The Skeleton in the Clock

embossments — and balanced it on the edge of the table.

'Really, Jennifer, I might defy you to find a better present than this shield of our lives and homes! This monument of antiquity, this holy…'

The apologetic little man cleared his throat

'I trust you will forgive the intrusion, madam,' he whispered in a soft and creaky voice. 'But the shield is not genuine.' 'Not genuine!'

'No, madam. I could give you reasons at length. But if you will look in the catalogue you will find it described only as 'Scottish type,' which of course means.. '

'Scotland,' said Lady Brayle. 'I believe the Fleets were originally Scottish. That will serve well enough. Look at it, Jennifer! Observe its beauty and strength of purpose!'

Lady Brayle was really thrilled. Also, she must have been a powerful woman. She caught up the shield with one hand on each side of the rim. Inspired, she took two sweeping steps backwards and swung up the shield with both arms — full and true into the face of Sir Henry Merrivale just as he entered the room.

The resulting bong, as H.M.'s visage encountered the concave side of the shield, was not so mellifluous as a temple-gong. But it was loud enough to make several persons in the auction-room look round. The Dowager Countess, for a moment really taken aback, held the shield motionless before H.M.'s face as though about to unveil some priceless head of statuary.

Then she lowered it

'Why, Henry!' she said.

The great man's Panama hat had been knocked off, revealing a large bald head. Through his large shell- rimmed spectacles, undamaged because the concavity of the shield had caught him mainly forehead and chin, there peered out eyes of such horrible malignancy that Jenny shied back. His cigar, spreading and flattened, bloomed under his nose like a tobacco-plant.

He did not say anything.

'I suppose I must apologize,' Lady Brayle acknowledged coolly. 'Though it was really not my fault You should look where you are going.'

H.M.'s face slowly turned purple.

'And now,' continued Lady Brayle, putting down the shield, 'we must not be late. Come, Jennifer!' Firmly she took Jenny's arm. 'I see Lord Ambleside and it would be most discourteous not to speak to Lord Ambleside. Good day, Captain Drake.'

All might still have been well, perhaps, if she had not turned for a last look at Sir Henry Merrivale. Mention has been made of Lady Brayle's sense of humour. She looked at H.M., and her face began to twitch.

'I am sorry, Henry,' she said, 'but really—!' Suddenly she threw back her head. The once-pure contralto laughter, refined but hearty, rang and carrolled under the roof.

'Haw, haw, bawl' warbled the Dowager Countess. 'Haw, haw, haw, HAW!'

'Easy, sir!' begged Martin Drake.

He seized H.M's quivering shoulders. Taking the squashed cigar out of H.M.'s mouth, in case the great men should swallow it, he threw the cigar away.

'Easy!' he insisted. 'Are you all right?'

With a superhuman effort, no one knows bow great, H.M. controlled himself or seemed to control himself. His voice, which at first appeared to issue in a hoarse rumble from deep in the cellar, steadied a little.

'Me?' he rumbled hoarsely. 'Sure, son. I'm fine. Don’t you worry about my feelin's.'

'You — er — don't hold any malice?'

'Me?' exclaimed H.M., with such elaborate surprise that Chief Inspector Masters would instantly have been suspicious. 'Oh, my son! I'm a forgivin’ man. I'm so goddam chivalrous that if I was ever reincarnated in mediaeval times, which I probably was, some old witch must 'a' copped me in the mush with a shield practically every day. You lemme alone, son. I just want to stand here and cogitate.'

Martin, so intent on Jenny that he could think of little else, for the moment forgot him. Jenny and her grandmother were standing on the outer fringe of the crowd, their backs to the arms-room: though Jenny, peering round over her shoulder, tried some lip-message which he could not read.

H.M., cogitating deeply with elbow on one thick arm and fingers massaging his reddened chin, let his gaze wander round. Presently it found the halberds and guisarmes, their long shafts propped upright against the wall. Slowly his gaze moved up to their points. Then, musingly, the gaze travelled out into auction-room and found the ample, flowered posterior of the Dowager Countess.

'Ahem!' said the great man.

Elaborately unconcerned, he adjusted his spectacles and took down one of the weapons. Holding it horizontally on both hands, he ran his eye along the shaft with the critical air of a connoisseur. But it was obvious, from his blinkings, that he needed more tight. That was why he strolled out into the auction-room.

'One hundred and fifty.: Sixty?… Seventy?… Eighty?…'

The auctioneer, a sallow dark man with a pince-nez and a cropped moustache, had an eye that could follow lightning. He never missed; he never misinterpreted. A nod, a mutter, a pencil or catalogue briefly raised: the bidding flickered round that horseshoe table, or out into the crowd, more quickly than the senses could determine. Nobody spoke; all bent forward in absorption.

'Two hundred? Two hundred? Do I hear…'

'Oh, my God!' breathed Martin Drake.

That was where he saw what was approaching, on stealthy and evilly large feet, the unconscious back of Lady Brayle.

The only other person who noticed was the timid little man with the white moustache, who had observed all these proceedings in silence. But the little man did not cover, ground like Martin. Silently, in loping strides, he reached the side of the avenger; firmly he gripped the other side of the shaft, and looked at H.M. across it

H.M.'s almost invisible eyebrows went up.

'I dunno what you're talkin' about' he said in a hollow voice — though Martin, in fact had not uttered a word. He uttered one now.

'No,' he said.

'Hey?'

“No.'

H.M. altered his tactics.

'Looky here, son,' he pleaded. 'It's not as though I'm goin' to hurt her, is it? I'm not goin' to_hurt the old sea-lion. Just one little nip and bob's-your uncle.'

'H.M., don't think I disapprove of this. I'd give a year's income to do it! But one little nip and I may lose the girl.'

'What girl?'

'Two hundred poundst Do I hear more than two hundred pounds?'

'The girl I told you about! There! She's Lady Brayle's granddaughter!'

'Oh, my son! You stick Sophie in the tail and this gal's goin' to adore you.'

'No!'

Faintly the hammer tapped. 'Lord Ambleside, for two hundred pounds.'

'Sold!' cried Lady Brayle, in the midst of that shuffling and mist of murmurs which greet the tap of the hammer. 'Did you hear that, Jennifer? And to our good friend Lord Ambleside too! Here's three che-ah-s!'

Playfully Lady Brayle threw up her arm like an opera star. She took two swinging steps backwards. And she landed full and true against the point of the shaft gripped by Martin and Sir Henry Merrivale.

The sound which issued from the lips of Lady Brayle at that moment would be difficult phonetically to describe. If we imagine the scream of bagpipes, rising on a long skirling note of shock to burst high in a squeal and squeak of outrage, this somewhat approximates it For about ten seconds it petrified the whole room.

Jenny, after one horrified look, put her hands over her eyes.

The auctioneer, in the act of saying, 'Lot 71,' stopped with Jus mouth open. Two blue-smocked attendants, who carried each exhibit into the open space inside the table so that it could be exhibited during the bidding, dropped a Sheraton writing desk bang on the floor.