The Clocks

‘Possibly not, but that’s where he went. And that’s where he is now. We’d like to know a bit more about him. So you can stir your stumps, my lad, and get going. I’ve got all the visas ready for you, and a nice new passport. Nigel Trench it will be this time. Rub up your knowledge of rare plants in the Balkans. You’re a botanist.’

‘Any special instructions?’

‘No. We’ll give you your contact when you pick up your papers. Find out all you can about our Mr Ramsay.’ He looked at me keenly. ‘You don’t sound as pleased as you might be.’ He peered through the cigar smoke.

‘It’s always pleasant when a hunch pays off,’ I said evasively.

‘Right Crescent, wrong number. 61 is occupied by a perfectly blameless builder. Blameless in our sense, that is. Poor old Hanbury got the number wrong, but he wasn’t far off.’

‘Have you vetted the others? Or only Ramsay?’

‘Diana Lodge seems to be as pure as Diana. A long history of cats. McNaughton was vaguely interesting. He’s a retired professor, as you know. Mathematics. Quite brilliant, it seems. Resigned his Chair quite suddenly on the grounds of ill-health. I suppose thatmay be true-but he seems quite hale and hearty. He seems to have cut himself off from all his old friends, which is rather odd.’

‘The trouble is,’ I said, ‘that we get to thinking that everything thateverybody does is highly suspicious.’ 

‘You may have got something there,’ said Colonel Beck. ‘There are times when I suspectyou, Colin, of having changed over to the other side. There are times when I suspectmyself of having changed over to the other side, and then having changed back again to this one! All a jolly mix-up.’

My plane left at ten p.m. I went to see Hercule Poirot first. This time he was drinking asirop de cassis (Black-currant to you and me). He offered me some. I refused. George brought me whisky. Everything as usual.

‘You look depressed,’ said Poirot.

‘Not at all. I’m just off abroad.’

He looked at me. I nodded.

‘So it is like that?’

‘Yes, it is like that.’

‘I wish you all success.’

‘Thank you. And what about you, Poirot, how are you getting along with your homework?’

‘Pardon?’

‘What about the Crowdean Clocks Murder-Have you leaned back, closed your eyes and come up with all the answers?’

‘I have read what you left here with great interest,’ said Poirot.

‘Not much there, was there? I told you these particular neighbours were a wash-out-’

‘On the contrary. In the case of at leasttwo of these people very illuminating remarks were made-’

‘Which of them? And what were the remarks?’

Poirot told me in an irritating fashion that I must read my notes carefully.

‘You will see for yourself then-It leaps to the eye. The thing to do now is to talk to more neighbours.’

‘There aren’t any more.’

‘There must be.Somebody has always seen something. It is an axiom.’

‘It may be an axiom but it isn’t so in this case. And I’ve got further details for you. There has been another murder.’

‘Indeed? So soon? That is interesting. Tell me.’

I told him. He questioned me closely until he got every single detail out of me. I told him, too, of the postcard I had passed on to Hardcastle.

‘Remember-four one three-or four thirteen,’ he repeated. ‘Yes-it is the same pattern.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Poirot closed his eyes.

‘That postcard lacks only one thing, a fingerprint dipped in blood.’

I looked at him doubtfully.

‘What do you really think of this business?’

‘It grows much clearer-as usual, the murderer cannot let well alone.’

‘But who’s the murderer?’ 

Poirot craftily did not reply to that.

‘Whilst you are away, you permit that I make a few researches?’

‘Such as?’

‘Tomorrow I shall instruct Miss Lemon to write a letter to an old lawyer friend of mine, Mr Enderby. I shall ask her to consult the marriage records at Somerset House. She will also send for me a certain overseas cable.’

‘I’m not sure that’s fair,’ I objected. ‘You’re not just sitting and thinking.’

‘That is exactly what I am doing! What Miss Lemon is to do, is to verify for me the answers that I have already arrived at. I ask not for information, but forconfirmation.’

‘I don’t believe you know a thing, Poirot! This is all bluff. Why, nobody knows yet who the dead man is-’

‘I know.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I have no idea. His name is not important. I know, if you can understand, notwho he is but who heis.’

‘A blackmailer?’

Poirot closed his eyes.

‘A private detective?’

Poirot opened his eyes. 

‘I say to you a little quotation. As I did last time. And after that I say no more.’

He recited with the utmost solemnity:

‘Dilly, dilly, dilly-Come and be killed.’

Chapter 21