The Recollections of Solar Pons

-1-

It was a bleak January dusk and the snow, which had commenced three days earlier, had started falling on the capital in earnest as I returned in late afternoon to our cosy sitting-room at 7B Praed Street. There was no light on except for the landing, which Mrs. Johnson usually keeps burning, and there was nothing but a flicker of brindled firelight as I opened the door. So I was considerably startled to see a shadow moving by the window and immediately stepped to the switch.

I blinked in the sudden radiance at the common, vulgar-looking apparition dressed in a loud plaid overcoat, who rose from my comfortable armchair by the fire. He wore an immense, tobacco-stained moustache, his face looked inflamed by drink and his bleary eyes stared at me from beneath matted silver hair.

“Begging your pardon, guvnor!” he said in a loud, grating voice, which seemed to reverberate through the room. “Begging your pardon, but I was told to wait.”

“Were you?” I said, surprised and on edge at the suspicious appearance of this stranger in our rooms. He seemed to smell of tobacco and strong drink as I moved closer to him.

“And who might you be?”

“Thaddeus Thwaites, guvnor, if it pleases you.”

“I’m not so sure that it does,” I said, putting down my bag on a chair and divesting myself of my overcoat.

“Mrs. Johnson let you in, I suppose?”

The man in the plaid overcoat shook his head, a thin trickle of snow on his hair melting in the heat of the room and running in a rivulet down his florid cheek.

“Didn’t see no-one, guvnor. Let meself up.”

“Indeed,” I said tartly. “Who asked you here?”

“Mr. Pons, guvnor. Mr. Solar Pons.”

I looked at him dubiously.

“Oh, well I suppose it’s all right, but I haven’t seen him all day. You might be in for a long wait.”

“That’s all right, guvnor. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“That may be, but I haven’t,” I said somewhat irritably. “I’m cold and tired and I want my tea.”

I turned round to warm my hands at the fire when I was astonished to hear a familiar voice behind me.

“By all means, Parker! Let us have it together but there’s no need to be so curmudgeonly!”

I wheeled sharply about, hardly able to believe my eyes. In place of the disreputable-looking stranger stood my friend, smiling, and pink-faced, but undoubtedly Solar Pons. His overcoat, moustache and other accoutrements had been thrown into the armchair, where they lay all tumbled and he had swept the tangle of hair back so that it was possible to recognise his features.

“Pons! That was a shocking trick to play.”

My companion smiled, rubbing make-up from his cheeks with his pocket-handkerchief.

“Only a little experiment, my dear fellow. I have been down Barking way on a highly dangerous and confidential mission and it was vital that I should go unrecognised. I was not sure but now that I have deceived your highly-trained medical eye it has put my mind quite at rest.”

“You overdid the voice a little, Pons,” I grumbled. “I expect I would have found you out had the conversation continued a few minutes longer.”

“Possibly, Parker, possibly,” said my friend languidly, sweeping the disguise into a heap on the floor and throwing himself indolently into his own armchair, where he stretched out his lean legs contentedly to the fire. He brought out his empty pipe and clamped it between his strong teeth.

“Contrary to what I told you I did see Mrs. Johnson before I came up and apprised her of my little plan. She said you were expected back shortly and she will be up with high-tea for us within the next few minutes.”

“Excellent, Pons. I can certainly do justice to it this weather.”

“It has been severe now that you mention it, particularly out on the river.”

I stared at him in astonishment.

“You do not mean to say you have been on the Thames, Pons?”

“I had to go aboard a barge in the course of my inquiries, Parker.”

Solar Pons stared at me quizzically.

“Do not be alarmed, my dear fellow. I did not swim there but went in a small rowing-boat.”

I sat down opposite him and rubbed my half-frozen ears. “So I should hope, Pons. Though I would not put anything past you.”

“Ah, that sounds like Mrs. Johnson now,” said my companion, getting up to open the door for her. “Come in, Mrs. Johnson. Our little joke quite deceived the good doctor.”

Mrs. Johnson pursed her lips and a smile flickered over her good-natured face.

“You say ‘our’, Mr. Pons, but I hope Dr. Parker will not get the impression that I was a party to this deception.”

“Doubtless Parker will form his own conclusions,” said Pons blandly, picking up the materials of his disguise from the carpet.

“Give me three minutes to wash and assume my own persona, Parker, and I will join you. You might pour the tea while I am gone, if you would be so good.”

He had no sooner rejoined me than there came a hurried knocking at the front door. Mrs. Johnson looked flustered, and glanced at us both sharply in her concerned, motherly way.

“Goodness me, Mr. Pons, I hope it is not a client on such a bitter night. And right in the middle of your meal too!”

“At any rate, Mrs. Johnson, it is someone who sounds as though he is in a hurry and has urgent business,” said my companion, who had just taken his place at the table.

“Would you like me to go, Mrs. Johnson?”

I was starting to my feet when our gracious landlady stopped me with a smile.

“It will not take me a moment, Mr. Pons, and I have, in any event, finished here.”

“If it is someone for me, you might be good enough to bring us another cup and saucer,” said Pons. “Whoever he is, he will be half-frozen, for the wind is getting up.”

We started on our tea without more ado as Mrs. Johnson quitted the room and a second and then a third tattoo on the knocker was succeeded by the opening of the front door and a low, muttered conversation from the hall. A minute or two passed in deathly silence and then came a tapping at the door. Mrs. Johnson re-appeared with another tray of tea-things.

“The poor thing looks cold and distressed, Mr. Pons. I have taken the liberty of bringing more food. There is plenty in the kitchen.”

“I take it we have a visitor, Mrs. Johnson?” said Pons gently, reaching out for another slice of hot, buttered toast.

Mrs. Johnson nodded.

“It is a young lady, Mr. Pons. A Miss Eunice Chambers of Fulham. She is in some distress but would not state her business.”

“That is quite all right, Mrs. Johnson,” Pons returned, rising from his chair.

“I will see her at once if you would be good enough to show her up.”

“I can finish my tea in my own room if you would prefer, Pons,” I ventured.

He waved me back into my chair.

“Not at all, my dear fellow. Please stay where you are. I am only sorry that this will disturb your hour of rest after a trying day.”

“I am always interested in your cases, Pons.”

We were interrupted at that moment by Mrs. Johnson announcing our visitor and then she went out, closing the door behind her The young lady who looked first from me and then to my companion was indeed distressed not to say distraught. Her thick fair hair hung down in swathes on either side of her pale, oval face and the snow crystals glittered on its disarray. She had been crying but even her reddened eyes could not disguise the beauty of the features or their distinction and breeding.

She wore a thick, tailored overcoat which clung to her slim figure and she took a quick, vibrant step forward, which gave the scarf round her neck a wavering, agitated movement.

“I am at my wit’s end, gentlemen. I really do not know what to do to help poor Rollo in this terrible predicament!”

“Pray sit by the fire and warm yourself,” said Pons kindly. “Parker, please be good enough to pour the young lady a cup of hot tea.”

“You are so kind, gentlemen,” said our visitor and to my considerable embarrassment she burst into tears. Pons bit his lip and sat looking at her with compassionate eyes but my professional instincts reasserted themselves and I made her take off her icy clothing, sat her at table and poured her the tea.

“This is my friend and companion, Dr. Lyndon Parker,” said Pons when she was more herself again. “You could not be in more capable hands.”

I flushed at this and made some mumbled reply but the girl smiled through her tears and took several sips at her cup, which seemed to calm her considerably.

“Forgive me, gentlemen. I have been under considerable stress the last few days.”

“We are used to that in Praed Street,” said Pons, turning again to his interrupted meal. ‘This agency exists to assist those in distress and I would say that you need rest and hot food as a prime requirement. It is a hard journey from Colchester on such an inclement day.”

The girl turned surprised eyes to my companion over the rim of her cup.

“How do you know that, Mr. Pons?”

“You are exhibiting the return half of a railway ticket to that place at the edge of your glove. Pray allow me to retrieve it or you will have to pay again if you lose it.”

The girl put it in a small leather purse with an expression of thanks.

“I hardly know what I have been doing since this morning, Mr. Pons. I only know that I had to come to consult you. You are the only hope for poor Rollo now. The police are convinced that he did the murder!”

Pons’ eyes narrowed and he paused, looking at her sombrely over the rim of his cup.

“Indeed. We are either talking about the Edinburgh trunk case or the murder of Miss Emily Schneider, unless there has been a third major crime this afternoon. I have not seen the evening papers and those are the only capital crimes in this country during the past few days. From a geographical point of view I should incline to the Schneider case as being that in which your unfortunate friend is concerned.”

The girl nodded, her brown eyes holding Pons’ own intently.

“You are right, Mr. Pons. It is the murder of Miss Schneider. She was the aunt of my fiancé, Mr. Roland Watling.”

Solar Pons nodded, putting down his cup. His face was grave.

“It was a sinister business, though the Press have exaggerated in their usual manner. I had half-expected a call from the Essex Police before now.”

The girl seemed much calmer and she began to nibble at the food I had placed in front of her.

“Then you know the facts, Mr. Pons?”

My companion shook his head.

“Only what I have read in the papers. Perhaps you would be good enough to refresh my memory.”

“Well, Mr. Pons, it is difficult making a beginning but I suppose I ought first to tell you that I have been engaged for the past year to Rollo — Mr. Roland Watling — a young London solicitor. We plan to be married this summer but Rollo is wretchedly paid as he is a junior in a very poor practice. He has only one relative in the world, Miss Schneider, who is not only immensely rich but extremely miserly. She lives — or I should say, lived — in a very large but rundown house called The Pines on the outskirts of a lonely village called Stonecross, about fifteen miles from Colchester. It is a bleak, God-forsaken spot, and I have been there only once previous to the present circumstances, when my fiancé took me to introduce me to his aunt.”

“And how did she impress you, Miss Chambers?”

The girl shook her head vehemently.

“An old, sombre, grasping woman, Mr. Pons, who took our engagement very grudgingly. Affection does not come into it, though. Rollo is her only surviving relative but she merely used him as a cheap way of getting legal help in her affairs.”

“I see. So your friend acted as her legal adviser?”

“If you can call it that, Mr. Pons. He has represented her in one or two small matters and has been wretchedly paid for it, I can tell you.”

Solar Pons nodded and held out his cup which I swiftly re-filled with tea. There was more colour in the girl’s face now and she appeared a good deal more composed than when she had first come into our room.

“Miss Schneider had two servants at The Pines, a strong, willing woman called Mrs. Rose who did the cooking and most of the heavy work and a Mrs. Hambleton who acted as housekeeper-companion. Strangely enough, neither lived in, both being resident in the village nearby.”

Pons put his elbows on the table and tented his slim fingers before him.

“Why was that, Miss Chambers?”

The girl shook her head.

“Presumably, Mr. Pons, because she did not trust anyone else indoors with her. She had many art treasures in the house though they were neglected and in a bad state because she would not pay for their upkeep. She was always supervising her servants and snooping about the house after them. I understand they arrived at about eight in the morning and departed between three and four in the afternoon in the winter. In the summer, so Rollo says, they were allowed the privilege of staying on until five o’clock during the evenings, in order to prepare Miss Schneider’s tea and to wash up afterwards.”

“A unique privilege, Parker,” said my companion drily, turning a twinkling eye on the girl.

“Indeed, Pons,” I ventured.

“She kept money in the house, if the newspaper reports are to be believed,” Pons continued.

The girl nodded.

“That is so, Mr. Pons. A great deal of money. Which was to lead to her downfall, I am afraid. She was a highly superstitious woman and this legend of The Hound of Hell was always a matter of perturbation to her.”

I turned a puzzled eye on Pons.

“The Hound of Hell, Miss Chambers?”

“It was a family heirloom, Dr. Parker, and a rather unlucky one. It is a large silver effigy, exquisitely fashioned, of an enormous dog, standing on its hind-legs, savaging a man who is attempting to climb a tree. It is engaged in tearing his throat out and is a rather dreadful and terrifying ornament, though of superb craftsmanship, and believed to be of Eastern European origin.

“It was supposed to be worth a lot of money but was said to bring ill fortune to whoever possessed it. It came down to Miss Schneider from her father. As she grew older Rollo’s aunt grew more quirky and fearful and I have heard Rollo say more than once she wanted to get rid of it but the price, combined with the story, put potential purchasers off.”

Our visitor paused and took another sip of the strong tea.

“So when she gave it to Rollo I was quite astonished and now that it has been discovered in his rooms after Miss Schneider’s murder I am afraid the police drew somewhat obvious conclusions, especially as a large sum of money is missing from the house.”

“Indeed,” said Solar Pons languidly, stretching out a slim, sensitive hand for a slice of Madeira cake. “But I am afraid you are rather running ahead of yourself, Miss Chambers.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Pons. This terrible affair is most distracting and confusing.”

“Let me give you another helping of that hot shepherd’s pie,” I interjected and helped the young lady to re-fill her plate while Pons waited patiently for her to continue.

