The Reader Is Warned

My wife ? And make it look like an accident, like that case in the paper? Be careful, Mina. Remember, after you have killed me, that you talk in your sleep. That will at least keep you virtuous during your widowhood.' His elbow knocked over a glass, which broke with a crash on the tiled floor. 'Lord, what utter blathering drivelling bilge! I'm going upstairs to dress. Coming, everybody?'

'Sam, he means it,' said Mina.

'Are you sure you are quite yourself, my dear?'

'Sam, I tell you he means it!'

'I found somebody's suitcase standing outside the front door,' said their host briskly. 'Yours, Dr Sanders? Good. It is in the front hall. If you will come with me, I will show you your room. Mina, take Miss Keen to hers. Larry, perhaps you will be good enough to show Mr Pennik where the kitchen is, and the - er - rest of it, you know. Brr, but it's cold I'

'Yes,' said Pennik, gravely. 'I should like a word with Mr Chase.'

'Sam -' Mina almost screamed.

He closed his fingers firmly round her arm and led her out. The last glimpse Sanders had was of Pennik and Chase standing amid a tamed jungle by the wicker table; and Pennik had just said something which made Chase start and look round. Their shuffling footsteps sounded hollow under the glass dome. And a clock struck seven-thirty.

CHAPTER IV

It was at a quarter to eight that Sanders heard the faint cry from the next room.

Looking down from a window at Fourways, he had already decided, was like looking down over the side of a ship. You went through a series of padded lounges, into a main hall paved with tiny white unglazed tiles. You went up a main staircase built against a wall which consisted chiefly of tall stained-glass windows ascending like the treads of the stairs. All lights were in cut-glass shades or in snaky bronze holders or in both. On the first floor up - there were four floors altogether - the six principal bedrooms opened out on a landing round three sides of a square.

It was a small landing, heavily carpeted and badly lighted, with a grandfather clock. Two bedrooms occupied each of three sides of a square, with the staircase-wall forming the fourth side. Sanders was given the room next to Hilary Keen. Sam and Mina Constable occupied the two rooms facing the staircase-wall. Chase and Pennik, he supposed, would be in the remaining two on the third side.

At the moment, what Sanders wanted was time to think. His bedroom fulfilled all predictions. The windows were heavily curtained in many overlays like old-fashioned petticoats; there was a big brass bed; and on a table by one window stood an (unused) china lamp. But, though not centrally heated, Fourways was well supplied with bathrooms, and Sanders had a private one.

To get this stifling atmosphere out of his brain, he turned off the heater and opened both windows. There seemed no way of fastening the curtains back, and-he left them. Outside one window was one of those tiny and useless window-balconies cramped against the high pitch of the wall. After breathing deeply, he took a quick cold bath and dressed in some haste. Ready except for his coat and waistcoat, he lighted a cigarette and gave himself time to think.

Now, in spite of that demonstration of thought-reading, was Herman Pennik really-?

Wait!

He could have sworn he heard a faint cry. He could also have sworn it came from the next room, though the walls were thick and it was difficult to trace the source of sounds. He waited, trying to follow what sounded like a mumbling or a creaking of windows. Then several things happened at once.

The heavy rep curtains belled out on the farther of the open windows. Someone seemed to be fighting them. The tiny table tilted up beside them; bumping, the china lamp slid on that smooth surface, whirled, and went to the floor with a crash that must have been audible downstairs. From under the curtains appeared first a black satin slipper; then flesh-coloured stockings; then an arm and a dark blue gown; and then Hilary Keen, breathing hard, tumbled into the room. She was so frightened that the colour seemed to have been drained from her eyes, and she was as near a faint as she had ever been in her life.

But even now she tried not to admit it.

'I'm s-sorry to break in like this,' she said. 'But I couldn't help it. There's somebody in my room.'

'Somebody in your room? Who?'

'I came by the window,' she explained, with the painstaking carefulness of the distraught. "There's a balcony. Please let me sit down for a minute; I don't want to disgrace . myself.'

For some time he had been trying to think of the quality which most distinguished her. And he saw it now, when she was upset. It was the quality of fastidiousness. About her smooth shoulders and arms, about her eyes and forehead, there was an almost shrinking fastidiousness which went with the cool look of her skin. One of the shoulder-straps of her dress had fallen down or come loose, and she pulled it up quickly. There was grime on her hands and arms from having come by way of the balcony,’ and, when she saw it, he thought her nerves were going to break down in tears. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

'Now, steady!' he insisted. 'What is it? Just tell me what's wrong.'

