The Clocks

‘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.

CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_34c38a0a-0526-5949-b8dc-03f9dbb98b85)

Mr 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 far-fetched 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. Goodbye, 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.’