John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

'It sounds like an accordion, sir.' 'Does it, indeed?'

'Yes, sir. Joe Crowley playing John Peel. He -'

'I do not care if it is Rachmaninoff playing his Prelude.

He cannot play it outside my court. Will you go and send

them away? 'Very good, sir.'

'Yes. Now. Gentlemen of this jury. I am very sorry, gentlemen, to have both you and myself subjected to this annoyance. If you can shut your ears against it, let us proceed with the examination of the last witness. Dr Sanders.'

Sanders, in the witness-chair, looked round. He was thinking that he had never seen a drearier-looking place than this long schoolroom. Out of the gloom the wooden faces of H. M., of Masters, of Superintendent Belcher, of Dr Edge, of Lawrence Chase, who had formally identified the body. All of them were very quiet.

But it seemed to him that the jury were bursting.

'Now, Doctor! You have given us a very clear and concise statement as to your examination of the deceased, both immediately after death and at the post-mortem. You would say that your examination was exhaustive?'

'I should.'

'I take it, then, that you agree with the opinion already given to us by Dr Edge? 'I do.'

'Now, then! Move along there! Mo-we along!' "Ere! Ooyer shovin'?' 'Moo-ve along, now! Mo-ove along!' 'Yah! Think yer almighty big in that 'elmet, don'tcher? Boo! Ssssss! Boo!' 'All together, boys:

"D'ye ken Bobbie Peel with his helmet so gay, D'ye ken Bobbie Peel at the break of day" -'

'Will someone be good enough to close that other window? Thank you, Inspector. I would rather stifle than go deaf. A strong line, I am afraid, must be taken. Now, Dr Sanders.'

Sanders gave mechanical replies. His head ached dully from sitting up all night over books, and the noise outside did not soothe it. Nagging at the back of his mind was always the realization that Hilary had not gone out with him last night after all, so the first round went to Pennik.

'You further tell us, Doctor, that no organ necessary to life was in any way injured?'

'That is correct.'

'And that, though there are causes by which this condition could have been produced, it is impossible to tell which one of those causes (if any) was responsible for Mr Constable's death?'

'Yes.'

(Damn Pennik and everything connected with him. I could not have slept last night if I had tried. This mere business of suggestion is enough to make the nerves crawl. You imagine things. It's past three o'clock now. The sun will go down presently. Pennik tries out his game on me between nine-forty-five and ten-fifteen to-night. Seven hours to go.)

'Tell me, Doctor. The deceased did not die instantly?'

'No. Quickly, but not instantly. Within two minutes, at any rate.'

'Should you say that he died in pain?'

'In a great deal of pain, yes.'

(Rather humiliating, though, to go round to Hilary's tiny bed-sitting-room flat in Westminster; to reserve a table for them at the Corinthian grill room; and then to find she had gone out already with Pennik, leaving regrets with a charwoman. There was that note, though. 'Please trust me, that's all; I'm working with your H. M. now, and he's got a plan.' But what plan ?)

'may I have your attention, Doctor?'

' I beg your pardon.'

(But what plan? What was behind H. M.'s wooden look?)

'Let us clear up one thing now, Doctor. You place no belief, then, in any suggestion of a supernatural or even supernormal cause of death?' 'No belief whatever.'

'Would you go so far as to say that such a suggestion was nonsense?' ‘I should.'

'In conclusion: we may sum up your opinion by saying that it is impossible for you or me or anyone else to determine the cause of death?'

'Yes.'

'Thank you, Doctor: that will be all.'

One of the jurymen, a red-headed wiry man in a tall collar, who had been fidgeting even more than the others, managed to clear his throat.

'Hold on!' he said. 'Excuse me, Mr Coroner, but are we allowed to ask a question?'

'Yes, certainly. Please ask the witness any question you think may be relevant.'

The red-headed man sat forward with his hands on his knees.

'Wot about Teleforce?' he demanded.

A stir went through the jury, who came forward as though they had been pulled to a similar position. The foreman, a stout man who owned the most flourishing public-house in Grovetop, looked annoyed; as though he had not been quick enough off the mark to put the question himself. . But he repeated the question.

'I have never heard of it,' Sanders said curtly.

'Don't you read the newspapers, sir?'

'I mean that I have never heard of it scientifically. If you ask me my opinion of it, I can only join Professor Huxdane in calling it balderdash.'

'But-'

'Gentlemen,' interrupted the coroner coldly. 'I am sorry to curtail your natural and commendable wish to weigh matters thoroughly; but I must ask you to confine your questions to points which are relevant to this inquiry. You have heard the medical evidence. Your decision must be based on that and that alone. I do not merely request you to do this, gentlemen; I am afraid I must instruct you to do it.'

Once their spell of silence had been broken, most of die jury were shivering with such repressed eagerness that several of them spoke at once.

'But that's not right,' somebody threw at the coroner.

'Sir, are you presuming to question my conduct of this inquiry?'

'Doctors,' said an obscure, furred voice of contempt. 'Doctors! You take my wife. When she died, the doctor said-'

'I have said, gentlemen, that I mean to have silence; and have silence I will. Is that quite clear?' 'Good Lord, there he is' 'Who?'

'I say, Sally, quick! Here, I’ll hold you up. Getting out of that car.' '

'waow!'

