The Clock Strikes Twelve (22 page)

Vyner said, “Mr. Pearson, there are certain obvious reasons why this discovery is compromising for you. A substitution of stones such as has taken place is not everybody’s job. It could also only have been done by someone who had access to this room and to the late Mr. Paradine’s keys. You happen to combine both these qualifications. It is therefore my duty to ask you whether you have anything to say.”

Albert had himself in hand. He said in his earnest, boring voice,

“Quite so. But I am afraid I can’t help you. I know nothing at all about this.”

“The diamonds are gone, Mr. Pearson, to the tune of something like two thousand pounds. They didn’t go of themselves.”

“I suppose not, Superintendent. It doesn’t occur to you that Mr. Paradine himself may have had them replaced?”

“Are you going to say that you acted under his orders?”

“Certainly not. I am only saying you may find it difficult to prove that the work was not done by Mr. Paradine’s orders. You will naturally examine the cases for fingerprints, but I am afraid that you will be disappointed. You see, Mr. Paradine handled them so constantly himself. He liked having the jewels out and looking at them—a fact which would have made it very difficult for anyone to tamper with them.”

There was a pause before Vyner said,

“You are very well informed, Mr. Pearson.”

The large round glasses were turned upon him steadily. Albert said,

“What do you expect? I was his secretary.”

“Very well. I said there were obvious reasons for suspecting you. There are others not so obvious. Was it in your capacity as secretary that you put on the clock in Mr. Wray’s room by a quarter of an hour on Thursday night?”

A dull, ugly colour came up in patches under Albert’s skin. The skin was clammy. His hands lay in full view upon the table. It took all his will power to keep them there unclenched. He said in a rougher voice,

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. The under housemaid, Polly Parsons, saw you come out of Mr. Wray’s room when she came up to turn down the beds. She was surprised to find that the clock in that room put the time at ten minutes past ten, whereas the clock in your own room made it five minutes short of the hour. Fifteen minutes’ difference, Mr. Pearson. You were very careful indeed to have an alibi for the time that Mr. Paradine was to be waiting in his study. He was waiting there to receive a confession. When you went in to say goodnight to him just after ten minutes to ten, Lane, who was immediately behind you, heard Mr. Paradine say, ‘Hullo, Albert—have you come to confess?’ You had no time to answer him because Lane came in with the tray. I suppose you were both there for a few minutes, which would bring the time right for you to run upstairs, alter the clock, and be down again to meet Mr. Wray and stay with him until that altered clock gave you your alibi by pointing to eight minutes past twelve. But it was then actually only seven minutes to—there was still seven minutes of the time which Mr. Paradine had set. You said goodnight to Mr. Wray, who went immediately to the bathroom and turned on the taps. You knew that Mr. Paradine would still be in the study—you had time to catch him there, and to answer the question which he had asked you. If you had a confession to make you had time to make it. If you did not mean to make a confession you had time to reach the terrace by way of any of those ground-floor windows. There is a print of yours upon the frame of the bathroom window. In common with everyone else in the house, you were aware that Mr. Paradine invariably went out on the terrace before he retired for the night. Someone waited there for him, Mr. Pearson. Someone pushed him over the parapet. It is my duty to tell you—”

Albert Pearson jerked back his chair so violently that it crashed. The patchy colour had gone from his face, the dark skin had a greenish tinge. He leaned over with his hands on the table, propping himself. If ever a man showed the extreme of fear, he showed it. But there was something else—something which made Miss Silver lay a hand on the Superintendent’s sleeve. He was about to step back in order to pass behind Mark, but the hand checked him. She said,

“Wait! He has something to say.”

Leaning there, sweating, shaking, Albert said it. He looked straight down the table over Miss Silver’s head to Frank Ambrose leaning tall and gloomy against the black marble of the mantelshelf.

