They Found Him Dead (33 page)

"Yes, that's good psychology, Super," conceded the sergeant. "What are we going to do? Drag the lake?"

"If all else fails. But neither James Kane nor Mrs. Kane could have disposed of the revolver as far from the house as that, let alone the certainty of their being seen by Dermott and Mrs. Clement Kane, who were there. I think it must be concealed in, or near, the house."

"That bank of rhododendrons? Terrible Timothy searched there, and so I did myself."

"No, I thought of that; but I don't believe we shall find it there. If the murderer hid it there he must surely have buried it, for we were bound to search that bank. I don't see him doing that. It would have taken time, he might have been seen from the house, and at any moment one of the gardeners might have passed by. If he got rid of the gun on the premises he must have done it quickly. Now, isn't there a big rain tub standing not ten feet from the study window?"

The sergeant blinked at him. "There is, of course, but are you suggesting that anyone would have the almighty brass to drop the gun in there where it might be discovered any minute, Super? Why, he'd have to be crazy! The very fact of the tub being so handy would be enough to put him off!"

"Perhaps he banked on us thinking that," said Hannasyde with a slight smile.

The sergeant scratched his chin. "I'm bound to say it's about the last place I'd look for the gun. As a matter of fact, I've never banked much on finding it there at all."

"Nor I. Which is where I think we may have been wrong. We'll go and investigate that tub."

But when the sergeant was confronted with the big green rain tub standing so blatantly against the wall of the house, he shook his head and said: "He wouldn't have had the nerve."

"Whoever committed this crime had plenty of nerve," replied Hannasyde grimly. "See if you can find a long stick."

The sergeant said: "That's easy," and moved towards a round bed of roses beyond the edge of the shrubbery and calmly uprooted the stake that supported one of the standard trees. Hannasyde took it from him, and, mounting the brick platform on which the tub stood, lifted the wooden lid, and lowered the stick into the dark water, probing and stirring. The sergeant watched him with interest but without hope.

"There is something lying on the bottom!" Hannasyde said. "I've just moved it." He withdrew the stake, threw it aside, and stepped down from the ledge of bricks. "Turn that spigot, Sergeant! I want the tub emptied."

"That'll make us popular with the head gardener," murmured the sergeant, but he turned the spigot and stood back while the water splashed down onto the gravel path, forming first a pond and then a river.

It was not the head gardener who took exception to the gathering flood, but Ogle, bouncing out upon the two detectives from the garden hall. "You turn that tap off this instant!" she commanded angrily. "The idea of it, making all this mess! You've got no right to come here ruining the flower-beds and making the place not fit to go near! What do you want with that tub? Who gave you leave to touch it, I should like to know?"

Hannasyde paid no attention, leaving the task of getting rid of her to his subordinate, who accomplished it in record time. She darted back into the house, promising to tell Mr. James what damage was being done to his property, and in a few moments came back with him at her heels. "There, sir!" she said. "Tell them to stop it this instant! The mistress wouldn't allow it, not for one moment! The impudence of it!"

"All right, Ogle! You trot along," said Jim. He looked from the lake at his feet to the superintendent and said, as Ogle withdrew reluctantly into the house: "I say, must you? You're not exactly improving this bit of garden. What's the great idea?"

"I shouldn't do it if I didn't think it necessary, Mr. Kane," said Hannasyde rather curtly. "It won't do any serious damage to the garden, I assure you. The tub's only half-full."

"Thanks very much," said Jim, his jaw hardening a little. "And now perhaps you'll explain just what you're up to?"

"Certainly," said Hannasyde, looking at him under his brows. "I am pursuing an investigation. Have you any objection?"

"I have," said Jim. "I object most strongly to having any part of my property damaged without my permission being first obtained."

"I beg your pardon," said Hannasyde instantly. "Have I your permission to empty this tub?"

For a moment Jim's smiling eyes held no hint of a smile but, instead, a distinctly grim expression. Then his excellent temper reasserted itself and he gave a laugh and said: "Carry on!"

"Thank you," said Hannasyde, watching the dwindling flow of water from the spigot.

