Dolores Gordon-Smith - The Ponson Case

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1921

Published by The Detective Story Club Ltd 1932

Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1921

Introduction © Dolores Gordon-Smith 2016

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1932, 2016

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008159290

Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780008159306

Version: 2015-10-29

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1921 Published by The Detective Story Club Ltd 1932 Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1921 Introduction © Dolores Gordon-Smith 2016 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1932, 2016 A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008159290 Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780008159306 Version: 2015-10-29

Introduction

Chapter I: MYSTERY AT LUCE MANOR

Chapter II: A SINISTER SUGGESTION

Chapter III: HOAXED?

Chapter IV: INSPECTOR TANNER GROWS SUSPICIOUS

Chapter V: INSPECTOR TANNER BECOMES CONVINCED

Chapter VI: WHAT COSGROVE HAD TO TELL

Chapter VII: COSGROVE’S TRIP NORTH

Chapter VIII: TANNER FINDS HIMSELF DUPED

Chapter IX: LOIS DREW TAKES A HAND

Chapter X: A WOMAN’S WIT

Chapter XI: A FRESH START

Chapter XII: A STERN CHASE

Chapter XIII: BLACKMAIL?

Chapter XIV: A DRAMATIC DISCOVERY

Chapter XV: IN THE LUCE MANOR BOATHOUSE

Chapter XVI: CONCLUSION

The Detective Story Club

About the Publisher

THE PONSON CASE, first published in 1921, is Freeman Wills Crofts’ second book. Crofts had blazed onto the scene the previous year with his debut novel, The Cask . Far outselling Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles , published in the same year, Crofts went on to become a cornerstone of what we now regard as the Golden Age of detective fiction, the period between the two world wars.

Together with his great contemporaries, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, Crofts could not only tell an engaging and entertaining story, but paid the reader the compliment of assuming they were intelligent enough to engage with the logical working out of the mystery.

Crofts respected his readers; he always plays fair (an important quality in Golden Age crime) so that the reader has the same information as the detective. We, the reader, along with the detective, are invited to find a solution to the mystery. An important point, which demonstrates the quality of Crofts’ writing, is that the solution is always credible. Not for Crofts, the ‘infernal ingenuity’ that P. G. Wodehouse, a devoted mystery reader, complains of in his excellent essay, ‘Thrillers’. Instead the criminal, although ingenious, always acts in a way which makes perfect sense

His meticulous approach to plotting is recalled in a letter written by F. T. Smith, Crofts’ editor at Collins in the 1920s, to the Chairman of the company, Billy Collins. Although the letter was written in 1973, Crofts evidently made a lasting impression on Fred. The book in question isn’t named, but it’s a fair assumption that he is discussing The Ponson Case :

‘In Crofts’ case he loved criticism. He always wanted to come in and devote about three hours to a detailed discussion. How could he possibly require this? Well, I remember one case in which the body of the victim was discovered washed ashore on the banks of a river. I innocently had queried the time of the discovery and made a pencilled note on the margin. Crofts arrived with a suitcase for a discussion. He produced three large Ordnance Survey maps showing the course of the river, a very full county history, two reports on flooding in the county, one report on the effect of the current on the river banks and lastly a batch of correspondence with a medical officer of health showing how to tell how long a body had been in the water. Now all this trouble to prove that the body thrown into this particular river at a certain point would be washed ashore at another place at a more or less definite time.’

Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irishman, born in Dublin in 1879. He was named after his father, a British army doctor, who died in Honduras before his son was born. His mother married again when Crofts was three and the family moved to the small village of Gilford, Ulster, where his stepfather, Reverend Harding, was the vicar. Gilford village had been founded in 1641 by a Captain John Magill. Crofts was later to borrow Captain Magill’s name for one of his best books, Sir John Magill’s Last Journey , which draws heavily on his Ulster background.

When Crofts was eighteen, he was apprenticed to his uncle, Berkley Dean Wise, the Chief Engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. An outstanding civil engineer, Berkley Dean Wise made a huge contribution to railway travel, boosting tourism in and to Northern Ireland, and the young Crofts flourished under his care.

Railways, in that great age of steam, enthralled Crofts, as they have captured the imagination of so many others. Hardworking, creative and intelligent, he rose to become Chief Assistant Engineer. One of his projects which still stands today is the massive ten arch Bleach Green viaduct.

Crofts, however, was always dogged by poor health. It was during a long illness in 1919 that he wrote The Cask and, granted his background, it’s hardly surprising that he chose to make his detective heroes professional policemen.

To a modern reader this may seem an obvious decision, but in 1920, in the shadow of Sherlock Holmes, the gifted amateur was at his (and occasionally her) height of popularity. The sole purpose of a policeman in many Golden Age mysteries is to provide a foil to show the almost supernatural brilliance of the amateur. These are often great fun to read, but Crofts, the trained railway engineer, had a deep respect for the hard work a profession entails