August Derleth - The Solar Pons Omnibus Volume 1

by August Derleth

  Snawley raised his head. "You are right, Mr. Pons. Pip! Pip!" he shouted, as if Pip Scratch were not standing behind him. "Put on your coat and bring out the cab. Drive the gentlemen home!"

  Our client and his visitor accompanied us to the door and saw us into the hansom cab Pip Scratch had brought down the driveway from the coach house.

  "Merry Christmas, gentlemen!" cried Pons, leaning out.

  "It burns my lips," said Snawley with a wry smile. "But I will say it."

  He wished us both a Merry Christmas, and then, arm in arm, the two collectors turned and went a trifle unsteadily back into the house.

  "This has been a rare Christmas, Parker, a rare Christmas, indeed," mused Pons, as we drove toward our quarters through the dark London streets in our client's hansom cab.

  "I doubt we'll ever see its like again," I agreed.

  "Do not deny us hope, Parker," replied Pons. He cocked his head in my direction and looked at me quizzically. "Did I not see you eyeing the clock with some apprehension in the course of the past half hour?"

  "You did, indeed," I admitted. "I feared —I had the conviction, indeed I did —that the three of them would vanish at the stroke of midnight!"

  The Adventure of the Haunted Library

  WHEN I OPENED the door of our lodgings one summer day during the third year of our joint tenancy of No. 7B, Praed Street, I found my friend Solar Pons standing with one arm on the mantel, waiting with a thin edge of impatience either upon my arrival, or that of someone else, and ready to go out, for his deerstalker lay close by.

  "You're just in time, Parker," he said, " — if the inclination moves you —to join me in another of my little inquiries. This time, evidently into the supernatural."

  "The supernatural!" I exclaimed, depositing my bag.

  "So it would seem." He pointed to a letter thrown carelessly upon the table.

  I picked it up and was immediately aware of the fine quality of the paper and the embossed name: Mrs. Margaret Ashcroft. Her communication was brief.

  "DEAR MR. PONS,

  "I should be extremely obliged if you could see your way clear to call upon me some time later today or tomorrow, at your convenience, to investigate a troublesome matter which hardly seems to be within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. I do believe the library is haunted. Mr. Carnacki says it is not, but I can hardly doubt the evidence of my own senses."

  Her signature was followed by a Sydenham address.

  "I've sent for a cab," said Pons.

  "Who is Mr. Carnacki?" I asked.

  "A self-styled psychic investigator. He lives in Chelsea, and has had some considerable success, I am told."

  "A charlatan!"

  "If he were, he would hardly have turned down our client. What do you make of it, Parker? You know my methods."

  I studied the letter which I still held, while Pons waited to hear how much I had learned from his spontaneous and frequent lectures in ratiocination. "If the quality of the paper is any indication, the lady is not without means," I said.

  "Capital!"

  "Unless she is an heiress, she is probably of middle age or over."

  "Go on," urged Pons, smiling.

  "She is upset because, though she begins well, she rapidly becomes very unclear."

  "And provocative," said Pons. "Who could resist a ghost in a library, eh?"

  "But what do you make of it?" I pressed him.

  "Well, much the same as you," he said generously. "But I rather think the lady is not a young heiress. She would hardly be living in Sydenham, if she were. No, I think we shall find that she recently acquired a house there and has not been in residence very long. Something is wrong with the library."

  "Pons, you don't seriously think it's haunted?"

  "Do you believe in ghosts, Parker?"

  "Certainly not!"

  "Do I detect the slightest hesitation in your answer?" He chuckled. "Ought we not to say, rather, we believe there are certain phenomena which science as yet has not correctly explained or interpreted?" He raised his head suddenly, listening. "I believe that is our cab drawing to the kerb."

  A moment later, the sound of a horn from below verified Pons's deduction.

  Pons clapped his deerstalker to his head and we were off.

