The Clocks by Agatha Christie Page A

a look at this.’
    Once more he brought out the police photograph.
    ‘So that’s him, is it?’ said Bland. ‘He looks a perfectly ordinary chap, doesn’t he? Ordinary as you and me. I suppose I mustn’t ask if he had any particular reason to be murdered?’
    ‘It’s early days to talk about that,’ said Hardcastle. ‘What I want to know, Mr Bland, is if you’ve ever seen this man before.’
    Bland shook his head.
    ‘I’m sure I haven’t. I’m quite good at remembering faces.’
    ‘He hasn’t called upon you for any particular purpose–selling insurance or–vacuum cleaners or washing machines, or anything of that kind?’
    ‘No, no. Certainly not.’
    ‘We ought perhaps to ask your wife,’ said Hardcastle. ‘After all, if he called at the house, it’s your wife he would see.’
    ‘Yes, that’s perfectly true. I don’t know, though... Valerie’s not got very good health, you know. I wouldn’t like to upset her. What I mean is, well, I suppose that’s a picture of him when he’s dead, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle, ‘that is quite true. But it is not a painful photograph in any way.’
    ‘No, no. Very well done. The chap might be asleep, really.’
    ‘Are you talking about me, Josaiah?’
    An adjoining door from the other room was pushed open and a middle-aged woman entered the room. She had, Hardcastle decided, been listening with close attention on the other side of the door.
    ‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ said Bland, ‘I thought you were having your morning nap. This is my wife, Detective Inspector Hardcastle.’
    ‘That terrible murder,’ murmured Mrs Bland. ‘It really makes me shiver to think of it.’
    She sat down on the sofa with a little gasping sigh.
    ‘Put your feet up, dear,’ said Bland.
    Mrs Bland obeyed. She was a sandy-haired woman, with a faint whining voice. She looked anaemic, and had all the airs of an invalid who accepts her invalidism with a certain amount of enjoyment. For a moment or two, she reminded Inspector Hardcastle of somebody. He tried to think who it was, but failed. The faint, rather plaintive voice continued.
    ‘My health isn’t very good, Inspector Hardcastle, so my husband naturally tries to spare me any shocks or worry. I’m very sensitive. You were speaking about a photograph, I think, of the–of the murdered man. Oh dear, how terrible that sounds. I don’t know that I can bear to look!’
    ‘Dying to see it, really,’ thought Hardcastle to himself.
    With faint malice in his voice, he said:
    ‘Perhaps I’d better not ask you to look at it, then, Mrs Bland. I just thought you might be able to help us, in case the man has called at this house at any time.’
    ‘I must do my duty, mustn’t I,’ said Mrs Bland, with a sweet brave smile. She held out her hand.
    ‘Do you think you’d better upset yourself, Val?’
    ‘Don’t be foolish, Josaiah. Of course I must see.’
    She looked at the photograph with much interest and, or so the inspector thought, a certain amount of disappointment.
    ‘He looks–really, he doesn’t look dead at all,’ she said. ‘Not at all as though he’d been murdered. Was he–he can’t have been strangled?’
    ‘He was stabbed,’ said the inspector.
    Mrs Bland closed her eyes and shivered.
    ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘how terrible.’
    ‘You don’t feel you’ve ever seen him, Mrs Bland?’
    ‘No,’ said Mrs Bland with obvious reluctance, ‘no, no, I’m afraid not. Was he the sort of man who–who calls at houses selling things?’
    ‘He seems to have been an insurance agent,’ said the inspector carefully.
    ‘Oh, I see. No, there’s been nobody of that kind, I’m sure. You never remember my mentioning anything of that kind, do you, Josaiah?’
    ‘Can’t say I do,’ said Mr Bland.
    ‘Was he any relation to Miss Pebmarsh?’ asked Mrs Bland.
    ‘No,’ said the inspector, ‘he was quite unknown to her.’
    ‘Very peculiar,’ said Mrs Bland.
    ‘You know Mrs