The Ponson Case. Freeman Wills Crofts
comrades and allies. She adored him, while Sir William’s chief thought was centred in his daughter, upon whom he thought the sun rose and set.
When the family were alone it was Sir William’s custom after dinner to join his wife and Enid in the music room, where for hours the latter would sing and play, while her father smoked cigar after cigar, and the elder woman placidly knitted or crocheted. But tonight, being entirely alone, he retired at once from the table to his library, where he would sit, reading and smoking, till about ten or later he would ring for Parkes, the butler, to bring him his nightly tumbler of hot punch.
But ten came, and half past ten, and eleven, and there was no ring.
‘Boss is late tonight, Mr Parkes,’ said Innes, Sir William’s valet, as he and the butler sat in the latter’s room over a bottle of Sir William’s old port, and a couple of Sir William’s three and sixpenny cigars.
‘Sir William is behind his usual hour,’ admitted the butler in a slightly chilly tone. Innes had followed his master from the north and was, as Mr Parkes put it, ‘well in’ with him. The butler therefore thought it politic to be ‘well in’ with Innes, and was usually affable in a condescending way. But the latter’s habit of speaking of Sir William as ‘the boss,’ grated on Parkes’s sensitive ears.
The two chatted amicably enough, and under the influence of wine and tobacco time passed unnoticed until once again the clock struck.
‘That’s half-past eleven,’ said Parkes. ‘I have never known Sir William so late before. He is usually in bed by now.’
‘“Early to bed, early to rise,”’ quoted the valet. ‘There’s no accounting for tastes, Mr Parkes. I’d like to see you or me going to bed at ten-thirty and getting up at six when we needn’t.’
‘I don’t hold with unnecessarily early hours myself,’ the other agreed, and then, after a pause: ‘I think I’ll go and see if he wants anything. It’s not like him to retire without having his punch.’
‘Whatever you think, Mr Parkes, but for me, I could do here well enough for another hour or more.’
Without replying, Parkes left the room. Reaching the library door, he knocked discreetly and then entered. The electric lights were switched on and everything looked as usual, but the room was empty. The butler moved on, and opening a door which led to the smoking room, passed in. The lights were off here, as they were also in the billiard room, which he next visited.
‘He must have gone up to bed,’ thought Parkes, and returning to his room, spoke to Innes.
‘I can’t find Sir William about anywhere below stairs, and he hasn’t had his punch. I wish you’d have a look whether he hasn’t gone to bed.’
The valet left the room.
‘He’s not upstairs, Mr Parkes,’ he said, returning a few moments later. ‘And he’s not been either so far as I can see. The lights are off and nothing’s been touched.’
‘But where is he? He’s never been so late ringing for his punch before.’
‘I’m blessed if I know. Maybe, Mr Parkes, we should have another look round?’
‘It might be as well.’
The two men returned to the library. It was still empty, and they decided to make a tour of the lower rooms. In each they switched on the lights and had a look round, but without result. Sir William had disappeared.
‘Come upstairs,’ said Parkes.
They repeated their search through music room, bedrooms, dressing-rooms, and passages, but all to no purpose. They could find no trace of their master.
Mr Parkes was slightly perturbed. An idea had recurred to him which had entered his mind on various previous occasions. He glanced inquiringly at the valet, as if uncertain whether or not to unburden his mind. Finally he said in a low tone:
‘Has it ever struck you, Innes, that Sir William was apoplectic?’
‘Apoplectic?’ returned the other. ‘Why, no, I don’t think it has.’
‘Well, it has me, and more than once. If he’s annoyed he gets that red. I’ve thought to myself when he has got into a temper about something, “Maybe,” I’ve thought, “maybe some of these days you’ll pop off in a fit if you’re not careful.”’
‘You don’t say, Mr Parkes,’ exclaimed Innes, in a tone of thrilled interest.
‘I do. I’ve thought it. And I’ve thought too,’ the butler went on impressively, ‘that maybe something like this would happen: that we’d miss him, and go and look, and find him lying somewhere unconscious.’
‘Bless my soul, Mr Parkes, I hope not.’
‘I hope not too. But I’ve thought it.’ Mr Parkes shook his head gravely. ‘And what’s more,’ he went on after a few moments, ‘keeping this idea in view, I doubt if our search was sufficiently comprehensive. If Sir William had fallen behind a piece of furniture we might not have seen him.’
‘We could go round again, Mr Parkes, if you think that.’
This proposition appealing favourably to the butler, a second and more thorough search was made. But it was as fruitless as before. There was no trace of Sir William.
And then the valet made a discovery. Off the passage leading to the library was a small cloak-room. Innes, who had looked into the latter, now returned to the butler.
‘He’s gone out, Mr Parkes. A soft felt hat and his loose black cape are missing out of the cloakroom.’
‘Gone out, is he? That’s not like him either. Are you sure of that?’
‘Certain. I saw the coat and hat no longer ago than this evening just before dinner. They were hanging in that room then. They’re gone now.’
The passage in which they were standing, and off which opened the smoking room, library, billiard room and this cloakroom, ran on past the doors of these rooms, and ended in a small conservatory, from which an outer door led into the grounds. The two men walked to this door and tried it. It was closed, but not fastened.
‘He’s gone out sure enough,’ said Parkes. ‘I locked that door myself when I went round after dinner.’
They stepped outside. The night was fine, but very dark. There was no moon, and the sky was overcast. A faint air was stirring, but hardly enough to move the leaves. Everything was very still, except for the low, muffled roar of the Cranshaw waterfall, some half mile or more away.
‘I expect he’s stepped over to Hawksworth’s,’ said Parkes at last. ‘He sometimes drops in of an evening. But he’s never been so late as this.’
‘Maybe there’s a party of some kind on, and when he turned up they’ve had him stay.’
‘It may be,’ Parkes admitted. ‘We may as well go in anyway.’
They returned to the butler’s room, and resumed their interrupted discussion.
Twelve struck, then half-past, then one.
Innes yawned.
‘I wouldn’t mind how soon I went to bed, Mr Parkes. What do you feel like?’
‘I don’t feel sleepy,’ the other returned, and then, after a pause: ‘I don’t mind confessing I am not quite easy about Sir William. I would be glad he had returned.’
‘You’re afraid—of what you were saying?’
‘I am. I don’t deny it. I feel apprehensive.’
‘Supposing we were to get a couple of lanterns and have a walk round outside?’
The butler considered this suggestion.
‘I am of opinion better not,’ he said at last. ‘If Sir William found us so engaged, he would