One Deathless Hour (David Mallin Detective series Book 16)

by Roger Ormerod

  She was looking worried, baffled and in terror that here again might be looming something that she couldn’t accept.

  ‘And I can see what you’re thinking,’ I claimed. ‘You’re thinking that I’ve just proved that the murderer just could not have fiddled that clock. I sincerely hope I have, because there’s only one special circumstance in which that clock could have been reading wrong before the shot. And there’s only one specific person who could have brought that about — Colmore himself.’

  I remembered that there’d been an inch of brandy in that glass, so I went to get it. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was drunk, or only about to collapse, but I managed to get back to the stool.

  Bella spoke pitifully. ‘I don’t understand.’ She was crumbling away, the faint hope undermining her.

  ‘That’s because you don’t know our friend Colmore’s movements that night. He left home with his gun-case. It worried his wife, because he hadn’t been taking it recently. He hired a taxi to his mistress’s flat and that was unusual too. It timed his arrival there. And when he got inside the flat’s front door he entered the taxi’s phone number on a pad, almost at once phoned the firm and booked another for eleven o’clock. You can see what had happened. He’d seen the taxi’s phone number on the back of its sign as it drove away and he’d made a note of it. But why hadn’t he simply booked the return taxi with the driver? “Pick me up at eleven.” Why … except to have his phone call logged and his return taxi timed and recorded later? And then he left the flat and left his gun-case behind — so he’d taken his pistol with him. He emptied his pockets, as a precaution against unforeseeable accidents, and he borrowed Miss Trask’s car. This, Bella, was a man who was planning a killing of his own and he’d built himself an alibi. His mistress would say he’d been with her all evening. Not a wonderful alibi, but he wasn’t a particularly clever man. So he drove down here to Watling, where he’d know the clubhouse and probably know that Abbott would be there alone. He parked the car up the farm lane and went to wait in the Dolomite, with all its windows open, and sat with his gun on his lap, waiting for your husband to walk out of the door and into his line of fire.’

  She shuddered. It cut through her. I could have got the gun then, but any sudden movement would have finished me. I’d had trouble saying: Trask’s.

  ‘But something went wrong for Colmore. He’d have to get back to the flat before eleven and it was an hour’s drive away. So he’d have to leave before ten. Maybe he’d laid it on for Miss … Marilyn to phone the clubhouse with some message luring Victor out at around nine-thirty. A message from her that you were in hospital, and he’d come running. But she couldn’t have done that. She was dead herself by eight minutes to nine. So … he waited, and nobody came out. Until … well, you can see what happened. There’d come a time when his alibi ran out, which’d be when it’d be too late to get back and catch that eleven o’clock taxi. And if he missed that … why, that’d be worse than no alibi at all. He’d have a taxi-driver willing to say that Colmore hadn’t been at the flat at eleven. You can even say when Colmore’s break point was … ten o’clock.’

  She smiled weakly. She’d worked it out and I agreed!

  ‘But with that time coming up he’d realize that he could work himself another alibi, one relying on the other end of the time scale. He could alibi himself by saying that he could not have reached Watling by the time your husband apparently died. And how could he do that, would you say?’ Gently … forcing her to respond.

  She whispered: ‘By putting back the clock to one minute to nine.’

  ‘Wonderful! Great!’ Lord, I was drunk. ‘And by climbing into the back seat, lining his gun up with his hand steadied on the front one and shooting that hour-hand into the dial. Ah, no worry that Victor might hear the shot — he was happily making banging noises himself. And then … maybe the car’s door-frame blocked his vision from there, but it’d be back into the front seat for him and all he had to do was wait. All the time in the world, now. Just wait. Then shoot Victor and set his body up in front of that shattered clock.’

  She was weeping now. I heard movement out of my range of vision, jerked the glass back angrily and lost my grip on it. It rolled across the floor. ‘Wait!’ They were still. There was more.

  ‘But what of Victor, Bella? Don’t you think he might have been warned?’ Her head came up. ‘Dulcie guessed Colmore was acting strangely. She said she didn’t follow him to the flat, but she must have done. She saw him leave there. No gun-case. She’d know what he intended — and she’d phone the clubhouse. She said she phoned. And Victor … he could’ve seen Colmore out there in his car and he could do nothing about it. Phone the police? But think what that’d start — and all of it would upset you! Never! So he’d wait. Colmore wouldn’t dare to enter the place. Victor would wait until … well, what happened at ten, Bella? A young man burst into the clubhouse. He now claims he’d seen Colmore shot. So maybe he saw exactly that … him being shot. Which’d explain why Victor couldn’t make sense of what he was saying and, as he was waving that stupid gun, Victor jumped to the wrong conclusion. And shot off his ear-lobe.’

  Her head up, tears welling, but a vague smile.

  ‘You can imagine! That lad’d be out of there fast and, as he attracted no bullet, Victor would go after him. And then he’d find Colmore dead. And that … ’ I took a very deep breath. ‘And that is my report.’ I felt stunned, beaten.

  ‘Remember, Bella … remember what Victor asked us to prove? That he had not left the clubhouse between eight and ten that evening! That I have just proved. He could not have done and remained alive.’

  She collapsed straight forward out of that chair on her face. Abbott was past me, kneeling beside her. Messingham was scooping up the gun. I was past caring. Dave shook my shoulder.

  ‘George, you can’t leave it there.’

  ‘You can’t be that slow, Dave! D’you think Dulcie’d leave it at a warning phone call? No. She’d go up to that flat and force it out of that blasted female, what Colmore intended. And she’d shoot her with the automatic she’d brought with her. Perhaps in fury, perhaps because Marilyn might still be able to persuade Abbott out of that clubhouse if she was left alive. I dunno.’ I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Let’s get out of here. I need air.’

  We reached open air. I sat down in the porch again. The air was sweet and clean. My voice went on and he listened.

  ‘And Dulcie would drive down here in the Cortina, taking it out exactly how she told me she could have done, and she shot Charles-bleedin’-Colmore through the side window. Remember, Abbott said his head was turned sideways. You’ll find a spent bullet in that clubhouse wall. Len saw it done. He told her he’d seen it done, and of course he followed her back to Bentley Hall, not me. And Abbott … Abbott ran out and found Dulcie there.’

  Dave paced, thought a while. Then, at last:

  ‘So tonight, believing Abbott had fixed an alibi for her, she drove here on purpose to crash the Cortina into the back of the Dolomite — to provide the linking evidence.’

  ‘That’s stupid, Dave. She drove down to hide the damage to the Cortina. It’d be all they could think of, there in the car-park of the clubhouse, to drive one into the back of the other and then agree to say that it happened at Parkway. That was an emergency alibi and she saw, by the time Abbott produced it, that it was simply proving him a liar. She drove down to hide the damage in a real smash into his car.’

  ‘Oh Lord!’ He was fiddling with his pipe. ‘But you didn’t say anything about this in there.’

  ‘What good would it’ve done, Dave? Let it lie.’

  He looked at me with uncertainty. ‘Let me clean up here, then I’ll drive you home. You look rotten, George.’

  Somehow I got to my feet. ‘No. I’ve got to get to the hospital.’

  I didn’t tell him that I wanted to apologise to Dulcie. I hadn’t done much for her in the end. I wanted to explain why. So I headed for the Sceptre and fumbled into the drivi
ng seat.

  But I’d wasted too much time talking.

  If you enjoyed One Deathless Hour check out Endeavour Press’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

  For weekly updates on our free and discounted eBooks sign up to our newsletter.

  Follow us on Twitter and Goodreads.