John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

She did resist him, but her knees began to sag with an effect less like' that of a fall than of a collapsing paper lantern. He put his hands under her arms and put her gently down in a chair. She had not finished dressing; she was wearing a large padded pink dressing-gown, which muffled her except for the wiry hands and the muddled face from which the black hair was brushed back. It was an untidy dressing-gown, spotted on the sleeve with what looked like spots of wax. All Mina Constable's vivacity had gone. The lips were white, the pulse very rapid. But it was only when she seemed to realize he was keeping her away from her husband, was holding her back gently in the chair, that she began to fight.

'It's all right, Mrs Constable, We can't do anything now.’

'But he's not really dead! He's not I saw -'

'I'm afraid he is.'

‘You would know? You're a doctor. You would know, wouldn't you?' Sanders nodded.

After a long silence, during which she shuddered, she let herself fall back in the chair. It was as though fright were passing, to be replaced by something else. She seemed to be bracing herself; then, slowly, the tears welled up in her large imaginative eyes.

'It was his heart, wasn't it, Mrs Constable?'

'What did you say?'

'His heart was weak, wasn't it?'

'Yes, he always - no, no, no I' cried Mina, coming to herself and peering at him in a blurred way. 'His heart was as strong as an ox's. Dr Edge told him that only a week ago. Nobody had such a good heart as he had, I think. What does it matter, anyway? I don't know. I didn't give him his two clean handkerchiefs. It was the last thing he asked me to do.'

'But what happened, Mrs Constable?' 'I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.' 'That is, why did you scream?' 'Please let me alone.'

Sanders braced himself, feeling the sympathy he must not allow to show.

'You know I hate to trouble you, Mrs Constable. But, you see, there are certain things we've got to do. We've got to send for a doctor, his own doctor; and perhaps even for the police.' He felt the muscles stiffen in her arm. 'I'll take the responsibility off your shoulders if you'll just tell me what happened, so that I can attend to it.'

'Yes, you're right,' she said, trying to tighten her jaws; but the tears flowed faster for this very resolution. 'I'll do it. You're very decent to me.'

"Then what happened?'

'He was in there -'

They were in Mina Constable's bedroom, a frilled place which nevertheless had a certain austerity about the furniture. It communicated with her husband's bedroom by way of a small bathroom. All doors were open through the suite. Straightening up, passing the back of her hand across her forehead, she indicated the other bedroom.

'He was in there. He'd just finished dressing. I was in here,

sitting over there at that dressing-table. I wasn't ready; I had to help him dress, and I was late. All the doors were open. He called out and said, "I'm going downstairs." (It was the last thing he ever said to me.) I said, "All right, dear." ' This nearly brought on a new paroxysm of tears, though she held her eyes as steady as though the eyelids were fixed.

'Yes, Mrs Constable?'

'I heard his door close, the one out into the hall.'

Again she stopped.

‘Yes?'

'Then I wondered whether I had put out the two clean handkerchiefs he asked for. One for the breast pocket, you know, and one to use.'

'Yes?'

'I wanted to ask him. So I got up and put on a robe,' her shaky fingers touched it; she illustrated everything with gestures; 'and went over - there - and opened my door to look out into the hall. I expected he'd already got downstairs. But he hadn't. He was standing out there with his back to me. Dancing or staggering, or both.'

Again it was several seconds before she could go on. The efforts she made to control her face, tightening the jaws and pressing her tongue against her teeth, were of bitter stubbornness.

'Dancing and staggering?' ' 'It looked like that. He fell. Across that hand-rail. I thought he was going over. I started to call out to him. I knew he was dying.'

‘Why?'

'I can feel things.' ·Yes?'

"That's all. You came out. I heard what you said to Larry Chase.'

'Then that will be enough, Mrs Constable. I'll attend to the rest of it. Come over here and lie down for a while. By the way, you didn't see anybody else in the hall?'

‘No.'

'How long was it between the time you last spoke to your husband and the time you saw him like that in the hall?'

'About a minute. Why do you want to know?' 'Just wondering about the, length of time a seizure would take.'

Yet he could sense a new, queer undercurrent in her voice. And more: a kind of self-contempt, a fierce hesitation on the edge of a decision, which sent her off again. 'I can't lie down,' she said. 'I won't lie down. I want to go and sit with him. I want to think. "The soul of Adonais, like a star." Oh, God help me!'

'This way, Mrs Constable. You'll feel more comfortable.'

T won't.'

"That's better,' said Sanders, gently pulling the down coverlet over her as she sank down on the bed. 'Just a moment.'

