They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer Page A

you in the boat?" demanded Mr. Harte.
    "No. Do your worst!" said Jim.
    "You are a rotten cad!" said Mr. Harte, disgusted. "I've a jolly good mind to blow the gaff."
    "Ha!" exclaimed Miss Allison. "I knew it! You've got a guilty secret. Timothy, is there another woman in his life?"
    "Hundreds of them!" said Timothy with relish.
    Miss Allison appeared to be overcome and begged Mr. James Kane, in throbbing accents, not to touch her.
    "Curse you, you have been my ruin!" groaned Mr. Kane, shaking his fist at the tree.
    "I say, Jim, you will take me, won't you?" said Mr. Harte, abandoning blackmail.
    "Yes, and drop you overboard with a weight tied round your ankles. Come down!"
    "Is it pax if I do?" inquired Mr. Harte suspiciously.
    "All right," agreed Jim.
    Mr. Harte descended, gave his trousers a perfunctory brush with his hands, and said darkly: "I know one person who'll probably have a fit when he hears about Miss Allison and you getting married."
    "Talking about serpents' teeth——" began Miss Allison hastily.
    "No, you don't!" interrupted Jim. "Go on, Timothy; who is it?"
    "Mr. Mansell," replied Timothy. "Not old Mr. Mansell; the other one. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he tried to poison you, or something. He's batty about Miss Allison."
    "What, that bounder?" said Jim. "Fellow with waved hair and a wasp waist? Pat, I thought better of you!"
    "Nor was your trust misplaced," answered Patricia cheerfully. "I think he's a horror."
    "He is too," nodded Timothy. "I jolly well hope he comes oiling round you again before he knows about your being engaged to Jim. Then Jim can dot him one on the boko." This programme appealed to him so strongly that his eyes gleamed with simple pleasure, and he added: "It 'ud be a pretty good lark if he did come and start making love to Miss Allison! I should think you could knock him out easily, couldn't you? I say, let's lay a trap for him! I bet Clement would be as pleased as punch if you beat him up."
    "Why?" demanded Miss Allison.
    "Because he can't stand him, of course. He had a stinking row with him on the phone yesterday. I know, 'cos I was in the room, and when Clement rang off he woffled a whole lot to me about people bothering his life out, and never seeing any point of view but their own, and being sick to death of the whole Mansell family."
    Jim told him he ought not to repeat such confidences, but they did not come as news to him. Clement had already unburdened himself to his cousin, complaining of the enormous death duties Silas' estate would have to bear, of the weight of responsibility Silas had left him. He had even touched upon the Australian project, but though Jim could sympathise he felt himself to be quite unqualified to advise.
    Clement made it plain that he was being badgered by his partners. It seemed to Jim that one half of his mind liked the Australian plan, while the other half shrank from it. He vacillated as Silas would never have done, mistrusted all the Mansells' arguments in favour of the scheme, and ended by absenting himself from the office on the score of having so much to do in picking up the threads of Silas' private affairs that he had no time for more than flying visits to the office.
    The ingenuity he displayed in evading Oscar Roberts lent a certain amount of colour to Timothy's theory, but Roberts cornered him at last by the simple expedient of stating calmly that when he came to Cliff House on Saturday afternoon, as he had been invited to do, he hoped to have a little talk with Clement before presenting himself at Mrs. Kane's tea table. Clement agreed, vaguely thankful that he would be able to make his position clear to Roberts without having to encounter at the same time arguments, and possibly recriminations, from his two partners.
    "He's going to turn it down," Paul said.
    "I'm afraid so. I'm afraid so," Joe Mansell replied.
    "I would never have thought it of him. Never."
    Paul smiled rather unpleasantly but said nothing.
    "Roberts may manage to