Hannasyde did not say anything for a moment or two but sat looking in his grave, considering way at the large young man before him. He had laid the diagram down again and was gently dropping the point of a pencil on the desk, running his fingers down the smooth sides and letting the pencil slip back again through them. "In the yard at the back of Kane and Mansell's offices," he repeated presently. "Nowhere else?"
Jim shook his head.
"I don't think I've seen the yard. Is it overlooked?"
"Yes, by the windows in the back of the house. But I ran the car under a lean-to shelter running down one side of the wall. I don't think anyone tinkering with the car under that roof would be seen from any of the upper windows, and the ground-floor ones are frosted."
"I'll go and take a look round," said Hannasyde. "Did you meet anyone in the yard?"
"No, not a soul."
"Were you expected at the office?"
"Yes, Mr. Mansell asked me to call for the purpose of talking over the general situation."
"Does that mean the question of the Australian project?"
"Largely, yes."
"Forgive what may seem to be a somewhat intrusive question; but are you going to adopt that scheme?"
"I'm not sure. I'm not in love with it, and I'm not over-fond of being jockeyed into things."
"Does it seem to you that the Mansells are pressing you unduly?"
Jim thought it over. "Difficult to say. I suppose, since they're so keen on it, it's not surprising they should want to hustle me a bit. I found Joe Mansell a trifle too persuasive for my taste. I don't think there's much doubt he'd like either to get me out of the business or to make me into a sort of sleeping partner. You can't altogether blame him. It must be darned annoying for a man of his age and experience to have me foisted onto him as head of the firm."
"I take it you don't mean to become a sleeping partner?"
"No, I don't think so. It was originally a Kane show, and somehow I don't fancy leaving it in the Mansells' hands."
"Have you said as much to them?"
"Well, hardly! I've made it pretty clear that I'm not going to be shelved."
"Have you given them any indication of what your views on the Australian scheme are?"
Jim reflected. "I haven't committed myself in any way. I did tell Paul Mansell that I knew neither my Cousin Silas nor Clement liked it. They've probably gathered that I'm not smitten with it."
"If the scheme were adopted, would you have to put up the necessary capital?"
"That seems to be the general idea. Sort of loan, to the time of about twenty thousand pounds."
"I see. Was Mr. Paul Mansell present at your interview this morning?"
"No, I didn't see him at all. I imagine he was in the building, as his car was parked in the yard, but he didn't show up."
"You had an interview with Paul Mansell at Cliff House not so many days ago, didn't you, as a result of which Mr. Oscar Roberts also called upon you for the purpose of warning you that you might be in danger?"
"Yes."
"Did you set any store by that warning? Had you any reason to think that there might be a risk in visiting the offices of Kane and Mansell?"
"Far from it. I thought I couldn't be in a safer place, even supposing they were trying to bump me off. The idea of anyone doctoring my car didn't occur to me. I don't think it occurred to Roberts either. He seemed to think I was more likely to get knocked on the head, or something equally absurd."
Hannasyde frowned. "Did he tell you so?"
"No, but he walked in in the middle of my interview with Mr. Mansell, quite obviously as a protective measure. I was rather fed up with him at the time, but, by Jove, I believe he was right!"
"Mr. Kane, from your knowledge of the Mansells, does it seem probable to you that they would murder two, if not three, people for the sake of putting through a business deal?"
"Not a bit," replied Jim promptly. "On the other hand, they undoubtedly think there's big money to be made out of the Australian deal, and you can't get away from the fact that an attempt—probably two attempts—have been made on my life. I admit it sounds pretty steep on the face of it, but you must remember that, if I'd gone down in the Seamew , or been smashed up in my car today, you'd have found it very hard to prove that I'd been murdered. As far as the Seamew 's concerned, I doubt whether you'd find any evidence, even if you went to the expense of salvaging her. If a hole was really cut in her, the force of the water must have torn the bottom off her. And if I hadn't had Miss Allison with me this morning, I should have smashed my car up so good and proper that you'd have been hard put to it to find out what caused the crash."
"I quite appreciate that, Mr. Kane. You are quite sure no one else could have access to your car?"
