The Clocks

Detective Inspector Hardcastle looked at the calendar on his desk. 20th September. Just over ten days. They hadn’t been able to make as much progress as he would have liked because they were held up with that initial difficulty: the identification of a dead body. It had taken longer than he would have thought possible. All the leads seemed to have petered out, failed. The laboratory examination of the clothes had brought in nothing particularly helpful. The clothes themselves had yielded no clues. They were good quality clothes, export quality, not new but well cared for. Dentists had not helped, nor laundries, nor cleaners. The dead man remained a ‘mystery man’! And yet, Hardcastle felt, he was not really a ‘mystery man’. There was nothing spectacular or dramatic about him. He was just a man whom nobody had been able to come forward and recognize. That was the pattern of it, he was sure. Hardcastle sighed as he thought of the telephone calls and letters that had necessarily poured in after the publication in the public press of the photograph with the caption below it:DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN? Astonishing the amount of people who thought they did know this man. Daughters who wrote in a hopeful vein of fathers from whom they’d been estranged for years. An old woman of ninety was sure that the photograph in question was her son who had left home thirty years ago. Innumerable wives had been sure that it was a missing husband. Sisters had not been quite so anxious to claim brothers. Sisters, perhaps, were less hopeful thinkers. And, of course, there were vast numbers of people who had seen that very man in Lincolnshire, Newcastle, Devon, London, on a tube, in a bus, lurking on a pier, looking sinister at the corner of a road, trying to hide his face as he came out of the cinema. Hundreds of leads, the more promising of them patiently followed up and not yielding anything.

But today, the inspector felt slightly more hopeful. He looked again at the letter on his desk. Merlina Rival. He didn’t like the Christian name very much. Nobody in their senses, he thought, could christen a child Merlina. No doubt it was a fancy name adopted by the lady herself. But he liked the feel of the letter. It was not extravagant or over-confident. It merely said that the writer thought it possible that the man in question was her husband from whom she had parted several years ago. She was due this morning. He pressed his buzzer and Sergeant Cray came in.

‘That Mrs Rival not arrived yet?’

‘Just come this minute,’ said Cray. ‘I was coming to tell you.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Bit theatrical-looking,’ said Cray, after reflecting a moment. ‘Lots of make-up-not very good make-up. Fairly reliable sort of woman on the whole, I should say.’

‘Did she seem upset?’

‘No. Not noticeably.’

‘All right,’ said Hardcastle, ‘let’s have her in.’

Cray departed and presently returned saying as he did so, ‘Mrs Rival, sir.’

The inspector got up and shook hands with her. About fifty, he would judge, but from a long way away-quite a long way-she might have looked thirty. Close at hand, the result of make-up carelessly applied made her look rather older than fifty but on the whole he put it at fifty. Dark hair heavily hennaed. No hat, medium height and build, wearing a dark coat and skirt and a white blouse. Carrying a large tartan bag. A jingly bracelet or two, several rings. On the whole, he thought, making moral judgements on the basis of his experience, rather a good sort. Not over-scrupulous, probably, but easy to live with, reasonably generous, possibly kind. Reliable? That was the question. He wouldn’t bank on it, but then he couldn’t afford to bank on that kind of thing anyway.

‘I’m very glad to see you, Mrs Rival,’ he said, ‘and I hope very much you’ll be able to help us.’

‘Of course, I’m not at all sure,’ said Mrs Rival. She spoke apologetically. ‘But it did look like Harry. Very much like Harry. Of course I’m quite prepared to find that it isn’t, and I hope I shan’t have taken up your time for nothing.’

She seemed quite apologetic about it.

‘You mustn’t feel that in any case,’ said the inspector. ‘We want help very badly over this case.’

‘Yes, I see. I hope I’ll be able to be sure. You see, it’s a long time since I saw him.’

‘Shall we get down a few facts to help us? When did you last see your husband?’

‘I’ve been trying to get it accurate,’ said Mrs Rival, ‘all the way down in the train. It’s terrible how one’s memory goes when it comes to time. I believe I said in my letter to you it was about ten years ago, but it’s more than that. D’you know, I think it’s nearer fifteen. Time does go so fast. I suppose,’ she added shrewdly, ‘that one tends to think it’s less than it is because it makes you yourself feel younger. Don’t you think so?’ 

‘I should think it could do,’ said the inspector. ‘Anyway you think it’s roughly fifteen years since you saw him? When were you married?’

‘It must have been about three years before that,’ said Mrs Rival.

‘And you were living then?’