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."
"Yes, that's good psychology, Super," conceded the sergeant. "What are we going to do? Drag the lake?"
"If all else fails. But neither James Kane nor Mrs. Kane could have disposed of the revolver as far from the house as that, let alone the certainty of their being seen by Dermott and Mrs. Clement Kane, who were there. I think it must be concealed in, or near, the house."
"That bank of rhododendrons? Terrible Timothy searched there, and so I did myself."
"No, I thought of that; but I don't believe we shall find it there. If the murderer hid it there he must surely have buried it, for we were bound to search that bank. I don't see him doing that. It would have taken time, he might have been seen from the house, and at any moment one of the gardeners might have passed by. If he got rid of the gun on the premises he must have done it quickly. Now, isn't there a big rain tub standing not ten feet from the study window?"
The sergeant blinked at him. "There is, of course, but are you suggesting that anyone would have the almighty brass to drop the gun in there where it might be discovered any minute, Super? Why, he'd have to be crazy! The very fact of the tub being so handy would be enough to put him off!"
"Perhaps he banked on us thinking that," said Hannasyde with a slight smile.
The sergeant scratched his chin. "I'm bound to say it's about the last place I'd look for the gun. As a matter of fact, I've never banked much on finding it there at all."
"Nor I. Which is where I think we may have been wrong. We'll go and investigate that tub."
But when the sergeant was confronted with the big green rain tub standing so blatantly against the wall of the house, he shook his head and said: "He wouldn't have had the nerve."
"Whoever committed this crime had plenty of nerve," replied Hannasyde grimly. "See if you can find a long stick."
The sergeant said: "That's easy," and moved towards a round bed of roses beyond the edge of the shrubbery and calmly uprooted the stake that supported one of the standard trees. Hannasyde took it from him, and, mounting the brick platform on which the tub stood, lifted the wooden lid, and lowered the stick into the dark water, probing and stirring. The sergeant watched him with interest but without hope.
"There is something lying on the bottom!" Hannasyde said. "I've just moved it." He withdrew the stake, threw it aside, and stepped down from the ledge of bricks. "Turn that spigot, Sergeant! I want the tub emptied."
"That'll make us popular with the head gardener," murmured the sergeant, but he turned the spigot and stood back while the water splashed down onto the gravel path, forming first a pond and then a river.
It was not the head gardener who took exception to the gathering flood, but Ogle, bouncing out upon the two detectives from the garden hall. "You turn that tap off this instant!" she commanded angrily. "The idea of it, making all this mess! You've got no right to come here ruining the flower-beds and making the place not fit to go near! What do you want with that tub? Who gave you leave to touch it, I should like to know?"
Hannasyde paid no attention, leaving the task of getting rid of her to his subordinate, who accomplished it in record time. She darted back into the house, promising to tell Mr. James what damage was being done to his property, and in a few moments came back with him at her heels. "There, sir!" she said. "Tell them to stop it this instant! The mistress wouldn't allow it, not for one moment! The impudence of it!"
"All right, Ogle! You trot along," said Jim. He looked from the lake at his feet to the superintendent and said, as Ogle withdrew reluctantly into the house: "I say, must you? You're not exactly improving this bit of garden. What's the great idea?"
"I shouldn't do it if I didn't think it necessary, Mr. Kane," said Hannasyde rather curtly. "It won't do any serious damage to the garden, I assure you. The tub's only half-full."
"Thanks very much," said Jim, his jaw hardening a little. "And now perhaps you'll explain just what you're up to?"
"Certainly," said Hannasyde, looking at him under his brows. "I am pursuing an investigation. Have you any objection?"
"I have," said Jim. "I object most strongly to having any part of my property damaged without my permission being first obtained."
"I beg your pardon," said Hannasyde instantly. "Have I your permission to empty this tub?"
For a moment Jim's smiling eyes held no hint of a smile but, instead, a distinctly grim expression. Then his excellent temper reasserted itself and he gave a laugh and said: "Carry on!"
"Thank you," said Hannasyde, watching the dwindling flow of water from the spigot.
Jim lit a cigarette and stood half in, half out of the garden hall, leaning his big shoulders against the doorframe. "As an example of simple faith, this performance must be pretty well unrivalled," he remarked.
Hannasyde glanced up. "Yes? And why, Mr. Kane?"
"Don't be silly," said Jim. "Do you suppose I haven't grasped what you're up to? You're quite obviously hunting for the fatal weapon. Of course it would be concealed in a rain tub bang on the scene of the crime."
