John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

'You maintain,' he insisted, 'that thought-waves have a physical force like sound?' 'I do.'

'But even sound, scientifically, can be measured and weighed.'

- 'Of course. Notes in sound can shatter glass or even kill a man. The same, naturally, applies to thought.'

He spoke with a kind of toiling lucidity. Sanders's first notion - that the man was mad - he knew in his heart to be wrong.

'For the moment, Mr Pennik,' he said, 'we will pass over the question of whether you might be able to kill a man by thinking about him, like a Bantu witch-doctor. Instead let's get down to plain words that even a person of my limited intelligence can understand. What exactly do you do?’

'I will give you an illustration,' replied Pennik simply. 'If you will concentrate your thoughts on something - anything at all, but particularly a person or idea that bulks large in .your life - I will tell you what you are thinking about.'

This was something like a challenge.

'You claim to be able to do that with everyone?'

‘With nearly everyone. Of course, if you do not assist me,

and try to hide what you are really thinking about, it is much more difficult. But it can be managed.'

It was the complete simplicity of the man which shook Sanders's nerve. He found his own thoughts scattering wildly, bolting into corners, in case they should be seen.

'And you want me to test you?'

'If you will.'

'All right; begin,' said Sanders, and braced himself. 'Then since you have ... no, no, no!' Pennik said rather pettishly. 'That will not do.’ 'What will not do?'

'You were trying hard to sweep your mind clear of all genuine or important thoughts; mentally, you were rushing about to bolt and bar every door.' Don't be afraid of me. I will not hurt you. - For instance, you had decided to concentrate on the marble bust of some scientist (Lister, I believe) which stands on a mantelpiece in someone's library.'

It was absolutely true.

There are some emotions whose effect is difficult to gauge because they are drawn from no source that we could ever have expected. To be 'caught’ in a thought is bad enough; to be caught by some friend who knows you and suddenly penetrates the defence with a guess rouses resentment and a certain helplessness. But to be instantly pinned to the wall, the moment your mind has lighted on the smallest triviality, by a complete stranger who looks at you like a dog who has just retrieved a stick -

'No, no,' urged Pennik, lifting his forefinger and waggling it earnestly. 'May I ask you to give me a broader opportunity than that? The bust of Lister means nothing to you. It might have been the Achilles Statue or the kitchen boiler. Will you try again ?'

‘Wait,' interposed Hilary from her seat by the fountain. Her small hands were closed tightly round a handkerchief. ‘Was he right?'

'He was.'

'Blimey,' muttered Lawrence Chase. 'Women and children will now leave the court-room. As I told you in my letter, Sanders, I didn't see how it could be a trick. It isn't as though be asked you to write on little bits of paper or anything like that.'

'A trick. A trick, a trick,' said Herman Pennik, only half humorously. For Sanders felt that under this dignified lightness Pennik was trying very hard; that deep inside him had been touched some huge inner spring of conceit. In short, he was showing off. And he might continue to show off. 'A trick, a trick, a trick! That is all you — we English seem to think about. Well, Doctor, will you try again?'

‘Yes. All right. Go on.'

‘Then I will try to . .. ah, that is better,' said Pennik. He had been shading his eyes with his hand, and now he peered through the fingers. 'You have played fair and concentrated on an emotion.'

Almost without hesitation, he proceeded to tell about Marcia Blystone on the round-the-world cruise with Kessler.

It was a curious sensation, Sanders felt; as though he were being physically pressed upon, as though facts were being pulled out of him like teeth.

‘I - er - hope you don't mind this,' Pennik broke off. 'As a rule I should not have been so frank. My motto has always been that of Queen Elizabeth: video et taceo'. I see and am silent. But you asked me to tell you what you were concentrating on. We could carry it further if we cared. There were, too, things you were trying very hard to conceal from me .. : He hesitated. 'Shall I go on?'

'Go on,' said Sanders through his teeth.

'I should prefer -'

'Go on.'

'It is more recent,' Pennik told him, with an abrupt and surprising satyr-like look. 'Since you arrived at this house you have been violently attracted to Miss Keen there, perhaps on an emotional reaction. This attraction is the cause of your mood. You have been wondering whether Miss Keen may not be more suited to you than the other young lady.'

‘'I knew it!' said Lawrence Chase, jumping to his feet.

Hilary did not speak; it was as though she had not heard. She continued to look incuriously over her shoulder at the glimmering spray of water in the fountain. The light shone on her rich dark-brown hair and the line of her neck as she turned her head. But her obvious start of astonishment was caused Jess by the words than the tone in which Pennik spoke them.

'Am I correct, Doctor?' Pennik asked, colourless again. Sanders did not reply.

'So you admit it,' said Chase. 'All right, Mr Pennik: what am I thinking about?' 'I'd rather not say.'

'Oh? Now will someone just tell me why I am always accused of having a low mind? Why I am always supposed to be thinking -'

'Nobody said you were,' Sanders pointed out mildly. "That would appear to be the trouble with this game. Our consciences are all over us.'

'Well, then, what is Hilary thinking about?' Chase challenged. 'What is the guilty secret she's been hiding all these weeks I've known her?'

