"Dear me, Mr. Dabson, I trust I can get you to reconsider. Otherwise, I shall have to set matters in motion with the official police, and you will find them less easy to deal with, I can assure you."
Dabson licked his lips and cast a frightened look back over his shoulder to where the disgruntled journalists and photographers were elbowing their way back down the staircase again.
"I do not understand what you mean, Mr. Pons."
Solar Pons eyed the secretary thoughtfully.
"I think you do, Mr. Dabson. Especially as you are related to the Reverend George Neville Stoner, the rector of Chislington, if I am not mistaken. There is a strong family resemblance in the features."
Daheon had stumbled back, ashen-faced. He tried to speak but was unable to do so. Pons turned to me with a bleak smile.
"Come, Parker, I think the rectory study will be the best place for our talk. As for you, Mrs. Harbinger, I trust that tonight's little adventure will prompt you not to put too much trust in such half-witted legends as those of the sealed spire."
Mrs. Harbinger glared at us and then marched imperiously down the staircase. Dabson followed, a broken figure.
Pons chuckled.
"A weak tool, Parker, in the grip of a stronger intellect If you will bring the bag and switch off the light as we leave, I will guide us down with my flashlight."
9
We were driving northward from Shap. Pons sat in his corner, his hands thrust deep into his ulster pockets, his brow knotted while clouds of sulfurous fumes from the bowl of his pipe ascended to the roof of the taxi. To my repeated questions he had merely murmured, "All in good time, Parker, all in good time," and lapsed into silence.
We had been traveling for some half an hour when the vehicle passed through the streets of a sleeping village and in through tall iron gates to deposit us at the steps of a white Victorian building.
Pons got down and ordered the driver to wait. I followed him up the steps to where a single lantern burned above the porch. A worried-looking housekeeper answered Pons's peremptory ring.
"Solar Pons to see the Reverend George Stoner," he announced.
The elderly woman looked at us doubtfully. She wore a thick, quilted dressing gown and had evidently been on the point of retiring.
"It is almost eleven o'clock, gentlemen. The rector is in bed and cannot be disturbed."
Pons took a piece of pasteboard from his pocket and scribbled something on it. He handed it to the housekeeper.
"Kindly give him this. I fancy he will see us."
The woman glanced at Pons's card in surprise, asked us to wait in the hall, and slammed the door behind us. She put on the light in a study to the right, which was furnished with almost sumptuous taste. We waited while the woman's footsteps ascended the stairs.
"Ah, Parker," said Solar Pons coolly, running his eye over the rector's crowded shelves. "Some ethical writings of Erasmus; the Gnostic Mass; Marcus Aurelius; Walter Pater. A catholic and devious mind, as I surmised."
I could not resist an acclamation.
"What exactly are we doing here, Pons?"
"Just a little more patience. I fancy that is our man now."
There was indeed a nervous tattoo on the staircase, and the study door burst open to admit a tall, lean, ascetic- looking man with a shock of white hair, a hook nose, and a lantern jaw. He wore a mouse-colored dressing gown and he stood breathing heavily, looking first at me and then at my companion.
"Which of you gentlemen is Mr. Solar Pons?"
Pons bowed stiffly.
"I answer to that cognomen, Rector."
The Reverend Mr. Stoner stepped forward, his face haughty and disdainful.
"Then perhaps, sir, you would be good enough to explain the impertinence written on this card?"
"Certainly," said Pons coolly. "It means, surely, that your persecution of your old colleague, Dr. Campbell, rector of Stapleford and sometime fellow student, must cease."
There was a long moment of silence while the rector stared at Pons with burning eyes.
"I take it you realize what you are saying?" he replied with deadly calm. "You would need proof for such a wild assertion."
"We have proof, Rector," said Pons quietly, taking a sheet of paper from his pocket. "Your wretched nephew, Isaac Dabson, has given me a full confession. A weak tool for such malicious work. If you do not do as I say, this document will be placed in the hands of the police."
The Reverend Mr. Stoner gave a strangled cry and stared at Pons with eyes which seemed to have become sunken and cavernous.
"Withdraw from the bishopric of Durham, Mr. Stoner!" said Pons in ringing tones.
He replaced the paper in his pocket.
"If you do not, then I will not hesitate to expose you as a malicious rogue! Come, Parker."
He strode from the room, leaving the shrunken figure of the rector alone in the study. I hurried at his heels and in a few moments more we were in the taxi driving back toward Shap and our comfortable rooms at the inn. Pons burst into laughter and hunted in his pocket for his pipe.
"Well, Parker, what do you make of such a pretty rascal?"
"I must confess, Pons, that I have not made a good deal of the whole muddled business," I said. "And I am afraid that it does not do too much credit to the cloth."
Pons stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe.
"Ah, Parker, there is a good deal of enmity and professional jealousy in the closed world of scholarship. I knew from the moment Dr. Campbell approached us that there was more to this affair than merely stupid practical jokes. Why should anyone want to play such idiotic and cruel tricks on a country rector? But he is a brilliant scholar and author, Parker. And in the world of scholarship there are often unsuspected depths beneath the placid surface ripples. Even before I came to Shap, I was convinced that I was looking for something in Dr. Campbell's past which was impinging upon the present."
"You astonish me, Pons."
"It would not be the first time, Parker," said Solar Pons, mischievous lights dancing in his eyes. "When I found that these manifestations had begun only six months ago and that Dabson had become the rector's secretary a year ago, I found my suspicions crystallizing. He would need some months to prepare the ground for these cruel and elaborate hoaxes, of course."
"But the motive, Pons!"
"That was crystal-clear also, and it took only a short while at the rectory for it to become obvious to me."
"Mrs. Harbinger…"
An expression of annoyance crossed Pons's face
"You disappoint me, Parker, you really do. Mrs. Harbinger was a red herring of only the crudest kind but admirable for Dabson's purposes. His entire purpose in Shap was to discredit Dr. Campbell, and this he proceeded to do by every means at his disposal. The rector sees no harm in anyone, but it was obvious from the scope and method of the annoyances perpetrated on our client that the agent behind them had to be someone close to him. Dabson was the only person who fitted that bill, and Mrs. Harbinger's vendetta against the rector and her reiterated parrot cries for the opening of the sealed spire put a ready tool to his hand."
Pons broke off for a moment and paused to relight his pipe, which had gone out unnoticed during his conversation with me.
"You may remember I was inordinately interested in the photograph of the rector and the members of his theological class. I had a shrewd suspicion from the outset that scholarship and professional rivalry were at the basis of the feud and I found a rapid means of ascertaining and establishing certain basic facts about Dr. Campbell, his fellow students and friends. We eliminated, as you recall, many people in the group through the action of war, age, and death. Of the handful remaining only one was suitable for my purposes."
"The Reverend Mr. Stoner," I interjected.