I stared at Pons reflectively.
“That the two men and our couple were connected, Pons?”
“Of course. It was, on the surface of things, unlikely, but there are many unlikely things in life which nevertheless come to pass. Without knowledge of the robbery, of course, I did not immediately see the cause, neither did I know the two were escaped convicts but some points of interest immediately suggested themselves. Let us just take them one at a time. I pointed out to you, Parker, that a great cathedral was just the place for people to submerge themselves.”
Solar Pons puffed out a cloud of smoke and watched its slow ascent toward the ceiling of the lounge.
“The fact that the men were seen at dusk; that they were eating food; and that they were apparently discussing a robbery immediately suggested that they were hiding — or even living — in the Cathedral.”
Canon Stacey gave a muffled exclamation.
“You don’t mean to say so, Mr Pons?”
Solar Pons nodded slowly.
“I was never more serious, Canon Stacey. There are dozens of places in such an edifice in which desperate and determined men might hide. During the day they had only to sit in the pews or wander about the building and no-one would give them a second glance. It immediately occurred to me that they might be somehow linked with Kramer and the girl. The couple staying at the hotel could easily leave them parcels of food at pre-arranged places within the Cathedral and they had only to pick up surplices from pegs in order to vary their appearance from time to time.”
Superintendent Heathfield nodded.
“It was quite a brilliant scheme, Mr Pons. If I may start at the beginning, Blakeney and Hobbs, to give these two escaped convicts their proper names, were recruited by the Kramers to commit the robbery at the Norwich bank three years ago. They hid the money in the Cathedral, as had been pre-arranged, but were arrested and rather than let the Kramers benefit by the proceeds refused to tell their accomplices its whereabouts. They preferred to serve out their sentences or escape. They eventually chose the latter course and we knew they would make for Norwich for the proceeds of the robbery had never been found.”
Solar Pons nodded.
“As you have already learned from the Sureté, Superintendent, the Kramers crossed over from Zurich when they read of the escape in the newspapers and booked into the same hotel to which Parker and I came. I have no doubt the scheme was an alternative one which had been decided a long time ago and the coded messages and their method of passing them was a part of it.”
Heathfield drew up the corners of his mouth.
“Hobbs has already confessed as much, Mr Pons. Blakeney will be a tougher nut to crack, though the thing is academic now that we have recovered the money and have all four under lock and key.”
Solar Pons resumed, his keen hawk-like face glancing at each of us in turn as he continued.
“I decided then that the two men were staying in the Cathedral for some purposes of their own and the combined stories told by Mr Miggs and Canon Stacey strengthened my premise at every step.”
“But the desecration of the side chapel, Pons?”
My companion’s eyes gleamed.
“Elementary, my dear Parker. These men, as we have ourselves observed, though hard and determined, are of limited intellect. They were no doubt recruited by the Kramers for just these qualities. They performed the hard, dangerous work of the actual robbery. When it was over they hid in the Cathedral, waited until it was closed for the night and concealed the stolen money beneath the altar in one of the side-chapels. We have already heard from the Canon here that renovation work has been going on in the Cathedral for some years. It is my theory that they used tools lying about to remove panelling to conceal their loot. During the course of their operations they unscrewed some of the ornamental candlesticks on the altar, initially, I venture to suggest, with the idea of rolling up some of the notes and concealing them within the shafts. But even their limited intellects realised this was impracticable, given the sums of money involved, and they abandoned this procedure.”
I had been staring at Pons as he proceeded and now I broke in.
“During the time they had been in prison, they forgot in which chapel they had concealed the money!”
“Exactly, Parker. The disorder in which Mr Miggs found the place proved it was so. Moreover, he had disturbed them at their work. They had unscrewed the candlesticks, hoping to identify the chapel, but I have already ascertained that nearly all of such fixtures in the Cathedral come apart in like manner.”
“For cleaning purposes, Mr Pons,” Mr Miggs put in.
My companion nodded.
“Perhaps you could add to that, Canon Stacey?”
The churchman stirred in his chair, admiration on his features.
“It is amazing, Mr Pons. Unless these men had looked at the brass plates over the chapel entrances, they would have had difficulty in identification for work was going on there three years ago and now the scaffolding and beams have been moved farther down.”
“Exactly,” said Solar Pons. “Now we come to the incident of Mr Miggs’ thumb. It is self-evident that the two groups had a pre-arranged code and that when the time came to recover the money they would have pre-selected places to exchange their messages.”
The Superintendent smiled thinly.
“That is so, Mr Pons. Hobbs has confirmed this.”
Solar Pons took the stem of the pipe from his mouth.
“I submit that one picking-up point was in the crypt. I noted a stone statue at the far end. The right hand was raised and the carving of the hand, palm upwards, was sufficiently high up to conceal anything placed in the palm. I further submit that Kramer and his wife were in the crypt to pick up a message but that it had either somehow fallen from the hand of the statue or had been removed by a visitor who had let it drop to the floor. They had obviously overlooked it and it was not until I recovered it, that we were brought into the matter. The couple hiding in the church picked up Kramer’s messages from the font in the Montresor Chapel. But again, Mr Miggs application to his work threw them off. He came along to clean the brasses and noted the little cylinder in the font. Hobbs or Blakeney had hidden in the darkness of the confessional box. When Miggs bent over to pick up the message from the font the man in the box stabbed his finger with a thin-bladed knife, striking down through the open mouth of the stone gargoyle. This obvious explanation immediately suggested itself and I had only to look at the chapel and its physical properties to see what had occurred.”
“Good heavens, Mr Pons!” said Mr Miggs, his mouth half-open. “This is miraculous…”
Solar Pons smiled.
“Despite the highly religious atmosphere, Mr Miggs there is nothing heavenly or of the miraculous about it. It is extremely down to earth.”
“That is all very well, Pons,” I said, “and you have explained it most convincingly. But what about the apparition in the vault?”
Solar Pons shook his head.
“There was no apparition, Parker. Hobbs and Blakeney were merely making use of the existing conditions. One or both of them slept within the tomb at night, where they would be undisturbed. I had only to look at that wooden cover to see that they had used the tools lying about the crypt to drill air holes in the lid. I noticed also, that the clamps securing the cover had been removed so that they could not be inadvertently locked in by workmen arriving unexpectedly.”