They Found Him Dead Read online

  ‘You may see for yourself, miss,’ replied Pritchard, leading the way to Silas Kane’s room.

  The sight of the bedclothes turned neatly back, the un-crushed pillow, the pyjamas laid out, was oddly frightening. There could be no doubt that Silas had not slept in his bed. Miss Allison pulled herself together, and said briskly: ‘Have you sent out to search the grounds? Mr Kane went for his usual walk last night, I know. He may have had a heart attack.’

  ‘Yes, miss, I thought of that at once. There’s no sign of him been seen yet, but I’ve sent Edwards and Pullman along the cliff walk. I believe the master generally went that way. I thought it best to tell you at once, on account of the mistress.’

  ‘Quite right. There’s no need to say anything to alarm Mrs Kane until we know more. Did you see Mr Kane go out last night?’

  ‘Not precisely, miss. I saw him when Mr James left, and I understood from him that he meant to take his usual walk. I happened to mention the fact of there being a considerable sea-fret, but the master made nothing of it. You know his way, miss. He told me I need not wait up, and I consequently went up to bed, and thus did not actually see him leave the house.’

  Miss Allison nodded, and went back on to the landing. Her appearance there coincided with the opening of Timothy Harte’s bedroom door. Timothy stuck a tousled head out, and desired to be told what all the row was about.

  Miss Allison allowed this grossly unfair description of her quiet colloquy with the butler to pass unchallenged, and merely said that nothing was up. Timothy looked severely from her to Pritchard, and said with a marked nasal intonation: ‘Say, sister, get wise to this! You can’t put nothin’ across on me!’

  ‘Say, brother,’ retorted Miss Allison, not to be outdone, ‘let me advise you to scram!’

  Timothy grinned, and, apparently construing this request as an invitation, came out on to the landing. ‘I thought you looked as though you might be sporting,’ he remarked. ‘Honestly, what is up?’

  Pritchard gave a warning cough, but Miss Allison judged it wisest to admit Mr Harte into their confidence. ‘We don’t quite know, but we’re afraid Mr Kane may have been taken ill on his walk last night, or have met with some accident. He doesn’t seem to have come home.’

  Timothy’s eyes grew round, but the most partial of observers could scarcely have supposed his expression to denote anything but profound relish of these disturbing tidings. ‘I say!’ he gasped. ‘I jolly well told you so! I bet I had a kind of instinct about it!’

  ‘Don’t be so absurd!’ said Miss Allison rather irritably. ‘How could you have had an instinct, as you call it, that Mr Kane would have a heart attack? Besides, you never told me anything of the kind.’

  ‘Yes, I did!’ said Timothy. ‘At least, not about a heart attack. But I distinctly remember saying that I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if someone was murdered here in the night. Actually, I never thought about it being Uncle Silas, but I probably had a sort of premonition all the same.’

  The butler looked outraged and startled, but Miss Allison, unimpressed, said: ‘If that’s your idea of a joke, it’s a bad one. There’s no question of murder, but we are rather worried about your uncle, and that kind of suggestion isn’t in the best of good taste.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Timothy. ‘As a matter of fact, he isn’t my uncle, though. Actually he isn’t any relation at all.’

  ‘Well, you go and get dressed,’ replied Miss Allison. ‘Then you can help look for him.’

  It seemed good to Timothy to follow this advice. He said: ‘Sure thing!’ and disappeared into his room again.

  ‘I’ll do the same,’ said Miss Allison. ‘You’ve warned Ogle not to say anything to Mrs Kane, I hope? Not that I think she would.’

  ‘The female staff knows nothing as yet, miss. I thought it best to speak to you first.’

  ‘Don’t tell them anything, then, till we know just what’s happened. I’ll be down in a few minutes.’

  She dressed in haste, but was beaten in the race by Mr Harte, who was downstairs ten minutes ahead of her, having decided that excessive ablutions in a moment of stress would be frivolous.

  He did not await her arrival, but went out at once to take part in the search for his host. Just as Miss Allison reached the hall he came into the house with a very white face, and said jerkily: ‘I’ve met them. I say, it’s pretty ghastly, Miss Allison. He’s dead.’

  She did not say anything for a moment. Silas Kane’s death was a possibility she had already realised; the news of it merely confirmed her fear.

  ‘They’re bringing him up to the house,’ said Timothy. ‘Honestly, I didn’t think anything like this would happen, Miss Allison.’

  ‘No. Of course not.’ She turned as Pritchard came into the hall from the servants’ wing, and said as quietly as she could: ‘Master Timothy has told me, Pritchard. How did it happen? Have you any idea?’

  The butler looked very much shaken. ‘They found him at the foot of the cliff, miss. Just where the path runs along the edge. He must have missed his way in the fog. You’ll excuse me, miss, but I’m a bit upset. I do not know when I have been so upset. To think of us lying in our beds with the poor master smashed up like that on those wicked rocks! Not that one could have done anything. If only he hadn’t gone out! That’s what I keep on saying to myself, over and over. It’ll just about kill the mistress, this will.’

  Miss Allison returned a mechanical answer. She did not think that Mrs Kane was of the weak stuff to be killed by shock, or even by grief, but the task of breaking the news of Silas’s death to her was not one to which she looked forward. After a moment’s reflection she decided to postpone it until Emily had had her breakfast, and with this end in view, went off in search of Ogle.

  It was a point of honour with Ogle always to disagree with Miss Allison, of whom she was profoundly jealous, but her adoration of Emily made her on this occasion acquiesce in Patricia’s decision. In acquiescing, however, she took the opportunity to tell Patricia that she knew Emily far better than anyone else did, and could assure the anxious that Emily would bear up under this shock as well as she had borne up under all the other shocks incident in a long life.

  She was right. When Miss Allison, standing beside Emily’s bed, said: ‘I have some very bad news for you, Mrs Kane,’ Emily looked her over piercingly, and rapped out: ‘Well, don’t beat about the bush! What is it?’

  Patricia told her. Emily made no outcry, shed no tear. Only her face seemed to set more rigidly, and her eyes to become fixed upon some object beyond Patricia’s vision. Her thin hands, their fingers bent with gout, lay motionless upon the quilt; she did not speak for some moments, but at last she brought her gaze to bear upon Miss Allison’s face, and said harshly: ‘What are you waiting for? Is there anything else?’

  ‘No, Mrs Kane. Would you like me to go away?’

  Emily smiled wryly. ‘I suppose you want to stroke my hand, and tell me to have a good cry?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ replied Patricia frankly. ‘It is my business to do exactly what you wish. Only you must tell me what that is, because I’ve never faced this situation before, and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Good girl!’ approved Emily. ‘I dare say you think I’m a heartless old woman, eh? When you reach my age you’ll know that death doesn’t mean so much as you think it does now. Go downstairs and make yourself useful.’ She paused, and for the first time Patricia saw a twinge of some emotion contract her features. ‘Clement,’ she said. ‘Yes. Clement.’

  Miss Allison nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll ring him up immediately.’

  Emily looked at her with rather a curious expression in her face. ‘He’ll come here,’ she said. ‘He and that wife of his.’

  ‘You need not see either of them, Mrs Kane.’

  Emily was shaken with sudden anger: ‘You little fool, I shall have Clement