The Reader Is Warned

'But it's not reasonable!' protested Masters querulously.

'No. The only trouble is that it sometimes happens.'

'Well, sir, we'll have to see what we can do about it,' said Masters, with an attempt at cheerfulness. 'All the same, I'm bound to admit I don't like that lack-of-proof thing -'

'Oh, that's the least of your worries.'

Again the chief inspector started to speak; then he regarded his companion with some suspicion. 'Just a minute, Doctor. If I didn't know you so well, blow me if I wouldn't think there was something queer in all this! Are you sure you're not on a wild-goose chase? Murder? By everything you've told me, the whole thing could have been accidental death. Eh? Just so. Then why have you been stirring everybody up with the idea that Mr Constable didn't die naturally?'

'Because a mind-reader named Herman Pennik said he would die round about eight o'clock on Friday night,' answered Sanders. 'And I don't believe in mind-readers.'

Along the main road outside, where the sun was strengthening towards midday, a bus lumbered past at its Sunday gait. The bus stopped with a squealing of brakes, and Sanders glanced at his watch. Meantime, Chief Inspector Masters had been looking at him fixedly. After drawing a deep breath, the chief inspector got up and walked out of the room. Dr Sanders heard him speaking in the dulcet tones of one who wishes to cajole an idiot.

'Miss,' he was saying, 'is the bar open here on Sundays?'

An indignant female voice replied that it was.

'Ah!' said Masters. 'Two pints of bitter in here, miss, if you please.'

Mr Herman Pennik was at this moment getting down from the bus outside. Dr Sanders could not have said why he seemed so incongruous in that homely road on Sunday. Yet Sanders was oppressed by the same feeling that had troubled him ever since the death of Sam Constable: a feeling that with every hour Pennik's character was growing ‘ and emerging like a mango-tree under a cloth, stirring the dull cloth, sending out tentacles.

Chief Inspector Masters returned carrying two tankards of bitter. His air was one of elaborate off-handedness.

'Now, Doctor!' he said. 'By the way, seen anything of the old man recently? Sir Henry, I mean?' . 'He's coming down here this afternoon.'

'Is he, now? Does he know what you've just told me?'

'Not yet.'

'Ah!' said Masters, with a sudden unholy relish which could not altogether have applied to the beer. 'Knows nothing about it, then? Bit of a surprise for him, eh? Well, well, well! Well, here's all the best.'

'All the best. - And in the meantime there's someone else I'd like you to meet. He's here now. (Hoy! Mr Pennik! This way!) This,' Sanders went on, 'is Mr Masters, who is a chief inspector from Scotiand Yard. Masters, this is Mr Pennik, the thought-reading phenomenon I was telling you about. I sent for him to come here too.'

Masters's musing satisfaction had been short-lived. Putting down his tankard hastily, he gave Sanders a brief reproachful glare before he turned with his usual blandness to Pennik.

'Yes, sir? I didn't quite catch -?'

'I am what Dr Sanders calls the thought-reader,' said Pennik, his eyes never leaving the other's face. 'Dr Sanders told me you would be put in charge of the case.'

Masters shook his head.

'I'm afraid I'm not as yet, sir. So there's not much I could know about it, is there? However' - he became confidential - 'if you wouldn't mind giving me your own views, strictly sub-ju-de-cay and among ourselves, of course, I don't say it wouldn't help me a lot. Take this chair, sir. What'll you have to drink?'

(Watch out for him when he's in this mood.)

"Thank you,' said Pennik. 'I never drink. It is not that I have any objection to it; but it always upsets my stomach.'

'Ah! Lot of people'd be better off without it, I daresay,' declared Masters, surveying his tankard wisely. 'However! The trouble is, you see, that some people would say we haven't a case anyway. Be a bit awkward, wouldn't it, if we cut up a row and then found Mr Constable had died a natural death?'

Pennik frowned slightly, turning a pleasant but puzzled look towards Sanders. Yet again there was that suggestion of the mango-tree stirring under the dull cloth; and it was not pleasant.

'Dr Sanders cannot have told you much about the case,' he said. 'Of course it was not a natural death.' 'You believe that, too?' 'Naturally. I know it.' Masters chuckled.

'You know it, sir?' he inquired. 'Then perhaps you can even tell us who killed him?'

'Of course,' answered Pennik, lifting one hand to touch himself lightly on the chest, 'I killed him.'

CHAPTER VII

It was the lifting of the hand that did it. Why, it might be wondered, was there a faint hint of the florid about Pennik this morning? His country tweeds were as solid and unobtrusive as Sam Constable's. His soft hat and crooked stick lay across the table. His manner (perhaps fiercely) was so repressed as to seem wooden. But on the little finger of his left hand was a ring set with a bloodstone.