There was no time for a reply, for somebody knocked thunderously at Sanders's door. Hilary sprang up.

'Don't open it!' she said. 'Let it alone 1 Whatever you do, don't open - But she broke off, with a breath of relief, when the door was opened without anybody's permission; and they saw that it was only Sam Constable, wearing slippers and with a dressing-gown hastily pulled round him.

'What's the row?' he demanded. 'Sounded like the house falling. Can't a fellow finish dressing in peace?'

'Sorry,' said Sanders. 'It's all right; the lamp fell over.'

But their host was not concerned with the lamp. He had got a good look at them; his eyes opened; and he drew his own conclusions.

'Look here -' he began, raising his eyebrows.

Hilary was frozen into composure.

'No, Mr Constable. Don't jump to conclusions. It really isn't what you're thinking.'

'And may I ask, Miss Keen,' said the other, becoming a complete stuffed-shirt again, 'what conclusions I am presumed to be drawing? Have I asked for any explanation?' He was quivering with outraged dignity; he lifted a hand and ran it through his heavy, silky grey hair. 'I come to investigate a noise. I find a valuable heirloom smashed (look at it) and two of my guests in a position which in my day would have been called sufficiently curious. But have I asked any questions?'

'Miss Keen has been telling me -' Sanders began.

She cut him off.

'There was something in my room, and it frightened me. I ran in here by way of the balcony. Take a look at my hands, if you don't believe it. I'm awfully sorry about the lamp; I knocked it over when I climbed through the window.'

'It is of no consequence,' said Sam Constable, looking sly. 'Only I regret that something in your room frightened you. Mice, perhaps?'

'I -I don't know.'

'Not mice. If you remember, please tell me and I will have it seen to. Excuse me, then: I shall not intrude on you any longer.'

Sanders, realizing that if he joined in the explanations it would only give their host the opportunity to look more sly, did not comment. Constable was evidently beginning to realize the possibilities of triumph in the situation.

'By the way, Mr Constable,' he said, 'nobody has tried to murder you so far, I imagine?'

'Not as yet, Doctor. Not as yet, I am glad to say. The scrap-book remains on its shelf. Until dinner, then!'

Sanders stared at the closing door.

'Now just what did he mean by that?'

'By what?'

"The scrap-book remains on its shelf." '

'I haven't the remotest idea,' said Hilary. 'And at the moment I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It does seem as though the whole affair, so far, has been to put you into one embarrassing position after another.'

'Oh, that's all right - but the point is, what particular embarrassing position were you in a little while ago?'

She was quiet again, though the shock had left its aftermath and Sanders did not like the look of her. At times she would tremble, for no apparent reason.

'It's nothing. May I use your bathroom to wash in? I don't want to go back to my own room for a while.'

He gestured towards it, picking up the cigarette he had put down at her entrance. That sudden entrance, the look of her, had disturbed him in more ways than one. She was gone only a moment; and when she returned he noticed the strength of resolution about her chin. 'I really wanted time to think,' she explained. 'And I'm sorry, Dr Sanders, but I can't tell you anything about it. Believe me, things are heading for a smash here; and I'm not going to add my unimportant mite to the total. It was nothing -'

'It was definitely something. In plain' language, did somebody go for you?' 'I don't understand.' 'Don't you?'

'Well, not in the way you mean. It was something else.' She shivered. 'I suppose, as they say, that I simply can't take it. Looks shouldn't break any bones, should they? May I have a cigarette ?' She sat down in a padded chair; he gave her a cigarette and lighted it for her. For a time she blew smoke-rings. 'Shall I tell you what's wrong with all of us here, and why it's going to end in a way we won't like?'

'Well?'

'When I was a little girl, I had a book of stories I was very fond of; though some of them were rather frightening. They showed you a world where you could have everything you wanted, provided only some witch or wizard took a fancy to you. One of them was about a magic carpet, the usual kind of magic carpet. The sorcerer said to the boy who had it that it would carry him anywhere - with one proviso. While he was travelling on the carpet, he must never think of a cow. If he thought of a cow, the carpet would go to earth again.

