Kerman sauntered in behind me and wandered around one of the settees before the fireplace to look at a Mexican saddle hanging on the wall. He took two steps towards it, then stopped with a start that flopped his hair into his eyes.
‘Gawd!’
I came around the settee fast.
A man in the black uniform of a chauffeur lay on his back. I didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead. There was a purple hole in the centre of his forehead, and a lot of blood had soaked into the Mexican rug on which he was lying. His yellow-brown hands were set rigid, his fingers were hooked like claws, and his small, brown face was twisted in a grimace of terror.
‘Sweet grief!’ Kerman said soberly. ‘He gave me a hell of a fright.’
I bent to touch the claw-like hand. It was still warm. The arm dropped to the carpet when I lifted and released it. He couldn’t have been dead for very long.
‘Looks bad for Dedrick,’ I said. ‘They must have arrived while he was talking to me.’
‘Think they’ve kidnapped him?’
‘Looks like it. Go ahead and call the police, Jack. There’s nothing we can do. You know how Brandon reacts to us. If he thinks we’ve been poking around, wasting time, hell raise Cain.’
As Kerman reached for the telephone, he paused, cocked his head on one side, listening.