The Skeleton in the Clock

"I know how Sir George Fleet was murdered."

Masters reached for his notebook.

"And don't you forget that," said H.M., pointing a finger malevolently, "because it's the keystone of the whole business. Everything falls down without it" And, Martin noted with disquiet, H.M.'s face was still pale.

"I won’t forget" Masters assured him. "And—?"

"I can tell you the truth about that goddam skeleton in the dock."

"Ah! Just so! Anything else?"

Again there was so oppressive a quiet that they could hear, above H.M.'s head, the almost noiseless gold clock ticking between its two candelabra. The satiny dark-red walls, with their high cream-coloured curtains, seemed to have a stifling quality despite their open windows.

"Y’know," said H.M. thoughtfully, "I've been an awful dummy. Almost as bad a dummy as when I nearly slipped up in that Goblin Wood case. It was because I never connected the pink flash with wood."

"You never connected the pink flash with.. what?"

"With wood," said H.M., reaching over to knock his knuckles on a table.

"Goddelmighty," whispered Masters. "Listen, sir! When Sir George fell off that roof, the only wooden-made things on it were the frames of the beach-chairs and the wicker settee! And all of 'em were fifty feet away from him!"

"I know that"

"Was somebody biding behind them?" "No."

Masters wiped his forehead. ELM. was persisting in mazy speculation.

"Y'see, Masters, you've got to find two units, sort of, like the wood here and the skeleton in the clock with old Dr. Pierre Laurier rocking back and forth in front of it But, burn me, still they don't fit into a pattern until you connect 'em together with a real clue…"

Here H.M. roused himself out of his reverie.

"I say, Masters. Am I making myself clear?"

"Curiously enough," retorted Masters, with towering and stiff-jawed dignity, "you are not" Then slow suspicion dawned and grew clear in his expression. "Sir Henry, are you trying to do me in the eye again?"

"Oh, my son! No! I wouldn't do that!"

"Oh, no,", said Masters in a hollow voice. "Oh, no. No. You never have, have you? Oh, no. In a pig's ear you haven't!"

H.M. looked at him steadily.

"I'm not doin' it this time son. Honest It's too serious."

This almost if not quite reassured his companion, who again opened the notebook.

"And I get all the details," he insisted, "straightaway?"

"Every detail," H.M. reassured him, "goes on the table tonight. For our conference. We've been dealt some awful good cards, but a little conjuror's hokey-pokey won't do any harm when it's our turn to deal."

"Then what was all that flummery a minute ago? First you started gabbling about a beach-chair, and then about the skeleton and Dr. Laurier…"

"Wait a minute! I didn't.."

"And," Masters rode him down, "you said they were connected by a real clue."

"Oh, Masters! The whole place is flooded with clues."

"Maybe so. You talked about a 'real' clue, that bonged down out of the air, like, and hit you on the head. I can't see the wood for the trees. I don't see anything, except that the alibi is a fake. Where did you get this 'real' clue? Where did it come from?"

H.M. pondered.

"Well," he said, "from my reincarnation."

Chapter 16

"Stop," said Masters, extending his arm like a traffic-policeman. "Stop just there."

Despite Masters's effort to be calm, the hoarse and strangled note in his voice betrayed him. He must do more than count ten now. Snapping the rubber band round his notebook, he carefully put it in his pocket

"Sir," he continued, as one who weighs his words but gets louder and louder, "I've been mixed up in these cases for more years than I'd like to count I get the credit Oh, ah! But I've got blood-pressure, and I've got a family to think of!"

"Sh-h! Quiet! Don't wake up the house!"

"I've been kicked in the pants," said Masters. "I've been hocussed and flummoxed. I've had poisonous snakes dropped at my feet. I've been told to face a mob of reporters, without a word to say for myself, when you'd promised a world-beater of a story. All right: that's fair enough; I don't complain. But this is too much. —Reincarnation!" breathed Masters, and clasped his hands in prayer to heaven.

"Sh-h, now! Sh-h! Sh-h-h!"

Masters subsided. A healing peace settled through the room.

"And now," bellowed H.M., in a voice which made the curtains quiver, "are you goin' to stop being a goop and listen to a word of explanation?"

Masters was silent

"I've been reading a lot of literature," continued H.M. "I don't believe it as I oughter, because I don't remember as much as I oughter. But there was one thing I did read, and it slipped through without more than scratching the surface of the old man's mind, until somethin' was said that made me remember. And it tore the hocus-pocus wide open. Now do you see?"

Masters peered at him suspiciously.

"You're not off your chump? You don't remember how you wore a big hat and recited limericks to Charles the First?"

"Well No. Not much. And, Masters, for the love of Esau stop drivellin'. This is a murder case. And I'm scared."

"You?"

"Me," returned H.M, with all the impressiveness this conveyed. "We've got to act fast, son. If we can keep this feller," he pointed to Martin, "if we can keep him alive for just me more night…"

(Again that sense of hatred, gathering round and pressing against him! Martin, weak from lack of the food he told Ruth tie hated, sat down and lit a cigarette whose smoke made his lead swim.)

"If we can do that," said Masters, "he's out of danger?"

"Not necessarily. But a certain innocent-looker will be occupied with other things. Well be the attackers and not standin' at defence. Now, son!" H.M. pointed. "When you first barged in here tonight, I asked you whether you'd got the stuff. You said you'd got all of it Where is it?"

Masters indicated the chair where lay his bowler hat, the brief-case, and the brown cardboard folder. '

"You don't want to go through all that tonight do you?"

"I don't want to go through any of it Masters. I only want to ask you a question."

"Well sir?"

H.M. scowled and adjusted his spectacles.

"You've got" he stated rather than questioned, "you've got from the local police files some testimony from everybody, and I mean everybody, who was here at Fleet House on the afternoon of November 4th, 1927?"

From the thick-filled brown folder Masters took out a typewritten slip with pencilled notes.

"I have," he said. "Also what happened to each of 'em afterwards. The word 'here' means within a radius of three or four miles."

"So! Read it out loud!"

"As follows," said Masters, clearing his throat "Lady Fleet (here), Dowager Countess of Brayle (here), Earl and Countess of Brayle (one dead, one in Stockholm), young Fleet (here), Dr. Pierre Laurier (dead), Lady Fleet's companion (dead), governess (dead), butler (at Reading), parlourmaid (here), first and second housemaids (one here, one in Australia), gardener (dead). In addition to these persons's testimony, Stannard's too."

"Stannard!" interrupted Martin. "But he didn't give any statement then!" Masters grinned.

"No, Mr. Drake. Still, I'm told that in Sir Henry's presence and yours he said he'd talked to a newspaper reporter at the tram. The area's not so large that a few ‘phone-calls wouldn't cover it" Masters tapped the cardboard folder. They sent a copy of the press-cutting by hand.''

H.M. pressed his hands hard to his forehead.

"Here's the burnin' question," he snapped. "You or I got testimony, today or yesterday evening, from all the witnesses who weren't dead or out of reach. Does it agree with what they said twenty years ago?"