From the Notebooks of Dr. Lyndon Parker

WITHIN A FEW months of my joining Solar Pons in his quarters at 7B, Praed Street, and before I turned to chronicling his cases at full-length, I began to keep a notebook —not one of daily accounting, but only of random jottings, having become interested enough in his methods to seek to preserve some of his feats. For, in addition to adventures I later set down, there were many instructive moments in his company, and many lesser problems that came and went, that I wished to set down in some fashion for my own edification, and, later, to refresh my memory, since the memory of man is fallible, and time diminishes it or distorts what is locked in it. The entries that follow all date back to my first year at 7B.

17 August 1919

After a brief lecture on the art of observation and deduction in a pub in Camden Town today, Pons singled out a disgruntled-looking young man of not over thirty sitting by himself and put me to the test.

"What do you make of him, Parker?"

"A labourer," I said.

"Too general," retorted Pons.

"He is upset and brooding about something. His face is morose, he hardly touches his ale."

"Capital!" cried Pons. "Go on."

"He seems to be engaged in some sort of manual labour. His hands are rough."

Pons looked at me keenly, his eyes twinkling. "Nothing more?"

"Except that he seems to have come away hastily. He is in his working clothes."

"Well, that is a good beginning," said Pons. "You have really missed only a few little details. Come, let us just go over and talk with him."

So saying, he rose and led the way to the corner where the object of our attention glowered into his ale. The fellow did not look up when we came to pause before him.

"Forgive me for interrupting your black mood," said Pons, "but perhaps your wife will come around and you can patch up your quarrel."

The fellow looked up, amazement spreading across his face. After a brief hesitation, he growled, "I'm done with that."

"Things are never as black as they seem," pursued Pons. "Perhaps by this time she has contemplated your wedding ring long enough to reflect on her position."

"It's the first time I took it off," he answered.

"You are by trade a mason?"

"Aye."

"Specifically, a brick-layer."

He nodded.

"Left-handed, I see."

The fellow now gazed at Pons with increasing bewilderment.

"Childless, too."

"Look here, I don't know your game. . . ." The fellow pushed back his chair and would have got up, had not Pons dropped a coin to the table in front of him.

"Have another pint, young man," he said, and walked away.

Once outside, Pons explained the simplicity of it. "The fellow's dark mood coupled with the fact that the band of relatively clean skin on his ring finger betrayed the recent removal of what could only have been a wedding ring suggested that he and his wife had quarreled. He would not be likely to take himself off so violently if there were children to consider.

"As for his calling —the fingertips of his right hand show the worn, shiny stigma of the brick-layer. Since the mason habitually lays bricks with his left hand while his right is busy with the trowel, it follows that our man is left-handed. Always, in scrutinizing anyone, look for the stigmata of his calling —if there be such. Observe, for instance, this slender young man approaching us. What do you make of the mark on his neck not far below his left ear?"

I looked as closely as I could at the area Pons designated, and identified it as an acneform dermatergosis.

"But what does it tell us?" asked Pons. "That is an area too high to be irritated by his collar."

I could not guess.

"Why, it is plain as a pikestaff that he plays either the violin or the viola, and I submit that it is the violin. The mark is characteristic of an irritation caused by holding that instrument alongside the chin and against the neck."

28 September 1919

In our quarters today Pons surprised me by saying, "I have often reflected upon the fact that you have been somewhat less than comprehensive in your account of yourself to me, Parker."

"Why do you say so?" I asked.

"You have impressed me with the Order of Osmanieh bestowed upon you by the Khedivial Government as well as with His Majesty's Government's commission to continue the work at Mansura, Egypt. You have spoken of your education at Dover College, University College, and Heidelberg, and I have been privileged to read your series of articles on ophthalmia in The Lancet. But you are curiously reticent about your years in America. Yet they must have been of some duration."

"Ten years," I said reluctantly.

"You have fallen rather pronouncedly into the American idiom and I observe that you speak what can best be described as semi- American."

"I am not aware of it," I replied, I fear, somewhat stiffly.

"Oh, it is unmistakable," persisted Pons. "Let me illustrate. Only this morning you spoke of a shop's being 'on' the Edgware Road, whereas we customarily say that it is 'in' this or that street. The American, however, usually says 'on.' You referred yesterday, in speaking of that unfortunate matter of the Curate's Mistake, to a 'stoop' when any Englishman would have said 'porch.' I cite but these two examples, of what I should say is an Englishman's speaking semi-American. You seem to have been spared some of the curious accents affected by Americans, however."

"Ah, that entire period is a painful one for me," I said.

"You did not enjoy your sojourn in the States?"

"No, it was not that. I was graduated from Columbia and then for two years, to 1903, I served as principal medical officer for the Allegheny Sheet & Tube Corporation. Those years were pleasant enough."

"Ah, it was your marriage."

"Say, rather, its unfortunate ending. Louisa's death in the Titanic disaster ended not only an entire period in my life, but a kind of life. The war followed hard upon it, and our world has changed since then. I have closed that door —Praed Street is as far from those American years as from my Egyptian sojourn."

With this he appeared to be satisfied, or, out of delicacy, said no more.

11 October 1919

Pons on Calluses, &c. "Certain calluses are almost invariable. The stone-cutter, for instance, is likely to have a broad callus at the base of the little finger of his left hand, on the back, of course, where the chisel rests on the finger. A trumpet player —or a tuba player, for that matter —is likely to show a callus on the right little finger, whereas that of the French horn player will show on the left little finger. The jeweler or engraver may show calluses in several specific places, including the palm of the hand, the tips of thumb and index finger, particularly of the left hand.

"Men who work with coal tar and petroleum derivatives may show melanosis of exposed parts of their bodies, and anyone working with tetryl in any form is apt to show the red and yellow stains on skin and hair, whereas silversmiths tend to absorb enough silver to give a characteristic slate grey colour to their skin.

"You will yourself be familiar with the stigmata of disease."

12 October 1919

I had been reading Pons's The Varieties of the Criminal Method. When I put the book down, I asked him whether there was such a thing as "the criminal type."

"I fear that is a fallacy," said Pons. "The fault for its existence is probably traceable to Lombroso, who held that there was such a thing."

"But you will admit that certain people look like criminals."

"Nonsense. They may perhaps fit the viewer's concept of what a criminal ought to look like, no more."

He got up and took down his files. From them he abstracted four photographs and laid them before me.

"Which of these is the criminal?" he asked.

"I suspect they are all criminals or you wouldn't have them in your files."

"On the contrary. Logical as your deduction is, your conclusion is false."

I examined the photographs carefully and finally selected one.

"Why?" asked Pons.

"You have only to look at him —the beetling brow, the shifty eyes, the thick-lipped sensuous mouth, the cauliflower ear. The fellow looks evil."

"And the others do not?"

"No."

"Why do you say so?"

"Well, look at the first one. There is an ascetic face, if ever I saw one," I said. "The fellow looks like a minister."

"He was. The Reverend Athelny Foster."

I fear I chuckled in triumph.

"Of Chipping Fulham. The name means nothing to you?"

"It is surely enough that I identified his calling."

"He poisoned his wife in favour of a barmaid," said Pons dryly. "Next?"

"This one is as dignified as a Sunday School Superintendent."

"You name him so?"

"No. A judge or a lawyer. And so is the other."

Pons laughed in that way of his I should describe as "heartless." "The one is a swindler of some renown — Patrick Donovan. The other is indeed a lawyer —Charles Convers. He suffocated a client in order to conceal his peculations from his estate."

"And what did the 'criminal type' do?"

"He caught them. He was the late Commissioner John Flinders of New Scotland Yard. I trust that will curb your romanticism."

17 October 1919

A lady called to see Pons today. She gave her name as Mrs. Rose Murray. She was simply dressed and wore a little straw hat with straw flowers decorating it, together with a bit of black cloth.

"A seamstress, I see," said Pons.

"Yes, sir," she said. "I didn't think it so plain to tell I made my own clothing."

"The mark of the thimble is easy to see on your finger," said Pons. "Not long widowed?"

"My husband was killed last March in an accident on the Great Western," she replied. "I have quite got over it, though."

"Not quite enough to remove that bit of crepe on your hat, and yet enough to call yourself by your own Christian name rather than his."

"Yes, that is true."

"And what can I do for you, Mrs. Murray?"

"Why, Mr. Pons, I am an acquaintance of your landlady, and since you and Dr. Parker are bachelors, I took it you might have some sewing for me to do."

19 October 1919

Pons's persisting habits —

He toys with his ear, pulls at the lobe —usually his left, when in deep thought. (Freud would have something to say about this!) He also closes his eyes frequently to concentrate the better.

He is an attentive listener. Sitting, he tends to tent his fingers. Standing, he leans against the mantel most frequently. On occasion he paces back and forth, hands clasped behind him.

His eyes seem alternately grey or grey-green. They seem to be extraordinarily keen and alive. He seems to miss nothing. His glance is quick —"darting" would be the word, and he seems to look into one.