Jim lit a cigarette and stood half in, half out of the garden hall, leaning his big shoulders against the doorframe. "As an example of simple faith, this performance must be pretty well unrivalled," he remarked.

Hannasyde glanced up. "Yes? And why, Mr. Kane?"

"Don't be silly," said Jim. "Do you suppose I haven't grasped what you're up to? You're quite obviously hunting for the fatal weapon. Of course it would be concealed in a rain tub bang on the scene of the crime."

"We shall see," said Hannasyde. "Give me a hand, will you, Sergeant?"

The sergeant, secretly in sympathy with Mr. James Kane's evident scepticism, stepped into the flood and assisted his superior to lower the heavy tub off its platform onto the ground and to tilt it onto its side. A little muddy water trickled out of it, and, as they tilted it still farther, something was heard to slide inside it, grating on the wood.

"Right up!" Hannasyde said.

The sergeant got his hands under the bottom of the tub and gave it a hoist. A Colt .38 revolver clattered down the side of the tub and fell into the pool of water with a splash.

"Well, I'll be damned!" said Jim, staring.

"Sometimes, Mr. Kane, the obvious place is the right place," said Hannasyde calmly and bent to pick up the gun.

It was at this somewhat inopportune moment that Mr. Harte came wandering round the corner of the house, his whole bearing proclaiming the fact that he was bored and did not know what to do with himself.

At sight of the two detectives the cloud left his brow, and he pranced up to them, full of zeal and curiosity. "Hullo, Sarge! What are you doing?" he demanded. "Golly, what a mess! I say! What have you found?"

The sergeant, who had been staring at the gun in Hannasyde's hand as one bemused, recollected himself with a start and said: "Look here, sonny, you trot off and tell yourself an anecdote! We're busy."

"You've found the gat!" cried Mr. Harte. "Gosh! I say, what's that weird thing on the end of the barrel?"

Hannasyde raised his eyes from the revolver and glanced thoughtfully at Mr. Harte's eager countenance.

The sergeant was trying to edge him away, but Mr. Harte had no intention of leaving. "All right, Hemingway," said Hannasyde quietly. "It doesn't matter."

The sergeant sent him a quick, puzzled look but stopped trying to get rid of Mr. Harte.

Jim, frowning at the revolver, said: "I don't understand. Isn't that thing a silencer?"

"It is," replied Hannasyde.

"But then, that can't be the gun you're looking for," Jim objected. "It made the hell of a noise! They heard it in the hall."

"Very odd, isn't it?" said Hannasyde unemotionally.

He slid the gun into his pocket and turned towards the house. His intent, questing gaze fell on the little brick platform built for the tub to stand on; he stepped up to it and bent, closely scrutinising it. He picked something up very carefully. "Now I'm beginning to understand," he said.

The three others craned forward to see what lay in the palm of his hand. "That's a bit of burnt-out fuse!" Jim exclaimed.

"My Lord!" muttered the sergeant and went down on his knees by the platform. "Here's another bit, Chief. That seems to be the lot."

"About eighteen inches of it," said Hannasyde, measuring the fragments with his eye. "Say three minutes' burning time." He glanced up at the pipe which fed the rain tub. "It must have slipped down behind the tub from——" He paused and raised a hand to one of the brackets clamping the pipe to the wall, feeling it carefully "——from this bracket," he concluded, bringing his hand away with another tiny fragment of the mottled fuse in it. "There should be a detonator," He looked down at Mr. Harte and said with a faint smile: "If you want to be useful, see if you can find it."

"You bet your life!" said Mr. Harte fervently and proceeded without any more ado to create havoc amongst the antirrhinums planted thickly in the bed along the wall of the house.

The sergeant, his eyes fixed on Hannasyde's face in an expression of shocked inquiry, opened his mouth to speak, encountered a steady look from Hannasyde, and thought better of it. He joined Timothy in the search for the detonator. It was Timothy who presently let out a squeak of triumph and held up between an earth-stained finger and thumb a brass object like a cartridge which had been pinched at the open end. "Look, is this it?"

