They Found Him Dead (12 page)

"AND so, Superintendent, I felt—all things being considered—that the case would be better in the hands of Scotland Yard," said the chief constable, half wishing that he had someone of real brilliance amongst his own men, half glad to be getting rid of a case that looked like being not only very unpleasant but very difficult to handle into the bargain.

Detective Superintendent Hannasyde, of the C.I.D., nodded understandingly and glanced from the chief constable to Inspector Carlton.

"Local bigwigs, you know," said Colonel Maurice. "Not that that makes any difference, of course; but you know how it is."

Superintendent Hannasyde did know and said so in his deep, pleasant voice.

"Well——" said the colonel. "You've read the inspector's notes on the case. If you'd like to talk it over with us——"

"I should, sir, very much." Hannasyde directed a brief smile up at the inspector, standing at the colonel's elbow. "You've got the advantage of me in knowing the various people concerned, Inspector. I'll be very glad of your help."

"Of course, the Inspector is absolutely at your orders, Superintendent. Pull up a chair, Carlton, and sit down."

While the inspector complied with this order Hannasyde laid a folder down on the table and began to glance through the typewritten pages.

The chief constable started to fill a pipe. "I think it's all there," he said.

"Yes sir; it's perfectly clear. Clement Kane was shot with a .38 bullet, at a range of not less than six feet, the bullet entering the skull—yes——" He flicked over a couple of pages and folded the sheets open at a neat plan. "The inference being that the murderer shot him from outside the window." He laid a square forefinger on the plan and glanced up. "There doesn't seem to be any room for doubt on that point, eh, Carlton?"

"No sir. The desk is set at an angle, a matter of a few feet from the window. Mr. Clement Kane was seated at it, as you see, Superintendent, with his left side to the window, and the bullet entered the left temple. There's no other way out of the room beyond the door into the hall. When the shot was heard the butler and Mrs. Kane's secretary and Mr. Roberts were in the hall, so that no one could have come out of the study by the door without they'd have seen him. According to their stories, the butler and Mr. Roberts ran into the room directly they heard the shot, or, at the most, half a minute later. The butler went straight to the corpse, but Mr. Roberts had the sense to make a dash for the window. He was too late, but his story is that he distinctly heard someone moving amongst the bushes in the shrubbery. You'll see by the plan, Superintendent, that there's a regular thicket of rhododendrons and the like not ten feet from the path by the house. By my reckoning anyone standing outside the study could have got to cover before Mr. Roberts had time to reach the window, coming from the hall as he did." He paused and frowned down at the plan. "What I don't see myself is how it was that Mr. James Kane, coming out of that garden hall immediately, as he stands to it he did, didn't catch so much as a glimpse of anyone."

Hannasyde's finger travelled to the plan of the garden hall, separated from the study only by a lavatory opening out of it. "Mr. James Kane stated that he went out immediately? People sometimes say immediately when they mean within half a minute, you know."

The inspector shook his head. "I thought that myself, Superintendent; but he won't have it that he wasted as much as thirty seconds. Come to think of it, if his story's true, the gun was fired near enough to startle him so much he'd be pretty certain to run out just as he says he did." He rubbed his chin reflectively, eyeing the plan. "But if it all happened like he says, I'm bound to say I don't see how he can have failed to have seen, or at least heard, something."

Hannasyde glanced back through the typescript to refresh his memory. "James Kane—he's the heir, is he?"

"Yes," said the inspector slowly. "He is—and that's another queer point, Superintendent. What we're asked to believe is that he didn't know he was. Well, I was present when old Mrs. Kane came out with it, and in fairness to him I must say that if he was acting he took me in. He looked as dumbfounded as anyone would, coming into close on a quarter of a million without a word of warning, as you might say. But—well, I ask you, Superintendent! Does it seem to you reasonable he shouldn't have had the least idea he stood next to his cousin?"

"I don't think that's quite fair, Carlton," interposed the colonel. "You must remember that a month ago his chance of inheriting the Kane fortune was very remote. It's true Silas Kane was a bachelor, but Clement wasn't. Moreover, Clement was quite a young man and might very reasonably have been expected to have sons of his own. He hadn't been married so very long—let me see, when was Clement's wedding? I think it was about four years ago. Lots of married couples nowadays don't seem to be in a hurry to start their nurseries. No reason to think there would never be one. Moreover, that will of old Matthew Kane's is a very odd affair. I take it you've read it, Superintendent?"

"Yes sir."

"Well, there's no doubt none of the younger generation was at all familiar with its details. Of course, I don't know about Clement. He may have known, but I don't suppose it would strike him as being particularly important. The clause excluding all female heirs while a male heir was living wouldn't concern him; as far as Jim Kane was concerned, I should doubt very much whether he'd even know that his great-grandfather tied the estate up in the way he did."

"Could you tell me anything about Mr. James Kane, sir?" asked Hannasyde. "I see he works at the Treasury and seems to be in comfortable circumstances. Nothing known of any debts?"

