The Clock Strikes Twelve (16 page)

Miss Silver broke the ensuing silence with a little cough.

“Mr. Paradine, can you tell us just what was on the writing-table when you were here on Thursday night?”

A faint surprise showed itself in his face.

“What do you mean?”

She said, “Just try to visualize the table as you saw it then, and tell me as many of the things on it as you can remember.”

His frown this time was one of concentration.

“I don’t know—I wasn’t noticing. I should say it was all very much as it is now.”

“Pray go on, Mr. Paradine. Just name the things. You may find yourself recalling something.”

The frown deepened, contradicted by a half humorous, half impatient lift of the lip. He said,

“Well, all the things you see—inkstand—pen— pencils—blotting-pad—writing-block—”

“That is something which is not here now.”

“The writing-block? He had one in front of him whilst we were talking—I am sure about that. There wasn’t anything written on it.”

“Pray continue.”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

“A calendar? Miss Paradine happened to mention that he always used a plain card calendar.”

Mark shook his head.

“No, there wasn’t any calendar, otherwise I wouldn’t have got out mine. Of course it was the last day of the year. I expect he had thrown the old one away and the new one hadn’t been put out.”

“Was there nothing on this corner of the table between myself and the Superintendent?”

“Only the newspaper.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me! There was a newspaper all across this corner?”

“Yes—the Times. He must have been reading it.”

“Mr. Paradine, can you remember whether the paper was lying flat? In your recollection would there have been room under it for, let us say, Mr. Wray’s blue-prints? I understand that they were contained in a cardboard cylinder. Would there have been room for it under the newspaper?”

A look of consternation came over his face. His eyes went to Vyner, to the Chief Constable.

“They’re not missing! Was that what my uncle meant?”

Colonel Bostock said,

“Only just occurred to you?”

Mark had made a movement to rise, but it did not get him to his feet. He came down again, leaning forward across the table and looking from one to the other.

Colonel Bostock said sharply,

“Come, Paradine! What did you think your uncle meant by saying one of you had betrayed the family interests? Not a pleasant thing to say—not a pleasant thing to hear. What did you think he meant?”

“He’d missed the prints? It was that?”

“I asked you what you thought at the time, Paradine.”

Mark straightened himself up again.

“I’m sorry, sir. I never thought about the prints.”

“Indeed? Then I’d like to know what you did think.”

Mark was silent for perhaps half a minute. It seemed like a long time. Then he said,

“I’ll tell you, sir. The whole thing was a shock, naturally—not pleasant to listen to, as you say. I never thought about the prints. I didn’t know what to think. I was a good deal taken up with my own affairs, and when I came to think things over I wondered if he was referring to me. It sounds a bit exaggerated, but he always did go off the deep end at the idea of my leaving the firm. The last time we talked about it he said things that weren’t very different to what he said on Thursday night.”

“Remember any of them?”

“Well, he said I was willing to let the firm and the country down to snatch a little tin-pot glory.”

“So you thought it was you he meant on Thursday night?”

Mark shook his head.

“It wasn’t as definite as that. It just seemed to me that everything had boiled over. I felt I couldn’t go on, and I went back to tell him so.”

Colonel Bostock’s eyes held a bright sceptical twinkle.

“And you stick to it that the conversation was a pleasant one?”

The colour came up suddenly in Mark Paradine’s face.

“Well, sir, it was. I got him to understand my point of view. I told you he’d agreed to let me go in a month if I still wanted to.”

“Yes, that’s what you said.” The tone was as sceptical as the look had been.

Mark stiffened noticeably. Vyner said,

“You didn’t know the blue-prints were missing? When did you see them last?”

“I never saw them at all.”

“Sure about that?”

“Quite sure.”

“But you knew about them—you knew Mr. Wray had brought them up?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You were in the late Mr. Paradine’s private office on Thursday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“At what time, and for how long?”

“I came in with Frank Ambrose a little before four o’clock, and I was there for about a quarter of an hour.”

“And were you alone in the office at any time?”

