The Clocks (5 page)

Hardcastle shrugged his shoulders.

“At the moment it's guesswork. Perhaps he collected bogus premiums. Perhaps it was a way of introducing himself into houses and working some confidence trick. He may have been a swindler or a confidence trickster or a picker-up of unconsidered trifles or a private inquiry agent. We just don't know.”

“But you'll find out.”

“Oh, yes, we'll know in the end. We sent up his fingerprints to see if he's got a record of any kind. If he has it'll be a big step on the way. If he hasn't, it'll be rather more difficult.”

“A private dick,” I said thoughtfully. “I rather like that. It opens up—possibilities.”

“Possibilities are all we've got so far.”

“When's the inquest?”

“Day after tomorrow. Purely formal and an adjournment.”

“What's the medical evidence?”

“Oh, stabbed with a sharp instrument. Something like a kitchen vegetable knife.”

“That rather lets out Miss Pebmarsh, doesn't it?” I said thoughtfully. “A blind woman would hardly be able to stab a man. She really
is
blind, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, she's blind. We checked up. And she's exactly what she says she is. She was a teacher of mathematics in a North Country school—lost her sight about sixteen years ago—took up training in Braille, etc., and finally got a post with the Aaronberg Institute here.”

“She could be mental, I suppose?”

“With a fixation on clocks and insurance agents?”

“It really is all too fantastic for words.” I couldn't help speaking with some enthusiasm. “Like Ariadne Oliver in her worst moments, or the late Garry Gregson at the top of his form—”

“Go on—enjoy yourself.
You're
not the wretched D.I. in charge.
You
haven't got to satisfy a superintendent or a chief constable and all the rest of it.”

“Oh well! Perhaps we'll get something useful out of the neighbours.”

“I doubt it,” said Hardcastle bitterly. “If that man was stabbed in the front garden and two masked men carried him into the house—nobody would have looked out of the window or seen anything. This isn't a village, worse luck. Wilbraham Crescent is a genteel residential road. By one o'clock, daily women who might have seen something have gone home. There's not even a pram being wheeled along—”

“No elderly invalid who sits all day by the window?”

“That's what we want—but that's not what we've got.”

“What about numbers 18 and 20?”

“18 is occupied by Mr. Waterhouse, Managing Clerk to Gainsford and Swettenham, Solicitors, and his sister who spends her spare time managing him. All I know about 20 is that the woman who lives there keeps about twenty cats. I don't like cats—”

I told him that a policeman's life was a hard one, and we started off.

M
r. Waterhouse, hovering uncertainly on the steps of 18, Wilbraham Crescent, looked back nervously at his sister.

“You're quite sure you'll be all right?” said Mr. Waterhouse.

Miss Waterhouse snorted with some indignation.

“I really don't know what you mean, James.”

Mr. Waterhouse looked apologetic. He had to look apologetic so often that it was practically his prevailing cast of countenance.

“Well, I just meant, my dear, considering what happened next door yesterday….”

Mr. Waterhouse was prepared for departure to the solicitors' office where he worked. He was a neat, grey-haired man with slightly stooping shoulders and a face that was also grey rather than pink, though not in the least unhealthy looking.

Miss Waterhouse was tall, angular, and the kind of woman with no nonsense about her who is extremely intolerant of nonsense in others.

“Is there any reason, James, because someone was murdered in the next door house that I shall be murdered today?”

“Well, Edith,” said Mr. Waterhouse, “it depends so much, does it not, by whom the murder was committed?”

“You think, in fact, that there's someone going up and down Wilbraham Crescent selecting a victim from every house? Really, James, that is almost blasphemous.”

“Blasphemous, Edith?” said Mr. Waterhouse in lively surprise. Such an aspect of his remark would never have occurred to him.

“Reminiscent of the Passover,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Which, let me remind you, is Holy Writ.”

“That is a little farfetched I think, Edith,” said Mr. Waterhouse.

“I should like to see anyone coming here, trying to murder
me,
” said Miss Waterhouse with spirit.

Her brother reflected to himself that it did seem highly unlikely. If he himself had been choosing a victim he would not have chosen his sister. If anyone were to attempt such a thing it was far more likely that the attacker would be knocked out by a poker or a lead doorstop and delivered over to the police in a bleeding and humiliated condition.

“I just meant,” he said, the apologetic air deepening, “that there are—well—clearly undesirable characters about.”

“We don't know very much about what did happen yet,” said Miss Waterhouse. “All sorts of rumours are going about. Mrs. Head had some extraordinary stories this morning.”

“I expect so, I expect so,” said Mr. Waterhouse. He looked at his watch. He had no real desire to hear the stories brought in by their loquacious daily help. His sister never lost time in debunking these lurid flights of fancy, but nevertheless enjoyed them.