'Now, there was no earthly reason why he should think of a cow. But, once he had been told he mustn't, all he could think about was that cow. Once he got it into his head, it never left him when he saw the carpet. No, I haven't taken leave of my senses. I didn't understand the psychology of that story then; I disliked the story, rather. But it's true. Because somebody says, "Here is a person who can read your thoughts," all you can think about is what you don't want anybody to know. We're all concentrating on what we don't want known; it won't leave our minds however we try.'

'But what of that?'

'Oh, don't be so - so virtuous!' Sanders considered this.

'I'm not trying to be virtuous, Lord knows,' he said. 'And I still don't understand. Aren't you making too much of this? I'm inclined to agree with Larry Chase: it would be damned uncomfortable to have all our thoughts known, but, after all, we're not a bunch of criminals.' ,

'Aren't we? Potentially ? I have a stepmother. I hate her. I wish she'd die. What do you say to that?'

'Only that it's not a very terrible secret.'

‘I want her money,' said Hilary relentlessly. 'Or, rather, my father's money that she has a life interest in. It's a real life interest in it; she married him when he was about Mr Constable's age. She isn't much older than I am, and hard as scrap-iron. I'm learning how to be hard too... Tell me: what do you think of our mind-reader, Mr Pennik?'

'I think he's a fake,' answered Sanders. Hilary, who had been staring hard at the cigarette, glanced up with surprise and something like alarm. There was relief in it, too, and a jumble of emotions he could not read. Yet he knew that in some superstitious corner of her soul she was being impelled into belief in the powers of Herman Pennik.

'Why do you say that? He read your thoughts.'

'Apparently. I've been thinking about that. I haven't worked it out, but it's just possible that a good part of the answer may lie with Larry Chase.'

'With Larry Chase ?' cried Hilary. 'How ?'

‘You know how he talks. He's interested in people. He will give you somebody's life history and afterwards tell you and quite sincerely believe himself that he hasn't said a word. I remember, now I come to think of it, that he knew or suspected something about - well, Marcia Blystone and things I'd rather not discuss. He mentioned it in a letter he wrote to me. If Pennik is an expert in pumping people and later making them forget they've been pumped ..

'But that wouldn't explain how Pennik would know when you might be thinking about something.'

'I'm not so sure. We'll grant that he is an expert psychologist. All successful fortune-tellers have to be.'

'What about that statue of Lister, or whoever it was? And -' Hilary hesitated. She did not look up. 'Excuse me for mentioning this, but what about the other thing he said? The last thing?'

'Lister I admit I don't understand. What you call the last thing may be merely because I haven't got as good a poker-face as I should like to have.'

Literally for minutes Hilary did not speak. Throwing her cigarette into the empty fireplace, she got up and measured out steps on the carpet.

'There's his prophecy about Mr Constable.'

'Mr Constable,' said Sanders politely, 'is not dead yet, you know. And even if Pennik can read minds, I'm hanged if I'll believe he can read the future.'

'But if the whole thing is a huge fraud -'

'I don't say it is. A certain degree of telepathic power may be quite possible. Pennik may merely be bolstering it up, as certain honest men have done in other things, by a little conscious fraud and a remarkable deductive ability.'

'Then you don't believe in thought as a physical weapon ?'

'I will go to my grave denying it.'

From two rooms away, Mina Constable began to scream when the hands of Sanders's watch stood at one minute to eight.

" There was an animal quality about those screams, one of almost physical pain rather than fright. Mina Constable seemed to be trying to scream and speak at the same time, so that all they could hear was the endless repetition of her husband's name. Hilary, her hand on the mantelpiece, turned round with a face of pure superstitious terror. But she could not stand the sound of those screams; and Sanders was afraid she would begin to cry out as well.

He had the door to the hall open while the noise was still going on. And he saw the scene he was so many times afterwards to describe.

Sam Constable, fully dressed for dinner, was leaning against the hand-rail round the well of the stairs - within one step of the descent. He was sagging forward across the hand-rail, one hand partly supporting him on the newel-post. He raised the other hand spasmodically, the fingers twitching; he heaved his back, and for a second Sanders thought he would pitch forward over the rail on to the stairs below. But he was already too inert. He slid down beside the banisters, his body curving against them, and one hand struck with a flat thud on the carpet. His face had been turned away, so that Sanders could not see it until he rolled over on his back. The screams stopped.

