Clement Kane, very gently laying the receiver down, sat for a minute or two without moving. To Miss Allison he had uttered conventional exclamations of surprise and distress, but when their brief conversation was ended, neither surprise nor distress was discernible in his face. It was singularly expressionless. He sat looking at the telephone and presently drew a long, slow breath. He got up and felt in his pocket for his cigarette case, selected and lit a cigarette, and walked across the room to put the dead match tidily in an ashtray. He stood smoking for several minutes, then he stubbed out the cigarette, gave his cuffs a twitch, and walked upstairs to his wife's room.
Rosemary always breakfasted in bed. She said that she knew she was quite unbearable in the morning, and as she saw no possibility of improving, it was really more sensible to segregate herself in her own room. Clement found her with the remains of her breakfast thrust on one side and a large box of carnations lying across her knees. He did not permit himself to look at these for more than a second; he knew who must have sent them, but it would be beneath his dignity, besides provoking a nerve storm in Rosemary, to request her not to encourage Mr. Trevor Dermott's advances.
Rosemary cradled the carnations in her arms; two pale-pink blooms brushed her cheek; she said: "Lovely, lovely things! Isn't it funny how some people can't understand that flowers are quite literally a necessity to anyone like me?"
"If they're such a necessity to you, I can only say that I'm surprised you don't pay a little attention to the garden," said Clement in a peevish voice.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I've told you often and often that it's just no use expecting me to do things like that. I'm not that sort. I wasn't brought up to it."
He saw the sullen look descend on her face and said quickly: "I know: I wasn't blaming you. I didn't come up to talk about anything like that. Miss Allison has just been on the telephone. Really, it is so unexpected and—and shocking that I am almost unable to realise it. Silas is dead."
She let the flowers fall, ejaculating: "What?"
"Yes—yes! A dreadful accident. Death must have been instantaneous, I understand. He took his usual walk last night in the fog—there was a considerable fog, wasn't there? You remember we were obliged to drive very slowly on account of it? Well, as I was saying, in the fog he must have lost the path just where it winds close to the cliff edge and gone over. It doesn't bear thinking of, does it?"
She fixed him with a wide, glowing stare. "Dead? Cousin Silas actually dead? Clement, I can't believe it!"
"No, it doesn't seem possible, does it? I am very much distressed to think that such a thing should have happened."
"Yes, of course," she agreed. "But I do believe in being absolutely honest with oneself, and you must see, Clement, that it'll make the most tremendous difference to us. It's almost as though there's a Providence that steps in when one's almost desperate. Like that thing Mummy took up last year. Right Thought, or something, where you simply fix your mind on what you want and utterly believe it'll come to you, and it does, as long as you don't do anything about it."
Clement felt doubtful whether the exponents of whatever this odd creed might be would relish Rosemary's description of it. Nor did he feel that fixing one's mind upon the death of a relative could really be called Right Thought. He ventured to say so, but quite mildly, and added that, though he quite understood what Rosemary meant, he thought she should be careful of what she said. One would not like to seem callous.
She brushed this aside impatiently. "My dear Clement, I know I have a lot of faults, but at least I'm honest. I can't pretend to be sorry Cousin Silas is dead, because I'm not. Perhaps I am callous. Sometimes I think there is something inside me which is quite, quite cold. Not that I've any reason to mourn for Cousin Silas. I didn't like him, and he never understood me. I suppose you'll be the head of the firm now, won't you?"
"Well—I believe—that is to say, I know—that I shall have the biggest holding in the business. I really haven't considered it yet."
"And Cliff House?" she pursued. "That's yours, too, isn't it?"
"Yes," he said reluctantly. "I suppose it is."
She sank back against her pillows, clasping her hands across her eyes, her head a little thrown back. "No more poky, hateful houses!" she said. "No more of this foul housekeeping! Do you know, Clement, I do honestly believe the sordidness of it all was killing the Essential Me?"
His gaze dwelled on the lovely line of her lifted jaw.
He said: "That's all I ever wanted wealth for: to give you the things that will make you happy, Rosemary."
She murmured: "Darling, you're terribly, terribly sweet to me!"
He bent over her, crushing the carnations, and kissed her throat, and her chin, and her parted lips.
