LITMIR.BIZ

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much time,’ I said. ‘It means—’

      ‘The Pebmarsh woman could have done it. She could have picked up the clock after I left the room and gone straight to the kitchen with it.’

      ‘True enough. But why?’

      ‘We’ve got a lot to learn. Is there anybody else? Could the girl have done it?’

      I reflected. ‘I don’t think so. I—’ I stopped, remembering something.

      ‘So she did,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Go on. When was it?’

      ‘We were just going out to the police car,’ I said unhappily. ‘She’d left her gloves behind. I said, “I’ll get them for you” and she said, “Oh, I know just where I must have dropped them. I don’t mind going into that room now that the body’s gone,” and she ran back into the house. But she was only gone a minute—’

      ‘Did she have her gloves on, or in her hand when she rejoined you?’

      I hesitated. ‘Yes—yes, I think she did.’

      ‘Obviously she didn’t,’ said Hardcastle, ‘or you wouldn’t have hesitated.’

      ‘She probably stuffed them in her bag.’

      ‘The trouble is,’ said Hardcastle in an accusing manner, ‘you’ve fallen for that girl.’

      ‘Don’t be idiotic,’ I defended myself vigorously. ‘I saw her for the first time yesterday afternoon, and it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a romantic introduction.’

      ‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It isn’t every day that young men have girls falling into their arms screaming for help in the approved Victorian fashion. Makes a man feel a hero and a gallant protector. Only you’ve got to stop protecting her. That’s all. So far as you know, that girl may be up to the neck in this murder business.’

      ‘Are you saying that this slip of a girl stuck a knife into a man, hid it somewhere so carefully that none of your sleuths could find it, then deliberately rushed out of the house and did a screaming act all over me?’

      ‘You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen in my time,’ said Hardcastle darkly.

      ‘Don’t you realize,’ I demanded, indignantly, ‘that my life has been full of beautiful spies of every nationality? All of them with vital statistics that would make an American private eye forget all about the shot of rye in his collar drawer. I’m immune to all female allurements.’

      ‘Everybody meets his Waterloo in the end,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It all depends on the type. Sheila Webb seems to be your type.’

      ‘Anyway, I can’t see why you’re so set on fastening it on her.’

      Hardcastle sighed.

      ‘I’m not fastening it on her—but I’ve got to start somewhere. The body was found in Pebmarsh’s house. That involves her. The body was found by the Webb girl—I don’t need to tell you how often the first person to find a dead body is the same as the person who last saw him alive. Until more facts turn up, those two remain in the picture.’

      ‘When I went into that room at just after three o’clock, the body had been dead at least half an hour, probably longer. How about that?’

      ‘Sheila Webb had her lunch hour from 1.30 to 2.30.’

      I looked at him in exasperation.

      ‘What have you found out about Curry?’

      Hardcastle said with unexpected bitterness: ‘Nothing!’

      ‘What do you mean—nothing?’

      ‘Just that he doesn’t exist—there’s no such person.’

      ‘What do the Metropolis Insurance Company say?’

      ‘They’ve nothing to say either, because there’s no such thing. The Metropolis and Provincial Insurance Company doesn’t exist. As far as Mr Curry from Denvers Street goes, there’s no Mr Curry, no Denvers Street, Number 7 or any other number.’

      ‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘You mean he just had some bogus cards printed with a bogus name, address and insurance company?’

      ‘Presumably.’

      ‘What is the big idea, do you think?’

      Hardcastle shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘At the moment it’s guesswork. Perhaps he collected bogus premiums. Perhaps it was a way of introducing himself into houses and working some confidence trick. He may have been a swindler or a confidence trickster or a picker-up of unconsidered trifles or a private inquiry agent. We just don’t know.’

      ‘But you’ll find out.’

      ‘Oh, yes, we’ll know in the end. We sent up his fingerprints to see if he’s got a record of any kind. If he has it’ll be a big step on the way. If he hasn’t, it’ll be rather more difficult.’

      ‘A private dick,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I rather like that. It opens up—possibilities.’

      ‘Possibilities are all we’ve got so far.’

      ‘When’s the inquest?’

      ‘Day after tomorrow. Purely formal and an adjournment.’

      ‘What’s the medical evidence?’

      ‘Oh, stabbed with a sharp instrument. Something like a kitchen vegetable-knife.’

      ‘That rather lets out Miss Pebmarsh, doesn’t it?’ I said thoughtfully. ‘A blind woman would hardly be able to stab a man. She really is blind, I suppose?’

      ‘Oh, yes, she’s blind. We checked up. And she’s exactly what she says she is. She was a teacher of mathematics in a North Country school—lost her sight about sixteen years ago—took up training in Braille, etc., and finally got a post with the Aaronberg Institute here.’

      ‘She could be mental, I suppose?’

      ‘With a fixation on clocks and insurance agents?’

      ‘It really is all too fantastic for words.’ I couldn’t help speaking with some enthusiasm. ‘Like Ariadne Oliver in her worst moments, or the late Garry Gregson at the top of his form—’

      ‘Go on—enjoy yourself. You’re not the wretched D.I. in charge. You haven’t got to satisfy a superintendent or a chief constable and all the rest of it.’

      ‘Oh well! Perhaps we’ll get something useful out of the neighbours.’

      ‘I doubt it,’ said Hardcastle bitterly. ‘If that man was stabbed in the front garden and two masked men carried him into the house—nobody would have looked out of the window or seen anything. This isn’t a village, worse luck. Wilbraham Crescent is a genteel residential road. By one o’clock, daily women who might have seen something have gone home. There’s not even a pram being wheeled along—’

      ‘No elderly invalid who sits all day by the window?’

      ‘That’s what we want—but that’s not what we’ve got.’

      ‘What about numbers 18 and 20?’

      ‘18 is occupied by Mr Waterhouse, Managing Clerk to Gainsford and Swettenham, Solicitors, and his sister who spends her spare time managing him. All I know about 20 is that the woman who lives there keeps about twenty cats. I don’t like cats—’

      I told him that a policeman’s life was a hard one, and we started off.

       CHAPTER 7

      Mr Waterhouse, hovering uncertainly on the steps of 18, Wilbraham Crescent, looked back

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