At the bottom of the column marked Notes, Sarah had written in pencil
“August 12th and 13th withdrawn for safekeeping.”
And beneath that:
“Clock dial.
Five o’clock right.
Seven o’clock left.
Press on six.”
“Withdrawn for safekeeping.”
Then Sarah had known that she had written something on those two pages which was of grave importance; I only prayed that she had not known how grave.
What visitors had she entered in that column on the 12th?
Or what had happened to make Howard Somers, on that very day, decide to make a new will and leave Wallie a half of his estate plus a secret fund?
It was beyond me.
I locked the room, went downstairs and telephoned for the Inspector.
He came that night, looking sheepish and uncomfortable.
“Didn’t know you’d care to see me,” he said.
“You know well enough that you don’t believe Jim Blake is guilty, Inspector.”
To my alarm he shook his head.
“I’m not so sure.
He was with the Gunther girl that night, according to the colored woman.
He knew about the will all right.
Mind you, I’m not saying he’d planned the thing.
He got excited and angry, and Sarah Gittings wouldn’t give up the will.
Maybe he knocked her down first.
Then he went crazy, and he finished the job.”
My heart sank.
“After that he’d have to do away with Florence.
She new too much.”
“And Howard?”
“Murder’s not proved there.”
However, when I told him of what we had learned at the hotel, and about Mary Martin, he seemed less certain.
“Funny thing about that girl,” he said.
“We can’t locate her.
You’d think she’d be looking for work, but she hasn’t.
The District Attorney isn’t interested, but I am.
She knows a lot, if you ask me.”
“Do you always find what you are looking for, Inspector?”
“Pretty often.”
And then I laid out on the desk that page from Sarah’s record, and the clock dial Judy had found in Florence’s shoe.
His face was a study when I explained the latter.
“So Judy found it, eh?” he said, and poked it with the end of a toothpick.
“Intelligent girl, Miss Judy.
And what does she think it means?”
“In view of the record, I think it indicates the place where Sarah hid the two missing pages.”
He placed the two clock dial directions side by side, and fell to studying them.
“They are not ciphers,” he said.
“They are perfectly clear directions, if one only—I suppose you’ve tried all your clocks?”
“The young people have,” I said resignedly.
“The chances are that it doesn’t refer to a clock at all.
Something which might be described in clock fashion; that’s all.
And something to which one or both the women had access.