The Skeleton in the Clock shm-18

by John Dickson Carr

  "In a pig's eye I could."

  "But the feller was my own ancestor, curse it! His picture's the spittin' image of me. And I've just got a book on swordsmanship. And," added H.M., suddenly drawing himself up and glaring at his companion with awful dignity, "are we goin' to get on about Sir George Fleet, or aren't we?"

  Masters shut his eyes, counted ten, and opened them again. There was a brief silence, under the ghost-clock and in the room of sporting prints. Then Masters went on.

  "The gardener," he said, "told him the hunt was coming. So he picked up a pair of field-glasses, and started up for the roof. Now the only way to the roof is through a covered door at the very back, or west side, of the roof.

  "Sir George walked straight to the front of the roof, a position just about over the front door below. He raised the field-glasses, and focussed them. It seems there was a lurid kind of red sky behind him, but it was clear light Now get this, sir. The chimney-stacks were fifty feet behind him. He was alone on a concrete floor, without anybody or any object within fifty feet of him."

  Masters paused. He riffled over several pages, flattening them down with his fist.

  "Stop the bus again," muttered H.M. "What about the field-glasses? I seem to remember readin' a story where there was hokey-pokey with field-glasses, and they stuck somebody in the eye."

  Masters was now cat-like and bland. "The fact is, sir, I thought you might bring that up. The glasses were just plain field-glasses, as you'll hear in a moment Accept that?"

  "Uh-huh. Go on.?

  "Our real evidence," Masters continued, "comes from six witnesses on this side of the road. Two of these witnesses," he pointed upwards, "were sitting astride the gable-tops of this pub. And these two witnesses are clinchers.

  "The Ascombe Hunt is disbanded now. But in those days, it seems, everybody hereabouts was keen about it. It beats me to know why. You'd think it'd make country people read as hops to have a lot of horses and dogs tearing over private property and mucking it up. But they tell me it didn't These six men, they were down in the bar. They heard about the kafuffle coming just about when Sir George did. And up they went

  "Our two chief witnesses are Arthur Puckston and Simon Frew. Mr. Puckston, who's still the landlord here, was astride one gable with an old brass telescope that belongs to the house. Simon Frew had a pair of big new binoculars he was very proud of.

  This pub's on high ground, air. From the top you can see straight over and across Fleet House, covering the roof. During this time there was an unholy row in the wood. First one dog—"

  "HOUND."

  "— started to yell, then another, then a lot more, and before long: smack out they came from Black Hanger, tearing across in the open. Now listen to what Simon Frew said, when he was astride the middle gable with his binoculars. All this question-and-answer stuff has to be polished up and made smooth into a statement But here you are."

  Again Masters smoothed put the turnover pages with his fist

  "'The field—'" he began, and stopped. "This 'field,’ it'd seem, would mean the gents in the red coats."

  "I got it son. Well?"

  Masters read slowly.

  The field had just started to come round the far side of Black Hanger, almost facing us. It is a good distance away there and on higher ground than us. I put my glasses on them. The first few men were smiling and waving their hands. They seemed to be waving straight in my face. I knew it could not be me. So I turned my glasses round.

  "Towards Fleet House," Masters interpolated grimly. "About three hundred feet that's all."

  Sir George was there. I could see all round him. He had his glasses to his eyes in one hand, and was waving with the other. Then it looked like somebody gave him a hard shove in the back. He stood there for a second. He shouted. He fell head-first I did not follow him with the glasses because I was too surprised. I just kept looking round to see who could have pushed him.

  It was a shorn statement Yet Martin Drake, had he been there, would have seen the red sky with the silhouetted figure, and scented the autumn air, and sensed the rush and crash.

  "I won't trouble you," Masters said drily, "with what you know. But just to hammer it home, sir! A bit of what Puckston said, the man with the telescope. His attention was caught by this yell Sir George gave."

  And then spoke Mr. Puckston.

  I looked round. I saw something pitch over the little ledge, but it was so quick I did not see what it was. I looked all over the roof, but did not see anybody or anything. I looked down. Sir George was lying there, and something was wrong with his head. Dr. Laurier ran out of the front door. Bert Hartshorn—

  "Bert," Masters explained, "was the constable. He'd been at the pub, but naturally he (hurruml) couldn't climb on the roof."

