Part 8 (1/2)
”You were in the house at the time of the murder?”
”Yes. I was in the room next to this.”
”Thank you,” said the inspector, making an entry in his notebook. He glanced at Rosemary again. ”Was anyone with you in the garden this afternoon, madam?”
”Oh yes!” replied Rosemary nervously. ”A friend of ours called. I was sitting talking to him by the lake for quite some time.”
”His name?” asked the inspector, pencil poised.
”Dermott-Mr. Trevor Dermott. A very old friend of ours.”
The inspector looked up. ”Is Mr. Dermott on the premises now?”
”No, oh no! He left some time ago. I mean, before I'd the least idea of this frightful thing having happened.”
”Mr. Dermott did not, to your knowledge, see your husband this afternoon, madam?”
”No, I know he didn't. He never came up to the house at all. My husband had a business appointment, and I walked down the drive to meet Mr. Dermott. He simply left his car down the drive, and we sat by the lake till he had to go.”
The inspector looked at her. ”You were expecting Mr. Dermott this afternoon?”
”Well, yes, in a way I was. I mean, he said he might look me up today if he got back from town.”
”I see.” The inspector closed his notebook. ”Had your husband, to your knowledge, any enemies, madam?”
Rosemary did not answer for a moment. Miss Allison watched her with misgiving. Rosemary raised her eyes to the inspector's face and said hesitantly: ”I hardly know what to say. As a matter of fact, I do happen to know that he was having a good deal of trouble at the office with his partners. I don't really understand business-I simply don't pretend to-but I know his partners were absolutely set on doing something my husband wouldn't agree to.”
”Mr. Clement Kane was, I understand, the senior partner in the firm?”
”Yes, he was; that's just it.”
”You don't know of any private quarrel Mr. Kane may have had?”
”N-no,” Rosemary answered. ”Not exactly a quarrel. Of course, I know his great-aunt resented his inheriting all Silas Kane's property and loathed us being here, but they didn't quarrel. I simply hate having to tell you this, but I do feel it's my duty not to keep anything back. And actually it's no secret that his great-aunt hated Clement. Everyone knows that James Kane is the one she'd like to have here.”
Miss Allison fixed her gaze upon the prospect outside and thought of all the painful ways there might be of killing Mrs. Clement Kane. Rosemary's voice flowed on, but at last the inspector went away, and Miss Allison was able to favour Rosemary with a pithy resume of her own character as seen through the eyes of Mr. James Kane's affianced wife.
Her remarks, however, glanced off the armour of Rosemary's superb egotism. Rosemary was grieved to think that anyone could so misjudge the purity of her motives. She explained earnestly that she had gone through the familiar processes known to her as Asking Herself What She Ought to Do.
Miss Allison, who knew that Rosemary's mysterious Self, so often appealed to, so invariably in agreement with Rosemary, was divinely guided, at this point abandoned the argument and left the room.
The inspector, meanwhile, encountering James Kane in the hall, had requested him to accompany him to the study, whence Clement's body had by this time been removed for the purpose of answering a few questions on his own movements during the course of the afternoon.
”You state that you were seated on the terrace in the company of the elder Mrs. Kane until about half-past three, when the shot was fired?”
”Yes,” agreed Jim.
”When you left Mrs. Kane, where did you go, sir?”
”Up to her rooms on the first floor. She wanted her garden rug, and I went to ask her personal maid for it.”
”I understand the maid was not in Mrs. Kane's rooms at the time?”
”No.”
”So what did you do, sir?”
”I looked round for the rug but couldn't see it. I then came downstairs again and went into the garden hall, thinking it might be kept there.”
”The garden hall? That is the room on the same side of the house as this?”
”Correct.”
”With a way into the garden, I think?”
”Of course. I'll show you.”
”You were, I think you said, in this garden room when you heard the shot fired?”
”I was, yes.”
”Did you form any idea of the direction from which the sound came?”
”I thought it came from just outside.”
”What did you do, sir?”
”I went out at once through the door onto the path that runs down the side of the house and looked round.”
”And you saw no one, Mr. Kane?”
”Not a sign of anyone.”
The inspector moved to the window and looked out. Then he drew his head in again. ”You stated a little while ago that you went out immediately you heard the shot. If that is so, it seems very strange that you should not have caught a glimpse of anyone on this side of the house. There does not seem to be any room for doubt that your cousin was shot from the window.”
Jim frowned a little. ”Yes, it does,” he admitted. ”d.a.m.ned odd. I can only suppose that whoever it was must have managed to get to cover in the shrubbery before I came out. I shouldn't have thought he had time. He must have been darned nippy.”
The inspector's eyes measured the distance from the path to the shrubbery. Then he looked at Jim again and said: ”When you failed to see anyone, did you make any sort of search in the shrubbery, sir?”
”No. I waited for a moment or two and then came into the house again. Then I saw this door standing open and heard the butler and Miss Allison talking.”
”You waited for a moment or two? Why did you do that, sir?”
Jim smiled. ”Well, to tell you the truth, I thought it might be my young stepbrother up to mischief. I shouted at him, but he answered me from quite some way off, and I realised it couldn't have had anything to do with him.”
The inspector made a lengthy note in his book and after an appreciable pause said: ”Mr. Clement Kane had recently inherited a considerable property. I understand you are the present heir, are you not, sir?”
”I?” said Jim. ”No, you've been misinformed there. I belong to the youngest branch of the family. After my cousin Clement, it would go to the Australian branch.”