"You're so beautiful!" he said huskily. "You ought to have all the things you want. Thank God I shall be able to give them to you at last!"
"Darling!" sighed Rosemary, gently disengaging herself from his grasp.
He went away to the office, uplifted as he had not been for many weeks, thinking of his inheritance in terms of pearls for Rosemary, furs for Rosemary, huge expensive cars for Rosemary.
The news of Silas' death was before him. In the outer office faces composed in decent grief met him; the head clerk, speaking in hushed tones, begged on behalf of the staff to offer condolences. He went immediately to Joseph Mansell's room and found him there with his son Paul and the tall lean man with the goatee beard who was Oscar Roberts.
All three were deep in discussion, but the talk was broken off as he entered the room. Joe Mansell rose ponderously from his chair and came forward, saying: "I'm glad you felt able to come to the office, Clement. This is a terrible business! Poor old Silas! And only yesterday we were all at Cliff House to celebrate his sixtieth birthday! I know how you must feel it. I was only saying to Roberts just now that Silas was almost like a father to you. Poor fellow, poor fellow! It was that heart of his, I suppose?"
"I don't know," Clement replied. "I only heard over the telephone, and I didn't ask for details. Really, I was so shocked I could scarcely take in the bare fact of Silas' death."
"No wonder, no wonder! When I heard of it I could not believe my ears. Bowled over! It doesn't do to think of the years I've known Silas. Right from the cradle. He will be a great loss to the firm."
Paul Mansell, who had been contemplating his well-manicured hands with smiling complacency, looked up and murmured his agreement with this sentiment.
The fourth member of the party, observing father and son with a distinct twinkle of amusement in his deep-sunken eyes, said in a slightly nasal drawl: "Well, I guess talking won't mend matters. I'd like to offer my sincere condolences, Mr. Kane. Maybe the old man and I didn't see eye to eye, but I sure did respect him. It seems out of place for me to be here to talk business today, but time presses, and I have to consider the interests of the firm I represent."
Joe heaved a gusty sigh. "Yes, yes, I'm sure we all appreciate your viewpoint. Silas would be the last person to want us to neglect the business, eh, Clement? Dear me, it will seem strange not to have him at the head of affairs!"
"Strange and melancholy," said Paul, gazing at the top of the window frame. "Yes indeed. Well, we shall look to you now, Clement, to fill his place. Ably, I am sure, you'll do it. We've often said, between ourselves, how like you were to Silas. You have his hard head, without his—how shall I put it?—conservatism! Poor Silas! He was getting old, you know. I've thought several times his years were telling on him. Losing grip—just losing grip a little."
Clement's harassed look deepened. He said in his quick, worried way: "I haven't had time to look to the future yet. I shall have to consider my position, of course; but at present I haven't thought about it."
"No wonder," said Joe sympathetically. "I'm sure we all understand how you must be feeling. But, as I said to Paul, you'll be the first to appreciate Roberts' position. In actual fact, I believe I'm right in saying that we are all three of us agreed on the subject?" He paused, but Clement stood frowning down at the floor and said nothing. Joe glanced momentarily towards his son and resumed with a rather false air of heartiness: "Well, well, we've talked it over so often that we needn't go into it again now. As you know, Roberts came down from town last night to get Silas' final answer. Naturally things will have to remain in abeyance until after probate, but I fancy we shall have no difficulty in coming to an agreement on the future policy of the firm and can give our friend here his answer now. What do you say, Clement?"
There was a short silence. Clement was thinking of what the upkeep and the probable refurnishing of Cliff House would cost him; of death duties and the super-tax he would have to pay; of the pearls Rosemary must have. Silas had been right: this Australian project was a chancy business. It meant locking up a lot of capital without any certainty of an adequate return.
Easy enough for the Mansells to talk so lightly about it. They wouldn't be risking anything. He looked up and said: "Really, I don't think I am in a position to say anything definite at the moment. I shall have to look into things carefully. The whole situation has altered. I don't feel I ought to commit myself rashly before I see just how I stand. I'm sure Mr. Roberts will understand that it is quite impossible for me to give him an answer today."
Oscar Roberts replied before Joe Mansell could speak: "Why, surely, Mr. Kane! I reckon it wouldn't be reasonable to expect you to decide anything at a moment's notice like this."
