"But there's not a word about a pink flash in any of this evidence!"
"No," returned H.M., "and there's not one word about a skeleton-clock either. But you'll find one standing just behind you."
Masters strode over to the middle of the room, where he jingled coins in his pocket
"This chap Puckston," mused H.M. "I didn't realize he was still the licensee here. By that statement, he didn't seem to like Fleet much."
"There's nothing to that," Masters snorted. "It was only…"
Whether by coincidence, or at mention of the name, there was a discreet tap at the door to the bar. The door opened, to reveal the Puckston family: father, mother, and daughter.
To a befuddled Martin Drake, Arthur Puckston had been little more than a name and a voice. He was, in fact a lean man with a freckled bald head, a harassed but conscientious smile; tall but stooped, with stringy powerful arms. Mrs. Norma Puckston, though stoutened and rosy, had fine black hair and was not unattractive. Miss Puckston, dark-haired and sixteen years old, was not unattractive either.
"I 'ate to disturb you, gentlemen," said Mr. Puckston, making an apologetic motion. "But it's five minutes to opening-time, and… well, do you really want this parlour for a private room?"
"We sure do, son," H.M. assured him. "If that's convenient?"
"Oh, it's convenient. But I shall 'ave to charge you a good bit extra. This being Saturday night and other things. Even for the police.."
Three pairs of eyes surreptitiously watched Masters.
"Well, well!" said Masters, suddenly urbane and in his most cheerful manner. "How would you have learned I was a police-officer, now?"
"Things," said Mr. Puckston thoughtfully, "get about" He glanced up. "You ought to know that" H.M. intervened.
"He's a copper, son. But he won’t bother you. Ill see to that Anything else?"
"Well, sir. If you wouldn't mind keeping the doors locked and the curtains drawn? It's that clock. You told me you were going to take the skeleton out…" Puckston's voice trailed away; his throat seemed to be constricted.
"Yes, I see your point," nodded H.M., taking several puffs of his (to others) venomous cigar. "You think it might put the customers off their beer if they saw me sittin' here with a skeleton on my lap like a ventriloquist's dummy?"
Miss Enid Puckston suddenly giggled, and was shushed by a look from her mother. The father, for some reason, took the girl's face between his hands.
"I'll be careful," H.M. promised. Behind smoke and spectacles, his eyes had taken on a faraway look; "I don't want to be chucked out of here. I'm always being chucked out of places, though bum me if I can think why. This is a fine old house, this is. Antiques, and real antiques."
"Oh, yes!" cried Mrs. Puckston in one gush. "Arthur always tries to—"
The doors of the Dragon's Rest, unlike those of most pubs, were solid and close-fitting. Little could be heard through them unless you bent close. But now, from beyond the closed door to the far bar-parlour, arose a sudden babble of angry voices, all clamouring together. One voice, a man's, clove through the tumult.
"I can't do it, I tell you! What’s more, I won't!"
H.M. abruptly snatched the cigar out of his mouth.
"That sounded like young Drake." His own big voice boomed out. "Does anybody know who's there with him?"
It was the dark-haired and well-spoken Enid who answered.
"Lady Jennifer, sir. And Mr. Richard Fleet And a lady from Fleet House; I don't, know her. And Dr. Laurier."
"So!" grunted H.M., and surged to his feet "That's a combination I don't like." And, with his white linen suit rucked up and the gold watch-chain swinging across his corporation, he lumbered towards the door and opened it
The heat of strained feelings was as palpable in the other room as its atmosphere of beer and old stone. But except for Martin Drake, it was now empty. Martin stood by the stove, his dark eyebrows drawn together and the green eyes enraged. H.M., after giving him a dismal look, lumbered over to peer out of the open door into the road.
Some distance to the left along the Dragon's Rest Jenny was detaching a bicycle from the ivy and steadfastly refusing to look round. A light-haired young man in a sports-coat had just opened the central gate in the wall round Fleet House. Sauntering, her head high, a girl in a grey silk frock walked in the same direction. Though there was no visible sign of Dr. Laurier, you could hear a car-motor start up close at hand.
It had been a swift, decisive exodus. The emotional echoes still swung like bells inside your head. H.M., the corners of his mouth turned down, turned and surveyed Martin.
"You been havin' a good time?" he demanded.
"Listen, sir," Martin began. He paused for a few seconds, and tried again more calmly. "Yesterday, before Jenny and I left Willaby's, we told you pretty well everything."
"You did, son. Well?"
"But you didn't hear about the execution shed. You didn't hear—" Again Martin stopped. "Women!" he added, with one savage and sweeping gesture.
Then, shouting something, he also plunged out through the open door.
Chapter 7
Martin had slowed his run to a walk before he reached the central gate of Fleet House.
Well to the north and well to the south in the low stone wall there was a wide iron gate through which a gravelled carriage-drive curved up to the front terrace and returned to the road again like the arc of a bow. In the middle of the wall there was a smaller central gate; from it a narrower path, between lines of trees, ran straight up to the terrace like an arrow to the bow.
Martin, his footsteps rasping on gravel, overtook Ruth Callice just as she reached the terrace. Ricky had already hurried inside to see his mother. This terrace was only a broad stretch of flagstones, with four shallow flagstoned steps leading up to it Ruth hesitated at the top, and turned round at his call.
"Ruth!"
"Yes?"
He stood at the foot of the steps, looking up at her. Her softly rounded face had that clear-flesh tint he associated with youth and health. The dark-brown eyes were inquiring.
"Martin," she smiled, "you needn't apologize." Her expression grew whimsical. "I've been yelled at so often in my business career, especially by men, that I hardly notice it"
"I haven’t come to apologize, Ruth. For the first time since I’ve known you, I think you ought to be put over a convenient knee and walloped."
Ruth's colour receded to pallor, and slowly returned,
"I won't quarrel with you, Martin."
"As a second point of fact, I didn't yell at you."
"You were fairly audible, dear. And please remember only what I said. I merely reminded you of your promise. Whereupon you and Jenny and Dr. Laurier began arguing as to whether or not it was a good thing to go ghost-hunting. All I said in the whole discussion was: would you come and see John Stannard before you decided. Then you yelled at me."
That's why I'm here. To see Stannard."
He ran up the four steps and faced her. Round and above him stretched that white, and still cold, face of Fleet House. Four smallish Corinthian pillars were set flush into the facade, two on each side of the broad front door. Except for a small close-in balcony on each of the windows above, these were the only ornamentation. Eight windows on the ground floor, eight windows on the floor above, eight smaller windows on a smaller floor above.
Very high ceilings in the rooms, too. High, breathing cold like a prison! This Martin noted somewhere at the back of his mind as he ran up the steps.