He smokes the most abominable shag ever prepared by the hand of man. I could believe it to be a mixture of cabbage leaves, string, and the Chinese tea smoked from the burning of yak dung. He keeps it wherever the fancy suits him —the coal-scuttle, the toe of a slipper, the pen holder, etc.

He delights to display his deductive powers, but at the same time he vastly appreciates it when the joke is on him.

He is devoted to his Inverness and deerstalker, but I wonder sometimes if he does not wear them for effect only. (If that is blasphemy — mea culpa.) He has dressing-gowns in several colours, all dark —and all well worn. He shows no inclination to get himself a new robe.

He is much given to disguising himself. He fancies, because he has deceived me so readily several times, that he is very good at disguise, forgetting that, as he has pointed out on even more occasions, I am not as observant as I ought to be.

7 November 1919

Inspector Jamison called today to lay a problem before Pons. He was apologetic about its trivial nature —repeated house-breaking in Park Lane —but it was evident that he was vexed about it, nevertheless. He gave an account of seven burglaries all within two adjoining streets, and ended finally with, "The crux of the matter, Pons, is its senselessness."

"I daresay its meaning has not yet become evident," said Pons dryly.

"Every one a clumsy break-in, and nothing of value taken."

"An amateur's work, clearly?"

"No doubt of it."

"Or made to seem so. Let me see, now," Pons went on, leaning back in his chair at the fireplace, his eyes closed, his fingers tented before him. "A Chinese piece stolen at the Forrer home?"

"Value about one pound," said Jamison.

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing. One item from each house."

"A gold-plated pen from the Beston house."

Jamison shrugged. "Ten shillings —if that. It wasn't the loss Beston resented so much as the breakage —a pane of the back door broken in while they were gone."

"In all cases the householders were absent," mused Pons. "So the burglar seemed to have some knowledge of their movements."

"Yes, yes, Pons—all that is elementary," said Jamison impatiently. "What good did it do him to watch these houses if all he meant to take was some trifling article? That's the work of an imbecile."

"I would not say so," said Pons. "The most expensive item taken appears to have been a cheap brooch from the Kendall home," he went on.

"Under two pounds value," said Jamison.

"And entry, if I understood you, seems to have been made in every case before midnight."

"In two cases before half-past ten. The householders got home by ten-thirty."

Pons smiled. "This suggests nothing to you, Jamison?"

"The man's a fool. Or he means to be a nuisance. Perhaps he wants to put the wind up somebody in that neighbourhood."

"I submit it is more than that," said Pons with an annoying habit, which I had observed before, of saying too little.

"I suppose next you will be telling me to look for a short fat man with a limp, who smokes nothing but imported cigars and is supporting his mother-in-law," said Jamison with heavy sarcasm.

Pons laughed heartily. "I regret I cannot oblige you this time, Jamison. I think the honour of catching him must be yours. But then," he added, his eyes dancing, "it always has been, has it not?"

"You can describe him then?" asked Jamison, incredulous.

"I do not know whether he is short or tall, fat or lean," said Pons, "and at this point, I am sorry to say, the case does not seem interesting enough to challenge me. And, if I may say so, it is too elementary."

Jamison got to his feet as abruptly as his bulk permitted. "I shall have to look elsewhere."

"I suggest you sit tight and let him betray himself."

"Ah, and how many times will he have to make a burglarious entry before then?"

"I rather think he has done almost as many as he needs to do," continued Pons. "At any time now he will make a mistake."

Jamison's interest quickened. "What sort of mistake?"

"He will steal something of value. Perhaps of great value. And something certain to be heavily insured. You will then, of course, investigate thoroughly the financial situation of the gentleman who reports the theft. I submit you will find that all the other burglaries were performed only to make his own loss credible. I can foresee the headlines: Inspector Jamison Scores Again!"

"And if nothing of the sort happens?" asked Jamison sceptically.

"Then by all means call on me again and I will be happy to look into the matter."

18 November 1919

At my place at breakfast this morning, Pons, who had gone out, had left the morning paper with a small item circled in red crayon. "Inspector Jamison Scores," I read. "Mr. Geoffrey Thompson was taken into custody this morning and charged with a series of burglaries in the Park Lane area. Mr. Thompson had only two days ago reported himself as the victim of such a burglary, having lost a valuable pearl necklace belonging to his wife. ..." No mention of Pons, of course; but that is how he prefers it.

21 November 1919

A short man, introducing himself as Mr. Howard Robinson, retired, came to see Pons this morning. He was not over five feet in height, and thin almost to cadaverousness. His bearing was military. A moustache he wore would on almost anyone else have looked fierce, but on him had the appearance of something attached for effect. He had rough hands.

"I have, Mr. Pons, a rather delicate problem." I observed that he pronounced "ra-ther" in two distinct and separate syllables. "Late yesterday I received a sealed envelope in which my solicitor forwarded to me a certain legacy in bank-notes. While the covering letter was enclosed, the bank-notes were not. Yet the seal was unbroken. My solicitor is a man of the utmost honesty, so that one of the three persons through whose hands this envelope passed from him to me must have taken the bank-notes. But how? I looked in on Thorndyke, but he was in Scotland. I took the liberty of coming to you without an appointment."

All prim and proper, and very business-like.

"You have the envelope, Mr. Robinson?" asked Pons.

"Yes, sir."

Robinson produced it, carefully wrapped in gauze, from a pocket-case of hard leather. He handed it to Pons.

"I see by its shape that it certainly did at one time contain something of bulk, " said Pons at once.

"I thought so. I opened it with an opener. The letter, you see, has plainly been wrapped around something—certainly the banknotes."

"Let us just see. " So saying, Pons carried the envelope over to the corner of our quarters where he amused himself with chemicals. He sat down there, took up his magnifying glass, and studied the seal. I heard him chuckle. "Pray step over here, Mr. Robinson."

Robinson did so. I was at his heels.

"See there, sir," said Pons, pointing to a mere speck of grey on the maroon wax of the seal. "This is plaster of Paris. Someone took off the seal and replaced it."

"But how, sir?"

Pons leaned back. "Why, by a common method indeed. Someone oiled the seal and poured on to it some freshly burned plaster of Paris. As soon as it was set, the seal was raised. After the money was taken out of the envelope, the seal was renewed from the oiled mould. It is almost inevitable that flakes or grains of the plaster will stick to the seal. There is evidence here that some grains were removed."

"It will hold up in court?"

"Any competent witness can testify to it successfully."

"Would you be willing to do so?"

"If I am called upon, Mr. Robinson. If I am called upon," said Pons. He stood up so suddenly that Mr. Robinson fell back. "That will be two pounds, sir."

"Two —two pounds?" stuttered Robinson.

"Two pounds," said Pons with such finality that Robinson paid him forthwith.

He bowed himself out.

Pons threw the notes to the table and walked over to the window to watch our late client emerge from 7B.

"Nature provides an infinite variety in mankind," he reflected. "What did you make of him, Parker?"

"An ex-military man," I said at once.

"Capital!" said Pons. "But obvious. It has been a long time since he was in military service."

"And a man accustomed to clerical work."

"Ah, you make progress. You saw the typical middle-finger callus of a man who has used a pen for a long time. Nothing more?"

"I did think his clothes a trifle old."

"Excellent. And worn. The fellow is a miser. You saw how taken aback he was when I asked a fee."

"I did indeed."

"I submit, moreover, that he is very probably also a potential thief. There was plaster of Paris also under one of his fingernails. He came here to test his plan. Greed has made a bungler of him. He ought never to have opened the envelope save in the presence of witnesses. We shall hear no more from him."

26 November 1919

Our landlady, Mrs. Johnson, tapped rather timidly at our door today. When I had opened to her, she excused herself, apologized for her temerity, and addressed herself to Pons.

"Mr. Pons, sir, I wonder if it would be too much if I asked Lillie Morris up to talk to you. What with the new will they found, she's that upset and all."

"What is her trouble, Mrs. Johnson?"

"Why, it's the new will," she said, as if he might have known. "The old will gave everything to her—and the new one nothing. And after she took care of the old man, too!"

"Pray ask her up, Mrs. Johnson," said Pons, his eyes twinkling.

I could not help saying, after our landlady had gone down to her quarters, "More than once, I've had that particular failing called to mind —some woman who gives a decade or more of her life to taking care of an aged father or mother or other relative is done out of her rightful due by another member of the family who shows up from time to time and who sends around little gifts now and then. Old people exaggerate the little differences that invariably develop between them and those who care for them, and fail to realize that it is quite the easiest thing to do them an occasional kindness without the day to day exchange arising to sully the impression so easily created."

Pons nodded. "That is only another trifle of evidence in support of human frailty."

"Do you know Mrs. Johnson's friend?"

"I have never heard of her before."

Mrs. Johnson presently appeared with Lillie Morris in tow. She was a woman in her early thirties not ill-favoured in looks, with brown eyes at present a bit clouded with trouble. She was neatly but not expensively dressed, and wore her ash-blonde hair attractively piled on to her head. Since she wore no wedding band, I concluded that she was unmarried.

"Pray sit down, Miss Morris, and tell me your trouble," invited Pons.

