"Most trying," said Solar Pons soothingly.
"Indeed, Mr. Pons. So you can imagine my feelings a week ago to be suspected of Bulstrode's murder in a most shocking manner!"
2
There was a brief silence in the room. Solar Pons leaned forward.
"Before you go on, Mr. Fernchurch, I think I will just see what the dailies have to say on the subject."
"Certainly, Mr. Pons. There is a long piece in the Telegraph."
"Just so."
Solar Pons turned to me.
"The newspaper is at your elbow, Parker. If you will be so good as to favor us with a reading. The salient details only."
"The bottom of the front page, Dr. Parker," said Fernchurch.
I turned to the section of the newspaper indicated. There was indeed, as Pons client had indicated, a good deal about the affair. The article was headed:
MALDON CASTLE MURDER…
Search for man in builder's death.
I looked at Pons, who replied somewhat snappishly, "Yes, yes, Parker, spare us the journalistic clichés of the headings. Pray read us the account shorn of all the colorful detail so beloved of the general public"
"It is most soberly written, Pons," I protested.
Pons gave a faint smile and sat back in his chair, his hands cradled beneath his chin, as I commenced to read the article. It ran:
Yorkshire Police, assisted by Scotland Yard, are searching for a man believed to be able to help them in their inquiries into the murder of Mr. Sebastian Bulstrode, aged forty-six, a builder, of Maltby Road, Maldon, Yorks.
The body of Mr. Bulstrode was found in broad daylight beneath the West Tower of Maldon Castle on January 3, the skull crushed and extensively damaged. The murder weapon was a large mason's hammer, belonging to Mr. Bulstrode's own firm, which lay beside the body.
"A man was seen on top of the tower a few minutes before, and a Maldon Police spokesman said last week that the inquiry was being treated as murder, the inference being that the hammer was flung or dropped onto Mr. Bulstrode's head as he inspected work in progress.
Mr. Bulstrode's firm was engaged in carrying out renovation of the ancient castle tower at the time, and the death weapon was believed by members of the staff to have been in use on the battlements, where scaffolding and building materials had been erected.
Helping the police with their inquiries recently has been Mr. Eustace Fernchurch, a local architect's assistant, who was on the tower at the time of Mr. Bulstrode's death. Mr. Fernchurch said he had an appointment with his fiancée, Miss Evelyn Smithers, daughter of the curator of Maldon Castle, to meet her on the tower, a regular place of assignation for the couple.
Miss Smithers, age twenty-five, confirmed this, but said she was late for her appointment since she was having a talk with her father over her becoming reengaged to Mr. Fernchurch. The couple had been engaged before, but the association had broken off when
Miss Smithers became briefly engaged to the murdered man, Mr. Bulstrode…"
… Concise and to the point, Parker," said Pons, his eyes still closed. "An admirable summary of what Mr. Fernchurch has just told us with the even more succinctly described circumstances of the actual death." I read on
The inquiry has been hampered by a lack of clues and a large number of possible motives for the crime. Police favor revenge, and it is understood that the late Mr. Bulstrode had many enemies, both business and personal, in the town.
He was a man of most violent temper and an inflammable personality," said a local shopkeeper, who asked not to be identified. Bulstrode had quarreled with a number of people in past months, including Mr. Fernchurch, the subject of the latter arguments being Miss Smithers.
Inspector Robert Fitzjohn of York CID, who is heading up the Maldon investigation, told our Yorkshire correspondent yesterday, "We are further hampered by there being no fingerprints on the handle of the hammer used in the crime. It is made entirely of metal, the sharpened end of the metal handle being capable of use as a crowbar. The handle was covered with plaster dust, which would normally retain fingerprints. But the shock of the impact with the ground and the hammer ricocheting from the castle wall, shook all the dust off it, so that remnants of the prints were quite useless for our purposes."
I read on for another two paragraphs but Pons opened his eyes, lazily stretched himself, and commented, "You need not go any further, Parker. I have heard enough."
His face wore the alert and animated expression I had grown to know of old.
"The fingerprint details are distinctly ingenious. Either we have someone extremely clever here — or careless. I cannot decide which at the moment."
"There is something in the Stop Press, Dr. Parker, if you will be so good," interjected Pons's client nervously.
I turned to the right-hand bottom of the page and read aloud:
"MALDON MURDER.
Police currently looking for Mr. Eustace Fernchurch in connection with murder of Sebastian Bulstrode. Disappeared from home yesterday. Story Page 1."
Solar Pons made a little deprecatory noise with his tongue.
"Tell us about that, Mr. Fernchurch. You obviously did not abscond today, or the newspaper could not possibly have this Stop Press. The page would have gone away at about three o'clock this morning."
Fernchurch flushed slightly and shifted in his chair.
"I had a talk with my fiancée yesterday, Mr. Pons," he said. "We agreed it would be best if I sought your advice. I could feel the net closing in about me."
"She knows you are here, then?" said Pons.
Fernchurch nodded.
"In that case the police will not be long in tracing you," Pons murmured.
He smiled as Fernchurch held up a protesting hand.
"It is no criticism of Miss Smithers, Mr. Fernchurch. But I have never yet met the woman who was able to keep the truth from a patient and persistent police officer of the right sort The police would have gone to Miss Smithers straight away. And I know Fitzjohn. He was a very efficient CID man at the Yard for some years."
"You are right, Mr. Pons," said Fernchurch in a subdued voice. "I knew I was under observation. I managed to elude surveillance after dark last night I drove to York and stayed in lodgings where I was not known. I got the first available train from York this morning."
Pons pondered in silence for a moment or two longer.
"You are positive that you have told me everything, Mr. Fernchurch?"
Pons's client nodded.
"Everything relevant, Mr. Pons. If anything has been missed it will be through sheer inadvertence."
"That is a fair answer, Mr. Fernchurch. I will take your case and I think the sooner we return to Maldon together the better. How are you placed, Parker?"
I was on my feet.
"I can telephone my standby, Pons. I would not miss this for the world!"
Solar Pons chuckled.
"Just give us a quarter of an hour or so and we will be at your service, Mr. Fernchurch. We will talk further in the train."
The relief on our visitor's face was evident. His eyes were shining and some of his haggardness had lifted.
"There is an express from King's Cross for York within the hour, gentlemen."
Before our arrangements were completed, however, there was a dramatic interruption. The bell rang and we could hear Mrs. Johnson in muffled colloquy with someone on the stairs. There was the tread of heavy boots ascending. I had finished my call and had returned to the sitting room to find Pons standing near the door with an irritated expression on his face.