Patricia Wentworth - The Clock Strikes Twelve

He spread out a sheet of the firm’s paper and read aloud what old James Paradine had written on New Year’s Eve:

“My dear Grace,

I saw you take the cylinder with Elliot’s blueprints. I note that you have found an opportunity of replacing them, but that does not close the account between us. I think perhaps it is best that we should not meet tonight. I am therefore letting you have my terms in writing.

(i) You will cease to stand between Elliot and Phyllida. Whatever their differences have been, they are deeply attached to each other and should be allowed to settle their own affairs without further interference from you.

(ii) Within a reasonable time-not more than a couple of months-you will discover a desire to have a flat or a small house of your own. I shall offer this house as a hospital for the duration, and move into a flat in Birleton.

If you still wish to see me, I shall be in the study until twelve. But the terms are quite irrevocable. I advise you to sleep on them.”

Lydia drew in her breath sharply.

“He sent her that letter? How?”

“Frank took it up and slipped it under her door. Then he went away. I was coming in as he went out. We passed each other in the drive.”

Lydia took another of those quick breaths.

“Oh! You never said-”

He had a curious fleeting smile for that.

“Nor did Frank, darling.”

He got up, went over to the fire, dropped the sheet of paper on to a tilted log, and watched it blacken and burn. Standing there looking down at the curling ash with the sparks running to and fro, he said,

“I wonder what she was doing when Elliot heard her door shut at half past eleven.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“She may have intended to go down and see Mr. Paradine then. Hearing the front door close after you, Mr. Mark, and becoming aware that Mr. Wray and Mr. Pearson were crossing the hall, she would naturally go back to her room.”

Mark bent forward and pushed the log with his foot. The ash crumbled, the sparks flew up, the letter was gone. He said,

“That’s what I can’t get off my mind, you know. If she had come down and seen him then, it might have been different-she might not have done it.”

The needles clicked again.

“That is not for us, Mr. Mark. We must not think about what might have happened. We cannot recall the past, but we can prevent its poisoning the future.”

He said “Yes,” and came back to the arm of Lydia’s chair.

Elliot said abruptly, “That’s that. What about Albert?”

Mark lifted a hand and let it fall again upon his knee.

“I’ve been wrestling with the police about him. I said I wouldn’t prosecute, and Vyner got a piece off his chest about compounding a felony. I pointed out we had no evidence to show that there had been a felony. Albert is perfectly right-Uncle James might have had the work done himself. We know he didn’t of course, but we know that there isn’t any proof of that, and you bet Albert will have covered his tracks. Anyhow, suppose we did get the evidence-where should we be? Right in the middle of the sort of stink we’re all doing our best to avoid. Old Bostock chipped in and said I was right and it was a damned awkward case, which struck me as a bit of an understatement. Anyhow he’s called Vyner off, and Albert is for the army.”

Elliot gave a short laugh.

“The war is as good as won!”

Mark said,

“When I’d got that squared I came back and saw Albert. I told him he’d better come clean, and.he did. I don’t know how much he was lying. Not much, I think, but of course he was doing the best for himself. It makes quite a story, but I dare say it’s true, or as near as makes no difference. His mother was ill, and they were awfully poor. He was working for a firm with a good solid connection. They got a lot of valuable stuff in for alterations and repairs. He began by picking out a stone here and a stone there and substituting something not quite so good-not paste but the real thing-lighter stones-inferior quality. He’d sell the stone he’d picked out and pocket the difference between that and the replacement. He says there’s quite a lot of that sort of thing done. That’s how he got to know the ropes. Then his mother died, and he came here. He says nothing was farther from his thoughts than to try any monkey business. He was going to be industrious and respectable, because he hoped it was going to pay a lot better than balancing on the edge of crime. Unfortunately the past bobbed up-his friend Izzy in fact. Albert says that Izzy blackmailed him. I don’t think I believe that part. I think Izzy suggested a deal over Aunt Clara’s diamonds and Albert fell for it. There was quite a brisk market for stones just about then. Our leading moneygrubbers were feeling nervous about the prospects of a capital levy after the war, and were putting the stuff into diamonds. Aunt Clara’s had just been valued, so the chances of a revaluation, even for probate, were remote. He fixed it all up with Izzy, and waited for an opportunity. Well, he got it when Uncle James was laid up last year. He was actually sent to get the cases out of the safe. It was as easy as falling off a log. He photographed everything, took careful measurements, Izzy supplied the imitations, and Albert substituted them for the real stones. He dwelt with pride on the fact that he is a very skilled workman-I had to head him off giving me a lecture on the subject.” Miss Silver coughed.

“It was the fact that, whilst full of information upon every other subject and unusually eager to impart what he knew, Mr. Pearson appeared unable or unwilling to converse upon anything connected with his former profession that first turned my attention in the direction of the diamonds.”

“It was frightfully clever of you,” said Lydia.

Miss Silver shook her head in a modest and deprecatory manner.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You see, Mr. Pearson’s alibi was naturally a very suspicious circumstance, and yet in a young man so obviously determined to advance himself it really was capable of an innocent interpretation. What he said to Mr. Wray is quite true. He is not an attractive person. He is not liked, and nobody would have been sorry to assume that it was he who had incurred Mr. Paradine’s displeasure. So then, it all came down to this-if he had a motive for murdering Mr. Paradine, the alibi was compromising, and if it could be proved to be false, quite conclusive. Looking about for a possible motive, I naturally thought about the diamonds, and suggested that a valuer should be present when the safe was opened.”

“It was very, very clever of you,” said Lydia. “We thought Mark was going to be arrested every minute. It was like standing on the edge of a most dreadful precipice and waiting for the fall to begin. I didn’t think anything could be so frightful. And you saved us.”

Mark put his hand on her shoulder again.

Miss Silver beamed upon them.

“Praise is gratifying even when exaggerated. I do not think that Mr. Mark was really in much danger. You see, he was innocent-that was quite plain to me from the beginning. He was shocked, and he was in grief. There was no trace of guilt or remorse. But my first evening in this house showed me two things very plainly. Mr. Pearson was in a nervous state, and declined any approach to the subject of jewelry. Miss Paradine was in a highly charged condition of antagonism towards Mr. Wray and possessive feeling for Mrs. Wray. I am sensitive to such currents of feeling, and have found this very useful in my work. Strong emotions of this nature point towards a motive for murder even more conclusively than concrete evidence. I considered Miss Paradine, but I also considered Mr. Pearson. Mr. Paradine, having omitted to name the person he accused, left the way open for anyone who had been at fault in some other direction to accuse himself. I soon discovered that it was Miss Paradine who had taken the blue-prints, but I still thought it possible that not she but Mr. Pearson had committed the murder. The more I thought about his alibi, the more incriminating it appeared. After Polly’s evidence it seemed very difficult to believe that he was innocent, and when Mr. Jones declared that the diamonds had been tampered with it became impossible.”