"Roberts himself. Came lounging into my office this morning and had the nerve to tell me, in front of Jenkins and Miss Clarke, that I was making a great mistake to press Kane, and that he"d like me to know he"d told him not to let himself be hustled. Darned cheek, I call it."
"He said that, did he?" Joe stared up at his son frowningly. "Roberts thinks Silas was murdered, Paul."
"He thinks too much. What"s it got to do with him, anyway? Anyone would think he was investigating the crime instead of that beefy superintendent."
Joe said, moistening his lips, "I suppose he"s interested. He was first on the scene, wasn"t he?"
He hesitated, and moved a fork on the table, and studied it. "I wonder whether he saw anything-anything that might give him an inkling--"
"Of course not!"
"How do you know?" Joe said, glancing up momentarily.
"Good Lord, if he"d seen anything, he"d have told the police! What would be the point of keeping it back?"
"I don"t know. He"s a queer chap. Never can make him out, quite."
"Well, I wish he"d stop poking his long nose into what doesn"t concern him!" said Paul sharply.
"I"m all for doing a deal with his firm, but I"m about fed up with having him cropping up at every turn! I suppose you mean he thinks I killed Clement. He can think what he likes, but I can tell you this much! It"ll take a cleverer man than Friend Roberts to bring Clement"s death home to me!"
"Gently, gently!" Joe said, looking round apprehensively. "Don"t forget you"re in a public restaurant, my boy!"
"I don"t forget it, and I don"t care who hears what I say!" retorted Paul.
Joe rose and picked up his hat. "You"ve let this appalling affair get on your nerves. Much wiser to say as little as possible. Are you coming straight back to the office?"
"No, I"m going down to the harbour to see Fenwick about that last consignment," snapped Paul.
"Oh yes! Quite right, my boy: a breath of fresh air will do you good. Blow away the cobwebs, eh?"
Paul deigned no reply to this but walked out of the restaurant to where he had parked his car and, getting into it, drove off in the direction of the old town.
He found his quarry in conversation with a couple of old salts at the end of the stone jetty. Some fishing smacks, with sails furled, lay at anchor in the harbour, with kittiwakes and herring gulls wheeling and circling above them; and a quant.i.ty of lobster pots decorated the jetty. A small tramp steamer and some rowing- and motor-boats, dipping and rising with the slight swell, were the only other craft visible.
Paul Mansell, concluding his business with Mr. Thomas Fenwick, lingered for a few moments, watching a kittiwake swoop down to the water and rise again. A drawling voice spoke at his elbow.
"A fine day, Mansell."
Paul turned, a spasm of annoyance contracting his features. "Oh-good afternoon! I didn"t see you."
"I often take a stroll down this way," said Oscar Roberts, leaning his elbows on the low stone wall before them and gazing out across the wide bay. "Kind of peaceful. Say, you don"t have much shipping here, do you?"
"No, very little nowadays. You won"t find much use for those things," replied Paul, indicating with a faintly contemptuous smile the field gla.s.ses which hung round Roberts" neck.
"You never know," said Roberts. "I get a kick out of watching the gulls. Wonderful things, aren"t they? Ever watched them through gla.s.ses?"
"No, I can"t say I have. Not much in my line." He paused and added with an attempt at cordiality: "About that deal, Roberts; I"ve just been having a talk with my father. He is confident he can handle Kane."
Roberts had raised his field gla.s.ses and focussed them on the opposite headland, some two miles across the bay. "If you"ll pardon me, I wouldn"t advise you to handle Mr. James Kane too much. I"ve a notion it won"t pay."
Paul"s face darkened. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
Roberts still kept his gla.s.ses trained on the opposite headland. "Oh, just one of my hunches!" he said amiably. "I"d leave that young man alone, if I were you."
His gla.s.ses raked the white cliff gleaming on the other side of the bay. "Seems extraordinary what you can pick out with these things, doesn"t it? I can see the whole line of the cliff path over yonder, and the very spot where old Mr. Kane went over the edge." He lowered the gla.s.ses and turned to Paul. "Like to take a look?"
"No!" Paul said angrily.
Oscar Roberts regarded him with a faint smile. "Say, is anything wrong? You sound kind of put out."
Paul met his look and held it. "Not in the least. What should be wrong?"
He took the gla.s.ses which Robert was still holding out to him and focussed them on the headland. "Yes, a very fine pair," he said in his normal voice. "I see Kane"s speedboat"s tied up to the landing stage under the cliff. Do you know if he"s entering for the race next week?"
"So I believe," answered Roberts. "Why?"
"Oh, no reason! Seems a bit callous, considering everything. Hullo, someone"s going out in the boat!"
"That"ll be Kane himself, trying her out, I fancy. We"ll have a look at his form."
"I"m afraid I"ve got something better to do than waste my time watching Kane handle a speedboat," replied Paul, giving back the gla.s.ses.
Roberts took the gla.s.ses and looked through them. He said suddenly: "That"s not Kane! That"s the boy!"