"No, of course I'm not. While it stood in the yard anyone could have walked in and tinkered with it. But who'd want to?"
"And at Cliff House?"
"Well, yes; but again, who'd want to?" Jim said impatiently. "Besides, the chauffeur was washing my great-aunt's car first thing this morning and didn't leave the garage until eleven. I had the car out late last night and locked the garage when I brought her in, so it can't have been done yesterday. I went down to the garage myself just after eleven this morning and found my stepfather there, so I should think that at the most the garage was empty for five minutes."
There was the slightest of pauses. "What was your stepfather doing in the garage, Mr. Kane?"
"Filling his cigarette lighter. Look here, what the devil are you getting at?" demanded Jim, half starting from his chair.
"Merely checking up on everyone who was seen near your car," replied Hannasyde mildly.
"Well, please don't check up on my stepfather!" said Jim. "The idea's quite absurd. I'm on the best of terms with him and always have been. You might as well suspect my young stepbrother."
"I don't think I suspect anyone, Mr. Kane. On the other hand, you must see that I cannot exonerate anyone on your bare word. If I am to go into this attempt on your life, which I understand you wish me to do, you must allow me to make what inquiries I think necessary. You say Sir Adrian was filling his lighter, which strikes me immediately as being a somewhat unusual thing to do. Lighters are generally filled at a tobacconist's shop."
Jim smiled. "When you know my stepfather a little better, Superintendent, you won't see anything unusual in that. It's entirely typical of him."
Hannasyde inclined his head slightly, as though accepting this statement. "And he was the only person you observed anywhere in the vicinity of the garage?"
"Yes—at least, no; my stepbrother blew in while I was there; but as he was very keen to go with me, I don't somehow think we need consider him as a possible suspect."
Hannasyde paid no heed to this rather sarcastic speech. "He was keen to go with you? You didn't take him, did you?"
"No, my stepfather told him—" Jim broke off, his eyes going swiftly to Hannasyde's face. Then he burst out laughing. "Oh, this is too farcical!"
"What did your stepfather tell him, Mr. Kane?"
"That I didn't want to be bothered by him. Which was perfectly true. Seriously, Superintendent, you must leave my stepfather out of this. Incidentally, I fail to see what his motive could possibly be."
"I take it you have never had any reason to suspect that he might be jealous of your mother's affection for you?"
"Not the slightest," said Jim emphatically.
"Very well," said Hannasyde. "I promise you I'll go into it carefully, Mr. Kane. And, if possible, refrain from insulting Sir Adrian," he added, with the glimmer of a smile.
"Thanks," said Jim, rising and shaking hands. "I'll be getting along, then."
"Not got cold feet, Mr. Kane?"
"Oh, not very! There seems to be a Providence watching over me, anyway."
Hannasyde agreed and saw him off the premises.
After that he had a short conference with Inspector Carlton and went out to meet Sergeant Hemingway for lunch.
The sergeant, who had failed to elicit anything from Mr. James Kane's old nanny but the most rigid corroboration of her mistress's story, was feeling disgruntled; but he cheered up when he heard what Hannasyde had to tell him, and pointed out that he had prophesied that no one could tell where the case was going to end. "That's one suspect less, at all events," he said briskly. "Looks like we can rule out the old lady, too, not to mention Lady Harte."
"You're going too fast for me," said Hannasyde. "I'm not ruling anyone out yet."
"What, not James Kane himself, Super?"
"I don't think so. I believe he's telling me the truth, but we can't leave out of account the possibility that he may have engineered this accident just to put us off the real scent."
"Him?" said the sergeant incredulously. "Don't you believe it, Super! He's not that sort!"
"Hemingway," said the superintendent, "you think that if a man plays first-class football and gets into the semi-final of the Amateur Golf Championship he can't be a murderer!"
The sergeant blushed but said defiantly: "Psychology!"
"Rubbish!" said Hannasyde. "However, Carlton's putting one of his young men on to keep an eye on James Kane, and I've promised to investigate the affair. I'm going to see the car and to question the garage hands immediately after lunch. I shall go on up to Cliff House. I want you to go around to Kane and Mansell's office, take a careful look at the building with respect to the yard, and see what you can get out of the personnel."
