Patricia Wentworth - The Clock Strikes Twelve

“Remember any of them?”

“Well, he said I was willing to let the firm and the country down to snatch a little tin-pot glory.”

“So you thought it was you he meant on Thursday night?”

Mark shook his head.

“It wasn’t as definite as that. It just seemed to me that everything had boiled over. I felt I couldn’t go on, and I went back to tell him so.”

Colonel Bostock’s eyes held a bright sceptical twinkle.

“And you stick to it that the conversation was a pleasant one?”

The colour came up suddenly in Mark Paradine’s face.

“Well, sir, it was. I got him to understand my point of view. I told you he’d agreed to let me go in a month if I still wanted to.”

“Yes, that’s what you said.” The tone was as sceptical as the look had been.

Mark stiffened noticeably. Vyner said,

“You didn’t know the blue-prints were missing? When did you see them last?”

“I never saw them at all.”

“Sure about that?”

“Quite sure.”

“But you knew about them-you knew Mr. Wray had brought them up?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You were in the late Mr. Paradine’s private office on Thursday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“At what time, and for how long?”

“I came in with Frank Ambrose a little before four o’clock, and I was there for about a quarter of an hour.”

“And were you alone in the office at any time?”

“Yes. My uncle was away most of the time. Ambrose left before I did. I just waited to see my uncle, then I came away too.”

“Did you notice an attaché case on the office table?”

“Yes, I think so-it would have been there. My uncle used it to take papers to and fro.”

“Did you touch the case?”

Mark frowned.

“I might have done-I was leaning against the table.”

“And what was Mr. Ambrose doing?”

“I really don’t know. We talked a bit.”

“You were leaning against the table. Did you stay like that all the time he was in the room?”

“No-I was over by the window part of the time.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I was looking out. We were killing time-waiting for my uncle. In the end Ambrose didn’t wait for him.”

“Then you had your back to the room for a part of the time?”

“Yes.”

“And after Mr. Ambrose left, you were alone?”

“For a minute or two.”

“You were alone with the attaché case?”

“I was.”

“You might have opened it? Did you open it?”

“Of course not.” The tone was half casual, half scornful.

“You didn’t open the case-you didn’t take the prints?”

“I didn’t even know they had been taken.” Scorn predominated now.

Vyner looked at the Chief Constable. Colonel Bostock said,

“You didn’t know that the prints had been taken. Did you know that they had been put back?”

Mark Paradine’s expression changed. Something broke the stiffness. He leaned forward and said eagerly,

“Have they been put back?”

Colonel Bostock nodded.

“When, sir?”

Miss Silver said,

“That, Mr. Paradine, is what we are trying to find out. We should be glad of your assistance. The prints were contained in a cardboard cylinder. This cylinder was found by Mr. Wray when he entered the study early on Friday morning after being informed of Mr. Paradine’s death. It was then lying on this corner of the table. Do you think it is possible that it was already there when you visited your uncle on Thursday night?”

Mark looked, hesitated, frowned, and said,

“It might have been… But there must be fingerprints-if you’ve got the cylinder, there’ll be the prints of the person who took it.”

He turned from one to the other, and got a very straight look from Vyner.

“I’m not saying anything about the prints on the cylinder, Mr. Paradine.”

Mark pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Well, you wouldn’t get any of mine on it,” he said.

When the door had shut a little abruptly, Colonel Bostoek looked across the table at Vyner and said,

“What do you make of that?”

“Well, sir, the bother about the cylinder is there are too many prints on it-too many-too faint except for Mr. Wray’s own. Same with the papers inside. Mr. Wray says Mr. Paradine told him that he and Mr. Moffat and Mr. Ambrose had what he called a session over them. I take that to mean they had them out and passed them round. We haven’t got Mr. Moffat’s fingerprints to compare, but the other two are there all over the place, and another lot which are pretty sure to be his. The outside of the cylinder is very confused indeed-just a jumble, as you might say, which is what you’d expect with that amount of surface and all those people handling it. There’s one of Mr. Paradine’s pretty clear, and a finger and thumb of Mr. Wray’s.”

Colonel Bostoek turned to Miss Silver.

“Got any ideas?” he said. “Seems to me it lies between Mark Paradine and that girl Irene-Mrs. Ambrose.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me-” She folded her hands in her lap, turned her head a little on one side, and gazed at him with bright expectancy.

Colonel Bostoek, who had been prepared to cope with a fluent female, found himself relieved and stimulated.

“Take Mark,” he said. “He admits to coming back and seeing his uncle. Won’t say why. Admits he thought the remark about betraying the family interests might have been meant for him. Queer sort of story when you come to think about it. Anyhow he came back. Says so. Says the interview was a pleasant one. Admits the subject discussed had always previously put his uncle in a rage. This time no rage- everything very pleasant. Uncle agrees to let him go. Story full of discrepancies. What do you make of it?”

Miss Silver smiled faintly.

“Since you ask me, I think that Mr. Mark would have made up a better story if he had been inventing one.”

“‘Hm! The calendar tripped him. Had to say something. Didn’t have time to think it out.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“He knew that he was under suspicion. It was one of the first things he told me. He was aware that he must have been seen and recognized by the constable on duty at the bridge. He could have provided himself with a much better story. As it is, the calendar corroborates him in a manner which he could not have anticipated. His statement that he produced it to look up a date and then handed it to his uncle is substantiated by the position of the fingerprints. The fact that there was no other calendar on the table also supports his story.”

“It’s thin!” said Colonel Bostock explosively. “Paradine tells the family that one of them’s a criminal. Says he knows which of them it is. Says he expects a confession. Says he’ll be here till twelve o’clock. Now I ask you, is it reasonable to suppose that Mark first covers up his tracks by saying goodnight and going away with his cousin, and then comes blinding back for any other reason except to confess?”

Miss Silver shook her head again.

“I think he did come back to confess, but not to the theft of Mr. Wray’s blue-prints.”

Colonel Bostock stared. Miss Silver smiled.

“There is really a very simple explanation. Mr. Mark is in love with Miss Pennington. I think he has been in love with her for some time, but I do not think that he has ever told her so. These are my own impressions after seeing them together. From Mrs. Ambrose I gather that the family expects Miss Pennington to marry Mr. Richard Paradine, who has proposed to her repeatedly. They were seated together at dinner on Thursday night, and in one of the toasts Mr. Paradine made some glancing allusion which appeared to couple their names. I think it may easily be imagined that all this brought Mr. Mark to the point of feeling that his position was unendurable. Mr. Richard may have said something on their way home-there is no means of knowing this-but I can well imagine that Mr. Mark was in no mood to sleep. You say no innocent man would have sought an interview which might compromise him, but you must remember that an innocent man would have no idea that a theft had been committed. He might easily have a confused impression that his uncle’s words applied to his desire to leave the firm, upon which it would be natural that he should decide to return and settle the matter. If, as I think probable, he told Mr. Paradine his true reason for wishing to be released, the fact that the conversation was of a friendly nature is no longer surprising. From the circumstance that Mr. Paradine asked him to wait a month before making a final decision I am of the opinion that he did not take so dark a view of Mr. Mark’s prospects with Miss Pennington as Mr. Mark did himself. You see, Colonel Bostock, this would explain the whole thing-would it not?”