you think you can tell me anything about suffering, I shall be interested to hear it."
There was an uncomfortable silence. "Sometimes I feel as though I should go out of my mind!" announced Rosemary. "No one has the least understanding of my character. Good-night!"
"Good-night," said Lady Harte.
The door shut with a decided bang behind Rosemary.
Jim moved forward from the window, where he and Patricia had remained rooted during this remarkable duologue. "Really, Mother!" he expostulated.
"A little plain speaking is what is wanted in this house!" said Norma roundly. "The idea of that young baggage telling me I don't know what it is to suffer! She!— Why, she's revelling in being a widow! Do you think I can't see what's under my nose? Atmosphere! Bah!"
Patricia smiled but said: "I don't much like identifying myself with Rosemary, but I'm conscious of that atmosphere, too, you know."
"A dose of salts will probably do away with it," replied Norma crudely.
This prosaic suggestion did much to restore Miss Allison to her usual placidity, but when she presently went up to bed her mind crept back to the conversation in Timothy's room. The pleasing theory that an Unknown Killer lurked in their midst did not seriously trouble her, but she would have been happier could she but have been assured that Jim would lock his bedroom door before going to bed. But nothing was more unlikely than that he would take this simple precaution against being murdered.
Further reflection compelled Miss Allison to admit to herself that it would not be a very easy matter for anyone to murder Jim in his bed without running the risk of instant detection. In the warmth and bright light of the bathroom she decided that her fears were foolish; on the way back to her room along the shadowy passage she was not quite so sure; and lying in bed with the moonlight filtering into the room through the gaps between the curtains, and a tendril of Virginia creeper tapping against the window, she began to consider the possibility of Timothy's being right after all.
In her mind she ran over the male staff of Cliff House and fell asleep at last with a conglomeration of fantastic thoughts jostling one another in her head.
It did not seem to her that she had been asleep for more than a few minutes when she was awakened suddenly by the echoes of a scream. She started up, half in doubt, and switched on the light. The hands of her bedside clock stood at a quarter-past one, she noticed. Just as she was about to lie down again, believing the scream to have occurred only in her unquiet dreams, it was repeated. Miss Allison recognised Mr. Harte's voice, raised to a wild note of panic, and sprang out of bed, snatching up her dressing gown. As she flung open her door she heard Timothy shriek: "Jim! Jim!"
She raced down the passage to his room and found to her surprise that it was illumined only by the moonlight. Switching on the light, she discovered Mr. Harte cowering at the end of his bed, sweat on his brow, his eyes dilated and glaring at her.
"There's a man, there's a man!" gasped Mr. Harte in a grip of a rigor. "Jim, Jim, there's a man!"
Miss Allison, her own nerves not quite normal, gave a choked exclamation and faltered: "Where? Who?"
Mr. Harte paid no attention to her but panted. "It's the Killer! I saw his eyes g-glittering! He's there! I saw him. Jim!"
Miss Allison spun round to look in the direction of his terrified gaze. She saw nothing to alarm him, and at that moment Jim walked into the room, looking sleepy and dishevelled. "What on earth's the matter?" he demanded.
"I saw him, I saw him!" bubbled Mr. Harte. "There's a man in the room!"
"Oh!" said Jim, running an experienced eye over his relative. "Wake up, you ass!"
He flashed his torch in Timothy's face, and Timothy came to himself with a gasp and a shudder and clutched his arm. "Oh, Jim!" he said sobbingly. "Oh, Jim! A m-man in a m-mask! Oh gosh! I swear there was s-someone in the room!"
"Rubbish! You've had a nightmare, that's all," said Jim, giving him a little shake.
"Yes, I kn-know, but—who's that?"
The rising note of terror made Miss Allison look round involuntarily, but all that met her eyes was the spectacle of Sir Adrian Harte, swathed in a brocade dressing gown and with not a hair out of place, entering the room.
Jim moved so that Timothy could see the door. "Only your father. Pull yourself together!"
Mr. Harte relaxed his taut muscles but still retained his grip on Jim's arm. "G-gosh, I thought it was the K-Killer!"
"You thought it was what?" inquired Sir Adrian, slightly taken aback.
"It's all right, sir; the little idiot started a wildcat theory that there was a Hidden Killer in the house and gave himself a nightmare. Pat, you cuckoo, you're just about as bad! The kid was only dreaming!"
"Yes, of course," said Miss Allison, who was feeling a little shaken. "Silly of me. I ought to have known. Only his eyes were wide-open, and I suppose I was half-asleep myself, and it didn't occur to me." She became aware all at once of the appearance she must present, with her head in a shingle-cap, and a kimono caught round her like an untidy shawl, and said distressfully, "Oh dear, I must look like nothing on earth!"
