The Clocks (9 page)

“I can guess who to.”

“You're not allowed to do that.”

Hardcastle grinned.

“Give the old boy my love.”

“Also, I may be going to see a specialist,” said Colin.

“A specialist? What for? What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing—bar thickheadedness. I don't mean that kind of a specialist. One in your line.”

“Scotland Yard?”

“No. A private detective—a friend of my Dad's—and a friend of mine. This fantastic business of yours will be just down his street. He'll love it—it will cheer him up. I've an idea he needs cheering up.”

“What's his name?”

“Hercule Poirot.”

“I've heard of him. I thought he was dead.”

“He's not dead. But I have a feeling he's bored. That's worse.”

Hardcastle looked at him curiously.

“You're an odd fellow, Colin. You make such unlikely friends.”

“Including you,” Colin said, and grinned.

H
aving dismissed Colin, Inspector Hardcastle looked at the address neatly written in his notebook and nodded his head. Then he slipped the book back in his pocket and started to deal with the routine matters that had piled up on his desk.

It was a busy day for him. He sent out for coffee and sandwiches, and received reports from Sergeant Cray—no helpful lead had come up. Nobody at the railway station or buses had recognized the photograph of Mr. Curry. The laboratory reports on clothing added up to nil. The suit had been made by a good tailor, but the tailor's name had been removed. Desire for anonymity on the part of Mr. Curry? Or on the part of his killer. Details of dentistry had been circulated to the proper quarters and were probably the most helpful leads—it took a little time—but it got results in the end. Unless, of course, Mr. Curry had been a foreigner? Hardcastle considered the idea. There might be a possibility that the dead man was
French—on the other hand his clothes were definitely not French. No laundry marks had helped yet.

Hardcastle was not impatient. Identification was quite often a slow job. But in the end, someone always came forward. A laundry, a dentist, a doctor, a landlady. The picture of the dead man would be circulated to police stations, would be reproduced in newspapers. Sooner or later, Mr. Curry would be known in his rightful identity.

In the meantime there was work to be done, and not only on the Curry case. Hardcastle worked without a break until half past five. He looked at his wristwatch again and decided the time was ripe for the call he wanted to make.

Sergeant Cray had reported that Sheila Webb had resumed work at the Cavendish Bureau, and that at five o'clock she would be working with Professor Purdy at the Curlew Hotel and that she was unlikely to leave there until well after six.

What was the aunt's name again? Lawton—Mrs. Lawton. 14, Palmerston Road. He did not take a police car but chose to walk the short distance.

Palmerston Road was a gloomy street that had known, as is said, better days. The houses, Hardcastle noted, had been mainly converted into flats or maisonettes. As he turned the corner, a girl who was approaching him along the sidewalk hesitated for a moment. His mind occupied, the inspector had some momentary idea that she was going to ask him the way to somewhere. However, if that was so, the girl thought better of it and resumed her walk past him. He wondered why the idea of shoes came into his mind so suddenly. Shoes … No, one shoe. The girl's face was faintly familiar
to him. Who was it now—someone he had seen just lately … Perhaps she had recognized him and was about to speak to him?

He paused for a moment, looking back after her. She was walking quite fast now. The trouble was, he thought, she had one of those indeterminate faces that are very hard to recognize unless there is some special reason for doing so. Blue eyes, fair complexion, slightly open mouth. Mouth. That recalled something also. Something that she'd been doing with her mouth? Talking? Putting on lipstick? No. He felt slightly annoyed with himself. Hardcastle prided himself on his recognition of faces. He never forgot, he'd been apt to say, a face he had seen in the dock or in the witness-box, but there were after all other places of contact. He would not be likely to remember, for instance, every waitress who had ever served him. He would not remember every bus conductress. He dismissed the matter from his mind.

He had arrived now at No. 14. The door stood ajar and there were four bells with names underneath. Mrs. Lawton, he saw, had a flat on the ground floor. He went in and pressed the bell on the door on the left of the hall. It was a few moments before it was answered. Finally he heard steps inside and the door was opened by a tall, thin woman with straggling dark hair who had on an overall and seemed a little short of breath. The smell of onions wafted along from the direction of what was obviously the kitchen.

