"I'm not afraid. It's you who seem to have got cold feet. The police can't prove 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 regard for them. Silas was my oldest friend. Don't you dare say such a thing again! It's—it's an 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 he 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' 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 focussed 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 Robert was still holding out to him and focussed them on the headland. "Yes, a very fine pair," he said in his normal voice. "I see Kane's speedboat'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!"