“How can you possibly know that, Mr Pons?”
“Simple observation. Since you have been here I have had occasion to observe you closely. You have twice run your finger along your stiff collar, as though it were chafing you, and as if it were unfamiliar to you. When I further see the traces of a tan on your cheeks and neck, followed by a line of white skin some distance below your collar — for you pulled it well down the last time — I deduce that you have been in the tropics. Only the equatorial sun gives that deep a tan and in my experience a pigmentation of some years, such as that given by a sojourn in Africa, takes from six months to a year to fade completely away on return to this country, depending on the type of skin.”
Our visitor’s eyes were wide and round with surprise.
“You are correct in every respect, Mr Pons. I have been back from the Gold Coast some eight months. But you make the matter sound so simple.”
“That is the tragedy of my life,” said Solar Pons, pulling down the corners of his mouth in mock severity as he stared at me. “Friend Parker here has denigrated my theories on more than one occasion in his accounts of my little adventures.”
“Come, Pons,” I protested. “You are being too hard altogether.”
I gave him a penetrating glance.
“And it would take a much more profound mind than mine to demolish your theories, Pons. Take no notice of him, Mr Balfour.”
Solar Pons chuckled drily and lit his pipe, sending slow spirals of fragrant blue smoke up toward the ceiling of our comfortable quarters.
“Let us just hear your story, Mr Balfour, and I will draw my own conclusions.”
“Well, Mr Pons, as you have already gathered, I have spent some years in the Colonial Service, firstly in Gibraltar and latterly on the Gold Coast. I was called home last summer by my uncle, who appeared to be in failing health. As his only surviving relative I am his heir and I naturally obeyed Uncle Charles’ wishes.”
“Entirely laudable, Mr Balfour. What age was Mr Boldigrew?”
“A man in the prime of life, Mr Pons. That was the strange thing about it. Uncle Charles could only have been fifty or fifty-five at the most.”
Solar Pons shot our visitor a sharp look.
“Come, Mr Balfour, you must have known his age. The newspapers aggregate it at fifty-four and this was confirmed in the police statement.”
Michael Balfour turned worried eyes to my companion.
“Forgive me, Mr Pons. Of course you are right. This business has been so upsetting that I hardly know what I am saying at times. He was fifty-four.”
Pons tapped the bowl of his pipe against the fender, his lean, feral features concentrated on the young man before us. “Hmm. You have resigned from the Colonial Service?” Balfour nodded.
“I got extended leave at first but the situation I found when I arrived at Tidewater soon made me realise that my permanent presence was desired in England. I resigned formally three months ago.”
“I see. Before you continue, Mr Balfour, what sort of place is Tidewater and its surroundings?”
Balfour shook his head.
“The village itself is well enough, Mr Pons, but Bredewell House is in a bleak and lonely spot, in sight of the sea and salt-marshes. There is nothing there but pasture and sea-birds and in the winter it is desolate indeed. It was almost as though my uncle wished to bury himself in as remote a place as possible, far from the haunts of men.”
Solar Pons paused in bending forward to re-light his pipe, his intent gaze fixed on the young man.
“Why do you say that, Mr Balfour?”
Our visitor shrugged.
“Through various indications, Mr Pons. It dated from the day of my arrival. I had expected to be met but I had to engage a hire-car from the station and had a job to make myself heard at the front door of the house. When the housekeeper eventually opened to me it was not until she had released several bolts and locks. I had never seen such security in an ordinary house.”
“That is extremely odd, Parker,” said Pons, looking across at me as he blew fresh smoke toward the ceiling.
“Just what I was going to say, Pons. What then, Mr Balfour?”
“Well, doctor, it did not take me long to realise that my uncle was extremely nervous and jumpy. As I have said, he had these extraordinary precautions about securing the house. At night it was quite a ritual, with him supervising Mrs Bracegirdle as she went the rounds of doors and windows. And he asked me, every time I went out, to keep a watch for strangers in the village.”
“I see.”
Solar Pons lowered his gaze to the fender and gazed at the flames of the hearth as though they held the secret of Bredewell House and its occupant’s death.
“There is much property connected with the house?” Balfour nodded.
“Curious you should ask that, Mr Pons. There is quite an estate. As you can imagine, my uncle’s reclusive mode of life had made it difficult to run and things had been slipping badly for some years. I established a small estate office in one of the outbuildings and as I was accessible to all and sundry there, soon began to get things on a sounder footing. My Colonial experiences came in useful, you see.”
“Naturally,” said Solar Pons blandly. “Just how long had this state of affairs been going on?”
“My uncle had been a fairly jovial sort of man in earlier years, so far as I could gather, Mr Pons. But his change of habit dated from a year or so ago.”
“Perhaps the housekeeper could help there, Pons?” I suggested.
Balfour shook his head, a thin smile on his lips.
“You will not have much success in that quarter, Mr Pons. Mrs Bracegirdle is as tight-lipped and reclusive as my late uncle on such matters. I could get nothing out of her but I gathered, from the hints my uncle dropped from time to time, that she was an old family retainer, sworn to secrecy in his service.”
Solar Pons pulled reflectively at the lobe of his left ear and leaned forward in his chair.
“We come now to the incidents leading up to your uncle’s mysterious death, Mr Balfour. Pray be precise and specific as to detail.”
“Certainly, Mr Pons. Though in so strange and horrible a business I hardly know which detail might be significant.”
“Just give me all the facts you can recall,” said Solar Pons gently.
Our visitor drew up his shoulders in an expressive gesture.
“As you have no doubt made out from the newspapers, Mr Pons, there has been something like a reign of terror in the village of Tidewater, which is the place nearest to Bredewell House. So far as I can make out this terrifying apparition has appeared a number of times to the local villagers. Even our gardener, Stevens, saw it one evening only a week before my uncle died.”
“What was it like, Mr Balfour?”
“Extremely hideous, Mr Pons, according to Stevens’ description. It was all glowing and luminous, like green fire. The eyes were red and the head was something like a nightmare. At least that was my gardener’s description and he is not a man given overly to fancies.”
Solar Pons made a dry, clearing sound at the back of his throat which could have indicated derision or sympathy. I shot him a quick glance but could read nothing useful in the concentrated pin-points of his eyes.
“How did it appear?”
“In Stevens’ case at the window of his potting-shed, where he sat smoking in the dark. He gave a great cry and ran out; with commendable courage, I thought. But it was pitch-black and there was nothing and no-one to be seen.”
“Interesting, Parker.”
“Frightening, Pons.”
Solar Pons nodded, little lights glinting at the back of his eyes.
“What about the other villagers, Mr Balfour?”
“The circumstances were similar, Mr Pons. The face was seen always at dusk. An old widow woman; two men drinking in the four-ale bar of a local hostelry; an elderly villager in a cottage near a bridge at the far end of the village. Investigations were made in all cases but no-one was seen or apprehended.”