The Clock Strikes Twelve (15 page)

As on the previous evening, the Ambrose party went home early. With the exception of Frank Ambrose, who had remained taciturn to the point of rudeness, Miss Silver had had a very pleasant conversation with each of them. Soon after their departure she excused herself and went up to the room which had been prepared for her. It was just before she said goodnight that she asked Miss Paradine about the diary.

“You will forgive me if I touch upon a painful subject, but I think your niece mentioned that you had given pocket diaries as New Year’s gifts to your nephews.”

Grace Paradine smiled.

“There is nothing painful about that,” she said.

Miss Silver coughed.

“No, of course not. But I was going to enquire whether you also presented one to your brother.”

“Oh, no.” Miss Paradine sounded surprised. “He didn’t care for that sort of thing. He never used any calendar except a large plain card.”

“Those little diaries are so very convenient. I thought he might have liked one for his pocket, and it is so difficult to find a suitable present for a man.”

“He wouldn’t have used it. He did not care for anything of that sort.”

Miss Silver perceived the subject to be distasteful. She thought it was time to say goodnight.

Her bedroom was comfortable, very cosy, with a floral carpet in which red was the predominant colour, curtains, bedspread and covers of chintz brightly patterned with poppies, cornflowers and ears of corn, red tiles in the fireplace glowing in the light of a small electric fire. The room, as she was aware, was almost opposite the one occupied by Mr. Pearson and next door to Elliot Wray. On the other side, a bathroom—most convenient, most comfortable.

She removed the rather chilly dress of artificial silk and put on a sensible warm dressing-gown crimson in colour. It was trimmed at the neck with handmade crochet and fastened about her waist by a woollen cord rather reminiscent of an antique bell-pull. Comfortable black felt slippers having replaced the glacé shoes with their beaded toes, she sat down in a chair by the fire, and propping the green exercise-book on a cushion laid across her knees, proceeded to make notes in it, using a fountain pen.

She had filled several pages, when there was a knock on the door. She said, “Come in!” and looking up, saw a girl of about sixteen in a short black dress, white apron, and frilled cap. She had fat legs, a plump figure, apple-red cheeks, and bright blue eyes, for all the world like a china doll. She bore a hot-water bottle, and when she saw Miss Silver in her dressing-gown she said, “Beg pardon, miss,” and stopped dead.

“That will be quite all right,” said Miss Silver. “You have come to turn down the bed? What is your name?”

“Polly, miss—Polly Parsons.”

“And this is your first place, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, miss.”

“This is a sad New Year,” said Miss Silver.

Polly began to take off the chintz bed-cover and fold it up, disclosing a crimson eiderdown.

“Oh, yes, miss—it’s ever so dreadful, isn’t it?”

Miss Silver agreed.

“It must have been a dreadful shock to you all.”

“Oh, yes, miss, it was. I come over ever so funny.” She laid the folded bed-cover across a chair and came back to the bed.

“Does your work take you into the study at all, Polly?”

The girl had her back to her, bending forward to turn the bedclothes down. Right round to the roots of the short brown hair with its curled ends Miss Silver saw the colour run in a hearty blush.

“Only to make the fire up, miss, when they’re at dinner. Mr. Lane’s busy then.”

“Mr. Paradine used to sit in the study after dinner?”

“Oh, yes, miss.”

“And you went in as usual last night to make up the fire?”

Polly was sliding the hot-water bottle into the bed.

“Yes, miss.”

“And what time would that have been?”

Polly turned round.

“I couldn’t say, miss.”

She met a kind look and an authoritative,

“Try, Polly.”

Hardly ever had she wanted to get out of a room as badly as she wanted to now. But it couldn’t be done. She could no more have got past Miss Silver to the door than she could have disobeyed Louisa to her face. It just couldn’t be done. Words came tumbling out in a hurry.

“I was a bit late—I’d to help outside because of the party.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Then you probably looked at the clock. You would if you were afraid of being late. What time was it?”

“Just on nine, miss.”

“Was everyone still in the dining-room then?”

