Indeed, our host returned almost at once and faced us somberly, locking the door behind him.
cannot thank you enough, gentlemen. If anything had happened to Claire… What was it?"
I pulled back the bedding. Colonel d'Arcy surveyed the mamba with sick loathing on his face. He clenched his fists and his features began to suffuse with blood.
"By God, Mr. Pons, we must discover the wicked mind behind this…"
"It is almost over, Colonel," said Pons quietly. "Though I do not know how Miss Mortimer came to be here."
"She complained of a draft in her room," said our host "Mine was the more comfortable so I gave it to her. The fireplace has more heat, for one thing."
Pons nodded.
"Evidently, he could not have known that," he murmured. "I am afraid Parker and I have made a mess of your floor.. "
Colonel d'Arcy stared at us in amazement. He came forward and wrung my hand, then turned to Pons.
"I am not an emotional man, gentlemen, but Miss Mortimer means more to me than anything in the world."
"I understand that, Colonel," said Pons, frowning down at the thing that still lay in bloody tatters on the bed. "But it will not stop here. Our man knows we are on him. The shot alone would have warned him. He will act quickly. We must act more quickly still."
Colonel d'Arcy looked bewildered. "I am in your hands, Mr. Pons. What do you want me to do?"
"I think this evil man will strike again before the night is out. This time at you, Colonel. I want you to go to my room or Parker's and spend the night there. No one but the three of us must know of this."
"Anything you say, Mr. Pons. What do you intend to do?"
Pons went to stand by the fireplace, holding out his thin hands to the glowing embers. His lean, feral face had seldom looked more grim.
"First, I would like the disposition of the guests this evening and the exact location of their rooms."
"That is easily done," said the colonel.
Pons listened attentively as he gave us the information. He nodded with satisfaction.
"Ironic is it not, Parker?"
"I do not understand, Pons."
"No matter. You will in due time."
He turned briskly to the colonel.
"We must spend the rest of the night in your room, Colonel. I fancy a revolver or a stick will be adequate protection against the menace of the Ipi idol." He looked at me, his eyes alight with excitement "Come, Parker. The game's afoot!"
9
It was three A.M. The night was dark and silent, though a little light came in through a chink in the window curtains. Fog still swirled heavily at the panes. It was cold in the room and my thoughts were leaden. Pons sat opposite me in a wing chair, his face in shadow. The room door was facing me so that I could keep it under observation; Pons's chair faced a locked door which communicated with an adjoining dressing room, which was now being used as a guest bedroom.
It was over two hours since we had come there and I had begun to doubt whether even Pons's rapier like mind had drawn the right conclusions from the situation. I myself thought it unlikely that the murderous brain threatening the household of The Briars would strike again so soon, but Pons was obviously in possession of a great deal more information which had passed me by.
Three o'clock had chimed from a church clock somewhere faraway, and I found myself drifting off into sleep when I was arrested by a hand on my arm and Solar Pons's voice whispering in my ear.
"Hold yourself in readiness, my dear fellow. I think something is about to happen."
There was a faint glow in the room, I saw as I struggled up in the chair. A light had been switched on in the room communicating with ours. There was a gap beneath the door and the radiance spilled across the carpet so that I could make out Pons's set face and the long, slim cane he held in his right hand. I got up from the chair and would have crossed to the door had not Pons gently pulled me back. He put his fingers to his lips, enjoining absolute silence.
I crouched in the semidarkness, a pulse throbbing in my throat, conscious of the chill of the revolver I had drawn from my pocket and which now rested in my right hand. A dark shadow passed across the other side of the connecting door. Someone was standing there. Then there came a faint scratching noise. A long silence ensued. I felt Pons's hand on my arm again. A shadow was growing as something passed beneath the door. There was a minute, rustling noise which set my nerves on edge. I was suddenly conscious that Pons had left my side and I felt a moment of panic
Then the room was a blaze of light, momentarily dazzling me.
"Look, Parker!"
I followed Pons's outstretched hand and felt my throat constrict with nausea. The giant spider scuttled across the carpet toward us. The obscene, bloated thing was covered with hair, and metallic eyes regarded us with alien intelligence.
"A tarantula, Parker! For God's sake, take care. There, you brute!"
Pons advanced, cutting at the carpet with the cane. With a sibilant, hissing noise the thing scuttled back the way it had come. Pons followed it, aiming blows rapidly, but the creature was too quick. It squeezed beneath the door with incredible speed. A shadow moved across the light and then came an agonizing scream that I can recall even to this day, despite the gap of years. Even Pons's nerve almost broke.
He hesitated and then unlocked the door and threw it wide. The sight that met us was one of bizarre horror. A man in a dressing gown was sprawled against the wall where he had been sitting, his hands clawed in agony. Beside him was a felt-lined box, with air holes, from which the spider had evidently come. The distorted features, the glazed eyes, the disheveled hair made the face almost unrecognizable. Then something stirred in the whitening hair and the tarantula sprang to the floor.
"One side, Parker!"
Pons jumped by me and hacked madly at the thing which scuttled between the paralyzed man's legs. He cut and slashed and stamped with a savagery I would not have suspected in him, until nothing but a quivering pulp remained. I felt sick but forced myself back to normality.
"What a vile brute, Pons," I said. "Did you know this?"
"I suspected something of it, Parker," said my companion quietly, throwing down the cane.
"Your department, I think."
I approached the curiously rigid body and was astonished to recognize for the first time solicitor Chadburn Bradshaw.
"Pons! I am astonished. But you knew?"
Solar Pons nodded.
"Almost from the beginning. The facts were fairly clear- cut. But we have no time for that now. Is he still alive?"
I examined the lawyer carefully.
"We shall need to get him to the hospital immediately, Pons. We had better arouse the household. He has been bitten on the forehead, certainly, but it looks to me as though he has all the symptoms of a stroke."
Solar Pons stood looking down at the recumbent, vacant-eyed figure.
"Poetic justice, Parker," he said softly. "I do not think we need waste too much sympathy."
10
"Mr. Pons, I am immeasurably in your debt. I can never repay you enough."
Colonel d'Arcy's strong, bearded face flashed beaming approval as he looked first at my companion, then at me and finally rested upon Miss Claire Mortimer.
Solar Pons smiled.
"On the contrary, I should thank you, Colonel. I have had one of the most fascinating cases I can recall working on and have tracked down one of the most damnable villains who ever forged a signature."
A cloud passed across our host's face.
"I am afraid Bradshaw's machinations have cost me dear, Mr. Pons. From what the Essex police have been able to tell me in the past week, it looks as though he made away with a third of the estate."