“Mr. Ambrose—you can’t let him do it—you can’t let him arrest me! You can’t go on holding your tongue, and nor can I. I’m an innocent man, and you know it. If I was there, so were you, and we both saw what happened. You’re not going to stand there and hold your tongue! I’d have held mine if it hadn’t come to this, but I’m not holding it now—I couldn’t be expected to. If you don’t speak, I’m going to—and you may think it comes better from you.”

There was a startled silence. All the faces turned towards Frank Ambrose, whose face showed nothing except an impassive fatigue. When Superintendent Vyner said sharply, “Mr. Ambrose?” he straightened himself with an effort and answered the implied question.

“Yes—there is something that I must say. Pearson is right. I don’t think I can let you arrest him. You see, I came back again.”

Miss Silver rose to her feet, moved her chair to one side, and sat down again. By turning her head either to the right or to the left she could now see both Albert Pearson and Frank Ambrose. For the moment her attention was engaged by the latter.

Vyner said,

“In a statement made this afternoon, Mr. Ambrose, you said that you came back here to see Mr. Paradine at about half past ten. This is corroborated by Mrs. Wray, who heard your uncle address you by name as you came in. You say further that you remained for about twenty minutes and then left the house and went home. Is that correct?”

“Quite correct—except that I didn’t go home.”

“You left the house?”

“Yes, but I didn’t go home. I will try to explain. I intended to go home, but I didn’t want to get there too early. I was a good deal distressed at my stepfather’s frame of mind. I was afraid of a serious breach in the family. He had told me what he meant to do, and I could see that it was likely to lead to a breach. The night was then fine. I wanted to think, and I set out to walk the long way round by the stone bridge—it’s about three miles. When I got to my own door I looked at my watch. It was between a quarter and ten minutes to twelve. I didn’t feel like going in— I felt that I must go back and find out what had been happening here. I knew that my step-father would still be up, and I planned to go by way of the terrace and either catch him as he came out or knock on the glass door and get him to let me in. I went back by the foot-bridge and up the cliff path. In daylight I do it in seven minutes. I suppose I may have taken ten— I wasn’t hurrying. I had made up my mind that it would be better to wait till he came out on the terrace—he might have had someone in the study with him. I came up on to the end of the terrace and about half way along it. Then I stopped. The sky had clouded over behind me, but there was a little moonlight on the river. There was a good deal of diffused light. I could see the parapet against the line of the river, and I could distinguish the windows against the white wall of the house. I saw the window of my step-father’s bathroom thrown up. It is a sash window. Someone leaned out of the lower half.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No. At the time I thought it might be Lane. It certainly wasn’t my step-father. There would be no mistaking his height.”

“It could have been Mr. Pearson?”

Frank Ambrose said in a casual voice,

“Oh, yes, it was Pearson, but I didn’t know that until afterwards.”

Miss Silver took occasion to look down the table in the direction of Albert Pearson. He was standing up straight with one hand in a pocket and the other on its way there. From the fact that it grasped a large white handkerchief she considered that he had been wiping his forehead. The greenish tint had gone from his skin. He had the air of a man who has been reprieved. She brought her glance slowly back again— the young constable, busy over his shorthand—Richard Paradine, standing up—Miss Paradine, very upright, very pale—Mr. Harrison a little more shocked than before—Frank Ambrose, with his look of a man at the end of his tether.

Behind her Vyner said,

“Will you go on, Mr. Ambrose.”

Everyone in the room was to remember the pause that followed. What must be said next would be irrevocable, because here was an eye-witness of James Paradine’s death. Whether confession or accusation, the words, once spoken, could never be recalled.

Frank Ambrose said in a tired, even tone,

“This room and my mother’s room next door are alike. I saw the glass door of my mother’s room swing open. Someone came out on to the terrace—”

“Not Mr. Pearson?”

