Agatha Christie - The Clocks

‘The murder?’ I said, sounding suitably astonished.

Geraldine nodded. Her eyes shone with importance at the information she was about to convey.

‘There was a murder in that house. I practically saw it.’

‘How very interesting.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a murder before. I mean I’ve never seen a place where a murder happened.’

‘What did you-er-see?’

‘Well, there wasn’t very much going on just then. You know, it’s rather an empty time of day. The exciting thing was when somebody came rushing out of the house screaming. And then of course I knew something must have happened.’

‘Who was screaming?’

‘Just a woman. She was quite young, rather pretty really. She came out of the door and she screamed and she screamed. There was a young man coming along the road. She came out of the gate and sort of clutched him-like this.’ She made a motion with her arms. She fixed me with a sudden glance. ‘He looked rather like you.’

‘I must have a double,’ I said lightly. ‘What happened next? This is very exciting.’

‘Well, he sort of plumped her down. You know, on the ground there and then he went back into the house and the Emperor-that’s the orange cat, I always call him the Emperor because he looks so proud-stopped washing himself and he looked quite surprised, and then Miss Pikestaff came out of her house-that’s the one there, Number 18-she came out and stood on the steps staring.’

‘Miss Pikestaff?’

‘I call her Miss Pikestaff because she’s so plain. She’s got a brother and she bullies him.’

‘Go on,’ I said with interest.

‘And then all sorts of things happened. The man came out of the house again-are you sure it wasn’t you?’

‘I’m a very ordinary-looking chap,’ I said modestly, ‘there are lots like me.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s true,’ said Geraldine, somewhat unflatteringly. ‘Well, anyway, this man, he went off down the road and telephoned from the call-box down there. Presently police began arriving.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘Lots of police. And they took the dead body away in a sort of ambulance thing. Of course there were lots of people by that time, staring, you know. I saw Harry there, too. That’s the porter from these flats. He told me about it afterwards.’

‘Did he tell you who was murdered?’

‘He just said it was a man. Nobody knew his name.’

‘It’s all very interesting,’ I said.

I prayed fervently that Ingrid would not choose this moment to come in again with a delectable treacle tart or other delicacy.

‘But go back a little, do. Tell me earlier. Did you see this man-the man who was murdered-did you see him arrive at the house?’

‘No, I didn’t. I suppose he must have been there all along.’

‘You mean he lived there?’

‘Oh, no, nobody lives there except Miss Pebmarsh.’

‘So you know her real name?’

‘Oh, yes, it was in the papers. About the murder. And the screaming girl was called Sheila Webb. Harry told me that the man who was murdered was called Mr Curry. That’s a funny name, isn’t it, like the thing you eat. And there was a second murder, you know. Not the same day-later-in the telephone box down the road. I can see it from here, just, but I have to get my head right out of the window and turn it round. Of course I didn’t really see it, because I mean if I’d known it was going to happen, I would have looked out. But, of course, I didn’t know it was going to happen, so I didn’t. There were a lot of people that morning just standing there in the street, looking at the house opposite. I think that’s rather stupid, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘very stupid.’

Here Ingrid made her appearance once more.

‘I come soon,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I come very soon now.’

She departed again. Geraldine said:

‘We don’t really want her. She gets worried about meals. Of course this is the only one she has to cook except breakfast. Daddy goes down to the restaurant in the evening and he has something sent up for me from there. Just fish or something. Not a real dinner.’ Her voice sounded wistful.

‘What time do you usually have your lunch, Geraldine?’

‘My dinner, you mean? This is my dinner. I don’t have dinner in the evening, it’s supper. Well, I really have my dinner at any time Ingrid happens to have cooked it. She’s rather funny about time. She has to get breakfast ready at the right time because Daddy gets so cross, but midday dinner we have any time. Sometimes we have it at twelve o’clock and sometimes I don’t get it till two. Ingrid says you don’t have meals at a particular time, you just have them when they’re ready.’

‘Well, it’s an easy idea,’ I said. ‘What time did you have your lunch-dinner, I mean-on the day of the murder?’

‘That was one of the twelve o’clock days. You see, Ingrid goes out that day. She goes to the cinema or to have her hair done and a Mrs Perry comes and keeps me company. She’s terrible, really. She pats one.’

‘Pats one?’ I said, slightly puzzled.

‘You know, on the head. Says things like “dear little girlie”. She’s not,’ said Geraldine, ‘the kind of person you can have any proper conversation with. But she brings me sweets and that sort of thing.’

‘How old are you, Geraldine?’

‘I’m ten. Ten and three months.’

‘You seem to me very good at intelligent conversation,’ I said.

‘That’s because I have to talk to Daddy a lot,’ said Geraldine seriously.

‘So you had your dinner early on that day of the murder?’

‘Yes, so Ingrid could get washed up and go off just after one.’

‘Then you were looking out of the window that morning, watching people.’

‘Oh, yes. Part of the time. Earlier, about ten o’clock, I was doing a crossword puzzle.’

‘I’ve been wondering whether you could possibly have seen Mr Curry arriving at the house?’

Geraldine shook her head.

‘No. I didn’t. It is rather odd, I agree.’

‘Well, perhaps he got there quite early.’

‘He didn’t go to the front door and ring the bell. I’d have seen him.’

‘Perhaps he came in through the garden. I mean through the other side of the house.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Geraldine. ‘It backs on other houses. They wouldn’t like anyone coming through their garden.’

‘No, no, I suppose they wouldn’t.’

‘I wish I knew what he’d looked like,’ said Geraldine.

‘Well, he was quite old. About sixty. He was clean-shaven and he had on a dark grey suit.’

Geraldine shook her head.

‘It sounds terribly ordinary,’ she said with disapprobation.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I suppose it’s difficult for you to remember one day from another when you’re lying here and always looking.’

‘It’s not at all difficult.’ She rose to the challenge. ‘I can tell you everything about that morning. I know when Mrs Crab came and when she left.’

‘That’s the daily cleaning woman, is it?’

‘Yes. She scuttles, just like a crab. She’s got a little boy. Sometimes she brings him with her, but she didn’t that day. And then Miss Pebmarsh goes out about ten o’clock. She goes to teach children at a blind school. Mrs Crab goes away about twelve. Sometimes she has a parcel with her that she didn’t have when she came. Bits of butter, I expect, and cheese, because Miss Pebmarsh can’t see. I know particularly well what happened that day because you see Ingrid and I were having a little quarrel so she wouldn’t talk to me. I’m teaching her English and she wanted to know how to say “until we meet again”. She had to tell it me in German. Auf Wiedersehen. I know that because I once went to Switzerland and people said that there. And they said Gruss Gott, too. That’s rude if you say it in English.’