The Skeleton in the Clock shm-18

by John Dickson Carr

  Lady Brayle hiccoughed with mirth. "When, yesterday, you…’

  "But I didn't know I was buying the clock, did I?"

  "You must excuse me," the other said crisply. "I was summoned here by an urgent phone-call from Cicely Fleet I do not know why. I—"

  "Do you want the clock back?"

  What effect this conversation was having on Ruth, Stannard, and Ricky, who were gathered with him beside the round table with the map, Martin could not tell. Ricky, he quite accurately guessed, had been told nothing about any attempt to buy a clock; and the water grew deeper. But Stannard, as a detached and sardonic observer of human life, sat down in the tapestry chair and, with pleasure, placed his fingertips together.

  "Your behaviour yesterday," announced Lady Brayle, "was so despicable! So puerile! So childish—"

  "Sure. Do you want the clock back?"

  "Really, Henry." Lady Brayle seemed bewildered. "I have no interest whatever in the clock, except that I was asked to bid for it as a present for young Dr. Laurier." Her mouth tightened amid wrinkles. "And I should never allow Cicely to pay any such ridiculous price as…"

  "Oh, Sophie! I'm not selling anything. It's yours if you answer me a few questions."

  The other stared at him. "Questions? What questions?"

  "Well," he said argumentatlvely, "when was the date you got that Willaby catalogue of the auction on Friday?"

  "Really, Henry, I don't see—"

  "I know you don't That's because I'm the old man. Date?"

  "Everybody knows," retorted Jenny's grandmother, "that Willaby's post their catalogues from London just a week before the sale. I must have received mine," she computed, "on July 5th."

  "That's what I thought But I had to be sure. Who else in this district subscribes to a Willaby catalogue?"

  "Cicely, of course. And I think young Dr. Laurier. He is interested in arms and armour."

  "What about Arthur Puckston, over at the Dragon's Rest?"

  The wrinkles round Lady Brayie's mouth deepened, as though she were about to say she had no interest whatever in the Dragon's Rest But human curiosity, it appeared, would not be stifled.

  "Incongruous as it seems," she conceded, "Puckston does.

  He is… one of our fine old yeomen. He is not well off, as few of us are; but be wants genuine antiques for his inn."

  "Uh-huh. It was a possibility. I see…"

  Aunt Cicely herself, in what seemed to Martin some informal pinkish robe with lace over it, interrupted them men. Her entrance was flurried and apologetic, but with such real charm that it seemed to lighten the chill of Fleet House. Though she had perhaps a trick of archness and rapid speech, not quite in keeping with her faded beauty, the personality triumphed.

  Ricky sprang forward.

  "Mother, I want to present—"

  "Of course. How delightful of you all to come!" smiled Aunt Cicely, sweeping aside introductions, new ones or forgotten ones, by giving each of them a look of such pleasure that they all felt warmed.

  "You must forgive me," she raced on, "for popping in here, like a cuckoo out of a clock, and not even dressed. But I do so want to have a word with Sophia, and she didn't come upstairs."

  Lady Brayle seemed anxious to forget what she and H.M. had been talking about

  "We were merely discussing," said Jenny's grandmother, plucking a subject out of the air, "Dr. Lauder's interest in arms and armour. Come to think of it yesterday in the arms-room I saw a shield and a fine old English blade which I thought of commissioning someone to buy as a present"

  Sudden horror showed in Aunt Cicely's eyes, an expression which startled Martin Drake until he imagined it was one of her exaggerations.

  "But you must never…!" she cried. And them "Oh, dear, what am I saying? Dr. Laurier is so conservative that it really doesn't matter. Do come and talk to me."

  They went. Yet not without a parting shot from the Dowager Countess as she turned at the door.

  "Captain Drake," she said.

  (Martin thought shall I let them have it now, both of them? About Jenny and me? Ricky probably wouldn't mind. But the old dragon undoubtedly knows or guesses already; whereas Aunt Cicely would sob and call for sal volatile. Better hold your fire until you can blast the old dragon).

  "Yes?" he said.

