Patricia Wentworth - The Clock Strikes Twelve

All this time Elliot Wray had been silent. He said now,

“And yet he didn’t do it. Or did he?”

Mark started. Lydia said, “Oh!”

Miss Silver gave him a bright attention.

“That is a very interesting remark, Mr. Wray. May I ask what prompted it?”

Elliot leaned forward.

“What was Albert doing in the bathroom?” he said.

Miss Silver coughed.

“I have asked myself that question.”

“He’d got no conceivable reason for being there, you know-unless he was waiting for Mr. Paradine to go out on the terrace. He must have been there for at least five minutes. If he wasn’t waiting for that, what was he waiting for? If he wanted to see Mr. Paradine he had only to open the study door and go in. But he didn’t do that-he hung out of the bathroom window and waited. I say there was only one thing that he could have been waiting for.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“That is so. But you are forgetting the direct evidence of Mr. Frank Ambrose. He saw Miss Paradine come out of her sister-in-law’s room, and he saw her push her brother over the parapet. That he did so is an extremely fortunate circumstance for Mr. Pearson, whose presence in the bathroom had already been established by the discovery of one of his prints upon the window frame.”

“What was he doing there?” said Elliot obstinately.

Miss Silver resumed her knitting. The stitches were diminishing to the point of the dark grey toe.

“I can tell you what I think,” she said. “I cannot tell you whether it is the truth or not. That will never be known to anyone except Mr. Pearson. But I have read his character, and I have tried to put myself in his place. I can tell you what I think. Consider for a moment what his feelings must have been when Mr. Paradine launched his accusation at dinner. He could not have doubted for a moment that it was aimed at him. His sin had found him out. Think what that meant to him. He had been an industrious boy and an industrious young man, he had attained a confidential position, he had good prospects, and in one moment he saw all these things about to dissolve and leave him ruined. I believe he went to the study in a desperate state of mind, resolved to know the worst. Mr. Paradine’s ‘Hullo, Albert-have you come to confess?’ must have removed his last lingering hope. But the immediate entrance of Lane put it out of his power to reply, and in the next few moments, whilst they were together in the room, I believe that a plan formed itself in his mind. Mr. Paradine called him back to suggest an alteration to some letter dictated earlier in the day. This took only a moment. Before Lane was out of earshot Mr. Pearson left the study and ran up the back stairs to alter the clock. The alibi was already planned. I do not know whether Mr. Paradine’s death was planned also, or whether that came later during the hours when he sat in your room, Mr. Wray, and waited for midnight. I think he did plan Mr. Paradine’s death-like you I can see no other reason for his waiting at the bathroom window. But I do not think he would have carried out his plan. At any rate he made no move to do so. He remained at the window and watched while Mr. Paradine stood by the parapet. He could not have expected him to stay there indefinitely, yet he made no move. He has, I think, no imagination. He made a plan, but he had no idea of what his feelings would be when it came to carrying it out. He has not the temperament of a murderer. His mental processes are orderly and balanced. I can only repeat that I do not believe he would have killed Mr. Paradine.” The last stitch left the last needle. Little Roger’s leggings dropped completed upon Miss Silver’s lap. “Let us think of pleasanter things,” she said. “You will be taking your wife away, Mr. Wray?”

“As soon as the inquest and the funerals are over.”

“That is very wise.”

She turned to Mark and Lydia.

“May I say how much I wish you every happiness.”

Lydia said, “We owe it to you.” And Mark, “She’s going to leave her office and take on Albert’s job here. Then as soon as all this ghastly business is over we can get married. I shall hand this house over for a hospital, or a convalescent home, or anything that’s wanted, and we’ll go and live in my flat. It will do to start with anyhow.”

Miss Silver rolled up little Roger’s leggings and put them away in her knitting-bag together with the needles and a half-finished ball of dark grey wool. Then she rose to her feet and smiled kindly upon the three young people.

“I wish you every happiness,” she said.

Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.

Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.