The Clock Strikes Twelve

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Ssh!”

  “Well, I’m only telling you what she said-but of course people do gossip so-”

  “Yes, don’t they? It’s dreadful.”

  “Isn’t it? Ssh! There’s Lydia Pennington coming this way.”

  Miss Silver made up her mind suddenly. Little Roger should have a dark grey suit with collar, cuffs and belt of the emerald green. She gave the order crisply, handed over her card to have the coupons cut off, and turned to look down the length of the department.

  Lydia Pennington was coming towards her dressed in a dark grey coat and skirt. The black felt hat which she had just bought was pulled well down over her red curls. The brim threw a shadow across her small, pale face. There was no colour in her cheeks, and her lips were as little made-up as was consistent with her ideas of decency. It is possible that Miss Silver, who had only met her once, might not have known her if it had not been for those whispering voices on the other side of the scarves.

  Lydia, on the other hand, would have known Miss Maud Silver anywhere. The tidy, dowdy figure in the black cloth jacket and the elderly fur; the hat with its bunch of purple pansies; the neat mousey hair; the neat, inconspicuous features; the air compounded of mildness and self-possession-these, once seen, had somehow impressed themselves and were immediately recognized.

  Miss Silver heard her name, and found her hand being shaken.

  “Miss Silver! Do you remember me? No, of course you don’t. But I did meet you about a month ago. You were with Laura Desborough, and she introduced us. She’s a friend of mine. I’m Lydia Pennington.”

  Miss Silver gave her little dry cough.

  “Indeed I remember you very well, Miss Pennington.”

  Lydia said quickly, “What are you doing here?” Her thoughts were racing, racing. The colour had come into her face.

  In her driest manner Miss Silver replied, “I am buying wool.”

  Lydia’s colour brightened still more. She lowered her voice.

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant are you on a case?”

  Miss Silver looked at her with attention.

  “Oh, no. I am staying with my niece, Mrs. Burkett. Her husband has been transferred to the Birleton branch of his bank. He joined up, you know, but he is not very strong and they have sent him back to his work. So delightful for Ethel. They are such a devoted couple, and they have three children, all boys. They very kindly asked me for Christmas, but I was unable to come to them then, so I have been spending the New Year with them instead.”

  As she spoke Miss Silver observed the fluctuation of Miss Pennington’s colour and the manner in which she kept herself rather rigidly turned away from the other shoppers. She was not, therefore, much surprised when Lydia said,

  “Miss Silver-could I speak to you-would it be possible?”

  “There is a nice tea-room here. We could have a cup of tea.”

  “I don’t know-I don’t think so-too many people know me. I just came in to get myself a hat. I hadn’t got a black one, and there’ll be the inquest, and the funeral. Where are you staying? Could I walk there with you?”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “We could walk-yes, certainly. My niece has a flat in Birleton Mansions.”

  “What!”

  “They are quite new and most convenient-a restaurant on the ground floor, and most reasonable. But of course, with the children, my niece will do most of the cooking upstairs. There is a very up-to-date kitchenette. Perhaps you know the flats?”

  “I know someone who has one.”

  “Then I will just pay for my wool, and we will walk in that direction,” said Miss Silver.

  Chapter 21

  It was perhaps an hour later that Lydia emerged from Mrs. Burkett’s flat, which was No. 12 Birleton Mansions, and stood for a moment on the landing. She could take the lift, or she could walk down. She wasn’t very fond of automatic lifts. She looked past the lift-shaft to the door of No. 12a, and thought how surprising it was that Miss Silver’s niece should be living just across the landing from Mark Paradine. She wondered if there were any possibility that he would be in, and all at once she wanted him to be in so overwhelmingly that she found herself standing on Mark’s threshold and ringing his bell. It would save hours of time. They would be able to talk for once without the family streaming in and out. And he could take her back. He was sure to have to go out to the River House again. Excellent reasons and full of common sense. But the impetus which had taken her across the landing and set her finger on the bell owed nothing to reason.

  The bell tinkled somewhere inside the flat. Lydia was sure that he wasn’t going to be in. Why should he be in? It was nearly five o’clock. He was probably having tea with Grace Paradine and Phyllida-Elliot and Albert somewhere on the edge of the party, if they hadn’t been frozen right off it. Or else he was interviewing solicitors, undertakers, and policemen.

  She had reached this point of ultimate depression, when the door jerked open and Mark stood there glowering. She hoped that his really outrageous frown was not for her, and received some confirmation of this from an abrupt, “I thought you were another of those damned reporters.” At once she was herself again, cool and self-possessed. She said,

  “Thank you, darling-I’m glad I’m not. You look absolutely homicidal. May I come in?”

  He stepped away from the door.

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Why did I say what?”

  His voice rasped as he said, “Homicidal.”

  Lydia felt quite sick. What had he done to himself? What was he doing, to make him look and speak like this? She slammed the door behind her, leaned against it, and said in a blaze of anger,

  “Don’t be such a damned fool!”

  They stood glaring at each other, until all at once he shook himself, gave a short hard laugh, and turned back to the room from which he had come.

