Solar Pons Versus the Devil's Claw

One: DEATH OF A TYRANT

“A penny for them, Parker.”

“Eigh?”

I struggled up in my armchair in the familiar sitting-room at 7B Praed Street, conscious that the fire was dying on the hearth and that I had been neglecting my duty. In truth I had been out late the night before on a serious case and had had only three hours’ sleep.

Consequently, nature had caught up with me and when I had come in at tea-time I had at first dozed intermittently in my chair and had then, I suppose, passed into a deep sleep.

“What time is it, Pons?”

“A little after six, Parker.”

The lean, aquiline features of my friend, Solar Pons, looked solicitously in my direction. He went over to the scuttle and replenished the fire with coal, sending great red sparks dancing up the chimney. It was a bitterly cold day in early January and a rime of frost sparkled on the roofs outside under the pale glare of the street-lamps. I was about to get up to assist him when he pressed me gently back in my chair.

“Do not disturb yourself, Parker. You must be tired after your efforts of yesterday.”

I passed my hand over my eyes and came to full consciousness.

“It was a trifle fatiguing, Pons.”

My companion proceeded to the switch by the door and flooded the room with light. He hastened to the window and drew the thick curtains against the night.

“Mrs Johnson will be up in a few minutes. She has prepared an excellent high tea, I understand.”

He smiled mischievously.

“I take it you have no objection if we eat early this evening. I have been up to North London on a case and have passed most of the day out of doors with no opportunity of eating.”

“By no means,” I said. “I could do justice to anything in this weather, but Mrs Johnson’s cooking is always exceptional.”

“She would be pleased to hear you say so,” said my companion equably, throwing his greatcoat casually over the back of a chair and going to warm his thin fingers at the reviving fire. I was on my feet now, feeling considerably better after my hour’s rest, and made haste to clear the table of my stethoscope and some medical journals.

“Your day must have been more strenuous than mine, Pons.” He sat down in his own armchair and stretched out his feet to the warmth from the hearth.

“I do not know about that, Parker, but it was deuced cold at any rate. I was keeping a hot meat shop under observation.”

He chuckled again at my expression.

“Or at least the apartments above it. I fancy Roscoe Abernathy will be out of his stride by the appearance of Scotland Yard officers with warrants in the early hours of tomorrow morning.”

I paused near the door, conscious of our good landlady’s stately tread on her way up the stairs from the regions below. “What had he been up to, Pons?”

Solar Pons tented his slender fingers before him and looked dreamily into the fire.

“Forgery and murder among other things, Parker. Undone by a child’s pinafore button. One would hardly credit it, given the nature of the man.”

“It sounds an interesting case, Pons.”

“It is, it is,” he said languidly. “But I am at present engaged on something that promises to be entirely more bizarre and deadly. Come in, Mrs Johnson!”

The well-scrubbed face of our good-natured landlady appeared round the door-panel, her nose much reddened, I surmised, from her shopping expedition that afternoon in the searching wind of the bitterly cold streets.

She gazed at us with satisfaction.

“Ah, I thought you were both in, gentlemen. I hope you are ready for your tea.”

“We are indeed,” I said, going to help her with the tray.

There was an agreeable aroma from the covered dishes Mrs Johnson was setting out and for a few moments there was silence in the room apart from the muted noises of crockery and cutlery being placed in position. I sat myself down eagerly at table while Mrs Johnson paused on her way to the door.

“What time is your visitor expected, Mr Pons?”

“At a little after seven, I believe. We have just time to do justice to your excellent repast.”

Mrs Johnson beamed with satisfaction.

“Thank you, Mr Pons. I will send him up as soon as he arrives.”

Our landlady had no sooner quitted the room than we set to with a will. In the brief interval between the first and second courses I put the question to Pons I had been pondering over ever since Mrs Johnson’s question.

“You have a client, Pons?”

“I have, Parker, and I would like you to stay when he arrives, if you are not too fatigued.”

“I should be extremely interested.”

Solar Pons nodded with satisfaction.

“You mentioned something earlier, Pons, about a bizarre and deadly affair on which you are engaged. Might this be it?”

“It might indeed, Parker,” he returned gravely. “Take a look at this if you would be so good.”

He passed a slip of pasteboard across to me. I took it and studied it curiously.

It bore the legend, ‘Hugh Mulvane’ and the address given was Chalcroft Manor.

In a firm but somewhat hastily scrawled hand was written across the visiting card: For God’s sake help me, Mr Pons, in this terrible affair. I will take the liberty of calling upon you soon after seven o’clock tomorrow evening.

I took a look at the postmark of the envelope which lay by my companion’s plate.

“Posted at six o’clock yesterday, Pons. So he will be here tonight.”

“You are constantly improving, Parker,” said Solar Pons, little sparks of humour dancing in his eyes. “I believe we had agreed that this was so.”

I studied the card again.

“Chalcroft Manor, Pons? Have I not read something about it, earlier this morning or in yesterday’s paper?”

“You have indeed, Parker,” he said gravely. “There was a lengthy report in yesterday’s Times. I must say I have not been so intrigued with a case for a long while.”