Miss Morris had brought up her reticule, and this she now put beside the chair on which she sat. Mrs. Johnson took a seat between her friend and the door, and sat leaning forward expectantly, as if at any moment a miracle might be produced by my companion to ease her friend's mind.

"Thank you, Mr. Pons." And what a pleasant, well-modulated voice she had! "Mrs. Johnson said you would be kind enough to listen to me, though I'm sure I am imposing upon you. For the past eleven years I have been living with my grandfather who needed someone to take care of him, and when he died, he left a will leaving his house and what he owned to me."

"A considerable sum or a modest one?" interposed Pons.

"I believe it is considerable, Mr. Pons. But it seems I am not to get it after all. A later will has turned up, and he has left it all to my cousin Percy, with whom he was on friendly terms."

"Percy lived with him?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Pons. Percy lives in Kensington. But he came around now and then and took grandfather out for a day. Mrs. Johnson says I ought to contest the will, and so do some of my other friends."

"You have seen the will, Miss Morris?"

"I was sent a photographic copy of it."

"Ah. Pray let me see it."

Miss Morris took a fat envelope from her reticule and from this took the document in question and passed it to Pons.

He unfolded it and glanced at it. His eyes narrowed. "Why, it is dated less than six months ago," he said.

"My grandfather died two months past," said Miss Morris.

Pons read rapidly through the will. "Each page separately signed, I see."

"Yes, Mr. Pons. I am afraid there is no doubt it is my grandfather's signature. No doubt at all. Even I would have to testify to it."

Pons's eyes, I saw, grew intent as he looked at first one page and then another, until he had finished the fourth page. He lowered the will but continued to hold on to it while he gazed thoughtfully at Miss Morris.

"How old was your grandfather when he died?" he asked.

"He was eighty-seven, Mr. Pons."

"I have no doubt there were differences between you."

"I suppose there were bound to be. Old people are occasionally unreasonable. But nothing very serious, Mr. Pons. Certainly nothing serious enough to bring him to make such a change in his will."

"Your grandfather was in good health?"

"He had been failing for some years, Mr. Pons. No, I shouldn't say he was in good health —or had been in the past three years. He was —well, uncertain on his legs, as one would say."

"Shaky, Miss Morris?"

"Yes, sir. He still got around, but only with difficulty."

"You are mentioned here, Miss Morris —for five hundred pounds."

"I know, Mr. Pons. That was the exact sum my grandfather once mentioned he would leave Percy."

"Indeed. Excuse me, Miss Morris."

Pons got up and went over to that corner of our quarters in which he kept his chemical paraphernalia. He sat down there and carefully scrutinized one page after another of the will Miss Morris had given him, using a magnifying glass, and putting the pages over light, one atop the other. Mrs. Johnson assured Miss Morris sotto voce, while they waited, that Pons was a great detective who could unravel any problem at all, but Miss Morris did not seem entirely convinced.

Presently Pons returned to his chair at the fireplace. "There are two courses open to you, Miss Morris. You can contest this will, or you can lay a claim to wages covering the years you took care of your grandfather —unless, of course, he paid you a salary."

"Oh, no, Mr. Pons—short of providing my living, he paid me nothing." Then, uncertainly, she added, "Which would you do, Mr. Pons?"

"Contest, by all means!"

"But how can I do so, Mr. Pons? I know that is my grandfather's signature."

"Very well. Let us accept that it is indeed Mr. Lemuel Morris's signature. But this will, Miss Morris, is a forgery."

"How can you say so!" cried Miss Morris.

"Each of four pages has been signed in precisely the same way. There is not the slightest deviation among the signatures. One is a precise copy of the other. I submit, Miss Morris, that no man of eighty-seven —and certainly not a man who was shaky —could possibly perform such a feat. I am far from that age myself, and I never to my knowledge indite my name in exactly the same way twice in succession. Nor does Dr. Parker. No, Miss Morris —I rather suspect that your cousin Percy is at the bottom of it. You need only apply to a competent solicitor and lay these facts before him. There are plenty of capable experts who will present the court with all the proof necessary."

Mrs. Johnson beamed, as if her faith in Pons's infallibility had been proved.

3 December 1919

Pons on Probability. "Though there are always several possible or probable solutions to every problem, there is only one that will exactly fit all the facts. One proceeds initially to apply the facts to the solution that seems most likely in the circumstances, and then, if they do not fit, to one after another until the correct solution is found.

"If, however, all the probable solutions are eliminated —if none fits all the facts —then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the correct solution. This was the course invariably followed by the Master. In my opinion, no other course is proper for an investigator.

"Occasionally the police, before they fall back upon this method, seize upon the most likely solution as the correct one, and then attempt to make the facts fit the solution. This has had the happy result of bringing to my attention problems I might not otherwise have encountered."

11 December 1919

When Pons came to the breakfast-table this morning I had the satisfaction of reading a heading in the morning paper to him. " 'Morris Will Case: Percy Morris Charged.'

"Ah, that young woman took the more sensible course," observed Pons. "I was inclined to think her a little soft —perhaps ready to accept some compromise from her cousin. I am delighted that it is not so."

"Why?" I asked.

"It is a simple matter of seeing justice done, my dear fellow," he replied. "There is a great deal being said today about rehabilitation rather than punishment. I have dealt with the criminal element long enough to know that this idealistic humanitarianism takes rise out of ignorance rather than any well-founded knowledge. Rehabilitation is fine theory, but let us have punishment first."

I could not help observing that my companion sounded like a character from A lice in Wonderland.

He ignored me, as he often does. "There is, too, an abundance of prattle about guilt. 'Crime and the criminal are the fault of society,' and it follows to these people who talk in this manner, that 'the criminal is not responsible, society is.' Now, it would be idle to deny that poverty and filth are fertile soil for crime, but it is nothing short of lunacy to suggest that it follows upon this admission that all crime rises from such a background, and that all criminals are therefore free of social responsibility. But this ridiculous claim is being made by ever noisier elements of our society. The denial of personal responsibility is fatuous. I do not know a single jurist of my considerable acquaintance who will subscribe to such nonsense."

"You cannot very well rehabilitate a man who has been hanged," I said.

"Ah, well, if he deserved hanging in the first place, there is very little that can be said in favour of trying to rehabilitate him. We are coming dangerously close to a world in which everything is done on behalf of the law-breaker —and at the expense of the law- abiding citizen. That is the road to anarchic chaos. It is the end result of indulgence in idealistic sentimentality, not of rational thought. We have always had the conflict between the individual and society, and the ultimate goal is to protect society by legal means at the least possible loss to the rights of the individual. But as the earth's population increases, it becomes inevitable that the rights of the individual must give way increasingly to the well-being of the social structure as a whole. Yet here we see the beginnings of a movement that goes counter to this inescapable fact —the outcry is for the protection of the rights of precisely those elements of society who have forfeited their right to demand such protection by antisocial acts. We are reversing Darwin—by insisting that the unfit survive."

I thought him unduly harsh and said as much.

He brushed this aside impatiently. "It is not a matter of harshness or softness. It is simply a failure to see the forest for the trees. Miss Morris's lawyer has certainly taken the correct course. Contesting the forged will meant charging the forger. He should get what is coming to him, though, in view of what happens in our courts all too often, it may be thought infantile to expect adequate justice."

14 December 1919

Pons was speaking of the commonplaceness of the average crime this morning when Inspector Jamison paid us a visit.

"I put it to you, Jamison," said Pons, "is it not true that the majority of capital crimes committed in England are utterly without imagination?"

Jamison nodded. "Dull, if I may say so. Very dull. Of course, it's not every crime that has one of these private inquiry agents hanging about to colour it up a bit."

"Touche!" cried Pons.

"It's little more most of the time than some bloke breaking in and killing a man in the course of a robbery —or a man killing his wife out of jealousy or something of that kind —open and shut cases. The only trouble we have is in the courts —we know we've got our man, but the lawyers confuse everybody."

Pons smiled. "What problem troubles you today, Jamison?"

"This is just a friendly call," said the Inspector, faintly indignant.

"Not a mystery to be solved in all London?" pressed Pons with a note of disappointment in his voice.

Jamison shook his head. "We've had three murders and one accidental death in the past week."

"All solved, I take it," said Pons dryly.

Jamison hedged a little. "We've got one murderer —and we're onto the other two."

"Capital!" exclaimed Pons. "And the accidental death?"

"Ah, that's a miserable business," said Jamison. "Young woman fell off a train on the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway on Sunday night." "I don't recall reading about it in the papers."

"I believe it would make nothing more than a small paragraph on the inside pages," said Jamison.

"I see by your preoccupied air and the way you finger your waistcoat button, Jamison, you're not happy about it."

"She was badly injured, Pons —fractured skull, one leg cut off."

"How old was she?"

"Just twenty-three. I'd have called her a good-looking woman. Angela Morell. A clerk in a dairy in Lavender Hill."

"Go on," urged Pons.

"The body was found in Merstham tunnel. There seems to be no question but that a fall from the train was the cause of her death. None. She couldn't have fallen from any train but the 9:13 P.M. from London Bridge to Brighton, or the 9:33 P.M. to Reading. But both these trains came out of the tunnel with all carriage doors shut. I don't know what kind of feat it would be to fall from a carriage and shut the door behind you. It may not be impossible."

