August Derleth - The Solar Pons Omnibus Volume 1

by August Derleth

  "It disconcerts me," I admitted.

  "Ah, Parker, if you have correctly assessed the facts in the matter, it ought to fall into place with little difficulty."

  I might have replied, but held my tongue, for General Pomfroy had caught sight of us lagging behind, and waited for us to come up to him.

  "Rum go, what!" he boomed as we came up. "The Master's in a black rage —can't say I blame him. First it was that fellow who blundered into Prince's stall, and now this drunken vagrant wandering into the field. Ought to have laws against that sort of thing."

  In this vein General Pomfroy continued until we reached Pomfroy Chase and separated to go to our quarters.

  Pons lost no time in getting out of his hunting attire and into his own clothes once more. He seemed deep in thought and paced up and down our room for a few moments. He crossed to the windows and looked down. From where I stood, I could see the hounds being brought in, and our mounts being returned to the stables. An air of sobriety prevailed, with the Whips and the kennel staff going about their business in intent silence.

  "I must go out and about," said Pons abruptly. "Are you coming?"

  "I'm sorry, Pons. I must beg off," I said. "An hour afield has given me aches I haven't had for a long time."

  Pons chuckled and left the room.

  In a few minutes I saw him walking between the stables in the general direction of the cottages. I saw, too, that both Ryan and Bannan observed him, and their attitude, even from the distance where I stood at the window, was manifestly unfriendly.

  They, like me, stood watching until Pons had passed the row of cottages and begun to walk through the open country beyond. Only then did they visibly relax.

  I was awakened from a light doze an hour later when Pons came in. His eyes were twinkling, and he stood, once again, at the windows looking down, rubbing his hands together zestfully.

  "There is nothing like a walk in the rain to stimulate logical thinking," he said.

  "I never knew you to need it," I said.

  "Ah, that is well put, Parker," responded Pons. "It is true, it is facts I went after. For instance —would it surprise you to learn that there is a pet fox kept outside Ryan's cottage?"

  "Nothing much ever surprises me when you are on the scent," I said.

  "I must say, a little nap sharpens you," said Pons, agreeably. "Are you ready for London?"

  "What!" I cried. "You are giving up?"

  "Tut, tut! One ought never to jump to conclusions. There is nothing for us to do here for the nonce. The solution of the puzzle is perfectly apparent. I shall be interested to learn what the authorities make of it. I am not disposed to intervene. Let us just get our things together and make our excuses to our host and hostess."

  We found Colonel Pomfroy and our client in the drawing-room.

  "Ah, Mr. Pons!" cried Colonel Pomfroy. "I had hoped for a word with you! I am half convinced I am the victim of some dastardly plot to ruin the Wycherly!"

  "I should not be inclined to think so, Colonel," said Pons gently. "I fancy the solution to the matter lies farther afield."

  "Mr. Pons!" cried our client. "You know it then?"

  "I hope to resolve the problem directly after the inquest," said Pons with smooth confidence.

  "You may need to come back for the inquest, sir," said Colonel Pomfroy.

  "I am aware of that. But since no representations have been made to me, I shall feel free to go. You have our address, and we are on the telephone. We expect to return for the proceedings."

  "I will have one of the cars brought around to take you to London," said the Colonel.

  Our client came to her feet. "And Captain Price?"

  "Do not be too sanguine, Mrs. Pomfroy," said Pons. "We may find him only to lose him."

  With this enigmatic statement, Pons bade our host and hostess good-day.

  For a week Pons watched the newspapers for accounts of the events at Pomfroy Chase. Reasonably good likenesses of the man who had died on the moor were published, but no one came forward to identify him, though descriptions of him were detailed and precise —"Age about 48. Height, 5 feet 9 inches. No identification. Contents of pockets: one pound and sixpence." There was a description of the poniard Pons had felt —"A thin, stiletto-like knife, evidently manufactured by hand. The blade is seven inches in length."

  "Lethal enough," commented Pons. He read further, aloud: " 'The police regret that the presence of the field eliminated any ground clues, but it is presumed that the unknown man wandered

  in from the road nearby in an intoxicated condition and sought shelter in the lee of the knoll.' " The post-mortem had disclosed that the dead man had imbibed freely of whisky some hours before his death.

  The eighth day found us once again in Cranborne, present at the inquest on the unidentified victim of the Pomfroy Hunt. Pons sat with eyes closed during the preliminary evidence, but he grew alert as soon as Dr. Paradine went into the witness-box and listened intently to the interrogation.

  The coroner opened with, "Testimony has been advanced to show that you were the first medical man on the scene, Dr. Paradine. Will you recount your findings?"

  "The dead man was lying on his right side in a foetal position. He had evidently been sleeping. A horse's hoof had crushed his left temple. The bone was broken in for a distance of two inches."

  "Was it, in your opinion, an accident?"

  "It could hardly have been anything else, sir."

  "Was death instantaneous?"

  "Practically. He was dead when I examined him."

  There followed a rather technical discussion which served only to allow Dr. Paradine the stage long enough to establish his authority. In the course of it, Pons took out the little notebook he carried, jotted something down, and passed it up to the coroner, who read it with a frown on his face. He turned then again to Dr. Paradine.

