August Derleth - The Solar Pons Omnibus Volume 1

by August Derleth

  "The writing on the warning note was disguised because Storer might very well have recognized Compton's hand, but might be too frightened, as it turned out, to recognize that the script was in a disguised hand. To have the letter sent from London and afford the police a perfect clue pointing straight to Wimberly cost Compton little effort, far less than those ridiculous hoofprints in the snow. On the chosen night, he need only climb into the beech-tree —from the church —cry out like an owl, and be confident that Storer would come out for him. You may be sure he had rehearsed his little plan, but the snow added a complication which he contrived to lend an aspect which might appear highly sinister to the superstitious. Devil's footprints, indeed! He might more easily have simply disappeared with Storer's cache, since he had undoubtedly learned where the money was hidden in the rectory, and took the first opportunity—before or after the murder—to remove it to the crypt, from which he could take it in his own good time, whenever he was ready to leave Tetfield, once the investigation had died down.

  "His guilt was obvious from the moment I learned that he had come to the village at about the same time as the vicar. There had clearly been an understanding between Compton and Storer.

  Fundamentally, however, Compton's crime violated the law of probability. It was hardly probable that Wimberly would either have warned of his coming or announced his arrival. It was improbable that he could so quickly learn the whereabouts of the other members of the Owl Gang, or, having known, would have discovered so rapidly the details of the setting insofar as they were necessary to exacting that vengeance Compton sought to persuade us to believe had been accomplished. Only Compton was equipped with this knowledge. Finally, it was highly unlikely that Wimberly would be released from prison, with the Munson robbery proceeds still missing, without being followed and watched.

  "Compton and Storer were living in a quiet paradise all their own. Poor Compton! The guilty flee when no man pursueth. The real Devil's footprints were invisible!"

  The Adventure of the Sussex Archers

  ON A BALMY summer evening late in the 1920s I returned to our quarters at No. 7B Praed Street to find my friend Solar Pons slouched in his armchair deep in contemplation of an unfolded piece of ruled paper.

  "Ah, Parker," he said, without looking up, "you are just in time for what promises to be a diversion to brighten a few summer days."

  So saying, he handed to me the paper he had been studying.

  It appeared to be cheap notepaper, of a kind readily obtainable in any stationer's shop. On it had been pasted, in letters cut from a newspaper:

  PREPARE FOR YOUR PUNISHMENT!

  In addition, there had been pasted to the paper a printed drawing of an arrow.

  My alarm must have betrayed itself in my face, for Pons smiled and said, "No, no, Parker—it was not intended for me. It was directed to Joshua Colvin of Lurgashall, Sussex, and reached me by messenger from Claridge's late this afternoon. This letter came with it."

  He fished the missive out of the pocket of his lilac dressing-gown and gave it to me.

  "DEAR MR. PONS,

  "If it is convenient for you, I hope to call on you at eight this evening in regard to a problem about which my father will do nothing in spite of the fact that one such warning has already been followed by death. I enclose the warning he has received. Since I believe you are fully aware of current crimes and mysteries in England, may I call your attention to the death of Andrew Jefferds of Petworth, ten days ago? Should it be inconvenient for me to call, a wire to me at Claridge's will put me off. I am, respectfully, yours.

  "HEWITT COLVIN."

  "I see by the newspapers beside your chair that you've looked up the death of Jefferds," I said.

  "The development of your deductive processes always gives me pleasure," said Pons. "Indeed I have. I found it a delightful little puzzle. Jefferds, a man with no known enemies —we read nothing of those unknown —was done to death at twilight ten days ago in his garden at the edge of the village by means of an arrow in his back. The police are baffled, but the investigation is continuing."

  "Surely that is an unusual weapon," I cried.

  "Is it not! But a profoundly significant one, for it occurs also on the warning, and would then no doubt have some significance for Mr. Colvin which so far escapes us." He raised his head briefly and listened. "But that is a motor slowing outside, and I suspect it is our client. We need speculate no more until we hear his story."