'Blimey, it is too. I seen 'is pitcher. Oi, old cock: wot about killin' my missus?'

'And now, gentlemen, I am afraid I must ask you to direct your attention towards me rather than looking up towards those windows. What lies outside these walls does not, I need scarcely point out, concern us. Thank you, Dr Sanders: the jury have no further questions. They are satisfied -'

'Murderer, that's what he is!'

'Ssss! Boo! Ssss! Boo!'

'Here, I say! Fair play. Give the man a chance. What's he done?' 'What's he done? He's a Nazi, didn't you know that?' ' What are they saying? What is it?' 'Nazi. Great friend of Hitler.'

'Ah. True as gospel. Heard it at the pub last night. Big fat gentleman from London; bald-headed; got a title; said -'

'- that evidence, and only evidence, gentlemen of this jury, must concern us. Dr Sanders being the last witness we are to hear, it now devolves upon me to give you a brief summary of the facts to the end of assisting you in forming your verdict. And I fear, gentlemen, that there is only one verdict you can give me. However, let me put the considerations to you in -'

Sanders tiptoed past the few others in the court, still sitting motionless as dummies in the chairs of the front row. He cast a brief glance at H. M., whose eyes were closed, his arms folded, and his corporation rising and falling gently as though in sleep. Masters, on the alert, never looked away from the coroner. But Dr Sanders's nerves crawled and at the moment he wanted to smoke more than anything else in the world.

Pushing open the creaky door, he edged out into an underground passage which was equipped with a small window and a rubbish-bin; and he met Herman Pennik coming down the stairs.

The westering sun was full on Pennik's face through the window, so that for a few seconds Sanders was in shadow. He surprised on Pennik's face a dream; and it was a dream of pure power. Sun touched the thick eyelids and seemed to make the eyes bulge. He was dressed for travelling; neat cap and coat, and he carried a suitcase. Yet he hesitated a little when he saw the little underground room, for he did not ' seem to like little underground rooms. But he had not yet reached the bottom step when a policeman stepped in front of him.

'Yes, sir? And what would you be wanting?' 'I have a fancy, my friend, to attend the Constable inquest.'

'Are you a witness?' '

'No.'

'Press and public not allowed. Up you go, now.'

'I have a fancy to make a statement. I am told that any one who so chooses has a legal right to attend an inquest and give testimony.'

'Not to this one they haven't. Not by my orders.'

'But you don't understand. I am Herman Pennik. I am the fairly well-known person who killed -'

'In that case,' said the constable imperturbably, 'go up to the charge-room and give yourself up. I don't care whom you killed; you've got no business here.'

'Are you trying,' began Pennik, 'to -'

For an instant it was touch and go. He had lifted his thick hand, and he was going to slash it across the constable's face as casually and contemptuously as he might have struck a cobweb out of the way.

But he lowered his hand.

The constable looked at him curiously.

'I don't know what you meant to do, my bucko,' he said, 'but you go trying any games like that and you'll see trouble.'

The door to the inquest-room creaked again. H. M., his fists on his hips, pushed through.

"That's all right, son,' he told the constable. 'Let him come down. The coroner's just about finished in there. And I want to see him.'

Pennik descended the steps. Setting down his suitcase on the floor, he removed his gloves and put them into the pocket of his tan topcoat. He ignored Sanders altogether.

'Ah, so the inquest is over?' he asked. 'I am sorry. I was so unfortunate as to be held up. I go from here to Croydon airport, to save time, which is the reason for the ba

g and -'

'You're sartorial magnificence itself, son,' said H. M., eyeing him. 'I was just wonderin' if you'd turn up.'

'Yes. Now we must try to penetrate your mental defences, Sir Henry,' Pennik spoke with the air of a sympathetic dentist, 'and see what is going on. I confess the decision of the Home Office to hold this inquest in private intrigued me. Particularly, I was curious as to why your friends the newspapers were excluded. I did not see a reporter anywhere. I also wondered whether the whole affair might not be a bait, a challenge, a dare to me.'

H. M. shook his head.

'No, son. I didn't want you to come. I didn't, for a fact. But, now that you're here, I think you might as well come in and hear the verdict.'

'Ah, the effort is to frighten me?1 said Pennik, and laughed in his face. 'Now that is unworthy of you, if I may say so.' In moving closer to H. M. he nearly brushed Sanders's elbow, but remained coolly and contemptuously unconscious of him. 'I have taken legal, counsel. I know quite well, I have established, that I cannot be convicted of any crime whatever.'

'Yes, that's right. You can't be convicted of any crime whatever. But just come in and hear the verdict. That's it. I say, Masters' - he spoke over his shoulder as the chief inspector emerged - 'just take his other arm, will you? We're goin' in to hear the verdict.'

'May I ask what you're doing?'

'We're goin' in to hear the verdict. Phew, you use scent, don't you ? Or is it hair-oil ?'

'Would you mind taking your hand off my arm ?'

'That's right, this way. We'll sit down at the back of the room, where they won't see us.'

' The mutter of noise outside, which had dwindled in the passage, now struck out at them from the inquest-room. Afternoon shadows were gathering in that already dark room, where legs and faces still shifted beyond the windows.

'Well, gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?'