Roseacre gave a strangled cry and then half-fell into an easy chair, plucking at his collar as though it had grown too tight for him.
"What does this mean?" he croaked when he had found his voice.
"It means the end of the road, Roseacre. The finish of a rogue, a bully, a liar, a cheat and a murderer!"
The big man stared sullenly at Pons, the mists of drink clearing from his eyes. I kept the revolver trained evenly upon him.
"You will sit and listen," said Solar Pons, walking about the somber dining room, as though intent on the pictures along the walls. "You ask what this means and why I am here. Legally, no doubt I have no business on your property. Morally, I have every reason, as well as the sanction of your niece who is most concerned in this matter."
"So I was right!" exclaimed Roseacre. "This is Evelyn's doing! By God, when I have finished with her…"
"Do not blaspheme by bringing your maker's name into this," said Solar Pons sternly. "It is you who have finished with everything. I will tell you a story, Parker; a story about a loud-mouthed, coarse braggart who had run through a fortune of his own and saw an easy way to get his hands on his niece's money in an effort to retrieve the immense sums he had lost through gambling and debauchery. Unfortunately, he has all but succeeded in ruining my client's estate, though something may yet be retrieved from the wreck."
"I do not follow you, Pons."
"It all hinges on the events of three years ago," said Solar Pons, looking down at the crumpled figure of Roseacre with an expression in his deep-set eyes that made him quail.
"Marcus, as you know, was both Roseacre's lawyer and that of his niece. He was an honest man and resisted all Rose-acre's efforts to get his hands on Miss Brentwood's money. When he was invited to stay on that fatal weekend they quarreled bitterly. Roseacre struck him, whether intentionally or not, only he could tell us. As you have already diagnosed, his skull was shattered and he died almost instantaneously.
"In that extremity Roseacre conceived a desperate plan that would not only save him from the gallows but retrieve his squandered fortune. Some time before, he had made the acquaintance of another unscrupulous scoundrel called Reginald Ashley Fawkes. Fawkes was not only down on his luck and an adventurer like Roseacre, but a skilled forger and an unscrupulous criminal who had already served one prison term."
Roseacre sat as though turned to stone, one hand supporting his heavy head as he stared into the dying fire.
"Roseacre put his plan into effect at once. Working at dead of night, when the small household was asleep he buried Marcus' body in the rose garden. He told our client Marcus had left The Priory by an early train and went posthaste to London to put the second part of his scheme in motion.
"Fawkes, who was not unlike Marcus in general build and appearance, took the identity of the murdered man though we may be sure Roseacre did not forge a weapon for his ally by telling him this. Fortunately, Marcus was a lifelong bachelor with no living relatives and few friends, so the thing was not as difficult as it might have been.
"Fawkes, who had been coached by Roseacre, phoned his practice and told his chief clerk that urgent business called him to Argentina. He told him to pay off the other clerks and dispose of the practice; after deducting his own expenses the clerk, whose name was Maitland, was to send the money to a numbered bank account in Geneva. All these instructions were confirmed by letter."
"Forged by Fawkes, of course!" I said. "How do you know all this, Pons?"
My companion smiled without warmth. "I notice Roseacre does not deny it, because he cannot! I have not been idle today. I went o Lincoln's Inn and made some inquiries about Marcus, when I gleaned the foregoing useful facts.
"Mr. Maitland himself was most loquacious on the matter. There was more, of course. The bogus Marcus did not give up all his responsibilities. He merely transferred them to another address in London, and Miss Brentwood's estate continued to be administered from there. Roseacre, we may be sure, did not tell his accomplice how much money was involved, but the excellent percentage he allowed the bogus Marcus kept that gentleman silent and contented for the last three years.
"Skillfully forged documents were issued and the bank had no suspicion because Roseacre had other official notepaper printed giving Marcus' new address and so things event on.
"Back at The Priory, of course, our client noticed some changes. She has already told us about the dismissal of the gardener; Roseacre himself taking over those duties, the construction of the terrace and, above all, the matter of the dog."
"The dog?"
"Of course! That was vitally important and I saw immediately its significance. The quarrel, the early departure of Marcus, the dog scratching in the rose garden. Roseacre feared it would give away his guilty secret."
"So he poisoned it, Pons!"
"Of course, Parker," said my companion. "It stood out a mile. Where Miss Brentwood saw only compassion and thoughtfulness, I saw the man revealed for the debased monster he is. No wonder the wretch sat on the bench there and looked at the rose garden by the hour. He was terrified that someone would dig it up and reveal his ghastly crime and so he had to mount guard on it, winter and summer. He haunted the dining room too, which overlooks it, as Miss Brentwood has since told me."
"So the burial of the dog…?"
"Merely provided a convenient excuse for his compassion. Now we come to the more recent events. The girl's uncle, worried at her approaching majority, and for other reasons, decided to invite Fawkes to the house in the guise of the lawyer, to prepare the ground. Not surprisingly, the girl found him changed from her recollection, though, as Roseacre hoped, her suspicions were not aroused. As Miss Brentwood has already told us, the two men quarreled that night over the will.
"I do not yet know the exact reason for the quarrel but we shall have it from this creature before the night is out."
Roseacre ground his teeth. It was an astonishing sound in the somber atmosphere of that gaslight room.
"Do not depend on it, Pons," he snarled.
Solar Pons regarded him coolly and having made sure that my revolver barrel was sighted on our prisoner’s bulky form, he turned back to me.
"Quarrel they did. Perhaps over the fake Marcus' role with Miss Brentwood's legacy imminent. How was he to explain where most of the money had gone? Perhaps they quarreled over the money still remaining, Fawkes being unconscious of its true extent? Or did Fawkes want the remaining sum in consideration of his silence?"
Another gritting of teeth on the part of our silent prisoner. "The latter, Pons."
Pons inclined his head.
"Thank you. You have spoken the truth about something at last. The quarrel passed but the matter was still unresolved. Late at night Roseacre crept to Fawkes' room and tried to strangle his sleeping partner with a cord. Fawkes woke up and a struggle ensued. Roseacre had already secured the rope to the end of the bed. The wretched man tried to escape, even to the extent of throwing himself through the window.
"He went through, breaking the glass, as we have already seen, Parker. He screamed, which woke up Miss Brentwood in the room below who was naturally horrified to see his dying figure arrive in front of her window. Fortunately for Roseacre she fainted with the shock. He was able to haul up the body and tidy the room. Mrs. Bevan was hard of hearing and in any case slept some way away and would have heard nothing. Evelyn was another matter.
"He descended to her room and found her lying concussed. This gave him time to remove the body to the trunk of his car, where it remained throughout the doctor's visit."
"How do you know all this, Pons?"