The Clocks (16 page)

I
reported to Beck as soon as I got to London.

He waved his cigar at me.

“There might have been something in that idiotic crescent idea of yours after all,” he allowed.

“I've turned up something at last, have I?”

“I won't go as far as that, but I'll just say that you
may
have. Our construction engineer, Mr. Ramsay of 62, Wilbraham Crescent, is not all he seems. Some very curious assignments he's taken on lately. Genuine firms, but firms without much back history, and what history they have, rather a peculiar one. Ramsay went off at a minute's notice about five weeks ago. He went to Rumania.”

“That's not what he told his wife.”

“Possibly not, but that's where he went. And that's where he is now. We'd like to know a bit more about him. So you can stir your stumps, my lad, and get going. I've got all the visas ready for you, and a nice new passport. Nigel Trench it will be this time. Rub up your knowledge of rare plants in the Balkans. You're a botanist.”

“Any special instructions?”

“No. We'll give you your contact when you pick up your papers. Find out all you can about our Mr. Ramsay.” He looked at me keenly. “You don't sound as pleased as you might be.” He peered through the cigar smoke.

“It's always pleasant when a hunch pays off,” I said evasively.

“Right Crescent, wrong number. 61 is occupied by a perfectly blameless builder. Blameless in our sense, that is. Poor old Hanbury got the number wrong, but he wasn't far off.”

“Have you vetted the others? Or only Ramsay?”

“Diana Lodge seems to be as pure as Diana. A long history of cats. McNaughton was vaguely interesting. He's a retired professor, as you know. Mathematics. Quite brilliant, it seems. Resigned his Chair quite suddenly on the grounds of ill-health. I suppose that
may
be true—but he seems quite hale and hearty. He seems to have cut himself off from all his old friends, which is rather odd.”

“The trouble is,” I said, “that we get to thinking that everything that
everybody
does is highly suspicious.”

“You may have got something there,” said Colonel Beck. “There are times when I suspect
you,
Colin, of having changed over to the other side. There are times when I suspect
myself
of having changed over to the other side, and then having changed back again to this one! All a jolly mix-up.”

My plane left at ten p.m. I went to see Hercule Poirot first. This time he was drinking a
sirop de cassis
(Black currant to you and me). He offered me some. I refused. George brought me whisky. Everything as usual.

“You look depressed,” said Poirot.

“Not at all. I'm just off abroad.”

He looked at me. I nodded.

“So it is like that?”

“Yes, it is like that.”

“I wish you all success.”

“Thank you. And what about you, Poirot, how are you getting along with your homework?”

“
Pardon?
”

“What about the Crowdean Clocks Murder—Have you leaned back, closed your eyes and come up with all the answers?”

“I have read what you left here with great interest,” said Poirot.

“Not much there, was there? I told you these particular neighbours were a wash-out—”

“On the contrary. In the case of at least
two
of these people very illuminating remarks were made—”

“Which of them? And what were the remarks?”

Poirot told me in an irritating fashion that I must read my notes carefully.

“You will see for yourself then—It leaps to the eye. The thing to do now is to talk to more neighbours.”

“There aren't any more.”

“There must be.
Somebody
has always seen something. It is an axiom.”

“It may be an axiom but it isn't so in this case. And I've got further details for you. There has been another murder.”

“Indeed? So soon? That is interesting. Tell me.”

I told him. He questioned me closely until he got every single detail out of me. I told him, too, of the postcard I had passed on to Hardcastle.

“Remember—four one three—or four thirteen,” he repeated. “Yes—it is the same pattern.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Poirot closed his eyes.

“That postcard lacks only one thing, a fingerprint dipped in blood.”

I looked at him doubtfully.

“What do you really think of this business?”

“It grows much clearer—as usual, the murderer cannot let well alone.”

“But who's the murderer?”

Poirot craftily did not reply to that.

“Whilst you are away, you permit that I make a few researches?”

“Such as?”

“Tomorrow I shall instruct Miss Lemon to write a letter to an old lawyer friend of mine, Mr. Enderby. I shall ask her to consult the marriage records at Somerset House. She will also send for me a certain overseas cable.”

