She gave him a curt "How-de-do?" and immediately turned again to Sir Adrian and requested him to tell her what his wife was doing, gallivanting about Africa at her age.
"I really don"t know," replied Sir Adrian.
"Then you ought to know!" said Emily tartly.
He smiled but merely said that he never presumed to question Norma"s activities.
This was the kind of remark which Emily found baffling. In her opinion men ought to question their wives" activities. She would have said as much to most people but had just enough respect for Sir Adrian to refrain. She said instead: "She"ll get eaten by cannibals one of these days."
"Oh, I don"t think so!" replied Sir Adrian with easy optimism. "She"s very capable, you know.
An amazing woman! I find myself quite unable to keep pace with her extraordinary vitality." His glance wandered to Timothy"s face, and from his to Jim"s. "I fancy neither of her sons has inherited her forceful character."
"A good thing too!" said Emily. "What do you mean to do with that boy of yours?"
Sir Adrian looked rather alarmed. "Do with him?" he repeated.
"Yes," said Emily, impatiently. "What are you going to put him into?"
"Oh-ah! Well, it is rather too soon to think about that. He seems to me singularly ill suited to any profession which I can at the moment call to mind."
Emily gave one of her croaks of laughter and said after a moment: "I suppose you know the police suspect Jim?"
"I imagine they would be very likely to do so," he replied, gently polishing his eyegla.s.s. "A lot of nonsense! I"ve no patience with it."
Sir Adrian got up to take his cup to Miss Allison and, as Oscar Roberts began to talk to Emily, remained standing by the tea table, sipping his tea and exchanging a few commonplaces with Patricia. He presently drifted away to a vacant chair beside Betty Pemble"s, who at once engaged him in conversation. Her children, having finished their tea, had gone off in search of their new friend the gardener, so that Betty was able to give her undivided attention to Sir Adrian.
She thought him a most distinguished-looking man and was only too glad to be given the opportunity of telling him how much she felt for the family, and how she wished there was something she could do to help. Sir Adrian replied courteously but in a rather bored voice, and when Betty said that she expected he felt as though Jim were his own son, he said: "Dear me, no! Not in the least," with a good deal of mild surprise. He might have added that he had little or no parental feeling for Timothy, either; but happily for Betty"s opinion of him, he was not in the habit of talking about himself, and so did not. He had, however, said enough to make Betty confide later to her husband that, charming though he was, she could not help feeling that there was something rather sinister about Sir Adrian.
Miss Allison did not find him sinister, but he seemed to her unapproachable. It was quite impossible to discover whether one were making a good or a bad impression upon him, for his manner was the same towards everyone. She could fancy that one saw him through a mist, which he had carefully wrapped round himself, and behind which he dwelt, blissfully aloof.
He seemed to take more interest in the whereabouts of old John Kane"s stamp collection than in Clement"s murder, and when Jim, in the privacy of his own bedroom, recounted his interview with Roberts to him, he said with a faint look of distaste: "Rather lurid, don"t you think?"
"Yes, I do," replied Jim "Lurid and absurd. But you can"t get away from the fact that, whether because they disliked the Australian scheme or for some other reason, Cousin Silas and Clement are both dead."
"Are you feeling nervous, Jim?"
"No, not exactly nervous. I"m not sitting about by open windows much."
"Well, I see no harm in that, if you feel there might be danger in it," said Sir Adrian. "But I find that my mind is quite unable to accept the possibility of a third murder taking place while the police are investigating the first and the second."
"Highly improbable," agreed Jim. His eyes narrowed at the corners in a rueful smile. "If you"re apparently the third victim, it"s surprising how much improbability you can swallow."
"Yes, I have no doubt it obscures your judgment," said Sir Adrian.
Jim laughed. "If ever I get badly rattled, I shall come and hold your hand, Adrian. You"re the most tranquillising person I know. With you about the place, even the first two murders seem a bit farfetched. If you stay long enough, we shall begin to doubt whether they ever really happened. I"m sure you never had any murders in your family, did you?"
"No, we have always contrived to keep out of the penny press," replied Sir Adrian, looking through his stud box for a pair of cuff links.
Jim shook his head. "You must loathe being mixed up with a vulgar lot like us," he said solemnly.
"Don"t be absurd, my dear boy."
Jim strolled towards the door. "I"ll go and change. Oh, Adrian, can you bear it? I"ve gone into Trade-at least, it looks as though I probably shall."
"I can bear it; but I doubt whether your mother will like it. She will think it very unenterprising of you."