  “All right-that’s that. Do you still want to come in?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She walked past him into an untidy, comfortable sitting-room-brown leather chairs, brown curtains, a shabby carpet, walls lined with books, a writing-table, an electric fire. She sat down on the arm of one of the chairs.

  “Cut it out!” she said. “I love quarrelling with you, darling, but we haven’t got the time. I want to talk. And do you mind sitting down, because you’re about a mile up in the air and I can’t speak to people who are scowling over my head. It gives me the same feeling as a long-distance call.”

  He came unwillingly down to the arm of the opposite chair.

  “What do you want? I’m busy, you know. I came back for some papers.”

  “All right, I won’t keep you longer than I can help. I won’t keep you at all if you’d rather not.”

  “Go on-what is it?”

  He wanted her to go with everything in him which was set to resist her. He wanted her to stay with all the unruly storm of emotion against which that resistance had been put up. Deep in his consciousness a voice was calling him what she had called him-a fool-a damned, damned fool.

  She said quietly and seriously,

  “Mark-will you listen? I do want to talk to you, but I can’t unless you listen-I don’t mean just with your ears, but with your mind.”

  He looked at her, nodded, and looked away again.

  “All right.”

  “You see, at Meadowcroft or at the River House someone is always coming in. You can’t talk like that. I want to talk to you.”

  “All right, talk.”

  She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the bright red of the fire, two bright glowing bars framed in bronze. She said,

  “Mark, this is a frightful thing. The police think it was one of us.”

  “Has that only just struck you?”

  “No, of course not. But I don’t see any way out of it.”

  “Nor do I. So what?”

  “We want someone to help us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked at him now, h
er eyes brightly intent.

  “Well, there’s someone who could help us-right here at this moment, in this building. Her name is Miss Maud Silver, and she’s a detective. I heard about her from Laura Desborough. You won’t know her, but I expect you remember that Chinese Shawl case. Well, she cleared it up. And then last autumn those murders at Vandeleur House, when that woman was caught-what was her name-Simpson. The police had been looking for her for ages. That was her again. She’s absolutely marvellous, and at this moment she’s staying with the people in No. 12. Burkett is her niece.”

  Mark’s eyes were as intent as her own, but they were dark and bitter.

  “And what do you expect this prodigy to do-find a convenient scapegoat outside the family circle? What a hope!”

  Lydia said, “I don’t want scapegoats-I want the truth.”

  “Whatever it is?”

  “Whatever it is. Don’t you?”

  “I-don’t-know-”

  She struck her hands together.

  “Mark, we’ve got to know! How can we go on if we don’t? It’s a thing that’s got to be cleared up. How can we go on like this-all of us under suspicion-everyone suspecting everyone else-wondering if people are suspecting us-afraid to be natural-afraid to open our mouths. Look at yourself-at me! I used the sort of word one uses, and you went up in smoke. I could have bitten my tongue out the moment I’d said it, and I’d have boxed your ears if I could have reached them when I saw how you took me up. Are we going to have lists of things we mustn’t speak about, words we mustn’t say? Are we going to walk around like a lot of cats on hot bricks? I say, whoever it is, it’s better to know.”

  Mark got up, walked over to one of the book-cases, and stood there fingering the books that faced him.

  “Whoever it is?” he said. “I don’t know. That’s the sort of thing one says, but when it comes down to brass tacks and you go through the people and wonder which of them it was-well I don’t know. Say it’s murder-say someone pushed him over-say the police find out, or your Miss Silver finds out who did it-who is it to be? Aunt Grace? Frank Ambrose? Brenda? Irene? You? Me? Dicky? Albert Pearson? Elliot? Phyllida? That’s the field. One of them did it. And you say let’s find out-whoever it is. All right, the police find out-your Miss Silver finds out, and the murderer hangs.” He turned and came striding back to her. “One of those ten people hangs-Aunt Grace-Frank-Brenda-Irene-you-me-Dicky- Albert-Elliot-Phyllida. Which is it to be?”

  Lydia was standing too. She was as white as a sheet, but she looked up steadily.

  “That is what I want to know.”

  “You’ve got no favourites? Of course we’d all rather it was Albert, because we’ve never liked him very much. But you can’t hang a man for being a bore, and unfortunately Albert and Elliot are the only people within measurable distance of having an alibi. If you want to know who the police are going to pick on, I’ll tell you-me.”

  “Why should they?” Her voice was as steady as her look.

  He laughed.

  “Because I went back.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you suppose?”

  “I don’t know, Mark.”

  “You’re not being very bright, my dear. You don’t seem to be able to put two and two together. But the police can-it’s the sort of thing they’re good at. They will say I went back to confess to whatever it was Uncle James was hinting about, and from there to saying I pushed him over is as near as makes no difference.”

  There was a little pause before she said,

  “Do they know you went back?”

  His shoulder jerked.

  “They will. The Chief Constable was over with Vyner this afternoon. I told them I went out for a walk. A bit of a thin story anyhow, and by this time it’s a million to one the chap who was on duty on the bridge has reported having seen me. He knows me quite well. I believe he said goodnight as I passed him. They’ll make sure I was going back to the River House.”

