Tanner Finds Himself Duped
Twelve o’clock next day saw almost the same company assembled at the
adjourned inquest in the long narrow room at Luce Manor, as had sat
there on the morning following the discovery of the tragedy. But on
this occasion a few additional persons were present. Some members of
the outside public had gained admission on one pretext or another,
while, as Tanner noted, both Austin and Cosgrove Ponson were now
legally represented.
The proceedings were formal and uninteresting until the doctors were
called, but the medical evidence produced a veritable sensation. In
the face of it only one verdict was possible, and without leaving
their seats the jury returned that of wilful murder against some
person or persons unknown.
Both Austin and Cosgrove were evidently anxious and upset, and both
showed relief when the proceedings were over. But, considering his
interviews with them, and the inquiries he had made, Tanner did not
think these emotions unnatural or suspicious.
Though the Inspector had hardly hoped to learn additional facts at the
inquest, he was yet disappointed to find that not one single item of
information had come out of which he was not already aware. Nor had
any promising line of inquiry been suggested.
He was now of the opinion that the real clue to the tragedy must lie
in the letter Sir William had received a week before his death, but as
he could see no way of learning its contents, his thoughts had passed
on to the deceased’s visits to London. About these visits one or two
points were rather intriguing.
Firstly, they had occurred almost immediately after the receipt of the
letter, and it was at least possible that they were a result of it.
Secondly, Sir William had travelled to town two days running, or at
least two weekdays running. This was not in accordance with his habit
and pointed to some special and unusual business. The third point
Tanner thought most suggestive of all. Though it was Sir William’s
custom and preference to go to town by car, and his motor was
available on these two occasions, yet he had travelled in each case by
train. Why? Surely, thought Tanner, to enable him to make his calls in
private—to avoid letting the chauffeur know where he went.
At all events, whether or not these conclusions were sound, Tanner
decided the most promising clue left him was the following up of Sir
William’s movements in the city on these two days.
Accordingly, when the business of the inquest was over and he was once
more free, he returned to the railway station at Halford. Here he was
able after careful inquiries to confirm the statement made by Innes,
the valet, as to the trains Sir William had travelled by on the two
days. He went himself to town by the 4.32, determined that on Monday
morning he would try to pick up the trail at St Pancras.
But before Monday morning his thoughts were running in an entirely
different channel.
He had gone home on Sunday determined to enjoy a holiday. But Fate
ruled otherwise. The grilling afternoon had hardly drawn to a close
when a note was sent him from the Yard. It read:
‘_Re_ Ponson Case.—Halford sergeant phones important information
come to hand. You are wanted to return immediately.’
Tanner caught the 7.30 train, and before nine was seated in the
Halford Police Station, hearing the news. The sergeant was bubbling
over with importance and excitement, and told his story with an air of
thrilled impressiveness which considerably irritated his hearer.
‘About four o’clock this afternoon a young woman came to the station
and asked for me,’ he began. ‘She was a good-looking girl of about
five-and-twenty. She gave her name as Lucy Penrose, and said she was
typist and bookkeeper in Smithson’s, the grocer’s in Abbey Street. I
didn’t know her, and she explained that she lived three miles out in
the country, and had only got this job since the beginning of the
month. Then she said she had just read about the inquest in the
evening paper, and that she knew something she thought she ought to
tell.’
The sergeant paused, evidently delighted with the attention the London
officer was giving him.
‘She said,’ he went on after a moment, ‘that about half-past nine on
the Wednesday evening of the murder, she and a young man called
Herbert Potts were walking in the spinney belonging to Dr Graham, on
the left bank of the river, and just opposite the Luce Manor
boathouse. They saw a boat coming down the river with a man in it. He
stopped at the boathouse, and seemed to try the water gate, but
apparently couldn’t get in, for after a moment he pulled on to the
steps and went ashore, making the boat fast. In a couple of minutes he
came back with another man and got in the boat again, and then went in
through the water gate. The other man stood on the steps and watched
him, and then he went round seemingly to the door of the boathouse.
That was all they saw, but, sir, they knew the men.’
Again the sergeant paused to heighten his effect.
‘Get on, man. Don’t be so darned dramatic,’ growled Tanner irritably.
‘Who were they?’
‘Mr Austin Ponson and Sir William!’ The sergeant reached his climax
with an air of triumph.
Tanner was genuinely surprised.
‘Couldn’t have been,’ he said after a moment. ‘I went into all that.
Mr Austin was half-way to the Abbey ruins at that time.’
