Death-Watch

by John Dickson Carr

  Hadley sat up. “That’s a possibility,” he acknowledged. “If—”

  “It’s a possibility of rubbish, I’m afraid,” said Dr. Fell, shaking his head. “Grant everything you’ve said. If fear is behind it all, it works in rather a curious sort of way. If X, the accuser, were originally afraid of the murderess when X saw her burning blood-stained gloves, I should think X would get the wind-up at the possibility of being caught eavesdropping on several occasions, and wouldn’t feel safe until everybody at Scotland Yard had been told. But granted X does act in this fashion, and quietly tells Ames. What happens? Ames, the second-hand recipient of the secret, is instantly knifed. By this time I fancy X’s case of the wind-up must be blowing a howling hurricane. Still, X doesn’t speak, but goes on peacefully living and sleeping under the same roof with this pet cobra. If that’s the state of affairs I shouldn’t call it fear; at the most modest estimate, I should call it fat-headed recklessness.”

  There was a silence. Hadley nodded grudgingly.

  “Something in that,” he conceded. “All right; let’s hear the last two points or questions or whatever they are. Then we’ll try to make a sense of the whole.”

  “H’mf. Ha. Where was I? AH! Well, I’ve already mentioned my fourth point, but I stress it again so that it can come in the group where it belongs. That’s the little matter of the stolen clock-hands: why this apparently lunatic thief should pinch both hands, and wait until the completed clock was safely locked up instead of getting at it when it was freely exposed. Eh?”

  “And the last?”

  Dr. Fell chuckled wryly. “The last is in a sense a corollary of the fourth, but it seems even more insane unless properly interpreted by the others. To emphasize it, let me first ask you what articles—all of them—were stolen from Gamridge’s on the day of the murder.”

  “I’ve got all that,” said Hadley, looking at him dubiously and then down at the typewritten sheets. “Let’s see. ‘Bulletin to Press— Gamridge Official List—’ Here we are. Pair of pearl pendant earrings, value ten pounds. Opal ring, set with small diamonds, value twenty pounds. And Carver’s watch. That’s the lot.”

  “Was Carver’s watch ticketed as such in the display?”

  “You mean with his name? Oh yes. There was a little card on each curiosity, with the name of the owner and a brief history …” Hadley’s hand fell with a flat smack on the table, and he sat up. “Good God! Of course! I told you I was losing my grip. I see what you mean. Your last point, then, is, ‘Why should a member of Carver’s household who wanted that watch run the insane risk of shoplifting it in a crowded department store when it would have been much easier to steal it at home?’”

  “Exactly. And the more so as Carver’s burglar-alarms weren’t meant for his own household. I suspect he’s glad enough to exhibit his collection to anybody who’ll listen—We’ll test that out, by the way. So what do you make of it?”

  After a pause Hadley said: “I don’t know what to make of it.” He shook his head and stared blankly out of the window. “The whole business has now reached the last point of insanity. If you can find a simple little clue that will connect it all up, you’re a better man than I think. These questions of yours … Read out what you’ve got,” he added, abruptly, turning to Melson. “Let’s have the lot. Now I’ve forgotten how they run.”

  Melson ran his pencil doubtfully down the list.

  “If I haven’t misunderstood, it goes something like this:

  “Points to be considered in Department-Store Murder, as Linked up with Murder of Inspector George Ames.

  1. That, since the alibis of all others are at present to be accepted, the suspects narrow down to Lucia Handreth and Eleanor Carver as the department-store murderer.

  2. That there is no concrete evidence definitely to show that the murderer of Evan Manders, shop-walker, is also the murderer of Inspector Ames.”

  “Bravo!” said Hadley, gloomily. “That’s a fine way to begin working up a case against anybody, isn’t it? You first announced that according to the evidence either the Handreth or the Carver woman must have killed the shop-walker. Then you throw cold water on the whole thing by saying that the murderer of Ames might be somebody else … Look here, Fell, don’t ask me to believe that there are two murderers in that house, each addicted to walking about and stabbing people; because I won’t believe it. It’s too much. It’s an embarrass de richesse. No, no. If I can prove that one of those two women definitely is the department-store killer, I’m not going to have much doubt that she also killed Ames.”