“Mrs. Lawton?”

“Yes?” She looked at him doubtfully, with slight annoyance.

She was, he thought, about forty-five. Something faintly gypsyish about her appearance.

“What is it?”

“I should be glad if you could spare me a moment or two.”

“Well, what about? I'm really rather busy just now.” She added sharply, “You're not a reporter, are you?”

“Of course,” said Hardcastle, adopting a sympathetic tone, “I expect you've been a good deal worried by reporters.”

“Indeed we have. Knocking at the door and ringing the bell and asking all sorts of foolish questions.”

“Very annoying I know,” said the inspector. “I wish we could spare you all that, Mrs. Lawton. I am Detective Inspector Hardcastle, by the way, in charge of the case about which the reporters have been annoying you. We'd put a stop to a good deal of that if we could, but we're powerless in the matter, you know. The Press has its rights.”

“It's a shame to worry private people as they do,” said Mrs. Lawton, “saying they have to have news for the public. The only thing I've ever noticed about the news that they print is that it's a tissue of lies from beginning to end. They'll cook up
anything
so far as I can see. But come in.”

She stepped back and the inspector passed over the doorstep and she shut the door. There were a couple of letters which had fallen on the mat. Mrs. Lawton bent forward to pick them up, but the inspector politely forestalled her. His eyes swept over them for half a second as he handed them to her, addresses uppermost.

“Thank you.”

She laid them down on the hall table.

“Come into the sitting room, won't you? At least—if you go in this door and give me just a moment. I think something's boiling over.”

She beat a speedy retreat to the kitchen. Inspector Hardcastle took a last deliberate look at the letters on the hall table. One was
addressed to Mrs. Lawton and the two others to Miss R. S. Webb. He went into the room indicated. It was a small room, rather untidy, shabbily furnished but here and there it displayed some bright spot of colour or some unusual object. An attractive, probably expensive piece of Venetian glass of moulded colours and an abstract shape, two brightly coloured velvet cushions and an earthenware platter of foreign shells. Either the aunt or the niece, he thought, had an original streak in her makeup.

Mrs. Lawton returned, slightly more breathless than before.

“I think that'll be all right now,” she said, rather uncertainly.

The inspector apologized again.

“I'm sorry if I've called at an inconvenient time,” he said, “but I happened to be in this neighbourhood and I wanted to check over a few further points about this affair in which your niece was so unfortunately concerned. I hope she's none the worse for her experience? It must have been a great shock to any girl.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Lawton. “Sheila came back in a terrible state. But she was all right by this morning and she's gone back to work again.”

“Oh, yes, I know that,” said the inspector. “But I was told she was out doing work for a client somewhere and I didn't want to interrupt anything of that kind so I thought it would be better if I came round here and talked to her in her own home. But she's not back yet, is that it?”

“She'll probably be rather late this evening,” said Mrs. Lawton. “She's working for a Professor Purdy and from what Sheila says, he's a man with no idea of time at all. Always says ‘this won't take more than another ten minutes so I think we might as well get it finished,' and then of course it takes nearer to three-quarters of an
hour. He's a very nice man and most apologetic. Once or twice he's urged her to stay and have dinner and seemed quite concerned because he's kept her so much longer than he realized. Still, it is rather annoying sometimes. Is there something I can tell you, Inspector? In case Sheila is delayed a long time.”

“Well, not really,” said the inspector smiling. “Of course, we only took down the bare details the other day and I'm not sure really whether I've even got those right.” He made a show of consulting his notebook once more. “Let me see. Miss Sheila Webb—is that her full name or has she another Christian name? We have to have these things very exact, you know, for the records at the inquest.”

“The inquest is the day after tomorrow, isn't it? She got a notice to attend.”

“Yes, but she needn't let that worry her,” said Hardcastle. “She'll just have to tell her story of how she found the body.”

“You don't know who the man was yet?”

“No. I'm afraid it's early days for that. There was a card in his pocket and we thought at first he was some kind of insurance agent. But it seems more likely now that it was a card he'd been given by someone. Perhaps he was contemplating insurance himself.”

“Oh, I see,” Mrs. Lawton looked vaguely interested.