The colonel jabbed a dead match into the dottle of a pipe in the ashtray beside him. "I've known Jim Kane since he was a boy," he said. "Matter of fact, he was at school with my youngest boy. I should have said he'd be the last person in the world to commit a murder."

Hannasyde nodded, as though satisfied, and turned back to the typescript under his hand. His finger travelled down a list on one page and stopped. "Trevor Dermott," he read out and looked up inquiringly.

The colonel pursed his lips and glanced at the inspector.

"Yes," said the inspector. "That's a queer-looking business all right, Superintendent. There's more to it than comes out in the evidence, if you understand what I mean. He don't admit it, and she don't either, but there's plenty of people in this town to tell you how things were between Mr. Trevor Dermott and Mrs. Clement Kane."

The colonel removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. "I don't listen to scandal; but there's no doubt there's been a lot of talk about Mrs. Clement and Dermott. May be nothing in it; don't know the fellow myself; he's not a Portlaw man. Big handsome chap, the sort of brute some women fall for. I can only tell you he's been living pretty well in Mrs. Clement's pocket for the past three months."

"Well, sir, but there's a bit more to it than that, isn't there?" said the inspector. "By what Mrs. Clement's servants say she'd have run off with Dermott if it hadn't been for Clement Kane coming into the property."

"Don't know that I set much store by servants' gossip," said the colonel. "Both under notice too. But I'm not saying that Dermott isn't badly hit where Mrs. Clement's concerned. I should say he was head over ears in love with her. She's a remarkably beautiful young woman. Mercenary, of course, but I dare say a man like Dermott wouldn't see that. You couldn't picture Rosemary Kane giving up a fortune for the sake of a
grande passion
."

"No sir," agreed the inspector. "What's more, his actions on the day of the murder make it look very much as if Mrs. Clement had told him she wouldn't, down there by the lake. I mean to say, when a man goes off to his hotel and drinks himself silly, and then drives off into the blue and gets pinched for driving a car under the influence of drink at five o'clock in the afternoon, it looks as though he's had a bit of a facer, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I certainly think we want to go rather carefully into Trevor Dermott's movements that afternoon," said Hannasyde. "I see here that Mrs. Clement Kane appeared to be anxious to convey the impression that he was an old friend of hers and of her husband."

"Which I'm ready to swear he was not, Superintendent. He may have known Mrs. Clement before he started coming down here to see her—that I can't say; but he was no friend of Mr. Kane, either old or new."

"Does anyone corroborate this story of the schoolboy's about him driving off at a—oh yes, I see the head gardener's wife at the lodge also saw him. He seemed in a great hurry and looked ever so queer."

Hannasyde smiled slightly. "Yes, that looks to me like someone being wise after the event. If he was driving at a reckless speed I doubt whether the gardener's wife would have had time to notice what he looked like."

"No, I don't suppose she did have," said the inspector. "But the boy, Timothy Harte, met him on foot, making for his car, and told Mr. Roberts he looked like 'nothing on earth' before he even knew of his cousin having been murdered."

"What about this boy?" inquired Hannasyde. "Fourteen—seem to you reliable?"

The inspector grinned. "Well, I couldn't say, Superintendent, not for certain. He's as sharp as a sackful of monkeys, but by the way he talks he's got crime on the brain. American gangster stuff, you know. It seems he would have it all along that Mr. Silas Kane was murdered."

"Mm, yes," said Hannasyde. "I'd very much like to look over the police record of that case if I may. Accidental death, wasn't it?"

"That's what it was brought in," replied the inspector rather guardedly. "There wasn't any evidence—nothing to make a case on. He was an old man, and not a good life, either. If he was murdered, the likeliest person to have done him in was Clement Kane—you might say the only person who had what you could call a real motive. But we established the fact that Clement drove from Cliff House to his own home that night, and he could hardly have got back to Cliff House in time to catch Mr. Kane on his walk. But I'm bound to say that that case looks different in the light of this fresh one. I'll send for the records."

While these were being fetched Hannasyde continued to run down the list of suspected persons. He said after a moment: "I see you've put a query against Jane Ogle's name. She's the old lady's maid, isn't she?"

"That's right," said the inspector. "She's been in service up at Cliff House for a matter of forty years. She fair dotes on Mrs. Kane. You know the style, I dare say. Well, it's hard to know how to take her. She's one of those who can't answer a simple question without thinking you're trying to trap her into saying something she doesn't mean to. On the face of it, her way of carrying on is highly suspicious, but at the same time I know she's an eccentric old maid, and it doesn't do to set too much store by the silly way she acts. You'll see by my notes she was in the garden at the time of the murder. According to what I've been able to get out of her, she thought the old lady ought to have her rug and took it down to her before ever Mr. James Kane went to ask her for it. She says she carried a tray down to the pantry at the same time, thus accounting for having gone out into the garden by way of the back door. By the time she reached the terrace, where Mrs. Kane should have been sitting, James Kane had gone into the house after the rug, and there was no sign of the old lady."