‘All right!’ said Lady Harte with great energy. ‘I want my sons to do everything well! Always remember, Timothy, that mediocrity is fatal! Whatever you do, you must make up your mind to excel at it. Look at me!’
Jim came into the room at that moment, and, hearing only the last part of this invigorating speech, promptly asked: ‘What for, ma?’
‘Success!’ answered Lady Harte. ‘I’ve always succeeded because I make it my business to do everything thoroughly. I hate half-measures. It’s about your speed-boat. You ought to be able to swim.’
‘But I can swim!’
‘Not nearly well enough,’ said his mother sternly. ‘There’s a tide race here, too. Not that I wish to keep you tied to my apron-strings, for I don’t. Did you want me for anything in particular, darling? I shall be down as soon as I’ve sorted this collection.’
‘Yes,’ said Jim firmly. He cast an eye over the chaos reigning in the room, and added: ‘You’d better let one of the skivvies put all this junk away.’
‘Look here, are you going to take me with you when you try the Seamew out properly, or aren’t you?’ demanded Timothy belligerently.
‘I’m not. I’ll take you some other time.’
‘Well, I call it absolutely rotten of you! I bet I can handle her as well as you can, what’s more!’
‘Clear out now; I want to have a chat with mother. You’ve had your innings.’
‘I don’t see why, just because you –’
Mr James Kane interrupted this speech by advancing purposefully upon his young relative. Mr Harte retreated in good order, promising vengeance.
Jim shut the door upon him. ‘Getting altogether too uppish. Can you bear a shock, mother?’
Lady Harte looked up from the task of stowing clothes away haphazard in a large chest of drawers, and stared at him with foreboding in her eyes. ‘You’re engaged to be married!’
He laughed, his brows lifting in surprise. ‘How did you know? Quite right.’
‘Of course I’m right! What else could it be? Who is it?’
‘It’s Patricia Allison.’
For a moment she seemed puzzled; then her brow cleared. ‘Do you mean Aunt Emily’s secretary, or whatever she calls herself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, that’s not so bad!’ said Lady Harte, relieved. ‘I was afraid you were going to say it was that tow-headed little fool Adrian and I disliked so much. Patricia Allison! From what I remember, there’s no silly nonsense about her. I always like these girls who do something, even if it’s only looking after Aunt Emily. What I can’t stand is a parasite. I hope she won’t encourage you to live a life of idleness now you’ve come into all this money.’
‘I think I’m going to take an intelligent interest in netting.’
Lady Harte said despairingly: ‘How I could ever have given birth to a son with so little ambition passes my comprehension! When I think what you might do –’
‘But, darling, I hate travel!’ objected Jim. ‘Can I bring Patricia in to see you?’
‘Very well; but you know I don’t get on with modern girls,’ said Lady Harte gloomily.
However, when Patricia presently came into the room, looking very cool and charming in a severe linen coat and skirt, her future mother-in-law said approvingly: ‘That’s what I call a sensible kit. I hate frills and furbelows. Jim tells me you are going to be married. I should think you’ll suit one another very well. It’s always been my dread that he might marry something out of a tobacconist’s shop so you can imagine what a relief it is to me to know he’s had the sense to choose a really nice girl. Not that I’m a snob, but there are limits, and young men are such fools.’
‘I know,’ said Patricia. ‘It’s nice of you to take it like that. I was afraid you might feel that he could have done a lot better for himself.’
Lady Harte seemed to find this amusing. She gave her jolly laugh, and said that she had no use for pampered young women who had nothing to do except lacquer their fingernails and drink too many cocktails. While Patricia sorted and put away her scattered belongings, she walked up and down the room, energetically planning a useful future for her elder son, and laying her commands upon Patricia not to allow him to fritter away his time either in money grubbing or more frivolous pursuits.
By lunch-time she was on the best of terms with Patricia, and had even favoured her with a brief sketch of her own (parliamentary) plans. She evinced not the smallest interest in the shocking events that had taken place at Cliff House during the preceding fortnight, and Patricia, feeling that Jim’s mother was hardly the person in whom to confide fears for his safety which might, after all, be groundless, made no attempt to talk to her on the subject.
