Solar Pons rubbed his thin hands together and picked up his coffee cup with an expression of enthusiasm dancing in his eyes.
"The police are completely baffled, Pons."
"I am not surprised to hear you say so."
"It says here," I went on, reading from the newspaper, "'Public alarm is growing, and the activities of what has come to be called the Phantom of the Zoo are becoming more bold and daring. Already life has been endangered, and it is only a question of time before a fatality occurs. The cunningness of the Phantom. "
"Pschaw, Parker," said Solar Pons, interrupting rudely. "Pray spare me the rubbishly fulminations of the popular press. This is all very well for the romantic shopgirl or the more lurid manifestations of the cinema, but we continue to apply the ratiocinative processes at 7B. As I have observed before, this agency stands foursquare upon the ground."
"That is all very well, Pons," I said, refolding the paper and passing it back to him. "You have often remarked to me that such remarkable mysteries cannot be solved long-distance. And if you have not been retained, I do not see…"
"There is no mystery to be solved," said Solar Pons calmly. "Or, to be more precise, we can discount these rubbishy stories of phantoms and prowlers of the night. A human hand is at work here, opening cages, throwing back bolts, breaking windows. That goes without saying. The method of entry to the Gardens is a little more interesting, but not difficult for the right person. It is the motive that interests me. Human nature is one of the most fascinating of studies, Parker. 1 commend it to you."
"I am not entirely insulated from human nature in my profession, Pons," I commented somewhat stiffly.
Solar Pons smiled wryly.
"Touché, Parker. It was not my intention to give offense. But you have not yet looked at the Stop-Press."
I again picked up the paper from the table and turned to the item at the bottom right-hand corner of the front page, which he had underlined.
I read: EARLY ARREST EXPECTED. "Scotland Yard announced tonight they expect early arrest of Phantom of the Zoo. See story page 1."
"That would appear to be the end of the matter, Pons." "We shall see, Parker, we shall see," said Pons, an enigmatic smile on his face.
As he spoke, there came an imperative rapping at the front door, followed by an agitated ringing of the bell. A minute or two later, Mrs. Johnson’s well-scrubbed face with its heavy coils of hair appeared around the door.
"A young man to see you, Mr. Pons. He is in a dreadful state. He says it is about the Phantom of the Zoo."
2
Pons looked at me in silence for a moment, a slightly mocking expression in his eyes.
"Show him in, Mrs. Johnson," he said swiftly. "Pray do not go, Parker. I may have need of your common sense and ready wit."
"You do me too much honor, Pons," I mumbled, slewing my chair round so that I could command a better view of the door.
A young man of about twenty-eight entered, with tousled, fair, curly hair. He was roughly dressed in a dark blue uniform, but there was an air of such honesty and decency about him, notwithstanding his haggard and distraught expression, that I warmed to him immediately. He looked from one to the other of us, then unerringly made for Solar Pons and held out his hand as though in mute appeal.
"Mr. Solar Pons? I am in most desperate trouble, sir. I do not know which way to turn."
Solar Pons looked at him with a reassuring expression.
"Do not disturb yourself, young man. Sit down there. No doubt a cup of coffee would not come amiss on such a cold evening. If you would just do the honors, Mrs. Johnson."
Our landlady bustled about the table, making sure our guest was settled comfortably before she withdrew to the privacy of her own quarters. The young man was silent for a moment after she had left the room, his thick, spatulate fingers gripped convulsively around the cup as he took long, deep draughts of the black coffee.
"I do not seem to have caught your name," said my companion when our visitor seemed a little more himself.
"I am sorry, sir. This business has fairly thrown me, Mr. Pons. And now that I am suspected, my life is not worth the living."
He gazed fiercely at us for a moment and then relaxed again.
"My name is John Hardcastle, gentlemen. I'm an under-keeper at the Lion House at the Zoological Gardens, where all these terrible things have been going on."
"Indeed," said Solar Pons, a twinkle in his eyes. "This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Lyndon Parker. I take it you have no objection to his hearing your little story?"
Our visitor shook his head.
"By no means. It takes some believing, sir, but I ask you to believe I am innocent."
"Come, Hardcastle," said Pons in a soothing voice. "Drink your coffee, have another and proceed with your story in a connected manner, if you please."
We both waited while Hardcastle poured himself more coffee with a hand that trembled slightly, despite himself. "You've read the stories in the papers, Mr. Pons?"
"I am au fait with the salient points. Just exactly how you've come to be connected with this affair is not quite clear at present. You are employed at the zoo, as you have already told me. You are an old soldier; have seen much fighting in France, where your health was broken; you have been wounded; and you are fond of pigeons; but these facts tell me little about your present problems."
Our visitor stared at Pons open-mouthed, his coffee cup half raised from the saucer.
"Good heavens, Mr. Pons, the staff at the zoo told me about you. They said you were some kind of magician, but I do not see how you could possibly know all these things."
"They are true, then?"
"Near enough, Mr. Pons. But how…"
"It was simple enough," said Solar Pons, giving me a mischievous little glance.
"You are a young man of some twenty-eight years, of vigorous aspect and in rude health, apart from your current agitation, yet your face is marked by illness. By your age it follows, therefore, that you would have served in the late conflict, as zoo-keeping was not a reserved occupation, to the best of my recollection."
"Correct, Mr. Pons."
"Yet I noticed as you came through the door that you had a slight limp in your left leg. It was the merest conjecture, but I immediately concluded that you had been wounded in the war. When I see a scrap of wound ribbon on your uniform jacket there, my conclusion is confirmed. When I see next to it the ribbon of the Mons Star, it is no great feat of reasoning to deduce that you were in the infantry and saw heavy fighting."
"Again correct in every respect, Mr. Pons," said our visitor, awe and bewilderment on his frank, open face.
"I was a corporal in the Coldstreams. Lucky all through the war but caught some shrapnel in the leg only three months from the Armistice. I had trench-fever, too, and incipient tuberculosis and was laid up for a long time after the war, though I am fit enough now."
"I am glad to hear it," I put in. "As a medical man, my diagnosis exactly."
"You are ever reliable, Parker," said Solar Pons gravely. "But the pigeons, Pons?"
"Ah, that was the purest flight of fancy, Parker. Mr. Hardcastle has some cuts on his left hand. That may have something to do with his work in the Lion House, though I am sure he would not be careless enough to get within striking distance of his charges. But I noticed a series of minute red scratches on the first finger of his right hand. Only a pigeon-fancier gets those. The birds perch and alight on the right hand, and sometimes their sharp claws may inflict tiny scratches. It would take a deal of time to collect such a finger as our young friend has there."