Nothing could have exceeded the grotesque contrast between that ring and his surroundings: the country pub, the Sunday countryside with fowls in it, the sunlight through fresh curtains on Pennik's bullet head. The ring changed him; it lit him up.

Sanders saw it to such an extent that he missed the expression on Masters's face.

But he heard the tone of the chief inspector's voice.

'What's that you said?'

'I said / killed him. Didn't Dr Sanders tell you?'

'No, sir, he did nott So that's why you're here, is it?' Masters drew himself up. 'Herman Pennik: do you wish to make a statement about the death of Mr Constable?'

'If you like.'

'One moment! I must warn you that you are not obliged to make any statement; but that, if you do, anything -'

'That'll be quite all right, Inspector,' Pennik assured him; and Sanders saw peering out from behind those quiet features a huge amusement. But there was annoyance in it as well. 'I cannot understand, though, why Dr Sanders failed to tell you. Nor do I understand the cause of all the uproar. Dr Sanders will bear me out when I say that I carefully warned Mr Constable, in the presence of all the others, that I was going to try to kill him. I did not say it was certain, mind you, because I was not sure I could manage it. I only intimated that I meant to try. How there could have been any misunderstanding it is difficult to imagine. I certainly don't lay claim to supernatural powers; and nobody, so far as I know, has ever been able to read the future. I intimated that I would kill him, and I did kill him. Hence why all the fuss about it?'

'Goddalmighty,' said Masters, getting his breath. 'Let me get a word in edgeways, sir! I must warn you that you are not obliged to make any statement; but that, if you do -'

'And I repeat that it will be quite all right, Mr Masters. I am told that I can make whatever statement I like without danger to myself.'

'Who told you that?'

'My lawyer.'

'Your-'

'Or, rather,' Pennik corrected himself, 'he was my lawyer. (I mean Mr Chase.) He has since recoiled from me and said he thought I was joking. But I was not joking.'

'No, sir?'

'No. Before killing Mr Constable, I asked Mr Chase whether I could be charged with murder if I killed him under the conditions I described. Mr Chase said I could not. Otherwise I should not have done it. I have a horror of being shut up - it unnerves me; and the experiment was not worth while if I ran the risk of being tried for it.'

'I daresay not, sir. How do you feel about hanging, though?'

'Are you also under the impression that I am joking, Mr Masters?'

Masters cleared his throat powerfully. 'Now, now, sir! We've got to take it easy, you see. ... Excuse me, Doctor, but is this gentleman crazy?'

'Unfortunately, no,' said Sanders, briefly.

'Thank you, Doctor,' said Pennik, with great gravity; but behind that broad nose Sanders thought he detected a flash of malice, which was spreading to the whole face with the effect of flattening it.

'Well, why didn't you go to the local police with your story?'

'I did,' said Pennik.

'When?’

'As soon as they were called in. I wished to make sure that nothing could be done to me, you see.'

'And how did they.feel about it?'

'They agreed that nothing could be done.... As regards how they felt about it, that is a different matter. Colonel Willow, I believe, kept a straight bat and a stiff upper lip; but Superintendent Belcher is made of less stern stuff, and I understand that only the thought of a wife and four children prevented him from putting his head into the gas-oven.'

Masters turned round with dangerous calm.

'Is this true, Doctor?'

'Quite true.'

Then why the blazes didn't you tell me?'

'That's what I'm doing,' Sanders answered, patiently. "That's why you're here. Like Mr Pennik, I warned you. It didn't seem wise to - er - give you the works all at once.'

'But, blast it all, the police can't be crazy tool'

"They are not,' Pennik assured him. "Though at first they seemed to share your original view about me. However, I agree with you that Dr Sanders should have told you. I told Dr Sanders, and the other guests at Fourways, just as soon as the thing happened. For some curious reason they seem all except the doctor here - to regard me with a kind of superstitious terror. They even refused to eat a meal which I was at some trouble to prepare. I tried to explain, but they would not listen. Of course I was proud to have succeeded' -again there was a curious flash across his face - 'but I am a human being; I lay no claim to supernatural powers. Such ideas are nonsense.'

Masters corked himself down. For a moment he breathed slowly and steadily, as though counting. Then he raised his head.

'If you don't mind, sir,' he went on, with a kind of bursting suavity, 'we'll just take this thing from the beginning. Eh? Do you mean to sit there and tell me you killed Mr Constable?'

'I am afraid we can never get any further, Inspector, unless you at least try to consider that'as a possibility and stop asking the same question. .Yes. I killed him.'

'Right you are! Right you are! How did you kill him?'

'Ah, that is my secret.' Pennik grew thoughtful. 'I am suddenly beginning to realize what an important secret it might be in this world. You cannot expect me to betray that.'