However, Lady Harte walked into the room just then, and in face of the appearance she presented, with her grey hair on end and a tropical mackintosh worn over a pan: of faded pyjamas, Miss Allison could not feel her own dishabille to be in any way remarkable.
"Hullo, Timothy. Had one of your bad dreams?" inquired Lady Harte.
"Oh, Mummy, I thought there was a man with a mask in the room! It was ghastly!"
"Have a drink of water," recommended his mother, stalking over to the washstand and pouring out a glass for him.
Timothy took the glass and gulped down some water.
"I suppose there isn't anyone prowling about?" said Lady Harte. "I noticed that the hall light was on as I came past the head of the stairs. You'd better go and have a look round, Jim. If I'd a gun I'd go myself; but thanks to the wretched laws of this country, mine are still in custody."
"Don't trouble," said Sir Adrian. "The light is on because I switched it on. I was downstairs looking for something to read when Timothy created all this commotion. If the excitement is now over, I propose to continue my search. Do you think a volume of sermons would be a soporific?"
"Excellent, I should say. Bring one up for your offspring, Adrian," replied Jim.
"What Timothy wants is not a book but a Dose," said Norma.
"Oh, Mother!" protested Mr. Harte.
"Bad luck!" sympathised Jim. "Not but what it serves you right for putting the wind up Patricia."
He and Miss Allison left him in his mother's expert hands and went back to their rooms. There were no further alarms during the remainder of the night, and Mr. Harte appeared at breakfast later in excellent spirits and full of strenuous plans for the day. Rosemary, who, in spite of being (she told them) a very light sleeper, had slept peacefully through the disturbance, explained this seemingly unaccountable phenomenon by describing her slumbers as a coma of utter nervous exhaustion and said that from then onwards she had been very restless, oppressed by the atmosphere of doom that hung over the house.
"That's quite enough!" interposed Lady Harte, helping herself to marmalade with a liberal hand. "We don't want any more nightmares."
Mr. Harte, inclined, in the comfortable daylight, to look upon his exploit as a very good joke, said that he hadn't had such a cracking nightmare since the occasion when Jim took him to see The Ringer. "It's because I'm interested in Crime," he said. "Old Nanny says things prey on my mind."
"When Jim took you to The Ringer," said his prosaic parent, "it wasn't Crime preying on your mind that gave you a nightmare, but lobster preying on your stomach. I remember very well when I asked Jim what he'd let you have for dinner he recited a list of all the most indigestible dishes anyone could imagine, beginning with lobster and ending with mushrooms on toast. So don't talk nonsense!"
This shattering reminiscence not unnaturally took the wind out of Mr. Harte's sails, and after a growl of: "Mother!" he relapsed into silence, and as soon as he had finished breakfast withdrew from the dining room and went in search of more congenial company.
An encounter with Superintendent Hannasyde later in the morning was almost equally dispiriting. The superintendent listened to his account of the foundering of the Seamew with an air of gravity wholly belied by a twinkle at the back of his kindly grey eyes. This did not escape Mr. Harte, and when the superintendent said solemnly that it was too bad no one believed his story, he retorted with asperity: "No, and no one believed me when I said Cousin Silas had been murdered, but I'll bet he was! And what's more, you think he was!"
"Leaving your cousin Silas out of it," said Hannasyde, "what do you want me to do about the Seamew? Salvage her?"
"No, because Jim says if she was tampered with, the strake with the hole in it would have been torn clean off. But I do think you might keep an eye on Jim. Patricia—Miss Allison, you know—believes he's in danger just as much as I do, and so does Mr. Roberts."
"Oh, I'll keep an eye on him all right," promised Hannasyde.
Timothy cast him a smouldering look of dislike and went off to find his friend the sergeant.
The sergeant soothed his injured feelings by listening to him with a proper display of interest and credulity and asked him what his theory was. Greatly heartened, Timothy took him into his confidence and propounded his theory of the Hidden Killer.
"I wouldn't wonder but what you're right," said the sergeant, shaking his head. "The Hand of Death, that's what it is. I've read about such things."
"Have you ever come across cases like that?" Timothy asked eagerly.
"Well, I haven't actually worked on one," admitted the sergeant. "Of course, they generally keep that kind of case for the Big Five."
"Say, it 'ud be a big feather in your cap if this did turn out to be a Hidden Killer, and you unmasked him, wouldn't it?"
