John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

Sanders paused.

‘I tell you that before telling you something else, which you will probably find out anyway. It's better for you to hear it from me. On Friday night at about quarter to eight – this part of it you know - something frightened Hilary in the next room. She ran over to me, by way of the balcony outside both windows. When she came in at the window, she knocked over a lamp. Mr Constable heard the row and came down to see what was the matter. As he was leaving us, I said to him something like, " Nobody has tried to murder you so far, I imagine?" He said, "Not as yet. The scrap-book remains on its shelf."

'Wait! I didn't know what that remark meant, and I still don't. I can only tell you one other fact. Under Mrs Constable's bedside table where she probably writes at night, there are a couple of bookshelves; and in among the works of reference there does happen to be a large scrap-book labelled, New Ways of Committing Murder.'

Again there was a silence.

Masters looked very thoughtful.

'New ways of committing murder,' he mused, with rising excitement. 'You know, Doctor, I shouldn't be surprised, I shouldn't be at all surprised, if this may not give us just what we want. Eh, Sir Henry?'

'I dunno,’ said H. M. 'What frightened the gal ?'

'Eh?'

'I said, what frightened the gal ?' repeated H. M., pausing in his stumping walk and turning a face of exasperation. 'This Hilary Keen you've been talkin' about. Everybody seems to know she got a fright; but nobody seems to know what did it. Or even care what did it. Didn't your friend Belcher ask her about that?'

Masters chuckled, leafing back through his notebook.

'Oh yes, the superintendent asked her. He's got a nasty suspicious mind, if you like. He wanted to know what she was doing in Dr Sanders's room. She said she'd suddenly got the wind up, about Pennik's prediction and everything; she couldn't stand being alone any longer, so she ran next door to the doctor's room.' He hesitated. 'Nothing in that, is there?'

'Oh, Masters, my son! Why go by way of the balcony?' 'Well, there's that, of course.'

'There is. Balconies are messy and full of dirt. Climbin' through windows is messy and undignified. If you want company, why do that when all you've got to do is walk down a hall and open a door? Furthermore, she smashes a lamp and Sanders here says she was in a state borderin' on real collapse. It looks as though there must have been something or somebody between her and the door.'

Outside the long windows of the drawing-room, the afternoon light had grown dull and chilly. It made the polished floor a pale lake across which their shadows moved. But it did not penetrate far among the curtains or the spidery furniture; and, under a white marble mantelpiece, the orange square of the electric heater deepened its glow. So, Sanders reflected, Hilary had refused to tell the police as well.

Then he felt H.M.'s eye on him.

'But she must 'a' told you, son ? Or given you some hint ?'

'No.'

'You mean she refused ?' 'Yes, in a way.'

'Still, you were there on the spot. You must have had some idea what caused it ?'

'No. That is, I thought I had, for a minute; but it turned out to be wrong, so we can forget about it.'

'Hold on a bit, Masters!' urged H. M., waving his hand towards the chief inspector as he seemed about to interfere. H. M. spoke in a new voice. He moved his spectacles up and down his nose. Sitting down on the ottoman, which creaked wirily under his weight, he continued to move the spectacles up and down his nose. He added: 'Y'know, son, you worry me.'

'Worry you? Why?' 'Who is this gal?'

'Miss Keen? I don't know. I've only known her for a couple of days.' 'I see. Fallin' for her, are you?' 'I hardly see why you should think that.' In his heart Sanders had always stood a good deal in awe

of H. M. He thought H. M. was funny; he enjoyed H. M. most when the old man went quite soberly and seriously about foolishness; but even at the moments of grousing he never quite lost that original feeling. He had, therefore, to muster up his nerve to snarl back. . It made no impression.

'Ho, ho,' said H. M. 'I'm a mind-reader, that's why. Now, if Pennik had said that, merely by using his eyes and his intelligence like me, you'd have handed him the gold-plated wizard's cap. It's an old medieval custom.'

His tone changed.

'Oh, I got no objection. And I can tell you who she is. Her father was old Joe Keen, who married that gold-digger out of the Holborn Viaduct chorus when his first wife died. A very intelligent gal, I hear - the daughter, that is. But that's not the point at issue, son. The only point at issue at the moment' - here he looked very hard at Sanders - 'is, who or what did you think frightened her?'

'I thought it was Pennik,' said Sanders, and he told them about the chef's cap under the dressing-table.

Masters was about to interrupt with fiery interest, but H. M. cut him short.

'So? Did you ask her about it, son?'

'Yes, and she denied it, so there's an end to that.'

'Still - a chef's cap's not a very common thing to find under a dressing-table in a bedroom, is it? Did she tell you what it was doin' there?'

'We had other things to think about.'

'You mean she wouldn't answer you ?' ‘

'I mean I did not carry the subject any further.'

'Steady, son. Fair play. What else was there that made you think it might have been Pennik in her room?'

'All this week-end,' said Sanders, rather wearily, 'we've been accustomed to having our thoughts stimulated up to a high old pitch before they were dragged out of us. This was merely the result of it. It was Pennik's attitude towards her, a sort of doglike devotion. He couldn't talk naturally to her, or be quite easy in her presence. He was on to anything that concerned her in a flash. He seemed on the edge of something. I had an uneasy feeling that that whole "prophecy", about Constable's death, came from a wish to show off in front of her. To be frank, when she climbed in my window her state didn't suggest a woman who had been given a merely mental fright.' H. M. stirred.

