The Skeleton in the Clock

Masters, having already pushed out a dent in his bowler hat and dusted off his blue serge suit, crossed the threshold with brief-case and cardboard folder under one arm; and he had the air of a tethered bull.

'Sorry to jntrude, miss,' he said, being not quite sure of Jenny's title and knowing she didn't like it anyway, 'but this is business.'

Jenny had gone rather white. 'Yes,' she acknowledged, and pressed Martin's arm. 'After all, someone tried to kill Mr. Drake.'

'And did kill that Puckston girl,' said Martin. 'I wanted to ask—' Jenny began. 'Will you come upstairs, please?'

She led them to an octagonal room, of white walls framed in dark oak, above the front door. Here was the big oriel window with its three leaded panes — two slantwise, the other facing straight out — which looked down the gravel drive with its crowd, its gaudy exhibits, the oak-trees, and the green lawns.

Geraniums in flower-pots, as a homely touch, stood just inside the ledges of the diamond-paned windows. The dark oak window-seat ran round all sides of the octagonal room as well; like the chairs, it had flattish flowered cushions. With one window-light partly open, the babble now sounded at its loudest

'Mr. Masters,' Jenny began.

Jenny, in white, her knees crossed, sat at one side of the window. Her elbow was propped on one knee, her chin in her hand.

'I think,' she smiled, 'I like H.M. far better than Martin likes Grandmother. But doesn't he ask the oddest questions sometimes?'

'Does he, miss?' inquired Masters, who was at his blandest card-sharper's air as he put down hat, brief-case, and folder.

‘He talked to me for ages yesterday at Fleet House: First all about certain things,' her eyes moved towards Martin, who was sitting beside her, 'when he hadn't been present Then, if you please, something that seemed to be about Grandmother's influence over me'

'Is that so, now, miss?' inquired Masters, as though hearing a mildly surprising revelation.

'And that's absurd, of course, I' Jenny had some intense purpose behind this; her eyes were lustrous. 'You see, my parents were estranged. They sent me away to school from the time I was ten and onwards. Grandmother was always hovering about it's true. But most of the vacations were abroad with my parents. Then came the war and the Wrens. It's only since the war that Grandmother's had much 'influence.' I was wondering if H.M.—'

'Yes, miss?'

Martin who had got up and was staring out of the window, interposed.

'Where the devil is H.M., by the way?'

Masters's own temper flared as he sat down in a chair opposite Jenny. Everything grated now, everything jarred like a bad slate-pencil on a bad slate.

'Whatever he's doing,' the Chief Inspector snapped, 'he's not attending to business.'

'There's a Derby-Day crowd round that race-track,' said Martin, 'all waving shillings. Is he still being bookie?'

'When I last saw the gentleman,' Masters replied with dignity, 'he was starting some kind of darts-contest.' Masters looked at Jenny, not without sarcasm. 'I suppose, miss, your grandmother doesn't keep a cellar full of beer?'

'Good heavens, not. She used to drink wine, but…'

'N-no,' intoned Masters, 'I didn't think she would keep a beer-cellar. And especially I didn't think she'd keep it in barrels with her photograph pasted on, and 'Here's how from Lady Brayle.’ As to what the old bounder's doing…'

'I can tell you what he's doing,' said Martin. 'He told Arthur Puckston last night he'd been thinking for several days Grandmother ought to be ousted or made popular. He's trying to make her popular. And do you know what'll happen?'

Masters didn't care, and said so.

'She told me she'd come back with a riding-crop. And she will. Isn't that so, Jenny?'

'Darling,' pleaded Jenny, 'she tried to make friends with you. I told you she was beginning to like you, but you wouldn't believe me. I didn't see her last night, because she went straight on to Priory Hill. Surely she tried to make friends with you?'

'Possibly. Anyhow, h didn't work. Now shell come back with a riding-crop. She'll lay it, right and left, across anybody she sees. Then there'll be a riot and real trouble.'

'I don’t doubt it at all,' Masters agreed, almost with satisfaction.

Then he whacked his hand down on the arm of the chair.

'Mr. Drake,' Masters said, 'this is a murder case. We had everything planned and even timed to a minute to catch the murderer. But Sir Henry's gone off his rocker, just as he did once at Coney Island, and what chance have we got now?'

'To catch—?' Jenny's face had gone even whiter. 'But it couldn't possibly be.. anybody we know?'

Belatedly, Masters remembered official caution and his usual manner.

'Is that so, miss? Why not?'

'Weill' Jenny laughed, not convincingly. 'I didn't do it Grandmother certainly didn't For the rest, there's the alibi!'

'Oh, ah, miss? What do you know about an alibi?'

'Only what Ruth Callice told me yesterday.' Jenny shivered violently; even her mouth seemed distorted; Martin quickly put his arm round her shoulder. 'About a. blood-stained dagger somebody used to kill poor Enid Puckston, at half-past eleven or thereabouts.'

'Anything else, miss?'

'Ruth said Mr. Stannard — he's a tremendous barrister — had suddenly snapped his fingers and said to her, 'You know, I was so tired and groggy I completely forgot to tell Inspector Drake about that alibi. No, wait' he said, 'let them find it out themselves.' But he told Ruth.'

'You can forget the alibi too, miss,' Masters remarked quietly. 'It's shot to blazes.'

From outside the window the churning tinkle of the merry-go-round, silent for a time, began to rise loudly with We're All Together Now. In the octagonal room, with its white walk and its red geraniums inside the window, the tune seemed to swirl round as in a bowl, above the babble of voices.

'So you did upset the alibi!' Martin muttered. 'How?'

Masters looked complacent.

'We-ell No harm in telling that You people who were in the condemned cell when you found the dagger, you were doing a lot of talking…'

'Chief Inspector, how do you know so much about that conversation?'

Masters eyed him grimly.

'Aren't you forgetting, Mr. Drake, that I spent the night in that prison? Oh, ah! Keeping an eye on you to make sure nobody nailed you?'

'You could hear everything we said all the time?'

'I'm an old-fashioned copper,' Masters said dryly. ‘I’ve had trickier jobs when I was a sergeant'

'But where were you during the test'? I mean, when I'd locked Stannard behind the iron door, and the others had gone?’

Masters snorted.

'Making myself comfortable,' he said, 'on top of that mountain of paper. Lummy! We'd get sixteen hours at a stretch in the old days when I was a sergeant On Saturday night I was facing the iron door. I could see you, Mr. Drake, by your own light, sitting on the paper-bales. I couldn't see down into the aisle, between the bales and the wall with the doors; but I could get there at one jump if I had to.'

Here Masters smiled a peculiar smile.

'D'you think I'm a liar, sir? You look a bit funny. For instance! At shortly past twelve, you had a visitor.'

The visitor had been Ruth Callice, of course.

Martin, his arm round Jenny's shoulder and the caress of her hair under his cheek, felt such a cold rush of guilty conscience that he was within a quarter-syllable of speaking out and denying it. At the same moment Jenny raised her head round and up, looked at Martin casually, and returned to her former position without comment After