"We shall see," said Hannasyde. "Give me a hand, will you, Sergeant?"
The sergeant, secretly in sympathy with Mr. James Kane's evident scepticism, stepped into the flood and assisted his superior to lower the heavy tub off its platform onto the ground and to tilt it onto its side. A little muddy water trickled out of it, and, as they tilted it still farther, something was heard to slide inside it, grating on the wood.
"Right up!" Hannasyde said.
The sergeant got his hands under the bottom of the tub and gave it a hoist. A Colt .38 revolver clattered down the side of the tub and fell into the pool of water with a splash.
"Well, I'll be damned!" said Jim, staring.
"Sometimes, Mr. Kane, the obvious place is the right place," said Hannasyde calmly and bent to pick up the gun.
It was at this somewhat inopportune moment that Mr. Harte came wandering round the corner of the house, his whole bearing proclaiming the fact that he was bored and did not know what to do with himself.
At sight of the two detectives the cloud left his brow, and he pranced up to them, full of zeal and curiosity. "Hullo, Sarge! What are you doing?" he demanded. "Golly, what a mess! I say! What have you found?"
The sergeant, who had been staring at the gun in Hannasyde's hand as one bemused, recollected himself with a start and said: "Look here, sonny, you trot off and tell yourself an anecdote! We're busy."
"You've found the gat!" cried Mr. Harte. "Gosh! I say, what's that weird thing on the end of the barrel?"
Hannasyde raised his eyes from the revolver and glanced thoughtfully at Mr. Harte's eager countenance.
The sergeant was trying to edge him away, but Mr. Harte had no intention of leaving. "All right, Hemingway," said Hannasyde quietly. "It doesn't matter."
The sergeant sent him a quick, puzzled look but stopped trying to get rid of Mr. Harte.
Jim, frowning at the revolver, said: "I don't understand. Isn't that thing a silencer?"
"It is," replied Hannasyde.
"But then, that can't be the gun you're looking for," Jim objected. "It made the hell of a noise! They heard it in the hall."
"Very odd, isn't it?" said Hannasyde unemotionally.
He slid the gun into his pocket and turned towards the house. His intent, questing gaze fell on the little brick platform built for the tub to stand on; he stepped up to it and bent, closely scrutinising it. He picked something up very carefully. "Now I'm beginning to understand," he said.
The three others craned forward to see what lay in the palm of his hand. "That's a bit of burnt-out fuse!" Jim exclaimed.
"My Lord!" muttered the sergeant and went down on his knees by the platform. "Here's another bit, Chief. That seems to be the lot."
"About eighteen inches of it," said Hannasyde, measuring the fragments with his eye. "Say three minutes' burning time." He glanced up at the pipe which fed the rain tub. "It must have slipped down behind the tub from—" He paused and raised a hand to one of the brackets clamping the pipe to the wall, feeling it carefully "—from this bracket," he concluded, bringing his hand away with another tiny fragment of the mottled fuse in it. "There should be a detonator," He looked down at Mr. Harte and said with a faint smile: "If you want to be useful, see if you can find it."
"You bet your life!" said Mr. Harte fervently and proceeded without any more ado to create havoc amongst the antirrhinums planted thickly in the bed along the wall of the house.
The sergeant, his eyes fixed on Hannasyde's face in an expression of shocked inquiry, opened his mouth to speak, encountered a steady look from Hannasyde, and thought better of it. He joined Timothy in the search for the detonator. It was Timothy who presently let out a squeak of triumph and held up between an earth-stained finger and thumb a brass object like a cartridge which had been pinched at the open end. "Look, is this it?"
"That's it," said Hannasyde, taking it from him.
Jim was still looking bewildered. "How did it work?" he asked.
"Quite simply," Hannasyde replied. "One end of the fuse was inserted at this end. Then the sides of the cap were very carefully pinched together so that they gripped the fuse. Do you see? It was then hung over that bracket, and the other end split and set light to. Standard fuse, which it is safe to assume this is, being white, burns at the rate of six inches a minute, and I should judge that we've found just about eighteen inches of it. What you and the others heard, Mr. Kane, was not the shot that killed your cousin, but the detonator going off."
"Good God, then that accounts for my not seeing a sign of anyone when I looked out!" Jim said. "My cousin was shot some minutes earlier?" Hannasyde nodded. "Yes, but I still don't quite get it. I gather that it lets me out, but—"
"What do you suppose can have been the reason for setting the fuse, Mr. Kane?"
