The Clocks

‘And you say this woman is unimaginative? When she concocted all this?’ 

‘But she did not concoct it. That is what is so interesting. It was all there-waiting for her. From the very first I detected a pattern-a pattern I knew. A pattern familiar because I had just been reading such patterns. I have been very fortunate. As Colin here will tell you, I attended this week asale of authors’ manuscripts. Among them were some of Garry Gregson’s. I hardly dared hope. But luck was with me.Here -’ Like a conjuror he whipped from a drawer in the desk two shabby exercise books ‘-it is allhere! Among the many plots of books he planned to write. He did not live to write this one-but Miss Martindale, who was his secretary, knew all about it. She just lifted it bodily to suit her purpose.’

‘But the clocks must have meant something originally-in Gregson’s plot, I mean.’

‘Oh, yes. His clocks were set at one minute past five, four minutes past five and seven minutes past five. That was the combination number of a safe, 515457. The safe was concealed behind a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Inside the safe,’ continued Poirot, with distaste, ‘were the Crown jewels of the Russian Royal Family.Un tas de betises, the whole thing! And of course there was a story of kinds-a persecuted girl. Oh, yes, it came in very handy for la Martindale. She just chose her local characters and adapted the story to fit in. All these flamboyant clues would lead-where? Exactly nowhere! Ah, yes, an efficient woman. One wonders-he left her a legacy-did he not? How and of what did he die, I wonder?’

Hardcastle refused to be interested in past history. He gathered up the exercise books and took the sheet of hotel paper from my hand. For the last two minutes I had been staring at it, fascinated. Hardcastle had scribbled down Enderby’s address without troubling to turn the sheet the right way up. The hotel address was upside down in the left-hand bottom corner.

Staring at the sheet of paper, I knew what a fool I had been.

‘Well, thank you, M. Poirot,’ said Hardcastle. ‘You’ve certainly given us something to think about. Whether anything will come of it-’

‘I am most delighted if I have been of any assistance.’

Poirot was playing it modestly.

‘I’ll have to check various things-’

‘Naturally-naturally-’

Goodbyes were said. Hardcastle took his departure.

Poirot turned his attention to me. His eyebrows rose.

‘Eh bien-and what, may I ask, is biting you?-you look like a man who has seen an apparition.’

‘I’ve seen what a fool I’ve been.’

‘Aha. Well, that happens to many of us.’

But presumably not to Hercule Poirot! I had to attack him. 

‘Just tell me one thing, Poirot. If, as you said, you could do all this sitting in your chair in London and could have got me and Dick Hardcastle to come to you there, why-oh, why, did you come down here at all?’

‘I told you, they make the reparation in my apartment.’

‘They would have lent you another apartment. Or you could have gone to the Ritz, you would have been more comfortable there than in the Curlew Hotel.’

‘Indubitably,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘The coffee here,mon dieu, the coffee!’

‘Well, then,why?’

Hercule Poirot flew into a rage.

‘Eh bien, since you are too stupid to guess, I will tell you. I am human, am I not? I can be the machine if it is necessary. I can lie back and think. I can solve the problem so. But I am human, I tell you. And the problems concern human beings.’

‘And so?’

‘The explanation is as simple as the murder was simple. I came out of human curiosity,’ said Hercule Poirot, with an attempt at dignity.

Chapter 29

Once more I was in Wilbraham Crescent, proceeding in a westerly direction.

I stopped before the gate of No. 19. No one came screaming out of the house this time. It was neat and peaceful.

I went up to the front door and rang the bell.

Miss Millicent Pebmarsh opened it.

‘This is Colin Lamb,’ I said. ‘May I come in and speak to you?’

‘Certainly.’

She preceded me into the sitting-room.

‘You seem to spend a lot of time down here, Mr Lamb. I understood that you werenot connected with the local police-’

‘You understood rightly. I think, really, you have known exactly who I am from the first day you spoke to me.’ 

‘I’m not sure quite what you mean by that.’

‘I’ve been extremely stupid, Miss Pebmarsh. I came to this place to look for you. I found you the first day I was here-and I didn’t know I had found you!’

‘Possibly murder distracted you.’

‘As you say. I was also stupid enough to look at a piece of paper the wrong way up.’

‘And what is the point of all this?’

‘Just that the game is up, Miss Pebmarsh. I’ve found the headquarters where all the planning is done. Such records and memoranda as are necessary are kept by you on the micro dot system in Braille. The information Larkin got at Portlebury was passed to you. From here it went to its destination by means of Ramsay. He came across when necessary from his house to yours at night by way of the garden. He dropped a Czech coin in your garden one day-’

‘That was careless of him.’