The Clocks

‘Were you at home yesterday afternoon, may I ask? That is to say between half past one and half past three?’

‘Oh yes, indeed. I usually do my shopping quite early in the day and then get back so that I can do the darlings’ lunch, and then comb and groom them.’

‘And you didn’t notice any activity next door? Police cars-ambulance-anything like that?’

‘Well, I’m afraid I didn’t look out of the front windows. I went out of the back of the house into the garden because dear Arabella was missing. She is quite a young cat and she had climbed up one of the trees and I was afraid she might not be able to get down. I tried to tempt her with a saucer of fish but she was frightened, poor little thing. I had to give up in the end and come back into the house. And would you believe it, just as I went through the door, down she came and followed me in.’ She looked from one man to the other as though testing their powers of belief.

‘Matter of fact, I would believe it,’ said Colin, unable to keep silence any more.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Hemming looked at him slightly startled.

‘I am much attached to cats,’ said Colin, ‘and I have therefore made a study of cat nature. What you have told me illustrates perfectly the pattern of cat behaviour and the rules they have made for themselves. In the same way your cats are all congregating round my friend who frankly does not care for cats, they will pay no attention to me in spite of all my blandishments.’

If it occurred to Mrs Hemming that Colin was hardly speaking in the proper role of sergeant of police, no trace of it appeared in her face. She merely murmured vaguely:

‘They always know, the dear things, don’t they?’

A handsome grey Persian put two paws on Inspector Hardcastle’s knees, looked at him in an ecstasy of pleasure and dug his claws in hard with a kneading action as though the inspector was a pincushion. Goaded beyond endurance, Inspector Hardcastle rose to his feet.

‘I wonder, madam,’ he said, ‘if I could see this back garden of yours.’

Colin grinned slightly.

‘Oh, of course, of course. Anything you please.’ Mrs Hemming rose.

The orange cat unwound itself from her neck. She replaced it in an absent-minded way with the grey Persian. She led the way out of the room. Hardcastle and Colin followed.

‘We’ve met before,’ said Colin to the orange cat and added, ‘Andyou’re a beauty, aren’t you,’ addressing another grey Persian who was sitting on a table by a Chinese lamp, swishing his tail slightly. Colin stroked him, tickled him behind the ears and the grey cat condescended to purr. 

‘Shut the door, please, as you come out, Mr-er-er,’ said Mrs Hemming from the hall. ‘There’s a sharp wind today and I don’t want my dears to get cold. Besides, there are those terrible boys-it’s really not safe to let the dear things wander about in the garden by themselves.’

She walked towards the back of the hall and opened a side door.

‘What terrible boys?’ asked Hardcastle.

‘Mrs Ramsay’s two boys. They live in the south part of the crescent. Our gardens more or less back on each other. Absolute young hooligans, that’s what they are. They have a catapult, you know, or they had. I insisted on its being confiscated but I have my suspicions. They make ambushes and hide. In the summer they throw apples.’

‘Disgraceful,’ said Colin.

The back garden was like the front only more so. It had some unkempt grass, some unpruned and crowded shrubs and a great many more laurels of the speckled variety, and some rather gloomy macrocarpas. In Colin’s opinion, both he and Hardcastle were wasting their time. There was a solid barrage of laurels, trees and shrubs through which nothing of Miss Pebmarsh’s garden could possibly be seen. Diana Lodge could be described as a fully detached house. From the point of view of its inhabitants, it might have had no neighbours. 

‘Number 19, did you say?’ said Mrs Hemming, pausing irresolutely in the middle of her back garden. ‘But I thought there was only one person living in the house, a blind woman.’

‘The murdered man was not an occupant of the house,’ said the inspector.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Mrs Hemming, still vaguely, ‘he came here to be murdered. How odd.’

‘Now that,’ said Colin thoughtfully to himself, ‘is a damned good description.’

Chapter 9

They drove along Wilbraham Crescent, turned to the right up Albany Road and then to the right again along the second instalment of Wilbraham Crescent.

‘Simple really,’ said Hardcastle.

‘Once you know,’ said Colin.

‘61 really backs on Mrs Hemming’s house-but a corner of it touches on 19, so that’s good enough. It will give you a chance to look at your Mr Bland. No foreign help, by the way.’

‘So there goes a beautiful theory.’ The car drew up and the two men got out.

‘Well, well,’ said Colin. ‘Some front garden!’

It was indeed a model of surburban perfection in a small way. There were beds of geraniums with lobelia edging. There were large fleshy-looking begonias, and there was a fine display of garden ornaments-frogs, toadstools, comic gnomes and pixies.