"You are so positive he'll come by the door," I said. "Suppose he opens a window and drops in from behind?"
"No, Parker, he will not. He has a key," replied Pons. "Surely you observed how careless Humphreys was with his keys when he came in with us this morning! He simply threw them on the counter and left them in plain sight. Anyone prepared to do so could have made wax impressions of the lot. I have no doubt that is what took place, as soon as our client's advertisement appeared and apprised our quarry that Humphreys undoubtedly possessed something belonging to Benefield, and what, more likely, than the very object of his search? I see him as a patient and dangerous man, unwilling to be caught, but determined to have what he is after."
"The penny magenta? But why would anyone take the trouble to conceal a forgery so carefully?"
"Why, indeed!" answered Pons enigmatically. "It suggests nothing to you?"
"Only that the man who wants it is deceived as to its actual value."
"Nothing other?"
"I can think of nothing."
"Very well, then. Let us just look at the problem anew. Mr. Athos Humphreys, a comparatively obscure dealer in antiques, is sought out by an American as a repository for a packet of stamps, all of no great value. Mr. Benefield has gone to the trouble of achieving a cancellation of his stamps, and then to the even greater trouble of recovering the packet to bring it in person —a considerable achievement, considering the rigidity of the Post Office system. He pays at least half what his packet of stamps is manifestly worth to make sure that Humphreys keeps it where he directs. And where does he direct that it be kept? In plain sight in Humphreys's own letter-rack, after Benefield has made certain that it bears every appearance of having been posted to Humphreys. Does all this still suggest nothing further to you, Parker?"
"Only that Benefield seemed certain someone wanted the packet."
"Capital! You are making progress. "
"So he made sure it wouldn't attract attention, and, if seen, would be mistaken for other than what it was. The envelope bore no return address, and the name of Humphreys was hurriedly printed in block capitals. That, I presume, was so the man who wanted it wouldn't recognize Benefield's handwriting, which very probably he knew."
"It gives me pleasure to discover how handsomely your capacity for observation has grown, Parker. But —no more?"
"I fear I have shot my bolt, Pons."
"Well, then, let us just say a few words about Mr. Benefield. It does not seem to you strange that he should have so conveniently met with a fatal accident after reaching London?"
"Accidents happen every day. It is a well-known fact that the accident toll exceeds the mortality rate in wartime."
"I submit that the late Benefield and his pursuer were in this matter together. I put it to you further that Benefield slipped away from his partner in the venture and came to London by himself to offer the penny magenta for sale without the necessity of dividing the spoils with his partner, who followed and found him but has not yet found the stamp. It is not too much to conclude that it was his
hand at the wheel of the car that caused Benefield's death."
"Ingenious," I said dubiously.
"Elementary, my dear Parker," said Pons.
"Except for the fact that the penny magenta is a forgery," I finished.
"Ah, Parker, you put my poor powers to shame," he answered with a dry chuckle. "But now I think we had better keep quiet. I should tell you I have notified Inspector Taylor, who will be within earshot waiting upon our signal."
I had begun to drowse, when Pons's light touch on my arm woke me. The hour was close to midnight, and the sound of a key in the lock came distinctly to ear. In a moment the outer door opened, and, from my position behind the curtain, I saw a dark figure slip into the shop. In but a moment more, the shade of a dark-lantern was drawn cautiously a little to one side. Its light fell squarely upon the counter and there, framed in it, was the envelope on which our client had written Arthur Benefield's name.
The light held to the counter.
Then, in four rapid and silent strides, the intruder was at the counter. I saw his hand reach down and take up the envelope.
At that moment Pons turned on his electric torch and silhouetted a well-dressed, thin-faced young man whose startled glance gave him a distinctly fox-like look. He stood for but a split second in the light; then he dropped, spun around, and leaped for the door.
Pons was too quick for him. He caught up a heavy iron ornament and threw it with all his force. It struck our quarry cruelly on the side of one knee; he went down and stayed down.
