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Cone drove swiftly. The road left the woods, mounted a hill into the pallid moonlight.

“By what they phoned me,” Sergeant Grant was saying, “they found him just a few minutes ago, up in his second floor study. Big silver paper knife was stabbed into his heart.”

“R. J. Thompson?” Cone said.

“Yeah. The Thompson Theatrical Enterprises.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Cone said. “Who found him?”

“Seems it was his sister—I met her once—elderly spinster lady. She and a cousin named Peter Rance; seems a thump or something woke ’em up. They heard running footsteps—”

“Inside the house?” Cone interjected.

“Yeah. Guess so. Anyhow, the killer got away.”

“I imagine that’s the place up there,” Cone said.

It was a big, rambling old house set in a grove of trees on the hill. Despite the fact that it was now one-thirty in the morning, lights blazed in most of the windows. Cone drove his car up to the side porte cochere; the police car behind him rolled up and stopped; and four of Grant’s uniformed men climbed out.

“Here we are,” Cone said. “Go to it, Sergeant.”

The frightened inmates of the house, three men and one woman, were all gathered in the big lower hall. “He—he’s up in his study—that’s where we found him,” one of the men said excitedly. “You’re Sergeant Grant? I’m Peter Rance, his cousin. His sister is here and we phoned you right away.”

Rance was a dark-haired, heavy-set man of about thirty-five. His face was heavy-jowled, with bushy black eyebrows. He was clad now in dressing gown over his pajamas.

“This is his sister, Miss Ellie,” Rance added.

The woman was a thin, faded spinster of sixty-odd. Her grey hair was in curlers. In dressing gown and slippers over a flannel nightgown she sat slumped on a settee against the wall; she was weeping silently.

“Just you four in the house?” Sergeant Grant asked.

The other two men were standing against the wall, blankly staring. One of them spoke up. “Yes,” he said. “Just us. We were all asleep. Then we—we—”

Grant’s men tramped past. A big curving staircase led upward from the hall. “Take a look around,” Grant said. “Dr. Blake ought to be here pretty soon—I phoned him. I’ll be up in a minute.”

“I suggest they tell us exactly what happened,” Cone said. “There was an alarm—a noise upstairs? And running footsteps?”

“Yes,” Rance said. “We were asleep—there must have been a bump—some noise. His study’s up there—way down at the end of the long south wing.”

“Who are these other two?” the Sergeant demanded.

One was Kennedy, the family servant—a short, stocky, middle-aged man. Fully clad, in butler’s uniform, he stood stiff and stolid, waiting to be questioned.

“You didn’t get dressed in all this excitement?” Cone said. “You hadn’t gone to bed when the alarm came?”

“No,” the butler agreed. “Such a nice warm summer night—I went out for a walk.”

“Where?” Cone said.

“Just around the grounds. Then I heard Mr. Rance shouting, and Miss Ellie screamed. I came running in through the kitchen door—”

“And you?” Cone said.

The third man was a tall, lean blond fellow. He looked like an actor, which he was. “I’m T. Cuthbert Tarlton,” he said; and paused for the impression he obviously expected to make.

“I’ve heard of you,” Cone said. “In that play, ‘The Flame’—”

“I had the lead,” Tarlton said. “And in most of Mr. Thompson’s dramatic productions, I—”

“Thanks,” Cone said.

Tarlton’s hand brushed his wavy blond hair; he drew in the corded belt of his ornate dressing gown; but Cone had turned away.

“You tell us,” Sergeant Grant said to Peter Rance. “Seems you’re the one who first heard the noise.”

“We were all asleep—” Rance began.

“You said that before,” Cone said, “Begin further back, during the evening, for instance.”

Rance was nettled. He frowned. “Perhaps you have the authority—”

“He has,” the Sergeant cut in caustically. “He’s Melvin Cone, in case you want to know. Friend of mine. Answer his questions.”

Cone smiled. He was a tall, spare man, in dark civilian clothes. Sometimes he had been told that he looked like Basil Rathbone, as Sherlock Holmes. It annoyed him exceedingly. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just an amateur dabbler in this sort of thing. But if you don’t mind.”

Rance answered the smile. “Okay with me,” he said. “During the evening? Well, we were all here; we played cards down here for a while.”

