‘I should think so. He works for a good firm.’ Monty named it. ‘But I don’t know him personally. He used to work Yorkshire and Lancashire, I believe. He’s taken over old Cripps’s district.’
‘You can’t say if he’d be likely to murder another chap and pinch his samples?’
Monty protested. The last thing any commercial would be likely to do. There was a freemasonry of the road.
‘Hum!’ said the Inspector. ‘Now, listen here. We’ll get Rudd’s story again, and have it taken down.’
The landlord’s account was clear enough. The first traveller – now identified as Wagstaffe – had arrived at 7.30. He had meant, he said, to push on to Pettiford, but the fog was too thick. He had ordered dinner, and had afterwards gone in to sit in the bar-parlour, which was empty. The Royal Oak did very little high-class hotel business, and there was nobody in that night except some labourers in the four-ale bar. At half-past nine, Slater had turned up, also alleging the fog as the reason for breaking his journey. He had already dined, and presently joined Wagstaffe in the bar-parlour. On entering, he had been heard to say to Wagstaffe ‘in a nasty sort of voice’, ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ After that, the door had been shut, but presently Wagstaffe had knocked upon the hatch between the parlour and the bar and asked for a bottle of Scotch. At half-past ten, the bar being closed and the glasses washed up, Rudd had gone in and found the two men talking beside the fire. They both seemed flushed and angry. Rudd said that he and his wife and the barman were going to bed, as they had to get up early. Would the guests please put out the light when they came upstairs?
Here the landlord broke off to explain that there were no bedrooms over the bar-parlour – only a large, empty room running over the whole front of the house and used for meetings of parish societies, and so forth. The sleeping accommodation all ran out at the back, and you could not hear, from the bedrooms, anything that went on in the ground-floor part. He then went on:
‘It would be about twenty past eleven when I heard someone come up and knock at our bedroom door. I got out of bed and opened it, and there was Slater. He looked very queer and upset. He said that the weather had cleared and he’d made up his mind to push on to Pettiford. It seemed funny to me, but I looked out of the window and saw that the fog had gone and there was a sharp frost and moonlight. I said he’d have to pay for his room, and he didn’t make no bones about that. I put on a dressing-gown and went with him down the back stairs into the office. That’s behind the bar. I made out his bill and he paid it, and then I let him out the back way into the garage. He took his bags with him—’
‘How many bags?’
‘Two.’
‘Did he bring two with him when he came?’
‘Couldn’t say, I’m sure. I never see them to notice. He planked all his stuff down in the bar-parlour when he come, and when I come out of the office with his change he was standing ready with them in the passage, with his hat and coat on. I didn’t go out into the yard with him, because it was bitter cold, and I weren’t none too pleased to be fetched out of my bed; but I heard the car drive out a few minutes later. Then I went back to bed again, and I noticed through the office window that the light was still on in the bar-parlour, so that the door must have been open. See what I mean? There’s the back door of the parlour leading into the office, and when that’s open, you can see the light from the yard, through the office window. So I thinks, that other fellow’s still sitting up – I’ll charge him extra for burning all that light. And I goes to bed.’
‘You didn’t go in and see that he was still there?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Mr Rudd. ‘It was too perishing cold to be hanging about. I went to bed and to sleep.’
‘That’s a pity. Did you go to sleep at once?’
‘Yes, I click.’
‘You didn’t hear Wagstaffe come upstairs at all?’
‘I didn’t hear a thing. But Mrs Rudd was awake till midnight, and he hadn’t come up then. And it stands to reason he never come up at all, don’t it?’
‘It looks that way,’ agreed the Inspector cautiously. ‘And how about George?’