  Our client's house was built of brick, three storeys in height, with dormers on the gable floor. It was large and spreading, and built on a knoll, partly into the slope of the earth, though it seemed at first glance to crown the rise there. It was plainly of late Victorian construction, and, while it was not shabby, it just escaped looking quite genteel. Adjacent houses were not quite far enough away from it to give the lawn and garden the kind of spaciousness required to set the house off to its best advantage in a neighbourhood which was slowly declining from its former status.

  Our client received us in the library. Mrs. Ashcroft was a slender, diminutive woman with flashing blue eyes and whitening hair. She wore an air of fixed determination which her smile at the sight of Pons did not diminish.

  "Mr. Pons, I was confident that you would come," she greeted us.

  She acknowledged Pons's introduction of me courteously, and went on, "This is the haunted room."

  "Let us just hear your account of what has happened from the

  beginning, Mrs. Ashcroft," suggested Pons.

  "Very well." She sat for a moment trying to decide where to begin her narrative. "I suppose, Mr. Pons, it began about a month ago. Mrs. Jenkins, a housekeeper I had engaged, was cleaning late in the library when she heard someone singing. It seemed to come, she said, 'from the books.' Something about a 'dead man.' It faded away. Two nights later she woke after a dream and went downstairs to get a sedative from the medicine cabinet. She heard something in the library. She thought perhaps I was indisposed and went to the library. But the room, of course, was dark. However, there was a shaft of moonlight in the room —it was bright outside, and therefore a kind of illumination was in the library, too —and in that shaft, Mr. Pons, Mrs. Jenkins believed she saw the bearded face of an old man that seemed to glare fiercely at her. It was only for a moment. Then Mrs. Jenkins found the switch and turned up the light. Of course, there was no one in the library but she. It was enough for her; she was so sure that she had seen a ghost, that next morning, after all the windows and doors were found locked and bolted, she gave notice. I was not entirely sorry to see them go —her husband worked as gardener —because I suspected Jenkins of taking food from the cellars and the refrigerator for their married daughter. That is not an uncommon problem with servants in England, I am told."

  "I should have thought you a native, Mrs. Ashcroft," said Pons. "You've been in the Colonies?"

  "Kenya, yes. But I was born here. It was for reasons of sentiment that I took this house. I should have chosen a better district. But I was extremely poor in Sydenham as a child, and somehow the houses here represented the epitome of splendour. When the agent notified me that this one was to be sold, I couldn't resist taking it. But the tables are turned —the houses have come down in the world and I have come up, and there are so many things I miss —the hawkers and the carts, for which cars are no substitute, the rumble of the trains since the Nunhead-Crystal Palace Line has been discontinued, and all in all, I fear my sentiments have led me to make an ill-advised choice. The ghost, of course, is only the crowning touch."

  "You believe in him then, Mrs. Ashcroft?"

  "I've seen him, Mr. Pons." She spoke as matter-of-factly as if she were speaking of some casual natural phenomenon. "It was a week ago. I wasn't entirely satisfied that Mrs. Jenkins had not seen something. It could have been a hallucination. If she had started awake from a dream and fancied she saw something in their room why, yes, I could easily have believed it a transitory hallucination, which might occur commonly enough after a dream. But Mrs. Jenkins had been awake enough to walk downstairs, take a sedative, and start back up when she heard something in the library. So the dream had had time enough in which to wear off. I
am myself not easily frightened. My late husband and I lived in Kenya, and some of the Kikuyu were unfriendly.

  "Mr. Pons, I examined the library carefully. As you see, shelving covers most of the walls. I had very few personal books to add —the rest were here. I bought the house fully furnished, as the former owner had died and there were no near heirs. That is, there was a brother, I understand, but he was in Rhodesia, and had no intention of returning to England. He put the house up for sale, and my agents, Messrs. Harwell and Chamberlin, in Lordship Lane, secured it for me. The books are therefore the property of the former owner, a Mr. Howard Brensham, who appears to have been very widely read, for there are collections ranging from early British poetry to crime and detective fiction. But that is hardly pertinent. My own books occupy scarcely two shelves over there — all but a few have dust-jackets, as you see, Mr. Pons. Well, my examination of the library indicated that the position of these books as I had placed them had been altered. It seemed to me that they had been handled, perhaps even read. They are not of any great consequence — recent novels, some work by Proust and Mauriac in French editions, an account of life in Kenya, and the like. It was possible that one of the servants had become interested in them; I did not inquire. Nevertheless, I became very sensitive and alert about the library. One night last week —Thursday, I believe —while I lay reading late, in my room, I distinctly heard a book or some such object fall in this room.

