Below the Clock Page 6

  ‘I imagine so. I’ll give a ring as soon as we reach the office.’

  Petrie sat down with a copy of the Fishing Gazette while the Inspector got his number. The little man heard Ripple’s request for information and then saw the man’s jaw sag. The Yard man slapped down the receiver and slumped into a chair.

  ‘Have they got any news for us?’ asked Amos.

  ‘They certainly have. There is no trace of strophantin whatever on the bottle, and none in the claret. Just one other thing. I passed along to them the glass that Reardon had used in the House. That shows no trace of any poison whatever. Are we all going mad?’

  ‘Maybe he died through thinking evil thoughts about people.’

  CHAPTER VI

  A SHOCK FOR AMOS

  PETRIE spent the remainder of the evening in his flat, gazing lovingly at the cases of stuffed fish, and adding bits and pieces to the mystery of Reardon’s death. He arrived at the Yard shortly after ten on the following morning to find a real shock waiting for him. Ripple was the bearer of the news and in his excitement he even forgot to stand like a statue of grief.

  ‘There’s been a burglary at Watson’s flat,’ he announced.

  ‘Eh? What? Are you pulling my leg?’

  ‘I’m not. His place has been burgled during the night.’

  ‘That young man seems to walk from one war into another. Tell me, Sunshine, are my eyes deceiving me or are you smiling?’

  ‘I was just thinking that a couple of things make this the most comical burglary the world has ever known.’

  ‘Lordy, they’ll have to be funny if they can make you smile.’

  ‘They are. I’ve had an inventory taken of all the stolen articles. There is only one item missing from the flat. That’s a door key!’

  ‘What a haul for somebody.’ Amos looked serious for a second as he added: ‘Funny that Watson didn’t strike me as a practical joker. He knows that the position is serious.’

  ‘Oh, Watson is serious enough. He’s not the joker. It’s the burglar who has the sense of humour. He ought to be on the stage.’

  ‘I can’t see anything devastatingly funny about stealing a key.’

  ‘Nor can I. But this burglar seems to have taken his pet canary with him, and after giving it a meal in the flat he left some of its food behind! Now work that one out.’

  The effect of his joke astonished Ripple. The solicitor was not amused. For once he was grim, his face set into hard lines. Ripple grew more bewildered when Amos jumped from his chair and stretched out a hand for his battered bowler. The Inspector’s smile wore away.

  ‘This is too much of a good thing,’ said Amos, ‘and I’m going to take a hand in the party. Maybe by the time I’ve finished the humorist won’t enjoy our joke as much as he did his own. I’m going round to that flat immediately. Please yourself whether you come.’

  Ripple followed the little man down the staircase and had to lengthen his stride along Whitehall. Petrie was almost trotting. They took the lift to Watson’s flat and found Eric talking to his servant. He was not surprised to see them, advanced to shake hands with Amos.

  ‘I thought I’d let you know about this burglary,’ he said. ‘It might save you the trouble of telling me that I’m not being straight.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be troubling you very much.’

  ‘Why should it? I reckon it’s more a joke than anything.’

  ‘I don’t. We left here fairly early last evening. What did you do after we departed? Think hard before you talk.’

  Immediately Watson was on the defensive.

  ‘I did not leave this place and nor did John, my servant.’

  ‘Did you have any visitors?’

  ‘None—except the burglar.’

  ‘He didn’t happen to tell you that he called to leave a parcel?’

  ‘No,’ replied Watson stiffly, ‘and I didn’t know that the parcel had been left until breakfast time. John had brought in my coffee, and I was sipping it when I saw the parcel on the top of my desk. But … er … I believe he must have wakened me, or disturbed me. I had been dreaming a bit viciously and woke up. It really was a most odd experience. Shall I tell you about it?’

  ‘In a second,’ said Amos. ‘Just tell me this first—have you touched or interfered with the contents of that parcel?’

  ‘No, I only showed it to the detective who came round and he told me the burglar had left some canary seed. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Right. I’ll look at it in a moment. Just tell me what happened.’