"That's what I was thinking," said the sergeant. "But the Chief wouldn't like it if I was to drop my routine work and go hunting for Killers on my own."
"I expect there's a lot of jealousy at Scotland Yard," said Timothy darkly.
"You'd be surprised," replied Hemingway. "Awful, it is."
"Well, don't you think people ought to be watched? Couldn't you keep your eye on Pritchard, for instance? It often is the butler, and, as far as I can see, no one's even suspected him yet."
A diabolical scheme presented itself to the sergeant. He said: "That's right; but you see, we're handicapped, being policemen. What we really want is an assistant. Now, if you were to watch Pritchard, and all the rest of them, you might discover something."
"Well, I will," said Mr. Harte, his eye brightening. "Then if he does anything queer, I'll come and report to you."
"That's the ticket," said the sergeant. "You stick to him!" Later, recounting the episode to his superior, he said: "And if we don't have that butler turning homicidal it'll be a wonder."
"I call it a dirty trick," said Hannasyde.
"It is," agreed the sergeant cheerfully. "But the way I look at it is this. If it has to be me or the butler, it had better be him. What did you make of the Wreck of the Hesperus, Chief?"
"Nothing very much. It sounds most improbable. As far as I could gather, Oscar Roberts, who was the original scaremonger, made nothing of it, either."
"No, he's blotted his copybook properly, he has," grinned the sergeant. "Terrible Timothy's got it in for him all right. You didn't get anything more on Paul Mansell, I suppose?"
Hannasyde shook his head. "No. He certainly went to Brotherton Manor to play tennis, precisely as he says. He arrived at a quarter to four, the day Clement Kane was murdered, having been invited for half-past three. It all fits in quite clearly with the possibility of his having shot Clement Kane, but it doesn't make it any more than a possibility. According to his story, he lunched with a Mrs. Trent that Saturday and went on from her house to Brotherton Manor afterwards. She corroborates his story down to the last detail."
The sergeant, who knew his chief well, cocked an intelligent eye and said: "Oh, she does, does she? Pretty Paul make it worth her while to do so?"
"It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he had, but I've nothing to go on. She's a flashy blonde widow. Quite cool and collected. I couldn't catch her out."
"Ah, one of the hard-boiled Hannahs," said the sergeant, nodding. "There's just a bit of talk about her and Master Paul. Does she happen to remember what time he left her on Saturday to go to this tennis party?"
"Oh, she says he left her at five-and-twenty minutes past three. From her house in Portlaw to Brotherton Manor is just over twelve miles, by the coast road running past Cliff House. It's a good road, and not crowded. I should think he could have made the distance in twenty minutes, if he stepped on it a bit, which he says he did."
"Any servants to corroborate Mrs. Trent's valuable testimony?" inquired the sergeant.
"No. One general servant, who went off for her half-day immediately after lunch."
"Slight smell of dead rat about this story," said the sergeant; "looks to me like a put-up job. Any bright young fellow on point duty happen to remember seeing Paul's car leave the town?"
"Not a hope," replied Hannasyde. "She lives in Gerrard Avenue, and the only big crossing he had to negotiate before getting clear of the town is governed by traffic lights."
The sergeant said disgustedly: "That's what they call Progress, that is. It beats me what the world's coming to."
Hannasyde smiled a little but said, "Someone may have seen the car. Carlton is going into that."
"Not they," said the sergeant bitterly. "Or if anyone did, they won't be able to say for certain whether it was at a quarter-past three or a quarter to four. I've had some!"
"Well, it is just possible that if he's lying, and he did shoot Clement Kane, someone may have seen his car pulled up outside Cliff House. He didn't drive in the main gate, and I should think it unlikely that he drove in the tradesmen's gate. It's true there's no lodge there, but he'd hardly dare park his car inside the grounds. If he murdered Clement, I think he must have left his car in the road, entered the grounds by way of the tradesmen's gate, and reached the house under cover of the rhododendron thicket. Quite simple."
"Super," said the sergeant; "how many cars have you seen parked along the cliff road with their owners having a nice picnic inside?"
"Oh, I know, I know!" replied Hannasyde. "Any number. But Mansell's car must be well known in this district and might well have caught the attention of anyone familiar with it. It's a long shot, but sometimes our long shots come off, Skipper."