“To our surprise Rollo was called to Miss Schneider’s side about a month ago. The old lady had had a fall and was badly shaken. Rollo was astonished to learn that she intended to leave him all her money. She wanted him to draw up the will but, of course, he pointed out that for ethical reasons such a proposition was quite impossible. He proposed her old firm of solicitors in Colchester and the following week, after the formalities had been put in train, this was done.”

Pons’ face was sombre as he stared at the girl. She broke off her narrative and bit her lip.

“I know what you must be thinking, Mr. Pons. Things look black for Rollo after what has happened. But I just know he is innocent, even if the whole world thought otherwise!”

Pons smiled sympathetically.

“Your sentiments do you great credit, Miss Chambers, but we must take the world as we find it. Miss Schneider was Mr. Watling’s aunt. He is the sole beneficiary of her will. He visited her the other day, a short while before she was found murdered. Just how much money is involved in the bequest, Miss Chambers?”

“About half a million pounds, I believe, Mr. Pons.”

To my surprise Pons burst into a dry chuckle.

“I cannot see anything funny, Pons.”

“Can you not, Parker? Miss Chambers has just given me the finest evidence in the young man’s favour. Ten thousand pounds was stolen from the house, I believe.”

“I cannot see that has any bearing on the matter, Pons.” “Just think about it, my dear fellow.”

And with an enigmatic smile Pons pushed back his chair from the tea-table and at the young lady’s extended permission, puffed contentedly at his pipe.

-2-

“Of course, Mr. Pons, we were both astonished when Miss Schneider gave Rollo that statuette.”

“The Hound of Hell?”

“That is correct, Dr. Parker. But to look back on it, it has brought nothing but trouble, death and ruin in its wake. But our astonishment was nothing compared to our feelings when we learned of this staggering bequest.”

“In December.”

“In early December, Mr. Pons. Then, after the details of the will had been settled, he went down to stay with his aunt this last week-end. I was not invited so did not accompany him.”

Solar Pons pulled thoughtfully at the lobe of his right ear.

“As today is Monday, I presume he left for Essex on Friday evening?”

“That is correct, Mr. Pons. He took the Colchester train early on Friday evening, soon after he left his office. He had booked a room at The Dun Cow, an hostelry in Stonecross.”

“That seems rather curious, Miss Chambers. Why did he not stay at The Pines?”

The girl smiled faintly, despite her evident concern.

“You did not know Miss Schneider, Mr. Pons, or you would not ask such a question. Despite her gift of the silver statuette, despite the bequest, she remained as close and tight-fisted as ever. She has even been known to give her servants short-money when she paid them on Saturday afternoons.”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “It is like something out of Dickens.”

“Is it not, Parker?” said my companion, his eyes bright and alert.

“On Friday evening, after he had settled in, he went over to see his aunt.”

“What was the purpose of his visit, Miss Chambers?”

“Miss Schneider had called him there to iron out one or two minor points in the will. So far as I understand, it was nothing involved, but two or three documents required his signature.”

“I see. Pray continue.”

“Well, he made the visit on Friday evening, signed the necessary papers, stayed for an hour or so and then came away.”

“His aunt seemed quite normal?”

“Quite normal, Mr. Pons. At least so far as such a nature as hers could be. She asked him to return on Saturday evening for a meal and to read the revised draft of the will. He was a little put out when he telephoned me in London on Friday evening, but said he felt it better to humour her.”

“He wished to avoid spending the week-end in such a God-forsaken spot, Miss Chambers,” I put in.

“And no doubt he missed his fiancée,” put in Pons with a winning smile.

“Certainly,” I added. “I did not mean to be ungallant.”

“And I am sure Miss Chambers did not take it so, Parker. At what time did Mr. Watling arrive at The Pines on Saturday?”

“At about seven o’clock, Mr. Pons. It had started to snow in the afternoon and the surroundings were most bleak and inhospitable so that he was glad to reach his destination. There were lights in the windows and many foot marks in the snow leading up and down the drive to and from the front door but there was no reply to his knocking. To his surprise the front door was unlocked. He went through the house room by room but there was no sign of his aunt, though the dining-room table was laid with two places and there were some signs in the kitchen of preparations for a meal. A tray of drinks had been laid out in the large oak-beamed lounge and one glass had been used. It smelt of whisky.”

Pons suddenly became very alert and leaned forward in his chair.

“Was Mr. Watling’s aunt in the habit of drinking whisky?” The girl shook her head.

“No, Mr. Pons. She liked a little gin sometimes, and an occasional glass of white wine, but she never drank whisky.”

“I see. The servants were not in the house, of course?”

“No, Mr. Pons. By seven o’clock it had long been dark, and they would normally have returned to their homes in the afternoon. Naturally, when he found the house empty Rollo was considerably put out. There was a large iron safe in the lounge, housed within a rosewood bureau. He poured himself a whisky and then noticed that the safe door was ajar. He thought little of it for he then saw that the documents relating to the will and some associated letters bearing the superscription of the Colchester solicitors had been left on a table in front of the fire. That was another curious circumstance, Mr. Pons. The fire had gone out and the room had become extremely cold. When Rollo went to the wood-basket there was nothing there but on going into a small study adjoining the lounge he found a number of logs which had been hidden behind the door.”

I looked at my companion.

“Curious, Pons.”

“Extremely curious, Parker.”

“It was past nine o’clock by this time, Mr. Pons, and Rollo was cold, hungry, and extremely angry. Eventually, he turned off the lights, relocked the front door on the automatic latch, and returned to Stonecross. He intended to go back to the house yesterday morning to seek an explanation of his aunt’s absence and failure to keep her appointment but he was arrested at the hotel by an officer of the Essex Police before he could do so. His aunt had been found murdered, something like £10,000 had been stolen from the safe and all the evidence pointed to his implication.”

Pons passed a hand across his chin.

“What time was this, Miss Chambers?”

“At about midday, Mr. Pons. He was having a drink in the lounge bar to fortify himself for his icy walk to The Pines. Mr. Pons, the police have got hold of the most preposterous story! The London C.I.D. officers searched Rollo’s lodgings, where they found the silver statuette, The Hound of Hell. Of course, it had originally come from Miss Schneider’s house and that made things even blacker. You would not credit the monstrous allegations, Mr. Pons! Rollo is said to have swum a river in these icy conditions. The person who committed the murder must have been fiendishly cunning.”

Pons’ deep-set eyes were concentrated on his client.

“What makes you say that?”

“Miss Schneider was found strangled in a woodshed in a lonely spot at the side of the large garden after her housekeeper instigated a search when she was unable to find her mistress yesterday.”

Miss Chambers paused and looked sombrely at us.

“Mark this, Mr. Pons. There were only two sets of footprints in the snow leading to the wood-shed. One were those made by the murdered lady herself. The other set of tracks, presumably those of the murderer, were made by a pair of rubber boots. Mr. Pons, they went clearly to the woodshed but they ended there and never returned!”

-3-

There was a deep silence in the room which was broken suddenly by Pons striking his palm on his thigh with a crack like a pistol-shot.

“Excellent, Miss Chambers,” he said crisply, getting to his feet.

He reached for his pipe and started re-filling it with tobacco. “We shall be with you no later than midday tomorrow. Are you going back to Colchester?”

“Tonight, Mr. Pons. Rollo is being held by the police there.”

“Good. We shall take an early train, join you there and then travel on together to Stonecross. Who is the officer in charge of the case?”

“Inspector Stanley Rossiter of the Colchester C.I.D., Mr. Pons. He thinks…”

“I would rather not hear what the police think for the moment, if you please,” said Pons. “I prefer to form my own impressions on the ground. You may tell your young man when you see him that I will do everything I can to assist him. I would be grateful if you would book accommodation at the hotel at Stonecross.”

The girl got to her feet with shining eyes.

“Then you will take the case, Mr. Pons?”

“I had already decided to take it as soon as I learned your errand. Parker, I know you have had a hard day but I would be infinitely obliged if you would procure a taxi and see Miss Chambers safely to the station.”

“With pleasure. You have no objection if I accompany you to Essex tomorrow? I am free on Tuesday and Wednesday as these are my rest-days and my locum owes me the time.”

“By all means, gentlemen,” said Miss Chambers. “I will look forward to seeing you both tomorrow. If I am not at the police station you will find me at The Mitre Hotel in Colchester.”

When I returned from my errand it had turned piercingly cold, though the snow held off, and I poured myself a stiff whisky as soon as I had regained the comfort of our quarters. I found Pons enveloped by a cloud of fragrant smoke, and hunched over the table on which a cloth had been laid, deeply immersed in a gazetteer.

“Well, Parker,” he greeted me. “Here is a pretty puzzle.” “A puzzle indeed, Pons.”

“What do you make of it? Pray give me the benefit of your ratiocinative gifts.”

“You are making fun of me, Pons,” I ventured as I sat down at the table at his side, holding out my feet to toast at the fire. “There is certainly no shortage of suspects.”

His face cleared.

“Ah, you have seen the newspaper reports then.”

“I bought an evening paper at the station. The Star is full of it. There seem to have been a constant procession of people to The Pines on Saturday afternoon, a number with good motives for the crime. Apart from the two female servants, who knew of the money in the safe, there was the grocer who had a row about an unpaid bill; a farmer, who wished to discuss the boundary fencing of the properties; a tramp, who was given a dusty answer and turned away; the milkman, who had not been paid either; the postman…”

“Do not go on, my dear fellow,” said Pons, with a short laugh. “You will cause me to become confused otherwise.”

I looked at him suspiciously.

“That day will be marked in my diary in letters of fire, Pons.”

He glanced at me in surprise.

“Why, Parker, you are becoming quite poetic in your middle years. Perhaps I exaggerated. I merely meant that I was pursuing one line of inquiry to the exclusion of all others.”

He pushed the gazetteer over toward me.

“Just look at this large-scale map here. I knew this set would come in handy when I bought it.”

I soon saw what he meant. At various points throughout the book he had stapled large-scale, separate sheets, relating to areas of the Home Counties round about London. The map indicated gave Stonecross in great detail.

“This is Miss Schneider’s property, Parker, and you will see that a stream runs behind it and across her land and that of her neighbours on either side.”

“I have got it, Pons.”

I looked at the map with great interest, noting that Pons had pencilled dotted lines on to the sheet, indicating the route taken by the murdered woman. There was another, heavier set of lines, which gave me some thought.

“You see the second set there, Parker. The man who made those heavy footmarks, as of rubber boots, came down the drive from the main road, entered the house and committed the theft and then presumably, if we are to believe Miss Chambers and the newspaper reports, walked to the woodshed where he found Miss Schneider, strangled her and then vanished into thin air.”

I looked at him reflectively.

“It certainly seems baffling, Pons.”

He puffed furiously at his pipe, enveloping his figure in a mantle of blue vapour.

“It would be, Parker, if that were truly the case. Only fieldwork can give us the right answers. Let us pray that the snow holds off in that district until after tomorrow.”

“You regard that as important?”

He nodded.

“It is vital, Parker. It will not only give us the time-table for the crime but establish the exact movements of victim and murderer.”

I took off my coat, putting it down across the back of a chair and stretched myself in my armchair next to the fire.

“I can understand the movements, Pons, but I do not quite understand about the time-table.”

Solar Pons stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe, fixing me with a piercing eye through the thinning wreaths of smoke.

“If Miss Chambers’ fiancé’s story be true, then the murder was committed sometime between five P.M. and seven P.M. We can perhaps narrow that down a little. Between five and six would be nearer the mark.”

I looked at my companion in surprise.

“How can you be so certain, Pons, particularly when you have not even visited the locality?”

“It is not so very difficult, Parker. The weather gives us most of the data. I have already telephoned the police at Stonecross while you were out. The local sergeant was most co-operative. It began to snow there on Saturday at three o’clock in the afternoon. It was thin at first so that the ground was not covered until after dark, at about five o’clock. The staff had left The Pines about then so Miss Schneider would have been alone.”

“I follow you, Pons. It would have had to be thick, to account for the foot-prints.”

“Exactly. Then we have the habits of the old lady. Sometime during the early evening she felt the need to replenish the fire. She went out to the wood-shed…”

“And while she was there the murderer came upon her and strangled her,” I put in.

“Something like that, Parker,” Pons admitted. “We may have to modify our theories once we are upon the ground. The post mortem examination, of course, would establish the approximate time of death, but I should be very surprised indeed if it were not between five o’clock and six-thirty P.M. In my experience old ladies do not wander about their grounds at night in thick snow and in total darkness for the most obvious of reasons. And in addition to that Miss Schneider would probably have left her front door on the latch and as we know she had a houseful of valuables and a safe full of money. We know young Watling arrived at The Pines at about seven o’clock. Judging by the state of the house and the disappearance of the occupant there is at least a strong supposition that the old lady was already dead by that time. Which gives us the two extremes of five and seven for the commission of the crime.”

“Do we know what time it stopped snowing?”

Solar Pons smiled and a warm look of approval came to his face.