  "I got out of bed, took my torch, and crept down the stairs in the dark. Mr. Pons, I sensed someone's or something's moving about below. I could feel the disturbance of the air at the foot of the stairs where something had passed. I went directly to the library and from the threshold of that door over there I turned my torch into the room and put on its light. Mr. Pons, I saw a horrifying thing. I saw the face of an old man with a matted beard and with wild unkempt hair starting outward from his head; it glared fiercely, menacingly at me. I admit that I faltered and fell back; the torch almost fell from my hands. Nevertheless, I summoned enough courage to snap on the overhead light. Mr. Pons —there was no one in the room beside myself. I stood in the doorway. No one had passed me. Yet, I swear it, I had seen precisely the same apparition that Mrs. Jenkins had described! It was there for one second —in the next it was gone —as if the very books had swallowed it up.

  "Mr. Pons, I am not an imaginative woman, and I am not given to hallucinations. I saw what I had seen; there was no question of that. I went around at once to make certain that the windows and doors were locked; all were; nothing had been tampered with. I had seen something, and everything about it suggested a supernatural apparition. I applied to Mr. Harwell. He told me that Mr. Bren- sham had never made any reference to anything out of the ordinary about the house. He had personally known Mr. Brensham's old uncle, Captain Jason Brensham, from whom he had inherited the house, and the Captain had never once complained of the house. He admitted that it did not seem to be a matter for the regular police, and mentioned Mr. Carnacki as well as yourself. I'm sure you know Mr. Carnacki, whose forte is psychic investigation. He came —and as nearly as I can describe it, he felt the library, and assured me that there were no supernatural forces at work here. So I applied to you, Mr. Pons, and I do hope you will lay the ghost for me."

  Pons smiled almost benignly, which lent his handsome, feral face a briefly gargoylesque expression. "My modest powers, I fear, do not permit me to feel the presence of the supernatural, but I must admit to some interest in your little problem," he said thoughtfully. "Let me ask you, on the occasion on which you saw the apparition —last Thursday—were you aware of anyone's breathing?"

  "No, Mr. Pons. I don't believe ghosts are held to breathe."

  "Ah, Mrs. Ashcroft, in such matters I must defer to your judgment —you appear to have seen a ghost; I have not seen one." His eyes danced. "Let us concentrate for a moment on its disappearance. Was it accompanied by any sound?"

  Our client sat for a long moment in deep thought. "I believe it was, Mr. Pons," she said at last. "Now that I think of it."

  "Can you describe it?"

  "As best I can recall, it was something like the sound a book dropped on the carpet might make."

  "But there was no book on the floor when you turned the light on?"

  "I do not remember that there was."

  "Will you show me approximately where the spectre was when you saw it?"

  She got up with alacrity, crossed to her right, and stood next to the shelving there. She was in a position almost directly across from the entrance to the library from the adjacent room; a light flashed on from the threshold would almost certainly strike the shelving there.

  "You see, Mr. Pons —there isn't even a window in this wall through which someone could have escaped if it were unlocked."

  "Yes, yes," said Pons with an absent air. "Some ghosts vanish without sound, we are told, and some in a thunderclap. And this one with the sound of a book dropped upon the carpet!" He sat for a few moments, eyes closed, his long, tapering fingers tented before him, touching his chin occasionally. He opened his eyes again and asked, "Has anything in the house —other than your books —been disturbed, Mrs. Ashcroft?"

  "If you mean my jewelry or the silver —no, Mr. Pons."

  "A ghost with a taste for literature! There are indeed all things under the sun. The library has of course been cleaned since the visitation?"

