The Clocks

‘Girls who are employed there seem to have rather unfortunate things happen to them.’

‘If you think I know anything at all about that, you’re wrong. I don’t.’

I wished her luck and went. I hadn’t learnt anything from her. I hadn’t really thought I should. But one has to tidy up the loose ends.

***

Going out of the gate I almost cannoned into Mrs McNaughton. She was carrying a shopping-bag and seemed very wobbly on her feet.

‘Let me,’ I said and took it from her. She was inclined to clutch it from me at first, then she leaned her head forward, peering at me, and relaxed her grip.

‘You’re the young man from the police,’ she said. ‘I didn’t recognize you at first.’

I carried the shopping-bag to her front door and she teetered beside me. The shopping-bag was unexpectedly heavy. I wondered what was in it. Pounds of potatoes?

‘Don’t ring,’ she said. ‘The door isn’t locked.’

Nobody’s door seemed ever to be locked in Wilbraham Crescent.

‘And how are you getting on with things?’ she asked chattily. ‘He seems to have married very much below him.’

I didn’t know what she was talking about.

‘Who did-I’ve been away,’ I explained.

‘Oh, I see.Shadowing someone, I suppose. I meant that Mrs Rival. I went to the inquest. Such acommon -looking woman. I must say she didn’t seem much upset by her husband’s death.’

‘She hadn’t see him for fifteen years,’ I explained. 

‘Angus and I have been married for twenty years.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a long time. And so much gardening now that he isn’t at the university…It makes it difficult to know what to do with oneself.’

At that moment, Mr McNaughton, spade in hand, came round the corner of the house.

‘Oh, you’re back, my dear. Let me take the things-’

‘Just put it in the kitchen,’ said Mrs McNaughton to me swiftly-her elbow nudged me. ‘Just the Cornflakes and the eggs and a melon,’ she said to her husband, smiling brightly.

I deposited the bag on the kitchen table. It clinked.

Cornflakes, my foot! I let my spy’s instincts take over. Under a camouflage of sheet gelatine were three bottles of whisky.

I understood why Mrs McNaughton was sometimes so bright and garrulous and why she was occasionally a little unsteady on her feet. And possibly why McNaughton had resigned his Chair.

It was a morning for neighbours. I met Mr Bland as I was going along the crescent towards Albany Road. Mr Bland seemed in very good form. He recognized me at once.

‘How are you? How’s crime? Got your dead body identified, I see. Seems to have treated that wife of his rather badly. By the way, excuse me, you’re not one of the locals, are you?’ 

I said evasively I had come down from London.

‘So the Yard was interested, was it?’

‘Well-’ I drew the word out in a noncommittal way.

‘I understand. Mustn’t tell tales out of school. You weren’t at the inquest, though.’

I said I had been abroad.

‘So have I, my boy. So have I!’ He winked at me.

‘Gay Paree?’ I asked, winking back.

‘Wish it had been. No, only a day trip to Boulogne.’

He dug me in the side with his elbow (quite like Mrs McNaughton!).

‘Didn’t take the wife. Teamed up with a very nice little bit. Blonde. Quite a hot number.’

‘Business trip?’ I said. We both laughed like men of the world.

He went on towards No. 61 and I walked on towards Albany Road.

I was dissatisfied with myself. As Poirot had said, there should have been more to be got out of the neighbours. It was positively unnatural thatnobody should have seen anything! Perhaps Hardcastle had asked the wrong questions. But could I think of any better ones? As I turned into Albany Road I made a mental list of questions. It went something like this: 

Mr Curry (Castleton) had been doped

—When?

ditto had been killed

—Where?

Mr Curry (Castleton) had been taken to No. 19

—How?

Somebody must have seen something!

—Who?

ditto-What?

I turned to the left again. Now I was walking along Wilbraham Crescent just as I had walked on September 9th. Should I call on Miss Pebmarsh? Ring the bell and say-well, what should I say?

Call on Miss Waterhouse? But what on earth could I say toher?

Mrs Hemming perhaps? It wouldn’t much matter what one said to Mrs Hemming. She wouldn’t be listening, and whatshe said, however haphazard and irrelevant,might lead to something.

I walked along, mentally noting the numbers as I had before. Had the late Mr Curry come along here, also noting numbers, until he came to the number he meant to visit?

Wilbraham Crescent had never looked primmer. I almost found myself exclaiming in Victorian fashion, ‘Oh! if these stones could speak!’ It was a favourite quotation in those days, so it seemed. But stones don’t speak, no more do bricks and mortar, nor even plaster nor stucco. Wilbraham Crescent remained silently itself. Old-fashioned, aloof, rather shabby, and not given to conversation. Disapproving, I was sure, of itinerant prowlers who didn’t even know what they were looking for.