“You are constantly improving, my dear fellow. I see the significance of that factor has not escaped you. It stopped snowing at about a quarter to seven in the evening. So that none of the tracks were obliterated.”

He leaned forward, his keen, aquiline features alive with interest and curiosity.

“More important still, it has not snowed since. All the clues are there, lying about that frozen surface for the trained observer to read. Everything depends upon the weather. It has not snowed again in the Colchester area for over forty-eight hours. If it proves fine again tonight and holds for tomorrow morning we may yet read a great deal.”

He knocked his pipe out reflectively against the fender.

“Providing the big boots of the Essex Constabulary have not obliterated all traces of the details, Parker. We can do nothing further until tomorrow. I shall be a poor companion, I feel, until we are upon the ground.”

-4-

The morning dawned bitterly cold but clear and to Pons’ satisfaction the weather reports on the wireless told us there had been no further snowfalls over the British Isles during the night. We were up early and on the road before the streets were astir. It was not yet eleven o’clock before we were taking coffee with Miss Chambers in the cosy, oak-beamed lounge of The Mitre in Colchester.

Miss Chambers was tense and preoccupied when she entered but as soon as she caught sight of Pons she brightened.

“I have just come from Rollo, gentlemen. He was much cheered by your message, Mr. Pons.”

My companion nodded. He waited until the waiter had withdrawn before he spoke.

“You have seen the police obviously, Miss Chambers. They have no objection to me interviewing your fiancé?”

The girl shook her head.

“By no means, Mr. Pons. I spoke to Inspector Rossiter myself. He is anxious to meet you and will await your pleasure at Police Headquarters.”

“Excellent. We will be on our way shortly, just as soon as we have thawed ourselves out.”

“If you will just give me a few minutes to collect my bag from my room and pay my account, I will be ready, Mr. Pons.”

At Colchester Police Station, which we reached after a short drive by taxi through the bleak, snowy streets, we were at once ushered through into a bare office where Inspector Stanley Rossiter stood by a blazing fire to greet us. He was a stout, impressive figure with a waxed moustache and his jacket had obviously been let out to accommodate his corpulence. But his manner was bright enough, he gave us a cordial welcome and bustled about alertly, pulling up chairs to the fire.

“A bad business, Mr. Pons,” he said when the introductions had been completed.

“Bad enough and sinister enough, Inspector,” I said.

“But begging the young lady’s pardon, there is no doubt of the culprit and the motive, gentlemen. I have no objection at all to your presence upon the scene, Mr. Pons, and will do everything within my power to give you my co-operation and that of my staff.”

“That is handsomely said, Inspector,” returned Pons warmly. “My presence has not always been welcomed by the official force, I am afraid.”

Inspector Rossiter chuckled to himself.

“Ah, you are referring to Inspector Jamison, Mr. Pons! That has become rather a famous feud.”

“It is hardly that,” I interpolated. “If it has been represented as a feud, then Inspector Jamison has greatly exaggerated the case.”

“Ah, Parker,” said Solar Pons languidly, “You were ever my most enthusiastic champion.”

He held up a lean forefinger.

“We must avoid exaggeration on both sides. But let us get to the business in hand, Inspector.”

“Certainly, Mr. Pons. There were a number of visitors to Miss Schneider’s house last Saturday afternoon but though, on the surface, several of them had good motives for killing the old lady, they were hardly sufficient in my experience to justify such an action.”

Pons’ eyes were hard and bright.

“In my book, Inspector, large sums of money are always sufficient justification, given the temptation and the opportunity.”

The police officer shrugged ponderously.

“Perhaps, sir. But Pennyfeather, the grocer, who was owed a good deal of money by the old lady; a vagrant named Penrose, who was turned away from the house, and whom we have traced; and the milkman, Postgate, who was owed some £40 and who remonstrated hotly with Miss Schneider, all have excellent alibis. In fact, they were miles away on the evening of the murder.”

Pons nodded absently.

“Your police surgeon has established the hour of death?”

“Somewhere around six o’clock on Saturday night, Mr. Pons, though the freezing cold conditions have made it a little more difficult to establish, as no decomposition had taken place.”

“What about the two servants?”

Inspector Rossiter made a wry mouth.

“There was trouble there also, Mr. Pons, I must admit. The two women always had difficulty in getting their weekly wages and on the Saturday there appeared to have been quite a wrangle before Miss Schneider would open the safe and pay them.”

“I see. There is no doubt, I suppose, that both these women left the house in the afternoon?”

“No doubt at all, Mr. Pons. Mr. Clive Cornfield, a well-known local farmer called at The Pines at about eleven o’clock on the Saturday morning to see Miss Schneider about the state of the fencing dividing their adjacent properties. Apparently, there is an agreement that they should share the cost but Miss Schneider had refused to pay her share. Cattle had strayed on to her property and been injured by broken wire and so forth and Mr. Cornfield was quite put out about this. He had some words with the old lady and was present when the dispute over the cook and the housekeeper’s wages arose. There is no doubt that the two women left the house because they were seen to leave together at about five o’clock both by Mr. Cornfield and by some of his labourers, who had been engaged in cutting timber in a nearby field. They had stayed late because Miss Schneider said some trades people were coming for money and she was a little nervous of being alone at such moments with the safe open. They would have had to pass the farm on their way back to Stonecross.”

Solar Pons sat sunk in thought for a minute or two, while the Inspector regarded him with a faint smile.

“It is not so easy is it, Mr. Pons? Everything points to Mr. Watling’s guilt.”

“That is nonsense, Inspector!” Miss Chambers interrupted hotly. “It is purely hearsay. Rollo did not arrive at The Pines until seven o’clock and according to you his aunt had already been dead an hour.”

“We have only his word for that, Miss,” said Inspector Rossiter with a polite smile. “The evidence is circumstantial only, I must admit, but it is extremely strong. And we have had this statuette valued and it is certainly worth upwards of £3,000.”

“Ah, the famous Hound of Hell,” said Pons, coming out of his reverie. “Might we have a look at it, or have Scotland Yard retained it?”

“No, Mr. Pons, we have it in the cupboard yonder. It was brought up from London by one of their Chief Inspectors, but the Yard agrees with us on the line we have taken in regard to Mr. Wading.”

“Nevertheless, I should like to see it.”

“By all means, Mr. Pons. I have the key here.”

The Inspector rose and crossed over to a stout oaken door in the corner. He wrestled with the key for a moment or two and on opening the door, produced a strong metal box. He brought this over to the fire and opened it with another key. From it he produced an exquisitely fashioned statuette which he laid on the edge of the desk almost reverently. Instinctively we three visitors had risen and crowded round as the Inspector produced it. It was indeed a strange, almost bizarre object.

Miss Chambers’ description had prepared me for something weird but I must confess I felt a little prickling of the scalp as I stared at the terrible object the Inspector had produced from the strong-box. The lamplight of the office glistened on the dull, silvery surface of the dreadful beast with bared jaws which savaged the throat of the fur-clad man who cowered in the branches of the tree and vainly tried to protect himself.

There was something evil emanating from the inanimate surface of the metal and I think even Pons’ phlegmatic nature was affected, though he showed nothing on the surface, merely clamping strong teeth over the stem of his empty pipe. The little group was quite small but the genius of the unknown sculptor had infused such detail and finely wrought minutiae into the work that it had a baleful life that quite transcended the scale on which it was wrought.

“Nasty-looking thing, isn’t it,” said Inspector Rossiter phlegmatically. “No wonder they call it The Hound of Hell. It certainly doesn’t seem to have brought much luck to your fiancé, Miss.”

“Even so, Inspector,” said Pons evenly. ‘This thing could hardly have affected the course of events. Parker and I have our feet firmly on the ground and we are dealing with material facts, not legends, however horrific they may be.”

Rossiter shrugged and put the thing back into the metal box, before restoring it to the cupboard. He made no further reference to it, merely remarking, “I suppose you’ll be wanting to see Mr. Watling now?”

“If it will not be too much trouble, Inspector.”

“By no means, Mr. Pons. I will have him brought to the office for you. You’d no doubt prefer to see him without me being present?”

“That is extremely tactful of you, Inspector,” said Solar Pons, a faint smile on his face.

He looked thoughtfully after the receding form of the Essex police officer as he walked ponderously over toward the door.

When it had closed behind him he observed sotto voce, “An extraordinarily shrewd brain behind a stolid exterior, Parker. He will go far, mark my words.”

He smiled at Miss Chambers.

“However, he has an undisciplined mind at present, which he is not using to its best advantage. He is entirely upon the wrong track in this instance.”

“How can you be so sure, Pons?”

“I rely on my judgment of human nature, Parker. The sincerity of this young lady is beyond question. Young Watling had no need to murder his aunt.…”

He broke off as there came a tap at the door and a constable ushered in a worried-looking young man with dark hair, who was stylishly but untidily dressed. He blinked about him and then the girl had run forward and they were enveloped in each other’s arms. I coughed and faced toward the fireplace but Pons seemed entirely at his ease and waited until the engaged couple had come to themselves again.

“There is no doubt that you are Mr. Watling?” he chuckled, extending his hand to the young man, who was heavily flushed as he glanced from his fiancée to the lean form of Pons. He took my companion’s hand and pumped it as though he would never let go.

“It is indeed good of you to concern yourself with my wretched affairs, Mr. Pons. I swear to you by the God above and by all that I hold dear that I am innocent, sir!”

He was so vehement and his face so changed and wild that Pons took him by the arm and led him to a chair by the fire.

“Do not distress yourself, Mr. Watling. You have had a harrowing experience. Just a few questions only and then we shall be off to Stonecross to see what facts we may glean from a closer examination of the circumstances.”

“Very good, Mr. Pons.”

“You say you arrived at the house at seven?”

“At a few minutes before, Mr. Pons. It had been snowing all afternoon but had just stopped.”

“Did you notice any marks of footprints in the snow on the drive?”

“Oh, there were many, Mr. Pons, coming and going.”

Pons nodded, his empty pipe still clenched between his teeth.

“Did you notice in particular, the marks of those rubber boots, alleged to be those of the murderer, which ran from the road to the house and then to the woodshed? The ones which miraculously disappeared into thin air once they had arrived at their destination.”

Watling smiled wanly at Pons and then at the girl, who stood looking anxiously at him.

“Not particularly, Mr. Pons. There was no need for me to do so.”

“Just so. But the police took you back to The Pines, surely?” “Yes, sir. On Sunday afternoon. But I was too dazed at my arrest to take much notice in daylight.”

“But the marks were pointed out to you?”

“Yes, Mr. Pons. The only thing I noticed was that the footprints were small and narrow, like a woman’s or a child’s.”

Solar Pons’ eyes were drawn into slits now as he sucked at his empty pipe.

“Like your own, Mr. Watling. If you do not mind me saying so, you have remarkably slim, small feet for a man.”

Wading gave a wry smile.

“That is so, Mr. Pons. But I should imagine there would be thousands of men with similar feet.”

“You may be right, Mr. Wading, but we are dealing with a few feet only which trod the snow in the area round The Pines and with yours and the man who strangled Miss Schneider in particular.”

The young man nodded sombrely.

“It seems that I am entangled in a web, Mr. Pons. You are the only man who can break it.”

“That I hope to do,” said Pons steadily. ‘To succeed I must have every assistance from you possible.”

The door opened at that moment and Inspector Rossiter poked his head diffidently in.

“I hope I’ve given you enough time, Mr. Pons?”

“Of course, Inspector. Do come in. We have more or less finished.”

Pons put his hand on Roland Watling’s shoulder.

“Courage, Mr. Wading. I feel sure we shall soon see our way out of this.”

Inspector Rossiter’s face bore a faint, amused smile.

“Come, Mr. Pons. It will do no good to get Mr. Watling’s hopes up. The man who murdered Miss Schneider was a strong, vigorous man. Mr. Watling is young and determined.”

Solar Pons shrugged. There was a wealth of expression in the gesture though his face was impassive.

“That is an extremely fatuous remark, Inspector, if you will allow me to say so.”

The police officer coloured.

“Why so, Mr. Pons?”

“Tut, Inspector, we are talking of a frail old lady who would have been half-mad with fright. A slight young man — as you say — or even a determined young woman could have done it. In short, the field is wide open.”

Inspector Rossiter blew his cheeks in and out a few times without saying anything. Before anyone could break the silence Solar Pons turned to me.

“Come, Parker. We will wait outside while Miss Chambers says goodbye to her fiancé. Be of good heart, Mr. Watling.” “I feel so much better already, Mr. Pons.”

We waited in the police office for the girl to join us. It was cold here, despite the fire, and Pons and I walked slowly up and down to keep the circulation going.

“What do you think, Pons?”

“That young man is innocent, Parker. I would stake my reputation on it.”

“But how are you to prove it, Pons?”

“That is the question, Parker, as a very great Englishman once said. We shall see our way forward a little better once we reach Stonecross.”

