The Skeleton in the Clock shm-18 Read online

  ‘I said yes, and meant it. We started round the north side-of the house, on the broad gravel drive. Then we heard a… well a shout"

  Ricky paused.

  "I didn't think of anything being wrong, or even connect it with the house particularly. I knew my governor was up on the roof, trying to follow the hunt through a very powerful pair of field-glasses. As he always did when he had the rheumatics and it was agony to sit on a horse. But—

  "Well, just as we were nearly to the front of the house, where there's a tap for the garden-hose, I distinctly heard Dr. Laurier's voice."

  Jenny interposed. She had crept into a chair opposite Ricky, both of them with their elbows on the table.

  "Was it old Dr. Laurier?" she asked. "Or the Dr. Laurier we have now?"

  Ricky made a fussed gesture with the pipe. His eyes were hypnotized.

  "Old Dr. Laurier, with the beard. The hounds were yelling, and there was the hallo-forrard. Only the hunt-servants had followed through the wood. Most of the field had ridden round; you could see a flash of pink coats coming, round the edge of Black Hanger, and hear the horses. But I distinctly remember Dr. Laurier's voice saying, 'Get the table-cloth out of the hall.’

  "In the front hall there used to be a piece of tapestry, worked with what I then considered very funny-looking knights; they had it on a table. That's the most distinct thing of the lot: 'Get the table-cloth out of the hall.'

  "Then we got round to the front terrace. There was my governor, lying face-down on the flagstones, looking just as usual: except that old Dr. Laurier, with the beard, was spreading the tapestry-piece over his head and I think his shoulders.

  "I was so excited I looked across the road first there were two men sitting on the roof-gables of this pub, and the hunt streaming beyond. Then there was something: I don't know what Dr. Laurier straightened up. Your grandmother was standing beside him. When you're a kid, you never really know there's something wrong until you see the look on their faces. Dr. Laurier said, 'Miss Upton, take the boy away from here.' I could feel Miss Upton shaking through all her fifteen stone, and all of a sudden I felt as frightened as hell without knowing why. She turned me round and took me back. Then…"

  Again Ricky paused. He put the pipe into his mouth and chewed at its stem.

  "On my word of honour," he declared in that same hypnotized tone, and dropped the pipe again, "I haven't thought of this for years. Maybe you jogged it into my bead. Maybe it's sheer imagination. But I have an impression that I looked up."

  ‘Towards the roof?"

  "No, no! I didn't connect the governor with anything like 'death' or all the terms you might imply. It was a vague kind of wonder what he was doing down here instead of up there. I looked at an upper window, I think to the right of the front door. And I saw.."

  There was a sharp rapping on the inside of the open door to the road.

  Martin Drake — shut out, almost forgotten, feeling a sharp-twinge of jealousy at the absorption of these two in each other and their long familiarity — Martin jerked up his head at that rapping. The other two started as though they had been burnt.

  In the doorway stood a wiry, middle-sized man whose-pince-nez, except for its gold nose-clamp, seemed to fit into his eyes rather than advance outside them. His hair, cut en brosse, was iron-grey. In an ascetic face, with somewhat hollow cheeks, showed a narrow fastidious mouth. His whole air was one of fastidiousness and extreme precision; and he carried a medicine-case in his right hand.

  Despite the bloodless mouth, his voice was vigorous if soft. He smiled at Jenny and Ricky, making the countenance pleasant and human, and then looked towards Martin.

  "Captain Drake, I imagine?" he inquired. "I am Dr. Laurier."

  (So he's been talking to grandma, eh? Why did Lady Brayle persist with that 'captain' when they'd finished another war two years ago? Gossip, flying and twisting! How much was known?)

  "Just Mr. Drake," Martin said, "if you don't mind."

  Dr. Laurier bowed slightly. Next he turned to Ricky. You could imagine him, at a desk, pushing a group of small articles carefully into line.

  "In my opinion, Richard, it would be very wise if you returned home at once. Your mother is not well."

  Ricky twitched up his head. "You've been over there?"

  "Yes." Dr. Laurier, not moving from the doorway, fired softly from a distance. He inclined his head. "I don't know how many times I have told you that your mother has a definitely serious heart-condition. An unpleasant shock of any sort—" very slightly emphasizing the words 'of any sort,' Dr. Laurier's almost invisible pince-nez moved towards Jenny, and then Martin—"would be… most undesirable."