By the long breath she drew, he was reassured. He wondered if he could find a sleeping-tablet or a bromide in the house. With a person whose vivid imagination made her such a bundle of nerves and secret fears as Mina Constable, there would probably be some such thing. And he wanted to cloud her wits before she began thinking about Herman Pennik.

He went into the bathroom. It was dark except for the glow coming through from Sam Constable's bedroom, and he switched on the light. The bathroom was a tiny, damp-smelling cubicle, fitted only with a bath, a towel-rail, a wash-bowl with hot and cold, and a medicine-cabinet In the medicine-cabinet (so packed with bottles and appliances that he had to move his wrist carefully to avoid a crash) he found a cardboard box containing quarter-grain morphia tablets under the prescription of a Dr J. L. Edge.

Sanders tipped two out into his hand.

Then, closing the door of the medicine-cabinet, he stared at the reflection of his own face in the glass.

'No!' he said aloud. And he dropped the tablets back in the box, returned it to the cabinet, and went back to the bedroom. Mina Constable was lying very quietly, her eyes half open and little wrinkles slackening round them.

'I'll be within call' he assured her. 'Can you give me the name of your husband's doctor?' ‘

·No.... Yes. Near here?' She was evidendy trying to be sensible and cool. 'Dr Edge. You can telephone him. Grovetop 62.'

'Grovetop 62. Shall I turn out this light by the bed?' 'No!'

It was not that she half-started upright which made him draw back his hand. He had seen something, and it tightened his subconscious fear of giving anyone any medicine in this house. Beside the bed there was a night-table; and near the lamp was a writing-board, a row of sharpened pencils, and several writing-pads restlessly torn. All the tops of the pencils were frayed or bitten by sharp teeth. Under and just behind the table were a couple of very small book-shelves that could be reached from the bed. Thrust in among an Oxford dictionary, a book of synonyms, and fat notebooks or press-cutting books, he saw a taller, thin volume in imitation leather; across it had been pasted a label with the shaky printed words, New Ways of Committing Murder.

He went softly out into the hall. Hilary Keen and Lawrence Chase, their backs to what lay beside the banisters, were waiting with an air of composure.

'Well?' asked Chase. His collar was crumpled up in his left hand.

'You know where things are in this house. Get to the telephone, ring Grovetop 62, ask for Dr Edge, and ask him if he can come over here at once. We won't ring the police just yet.'

'The police, eh? Just exactly what are you thinking, old son?'

'Oh, you never know. But to know what I'm thinking you don't have to be a mind-reader like... where is Pennik, by the way?'

The three of them looked at each other. Pennik's absence was a tangible thing. In all that weighty house they'could not hear a sound except the clock ticking, and the noise, sudden, soft and in-drawn, of an uncontrollable sob from Mina Constable's bedroom.

'I'll go to her,' said Hilary, quickly; but Sanders intervened.

'In a minute. We ought to have a council of war, because we all may have to answer some questions. You would have thought that screaming would have brought the dead up here. Where is Pennik?'

'Why look at me?' inquired Chase. 'How the hell should I know where he is?'

'Only that we left you downstairs with him when we came up to dress.'

'Oh, that? I was only down there a couple of minutes, and that was well over half an hour ago. I simply showed him the kitchen, and said, Get on with it. Then I came up to my room; I've been there ever since. What was that number? Grovetop what? Six-two. Right. Dr Edge. I'll phone him.'

He turned round, almost stumbled over Sam Constable's body, and then pulled himself together before he went at long strides down the stairs. All this time it had been impossible to read Hilary Keen's expression. Again she took a step forward, and again Sanders stood in her way.

'Don't you think it would be better to let me go?' she asked. 'That poor woman is crying her heart out in there.'

'Listen,' he said. 'I'm not trying to order you about. But, believe me, I've been tangled up in criminal cases before' -one solitary instance, he admitted to himself, yet the force of that still remained with him - 'and things can get pretty unpleasant unless the whole truth is told at the start. Will you answer me one straight question ?'

'No.'

‘But-'

'No, I will not! I'm going in there to her.' Then Hilary stopped, the blue eyes half smiling at his expression. 'Oh, all right! What is it?'

'Something or somebody scared you half to death tonight. Was it Pennik? Was he in your room?' 'Good heavens, no!'

'Ah,' said Sanders, with a breath of relief. "Then that's all right.'

'Why on earth should you think Mr Pennik was in my room?'

'It doesn't matter. It was only an idea.'

