"You are guessing, Mr Pons, I imagine. But you are right, yes. A number of Chinese have been here. I have told my superiors about it, but these men are expert; at the trade. Mr Belding was their supervisor."
"You fool!"
Belding had sprung up with a white face before I could stop him and struck the Colonel in the mouth. caught the dark man across the skull with the barrel o my pistol and he dropped noiselessly on to the divan.
"Well done, Parker," said Pons drily. "I see that your reflexes have lost nothing of their hair-trigger reaction You had best examine him. I do not think we need fear trouble from Colonel Gantley."
I gave the dark man a cursory examination while Pons took the pistol and covered the chauffeur.
"He will be out for half an hour, Pons," I said.
"Excellent. That should be time enough. Where was I? Ah, yes, Romaine Schneider's fatal curiosity. As the months went by the movements and actions of his intriguing neighbours aroused his suspicions. Two night: ago he stayed in his studio after dark, keeping all the lights off.
"When he judged it was safe, he let down the stair case. I submit he had already looked through the store room window and noted that there were no crates in the area beneath. He crept down in the dark and made a thorough examination. What he discovered we shall never know. But the contents of the warehouse went so vitally important that the intruder could not be allowed to live. Or that was the reasoning of this mar here."
Pons looked at the sullen Chinese thoughtfully.
"I fancy we shall hear nothing from his own lips. He is certainly inscrutable enough for that, though there is enough circumstantial evidence to ensure him the hangman's rope. Schneider was in the store-room when he heard a sound. It might have been the Colonel's car returning. At any rate Schneider, thoroughly frightened, ran back up the staircase and regained the studio.
"He dare not return the staircase to its original position because of the noise. He decided on boldness. He put on the light in his studio as though he had just come in and started work on one of his sculptures. Unfortunately for him the Chinese must have seen the light shining down through the staircase and went to investigate. He saw at once how things were and being a man of action took the decision into his own hands to eliminate Schneider.
"He crept quietly up the staircase — perhaps under cover of the car engine he had left running below — and struck Schneider down from behind with his own mallet. He then retreated to the ground floor and informed the Colonel of his action."
"Brilliant, Pons," I said.
"It is a reconstruction only, Parker," returned Solar Pons. "We shall need the Colonel's verification."
"It is correct in every detail, Mr Pons," said Colonel Gantley, looking at my companion with something like awe. He had a handkerchief to his face and stanched the blood from his cut lip.
"Of course, my horror at the crime can be imagined, but it was all too late. We made a thorough search of the store-room and found a small lever at floor level which operates the staircase from below. After I had made an examination of the studio and made sure there was nothing incriminating left behind, we put the stairs back, left the lights on and piled up crates and boxes to ceiling level. We spent another hour in removing the remaining drugs to the cellar of this house."
"You did admirably under the circumstances," said
Solar Pons ironically. "I am sure you will correct any details in which I have gone wrong."
Colonel Gantley shook his head.
"I have only myself to blame, Mr Pons. Easy money was my downfall, as it has been for so many others. I had been cashiered from the Indian Army. I returned to the old country but nothing I touched prospered. I started an antique business but that was foundering. I was desperate for ready money when I met Belding in a public house one evening about a year ago.
"He told me of a way I could make money and I slowly became enmeshed. My business, which had legitimate contacts in the East was useful, you see, and the men behind the trade found I provided a respectable facade. There is no excuse for me, I know; I have helped to ruin countless lives — and now this."
"There is one way you can redeem yourself," said Solar Pons, a stern look upon his features. "The names and addresses of every contact and as many men as possible higher up in the organization."
Gantley shook his head.
"Belding was my only major contact. And the Chinese we employed. I will give what help I can."
"Be sure that you do."
Solar Pons stood deep in thought for a moment, pulling gently at the lobe of his left ear, while a thin column of blue smoke ascended from his pipe to the ceiling.
"It was too much to hope for, Parker. As I said before, the trembling of the web, but the spider remains concealed in the shadow."
"You surely do not mean your old enemy, Pons?" I cried.
"It is possible, Parker. No crime is too despicable for that scoundrel. And he would need such enormous profits as that generated by the drugs trade to fuel his infamous criminal empire. Just ring Jamison, will you? We must make sure he has not inadvertently arrested Sir Hercules or Schneider's unfortunate secretary."
8
"It was a remarkable case, Pons."
"Was it not, Parker?"
We were at lunch in our comfortable sitting-room at 7B Praed Street a week later and Mrs Johnson had just brought the midday post up. It was a beautiful June day and the window curtains stirred gently in the cooling breeze. Pons chuckled and passed me a copy of the Daily Telegraph. I found a large item on the front page ringed ready for cutting out and pasting into the book in which he kept records of his cases.
"Jamison has redeemed himself. At least one drugs ring has been smashed and a stop put paid to the traffic in that quarter. Belding himself led to some of those higher up. It was more than might have been hoped for."
"Thanks to you, Pons."
Solar Pons smiled wryly.
"Ah, Parker, you were ever generous in your evaluation of my work. In my humble way I seek to alleviate some of the ills of mankind."
"You have certainly done a good deal here, Pons," I said.
Solar Pons shook his head.
"It is just plugging holes in the dyke, Parker. There is such great profit in this foul trade that it is almost impossible to stamp out. One does what one can. My major satisfaction in this particular case is that the Doctor has been robbed of considerable profit in the matter. You will see that Heathfield, through Jamison, has made a clean sweep of the Limehouse area, and now that Gantley, Belding and the Chinese are going for trial, this will mean a considerable, if temporary setback, in the Doctor's plans."
"I do not see how you can be so sure about his part in this, Pons?"
"One develops a sixth sense, Parker. Hullo. Here is something interesting. Post-marked Switzerland, I see."
He tore open the thin blue envelope which Mrs Johnson had just brought up with the other letters. He studied it in silence, his eyes narrowed. Then he put it down with a low chuckle.
"Talk of the Devil, Parker."
"What is it, Pons?"
By way of answer he passed the single sheet of paper the envelope contained across to me. It bore just two lines, written in block capitals with a thin-nibbed pen.
MR PONS — YOUR ROUND, I THINK. WE SHALL MEET AGAIN.
F.
Solar Pons sat back at the table and lit his pipe.
"He is the most dangerous man in Europe, Parker. I would give a great deal to have netted him."
And his eyes looked beyond the homely commons of our room and gazed bleakly into the void.