He rose from the table and went across to a jumbled mass of journals and newspapers near his armchair. He returned a moment or two later with The Times and folded it to the Home News page before handing it to me. I soon saw what he meant for he had ringed the article round with ink, no doubt preparatory to cutting the material out to paste into his albums of criminal records.

It was with considerable expectation that I smoothed out the page and settled down to read over my second cup of tea. I was not disappointed. As usual, Pons had not exaggerated.

The article was headed: RECLUSE DIES IN BIZARRE CIRCUMSTANCES, with the sub-heading: Mysterious Affair at Chalcroft Manor.

The account began: The small village of Chalcroft in Buckinghamshire has been terrorised for some months by mysterious happenings which culminated last night in the death of a wealthy recluse, Mr Simon Hardcastle, in shocking circumstances.

Mr Hardcastle, who lives at Chalcroft Manor on the outskirts of the village which takes its name from the mediaeval manor- house, was found dead by his butler at about midnight, near a private family burial ground on his estate.

Although Mr Hardcastle was apparently uninjured he was quite dead and there was such an expression of fear and loathing on his face that the man who found his body, Mr James Tolpuddle, aged 57, came near to fainting. Round the body were singular, six-toed footprints which villagers refer to as ‘the devil’s claw’.

In the nearby cemetery one of the family tombs had been opened; the lock of an iron door leading to an underground vault was unbroken and there were wet claw-prints leading down the stone steps.

Because of the unusual circumstances the Coroner, Dr Erik Backer, has adjourned proceedings while police investigations continue. Villagers have spoken of many bizarre circumstances surrounding Mr Hardcastle and the manor house, where he lived as though in a state of siege.

Mrs Sidona Sheldon, the local postmistress told The Times correspondent today, ‘The neighbourhood around Chalcroft Manor is a terrible place. A poacher was found dead there after dark last year and there have been strange goings-on. People in the village have heard a weird tune being whistled near the old graveyard late at night. And gamekeepers on the estates roundabout have found foot-prints which were hardly human.’

When pressed on this last point Mrs Sheldon would only say that they were neither human foot-prints nor animal tracks. Certainly the villagers of Chalcroft have seen strange and sinister things, or claim to have done so.

I looked at Pons queryingly but he was engaged in pouring tea for both of us and merely gazed at me with narrowed eyes, so I turned to the newspaper again, devouring the narrative between forkfuls of Mrs Johnson’s delicious shepherd’s pie.

“Mrs Johnson has excelled herself this evening,” I was impelled to remark.

“Has she not, Parker?” said my companion urbanely, reaching out for another covered dish.

I read on in silence. It was certainly an extraordinary story and the residents of that comer of Buckinghamshire were either incredibly imaginative or had seen or heard some very strange and bizarre things.

The dead man’s nephew, Mr Hugh Mulvane, declined to make any statement to The Times correspondent, the report concluded.

“Your client is discreet, Pons,” I remarked as I passed the newspaper back to him.

He put down his knife and fork with a faint clinking in the silence of our cosy chamber.

“Ah, the tailpiece about Mr Mulvane. You have seen the significance of that, have you, Parker?”

I stared at him, I fear, rather owlishly.

“Significance, Pons? I meant only that he had shown the discretion any person would feel toward publicity in such a situation.”

“Perhaps, Parker. But I would postulate there is something else in it for The Times is not given to exaggeration and most people would have seized the opportunity to set the record straight.”

“Set the record straight?”

Solar Pons smiled as he replaced his cup in the saucer.

“You have an unfortunate tendency toward repetition, Parker, which would become somewhat wearisome in a person less amiable than you.”

“That is uncalled for, Pons,” I said somewhat warmly, and my companion’s eyes began to sparkle with little points of light.

“You are too thin-skinned, my dear fellow. Some of the more popular newspapers have put the matter more bluntly in the Chalcroft case. Reading between their rather smudgy and ill- inked lines, it would appear that Mr Mulvane himself is suspected by the locals of having, in some manner, done away with his uncle.”

“You do not say so, Pons!”

“I must insist, Parker.”

Solar Pons stretched out a languid hand and smoothed the sheet containing The Times report. He scanned it in silence while we concluded the first part of our meal.

“You do not normally take into account stories in the popular press, Pons,” I ventured when I had at last satisfied my appetite.

The humorous irony was back in my companion’s eyes again.

“Neither do I, Parker, but general indications may be arrived at by taking a consensus of the reports. And finally one is left with a residue of bitterness and suspicion on the part of the locals against my client.”

“The Times says nothing of it, Pons.”

Solar Pons put down his empty cup and stared over toward the window.

“The Times correspondent is too much of a gentleman to report what he would probably consider local tittle-tattle, Parker. But nevertheless it has given me some general indications.”

I moved over near the fireplace and sank thankfully into my armchair.

“To what purpose, Pons?”

Solar Pons joined me at the opposite side of the fire and tented his thin, delicate fingers before him.

“We shall see, Parker, we shall see,” he said dreamily. “In any event it does not do to anticipate. And Mr Mulvane himself will be with us in less than half an hour.”