Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 3, March 1964

The Adventure of the Intarsia Box by August Derleth

As Solar Pons and his distinguished associates discover, the exotic East exports more than spices and wise men. The perceptive importer must discern between the valuable and the questionable treasures.

Solar Pons and I were at breakfast one fair morning only a week after our return from the country and the curious affair of the Whispering Knights, when the door below was thrown violently open, and there was a rush of feet on the stairs that stopped short of our threshold. Pons looked up, his grey eyes intent, his whole lean figure taut with waiting.

“A young woman, agitated,” he said, nodding. He flashed a glance at the clock. “Scarcely seven. It is surely a matter of some urgency to her. The hour has only now occurred to her. She hesitates. No, she is coming on.”

The sound of footsteps was now scarcely audible, but they came on up the stairs. In a moment there was a faint, timorous tapping on the door to our quarters, and an equally timorous voice, asking beyond the door, “Mr. Pons? Mr. Solar Pons?”

“Pray play the gentleman, Parker,” said Pons.

I sprang up and threw open the door.

A sandy-haired young woman not much over her middle-twenties stood there, a package wrapped in a shawl pressed to her breast. She looked from one to the other of us with candid blue eyes, her full lower lip trembling uncertainly, a slow flush mounting her cheeks toward the scattering of freckles that bridged her nose and swept under her eyes. Then, with that unerring intuition that women especially seem to have, she fixed upon Pons.

“Mr. Pons! I hope I’m not intruding. I had to come. I had to do something. Uncle will do nothing — just wait for whatever is to happen. Oh, it’s dreadful, Mr. Pons, dreadful!”

“Do come in, Miss...?”

“I am Flora Morland of Morland Park, Mr. Pons. You may have heard of my uncle, Colonel Burton Morland?”

“Retired resident at Malacca,” said Pons promptly. “But do compose yourself, Miss Morland. Let me take that box you’re holding.”

“No, no!” she cried, and pressed it momentarily closer to her body. Then she bit her lip and smiled weakly. “But that is why I came. Forgive me, Mr. Pons. You shall see for yourself — now.”

She threw back the shawl and revealed a box, scarcely as large as a cigar box, made of kamuning wood. It was beautifully carved on the top and around on all sides, with curious figures, like a bas-relief. It seemed obviously Oriental in design.

“Open it, Mr. Pons!” She shuddered a little. “I don’t know how I could bear to have carried it all this way. I can’t look again!”

Pons took the box gently from her. He pushed the breakfast dishes to one side and set the box on the table. He stood for a moment admiring its workmanship, while Miss Morland waited with an apprehensive tautness that was almost tangible in the room. Then he threw it open.

I fear I gasped. I do not know what I expected to see — a priceless jewel, perhaps? — a bibliophile’s treasure? — something fitting to the exquisite box containing it. Certainly it was nothing I could have dreamed in my wildest imaginings! In the box laid a mummified human hand, severed at the wrist, affixed to the bottom of the box by two bands of white silk.

Pons’ emotion showed only in his eyes, which lit up with quick interest. He touched the dried skin with the fingertips of one hand, while caressing the carved box with the other.

“Intarsia,” murmured Pons. “An Italian art, Miss Morland. But this box would appear to be of Oriental origin; the subjects of the ornamentation are all Oriental. Would you care now to tell us how you came by it?”

He closed the box almost with regret, and, Miss Morland having taken the stuffed chair near the fireplace, came to stand against the mantel, filling his pipe with the detestable shag he smoked.

Miss Morland clasped her hands together. “I hardly know how to begin, Mr. Pons,” she said.

“Let us start with this fascinating object you have brought us,” suggested Pons.

“It was delivered to my uncle three days ago, Mr. Pons. I myself took it from the postman. It was mailed first-class from Kuala Lumpur. My uncle was in his study that morning, and I took it in to him. I recall that his face darkened when he saw the package, but I supposed that it was only in wonder at who might have sent it. It was ten years ago that he left Malaya. He looked for some clue to its origin; there was no return address on the package. He began to take off its wrappings. I had turned away from him to put some books back on the shelves, when suddenly I heard him make a kind of explosive sound, and on the instant he slipped from his chair to the floor. He had swooned dead away. I ran over to him of course, Mr. Pons — and that’s how I came to see what was in the box. There was a little card, too — linen paper, I thought, Mr. Pons — I believe such details are important to you. On it was written in a flowing hand a single sentence: I will come for you.”

“The card is not now in the box,” said Pons.

“I suppose my uncle removed it.

I closed the box, Mr. Pons. I couldn’t bear to look at what was in it. Then I brought my uncle around. I expected him to tell me what was in the box and what it all meant, but he said nothing — never a word. Seeing that the box was closed, he assumed that he had closed it before or as he fainted, and that I didn’t know what was in it. Mr. Pons, I was deeply shocked by what was in the box, but I was even more profoundly disturbed by my uncle’s failure to say anything at all of it to me. Since the day he received it, furthermore, he has been very busy, and everything he has done is in the way of putting his affairs in order.”

“Did your uncle notify the police?”

“If so, I don’t know of it, Mr. Pons.”