While the superintendent and Sergeant Hemingway were discussing the case over the lunch table, Mrs. Kane's Daimler was bearing Jim home in state. He arrived to find that the rest of the party had started lunch and realised, as soon as he entered the dining room, that Miss Allison had not been able to allay his relatives' suspicions. As he took his seat at the end of the table, with an apology for being late, his mother said in her most businesslike and commanding voice: "Now, Jim! Without any beating about the bush, what happened this morning?"
"To the Bentley?" said Jim, shaking out his table napkin. "The steering went, and we ended up safely but ungracefully in the ditch."
"Don't try and throw dust in my eyes, Jim!" she said. "You needn't think my nerves won't stand the truth. I've faced too many dangers in my time—"
"Nerves!" interrupted Emily fiercely. "No one talked of nerves in my young days!"
"And a very good thing too!" said Lady Harte. "I don't know what they are. Never did."
"You don't know how fortunate you are," said Rosemary with a pitying smile.
"On the contrary, I do know. Jim, I insist upon being answered!"
"Well, Mother, a nut holding one of the ball joints had worked loose, and it fell off."
"That," said Sir Adrian, helping himself to salad, "of course explains everything. Enlighten our ignorance, my dear boy."
"I don't want to hear anything about nuts and ball joints," announced Emily. "If someone's been tampering with your car, say so!"
Jim looked up to find Miss Allison's gaze inquiringly on his face. "Was it tampered with, Jim?" she asked.
"Traitress!"
"I did try to make out it was an accident, but no one believed me. If it wasn't an accident we'd all rather know."
"Of course it wasn't an accident!" declared Timothy scornfully. "And now perhaps you'll believe I did not run the Seamew on the rocks!"
"I think," said Sir Adrian in his tranquil way, "that since speculation is so rife, you had better tell us just what did happen, Jim."
"Well, sir, it seems fairly obvious the car was tampered with."
"That is very disturbing," said Sir Adrian. "If you have not already done so, you should inform the police."
"I have. That's what made me late for lunch. The superintendent's going to look into it."
"I should think so indeed!" snapped Emily. "I don't know what the world's coming to!"
"Of course, what I am waiting for," said Rosemary, "is for somebody to try and bring it round to Trevor. Or possibly even me."
No one but Emily paid any attention to this remark, and as she merely said that the least said about that Dermott the better, Rosemary was discouraged from pursuing the subject.
"I have yet to learn that I am an alarmist," said Lady Harte; "but it is quite obvious that we must take immediate steps. This is beyond a joke. Whom do the police suspect?"
"Adrian," replied Jim with a cheerful grin.
Even Emily laughed at this. Norma said: "Adrian? Good God, the police must be out of their senses! Adrian doesn't know one end of a car from the other!"
"It grieves me to think I made so ill an impression on the superintendent," said Sir Adrian, delicately dropping tarragon over his salad. "What, if any, is my motive, Jim?"
"Oh, stepfather complex, sir! Gnawing jealousy."
"Ah yes, of course!" agreed Sir Adrian. "But surely it is a little odd of me to have borne with you all these years and to choose the moment when you are about to leave my roof for ever to murder you?"
"Actually," said Rosemary, who had been listening with deep interest, "people suffering from inhibitions often behave quite irrationally."
Emily looked at her with acute dislike. "If you've nothing to say more worth listening to than that, you'd better hold your tongue," she said crushingly.
"Well, it's very funny, no doubt; but I'm not going to have such nonsensical things said of my husband!" announced Lady Harte. "It annoys me very much indeed, for no one could have been a better father to Jim than Adrian!"
"I utterly refuse to subscribe to that," said Jim. "He never came the father over me in all his life."
"Thank you, Jim," said Sir Adrian, touched.
"Something must be done!" said Norma in a martial voice. "If I had my revolver—well, anyway, this decides it! From now on you'll carry a gun, Jim."
"I haven't got a gun," replied Jim. "Besides, from the look of things, I'm to be done in by accident."
