“You see, Mr. Pons — there isn’t even a window in this wall through which someone could have escaped if it were unlocked.”
“Yes, yes,” said Pons with an absent air. “Some ghosts vanish without sound, we are told, and some in a thunderclap. And this one with the sound of a book dropped upon the carpet!” He sat for a few moments, eyes closed, his long, tapering fingers tented before him, touching his chin occasionally. He opened his eyes again and asked, “Has anything in the house — other than your books — been disturbed, Mrs. Ashcroft?”
“If you mean my jewelry or the silver — no, Mr. Pons.”
“A ghost with a taste for literature! There are indeed all things under the sun. The library has, of course, been cleaned since the visitation?”
“Every Saturday, Mr. Pons.”
“Today is Thursday — a week since your experience. Has anything taken place since then, Mrs. Ashcroft?”
“Nothing, Mr. Pons.”
“If you will excuse me,” he said, coming to his feet, “I would like to examine the room.”
Thereupon he began that process of intensive examination which never ceased to amaze and amuse me. He took the position that our client had just left to return to her chair, and stood, I guessed, fixing directions. He gazed at the high windows along the south wall; I concluded chat he was estimating the angle of a shaft of moonlight and deducing that the ghost, as seen by Mrs. Jenkins, had been standing at or near the same place when it was observed. Having satisfied himself, he gave his attention to the floor, first squatting there, then coming to his knees and crawling about. Now and then he picked something off the carpet and put it into one of the tiny envelopes he habitually carried. He crept all along the east wall, went around the north and circled the room in this fashion, while our client watched him with singular interest, saying nothing and making no attempt to conceal her astonishment. He finished at last, and got to his feet once more, rubbing his hands together.
“Pray tell me, Mrs. Ashcroft, can you supply a length of thread of a kind that is not too tensile, that will break readily?”
“What color, Mr. Pons?”
“Trust a lady to think of that!” he said, smiling. “Color is of no object, but if you offer a choice, I prefer black.”
“I believe so. Wait here.”
Our client rose and left the library.
“Are you expecting to catch a ghost with thread, Pons?” I asked.
“Say rather I expect to test a phenomenon.”
“That is one of the simplest devices I have ever known you to use.”
“Is it not?” he agreed, nodding. “I submit, however, that the simple is always preferable to the complex.”
Mrs. Ashcroft returned, holding out a spool of black thread. “Will this do, Mr. Pons?”
Pons took it, unwound a little of thread, and pulled it apart readily. “Capital!” he answered. “This is adequately soft.”
He walked swiftly over to the north wall, took a book off the third shelf, which was at slightly over two feet from the floor, and tied the thread around it. Then he restored the book to its place, setting it down carefully. After he restored the book to its place, he walked away, unwinding the spool, until he reached the south wall, where he tautened the thread and tied the end around a book there. He now had an almost invisible thread that reached from north to south across the library at a distance of about six feet from the east wall, and within the line of the windows.
He returned the spool of thread to our client. “Now, then, can we be assured that no one will enter the library for a day or two? Perhaps the Saturday cleaning can be dispensed with?”
“Of course it can, Mr. Pons,” said Mrs. Ashcroft, clearly mystified.
“Very well, Mrs. Ashcroft. I trust you will notify me at once if the thread is broken — or if any other untoward event occurs. In the meantime, there are a few little inquiries I want to make.”
Our client bade us farewell with considerably more perplexity than she had displayed in her recital of the curious events which had befallen her.
Once outside, Pons looked at his watch. “I fancy we may just have time to catch Mr. Harwell at his office, which is just down Sydenham Hill and so within walking distance.” He gazed at me, his eyes twinkling. “Coming, Parker?”
I fell into step at his side, and for a few moments we walked in silence, Pons striding along with his long arms swinging loosely at his sides, his keen eye darting here and there, as if in perpetual and merciless search of facts with which to substantiate his deductions.
I broke the silence between us. “Pons, you surely don’t believe in Mrs. Ashcroft’s ghost?”
“What is a ghost?” he replied. “Something seen. Not necessarily supernatural. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said. “It may be hallucination, illusion, some natural phenomenon misinterpreted.”
“So the question is not about the reality of ghosts, but, did our client see a ghost or did she not? She believes she did. We are willing to believe that she saw something. Now, it was either a ghost or it was not a ghost.”
“Pure logic.”
“Let us fall back upon it. Ghost or no ghost, what is its motivation?”
“I thought that plain as a pikestaff,” I said dryly. “The purpose is to frighten Mrs. Ashcroft away from the house.”
“I submit few such matters are plain as a pikestaff. Why?”
“Someone wishes to gain possession of Mrs. Ashcroft’s house.”
“Anyone wishing to do so could surely have bought it from the agents before Mrs. Ashcroft did. But, let us for the moment assume that you are correct. How then did he get in?”
“That remains to be determined.”
“Quite right. And we shall determine it. But one other little matter perplexes me in relation to your theory. That is this — if someone were bent upon frightening Mrs. Ashcroft from the house, does it not seem to you singular that we have no evidence that he initiated any of those little scenes where he was observed?”
“I should say it was deuced clever of him.”
“It does not seem strange to you that if someone intended to frighten our client from the house, he should permit himself to be seen only by accident? And that after but the briefest of appearances, he should vanish before the full effectiveness of the apparition could be felt?”
“When you put it that way, of course, it is a little far-fetched.”
“I fear we must abandon your theory, Parker, sound as it is in every other respect.”
He stopped suddenly. “I believe this is the address we want. Ah, yes — here we are. Harwell & Chamberlain, 221B.”
We mounted the stairs of the ancient but durable building and found ourselves presently in mid-nineteenth century quarters. A clerk came forward at our entrance.
“Good day, gentlemen. Can we be of service?”
“I am interested in seeing Mr. Roderic Harwell,” said Pons.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Harwell has just left the office for the rest of the day. Would you care to make an appointment?”
“No, thank you. My business is of some considerable urgency, and I shall have to follow him home.”
The clerk hesitated momentarily, then said, “I should not think that necessary, sir. You could find him around the corner at the Green Horse. He likes to spend an hour or so at the pub with an old friend or two before going home. Look for a short, ruddy gentleman, with bushy white sideburns.”
Pons thanked him again, and we made our way back down the stairs and out to the street. In only a few minutes we were entering the Green Horse. Despite the crowd in the pub, Pons’ quick eyes immediately found the object of our search, sitting at a round table near one wall, in desultory conversation with another gentleman of similar age, close to sixty, wearing, unless I were sadly mistaken, the air of one practicing my own profession.