John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

'So you know what I'm dunking about, do you?' inquired Masters, putting his head on one side.

Pennik smiled vaguely.

'Well, of my untimely demise, of course. That will be evident to anybody who looks at you. I was referring to your hidden thoughts, the thought you have been trying to banish out of your mind. You have been putting on an air of false and forced geniality to-day because you are hideously worried. You have a child (a daughter, I think) who goes into a nursing home to-morrow for an operation for appendicitis. She is not a strong child; and you did not sleep all last night for worrying.'

Masters went red, and then rather pale. His friend had never seen such an expression on his face.

'Did you tell him that?' the chief inspector demanded, whirling round.

'I didn't know it,' said Sanders. 'I'm sorry.'

'But it is true?' asked Pennik. 'Be persuaded, my friend. You will have to acknowledge it sooner or later.'

'We'll just leave my affairs out of it, sir, if you please,' said Masters. 'Hurrum! Now I don't suppose you could prove what you were doing when Mr Constable was killed?' 'I have been wondering when you would ask that question,' replied Pennik, showing his teeth. 'Let us clear it up once and for all. Dr Sanders (and Miss Keen as well) will testify that Mr Constable was alive and in very good health at a quarter to eight on Friday night. I believe he had gone to investigate some curious occurrences in Dr Sanders's room.' Here a flash of malice passed towards Sanders; you could almost feel it like a vibration. 'At this time I was downstairs. At about a quarter to eight the doorbell rang -the back doorbell, that is. I answered it. A certain Mrs Chichester had promised to come and get the household a meal, since all the servants were away. It was Mrs Chichester, accompanied by her son Lewis; evidently as a chaperon. I was going to get the meal, but I told them they might help me if they liked. For some reason they seemed nervous -'

Here Sanders interposed. It was one of the parts he liked least about the whole affair.

'Why not tell the chief inspector why they were nervous, Mr Pennik ?'

'I don't understand.'

'Mrs Chichester and her son,' Sanders explained, 'will tell you that when Mr Pennik opened the door to them he breathed as though he had been running, and rolled his eyes round. From a quarter to eight until eight o'clock he was occasionally inflicted with a minor seizure. At eight o'clock, when Mrs Constable began to scream upstairs, they couldn't stand it any longer. They bolted out of the house as though the devil were after them, and didn't come back.’

'Yes, sir? What about it?' frowned Masters.

Sanders looked at Pennik.

'I was only wondering why he breathed hard when he opened the door. Had he been upstairs, for instance?'

'No, I had not,' said Pennik. 'But Dr Sanders has very kindly' - a slight pause - 'has very kindly outlined my case for me. Mrs Chichester and her son will tell you that between a quarter to eight and eight o'clock, I did not stir out of the kitchen or the dining-room: the door was propped open between those two rooms, and they can be sure of it. As a matter of medical fact, Dr Sanders will tell you that Mr Constable died at about eight o'clock. That takes care of everything, I think.'

Masters put his fists on his hips.

‘Oh? A perfect alibi, eh?'

'As you say, a perfect alibi,' grinned Pennik.

There was a pause.

'Now, Inspector, I know the law of England. You dare not arrest me: you could not even get a warrant. You cannot try any such weapon as the third degree. You cannot even shut me up under the mysterious term of a "material witness"; as I say, I have a horror of being shut up. In any case I am not a witness. I merely killed the man. But I really do not see what you are going to do about it.'

The chief inspector stared back at him, speechless. Pennik reached out for his hat and stick. The hot sunlight touched his shabby sandy hair; briefly, he expanded his chest and raised his eyes upward.

His voice suddenly deepened as though with inspiration.

' "And it came to pass" ' said Pennik,' " at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath givenyou the city". ' He closed his large fist and brought it down with a crash on the table.

'With my heart and body and brain I have made a new and great power, gentlemen. I have plundered the treasure-house of the unknown. Dr Sanders will tell you that there is no realm more mysterious, more incalculable, or less understood than the force called nervous shock; but I have found its secret. Before I have finished I shall have made bats and owls of their scientists, and shown their logic for puerility. But the gift must be used sparingly. It must be used for good. Yes. Always for good. Always, always, always, Mr Constable, however estimable you might have thought him, will hardly be missed -'

'It hadn't occurred to you,' said Sanders, 'that he might be missed by his wife ?'

'His wife!' said Pennik, half contemptuously.

'She is a useful and decent woman. Will you understand me if I say that, always providing you did do this, you broke, her heart?' ' "Always providing I did it?" ' repeated Pennik, raising his sandy eyebrows slightly. 'That is what I said.'

Pennik leaned across the table and spoke in a different voice.

'Are you challenging me, sir?' he inquired. There was a silence. It was broken by Chief Inspector Masters.

'Steady!' he roared. 'Steady, flow. This can't go on. It can't, I tell you!'