"Keep your hands out of your pockets; we are armed," said Pons, advancing toward him. "Parker, just open the door and fire a shot into the air. That will bring Taylor."
Our quarry sat up, one hand gripping his knee painfully, the other still clinging to the envelope of stamps. "The most you can charge me with," he said in a cultured voice, "is breaking and entering. Perhaps theft. This is as much my property as it was Arthur's."
"I fancy the charge will be murder," said Pons, as Inspector Taylor's pounding footsteps waxed in the night.
Back in our quarters at 7B Praed Street, Pons lingered over a pipe of shag. I, too, hesitated to go to bed.
"You do not seem one whit puzzled over this matter, Pons," I said at last. "Yet I confess that its entire motivation seems far too slight to justify its events."
"You are certainly right, Parker," he answered with maddening gravity. "It does not then suggest anything further to you?"
"No, I am clear as to the picture."
"But not as to its interpretation, eh?" "No."
"I submit there is a basic error in your reasoning, Parker. It has occurred to you to realize that one would hardly go to such lengths, even to commit murder, for a counterfeit stamp worth five pounds at best. Yet it does not seem to have occurred to you that the penny magenta I have here as a gift from our client may indeed be worth, as he estimated, ten thousand pounds?"
"We know that the single copy of that stamp exists in an American collection."
"Say, rather, we believe it does. I submit that this is the only genuine British Guiana penny magenta rarity, and that the copy in the American collection is a counterfeit. I took the liberty of sending a cable this afternoon, and I fancy we shall have a visitor from America just as fast as an aeroplane will make it possible from New York to Croydon."
Pons was not in error.
Three days later, a representative of the American collector presented himself at our quarters and paid Pons a handsome reward for the recovery of the penny magenta. Both Benefield and his partner, who had been identified as a man named Watt Clark, had been in the collector's service. They had forged the false penny magenta and exchanged it for the genuine stamp, after which they had left their positions. The substitution had not been noticed until Pons's cable sent the collector to the experts, whose verification of Pons's suspicion had resulted in the dispatching of the collector's representative to bear the fabulously valuable penny magenta home in person.
The Adventure of the Remarkable Worm
"AH, PARKER!" exclaimed Solar Pons, as I walked into our quarters at 7B Praed Street late one mid-summer afternoon in the years of the century's third decade, "you may be just in time for another of those little forays into the criminological life of London in which you take such incomprehensible delight."
"You have taken a case," I said.
"Say, rather, I have consented to an appeal."
As he spoke, Pons laid aside the pistol with which he had been practising, an abominable exercise which understandably disturbed our long-suffering landlady, Mrs. Johnson. He reached among the papers on the table and tossed over a card so that it fell before me on the table's edge, the message up.
"DEAR MR. PONS,
"Mr. Humphreys always said you were better than the police,
so if it is all right I will come there late this afternoon when Julia
comes and tell you abo
ut it. The doctor says it is all right with
Mr. P., but I wonder.
"Yours resp., "MRS. FLORA WHITE."
Pons regarded me with a glint in his eye as I read it.
"A cryptogram?" I ventured.
Pons chuckled. "Oh, come, Parker, it is not as difficult as all that. She is only agitated and perhaps indignant."
"I confess this is anything but clear to me."
"I do not doubt it," said Pons dryly. "But it is really quite simple on reflection. She makes reference to a Mr. Humphreys; I submit it is that fellow Athos Humphreys for whom we did a bit of investigation in connection with that little matter of the Penny Magenta. She wishes to consult us about a matter in which a doctor has already been called. The doctor has not succeeded in reassuring her or allaying her alarm. She cannot come at once because she cannot leave her patient alone. The patient, therefore, is at least not dead.
She must wait until Julia comes, which will be late this afternoon; it is not amiss, therefore, to venture that Julia is her daughter or at least a schoolgirl, who must wait upon dismissal of classes before she can take Mrs. White's place and thus free our prospective client to see us.