  "Without doubt" said Jenny's grandmother, "you were thinking of telephoning to the Manor?" "I was thinking of doing just that"

  "When you ring," said Lady Brayle imperturbably, "you will be told that Jennifer is not at home. This, of course, you will disbelieve. Yet it happens to be true. I tell you so to save you trouble."

  Fear, irrepressible however you tried, began to crawl through Martin.

  "I pass no comment," said Lady Brayle, "on what does not concern me. Still, When Jennifer left the inn, I believe you were rushing in a somewhat frenzied manner across the road. You were calling the name of a young lady whom — all — I think I have met in the past as well as today."

  The old dragon's eyes seemed deliberately to seek Ruth without finding her. Martin, with a sick sensation, felt the props kicked out from under him.

  "Jennifer, no doubt for some good reason, wished to visit some friends in London. Their address would not interest you. She left for the train in one taxi, while I came here in another."

  Now, as Lady Brayle looked very hard at his own imperturbability, there was a grudging respect in her tone.

  "Captain Drake, I have little respect for law. I would cheerfully steal and if necessary I would kill. But I am not a liar. Good-day."

  Her flat-heeled footsteps, and Aunt Cicely's light ones, faded away. Stannard still sat motionless, watching the scene with less than amusement behind the pyramid of his finger-tips. Ruth kept one hand pressed to her breast, watching Martin. It was Ricky who spoke.

  "You understand now what I meant, old boy?"

  "Yes. I've understood that all along."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Get that address in London, somehow."

  "Phooey!" exploded Sir Henry Merrivale.

  It was such a bellow that they all were touched by it except Stannard. Ever since that remark about Martin rushing across the road after Ruth, Stannard had been faintly smiling. Sir Henry Merrivale was standing behind the desk, surveying the quill pen with its blue feather. Ricky went over to him.

  "Look, sir." He spoke with directness. "There's a lot more going on here than most of us can understand. Can you help?"

  "Well, son, that's just what I was goin' to tell you." H.M. raised his head and spoke with the same directness. "Across the road," he indicated, "there's a snake named Masters. Chief Inspector Masters."

  "Yes. I heard my gov — my father's death was being investigated again. It's my mother I’m.. ’ H.M. shook his head.

  "Masters wont bother your mother, son. He thinks it's all eyewash. I'm the one who believes there was hokey-pokey."

  "It's a funny thing." Ricky had the same, desperately undecided look. "Today I was giving Jenny and Martin here my personal reminiscences of what happened on the day of— well, the day it happened."

  H.M.’s interests quickened, "So? You remember it?"

  "Very plainly; but by fits and starts. Anyway, in telling them, I had just got to the point where Miss Upton and I came round, the side of the house and saw him lying there with the tapestry-piece over his head. Then, as I told them, we started back. And I looked up at a window, the upstairs window on the first floor just to the right of the front door."

  "You'd just got to there," interposed Martin. "What did you see?"

  "The face," answered Ricky, "of somebody I'd never met The face of a total stranger. Looking down like God. Even this afternoon I might have imagined I'd invented it, if I couldn't half-swear I've met the same man in this room."

  Ricky swung round.

  "Excuse me, Mr Stannard," he added, "but I think it was you."

  Stannard's black eyes twinkled above the pyramided fingertips. He smiled, and Ruth smiled as one w
ho shared the secret

  "Don't apologize, Mr. Fleet" the barrister urged him. "What you say is quite true. You did see me."

  H.M. regarded him curiously. "So!" he muttered., "Then why is it there's nothin' about you in the record?"

  "Because there is no reason why there should be."

  "How d'ye mean?"

  "I came down here, for one day, on a matter of business." "Specifically?"

  "Sir George wished to begin certain legal proceedings. He went to a solicitor in London, who hesitated and took counsel's opinion: meaning myself. I told the solicitor his client had no.case. Would that do for Sir George? Oh, no. I must come down here and explain why. Being the rawest of young juniors then," Stannard spread out his hands whimsically, "I bowed."

  "Uh-huh. What happened then?"

  Stannard's eyes narrowed. His voice appeared to come from deep in his soft collar, where his chin was pressed. He glanced up at Ricky.

  "If memory serves," he remarked, "that window yon speak of is, or was, the window of your father's study."