“Some people are saying,” said Miss Waterhouse, “that this man was the treasurer or a trustee of the Aaronberg Institute and that there is something wrong in the accounts, and that he came to Miss Pebmarsh to inquire about it.”

“And that Miss Pebmarsh murdered him?” Mr. Waterhouse looked mildly amused. “A blind woman? Surely—”

“Slipped a piece of wire round his neck and strangled him,” said Miss Waterhouse. “He wouldn't be on his guard, you see. Who would be with anyone blind? Not that I believe it myself,” she added. “I'm sure Miss Pebmarsh is a person of excellent character. If I do not see eye to eye with her on various subjects, that is not because I impute anything of a criminal nature to her. I merely think that her views are bigoted and extravagant. After all, there
are
other things besides education. All these new peculiar looking grammar schools, practically built of glass. You might think they were meant to grow cucumbers in, or tomatoes. I'm sure very prejudicial to children in the summer months. Mrs. Head herself told me that her Susan didn't like their new classrooms. Said it was impossible to attend to your lessons because with all those windows you couldn't help looking out of them all the time.”

“Dear, dear,” said Mr. Waterhouse, looking at his watch again. “Well, well, I'm going to be very late, I'm afraid. Good-bye, my dear. Look after yourself. Better keep the door on the chain perhaps?”

Miss Waterhouse snorted again. Having shut the door behind her brother she was about to retire upstairs when she paused thoughtfully, went to her golf bag, removed a niblick, and placed it in a strategic position near the front door. “There,” said Miss Waterhouse, with some satisfaction. Of course James talked nonsense. Still it was always as well to be prepared. The way they let mental
cases out of nursing homes nowadays, urging them to lead a normal life, was in her view fraught with danger to all sorts of innocent people.

Miss Waterhouse was in her bedroom when Mrs. Head came bustling up the stairs. Mrs. Head was small and round and very like a rubber ball—she enjoyed practically everything that happened.

“A couple of gentlemen want to see you,” said Mrs. Head with avidity. “Leastways,” she added, “they aren't really gentlemen—it's the police.”

She shoved forward a card. Miss Waterhouse took it.

“Detective Inspector Hardcastle,” she read. “Did you show them into the drawing room?”

“No. I put 'em in the dinin' room. I'd cleared away breakfast and I thought that that would be more proper a place. I mean, they're only the police after all.”

Miss Waterhouse did not quite follow this reasoning. However she said, “I'll come down.”

“I expect they'll want to ask you about Miss Pebmarsh,” said Mrs. Head. “Want to know whether you've noticed anything funny in her manner. They say these manias come on very sudden sometimes and there's very little to show beforehand. But there's usually
something,
some way of speaking, you know. You can tell by their eyes, they say. But then that wouldn't hold with a blind woman, would it? Ah—” she shook her head.

Miss Waterhouse marched downstairs and entered the dining room with a certain amount of pleasurable curiosity masked by her usual air of belligerence.

“Detective Inspector Hardcastle?”

“Good morning, Miss Waterhouse.” Hardcastle had risen. He
had with him a tall, dark young man whom Miss Waterhouse did not bother to greet. She paid no attention to a faint murmur of “Sergeant Lamb.”

“I hope I have not called at too early an hour,” said Hardcastle, “but I imagine you know what it is about. You've heard what happened next door yesterday.”

“Murder in one's next door neighbour's house does not usually go unnoticed,” said Miss Waterhouse. “I even had to turn away one or two reporters who came here asking if I had observed anything.”

“You turned them away?”

“Naturally.”

“You were quite right,” said Hardcastle. “Of course they like to worm their way in anywhere but I'm sure you are quite capable of dealing with anything of
that
kind.”

Miss Waterhouse allowed herself to show a faintly pleasurable reaction to this compliment.

“I hope you won't mind us asking you the same kind of questions,” said Hardcastle, “but if you did see anything at all that could be of interest to us, I can assure you we should be only too grateful. You were here in the house at the time, I gather?”

“I don't know when the murder was committed,” said Miss Waterhouse.

“We think between half past one and half past two.”

“I was here then, yes, certainly.”

“And your brother?”

“He does not come home to lunch. Who exactly was murdered? It doesn't seem to say in the short account there was in the local morning paper.”

“We don't yet know who he was,” said Hardcastle.

“A stranger?”

“So it seems.”

“You don't mean he was a stranger to Miss Pebmarsh also?”

“Miss Pebmarsh assures us that she was not expecting this particular guest and that she has no idea who he was.”

“She can't be sure of that,” said Miss Waterhouse. “She can't see.”

“We gave her a very careful description.”

“What kind of man was he?”

Hardcastle took a rough print from an envelope and handed it to her.

“This is the man,” he said. “Have you any idea who he can be?”

Miss Waterhouse looked at the print. “No. No … I'm certain I've never seen him before. Dear me. He looks quite a respectable man.”