'Can't I, by George! - No, wait, steady 1 Easy does it. Now. Why did you kill him?'

"There you are more easily answered. I regarded him as an ill-mannered imbecile, brutal to his wife, insulting to his guests, an obstruction to all mental or moral progress. Judged as a person, he had challenged me beyond all human patience. Judged as the subject of an experiment, he was a man whose loss would hardly be felt in the scheme of things. Even though Dr Sanders disagrees with me in everything else, he will agree with me in that. And so I made him the subject of an experiment.'

'An experiment!' repeated Masters. 'Come now, sir! About how you did it,' he spoke with broad persuasiveness, 'just what means did you use? Have you developed a new blow to the abdomen, now? One that always works? Or a new way of coshing, maybe? Or frightening the poor bloke?'

'So you have been hearing about the scientific possibilities,' observed Pennik, turning his light eyes towards Sanders.

'Well, which one of those ways did you use?'

'That is what you will have to find out for yourself,' smiled Pennik.

'Oh, ah ? So you admit you used one of those ways?'

'On the contrary. I used none of them, except in a certain sense.'

'Except in a certain sense? What do you mean by that?'

"That I certainly used a weapon which can strike and, if properly applied, kill. If you want a name for it, call it Teleforce - the power of drawing out or, conversely, crushing, from afar. I did not know’ - again the white look came round his eyes and gills - 'that it could be made quite so strong. Inspector, I am very tired. Do not try me too far now. But it is an extension of the same process which enables me to tell what you are thinking about at the moment.''

'So you know what I'm dunking about, do you?' inquired Masters, putting his head on one side.

Pennik smiled vaguely.

'Well, of my untimely demise, of course. That will be evident to anybody who looks at you. I was referring to your hidden thoughts, the thought you have been trying to banish out of your mind. You have been putting on an air of false and forced geniality to-day because you are hideously worried. You have a child (a daughter, I think) who goes into a nursing home to-morrow for an operation for appendicitis. She is not a strong child; and you did not sleep all last night for worrying.'

Masters went red, and then rather pale. His friend had never seen such an expression on his face.

'Did you tell him that?' the chief inspector demanded, whirling round.

'I didn't know it,' said Sanders. 'I'm sorry.'

'But it is true?' asked Pennik. 'Be persuaded, my friend. You will have to acknowledge it sooner or later.'

'We'll just leave my affairs out of it, sir, if you please,' said Masters. 'Hurrum! Now I don't suppose you could prove what you were doing when Mr Constable was killed?' 'I have been wondering when you would ask that question,' replied Pennik, showing his teeth. 'Let us clear it up once and for all. Dr Sanders (and Miss Keen as well) will testify that Mr Constable was alive and in very good health at a quarter to eight on Friday night. I believe he had gone to investigate some curious occurrences in Dr Sanders's room.' Here a flash of malice passed towards Sanders; you could almost feel it like a vibration. 'At this time I was downstairs. At about a quarter to eight the doorbell rang -the back doorbell, that is. I answered it. A certain Mrs Chichester had promised to come and get the household a meal, since all the servants were away. It was Mrs Chichester, accompanied by her son Lewis; evidently as a chaperon. I was going to get the meal, but I told them they might help me if they liked. For some reason they seemed nervous -'

Here Sanders interposed. It was one of the parts he liked least about the whole affair.

'Why not tell the chief inspector why they were nervous, Mr Pennik ?'

'I don't understand.'

'Mrs Chichester and her son,' Sanders explained, 'will tell you that when Mr Pennik opened the door to them he breathed as though he had been running, and rolled his eyes round. From a quarter to eight until eight o'clock he was occasionally inflicted with a minor seizure. At eight o'clock, when Mrs Constable began to scream upstairs, they couldn't stand it any longer. They bolted out of the house as though the devil were after them, and didn't come back.’

'Yes, sir? What about it?' frowned Masters.

Sanders looked at Pennik.

'I was only wondering why he breathed hard when he opened the door. Had he been upstairs, for instance?'

'No, I had not,' said Pennik. 'But Dr Sanders has very kindly' - a slight pause - 'has very kindly outlined my case for me. Mrs Chichester and her son will tell you that between a quarter to eight and eight o'clock, I did not stir out of the kitchen or the dining-room: the door was propped open between those two rooms, and they can be sure of it. As a matter of medical fact, Dr Sanders will tell you that Mr Constable died at about eight o'clock. That takes care of everything, I think.'

Masters put his fists on his hips.

‘Oh? A perfect alibi, eh?'

'As you say, a perfect alibi,' grinned Pennik.

There was a pause.

