“Hardly,” agreed Pons dryly.
“But there is nothing to prevent her having hired an accomplice.”
“And what motive could she possibly have had for cutting off her uncle’s hand?” pressed Pons.
“What better way could be devised to confuse the investigation into the motive for so gruesome a crime?”
“And Miss Morland seems to you, after your conversation with her, the kind of young lady who could lend herself to such a crime?”
“Come, come, Pons. You have a softness for a pretty face,” said Jamison.
“I submit that this would have been a most fantastic rigmarole to go through simply to inherit the wealth of a man who, by all the evidence, granted her every whim. No Jamison, it won’t wash.”
“That intarsia box — she tells me it is in your possession. We shall have to have it.”
“Send ’round to 7B for it. But give me at least today with it, will you?”
“I’ll send for it tomorrow.”
“Tell me — you’ve questioned the servants, I suppose? Did anyone hear anything in the night?”
“Not a sound. And I may say that the dog, which habitually sleeps at the front door of the house, outside, never once was heard to bark. I need hardly tell you the significance of that.”
“It suggests that the murderer entered...”
“Or was let in.”
“By the back door.”
Jamison’s face reddened. He raised his voice. “It means that since the dog did nothing in the nighttime the murderer was known to him.”
Pons clucked sympathetically. “You ought to stay away from Sir Arthur’s stories, my dear chap. They have a tendency to vitiate your style.”
“I suppose you will be telling us to look for a giant of a man who can charm dogs,” said Jamison with heavy sarcasm.
“Quite the contrary. Look for a short, lithe man who, in this case at least, probably went barefooted.” He turned and pointed to the scarcely visible hassock. “Only a man shorter than average would have had to use that hassock to look at the top shelves of the cabinet. The indentations in the carpet indicate that the hassock’s usual position is over against the wall beside the cabinet.”
Jamison’s glance flashed to the hassock, and returned, frowning, to Pons.
“If you don’t mind, Jamison, I’ll just have a look around out in back. Then perhaps you could send us back to Watford Junction in one of the police cars.”
“Certainly, Pons. Come along.”
Jamison led the way out and around the stairs to a small area-way from which doors opened to the kitchen on the right, and a small store room on the left, and into the back yard. A maid and an elderly woman, manifestly the housekeeper, sat red-eyed at a table in the kitchen. Jamison hesitated, evidently of the opinion that Pons wished to speak with them, but Pons’ interest was in the back door, where he crouched to look at the lock. He really inspected it.
“We’ve been all through that, Pons,” said Jamison with an edge of impatience in his voice.
Pons ignored him. He opened the door, crouched to examine the sill, then dropped to his knees and, on all fours, crawled out to the recently reset flagstone walk beyond it. From one place he took up a pinch of soil and dropped it into one of his envelopes. At another he pointed wordlessly, beckoning to Inspector Jamison, who came and saw the unmistakable print of human toes.
Then Pons sprang up and went back into the house, Jamison and myself at his heels. He found a telephone directory, consulted it briefly, and announced that he was ready to leave, if Jamison would be kind enough to lend us a police car and driver.
Once again on the Underground, I asked Pons, “We’re not going back to 7B?”
“No, Parker. I am delighted to observe how well you read me. I daresay we ought to lose no time discovering the secret of the intarsia box. Since Colonel Morland is dead, we shall have to ask Nicholas Morland whether he can explain it. You’ll recall that he spent the last five years of his uncle’s residency with him. He has an office in the Temple. I took the trouble to look him up in the directory before we left Morland Park.”
“I followed the matter of the murderer’s height readily enough,” I said, “But how did you arrive at his being barefooted?”
“There were in the carpet beside the bed, just where a man might have stood to deliver the death blow, three tiny files of soil particles, in such a position as to suggest the imprint of toes. The soil was quite probably picked up among the flagstones.”
“And, you know, Pons — Jamison has a point about the dog.”
Pons smiled enigmatically. “The dog did nothing. Very well. Either he knew the murderer — or he didn’t hear him, which is quite as likely. A barefooted man could travel with singular noiselessness. And Morland Park is a paradise for prowlers!” He looked at me, his eyes dancing. “Consider the severed hand. Since you are so busy making deductions, perhaps you have accounted for it.”
“Now you press me,” I admitted, “that seems to me the most elementary detail of all. I suggest that an indignity the late Colonel Morland committed in the past has now been visited upon him.”
“Capital! Capital!” cried Pons. “You have only to keep this up, my dear fellow, and I can begin to think of retiring.”
“You are making sport of me!” I protested.
“On the contrary. I could not agree with you more. There are one or two little points about the matter that trouble me, but I have no doubt these will be resolved in due time.”
For the rest of the journey Pons rode in silent contemplation, his eyes closed, the thumb and forefinger of his right hand ceaselessly caressing the lobe of his ear. He did not open his eyes again until we came into Temple Station.
Nicholas Morland proved to be a somewhat frosty man in his early forties. He was dressed conservatively, but in clothes befitting his station. Save for the difference in years, he was not unlike his late uncle in appearance, with the same kind of moustache, the same outward thrust of the lips, the same bushy brows. His frosty mien was superficial, for it collapsed as he listened to Pons’ concise summary of events, and little beads of perspiration appeared at his temples.
“We must rely upon you, Mr. Morland,” concluded Pons, “to explain the significance of the intarsia box and its contents.”
Morland came shakily to his feet and walked back and forth across his office, biting his lip. “It is something I had hoped never to have to speak about,” he said at last. “Is it really necessary, Mr. Pons?”
“I assure you it is. Scotland Yard will expect to hear about it before the day is out. I am here in advance of their coming because I am acting in the interests of your cousin.”
“Of course. I quite understand.” He took another turn or two about his office, and then sat down again, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Well, Mr. Pons, it is a matter that does not reflect at all well upon my late uncle,” he began. “As Flora may perhaps have told you, Uncle Burton married an Eurasian woman, a very fine, very beautiful woman some ten years his junior — perhaps as much as fifteen, I cannot be sure, though I suspect my wife would know. I am sure you are aware that matters of moral conduct among the ethnically mixed peoples of the Federated States of Malaya are considered lax by British standards, and perhaps it was true that my aunt engaged in improper conduct with Bendarloh Ali, an uncle of my wife’s, who belonged to one of the better native families in Malacca. My uncle thought he would lose face, and he set about to prevent it. My aunt died; there is some reason to believe that it was by poison at my uncle’s hands. Her lover was arrested. Some valuable items belonging to my uncle were found in his home. He was accused of having stolen them, on no stronger evidence than their presence in his home, and he suffered the indignity of having his right hand cut off at the wrist. That is the sum total of the matter, sir.”