Mina Constable, her teeth biting on a handkerchief, stood in the half-open door of one of the two rooms facing the head of the stairs. She did not move. With that piercing din gone; it was possible to think. Sanders ran over and knelt beside him. There was a faint flutter of pulse, which stopped as Sanders found it; and the man was dead.

Sanders, still kneeling, looked round. Three doors were open on that hall: the door of Mina Constable's room, his own room, and Hilary's room. From his position he could see across obliquely into Hilary's room. He could see under the chairs, under the bed, even under the dressing-table against the far wall. And his eye was caught by the outlines of an object which had rolled unnoticed or uncared-for under the dressing-table, but which he was to remember afterwards.

It was a tall white chef's cap, with a muffin top.

Ringing with fluid chimes, and then breaking off in dignity for official pronouncement, the grandfather clock on the landing struck eight.

CHAPTER V

And now, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, there were three persons looking out into the hall besides himself. Mina Constable still stood by the half-open door, her jaws shaking. Hilary had taken two steps out towards them, and stopped. Across the hall Lawrence Chase had just opened another door, leading to his bedroom. None of them moved.

A dim little cluster of bulbs burned at a corner of the landing by the grandfather clock, which seemed to rustle rather than tick. That light threw shadows of the hand-rail's banisters across Sam Constable's face and body. Methodically, shutting his mind to everything else, Sanders made an examination of the body. What he found caused him no alarm, but a shattering sense of relief. And yet - He felt rather than saw Chase tiptoeing over to his side, and making several ineffectual attempts to look past, his shoulder. But he did not turn round until Chase, with a kind of pounce, seized his arm. Chase was coatless and collarless, his stiff shirt bulging out between striped braces, and his long neck looking even longer. He had his collar in the other hand.

'Look here,' Chase began with hoarse thinness. 'He's not dead, is he? You're not going to tell me he's dead?' 'Yes.'

'Sam is dead?' 'See for yourself.'

'But it can't be,' said Chase, holding Sanders with one hand and shaking the collar in his face with the other. He crowded still closer. 'It's not true. He didn't mean any of it; He couldn't have.'

'Who couldn't have what?'

'Never mind. How did he die? Just tell me that. What was it?'

.'Steady! You'll have me over this rail in a minute. Get away, damn it! - Rupture of the heart, I should think.'

'Rupture?'

'Yes. Or it may be plain heart failure, where the heart is weak and just conks out by itself. Get away, will you?' said Sanders, brushing the collar away from his face with a feeling that a hundred collars were being shaken at him. ‘You heard him talk about a seizure. How was his heart, do you know?'

'His heart?' repeated Chase, with a powerful gleam of hope or relief. 'Idon't know. Probably very bad. Must have been. Poor old Sam. Ask Mina; that's it; ask Mina!'

Hilary had come out quietly and joined them. Sanders touched an arm of each of them.

'Listen to me,' he said, 'and please do as I tell you. Stay here with him; don't touch him, either of you, and don't let anyone else touch him. I'll be back in just one moment.'

And he went over to the half-open door where Mina Constable was waiting. Pushing her gently back before him, he went into the room and closed the door.

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?

The reason is believed to be that no possible cause of death could be found. Every organ of the deceased's body was sound.

'Have the doctors any theory to account for this?' was the question put to Colonel F. G. Willow, Chief Constable for Surrey.

'It is certainly puzzling,' replied Colonel Willow. 'I have no further statement to make at this time.'

'But can a man die from no cause whatever?'

'I have no further statement to make at this time,' said Colonel Willow.

Questions to the guests assembled for a week-end party at Four-ways, gloom-wrapped country house where the mysterious death took place, were not permitted.

London Evening Griddle (same issue)

STOP-PRESS

Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters, of Scotland Yard, will leave to-morrow for Grovetop, Suney, in connexion with the mysterious death of Samuel H. Constable.

CHAPTER VI

On Sunday morning, when even the grass and hedgerows seem to wake up late, drowsy sunlight poured through every open door of the Black Swan Hotel between Guildford and Grovetop. Or Sanders sat by the open windows of the parlour, drinking coffee and blinking out against the sun. It was so quiet that he could even hear fowls scrabbling in the yard behind the hotel. Then a car drew up noisily; and he felt a vast relief to see the large, bland face of Chief Inspector Masters looking up at him from the road.

