“By all means, Mr Mulvane. Your attitude does you great credit. Inspector Stone will probably be here by the time we return. I presume you have enough accommodation to provide sleeping quarters for him and his men if they wish to stay the night.”
“Certainly, Mr Pons. We shall all feel much safer for their presence.”
Pons nodded.
“We will be off, then.”
As we crossed the hall, Pons whispered to me, “You might fetch your revolver, Parker. It is probably a needless precaution but it is as well to be prepared as the nights are long and dark at this time of year.”
I rejoined him in the hall a few minutes later and we set off down the misty lane, hearing the slamming of the great door behind us. Pons had a powerful flashlight with him and shone its brilliant beam into the dark shrubbery as we proceeded on our sombre errand.
“It is all my fault, Pons,” I said bitterly.
“Why so, Parker?”
“It was that open door,” I said. “Someone obviously returned and administered a relatively slow-acting poison — I suspect strychnine — to the wretched Peters before escaping down the back stairs.”
“You are certainly right there but no blame can be attached to you. It was my understanding that Mrs Peters or at least her housekeeper would make all secure at the house before they retired for the night. It would seem an obvious precaution in view of all the horrifying events of the recent past.”
“That may well be so, Pons,” I said. “I still cannot believe it. And old Hardcastle’s funeral has not yet even been arranged.”
“It is ironic, old fellow,” he said, still flashing the torch carefully from side to side. “He will no doubt join his own ancestors in the same vault, close to where he met his death.”
I could not resist a slight shiver at this.
“Why did not Mrs Peters give the alarm when the murderer returned? I assume it was the same man I saw earlier today.”
“No doubt, Parker. But I should imagine that Mrs Peters, in view of her husband’s injuries and general condition, would have slept in another room, though perhaps looking in on the invalid from time to time.”
“Well, here we are almost at Yeoman’s at last,” I said as we caught a glimpse if faint light through the trees that fringed the graveyard. “There are times, Pons, when I hate, both as a medical man and as a human being, to be the harbinger of bad tidings.”
Pons gave me a wry smile in the light of the torch.
“You are certainly right there, my dear fellow.”
Seventeen: NIGHTMARE
It was three A.M. when I sought my bed. It had been a night fraught with alarm and emotional crisis. The most difficult part had been our interview with Mrs Peters. She was a strong person but even her iron resolve had given way under the stress of her husband’s murder. There was a medicine cabinet in the bathroom and I had given her a strong mixture to calm her nerves. We had suggested that she remove herself to the Manor for the night but she would not hear of it.
As Pons had supposed she had slept in a ground floor bedroom so as not to disturb her husband. Her housekeeper had retired early, was a sound sleeper and had heard nothing. I had advised Mrs Peters not to view the body and she had taken that advice. The housekeeper, a motherly-looking woman in her early fifties, had strong nerves and was a great support to her mistress. We stayed more than an hour and when Sarita Peters was calmer I admired her courage and fortitude for she was still a splendid figure despite her grief. She did not know why the side door had been left unlocked and blamed herself bitterly for her husband’s death but we were unable to disabuse her on that point.
It turned out that the housekeeper thought that Mrs Peters had locked up, when Pons questioned her privately. Pons did not, of course, mention the earlier incident when I had seen a man moving away or the fact that the door had then been unlocked, for he had no further wish to burden her. She could throw no light on the reason for the murder and had no idea who the intruder might have been. She was amazed that her husband had the strength to stagger all the way to the Manor to give the alarm instead of rousing the household, and in truth, as a medical man, I was also astonished; it is incredible sometimes how people in extremis are able to do the most incredible things that one would imagine to be far beyond their strength.
Pons had been down to the side door where he made a careful examination; there were still damp traces of footprints on the wooden stair, but they told him nothing other than that the assassin had worn heavy shoes with broad cleats such as golfers wear though as thousands of people purchase such shoes the information was more or less worthless. When he had firmly bolted the door and made all secure we had finally left Mrs Peters and her housekeeper with suitable expressions of condolence. She had promised to come to the Manor the following morning to see Mulvane and to answer any questions that Inspector Stone might put to her, but she had our assurance that it would not be an ordeal.
When we at last returned to the Manor I was surprised to find that the time was still short of one a.m as we had seemed to have been away for far longer, such is the effect strong emotion and horrifying events have upon the human mind. A grim-faced Inspector Stone was there with an alert sergeant named Matthews, and two strong and determined constables. Peters’ body had already been removed by ambulance to a nearby town and the whole house was a hive of activity, with servants being questioned and depositions taken.
I seldom dream but during the dark hours that remained of the night I was oppressed with the fearful phantoms that may come when we are completely mentally exhausted and off our guard. It began with a vague floating feeling as though my bed was rocking in the swell of a sullen sea. Then, just as I was frightened that I was to be thrown into the water, it lifted into the air. There was misty cloud and through the swirling vapour I saw human figures, among them my own. We were back at the dinner table such a short while ago, before darkness and brutal murder had descended.
Pons was there and then the two of us walked into Vincent Tidmarsh’ study at the College. I was reading from the flyleaf of a thick leather-bound tome. The writer’s name was blurred but the lettering on the paper was black and clear. I read: Author of the Chains of Chastity.
“Oh, come Pons!” I protested. “Such a book…”
Solar Pons blew out an aromatic grey plume of smoke from his pipe.
“Not so, Parker. The springs of sex are mysterious, primitive and atavistic.”
“I did not know you knew so much about the human psyche,” said I.
He gave me a wry smile.
“Human nature is my business, Parker.”
Then the scene blurred again and we were in the Great Hall of Chalcroft Manor with Pons expounding on the case to a room packed with servants and the persona of the drama.
“I have called you here this afternoon to make a very important announcement, which concerns the future of everyone on this estate.”
Mulvane’s face was pale and drawn as he stared round at the assembled staff in the hall where the vast heaped fire of logs cast a warming glow and threw flickering shadows on the walls and furniture.
Mulvane held up his hand.
“For a particular reason I have asked Mr Pons to tell you about it. The discovery that Mr Pons has made is of such momentous import that I have taken the unprecedented step of bringing in everybody on the estate, so that each family employed by my late uncle is represented here this afternoon.”