August Derleth - The Solar Pons Omnibus Volume 1
Page 8
"Aha, Pons!" I cried, "you were anticipating someone else!"
"Say rather I am," he replied, a smile touching his lips. "I could hardly mistake that familiar tread of yours for anyone else's."
"It is not fit for beasts outside, to say nothing of men," I said, shrugging out of my raincoat. "Who but a doctor would be out on a night like this?"
"Or a policeman," added Pons, with a dry chuckle. "I daresay you have heard me speak of my brother, Bancroft?"
"It is he who is in the Foreign Office?"
"Yes, he holds a position which is apparently as important as its nature is ambiguous. He is about to honour our humble dwelling with his presence. Since he is devoted above all else to his physical comfort, it requires no great intelligence to divine that only a matter of marked significance would bring him out on such a night. From there it is but a step to the conclusion that the matter is at least quasi-official, for no personal concern would move Bancroft sufficiently to venture against such weather. I confess I anticipate his arrival; I have spent a dull day adding to the scrapbooks, and puzzles on paper have no such attraction as the problem in life."
Even as he spoke, the door to the sitting-room opened noiselessly and disclosed a tall, heavy, almost massive man, who might in physical appearance have been an inflated replica of my companion, save that his eyes were rather sleepy in their expression than keen, like Solar Pons's, and his mouth was proud and sensuous; withal, he was an impressive figure of a man as he stood for a moment on the threshold before coming forward without sound, lightly, into the sitting-room.
"At your favourite pastime, eh, Solar?" he murmured with amused tolerance.
He crossed the room and appropriated Pons's own chair, letting himself down into it and promptly sprawling at his ease, stretching his legs toward the hearth. He moved with remarkable grace for so large a man.
"I fancy I am not wide of the mark," said Pons. "I believe you have not met my companion, Dr. Lyndon Parker. My brother, Bancroft."
Bancroft gazed languidly in my direction, but his air of the casual did not conceal the alertness behind. "A medical man. Back from an obstetrical case within the hour, I see. Your cuffs are still wet with rain. And babies carry with them a singularly lingering aroma, I have often observed, Solar."
"I have never been aware of it," I said.
"Of course not. You exist in these auras, doctor; one would not expect you to be aware of them. My brother, however, delights in these little conclusions which are so effective because they are devoid of the simple intermediate steps. The average listener never fails to be impressed at his deductions because he is himself too slack-witted to follow the peregrinations of my brother's nimble thoughts. If I were to tell you, furthermore, that you had just delivered a nine-pound boy to a dark-haired woman in her late thirties in a comparatively easy delivery, which you had expected to be difficult, you would no doubt be amazed."
"I would indeed," I said in astonishment.
"Yet it is perfectly simple," continued Bancroft, with a twinkle in his blue eyes. "For the delivery was made to the wife of one of our officials in the consular service and a report of it duly reached our office just before I set out for these quarters. That, I submit, is evidence of the triumph of instruction over deduction, but my brother would go through a comprehensive recital of each little clue —the long dark hair adhering to your trousers, the contented satisfaction so evident on your features, and so on —until he had reduced the whole to such patent absurdity that you could not help being disappointed in yourself for having failed to draw similar conclusions and thus, of necessity, angry at Solar for having so underscored your manifest shortcomings."
"I can hardly believe you came through wind and rain to instruct Parker," said Pons.
"No, I did not," agreed Bancroft amiably. "I came on a very different mission indeed." As he spoke, he took out a gold watch and consulted it gravely. "I am sorry to disturb your comfort, but I must take you out in this weather; I fear there is no alternative. I want you to see Ricoletti."
"Is he unable to come here?" inquired Pons.
"Ah, forgive me. I should have said 'view.' He will not know you are seeing him. He is in our cryptography department at the Foreign Office, and I have arranged matters so that he will be leaving his office within a quarter of an hour. I have a cab downstairs; if you hurry, we can just make it."
"Pray do not expect me to recount his life history from the brief glance we will have of him running through wind and rain to his car," said Pons, stepping from his bedroom slippers.
"You will have ample time to view him, weather or no," retorted Bancroft imperturbably.
In a few minutes we were on our way to Whitehall. We drove in silence, Bancroft with his chin resting on his hands, folded over his cane, his eyes dwelling on the street before our cab, Solar Pons in the familiar attitude of contemplation, his chin sunk upon his chest, his deerstalker drawn down over his eyes.
Bancroft Pons had given the driver detailed instructions and in a short while the cab drew up opposite the Foreign Office building in Parliament Street. Lights still burned in the building, despite the lateness of the hour, for it was now nine o'clock by the booming of Big Ben, the notes loud in the wet, windy night. The rain was abating, though the wind blew as violently as ever. Three or four cars were parked in the vicinity, one of them directly before the Foreign Office building, with a driver sitting at the wheel.
