‘Yes.’ Monty described again how he had heard the clock strike twelve. ‘And by the way,’ he added, ‘I can’t, of course, produce any alibi for myself, but my employers, Messrs Plummet & Rose, Wines & Spirits, Piccadilly, would speak for me as to character.’
‘We’ll look into that, Mr Egg. Don’t you worry,’ said Inspector Monk, imperturbably. ‘Let me see, haven’t I heard your name before? Ever meet a friend of mine called Ramage?’
‘Inspector Ramage of Ditchley? Why, yes. There was a little problem about a garage clock.’
‘That’s right. He said you were a smart chap.’
‘Much obliged to him, I’m sure.’
‘So for the moment we’ll accept your evidence and see where that gets us. Now, this clock here. Was it accurate, do you suppose?’
‘Well, I heard it strike again this morning, and it was right then by my watch. At least,’ said Monty, as some obscure doubt fluttered uneasily into the back of his mind and fluttered elusively away again, ‘I think it was the same clock. It had the same note – deep and quick and what you might call humming. Rather a pretty strike.’
‘H’m,’ said the Inspector. ‘We’d better check that up. May have been wrong last night and right again this morning. We’ll take a turn round the house and see if we can identify it. Ruggles, make Mr Bates understand that nobody must leave the place, and tell him we’ll be as quick as we can. Now, Mr Egg.’
There were only six striking clocks in the Griffin. The grand-father on the stairs was promptly eliminated; his voice was thin and high and quavering, like the voice of the very old gentleman that he was. The garage-clock, too, had quite the wrong kind of strike, while the clock in the coffee-room and the ugly bronze monster in the drawing-room were both inaudible from Monty’s room, and the clock in the bar was a cuckoo clock. But when they came to the kitchen, just beneath Monty’s bedroom, Monty said at once:
‘That looks like it.’
It was an old American eight-day wall-clock, in a rosewood veneer case, with a painted dial and the picture of a beehive on its glass door.
‘I know the kind,’ said Monty, ‘it strikes on a coiled spring and gives just the sort of rich, humming tone, like a church bell, but much quicker.’
The Inspector opened the clock and peered inside.
‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Now let’s check him up. Twenty-minutes to nine. Correct. Now, you go upstairs and I’ll push the hands on to nine o’clock, and you tell us if that’s what you heard.’
In his bedroom, with the door shut, Monty listened again to that deep, quick, vibratory note. He hurried downstairs.
‘It’s exactly like it, as far as I can tell.’
‘Good. Then, if the clock hasn’t been tampered with, we’ve got our time settled.’
It proved unexpectedly easy to show that the clock had been right at midnight. The cook had set it by the Town Hall clock, just before going up to bed at eleven. She had then locked the kitchen door and taken away the key, as she always did, ‘Otherwise that there Boots would be down at all hours, sneaking food from the larder.’ And the Boots – an unwholesome-looking lad of sixteen – had reluctantly confirmed this statement by admitting that he had tried the kitchen door half an hour later and found it securely fastened. There was no other access to the kitchen, except by the back door and windows – all bolted on the inside.
‘Very well,’ said the Inspector. ‘Now we can look into all these people’s alibis. And in the meantime, Ruggles, you’d better have a good hunt for Pringle’s sample-case. We know he took it to bed with him,’ he added, turning to Monty, whom he seemed disposed to confide in, ‘because the barman saw him. And it can’t have been taken out of the hotel before the body was discovered, because all the outside doors were locked and the keys removed – we’ve verified that – and nobody went out after they were opened except your friend Waters, and on your showing, he’s not the murderer. Unless, of course, he’s an accomplice.’
‘Not Waters,’ said Mr Egg stoutly. ‘Honest as the day, is old Waters. Won’t even wangle his expense-sheet. “Account with rigid honesty for £ and s and even d.” Waters’ pet passage from The Salesman’s Handbook.’
‘Very good,’ replied the Inspector, ‘but where’s that case?’
