Agatha Christie - The Clocks

‘And then-a year later-something happens. What happens? I suggest that someone was coming over from Canada to this country-and that this someone had known the first Mrs Bland well enough not to be deceived by an impersonation. He may have been an elderly member of the family attorneys, or a close friend of the family-but whoever he was, he willknow. Perhaps they thought of ways of avoiding a meeting. Mrs Bland could feign illness, she could go abroad-but anything of that kind would only arouse suspicion. The visitor would insist on seeing the woman he had come over to see-’

‘And so-to murder?’

‘Yes. And here, I fancy, Mrs Bland’s sister may have been the ruling spirit. She thought up and planned the whole thing.’

‘You are taking it that Miss Martindale and Mrs Bland are sisters?’

‘It is the only way things make sense.’

‘Mrs Bland did remind me of someone when I saw her,’ said Hardcastle. ‘They’re very different in manner-but it’s true-there is a likeness. But how could they hope to get away with it? The man would be missed. Inquiries would be made-’

‘If this man were travelling abroad-perhaps for pleasure, not for business, his schedule would be vague. A letter from one place-a postcard from another-it would be a little time before people wondered why they had not heard from him. By that time who would connect a man identified and buried as Harry Castleton, with a rich Canadian visitor to the country who has not even been seen in this part of the world? If I had been the murderer, I would have slipped over on a day trip to France or Belgium and discarded the dead man’s passport in a train or a tram so that the inquiry would take place from another country.’

I moved involuntarily, and Poirot’s eyes came round to me.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Bland mentioned to me that he had recently taken a day trip to Boulogne-with a blonde, I understand-’

‘Which would make it quite a natural thing to do. Doubtless it is a habit of his.’

‘This is still conjecture,’ Hardcastle objected.

‘But inquiries can be made,’ said Poirot.

He took a sheet of hotel notepaper from the rack in front of him and handed it to Hardcastle.

‘If you will write to Mr Enderby at 10, Ennismore Gardens, S.W.7 he has promised to make certain inquiries for me in Canada. He is a well-known international lawyer.’

‘And what about the business of the clocks?’

‘Oh! The clocks. Those famous clocks!’ Poirot smiled. ‘I think you will find that Miss Martindale was responsible for them. Since the crime, as I said, was a simple crime, it was disguised by making it a fantastic one. That Rosemary clock that Sheila Webb took to be repaired. Did she lose it in the Bureau of Secretarial Studies? Did Miss Martindale take it as the foundation of her rigmarole, and was it partly because of that clock that she chose Sheila as the person to discover the body-?’

Hardcastle burst out:

‘And you say this woman is unimaginative? When she concocted all this?’

‘But she did not concoct it. That is what is so interesting. It was all there-waiting for her. From the very first I detected a pattern-a pattern I knew. A pattern familiar because I had just been reading such patterns. I have been very fortunate. As Colin here will tell you, I attended this week a sale of authors’ manuscripts. Among them were some of Garry Gregson’s. I hardly dared hope. But luck was with me. Here -' Like a conjuror he whipped from a drawer in the desk two shabby exercise books '-it is all here! Among the many plots of books he planned to write. He did not live to write this one-but Miss Martindale, who was his secretary, knew all about it. She just lifted it bodily to suit her purpose.’

‘But the clocks must have meant something originally-in Gregson’s plot, I mean.’

‘Oh, yes. His clocks were set at one minute past five, four minutes past five and seven minutes past five. That was the combination number of a safe, 515457. The safe was concealed behind a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Inside the safe,’ continued Poirot, with distaste, ‘were the Crown jewels of the Russian Royal Family. Un tas de betises, the whole thing! And of course there was a story of kinds-a persecuted girl. Oh, yes, it came in very handy for la Martindale. She just chose her local characters and adapted the story to fit in. All these flamboyant clues would lead-where? Exactly nowhere! Ah, yes, an efficient woman. One wonders-he left her a legacy-did he not? How and of what did he die, I wonder?’

Hardcastle refused to be interested in past history. He gathered up the exercise books and took the sheet of hotel paper from my hand. For the last two minutes I had been staring at it, fascinated. Hardcastle had scribbled down Enderby’s address without troubling to turn the sheet the right way up. The hotel address was upside down in the left-hand bottom corner.

Staring at the sheet of paper, I knew what a fool I had been.

‘Well, thank you, M. Poirot,’ said Hardcastle. ‘You’ve certainly given us something to think about. Whether anything will come of it-’

‘I am most delighted if I have been of any assistance.’

Poirot was playing it modestly.

‘I’ll have to check various things-’

‘Naturally-naturally-’

Goodbyes were said. Hardcastle took his departure.

Poirot turned his attention to me. His eyebrows rose.

‘Eh bien-and what, may I ask, is biting you?-you look like a man who has seen an apparition.’

‘I’ve seen what a fool I’ve been.’

‘Aha. Well, that happens to many of us.’

But presumably not to Hercule Poirot! I had to attack him.

‘Just tell me one thing, Poirot. If, as you said, you could do all this sitting in your chair in London and could have got me and Dick Hardcastle to come to you there, why-oh, why, did you come down here at all?’

‘I told you, they make the reparation in my apartment.’

‘They would have lent you another apartment. Or you could have gone to the Ritz, you would have been more comfortable there than in the Curlew Hotel.’

‘Indubitably,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘The coffee here, mon dieu, the coffee!’

‘Well, then,why?’

Hercule Poirot flew into a rage.

‘Eh bien, since you are too stupid to guess, I will tell you. I am human, am I not? I can be the machine if it is necessary. I can lie back and think. I can solve the problem so. But I am human, I tell you. And the problems concern human beings.’

‘And so?’

‘The explanation is as simple as the murder was simple. I came out of human curiosity,’ said Hercule Poirot, with an attempt at dignity.

Once more I was in Wilbraham Crescent, proceeding in a westerly direction.

I stopped before the gate of No. 19. No one came screaming out of the house this time. It was neat and peaceful.

I went up to the front door and rang the bell.

Miss Millicent Pebmarsh opened it.

‘This is Colin Lamb,’ I said. ‘May I come in and speak to you?’

‘Certainly.’

She preceded me into the sitting-room.

‘You seem to spend a lot of time down here, Mr Lamb. I understood that you were not connected with the local police-’

‘You understood rightly. I think, really, you have known exactly who I am from the first day you spoke to me.’

‘I’m not sure quite what you mean by that.’

‘I’ve been extremely stupid, Miss Pebmarsh. I came to this place to look for you. I found you the first day I was here-and I didn’t know I had found you!’

‘Possibly murder distracted you.’

‘As you say. I was also stupid enough to look at a piece of paper the wrong way up.’

‘And what is the point of all this?’