John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

'And that's the situation, Sir Henry,' said Masters, almost happily. 'Just offhand, now, what would you say about it?' H. M. sniffed.

'I'd say,' he answered, querulously, 'what I've said before. I dunno why it is. But, Masters, you manage to get tangled up in some of the god-damnedest cases I ever heard tell of. They won't let you alone, will they? You'd think that sooner or later they'd get tired of thinkin' up ingenious dirty tricks especially for your benefit, and go off and pester somebody else for a while. But oh, no. No such luck. Will you tell me why it is?'

'I suppose it's because I get mad so easily,' Masters admitted, with a certain candour. 'Like you.' 'Like me?' 'Yes, sir.'

'What d'ye mean, like me ?' said H. M., suddenly putting his head up. 'Have you got the infernal, star-gazin' cheek to suggest that, I of all people in the world -

'Now, now, sir! I didn't mean anything like that.'

'I'm glad to hear it,' said H. M., brushing the lapels of his coat with immense dignity, and relaxing. 'In all this world there's nothin' but misconceptions, misconceptions, misconceptions. Take me, for instance. Do they appreciate me ? Haa! You bet they don't.'

Sanders and the chief inspector stared at him. This was a new mood: not the plaint, of course, but the dreariness of the tone which seemed to suggest that flesh is but grass, and man travelleth a weary road but to die.

'Er - there's nothing wrong, is there ?'

'What d'ye mean, wrong?'

'Well, sir - this reducing business hasn't affected your health, or anything like that ?'

'I've been makin' a speech,' said the chief of the Military Intelligence Department, inspecting his shoes gloomily. Then he fired up again. 'After all, I was only tryin' to do somebody a good turn, wasn't I ? I'm a member of the Government, ain't I? It was to help Squiffy out. Y'see, Squiffy was to make the speech officially declaring open a new branch railway-line up north. He had a touch of 'flu and couldn't go, so I offered to do it. It was a whoopin' big success, except for a spot of bother coming back. They had a special train. And I discovered the engine-driver was an old friend of mine. Well, so naturally I had to ride in the cab with old Tom Porter, didn't I ? Curse it all, what would you expect' me to do ? Then I said, "Look here, Tom, move over and let me drive the thing." He said, "Do you know how?" I said, "Sure I know how" because I've got a mechanical mind, haven't I? He said, "All right; but take her dead slow." ‘

Masters stared at him.

'You don't mean you wrecked the train, sir?'

'No, 'a' course I didn't wreck the train!' said H. M., as though this were the whole point of the grievance. "That's just it. Only I sort of hit a cow.'

'You did what?'

'I hit a cow,' explained H. M. 'And they got pictures of me arguin' with the farmer afterwards. Squiffy was wild: which is gratitude for you. He said it lowered the tone of people in public life. He said I was always doing it, which is a lie. I haven't been at a public ceremony since I christened that new mine-sweeper at Portsmouth three years ago, and then was it my fault if they launched her down the slip too soon and the champagne-bottle conked the Mayor instead? Burn me, why have they always got to pick on me?'

'Well, now, sir -' began Masters, soothingly.

'I'll tell you what it is,' growled H. M., suddenly coming to the root of the trouble. 'You mightn't believe it. But I've heard rumours. And I've heard there's some low, evil-minded talk about puttin' me in the House of Lords. I say, Masters, they can't do that, can they?'

Masters looked doubtful.

'Hard to say, sir. But I don't see how they can put you in the House of Lords just because you hit a cow.'

'I'm not so sure,' said H. M., darkly suspicious of their capabilities in any direction. 'They're never tired of telling me what a maunderin', cloth-headed old fossil I am. You mark my words, Masters: there's dirty work afoot, and if they can make use of any more accidents, I'll wind up in the House of Lords. On top of that, what happens? I come down here expecting a quiet tag of the week-end after all my heavy labours, and what do you give me? Another murder. Cor!'

'Speaking of Mr Constable's death -'

'I don't want to speak of it,' said H. M., folding his arms. 'In fact, I'm not goin' to. I'll make my excuses and I'll clear out. And by the way, son, where is Mrs Constable ? Where is everybody?'

Masters looked round inquiringly.

'Couldn't tell you, Sir Henry. I just came on from the police-station myself. But Dr Sanders came back here ahead of me...?'

'Mrs Constable,' Sanders told them, 'is upstairs in her room, lying down. Miss Keen is with her. Chase is talking to the policeman they've left posted in the kitchen. Pennik seems to have disappeared.'

H. M. looked uncomfortable.

'So,' he said, 'the lady isn't takin' her husband's death at all well?'

'No. Very badly. Hilary had to sleep in her room both Friday night and last night. But she's better now, and she particularly wants to see you.'

'Me? Why me, curse it?'

'Because she thinks Pennik is both a fraud and a criminal lunatic, and she says you can expose him. She knows all about the Answell case and the Haye case and the rest of them; she's a great admirer of yours, H. M. And she's been looking forward to this; she hasn't talked of much else. Don't let her down.'

H. M. stirred and glowered.

But his sharp little eye grew fixed; he pushed his glasses back up to their proper position, and then peered over them.

'So she says Pennik's a fraud, hey?' he inquired in a curious voice. 'But that's rather rummy, ain't it, son? Wasn't she the one who found Pennik and swore he was genuine and backed up Pennik against her husband?'

'Yes.'

'Then why the complete about-face? When did that happen?'