Pons puffed reflectively on his pipe for a moment before he asked, “I take it you are an orphan and have been living with your uncle. For how long?”

“Ten years,” she replied. “My mother died when I was very young, and my father five years after Uncle Burton returned from Malaya. He has been very kind to me. He has treated me as his own child.”

“Your uncle is not married?”

“Uncle Burton was married at one time. I believe there was some cloud over the marriage. My father occasionally talked about my aunt in deprecatory terms, called her ‘the Eurasian woman’. My cousin Nicholas, who spent the last five years’ of Uncle Burton’s tenure with him in Malacca, also married a Eurasian woman. My aunt died before my uncle’s return to England.”

“Your cousin?”

“He returned with Uncle Burton. He’s a barrister with offices in the City. His wife is the proprietress of a small, but I believe thriving, importing business in the Strand.”

“Your cousin — Nicholas Morland, is it?”

“There were three brothers, Mr. Pons — my father, Nick’s father, and Uncle Burton.”

“Your cousin, I take it, was your uncle’s assistant in Malacca?”

“Yes, Mr. Pons.”

“How old is your uncle, Miss Morland?”

“Seventy.”

“So he was fifty-five when he retired,” mused Pons. “How long had he been the resident in Malacca?”

“Fifteen years. He went out there when he was forty. I never really knew him, Mr. Pons, until his return. I hadn’t been born when he was sent out. But Uncle Burton seemed to be very fond of me from the moment he saw me, and it seemed only natural that he would invite me to live with him when Father died. Uncle Burton is very wealthy, he has many servants, and, though he is regarded by some of them as a martinet, they do stay, most of them. And he has a large and secluded home in Chipping Barnet. It seemed the most natural thing to do, to live with him. He sent me to school, and through a small private college. For my part, I am expected to play hostess whenever he has one of his small parties, which are attended chiefly by my cousin and his wife and some other ex-Colonials and their wives. I rather like that now, though I didn’t at first. But my uncle is the soul of rectitude. He will tolerate no deviation from proper conduct, so there are never any social problems for me to deal with.”

“Your uncle’s heirs — who are they?”

Our client looked momentarily startled. “Why, I suppose Nick and I are his only heirs,” she said. “I know nothing of his affairs, Mr. Pons. But there is no one else. All our relatives of my uncle’s generation are dead, and Nick and I are the only ones of our generation. Nick has no children, so there is no coming generation, either.” She took a deep breath and asked impulsively, “Mr. Pons, can you get to the bottom of this mystery? It troubles me very much to see Uncle Burton — well, preparing for death. That’s what he’s doing, Mr. Pons, it really is.”

“Your uncle has no knowledge of your coming here, Miss Morland?”

“None. I left at dawn. He seldom rises before eight o’clock.”

“Then you’ve not had breakfast, Miss Morland.”

“No, Mr. Pons.”

“Allow me!” Pons strode to the door, opened it, stuck his head out and called, “Mrs. Johnson, if you please!” He turned back to our client. “Pray give me a few minutes to ponder your problem, Miss Morland. In the meantime, Mrs. Johnson will be happy to prepare breakfast for you in her quarters. Will you not, Mrs. Johnson?” he asked of our long-suffering landlady as she appeared on the threshold.

“That I will, to be sure, Mr. Pons. If you’ll come with me, Miss?”

Miss Morland, too surprised to protest, allowed herself to be led from the room by Mrs. Johnson.

The door had hardly closed behind them before Pons was once again at the box, opening it. I was drawn to his side.

“Is this not an unique warning indeed, Parker?” he asked.

“I have seldom seen anything as gruesome.”

“It was intended to be. I submit that this severed hand must have a deep significance for our client’s uncle. What do you make of it?” I bent and peered closely at it, examining it as well as I could without disturbing it or removing it from the box. “A man’s right hand,” I said. “Of probably about forty, not much older, certainly. It is brown-skinned, not only from age. Eurasian?”

“Native. See how beautifully kept the nails are! This man did little work. There are no observable callouses. The hand is smooth even to the fingertips. How long would you say this hand has been severed?”

“Without more scientific apparatus, I should think it impossible to say.”

“Could it be as old, say, as Colonel Morland’s tenure in Malacca?”

“I should think so. But what could it mean to Morland?”

“Ah, Parker, when we can answer that question we will know why it was sent to him.” He smiled grimly. “I fancy it concerns some dark episode of his past. He retired at fifty-five. Is that not early?”

“His health, perhaps, demanded his retirement.”

“Or his conduct.”

“Miss Morland speaks of him as a model of rectitude.”

“And as something of a martinet. Conduct in search of rectitude may be as reprehensible as its opposite.” He touched the silk bands. “What do you make of these, Parker?”

“If I may venture a guess, white is the color of mourning in the Orient,” I said.

“The bands are new,” observed Pons.

“That is certainly elementary,” I could not help saying. “I can think of several reasons why they should be. What puzzles me is the reason for being of the hand in the first place.”

“I submit its owner kept it as long as he lived.”

“Well, that’s reasonable,” I agreed. “It has been properly mummified. Are we to take it that the owner is not still alive?”

“If he were sufficiently attached to this appendage while he lived, would he so readily have sent it off?”

