John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

'I will get you a meal, if you like,' offered Herman Pennik.

It was so unexpected that they all turned to stare at him. Chase, who had started out to get die drinks, stuck his head back round the corner of a clump of ferns to get a better look.

And Sam Constable was surprised enough to speak to him.

'You are a cook; my friend?' he inquired, in the faintly contemptuous tone of one who says,' I might have known it.' "That is, in addition to your other accomplishments?'

'I am a very good cook. I cannot do you a hot dinner, of course, but I can prepare dishes that will make you glad it is a cold one.'

Hilary Keen laughed. It was a spontaneous laugh, a release from strain. She got up from the rim of the fountain.

'Oh, good! Well done! - Please sit down, Mrs Constable, and be comfortable,' she urged. 'Honestly, don't you think too much tragedy is being made over the quesdon of getting a meal? If you were as poor as I am you wouldn't feel like that. Mr Pennik shall get the dinner, I will serve it -'

'No, no, no,' said Pennik, shocked. 'You serve it? No, I could not allow that. Just leave it all to me.'

'You have made a conquest, Miss Keen,' said Sam Constable.

He spoke with, ponderous gallantry. Whether he was tickled by the idea of Pennik as cook, or whether Hilary's words flattered him by implying fastidious tastes on his ' part, Sanders could not be sure; but Sam was suddenly in a gay good-humour. Mina - who had been looking round hopefully, as though to assure herself .that everybody thought her husband a devil of a fine fellow in spite of his little lapses - became dreamy again.

"Then that's settled,' she declared. "Didn't Dumas cook a dinner for the gourmets of France? I wish I could. I think there's even a chef's cap in the kitchen somewhere: you know, one of those tall white things with the muffin tops. You can have that, Mr Pennik.'

'It will become him,' said Sam gravely. 'But you must give us your word not to poison us. Eh ?'

It was Chase who intervened, swinging out a wicker table with a rasp of legs on the tiled floor which made Sam jump and his brow darken again. On this table Chase put down a tray full of bottles, glasses, and a bowl of cracked ice.

'Oh, he won't poison us,' Chase assured them. 'He won't do that, whatever happens. He wouldn't need to.' 'Wouldn't need to?'

'No. He would simply think about us, and - boppo! Gin-and-It, or shall I mix a cocktail?'

'Just what in blazes are you talking about?'

'True as gospel,' said Chase, pouring out drinks rapidly. 'Vote? No cocktail? Right. What about you, Mina? Didn't you want a cocktail ?'

'Anything at all for me, please, Larry. Gin-and-It will be splendid.'

'Mr Pennik,' pursued Chase, 'says that thought-waves are a physical force. Of course we knew that; but now he says that, properly used, they could kill a man.'

Over Sam Constable's face, as he accepted a glass, came a despairing expression. It was as though he said: 'Something. Always something to pester and torment me. Why have all the nuisances got to be piled on me?' Pure pettishness and self-pity boiled up coldly under the surface.

'Indeed?' he said, swallowing noisily in the glass. 'Then you have been playing thought-reading games again?'

'Well, ask Sanders here! Just ask him. Mr Pennik told him to think of something, and got it first shot. He even got it when Sanders tried to hide what he was thinking, including -'

'Other things,' interposed Hilary, with her eyes on the fountain. N

'I wonder if I have got the right man for my money?' said Sam, looking at Sanders over the rim of his glass. 'Young man, you are a medical man?'

'I am.'

'And a consultant to the Home Office pathologist, they tell me?' ‘

Yes.'

'And you hold with all this rubbish ?'

'I don't necessarily hold with anything, Mr Constable. I am willing to admit that Mr Pennik gave a remarkable demonstration, which is a fair description of it.'

Their host jumped to his feet.

'Mina, for God's sake! Will you stop twitching and jittering with that glass, like an old hag soaking up gin in a pub ? If your hands are too shaky to hold the glass properly, put it on the table and drink over the rim. That at least would be more decent than the spectacle you are making of yourself now.'

He stopped, and had himself the decency to look a little ashamed after his outburst. Probably he meant nothing. But there was a cruel scratch in it, for the trembling hands of a malaria aftermath are obvious enough by themselves.

Mina said nothing.

'All right, all right, I'm sorry,' he grumbled. He drained the glass; took another pull at it when it was empty; and sat down again. 'But you people make a fellow feel old. Have a little pity sometimes. I often say Mina will be the death of me yet, dropping things. Nerves. Can't stand it. All the same, what I say is that this thought-reading business is rubbish. It's wrong. It's' - the veins swelled in his forehead - 'it's against everything we've ever been taught. It's against nature, that's all.'

'You will work yourself up so, Sam,' complained Mina. Her eyes shone. 'Don't you see how fascinating it is? And you know perfectly well Mr Pennik told you what you were thinking about when you tested him. Only you would interrupt and shout, "Wrong!" before the words were even out of his mouth. And then afterwards you wouldn't test him at all. I'm sorry, my dear, but you know it's true.'

Her husband looked at her.

'Shall we change the subject?' he suggested, with powerful courtesy. He took out his watch and studied it elaborately. 'Ah, good, good! Nearly seven-thirty. Good time to bathe and dress before dinner -'

"But, Sam, surely we're not dressing for dinner to-night?'

He looked at her again.

'Of course we are dressing for dinner, my dear. Do you see any material reason for altering our custom? If I can dress for dinner among a lot of damned niggers, surely I can dress for dinner in my own house?'

'Of course, if you like.'

'I do like, thank you. Parker would have to choose this night to be in hospital; only man I ever had who knew how to lay out my things properly. But there it is. That's the way things go. You will have to deputize for him, my dear, if you feel equal to the task. Er -' Tilting up his chin, he looked at Herman Pennik. 'I must thank you, my friend, for your offer to get dinner for us. Shall we say, then, that you can have it ready as soon past eight o'clock as possible?'

'If you like,' said Pennik. He reflected. 'But I do not think, Mr Constable, that you will get any dinner.'

The other sat up. 'Not get my dinner? Why the devil shouldn't I get my dinner?'

'Because I do not think you will be alive then,' said Pennik.

It was perhaps ten seconds before the meaning of the words penetrated into the listeners' minds; before sense could be made put of sound. And it was longer than that before anyone spoke.

All through the previous conversation, through each word and jar and gesture, Pennik had been sitting so quietly that they were not even aware of him. Nor had they spoken to him. Now they were aware of him as an entity, perhaps a huge entity. He was sitting forward in his chair, wearing respectable blue serge, his feet crossed, his knees out at an angle, and his hands clasped together so tightly that bluish half-moons showed at the base of the nails. Each small sound was magnified in the bright conservatory: the murmur of the fountain growing to a splash, the scrape of a shoe on tile.

And the conservatory seemed much too cold for such a hot room.

Sam Constable broke the silence with hollow incredulity, like a child; the room came to life again. 'What are you talking about?'

'I said that I did hot think you would be alive by the time dinner is served.' Lawrence Chase sprang to his feet. 'A seizure?' demanded their host, with sudden alarm. 'No.'