“This is getting us nowhere,” interrupted Inspector Spencer in an impatient tone. “I shall have to make arrangements to have the body removed at once. And then you, Mr Linton Falk, must accompany me to the police station, to answer further questions.”

“Me?” cried the newspaperman. “But I have told you all I know. I have nothing more to add.”

“We shall see about that. If you will not come willingly, I shall arrest you, and you will be taken there under guard.”

“Arrest me?” repeated Falk. “On what grounds, pray?”

“On the grounds that you were found to be present on premises where a suspicious death has occurred, and that you are obstructing the police in the execution of their duties.”

The newspaperman began to protest in the strongest terms at this, and the exchange between the two of them quickly became heated. Holmes, meanwhile, after standing a moment in thoughtful silence, had slipped from the dining-room, and into the sitting-room. Two minutes later, when I was just about to see where he had got to, he returned, a glint of triumph in his eye.

“What is it, Mr Holmes?” asked Inspector Spencer, breaking off from his dispute with Falk. “You look pleased about something.”

“The situation has become clearer to me.”

“Oh? Have I missed some clue, then?”

“That is not for me to say.”

“Well, then, what do you consider the most significant clue?”

“The matter of the clocks.”

“What ‘matter’?”

“As you have probably observed, there is no clock here in the dining room, but there are two in the sitting room, both showing the correct time.”

“What of it?”

“That is it. You asked what I had found the most significant clue, and I have now told you. It is undoubtedly the business of the clocks – in conjunction, of course, with the watch and the slivers of glass on the sitting-room carpet. What? You did not observe them? They are there, I can assure you, near the little table on which the tea things are laid.”

“All this seems nonsense to me,” snorted the policeman. “We have a dead man on the floor in here and a suspicious character found in the garden” – at this Falk began to protest again, but Spencer ignored him – “and the fact that someone has broken a glass in another room seems neither here nor there to me!”

“I think, Inspector,” began Holmes, but he stopped as there came a sudden sharp rat-a-tat-tat at the front door. The inspector hurried to open it, and found one of his constables there.

“I’ve got two women here, sir,” said he to his superior, “who claim that they live in this house.”

Before Spencer could reply, a young woman in a grey costume and bonnet pushed past the constable and in at the front door. Her small, pretty face, framed by tightly curled brown hair, bore an expression that spoke both of fatigue and determination. “Henry!” she called out loudly as she reached the hall. “What on earth is going on?”

“Lucy!” cried Claydon, a note of overwhelming relief in his voice, as he ran forward to greet her. “Where in Heaven’s name have you been? I have been so worried.”

“I have had a terrible, exhausting day,” replied the woman. She turned and waved to another woman, who was struggling to get past the constable on the doorstep. “Come along, Rosemary!” she called.

“This is my wife,” said Claydon to us, “and here,” he added as the other woman, taller and more angular than the first, pushed past the constable, “is Rosemary, our housekeeper.”

Mrs Claydon looked from one to the other of us, an expression of puzzlement upon her features. “Who are all these men, Henry? What are they doing here? Why are there policemen outside? Why are you not in Manchester?”

“I, too, have had a terrible experience,” returned her husband. “I should not go in there,” he added quickly as she made to push open the dining-room door, but he was too late to stop her. She marched into the room and the next moment the air was rent by a piercing scream, which faded away abruptly and ended with a dull thud.

“What is it, madam?” cried the housekeeper, rushing forward impulsively into the room. “Oh, my goodness!” she cried in a wailing tone. “There is a strange man in here, and Mrs Claydon has fainted!”

I hurried after them and found Rosemary bending over her mistress, who lay insensible on the floor, beside the body of the dead man. “Have you any sal volatile in the house?” I called to Claydon. “Then fetch it at once, and some brandy, too!”

The next quarter of an hour was a period of some confusion, but there were some positive achievements. Mrs Claydon was eventually restored to her senses, and gradually recovered her composure, and Inspector Spencer directed the removal of the body, which was taken away in the police van. Outside in the street, meanwhile, a large crowd had now gathered, pressing forward to peer in through the sitting-room window, and through the front door each time it was opened, perfectly heedless of the exhortations of the single constable who remained on duty there that there was nothing to be seen and that they should all move along at once.

At length, perhaps half an hour after Claydon’s wife had arrived, we were all gathered in the sitting room, Holmes and I, Claydon and his wife, Inspector Spencer, Linton Falk, and the housekeeper, Rosemary Quinn.

“Let us all share whatever information we possess,” said Holmes, who had taken charge of the situation, “and see if we cannot shed some light on what has happened here today! I shall begin by recounting what befell your husband,” he continued, addressing Mrs Claydon, “and no doubt he will correct me if I go astray.

“His arrangement to travel to Manchester was cancelled at the last minute, owing to ill-health in the northern office. This occurred just before he was leaving work, so he thought it unnecessary to notify you of the change as he would be home himself shortly. On the way home, however, he had a mishap which resulted in a glass of beer being spilt all over him, and during which he also received a series of accidental blows to the face – he can give you the details later – the upshot of which was that his appearance slipped somewhat below his usual standard. When he arrived home, he found that his key would not turn in the lock. As it has since worked perfectly well, it is probable that someone had simply engaged the safety catch inside the door, but he had no way of knowing that at the time. When he knocked at the door, it was answered by a parlour maid he had never seen before, who was shortly joined on the threshold by her mistress, a woman who was likewise unknown to him. They refused to admit him to the house, which they claimed was their abode, and dismissed his own claim upon the house as a lie. A passing policeman was summoned to aid them in getting rid of him, who, seeing the respectable appearance of those in the house and the somewhat less respectable appearance of Mr Claydon, incorrectly, but perhaps understandably, took the part of the former against the latter, and threatened Mr Claydon with arrest if he did not absent himself promptly. Realizing that further protest was useless, he did as the policeman requested, arriving to consult me some time later in a state of bewilderment and shock.

“Mr Falk, meanwhile, who is employed by the Standard as a parliamentary and general reporter, received a letter this morning, signed by someone calling herself Mrs Robson, which informed him that if he wished to learn something of great public interest, he should call at this house at five o’clock in the afternoon. When he arrived, he was shown into this room and offered a cup of tea. Some narcotic had evidently been added to his cup, however, for he quickly fell into a deep sleep, from which he did not awaken for several hours, at which time he found himself lying on the lawn in the garden.

“When Dr Watson and I arrived here, with Mr Claydon and Inspector Spencer from Brixton Police Station, we found the body of a man upon the dining-room floor, who was subsequently identified as Percival Slattery, the well-known radical Member of Parliament for New Bromwich. There was no clear indication of how he had met his death. In this room, a strange, unknown picture had been hung upon the wall above the fireplace, and a framed photograph placed upon the piano. Some flowers had also been removed from a vase and placed upon the breast of the dead man in the other room, as a mark, no doubt, of respect. Nothing else in the house appears to have been touched.