"Since it is now high time for her to make an appearance, she has probably arrived in that cab which has just come to a stop outside."
I stepped to the window and looked down. A cab was indeed standing before our lodgings, and a heavy woman of middle age was ascending the steps of Number 7. She was dressed in very plain clothing, which suggested that she had come directly away from her work. Her only covering, apart from an absurdly small feathered hat, was a thin shawl, for the day was cool for August.
In a few moments Mrs. Johnson had shown her in, and she stood looking from one to the other of us, her florid face showing but a moment's indecision before she smiled uncertainly at my companion.
"You're Mr. Pons, ain't yer?"
"At your service, Mrs. White," replied Pons with unaccustomed graciousness, as his alert eyes took in every detail of her appearance. "Pray sit down and tell us about the little problem which vexes you."
She sat down with growing confidence, drew her shawl a little away from her neck, and began to recount the circumstances which had brought her to our quarters. She spoke in an animated voice, in a dialect which suggested not so much Cockney as transplanted provincial.
She explained how she "says to Mr. 'Umphreys," and he "says to me to ask his friend, Solar Pons; so I done like he said," as soon as her niece came from school. Pons sat patiently through her introduction until his patience was rewarded. He did not interrupt her story, once she began it.
She was employed as a cleaning woman at several houses. This was her day at the home of Idomeno Persano, a solitary resident of Hampstead Heath, an expatriate American of Spanish parentage. He had bought a house on the edge of the Heath eleven years before, and since that time had led a most sedentary life. He was known to frequent the Heath in the pursuit of certain entomological interests. As a collector of insects and information pertinent thereto, he was attentive to the children of the neighbourhood; they knew him as a benign old fellow, who was ever ready to give them sixpence or a shilling for some insect to add to his collection.
Persano's life appeared to be in all respects retiring. Judging by what Mrs. White told in her rambling manner, he corresponded with fellow entomologists and was in the habit of sending and receiving specimens. He had always seemed to be a very easy-going man, but one day a month ago, he had received a post-card from America which had upset him very much. It had no writing on it but his name and address, and it was nothing but a comic picture- card. Yet he had been very agitated at receipt of it, and since that time he had not ventured out of the house.
Mrs. White had been delayed in coming to her employer's home on this day; so it was not until afternoon that she reached the house. She was horrified to find her employer seated at his desk in an amazing condition. She thought he had gone stark mad. She had striven to arouse him, but all she could draw from him was a muttered few words which sounded like "the worm —unknown to science." And something about "the dog" —but there had never been a dog in the house, and there was not now. Nothing more. He was staring at a specimen he had apparently just received in the post. It was a worm in a common matchbox.
"Och, an orrible worm, Mr. Pons. Fair give me the creeps, it did!" she said firmly.
She had summoned a physician at once. He was a young locum tenens, and confessed himself completely at sea when confronted with the ailing Persano. He had never encountered an illness of quite such a nature before, but he discovered a certain paralysis of the muscles and came to the conclusion that Persano had had a severe heart attack. From Mrs. White's description, the diagnosis suggested coronary trouble. He had administered a sedative and had recommended that the patient be not moved.
Mrs. White, however, was not satisfied. As soon as the doctor had gone, she had consulted "Mr. 'Umphreys," with the result that she had sent the note I had seen by messenger. Now she was here. Would Mr. Pons come around and look at her employer?
I could not refrain from asking, "Why did you think the doctor was wrong, Mrs. White?"
"I feels it," she answered earnestly. "It's intuition, that's what, sir. A woman's intuition." "Quite right, Mrs. White," said Pons in a tolerant voice which irritated me the more. "My good friend Parker is of that opinion so commonly held by medical men, that his fellow practitioners are somehow above criticism or question by lay persons. I will look at Mr. Persano, though my knowledge of medicine is sadly limited."
"And 'ere," said our client, "is the card 'e got."
