The tenants of the Square frequently threatened to dispense with Willie’s services, but he would disarm them with his great smile, flashing white teeth and tossing his curly head. It was suspected that Willie was not averse to tossing some of the ladies of Knightswood Square between washing windows. “He’s a complete rascal, he is!” Mrs. Higby would say. “Always leave the front door wide when he does any windows where I be.”
George turned to look, once again, for Mrs. Heatherington. She was just coming down the front steps of the mansion where she had a second-floor-front flat. The Pekinese was pulling on his leash, furious at being late, eager to get into the park. He yanked his mistress across the street and when she had unlocked the gate, sprang onto the grass jerking the leather leash out of her hand. The small beast darted to a favorite bush as the old lady closed the gate and dropped the key into her handbag. She crossed to the busy dog and bent stiffly to retrieve his leash. Then, finally, she stood for a moment surveying the Square.
That was when George Drayton looked in another direction. He had no idea whether Mrs. Heatherington could see him from that distance, but he didn’t want her to think he was observing her. So he always looked away.
He noticed Willie Hoskins washing a window on the third floor of Number 26 — Colonel Whitcomb’s flat. A reflection of sunny sky gleamed from two panes he had already finished, but the others were dull with a month’s accumulation of London soot. As he watched the window cleaner work he could hear the scuffling sound of Mrs. Heatherington’s footsteps approaching down the walk, and as she came nearer he sensed the soft padding of the Pekinese. He turned to look and found that they were much closer than he had anticipated.
The Pekinese stalked past with majestic disdain but his mistress nodded and smiled. George Drayton bowed as usual. They never spoke. In fact, he had never heard Mrs. Heatherington’s voice except when she talked to the dog.
George watched them head for the north gate. The old lady paused for a moment to speak to the gardener. Usually she only nodded to Purdy. Probably telling him that she was leaving on holiday. The gardener touched his cap as she continued on her way out of the Square, toward the Old Brompton Road. She would have final errands to do. Small presents for her grandchildren. Very likely a visit to her bank to withdraw money for the two-week holiday.
He wondered how old the dog might be. A Pekinese, named Kwong Kwok, had accompanied Mrs. Heatherington back from China, more than 30 years ago, when she returned to London after the death of her husband. Ever since there had been a Pekinese named Kwong Kwok, but it was impossible that the original dog could have survived so many years. The dog was a constant topic of conversation among the charwomen. To them and to George Drayton all Pekinese looked alike.
The first pram of the day, guided by a uniformed nanny, rolled into the Square as George picked up his small pile of books. Soon there would be dark clots of nursemaids and prams. Older children would avoid them and keep to the far side of the park where they could run and shout without glares and reprimands from the easily disturbed nannies.
He decided to put off reading the novel from Drayton House. Since his retirement, eight years ago, they had sent him a copy of each new book but, too frequently, he only became upset when he read the pretentious trash his nephew was publishing. No point in getting into a temper on such a beautiful day. He put the book aside and hesitated, deciding between the new Simenon and the new Christie. This would be a perfect morning to read about Paris. Simenon it would be...
As he turned to the first page he glanced across the Square to the dirt-encrusted windows of the third-floor flat where last year’s murder had taken place. They still remained curtained. The Clarkson flat had never been rented. And the murder remained unsolved.
For two hours he lost himself in a rain-drenched Paris. Inspector Maigret sat in a small café, drinking calvados, listening to neighborhood gossip as he watched a house across the street where a man had been murdered. Home for lunch with Madame Maigret in the apartment on the Boulevard Lenoir, then back through a cold drizzle to the café with its view of the bleak street. Drinking toddy after toddy. Smoking his pipe...
George put down the book and filled his own pipe. Why couldn’t he sit here and through pure deduction, like Inspector Maigret, solve last year’s murder? Except that New Scotland Yard had put their best men on the Clarkson case and they had been unable to find any trace of the murderer.
As George lighted his pipe he noticed Mrs. Higby, parcels clutched in both arms, dart up the front steps of his building. Another hour and she would have the flat in order and his lunch waiting. Wouldn’t she be surprised if he announced the name of the Clarkson murderer as he ate his noon chop!
He turned again to study the curtained windows of the murder flat. The victim, young Mrs. Clarkson, had been separated from her husband, but not divorced. Harry Clarkson had an alibi for every minute of the afternoon when his wife was killed. They had found her partially clothed body, sprawled across the bed, one silk stocking twisted around her throat and another stuffed into her mouth. The newspapers said that she had not been attacked sexually.
Clarkson had testified, at the coroner’s inquest, that he had not seen his wife in several months. His solicitor sent her a monthly check and, regularly, tried to persuade her that a divorce would be wise; but she had refused to discuss such a possibility. Her char told the police that Mrs. Clarkson entertained many male visitors. She had never seen any of them but, every morning, she had to clean all the ashtrays. Unfortunately, she had no idea how much money Mrs. Clarkson kept in the flat, so there was no way of knowing whether there had been robbery as well as murder. The dead woman’s purse, containing a few shillings, was found on her dressing table.
The police reported there had been no fingerprints. All the locals were questioned — caretaker of the building, milkman, florist, laundryman, greengrocer, window cleaner, postman, delivery boy from the chemist shop. Every name in Mrs. Clarkson’s address book had been traced and interrogated. Nobody knew anything.
A distant chime of bells brought George Drayton out of his dream of murder. Twelve o’clock. He would finish the Simenon after lunch. As he got to his feet he glanced, once again, at the Clarkson flat. Maigret would have solved the mystery easily, sitting here in the Square, looking up at those curtained windows. But he, George Drayton, didn’t have a suspicion of an idea — in spite of all the detective novels he had read and published.
He gathered up his books and leather cushion and headed for the gate. As he walked down the path he noticed that the gardener was already wolfing a sandwich, perched between the handles of his barrow. George looked for Willie Hoskins but the window cleaner had disappeared. All the windows of Colonel Whitcomb’s flat gleamed in the noon sunshine, reflecting bright rectangles of blue sky.
Instead of a chop there was cold salmon for lunch which he ate with appetite. He had all his meals at a small table in the study, surrounded by overflowing bookshelves and facing tall windows which overlooked the Square.
Mrs. Higby had her usual morning collection of gossip. “That young American couple what sublet Number 29 are leavin’ for Paris next week.”
Yes, Maigret would have solved the Clarkson murder without difficulty. Except that now the case was more than a year old and the clues would have long since vanished.