  Dr. Fell thundered for a moment, and then toned himself down to mere fiery controversy.

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” he declared, flourishing his pipe. “What I want to get through your head is that I’m not trying to make out a case against anybody. Keep repeating to yourself those words, ‘According to the evidence, according to the evidence.’ This is what the evidence tells us, and I’m setting it out because I want you to interpret it and see what the whole devilish business means … Carry on, Melson.”

  “We go on, then, to the next point.

  3. That the whole accusation and case against one of the women for murdering Evan Manders comes from an unidentified person, who now under circumstances of the strongest pressure refuses to communicate with us.

  4. That, in procuring a weapon, the murderer of Inspector Ames (a) stole both hands off a clock when only one could have been used for that purpose; and (b) did not perform this theft when it was easy, but waited until the clock was locked up in Carver’s room.

  5. That the department-store murderer did not steal a watch belonging to Carver when the theft must have been easier at home, but took the dangerous risk of stealing it out of a display in a crowded department store.”

  “Heh,” said Dr. Fell. “Heh-heh-heh. There’s a donnish flavour about that document, Melson, which makes me want to preserve it. H’mf, yes. But it’s a fair statement with which to explain the glimmer of reason I have. I’ll let you consider it while I dress. Then we’ll go to the Carvers’.”

  1 See Hag’s Nook

  13

  The Skull-Watch

  IT WAS HALF-PAST TEN when they drove up in Hadley’s car to the clockmaker’s house. A crowd had assembled outside the door: a tractable crowd which was shoved aside by a policeman, moved back respectfully, closed in again, and kept repeating this process as the policeman paced back and forth with the silent regularity of one of Carver’s pendulums. A group of newspaper men argued with Sergeant Betts, and cameras flashed into view as the car stopped. From this group a burst of approval went up at the sight of Dr. Fell, and the press charged in. With some difficulty Hadley hustled away Dr. Fell, who showed a tendency to stand up in the front seat of the car and hold forth affably on any subject about which he was asked questions. Hadley said, curtly, “A statement will be issued,” as Berts cleared a lane for them. Impelled forward, his figure mountainous in the black cloak, his shovel-hat lifted above his head in salute, Dr. Fell beamed over his shoulder amid a clicking of cameras and a chorus of invitations to the nearest pub. Kitty—looking nervous—opened the front door, and closed it behind them against the roar of noise.

  It was cool and quiet in the dimness of the hallway. Hadley turned to a sharp-faced, swarthy young man who had followed Betts in.

  “You’re Preston? Yes. You know the instruction; a thorough search of these women’s rooms, with every trick and device you know.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the swarthy young man, nodding in pleased anticipation.

  Hadley turned to the girl. “Where is everybody, Kitty? All up and about, I hope?”

  “Not all,” Kitty said. “Mr. Carver and Mrs. Steffins were up. Mr. ’Astings, who had spent the night on the couch in Mr. Paull’s sitting-room and was feeling much better”—here Kitty gave a nervous giggle—”had gone out for a breath of fresh air with Miss Eleanor. That was all.”

  “I’ll see Mrs. Steffins,” Hadley decided, not witho
ut reluctance. “In the dining-room, you said; back of the house? Right.” He hesitated. “Do you want to watch us dig in, Fell?”

  “I do not,” the doctor returned, firmly. “H’mf, no. A little causerie with Carver is indicated. Also I want to see the convivial Christopher Paull and get our list of people straightened out, if he isn’t needing the hair of the dog too badly. Come along, Melson. I think this will interest you.”

  He knocked at the door of the sitting-room where the conference had been held last night, and Carver’s placid voice answered. Against a dull and chilly morning there was a bright fire burning in the white room. Carver, a cup of tea beside him and a half-eaten piece of toast balanced on the saucer, had moved the centre table nearer the windows. With a jeweller’s lens in his eye he was bending over an object on the table. He rose uncertainly and with some annoyance, which changed as his pale eyes recognized Dr. Fell. Big and stoop-shouldered against the discoloured hues of the old timepieces under their glass cases along the windows, in his smoking-jacket and slippers, he showed some pleasure at seeing them.