Polly looked all ways.

“Well?” Miss Silver was gently insistent.

“The ladies came out as I got round by the door going through to the study.”

Miss Silver went on looking at her, quite kindly, quite firmly, sitting up prim and straight in her crimson dressing-gown with the cushion across her knees.

“And how long were you in the study?”

Polly’s cheeks turned from apple to beetroot. She said in a choked voice,

“I’d the fire to see to, miss.”

Miss Silver continued to look at her. Polly continued to blush. At the sound of a step in the passage she gulped and made for the door. On the threshold she stumbled out something that was evidently meant for an apology. The words “Louisa” and “the other bottles” were intelligible. The door shut on her. She could be heard running down the passage.

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Colonel Bostock, Superintendent Vyner, and Miss Silver were in the study next morning. A fire burned brightly on the hearth.

The crimson curtains were drawn back to their fullest extent, leaving in view the terrace, grey in the shadow of the house, and the scar on the parapet where James Paradine had struck against it in his fall. The night had been stormy, but the clouds were lifting. Every now and then a gleam of pallid sunshine touched the river.

Superintendent Vyner sat at the table. The statements which he had allowed Miss Silver to read lay where she had just placed them at his left hand. She had selected the most appropriate chair in the room, high and narrow in the back and straight in the seat, with a pattern of little shiny knobs all round it. Miss Silver sat up as straight as the chair back with her hands in the lap of her brown stuff dress. She wore her bog-oak brooch and an expression which combined a decorous self-respect with the deference due to authority, for which word she would undoubtedly have used a capital A.

Colonel Bostock had drawn an upright chair to the far side of the writing-table. It had arms upon which he rested his elbows. As far as it is possible to lean back in a chair of that kind, he leaned. Occasionally, when Miss Silver was not looking in his direction, he contemplated her in a quizzical manner. The words “God bless my soul!” might have been shaping themselves upon his lips. The bog-oak brooch intrigued him. Somewhere in the past he had encountered its twin. The association was with a wedding festivity—Jane’s wedding—his wife’s cousin Jane, the one Janet was named after. One of the bridegroom’s aunts had had a brooch like that. Stiff old lady in a bonnet and feathers. Left all her money out of the family to endow a home for friendless parrots. He would not have sworn to the parrots in a court of law, but it was something like that. Anyhow Jane and her husband didn’t get a penny. Monstrous.

Miss Silver said in her clear ladylike voice,

“You were very kindly going to tell me about the fingerprints, Superintendent.”

Vyner said, “Yes.” He turned in his chair to face her across the corner of the table. “Of course in a family business like this you’re liable to get everybody’s fingerprints everywhere, and you can’t say there’s anything proved by your finding them. Take the handle of this door for instance—it’s just a smudge. Lane, Mr. Pearson, Mr. Wray, and Mrs. Wray all handled it that evening, besides Mr. Paradine himself.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“And the girl who made up the fire.”

Vyner said, “Oh, yes.”

Miss Silver continued.

“She was in here at about nine o’clock.”

“‘Hm! Too early to be of any value. All the others were after nine,” said Colonel Bostock. “We know that.”

“Well then,” said Vyner, “it’s the same pretty well everywhere. Lane, this girl Polly, Mr. Paradine, Mr. Pearson, Mr. and Mrs. Wray—there are prints from all of them. And all we get out of that is that the girl had been at this drawer. Mr. Paradine kept sweets there, and I should say she’d been at them.”

So that was why Polly had blushed and fled—or was it? Miss Silver turned this over in her mind as Vyner went on.

