He Who Whispers Page 14

  Yet he lingered in the doorway as Dr Fell approached the bed. It was Stephen Curtis, after glancing in bewilderment at Miles and receiving only a shrug for reply, who twitched back a few inches one of the curtains on the south windows. A little light ran lengthways across the bed. Otherwise they stood in a bluish-coloured dusk, motionless, with birds bickering outside, while Dr Fell bent over.

  Miles couldn’t see what he was doing. His broad back hid all that was visible of Marion above the blanket and the neat fold of the top sheet. Nor was there any sign of movement from Marion.

  Somebody’s watch – in fact, Dr Garvice’s wrist-watch – could be heard ticking distinctly.

  ‘Well?’ Dr Garvice prompted. He stirred with impatience in the doorway. ‘Have you found anything?’

  ‘No! said Dr Fell despairingly, and straightened up and put his hand on the crutch-handled stick propped against the bed. He turned round. He began, muttering to himself and holding fast his eyeglasses with his left hand, to peer at the carpet round the edges of the bed.

  ‘No,’ he added, ‘I haven’t found anything.’ He stared straight ahead of him ‘Stop a bit, though! There is a test! I can’t remember the name of it offhand; but, by thunder, there is a test! It will prove definitely …’

  ‘Prove what?’

  ‘The presence of an evil spirit,’ said Dr Fell.

  There was a slight rattle as Nurse Peters handled the washbasin. Dr Garvice kept his composure.

  ‘You’re joking, of course. And in any case’ – his voice became brisk – ‘I’m afraid I can’t allow you to disturb the patient any longer. You’d better come along too, Mr Curtis!’

  And he stood to one side like a shepherd while Dr Fell, Miles, and Stephen filed out. Then he closed the door.

  ‘Sir,’ said Dr Fell, impressively lifting his crutch-handled stick and tapping it against the air, ‘the whole joke is that I am not joking. I believe – harrumph – you said you were on your way down to see Miss Fay Seton. She isn’t by any chance ill, is she?’

  ‘Oh, no. The lady was a bit nervy early this morning and I gave her a sedative.’

  ‘Then I wonder if you will ask Miss Seton, at her convenience, to come and join us here in the upstairs hall? Where,’ said Dr Fell, ‘we had a very interesting talk last night. Will you convey that message?’

  Dr Garvice studied him from under grizzled eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here,’ he stated slowly. He hesitated. ‘Maybe it’s just as well I don’t understand.’ He hesitated again. ‘I’ll convey your message. Good day.’

  Miles watched him go at his unhurried pace down the hall. Then Miles shook the arm of Stephen Curtis.

  ‘Hang it all, Steve!’ he said to a man who was standing against the wall hump-shouldered, like an object hung on a hat-peg, ‘you’ve got to brace up! There’s no sense in taking this so hard as all that! You must have heard the doctor say Marion’s in no danger! After all, she’s my sister!’

  Stephen straightened up.

  ‘No,’ he admitted in his slow voice. ‘I suppose not. But then after all she’s only your sister. And she’s my … my …’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, Miles. You don’t know. You never have been very fond of Marion, have you? But, speaking of being concerned about people, what about you and this girlfriend of yours? The librarian?’

  ‘Well, what about us?’

  ‘She poisoned somebody, didn’t she?’

  ‘What do you mean, she poisoned somebody?’

  ‘When we were having tea at Waterloo yesterday,’ said Stephen, ‘it seems to me Marion said this Fay What’s-her-name was guilty of poisoning somebody.’ Here Stephen began to shout. ‘You wouldn’t give two hoots about your own sister, would you? No! But you would care everything in the world, you would upset everything and everybody, for an infernal little slut you picked up out of the gutter to –’

  ‘Steve! Take it easy! What’s wrong?’

  A shocked, startled look passed slowly over Stephen Curtis’s face, showing consternation in the eyes.

  His mouth fell open under the fair moustache. He put up a hand to his necktie, fingering it. He shook his head as though to clear something away. When he spoke again it was in a voice of contrition.

  ‘Sorry, old man,’ Stephen muttered, and punched in an embarrassed way at Miles’s arm. ‘Can’t think what came over me. Wouldn’t have said that for worlds! But you know how it is when something funny happens and you can’t understand any of it. I’m going to go and lie down.’