"Exactly! This has come upon me so unexpectedly that really I hardly know what is happening. I only came to the office to inform you of Silas' death, Joe, in case you shouldn't have heard about it. I'm going up to Cliff House immediately to see my great-aunt and to make the—er—the necessary arrangements." He glanced at his wrist watch. "Yes, I see I'm late already. I have to pick my wife up on the way. I shall have to ask you to excuse me."
He hurried away. Oscar Roberts sat still, with his long legs crossed, a faint, imperturbable smile on his lips. Paul Mansell said with an unpleasant ring in his voice: "So that's how it's going to be, is it?"
Joe had been standing rather foolishly gazing at the door through which Clement had gone, but he turned as his son spoke and said robustly: "Nonsense, my boy, nonsense! It's very natural he should feel all at sea just at first. Mr. Roberts quite understands that."
"Sure," said Roberts amiably. "I don't want to hurry him unreasonably. You know my position, Mr. Mansell. I want the best I can get for my firm, and you make the best. If I can fix things with you I'll be glad to do so; if I can't—well, I'll have to negotiate with the next-best."
"Quite, quite!" Joe said. "We fully appreciate your position, and I think I may say—yes, I am sure I may say—that we shall be able to give you a definite answer at no very distant date."
On this note of optimism they parted. No sooner had Oscar Roberts left the room than Paul said furiously: "The damned skunk! I suppose you see what's going to happen now he's got his hands on the moneybags?"
"We mustn't leap to conclusions," Joe said. "He hasn't had time to find his feet yet, that's all it is."
"Oh, that's all it is, is it?" Paul said. "Just hasn't found his feet! Well, if you ask me, he is finding them a dam' sight too quickly! When I think that we've got rid of that old fool Silas only to find Master Clement—"
"Paul, my boy! Paul!" Joe interrupted, losing a little of his high colour, "You're talking very wildly—very wildly indeed!"
"Yes, and I feel wild!" his son threw back at him. "Like a fool I thought that if once Silas was out of the way we could see our way clear. Now we've got a—"
Joe brought his open hand down upon the desk between them. "Hold your tongue!" He saw Paul staring at him and said in a milder voice: "It's very tiresome; but I don't despair of Clement by any means. He'll come round. Why, he's been in favour of the scheme all along! But this—this tragic business of Silas' death— My dear boy, you can't be too careful what you say. Anyone hearing you might well wonder—"
"Whether I had anything to do with Silas' death?" Paul said, looking him in the eye.
Joe made a gesture with one hand. "Of course, it would be a preposterous idea; but we don't want to give people the least cause to suspect that we did want him dead. And when you talk of having believed that once he was out of the way—well, it's injudicious, my boy, extremely injudicious!"
Paul lit a cigarette and flicked the match into the grate. "Naturally I only meant that we've heard so much about Silas' weak heart that I couldn't help envisaging the possibility of his death."
"Naturally, naturally!" Joe agreed. "But though the very notion is absurd, one has to be careful. There's bound to be an inquiry, and one doesn't want the least hint of suspicion—not that any sane person could possibly imagine for a moment—"
"Well," said Paul blandly, "if the police suspect foul play, I fancy they'll be more interested in Clement's movements last night than in mine." He paused and inhaled a deep breath of smoke. "What makes you think there was foul play, Dad?"
Joe started. "I? Good God, I don't think it! Nothing of the sort! Nobody could think such a thing! Nobody who knew Silas!"
He was wrong. Mr. Timothy Harte, having spent an awe-inspiring hour watching the proceedings of the police, inspecting the scene of the accident, and cross-examining Pritchard and Ogle, told Miss Allison that he was now quite sure that Silas had been bumped off.
Miss Allison took instant exception to this vulgar and unfeeling expression and said that he was talking nonsense.
He looked her over with a sapient eye. "You can say it's nonsense if you like, but, all the same, I bet you think it was murder."
"I do not!" said Patricia emphatically. "I think it's all absolutely horrible, and that you're making it worse by trying to turn it into a cheap thriller." She walked away from him, up the stairs to Mrs. Kane's rooms, conscious of a faint wish that Mr. James Kane was present to quell his stepbrother.
