The Skeleton in the Clock

Chapter 12

We talk with scorn of prophetic instincts. Martin felt one then, as sharp as the twinge from a bad heart; but, like the mist-movings, it drifted away and was lost in an instant.

'Still alive?' he repeated, and laughed. 'Is there any reason why I shouldn't be alive?'

'We-el!' smiled Masters, with a tolerant and amused wave of his hand. 'As you described it to Sir Henry and me, this execution shed business was to be a swell affair. But you don't seem to be hanged by the neck or snuffed out by any ghost, do you?'

Martin, studying him, saw that Masters had the appearance of a man who has walked hard to keep just ahead of somebody. In addition to his reddish eyelids, there were certain familiar dust-stains on the blue serge which had not quite been erased by a handkerchief or the mist-damp.

'Chief Inspector,' he said, 'were you at that prison too?'

'We-el!' said Masters, as though he debated this himself. That's a very interesting question, sir. I might have been, and then again I might not have been.' He drew closer, confidentially. The fact is, a minute ago I heard you two saying something about a skeleton and a clock.'

'Please don't start to browbeat me,' begged Jenny. 'Go and see my grandmother.'

'Browbeat? Now, miss!' Masters was reproachful. He grew more confidential, like a Balkan diplomat. 'I'll just tell you something about that skeleton, if you like. It wasn't Sir George Fleet'

Jenny's eyes opened. 'Who on earth ever said it was?'

'Still miss, one or two people seem to have got the idea.' His eye swung towards Martin. 'What about you, sir?'

'It did occur to me, yes. But not very seriously.'

'Oh, ah. And that's right Yesterday evening at the police-station, we got a message from London. From a supply-firm that keeps records as far back as the Flood, it'ud seem. Dr. Pierre Laurier, the old one who's dead, bought the skeleton as an anatomical specimen in 1912.

'Also last night, before he went to join you on the (hurrum!) ghost-hunt, Sir Henry and I talked with ‘young' Dr. Hugh Laurier, who's forty-eight years old. Lives just outside the town-limits of Brayle.'

This was after the Ben-Hur chariot-race, I gather?' Martin asked.

Masters frowned at him slightly, and addressed Jenny..

'Dr. Hugh, miss, told us all about it. When it became (hurrum!) — well, what you might call not fashionable to have skeletons hanging about in doctors' offices, his father put it away in a cupboard. It wasn't till shortly before his death in 1936, when he was old and maybe a bit fanciful, that this Pierre Laurier… was he French, miss?'

'Yes. His name was formerly De Laurier. That means,' Jenny spoke wearily, 'he was a nobleman, and Grandmother simply— Never mind. And the Fleets! He was supposed to have a hopeless passion for Aunt Cicely.'

Masters made a broad wave of the hand.

'Anyway, miss, the old doctor with the beard took this skeleton, and put it in a clock after he'd taken the works out, and stuck it up in his back parlour as a kind of… kind of…'

'Memento mori' suggested Martin.

Masters considered this.

'Oh, ah. Just so. If that means what I think it does. Like the people who put up sun-dials with a motto, 'It is later than you think.''

'It is later than you think.' Yes, Martin had heard that before. When Masters leaned towards Jenny, his head suddenly emerged out of a mist-wreath like a fatherly Spanish Inquisitor.

'Now come, miss!' he urged persuasively. 'That's the living truth. And there's no harm in anything; I'll take my oath to it. Why does her ladyship, your good grandmother, want to cause a lot of unnecessary fuss and bother? Just why does she want the thing anyway? Eh?'

'If it comes to that' said Martin, instantly putting a guard between Jenny and Masters, 'why do you want it yourself?'

'Ah! I'm afraid that'd be Official Secrets, sir.'

'But there was nothing secret about why Lady Brayle wanted it: as a present for Dr. Hugh Laurier. She was bidding for it at Willaby's, until H.M. topped her. Afterwards he gave it to her. That's all.'

'Is it, now?' Masters asked affably. 'Then why did she take the skeleton alone? And not the clock?'

Too late Martin saw the flaw in his argument But Masters dismissed the matter.

'What I really wanted to say,' he declared, this also being a lie, 'was I've got lost in this ruddy mist. How can I get back to the Dragon?'

This is a landmark,’’ Jenny assured him, putting her hand on the fence. 'Follow this, no matter how far it seems to go, and you'll come to the main road. Then turn right and follow the main road. You cant miss it'

'Well, now, miss, I'm much obliged!' Masters' fatherly heartiness was overpowering. 'The fence, eh? Not a countryman myself.' His look at Martin was almost a sardonic wink. 'Good day to you!' He followed the line of the fence a few feet; then turned round.

'By the way, Mr. Drake. Have you got the time?' '

'It's getting on towards five.'

'Ah!' Masters shook his head regretfully. 'Pity! Bit too early to wake up Dr. Laurier. I wanted to know whether that blood on the dagger is human blood.'

'What blood?' cried Jenny.

But Masters, at the deliberate walk he had never lost since he was a policeman on a beat, had disappeared into the mist Jenny's eyes asked Martin the same question.

'It's a joke,' he growled. Like other things, he had forced the matter of that dagger out of his consciousness; shut the lid on it. 'Just some horseplay at the prison. That fellow,' he snarled, 'was only trying to scare you when he didn't know a thing. Let's forget it'

They climbed the fence, navigated several ditches, and walked for some time in silence when his words seemed to ring with vibrations in Jenny's voice.

'You're quite right' she said. 'Let's forget it! Today is— Sunday, isn't it? Let's forget it! Let's enjoy ourselves!'

'And tomorrow,' said Martin, 'you go to London with me. You must have some friends who aren't under the eye and grip of Grandma, and you can stay with them. We can get a special license soon, if you don't mind being married in a registry office. Will you do that?'

'Of course,' Jenny said simply 'Anywhere, any time. I did think it would be better to get Grandmother's approval, because she says she's beginning to like you; but—'

Martin stopped short

'Listen, Jenny angel.' He touched her moist cheek, and looked down at the eager blue eyes. 'It's a good thing I'm reasonably honest. Anybody you like seems able to deceive you. I can no more imagine your 'good grandmother’ giving us her approval than I can imagine her canoodling with Sir Henry Merrivale.'

He felt a compression in the chest; such an immensity of tenderness that he could not have expressed it.

'It'll be all right, you know,' he said. 'You needn't worry. I’m not exactly broke, and… damn it, come on! We're nearly home!'

For the white, square solidness of Fleet House loomed up ahead in a mist-rift, seen partly from the north side and partly from the back. They were nearly on the edge of a flower garden, whose paths they managed with care, until they emerged across a clipped lawn at the back of the house. To Martin Drake, this morning, Fleet House had no forbidding quality at all.

'I suppose,' Jenny said, in a voice which asked to have the supposition denied, 'you'll want to sleep for hours and hours?'

'Sleep? Sleep!' He chortled from deep springs of happiness. 'No, Jenny. What I want is a bath, a shave, and a change. But first I want quantities of very black, very strong tea.'

'I'll make it for you.'