August Derleth - The Solar Pons Omnibus Volume 1

by August Derleth

  "Mr. Solar Pons. I'm pleased you could come."

  "Thank you. A sad occasion, Mrs. Jowett."

  With one clenched hand she briefly touched her lips, then flung her arm wide. "Sit down, Mr. Pons. Sir Roderick." She turned on me.

  "Dr. Lyndon Parker," said Sir Roderick.

  She bowed.

  "Pray excuse me," said Heyle. "I have so much to see to."

  "Certainly, Anthony," she said, and, reseating herself, turned to give Pons her undivided attention. "If there is any way I can help you learn who killed my husband, Mr. Pons, please ask me."

  Pons thanked her, but for a long few moments he sat in absolute silence, contemplating her and allowing his glance to flicker about the room, as if to note its appointments, and out the broad window opening toward the moor.

  "Your late husband is reported to have spoken to Mr. Heyle about the curse of Tutankhamen," said Pons abruptly. "Did he speak of it to you?"

  "I believe he mentioned it, Mr. Pons."

  "Frequently?" "I would not say so."

  "It troubled him?"

  She shrugged. "Mr. Pons, I no longer knew what troubled my husband and what did not. He'd been gone two years. He came back virtually a stranger to me. After his first week at home, he seemed to withdraw into himself, he was very much preoccupied. He gave me to understand that he was returning to Egypt some time in the future. But he did speak about the curse to Mr. Heyle."

  "Ah. Mr. Heyle mentioned it?"

  "No, Mr. Pons. Mr. Heyle did not discuss my husband's business with me. I happened, quite by accident, to overhear them arguing about it last night. They were in my husband's study, which is next to this room. I had gone to my room but came back here for a book I had been reading. So I overheard them."

  "What precisely did you hear, Mrs. Jowett?" asked Pons.

  "Oh, just a phrase or two. I heard my husband shouting something about a 'dog crouching at the door,' and Mr. Heyle trying to calm him down, saying, 'Come, come Larry —you can't mean that.' And, of course, the crouching dog is on that guarding seal of that tomb they found and entered in Egypt."

  "You saw the seal?"

  "My husband showed it to me."

  "Was he in the habit of carrying it about, Mrs. Jowett?"

  She looked at Pons with uncomplimentary amazement. "Of course not, Mr. Pons. My husband was a very methodical man." She paused and added reflectively, "I still cannot believe he is dead."

  At this moment the door from the adjoining study was flung open, and a tousle-haired young man burst unceremoniously into the room, his dark eyes flashing.

  "Sybil!" he cried. "Don't tell him anything. Say nothing at all. Do you know who he is?"

  "This is Mr. Solar Pons," said Mrs. Jowett tranquilly. "Mr. Pons, my brother-in-law, John Jowett."

  "I warn you, Sybil," cried Jowett.

  "My brother-in-law has a flair for the dramatic," she said, almost contemptuously. "He has a writer's temperament. Do go on, Mr. Pons."

  Pons continued. "Your husband was in the habit of walking the moor by night?"

  "By day and night. Alone. As everyone knew."

  John Jowett stood for a moment uncertainly, looking wildly from one to the other of them; then he turned and flung himself out of the room as impetuously as he had rushed in.

  "I hope you will forgive him, Mr. Pons," said Mrs. Jowett quietly. "He's a creature of impulse. Now, I fear, he'll send my brother in." She smiled ruefully. "I am supposed to be helpless, you see."

  The ghost of a smile touched Pons's lips, reflecting her own.

  "My husband knew the moor very well," she went on. "And if, as they say, something pursued him out there, he could not have known what it was or he would never have run. He was running, wasn't he?"

  "So the evidence indicates," put in Sir Roderick.

  "My husband was not a timid man. He would not easily have run — even from — if I must put it into words — the ghost of a dog."

  "Fact," said Sir Roderick. "I knew him well. Not a streak of cowardice in him. A brave man."

  "Thank you, Sir Roderick."

  There was a discreet tap on the door.

  Mrs. Jowett shrugged her shoulders and called, "Come in, Hugh."

  A man of perhaps fifty, bearing a marked resemblance to Mrs. Jowett, came apologetically into the room. "Are you all right, Sybil?" he asked.