“Mr. Thompson was in the city,” Cuthbert Tarlton, the actor, said. Thompson had arrived home about ten-thirty. He had gone directly upstairs to his study. “He was in a mood,” Rance said.

“Angry?” Cone interjected.

“Yes. I supposed it was at me. When something goes wrong at the office, I generally get the blame. You see, I’m his business manager, as well as his cousin.”

An arriving car sounded outside. It was Dr. Blake, the County Medical Examiner. He went directly upstairs, followed by Sergeant Grant. Then in a moment, Grant came back. His ruddy face was grim.

“Stabbed in the back,” he said. “Knife blade penetrated the heart; the doc says he died almost instantly. Better come up,” he added to Cone. “Seems like there’s quite some clues around.”

“I’m interested in those running footsteps,” Cone said. “Let’s hear about it, Mr. Rance.”

Thompson had gone up to his study, and in a few minutes had come back to the head of the stairs and called down for Cuthbert Tarlton. The actor had gone up. Thompson had brought home with him the script of his new drama, “Banners in the Heart.” Tarlton was here as a visitor over the weekend. He wanted the lead in “Banners in the Heart,” and Thompson called him up now to discuss it with him.

“He told me to read some of the passages in Act One,” Tarlton explained. “So I did and—”

Kennedy, the butler said suddenly: “I think I should inform you, Mr. Cone, that I chanced to be in the upper hall, down near the study at the end of the wing. And I heard—”

“Oh, so you’re the listening type?” Cone said.

The stolid butler was imperturbable. “Well sir, if you do not wish me to—”

“Go ahead,” Cone said.

The butler had heard Thompson and Tarlton quarreling. Thompson thought he was inadequate to handle the lead. “They were cursing each other,” Kennedy said. “I was very disturbed, Sir. They seemed about to come to blows.”

“Is that correct?” Cone demanded of Tarlton.

The actor glowed sullenly. “We had a difference of opinion,” he said. “There was nothing else.”

Then Thompson had come out to the top of the front stairs again and called for Rance. This was at about eleven o’clock. “I went up and joined them in the study,” Rance said. “For half an hour or more, I cued Mr. Tarlton in the part; but it was no go. Mr. Thompson didn’t like him, and that was that.”

Tarlton had come down in a huff, telling his troubles down here to the sympathetic Miss Ellie.

Rance went on, “For a while I discussed with Mr. Thompson who else we might get for the lead. Then I came down—had a consoling drink with Mr. Tarlton—and then we all went to bed.”

“What time was that?” Cone asked.

“About quarter past twelve,” Rance said. “This clock down here in the hall was just chiming the quarter hour.” He gestured toward an onyx clock on the hall mantle.

“I remember it,” Tarlton agreed. “Quarter past twelve, and we went upstairs to bed just a little while after that.”

“Where were you all this time?” Cone said suddenly to the butler.

“In the kitchen sir,” the butler said. “And in my room, which is adjacent.”

“But you weren’t sleepy,” Cone said. “So, maybe about one o’clock, you went out into the garden for a bit of fresh air—”

“Exactly, sir,” the butler said. “Then I heard the shouting in the house.”

The alarm had come shortly after one o’clock. “I guess I hadn’t any more than gotten asleep,” Rance said. “We’re in a different wing, upstairs. Quite a ways from the study—this is a very big house. You can’t hear much, if anything, from one part to another. But in the silence of the night—”

A thump. Some loud, sudden noise. Rance had come running out. He had awakened Miss Ellie, and she had screamed. Then they had run to the study; and Tarlton had been awakened by the scream and come running after them.

“We found him,” Rance said. “Well, lying there just as you’ll see him now.”

“The running footsteps,” Cone said. “Were they inside the house, or outside?”

“Inside,” Rance said.

“Upstairs, or down?”

Rance looked rather dubious. In all that excitement, he couldn’t remember.

“Thank you,” Cone said. “We’ll go upstairs now.”

Sergeant Grant was gazing at the butler. “There wouldn’t be any back stairs, down from that south wing, would there?”

“Why yes, sir,” the butler said. “The back stairs are just beyond the study.”

“Interesting,” Cone said, “Come on up, Sergeant, and we’ll take a look.”

“May we come?” Rance said.

“Come ahead,” Cone agreed. “But not Miss Ellie. I think she—”

The elderly woman was still dazed. “If I could go to my room, just lie down—”

“We’ll take you,” Cone said gently.

