The Clock Strikes Twelve

by Patricia Wentworth

  Elliot nodded.

  Knitting rapidly, Miss Silver proceeded.

  “I have been very specially struck by the fact that Mr. Paradine seems to have felt no uneasiness about the loss of these important blue-prints. You would agree on this point, would you not?”

  Elliot’s look had sharpened.

  “Yes.”

  “You described him as being in very good spirits.”

  He said grimly, “Oh, yes-he was enjoying himself.”

  The needles clicked briskly.

  “Don’t you see what that implies, Mr. Wray? A valuable secret was missing. If Mr. Paradine was able to enjoy the situation, it means he was perfectly persuaded that there was no military reason for the theft. He must, for instance, have been quite certain there was no danger that the blue-prints might be photographed. Think for a moment, and you will see it was incredible that he should temporize as he did if he had the slightest doubt on this point.”

  In an expressionless voice Elliot said, “Yes.”

  Over the revolving needles Miss Silver’s eyes were as bright as those of a bird-the proverbial early bird with the worm in view. The slight sideways tilt of her neat head was quite in keeping. She said crisply,

  “Mr. Paradine knew that your blue-prints had not been taken because they were blue-prints, but for the purely personal and private reason that they were yours. After living with her for the last twenty years, we may suppose that he had a tolerable knowledge of Miss Paradine’s frame of mind and of the situation in the house. We don’t know how he knew that she had taken the cylinder, but he certainly did know. He may have been fond of his sister, but there is no doubt that he was very angry, and quite determined to punish and humiliate her. I think we may allow that she was punished. That speech of his at the dinner-table must have been a dreadful experience for Miss Paradine. The family has always regarded her with great affection and respect-one cannot help observing that at every turn. Even Miss Ambrose had no criticisms.”

  “They put her on a pedestal,” said Elliot bitterly. “I’ve been up against that-Aunt Grace can do no wrong. It’s the great family myth. I’m the sole blasphemer.”

  Miss Silver nodded.

  “Few characters can support the weight of infallibility. But once you have grown accustomed to a pedestal it is very hard to step down-harder still to be pushed down, and perhaps in public. When Miss Paradine sat at the dinner-table on Thursday night and heard her brother say he knew who had committed that still unnamed offence she must have suffered very deeply indeed. She could not be sure that his next words might not inform the whole family that she was the offender. I think you may feel sure that she had her punishment then.”

  Elliot’s face was colourless and set.

  “She’d asked for it, hadn’t she? Do you expect me to be sorry for her? You know what she has done- to me-to Phyllida. Even if I beat her now-even if that damned pedestal of hers is smashed so that she never gets on to it again-it’s robbed us of a year.”

  He got up, walked to the window, stood there a moment, and came back again, hard and controlled.

  “Did she murder her brother?” Miss Silver’s clicking needles stopped. Her hands rested in her lap.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Wray.”

  Chapter 35

  There was a silence which lasted until Elliot said with an effect of suddenness,

  “How do you mean, you don’t know?”

  She began to knit again.

  “Just what I say, Mr. Wray. I am sure that Miss Paradine took the blue-prints and afterwards replaced them. I am not sure that she pushed Mr. Paradine over the parapet. She had the motive, and she might have made herself the opportunity, but there is at present no evidence that she did so.”

  Elliot said,

  “Look here, Miss Silver, you say she took those blue-prints. I’m not saying she didn’t. Then you say she put them back, and the only time it could have been done was somewhere between 9 and 9:15. All right, that goes with me. Now will you explain why Mr. Paradine should have gone on sitting there in his study waiting for someone to come and confess? On your showing the blue-prints were back and on his table. He knew who had taken them. What was he waiting for?”

  Miss Silver smiled.

  “I think you can answer your own question, Mr. Wray.”

  “He wasn’t letting her off? He meant her to come and confess?”

  “Exactly. It was, I think, a trial of wills between them. I am not prepared to say which of them won. They were two determined and obstinate people. She may have come down at the last, or she may have decided to her own satisfaction that, having recovered the papers, he would not proceed to extremities. She may have persuaded herself that he did not really know who had taken them.”

  Elliot said, “Yes. All right, I’m with you.” He fell silent for a moment. Then he said, “I can’t remember just what I told you when we talked before. I’m going to say it again. There’s something-I don’t know whether it’s important or not-”

  “Pray tell me what it is.”

  “I told you Albert Pearson was with me in my room. We came down for a drink at half past eleven. We came down the stairs into the hall. Just at that moment the front door shut, and immediately after that I heard another door shut upstairs.”

  “On which side of the house, Mr. Wray?”

  He gave her a grim smile.

  “There was no one on this side to shut doors. Albert and I had the only two bedrooms occupied before you came.”

  “It was on the other side?”

  “It was. And as you know, my wife and Miss Paradine occupy the only two bedrooms there.”

  Miss Silver’s gaze dwelt upon his with intelligence.

  “This was at half past eleven?”

  “Just about. I don’t know whether it’s important or not. She may have been meaning to come down, and went back again when she heard the front door and our footsteps. I just thought I would tell you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wray.”

