I looked at my companion in surprise.
“How can you be so certain, Pons, particularly when you have not even visited the locality?”
“It is not so very difficult, Parker. The weather gives us most of the data. I have already telephoned the police at Stonecross while you were out. The local sergeant was most co-operative. It began to snow there on Saturday at three o’clock in the afternoon. It was thin at first so that the ground was not covered until after dark, at about five o’clock. The staff had left The Pines about then so Miss Schneider would have been alone.”
“I follow you, Pons. It would have had to be thick, to account for the foot-prints.”
“Exactly. Then we have the habits of the old lady. Sometime during the early evening she felt the need to replenish the fire. She went out to the wood-shed…”
“And while she was there the murderer came upon her and strangled her,” I put in.
“Something like that, Parker,” Pons admitted. “We may have to modify our theories once we are upon the ground. The post mortem examination, of course, would establish the approximate time of death, but I should be very surprised indeed if it were not between five o’clock and six-thirty P.M. In my experience old ladies do not wander about their grounds at night in thick snow and in total darkness for the most obvious of reasons. And in addition to that Miss Schneider would probably have left her front door on the latch and as we know she had a houseful of valuables and a safe full of money. We know young Watling arrived at The Pines at about seven o’clock. Judging by the state of the house and the disappearance of the occupant there is at least a strong supposition that the old lady was already dead by that time. Which gives us the two extremes of five and seven for the commission of the crime.”
“Do we know what time it stopped snowing?”
Solar Pons smiled and a warm look of approval came to his face.
“You are constantly improving, my dear fellow. I see the significance of that factor has not escaped you. It stopped snowing at about a quarter to seven in the evening. So that none of the tracks were obliterated.”
He leaned forward, his keen, aquiline features alive with interest and curiosity.
“More important still, it has not snowed since. All the clues are there, lying about that frozen surface for the trained observer to read. Everything depends upon the weather. It has not snowed again in the Colchester area for over forty-eight hours. If it proves fine again tonight and holds for tomorrow morning we may yet read a great deal.”
He knocked his pipe out reflectively against the fender.
“Providing the big boots of the Essex Constabulary have not obliterated all traces of the details, Parker. We can do nothing further until tomorrow. I shall be a poor companion, I feel, until we are upon the ground.”
-4-
The morning dawned bitterly cold but clear and to Pons’ satisfaction the weather reports on the wireless told us there had been no further snowfalls over the British Isles during the night. We were up early and on the road before the streets were astir. It was not yet eleven o’clock before we were taking coffee with Miss Chambers in the cosy, oak-beamed lounge of The Mitre in Colchester.
Miss Chambers was tense and preoccupied when she entered but as soon as she caught sight of Pons she brightened.
“I have just come from Rollo, gentlemen. He was much cheered by your message, Mr. Pons.”
My companion nodded. He waited until the waiter had withdrawn before he spoke.
“You have seen the police obviously, Miss Chambers. They have no objection to me interviewing your fiancé?”
The girl shook her head.
“By no means, Mr. Pons. I spoke to Inspector Rossiter myself. He is anxious to meet you and will await your pleasure at Police Headquarters.”
“Excellent. We will be on our way shortly, just as soon as we have thawed ourselves out.”
“If you will just give me a few minutes to collect my bag from my room and pay my account, I will be ready, Mr. Pons.”
At Colchester Police Station, which we reached after a short drive by taxi through the bleak, snowy streets, we were at once ushered through into a bare office where Inspector Stanley Rossiter stood by a blazing fire to greet us. He was a stout, impressive figure with a waxed moustache and his jacket had obviously been let out to accommodate his corpulence. But his manner was bright enough, he gave us a cordial welcome and bustled about alertly, pulling up chairs to the fire.
“A bad business, Mr. Pons,” he said when the introductions had been completed.
“Bad enough and sinister enough, Inspector,” I said.
“But begging the young lady’s pardon, there is no doubt of the culprit and the motive, gentlemen. I have no objection at all to your presence upon the scene, Mr. Pons, and will do everything within my power to give you my co-operation and that of my staff.”
“That is handsomely said, Inspector,” returned Pons warmly. “My presence has not always been welcomed by the official force, I am afraid.”
Inspector Rossiter chuckled to himself.
“Ah, you are referring to Inspector Jamison, Mr. Pons! That has become rather a famous feud.”
“It is hardly that,” I interpolated. “If it has been represented as a feud, then Inspector Jamison has greatly exaggerated the case.”
“Ah, Parker,” said Solar Pons languidly, “You were ever my most enthusiastic champion.”
He held up a lean forefinger.
“We must avoid exaggeration on both sides. But let us get to the business in hand, Inspector.”
“Certainly, Mr. Pons. There were a number of visitors to Miss Schneider’s house last Saturday afternoon but though, on the surface, several of them had good motives for killing the old lady, they were hardly sufficient in my experience to justify such an action.”
Pons’ eyes were hard and bright.
“In my book, Inspector, large sums of money are always sufficient justification, given the temptation and the opportunity.”
The police officer shrugged ponderously.
“Perhaps, sir. But Pennyfeather, the grocer, who was owed a good deal of money by the old lady; a vagrant named Penrose, who was turned away from the house, and whom we have traced; and the milkman, Postgate, who was owed some £40 and who remonstrated hotly with Miss Schneider, all have excellent alibis. In fact, they were miles away on the evening of the murder.”
Pons nodded absently.
“Your police surgeon has established the hour of death?”
“Somewhere around six o’clock on Saturday night, Mr. Pons, though the freezing cold conditions have made it a little more difficult to establish, as no decomposition had taken place.”
“What about the two servants?”
Inspector Rossiter made a wry mouth.
“There was trouble there also, Mr. Pons, I must admit. The two women always had difficulty in getting their weekly wages and on the Saturday there appeared to have been quite a wrangle before Miss Schneider would open the safe and pay them.”
“I see. There is no doubt, I suppose, that both these women left the house in the afternoon?”
“No doubt at all, Mr. Pons. Mr. Clive Cornfield, a well-known local farmer called at The Pines at about eleven o’clock on the Saturday morning to see Miss Schneider about the state of the fencing dividing their adjacent properties. Apparently, there is an agreement that they should share the cost but Miss Schneider had refused to pay her share. Cattle had strayed on to her property and been injured by broken wire and so forth and Mr. Cornfield was quite put out about this. He had some words with the old lady and was present when the dispute over the cook and the housekeeper’s wages arose. There is no doubt that the two women left the house because they were seen to leave together at about five o’clock both by Mr. Cornfield and by some of his labourers, who had been engaged in cutting timber in a nearby field. They had stayed late because Miss Schneider said some trades people were coming for money and she was a little nervous of being alone at such moments with the safe open. They would have had to pass the farm on their way back to Stonecross.”