"That is his car," whispered Bancroft. Peering up at the building, he added, "There. His light has gone out. He will be along in a few moments, and you will have an excellent opportunity to see him when he crosses to his car; there is adequate light there."
We sat waiting silently for a few moments more. Then Bancroft touched his brother's arm and murmured, "Ricoletti."
"Ah," said Pons, "a deformity of the right pedal extremity. A clubfoot!"
A short, thin, sallow-faced man came from the building and made his way under the brilliant street-lamps toward the kerb. He moved with almost agonizing slowness, aided by a cane, buffeted by the wind, and impeded by a heavy briefcase he carried, dragging himself across the pavement with patent effort.
"A native Briton," said Pons.
"Born in London in 1868 of Italian parents," said Bancroft.
"He has been in foreign service."
"Consular. In the West Indies."
"How long ago?"
"Eleven years. He is now fifty-three."
"There is obviously no question of his loyalty."
"None," assented Bancroft.
"Very well, then," said Pons. "He is a conscientious, able servant of His Majesty's Government. He is sufficiently moneyed to enable him to own a Daimler and support a chauffeur, as well as, presumably, a house in the suburbs."
"Hampstead. He lives on the edge of the Heath in relative seclusion."
"Nevertheless, the Foreign Office has uncovered some reason for concern and, since you have stirred yourself to inquire into it, Bancroft, I have no doubt there is a valid basis for such inquiry."
"My dear Solar, you are unusually verbose. Come."
The Daimler had driven off with the deformed Ricoletti; it was out of sight beyond the corner of the street when we left the car and crossed to enter the Foreign Office building, where Bancroft was instantly recognized by the guards there, and we were passed through. He led the way to the lift and we were taken up several flights before we debouched upon one of the floors above. Bancroft went directly to a front office, which he opened by the use of three different passkeys, to reveal an austere little room, brilliantly lit at the touch of a button.
The room was devoid of everything but the steel desk, a filing cabinet, three chairs, and a wall shelf of apparatus clearly designed to be of use in the research which Ricoletti did for his government. A wastepaper-basket stood beneath the opening of the desk.
"Spare to austerity," murmured Pons. "Mr. Ricoletti is not given to ostentation nor is he a slave to the comforts of the flesh."
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"He lives like a Spartan," agreed Bancroft. "But we will return to him later. Pray consider the room. How readily do you believe it might be entered?"
"It would not be easy," said Pons. He strode to the single window it contained and looked down. "The window is all but impossible. The door has a triple lock. The desk has a similar sequence of locks."
"Yet it was entered last night. And Ricoletti's desk was opened. Only a purely fortuitous circumstance revealed that fact to us, for nothing whatever was taken and there was subsequently no evidence of the slightest disturbance."
"Except in the Foreign Office," said Pons dryly.
"The affair reflects no credit upon our operations," admitted Bancroft with a grimace. "Yet there is no occasion for any alarm. It is true, up to three days ago Ricoletti was at work on the deciphering of a new code recently put in use by the Japanese War Office, as well as at the construction of a new code for the Admiralty. Both might have been of interest to someone outside, particularly the Admiralty code. But all work on the Admiralty code was stopped three days ago, and all papers removed from Ricoletti's office, and he had decoded the Japanese cipher two days past. So there were no papers of serious moment to be had in his desk last night."
"What was the incident which caused the Admiralty code to be withdrawn from Ricoletti?" asked Pons shrewdly.
Bancroft smiled. "Elementary, my dear Solar. I shall come to that in good time. Let us first consider the incident of last night. Entrance was effected between two and three o'clock in the morning. The single guard was summoned to the street by a diversion — a woman's cry for help. He was certainly not away from his post for more than two minutes. Yet in that time someone entered the building and Ricoletti's office. The guard presently suspected that something might have been designed to take him from his post, and he began a systematic search of the building.
"When he came to Ricoletti's room, he flashed his light cursorily across the desk. He swears that he saw sitting there a horrible beast with long black hair and a bulbous, warty face, so terrible of aspect that he stumbled backward, his torch fell or was knocked from his hand, and in his shocked confusion, he was struck a blow on the temple which temporarily knocked him out. He says that his light disclosed papers on the desk, but when he came to and put on the overhead lamp, all was in order in the room. There was nothing whatever to indicate that anyone had been here since Ricoletti left. Of course, he reported the matter at once. We were over here within the hour; we went through the room and Ricoletti's papers with the greatest diligence. We made one disturbing discovery, and that, too, was in the realm of the conjectural, as was the guard's experience."
"What was it?"
"A faint odour. Faint enough to be almost imaginary. Of civet." Bancroft shrugged. "The guard spoke of a beast, an animal. The odour gave tenuous confirmation. Now, the whole tale is incredible, and has the sound of a perfervid imagination. But I call to mind one of your own maxims, Solar—that the most prosaic matters may be most untrue, and the most incredible be true. Moreover, there was an incident which took place three days ago, as you deduced. As it happened, I was in an adjoining office at the time.
