The Ponson Case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  Having reached London with his prisoner, and handed him over to the proper authorities, Tanner returned to the Yard and set to work on a statement of the evidence he was prepared to supply to the Crown Prosecutor.

  But the more he considered this evidence, the less satisfied he became with it. Tanner was an ambitious as well as a naturally efficient man, and he hated giving over a case which was not complete in every detail. Here, though the facts he had learned undoubtedly made a powerful arraignment of Austin, they just stopped short of being conclusive. Always there was the possibility of a plant, with the accused as the innocent victim. At all events Tanner was sure a defence on these lines would be attempted, and he was not quite certain that he could meet it.

  Another difficulty was his failure to discover the maker of the fifth set of tracks on the river bank. Until this man was identified, and his business there known, the affair would remain unsatisfactory.

  Tanner determined he could not rest on his oars, but must continue his inquiries in the hope of making his case overwhelming.

  He recalled the fact that he had intended to follow up Sir William Ponson’s visits to London in the hope of finding that the latter’s business in town had some connection with his death. His attention had been diverted into other channels by the unexpected information given by Lucy Penrose and young Potts of Austin’s movements on the night of the murder. But now his mind reverted to the point, and he decided it remained his most promising clue. Without loss of time, therefore, he began to work on it.

  He remembered that he had already learnt the trains by which the murdered man had travelled to town. He could thus start with the practical certainty that Sir William had arrived at St Pancras at 11.40 on the Saturday and the Monday before the crime.

  By what means would the deceased leave the station? Tanner did not think a man of his position would walk or go by bus or tube. No, as his private car was not available he would take a taxi. ‘I must find the man who drove him,’ the Inspector thought.

  He gave his bell a code ring, and instructed the assistant who answered to undertake the inquiry. From the constables on station duty the numbers of the vehicles which left on the arrival of the train in question could be obtained, and it would be a simple matter to find the drivers and learn by means of a photograph which of them had driven Sir William, and to what point.

  But Tanner was by no means sanguine that such an inquiry would bear fruit. He believed that the deceased had not used his own car because he wished to cover his traces. And if so he would probably have avoided taking a taxi at the station. It would have been safer for him to have picked one up in the street outside. Tanner therefore felt he should if possible have another string to his bow. Where could such be found?

  A second line of inquiry soon suggested itself. Sir William would not have passed the day without food. If Tanner could find where he lunched, it would give him another point of attack.

  The Inspector had learned from Innes his master’s usual restaurants, as well as the names of his two clubs. As all these were extremely expensive and exclusive, Tanner felt he might confine his researches to places of the same type.

  He began at once. Driving to the first club, he made exhaustive inquiries. Sir William was a well-known figure there, and his death had caused some of the attendants to recall in conversation the occasion of his last visit. But this had been three weeks before the murder. The men were positive he had not been there either the Saturday or Monday in question.

  At the second club Tanner received similar information. Here Sir William had not been seen for over two months prior to his death.

  The Inspector then began on the restaurants. By the time he had visited the Carlton, the Savoy, and one or two others it was after eight o’clock. He therefore gave up for the night and, going home, busied himself in making out a list of other possible places at which he would inquire on the following day.

  Next morning he was early at work. He was very thorough and painstaking, leaving no restaurant till he had interviewed every one who might conceivably help him, from the manager down to the cloakroom attendant. For a long time he had no luck. But at last in the late afternoon, when he had worked half down his list and visited no less than seventeen restaurants, he found what he wanted.

  It was a small but expensive French place on the border of Soho, with an unobtrusive exterior, and a quiet, excellent service—a place frequented by a well-to-do but, Tanner somehow imagined, rather disreputable clientéle. Here Sir William’s photograph received instant recognition.

  ‘But yes, monsieur,’ the polite manager assured him. ‘I remember this gentleman distinctly. He come here—let me see—about three weeks ago, I think. He come early and he ask for me. He wish a private room and lunch for three. Presently two other gentlemen join him. They lunch. After coffee he give orders that they be not disturbed. They stay there for ver’ long time. Then they leave and this gentleman’—the manager tapped the photograph—‘he pay for all.’