She was a young woman not easily shaken out of her calm, but the events of this fateful day were, she suspected, a trifle on her nerves. Policemen and ambulances, official questions, servants whispering together, and a general atmosphere of surmise and suspicion were not conducive to a calm frame of mind. Nor was relief to be found in Mrs. Kane's presence.
Emily was in her own sitting room, motionless in a straight-backed armchair, staring before her with blank, cold eyes, her shrunken mouth compressed, as though guarding secrets. Miss Allison knew herself to be overwrought when an odd fancy seized her that there was something ruthless about her employer.
Emily brought her gaze slowly to bear upon Miss Allison's face. "Well?" she said. "So they've taken him away?"
"Yes," replied Patricia.
"Nice scandal!" Emily said. "Inquests! Post-mortems! My husband would turn in his grave!"
"It's very unpleasant," agreed Patricia. "But it's only a matter of form."
Emily looked at her queerly. "It is, is it?"
Coming immediately after Timothy's sinister pronouncements, this grim utterance made Patricia feel uncomfortable. She met Emily's look and said after a moment: "What do you mean, Mrs. Kane? What are you thinking?"
"I?" said Emily sharply. "I don't think anything. All I know is that my son is dead. What I think won't bring him to life again. Yes, what is it?"
Ogle, in the doorway, brought the news of Mr. And Mrs. Clement Kane's arrival. Emily gave a short laugh and said: "Show them up." To Patricia she added brusquely: "You needn't go. In fact, you're to stay."
In a few minutes Ogle ushered the Clement Kanes into the room. Rosemary was wearing a blue linen frock, but Clement had found time to procure a black armband. Emily observed this immediately and said: "I'd like to know what you've got to mourn about!"
This was not a very promising start to the interview.
Clement replied that to wear an armband was usual, a mark of respect. He tried to make a speech of condolence but was interrupted before he had uttered half-a-dozen words. "Never mind that!" Emily said. "I don't want your sympathy. I don't want anyone's sympathy, if it comes to that."
"I think I should feel like that too," remarked Rosemary critically.
"You?" said Emily. "You'd spend a twelvemonth telling everyone what your emotions were. I know you!"
Rosemary took this in very good part, merely saying with a certain amount of interest, "I wonder if I should? Do you think I analyse myself too much? With my type that's always a danger, of course."
Miss Allison felt that Rosemary came off the best from this encounter. Emily could only glare at her, folding her lips more tightly than ever.
Clement, always ill at ease in his great-aunt's presence, began to speak of future plans. Miss Allison guessed, when he said that he knew Emily would not wish to be alone in the house, that Rosemary had made up her mind to move into Cliff House immediately.
She dreaded an explosion from Emily, but Emily heard Clement out in unencouraging silence. Watching her, Miss Allison felt that behind the mask of age Emily's brain was working hard. There was something rather terrible about this stout, alert old lady who sat so still and looked so bleakly out of eyes that were arctic-blue and expressionless.
"Of course," Clement was saying, "we only wish to do what will be most agreeable to you: that goes without saying. But naturally I know how much supervision an estate entails, and it seemed to me—that is to say, I wondered—whether you might not prefer us not to wait for probate—which, you know, may take some time—but to come and stay with you as soon as possible."
Under his great-aunt's unwinking stare his voice dwindled and finally ceased. Rosemary took up the thread, saying: "It seems rather silly not to move in now, don't you think? Particularly as the people who have bought our house want possession as soon as possible."
"I suppose," said Emily, "that one of your maids has given notice."
"Both," replied Rosemary with complete candour. "Cook gave notice yesterday, because she says she can't get on with the kitchener, and this morning that devil of a house-parlour-maid said she was going, too, because cook's leaving made her feel unsettled. I mean, I simply can't face it."
"You can move in here when you like," said Emily.
Miss Allison, seated by the window, looked up from her needlework in momentary surprise, then bent her head again over the embroidery.
"Darling, how angel of you!" said Rosemary. "You've simply saved my life!"
"Very kind—very kind indeed!" Clement said, looking at the floor. "I need hardly say that we look upon this house as yours, Aunt Emily."