Fortunately, they were interrupted. From the dark interior of the house, past a glass door flanked by velvet curtains, they heard hurrying footsteps and the sound of a rather breathless voice calling to them. The curtains were opened by a little, smiling, hurrying woman with her hat on crooked. This could be nobody but their hostess; and Sanders welcomed her presence with a surge of relief. He was beginning to realize that this game of thought-reading could not be carried too far, or it would end in a smash; yet, with ordinary human perversity, everybody insisted on carrying it too far. That was the trouble. And it occurred to him to wonder: Look here, just what is going to happen before this week-end is over?

CHAPTER III

'I'm so sorry to have left you alone,' said Mina Constable. 'And I'm afraid things are so disorganized I don't know which way to turn.'

Sanders liked the look of her: she restored sane values. Mina Constable had a friendliness and sincerity which seemed quite genuine. She was small and quick-moving, with a wiry strength insensible to fatigue. She had large imaginative eyes, dark-brown in colour; a dark complexion; and black hair cut close to her head. Sanders judged her to be very fashionably dressed, though her hat was put on anyhow. Speak to her, and she radiated charm. Yet he saw that traces of a bad attack of malaria were still present: in the pupils of the eye, and in the difficulty she had in holding to her handbag.

Mina Constable glanced quickly over her shoulder.

'I - er - rushed on ahead to tell you,' she went on in the same rather breathless voice. 'I want to warn you, you mustn't mind Sam. That is, if he seems in a mood. He's had a filthy day, poor old boy; what with that smash and now not being able to get anybody to do for us over the weekend. No, the servants are all right, thank goodness; chipper as you please, and it is rotten for them. You do understand, don't you? Oh!'

Catching sight of Sanders, she broke off. It was Chase who performed the introductions. And Chase, perhaps because he was off guard, showed an unusual lack of tact.

'You needn't flatter yourself, Mina,' he said heartily, putting his arm round her shoulders. 'Here's a fellow who never even heard of you. You're not as widely known as you think.'

'I never supposed I was,' said Mina composedly, and smiled at Sanders.

'He never heard,' pursued Chase with relish, 'of My Lady Ishtar or Satan in the Suburbs or even - by the way, our Mina even tried her hand at a detective story. But I still insist it wasn't very successful. I absolutely refuse to believe in that bloke who carted a corpse all over London and then convinced 'em it really died in Hyde Park. I also think the heroine was a chump, losing her head all the time. Still, if the heroine usually wasn't a chump I suppose there wouldn't be any story; so that's all right.'

This touched Sanders where he lived.

'I beg your pardon: you wrote The Double Alibi? I certainly do know you. And I don't agree with Chase at all. You've probably been asked this till you're sick of it, but where did you get the idea for the poison you used there? It's new, and it's scientifically sound.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Mina said vaguely. 'You pick people up. They tell you things.' She seemed anxious to change the subject. 'It's jo nice of you to come down, but I'm afraid we've let you in for a most awful week-end. How do you like Fourways? It's a lovely old house, isn't it?' she asked, with the candour of pure pride. 'Ever since I was a child I've wanted a place like this. Oh, I know people are supposed to groan when you show it to them; but it suits me. I like the atmosphere. So does Sam; he's so understanding about things like that. Larry, do go and get us some drinks, that's a good fellow. I'm dying for a cocktail, and I know Sam will want a Gin-and-It. Er - won't you, my dear?'

She turned round cheerfully, and Sam Constable followed her into the conservatory.

Mr Samuel Hobart Constable was about to speak, but checked himself abruptly when he saw a stranger. He also was breathing hard. Even the way he checked himself from speaking was ostentatious, as though he could speak but pointedly wouldn't out of good manners. He had been pictured as something of an ogre, but Sanders saw him as only fussy and touchy in the late fifties: over-fed, over-pampered, over-opinionated. Though not tall, he was still strikingly handsome in a grey-and-pink-and-white manner. And even in country tweeds he was so carefully dressed that the disarrangement of a crease would have been painful. After the

impressiveness of his pointed silence, he caught sight of the open window. He looked at them again; he went over carefully, picking each step, and closed the window; he gave them a final look.

'How do you do?' he said - and devoted himself to Sanders to the pointed exclusion of everyone else.

'That's all right, my dear,' said Mina, tapping his arm with great brightness. 'Larry is going to get us some drinks (aren't you, Larry?) and then we shall all feel better. After all, Mrs Chichester has promised to get us something to eat-'

Her husband ignored her. He kept his eyes fixed on Sanders. .

'You have probably heard what happened. Well, young man, you will be lucky to get anything to eat at all. In this house, at least. A certain Mrs Chichester has at last graciously consented to preside: she can't do a proper' dinner, but she promises us a "bit of cold beef" and "a nice salad." ' At the very words, his sallow colour rose. 'Well," that's no good to me. I don't want a bit of cold beef and a nice salad. I want a decent dinner, decently cooked. And since-'

'Sam, I really am terribly sorry,' urged Mina, dragging off her hat and throwing it on a wicker settee. Her anxiety deepened as she plucked at his sleeve. 'I do know how you feel. But this is early-closing day, and except for the cold things there simply isn't anything in the house.'