The Ponson Case · Chapter 8 (2/2)

Ten minutes later Tanner reached the first branch. Here he saw the manager, presented his note, and explained his business. The official was extremely civil and brought the Inspector to each of the salesmen in turn. All gave him their careful attention, but none could recall Austin Ponson nor recollect the sale in question. With courteous thanks Tanner took his leave.

The second branch was not far away, and here the Inspector made similar inquiries. But here again without result.

Recognising that his quest was going to be tedious, he engaged a taxi and settled down to work systematically through the list. Progress was slow, and it was approaching six o’clock by the time he had reached the ninth branch. But here, just as he had decided he would visit no more that evening, he had some luck.

In this shop, the second salesman he spoke to instantly recognised Austin’s photograph, and recollected the purchase of the shoes.

“Yes,” he said, “I remember the man perfectly. What drew my special attention to him was the very peculiar way he conducted the purchase. He came in and said he wanted a pair of Glimax B 10735 over 789647S. He did not look at the shoes I brought him, except to check the number. I remarked that few gentlemen knew what they wanted so precisely as that, and he said he had had a pair of the same before which had suited him, and he simply wanted to replace them.”

“About what time was that?”

“Shortly after four, I should say.”

“And did he give his name?”

“Yes. I forget what it was, but I sent the shoes to the parcels office at St. Pancras.”

In reply to a further question the man said he recalled the names of Ponson and Halford.

The Inspector was considerably puzzled by what he had heard, and that evening he lit a cigar and settled down to consider it. In the first place, Austin’s statement that he had bought the shoes on that Monday was true. But how did he know their number? The butler, Tanner remembered, had said that his master had never had a similar pair. For a long time he pondered over the problem, but the only thing that seemed to him clear was that some trick had been played. But at last a possible solution occurred to him. What if there were two of them in it⁠—Austin and an accomplice? The accomplice buys a pair of shoes and sends Austin the number so that he may get a precisely similar pair. Then on the Wednesday night while Austin, wearing one pair, is at Luce Manor, the confederate, wearing the other, is making the tracks at the Abbey.

At first this seemed to Tanner to account for the facts, but then he recollected that the dent on the sole of one shoe proved that the pair which made the tracks at the Abbey was Austin’s pair⁠—the pair which had been in the butler’s charge till he, Tanner, received it. Unless, therefore, Austin and his accomplice had exchanged shoes at the end of the excursion, this theory would not work.

Suddenly another idea came into the Inspector’s mind, at which he slapped his thigh, and smiled to himself. “Guess I’m on to it this time,” he muttered, as he went up to bed, well pleased with his day’s work.

To test the soundness of his new supposition, he continued next morning the inquiry he had been making on the previous afternoon⁠—interrogating the shoe shop salesmen for information as to Austin’s purchases. He began with the tenth branch, as if he had discovered nothing at the ninth. But here his efforts met with no success. Nor did they at the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. But at the fourteenth, with a feeling of pleased triumph, he discovered what he had hoped to find.

At this shop he inquired, as before, if any of the assistants recollected a man like that of the photo he showed having purchased a pair of shoes of the given number. At once he had an affirmative response. One salesman remembered Austin having called on the Monday in question, and after having been carefully fitted, having bought the shoes. The salesman had according to his usual custom handed Austin a card bearing the number of the shoes. He had offered to send the parcel, but Austin had said he was running for a train and would take it with him. The transaction had occurred about three o’clock.

“Bully for me!” thought Tanner as he drove to St. Pancras, en route for Halford. “See what a little imagination does!”

The theory he had evolved on the previous night now seemed not unlikely to be the truth. According to it, Austin had gone to town on the Monday and purchased two identical pairs of shoes. The first he had had fitted in the usual way in one shop; the second had been selected in another shop as being of the same number as the first. This had been rendered possible by carrying out the purchases in two different branch shops of the same firm. One pair he had bought openly giving his name and having the parcel sent to St. Pancras; the other transaction he intended to remain a secret.

Arrived at his home, Austin had carried out the same tactics. One pair he had spoken of and given into his butler’s charge; the other he had locked away privately. No one was supposed to know, and no one did know, that he had purchased more than one pair.