"The Killer's failed twice," said Timothy. "We've got to be prepared for absolutely anything now. I say, it's most frightfully exciting, isn't it, Jim?"
"Lovely," agreed Jim.
"The extraordinary thing is that I had an intuition from the start that it was the Mansells," said Rosemary. "I was laughed to scorn, of course, but when I get one of my premonitions—"
"I suppose there's no doubt it is one of the Mansells?" interrupted Norma, looking at her son.
Emily unexpectedly demurred at this. "Joe Mansell's a fool, and always was, but there's no harm in him that ever I saw, and I've known him for fifty years and more."
"Yes, but what about Paul?" asked Rosemary. "Do you know, I've always had a feeling about him? I can't describe it, but—"
Emily sniffed. "If you're telling me that Paul Mansell murdered my son and Clement, I don't believe a word of it. A whippersnapper like him!"
"If he didn't, Aunt, who did?" demanded Lady Harte.
"I'm sure I don't know. It seems to me people will do anything nowadays. I've no patience with it," replied Emily.
By the time the party rose from the luncheon table a great many methods of protecting Jim from his unknown enemy had been put forward and heartily condemned.
The news that a plain-clothes man had arrived, and was apparently keeping the house under observation, afforded gratification to no one but Timothy, who at once dashed out to make his acquaintance.
Emily, bristling, said that they had had enough of policemen prying about the place and upsetting the servants; Patricia agreed with Lady Harte that to send one man only to guard Jim's precious person was frivolous; and Rosemary complained that the sight of a detective "brought it all back to her." Jim, discovering that his bodyguard, a shy but very earnest young man, proposed to accompany him if he left the premises, not unnaturally decided to cancel an expedition to a ruined abbey which Miss Allison had expressed a desire to visit. When Patricia had seen Mrs. Kane comfortably bestowed on the couch in her own sitting room for her customary siesta, she went downstairs again to join Jim in the garden, the edge of her pleasure in this programme being considerably dulled by Rosemary's saying thoughtfully that it must be rather horrid to reflect that behind any bush or tree a murderer might be lurking.
When Mr. Harte exercised a simple sense of humour by stalking his stepbrother down to the lake and suddenly commanding him in gruff accents and from behind a rhododendron to "stick 'em up!" Miss Allison came to the conclusion that two chairs on the terrace would be more agreeable to her shattered nerves than wandering about all too well-wooded grounds.
Mr. Harte, roundly cursed by Jim, was quite unabashed.
"Made you jump, didn't I?" he said ghoulishly. "As a matter of fact, I'm guarding you."
"Thanks," said Jim. "Are you going to guard me the whole afternoon?"
"Well, while you're in the garden I shall. Sergeant Trotter—that's the new detective, you know—said I ought to."
"I'll have a word with Sergeant Trotter," said Jim grimly. "Come on, Pat, let's go and sit sedately on the terrace."
Mr. Harte accompanied them back to the house, chatting with his usual insouciance. Halfway across the south lawn he stopped, his blue eyes gleaming with excitement.
"Say, buddy!" he pronounced. "I got a swell idea! Only I must have some dough!" He planted himself in front of Jim and raised an eager, beseeching countenance. "Have you got any money, Jim? Because if so, could I have some, please? There's something I frightfully want to go and buy in Portlaw, and if you gave me about ten bob—or perhaps a pound, if you can spare it—I could whizz in on my bike."
"Look here, is it something devilish?" asked Jim suspiciously.
"No, no, honestly it isn't! As a matter of fact, it's actually for you, and I know you'll be pleased!"
"Oh God!" said Jim, with deep misgiving.
Mr. Harte danced with impatience. "Oh, Jim, don't be a cad!"
"Well, if you swear it isn't anything hellish, and if it really means that you'll remove yourself till teatime," began Jim, taking out his notecase.
"Oh, good of you!" exclaimed Mr. Harte, waiting to hear no more. He pocketed a pound note with fervid thanks and was about to hurry away when a thought occurred to him, and he paused. "I say, can I keep the change?" he asked anxiously.
Jim nodded.
"Say, you're a swell guy!" declared Mr. Harte in a burst of gratitude and vanished.