The management and staff of the Griffin being all examined and satisfactorily accounted for, Inspector Monk turned his attention to the guests. After the memorable dinner of mackerel and pork, Mr Egg, Mr Waters and two other commercial gentlemen named Loveday and Turnbull had played bridge till half-past ten, when Mr Egg and Mr Waters had retired. The other two had then gone down to the bar until it closed at eleven, after which they had gone up to Mr Loveday’s room on the other side of the house. Here they had chatted till half-past twelve and had then separated. At one o’clock, Mr Loveday had gone in to borrow a dose of fruit salts from Mr Tumbull, who travelled in that commodity. They thus provided alibis for one another, and there seemed to be no reason to disbelieve them.
Then came an elderly lady called Mrs Flack, who was obviously incapable of strangling a large man single-handed. Her room was on the main landing, and she slept undisturbed till about half-past twelve, when somebody came past her door and turned on the water in the bathroom. At a little before one, this inconsiderate person had returned to his room. Otherwise she had heard nothing.
The only other guest, besides Waters and Pringle himself, was a person who had arrived with Mr Pringle in the latter’s car and said that he was a ‘photographic agent’, answering to the name of Alistair Cobb. Inspector Monk did not like the look of him, but he was important, having spent a good part of the evening with the murdered man.
‘Get it out of your heads,’ said Mr Cobb, sleeking his hair, ‘that I know anything much about Pringle. Never set eyes on him till seven o’clock last night. I’d missed the bus (literally, I mean) from Tadworthy – you know it, a little one-horse place about four miles out – and there wasn’t another till nine. So I was starting out to leg it with my suit-case when Pringle came by and offered me a lift. Said he often gave people lifts. Companionable chap. Didn’t like driving alone.’
Mr Egg (who was present at the interview, a privilege no doubt attributable to Inspector Ramage’s favourable opinion of him) shuddered at this rash behaviour on the part of a traveller in jewellery, and was disagreeably reminded of the late Mr Rouse, of burning-car celebrity.
‘He was a decent old geezer,’ went on Mr Cobb, reminiscently. ‘Quite a gay old lad. He brought me along here –’
‘You had business in Cuttlesbury?’
‘Sure thing. Photographs, you know. Enlarge Dad and Mother’s wedding-group free. With gilt frame, twenty-five shillings. Dirt cheap. You know the game?’
‘I do,’ replied the Inspector, with an emphasis that made it clear that he thought the game a very doubtful one.
‘Just so,’ said Mr Cobb with a wink. ‘Well, we had dinner – and a dashed bad dinner too. Then we had a bit of a yarn in the bar-parlour. Bates and the barman saw us there. Then Bates went off to play billiards with some young fellow who dropped in, and we sat on till just about eleven. Then Pringle barged off – said he wasn’t feeling the thing, and I’m not surprised. That mackerel –’
‘Never mind the mackerel now,’ said Monk. ‘The barman says you and Pringle had a final drink at five to eleven, and then Pringle went off to bed, taking his bag with him. Did you go straight to the billiard-room at that point?’
‘Yes, right away. We played –’
‘Just a minute. Bates says you made a phone call first.’
‘So I did. At least, I went up first and found Bates and the other chap just finishing their game. So I said I’d make my call and then take Bates on. You can check the call for the time. I made it to the Bull at Tadworthy. I’d left a pair of gloves in the bar. A man answered me and said he’d found them and would send them on.’
The Inspector made a note.
‘And how long did you play billiards?’
The Inspector nodded. This confirmed the landlord’s evidence.
‘My room’s on the main landing,’ went on Mr Cobb. ‘No, not the side near the corridor where the disturbance was – the other side. But I went across and had a bath; the bathroom’s near the steps that go down to the corridor. It would be about ten to one when I got back. All quiet then on the Western Front.’
‘What did you and Pringle talk about downstairs?’
‘Oh, this and that,’ replied Mr Cobb easily. ‘We got swapping yarns and so on. Pringle had a hot one or two, and yours truly kept his end up. Have a fag, Inspector?’
‘No, thanks. Did Pringle happen to mention – Yes, Ruggles, what is it? Excuse me one moment, gentlemen.’
He stepped to the door for a word with the sergeant, returning in a minute or two with a card in his hand.
‘I suppose your photographic supplies don’t include this kind of thing, Mr Cobb?’
Mr Cobb blew out a long cloud of smoke with a whistling noise.
‘No,’ he said, ‘no-ho! Where did you get this pretty thing from?’