"Oh, Mother will want me to finance an expedition to the North Pole, I expect," grinned Jim.
"You are quite wrong. Unless my memory is at fault, your mother wishes to make Central China her next objective," said Sir Adrian, busy with his tie.
Later that evening Miss Allison, finding herself alone with him for a few moments, broached the same subject to him. "Mr. Roberts told me he had warned Jim to take no risks," she said. "Do you think it possible that the Mansells could-could really contemplate murder just to get their own way over this business deal?"
"No, I do not," replied Sir Adrian. "It is, of course, a temptation to believe an ill-conditioned young man like the younger Mansell to be capable of almost any crime, but one should guard against allowing mere prejudice to colour one"s judgment."
"I have told myself that," said Miss Allison. "I expect I"m being stupidly anxious; but you see, it means rather a lot to me. When you care for a person your reason gets rather swamped."
"I hope you are not implying that I am the callous stepfather of legend?" said Sir Adrian, looking quizzically down at her.
She smiled. "Of course not. But he"s not like your own son, or-or your fiance, is he?"
"Certainly not in the least like my fiance. And, I am happy to say, not much like my own son either. Though I have no doubt that Timothy will improve as he grows older."
"You are an unnatural parent, Sir Adrian."
"I am afraid I must be."
"And you don"t think that any danger threatens Jim?"
"Extremely unlikely, I should imagine. From what I have heard of it-but I am lamentably ignorant on such matters-it does not seem to me that the proposed expansion of the business in Australia is of sufficient moment to provide a motive for three murders. There is, however, another possibility that occurs to me."
"Yes? Please tell me what it is!"
"No, I don"t think I will do that," he replied. "It is a mere supposition which a very little investigation may easily disprove. I will have a talk with the superintendent from Scotland Yard tomorrow. That reminds me: I must request the butler to ring up the police station the first thing in the morning."
"If you"ll give me the message I"ll pa.s.s it on to Pritchard, Sir Adrian. That"s part of my job, you know."
"That would be very kind of you. If you would tell the butler to inform the station sergeant that I should be obliged if Superintendent-I do not know his name, but perhaps you can supply that-would call at Cliff House some time during the course of the day, I should be most grateful."
She could not help laughing. "I will, of course; but when I think how terrified most of us are of these grim policemen, it seems positively asking for trouble calmly to summon them here!"
"Oh no, I hardly think so!" he replied gently.
"Well, anyway, it"s a superb gesture," she said. "The rest of us, if we wanted to see the superintendent, would probably crawl humbly down to the police station and beg an audience."
He looked rather surprised. Miss Allison confided later to Jim Kane that intercourse with his stepfather made her feel that Clement"s murder and her own fears were social solecisms.
"Oh, he thinks they are!" said Jim. "The whole thing is in very bad taste."
"Are you fond of him, Jim?"
"Very."
"Does he like you?"
"I think so. Why?"
"I only wondered. He seems such a withdrawn person. Still, it was nice of him to come down.
What do you suppose he wants to see the superintendent for?"
"I haven"t a notion. However, I"m all for it. He definitely adds tone to the proceedings.
Obviously no member of his entourage would be vulgar enough to commit a murder."
"If the superintendent has a grain of sense, it won"t be necessary for him to see your stepfather to realise that you couldn"t possibly have done it," said Miss Allison stoutly.
Whatever the superintendent felt about it, Sergeant Hemingway quite agreed with her. "You"ve got to take psychology into account, Chief," he said. "To my way of thinking, a nice young fellow like James Kane doesn"t waltz about murdering his relations."
"I agree; but there"s also the question of motive to be taken into account. He had more than anyone else."
"Too much," said the sergeant briskly. "He"s what I might call dripping with motive. I"ve a strong idea, myself, that what we want to look for is something a bit more recherche. This isn"t one of your clumsy, hit-you-in-the-eye murders. It"s got cla.s.s. Who"s this Sir Adrian What"s-his-name that wants to see you?"
"Your young friend"s father, I imagine."
"What, Terrible Timothy? You don"t say! Well, if he"s half the turn his son is, you ought to have a lively morning of it, Super."
Superintendent Hannasyde, however, was unable to detect much resemblance between Timothy and his father.
He went up to Cliff House shortly after eleven o"clock and encountered Timothy in the porch.
He bade him a pleasant good morning but received a gloomy, though civil response. "You don"t look very cheerful," he remarked. "I hope you haven"t mislaid a clue?"
