"Strange as it may seem, Parker, it has either been raining or the ecclesiastical gentleman has been swimming, for I can clearly see droplets of moisture shining on his umbrella from here. Therefore, he has come from outside London, where local conditions may be a little warmer, for it has certainly not rained in the capital this morning according to the radio."
"You may be right," I conceded.
"The gentleman concerned, possibly a rural dean, is due to attend the conference which begins at Church House, Westminster, tomorrow," Pons went on. "The case contains his overnight things and a paper he is to present on his own particular subject at the conference. The problem with which he is concerned is something to do with either of these matters. He has come up a day early to lay some facts before me, inasmuch as the conference does not begin until tomorrow afternoon."
I could contain myself no longer.
"Come, Pons! This is the wildest conjecture."
Pons laid a lean finger alongside his nose. He looked at me curiously.
"We shall see, Parker, we shall see. His uncertainty has been thrown to the winds. He is crossing the road and in a few minutes, I fancy, he will be here."
Pons was indeed right, for even as I moved to tidy our lunch table there came a ring at the front doorbell. Pons seated himself in his favorite armchair near the fire with a mocking smile on his face and awaited the measured tread of Mrs. Johnson on the stairs.
2
"Dr. Glyn Campbell, gentlemen," she announced with a conspiratorial air.
Close on her heels appeared the elderly gentleman we had already spent so much time in observing from the window. Closer to, he was, as Pons had said, of robust and sturdy appearance, though half frozen and very much out of sorts. His broad, red features were roughened with the cold and his faded blue eyes wept behind his gold pince-nez. His old-fashioned clothing had a slight greenish tinge, as though it was not only old but moldy, and the scanty white hairs on his head were disheveled and much whipped about by the wind.
He put down the ancient umbrella carefully, leaning it against a leg of the dining table, and looked hesitantly from Pons to myself as Mrs. Johnson quit the room. He clutched the bag to himself and placed it on his lap as my companion motioned him to a chair. I noticed that the umbrella was indeed, as Pons had said, flecked with moisture.
"Mr. Pons?"
Pons responded with a slight bow.
"Allow me to present my friend and colleague, Dr. Lyndon Parker. Dr. Campbell is the rector of Shap, in Surrey."
The faded blue eyes focused sharply.
"Ah, you know me, Mr. Pons."
"As soon as our landlady had announced you," said Pons. "Your writings are not unknown to me."
"Poor things, poor things, Mr. Pons," said our visitor deprecatingly, but the expression on his face nevertheless indicated his pleasure. He put out his reddened hands toward our fire and rubbed them to restore the circulation.
"May I offer you refreshment, Dr. Campbell? Some coffee, perhaps? There is plenty in the pot. And I fancy you will find some brandy on the sideboard, Parker."
"It is too good of you, Mr. Pons," protested the rector as I moved to the sideboard to get the bottle and a fresh cup and saucer. When our visitor was comfortable with the coffee cup in his hand, I saw that Pons had been studying him carefully.
"You are in some trouble, Dr. Campbell, evidently, or you would not be here. You have come early for the conference, I take it?"
"Why, yes, Mr. Pons. I am to read a paper at the opening session at Church House, tomorrow."
Pons could not forbear shooting me a mocking glance as he eased his long form in his leather chair.
"The rain must have been unpleasant this morning and entirely unexpected in your part of Surrey, given the weather we have been having of late. Yet you came away so precipitately I daresay you mislaid your hat?"
Dr. Campbell put down the cup in his saucer with a faint clinking in the silence of the sitting room and stared at my companion with wide eyes.
"That is exactly so, Mr. Pons. I could not ignore the rain on my way to the station so I seized the umbrella, quite forgetting my hat in my agitation."
Pons nodded and tented his lean fingers in front of him in the attitude with which I had long become familiar.
"You are also rural dean, as your gaiters would indicate. I had occasion to consult Crockford's during a case recently and I came across your entry in so doing."
"Yes, Mr. Pons."
The old gentleman relaxed in his chair and favored both of us with benevolent glances.
"Exactly so, Mr. Pons. And it is partly in connection with my duties as rural dean that I find myself in my present predicament"
"Let us just hear your little problem, Dr. Campbell. I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something to resolve your difficulties and three heads are better than one."
"You do me honor, Pons," I protested, not without a touch of irony, and I was inwardly amused to see that the inflection of my voice was not lost on the good rector, whose mild eyes positively beamed with pleasure.
"Well, Mr. Pons," he began without further preamble. "I am, as you say, rector of Shap and rural dean of Stapleford. Though how you guessed I had come for the conference and had traveled a day early to consult you is quite beyond me.
Pons smiled thinly, avoiding my eye.
"An inspired guess, merely, Dr. Campbell I could see by your garb that you were a senior churchman. It did not therefore seem out of the way that you had come to London for the conference. There has been a deal about it in the newspapers lately. You carried a bag which indicated that you intended to stay in London overnight Assuming that you intended to call upon me, it therefore followed that you had come a day early, since the conference does not open until tomorrow. I hazarded a further guess, and knowing you to be perhaps a bishop or at least a rural dean, from your dress, I inferred that you would be presenting a paper to your colleagues, as you have just confirmed."
Dr. Campbell drained his coffee, which had been liberally laced with brandy, and gave a sigh of satisfaction.
"I see my faith in you has not been misplaced, Mr. Pons. I had some hesitation, I do not mind admitting, but only because I feared that a consultant of your eminence might laugh at me."
Pons shook his head.
"Grave happenings often turn upon comic events, Dr. Campbell. I shall not do that, never fear."
Thus reassured our visitor clasped his hands about his knees and immediately plunged into his story.
"I hardly know where to begin, Mr. Pons, though I will do my poor best. But the strange events which have been taking place these past months have me completely bewildered and worried. Even my secretary, young Isaac Dab- son, is as much in the dark as I. And when I found today that the paper I am to deliver at the conference tomorrow was not in my case, but some trashy children's comic instead, I thought I should burst with rage and indignation, which is most undignified for one of my cloth."
Our visitor looked so concerned and yet at the same time so comic that I was hard put to it to retain a straight face and Pons's eyes held a twinkle, though his grave expression did not alter. He did not, as I thought he might, immediately recall the rector to the main tenor of his story but instead asked him what to me sounded like an irrelevant question.
"You have a secretary, Dr. Campbell?"
The venerable churchman nodded gravely.
"You wonder at such a humble country parson as myself running to such a luxury, Mr. Pons?"
As my companion moved to protest, Dr. Campbell waved his apology away.
"It is no secret, Mr. Pons. I have private means. My parents left me well provided for, and my writings on specialized subjects bring me in a second sizable income so that I do not have to rely on my stipend. I am a lifelong bachelor, as no doubt you are already aware. I need a secretary, Mr. Pons, for otherwise the demands of authorship would take up an inordinate amount of my time, to the neglect of my parish duties."