course it’s a very generalized description. It would fit quite a number of people. It might be someone I have seen or met on some occasion, but certainly not anyone I know well.’
‘You have not received any letter lately from anyone proposing to call upon you?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Very good. Now, you rang up the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau and asked for the services of a stenographer and—’
She interrupted him.
‘Excuse me. I did nothing of the kind.’
‘You did not ring up the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau and ask—’ Hardcastle stared.
‘I don’t have a telephone in the house.’
‘There is a call-box at the end of the street,’ Inspector Hardcastle pointed out.
‘Yes, of course. But I can only assure you, Inspector Hardcastle, that I had no need for a stenographer and did not—repeat not—ring up this Cavendish place with any such request.’
‘You did not ask for Miss Sheila Webb particularly?’
‘I have never heard that name before.’
Hardcastle stared at her, astonished.
‘You left the front door unlocked,’ he pointed out.
‘I frequently do so in the daytime.’
‘Anybody might walk in.’
‘Anybody seems to have done so in this case,’ said Miss Pebmarsh drily.
‘Miss Pebmarsh, this man according to the medical evidence died roughly between 1.30 and 2.45. Where were you yourself then?’
Miss Pebmarsh reflected.
‘At 1.30 I must either have left or been preparing to leave the house. I had some shopping to do.’
‘Can you tell me exactly where you went?’
‘Let me see. I went to the post office, the one in Albany Road, posted a parcel, got some stamps, then I did some household shopping, yes and I got some patent fasteners and safety pins at the drapers, Field and Wren. Then I returned here. I can tell you exactly what the time was. My cuckoo clock cuckooed three times as I came to the gate. I can hear it from the road.’
‘And what about your other clocks?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your other clocks seem all to be just over an hour fast.’
‘Fast? You mean the grandfather clock in the corner?’
‘Not that only—all the other clocks in the sitting-room are the same.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean by the “other clocks”. There are no other clocks in the sitting-room.’
Hardcastle stared.
‘Oh come, Miss Pebmarsh. What about that beautiful Dresden china clock on the mantelpiece? And a small French clock—ormolu. And a silver carriage clock, and—oh yes, the clock with “Rosemary” across the corner.’
It was Miss Pebmarsh’s turn to stare.
‘Either you or I must be mad, Inspector. I assure you I have no Dresden china clock, no—what did you say—clock with “Rosemary” across it—no French ormolu clock and—what was the other one?’
‘Silver carriage clock,’ said Hardcastle mechanically.
‘Not that either. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the woman who comes to clean for me. Her name is Mrs Curtin.’
Detective Inspector Hardcastle was taken aback. There was a positive assurance, a briskness in Miss Pebmarsh’s tone that carried conviction. He took a moment or two turning over things in his mind. Then he rose to his feet.
‘I wonder, Miss Pebmarsh, if you would mind accompanying me into the next room?’
‘Certainly. Frankly, I would like to see those clocks myself.’
‘See?’ Hardcastle was quick to query the word.
‘Examine would be a better word,’ said Miss Pebmarsh, ‘but even blind people, Inspector, use conventional modes of speech that do not exactly apply to their own powers. When I say I would like to see those clocks, I mean I would like to examine and feel them with my own fingers.’
Followed by Miss Pebmarsh, Hardcastle went out of the kitchen, crossed the small hall and into the sitting-room. The fingerprint man looked up at him.
‘I’ve about finished in here, sir,’ he said. ‘You can touch anything you like.’
Hardcastle nodded and picked up the small travelling clock with ‘Rosemary’ written across the corner. He put it into Miss Pebmarsh’s hands. She felt it over carefully.
‘It seems an ordinary travelling clock,’ she said, ‘the leather folding kind. It is not mine, Inspector Hardcastle, and it was not in this room, I am fairly sure I can say, when I left the house at half past one.’
‘Thank you.’
The inspector took it back from her. Carefully he lifted the small Dresden clock from the mantelpiece.
‘Be careful of this,’ he said, as he put it into her hands, ‘it’s breakable.’
Millicent Pebmarsh felt the small china clock with delicate probing fingertips. Then she shook her head. ‘It must be a charming clock,’ she said, ‘but it’s not mine. Where was it, do you say?’
‘On the right hand side of the mantelpiece.’
‘There should be one of a pair of china candlesticks there,’ said Miss Pebmarsh.
‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle, ‘there is a candlestick there, but it’s been pushed to the end.’
‘You say there was still another clock?’
‘Two more.’
Hardcastle took back the Dresden china clock and gave her the small French gilt ormolu one. She felt it over rapidly, then handed it back to him.
‘No. That is not mine either.’
He handed her the silver one and that, too, she returned.
‘The only clocks ordinarily in this room are a grandfather clock there in that corner by the window—’
‘Quite right.’
‘—and a cuckoo on the wall near the door.’
Hardcastle found it difficult to know exactly what to say next. He looked searchingly at the woman in front of him with the additional security of knowing that she could not return his survey. There was a slight frown as of perplexity on her forehead. She said sharply:
‘I can’t understand it. I simply can’t understand it.’
She stretched out one hand, with the easy knowledge of where she was in the room, and sat down. Hardcastle looked at the fingerprint man who was standing by the door.
‘You’ve been over these clocks?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been over everything, sir. No dabs on the gilt clock, but there wouldn’t be. The surface wouldn’t take it. The same goes for the china one. But there are no dabs on the leather travelling clock or the silver one and that is a bit unlikely if things were normal—there ought to be dabs. By the way, none of them are wound up and they are all set to the same time—thirteen minutes past four.’
‘What about the rest of the room?’
‘There