"Ricoletti had just come to his office that morning and had begun to go through his post. His door was standing open. He had been carrying on a conversation with McAlester, who is in the office across the corridor, and McAlester had just come to the door in time to see Ricoletti standing at his desk, as pale as death, holding in his hand a personal letter. McAlester was just about to ask Ricoletti what the matter was, when Ricoletti collapsed in a swoon, from which we could not rouse him for ten minutes. I heard him fall, I heard McAlester's cry, I was there in a moment.
"The letter was instantly photographed and replaced, since it appeared to concern a personal matter. I examined the envelope; it had been posted in Limehouse, but there was no address, neither on the envelope nor on the letter. The letter, however, appears to be perfectly innocuous; our experts have been over it with no result; it is certainly not in code, and a cryptogram has eluded them. I have a copy of it here, together with a dossier on Ricoletti. Ricoletti, of course, accounted for his swoon by saying that he had suffered a great disappointment. Will you look at this letter?"
He took it from a manila envelope in his pocket and flattened the copy on the desk. Pons and I bent above it. The letter was written in a loose, irregular script.
"London, 17 th Sept.
"DEAR RICO,
"£1,000 does not seem to me quite enough for so substantial a property. I spoke to C. and he did not think so either. After all, the house is in excellent condition, and it has all the seclusion you desire —far more than you may now be occupying.
"In a week or so C. and I will have an architect appraise the property with more detailed care, for there may quite possibly have been errors made which ought to be rectified. There are so many factors which enter into a picture like this and no one ought to suffer at another's expense.
"Ten days from now should see the matter settled in one way or another. Or would you prefer to select an architect yourself? It would be perfectly agreeable to us, you know, though I don't know that the picture would be much changed.
"I am sure that whatever your decision will be, C. and I will go along with it. We just feel at the present that the price you have offered is not enough. Perhaps we could compromise at £1,200? Or does that seem too much?
"The reverse of the wainscoting in the living-room, about which we talked, shows that the wood is ash. The paint can be removed, but of course there is no telling what the removal of the paint will show. The reverse is in good condition, however.
"Address C. in care of Guy's if you want to write to him directly.
"He has as much interest in this as I have, perhaps more, though his principal concerns are elsewhere nowadays. "Soon I hope to see you and settle the matter. I know you want the house preserved until you can make a decision.
"Sincerely, A."
"It seems anything but a profoundly disturbing letter," observed Bancroft. "Yet its effect on Ricoletti was indescribable. He destroyed it immediately on returning to consciousness, unaware that we had had it photographed. He was offered the rest of the day as a holiday, but he refused. From that moment he was under observation, but this revealed nothing, for Ricoletti is a man of methodical habits from which he does not deviate. Nevertheless, the
Foreign Office cannot afford to take any chance whatsoever, and until we can be certain that this affair does not concern his work, we must be vigilant. If, indeed, it is personal, we need not look into it; that it may not be is indicated by the nocturnal visitor of the early hours of this morning. Let me tell you something about Ricoletti."
"Later," said Pons. "Give me a few moments to examine the room."
"Very well."
Pons began an intensive scrutiny of desk, window, and door, crawling about on the floor beneath the desk. Bancroft picked up the letter, folded it once more, and restored it to the envelope; he viewed Pons's activities with something akin to patient tolerance, glancing at his watch from time to time.
"Come, come, Solar, we are wasting time," he protested at last. "We have been over the room with every instrument Scotland Yard has at its disposal. There was nothing to be discovered. We have dust from Hampstead, which is hardly unexpected. We have lint from McAlester's trousers; that is not an earth-shaking discovery."
Pons, I saw, was inclined to agree. He came to his feet.
"But you will want to know who had keys to this room and Ricoletti's desk," continued Bancroft. "The guard, to the room only. Ricoletti, of course, and the Chief to both room and desk. There are thus but two sets of keys for the desk, three for the door. The Chiefs keys had not been disturbed —unless they were taken and returned. The remaining possibilities are evident."
"The guard's story is untrue; someone took an impression of a set of keys; or someone used Ricoletti's keys," replied Pons. "Let us begin with the guard. I will talk to him."
"Where is Ricoletti's car kept?" Pons put in.
"It is not at the house, but in a rented garage down the street a few hundred yards away and round the corner. Are you finished here?"
Pons nodded.
"Then come."
The guard was a young man, fresh-faced and manifestly eager to be helpful, though at the moment ill-at-ease and unhappy. Yet his intelligent brown eyes were alert, and his soft full lips were pursed expectantly.
"My brother wishes to ask you some questions, Mr. Stoward," said Bancroft without the formality of an introduction.
"Yes, sir."
"Your name?" asked Pons.
"Frederic Stoward."
"You've seen service, I notice. Decorated for bravery."