The Clocks by Agatha Christie Page B

step or two back and looked at Hardcastle as though he were the Fiend in person.
    ‘Mrs McNaughton,’ said Hardcastle.
    ‘Mrs McNaughton is here.’
    She led them into the sitting-room, which overlooked the back garden. It was empty.
    ‘She up the stairs is,’ said the no-longer cheerful young woman. She went out into the hall and called, ‘Mrs McNaughton–Mrs McNaughton.’
    A voice far away said, ‘Yes. What is it, Gretel?’
    ‘It is the police–two police. I put them in sitting-room.’
    There was a faint scurrying noise upstairs and the words ‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear, what next?’ floated down. Then there was a patter of feet and presently Mrs McNaughton entered the room with a worried expression on her face. There was, Hardcastle decided quite soon, usually a worried expression on Mrs McNaughton’s face.
    ‘Oh, dear,’ she said again, ‘oh, dear. Inspector–what is it–Hardcastle–oh, yes.’ She looked at the card. ‘But why do you want to see us? We don’t know anything about it. I mean I suppose it is this murder, isn’t it? I mean, it wouldn’t be the television licence?’
    Hardcastle reassured her on that point.
    ‘It all seems so extraordinary, doesn’t it?’ said Mrs McNaughton, brightening up. ‘And more or less midday, too. Such an odd time to come and burgle a house. Just the time when people are usually at home. But then one does read of such terrible things nowadays. All happening in broad daylight. Why, some friends of ours–they were out for lunch and a furniture van drove up and the men broke in and carried out every stick of furniture. The whole street saw it happen but of course they never thought there was anything wrong. You know, I did think I heard someone screaming yesterday, but Angus said it was those dreadful boys of Mrs Ramsay’s. They rush about the garden making noises like space-ships, you know, or rockets, or atom bombs. It really is quite frightening sometimes.’
    Once again Hardcastle produced his photograph.
    ‘Have you ever seen this man, Mrs McNaughton?’
    Mrs McNaughton stared at it with avidity.
    ‘I’m almost sure I’ve seen him. Yes. Yes, I’m practically certain. Now, where was it? Was it the man who came and asked me if I wanted to buy a new encyclopedia in fourteen volumes? Or was it the man who came with a new model of vacuum cleaner. I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, and he went out and worried my husband in the front garden. Angus was planting some bulbs, you know, and he didn’t want to be interrupted and the man went on and on saying what the thing would do. You know, how it would run up and down curtains, and would clean doorsteps and do the stairs and cushions and spring-clean things. Everything, he said, absolutely everything. And then Angus just looked up at him and said, “Can it plant bulbs?” and I must say I had to laugh because it took the man quite aback and he went away.’
    ‘And you really think that was the man in this photograph?’
    ‘Well, no, I don’t really,’ said Mrs McNaughton, ‘because that was a much younger man, now I come to think of it. But all the same I think I have seen this face before. Yes. The more I look at it the more sure I am that he came here and asked me to buy something.’
    ‘Insurance perhaps?’
    ‘No, no, not insurance. My husband attends to all that kind of thing. We are fully insured in every way. No. But all the same–yes, the more I look at that photograph–’
    Hardcastle was less encouraged by this than he might have been. He put down Mrs McNaughton, from the fund of his experience, as a woman who would be anxious for the excitement of having seen someone connected with murder. The longer she looked at the picture, the more sure she would be that she could remember someone just like it.
    He sighed.
    ‘He was driving a van, I believe,’ said Mrs McNaughton. ‘But just when I saw him I can’t remember. A baker’s van, I think.’
    ‘You didn’t see him yesterday, did