“Now I'll just get these names right,” said the inspector. “I think I've got it down as Miss Sheila Webb or Miss Sheila R. Webb. I just couldn't remember what the other name was. Was it Rosalie?”

“Rosemary,” said Mrs. Lawton, “she was christened Rosemary Sheila but Sheila always thought Rosemary was rather fanciful so she's never called anything but Sheila.”

“I see.” There was nothing in Hardcastle's tone to show that he was pleased that one of his hunches had come out right. He
noted another point. The name Rosemary occasioned no distress in Mrs. Lawton. To her Rosemary was simply a Christian name that her niece did not use.

“I've got it straight now all right,” said the inspector smiling. “I gather that your niece came from London and has been working for the Cavendish Bureau for the last ten months or so. You don't know the exact date, I suppose?”

“Well, really, I couldn't say now. It was last November some time. I think more towards the end of November.”

“Quite so. It doesn't really matter. She was not living with you here previously to taking the job at the Cavendish Bureau?”

“No. She was living in London before that.”

“Have you got her address in London?”

“Well, I've got it somewhere,” Mrs. Lawton looked round her with the vague expression of the habitually untidy. “I've got such a short memory,” she said. “Something like Allington Grove, I think it was—out Fulham way. She shared a flat with two other girls. Terribly expensive rooms are in London for girls.”

“Do you remember the name of the firm she worked at there?”

“Oh, yes. Hopgood and Trent. They were estate agents in the Fulham Road.”

“Thank you. Well all that seems very clear. Miss Webb is an orphan, I understand?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawton. She moved uneasily. Her eyes strayed to the door. “Do you mind if I just go into the kitchen again?”

“Of course.”

He opened the door for her. She went out. He wondered if he had been right or wrong in thinking that his last question had in some way perturbed Mrs. Lawton. Her replies had come quite read
ily and easily up to then. He thought about it until Mrs. Lawton returned.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, apologetically, “but you know what it is—cooking things. Everything's quite all right now. Was there anything else you want to ask me? I've remembered, by the way, it wasn't Allington Grove. It was Carrington Grove and the number was 17.”

“Thank you,” said the inspector. “I think I was asking you whether Miss Webb was an orphan.”

“Yes, she's an orphan. Her parents are dead.”

“Long ago?”

“They died when she was a child.”

There was something like defiance just perceptible in her tone.

“Was she your sister's child or your brother's?”

“My sister's.”

“Ah, yes. And what was Mr. Webb's profession?”

Mrs. Lawton paused a moment before answering. She was biting her lips. Then she said, “I don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“I mean I don't remember, it's so long ago.”

Hardcastle waited, knowing that she would speak again. She did.

“May I ask what all this has got to do with it—I mean what does it matter who her father and mother were and what her father did and where he came from or anything like that?”

“I suppose it doesn't matter really, Mrs. Lawton, not from your point of view, that is. But you see, the circumstances are rather unusual.”

“What do you mean—the circumstances are unusual?”

“Well, we have reason to believe that Miss Webb went to that house yesterday because she had been specially asked for at the Cavendish Bureau by name. It looks therefore as though someone had deliberately arranged for her to be there. Someone perhaps—” he hesitated “—with a grudge against her.”

“I can't imagine that anyone could have a grudge against Sheila. She's a very sweet girl. A nice friendly girl.”

“Yes,” said Hardcastle mildly. “That's what I should have thought myself.”

“And I don't like to hear anybody suggesting the contrary,” said Mrs. Lawton belligerently.

“Exactly.” Hardcastle continued to smile appeasingly. “But you must realize, Mrs. Lawton, that it looks as though your niece has been deliberately made a victim. She was being, as they say on the films, put on the spot.
Somebody
was arranging for her to go into a house where there was a dead man, and that dead man had died very recently. It seems on the face of it a malicious thing to do.”

“You mean—you mean someone was trying to make it appear that Sheila killed him? Oh, no, I can't believe it.”

“It is rather difficult to believe,” agreed the inspector, “but we've got to make quite sure and clear up the matter. Could there be, for instance, some young man, someone perhaps who had fallen in love with your niece, and whom she, perhaps, did not care for? Young men sometimes do some very bitter and revengeful things, especially if they're rather ill-balanced.”