-5-

An hour’s journey by taxi brought the three of us within sight of a bleak, windswept village, which crouched in the snow in the lee of great groups of elms. Blue smoke rose from the chimneys in the late morning air but my spirits rose as we were deposited outside the commodious premises of The Dun Cow. After we had registered and taken our bags to our rooms, we re-joined Miss Chambers for a quick lunch. Through the mullioned windows of the cosy dining-room we could see the lonely landscape thickly covered in snow and the dun-coloured sky promised more. Already, it seemed the dusk was setting in, though it was only just turned two o’clock when we three set out to walk the short distance to The Pines.

“I don’t like the look of it, Parker,” said Pons, as we strode along, well muffled against the wind. Our shadows, lean and elongated were thrown on the dirty snow and the wind plucked at the skirts of our garments with icy, probing fingers.

“Like what, Pons?”

“The weather, Parker. We may have more snow before nightfall. It appears we have come just in time, Miss Chambers.”

“Let us hope you are right, Mr. Pons.”

After a steady trudge along the deserted road which ran arrow-straight across the flat countryside we saw black smoke on the horizon and presently made out a group of thickly-clad labourers who were burning timber in a field. Clumps of farm-buildings resolved themselves from the featureless waste and the chug of a tractor could be heard.

As we drew level with the farm a police sergeant wheeling a bicycle came out from the side-track. He had a keen, alert face, now much reddened with wind and his thick black moustache gave him a forbidding aspect. But his face broke into a smile as he caught sight of us and he came forward smartly, leaning his cycle against the frozen hedge.

“Miss Chambers is it not? And, bless my soul, sir, Mr. Solar Pons!”

Pons returned the strong handclasp.

“Sergeant Chatterton, unless my senses deceive me? We last met on that Whitechapel business some half dozen years ago.”

“That’s it, sir. Inspector Rossiter said you would be along today. We can walk together.”

I dropped into step with Miss Chambers in the rear and Pons and the Sergeant walked together, the cycle between them, their conversation chopped into segments by the wind. Pons stabbed with the stem of his pipe at the group of farmhands bunched round the big fire of boughs.

“I see they are felling elm, ash and oak. Excellent wood, but will it not denude the countryside?”

The Sergeant nodded assent.

“Times are hard for farmers nowadays, Mr. Pons. Even the biggest of them are reduced to selling some of their standing timber. Ah, here is Mr. Clive Cornfield himself. Good afternoon, sir!”

A smart, military-looking figure dressed in riding breeches and a heavy tweed overcoat had hurried across to us on catching sight of the Sergeant. He was limping slightly and I saw my companion look quickly at his large, snow encrusted boots.

He saluted the officer pleasantly and cast an approving glance in our direction.

“Mr. Cornfield, this is Mr. Solar Pons, Dr. Lyndon Parker and Miss Chambers. We are just going up to The Pines.”

A dark shadow passed across the farmer’s face. He shook hands with Pons and then myself and the girl in turn.

“Delighted to know you, though it is unfortunately under such terrible circumstances.”

He glanced back over his shoulder and I noticed for the first time a long, low house with high chimneys nestling among the trees.

“I believe you knew Miss Schneider?”

“Indeed, I did, Mr. Pons. A strange and miserly old woman, if you will forgive me saying so. She was not much liked hereabouts.”

“You did not like her very much either, I take it?”

Cornfield stared at Pons for a moment and then burst into a laugh.

“That is not a secret, Mr. Pons. I had a row with her only last Saturday morning, as I expect you know. I had been up there to collect some long overdue money she owed on her share of the new fencing between our properties. She refused to pay, giving as her excuse that she was hard up. I ask you!”

He looked over reflectively toward the big house.

“I believe you were hereabouts when the two servants left?”

“Indeed I was, Mr. Pons. Round about five as far as I can remember. We had the yard-lights on as they passed. But I have told the Sergeant here and Inspector Rossiter all I know. If there is any other way in which I can help please don’t hesitate to call upon me.”

“I see you are limping, Mr. Cornfield.”

“Merely a blister, Mr. Pons. One of the joys of farming.”

With a brief smile he went sauntering back toward the bonfire, while our group continued on to The Pines. The Sergeant shook his head.

“Terrible, Mr. Pons, really, the way the old lady kept people waiting for their money. One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but it was licensed robbery. I have a list of people interviewed in connection with the murder and I am expecting Inspector Rossiter himself shortly.”

“Indeed.”

Solar Pons turned to me with a bleak smile.

“He evidently does not trust me alone upon the scene.”

“It is not that, Mr. Pons. I think he could learn something from your methods. Good afternoon, George!”

A little, wizened man wearing a dark overcoat and a battered check cap was standing in a gap in the hedge. He hastily put the carcass of a rabbit in his pocket as we drew abreast.

“Good afternoon, Cedric!” he returned with a sly grin. “Back to the scene of the crime, eh?”

“I hope you got that rabbit legally,” said the Sergeant with mock severity.

The little man shook his head sourly.

“We have to do something to keep body and soul together. Even the guvnor’s been feeling the pinch. Times are hard all round. Farmers are no different to the rest of us and a lot will have to sell up if things go on like this.”

We passed by, the Sergeant adding a few muttered words of sympathy and as we gained the drive entrance of The Pines a dark motor vehicle appeared on the low horizon, sinister against the whiteness of the snow.

“Well-timed,” said the Sergeant with satisfaction. “That looks like the Inspector now.”

We stood in the shelter of a small clump of pines at one side of the carriage-drive, from which the house obviously took its name, and waited for the police-car to come nearer. When it was almost level with us the machine drew in to the verge and stopped. Inspector Rossiter got down and exchanged a few words with the driver.

“I have kept all vehicular traffic off this drive since the murder occurred, Mr. Pons, in the hope that further snow would hold off. I know something of your methods and assumed you would wish to read the tracks yourself.”

“Excellent, Inspector.”

Solar Pons nodded approvingly and went down the drive, walking on the grass verge, cat-like, oblivious of the wind, his keen eyes searching the tangled surface of the snow which bore the traces of many foot-prints and which seemed an incredible muddle to me.

“Ah, here we are! These, I assume, are the tracks to which you refer and which you contend belonged to the murderer.” `Those are they, Mr. Pons.”

Solar Pons looked at the Inspector sharply while the Sergeant and I together with Miss Chambers clustered together on the verge, so as not to add to the confusion of foot-prints in the crusty snow of the drive.

Solar Pons knelt briefly with his magnifying glass. He had produced a small steel folding rule from somewhere and frowned over his measurements while we waited with what patience we could muster in the frozen silence.

“Size seven wellington boots with Dunlop rubber ribbed soles, Inspector.”

“You surprise me, Mr. Pons, but I will take your word for it.” “You will find it accurate enough, Inspector. Remarkably small for a man.”

He retraced his steps and came back frowning.

“Nothing discernible on the main road, which has been too much torn up by passing traffic. Here are the prints of the two women. The rest must belong to the grocer, the tramp and the others on your list. The grocer did not bring his vehicle down?”

“No, Mr. Pons. He thought the horse might get stuck and left the van in the road.”

“That makes things simpler.”

Solar Pons walked on down the drive, occasionally darting about to look at something, while we followed, still on the verge, at a discreet distance.

He paused a long time at the front door, examining the tangled tracks with something of the air of a terrier puzzling at a bone. The indications here were confused in the extreme, as a great many feet had converged on the area of the front porch. The house itself was a somewhat forbidding pile that swept both left and right and was flanked with massive banks of rhododendron and evergreen shrubs that had grown to a great height and gave a chill and oppressive aspect to the surroundings.

My companion had his rule out again now and was carefully examining the spaces between various foot-prints. He straightened up, absorbed in his calculations, and glanced across to the left. The drive made a big sweep just in front of the house, describing a circle round huge clumps of evergreen shrubs which stood on a sort of island of lawn, which had once been well-tended but was now, even beneath its thick coating of snow, obviously all hummocks and furrows.

“Tell me, Inspector,” Pons said. “Did Miss Schneider have a gardener?”

The police officer had a dubious expression on his face but before he could answer Miss Chambers broke in.

“She used to have an old man some years ago, Mr. Pons, but he died. He was the only one who could tolerate her ways and consequently since then the grounds have more or less gone to ruin.”

Solar Pons nodded, his eyes fixed broodingly on the bleak expanse of snow-covered landscape about us.

“Do you know how long ago that was, Miss Chambers?” “About two or three years, I seem to remember Rollo saying.”

Pons nodded and glanced at Rossiter.

“I would prefer to finish up here, Inspector, before we go inside. Besides, the light will be gone soon if we are not careful.”

“Just as you say, Mr. Pons. The ground has been left as undisturbed as much as possible though of course my officers, the ambulance men and the surgeon have been down there to the woodshed. You will see the path yonder. I would like the sergeant here to keep an eye on things in the house.”

Chatterton nodded thankfully and unlocking the front door, swiftly disappeared.

“Do you object if we accompany you, Pons?” I inquired. “Or would you prefer us to wait in the house?”

Solar Pons smiled thinly.

“By all means come if you wish. So long as you both walk behind and not in front.”

We fell in behind and well to one side as Pons walked down the fringe of the twisting path that wound between thick shrubbery. He paid as meticulous attention to the ground and the surroundings as he had to the drive and I could see that the Inspector was impressed. As for Miss Chambers she did not take her eyes off Pons’ face all the time we were out there.

“Tell me, Inspector,” said Pons, as the path wound about, “did Miss Schneider take an electric torch with her when she went out to the woodshed?”

“Yes, Mr. Pons. It was a big affair, with a bull’s-eye front. It had fallen to the ground inside the shed when she was attacked.”

“Still switched on?”

“Yes, Mr. Pons. The switch was in the on position but the battery was exhausted. We have removed it to the house but apart from that item and the body the shed is just as we found it.”

“Excellent.”

We had rounded a bend in the path as he spoke and the shed itself, a low, black-tarred affair, its roof sagging under the weight of snow, was before us. The place was an oppressive one and would have been doubly so at night.

“What a dreadful spot, Pons,” I could not forbear saying and my friend turned to me with a wry expression.

“You speak with the benefit of hindsight, Parker. You are reading far too much into the atmosphere. It is just an ordinary shed in a secluded corner of an overgrown garden but because it has been the scene of a brutal crime that fact colours the surroundings for you. You have too much imagination for a medical man.”

“You may be right, Pons,” I assented gruffly, while Miss Chambers and the Inspector exchanged a conspiratorial smile.

Pons paused again and made a thorough examination of the scene before him. I could hear the murmur of a stream and see the glint of water, steel-grey, through the bare boles of the leafless trees.

“Just look, Mr. Pons,” Inspector Rossiter broke in eventually. “Here are Miss Schneider’s foot-prints. You see those others — of the murderer — which continue from the drive and then to here…”

He paused triumphantly, his eyes over the waxed moustache, fixed intently on my companion’s face.

“Well, as you will observe, they go direct to the hut but they never return!”

Pons’ eyelids were almost lowered over his eyes but now he opened them to become alert and dynamic.

“The fact had not escaped me, Inspector. Remarkable.”

Indeed, despite the trampled ground, which had been necessarily disturbed by the police and ambulance activity, the area near the door, which had been protected by boards the Inspector informed us, clearly showed the circumstances he had detailed. Pons looked across to the left of the tangled garden where black trees and a heavy wire fence showed up.

“That is Mr. Cornfield’s property over there?”

“That is so, Mr. Pons. And that new fence is the one in dispute.”

“Hmm.”

Pons stood a moment more and then, avoiding the prints near the door, placed an inclined board on the door-sill of the shed. He walked up it gingerly and opened the door. The Inspector followed him. It was a large, dim place, with a chopping block for firewood. Miss Chambers and I followed the two men and standing on the beaten earth floor by the open door it was not difficult to picture the tragic drama which had taken place here.

“She was found where, Inspector?”

“Just here, Mr. Pons, at the foot of this pile of logs. She had just picked up some baulks of firewood, which were scattered anyhow here, when she was seized, as you can see.”

Pons went on his knees.

“As I thought, the ground is too icy to show footprints in here.”

“We have been over it pretty thoroughly,” said the Inspector with satisfaction.

Solar Pons lit his pipe, the match making an eerie rasping in the frozen silence of the darkened shed. The shadows danced and vibrated on the walls and ceiling as he puffed at it, the little flames from the bowl making a fiery mask of his face.

“I have not yet heard your reconstruction of the crime, Inspector.”

“I was waiting until you were upon the ground, Mr. Pons.”

With a suppressed air of triumph Inspector Rossiter led the way to the back of the shed. He gently prised back the boards and a whole section of the planking slid away, disclosing the open air beyond. I looked through over Pons’ shoulder and saw that it was a sheer drop below to the dark and uninviting stream which meandered all the way along the back of Miss Schneider’s property to join the farmer’s land at the boundary.

“I think he went through here, Mr. Pons. The drop is sheer, unfortunately, so I was not able to find any identifiable footmarks to prove my theory.”

“How deep is that stream, Inspector?”

“About five or six feet, Mr. Pons.”

“And you think the murderer would immerse himself in an icy cold stream, at night, in such a manner?”

