‘Look here!’ he said. ‘You’ve had no official information about that theft, have you? And the money’s been paid back-twice over.’

Kirk fixed him with a steady eye. ‘It’s easy enough for you to be soft-’earted, my lord. It ain’t your responsibility.’ This time the kid gloves were off, and Peter took it on the chin. ‘Coo!’ added Kirk, reflectively. ‘That there Noakes he must have been a proper old twister.’

‘It’s a damned ugly story. It’s enough to make a man-’

But it was not. Nothing was enough for that. ‘Oh, hell!’ said Peter, beaten and exasperated.

‘What’s up?’

‘Superintendent, I’m sorry for that poor devil, but-curse it-I suppose I’ve got to say it-’

‘Well?’ Kirk knew that something was coming and braced himself to meet it. Force Peter’s sort to the wall, and they will tell the truth. He had said so, and now his words were to be proved upon him, and he had got to take the punishment.

‘That story of his. It sounded all right… But it wasn’t… One bit of it was a lie.’

‘A lie?’

‘Yes… He said he never came into the house… He said he saw the clock from that window…’

‘Well?’

‘Well, I tried to do the same” thing just now, when I was out in the garden. I wanted to set my watch. Well… it can’t be done, that’s all… That damned awful cactus is in the way.’

‘What!’ Kirk sprang to his feet.

‘I say, that infernal bloody cactus is in the way. It covers the face of the clock. You can’t see the time from that window.’

‘You can’t?’ Kirk darted towards the window, knowing only too well what he would find there.

‘You can try it,’ said Peter, ‘from any point you like. It’s absolutely and definitely impossible. You can not see the clock from that window.’

Chapter X. Four-Ale Bar

The police were out of the house by tea-time. Indeed the unhappy Kirk, having ascertained that by no dodging, stooping or standing on tip-toe could anyone obtain a sight of the clock-face from the window, found himself with but little zest to prolong his inquiries. He made the half-hearted suggestion that Noakes might have temporarily removed the cactus from its pot after 6.20 and replaced it before 9.30; but he could offer himself no plausible explanation of any such aimless proceeding. There was, of course, only Crutchley’s word for it that the plant had been there at 6.20-if there was even that; Crutchley had mentioned watering it-he might have taken it down and left it for Noakes to put back. One could ask-but even as he made a note of this intention, Kirk felt little hope of any result. He examined the bedrooms in a dispirited way, impounded a number of books and papers from a cupboard and again examined Mrs Ruddle about Sellon’s interview with Noakes.

The result of all this was not very satisfactory. A notebook was discovered, containing, among other entries, a list of weekly payments, five shillings at a time, under the initials ‘J.S.’ This corroborated a story that scarcely needed corroboration. It also suggested that Sellon’s frankness might be less a virtue than a necessity, since, had he suspected the existence of such a document, he would have realised that it was better to confess before being confronted with it Peter’s comment was. Why, if Sellon were the murderer, had he not searched the house for compromising papers? With this consideration Kirk tried hard to comfort himself.

There was nothing else that could be interpreted as evidence of blackmailing payments from anybody, though plenty of testimony going to show that Noakes’s affairs were in an even worse state of confusion than had hitherto appeared. An interesting item was a bundle of newspaper cuttings and jottings in Noakes’s hand, concerning cheap cottages on the west coast of Scotland-a country in which it is notoriously difficult to proceed for the recovery of civil debts contracted elsewhere. That Noakes had been the ‘proper twister’ Kirk had supposed him was clear enough; unhappily, it was not his misdoings that needed proof. Mrs Ruddle was unhelpful. She had heard Noakes slam the window shut and seen Sellon retreat in the direction of the front door. Supposing that the show was over, she had hastened home with her pail of water. She thought she had heard a knocking at the doors a few minutes later, and thought, ‘He’s got some hopes!’ Asked whether she had heard what the quarrel was about, she admitted, with regret, that she had not, but (with a malicious grin) ‘supposed as Joe Sellon knew all about it.’ Sellon, she added, ‘often came up to see Mr Noakes’-her own opinion, if Kirk wanted it, was that he was ‘a-trying to borrer money’ and that Noakes had refused to lend any more. Mrs Sellon was thriftless, everybody knew that. Kirk would have liked to ask her whether, having last seen Mr Noakes engaged in a violent quarrel, she had had no qualms about his subsequent disappearance; but the question stuck in his throat. He would be saying in so many words that an officer of the law could be suspected of a murder; without better evidence he could not bring himself to do it. His next dreary job was to question the Sellons, and he was not looking forward to that. In a mood of the blackest depression, he went off to interview the coroner.

In the meantime, Mr Puffett, having cleared the kitchen chimney from above and assisted at the lighting of the fire, had taken his fee and gone home, uttering many expressions of sympathy and goodwill. Finally, Miss Twitterton, tearful but nattered, was conveyed to Pagford by Bunter in the car, with her bicycle perched ‘high and disposedly’ upon the back seat. Harriet saw her off and returned to the sittingroom, where her lord and master was gloomily building a house of cards with a greasy old pack which he had unearthed from the whatnot.

‘Well!’ said Harriet, in unnaturally cheerful tones, ‘they’ve gone. At last we are alone!’

‘That’s a blessing,’ said he, glumly.

‘Yes; I couldn’t have stood much more. Could you?’

‘Not any more… And I can’t stand it now.’ The words were not said rudely; he sounded merely helpless and exhausted.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Harriet. He made no reply, seeming absorbed in adding the fourth storey to his structure. She watched him for a few moments, then decided he was best left alone and wandered upstairs to fetch pen and paper. She thought it might be a good thing to write a few lines to the Dowager Duchess.

Passing through Peter’s dressing-room, she found that somebody had been at work there. The curtains had been hung, the rugs put down and the bed made up. She paused to wonder what might be the significance of this-if any. In her own room, the traces of Miss Twitterton’s brief occupation had been removed-the eiderdown shaken, the pillows made smooth, the hot-water bottle taken away, the disorder of washstand and dressing-table set to rights. The doors and drawers left open by Kirk had been shut, and a bowl of chrysanthemums stood on the window-sill. Bunter, like a steam-roller, had passed over everything, flattening out all traces of upheaval. She got the things she needed and carried them down. The card house had reached the sixth storey. At the sound of her step, Peter started, his hand shook, and the whole flimsy fabric dissolved into ruins. He muttered something and began doggedly to rebuild it.

Harriet glanced at the clock; it was nearly five, and she felt she could do with some tea. She had coerced Mrs Ruddle into putting the kettle on and doing some work; it could not take very long now. She cat down on the settle and began her letter. The news was not exactly what the Duchess would expect to receive, but it v/as urgently necessary to write something that she might get before the headlines broke out in the London papers. Besides, there were things Harriet wanted to tell her-things she would have told her in any case. She finished the first page and looked up. Peter was frowning; the house, risen once again to the fourth storey, was showing signs of imminent collapse. Without meaning to, she began to laugh.