The Ponson Case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  It was cool in the grey walled room. The open window allowed a current of fresh air to flow gently in, carrying with it the subdued hum of the great city without. In the sunny courtyard the sparrows were twittering angrily, while a bluebottle buzzed endlessly up and down the window pane. The little group, after the first brief greetings, sat silent. Expectancy showed on every face, but whereas Tanner’s and the Chief Inspector’s also indicated satisfaction, uneasiness was marked on Daunt’s and positive apprehension on Lois’s. To her at least, the coming meeting with her lover was obviously no light ordeal. On it, as was evident to them all, largely depended the future happiness of both.

  They had not waited long before a knock came to the door and a sergeant of police admitted Austin Ponson. The young man was dressed in a suit of navy blue, and bore himself quietly and with some dignity. In the bright light of the room the lines of suffering showed more clearly on his face, and his eyes looked still more weary.

  Instantly on entering they swept over those present, fixing themselves immediately on Lois. In spite of an evident effort for self control, the light of an absolute adoration shone in them for a moment, then he withdrew them, bowed generally to the company, and sat down.

  But this was not enough for Lois. She sprang to her feet, and going over to him, held out her hand. He rose and clasped it, and though neither would trust themselves to speak, they saw that in each other’s eyes which satisfied them.

  Tanner with some delicacy busied himself for a few moments in giving directions to the stenographer, then turning to the others, he spoke.

  ‘I don’t think it is necessary, Miss Drew and gentlemen, for me to explain our presence here. Last night Mr Daunt intimated to me that Mr Ponson had a communication to make, at which he wished Miss Drew, Mr Daunt, and myself to be present. This meeting has therefore been arranged. I have only to make known to you, Mr Ponson, Chief Inspector Edgar’—he indicated his colleague—‘and to ask you to proceed with your statement. It is, of course, understood by you that you make it voluntarily and that it may be used against you?’

  ‘I understand that right enough, Inspector,’ began Austin, ‘and I wish to say I have no quarrel with your treatment of me. You have been fair all through.’

  He paused, settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and went on:

  ‘The only thing I should like to ask is whether my cousin, Cosgrove, has been told that I am going to make this statement?’

  ‘He has been told,’ Tanner answered.

  ‘And may I learn if he was satisfied?’

  ‘He seemed so.’

  ‘Thank you. I am not quite sure how much of my story you know, but I shall tell you everything. When I have finished I shall have a request to make of you—that you will keep what I am about to tell private—but I do not know whether or not you will find that possible.’

  Tanner nodded without speaking.

  ‘Of my early life,’ went on Austin, ‘I do not think I need say much. I expect’—he looked at Tanner—‘you know all about it. You know that, while we never had an open breach, my father and I did not pull well together. We looked at things from such different points of view that our intercourse only produced irritation. My father wished me to read for the bar with the idea of entering Parliament, and trying for a seat in the Ministry. I was not ambitious in that direction, but preferred literary work, and scientific research. Therefore, as you no doubt are aware, I found it irksome at home, and I set up my own establishment in Halford. But that we remained good friends was proved by my father’s moving to Luce Manor at my suggestion. With my mother I was always in sympathy. She was easygoing, and deferred without protest to my father’s decisions, but never at any time was there the slightest cloud between us. So things had gone on for years, and so they went on until this terrible business began.’

  Austin moved nervously in his chair, glancing quickly round the little group.

  ‘On Sunday, 4th July,’ he resumed, ‘occurred the first event of this unhappy tragedy, so far as I was concerned. I received by that morning’s post a letter from my father, saying he wished to see me on very private business, and asking me to dine and spend that evening with him. He directed me to destroy his letter, and not refer to the matter to anyone.

  ‘Considerably surprised, I burnt the note, and duly went out to Luce Manor in time for dinner. When the meal was over my father and I retired to his study, and there when our cigars were alight, he said he had a very grievous and terrible secret to impart to me which would doubtless give me considerable pain. He locked the door, then sitting down he told me what I believe you already know.

  ‘“My boy,” he said, “we have not perhaps pulled it off together as well as I could have wished, and when you hear what I have to tell you, I fear you may be tempted to think more bitterly of me than I deserve. But I can assure you on my honour, that in this terrible affair I acted in perfectly good faith all through. Until four years ago I was as ignorant as you are still that there was anything wrong.”

  ‘“I don’t understand,” I said.

  ‘“No,” he answered, “but you will soon.”

  ‘Then he told me of his early life, and that of the two Dales; of his falling in love with my mother, Ethel Osborne; of the rivalry between himself and Tom Dale for her hand; of Dale’s success; of the miserable married life of the couple; of Dale’s mission to Canada, and of his presumed death in the Numidian disaster, and of my father’s own marriage with the widow. All this I had known more or less vaguely before, and I could not understand why my father recited the circumstances in such detail. But he soon made it clear to me.

  ‘“As you know,” he went on, “your dear mother and I have lived happily together ever since. She had her time of suffering, but thank God, she has enjoyed her after-life, and please God, she shall never learn what I am about to tell you.”