Let us call these two the known pair and the secret pair. On the evening of the murder, then, Austin puts on the known pair which the butler had in his charge, goes to Luce Manor, commits the murder, walks home through some muddy ground, gets the shoes wet, changes them on returning home, where they dry during the night and are cleaned by the butler next day, all exactly as the latter had stated. But at some other time, probably in the dead of Wednesday night, Austin gets up, puts on the other pair⁠—the secret pair⁠—and slipping out of his house unnoticed, makes the tracks at the Abbey. To make the deception more convincing he has previously dinted the sole of one of these “secret” shoes, so that this dint will show on the prints at the Abbey. At some convenient opportunity when the butler is out of the way he himself cleans the secret pair, and then changes them for the others. The dinted pair which made the tracks at the Abbey thus become those in the butler’s charge; the others, in which the murder was committed, are locked away by Austin, who doubtless takes an early opportunity of destroying them.

Tanner had to admit the ingenuity of the plan. To anyone not knowing there were two pairs of shoes in question, the alibi would be overwhelming.

But completely to prove this theory it would be necessary to show that Austin was at the Abbey at some time other than that he had stated. It was with this object Tanner was returning to Halford.

He made most persistent inquiries, but was unable to find any evidence on this point. None of the cottagers nor farm hands in the vicinity of the Abbey had seen Austin, either on the Wednesday evening or at any other time. Nor had any other stranger been observed. If, however, Austin had been to the Abbey in the middle of the night, as Tanner suspected, the failure to see him was not surprising, and did not invalidate the main conclusion. On the contrary, Tanner believed he had solved his problem. Austin, he felt, was guilty beyond a shadow of doubt.

And then Tanner saw that this solution cleared up another point by which he had been somewhat puzzled, namely, Austin’s readiness, indeed almost eagerness, to tell of his visit to the Abbey. That, he now saw, had been a trap, and he, Tanner, had walked right into it. He saw Austin’s motive now. From the latter’s point of view it was necessary that Tanner should inspect the footprints while they were still fresh. If some days passed before suspicion was aroused, the marks would have become obliterated, and the alibi worthless. Austin was a cleverer man than the Inspector had given him credit for. By his manner he had deliberately roused the latter’s suspicions so that his alibi might be established while the footprints were clear.

That evening Tanner made careful notes of the evidence he had accumulated against Austin Ponson. When the document was completed, it read:

1. Austin never got on with Sir William.
2. Though Sir William allowed him £1,000 a year, this was a small sum compared to what he might equally easily have paid.
3. Austin could not be making more than two or three hundred a year, so his total income could not much exceed £1,200.
4. He was living up to, or almost up to, this figure.
5. Austin had become engaged to a girl to whom, as a daughter-in-law, there was every reason to believe Sir William objected. This girl had no dot.
6. Unless he got an increased allowance Austin would find himself very pinched after marriage.
7. Sir William had threatened that if the marriage came off, he would not only not increase the allowance, but might alter his will adversely to Austin.
8. Austin would therefore be faced with the alternative of having his prospects ruined if his father lived, or, if he died, of receiving £150,000. Thus not only his own position and comfort were at stake, but that also of the girl he loved⁠—a terrible temptation.
9. Austin had an interview with Sir William on the Sunday night previous to the murder, at which the two quarrelled about a lady⁠—presumably Miss Drew.
10. Austin had the requisite knowledge of Luce Manor and Sir William’s ways to have accomplished the deed.
11. Austin had on that Wednesday night rowed down the river and met Sir William at the Luce Manor boathouse.
12. Austin had denied having been in the neighbourhood at the time.
13. Austin had invented and carried out an elaborate plant with the object of proving an alibi. This alibi was a deliberate falsehood from beginning to end, and was prearranged.

As Tanner read over his document he felt that seldom had he investigated a clearer case, or got together more utterly damning evidence.

“The man’s as good as hanged,” he said grimly to himself.

Next morning he laid his conclusions before his chief, with the result that an hour later he was again on his way to Halford, armed with a warrant for Austin Ponson’s arrest.

He took the sergeant and a constable with him to the house, but left them waiting in the hall while he was shown into Austin’s study. The latter was writing at his table.

“Hallo! Inspector,” he cried cheerily. “And how are you getting on?”

Tanner ignored his outstretched hand, and as the other saw his visitor’s face, his expression changed.

“Mr. Austin Ponson, I am sorry to inform you I hold a warrant for your arrest on a charge of murdering your father, Sir William Ponson. I must also warn you that anything you may say may be used against you.”

Austin shrank back and collapsed into his chair as if he had been struck. His face grew ghastly, and little drops of moisture formed on his forehead. For some moments he sat motionless, then slowly he seemed somewhat to recover himself.

“All I can say, Inspector,” he answered earnestly, “is that, before God, I am innocent. I am ready to go with you.”

The news spread like wildfire, and that evening the people of Halford had a fresh thrill and a new subject of conversation.