Hilary's colour was higher. 'Oh, but it does matter. Despite what you may happen to think, it does matter a good deal, you know. Why should you think Mr Pennik was in my room ? For some curious reason I, of all people, seem to excite the worst suspicions in everybody. First Larry Chase, then Mr Constable, and now you.'

'We're not suspicious of you. We're only suspicious of ourselves.'

'Explain that, please.'

. 'I'm sorry I brought this up. In the circumstances -' 'Oh, he won't hear you. He's dead.' ' 'I can only say -'

'I'm sorry, too,' said Hilary, abruptly changing her tone. She lifted her closed fist to her mouth; she bit nervously at the forefinger; and then, in the emotional reaction after all that had happened, she was on the edge of tears. Sanders's attitude changed instantly.

'It's only that I damn well want to know what scared you. Because it probably has some bearing on that,' he nodded towards the stairs, 'that's dead. And can't hear us, as you say.'

'You think I'm a tough bit of goods, don't you?' asked Hilary, quietly, and raised her eyes. 'You're forgetting where I work. You're forgetting I probably know as much about violent death as you do. Oh, you wouldn't know me; I'm only one of the umpteen-umpteen little assistants who help the real lawyers prepare the cases. But I don't want to know anything about it. I don't want to.'

She touched his hand.

'Why did you say that about Mr Pennik?'

'Come here,' requested Sanders. He took her to the open door of her room. 'Lean down and look under the dressing-table across there. You see what's on the floor? That white cap like a chef's cap?'

'Well?'

'Mrs Constable offered one to Pennik early to-night, and said he ought to have it. I was only wondering ....' Seeing the concentrated and yet bewildered expression of her face, he paused. 'It's probably nothing. Only a wool-gathering idea. If you say it wasn't Pennik, that's all there is to it.'

'That unassuming, rather charming little man?'

'If you think so. Then where is that unassuming little man now?'

Almost soundless on the heavy carpet, Lawrence Chase bounded up the stairs. He took the treads two at a time, which may have been why he was out of breath.

'It's all right,' he assured them. 'Dr Edge is coming over straight away.' He took hold of the newel-post with long, powerful fingers. 'And look here, Sanders: it may merely be a pre-prandial case of the jitters, but I'm not sure we oughtn't to ring the police after all.'

'No good being in a hurry. But why?'

'For one thing, Dr Edge says there was nothing wrong with Sam's heart. For another, Pennik -'

'Did you see Pennik?'

'As a matter of strict fact,' answered Chase, gripping the newel-post more tightly, ‘I didn't. Don't worry; he's down there right enough. We mustn't take it too seriously if he begins talking nonsense. But he's down there. I heard him, and so I didn't exactly relish the prospect of seeing him. I looked into the dining-room. He's got the kitchen door partly propped open with a wedge. He's in the kitchen, because I could hear him whistling, and a sound like salad being stirred in a wooden bowl. Er - he's got the dining-room all done out: every light on, best china and cutlery, Mina's Irish linen that she's so keen on, and flowers in a bowl on the table. But the table is only laid for five.

PART II

DARKNESS Concerning Death in the Air

PRESS

'East Surrey Morning Messenger,' April 30th, 1938

death of mr S. H. constable

The many friends of Mr Samuel Hobart Constable, of Fourways, nr Grovetop, will learn with regret of Mr Constable's sudden death last night. Mr Constable is conjectured to have suffered a heart attack while on his way down to dinner.

Mr Constable, who was only 56, was the son of Sir Lawrence C. Constable, the textile manufacturer. He was educated at Hartonby and Simon Magus College, Cambridge. At the end of his first year at Cambridge he elected to enter the Civil Service, where his career, though unspectacular, was sound, constructive, and in keeping with the best traditions of Empire. He retired at the death of his father in 1921. In 1928 he married Miss Wilhelmina Wright, better known to her many readers under the pen-name of Mina Shields. He leaves no children.

‘

London Evening Griddle (Saturday Might Final), April 30/A, 1938

thrill-novelist's husband dies by mystery stroke!

what caused death?

POLICE 'PUZZLED'

By Ray Dodsworth, Evening Griddle Crime Reporter

Samuel Constable, wealthy husband of romantic novelist Mina Shields, collapsed and died before the eyes of friends last night in his Surrey home.

What killed him?

Heart-failure, it was stated. But a post-mortem was ordered by the coroner, Dr J. L. Edge having refused a death-certificate. This post-mortem was performed this morning by Dr Edge, with theassistance of none other than Dr John Sanders, famous pathologist. Afterwards the doctors were in consultation nearly seven hours. Why?