  ‘“Some four years ago,” continued my father, “I happened to be in London, and walking down Cheapside I met a man whose face seemed vaguely familiar. He was short and slight, with small features, rather delicately moulded, white hair, and a short goatee beard. He saw me at the same time, and his eyes fixed themselves on my face with an expression of almost incredulous recognition. For a few seconds we stood facing each other, while I racked my brains to recall his identity. And then suddenly I knew him. It was Tom Dale!”

  ‘My father paused, but for some seconds I did not grasp the full meaning of his statement. Then gradually its significance dawned on me. I need not repeat it. You have heard what it involved. I was appalled and horrified. Though upset on my own account, I ask you to believe that what distressed me most was its possible effect on my mother and sister. Of my mother I just couldn’t bear to think, and it also hurt me beyond words to believe that any such secret should have power to throw a shadow over Enid’s life.’

  ‘Did you speak to your father on this particular point?’ Tanner interjected.

  ‘Speak? I should rather think so. I was beside myself with horror.’

  ‘Can you recollect the exact words you used?’

  Austin considered.

  ‘I hardly think so,’ he said at last, ‘though every detail of the scene is fixed in my memory; I said as the thing began to dawn on me, “And my mother—it can’t be that she—?” I did not wish to speak the words, and my father completed my sentence for me. “Yes,” he said, “there’s no escape from it; she is the wife of that drunken ruffian.” Then I cried, “Good Heavens! She can’t be,” or something to that effect, and he answered that it was only too true.’

  ‘Might the words you used have been, “My God, sir, she isn’t?”

  ‘Yes, I believe those were the words. That was the sense anyway.’

  ‘Continue, please.’

  ‘It appeared that upon their recognition there was a scene between my father and Dale. Eventually, however, they took a private room at a neighbouring bar, and there talked the matter over. Then to my father’s amazement it came out that Dale had not
known of my mother’s second marriage. But when the latter realised how matters stood, his manner changed. He said it was my father, and not himself, who had come within the reach of the law, and that if the affair became known, even if my father escaped imprisonment, he would still have public opinion to reckon with. Was he prepared to face the scandal?

  ‘My father was not. His good name and that of his family were very precious to him. In his agitation he did a weak thing. He offered to buy Dale’s silence.

  ‘My father then told of his negotiations with Dale, with the details of which I think I need hardly trouble you. Suffice it to say that Dale put on the screw and got several hundreds that year. But that did not satisfy him. His demands grew more and more outrageous till at last my father came to the conclusion that some step must be taken to rid himself of the incubus.

  ‘“It is not the actual money he is now getting,” said my father, “it is the uncertainty under which I am living that is making me ill. He will continue to bleed me, and after I am gone he will bleed your mother and yourself, and perhaps Enid. Besides, we don’t know if he really will preserve the secret. I have been thinking for some time that I must tell you and Cosgrove the whole story, so that we may devise some plan to protect ourselves, but now events have been precipitated by a fresh demand from Dale. Read that.”

  ‘My father handed me a letter headed “Myrtle Cottage, Yelverton, South Devon”. It was from Dale, and in it he said the existing arrangements with my father were unsatisfactory, that instead of a hundred or two now and then, he would rather have one large sum which should close the account between them. He demanded my father should buy him an annuity which should bring him in £500 a year for life. In peremptory words he required an immediate answer, adding that he was coming to town that day and would stay in a small hotel near Gower Street, where my father could see him.

  ‘That letter had come on the previous Thursday, and on the Saturday—that was the day before our interview—my father had gone to town and seen Dale. The man, it seemed, had been more truculent and overbearing than ever before, and had presented what amounted to an ultimatum. Either he would have the money for his annuity, or he would tell. After a long wrangle my father had promised to consider the matter until the following Monday, when he would see Dale again and let him know his decision.

  ‘My father went on to say he would willingly pay the demand to be rid of the whole business, but his difficulty was, of course, that he had no guarantee the payment would rid him of it. He would still be, to precisely the same extent, in Dale’s power.

  ‘He continued that he felt that as Cosgrove and I were also interested in the affair, the time had now come to take us into his confidence, in order to see if some joint action could not be taken to bring the matter to an end. He had not yet spoken to Cosgrove, but he suggested that on the following day, Monday, we should both go to town and have an interview with my cousin, after which he could go on and see Dale. We decided to travel separately, to meet at a little French, restaurant in Soho, and to keep the matter perfectly private.’

  Anstin once again paused and glanced round the little group. He was speaking quietly, but there was a ring of truth in his voice. Tanner, who sat checking his every statement in the light of what he had himself learnt, and watching like a lynx for discrepancies, had to admit to himself that the story they were hearing was consistent with the facts. If Austin could explain away all the damaging points in an equally convincing manner, the Inspector felt that the case against him might easily collapse.

  ‘Early next morning I made the appointment with Cosgrove by telephone,’ Austin resumed, ‘and by different trains my father and I went to town. We took a private room at the restaurant, and there my father told Cosgrove. He was not so upset as I had been, and recommended refusing to meet Dale and letting him do his worst. Though the matter did not affect Cosgrove so closely as it did me, I would have agreed to this proposal, but for my mother and sister. After all, I thought, my father has plenty of money. He will not feel what he may give to this Dale, and there can be no doubt it would be better for all concerned if the affair remained a secret.