  — Bert Hartshorn was coming up to the terrace. Dr. Laurier said something, and Bert picked up Sir George's binoculars and walked into the house. Dr. Laurier said something else, and Lady Brayle came out with some kind of cloth. I said aloud, 'The bastard is dead.'

  To Masters it was one more case, with nothing more of drama than a blueprint He closed the blue folder.

  "There's more of Puckston," he explained. "And four others who were lower down in between the gables. But it needn't trouble us. Eh?"

  H.M. groaned.

  "Let's sew it up," suggested Masters. "The 'little ledge' Puckston talks about is a stone coping, just six inches high, which runs round the whole roof. You agree nobody could have hidden there? Or, if we accept the witnesses, attacked a big powerful man without some kind of struggle?"

  "Uh-huh. I'm afraid I got to agree.’’

  "You admit the fact that the roof was as bare as a biscuit-tin.”

  "Well..”

  "Sir George's injuries, for instance.’' Masters remained affable and bland, if anything more affable. "They were to the head, the arms, and one shoulder. That's not unusual, when somebody pitches from a comparatively low height There wasn't another fracture or another mark on him. Not even," Masters lingered on the word, "a bruise.’’

  H.M. made fussed motions.'

  "Don't leer. Masters. I hate leerin’. What's on your mind?"

  "You were going to ask, weren't you, whether there was a bruise? Whether something might have been thrown or fired at him? Eh?"

  H.M. only grunted.

  "If it hit him hard enough to knock him over the edge," Masters pointed but "it must have left a mark or a bruise. But it didn't Finally, there's the evidence of the post-mortem."

  Reaching with infinite effort into his hip pocket H.M. fished out a case of his vile cigars and lighted one with relish. He seemed to have little relish for anything else.

  "There was a possibility, just a bare possibility," Masters goaded him, "that somebody might have given him a drug— poison, event — to make his head swim so he fell But there was no drug, no poison, nothing."

  "As I understand it Masters, the post-mortem was performed by old Dr. Laurier. The family friend So! Was there anybody assistin’ him at the post-mortem? To sort of look on?"

  Masters grinned.

  "As a matter of fact, there was. A doctor from Newbury. I forget his name, but it's in the record. He confirmed the finding."

  "O tempore," said H.M. "O mores. Oh, hell!"

  Masters rubbed his hands together.

  "Here's your victim," he explained, "on a concrete floor with no person or thing within fifty feet of him. He wasn't pushed. He had nothing thrown at him. He wasn't drugged in any way. What happened to him?"

  "Son, I just don't know."

  "You bet you don't But I can tell you. Sir George was a man over forty, who'd just climbed some long flights of stairs. He got excited waving to the hunt; he came over dizzy, as anybody might; and he fell. Do you still want to know the colour of the beach-chairs?'

  "Sure I do," retorted H.M. instantly, taking the cigar out of his mouth. "What's the pink flash?" "Pink flash?"

  "Certainly. See the second anonymous postcard on the table in front
of you. Quote: Re Sir George Fleet: what was the pink flash on the roof? Go on, Masters: say it's a pink rat and I ought to be makin' faces at it"

  "But there's not a word about a pink flash in any of this evidence!"

  "No," returned H.M., "and there's not one word about a skeleton-clock either. But you'll find one standing just behind you."

  Masters strode over to the middle of the room, where he jingled coins in his pocket

  "This chap Puckston," mused H.M. "I didn't realize he was still the licensee here. By that statement, he didn't seem to like Fleet much."

  "There's nothing to that," Masters snorted. "It was only…"

  Whether by coincidence, or at mention of the name, there was a discreet tap at the door to the bar. The door opened, to reveal the Puckston family: father, mother, and daughter.

  To a befuddled Martin Drake, Arthur Puckston had been little more than a name and a voice. He was, in fact a lean man with a freckled bald head, a harassed but conscientious smile; tall but stooped, with stringy powerful arms. Mrs. Norma Puckston, though stoutened and rosy, had fine black hair and was not unattractive. Miss Puckston, dark-haired and sixteen years old, was not unattractive either.