'So? Humble and unassumin' admirer suddenly goes off the rails.' He hesitated. 'I say, Masters, I don't like this.' He hesitated again. 'Still - she's not what you'd call the fainting type?'

'No.'

'And that,' the chief inspector intervened, 'was why you asked Pennik this morning whether he'd been upstairs on Friday night, Doctor? Just so! Which he denied.'

'Which he denied,' agreed Sanders.

H. M. scowled.

'It still bothers me. You'd have thought she'd have been able to handle a situation like that a bit more firmly, wouldn't you? I'm not goin' to generalize. Women are apt to say they'd do one thing if somebody went berserk, and then do something else altogether when it happens. But it still bothers me like blazes. Supposin' it wasn't what you thought it was: what could Pennik have done to her that would have scared her as much as that?'

That had hit it.

It was, Sanders knew, what had been subconsciously worrying him since Friday night.

'But she says it wasn't Pennik,' he pointed out, 'and in that case I'm betting it wasn't. We don't know who or what it was. All we do know is that she was frightened.'

'S-s-t!' said Masters, quickly.

They all looked round, for there were footsteps on the unglazed tiles of the hall outside the door. Lawrence Chase, straight-backed and at case, came in with his brisk walk which seemed to push the floor away behind him like a man climbing a ladder. He was smiling, and he eyed the newcomers with frank interest.

'Here we are,' said Sanders. 'Mr Chase - Chief Inspector Masters. And Sir Henry Merrivale.'

While Chase shook hands with subdued enthusiasm, his quick eye missed no detail.

'Hel-lo,' he said. 'So the mighty have arrived. I've never been better pleased. How do you do, Chief Inspector? And you, sir? I know a great deal about you both, you see.' Then he turned round with a certain arrogance, and spoke casually to Sanders: 'You'd lose your money, old man.'

‘Money?'

'Your bet.'

'But what bet?'

'That Pennik wasn't in Hilary's room on Friday night,' explained Chase, drawing a cigarette-case out of his inside pocket. 'I can't imagine why it should be of any interest to the lords of Scotland Yard, but there it is. I certainly never thought anything of it until now, but he was there. I saw him.'

Drawing out a chair of some discomfort, he sat down, adjusted his knees and his long legs, spun the cigarette-case into the air, caught it, and looked at them all with interest, as though he were awaiting applause for a conjuring-trick.

CHAPTER IX

I t was Masters who came into action now.

'Just one moment, sir!' tie warned, getting out his notebook and giving Chase that perfunctorily sinister look which a statement of this kind warranted. 'You say you saw Mr Pennik in Miss Keen's room on. Friday night?'

'Well, to be strictly accurate, I saw him come out of it,' Chase corrected himself. He spun the cigarette-case again.

'And when was this,-may I ask?'

'About a quarter to eight.'

'Oh? And yet we're given to understand, sir, that at about a quarter to eight Mr Pennik was downstairs opening the back door to Mrs Chichester and her son.'

·Yes, that's all right,' said Chase-He reflected. 'I'm pretty sure I heard the back doorbell start to ring as Pennik was barging down the stairs.'

Masters looked at him.

'Now, sir, you have already made a statement to Superintendent Belcher?'

'That's right. Good old Belcher. Cripes, what a name!' Evidently seeing that he had struck the wrong note, he suddenly became almost austere. His narrow shoulders went back. Behind everything you seemed to see curiosity twining; but though he continued to spin the cigarette-case in the air, his voice grew curt and businesslike. 'I gave the superintendent a statement, as you say. -Yes ?'

'Yet you didn't mention this to him.'

'No; why should I? It had nothing to do with poor old Sam's death. Besides -'

'If you don't mind,' said Masters, lifting a lordly hand. 'Just let me read you a part of your statement. You say: "At seven-thirty Mrs Constable asked me to show Pennik where the kitchen was, while the others went on upstairs, I showed him the kitchen, and the refrigerator, and so on, and then I went upstairs. I was not with him longer than a couple of minutes. Afterwards I was in my room dressing, and I did not leave it until I heard Mrs Constable scream at eight o'clock." '

'Yes, that's all right.' After listening critically, he raised his head. "What of it? It's all true. I didn't leave my room. I wasn't with Pennik, and didn't speak to him. But I saw him.'

'Will you explain that, sir?' Chase relaxed.

'With pleasure. At about a quarter to eight my bath was running and I was getting out of my clothes. I heard one whacking great crash, like glass or china smashing. I opened the door of my room and looked out. I saw Pennik come out of Hilary's room, close the door behind him, and go downstairs. That's all.'

'But didn't that strike you as odd ?'

Chase frowned. He put up his head and studied Masters with a strange, broad look like a man trying to get a good view of a too large picture.

. 'No, certainly not. Why should it? Hilary had offered to help him with the dinner; or to serve it, at least. (Sanders will confirm that.) That's why I supposed he was there.'

'Is that right, Dr Sanders?'

'Quite right.'

'Hurrum! But didn't the smash of china strike you as odd, Mr Chase?' Chase hesitated.

'Yes, it did - for a second. Then I got an explanation of it; and I didn't think about Pennik afterwards.' His look grew aloof. 'No sooner had Pennik got downstairs than the door of Sam's room opened and out came poor old Sam in a rush, pulling on a dressing-gown and stumbling all over the place in his bare feet to put them right in the slippers. He went straight down to Sanders's room, and banged on the door, and opened it. I heard him ask what was going on. And I heard Sanders's voice say, "It's all right; the lamp fell over." ' .