  He made a movement as if he were throwing the whole thing off and said,

  “What happens next?”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “I should very much like to have a conversation with Mrs. Wray. I should like you to be present. I suppose that Polly should be sent to ask her if she could spare a few minutes. We will adjourn to my room and wait for her there.”

  They adjourned.

  Polly was in the bathroom polishing taps. When she had been despatched on her errand and Miss Silver had arranged three chairs to her liking, she addressed a question to Elliot.

  “When you went in to say goodnight, Mr. Wray, what did you say to Mr. Paradine, and what did he say to you? Can you remember?”

  She thought he stiffened slightly.

  “None of it was of the slightest importance.”

  She had taken an upright chair and was knitting placidly with her back to the light. Elliot, and presently Phyllida, would have perforce to face both it and her. She smiled kindly.

  “That is as may be, Mr. Wray. I should like very much to know what Mr. Paradine said when he saw you. Did he give you the impression that he was expecting anyone else?”

  “It was too early for that-too much coming and going. If you want to know, he asked me if I’d come to confess, and then told me to get out because he hadn’t the time to tell me just what kind of a fool he thought I was. That was one of the times I thought he was enjoying himself.”

  Miss Silver’s expression became brightly interested, but she said no more. Her needles clicked.

  Eight or nine inches of dark grey legging now depended from them. She had presently to extract another ball from her knitting-bag and join the thread.

  Phyllida’s knock elicited a cheerful “Come in!” She had shut the door behind her and was well into the room before she became aware of Elliot propping the mantelpiece. A murmur of words about Polly and her message tripped up and came to nothing. She flushed vividly and stood still. Miss Silver said in a reas
suring voice,

  “Come and sit down, Mrs. Wray. I won’t keep you for long.”

  Phyllida sat down. She faced Miss Silver, but she could see Elliot too. He did not speak, and he took no notice of the chair which had obviously been provided for him. He just stood there and looked. Curiously enough, she found this reassuring.

  Miss Silver addressed her in an indulgent tone.

  “Mrs. Wray, why did you leave the study by way of the bedroom next door on Thursday night?”

  Phyllida said “Oh-” and said no more.

  Elliot laughed.

  “It’s no good, Phyl-you’ll never make a criminal. You left fingerprints on both the doors.”

  She looked from him to Miss Silver and said,

  “I-I just went out that way.”

  “It was because someone else was at the study door, was it not? Mr. Paradine sent you out through the bedroom?”

  Phyllida said “Oh-” again.

  Miss Silver leaned towards her.

  “That is what I think. You can correct me if I am wrong. I also think that you know who this someone was. You went into a dark room-there is no switch by that door. You would not have moved at once. There would naturally have been a moment when you were close enough to the room you had just left either to hear the newcomer addressed by name or to recognize the voice which addressed Mr. Paradine. That was so, was it not?”

  A flush showed in Phyllida’s cheeks. She did not speak.

  “I am sorry to distress you, Mrs. Wray, but it will be better if you will tell me what you know. At the moment Mr. Mark Paradine is under suspicion.”

  “Mark? Oh-but it wasn’t Mark-”

  Miss Silver nodded.

  “Mr. Mark did come back to see his uncle, but he did not reach the study until just before eleven.”

  Phyllida’s eyes were wide and troubled.

  “It wasn’t Mark. I was back in my room by half past ten.”

  “Will you tell us who it was, Mrs. Wray?”

  Phyllida turned those troubled eyes on Elliot.

  “I think you’d better, Phyl.”

  She said only just above her breath,

  “It was Frank.”

  “Mr. Frank Ambrose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell us what you heard? You did hear something, did you not?”

  Phyllida’s hand went to her cheek in an unconscious gesture like a child’s.

  “Yes. Uncle James said, ‘Hullo, Frank-come to confess?’ and Frank said something, but I didn’t hear what it was. I didn’t want to hear. I wanted to get away.”

  Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

  “Very natural, Mrs. Wray.”

  Elliot said in an astounded voice,

  “Frank? I don’t believe it.”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “You mean, Mr. Wray, that you do not believe Mr. Ambrose to be the guilty person. You do not mean to imply any disbelief in Mrs. Wray’s statement?”

  “Admirably put. I told you Phyl couldn’t tell a lie. She can’t, so it isn’t any use her trying. She just has to make the best of a bad job and stick to the truth.”

  Phyllida said “Elliot!” in a tone of protest. And then, “Miss Silver, please-it doesn’t mean anything-it really doesn’t. I mean Uncle James saying that, because he said exactly the same thing to me-about confessing, you know. I knocked at the door, and he said, ‘Come in!’ And I said could I come and speak to him, and he said, ‘Come and sit down.’ And then he said, ‘Well, Phyllida-have you come to confess?’-just like that. So you see it didn’t mean anything. Please, please don’t think it did.”

  “He said pretty much the same thing to me,” said Elliot-“ ‘Come to confess, have you?’ A bit grim, but it seems to have been his idea of a joke.”

