Martin Drake did not see the skeleton in the clock until late on the following afternoon, when he saw it in the bar-parlour of the Dragon's Rest near Rundown.
The Dragon's Rest, to be exact, boasted two bar-parlours in its long frontage. The inn, in that remote corner of Berkshire, faced westwards over a road running north and south. From the windows of either bar-parlour you could see, almost opposite — set well back from the road behind trees and clipped lawns — the white Georgian facade of Fleet House. By craning to the left, you could just make out in the distance the two square towers of Brayle Manor. By craning to the right, you could more distantly discern the round greyness of Pentecost Prison: six stone wings like spokes inside a stone wheel.
Both Pentecost and Fleet House, Martin felt, would hold bitter dreariness at night Also, he was on a wire of nerves.
For he could not forget yesterday's events. Jenny had permitted him to go with her only as far as the foyer at Claridge's, where she was to meet grandmother. She had made him promise, solemnly crossing his heart, that he would see Richard Fleet first, Aunt Cicely second, and grandmother third.
Martin returned to his rooms at the Albany. After putting through a complicated and exasperating series of 'phone-calls, he managed to book a room at the Dragon's Rest Then, under the huge arched window which had served a Regency artist, he tried to make new sketches of Jenny from memory. They displeased him. Presently the telephone rang.
"Stannard here," announced the hoarse, hearty, half-chuckling voice.
He could picture Stannard leaning back in a swivel-chair, the black hair plastered with nicety on his round head, the black eyes twinkling. Martin could almost hear the pleased creak of the swivel-chair as Stannard shifted his stocky bulk.
"I hope, Mr. Drake, you haven't forgotten our little talk last night?"
No, he hadn't forgotten it But he could think only of Jenny.
Why, and in what crazy moment, had he insisted on this vigil in the execution shed?
"Because I'm glad to say," Stannard pursued, "that I have been successful. For a night or two at least we are masters of Pentecost Prison."
"Good! Good! Good!"
"Our good friend Ruth has helped us. A friend of hers has been kind enough to invite us all to spend the week-end—" "Yes. I know." "You know?"
This time an edge did get into Martin's voice.
"Mr. Stannard, it's a vitally personal matter; I’ll explain when I see you. I can't stay at Fleet House. But you'll find me at the pub just across the way."
There was a slight pause.
"You'll travel down with us, of course?" inquired Stannard. "Noon train from Paddington to Reading, change for Newbury, then bus for the rest Devilish awkward, being without petrol." "Sony. I'm afraid I've got to take an earlier train."
Now there was a definite pause. He knew Stannard had detected something odd in his tone, and that Stannard was examining the 'phone curiously.
"Shall I — ah — make excuses to our hostess and young host?"
"No. They'll have learned about it when you arrive."
"Shall I make excuses to Ruth?" This was said very casually.
"No." Martin clipped off the monosyllable.
"Ah. It should be very interesting to visit Fleet House," mused Stannard, "especially as I once had some slight acquaintance with its late owner. Just as you like, my dear fellow. Good-bye."
Martin replaced the telephone. He looked round his sitting room, on whose walls much of his own work hung framed amid his collection of rapiers. It had occurred to him that afternoon to ring Ruth Caliice and ask her what the devil Ruth had meant by her secrecy about Jenny. But Ruth was a good fellow; Ruth must have had some real reason; he put the thought aside.
That was how, next morning, a grey bus with dropsical wheels rattled him up in Rundown crossroads at half-past eleven. Not far ahead he could see the Dragon's Rest with its three tail and broad gables in a straight line, set up on a little rise on the east side of the road.
The Dragon's Rest was a beamed house of great age. Behind it lay rolling fields, the glitter of a stream, and the largish oak wood he later idenfified as Black Hanger. Not a blade of grass stirred, nothing stirred, in that hollow of silence and heat
Mr. Puckston, the landlord, took him up to a first-floor bedroom facing west Then Martin's first move was to clatter downstairs again to the telephone at the back of the saloon bar, and get in touch with Fleet House. He was answered by an informal and chatty maid,
"Mr. Richard? Oh, he's driven over to the races at Newbury."
Martin's heart sank. He put obvious questions.
"No, not back to lunch. But hell be back in the afternoon, because there's people corning. Would you like to speak to his mother? She's in the garden."
"No, thanks. You say he drove over. Can you describe the car?"
"Oh, it's just an ole black car. Makes a lot of noise."
"Do you happen to know the number?"