Jim and Patricia ensconced themselves on the terrace.
They enjoyed peace for nearly an hour, at the end of which time a stately procession issued out of the house. Emily had cut her siesta short and elected to join the rest of the party. This entailed the summoning of the footman and the chauffeur to carry her downstairs; the butler to bear her favourite chair out on to the terrace; and Ogle to bring up the rear with her rug, her shawl, and her spectacles.
By the time Emily had been settled in her chair, a table placed at her elbow, her ebony cane propped up within her reach, and her sunshade fetched for her, the party had been further augmented by the arrival of Oscar Roberts. He was ushered on to the terrace by Pritchard and after bowing to Mrs. Kane and Patricia went up to Jim and shook hands. "I met Timothy in the town," he said. "What he had to say made me feel I'd like to come right on up to see you. Are you still telling me I'm crazy?"
"I don't think I ever said that, did I?" replied Jim, pulling forward a chair, "Sit down, won't you? Cigarette?"
Roberts took one from the case held out to him and lit it. "Might I know just what happened to your car this morning, Kane? I can't say I made much of my friend Timothy's story. It sounded mighty lurid."
"Oh, it wasn't lurid at all!" replied Jim easily. "Just something put out of action in the steering. No damage done."
Roberts smiled. "Quit stalling, Kane!"
"Well, we're not saying too much about it, you know. A nut had worked loose and came off. We might have crashed badly, but we didn't."
"We?"
"Miss Allison was with me."
"Say, Miss Allison, you'd better stop riding around with this guy: it seems to be kind of dangerous!" Roberts said humorously. "If you take my advice, young man, you'll leave that car of yours in the garage till this case is cleared up."
"As she's a bit bent I shall probably have to," replied Jim. "Not that I think anyone would pull the same trick twice."
"What was the trick?"
"The nut holding one of the ball joints on the track rod was loosened. The split pin securing it was missing when we inspected the car."
Roberts interposed. "Sorry, Kane, but that doesn't mean a thing to me. What kind of a steering system is this?"
"Quite a usual one. Certain makes of car have it. I can soon show you." He produced a pencil and an envelope from his pocket and drew a rough diagram, elucidating it as he did so.
Roberts watched with knit brows, putting one or two questions as the drawing progressed. He took the envelope from Jim presently and studied it. "Guess you'd have to be familiar with the car to be able to pull this one," he remarked. "Now, this nut, you say, came off; if you knew the car, it wouldn't be a difficult job to pull that pin out and loosen the nut?"
"No. Dead easy, given a spanner and a pair of pliers."
"Could it have been done in a few minutes, do you suppose?"
"I should think so."
Roberts gave back the envelope. "Well, that certainly is interesting," he said. "Looks like you're up against something, Kane. Can't help blaming myself for this one. I ought to have thought of your car standing in that yard just crying out to be tampered with."
Emily, who had been listening to him with ill-concealed impatience, said crossly: "I don't know why, I'm sure. You're not a detective, are you?"
Roberts turned courteously towards her. "Mrs. Kane, when a man sees murder rife under his very nose, he's apt to take notice of it."
"Scotland Yard has the matter in hand," said Emily in her stiffest voice.
Roberts smiled a little. "Sure they have. I expect when it comes to solving problems they're swell. Maybe they're not quite so clever at preventing crime."
At this moment Sir Adrian came out on to the terrace with Superintendent Hannasyde. Jim said at once: "My God, sir, has it come to this?"
"No, not yet," replied Sir Adrian calmly. "I am still a free man. The superintendent wishes to have a word with Mrs. Kane."
Emily felt no particular animosity towards Superintendent Hannasyde, who had at their first meeting handled her with consummate tact; but her inevitable reaction towards anyone requiring anything of her was of hostility. She looked him up and down and said: "I don't know what he thinks I can tell him."
Patricia got up. "I expect you'd like to speak to Mrs. Kane alone, Superintendent."
"Sit down!" said Emily sharply. "I've no secrets. If I knew anything I should have told it in the first place. Well, what do you want?"
Hannasyde took the chair Jim had thrust forward.
