"It is good of you to say so, Mr Pons," the Inspector murmured. "Though I was so taken up with the gypsy and the knife theory that I quite overlooked a number of salient points."
"Most understandable," said Solar Pons soothingly. "It was your gardener, Hoskins, who inadvertently gave me a vital clue, Mr Grimpton."
Our host looked up with quick interest.
"What was that, Mr Pons?"
"We spoke of spades and mattocks and such broad-bladed instruments. I saw at once that such a weapon would have perfectly fitted Stokoe's terrible wound and that again directed my attention back to the Mausoleum and the dying man's cryptic reference to The Shaft of Death."
Pons turned to the table and picked up his pipe with a frown.
"When we recovered Mordecai Smith's knife from the Avon I saw it was a hopeless match and had to let him go," said the Inspector resignedly.
"And that, I think, Parker, almost clears up the salient features of one of the strangest and most terrible cases in which I have ever been involved."
'There remains one important point, Pons," I said mischievously.
Solar Pons paused in lighting his pipe, his brown corrugated.
"And what might that be?"
"I am sure Mr Granger will forgive me, but I suspected him at one stage. He had every opportunity of finding the Mausoleum details from the records and of staging the sham burglaries."
Solar Pons shook his head with a faint smile.
"I absolved Mr Granger from all suspicion immediately, Parker. You really must learn to apply your grey cells in the approved manner. There was ample opportunity for Mr Granger to have used either of the two Mausoleum keys, which were in a locked drawer in his desk. So why would be need to draw attention to himself by staging robberies? Even more ludicrous for him to go to Home Farm to burgle Captain Mannering's desk. Things began to point toward Mr Thaddeus Grimpton but it was not until the legend of the money was mentioned that the missing motive was supplied. My suspicions crystallised from that point, strengthened by mention of the prison visiting. I decided to test my theory by announcing my withdrawal from the case and its solution by Inspector Morgan, with the tragic result we have seen."
"But why did Grimpton go there so unwittingly after Stokoe's death, Pons?"
"That we shall never know, my dear fellow. But he must have been desperate. It was obvious to him that Stokoe was after the money himself, because of the duplicate key. He might perhaps have felt that Stokoe had recruited one of the gypsies; that the two men had quarrelled and that the man with him had knifed him and fled. This was extremely plausible, as we all know. And was obviously reinforced with the arrest of Smith. But he knew that he had to act fast and resolved to try to remove the money himself. That was what I relied upon when I staged our little charade which ended in such a macabre manner. It was his first opportunity to re-visit the Mausoleum since the police had been called in."
"It does not dispose of the central enigma, Pons?" "And what might that be, my dear Parker?"
"Old Brimstone Grimpton's motive in all this, Pons. He amassed a second fortune, which he secreted. He guarded it with that abominable instrument which Mr Grimpton has just had dismantled. But he apparently made no mention of this treasure in his will."
Solar Pons smiled a strange smile.
"I have the benefit of hindsight there, Parker. I have been browsing through the old man's papers and diaries, with our host's permission, since the conclusion of the case. I have found some curious things. Money was a religion with him. He not only worshipped it but felt somehow that wealth could transcend even the snuffing out of life upon this earth."
"You cannot mean it, Pons!"
"But I do mean it, Parker. His beliefs were basically those of the Ancient Egyptians, and paralleled exactly by his underground treasure house, which mirrored that race's burial customs. The money was for his own use and that of his wife in the after-life."
There was a long silence in the room, broken at last by Septimus Grimpton.
"I think you ought to know, Mr Pons, that part of the money will be used for various charities, including those for the welfare of ex-prisoners and gypsies."
"Remarkably appropriate, Mr Grimpton," said Solar Pons, rising from the table. "But I think we should be on our way back to Bath. If I could trouble you for a lift, Inspector?"
"Certainly, Mr Pons. It has been an education."
Grimpton rose too and pumped Pons' hand warmly.
"I will be in to see you in a day or two, Mr Pons."
"It will be a pleasure, Mr Grimpton. And now we really must sample more of the delights of Bath. I think we should stay on for a further week in view of the brighter weather. After all, it has not been much of a holiday for you so far, Parker. And you have not yet taken the waters."
The Adventure of the Frightened Governess
1
'Wake up, Parker! It is six o'clock and we have pressing matters before us."
I struggled into consciousness to find the night-light on at the side of my bed and Solar Pons' aquiline features smiling down at me.
"Confound it, Pons!" I said irritably. "Six o'clock! In the morning?"
"It is certainly not evening, my dear fellow, or neither of us would have been abed."
I sat up, still only half-awake.
"Something serious has happened, then?"
Solar Pons nodded, his face assuming a grave expression.
"A matter of life and death, Parker. And as you have been such an assiduous chronicler of my little adventures over the past years, I thought you would not care to be left out, despite the inclement hour."
"You were perfectly correct, Pons," I said. "Just give me a few minutes to throw on some things and I will join you in the sitting-room."
Pons rubbed his thin hands briskly together with suppressed excitement.
"Excellent, Parker. I thought I knew my man. Mrs Johnson is making some tea."
And with which encouraging announcement he quitted the room.
It was a bitterly cold morning in early February and I wasted no time in dressing, turning over in my mind what the untimely visitor to our quarters at 7B Praed Street could want at such a dead hour.
I had no doubt there was a visitor with a strange or tragic story to tell or Pons would not have disturbed me so untimely, and as I knotted my tie and smoothed my tousled hair with the aid of the mirror, I found my sleepy mind sliding off at all sorts of weird tangents.
But when I gained our comfortable sitting-room, where the makings of a good fire were already beginning to flicker and glow, I was not prepared for the sight of the tall, slim, fair-haired girl sitting in Pons' own armchair in front of the hearth. The only indication of anything serious afoot was the paleness of our visitor's handsome features. She made as though to rise at my entrance but my companion waved her back.
"This is my old friend and colleague, Dr Lyndon Parker, Miss Helstone. I rely on him as on no other person and he is an invaluable helpmate."