"But it is certainly improbable," conceded Pons.

"Then, too, she had a bit of veil in her mouth."

"Her hat had a veil attached?"

"None."

"Ah," said Pons, his interest quickening.

"Caught on a tooth, in fact."

"A gag."

"Perhaps. But let us say somebody pushed her. Then we come up to the question of why? — and who?"

"I take it she was unmarried."

Jamison nodded.

"You've traced her movements?"

"That's routine, as you know. She left her lodgings at seven that night, saying she was going for only a short walk, and would be back within the hour. But one of her friends said that in the afternoon she had looked through a railway timetable."

"She had an assignation then," suggested Pons. "Was she accustomed to walking out?"

"The landlady said she had two gentlemen friends. But there were nights when she went out alone. She was always back by eleven on such nights. She didn't speak of them to anyone."

"Assuming that she permitted two gentlemen to call for her openly, there must then have been a strong reason why she should

be clandestine with a third — if her assignation was with a man."

"Why do you intimate it may not have been?"

"I wonder what manner of man carries a veil about with him. But I am out of touch with the world of fashion."

"No, no, it's true—a woman would be more likely to carry a veil."

"A woman perhaps who had followed her husband to a clandestine meeting with another woman."

"You are certainly colouring it up, Pons," said Jamison.

"Ah, well, if you are content with a verdict of accidental death, there is surely no need to pursue the matter further. I submit, however, that you are anything but satisfied with that verdict. Let us be as objective as we can about the matter. We are given a young woman —not ill-favoured in looks —who is attractive enough to appeal to members of the opposite sex. She goes off to what must certainly be an assignation and is found dead. Very well, then. Eliminating accidental death, we are left with suicide or murder. Had she any patent reason for suicide?"

"We are aware of none."

"Then we come back to murder. Certain limited possibilities are open to us. Though the young woman had been careful to maintain a reputation for good character, we do not have in hand any proof that she was indeed a woman of good character. She could have been conducting a liaison with a married man —and fallen victim either to him or his wife. She could have been a prostitute engaged in blackmailing selected victims, one of whom took this method of disposing of her. She could as easily have been followed by someone violently jealous of her liaison and murdered by him in a rage. Within the boundaries of the known facts we can hardly speculate further without entering the realm of pure imagination. I submit, however, that the fragment of veil found in her mouth suggests a certain premeditation."

"A contrived accident is what you make it, Pons."

"I think it unlikely that it was accidental death," replied Pons. "The fragment of veil caught on her tooth and the closed carriage doors both suggest the presence of some other person in the compartment from which she was thrust. You saw the body?"

"A horrible sight."

"Were there any marks suggesting that her hands and feet had been tied?"

"None."

"Very well, then —she might have been stunned to keep her quiet, and gagged to prevent her crying out if she came to her senses before the tunnel was reached. I take it there was nothing to suggest robbery?"

"She was carrying five pounds and wore two rings —one a diamond, one a ruby."

"On the wages of a dairy clerk?"

Inspector Jamison was disconcerted.

"I put it to you, Jamison, it might be interesting to pursue the inquiry with the conviction that Miss Morell was murdered. Try to ascertain where she got on to the train, whether she was accompanied by anyone, and what her destination was. I rather suspect that the place of the assignation was in a specific compartment on the train, not on the platform, so that her murderer need take no chance of being seen with her."

After Inspector Jamison had gone, Pons said, "I take a dim view of the Yard's finding her murderer. That young woman, if indeed she had been engaged in some criminal activity or a course that would not meet with social approval, seems to have covered herself very well —so well, in fact, that she may defeat all attempts to discover the identity of her murderer. The kind of clandestine affair in which she may have been engaged is commonly extremely difficult to uncover."

21 December 1919

I touched Pons on a sensitive point today when I observed that the evidence offered to convict the Moat Farm murderer was almost entirely circumstantial.

"I seem to detect a note of disapproval, Parker," he said with some asperity. "Yet circumstantial evidence is the strongest of all possible evidence."

"As strong as the testimony of eye-witnesses?"

He chuckled dryly. "Stronger! Circumstances cannot lie. They may be misinterpreted, but they cannot lie. Eye-witnesses can, and do —sometimes by design, but usually because they are simply mistaken. I put it to you that no half-dozen eye-witnesses will tell precisely the same story; their accounts are certain to vary. All things being relative, some will see a short man, some a tall one, some a fat one, some a thin man, some brown, some hazel, some blue, some green. But that is not so of circumstances."

"The outcry against circumstantial evidence cannot be that ill- founded," I protested.

"It can and it is. I suspect it was begun by criminals who were fairly caught by circumstances. Wills in On Principles of Circumstantial Evidence puts the case well when he says, 'The distinct and specific proving power of circumstantial evidence depends upon its incompatibility with any reasonable hypothesis other than that of the truth of the principal fact in proof of which it is adduced; so that, after the exhaustion of every other mode of solution, we must either conclude that the accused has been guilty of the act imputed, or renounce as illusory the results of consciousness and experience, and such knowledge as we possess of the workings of the human mind.' And Lord Coleridge, summing up in the trial of Dickman, the railway murderer, in 1910, said: 'If we find a variety of circumstances all pointing in the same direction, convincing in proportion to the number and variety of those circumstances and their independence one of another, although each separate piece of evidence, standing by itself, may admit of an innocent interpretation, yet the cumulative effect of such evidence may be overwhelming evidence of guilt.' I recognize no intelligent argument that runs counter to these statements."

"Why, we read interminably of the police trying to convict on evidence that is demolished readily enough by counsel," I said.

"I fear that is only too true. I submit, nevertheless, that you are taking issue with a police action, or the flawed decision of the prosecution. That is a matter of attempting to make of circumstances what they are not. I have no sympathy with it —but it does not bear any relation to the proper interpretation and use of circumstantial evidence."

"But surely you cannot deny that circumstantial evidence takes strength from inference, and that is a matter of opinion."

"It is opinion supported by facts. Indeed, it is opinion rising out of the available facts. I think, if you care to examine the records, you will find that far more wrong convictions have resulted from false and mistaken direct and positive testimony than from the wrong inferences drawn from circumstantial evidence. No one fact is employed alone in the building of a case on circumstantial evidence; no, it is the accumulation of facts that, taken together, related together, are so strong as to establish a clear indication of guilt. Compared to the fallibility of human beings, circumstances invariably present the stronger case."

23 December 1919

Pons's wholehearted respect for time was clearly demonstrated today. Having no problem to engage him, he spent the entire day adding to his store of knowledge, which far exceeds my own. He reads reference books, once he had done with the papers —the current issue of Whitaker's Almanack—Skeat's Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language—A Dictionary of Dates — Isaac Taylor's Words and Places—Burke's Peerage —a guide to the cathedrals of France —certainly a hodgepodge of books on a singular variety of subjects.

Seeing me observing him, he smiled and said, "Nothing is as unique as a fact, my dear fellow, and nothing as fascinating. You and I —indeed, the entire universe, depends on facts."

"It is even more fascinating to realize what some people make of facts," I said.

"Is it not!" he agreed, his eyes twinkling.

27 December 1919

A note today from Jamison.

" 'In regard to that Merstham tunnel murder,' " Pons read, interjecting, "Aha! he now clearly calls it 'murder'! —'the woman Morell appears to have been involved with a number of men from her past. New evidence suggests that she has been blackmailing them. A search of her room turned up a small notebook with seventeen names —two of them women. No addresses, but we'll find them. Curious notations under each name indicating payments. Apparently none ever came to her address —she met them by appointment. It will take time, but we'll find him (or her!) eventually. Other than these occasional appointments, her life in Lavender Hill would seem to have been straightforward enough.' " Pons's eyes twinkled as he dropped the note into the coal-scuttle at the fireplace. "I daresay Jamison will have it, in time to come; we coloured it up a bit."

7 January 1920

Mrs. Johnson this morning showed up to our quarters a clergyman who had sent ahead his card announcing himself as the Reverend Howard Foster. He proved to be a lean shank of a man, with a face like a closed rat-trap, very dour and grim. His jaws were clamped together, and his bushy sideboards, now greying, were wiry and stiff. He wore clerical garb, withal a trifle shiny from wear, and carried an umbrella rolled up under his arm, though the day was fair and rather cold.

He addressed himself forthrightly to Pons. "I am taking the liberty, sir, of bringing to you a small problem which I believe is not one for the police. I understand you have some little knowledge in these matters."

"There are those who say so," admitted Pons.

The Reverend Foster drew from the inner pocket of his long black coat an envelope which he handed to Pons.

"Addressed to a lady," ventured Pons. "And typewritten."

"My niece."

Pons opened the envelope and took out the paper inside. From where I sat, it appeared to be a half page of proof or print. It was ragged along one edge, as if it had been torn from a book.

Pons narrowed his eyes. A kind of gleam came into them. He gazed provocatively at our visitor.

