They Found Him Dead Part 17

"That young woman," said Lady Harte, accepting a gla.s.s of beer from her son, "badly wants an Object in life."

"She's got one. You wait till you see him," said Jim involuntarily. Recollecting the presence of a stranger, he added hastily: "Beer or a gimlet, Roberts?"

"I'll have beer, thanks. But don't mind me," replied Roberts, twinkling. "I've seen him too."

Jim laughed. "Awfully Nordic, isn't he? He's bunked to town, I understand. My own feeling is that he's too Nordic to be a murderer. Hullo, Adrian! Have some beer?"

Sir Adrian, who had come out on to the terrace from the drawing room, declined this offer but desired his stepson to tell him what had been happening. He appeared to be quite unmoved at the thought of the danger Timothy had been in, merely remarking that he hoped Jim did not expect him to enact the role of avenging parent.

Timothy presently joined the party on the terrace, chastened but anxious to justify himself.

Failing, however, to induce Oscar Roberts to support his statement that he had been steering a course well outside the line of Pin rocks, or to win from his stepbrother any sign of belief in his story or forgiveness for his crime, he went away to nurse his sorrows in solitude.

He bore himself with unaccustomed lowliness throughout the rest of the day and retired early to bed.

He bade Jim good-night in a painstakingly offhand voice, received in reply the curtest of valedictions, and flushed to the ears. This quite melted Miss Allison's heart, and she presently slipped out of the drawing room and went upstairs to tap on his door. After a slight pause she was told gruffly to come in and entered to find Timothy reading in bed. He lowered his book and said in a goaded voice: "What is it?"

Miss Allison went to sit on the edge of the bed. "I know you're sick to death of the whole subject," she said; "but do you mind telling me just what happened?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I did," he replied bitterly.

"Well, you might give me a chance, anyway."

"I don't care whether anyone believes me or not!" said Timothy.

Miss Allison removed the book from his grasp. "Come off the roof! You know as well as Jim does where the rocks are. If you say you were beyond them, I believe you."

"Well, I was."

"Cross your heart, Timothy?"

"Yes, I swear I was. Besides, if I'd hit anything, I'd have felt it."

"And absolutely between ourselves, you didn't muck something up in the engine?"

"'Course not. She wouldn't have sunk if I had."

Miss Allison twined her fingers together and said: "Timothy, what do you think was wrong?"

Something in her voice made him look at her sharply. "I don't know."

"Just exactly what happened?"

"Well, nothing at first. She was running perfectly. I opened her up awfully gradually too. As a matter of fact, I didn't mean to take her at full speed at all, but she was going so well, and it was such a grand day for it, that I simply couldn't help letting her out. I was steering an absolutely straight course, and the engine was running as sweetly as anything, when suddenly I felt her check a bit, and then I saw the water rising up in the boat, and she, heeled right over. It happened so quickly I don't really know what did happen, except that I was chucked clean out of the boat. I can tell you, it was a pretty ghastly feeling."

"It must have been awful!" Miss Allison said, her face quite pale.

"Well, it was, because for one thing it took me completely by surprise, and for another the current got me. Gosh, I was glad to see that motorboat chugging along!"

"If Mr. Roberts hadn't been there you'd have been drowned."

"I expect I should, really."

Her fingers gripped together in her lap. "It might have been Jim."

"Yes, I know; that's what I keep on telling him, but he doesn't believe a word I say. He thinks I capsized the rotten boat or ran her on the rocks. But he knows I can handle her, because he's often let me when I've been out with him. I'm frightfully sorry I took her out and-and lost her, but it's no use going on saying it. He simply doesn't listen. He said--" Timothy's voice shook suddenly. He found himself quite unable to repeat what Jim had said, and instead announced that he was tired and wished to be left alone.

Miss Allison got up. "Don't go to sleep yet. I'm going to fetch Jim."

Mr. Harte sat up with a jerk. "You jolly well aren't! I don't want to see him!"

"I don't care a d.a.m.n what you want. I mean to get to the bottom of this."

"I'll lock my door! It doesn't matter a hoot to me what Jim says or thinks, and if you make him come here, I won't ever speak to you again as long as I live!" declared Mr. Harte, anguished.

"Don't be an idiot! Can't you see that this may be important?" said Patricia fiercely. "If you didn't run her on the rocks, why did she sink?"

Timothy stared at her. "Do you mean, she was tampered with?" he demanded.

"But-but-why?"

"To get rid of Jim," said Patricia, but in a low voice, as though she were afraid of her own words.

"Gosh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Timothy, round-eyed.

She left the room and went downstairs to find Jim.

He was just coming out of the drawing room as she reached the hall, and said: "Oh, there you are! I was coming to look for you. Do you feel like going out?"

"No, not a bit. I want you to come up to Timothy's room, if you don't mind."

"But I do mind. I haven't the least desire to see Timothy, and I have got a most burning desire to have you to myself for a bit."

"Don't be vindictive, Jim. It's mean."

"I'm not. I haven't done a thing to him."

"Yes, you are. You know perfectly well he thinks the world of you. I think he's rather upset by what you said to him. So do make it up with him. Besides, I want you to listen to his story carefully, because I think he's speaking the truth. Do come, Jim!"

