The Reader Is Warned

play, you may remember, is that in all conversations among friends or relatives there is a dangerous corner, where the most trivial word will turn the talk to disaster. Mostly we miss that comer; but sometimes the wheel skids by accident. Then a secret comes, out - about somebody. But, once you've turned that corner, you've got to keep on down the road. The exposure of that secret will lead to the exposure of another secret about somebody else, until one by one the real inner life of everybody is shown up; and the sight isn't pretty.

'That comer is dangerous enough. But it is a comer; it is taken by accident or chance. On the other hand, suppose you had somebody who took it deliberately, because he knew where it was and what it would lead to ? Suppose you had a person with a power to see into minds? To know every secret people were thinking about? The result doesn't bear thinking about in itself. Life would simply become intolerable, that's all. Now wouldn't it?'

She had been speaking quietly, in an explanatory way and without any emphasis on words. At the end she merely raised her eyes. Lawrence Chase looked surprised and doubtful (of her) and somewhat fretful.

'It's a bit too academic for me -'

'No, it isn't, Larry. You know that.'

'And I also begin to suspect, my girl, that you have a low mind.'

'Perhaps I have. I honestly don't know. But I notice that people always accuse you of having something wrong with your mind whenever you ask them to exercise theirs.'

'Of humanity in general, I mean,' said Chase. Hitherto he had been speaking with light good-humour, casting an eye at Sanders as though bidding him to listen to the girl. Now he drew himself up with such straightness that his .sharp shoulder-blades showed through the back of his coat. 'Right you are, then. We'll be desperately serious. Take the play you're talking about: if I remember correctly, before they finished digging out secrets they found that among them the characters had committed nearly every crime in the Decalogue. Hang it all! You don't seriously suggest that that would apply to any casual group of people, do you?'

'Oh, crime!' said Hilary, and smiled. 'Let me ask you something. Suppose every thought that came into your head in the course of one day were written down, and the whole thing read out to an assembled group of your friends.'

'God forbid!'

'You wouldn't like it?'

'I rather think I should prefer to be boiled in oil,' Chase declared reflectively.

'And yet you haven't committed any crime; any great crime, that is?' 'No. None that worries me, anyhow.' There was a silence.

'Oh, and another thing,' pursued Hilary, with a glow of pure mischief in her blue eyes. 'We can leave out crimes. We can even leave out your feminine conquests, or attempted conquests. You don't have to own up to the times you've seen a girl you rather liked, and invited her away somewhere, and thought, 'That's nice; that'll be easy,' when really you didn't know anything about her. People talk about 'secrets,' but usually all they mean is secrets about love-affairs or would-be love-affairs - '

'And usually they're quite right,' said Chase with candour. But even in the gloom you could see the blood come into his face.

'Well? Leaving out crime and all matters of sex, would you still -'

'No, look here!' interrupted Chase. 'This is going too far. We're supposed to be having an academic argument; not a game of Truth. Besides, why have my shortcomings and stupidities got to be pitched on? Would you like your thoughts for the course of a day to be paraded out in front of everybody?'

'I should hope not,' said Hilary fervently.

'Aha! Even apart from crime and sex, you've thought thoughts you wouldn't have known?'

'Yes.'

'In fact you've even thought thoughts about crime and sex?'

'Of course.'

'Well, that's all right, then,' said Chase, mollified. 'So, before the party becomes rowdy, suppose we drop the subject.'

'We can't drop it. That's just the point, don't you understand? You see how easy it is to start a thing like this going, just as we've been doing now. That's not because we're all criminals, but because we're all human. And it's why we've got to persuade Mina to get rid of this man Pennik.'

Chase hesitated, and Hilary turned to Sanders.

'He's going to make trouble,' Hilary said. 'I don't mean that his intentions are evil or that he's a mischief- maker. No. On the contrary, his intentions are good, and in that unassuming way of his he's rather charming -'

Then what are you worried about?' inquired Chase: though he himself looked far from at ease.

'Because that's just the whole difficulty. Unless he's a bigger charlatan than seems possible, he really believes in this gift of his. Under that mild exterior of his he would do anything, anything to convince people it was true. Particularly since Mr Constable -'

'Sam.'

'Sam, then. Particularly since Sam antagonizes him at every turn. You remember what happened when he gave that demonstration at their flat in town. Can't you imagine what he might do if he really chose to make trouble among a group like us? Or among any other group in the wide world? What do you say, Dr Sanders?'

It was growing darker in the glass-roofed room, hollow with the faint echo of the fountain and full of plants' that had turned to shadows. The orange-red square of the electric fire glowed more brightly. Sanders had begun to understand his invitation to Fourways.

He looked at Chase.

'Tell me,' he said. 'Was it your idea that H. M. and I should investigate this fellow? Find out whether or not he's a fake?'

Chase looked hurt.

'Oh, don't put it like that. Not at all! Both Sam and Mina particularly wanted to invite you.'

'Thanks. And, before we go into this, where are our hosts? I ought to present myself. Having barged in here -'

'That's all right. They're both out. They went over to Guildford to see how the servants were getting on, and to see whether they could dig up anybody to cook a scratch meal or attend to things generally. It's upset Mina, especially with another book on the way -' 'Another what on the way?'

'Book. You know.' Chase broke off. His eyes opened wide, and he knocked his knuckles against his forehead. 'Good Lord alive,' he said; 'you don't mean to say you don't know? I thought everybody knew.'

'Not when you are entrusted with telling it.'

'Mina Constable,' explained Chase, 'is really Mina Shields - the lady novelist, you know. And don't laugh.'

'Why the devil should I laugh?'

'I don't know,' Chase said gloomily, 'except that for some reason all lady novelists are supposed to be funny. Sort of dogma. Anyhow, Mina is a modern Marie Corelli. By that I don't mean anything pompous or flighty or on the preaching side: Mina is the best of good scouts, as you'll see. She may write romances about reincarnation in Egypt or Satan in the suburbs, but she's sound. When she wanted to do a novel about a temple in the middle of French Indo-China, -she didn't trust to the books; by George, she went to French Indo-China. That trip nearly killed Sam; and Mina too, for that matter. They both went down with malaria. Sam says he can't get warm even yet. Which is why they have these portable fires blazing in every room, and the place is like an oven. Don't open too many windows, or you'll have him on your neck.'

Hilary spoke with a certain intensity, looking over her shoulder at the spray of the fountain. 'Yes. I dare say you will.' 'Now, now!'

'Mrs Constable is fine,' said Hilary. 'I like her enormously. But Mr Constable - no, I am not going to call him Sam -ugh!'

'Nonsense! Sam's all right. It's only that he's the complete British clubman, and he's a bit fussy.'

'He is at least twenty years older than she is,' Hilary said dispassionately, 'and not attractive in any conceivable way that I can see. Yet the way he orders her about, ticks her off, calls attention to things in public - well, before I would let any man do that to me, I'd go off and take poison in a corner.'

Chase spread out his hands. 'She's fond of him, that's all. Like one of her heroes in the books. He was what used to be called a fine figure of a man before he retired.'

'Which the rest of us can't afford to do,' said Hilary rather bitterly.