Solar Pons started tamping tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.
“I suspected something of the sort. I remembered the newspaper reports a short while ago. And my suspicions became aroused when I saw the crates which had come from such places as I long Kong and other cities in the Far East.”
“I wish I knew what you were talking about. Pons,” I protested.
“Tut, Parker, it was a simple deduction,” said Solar Pons, lighting his pipe. “Following the murder some of the crates had been hastily moved and part of the contents spilled. You may remember I tasted some white powder which was on the floor. As a doctor, Parker, the implications should have been obvious.”
“Drugs, Pons!”
“Of course, my dear fellow. Cocaine and opium, mainly, I should imagine. Hong Kong is one of the great clearing houses for the trade in the Far East. Furthermore, all the crates we saw were marked with red stars. I felt certain in my mind that these would be sure to contain genuine antiques or souvenirs. Colonel Gantley here was only a tool, part of a large ring. I have a shrewd suspicion who was at the centre of the web.”
“I beg of you, Mr Pons,” said Gantley. in a shaking voice. He looked quickly at Belding, bit his lip and turned away again.
“But what has all this to do with the murder. Pons?”
“Everything, Parker. Let us just reconstruct the matter. Romane Schneider was in financial difficulties, we already know. He decided to let his house and rent a less expensive one. He was naturally delighted when Colonel Gantley turned up at the estate agents and made his extravagant offer. But may we not conjecture that after some weeks of tenancy, his curiosity got the better of him? Why was an antique dealer like Colonel Gantley, a man with a relatively modest income, so keen to pay £100 a week?
“Why did he store so many things from the Far East inside the rooms below the studio? And why did he employ Chinese almost exclusively among his outside staff. That was so, was it not, Colonel Gantley?”
“You are guessing, Mr Pons, I imagine. But you are right, yes. A number of Chinese have been here. I have told my superiors about it, but these men are experts at the trade. Mr Belding was their supervisor.”
“You fool!”
Belding had sprung up with a white face before I could stop him and struck the Colonel in the mouth. I caught the dark man across the skull with the barrel of my pistol and he dropped noiselessly on to the divan.
“Well done, Parker,” said Pons drily. “I see that your reflexes have lost nothing of their hair-trigger reaction. You had best examine him. I do not think we need fear trouble from Colonel Gantley.”
I gave the dark man a cursory examination while Pons took the pistol and covered the chauffeur.
“He will be out for half an hour, Pons,” I said.
“Excellent. That should be time enough. Where was I? Ah, yes, Romane Schneider’s fatal curiosity. As the months went by the movements and actions of his intriguing neighbours aroused his suspicions. Two nights ago he stayed in his studio after dark, keeping all the lights off.
“When he judged it was safe, he let down the staircase. I submit he had already looked through the store-room window and noted that there were no crates in the area beneath. He crept down in the dark and made a thorough examination. What he discovered we shall never know. But the contents of the warehouse were so vitally important that the intruder could not be allowed to live. Or that was the reasoning of this man here.”
Pons looked thoughtfully at the sullen Chinese.
“I fancy we shall hear nothing from his own lips. He is certainly inscrutable enough for that, though there is enough circumstantial evidence to ensure him the hangman’s rope. Schneider was in the store-room when he heard a sound. It might have been the Colonel’s car returning. At any rate Schneider, thoroughly frightened, ran back up the staircase and regained the studio.
“He dared not return the staircase to its original position because of the noise. He decided on boldness. He put on the light in his studio as though he had just come in and started work on one of his sculptures. Unfortunately for him the Chinese must have seen the light shining down through the staircase and went to investigate. He saw at once how things were and being a man of action took the decision into his own hands to eliminate Schneider.
“He crept quietly up the staircase — perhaps under cover of the car engine he had left running below — and struck Schneider down from behind with his own mallet. He then retreated to the ground floor and informed the Colonel of his action.”
“Brilliant, Pons,” I said.
“It is a reconstruction only, Parker,” returned Solar Pons. “We shall need the Colonel’s verification.”
“It is correct in every detail, Mr Pons,” said Colonel Gantley. looking at my companion with something like awe. He had a handkerchief to his face and staunched the blood from his cut lip.
“Of course, my horror at the crime can be imagined, but it was all too late. We made a thorough search of the store-room and found a small lever at floor level which operates the staircase from below. After I had made an examination of the studio and made sure there was nothing incriminating left behind, we put the stairs back, left the lights on and piled up crates and boxes to ceiling level. We spent another hour in removing the remaining drugs to the cellar of this house.”
“You did admirably well under the circumstances,” said Solar Pons ironically. “I am sure you will correct any details in which I have gone wrong.”
Colonel Gantley shook his head.
“I have only myself to blame, Mr Pons. Easy money was my downfall, as it has been for so many others. I had been cashiered from the Indian Army. I returned to the old country but nothing I touched prospered. I started an antique business but that was foundering. I was desperate for ready money when I met Belding in a public house one evening about a year ago.
“He told me of a way I could make money and I slowly became enmeshed. My business, which had legitimate contacts in the East was useful, you see, and the men behind the trade found I provided a respectable facade. There is no excuse for me, I know; I have helped to ruin countless lives — and now this.”
“There is one way you can redeem yourself,” said Solar Pons, a stern look upon his features. “The names and addresses of every contact and as many men as possible higher up in the organisation.”
Gantley shook his head.
“Belding was my only major contact. And the Chinese we employed. I will give what help I can.”
“Be sure that you do.”
Solar Pons stood deep in thought for a moment, pulling gently at the lobe of his left ear, while a thin column of blue smoke ascended from his pipe to the ceiling.
“It was too much to hope for, Parker. As I said before, the trembling of the web, but the spider remains concealed in the shadow.”
“You surely do not mean your old enemy, Pons?” I cried.
“It is possible, Parker. No crime is too despicable for that scoundrel. And he would need such enormous profits as that generated by the drugs trade to fuel his infamous criminal empire. Just ring Jamison, will you? We must make sure he has not inadvertently arrested Sir Hercules or Schneider’s unfortunate secretary.”
8
“It was a remarkable case, Pons.”
“Was it not, Parker?”
We were at lunch in our comfortable sitting-room at 7B Praed Street a week later and Mrs Johnson had just brought the midday post up. It was a beautiful June day and the window curtains stirred gently in the cooling breeze. Pons chuckled and passed me a copy of the Daily Telegraph. I found a large item on the front page ringed ready for cutting out and pasting into the book in which he kept records of his cases.