‘It’s not the exciting job that people think it is,’ I said. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s usually remarkably tedious. But there’s something beyond that. Nowadays one gets to feeling that nothing reallyis secret. We know Their secrets and They know our secrets. Our agents are often Their agents, too, and Their agents are very often our agents. And in the end who is double-crossing who becomes a kind of nightmare! Sometimes I think that everybody knows everybody else’s secrets and that they enter into a kind of conspiracy to pretend that they don’t.’

‘I see what you mean,’ Dick said thoughtfully.

Then he looked at me curiously.

‘I can see why you should still be hanging around Portlebury. But Crowdean’s a good ten miles from Portlebury.’

‘What I’m really after,’ I said, ‘are Crescents.’

‘Crescents?’ Hardcastle looked puzzled.

‘Yes. Or alternatively, moons. New moons, rising moons and so on. I started my quest in Portlebury itself. There’s a pub there called The Crescent Moon. I wasted a long time over that. It sounded ideal. Then there’s The Moon and Stars. The Rising Moon, The Jolly Sickle, The Cross and the Crescent-that was in a little place called Seamede. Nothing doing. Then I abandoned moons and started on Crescents. Several Crescents in Portlebury. Lansbury Crescent, Aldridge Crescent, Livermead Crescent, Victoria Crescent.’

I caught sight of Dick’s bewildered face and began to laugh.

‘Don’t look so much at sea, Dick. I had something tangible to start me off.’

I took out my wallet, extracted a sheet of paper and passed it over to him. It was a single sheet of hotel writing paper on which a rough sketch had been drawn.

‘A chap called Hanbury had this in his wallet. Hanbury did a lot of work in the Larkin case. He was good-very good. He was run over by a hit and run car in London. Nobody got its number. I don’t know what this means, but it’s something that Hanbury jotted down, or copied, because he thought it was important. Some idea that he had? Or something that he’d seen or heard? Something to do with a moon or crescent, the number 61 and the initial M. I took over after his death. I don’t know what I’m looking for yet, but I’m pretty sure there’s something to find. I don’t know what 61 means. I don’t know what M means. I’ve been working in a radius from Portlebury outwards. Three weeks of unremitting and unrewarding toil. Crowdean is on my route. That’s all there is to it. Frankly, Dick, I didn’t expect very much of Crowdean. There’s only one Crescent here. That’s Wilbraham Crescent. I was going to have a walk along Wilbraham Crescent and see what I thought of Number 61 before asking you if you’d got any dope that could help me. That’s what I was doing this afternoon-but I couldn’t find Number 61.’

‘As I told you, 61 is occupied by a local builder.’

‘And that’s not what I’m after. Have they got a foreign help of any kind?’

‘Could be. A good many people do nowadays. If so, she’ll be registered. I’ll look it up for you by tomorrow.’

‘Thanks, Dick.’

‘I’ll be making routine inquiries tomorrow at the two houses on either side of 19. Whether they saw anyone come to the house, et cetera. I might include the houses directlybehind 19, the ones whose gardens adjoin it. I rather think that 61 is almost directly behind 19. I could take you along with me if you liked.’

I closed with the offer greedily.

‘I’ll be your Sergeant Lamb and take shorthand notes.’

We agreed that I should come to the police station at nine thirty the following morning.

I arrived the next morning promptly at the agreed hour and found my friend literally fuming with rage.

When he had dismissed an unhappy subordinate, I inquired delicately what had happened.

For a moment Hardcastle seemed unable to speak. Then he spluttered out: ‘Those damned clocks!’

‘The clocks again? What’s happened now?’

‘One of them is missing.’

‘Missing? Which one?’

‘The leather travelling clock. The one with “Rosemary” across the corner.’

I whistled.

‘That seems very extraordinary. How did it come about?’

‘The damned fools-I’m one of them really, I suppose-’ (Dick was a very honest man) ‘-One’s got to remember to cross every t and dot every i or things go wrong. Well, the clocks were there all right yesterday in the sitting-room. I got Miss Pebmarsh to feel them all to see if they felt familiar. She couldn’t help. Then they came to remove the body.’

‘Yes?’

‘I went out to the gate to supervise, then I came back to the house, spoke to Miss Pebmarsh who was in the kitchen, and said I must take the clocks away and would give her a receipt for them.’

‘I remember. I heard you.’

‘Then I told the girl I’d send her home in one of our cars, and I asked you to see her into it.’

‘Yes.’

‘I gave Miss Pebmarsh the receipt though she said it wasn’t necessary since the clocks weren’t hers. Then I joined you. I told Edwards I wanted the clocks in the sitting-room packed up carefully and brought here. All of them except the cuckoo clock and, of course, the grandfather. And that’s where I went wrong. I should have said, quite definitely,four clocks. Edwards says he went in at once and did as I told him. He insists there were only three clocks other than the two fixtures.’

‘That doesn’t give much time,’ I said. ‘It means-’

‘The Pebmarsh woman could have done it. She could have picked up the clock after I left the room and gone straight to the kitchen with it.’

‘True enough. But why?’ 

‘We’ve got a lot to learn. Is there anybody else? Could the girl have done it?’

I reflected. ‘I don’t think so. I-’ I stopped, remembering something.

‘So she did,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Go on. When was it?’

‘We were just going out to the police car,’ I said unhappily. ‘She’d left her gloves behind. I said, “I’ll get them for you” and she said, “Oh, I know just where I must have dropped them. I don’t mind going into that room now that the body’s gone.” and she ran back into the house. But she was only gone a minute-’

‘Did she have her gloves on, or in her hand when she rejoined you?’

I hesitated. ‘Yes-yes, I think she did.’

‘Obviously she didn’t,’ said Hardcastle, ‘or you wouldn’t have hesitated.’

‘She probably stuffed them in her bag.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Hardcastle in an accusing manner, ‘you’ve fallen for that girl.’

‘Don’t be idiotic,’ I defended myself vigorously. ‘I saw her for the first time yesterday afternoon, and it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a romantic introduction.’

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It isn’t every day that young men have girls falling into their arms screaming for help in the approved Victorian fashion. Makes a man feel a hero and a gallant protector. Only you’ve got to stop protecting her. That’s all. So far as you know, that girl may be up to the neck in this murder business.’

‘Are you saying that this slip of a girl stuck a knife into a man, hid it somewhere so carefully that none of your sleuths could find it, then deliberately rushed out of the house and did a screaming act all over me?’

‘You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen in my time,’ said Hardcastle darkly.

‘Don’t you realize,’ I demanded, indignantly, ‘that my life has been full of beautiful spies of every nationality? All of them with vital statistics that would make an American private eye forget all about the shot of rye in his collar drawer. I’m immune to all female allurements.’

‘Everybody meets his Waterloo in the end,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It all depends on the type. Sheila Webb seems to be your type.’

‘Anyway, I can’t see why you’re so set on fastening it on her.’