The Inspector looked uncomfortable but his voice was firm as he outlined his theory.

“He had just committed a murder, Mr. Pons, and had stolen ten thousand pounds.”

“Undoubtedly, Inspector, but perhaps not in the way you imagine. Are you suggesting that the old lady took the ten thousand pounds down to the shed with her? In which case your supposition might be understandable. But if he had already gone to the house and stolen the money while she was out collecting firewood, why would he need to follow and murder her?”

“Perhaps she had see him about the place and he wanted to avoid identification after she had discovered the theft, Mr. Pons.”

Solar Pons pulled gently at the lobe of his left ear.

“It is a possibility, Inspector.”

He looked moodily down at the dark water.

“Supposing we admit your reconstruction of events, what then? The murderer, risking pneumonia, swims the river?”

“I have been into that, Mr. Pons. In my opinion he would have first thrown his wellington boots into the river, where they would have rapidly sunk.”

Pons remained lost in thought so the Inspector plunged doggedly on.

“There is a slope on the far side, much torn up by young people tobogganing last Sunday and yesterday. There is a thick belt of trees there also, where they have been chasing about. I submit that the man who killed Miss Schneider had already hidden a change of clothing there, realising that the snow would give him away. He changed into warm, dry clothes and made a bundle of his soaked things. Just beyond the copse there is a metalled road and a bus-stop with a shelter.”

“You think he joined a bus queue and got away to Colchester or somewhere?”

“It is a possibility, Mr. Pons, and the only thing which fits the facts.”

“Perhaps, Inspector, perhaps. And you still maintain the view that the person who went through all these extraordinary hardships was Mr. Watling?”

“In the absence of stronger proof to the contrary, I do, sir.” Solar Pons smiled faintly, ignoring the angry expression on the girl’s face.

“It is a theory, Inspector, no more. I think we have seen all that is necessary here. I suggest we return to the house.”

-6-

It was already almost dark when we came in sight of The Pines again, which crouched in the gloom as though waiting for further victims. The dim lights in the windows merely emphasised its remoteness and isolation and though things were a little better once we were inside I could not shake off a faint feeling of distaste all the time we were there. Chatterton himself opened the front door to us and his frank face looked solid and dependable in the dim lighting of the low power bulbs which illuminated the room.

“The old woman was economising again,” he said, as though reading my thoughts.

Solar Pons nodded, stamping his feet on the brick floor of the small annexe to rid them of particles of snow.

“It is all of a piece with what we have heard of Mr. Watling’s aunt, eh, Parker?”

“Indeed, Pons,” I replied, with a wry smile to the girl.

The vast chamber in which we found ourselves, though it had a few touches of luxury, was austere indeed. The main door opened into the room itself but to cut the draught a small L-shaped hallway had been made of oaken panels which extended to the ceiling. A vast fire now burned in the hearth, which cast a comforting glow over the flagstones.

The fireplace itself was stone and looked to be part of the original house and there were two old, shabby settees with moth-eaten velvet cushions set at right-angles to it with an old oak table covered with books and magazines on it. The ceiling had magnificent oak beams, and two electric lamps which were suspended from them on metal hooks cast a mellow glow over the ancient fittings and competed with the leaping firelight.

A police constable who had been sitting in an easy chair near the fire rose awkwardly to his feet as the Inspector entered, but Rossiter waved him down with an easy gesture.

“Take your leisure while you can, lad,” he said pleasantly. “There’s been too much coming and going in the snow since this case began.”

The ticking of an old grandfather clock which stood over in the far corner made a melancholy background to our conversation, but I noticed that despite the cheap rugs scattered about the flagged floor, there were a few good oil-paintings on the walls, two obviously nineteenth-century landscapes and one that looked to me like a Boucher.

Pons went at once to stand in front of the fire while I handed Miss Chambers out of her coat. She sat on one of the settees and held out her hands to the blaze gratefully. But Pons did not appear to heed the cold. Instead, he was gazing intently at an oil study of a severe and forbidding-looking woman which hung in a gilt frame directly over the mantel.

“Miss Schneider?”

The girl nodded.

“Painted when she was in her early forties, according to Rollo, Mr. Pons. She was already set in her ways, as you can see.”

It was indeed a shrewd and grasping face and mentally adding another thirty years to the already deep lines in the features, I conjured up an extremely unpleasant picture of the old woman as she must have appeared at the time of her death.

“You have described her character aright,” said Pons briefly, turning about him to examine the room.

Two women who had stood silently apart and whom I had not noticed until now came forward. I realised that the room itself was a repetition of the annexe. It too was L-shaped, the length of the vast chamber representing the shaft and the other section running at right-angles to the main portion. There was a door half-ajar at the far end and I guessed, rightly, that it led to the dining-room and kitchen quarters.

“This would be Mrs. Hambleton and Mrs. Rose, the housekeeper and cook.”

“That is correct, sir,” said the elder of the two women, who had a rather fine, but sad face, as though she had found life disappointingly short of her expectations. “You gentlemen will be requiring tea, I expect.”

“An excellent idea,” Rossiter put in. “And then, when you return, I have no doubt Mr. Pons will ask a few questions.”

Pons nodded absently. He did not seem to notice the two women quit the room with quiet, self-effacing modesty. He had gone to stand a little to one side of the fireplace and his eyes were burning with concentration.

“You observe, Parker, from here one can see the half-open safe in the far wall.”

“I see, Pons,” I returned as I went to stand beside him. “What do you conclude from that, sir?” put in the Inspector quietly.

“It is obvious,” returned Pons crisply.

He looked back at the girl, and then glanced at a massive oak door set in the fireplace wall at the opposite corner.

“That is the room of which you spoke?”

Miss Chambers nodded.

“I understood from Rollo that the former study was used as Miss Schneider’s sewing room.”

Pons crossed to the door. He flung it open and I heard a tumbling noise on the bare oak boards. I joined him at the threshold to find him examining the heap of cordwood that lay behind the panelling.

“Curious, Pons,” I ventured.

He smiled mischievously.

“But obvious, Parker.”

He closed the door and crossed to the fireplace. The two women were already returning with a laden tray so it was evident that Sergeant Chatterton had already advised them to prepare something before our arrival. His eyes met mine in an amused, conspiratorial glance which was not lost upon the Inspector. The housekeeper had cleared the books and magazines from the centre table while the cook bent to place the laden tray upon it.

“Tell me, Mrs. Hambleton,” said Pons. “What did you ladies think about this statuette, The Hound of Hell and Miss Schneider’s gift of it to Mr. Watling?”

The elder woman shook her head and a shadow passed across her face.

“She was a strange and much-feared old lady, Mr. Pons. There were lots of tales about the statuette. I thought it was a horrible thing and it was a relief to me when she got rid of it. I’m not superstitious normally but I felt it to be evil.”

The cook had been listening avidly to the conversation and now broke in, without interrupting her pouring of the tea.

“There was a curse on it, sir! And it certainly brought ill-luck to Miss Schneider and to her nephew.”

“Nevertheless,” said Solar Pons, almost dreamily, “there was a strong human agency at work here. Tell me, what was the cause of the quarrels between you and your employer on Saturday?”

The two women exchanged glances. Again it was the elder who was the spokesman.

“It was the usual tale, Mr. Pons. Wages. The expense of finding people to work for her. Reductions for breakages. Both Mrs. Rose and I were fed up with it. I am afraid I expressed myself in quite strong terms and so did Cook.”

The other woman nodded silent assent, her wide eyes obviously conjuring up the scene.

“I understand there were a number of visitors here that day. I would like a brief resume of their calls, what was said and who they were. The Inspector has a list there compiled from your statements.”

The housekeeper drew herself up.

“That is correct, Mr. Pons. There were a good many people here throughout the day.”

“Tell me, was the safe open all the time that the visitors were here. And did any of them come into the room?”

“Most of them, Mr. Pons, though I do not think that they could have seen the safe from where they stood. But it was obvious what was going on, for Miss Schneider was counting out coins and shouting at the top of her voice, even when tradesmen were here. She invited everyone into the living room and she did not mince words whether there was company or not.”

Pons walked over and picked up his tea-cup, sitting down at one end of the settee. We all sat down too and at a muttered exhortation from Rossiter, the Sergeant, the constable and the two women settled themselves on the opposite settee, facing Pons. The girl got up, and despite the cook’s protests, started handing round plates of sandwiches and slices of cut-cake.

“I see,” said Pons, as though there had been no interruption in his questioning.

“So the tramp, the grocer, the postman, the milkman, Mr. Cornfield, as well as yourselves, were all here in this room at various times on that Saturday.”

“That is correct, sir. She even asked the tramp in, mistaking him, I suppose, for a man who cuts timber and does odd jobs hereabouts. When she found her mistake she sent him packing quickly enough.”

“But that was not the only row that afternoon. Apart from yourselves and the tramp, of course?”

Mrs. Hambleton shook her head decisively after a silent conference with the cook.

“It was the same old story, Mr. Pons. Almost everyone, including the postman had a complaint or a grumble. We stayed on late because of the delay to our routine caused by disgruntled visitors.”

“Unpaid bills, I suppose?”

“Indeed, Mr. Pons. Mr. Cornfield, even though he is normally the most even-tempered of men, grew quite bitter on occasion. After all, Miss Schneider owed him £100 as her share of the fencing and that is a lot of money in these times.”

“Quite so,” said Pons, his deep-set eyes raking across the room as though he saw things that were denied to our less keen vision. “So all the visitors were here when, to the best of your knowledge, the safe was standing open or at least ajar all that time?”

“That is so, Mr. Pons.”

“A sum mentioned more than once in this affair was said to be kept in that safe, Mrs. Hambleton. About £10,000 was the amount. Was there any truth in that?”

Mrs. Hambleton flushed.

“That is true, to the best of my belief, Mr. Pons and I am sure that Mrs. Rose will confirm it. There were large bundles of notes on the top shelf of the safe. Over and over again Miss Schneider referred to it in our presence. I believe it was one of her ways of flaunting her wealth — and through that her power — over us.”

Pons regarded the housekeeper with a very bright eye.

“You are an astute woman, Mrs. Hambleton. I have noticed that myself in my varied dealings about the world. I am sure you are right. But why did she keep such a large amount in the safe if she were as parsimonious as everyone says?”

The housekeeper was obviously choosing her words with care.

“I told her she was foolish to have that much money about the house many times, Mr. Pons, but she would never listen. She referred to the notes as her liquid assets. It was her belief that there would be some natural disaster one day — she often talked of this part of Essex being flooded — and I think she felt safer if she had actual cash on hand. Of course, she had enormous sums of money in the bank in holdings — she showed me her bankbooks on more than one occasion — but that was one of her strangest quirks.”

“Almost as though she were tempting fate, in one way, Pons,” I ventured.

“As you say, my dear fellow. So it was fairly common knowledge, Mrs. Hambleton, that large sums of money were kept in the safe?”

“Indeed, Mr. Pons.”

“And that the safe was often open, though only when Miss Schneider was present.”

“That is correct, Mr. Pons.”

“And that a number of people, though they could not directly see the safe last Saturday, were present at various times throughout the day and that they heard arguments and money being discussed.”

“I would not quarrel with that, Mr. Pons. It was just as you have said.”

Solar Pons pulled thoughtfully at the lobe of his left ear while Inspector Rossiter’s eyes never left his face.

“Now we come to the events of last Sunday morning, Mrs. Hambleton.”

“There is little to tell, Mr. Pons. I arrived as usual and was stupefied to find the front door unlocked. The safe was ajar and the money gone. There was only the one shelf on top which held the money. The interior of the safe was divided up into separate little strong-boxes where Miss Schneider kept papers, deeds and so forth. These were always kept locked.”

“You searched the house, of course?”

“Naturally, Mr. Pons, but she was nowhere to be found. I was thoroughly alarmed and when I went outside again I then noticed Miss Schneider’s foot-prints in the snow, going away down the side garden, in the direction of the old shed.”

“How did you know they were Miss Schneider’s footprints?”

“They were distinctive, Mr. Pons. Because she is so parsimonious, she has special hard-wearing rubber soles put on her elastic-sided boots. They have very large cleats on them, which give an unmistakable V-pattern. I have noticed them imprinted in mud on.the drive in wet weather, and I recognised them immediately in the snow.”

“Excellent! You would make a first-rate police officer yourself, Mrs. Hambleton.”

The housekeeper’s face flushed with pleasure and she looked at my companion appreciatively.

“What then?”

A hesitant look from the questioned.

“I sensed disaster, Mr. Pons. I feared what I might find down the garden. I called the police immediately and Sergeant Chatterton here told me what he had discovered.”

“There is nothing to be ashamed of in that, Mrs. Hambleton. Death in any shape or form is hardly pleasant.”

My companion consulted the sheet of paper Rossiter had handed him. But the questions I had expected did not come.

“Tell me, Mrs. Hambleton, I believe you used to have a full-time gardener here?”

The housekeeper looked as mystified as the rest of us.

