As we drew near to the home of Colonel Morland in the cab we had taken at Watford Junction, Pons’ face grew more grim. “I fear we are too late, Miss Morland,” he said presently.
“Oh, Mr. Pons! Why do you say so?” cried our client.
“No less than four police vehicles have passed us — two returning, two going our way,” he answered. “I should be very much surprised not to find the police at Morland Park.”
Miss Morland pressed a handkerchief to her lips.
Nor was Pons in error. Two police cars stood before the tall hedge that separated the parklike grounds which our client indicated as her uncle’s home, and a constable stood on guard at the gate in the hedge.
“Young Mecker,” murmured Pons at sight of him.
As the cab pulled up, Mecker stepped forward to wave it away. Then, his arm upraised, he recognized Pons getting out. His arm dropped.
“Mr. Pons!” he cried. “How could you have learned?” Then he caught sight of our client. “Could this be Miss Flora Morland?”
“It could be,” said our client. “Please! Tell me what has happened?”
“Inspector Jamison has been looking for you, Miss Morland. Please come with me.”
“Never mind, Meeker,” interposed Pons. “We’ll take her in.”
“Very well, sir. Thank you, sir.” He shook his head, frowning. “Dreadful business, sir, dreadful.”
Our client stood for a moment, one hand on Pons’ arm, trembling.
“I am afraid, Miss Morland,” said Pons with unaccustomed gentleness, “that what your uncle feared has come to pass.”
We went up a closely hedged walk arbored over with trees to a classically Georgian country house of two and a half storeys. The front door was open to the warm summer morning; just inside it stood the portly figure of Inspector Seymour Jamison of Scotland Yard, talking with another con stable. He turned abruptly at our entrance, frowning.
“Mr. Solar Pons, the private enquiry agent,” he said heavily. “Do you smell these matters, Pons?” Then his eyes fell upon our client. “Aha! Miss Flora Morland. We’ve been looking for you, Miss Morland.”
“Please! What has happened?” she beseeched him.
“You don’t know?”
“I do not.”
“Colonel Morland was found murdered in his bed this morning,” said Jamison coldly. “The house was locked, no windows had been forced, and you were missing. I must ask you, Miss Morland, to come into the study with me.”
“I should like to look into the bedroom, Jamison,” said Pons.
“By all means. The photographer is there now, but he should be finished soon. Just down the hall, the third door on the left. Around the stairs.”
Our client shot Pons a beseeching glance; he smiled reassuringly. Then she turned and went submissively with Inspector Jamison into the study, which was on the right.
Pons pushed past the police photographer into the late Colonel Moreland’s bedroom. Before us lay a frightful scene. Colonel Morland, a tall, broad-chested man, lay out-spread on his back on his bed, a wavy Malay kris driven almost to the hilt into his heart. Most shocking of all — his right hand had been severed at the wrist and lay where it had fallen in a pool of blood on the carpet beside the bed. Gouts of blood had spattered the bed; a froth of blood had welled from the dead man’s lips to colour his thick moustache; and the wide staring eyes seemed still to wear an expression of the most utter horror.
The room was a shambles. Whoever had slain our client’s uncle had torn it apart in search of something. The Colonel’s sea chest lay open, its contents strewn about. The drawers of the bureau, save for the very smallest at the top, had been pulled open and emptied, and the contents of the tall wardrobe-cabinet, even to the uppermost shelves, were banked about the hassock that stood before it. The sight was almost enough to unnerve a stronger man than I, and I marveled at Pons’ cool, keen detachment as he looked searchingly upon the scene.
The photographer, having finished, departed.
“How long would you say he has been dead, Parker?” asked Pons.
I stepped around gingerly and made a cursory examination. “At least eight hours,” I said, presently. “I should put it at between midnight and two o’clock — not before, and not very long after.”
“Before our client left the house,” murmured Pons.
He stood for a moment where he was. Then he stepped gingerly over to the bed and looked down at Colonel Morland’s body.
“The kris does not appear to have been disturbed,” he said, “which suggests that the murderer carried a second weapon solely for the purpose of severing his victim’s hand.”
“A ritual weapon!” I cried. “And carried away with him!”
Pons smiled lightly. “Cut with a single sweeping stroke, very cleanly,” he observed.
He stepped away from the bed and began to move carefully among the objects strewn about, disturbing nothing. He went straight to the bureau, the top of which had evidently not been disturbed, for what I assumed to be the dead man’s watch and wallet lay there. The wallet was the first object of Pons’ attention; he picked it up and examined its contents.
“Twenty-seven pound notes,” he murmured.
“So the object of this search could hardly have been money,” I said.
Pons shook his head impatiently. “No, no, Parker — the murderer was looking for the intarsia box. The top of the bureau was not disturbed because, had it been there, the box would have been instantly apparent: nor have the top drawers been opened because they are not deep enough to hold the box.”
He moved cautiously to the side of the bed, avoiding the pool of blood which had gushed from Colonel Morland’s cleanly severed wrist. “The murderer must have stood just here,” he said, and dropped to his knees to scrutinize the carpet intently. He was somewhat hampered by the presence of bloodstains, but I could see by the glint in his eyes that he had seen something of significance, however invisible it was to me, for he gave a small sound of satisfaction, as he picked something from the carpet just back from the edge of the great bed and put it into two of the little envelopes he always carried.
Just as he rose from his position, Inspector Jamison came into the room, wearing a patent glow of confidence.
“Nasty little job here, Pons,” he said almost cheerfully. “You’ll be sorry to learn I’ve sent Miss Morland off to the Yard to be put through it.”
“Indeed,” said Pons. “What admirable — and needlessly precipitate dispatch! You have reason to think her involved?”
“My dear fellow,” said Jamison patronizingly. “Consider. Every window and door of this house was locked. Only four people had keys — Colonel Morland, whose key is on his ring; his valet, who was his batboy in Malacca and who discovered his body; the housekeeper, and Miss Morland. All of their keys are in their possession. Nothing has been forced. Miss Morland, I am told by Mr. Harris, the Colonel’s counsel, stands to inherit sixty percent of a considerable estate, considerable even after the Crown duties.”
“It does not seem to you significant that on so warm a night this house should have been locked up so tightly?” asked Pons.
“You’re not having me on that, Pons,” retorted Jamison, grinning. “We know all about that intarsia box. Morland was in fear for his life.”
“You are suggesting then that Miss Morland slipped into the room, stabbed her uncle, cut off his right hand, searched the room until she turned up the box, and then made her way to Number 7B to enlist my services?”
“Hardly that. She is hardly strong enough to have driven that kris into him with such force.”