  "Every Saturday, Mr. Pons."

  "Today is Thursday —a week since your experience. Has anything taken place since then, Mrs. Ashcroft?"

  "Nothing, Mr. Pons."

  "If you will excuse me," he said, coming to his feet, "I would like to examine the room."

  Thereupon he began that process of intensive examination which never ceased to amaze and amuse me. He took the position that our client had just left to return to her chair, and stood, I guessed, fixing directions. He gazed at the high windows along the south wall; I concluded that he was estimating the angle of a shaft of moonlight and deducing that the ghost, as seen by Mrs. Jenkins, had been standing at or near the same place when it was observed. Having satisfied himself, he gave his attention to the floor, first squatting there, then coming to his knees and crawling about. Now and then he picked something off the carpet and put it into one of the tiny envelopes he habitually carried. He crept all along the east wall, went around the north and circled the room in this fashion, while our client watched him with singular interest, saying nothing and making no attempt to conceal her astonishment. He finished at last, and got to his feet once more, rubbing his hands together.

  "Pray tell me, Mrs. Ashcroft, can you supply a length of thread of a kind that is not too tensile, that will break readily?"

  "What colour, Mr. Pons?"

  "Trust a lady to think of that!" he said, smiling. "Colour is of no object, but if you offer a choice, I prefer black."

  "I believe so. Wait here."

  Our client rose and left the library.

  "Are you expecting to catch a ghost with thread, Pons?" I asked.

  "Say rather I expect to test a phenomenon."

  "That is one of the simplest devices I have ever known you to use."

  "Is it not?" he agreed, nodding. "I submit, however, that the simple is always preferable to the complex."

  Mrs. Ashcroft returned, holding out a reel of black thread. "Will this do, Mr. Pons?"

  Pons took it, unwound a little of the thread, and pulled it apart readily. "Capital!" he answered. "This is adequate."

  He walked swiftly over to the north wall, took a book off the third shelf, which was slightly over two feet from the floor, and tied the thread around it. Then he restored the book to its place, and walked away, unwinding the reel, until he reached the south wall, where he tautened the thread and tied the end around a book there. He now had an almost invisible thread that reached from north to south across the library at a distance of about six feet from the east wall, and within the line of the windows.

  He returned the reel of thread to ou
r client. "Now, then, can we be assured that no one will enter the library for a day or two? Perhaps the Saturday cleaning can be dispensed with?"

  "Of course it can, Mr. Pons," said Mrs. Ashcroft, clearly mystified.

  "Very well, Mrs. Ashcroft. I trust you will notify me at once if the thread is broken —or if any other untoward event occurs. In the meantime, there are a few little inquiries I want to make."

  Our client bade us farewell with considerably more perplexity than she had displayed in her recital of the curious events which had befallen her.

  Once outside, Pons looked at his watch. "I fancy we may just have time to catch Mr. Harwell at his office, which is not far down Sydenham Hill and so within walking distance." He gazed at me, his eyes twinkling. "Coming, Parker?"

  I fell into step at his side, and for a few moments we walked in silence, Pons striding along with his long arms swinging loosely at his sides, his keen eyes darting here and there, as if in perpetual and merciless search of facts with which to substantiate his deductions.

  I broke the silence between us. "Pons, you surely don't believe in Mrs. Ashcroft's ghost?"

  "What is a ghost?" he replied. "Something seen. Not necessarily supernatural. Agreed?"

  "Agreed," I said. "It may be hallucination, illusion, some natural phenomenon misinterpreted."

  "So the question is not about the reality of ghosts, but, did our client see a ghost or did she not? She believes she did. We are willing to believe that she saw something. Now, it was either a ghost or it was not a ghost."

  "Pure logic."

  "Let us fall back upon it. Ghost or no ghost, what is its motivation?"

  "I thought that plain as a pikestaff," I said dryly. "The purpose is to frighten Mrs. Ashcroft away from the house."

  "I submit few such matters are plain as a pikestaff. Why?"

  "Someone wishes to gain possession of the house."