The Clockmaker’s Last Winding
The clock on St. Cuthbert’s tower had struck eleven when Agnes Pollock first heard the news. She was deadheading her roses along the garden wall when Dorothy Fenn came hurrying up Candlewick Lane with both hands pressed to her cheeks, which was Dorothy’s customary arrangement whenever something dreadful had occurred.
“It’s Herbert Plum,” Dorothy announced breathlessly. “Found dead in his workshop not an hour ago. Millicent went to collect her mantel clock and found him slumped right over his workbench.”
Herbert Plum had repaired clocks in Ashwick Green for forty-one years. He was a spare, precise man who smelled of machine oil and spoke in measured sentences, as though he too ran on careful, calibrated mechanisms. Agnes had liked him very much.
“How terribly sad,” she said, setting down her garden shears. “I don’t suppose anyone’s thought to telephone Constable Yardley?”
Dorothy had not. Agnes did it herself.
By the time she arrived at Plum’s Horology on the high street — simply to offer any assistance she could, she told herself — Constable Yardley was already there, notebook in hand, looking slightly overwhelmed. The workshop smelled of beeswax and metal. Herbert lay just as Millicent had discovered him, though a kind neighbour had draped a shawl across his shoulders.
The doctor, a young man named Fletcher who had only recently come to Ashwick Green, was straightforward in his assessment. “Cardiac event, most likely. He’s been gone since early morning. I’d place the time of death at somewhere between seven and nine o’clock.”
Agnes stood quietly in the doorway and looked at the room.
Herbert’s workshop was a cathedral of timepieces. Bracket clocks, carriage clocks, and grandmother clocks lined every surface. A magnificent longcase clock — mahogany and brass, clearly his current project — stood half-assembled against the far wall. On the workbench before him lay an array of tiny tools arranged in precise order, a jeweller’s loupe, and an open ledger of repair orders.
Agnes noticed several things quite quickly, as she had a habit of doing.
She noticed that Herbert’s tea mug sat on the right side of the bench, though everyone in the village knew Herbert was left-handed and always kept his mug to his left.
She noticed that the ledger was open to Wednesday’s page, though today was Thursday.
And she noticed, most particularly, that every clock in the workshop — every single one — read twelve minutes past eight. Every clock, that is, except the longcase clock against the wall, which read twenty to eleven.
“Constable Yardley,” she said pleasantly, “I wonder if I might ask one or two small questions.”
Yardley, who had been taught by Agnes at the village primary school some thirty years ago and had not entirely lost the habit of deference, waved his hand agreeably.
“Did anyone see Herbert this morning?”
“His neighbour, Mr. Gossard, saw him unlocking the shop at half past seven,” Yardley said.
“And the longcase clock — whose is it?”
Yardley consulted his notebook. “Belongs to a Mr. Raymond Chalk. Dropped it off Tuesday for a full service. Said he’d collect it Thursday, which is today.”
Agnes nodded slowly. “And has anyone spoken with Mr. Chalk?”
“He came to collect it this morning, as a matter of fact. About half ten. Found the door unlocked, came in, saw Herbert, and raised the alarm.”
“He found the door unlocked,” Agnes repeated. “At half past ten.”
She walked carefully to the longcase clock and examined it without touching anything. The pendulum was still. The clock had stopped.
“Dr. Fletcher,” she said, “is it possible that Herbert died closer to half past ten than to eight o’clock?”
The young doctor frowned. “I said between seven and nine. There’s some flexibility in these assessments, but—”
“Yes,” Agnes said gently, “I rather thought there might be.”
She turned to face Constable Yardley. “Every clock in this workshop reads twelve minutes past eight. Herbert was a meticulous man. He wound and set all his display clocks each morning the moment he opened — it was a ritual, his daughter told me once. He’d have done it at approximately half past seven, after unlocking. The clocks confirm that.”
“Right,” said Yardley slowly.
“But the longcase clock is different. Herbert wouldn’t have set a customer’s clock to his own workshop display time. He’d have set it to the correct time. And he would have set it last — it was his most important current project. The longcase clock stopped at twenty to eleven. Its pendulum has been still for some time.” She paused. “I believe Herbert set that clock at some point between ten and ten-forty-five, and died very shortly afterwards.”
The constable stared at her. “But Chalk said he found Herbert already—”
“Yes,” Agnes said. “He did say that.”
The silence in the workshop was filled by forty clocks ticking in gentle unison.
“There’s also the matter of the mug,” Agnes continued. “Herbert was left-handed. The mug is on the right. Someone else moved it, perhaps while searching the bench, and replaced it on the wrong side. And the ledger is open to Wednesday rather than Thursday. If Herbert had opened it himself this morning, it would have been today’s page.”
Constable Yardley’s expression had shifted from bewilderment to something considerably more alert. “You think Chalk came in earlier than he says. Before Herbert died, rather than after.”
“I think Mr. Chalk arrived, had some manner of altercation with Herbert — perhaps over the clock, perhaps over something else entirely — and that whatever occurred caused Herbert’s heart to fail. Whether that constitutes a crime is for wiser heads than mine to determine. But I do think his account of the morning deserves rather careful examination.”
Agnes picked up her handbag from the doorstep where she’d set it down.
“I’ll leave you to it, Constable. I imagine you’ll want to ask Mr. Chalk about his movements again, with a little more precision this time.”
She walked back out into the warm June morning. The clock on St. Cuthbert’s tower read eleven thirty-two. She checked it against her wristwatch out of old habit.
Perfectly accurate, as always.
She allowed herself a small, private satisfaction, and turned towards home to put the kettle on.
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