"Alibi!" gasped Mr. Harte, executing a slight war dance. "Whoopee!"
"Alibi," repeated Jim. "Yes, of course. Sorry to be so dense. But—"
"Oh, Jim, you ass!" said Timothy. "You couldn't have done it, because you didn't get yourself an alibi! Golly, I do think this is fun!"
"I've grasped that," said Jim. "But what I don't immediately perceive is, which of us did benefit by this contraption. Neither of the Mansells established an alibi, nor did Dermott, nor did—in fact, none of us did except Miss Allison, I suppose, and you can't seriously suspect—"
Mr. Harte drew a shuddering breath and fixed the sergeant with a glittering and accusing gaze. "I told you so!" he said. "I told you you ought to keep an eye on him!"
"Keep an eye on who?" demanded the sergeant.
"Pritchard, of course! It's obvious!"
"Pritchard?" said Jim. "My good lad, what on earth should he have to do with it? He's only been employed here since old Barker died last year, so he had no expectations of a legacy. Besides—"
Mr. Harte danced with impatience. "The Hidden Killer! He knew when Cousin Silas went out that night, and of course he followed him! And then he fixed up this affair to give himself an alibi for doing Cousin Clement in, and nobody ever bothered to find out where he was before he went to answer the front-door bell, because it looked as though he couldn't possibly have done it!"
"But why?" said Jim.
"Cousin Maud's husband!" hissed Mr. Harte.
"Get out!" said Jim scornfully.
"I bet you I'm right! I bet you Mr. Roberts will think there's something in it, even if you don't. Because the only thing that put him off Pritchard's scent was his being in the hall when they heard the shot. It's no use you making that face! It's perfectly true! I talked to Mr. Roberts about it when you first started wondering about this Leighton bloke, and he said it had occurred to him, quite early on, only it led nowhere, because Pritchard had a cast-iron alibi."
Hannasyde, who had been listening to him with an unmoved countenance, said: "You mustn't mention this to Pritchard, you know, or to any of the servants."
"Rather not! Of course I wouldn't breathe a word to them! I can tell Mr. Roberts, can't I?"
"Oh yes, you can tell him if you want to," replied Hannasyde, "Help me to put the tub back, will you, Sergeant?"
Jim said, his brows knit: "Do you think he ought to say anything about this to anyone at all, Superintendent? It's not my affair, I know, but—"
"It doesn't matter what he tells Mr. Roberts," replied Hannasyde. "It mustn't come to the butler's ears, though. But he understands that. All right, Hemingway, that's all."
"Are you going back to Portlaw?" inquired Timothy, seeing the two detectives preparing to depart. "Because if you are, I'll come with you as far as Victoria Place."
"All right," said Hannasyde, glancing at his wristwatch. "But we must hurry if we want to catch the ten forty-five bus."
"Look here, just a minute!" said Jim. "What are you going to do about this? I mean, it's all very well for you to waltz off in this airy fashion, but I happen to be rather vitally concerned in the case!"
"I hadn't forgotten that," said Hannasyde. "I am going to the police station to put through a number of urgent inquiries to Scotland Yard. I may be in a position to tell you the result of those inquiries by this evening, or possibly some time tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm afraid you'll have to possess your soul in patience."
"And what about my precious life?" asked Jim.
"Sergeant Trotter will be answerable for that," replied Hannasyde with the glimmer of a smile. "I don't think it is in immediate danger."
He and Sergeant Hemingway, with Mr. Harte between them, walked off at a brisk pace down the avenue and arrived at the lodge gates just in time to catch the omnibus into Portlaw. The omnibus being empty, Mr. Harte was able to beguile the tedium of the journey by speculating on the case and trying to coax information out of his two companions. At Victoria Place, in Portlaw, he left them, promising to conduct himself with the utmost circumspection.
No sooner had he alighted from the omnibus than the sergeant drew a deep breath and said: "Well, I never thought I'd live to see this day, that's certain!"
"Pleasant surprise for you," said Hannasyde.
"Super, what's come over you? If anyone had told me you'd go pursuing investigations with a couple of people looking on and, what's more, explain it all to them on top of it, I'd have laughed in their face!"
"Would you?" said Hannasyde, not paying much heed to him.
"I would," said the sergeant emphatically. "You told me not to get rid of Terrible Timothy, and I didn't. But what's your game?"
"Think it out," replied Hannasyde.
The sergeant made a sound suspiciously like a snort. "What do we do now?" he asked.