  "Then if she heard—" Ricky checked himself. He also looked at Jenny and Martin. Wretchedness laid hold of him and shook him as though with hands.

  "I’ll go straightaway," he said, and got up.

  "I hope," interposed Jenny politely, "my grandmother is well?’

  And this was a different girl from the timorous one of yesterday. Martin saw that with a shock of hope. Though she seemed outwardly placid, her breast rose and fell under the white blouse.

  "Your grandmother, Lady Jennifer," Dr. Laurie r returned her smile, "is in excellent health. She was a bit disappointed, however…"

  Jenny's tone expressed immense surprise. "Were you at the Manor too?"

  "For a cup of tea; no more. As I say, she was a bit disappointed you were not there for tea. She wondered where you were."

  "Oh, I've got to be out much later tonight I shall have to go home and change, of course. But I've got to be out much later tonight"

  Deliberately Jenny rose from her chair. Deliberately she dipped over to where Martin was standing, and took his arm. He put his hand over hers. Dr. Laurier made no comment and no sign: a grey-headed statue in the doorway, his pince-nez opaque, the medicine-case in his hand.

  "And — Ricky!" the ex-fiancée called.

  "Eh?"

  "You will lend us your car for tonight, won't you?"

  "Of course. And…" Despite his perturbation, the old smile kindled Ricky's face. "Look here, old boy. This man-of-honour business is all very well. But is there any real reason why you shouldn't stay with us instead of putting up at the pub? Can't you at least come over for dinner tonight?"

  "I've been a fool," Martin blurted: "I'm always being a fool. -But I had some wild sort of notion that everyone here was an enemy.. "

  "Who can tell?" murmured Dr. Laurier.

  The words fell with soft chilling weight. It was as though a dagger had thudded into a door; not too melodramatic a comparison, because Dr. Laurier bad a certain hobby. Martin felt Jenny's soft'arm grew rigid against his coat-sleeve. And then: "I beg your pardon!" added the doctor, and stepped aside.

  Ruth Callice, brushing past him with apology, stepped into the room.

  In her unobtrusive way Ruth was urban charm, urban fashion, invading a country pub. Her grey dress, the dull-twinkling ear-rings, set off-her dark-brown eyes and the full roundness of her neck. Ruth regarded everyone with smiling apology.

  "Martin, dear," she said. "I've come to remind you about your promise for tonight"

  Chapter 6

  Some half an hour before Ruth's appearance, in the other bar-parlour with the clock containing its skeleton, Sir Henry Merrivale sat in a leather chair near the fireplace. Chief Inspector Masters stood opposite, behind a table on which lay a brief-case stuffed with documents.

  And these two were carrying on in a way which would have sounded familiar to any friend of theirs.

  "Now, now, Masters, keep your shirt on!"

  Masters, large and burly, usually bland as a card-sharper, his grizzled hair brushed to hide an increasing bald-spot was buttoned up in a blue serge and had assumed his witness-box manner. This indicated that his words would have weight and dignity.

  "It might interest you to know, sir, that I've got my shirt on."

  "That's right Masters. Be like Me."

  These impossible situations," sai
d Masters. "What do I care for 'em?" He reached out and snapped his fingers. "Not that! Oh, ah! And why? Because I'm resigned."

  "I got a spiritual nature too."

  Masters's blood-pressure soared, as was evident in his countenance. "But what I DO object to—" "Easy, son!"

  "But what I do object to," continued the Chief Inspector, swallowing bard, "is the Assistant Commissioner wanting to dig up a twenty-year old case, because: first, he was an old friend of Sir George Fleet; and, second, he recently gets three anonymous postcards straight out of Colney Hatch, Now I ask you I is that fair or reasonable?"

  Delving into the neatly packed brief-case, Masters drew out three cards and pushed them across the table towards H.M., who did not even glance at them. H.M., with a malignant scowl, had folded his hands across his corporation and was twiddling his thumbs.

  These cards, the ordinary twopenny-halfpenny sort you buy at any post office, had both address and message printed in small block capitals, with a pencil. They were postmarked in the town of Brayle, about two miles southwards, on July 5th, July 6th, and July 7th, and addressed, 'Chief of the C.LD., Scotland Yard, London W.I.’ The first card read:

  Re Sir George Fleet: examine the skeleton in the clock.