  Mrs. Jowett introduced him as her brother, Hugh Burnham.

  "I don't want to intrude," he said earnestly.

  "Stay," said Mrs. Jowett with an air of resignation.

  Pons looked searchingly at Burnham. "Perhaps Mr. Burnham may have heard something in the night?" he suggested.

  "I was in my room," Burnham said defensively. "I heard nothing. Nothing, that is, except the usual sounds —the dogs barking—and that hound somewhere, baying."

  "When?"

  "Sometime after midnight, I think. It woke me, to tell the truth. A sudden baying, the like of which I never heard before."

  Mrs. Jowett gazed at her brother, a faint line on her brow. Pons's eyes flickered from one to the other of them.

  "A hound, you said?" he put in.

  "I thought it one, yes."

  Pons stood for a moment with half-closed eyes. Then he said, "There remains another brother of your late husband. "

  "Harold," said Mrs. Jowett. "He's in his rooms in the southwest tower."

  "I'll take you there," said Burnham.

  "No need, sir," said Sir Roderick. "I know the way."

  We excused ourselves and followed Sir Roderick, who strode from the room and led us to a corridor, which in turn took us to the tower, in the second storey of which Jowett's older brother Harold had his quarters.

  Sir Roderick's authoritative knock was answered by the door's being pulled open from inside. A heavily bearded man in his late thirties stood on the threshold, looking at us for a moment with resentment.

  "Sir Roderick," he said then. "Come in." He stepped aside, still talking. "I suppose this is a continuation of the official inquiry into Larry's death. I've already told the constable all I can say."

  Sir Roderick introduced us.

  "And what, Mr. Jowett, is 'all' you can say?" asked Pons.

  Harold Jowett favoured Pons with a long, unwavering stare. "Mr. Pons, my brother was punished for what he did. He desecrated a tomb."

  "I submit, Mr. Jowett, this is a matter of prejudice stemming from your early religious training," said Pons flatly. "Not of fact."

  "Ah, you know about that. I wasn't worthy. Someday I may be."

  The books lying on his settee included, I saw, the Confessions of St. Augustine and Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ. He had been reading them, clearly. A glance around his shelves indicated that most of his books were of a similar nature.

  "In regard to matters of fact," pressed Pons. "Did you hear anything in the night?"

  "I went to bed at eleven o'clock. At that hour, to the best of my knowledge, Larry and Tony Heyle were just getting ready to go to the study to discuss Larry's affairs. Larry intended to return to Egypt, and Tony meant to try to dissuade him. I'm a sound sleeper, sir. I heard nothing until John woke me to tell me Larry had been killed."

  "Mr. Heyle was frequently in residence here?"

  "I wouldn't call it 'in residence.' He often came down at weekends. He was Larry's solicitor and handled his affairs. Jowett Close is a rather costly place and it was up to him to see to it that Sybil had her accounts in order."

  Pons turned to Sir Roderick. "Who found the body?"

  "Why, I understood that John found him."

  "Yes, John found him," corroborated Harold Jowett. "John customarily took early morning walks on the moor. He writes poems, you know. He prefers solitary walks, and always carries a pocket notebook for writing. John came back to the house and

  telephoned the police without saying anything to anyone —not even Sybil —until the police came. Then he told us."

  "Let us just have a word with John," said Pons.
/>
  "He's —difficult," said Jowett bluntly.

  "Temperamental —that's the word," said Sir Roderick, once we were out of Harold Jowett's quarters.

  We found John Jowett on the edge of the moor, sitting on a rock- formation, and evidently writing, for a notebook lay open on his knee, and he held a pencil in his hand. He saw us approaching with marked displeasure on his handsome features, and waited with a kind of arrogant defiance for us to come up.

  "So now you've come to ask me questions," he said as we came within his range. "I know no more than the others."

  "But you have definite suspicions, Mr. Jowett," said Pons. "Some of which you feared your sister-in-law shared. What was it you didn't want her to say to us?"

  "I've nothing to say about that."

  "I see. You found your brother's body?"

  "Yes. I made sure he was dead, no more. I disturbed nothing. I gave no one else a chance to disturb anything. I called the authorities, then told the rest of them."