  Watson reclined in a chair and related a story that lost nothing in the telling. At times Petrie smiled tolerantly. It rather sounded as though Watson had been rehearsing the version of his dream. Most certainly he had dramatised it effectively.

  According to him he read for about two hours, had a meal, read a few more pages, and then retired to bed. He was troubled in mind and no sooner did he fall asleep than beings with no existence outside his imagination commenced to pursue him. It seemed to him that they had stepped from a fresco to pace in parade past the foot of the bed. He might have been on the borderline between sleep and waking. Some turned their heads away so that he could not distinguish the faces, others opened their mouths to speak, but said nothing, and when he looked into their faces he could see nothing but a flat and featureless oval. He remembered thinking that they were all women and the thought scattered them.

  As soon as they vanished male faces floated through the air. Some were like the angels of Greuze, others like the gargoyles on a Gothic church. All seemed to regard him with peculiar malevolence. It was like facing a regiment of resentful eyes. And the horrible thing about them was that all shared one body—the body of Edgar Reardon! Although dead he was not as he had been after death. Only his body grew, and grew, as if some horrible yeast was working in it. It seemed so huge that it could not be seen in a single glance. It advanced, the floor shaking under its tread. Watson woke.

  He found that his pyjamas were saturated in sweat and couldn’t realise what had happened to his nerves. It seemed that his ears were playing tricks. He thought he could hear a faint shuffling and called out to know who was there. There was no reply. Some time elapsed before he had recovered sufficiently to appreciate that a nightmare could not shuffle. Then he reached for his dressing-gown and slippers, and walked from room to room, trying the doors and windows. He looked at the time as he left the bedroom. It was one a.m.

  Petrie sighed wearily. Ripple was plainly disappointed. As a story it might have been too vivid for broadcasting during the Children’s Hour, but it offered very little assistance.

  ‘What length of time elapsed,’ asked Amos, ‘between you hearing the shuffle of feet and discovering as a result of the search that there was no intruder in the flat?’

  ‘I can’t really say. I wasn’t properly awake. It may have been about twenty minutes or half an hour.’

  ‘And as you walked through the rooms you heard nothing and saw nothing?’ inquired Ripple.

  ‘The only thing I heard was John snoring.’

  ‘Maybe,’ remarked Amos, ‘he also had seen this man rising as though injected with yeast. Were all the doors and windows secured?’

  ‘Just as they were when I went to bed.’

  ‘A curious sort of burglar. You ask him who he is, and he vanishes, but although he knows that you’re awake he stays to lock the door after him with a key that he’s stolen. Pretty cool, eh?’

  ‘He must have heard that I did not get out of bed immediately I called to him. That might well have happened.’

  ‘About as likely as a roach attacking a pike. Men usually get out of bed with bare feet and unless the bed creaks they make no sound. You think he might have stopped with his ear against the floorboards making a noise like a mouse to deceive you?’

  ‘I wasn’t present at the time so I can’t tell you what the man was doing.’ Watson was becoming annoyed. ‘I didn’t attach much importance to it because I thought he’d been distu
rbed before he could settle down to work. If it hadn’t been for the odd business of dumping those seeds on me I wouldn’t have reported the matter at all. I remembered what you had told me about revealing everything and that’s why I telephoned the Yard.’

  ‘Even my brain can’t grasp some of the precise significance of the details,’ said Petrie with apparent suavity. ‘I want you to let Inspector Ripple have charge of your mysterious parcel while I look round the burgled premises. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not in the least.’ He walked over to his desk and returning with a small brown paper parcel, handed it to the Yard man.

  ‘Don’t touch that, Sunshine,’ said Petrie, ‘until I’ve had a look round. And see that nobody else handles it. I won’t be long.’

  Amos headed for the kitchen and made an early discovery. Plainly a window had been forced open. There were knife marks on the frame.

  ‘Looks as though your strange caller got in this way,’ he said to Watson. ‘It would have been easy enough. The door is close to the window and a man putting his arm through could turn the key in the lock. How would he reach that window from the outside?’

  ‘Quite easily—he just walks up the back stairs.’

