They Found Him Dead Read online

  ‘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 glasses steady, and said in a voice sharpened with apprehension: ‘She’s keeling over… her bows are right out of the – Good God, 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 horny hand. ‘It beats me how he came 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 motor-boat, 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 glasses, and wiped his forehead. ‘Bloody 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 motor-boat, 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 brother of yours.’

  ‘But I didn’t!’ Timothy asseverated, 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’s 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 brother’s on the landing-stage.’

  Timothy glanced towards the shore. ‘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, ‘speed-boats 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 hell – ?’ 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 he saw the kid get into the Seamew, and cast off. Watched him through my field-glasses, 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: ‘Damned little ass! 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 speed-boats out, is he?’

  ‘No, certainly not. He did it to get back on me for not taking him this morning. I’ll larn 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 God’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 rath