John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

'He didn't exactly tell us. It sort of came bubblin' up out of the pure and undefiled well. Is it true ?' . There was only one light on in the room, the lamp by the bedside, and this was behind her head. But she choked with something like laughter.

'No, no, no, no! It's so utterly absurd that I can't tell you how ridiculous it is. But why must Larry say that? He knows better. Still, he didn't actually say it, I suppose. It was only poor Sam's idea of a joke.'

'That's a pretty serious subject to joke about, ma'am.'.

She was again all glitter and brightness. Sanders, watching, felt that she held (or thought she held) the other sword in a duel.

'Not really. You see,' she half smiled, 'I write things.' 'I know.'

'Oh, that's good. You see, I only once wrote a straight detective story, which was most unmercifully slated, anyway; but in the other ones I nearly always put in some kind of mysterious or violent death. Sam,' she kept her eyes steady, 'Sam said I had a criminal mind. I said, on the contrary, it was a cheerful and healthy sign; I said it was the people who kept it bottled up that had the criminal minds. It was just his joke that I might want to murder him.'

'And that worried you sometimes?'

'No; never.' She looked surprised.

'I was just thinkin'... where do you get the material for all these reelin' mysterious deaths?'

'Oh, people tell you things. And there's a lot of material in the Egyptian and medieval records. And then, of course, I keep a scrap-book. I called it New Ways of Committing Murder'

Even H. M. blinked a little at this. Poker-players at the Diogenes Club have found any attempt to read his face a highly unprofitable occupation; but a very queer and fishy expression was on it now. He folded his hands over his stomach and twiddled die thumbs.

'So ? A scrap-book, hey ? It must make interestin' reading, Mrs Constable.'

'No. Not any more, please God,' said Mina, gripping her own hands together. 'I burnt it yesterday. I am through for ever with thinking about all such things, even in books.'

She bent forward.

'Sir Henry, I don't know whether they have told you why I was so anxious to see you. I do admire you. I really do - that's not a social compliment. I know all your cases, as far back as the Darworth business in '30 and that film-star's murder at the Christmas of '31 and the poisoned room at Lord Mantling's. I don't think they appreciate you enough. I've often said they should have given you a peerage.'

H. M. turned a rich, ripe purple.

'And what I like so much;' Mina went on, oblivious, 'is the way you can put your hand through brick walls and show that the bogles were only turnip-ghosts. We need that sort of thing; we need it!. That's why I am appealing to you on grounds that I hope will make you help me. I want you to expose Herman Pennik. I want you to nail him down and see that he gets what he deserves: hanging, if possible. Have you met Pennik?'

With an effort H. M. got his breath.

But he remained surprisingly quiet.

'Well... now,' he said. 'You're openin' out a large field, Mrs Constable. Are you suggestin' that Pennik killed your husband in the way he said he did ?'

'I don't know. I only know that the man is a fraud.'

'But that's a bit inconsistent, isn't it, ma'am? First you suggest he might have killed your husband by a kind of super-telepathy. Then you say he's a fraud. What exactly do you mean?'

'I don't know. I only know what I feel. Have you met Pennik?'

'No.'

'You will find him wandering about,' said Mina. Her eyes narrowed. 'Sir Henry, I've been trying for days and days to think of what that man reminded me of. I know now. He's like Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw. You remember that dreadful business, of the frightened governess in the house called Bly? Bly: even the name is narrow and secretive. Quint on the tower, Quint at the window, Quint on the staircase. And all in a kind of perpetual dusk. But that reminds me, too. I can tell you how to handle Pennik.' She leaned forward still further.

'He's always wandering about outside, and walking up on you when it grows dark. Do you know why ? He suffers from what they call claustrophobia. He can't endure being shut in. That's why he likes these high, big rooms here. So you see what to do, don't you? Take him, on some charge or other. Shut him up. Shut him up for a week or so in the smallest cell you can find. Then he'll talk! Then he'll tell you.'

'I'm afraid we can't do that, ma'am.' 'But why?' she demanded, plaintively. 'Nobody will ever know.'

. H. M. gave her a long look. He seemed a little disconcerted.

'Y'see, ma'am, we've got a law. Whether we like it or hot, it's a fair law. You can't monkey with it. There's absolutely nothing we can do to Pennik, even if he yells blue thunder that he killed your husband. And also, y'see, that law draws the line at torture.'

'Torture? You think he draws the line at torture?'

'Well-'

'So he would make Sam an "experiment", would he? Just like that, would he? Sam was no good to the world, wasn't he? He could be spared, could he? We must see. Then you decline to help me, Sir Henry?'

'Oh, for cat's sake!' roared H. M. 'Take it easy, ma'am. I'm the old man. I'll help you as much as I can. But this is a slippery business; a greased pig of a business; so far there's no way to get a hold on it. And until we can get a proper hold on it, what are we goin' to do ?' He stopped, for a shade had gone across Mina's face; a hardening of resolution; a drawing back into her shell, as though all touch were now lost with her. She was smiling vaguely.

'Listen to me!' said H. M., suddenly on the alert. 'Are you listenin' ?' 'Yes.'

'If I'm to do any good at all, ma'am, you've got to help me. It's no good goin' into trances like that. I've got an idea; a sort of cloudy ghost of an idea; and what I want is the' facts from you. Are you goin' to tell me what I want to know?'

'I am so sorry,' said Mina, waking up and brightening. 'Of course I will tell you anything.'

(H. M. was really worried: Sanders knew that. He had flung the words at her as though they were a rope to draw her back. For a moment H. M. breathed asthmatically, without speaking.)

'Right, then. Now!' He looked round the room. 'I say, your husband didn't share' this room with you, did he?'

'No, no. He complained that I talked in my sleep. His room is in there. Would you like to see it?'

She got up without interest, and led them through the bathroom into Sam Constable's bedroom, where she switched on the light. The room was little different from any other bedroom in the house, and with little more personality than the guest-rooms. It was high, square, and bluff. Its furnishings - bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, table, a few chairs - were of dark walnut against bilious-looking greenish-papered walls picked out with panels in gilt. A number of heavy-framed pictures did not add to its attractiveness.

H. M. peered round it. Then he began to lumber and brush round its edges. A gun-case stood in one corner; the top of the wardrobe was piled with hat-boxes, and on the table lay an assortment of Tatlers and sporting magazines. Little more traces remained of its late occupant. One of the windows opened out on another cramped cup of a balcony, with stone stairs winding down to the ground. H. M. inspected this before he turned round to Mina in the doorway of the bathroom.

All this time Mina's yellowish-tinged eyes were watching him.

'Uh-huh. What room is on the floor under this, ma'am?' 'Under us? The dining-room.'

'I see. Now, let's go back to Friday night. You and your husband came up here at seven-thirty, hey? What'd he do then?'

'He had his bath and started to dress.' 'Where were you at that time?' 'Inhere.' ‘In here?'