  "Doctor, you say the man was dead when you examined him. How long, in your opinion, had he been dead?"

  "It could only have been a matter of moments."

  "Then blood was still gushing from the wound?"

  Dr. Paradine opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, before he finally answered, "No, sir."

  "Would it not have been?"

  "Technically, no, if he were dead."

  "Only just dead?"

  Dr. Paradine looked uncomfortable. "Considerable blood had been spilled. There may still have been seepage from the wound."

  "Do you testify that there was?"

  "I cannot so testify," said the doctor stiffly.

  Dr. Paradine was excused and John Ryan was called.

  He came forward warily and was sworn. At the coroner's request he set forth the details of the tragedy on the day of the Hunt. The coroner listened without interruption. Once more Pons's notebook came into action. The coroner looked inquiringly at the public benches to detect, if possible, the source of the note Pons sent up before he crumpled it and threw it into a wastepaper-basket nearby.

  When Ryan had finished, the coroner asked, "Will you tell us what the hounds did, Mr. Ryan?"

  "When?" fenced Ryan.

  "At the moment they came over the knoll upon the body."

  "Why, they divided and swung around on either side of the body."

  "But the fox evidently did not?"

  Ryan sat for a few moments without answering. Then he said, "Sir, I have no knowledge of that."

  "The hounds came together again beyond the body?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "So that we are to believe the line went straight over the body?"

  "Sir, I cannot answer that."

  "A pity the hounds could not be called," commented the coroner acidly.

  Ryan's colour deepened.

  The coroner bent forward again. "Now, Mr. Ryan, in the case of the other unfortunate who was found in the stall at Pomfroy Chase, you testified that you had seen him in the grounds during the evening previous to his death. Had you also seen the man found dead on the moor before?"<
br />
  "I do not believe so," said Ryan smoothly.

  "Let me put it this way," pressed the coroner; "had you ever known him before?"

  Ryan was equal to the question which had certainly been prompted by Pons. "Sir, in my capacity as a hunt servant, I have occasion to meet many people. I could hardly be expected to remember them all."

  Ryan was excused.

  A few more perfunctory witnesses were called, and the inquest was closed.

  The verdict, not surprisingly, was "Death by misadventure."

  Pons shot a glance at Ryan and Bannan, who sat with solemn faces. But the ghost of a smile shone through on each.

  Then Pons pressed through the crowd to the street, where he sought and found Colonel and Mrs. Pomfroy.

  "If you will be so good as to drive us to Pomfroy Chase, I may be able to throw a little light on the mystery," he said.

  "Oh, Mr. Pons, if only you could!" cried our client.

  "Let us just see," answered Pons.

  "Come along then," urged Colonel Pomfroy. "The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better. I've had my fill of 'death by misadventure.' "

  Driving out of Cranborne, Pons said, "I submit that despite the verdict of the inquest both the visitors to Pomfroy Chase were done to death." He stopped Colonel Pomfroy's protest with an upraised hand and continued. "Quite possibly, it may be looked upon, in the circumstances, as committed in self-defence, but I rather think the courts would take a different view of the matter. It seems quite unlikely that any stranger could have blundered into the stallion's stall, and it is wholly incredible that a fox's line should have naturally led across a sleeping man. Both these men were carrying lethal weapons, and one had actually been used; I think it a mistake not to have searched for a bullet somewhere about the stables. But no matter. The verdict is in. If the first visitor was led to the stall and pushed in, it was done in all likelihood by more than one person; and no one person, it follows, could have arranged the death of that fellow behind the thicket. In the circumstances, it would be next to impossible to bring a conclusive action against anyone for either of those deaths. I am not sure that it would be desirable."

  Colonel Pomfroy found his voice. "But the motive, Mr. Pons! What could the motive be?"

  Our client intervened. "What Mr. Pons is saying is that the Hunt servants expected something more to happen. Something has happened. And they are still tense, still expectant. ..."

  "Good God!" cried Colonel Pomfroy. "You don't mean to suggest that there may be still others?"

  "Not, I trust, at Pomfroy Chase," said Pons enigmatically.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Once at Pomfroy Chase, Pons descended from the car with alacrity. "Now, then, if you please, let us settle the matter."

  He led the way around the house, past the stables, across the greensward and directly to Ryan's cottage, where he knocked peremptorily on the door.

  It was opened by a woman in her middle thirties, blue-eyed and dark of hair.

  "Mrs. Ryan?" asked Pons.

  "Yes." Seeing Colonel and Mrs. Pomfroy, she nodded a little shyly at them.

  "Mrs. Ryan, I would like a word with Mr. Ryan's father."

  She gaped at Pons, but recovered her composure in a moment. "If you'll excuse me, I will see if he's awake."

  She would have backed in, closing the door to us, but a voice from inside said, "Come in!"

  "He heard," she said. "Please come in."

  She stood aside, and we walked into the tidy living-room of the cottage.

  There sat a slouch-hatted old man in an armchair. A shawl lay across his shoulders; he held it about him as if he were cold. His thick beard was streaked with grey, but, being relatively short, it gave him an appearance of grizzled roughness rather than of age. His narrowed eyes looked at us over spectacles.

