The Clocks

‘Yes, always I have suggestions. There is this girl. You can talk to this girl. Go and see her. Already you are friends, are you not? Have you not clasped her in your arms when she flew from the house in terror?’

‘You’ve been affected by reading Garry Gregson,’ I said. ‘You’ve caught the melodramatic style.’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ Poirot admitted. ‘One gets infected, it is true, by the style of a work that one has been reading.’

‘As for the girl-’ I said, then paused.

Poirot looked at me inquiringly.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘I shouldn’t like-I don’t want…’

‘Ah, so that is it. At the back of your mind you think she is concerned somehow in this case.’

‘No, I don’t. It was absolutely pure chance that she happened to be there.’

‘No, no,mon ami, it was not pure chance. You know that very well. You’ve told me so. She was asked for over the telephone. Asked for specially.’

‘But she doesn’t know why.’

‘You cannot be sure that she does not know why. Very likely shedoes know why and is hiding the fact.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said obstinately.

‘It is even possible you may find out why by talking to her, even if she herself does not realize the truth.’ 

‘I don’t see very well how-I mean-I hardly know her.’

Hercule Poirot shut his eyes again.

‘There is a time,’ he said, ‘in the course of an attraction between two persons of the opposite sex, when that particular statement is bound to be true. She is an attractive girl, I suppose?’

‘Well-yes,’ I said. ‘Quite attractive.’

‘You will talk to her,’ Poirot ordered, ‘because you are already friends, and you will go again and see this blind woman with some excuse. And you will talk toher. And you will go to the typewriting bureau on the pretence perhaps of having some manuscript typed. You will make friends, perhaps, with one of the other young ladies who works there. You will talk to all these people and then you will come and see me again and you will tell me all the things that they will say.’

‘Have mercy!’ I said.

‘Not at all,’ said Poirot, ‘you will enjoy it.’

‘You don’t seem to realize that I’ve got my own work to do.’

‘You will work all the better for having a certain amount of relaxation,’ Poirot assured me.

I got up and laughed.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’re the doctor! Any more words of wisdom for me? What do you feel about this strange business of the clocks?’ 

Poirot leaned back in his chair again and closed his eyes.

The words he spoke were quite unexpected.

‘ “The time has come, the Walrus said,

To talk of many things.

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,

And cabbages and kings.

And why the sea is boiling hot

And whether pigs have wings.” ’

He opened his eyes again and nodded his head.

‘Do you understand?’ he said.

‘Quotation from “The Walrus and the Carpenter,”Alice Through the Looking Glass.’

‘Exactly. For the moment, that is the best I can do for you,mon cher. Reflect upon it.’

Chapter 15

The inquest was well attended by the general public. Thrilled by a murder in their midst, Crowdean turned out with eager hopes of sensational disclosures. The proceedings, however, were as dry as they could be. Sheila Webb need not have dreaded her ordeal, it was over in a couple of minutes.

There had been a telephone message to the Cavendish Bureau directing her to go to 19, Wilbraham Crescent. She had gone, acting as told to do, by entering the sitting-room. She had found the dead man there and had screamed and rushed out of the house to summon assistance. There were no questions or elaborations. Miss Martindale, who also gave evidence, was questioned for an even shorter time. She had received a message purporting to be from Miss Pebmarsh asking her to send a shorthand typist, preferably Miss Sheila Webb, to 19, Wilbraham Crescent, and giving certain directions. She had noted down the exact time of the telephone call as 1.49. That disposed of Miss Martindale.

Miss Pebmarsh, called next, denied categorically that she had asked forany typist to be sent to her that day from the Cavendish Bureau. Detective Inspector Hardcastle made a short emotionless statement. On receipt of a telephone call, he had gone to 19, Wilbraham Crescent where he had found the body of a dead man. The coroner then asked him:

‘Have you been able to identify the dead man?’

‘Not as yet, sir. For that reason, I would ask for this inquest to be adjourned.’

‘Quite so.’

Then came the medical evidence. Doctor Rigg, the police surgeon, having described himself and his qualifications, told of his arrival at 19, Wilbraham Crescent, and of his examination of the dead man.

‘Can you give us an approximate idea of the time of death, Doctor?’

‘I examined him at half past three. I should put the time of death as between half past one and half past two.’

‘You cannot put it nearer than that?’

‘I should prefer not to do so. At a guess, the most likely time would be two o’clock or rather earlier, but there are many factors which have to be taken into account. Age, state of health, and so on.’ 

‘You performed an autopsy?’

‘I did.’

‘The cause of death?’