  “Ah!” he said. “Dr. Fell and Dr.—Melson, is it? Good! Good! I was afraid it might be … Sit down, gentlemen. I have been trying to distract my mind, as you see. This little example,” he touched with the lens a curious flattish clock whose bronze hood was ornamented with the small figure of a negro in turban and once-bright Oriental costume, a dog standing beside him, “is, as you can see, a dial of French manufacture. The English craftsmen have mostly neglected such things as being mere toys. I do not agree with Hazlitt’s plaint about the French ‘crochets and caprices with their clocks and watches, which seem made for anything but to tell the hour,’ or call it quackery and impertinence. I like the little figures which move with the striking of the quarters, and I have seen some remarkable examples, from the humorous to the ghastly.

  “For example,”—enthusiasm crept into his look, and one big finger drew a design in the air—“there is the common device on the hood of the figure of Father Time seated in a boat rowed by Eros, with the motto, ‘L’amour fait passer le temps’; which, as has been remarked, was turned into, ‘Le temps fait passer l’amour.’ On the other hand, I have seen in Paris a not-too-pleasant device by Grenelle, with a striking-mechanism whose figures represented the flagellation of Our Saviour with the hours struck to the fall of the whips.” He hunched his shoulders. “Er—I don’t wish to bore you, gentlemen?”

  “Not at all,” said Dr. Fell, amiably, and produced his cigar-case. “I have only a smattering of knowledge on the subject, but it has always interested me. Smoke? Good! I’m glad you mentioned the matter of mottoes. It reminds me of something I had intended to ask you. I don’t suppose by any chance you inscribed a motto on that clock you built for Sir Edwin Paull?”

  The interest faded out of Carver’s expression and was replaced by a dogged patience.

  “I had forgotten for a moment, sir,” he replied, “that you were affiliated with the police. We always come back to it, don’t we?—Yes, there is a motto. It’s not customary, you see, on dials of that sort; but I could not resist a little conceit. See it for yourself.”

  He shambled over to the door of the closet in the wall by the fireplace, opened it, and nodded inside. Melson and Dr. Fell, standing to one side so that the dull light should fall within, peered at the yellow glimmer of the squat, heavy, handless mechanism on the floor. There was a look of ugly mutilation about it, almost as though the thing had been alive, which brought back again the terrors of last night. Then with something of a shock Melson read the Gothic lettering that curved round the top of the dial.

  “I shall see justice done.”

  “A conceit of my own,” repeated Carver, clearing his throat slightly when the other two stood silent. “Do you like it? A little banal, perhaps; but it seemed to me that only clocks, as a symbol of eternity, can establish the just order of the future. Er—” he went on, as there was still silence, “the whole force of the motto, as you see, is the use of the word ‘shall.’ The ‘will’ of determination, as of fate or an avenger, has no place in it. It is the impassive, patient, vast ‘shall’ of mere futurity. I am interested in subtleties, like my friend Boscombe; in the devious …”

  Dr. Fell looked over his shoulder. Slowly he closed the closet door. “You are interested in subtleties,” he said, flatly. “Is that all this inscription means to you?”

  “I am not a policeman,” he answered, in such a quiet voice that Melson nearly missed the flicker of intelligence in his look. “You may make of it what you like, my dear Doctor. But now that we are on the subject (briefly, I hope) I might ask you …”

  “Yes?”

  “Whether you made any headway with that rather infamous suggestion Mr. Hadley was hinting at last night. I don’t listen at doors, but I gathered that there was some difficulty about where all the ladies were—in that Gamridge business—the twenty-seventh of August. If you understand me?”

  “I understand you. And I mean to return question for question. When Hadley asked you about that afternoon, and the whereabouts of everybody, you said you couldn’t remember it. Just between ourselves, Mr. Carver,” said Dr. Fell, blinking at him, “that wasn’t strictly true, was it? Mrs. Steffins’ panegyrics on her dead Horace would hardly have allowed you to forget the date. Eh?”

  Carver hesitated. He opened and shut his hands, examining them. They were big hands, with knotted spatulate fingers which nevertheless conveyed a look of delicacy, and well-trimmed nails. He still held unlighted the cigar Dr. Fell had given him.

  “Just between ourselves, it was not.”

