“Indeed.”
Solar Pons’ eyes were sparkling now.
“You are referring to Sir Hercules Kronfeld, I take it?”
Horrabin looked surprised.
“You knew about it, Mr Pons?”
My friend chuckled.
“One could hardly avoid it. I would not say that the world of sculpture is one with which I am entirely au fait. But I do read the newspapers assiduously and I do seem to remember an item about two years ago when the couple were engaged in a fracas at the Paris Salon.”
“You are perfectly right, Mr Pons. They were once good friends but their rivalry developed to such an extent that one could say that only hatred kept them together.”
“An extremely apt summing-up,” said Solar Pons. “And one that might well apply to many marriages. Eh, Parker?”
“No doubt you are right, Pons.”
Solar Pons cupped his lean fingers round his right knee and rocked to and fro as he regarded the secretary keenly.
“You have opened up a fruitful field for investigation, Mr Horrabin. Are there any other people to whom you would particularly wish to draw my attention?”
The secretary shook his head.
“I cannot think of any, Mr Pons. There were a number of rows, of course. Various critics and journalists displeased Mr Schneider from time to time. But the feud with Sir Hercules is the one which stands out.”
Pons nodded, tugging at the lobe of his right ear.
“Is Sir Hercules in London, do you know?”
“I believe so, Mr Pons. He actually telephoned Mr Schneider a few days ago. He lives in Chelsea. I will get you the address.”
“Thank you, Mr Horrabin. And now, if you will excuse us, I would just like to look around this study for half an hour or so.”
“Certainly, Mr Pons. You have only to press that button there if you require my services. It is connected directly with my quarters.”
He pointed to a brass bell-push set into the surface of the desk and quitted the room. Solar Pons sat quietly for a moment, before searching in his pocket for his pipe. He turned to the Inspector as he lit it.
“What do you make of that, Jamison?”
The Inspector wrinkled his brow. The three of us were alone in the room now, Inspector Buckfast having left us at the door. I could see him through the window, painstakingly quartering the garden outside, scrutinising every inch of pathway and turf.
“You mean his size, Mr Pons?”
Jamison’s face lightened for the first time since he had requested Pons’ help.
“Well, he is certainly big enough, Mr Pons. He fits the bill.”
“I did not say he did it, Inspector. But it is a possibility which we must not overlook. It is motive which interests me at the moment. And after all, London is full of men who are more than six feet tall. It is the ones who have been in contact with Mr Schneider who interest us. What say you, Parker?”
“Just what I was thinking, Pons.”
Solar Pons smiled faintly.
“You are ever the receptive listener, Parker. That is an invaluable quality and one consistently underrated by the world.”
“You are too good today, Pons.”
“It is the weather, Parker. I find the combination of such a day and a case of this complexity irresistible.”
Inspector Jamison threw up his hands and looked at me helplessly but Pons was already on his feet, his smile intensified, as he went rapidly back and forth across the shelves of the dead man’s study.
We waited silently as he continued with his examination. He paused in front of a row of letter files and lifted one out. He put it down with a grunt and started to go through the contents. Soon he had three open on the desk before him. He threw a bundle of envelopes over to me.
“What do you make of those, Parker?”
I scanned the contents with rising agitation, passing them to Jamison before I had finished.
“Why, these are love-letters, Pons!” I said with indignation. “And not to put too fine a point on it, the man sounds an unmitigated swine!”
“Does he not, Parker,” said Solar Pons with a dry chuckle. “Letters from a wide variety of different women, most of them with a grudge. And significantly, the studio has been used as a rendezvous, it seems clear.”
“A deplorable business, Pons.”
Solar Pons pulled at the lobe of his left ear and regarded me thoughtfully.
“You take an altogether too moralistic view of the world, Parker, if you do not mind me saying so. An artist of Mr Schneider’s calibre and one barely into his fifties would be bound to attract the attention of women. A famous name is like a magnet to a certain type of feminine personality.”
“For a bachelor you seem to know quite a bit about it, Mr Pons,” put in Jamison sourly.
Creases of amusement appeared at the corners of Solar Pons’ mouth.
“A touch, a distinct touch, Jamison,” he murmured. “But as Dr Johnson once said, a man does not have to be a carpenter to criticise a table. These letters raise a number of interesting possibilities.”
I stared at Pons as he went on sifting through the correspondence in the files in the desk before him.
“Surely, Pons,” I began. “You do not mean to say a woman committed this crime?”
Solar Pons shook his head.
“I hardly think so, Parker. It is not a woman’s type of crime. The female mind is far more subtle, which is why we have so many lady poisoners in the annals of murder. And I hardly think a woman would have had the strength to strike Schneider in that fashion. She would have had to have been an Amazon indeed. And as I have already indicated, there would have been a multiplicity of blows in the case of a jealous rage. Even Inspector Jamison here referred to a battering when he consulted me. Yet we have one blow only.”
“That was an error on my part. Mr Pons,” Jamison put in. “It is still difficult for me to believe such damage could be inflicted on the human frame with a single stroke.”
Solar Pons put the files back on the shelves and sat down at the desk.
“Nevertheless, these letters are of considerable interest.”
Light broke in.
“You mean a jealous husband might have killed his wife’s lover, Pons!”
“It is not outside the bounds of possibility, Parker. I have not yet made up my mind. But now, if you are ready. Inspector, we shall see what Sir Hercules Kronfeld has to say for himself.”
4
Our destination was one of those tall, elegant and extremely expensive houses in Cheyne Walk, which command a magnificent view of the Thames frontage and Chelsea Bridge from the topmost windows. Our driver pulled in from the traffic stream and we walked up the leafy crescent to a large house in the middle which, to gather from the white trellis-work sparkling in the sunshine, boasted an extensive roof-garden.
“Sir Hercules appears to live in some style, Pons,” I observed.
“Does he not, Parker. It would seem that his star is in the ascendant whereas, if Colonel Gantley’s information be correct, Mr Schneider’s was waning. If not from an artistic, certainly from a financial point of view.”
“It is often the case, Pons, in the world of the arts.”
“You astonish me with your knowledge of such matters, Parker,” said Solar Pons gravely.
His ring at the front door bell brought a trim little maid in her early twenties, an appealing sight with her lace collar and cuffs and bobbed dark hair; and we were speedily shown through an elegant suite of rooms to Sir Hercules’ studio. This was a spacious room on the second floor with a huge skylight and large oval window to admit the north light.
Sir Hercules himself was a gigantic figure with a beard heavily flecked with grey. Contrary to my expectations he was elegantly dressed in a light grey suit and blue bow-tie and his fresh complexion and careful grooming completely belied the conventional picture of the artist. He was leaning carelessly against a winged female nude, evidently one of his own works, while he carried on a murmured conversation with an elegant young man with patent leather hair and a soulful expression.