“No, not Pearson. I heard the first stroke of the hour on the Orphanage clock up the road. A moment later my step-father came out from this room and walked across the terrace to the parapet. The person who had come out of my mother’s room followed him. I didn’t want to intrude. I stood where I was. I didn’t guess what was going to happen—you don’t think about things like that until they happen. I saw my step-father pushed, and I saw him fall. The person who had pushed him ran back into my mother’s room. It was all so sudden that I didn’t move. It seemed to happen faster than I could think. Then the rain came. I had a torch in my pocket. I got it out and ran up, flashing it over the terrace. The beam swung wide and caught Pearson at the bathroom window. He knew that I had seen him, but I didn’t know until just now that he had recognized me. I went and looked over the edge. It was pouring with rain—I couldn’t see a thing. I went down to the river path, and found my step-father lying there dead. When I was quite sure that he was dead I went home.”

There was another pause. Vyner said,

“You should have reported what you had seen to the police, Mr. Ambrose.”

Frank Ambrose assented wearily.

“Naturally.”

“If you did not, it was because you had some very strong motive for keeping silence?”

This time he got no answer.

“Mr. Ambrose—I have to ask you whether you recognized the person who came out of the late Mrs. Paradine’s room.”

Albert Pearson, standing stocky and obstinate at the end of the table, said in his most dogmatic manner,

“Of course he did. And so did I.”

Vyner turned a direct gaze upon him.

“You say that you recognized this person. Will you explain how? Mr. Ambrose has just stated that the light was not sufficient for him to recognize you until he turned the beam of his torch upon you.”

Albert nodded.

“There was a light on in the room she came out of—that’s how. I saw her when she came out, and I saw her when she went back. The light was right in her face.”

The pronoun was like an electric shock. Elliot Wray’s arm tightened about his wife. Lydia drew in her breath sharply. Vyner said,

“You say it was a woman?”

“Of course it was.”

“What woman?”

Frank Ambrose took a step forward. He said,

“Pearson—”

But Albert shook his head.

“It’s no good, Mr. Ambrose—you can’t cover it up. I’m not going to hang for her, and that’s that. You’d all like it that way—I know that. That’s why I monkeyed with the clock. I knew that if I hadn’t an alibi, you’d all be saying that I was the one who’d done something he’d got to confess to. But there’s nothing doing—not when it comes to hanging. I saw who it was that came out of that door, and you can’t get away from it.”

He turned to Vyner and said in a voice that was suddenly louder than he meant it to be,

“It was Miss Paradine.”

There was a shattering silence. Even the young constable lifted his head with a jerk and stared across his shorthand notes at the family amongst whom this bomb had fallen. His quick hazel eyes flicked over them. Mr. and Mrs. Wray, just opposite—gosh, he looked grim!—and she’d got her mouth open as if she was going to scream, only there wasn’t any sound. Miss Pennington and Mr. Mark Paradine—he looked bad, like a man looks when he’s been hit and you don’t know whether he’ll drop or not. The Super—well, was he expecting that, or wasn’t he—you couldn’t properly tell. That Miss Silver—well, you couldn’t tell about her either—a queer little cup of tea if ever there was one. Mr. Ambrose now—it wasn’t any surprise to him—he’d known it was coming all right—bad case of strain— he’d known all along—tried to cover it up. Well, when it came to your own family, he supposed most of us would.

All this in the oldest medium of all—the thought-pictures which invention has never managed to overtake. All the pictures were there in the brief moment in which he turned, as everyone else had turned, to look at Grace Paradine. She was sitting in her upright chair, and she had not moved. She had been too pale before to lose any colour now. Her hands had been lying in her lap. They lay there still. There was no measurable change or movement, but there was a dreadful effect of tension, of the lack of movement being due not to weakness, but to implacable control. What it was that was being controlled showed for a moment in her eyes—an indescribable look of… He couldn’t get any nearer to it than violence. He thought to himself with a kind of surprise, “Gosh—she did it!”

Miss Silver’s cough came into the silence. She leaned forward and spoke down the table to Elliot Wray.

“Mr. Wray—if I may make the suggestion—there is no need for Mrs. Wray to be here.”