  In a few moments Mrs. Johnson showed Hewitt Colvin into our quarters. He was a man in his thirties, with a ruddy face and keen grey eyes. He wore a moustache and side-whiskers, and looked the picture of the country squire in his tweed suit.

  "Mr. Pons," he said without preamble, "I hope you will forgive the abruptness of my letter. I appreciate your willingness to listen to my problem, which, believe me, sir, is urgent. Six men have received a copy of the warning I dispatched to you earlier —one is already dead."

  "Ah," said Pons, "the significance of the arrow! The warnings were identical?" He waved our client to a seat, but Colvin was too agitated to take it, for he strode back and forth.

  "Yes, Mr. Pons."

  "What have these six men in common?"

  "All belonged to the Sussex Archers."

  "Active?"

  "No, sir. That is the background of my problem. They have been disbanded ever since the death of Henry Pope twenty years ago. Pope was the seventh member of the Archers. He died, Mr. Pons, like Mr. Jefferds — with an arrow in his back, an arrow belonging to the Sussex Archers. The inquest brought about a verdict of death by accident, and I have always understood that this was a true verdict. I am no longer so certain."

  "Let us begin at the beginning, Mr. Colvin," suggested Pons.

  "It may be that is the beginning, Mr. Pons —back in 1907. As for now, well, sir, I suppose it begins with the return of Trevor Pope — brother of that Henry Pope who died twenty years ago. He had been in Canada, came back to England, opened the old house near Lurgashall, and went into a reclusive existence there.

  "I shall not forget my first sight of him! The country around Blackdown is, as you may know, great walking country. I was out one evening in the dusk when I heard someone running toward me. I made for some undergrowth and had just effected my concealment when there burst out of the woods across a little opening from where I was hidden a short, dark, burly man surrounded by six great mastiffs, all running in absolute silence save for the sound of his footfalls. He looked, sir, inconceivably menacing!

  "That was in May. Two weeks later I saw him again. This time I did not hear him; he burst suddenly upon me, pedaling furiously on a bicycle, with his mastiffs running alongside — three on each side of him, and though he saw me clearly he said not a word —simply went past as fast as he could. Nor did the dogs bark. Mr. Pons, it was uncanny. In the interval I had learned his identity, but at the time it meant nothing to me —I was but twelve when Henry Pope died, and was away at school at the time.

  "Then, late in June, the messages arrived."

  "To all six members of the onetime Sussex Archers?" interrupted Pons.

  "Yes, Mr. Pons. Of course, I didn't know this at the time. It has come out only sinceJefferds's death. Father made inquiry."

  "All six of the Archers still live in the vicinity of Lurgashall? Pet- worth, I believe, is but three miles or so away."

  "All but one. George Trewethen moved to Arundel ten years ago."

  "What was your father's response to the warning?"

  "He dismissed it as the work of a crank."

  "Until Jefferds's death?"

  "Until then, yes, Mr. Pons. Then he wrote or telephoned to the other members and learned for the first time that all of them had received identical warnings. It alarmed him for a bit, but not for long. He's very obstinate. When he goes out now he carries his gun —but a gun's small defence against an arrow in the back; so my brother and I take turns following him and keeping him in sight whenever he goes out."

&nbs
p; "You are here with his consent?"

  "Yes, Mr. Pons. He would not be averse to a private inquiry, but seems determined to keep the police out of it."

  "But are the police not already in it?" asked Pons. "They will surely have discovered the warning Jefferds received."

  "Mr. Pons, no one knows of it except my father. He would not have known, had Mr. Jefferds not come to visit him some time ago and mentioned having received and destroying it. So the police do not know."

  "I see," said Pons thoughtfully.

  "Mr. Pons, I am driving back to our home on the lower slopes of Blackdown tomorrow morning. Dare I hope that you and Dr. Parker will accompany me?"

  "What precisely do you expect us to do, Mr. Colvin?"

  "I hope, frankly, that you will devise some way in which to trap Trevor Pope before an attempt is made on my father's life."

