The Skeleton in the Clock

It's rather late, Inspector.'

'I'm afraid I've got to insist, Mr. Stannard.'

Dead silence.

The light of battle sprang across that room as clearly as the opposing lamps had shone behind the fencers at Pentecost Prison last night. And Martin knew why.

Too often had John Stannard wiped the floor with the police, including Chief Inspectors of the C.I.D., in a battle of question-and-answer at the Central Criminal Court Masters knew this; Stannard knew he knew it They looked at each other.

Last night, Martin reflected, Stannard could have wiped the floor with Masters in such an engagement But Stannard was shaky now; there was some horror inside him; his eyes were dull; his movements, perhaps mental as well as physical, seemed slow. Then he glanced towards Ruth Callice.

To Martin's astonishment, Ruth was looking at Stannard with an expression of… well, not nearly as strong as hero-worship; but something deeply moved and as near to love as made no difference. What had been happening during the past twenty-four hours? Ruth veiled her look instantly, slipping back into H.M.'s chair.

And Stannard smiled.

'I'm at your service, Inspector,' he said. And vitality seemed to flow and expand through him.

He sat down at the other end of the sofa from Martin, crossed his knees, and took from his pocket a cigar in a cellophane wrapper.

'I’ll make the statement' he went on, 'mainly because,' he looked sideways, 'I think my friend Drake deserves to hear it.'

'The trouble was,' Martin blurted, 'I thought I might have left you there helpless or dying or — God knows what.'

'No. You played the game strictly according to the rules. Unfortunately, however…'

Sharply Masters cut across the amenities.

'You might begin,' he said, 'from the time Mr. Drake locked you up behind the iron door at just past midnight — Well!’

To tell the truth,' Stannard admitted, 'I was not as easy in my mind as I led others to think. I have — some imagination too. But there it was; it had to be done, and more than done. So I opened the door of the execution shed.' Again he looked at Martin. 'You never saw it. Nor did any of the others. I'd better describe it. It was—'

'I don't want to hear any of that sir,' snapped Masters.

'Oh?' Stannard slowly turned his head back. 'You 'don't want to hear any of that?''

'No. Not by a jugful!'

'Thus,' Stannard said evenly, 'denying a witness his right to give testimony in his own way. The other name is coercion. May God help you if I ever quoted your words in court'

Sling went the mental whip across Masters's face. Masters, dogged and conscientious, was inwardly raving. But he remained impassive, with sheathed claws.

'Hurrum! My mistake. Go on!'

'It was a good-sized room,' pursued Stannard, taking the cellophane wrapper off the cigar, 'though with not a very high ceiling, as in the condemned cell. Its walls were brick painted white, pretty dirty, with two small barred windows near the top of the opposite side.

'I picked this up, detail by detail, with my light In the centre of the floor, which was stone, I saw the gallows-trap: two big oblong wooden panels, fitting closely together and set flush with the floor-level. They would drop together when you pulled a lever. An iron beam stretched across the ceiling just over this trap. In the left-hand corner — concealed from a condemned man as he entered by the opening door — was a rather large vertical lever which controlled the drop.

'My dear Drake, do you remember the feel of the condemned cell just over’ the way? Yes; I can see you do. Well, this was worse. I had expected that. As soon as I opened the door of that execution shed, the whole room seemed to jump at me. It did not like visitors.'

Chief Inspector Masters interrupted harshly.

'Just a minute, sir!'

'Yes?'

Masters had to shake his own head to clear it of a spell. Like the mist on the countryside that morning, this dim-lighted drawing-room became invaded with the shapes and sounds of Pentecost Prison.

'I ask you!' persisted Masters 'What kind of talk is that?’

'It is true talk, Inspector. Write it down.'

'As you like, sir.'

'A dirty white brick room, a trap, an iron beam, a lever no other furniture,' continued Stannard. Instead of lighting the cigar, he put it down on the arm of the sofa. 'But I had seen a rocking-chair across the passage in the condemned cell. I went over there, fetched in the chair, and, as a matter of honour, closed the door behind me.

'I put the rocking-chair in a comer, the far corner from the door, looking obliquely across the gallows-trap towards the lever. I hung my lamp over the back of the chair and tried to read The Cherry Orchard. This became impossible. The influences, previously poisonous, were now devilish.

'No, Inspector! Don't make faces. I saw no ghosts and I heard none. I am prepared to admit the influences may have been imaginary, though I don't believe it Everything centered round that gallows-trap.

'There, of course, the condemned person had dropped on his long or short rope — according to weight — into a brick-lined pit underneath. It was natural that these currents of hatred, of malice, of despair, should come from there or seem to come from there.

'Then I did the worst possible thing.

'I put down my book. I did what I called in my own mind —' a sardonic grin tightened back Stannard's lips —'the act of a boxer riding with the punch. I lit a cigar. I rocked in the chair, and deliberately exposed myself to whatever was here. I tried to imagine what an execution would look like. In short, I did exactly what I said Drake would, do.’

'I knew I was somewhat rattled; but not how rattled until

'You remember that I was sitting in the comer of the execution shed. I had been imagining the hanging of Hessler, who had tried to escape from the condemned cell. I had been wondering about this: when the doctor and other officials went down into the pit to make sure the hanged man was dead, how did they get down? Ladders? But I saw no ladders. All of a sudden I woke up from these thoughts.

'My cigar, which for some reason I had been holding near the tip, had burnt down and was searing my fingers. And I was not sitting in any comer. I was sitting in my rocking-chair on the gallows-trap itself.'

Stannard paused.

He moved his right hand towards the cigar on the arm of the chair, and suddenly drew back again. Ruth Callice, a little way back from the light which touched Stannard's cheek, sat back with her eyes closed. There were bluish hollows under Ruth's eyes.

'The explanation, of course,' said Stannard, 'is so simple as to be almost comic. I mention it as a matter of: say unconscious muscular reaction. You're familiar, I imagine, with old fashioned rocking-chairs? And how they moved when you swung? I had simply rocked myself there.

'This sobered me. I threw that chair back and stamped out the cigar. My burnt fingers seemed to pain out of all proportion. It was now getting on towards two o'clock in the morning. And I decided to carry out an idea that.. well, it bad been in my mind from the first I would try out that idea, and get rid of its fears.'

'Wear' demanded Masters. 'What idea?'

Stannard grimaced.

'I wanted to see what would happen,' he replied, 'if I threw the lever and the trap fell.'

Chapter 15