  “And why did you forget it?”

  “Because I knew that Eleanor was not here.” The hint of formal statement went out of his voice. “I am very fond of Eleanor. She has been with us a long time. I am nearly thirty years older, of course, but at one time I had hoped—I am very fond of her.”

  “Yes. But why should the mere fact that she was late coming home to tea make you forget the whole afternoon?”

  “I knew that she would probably be late. As a matter of fact, I knew that at one time or another she would be at Gamridge’s. You see, she—ah—is employed as private secretary to a Mr. Nevers, a theatrical impresario, in Shaftesbury Avenue. She had told me that morning”—he opened and shut his hands again, staring at them—“that she would try to get off early, for some shopping, and to ‘smooth down’ Millicent in case she were late getting home

  … I remembered particularly because I paid a brief visit to Gamridge’s myself in the middle of the afternoon, along with Boscombe and Paull and Mr. Peter Stanley, to inspect the collection of watches they had just put on display; and I wondered whether I should see her. But, of course …”

  “If you are fond of her,” said Dr. Fell, with sudden sharpness, “explain what you’re hinting at.”

  “We had some difficulty with her as a child—” Carver checked himself. The film disappeared from his eyes. The hard practicality which sometimes sashed out of him overcame his worried look, and he spoke crisply. “It worries me to lie or distort the truth. Not because I object to a lie; but simply because it disturbs my peace of mind afterwards. Shall we call it selfishness?” He smiled grimly. “I lied last night, but I have told the truth this morning and I have told all I know. I do not intend to say any more, nor do I think any artifices can drag out of me what I do not wish to say. If you really have any interest in my collection, I shall be happy to show it to you. Otherwise …”

  Dr. Fell studied him. Dr. Fell was looking partly over his shoulder, a heavy wrinkle in his forehead; otherwise his face was impassive and almost dull. His dark cloak vast in the white room, he stood with a clipped cigar in one hand and an unlighted match poised in the other. For the space of perhaps twenty seconds he stood thus, while Melson had a feeling of deadly things brewing and of some terrifying import in the little eyes blinking behind the eyeglasses. Then—with a suddenness that made Melson jump—there was a crack and the rasping flare of a
match-flame as Dr. Fell kindled it with a jerk of his thumb nail across its head.

  “Can I give you a light?” he boomed, jocularly. “Yes, I’m much interested in the collection. Those water-clocks, now …”

  “Ah, the clepsydrae!” Carver was trying to mend that silence. He drew about him again his own vague dignity and enthusiasm, and indicated the glass cases. “If you are interested in the early means of marking time, the whole history of it begins here. And to understand them you must keep in mind the divisions of time used by the ancients. For example, the Persians divided the day into twenty-four hours, starting from sunrise; the Athenians had the same method, but starting from sunset. The Egyptian day was twelve hours. The Brahmin time-schedule was more complicated. This”—he touched the case containing the big metal bowl with the hole in its centre—“this, if it is genuine, must be one of the oldest timepieces now existing in the world. The Brahmins divided the day into sixty hours of twenty-four minutes each, and this was their Big Ben. It was placed in a vat of water in some public spot, and beside it was hung a great gong. In exactly twenty-four minutes the bowl sank, and the gong was struck to tell the passing of an hour.

  “That is the most primitive principle. All of them, before the invention of the pendulum, consisted in a regulated flow of water, whether only to sink past a series of notches numbered with the hours—”

  He indicated the device Melson had noticed last night, the upright glass tube with the Roman numerals carved on a board, and the tallow-lamp on one bracket.

  “—like that, which is a night-clock with the lamp always kept burning. It purports to be early seventeenth century, the work of Jehan Shermite, and is probably the same design as the one Pepys describes as being in Queen Catherine’s room in 1664.”

  Melson’s dry, curious brain was again at work. He saw that for some obscure reason Dr. Fell was encouraging Carver in his hobby; and he took advantage of it.

  “Water-clocks,” he enquired, “were in use as late as that? I always associated them chiefly with the Romans. There’s an account somewhere of how, in lawsuits or senatorial debates where the orators were allowed only a specified time, the water-clocks would be tampered with so that the orator had a greater or less time to speak.”