  "It's still a study, in a way," said Ricky. Ricky's eyes were fixed on Stannard with hard, cold, uncompromising, hostility. "The governor's trophies are still there, and one or two of mine. And the guns."

  "Go on," H.M.'s very soft tone prodded Stannard, and the hitter's shoulders lifted.

  "Sir George raved," he went on, and now Ricky was pale with anger. "I talked. Some one came in to tell him about the hunt He asked me if I were interested in hunting. I replied, I fear with truth, that nothing on earth interested me less. He took up a pair of field-glasses and excused himself to go up on the roof for a few minutes. Shortly afterwards I beard a shout and an unpleasant sound on flagstones. I went to the window."

  The old, friendly, engaging expression kindled Stannard's face.

  "Don't think me callous or unfeeling, I beg. I was shocked, of course. What struck me," his mouth twisted, "was the utter pointlessness of this tragedy. I stood there for perhaps five minutes. The dead man's pipe was still spilled on the desk-blotter. There were his guns behind folding glass cases. Then round the house came the large woman and the boy: that I remember as a symbol. The large woman and the grubby boy looking on horrified, looking on stupefied, as though they had seen the end of the world. Whereas they had seen the end only of (forgive me) an overbearing man who would be little missed."

  Ricky started to speak, but H.M. shushed him fiercely.

  "I gave my name and address to the local policeman," Stannard added. "But I was not needed. I took the train from Newbury: giving (I recall) a very callow statement to a newspaper reporter at the train. I have no connection with the Fleets, and never met any of them from that day to this."

  "And that's all"

  "That's all," smiled Stannard, and Ruth joined the smile. "Stung!" said H.M.

  From the desk he picked up the pen with the long blue feather, and seemed to meditate aiming and firing it at one of the brass andirons opposite.

  "Whole great big beautiful bloomin' possibility," he said, "and yet—" H.M. threw down the pen. He adjusted his spectacles, peering at Ricky over them. "I say, son. That roof. It's our last hope. Is there any possibility of seeing it?"

  "Certainly. We use it more nowadays, for parties, than we ever did like to come along, Martin?"

  "Not for a minute,'‘ replied a bedevilled man whose thoughts churned round and round Jenny. "If you don't mind: in spite of what the old poisoner said—"

  "Poisoner?'

  "Lady Brayle. I was speaking figuratively. In spite of what she said, I’d like to use your telephone."

  "At your service, old boy. Beside the stairs in the hall"

  That was how, a few minutes later, Sir Henry Merrivale and Richard Fleet climbed several flights of dark steep stairs, and emerged under a metal hood with a door opening on the northwest corner of the roof.

  Clear evening light, with a softness of air which could be felt like a touch, lay over the concrete surface. The roof, a hundred feet square and perhaps forty-five feet from the ground, had its floor painted light brown. At equal intervals, from north to south across the middle, stood the low white oblongs of the chimney stacks.

  Just-before-the-war porch-furniture, of dulled chromium tubing and orange canvas seats, stood scattered about the roof. There were tables with orange tops, like the colour of the awning down over the front door. Two beach-umbrellas lay on the floor, ready to be put up. All these H.M. surveyed with displeasure.

  A faint breeze moved here. Some distance over across the road you could see the three higher gables of the Dragon's Rest; and, on slightly rising ground behind them, the vast expanse of Guideman's Field and the wood called Black Hanger. To the north, much farther away, you could distantly study the round grey bulk of Pentecost Prison: its tiny windows unwinking, its air repellent even from here.

  H.M., fists on hips, turned round.

  "Oi! Son!"

  "Yes, sir?" Ricky, the muscles tight down his lean jaws, kicked moodily at the floor.

  "Don't let Jack Stannard get your goat" H.M. hesitated. His face seemed to swell and grow cross-eyed with embarrassment "Looky here. Did you like your old man very much?"

  "It wasn't that" Ricky shrugged it away. "The governor's very dim in my mind. He had his faults; he could wallop you like blazes. But—"

  "But?"

  "Well, he never minded how filthy dirty you got, or if you were in a fight. If you wanted something to do with games, he'd buy it for you before the words were out of your mouth."