"Are you kidding?" asked the maid, who had evidently been out with American troops.
"As soon as he conies back, will you ask him to ring Martin Drake at the Dragon's Rest? It's very important. Will you give him that message?"
"You have a nice voice," said the maid. "I sure will!"
Martin went back to his room fuming. To follow Richard Fleet in the crowds at Newbury races would be certainly to miss him, even if there were a photograph for identification. The minutes ticked on. He had lunch in the scrubbed oak dining-room, the food being incredibly good. But always he prowled back to the bedroom, also clean and surprisingly comfortable despite the humps of age in the floor.
Pulling back the thin white curtains at one window, he kept glancing across the road to where — some three hundred feet away — Fleet House raised its square, uncompromising face of white-painted stone. Being on higher ground, he could look across almost to the topmost row of windows. Over trees and clipped lawns, he could see a flagstone terrace before the front door.
Flagstones. That was probably where Sir George Fleet had…
Martin saw no sign of an ole black car. But someone was moving on the terrace, woman in a long filmy dress with a red sash and a broad straw sun-hat
And Martin yielded to temptation.
On a table beside his bed, with its spotlessly mended white counterpane, lay an old-fashioned brass telescope of the short and folding sort. He pulled out its few bands and focussed the end one. The image sprang up close and clear, just as the woman turned her head round and up. Aunt Cicely.
He remembered Jenny's soft voice: "Aunt Cicely if kind. But she's so vague, though still very pretty." The westering sun was in Martin's eyes, though the telescope shielded it. Aunt Cicely must be into her fifties. Yet she had an Edwardian air, Martin thought: the sort Sargent had painted so well. With her pale blonde hair under the broad sun-hat, face turned up, she seemed (through the telescope, at least) almost young and rather fragile.
Furthermore, she had recently been crying.
Martin shut up the telescope. What was the air of sheer coldness which seemed to breathe out of Fleet House? Probably his professional imagination. But…
This situation was getting to be damned awkward. He had not seen Ruth or John Stannard. But then he had not seen H.M. or Masters either, though the landlord told him they had booked rooms. Half-past two and a quarter to three.
It was past four, the cigarette-tray full of stubs, before he made a guess which he should have made before. He hurried down, fumbled with the small, 'phone-directory, and rang Brayle Manor.
If grandma came to the ‘phone? All right! But it was a male voice which answered, evidently a butler.
"Is Mr. Richard Fleet there?"
"Yes, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?"
Martin spoke deliberately. "This," he said, "is an enemy. Tell Mr. Fleet that an enemy is waiting for him at the Dragon's Rest to give him a message of great importance."
If young Fleet had an ounce of sporting blood in his body, Martin thought, that ought to fetch him. He expected further questions. But the unruffled voice merely said, "One moment, please." And then, after a long minute, "Mr. Fleet will be with you immediately."
Got it!
At this hour of the day, the whole inn was so quiet that you could hear the wainscot creak. Mr. and Mrs. Puckston must be enjoying their afternoon nap. The Dragon's Rest had three front doors, one in each gable. As Martin unlocked the first one, which was in the saloon bar, the snap of the key sounded like an act of guilt
Moving on to the first bar-parlour, on his right, Martin unlocked the front door there. This was a cosy room, its walls thickly hung with sporting prints and with quite genuine antique hunting horns of the early nineteenth century. Somewhat decaying leather chairs stood at the tables, and at either side of the black marble mantelpiece.
Then Martin turned round, and saw the skeleton in the clock.
The clock stood in the angle of the wall, south-east, beyond the mantelpiece. It was about six feet high, including its platform-base, and of dark polished wood elaborately wrought at the top. Through a round glass dial, with gilt numerals and hands, the skull-face looked out
And the clock was ticking.
No! Wait a minute! It couldn’t be ticking. The clock-case had another glass panel, oblong, so that you could see the skeleton behind a brass pendulum: which was motionless.
The illusion had been produced by a large square metal-cased clock, with a small pendulum, on the mantelpiece. Its slow tick-tick animated the hush of an atmosphere flavoured with the smell of beer and old stone. But the tall clock said nothing.
Yet it gave the watcher a slight start, the skull face a smug look in its dusky recess. Martin was conscious of golden shine lying through the windows behind him, of Fleet House across the road in its aloofness. He went over to examine the clock. As he had expected, the oblong lower panel opened on little hinges. He peered inside, he peered up.
