Solar Pons smiled slowly and put up his hand to the lobe of his ear, pulling at it thoughtfully.
“And this had been going on for some weeks before your uncle died?”
“Six weeks to two months, Mr Pons.”
My companion turned to me.
“This is highly significant, Parker.”
“I cannot see it, Pons.”
“That is because you are not applying your mind correctly, my dear fellow.”
Solar Pons stared again into the fire, as though he could see visions among the leaping flames that were denied to us. I was astonished at his next question.
“How old were the men, Mr Balfour?”
Our visitor looked disconcerted also.
“I do not follow you, Mr Pons.”
“Those in the four-ale bar?”
“I cannot remember, exactly. In their sixties, I think.”
Solar Pons smiled faintly again.
“These factors are vitally important, Parker. Mark them well. The face appeared only at dusk?”
Balfour nodded.
“And always through windows?”
“That is correct, Mr Pons.”
“And every single person who saw the apparition was elderly?”
Again the surprise in Balfour’s eyes.
“Well, yes, now that you come to mention it.”
Solar Pons rubbed his thin fingers together with satisfaction. Balfour opened his mouth to speak again.
“That is, until I myself saw the phantom two nights ago!”
If I had been surprised before, I was astonished at Pons’ reaction.
He leapt to his feet, his penetrating eyes fixed upon young Balfour’s face.
“That puts an entirely different complexion upon the matter, Mr Balfour. We have not a moment to lose! If you would be kind enough to telephone your locum, Parker, and pack a valise we will set out for Tidewater at once. I will hear the remainder of Mr Balfour’s story en route.”
3
I adjusted my muffler more tightly round my throat and sank bank into the cushions of Balfour’s big touring car as we threaded our way cautiously through the streets of the East End. It was even more bitterly cold than before and frost glittered on the back windows of the vehicle, brushed briefly into diamonds by the headlights of following cars. I occupied the back seat with our two valises piled beside me.
Pons sat in the front passenger seat with our client and continued the brisk questioning which had begun in our sitting room at 7B.
“The circumstances of your uncle’s death, Mr Balfour.”
“I had been out earlier in the day, Mr Pons. Uncle Charles had been restless and agitated for several days. The stories circulating in the neighbourhood about the phantom face had had a startling effect upon him.”
“In what way, pray?”
“He went ashen grey when I first mentioned the matter some weeks before. And then when one of the local newspapers got hold of the story he was so agitated and upset that he burned the newspaper.”
“Indeed.”
Solar Pons gave me a grim smile as he leaned back toward me, ejecting a thin stream of blue smoke from his pipe.
“Are you comfortable there, Parker?”
“Well enough, Pons,” I said. “I am listening carefully.” “Pray do so, my dear fellow. I shall find your thoughts on the matter invaluable later.”
He turned back to Balfour, who was handling the car with considerable skill, for we were already clearing the outskirts of the city and beginning the long run through the shabby suburbs in that quarter of London.
“Why should your uncle have troubled himself over this matter, bizarre and unusual though it might be for a small Essex village?”
“I do not know, Mr Pons. It was all part and parcel of his reclusive life-style. He was, as I have already told you, in fear of something and this apparition seemed to crystallise all his terrors.”
“What do you think this thing is, Mr Balfour?” I put in. Our driver shot me a quick glance over his shoulder, as though in surprise.
“I have given it some thought, Dr Parker, as you can imagine. Tidewater is a small place and even a remote dwelling like Bredewell House is not immune from gossip. I can assure you I am as puzzled as the most unsophisticated rustic.”
“And just a little frightened, Mr Balfour,” said Solar Pons evenly, replacing the stem of his pipe between his strong teeth.
“As you say,” said our client frankly. “My uncle has died under mysterious circumstances and now I have seen the same thing myself.”
“Oh, I was not criticising in the least,” said Solar Pons swiftly, laying his hand on the other’s arm in a friendly gesture.
“I might well have been shaken myself, under the circumstances.”
“That seems difficult to imagine, Mr Pons.”
“I am only human, Mr Balfour,” muttered Pons deprecatingly. “Were there any other things about Mr Boldigrew’s behaviour that commended themselves to your attention?”
Balfour shook his head.
“Nothing stands out in particular, Mr Pons. Except that he was more emphatic than ever when commending Mrs Bracegirdle on the importance of locking and barring the doors of the house at night.”
“Which brings us to the evening of his death, I take it?” “Exactly, Mr Pons.”
Balfour spun the wheel smoothly as we turned round a block of gaunt warehouses, the flaring lights of the commercial quarter dying in the dusk. A single thread of road lay before us now and trees and foliage were beginning to obtrude into the landscape, as the ugliness of the suburbs gave way to substantial villas and rows of private houses.
“We are talking now of a fortnight ago?”
“Yes, Mr Pons. Last Tuesday week. The inquest was on the Friday.”
“Indeed. I have read the report but I would like your own views in due course.”
“Certainly, Mr Pons. To come to the Tuesday in question my uncle had been particularly worried that day. I caught him whispering with the housekeeper on two separate occasions and he had a distinctly furtive, not to say hunted look upon his face.”
Solar Pons tented his thin fingers before him in the dimness of the car, his keen eyes staring at the wisps of mist which were gathering before the windscreen and causing our client to slacken the speed of the vehicle a little. The road had become lonely now and the outlines of gaunt, wintry trees, occasional cattle in the bleak fields and now and then a passing vehicle were the only things that broke the monotonous waste of whiteness which was insidiously gathering in the darkness outside.
“Did you speak to him about this?”
Our driver nodded.
“In a tactful manner, Mr Pons. I said he looked worried but he assured me it was the same business. This phantom face had upset him and he hoped it would not be long before the thing, or person perpetrating such a nasty joke, was caught.”
“Ah. He, at least did not appear to think it was supernatural?”
“Possibly, Mr Pons. I had not given it much thought but now that you mention it, it might be so.”
“Is that important, Pons?” I put in.
My friend turned his lean, feral profile toward me.
“It could be, Parker. At this stage I am merely trying to establish an accurate chain of events.”
“I spent a good deal of the evening in the drawing-room reading, Mr Pons. I had been up early and round the estate in the morning. I passed the remainder of the forenoon seeing people in my office at the farm and as the weather was dreadfully cold and inclement, I felt I had had enough for one day.”