“Hardly.”

“Unless it had a message to convey or an errand to perform.”

“Absurd!”

“Yet it did convey a message to Colonel Morland. It may be gruesome, but surely not so much so as to cause a normal and healthy man to swoon at sight of it. It reminds me of that horrible little trifle of wizard lore known as the glory hand, the bewitched, animated hand of a dead man sent to perform its owner’s wishes, even to murder.”

“Superstitious claptrap!”

“Colonel Morland, at least, is convinced that his life is in danger, and that the threat to it emanates from Malaya. Let us just have a look at the ship’s registry before our client returns to determine the number of ships that have docked from Malaya in the past few days.”

We had time to search back five days before our client returned from Mrs. Johnson’s quarters; during those five days no ship from Malaya had docked at England’s ports, though a freighter, the Alor Star, was listed as due within twenty-four hours. At Miss Morland’s entrance, Pons thrust the papers aside.

“Thank you, indeed, Mrs. Johnson,” said Pons as our landlady turned at the threshold. “And now, Miss Morland, two or three questions occur to me. Pray be seated.”

Our client, now somewhat more composed and less uncertain in her manner, took her former seat and waited expectantly.

“Miss Morland, when your uncle came around, did he say or do anything significant?” asked Pons.

“He didn’t say a word,” she answered. “He was very pale. He looked for the box and seemed relieved to find it closed. He picked it up at once. I asked him, ‘Are you all right, Uncle?’ He said, ‘Just a trifle dizzy. You run along.’ I left him, but, of course, I did watch to be sure he would be all right. He hurried straight to his bedroom with this box. He hid it there, for when he came out again in a few moments, he no longer carried it. He then locked himself in his study, and within two hours his solicitor came. He could only have sent for him, because Mr. Harris would certainly not otherwise have come to call at that hour.”

“You evidently found the intarsia box, Miss Morland.”

“My uncle has in his bedroom only a cabinet, a bureau, and an old sea chest which he fancied, and which had accompanied him on his journeys. He served a short term in the Royal Navy as a young man, before entering the foreign service. He acquired the chest at that time. I knew that the box had to be in one of those three places, and I found it carefully covered up in the chest while my uncle was closeted with Mr. Harris. Last night, about eleven o’clock, after he went to sleep, I slipped in and took the box so that I might be ready to come to you without the risk of waking Uncle Burton by taking the box this morning.”

“Did your uncle mention the box to anyone?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Pons. But I should think that, if he had spoken of it to Mr. Harris, he would have shown it to him. Yet Uncle Burton never left the study while Mr. Harris was in the house; so he could not have done so.”

“I see. I think, then, Miss Morland, our only recourse is to ask your uncle the questions you cannot answer.”

Our client’s hand flew to her lips; an expression of dismay appeared in her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Pons,” she cried, “I’m afraid of what Uncle Burton might say.”

“Miss Morland, I believe your uncle’s life to be in great jeopardy. This belief he evidently shares. He can do no more than refuse to see us, and he can certainly not take umbrage at your attempt to be of service to him.”

Her hand fell back to her lap. “Well, that’s true,” she decided.

Pons looked at the clock. “It is now nine. We can take the Underground at Baker Street and be at Watford Junction within the hour. Let us leave the box, if you please.”

Our client sat for but a moment, undecided. Then, pressing her lips determinedly together, she got to her feet. “Very well, Mr. Pons. My uncle can do no worse than give me the back of his tongue!”

As we drew near to the home of Colonel Morland in the cab we had taken at Watford Junction, Pons’ face grew more grim. “I fear we are too late, Miss Morland,” he said presently.

“Oh, Mr. Pons! Why do you say so?” cried our client.

“No less than four police vehicles have passed us — two returning, two going our way,” he answered. “I should be very much surprised not to find the police at Morland Park.”

Miss Morland pressed a handkerchief to her lips.

Nor was Pons in error. Two police cars stood before the tall hedge that separated the parklike grounds which our client indicated as her uncle’s home, and a constable stood on guard at the gate in the hedge.

“Young Mecker,” murmured Pons at sight of him.

As the cab pulled up, Mecker stepped forward to wave it away. Then, his arm upraised, he recognized Pons getting out. His arm dropped.

“Mr. Pons!” he cried. “How could you have learned?” Then he caught sight of our client. “Could this be Miss Flora Morland?”

“It could be,” said our client. “Please! Tell me what has happened?”

“Inspector Jamison has been looking for you, Miss Morland. Please come with me.”

“Never mind, Meeker,” interposed Pons. “We’ll take her in.”

“Very well, sir. Thank you, sir.” He shook his head, frowning. “Dreadful business, sir, dreadful.”

Our client stood for a moment, one hand on Pons’ arm, trembling.

“I am afraid, Miss Morland,” said Pons with unaccustomed gentleness, “that what your uncle feared has come to pass.”

We went up a closely hedged walk arbored over with trees to a classically Georgian country house of two and a half storeys. The front door was open to the warm summer morning; just inside it stood the portly figure of Inspector Seymour Jamison of Scotland Yard, talking with another con stable. He turned abruptly at our entrance, frowning.

