The Skeleton in the Clock

Stannard essayed a smile.

'There was no reason,' he said, 'why I shouldn't have done this before. One cause of my reluctance;' he brooded, 'may have been shrinking from mere noise. Just as all of us shrink from making loud noises in an ordinary house at night

'I had some idea, perhaps from fiction, that it would be a boom or a crash. Logical reasoning should have told me that such trap-doors, in use, would fall smoothly and without noise. Or, at a time like this, that the machinery might not work at all.

'In any case, I laid hold of the lever and pulled. It moved a little, but only a little. I pulled again, harder. A rasping noise followed, either from the lever's mechanism or from under the trap-door. Then I laid hold, blind- determined, and put out all my weight with both hands. And the trap fell.

'With luck there would have been no more than a heavy creak. But the right-hand trap-door, too heavy for its old hinges, ripped loose and fell into the pit with a crash which seemed to bring down the roof.'

Martin Drake stared at the past.

The crash which had roused him out of sleep — loud, yet not very loud because it was muffled by a heavy oak door and the inside of the pit — the crash which had roused him, at two o'clock, was just that

But Stannard was speaking again.

'If I had expected a noise,' he said, 'I never expected a noise like that. It dazed me. Immediately afterwards,' he turned his head towards Martin for a brief look, 'my friend Drake called out from the grille of the iron door 'Stannard!' And them 'Stannard! Are you all right?' I shouted back, 'Yes! Quite!' Though I fear my voice showed — never mind.

'While I was tugging at the lever, I had put down my lamp on the floor. Now, in not quite the best state of mind, I went over to the edge, and turned the beam of the lamp down into the pit. It was square in shape, a brick- lined shaft much bigger than the oblong trap.'

Stannard paused.

'Well, Mr. Masters,' he added, 'Inspector Drake must have told you what I saw.'

'What you saw?' exclaimed Martin.

'I saw a very young girl,' said Stannard, 'lying on her back. Her eyes showed whitish slits, and her mouth was open. Her bodily mutilations: well, those are for the morbid. But this I saw; and it seemed to me that all the evil forces in that room were settling down on her like flies.'

With a murmured apology Stannard rose to his feet Limping a little, he went slowly to a gilt table in the middle of the room. On the table-top, of eighteenth-century mottled marble, had been set out a decanter of whisky, a syphon, and glasses. He now faced Martin and Ruth; and Masters, twitching round his own chair, also faced Stannard.

'Enid Puckston,' said Masters. 'Now we're getting to it!'

Stannard's eyes were glittering darkly as of old. His hand trembled very slightly as he tipped whisky into a glass.

'Enid Puckston,' Masters repeated. 'Did you recognize the girl, sir?'

'No. Never saw her before.'

'But you guessed she was murdered? And recently?'

Stannard, in the act of pressing the handle of the syphon, gave Masters a long and almost affectionate look.

'Yes, Inspector,' he answered. 'I guessed that.' Soda hissed into the glass.

'You were one of a group of people (eh?) who found a blood-stained dagger — with fresh blood — over in the condemned cell?'

'I saw it shortly after it was found, if that's what you mean.'

'Just so. Didn't you (hurrum!) associate that dagger with the murdered girl?'

'Not at that moment, I think. Afterwards, naturally.'

Masters was snapping at him now; and Stannard, motionless with the glass in his hand, seemed to throw his replies through half-shut teeth.

'Mr. Stannard, do you know what a person is required by law to do when they find a murdered body? — Mind your answer.'

'Inform the police, I believe. — Mind your grammar.'

'Ah!' said Masters. 'Now I understand Mr. Martin Drake was within easy calling-distance of you.. '

'Come to think of it,' Stannard frowned, 'he called to me, for a second time, shortly after I saw the girl's body. His voice seemed to come from farther away, as though he'd moved back from the grille. But he called, 'Are you sure you're all right?''

'Did you answer that?'

'Yes. I told him to mind his own damned business.'

'So you could have called for help. And yet you didn't?'

Stannard's gaze wandered towards Ruth.

'Inspector,' he said tenderly, and took a deep pull at the whisky and soda, 'I wouldn't have 'called for help,' as you put it, for anything on earth.'

'What did you do next?'

Stannard took another deep pull at the whisky and soda, emptying the glass.

'I put my lamp on the floor. I put my hands on the edge of the shaft opposite the side on which the trap door had fallen. I let myself hang down inside, stretching my arms to full length. Then I let go, and landed on my feet in the blood beside the dead girl.'

Masters was badly jarred. 'You mean — you thought you might give help of some kind?' 'Never mind my motives. That's what I did.' 'Oh, ah. And then?' '

'The shaft, as I had noticed before,' Stannard's husky voice had grown huskier, 'was ten feet deep.' His vitality seemed to be ebbing, despite the whisky. 'I couldn't get out. I was shut in. And I had no lamp. Consequently, all I could do was sit down in a corner and wait for daylight.'

'But why in turn's name did you do that? If you knew the shaft was ten feet deep?'

'Chief Inspector!' Martin said sharply. And, though Masters turned a sinister eye which threatened prison or worse, Martin ignored it. 'If you'll let me ask Stannard just one question, in my own way, I'll guarantee to get you out of this trouble. Is that fair, or isn't it?'

Masters made a disgusted gesture in surrender. Stannard, who had been leaning his weight with both hands on the marble-topped table, looked up with some attempt at lightness and humour.

'Your question, my dear Drake?'

Martin looked him in the eye.

'You were beginning to have the horrors,' Martin said. 'But you wouldn't give in. You meant to show these young swine they were pretty small beer when it came to nerve. So you deliberately dropped down into that shaft, and left your light behind, to sit in the dark near a — an ugly sight, until you were let out at four in the morning. Is that true?'

There was a silence.

'You put it bluntly,' said Stannard. 'However, that's true.'

Ruth had sat up, her hands clenched. Despite her self- control, the tears stung to her eyes.

'Stan, you idiot!' she raved. 'You utter, absolute, and complete idiot!’

Stannard, though clearly as blind as a bat regarding women, appeared to sense a new quality here. But he did not believe it

'Ruth, my dear,' he began, and hesitated. He was again sedate and grave. 'If any foolishness of mine ever gives you the slightest concern,' he said, 'it will have been worth it.'

And, to conceal the horror growing in him, he blundered back to the sofa and sat down in his old place. Hastily he picked up the cigar and clipped its end with a cutter; Martin passed across a pocket-lighter.

'There's little more to tell,' Stannard drew in smoke deeply, 'though it was perhaps — no matter. I told you I couldn't get out. There was, of course, a door at the bottom of the shaft'

'A door?' said Martin.

'Yes. Logical deduction, as I sat in my corner, convinced me that there must be one. You know the facts: you