“Yes. My uncle was away most of the time. Ambrose left before I did. I just waited to see my uncle, then I came away too.”

“Did you notice an attaché case on the office table?”

“Yes, I think so—it would have been there. My uncle used it to take papers to and fro.”

“Did you touch the case?”

Mark frowned.

“I might have done—I was leaning against the table.”

“And what was Mr. Ambrose doing?”

“I really don’t know. We talked a bit.”

“You were leaning against the table. Did you stay like that all the time he was in the room?”

“No—I was over by the window part of the time.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I was looking out. We were killing time—waiting for my uncle. In the end Ambrose didn’t wait for him.”

“Then you had your back to the room for a part of the time?”

“Yes.”

“And after Mr. Ambrose left, you were alone?”

“For a minute or two.”

“You were alone with the attaché case?”

“I was.”

“You might have opened it? Did you open it?”

“Of course not.” The tone was half casual, half scornful.

“You didn’t open the case—you didn’t take the prints?”

“I didn’t even know they had been taken.” Scorn predominated now.

Vyner looked at the Chief Constable. Colonel Bostock said,

“You didn’t know that the prints had been taken. Did you know that they had been put back?”

Mark Paradine’s expression changed. Something broke the stiffness. He leaned forward and said eagerly,

“Have they been put back?”

Colonel Bostock nodded.

“When, sir?”

Miss Silver said,

“That, Mr. Paradine, is what we are trying to find out. We should be glad of your assistance. The prints were contained in a cardboard cylinder. This cylinder was found by Mr. Wray when he entered the study early on Friday morning after being informed of Mr. Paradine’s death. It was then lying on this corner of the table. Do you think it is possible that it was already there when you visited your uncle on Thursday night?”

Mark looked, hesitated, frowned, and said,

“It might have been… But there must be fingerprints—if you’ve got the cylinder, there’ll be the prints of the person who took it.”

He turned from one to the other, and got a very straight look from Vyner.

“I’m not saying anything about the prints on the cylinder, Mr. Paradine.”

Mark pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Well, you wouldn’t get any of mine on it,” he said.

When the door had shut a little abruptly, Colonel Bostoek looked across the table at Vyner and said,

“What do you make of that?”

“Well, sir, the bother about the cylinder is there are too many prints on it—too many—too faint except for Mr. Wray’s own. Same with the papers inside. Mr. Wray says Mr. Paradine told him that he and Mr. Moffat and Mr. Ambrose had what he called a session over them. I take that to mean they had them out and passed them round. We haven’t got Mr. Moffat’s fingerprints to compare, but the other two are there all over the place, and another lot which are pretty sure to be his. The outside of the cylinder is very confused indeed—just a jumble, as you might say, which is what you’d expect with that amount of surface and all those people handling it. There’s one of Mr. Paradine’s pretty clear, and a finger and thumb of Mr. Wray’s.”

Colonel Bostoek turned to Miss Silver.

“Got any ideas?” he said. “Seems to me it lies between Mark Paradine and that girl Irene—Mrs. Ambrose.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me—” She folded her hands in her lap, turned her head a little on one side, and gazed at him with bright expectancy.

Colonel Bostoek, who had been prepared to cope with a fluent female, found himself relieved and stimulated.

“Take Mark,” he said. “He admits to coming back and seeing his uncle. Won’t say why. Admits he thought the remark about betraying the family interests might have been meant for him. Queer sort of story when you come to think about it. Anyhow he came back. Says so. Says the interview was a pleasant one. Admits the subject discussed had always previously put his uncle in a rage. This time no rage— everything very pleasant. Uncle agrees to let him go. Story full of discrepancies. What do you make of it?”

Miss Silver smiled faintly.

“Since you ask me, I think that Mr. Mark would have made up a better story if he had been inventing one.”

“‘Hm! The calendar tripped him. Had to say something. Didn’t have time to think it out.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“He knew that he was under suspicion. It was one of the first things he told me. He was aware that he must have been seen and recognized by the constable on duty at the bridge. He could have provided himself with a much better story. As it is, the calendar corroborates him in a manner which he could not have anticipated. His statement that he produced it to look up a date and then handed it to his uncle is substantiated by the position of the fingerprints. The fact that there was no other calendar on the table also supports his story.”