  ‘Can you tell me what day that was?’

  By looking up his records of the hire of the room the manager could. It was Monday the 5th July. Further inquiries elicited the information that Sir William had reached the restaurant about twelve, and had remained till three, when he left with his friends.

  ‘Together?’ asked Tanner.

  ‘At the same time, monsieur, yes; but not in company. The old gentleman’—again the manager indicated the photograph—‘he drive off in a taxi. The other two walk.’

  ‘Now those other two. Would you kindly describe them.’

  As he listened to the manager’s reply, the Inspector got a sudden idea. He took from his pocket the half-dozen photographs he had used when tracing Cosgrove’s movements, and asked the other if the two friends were among them. The manager glanced over them, then bowed and smiled.

  ‘These are the gentlemen,’ he declared, picking out those of Austin and Cosgrove.

  Inspector Tanner was greatly surprised at the news. What, he wondered, could have been the business between these three, which was so secret that it could only be discussed in a private room of a somewhat shady foreign restaurant in Soho? Something dark and sinister, he feared. It was evident that all three had desired to keep the meeting a secret. Sir William had taken steps to cover his traces on the journey, and so probably had the other two. At least if they had not, they had practically denied being there. Both Austin and Cosgrove had stated explicitly that they had not seen Sir William on the day in question. Further, it must have been complicated business. Austin had been alone with his father for at least two hours on the previous evening—Tanner recollected that after dinner at Luce Manor on the Sunday the men had not joined the ladies in the drawing-room—and here, the very next day, an interview of three hours had been necessary. Or say two hours, excluding lunch. A lot of business could be put through in two hours. Tanner began to fear the whole affair was deeper and more complicated than he had at first supposed.

  He questioned all of the staff who had come in contact with the three men, without result, until he came to the restaurant porter who had called the taxi. Here he had more luck than is usual in such inquiries. The taxi had been taken from a neighbouring rank, and the porter recollected the driver, whom he had called several times previously. He was an elderly, wizened man, clean-shaven and with white hair.

  After slipping a coin into the porter’s eager hand, Tanner walked to the rank. The driver of the third car answered the description. Tanner accosted him civilly, explaining who he was.

  ‘On Monday the 5th instant, just three weeks ago,’ he went on, ‘about three in the afternoon, you were hailed by the porter at the Étoile over there. Your fare was this gentleman’—he showed Sir William’s photograph. ‘Do you remember it?’

  The man looked at the card.

  ‘Why yes, sir, I remembers ’im all right.’

  ‘Where did you drive him to?’

  ‘I’m blessed if I can remember the name, sir,’ t
he driver answered slowly, ‘It was to a little narrow street back of Gower Street. I ’adn’t ever been there before. The old gent, ’e directs me there, and tells me to set ’im down at the corner, and so I does. ’E was standing there when I saw ’im last.’

  ‘Could you find the place again?’

  ‘I believe I could, sir.’

  ‘Then drive me there,’ said Tanner, entering the vehicle.

  The district they reached was a miserable, decaying part of town. The streets were narrow—mere lanes, and the buildings high and unusually drab and grimy even for a London backwater. The houses had been good at one time, but the place had now degenerated into a slum. ‘What in the name of wonder,’ thought Tanner, as he stood looking round at the depressing prospect, ‘could have brought Sir William here?’

  He paid off his driver and began to investigate his surroundings. He was at a cross-roads, the broader street being labelled Dunlop Street, the other Pate’s Lane. In Dunlop Street were a few shops—a bar at the corner, a tobacconist’s, a grocer’s—all small, mean, and dirty. Pate’s Lane appeared entirely given up to tenement houses.

  Tanner felt utterly at a loss. He could form no conception of Sir William’s possible objective. Nor could he envisage any line of inquiry which might lead him to his goal. He seemed to be up against a blank wall, through which he could see no means of penetrating.