“That is so, Mr. Pons. Old Angus Crathie. He was as cantankerous as Miss Schneider. They both respected one another and the sparks always flew when they were discussing how the garden should be laid out and such matters. But they got on fine together!”

Pons chuckled quietly to himself.

“So it sometimes goes,” he added. “I believe the old man has been dead some while now.”

The housekeeper nodded, replacing her cup in her saucer with a faint chinking sound.

“Several years, Mr. Pons. Old Miss Schneider became even more impossible after his death. They were two of a kind, really. They respected one another.”

“She did not haggle about his wages, then?”

“No, Mr. Pons, strangely enough. I believe she even paid him over the odds. Like many self-willed bullying people, she was even a little afraid of him. He had a devil of a temper when he was roused.”

She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper.

“He used to drink sometimes down in that shed. He would hurl the empty whisky bottles down into the stream through an opening he made in the back of the building.”

“Indeed. One of the minor eccentrics of which the British race throws up a good many examples, Parker.”

“As you say, Pons.”

“Did the old man leave any of his property here when he died, Mrs. Hambleton?”

The housekeeper’s sad face, framed in its mane of grey hair, looked pensive.

“A few things, Mr. Pons. His tobacco pouch and pipe, a small stock of whisky, his old boots, a silver watch that was an heirloom. He had no family so Miss Schneider kept them in a cupboard here just in case anyone should claim them.”

Pons took one of the sandwiches and looked at it pensively as though it held an important key to the problem of Miss Schneider’s murder.

“If it is not a rude question, Mrs. Hambleton, why did you and Mrs. Rose stick such unpalatable conditions all these years?”

The housekeeper looked defiant now.

“I felt sorry for her, if you must know the truth, Mr. Pons. She was her own worst enemy and she needed looking after. There was so much money about the house, she was a danger to herself as well as a temptation to others.”

The housekeeper hesitated, prompted by Pons’ sympathetic look.

“Times are hard, Mr. Pons. Both Mrs. Rose and I needed the money, and Miss Schneider was not ungenerous in the matter of food and little extras she let us take home. It was actual cash she found so difficult to get rid of.”

The cook flashed a look at her companion.

“Though she was always grumbling and complaining about it whenever we did take advantage of her offers. There was another thing, too.”

“Yes, Mrs. Rose?”

“Mr. Watling. Such a charming young gentleman. Though he came here rarely we always looked forward to his letters and visits.”

She looked fiercely at Inspector Rossiter, who stirred uncomfortably.

“And nothing will ever make us believe he did this terrible thing.”

“Bravo, Mrs. Rose,” I could not resist putting in and Miss Chambers flushed as she caught my eye.

“Be that as it may, Parker, we still have some way to go before we can clear this up,” said Pons gently. “I should like, Inspector, to ask your indulgence in one matter.”

“What might that be, Mr. Pons?”

“I should appreciate it if the people who visited this house on Saturday could be brought here tomorrow afternoon so that I can ask them a few questions.”

“Good heavens, Pons!” I said. “Supposing they will not come?”

“I don’t think there will be any difficulty in that, Mr. Pons,” said Rossiter. “They will all wish to do everything they can to assist. Of course, that vagrant may have moved on but if he is still there I will have him brought by car from Colchester Spike.”

“Spike, Inspector?”

Pons was smiling.

“It is the somewhat picturesque vernacular for workhouse, Parker. Where itinerants receive meals and a bed for the night in return for doing manual and other work about the place.”

“You are a mine of information, Pons.”

“Am I not, Parker,” said my companion drily. “And now, if no-one has any objection, let us leave these puzzling questions temporarily and finish our tea in peace.”

-7-

As Pons had predicted it snowed heavily that evening and from the warmth of the dining-room of The Dun Cow, Pons, myself and Miss Chambers looked out at a forbidding world of whirling white flakes. But my companion was in high good humour.

“We were just in time, Parker,” he commented, handing me an excellent Brie with which to conclude the meal and though he was affable, not to say expansive, he refused utterly to answer any further questions about the case. Miss Chambers was naturally anxious for her fiancé but Pons put himself out to set her at ease and to allay her fears and when I awoke to a strange world of blank silence and whiteness the next morning I had a firm conviction that matters would come to a head before the day was out.

I found a pencilled note from Pons which had been thrust beneath my door and learned that he had gone out afoot early. Miss Chambers and I breakfasted alone and at mid-morning, taking coffee before the blazing fire in the lounge I was called to the telephone to learn from Inspector Rossiter that all the people Pons required had been contacted, including the tramp, and that he would guarantee them all present at The Pines at half-past two that afternoon. From what he said I gathered they had all been co-operative and anxious to help, apart from the vagrant.

I transmitted this news to Miss Chambers and awaited Pons’ return to the hotel with some impatience. The snow was very thick out but not enough to make the roads impassable and none had fallen since that of the night. At about a quarter to one Pons appeared in the lounge bar where we were enjoying a pre-lunch drink, carrying a brown paper parcel. He seemed inordinately pleased with himself and greeted my news of the Inspector’s message with satisfaction.

I handed Pons his glass and we three went to sit in an inglenook near the fire, where we would be out of earshot of the other drinkers.

“You look pleased, Pons.”

“I have reason to be, Parker. If all goes well we shall be back at 7B by this evening.”

I looked at him sharply.

“That will be doubly suitable, Pons.”

He glanced at me over the rim of his glass.

“Why so?”

“You forget I have to be back at my practice by tomorrow.” He was all concern at once.

“Forgive me, my dear fellow. I sometimes forget the importance of your healing art when caught up in the onrush of my own affairs. I trust that by tomorrow evening you and I will be back at opposite sides of the fire in our familiar sitting-room, while Miss Chambers here and Mr. Watling are reunited.”

“If only it could be so, Mr. Pons,” said the girl fervently.

With her face flushed from the fire and her thick fair hair reflecting back the beams of the lamplight from the overhead fittings in the lounge she had never looked more attractive and I felt a momentary envy of Watling, a man who could inspire such affection and devotion in such a lovely young lady.

“What have you in the parcel there, Pons?” I asked, indicating the heavy oblong-shaped brown paper package which rested at my companion’s side on the cushion of the settle.

“Something that may send a murderer to the gallows, Parker,” he said soberly. ‘The strands are coming together nicely. But whether I can crack our man’s iron reserve remains to be seen.”

During lunch he talked animatedly on a dozen topics, none of them the least to do with crime but I noticed that he kept a very sharp eye on the parcel, which he insisted on placing at the side of his chair, where it remained throughout the meal. At two o’clock we dressed ourselves in our thickest clothes and set out once more for The Pines.

We were just coming up past the farm buildings when we overtook the large, muffled figure of a man who was evidently bent in the same direction. He broke into a welcoming smile as we drew abreast and I immediately recognized the farmer, Mr. Clive Cornfield.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen, Miss Chambers! I understand you have something exciting planned for us, Mr. Pons.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Cornfield,” Pons replied with a faint smile. “I see you are still limping.”

I looked down at the farmer’s large, glistening brown boots. Cornfield looked down ruefully also as we continued our walk.

“Nothing but a blister, Mr. Pons. They are new boots which I have just bought in Colchester and I foolishly wore them for two days running instead of breaking them in gradually.”

Pons nodded sympathetically and we turned into the forbidding driveway of The Pines. Sergeant Chatterton opened the door to us and beyond him I could see the blazing fire, the heavy moustache of Inspector Rossiter and the two motionless ladies of the house, who seemed purposeless now that their mistress had gone. But as we stepped into the inner porch I could see that the big, L-shaped room was full of strange, sometimes resentful faces.

“All present and correct, Mr. Pons,” the Inspector called out cheerfully, “though I had a devil of a job to get everyone here.”

Pons inclined his head as he coolly surveyed the company, spread out in a semi-circle in front of the fire, on settee and in easy chair.

“I am grateful for your co-operation, ladies and gentlemen. I do not think this business will take very long. I have just a few questions to ask each of you and I will then make a general statement. Will you sit here, Miss Chambers? And you in this armchair by the fire, Mr. Cornfield.”

“By all means, Mr. Pons.”

My companion turned to me.

“Perhaps you would be good enough to stand near me, Parker, as all the available chairs seem to be taken. You will be quite close to the fire there.”

I took up the position he had indicated and immediately became aware that I was standing exactly between the oddly assorted people in the chairs and settees and the door, while Sergeant Chatterton had almost imperceptibly shifted over to fill the gap. Pons himself stood foursquare beside the fireplace while Inspector Rossiter moved close to him, with an inked list in his hand. I felt a heightening of tension and a sense of suppressed excitement as I raked my eyes round the room.

The two servants of Miss Schneider seemed the calmest and most at home, as indeed they should have been, as they sat in a heavily curtained window seat, their hands clasped primly together in front of them so that they resembled nothing so much as a study by Douanier Rousseau.

“Now, Mr. Pons, if you are ready, I will make the introductions,” said Rossiter good-humouredly.

Pons walked slowly round the room behind Rossiter as the stolid police officer identified each person present. I did not catch all the names but to each Pons had a pleasant word and I noticed that his deep-set eyes were stabbing searching glances at their shoes. To the grievances of the postman, the grocer, the farmer and the others, he nodded absently.

Then Rossiter paused before a pathetic, bearded figure in threadbare clothes who sat with his red face hunched over his tea, as though the room and its shabby surroundings were the most luxurious milieu he had ever known. Even without the shaking hands and the red-rimmed eyes his cirrhosed complexion would have denoted the alcoholic.

I had noticed when we came in that his feet were particularly small and slender, despite his awkward and worn boots and Pons had obviously taken this in for he stooped in low conversation. I drew closer, thinking the matter might be important.

“Charles Penrose, Mr. Pons,” said Rossiter.

My companion nodded.

“You are a traveller, I understand. I am sorry to see you abroad in such bitter conditions.”

The man raised his head in an absent, listless way, but there was a spark of intelligence in the eyes.

“It is dreadful, sir,” he said in a slurred, though surprisingly refined voice. “Those of us on the road at this time of the year find it hard — very hard.”

“But he is well-cared for, Mr. Pons,” said the Inspector in his bluff way. “We shall take him safely back to Colchester after we have finished here.”

Pons nodded and put his hand in his pocket.

“Nevertheless, I am obliged to you for coming, Penrose. Here is a guinea for your trouble.”

The shabby figure looked with amazement at the coin Pons put in his grubby palm and Pons turned swiftly away, with an ironic glance in my direction.

“He will only spend it on drink, Pons,” I whispered quietly as we crossed over toward the fire.

“I am certain of it, Parker,” said Pons gently, “but it is the New Year, after all, and the season when such gestures are appropriate.”

I noticed that he had placed his brown paper parcel upon a low oak table near the fire and I found my eyes drawn to it again and again during that tense afternoon at the lonely house surrounded by the bleak, snowy wastes, our minds overshadowed as they were by the knowledge of the ghastly crime which had been committed only a few hundred yards from where we were now standing.

Pons went to lean against the mantelshelf and glanced round the room casually but I seemed to see a stiffening of attitude on the part of the oddly-assorted group of people who were gathered there under the suspicion of murder.

“We all know why we are here, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I am sure every person in this room except one is interested in seeing justice done. As I have already stated, I am most grateful to you all for agreeing to come. The murder of Miss Schneider, so far from being cold-blooded and calculated as one might think, was entirely fortuitous and unpremeditated, carried out by a desperate man on the spur of the moment. It needed patience and courage but the person who took this old lady’s life was in a desperate financial situation and screwed himself to the sticking point, to mutilate one of our greatest poet’s most striking passages.”

Pons met Inspector Rossiter’s sceptical eyes with a faint smile.

“As we also know, a young man lies in a police cell in Colchester accused of this crime. The Inspector will not agree with me, but it was obvious from the beginning that Mr. Roland Watling was not the man we seek. As Miss Schneider’s sole heir it was inconceivable that he would murder his own aunt and risk death by hanging for such a comparatively small sum of money as ten thousand pounds, when he was already the beneficiary of her will to the extent of half a million. Commonsense alone is against it. Why would he take her life when he had only to wait to become a rich man?”

A deathly silence had fallen on the assembly, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the occasional chink of a tea-cup and I could see that every eye in the room was fixed in fascination on the lean figure of my companion.

“I must admit that the Inspector’s case against Mr. Wading seemed overwhelming. The young man has small feet and the foot-prints in the snow are the same size. As to the mystery of why the tracks of the murderer lead to the shed and do not return — I will leave that until later. The boots which made those tracks were distinctive ones and the Inspector has not produced them, much less proved that they belong to Mr. Watling.”

Miss Chambers was leaning forward in her chair with parted lips, intent on Pons’ every movement. Rossiter coughed and shifted uneasily, as he caught Sergeant Chatter-ton’s eyes.

“We all have our methods, Mr. Pons,” he retorted. “I have already given you my theory as to how the murderer escaped from that shed.”