‘Ever seen it before?’
Mr Cobb hesitated. ‘Well, since you ask me, yes. The late lamented Pringle showed it me last night. Wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t asked me. Speak no ill of the dead and so on. But he was a bit up and coming, was Pringle.’
‘Sure it was the same one?’
‘Looks like it. Same pretty lady – same pretty pose, anyhow.’
‘Where did he carry it?’ asked the Inspector, taking the photograph back and attaching it to his notes with a paper-clip – but not before Mr Egg had snatched a glimpse of it and been suitably shocked.
‘In his breast-pocket,’ replied Mr Cobb, after a moment’s thought.
‘I see. Pringle told you what his job was, I suppose. Did he happen to say anything about taking precautions against thieves, or anything of that sort?’
‘He did mention that he had valuable stuff in his bag and always locked his bedroom door,’ returned Mr Cobb, with an air of great frankness. ‘Not that I asked him. No affair of mine what he did.’
‘Quite so. Well, Mr Cobb, I don’t think I need trouble you further at present, but I’d be obliged if you’d stay in the hotel till I’ve seen you again. Sorry to inconvenience you.’
‘Not at all,’ said the obliging Mr Cobb. ‘It’s all the same to me.’ He sauntered out, smiling pleasantly.
‘Pah!’ said Inspector Monk. ‘There’s a nasty piece of work for you. Cheap dirt. And a liar, too. You saw that photo? (And how anybody can print such filth beats me.) Well, that hadn’t been carried round in a breast-pocket. Edges quite sharp. Fresh out of its envelope, from the look of it. Don’t mind betting you’d find the rest of the series in that fellow’s suit-case. But naturally he won’t admit it – it’s a punishable offence to sell them.’
‘Where was this one found?’
‘Under Pringle’s bed. If Cobb hadn’t got an alibi – and I’m pretty sure Bates is telling the truth, and as a matter of fact, the cook’s window looks on to the billiards-room window, and she saw them playing there until 12.15. Unless they’re all in it together, which isn’t likely. And still no sign of Pringle’s bag. But we can’t get over the evidence of that clock. You’re sure it struck twelve?’
‘Absolutely. I couldn’t mistake one or two strokes for twelve.’
‘No, of course not.’ The Inspector drummed on the table and stared into vacancy. Monty took this for a dismissal. He went back into his own bedroom. The bed had not yet been made nor the slops emptied, the slatternly routine of the Griffin having been reduced to complete chaos by the catastrophe. He threw himself into a broken-springed arm-chair, lit a cigarette and meditated.
He had been brooding for ten minutes or so when he heard the town clock chime the quarters and strike eleven. Mechanically he waited, expecting to hear the answering melodious strike of the kitchen clock, but nothing came. Then he remembered that Monk had set the hands twenty minutes forward that morning, so that it must have struck some time since. And then he bounded to his feet with a loud exclamation.
‘Heavens! What a fool I am! This morning at seven the town clock struck first, and the kitchen clock immediately after. But last night I never heard the town clock strike at all. The kitchen clock must have been altered somehow or other. Unless – unless – unless, by gosh! I wonder if that could be it. Yes. Yes, it’s possible. Just before that clock struck twelve, Waters stopped snoring.’
He ran from the room and plunged hastily into No. 8. Like his own room, it was in disorder. Like his own room, it did not appear to have been dusted for weeks. And on the night-table by Waters’s bed, which stood close against the thin partition between the two rooms, there was a mark in the dust, as though some object measuring about three inches by three and a half had stood there during the night.
Mr Egg darted out of the room and along the corridor. He fell up the two ill-lighted steps with a curse, turned the corner and burst into the bathroom. Its window looked out upon a narrow side-street, communicating at one end with the main road and at the other with a lane that ran between warehouses. Rushing downstairs, Mr Egg caught Inspector Monk just emerging from the coffee-room.
‘Hold Cobb!’ panted Mr Egg. ‘I believe I’ve bust his alibi. Where’s Waters gone to? I want to put a call through to him. Quick!’
‘Waters said he was catching a train to Sawcaster,’ said Monk, rather astonished.