“Mr. Solar Pons, the private enquiry agent,” he said heavily. “Do you smell these matters, Pons?” Then his eyes fell upon our client. “Aha! Miss Flora Morland. We’ve been looking for you, Miss Morland.”

“Please! What has happened?” she beseeched him.

“You don’t know?”

“I do not.”

“Colonel Morland was found murdered in his bed this morning,” said Jamison coldly. “The house was locked, no windows had been forced, and you were missing. I must ask you, Miss Morland, to come into the study with me.”

“I should like to look into the bedroom, Jamison,” said Pons.

“By all means. The photographer is there now, but he should be finished soon. Just down the hall, the third door on the left. Around the stairs.”

Our client shot Pons a beseeching glance; he smiled reassuringly. Then she turned and went submissively with Inspector Jamison into the study, which was on the right.

Pons pushed past the police photographer into the late Colonel Moreland’s bedroom. Before us lay a frightful scene. Colonel Morland, a tall, broad-chested man, lay out-spread on his back on his bed, a wavy Malay kris driven almost to the hilt into his heart. Most shocking of all — his right hand had been severed at the wrist and lay where it had fallen in a pool of blood on the carpet beside the bed. Gouts of blood had spattered the bed; a froth of blood had welled from the dead man’s lips to colour his thick moustache; and the wide staring eyes seemed still to wear an expression of the most utter horror.

The room was a shambles. Whoever had slain our client’s uncle had torn it apart in search of something. The Colonel’s sea chest lay open, its contents strewn about. The drawers of the bureau, save for the very smallest at the top, had been pulled open and emptied, and the contents of the tall wardrobe-cabinet, even to the uppermost shelves, were banked about the hassock that stood before it. The sight was almost enough to unnerve a stronger man than I, and I marveled at Pons’ cool, keen detachment as he looked searchingly upon the scene.

The photographer, having finished, departed.

“How long would you say he has been dead, Parker?” asked Pons.

I stepped around gingerly and made a cursory examination. “At least eight hours,” I said, presently. “I should put it at between midnight and two o’clock — not before, and not very long after.”

“Before our client left the house,” murmured Pons.

He stood for a moment where he was. Then he stepped gingerly over to the bed and looked down at Colonel Morland’s body.

“The kris does not appear to have been disturbed,” he said, “which suggests that the murderer carried a second weapon solely for the purpose of severing his victim’s hand.”

“A ritual weapon!” I cried. “And carried away with him!”

Pons smiled lightly. “Cut with a single sweeping stroke, very cleanly,” he observed.

He stepped away from the bed and began to move carefully among the objects strewn about, disturbing nothing. He went straight to the bureau, the top of which had evidently not been disturbed, for what I assumed to be the dead man’s watch and wallet lay there. The wallet was the first object of Pons’ attention; he picked it up and examined its contents.

“Twenty-seven pound notes,” he murmured.

“So the object of this search could hardly have been money,” I said.

Pons shook his head impatiently. “No, no, Parker — the murderer was looking for the intarsia box. The top of the bureau was not disturbed because, had it been there, the box would have been instantly apparent: nor have the top drawers been opened because they are not deep enough to hold the box.”

He moved cautiously to the side of the bed, avoiding the pool of blood which had gushed from Colonel Morland’s cleanly severed wrist. “The murderer must have stood just here,” he said, and dropped to his knees to scrutinize the carpet intently. He was somewhat hampered by the presence of bloodstains, but I could see by the glint in his eyes that he had seen something of significance, however invisible it was to me, for he gave a small sound of satisfaction, as he picked something from the carpet just back from the edge of the great bed and put it into two of the little envelopes he always carried.

Just as he rose from his position, Inspector Jamison came into the room, wearing a patent glow of confidence.

“Nasty little job here, Pons,” he said almost cheerfully. “You’ll be sorry to learn I’ve sent Miss Morland off to the Yard to be put through it.”

“Indeed,” said Pons. “What admirable — and needlessly precipitate dispatch! You have reason to think her involved?”

“My dear fellow,” said Jamison patronizingly. “Consider. Every window and door of this house was locked. Only four people had keys — Colonel Morland, whose key is on his ring; his valet, who was his batboy in Malacca and who discovered his body; the housekeeper, and Miss Morland. All of their keys are in their possession. Nothing has been forced. Miss Morland, I am told by Mr. Harris, the Colonel’s counsel, stands to inherit sixty percent of a considerable estate, considerable even after the Crown duties.”

“It does not seem to you significant that on so warm a night this house should have been locked up so tightly?” asked Pons.

“You’re not having me on that, Pons,” retorted Jamison, grinning. “We know all about that intarsia box. Morland was in fear for his life.”

“You are suggesting then that Miss Morland slipped into the room, stabbed her uncle, cut off his right hand, searched the room until she turned up the box, and then made her way to Number 7B to enlist my services?”

“Hardly that. She is hardly strong enough to have driven that kris into him with such force.”

“Hardly,” agreed Pons dryly.

“But there is nothing to prevent her having hired an accomplice.”

“And what motive could she possibly have had for cutting off her uncle’s hand?” pressed Pons.

“What better way could be devised to confuse the investigation into the motive for so gruesome a crime?”