With finewires, and a heavier wire drilled into the head, the skeleton had been fastened to the back of the case; its feet and ankles partly concealed by a wooden fitting evidently designed to help the upright position. The clock-hands, like the pendulum, were dummies held by screw and spindle. You could adjust them to any position you liked. The hands now stood at ten minutes past twelve.
Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick.
Richard Fleet would be here at any moment
Martin drew back his head and closed the glass panel. How this reminder of mortality had got there he did not know. And it didn't matter.
He went through another door into the second bar-parlour. Dominated by a large iron stove rather than the usual fireplace, full of wicker chairs, this room was distinctly a comedown from the first Nevertheless, Martin unlocked its front door. He had just turned the key when distantly, from the saloon-bar two rooms away, that particular door opened.
A voice called, "Martin!” He heard light, quick, running footsteps in tennis-shoes. And in the doorway of the second parlour, breathing hard, stood Jenny.
She wore a white tennis-blouse and white shorts, with a light pullover thrown over her shoulders. With her yellow hair somewhat tumbled, the colour of exertion tinted her face to more than mere prettiness. He stared at her.
"How did you get here?"
"On my bike." Choking a little to get her breath, she made a gesture towards the outside of the inn. "Darling, why did you send that message about being an enemy?" " 'I had to get him here somehow."
"Grandmother was in the room when you rang up."
‘Yes. I thought she might be."
"You hadn't said three words to Dawson before grandmother said: That is Captain Drake, I suppose.’ Ricky said, 'Who's Captain Drake?' Grandmother said nothing at all. She just picked up her knitting and walked out of the room. Then I had to tell Ricky it was only a joke, but it war terribly serious. Afterwards I got old Riddle to insist the front tire of Ricky's car needed air — which it did — so I could get here before him."
"But you don't want to be present while we have it out, do you?"
Jenny's breathing was still quick. But the blue eyes regarded him steadily.
"If you want me. to," she answered, "I'll stay here. I promise that. But I don't want to. I don't want… oh, God, no!" She shuddered. "The trouble is, you see, that I've got to know what happens. Just as soon as it happens." Jenny spread out her hands. "I'm sorry. That's how I feel."
That's how a lot of us feel Jenny! Do you still—?"
This was when they heard the loud cranking of a motor-car, emphasized by a loose mud-guard, approaching and drawing up outside the south wing. Once more the door of the saloon-bar, after a tentative rattle at its knob, was opened. Martin motioned Jenny (confound this sense of guilt!) to go.out by the second-parlour door to the road.
"Hoy there!" called a male voice. "Hullo!"
Footsteps scuffled, hesitated, tramped through one room and then through two. In the doorway, inquiringly, appeared a tallish young man in sports coat flannels, and with a blue tie skewered under one wing of his soft collar.
His mop of dark-blond hair was uncombed and unruly. He was on the lean and muscular side, carrying himself well. But first of all you noticed the quality of good-humour, which was
so genome that it flowed from him and made friends immediately. His grey eyes, his bump of a chin, made it a strong face as well as a good-humoured face.
"Well," he said, "are you the enemy?"
"Yes." Martin could not help srniling back. "But not a personal enemy, if you follow me."
"Ah. That's good. Well, what's up?"
Selecting a wicker chair by the door into the first-parlour, the newcomer dropped into it and threw one leg over its arm. He began to fill a pipe from an oilskin pouch.
There was a long silence.
"Look here, old boy," expostulated Richard Fleet, who was fishing after a pocket-lighter. "Yes?"
"Stop pacing up and down like a Norman baron. Get it off your chest Spit it out You're making me nervous."
"All right" agreed Martin. "It's about Jenny. I've been in love with Jenny for more than three years, though I've only seen her twice. I have reason to think she feels the same way about me. I haven't formally asked her to marry me, but we intend to get married. I hate to tell you this, but there it is."
Again silence. Richard sat partly sideways, motionless, his leg over the chair-arm, pipe and lighter also held motionless, looking up at his companion. His grey eyes were without any shade of expression. Tick-tick, tick-tick went the clock in the other room, noticeable now as well as audible.
"I'm sorry to tell you this!" Martin shouted. "But…"
Then he saw that there was a shade of expression, slowly moving in like a new blood in Richard's face, though for a second he could not interpret it. It was tinged with incredulity, but this did not predominate. Then Martin realized. The feeling was relief. Slowly young Fleet sat upright and expelled his breath.
"Thank God!" he said.