“I am sure of it, Parker,” my friend returned.
“What are your immediate plans, Mr Pons?”
“Parker and I will take you home now, Miss Brentwood. We will come back on foot at about ten o’clock tomorrow morning and look for your signal. Is there any other way we can approach the house other than from the main road?”
“There is a small lane which loops round the back garden, Mr Pons; but of course, you will not be able to see the signal from there.”
Pons was silent for a moment.
“Well, we will meet that when we come to it. In the meantime I think a small reconnaissance this evening, when we take Miss Brentwood back, will not come amiss. And do not worry. With the story we have concocted and your friend’s corroboration by telephone, I do not think your uncle will dare arouse suspicion by causing a scene this evening.”
“Let us hope you are right, Pons.”
A few minutes later we left the comfort of the hotel and, directed by the young lady, drove out slowly by narrow lanes through the darkness and mist to the hamlet of Peas Pleasance. As our client had indicated, it was a strange and lonely countryside and it was not difficult to imagine how friendless and bleak her childhood and young womanhood must have been in this desolate spot.
After a while we passed through the hamlet of scattered houses and turned right at a small village green. On Miss Brentwood’s direction I steered the car into the entrance of a narrow lane, ran it in under the shadow of some trees and stopped.
“It will be best if we walk from here, Dr Parker,” Miss Brentwood whispered. “It is only a few hundred yards.”
Pons nodded, knocking out his pipe and turning up the collar of his overcoat against the bitterly cold air. We walked on the grass verge in silence, the lights of the small hamlet rapidly disappearing behind us. The mist was thickening, if anything, and our feet rustled in the dead leaves in a melancholy fashion. The only other sound that broke the silence was the occasional shriek of a distant owl.
A darker bulk broke through the mist ahead. I think I have seldom seen a more God-forsaken dwelling. A great, gaunt Gothic house with staring windows whose shutters looked like blinkers; the mist weaved in eddies round the eaves, there came the sombre drip of water from somewhere and a solitary light burned high up in the mass of the building.
“That is The Priory, Mr Pons,” the girl said, “though it is surely unnecessary for me to tell you that.”
“A forbidding place indeed,” said Pons, turning to me.
The girl smiled faintly.
“Perhaps so, gentlemen, but I have been used to it since childhood and you will find it cheerful enough in daylight.”
“Perhaps.” said Pons absently. “Good night, Miss Brentwood. Be of good cheer. We will stay to see you safely in.”
The girl shook hands with us, her manner quite transformed from that of the afternoon.
“Good night, gentlemen, and thank you again. Until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow.”
Solar Pons’ eyes were fixed on her retreating form. Presently we heard the slam of the front door and a short while later light sprang up in the front hall. Pons stood for a short while listening intently but all remained quiet. He turned away with a sigh.
“A brave young woman, Parker.”
“Indeed, Pons. This is a black business.”
He nodded at me through the mist as we started to walk back.
“Black enough. And dangerous enough. Though I think the crime has already been committed. It is two-fold and our man hoped to cover his traces.”
I looked at him sharply as we got into the car and I started the engine.
“How do you mean, Pons?”
He shook his head, fumbling in his pocket for his pipe, which he re-lit slowly.
“I would rather not speculate without more data, Parker. Let us hear your thoughts on the matter.”
I concentrated on steering through the white wall ahead. The lights of the small hamlet of Peas Pleasance showed up briefly and then died behind us.
“My thought are entirely jumbled, Pons. We have a young girl brought up by a brutal and domineering uncle. A legacy. A lawyer whose corpse appears at her window in the middle of the night, twelve hours before he is found hanged in London. To say nothing of poisoned dogs and rose-gardens.”
“But surely that suggests something to you. Parker?”
“It is a madhouse, Pons, from my point of view, though my heart goes out to this unfortunate woman.”
“Do not say so, Parker. She is fortunate indeed.”
“I cannot get your meaning.”
“Oh. surely it is plain enough,” he said, throwing his spent match out of the partly opened window at his side.
“Miss Brentwood may have lost a fortune but has gained another.”
“Another, Pons?”
“Her life, Parker, her life!” Solar Pons rapped. “Things could so easily have gone the other way. And very usually do in these cases. Ah, here is The Blue Boar again. I shall be glad of my bed on such a night as this.”
5
I was up early the next morning and Pons and I breakfasted in a snug oak-beamed bar. During breakfast Pons had been studying his large-scale folding map and later we drove out to Peas Pleasance intending to try the back lane of which Miss Brentwood had spoken. It was still bitterly cold at half-past nine and the mist lingered but a watery sun shone through and the day promised to be dry.
Pons was silent as we drove, his pipe emitting intermittent jets of smoke as though my companion were some engine or high-speed pump which was working at full pressure. His lean, feral face was lost in thought and presently he folded the map, his jaw set in a grim line.
“We must be extremely careful by daylight. Parker. If word gets about that strangers are in the vicinity it will make our task doubly difficult. And if our quarry spots us then the game will be up indeed.”
“I understand, Pons. Have you any special instructions?”
He shook his head.
“We must play this as the dice fall. You have your revolver, of course?”
“You insisted on it, Pons,” I said, tapping my breast-pocket.
He chuckled.
“I fancy you will find its menace a little more practical than wrestling physically with a gentleman built like a Hercules.”
“There is that, Pons,” I said, drawing the car into the mouth of a narrow lane, at his sudden admonition.
“This will do nicely, Parker,” he breathed as I idled the machine across the grass and behind a screen of heavy trees which shielded it from the road.
We got down and walked back toward the road, our feet making crisp noises in the frosty grass. Through the mist I could see the black mass of The Priory rising before us. As Miss Brentwood had said, it looked a little less menacing by daylight, though it was too solitary by far for one of my gregarious tastes.
Pons enjoined silence as we rounded the curve of the lane where it rejoined the minor road we had taken last night. We walked quietly in the grass at the roadside. There was no-one about; indeed, no other houses, which was admirable for our purposes. Nothing was stirring and not even the note of a bird broke the bleak, dead silence.
We were passing toward the front of the mansion now, a thick, densely-grown hedge masking our presence. Pons caught my arm. A moment later I saw the firmly closed shutters across the centre, first-floor window.
“We are in luck, Parker. The front door, I think, with no concealment.”
I opened the large iron gate which stood ajar and when we were upon the uneven brick path that led between the lawns to the main entrance, Pons stopped suddenly and surveyed the facade of the house.
“I see the shutters of the second-floor window over that of Miss Brentwood’s room are also closed. Parker. I commend that to you as being highly significant.”