"Telephone to the Yard first, and get them to put through an inquiry to Colt's, in America. We must know where this gun was bought."
"Well, I'm not surprised young James Kane wonders what you're up to," said the sergeant.
James Kane, however, assuming that Superintendent Hannasyde knew his own business best, did not waste much time in idle speculation. He decided to say nothing either to his fiancйe or to his relatives about the discovery of the gun, a resolve that he was soon forced to break, Ogle having informed her mistress of the ravages done to the garden, and Emily, as soon as she came downstairs, dressed for her morning drive, demanded to be told instantly what such conduct meant.
As she chose to address Jim in the presence of Miss Allison and Lady Harte, both of whom immediately joined with her in wanting to know the truth, Jim thought it best to disclose the bare fact of Hannasyde's having found the gun in the rain tub.
When Timothy came in an hour later, the first person he encountered was his mother, and he straightway poured the whole story into her ears. By lunchtime everyone but the servants was in possession of all the facts, and Miss Allison, knowing the strength of the bond between Mrs. Kane and Ogle, had little doubt that it would not be long before the news spread to the servants' hall.
"I told you Mr. Roberts would listen to me!" Timothy said triumphantly.
"Well, I think it's the most crackbrained idea I ever heard," replied Jim. "I can quite easily imagine Roberts lapping it up, because he's been full of crackbrained ideas from the start, but I did not expect the superintendent to run amok over it. What's he up to now? Do you know?"
"No, but I know Mr. Roberts has gone to the police station to see him, because as soon as I told him about the silencer and the fuse, he said it put an entirely new complexion on the affair, and he'd have to go and see the superintendent at once. So I came home. Gosh, I do wonder what's happening, don't you? Do you suppose they'll come and arrest Pritchard?"
"No, I don't, and for God's sake be careful what you say! We shall find ourselves had up for libel, or something, if Pritchard hears this sort of chat going on."
As the day wore on without news from Hannasyde Timothy found it increasingly hard to bear the suspense with anything approaching equanimity. He wandered about the house and grounds, propounding theories to anyone whom he encountered, until, in desperation, Jim bore him off to the nearest golf course and gave him an hour's coaching in approach shots. When they returned it was time to change for dinner. During the meal Pritchard's presence precluded any mention being made of the affair, but when the party assembled in the drawing room for coffee afterwards, it was not Timothy only who evinced a strong desire to discuss the subject ad nauseam . So persistent were the comments and surmises made that Sir Adrian, aloof from the discussion behind the evening paper, presently lowered it to say in a bored voice that, since the matter seemed to have become such an obsession with the family, he personally would feel extremely grateful to Hannasyde for solving the mystery.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Pritchard entered the room to inform Jim that Superintendent Hannasyde had called and would like to see him.
Jim got up but was checked by an indignant outcry from his mother, his stepbrother, and his fiancйe.
Emily Kane, immovable in the winged armchair by the fireplace, said: "If he wants to see you he can see you here. I've no patience with all this hole-and-corner business." She nodded at Pritchard. "Show him in!"
A couple of minutes later Pritchard ushered Hannasyde into the room. To Mr. Harte's chagrin the superintendent made no effort even to detain him. As the door closed softly behind him, Mr. Harte, unable to contain himself, blurted out: "I say, aren't you going to arrest him after all?"
For the first time during their dealings with Superintendent Hannasyde the family heard him laugh. "No, I'm afraid I'm not," he answered. "I'm sorry to have to disappoint you about that."
"Didn't he do it?" asked Timothy, greatly cast down.
Hannasyde shook his head. Jim said: "Won't you sit down? Is the case still in the air, or have you cleared it up?"
"I haven't finished with it yet, but there's so little doubt that it will be cleared up that I came to set your mind at rest, Mr. Kane. You're no longer in danger of being murdered."
"Was he ever in danger?" said Lady Harte, laying down her Patience cards and removing the horn-rimmed spectacles from her nose.
"Yes, I think almost certainly."
"You didn't think so at the time."
"You will have to forgive me, Lady Harte, if I—reserved judgment. I did give him a bodyguard, you know," said Hannasyde, recognising the signs of tigress-in-defence-of-her-young.
Emily thumped her ebony stick on the floor. "That's enough beating about the bush!" she said sharply. "Do you know who murdered my son?"
"I have no proof that your son was murdered, Mrs. Kane. I know who murdered your great-nephew, Clement Kane."
"Who?" demanded Timothy. "Did Mr. Roberts put you onto him?"
