The sergeant, who knew his chief well, cocked an intelligent eye and said: "Oh, she does, does she? Pretty Paul make it worth her while to do so?"
"It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he had, but I've nothing to go on. She's a flashy blonde widow. Quite cool and collected. I couldn't catch her out."
"Ah, one of the hard-boiled Hannahs," said the sergeant, nodding. "There's just a bit of talk about her and Master Paul. Does she happen to remember what time he left her on Saturday to go to this tennis party?"
"Oh, she says he left her at five-and-twenty minutes past three. From her house in Portlaw to Brotherton Manor is just over twelve miles, by the coast road running past Cliff House. It's a good road, and not crowded. I should think he could have made the distance in twenty minutes, if he stepped on it a bit, which he says he did."
"Any servants to corroborate Mrs. Trent's valuable testimony?" inquired the sergeant.
"No. One general servant, who went off for her half-day immediately after lunch."
"Slight smell of dead rat about this story," said the sergeant; "looks to me like a put-up job. Any bright young fellow on point duty happen to remember seeing Paul's car leave the town?"
"Not a hope," replied Hannasyde. "She lives in Gerrard Avenue, and the only big crossing he had to negotiate before getting clear of the town is governed by traffic lights."
The sergeant said disgustedly: "That's what they call Progress, that is. It beats me what the world's coming to."
Hannasyde smiled a little but said, "Someone may have seen the car. Carlton is going into that."
"Not they," said the sergeant bitterly. "Or if anyone did, they won't be able to say for certain whether it was at a quarter-past three or a quarter to four. I've had some!"
"Well, it is just possible that if he's lying, and he did shoot Clement Kane, someone may have seen his car pulled up outside Cliff House. He didn't drive in the main gate, and I should think it unlikely that he drove in the tradesmen's gate. It's true there's no lodge there, but he'd hardly dare park his car inside the grounds. If he murdered Clement, I think he must have left his car in the road, entered the grounds by way of the tradesmen's gate, and reached the house under cover of the rhododendron thicket. Quite simple."
"Super," said the sergeant; "how many cars have you seen parked along the cliff road with their owners having a nice picnic inside?"
"Oh, I know, I know!" replied Hannasyde. "Any number. But Mansell's car must be well known in this district and might well have caught the attention of anyone familiar with it. It's a long shot, but sometimes our long shots come off, Skipper."
"Come unstuck, more like," said the sergeant, still in a mood of gloom. "A proper mess, that's what this case is. We don't know where it started, and if Terrible Timothy's right, we don't know where it's going to end. You don't know where to take hold of it, that's what I complain of. It's more like my missus's skein of knitting wool, after one of the kittens has had it, than a decent murder case. I mean, you get hold of one end and start following it up, and all it leads to is a damned knot worked so tight you can't do a thing with it. Then you grab hold of the other end, and start on that, and what you find is that it's a bit the kitten chewed through that just comes away in your hand, with the rest of the wool in as bad a muddle as ever. Well, I ask you, Super! Just look at it! First there's the old man. Perhaps he was murdered and perhaps he wasn't. And if he was murdered the same man did in Clement, unless it was another party altogether making hay while the sun shone. It makes my head go round. It doesn't make sense."
"Not as told by you," agreed Hannasyde. "It is a teaser, I admit. There are so many possibilities, and the worst of it is, we weren't in at the start."
"If it was the start," interposed the sergeant.
"If it was the start, as you say. I don't think we shall ever know for certain what happened to Silas Kane, though we may get at it by inference. The local police accepted Clement's story of his own movements that night, and he, on the face of it, was the likeliest suspect. But the fact of his having been murdered doesn't make it look as though he killed Silas."
"Unless the whole thing's a snowball," said the sergeant, "with each new heir doing in the last. I wouldn't put it beyond them."
"A trifle unlikely," said Hannasyde. "Try and get the case straight in your mind, Skipper. We have to consider it in several lights. First, we'll assume that both men were murdered, and by the same person, and presumably for the same motive. That rules out Dermott, Mr. Kane, Ogle, Lady Harte and Rosemary Kane. Lady Harte wasn't in England at the time of Silas Kane's death, and neither she nor Rosemary could have pushed a man over the cliff edge. They haven't the necessary strength. So we're left with James Kane and both the Mansells. Any one of the three could have committed both murders. James Kane has no alibi for the time of Silas Kane's death; Joe Mansell's depends entirely on his wife's testimony; Paul's once more on the ubiquitous Mrs. Trent, with whom he spent that evening."
"Yes, but there's a snag in all this, Super," objected the sergeant.
"There are several, because so far we're only working on assumption. We've got to look at the case from a second angle. Let us suppose that both men were murdered, but by different people and for different motives."
The sergeant moaned: "I can't get round to that."
"Most unlikely," assented Hannasyde. "But it could have happened. I'm by no means satisfied that Clement could not have motored his wife home on the night of Silas' death and himself driven back to Cliff House without her knowledge. They didn't occupy the same bedroom, remember. Clement wanted Silas' money badly, not for himself, but for his wife, with whom he seems to have been utterly infatuated. Assuming for the moment that he killed his cousin, just glance over the subsequent events. Upon his coming into the Kane fortune, Rosemary Kane, who, if gossip is to be believed at all, was on the verge of leaving him for Trevor Dermott, immediately gave Dermott the air. Well, you've seen Dermott. He's exactly the type of unbalanced man who sees red on very little provocation and behaves violently."
The sergeant stroked his chin. "It fits," he admitted. "The trouble is, all the theories fit. You can even have that one without making the old man's death out to have been murder."
"Oh, that's looking at the case from the third angle," said Hannasyde. "I haven't finished with the second yet. Having considered the combination of Clement Kane and Dermott, let's glance at the other combination. Clement remains fixed as Silas' murderer—"
"What about the Mansells?"
"Certainly not. The Mansells and James Kane must belong to the first angle—that both men were killed by the same person for the same motive. Retaining Clement, then, let's put Dermott aside. We are left with Mr. Kane, Ogle, and Lady Harte as suspects for the second murder. None of them very likely, but all of them possible. Now we'll take a look at it from the third angle, that Silas Kane met his death by accident."
"That's the worst of the lot," said the Sergeant. "It gives us the whole boiling to suspect."
"No, not quite. I think we must rule the Mansells out. If they didn't murder Silas for standing in their way over a business deal, it isn't very likely that they murdered Clement for doing so."
"Well, I suppose that's something," said the Sergeant. "All the same, it doesn't alter the stage much, does it? We've still got Jim Kane and his mother, Mrs. Kane and her maid, Rosemary Kane and her fancy boy, and, for all we know, Terrible Timothy. I make that seven."
"I refuse to consider Timothy," retorted Hannasyde. "Six."
"Don't know so much. What with these gangster films, and him being pretty well nuts on Crime, I wouldn't say it wasn't him. Still, I'll call it six."