“And Miss Morland seems to you, after your conversation with her, the kind of young lady who could lend herself to such a crime?”

“Come, come, Pons. You have a softness for a pretty face,” said Jamison.

“I submit that this would have been a most fantastic rigmarole to go through simply to inherit the wealth of a man who, by all the evidence, granted her every whim. No Jamison, it won’t wash.”

“That intarsia box — she tells me it is in your possession. We shall have to have it.”

“Send ’round to 7B for it. But give me at least today with it, will you?”

“I’ll send for it tomorrow.”

“Tell me — you’ve questioned the servants, I suppose? Did anyone hear anything in the night?”

“Not a sound. And I may say that the dog, which habitually sleeps at the front door of the house, outside, never once was heard to bark. I need hardly tell you the significance of that.”

“It suggests that the murderer entered...”

“Or was let in.”

“By the back door.”

Jamison’s face reddened. He raised his voice. “It means that since the dog did nothing in the nighttime the murderer was known to him.”

Pons clucked sympathetically. “You ought to stay away from Sir Arthur’s stories, my dear chap. They have a tendency to vitiate your style.”

“I suppose you will be telling us to look for a giant of a man who can charm dogs,” said Jamison with heavy sarcasm.

“Quite the contrary. Look for a short, lithe man who, in this case at least, probably went barefooted.” He turned and pointed to the scarcely visible hassock. “Only a man shorter than average would have had to use that hassock to look at the top shelves of the cabinet. The indentations in the carpet indicate that the hassock’s usual position is over against the wall beside the cabinet.”

Jamison’s glance flashed to the hassock, and returned, frowning, to Pons.

“If you don’t mind, Jamison, I’ll just have a look around out in back. Then perhaps you could send us back to Watford Junction in one of the police cars.”

“Certainly, Pons. Come along.”

Jamison led the way out and around the stairs to a small area-way from which doors opened to the kitchen on the right, and a small store room on the left, and into the back yard. A maid and an elderly woman, manifestly the housekeeper, sat red-eyed at a table in the kitchen. Jamison hesitated, evidently of the opinion that Pons wished to speak with them, but Pons’ interest was in the back door, where he crouched to look at the lock. He really inspected it.

“We’ve been all through that, Pons,” said Jamison with an edge of impatience in his voice.

Pons ignored him. He opened the door, crouched to examine the sill, then dropped to his knees and, on all fours, crawled out to the recently reset flagstone walk beyond it. From one place he took up a pinch of soil and dropped it into one of his envelopes. At another he pointed wordlessly, beckoning to Inspector Jamison, who came and saw the unmistakable print of human toes.

Then Pons sprang up and went back into the house, Jamison and myself at his heels. He found a telephone directory, consulted it briefly, and announced that he was ready to leave, if Jamison would be kind enough to lend us a police car and driver.

Once again on the Underground, I asked Pons, “We’re not going back to 7B?”

“No, Parker. I am delighted to observe how well you read me. I daresay we ought to lose no time discovering the secret of the intarsia box. Since Colonel Morland is dead, we shall have to ask Nicholas Morland whether he can explain it. You’ll recall that he spent the last five years of his uncle’s residency with him. He has an office in the Temple. I took the trouble to look him up in the directory before we left Morland Park.”

“I followed the matter of the murderer’s height readily enough,” I said, “But how did you arrive at his being barefooted?”

“There were in the carpet beside the bed, just where a man might have stood to deliver the death blow, three tiny files of soil particles, in such a position as to suggest the imprint of toes. The soil was quite probably picked up among the flagstones.”

“And, you know, Pons — Jamison has a point about the dog.”

Pons smiled enigmatically. “The dog did nothing. Very well. Either he knew the murderer — or he didn’t hear him, which is quite as likely. A barefooted man could travel with singular noiselessness. And Morland Park is a paradise for prowlers!” He looked at me, his eyes dancing. “Consider the severed hand. Since you are so busy making deductions, perhaps you have accounted for it.”

“Now you press me,” I admitted, “that seems to me the most elementary detail of all. I suggest that an indignity the late Colonel Morland committed in the past has now been visited upon him.”

“Capital! Capital!” cried Pons. “You have only to keep this up, my dear fellow, and I can begin to think of retiring.”

“You are making sport of me!” I protested.

“On the contrary. I could not agree with you more. There are one or two little points about the matter that trouble me, but I have no doubt these will be resolved in due time.”

For the rest of the journey Pons rode in silent contemplation, his eyes closed, the thumb and forefinger of his right hand ceaselessly caressing the lobe of his ear. He did not open his eyes again until we came into Temple Station.

Nicholas Morland proved to be a somewhat frosty man in his early forties. He was dressed conservatively, but in clothes befitting his station. Save for the difference in years, he was not unlike his late uncle in appearance, with the same kind of moustache, the same outward thrust of the lips, the same bushy brows. His frosty mien was superficial, for it collapsed as he listened to Pons’ concise summary of events, and little beads of perspiration appeared at his temples.

“We must rely upon you, Mr. Morland,” concluded Pons, “to explain the significance of the intarsia box and its contents.”