"That's it," said Hannasyde, taking it from him.

Jim was still looking bewildered. "How did it work?" he asked.

"Quite simply," Hannasyde replied. "One end of the fuse was inserted at this end. Then the sides of the cap were very carefully pinched together so that they gripped the fuse. Do you see? It was then hung over that bracket, and the other end split and set light to. Standard fuse, which it is safe to assume this is, being white, burns at the rate of six inches a minute, and I should judge that we've found just about eighteen inches of it. What you and the others heard, Mr. Kane, was not the shot that killed your cousin, but the detonator going off."

"Good God, then that accounts for my not seeing a sign of anyone when I looked out!" Jim said. "My cousin was shot some minutes earlier?" Hannasyde nodded. "Yes, but I still don't quite get it. I gather that it lets me out, but——"

"What do you suppose can have been the reason for setting the fuse, Mr. Kane?"

"Alibi!" gasped Mr. Harte, executing a slight war dance. "Whoopee!"

"Alibi," repeated Jim. "Yes, of course. Sorry to be so dense. But——"

"Oh, Jim, you ass!" said Timothy. "You couldn't have done it, because you didn't get yourself an alibi! Golly, I do think this is fun!"

"I've grasped that," said Jim. "But what I don't immediately perceive is, which of us did benefit by this contraption. Neither of the Mansells established an alibi, nor did Dermott, nor did—in fact, none of us did except Miss Allison, I suppose, and you can't seriously suspect——"

Mr. Harte drew a shuddering breath and fixed the sergeant with a glittering and accusing gaze. "I told you so!" he said. "I told you you ought to keep an eye on him!"

"Keep an eye on who?" demanded the sergeant.

"Pritchard, of course! It's obvious!"

"Pritchard?" said Jim. "My good lad, what on earth should he have to do with it? He's only been employed here since old Barker died last year, so he had no expectations of a legacy. Besides——"

Mr. Harte danced with impatience. "The Hidden Killer! He knew when Cousin Silas went out that night, and of course he followed him! And then he fixed up this affair to give himself an alibi for doing Cousin Clement in, and nobody ever bothered to find out where he was before he went to answer the front-door bell, because it looked as though he couldn't possibly have done it!"

"But why?" said Jim.

"Cousin Maud's husband!" hissed Mr. Harte.

"Get out!" said Jim scornfully.

"I bet you I'm right! I bet you Mr. Roberts will think there's something in it, even if you don't. Because the only thing that put him off Pritchard's scent was his being in the hall when they heard the shot. It's no use you making that face! It's perfectly true! I talked to Mr. Roberts about it when you first started wondering about this Leighton bloke, and he said it had occurred to him, quite early on, only it led nowhere, because Pritchard had a cast-iron alibi."

Hannasyde, who had been listening to him with an unmoved countenance, said: "You mustn't mention this to Pritchard, you know, or to any of the servants."

"Rather not! Of course I wouldn't breathe a word to them! I can tell Mr. Roberts, can't I?"

"Oh yes, you can tell him if you want to," replied Hannasyde, "Help me to put the tub back, will you, Sergeant?"

Jim said, his brows knit: "Do you think he ought to say anything about this to anyone at all, Superintendent? It's not my affair, I know, but——"

"It doesn't matter what he tells Mr. Roberts," replied Hannasyde. "It mustn't come to the butler's ears, though. But he understands that. All right, Hemingway, that's all."

"Are you going back to Portlaw?" inquired Timothy, seeing the two detectives preparing to depart. "Because if you are, I'll come with you as far as Victoria Place."

"All right," said Hannasyde, glancing at his wristwatch. "But we must hurry if we want to catch the ten forty-five bus."

"Look here, just a minute!" said Jim. "What are you going to do about this? I mean, it's all very well for you to waltz off in this airy fashion, but I happen to be rather vitally concerned in the case!"

"I hadn't forgotten that," said Hannasyde. "I am going to the police station to put through a number of urgent inquiries to Scotland Yard. I may be in a position to tell you the result of those inquiries by this evening, or possibly some time tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm afraid you'll have to possess your soul in patience."