  The second card read:

  Re Sir George Fleet: what was the pink flash on the roof?

  The third card read:

  Re Sir George Fleet: evidence of murder is still there.

  "Lummy!" breathed Masters. "I've seen some scatty messages in my time, but this beats the lot." He squared himself, "Now I’ll just take each point, sir; This clock, to begin with."

  Both of them, in the old room hung with hunting prints, surveyed the tall clock. Standing eater-cornered in its southeast angle, its gilt hands and numerals faintly shining, the glass dial conveyed an impression that the skull had its chin tilted up so that the skull could see better. Like Martin Drake, Masters experienced the illusion that the tick-tick of the mantelpiece clock issued out of that dead case. It made Masters uncomfortable, which in his staid soul he resented.

  "Sir," he demanded, "what's wrong with that clock?"

  "Nothin'," H.M. answered simply.,

  "What's wrong with the skeleton?"

  "Nothin'."

  "Then why in lum's name do you want to bring it down here and stick it up in a bar-parlour?"

  "Because, son, I can't do everything at once. I want to take that blighter out of his case—" H.M. pointed to the skeleton— "and put him on a table, and examine him thoroughly. I dunno who he is, son. But I can tell you who he's not. He's not Sir George Fleet"

  "Oh, ah!" muttered Masters, with a sideways look. "So you thought of that?’

  "Oh, my son! It was the very first wild and wool-gatherin' notion I did have, for no reason at all But it won't work. Now the overall height of that clock, includin' platform and fancy top, is six feet And the late lamented?"

  "Six feet one inch tall," grunted Masters, with the heaviness of one who has studied much; "and with big bones."

  "Right Whereas the chap who's watchin' us," H.M. indicated the clock again, "was a little feller. Five feet five, about Well-proportioned, small bones. Masters, I'll tell you what it is. That's an ordinary medical-school skeleton: varnished, articulated…"

  "Meaning strung together with wire?"

  "With fine cat-gut, usually. Besides, you couldn’t possibly conceal the injuries to Fleet's head. Who'd want to?"

  "Ah, and that's just it What about the skeleton?" exploded Masters. "In all this record-" he brought his hand down slowly on the brief-case—"there's not a word to do with any skeleton in a clock. What's it supposed to mean?"

  "I dunno. But an anonymous letter, postmarked Brayle, tells you to examine it Five days later Our Sophie, on instructions from Cicely Fleet waddles up to London to buy it for Dr. Laurier: son of clock's former owner. Don't you find that rather fetchin' and interesting?"

  Masters took several paces up and down. The ticking of the clock seemed to trouble him.

  "If we had one bit of evidence that this was murder—!"

  "Oh, Masters. It was murder. Tell me something about George Fleet"

  "Lummy, haven't you read this stuff in the brief-case?"

  "Uh-huh. But I want to see what impressed you."

  H.M, his spectacles pulled down on his broad nose, closed his eyes. An expression almost of serenity crossed his unmentionable face. Masters, deeply suspicious of being done in the eye again, studied him warily. At length the Chief Inspector cleared his throat

  "Hurruml" he said. "Sir George Fleet? Came of a well-to-do family in the Midlands, with a cotton-business. Family wanted him to be pukka Army; so did he. Boarding-school when he was a tiny 'un, then Harrow, then Sandhurst Never finished Sandhurst; father died, and he had to take over the business.

  "But he acted Army all the rest of his life, though he didn't join up in '14. Upright carriage, cropped moustache, dead keen on sport Roared at everybody. Wanted a knighthood; got it; wanted a baronetcy so his title wouldn't die with him; didn't get it"

  Still H.M. did not open his eyes, though his look was now evil. He grunted.

  "Yes. That's why it's so rummy that.. h'mf. What about his wife?"

  "She lives just over the road, sir. You could go see her." "I meant twenty years ago."

  "Bit of a beauty, I'd say." Masters considered. "You've seen her photograph. Yes, bit of a beauty in the fair-haired, blue-eyed way. Completely gone on her husband. Idolized him. Do anything he said, and like it"

  "Wait a minute, son. Does that mean she was all coos and clucks in public, and in private wept and twisted him round her little finger?"

