Miss Claire Mortimer squeezed her fiancée's hand across the table.
"Nothing has been lost," she said softy. "I have property of my own and we can sell off some of the acreage."
Colonel d'Arcy flushed.
"Do not think it is the money alone, Claire," he said heatedly. "When I think of the cold-blooded horror of that devil's schemes and the danger to which I exposed you…"
He broke off for a moment, looked at the girl, and smiled.
"As you say, the money can be made good. I am the last person to wish anyone dead, Mr. Pons, but I am glad Chadburn Bradshaw has gone to his Maker."
Pons turned to me.
"That was a curious aspect, Parker. Died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital, you said?"
I nodded.
"The shock seems to have brought on a stroke, Pons, as much as the bite. It is a most unmedical conclusion to come to, but one might almost have said that fright killed him as much as anything since he might have recovered from the poisonous wound that creature gave him if we could have given him immediate treatment."
"Things are well as they are," said Solar Pons. "I had my suspicions of Bradshaw almost as soon as I arrived here."
"You cannot mean it, Pons."
"I do mean it, Parker. From what Colonel d'Arcy had told me, I knew that money had to be at the bottom of it. It is at the bottom of most crime, and who is better placed to mismanage the funds than the family solicitor. We have already discussed the nonsense of the Ipi idol and the deaths of Silas Renfrew and his nephew."
Solar Pons shifted in his chair and tamped fresh tobacco into his pipe at Miss Mortimer's smiling invitation to smoke.
"It was ludicrous in the extreme to imagine that a West African secret society would be active in Essex many years after Renfrew's return from those parts. I have no doubt old Renfrew had things in his past of which to be ashamed, and Bradshaw might have hoped that the receipt of the idol would hasten his death because of his advanced heart condition. The police finding a document signed by Renfrew making his solicitor the beneficiary of his estate provides adequate motive."
"But could not Bradshaw have forged that, Pons?" I asked.
Pons shook his head.
"That particular document has been authenticated and provided Bradshaw with the perfect way out. I submit that old Renfrew's condition was such that he did not always know what he was signing. But first Bradshaw had to strike at anyone who came between him and the fortune. He was successful in both the case of Renfrew and the nephew. We cannot know what means he used to kill young Adrian Renfrew except that it was most likely a poisonous tropical insect He could have obtained such a specimen from a zoological garden or from one of the more esoteric London animal supply shops."
Pons puffed at his pipe, the flames of the burning tobacco making little stipples of light on his strong, ascetic face.
"So much is surmise. Now as to fact It must have been a considerable shock to him when the old man made you the sole beneficiary, Colonel, after the death of his son Bradshaw had already made large inroads into the estate money and was desperate for funds. He resolved to strike at you, and he found a ready-made instrument at hand in another distant relative, Tolliver, who quite by chance had come to live some miles off.
"He was also a client of Bradshaw's, which made the whole thing much easier. More to the point, he kept strange pets, among whom were such dangerous specimens as tarantulas and snakes. The police have discovered a heated room at Bradshaw's house, where the specimens he stole from Tolliver were kept at the right temperature until needed. A padded basket kept the insect or reptile warm while being transferred even in this bitter January weather.
"Since Bradshaw was a frequent visitor at both Tolliver's house and your own home, Colonel, he was able to lay his plans with care. Unfortunately for him you escaped his first serious attempt and worse still, were on the alert He had to move quickly, for your pending marriage to Miss Mortimer would put the fortune even farther beyond his reach."
"But how did you come to suspect him, Pons?" I said.
Solar Pons put his pipe down on the table in front of him and tented his fingers.
"Elementary, my dear Parker. And by the same simple process which made you suspect Vickers of deep-dyed villainy."
I flushed, aware of Colonel d'Arcy's amused glance. "How was I to know that he was devoted to the colonel's service and watched over him day and night, Pons? Even to the extent of testing his colonel's liquor supply for poison."
"You must admit, Parker, that I drew your attention to Vickers's behavior, but unfortunately you drew the wrong conclusions from it. A man who has been in the service of a person like Colonel d'Arcy for so many years is surely to be trusted. I put more credence in the colonel's character reading than in village gossip. Vickers's manner was unfortunate, I agree, but his spying was in a good cause. To protect his master."
"Say no more, Pons," I begged. "I still cannot see why you were so suspicious of Bradshaw."
"Even before I had met him," said Pons. "You may recall our near-escape from a dangerous accident on the night of our arrival. I was already on my guard in view of past events — particularly the attempt to kill the colonel. I knew very well the presence of the heavy vehicle on the road in those dangerous foggy conditions was not coincidence. So I made a close examination of the spot."
"And found where another vehicle had come to grief, Pons."
Solar Pons shook his head.
"That was not so, Parker. What I found was the place where the horse and cart had been originally stationed when the axle broke. A car on its way from Tolleshunt D'Arcy had deliberately stopped and drawn onto the shoulder while its driver went about the business of urging the horse back onto the road. It will, of course, be impossible to prove now, but had Bradshaw lived, I think we should have found that he knew the colonel's movements on that day; had waited until the next to last train had arrived; had seen that the colonel was not on it; and had then put his scheme into operation, relying on the fact that there would be no other cars coming from the station that evening. You may have observed that the colonel's was the only car to be parked there."
"That is all very well, Pons, but what directed you to Bradshaw?"
"The simple matter of the tire marks on the shoulder. They were of a country pattern, with heavy V indentations. There was a bullnose Morris parked outside this house that night and the tires corresponded in every respect."
"Remarkable, Mr. Pons," put in Colonel d'Arcy. He looked enthusiastically at my companion.
"That would not alone have been conclusive but it drew my attention to Bradshaw," Pons continued. "When we visited his offices the following day, he made two fatal mistakes. The first was in disclosing his client's affairs to us. No reputable lawyer would do that, but he skillfully revealed the existence of the nonexistent benefaction in favor of Tolliver to provide a motive for murder and misdirect my inquiries. The document he flourished was quite obviously forged, though it was skillfully done. I later compared the signature he had shown me with specimens of Silas Renfrew's own handwriting in this house, and there were a number of subtle differences. Tolliver, of course, was a ready-made suspect, and the presence of dangerous reptiles in his house would have proved conclusive in a normal police investigation.
"But he was frank with me, appeared genuinely worried, and admitted that specimens were missing from his private zoo. That was enough to clear him in my estimation."
"But why did you put Bradshaw on his guard, Pons?"
Solar Pons chuckled.
"That was quite deliberate, Parker. I wanted him to see that we were on the track, that we realized Colonel d'Arcy's life was threatened. He was a consummate actor but I realized that he was alarmed and felt his whole scheme in peril. A man in that condition becomes desperate, and I hoped to throw him off balance and risk all on a last gamble while we were all present in the house. I invited Tolliver to the party because I knew it was an excellent chance to clear him of suspicion, and so it proved.