"Oh, ah!" muttered Masters, with a sideways look. "So you thought of that?’
"Oh, my son! It was the very first wild and wool-gatherin' notion I did have, for no reason at all But it won't work. Now the overall height of that clock, includin' platform and fancy top, is six feet And the late lamented?"
"Six feet one inch tall," grunted Masters, with the heaviness of one who has studied much; "and with big bones."
"Right Whereas the chap who's watchin' us," H.M. indicated the clock again, "was a little feller. Five feet five, about Well-proportioned, small bones. Masters, I'll tell you what it is. That's an ordinary medical-school skeleton: varnished, articulated…"
"Meaning strung together with wire?"
"With fine cat-gut, usually. Besides, you couldn’t possibly conceal the injuries to Fleet's head. Who'd want to?"
"Ah, and that's just it What about the skeleton?" exploded Masters. "In all this record-" he brought his hand down slowly on the brief-case—"there's not a word to do with any skeleton in a clock. What's it supposed to mean?"
"I dunno. But an anonymous letter, postmarked Brayle, tells you to examine it Five days later Our Sophie, on instructions from Cicely Fleet waddles up to London to buy it for Dr. Laurier: son of clock's former owner. Don't you find that rather fetchin' and interesting?"
Masters took several paces up and down. The ticking of the clock seemed to trouble him.
"If we had one bit of evidence that this was murder—!"
"Oh, Masters. It was murder. Tell me something about George Fleet"
"Lummy, haven't you read this stuff in the brief-case?"
"Uh-huh. But I want to see what impressed you."
H.M, his spectacles pulled down on his broad nose, closed his eyes. An expression almost of serenity crossed his unmentionable face. Masters, deeply suspicious of being done in the eye again, studied him warily. At length the Chief Inspector cleared his throat
"Hurruml" he said. "Sir George Fleet? Came of a well-to-do family in the Midlands, with a cotton-business. Family wanted him to be pukka Army; so did he. Boarding-school when he was a tiny 'un, then Harrow, then Sandhurst Never finished Sandhurst; father died, and he had to take over the business.
"But he acted Army all the rest of his life, though he didn't join up in '14. Upright carriage, cropped moustache, dead keen on sport Roared at everybody. Wanted a knighthood; got it; wanted a baronetcy so his title wouldn't die with him; didn't get it"
Still H.M. did not open his eyes, though his look was now evil. He grunted.
"Yes. That's why it's so rummy that.. h'mf. What about his wife?"
"She lives just over the road, sir. You could go see her." "I meant twenty years ago."
"Bit of a beauty, I'd say." Masters considered. "You've seen her photograph. Yes, bit of a beauty in the fair-haired, blue-eyed way. Completely gone on her husband. Idolized him. Do anything he said, and like it"
"Wait a minute, son. Does that mean she was all coos and clucks in public, and in private wept and twisted him round her little finger?"
Masters repressed a guffaw.
"No, it does not" he retorted dryly. "Old Chief Inspector Radford: if you've read his notes of that time—"
"I have. I've gone over other things too. Y’know, Masters, I may have been doin' you in the eye. Just a little bit"
Masters stiffened. Once more he became as wary as a heavy-game hunter near a somnolent water-buffalo.
"But it was only a telephone-call," pleaded H.M. in a bumbling way. "And it don’t (burn me, it don't!) help with our real problem."
"If you hadn't sent that ruddy clock on ahead of us, and we'd got here—"
"You were tellin' me, Masters. About Fleet's wife."
"Now get this, sir! At that time there was only one person ' who ruled the roost in that house: it was her husband. Why, sir, he once tore up her favourite morning-room, or whatever they call it and put in new panelling and a billiard-table. And she never said a word. I know what my old woman would have said.
"Changeable sort of gentleman, too. One time he had a collection of old swords and daggers. Got tired of 'em, and bang! overnight they went, and she had a room with nothing on the walls but hooks until he could put up antique guns instead. Now," Masters added grimly, "well come to the day of the accident Because it was an accident and I’ll show you why. Come over and look at the house, Sir Henry. Just look out of the window!"
"I got a picture in my mind's eye, son. You just gush on."
Returning to the table, Masters sat down, took a blue-bound folder of typewritten sheets out of the brief-case, and opened it.
The date," he continued, "was November 4th, 1927. Just so. Let me emphasize a few points about that roof.
"It's a very big roof, fiat and perfectly square. Ifs floored with cement; they used it for sun-bathing. On the edge of the south side there's a low chimney-stack, narrow and oblong, flat on top. In the middle of the roof there's another chimney-stack just like it, and a third on the edge of the north side. All in a straight line dead across the middle of the roof. Got it?"
"Got it Sure."
"Just so. At the time this happened, there was nothing at all on the roof except two beach-chairs and a wicker settee, all of 'em pushed back dead against the little chimney-stack in the middle."
ELM., eyes closed, blew out his cheeks hideously. "Stop a bit, son. What were beach-chairs doin' there in November?"
"It'd been a warm autumn, and still wasn't cold. They'd just been left there." "Any smoke from the chimneys?" "No. Not a fire lighted. Gas-range in the kitchen." "What colour were the beach-chairs?" Masters stared at him.
"How in lum's name should I know? This report deals with—"
"Now, now, Masters! Keep your shirt on!"
Again the Chief Inspector's forefinger; somewhat agitated by his blood-pressure, travelled down the typewritten lines.
"I don't have to explain this hunting stuff. You've read it Sir George Fleet even if he did act like a comic-paper colonel, really was a sport First-class horseman and A-l shot He hunted except when he had (don't I know it?) the rheumatic pains in his side. On November 4th, about two o'clock in the afternoon, he was sitting in his study reading The Field when the gardener came to see him. This gardener said the Ascombe Hunt was 'drawing,' whatever that means, a big wood called Black Hanger."
H.M. sat up with ghoulish thoughtfulness.
"I say, Masters. Did you ever see me on a horse?"
"I daresay," the Chief Inspector said with heavy sarcasm, "you were one of the greatest horsemen in England too?"
"Well.. now!" said H.M., with a deprecatory wave of his hand. "I wouldn't like to say that, no. But I had a steeplechaser, named Whoozler, who could take fences like the cow jumpin' over the moon. Besides, it’d fit in — burn me if it wouldn't! — with a former existence where…" Masters stiffened.
"So help me," he swore, and pointed at H.M., "if I hear one more word about your reincarnation, just one more word, then back I go to tell the A.C. I'm through. I tell you straight: it gives me the creeps."
H.M. pondered. He peered round carefully, to make sure both doors were closed.
"Y’see, Masters, I'm not just sure I believe it myself, exactly."
"Ah!"
"But some of those books sound awful plausible, son." H.M. shook his head. "And it stirs you up, sort of (wouldn't it anybody?) to imagine… I say, Masters: couldn't you see me as a Cavalier poet?"
"In a pig's eye I could."
"But the feller was my own ancestor, curse it! His picture's the spittin' image of me. And I've just got a book on swordsmanship. And," added H.M., suddenly drawing himself up and glaring at his companion with awful dignity, "are we goin' to get on about Sir George Fleet, or aren't we?"