  ‘Wait a minute! Come back! Not in that room!’

  ‘What do you mean, not in that room?’

  ‘Not in your own bedroom, Steve! Professor Rigaud’s trying to get some sleep in there, and …’

  ‘Oh, so-and-so to Professor Rigaud!’ said Stephen, and bolted down the back stairs like a man pursued.

  The troubling of the waters again!

  Now, Miles thought, it had reached out and touched Steve as well. It seemed to colour every action and inspire every thought here at Greywood. He still refused, fiercely refused, to believe anything whatever against Fay Seton. But what had Dr Fell meant by that remark about an evil spirit? Surely to heaven it wasn’t intended to be taken quite literally? Miles swung round, to find Dr Fell’s gaze fixed on him.

  ‘You are wondering,’ inquired Dr Fell, ‘what I want with Miss Seton? I can tell you very simply. I want the truth.’

  ‘The truth about what?’

  ‘The truth,’ returned Dr Fell, ‘about Howard Brooke’s murder and the fright-bogy of last night. And she can’t, for her soul’s sake she daren’t, evade questions now. I think we shall have it settled in a very few minutes.’

  They heard quick footsteps on the distant front stairs. A figure appeared at the other end of the long, narrow hall. When Miles saw that it was Dr Laurence Garvice, when he saw Dr Garvice’s hastened stride, he had one of those inspired premonitions which can fly to the heart of truth.

  It seemed a very long time before the physician reached them.

  ‘I thought I’d better come up and tell you,’ he announced. ‘Miss Seton has gone.’

  Dr Fell’s crutch-handled stick dropped with a clatter on the bare boards.

  ‘Gone?’ His voice was so husky that he had to clear his throat.

  ‘She – er – left this for Mr Hammond,’ said Garvice. ‘At least,’ he amended hastily, ‘I assume she’s gone. I found this,’ he held up a sealed envelope, ‘propped up against the pillow in her bedroom.’

  Miles took the envelope, which was addressed to him in a fine, clear, sharp-pointed handwriting. He turned it over in his fingers, momentarily without the courage to open it. But when he did grit his teeth and tear open the envelope, he was little reassured by the contents of the folded note inside.

  DEAR MR HAMMOND,

  I am sorry to say I shall have to be absent in London to-day on a matter that compels attention. I think now I was wise to keep my little room in town. And a brief-case is so useful, isn’t it? But don’t worry. I shall return after nightfall.

  Yours sincerely,

  FAY SETON.

  The sky, which had been fine, was clouding over with little smoky wisps of black: a moving sky, an uneasy sky. Miles held the letter close to the window, and read it aloud. That was when the ominous word ‘brief-case’ struck out at him.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ breathed Dr Fell. He said this very simply, as a man might witness ruin or tragedy. ‘And yet I ought to have guessed it. I ought to have guessed it. I ought to have guessed it!’

  ‘But what’s wrong?’ demanded Miles. ‘Fay says she’ll be back after nightfall.’

  ‘Yes. Oh, ah. Yes.’ Dr Fell rolled his eyes. ‘I wonder what time she left here? I WONDER what time she left here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Garvice hastily. ‘Don’t look at me!’

  ‘But somebody must have seen her go!’ bellowed Dr Fell, in an enclosed passage which was be
ginning to feel very warm. ‘A conspicuous girl like that! Tall, red-haired, probably wearing …’

  The door to Marion’s bedroom opened. Miss Peters, putting her head out in protest against the noise, saw Dr Garvice and stopped short.

  ‘Oh. I didn’t know you were here, Doctor,’ the nurse said pointedly, in a small reproving voice. Afterwards, moved by human curiosity, she wavered. ‘Pardon me. If you’re looking for a woman of that description …’

  Dr Fell wheeled round in vastness.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think maybe I saw her,’ the nurse informed him.

  ‘When?’ roared Dr Fell. The nurse shied back. ‘Where?’

  ‘Nearly – nearly three-quarters of an hour ago, when I was coming here on my bicycle. She was getting on the bus out in the main road.’

