"Y'see, that was the catalogue that listed the skeleton in the clock. Somebody got it on July 5th, and fired off an anonymous postcard to stir up the police about the Fleet case. There weren't likely to be two such curiosities.as that clock floatin' about" "I'm not saying I didn't do it" Puckston had the palms of his hands pressed over his face. He rocked back and forth.
"But why did it have to be me who sent the postcards?" H.M. expelled a slow, deep breath of relief. They could hear the throb of the fire inside the stove, and Mrs. Puckston moving somewhere in the cellar.
"Well… now. That's what we're coming to. And it’ll be easier. Because it's about Sir George Fleet's death."
H.M. snapped his fingers down at one side, without looking away from Puckston. Martin rightly interpreted this as an order to pick up the blue Scotland Yard folder, which H.M. had dropped.
Puckston was not composed now, but he was more composed. Any mention of Fleet could rouse him. His light-blue eyes, bloodshot and reddish at the lids, tried to focus on H.M. out of a long, wretched face.
"Do you remember," continued H.M., turning over the typewritten pages of the folder, "what happened the day Fleet died?"
"Do I remember when I first walked out with Norma?" "You didn't like Fleet Hey?"
"I wonder," said Puckston, shutting his eyes, "if that man ever thought how much I looked down on him. 'Im, with 'is money made out of the fourteen-eighteen war! Me, whose forbears 'ave owned this inn a matter of two hundred year! But you can't make the nobs see that They don't notice!"
"Let's come to the day, shall we?"
"Glad to."