The Ponson Case · Chapter 11 (2/2)

Tanner replied absently. He was thinking that a man who departed on foot from an hotel without leaving an address might not be so easy to trace. And the best description of his appearance he could get was too vague to be of much use. The porter had not noticed the colour of the man’s eyes, if there was any scar or mark on his face or hands, the shape of his ears, any peculiarity in his gait⁠—none of the matters on which identification depends. Tanner could only remind himself that a general hazy notion was better than no notion at all.

He went to the office and saw the proprietor. The latter was a tall weedy individual, dilapidated looking as his own hotel. But he spoke civilly, and exerted himself to answer the Inspector’s questions, calling in various maids, and an untidy waiter for the latter’s interrogations. Unfortunately, none of them could tell anything Tanner had not already learned.

The man had registered “William Douglas, Fulham Street, Birmingham,” and with the proprietor’s permission Tanner cut out and pocketed the leaf. Then he asked to see the room the visitor had occupied.

It was a small apartment on the fourth floor, supplied with the minimum of cheap, rickety furniture. The bed was not made up, and dust lay thick everywhere.

“It hasn’t been occupied recently?”

“Not since Mr. Douglas had it,” the proprietor admitted.

“I’ll just take a look round, if you don’t mind,” said Tanner. “Don’t let me keep you. I’ll follow you to the office in a minute or two.”

Left to himself Inspector Tanner began one of his careful, painstaking examinations. The entire contents of the room were minutely inspected. Every inch of the carpet and the cracks between the floor boards were examined in the hope of finding some small object which might have been dropped. The drawers of the small wardrobe, the bedclothes, the dressing-table and washstand, all were gone through with the utmost care, but with no result. At last to complete his task the searcher turned his attention to the fireplace.

A broken Japanese fan was stuck in the old-fashioned grate, and only partially concealed a litter of matches, scraps of paper, bits of cord and other debris. Tanner lifted out the fan and began to go through the rubbish with the same scrupulous care. And then his perseverance was rewarded.

Among the papers he found the charred remains of an envelope which at once interested him. It was more than half burnt, a triangular portion with the stamp on one corner only remaining. As he picked it up it struck him it was of unusually good quality to find in a room of that description⁠—thick, cream-laid paper, which only a well-to-do person would have used. A few letters at the end of each line of the address remained visible. But at these he hardly glanced at first, his attention being riveted on the postmark. The letters were slightly blurred, but still he could read it clearly⁠—“Halford 4 p.m. 2 Jy 20.”

As he looked at the large, firm calligraphy of the address, the suggestion this name conveyed to him was confirmed⁠—the envelope had been written by Sir William Ponson. He examined the mutilated address. It contained four lines, and from three to five letters remained at the end of each. It was clearly not that of the hotel, and it therefore might, if decipherable, lead to the discovery of the man in question.

Tanner put the bit of burnt paper away in his pocketbook, and continued his search. But he could find nothing else of interest, and presently he took his leave.

From the nearest telephone call office he spoke to the chief of police at Birmingham, asking him to try to trace a William Douglas who lived in Fulham Street in that city, and he was not greatly surprised when that officer, after asking him to hold on for a moment, informed him that there was no street of that name in the town.

On reaching his office at the Yard the Inspector sat down at his desk, and taking the burnt fragment of the envelope from his pocket, set himself to try and puzzle out the address. The four lines ended in “⁠⸺⁠glas,” “⁠⸺⁠ttage,” “⁠⸺⁠rton,” and “⁠⸺⁠von” respectively. Of these, the “⁠⸺⁠glas” at the end of the first line seemed unquestionably to be part of the name “Douglas,” and the Inspector was therefore not without hope that this was the man’s real name.

Procuring another envelope of the same size, Tanner laid the charred fragment on the top, and endeavoured to estimate from the spacing of the “⁠⸺⁠glas,” what had preceded it. It was probable that, as there was no “Esq.,” the line had commenced with “Mr.” But “Mr.” alone, or even “Mr. W.” or “Mr. Wm.” would not fill the line. Tanner tried to write “Mr. William Dou⁠—” in Sir William’s hand, and, as this seemed exactly the size of the required space, he assumed this had been the first line.

The “⁠⸺⁠ttage” at the end of the second line immediately suggested the word “Cottage.” Writing in the “Co⁠—” in the same manner as the “Mr. William Dou⁠—” he found there would be left before it space for a word of six or seven letters. Though his conclusions on this second line were admittedly only guesswork, he still felt fairly sure of his ground so far.

So many towns and villages ended with the letters “⁠⸺⁠rton,” Tanner felt it useless to work at the third line. He therefore transferred his attention to the fourth, merely noting that as the third did not end in “Street” or “Road,” the balance of probability was against the fourth line containing the name of a town. But this, of course, was by no means certain.

The fourth line ended in “⁠⸺⁠von,” and, considering the suggestion made by the third line, Tanner determined to begin, by assuming this was the name of a county. He got down an atlas and went over all the counties in the three kingdoms. Two only ended in “⁠⸺⁠von”⁠—Carnarvon and Devon. He tried spacing these in and found neither would suit. “Devon” was out of the question, as the D came after the n of the third line, and “Carnarvon,” which fitted better, was still obviously too short.

He set to work then upon the towns. It was clear that as the name was the last in the address, the town must either be of considerable importance, or else lie close to Halford. Tanner chose the latter alternative first, and went over all the towns near Sir William’s residence. He could find none to fit.

Sending for a Post Office Directory, in which towns with head offices⁠—and therefore important⁠—are printed in capitals, the Inspector laboriously ran his eye down the closely printed pages, searching for names in capital letters ending in “⁠⸺⁠von.” There were scores in “⁠⸺⁠ton,” some in “⁠⸺⁠don,” some in “⁠⸺⁠ven,” and “⁠⸺⁠van,” but he was amazed to find only two in “⁠⸺⁠von”⁠—“Carnarvon” and “Stratford-on-Avon.” Of these, while “Carnarvon,” as he had already found, seemed too short, “Stratford-on-Avon” was clearly a good deal too long.

As he slowly pondered the matter, another idea occurred to him. “Devon,” he recollected, was rarely written alone, “North” or “South” was usually prefixed. To space out “North De⁠—” was the work of a moment. And then he felt more satisfied, for these letters seemed exactly to fill the required space.

While he fully realised that the evidence was by no means conclusive⁠—in fact, was but slightly removed from a guess⁠—he thought the probabilities of the last word being “Devon” were such, that it would be worth while investigating on the basis of this assumption before trying any of the other names. The next question therefore became, What, if any, places in Devon ended in “⁠⸺⁠rton”?

He soon saw there were a number. Tiverton, Ashburton, Silverton, Merton, Halberton, Thorverton, Yelverton, Otterton, and Staverton he picked up at once from the atlas, and he felt sure there must be others, too small to be marked. His next step must therefore be to try if a small, elderly man with a grey beard, named William Douglas, lived in ⸻ Cottage, Tiverton, Ashburton, or one of the other places he had found.

He took a sheet of paper and drafted a letter to the chief of the local police at each of these places, asking him to forward the information with regard to his own neighbourhood.

Two days later he received a wire from Yelverton. “William Douglas lives at Myrtle Cottage near Yelverton Station.”

Tanner chuckled. He was getting on more rapidly than he could have hoped.