Hickory Dickory Dock

"You realize, Mr. Chapman, that what you have just told us is very serious? Very serious indeed." "Of course I realise it. I wouldn't have come here to tell you about it unless I'd felt that it was urgent." "A nd you say Miss Lane can't remember exactly when she last saw this bicarbonate bottle containing morphine?" "She's got herself all muddled up. The more she tries to think the more uncertain she gets. She said I flustered her. She's trying to think it out quietly while I came round to you." "We'd beller go round to Hickory Road right away." As the Inspector spoke the telephone on the table rang and the constable who had been taking notes of Nigel's story, stretched out his hand and lifted the receiver.

"It's Miss Lane now," he said as he listened. "Wanting to speak to Mr. Chapman." Nigel leaned across the table and took the receiver from him.

"Pat? Nigel here." The girl's voice came, breathless, eager, the words tumbling over each other.

"Nigel. I think I've got itl I mean, I think I know now who must have taken-you know comtaken it from my handkerchief drawer, I mean-you see, there's only one person who-was The voice broke off.

"Pat. Hullo? Are youthere? Who was it?" "I can't tell you now. Later. You'll be coming round?" The receiver was near enough for the constable and the Inspector to have heard the conversation clearly, and the latter nodded in answer to Nigel's questioning look.

"TeEvery her 'at once," was he said.

"We're coming round at once," said Nigel.

"On our way this minute." "Oh! Good. I'll be in my room." "So long, Pat." Hardly a word was spoken during the brief ride to Hickory Road. Sharpe wondered to himself whether this was a break a-t last. Would Patricia Lane have any definite evidence to offer, or would it be pure surmise on her part? Clearly she had remembered something that had seemed to her important.

He supposed that she had been telephoning from the hall, and that therefore she had had to be guarded in her language. At this timein the evening so many people would have been passing through.

Nigel opened the front door of 26 Hickory Road with his key and they passed inside.

Through the open door of the Common Room, Sharpe could see the rumpled red head of Leonard Bateson bent over some books.

Nigel led the way upstairs and along the passage to Pat's room. He gave a short tap on the door and entered.

"Hullo, Pat. Here w" His voice stopped, dying away in a long choking gasp. He stood motionless. Over his shoulder, Sharpe saw also what there was to see.

Patricia Lane lay slumped on the floor.

The Inspector pushed Nigel gently aside.

He went forward and knelt down by the girl's huddled body. He raised her head, felt for the pulse, then delicately let the head resume its former position. He rose to his feet, his face grim and set.

"No?" said Nigel, his voice high and unnatural. "No. No. No." "Yes, Mr. Chapman. She's dead." "No, no. Not Pat! Dear stupid Pat.

How" "With this." It was a simple, quickly improvised weapon.

A marble paperweight slipped into a woolen sock.

"Struck on the back of the head. A very efficacious weapon. If it's any consolation to you, Mr.

Chapman, I don't think she even knew what happened to her." Nigel sat down shakily on the bed. He said: "That's one of my socks… She was going to mend it… Oh, God, she was going to mend it…" Suddenly he began to cry. He cried like a childwith abandon and without self-consciousness.

Sharpe was continuing his reconstruction. "It was someone she knew quite well. Someone who picked up a sock and just slipped the paperweight into it. Do you recognize the paperweight, Mr.

Chapman?" He rolled the sock back so as to display it.

Nigel, still weeping, looked.

"Pat always had it on her desk. A Lion of Luceme." He buried his face in his hands.

"Pat-oh, Pat! What shall I do without you!" Suddenly he sat upright, flinging back his untidy fair hair.

"I'll kill whoever did this! I'll kill him!

Murdering swine!" "Gently, Mr. Chapman. Yes, yes, I know how you feel. A brutal piece of work." "Pat never harmed anybody..

Speaking soothingly, Inspector Sharpe got him out of the room. Then he went back himself into the bedroom. He stooped over the dead girl. Very gently he detached something from between her fingers.

Geronimo, perspiration running down his forehead, turned frightened dark eyes from once face to the other.

"I see nothing. I hear nothing, I tell you.

I do not know anything at all. I am with Maria in kitchen. I put the minestrone on, I grate the chees" Sharpe interrupted the catalogue.

"Nobody's accusing you. We just want to get some times quite clear. Who was in and out of the house the last hour?" "I do not know. How should I know?" "But you can see very clearly from the kitchen window who goes in and out, can't you?" "Perhaps, yes." "Then just tell us." "They come in and out all the time at this hour of the day." "Who was in the house from six o'clock until six thirty-five when we arrived?" "Everybody except Mr. Niget and Mrs.