At the luncheon-table Lady Harte dominated the company. She ate casually of any dish that happened to be placed in front of her, and described in trenchant yet picturesque terms the adventures she had lately been through. Emily, who liked hearing about foreign lands, listened to her with a good grace, only interrupting her occasionally to say either that she had never heard of such a thing, or that she had no patience with such outlandish ways.
On Norma’s proposed excursion into the realm of politics she spoke with vigour and decision, condemning it from the outset as ridiculous nonsense, and announcing that she didn’t know what the world was coming to. Norma then delivered a stern lecture on her responsibilities as a citizen, and the lunch-party came to an end without anyone having mentioned murders, clues, or policemen – a change which Miss Allison at least felt to be an advantage.
Ten
The news of Lady Harte’s spectacular arrival at Cliff House reached the offices of Kane and Mansell within two hours of her taxi’s return to Portlaw. The taxi-driver described it, with humorous embellishments, to a man selling newspapers, who passed it on in due course to a junior clerk, who retailed it to his senior, who thought proper to mention it to Joe Mansell. Joe, surprised, told his son over the lunch table. Paul Mansell, stirring his coffee, said reflectively: ‘Oh…! That’s funny. Dam’ funny.’
Joe cast a quick look at him, and then averted his eyes. ‘She’s a very unaccountable woman, Norma Harte – very. Of course, she may have heard of Silas’s death.’
‘Wonder if she had anything to do with Clement’s death?’ said Paul. ‘Violent sort of female, what?’
Joe stirred restlessly in his chair. ‘Really, my boy, really!’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ pursued Paul, watching his parent’s discomfort with rather a mocking expression in his eyes. ‘Seems to me she might well be the guilty party. Rather a good shot, isn’t she?’
Joe set his coffee-cup down. ‘Now, look here, Paul!’ he said in an angry undertone. ‘I’ll tell you something! You make a great mistake to talk like that – a very great mistake! There’s nothing looks worse than trying to cast the blame on to someone else!’
‘Someone else?’ repeated Paul, lifting his brows.
‘Well, you know what I mean! The less you say, the better. This is a very nasty business. I – upon my soul, it’s taken years off my life! I’ve never been through such a fortnight, never!’
Paul leaned back in his chair, smiling, and keeping his eyes, under their drooping lids, fixed maliciously on his father’s face. ‘I do believe you think I killed Clement!’ he said softly.
‘You know very well I think nothing of the sort! I wish you wouldn’t talk in that silly way. It’s folly, rank folly! Of course, I know you wouldn’t dream – good God, the very idea is preposterous! There’s no need to discuss it. All I mean is, that most unfortunately you’ve no alibi – that is, you can’t prove an alibi – for the time of poor Clement’s death. The police are bound to be suspicious of you. Well, they are suspicious: no use blinking facts.’
‘I’m not afraid. It’s you who seem to have got cold feet. The police can’t p
rove a thing against me. You needn’t worry, dad.’
‘I am worrying!’ Joe said with suppressed violence. ‘You don’t seem to realise what a ghastly business this is. Silas and Clement both gone within a fortnight.’
Paul shrugged nonchalantly, took out his thin, gold cigarette-case, and opened it. ‘Speaking for myself, I don’t look on their deaths as much loss,’ he drawled.
For a moment Joe did not answer. Then he said in a low voice: ‘Sometimes, Paul, you seem to me to be utterly callous! How you can sit there and say such a thing of two men you’ve known from the day you were born –’
‘Oh, lord, don’t pull out the pathetic stop, dad!’ Paul interrupted. ‘You know dam’ well you agree with me.’
‘I deny that – I utterly deny that! I had the greatest value for them. Silas was my oldest friend. Don’t you dare say such a thing again! It’s – it’s impertinence! A gross untruth!’
‘Oh, all right!’ replied Paul. ‘Sorry I spoke!’ He tapped a cigarette on his case, and put it between his lips. ‘I suppose you’re only too glad to have young Jim Kane all ready to step into Clement’s shoes.’
