The Skeleton in the Clock

and surprisingly comfortable despite the humps of age in the floor.

Pulling back the thin white curtains at one window, he kept glancing across the road to where — some three hundred feet away — Fleet House raised its square, uncompromising face of white-painted stone. Being on higher ground, he could look across almost to the topmost row of windows. Over trees and clipped lawns, he could see a flagstone terrace before the front door.

Flagstones. That was probably where Sir George Fleet had…

Martin saw no sign of an ole black car. But someone was moving on the terrace, woman in a long filmy dress with a red sash and a broad straw sun-hat

And Martin yielded to temptation.

On a table beside his bed, with its spotlessly mended white counterpane, lay an old-fashioned brass telescope of the short and folding sort. He pulled out its few bands and focussed the end one. The image sprang up close and clear, just as the woman turned her head round and up. Aunt Cicely.

He remembered Jenny's soft voice: 'Aunt Cicely if kind. But she's so vague, though still very pretty.' The westering sun was in Martin's eyes, though the telescope shielded it. Aunt Cicely must be into her fifties. Yet she had an Edwardian air, Martin thought: the sort Sargent had painted so well. With her pale blonde hair under the broad sun-hat, face turned up, she seemed (through the telescope, at least) almost young and rather fragile.

Furthermore, she had recently been crying.

Martin shut up the telescope. What was the air of sheer coldness which seemed to breathe out of Fleet House? Probably his professional imagination. But…

This situation was getting to be damned awkward. He had not seen Ruth or John Stannard. But then he had not seen H.M. or Masters either, though the landlord told him they had booked rooms. Half-past two and a quarter to three.

It was past four, the cigarette-tray full of stubs, before he made a guess which he should have made before. He hurried down, fumbled with the small, 'phone-directory, and rang Brayle Manor.

If grandma came to the ‘phone? All right! But it was a male voice which answered, evidently a butler.

'Is Mr. Richard Fleet there?'

'Yes, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?'

Martin spoke deliberately. 'This,' he said, 'is an enemy. Tell Mr. Fleet that an enemy is waiting for him at the Dragon's Rest to give him a message of great importance.'

If young Fleet had an ounce of sporting blood in his body, Martin thought, that ought to fetch him. He expected further questions. But the unruffled voice merely said, 'One moment, please.' And then, after a long minute, 'Mr. Fleet will be with you immediately.'

Got it!

At this hour of the day, the whole inn was so quiet that you could hear the wainscot creak. Mr. and Mrs. Puckston must be enjoying their afternoon nap. The Dragon's Rest had three front doors, one in each gable. As Martin unlocked the first one, which was in the saloon bar, the snap of the key sounded like an act of guilt

Moving on to the first bar-parlour, on his right, Martin unlocked the front door there. This was a cosy room, its walls thickly hung with sporting prints and with quite genuine antique hunting horns of the early nineteenth century. Somewhat decaying leather chairs stood at the tables, and at either side of the black marble mantelpiece.

Then Martin turned round, and saw the skeleton in the clock.

The clock stood in the angle of the wall, south-east, beyond the mantelpiece. It was about six feet high, including its platform-base, and of dark polished wood elaborately wrought at the top. Through a round glass dial, with gilt numerals and hands, the skull-face looked out

And the clock was ticking.

No! Wait a minute! It couldn’t be ticking. The clock-case had another glass panel, oblong, so that you could see the skeleton behind a brass pendulum: which was motionless.

The illusion had been produced by a large square metal-cased clock, with a small pendulum, on the mantelpiece. Its slow tick-tick animated the hush of an atmosphere flavoured with the smell of beer and old stone. But the tall clock said nothing.

Yet it gave the watcher a slight start, the skull face a smug look in its dusky recess. Martin was conscious of golden shine lying through the windows behind him, of Fleet House across the road in its aloofness. He went over to examine the clock. As he had expected, the oblong lower panel opened on little hinges. He peered inside, he peered up.

With finewires, and a heavier wire drilled into the head, the skeleton had been fastened to the back of the case; its feet and ankles partly concealed by a wooden fitting evidently designed to help the upright position. The clock-hands, like the pendulum, were dummies held by screw and spindle. You could adjust them to any position you liked. The hands now stood at ten minutes past twelve.

Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick.

Richard Fleet would be here at any moment

Martin drew back his head and closed the glass panel. How this reminder of mortality had got there he did not know. And it didn't matter.

He went through another door into the second bar-parlour. Dominated by a large iron stove rather than the usual fireplace, full of wicker chairs, this room was distinctly a comedown from the first Nevertheless, Martin unlocked its front door. He had just turned the key when distantly, from the saloon-bar two rooms away, that particular door opened.

A voice called, 'Martin!” He heard light, quick, running footsteps in tennis-shoes. And in the doorway of the second parlour, breathing hard, stood Jenny.

She wore a white tennis-blouse and white shorts, with a light pullover thrown over her shoulders. With her yellow hair somewhat tumbled, the colour of exertion tinted her face to more than mere prettiness. He stared at her.

'How did you get here?'

'On my bike.' Choking a little to get her breath, she made a gesture towards the outside of the inn. 'Darling, why did you send that message about being an enemy?' ' 'I had to get him here somehow.'

'Grandmother was in the room when you rang up.'

‘Yes. I thought she might be.'

'You hadn't said three words to Dawson before grandmother said: That is Captain Drake, I suppose.’ Ricky said, 'Who's Captain Drake?' Grandmother said nothing at all. She just picked up her knitting and walked out of the room. Then I had to tell Ricky it was only a joke, but it war terribly serious. Afterwards I got old Riddle to insist the front tire of Ricky's car needed air — which it did — so I could get here before him.'

'But you don't want to be present while we have it out, do you?'

Jenny's breathing was still quick. But the blue eyes regarded him steadily.

'If you want me. to,' she answered, 'I'll stay here. I promise that. But I don't want to. I don't want… oh, God, no!' She shuddered. 'The trouble is, you see, that I've got to know what happens. Just as soon as it happens.' Jenny spread out her hands. 'I'm sorry. That's how I feel.'

That's how a lot of us feel Jenny! Do you still—?'

This was when they heard the loud cranking of a motor-car, emphasized by a loose mud-guard, approaching and drawing up outside the south wing. Once more the door of the saloon-bar, after a tentative rattle at its knob, was opened. Martin motioned Jenny (confound this sense of guilt!) to go.out by the second-parlour door to the road.

'Hoy there!' called a male voice. 'Hullo!'

Footsteps scuffled, hesitated, tramped through one room and then through two. In the doorway, inquiringly, appeared a tallish young man in sports coat flannels, and with a blue tie skewered under one wing of his soft collar.

His mop of dark-blond hair was uncombed and unruly. He was on the lean and muscular side, carrying himself well. But first of all you noticed the quality of good-humour, which was

so genome that it flowed from him and made friends immediately. His grey eyes, his bump of a chin, made it a strong face as well as a good-humoured face.

'Well,' he said, 'are you the enemy?'