The Reader Is Warned

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