  Miss Silver opened her lips to speak and shut them again. Her mind was for the moment so brightly illuminated that it required all her attention. Having dealt with what she perceived there, she turned to Phyllida, who was saying earnestly,

  “Everyone trusts Frank. He isn’t always easy, but he’s the solid kind-everybody trusts him. If he came back like that, it would be because he wanted to talk things over with Uncle James and find out what was wrong. It couldn’t be anything else-it simply couldn’t.”

  Miss Silver looked at her with a kind of grave attention. She said,

  “No doubt he will be able to explain the nature of his business with Mr. Paradine. I think he will have to do that.” She folded her knitting, put it away in the bag which had been Ethel’s Christmas present, and got up. “There is something that I want to ask Lane. He will be busy later on, so I will see if I can find him now.” She went over to the door with the bag slung on her arm. With her hand on the knob, she turned and looked again at Phyllida. “Pray do not be troubled, Mrs. Wray,” she said. “The truth hurts sometimes, but, believe me, it is always best in the end.”

  Chapter 36

  Elliot and Phyllida were left alone. Neither of them moved, until suddenly she lifted her eyes and gave him the same troubled look as before.

  “Why didn’t you write?” she said.

  He had been leaning back against the mantelpiece. Now he jerked upright.

  “Why didn’t I write?”

  She kept her eyes on him. The blue had gone out of them. They were dark, like water under a cloud. The colour had gone from her skin too. She had a lost, white look which would have gone to his heart if it had not made him almost too angry to speak. She said,

  “I thought you would write-but you didn’t-” Her voice trailed away.

  He said, “You didn’t get my letters-is that what you’re saying?”

  There was a very faint movement of her head which said “No.” His face had gone so bleak that it frightened her.

  He said, “I wrote you two letters. In the first one I told you just what had happened about Maisie Dale. In the second I asked you to let me know whether you had got that first letter, and when I could come and see you. I suggested meeting you in Birleton as I didn’t want to come to the house. I got an answer to that by return, a quite explicit telegram-‘Cannot meet you now or at any time. Please accept this as final.’ So I did.”

  Phyllida sat quite still. Everything in her was too cold and stiff to move. She went on looking at Elliot because she couldn’t look away.

  He said very harshly and angrily,

  “What are you looking like that for?”

  She made her lips move then. She said,

  “I didn’t get the letters.” And, after a pause, “I didn’t send the telegram.”

  Suddenly his face frightened her. The stiffness broke. She began to shake. Her shaking hands came up and covered her face. She said in a small piteous voice,

  “Don’t! Oh, please don’t! I didn’t get them-I really didn’t.”

  She felt his hands on her wrists, pulling her up. She had to face him. The look that had frightened her was gone. He said in a controlled, gentle voice,

  “Don’t be an idiot, child-unless you want me to beat you. Did you think I was angry with you? We’ve got to have this out. If you pull yourself together and listen to me, I’ll tell you what I wrote in the letter you didn’t get. Can you do that?”

  His grip was hurting her wrists. She had a feeling of security-of being held up. She said,

  “Yes.”

  Elliot put her back in her chair, pulled Miss Silver’s chair round a bit, and sat down facing her.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  “Yes. I was silly.”

  “You’ve said it! All right, no recriminations. Now listen! Going back to the smash-up-I quit because I was afraid I should murder somebody if I didn’t. I’ve got a foul temper-I expect you know that. I can keep the upper hand of it as a rule, but that time it got away. I’d just enough sense to get out. I went back to London, and when I’d cooled off a bit I sat down and wrote to you. I’ll tell you the whole thing now. There isn’t a great deal in it. I’m not particularl
y proud of it, but it isn’t what you’ve been told. I can tell you what really happened, but I can’t make you believe it. I can just say this-I can prove part of what I’m going to tell you, but if you can’t believe me without that proof, it’s all up between us.”

  He waited.

  Phyllida lifted her eyes and said,

  “I’ll believe you-”

  “All right, then here goes. The June before we were married-we’ve got to get back to that. We hadn’t ever met. We didn’t meet until September, when Mr. Paradine suddenly asked me to dine, I don’t know why. I didn’t even know you by sight. I was working pretty hard and not taking much time off. Cadogan said I was working too hard. He wanted me to take a week-end off and get right away. Well, I bumped into a chap I used to know. He’d got a spot of leave, and he asked me to join a week-end party at a place he’d got on the river. In the end we didn’t go there. We went to a road-house instead-himself, and me, and a couple of girls-Doris for him, Maisie for me. It was a pretty rackety party. We kept it up late and we went the pace a bit. There wasn’t anything more in it than that as far as Maisie and I were concerned. She was the sort of girl that’s out for a good time and can’t get enough of it. She wasn’t very old, and she was just cram full of vitality-you could almost see the sparks flying. She was a good sort… Well, that’s that. We started back. I’d a bit of a hang-over-I can’t say whether that had anything to do with what happened. I don’t drink as a rule. I suppose my reactions may have been affected-I don’t know. Anyhow we had a smash. A lorry came blinding out of a side road, and I wasn’t quite quick enough. We turned over. The car wasn’t damaged, but Maisie was knocked out. We took her into the nearest house, and of course we had to give our names and addresses. Maisie came round all right, and when the police had finished with us we went on. I drove her home, and that was the end of it as far as I was concerned.”