  ‘A bus,’ demanded Dr Fell, ‘that would take her to Southampton Central railway station? Oh, ah! And what train to London could she catch by taking that bus?’

  ‘Well, there’s the one-thirty,’ replied Garvice. ‘She could make that one comfortably?’

  ‘The one-thirty?’ echoed Miles Hammond. ‘But that’s the train I’m taking! I intended to get the bus that would …’

  ‘You mean that wouldn’t,’ corrected Garvice with a rather strained smile. ‘You’ll never make that train by bus, or even by private car unless you drove like Sir Malcolm Campbell. It’s ten minutes past one now.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Dr Fell in a voice he very seldom used. His hand fell on Miles’s shoulder. ‘You are going to catch that one-thirty train.’

  ‘But that’s impossible! There’s a man who does a car-hire service to and from the station – Steve always uses him – but it would take too long to get him here. It’s out of the question!’

  ‘You forget,’ said Dr Fell, ‘that Rigaud’s illegally borrowed car is still outside in the drive.’ There was a wild, strained look in his eyes. ‘Listen to me!’ he repeated. ‘It is absolutely vital for you to overtake Fay Seton. Absolutely vital. Are you willing to have a shot at catching the train?’

  ‘Hell yes. I’ll drive her at ninety an hour. But suppose I do miss the train?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ roared Dr Fell as though physical pain, and hammered his fist against his temple. ‘This “little room in town” she speaks about. She’s going there – yes, of course she is! Have you got her London address?’

  ‘No. She came straight to me from the employment agency.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Dr Fell, ‘you have simply got to catch the train. I’ll explain as much as possible while we run. But something damnable is going to happen, I warn you here and now, if that woman tries to carry out her plans. It is quite literally a matter of life and death. You have got to catch that train!’

  CHAPTER 14

  THE guard’s whistle piped shrilly.

  Two or three last doors slammed. The one-thirty train to London, smoothly gliding, drew out of Southampton Central Station and gathered speed so that its windows seemed to flash past.

  ‘You can’t do it, I tell you!’ panted Stephen Curtis.

  ‘Want to bet?’ Miles said through his teeth. ‘Drive the car back, Steve. I’m all right now.’

  ‘Never jump on a train when it’s going as fast as that!’ yelled Stephen. ‘Never …’

  The voice receded. Miles was running blindly beside the door of a first-class smoking compartment. He dodged a luggage-truck, with someone shouting at him, and laid hold of the door-handle. Since the train was on his left-hand side as he ran, the jump wasn’t going to be easy.

  He yanked open the door, felt through his back the terrifying crick-crack twinge of overbalancement as he jumped, saved himself by a reeling catch at the side of the door, and, with the dizziness of his old illness pouring through his head, slammed the door behind him.

  He had made it. He was on the same train with Fay Seton. Miles stood at the open window, panting and half-blind, staring out and listening to the click of the wheels. When he had partly got his breath he turned round.

  Ten pairs of eyes regarded him with barely concealed loathing.

  The first-class compartment, nominally built to seat six persons, now held five squeezed in on each side. To railway travellers there is always something infuriating about a late arrival who gets in at the last moment, and this was a particularly bad case. Though no one said anything, the atmosphere was glacial except for a stoutish Waaf who gave him a glance of encouragement.

  ‘I – er – beg your pardon,’ said. Miles.

  He wondered vaguely whether he ought to add a maxim from the letters of Lord Chesterfield, some little apophthegm of this sort; but he sensed the atmosphere and in any case he had other things to worry about.

  Miles stumbled hastily across feet, gained the door to the corridor, went out and closed it behind him amid a general wave of thankfulness. Here he stood considering. He was reasonably presentable, having sloshed water on his face and scraped himself raw with a dry razor, though his empty stomach cried aloud. But this wasn’t important.

  The important thing was to find Fay immediately.

  It was not a long train, and not very crowded. That is to say, people were packed into seats trying to read newspapers with their hands flat against their breasts like corpses; dozens stood in the corridor amid barricades of luggage. But few were actually standing inside the compartments except those fat women with third-class tickets who go and stand in first-class compartments, radiating reproachfulness, until some, guilty-feeling male gives them his seat.

