They Found Him Dead Read online

  ‘I quite appreciate that, Mr Kane. You are quite sure no one else could have had access to your car?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not. While it stood in the yard anyone could have walked in and tinkered with it. But who’d want to?’

  ‘And at Cliff House?’

  ‘Well, yes; but again, who’d want to?’ Jim said impatiently. ‘Besides, the chauffeur was washing my great-aunt’s car first thing this morning, and didn’t leave the garage until eleven. I had the car out late last night, and locked the garage when I brought her in, so it can’t have been done yesterday. I went down to the garage myself just after eleven this morning, and found my stepfather there, so I should think that at the most the garage was empty for five minutes.’

  There was the slightest of pauses. ‘What was your step-father doing in the garage, Mr Kane?’

  ‘Filling his cigarette-lighter. Look here, what the devil are you getting at?’ demanded Jim, half starting from his chair.

  ‘Merely checking up on everyone who was seen near your car,’ replied Hannasyde mildly.

  ‘Well, please don’t check up on my stepfather!’ said Jim. ‘The idea’s quite absurd. I’m on the best of terms with him, and always have been. You might as well suspect my young half-brother.’

  ‘I don’t think I suspect anyone, Mr Kane. On the other hand, you must see that I cannot exonerate anyone on your bare word. If I am to go into this attempt on your life, which I understand you wish me to do, you must allow me to make what inquiries I think necessary. You say Sir Adrian was filling his lighter, which strikes me immediately as being a somewhat unusual thing to do. Lighters are generally filled at a tobacconist’s shop.’

  Jim smiled. ‘When you know my stepfather a little better, Superintendent, you won’t see anything unusual in that. It’s entirely typical of him.’

  Hannasyde inclined his head slightly, as though accepting this statement. ‘And he was the only person you observed anywhere in the vicinity of the garage?’

  ‘Yes – at least, no; my half-brother blew in while I was there; but as he was very keen to go with me, I don’t somehow think we need consider him as a possible suspect.’

  Hannasyde paid no heed to this rather sarcastic speech. ‘He was keen to go with you? You didn’t take him, did you?’

  ‘No, my stepfather told him –’ Jim broke off, his eyes going swiftly to Hannasyde’s face. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Oh, this is too farcical!’

  ‘What did your stepfather tell him, Mr Kane?’

  ‘That I didn’t want to be bothered by him. Which was perfectly true. Seriously, Superintendent, you must leave my stepfather out of this. Incidentally, I fail to see what his motive could possibly be.’

  ‘I take it you have never had any reason to suspect that he might be jealous of your mother’s affection for you?’

  ‘Not the slightest,’ said Jim emphatically.

  ‘Very well,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I promise you I’ll go into it carefully, Mr Kane. And, if possible, refrain from insulting Sir Adrian,’ he added, with the glimmer of a smile.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jim, rising and shaking hands. ‘I’ll be getting along, then.’

  ‘Not got cold feet, Mr Kane?’

  ‘Oh, not very! There seems to be a providence watching over me, anyway.’

  Hannasyde agreed, and saw him off the premises. After that he had a short conference with Inspector Carlton, and went out to meet Sergeant Hemingway for lunch.

  The Sergeant, who had failed to elicit anything from Mr James Kane’s old nanny but the most rigid corroboration of her mistress’s story, was feeling disgruntled; but he cheered up when he heard what Hannasyde had to tell him, and pointed out that he had prophesied that no one could tell where the case was going to end. ‘That’s one suspect less, at all events,’ he said briskly. ‘Looks like we can rule out the old lady too, not to mention Lady Harte.’

  ‘You’re going too fast for me,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I’m not ruling anyone out yet.’

  ‘What, not James Kane himself, Super?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I believe he’s telling me the truth, but we can’t leave out of account the possibility that he may have engineered this accident just to put us off the real scent.’

  ‘Him?’ said the Sergeant incredulously. ‘Don’t you believe it, Super! He’s not that sort!’

  ‘Hemingway,’ said the Superintendent, ‘you think that if a man plays first-class football, and gets into the semi-final of the Amateur Golf Championship he can’t be a murderer!’

  The Sergeant blushed, but said defiantly: ‘Psychology!’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Hannasyde. ‘However, Carlton’s putting one of his young men on to keep an eye on James Kane, and I’ve promised to investigate the affair. I’m going to see the car and to question the garage-hands immediately after lunch. I shall go on up to Cliff House. I want you to go round to Kane and Mansell’s office, take a careful look at the building with respect to the yard, and see what you can get out of the personnel.’

  While the Superintendent and Sergeant Hemingway were discussing the case over the lunch-table, Mrs Kane’s Daimler was bearing Jim home in state. He arrived to find that the rest of the party had started lunch, and realised, as soon as he entered the dining-room, that Miss Allison had not been able to allay his relatives’ suspicions. As he took his seat at the end of the table, with an apology for being late, his mother said in her most business-like and commanding voice: ‘Now, Jim! Without any beating about the bush, what happened this morning?’

  ‘To the Bentley?’ said Jim, shaking out his table-napkin. ‘The steering went, and we ended up safely but ungracefully in the ditch.’

  ‘Don’t try to throw dust in my eyes, Jim!’ she said. ‘You needn’t think my nerves won’t stand the truth. I’ve faced too many dangers in my time –’

  ‘Nerves!’ interrupted Emily fiercely. ‘No one talked of nerves in my young days!’

  ‘And a very good thing, too!’ said Lady Harte. ‘I don’t know what they are. Never did.’

  ‘You don’t know how fortunate you are,’ said Rosemary, with a pitying smile.

  ‘On the contrary, I do know. Jim, I insist upon being answered!’

  ‘Well, mother, a nut holding one of the ball-joints had worked loose, and it fell off.’

  ‘That,’ said Sir Adrian, helping himself to salad, ‘of course explains everything. Enlighten our ignorance, my dear boy.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear anything about nuts and ball-joints,’ announced Emily. ‘If someone’s been tampering with your car, say so!’

  Jim looked up to find Miss Allison’s gaze fixed inquiringly on his face.

  ‘Was it tampered with, Jim?’ she asked.

  ‘Traitress!’

  ‘I did try to make out it was an accident, but no one believed me. If it wasn’t an accident we’d all rather know.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t an accident!’ declared Timothy scornfully. ‘And now perhaps you’ll believe I did not run the Seamew on the rocks!’

  ‘I think,’ said Sir Adrian in his tranquil way, ‘that since speculation is so rife, you had better tell us just what did happen, Jim.’

  ‘Well, sir, it seems fairly obvious the car was tampered with.’

  ‘That is very disturbing,’ said Sir Adrian. ‘If you have not already done so, you should inform the police.’

  ‘I have. That’s what made me late for lunch. The Superintendent’s going to look into it.’

  ‘I should think so indeed!’ snapped Emily. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to!’

  ‘Of course, what I am waiting for,’ said Rosemary, ‘is for somebody to try to bring it round to Trevor. Or possibly even me.’

  No one but Emily paid any attention to this remark, and as she merely said that the least sa