Free Appleby Talking by Michael Innes Page A

criminal’s knowing his way about, getting the Flemish cabinet open, and so on. There was nothing here that positively pointed to Snake. But the business of the waiting sister had a suspicious air. It is just the sort of thing that is brought into prominence when a man has been cooking up an alibi.
    “Only if that had been Snake’s game, he had bungled things badly. You will recall that he claimed to have left Sir Hannibal alive and well just on nine o’clock. And you know that one of the bullets stopped the clock.”
    The QC considered. “ Before nine?”
    “Precisely. At half-past eight.”
    “Admirable!” The Vicar nodded with every appearance of massive intellectual delectation. “So Snake’s game was up.”
    Appleby shook his head – and once more pointed impressively at the walnuts. “A modern clock. Indeed – as you can now see – an electric clock. And you know how the simple type of electric clock is set going? You switch on the current, and then simply spin a little knob at the back. The electricity had, of course, been switched off while Sir Hannibal was away on holiday. Presumably just before his man went out he had set the clock by his watch, switched on, and spun. But he had spun in the wrong direction .
    “That – as you will know if you have ever possessed such a clock – is a very easy thing to do. And it simply sets the clock going backwards . Half an hour after Snake last saw Sir Hannibal, the clock would be saying not half-past nine but half-past eight. Sir Hannibal had been murdered by someone gaining admission to the flat half an hour after Snake left.”
    The QC drew a long breath. “How did you tumble to this?”
    “Snake remembered that he had seen the second-hand definitely revolving in a clockwise direction. It had obscurely disturbed him at the time – as well it might, in view of the fact that he was seeing the thing in a mirror. I was convinced of the truth of his statement as soon as he recalled this odd fact; and it admits of no other explanation than the one I have given you. So I pegged away at the case until I ran the real criminal to earth. One usually does, in the end.”

 
     
MISS GEACH
    “The newspapers nowadays,” Appleby said, “are full of resourceful persons remembering to dial 999. And a very good thing too. But Miss Geach disliked the telephone, and so she came all the way to New Scotland Yard instead.”
    The QC shook his head. “An imprecise statement, this. Was her journey from John o’ Groats or Highgate?”
    “It was from Kensington, where Miss Geach had a small flat in a superior sort of warren called, if I remember correctly, Dreadnaught Mansions. Miss Geach herself, however, was somewhat timorous. Or so one had to suppose.”
    “Because she disliked the telephone?”
    “Because of that – and because she swooned away in my arms as I was going out to lunch. A sergeant on duty in the lobby was so outraged that he did his best to arrest her on the spot. When I got her revived and calmed down a bit she told me rather an odd tale.
    “It seemed that behind the marble hall of Dreadnaught Mansions, with its proliferation of palms and resplendent commissionaire, there harboured a shameful secret, which was causing the tenants much discomfort and annoyance. There was something wrong with the drains.”
    The QC looked puzzled. “But would one want to dial 999 about that?”
    “You mistake me. The drains were only a remote cause of Miss Geach’s agitation. The attempt to patch them up had resulted in a serious breach in her insulation.”
    “Miss Geach was insulated?”
    “Yes – I believe with seaweed. In other words, noise from the flat below should have been cut out by some stuff or other packed under her floors. But the bother over the drains had in some way put this out of action, and left Miss Geach for the time being abnormally vulnerable to disturbance. The position was worst in her bedroom. There she was obliged actually to overhear a good