Morland came shakily to his feet and walked back and forth across his office, biting his lip. “It is something I had hoped never to have to speak about,” he said at last. “Is it really necessary, Mr. Pons?”

“I assure you it is. Scotland Yard will expect to hear about it before the day is out. I am here in advance of their coming because I am acting in the interests of your cousin.”

“Of course. I quite understand.” He took another turn or two about his office, and then sat down again, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Well, Mr. Pons, it is a matter that does not reflect at all well upon my late uncle,” he began. “As Flora may perhaps have told you, Uncle Burton married an Eurasian woman, a very fine, very beautiful woman some ten years his junior — perhaps as much as fifteen, I cannot be sure, though I suspect my wife would know. I am sure you are aware that matters of moral conduct among the ethnically mixed peoples of the Federated States of Malaya are considered lax by British standards, and perhaps it was true that my aunt engaged in improper conduct with Bendarloh Ali, an uncle of my wife’s, who belonged to one of the better native families in Malacca. My uncle thought he would lose face, and he set about to prevent it. My aunt died; there is some reason to believe that it was by poison at my uncle’s hands. Her lover was arrested. Some valuable items belonging to my uncle were found in his home. He was accused of having stolen them, on no stronger evidence than their presence in his home, and he suffered the indignity of having his right hand cut off at the wrist. That is the sum total of the matter, sir.”

“How long ago did this happen, Mr. Morland?”

“Only a month or two before he was sent home. The Sultan of Malacca was outraged — though he had approved the punishment, he was later led to repudiate it — and demanded the recall of the resident. The Governor really had no alternative but to relieve my uncle of his post.”

“Over fifteen years, then. Does it seem likely that he would wait so long to take vengeance?”

“Not he, Mr. Pons. My uncle’s victim died three months ago. I think it not inconsistent of the Malay character that his son might believe it incumbent upon him to avenge the honor of his house and the indignity done his father.”

“I submit it would be an unnatural son who would separate his father’s right hand from his remains,” said Pons.

Morland shook his head thoughtfully. “Mr. Pons, I would tend to agree. There is this point to consider. The hand sent my uncle may not have been Bendarloh Ali’s. Even if it were, I suppose the family represents that ethnic mixture so common in Malacca that no standard of conduct consistent with ancient Malay customs could be ascribed to it.”

Pons sat for a few moments in contemplative silence. Then he said, “You are very probably aware that you and your cousin will share your uncle’s estate.”

“Oh, yes. There is no one else. We are a small family, and unless Flora marries, we will very likely die out entirely. Oh, there are distant cousins, but we have not been in touch for many years.” He shrugged. “But it’s a matter of indifference to me. My practise is quite sufficient for our needs, though I suppose my wife can find a use for what Uncle Burton may leave us, what with the constant innovations at her shop.”

The telephone rang suddenly at Morland’s elbow. He lifted it to his ear, said, “Morland here,” and listened. When he put it down after but a brief period, he said, “Gentlemen, the police are on the way.”

Pons got to his feet with alacrity. “One more question, Mr. Morland. Your relations with your uncle — were they friendly, tolerant, distant?”

“The three of us had dinner at Morland Park once a month, Mr. Pons,” said Morland a little stiffly.

“Three?”

“My wife’s cousin lives with us. Uncle Burton naturally would not exclude him.”

“Thank you, sir.”

We took our leave.

Outside, Pons strode purposefully along, some destination in mind, his eyes fixed upon an inner landscape. Within a few minutes we were once more on the Underground, and rode in silence unbroken by any word from Pons, until we reached Trafalgar Station and emerged to walk in the Strand.

“Pons,” I cried finally, exasperated at his silence. “It’s noon. What are we doing here?”

“Ah, patience, Parker, patience. The Strand is one of the most fascinating areas in the world. I mean to idle a bit and shop.”

Within half an hour, Pons had exchanged his deerstalker for a conservative summer hat, leaving his deerstalker to be dispatched to our quarters by post; he had bought a light summer coat, which he carried loosely on his arm; and he had added a walking stick to his ensemble, all to my open-mouthed astonishment. He presented quite a different picture from that to which I had become accustomed in the years I had shared his quarters, and he offered no explanation of his purchases.

We continued in the Strand until we came to a small shop modestly proclaiming that antiques and imports were to be had.

“Ah, here we are,” said Pons. “I beg you, Parker, keep your face frozen. You have an unhappy tendency to show your reactions on it.”

So saying, he went into the shop.

A bell, tinkling in a back room, brought out a dapper, brown-skinned man of indeterminate age. He came up to us and bowed. He looked little older than a boy, but he was not a boy. He smiled, flashing his white teeth, and said, “If it please you, gentlemen, I am here to serve you.”

“Are you the proprietor?” asked Pons abruptly.

“No, sir. I am Ahmad. I work for Mrs. Morland.”

“I am looking,” said Pons, “for an intarsia box.”

“Ah. Of any precise size?”

“Oh, so — and so,” said Pops, describing the size of the intarsia box Miss Morland had brought to our quarters.

“Just so. One moment, if you please.”

He vanished into the room to the rear, but came out in a very few moments carrying an intarsia box, which he offered to Pons.

“Seventeenth century Italian, sir. Genuine. I trust this is the box you would like.”