  "That will surely not be readily accomplished, Mr. Colvin. Six mastiffs, I think you said. And the man either runs or pedals as fast as possible." Pons flashed a glance at me. "What do you say, Parker?"

  "Let us go by all means. I am curious to see this fellow and his dogs."

  "Thank heaven, Mr. Pons! It is little more than an hour from London. I will call for you tomorrow morning at —but you name the hour, Mr. Pons."

  "Seven o'clock, Mr. Colvin. We are early risers."

  "I will be here. Good-night, gentlemen."

  After our client's departure, Pons sat for a few moments staring thoughtfully into the dark fireplace. Presently he turned in my direction and asked, "What do you make of it, Parker?"

  "Well, it's plain as a pikestaff that Colvin senior doesn't want the police nosing about that twenty-year-old accident," I said. "And that suggests it may have been more than an accident. From that conclusion it is but a step to the theory that Mr. Trevor Pope has come back from Canada at last to avenge the murder of his brother."

  "Capital!" cried Pons. "That is surely exemplary deduction, Parker. I am troubled by only one or two little aspects of the matter which no doubt you will be able to clear up when the time comes. We have as yet no evidence to connect Trevor Pope with the warning letters."

  "It is surely not just coincidence that Pope's appearance in the neighbourhood is followed by the arrival of warning letters," I cried. "Their very wording points to him!"

  "Does it not!" agreed Pons. "The intended victims are not told to prepare for death, but for 'punishment.' That is surely ambiguous! 'Punishment' for what?"

  "Why, for the murder of Henry Pope, what else?"

  "The coroner's inquest determined that Henry Pope came to an accidental death."

  "Inquest verdicts are not infallible conclusions, Pons; none knows this better than you."

  "True, true," murmured Pons. "Yet I find this disturbingly simple, and I incline a little to distrust of the obvious."

  "It all hangs together," I protested. "What other significance could the printed arrow on the warnings have but a reminder of the Sussex Archers —and, specifically, of the occasion of their disbanding?"

  "I think the reference cannot be disputed," agreed Pons. "What troubles me is simply this —why warn these gentlemen at all?"

  "It is elementary psychology that avengers have a pathological wish to let their victims know why they are being punished. These warnings, with their printed arrows, seem to have achieved their purpose, now that the first one of the surviving six members of the Sussex Archers has been murdered."

  "They do, indeed —but not yet to the extent of sending any one of them for the police. What coy reluctance to act!"

  "If any proof were needed that Henry Pope's death was not all it seems, that is certainly it."

  "Is it? I wonder. These waters, I fear, are darker than we may at this moment believe. We shall see. Just let me have that Sussex Guide not far beyond your elbow, will you? There's a good fellow!"

  Thereafter Pons retreated for the remainder of the evening behind the book I handed to him.

  An hour or so after our client stopped for us next morning, we were driving through the quaint Wealden village which is Lurgashall —a small, quiet hamlet, composed of a green surrounded by several picturesque cottages —and climbing the height of Blackdown, the highest hill in Sussex. Not far up the slope stood our client's home, a rambling house of stone set behind stone gate piers and a yew hedge, with outbuildings down the slope from it at one side. Its tall casement windows were curtained at this hour, and, indeed, the house and grounds were almost lost in the surrounding woods.

  Our client had wired his father of our impending arrival; as a result, Joshua Colvin awaited us in the breakfast room. He was a sturdy, middle-aged man wearing a fierce, straggly moustache, and a dogged look in his dark blue eyes.

  He acknowledged his son's introductions in a gruff, self-confident manner. "You'll join me at breakfast, Mr. Pons —Dr. Parker?" he asked.

  "A cup of tea, sir," said Pons. "We have breakfasted. Besides, I like to keep my mind clear for these little problems."

  Colvin favoured him with an even, measuring glance. "Sit down, gentlemen," he said. "I take coffee and brandy for breakfast — always have done, in addition to toast, jam, and a bit of bacon. You'll not mind my eating? I waited on your coming."

  "By no means, Mr. Colvin."

