The Reader Is Warned

'Very much.'

'Item,' growled H. M., running his hand round inside his collar. 'Cast your mind back to that little adventure, about fifteen minutes before the murder, when Sam Constable hears the lamp go smash-in your room and comes peltin' down to investigate. Now, two persons gave a minute description of that, didn't they? You heard it. Young Chase described it, and Mrs Constable described it. Chase told us how Constable came rushin' out of his bedroom, in his bare feet and bedroom slippers, stumbling all over himself to get his feet properly into the slippers. We've all had that same experience. We know how it works. It's too circumstantial. It couldn't be a mistake. It's either the truth or a plain lie.'

'Well?' said Sanders - and knew what was coming.

'But what's the lady say, on the other hand? She tells us that when Constable heard the crash and ran out she had just finished tyin' up his shoes for him. So she says he was wearing shoes and socks. Again it's detailed and circumstantial. It's either truth or a plain lie. And I'm afraid, son, that it's a plain lie.'

'Why couldn't Chase be lying?'

H. M. ruffled his hands across his big bald head.

'Because I know liars, son,' he said rather wearily. 'She's not one of the best. But if you want proof further than what's maybe cloth-headed maunderin' on my part, think back! You saw the feller, didn't you? Well? Was he wearin’ shoes or slippers?' "

Sanders had not before considered this. He had been too intent on other things to notice discrepancies. And though he did not want to remember it, the scene returned with too much vividness.

'Slippers,' he admitted.

'Uh-huh. So she was lying...

'Item two,' continued H. M. 'You heard her swear with touchin' simplicity and fervour that she knew nothing at all about the two candles that somebody had been burnin' in her husband's bedroom? Sure. She hadn't been walkin' about with those candles? Maybe you didn't notice her jump when I spotted 'em, though. But we won't count that. Now, on Friday night she was wearin' a big pink padded silk dressing-gown, wasn't she? Masters and I have been snoopin' round a bit, and we've had a look at that same dressing-gown. The right-hand sleeve is still all mucked up with spots of candle-grease where her hand was shaky.'

(Sanders did not question that. He did not try. For insistently there returned to his mind a memory of Mina Constable crouching in the padded chair, the padded dressing-gown drawn round her and the spots of candle-grease on the sleeve.)

'Y'see, son?' inquired H. M. meekly. Silence.

'There's also,' H. M. went on, 'the question of that big press-cutting scrap-book she says she burnt. She didn't, though. You can't burn one of those whackin' tough imitation-leather books without leaving some trace: not unless you drop it into a furnace. But there's no furnace here, not even a single wood or coal fire where it could 'a' been burned; and no trace of a burned book either. It's all lies, son. Let her sleep. If there was just some shred of proof how she did it, she might be on her way to Kingston on a charge of murder.'

'Damn and blast,' said Sanders.

'Sure,' agreed H. M.

'But everything she said and did. ... After all, what difference does it make whether Constable wore slippers instead of shoes? Or whether she burned a couple of candles and said she didn't?'

H. M. was malevolent. 'I wish I knew, son. Of all the rummy clues I ever heard of, there's a couple of the rummiest.'

'And you also maintain,' persisted Sanders, 'that everything about her - her crying, her faints, her lowered vitality, even that attempted challenge to the newspapers this evening - was all a part of a hoax and a flamboyant piece of acting?'

Masters chuckled benevolently.

'Well, sir, what do you think? You notice she was very easily persuaded not to issue her challenge, don't you?' 'I think you're wrong.'

'Free country, Doctor. Every man to his own opinion! And now, if you don't mind,' Masters bustled out with his watch, 'Sir Henry and I will have to cut along. First to Grovetop, and then on to the Black Swan to see Mr Pennik. I don't mind telling you there's an interview I'm looking forward to! When Sir Henry meets him -'

'That woman is still in danger.'

'All right, Doctor. You guard her. Good night, good night, good night!'

He opened the door and motioned H. M. to precede him. H. M., picking up his ancient top-hat and his equally ancient coat from the rack beside the door, lumbered forward two steps and stopped. He turned round.

He said:

'Look here, Masters. Just supposin' this young feller happens to be right?'

Masters almost howled at him: 'Now what do you want to go thinking things like that for? We've been all over this, sir. We know what we think, don't we ?'

'Oh, sure. Sure. We always do. Every time anybody in this world takes a toss and goes full-tilt down a butter slide, it comes from knowin' what he thinks. Well, let's hear the mournful numbers. What do we think?'

After looking round cautiously, Masters closed the door. Then he talked at Sanders.

'That Mrs Constable deliberately murdered her husband, by some trick we haven't dropped to yet. Ah, and I'll tell you something else. I haven't read any of the lady's books (no fear). But my wife has: all of 'em, and she told me a thing or two before I left home. In one of the books, about an Egyptian expedition, a whole string of people were supposed to die from a curse on the Pharaoh's tomb; and it turned out that they were really polished off by some ruddy clever use of carbon-monoxide gas. My wife couldn't remember exactly how the thing worked, but she said it sounded all right and you could do it at home, so she wondered whether it would work in case she ever wanted to polish me off.'

Sanders shrugged his shoulders.

'All right, admit that,' he said. 'And in The Double Alibi she had the victim die from a hypodermic injection of insulin. Which is a hair-raiser, because it's scientifically sound and very nearly undetectable. I remember I said something about it to her on Friday evening. But what of that? Constable didn't die from carbon monoxide or insulin. What does it prove ?'

'It proves my point,' declared Masters, tapping his finger into his palm, 'that a trick like this, whatever in blazes it is, would be straight up her street. If she ever set out to polish somebody off, that's just exactly how she'd go about it. Something as wild as wind and yet as domestic as cheese.

Something you could do in your own home with two thimbles and a tablet of soap; and no special knowledge required.'

(It was at this point that an extraordinary change went over H. M.'s face. It was exactly as though he were setting and puffing out his features to deliver a resounding raspberry, but it faded off into excited wonder.)

'Oh, my eye!' he muttered’

'Sir?'

'Never mind, son. I was cogitatin'.' Masters turned round on him with deepest and darkest suspicion.

'I tell you I was cogitatin'!' insisted H. M. 'Go on. What I was thinkin' about don't affect your case. I was only thinkin' about the spots of candle-grease on the carpet, and exactly where they were. Burn me, Masters, why do you always think I'm tryin' to do you in the eye?'

'Because usually you are,' said the chief inspector, briefly. 'Now see here, sir -'

'Go on with your case,' said Sanders. 'How does Pennik fit into it?'

'Isn't it clear as daylight, Doctor? Pennik knew about it, or guessed about it. He knew when she was going to do it, and why she was going to do it. So when it happened he simply used it to strengthen and bolster up his ruddy hocus-pocus of murder by telepathy. Mind you, he didn't commit himself too far by saying too much before it happened. He only said it might happen. Then it did happen; and for the first time he came out boldly and swore he did it. Eh? I'm pretty sure he wasn't in cahoots with her over it.’ He only used her. That's why she's so blinking wild and bitter against him now. That much of her carryings-on I'll admit