Pons met Inspector Rossiter’s sceptical eyes with a faint smile.
“As we also know, a young man lies in a police cell in Colchester accused of this crime. The Inspector will not agree with me, but it was obvious from the beginning that Mr. Roland Watling was not the man we seek. As Miss Schneider’s sole heir it was inconceivable that he would murder his own aunt and risk death by hanging for such a comparatively small sum of money as ten thousand pounds, when he was already the beneficiary of her will to the extent of half a million. Commonsense alone is against it. Why would he take her life when he had only to wait to become a rich man?”
A deathly silence had fallen on the assembly, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the occasional chink of a tea-cup and I could see that every eye in the room was fixed in fascination on the lean figure of my companion.
“I must admit that the Inspector’s case against Mr. Wading seemed overwhelming. The young man has small feet and the foot-prints in the snow are the same size. As to the mystery of why the tracks of the murderer lead to the shed and do not return — I will leave that until later. The boots which made those tracks were distinctive ones and the Inspector has not produced them, much less proved that they belong to Mr. Watling.”
Miss Chambers was leaning forward in her chair with parted lips, intent on Pons’ every movement. Rossiter coughed and shifted uneasily, as he caught Sergeant Chatter-ton’s eyes.
“We all have our methods, Mr. Pons,” he retorted. “I have already given you my theory as to how the murderer escaped from that shed.”
“Ah, yes,” said Pons dreamily. “According to you he pushed aside the loose planks at the back, precipitated himself into an icy stream in mid-winter, risking pneumonia or death by immersion in the freezing water, dried himself and changed in a grove of trees before catching a bus into Colchester. Though it sounds plausible enough in the warmth of this room, it smacks more of fiction than reality, and a little quiet thought will soon dispose of such a theory.”
Inspector Rossiter had a disbelieving smile on his face. “Perhaps you have a better explanation, Mr. Pons,” he said quietly.
“Perhaps,” my companion replied equably. “You have not told us why anyone should commit a murder in that bleak shed instead of in the comfort and seclusion of the house, let alone why the murderer would know that his intended victim would come there. The matter is both more complex and yet more simple than it appears on the surface.”
Rossiter nodded slowly.
“You are talking in riddles, Mr. Pons. We need more than theories here.”
“You shall have the facts, Inspector, if you would allow me to continue. There has been much talk in this case of The Hound of Hell. As might have been expected, the newspapers immediately played up this aspect. Valuable though the piece is in itself, that diabolical-looking little statue had nothing at all to do with the death of Miss Schneider, or Mr. Watling’s present predicament, though the superstitious and the gullible may read what they wish into it.”
The housekeeper, who had been looking stolidly before her, stirred at this.
“Nevertheless, sir, The Hound of Hell has not brought much luck to those who owned it. You say it had nothing to do with Miss Schneider’s death or Mr. Watling’s arrest. Yet Miss Schneider’s father, if we are to believe her own story, died mysteriously, by falling down a staircase in his Scottish home, only a year after coming into its possession.”
There was a small stir among the people in the room and all eyes, after glancing at Mrs. Hambleton, were once again turned on Pons.
“Indeed,” he said. “I did not know that and if I had it could not influence by one iota the basis of a scientifically conducted investigation.”
“If the piece was so unlucky, why did Miss Schneider keep it?” I asked.
Mrs. Hambleton shrugged.
“It was all part of her nature, doctor. It had been left to her, it was valuable and she could not bear to get rid of it, though she had considered selling it once or twice.”
“Let us keep to the point, Parker,” Solar Pons interrupted politely.
“We have here, the murder of an old lady by strangulation; the theft of some ten thousand pounds; the only foot-prints, which have to be those of the murderer, going to the woodshed and not coming away again; a number of people, all with good motives for the robbery at least; all of whom were here last Saturday; and several with small feet, which match the foot-prints, and who could have committed the crime. All of the people in this room on Saturday knew the money was in the safe and knew that it was open, because the talk between the two female members of the staff and their mistress revolved around it.
“In addition, the Inspector has not made clear an important point in his presentation of the case. If the robbery were the object or a corollary to the murder, which it would surely have to be, was the robbery committed before the murder or after?”
Solar Pons smiled faintly as Inspector Rossiter cleared his throat as if lie would interrupt, but he only folded his arms impatiently and kept silence.
“That presents us with two intriguing problems,” Pons continued. “In the first instance we are asked to believe that the murderer, having committed the robbery, followed the old lady to the woodshed and then strangled her. What would be the point? Further, the Inspector would ask us to believe that the man who committed the crime either hurled himself into an icy cold stream or, alternatively, vanished into thin air. We are faced with the same problem regarding the second supposition. The murderer followed the old lady’s foot-prints to the woodshed, presumably to strike her down and obtain the keys to the safe. But he then remained in that shed and vanished, without returning to the house. Neither of these theories will do. What do you make of it, Parker?”
I stared at him with, I fear, a somewhat dull expression on my face.
“It is an impenetrable mystery, Pons.”
“Is it not, Parker,” he replied with a dry chuckle.
My companion’s eyes were fixed on the brown paper parcel on the table before him.
“Nevertheless, I think I can present a solution which will fill the bill in most respects.”
“We should be very glad to hear it, Mr. Pons,” said Miss Chambers, a worried expression on her face.
My companion had produced his empty pipe from his pocket and was turning it over restlessly in his lean fingers as he stood with his back to the fire. He looked searchingly from one to the other of the people assembled in the long L-shaped room before us, from the stolid Chatterton near the door to Inspector Rossiter to his far left; taking in, in turn, the intense face of the girl, her worries for her fiancé showing in every lineament of her features; the alcoholic Penrose, who was slumped in his chair with glazed, vacuous features; the farmer, Cornfield, who was absorbed by Pons’ deliberations; the grocer, Pennyfeather; the milkman, Postgate; two other men, whose names I had not caught but whom I believed were the postman and another deliveryman; and the two silent women in the corner, Mrs. Rose, the cook; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Hambleton.
He walked slowly down the length of the room, stopping at the far corner, which commanded the short leg of the L, leading to the dining room.
“The dimensions of this room make it at once difficult and easy to reconstruct what has happened,” he observed, almost to himself.