"Pray read the letter aloud to me if you would be so good."
I started as best I could, stumbling and halting over the abominably written and much-blotted text. The missive was headed Grimstone Manor, Grimstone Marsh, Kent and bore the date of the previous day.
I glanced at the envelope and realized the reason for Pons' sardonic attitude. He smiled thinly.
"Exactly, Parker. Mr. Grimstone or his niece affixed a used postage stamp to the envelope, presumably after steaming it off something else."
"Good heavens, Pons," I exclaimed. "It is disgraceful!"
"Is it not, Parker," he said with a light laugh. "The post office thought so too, because they levied a surcharge of three pence on the envelope and I have had to reimburse Mrs. Johnson."
"Your recompense is likely to be small indeed, Pons," I said, turning back to the letter.
"As usual, you have got to the heart of the matter, Parker," said Solar Pons drily.
He poured a final cup of tea and sat back at the table with a satisfied expression.
"But you have not yet read the letter."
"It presents some difficulties, Pons."
I smoothed out the crumpled paper and after some hesitant starts and re-readings finally deciphered the extraordinary message.
Dear Mr. Pons,
Must consult you at once in a matter of most dreadful urgency. This crawling horror from the marsh cannot be tolerated a moment longer. Please make yourself available when I shall explain everything. If I hear nothing to the contrary I propose to call upon you at eight o'clock on Wednesday evening, in absolute discretion.
Yours,
S. Grimstone
I looked across at Pons.
"Extraordinary."
"Is it not, Parker. What do you make of the crawling horror?"
I shook my head.
"You are sure the Grimstones are not eccentric. Perhaps even a little mentally deranged?"
Solar Pons smiled grimly.
"Not from what I have heard of his activities in the city.
But you are the medical man. I will leave you to judge of their sanity."
I picked up the paper again, conscious of the rough edges. "Hullo, Pons, something has been torn off here. Another small mystery, perhaps?"
Solar Pons shook his head, little glinting lights of humor in his eyes.
"Ordinarily, I would agree with you, my dear fellow. In this instance the answer is elementary."
I stared at him, my puzzlement self-evident.
"The Grimstones' habitual meanness, Parker. They have merely torn their disgraceful old sheet of notepaper in half, in order that they may use the remainder for something else."
I was so taken aback that I almost dropped the letter.
"Good heavens, Pons," I mumbled. "Apart from the mystery your clients promise a study in comparative psychology in themselves."
"Do they not, Parker."
Solar Pons rose from the table and crossed over to his favorite chair by the fire. He glanced at the clock in the corner and I saw that it was almost a quarter to seven. He tamped tobacco in his pipe and waited politely until I had finished. The measured tread of Mrs. Johnson was soon heard on the stairs and in a few minutes our estimable landlady had expertly cleared the table and had spread a clean cloth upon it.
"I hope that was satisfactory, gentlemen."
"You have excelled yourself, Mrs. Johnson," said Solar Pons gravely.
Our landlady's face assumed a faint pink texture.
"If there is anything further, Mr. Pons?"
"Nothing, thank you, Mrs. Johnson. On second thought, if you would just leave the front door on the latch my client will let himself up."
"Very good, Mr. Pons."
She closed the door softly behind her and presently her footsteps died away down the stairs.
"An excellent soul, Parker," Solar Pons observed.
"Indeed, Pons," I replied. "I don't know what we should do without her."
My companion nodded. He leaned over for a splinter and lit it from a glowing coal on the hearth. He sat back in the chair, contentedly ejecting a stream of aromatic blue smoke from the bowl, dreamily watching the lazy spirals ascend to the ceiling. It was one of the most pleasant periods of the day and I did not break the reverie into which we had fallen but quietly resumed my own fireside chair and my interrupted reading of The Times.
2
It was a quarter to eight when we were interrupted by the distant slamming of the front door and an agitated tattoo of feet on the doormat of the staircase.
The man who first timidly knocked at our door and then entered the sitting-room was a most astonishing sight. Pons had risen from his chair and even his iron reserve was visibly breached as I saw the slight trembling of the stem of the pipe in his mouth.
The old gentleman who stood blinking and peering about him, first at Pons and then at me, was dressed in a long overcoat of some bottle-green material and of an ancient cut. When he had been in the room some minutes I realized that the coat was old indeed, for the green was not the color but mildew, and a miasma, heavy and polluting, hung about him, bringing the atmosphere of an old-clothes shop into our cozy chambers at 7B.
"Mr. Pons? Mr. Solar Pons?" he said in a high, piping falsetto, his trembling right hand extended to my companion.
"The same, Mr. Grimstone," said my companion, gingerly taking his shriveled claw.
"Will you be seated, sir."
"Thank you, thank you."
The old man looked at me with fierce suspicion, until Pons made the introduction.
"My valued friend and colleague, Dr. Lyndon Parker." "Proud to make your acquaintance, sir."
Our visitor bowed frostily and I half-rose from my chair but was glad that he did not offer to shake hands with me. Even from where I was sitting I could smell the dank, malodorous stench which emanated from his clothing. At first I suspected that Grimstone suffered from paralysis agitans but after a short interval I concluded that nothing but common fright was responsible for the twitching eyes, nervous tics and sudden starts he exhibited in our company. He shied away and made as though to quit the room at any sudden and unexpected noise and once when a motor vehicle backfired in the street below our windows, I thought that he would have fled to the door. I had never seen a man with such a look of fear on him.
For the rest he wore a mildewed hat that must once have answered to the name of homburg and when he removed it in our presence, his long white flowing locks hung about his brows like hoary weeds overflowing from some untended garden. His black and white striped shirt, greasy and dirty, was held in place with two rusty safety pins and he was devoid of either collar or tie. He opened his overcoat with the heat of the fire and I could see a musty suit of the same shade as his outer garment beneath.
His shoes were worn out at the heels and I was astonished, even given our visitor's general appearance, to see that instead of laces his shoes were held to his feet by lengths of knotted string. Grimstone was probably nearer seventy than sixty and his face was lined, with deep furrows running from the corners of his eyes to his nostrils. His eyes were a pale green and the most cunning I had ever seen in my varied experience as a medical practitioner.
His nose was thin and raw red which I put down to the wind and the current cold weather, and his mouth had a cadaverous and lop-sided look. I found out later that this resulted from his wearing a set of second-hand dentures which did not fit him properly. As Pons had so properly observed, few men had ever existed with such miserly habits. His rimless pince-nez had evidently been garnered from the same source as the dentures; some dingy second-hand shop, for I was certain that they did not suit his eyesight, for he squinted ferociously over the top of them from time to time.