'Ah, sir!' said Masters, coming into the parlour with the air of a galleon under full sail, and shaking hands with a great bustle of cheerfulness. 'Good morning, good morning, good morning! Beautiful morning, isn't it?'

'I suppose it is.'

The chief inspector refused to have his spirits damped. But he was more subdued when he sat down.

'Coffee? Don't mind if I do. - Lummy, sir,you look a bit done in!'

'I suppose I am, a little.'

'Well, I expect we shall be able to put that right. Eh?' said Masters heartily. The coffee arrived, and he stirred it with vigour. 'And how are things with you, sir? Any news from Miss Blystone? She's well, I hope?'

'So far as I know, she is perfectly well,' snapped Sanders, turning on him such a freezing look that the other stared. Masters's forehead grew more ruddy. Then; coming to a decision after a shrewd look at his companion, the chief inspector hitched his chair close to the table with a conspiratorial air.

'Now, sir, what's all this about?' he asked, low-voiced and hearty. 'I don't know why you should snap my head off for asking after Miss Blystone; but it's no ruddy business of mine anyway, so that's all right.'

'Sorry. I didn't mean that.'

Masters looked at him keenly. 'The main thing is, what about that message you sent me? You said to come here, and here I am. But you know, Doctor, you know as well as anybody else, that I've got a duty to do. My duty's to drive straight on to Grovetop and report to the Superintendent there. Just so!' He was Very persuasive. 'Why should you want me to see you and get the facts from you first ?'

'Because you'll blow up,' said Sanders simply. 'You'll go straight up and hit the ceiling. I thought you had better have warning.'

Masters sat up.

'Bad as that?'

'Yes.'

'Lummy, we're in it again,' said Masters, after a pause. 'Well; sir, I don't mind. I tell you straight, f don't. I've seen too much in the past six or seven years, and you don't know your man if you think anything could surprise me now.' Nevertheless, his worry grew. 'Besides, what's all the row? From what I could hear, it's nothing to be alarmed about. This old gentleman, Mr Constable, was seen by his wife to walk out of his bedroom towards the stairs. In the middle of the landing he suddenly threw a fit, fell down, and died in a couple of minutes. Right?'

'Right as far as it goes.'

'Oh?' said Masters, giving him a quick look. 'Can you help me out further than that?'

'A little. It's not in the least complicated, if that's what you mean. On Friday night six persons were staying' at Fourways: Mr and Mrs Constable, Miss Hilary Keen, Mr Lawrence Chase, Mr Herman Pennik, and myself. Our respective positions just before Constable died were as follows. Constable himself was dressing in his bedroom, which adjoins his wife's bedroom by way of a bath. Mrs Constable was dressing in her bedroom. Mr Chase was also dressing in his bedroom. Miss Keen was talking to me in my bedroom. All these rooms are on the same floor, set round three sides of a square. The only other guest, Mr Pennik, was downstairs in the kitchen getting us a scratch meal.

'At about two minutes to eight Constable called out to his wife, through open doors between, that he had finished dressing and was going downstairs. Just as she heard his door close into the hall, she remembered that she had forgotten to ask whether she had given him two clean handkerchiefs. She went over and opened her door into the hall.

'Both their rooms face across towards the third side of the square - formed by the side of the staircase, with a hand-rail. Mrs Constable saw her husband standing in the hall with his back to her. Not standing, exactly. She described him as "dancing and staggering".

Masters had taken out his notebook, which he spread flat on the table. His hard eye was speculative. He seemed to sense that something was going on under the surface, but could not quite catch what.

He cleared his throat.

' "Dancing and staggering?" Oh, ah. Just what did she mean by that?' 'She couldn't or wouldn't be clearer.' 'Yes, sir. Go on.'

'He pitched forward across the hand-rail guarding the stairs, and she began to scream. I was out in the hall within a couple of seconds after she started to scream. Constable was writhing across the hand-rail; he was twitching his left hand in the air - so - and seemed to be trying to push himself over. He fell down beside the rail instead, and died a few seconds after I reached him.'

