They Found Him Dead Read online

  ‘More or less,’ agreed Jim, watching the pencil’s progress.

  ‘Right! Well, this is the course I steered. If anything, I was drawing away from the rocks. It must have been just about here that the Seamew went down. Anyway, I’ll swear it wasn’t within a quarter of a mile of the rocks. Now what about it?’

  Jim shook his head. ‘It’s beyond me. Without wishing to be offensive, I should imagine that, while that was the course you meant to steer, you actually were much nearer the shore.’

  ‘Oh, gosh!’ said Timothy, disgusted. ‘You must think I’m a pretty average ass!’

  ‘I do,’ replied Jim promptly.

  ‘When you let me handle the Seamew before, did I do all right or not?’

  ‘You did. But I was with you.’

  ‘Look here!’ interposed Patricia. ‘Will you, for the sake of argument, assume that Timothy’s right, and he wasn’t near the rocks?’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am! So what?’

  ‘He couldn’t have sunk the boat like that through doing something wrong with the engine, could he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could one of the bottom boards – or whatever you call them – have been loose from the start?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Didn’t we have her out this morning?’

  ‘Well, are you sure you didn’t graze her on something?’

  ‘God give me strength!’ gasped Jim. ‘Talk about adding insult to injury! Are you two beauties trying to make out I sank the boat?’

  ‘No, but are you sure?’

  ‘I am!’ said Jim emphatically.

  ‘Then if Timothy didn’t run her on the rocks, and there was nothing wrong with her this morning, why did she sink?’ demanded Patricia.

  ‘She didn’t. What I mean is, she wouldn’t have if –’ He stopped, and glanced quickly from Patricia’s face to Timothy’s. ‘Good Lord, you don’t think someone tampered with her, do you?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Patricia. ‘I do.’

  Eleven

  For a moment Jim stared at Patricia, then he put his arm round her, and drew her close to him. ‘Of all the lurid ideas! Darling, I’m sorry to have to say it, but you’re definitely batty.’

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ said Timothy. ‘Everyone knows you’ve entered for the race next week, and I should think a whole lot of people knew you were going to try the Seamew out tomorrow.’

  ‘Do try to pull yourself together,’ begged Jim. ‘I was out in her this morning! Who on earth could have had a chance to monkey about with her between the time I came in and the time you went out?’

  ‘Anybody!’ replied Timothy promptly. ‘It was a safe bet you wouldn’t go out again today. You brought her in just after mum arrived, which must have been just after eleven, and I didn’t go down to the landing-stage till three o’clock. There was loads of time.’

  ‘But, my good lad, nobody would dare tamper with my boat in broad daylight!’

  Patricia sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. ‘I don’t see why not. Nobody ever comes along this side of the bay. There’s no sand to attract the Portlaw gang. Besides, you know what those mudflats are like between us and Portlaw if you walk round the bay at low tide. Supposing someone did something or other to the Seamew between one o’clock and two o’clock? None of us would have been on the shore, because we were having lunch. I call it a pretty good time.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ said Jim. ‘If I were going to put someone else’s boat out of action, I should choose a nice dark night for the job.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t, because you couldn’t see to do it,’ said Timothy instantly. ‘You’d have to have a lantern, and that might attract attention. Golly, I bet Pat’s right, and someone is trying to do you in!’

  ‘You needn’t sound so darned pleased about it, viper!’

  ‘I’m not, but I do think it’s jolly exciting.’

  Jim grinned his appreciation of this point of view, but said: ‘I suppose I should be unpopular if I suggested that the bottom might have been ripped off the Seamew by a floating spar or something of that nature?’

  Patricia gave a little shiver. ‘I’ve got a feeling –’ she began, and then stopped, and laughed.

  Jim looked at her with deep foreboding. ‘Are you also – whatever else you may be – honest with yourself, darling?’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Patricia. ‘This isn’t a joke.’

  ‘My error,’ murmured Jim.

  ‘Jim, Mr Roberts warned you only yesterday you might be the next victim.’

  Timothy, who had relaxed upon his pillows, bounced up at this, his blue eyes sparkling with pleasurable anticipation. ‘Did he? I say, do you think there’s a Hidden Killer in the house?’

  ‘Timothy!’ gasped Miss Allison, instinctively clasping Mr Kane’s arm.

  ‘Well, if you come to think about it, this is just the sort of house where you might have a Hidden Killer lurking, ’cept that it isn’t really old enough, and I shouldn’t think there’s a secret passage or anything. But it’s got two wings, and three staircases, and lots of attics leading out of one another and –’

  ‘Stop!’ commanded Miss Allison, pale with fright. ‘I know it’s nonsense; but if you go on like that I shan’t be able to sleep a wink all night.’

  ‘Calm yourself, my love,’ said Mr Kane. ‘If the Hidden Killer tried to do me in by tampering with the Seamew, there doesn’t seem to be much point in his lurking in the house.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Patricia. ‘Let’s get back to the point. You’re the only one of us who knows anything about boats, Jim. Would it be possible for anyone to do something to the speed-boat that wouldn’t show at first – I mean, if you simply knocked a hole in it it would fill with water at once, and the Seamew didn’t.’

  ‘I suppose you could plug your hole,’ replied Jim.

  ‘How?’

  Jim reached out a hand for the pencil and Timothy’s note-book. ‘Well, imagine this is one of your bottom strakes. If you cut a wedge-shaped hole, and plugged it so that the broad end of your plug stuck out a bit, presumably it would stay put until you got some way on the boat. It would work loose, and of course as soon as you were going full speed it would be bound to come out, and the force of the water would be enough to rip the strake right off.’

  ‘I see. Do you think that’s what was done?’

  ‘No,’ said Jim cheerfully.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Mr Harte.

  ‘Probably because I haven’t got that kind of mind. Moreover, to do that job you’d have to have the boat out of the water, come armed with a bit and a brace, a pad-saw, and a bit of putty to fill up the gaps – it’s too darned silly!’

  ‘When was low tide today?’ asked Patricia. ‘Lunch-time, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Twelve forty-five,’ said Jim.

  ‘That means that the Seamew must have been lying on the slipway then, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Jim, don’t you see how it all fits in? You tied her up just after eleven, she was high and dry an hour later, and floating again by the time Timothy got to her. It was all thought out, and the time calculated!’

  ‘Rot!’ said Jim.

  ‘It isn’t rot! It’s jolly sensible!’ retorted Mr Harte. ‘Only, who’s the Killer? I rather thought Mr Dermott was the person who did Cousin Clement in, but I don’t see why he wants to do you in too.’

  ‘Nor anyone else. I do wish you’d get this silly idea out of your heads.’

  ‘Jim, I shouldn’t have thought anything of it if it weren’t for what Mr Roberts said to you. But in face of that –’

  ‘My dear girl, Roberts was talking through his hat. In any case, he saw