“I'm not sure that's fair,” I objected. “You're not just sitting and thinking.”

“That is exactly what I am doing! What Miss Lemon is to do, is to verify for me the answers that I have already arrived at. I ask not for information, but for
confirmation.
”

“I don't believe you know a thing, Poirot! This is all bluff. Why, nobody knows yet who the dead man is—”

“I know.”

“What's his name?”

“I have no idea. His name is not important. I know, if you can understand, not
who
he is but who he
is.
”

“A blackmailer?”

Poirot closed his eyes.

“A private detective?”

Poirot opened his eyes.

“I say to you a little quotation. As I did last time. And after that I say no more.”

He recited with the utmost solemnity:

“Dilly, dilly, dilly—Come and be killed.”

D
etective Inspector Hardcastle looked at the calendar on his desk. 20th September. Just over ten days. They hadn't been able to make as much progress as he would have liked because they were held up with that initial difficulty: the identification of a dead body. It had taken longer than he would have thought possible. All the leads seemed to have petered out, failed. The laboratory examination of the clothes had brought in nothing particularly helpful. The clothes themselves had yielded no clues. They were good quality clothes, export quality, not new but well cared for. Dentists had not helped, nor laundries, nor cleaners. The dead man remained a “mystery man!” And yet, Hardcastle felt, he was not really a “mystery man.” There was nothing spectacular or dramatic about him. He was just a man whom nobody had been able to come forward and recognize. That was the pattern of it, he was sure. Hardcastle sighed as he thought of the telephone calls and letters that had necessarily poured in after the publication in the public press of the
photograph with the caption below it:
DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
Astonishing the amount of people who thought they did know this man. Daughters who wrote in a hopeful vein of fathers from whom they'd been estranged for years. An old woman of ninety was sure that the photograph in question was her son who had left home thirty years ago. Innumerable wives had been sure that it was a missing husband. Sisters had not been quite so anxious to claim brothers. Sisters, perhaps, were less hopeful thinkers. And, of course, there were vast numbers of people who had seen that very man in Lincolnshire, Newcastle, Devon, London, on a tube, in a bus, lurking on a pier, looking sinister at the corner of a road, trying to hide his face as he came out of the cinema. Hundreds of leads, the more promising of them patiently followed up and not yielding anything.

But today, the inspector felt slightly more hopeful. He looked again at the letter on his desk. Merlina Rival. He didn't like the Christian name very much. Nobody in their senses, he thought, could christen a child Merlina. No doubt it was a fancy name adopted by the lady herself. But he liked the feel of the letter. It was not extravagant or overconfident. It merely said that the writer thought it possible that the man in question was her husband from whom she had parted several years ago. She was due this morning. He pressed his buzzer and Sergeant Cray came in.

“That Mrs. Rival not arrived yet?”

“Just come this minute,” said Cray. “I was coming to tell you.”

“What's she like?”

“Bit theatrical-looking,” said Cray, after reflecting a moment. “Lots of makeup—not very good makeup. Fairly reliable sort of woman on the whole, I should say.”

“Did she seem upset?”

“No. Not noticeably.”

“All right,” said Hardcastle, “let's have her in.”

Cray departed and presently returned saying as he did so, “Mrs. Rival, sir.”

The inspector got up and shook hands with her. About fifty, he would judge, but from a long way away—quite a long way—she might have looked thirty. Close at hand, the result of makeup carelessly applied made her look rather older than fifty but on the whole he put it at fifty. Dark hair heavily hennaed. No hat, medium height and build, wearing a dark coat and skirt and a white blouse. Carrying a large tartan bag. A jingly bracelet or two, several rings. On the whole, he thought, making moral judgements on the basis of his experience, rather a good sort. Not overscrupulous, probably, but easy to live with, reasonably generous, possibly kind. Reliable? That was the question. He wouldn't bank on it, but then he couldn't afford to bank on that kind of thing anyway.

“I'm very glad to see you, Mrs. Rival,” he said, “and I hope very much you'll be able to help us.”

