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Authors: Agatha Christie

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BOOK: The Clocks
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“Occasionally,” said Mrs. Rival with a touch of reticence. “On and off, as you might say.”

Hardcastle was tactful.

“I see,” he said.

“I do odd jobs here and there,” she said. “Help out at parties, a bit of hostess work, that sort of thing. It's not a bad life. At any rate you meet people. Things get near the bone now and again.”

“You've never heard anything of Henry Castleton since you parted—or about him?”

“Not a word. I thought perhaps he'd gone abroad—or was dead.”

“The only other thing I can ask you, Mrs. Rival, is if you have any idea why Harry Castleton should have come to this neighbourhood?”

“No. Of course I've no idea. I don't even know what he's been doing all these years.”

“Would it be likely that he would be selling fraudulent insurance—something of that kind?”

“I simply don't know. It doesn't seem to me terribly likely. I mean, Harry was very careful of himself always. He wouldn't stick his neck out doing something that he might be brought to book for. I should have thought it more likely it was some racket with women.”

“Might it have been, do you think, Mrs. Rival, some form of blackmail?”

“Well, I don't know … I suppose, yes, in a way. Some woman,
perhaps, that wouldn't want something in her past raked up. He'd feel pretty safe over that, I think. Mind you, I don't say it is
so,
but it might be. I don't think he'd want very much money, you know. I don't think he'd drive anyone desperate, but he might just collect in a small way.” She nodded in affirmation. “Yes.”

“Women liked him, did they?”

“Yes. They always fell for him rather easily. Mainly, I think, because he always seemed so good class and respectable. They were proud of having made a conquest of a man like that. They looked forward to a nice safe future with him. That's the nearest way I can put it. I felt the same way myself,” added Mrs. Rival with some frankness.

“There's just one more small point,” Hardcastle spoke to his subordinate. “Just bring those clocks in, will you?”

They were brought in on a tray with a cloth over them. Hardcastle whipped off the cloth and exposed them to Mrs. Rival's gaze. She inspected them with frank interest and approbation.

“Pretty, aren't they? I like that one.” She touched the ormolu clock.

“You haven't seen any of them before? They don't mean anything to you?”

“Can't say they do. Ought they to?”

“Can you think of any connection between your husband and the name Rosemary?”

“Rosemary? Let me think. There was a red-head—No, her name was Rosalie. I'm afraid I can't think of anyone. But then I probably wouldn't know, would I? Harry kept his affairs very dark.”

“If you saw a clock with the hands pointing to four-thirteen—” Hardcastle paused.

Mrs. Rival gave a cheerful chuckle.

“I'd think it was getting on for teatime.”

Hardcastle sighed.

“Well, Mrs. Rival,” he said, “we are very grateful to you. The adjourned inquest, as I told you, will be the day after tomorrow. You won't mind giving evidence of identification, will you?”

“No. No, that will be all right. I'll just have to say who he was, is that it? I shan't have to go into things? I won't have to go into the manner of his life—anything of that kind?”

“That will not be necessary at present. All you will have to swear to is he is the man, Harry Castleton, to whom you were married. The exact date will be on record at Somerset House. Where were you married? Can you remember that?”

“Place called Donbrook—St. Michael's, I think was the name of the church. I hope it isn't
more
than twenty years ago. That
would
make me feel I had one foot in the grave,” said Mrs. Rival.

She got up and held out her hand. Hardcastle said good-bye. He went back to his desk and sat there tapping it with a pencil. Presently Sergeant Cray came in.

“Satisfactory?” he asked.

“Seems so,” said the inspector. “Name of Harry Castleton—possibly an alias. We'll have to see what we can find out about the fellow. It seems likely that more than one woman might have reason to want revenge on him.”

“Looks so respectable, too,” said Cray.

“That,” said Hardcastle, “seems to have been his principal stock-in-trade.”

He thought again about the clock with Rosemary written on it. Remembrance?