‘She was quite certain, and she said the man Potts was certain too.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘No, sir. He is a bookseller’s assistant in London—to Evans & Hope, in
Paternoster Row. His people live here, and he was down on a couple of
days’ holidays.’
Tanner noted the address.
‘How was Mr Austin supposed to be dressed?’
‘In bluish grey clothes that looked like flannel, and a white straw
hat.’
‘And Sir William?’
‘In a black cape and felt hat.’
‘They didn’t see either of them leave the boathouse?’
‘No, sir. They were passing on down the river towards the girl’s
home.’
Tanner was silent. If this news were true, though he could hardly
credit it, the alibi must be a fake after all, and Austin must have
duped him. And yet, how could it be a fake? He had tested it
thoroughly, and he had been satisfied about it. He did not know what
to think.
‘Why did this girl not come forward before?’ he asked.
‘She didn’t know till she read the account of the inquest that there
was any question of foul play.’
Inspector Tanner was considerably perplexed. The more he thought over
what he had just heard, the more disposed to believe it he became, and
at the same time more puzzled about the alibi. But one fact at all
events appeared to stand out clearly. If Austin had really been to the
boathouse that night, it surely followed that he must be guilty of the
murder? His presence there would not of course prove it, but would not
the alibi? If he had merely omitted to mention the visit it would have
been suggestive, but if he had invented an elaborate story to prove he
was not there, it undoubtedly pointed to something serious.
But, as had always happened up to the present, his own next step was
clear. He must see the girl and hear her statement himself, and
afterwards visit Potts, the bookseller’s assistant. If he was
satisfied with their story he must once again tackle Austin’s alibi
and not drop it till he either found the flaw or was so convinced of
its soundness as to conclude the new witnesses were lying.
Next morning he was early at the grocery establishment of Mr Thomas
Smithson, in close conversation with a tall and rather pretty girl in
a cream-coloured blouse and blue skirt. She repeated the sergeant’s
statement almost word for word, and all Tanner’s efforts could neither
shake her evidence nor add to it. She was quite sure the man in the
boat was Austin; she had seen him scores of times; he was a well-known
Halford figure. So was Sir William; she had seen him scores of times
also. No, it was not too dark to see at that distance; her sight was
excellent, and she was quite certain she had made no mistake.
She was very shamefaced about the cause of her presence on the river
bank, and begged Tanner to respect her confidence. He promised
readily, saying that unless absolutely unavoidable, her name would not
be brought forward.
He returned to town by the next train, and drove to Paternoster Row.
Here he had no difficulty in finding Herbert Potts. He was a man on
the right side of thirty, with a dependable face, and a quiet, rather
forceful manner. He seemed considerably annoyed that his excursion
with Miss Penrose should have become known, fearing, as he said, that
the girl would get talked about, and perhaps have to give evidence in
court. But about the events on the night in question he corroborated
her entirely. He also was positive the man in the boat was Austin.
Though now employed in London, he was a Halford man and knew Austin’s
appearance beyond possibility of mistake. The Inspector left him,
feeling that in the face of these two witnesses he could no longer
doubt Austin had been at the boathouse, and therefore had faked his
alibi.
But how? That was the question he must now set himself to solve.
It seemed clear that Austin’s statement up to the time of his leaving
the boat club pavilion, and after his arrival back there, was true.
The testimony of the boatman Brocklehurst, Miss Drew, and Austin’s
butler was overwhelming. The flaw therefore must lie in the evidence
of what took place between those hours. Tanner went over this once
again.
It hinged, as he had recognised before, on the shoes. And firstly, had
the prints at the Abbey been made by those shoes? He had thought so at
the time, and on reconsidering the matter he felt more certain than
ever that he was right. A very trifling dint in the edge of one of the
soles, evidently caused by striking a sharp-edged stone, was
reproduced exactly in the clay. It was unthinkable that another pair
of precisely similar shoes should have a precisely similar dint in the
exact same place. No, when or by whom worn, Austin’s shoes had made
the tracks. So much was beyond question.
Then with regard to the time at which the prints had been made. On
this point the evidence of the butler corroborated Austin’s story. The
butler had stated the shoes had been in Austin’s dressing-room in his,
the butler’s, charge during the entire time from the Monday on which
they were purchased till the Friday, with the single exception of this
particular period on Wednesday evening. If this were true it followed
that some person other than Austin wore the shoes, and made the tracks
during this period. But was it true?
Tanner recalled point by point his interview with the butler.
Invariably he reached his conclusions quite as much from the manner
and bearing of the persons he interrogated as from their statement.