‘Then,’ said Monty, calling upon his professional knowledge, ‘he’ll put up at the Ring o’ Bells, and he’ll visit Hunter’s, Merriman’s and Hackett & Brown’s. We’ll get him at one place or the other.’
After a hectic half-hour at the telephone, he ran his quarry to earth at one of Sawcaster’s leading confectionery establishments.
‘Waters,’ gasped Monty urgently, ‘I want you to answer some questions, old man, and you can ask me why afterwards. Never mind how silly they sound. Do you carry a travelling-clock? You do? What’s it like? Old-fashioned repeater? Yes? About three inches square – squarish? Yes? Stood on your bed-table last night? Does it strike on a coiled spring? It does? Thank heaven for that! Deep, quick, soft note like a church bell? Yes, yes, yes! Now, old boy, think hard. Did you wake up last night and strike that repeater? You did? You’re sure? Good man! At what time? It struck twelve? What time does that mean? Any time between twelve and one o’clock? Then, for God’s sake, Waters, take the next train back to Cuttlesbury, because your dashed clock has nearly made you and me accomplices in a murder. Yes, MURDER … Hold on a moment, Inspector Monk wants to speak to you.’
‘Well,’ said the Inspector, as he replaced the receiver, ‘your evidence might have landed us in a nice pickle, mightn’t it? It’s a good job you had that brain-wave. Now we’ll go through Mr Dirty Cobb’s luggage and see if he’s got any more juicy photos. I suppose he took ’em along to show Pringle.’
‘That’s it. I couldn’t understand how the murderer got into the room. Naturally Pringle would lock his door. But of course he’d left it open for Cobb, who’d promised to slip along later and show him something to make his hair curl – “on the strict qt” and all that. It must have given Cobb a shock when Pringle yelled and I knocked at the door. But he was all there, I will say that for him. He’s probably a first-class salesman in his own rotten line. “Don’t let a sudden question rout you, but always keep your wits about you”, as it says in the Handbook.’
‘But look here,’ said the Inspector, ‘what did he do with Pringle’s bag?’
‘Dropped it out of the bathroom window to the accomplice he had summoned by phone from Tadworthy. Why, dash it all!’ cried Monty, wiping his forehead, ‘I heard the car go by, just after that confounded clock struck twelve.’
Bitter Almonds
A MONTAGUE EGG
STORY
‘DASH IT!’ EXCLAIMED MR Montague Egg, ‘there’s another perfectly good customer gone west.’
He frowned at his morning paper, which informed him that an inquest would be held that day on the body of Mr Bernard Whipley, a wealthy and rather eccentric old gentleman, to whom the firm of Plummett & Rose had from time to time sold a considerable quantity of their choice vintage wines, fine old matured spirits and liqueurs.
Monty had more than once been invited by Mr Whipley to sample his own goods, sitting in the pleasant study at Cedar Lawn – a bottle of ancient port, carried up carefully from the cellar by Mr Whipley himself, or a liqueur brandy, brought out from the tall mahogany cabinet that stood in the alcove.
Mr Whipley never allowed anybody but himself to handle anything alcoholic. You never, he said, could trust servants, and he had no fancy for being robbed, or finding the cook with her head under the kitchen dresser.
So Mr Egg frowned and sighed, and then frowned still more, on seeing that Mr Whipley had been discovered dead, apparently from prussic acid poisoning, after drinking an after-dinner glass of crème de menthe.
It is not agreeable when customers suddenly die poisoned after partaking of the drinks one has supplied to them, and it is not good for business.
Mr Egg glanced at his watch. The town where he was at that moment reading the paper was only fifteen miles distant from the late Mr Whipley’s place of residence. Monty decided that it might be just as well to run over and attend the inquest. He was, at any rate, in a position to offer testimony as to the harmless nature of crème de menthe as supplied by Messrs Plummett & Rose.
Accordingly he drove over there as soon as he had finished his breakfast, and by sending in his card to the coroner, secured for himself a convenient seat in the crowded little schoolroom where the inquest was being held.
The first witness was the housekeeper, Mrs Minchin, a stout, elderly person of almost exaggerated respectability. She said she had been over twenty years in Mr Whipley’s service. He was nearly eighty years old, but very active and healthy, except that he had to be careful of his heart, as was only to be expected.
The Nine Tailors Page 6