'When Pennik killed - or said he killed - Constable. When Pennik announced it, that is.'

'Oh? Did she think somebody else ought to have the credit, then?'

Sanders spread out his hands. 'She doesn't pretend it's rational. At the moment she doesn't think; she only feels. She wants to hit out at Pennik in some way. That's why I hope you and Masters will take over and straighten this business out. I've been exposed to the danse macabre for two nights, and it isn't the pleasantest thing in the world.'

H. M. muttered to himself. Then he looked up.

'Masters,' he said, 'this business is queerer than you think.'

'It can't be any queerer than I think,' said the chief inspector. 'Of course, remember one thing. We can't say for certain it was murder -'

'Oh, Masters, my son! Of course it was murder.'

'All the same -'

'Pennik says a man will die before eight o'clock. And a man does die before eight o'clock. Oh, my eye! Don't that nasty suspicious mind of yours, that wouldn't trust your own mother to fill the baby's bottle, at least have a twinge of curiosity about it?'

'All very well, sir,' said Masters, stubbornly. 'That's what the doctor said, and to a certain extent I agree. The question is, how can we prove it when there isn't a thing to show how Mr Constable died ? Wouldn't you allow, now, that as far as proving anything at all goes we're landed in the worst mess of our natural-born lives?'

H. M. lowered his defences.

'Uh-huh,' he admitted.

Getting to his feet, he began to lumber back and forth with his thumbs hooked in his waistcoat pockets and his corporation, ornamented with a large gold watch-chain, preceding him in splendour like the figure-head of a man-o'-war. If he had been reducing since Sanders saw him last, it was not apparent.

'All right, all right,' he growled. 'Let's argue this out, then. - Not that I'm takin' it up, mind!'

'Just as you like. But what,' said Masters persuasively, 'what would you say about our friend Pennik, now?'

H. M. stopped short.

‘No,' he said with some firmness. 'I'm not goin' to tell you what I think, if anything. I'm too worried, Masters. The thought of me dressed up in a robe and coronet - son, it's enough to make my flesh creep. If those hyena-souled bounders are really skulkin' in ambush just waitin' for another excuse so they can stick me into the House of Lords, I got to think of a way to circumvent 'em. No. I don't mind listening to what you know about this case, but you've got to tell me what you think.' Masters nodded.

'Fair enough, sir. To begin with, I'm a plain man, and I don't believe in miracles. Except the Biblical kind, which don't count. Now, I've been all over the facts with Superintendent Belcher; and Herman Pennik didn't commit this crime (if it is a crime) because he couldn't have. That's the first step. Next, who else can we definitely eliminate on the ground of alibis? Who else didn't do it?'

His pause was rhetorical.

'I didn't,' replied Sanders, as seemed to be expected of him. 'And Hilary Keen didn't. We can confirm each other because we were together.'

'That's established, son?' inquired H. M.

'Yes,' agreed Masters, 'that's all right. Very well, sir. Stands to reason! - if Mr Constable was murdered, he must have been murdered either by Mrs Constable or Mr Chase.'

'That's nonsense,' said Dr Sanders curtly.

Masters held up his hand.

'Just a moment, sir. Ju-ust a moment.' He turned to H. M. 'There's opportunity, you see. A blow to the body. A crack over the head. Even something that gave the old gentleman a nervous turn and killed him. Any of them could have been done either by his wife or Mr Chase. Neither of 'em has got an alibi. Eh?'

H. M. continued to pace.

'So far,' pursued Masters, 'we've accepted Mrs Constable's story about the old gentleman walking out of his bedroom and throwing a fit in the hall. Belcher accepted it. Colonel Willow accepted it. But is it true ? Dr Sanders didn't see the old gentleman until he was in the last stages of the fit just before he died. The lady could have hit him. The lady could have scared him. - Or, taking it the other way round,

Mr Chase could have hit him and nipped back to his room before anybody saw it.'

Here Masters lifted his finger weightily.

'What's next to be considered, sir? I'll tell you: motive. Who might have had a motive ? Pennik hadn't a motive, not what I'd call a motive; this talk about "scientific experiments" is bugaboo. Dr Sanders didn't have a motive. Miss Keen didn't have a motive. But what about Mr Chase and Mrs Constable?

'Mind, I'm only suggesting here. Mr Chase is a relative, they tell me. Also, from what they tell me, he seems to have been uncommon attentive to a gent old enough to be his father, and not his lively type at all. Is it just possible he gets a good slice of Mr Constable's money ? As for Mrs Constable - we-ll,' said Masters, with another broadly sceptical look. 'I shouldn't want all night with a wet towel round my head thinking of several reasons why she might have wanted out of the way a wealthy husband twenty years older than herself. Eh?’

'May I say something?' asked Sanders.

H. M. nodded, still without speaking.

'It's this. I have never in my life seen a woman more genuinely knocked over with grief than Mrs Constable was.'

'Oh, ah?' said the chief inspector.

'I don't give that as an opinion. I state it as a medical fact. I will take my oath she did not, and never could have, killed her husband. That woman nearly died on Friday night.'

'Of a broken heart?' inquired the chief inspector.

'If you want to put it like that. Masters, you can't fool a doctor with crocodile tears; and she didn't try. She was as genuinely shocked and scared by the death of her husband as Hilary Keen was genuinely shocked and scared by something in her room earlier on Friday night. It was a matter of physical symptoms with both of them.'