"I take it that you have been informed of the accident to your great-nephew's car, Mrs. Kane?"
"Yes, I have," said Emily; "and I'll thank you to see that nothing of the sort happens again! I don't know what the police think they're for."
"I'll do my best," promised Hannasyde. "I think you may be able to help me." He glanced fleetingly round the assembled company. "Do you wish me to speak frankly, or would you like to see me alone?"
"No, I shouldn't," replied Emily.
"Then I'm going to be very frank indeed," said Hannasyde. "I have seen the foreman of Lamb's Garage, and I have seen Mr. Kane's car. I am satisfied that the accident did not occur naturally. It remains for me to discover who tampered with the car. Sir Adrian will, I hope, forgive me if I say that his presence in the garage this morning makes it necessary for me to consider the possibility of his being the guilty person."
"Stuff and nonsense!" interrupted Emily with a snort.
"A thought occurs to me," said Sir Adrian, disposing himself in a deck chair. "Had I a motive for murdering Clement Kane?"
Hannasyde's eyes twinkled appreciatively. "I have not yet discovered it, sir."
"Murder begets murder," said Jim. "You didn't murder Clement, Adrian. His murder just put the idea of murdering me into your head."
Sir Adrian wrinkled his brow. "I never take my ideas at second hand," he complained.
"Waiving you for the moment, sir," interposed Hannasyde, "I am apparently left with only two suspects."
"Joe Mansell wouldn't murder anyone, if that's what you mean," said Emily. "I don't know anything about his son, and I don't want to."
"We'll waive him too," said Hannasyde. "There is one other person who would benefit by Mr. Kane's death, and that is his heir."
Emily stared at him. "Maud? Rubbish, she's in Australia!"
"Are you sure of that, Mrs. Kane?"
"I had a letter from her, posted in Sydney. I don't know what more you want."
"May I see that letter?"
For a moment it seemed as though Emily would refuse; then she turned towards Miss Allison and commanded her to fetch it from the davenport in her sitting room.
Patricia got up and went into the house. Hannasyde said: "When did you last see your great-niece, Mrs. Kane?"
"When she was a child." replied Emily. "I don't know when. I never took any stock in that Australian lot."
"Then it is safe to assume that you would not recognise her today?"
"I've no idea. She was a plain child. I remember they dressed her very unsuitably. Just like them! If they had a penny to bless themselves with it went on grand clothes and trips to England. They never got any encouragement from me."
"Do you know anything of the man she married, Mrs. Kane?"
"Never saw him in my life. She used to write cadging letters to my son. Of course, we guessed that was at her husband's instigation. He was no good at all."
"You never even saw a photograph of him?"
"I never saw one, and if I had, I shouldn't have been interested. If you want to know anything about him, you'd better ask Mr. Roberts. He comes from Australia."
Oscar Roberts had been listening with a slight frown in his cold, intelligent eyes. He said slowly: "I'm an Australian sure enough; but I don't know Sydney very well. What is the man's name, Mrs. Kane?"
"Leighton," she replied. "That's what my great-niece signs herself, anyway."
"Leighton?" His frown grew. "The only Leighton I ever knew I met in a bar at Melbourne, and, as far as I know, he wasn't a married man."
From the recesses of her memory Emily unexpectedly brought a new fact to light. "That's nothing. He left her years ago, I remember her mother—she was an empty little ninny, always whining about something or other—wrote to my son about it. I don't know what she thought he could do about it. Of course, he did nothing at all. Maud was fool enough to take the man back again, but it didn't last. It wouldn't surprise me to hear of him posing as a bachelor in Melbourne, or wherever you say you met him. I've no doubt if he had sixpence in his pocket he wouldn't trouble his head over Maud."
"They are not divorced?" Hannasyde asked.
"If they are I never heard of it. Maud had no pride at all. Just like her mother."
Hannasyde turned to Oscar Roberts. "How well were you acquainted with the man you met in Melbourne?"
"Not so well. If he was the Leighton you want he certainly wasn't on the up-and-up when I knew him. He was picking up a living doing odd jobs for any firm that would use him. Chicken feed! The trouble with him was drink. Are you figuring he might be at the bottom of this racket, Superintendent?"
