“I see, Pons.”
Mr Hibbert was smiling and relaxed now. He put out his well-manicured hands for me to examine readily. I turned them over and subjected them to an intense scrutiny, looking for the details Pons had suggested.
“There is nothing, Pons,’ I said eventually. “Mr Hibbert’s hands bear no traces of scratching, bruising or bites and there is certainly no extraneous tissue beneath the nails.”
“Thank you, Parker,” said Solar Pons crisply. “I should have been most surprised if there had been. The whole idea is preposterous. If I were you, Jamison, I would drop this business immediately. The hotel group might well sue you for defamation of character.”
The Inspector’s complexion went brick-red and he shifted uneasily, clasping his big hands in vexation.
“Ridiculous, Mr Pons!” he said hoarsely. “Mr Hibbert was the only person in the room; the only other key was upon the table and no-one else had visited Mr Voss this morning.”
“We shall not know what has happened until we have made a thorough examination of the room and the body, Jamison,” said Solar Pons, his voice bleak and his thin, wiry frame quivering with suppressed energy.
“I leave my suggestion with you for what it is worth, and I am sure you will see the sense of it. Now, Mr Hibbert, if you would be so good I should like to see the room in which Mr Voss met his lonely death. Come, Parker.”
He led the way from the office at a brisk pace, leaving the Inspector standing nonplussed. My companion chuckled quietly to himself as Hibbert guided us up a thickly carpeted staircase to the second floor of the hotel.
“I fancy that will give Jamison something to think about, Parker.”
I smiled.
“No doubt, Pons. The Inspector is given to rather fanciful theories I must confess.”
Solar Pons shot me a shrewd glance.
“Ah, then you have seen the significance of my observations, Parker.”
“I hope so, Pons,” I replied guardedly.
I was spared further questions by our guide stopping in front of a polished rosewood door halfway along the discreetly luxurious corridor of the hotel, which had evidently been built in the high-tide of Edwardian opulence. But now the whole place bore a hushed and sad air; it was not only a nostalgic atmosphere of faded splendour but the ugly fact of violent death behind the facade, which I have often observed when working with Pons on his more lethal cases.
Room 31, into which we were ushered by Hibbert had the same passé elegance we had both observed elsewhere in the hotel. But we had no time for such details for all eyes were drawn inexorably to the stiffened figure which lay on the bed before us. It was clad in dressing gown and pyjamas and the disarrangement of the clothing was, the manager assured us, the result of the police surgeon’s preliminary examination.
“If you would be so good, Parker,” said Solar Pons softly.
He went to stand quietly at the foot of the bed alongside the manager but I was conscious, as ever, that his keen eyes were stabbing into the farthest recesses of the room.
The dead man was a strong and well-built specimen of about thirty-five or forty years. He had a heavy black beard which bristled at the ceiling as his head was drawn back in his death-agony. The features were blue and cyanosed, the tongue protruding from the parted lips like some vile and bloated sac that was on the point of bursting.
There were the heavy and classic indentations of thumbs and fingers on the throat and windpipe that follow in every instance of manual strangulation and it did not take me long to form my opinion. The man’s black hair was tumbled and awry across his forehead and the dark glasses that he had evidently worn had fallen to the floor of the room in his struggles. Pons grunted when I reported my brief diagnosis.
“Curious, Parker,” he said broodingly, striding to the side of the bed and making his own inspection. He bent and examined the glasses.
“The police have been over the room, I take it?”
The manager nodded.
“Yes, Mr Pons. Two officers from the C.I.D. were here before Inspector Jamison. They were extremely careful and said they would leave everything in situ. The Inspector said a further examination would be made later and ordered me to seal the room. Then, some while afterwards, the Inspector told me that I would be arrested.”
Solar Pons gave a thin smile.
“I do not think we need take that seriously for the moment, Mr Hibbert.”
He turned back to me.
“Do you not find the circumstances curious, Parker?” I glanced at him in some surprise.
“It appears to be a simple case of manual strangulation, Pons.”
My companion shot me an impatient glance.
“No, Parker, I mean the matter of the glasses.”
I followed his glance to the floor.
“I do not follow, Pons.”
“No matter.”
Pons turned again to the manager.
“How was Voss dressed when he arrived here, Mr Hibbert?”
“As to that, I cannot say, Mr Pons, as I was not in the lobby. But I understand from Meakins that he wore dark clothes; an overcoat and trilby hat; that dark suit on the chair there; and the dark glasses.”
“I see.”
Solar Pons pulled thoughtfully at the lobe of his right ear.
“The curious factor is why he would feel it necessary to wear dark glasses when he was alone in the room or even while in bed.”
“Perhaps he had weak eyes, Pons,” I suggested.
“Perhaps, Parker, perhaps,” retorted Solar Pons absently.
He bent down and took out his magnifying lens from his inner pocket. He went carefully over the floor and the area round the bed while Hibbert and I stood in silence, watching my companion’s quick, alert movements. Once again I marvelled at his precise, economical actions in which there was such energy and purpose; there was a master at work here even though most of his motives and conclusions were hidden from my mind. Then he moved over to the door, examining the floor carefully and working his way back over toward the bed.
He got up with a grunt of satisfaction and dusted his trousers.
I glanced at him quickly.
“You have found something, Pons?”
He nodded.
“Whether it is of importance we shall see later. Hotel bedrooms are to a large extent public rooms, of course, and many people pass through them even in the course of a single week.”
He turned to Hibbert.
“I think we have seen everything relevant, Mr Hibbert. Come, Parker.”
The manager passed a hand through his disordered hair. “But what am I to do, Mr Pons?”
We waited in the corridor while he locked the door behind us. Solar Pons laughed shortly.
“Do, Mr Hibbert? Why, nothing. Leave things to me. I fancy it will not take long to convince friend Jamison of the ridiculousness of this charge he is attempting to bring.”
The manager still looked unconvinced as he glanced to me.
“I think you will find things as Pons says,” I told him. “It would not be the first time the Inspector has made a fool of himself.”
“Come, Parker,” said my companion, with a thin smile. “You are being rather hard on Jamison. He has his uses. And now, if you please, Mr Hibbert, I would like a word in private before we rejoin the Inspector.”
3
Inspector Jamison was in an unpleasant temper when I rejoined him and Pons in the manager’s office. Pons had gone in first and there had been a muffled conversation from behind the heavy door which continued for perhaps ten minutes. When I was eventually admitted to the room by Pons my friend was smiling with satisfaction and Jamison was standing by Hibbert’s desk frowning heavily. He had a red face and a chastened air as my companion turned to him.