  Masters repressed a guffaw.

  "No, it does not" he retorted dryly. "Old Chief Inspector Radford: if you've read his notes of that time—"

  "I have. I've gone over other things too. Y’know, Masters, I may have been doin' you in the eye. Just a little bit"

  Masters stiffened. Once more he became as wary as a heavy-game hunter near a somnolent water-buffalo.

  "But it was only a telephone-call," pleaded H.M. in a bumbling way. "And it don’t (burn me, it don't!) help with our real problem."

  "If you hadn't sent that ruddy clock on ahead of us, and we'd got here—"

  "You were tellin' me, Masters. About Fleet's wife."

  "Now get this, sir! At that time there was only one person ' who ruled the roost in that house: it was her husband. Why, sir, he once tore up her favourite morning-room, or whatever they call it and put in new panelling and a billiard-table. And she never said a word. I know what my old woman would have said.

  "Changeable sort of gentleman, too. One time he had a collection of old swords and daggers. Got tired of 'em, and bang! overnight they went, and she had a room with nothing on the walls but hooks until he could put up antique guns instead. Now," Masters added grimly, "well come to the day of the accident Because it was an accident and I’ll show you why. Come over and look at the house, Sir Henry. Just look out of the window!"

  "I got a picture in my mind's eye, son. You just gush on."

  Returning to the table, Masters sat down, took a blue-bound folder of typewritten sheets out of the brief-case, and opened it.

  The date," he continued, "was November 4th, 1927. Just so. Let me emphasize a few points about that roof.

  "It's a very big roof, fiat and perfectly square. Ifs floored with cement; they used it for sun-bathing. On the edge of the south side there's a low chimney-stack, narrow and oblong, flat on top. In the middle of the roof there's another chimney-stack just like it, and a third on the edge of the north side. All in a straight line dead across the middle of the roof. Got it?"

  "Got it Sure."

  "Just so. At the time this happened, there was nothing at all on the roof except two beach-chairs and a wicker settee, all of 'em pushed back dead against the little chimney-stack in the middle."

  ELM., eyes closed, blew out his cheeks hideously. "Stop a bit, son. What were beach-chairs doin' ther
e in November?"

  "It'd been a warm autumn, and still wasn't cold. They'd just been left there." "Any smoke from the chimneys?" "No. Not a fire lighted. Gas-range in the kitchen." "What colour were the beach-chairs?" Masters stared at him.

  "How in lum's name should I know? This report deals with—"

  "Now, now, Masters! Keep your shirt on!"

  Again the Chief Inspector's forefinger; somewhat agitated by his blood-pressure, travelled down the typewritten lines.

  "I don't have to explain this hunting stuff. You've read it Sir George Fleet even if he did act like a comic-paper colonel, really was a sport First-class horseman and A-l shot He hunted except when he had (don't I know it?) the rheumatic pains in his side. On November 4th, about two o'clock in the afternoon, he was sitting in his study reading The Field when the gardener came to see him. This gardener said the Ascombe Hunt was 'drawing,' whatever that means, a big wood called Black Hanger."

  H.M. sat up with ghoulish thoughtfulness.

  "I say, Masters. Did you ever see me on a horse?"

  "I daresay," the Chief Inspector said with heavy sarcasm, "you were one of the greatest horsemen in England too?"

  "Well.. now!" said H.M., with a deprecatory wave of his hand. "I wouldn't like to say that, no. But I had a steeplechaser, named Whoozler, who could take fences like the cow jumpin' over the moon. Besides, it’d fit in — burn me if it wouldn't! — with a former existence where…" Masters stiffened.

  "So help me," he swore, and pointed at H.M., "if I hear one more word about your reincarnation, just one more word, then back I go to tell the A.C. I'm through. I tell you straight: it gives me the creeps."

  H.M. pondered. He peered round carefully, to make sure both doors were closed.

  "Y’see, Masters, I'm not just sure I believe it myself, exactly."

  "Ah!"

  "But some of those books sound awful plausible, son." H.M. shook his head. "And it stirs you up, sort of (wouldn't it anybody?) to imagine… I say, Masters: couldn't you see me as a Cavalier poet?"