"He or his wife. Possibly both."
"That's ingenious," Roberts admitted. "That certainly is ingenious; but I can't get around to it fitting the hobo I knew."
"Would you know that man again if you saw him?"
"Sure I'd know him, unless he was wearing a wig, or something. Say, you've got me thinking, Superintendent. But there's a couple of snags I can see."
"Yes, Mr. Roberts?"
"Well, the first is that, assuming the Leighton I knew is the Leighton you're after, I doubt whether he'd ever have got himself sobered up enough to tackle a job like this. Maybe we're not talking of the same man. Let it go. The second snag is the number of murders. It's too steep, Superintendent. The man who'd set out to commit no less than three murders so that his wife could inherit a fortune sure must be a mastermind! You can take it from me, all that amount of nerve don't fit my Leighton, and from what Mrs. Kane's been telling us about the guy her great-niece married, it don't fit him either. Why, the man who could plan deviltry on a scale as grand as that must have brains enough to make a fortune for himself!"
"It doesn't always follow that a clever man chooses an honest way to make a fortune, Mr. Roberts. I admit the improbability of his planning three murders, and I believe that if he is at the bottom of this case he didn't plan three. It is far more likely that, in common with Mr. Kane, he took it for granted that his wife stood next in succession to Mr. Clement Kane."
Roberts regarded him with a faint smile. "You've got it fixed in your mind Mr. Silas Kane and Mr. Clement were murdered by the same man, haven't you, Superintendent? Does it ever strike you there's a queer difference in the methods employed?"
"In my profession, Mr. Roberts, we guard against getting fixed ideas. I have as yet no proof that Mr. Silas Kane was murdered."
"Guess he was murdered, all right; but whether you'll ever know by whom is another matter. I've a hunch that the man who pushed him off that cliff edge is dead himself now." He glanced at Jim. "A while back, Kane, you said something that was maybe sounder than you knew. You said: 'Murder begets murder.' I believe in this case it did."
"You take a great interest in this case, Mr. Roberts?" said Hannasyde.
"Yes, Superintendent. It's a dandy little problem."
"Have you had much experience of crime?"
Roberts regarded him with his head slightly on one side. "Now, why do you ask me that?"
"You seem to look upon it almost from a professional standpoint."
"You're trying to flatter me, Superintendent. I've been—interested in crime for a good many years; but I don't aspire to your standards. But in my experience a murderer has only one trick in his repertoire. In this case you have one man killed so neatly you'll never prove it was murder; and another killed so blatantly there's no possibility it could have been anything but murder. Unless I'm mistaken, the two methods indicate two very different types of minds. One's subtle; one ain't."
"Aren't you rather leaving out of account the attempt upon Mr. Kane's life? Doesn't it fall into the same category as Mr. Silas Kane's murder?"
"Why, no, I think not, Superintendent. The accident to the Seamew and the accident to the car were tricks that could easily go wrong, and did go wrong. They look to me like a plain guy trying to be clever. Mr. Silas Kane's murderer thought of a plan where there was no room for mistake. You have to hand it to him."
"If you don't mind, sir, I think we've had about enough of this conversation," interposed Jim. "It isn't very pleasant for my great-aunt."
Roberts turned at once with a swift apology on his lips, but Emily said fiercely: "I've supposed all along that my son was murdered. Not that the police would ever prove it. The Mansells! They didn't do it! Who stood to gain by his death?" She gave a short laugh and folded her hands closer in her lap. Patricia, coming out onto the terrace through the drawing-room window, thought that for a moment she looked almost terrible, a little stout old lady with a rigid back, and eyes like blue ice.
There was a constrained silence. "It can't be proved, Aunt, and—after all, Clement's dead," said Jim uncomfortably.
Her tight mouth relaxed slightly. "Yes. He's dead," she answered.
Hannasyde, watching her, said bluntly: "Do you seriously believe that he killed your son, Mrs. Kane?"
Her stare abolished him; she replied in her curtest, most expressionless voice: "What I believe is my own concern. It won't help you. You'll never prove anything."