Grace Paradine moved. She looked where Miss Silver was looking and allowed her eyes to dwell upon the ashy face against Elliot’s shoulder. Then she said in a deep, calm voice,

“Phyllida will stay.”

Elliot bent. His lips could be seen to move. Phyllida shook her head.

Grace Paradine said, “Since she has heard this monstrous accusation, I should like her to hear me answer it.” She turned to the Superintendent.

Through the giddiness which hung round her like a mist Phyllida could hear him warning her. The words that had been said to Albert Pearson were being said again—“anything you may say… taken down and used against you…” The room was full of that giddy mist. It came and went in waves. She couldn’t see anyone’s face. She let her head rest against Elliot’s shoulder and felt his arm hold her up.

Deep under all the dreadfulness was the feeling that he was there.

Miss Paradine listened composedly to the formal words. Then she said,

“Thank you, Superintendent. I am naturally most anxious to do anything I can to clear this matter up. I should have thought that such an accusation, coming from one who admits his own presence—”

Mr. Harrison, sitting beside her, leaned forward and said something in a low voice. She did not turn towards him, but made a slight negative movement with her head.

“Thank you—I very much prefer to speak. The accusation is, of course, fantastic. Mr. Pearson’s motive seems obvious.” Her glance rested for a moment upon the diamonds. “He admits to a manufactured alibi. He admits to being present when my brother fell. I really do not know what more you want.”

Vyner looked her straight in the face.

“There is another witness besides Mr. Pearson.” He turned abruptly. “Mr. Ambrose—”

Grace Paradine turned too.

“Well, Frank, it seems to rest with you. You can dispose of all this in a moment.”

Their eyes met. There was command in hers. No anger now, no violence—a calm and smiling demand. It was the most horrible moment of his life. If she had been less sure of him, less sure of herself, it would have been easier. She smiled into his eyes and waited for him to clear her. As he could. He had only to say that the person who came out of Clara Paradine’s room was a stranger—too tall, too short, too large, too small to be Grace Paradine. He had only to say that he had seen a stranger’s face. His heart sickened in him. He couldn’t do it. With that smiling glance on his, he couldn’t do it. Cause and effect— the thing done, and what it does, to yourself, to everyone else—the thing called justice, the thing called crime, the inevitable link between them—the dead man whom he loved more than most sons have loved a father—the stubborn core of his nature which would yield no farther—these things constrained him. He withstood that smiling demand, and saw the smile burn out in anger.

She said in that deep, full voice,

“Come, Frank—we’re all waiting for you. Since I wasn’t there, you couldn’t have seen me. You have only to say so.”

He said, “I can’t—”

The words dropped into the hush which waited for them. They had been said—they couldn’t be taken back again. He felt a kind of dreadful relief.

Vyner said, “You recognized Miss Paradine?”

“Yes—” The word was only just audible.

Grace Paradine stood up.

“Just a moment, Superintendent. I think I have the right to ask you to test this extraordinary allegation. Since my nephew says that he saw me come out of my sister-in-law’s room, I must suppose that he honestly thinks so. I can prove that he is mistaken, and I would like the opportunity of doing so. But perhaps before we go any farther someone will tell me what motive I am supposed to have had. One does not, after all, commit a crime without some motive, and since I had none—”

Vyner said, “There is a motive, Miss Paradine. When Mr. Paradine told you all that one of the family had betrayed its interests he was alluding to the theft of Mr. Wray’s blue-prints. They were taken from his attaché case some time late on Thursday afternoon. They were put back on the corner of his table between nine o’clock and nine-fifteen—we have witnesses who can narrow the time down to that. You are the only member of the family who was alone even for a moment during that period. You were the only one who had the opportunity of putting those blue-prints back.”

She looked at him with a touch of contempt.

