Chapter V
Willard Cornelius Waterloo Clarence Wooster otherwise known as Mad Lord Snapcase took the stairs three at a time.
Mad Lord Snapcase took the stairs three at a time.
“Help, murder, he’s dead, oh God, quick, help me, murder, bloody murder!” a female voice had screamed and by gad Sir, she was right!
As Snapcase tottered into the bedroom, gasping for breath, he beheld a ghastly sight. Gerry Wade, for he presumed it was he, was lying on the bed with his back arched at an impossible angle, his whole body spasming in violent convulsions. But what made Snapcase start was that a pillow had been strapped across his face, presumably to stop his screaming from being heard until it was too late. Snapcase struggled with Wade’s convulsing body to remove the pillow.
Snapcase struggled with Wade’s convulsing body to remove the pillow.
However, as he succeeded in removing the pillow, Wade’s body heaved once more in a final convulsion and all his limbs relaxed. There was no sign of life as Snapcase listened to his breathing.
“Judging by the convulsions, I’d say he was poisoned by the seed of the nux-vomica tree”.
“Eh?” said Nancy Mitford, for it was she who had given the alarm.
“Strychnine, my dear, strychnine” opined Snapcase sadly. “A very deadly poison to animal and human alike!”
But Nancy was staring at the mantelpiece with her mouth agape. Snapcase looked in the same direction and saw only the alarm clocks as advertised earlier by Nancy's story.
“What is it my dear?”
“There’s only seven” replied Nancy in a dumb-struck voice.
“But what of it?” queried Snapcase, densely.
“I put eight clocks on that mantelpiece when I sneaked in here during the night to play our practical joke on Gerry. Oh God” and with that she burst into tears.
Snapcase’s attention was drawn to the fireplace where there recently been a fire. Wisps of smoke were still rising up the chimney from the papers in the grate. He bent down and gently extracted the only scrap of paper that seemed to have escaped the conflagration. Turning over the burnt scrap of paper he made out the words
In Cucullato Horologium Cultus and a strange clock like symbol, but with a thirteen where the twelve should be.
Turning over the burnt scrap of paper he made out the words 'In Cucullato Horologium Cultus'.
Gerry Wade certainly wouldn’t be going to British Somaliland now!
To be continued……………………………….