Five

“Mom!” said Ernie Curtin, desisting for a moment from his occupation ofrunning a small metal model up and down the window pane, accompany-ing it with a semi-zooming, semi-moaning noise intended to reproduce arocket ship going through outer space on its way to Venus, “Mom, whatd’you think?”

Mrs. Curtin, a stern-faced woman who was busy washing up crockery inthe sink, made no response.

“Mom, there’s a police car drawn up outside our house.”

“Don’t you tell no more of yer lies, Ernie,” said Mrs. Curtin as shebanged cups and saucers down on the draining board. “You know whatI’ve said to you about that before.”

“I never,” said Ernie virtuously. “And it’s a police car right enough, andthere’s two men gettin’ out.”

Mrs. Curtin wheeled round on her offspring.

“What’ve you been doing now?” she demanded. “Bringing us into dis-grace, that’s what it is!”

“Course I ain’t,” said Ernie. “I ’aven’t done nothin’.”

“It’s going with that Alf,” said Mrs. Curtin. “Him and his gang. Gangs in-deed! I’ve told you, and yer father’s told you, that gangs isn’t respectable.

In the end there’s trouble. First it’ll be the juvenile court and then you’ll besent to a remand home as likely as not. And I won’t have it, d’you hear?”

“They’re comin’ up to the front door,” Ernie announced.

Mrs. Curtin abandoned the sink and joined her offspring at the window.

“Well,” she muttered.

At that moment the knocker was sounded. Wiping her hands quickly onthe tea towel, Mrs. Curtin went out into the passage and opened the door.

She looked with defiance and doubt at the two men on her doorstep.

“Mrs. Curtin?” said the taller of the two, pleasantly.

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Curtin.

“May I come in a moment? I’m Detective Inspector Hardcastle.”

Mrs. Curtin drew back rather unwillingly. She threw open a door andmotioned the inspector inside. It was a very neat, clean little room andgave the impression of seldom being entered, which impression was en-tirely correct.

Ernie, drawn by curiosity, came down the passage from the kitchen andsidled inside the door.

“Your son?” said Detective Inspector Hardcastle.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Curtin, and added belligerently, “he’s a good boy, nomatter what you say.”

“I’m sure he is,” said Detective Inspector Hardcastle, politely.

Some of the defiance in Mrs. Curtin’s face relaxed.

“I’ve come to ask you a few questions about 19, Wilbraham Crescent.

You work there, I understand.”

“Never said I didn’t,” said Mrs. Curtin, unable yet to shake off her previ-ous mood.

“For a Miss Millicent Pebmarsh.”

“Yes, I work for Miss Pebmarsh. A very nice lady.”

“Blind,” said Detective Inspector Hardcastle.

“Yes, poor soul. But you’d never know it. Wonderful the way she can puther hand on anything and find her way about. Goes out in the street, too,and over the crossings. She’s not one to make a fuss about things, not likesome people I know.”

“You work there in the mornings?”

“That’s right. I come about half past nine to ten, and leave at twelveo’clock or when I’m finished.” Then sharply, “You’re not saying as any-thing ’as been stolen, are you?”

“Quite the reverse,” said the inspector, thinking of four clocks.

Mrs. Curtin looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“What’s the trouble?” she asked.

“A man was found dead in the sitting room at 19, Wilbraham Crescentthis afternoon.”

Mrs. Curtin stared. Ernie Curtin wriggled in ecstasy, opened his mouthto say “Coo,” thought it unwise to draw attention to his presence, and shutit again.

“Dead?” said Mrs. Curtin unbelievingly. And with even more unbelief,“In the sitting room?”

“Yes. He’d been stabbed.”

“You mean it’s murder?”

“Yes, murder.”

“Oo murdered ’im?” demanded Mrs. Curtin.

“I’m afraid we haven’t got quite so far as that yet,” said Inspector Hard-castle. “We thought perhaps you may be able to help us.”

“I don’t know anything about murder,” said Mrs. Curtin positively.

“No, but there are one or two points that have arisen. This morning, forinstance, did any man call at the house?”

“Not that I can remember. Not today. What sort of man was he?”

“An elderly man about sixty, respectably dressed in a dark suit. He mayhave represented himself as an insurance agent.”