And in this case he was forced to admit the butler seemed to speak as
a perfectly honest man. The Inspector felt he did not possess
sufficient intelligence to make his story sound as convincing as it
had, unless he himself believed it to be true.
But might not the man have been mistaken?
Obviously the liability of humanity to err must be kept in view. At
the same time it was difficult to see how a mistake could have
occurred. The matter was not one of opinion, but of fact. Was Austin
wearing the shoes when he went out and returned on the Wednesday
evening? Were they clean before he started and muddy after he reached
home? There did not seem to be any possibility of error on these
points. More important still, were they worn at any other time? The
butler had stated he always knew what shoes Austin was wearing, as all
his master’s footwear was in his charge. It seemed to Tanner that if
Austin was away from the house for so long as a journey to the Abbey
would involve, in dirty weather, the butler would expect a pair of
shoes to have been soiled, and would therefore be bound to know if
those in question had been worn.
But there was corroborative evidence which vastly strengthened the
man’s statement, and that was the apparent age of the footmarks.
Tanner could not tell to an hour when prints were made, but he felt
certain he could say to within twelve. And in the case of these
particular marks at the Abbey their appearance told him unmistakably
they must have been made on or about Wednesday night. That the shoes
came in wet and muddy that night, and that on Thursday morning they
had dried by just the amount that might reasonably have been expected,
was also strongly corroborative.
The more Tanner pondered over the matter, the more he felt himself
forced once more to the conclusion that the footprints at the Abbey
were made on that Wednesday evening between the hours of nine and
eleven. If Austin was now proved to have been at the boathouse between
these hours, who then had made them?
And again, if so, what shoes had Austin worn at Luce Manor? On that
night the butler had gone over all his footwear, and all except the
shoes in question were there in Austin’s room.
Tanner was genuinely puzzled. This whole matter of the shoes seemed so
clear and straightforward, and yet, if Potts and Miss Penrose were to
be believed, it was all a fake. As he sat smoking after lunch in the
corner of a quiet restaurant he kept racking his brains to find the
flaw. But he could get no light, and he did not see just where to look
for it.
At last he decided he would try to trace Austin’s movements, from the
time of his visit to Luce Manor on the Sunday evening previous to the
murder, right up to the time he handed over the shoes to him, Tanner,
on the following Friday. If Austin had arranged for a confederate to
make the tracks for him he must have had communications with him, and
it was possible Tanner might thus learn his identity.
As he was in London, the Inspector thought he might as well begin with
Austin’s visit to town on the Monday previous to the murder. Of that,
the only thing of which he knew was the purchase of the shoes. He had
noted the maker’s markings, ‘Glimax B 10735 / 789647S Hunt & Co.’
Messrs Hunt’s was a very large firm, with perhaps a score or more of
shops in the metropolis, and probably hundreds throughout the three
kingdoms. ‘Glimax’ was one of the three or four ‘lines’ advertised in
every paper. Tanner borrowed a directory and looked up their head
office. Half an hour later he was seated with their manager.
Having introduced himself as an Inspector from Scotland Yard, he went
on to business at once.
‘I am endeavouring,’ he said, ‘to trace the movements of a man who, on
Monday, the 5th, this day fortnight, purchased a pair of shoes from
one of your shops—probably a West End branch. The shoes were marked
Glimax B 10735 over 789647S. Now, can you oblige me by suggesting how
I might obtain a record of the sale?’
‘With the best will in the world, I don’t know that we can give you
that information,’ the manager returned slowly. ‘We get weekly
statements from all our branches which show the total sales of each
class of shoe during the period. But, unfortunately for you, though
fortunately for us,’ the manager smiled deprecatingly, ‘many shoes of
the fitting in question would almost certainly be sold at each of our
branches during each week. If, therefore, you were to go through our
returns you would find yourself no further on—it would still mean
inquiries at each individual branch. How do you propose to identify
your man?’
‘I have his photograph.’
‘I am afraid you will have to depend on that. Some of the salesmen
will probably remember him. Can I help you in any other way?’
‘Two things, if you will be so good; to give me, first, a list of your
West End branches and second, a note to your managers, asking them to
assist me.’
‘I will do both with pleasure.’
Ten minutes later Tanner reached the first branch. Here he saw the
manager, presented his note, and explained his business. The official
was extremely civil and brought the Inspector to each of the salesmen
in turn. All gave him their careful attention, but none could recall
Austin Ponson nor recollect the sale in question. With courteous
thanks Tanner took his leave.