  “You did go there?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, to murder Uncle James of course-what else?”

  She caught his arm and shook it.

  “Mark, stop being stupid! It’s too dangerous. Don’t you see how dangerous it is?”

  He twisted away from her, walked to the end of the room, stood there a moment, and then came back.

  She said earnestly,

  “Call Miss Silver in. We want help-we can’t manage this alone. Mark, will you listen to me?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How is everything left? Are you an executor?”

  “Yes-I and Robert Moffat.”

  “And the house-who gets the house?”

  “I do-the house, and his place in the firm, and the most damnable lot of money. All the motives the police can possibly want.”

  She said, “Rubbish!” And then, “That is what I wanted to know. You see, if the house is yours and you’re an executor, there’s nothing to prevent your calling Miss Silver in. You can say she’s an extra secretary. Nobody need know.”

  “I won’t play a trick on the family-it might do for the servants. What is she like?”

  Suddenly Lydia relaxed. He was going to do it. The stiff, obstinate temper against which she was pushing had given way. It was odd that at this moment she should begin to shake. She laughed a little and said,

  “She’s exactly like a governess.”

  Chapter 22

  Miss Silver sat primly at the writing-table. An exercise-book with a bright green cover lay in front of her upon Mark’s blotting-pad. Mark himself sat facing her. Lydia lay back in the most comfortable of the chairs and looked on. The names of the Paradine family connection had been entered in the exercise-book, together with such facts as had been elicited about each. The circumstances surrounding the New Year’s Eve party and Mr. Paradine’s death had been repeated.

  Mark said abruptly,

  “We’re putting you to a lot of trouble. I think we should have waited until we had discussed the matter with the rest of the family. They may not feel-”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “You are not committing yourself to anything, Mr. Paradine-that is understood. I should, naturally, regard anything you have said to me as confidential. At the same time I feel it my duty to point out to you that resistance to enquiry on the part of any member of the family would be a fact the significance of which could not be overlooked.”

  He leaned back frowning.

  “People are not necessarily criminals and murderers because they would dislike being cross-examined by a stranger.”

  Miss Silver smiled indulgently.

  “No, indeed, Mr. Paradine. The publicity in which murder involves a bereaved family is truly distressing, but I fear it is unavoidable. I will amplify your remark if I may, and say that it is not everyone with something to hide who is a criminal. One of the complications in a case of this kind is the fact that many people have thoughts, wishes, or actions which they would not willingly expose even to a friend, yet when police enquiries are being made these private motives and actions are brought to light. It is, in fact, a little like the Judgment Day, if I may use such a comparison without being considered profane.”

  Mark said, “Yes, that’s true.”

  He was in process of surprising himself. After some twenty minutes’ conversation with this curiously dowdy little person, in the course of which she had neither said nor done anything at all remarkable, he was experiencing the strangest sense of relief. He could remember nothing like it since his nursery days. Old Nanna, the tyrant and mainstay of that dim early time before his parents died-there was something about Miss Silver that revived these memories. The old-fashioned decorum, the authority which has no need of self-assertion because it is unquestioned-it was these things that he discerned, and upon which he found himself disposed to lean. Miss Silver’s shrewd, kind glance-perfectly kind, piercingly shrewd-took him back to things he had forgotten. “Not the least manner of good your stand
ing there and telling me a lie, Master Mark. I won’t have it for one thing, and it won’t do you no good for another.”

  There was that effect, but there was also a reassurance that he had not known since the time when he would wake sweating with nightmare to the light of Nanna’s candle and the sound of her, “Come, come now-what’s all this?”

  He looked up and met her eyes. Something had gone from his. Miss Silver saw in them what she had seen in many eyes before, a desperate need of help. She smiled slightly, as one smiles at an anxious child, and said,

  “Well, Mr. Paradine, we will leave it like that. You will go back and consult the rest of the family, and then if you wish it, I will come out to the River House and do what I can to help you.”

  He said abruptly,

  “I don’t want to consult them-I’m prepared to take the responsibility. I want you to take the case. I want you to come out to the River House with me now.”

  She became very serious.

  “Are you quite sure about that?”

  He gave a brief impatient nod.

  “Yes, I’m quite sure. I want you to come. Lydia’s right-we’ve got to clear this up. Someone inside, in the house, will have a better chance of doing it than the police-I can see that.”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “You must understand, Mr. Paradine, that my position will be quite a private one, and that I can be no party to anything to which the police could take exception. May I ask who is in charge of the case?”

  “Superintendent Vyner.”

  An expression of interest appeared on her face.

  “Indeed? I have heard of him from an old pupil of mine, Randal March, who is Superintendent at Ledlington. He considers him a very able man.”

  She got up with the air of the teacher who dismisses a class.

  “Very well, then. I will just go across the landing and pack my case.”

  Chapter 23

  You have brought a detective here-here?” Miss Paradine was quite white, quite controlled, but her eyes blazed and her voice had a cutting edge.