“I think we will have a look at his boots, Parker. Careful how you take them off. Just as I thought. Blisters when wearing boots a size and a half too large can be extremely painful!”
There was a howl as I took the right-hand boot from Cornfield’s foot; flat sheets of newspaper, bundled round his socks, tumbled out and when I had removed the sock itself several large and obviously painful blisters were revealed.
Cornfield thrust himself away from the Sergeant and folded his arms. There was a tragic dignity about him as his burning eyes looked defiantly into Pons’.
“Prove it, Mr. Pons,” he said through his teeth. “You will have a deal of difficulty.”
Solar Pons shook his head, ignoring the amazed eyes of Inspector Rossiter.
“I think not, Mr. Cornfield. I removed old Angus’ boots from your own farm premises. Not one of your labourers could get them on, though I asked each in turn. You put them there yourself after the murder, not trusting yourself to throw them into the stream, in case they came to light. Rubber boots are hard and difficult to burn and you could not risk hiding them in the farmhouse where your staff might find them. So you placed them in the line of labourers’ gumboots in a small room off your cowshed where they might have remained unnoticed, had I not known what I was looking for.”
“I will summons you for trespass!”
“I think not, Mr. Cornfield. I was invited in freely by your head cowman, who was most affable and informative about your affairs. I remembered what your labourer had said about times being hard the day I arrived here and I naturally noticed you were felling all your best timber to provide cash to pay your debts. But when your man told me you had only today paid up arrears of wages and had prepared cheques for other outstanding bills, I drew the obvious conclusion. We can easily find the money by searching your premises but it will go more easily with you if you make a clean breast of it.”
The farmer stared sullenly at Pons for a moment or two, ignoring the incredulous and shocked stares of the other people in the room.
He licked his lips once or twice and then said in a low voice, ‘Very well, Mr. Pons. You are an extremely clever man. It was just my luck to draw you. But I am not sorry about the old woman. She deserved to die. And she drove me to it.”
Solar Pons looked at him coolly, strange lights glinting at the back of his eyes.
“I could find it in my heart to feel sympathy for your plight, Mr. Cornfield, except for the fact that you were prepared to let an innocent young man go to the gallows in your stead.”
There was genuine anguish on Cornfield’s face as he turned to Pons.
“I would never have let it go that far, Mr. Pons.”
My companion shook his head.
“Nevertheless, we shall never know, Mr. Cornfield, shall we?”
He stared at the farmer until the latter lowered his gaze.
“You were clever and cool, but you were not clever and cool enough. You left a lot of loose ends. You took a great deal of trouble to lay that false set of foot-prints but in the lights of your own stock-yard you could not risk the absurdity of being seen to walk backwards so you had to walk normally across your own fields to your farm-house. I saw the imprint of those boots cross the field until they merged with the mass of prints made by your labourers cutting timber and burning branches. Obviously, you changed back into your ordinary boots when you felt safe from observation.
“Similarly, you were not in the yard when Mrs. Rose and Mrs. Hambleton passed the farm unusually late, at five o’clock that Saturday evening. You had that information from your own men and used it to embellish your own story, trusting to your men’s faulty recollection regarding your movements that night. You hoped they would not notice your absence, because you were in that shed waiting for Miss Schneider at five o’clock. You also made a mistake in going to Colchester to buy those boots for you were known there and the manager recognised you, though you were not a customer at his shop. You told him you wanted them for one of your men.”
“But why on earth did he want to buy those boots for, Pons!” I put in.
“Simply as an alibi, Parker. He knew the police would be looking for someone with small feet so he wore bigger boots than normal and padded them with paper. But ironically, the blisters engendered by this immediately drew my attention to his limp when he crossed the field toward us.”
Cornfield was calmer now. He re-laced his boot and sat down in his chair again. He looked at Pons musingly.
“You were right, Mr. Pons. I did it on impulse. Farmers are being squeezed dry nowadays and she was rich and would not pay me the small amount of money she owed me for the repairs to the fence. As I said, I am not sorry — only sorry that I have been found out.”
I looked across at Miss Chambers and was surprised to see her eyes brimming with tears.
“I am truly sorry for you, Mr. Cornfield,” she said softly. Inspector Rossiter came to life, clearing his throat with a heavy rasping noise.
“That is all very well, Miss Chambers, but we have a lot to do here. You will have to come to Colchester, Mr. Cornfield, where we shall take your statement and formally charge you. And we must make arrangements to release your fiancé, Miss Chambers!”
His face reddened as he turned to my companion.
“I am obliged to you, Mr. Pons. I nearly made a public fool of myself.”
“Don’t under-estimate yourself, Inspector,” said Pons. “Ninety-nine police officers out of a hundred would have taken the same line as you. And in ninety-nine cases they would have been right. We have had the good fortune to light upon the hundredth.”
The Inspector smiled ruefully.
“If you put it like that, Mr. Pons…”
He held out his hand.
“I still don’t see how you got on to it in the first place, Mr. Pons.”
“It was not so very difficult, Inspector. Mr. Cornfield was almost the only visitor who fitted the bill at The Pines on Saturday morning, long before it began to snow. Only he had the problem of one set of prints where the others, who came after the snow began, would have had two. One has simply to look at the situation from the other end.”
Pons stared moodily at the fireplace.
“Of course, it was not simply that, but it turned my mind in the right direction. Miss Chambers had already told me that the man who went to that shed had very small feet. I saw Mr. Cornfield limping across toward us and immediately paid close attention to his boots. Farmers are very tough people and do not normally have trouble with their footwear. These boots were new and I resolved to take a trip into Colchester at the earliest opportunity to see whether Mr. Cornfield had made any purchase of footwear there lately.
“When I heard Mrs. Hambleton say the old gardener had left a pair of boots in that shed and that Crathie had very small feet, I immediately saw what had happened and everything followed on from that; the wood piled behind the door; the two whisky-glasses, one used by young Watling and the other by the murderer. The remainder of the visitors to the house on Saturday could be dealt with on the basis of simple elimination, but I had to be a hundred percent sure, which is why I asked everyone to be present.”
“It was wonderful, Mr. Pons,” Miss Chambers breathed, admiration in her eyes.
Solar Pons shook his head.
“It was the wildest conjecture without substantiating proof, Miss Chambers. I took a chance by going to the farm this morning when Mr. Cornfield was otherwise occupied in the house. I had an informal chat with the head cowman and was readily given the run of the place. It did not take me long to find those boots, placed innocuously among a dozen others in a spot where all the labourers kept their working things. I had banked on him not being able to burn or otherwise dispose of them in the short time available. Like many guilty men he was torn in his mind over the best way to get rid of those incriminating items of evidence. When I heard Cornfield was settling up his men’s arrears of wages I was certain I had my man.”