“I haven’t said anything to her about it. But there we are—we’re out to catch a murderer, and all we get is a kid stealing sweets. Well, not quite all, because there are Mr. Mark Paradine’s prints, and they’re not quite so easy to explain. There are his and Mr. Richard’s on the chair the Chief Constable is sitting in, and on the edge of the writing-table, and Mr. Mark’s on the little pocket-diary. Now Mr. Richard, he dropped in to see Miss Paradine in the late afternoon—that’s certain. And he says he looked in on his uncle in the study when he was going away. We’ve only his word for it, but it’s likely enough, and it would explain his prints. But Mr. Mark Paradine— well, there’s no explaining his. He wasn’t here all day Wednesday, or the day before, or the day before that. He arrived for dinner on New Year’s Eve, but he didn’t see his uncle then because Mr. Paradine was closeted with Mr. Wray, and he says, and everyone else says, that he didn’t go anywhere near the study after dinner. He went away with Mr. Richard at a quarter to ten, and he went back to his flat in Birleton Mansions. But after that, he says, he went out for a walk. Queer time of night to choose. The constable on duty at the bridge saw him cross over in the direction of the River House at about 10:20. It was bright moonlight then, and he knows him by sight. Mr. Mark says he walked a bit along the road and then came back. He wasn’t seen coming back, but Harding came off duty at half past ten, and the man who relieved him is a newcomer and wouldn’t take that much notice. It seems to me the only time Mr. Mark could have made those prints was after 10:20, when Harding saw him going in the direction of the River House.”

“Who let him in?” said Colonel Bostock. “Lane didn’t.”

“The door wasn’t bolted, sir. Mr. Mark and Mr. Richard lived here until a few years ago. Nothing more likely than that they still have latchkeys. Or if he hadn’t, Mr. Mark could have come round on the terrace and knocked at the glass door. Everyone in the family knew that Mr. Paradine was waiting up till twelve.”

Colonel Bostock said, “Shocking business.”

“Yes, sir. But that’s when those prints were made—some time after 10:20 on Thursday night. There’s no other time they could have been made.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Has he been asked for an explanation, Superintendent? He told me frankly that he was under suspicion when he called me in. I informed him that I could be no party to any concealment of evidence, and that my sole obligation would be to do my best to discover the truth. He replied that this was his object in asking for my professional services. Are you aware that this pocket diary belongs to him?”

Colonel Bostock said, “What!”

“A New Year’s gift from Miss Paradine,” said Miss Silver. “Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Pearson, and each of her two nephews had one. They were distributed in the drawing-room after dinner on Thursday night. There were four different colours. The blue one was Mr. Mark’s.”

“God bless my soul!”

“Well, I should say that just about puts the lid on,” said Vyner.

Miss Silver picked up the diary.

“One moment, Colonel Bostock. This is quite a new book, but you will see that it opens of its own accord. If you and the Superintendent will examine it, I think you will agree that the binding had been pressed back so as to keep the diary open at this page—and the date is February 1st.”

Vyner said, “Yes, we noticed that. As a matter of fact we got a very good fingerprint there as well as on the outside. I was coming to that, because it’s a bit odd there are Mr. Mark’s prints both inside and out, and Mr. Paradine’s as well, and where they overlap Mr. Paradine’s are on top. Looks as if there’d been some talk about the date and Mr. Mark had handed him the book to see for himself. As to asking him for an explanation, I thought we might have him in now. I shall have to ask him if he objects to your being present, but seeing he called you in, he won’t have much of a leg to stand on. Then if he’s willing for you to be here, it gives a kind of a lead to the rest of the family, if you take my meaning.”

Miss Silver took it. She inclined her head and murmured graciously,

“That is very kind of you.”

The bell was rung and Mr. Mark Paradine’s company requested. He came in with the look of a man who hasn’t slept, and who rides himself on a strict curb. There was less gloom and moodiness in his aspect than there had been yesterday, more evidence of stern control. If he thought himself to be facing arrest he bore himself well.

Colonel Bostock said, “How do you do, Paradine? Come and sit down.” Vyner said, “Good-morning.” Neither of the men rose, and neither offered to shake hands. From the outset it was perfectly obvious that the interview was of an official nature.

Mark sat down facing Miss Silver. Four people at a table—three in the service of the law, and one in what might very well prefigure the dock.

Colonel Bostock’s expression suggested that he was mentally repeating the words “Very awkward business—very.” He cleared his throat and said aloud,

“Any objection to answering a few questions?”