  Working his way along the corridors, tripping over luggage, becoming entangled with people queueing for lavatories, Miles tried to work out a philosophical essay in his mind. He was watching, he said to himself, a whole cross-section of England as the train rattled and swayed, and the green countryside flashed by, and he peered into one compartment after another.

  But, in actual fact, he wasn’t feeling philosophical.

  After a first quick journey he was apprehensive. After a second he was panicky. After a third …

  For Fay Seton was not aboard the train.

  Steady now! Don’t get the wind up!

  Fay’s got to be here!

  But she wasn’t.

  Miles stood in a corridor midway along the length of the train, gripping the window-railing and trying to keep calm. The afternoon had grown warmer and darker, in black smoky clouds that seemed to mix with the smoke of the train. Miles stared out of the window until the moving landscape blurred. He was seeing Dr Fell’s frightened face, and hearing Dr Fell’s voice.

  That ‘explanation’, delivered by the doctor in a vacant undertone while engaged in cramming biscuits into Miles’s pockets to take the place of breakfast, had not been very coherent.

  ‘Find her and stay with her! Find her and stay with her!’ That had been the burden of it. ‘If she insists on coming back to Greywood to-night, that’s all right – in fact, it’s probably the best thing – but stay with her and don’t leave her side for a minute!’

  ‘Is she in danger?’

  ‘In my opinion, yes,’ said Dr Fell. ‘And if you want to see her proved innocent of’ – he hesitated – ‘of at least the worst charge against her, for the love of heaven don’t fail me!’

  The worst charge against her?

  Miles shook his head. The jerk of the train swayed and roused him. Fay had either missed the train – which seemed incredible, unless the bus had broken down – or, more probably, she had turned back after all.

  And here he was speeding away in the opposite direction, away from whatever might be happening. But … hold on! here was a hopeful point! … the ‘something damnable’ Dr Fell had predicted seemed to concern what would occur if Fay went to London and returned to carry out her plans. That meant there was nothing to worry about. Or did it?

  Miles could never remember a longer journey. The train was an express; he couldn’t have got out to turn back if he had wanted to. Rain-whips stung the windows. Miles got entangl
ed with a family party which overflowed from compartment into corridor like a camp-fire group, and remembered that its sandwiches were in a suitcase under a mountainous pile of somebody else’s luggage, and for a time created the general wild aspect of moving-day. It was twenty minutes to four when the train drew in at Waterloo.

  Waiting for him, just outside the barrier, stood Barbara Morrell.

  The sheer pleasure he felt at seeing her momentarily drove out his anxieties. Round them the clacking torrent from the train poured through the barrier. From the station loud-speaker, a refined voice hollowly enunciated.

  ‘Hello,’ said Barbara.

  She seemed more aloof than he remembered her.

  ‘Hello,’ said Miles. ‘I – er – hardly liked to drag you over here to the station.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Barbara. He well remembered, now, the grey eyes with their long black lashes. ‘Besides, I have to be at the office later this evening.’

  ‘At the office? On Sunday night?’

  ‘I’m in Fleet Street,’ said Barbara. ‘I’m a journalist. That’s why I said I didn’t “exactly” write fiction.’ She brushed this away. The grey eyes studied him furtively. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked suddenly. ‘What is it? You look …’

  ‘There’s the devil and all to pay,’ Miles burst out. He felt somehow that he could let himself go in front of this girl. ‘I was supposed to find Fay Seton at any cost. Everything depended on it. We all thought she’d be in this train. Now I don’t know what in blazes to do, because she wasn’t in the train after all.’

  ‘Wasn’t in the train?’ Barbara repeated. Her eyes opened wide. ‘But Fay Seton was in the train! She walked through that barrier not twenty seconds before you did!’

  ‘Will pass-en-gers for Hon-i-ton,’ sang the dictatorial loud-speaker, ‘join the queue outside Platform Num-ber Nine! Will pass-en-gers for Hon-i-ton …’

  It blattered above every other noise in the station. And yet the realm of nightmare had returned.

  ‘You must have been seeing things!’ said Miles. ‘I tell you she wasn’t aboard that train!’ He looked round wildly as a new thought occurred to him. ‘Stop a bit! So you do know her after all?’