“Well-timed,” said the Sergeant with satisfaction. “That looks like the Inspector now.”
We stood in the shelter of a small clump of pines at one side of the carriage-drive, from which the house obviously took its name, and waited for the police-car to come nearer. When it was almost level with us the machine drew in to the verge and stopped. Inspector Rossiter got down and exchanged a few words with the driver.
“I have kept all vehicular traffic off this drive since the murder occurred, Mr. Pons, in the hope that further snow would hold off. I know something of your methods and assumed you would wish to read the tracks yourself.”
“Excellent, Inspector.”
Solar Pons nodded approvingly and went down the drive, walking on the grass verge, cat-like, oblivious of the wind, his keen eyes searching the tangled surface of the snow which bore the traces of many foot-prints and which seemed an incredible muddle to me.
“Ah, here we are! These, I assume, are the tracks to which you refer and which you contend belonged to the murderer.” `Those are they, Mr. Pons.”
Solar Pons looked at the Inspector sharply while the Sergeant and I together with Miss Chambers clustered together on the verge, so as not to add to the confusion of foot-prints in the crusty snow of the drive.
Solar Pons knelt briefly with his magnifying glass. He had produced a small steel folding rule from somewhere and frowned over his measurements while we waited with what patience we could muster in the frozen silence.
“Size seven wellington boots with Dunlop rubber ribbed soles, Inspector.”
“You surprise me, Mr. Pons, but I will take your word for it.” “You will find it accurate enough, Inspector. Remarkably small for a man.”
He retraced his steps and came back frowning.
“Nothing discernible on the main road, which has been too much torn up by passing traffic. Here are the prints of the two women. The rest must belong to the grocer, the tramp and the others on your list. The grocer did not bring his vehicle down?”
“No, Mr. Pons. He thought the horse might get stuck and left the van in the road.”
“That makes things simpler.”
Solar Pons walked on down the drive, occasionally darting about to look at something, while we followed, still on the verge, at a discreet distance.
He paused a long time at the front door, examining the tangled tracks with something of the air of a terrier puzzling at a bone. The indications here were confused in the extreme, as a great many feet had converged on the area of the front porch. The house itself was a somewhat forbidding pile that swept both left and right and was flanked with massive banks of rhododendron and evergreen shrubs that had grown to a great height and gave a chill and oppressive aspect to the surroundings.
My companion had his rule out again now and was carefully examining the spaces between various foot-prints. He straightened up, absorbed in his calculations, and glanced across to the left. The drive made a big sweep just in front of the house, describing a circle round huge clumps of evergreen shrubs which stood on a sort of island of lawn, which had once been well-tended but was now, even beneath its thick coating of snow, obviously all hummocks and furrows.
“Tell me, Inspector,” Pons said. “Did Miss Schneider have a gardener?”
The police officer had a dubious expression on his face but before he could answer Miss Chambers broke in.
“She used to have an old man some years ago, Mr. Pons, but he died. He was the only one who could tolerate her ways and consequently since then the grounds have more or less gone to ruin.”
Solar Pons nodded, his eyes fixed broodingly on the bleak expanse of snow-covered landscape about us.
“Do you know how long ago that was, Miss Chambers?” “About two or three years, I seem to remember Rollo saying.”
Pons nodded and glanced at Rossiter.
“I would prefer to finish up here, Inspector, before we go inside. Besides, the light will be gone soon if we are not careful.”
“Just as you say, Mr. Pons. The ground has been left as undisturbed as much as possible though of course my officers, the ambulance men and the surgeon have been down there to the woodshed. You will see the path yonder. I would like the sergeant here to keep an eye on things in the house.”
Chatterton nodded thankfully and unlocking the front door, swiftly disappeared.
“Do you object if we accompany you, Pons?” I inquired. “Or would you prefer us to wait in the house?”
Solar Pons smiled thinly.
“By all means come if you wish. So long as you both walk behind and not in front.”
We fell in behind and well to one side as Pons walked down the fringe of the twisting path that wound between thick shrubbery. He paid as meticulous attention to the ground and the surroundings as he had to the drive and I could see that the Inspector was impressed. As for Miss Chambers she did not take her eyes off Pons’ face all the time we were out there.
“Tell me, Inspector,” said Pons, as the path wound about, “did Miss Schneider take an electric torch with her when she went out to the woodshed?”
“Yes, Mr. Pons. It was a big affair, with a bull’s-eye front. It had fallen to the ground inside the shed when she was attacked.”
“Still switched on?”
“Yes, Mr. Pons. The switch was in the on position but the battery was exhausted. We have removed it to the house but apart from that item and the body the shed is just as we found it.”
“Excellent.”
We had rounded a bend in the path as he spoke and the shed itself, a low, black-tarred affair, its roof sagging under the weight of snow, was before us. The place was an oppressive one and would have been doubly so at night.
“What a dreadful spot, Pons,” I could not forbear saying and my friend turned to me with a wry expression.
“You speak with the benefit of hindsight, Parker. You are reading far too much into the atmosphere. It is just an ordinary shed in a secluded corner of an overgrown garden but because it has been the scene of a brutal crime that fact colours the surroundings for you. You have too much imagination for a medical man.”
“You may be right, Pons,” I assented gruffly, while Miss Chambers and the Inspector exchanged a conspiratorial smile.
Pons paused again and made a thorough examination of the scene before him. I could hear the murmur of a stream and see the glint of water, steel-grey, through the bare boles of the leafless trees.
“Just look, Mr. Pons,” Inspector Rossiter broke in eventually. “Here are Miss Schneider’s foot-prints. You see those others — of the murderer — which continue from the drive and then to here…”
He paused triumphantly, his eyes over the waxed moustache, fixed intently on my companion’s face.
“Well, as you will observe, they go direct to the hut but they never return!”
Pons’ eyelids were almost lowered over his eyes but now he opened them to become alert and dynamic.
“The fact had not escaped me, Inspector. Remarkable.”
Indeed, despite the trampled ground, which had been necessarily disturbed by the police and ambulance activity, the area near the door, which had been protected by boards the Inspector informed us, clearly showed the circumstances he had detailed. Pons looked across to the left of the tangled garden where black trees and a heavy wire fence showed up.
“That is Mr. Cornfield’s property over there?”
“That is so, Mr. Pons. And that new fence is the one in dispute.”
“Hmm.”
Pons stood a moment more and then, avoiding the prints near the door, placed an inclined board on the door-sill of the shed. He walked up it gingerly and opened the door. The Inspector followed him. It was a large, dim place, with a chopping block for firewood. Miss Chambers and I followed the two men and standing on the beaten earth floor by the open door it was not difficult to picture the tragic drama which had taken place here.