The Skeleton in the Clock

games, he'd buy it for you before the words were out of your mouth.'

Ricky dismissed this. 'No; I was thinking about Mother. That swine of a lawyer must have said something… no, he couldn't have! Ruth swore he didn't upset her, and Ruth's as honest as the Bank of England. Never mind. What did you want to know?'

'I want to know,' roared H.M., 'the colour of the beach-chairs.'

At this particular point the roof-door in the corner opened. Chief Inspector Masters, wearing a bowler hat and carrying the brief-case, overheard the last words as he stepped out on the roof.

'Goddelmighty,' said Masters, very softly and wearily.

'By the way,' H.M. told Ricky. 'This weasel is the Chief Inspector I was telling you about Don't pay any attention to him.'

Ricky, though considerably more impressed by Scotland Yard than he could ever have been impressed by H.M, nevertheless turned back.

'You mean — the beach-chairs then?'

'Yes! Not this chromium stuff now. Do you remember?'

'Ho! Do I remember!' snorted Ricky. 'The old lot stayed here from the early days practically to the time I was at Cambridge.'

'Well? Colours?'

'The beach-chairs were striped green and black. There was a combination of settee and wicker chairs, also striped green and black.'

'What about the floor?'

'It was painted dull grey, like the chimneys then.' 'Nothing pink?'

'Pink? No; not unless it was carried up here like a coat or something.'

H.M.'s expression grew murderous. 'Looky here, son. I'm not doubtin' your word, but it was a long time ago. Can anybody verify what you say?'

Ricky considered.

'Miss Upton — no, she left two years later and they pensioned her off. MacAndrews, the gardener and handyman? No: Crawshay! Crawshay was the butler. Nobody has a butler nowadays except Grandmother Brayle. But he still lives at Reading; Mother can give you his address. And he'll tell you it's gospel truth!'

'Very interesting, sir,' Masters observed satirically, to the surrounding air. 'Are we getting on the track of that pink flash at last?'

H.M. stood for a moment, blinking. Then he turned round and lumbered towards the front of the roof, standing at the very edge. Masters, on the spot, could see the impossibility of anyone attacking Sir George Fleet in that fifty feet square beyond the chimneys of what had been bare concrete.

H.M. faced front, his feet apart and his bald head glistening. Then he turned round. His mouth was open.

'What a cuckoo I've been!' he breathed in a hollow voice. 'Oh, my eye! What a thundering dunce!'

Now Masters had heard this tone before. And Masters, even with his mind made up, started a little. Both he and Ricky joined H.M. at the edge.

'Do you mean—?'

'No, no, dammit! I'm not quite on to something yet But there were two pieces in the evidence I was forgetting. Was there anything white on the roof?'

Masters and Ricky exchanged glances. 'No,' the latter said, 'unless—'

'Unless, as before,' growled Masters, 'somebody carried it up'

'Y’see, I was forgetting that very bright-glowin' and lurid red sky everybody commented on. It might make something white seem pink, if only…'

Again H.M. paused.

'Also,' he plodded on doggedly, 'I had the whole conception and direction maybe a bit scrambled. I'll admit fully and with a spit that it's still an impossible crime. But look across at the pub there!'

'Ah, ah. Well?”

'Our witness named Simon Frew, the one with the powerful binoculars, was sittin' astride the centre gable. Just opposite us. Now Arthur Puckston, with the brass telescope: where was he?'

Masters pointed to their left

'Astride the north gable. There!'

'That's right. Therefore he was lookin' sideways. Sideways.' H.M. ruminated, like an ogre with a bone. 'And there was nobody on the south gable. And… y'see, Masters, I didn't like Puckston's testimony one little bit He didn't like George Fleet either.'

Masters gestured impatiently with the brief-case. 'I told you there wasn't much in that! Sir George thought a pub across from his house was undignified and spoiled the view. But he couldn't even get Puckston's license revoked by the magistrates, let alone snaffle the land by some legal…' '

'Legal, hey?'

'Maybe you've heard the word, sir?'

'Once or twice. That's what Stannard was do’in’ here on the day it happened, as sure as Moses had a beard.' H.M. nodded vaguely. 'Finally, you were goin' to tell me something more about George Fleet's field-glasses, only you didn't'

'For the last time,' Masters said with powerful restraint 'there was NOTHING wrong with those field-glasses. They fell on the grass and weren't broken. Bert Hartshorn, the constable, took them into the house only a second or two after the gentleman fell. No murderous devices. No—'

'H.M. turned to Ricky. 'What about you?'

I didn't see them,' retorted Ricky. 'I…' He told his story briefly, much as he had told it to Martin and Jenny. 'All these years the thing has seemed perfectly simple. Now you've got it so tangled up I don't understand it myself. Field-glasses, for instance.'

'Pink flashes,' amplified Masters. 'Skeletons in clocks. God's truth!'

'I want to know what's wrong with Mother,' persisted Ricky. There were lines of strain drawn from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. The powerful hands and wrists dug into the pockets of his sports-coat 'I'm released from a marriage-obligation, or I'd hoped so; but am I released? Then this expedition to the prison tonight…'

'What expedition to the prison?' H.M. asked sharply.

They had all, by instinct, gone to the middle of the roof at its edge. Now, also by instinct, they moved back towards the furniture of darkened chromium and orange canvas.

At the rear of the roof, the staircase-door opened. Martin, somewhat drawn of face but with a gleam in his eyes, walked quickly towards them. Ricky signalled, 'What did you find out?' and Martin signalled back, 'Tell you later.'

'You—' H.M. pointed his finger at Martin—'were shouting some gibberish about an execution shed, now I remember. What's this game tonight? All of it?'

Martin told him.

'I see,' commented H.M., keeping an indecipherable poker-face. 'Resistin' the powers of darkness and cryin', 'Ho!' All right You two just nip downstairs, will you. Masters and I have got to have a little causerie. Don't argue, bum it! Hustle!'

Presently the staircase-door closed behind Martin and Ricky. It was very quiet on the roof, though a very faint murmur of voices floated from the Dragon's Rest All about them the countryside, dark-green and somnolent called a visitor to lounge and drowse from worry. All that is, except Pentecost Prison.

'Masters,' said H.M., 'we've got to stop this 'expedition.''

The Chief Inspector, though uneasy and no longer satirical, remained practical

'We can't stop it,' he pointed out 'If they've got permission from the Ministry, there's nothing anybody can do.'

H.M. lifted both fists. 'Then we got to… stop a bit! What do you know about the inside of this jail?'

'Not much. We got the wire, a year or two ago it was, that Shag Fairlie was hiding out there. Remember when Shag broke Dartmoor? But it wasn't true.'

''Storage purposes.' What have they got stored in the place?'