'Of what, sir?' asked the chief inspector sharply.

'I thought at first it was rupture of the heart. Everything was characteristic: sudden pain, collapse, cramps, extremities cool and damp. And earlier in the evening he had mentioned a "seizure" as though he were afraid of one. But I didn't like the dilation of the eye-pupils. I tried to question Mrs Constable about his heart. But she was in no condition to be questioned about anything. That was the situation - a simple situation, you'll admit - until I talked to Dr Edge, Mr Constable's own doctor.'

'Just so. Well?'

'His heart was as sound as yours or mine. The man was a hypochondriac, that's all. And worse. At the post-mortem we found every organ healthy: there was nothing whatever to show what had caused his death.'

'But you will find it? Eh, Doctor?'

‘I don't understand you.'

'We-el, now!' said Masters, pursing up his lips and making noises of broad scepticism. He was indulgent. 'It may look bad, I admit; but I don't see much to get the wind up about. Doctors are always going on like that. Arguments about what caused death-'

'I am telling you that there was nothing to show what caused his death. When the house falls on your head you'll understand why that is so important. And doctors do not "go on like that".'

‘What would you say to poison, now?' suggested Masters, with the air of one making a fair business proposition.

‘No.'

‘Oh, ah? Sure?'

‘Yes. Unless you're giving me "mysterious poisons unknown to science," which I won't swallow.' In spite of himself Sanders grinned. 'Inspector, I'll stake my reputation (such as it is) that Constable didn't die of any kind of poison, solid, liquid, or gaseous. Dr Edge and I have been at it until we're half blind, and if there's any test we've omitted I should be interested to hear about it. It won't do.'

The chief inspector scratched the side of his jaw. He had begun to look suspicious, a sign that he was disturbed.

'Then there's something wrong,' he declared. 'Eh? After all, you know, something killed the chap. That's to say, a man can't just drop over dead without there being any sign of what killed him.'

'Oh yes, he can,' said Sanders.

'Sir?'

'On the contrary, I can tell you at least three ways in which a completely sound and healthy person can die without any sign, internal or external, to show what killed him.'

'But that won't do!'

‘Why not?'

'Because - well, lummy!' exploded Masters, making a broad gesture. He got up and stared out of the bright window, jingling coins in his pocket. 'That'd put us in a bit of a hole, wouldn't it? I ask you, where would the police be if people started dying all over the place and not a blinking thing to show what polished 'em off?'

‘Ah, now we're getting closer to the difficulty. We haven't quite hit it yet, but we're closer. I've copied out a statement here which you can hand over to the Press if things get too hot. It isn't my statement, by the way, and it will carry a good deal of authority. It's a quotation from Taylor,’ so you can believe it.'

He unfolded a sheet of paper covered with his own careful handwriting.

‘*"Among non-professional persons a prejudice exists that no person can die from violence unless there be some distinctly mortal injury inflicted on the body - i.e., a visible mechanical injury to some organ or blood-vessel important to life. This is an erroneous notion, since death may take place from the disturbance of the functions of an organ important to life without this being necessarily accompanied by a perceptible alteration of structure".'

He pushed the paper across the table.

‘There you have it, short and sweet. I repeat that I can tell you at least three ways in which a person can die by violence without any sign, internal or external, to show what killed him.'

Masters was after this like a terrier.

'Oh, ah? You say "violence". You mean - murder?'

‘Yes.'

'I see,' muttered the chief inspector, after a pause. He sat down and squared himself. 'I don't mind admitting I'm learning things every minute. Only, whenever I talk to you

*‘Taylor's Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, Seventh Edition, 1930. (London: J. & A. Churchill, 7 Great Marlborough Street.)

f Taylor, vol. 1, p. 381.

or Sir Henry Merrivale, they're always things I wish weren't so. Three ways, eh? All right, Doctor: let's have 'em.'

'First. People have been known to be killed very quickly as the result of an unexpected blow on the upper part of the abdomen or on the pit of the stomach. It acts on the nerves or nerve-ganglia. Yet there has been no mark of a bruise externally, or any physical injury internally, to account for death.'

'Stop a bit,' said Masters, sitting up. 'You don't mean you could give somebody an unexpected wallop in the breadbasket and kill him ?'