“It’s thin!” said Colonel Bostock explosively. “Paradine tells the family that one of them’s a criminal. Says he knows which of them it is. Says he expects a confession. Says he’ll be here till twelve o’clock. Now I ask you, is it reasonable to suppose that Mark first covers up his tracks by saying goodnight and going away with his cousin, and then comes blinding back for any other reason except to confess?”

Miss Silver shook her head again.

“I think he did come back to confess, but not to the theft of Mr. Wray’s blue-prints.”

Colonel Bostock stared. Miss Silver smiled.

“There is really a very simple explanation. Mr. Mark is in love with Miss Pennington. I think he has been in love with her for some time, but I do not think that he has ever told her so. These are my own impressions after seeing them together. From Mrs. Ambrose I gather that the family expects Miss Pennington to marry Mr. Richard Paradine, who has proposed to her repeatedly. They were seated together at dinner on Thursday night, and in one of the toasts Mr. Paradine made some glancing allusion which appeared to couple their names. I think it may easily be imagined that all this brought Mr. Mark to the point of feeling that his position was unendurable. Mr. Richard may have said something on their way home—there is no means of knowing this—but I can well imagine that Mr. Mark was in no mood to sleep. You say no innocent man would have sought an interview which might compromise him, but you must remember that an innocent man would have no idea that a theft had been committed. He might easily have a confused impression that his uncle’s words applied to his desire to leave the firm, upon which it would be natural that he should decide to return and settle the matter. If, as I think probable, he told Mr. Paradine his true reason for wishing to be released, the fact that the conversation was of a friendly nature is no longer surprising. From the circumstance that Mr. Paradine asked him to wait a month before making a final decision I am of the opinion that he did not take so dark a view of Mr. Mark’s prospects with Miss Pennington as Mr. Mark did himself. You see, Colonel Bostock, this would explain the whole thing—would it not?”

Colonel Bostock said, “ ‘Hm!” in the tone of a man who prefers to keep his counsel. Vyner, meeting Miss Silver’s enquiring gaze, remarked,

“There’s something in it.”

He received a darting glance from his Chief Constable.

“What’s the good of that? Trying to say something without saying anything! Plain fact is we don’t know. On his own showing Mark was here till half past eleven. He may have gone away and left his uncle alive like he says, or he may have pushed him over.”

“He comes in for most of the property—” said Vyner in a dubious voice.

Colonel Bostock turned again to Miss Silver.

“It’ll be him, or it’ll be that girl Irene. Shocking thing, but when a girl’s pushed one person off a cliff, you can’t say she mightn’t do it again. Happened when she was at school with my girls. She’d got a stray kitten. Against rules. Meddling busybody of a girl said she’d inform and get the kitten destroyed. Irene pushed her in the river. Might have been drowned. Fortunately wasn’t. Very unpleasant affair.”

Vyner took up the tale.

“Mrs. Ambrose is said to be wrapped up in her children. Suppose Mr. Ambrose took those prints— he was one of the people who knew all about them. He certainly handled them. He had the opportunity of taking the cylinder out of Mr. Paradine’s case while Mr. Mark was looking out of the window. It isn’t nice to think of these things, but it seems his mother was a German—he may have been got hold of. The talk in the town is they live above their means. She’s no manager. There’s a good bit of money owing—bills that have been let run on. I don’t mean to say there’s anything they couldn’t pay, but they don’t. Well then, suppose he’d taken the prints—he might have been offered a big price for the chance of getting them photographed. He might have reckoned on being able to put them back on Thursday night and nobody any the wiser. But before dinner’s over Mr. Paradine gets up and says his piece— says one of the family’s a criminal and he knows which one it is. That’s torn it as far as putting them back unbeknownst goes. If you will turn to Mr. Ambrose’s statement you will see that he says less than any of them. And that’s him all through. From what I can make out nobody’s had a word out of him about any of it.”