"All right, but why have I got to listen to his story all over again?" he asked, allowing himself to be led upstairs.

"Never mind. I'll tell you why when you're heard it. You haven't really listened to him yet, you know."

Timothy was still sitting up in bed when they reached his room. His manner towards his stepbrother would not have led the uninitiated to suspect that he desired a reconciliation. He said: "You needn't think I wanted her to fetch you, because I didn't. I've told you I was sorry about half a million times already, and if you don't want to listen, you jolly well needn't!"

"If you give me any lip I'll wring your neck," said Jim. "You meddlesome, c.o.c.ksure little beast."

Mr. Harte's countenance lightened at this form of address. "Oh, Jim, honestly I'm most frightfully sorry about it!" he said thickly.

"All right, put a sock in it. Pat says I've got to listen to your utterly unconvincing narrative,"

replied Jim, sitting down on the side of the bed.

"Well, I wish you would," said Timothy; "because when Mr. Roberts says I ran on the rocks, he simply doesn't know what he's talking about! I didn't."

"What did you do, then?"

"Tell him exactly what you told me, Timothy!" commanded Miss Allison. "And do listen with an open mind, Jim! It's important."

"I can't for the life of me see why, but carry on!" said Jim.

Timothy drew his knees up, and hugged them, and repeated the story he had told Miss Allison.

Jim heard him out in silence but at the end said: "Look here, my child, you may think you didn't hit anything, but a boat doesn't go down in thirty seconds for no reason. You must obviously have ripped one of the bottom strokes clean off her. I don't say you crashed bang into a rock, but, according to you, you were going all-out. At that speed it would be enough if you merely grazed a rock."

"Jim, if I'd done that, wouldn't I have felt it?"

"I should have thought so. Never having piled her up myself I can't say for certain."

"Give me a piece of paper and a pencil!" ordered Timothy. "I'll draw you a diagram."

"What on earth does it matter? The thing's done now. Forget it!"

"No, let him show you!" said Patricia.

Jim sighed, and produced a pencil from his pocket, and handed it over. Timothy directed Miss Allison to give him the notebook that lay on his dressing table, licked the pencil, and began to sketch.

"Well, that's the bay, roughly. Here is Portlaw, and here is the landing stage below our cliff. Now the Pin rocks run like this, don't they?"

"More or less," agreed Jim, watching the pencil's progress.

"Right!" Well, this is the course I steered. If anything, I was drawing away from the rocks. It must have been just about here that the Seamew went down. Anyway, I'll swear it wasn't within a quarter of a mile of the rocks. Now what about it?"

Jim shook his head. "It's beyond me. Without wishing to be offensive, I should imagine that, while that was the course you meant to steer, you actually were much nearer the sh.o.r.e."

"Oh gosh!" said Timothy, disgusted. "You must think I'm a pretty average a.s.s!"

"I do," replied Jim promptly.

"When you let me handle the Seamew before, did I do all right or not?"

"You did. But I was with you."

"Look here!" interposed Patricia; "will you for the sake of argument a.s.sume that Timothy's right, and he wasn't near the rocks?"

"Certainly ma'am! So what?"

"He couldn't have sunk the boat like that through doing something wrong with the engine, could he?"

"No."

"Could one of the bottom boards-or whatever you call them-have been loose from the start?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Didn't we have her out this morning?"

"Well, are you sure you didn't graze her on something?"

"G.o.d give me strength!" gasped Jim. "Talk about adding insult to injury! Are you two beauties trying to make out I sank the boat?"

"No, but are you sure?"

"I am!" said Jim emphatically.

"Then if Timothy didn't run her on the rocks, and there was nothing wrong with her this morning, why did she sink?" demanded Patricia.

"She didn't. What I mean is, she wouldn't have if--" He stepped and glanced quickly from Patricia's face to Timothy's "Good Lord! You don't think someone tampered with her, do you?" he exclaimed.

"Yes," replied Patricia. "I do."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

For a moment Jim stared at Patricia, then he put his arm round her and drew her close to him.

"Of all the lurid ideas! Darling, I'm sorry to have to say it, but you're definitely batty."

"No, she isn't," said Timothy. "Everyone knows you've entered for the race next week, and I should think a whole lot of people knew you were going to try the Seamew out tomorrow."

"Do try and pull yourself together," begged Jim. "I was out in her this morning! Who on earth could have had a chance to monkey about with her between the time I came in and the time you went out?"

"Anybody!" replied Timothy promptly. "It was a safe bet you wouldn't go out again today. You brought her in just after Mum arrived, which must have been just after eleven, and I didn't go down to the landing stage till three o'clock. There was loads of time."

"But, my good lad, n.o.body would dare tamper with my boat in broad daylight!"

Patricia sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. "I don't see why not. n.o.body ever comes along this side of the bay. There's no sand to attract the Portlaw gang. Besides, you know what those mud flats are like between us and Portlaw if you walk round the bay at low tide. Supposing someone did something or other to the Seamew between one o'clock and two o'clock? None of us would have been on the sh.o.r.e, because we were having lunch. I call it a pretty good time."

"Well, I don't," said Jim. "If I were going to put someone else's boat out of action, I should choose a nice dark night for the job."