Page 61 of Marriage and Murder
Stokes nodded. “Right, then.” He looked at Mallard. “So at least we’ve got Pincer on the charge of having the aquamarines replaced with paste.”
Mallard bobbed his head. “We can hold him on that while we sort out this business of the murder.”
“Good! You’re still here.”
They turned to see the medical examiner, Carter, come hurrying down the stairs.
All business, Carter bowled up to the group, nodded to all, then stated, “Something’s been bothering me about this case—specifically about the evidence at the scene—and this morning, I woke up, and the clouds had parted, and finally, I could see the issue clearly.”
Greatly interested, they all closed around Carter, and Stokes prompted, “What issue?”
Earnestly, Carter explained, “It was the clock—or rather, where it had supposedly fallen in relation to where the body lay.” He glanced around the circle of faces. “I have a very good visual memory, essential in this line of work, and the position of the clock—the broken clock—kept nagging at me. I just couldn’t quite see how or why it broke and ended up where it was found, on the hearth nearer the kitchen rather than on the same side of the hearth before which the body fell.”
Penelope, clearly intrigued and trying to visualize the point herself, observed, “From what we’ve heard, if we were standing in the parlor and facing the fireplace, the body lay in a crumpledheap in front of the left side of the hearth, and the clock was lying on the hearth, toward the end on the right.” She looked at Carter. “Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Carter looked at Mallard. “You saw the scene, too.”
Frowning slightly, Mallard nodded. “The victim lying on her back in a heap as if the murderer had simply let go once she’d breathed her last, and she’d crumpled to the ground where she’d been standing.”
“Exactly so!” Carter looked at them all eagerly. “Now, put yourself in the victim’s shoes and think of how you would move in response to someone calling at the cottage. If the person came to the front door and the victim admitted them and led them into the parlor, she would almost certainly have positioned herself to the right of the fireplace and turned to face her visitor. That’s the usual way, putting the rest of the house at the victim’s—the houseowner’s—back, as it were. In such a situation, going to the left isn’t something you would naturally do.”
Barnaby was resurveying the scene in his mind. “But she was found to the left of the hearth, with the small table pushed aside…” He focused on Carter and found the man looking at him encouragingly. “The murderer came in through the rear door and walked through the kitchen and dining nook to the parlor, most likely following the victim.”
“Yes!” Carter all but bounced on his toes. “That’s the first thing. The murderer came from that direction. You can see it, can’t you?” He glanced at the others. “The murderer knocked on the rear door, Miss Huntingdon let them in and led them through the kitchen and dining area into the parlor, then she turned to face them, and there she is, more or less standing on the spot where she died.”
Stokes rumbled, “That supports our current thinking. We believe the murderer approached through the rear garden.”
Carter nodded eagerly. “Our murderer certainly did, but that’s not the crucial point. We now have our victim standing to the left of the hearth and the murderer to the right. They aren’t that close to the fireplace—I believe the fire was alight at the time—but are positioned two feet or so in front of the edge of the hearth. The initial placement of the small table that was later pushed aside more or less fixes that distance. “Now”—Carter paused to catch his breath—“there were two ornaments on the mantelpiece.”
Penelope supplied, “A vase with flowers in it was on the left, and presumably, the carriage clock stood on the right.”
Carter beamed at her. “Absolutely right, dear lady. The carriage clock normally stood on the far right of the mantelpiece. If one looks closely, you can see the mark on the mantelpiece’s surface. The clock had stood in exactly the same position for quite some years.”
Mallard was frowning. “So the clock was on the right and fell and broke…”
Carter pounced. “How?” He glanced around the circle of their now-frowning faces. “Think of it—see it in your mind. The murderer was standing on the right. He must have lunged toward the victim, across the hearth and in front of it, and then his hands are locked about the victim’s throat. There’s little evidence of either victim or murderer moving much—just enough to push the small table aside and ruck up the rug, indicating that, if anything, they moved away from the fireplace.”
“Away from the mantelpiece and the clock standing on it,” Penelope murmured.
Everyone was imagining the scene, then Stokes focused on Carter. “Spit it out, Carter. What, exactly, are you trying to tell us?”
His expression turning sober, Carter stated, “I’m saying that for the life of me, I cannot see how the clock could have been accidentally broken during the act of the murder itself. The murderer couldn’t have accidentally knocked it down. His back was to it. And the victim was too far away, with the murderer between her and the clock. Moreover, in looking back over my notes, there were no slivers of glass or indications of breakage where the clock was found. The only slivers of glass I did find were on the edge of the hearthstone and the floor below that edge.” He sighed. “My initial assumption was that the clock got knocked off the mantelpiece during the struggle, only there was no violent struggle or fight, and the mantelpiece is wide as well, so examining the issue in the light of what I now know, it couldn’t have happened that way. Moreover, if somehow the clock did get knocked off the mantelpiece and struck the edge of the hearth where I believe it was damaged, the clock would have fallen on the floor there, not where it was found.”
Barnaby stated the clear conclusion. “You no longer believe the clock got accidentally knocked off the mantelpiece and fell and broke.”
“No.” His expression determined, Carter went on, “I now believe that, after strangling the victim, the murderer noticed the clock and saw the opportunity. They deliberately reset the clock for three-thirty-three, then struck it on the edge of the hearth to break it and left it on the hearth for us to find.”
Stokes was jotting in his notebook. “That’s very cold-blooded calculation.”
“It certainly is.” Carter looked around the circle. “But more, my conclusion suggests that the murder took place significantly earlier in my estimated window for time of death. I would now say that the murder most likely occurred between one o’clock and three o’clock, and if anything, I would tend toward the earlier end of that period.”
“Your current conclusion also means,” Penelope said, “that the murderer most likely has an alibi—a cast-iron alibi—for three-thirty-three.”
Carter half bowed to her. “So I would suppose.” He glanced around at the others. “The murderer entered the cottage through the rear door and most likely left the same way between the hours of one and three o’clock, and whoever they are, they will have an unimpeachable alibi for three-thirty-three.”
Penelope glanced at Stokes and saw him furiously scribbling.
Then Stokes looked at Carter and nodded. “Thank you. That’s excellent work.”