The second branch was not far away, and here the Inspector made
similar inquiries. But here again without result.
Recognising that his quest was going to be tedious, he engaged a taxi
and settled down to work systematically through the list. Progress was
slow, and it was approaching six o’clock by the time he had reached
the ninth branch. But here, just as he had decided he would visit no
more that evening, he had some luck.
In this shop, the second salesman he spoke to instantly recognised
Austin’s photograph, and recollected the purchase of the shoes.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I remember the man perfectly. What drew my special
attention to him was the very peculiar way he conducted the purchase.
He came in and said he wanted a pair of Glimax B10735 over 789647S. He
did not look at the shoes I brought him, except to check the number. I
remarked that few gentlemen knew what they wanted so precisely as
that, and he said he had had a pair of the same before which had
suited him, and he simply wanted to replace them.’
‘About what time was that?’
‘Shortly after four, I should say.’
‘And did he give his name?’
‘Yes. I forget what it was, but I sent the shoes to the parcels office
at St Pancras.’
In reply to a further question the man said he recalled the names of
Ponson and Halford.
The Inspector was considerably puzzled by what he had heard, and that
evening he lit a cigar and settled down to consider it. In the first
place, Austin’s statement that he had bought the shoes on that Monday
was true. But how did he know their number? The butler, Tanner
remembered, had said that his master had never had a similar pair. For
a long time he pondered over the problem, but the only thing that
seemed to him clear was that some trick had been played. But at last a
possible solution occurred to him. What if there were two of them in
it—Austin and an accomplice? The accomplice buys a pair of shoes and
sends Austin the number so that he may get a precisely similar pair.
Then on the Wednesday night while Austin, wearing one pair, is at Luce
Manor, the confederate, wearing the other, is making the tracks at the
Abbey.
At first this seemed to Tanner to account for the facts, but then he
recollected that the dent on the sole of one shoe proved that the pair
which made the tracks at the Abbey was Austin’s pair—the pair which
had been in the butler’s charge till he, Tanner, received it. Unless,
therefore, Austin and his accomplice had exchanged shoes at the end of
the excursion, this theory would not work.
Suddenly another idea came into the Inspector’s mind, at which he
slapped his thigh, and smiled to himself. ‘Guess I’m on to it this
time,’ he muttered, as he went up to bed, well pleased with his day’s
work.
To test the soundness of his new supposition, he continued next
morning the inquiry he had been making on the previous
afternoon—interrogating the shoe shop salesmen for information as to
Austin’s purchases. He began with the tenth branch, as if he had
discovered nothing at the ninth. But here his efforts met with no
success. Nor did they at the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. But at
the fourteenth, with a feeling of pleased triumph, he discovered what
he had hoped to find.
At this shop he inquired, as before, if any of the assistants
recollected a man like that of the photo he showed having purchased a
pair of shoes of the given number. At once he had an affirmative
response. One salesman remembered Austin having called on the Monday
in question, and after having been carefully fitted, having bought the
shoes. The salesman had according to his usual custom handed Austin a
card bearing the number of the shoes. He had offered to send the
parcel, but Austin had said he was running for a train and would take
it with him. The transaction had occurred about three o’clock.
‘Bully for me!’ thought Tanner as he drove to St Pancras, _en route_
for Halford. ‘See what a little imagination does!’
The theory he had evolved on the previous night now seemed not
unlikely to be the truth. According to it, Austin had gone to town on
the Monday and purchased two identical pairs of shoes. The first he
had had fitted in the usual way in one shop; the second had been
selected in another shop as being of the same number as the first.
This had been rendered possible by carrying out the purchases in two
different branch shops of the same firm. One pair he had bought openly
giving his name and having the parcel sent to St Pancras; the other
transaction he intended to remain a secret.
Arrived at his home, Austin had carried out the same tactics. One pair
he had spoken of and given into his butler’s charge; the other he had
locked away privately. No one was supposed to know, and no one did
know, that he had purchased more than one pair.
Let us call these two the known pair and the secret pair. On the
evening of the murder, then, Austin puts on the known pair which the
butler had in his charge, goes to Luce Manor, commits the murder,
walks home through some muddy ground, gets the shoes wet, changes them
on returning home, where they dry during the night and are cleaned by
the butler next day, all exactly as the latter had stated. But at some
other time, probably in the dead of Wednesday night, Austin gets up,
puts on the other pair—the secret pair—and slipping out of his house
unnoticed, makes the tracks at the Abbey. To make the deception more
convincing he has previously dinted the sole of one of these ‘secret’
shoes, so that this dint will show on the prints at the Abbey. At some
convenient opportunity when the butler is out of the way he himself
cleans the secret pair, and then _changes them for the others_. The
dinted pair which made the tracks at the Abbey thus become those in
the butler’s charge; the others, in which the murder was committed,
are locked away by Austin, who doubtless takes an early opportunity of
destroying them.
