The Clock Strikes Twelve

Chapter 13

Phyllida woke in the dark to a knock on the door and murmured a sleepy, mechanical “Come in!” The door opened and shut, the ceiling light snapped on, and there coming towards her was Elliot, hastily dressed, his fair hair rumpled, his face drawn and grim. At the very first sight of him all her new happiness was gone. A dreadful conviction of disaster caught at her heart. It didn’t even seem strange for him to be there. She was out of bed in a flash, her hair about her shoulders.

“Oh! What is it? Elliot-what is it?”

“Bad news, I’m afraid.”

She was shaking. She caught at his arm to steady herself.

“It’s Mr. Paradine-he’s had an accident.”

“An accident-”

She was clutching him hard. It seemed quite natural to both of them. He said,

“I’m afraid he’s dead.”

The tears began to run down Phyllida’s face. Elliot said,

“You’d better sit down. And look here, Phyl, you’ve got to pull yourself together. It’s going to matter very much what we do and say-all of us. We’ve got to pull ourselves together, and we’ve got to keep our heads.” He took her over to the bed, and they sat together on the edge of it. “Look here, I’ll tell you about it. Lane found him. He’d fallen from the terrace. He was right down there on the river path. You know how he always went out the last thing to take the air and look at the river-he never missed, wet or fine. Well, he must have turned giddy and gone over the parapet. His bed hadn’t been slept in, and the study door was open. Lane went out with a torch and found him. Then he came to me, and I got Albert. I’ve left him ringing up all the people who’ve got to be told-Moffat, Frank Ambrose, Mark and Dicky, Dr. Horton, and the police.”

She was still holding him. Her grasp tightened.

“The police-”

He said in a curious restrained voice,

“Because of its being an accident-you have to notify the police when there’s been an accident.”

A long shudder went over her. She let go of him and turned so that they were facing one another.

“What did you mean-when you said-it mattered so much-what we said-”

Elliot did not answer her for a moment. Instead he got up, fetched the pale blue dressing-gown which lay over a chintz-covered chair, and came back with it.

“You’d better put this on.” Then, when he had put it round her, he said soberly, “I think you’ll have to tell Miss Paradine. And I think we shall all have to make up our minds what we are going to say to the police.”

They were both standing now. With her hands on the cord she was knotting at her waist, she looked up and said in a startled voice,

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what happened at dinner last night. It did happen, and we can’t behave as if it didn’t. A lot of people heard what he said. If they’re going to hold their tongues about it, they’ll all have to hold their tongues. If they’re going to talk-if any one of them is going to talk-the police will have a good many questions to ask.”

She finished tying her girdle before she said,

“What are you going to do?”

Their eyes met. His were hard, angry, antagonistic. He said,

“I don’t know.” Then, after a sharp break, “Was it an accident?”

“Oh-”

He went on looking at her with those hard eyes.

“Was it? You don’t know-I don’t know. If it was, it was a lucky accident for someone. You heard what he said-we all did. Someone in the family had let the family down, and he’d got it in for them. He’d got his own ideas about punishment, and he meant to keep it in the family, but whoever had done it wasn’t going to get off light. And he knew who it was. That’s the crux of the thing-he knew who it was. And he was going to be in his study till midnight, so confess and take the consequences. That’s what he said-wasn’t it? So someone goes along and confesses. And there aren’t any consequences, because James Paradine has an accident. That’s about the size of it, isn’t it?”

There was no colour at all in Phyllida’s face.

“How do you know-that someone-went to confess?”

Elliot said,

“I know.”

“How-how?”

After a pause he said,

“Something was taken. Well, it had been put back.”

“What was taken?”

He shook his head.

“I can’t tell you. I’m only telling you that I know someone did go to the study last night.”

Phyllida looked at him in a very direct and simple manner and said,

“I went there.”

His hand came down on her shoulder almost with the force of a blow.

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

She nodded.

“Of course I know. I went down to the study because I wanted to talk to Uncle James.”

“After what he said at dinner, you were damned fool enough to go to the study?”

It was extraordinarily heartening to have Elliot swearing at her. Polite strangers don’t swear at you. This was Elliot-angry. Something very homely and familiar about it. She said,

“Oh, don’t be silly! I wasn’t thinking about all that. I wanted to talk to him.”

No man can really believe how irrelevant a woman’s mind can be. Elliot stared.

“He said all that at dinner, and you weren’t thinking about it-you just wanted to talk? What did you want to talk about?”

“About us.”

He let go of her, walked away until the dressing-table brought him up short, and then stood with his back to her fingering the odds and ends which lay there-nail-scissors, a powderpuff, a little pot of cream, a pencil.

“Why did you want to do that?”

Phyllida’s smile came out just for a moment, showed, trembled, and was gone again. Her eyes were wet. If he had looked into the mirror he would have seen these things. But his eyes were on the foolish trifles which somehow plucked at his heart and made it hot and angry.

She said,

“Oh, I just thought I would.”

And with that he swung round and came back to her.»

“Did anyone see you-coming or going?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What time was it?”

“I don’t know-some time after ten o’clock. I suppose I was there about twenty minutes, but I don’t really know. I didn’t look at the time-then.”

“How do you mean, then?”

A frightened look came over her face. She came nearer.

“It was afterwards. I went to sleep-and I woke up-I had a horrid dream-and just as I woke up I thought there was a cry. Oh, Elliot, do you think-”

He said quickly,

“Did you look at the clock then? What time was it?”

“Just after twelve-about half a minute past. I put on the light and looked. Oh-was it then?”

“Sounds like it. Now look here-you hold your tongue about all this. You went to your room just before ten, and you went to your bed, and you slept all night. You didn’t hear anything and you don’t know anything-that’s you. Close as a clam-do you hear?”

She said, “I-don’t-know-”

He took her by the shoulders and shook her.

“Oh, yes, you do! You hear what I say, and you’ll do what you’re told! I’m not going to have you mixed up in this, and that’s flat!”

Something inside Phyllida began to sing. If he didn’t care he wouldn’t be angry like this. He was frightfully angry. His chin stuck out about a mile, and he had bruised her shoulder. She looked down to hide the something in her eyes which she didn’t want him to see. And right at that moment the door opened and Grace Paradine came in.

She had knotted up her hair, but she wore a plum-coloured dressing-gown and bedroom slippers trimmed with fur. What she saw was certainly capable of misconstruction-Phyllida with her eyes cast down and Elliot’s hands just dropping from her shoulders. It might have been the end of an embrace-or the beginning. Her eyes fairly blazed as she said,

“What does this mean?”

It was a source of some regret to Elliot that decency forbade any of the replies which sprang readily enough to his mind. You cannot score off a woman who is just going to be told that her brother has met with a fatal accident. He said, “Phyllida will tell you, Miss Paradine,” and walked past her out of the room.

Grace Paradine came up to Phyllida and put her arms round her.

“Oh, my darling, don’t look like that! I never dreamed-How dare he come in here-it’s outrageous! But you mustn’t let it upset you. I shall see that it doesn’t happen again.”

Phyllida did not look up. She said quite gently,

“It wasn’t Elliot who upset me, Aunt Grace.”

Grace Paradine stiffened.

“What do you mean?”

Phyllida made an effort. If she had to do it she must do it quickly. She steadied herself and said,

“Something has happened. Elliot came to tell me. It’s something dreadful. It’s-it’s-Uncle James-”

“What?” said Grace Paradine on a sharp note of fear.

Phyllida said,

“Oh, Aunt Grace-he’s dead!”