Hannasyde looked at him rather gravely. "Not quite in the way you mean."
Sir Adrian, rising from his chair, wandered across the room to take a cigarette from a box on one of the tables. "Ah, so it was Roberts himself, was it?" he said, mildly interested.
Hannasyde nodded. A stunned silence reigned for perhaps half a minute. Timothy had gone white and was staring at Hannasyde with his lips very firmly set.
Sir Adrian offered the cigarette box to Hannasyde. "Edwin Leighton?" he inquired.
"Yes," replied Hannasyde. "I don't think there's much room for doubt about that. We can't identify him for certain until we get his fingerprints from Melbourne, of course; but they'll be through almost any day now."
"Roberts?" Jim ejaculated. "But that's fantastic! Are you seriously suggesting that it was he who cut the hole in the Seamew and loosened the nut on my car?"
"Yes, I think so," said Hannasyde.
"But, good Lord, Superintendent, it was he who first warned me my life might be in danger!"
"Clever, wasn't it?" agreed Hannasyde.
Lady Harte got up from the card table and came to sit down in a chair opposite Hannasyde. "I insist upon being told the whole story!" she announced. "I freely admit I never suspected the man. How long have you known it?"
"I've had my suspicions ever since I first considered the Leightons as possible factors in the case, Lady Harte. I wasn't sure till this morning, when we found the gun with the silencer fitted to it and the length of fuse. That seemed to me to be fairly conclusive. I've been busy all the rest of the day collecting proof that the gun did belong to him."
"Tall order, that," said Lady Harte professionally. "A Colt .38, wasn't it? Did you manage to trace it?"
"Yes, we did, after a good deal of trouble. Scotland Yard got an answer from the States at 5 P.M. The American police cabled that the makers had sold that gun to their agents in Melbourne. The Yard then put through a radiogram to Australia. I've just heard the result. The gun was supplied to a retail shop in Melbourne and was bought by a man calling himself Oscar Roberts six months ago."
"Really, I call that marvellous!" said Lady Harte. "Here we are at 10.30 P.M., and since ten-thirty this morning you've been in touch not only with America but with Australia as well. When one considers the difference in time it seems hardly possible!"
"Well, you see, our cable reached the Melbourne police in the small hours, and they probably got the information we wanted as early as they could. As soon as the business houses were open, in fact. There was obviously no difficulty in tracing the gun, for Scotland Yard received the answer by radiogram just on ten o'clock. They rang me up at once, and I caught the ten-fifteen bus out here."
"Yes, very good of you," interrupted Jim; "but never mind about what the Australian police did! You say you've established the fact that the gun belonged to Roberts, and that settles that. He must have shot Clement, and I suppose he must be Edwin Leighton. But I can hardly believe it, all the same. It was he who started every scare we've had. While the rest of us thought my cousin Silas had missed his footing in the fog, he went about hinting that he'd met with foul play. He warned me to be careful—"
"He warned you to be careful," said Hannasyde; "but if you think back, you'll find that he never pretended to know anything until others were beginning to suspect it. The instant he realised that some, at least, of you felt that Mr. Silas Kane's death had not been investigated enough, he gave you to understand that he had thought so all along. When your motorboat sank and you, in company with everyone else, were convinced that your stepbrother had run her on the rocks, did he tell you he thought the boat had been tampered with?"
"No, he jolly well did not!" growled Timothy.
"No, not then," said Jim. "But when I told him that Timothy and Miss Allison had got the wind up about it—"
"He said that he had suspected it from the start," interjected Hannasyde.
"Well, yes," admitted Jim. "He did."
"Of course. It was quite safe once the idea of foul play had entered your head. He tried to make you—and incidentally me—think that Mr. Paul Mansell was the villain of the piece. He played his part very well indeed, but he slipped up yesterday. Up till that moment I had regarded him in the light of a somewhat tiresome amateur detective—we meet a good many, you know. But that slip of his made me sit up and take a certain amount of notice. You will remember that I came to call on you, Mrs. Kane, to find out what you could tell me about the Leightons?"
"Yes," said Emily. "Not that I knew anything about them."
"Roberts was present," continued Hannasyde. "My question must have jolted him badly, for he made a mistake. He hinted, very broadly, that Mr. Clement Kane had murdered his cousin and went to some trouble to demonstrate how unlikely it was that two such dissimilar murders should have been committed by the same man. Until that moment he had insinuated that Paul Mansell was responsible for both deaths."