"Come unstuck, more like," said the sergeant, still in a mood of gloom. "A proper mess, that's what this case is. We don't know where it started, and if Terrible Timothy's right, we don't know where it's going to end. You don't know where to take hold of it, that's what I complain of. It's more like my missus's skein of knitting wool, after one of the kittens has had it, than a decent murder case. I mean, you get hold of one end and start following it up, and all it leads to is a damned knot worked so tight you can't do a thing with it. Then you grab hold of the other end, and start on that, and what you find is that it's a bit the kitten chewed through that just comes away in your hand, with the rest of the wool in as bad a muddle as ever. Well, I ask you, Super! Just look at it! First there's the old man. Perhaps he was murdered and perhaps he wasn't. And if he was murdered the same man did in Clement, unless it was another party altogether making hay while the sun shone. It makes my head go round. It doesn't make sense."
"Not as told by you," agreed Hannasyde. "It is a teaser, I admit. There are so many possibilities, and the worst of it is, we weren't in at the start."
"If it was the start," interposed the sergeant.
"If it was the start, as you say. I don't think we shall ever know for certain what happened to Silas Kane, though we may get at it by inference. The local police accepted Clement's story of his own movements that night, and he, on the face of it, was the likeliest suspect. But the fact of his having been murdered doesn't make it look as though he killed Silas."
"Unless the whole thing's a snowball," said the sergeant, "with each new heir doing in the last. I wouldn't put it beyond them."
"A trifle unlikely," said Hannasyde. "Try and get the case straight in your mind, Skipper. We have to consider it in several lights. First, we'll assume that both men were murdered, and by the same person, and presumably for the same motive. That rules out Dermott, Mr. Kane, Ogle, Lady Harte and Rosemary Kane. Lady Harte wasn't in England at the time of Silas Kane's death, and neither she nor Rosemary could have pushed a man over the cliff edge. They haven't the necessary strength. So we're left with James Kane and both the Mansells. Any one of the three could have committed both murders. James Kane has no alibi for the time of Silas Kane's death; Joe Mansell's depends entirely on his wife's testimony; Paul's once more on the ubiquitous Mrs. Trent, with whom he spent that evening."
"Yes, but there's a snag in all this, Super," objected the sergeant.
"There are several, because so far we're only working on assumption. We've got to look at the case from a second angle. Let us suppose that both men were murdered, but by different people and for different motives."
The sergeant moaned: "I can't get round to that."
"Most unlikely," assented Hannasyde. "But it could have happened. I'm by no means satisfied that Clement could not have motored his wife home on the night of Silas' death and himself driven back to Cliff House without her knowledge. They didn't occupy the same bedroom, remember. Clement wanted Silas' money badly, not for himself, but for his wife, with whom he seems to have been utterly infatuated. Assuming for the moment that he killed his cousin, just glance over the subsequent events. Upon his coming into the Kane fortune, Rosemary Kane, who, if gossip is to be believed at all, was on the verge of leaving him for Trevor Dermott, immediately gave Dermott the air. Well, you've seen Dermott. He's exactly the type of unbalanced man who sees red on very little provocation and behaves violently."
The sergeant stroked his chin. "It fits," he admitted. "The trouble is, all the theories fit. You can even have that one without making the old man's death out to have been murder."
"Oh, that's looking at the case from the third angle," said Hannasyde. "I haven't finished with the second yet. Having considered the combination of Clement Kane and Dermott, let's glance at the other combination. Clement remains fixed as Silas' murderer—"
"What about the Mansells?"
"Certainly not. The Mansells and James Kane must belong to the first angle—that both men were killed by the same person for the same motive. Retaining Clement, then, let's put Dermott aside. We are left with Mr. Kane, Ogle, and Lady Harte as suspects for the second murder. None of them very likely, but all of them possible. Now we'll take a look at it from the third angle, that Silas Kane met his death by accident."
"That's the worst of the lot," said the Sergeant. "It gives us the whole boiling to suspect."
"No, not quite. I think we must rule the Mansells out. If they didn't murder Silas for standing in their way over a business deal, it isn't very likely that they murdered Clement for doing so."
"Well, I suppose that's something," said the Sergeant. "All the same, it doesn't alter the stage much, does it? We've still got Jim Kane and his mother, Mrs. Kane and her maid, Rosemary Kane and her fancy boy, and, for all we know, Terrible Timothy. I make that seven."
"I refuse to consider Timothy," retorted Hannasyde. "Six."
"Don't know so much. What with these gangster films, and him being pretty well nuts on Crime, I wouldn't say it wasn't him. Still, I'll call it six."
"There may be a seventh," said Hannasyde. "But that depends on whether someone really is trying to make away with James Kane or not."
The sergeant blinked. "But that brings it round to the Mansells again, doesn't it, Chief?"
"Not quite conclusively. There's the cousin alleged to be living in Australia," said Hannasyde. "To be on the safe side, I've cabled to the police at Sydney for any information they can give us."