The barman confirmed Rudd’s story, and added a little to it. He said that he had gone into the bar-parlour between 9.30 and 10 o’clock and had interrupted the two men in what looked like a violent quarrel. Slater had been saying, ‘You little rat – I’ve a good mind to break every bone in your body.’ He thought they were both drunk. He had said nothing to them, but made up the fire and gone away. He had heard no more quarrelling. After Rudd had gone up at 10.30, he had looked in again, and they were then talking quietly and appeared to be reading some letters. He had then gone to bed, and been wakened by the sound of footsteps and the departure of the car.
‘And after that?’ asked Inspector Birch.
George’s eyes were lowered sullenly.
‘Mr Rudd came upstairs again.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, that’s all. I went to sleep.’
‘You didn’t hear anybody else moving about?’
‘No. I went to sleep, I tell you.’
‘What time did Mr Rudd come up?’
‘Dunno. I didn’t trouble to look.’
‘Did you hear twelve strike?’
‘I didn’t hear nothing. I was asleep.’
‘How many bags did this man Slater bring with him?’
‘Only one.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Well, I think so.’
‘And the other man – Wagstaffe – did he have a bag?’
‘Yes, he had a bag. Took it into the parlour with him.’
‘Did these men sign the register?’
‘Slater did when he arrived,’ said the landlord. ‘Wagstaffe didn’t. I meant to remind him in the morning.’
‘Then Slater wasn’t premeditating anything when he arrived,’ said Birch. ‘Looks like it was a casual meeting. All right, Rudd. I’ll see your wife later. Now carry on, and don’t go shooting your mouth off too much. We’ve got the number of Slater’s car,’ he added, to nobody in particular. ‘If he’s really gone to Pettiford, they’ll pull him in.’
‘Just so,’ said Monty. ‘I suppose,’ he added, tentatively, ‘that clock’s telling the truth?’
‘Thinking he might have been put back, eh?’ said the Inspector. ‘Like in that play they’ve got on in town?’
‘Well,’ admitted Monty, ‘it seems funny, the way the criminal carefully knocked grandpa over, just as if he was going out of his way to provide evidence against himself. It doesn’t seem natural. Praise with discretion; purchasers are quick to distrust those who lay it on too thick, as it says in
The Salesman’s Handbook
.’
‘We’ll soon see,’ said the Inspector, advancing upon the clock. ‘Wait a bit, though; we’d better try the case for finger-prints.’
The arrival of a photographer and an apparatus for bringing up and recording finger-prints led to the discovery of so many signs of handling, both on the clock and on the bottle, as to prove that the use of dusters and furniture polish must have been abandoned for a very long time at the Royal Oak. Eventually the photographs were taken, and the Inspector and a constable lifted the clock back into place. It appeared to have suffered no great shock, but only to have stopped when the pendulum came up against the side of the case, for on being righted and started it ticked away merrily. Mr Birch lifted a thick forefinger to the minute-hand; then he checked himself.
‘No,’ he said, ‘we’ll leave grandpa to himself. If, there’s been any jiggery-pokery, there might be something to be found on the hands, though they’re a bit narrow to carry a print. But you never know. I suppose he’ll run all right for an hour or two.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Egg, opening the case and peering in. ‘The weights are rather near the bottom, especially one of them, but I should say he had another twelve hours or so in him. What’s today? Saturday? They probably wind him on Sunday morning.’
‘Probably,’ agreed the Inspector. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Egg. I don’t think we need detain you any longer.’
‘No objection to me having a spot of ale in the bar, I suppose,’ suggested Monty, ‘it’ll be open in half an hour or so, and I didn’t have much breakfast.’
‘I didn’t have any,’ said Inspector Birch, wistfully.
From this point, the procedure was obvious. The Inspector was just finishing a large mound of bacon and eggs when a commotion at the door announced the arrival of a police sergeant with the absconding Mr Slater. The latter was a large, angry-looking man who, as soon as he entered the room, began to protest violently.
‘Cut that out, my lad,’ said Mr Birch. ‘How many bags did you find with him, Sergeant?’
‘Only one, sir – his own.’
