The Clocks

CHAPTER 1

Colin Lamb’s Narrative

To use police terms: at 2.59 p.m. on September 9th, I was proceeding along Wilbraham Crescent in a westerly direction. It was my first introduction to Wilbraham Crescent, and frankly Wilbraham Crescent had me baffled.

I had been following a hunch with a persistence becoming more dogged day by day as the hunch seemed less and less likely to pay off. I’m like that.

The number I wanted was 61, and could I find it? No, I could not. Having studiously followed the numbers from 1 to 35, Wilbraham Crescent then appeared to end. A thoroughfare uncompromisingly labelled Albany Road barred my way. I turned back. On the north side there were no houses, only a wall. Behind the wall, blocks of modern flats soared upwards, the entrance of them being obviously in another road. No help there.

I looked up at the numbers I was passing. 24, 23, 22, 21. Diana Lodge (presumably 20, with an orange cat on the gate post washing its face), 19—

The door of 19 opened and a girl came out of it and down the path with what seemed to be the speed of a bomb. The likeness to a bomb was intensified by the screaming that accompanied her progress. It was high and thin and singularly inhuman. Through the gate the girl came and collided with me with a force that nearly knocked me off the pavement. She did not only collide. She clutched—a frenzied desperate clutching.

‘Steady,’ I said, as I recovered my balance. I shook her slightly. ‘Steady now.’

The girl steadied. She still clutched, but she stopped screaming. Instead she gasped—deep sobbing gasps.

I can’t say that I reacted to the situation with any brilliance. I asked her if anything was the matter. Recognizing that my question was singularly feeble I amended it.

‘What’s the matter?’

The girl took a deep breath.

‘In there!’ she gestured behind her.

‘Yes?’

‘There’s a man on the floor…dead… She was going to step on him.’

‘Who was? Why?’

‘I think—because she’s blind. And there’s blood on him.’ She looked down and loosened one of her clutching hands. ‘And on me. There’s blood on me.’

‘So there is,’ I said. I looked at the stains on my coat sleeve. ‘And on me as well now,’ I pointed out. I sighed and considered the situation. ‘You’d better take me in and show me,’ I said.

But she began to shake violently.

‘I can’t—I can’t… I won’t go in there again.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ I looked round. There seemed nowhere very suitable to deposit a half-fainting girl. I lowered her gently to the pavement and sat her with her back against the iron railings.

‘You stay there,’ I said, ‘until I come back. I shan’t be long. You’ll be all right. Lean forward and put your head between your knees if you feel queer.’

‘I—I think I’m all right now.’

She was a little doubtful about it, but I didn’t wait to parley. I gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and strode off briskly up the path. I went in through the door, hesitated a moment in the hallway, looked into the door on the left, found an empty dining-room, crossed the hall and entered the sitting-room opposite.

The first thing I saw was an elderly woman with grey hair sitting in a chair. She turned her head sharply as I entered and said:

‘Who’s that?’

I realized at once that the woman was blind. Her eyes which looked directly towards me were focused on a spot behind my left ear.

I spoke abruptly and to the point.

‘A young woman rushed out into the street saying there was a dead man in here.’

I felt a sense of absurdity as I said the words. It did not seem possible that there should be a dead man in this tidy room with this calm woman sitting in her chair with her hands folded.

But her answer came at once.

‘Behind the sofa,’ she said.

I moved round the angle of the sofa. I saw it then—the outflung arms—the glazed eyes—the congealing patch of blood.

‘How did this happen?’ I asked abruptly.

‘I don’t know.’

‘But—surely. Who is he?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘We must get the police.’ I looked round. ‘Where’s the telephone?’

‘I have not got a telephone.’

I concentrated upon her more closely.

‘You live here? This is your house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘Certainly. I came in from shopping—’ I noted the shopping bag flung on a chair near the door. ‘I came in here. I realized at once there was someone in the room. One does very easily when one is blind. I asked who was there. There was no answer—only the sound of someone breathing rather quickly. I went towards the sound—and then whoever it was cried out—something about someone being dead and that I was going to tread on him. And then whoever it was rushed past me out of the room screaming.’

