John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

‘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." ' .

He paused.

'Yes, sir?' prompted Masters.

Chase lifted his shoulders. 'I also heard Hilary's voice.'

'Well?'

'So I closed my door,' said Chase in an elaborately casual tone, and as though he were closing the subject. 'It was no damned business of mine. But why should I think any more about Pennik? After all, Hilary wasn't in her room.'

He did not explain further; he did not need to.

So that, Sanders reflected, was the explanation of Chase's humours over the week-end. If ever a case existed in which everybody (perhaps naturally) misunderstood everybody else's motives, it was this one. But he did not say anything, for the chief inspector's eye warned him. Masters suddenly grew bland and hearty - a sign which Chase recognized, for he unbent as well.

'I see,' observed the chief inspector. 'Quite understandable, as you might say. Quite! So we might as well clear up the point while we're on it, eh?'

Chase grinned at him. 'Ask your questions, Chief Inspector, and no soft soap. Soft soap is always a sign that there's dirty water about. Remember that I'm not apt to trip over my own legal feet.'

'Just so. - Now, when you did see Mr Pennik at that time, did you notice anything odd about him?'

'You keep on using that word "odd". What do you mean, odd?'

Masters merely made a gesture.

'No, I can't say I did. The light in the hall "was too dim for me to make out his expression, if that's what you mean. Except that he went along at a kind of waddle, like a damned great ape. But then (and I am not afraid of slander here) I already suspected he was touched in the head.'

'Touched in the head ?'

'Look here, Chief Inspector.' Chase spun the cigarette-case into the air and caught it. He seemed to come to a decision. 'I've been in some degree of hot water over this already. It's quite true: he really did ask me, in the kitchen, whether he could be charged with murder if he killed a man under the conditions he described. I said that even in the present state of the law it still wasn't a crime to sit down and think as hard thoughts about a man as you liked. He was so infernally reasonable and academic about the whole thing; you can't help rather liking the fellow. - Don't you agree, Sanders?'

‘Yes, I think I do.'

'But to take him seriously: oil'

From the Turkish corner, where H. M. sat with the corners of his broad mouth turned down, issued a chuckle of sour amusement.

'Ho, ho,' said H. M. 'So you were beginnin' to take him seriously, then, son ?'

Chase pointed the cigarette-case.

'Well, a little thought-reading is one thing,' he said, as though arguing that boys will be boys. 'But to crack a man's bones and skull with thought, like a death-ray, is coming it too strong. Think! Think what it would mean if it were true. Hitler, for instance. Hider suddenly claps his hands to his head and says, "Mein Gott!" or "Mein Kampf!" or whatever it is he's always saying, and falls over as dead as Bismarck. I argued. I said, "Well, could you kill Hitler, for instance?"'

This evoked so much interest that Masters shut up his notebook. H. M. pulled down his spectacles. 'And what'd he say to that, son?' 'He said, "Who is Hitier?" ' 'So?'

'Yes; just like that. All of a sudden it was like talking to the Man in the Moon. I asked him where he had been for the last five or six years. He said quite seriously, "In various parts of Asia, where we do not get much news." He then asked me - me to be reasonable. He said, first, that he didn't claim to succeed with everybody; and, second, that he would have to meet the victim in question and "fit a cap" on him - whatever that may mean - before he could succeed; finally, that he must have lived in conjunction with the victim, who must be of an intelligence inferior to his own.'

Chief Inspector Masters turned a satirical eye towards H.M.

'Which,' Masters pointed out, 'which, for one reason or another, 'ud seem to rule out bumping off Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin or any of the big pots. - But you didn't get all this out of saying a word or two to him on Friday night?'

'No, no, I tackled him yesterday. He... where is he-now, by the way?'

Masters was soothing.

'It's all right, sir. He won't hurt you.'

'You bet he won't; not if I can help it. But where is he?'

'I expect the gentleman's off sulking somewhere. He wanted to talk to some reporters at the police-station; but I convinced 'em he was harmless,' said Masters with rich satisfaction. 'Come, now, sir! You're not impressed by all this rubbish, are you? Then why bother about where he is now?'

'No. It was only,' said Chase, 'that I thought I saw him outside the window just now.'

Masters got up. He went over to the three full-length windows in their bay facing the front of the house, where the last light showed between curtains beaded at the edges like a Spanish hat. Setting his heavy shoulder under the frame, Masters pushed up one window with a screech; and then he ran it up smoothly.

'Bit too warm in here. I'll just take the liberty' - he indicated the liberty he had taken. Then he leaned out and sniffed the air, which stirred with a cool touch down the room.

Thin noises dropped into the hush: a flutter near the bird-bath, a crackle as though of vines contracting at nightfall. But the path outside was empty.

'Probably somewhere about. Mr Pennik likes wandering, they tell me,' Masters went on. He became brisk. 'Now, Mr Chase! There are some questions I'd like to ask you: not about Mr Pennik, but about yourself. And while I do... I wonder, Doctor, whether you'd mind going up and asking Miss Keen to join us? Eh?'

