The Clocks

‘So all you know,’ said Poirot accusingly, ‘or all you can tell me is that the girl was a poor little rabbit, whom you saw in a typewriting office, where she had torn the heel off her shoe in a grating-’ he broke off. ‘Where was that grating, by the way?’

‘Really, Poirot, how should I know?’

‘You could have known if you hadasked. How do you expect to knowanything if you do not ask the proper questions?’

‘But how can it matterwhere the heel came off?’

‘It may not matter. On the other hand, we should know a definite spot where this girl had been, and that might connect up with a person she had seen there-or with an event of some kind which took place there.’

‘You are being rather far-fetched. Anyway I do know it was quite near the office because she said so and that she bought a bun and hobbled back on her stocking feet to eat the bun in the office and she ended up by saying how on earth was she to get home like that?’

‘Ah, and howdid she get home?’ Poirot asked with interest.

I stared at him.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Ah-but it is impossible, the way you never ask the right questions! As a result you know nothing of what is important.’

‘You’d better come down to Crowdean and ask questions yourself,’ I said, nettled.

‘That is impossible at the moment. There is a most interesting sale of authors’ manuscripts next week-’

‘Still on your hobby?’

‘But, yes, indeed.’ His eyes brightened. ‘Take the works of John Dickson Carr or Carter Dickson, as he calls himself sometimes-’ 

I escaped before he could get under way, pleading an urgent appointment. I was in no mood to listen to lectures on past masters of the art of crime fiction.

***

I was sitting on the front step of Hardcastle’s house, and rose out of the gloom to greet him when he got home on the following evening.

‘Hallo, Colin? Is that you? So you’ve appeared out of the blue again, have you?’

‘If you called it out of thered, it would be much more appropriate.’

‘How long have you been here, sitting on my front doorstep?’

‘Oh, half an hour or so.’

‘Sorry you couldn’t get into the house.’

‘I could have got into the house with perfect ease,’ I said indignantly. ‘You don’t know our training!’

‘Then why didn’t you get in?’

‘I wouldn’t like to lower your prestige in any way,’ I explained. ‘A detective inspector of police would be bound to lose face if his house were entered burglariously with complete ease.’

Hardcastle took his keys from his pocket and opened the front door. 

‘Come on in,’ he said, ‘and don’t talk nonsense.’

He led the way into the sitting-room, and proceeded to supply liquid refreshment.

‘Say when.’

I said it, not too soon, and we settled ourselves with our drinks.

‘Things are moving at last,’ said Hardcastle. ‘We’ve identified our corpse.’

‘I know. I looked up the newspaper files-who was Harry Castleton?’

‘A man of apparently the utmost respectability and who made his living by going through a form of marriage or merely getting engaged to well-to-do credulous women. They entrusted their savings to him, impressed by his superior knowledge of finance and shortly afterwards he quietly faded into the blue.’

‘He didn’t look that kind of man,’ I said, casting my mind back.

‘That was his chief asset.’

‘Wasn’t he ever prosecuted?’

‘No-we’ve made inquiries but it isn’t easy to get much information. He changed his name fairly often. And although they think at the Yard that Harry Castleton, Raymond Blair, Lawrence Dalton, Roger Byron were all one and the same person, they never could prove it. The women, you see, wouldn’t tell. They preferred to lose their money. The man was really more of a name than anything-cropping up here and there-always the same pattern-but incredibly elusive. Roger Byron, say, would disappear from Southend, and a man called Lawrence Dalton would commence operations in Newcastle on Tyne. He was shy of being photographed-eluded his lady friends’ desire to snapshot him. All this goes quite a long time back-fifteen to twenty years. About that time he seemed really to disappear. The rumour spread about that he was dead-but some people said he had gone abroad-’

‘Anyway, nothing was heard of him until he turned up, dead, on Miss Pebmarsh’s sitting-room carpet?’ I said.

‘Exactly.’

‘It certainly opens up possibilities.’

‘It certainly does.’

‘A woman scorned who never forgot?’ I suggested.

‘It does happen, you know. Thereare women with long memories who don’t forget-’

‘And if such a woman were to go blind-a second affliction on top of the other-’

‘That’s only conjecture. Nothing to substantiate it as yet.’

‘What was the wife like-Mrs-what was it?-Merlina Rival? What a name! It can’t be her own.’

‘Her real name is Flossie Gapp. The other she invented. More suitable for her way of life.’ 

‘What is she? A tart?’

‘Not a professional.’

‘What used to be called, tactfully, a lady of easy virtue?’

‘I should say she was a good-natured woman, and one willing to oblige her friends. Described herself as an ex-actress. Occasionally did “hostess” work. Quite likeable.’

‘Reliable?’