“Of course, I'm not at all sure,” said Mrs. Rival. She spoke apologetically. “But it did look like Harry. Very much like Harry. Of course I'm quite prepared to find that it isn't, and I hope I shan't have taken up your time for nothing.”

She seemed quite apologetic about it.

“You mustn't feel that in any case,” said the inspector. “We want help very badly over this case.”

“Yes, I see. I hope I'll be able to be sure. You see, it's a long time since I saw him.”

“Shall we get down a few facts to help us? When did you last see your husband?”

“I've been trying to get it accurate,” said Mrs. Rival, “all the way down in the train. It's terrible how one's memory goes when it comes to time. I believe I said in my letter to you it was about ten years ago, but it's more than that. D'you know, I think it's nearer fifteen. Time does go so fast. I suppose,” she added shrewdly, “that one tends to think it's less than it is because it makes you yourself feel younger. Don't you think so?”

“I should think it could do,” said the inspector. “Anyway you think it's roughly fifteen years since you saw him? When were you married?”

“It must have been about three years before that,” said Mrs. Rival.

“And you were living then?”

“At a place called Shipton Bois in Suffolk. Nice town. Market town. Rather one-horse, if you know what I mean.”

“And what did your husband do?”

“He was an insurance agent. At least—” she stopped herself “—that's what he said he was.”

The inspector looked up sharply.

“You found out that that wasn't true?”

“Well, no, not exactly … Not at the time. It's only since then that I've thought that perhaps it wasn't true. It'd be an easy thing for a man to say, wouldn't it?”

“I suppose it would in certain circumstances.”

“I mean, it gives a man an excuse for being away from home a good deal.”

“Your husband was away from home a good deal, Mrs. Rival?”

“Yes. I never thought about it much to begin with—”

“But later?”

She did not answer at once then she said:

“Can't we get on with it? After all, if it
isn't
Harry….”

He wondered what exactly she was thinking. There was strain in her voice, possibly emotion? He was not sure.

“I can understand,” he said, “that you'd like to get it over. We'll go now.”

He rose and escorted her out of the room to the waiting car. Her nervousness when they got to where they were going, was no more than the nervousness of other people he had taken to this same place. He said the usual reassuring things.

“It'll be quite all right. Nothing distressing. It will only take a minute or two.”

The tray was rolled out, the attendant lifted the sheet. She stood staring down for a few moments, her breath came a little faster, she made a faint gasping sound, then she turned away abruptly. She said:

“It's Harry. Yes. He's a lot older, he looks different … But it's Harry.”

The inspector nodded to the attendant, then he laid his hand on her arm and took her out again to the car and they drove back to the station. He didn't say anything. He left her to pull herself together. When they got back to his room a constable came in almost at once with a tray of tea.

“There you are, Mrs. Rival. Have a cup, it'll pull you together. Then we'll talk.”

“Thank you.”

She put sugar in the tea, a good deal of it, and gulped it down quickly.

“That's better,” she said. “It's not that I
mind
really. Only—only, well it does turn you up a bit, doesn't it?”

“You think this man is definitely your husband?”

“I'm sure he is. Of course, he's much older, but he hasn't changed really so much. He always looked—well, very neat. Nice, you know, good class.”

Yes, thought Hardcastle, it was quite a good description. Good class. Presumably, Harry had looked much better class than he was. Some men did, and it was helpful to them for their particular purposes.

Mrs. Rival said, “He was very particular always about his clothes and everything. That's why, I think—they fell for him so easily. They never suspected anything.”

“Who fell for him, Mrs. Rival?” Hardcastle's voice was gentle, sympathetic.

“Women,” said Mrs. Rival. “Women. That's where he was most of the time.”

“I see. And you got to know about it.”

“Well, I—I suspected. I mean, he was away such a lot. Of course I knew what men are like. I thought probably there
was
a girl from time to time. But it's no good asking men about these things. They'll lie to you and that's all. But I didn't think—I really didn't think that he made a
business
of it.”

“And did he?”

She nodded. “I think he must have done.”

