The Clocks

‘Desire had him in its grasp. With frenzied fingers he tore the fragile chiffon from her breasts and forced her down on the soap.’

‘Damn,’ said Edna and reached for the eraser.

Sheila picked up her handbag and went out.

Wilbraham Crescent was a fantasy executed by a Victorian builder in the 1880’s. It was a half-moon of double houses and gardens set back to back. This conceit was a source of considerable difficulty to persons unacquainted with the locality. Those who arrived on the outer side were unable to find the lower numbers and those who hit the inner side first were baffled as to the whereabouts of the higher numbers. The houses were neat, prim, artistically balconied and eminently respectable. Modernization had as yet barely touched them—on the outside, that is to say. Kitchens and bathrooms were the first to feel the wind of change.

There was nothing unusual about No. 19. It had neat curtains and a well-polished brass front-door handle. There were standard rose trees each side of the path leading to the front door.

Sheila Webb opened the front gate, walked up to the front door and rang the bell. There was no response and after waiting a minute or two, she did as she had been directed, and turned the handle. The door opened and she walked in. The door on the right of the small hall was ajar. She tapped on it, waited, and then walked in. It was an ordinary quite pleasant sitting-room, a little over-furnished for modern tastes. The only thing at all remarkable about it was the profusion of clocks—a grandfather clock ticking in the corner, a Dresden china clock on the mantelpiece, a silver carriage clock on the desk, a small fancy gilt clock on a whatnot near the fireplace and on a table by the window, a faded leather travelling clock, with ROSEMARY in worn gilt letters across the corner.

Sheila Webb looked at the clock on the desk with some surprise. It showed the time to be a little after ten minutes past four. Her gaze shifted to the chimney piece. The clock there said the same.

Sheila started violently as there was a whir and a click above her head, and from a wooden carved clock on the wall a cuckoo sprang out through his little door and announced loudly and definitely: Cuckoo, Cuckoo, Cuckoo! The harsh note seemed almost menacing. The cuckoo disappeared again with a snap of his door.

Sheila Webb gave a half-smile and walked round the end of the sofa. Then she stopped short, pulling up with a jerk.

Sprawled on the floor was the body of a man. His eyes were half open and sightless. There was a dark moist patch on the front of his dark grey suit. Almost mechanically Sheila bent down. She touched his cheek—cold—his hand, the same…touched the wet patch and drew her hand away sharply, staring at it in horror.

At that moment she heard the click of a gate outside, her head turned mechanically to the window. Through it she saw a woman’s figure hurrying up the path. Sheila swallowed mechanically—her throat was dry. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, to cry out…staring in front of her.

The door opened and a tall elderly woman entered, carrying a shopping bag. She had wavy grey hair pulled back from her forehead, and her eyes were a wide and beautiful blue. Their gaze passed unseeingly over Sheila.

Sheila uttered a faint sound, no more than a croak. The wide blue eyes came to her and the woman spoke sharply:

‘Is somebody there?’

‘I—it’s—’ The girl broke off as the woman came swiftly towards her round the back of the sofa.

And then she screamed.

‘Don’t—don’t…you’ll tread on it—him… And he’s dead…’

CHAPTER 1 (#u83b3c6de-0ee7-520d-9037-12f4f66d2525)

Colin Lamb’s Narrative

To use police terms: at 2.59 p.m. on September 9th, I was proceeding along Wilbraham Crescent in a westerly direction. It was my first introduction to Wilbraham Crescent, and frankly Wilbraham Crescent had me baffled.

I had been following a hunch with a persistence becoming more dogged day by day as the hunch seemed less and less likely to pay off. I’m like that.

The number I wanted was 61, and could I find it? No, I could not. Having studiously followed the numbers from 1 to 35, Wilbraham Crescent then appeared to end. A thoroughfare uncompromisingly labelled Albany Road barred my way. I turned back. On the north side there were no houses, only a wall. Behind the wall, blocks of modern flats soared upwards, the entrance of them being obviously in another road. No help there.

I looked up at the numbers I was passing. 24, 23, 22, 21. Diana Lodge (presumably 20, with an orange cat on the gate post washing its face), 19—

The door of 19 opened and a girl came out of it and down the path with what seemed to be the speed of a bomb. The likeness to a bomb was intensified by the screaming that accompanied her progress. It was high and thin and singularly inhuman. Through the gate the girl came and collided with me with a force that nearly knocked me off the pavement. She did not only collide. She clutched—a frenzied desperate clutching.

‘Steady,’ I said, as I recovered my balance. I shook her slightly. ‘Steady now.’

The girl steadied. She still clutched, but she stopped screaming. Instead she gasped—deep sobbing gasps.

I can’t say that I reacted to the situation with any brilliance. I asked her if anything was the matter. Recognizing that my question was singularly feeble I amended it.

‘What’s the matter?’

The girl took a deep breath.

‘In there!’ she gestured behind her.

‘Yes?’

‘There’s a man on the floor…dead… She was going to step on him.’

‘Who was? Why?’

‘I think—because she’s blind. And there’s blood on him.’ She looked down and loosened one of her clutching hands. ‘And on me. There’s blood on me.’

‘So there is,’ I said. I looked at the stains on my coat sleeve. ‘And on me as well now,’ I pointed out. I sighed and considered the situation. ‘You’d better take me in and show me,’ I said.

But she began to shake violently.

‘I can’t—I can’t… I won’t go in there again.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ I looked round. There seemed nowhere very suitable to deposit a half-fainting girl. I lowered her gently to the pavement and sat her with her back against the iron railings.

‘You stay there,’ I said, ‘until I come back. I shan’t be long. You’ll be all right. Lean forward and put your head between your knees if you feel queer.’

‘I—I think I’m all right now.’

She was a little doubtful about it, but I didn’t wait to parley. I gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and strode off briskly up the path. I went in through the door, hesitated a moment in the hallway, looked into the door on the left, found an empty dining-room, crossed the hall and entered the sitting-room opposite.

The first thing I saw was an elderly woman with grey hair sitting in a chair. She turned her head sharply as I entered and said:

‘Who’s that?’

I realized at once that the woman was blind. Her eyes which looked directly towards me were focused on a spot behind my left ear.

I spoke abruptly and to the point.

‘A young woman rushed out into the street saying there was a dead man in here.’

I felt a sense of absurdity as I said the words. It did not seem possible that there should be a dead man in this tidy room with this calm woman sitting in her chair with her hands folded.

But her answer came at once.

‘Behind the sofa,’ she said.

I moved round the angle of the sofa. I saw it then—the outflung arms—the glazed eyes—the congealing patch of blood.