Charles Carrington blinked, and looked to see how Hannasyde received this sudden outburst. Hannasyde was watching Kenneth. He said nothing. Kenneth's brilliant, challenging eyes came to rest on his impassive face. “That's what you don't yet grasp!” hr said. “I might have killed Arnold because I loathed him, and his money-grubbing mind, and his vulgar tastes, but not for his two hundred and fifty thousand pounds!”
“Don't you want his two hundred and fifty thousand pounds?” asked Hannasyde conversationally.
“Don't ask me dam' silly questions,” snapped Kenneth, “Of course I do! Who wouldn't?”
Hannasyde got up. “No one of my acquaintance,” he answered. “I've no more questions to ask you at the moment, dam' silly or otherwise.”
“Good,” said Kenneth. “Then I'll depart. Don't forget to come round tonight Giles. And mind the wolf! According to Murgatroyd it's at the door. Good-bye, Uncle. Give my love to Aunt Janet.”
“I must be going too,” said Hannasyde, as the door shut behind Kenneth. “I may act as I think fit with regard to this letter, Mr Carrington?”
Charles Carrington nodded. “Use your discretion, Superintendent. I expect you've got a lot, hey?”
Hannasyde smiled. “I hope so,” he said. He turned to Giles. “I shall see you tomorrow at the Inquest, shan't I?”
Giles held out his hand. “Yes, I shall be there.”
Hannasyde gripped the hand for a moment, a certain friendly warmth in his eyes. “I'll let you know if anything interesting transpires.”
He went out, and Charles Carrington pushed back his chair from the desk. “Well, well, well!” he said. “Sheer waste of my time, of course, but not unamusing.”
“I've half a mind to ask Kenneth to look for another solicitor,” said Giles ruefully.
His father sat up, and resumed his search amongst the papers on his desk. “Nonsense!” he said briskly. “That boy is either an incorrigibly truthful young ass, or a brilliantly clever actor. He's got your Superintendent Hannasyde guessing, Giles. What's more, he's got you guessing as well. You don't know whether he did it or not.”
“No, I don't. I don't even know whether he'd be capable of doing it. He's a queer fish. Curiously coldblooded.”
“He's capable of it, all right. But whether he did it or not I can't make out. Where the devil are my spectacles?”
Chapter Eight
The Deputy-manager of the Shan Hills Mining Company, Mr Harold Fairfax, received Superintendent Hannasyde with anxious deference, and raised no objection at all to the Superintendent's request that he might be allowed to question certain members of the staff. Mr Fairfax was a spare little man of middle age, and seemed to be in a perpetual state of being worried. He could throw no light on the mystery of Arnold Vereker's death. “You see,” he said unhappily, “so many people disliked Mr Vereker. He was a hard man, oh, a very hard man! I - I believe he trusted me. I like to think he did. We never quarrelled. Sometimes he would be very short with me, but I have known him for a great many years, and I think I understood him. It is a dreadful thing, his murder; an appalling thing. And all, perhaps, because someone couldn't make allowances for his temper!”
Miss Miller, Arnold Vereker's secretary, was more helpful. She was a businesslike-looking woman, of an age hard to determine. She fixed her cold, competent eyes on the Superintendent, and answered his questions with a composure tinged with contempt. She told him the exact hour of Arnold Vereker's arrival at the office on Saturday morning; she recited a list of the engagements he had had, and described his callers. “At five-and-twenty minutes past ten,” she said briskly, “Mr Vereker sent for Mr Mesurier, who remained in his room for twenty-seven minutes.”
“You are very exact, Miss Miller,” said the Superintendent politely.
She smiled with tolerant superiority. “Certainly. I pride myself on being efficient. Mr Mesurier was sent for immediately after the departure of Sir Henry Watson, whose appointment, as I have informed you, was at ten o'clock. Mr Cedric Johnson, of Messrs Johnson, Hayes & Heverside, had an appointment with Mr Vereker at eleven, and arrived seven minutes early. I informed Mr Vereker at once, through the medium of the house telephone, and Mr Mesurier then came out, and, I presume, returned to his own office.”
“Thank you,” said the Superintendent. “Can you tell me if there was any unpleasantness during any of Mr Vereker's appointments that morning?”
“Yes; Mr Vereker's interview with Mr Mesurier was, I imagine, extremely unpleasant.”
“Why do you imagine that, Miss Miller?”
She raised her brows. “The room which is my office communicates with the late Mr Vereker's. I could hardly fail to be aware of a quarrel taking place behind the intervening door.”
“Do you know what the quarrel was about?”
“If I did I should immediately have volunteered the information, which must necessarily be of importance. But it is not my custom either to listen at keyholes, or to waste my employer's time. During Mr Vereker's interview with Mr Mesurier, and his subsequent one with Mr Cedric Johnson, I occupied myself with Mr Vereker's correspondence, using the dictaphone and a typewriter. What was said, therefore, I did not hear, or wish to hear. From time to time both voices were raised to what I can only describe as shouting-pitch. More than that I am not prepared to say.”
He put one or two other questions to her, and then got rid of her, and asked to see Mr Rudolph Mesurier.
Mesurier came in five minutes later. He looked rather white, but greeted Hannasyde easily and cheerfully. “Superintendent Hannasyde, isn't it? Good-morning. You're investigating the cause of Arnold Vereker's death, I understand. Rather an awful thing, isn't it? I mean, stabbed like that, in the back. Anything I can tell you that might help you, I shall be only too glad to - only I'm afraid I can't tell you much.” He laughed apologetically, and sat down on one side of the bare mahogany table, carefully hitching up his beautifully creased trousers. Just what is it you want to know?” he asked.
“Well, I want to know several things, Mr Mesurier,” answered the Superintendent. “Can you remember where you were on Saturday evening between the hours of- let us say eleven o'clock and two o'clock?”
Mesurier wrinkled his brow. “Let me see now: Saturday! Oh yes, of course! I was at home, Redclyffe Gardens, Earl's Court. I have digs there.”
“Are you sure that you were in home then, Mr Mesurier?”
“Well, really - !” Mesurier laughed again, a little nervously. “I was certainly under that impression! I had a bit of a head that night, and I went to bed early.”
Hannasyde looked at him for a few moments. Mesurier stared back into his eyes, and moistened his lips. “Where do you garage your car?” asked Hannasyde.
“What an odd question! Just round the corner. I have a lock-up garage, you know, in a mews.”
“Are you always careful to keep that garage locked, Mr Mesurier?”
Mesurier replied a shade too quickly. “Oh, I'm afraid I'm rather casual sometimes! Of course I do usually see that it's locked, but occasionally, when I've been in a hurry - you know how it is!”
“Did you use your car at all on Saturday?”
“No, I don't think I - Oh yes, I did, though!”
“At what time?”
“Well, I don't really remember. In the afternoon.”
“And when did you return it to the garage?”
Mesurier uncrossed his legs, and then crossed them again. “It must have been sometime during the early part of the evening. I'm afraid I'm a bit hazy about times. And of course, not knowing that it would be important - the time I garaged the car, I mean -”