The Skeleton in the Clock

vile. There's one excuse,' her eyes looked at him oddly, 'that perhaps helps, and I've got to tell you soon. But Ruth had got me absolutely furious. Then, when I saw you running across the road after her…'

He ended her rush of speech in the appropriate way, which was an effective way. At the back of his mind it occurred to him that he wouldn't just yet tell Jenny about that small brush with Ruth last night Presently, of course! But not just yet

Presently Jenny spoke.

'So I had to sneak out this morning and meet you. Otherwise,' she said happily, 'you'd have been ripping away or chartering a special plane or heaven knows what Where do you want to go now?'

'Anywhere you like. We might go and throw a bucket of water over your grandmother?'

'Martin! You mustn't…'

Jenny stopped. Suddenly she began to laugh, with such full infectiousness and delight that Martin joined in without knowing why..It warmed his heart to see this girl growing healthier and more exuberant at every minute, as though she had been let out of prison.

'If you think the idea is as funny as all that Jenny, it would be still better to use a fire-hose.'

'Wait!' cried Jenny, shaking all over and wiping the tears of joy from her eyes. 'Do you mean to say you haven't heard about the perfectly awful thing that happened last night? In the public road between the Dragon's Rest and the Manor?'

'No.'

'Well, Grandmother and Sir Henry Merrivale…' 'Godalive, don't tell me those two had another knock-down row?' 'Yes.'

'He threw a bucket of water over her, I suppose?'

'No, no, it wasn't anything like that.' Jenny, the wings of her yellow hair falling forward, pressed a hand over her mouth and began to shake again. He straightened up her shoulders. 'Darling,' she assured him, 'I shall be a perfect model of prim correctness. I've been trained to that You're at the Dragon, aren't you?'

'No; at Fleet House.'

'If you don't mind wading in wet grass, there's a wonderful short-cut over the fields.'

'We will roll and revel in the wet grass. Lead on.'

About them the white mist so muffled sight that even the prison was hardly visible twenty feet away. Sometimes the mist would drift past Jenny, obscuring her until the smiling face emerged. Their footsteps crunched in weedy gravel; once, on the edge of the gravel approach, Jenny hesitated.

'Good heavens, what about Mr. Stannard? What about everything?'

'Stannard,' he replied, 'is A-l. He'll be out in a minute, so let's go ahead. I saw no ghosts. In fact,' concluded Martin, telling one of the more remarkable lies of his life, 'there was practically no excitement. Let's hear about this row.'

The wet grass swished and soaked to their knees as they went down across an almost invisible field in the mist The shape of a tree swam dimly past, to be blotted out as though by magic. They walked happily, arm and hand linked; but Jenny was now frowning.

'You see,' she explained, 'Grandmother's now got the skeleton.'

'She's got… you mean the skeleton-clock?'

'Not the clock. Just the skeleton. Heaven alone knows why she wants it' Jenny bit her lip, 'or why anybody wants it. It all started very seriously. Grandmother had gone to visit Aunt Cicely, and got back home about a quarter to eight'

'Yes. I remember.'

'I was a bit uneasy when she got home. I shouldn't have been, and I won't be again. But I wondered what she'd say when she found I hadn't gone to visit Mr. and Mrs. Ives after all. She just looked at me in the oddest way—' Jenny hesitated—'as though it didn't matter. She said: 'Jennifer dear, I must think hard for five minutes.'

'Whenever she says that I know it means she's thinking about legal proceedings. Grandmother's got a passion for law suits. She's always trying to prove something from old documents of 1662, or things like that. I imagined she was thinking about the fair (you'll hear about it) that opens on Monday.

'Anyway, she came back in fifteen minutes looking grim and sort of triumphant. She made me sit down in a chair. She said: 'Jennifer, mark my words! The unspeakable Merrivale!’

(Martin could hear Lady Brayle saying it.) '—the unspeakable Merrivale,' Grandmother said, 'in the presence of no less than four witnesses, distinctly promised to give me the clock if I answered 'a few' questions. These questions I did answer, as the witnesses can testify.''

To Martin's memory returned a view of the library at Fleet House, with H.M. and Lady Brayle standing on either side of the desk like offenders in a magistrate's court He saw Ruth Stannard, Ricky and himself with their backs to the white marble mantelpiece.

'Jenny,’' he said, 'that's true. He did say so!'

'Anyway, I'm afraid I couldn't follow the legal lecture she gave me. Something about possession of the clock including possession of its contents: as, par example, and to wit, when it is sold at Willaby's with a skeleton inside. Then she called for Dawson to get out the electric car. Do you know what an electric car is?'

Martin reflected.

'I dimly remember having seen, or at least heard of one. It looked like a two-seater carriage with a dashboard, but no horses; nothing in front except the dashboard and a glass windscreen. You steered with a handle instead of a steering-wheel Yes! And it was used by stately ladies who didn't want to travel fast'

Jenny nodded.

'That's it exactly. Grandmother has one, and it still works. But it's never used except on very special occasions. I asked Grandmother what it meant, but she only smiled that peculiar smile and said I should understand in good time. What's more, she told Dawson she would drive herself, because she wanted me as a witness.

'It was broad daylight, not more than half-past eight. Along we went in the electric—'brougham’ Grandmother calls it— with Grandmother sitting bolt upright and never looking more grand, and me sitting bolt upright, eyes ahead, and feeling awful. We got as far as Fleet House, and then turned round in a graceful curve to the main bar of the Dragon's Rest.'

Martin Drake was beginning to taste ecstasy.

'Is that the one she usually patronizes?'

'Martin!' said Jenny. Her eyes belied her seraphic countenance.

'I beg your pardon. Go on.'

'Of course Grandmother wouldn't let me go in. She stationed me just outside the door. It was Saturday night, and they were pretty noisy. They're not supposed to sing, but the constable doesn't interfere much. A group in one corner were harmonizing on a pirate chantey with a refrain like, 'Skull and bones, skull and bones; ho, the Jolly Roger.' 'When Grandmother walked in, every man of them looked up as though he'd seen the hangman. But Grandmother loves—' Jenny's voice poured with bitterness—'how Grandmother loves being the lady of the manor. She raised her hand and said, ‘Please, my good men, be at ease.' Then she beckoned to poor Mr. Puckston.

'I couldn't hear much of what they were saying. Mr. Puckston seemed to be telling her the first bar-parlour was used as a private sitting-room by Sir Henry Merrivale, and H.M. was out, and the door was locked. Of course you can guess how Grandmother dealt with that Mr. Puckston unlocked the door, Grandmother went in; and in a minute Mr. Puckston followed her with a pair of wire-cutters.

'Then the door opened again. Out marched Grandmother, with the skeleton slung over her shoulder. The head was hanging down her back, and she had the legs in her hand.

'One poor old man, who must have been eighty, spilled a pint beer-glass straight into Miss Partridge's lap. Grandmother never stopped or looked round. She marched straight out to the brougham, sat the skeleton up in the seat like a passenger, and told me to get in.

'That's where the fireworks really started. As I was getting in, I looked round. In the middle of the road, about thirty feet behind us — well, there was Sir Henry.

'His eyes were bulging out behind his spectacles, and his whole corporation was shivering like a mountain. I