Sanders went, closing the double-doors of the drawing-room behind him.

He had not quite liked the way Masters had looked out of that window, like a marksman on a tower. But when he went upstairs and knocked at the door of Mina Constable's room, nothing could have seemed more domestic. Hilary Keen, with a certain determination, was sitting near the window, knitting; and she bent close to the window to catch the light. Mina, wrapped in a rather gaudy silk robe, sat back in a padded chair by the bed. There was an ash-tray full of cigarette-stubs beside her, and she was smoking still another cigarette: rolling it round and round in her mouth as though the lips were too smooth to hold it. Both women showed a kind of relief. The atmosphere was one of peace -but a dry and drained peace, as though they had exhausted each other's conversation, and merely waited.

Mina was struck to animation as you strike fire from a lighter.

'Who is it downstairs?' she asked, turning large eyes. 'Is it that superintendent again ? I heard you let him in.'

'No, Mrs Constable. It's Chief Inspector Masters and Sir Henry Merrivale. They want to see...'

'I knew it. I knew it. I'll get dressed and go down straightaway. But I haven't got anything black. Oh dear, I haven't got anything black.' For a moment he thought her eyes were going to fill with tears. 'Never mind. What does it matter? It will have to do. You will tell him to wait, won't you, Doctor?'

Sanders hesitated.

'You needn't bother to get dressed, Mrs Constable. Sit there and take it easy; they'll come up here. As a matter of fact, it is Miss Hilary they want to see first.'

Hilary, who had been frowning hideously over the white wool, looked up.

'Me? Why me?'

'Some little mix-up in the testimony. Steady, Mrs Constable!'

Mina, brushing past him, had hurried into the bathroom, turned on the light, pulled a towel off the rail, stumbled against the electric heater, and finally turned in the doorway with her eyes grown hard. It was easy to sense something hard and sinewy and supple in her character, something that was not at first sight apparent. But that was not what attracted his attention. The light from the bathroom fell across her bedside table and the two bookshelves under it; and the tall scrap-book labelled New Ways of Committing Murder was now missing.

'Some little mix-up in the testimony ?' inquired Mina, -massaging her hands on the towel. 'What is it?

'Nothing important. Honestly.'

'Something to do with the toad Pennik, who wears a jewel in his head?' 'Yes.'

'I knew it! I knew it!'

'Please sit down,' Hilary urged her. She turned to Sanders. 'And - Jack' - the hesitation they had about pronouncing each other's Christian names showed a strong self-consciousness - 'there is something that will have to be settled here and now. Must you be back to work in town to-morrow?'

'Yes, I'm supposed to be. There's the inquest, of course, but that will be adjourned.'

'Couldn't you make some excuse and get leave to stay over?'

'Yes, of course. But why ?'

'Because that lady,' she nodded at Mina, who was still absently massaging her hands, 'must not be allowed to stay here overnight alone. I mean it, Jack. The hospital phoned to say that two of the servants, the cook and the maid, will be out to-morrow; but not until to-morrow. Mrs Constable has got the bee in her bonnet that she wants to stay alone, and she mustn't be allowed to. I'd stay myself like a shot, only we've got that Rice-Mason case coming up to-morrow and unless I go up to-night it quite plainly and simply means the sack. Can't you stay ?'

(After all, Sanders was reflecting, with his eye on the gap in the bookshelf where New Ways of Committing Murder had stood, I'm not a policeman. It is no business of mine. But I wish that book hadn't disappeared.)

'Please, aren't you listening?'

'Of course,' he said, pulling his thoughts back. 'I'd be only too glad to stay, if Mrs Constable doesn't mind having me. And she could do with looking after for another night: she isn't as well as she thinks she is.'

Mina's eyes puckered up; then her face grew gende with a smile of great charm. Tossing the towel aside, she went over impulsively and put her hand on Hilary's arm.

'Whatever happens,' she said, 'thanks, anyway. You've been very decent to me, both of you. And you, Hilary: I don't know what I'd have done without you. Cooking the meals! And even washing the dishes!'

'A terrible job,' said Hilary dryly. 'A perfectly back-breaking job. It quite wore me out. What on earth do you do when you're off on one of these heathenish trips of yours and there isn't anybody to wash the dishes ?’

'Oh, I pay somebody to do it,' said Mina with a certain vagueness. 'Saves time and trouble, you see.' Her tone changed. 'But don't you worry about me, my dear. I shall be quite all right, too all right. I'm looking forward to it. That is, if I can persuade the toad Pennik to stay too.'

'Pennik?'

'That's right.'

'But I thought-'

'I want to talk to Sir Henry Merrivale,' Mina went on. 'Then we shall see what we shall see. Now get out of here, please, both of you; and let me dress. There!'

She impelled them out with the briskness of one who was again on the edge of a breakdown, and the door closed noisily. Sanders was not sorry to go. He had certain things to say to Hilary; and yet he found that he would have difficulty in saying them.