"My niece received this yesterday by post. I was in the study when she opened it. She gazed at it, and I presume she read it. Her face went pale. Then she moaned softly and ran —no, let me amend that, Mr. Pons —she tottered from the room. I ran to her aid, but she thrust me aside. I begged her to tell me what the matter was, but all she did was shake her head and say, 'It's no use. I must go away —far away!' Since then she has hardly come from her room and I have not had a word from her. She walks about like a dead woman. Can you make anything of that? I picked it up when she dropped it, but I cannot make head or tail of it save that it appears to be from a book — not the kind of text that I with my limited time would be likely to read."

"I will need a little time to examine it," said Pons. "I take it your niece has not always lived with you?"

"Only since the death of my wife almost two years ago. She came back unexpectedly from America. She had gone there in 1910 intending to return in a few years, but the war caught her there, and she stayed until it was no longer dangerous to come back. Her father—her last surviving parent, my brother —had died in the meantime; so she naturally came to live with me."

"Ah, she is then no longer a very young woman."

"She is thirty-four."

Pons glanced again at the envelope. "Posted in London. And not far away." He looked up. "I see that you have come up from the country, since the address on the envelope is obviously your home.

Presumably you have other errands in London. If you will return in an hour or two, I believe I may have some explanation of this mysterious communication."

The clergyman moved as if dismissed by his bishop.

He had hardly left our quarters —indeed, his footsteps could still be heard on the stairs — before Pons subjected me to one of those little games he enjoys playing so much. He thrust the page from the envelope at me.

"What do you make of that, Parker?" he asked.

I had only to glance at it to say, "It is clearly a page torn from a book."

"No, no," cried Pons vigorously. "It is clearly a torn page —but not necessarily from a book. Have a closer look at it."

I read it with care —

"Faithless Dick," said Silver. "I've a gauge on the keg of rum, mind, wretch. There's the key; fill a pannikin and bring it up."

Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this way Mr. Arrow will have got the strong waters that destroyed him.

Dick was not to come for a while, and during his lengthy absence Israel spoke straight and soft for the cook to hear. I caught but a word or two — "I" and "you," yet I gathered some very important news, that it was certain that not all the crew could be made to join in a mutiny against the captain or yet in any crew of John Silver's, no matter what the circumstances. It made me feel good to hear, and I knew that whatever happened there was still time to stand with valor against Silver.

End of Chapter XI: What I Heard in the Apple Barrel.

When I looked up, Pons's eyes were keen upon me, and dancing with delight. "Now, then, what do you make of it?"

"It is surely no mystery," I said, sure of myself. "I know the book from which it comes very well —and it is a book."

"Is it, indeed?"

His sharpness ought to have given me pause. "Yes —and you ought to be able to name it as well as I. Wherever else would you find 'Mr. Arrow' and 'John Silver' but in Treasure Island?"

"Where else, indeed! Where else but in that miserable revision of the concluding paragraphs of chapter eleven!"

"What do you mean?" I cried. "I remember the scene well. Jim has fallen asleep in the apple barrel, and when he wakes learns for the first time what a scoundrel Long John Silver is —planning the mutiny and the murder of Squire Trelawney. It is one of my favourite books. That is the way the chapter ends."

"On the contrary," said Pons, with that air I had found so annoying, of being inevitably right. "It ends with the voice of the look-out shouting 'Land-ho!' "

Even as he said it, I knew that it was with these words that the chapter did indeed end.

"Whatever Stevenson was not, he was not a careless stylist, was he, Parker?"

"I should not say so."

"Indeed not. Fancy his having written —I commend the fourth line to your attention —the 'way Mr. Arrow will have got the strong waters that destroyed him.' 'Will have got' indeed! Stevenson would never have been guilty of such a construction."

I conceded the point. "But it is clearly in print," I said, a trifle bewildered now.

"Ah, Parker, I fear you share the common man's reverence for print. He will tell you, 'I saw it in the paper!' as if this were the final bit of proof needed to support whatever contention he may have uttered. 'I saw it in print' —sometimes it is 'cold print,' though all print is by its very nature cold; if it has any warmth it is the author's artistry, not the printer's."

I looked at the page again. "Then," I said, venturing boldly into Pons's domain, "then clearly that construction was necessary to the printer!"

"Capital! Capital!" cried Pons, clasping his hands together and raising them aloft as in tribute to heaven or to himself—certainly not to me. "You have begun to learn the elements of ratiocination. The printer is not an illiterate, yet he prints such a construction as this. Why?"

Thus emboldened, I ventured again. "The lines contain some message which the woman —Miss Foster —could read."

"That is a trifle elementary, Parker," said Pons, a little more subdued. "I should have thought that anyone so familiar with and fond of Treasure Island could have read the message at once. At first glance."

"You flatter me," I said, with an edge of sarcasm I could not withhold.

"Not in the slightest," he said, adding generously, "You do certainly possess the intelligence, you are just not applying it. This is a simple hidden message —I should not call it a cipher, it is too elementary."

"I fail to see it."

"Let us just have a look at a copy of Treasure Island." So saying, he got up and found the book among the jumble on his shelves. He was turning to chapter eleven as he came back to his chair. "Ah, here is the first line. ' "Dick," said Silver, "I trust you." ' — but this hapless specimen has' "Faithless Dick" ' — why?"

"Because 'faithless' was necessary to him," I said firmly.

"Then if that absurd construction in the fourth line was also necessary, and if, obviously, 'faithless' must then be the first word of any message this page conveys, the whole should be plain as a pikestaff."

He got up and put the Stevenson novel away again. Then he came to stand before me, lighting a pipe of the shag he smoked, and watching me struggle with the hidden message the page contained.

"A certain order must necessarily be imposed upon even the crudest concealed message," said Pons. "In this one it is precisely as mathematical —if not as intricate —as in one of His Majesty's secret codes. Have a go at it, Parker."

"I am studying it," I said.

"Let me point out again that we have two words —'faithless' and 'will' —begin with them."

"Why must it be 'will'?" I asked. "Why can it not be 'will have'?"

"One word at a time, Parker," said Pons with infinite patience. " 'Faithless' is the first word, is it not?"

"You have said it must be, and it stands to reason that it is," I agreed.

"And it is in the first line."

"Elementary," I said.

"And 'will' is in the fourth line."

"And it is the fourth word," I said.

And there for a few moments —long enough to permit Pons to sigh and wonder with evident pity if all my teachers had so difficult a time with me —I stuck, and then, of course, it came to me. I had been searching for something more complex, but the simplicity of it deceived me. With "faithless" as the first word in the first line, and "will" the fourth word in the fourth line, I tried the second word in the second line and the third in the third and had "Faithless wretch

I will" and from there went rapidly down the lines and read it aloud with a shout of triumph.

"Faithless wretch, I will come for you all in good time!"

"I congratulate you, Parker," said Pons. "A trifle slow, but you came through. Now then, who wrote it?"

"You have me there, Pons."

"Do not say so. A printer wrote it."

"I concede that a printer set it, but how do you know he wrote it?"

"Why, because he is an American."

"An American!" I cried. "Pons, you are making sport of me. That is a non sequitur if I ever heard one."

"My dear fellow, I try manfully to avoid non sequiturs. Would any Englishman have set 'valour' in that American fashion —'valor'? Not on your life. Even if an American had handed the copy in so, he would have spelled it 'valour.' So it follows that the American set it himself."

"With every day that passes, you amaze me more," I said, knowing how it would please him.

He bowed. "With so well grounded a beginning, you will do as well in no time at all."

"To say nothing of so good an instructor," I added.

But at this moment our little game was interrupted by the return of our client, too impatient to remain away for even an hour. I opened the door to his knock.

"Come in, come in, my dear Reverend Foster," cried Pons. "Pray be seated."

"I trust you have some information for me, Mr. Pons," said the clergyman, seating himself in the chair Pons thrust forward.

"I fear I may have some unpleasant news, sir," said Pons, taking his stand with one arm on the mantel. "It depends upon some intelligence you may be able to convey to me."

"If I can," said our client.

"It is about Miss Cordelia. Pray tell me, was she married?"

Our client's face expressed some dismay. "If so, I do not know of it."

"How was she occupied during her years in the United States?"

"She was employed in a printer's and stationer's shop in New York."

"And if not married, engaged in a liaison," said Pons.

The Reverend Foster's face flushed angrily.

Pons gave him no opportunity to speak. "One or the other, and she feared to tell you, knowing your restrictive views. She left the man —husband or lover —and returned to England. We do not know why. She may have had just cause. Now he has followed and found her and he has sent her this message."

"What message?"

" 'Faithless wretch, I will come for you all in good time.' It has an ominous sound, sir. By its very nature, it suggests that some sort of bond exists between the sender and your niece. I submit that they were or are married. He means to frighten her and uses a simple code she must have known and apprehended instantly. See there — " he took the page from my hands as he spoke, and pointed out the words of the message —"how it is framed. For some reason, they used this code to communicate in earlier years. It may well have been a legitimate reason. I am not prepared to say."

Anger, bewilderment, disbelief — plainly our client was unwilling to entertain the thought that his niece had been involved with a man in any disreputable matter.