“How did you find out?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“He came back one day from a trip he'd taken. To Newcastle, he
said.
Anyway, he came back and said he'd have to clear out quickly. He said that the game was up. There was some woman he'd got into trouble. A schoolteacher, he said, and there might be a bit of a stink about it. I asked him questions then. He didn't mind telling me. Probably he thought I knew more than I did. They used to fall for him, you know, easily enough, just as I did. He'd give her a ring and they'd get engaged—and then he'd say he'd invest money for them. They usually gave it him quite easily.”

“Had he tried the same thing with you?”

“He had, as a matter of fact, only I didn't give him any.”

“Why not? Didn't you trust him even then?”

“Well, I wasn't the kind that trusts anybody. I'd had what you'd call a bit of experience, you know, of men and their ways and the seamier side of things. Anyway, I didn't want him investing my money for me. What money I had I could invest for myself. Always keep your money in your hands and then you'll be sure you've got it! I've seen too many girls and women make fools of themselves.”

“When did he want you to invest money? Before you were married or after?”

“I think he suggested something of the kind beforehand, but I didn't respond and he sheered off the subject at once. Then, after we were married, he told me about some wonderful opportunity he'd got. I said, ‘Nothing doing.' It wasn't only because I didn't trust him, but I'd often heard men say they're on to something wonderful and then it turned out that they'd been had for a mug themselves.”

“Had your husband ever been in trouble with the police?”

“No fear,” said Mrs. Rival. “Women don't like the world to know they've been duped. But this time, apparently, things might be different. This girl or woman, she was an educated woman. She wouldn't be as easy to deceive as the others may have been.”

“She was going to have a child?”

“Yes.”

“Had that happened on other occasions?”

“I rather think so.” She added, “I don't honestly know what it was used to start him off in the first place. Whether it was
only
the money—a way of getting a living, as you might say—or whether he was the kind of man who just
had
to have women and he saw no reason why they shouldn't pay the expenses of his fun.” There was no bitterness now in her voice.

Hardcastle said gently:

“You were fond of him, Mrs. Rival?”

“I don't know. I honestly don't know. I suppose I was in a way, or I wouldn't have married him….”

“You
were
—excuse me—married to him?”

“I don't even know that for sure,” said Mrs. Rival frankly. “We were married all right. In a church, too, but I don't know if he had married other women as well, using a different name, I suppose. His name was Castleton when I married him. I don't think it was his own name.”

“Harry Castleton. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And you lived in this place, Shipton Bois, as man and wife—for how long?”

“We'd been there about two years. Before that we lived near Doncaster. I don't say I was really surprised when he came back
that day and told me. I think I'd known he was a wrong 'un for some time. One just couldn't believe it because, you see, he always seemed so respectable. So absolutely the gentleman!”

“And what happened then?”

“He said he'd got to get out of there quick and I said he could go and good riddance, that I wasn't standing for all this!” She added thoughtfully, “I gave him ten pounds. It was all I had in the house. He said he was short of money … I've never seen or heard of him since. Until today. Or rather, until I saw his picture in the paper.”

“He didn't have any special distinguishing marks? Scars? An operation—or a fracture—anything like that?”

She shook her head.

“I don't think so.”

“Did he ever use the name Curry?”

“Curry? No, I don't think so. Not that I know of, anyway.” Hardcastle slipped the card across the table to her.

“This was in his pocket,” he said.

“Still saying he's an insurance agent, I see,” she remarked. “I expect he uses—used, I mean—all sorts of different names.”

“You say you've never heard of him for the last fifteen years?”

“He hasn't sent me a Christmas card, if that's what you mean,” said Mrs. Rival, with a sudden glint of humour. “I don't suppose he'd know where I was, anyway. I went back to the stage for a bit after we parted. On tour mostly. It wasn't much of a life and I dropped the name of Castleton too. Went back to Merlina Rival.”

“Merlina's—er—not your real name, I suppose?”

She shook her head and a faint, cheerful smile appeared on her face.

“I thought it up. Unusual. My real name's Flossie Gapp. Flor
ence, I suppose I must have been christened, but everyone always calls me Flossie or Flo. Flossie Gapp. Not very romantic, is it?”

“What are you doing now? Are you still acting, Mrs. Rival?”