He Who Whispers

early to have a prayer of getting a seat, why must you make us get here as early as this?” Then her sisterly eye caught the expression on his face, and she broke off. “Miles! What's wrong? Are you ill?”

“No, no, no!”

“Then what is it?”

“I want to talk to both of you,” said Miles. “Come with me.”

Stephen Curtis took the pipe out of his mouth. “Ho?” he observed.

Stephen's age might have been in the late thirties. He was almost completely bald?a sore subject with him?thought personable-enough looking and with much stolid charm. His fair moustache gave him a vaguely R.A.F. Appearance, though in fact he worked at the Ministry of Information and strongly resented jokes about this institution. He had met Marion there two years ago after being invalided out very early in the war. He and Marion, in fact, were themselves an institution already.

So he stood looking at Miles with interest from under the brim of a soft hat.

“Well?” prompted Stephen.

Opposite platform number eleven at Waterloo there is a restaurant, up two steep flights of stairs. Miles picked up his suitcase and led the way there. When they had installed themselves at a window table overlooking the station platform, in a big imitation-oak-panelled room only sparsely filled, Miles first ordered tea with care.

“There's a woman named Fay Seton,” he sad. “Six years ago, in France, sh was mixed up in a murder case. People accused her of some kind of unnamed bad conduct which set the whole district by the ears.” He paused. “I've engaged her to come to Greywood and catalogue the books.”

There was a long silence while Marion and Stephen looked at him. Again Stephen took the pipe out of his mouth.

“Why?” he asked.

“ don't know!” Miles answered honestly. “I'd made up my mind to have absolutely nothing to do with it. I was going to tell her firmly that the post had been filled. I couldn't sleep all last night for thinking about her face.

“Last night, eh? When did you meet her?”

“This morning.”

With great carefulness Stephen put down the pipe on the table between them. He pushed the bowl a fraction of an inch to the left, and then a fraction of an inch to the right, delicately.

“Look here, old man? he began.

“Oh, Miles,” cried his sister, “what is all this?”

“I'm trying to tell you!” Miles brooded. “Fay Seton was trained as a librarian. That's why both Barbara Morell and old What's-his-name, at the Murder Club, both looked so strange when I mentioned the library and said I was looking for a librarian. But Barbara was even quicker-minded than the old professor. She guessed. What with the present terrific labour shortage, if I went to the agencies for a librarian and Fay Seton was in the market for a job, it was twenty to one Fay would be sent to me. Yes. Barbara guessed in advance.”

And he drummed his fingers on the table.

Stephen removed his soft hat, showing the pinkish bald head above an intent, worried-looking face set in an expression of affection and expostulation.

“Let's get this straight,” he suggested. “Yesterday morning, Friday morning, you came to London in search of a librarian?

“Actually, Steve,” Marion cut in, “he'd been invited o a dinner of something called the Murder Club.”

“That,” said Miles, “was where I first heard about Fay Seton. I'm not crazy and this isn't at all mysterious. Afterwards I met her ...”

Marion smiled.

“And she told you some heart-rending story?” said Marion. “And your sympathies were roused as usual?”

“On the contrary, she doesn't even know I've heard a word about her. We simply sat in the lounge at the Berkeley and talked.”

“I see, Miles. Is she young?”

“Fairly young, yes.”

“Good-looking?”

“n a certain way, yes. But that wasn't what influenced me. It was?

“Yes, Miles?”

“Just something about her!” Miles gestured. “There isn't time to tell you the whole story. The point is that I have engaged her and she's travelling down with us by this afternoon's train. I thought I'd better tell you.”

Conscious of a certain relief, Miles sat back as the waitress came and clanked down tea-things on the table with a wrist-motion suggestive of someone throwing quoits. Outside, under the dusty windows beside which they sat, moved the endless sluggish knots of travellers in front of black white-numbered gates leading to the platforms.

And it suddenly occurred to Miles, as he watched his two companions, that history was repeating itself. There could be no persons more conventional better representing the traditions of home life, than Marion Hammond and Stephen Curtis. Exactly as Fay Seton had been introduced into the Brooke family six years ago, she would now enter another such household.

History repeating itself. Yes.

Marion and Stephen exchanged a glance. Marion laughed.

“Well, I don't know,” she observed, in the musing tone of a woman not altogether displeased. “It might be rather fun, in a way.”

“Fun?” exclaimed Stephen.

“Did you tell her, Miles, to be sure to bring her ration-book?”

“No.” His tone was bitter. “I'm afraid that detail escaped me.”

“Never mind, dear. We can always ...” Abruptly Marion sat up, a flash of consternation in her hazel eyes under the sensible straight brows. “Miles! Wait! This woman didn't poison anybody?” “My dear Marion,” said Stephen, “will you please tell me what difference it makes whether she poisoned anybody or shot anybody or beat in some old man's head with a poker? The point is?

“Just a minute,” interposed Miles quietly. He tried to be very quiet, very measured, and to control the thumping of his pulses. “I didn't say this girl was a murderess. On the contrary, if I have any judgment of human character, she certainly isn't anything of the kind.”

“Yes, dear,” Marion said indulgently, and leaned across the tea-service to pat his hand. “I'm sure you're quite convinced of that.”

“God damn it, Marion, will you stop misjudging my motives in this thing?”

“Miles! Please!” Marion clucked her tongue, more from force of habit than anything else. “We're in a public place.”

“Yes,” agreed Stephen. “Better lower your voice, old boy.”

“All right, all right! Only ...”

“Here!” soothed Marion, and poured tea with deftness. “Take this, and try on of the cakes. There! Isn't that better? This interesting lady of yours, Miles: how old did you say she was?”

“In her early thirties, I should think.”

“And going out as a librarian? How is it the Labour Exchange hasn't got her?”

“She's only just been repatriated from Frances.”

“From France? Really? I wonder if she's brought over any French perfume with her?”

“Come to think of it,” said Miles, who in fact could remember it quite well, “she was wearing some kind of perfume this morning. I happened to notice.”

“We want to hear all about her past history, Miles. There's plenty of time, and we can save an extra cup of tea for her in case she turns up soon. It wasn't poison? You're sure of that ? Steven, darling!?you're not having any tea!”

“Listen!” said Stephen, at last in the authoritative voice of one who calls for the