  Plainly he meant to tell us no more than he needed to.

  A flush of irritation showed on Sir Roderick's face, but Pons was not disturbed. He stood for a few moments looking out over the moor. A wind had now risen in the east, and the clouds had lowered, presaging rain. He turned to Sir Roderick.

  "Before it rains, some attempt ought to be made to take casts of such prints as are to be found leading to the scene."

  "Even the dog prints?" put in Jowett sarcastically.

  "Particularly the dog's," said Pons soberly.

  "I'll have it done," said Sir Roderick, and hurried away.

  Jowett grew more tense, as if he believed that Pons had deliberately sent Sir Roderick away. He waited, inwardly fencing with Pons.

  "You write poetry, Mr. Jowett," said Pons.

  "Yes."

  "And, as a poet, you're likely to be more than ordinarily sensitive to your surroundings," Pons went on. "Your brother came home last month, and the atmosphere of Jowett Close underwent a change."

  "My brother was a man of action. Harold is a contemplative man. And I suppose you might say I'm introspective. A dreamer, as my sister-in-law puts it. Would you expect that the invasion of a man of action wouldn't disturb the household?"

  "His household."

  "His household," repeated Jowett. He seemed disinclined to say more.

  "May I see what you've written?" asked Pons. He held out his hand.

  Jowett covered the page with one outspread hand. For a moment his eyes met Pons's. Then he reluctantly handed his notebook to Pons.

  I looked over Pons's shoulder. " 'Dark are the clouds that shadow moorland, tor,' " I read. " 'And dark the deed that went before/In the night beneath the stars/Where hate and fury broke the bars/Of reason. . . .' " He had gone no farther.

  "Mr. Jowett," said Pons, handing his notebook back to him, "did you, too, hear the hound baying in the night?"

  "I heard what sounded like a hound, yes," said Jowett cautiously.

  "And what was it that your brother did to disturb the household when he came back?" pressed Pons.

  Jowett's eyes clouded. He slid from his perch, his notebook closed in his hand. "What you want to know you can find out without my holding it back, I suppose," he said. "He put out the son of our housekeeper because he thought he'd been paying attention to Sybil."

  "Had he?"

  "I've always been too busy writing to know, Mr. Pons," said Jowett, and walked away.

  Pons made no effort to halt him. His glance followed him briefly. Then he turned to me, his eyes dancing.

  "What do you make of it, Parker?"

  "Well, for one thing," I answered without hesitation, "somebody here has read that book by Conan Doyle."

  "Capital! Capital! Your growing powers delight me, Parker. I submit there is not a shred of doubt about that."

  "And the dog?"

  "There was no dog."

  "The prints?"

  "Come along and take a look at them."

  We walked a short distance out to where stakes had been driven down to mark the paw-prints.

  "If you'll examine any two of them, you'll find variations between the toe prints."

  "Wouldn't such variations be entirely consistent?" I protested.

  Pons chuckled. "Certain variations would —but not invariably precise variations between the second and fourth, and the third and fifth toe prints. The variation, I venture to say, is precise. I submit that the prints were hastily improvised with some sort of garden tool that had but three prongs, so that the prints had to be made in two impressions."

  "By night?" I said incredulously.

  "We have nothing to show that the prints were manufactured by night."

  "The dog was heard."

  "John Jowett put it very well when he said he heard 'what sounded like a hound.' I suppose even you, Parker, could give a passable imitation of a hound baying. I suggest it is significant that the dog portrayed as crouching on the seal of the Tutankhamen necropolis, presumably the guardian of the crypt and the avenger of its desecration, is not a hound such as was 'heard' baying—a little detail this devotee of the Baskerville tale seems to have overlooked."

  "On the other hand, if you'll permit me to play Devil's Advocate, it can hardly be denied that three members of the Tutankhamen expedition have died before their time."

  Pons smiled. "Who is to say what anyone's 'time' is, Parker? It can also not be denied that the overwhelming majority of those associated with the Egyptian expedition and discovery are very much alive, in good health, and not to the best of our knowledge haunted by anything, dog or otherwise. More than a year has passed since the opening of the tomb. Surely a phantom dog could get around faster than that! No, this has all the earmarks of an impetuous crime."