‘I’ve nothing against Jim, nothing at all!’ Joe said. ‘He’s a very nice boy; but of course as for his knowing anything about the business – well, that’s absurd, and he’ll be the first to realise it. If he likes to learn it, I shall be only too glad to help him, and teach him the ins and outs of it. I don’t anticipate that he’ll be anything more than a sleeping partner, actually, but –’
‘Oh, don’t you!’ Paul struck in. ‘You wait till you see his highness! It won’t be long before there’ll be nothing he won’t know about the business.’
‘I know Jim Kane, thanks. I’ve no doubt you handled him badly. Got his back up. I never wanted you to tackle him. I was against it from the start. I’ll have a talk with him myself when I think fit.’
‘And I’ll bet you’ll find I’m right,’ said Paul. ‘He’s going to be a dam’ nuisance to us. He’s showing his teeth already, and if I know these Kanes, that’s nothing to what he’ll be like once he’s found his feet. It’ll be Silas over again. Pig-headed, stick-in-the-mud –’
‘That’ll do, my boy, that’ll do! You’re talking very indiscreetly. There’s nothing wrong with Jim. I dare say he wouldn’t listen to you, but he’ll listen to me, you’ll see.’
‘I hope I shall,’ said Paul, getting up. ‘Meanwhile, how much longer do you expect Roberts to hang about?’
‘Roberts quite understands how we’re placed. He’s being most reasonable, really most accommodating!’
‘It strikes me he’s being a dam’ sight too accommodating,’ said Paul. ‘I’d like to know just what he’s playing at, telling Jim Kane not to let himself be rushed into the deal!’
Joe looked at him narrowly. ‘What’s this? How do you know that? Who told you?’
‘Roberts himself. Came lounging into my office this morning, and had the nerve to tell me, in front of Jenkins and Miss Clarke, that I was making a great mistake to press Kane, and that he’d like me to know he’d told him not to let himself be hustled. Darned cheek, I call it.’
‘He said that, did he?’ Joe stared up at his son frowningly. ‘Roberts thinks Silas was murdered, Paul.’
‘He thinks too much. What’s it got to do with him, anyway? Anyone would think he was investigating the crime instead of that beefy Superintendent.’
Joe said, moistening his lips, ‘I suppose he’s interested. He was first on the scene, wasn’t he?’ He hesitated, and moved a fork on the table, and studied it. ‘I wonder whether he saw anything – anything that might give him an inkling –’
‘Of course not!’
‘How do you know?’ Joe said, glancing up momentarily.
‘Good Lord, if he’d seen anything, he’d have told the police! What would be the point of keeping it back?’
‘I don’t know. He’s a queer chap. Never can make him out, quite.’
‘Well, I wish he’d stop poking his long nose into what doesn’t concern him!’ said Paul sharply. ‘I’m all for doing a deal with his firm, but I’m about fed up with having him cropping up at every turn! I suppose you mean he thinks I killed Clement. He can think what he likes, but I can tell you this much! It’ll take a cleverer man than Friend Roberts to bring Clement’s death home to me!’
‘Gently, gently!’ Joe said, looking round apprehensively. ‘Don’t forget you’re in a public restaurant, my boy!’
‘I don’t forget it, and I don’t care who hears what I say!’ retorted Paul.
Joe rose, and picked up his hat. ‘You’ve let this appalling affair get on your nerves. Much wiser to say as little as possible. Are you coming straight back to the office?’
‘No, I’m going down to the harbour to see Fenwick about that last consignment,’ snapped Paul.
‘Oh, yes! Quite right, my boy: a breath of fresh air will do you good. Blow away the cobwebs, eh?’
Paul deigned no reply to this, but walked out of the restaurant to where he had parked his car, and getting into it drove off in the direction of the old town.
He found his quarry in conversation with a couple of old salts at the end of the stone jetty. Some fishing-smacks, with sails furled, lay at anchor in the harbour, with kittiwakes and herring-gulls wheeling and circling above them; and a quantity of lobster-pots decorated the jetty. A small tramp-steamer and some rowing- and motor-boats dipping and rising with the slight swell were the only other craft visible.
