The Ponson case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

‘Yes, I believe those were the words. That was the sense anyway.’

‘Continue, please.’

‘It appeared that upon their recognition there was a scene between my father and Dale. Eventually, however, they took a private room at a neighbouring bar, and there talked the matter over. Then to my father’s amazement it came out that Dale had not known of my mother’s second marriage. But when the latter realised how matters stood, his manner changed. He said it was my father, and not himself, who had come within the reach of the law, and that if the affair became known, even if my father escaped imprisonment, he would still have public opinion to reckon with. Was he prepared to face the scandal?

‘My father was not. His good name and that of his family were very precious to him. In his agitation he did a weak thing. He offered to buy Dale’s silence.

‘My father then told of his negotiations with Dale, with the details of which I think I need hardly trouble you. Suffice it to say that Dale put on the screw and got several hundreds that year. But that did not satisfy him. His demands grew more and more outrageous till at last my father came to the conclusion that some step must be taken to rid himself of the incubus.

‘ “It is not the actual money he is now getting,” said my father, “it is the uncertainty under which I am living that is making me ill. He will continue to bleed me, and after I am gone he will bleed your mother and yourself, and perhaps Enid. Besides, we don’t know if he really will preserve the secret. I have been thinking for some time that I must tell you and Cosgrove the whole story, so that we may devise some plan to protect ourselves, but now events have been precipitated by a fresh demand from Dale. Read that.”

‘My father handed me a letter headed “Myrtle Cottage, Yelverton, South Devon”. It was from Dale, and in it he said the existing arrangements with my father were unsatisfactory, that instead of a hundred or two now and then, he would rather have one large sum which should close the account between them. He demanded my father should buy him an annuity which should bring him in £500 a year for life. In peremptory words he required an immediate answer, adding that he was coming to town that day and would stay in a small hotel near Gower Street, where my father could see him.

‘That letter had come on the previous Thursday, and on the Saturday—that was the day before our interview—my father had gone to town and seen Dale. The man, it seemed, had been more truculent and overbearing than ever before, and had presented what amounted to an ultimatum. Either he would have the money for his annuity, or he would tell. After a long wrangle my father had promised to consider the matter until the following Monday, when he would see Dale again and let him know his decision.

‘My father went on to say he would willingly pay the demand to be rid of the whole business, but his difficulty was, of course, that he had no guarantee the payment would rid him of it. He would still be, to precisely the same extent, in Dale’s power.

‘He continued that he felt that as Cosgrove and I were also interested in the affair, the time had now come to take us into his confidence, in order to see if some joint action could not be taken to bring the matter to an end. He had not yet spoken to Cosgrove, but he suggested that on the following day, Monday, we should both go to town and have an interview with my cousin, after which he could go on and see Dale. We decided to travel separately, to meet at a little French restaurant in Soho, and to keep the matter perfectly private.’