  "And, of course, you know who committed it?"

  "Say, rather, I have certain suspicions pointing to the identity of the murderer. The suspects are obvious."

  "Oh, that is certainly elementary," I could not help saying. "Let me list them for you. The young man who was discharged for paying attention to Mrs. Jowett —or conceivably, his father bent on avenging him. John Jowett, who might have lost money if his brother changed his will. . . ."

  "Let us not forget the crouching dog," interrupted Pons dryly.

  "But there was no dog."

  "Yet someone desperately wanted us to believe there was," said Pons.

  "One little detail you seem to forget," I said, "is that Jowett was unquestionably running from someone or something."

  "Not proven," said Pons curtly. "The evidence shows only that he was running. Moreover, if you follow the footprints back far enough, you will find substantial evidence that two men set out upon the moor and only one came back. There is also evidence to show that one of them walked with exceeding care, avoiding any area of ground which might reveal his footprints. Further, there is good reason to believe that he also ran, but came back in the dawn to obliterate those prints at the same time that he made the paw- prints of the dog. This murder was carefully planned, if on the spur of the moment, by a resourceful man whom it will not be easy to get into the dock. But come, let us get back to the house. Sir Roderick is on his way out."

  We met Sir Roderick at the entrance to the grounds.

  "Have you finished here, Pons?" he asked as we came up.

  "For the time being, yes. I would suggest that your men make a careful search of the gardener's quarters for a three-tined hand-tool used for grubbing, and have the grounds searched for a claw hammer or rock. Both, when found, should be examined for traces of blood."

  "So that's how it was done, eh?" said Sir Roderick.

  Pons nodded.

  "Can you say now who did it?"

  "No, Sir Roderick. I'll need a trifle more information which, I think, you in your official capacity can arrange to obtain."

  "Name it, sir."

  "I want to know in as much detail as possible the extent of Mrs. Jowett's expenses over the past two years. And equally as much deta
il about the income from Jowett's investments."

  Sir Roderick looked narrowly at Pons. "I'll probably have to apply to London for that," he said. "Is it necessary?"

  "I am convinced that it is."

  "Very well. That will take a while as you know. We can't have that before tomorrow." He took out his watch and looked at it. "It's almost four o'clock now. I'll telephone the Yard from home. And, of course, I've planned for you and Dr. Parker to spend the night at my place."

  Pons thanked him and lapsed into thoughtful silence.

  At Jowett Close house, we parted briefly—Sir Roderick to pass along Pons's instructions to the constables on guard there, ourselves to go around to the car. As we passed the large sitting-room window opening on to the moor, we could see Mrs. Jowett standing there, watching us inscrutably, no emotion of any kind on her attractive face. Her right hand was clenched at her side, her left holding to the curtain at the window. She made no sign of recognition.

  It was not until just after noon next day that a trunk-call came for Sir Roderick from Scotland Yard. Sir Roderick took the call in his study and came out to where Pons and I waited, looking puzzled.

  "Something is wrong in Sybil Jowett's accounts, Pons,'' he said. "Though how you got on to it, I don't know. There's just short of forty thousand pounds unaccounted for. What could she have done with so much money?"

  "Let us just go over to Jowett Close once again. I want to have another look at the scene of Jowett's death," said Pons. "You might send word ahead I'd like Jowett's brothers and Anthony Heyle standing by."

  "Right!" said Sir Roderick.

  In the car on the way to Jowett Close, Sir Roderick gave way to speculation.

  "I've always thought Sybil Jowett a pretty level-headed woman," he said. "D'you suppose she made bad investments? Or worse, could someone be blackmailing her? Damme! she should have come to me!"

  "At this point it is idle to speculate," said Pons cryptically. "I suspect that the explanation is not one that Mrs. Jowett thought might require your advice, Sir Roderick."

  "Everyone here holds a good opinion of her," said Sir Roderick a little stiffly. "Does a good job of running her household. A popular woman, at home and outside."

  Pons made no comment. His keen eyes were upon the landscape fleeting by, but he did not seem to see it, for he was looking inward and elsewhere, pondering Jowett's strange death. But there was in his expression a hint of suppressed excitement, as if the solution to Jowett's murder were within his grasp.