Colonel Bostock grunted.

“Can’t say a man’s guilty because he don’t talk.”

“No, sir. I’m not saying he’s guilty—I’m putting a case. If he had taken the prints he’d have had to think what he was going to do, and think quick. The only thing he could do would be to throw himself on Mr. Paradine’s mercy. We know he took his party away at a quarter to ten. We know he and his wife both went out again. She says she went for Dr. Horton. He says he went to look for her. Nobody knows when either of them came in. Suppose Mr. Ambrose went to the River House and Mrs. Ambrose followed him—he might have told her something, or she might have guessed. The Ambroses are in Meadowcroft just across the river from here—a long way round by the driving road, but not more than seven or eight minutes’ walk by the foot-bridge and the cliff path. Say they went that way—Mr. Ambrose wouldn’t go round by the front door and risk being seen. At least I wouldn’t if I’d been in his shoes. I’d have come up on the terrace and knocked on this glass door behind me. Say Mr. Ambrose did that—his step-father would have let him in and they’d have had their talk. If Mrs. Ambrose was following her husband, there’d have been nothing to stop her unlatching the door and listening to what was said. There’s no proof in the way of fingerprints, because everybody had handled that door before we got here. Suppose she did that, suppose she found her husband was going to lose his job—and that would have been the very least of it if he’d been caught out selling a military secret. Whichever way you look at the thing, it was nothing less than ruin. Well, on what we know of Mrs. Ambrose, she’d think first about her children. When she was twelve years old and another girl threatened her kitten she pushed her into the river. What do you suppose she’d do now if she thought her children were threatened?”

“God bless my soul!” said Colonel Bostock. “What’s the good of talking like that? There’s no evidence.”

“No, sir—only a very strong probability. I’m not saying it was Mrs. Ambrose. Mr. Ambrose may have done it himself. I don’t go farther than to say that one of them might have done it. They were both out—a few minutes’ walk would have got them here. Either of them had a very strong motive if it was Mr. Ambrose who took the blue-prints. Everyone in the family knew that Mr. Paradine was sitting up. Everyone seems to have known that he always went out on the terrace the last thing before he went to bed. Either of them could have waited around for him and pushed him over.”

“So could half a dozen other people! I’m not saying one of them didn’t do it. Irene for choice. All I say is, there isn’t any proof.”

“No, sir,” said Superintendent Vyner.

Miss Silver coughed and asked an irrelevant question.

“I should be glad to know just where you found Mrs. Wray’s fingerprints.”

“God bless my soul—you’re not suspecting her!”

Miss Silver smiled in a very non-committal manner.

“If the Superintendent would be kind enough to inform me—”

Vyner was quite ready.

“Well, she sat in that chair the Chief Constable’s in now. Mr. Mark sat in it too. There were his prints and hers on the back and arms—Mr. Richard’s too, but he says he was in after tea.”

“Were there any more of Mrs. Wray’s, Superintendent?”

Vyner frowned.

“As a matter of fact, yes—and in two or three odd places. Seems she must have gone out through what I’m told was the late Mrs. Paradine’s bedroom. That’s the door, between the fireplace and the inner wall. There are prints of hers on the handle both sides of that, and the same with the door leading to the passage. There’s also a full handprint high up on the inside panel of the second door. Looks as if she’d groped her way out in the dark. I haven’t asked her about it yet—haven’t had time.”

“Has any reason occurred to you for her going out that way?”

“I can’t say it has.”

Miss Silver coughed delicately.

“If she was talking to her uncle and someone else came to the study door, Mr. Paradine may not have wished her to see who it was. He may have indicated the other way out. That is a possible explanation?”

Vyner looked at her with respect.

“It might have been that.”

“I think it was.”

“You think she may have heard Mr. Ambrose?”

“I would not say that. I received the impression that she had heard something. After speaking freely of her interview with Mr. Paradine she became very reserved—she was afraid to go on. She made an excuse to leave me. I did not press her then, but if you will permit me to do so, I should like to talk to her again.”

Vyner looked across the table. Colonel Bostock nodded.