"Oh, utterly!" agreed Rosemary. "I loathe having to look after a house, and I haven't the least intention of interfering with anything here—except, of course, quite small details, like having my own rooms redecorated, which I absolutely must have done. I'm one of those people who are ridiculously sensitive to colour, and I know that if I had to have a blue sitting room, for instance, it would get on my nerves to such an extent that I should probably go mad. But as for ordering meals, or telling the servants what to do, I should be quite, quite hopeless. I shall beg and implore Patricia to carry on just as usual."
Miss Allison smiled but said nothing. Emily, having listened to this speech with an expression of contempt on her face, turned her eyes towards Clement and addressed him abruptly: "I've invited Jim to stay next week. If you don't like it you'll have to lump it."
"My dear aunt!" protested Clement. "You have every right to invite whom you please, and as for my not liking to have Jim here, good heavens, I shall be extremely pleased to see him!"
"I'll tell him," said Emily sardonically. She moved her hands in her lap. "There's another thing. What you do with the business is no concern of mine; but if you mean to take up with that plausible American I'll have you know that your cousin was set against it. I dare say you and those Mansells think yourselves very clever, but there's not one of you has the head my son had!"
Clement reddened and replied with some annoyance: "Really, Aunt, it is quite unnecessary for you to tell me that. I spoke to Silas about it last night, and I may say that upon reflection I fully agree with his view of the matter. Not that Roberts is an American. He has lived for some years in the States, but he is of English birth."
"That's neither here nor there," said Emily. "He dined here last week, and I didn't take to him. What's more, he talks like an American. That's enough for me."
Clement permitted himself to smile rather superciliously and to give the faintest shrug of the shoulders before changing the subject. He told his great-aunt that she must prepare her mind for the unpleasantness of an inquest, to which she replied that she was not born yesterday.
By the time the Clement Kanes took their departure Clement at least had won Miss Allison's sympathy. It seemed to her that he was behaving towards Emily with patience and considerable restraint. Indeed, so unresentful of snubs did he show himself to be that Patricia ventured to ask Emily, when he had gone, what she found to dislike in him.
"He's a fool," Emily said harshly. "A weak fool! and that wife of his!" Her fingers worked on the silk of her gown. "A nice pair to succeed my son! A nice pair for me to live with for the rest of my days!" A faint colour crept into her cheeks. Between their puckered lids her eyes stared straight ahead. "I wanted Jim," she said, more to herself than to Patricia. "It ought to be his, all of it! Clement! He's only half a man!"
Patricia said nothing. The note of hatred in Emily's voice was inexplicable and rather shocking.
"And his father," said Emily, with concentrated venom, "was just such another! I've always hated 'em—the whole pack of them! Jim's the only one worth tuppence." She pulled the shawl more tightly about her shoulders and said: "I won't see anyone else. If any of those Mansells call, you can send them about their business."
Both Agatha Mansell and her daughter called during the course of the day, but although Agatha insisted upon seeing Patricia, she accepted without comment the message that Mrs. Kane felt unable to receive visitors.
Betty Pemble, however, assured Miss Allison that she quite understood and gave into her charge an untidy posy of mixed flowers, the touching offering of her children, who (according to her account) had thought of it quite by themselves upon being told the sad news of Uncle Silas' death.
"I just told them that dear Uncle Silas has gone away on a long journey," she said. "They're such mites, you know, and I've never let them hear about Death or have ugly toys or stories about ogres and things. I mean, I do frightfully believe in keeping their little minds free from everything but happy, beautiful things, don't you?"
"A waste of time," pronounced Agatha. "Children are singularly heartless creatures."
Not from conviction, but with the object of preventing Mrs. Pemble from entering upon an involved argument in support of her offspring's sensibilities, Miss Allison made haste to take the flowers and to agree that all ugly things should be kept from the young.
Betty, who had hitherto believed Miss Allison to be hard and "what-I-call-unsympathetic" was pleased and told her earnestly that when one of his Pemble aunts had sent Peter a golliwogg for Christmas she had instantly taken it away from him and given him instead a sweet little woolly lamb.
"Yes," said Agatha magisterially, "and had I been his mother I should have given him a good spanking for screaming from sheer temper as he did. I well remember the occasion. Not that I see what a golliwogg has to do with Silas Kane's death."
