The Clocks - Christie Agatha - Страница 19

Once again Hardcastle produced his photograph.

‘Have you ever seen this man, Mrs McNaughton?’

Mrs McNaughton stared at it with avidity.

‘I’m almost sure I’ve seen him. Yes. Yes, I’m practically certain. Now, where was it? Was it the man who came and asked me if I wanted to buy a new encyclopedia in fourteen volumes? Or was it the man who came with a new model of vacuum cleaner. I wouldn’t have anything to do withhim, and he went out and worried my husband in the front garden. Angus was planting some bulbs, you know, and he didn’t want to be interrupted and the man went on and on saying what the thing would do. You know, how it would run up and down curtains, and would clean doorsteps and do the stairs and cushions and spring-clean things. Everything, he said, absolutely everything. And then Angus just looked up at him and said, “Can it plant bulbs?” and I must say I had to laugh because it took the man quite aback and he went away.’

‘And you really think that was the man in this photograph?’

‘Well, no, I don’t really,’ said Mrs McNaughton, ‘because that was a much younger man, now I come to think of it. But all the same I think Ihave seen this face before. Yes. The more I look at it the more sure I am that he came here and asked me to buy something.’

‘Insurance perhaps?’

‘No, no, not insurance. My husband attends to all that kind of thing. We are fully insured in every way. No. But all the same-yes, the more I look at that photograph-’

Hardcastle was less encouraged by this than he might have been. He put down Mrs McNaughton, from the fund of his experience, as a woman who would be anxious for the excitement of having seen someone connected with murder. The longer she looked at the picture, the more sure she would be that she could remember someone just like it.

He sighed.

‘He was driving a van, I believe,’ said Mrs McNaughton. ‘But just when I saw him I can’t remember. A baker’s van, I think.’

‘You didn’t see him yesterday, did you, Mrs McNaughton?’

Mrs McNaughton’s face fell slightly. She pushed back her rather untidy grey waved hair from her forehead.

‘No. No, notyesterday,’ she said. ‘At least-’ she paused. ‘I don’tthink so.’ Then she brightened a little. ‘Perhaps my husband will remember.’

‘Is he at home?’

‘Oh, he’s out in the garden.’ She pointed through the window where at this moment an elderly man was pushing a wheelbarrow along the path.

‘Perhaps we might go out and speak to him.’

‘Of course. Come this way.’

She led the way out through a side door and into the garden. Mr McNaughton was in a fine state of perspiration.

‘These gentlemen are from the police, Angus,’ said his wife breathlessly. ‘Come about the murder at Miss Pebmarsh’s. There’s a photograph they’ve got of the dead man. Do you know, I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere. It wasn’t the man, was it, who came last week and asked us if we had any antiques to dispose of?’

‘Let’s see,’ said Mr McNaughton. ‘Just hold it for me, will you,’ he said to Hardcastle. ‘My hands are too earthy to touch anything.’

He took a brief look and remarked, ‘Never seen that fellow in my life.’

‘Your neighbour tells me you’re very fond of gardening,’ said Hardcastle.

‘Who told you that-not Mrs Ramsay?’

‘No. Mr Bland.’

Angus McNaughton snorted.

‘Bland doesn’t know what gardening means,’ he said. ‘Bedding out, that’s allhe does. Shoves in begonias and geraniums and lobelia edging. That’s not what I callgardening. Might as well live in a public park. Are you interested in shrubs at all, Inspector? Of course, it’s the wrong time of year now, but I’ve one or two shrubs here that you’d be surprised at my being able to grow. Shrubs that they say only do well in Devon and Cornwall.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t lay claim to be a practical gardener,’ said Hardcastle.

McNaughton looked at him much as an artist looks at someone who says they know nothing of art but they know what they like. 

‘I’m afraid I’ve called about a much less pleasant subject,’ Hardcastle said.

‘Of course. This business yesterday. I was out in the garden, you know, when it happened.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Well, I mean I was here when the girl screamed.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Well,’ said Mr McNaughton rather sheepishly, ‘I didn’t do anything. As a matter of fact I thought it was those blasted Ramsay boys. Always yelling and screaming and making a noise.’

‘But surely this scream didn’t come from quite the same direction?’

‘Not if those blasted boys ever stayed in their own garden. But they don’t, you know. They get through people’s fences and hedges. They chase those wretched cats of Mrs Hemming’s all over the place. There’s nobody to keep a firm hand on them, that’s the trouble. Their mother’s weak as water. Of course, when there’s no man in the house, boys do get out of hand.’

‘Mr Ramsay is abroad a good deal I understand.’

‘Construction engineer, I believe,’ said Mr McNaughton vaguely. ‘Always going off somewhere. Dams, you know. I’m not swearing, my dear,’ he assured his wife. ‘I mean jobs to do with the building of dams, or else it’s oil or pipelines or something like that. I don’t really know. He had to go off to Sweden a month ago at a moment’s notice. That left the boys’ mother with a lot to do-cooking and housework and that-and, well-of course they were bound to run wild. They’re not bad boys, mind you, but they need discipline.’

‘You yourself didn’t see anything-apart I mean from hearing the scream? When was that, by the way?’

‘No idea,’ said Mr McNaughton. ‘I take my watch off always before I come out here. Ran the hose over it the other day and had quite a job getting it repaired afterwards. What time was it, my dear? You heard it, didn’t you?’

‘It must have been half past two perhaps-it was at least half an hour after we finished lunch.’

‘I see. What time do you lunch?’

‘Half past one,’ said Mr McNaughton, ‘if we’re lucky. Our Danish girl has got no sense of time.’

‘And afterwards-do you have a nap?’

‘Sometimes. I didn’t today. I wanted to get on with what I was doing. I was clearing away a lot of stuff, adding to the compost heap, and all that.’

‘Wonderful thing, a compost heap,’ said Hardcastle, solemnly.

Mr McNaughton brightened immediately.

‘Absolutely. Nothing like it. Ah! The number of people I’ve converted. Using all these chemical manures! Suicide! Let me show you.’ 

He drew Hardcastle eagerly by the arm and trundling his barrow, went along the path to the edge of the fence that divided his garden from that of No. 19. Screened by lilac bushes, the compost heap was displayed in its glory. Mr McNaughton wheeled the wheelbarrow to a small shed beside it. Inside the shed were several nicely arranged tools.

‘Very tidy you keep everything,’ remarked Hardcastle.

‘Got to take care of your tools,’ said McNaughton.

Hardcastle was looking thoughtfully towards No. 19. On the other side of the fence was a rose pergola which led up to the side of the house.

‘You didn’t see anyone in the garden at Number 19 or looking out of the window in the house, or anything like that while you were at your compost heap?’

McNaughton shook his head.

‘Didn’t see anything at all,’ he said. ‘Sorry I can’t help you, Inspector.’

‘You know, Angus,’ said his wife, ‘I believe I did see a figure skulking in the garden of 19.’

‘I don’t think you did, my dear,’ said her husband firmly. ‘I didn’t, either.’

‘That woman would say she’d seenanything,’ Hardcastle growled when they were back in the car.

‘You don’t think she recognized the photograph?’

Hardcastle shook his head. ‘I doubt it. She justwants to think she’s seen him. I know that type of witness only too well. When I pinned her down to it, she couldn’t give chapter or verse, could she?’