They went up the big curving staircase. The bedrooms were fairly close together, in a wing that led off to the right from the upper central hall. Then, with the woman in her room, the men came back, past the head of the stairs, and into the south wing, to the left. It was a long, narrow, padded hallway. At its end, where a steep flight of back stairs went down into the region of the kitchen, were the rooms of R. J. Thompson—the small study in which he had been killed, with his bedroom and bath adjoining.

“You wait out here,” Sergeant Grant said.

The butler stood stolid. “Okay,” Rance said.

“If there is anything we can do to help,” the actor murmured. “This terrible thing—”

Dr. Blake came out. “Inquest in my office, in the morning,” he said. “Say eleven o’clock?”

“Okay,” Grant agreed. “An autopsy?”

“Well, maybe. But that knife wound in the heart killed him; no argument on that.”

For a moment Cone stood silent in the doorway, gazing at the scene of the little study. It was a lavishly furnished room, with framed pictures of theatrical celebrities nearly solid on its walls. Across it, a doorway led into Thompson’s bedroom, with the bath beyond. Cone gestured. “No other exit through that bedroom?”

“No,” one of the policemen said. “Nothin’ at all.”

The body of R. J. Thompson—a slight, grey-haired man of about sixty, in a brown smoking jacket—lay slumped in a big easy chair. The body dangled forward over one of the chair arms, with arms hanging limp. In its back, where a little stain had spread, a big silver ornamental paper knife was buried to its hilt. A small, colored silk table scarf was wound around the knife handle.

“Had his mind on fingerprints,” Cone commented softly.

In the silence of the room, the slow ponderous ticking of a big clock was audible. It was against one wall—an old fashioned “Grandfather’s clock.” It stood on the floor, a narrow, upright mahogany case nearly ten feet high with the big clock face at the top. Behind its glass front, the long pendulum was visible, sweeping slowly back and forth. The clock now marked twenty-five minutes of two.

“Some queer things around here,” Sergeant Grant commented, out of the silence.

“Quite so,” Cone agreed. “There’s what made the thump that aroused the house, evidently. That little statue.”

Queer things indeed. “Look,” Grant said; “there sure wasn’t any fight— Thompson had no warning. See, he was here in his chair, with the table beside him.”

A small low table stood close to the chair. There was a blank scratch pad and a leadpencil on the table, a big ashtray, cigarettes and matches, and a script of “Banners in the Heart.”

“The killer evidently moved around behind him, snatched up that paper knife—” Grant added.

“And the scarf came from this little taboret behind him,” Cone said. “You can see the dusty surface outlining where it lay.”

Obviously there had been no scuffle. Everything around the murdered man was undisturbed.

“Now what beats me,” Grant said. “That statue falling to the floor caused the noise that aroused the house—but what made the statue fall?”

It was a small, heavy bronze bust of the poet Milton. It lay on the polished hardwood floor. The pedestal from which it had fallen was obvious. From the doorway, Peter Rance said, “That’s right. It always stood there.”

“But the pedestal’s ten feet from the body, over there out of the way against the wall,” Sergeant Grant said. “Now why in the devil was that killer so dumb as to knock it off?”

“Interesting, very interesting,” Cone murmured. “If that statue hadn’t fallen, the house probably never would have been aroused.”

Then Cone was gazing at the big glass ashtray, on the table beside the body. There was a burned match stump in it, and ashes. Cone bent down with a magnifying glass.

“Some cigarette ashes,” he said. “But this larger pile—looks as though one of the sheets of that scratch pad was burned here.”

Then he straightened. “That’s what it is,” he said. “The top sheet of that scratch pad, with pencilled notations on it. Lead is a mineral, it doesn’t burn.”

“And you can read something on the ash?” Grant said tensely.

“Take a look,” Cone said.

The curled, blackened ash of the burned sheet of paper was broken, but on it, etched clearly in white, there were the letters—“tumes.”

“Now what in the devil does that mean?” Grant demanded.

But Cone, with his glass, was now examining the empty white sheet on the top of the scratch pad. “This is a hard leadpencil, a number three,” he said. “Some of the indentations of the writing on that sheet that got burned, came through here.”

Like ghost writing. Cone tilted it; he read: “Costumes padded—”

“Padded costumes?” Grant echoed. “So what?”

