The Reader Is Warned

young lady.'

‘'I knew it!' said Lawrence Chase, jumping to his feet.

Hilary did not speak; it was as though she had not heard. She continued to look incuriously over her shoulder at the glimmering spray of water in the fountain. The light shone on her rich dark-brown hair and the line of her neck as she turned her head. But her obvious start of astonishment was caused Jess by the words than the tone in which Pennik spoke them.

'Am I correct, Doctor?' Pennik asked, colourless again. Sanders did not reply.

'So you admit it,' said Chase. 'All right, Mr Pennik: what am I thinking about?' 'I'd rather not say.'

'Oh? Now will someone just tell me why I am always accused of having a low mind? Why I am always supposed to be thinking -'

'Nobody said you were,' Sanders pointed out mildly. 'That would appear to be the trouble with this game. Our consciences are all over us.'

'Well, then, what is Hilary thinking about?' Chase challenged. 'What is the guilty secret she's been hiding all these weeks I've known her?'

Fortunately, they were interrupted. From the dark interior of the house, past a glass door flanked by velvet curtains, they heard hurrying footsteps and the sound of a rather breathless voice calling to them. The curtains were opened by a little, smiling, hurrying woman with her hat on crooked. This could be nobody but their hostess; and Sanders welcomed her presence with a surge of relief. He was beginning to realize that this game of thought- reading could not be carried too far, or it would end in a smash; yet, with ordinary human perversity, everybody insisted on carrying it too far. That was the trouble. And it occurred to him to wonder: Look here, just what is going to happen before this week-end is over?

CHAPTER III

'I'm so sorry to have left you alone,' said Mina Constable. 'And I'm afraid things are so disorganized I don't know which way to turn.'

Sanders liked the look of her: she restored sane values. Mina Constable had a friendliness and sincerity which seemed quite genuine. She was small and quick-moving, with a wiry strength insensible to fatigue. She had large imaginative eyes, dark-brown in colour; a dark complexion; and black hair cut close to her head. Sanders judged her to be very fashionably dressed, though her hat was put on anyhow. Speak to her, and she radiated charm. Yet he saw that traces of a bad attack of malaria were still present: in the pupils of the eye, and in the difficulty she had in holding to her handbag.

Mina Constable glanced quickly over her shoulder.

'I - er - rushed on ahead to tell you,' she went on in the same rather breathless voice. 'I want to warn you, you mustn't mind Sam. That is, if he seems in a mood. He's had a filthy day, poor old boy; what with that smash and now not being able to get anybody to do for us over the weekend. No, the servants are all right, thank goodness; chipper as you please, and it is rotten for them. You do understand, don't you? Oh!'

Catching sight of Sanders, she broke off. It was Chase who performed the introductions. And Chase, perhaps because he was off guard, showed an unusual lack of tact.

'You needn't flatter yourself, Mina,' he said heartily, putting his arm round her shoulders. 'Here's a fellow who never even heard of you. You're not as widely known as you think.'

'I never supposed I was,' said Mina composedly, and smiled at Sanders.

'He never heard,' pursued Chase with relish, 'of My Lady Ishtar or Satan in the Suburbs or even - by the way, our Mina even tried her hand at a detective story. But I still insist it wasn't very successful. I absolutely refuse to believe in that bloke who carted a corpse all over London and then convinced 'em it really died in Hyde Park. I also think the heroine was a chump, losing her head all the time. Still, if the heroine usually wasn't a chump I suppose there wouldn't be any story; so that's all right.'

This touched Sanders where he lived.

'I beg your pardon: you wrote The Double Alibi? I certainly do know you. And I don't agree with Chase at all. You've probably been asked this till you're sick of it, but where did you get the idea for the poison you used there? It's new, and it's scientifically sound.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Mina said vaguely. 'You pick people up. They tell you things.' She seemed anxious to change the subject. 'It's jo nice of you to come down, but I'm afraid we've let you in for a most awful week-end. How do you like Fourways? It's a lovely old house, isn't it?' she asked, with the candour of pure pride. 'Ever since I was a child I've wanted a place like this. Oh, I know people are supposed to groan when you show it to them; but it suits me. I like the atmosphere. So does Sam; he's so understanding about things like that. Larry, do go and get us some drinks, that's a good fellow. I'm dying for a cocktail, and I know Sam will want a Gin-and-It. Er - won't you, my dear?'

She turned round cheerfully, and Sam Constable followed her into the conservatory.

Mr Samuel Hobart Constable was about to speak, but checked himself abruptly when he saw a stranger. He also was breathing hard. Even the way he checked himself from speaking was ostentatious, as though he could speak but pointedly wouldn't out of good manners. He had been pictured as something of an ogre, but Sanders saw him as only fussy and touchy in the late fifties: over-fed, over-pampered, over-opinionated. Though not tall, he was still strikingly handsome in a grey-and-pink-and-white manner. And even in country tweeds he was so carefully dressed that the disarrangement of a crease would have been painful. After the

impressiveness of his pointed silence, he caught sight of the open window. He looked at them again; he went over carefully, picking each step, and closed the window; he gave them a final look.

'How do you do?' he said - and devoted himself to Sanders to the pointed exclusion of everyone else.

'That's all right, my dear,' said Mina, tapping his arm with great brightness. 'Larry is going to get us some drinks (aren't you, Larry?) and then we shall all feel better. After all, Mrs Chichester has promised to get us something to eat-'

Her husband ignored her. He kept his eyes fixed on Sanders. .

'You have probably heard what happened. Well, young man, you will be lucky to get anything to eat at all. In this house, at least. A certain Mrs Chichester has at last graciously consented to preside: she can't do a proper' dinner, but she promises us a 'bit of cold beef' and 'a nice salad.' ' At the very words, his sallow colour rose. 'Well,' that's no good to me. I don't want a bit of cold beef and a nice salad. I want a decent dinner, decently cooked. And since-'

'Sam, I really am terribly sorry,' urged Mina, dragging off her hat and throwing it on a wicker settee. Her anxiety deepened as she plucked at his sleeve. 'I do know how you feel. But this is early-closing day, and except for the cold things there simply isn't anything in the house.'

Sam Constable turned to her with great courtesy, and a certain pompousness in his tubby figure. 'Is that my fault, my dear ?' „ 'Well, with the servants not getting here -' That is no concern of mine. It's hardly my business to go about with a basket buying meat and whatever it is. Do try to be sensible, Mina. If you can make the minutest preparations to drag me through eight hundred miles of malarial swamp (and you should see your own eyes now, my dear), then surely it is not too much to hope for provisions in our own house. However, we must not quarrel before our guests.'

'I will get you a meal, if you like,' offered Herman Pennik.

It was so unexpected that they all turned to stare at him. Chase, who had started out to get die drinks, stuck his head back round the corner of a clump of ferns to get a better look.

And Sam Constable was surprised enough to speak to him.

'You are a cook; my friend?' he inquired, in the faintly contemptuous tone of one who says,' I might have known it.' 'That is, in addition to your other accomplishments?'

'I am a very good cook. I cannot do you a hot dinner, of course, but I can prepare dishes that will make you glad it is a cold one.'

Hilary Keen laughed. It was a spontaneous laugh, a release from strain. She got up from the rim of the fountain.

'Oh, good! Well done! - Please sit down, Mrs Constable, and be comfortable,' she urged. 'Honestly, don't you think too much tragedy is being made over the quesdon of getting a meal? If you were as poor as I am you wouldn't feel like that. Mr Pennik shall get the dinner, I will serve it -'