The Ponson case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

But this was not surprising. Tanner could not and did not expect confirmation from these men. They had had no dealings with Cosgrove which would have attracted their attention to him. The point could be better tested at Grantham, where whoever gave him his luggage should remember the circumstance.

Inspector Tanner glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to ten. Why, he thought, when he was so far, should he not carry the thing through right then? He looked up the time tables. A train left at 10.00 p.m. for Grantham, arriving at 12.28. The 10.30 p.m., following, reached the same station ten minutes later, proceeding at 12.43. If he went by the 10.00 he would have fifteen minutes at Grantham to make inquiries, and he could go on by the 10.30 to Montrose and interview Colonel Archdale. And if fifteen minutes proved insufficient for his Grantham business he could sleep there, and go on in the morning.

Five minutes later he was in the train. Though, compared to that following, it was a slow train, it only made four stops—at Hatfield, Hitchin, Huntingdon and Peterborough. A minute before time it drew up at Grantham.

Here Tanner had even less difficulty than at King’s Cross. An official at the stationmaster’s office remembered the episode of the telegram, and was able in a few seconds to find the porter to whom he had entrusted the matter. This man also clearly recollected the circumstances and unhesitatingly identified Cosgrove from his photograph.

‘Just tell me what occurred when you met Mr Ponson, will you?’ asked Tanner.

‘Well, sir,’ the man answered, ‘I was going along the train with ’is bag and coat, and ’e comes out of a first-class carriage bare ’eaded, and when ’e sees the bag ’e says, “that’s my bag, porter,” ’e says, and ’e gives ’is name. “Shove it in ’ere,” ’e says. ’E ’ad ’is ’at on the seat for to keep ’is place, and that’s all I knows about it.’

The confirmation seemed so complete that Tanner was tempted to return to town instead of taking the long journey to Montrose. But before everything he was thorough. He had paid too dearly in the past for taking obvious things for granted. In this case every point must be tested.

Soon, therefore, he was moving slowly out of Grantham on his way north. He had not been able to get a sleeping berth, but he made himself as comfortable as possible in the corner of a first-class compartment, and there he slept almost without moving till the bustle at Edinburgh aroused him. Here a restaurant car was attached, and shortly after Tanner moved in and breakfasted.

At Montrose he went to a barber’s and was shaved, then, hiring a car, he was driven out to the training stables.

Colonel Archdale was an elderly man of a school Tanner had imagined was extinct—short, red-faced and peppery, and dressed in a check suit and riding breeches. The Inspector had called at the house, a low, straggling building of the bungalow type, but had been sent on to find its master at the stables, half a mile distant.