HARDCASTLE.
I glanced at the date. It had been sent from Dorking the previous night.
"I do not understand, Pons."
Solar Pons glanced at me sympathetically, the cold winter light making rapid patterns across his lean, feral features.
"Forgive me, Parker. When I asked you to come with me to Surrey it was in the nature of an emergency and there was little time for explanations. There are a few minutes left before we arrive at our destination and I shall endeavor to put you in possession of the salient points.
"As you have already stated, Elijah Hardcastle is the well known stage and cinema actor. He first wrote me at Praed Street some three weeks ago, when he was on tour in the West Country. The sound of his letter impressed me as being that of a man at the end of his tether. In short, he was in fear of his life."
I must confess I looked with astonishment at my friend sitting in the far corner of the carriage, his luggage and overcoat thrown carelessly about him. He fixed his eyes on a colored lithograph of Broadstairs above my head and blew out another plume of aromatic smoke.
"Surely, Pons, that is one of the penalties of the actor's life," I began. "They are either idolized or loathed. And when a man like Hardcastle spreads his talents so widely, on both stage and screen, there are bound to be adherents in both camps."
Solar Pons shook his head with a somewhat mocking smile. "It is something a little more than that, my dear fellow.
And if you would just have the patience to hear me out…" I mumbled an apology and sank back into my corner, watching the sun sparkle on the frozen surface of a stream we were passing.
"It is a bizarre business that intrigues me considerably." Solar Pons leaned forward and tented his thin fingers before him.
"When he was appearing at Edinburgh in Othello, he received a small parcel, posted from London. It contained a skillfully created effigy of himself, in Shakespearean costume, lying dead with a phial of poison in his hand."
I shook my head.
"Lamentable lack of taste, Pons."
My companion inclined his head.
"You have hit the heart of the matter with your usual unfailing perspicacity, my dear doctor."
Pons was silent for a moment and then continued.
"The first parcel, which arrived some months ago, was in the nature of a warning, he felt. Nothing happened and he quite forgot the incident. But in October, you may recall, he appeared with some success at Drury Lane in a revival of The Hound of the Baskervilles."
"As Sir Henry Baskerville. It was an excellent performance. I saw it myself."
"Did you indeed?" said Pons with a thin smile. "About a week before the play opened he received another parcel. This time it contained a cunningly fashioned model, in colored wax, of himself as Sir Henry. He was lying on the ground, his throat torn out, with the gigantic Baskerville hound standing over him."
"Good heavens, Pons!"
"You may well raise your eyebrows, Parker. The case offers a number of points of interest. This second parcel was also sent from London but despite all inquiries he was unable to discover anything about it, though he contacted the postal authorities. I have gathered all this from Hardcastle himself in a series of telephone conversations during his tours."
"Nothing happened on this second occasion, Pons?"
Solar Pons sat back in his seat and looked reflectively at the passing telegraph wires.
"There was an accident on the opening night. A chandelier which was part of the Baskerville Hall set in the prologue collapsed on to the stage. It narrowly missed Hardcastle and did in fact slightly injure the actor who played Dr. Watson. The chandelier was not a stage property, but one of the original massive fittings of the theatre, which is often used in opera."
"So that Hardcastle could have been killed?"
"Very easily. The police were called and found that the cable holding the chandelier had been eaten through with a powerful corrosive that would have taken about ten minutes to do its work."
"You were not called in then?"
My companion shook his head.
"My services were only solicited more recently. But that is the story I had from Hardcastle. He was in a considerable state of nerves by this time."
Pons tapped thoughtfully with the bowl of his pipe on the brass door fitting of the carriage, tipping fragments of tobacco into the metal ashtray.
"He was in Liverpool a few weeks ago, starring in a modern thriller called The Arrow of Fate. This time he received a third parcel, also posted from London. It contained another skillfully contrived wax model of himself in evening dress, this time hanging from a beam."
"There was no message?"
Solar Pons shook his head.
"There was never a message of any kind."
"But something happened?"
"Most definitely, Parker. D'Arcy Stanwell, the second male lead, who was of the same build and appearance as Hardcastle, was killed on opening night as he made his first entrance, just after the curtain went up."
I blinked.
"Good heavens. You think he was mistaken for your client?"
"I am certain of it, Parker. It was a combination of the lighting and the resemblance between the two men, who both wore evening dress for this particular scene. The manner of the killing was bizarre in the extreme. Stanwell was killed by a steel arrow which came from somewhere in the theatre, probably from an empty stage-box high up. It was a matinee, you see. The murderer made his escape undetected."
"But he must have had some sort of bow."
"Exactly. Which is what makes the problem so intriguing. The show closed at once, of course. And naturally the police were unable to trace the murderer."
"Why do you say 'naturally,' Pons?"
"Because this case is a hundred miles outside the ordinary type of police work, Parker. You have noticed one important factor?"
"What is that, Pons?"
Solar Pons shook his head.
"Tut, tut, Parker. You disappoint me. I had thought more highly of your ratiocinative faculties."
"I am afraid I do not follow."
"Why, the warning and its execution, Parker. In each case the potential victim received a sinister warning in the shape of a wax effigy. You will remember that in the case of Othello he was lying dead, poisoned. But Othello himself strangled Desdemona in that distinguished work. The second warning depicted him with his throat torn out but instead a chandelier descended."
"I see, Pons!"
I sat up in my seat.
"The third time he was depicted hanging but his unfortunate colleague was shot with an arrow."
"You have hit it, Parker."
Solar Pons looked at me dreamily from under lowered eyelids.
"He was warned of his impending death but in each case the method of death was something totally unexpected. The murderer wanted to frighten, even terrify, but not to indicate the manner of death precisely or his victim might escape." "But nothing happened after the first warning."
"There you have me."
Solar Pons pulled reflectively at his right earlobe. "Though it is impossible to prove at this distance in time, I would submit that the person menacing Hardcastle's life intended some sort of coup at the theatre during the performance of Othello but was prevented by circumstances on the actual night he intended to commit his crime."
"But why did he not try again?"
Solar Pons smiled thinly.
"Perhaps he could only be in Edinburgh for one night. There are a number of interesting possibilities. Or he may have merely intended to frighten this first time, so that the second, real attempt would be completely unexpected."
I nodded.
"And now there has been a fourth parcel?"