"Quite true," agreed Sir Adrian. "One is led to suppose that he had not anticipated that you would look farther than the Mansells or—er—me, perhaps."
Hannasyde acknowledged this thrust with a twinkle, but Lady Harte said stringently: "I've had enough of that nonsense, Adrian! This whole case astounds me! I'm not squeamish: I've knocked about the world too much to be easily upset; but the idea of a man deliberately setting out to dispose of three people so that his wife would inherit a fortune absolutely appals me!"
Rosemary, who had till then been too much surprised to say a word, now made a contribution to the discussion. "I can believe anything of that man!" she said intensely. "I've had the most extraordinary feeling about him from the moment I set eyes on him. I didn't like to say anything about it, but my instinct is hardly ever at fault."
"So you've said before," replied Emily. "Don't interrupt!" She looked at Hannasyde. "I dare say he thought Maud was Clement's heir, eh?"
"Very probably," agreed Hannasyde. "I, too, find it difficult to believe that at the outset he contemplated the murders of three people. Two he might have got away with; the third, though inevitable once the first two had been committed, made the whole position very dangerous. He was gambling for a big stake; having gone so far, he couldn't think of giving up. So instead of being able to withdraw from the scene and to be next heard of as Edwin Leighton in Sydney, he was forced to remain here until he had succeeded in disposing of Mr. James Kane."
"Extremely hazardous," said Sir Adrian. "I suppose, had his wife indeed succeeded Clement Kane, he would have continued to be an errant husband until she was safely in possession of the fortune."
"I imagine so. Of course, we don't know whether she was aware of his plot. I hardly think she can have been; but from what Mrs. Kane told me, I gathered that once he elected to return to her she would do exactly as he told her."
"I dare say," said Emily scornfully.
Jim walked over to a side table, whereon Pritchard had set a tray earlier in the evening, and began to pour out drinks. "This has absolutely got me down," he confessed. "Of all the diabolical schemes!— He must have calculated to the last second the time it would take him to reach the front door from the study window. He even made an appointment to see Clement at three-thirty that afternoon. I suppose partly as a blind, partly to make it fairly certain that Clement would be in his study. If he hadn't been there, no doubt the murder would have been postponed. He must be a complete devil."
"No, not entirely," said Lady Harte. "He did rescue Timothy. I can't forget that."
"It's beastly!" said Mr. Harte violently. "He—he pretended to be trying to guard Jim, when all the time he was waiting to do him in! I think—I think it's the limit! I don't care if he did rescue me! I'd rather not have been rescued by him, and I jolly well hope you catch him!"
"Oh, we've done that," said Hannasyde. "You helped a lot, you know."
"Did I?" said Mr. Harte. "I say, you're not pulling my leg, are you?"
"No, you really did help. When I found the revolver this morning I was sure Roberts was the man I was after, but I wasn't sure that the department would succeed in tracing the gun. You told him I'd found the gun and the fuse, and that I knew the noise you all heard hadn't been caused by the shot that killed Mr. Clement Kane. Once I'd discovered the fuse the game was up, and he knew it. You led him to think that I suspected Pritchard; he saw his one chance of making a getaway and seized it. As soon as he'd got rid of you he shaved off his beard and moustache and caught the eleven-thirty train to town. Sergeant Hemingway was shadowing him, and he was taken into custody at three this afternoon—detained for inquiries."
Mr. Harte looked a little dubious. "Well, I don't see that I did much," he said candidly. "I mean, I never knew I was doing anything."
"Never mind," said Hannasyde. "You made him run, and that was what I wanted him to do." He accepted the glass Jim Kane was holding out to him. "Thank you."
Lady Harte got up and shook him vigorously by the hand. "Well, really, I think we owe you a debt of gratitude, Superintendent!" she said. "You've cleared the whole thing up most satisfactorily. I for one am extremely grateful to you."
This sentiment was echoed by Jim and Miss Allison.
Sir Adrian, sipping his whisky, said: "I congratulate you, Superintendent. An astonishingly difficult case."
Hannasyde looked a trifle embarrassed and made haste to disclaim any extraordinary astuteness.
"Nonsense!" said Lady Harte briskly. "You've done a very fine piece of work, hasn't he, Aunt Emily?"
Emily, who was feeling tired, said: "I dare say he's been very clever; but I'm not at all surprised. I never did like that Roberts." She gave her shawl a twitch and added with a certain grim satisfaction: "I always said those Australian Kanes were an encroaching lot."