The Clocks - Agatha Christie [32]
“That’s it,” said Ted, pointing at the space between the apple and the pear, through which the back of Miss Pebmarsh’s house showed clearly. “That’s Number 19 where the murder was.”
“Got quite a good view of the house, haven’t you,” said the inspector. “Better still, I expect, from the upstairs windows.”
“That’s right,” said Bill. “If only we’d been up there yesterday looking out, we might have seen something. But we didn’t.”
“We were at the cinema,” said Ted.
“Were there fingerprints?” asked Bill.
“Not very helpful ones. Were you out in the garden at all yesterday?”
“Oh, yes, off and on,” said Bill. “All the morning, that is. We didn’t hear anything, though, or see anything.”
“If we’d been there in the afternoon we might have heard screams,” said Ted, wistfully. “Awful screams there were.”
“Do you know Miss Pebmarsh, the lady who owns that house, by sight?”
The boys looked at each other, then nodded.
“She’s blind,” said Ted, “but she can walk around the garden all right. Doesn’t have to walk with a stick or anything like that. She threw a ball back to us once. Quite nice about it she was.”
“You didn’t see her at all yesterday?”
The boys shook their heads.
“We wouldn’t see her in the morning. She’s always out,” Bill explained. “She usually comes out in the garden after tea.”
Colin was exploring a line of hosepipe which was attached to a tap in the house. It ran along the garden path and was laid down in the corner near the pear tree.
“Never knew that pear trees needed watering,” he remarked.
“Oh, that,” said Bill. He looked slightly embarrassed.
“On the other hand,” said Colin, “if you climbed up in this tree.” He looked at both boys and grinned suddenly. “You could get a very nice little line of water to play on a cat, couldn’t you?”
Both boys scuffled the gravel with their feet and looked in every other direction but at Colin.
“That’s what you do, isn’t it?” said Colin.
“Aw, well,” said Bill, “it doesn’t hurt ’em. It’s not,” he said with an air of virtue, “like a catapult.”
“I suppose you used to use a catapult at one time.”
“Not properly,” said Ted. “We never seemed to hit anything.”
“Anyway, you do have a bit of fun with that hose sometimes,” said Colin, “and then Mrs. Hemming comes along and complains?”
“She’s always complaining,” said Bill.
“You ever get through her fence?”
“Not through that wire here,” said Ted, unguardedly.
“But you do get through into her garden sometimes, is that right? How do you do it?”
“Well, you can get through the fence—into Miss Pebmarsh’s garden. Then a little way down to the right you can push through the hedge into Mrs. Hemming’s garden. There’s a hole there in the wire.”
“Can’t you shut up, you fool?” said Bill.
“I suppose you’ve done a bit of hunting about for clues since the murder?” said Hardcastle.
The boys looked at each other.
“When you came back from the cinema and heard what had happened, I bet you went through the fence into the garden of 19 and had a jolly good look round.”
“Well—” Bill paused cautiously.
“It’s always possible,” said Hardcastle seriously, “that you may have found something that we missed. If you have—er—a collection I should be much obliged if you would show it to me.”
Bill made up his mind.
“Get ’em, Ted,” he said.
Ted departed obediently at a run.
“I’m afraid we haven’t got anything really good,” admitted Bill. “We only—sort of pretended.”
He looked at Hardcastle anxiously.
“I quite understand,” said the inspector. “Most of police work is like that. A lot of disappointments.”
Bill looked relieved.
Ted returned at a run. He passed over a grubby knotted handkerchief which chinked. Hardcastle unknotted it, with a boy on either side of him, and spread out the contents.
There was the handle off a cup, a fragment of willow pattern china, a broken