  He wondered if a former servant or mill worker might not live in the neighbourhood, with whom the manufacturer might have had business. But if so, and if by some incredible chance Tanner were to hit on the person in question, he felt he would be no further on, and that all knowledge of Sir William’s visit would almost certainly be concealed.

  However, he would learn nothing by standing in the street, and he walked to the bar at the nearest corner and entered.

  The landlord was a big, red-faced man with a bluff manner. Tanner, after ordering some ale, engaged him in conversation, deftly pumping him. But he learned nothing. The man had not seen Sir William, nor did the manufacturer’s name convey anything to him.

  Tanner tried each of the other three corner shops of the cross-roads, but again without result. Then, thinking that small tobacconists and news-agents sometimes act as mediums between persons who do not wish their connection to be known, he called at all the shops of these kinds in the immediate neighbourhood. Again he was disappointed, as he was also when he visited the pawnbroker’s. By this time it was getting late, and he turned his steps homeward, intending to return on the next morning and begin a house-to-house visitation in the vicinity of the cross streets.

  As he walked down the road towards Gower Street, he noticed three buildings which he thought looked more the kind of place for a rendezvous than any he had yet seen. Two were shabby and rather squalid looking restaurants, the third a building slightly larger and more pretentious than its neighbours. In faded letters it bore the legend ‘Judd’s Family & Commercial Hotel’. Tanner decided that, before beginning on the houses of Pate’s Lane, he would try these three.

  Next morning he drew blank in the first of the restaurants. A visit to the second was equally fruitless. But when he reached the hotel he had a stroke of luck.

  A rather untidy porter was polishing the brass bell-push, and Tanner engaged him in conversation. Yes, he remembered a well-dressed old gentleman calling about half-past three on that Monday, three weeks earlier. He would recognise him if he saw him. Yes, he was sure that was his photograph. The gentleman had asked was a Mr Douglas staying in the hotel, and on being answered in the affirmative he had gone up to the latter’s bedroom and remained with him for about half an hour. Then he had left, and that was all the porter knew.

  ‘And what sort of a man was Mr Douglas?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘A small man, very small and thin,’ the porter returned. ‘Looked as ’ow a breath of wind would ’ave blown ’im away. Sort of scared too, I thought.’

  Tanner pricked up his ears.

  ‘What was he like in face?’ he asked.

  ‘’E was getting on in years—maybe sixty or more, and ’e ’ad a small, grey goatee beard, and a moustache, and wore spectacles. ’E spoke like an American man and was a bit free with ’is langwidge, damning and cursing about everything.’

  At last! Was this the man for whom he and Sergeant Longwell had been searching—the man who had made the fifth set of tracks at Luce Manor, and who had travelled from St Albans to London on the morning after the crime? With thinly veiled eagerness Tanner continued his questions.

  ‘Who cleans the boots here?’

  The porter looked interested.

  ‘I do,’ he replied, ‘and why that?’

  ‘Only this. Can you remember what sort of boots this man Douglas wore?’

  ‘Well, they were small, like himself. Small boots like you’d expect a boy to wear.’

  ‘With nails in the soles?’

  ‘Just that. Guess, mister, you’re a ’tec?’

  Tanner nodded.

  ‘From Scotland Yard,’ he answered. ‘I’m after that man Douglas, and if you can tell me anything about him, I’ll make it worth your while.’

  The man whistled.

  ‘Gosh! but I just thought he was a wrong ’un. Wot’s ’e been up to, mister?’

  ‘Never mind now. Why did you think he was a wrong ’un?’

  ‘W’y, ’e looked scared fit to die. ’E ’ad something worrying ’im, ’e ’ad.’

  ‘All the time he was here?’

  ‘No, the morning ’e left. ’E got ’is tea the night before a bit early—about ’alf five or thereabouts—and then went out, and ’e didn’t come back till seven o’clock the next morning; walks in at seven o’clock all shaking and grey about the face and calls for brandy. Swallowed two large brandies nearly neat, ’e did. They pulled ’im together some, and then ’e pays ’is bill and ’ooks it.’