  "Mr. Ryan?" asked Pons again.

  The old man nodded curtly.

  Pons made as if to shake hands; instead, with a rapid movement, he tore the hat from the old man's head, revealing tousled black, ringleted hair beneath.

  "Mrs. Pomfroy—Colonel Pomfroy," said Pons, "let me introduce you to Sean O'Leary, once known as the Black Prince of the Irish Republican Army, and, more recently, as Captain Dion Price, Joint-Master of your Hunt, and at least co-author of the death by misadventure of the two agents of that army sent to execute him for his treachery in saving Lady Cleve, after he had been found at last."

  "Oh, no!" cried Mrs. Pomfroy.

  Behind us Ryan and Bannan, followed by the Whips, crowded into the cottage and pressed around the Black Prince, sullenly defiant, to resist whatever might be threatening him.

  "And those gentlemen, if I am not mistaken, are all that remain of the valiant little band that rescued Lady Cleve and caused them to be proscribed by the Irish rebels," continued Pons. "The Black Prince was under sentence of death —when he could be found. Here he and his band were as one and acted as one."

  Captain Price found his voice. "I am sorry, Mrs. Pomfroy— Colonel Pomfroy—what this gentleman says is true." Then he looked squarely at Pons. "I am not sure what he proposes to do about it."

  Pons smiled. "Gentlemen, the verdict is in. 'Death by misadventure.' I am not disposed to question what amounts to poetic justice. But you must know that your position here is untenable, that the men who came to kill you will eventually be followed by others, that you cannot go on dealing death even to would-be murderers. You have no alternative but to lose yourselves again."

  Captain Price sighed. "Thank you, sir." And once again, to Colonel Pomfroy and our client, he said simply, "I am sorry."

  "It was evident that our client did not believe in the verdict of the inquest," explained Pons, as we drove toward London in one of Colonel Pomfroy's cars. "Accepting that disbelief, I found it intriguing to speculate on the motive anyone might have for beating someone into near-insensibility, and thrusting him into the stall of a horse that might be counted upon to kill him. Robbery was clearly not the motive. But the size of the sum of money the dead man carried immediately suggested blackmail, and the presence of the weapon suggested that he had come to commit a crime. Captain Price's waistcoat linked the two men. I immediately concluded that the dead man had had some design upon Captain Price, that the Joint-Master had attempted to buy him off, then had reason to think better of it, and, with the aid of the Hunt servants, arranged his death. That he did accept Price's money and then attempted to kill him, we now know. But the dead man's design had been large enough to make it seem advisable for Captain Price to disappear, which in turn suggested knowledge that the failure of the first man might bring a second, which accounted for the tension so patent to Mrs. Pomfroy.

  "It was my brief and seemingly innocuous conversation with Ryan that brought to our notice two remarkable coincidences. The first was the fact that all the Hunt servants retained by Captain Price were Irish; this in itself was most singular, but most important, it suggested a motive out of the past. The second was the visit of Ryan's father, occurring almost simultaneously with Captain Price's disappearance. I was then virtually certain of Price's whereabouts, but before I could act, the second executioner sent from Ireland arrived and was dealt with by the Hunt servants, who managed to fill him with whisky —either by force or with his consent —and spirit him away to the copse —you will recall the absence of two of the Whips —where they placed him, well hidden, and either alive or dead —for he may well have been killed there by a weapon resembling a horse's hoof only a few minutes before the hunters arrived — led Ryan's tame fox to the place and away from it again, and made certain that the hounds followed the false line so that another 'death by misadventure' could be staged.

  "At that point, the fact that Lady Cleve knew Captain Price immediately suggested that Price might be the Black Prince, and this in turn made it certain that Price might be sought out by the Irish Republican Army for his treachery to their cause, and punished. Instead, the executioners were slain. I did what I could to
put the coroner on the right track," he finished, "but I have no wish to interfere with the curious workings of justice."

  The Adventure of the Amateur Philologist

  MY FRIEND, SOLAR PONS, and I were discussing the trial of the French mass murderer, Landru, one May evening, when the outer door to our quarters opened, and a ponderous step fell upon the stairs.

  "Surely that can be no one but Inspector Jamison!" said Pons. "Perhaps he's bringing us some little problem too unimportant to engage the gentlemen at Scotland Yard."

  "Elementary," I said. "It would be difficult to mistake Jamison's heavy tread."

  "Would it not!" agreed my companion affably. "Or his knock."

  The knock that fell upon the door was of such authority that one expected it to be followed by a demand that the door be opened in the name of the law.

  "Come in, Inspector," called Pons.

  Jamison thrust his portly figure into the room, his eyes quizzical, his round face touched by a light smile. "Good-evening," he said amiably. "I'm surprised to find you at home."

  "Ah, we are sometimes here, Parker and I," said Pons. "No young lady is demanding Parker's services, and nothing of a criminous nature has engaged my interest in the past day or two. Come, sit down, Inspector."

  Jamison removed his bowler and overcoat, put them down on a chair, and came over to stand next to the mantel, near to which Pons and I were sitting.