Timothy acknowledged this poor jest with a perfunctory smile and replied with cold dignity that no one could be expected to look cheerful with people simply being rottenly selfish the whole time.
"No, it certainly must be very difficult for you," agreed Hannasyde.
"It isn"t that I care two hoots, because actually I don"t particularly want to go out in any rotten motorboat," said Timothy bitterly. "Only, considering I asked first, I think it"s pretty mean of Jim to take Patricia, that"s all."
Superintendent Hannasyde, who had a mind trained to grapple with elusive problems, was able fairly accurately to guess the cause of Mr. Harte"s discontent. He replied suitably; but said that in his opinion jaunts upon the sea for one engaged in solving a mystery would be a waste of time. "Is your stepbrother out now, then?" he inquired.
"Yes, and I should jolly well laugh if Patricia was seasick!" said Mr. Harte. "I shouldn"t be a bit surprised if she was, either."
Pritchard came to the door in answer to the superintendent"s ring at this moment, so Hannasyde parted from Mr. Harte, docketing in his brain the fact that Mr. James Kane, possible murderer, was apparently feeling carefree enough to disport himself in a motorboat with his fiancee.
Sir Adrian Harte received the superintendent in the library. He screwed his monocle into his eye, favoured Hannasyde with one of his calm, aloof glances, and said, "Ah, good morning, Superintendent! Sit down, won"t you?"
Hannasyde took a chair. "Good morning, sir. You are Mr. James Kane"s stepfather, I understand? You wanted to see me?"
"I did, yes." Sir Adrian sat down, hitching his beautifully pressed trousers carefully at the knee.
"There is an aspect to this extremely unpleasant affair which I should like to discuss with you. I did not know if you are aware of it, but a gentleman of the name of Roberts has seen fit to warn my stepson that he may shortly figure in this case as the third victim."
"No, I didn"t know that, sir," Hannasyde replied, not taking his eyes from Sir Adrian"s face.
"So I had supposed. What Mr. Roberts" reason is for uttering this somewhat dramatic warning I am unable to tell you. But it seems to me highly undesirable that any unnecessary mystery should attach to the case."
"Highly undesirable," corroborated Hannasyde with emphasis. "Did Mr. Roberts tell Mr. Kane whom he suspected of wanting to murder him?"
"I gather that he threw out a hint-ah, a sufficiently broad hint, Superintendent!-that the Mansells would not allow my stepson to stand in the way of their schemes."
Hannasyde"s brows drew together. "I take it you refer to the Australian scheme, sir? Did Mr.
Roberts utter this warning by way of threat?"
"Far from it. According to my stepson, he seemed genuinely disturbed to think that he might have been the unwitting cause of the two other deaths."
Hannasyde said slowly: "Yes, he said as much to me. I think it a trifle farfetched, sir."
"I agree with you. But a point occurred to me which might perhaps be investigated with advantage. I am not familiar with the exact terms of Matthew Kane"s will, but no doubt you have gone into it." He paused, took his monocle out of his eye, polished it, and replaced it. "In the event of my stepson"s death, Superintendent, who inherits his share of the business?"
Hannasyde nodded, as though he had expected this question. "Mrs. Leighton would inherit it, sir."
"You are sure of that? It would not, by any chance, failing a male heir, go to the other two partners?"
"No, certainly not."
Sir Adrian frowned a little. "Ah! Yet if the Mansells wished to acquire complete control over the business, I imagine a lady would not be as hard for them to handle as my stepson might be. She might even agree to being bought out. My stepson tells me that he informed Paul Mansell that he had no desire to be bought out."
"Oh! Mansell actually suggested that, did he? That"s interesting. Does Mr. Kane attach much weight to Mr. Roberts" warning?"
"Oh, not undue weight, I think. He has a certain value for my opinion," said Sir Adrian placidly.
"What is your opinion, sir, if I may ask?"
"I think it most improbable that anyone should have the courage to attempt a murder under your nose, Superintendent."
"It would take some nerve," admitted Hannasyde. "Still, I"m glad you have told me all this, sir."
"It is always well to be on the safe side," said Sir Adrian, getting up.
Hannasyde looked at him under his brows. "Do you want me to give your stepson police protection, sir?"
"That I leave entirely to you, Superintendent. I hardly think it should be necessary."
Hannasyde rose. "Well, I can promise you that the matter will have my very careful consideration, sir. Is that all you wished to say to me?"
"Yes, I think so, thank you," replied Sir Adrian, walking over to the door.