'Well, I shouldn't rely on it as a never-failing method of murder. You might kill him; and then again you mightn't. My point is that it has been known to happen. If you did that without witnesses, and the victim died, there would be nothing on earth to tell what had killed him.'

'Is that so, now?' Masters ruminated. 'Go on. What's the second way?' -

'Second. People have died without mark from concussion of the brain. A man gets a severe blow on the head; he falls down dead on the spot or later died unconscious. There may be a slight abrasion of the scalp. There may be no abrasion of the scalp at all; in the brain there may be no laceration or rupture of the blood-vessels, and all the other organs are healthy. Yet the man has died of violence.'

‘H'm. Third way?'

'Third. Nervous shock, caused by surprise or fright. Usually ascribed to vague inhibition of the heart. Don't snort: it's a solid fact and a solid scientific force which can knock over a healthy man like a ninepin, with no external or internal mark on him.

'There are several other ways as well; though none of them will apply here.’ For instance, people have died with-

‘ In looking over these notes of what I said, I think it only fair to add that Constable was not killed by any mechanical device which operated in the absence of the guilty person. The presence of the guilty person was necessary to make the method succeed. The reader is warned. - J. S.

out mark from electric shock, and you'd naturally think of that in a house so full of electric fittings. But he wasn't within yards of any such fitting; there isn't enough current to kill him if he were; and the whole point of electricity is that, if it kills, it kills on the split-second. Furthermore, there are certain drugs - like insulin - very difficult to spot if injected hypodermically; but I think we should have spotted anything of that sort. I don't want you to be under any misconceptions about it. That much at least I can do for you when your hour of great trouble rolls round.'

For some moments Masters had been regarding him with . a narrow and speculative eye, his forehead growing redder.

'Excuse me, Doctor,' he said soothingly. 'But are you feeling quite all right?'

'More or less.'

'Glad to hear it. Because for the life of me I don't understand what ails you. Lummy, don't you see you've explained the whole thing? What more do you want? - Let me see if I've got this straight. Mr Constable could have died from a blow to the body with a fist Or he could have died from a blow over the head with a blunt instrument. Or (hurrum!) somebody could have leaned out and said "Boo!" to him. If you don't mind,' said Masters, with sceptical indulgence, 'we'll just be dignified and call that last one vagus inhibition of the heart. Anyhow, there are three ways to account for his death?'

'Yes.'

'Just so. And you believe he was deliberately murdered ?' 'I do.'

'Mind!' said the chief inspector, raising one finger. 'No decisions yet. We'll wait for the fact, my lad. But let's argue this. The old gentleman, Mr Constable, told his wife he was going down to dinner and walked out into the hall ?'

'Yes.'

'Between the time she spoke to him last, and the time she opened the door and saw him in a fit out in the hall - how long a time elapsed, now?'

'About a minute, she says.'

'About a minute. Did anybody else look out into the hall up to the time the lady screamed ?' 'No.'

'So he was a whole minute alone in the hall ?' 'Right.'

'Suppose,' pursued Masters, 'there'd been a murderer ' waiting for him out there. Suppose the murderer got him as he came out. Eh? Caught him to the body or over the head. Wouldn't there have been ample time for the murderer to have slipped away - down the stairs, or back into one of the bedrooms - before Mrs Constable looked out?'

'Ample time, I agree.'

'Then-?'

'You see,' Sanders explained, 'we are now entering the. narrows of the trouble. All this may be true. Take what theory you like. But even supposing it were true, how could you prove it?'

There was a silence. Masters started to get up, and started to speak; but he checked himself in both motions. His eyes grew fixed.

'Am I making myself clear?' inquired Sanders. 'The point is that there is nothing whatever to show how he died. It is possible that he might have died from a blow to the body or head, which in itself might have been caused by an accidental fall when he was alone. In either case, you have no grounds for saying that he did die like that. It might just as well have been a pure accident of nervous shock, again when he was alone. There is no realm more mysterious, more incalculable, or less understood than that same nervous shock you were making such fun of a minute ago. People have died from seeing a railway accident. From listening to a radio broadcast. From games and initiations. Even from thinking they were attacked when there wasn't a soul near. But, since we haven't the remotest notion of how Sam Constable did die, you will never be able to prove anything. - Masters, if this is murder, the murderer is perfectly safe from the law.'

Again there was a silence.