“It is certainly exquisite work,” said Pons. “But, no, it is not quite what I would like. The size is right. But I would like something with Oriental ornamentation.”

“Sir, there are no antique intarsia boxes of Oriental manufacture,” said Ahmad. “I am sorry.”

“I’m not looking for an antique,” said Pons. “I am, of course, aware that intarsia boxes were not made in the Orient before the eighteenth century.”

Ahmad’s pleasant face brightened. “Ah, in that case, sir, I may have something for you.”

He vanished once more into the quarters to the rear of the shop.

When he came out this time he carried another intarsia box. With a triumphant smile, he gave it to Pons. Then he stood back to wait upon Pons’ verdict.

Pons turned it over, examining it critically. He opened it, smelled it, caressed it with his fingers, and smiled. “Excellent!” he cried. “This will do very well, young man. What is its price?”

“Ten pounds, sir.”

Pons paid for it without hesitation. “Pray wrap it with care. I should not like any of that beautifully wrought carving to be damaged, even scratched.”

Ahmad beamed. “Sir, you like the intarsia?”

“Young man, I have some knowledge of these things,” said Pons almost pontifically. “This is among the finest work of its kind I have seen.”

Ahmad backed away from Pons, bowing, his face glowing. He retired once again into the back room, from which presently came the sounds of rustling paper. In just under five minutes Ahmad reappeared and placed the carefully wrapped intarsia box in Pons’ hands. He was still glowing with pleasure. Moreover, he had the air of bursting with something he wanted to say, which only decorum prevented his giving voice.

Pons strolled leisurely from the shop and away down the street. But, once out of sight of the shop, he moved with alacrity to hail a cab and gave the driver our Praed Street address.

“Did you not have the feeling that Ahmad wished to tell us something?” I asked when we were on our way.

“Ah, he told us everything,” said Pons, his eyes glinting with good humor. “Ahmad is an artist in intarsia. I trust you observed the costly antiques offered in Mrs. Morland’s shop?”

“I did indeed.”

“It suggested nothing to you?”

“That her business is thriving, as Miss Morland told us.” I reached over and tapped the package Pons held. “Did it not seem to you that this box is very much like Miss Morland’s?”

Pons smiled. “Once the first box is turned out, the pattern is made. The rest come with comparative ease. They are probably identical, not only with each other, but with a score or more of others.”

Back in our quarters, Pons carefully unwrapped the intarsia box he had bought and placed it beside our client’s. Except for the fact that there was some difference in age between them, they were virtually identical. Pons examined the boxes with singular attention to detail, finding each smallest variation between them.

“Are they identical or not?” I asked finally.

“Not precisely. The box Miss Morland brought us is at least seventy-five years old; it may be a hundred. It is made of the same beautiful kamuning wood out of which the Malays fashion the hilts of their weapons. I trust you observed that the handle of the kris which killed Colonel Morland was of this same wood. It has been polished many times and waxed; there is actually some visible wearing away of the wood. The other is a copy of a box like this, made by a skilled artist. I suppose there is a demand for objects of this kind and I have no doubt they are to be had in all the shops which have imported pieces from the Orient for sale. Chinese boxes like this are most frequently in metal or ceramic; wood is more commonly in use from Japan down the coast throughout the Polynesians and Melanesians in the south Pacific.” He dismissed the intarsia boxes with a gesture. “But now, let us see what we have from the late Colonel Morland’s bedroom.”

He crossed to the corner where he kept his chemistry apparatus and settled himself to examine the contents of the envelopes he had used at Morland Park. There were but three of them, and it was unlikely that they would occupy him for long. Since I had a professional call to make at two o’clock, I excused myself.

When I returned within the hour, I found Pons waiting expectantly.

“Ah, Parker,” he cried, “I trust you are free for the remainder of the afternoon. I am expecting Jamison and together we may be able to put an end to Scotland Yard’s harassing of our client.”

“Did you learn anything at the slides?” I asked.

“Only confirmation of what I suspected. The particles of soil I found on the carpet beside the bed were identical with the soil around the flagstone, even to grains of limestone, of which the flagstones are made. There seems to be no doubt but that the soil was carried into the house by the bare toes of the murderer. Other than that, there was also just under the edge of the bed a tiny shaving of camphor wood, which is also commonly used by the Malays who work the jungle produce of that country.”

“We are still tied to Colonel Morland’s past,” I said.

“We have never strayed from it,” said Pons shortly. “But thus far in the course of the inquiry, unless Scotland Yard has turned up fingerprints on the handle of the kris, we have only presumptive, not convicting evidence. It is all very well to know the identity of the murderer; the trick is to convict him. Ah, I hear a motor slowing down. That will be Jamison.”

Within a moment a car door slammed below, and we heard Jamison’s heavy tread on the stairs.

The Inspector came into our quarters gingerly carrying a small package, which he surrendered to Pons with some relief. “Here it is, Pons,” he said. “I had a little trouble getting the loan of it.”

“Capital!” cried Pons. He took the package and carried it to the intarsia box he had bought in the shop on the Strand. “I don’t suppose you’re armed, Jamison?”

“The tradition of the Yard,” began Jamison ponderously.