  ‘I wonder if the doorkeeper below shares your view about the entire ease of the performance?’

  ‘I thought doorkeepers generally slept in the early hours.’

  ‘I’ll ask the man about it later.’ The little man stood gazing at the two bolts on the door. Then he called the manservant, asking him: ‘Were these bolts shot when you came out early this morning?’

  ‘No, sir. I noticed that before I missed the key. I wanted to open the door and couldn’t. I think I told the master about it.’

  ‘I see. You’re sure that the door was locked and the window was latched when you came into this kitchen?’

  ‘I’m quite certain about that, sir.’

  ‘All right, John. You can go for the time being. Tell me, Mr Watson, how you failed to notice that the back door was unbolted when you made your round? Can you tell me?’

  ‘I thought all the doors were properly fastened. Perhaps I didn’t look at the bolts when I found that the door was locked.’

  Amos rubbed his hands on his handkerchief. Watson waited nervously.

  ‘The thief,’ said the little man, ‘may have forced the window and he may even have come in by it. I think he must have done. But if there is one certainty it is that he didn’t leave by it—because it was latched. He may have gone out by the door. For though it was locked this morning, the bolts were not drawn and he had the key. I really cannot fathom why you didn’t notice that when you made your early morning search of the premises.’

  Watson looked at Petrie and stood back a pace. He seemed unwilling to believe the implication and commented falteringly:

  ‘I certainly thought that everything was all right.’

  ‘You might as well have stayed in bed if your inspection was as casual as that. We’ll get back to Ripple for a moment and take a look at the present that was left for you.’

  The Yard man was sitting at a table, facing the parcel as though guarding a diamond of fabulous wealth. Petrie looked at it for a while before lifting it. The paper was common and the string round it was roughly tied. The latter fact did not concern the solicitor. It had been unfastened since it was discovered. He slipped off the string. The parcel contained a glass bottle. The three men bent down and peered at the contents.

  ‘Melon seeds,’ announced Inspector Ripple.

  ‘Melon seeds be damned!’ said Petrie. ‘Take another look at them.’ He held the bottle up to the light.

  The seeds inside the container might well have been dyed by a fierce sun filtering through green leaves. They were covered by a fine silky down, and winked back from their satin coats as they glimmered in the light. Amos placed the bottle on the table and looked at the two men.

  ‘Looks more like food for birds of paradise than for canaries,’ remarked Watson, still staring at the seeds. Petrie’s lips twisted grimly and he nodded without responding. Then he picked up the glass again and moved the stopper about without apparent purpose. A second later he inverted the bottle and shook it. Nothing happened. Patiently he pressed against the stopper, tilted it slightly to one side and shook again. A thin stream of gleaming seeds fell one by one into his open palm. Finally, after examining them, he replaced them in the container, fastened down the stopper and handed the bottle over to Ripple.

  ‘What do you make of that bottle, Sunshine?’ he inquired.

  ‘Foreign made. And I know where they’re sold and what they cost. Price sixpence. It would be about as easy to trace this bottle as it would to discover the history of an unmarked daily paper.’

  ‘That’s not very helpful. Would you mind leaving this room for a short time, Mr Watson?’ Eric instantly strolled out. His head was reeling. Immediately Amos touched Ripple’s shoulder. ‘Is there the slightest possible chance that you could have overlooked this bottle, or these seeds, when you searched this flat yesterday?’

  ‘Absolutely impossible. It’s true that I wasn’t looking for anything like those seeds, but I could never have missed them. You can rule that chance right out. I didn’t leave a corner unsearched.’

  ‘This business gets hotter, and hotter, Sunshine. I’m beginning to feel like a beer. Tell Watson I want to talk to him again, will you?’

  The owner of the flat returned somewhat fearfully. After his recent experiences he had lost some degree of confidence when faced by the little solicitor.

  ‘Are you still convinced,’ asked Petrie, ‘that you can tell me nothing whatever that can help us? Surely there is some small point about this burglary last night—or early this morning—that could give us a lead? Just think, Mr Watson.’

  ‘I am sure that I have said all I can say. Probably I was half asleep at the time when it all happened.’