"This is, indeed, a matter for the police, Reverend Foster," said Pons quietly. "I suggest you repair to them without delay and ask them to find an American printer not long employed in London, in the area from which this message was posted. He will be a man very likely not over forty, one who cannot resist gloating, vain and perhaps ill-tempered, for only such a one would so taunt and frighten a woman."

Our client folded the page and thrust it back into its envelope, and this in turn he put into his pocket. He got up. "I will need to think of this for a while, Mr. Pons. I had better put it to my niece."

"Do not delay," warned Pons.

"Not such a man as would inspire confidence in a young woman," said Pons reflectively after he had gone. "One confined by a narrow view of the world. That poor woman must carry her burden alone."

9 January 1920

I watched Pons today as he read the paper. The process never varies.

He turns first to the political news, scans it briefly, then to news of the international scene. He reads this too, only cursorily.

But any account of a crime enlists his undivided attention. He will sit tugging at the lobe of his left ear, long after he has read the account, his eyes staring right through the paper. Manifestly, he is turning the problem of the crime over in his mind.

Now and then he makes some comment at random about the "blindness" or the "stupidity" of the police.

More rarely, he commends them, with, "The police are not all fools, thank heaven!"

Having read the paper, he gets the scissors and cuts out any account of a crime that interests him and adds it to his voluminous scrapbook.

The paper is then discarded. He assumes invariably that I have already read it, whether or not it is so.

11 January 1920

A grim-faced Pons greeted me when I came in from my morning round today.

"Have you seen the paper?" he asked.

"I had an early confinement," I answered, shaking my head.

Without a word he passed the paper to me, folded so as to emphasize a few paragraphs under the heading, Tragedy in Herts.

"Westmill, Herts," I read. "Miss Cordelia Foster, niece of the Rev. Howard Foster, was seriously wounded last night by a mysterious gun-shot, as she walked across the lawn toward the rectory. Her assailant was concealed behind a hedge that separated the lawn from a small formal garden.

"An American printer, Clarence Farwell, employed by Messrs. Godwin of London, W. 2, is being held. The American claims that Miss Foster is his wife, and that she deserted him. Miss Foster has denied his claim, stating that Mr. Farwell was previously married.

"Inquiries are under way."

"I was afraid that fellow Foster would do nothing," said Pons. "If he put it to her, she very probably denied it, and he accepted her denial at face value because he wished to do so, out of some desire to avoid a challenge to his concept of morality. A foolish man, whose pride has led to this."

14 January 1920

The Adventure of the Book-seller's Clerk. Pons called me over to the windows looking down into Praed Street this morning. "What do you make of that fellow?" he asked.

Below, on the kerb, stood an elderly man, clad in a foreign- looking fur cap, and a long coat, with a thick scarf wound around his neck and hanging out over his coat. Even through the light snow falling, I could see that his shoes were very definitely wet.

"He has been walking for some distance," I said.

"Or some time," amended Pons. "In so light a snowfall it would of necessity be one or the other."

"At the moment he is studying 7B. I suppose he may be a client."

"I should think that likely."

"He looks like a countryman," I ventured.

"I think not," said Pons. "That is not a countryman's garb."

"He seems to be in no hurry."

"True. But at the same time he appears not to have shaved this morning; it is possible that he left home in some agitation."

"But it is almost noon. He couldn't have come directly here," I protested.

"He may be a shopkeeper who had to wait upon his assistant to arrive. Or he may have closed early for the lunch hour. But see, he has decided to come in. We shall hear what he has to say."

In a few moments we heard his heavy tread on the stair, preceded by the lighter footfalls of Mrs. Johnson. And presently he stood on the threshold introducing himself.

"Mr. Pons? My name is Jason Brompton."

"A dealer in second-hand books," said Pons.

"I am, indeed. Perhaps you have been in my shop in the Edgware Road."

"No, Mr. Brompton. The mustiness of old books is unmistakable. Pray sit down and tell me how I can be of assistance to you."

Mr. Brompton came forward and sat down somewhat stiffly near the fireplace where Pons stood with his back to the mantel, his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown.

"Well, sir, it's an old man's fancies, I'm sure, but the fact is I'm troubled about my assistant, Dennis Golders. I very much fear he lives beyond his means —and I don't understand how he can do so. I knew him to be in poor circumstances when he applied for the position, and while I cannot pay him very much —times are difficult, Mr. Pons; one need not buy books, as I am sure you know —he has begun to spend far more on clothes than he earns. They are made for him, Mr. Pons, in Savile Row!"

He said this as if he were speaking of some personage far above his station.

"He may have come into a legacy."

"No, sir. I would certainly know it if he had."

"How long has he been with you?" "Two years."

"His work is evidently satisfactory."

"Indeed, it is. I have no complaint."

"His accounts are in order?"

"Perfectly. My concern, I assure you, is for his welfare. I cannot rest until I learn how he comes by such means as to make it possible for him to live far beyond the scale even I can afford."

"How did he come to you?"

"He applied with the best references."

"From other book-sellers?"

"Oh, no, sir. He had held various other positions —if I may say so —considerably better than the one for which he made application; but he professed to a love for books —and that is not uncommon in our trade, Mr. Pons, and, since my shop has a good clientele, and has been there for many years —you may have heard of Brompton's —he came with the intention of learning the business."

"Who referred him, Mr. Brompton?" pressed Pons.

"Lord Arthur Savile, for one."

Pons's eyebrows shot up; his eyes began to twinkle. "Indeed!" he said. "Who else?"

"Sir William Joynson-Hicks, H. G. Wells, and Lord Northcliffe."

Pons preserved an almost mask-like face. "I should very much like to see his references, Mr. Brompton."

Mr. Brompton's grizzled face broke into a broad smile. "I rather thought you would, Mr. Pons. I have them here."

He produced four letters from a letter-case in his pocket.

Pons unfolded one after the other and read them. His face remained inscrutable. Presently he looked up.

"Mr. Golders is now at work?"

"Yes, Mr. Pons."

"How many other assistants do you employ, Mr. Brompton?"

"One who comes in the evenings, when I have open hours. And a part-time assistant, when one or the other of us must be away."

"If you can arrange to remain away from the shop for an hour longer this lunch-time, Dr. Parker and I will walk around to Brompton's."

"Oh, that is easily done, Mr. Pons. Mr. Golders —with uncommon thrift —always brings his own lunch, thus giving me a considerable latitude insofar as time is concerned. I have appreciated it."

"And if I may, I will retain these references for the time being."

Mr. Brompton looked a little dubious, but he assented readily enough.

"If you will step around this afternoon, I may possibly be able to satisfy your concern about Mr. Golders," said Pons.

Once Mr. Brompton had taken his leave, Pons began to chuckle. His eyes now positively danced.

"Have you ever before encountered such bedfellows as those gentlemen who gave Mr. Dennis Golders references, Parker?" he asked.

"Well, they are impressive. I don't, though, know Sir William Joynson-Hicks."

Pons's laughter burst forth. "Your indifference to politics causes you to miss some considerable entertainment. That fellow Joynson- Hicks is quite possibly the most jingoistic, egotistic ass who ever brayed in the halls of any government in the world."

"But the others, of course, I know. Indeed, I have a signed Tono- Bungay. "

Pons sobered once more. "By all means produce it."

"I have it in my trunk," I said, and got up to get it.

It was not without some pride of possession that I laid the book before Pons, open at Wells's signature.

Pons unfolded Wells's letter of reference and laid it beside the autograph in Tono-Bungay.

"Identical," I said.

"Let us compare Northcliffe's signature," said Pons. "Any copy of the Daily Mail will do."

He found the paper and presently discovered the newspaper magnate's signature —the bold Northcliffe on the editorial page.

"They are certainly the same," I admitted.

"And we may assume that Sir William Joynson-Hicks's signature is as genuine," said Pons. "But Lord Arthur Savile's is another matter entirely."

"You are more familiar with the peerage than I," I said. "The name means nothing to me."

"Lord Arthur Savile," said Pons, "is a character in a mediocre short story by Oscar Wilde. I daresay Mr. Dennis Golders is not entirely lacking in a sense of humour."

"And Mr. Brompton is not as familiar with his stock-in-trade as he ought to be."

"Oh, I would not say so. It is just such a name as Mr. Brompton must certainly have heard, but, since it appears in a relatively trivial work of fiction, it is not such a one as he might readily relate to its source, and, coming upon it as the signature to a letter, might quite conceivably conclude that the writer was a peer of the realm."

"What cheek that fellow Golders must have!"

"If you can forego lunch, Parker, let us just walk around to Brompton's and have a few words with Mr. Golders."

"By all means!" I said.

But Pons was not quite ready. He fancied a disguise. He laboriously affixed sideboards, changed his clothes to rather severe garb, and clapped a pince-nez on a black ribbon to his nose and a bowler to his head.

"You look," I said, "like a private inquiry agent dressed up to resemble a businessman."

"That is close enough," said Pons. "Let us be off."

Mr. Dennis Golders was of rather shorter than average height. He was a blond, well-built young man, alert and bright-eyed. When we entered Brompton's, he did not thrust himself upon us, but permitted us to browse among the shelves and bins of books. There were two other customers in the shop, but these presently bought books and departed.