Twenty-two
C
OLIN
L
AMB'S
N
ARRATIVE

I

“S
o you have returned,” said Hercule Poirot.

He placed a bookmarker carefully to mark his place in the book he was reading. This time a cup of hot chocolate stood on the table by his elbow. Poirot certainly has the most terrible taste in drinks! For once he did not urge me to join him.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I am disturbed. I am much disturbed. They make the renovations, the redecorations, even the structural alteration in these flats.”

“Won't that improve them?”

“It will improve them, yes—but it will be most vexatious to
me.
I shall have to disarrange myself. There will be a smell of paint!” He looked at me with an air of outrage.

Then, dismissing his difficulties with a wave of his hand, he asked:

“You have had the success, yes?”

I said slowly: “I don't know.”

“Ah—it is like that.”

“I found out what I was sent to find out. I did not find the man himself. I myself do not know what was wanted. Information? Or a body?”

“Speaking of bodies, I read the account of the adjourned inquest at Crowdean. Wilful murder by a person or persons unknown. And your body has been given a name at last.”

I nodded.

“Harry Castleton, whoever he may be.”

“Identified by his wife. You have been to Crowdean?”

“Not yet. I thought of going down tomorrow.”

“Oh, you have some leisure time?”

“Not yet. I'm still on the job. My job takes me there—” I paused a moment and then said: “I don't know much about what's been happening while I've been abroad—just the mere fact of identification—what do you think of it?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“It was to be expected.”

“Yes—the police are very good—”

“And wives are very obliging.”

“Mrs. Merlina Rival! What a name!”

“It reminds me of something,” said Poirot. “Now of what does it remind me?”

He looked at me thoughtfully but I couldn't help him. Knowing Poirot, it might have reminded him of anything.

“A visit to a friend—in a country house,” mused Poirot, then shook his head. “No—it is so long ago.”

“When I come back to London, I'll come and tell you all I can find out from Hardcastle about Mrs. Merlina Rival,” I promised.

Poirot waved a hand and said: “It is not necessary.”

“You mean you know all about her already without being told?”

“No. I mean that I am not interested in her—”

“You're not interested—but why not? I don't get it.” I shook my head.

“One must concentrate on the essentials. Tell me instead of the girl called Edna—who died in the telephone box in Wilbraham Crescent.”

“I can't tell you more than I've told you already—I know nothing about the girl.”

“So all you know,” said Poirot accusingly, “or all you can tell me is that the girl was a poor little rabbit, whom you saw in a typewriting office, where she had torn the heel off her shoe in a grating—” he broke off. “Where was that grating, by the way?”

“Really, Poirot, how should I know?”

“You could have known if you had
asked.
How do you expect to know
anything
if you do not ask the proper questions?”

“But how can it matter
where
the heel came off?”

“It may not matter. On the other hand, we should know a definite spot where this girl had been, and that might connect up with a person she had seen there—or with an event of some kind which took place there.”

“You are being rather farfetched. Anyway I do know it was quite near the office because she said so and that she bought a bun and hobbled back on her stocking feet to eat the bun in the office
and she ended up by saying how on earth was she to get home like that?”

“Ah, and how
did
she get home?” Poirot asked with interest.

I stared at him.

“I've no idea.”

“Ah—but it is impossible, the way you never ask the right questions! As a result you know nothing of what is important.”

“You'd better come down to Crowdean and ask questions yourself,” I said, nettled.

“That is impossible at the moment. There is a most interesting sale of authors' manuscripts next week—”

“Still on your hobby?”

“But, yes, indeed.” His eyes brightened. “Take the works of John Dickson Carr or Carter Dickson, as he calls himself sometimes—”

I escaped before he could get under way, pleading an urgent appointment. I was in no mood to listen to lectures on past masters of the art of crime fiction.

II

I was sitting on the front step of Hardcastle's house, and rose out of the gloom to greet him when he got home on the following evening.

“Hallo, Colin? Is that you? So you've appeared out of the blue again, have you?”

“If you called it out of the
red,
it would be much more appropriate.”