  ‘Hooked it?’

  ‘Yes, we never saw ’im no more after that.’

  ‘And do you remember what day that was?’

  ‘No, but I can get it for you at the office.’

  The porter vanished for a moment to a room at the back.

  ‘’E left on Thursday morning, the 8th.’

  ‘Did you notice anything about his boots that morning?’

  ‘Yes. They were covered with mud—just covered. You couldn’t but notice them. And the ends of ’is trousers too. ’E looked as if ’e ’ad been up to the knees in muddy water.’

  Tanner was as nearly excited as his dignity would allow. There could be little doubt, he felt, that this Douglas was indeed the man of whom he was in search. The man’s size—a small man would take short steps—the little, hobnailed boots, the wet and muddy trousers, the goatee beard—these points considered cumulatively, made the evidence of identity almost overwhelming. And in addition he had been out all the night of the tragedy, and had returned in the morning shaken and clamouring for brandy. Enough evidence to hang a man, Tanner thought with satisfaction. He turned again to the porter.

  ‘What day did he come here first?’

  ‘I looked that up when I went to the office. It was on the Friday evening before.’

  ‘He left no address, I suppose?’

  ‘Not ’im,’ said the porter with a wink.

  ‘How did he go away? Did he get a cab?’

  ‘Keb?’ returned the other disgustedly. ‘Not ’im. ’E took ’is bag in ’is hand and just ’ooked it on ’is blooming feet.’

  Tanner replied absently. He was thinking that a man who departed on foot from an hotel without leaving an address might not be so easy to trace. And the best description of his appearance he could get was too vague to be of much use. The porter had not noticed the colour of the man’s eyes, if there was any scar or mark on his face or hands, the shape of his ears, any peculiarity in his gait—none of the matters on which identification depends. Tanner could only remind himself that a general hazy notion was better than no notion at all.

  He went to the office and sa
w the proprietor. The latter was a tall weedy individual, dilapidated looking as his own hotel. But he spoke civilly, and exerted himself to answer the Inspector’s questions, calling in various maids, and an untidy waiter for the latter’s interrogations. Unfortunately, none of them could tell anything Tanner had not already learned.

  The man had registered ‘William Douglas, Fulham Street, Birmingham,’ and with the proprietor’s permission Tanner cut out and pocketed the leaf. Then he asked to see the room the visitor had occupied.

  It was a small apartment on the fourth floor, supplied with the minimum of cheap, rickety furniture. The bed was not made up, and dust lay thick everywhere.

  ‘It hasn’t been occupied recently?’

  ‘Not since Mr Douglas had it,’ the proprietor admitted.

  ‘I’ll just take a look round, if you don’t mind,’ said Tanner. ‘Don’t let me keep you. I’ll follow you to the office in a minute or two.’

  Left to himself Inspector Tanner began one of his careful, painstaking examinations. The entire contents of the room were minutely inspected. Every inch of the carpet and the cracks between the floor boards were examined in the hope of finding some small object which might have been dropped. The drawers of the small wardrobe, the bedclothes, the dressing-table and washstand, all were gone through with the utmost care, but with no result. At last to complete his task the searcher turned his attention to the fireplace.

  A broken Japanese fan was stuck in the old-fashioned grate, and only partially concealed a litter of matches, scraps of paper, bits of cord and other debris. Tanner lifted out the fan and began to go through the rubbish with the same scrupulous care. And then his perseverance was rewarded.

  Among the papers he found the charred remains of an envelope which at once interested him. It was more than half burnt, a triangular portion with the stamp on one corner only remaining. As he picked it up it struck him it was of unusually good quality to find in a room of that description—thick, cream-laid paper, which only a well-to-do person would have used. A few letters at the end of each line of the address remained visible. But at these he hardly glanced at first, his attention being riveted on the postmark. The letters were slightly blurred, but still he could read it clearly—‘HALFORD 4 PM 2 JY 20.’