Only then, seeing that we had not evidently found anything to our liking, did the clerk approach us.

"May I help you, sir?" he asked Pons, since it was plainly Pons who seemed to be in search of something.

"Thank you, I think not," answered Pons crisply.

"You are obviously a bibliophile," said Golders.

"Ah, is it so patent?"

"If I may say so. You must, then, have favourite authors."

"Hardy, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Dickens, Meredith." Pons rattled these names off with a professional air.

"I may have something for you, sir," pursued Golders. "But it will come rather dear."

Pons's eyes narrowed. "Price is no object," he said, though his attitude belied it.

"Let me show it to you."

Golders plunged into the rear of the shop where, reaching behind shelves of books which were separated from the wall of the shop by a counter, he drew forth a book which he handed to Pons.

I saw that it was Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby in fair condition.

Pons glanced at Golders rather than at the book. "A first edition?" he hazarded.

"No, sir. But it will cost four pounds just the same." "Four pounds!" cried Pons.

"Please open it at the flyleaf, sir."

Pons did so.

Disclosed on the flyleaf was the autograph of Charles Dickens, with a line of greeting and the date.

"Aha!" murmured Pons. "Indeed, I do want this. Four pounds is a trifle dear, as you say —but a signed Dickens!"

He handed the book back to Golders to be wrapped, while he himself took four pound-notes from his pocket and laid them on the counter.

"Do you by any chance have anything more like this?" asked Pons.

There was the barest hesitation in Golders's business-like wrapping of Nicholas Nickleby. Then he resumed, as he said, "These items are not commonly come upon, sir. Once in a great while we buy a library with such a treasure among the books, but it is not a frequent occurrence. You might look in again. Of course, some modern authors like Hardy and Conrad are more readily found in signed copies, but Dickens is less readily discovered."

"But this is surely not the only signed book on the premises," persisted Pons.

"We-ell, no, it isn't," admitted Golders.

"Then, if you have another, let me see it," demanded Pons impatiently.

Having completed his parcel, the clerk reached behind the same shelf of books and came out with another.

This time it was H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon, the Newnes edition of 1901. It bore but a simple, undated signature.

"How much?" asked Pons.

Golders seemed visibly to take Pons's measure. "I realize Wells may not be one of your favourites, sir, but there are those who collect him. Two guineas."

Pons paid it with no more than a grimace.

"If you are interested in stopping in from time to time — preferably at this hour, sir," said Golders, as we went out, "I may have other such treasures for you to examine."

"Extraordinary luck!" I said, as we walked along the Edgware Road toward Praed Street. "That you should be able to acquire two such signed books!"

"You did not think it unusual?" "No. Many such treasures are in fact lost in private libraries. Only the owner knows they are there. Once the owner dies, however, it is another matter, for in many cases his heirs are not aware of everything on the shelves. That is particularly true if the library is a large one. Thus, it is eminently possible for a dealer like Brompton —who buys up entire libraries to keep stock on his shelves —to get hold of such books at a very reasonable price and make a fair profit. Though these did seem to me more dear than the average."

"Well, let us just have a closer look at them when we have them home," said Pons, and would say no more.

Once back in our quarters, Pons compared the signature in the Wells he had bought with that in my Tono-Bungay. He scrutinized them under a magnifying glass. I did the same. There was no significant difference between them, save that the one in the book he had just bought seemed to be an older signature in that the letters were slightly larger than the signature in my book, and they had clearly been written with different pens.

"Would you say they were written by the same man?" asked Pons.

"I would indeed."

Pons turned next to the Dickens. He examined it thoroughly, from the front matter to the rear of the book. Then he handed it to me with the adjuration, "Pray examine the inside of the front cover, Parker."

"It is blank," I said.

"Say not so. Look again."

I studied it with care. It was somewhat stained, as by age and exposure, and the edges were rubbed.

"Does it not seem to you that an erasure has been made in the upper left corner?" asked Pons.

"The original price seems to have been removed," I said at last, detecting the area of the erasure.

"And what does it seem to you that price was?"

"Two and six."

"Two shillings and sixpence," repeated Pons. "For a book signed by Dickens?"

"Obviously the book was so priced before the signature was discovered," I said.

"It may be so. We shall just wait upon Mr. Brompton to tell us."

So saying, he retired behind the morning newspaper.

Our client returned at two o'clock. He had had his lunch and he was now eager to return to his shop.

"I have been away far too long, Mr. Pons," he said, a little breathless from the exertion of climbing the stairs to our quarters.

"I fancy young Mr. Golders will not take it amiss," said Pons.

"He is a model of propriety," said Brompton. "But I hope you may have something to tell me of his means."

Without a word Pons put before him the signed copy of Nicholas Nickleby.

Brompton picked it up and turned it round in his hands. "Ah, you bought this in my shop. Two and six. But surely you don't want it. You must let me reimburse you."

"Four pounds," said Pons.

Our client dropped the book as if it had turned to hot coal in his hands. "Not in my shop!" he cried.

"But indeed." Pons bent, picked up the book, and thrust it again at Brompton. "Pray look at the flyleaf."

Brompton did so. His eyes bulged. His mouth fell open. He was manifestly astounded.

His hands trembling, he laid the book carefully down on the table. He took a deep, gulping breath before he spoke.

"Mr. Pons, I had no such book in my shop."

Pons bent again, flipped back the cover, and pointed to the spot where the original price had been erased.

"Look there, Mr. Brompton. The indentation is clear enough. Was that in your hand?"

"It seems to be my script," said Brompton. He leaned back in his chair. "But I cannot understand it. It is seldom indeed that a signed book comes into the shop."

"Do you to your knowledge have any signed books?"

"Well, yes, I have a Machen and a de la Mare. I had a Hardy, but Mr. Golders sold it and at a good price."

"Duly entered?"

"Yes, sir. I know my stock, and the entry was proper."

"You have not had a signed Wells?"

"No, Mr. Pons."

"Like this?" Pons produced The First Men in the Moon.

"That looks like the book I had in stock. Not signed, of course. One and six."

Once again Pons opened the book, revealing the signature.

Our client grew pale, then flushed redly.

"I submit, Mr. Brompton, that if you now return to your shop you will find these sales entered — Nicholas Nickleby at two and six, The First Men in the Moon at one and six. The difference between those prices and four pounds for the Dickens, and two guineas for the Wells has gone into Mr. Golders's pocket. I submit further that it is by just such sales that Mr. Golders has been able to improve his standard of living over quite some time. Mr. Golders seems to have a considerable knowledge of graphology."

"That is forgery, Mr. Pons. I shall discharge him at once," cried Brompton, coming to his feet, swelling with indignation and purpose.

"Do not be too hasty, Mr. Brompton," said Pons. "Mr. Golders is apparently content to live on but a small measure of illegal gain, and out of some considerable talent and ingenuity."

"I shall give him in charge," said Mr. Brompton angrily. "But first —let me reimburse you." He reached for his pocket.

Pons stayed his hand. "Let me persuade Mr. Golders to reimburse me instead," he said. "When you return to the shop, wrap up a book —any book —and ask Mr. Golders to step around here after work and deliver it."

"If you say so, Mr. Pons. But I cannot continue to employ him."

"Let me just talk to him first."

Mr. Brompton assented, but unwillingly. "I have been taken in — and I cannot undertake to estimate how many of my customers may have been swindled."

He was still muttering angrily when he departed.

"I rather think Mr. Brompton is more angry at having been deceived than at discovering that some of his customers may have been mulcted of small sums," observed Pons.

Late that afternoon, Mr. Dennis Golders knocked.

Pons threw open the door and invited him in. Golders did not immediately see me, and, since Pons had removed his disguise, he did not recognize him.

"I am delivering a book from Brompton's," said he.

"Come in, Mr. Golders, come in," said Pons.

As soon as Golders had taken a few steps into our quarters, Pons closed the door and stood with his back against it.

At the same moment Golders caught sight of me. He started guiltily, but quickly composed himself.

"Those books on the table are yours, are they not, Mr. Golders?" asked Pons.

Golders's eyes dropped to the signed books Pons had left lying out.

"No, sir. They are yours," said Golders, his equanimity restored. "You bought them this afternoon. I recognize your voice now even without sideboards, bowler, and eyeglasses."

Pons chuckled. "Pray sit down, Mr. Golders."

Golders did so, alert but unafraid.

Pons came away from the door. "You have a considerable talent for forgery, Mr. Golders."

"Can you prove it, sir?" asked Golders.

"Yes, yes —if need be, easily," said Pons. "But I am not interested in proving it."

"The return of your money then," said Golders. "And, of course, I will take along the books again."

"I think not," said Pons. "Tell me, Mr. Golders, have you ever thought of turning that remarkable talent of yours to honest accounting?"

Golders looked at Pons calculatingly. "You are sure you have something 'honest' in mind?"

Pons shook his head disapprovingly. "Ah, you are already challenging the honesty of everyone else on the basis of your temporary lack —I say 'temporary' hopefully."

"Is there an honest way?"