She turned to Patricia and desired her to recount the precise circumstances of the accident. She did not appear to believe that Patricia was unable to gratify her curiosity, for she continued to question her long after Patricia had confessed almost entire ignorance. Her manner was so majestic and her voice so overpoweringly cultured that Patricia found herself apologising for knowing so little. It did not occur to her until that masterful presence was withdrawn that Agatha Mansell, who despised gossip and considered accidental deaths sensational and therefore vulgar, had been oddly anxious to possess herself of all the facts of the case.
Two more callers visited Cliff House to leave cards and sympathetic messages. One was Paul Mansell, who contrived to waylay Miss Allison in the garden and to pay her unseasonable addresses; the other was Oscar Roberts, who said naively that, having enjoyed the old lady's hospitality, he wanted to do the civil thing.
Mr. Harte, having looked Paul Mansell over with the mercilessly critical eyes of the youthful male, informed Miss Allison dispassionately that he seemed to be a pretty good tick. Oscar Roberts, however, whom he encountered in the drive, instantly won his approbation.
Unlike Emily, Mr. Harte had no prejudice against Americans. America for him was an Eldorado populated in its wilder regions by venal sheriffs and heroic cowboys; and in its towns by bootleggers, gangsters, kidnappers and G men. That another side to American life might exist he was happily unaware, so that when Oscar Roberts addressed him in the accents of his favourite film star he believed that he stood in the presence of one who might at any moment produce a gun from somewhere about his person and accorded him a reverent admiration that was strong enough to enable him to pardon Mr. Roberts for having committed the awful solecism of hailing him as "son."
They fell easily into conversation, Oscar Roberts being apparently amused by so much obvious admiration and having the tact neither to disclaim American citizenship nor to correct Timothy's ideas of American life. A polite reference to Silas Kane's death opened the floodgates of Timothy's confidence. He reiterated his belief that Silas had been bumped off, and although Mr. Roberts looked rather startled for a moment, he did not make any snubbing remarks but, on the contrary, listened to Timothy's various theories with perfect gravity and even allowed himself to be led off to inspect the scene of the accident. Appealed to, he agreed that no doubt some evil-minded person might have pushed Silas off the cliff.
"Well, don't you think that's probably what did happen, sir?" said Timothy, bent on acquiring an ally.
Oscar Roberts stroked his pointed beard and suggested mildly that the possible murderer must have taken a big chance on Silas' choosing to walk along the cliff that night.
"No, because everyone knew that Uncle Silas took a walk along here every night!" said Timothy, triumphantly disposing of this objection.
"Is that so?" said Roberts. "Kind of a habit with him, maybe?"
"Yes, because of not being able to sleep."
"Well," replied Roberts, shaking his head, "I'll say that certainly looks as though you might be right, son."
Timothy looked up at him with glistening eyes and in a burst of gratitude invited him to come back to the house for tea.
Oscar Roberts declined the invitation, but on the way to the drive across the gardens they encountered Miss Allison, who had come out in search of Timothy, and Timothy immediately begged her to add her persuasion to his. Oscar Roberts, however, intervened before she could speak and countered with an invitation to Timothy to accompany him back to Portlaw for tea at his hotel.
Patricia could not but feel grateful to anyone who offered to relieve her of Mr. Harte's company on this very trying day, as Timothy seemed anxious to go with his new friend she gave permission, only qualifying it by insisting on his first washing his hands and brushing his hair.
He went off to do this, leaving her to stroll towards the drive with Roberts. She said: "It's really most awfully kind of you. Are you sure he won't be a nuisance?"
He replied with his slow smile: "Why, no, Miss Allison. I've got a kind of fondness for kids of his age. I'm at a loose end just now, and I'll be mighty glad of his company." His smile grew. "Guess he hopes I'm one of those gunmen he sees in the movies."
She laughed but said with some misgiving: "He's a dreadfully bloodthirsty child. I do hope he hasn't favoured you with his 'theories' about Mr. Kane's death? I've done all I can to squash him, but without much success."
"I shouldn't worry," he answered. "Kids just naturally get those ideas."
She felt impelled to say: "Of course, there's nothing in it. It was an accident. I don't want you to get a false impression from Timothy."
He looked down at her with a twinkle in his eyes. "Any impression I get won't come from Timothy, Miss Allison," he said deliberately.