'You're not (hurrum!) you're not by any chance afraid of being lynched, are you, sir?'
Pennik laughed.
'No. You don't know your own countrymen, my friend. They may talk a great deal in private; but the quality which comes from an ingrained horror of making a scene will keep them quiet in public. If I am presented to one of them, the worst he will do is cut me dead; and I must contrive to put up with that.' '
'So you mean to go down there in all your glory, do you?'
'Yes.'
'And you seriously intend to go to Paris and - and -'
'Kill someone else? Yes, I do. With the best of motives, I do. Tell me, do you think I am a fraud now?'
Masters gripped the edge of the table.
'Why don't you tell me, Mr Pennik? You're the thought-reading bloke. Or pretend to be. Why don't you tell me?'
'With pleasure. You are thinking that I really did commit these murders; but that I did it in some commonplace physical way you have not as yet fathomed. Is that correct?
Ah, I see by your face it is. Well, since the 'commonplace physical way' must be much more curious than any modest claim I make, I have no objection.'
'You haven't given any thought to the choice of the next victim, have you?'
'It will not be you, Chief Inspector. At heart you are not a bad fellow, and in your own way you are useful. No; in -'
Hilary spoke in a small, quiet voice.
'I am sorry; I simply can't stay any longer. I must get back to the office, and that's all there is to it.'
Pennik was deprecating but firm. 'My dear, your lightest whim shall be indulged. But that is not a whim; it is depressing nonsense. Didn't you hear what I said ? All that can be adjusted.'
'Oh, what's the good of talking like that? I don't want anything adjusted. I only want to get out of here. Pull your chair-'
'I am sorry,' said Pennik, his face clouding, 'that I was rather abrupt about revealing my plans. But I could not resist the expressive faces of these gentlemen, and so I was a little premature. Listen in pity while I explain what I mean. I don't want you to go back to the office. In fact, I had rather hoped to persuade you to come with me to Paris.'
For the first time since Pennik's arrival, Dr Sanders spoke.
'Take your hand off her arm,' he said.
It was as though everything in the restaurant had come to a standstill. And this was true in a literal sense as well. Though he was not aware of it, Sanders was the first to raise his voice above the studied muttering of the group by the window. He did not speak very loudly, even then; but it was like a stone flung through the window. And, in the background, the movement of waiters ceased.
'I beg your pardon?'.
'I said, take your hand off her arm,' Sanders repeated. Their voices were clearly audible now. Pennik hitched his chair round.
'Ah, my friend the doctor,' he said with an air of enlightenment. 'I had not noticed you. How do you do, sir? You sat there so quietly, doubtless thinking long, long thoughts, that I have been ill-mannered enough to overlook your presence.',
'I wonder if you can guess what the thoughts were.' Pennik made a weary gesture.
'Sir, we have had all this out before. Several times I feared I should have difficulties with you; once, at the Black Swan Hotel on Sunday morning, I was almost certain of it. But let me play the peacemaker. Please do not trouble me with parlour-games now. That business is of no consequence. It was an
'Oh.'
'And may I ask why you say that?'
'Because that's what I thought it was,' said Sanders.
Beside them, the big plate-glass windows went white with lightning, picking out every detail down to the turn of a lip or the design on a spoon. But Pennik had his back to it, so that Sanders could not see his face. He wished he could see it, for he had a feeling that the momentary change in the aspect of the window was no greater than the momentary change in Pennik's features. Thunder exploded after it, spreading out and losing itself in the curtain of the rain. .
Pennik spoke quietly.
'I still don't understand.'
'Well, this thought-reading. Masters got it out of Larry Chase on Sunday night that you'd been fishing for information about everybody. With this 'reading-the-subconscious-mind' business you had us both coming and going. If we had something deeply worrying us, and you said, 'This is what is in your subconscious mind,' we couldn't very well deny it, could we? But all you needed was information. For the rest, intelligent deductive work combined with what, in a book I went after the other night, is called Muscle-reading-'
Hilary Keen, moving behind Pennik's back, was making frantic signals to him. But Sanders paid no attention. 'So if you really killed those two people -'
'if I killed them?' repeated Pennik. 'You said the same thing once before, if I remember correctly. And I must beg leave to give you the same answer and die same warning, which you were prudent enough not to disregard. Are you challenging me, sir ?'
Sanders pushed his coffee-cup to one side.
'Yes,' he said.
CHAPTER XVI
That it would ever stop raining seemed open to doubt. When the five-twenty train pulled out of Charing Cross, immersed in steam like a kettle, little could be seen from the windows. But the train was almost empty, so that they had a first-class compartment to themselves, and two of them were walking up and down within its confines. . It was barely five minutes later when H. M. spoke. He said:
'For the love of Esau, can't this caterpillar go any faster?'
'Perhaps I'd better go up and speak to the engine-driver,' suggested Masters, not without sarcasm. 'Give him half a crown, or something. Why the rush, sir? Fourways waited for you yesterday, when you promised to come down and didn't. Why can't it wait now?'
H. M. did not answer this. He sighted over his spectacles, put his fists on his hips, and glared at Dr John Sanders, who was sitting down.
'You young ass!' he said.
But Masters was pleased. 'How do you feel, Doctor?' he asked jocularly. 'No sudden palpitations of the heart coming on? No cold sweats or what not? Lummy, it did my heart good, and that's a fact! I mean to say, giving it to him bang in the snoot when he was so sure you wouldn't.'
'You think this is funny?' inquired H. M. 'Shut up, Masters! Now listen to me, son. Why did you do it?'
Sanders rose to this.
'Well, who does Pennik think he b, anyway ? A sort of god. who can walk about telling people when they'll die and whom they'll go to dinner with? His Teleforce is rubbish and you know it as well as I do. All right: let him go ahead and press the switch. We'll see what happens.'
'H'm,' grunted H. M., scratching the side of his jaw. 'Got the wind up, have you ?'
Sanders was honest.
'Yes, in a way I have. A little.' 'Then why did you do it?'
(Why not admit it? Why not acknowledge that Hilary's blue eyes, Hilary's laugh, Hilary as she appeared to him in imagination now, had brought this about inevitably? Where Hilary was concerned, he and Pennik were like two dogs round a bitch. The simile was not a pretty or pleasant one; and he disliked himself even for thinking of it in connexion with Hilary; but, if you faced it, it amounted to that. Nor was there anything of the