  ‘You must realise,’ said Amos patiently, ‘that this is a matter of the greatest importance. I am not concerned because you have had a key stolen. The issue is much more vital than if your flat had been entirely ransacked. It would take some little time, Mr Watson, for your burglar to get off the premises—particularly since he is an obvious amateur. No professional steals a key and leaves a bottle of seeds behind. For all we know he might have been in the building when you were making your rounds. By failing to give the alarm you covered his escape. And if the man who burgled this flat, and then escaped, had not some connection with the murderer of Edgar Reardon he was so close to him that he could have led us along the trail. Now that that’s clear to you perhaps you’ll see the importance of the questions I’ve asked you.’

  Watson smiled more easily as he replied:

  ‘Clear, yes. But quite mad. Forgive me for saying this, Mr Petrie, but you reason sanely, and finish up with assumptions that sound like complete lunacy. I wish now that I hadn’t mentioned this damnation burglary to anyone. After what happened yesterday I was afraid there’d be some misunderstanding about it. But I’d have thought it would have puzzled even you to have connected it with the murder of Edgar Reardon.’

  ‘Is it possible …’ Amos Petrie commenced and stopped. His eyes blinked as he broke off in the middle of the sentence. He pulled his viciously-coloured handkerchief from his breast-pocket, and waved it in the air. Then he relapsed into his seat with a long sigh, and stared at Watson as though he didn’t believe the evidence of his eyes.

  ‘What on earth is the matter?’ asked Watson.

  The solicitor glanced round the room until he sighted the bookcase. He walked over to it and ran his thumb along the volumes of an encyclopedia. Still sighing he extracted a book from the row, opened it, ran through the pages, and slammed the book on the table.

  ‘Read that, Watson,’ he said, pointing with his index finger. Ripple, also, bent over and they read:

  ‘Strophanthus … The seeds are about three-fifths of an inch long, one-sixth broad, greenish fawn, covered with flattened silky hairs, and ova
l acuminate in shape. They are almost odourless, but have an intensely bitter taste.’

  ‘Now take a look at the stuff in that bottle,’ snapped Amos.

  Watson shot his hands over his eyes and staggered back from the table. He was shaking violently. His face was creamily yellow. Petrie watched him closely.

  ‘Now you know,’ he said, ‘why I connect your burglary with the death of Edgar Reardon.’

  ‘You mean,’ stammered Watson, ‘that Reardon was murdered by the use of seeds like these?’

  ‘I mean that he was murdered by the use of poison made from seeds like these, and that by failing to help me you’re assisting the person who tried to pin the murder on to you.’

  ‘My God!’ said Watson. He didn’t speak again for five minutes. The Yard man was more dismal than ever. Petrie was admiring the seeds.

  CHAPTER VII

  FURTHER CONFUSION

  ‘I’M going to have a few words with your doorman,’ said Petrie. He was not away for more than two minutes. Wrinkles corrugated his forehead. ‘The fellow in the hall says the outer door is locked at eleven every night and he’s sent for the night porter. Things are growing more awkward, Ripple.’

  ‘They couldn’t,’ said the Yard man. ‘What about your burglary now, Mr Watson? There’s something very wrong somewhere.’

  ‘I know that. But there are two certain facts. One is that I didn’t leave this flat after you left last night. The other is that the seeds were not here when you searched the place. Your business is to discover what happened. I can’t help you.’

  They waited for twenty minutes before a drowsy night porter arrived. His statement was brief—and disturbing. Only residents entered the building after the front door was locked. In his own ungallant language the first arrival was Mrs 37. She arrived at about quarter to twelve, Mrs 13 and her husband appeared half an hour later. He opened the door to both of them. That was their main protection against burglars. There were no other late comers.

  Petrie questioned the man without shaking his statement and then told him he could return to bed. The little man left to meet the occupants of Flats 37 and 13. The first was a widow, inadequate of chest, but with large and prominent eyes, who displayed agitation and false teeth in about equal proportions. Half a dozen questions sufficed to show that she saw nothing and knew very little about anything.