“And it says,” Cone added, “expense account, padded $1725. A padded costume account. And a padded expense account.” Cone was obviously tense now. He ignored Grant’s questions. He turned from the table, gazing down at the floor of the room.

“These blood smears,” he said softly. “Very queer. That wound didn’t bleed much; there’s no blood on the white scarf around the knife handle, no blood splattered anywhere near the body. Why should there be a blood smear on the floor, out here in the center of the room?” But there it was, plainly visible on the floor’s light hardwood surface. “And here’s another, still further from the body,” Cone added.

Then Cone was gazing at the three men in the doorway—the stolid, stocky butler; the bushy-browed, heavy-set Rance; and the pale, somewhat effeminate, handsome Cuthbert Tarlton. All of them were staring, tense, silent. “On Mr. Thompson’s left fourth finger, the skin shows a white band, whiter than the rest of the hand,” Cone said suddenly. “He evidently wore a big ring there.”

“Why of course he did,” Rance exclaimed. “A big ruby and sapphire, quite valuable. And it’s gone!”

“Yes,” Cone agreed. “It’s gone.”

“He had it on tonight,” Tarlton murmured. “Yes, I remember he did.”

“Of course he did,” Rance agreed.

Both of them were gazing at Kennedy the butler; and he nodded agreement. But Cone was again interested in the bloodstains. They seemed like a trail, leading him across the room—leading him toward the big Grandfather’s clock. Then he was standing before the clock. He took out his watch, glanced at it, and stood pondering.

In another tense silence, Sergeant Grant murmured, “What’s the idea? You got some real lead? All these weird damn clues—”

“There’s a blood smear here on the clock,” Cone said. “Right here by its little doorknob.”

Cone pulled on the knob. The glass front of the clock swung out, a door panel exposing the long, slowly swaying pendulum.

Gingerly Cone reached in, and avoiding touching the pendulum, he fumbled around inside. Then his hand darted behind the pendulum, following its slow swing; and as he touched something, he gave a low whistle.

“Well!” he said. “There it is. The ring! It’s lying there in the bottom of the pendulum!”

Grant stared blankly. “Thompson’s ring? In the pendulum?”

At the bottom of the long pendulum, there was a big, carved, ornate piece of bronze. “There’s a lead knob behind it,” Cone said. “A blob hollowed out so the pendulum weight will be just right. The ring is lying there.”

“Fish it out. Let’s see it,” Grant said. But Cone ignored him. Cone’s eyes were flashing.

“Queer place to hide a ring,” he murmured. “Now who would know about that hollow in the back of the pendulum?”

“I get it!” Grant exclaimed. “The killer unexpectedly made a noise—aroused the house. The ring was valuable, he needed the money, when he unexpectedly caused the alarm, he had to get out of here in a hurry, an’ he was afraid to take the ring with him, afraid he’d get caught with it. So he hid it in the pendulum—”

“But he had to know about that pendulum,” Cone interjected. “At best, it was a strange thing to do—”

Then Sergeant Grant swung around, glaring at the three men at the door. “You, Kennedy,” he said to the butler. “How about it? You maybe often dusted the inside of that clock—”

“No sir,” the butler denied emphatically. “No one touched it but Mr. Thompson—him, and—and—”

Both the butler and Rance were staring at Cuthbert Tarlton. “Come on, out with it,” the Sergeant said.

“Well,” the butler said reluctantly. “Mr. Tarlton was the only one who ever tinkered with that clock. It always keeps perfect time. Mr. Thompson loved that clock—he was proud because it never was a minute off.”

“That’s true enough,” Rance agreed. “He checked it by Western Union nearly every night at midnight. He even did that tonight, when I was here with him at midnight and I laughed at him. It was right on the dot, only a few seconds off. He was very pleased. He said, ‘Well, that’s one thing about Cuthbert—he’s a rotten actor, but he understands that clock.’ ”

Sergeant Grant was at the doorway, confronting them now. “Well, now we’re getting at it!” Grant exclaimed. “How come you were so expert about the insides of that clock, Tarlton?”

The actor’s handsome face had gone paler than before. “Why—why,” he murmured, “what they say is quite true. That was my father’s clock. In our family for years. Father and Mr. Thompson were great friends, and when father died, he gave Mr. Thompson the clock.”

“And you knew about that hollowed-out place in the back of the pendulum?” Cone put in.

