“She seemed to be a trifle agitated, if I may say so. But that was when she left, Mr. Pons. When she came in she was very much a lady.”
“She and her uncle had words?”
“I could not say.” Davinson was suddenly prim.
“Mr. Lindall, now.”
“He was a somewhat truculent young man, but apologetic about disturbing Sir Randolph. They had a pleasant visit. Sir Randolph showed him about the house and garden, and he took his leave.”
“Mr. Loveson. Do you know, is the mortgage a large one, presuming it has not been settled?”
“I don’t know, but I had the impression that it is quite large.” Davinson swallowed and cleared his throat. “I must emphasize again, Mr. Pons, that while Sir Randolph did not take me into his confidence, I was able to come to certain conclusions about his affairs.”
“One could hardly expect otherwise of a companion of such long standing.”
Davinson inclined his head slightly as if modestly accepting faint praise.
“The gentlemen from the Foreign Office,” Pons said then. “Did you admit them?”
“No sir. They came after I had gone to my flat.”
“You answered the telephone while you were here. Do you recall any appointments after your hours during the past two weeks?”
“The foreign gentleman, three nights ago.”
“Did he leave his name?”
“No, sir. He asked to speak with Sir Randolph. He spoke in a German accent. Sir Randolph was in his study. I made the signal with the buzzer, and Sir Randolph took the call. I stayed on the wire just long enough to be sure the connection had been made.”
“You heard their conversation?”
“Sir only enough to know that Sir Randolph was very much surprised — I took it, agreeably. Afterward, he came out and instructed me to prepare some sandwiches and chill some wine, so I knew he expected someone to come in during the evening. I assumed it was the foreign gentleman.”
Pons nodded. “Your leaving arrangements were by your choice, Mr. Davinson?”
“No, sir. That was the way Sir Randolph wished it. He never wanted to be valeted, didn’t like it. But he needed someone to do the ordinary things in the house during the day.”
“You have your own keys?”
“Yes, Mr. Pons.”
“Sir Randolph was secretive?”
“Only about his work. He was a gentleman who, I should say, preferred his own company to that of anyone else. He treated me very well. Indeed, if I may say so, I should not be surprised to find myself mentioned in his will. He hinted as much to me on several occasions, and that ought to be proof enough that he was not unnecessarily secretive.”
“Thank you, Mr. Davinson. I may call on you again.”
“I want to do anything I can to help, sir. I was very fond of Sir Randolph. We were, if I may say so, almost like step-brothers.”
“Was that not an odd way of putting it?” asked Bancroft, when we were walking away from the kitchen. “One says, ‘we were like brothers’. Step-brothers, indeed!”
“Probably not, for Davinson,” said Pons. “I fancy it was his way of saying they were like brothers one step removed on the social scale, Sir Randolph being a step up, and he a step down.”
Bancroft grunted explosively. “You’ve frittered away half an hour. To what conclusion have you come?”
“I daresay it’s a trifle early to be certain of very much. I submit, however, that Sir Randolph was murdered by someone he had no reason to fear. He appears to have been a cautious man, one not given to carelessness in the matter of his relationship with the public.”
“You have some ingenious theory about the murderer’s entrance into and exit from the locked room, no doubt,” said Bancroft testily.
“I should hardly call it that. Sir Randolph admitted him, and Sir Randolph saw him out, locking the doors after him. Until we have the autopsy report, we cannot precisely know how Sir Randolph was done to death.”
“We are having the papers gone over once again.”
“A waste of time. You Foreign Office people think in painfully conventional patterns. I submit the papers have nothing to do with it.”
Bancroft protested, “Surely it is too much to believe that Sir Randolph’s possession of these papers at the time of his death amounts only to coincidence?”
“It is indeed an outrageous coincidence,” said Pons. “But I am forced to believe it.”
“Is there anything more here?” asked Bancroft.
“If possible, I should like to have a copy of Sir Randolph’s will sent to 7B without delay.”
“It will be done.”
Back at our quarters, Pons retired with the china cottage and the box of pastilles to the corner where he kept his chemicals, while I prepared to go out on my round. When I left 7B, he was in the process of breaking apart one of the scented pastilles; when I returned two hours later, he had broken them all apart and was just rising from his examination, his eyes dancing with the light of discovery.
“Sir Randolph came to his death by his own hand.”
“Suicide!”
“I have not said so. No, one of the pastilles contained cyanide. It was prepared and placed among the pastilles in the box on the desk, unknown to him. Since he used not less than two pastilles a day and not more than three, and the box contains normally two dozen pastilles, we can assume the poisoned pastille was placed there not more than twelve days ago. From the ashes in the china cottage it is possible to determine that the cyanide was enclosed in inflammable wax, and this enclosed in the customary formula. Sir Randolph fell victim to a death trap which had been laid for him by someone who both knew his habits and had access to his study.”
“I thought it poison. What was the motive?”
“It was certainly not the papers, as was evident the moment I concluded that the incense burner was the source of Sir Randolph’s death. That faint odour of almond, you will remember, was indicative.”
“His estate then?”
“We shall see. Only a few minutes before your return a copy of Sir Randolph’s will arrived. I was about to examine it.”
He crossed to the table, took up the sealed envelope laying there, and opened it. He stood for a few moments studying the paper he unfolded. “An admirably clear document,” he murmured. “To his faithful servant, Will Davinson, twenty-five hundred pounds. To Miss Emily, ‘who is otherwise provided for,’ the sum of five hundred pounds. To Mrs. Claudia Melton, two hundred pounds. The bulk of his estate distributed equally among five charitable institutions. All mortgages forgiven!”
“There is certainly not much in the way of motive there,” I said.
“Murder has been committed for as much as ten pounds,” said Pons. “And less. But hardly with such care and premeditation. I fancy the stake was considerably more than two or five hundred pounds.”
“Davinson has motive and opportunity.”
“He could hardly deny it,” observed Pons with a crooked smile.
“He knew he was mentioned in the will. He told us as much.”
“Rack up one point against his having planned Sir Randolph’s death.”
“I recall your saying often that when all the impossible solutions have been eliminated, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Parker continued, “Davinson spoke of a foreigner, a German, who visited Sir Randolph only a few days before his death.”
“We have only Davinson’s word for it,” said Pons.
“If not the papers from the Foreign Office, we seem to be left with only Sir Randolph’s estate for motive,” I pointed out, with some asperity.
“His estate seems to be well accounted for.”
“The mortgage holders!” I cried.
“I have thought of them. Even before I saw this document, I suggested that some inquiry be set afoot about them. But a venture to predict it will be disclosed that Sir Randolph did not hold many unpaid mortgages, and that the total sum involved is not as large as Davinson, for one, believed.”