Dolores Gordon-Smith

The Ponson Case


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      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 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 © HarperCollinsPublishers 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

       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

       INTRODUCTION

      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