  We sat at the breakfast-table, and would have been readily at ease had it not been for an almost immediate interruption. A young man, obviously just out of bed, burst into the room, his sensitive face flushed and upset.

  "Father —I saw Pearson about again last night. . . ." he said, and, catching sight of us, stopped. "I beg your pardon."

  "Come in, come in —you're late again," said Colvin. Turning to us, he added, "My son, Alasdair —Mr. Solar Pons, Dr. Parker. Now, then —Pearson. You're quite sure?"

  "Certain, sir. Skulking outside the gates. I got in about midnight."

  "Pearson," put in our client, "is a beater my father discharged over two months ago. Been hanging around ever since."

  "Man's dotty," said Colvin senior, snorting. "Ought to be off getting himself another place."

  "May I ask why he was discharged?" inquired Pons.

  "He was party to a poaching ring," said Colvin shortly. "Sort of thing I won't tolerate."

  Alasdair Colvin, meanwhile, had swallowed only a cup of coffee. Then he got to his feet again, made his excuses, and left the room.

  "The boy has an editorial position of some kind," growled Colvin. "Softening job. Lets him sleep late. These people in publishing are like bankers —they get to the office any time between ten and twelve. Disgraceful, I call it."

  Our host had now devoured three rashers of bacon, a slice of toast covered with marmalade, and two cups of coffee in the time it took Pons to drink half a cup of tea. I saw that Pons's eyes not only were upon the senior Colvin, but also were flickering about the gracious room, taking in its appointments.

  Joshua Colvin pushed back from the table, arms akimbo, hands gripping the arms of the Windsor-chair in which he sat.

  "Well, sir," he said to Pons, "now that you're here at my son's invitation, we may as well get on with it."

  "Tell me something about the Sussex Archers, Mr. Colvin," said Pons quietly.

  "Little to tell, sir. Organized 1901. Disbanded 1907. Accidental killing of one of our number, Henry Pope. Never had more than seven members. Pope, Jefferds, myself. George Trewethen, Abel Howard, Will Ockley, and David Wise. That's the lot of us. All devoted to archery. We got together to practise archery. That's the long of it and the short of it. All congenial chaps, very. Liked a nip or two, now and then. No harm in that. Had our own special arrows. That sort of thing. Competed now and then in contests with other clubs. Henry's death took the stuffing out of us and put an end to the Sussex Archers."

  "The death of Mr. Pope," said Pons musingly, "would seem to warrant a few trifling questions."

  "Twenty years ago, Mr. Pons," said Colvin with a mounting air of defence. "He's all dust and bone by this time. The coroner's inquest sai
d accident."

  "You insist on that, Mr. Colvin?" pressed Pons.

  Beads of perspiration appeared suddenly on our host's temples. He gripped his chair arms harder.

  "Damn it, sir! That was the coroner's decision, the decision of the jury."

  "Not yours, Mr. Colvin."

  "Not mine!"

  "I submit, sir, you accepted it with reservations."

  "Since you're not the police, Mr. Pons, I may say that I did."

  "Not an accident, then, Mr. Colvin." ,

  "Murder!" Our host growled the word and almost spat it out. Once having said it, he relaxed; his hands slipped back along the arms of the chair and he himself sank back. He took a deep breath, and the words came out in a rush. "I don't see how he could have been killed by accident, Mr. Pons. I don't see why he should have been murdered. We were all experienced archers, sir — experienced! Not given to accidents. We were all friends —close friends. Certainly I don't pretend to know what waters run between my fellow- men, but there never was an uncongenial word among us. Besides, none of us had anything to gain by Henry's death. We had it to lose. We lost the one thing we prized among us —our archery. I've not touched my bow and arrows since the day."

  "How was he killed, Mr. Colvin?"

  "We were on the butts, Mr. Pons. Woods all around us. We were somewhat separated, taking positions for distance in loosing our arrows. After we had discharged arrows we pushed forward to mark our distances and see who had shot his arrow the farthest. We found Henry with an arrow in his back, dying. It was one of our arrows —we had special arrows, Mr. Pons —but unmarked."