Paul Mansell, concluding his business with Mr Thomas Fenwick, lingered for a few moments, watching a kittiwake swoop down to the water and rise again. A drawling voice spoke at his elbow. ‘A fine day, Mansell.’
Paul turned, a spasm of annoyance contracting his features. ‘Oh – good afternoon! I didn’t see you.’
‘I often take a stroll down this way,’ said Oscar Roberts, leaning his elbows on the low stone wall before them, and gazing out across the wide bay. ‘Kind of peaceful. Say, you don’t have much shipping here, do you?’
‘No, very little nowadays. You won’t find much use for those things,’ replied Paul, indicating with a faintly contemptuous smile the field-glasses which hung round Roberts’s neck.
‘You never know,’ said Roberts. ‘I get a kick out of watching the gulls. Wonderful things, aren’t they? Ever watched them through glasses?’
‘No, I can’t say I have. Not much in my line.’ He paused, and added with an attempt at cordiality: ‘About that deal, Roberts; I’ve just been having a talk with my father. He is confident he can handle Kane.’
Roberts had raised his field-glasses and focused them on the opposite headland, some two miles across the bay. ‘If you’ll pardon me, I wouldn’t advise you to handle Mr James Kane too much. I’ve a notion it won’t pay.’
Paul’s face darkened. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he demanded.
Roberts still kept his glasses trained on the opposite headland. ‘Oh, just one of my hunches!’ he said amiably. ‘I’d leave that young man alone, if I were you.’ His glasses raked the white cliff gleaming on the other side of the bay. ‘Seems extraordinary what you can pick out with these things, doesn’t it? I can see the whole line of the cliff path over yonder, and the very spot where old Mr Kane went over the edge.’ He lowered the glasses, and turned to Paul. ‘Like to take a look?’
‘No!’ Paul said angrily.
Oscar Roberts regarded him with a faint smile. ‘Say, is anything wrong? You sound kind of put out.’
Paul met his look and held it. ‘Not in the least. What should be wrong?’
He took the glasses which Roberts was still holding out to him and focused them on the headland. ‘Yes, a very fine pair,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘I see Kane’s speed-boat’s tied up to the landing-stage under the cliff. Do you know if he’s entering for the race
next week?’
‘So I believe,’ answered Roberts. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, no reason! Seems a bit callous, considering everything. Hullo, someone’s going out in the boat!’
‘That’ll be Kane himself, trying her out, I fancy. We’ll have a look at his form.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve got something better to do than waste my time watching Kane handle a speed-boat,’ replied Paul, giving back the glasses.
Roberts took the glasses and looked through them. He said suddenly: ‘That’s not Kane! That’s the boy!’
Paul Mansell was preparing to walk away, but he stopped. ‘Timothy? I say, isn’t that a bit dangerous?’
‘I’ll say it is! The durned little fool!’
Paul said uneasily: ‘You know, the current’s very strong here. I don’t believe that kid’s got any right to take Kane’s boat out. Do you think we ought to do something? I mean –’
‘Sure I think we ought!’ Roberts said briskly. ‘Can you drive one of these things?’ He pointed at a small motor-boat tied up alongside the jetty.
‘Well, no, I can’t say I ever have, but I dare say –’
‘Hold these glasses, then. Guess I can manage,’ Roberts said, and thrusting the glasses into Paul’s hands, ran towards the boat, and lowered himself into it. After a quick inspection he lifted his head, and shouted: ‘By the Lord’s mercy she’s full up!’ and cast off.
Paul saw him thread his way between the fishing-smacks to the mouth of the harbour, and went back to watch the speed-boat’s progress.
Timothy was heading across the bay towards the harbour, steadily gaining speed. Through the glasses Paul could see the froth of foam about the Seamew’s lifting bows, and just the top of Timothy’s head as he crouched over the wheel. The roar of the engine sounded across the water; Paul guessed Timothy to have opened the throttle to the full, and bit his lip. Nearer at hand Roberts’s borrowed motor-boat chugged to meet the Seamew.
Mr Fenwick came along the jetty, and said: ‘What’s up, Mr Mansell? Who’s that gone off with Bob Aiken’s boat?’