“Romane Schneider? Murdered? How terrible!”
“I said nothing about a murder. Colonel,” said Pons blandly. “Though I see you know all about it. Remarkable in view of the fact that we mentioned only a burglary.”
The Colonel’s face went ashen and he made a choking noise. The man by the fireplace leapt up but I already had my revolver out.
“I think not,” said Solar Pons gently. “Dr Parker here is a crack shot and we have already had enough violence for one evening. If you have a weapon in your inside pocket there, Mr Belding, I sincerely advise you to drop it.”
Colonel Gantley’s forehead was beaded with sweat and he seemed to sag suddenly.
“Do as Mr Pons says,” he advised his colleague.
“Pray collect it, Parker. I will look after these two. Now, Colonel Gantley, I urge you to make a clean breast of things. You are already an accessory to murder and the other charges I will prefer should assure you at least twenty years in prison. It is in your interest to co-operate.”
I took the heavy calibre pistol from the dark-haired man and motioned him over to join Gantley and the Chinese on a divan at the other side of the fireplace. Gantley sank into the cushions and passed a handkerchief over his face.
“I see it is useless to dissemble, Mr Pons. Just what exactly do you know?”
“That is better, Colonel Gantley,” said Solar Pons crisply. “When there is truth between us, we may progress. If you assist the authorities in this matter, they may be inclined toward leniency. Otherwise, I can promise nothing.”
A groan trickled out from beneath Gantley’s tight-pressed fingers.
“You are right, Mr Pons. I did know about Schneider’s murder. But I want you to believe I had nothing to do with it: it was not ordered by me and I was appalled and horrified when I learned what Chang had done.”
Solar Pons’ expression was grim and stern as he looked down at the abject figure of the Colonel.
“I am inclined to believe you. And it may be that you have been more of a dupe than anything else, though there is little excuse for you. You have been engaged in a foul and inhuman trade and must take the consequences.”
“I do not understand you, Pons,” I began, when my friend silenced me with a gesture.
“You must realise, Colonel Gantley,” he went on, “I can promise nothing, though my recommendation to the police authorities might carry some weight if I were able to present them with a watertight case.”
We were interrupted at that moment by a aloud rapping at the door.
“Are you all right, Colonel? Do you wish me to call the police, sir?”
“Certainly not!”
The Colonel’s voice was a strangled squawk and Solar Pons gave me a thin smile as the Colonel hurried over toward the door. I noticed that Pons remained close behind him while I kept my pistol trained upon the second man before me. There was a muffled colloquy at the door and then Gantley was back.
“I will tell you everything. I hardly know where to begin, Mr Pons.”
“Let me tell you what I have learned, Colonel. Then you can fill in the missing pieces.”
“Very well, sir.”
Solar Pons went over to stand at a point midway between the two men. He made a subtle gesture to me with the thin fingers of his left hand and so I continued to cover the dark man, Belding. The chauffeur, Chang, sat silent and impassive, nursing his wound, his face white despite his yellow pigmentation. His eyes burned vindictively into mine.
Solar Pons faced me in a contemplative mood and began to speak to me as though we were alone at 7B Praed Street.
“There were two baffling mysteries about this case, Parker. The murder of Romane Schneider in a sealed room and the lack of motive. You now know how the murderer gained access.”
“But I still do not know why, Pons.”
“Precisely, Parker. I shall proceed to tell you if I am allowed freedom from interruption. The puzzle in the sealed room was the method of entry and exit. There had to be one because the murderer could not just vanish into thin air. He had also to be a huge man, as I had already demonstrated because Romane Schneider was about six feet tall and had been hit squarely upon the crown of the head with shattering force. As the skylight, the obviously solid walls and the main door were ruled out for the reasons we have already discussed, there remained only the flooring.
“I had already noticed from the building below that it would have been impossible for anyone to have gained entry from the garage as it had a solid cement ceiling. That left only the store-room and a number of interesting possibilities emerged. There were various buttresses and pillars which, to my mind, ruled out a staircase in that portion of the building. It had to be a staircase or ladder because of the height of the studio from the ground. There was only one possible place and I immediately saw that it corresponded with the position of the raised platform in the studio above.”
Solar Pons paused and looked at the crushed form of Colonel Gantley with glittering eyes. The man Belding held himself coiled tightly like a spring but I held the revolver ready and the expression on my face evidently deterred him.
“You may recall that I paid particular attention to the studio flooring. Parker. And that I found traces of the murderer which petered out near the foot of the shallow stairs leading to the platform. That merely reinforced my suspicions and I soon saw that though the floor was apparently solid, there were faint cracks between the pine planking at various points, instead of the tongue and groove joints which obtained elsewhere. I was convinced that an entrance would be found there and so it proved. We then had the problem of why the staircase existed and who had used it.
“I had only to see Godfrey Horrabin and Sir Hercules Kronfeld to eliminate them from my inquiries. Though both physically fitted the requirements it was obvious, from the frank and open way in which he answered my questions and my reading of his character, that Horrabin would not have destroyed his own livelihood as the dead man’s secretary. Similarly, Kronfeld was genuinely moved at his old enemy’s death: as I observed, there was a similar love-hate relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan. Sir Hercules had been a personal friend until the two men quarrelled: in my opinion the feud between the two men, real or supposed, added salt to life for both.
“Two vital pieces of information emerged from my examination of Schneider’s study, both of which had been overlooked by Jamison. Or rather, no proper conclusions had been drawn from them. The existence of the staircase which led only to the store-room and garage was far more plausible when it became clear that the dead sculptor was a notorious womaniser. Discretion was assured when a woman had only to drive her car into the garage, using a key supplied by Schneider, and gain access to the studio secretly and privately by using the staircase.
“Though we have not had time to find it, there is obviously a button or some mechanism down below which operates the thing from the store-room. The motive for the crime was supplied by my finding among Schneider’s papers that Colonel Gantley here was paying the incredible sum of £100 a week for the privilege of renting Cheneys. It would have to be a profitable antique business indeed which could support such an outlay.”
Colonel Gantley gave another groan and turned a haggard face toward Pons.
“Shall I tell you why Colonel Gantley paid Schneider £100 a week, Parker?”
I nodded.
“Because so much money was being made by the Colonel and his associates that money was no object. There were certain pressures on them and they had to get a respectable address with storage facilities immediately.”
Colonel Gantley spoke.
“The police had just raided our headquarters in Limehouse, Mr Pons. I had instructions from above to evacuate all our supplies from Deptford. I brought them here just in time.”