  "I 'ate to disturb you, gentlemen," said Mr. Puckston, making an apologetic motion. "But it's five minutes to opening-time, and… well, do you really want this parlour for a private room?"

  "We sure do, son," H.M. assured him. "If that's convenient?"

  "Oh, it's convenient. But I shall 'ave to charge you a good bit extra. This being Saturday night and other things. Even for the police.."

  Three pairs of eyes surreptitiously watched Masters.

  "Well, well!" said Masters, suddenly urbane and in his most cheerful manner. "How would you have learned I was a police-officer, now?"

  "Things," said Mr. Puckston thoughtfully, "get about" He glanced up. "You ought to know that" H.M. intervened.

  "He's a copper, son. But he won’t bother you. Ill see to that Anything else?"

  "Well, sir. If you wouldn't mind keeping the doors locked and the curtains drawn? It's that clock. You told me you were going to take the skeleton out…" Puckston's voice trailed away; his throat seemed to be constricted.

  "Yes, I see your point," nodded H.M., taking several puffs of his (to others) venomous cigar. "You think it might put the customers off their beer if they saw me sittin' here with a skeleton on my lap like a ventriloquist's dummy?"

  Miss Enid Puckston suddenly giggled, and was shushed by a look from her mother. The father, for some reason, took the girl's face between his hands.

  "I'll be careful," H.M. promised. Behind smoke and spectacles, his eyes had taken on a faraway look; "I don't want to be chucked out of here. I'm always being chucked out of places, though bum me if I can think why. This is a fine old house, this is. Antiques, and real antiques."

  "Oh, yes!" cried Mrs. Puckston in one gush. "Arthur always tries to—"

  The doors of the Dragon's Rest, unlike those of most pubs, were solid and close-fitting. Little could be heard through them unless you bent close. But now, from beyond the closed door to the far bar-parlour, arose a sudden babble of angry voices, all clamouring together. One voice, a man's, clove through the tumult.

  "I can't do it, I tell you! What’s more, I won't!"

  H.M. abruptly snatched the cigar out of his mouth.

  "That sounded like young Drake." His own big voice boomed out. "Does anybody know who's there with him?"

  It was the dark-haired and well-spoken Enid who answered.

  "Lady Jennifer, sir. And Mr. Richard Fleet And a lady from Fleet House; I don't, know her. And Dr. Laurier."

  "So!" grunted H.M., and surged to his feet "That's a combination I don't like." And, with his white linen suit rucked up and the gold watch-chain swinging across his corporation, he lumbered towards the door and opened it

  The heat of strained feelings was as palpable in the other room as its atmosphere of beer and old stone. But except for Martin Drake, it was now empty. Martin stood by the stove, his dark eyebrows drawn together and the green eyes enraged. H.M., after giving him a dismal look, lumbered over to peer out of the open door into the road.

  Some distance to the left along the Dragon's Rest Jenny was detaching a bicycle from the ivy and steadfastly refusing to look round. A light-haired young man in a sports-coat had just opened the central gate in the wall round Fleet House. Sauntering, her head high, a girl in a grey silk frock walked in the same direction. Though there was no visible sign of Dr. Laurier, you could hear a car-motor start up close at hand.

  It had been a swift, decisive exodus. The emotional echoes still swung like bells inside your head. H.M., the corners of his mouth turned down, turned and surveyed Martin.

  "You been havin' a good time?" he demanded.

  "Listen, sir," Martin began. He paused for a few seconds, and tried again more calmly. "Yesterday, before Jenny and I left Willaby's, we told you pretty well everything."

  "You did, son. Well?"

  "But you didn't hear about the execution shed. You didn't hear—" Again Martin stopped. "Women!" he added, with one savage and sweeping gesture.

  Then, shouting something, he also plunged out through the open door.

  Chapter 7

  Martin had slowed his run to a walk before he reached the central gate of Fleet House.