"I believe there is—and there may even be occasion in it for such flights of your fancy as the forging of Lord Arthur Savile's signature."

Golders grinned. "And at a decent salary?"

"Quite sufficient for the style to which you have become accustomed, Mr. Golders. Are you willing to try it?"

"I am, sir."

"I have written a note to my brother who is in the Foreign Office. There is a constant need for the services of someone with your uncommon skill in the cryptology department. Take it around there tomorrow, for your place at Brompton's has clearly become untenable."

"There is an alternative?"

"Indeed, yes. Mr. Brompton is ready to give you in charge. And I have these books against that contingency. I trust it will never be necessary to use them. Such skill ought to be put to good use."

Golders began to laugh. "Forging letters and signatures of diplomats, couriers, intelligence agents, eh?" he said. "I never thought of it. It is still forgery, though, however you look at it. I suppose it all depends upon one's point-of-view, Mr. Pons."

"As does all life, Mr. Golders," said Pons. "Good luck!"

Golders took his leave as jauntily as if he had not a care in the world.

23 January 1920

A few days later Pons announced that his brother Bancroft had secured a provisional place in the Intelligence Division of the Admiralty for Dennis Golders, the book-seller's clerk who proved so adept at forging the names of an astonishing variety of gentlemen.

I could not keep from chaffing him a bit, for I had had some reservations about his course of action in regard to Golders.

"Surely that is a kind of rehabilitation," I said.

"I daresay it may be so looked upon," answered Pons.

"Do I not detect a certain inconsistency here?" I asked.

He shot a sharp glance in my direction. " 'A foolish consistency,' " he began to quote Emerson, but I interrupted him.

" '. . . is the hobgoblin of little minds.' Yes, I know. But let me quote another eminent authority —'Rehabilitation is fine in theory, but let us have punishment first.' By courtesy of Mr. Solar Pons."

Pons laughed heartily. "I fear you have me there. But does not that depend upon the nature of the crime?"

"You have not said so," I said. "As I recall it, you did not discriminate at all."

"The nature of the crime in the previous instance was a considerable fraud," said Pons. "I am sure that Golders can be prevailed upon to reimburse his victims. But there is a fine point here I rather think you have not taken into consideration."

"In other words," I put in caustically, "when it comes to punishment, there is all the difference in the world between a large fraud and a little one?"

"There is not the slightest difference in fact, but only in degree, and the difference in degree affects only the degree of punishment."

"But Golders is not being punished, as far as I can see."

Pons chuckled. "I had no idea you felt even more strongly than I about this matter," he said. "If it will ease your mind —or your conscience, whichever it is —Bancroft has had some long conversations with Golders. Golders is perfectly willing to reimburse the purchasers of his forgeries out of his salary. But, quite apart from the fact that he cannot remember all of them, there is that fine point you have not considered."

"Pray enlighten me," I said.

"Why, it is simply the attitude of the purchasers. I submit that not one in ten would appreciate being told he did not own, in fact, a signed copy of a book he treasures. Far rather ignorance than repayment! Collectors are a curious lot —and book collectors are in many ways the most curious of them all."

"But what if one of them discovers the fraud and demands his money back from Brompton?"

"Why, then, Brompton will reimburse him —and Golders will reimburse Brompton."

"And as for the others?"

"They have simply paid for the happiness of possessing a forged signature they do not recognize as a forgery. Their lack of knowledge does not in any way affect their happiness in its possession. I know, Parker, in the interests of propriety, you would disillusion them. But to what end? It would not satisfy them, it would in fact leave them, I submit, far more unhappy than they are in their possession of their elaborate forgeries, which, actually, are so well done, as to make each of these books an 'item' in itself in the world of collectors."

"Nevertheless," I said, but subsided into silence, not quite convinced, and feeling obscurely certain that Pons had not given an inch.

"I understand, Parker," said Pons with unaccustomed gentleness. "We would all like our world composed of black and white or right and wrong, but unfortunately matters are not as simple as all that. Would that they were! But if they were, how infernally dull life would be!"

27 January 1920

Coming in from attendance on a patient this evening, I found Pons absorbed in his crime files. Cuttings from the newspapers, tear- sheets from magazines and books, and photographs of criminals lay upon and all around the table —a veritable encyclopedia of crime.

As I entered, he glanced at me through the smoke wreathing about him from his pipe. "Ah, I see by your almost fatuous expression that Mr. Simpkins is making a satisfactory recovery," he said.

I acknowledged that my patient was indeed improving and, having divested myself of my greatcoat —for the wind howled outside, and snow was in the air—I went around to look at what engaged his interest at the moment. He held in his hand an account of the death of Edwin Bartlett in Pimlico in 1886, for which his wife Adelaide had been charged with murder —and acquitted.

"Did she do it?" I asked.

"I think it likely. She was enamoured of the Reverend George Dyson, a young minister who was foolish enough to write poems to her —if one could call them poems. Listen to this bit of doggerel — " He quoted from the account of the trial at the Old Bailey.

" 'Who is it that hath burst the door Unclosed the heart that shut before And set her queen-like on its throne And made its homage all her own —My Birdie.'

'My Birdie,' indeed! There are manifestly some unhappy human beings for whom the simulation of love is a disease."

"You are being cynical, Pons," I said.

"The follies committed for the sake of what some people call 'love' are positively incredible," reflected Pons, not without a certain relish. "And the domain of crime offers innumerable examples."

"Well, it is certain that Bartlett could hardly have swallowed a bottle of chloroform without extreme agony—it would have seared its way to his stomach."

"Yet somehow it got there," said Pons. "As one learned medical man remarked after the trial —'Now she's acquitted, she should tell us, in the interests of science, how she did it.' "

He put down the Bartlett account and took up another.

"And no area of human activity so aptly demonstrates the mawkish gullibility and stupidity of the innocent," Pons went on. "As an example, consider the case of Bruneau, the priest, who led a career of crime from the age of thirteen onward and, though caught stealing even in the seminary, was nevertheless ordained in the same year that Edwin Bartlett came to his end, and continued in his career of theft, robbery, fraud, arson, and lechery until it culminated in the murder of his superior, the Abb6 Fricot, whom he battered about the head before pushing him into the rectory garden well to die. He was duly executed at Laval in 1894 —but after his burial some pious fools fostered a legend that Fricot had been murdered by a woman caught in theft, who had subsequently confessed her crime to Bruneau and so sealed his lips —a tale so ridiculous and so utterly without foundation that one would have to be somewhat less than a moron to credit it; yet hundreds of people were gullible enough to believe it —people have a positive horror of the obvious —and Bruneau was held to be a saint and a martyr. Indeed, some imbeciles actually brought sick children to Bruneau's grave in the hope that the 'sacred' earth above the body of this murderer, who was without a single redeeming feature, might heal them!"

"Does it give you pleasure to read about these crimes?" I asked. "I have seen you at these files quite often."

Pons raised his eyebrows. "That has the sound of a clinical question, Parker."

"No, no, I am only curious," I protested.

"Let us just say then that I find these accounts instructive."

"In what way?"

"Why, in reaffirming my low opinion of the rationality of the average individual, criminal or otherwise —or my alternatively dim view or high regard for the blundering or, on the other hand, the efficiency of the police —or my admiration for a crime well conceived and well investigated. Will that satisfy your curiosity, clinical or otherwise?"

I assured him that it adequately answered my inquiry.

"Though it is true that the average crime is without imagination," Pons continued, there are those that offer some interesting points. Consider the infinite trouble to which the pathetic Dr. Hawley Crippen went in order to indulge his passion for Ethel Le Neve! This was, incidentally, one of the earliest cases in which Spilsbury shone as medical examiner."

"Was it not also the first case of a British murderer's having been apprehended in America by dint of the police taking a faster boat?"

"No, no, that is a common misconception. It seems to have been the first time that the wireless was used to apprehend a murderer. But Franz Muller, the first known train murderer —he killed Thomas Briggs in a train between Bow and Hackney Wick in the summer of 1864 and threw the body out on to the line —was apprehended as he stepped from the Victoria in New York, Tanner, the detective, having taken the faster ship, City of Manchester."

He dropped the cutting and picked up a magazine account. "Now here is a classic American case —a miscarriage of justice — that of Lizzie Borden, who was acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts, on a hot day in August, 1892."

"I know the case," I said.

"I find the doggerel written about Lizzie much more to my fancy than that set down by the Reverend Dyson for Adelaide Bartlett —

'Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.'

— And much more appropriate, too."

"You have no doubt of her guilt?"

"None. She alone had motive and opportunity. All other theories are the most elaborate fabrications, a testimony rather to the lubricity and wilful imagination of their authors, than to the inescapable facts of the matter. It is another incidence of people refusing to accept the obvious; for some reason they are infected by chronic doubt of what seems to them too simple, too straightforward; they prefer something more devious, more romantically sinister. The lunatic antics of the irrational sceptics in such cases are not without amusement. But enough. I have had my fill of this entertainment for this evening."

As he gathered up the cuttings, he added reflectively, "Still and all, I suppose there is no domain of human behaviour that so well illustrates the complex nature of man as that borderland in which he is impelled toward murder."