‘I tell you,’ said Slater, ‘I know nothing about all this. I left Wagstaffe here in the bar-parlour at twenty past eleven or thereabouts, and he was all right then – only drunk. I drove away at half-past, or it might be a quarter to twelve. I brought one bag and I took one bag, and here it is, and anybody who says anything else is telling a lie. If I’d been doing a murder, do you think I’d have gone straight off to Pettiford and sat eating my breakfast in the Four Bells, waiting for you to catch me?’
‘You might and you mightn’t,’ said Mr Birch. ‘Did you know this man Wagstaffe?’
The angry eyes shifted uneasily.
‘I’d met him,’ said Slater.
‘They say you were quarrelling with him.’
‘Well – he was drunk, and made himself unpleasant. That’s one reason why I pushed off.’
‘I see.’ The Inspector glanced through the correspondence taken from the dead man’s pocket.
‘Your name’s Archibald, isn’t it? Have you got a sister Edith? . . . No, you don’t!’
Slater had made a quick grab at the letter in Birch’s hand.
‘Well,’ he admitted sulkily, ‘I don’t mind telling you that that swine Wagstaffe was a dirty scoundrel. Thorne’s the name we knew him by, and my sister’s his wife – or thought she was, till it turned out he was married to somebody else under another name, the skunk. They got married while I was away up North, and I knew nothing about it till I came into this district, and he’s been careful to keep out of my way – till last night. Not that there was anything I could do to him, except try and get maintenance for the kid, and in the end he said he’d pay. I – look here, Inspector, I quite realise that this looks bad, but—’
‘Hi!’ exclaimed Monty. ‘Don’t forget the clock. It’s just going to strike.’
‘Yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘Ten past eleven that clock marked when it was knocked over in the struggle. You were out of here by twenty past. If it strikes one now, we’ll know it’s been put back – if it strikes twelve, then it’s telling the truth, and you’re for it.’
The case stood open. As the first stroke of the hammer fell, they watched, fascinated, while the striking weight moved slowly down from where it hung, three or four inches below the other,
The clock struck twelve.
‘That’s something, anyway,’ said Mr Birch, grimly.
‘It’s not true!’ cried Slater wildly. Then he added, more soberly, ‘The man might have been killed after I left, but still before midnight, and the hands put back three quarters of an hour.’
And while the Inspector hesitated:
‘Half a minute,’ said Monty. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Inspector, I’ve just thought of something. Twelve o’clock is the longest run that weight ever does, and it’s only dropped something under half an inch. Now, how does it come to hang so far below the driving weight? You see what I mean? During the long hours from six to twelve, the striking weight gets ahead of the driving weight and hangs below it, but during the short hours, the driving weight catches up on it, so that – in my experience, anyhow – there’s never more than half an inch or so between them in an eight-day clock, and they finish up level. Now, how did this fellow here get all this long start of his chum?’
‘Wound up carelessly,’ suggested the Inspector.
‘Either that,’ said Monty, ‘or the clock’s been
put on eleven hours
. That’s the only way to put back a striking clock, unless you have the sense to take the striking weight off altogether, which most people haven’t the wits to think of.’
‘Whew!’ said Mr Birch. ‘Now, who’d know about that, I wonder? Who winds this clock? We’d better ask Rudd.’
‘I wouldn’t ask him, if you’ll forgive me putting myself forward,’ said Mr Egg, thoughtfully.
‘Oh!’ said Mr Birch. ‘I see.’ He pulled at his moustache. ‘Wait a minute. I’ve got it.’
He plunged out, and presently returned with a boy of about fourteen.
‘Sonnie,’ said he, ‘who winds up the grandfather-clock?’
‘Dad does, every Sunday morning.’
‘Did you see him do it last Sunday?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Can you remember if he wound the two weights up to the same height – or were they apart, like this?’
‘He always winds them up tight – fourteen winds – that’s two turns for every day – and when the weight’s wound up, it goes bump.’
The Inspector nodded.