  ‘The question then became, “How could we ensure that a further payment would really have the desired effect?”

  ‘My father had a plan—a wild, unpractical, even farcical plan—or so it struck me at first. He said that as we could not adopt the only infallible scheme to silence Dale—to murder him—we must be content with one which promised at least a reasonable chance of success. He said the man was a coward, and that we must work on that. If we could frighten him enough we would get what we wanted, and by his plan he thought we could frighten him so much that he would not dare to reveal what he knew. The plan was as follows:

  ‘My father was to see Dale the same afternoon, hand him £100 as a pledge of good faith, and promise to pay the annuity, though not for the amount claimed. The refusal was to be made more or less doubtfully so as to convey the impression to Dale’s mind that he had only to negotiate further and he would get what he wanted. In fact, the interview was to terminate with the principle agreed on, but the precise sum unsettled.

  ‘“But why do that?” interrupted Cosgrove. “If you pay the lump sum you lose your hold on him.”

  ‘“I think not,” returned my father. “It is part of my scheme that he should have a strong temptation to fall in with our wishes, and the annuity will provide that.”

  ‘Cosgrove nodded, and my father went on with his explanation.

  ‘Dale was to be told to get further figures from the insurance company, giving the cost of annuities for smaller annual amounts. At the same time another meeting would be arranged at which the matter would be settled and the money paid. My father was to explain to him that he didn’t want to make any more mysterious visits to town, and that Dale must therefore bring the information to Luce Manor. To keep the visit secret he was not to come to the house, but was to be at the boathouse at 9.30 in the evening, where my father would slip out and meet him. Owing to the fact that my mother and sister were going away on a visit on the following day, Tuesday, the meeting was provisionally fixed for Wednesday.

  ‘Without letting Dale know, Cosgrove and I were also to be at the boathouse, and with our support my father was to take a strong line with Dale. The following proposition would be made him. My father would recognise the value of the secret, and would pay Dale, through some agency which would conceal his identity, a sum to the insurance company which would bring Dale in an annuity of about a pound a working day—say £320 per annum. This he would do on condition that Dale would give us an incriminating weapon against himself, which would take the value out of his secret, but which would not be used if he held his tongue. He was to sign a document stating that he was Edward Dale, not Tom; that he admitted having blackmailed my father by falsely representing himself as Tom; that he further admitted my father’s power and right to send him to penal servitude, but that he begged that on this full admission of guilt, coupled with an immediate and total cessation of all annoyance, my father would refrain from ruining and embittering the closing years of his life.

  ‘“He’ll never sign,” Cosgrove interrupted again.

  ‘“Wait a moment,” my father answered, and he went on to explain that if Dale refused to sign, he was to be threatened with immediate death by being tied up, gagged, and drowned in the water basin in the boathouse, it being explained to him that, after being unbound, his body would be sent down over the falls, whereby his death would be put down to accident.

  ‘I was amazed at my father seriously suggesting such a proceeding, and I felt strongly opposed to it.

  ‘“No, no,” I cried, “we can’t do that,” and Cosgrove nodded his agreement.

  ‘“Why not?” my father queried, and set himself to overcome our scruples. He argued that if our objection was to making the man sign a false statement, we must remember it was only a bluff, and said that for the sake of my mother and sister we must be willing to do what
we might otherwise reasonably object to. If, on the other hand, we were considering Dale’s feelings, we should not forget we were suggesting no harm to him—on the contrary we were about to offer him a large sum of money. The intention was not to injure him, but to prevent him injuring us.

  ‘“It’s not that,” said Cosgrove. “I don’t give a fig for the false statement, nor the man’s feelings either. As you say, he more than deserves far worse treatment than what you suggest. Nor do I care if the thing brings us within reach of the law—I would risk that for my aunt, and so would we all. But I don’t like your plan because it will not work.”

  ‘“Why not?” asked my father.

  ‘‘‘Why not?” Cosgrove repeated. “Because Dale has only to inform the police of the whole affair. He would be believed. How would we account for our meeting here, to take one point only?”

  ‘“Ah,” my father rejoined, “you always go too fast. I meet that difficulty in two ways. If Dale informed, I would say he signed the confession when I saw him in London—I shall see him this afternoon—under my threat of otherwise immediately exposing his blackmail to the police. Secondly, alibis are easy to fake. Each of the three of us must work out a false alibi, so that we can deny the meeting in the boathouse in toto.”

  ‘“No, no, I don’t like it,” Cosgrove demurred.

  ‘“None of us like it,” answered my father, “and I admit my plan is far from perfect. But can you suggest anything better?”

  ‘I was even more strongly against the whole business than Cosgrove, and both of us began raising objections to it. We argued that even if we obtained the false confession, it would not ensure our immunity from annoyance. To this my father replied that that was where Dale’s cowardly nature came in. The man would not be sure how the confession would affect him if it fell into the hands of the police, and he would be afraid to risk its becoming known.