Paul Mansell was preparing to walk away, but he stopped. "Timothy? I say, isn"t that a bit dangerous?"
"I"ll say it is! The durned little fool!"
Paul said uneasily: "You know the current"s very strong here. I don"t believe that kid"s got any right to take Kane"s boat out. Do you think we ought to do something? I mean--"
"Sure I think we ought!" Roberts said briskly. "Can you drive one of these things?" He pointed at a small motorboat tied up alongside the jetty.
"Well, no, I can"t say I ever have, but I dare say--"
"Hold these gla.s.ses, then. Guess I can manage," Roberts said, and, thrusting the gla.s.ses into Paul"s hands, ran towards the boat, and lowered himself into it. After a quick inspection he lifted his head and shouted: "By the Lord"s mercy she"s full up!" and cast off.
Paul saw him thread his way between the fishing-smacks to the mouth of the harbour and went back to watch the speedboat"s progress.
Timothy was heading across the bay towards the harbour, steadily gaining speed. Through the gla.s.ses Paul could see the froth of foam about the Seamew"s lifting bows and just the top of Timothy"s head as he crouched over the wheel. The roar of the engine sounded across the water; Paul guessed Timothy to have opened the throttle to the full and bit his lip.
Nearer at hand Roberts" borrowed motorboat chugged to meet the Seamew.
Mr. Fenwick came along the jetty and said: "What"s up, Mr. Mansell? Who"s that gone off with Bob Aiken"s boat?"
"It"s that blasted kid from Cliff House, monkeying about with Mr. Jim Kane"s Seamew! " Paul replied. "He"ll capsize her for a certainty!"
Mr. Fenwick smiled indulgently. "What, Mr. Timothy? He"s all right, Mr. Mansell. He won"t do no harm. He"s more like a fish than a boy, he is."
"He"s got no right to be in that boat. Anything might happen!"
"Oh, you don"t need to worry your head over him, Mr. Mansell! The way I always look at it is this: boys--" He stopped short, staring across the bay. "Hullo, what"s up with her?"
The Seamew, which had been skimming across the water on a straight course for Portlaw, seemed to be losing speed. Paul rested his elbows on the wall to keep the gla.s.ses steady and said in a voice sharpened with apprehension: "She"s keeling over . . . her bows are right out of the-- Good G.o.d, she"s gone down!"
"Lord-love-a-duck, what"s he done to her?" exclaimed Mr. Fenwick. "Can you see him, Mr.
Mansell? Is he all right?"
"I can"t make out. There isn"t a sign-yes, there he is! He"s all right, if he can hold out till Roberts reaches him."
"He"ll do that easy enough," said Mr. Fenwick, shading his eyes under one h.o.r.n.y hand. "It beats me how he come to lose her like that. Wasn"t turning, was he?"
"I couldn"t see. She just seemed to disappear. He"s making no headway against the current. What the devil possessed the little fool to do it?"
"Ah, now you"re asking!" said Mr. Fenwick, his calm gaze upon the motorboat forging steadily through the water. "That"s a boy all over. Proper varmints they are. How"s he doing?"
"He"s still there. He"s seen Roberts, I think-- Yes, it"s all right: Roberts has reached him.
Gosh!" He lowered the gla.s.ses and wiped his forehead. "b.l.o.o.d.y little fool!" he said angrily. "I hope he gets it hot!"
Out in the middle of the bay Oscar Roberts, having hauled an exhausted boy into the motorboat, was saying very much the same thing. Timothy lay on the floor of the boat gasping for breath and spitting salt water. Roberts said: "Guess there"s a mighty big kick in the pants coming to you, son,"
and opened the throttle again, steering, not for Portlaw, but for the landing stage on the farther side of the bay, under Cliff House.
Mr. Harte was quite unable to speak for a minute or two, but as soon as he was able to catch his breath he jerked out: "She simply sank! I didn"t do a thing!"
Roberts smiled a little and said: "Don"t waste that one on me. You keep it for that stepbrother of yours."
"But I didn"t!" Timothy a.s.severated, sitting up. "She was going perfectly!"
"Maybe you struck a rock, then."
"I did not!" Timothy said indignantly. "Good Lord, I should know if I"d hit anything!"
"You should," agreed Roberts somewhat dryly. "But a boat doesn"t sink for no reason, sonny, does it?"
"Of course not; but I swear it wasn"t anything I did! Oh, I say, I forgot! Thanks awfully for pulling me out. There"s a most frightful current. I couldn"t make any headway against it." He added gruffly: "As a matter of fact, I expect I"d have been drowned if you hadn"t come along. Thanks awfully, sir!"
"That all right. It"s just lucky I happened to be around. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, I"m O.K.! But I don"t understand about the Seamew. Honestly, I do know how to handle her! Well, you saw I could, didn"t you?"
Roberts laughed. "I can"t exactly say that, son. It didn"t look too good to me, which is why I"m here now. Maybe you"d best be half-drowned for a while: your stepbrother"s on the landing stage."