“Yes, I—I did,” Tarlton admitted. “I often adjusted the pendulum for Mr. Thompson—”

“Okay,” Grant said. “An’ tonight you had a fight with him. So you sneaked back in here about one o’clock when everybody was asleep—killed him an’ took his ring! Why not? You needed the money—actors are always broke, an’ you’d just been fired out of this new play. Then like a damn fool, you knocked over that statue, an’ you had to get out of here in a hurry; so you hid the ring in the pendulum—who in the devil would ever look for it in a place like that?”

“Wait!” Cone cut in. “Take it easy, Sergeant. You forget that trail of blood-smears which led me to the clock so I’d find the ring!”

Grant stared blankly. Cone had been consulting his watch again. He replaced it in his pocket. He added, “It isn’t quite like that, Sergeant. What you don’t realize—there are two kinds of clues here. Real clues, and phony clues.”

“Phony clues?” Grant echoed.

“I agree with you, this killer was pretty dumb,” Cone said. “But he thought he was smart; he wanted us to find that ring in the clock, so he plastered blood around which would lead us to it.”

“So we’d get after Tarlton?” Grant said.

“Exactly. And that fallen statue,” Cone went on, “falling about one o’clock and alarming the house. As you said, it was queer that the killer would knock it off when it’s over there so far away. Another phony clue!”

“But the alarm at one o’clock?” Grant protested.

“That was phony too,” Cone retorted. “There had to be an alarm, so it would be reasonable that the frightened, hurried killer would hide the ring!”

With a sudden, swift leap Cone was confronting Peter Rance. “You claimed you heard a thump, and dashed out and gave the alarm,” Cone said. “And claimed you heard running footsteps! The killer escaping!”

Rance had gone ashen. “I—I did hear them,” he said. “Are you trying to—”

“Accuse you? Of course I am! There wasn’t any thump, no rumbling footsteps! Why did you wake up Miss Ellie? Why not wake up Tarlton? Because you knew Miss Ellie would be too dazed and terrified to know whether she had heard a thump and footsteps or not! And you wanted Tarlton to arrive on the scene late enough so we’d be sure and suspect him!”

“You lie!” Rance gasped. “You’re just talking. You can’t prove—”

“And mixed up with your phony clues, there were real clues you didn’t know you’d left! You burned that scratch pad sheet, but forgot the one under it! Your motive for the killing! You’re Thompson’s General Manager. He was confronting you with padding your expenditures! Isn’t that it? Expense account padded $1725. Costume account padded. An embezzler. Stealing his funds, falsifying the records! Isn’t that it?”

“You—you lie!” Rance stammered. “You can’t prove I killed him. I was with Miss Ellie—she’ll tell you—”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Cone said. “That was at one o’clock, during the fake alarm.”

“But wasn’t the murder committed at one o’clock?” Sergeant Grant put in.

“Of course it wasn’t!” Cone retorted. “When he hid the ring right after the murder, he created the one vital clue which he didn’t know he was leaving!”

Cone gestured to the big clock. Its hands now marked quarter of two. “That clock was correct at midnight tonight,” Cone said to Rance. “You said so yourself. You were here and Mr. Thompson checked it with Western Union.”

“That’s right,” Rance said. “I told you—”

“But the clock isn’t correct now!” Cone said. “The correct time is two A. M. It’s lost fifteen minutes! It’s running slow! From the moment you put the ring in the pendulum, it began running slow! Why? Because the weight of the ring, in effect lengthens the pendulum, makes the clock run slower!”

Cone’s swift voice was ironic. “You ought to know that, Rance, but you never thought of it, did you? I’ve been timing the rate at which the clock is losing. One minute in eight minutes; so far, it’s lost fifteen minutes. Just single arithmetic to figure back to when the ring was put there. Two hours ago! That was at midnight, Rance—midnight, when you were here alone with him!”

There was an instant of gasping silence, then the terrified, panic-stricken Rance suddenly jumped back through the doorway, trying to get away. But like a cat Cone was on him, gripping him; and then the Sergeant and one of his men had him, pounding him with questions until at last he broke down. “You—you’ve got me,” he mumbled. “I never thought anything about that damn clock—”

“If you’d just stabbed him and let it go at that,” Cone said, “we might have had a tough time. Your trouble was, you left too many clues.”

THE END

[End of Hickory, Dickory, Death! by Ray Cummings]