“Ah, yes,” said Pons dreamily. “According to you he pushed aside the loose planks at the back, precipitated himself into an icy stream in mid-winter, risking pneumonia or death by immersion in the freezing water, dried himself and changed in a grove of trees before catching a bus into Colchester. Though it sounds plausible enough in the warmth of this room, it smacks more of fiction than reality, and a little quiet thought will soon dispose of such a theory.”

Inspector Rossiter had a disbelieving smile on his face. “Perhaps you have a better explanation, Mr. Pons,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps,” my companion replied equably. “You have not told us why anyone should commit a murder in that bleak shed instead of in the comfort and seclusion of the house, let alone why the murderer would know that his intended victim would come there. The matter is both more complex and yet more simple than it appears on the surface.”

Rossiter nodded slowly.

“You are talking in riddles, Mr. Pons. We need more than theories here.”

“You shall have the facts, Inspector, if you would allow me to continue. There has been much talk in this case of The Hound of Hell. As might have been expected, the newspapers immediately played up this aspect. Valuable though the piece is in itself, that diabolical-looking little statue had nothing at all to do with the death of Miss Schneider, or Mr. Watling’s present predicament, though the superstitious and the gullible may read what they wish into it.”

The housekeeper, who had been looking stolidly before her, stirred at this.

“Nevertheless, sir, The Hound of Hell has not brought much luck to those who owned it. You say it had nothing to do with Miss Schneider’s death or Mr. Watling’s arrest. Yet Miss Schneider’s father, if we are to believe her own story, died mysteriously, by falling down a staircase in his Scottish home, only a year after coming into its possession.”

There was a small stir among the people in the room and all eyes, after glancing at Mrs. Hambleton, were once again turned on Pons.

“Indeed,” he said. “I did not know that and if I had it could not influence by one iota the basis of a scientifically conducted investigation.”

“If the piece was so unlucky, why did Miss Schneider keep it?” I asked.

Mrs. Hambleton shrugged.

“It was all part of her nature, doctor. It had been left to her, it was valuable and she could not bear to get rid of it, though she had considered selling it once or twice.”

“Let us keep to the point, Parker,” Solar Pons interrupted politely.

“We have here, the murder of an old lady by strangulation; the theft of some ten thousand pounds; the only foot-prints, which have to be those of the murderer, going to the woodshed and not coming away again; a number of people, all with good motives for the robbery at least; all of whom were here last Saturday; and several with small feet, which match the foot-prints, and who could have committed the crime. All of the people in this room on Saturday knew the money was in the safe and knew that it was open, because the talk between the two female members of the staff and their mistress revolved around it.

“In addition, the Inspector has not made clear an important point in his presentation of the case. If the robbery were the object or a corollary to the murder, which it would surely have to be, was the robbery committed before the murder or after?”

Solar Pons smiled faintly as Inspector Rossiter cleared his throat as if lie would interrupt, but he only folded his arms impatiently and kept silence.

“That presents us with two intriguing problems,” Pons continued. “In the first instance we are asked to believe that the murderer, having committed the robbery, followed the old lady to the woodshed and then strangled her. What would be the point? Further, the Inspector would ask us to believe that the man who committed the crime either hurled himself into an icy cold stream or, alternatively, vanished into thin air. We are faced with the same problem regarding the second supposition. The murderer followed the old lady’s foot-prints to the woodshed, presumably to strike her down and obtain the keys to the safe. But he then remained in that shed and vanished, without returning to the house. Neither of these theories will do. What do you make of it, Parker?”

I stared at him with, I fear, a somewhat dull expression on my face.

“It is an impenetrable mystery, Pons.”

“Is it not, Parker,” he replied with a dry chuckle.

My companion’s eyes were fixed on the brown paper parcel on the table before him.

“Nevertheless, I think I can present a solution which will fill the bill in most respects.”

“We should be very glad to hear it, Mr. Pons,” said Miss Chambers, a worried expression on her face.

My companion had produced his empty pipe from his pocket and was turning it over restlessly in his lean fingers as he stood with his back to the fire. He looked searchingly from one to the other of the people assembled in the long L-shaped room before us, from the stolid Chatterton near the door to Inspector Rossiter to his far left; taking in, in turn, the intense face of the girl, her worries for her fiancé showing in every lineament of her features; the alcoholic Penrose, who was slumped in his chair with glazed, vacuous features; the farmer, Cornfield, who was absorbed by Pons’ deliberations; the grocer, Pennyfeather; the milkman, Postgate; two other men, whose names I had not caught but whom I believed were the postman and another deliveryman; and the two silent women in the corner, Mrs. Rose, the cook; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Hambleton.

He walked slowly down the length of the room, stopping at the far corner, which commanded the short leg of the L, leading to the dining room.

“The dimensions of this room make it at once difficult and easy to reconstruct what has happened,” he observed, almost to himself.

He stared over toward the big iron safe, which was curiously set into the wall within the confines of a large rosewood desk. When the sloping lid was closed it entirely shut the safe from view. At present the lid was up and the safe-door ajar, just as it had been when the murder was discovered, Inspector Rossiter had informed us.

“I do not quite follow you, Pons.”

“Do you not, Parker. When a person calls here, for example, and the three ladies of the household are discussing financial matters of a confidential nature, he cannot help hearing, even though the people concerned are out of sight, right round the angle of the L-shaped room.”

He paused, as though for effect and went on more slowly.

“For example a man in business, extremely hard-pressed as many people are in these impoverished times, has come to seek Miss Schneider for payment of a long-outstanding debt.

While standing there he hears an altercation going on about money. The safe-door is opened during that time and there is the clink of coins and the rustle of notes. As a local person he knows there is the sum of ten thousand pounds in that safe and that it is open and the cash so close to him.”

I stared at my companion.

“I follow you, Pons. It was a crime committed on the spur of the moment, when exposed to temptation and with a sense of injustice at the non-payment of his bill.”

Pons nodded, his eyes shining.

“Excellent, Parker! You have excelled yourself. There you have it in a nutshell. The people in the room, though they had invited him in and knew he was there, had temporarily forgotten him in the heat of their arguments. Is that not so, Mrs. Hambleton?”

The housekeeper nodded.

“You could say so, Mr. Pons. Every person in this room, saving yourself, the doctor, the young lady, and the police, was in that situation, you might say. All were owed money by Miss Schneider, all had mentioned that fact to her, and every single one had been invited in to hear what she had to say to myself and Mrs. Rose on the subject of thrift and money. That is a fact, Mr. Pons, strange as you may find it.”

Solar Pons rubbed his right ear gently with his forefinger.

“I believe you, Mrs. Hambleton. Nothing is so singular as human nature, and I have had long observation of it. But surely the postman, Mr. Biggs here, was not owed money?”

The man indicated, a long, stringy individual with a morose face, shifted uneasily in his chair.

“My job is not a well-paid one, sir. In my spare time I do shoe repairs for the people of the village. Miss Schneider owed me £30 for work and materials, which is a lot of money to me, Mr. Pons. But I would not have killed her for it, if the amount had been three thousand pounds.”

Solar Pons smiled thinly.

“I am inclined to believe you, Mr. Biggs.”

He turned back to me and I took the opportunity to ask him the question which had been on my tongue for the last minute or two.

“You said the problem was difficult and yet easy, Pons.”

“Indeed. Difficult, inasmuch as a number of people who came here knew about the safe, of the money in it, and that it was open. Easy, because of the geography of the room. He was in the room, could hear what was going on but could not himself be seen because the three involved in the argument were round the angle, up in the far corner of the room.”

“But why easy, Pons?”

“Because he had an ideal opportunity, Parker.”

I looked at my companion with increasing bewilderment. “Opportunity for what, Pons?”

“Tut, Parker. It is obvious. To remove that bundle of logs from the basket in the fireplace and quietly place it behind the study door yonder.”

It had grown very quiet in the room but now Inspector Rossiter cleared his throat harshly, making a jarring, divisive noise in the darkling room.

“You surely cannot place any significance on that trivial matter, Mr. Pons.”

Solar Pons shook his head impatiently.

“On the contrary, Inspector, that trivial fact is of vital importance and immediately pointed me in the right direction.”

My companion had come back down the room and stood in front of the fireplace looking thoughtfully about him.

“The solution of his financial problems had come to him in a flash, Parker. He had only to be patient. But he could not directly face the woman he intended to kill. So he hid those logs behind the door while the three women were arguing among themselves, out of sight at the far corner of the room.”

“With what purpose, Pons?”

“Tut, Parker, it is surely elementary. It was a bitterly cold day. During the course of the late afternoon or evening the fire would go out. Miss Schneider would discover there were no logs in the basket and would have to go out to the woodshed for fuel to replenish the fire.”

I stared at him in astonishment.

“Of course, Pons!”

Pons chuckled ironically.

“Of course, Parker. It was self-evident. That solution presented itself to me very early on and when I examined that pile of logs for myself and saw the lay-out of the room the explanation readily suggested itself.

“The Inspector has been looking at the problem of a murderer who walked into that building and never came out. Looked at from another viewpoint, that of the snowfall, it was the problem, in a sense, of a murderer who came out and never went in.”

“But we saw his foot-prints going in!” insisted Inspector Rossiter.

Solar Pons shook his head.

“We saw his foot-prints coming out, Inspector.”

“But how, Pons?” I asked.

“Because he was already there, before the snow began.” Solar Pons looked almost dreamily about the room, conscious of the uneasy shifting of his audience.

“Except for the brutality of the crime and the horror of the situation in that lonely shed one could almost feel sorry for the man.”

“Sorry, Pons?”

My companion nodded, with an ironical glance at Inspector Rossiter.

“Here we have a highly respectable man, short of money, who is brought low for lack of cash during the current recession. Like millions of others he has no control over his own destiny. But he suddenly sees an opportunity of securing wealth beyond his wildest expectations. The old woman owes him money and with typical meanness refuses to pay. He will take the money for himself. So he secretes himself in that shed. One wonders what his thoughts were as he waited hour after hour in that freezing wooden building, waiting for the fire to burn low, for the old woman, his victim, to come out to her lonely death.”

There was a quality in Pons’ tones which I had seldom heard before and I must confess I could not repress a shudder at his words. I glanced round at the large group of people in the farmhouse parlour and could see that they were similarly affected.

“So the murderer was already in the shed, Pons?”

“Exactly. That was why there were no footprints going there. He hid himself long before the snow began. And he must have been appalled when he first looked out and saw that whatever he did, he could not avoid leaving traces of his presence upon the scene.”

“Good Lord, Pons!” I could not help bursting out.

Inspector Rossiter took one step toward Pons and looked at him in stupefaction.

“You will have to prove that, Mr. Pons,” he said in almost inaudible tones.

“I intend to do so, Inspector.”

My companion’s deep-set eyes were shining as they raked over the oddly assorted group of men and women sitting before him.

“No, Parker, there were no implausible dives into cold water for our man. He was far too intelligent for that. He improvised brilliantly to stage what seemed like an impossible crime. A man who walked down the drive and then from the house to the woodshed, to strangle an old woman before disappearing into thin air.”

He chuckled briefly at the irony of the situation.

“What do you mean by improvising, Pons?”

My companion teetered on his heels as he surveyed the people in the room; he seemed to exert an almost hypnotic influence on them.

“In crime, as in any other enterprise, Parker, luck plays a great part. The murderer had a stroke of good fortune. While he was waiting for the cold weather to bring the old woman to him when the fire died out, he made a discovery at the back of the shed. A pair of old wellington boots.”

“Wellington boots, Pons?”

“I believe I just said so, Parker. A pair with distinctive soles belonging to the old gardener at The Pines, Angus Crathie. He had a small foot and the wellingtons fitted our man perfectly, as he had a small foot also. He put the wellingtons on, laced his shoes round his neck and resumed his wait.”

“Extraordinary, Pons. But how do you know all this?”

“It is inspired conjecture, Parker, underlined by what I have been able to discover locally. When Miss Schneider came to that shed she had a powerful torch with her. Perhaps our man meant only to frighten her but it is my hypothesis that she recognised him and he had to kill her. He strangled her and left her lying there, having taken the keys.”

“But how did he leave that shed without leaving a trail, Pons?”

“He did leave a trail, Parker. It is something everyone has ignored, because they were reading the signs from preconceived ideas. The murderer simply walked backwards from that shed, taking his time, leaving a trail that apparently led to the building but did not return.”

“You cannot mean it, Pons!”

“I do mean it, Parker. The murderer was a tall man but it is rather difficult to walk backwards, if you have ever tried it, and the prints formed are not very far apart, which gives the impression, as he no doubt intended, that a smaller man had made them. One is forced to take short steps when walking backwards, particularly in snow, to avoid overbalancing.”

The Inspector seemed to have been struck dumb, but I noticed his big hands were knotting and unknotting, and Sergeant Chatterton’s face was a mask of amazement.

“Just consider the scene, Parker. It is pitch-black. The Pines is an isolated property and our man had all the time in the world under the severe weather conditions prevailing. He was unlikely to be disturbed, according to his reasoning. It was about six o’clock and though it was unknown to him, Mr. Watling was not due at The Pines for another hour.

