Agatha Christie - The Clocks

‘Thank you, Miss Pebmarsh. Now we are left with these following facts and this is where I want you to give me any ideas or suggestions that occur to you. At some time during today four clocks were brought here. The hands of these four clocks were set at thirteen minutes past four. Now does that time suggest anything to you?’

‘Thirteen minutes past four.’ Miss Pebmarsh shook her head. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Now we pass from the clocks to the dead man. It seems unlikely that he would have been let in by your cleaning woman and left in the house by her unless you had told her you were expecting him, but that we can learn from her. He came here presumably to see you for some reason, either a business one or a private one. Between one-thirty and two-forty-five he was stabbed and killed. If he came here by appointment, you say you know nothing of it. Presumably he was connected with insurance-but there again you cannot help us. The door was unlocked so he could have come in and sat down to wait for you-but why?’

‘The whole thing’s daft,’ said Miss Pebmarsh impatiently. ‘So you think that this-what’s-his-name Curry-brought those clocks with him?’

‘There’s no sign of a container anywhere,’ said Hardcastle. ‘He could hardly have brought four clocks in his pockets. Now Miss Pebmarsh, think very carefully. Is there any association in your mind, any suggestion you could possibly make about anything to do with clocks, or if not with clocks, say withtime. 4.13. Thirteen minutes past four?’

She shook her head.

‘I’ve been trying to say to myself that it is the work of a lunatic or that somebody came to the wrong house. But even that doesn’t really explain anything. No, Inspector, I can’t help you.’

A young constable looked in. Hardcastle went to join him in the hall and from there went down to the gate. He spoke for a few minutes to the men.

‘You can take the young lady home now,’ he said, ‘14 Palmerston Road is the address.’

He went back and into the dining-room. Through the open door to the kitchen he could hear Miss Pebmarsh busy at the sink. He stood in the doorway.

‘I shall want to take those clocks, Miss Pebmarsh. I’ll leave you a receipt for them.’

‘That will be quite all right, Inspector-they don’t belong to me-’

Hardcastle turned to Sheila Webb.

‘You can go home now, Miss Webb. The police car will take you.’

Sheila and Colin rose.

‘Just see her into the car, will you, Colin?’ said Hardcastle as he pulled a chair to the table and started to scribble a receipt.

Colin and Sheila went out and started down the path. Sheila paused suddenly.

‘My gloves-I left them-’

‘I’ll get them.’

‘No-I know just where I put them. I don’t mind now -now that they’ve taken it away.’

She ran back and rejoined him a moment or two later.

‘I’m sorry I was so silly-before.’

‘Anybody would have been,’ said Colin.

Hardcastle joined them as Sheila entered the car. Then, as it drove away, he turned to the young constable.

‘I want those clocks in the sitting-room packed up carefully-all except the cuckoo clock on the wall and the big grandfather clock.’

He gave a few more directions and then turned to his friend.

‘I’m going places. Want to come?’

‘Suits me,’ said Colin.

Colin Lamb’s Narrative

‘Where do we go?’ I asked Dick Hardcastle.

He spoke to the driver.

‘Cavendish Secretarial Bureau. It’s on Palace Street, up towards the Esplanade on the right.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The car drew away. There was quite a little crowd by now, staring with fascinated interest. The orange cat was still sitting on the gate post of Diana Lodge next door. He was no longer washing his face but was sitting up very straight, lashing his tail slightly, and gazing over the heads of the crowd with that complete disdain for the human race that is the special prerogative of cats and camels.

‘The Secretarial Bureau, and then the cleaning woman, in that order,’ said Hardcastle, ‘because the time is getting on.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘After four o’clock.’ He paused before adding, ‘Rather an attractive girl?’

‘Quite,’ I said.

He cast an amused look in my direction.

‘But she told a very remarkable story. The sooner it’s checked up on, the better.’

‘You don’t think that she-’

He cut me short.

‘I’m always interested in people who find bodies.’

‘But that girl was half mad with fright! If you had heard the way she was screaming…’

He gave me another of his quizzical looks and repeated that she was a very attractive girl.

‘And how did you come to be wandering about in Wilbraham Crescent, Colin? Admiring our genteel Victorian architecture? Or had you a purpose?’

‘I had a purpose. I was looking for Number 61-and I couldn’t find it. Possibly it doesn’t exist?’

‘It exists all right. The numbers go up to-88, I think.’

‘But look here, Dick, when I came to Number 28, Wilbraham Crescent just petered out.’

‘It’s always puzzling to strangers. If you’d turned to the right up Albany Road and then turned to the right again you’d have found yourself in the other half of Wilbraham Crescent. It’s built back to back, you see. The gardens back on each other.’

‘I see,’ I said, when he had explained this peculiar geography at length. ‘Like those Squares and Gardens in London. Onslow Square, isn’t it? Or Cadogan. You start down one side of a square, and then it suddenly becomes a Place or Gardens. Even taxis are frequently baffled. Anyway, there is a 61. Any idea who lives there?’

‘61? Let me see…Yes, that would be Bland the builder.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘That’s bad.’

‘You don’t want a builder?’

‘No. I don’t fancy a builder at all. Unless-perhaps he’s only just come here recently-just started up?’

‘Bland was born here, I think. He’s certainly a local man-been in business for years.’

‘Very disappointing.’

‘He’s a very bad builder,’ said Hardcastle encouragingly. ‘Uses pretty poor materials. Puts up the kind of houses that look more or less all right until you live in them, then everything falls down or goes wrong. Sails fairly near the wind sometimes. Sharp practice-but just manages to get away with it.’

‘It’s no good tempting me, Dick. The man I want would almost certainly be a pillar of rectitude.’

‘Bland came into a lot of money about a year ago-or rather his wife did. She’s a Canadian, came over here in the war and met Bland. Her family didn’t want her to marry him, and more or less cut her off when she did. Then last year a great-uncle died, his only son had been killed in an air crash and what with war casualties and one thing and another, Mrs Bland was the only one left of the family. So he left his money to her. Just saved Bland from going bankrupt, I believe.’

‘You seem to know a lot about Mr Bland.’

‘Oh that-well, you see, the Inland Revenue are always interested when a man suddenly gets rich overnight. They wonder if he’s been doing a little fiddling and salting away-so they check up. They checked and it was all O.K.’

‘In any case,’ I said, ‘I’m not interested in a man who has suddenly got rich. It’s not the kind of set-up that I’m looking for.’

‘No? You’ve had that, haven’t you?’

I nodded.

‘And finished with it? Or-not finished with it?’

‘It’s something of a story,’ I said evasively. ‘Are we dining together tonight as planned-or will this business put paid to that?’

‘No, that will be all right. At the moment the first thing to do is set the machinery in motion. We want to find out all about Mr Curry. In all probability once we know just who he is and what he does, we’ll have a pretty good idea as to who wanted him out of the way.’ He looked out of the window. ‘Here we are.’