The Clocks

‘An admirable exposition,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately it didn’t happen in this case.’

‘But,mon cher, itdid. One little sentence of inestimable importance.’

‘What?’ I demanded. ‘Who said it? When?’

‘In due course,mon cher.’

‘You were saying, M. Poirot?’ The inspector politely drew Poirot back to the subject.

‘If you draw a circle round Number 19, anybody within itmight have killed Mr Curry. Mrs Hemming, the Blands, the McNaughtons, Miss Waterhouse. But more important still, there are those already positioned on the spot. Miss Pebmarsh who could have killed him before she went out at 1.35 or thereabouts and Miss Webb who could have arranged to meet him there, and killed him before rushing from the house and giving the alarm.’

‘Ah,’ said the inspector. ‘You’re coming down to brass tacks now.’

‘And of course,’ said Poirot, wheeling round, ‘you, my dear Colin. You were also on the spot. Looking for a high number where the low numbers were.’

‘Well, really,’ I said indignantly. ‘What will you say next?’ 

‘Me, I say anything!’ declared Poirot grandly.

‘And yetI am the person who comes and dumps the whole thing in your lap!’

‘Murderers are often conceited,’ Poirot pointed out. ‘And there too, it might have amused you-to have a joke like that at my expense.’

‘If you go on, you’ll convinceme,’ I said.

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Poirot turned back to Inspector Hardcastle.

‘Here, I say to myself, must be essentially a simple crime. The presence of irrelevant clocks, the advancing of time by an hour, the arrangements made so deliberately for the discovery of the body, all these must be set aside for the moment. They are, as is said in your immortal “Alice” like “shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings”. The vital point is that an ordinary elderly man is dead and that somebody wanted him dead. If we knew who the dead man was, it would give us a pointer to his killer. If he was a well-known blackmailer then we must look for a man who could be blackmailed. If he was a detective, then we look for a man who has a criminal secret; if he is a man of wealth, then we look among his heirs. But if we donot know who the man is-then we have the more difficult task of hunting amongst those in the surrounding circle for a man who has a reason to kill.

‘Setting aside Miss Pebmarsh and Sheila Webb, who is there who might not be what they seem to be? The answer was disappointing. With the exception of Mr Ramsay who I understood wasnot what he seemed to be?’ Here Poirot looked inquiringly at me and I nodded, ‘everybody’sbona fides were genuine. Bland was a well-known local builder, McNaughton had had a Chair at Cambridge, Mrs Hemming was the widow of a local auctioneer, the Waterhouses were respectable residents of long standing. So we come back to Mr Curry. Where did he comefrom? What brought him to 19, Wilbraham Crescent? And here one very valuable remark was spoken by one of the neighbours, Mrs Hemming. When told that the dead man did not live at Number 19, she said, “Oh! I see. He just came there to be killed. How odd.” She had the gift, often possessed by those who are too occupied with their own thoughts to pay attention to what others are saying, to come to the heart of the problem. She summed up the whole crime.Mr Curry came to 19, Wilbraham Crescent to be killed. It was as simple as that!’

‘That remark of hers struck me at the time,’ I said.

Poirot took no notice of me.

‘ “Dilly, dilly, dilly-come and be killed.” Mr Curry came-and he was killed. But that was not all. It was importantthat he should not be identified. He had no wallet, no papers, the tailor’s marks were removed from his clothes. But that would not be enough. The printed card of Curry, Insurance Agent, was only a temporary measure. If the man’s identity was to be concealedpermanently, he must be given a false identity. Sooner or later, I was sure, somebody would turn up, recognize him positively and that would be that. A brother, a sister, a wife. It was a wife. Mrs Rival-and the name alone might have aroused suspicion. There is a village in Somerset-I have stayed near there with friends-the village of Curry Rival-Subconsciously, without knowing why those two names suggested themselves, they were chosen. Mr Curry-Mrs Rival.

‘So far-the plan is obvious, but what puzzled me was why our murderer took for granted that there would be noreal identification. If the man had no family, there are at least landladies, servants, business associates. That led me to the next assumption-this man wasnot known to be missing. A further assumption was that he was not English, and was only visiting this country. That would tie in with the fact that the dental work done on his teeth did not correspond with any dental records here.

‘I began to have a shadowy picture both of the victim and of the murderer. No more than that. The crime was well planned and intelligently carried out-but now there came that one piece of sheer bad luck that no murderer can foresee.’