'Now, Inspector, I know the law of England. You dare not arrest me: you could not even get a warrant. You cannot try any such weapon as the third degree. You cannot even shut me up under the mysterious term of a "material witness"; as I say, I have a horror of being shut up. In any case I am not a witness. I merely killed the man. But I really do not see what you are going to do about it.'

The chief inspector stared back at him, speechless. Pennik reached out for his hat and stick. The hot sunlight touched his shabby sandy hair; briefly, he expanded his chest and raised his eyes upward.

His voice suddenly deepened as though with inspiration.

' "And it came to pass" ' said Pennik,' "at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath givenyou the city".' He closed his large fist and brought it down with a crash on the table.

'With my heart and body and brain I have made a new and great power, gentlemen. I have plundered the treasure-house of the unknown. Dr Sanders will tell you that there is no realm more mysterious, more incalculable, or less understood than the force called nervous shock; but I have found its secret. Before I have finished I shall have made bats and owls of their scientists, and shown their logic for puerility. But the gift must be used sparingly. It must be used for good. Yes. Always for good. Always, always, always, Mr Constable, however estimable you might have thought him, will hardly be missed -'

'It hadn't occurred to you,' said Sanders, 'that he might be missed by his wife ?'

'His wife!' said Pennik, half contemptuously.

'She is a useful and decent woman. Will you understand me if I say that, always providing you did do this, you broke, her heart?' ' "Always providing I did it?" ' repeated Pennik, raising his sandy eyebrows slightly. 'That is what I said.'

Pennik leaned across the table and spoke in a different voice.

'Are you challenging me, sir?' he inquired. There was a silence. It was broken by Chief Inspector Masters.

'Steady!' he roared. 'Steady, flow. This can't go on. It can't, I tell you!'

'You are quite right,' agreed Pennik, drawing a deep breath. 'I beg your pardon, Doctor. I must keep in mind certain facts; I must do nothing foolish or hasty.' He turned half-petulant. 'Try to understand me, gentlemen. I claim no supernatural powers of any kind; I work by a natural force well known to myself. I do not say the force wovld always operate. No, no, no. I am more modest than that: I say it would perhaps succeed in seven cases out often. This I shall make quite clear to the gentlemen of the Press -'

A new cause for worry presented itself to Masters.

'Now, now!' he said. 'Haif a tick! You don't mean you're going to talk to the newspapers?'

'And why not?'

'But you can't do that, sir!'

'Oh ? And how do you propose to stop me, Inspector?... There were quite a number of journalists at the Grovetop police-station. I told them I should issue a statement later in the day. I was first approached,' he took a card out of his pocket and studied it, 'by Mr Dodsworth of the Evening Griddle. The Griddle, I am informed, is a "scandal-sheet." I do not object to it on those grounds - scandal is often stimulating and healthy. But there are others which are definitely not scandal-sheets. Let me see. Mr Banks of the News-Record. Mr MacBain of the Daily Trumpeter. Mr Norris of the Daily Non-Stop. Mr O'Brien of the Evening Banner. Mr West-house of the Daily Wireless. And (yes, here we are) Mr Kynaston of The Times.

Masters choked.

'So you want publicity, eh?'

'My dear sir, I neither court publicity nor do I coyly shrink from it. If these gentlemen have any questions to ask me, I shall be happy to answer them.'

'Oh, ah? And you propose to tell them what you've just told me?'

'Naturally.'

'You know they won't be allowed to print a word of it, don't you?'

'We must see what happens,' said Pennik, uninterested.

'It would be unfortunate if I were compelled to exercise my power again merely to prove it. Do not drive me to those lengths, my friend. I am a simple-minded soul and I wish to do the right thing by everybody. And now, if you have no further use for me at the moment, I will say good day. You will be able to find me at Fourways whenever you want me. True, Mrs Constable has ordered me out; her dislike of me has begun to border on the maniacal; but the police have told me to stay, and, as you notice, I am always happy to obey any reasonable request.'

'Sir, I'm telling you straight! I forbid you to say a word about this to any news -'

'Don't be a fool, Inspector. Good day.'

It was his last word. He adjusted his hat, picked up the crooked stick, and went out after a cool nod to Sanders. They saw him going rather self-consciously along the road towards the bus-stop. Sanders said one word.

'Well?'

'He's insane,' declared the chief inspector. 'Do you really believe that?'

'What else can he be?' said Masters. He brooded. 'And yet there's something about the man. I'll admit that. Lummy, I never had anybody talk to me quite like that before in all my born days. For the life of me I can't treat him like the usual crank who comes in and says he did a murder. I know that kind; met thousands of'em; and, I tell you straight, he won't fit in.'

'Suppose,' muttered Sanders, thoughtfully, 'just suppose, and don't rise up in wrath: but suppose he says somebody else is going to die at a certain time - and the person does?'