'You are quite right,' agreed Pennik, drawing a deep breath. 'I beg your pardon, Doctor. I must keep in mind certain facts; I must do nothing foolish or hasty.' He turned half-petulant. 'Try to understand me, gentlemen. I claim no supernatural powers of any kind; I work by a natural force well known to myself. I do not say the force wovld always operate. No, no, no. I am more modest than that: I say it would perhaps succeed in seven cases out often. This I shall make quite clear to the gentlemen of the Press -'

A new cause for worry presented itself to Masters.

'Now, now!' he said. 'Haif a tick! You don't mean you're going to talk to the newspapers?'

'And why not?'

'But you can't do that, sir!'

'Oh ? And how do you propose to stop me, Inspector?... There were quite a number of journalists at the Grovetop police-station. I told them I should issue a statement later in the day. I was first approached,' he took a card out of his pocket and studied it, 'by Mr Dodsworth of the Evening Griddle. The Griddle , I am informed, is a "scandal-sheet." I do not object to it on those grounds - scandal is often stimulating and healthy. But there are others which are definitely not scandal-sheets. Let me see. Mr Banks of the News-Record . Mr MacBain of the Daily Trumpeter. Mr Norris of the Daily Non-Stop. Mr O'Brien of the Evening Banner . Mr West-house of the Daily Wireless. And (yes, here we are) Mr Kynaston of The Times .

Masters choked.

'So you want publicity, eh?'

'My dear sir, I neither court publicity nor do I coyly shrink from it. If these gentlemen have any questions to ask me, I shall be happy to answer them.'

'Oh, ah? And you propose to tell them what you've just told me?'

'Naturally.'

'You know they won't be allowed to print a word of it, don't you?'

'We must see what happens,' said Pennik, uninterested.

'It would be unfortunate if I were compelled to exercise my power again merely to prove it. Do not drive me to those lengths, my friend. I am a simple-minded soul and I wish to do the right thing by everybody. And now, if you have no further use for me at the moment, I will say good day. You will be able to find me at Fourways whenever you want me. True, Mrs Constable has ordered me out; her dislike of me has begun to border on the maniacal; but the police have told me to stay, and, as you notice, I am always happy to obey any reasonable request.'

'Sir, I'm telling you straight! I forbid you to say a word about this to any news -'

'Don't be a fool, Inspector. Good day.'

It was his last word. He adjusted his hat, picked up the crooked stick, and went out after a cool nod to Sanders. They saw him going rather self-consciously along the road towards the bus-stop. Sanders said one word.

'Well?'

'He's insane,' declared the chief inspector. 'Do you really believe that?'

'What else can he be?' said Masters. He brooded. 'And yet there's something about the man. I'll admit that. Lummy, I never had anybody talk to me quite like that before in all my born days. For the life of me I can't treat him like the usual crank who comes in and says he did a murder. I know that kind; met thousands of'em; and, I tell you straight, he won't fit in.'

'Suppose,' muttered Sanders, thoughtfully, 'just suppose, and don't rise up in wrath: but suppose he says somebody else is going to die at a certain time - and the person does?'

'I shouldn't believe it, that's all.'

'Well, that's very straightforward and sensible, but it's not much help, is it? Can you imagine what the popular Tress could do with a story like this? No wonder they think it's hot.'

Masters shook his head sceptically. 'I'm not much worried about that side of it, sir. Even off their own bats there isn't a paper in town that'd dare handle a yarn like that; and they certainly wouldn't when they get their orders. But what worries me - urr! - yes, I'll admit it. What worries me is that I think that chap did kill Mr Constable after all.' 'Are you being converted?'

'Not like you mean. Not me. But, Doctor, that chap was sincere. He meant it, or I'm a Dutchman. I can smell things like that. What I mean is that he's, maybe, got a new, Simon Pure, foolproof way of polishing people off, like a new kind of blow to the stomach....'

'Even when it can be proved absolutely that he was downstairs with Mrs Chichester and her son?'

'What we want is facts,' said Masters, doggedly. He considered, and his expression had a far-away gleam. 'So far as I can see, there's just one consolation so far. Lord, how it's going to get hold of a certain gentleman we both know!' And now round his eyelid there was the suggestion of a happy wink. 'Just between ourselves, Doctor, what do you think Sir Henry Merrivale is going to say?'

CHAPTER VIII

'Phooey!' said H. M.

At about the time Fourways was built, certain enterprising decorators made popular an article of furniture or decoration which was known as the 'Turkish corner'. In one corner of your drawing-room you built up a small nook or alcove hung with heavy Eastern curtains, tasselled and thick-draped. These framed a recess filled by a striped ottoman; dim scimitars hung crossed on the wall inside. Sometimes a tiny yellow-glass lantern burned there, but not often. The effect was towards mysteriousness and romanticism -at home; inevitably, the Turkish corner attracted courting couples and also all the dust in the house.

In the gloom of late afternoon, in the drawing-room at Fourways, H. M. sat on the edge of the ottoman and glared.

Even Masters had seldom seen a more malevolent expression on his face. Moving his glasses up and down his nose, he peered alternatively between Dr Sanders and the chief inspector. Occasionally, as he shifted his large bulk on the ottoman, dust would sift down on his bald head and make him look up and swear. But he was too concentrated or too dignified to move. Or perhaps he rather liked the Turkish corner.