I nodded. Their stories clicked.

‘And what did you do?’

‘I felt my way very carefully until my foot touched an obstacle.’

‘And then?’

‘I knelt down. I touched something—a man’s hand. It was cold—there was no pulse… I got up and came over here and sat down—to wait. Someone was bound to come in due course. The young woman, whoever she was, would give the alarm. I thought I had better not leave the house.’

I was impressed with the calm of this woman. She had not screamed, or stumbled panic-stricken from the house. She had sat down calmly to wait. It was the sensible thing to do, but it must have taken some doing.

Her voice inquired:

‘Who exactly are you?’

‘My name is Colin Lamb. I happened to be passing by.’

‘Where is the young woman?’

‘I left her propped up by the gate. She’s suffering from shock. Where is the nearest telephone?’

‘There is a call-box about fifty yards down the road just before you come to the corner.’

‘Of course. I remember passing it. I’ll go and ring the police. Will you—’ I hesitated.

I didn’t know whether to say ‘Will you remain here?’ or to make it ‘Will you be all right?’

She relieved me from my choice.

‘You had better bring the girl into the house,’ she said decisively.

‘I don’t know that she will come,’ I said doubtfully.

‘Not into this room, naturally. Put her in the dining-room the other side of the hall. Tell her I am making some tea.’

She rose and came towards me.

‘But—can you manage—’

A faint grim smile showed for a moment on her face.

‘My dear young man. I have made meals for myself in my own kitchen ever since I came to live in this house—fourteen years ago. To be blind is not necessarily to be helpless.’

‘I’m sorry. It was stupid of me. Perhaps I ought to know your name?’

‘Millicent Pebmarsh—Miss.’

I went out and down the path. The girl looked up at me and began to struggle to her feet.

‘I—I think I’m more or less all right now.’

I helped her up, saying cheerfully:

‘Good.’

‘There—there was a dead man in there, wasn’t there?’

I agreed promptly.

‘Certainly there was. I’m just going down to the telephone box to report it to the police. I should wait in the house if I were you.’ I raised my voice to cover her quick protest. ‘Go into the dining-room—on the left as you go in. Miss Pebmarsh is making a cup of tea for you.’

‘So that was Miss Pebmarsh? And she’s blind?’

‘Yes. It’s been a shock to her, too, of course, but she’s being very sensible. Come on, I’ll take you in. A cup of tea will do you good whilst you are waiting for the police to come.’

I put an arm round her shoulders and urged her up the path. I settled her comfortably by the dining-room table, and hurried off again to telephone.

An unemotional voice said, ‘Crowdean Police Station.’

‘Can I speak to Detective Inspector Hardcastle?’

The voice said cautiously:

‘I don’t know whether he is here. Who is speaking?’

‘Tell him it’s Colin Lamb.’

‘Just a moment, please.’

I waited. Then Dick Hardcastle’s voice spoke.

‘Colin? I didn’t expect you yet awhile. Where are you?’

‘Crowdean. I’m actually in Wilbraham Crescent. There’s a man lying dead on the floor of Number 19, stabbed I should think. He’s been dead approximately half an hour or so.’

‘Who found him. You?’

‘No, I was an innocent passer-by. Suddenly a girl came flying out of the house like a bat out of hell. Nearly knocked me down. She said there was a dead man on the floor and a blind woman was trampling on him.’

‘You’re not having me on, are you?’ Dick’s voice asked suspiciously.

‘It does sound fantastic, I admit. But the facts seem to be as stated. The blind woman is Miss Millicent Pebmarsh who owns the house.’

‘And was she trampling on the dead man?’

‘Not in the sense you mean it. It seems that being blind she just didn’t know he was there.’

‘I’ll set the machinery in motion. Wait for me there. What have you done with the girl?’

‘Miss Pebmarsh is making her a cup of tea.’

Dick’s comment was that it all sounded very cosy.