John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

H. M. peered round the front hall.

'Don't hurry me. Lemme think. Ah, I got itl When you looked for that scrap-book, what about the conservatory? Did you give the conservatory a good going over ?'

'You can bet we did. If you're thinking the book may have been hidden under one of the plants, that's out too. We didn't uproot 'em all, naturally; but the soil in those boxes and pots was so dry that we'd have noticed any disturbance.'

'All the same, let's have a look.'

Drawing-room, dining-room, conservatory. All as Sanders remembered them on the night Mina Constable died. On the dining-room table, under the glowing mosaic dome, the fragments of broken glass still lay in a sticky dried puddle where Sanders had dropped the tumbler when he thought he saw Pennik looking at him.

They re-created the past like a scent or a sound.

Pennik couldn't do anything. Pennik was a burst bogey. Pennik had been told off to his face. All the same -

H. M. had opened the glass door to the conservatory, and was bending close to blink at it.

'If you're looking for finger-prints,' observed Masters with a sour grin, 'you can save your eyesight for brick walls. There aren't any. Yes, I know the doctor said Pennik shoved his nose and his fingers against that glass; we didn't neglect that. But either they were wiped off afterwards or else they never were there.'

Sanders refused to be drawn. . 'So now I'm accused of seeing things?'

'Don't forget the astral projection,' growled H. M., wagging the door back and forth. 'I say, son. Did you see anything of Pennik except his hand and face?'

'Not clearly, no.'

'Did you hear him when he ran away?'

'No, I can't say I did. But I'll swear he was there; there was no jiggery-pokery about that.'

Pennik couldn't do anything. Yet his image, huge and ugly and dead-looking, seemed to gather and spread through Fourways.

It was Masters who pushed past H. M. and found the switch in the conservatory. The clusters of luminous fruit bloomed again under corners of the glass roof; and the din of rain beating on that glass dome was so deafening that they had to raise their voices in order to make each other hear. But it was a relief not to see Pennik sitting in a wicker chair among the semi-tropical plants. H. M. wandered to the dry fountain in the middle of the maze.

'Hoy!' he bellowed.

'What?'

‘A very important question, son. When you saw Pennik through that door on Sunday night, and ran out here, was this little fountain working?'

‘No.'

'You're sure of that, now?' insisted H. M., poking out one finger.

'I'd swear to it. I remember how dead quiet the place was. What's more, I remember passing the fountain. But why?'

'Only,' said H. M. mildly, 'this. If that's so, it's one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case.'

Masters was at his side in a hurry. 'Steady a bit! An important piece of evidence? You think that's important with regard to whether Pennik was or wasn't here? Or has anything to do with explaining his being here? But what about the fountain ? It's an ordinary Gamage garden fountain; pumps up the same couple of gallons of water and uses 'em over and over again. I had a look at it, because I was thinking of buying one once myself.'

'Whether you were thinkin' of buyin' one or not, Masters, it's still important. And I don't care how it works! That's not the point. Now let's see.' He sniffed round the overgilded, over-decorated lounge. 'Any more doors here? Ah! One. Goes to the kitchen, does it? I thought so. But there don't appear to be any back stairs. Make note of that: no back stairs.'

H. M. was peering into the- kitchen. Again Masters followed him.

‘But-’

'On the other hand,' persisted H. M., muttering rapidly to himself and making fussed gestures to keep Masters away, 'our late friend Sam Constable's bedroom is directly over the dining-room back there. I seem to remember Mrs Constable tellin' me that. Yes. Also, I seem to remember seeing a balcony outside one of his bedroom windows, with stone stairs leadin' down to the ground. (If you don't get away, Masters, I'll murder you.) So you could go from the dining-room to that bedroom upstairs without being seen; and come down again too. If we -'

'God!' said the chief inspector involuntarily.

It was not the glare of lightning through the glass roof which made them all jump, though it turned the whole conservatory to a blaze of deathly daylight and put the same pallor on their faces. It was, instead, the enormous crash of thunder which began in a long splitting noise as though the glass roof were crumpling, and then exploded close over their heads to the end of the peal. The dome vibrated to it; one of the small panes in the roof did, in fact, fall and smash on the tiles; and the rain poured through. But all sights or sounds were entangled with each other and happened at once. They saw each other's faces in such pallor because, in the instant of the lightning-flash, every light in the house went out.

'That's torn it,' said H. M.'s voice out of the dark.

Superintendent Belcher's voice spoke cheerfully. 'It's all right. I've got an electric lantern here. What was it, do you think? Wires down outside, or a fuse blown?'

Masters was not so easy. The shock of that assault still made the room tremble, and the darkness was dense. He spoke loudly above the rain.

'Wires down outside, I should think. They've got so many extra fittings that they're on distributing fuses, one to two or three rooms; and you wouldn't blow out the whole lot at one go unless -'

'Fuse-box,' said H. M. suddenly.

‘What's that, sir?'

'I said fuse-box. Masters, when you went over this house so thoroughly, did you look inside the fuse-box?'

'No; why should I? I'll swear it wasn't touched before or after Mrs Constable's death -'

'I wasn't thinkin' about it in connexion with anybody's death. I was thinking about it,' answered H. M.'s voice in the dark, 'as the one perfect hiding-place for a flat book eighteen inches high by ten inches broad.'

After a pause he added:

'Where is the box?'

'As a matter of fact, it's at the back of the cupboard in Mrs Constable's bedroom,' said Masters. 'And we're going up there now.'

The beam of the superintendent's lantern went ahead of them. In the forlorn bedroom upstairs, and in the side of the room furthest from the bed, was a large wardrobe cupboard with folding doors. Just above the shelf inside was the black-painted iron cover of the box, held upright by two light screws: a large box, some two feet high by a foot and half broad. Standing on a chair, Masters carefully undid the screws. As the cover fell, a tall thin book in colours of black and gilt flopped out into bis face, and dropped with a thud into the cover again.

'So that's it,' snarled Masters.

'That's it, son. Serene and untouched where Mina Constable shoved it away as long ago as the night her husband died. Also, the perfect hidin'-place. You look at a fuse-box; and it never enters your head that there could be anything inside it except fuses; it's all too snug and close. But the cover don't fit in close against the contents: it can't. And if you want a place to hide your money where no burglar will look for it, take a tip from Mina Constable. It was one of her -more ingenious ideas.'

Masters jumped down from the chair.

'Ingenious ideas, eh?' he said, and shook the book in the air. 'Just so. Got the bounder, anyway!' He shook it more savagely. 'You think this is what we want?'

'Yes. Maybe. If it contains what I hope it does - Masters, we've got Pennik. Put it down on the table and let's have a dekko at it.'

The light was held for them. While the rain splashed the windows, Masters put New Ways of Committing Murder on the dressing-table, and the others bent over his shoulder when he opened the book.