  Ricky dismissed this. "No; I was thinking about Mother. That swine of a lawyer must have said something… no, he couldn't have! Ruth swore he didn't upset her, and Ruth's as honest as the Bank of England. Never mind. What did you want to know?"

  "I want to know," roared H.M., "the colour of the beach-chairs."

  At this particular point the roof-door in the corner opened. Chief Inspector Masters, wearing a bowler hat and carrying the brief-case, overheard the last words as he stepped out on the roof.

  "Goddelmighty," said Masters, very softly and wearily.

  "By the way," H.M. told Ricky. "This weasel is the Chief Inspector I was telling you about Don't pay any attention to him."

  Ricky, though considerably more impressed by Scotland Yard than he could ever have been impressed by H.M, nevertheless turned back.

  "You mean — the beach-chairs then?"

  "Yes! Not this chromium stuff now. Do you remember?"

  "Ho! Do I remember!" snorted Ricky. "The old lot stayed here from the early days practically to the time I was at Cambridge."

  "Well? Colours?"

  "The beach-chairs were striped green and black. There was a combination of settee and wicker chairs, also striped green and black."

  "What about the floor?"

  "It was painted dull grey, like the chimneys then." "Nothing pink?"

  "Pink? No; not unless it was carried up here like a coat or something."

  H.M.'s expression grew murderous. "Looky here, son. I'm not doubtin' your word, but it was a long time ago. Can anybody verify what you say?"

  Ricky considered.

  "Miss Upton — no, she left two years later and they pensioned her off. MacAndrews, the gardener and handyman? No: Crawshay! Crawshay was the butler. Nobody has a butler nowadays except Grandmother Brayle. But he still lives at Reading; Mother can give you his address. And he'll tell you it's gospel truth!"

  "Very interesting, sir," Masters observed satirically, to the surrounding air. "Are we getting on the track of that pink flash at last?"

  H.M. stood for a moment, blinking. Then he turned round and lumbered towards the front of the roof, standing at the very edge. Masters, on the spot, could see the impossibility of anyone attacking Sir George Fleet in that fifty feet square beyond the chimneys of what had been bare concrete.

  H.M. faced front, his feet apart and his bald head glistening. Then he turned round. His mouth was open.

  "What a cuckoo I've been!" he breathed in a
hollow voice. "Oh, my eye! What a thundering dunce!"

  Now Masters had heard this tone before. And Masters, even with his mind made up, started a little. Both he and Ricky joined H.M. at the edge.

  "Do you mean—?"

  "No, no, dammit! I'm not quite on to something yet But there were two pieces in the evidence I was forgetting. Was there anything white on the roof?"

  Masters and Ricky exchanged glances. "No," the latter said, "unless—"

  "Unless, as before," growled Masters, "somebody carried it up"

  "Y’see, I was forgetting that very bright-glowin' and lurid red sky everybody commented on. It might make something white seem pink, if only…"

  Again H.M. paused.

  "Also," he plodded on doggedly, "I had the whole conception and direction maybe a bit scrambled. I'll admit fully and with a spit that it's still an impossible crime. But look across at the pub there!"

  "Ah, ah. Well?”

  "Our witness named Simon Frew, the one with the powerful binoculars, was sittin' astride the centre gable. Just opposite us. Now Arthur Puckston, with the brass telescope: where was he?"

  Masters pointed to their left

  "Astride the north gable. There!"

  "That's right. Therefore he was lookin' sideways. Sideways." H.M. ruminated, like an ogre with a bone. "And there was nobody on the south gable. And… y'see, Masters, I didn't like Puckston's testimony one little bit He didn't like George Fleet either."

  Masters gestured impatiently with the brief-case. "I told you there wasn't much in that! Sir George thought a pub across from his house was undignified and spoiled the view. But he couldn't even get Puckston's license revoked by the magistrates, let alone snaffle the land by some legal…" '

  "Legal, hey?"

  "Maybe you've heard the word, sir?"

  "Once or twice. That's what Stannard was do’in’ here on the day it happened, as sure as Moses had a beard." H.M. nodded vaguely. "Finally, you were goin' to tell me something more about George Fleet's field-glasses, only you didn't"