“He was a most respectable-looking man,” said the inspector. “He looks like a lawyer or a business man of some kind.”

“Indeed. This photograph is not at all distressing. He just looks as though he might be asleep.”

Hardcastle did not tell her that of the various police photographs of the corpse this one had been selected as the least disturbing to the eye.

“Death can be a peaceful business,” he said. “I don't think this particular man had any idea that it was coming to him when it did.”

“What does Miss Pebmarsh say about it all?” demanded Miss Waterhouse.

“She is quite at a loss.”

“Extraordinary,” commented Miss Waterhouse.

“Now, can you help us in any way, Miss Waterhouse? If you cast your mind back to yesterday, were you looking out of the window at all, or did you happen to be in your garden, say any time between half past twelve and three o'clock?”

Miss Waterhouse reflected.

“Yes, I
was
in the garden … Now let me see. It must have been before one o'clock. I came in about ten to one from the garden, washed my hands and sat down to lunch.”

“Did you see Miss Pebmarsh enter or leave the house?”

“I think she came in—I heard the gate squeak—yes, some time after half past twelve.”

“You didn't speak to her?”

“Oh no. It was just the squeak of the gate made me look up. It is her usual time for returning. She finishes her classes then, I believe. She teaches at the Disabled Children as probably you know.”

“According to her own statement, Miss Pebmarsh went out again about half past one. Would you agree to that?”

“Well, I couldn't tell you the exact time but—yes, I do remember her passing the gate.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Waterhouse, you said ‘passing the gate.'”

“Certainly. I was in my sitting room. That gives on the street, whereas the dining room, where we are sitting now, gives as you can see, on the back garden. But I took my coffee into the sitting room after lunch and I was sitting with it in a chair near the window. I was reading
The Times,
and I think it was when I was turning the sheet that I noticed Miss Pebmarsh passing the front gate. Is there anything extraordinary about that, Inspector?”

“Not extraordinary, no,” said the inspector, smiling. “Only I
understood that Miss Pebmarsh was going out to do a little shopping and to the post office, and I had an idea that the nearest way to the shops and the post office would be to go the other way along the crescent.”

“Depends on which shops you are going to,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Of course the shops
are
nearer that way, and there's a post office in Albany Road—”

“But perhaps Miss Pebmarsh usually passed your gate about that time?”

“Well, really, I don't know what time Miss Pebmarsh usually went out, or in which direction. I'm not really given to watching my neighbours in any way, Inspector. I'm a busy woman and have far too much to do with my own affairs. Some people I know spend their entire time looking out of the window and noticing who passes and who calls on whom. That is more a habit of invalids or of people who've got nothing better to do than to speculate and gossip about their neighbours' affairs.”

Miss Waterhouse spoke with such acerbity that the inspector felt sure that she had some one particular person in mind. He said hastily, “Quite so. Quite so.” He added, “Since Miss Pebmarsh passed your front gate, she might have been going to telephone, might she not? That is where the public telephone box is situated?”

“Yes. It's opposite Number 15.”

“The important question I have to ask you, Miss Waterhouse, is if you saw the arrival of this man—the mystery man as I'm afraid the morning papers have called him.”

Miss Waterhouse shook her head. “No, I didn't see him or any other caller.”

“What were you doing between half past one and three o'clock?”

“I spent about half an hour doing the crossword in
The Times,
or as much of it as I could, then I went out to the kitchen and washed up the lunch. Let me see. I wrote a couple of letters, made some cheques out for bills, then I went upstairs and sorted out some things I wanted to take to the cleaners. I think it was from my bedroom that I noticed a certain amount of commotion next door. I distinctly heard someone screaming, so naturally I went to the window. There was a young man and a girl at the gate. He seemed to be embracing her.”

Sergeant Lamb shifted his feet but Miss Waterhouse was not looking at him and clearly had no idea that he had been that particular young man in question.

“I could only see the back of the young man's head. He seemed to be arguing with the girl. Finally he sat her down against the gatepost. An extraordinary thing to do. And he strode off and went into the house.”

“You had not seen Miss Pebmarsh return to the house a short time before?”

Miss Waterhouse shook her head. “No. I don't really think I had looked out the window at all until I heard this extraordinary screaming. However, I didn't pay much attention to all this. Young girls and men are always doing such extraordinary things—screaming, pushing each other, giggling or making some kind of noise—that I had no idea it was anything serious. Not until some cars drove up with policemen did I realize anything out of the ordinary had occurred.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, naturally I went out of the house, stood on the steps and then I walked round to the back garden. I wondered what had happened but there didn't seem to be anything much to see from that side. When I got back again there was quite a little crowd gathering. Somebody told me there'd been a murder in the house. It seemed to me most extraordinary.
Most
extraordinary!” said Miss Waterhouse with a great deal of disapproval.