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Pons. “Parker, get my revolver.”

I went into the bedroom and found Pons’ weapon where he had last carelessly laid it down on the bureau.

“Give it to Jamison, will you?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, Pons,” said Jamison, with some obvious misgiving on his ruddy face. “P’raps that young woman’s turned your head.”

The contents of the Inspector’s package had vanished into the intarsia box, which Pons now took up, having resumed the garb he had bought in the Strand shops.

“Let us be off. I want to try an experiment, Jamison. Frankly, it is no more than that. It may succeed. It may not. We shall see.”

Our destination was the antique and imports shop in the Strand, and all the way there Pons said nothing, only listened with a sardonic smile on his hawk-like features to Jamison’s weighty discourse on the damning circumstances which made our client seem guilty of arranging her uncle’s death.

As the police car approached the shop, Pons spoke for the first time to Constable Meeker, who was at the wheel. “Either stop short of the shop or drive past it, Meeker.”

Meeker obediently stopped beyond the shop.

“Now, Jamison,” said Pons brusquely, as we got out of the car, “hand on gun, and pray be ready. Try to look a little less like a policeman, that’s a good fellow.”

Pons led the way into the shop, carrying the carefully wrapped intarsia box he had bought only a few hours previously. An extraordinarily handsome Eurasian woman came forward to wait upon him. She was of indeterminate age. She could have been anywhere between twenty and forty, but certainly did not seem over thirty.

“What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

“The young man who waited on me this noon,” said Pons, unwrapping the intarsia box as he spoke. “Is he here?”

She nodded, raised her voice to call, “Ahmad!” and stepped back.

Ahmad came out, a look of polite inquiry on his face. He recognized Pons as his noon-hour customer. His eyes fell to the box.

“Sir! You are disappointed?”

“In the beauty of the box, no,” said Pons. “But the interior!”

Ahmad stepped lightly forward and took the box, discarding the wrappings. “We shall see,” he said, bowing almost obsequiously.

Then he opened the intarsia box.

Instantly, a dramatic and frightening metamorphosis took place. Ahmad’s smiling face altered grotesquely. Its mask of politeness washed away to reveal dark murderous features, suffused with sudden rage and fear. He dropped the intarsia box — and from it rolled the severed hand of Colonel Burton Morland! Simultaneously, he leaped backward with a feline movement, tore down from the wall behind him a scimitar-like chenangka, and turned threateningly upon Pons.

For scarcely a moment the scene held. Then Mrs. Morland began to waver, and I sprang forward to catch her as she fainted. At the same moment, Inspector Jamison drew his gun upon Ahmad.

“My compliments, Inspector,” said Pons. “You’ve just taken the murderer of Colonel Morland. I think,” he added blandly, “if I were you I should take Mrs. Nicholas Morland along and question her about the profit motive in the death of her husband’s uncle. I believe it almost certain that hers was the brain in which this devilish crime was conceived. — Is the lady coming around, Parker?”

“In a few moments,” I said.

“Call Meeker,” said Jamison, finding his voice.

Pons stepped into the street and shouted for the constable.

“It was not alone the fact that no ship had docked recently from Malaya that made an avenger from the Orient unlikely,” said Pons as we rode back to Praed Street on the Underground, “but the same aspect of the matter that so impressed Jamison. The murderer clearly had prior knowledge of Morland Park, something no newly arrived foreigner could have had, and he must have been someone who had ample opportunity to take an impression of the back door key, since he would prefer to enter by that door not guarded by the dog. Nothing in that house was disturbed, save Colonel Morland’s room. Not a sound aroused anyone throughout the entry into the house and the commission of the crime.

“Yet it was evident that the murderer also had knowledge of the indignity done to Bendarloh Ali. Miss Morland had no such knowledge. Her cousin Nicholas had. Presumably, since his wife was of Bendarloh Ali’s family, and had been in Malacca at the time Ali was so brutally punished, she knew as much as her husband. It is not too much to conclude that her cousin, who was therefore also of Bendarloh Ali’s family, knew the circumstances also. Ahmad, of course, is that cousin. Ahmad had been as frequent a visitor at Morland Park as his employer. He knew the grounds and the house. The shaving of camphor wood, as much a product of Malaya as kamuning wood, places Ahmad indisputably in the late Colonel Morland’s bedroom.

“Manifestly, the preparations were made with great care. Mrs, Morland directed her relatives to send the hand of Bendarloh Ali to Colonel Morland in the intarsia box which she forwarded to Malay for that purpose. That the box had served as a model for Ahmad’s carefully-wrought imitations did not seem to her important, since Ahmad had been instructed to bring the box back from Morland Park. Ahmad undoubtedly killed Colonel Morland to avenge the family honor after Bendarloh Ali died, but I think it inescapable that his desire for vengeance was planted and carefully nourished by Mrs. Nicholas Morland, whose real motive was not vengeance, but the control of the unlimited funds which would be at her disposal when her husband came into his share of his uncle’s estate.

“One of our most sanguinary cases, Parker. And though we have taken the murderer, I suspect that the real criminal will go free to enjoy the expansion of her shop according to her plan. It is one of life’s little ironies.”