“How long have you been here, sitting on my front doorstep?”

“Oh, half an hour or so.”

“Sorry you couldn't get into the house.”

“I could have got into the house with perfect ease,” I said indignantly. “You don't know our training!”

“Then why didn't you get in?”

“I wouldn't like to lower your prestige in any way,” I explained. “A detective inspector of police would be bound to lose face if his house were entered burglariously with complete ease.”

Hardcastle took his keys from his pocket and opened the front door.

“Come on in,” he said, “and don't talk nonsense.”

He led the way into the sitting room, and proceeded to supply liquid refreshment.

“Say when.”

I said it, not too soon, and we settled ourselves with our drinks.

“Things are moving at last,” said Hardcastle. “We've identified our corpse.”

“I know. I looked up the newspaper files—who was Harry Castleton?”

“A man of apparently the utmost respectability and who made his living by going through a form of marriage or merely getting engaged to well-to-do credulous women. They entrusted their savings to him, impressed by his superior knowledge of finance and shortly afterwards he quietly faded into the blue.”

“He didn't look that kind of man,” I said, casting my mind back.

“That was his chief asset.”

“Wasn't he ever prosecuted?”

“No—we've made inquiries but it isn't easy to get much information. He changed his name fairly often. And although they think at the Yard that Harry Castleton, Raymond Blair, Lawrence Dalton, Roger Byron were all one and the same person, they never could prove it. The women, you see, wouldn't tell. They preferred to lose their money. The man was really more of a name than anything—cropping up here and there—always the same pattern—but incredibly elusive. Roger Byron, say, would disappear from Southend, and a man called Lawrence Dalton would commence operations in Newcastle on Tyne. He was shy of being photographed—eluded his lady friends' desire to snapshot him. All this goes quite a long time back—fifteen to twenty years. About that time he seemed really to disappear. The rumour spread about that he was dead—but some people said he had gone abroad—”

“Anyway, nothing was heard of him until he turned up, dead, on Miss Pebmarsh's sitting room carpet?” I said.

“Exactly.”

“It certainly opens up possibilities.”

“It certainly does.”

“A woman scorned who never forgot?” I suggested.

“It does happen, you know. There
are
women with long memories who don't forget—”

“And if such a woman were to go blind—a second affliction on top of the other—”

“That's only conjecture. Nothing to substantiate it as yet.”

“What was the wife like—Mrs—what was it?—Merlina Rival? What a name! It can't be her own.”

“Her real name is Flossie Gapp. The other she invented. More suitable for her way of life.”

“What is she? A tart?”

“Not a professional.”

“What used to be called, tactfully, a lady of easy virtue?”

“I should say she was a good-natured woman, and one willing to oblige her friends. Described herself as an ex-actress. Occasionally did ‘hostess' work. Quite likeable.”

“Reliable?”

“As reliable as most. Her recognition was quite positive. No hesitation.”

“That's a blessing.”

“Yes. I was beginning to despair. The amount of wives I've had here! I'd begun to think it's a wise woman who knows her own husband. Mind you, I think Mrs. Rival might have known a little more about her husband than she lets on.”

“Has she herself ever been mixed up in criminal activities?”

“Not for the record. I think she may have had, perhaps still has, some shady friends. Nothing serious—just fiddles—that kind of thing.”

“What about the clocks?”

“Didn't mean a thing to her. I think she was speaking the truth. We've traced where they came from—Portobello Market. That's the ormolu and the Dresden china. And very little help
that
is! You know what it's like on a Saturday there. Bought by an American lady, the stall keeper
thinks
—but I'd say that's just a guess. Portobello Market is full of American tourists. His wife says it was a man bought them. She can't remember what he looked like. The
silver one came from a silversmith in Bournemouth. A tall lady who wanted a present for her little girl! All she can remember about her is she wore a green hat.”

“And the fourth clock? The one that disappeared?”

“No comment,” said Hardcastle.

I knew just what he meant by that.

BOOK: The Clocks
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