So saying, she handed Pons a coloured post-card of a type very common in America, a type evidently designed for people on holiday wishing to torment their friends who are unable to take time off. It depicted in cartoon form a very fat man running from a little dog which had broken his leash. The drawing was bad, and the lettered legend was typical: "Having a fast time at Fox Lake. Wish you were here." The obverse bore nothing but Persano's address and a Chicago postmark.
"That is surely as innocuous a communication as I have ever seen," I said.
"Is it not, indeed?" said Pons, one eyebrow lifted.
"I could well imagine that it would irritate Persano."
" 'Upset' was the word, I believe, Mrs. White?"
"That he was, Mr. Pons. Fearful upset. I seen 'im, seein' as how 't was me 'anded it to 'im. I says to 'im, 'Yer friends is havin' a time on their 'oliday,' I says. When 'e seen it, 'e went all white, and was took with a coughin' spell. 'E threw it from him without a word. I picked it up and kept it; so 'ere 'tis."
Pons caressed the lobe of his right ear while he contemplated our client. "Mr. Persano is a fat man, Mrs. White?"
Her simple face lit up with pleasure. "That 'e is, Mr. Pons, though 'ow yer could know it, I don't see. Mr. 'Umphreys was right. A marvel 'e said yer was."
"And how old would you say he is?"
"Oh, in 'is sixties."
"When you speak of your employer as having been 'upset,' do you suggest that he was frightened?"
Our client furrowed her brows. " 'E was upset," she repeated doggedly.
"Not angry?"
"No, sir. Upset. Troubled, like. 'Is face changed colour; 'e said something under 'is breath I didn't 'ear; 'e threw the card away, like as if 'e didn't want ter see it again. I picked it up and kep' it."
Pons sat for a moment with his eyes closed. Then he took out his
watch and consulted it. "It is now almost six o'clock. The matter would seem to me of some urgency. You've kept your cab waiting?"
Mrs. White nodded. "Julia will be that anxious."
"Good!" cried Pons, springing to his feet. "We will go straight back with you. There is not a moment to be lost. We may already be too late."
He doffed his worn purple dressing-gown, flung it carelessly aside, and took up his Inverness and deerstalker.
Throughout the drive to the scene of our client's experience, Po
ns maintained a meditative silence, his head sunk on his chest, his lean fingers tented where his hands rested below his chin.
The house on the edge of Hampstead Heath was well isolated from its neighbours. A substantial hedge, alternating with a stone wall, ran all around the building, which was of two storeys, and not large. Our client bustled from the cab, Pons at her heels, leaving me to pay the fare. She led the way into the house, where we were met by a pale-faced girl who was obviously relieved to see someone.
"Been any change, Julia?" asked Mrs. White.
"No, 'm. He's sleeping."
"Anybody call?"
"No'm. No one."
"That's good. Yer can go ome now, that's a good girl." Turning to us; our client pointed to a door to her left, "In there, Mr. Pons."
The light of two old-fashioned lamps revealed the scene in all its starkness. Mrs. White's employer sat in an old Chippendale wing chair before a broad table, no less old-style than the lamps which shed an eerie illumination in the room. He was a corpulent man, but it was evident at a glance that he was not sleeping, for his eyes were open and staring toward the curious object which lay before him —an opened matchbox with its contents, which looked to my untutored eye very much like a rather fatter-than-usual caterpillar. A horrible smile —the risus sardonicus — twisted Persano's lips.
"I fancy Mr. Persano is in your department, Parker," said Pons quietly.
It took but a moment to assure me of what Pons suspected. "Pons, this man is dead!" I cried.
"It was only an off-chance that we might find him alive," observed Pons. He turned to our client and added, "I'm afraid you must now notify the police, Mrs. White. Ask for Inspector Taylor at Scotland Yard. Say to him that I am here."
Mrs. White, who had given forth but one wail of distress at learning of her employer's death, rallied sufficiently to say that there was no telephone in the house. She would have to go to a neighbour's.
August Derleth - The Solar Pons Omnibus Volume 1 Page 56