Tanner had to admit the ingenuity of the plan. To anyone not knowing
there were two pairs of shoes in question, the alibi would be
overwhelming.
But completely to prove this theory it would be necessary to show that
Austin was at the Abbey at some time other than that he had stated. It
was with this object Tanner was returning to Halford.
He made most persistent inquiries, but was unable to find any evidence
on this point. None of the cottagers nor farm hands in the vicinity of
the Abbey had seen Austin, either on the Wednesday evening or at any
other time. Nor had any other stranger been observed. If, however,
Austin had been to the Abbey in the middle of the night, as Tanner
suspected, the failure to see him was not surprising, and did not
invalidate the main conclusion. On the contrary, Tanner believed he
had solved his problem. Austin, he felt, was guilty beyond a shadow of
doubt.
And then Tanner saw that this solution cleared up another point by
which he had been somewhat puzzled, namely, Austin’s readiness, indeed
almost eagerness, to tell of his visit to the Abbey. That, he now saw,
had been a trap, and he, Tanner, had walked right into it. He saw
Austin’s motive now. From the latter’s point of view it was necessary
that Tanner should inspect the footprints while they were still fresh.
If some days passed before suspicion was aroused, the marks would have
become obliterated, and the alibi worthless. Austin was a cleverer man
than the Inspector had given him credit for. By his manner he had
deliberately roused the latter’s suspicions so that his alibi might be
established while the footprints were clear.
That evening Tanner made careful notes of the evidence he had
accumulated against Austin Ponson. When the document was completed, it
read:
1. Austin never got on with Sir William. 2. Though Sir William
allowed him £1000 a year, this was a small sum compared to what he
might equally easily have paid. 3. Austin could not be making more
than two or three hundred a year, so his total income could not much
exceed £1200. 4. He was living up to, or almost up to, this figure.
5. Austin had become engaged to a girl to whom, as a daughter-in-law,
there was every reason to believe Sir William objected. This girl had
no dot. 6. Unless he got an increased allowance Austin would find
himself very pinched after marriage. 7. Sir William had threatened
that if the marriage came off, he would not only not increase the
allowance, but might alter his will adversely to Austin. 8. Austin
would therefore be faced with the alternative of having his prospects
ruined if his father lived, or, if he died, of receiving £150,000.
Thus not only his own position and comfort were at stake, but that
also of the girl he loved—a terrible temptation. 9. Austin had an
interview with Sir William on the Sunday night previous to the
murder, at which the two quarrelled about a lady—presumably Miss
Drew. 10. Austin had the requisite knowledge of Luce Manor and Sir
William’s ways to have accomplished the deed. 11. Austin had on that
Wednesday night rowed down the river and met Sir William at the Luce
Manor boathouse. 12. Austin had denied having been in the
neighbourhood at the time. 13. Austin had invented and carried out an
elaborate plant with the object of proving an alibi. This alibi was a
deliberate falsehood from beginning to end, and was prearranged.
As Tanner read over his document he felt that seldom had he
investigated a clearer case, or got together more utterly damning
evidence.
‘The man’s as good as hanged,’ he said grimly to himself.
Next morning he laid his conclusions before his chief, with the result
that an hour later he was again on his way to Halford, armed with a
warrant for Austin Ponson’s arrest.
He took the sergeant and a constable with him to the house, but left
them waiting in the hall while he was shown into Austin’s study. The
latter was writing at his table.
‘Hallo! Inspector,’ he cried cheerily. ‘And how are you getting on?’
Tanner ignored his outstretched hand, and as the other saw his
visitor’s face, his expression changed.
‘Mr Austin Ponson, I am sorry to inform you I hold a warrant for your
arrest on a charge of murdering your father, Sir William Ponson. I
must also warn you that anything you may say may be used against you.’
Austin shrank back and collapsed into his chair as if he had been
struck. His face grew ghastly, and little drops of moisture formed on
his forehead. For some moments he sat motionless, then slowly he
seemed somewhat to recover himself.
‘All I can say, Inspector,’ he answered earnestly, ‘is that, before
God, I am innocent. I am ready to go with you.’
The news spread like wildfire, and that evening the people of Halford
had a fresh thrill and a new subject of conversation.