II

I arrived the next morning promptly at the agreed hour and found myfriend literally fuming with rage.

When he had dismissed an unhappy subordinate, I inquired delicatelywhat had happened.

For a moment Hardcastle seemed unable to speak. Then he splutteredout: “Those damned clocks!”

“The clocks again? What’s happened now?”

“One of them is missing.”

“Missing? Which one?”

“The leather travelling clock. The one with ‘Rosemary’ across thecorner.”

I whistled.

“That seems very extraordinary. How did it come about?”

“The damned fools—I’m one of them really, I suppose—” (Dick was avery honest man) “—One’s got to remember to cross every t and dot everyi or things go wrong. Well, the clocks were there all right yesterday in thesitting room. I got Miss Pebmarsh to feel them all to see if they felt famil-iar. She couldn’t help. Then they came to remove the body.”

“Yes?”

“I went out to the gate to supervise, then I came back to the house, spoketo Miss Pebmarsh who was in the kitchen, and said I must take the clocksaway and would give her a receipt for them.”

“I remember. I heard you.”

“Then I told the girl I’d send her home in one of our cars, and I askedyou to see her into it.”

“Yes.”

“I gave Miss Pebmarsh the receipt though she said it wasn’t necessarysince the clocks weren’t hers. Then I joined you. I told Edwards I wantedthe clocks in the sitting room packed up carefully and brought here. All ofthem except the cuckoo clock and, of course, the grandfather. And that’swhere I went wrong. I should have said, quite definitely, four clocks. Ed-wards says he went in at once and did as I told him. He insists there wereonly three clocks other than the two fixtures.”

“That doesn’t give much time,” I said. “It means—”

“The Pebmarsh woman could have done it. She could have picked upthe clock after I left the room and gone straight to the kitchen with it.”

“True enough. But why?”

“We’ve got a lot to learn. Is there anybody else? Could the girl have doneit?”

I reflected. “I don’t think so. I—” I stopped, remembering something.

“So she did,” said Hardcastle. “Go on. When was it?”

“We were just going out to the police car,” I said unhappily. “She’d lefther gloves behind. I said, ‘I’ll get them for you’ and she said, ‘Oh, I knowjust where I must have dropped them. I don’t mind going into that roomnow that the body’s gone’ and she ran back into the house. But she wasonly gone a minute—”

“Did she have her gloves on, or in her hand when she rejoined you?”

I hesitated. “Yes—yes, I think she did.”

“Obviously she didn’t,” said Hardcastle, “or you wouldn’t have hesit-ated.”

“She probably stuffed them in her bag.”

“The trouble is,” said Hardcastle in an accusing manner, “you’ve fallenfor that girl.”

“Don’t be idiotic,” I defended myself vigorously. “I saw her for the firsttime yesterday afternoon, and it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a romanticintroduction.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Hardcastle. “It isn’t every day that youngmen have girls falling into their arms screaming for help in the approvedVictorian fashion. Makes a man feel a hero and a gallant protector. Onlyyou’ve got to stop protecting her. That’s all. So far as you know, that girlmay be up to the neck in this murder business.”

“Are you saying that this slip of a girl stuck a knife into a man, hid itsomewhere so carefully that none of your sleuths could find it, then delib-erately rushed out of the house and did a screaming act all over me?”

“You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen in my time,” said Hardcastledarkly.

“Don’t you realize,” I demanded, indignantly, “that my life has been fullof beautiful spies of every nationality? All of them with vital statistics thatwould make an American private eye forget all about the shot of rye in hiscollar drawer. I’m immune to all female allurements.”

“Everybody meets his Waterloo in the end,” said Hardcastle. “It all de-pends on the type. Sheila Webb seems to be your type.”

“Anyway, I can’t see why you’re so set on fastening it on her.”

Hardcastle sighed.

“I’m not fastening it on her—but I’ve got to start somewhere. The bodywas found in Pebmarsh’s house. That involves her. The body was found bythe Webb girl—I don’t need to tell you how often the first person to find adead body is the same as the person who last saw him alive. Until morefacts turn up, those two remain in the picture.”

“When I went into that room at just after three o’clock, the body hadbeen dead at least half an hour, probably longer. How about that?”

“Sheila Webb had her lunch hour from 1:30 to 2:30.”

I looked at him in exasperation.

“What have you found out about Curry?”

Hardcastle said with unexpected bitterness: “Nothing!”

“What do you mean—nothing?”

“Just that he doesn’t exist—there’s no such person.”

“What do the Metropolis Insurance Company say?”

“They’ve nothing to say either, because there’s no such thing. The Metro-polis and Provincial Insurance Company doesn’t exist. As far as Mr. Curryfrom Denvers Street goes, there’s no Mr. Curry, no Denvers Street, Num-ber 7 or any other number.”

“Interesting,” I said. “You mean he just had some bogus cards printedwith a bogus name, address and insurance company?”

“Presumably.”

“What is the big idea, do you think?”

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 workingsome confidence trick. He may have been a swindler or a confidence trick-ster or a picker-up of unconsidered trifles or a private inquiry agent. Wejust 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’sgot a record of any kind. If he has it’ll be a big step on the way. If hehasn’t, it’ll be rather more difficult.”

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

“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 veget-able knife.”

“That rather lets out Miss Pebmarsh, doesn’t it?” I said thoughtfully. “Ablind woman would hardly be able to stab a man. She really is blind, I sup-pose?”

“Oh, yes, she’s blind. We checked up. And she’s exactly what she saysshe is. She was a teacher of mathematics in a North Country school—losther sight about sixteen years ago—took up training in Braille, etc., and fi-nally 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 withsome enthusiasm. “Like Ariadne Oliver in her worst moments, or the lateGarry Gregson at the top of his form—”

“Go on — enjoy yourself. You’re not the wretched D.I. in charge. Youhaven’t got to satisfy a superintendent or a chief constable and all the restof 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 thefront garden and two masked men carried him into the house—nobodywould have looked out of the window or seen anything. This isn’t a village,worse luck. Wilbraham Crescent is a genteel residential road. By oneo’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 andSwettenham, Solicitors, and his sister who spends her spare time man-aging him. All I know about 20 is that the woman who lives there keepsabout twenty cats. I don’t like cats—”

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