“That is quite fantastic. I really cannot be troubled to deal with it now. What I should like you to do is to test what Mr. Pearson and Mr. Ambrose have said. I suggest that we should go out upon the terrace—or rather that Mr. Ambrose should go out—and stand where he says that he was standing on Thursday night. Mr. Pearson should be in the bathroom looking out of the window. I will come out of my sister-in-law’s room, cross over to the parapet, and return.”

Vyner was looking at her keenly.

“What do you hope to prove by that, Miss Paradine? Since it is now broad daylight, the test is without any value at all. There should be, and will be, a test carried out after dark.”

Grace Paradine smiled. It was the slight, almost involuntary smile of the hostess shepherding her guests. It took acquiescence for granted. Her whole manner did that. Vyner was not insensible to it. She said graciously,

“Of course you will carry out your own tests, Superintendent, but I am sure you will not refuse me this one. It really will not take more than a moment, and I think that even by daylight I shall be able to show you that it was quite impossible that either Mr. Ambrose or Mr. Pearson should have seen the face of the person who came out of that bedroom.”

Had she been a shade less assured in her manner, Vyner might very well have refused. Her self-possession; the reasonable, even temper of her voice; the way in which she so assumed his consent that she had already taken a step towards the door—all these things swung the balance down. He said,

“Very well, Miss Paradine, I won’t say no. But to my mind there’s no value in it.”

Mr. Harrison had risen to his feet. He stood, shocked and doubtful, looking after his client. He supposed that she would be his client. It was all quite unbelievable, quite dreadful. He didn’t think his firm had ever handled a murder case before. He desired most ardently that they might avoid handling this one.

Miss Silver had risen too. Like Mr. Harrison, she was looking after Grace Paradine, who had gone through into the bedroom closely followed by the young constable who had been taking notes. Their voices could be heard there, and after a moment the rattle of curtain rings.

Vyner said, “Come, Mr. Ambrose—we’d better get on with it.”

As the two men moved together towards the glass door, Miss Silver opened her lips and then without speaking brought them quickly together again. The room was emptying fast. Albert Pearson went out, presumably to take up his position at the bathroom window. Richard Paradine, Mr. Harrison, Mark, and Lydia had followed Vyner and Frank Ambrose to the terrace. The glass door remained open—Elliot and Phyllida just short of it.

Miss Silver came up with them, laid a hand on Elliot’s arm, and said in a low, insistent voice,

“Keep her here, Mr. Wray. Don’t let her go out.”

He looked round at her, startled by her manner.

Vyner could be heard calling out, “Now, Miss Paradine—”

All those on the terrace looked towards the windows of Mrs. Paradine’s room—two large windows and a glass door forming a bay. Across this bay the curtains had been drawn, but whereas in the study they cut the bay off from the room, in the bedroom they followed the curving line of the windows. The rose-coloured lining could be seen touching the glass.

They all saw the rose colour move and shimmer. A dark gap appeared in the middle of it. The handle of the glass door moved, the door opened, Grace Paradine came out. There were a couple of steps down. She took them, came half across the terrace, and looked first to her right where Frank Ambrose stood by the nearest of the drawing-room windows, and then to the left where Albert Pearson leaned from the window of the bathroom. Her glance swept the family outside the study, and she turned.

Phyllida wasn’t there. But Phyllida must be there. The dark dominant eyes went seeking till they found her, just inside the study. But not looking out—not looking this way. And she must look—she must see—she must remember. If they would give her time. But the young constable was at her elbow. Vyner was coming up. She called out in a ringing voice,

“Phyllida!”

There was no time—no time at all. She saw Phyllida move and turn to the terrace.

Vyner said, “What is it, Miss Paradine?”

They all heard her say, “It’s nothing.”

But Phyllida was looking, Phyllida was coming out.

Now—

Phyllida had made no more than that one movement towards the terrace, when Elliot pulled her roughly back, turning her head against his shoulder and holding it there.

So she did not see what Grace Paradine had meant her to see—the quick step on to the parapet, and the quick step over it and down. She did not see, but she knew. She shuddered and went limp and cold in Elliot’s arms.