  Well to the north and well to the south in the low stone wall there was a wide iron gate through which a gravelled carriage-drive curved up to the front terrace and returned to the road again like the arc of a bow. In the middle of the wall there was a smaller central gate; from it a narrower path, between lines of trees, ran straight up to the terrace like an arrow to the bow.

  Martin, his footsteps rasping on gravel, overtook Ruth Callice just as she reached the terrace. Ricky had already hurried inside to see his mother. This terrace was only a broad stretch of flagstones, with four shallow flagstoned steps leading up to it Ruth hesitated at the top, and turned round at his call.

  "Ruth!"

  "Yes?"

  He stood at the foot of the steps, looking up at her. Her softly rounded face had that clear-flesh tint he associated with youth and health. The dark-brown eyes were inquiring.

  "Martin," she smiled, "you needn't apologize." Her expression grew whimsical. "I've been yelled at so often in my business career, especially by men, that I hardly notice it"

  "I haven’t come to apologize, Ruth. For the first time since I’ve known you, I think you ought to be put over a convenient knee and walloped."

  Ruth's colour receded to pallor, and slowly returned,

  "I won't quarrel with you, Martin."

  "As a second point of fact, I didn't yell at you."

  "You were fairly audible, dear. And please remember only what I said. I merely reminded you of your promise. Whereupon you and Jenny and Dr. Laurier began arguing as to whether or not it was a good thing to go ghost-hunting. All I said in the whole discussion was: would you come and see John Stannard before you decided. Then you yelled at me."

  That's why I'm here. To see Stannard."

  He ran up the four steps and faced her. Round and above him stretched that white, and still cold, face of Fleet House. Four smallish Corinthian pillars were set flush into the facade, two on each side of the broad front door. Except for a small close-in balcony on each of the windows above, these were the only ornamentation. Eight windows on the ground floor, eight windows on the floor above, eight smaller windows on a smaller floor above.

  Very high ceilings in the rooms, too. High, breathing cold like a prison! This Martin noted somewhere at the back of his mind as he ran up the steps.

  "Jenny…" he began.

  Ruth laughed. "Jenny thinks I've been your mistress for years and years. Isn't it exquisitely silly?" '

  "Not if she thinks so. Look here: if you knew who 'Jenny’ was for all this time, why didn't you tell me?"

  "Perhaps I had my reasons." A pause. "Perhaps I still have them." Another pause. "Perhaps I
’ll tell you tonight"

  "Oh, no, you won't I—"

  "Aren't you forgetting something?" Ruth asked sharply. "Forgetting what?"

  That I was the one who arranged for us to stay here? That I was the one who deliberately arranged to throw you and Jenny together?"

  This, it occurred to him, was true. It checked him in mid-flight while Ruth smiled.

  "Oh, Martin!" Her tone softened. "We've been such good —’’ the trailing of the voice implied 'friends.' She put out her hand, and he took it "Now let's go in and see John Stannasd!"

  "Where is he?"

  Ruth nodded to wards the second two of the four windows to the left of the front door.

  "In the library. Cicely, I'm sorry to say, hasn’t been very well You may not meet her yet",

  "Tell me, Ruth. Do you know anything about what happened here nearly twenty years ago?"

  "Yes. Almost everything."

  With a common impulse they glanced over their shoulders. In the middle of the gravel path, down towards the gate, stood Sir Henry Merrivale. But he did not see them. H.M.'s fists were on his hips, his big bald head raised; and he was glaring with malignancy at something which appeared to be just over their heads.

  Martin, looking up, could see mi thing except the white-painted iron frame, crossing near the tops of the Corinthian columns, and folding flat a large old-fashioned awning, coloured orange. It could be let down to shade a long space before the front door. Then Ruth hurried him into the cool, sot to say chilly, front hall. But her hand suddenly fell on his arm, warning him to say nothing as they saw what was ahead.

  Fleet House had been built in the very early nineteenth century, in that pseudo-Greek classicism which began with the French Revolution and was continued by Bonaparte. The wide, dim hall had at its far end an arched window. A staircase had been built against that wall, sideways as Martin and Ruth faced it

  A little way up the stairs, outlined against the tall arched window, stood Aunt Cicely. Just below her was Ricky, asking questions. They were oblivious to any newcomers.