“I wouldn’t have let him in,” said Mrs. Curtin. “No insurance agents andnobody selling vacuum cleaners or editions of the Encyclopaedia Britan-nica. Nothing of that sort. Miss Pebmarsh doesn’t hold with selling at thedoor and neither do I.”

“The man’s name, according to a card that was on him, was Mr. Curry.

Have you ever heard that name?”

“Curry? Curry?” Mrs. Curtin shook her head. “Sounds Indian to me,” shesaid, suspiciously.

“Oh, no,” said Inspector Hardcastle, “he wasn’t an Indian.”

“Who found him—Miss Pebmarsh?”

“A young lady, a shorthand typist, had arrived because, owing to a mis-understanding, she thought she’d been sent for to do some work for MissPebmarsh. It was she who discovered the body. Miss Pebmarsh returnedalmost at the same moment.”

Mrs. Curtin uttered a deep sigh.

“What a to-do,” she said, “what a to-do!”

“We may ask you at some time,” said Inspector Hardcastle, “to look atthis man’s body and tell us if he is a man you have ever seen in Wilbra-ham Crescent or calling at the house before. Miss Pebmarsh is quite posit-ive he has never been there. Now there are various small points I wouldlike to know. Can you recall offhand how many clocks there are in the sit-ting room?”

Mrs. Curtin did not even pause.

“There’s that big clock in the corner, grandfather they call it, and there’sthe cuckoo clock on the wall. It springs out and says ‘cuckoo.’ Doesn’t halfmake you jump sometimes.” She added hastily, “I didn’t touch neither ofthem. I never do. Miss Pebmarsh likes to wind them herself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with them,” the inspector assured her. “You’resure these were the only two clocks in the room this morning?”

“Of course. What others should there be?”

“There was not, for instance, a small square silver clock, what they call acarriage clock, or a little gilt clock — on the mantelpiece that was, or achina clock with flowers on it—or a leather clock with the name Rosemarywritten across the corner?”

“Of course there wasn’t. No such thing.”

“You would have noticed them if they had been there?”

“Of course I should.”

“Each of these four clocks represented a time about an hour later thanthe cuckoo clock and the grandfather clock.”

“Must have been foreign,” said Mrs. Curtin. “Me and my old man wenton a coach trip to Switzerland and Italy once and it was a whole hour fur-ther on there. Must be something to do with this Common Market. I don’thold with the Common Market and nor does Mr. Curtin. England’s goodenough for me.”

Inspector Hardcastle declined to be drawn into politics.

“Can you tell me exactly when you left Miss Pebmarsh’s house thismorning?”

“Quarter past twelve, near as nothing,” said Mrs. Curtin.

“Was Miss Pebmarsh in the house then?”

“No, she hadn’t come back. She usually comes back some time betweentwelve and half past, but it varies.”

“And she had left the house—when?”

“Before I got there. Ten o’clock’s my time.”

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Curtin.”

“Seems queer about these clocks,” said Mrs. Curtin. “Perhaps Miss Peb-marsh had been to a sale. Antiques, were they? They sound like it by whatyou say.”

“Does Miss Pebmarsh often go to sales?”

“Got a roll of hair carpet about four months ago at a sale. Quite goodcondition. Very cheap, she told me. Got some velour curtains too. Theyneeded cutting down, but they were really as good as new.”

“But she doesn’t usually buy bric-à-brac or things like pictures or chinaor that kind of thing at sales?”

Mrs. Curtin shook her head.

“Not that I’ve ever known her, but of course, there’s no saying in sales, isthere? I mean, you get carried away. When you get home you say to your-self ‘whatever did I want with that?’ Bought six pots of jam once. When Ithought about it I could have made it cheaper myself. Cups and saucers,too. Them I could have got better in the market on a Wednesday.”

She shook her head darkly. Feeling that he had no more to learn for themoment, Inspector Hardcastle departed. Ernie then made his contributionto the subject that had been under discussion.

“Murder! Coo!” said Ernie.

Momentarily the conquest of outer space was displaced in his mind by apresent-day subject of really thrilling appeal.

“Miss Pebmarsh couldn’t have done ’im in, could she?” he suggestedyearningly.

“Don’t talk so silly,” said his mother. A thought crossed her mind. “Iwonder if I ought to have told him—”

“Told him what, Mom?”

“Never you mind,” said Mrs. Curtin. “It was nothing, really.”