“Oh, no.”

“No objection to Miss Silver being present? I believe you called her in.”

“No, I’ve no objection.”

Colonel Bostock looked across the table and said,

“All right, Vyner, go ahead.”

The Superintendent turned towards Mark with the diary in his hand.

“Is this your property, Mr. Paradine?”

Mark looked at it, frowning.

“What makes you think so?”

“We are informed that Miss Paradine gave four of these small diaries as New Year’s gifts on Thursday evening. The blue one is said to have been given to you. Is that correct?”

Mark had stiffened a little. He said,

“Quite.”

“These diaries were given in the drawing-room after you had joined the ladies there?”

“Yes.”

“You did not come in here between that time and leaving the house at about a quarter to ten?”

“No.”

“Then, Mr. Paradine, will you explain how it came about that the diary was found on this table when the police arrived at a quarter past eight on the following morning? It has your fingerprints and those of the late Mr. Paradine on the cover and on the page dated February 1st, at which place the book had been bent open. Have you an explanation which you would care to give us?”

Mark found himself looking at Miss Silver, who was looking at him. Her gaze was steady and cheerful. It held the encouragement which a teacher extends to a diffident pupil. In some way which he could not explain he found himself encouraged. He said,

“Yes, I think I have. I think I had better tell you just what happened.”

Colonel Bostock cleared his throat again.

“It is my duty to tell you, Paradine, that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.”

Mark looked at him with something that came quite near to being a smile.

“Thank you, sir—but I’m explaining, not confessing. I went back to my flat in Birleton Mansions and I went out again, just as I told the Superintendent. I wasn’t anxious to tell him where I went, but I suppose it was bound to come out. I came back here because I wanted to see my uncle, and owing to what he had said at dinner I didn’t want the rest of the family to know.”

“God bless my soul! You came back here and saw Mr. Paradine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you get in?”

“I used my old latchkey.”

Colonel Bostock made a slight explosive sound. Vyner said,

“Why did you want to see Mr. Paradine? Do you care to tell us that?”

Mark frowned.

“Yes, I’ll tell you. I’ve been wanting for a long time to be released from the firm in order to join the R.A.F. My uncle has always refused to let me go. That is to say, the decision didn’t rest with him, but there wasn’t much chance of the government’s releasing me unless he said he could do without me here.”

Colonel Bostock looked at him sharply.

“On research work, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go on.”

“My uncle wouldn’t let me go. I came here last night to tell him he’d got to. That’s all.”

“Why?”

“For personal reasons.”

“Going to tell us what they were?”

“No, sir. My uncle’s death has altered everything. I can’t hope to get away now.”

Vyner had been looking at him attentively. He said,

“What sort of interview did you have with Mr. Paradine? Was it friendly?”

“Yes. He agreed to let me go. That’s why the diary had been opened at February 1st. There’s something I’ve been working on—I said I’d be through with it in about a month. He asked me to wait a month and see him again. I said, ‘Four weeks from today?’ and he said, ‘No—a calendar month.’ I remembered the diary my aunt had given me earlier in the evening, so I took it out of my pocket and looked up February 1st—I wanted to see what day it was. Then I handed it over to him, and he said, ‘All right—if you’re still of the same mind then.’ ”

“What happened after that?”

“I went home. I didn’t know I’d left the diary here. I didn’t think about it again.”

“What time did you leave?”

“I don’t know—about half past eleven, I should think.”

“No one saw you come or go?”

“Not as far as I know.”

Vyner paused for a moment. Then he said,

“Mr. Wray and Mr. Pearson came down for a drink at 11:30. Mr. Wray says he got an impression that the front door was closing as he entered the hall. That would fit in with your time.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Paradine—on what sort of terms did you part with your uncle? Were they friendly?”

Miss Silver saw a muscle twitch in the dark cheek. The black brows drew together. He said,

“Yes.”

“He was alive when you left him?”

Under the frowning brows the eyes blazed for a moment. There was a noticeable pause before Mark Paradine got out his second,

“Yes.”