Timothy glanced towards the sh.o.r.e. "Well, I don"t care. There was something wrong with the boat: one minute she was all right, and the next-I don"t know: I think the bottom was ripped off her.
She-she just filled with water. But I swear she never hit anything!"
"The fact of the matter is," said Roberts, putting the engine astern as they drew near to the landing stage, "speedboats weren"t meant to be handled by schoolboys."
They came gently up to the landing stage, where an extremely wrathful young man awaited them. "What the h.e.l.l?--" exploded Mr. James Kane.
His saturated relative clambered out of the boat and said unhappily: "I"m frightfully sorry, Jim; but, honestly, it wasn"t my fault!"
"Where"s the Seamew? " demanded Jim.
"Well, she-she sort of sank," said Mr. Harte more unhappily than ever. "But--"
Jim interrupted him without ceremony. He spoke with admirable fluency for two blistering minutes. Mr. Harte wilted perceptibly and gave several watery sniffs.
Roberts, having tied up the boat, stepped out of it and suggested mildly that Timothy had better go and change his wet clothes. Jim, though expressing a savage hope that Timothy would contract pneumonia and die of it, agreed and told him to get out before he was kicked out. Timothy fled.
Jim turned to Roberts. He still looked very angry, but the alarming note left his voice. "What happened, sir?"
"That"s more than I can tell you," replied Roberts. "I was on the end of the jetty yonder, with young Mansell, when we saw the kid get into the Seamew and cast off. Watched him through my field gla.s.ses, which, now I come to think of it, I told Mansell to hold for me. It didn"t seem to me he was handling the boat any too well, so to be on the safe side I set out to meet him. What he did to the Seamew I can"t make out, but she went down within about thirty seconds of my first seeing her lose speed. It looked to me as though he must have hit something and torn the bottom out of her."
Jim said, frowning: "d.a.m.ned little a.s.s! He ought to know the bay well enough by now! He must have been steering an idiotic course if he hit the rocks!"
"Maybe he had his hands too full to think much about his course," said Roberts, smiling a little.
"He"s not precisely in the habit of taking speedboats out, is he?"
"No, certainly not. He did it to get back on me for not taking him this morning. I"ll teach him!"
"Guess he"s had a bit of a fright already, Kane. There"s an almighty strong current out there."
Jim gave a reluctant grin. "It would take more than that to put the wind up Timothy, sir. By the way, thanks very much for going to the rescue. You must come up and meet my mother. She arrived quite unexpectedly this morning."
"Is that so? I"d like to meet her very much; but I think I ought to take the boat back. Maybe the owner will be looking for it."
"Mansell"s sure to explain. Come on up to the house and have a drink," said Jim, leading the way to the path that zigzagged up the cliff-face. He glanced back, grimacing. "You can imagine my feelings when I heard the Seamew start up! I was on the terrace at the time. I guessed it was that devilish brat, of course. The worst of it is, my mother will probably be rather bucked about it, so Timothy will get the idea he"s done something fairly clever."
Lady Harte, still wearing the crumpled tweed coat and skirt, met them as they came across the lawn at the top of the cliff. She shook Oscar Roberts warmly by the hand and said that it was very decent of him to have pulled Timothy out of the water. "Not but what he"s a good swimmer for his age," she added. "However, he tells me the current was a bit too much for him, so I"m very grateful to you. Darling, I"m so sorry about the Seamew, but you can buy another, can"t you?"
"Yes, but for G.o.d"s sake don"t let Timothy think he"s a hero, Mother! He deserves to be flayed."
"No, I can"t agree with you there, Jim," she said decidedly. "Of course he"d no business to take your boat out-I grant that-but you must admit it showed an adventurous spirit." She turned to Roberts. "I hate milksops, don"t you?"
He agreed smilingly, but Jim groaned. "I knew it!" he said. "You"re rather pleased Mother!"
"Well, I admit I didn"t think he had as much enterprise. However, he"s very upset at having lost your boat, so don"t be unkind to him, darling. After all, it might just as well have happened to you.
Timothy says there was something wrong with the boat."
"There was nothing wrong with her whatsoever!" said Jim. "What that loathsome whelp of yours did was to run her over the Pin rocks."
They had by this time reached the terrace. Rosemary was seated there, becomingly dressed in floating black draperies. While Jim went into the house to fetch a cooling drink for his stepbrother"s preserver, she informed Lady Harte and Oscar Roberts that she had had a premonition that something dreadful was going to happen, and added, somewhat unwisely, that, fond as she was of Timothy, she could not help seeing that he was getting very out of hand. This led, not unnaturally, to a spirited defence of her son by Norma, and Jim, returning with beer and gla.s.ses, found both ladies engaged in a highly acrimonious argument. Though considerably annoyed with Timothy, he felt impelled to defend him against Rosemary"s attack, with the result that Rosemary, looking offended, withdrew into the house, saying that no one seemed to have the least consideration for her.