The Reader Is Warned

have gone out again by the bathroom door and turned the key from outside, leaving it locked again. Granted. But if she had been murdered by a physical attack at any time while I was sitting at the top of the stairs just outside the hall door, I'm damned certain I should have heard it.'

'H'mf! I You weren't very far away from the door, son ?'

'No. Only about eight feet. And, as Masters says, she struggled violently before she died on that bed. I'm certain I couldn't have helped hearing it.'

'Fair enough. Shut up, Masters 1 And there wasn't a sound?'

'No. Nothing at all. Which means that the attack must have taken place during the two or three minutes while I was downstairs at the telephone. All right; I admit it did. In that case the murderer would have had to get through a locked door, kill Mrs Constable after a struggle by a means that left no trace, and get out again. The murderer could have done that, yes. He could have left the doors locked behind him, as I said a minute ago. But it seems a remarkably short space of time for it to happen in, that's all.'

H. M. spoke slowly.

'So she died alone,' he said. 'Like her husband in the hall.' .

Into Masters's face had come a quiet affability, such a blandness that H. M. regarded him with suspicion.

'Just a moment, sir,' he interposed. 'Just a moment, if you please. Now, you say that there was nobody in that house on Sunday night except Dr Sanders and Mrs Constable. You say there was no third person?'

'I dunno. We're still debatin' whether Pennik's astral projection was there.'

Masters's epithet turned Pennik's astral projection into something much shorter and less dignified.

' - because, sir, I'm in a position to prove - to prove -that there was a third person there.'

'Well?'

'You remember those two green candles on the chest-of-drawers in Mr Constable's room?'

'I do,' said H. M.; and his eyes narrowed.

'Just before you and I left Fourways on Sunday night we had a look into Pennik's room and found him gone. Just so! We also had a look into Mr Constable's room. Just so! You pointed out those two green candles to me, and showed how both of 'em were burned down about half an inch.'

·Get on with it, son! Well?'

Masters sat back.

'After Mrs Constable's death,' he said, 'the same two candles were both burned down another half-inch.'

CHAPTER XIV

'I don't see what it's got to do with us,' pursued Masters. 'Or with the death of either Mr or Mrs Constable. It's not what you'd call a clue.' He chuckled a little. 'Oh, I've had my ideas, I'm bound to admit. What I thought of first off was a poisoned candle. I've read a story (in fact, I've read two stories) in which a bloke was polished off with a poisoned candle. But the doctor here swears blue that neither of the victims died from poison, solid, liquid; or gaseous. And that's good enough for me.'

He raised one finger impressively.

'It proves very little about the murders. But it does more or less prove there was a third person at Fourways on Sunday night. You and I, Sir Henry, were the last to leave; and the candles hadn't been burned their extra half- inch then... I daresay, Doctor, you didn't burn 'em?'

'No. I certainly didn't.'

'Just so.' Here the chief inspector hesitated. 'And no reason, is there, why the dead lady should have burned 'em herself? Stop: I know what you'll say. She might have. Admitted. But why should she? Does it seem likely? No. Unless it was suicide. But then the candles weren't poisoned, so they couldn't have killed anybody. Oh, lummy, lead me to a lunatic asylum.'

At last H. M. spoke.

'That tears it,' he said.

'What tears it?'

'The candles. I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track now. -I say, Masters. Any finger-prints on 'em?' 'No.'

'Any more spots of candle-grease? You know, like the spots on the carpet in Constable's room, whose position I kept pointin' out to you?'

'Nary a spot.'

I-LM. grunted. 'No. I didn't think there would be. This time the murderer was more careful.'

'Was he, now?' muttered the chief inspector, eyeing H. M. with a strained and corked expression. 'So the murderer was in the house on Sunday night, eh? I'm going to talk to you straight, Sir Henry. If you've got any notion how this was done, or how Mr Ruddy Pennik managed to be in two places at once, or what those even ruddier candles mean, tell me flat out and don't talk flummery. I'm not in the mood for it.'

- H. M. grunted again. 'I'm not either, if it comes to that. Burn me, Masters, didn't you ever feel you were just on the edge of something, hot quite seein' it, not quite, but almost getting the -' He slid his fists along the table-cloth. 'Almost! That's all. It's like trackin' back something you've just dreamed. It's a spiritual experience you'd best avoid. Tell me one more thing, and I'll exchange information for information. That big press-cutting scrap-book of Mrs Constable's: have you found it yet?' 'No.'

'Did you look for it ?'

'Ho! Did we look for it?' said Masters, with a certain sarcasm. 'Between me and the superintendent and his men we've been over every inch of that house. And I mean every inch. It's not in the house. But does that surprise me? Not so's you'd notice it. At the end of the week-end, all .the guests walked away from that house carrying bags. It went away in one of those bags, that's all; somebody pinched it.'

'It's a possibility. Sure. The only objection to it from my point of view is that I don't believe it. I said this before, and in spite of all the burstin' dams I'll say it again. Mina Constable hid that book before she was murdered. If I ever saw a thing in a human face, I saw that in hers; and I'll bet you my hat to a tanner it's still in the house.'

The chief inspector mustered all his force of reasonableness; you could see him doing it.

'Dr Sanders!' he said. 'You're the only one who's seen this scrap-book. About how big was it?'

Sanders considered.

'About eighteen inches high, an inch or so thick, and ten or twelve inches broad, I should say.'

'Eighteen inches high,' continued Masters, holding his hand at that height from the floor, 'and ten or twelve inches broad. What you'd call a stunner of a big book. Outstanding. And bound in heavy stiff imitation leather. She couldn't have burnt it, as you said yourself; she couldn't have destroyed it. She didn't leave the house at any time. Would you like to tell me where in the house she could have hidden a big book like that so that we didn't find it?'

'I dunno, son. I'm bein' stubborn.'

'You are. You mean you think it contains the secret of how all this hocus-pocus was worked?'

'Somethin' like that. Maybe.'

'If it does,' said Masters with restraint, 'by George! It ought to be bought for the nation and put in the British Museum. In the first place if s invisible. In the second place it contains the secret of why two green candles are burned every time a person dies. In the third place it shows how Pennik can be in the bar-parlour of a country hotel and at the same time in the conservatory of a house four miles away -'

'Uh-huh. I admit that. Pennik's the problem; and yet, d'ye know, it may not be so difficult after all. From what I've seen of Pennik-'

Masters stopped him. Masters said:

'From what you've seen of Pennik? But you haven't seen him yet! He wouldn't meet us at the Black Swan on Sunday night. You haven't seen him at all.'

'Oh yes, I have,' said H. M, He removed his glasses, which gave his eyes a different, rather caved-in expression of bleariness; it suddenly turned him into a stranger. After looking at the glasses through the light, he replaced them. But for a moment he had really looked like the old man.

'Oh yes, I have,' he repeated. 'Like young Chase on a certain interestin' occasion, I didn't meet him and I didn't talk to him; but I saw him.'