The Clocks

‘Then you were looking out of the window that morning, watching people.’

‘Oh, yes. Part of the time. Earlier, about ten o’clock, I was doing a crossword puzzle.’

‘I’ve been wondering whether you could possibly have seen Mr Curry arriving at the house?’

Geraldine shook her head.

‘No. I didn’t. It is rather odd, I agree.’

‘Well, perhaps he got there quite early.’

‘He didn’t go to the front door and ring the bell. I’d have seen him.’

‘Perhaps he came in through the garden. I mean through the other side of the house.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Geraldine. ‘It backs on other houses. They wouldn’t like anyone coming through their garden.’

‘No, no, I suppose they wouldn’t.’

‘I wish I knew what he’d looked like,’ said Geraldine.

‘Well, he was quite old. About sixty. He was clean-shaven and he had on a dark grey suit.’

Geraldine shook her head.

‘It sounds terribly ordinary,’ she said with disapprobation.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I suppose it’s difficult for you to remember one day from another when you’re lying here and always looking.’

‘It’s not at all difficult.’ She rose to the challenge. ‘I can tell you everything about that morning. I know when Mrs Crab came and when she left.’

‘That’s the daily cleaning woman, is it?’

‘Yes. She scuttles, just like a crab. She’s got a little boy. Sometimes she brings him with her, but she didn’t that day. And then Miss Pebmarsh goes out about ten o’clock. She goes to teach children at a blind school. Mrs Crab goes away about twelve. Sometimes she has a parcel with her that she didn’t have when she came. Bits of butter, I expect, and cheese, because Miss Pebmarsh can’t see. I know particularly well what happened that day because you see Ingrid and I were having a little quarrel so she wouldn’t talk to me. I’m teaching her English and she wanted to know how to say “until we meet again”. She had to tell it me in German.Auf Wiedersehen. I know that because I once went to Switzerland and people said that there. And they saidGruss Gott, too. That’s rude if you say it in English.’

‘So what did you tell Ingrid to say?’

Geraldine began to laugh a deep malicious chuckle. She started to speak but her chuckles prevented her, but at last she got it out.

‘I told her to say “Get the hell out of here”! So she said it to Miss Bulstrode next door and Miss Bulstrode wasfurious. So Ingrid found out and was very cross with me and we didn’t make friends until nearly tea-time the next day.’ 

I digested this information.

‘So you concentrated on your opera glasses.’

Geraldine nodded.

‘So that’s how I know Mr Curry didn’t go in by the front door. I think perhaps he got in somehow in the night and hid in an attic. Do you think that’s likely?’

‘I suppose anything really is possible,’ I said, ‘but it doesn’t seem to me very probable.’

‘No,’ said Geraldine, ‘he would have got hungry, wouldn’t he? And he couldn’t have asked Miss Pebmarsh for breakfast, not if he was hiding from her.’

‘And nobody came to the house?’ I said. ‘Nobody at all? Nobody in a car-a tradesman-callers?’

‘The grocer comes Mondays and Thursdays,’ said Geraldine, ‘and the milk comes at half past eight in the morning.’

The child was a positive encyclopaedia.

‘The cauliflowers and things Miss Pebmarsh buys herself. Nobody called at all except the laundry. It was a new laundry,’ she added.

‘A new laundry?’

‘Yes. It’s usually the Southern Downs Laundry. Most people have the Southern Downs. It was a new laundry that day-the Snowflake Laundry. I’ve never seen the Snowflake Laundry. They must have just started.’

I fought hard to keep any undue interest out of my voice. I didn’t want to start her romancing. 

‘Did it deliver laundry or call for it?’ I asked.

‘Deliver it,’ said Geraldine. ‘In a great big basket, too. Much bigger than the usual one.’

‘Did Miss Pebmarsh take it in?’

‘No, of course not, she’d gone out again.’

‘What time was this, Geraldine?’

‘1.35 exactly,’ said Geraldine. ‘I wrote it down,’ she added proudly.

She motioned towards a small note-book and opening it pointed with a rather dirty forefinger to an entry. 1.35laundry came. No. 19.

‘You ought to be at Scotland Yard,’ I said.

‘Do they have women detectives? I’d quite like that. I don’t mean police women. I think police women are silly.’

‘You haven’t told me exactly what happened when the laundry came.’

‘Nothing happened,’ said Geraldine. ‘The driver got down, opened the van, took out this basket and staggered along round the side of the house to the back door. I expect he couldn’t get in. Miss Pebmarsh probably locks it, so he probably left it there and came back.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Just ordinary,’ said Geraldine.

‘Like me?’ I asked.