“It would have taken him about ten minutes to make those carefully spaced tracks back to the front door of the house. He would then have removed the wellingtons and gone in in his stockinged feet. Allow another five minutes for him to open the safe, remove the ten thousand pounds, leaving the key in the lock as we have seen, and then regain the porch to resume the rubber boots. Another five minutes to retrace his way, backward, down the main drive — remember it is pitch-black night and such bleak weather that there is unlikely to be anyone about — and on to the main road. Once there he could walk freely, confident that the foot-prints would be swallowed up in the traffic ruts and the prints of other passers-by.”

“Admirable, Pons,” I breathed.

“Except that it is unproven theory, Mr. Pons,” said Inspector Rossiter quietly.

“For the moment only, Inspector. You must admit that it is the only possible explanation which fits the facts as we have them.”

“It is ingenious, certainly, Mr. Pons, but you have not yet put a name to this man who waited so patiently in that shed.”

“I shall come to it in a moment, Inspector. I find it a mistake to spoil one’s dramatic effects by hurrying. There is a touch of the artist in me, and I must be allowed my little histrionic flourishes from time to time. Where was I?”

I smiled.

“You know very well, Pons. The murderer had regained the main road. But how did you know that the Inspector might not have been right? Could not the murderer have got out the back of that shed and gone over on to the adjoining farmland?”

Pons shook his head.

“I examined the terrain most carefully when we arrived on the ground, Parker. Firstly, there was nothing but the indentations of birds’ claws on the ground nearby, together with the distinctive pads of a dog-fox. No human being had traversed that ground since the snow began at three o’clock and we know that Miss Schneider was still alive at five, when Mrs. Rose and Mrs. Hambleton left The Pines. Secondly, anyone who had used the loose planks at the back of the shed as a means of egress would have plunged straight down to the surface of the icy river, the overhang is so steep. I certainly agree with Inspector Rossiter there.”

The stocky police officer gave a wry smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Pons.”

“Not at all, Inspector. I have great respect for your talents. You will go far but you need that extra touch of imagination which our murderer has displayed in this case. If we are to believe your own reports of Mr. Watling’s statement, there was a used whisky glass on the table when he arrived here. Miss Schneider did not drink whisky. That told me the real murderer had already committed the crime when he rifled the safe. He took the drink to steady his nerves after that long ordeal in the shed. He is a pathetic figure, really, despite his odious crime.”

“Do you mean to say you knew all this from the beginning, Pons?”

My companion shook his head.

“No, Parker. That would be expecting too much. It came to me in stages. But combined with the baffling tracks in the snow, and the wood carefully hidden behind the study door, it made a link which combined with other details to produce a convincing picture of what had happened that night. The snow was the decisive factor, of course; without it, he would never have been caught.”

Solar Pons paused and looked reflectively over toward Sergeant Chatterton near the door.

“My mind was turned in a certain direction quite early on. Boots which did not fit, valuable trees being cut and an employee who feared for his livelihood.”

“You do not mean the labourer at the farm next door, Pons!”

“Pray allow me to finish, Parker. I have not yet got to the point. I made a few inquiries in the neighbourhood this morning and paid two visits. One was to Colchester, to a well-known boot and shoe establishment in that town. The manager told me that my man had bought a pair of size eight and a half boots there on the Monday morning.”

“Boots, Pons? What does all this mean? I confess I am utterly at sea. What have boots and trees cut and disgruntled employees to do with it?”

Solar Pons smiled.

“And then,” he said, “we have old Angus Crathie’s boots themselves.”

He tore open the brown-paper parcel on the table to reveal a pair of well-worn wellingtons. He turned them over, displaying the ribbed soles.

“Here, as we see, are the distinctive cleats which made those foot-prints on the drive and in the garden. They are size sevens, as I have determined, and here are old Angus’ initials in indelible ink on the linings. An attempt has been made to erase them but the outlines are unmistakable.”

“But where did you get them, Pons?”

“Why, from the murderer’s premises, Parker. Is it not time that you told us all about it, Mr. Cornfield!”

-8-

There was a murmur of shock and anger in the room and the tall, lean form of the farmer was out of his chair. He gave a howl of pain and was then struggling vainly in the brawny arms of Sergeant Chatterton. Solar Pons strolled over and looked coolly into the farmer’s suddenly enraged features.

“I think we will have a look at his boots, Parker. Careful how you take them off. Just as I thought. Blisters when wearing boots a size and a half too large can be extremely painful!”

There was a howl as I took the right-hand boot from Cornfield’s foot; flat sheets of newspaper, bundled round his socks, tumbled out and when I had removed the sock itself several large and obviously painful blisters were revealed.

Cornfield thrust himself away from the Sergeant and folded his arms. There was a tragic dignity about him as his burning eyes looked defiantly into Pons’.

“Prove it, Mr. Pons,” he said through his teeth. “You will have a deal of difficulty.”

Solar Pons shook his head, ignoring the amazed eyes of Inspector Rossiter.

“I think not, Mr. Cornfield. I removed old Angus’ boots from your own farm premises. Not one of your labourers could get them on, though I asked each in turn. You put them there yourself after the murder, not trusting yourself to throw them into the stream, in case they came to light. Rubber boots are hard and difficult to burn and you could not risk hiding them in the farmhouse where your staff might find them. So you placed them in the line of labourers’ gumboots in a small room off your cowshed where they might have remained unnoticed, had I not known what I was looking for.”

“I will summons you for trespass!”

“I think not, Mr. Cornfield. I was invited in freely by your head cowman, who was most affable and informative about your affairs. I remembered what your labourer had said about times being hard the day I arrived here and I naturally noticed you were felling all your best timber to provide cash to pay your debts. But when your man told me you had only today paid up arrears of wages and had prepared cheques for other outstanding bills, I drew the obvious conclusion. We can easily find the money by searching your premises but it will go more easily with you if you make a clean breast of it.”

The farmer stared sullenly at Pons for a moment or two, ignoring the incredulous and shocked stares of the other people in the room.

He licked his lips once or twice and then said in a low voice, ‘Very well, Mr. Pons. You are an extremely clever man. It was just my luck to draw you. But I am not sorry about the old woman. She deserved to die. And she drove me to it.”

Solar Pons looked at him coolly, strange lights glinting at the back of his eyes.

“I could find it in my heart to feel sympathy for your plight, Mr. Cornfield, except for the fact that you were prepared to let an innocent young man go to the gallows in your stead.”

There was genuine anguish on Cornfield’s face as he turned to Pons.

“I would never have let it go that far, Mr. Pons.”

My companion shook his head.

“Nevertheless, we shall never know, Mr. Cornfield, shall we?”

He stared at the farmer until the latter lowered his gaze.

“You were clever and cool, but you were not clever and cool enough. You left a lot of loose ends. You took a great deal of trouble to lay that false set of foot-prints but in the lights of your own stock-yard you could not risk the absurdity of being seen to walk backwards so you had to walk normally across your own fields to your farm-house. I saw the imprint of those boots cross the field until they merged with the mass of prints made by your labourers cutting timber and burning branches. Obviously, you changed back into your ordinary boots when you felt safe from observation.

“Similarly, you were not in the yard when Mrs. Rose and Mrs. Hambleton passed the farm unusually late, at five o’clock that Saturday evening. You had that information from your own men and used it to embellish your own story, trusting to your men’s faulty recollection regarding your movements that night. You hoped they would not notice your absence, because you were in that shed waiting for Miss Schneider at five o’clock. You also made a mistake in going to Colchester to buy those boots for you were known there and the manager recognised you, though you were not a customer at his shop. You told him you wanted them for one of your men.”

“But why on earth did he want to buy those boots for, Pons!” I put in.

“Simply as an alibi, Parker. He knew the police would be looking for someone with small feet so he wore bigger boots than normal and padded them with paper. But ironically, the blisters engendered by this immediately drew my attention to his limp when he crossed the field toward us.”

Cornfield was calmer now. He re-laced his boot and sat down in his chair again. He looked at Pons musingly.

“You were right, Mr. Pons. I did it on impulse. Farmers are being squeezed dry nowadays and she was rich and would not pay me the small amount of money she owed me for the repairs to the fence. As I said, I am not sorry — only sorry that I have been found out.”

I looked across at Miss Chambers and was surprised to see her eyes brimming with tears.

“I am truly sorry for you, Mr. Cornfield,” she said softly. Inspector Rossiter came to life, clearing his throat with a heavy rasping noise.

“That is all very well, Miss Chambers, but we have a lot to do here. You will have to come to Colchester, Mr. Cornfield, where we shall take your statement and formally charge you. And we must make arrangements to release your fiancé, Miss Chambers!”

His face reddened as he turned to my companion.

“I am obliged to you, Mr. Pons. I nearly made a public fool of myself.”

“Don’t under-estimate yourself, Inspector,” said Pons. “Ninety-nine police officers out of a hundred would have taken the same line as you. And in ninety-nine cases they would have been right. We have had the good fortune to light upon the hundredth.”

The Inspector smiled ruefully.

“If you put it like that, Mr. Pons…”

He held out his hand.

“I still don’t see how you got on to it in the first place, Mr. Pons.”

“It was not so very difficult, Inspector. Mr. Cornfield was almost the only visitor who fitted the bill at The Pines on Saturday morning, long before it began to snow. Only he had the problem of one set of prints where the others, who came after the snow began, would have had two. One has simply to look at the situation from the other end.”

Pons stared moodily at the fireplace.

“Of course, it was not simply that, but it turned my mind in the right direction. Miss Chambers had already told me that the man who went to that shed had very small feet. I saw Mr. Cornfield limping across toward us and immediately paid close attention to his boots. Farmers are very tough people and do not normally have trouble with their footwear. These boots were new and I resolved to take a trip into Colchester at the earliest opportunity to see whether Mr. Cornfield had made any purchase of footwear there lately.

“When I heard Mrs. Hambleton say the old gardener had left a pair of boots in that shed and that Crathie had very small feet, I immediately saw what had happened and everything followed on from that; the wood piled behind the door; the two whisky-glasses, one used by young Watling and the other by the murderer. The remainder of the visitors to the house on Saturday could be dealt with on the basis of simple elimination, but I had to be a hundred percent sure, which is why I asked everyone to be present.”

“It was wonderful, Mr. Pons,” Miss Chambers breathed, admiration in her eyes.

Solar Pons shook his head.

“It was the wildest conjecture without substantiating proof, Miss Chambers. I took a chance by going to the farm this morning when Mr. Cornfield was otherwise occupied in the house. I had an informal chat with the head cowman and was readily given the run of the place. It did not take me long to find those boots, placed innocuously among a dozen others in a spot where all the labourers kept their working things. I had banked on him not being able to burn or otherwise dispose of them in the short time available. Like many guilty men he was torn in his mind over the best way to get rid of those incriminating items of evidence. When I heard Cornfield was settling up his men’s arrears of wages I was certain I had my man.”

“A good thing for us,” put in Inspector Rossiter bluffly. “All right, Sergeant. I think we can all return to our normal duties now.”

The room slowly emptied leaving only Pons, myself, Miss Chambers and the two women.

“Well, Mrs. Hambleton,” said Pons, with a wry smile. “Do you still think The Hound of Hell responsible for all this?” The housekeeper had a wary look in her eyes.

“Your gifts are remarkable, Mr. Pons, and I shall never forget what has taken place here today. But you cannot gainsay the fact that the thing has brought tragedy and grief to those who owned it.”

Pons shook his head.

“You are confusing cause and effect, Mrs. Hambleton. That statue was incidental. It was owned by wealthy and grasping people to whom such things would have happened whether the piece had existed or not.”

He turned to our client and bowed slightly.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Chambers. I was not implying that Mr. Watling was anything but the victim of an unfortunate coincidence.”

“What will you do with the statue now, Miss Chambers?” I asked.

The girl shivered.

“The first thing is to get poor Rollo released and set an early date for our marriage,” she said firmly. “Then we must see about the money and the estate. If I have anything to do with it The Hound of Hell will be one of the first things sold.”

“Bravo!” said Mrs. Rose, the cook, drawing closer to our little group.

“I am sure Mr. Wading would wish the two of you to stay to look after the house until it is let or sold,” Miss Chambers told the woman. “And we will see to it that you are properly paid, as well as settling up arrears in a way which is both fair and equitable.”

“That is very generous of you, Miss,” said Mrs. Hambleton, a faint flush suffusing her features.

“It is only right,” said Miss Chambers firmly. “And we shall make sure all the old lady’s outstanding debts are paid.” She held out her hand to Solar Pons.

“I shall never forget what you have done, Mr. Pons. And in the matter of fees…”

“I am sure whatever you and Mr. Watling decide will be fit and proper,” said Pons decisively. “I am amply repaid by being involved in one of the most interesting cases I have ever come across.”

He turned back to me.

“Eh, Parker?”

“Most certainly, Pons. It will figure largely in my written notes of your cases.”